hadriel_logs | Event Log: Fourth Wall, Part One

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Event Log: Fourth Wall, Part One

Who: Everyone in the city + Fourth Wall visitors!
What: Part one of the fourth wall event, hosted by Fear, Confusion, and Delight!
Where: All around the city
When: October 24th-November 1st
Warnings: Visitors from other worlds!

If you're not from around here, you may be wondering what's going on. You've woken up out of the blue in the colosseum, or near a temple, or in one of the numerous other locations in the city. You're somewhere underground and it's dark, cold, and maybe a little unnerving.

Luckily, shortly after your arrival, the road below your feet begins to light up in a gentle, warm glow. The light points you in a set direction and, if you choose to travel that way, will lead you toward the center of the city, where there is a large gathering of others who are lost here like you, people who might know their way around a bit more, and even some of the gods who rule this place.

There are lights strung up on poles throughout the large clearing, casting a comforting glow onto the tables beneath them. The tables are abundant with lots of food that looks simply delicious- though, none of it tastes quite like it should. The tarts taste like green beans, the mashed potatoes like cheesecake, and the chocolate seems oddly reminiscent of steak. In addition, there are decorations artfully placed around the meeting point. If you see them moving, don't worry- that's probably just your imagination.

Also distributed along the tables are shot glasses, filled with a sludgy, yellow substance. If you're brave enough to consume them, they taste strongly of mint and will give you a much needed energy boost, circumventing the need to eat or sleep for a full 24 hours! After that, however, everything hits you all at once, so use them wisely. Some of you may remember these shots from our How Delightful event earlier this year!

In addition to all of the above, there are also party poppers strewn around the area. Each popper can jet out some strange objects- glitter bombs, seashells, plastic dinosaurs, maybe a live lizard or two- so be careful! Feel free to use your discretion on these, but remember to keep it small!
_

Of course, you can always not travel that way. The rest of the city has plenty of places to explore- maybe you'd like to stumble in our Silent Hill zone, have a quick look around the alien orchard, or check out any of the god temples that can inspire their chosen emotion. Be careful not to get lost in the tunnels leading away from the cave- none of them can actually move you above ground, but you may run into a few monsters on the way.

For those of you who have been with us awhile, please bear with the gods while they try to adjust around these new folks! Join in on the festivities if you like, or try to orient as many of the others as you can. Start a community outreach program, start a fight club, introduce your parents to your weird cave girlfriend- nobody's judging!

Well. Some of us might be.
_

Enjoy the fourth wall event at Hadriel! Once you're settled in feel free to explore the rest of the city! Find a house, find a new monster, or simply scavenge for supplies.

Fourth wall characters do not enter with phones so they cannot reach the network- however, if you'd like to handwave that they somehow got ahold of Mello's Newcomer guide to avoid the 'where am I/what is this' sort of questions, then feel free!

Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers October 24th-November 1st.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well! Fourth wall characters will not have posting access, so grab an in-game friend if you wanted to do anything separate from the main log.
► Fourth wall characters will be in the city for at least one week, though they can stay for longer. The party will go on throughout the entire week, thanks to Delight's boundless energy!
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

sounds like a real sour apple. what a shame. here i'd always heard that god had a great sense of humor.

[But he supposes when your name is literally Sorrow, laughter probably isn't your Thing. Yeah, he's guessing it's more of the Other Thing.]

[Ah, well. No one appreciates him or his jokes. Nothing new.]

[This hotdog needs more ketchup, so he produces a bottle from a pocket and just sorta drowns it. There we go, now it's perfect.]

good old reality. mucking things up for the rest of us. funny thing is, this sorta thing happened about a month ago in the place i'm staying. random newcomers, paradoxical doubles. the works.

Did it now?

[That gets a supraorbital ridge glidin' upwards in quiet, subdued interest. But, you know him. All his reactions are subdued. Muted. It's kinda his thing. He's sure other-him will understand.

So maybe he's for once talkin' to someone who gets it. Maybe he also has to deal with the fact that he's gotta look at himself and think, oh boy. Never was fond of the fella in the mirror, was he?]

Some kinda cosmic epidemic, y'think? Not that I can really confirm - can't say I've seen a thing like this go down before.

yep.

[What a great fun time that was, too. Mirrors, doubles, strangers. Parties, murder, mayhem. Frisk getting captured and tortured, Mettaton admitting to jealousy, Max's Mirror cracking his skull, finding out he's the king of the Underground in some version of events...]

[Papyrus...]

[Yeah. Great fun all around.]

thinkin' that might be it. maybe the multiverse is finally throwing in the towel. calling it quits under all the strain.

[Haha maybe all existence is about to crumple and cease. It was certainly one of several things on the table--Resets and all, can't exactly be healthy for the state of existence, now can it? Maybe it was all just going to collapse one day. Something more thorough and absolute than an Erase.]

[That's downright morbid, though. He plays it off with another shrug.]

or maybe places like these just like to throw a wild block party now and then. can't say i blame 'em. gotta be a bit boring, being a pocket dimension.

[Mirrors, though. Now he's wondering if any Mirrors are here. They theoretically could be, right? Shit.]

word to the w...heh.

[He shoots a grin at his double. Wise, nah, that ain't him, any of him.]

wary? if you see any doubles around who seem a bit...off? not just older or younger or a bit different. "off." i'd steer clear, you see anyone like that.

even if it's someone we know.

[Someone who would never, ever hurt a Sans. Only there's a version of him out there who did. Does. Would probably do it again, if he's here and if there's a handful of Sans-es running around who will see him and not know any better.]

[It makes him feel disgusting, warning a version of himself about his own brother.]

[Wouldn't be surprised, honestly. World goes down in proverbial flames or a bang or a whimper or whatever, everything goes straight to hell, and hey, here's a fun new thing for him to cope with - a whole 'nother world where things are limitless and he actually has a future and a second chance he don't deserve. A couple kids with the ability to warp space, time, and spacetime end up here, and the multiverse throws a nice little cosmic shitfit.

This is probably the politest cosmic shitfit he's born witness to, though he can't say his experience with such things extends all that far.

Word to the wary, turns out his other self is full of all sorts of useful tips and tricks. Lucky him.]

I'm guessin' you're speakin' from experience here.

[Sanses always do, don't they?]

Do I wanna know?

[Yeah, as cosmic shitfits go, this one is pretty mild so far. So far. He's pretty sure this sort of thing never stays mild for long, because how can it? You blend a bunch of timelines together, mix that all up and them dump it all in a world that may or may not even be used to monsters like them and, yeah.]

[It's a party, and people seem to die a lot at parties. No reason to think this one will be any different.]

guess you could say i been at this sorta thing for awhile.

[It should probably faze him more than it does. Oh well.]

[The question almost makes him laugh. Do I wanna know. He turns his grin on his other again.]

knowing me? [His tone is, haha, bone dry.] probably not.

[He concedes the point with a tip of the skull and a motion to draw a bottle of fresh dijon from his jacket. He drains half the bottle before he remembers his manners and offers the thing to his double.]

Yeesh.

[Yeah, that's kinda all he's got to say to that. Don't wanna know, most likely, but knowin' his luck (he ain't got any), he'll find out soon enough.]

Got any other pointers besides "looks off"? 'Cause, uh, I dunno if you've noticed, but - that kinda describes a lotta people here.

[Heck, plenty of people would say that even describes him.]

[He can't help staring. Dijon? Mustard? Seriously?]

[...Ah, man, you know what, fine. He takes the bottle, offering his own bottle of ketchup in return. He's never been much for mustard, but when in Hotland...or however the saying goes.]

[He tips it back and...huh. Not that bad.]

["Yeesh" is pretty much a perfect summary for basically everything that has ever happened in Wonderland, so he just gives a sort of sage nod in answer.]

[But his other self wants deets. And he could just, you know, not be an abject asshole and actually explain it like, hey, if you see a Papyrus who's weirdly quiet and says weird things and probably has 19 LV and almost certainly wants to kill you, maybe shortcut yourself to the other side of this dangass dimension? If you see a Frisk who's too hard around the edges and smiles too much and has hoarded every damn weapon that was ever at their disposal, maybe do the same? If Alphys doesn't stutter enough, if Mettaton has that crazed look in his eyes?]

[He could, but, haha. Don't want to know. The mere knowledge that a Papyrus existed who was like that was somewhat devastating. He wouldn't wish that on any other Sans. Sans-es might be terrible, but even they don't deserve that.]

so, uh, place i'm at, we got these folk called mirrors. pretty self explanatory. they live on the other side of the mirrors. whole other world over there. think, uh, evil twin versions of everyone.

[He gives Sans a somewhat pointed look. He's trying to be subtle, man.]

everyone, yanno? even someone you'd think could never have an evil twin.

[He swigs the dijon. It's really not that bad. Hell, at least it's not mayonnaise. Perish the thought.]

not that i'm an expert, but, uh. i'm thinkin' places like this? [He gestures vaguely at all of Hadriel.] like to mess with people in real interesting ways.

[Limited data suggests that it's pretty much the norm.]

[But he'd rather stop talking about all this.]

so who all is here? from the underground.

[What? C'mon, man, don't go around judging other Sans's. If mustard ain't to your liking, he's got the works - plum sauce, sriracha, mayo, even your standard ketchup, the whole nine yards. In fact, he's gonna pop out a bottle of Worcestershire sauce to down for himself, 'cause hell if he needs somethin' to take the edge off here.]

Mirrors, huh? Sounds like a real trip.

[Even someone you'd think could never have an evil twin.

But, heh, they gotta be all cryptic, Sans-es. Have a lotta trouble bein' direct, even if it kills them. The lights in his sockets dim slightly for a moment, a flicker of a moment, and then they're back to their typical jovial spark.]

Well, you ain't wrong. Things happen 'round here that...heh, that makes some things we saw back home seem like babybones' play. [But he doubts he gotta elaborate on that all that much, huh? Sans-es are on a pretty steep learning curve. They know.]

But, uh, we got...me. The kid - both of 'em - and that's real fun. Papyrus, Undyne, and Alph.

And, heh, some of 'em even remember things better than I do.

[If Sans doesn't judge Sans, who will?]

[Oh wait, there's two kids and infinite versions of them who will fill the role. Heh.]

[The dijon isn't bad, but he'll stick to ketchup. He hands the bottle back over.]

yeah, heh. it's, uh, really somethin'.

[He watches his other self parsing what he said, watches the flicker of comprehension and the deft filing away of new, unpleasant information. Yeah, not gonna think about it now, might think about it later.]

[Hopefully it doesn't matter. Maybe the Mirrors aren't here at all.]

[He nods as the guy lists off who's here. Mentions that some of 'em remember things better. Maybe better things, too. Better things.]

heh, yeah, those two. always a handful.

[That sure is one way of putting it.]

yeah? kinda funny. memory's one of the few things we got goin' for us.

[For better or worse. Usually worse.]

how are they?

Well, Papyrus is Papyrus. Y'know him, he's always happy.

[Far more genuinely than these old bags of bones ever could be, eh? He accepts the bottle and stashes it away fluidly in pockets that somehow carry exactly the right amount of stuff required at any given time. So not all of the doc's studies went to waste. Who'da thunk?]

Undyne's doin' all right. She and Alph're livin' with me and Papyrus. Alphys is...well, uh, she's been better. Y'know how it is with her 'n us.

[And then he chuckles, wryly. 'Cause, boy, does he gotta open a can of worms to lie in or what with that question?]

Really, it's...well, the kids're, like ya said, they're a handful. A real handful. Quiet, most days. Tough to tell what's on their mind, most days.

[His tone assumes a vaguely bitter edge.]

Funny thing, though. Some of 'em remember an ending where we come out on the other side. And even funnier?

[He slips the incriminating photograph from his pocket, the one where everyone's smiling and gathered together like the family they aren't. It took him days, days, to muster the courage to check and see which one the kid picked. He couldn't suppress the thrum of guilt-ridden relief that had come with seein' the one they'd left him.

The good one.

Leavin' him with the question, the real pertinent question, of why they picked what they did.

He holds it out to his double.]

Some of 'em probably remember what the hell happened here to get us all to come out smilin'.

[Yeah, Papyrus is always happy. Always, right? Except when the facade all starts to come apart, the whole game of "I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine" starts to go to pieces. And it's been coming apart more and more lately. The admissions. The whole letting each other actually see each other for real.]

[Pretty unexplored territory there, and the process has been painfully slow, and he really doesn't know what's going to come of it all. He's dreading it a little. Maybe a lot. They haven't really talked about...]

[Anyway.]

[Papyrus is happy. Happier than Sans, and more genuinely, which is the important thing.]

quite the collection. nice to hear alphys and undyne are here together.

[She's been better. Heh. Yeah, wow. Alphys in Wonderland has been okay, for the most part, but he knows it's been rough since Undyne left. Y'know how it is with her'n us. Yeah. Boy does he ever.]

[And the kids.]

those two.

[He's starting to get the sense that this guy...that he hasn't been around them that long. Or at least, that this Sans hasn't had as much time with them as he has. Sounds like he's just starting to wade into all that fathomless complexity.]

[It depends a lot on what kind of kids they are here. What timelines they directly came from. What they remember, how far along in the cycle they are. A handful. Quiet. Tough to tell what's on their minds. Well, at the very least, they're not carving their way through the city, it sounds like. But it also sounds like they're both from something less than the happiest version of events.]

[And so is this Sans. The commentary and the reaction to the photograph proves it. Sans stares at it as the other Sans holds it out to him, eyesockets widening a little because how long has it been since he saw it? A year. God, almost a full year. It'll be there, safely tucked into the drawer in the lab when he finally, inevitably, returns to the Underground. The rest of the ending will play out like normal, and a thousand Resets later, the photo will still be there. Like a painful reminder, or maybe some kind of glimmer of hope.]

[Not likely, but hey. Categorical, physical evidence that things can actually end well does wonders for the psyche, even if he knows full well that it's not an end.]

[He takes the photo, very carefully, holding it by the edges. It's precious. Don't want to damage it. He'd guess that it's one of the few things from home that this guy even has.]

man. you don't...

[His eyesockets lid partway. This Sans...doesn't remember, does he? Not that he ever technically remembers. Guesses, extrapolates, compiles actual data with anecdotal evidence in the form of vague memories and dreams. Any real scientist would have a conniption, because you're not supposed to just do that after all. Evidence should be empirical, not metaphysical. Whatever. For all that he pretends to be objective, he kinda sucks at it. Point being, this guy has...no idea.]

do you want to know?

[A genuine question, and an offer of a genuine answer. If he wants it. Only if he wants it.]

[Yeah, so the other Sans keeps sayin' that. You don't wanna know, you don't wanna know, you don't wanna know. And sure, a big ol' part of him don't wanna find out one mite. So long, see ya later, real nice talkin' to ya pal, but he's outtie, he's outtie and he's puttin' this whole damn conversation behind him.

Sans smiles.]

C'mon, pal. Like you don't already know the answer to that one. Like I haven't already made some educated guesses.

[But there's more to his answer than that one. He chuckles, tiltin' his skull back to study the ceiling. Not even the courtesy of fake stones stuck on a ceiling, nah. No false stars, no wishing room. Just dark matte gray fading to black fading to nothing. No illusions or pretty niceties dressin' up how things are for them here. Underground to an underground, and one of him - the lucky bastard - gets to see the sky.

Well, he hopes he's havin' the time of his damn life.]

Funny story behind that photograph. Couple days ago, things of ours from home start spillin' into the city. Papyrus gets his bed, Alph finds her computer. And me?

[He looks back at his other self, sockets shuttering at half-mast to mirror his doppelganger's. Unintentionally, he swears, but it turns out two skeletons got the same kinds of habits, huh?]

I find a photo.

In fact, I find two.

[He grins. He sticks up two phalanges, wiggles 'em illustratively before droppin' the hand and sliding it back into his jacket pocket.]

You wanna know what the other one looks like?

[He blinks, and then. Laughs. Actually laughs a little. Cause sure he knows the answer. He can bury that part of him as deep as he fucking wants but it never goes away. Can't stop those old wheels from spinning. Can't stop that old need to know. That science mind. He resists it, but it's just, hell, it's just how his mind works.]

can't argue with that.

[He follows his double's gaze toward the ceiling. Back underground. No stars. It's not often he actually realizes that he's the lucky one. He's out, in a sense, has a whole patch of Surface. Even back home, he's maybe a few hours from being out. Again. Free until the next one.]

[Luckier than this guy, who's gotta be either from a middling timeline, or a bad one, or the worst possible one. Luckier than Toriel. Luckier than Asgore.]

[Luckier than Papyrus. Both times.]

they don't kill anyone. not a single person. that's the only way it can go like that. it's happened loads of times. heh. could even say it's happened Loads of times.

[He's not even entirely sure this Sans will get that joke, which is hilarious in and of itself.]

no real way of keeping track. the reports just ain't detailed enough.

[He's sure this Sans knows that much. The hours spent poring over the data, trying to fill in all the blanks. Trying with as much desperation a guy like him can muster to find some kind of error, like...maybe it's some kind of software failure, why the numbers all just end like that. Why suddenly everything is 0s.]

[Trying to figure out what all the myriad values even mean. Maybe a smarter monster...heh. Maybe he could have figured it out.]

becomes rote, you know? a script.

[The strongest evidence, alongside the photograph. Because how does he always know what to say, otherwise?]

[Two photographs. He drops his gaze, eyelights sliding sideways. There were other photographs. Or he could mean...]

[His hand dips into a pocket, closes around a folded piece of paper. But if he meant the drawing he would have said drawing, not photograph. He pulls it out all the same, but keeps it in his hand for the time being. He's been keeping it on him ever since the kids found it. Doesn't want a repeat of that whole debacle, after all.]

[More of that "wanting to know" stuff. Well, he deserves that.]

bet i can guess. got my own pile at home.

[Of course, he could mean something else entirely.]

[Well, see, that's the thing. That's the thing. The kid said they hadn't killed a single thing - well, not in so many words, 'cause the kid never uses two words when one will suffice. Laconic, that one. Ain't so surprisin'. But the way they described his phone call (always a phone call, always a set of instructions, and he might as well have the list of variables burned into his skull, the way he can rattle 'em all off like they're nothin'. Set a SAVE in place, check. Took off the bandage, check. Ate monster food, check. Killed x, spared y, check and check. He knows the script. He knows how it goes. Can't not.) he knows that just not up and killin' everybody don't cut it.

Reports ain't detailed enough. Yeah, he knows that much. The joke gets a wry laugh outta him, but it's as worn out as he is. LOADs of times. Yeah, great, real hilarious. He killed 'em so many times, so many goddamn times, and it was never once the slightest bit funny until they killed him right back. Then he splits open like a melon, and the look on their face -

Heh. Priceless.

He shakes his skull slowly.]

Doesn't add up. The kid told me straight, they didn't kill anyone - [that time, they said with a cold look and an eye slitted open like the threat it was] - not that go around. Wasn't enough. Or if it was, they didn't get to see it play out.

[They didn't get to see anything play out at all. He can see a familiar folded paper in his double's hand, the darkened spots where the paper's been creased over dozens of times over, uncreased, recreased, ad nauseum. He knows it 'cause he's got one too. But, nah. That ain't what he's talkin' about.]

Maybe you know the one. Seems there was a mix-up in the mailroom, 'cause that's the one I get. And the kid, a₂, [it's so goddamn easy to slip back into that clinical language, ain't it?] they end up with the one you got right now.

But I ain't talkin' about a drawing, nah. In fact, I'd say there was only one person in that photo who was smiling.

[And the rest...

Well, you know the rest.]

[Well, fuck.]

[He kind of stares into the middle distance for a few moments.]

[The kid's that early in the cycle? And this Sans standing next to him, this Sans who looks even more worn out than he feels, he's seen, what, maybe two or three? At least one happy ending, and whatever timeline he's in now. Possibly more before that, but it can't be much more, because otherwise he wouldn't still be wondering.]

[Even the kid, though. Shit. Back in the Underground it's, god, it's gotta be in the dozens, probably more. Impossible to actually tell, of course. And the kids in Wonderland, they both had to have cycled through a good handful of times, just never enough to...to, well, see the actual End, inasmuch as it's an end.]

[He feels impossibly old all of a sudden.]

nah, you're right. not enough. there's a few other variables. not too sure how some of it works, honestly.

[They get past Asgore, and...well, Asgore's death seems to be just about inevitable, in almost all timelines. Asgore surviving is the primary variable, but achieving it?]

has to do with alphys. and undyne. just not sure to what extent. they end up in alphys's, uh, basement. i know that much. alphys is the locus.

[Alphys is the clincher, really. He's not sure how, or what specifically has to happen for her to let the kid into the lab, or if they just sort of go on their own. But it all hinges on Alphys.]

[Maybe he should tell her that someday. That in a backwards sort of way, she's the reason monsterkind is freed.]

[In any case. Another photograph, not one of the ones he's familiar with, and not the drawing. So, the same photograph, but--]

[Oh. He's never seen it, but...]

[That must have happened. It...it did happen, right? There's a time, when--damn, he hasn't thought about this in a very long time. It's the happy ending, but then it all...something happens. He frowns. It's impossible to remember, of course. Something happens. Something goes wrong, and yet even that isn't an end, because--]

[He'd said it, hadn't he. Three numbers. Only there's white noise in his head, so he decides not to think about it.]

yeah.

[He eases out of the frown, rubbing at his forehead, a phalange lingering for a moment on the crack above his eyesocket. Scrubbing away the static. Don't think about underscores and numbers.]

i can guess.

[Always was good at guessing.]

...chara. [It's easy, yeah, but it's a habit he'd rather break these days.] and frisk.

[You become attached to something when you name it.]

[He digests that silently. Alphys, huh? Well, she's got a lotta...it'd be wrong to say "skeletons in the closet," but she's gotta lotta demons to confront, makes sense. Pity he can't pass this down along the line, huh? Not that it'd matter anyway. He ain't got a world to save, or SAVE. And a real pity, too, that Alphys's memories of the kid ain't even all that kindly to begin with.

Yeah, they ended up with a real bunch of winners, didn't they?

Sans begins to laugh again. It curls out low and slow, and he don't really know where the bitterness ends and the self-deprecating, pained edge begins, or if they're all whorled together in a pretty little vomit-colored picture. He should frame it, maybe. It'll go real great with the picture he made Chara take from him. The one they thought they deserved to have, or the one they felt belonged to them, or to spare his feelings, or - god, whatever fucked-up reasoning there was.

Would'a been worse to leave him with the other. Probably.

We'll never know now, will we?

He laughs, and passes a hand over the crown of his skull, to the back of his cervical vertebrae, and then back down again.]

Y'know, I never even knew their names? Not either one of 'em. And I think, sure, y'know. All part of the play. They're an anomaly, you don't get to know 'em, you don't talk to 'em, you don't get chummy with 'em.

But that, uh, that whole time. We take 'em to lunch, we take 'em to dinner. We treat 'em nice.

And we never even asked their name.

[And he'd realized it so sickeningly quickly. Chara was just a hypothesis proven correct, and then they were a symbol of somethin' else - people he failed to save, a world he failed to stall from destruction. Failure, failure, failure. Red X's scored over his face, a face that was probably grinning as they cut him - no.

Kid #1 and Kid #2. And those were childish, absurd, kinder placeholders than variable naming he'd pinned on the both of 'em, when Chara was nothin' more than an atypical spike of DT and Frisk was simply kid, buddy, pal, human.

No wonder neither of 'em would wanna give him the time of day.]

[This is going downhill real quickly, but then it was always going to. He knew it would go like this as soon as this other Sans teleported right next to him. It's gotta be some kind of inertia. A ball rolling downhill, etc. etc., and an exhausted skeleton with more self-loathing than he probably has bones. Fairly simple equation.]

[The guy laughs in that awful, two-seconds-from-giving-up sort of way, and Sans almost joins him. Instead he just grins. It's completely mirthless.]

nah, you don't get chummy. not when you've seen the reports. not when they're either a human or an anomaly. not even when they're bein' a perfect little angel, like straight outta the dumb prophecy.

[His smile quirks into something just slightly more genuine, imagining how Frisk or Chara would react to overhearing this. If they heard him even reference the idea that they might be the Angel from the Prophecy. They'd be pissed as hell, both of them. He's pretty sure they've both agreed that the Angel was technically Asriel. But of course he absolutely can't go telling this Sans that. That is absolutely not his secret to share.]

[Ah, well, not like he ever put any stock whatsoever in stuff like prophecies anyway. The whole story ended up playing out a lot differently, after all.]

never asked their name. [No, correction:] we never ask their name. not even in the best one. some pretty wild stuff happens, and then we wake up just knowing. heh.

[As much as anyone is responsible for their own decisions, their own actions, there's still the influence. There's still all those lessons that he, that monsters, that the whole Underground and the whole Surface have taught both those kids.]

[It makes judging a lot less clear-cut.]

no one asked their name.

Hell of a job we did keepin' that promise to a lady, huh?

[Cuts deep, but maybe it's meant to. Didn't even know her name. Still don't. Wasn't able to keep that promise for one second. But he twisted it around into a harmless joke, a decent chuckle, like he's able to torque most things. So no harm and no foul, yeah?

Only there's plenty of harm, 'cause the kid comes out thinkin' death is a perfectly acceptable alternative to damn near everything else.

And then - not even in the best one, huh? Figures. Fuckin' figures. He ain't surprised, he really ain't, 'cause "surprise" just ain't on his emotional roster very much these days. World-weary acceptance? Yeah, that one's an easy one. No one ever asks the kid's name. No one ever asks 'em, hey - what's your favorite food? What d'you like to do? Why the hell would you climb a mountain like that in the first place?

No one thinks to ask 'em, or maybe they just don't wanna know the answer to questions like that, huh?]

Funny you should mention that. "Angel." 'Cause Chara's pretty bent on callin' themself "demon" at every twist and turn.

[And he can't even judge 'em for that, can he? Nah, who was the one who told 'em, point blank, to keep pretending to be human?]

What'd we do to these kids, huh? We taught 'em that. We taught 'em that.

[The great thing about bein' the only guy qualified to judge human SOULs as they pass through the Underground - it makes you just as qualified to pass judgment on yourself. "Objective," right? Yeah, don't make him laugh. He's about as objective as a politician desperate to avoid scandal.

But let's be real here. He already knew he was a sack of crap. Got no delusions about that, no sir.

He just hadn't bothered to calculate the honest depth of his mendacity and failure. And it's really startin' to rack up. Sin comin' home to roost, etc.

Only a matter of "time" though, right?]

[Boy the, uh, self-loathing here is just palpable. Tangible. Rank, like sweat dissipating into the air. Funny thing is that it's kind of like effort, sometimes. Sometimes the only effort he's willing to expend.]

hell of a job.

[What the hell else is he supposed to say? Maybe somewhere out there in all the myriad choices and mistakes, there's a Sans who kept that promise. Took the kid by the hand and didn't let go. Maybe early on there were plenty of Sans-es who at least tried. But who cares? That ain't him, or if it was, it's not anymore. What's the point in theorizing about shit like that? Make this little pity party all that worse, is all it would do.]

[He could point out that, hey, at least in one version of events, she wouldn't have even wanted him to keep it. Told him to his face. She had no idea, of course, about any of it, because how could she? He's not going to say it. Can spare another version of himself that much, at least.]

demon. right, yeah.

[Though...that's something. They haven't referred to themselves that way in a good while now, have they? Not that he's heard, at least. Another milestone, maybe, and they keep setting those down. They keep moving. Determination and all that.]

[There's that faint little bubble of pride again, and for just a moment, his smile is almost genuine.]

[It's gone with the next thing his other says.]

can't give us all the credit. heh, but judging the whole damn world is way too much work.

[No, can't give a Sans all the credit, because in the grand scheme of things, they're not that important. A kid is taught from the beginning that they're worth less. Worthless. A kid takes that to heart. A kid climbs a mountain. A kid tries to find happiness and dies for it, or a kid faces down every monster, one by one, and every single damn one is ready and willing to kill them and take that little bit of bright red hope.]

[And the guy who was asked to protect them says, without even looking them in the eye, to keep pretending to be human.]

[Or he waits awhile, and tells them they'd be dead where they stand.]

[So, yeah. Can't take all the credit, but he sure as shit didn't help. Made everything that much worse. There's probably no way of knowing, of quantifying the exact level of his influence on either of them, but it's there in the evidence, in the words they fire back at him, the way Chara can spell out his failures one by one, practically in an itemized list; the way Frisk says it in fewer words, in glances and flinches and a tendency toward I'm sorry.]

we fucked up.

[Yeah. Might as well just set that there. State what needs to be stated.]

in a lotta ways. on a lotta levels.

[In every conceivable way, on every conceivable level.]

but, uh.

[He pauses. He pauses, because he's the lucky bastard. The lucky bastard with a piece of the Surface, the lucky bastard a few minutes and a few yards from a happy ending. The lucky bastard who ended up somewhere weird, with two weird kids, and was lucky enough to have time and circumstances to actually...to start trying again.]

[He looks over at the other Sans, really looks at him. No, never did like what he saw in the mirror and damn, but this guy, well. Not to be impolite, but he looks like he's halfway through a second trip through the wringer. Exhausted. Just starting to see the whole picture. He remembers what that was like.]

[He's the lucky bastard who can remember what that was like.]

[He's the lucky bastard who found out that things can actually start to get better.]

but, uh. [He makes a sound like he's clearing his throat, which is of course absurd. But this is weird. It's weird, but maybe he owes himself a...tiny bit of kindness now and then. Or something.]

[Maybe it's just weird to realize how far you've come and how it's not that far at all.]

thing is, uh, admitting it, owning it? they say that's step one. we're real good at step one. got the whole, heh, self-loathing thing down to an art, don't we? not, uh, so great at anything after. moving's the worst damn thing in the world, right? steps suck. [He pauses, smirks.] they're always up to something, after all.

[Escalator temporarily stairs. We apologize for the convenience.]

baby steps. best we can ever do. [He shrugs, probably looking as awkward as he feels.] takes awhile. takes, heh, time.

[And it'll blow this guy's mind, won't it, having time. If it hasn't already.]

consequences of not moving are worse. thinkin' you, uh...probably know that already.

[It's gotta be a bad one, right? Maybe the worst one.]

places like this, though? heh. they show you all kinds of consequences you won't see coming.

[He grins ruefully and rubs at the crack in his skull. Resists the urge to reach for his left shoulder. The crack is obvious; the other thing, well, this guy don't need to know about that. Consequences.]

[Lots of it is the same he's told himself a million times. Owning it, yeah. Sans-es, they got a real good idea of how fucked they are, how badly they've screwed things beyond all recognition. How miserable they are at keepin' that promise, how completely and utterly out of their depth they are when they come to the kids. If he had a tongue to speak of, he's pretty sure it'd be thick with bile, with a tangible bitterness that clings to the air, all slimy and inescapable.

Baby steps. 'Bout as much as guys like him can take.

Sans laughs.]

Don't gotta world to go back to. Makes it easier. Easy to figure that, hey - some things are permanent. Things stick. Can't just go back into a loop.

[Makes things easier, he's sure. Knowin' that there was a termination point that lingered at the edge of their tenuous, tautological existence, a moment in which suddenly, everything ends. If you can even call that a "moment." Such things defy conventional terminology.

And he still don't know how to make that figure all the way. Really, honestly, he's got no clue. He lives day by day, day by same freakin' day, and then when he ends up at a place like this, a place rife with concepts like a future and permanence, his mind short-circuits. Can't handle it. Don't know how to plan for the long-term, how to take things for longer than a minute-by-minute basis. How the hell do you tear yourself from that instinct, that thing that formed the basis of your survival, and then just - be okay with it?

Hell if he knows.

Hell if any of 'em know.

The lights in his sockets settle on the crack that extends, hairline, over the ridge of the other him's socket.]

How'd you manage a little consequence like that, anyway?

[Sans-es seem to have a pretty damn good sense of self-awareness, across the board--across the multiverse. Or they think they do. Spend enough time somewhere strange, way way out of your comfort zone and you start to realize how little you actually know, even about yourself. He thought he was done. Thought he was incapable of actually caring about people who weren't Papyrus, and he could have called it a stretch even with Papyrus, considering. Thought he was incapable of trying.]

[There's something nice about being able to be surprised by things again. And once it starts, it don't stop.]

yeah.

[It comes out exhausted, just a breath of sound. So that's that, then. No world to go back to. No one left. Damn. Damn.]

[Moving on in a brand new world without end has gotta be the one easy thing about that. So Sans can't go telling him that the end isn't the End. The kid wrenches it right back, impossibly. Can't tell him that.]

[Can't tell him it never ends.]

fresh start. sorta.

[A second chance for real. Probably wasted on a guy who makes a habit of squandering all his chances. But he seems to be on his way to figuring it out. Maybe. Sans-es do nothing quickly. Sans has a year under his belt and he still has no idea what the fuck is going on or how to deal with any of it.]

[He grins at the question. Heh, boy. How does he even get into that?]

it usually snaps back, yanno? bit of a jolt and there you are. don't even notice half the time. imagine it's not a snap back, though. imagine it rolls. unwinds.

imagine you're uh, mid-shortcut at the time.

[He's got a pretty damn good idea that things ain't as permanently gone as he'd initially thought. Mostly he's got that idea 'cause there's a photograph where everyone's smilin', and a photograph where only one person is. And, uh, that's pretty indicative, 'specially since the smiling kid is the same one that claims all that they're the effects of Frisk turnin' to genocide in the first place.

Not a whole lotta inferrin' he has to do. Part of the reason seein' that photo in the first place kinda messed things up, huh? And they were the spittin' image of themself too, and there weren't a shred of doubt to it, and how the hell else would they -

Well, there's an end. There's a beginning too. And maybe there's an end to that beginning.

He could believe it.

The other Sans's tone is rueful, and he can't rightly blame him. Don't make a lotta sense, but that ain't really surprisin', given the subject matter. And if you're takin' yourself a shortcut, clippin' through antispace to end up on the other side, well, you get stuck in a spot no one's meant to get stuck in. Kinda like how a certain guy tripped and fell, heh.]

I guess that's one way to crack us up.

[Yeah. Heh. Probably knows already, don't he?]

[Probably.]

[They're nothing if not perceptive.]

[He chuckles a bit. It's rather faint. His eyelights have dimmed.]

someone told me to invest in spackle.

Someone?

[Does he...wanna know who? 'Cause the way that's bein' phrased makes it sounds like it's someone of significance but not of - good significance.

Or maybe he's readin' into things. But, y'know. Sans-es tend to do that. All part of their job. But hey, he could just as easily be referrin' to someone that's simply outside the scope of Sans's influence, caring, and insight. Just as possible. Just as likely.]

Can't think that'd help any.

[Man, that's just the ongoing question, isn't it? The question of the day. Do you wanna know? The guy's trying to deal with two kids already, and he came here from the worst possible timeline. He's seen Papyrus and Alphys here already, so there's that at least, but still.]

[All someone ever does is throw a wrench into things. Make everything more difficult, set off all that static in his skull.]

[But there was...that one thing the guy told him. That one thing. The thing that almost broke him. Was that something for him and him alone? Or is that something that should be shared with other Sans-es?]

someone.

[Do the rest of them already know?]

[Does this guy already know?]

[God, should he at least warn him that someone can potentially show up? Despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the sheer factual reality that something so thoroughly nonexistent cannot, should not be made to exist. He himself didn't think it was possible until, welp, there he fucking was, existing, having an influence on a world again.]

[What happens if that guy shows up during this whole...convergence event? What if it's that version of him? Or Sans's version? Or this other Sans's version?]

[Or Papyrus's version?]

[He gives a sudden short, sharp bark of laughter.]

you know i never, uh, never expected to have to be playing this whole game with myself. this whole... [He waves a hand vaguely, turns it into an equally vague shrug.] what made me think i had the right to be some kind of knowledge gatekeeper, anyway? should know better by now. it's what got us into the whole mess in the first place.

[He needs ketchup for this. He chugs half the rest of his bottle.]

convergences like this. it's like running the multiverse through a paper shredder. all those bits getting mixed together. seems like anything's possible. i mean, here we are, standing here, not causing a paradox. course, i'm basing this on a dataset produced by one single previous event. pretty bad science.

[He'd never hear the end of it from someone, that's for sure.]

[He stuffs his hands back in his pockets.]

last time this happened, someone impossible showed up.

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