Event Log: Fourth Wall, Part Two

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone in the city + Fourth Wall visitors!
What: Part two of the fourth wall event, hosted by Sorrow, Rage, and Hope!
Where: All around the city
When: November 1st-November 7th
Warnings: Visitors from other worlds!

Welcome to Hadriel! Or, for those who have been here, please continue enjoying your stay. Perhaps you arrived here last week, and have been wandering around since then, making new friends. Or perhaps you've just arrived, and have no idea what's going on. You may have woken up in the colosseum, or near a temple, or in one of the numerous other locations in the city. You might be confused and frightened to find yourself in this underground city, or maybe you're just wondering why you haven't been sent home yet, when others have.

Whatever the case may be, the situation in the city has changed somewhat. There is still a gently glowing path leading you to a nicely-outfitted party, but the specifics of it have changed. If you're a new arrival, it'll be easy to follow the path and find the party - if you're not, well, the color of the light has changed, signalling that something's different. Maybe you want to check it out?

Around the clearing are gently glowing flowers, illuminating both the tables and the rest of the area, bright enough to make things clear even when the larger light at the apex of the cave is gone. On the tables are an array of different kinds of food - however, sampling this food will quickly make it clear that nearly everything is spicy, whether subtly so or with a burning heat. The cookies seem to have chili oil in them, the dip has jalapeno-like peppers. It's hard to find anything that won't burn your mouth a bit. If you're lucky enough to find something that doesn't, though, it will most certainly be somewhat bitter or quite sour. That doesn't mean the food tastes bad - if spicy and sour are your sort of thing, they're delicious! If you're looking for something more normal, though, you're out of luck.

Also on the tables are a variety of drinks, and these at least are not spicy. Instead, they're the sort of warm, comforting drinks that might remind you of home, of curling up in a soft blanket while rain falls outside. Warm cocoa, hot cider, teas of various flavors. Just the sort of thing to soothe a worried newcomer.

Decorating the area are various banners with welcoming messages saying things like 'HADRIEL' 'THIS IS A PARTY' 'EAT FOOD' and 'DO NOT DIE'. They are all identical, with large black block letters on plain white paper. They look very similar to something that you might print out on a standard office laser printer at the last minute if you have no discernible sense of humor or fun.

Scattered around can be found exciting party games such as pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs. Here and there can also be found various pinatas of different types. Break them open, see what comes out! If you're really lucky it'll be candy - if not, it might be full of bouncy balls or cherry tomatoes. Good times!
_

Or maybe you don't like parties? No worries. 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 came last week, here's your chance to help out newbies along with the people who have been here forever! Join in on the festivities if you like, or try to orient as many of the others as you can. Rule the newcomers at musical chairs, continue your fight club, pick up a second weird cave girlfriend and then watch as they dump you and hook up with each other! There's no end to the possible fun.
_

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 November 1st-November 7th.
► 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. If you want them to stay longer, our applications are now open!
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Comments

[filenotfound]

Promise me that you will know when to Quit.

Only it hadn't been Sans saying it that time. Hearing it turned around like this is...unsettling. Something flickers through him, a ripple of Determination. He grabs it, clamps it down. The vision in his left eye stutters. Sans duplicates exponentially, fractalling away into endless nothing.

He blinks slowly, calming.

"Quitting is not an option. Not for people like us."

Not arrogance. Fact. Quitting is not the realm of the Determined. Even if it was, it is far, far too late now.

There's a certain degree of paranoia, and he knows it is paranoia. Of course he knows Sans. Of course Sans will not betray him. After everything they've been through, after everything he has done for Sans. The idea is unthinkable.

Nothing is truly unthinkable, though.

"So you keep saying. You purport to know so very much, Sans."

He takes a step closer.

"Rather, you certainly believe you know me and yourself well enough to make such claims. And yet it smacks of confirmation bias. No, it smacks of pure emotional subjectivity. Not befitting of a scientist."

Another slow step.

"It is disappointing."

[skelebro]

There it is.

The quiet bracing of everything he is. The silent, nearly imperceptible hardening of an idea, the metastasizing of all the associated ephemera into one compact intention. What's it gonna be this time? Space? Time? Spacetime, just up and goin' for the twofer?

Sans utters a sharp bark of laughter, far more edged than is typical for him.

"Cut the crap, Doc. You and I both know that objectivity ain't all it's cracked up to be." He taps a phalanx against one ocular ridge with the quiet tick of ivory against ivory, grinning mirthlessly. A dig, a deliberate snipe, a low blow, but here's the funny part, the real funny part - he really don't care how low of a blow it is.

"Askin' a monster to be objective is like askin' a monster to report on the weather. It just ain't possible. Not teleologically. Not logistically. Not literally. It ain't in our nature. And I think you know that."

He's walkin' closer. Advancin'. He keeps a select amount of his awareness narrowed in on that fact, but he don't budge just yet. He can snap himself outta the way if he needs to, unless the doc follows. He's, uh - not really sure how much he's capable of at the moment. Might be they'll find out sooner or later. He's thinkin' "sooner" is more likely.

"And I know you know that," Sans continues pleasantly, "'cause if you really were, uh, as 'objective' as you say? You wouldn't be passin' judgment on me now. 'Objective' don't have room for disappointing. Objective don't have time for sacrifice, 'cause sacrifice suggests that you got somethin' to lose, and we can't have that."

He's always said that he don't listen to hypocrites. Makes not listenin' to himself a helluva lot easier, don't it?

Makes it easier to disregard everything the doc is sayin' now. It ain't nothin' he's not already told himself, innumerable times over.

"And before you get on my coccyx about my confirmation bias?" He closes one socket in a wink, cheerfully. "How 'bout you turn 'round and start takin' a real close look at your own?"

[filenotfound]

He does not back away. He is not intimidated, or he is making a very good show of bravery. It is...irritating. It is always irritating. Sans always catches on to things so quickly, despite himself, despite his typical lethargy. Forces the doctor to change his tactics. Sans has so many weaknesses that one would think it would be a simple thing, to get his grip on one of them and press.

The problem is that Sans always knows how to press back.

He stops a foot or so from Sans and stares down at him, unwavering.

Sans judges and argues and stares right back at the doctor, his voice falsely cheerful. He digs, a superficial swipe at the physical effects of the doctor's experiments. Petty. There's a look in his eyesockets as if he's expecting something. Something in the skeleton is bracing. For what?

What does he think the doctor is going to do?

There was a time before, when he almost--

The worst part is that Sans is right. There is always some truth in what he says. That is the problem. Because monsters cannot be truly objective. Because he himself is not as objective as he wishes. Because the doctor has something to lose. He has plenty to lose.

And it seems that he is going to lose all of it.

Another iteration of him failed.

Another iteration of Sans hates him.

"You always talk so much."

Is this the only way to make you shut up?

His phalanges itch. Sans had been right then, too. He's done this before. He's done this before. He's done this before.

"Sans."

His eyesockets close, slowly, for just a moment. He is in control. He is Dr. W.D G̶̙̯̭̰a̺͎ͅs̻͍̼̬͔t͙̼e̡̫̝͈̤̺r. Controlled. Objective. Determined.

Old. Very old.

"...This future is not an inevitability. No future is an inevitability. Not even when observed."

[skelebro]

Is that a shift of tactics? Something sincere? A realization?

That Sans could be so lucky. Nah, it's gotta be strategy, pure and simple. The doc don't do things by half-measures. Can't take the chance that he might be pullin' some kinda ruse. Can't ever take any chances. The human's a liability, the anomaly's always capable of makin' things worse, and the doc's always got plans within plans. He's brilliant. Making calculations on the fly.

So maybe he talks too much. It's one of his failings. He's got no problem with that. He's got a pretty solid conceptualization of his flaws, profound and manifold as they are, and that's one aspect him that's nigh untouchable, he's real damn sure. Can't take somethin' away from a guy who's got nothin' left to lose, can you?

Yeah. He's not an easy guy to insult. Not real easy to make someone feel small when they've spent most of their life belittling themself until none of that is news anymore.

"You wanna believe that?" says Sans, tipping his skull to one side on an almost imperceptible axis askew. "Hell, I can't stop ya. But the real interesting thing about absolute erasure from spacetime?"

He lifts his shoulders in an incremental shrug, far less exaggerated and broad than his usual gesture of the very same.

"It kinda occurs on all levels. You disappear, Doc. You disappear from time. You disappear from every time. That's just how it is."

And given the way he's difficult to perceive even now, like peerin' through a fuzzy lens or a window misted over with condensation, Sans is willing to bet good solid G that it's already started to happen on some level.

He's just not that easy a guy to look at.

[filenotfound]

He was reaching. He knows he was. Unbecoming of a scientist to grasp at straws like that. He falls into his creation. He knows his creation well, and he knows what falling into it will mean.

Total erasure. The elimination of an object from all points not just in time, but in space as well.

There is, of course, the possibility that Sans is lying. Sans is something of a liar, after all. But disregarding the fact that he can see no real gains to be made from such a lie, given its scope and severity, there is also observational data. Since coming here, he has felt...odd. Off.

Sans played a prank on him one time. Sneaked into his office while the doctor was collecting data and moved everything a centimeter to the right.

This feels like that.

No future is inevitable. But this is not a matter of a future to be avoided. This is not a temporal matter at all. It has already happened. Is happening. Will happen.

The Royal Scientist does not exist.

He stares at Sans. Older, more exhausted than the doctor has ever seen him. Scornful, disgusted, voice falsely cheerful, in a way he has only heard once before. Braced for some kind of inevitability, as if he thinks the doctor is about to turn Blasters on him.

His scientist. His one last anchor to the world. The one last material thing he did not want to lose. But he has already lost him. Losing. Will lose.

And look at him now.

"Then." He draws himself up slowly. "This conversation is functionally irrelevant. If my nonexistence is a determined eventuality, then there is no purpose to even informing me of it, let alone any attempt to alter the course of events. Regardless of whether I can retain knowledge of this dimension once I return, and regardless of whether I could, theoretically, be talked out of the final experiment, the outcome is apparently such that it cannot be altered. According to you, none of this can be changed."

His hands slow, then pause before starting to move again.

"Which begs the question. Why bother? You did not come to warn me. You did not come to try and change my mind, as you know how improbable such a thing would be. I do not believe you are petty enough to try and rub my face in my failures, so to speak. And you very clearly would rather be anywhere other than in my presence right now. You do not go out of your way to engage with unpleasant things, Sans. Indeed...if I thought you capable of hating anyone, I would say that you hate me now."

But maybe Sans is capable of it now. Maybe whatever has happened over the last several years has pushed him that far. The doctor supposes that, even now, before the worst can happen, he would deserve it.

And yet he looks too tired for hate.

"So what is it, then? Why are you here? Why approach me at all?"

[skelebro]

Well. Heh. Damn. Guess he's really got him pegged. Didn't come to warn him. Didn't come to change his mind (the doc's right; it'd never work; he knows his type). Sure as hell didn't come to drag him through the dust of his own failures ("so to speak," says the doc, like they ain't inevitable. But he wants to persist in denial, so that's fine, really), which just begs the question of why. Why the hell would he be here?

Does he miss him?

Maybe. Maybe he misses what the doc represented more than anything else. A chance, more than a chance, the man who came from the other world, the man who spoke, speaks, will speak, is speaking in hands, the man who took his life and turned it into something extraordinary. The man who could do a dozen calculations in his head in less than a minute, who wanted a sounding board of people like Sans and Alphys to bounce his own ideas back to him, who had a flair and polish and poise that was simply too dramatic to be wholly genuine.

Somewhere, he thinks (he knows) it's raining.

It was raining when he met him.

Ain't that a laugh.

No point in beatin' around the bush. So he doesn't. He starts to laugh a little, 'cause god damn but he didn't expect this sitch right here to ever be one he'd have to be front and center for. Not any one aspect of it.

"Okay," says Sans amiably. "All right. Why am I here, Doc? Well. Lemme tell ya about the last time a little something of yours came through the Door."

He draws one of those folded-up pages from his jacket, more for the look of it than anything else. It ain't anything special; just a scrawl of data, directionless theory consigned to paper, all written in that familiar font of his.

"Remember how I said some people who looked at it just kinda short-circuited?" He stares up at the doc with his sockets hooded, and it's like gettin' a spike of molten metal to the skull, because he's starin' at somethin' that defies conception, that ain't even really there anymore. "One of those people was a kid. Red SOUL, striped shirt. Actually, there's two of 'em now. A pair of kids I'm gettin' to know pretty well."

He slips the paper back into his pocket and looks at the doc squarely.

"So right now, I wanna make somethin' pretty clear. I ain't askin' ya to leave 'em alone. I ain't askin' ya to leave either of those kids alone, or my brother on top of it."

That's assumin' he even knows who his brother is. He lets his sockets flick shut.

When they open, they gape hollowly, and his grin stretches for far wider than it should.

"I'm telling you to."

[filenotfound]

Ah, yes. Sans had mentioned this. Minds short-circuiting. Colorful language, as ever. The lights in his sockets scan the document. Just a few notes on this and that, mathematical equations, nothing worth "short-circuiting" over. But perhaps that comes with the territory. Staring into nonexistence and having nonexistence peer back at you.

Isn't there some human quote about such things?

And yes, humans. It always comes back to them, it seems. So Sans has appointed himself the guardian of two human children, has he?

How utterly, utterly ironic. He wonders if Sans is even aware of the irony. Something in him almost wants to laugh.

Something in him almost wants to laugh, again, because something in him is contemptuous at such a dramatic display of, dare he calls it backbone? Sans would enjoy the pun, to be sure. Not that Sans was ever lacking in a backbone, not like the others, but it was more a stubbornness. And look at him. Look at this weak little thing, trying to look intimidating. Telling the doctor what to do. Telling him to stay away from a child, because perish the thought that some human brat have some sort of psychological reaction to the nonexistent.

The irony.

"A shirt with green and yellow stripes. Yes? I did not see their soul, as I had no cause to." Easy though it would have been. "Though their eyes were certainly red. I met them in the coliseum before I left to explore the city. They were quite helpful. They did not seem to mind my presence overmuch."

How will Sans react to this, he wonders? The sad little attempt at intimidation, and yet he has already failed. Failed before the words even left his skull. There is something very Sans-like to that fact.

But he never was very good at protecting humans, now was he? At least the doctor's iteration was not.

His tone is neutral, his hands as controlled as ever, but there's a vicious joy twisting in his soul, and he hates it. Truly hates it, because he knows why it's there, and he did not used to be cruel. Distant, reserved, manipulative, he was never too proud to admit to his own faults. But never cruel. Not until after.

He hates it.

It does not matter.

[skelebro]

Damn it.

Guess that puts a nail in that ol' coffin, huh? Yeah. He's real pleased about that one. His smile more accurately approximates a grimace in that moment. The doc - well, if he didn't know any better (he does), he'd say he's leering right about now. He'd say he's enjoying this on some level.

Always could read people real well. Sometimes it's a blessing. Mostly it's just a point of irritation he wishes he didn't have to read all the damn time.

They didn't seem to mind his presence, he says. His hands almost curl into fists in his pockets, tips of phalanges pressing into bony palms, but he don't give the doc the satisfaction of looking away, and he don't let up for a second. Not gonna let the doc know, not for even an instant, that he might be gettin' to Sans.

He won't.

That ain't in the cards.

So he keeps his sockets locked onto his, and he keeps smiling as though nothing is wrong.

"Guess that makes everyone pretty lucky," he says, knowing that the doc, contrarian that he is, tends to hold a certain measure of distaste for concepts such as luck, lumping it in with fate or destiny. He'd call it a superstitious desire to impose some means of order or control on a life that utterly lacks it, or somethin' along those lines - tryin' to pretend a correlation exists to make it seem like there's some aspect that could, hypothetically, be influenced to alter the trajectory of things.

"Lemme give ya a bit of friendly advice, then." He closes one socket in a wink. The right one. "Maybe think of steerin' clear of 'em in the future, and any other kids you might find. Wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, would ya?"

[filenotfound]

That gave Sans pause, he thinks. Sans is hard to read, downright impossible at times, and apparently age has turned him into an outright enigma. But he keeps on that brave, blank face, not flinching, not looking away.

He has gotten better at this. Has immunized himself against the doctor, though that is perhaps an overdramatic way of putting it. Much as Sans claims that whatever his own doctor did to him is irrelevant, there is something very personal to all of this.

Luck, he calls it, and the doctor almost rolls his eyelights. But he does not move or make a sound. His hands are still.

They twitch at the next thing he says. The doctor bristles.

"Are you threatening me now, Sans? Is that what this has devolved into?"

There is a certain incredulity to his gestures.

"I have no ill intentions here whatsoever. I have been brought here against my will. This place is a curiosity, the people here of middling interest. What is it you think I am going to do? Attack them? Absorb their soul? Drive them mad with my mere presence? You underestimate the common mind's ability to shut out that which threatens its stability."

Though he is not a psychologist in any sense, nor does he particularly care if a few human children suffer a mental breakdown or two.

"More than that, you underestimate your pet humans. As you always have." He jabs a finger at Sans, perhaps a bit more sharply than he intended. "Years later and you have yet to excise that naive streak of yours."

[skelebro]

"It's the nature of a psychic injury to have no insight into itself." Dull words, said with the air of someone who's repeated them time and time again - to others, to himself. And that's the fact of the matter. The scariest damn thing about all this.

He has no idea what kind of wreck his skull is in right now. He has no idea what kind of wreck any of their minds are in. He can't have any idea. Such injuries don't hurt. They don't leave marks, and they can't be traced. And how d'you fix something that ain't even really there? What kinda specialist could possibly take a look inside and recognize the sheer carnage that must be there - the shattered memories, the fractured shards of times he can't remember. He knows why he disparages the doc, intellectually he knows why - but the specifics? Nah. He don't even know the specifics. He remembers the doc's steadfast refusal to quit, the way everything unspooled around him, but the specifics are, as always, lost.

The only real common thread there is that tingling, burning resentment. And emotions might not be rational, but when that's all you got to go off of -

Well, heck. Maybe he shouldn't tell the other Sans-es, right?

He almost bursts out laughing at that, his sockets drooping closed. Naive, is he? Heh. Reminds him of a conversation he had with a certain hedgehog, don't it? You're so naive, Shadow had spat, with next to no conceptualization of anything goin' on in that skull of his.

And look how well that turned out, right?

"They ain't my pets," he says shortly, letting the word curl out with more venom than is strictly necessary - matchin' the doc's rancor step for step. "They're my friends."

And he...huh. He actually feels all right sayin' it. About Frisk, about Chara, about Arya - they're friends. Weird friends, sure, but...friends. They talk about heavy stuff, and they watch each other's backs. He talks Chara down from an incipient panic. He tells Frisk he should'a been right by there from him. He sits down next to Arya and puts a hand on her shoulder as she loses herself, hacks up blood, scared, so goddamn scared but not wantin' to admit it.

They're friends.

That's new.

It's enough to give him the push he needs, to crack open his eyesockets with a vague, vindictive glint to his stare.

"You remember what those are, Doc?" says Sans, arching a supraorbital ridge with a smooth upward glide of bone. "Or were they all just a few too many attachments for ya?"

[filenotfound]

He sounds so utterly certain of it, so utterly resigned to it, calls it an injury. The doctor wants to call it dramatics, but he doesn't. Because Sans is right. That is the nature of nonexistence. One comes up against such things, and by definition one can have no concept, no context, for the extent of the damage. Just as the doctor's eventual fall is untraceable. No spiderweb cracking of spacetime, no easily viewed or conceptualized or foreseen breakage, because that would imply that such a thing could be repaired. That would imply that it exists at all. There would be no pattern, no ability to determine what has changed or gone wrong; nothing but whatever hard, sharp edges are left behind.

He, himself, here and now, is perhaps one of those hard, sharp edges, driving points into a former colleague, a former friend, and innumerable strangers.

"Your friends."

He cannot help the disbelief in his voice and motions. The sheer naivete. Perhaps he should not be so surprised. Sans has always been soft. They have always, all of them, the entire species, been soft. It is what got them driven underground in the first place. It is not anything that can be helped. Monsters are like that. Incapable of objectivity. Incapable of seeing the Surface, the world, humanity, for what it truly is. For people relegated to the dark of underground, monsters have only ever seen the lighter sides of things.

LOVE might have changed that, but then monsters would be no different from humans.

So, no. It is not surprising. Certainly not from Sans. He never really understood. Always questioned. No matter how many times the doctor tried to explain it, no matter what memories he could dredge up about the Surface, the war, Sans never understood.

"It will get you killed."

The thought disturbs him. Even this Sans. Any Sans.

Sans digs again, even pettier this time, even more superficial. Vindictive. The doctor sighs.

It's really bad news to try to be friends with your boss, right?

He has never been good at it. Never was good at relating to people, at forming friendships, at maintaining them. Perhaps before. Long ago.

Sans is the last one.

Was the last one.

His soul feels strangely heavy at the thought.

"Perhaps..." There is a long pause. His hands are slow. "...that was the problem. That I could not remove the last one."

Far too late for it now.

"Very well."

He lets all emotion drain out of him. Let's the rigidity come back to his gestures, the detachment come back to his tone.

"I would hate to force your hand. You are so adamantly opposed to unnecessary effort, after all. I believe we both already know whether you are capable of stopping me or not. So. I will attempt to minimize my presence. You and your humans will not see me again. Is that what you want, Sans? Is that sufficient?"

[skelebro]

Sans merely laughs. It will get you killed, he says, like it's news. Like Sans's last memories of the Underground weren't red spattered over golden tile, his phalanges failing to hold the thick gobbets of crimson into his bones as he grinned at the thing that killed him, his sockets drooping, already feeling his body beginning to break apart into fragments, knowing its inevitability.

It was coming and he saw it coming a mile off, but it always comes to him like a surprise.

"You say that like it hasn't already."

The kids killed him - both of 'em, he's thinking, 'cause they had to be working together as seamlessly as they are now. There's no way they'd be able to call each other partner and defend one another and insist the other stay safe if they weren't on the same page. And they must've been.

So they both killed him. And? And? And then he knows they can, knows they're capable of it, knows they would and have and will if need be, and he nods in acquiescence to the knowledge 'cause that's all he can really do. So they can and have killed him. They might do it again.

They haven't, though. They've been given ample opportunity, and they haven't.

Sans's gaze drifts off to a point just beyond the doc's poorly-defined shoulder.

"Yeah," he says tiredly, wearily, fully anticipating something of a loophole or an exploitation, 'cause fuck if Sans doesn't despise promises and this sounds near enough to one for him to already dislike it on principle. Promises are too easy to break.

Wouldn't put it past the doc to break this one.

"Yeah," he says again. "Sure. Sufficient. Let's go with that."

[filenotfound]

That...

He was not expecting that. He cannot...quite get ahead of the surprise to hide it. Can't quite stop the slight widening of eyesockets, the shrink of eyelights.

It should not be surprising. Infinite worlds, infinite branes and infinite iterations, by definition mean infinite possibilities. When one toys with time, with Reset, the idea of someone dying and then being brought back is not so far-fetched.

There's a certain...anger, he thinks, and that at least he can hide. The idea of Sans dead. It is not something he ever liked to consider, and yet it was always there, a very real possibility. That one, single, fragile HP. One lab accident away from 0.

"I...see."

Was it the human, then? The same one that Sans calls a friend? Then the doctor was wrong. He was wrong. That is not naivete. It is not naivete in Sans's tone.

It is resignation.

He folds his hands together briefly to still them. He is not looking at Sans, just as Sans is not looking at him. He does not think that Sans has looked directly at him for more than a few moments this entire time.

So many people were like that. So many monsters found him hard to look at, but never Sans.

"Sufficient, then."

He hates sentimentality. Hates attachment. This was his last one, and it is already gone. It was never really even his. One would think that it would feel liberating.

"Would it be..."

It should feel liberating.

"...worthless..."

He hates sentimentality.

"...to apologize?"

[skelebro]

Now it's Sans's turn to be surprised. It don't show in any real obvious way - it never does with him. It shows in the lift of his gaze, the way his smile shrinks slightly, grows pained and almost - uncertain.

Like it's gotta be a joke of some kind. Some elaborate practical scheme, and there's gonna be cameras flashing and people leapin' out from behind pillars to yell, "surprise! Gotcha, Sans!" But there ain't. There's just him and the doc right now, and they're standin' here and talkin' to each other with maybe more honesty than they've ever accessed in their goddamn lives.

Sans laughs again, but it's...confused, an indecisive spurt of sound telegraphed in the slump of his shoulders, the twisting of his grin.

"I, uh." The doc's makin' an effort here. Maybe the first one to actually connect on an interpersonal level that he's made in - in who knows how long, really?

He scratches the back of his cervical vertebrae in a motion that's abruptly almost - almost shy in its display. And then, paradoxically, there's that thrill of triumph curdling in his SOUL, that vicious I told you so, 'cause the doc is a dirty liar, ain't he? Someone objective wouldn't have even offered, huh?

But monsters never were objective.

Sans grins up at him at long last, and it's tired but, possibly for the first time, it's a bit sincere.

"It wouldn't be worthless, Doc. You know it wouldn't."

my heart

[filenotfound]

There's something like disbelief in Sans's face. That is fair. The doctor knows himself. Knows what he is. Sans has no reason to trust him. Not when the doctor has done this before, has backed off at the key moment, showed just enough weakness or monsterness for Sans to come and close the gap. It's manipulation in its own right. He could not even say for certain whether that is not what he is doing right now.

Perhaps there is nothing redeemable about him anymore.

And Sans opens up to it, eases into it, lets himself start to trust it, like some small animal starting to creep out of its burrow when it knows there is still danger about. It's shy, it's tentative, and the doctor--cannot help but remember the day they met. This annoyingly easy-going kid who knew exactly how brilliant he was, but was keenly aware of his limits, of his boundaries. Grinning wide and sincere, excited just for the opportunity to work with the doctor, slipping into shy earnestness when the doctor tested him, because he was not then looking for blind loyalty. Not looking for hero worship.

He was looking for something that fit. Something brilliant that could perhaps use some polish, but would shine regardless. A colleague.

A...

Well. It's too late for all that now, isn't it? There would be no need to offer an apology otherwise.

It is already, and has always been, too late.

"Then."

He hesitates. He cannot...he will admit it. He cannot feel things the same way he used to. He was not this cold at first. Did not despise attachment and sentimentality the way he does now. But there are moments. Moments where he almost feels like his old self, where he remembers what empathy is supposed to be like. Moments like this one. And he realizes that this is important; that this must be done right, entirely for Sans's sake.

Because this Sans will never get this from his iteration of the doctor. It may not be right to speak for him, but there is no other choice.

"On behalf of the one that you knew. For what he and I have done. For what I will do. I am...sorry, Sans."

[skelebro]

It ain't worth much, maybe. It ain't worth anything when he's just gonna forget, when time ain't a straight line but more of a rubber sheet, and it cycles around and all things are happenin' concurrently in a manner of speakin', and it - it don't mean much, he knows that.

Objectively, sure, he knows that.

But he's pure shit at objective, so fuck that, right?

Sans utters a strange little sound, somethin' like a chuckle, only it's a bit too raw, a bit too pained. His sockets hood as he looks away - at the ground, at his slippershod feet, at anything but the doc himself as he stands there with his irresolving edges and his damnable hands and his apologies that don't matter, and they don't matter 'cause he lacks even basic mass and volume, so they don't even matter in the literal sense either.

It don't matter. Not a single word of it.

But hell if he's able to really tell himself that in earnest.

He looks back up at the doc tiredly, and his grin evens out into somethin' - maybe somethin' a bit sincere.

"Thanks, Doc." And then, another laugh, somethin' more bemused and bewildered, an inability to grasp that this is really, truly happening. "For, uh...what it's worth. It means a lot. More than maybe you know."

[filenotfound]

It is painful to watch. The fact that some of the weight leaves Sans's shoulders, but certainly not all of it. The fact that Sans is clearly not expecting this, is still waiting for the doctor to trip him up as he always does. And there's that desire, of course, to turn this to his advantage. Use this momentary lowering of Sans's guard against him.

But no. This is perhaps one of the doctor's very last opportunities for any degree of kindness. To do one small thing right by a monster who has been through more than he ever deserved. More than the doctor could likely conceive.

For what it is worth. And perhaps it is not really worth much. But Sans is.

He nods. He is unsure of what else to say.

"I will avoid you and yours for the remainder of my time here, as I said. It will be better to observe this world without inteference or intervention anyway."

Is that it, then?

"...Goodbye, Sans."

He turns away.

[skelebro]

Goodbye, Sans.

He says a farewell that he never got to say. He might not even remember this - chances are he won't, and chances are this whole encounter might not even stick in his skull all that well when fifty percent of the associated parties have technically already been wiped from every aspect of space, time, and spacetime, indiscriminate.

But hell, he's tired. He's more tired than sometimes he gives himself credit for.

If he can have anything, for once, then sure, he can try and have this - one small break the universe might allow him, before it goes back to converting him into the garbage disposal for every fucked up thing in the universe that's got no one else to latch onto.

It ain't much.

He lifts one hand in a vague wave at the doc's retreating back.

"See ya, Doc."

But it's something.