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très fantastique excess, fluxthrough caching [closed]
Who: Dr. Lee Rosen and Sans
What: Post-event chatter of a certain nature
Where: At the clinic.
When: 3/22
Warnings: Likely some discussions of dark subject matter
He drops by the clinic sometime after the fuss and muss has died down. People're mourning the loss of Delight's, and he can't say he blames 'em for that - largely 'cause it seems to have accomplished very little in the way of appeasing anybody. But that ain't why he's here.
He's here 'cause the doc wants to discuss someone important. Someone he's been on better terms with, whose entire everything he can't and won't disclose without their consent. He made a promise, rough and poorly-conceptualized as it was.
This is why he hates promises.
You can never predict how they're gonna shake out until after you've made 'em.
Ain't so eager to break this one at the outset. Doc wants to talk, and he can talk. May as well hear him out first. He's got questions. Sans, ostensibly, has answers. Time'll tell whether he's able or willin' to disclose 'em.
For now, he'll start with a knock on the door.
no subject
The bone between his supraorbital ridges creases for the moment in something approximating a frown, despite his perpetual rictus of a grin.
"We got this origin point. Time progresses pretty linearly from that anchor." For a certain definition of linear, at any rate. "Only it turns out there's something with the power to regress to the origin point."
He draws a straight line. Marks the beginning as t0, and the end as t1.
"Something has the power to pull things back to the start. Wipin' the slate clean."
Tabula rasa.
A closed circuit.
His grin goes to an angle askew, wry and almost cheeky if it weren't so deprecating.
"Tautology."
no subject
Lifting a hand he reaches across to San's notebook dropping his pointer finger against the anchor point. Then slowly he traces the tip of that finger along the course of the circle, "There's no guarantee that this always happens in the same way," his finger returns again to the anchor, "so if you go back to this point, it could be endlessly different. Couldn't it? The 'track', so to speak, disappears altogether and gets replaced by a new one?"
After a moment he withdraws his hand. His eyes peek up at Sans.
"Or have I entirely misunderstood?"
no subject
Or - two anomalies. Three, even, if his discussion with Asriel held any weight at all. The very same three who now live contentedly with Asgore.
So the doc nails it pretty much immediately.
"Depends on how much people remember." The course ain't necessarily always the same, no. But there are certain landmarks. Certain actions that always occur. "Once you gotta defined track, there's no reason it'd change, right? Not unless someone's able to remember. Not unless there's one variable effecting change."
And he circles the origin point.
"An anomaly."
no subject
His voice gutters. Lee is dancing around a thought but his mind seems reluctant to grab at it. Shifting uncomfortably, he sits upright and reaches up to push his grey hair back out of his eyes.
"--Are you trying to tell me that Frisk might be one of these anomalies?"
no subject
That's about the kinda reaction he had once he realized that little promise he made, that one where he said he'd protect the kid that came on through the Underground - directly conflicted with his goal in tracking down the anomaly and putting a concrete stop to its machinations.
Only to realize the anomaly ain't some distant, malevolent, all-seeing force.
It was a kid. A scared, curious, lonely human kid.
He didn't lay it out for him clean. But he laid out the pieces for the doc to put together, and sure enough - well, he's a smart guy. He drew his own conclusions.
He don't confirm or deny. He simply proceeds, nice and easy.
"Back home, maybe. Things are a little different here." He spins a phalanx in a sloppy, lazy circle. "I think we'd notice if time was goin' through iterations."
no subject
Then there is an abrupt twitch, an involuntary clenching of his stomach as he breathes in sharply, the awkward inhale colliding with a muttered "god" and he clenches his eyes shut against a sting.
God. Dammit.
Lee's not cut out for this. He's sure of it deep into his bones.
Rolling his head back so that he's blinking up at the ceiling, he steadies himself. "Thank you for telling me," He finally manages, his voice a soft murmur before he lowers his head to look Sans in the eye again. His throat is tight and aching but he fights it with forced slow drags of air through his nose.
"Is there more?"
no subject
Speaks to how much innately better of a guy the doc is, that he sees a thing like that, slots all the pieces into place, and immediately reacts. Understands the horror of what it is, the pressure that would exact on someone so young. He don't just look at it for all its intricacies and complicated interlocking pieces and shrug and think, welp.
He's far, far better a guy than Sans ever was. Than he'll ever be.
Far better, and lookin' about as worn out as you'd expect someone like him to look. That's the thing about caring. It's exhausting, just the very practice of it. It hollows you out, and leaves you with nothing more than an empty acknowledgment of your own failure to do anything to help in earnest.
Because once you care, you're fucked.
"Them's the basics." He tosses the notebook onto the desk. His hands sink back into his pockets, and he leans back. "Only person with full mnemonic retention is the anomaly. Everyone else...well, maybe they remember somethin' here and there. Maybe they feel like something someone did is familiar, or like they've seen this kid somewhere before. Maybe they get that weird old sense of déjà vu, y'know?"
He shrugs.
"And maybe not. Maybe you just keep livin' your life, not knowin' you're livin' the same day, over and over."
no subject
"You know all of this. You've even tried to deconstruct the science behind it. You must remember at least enough to--"
To what? To observe? To effect some influence? To...?
"Are you an anomaly as well?"
no subject
Well, that's the question, ain't it? If someone like him has a special power, ain't it his responsibility to do the right thing? To do more than threaten and socialize and curry favor with the thing that's the cause of all this?
"Not so much." He reaches up to tap a phalanx against the temporal region of his skull with a series of dull clicks. "Only good thing about me's my memory. Just had enough research to figure what was goin' on as it happened."
Said research which is now, thanks to everything that's gone on in the interim, moldering away at the bottom of the lake.
no subject
He's met another, Asgore, and Frisk has mentioned others from their world in passing or in vague, bewildering explanations, but Rosen still has no solid sense of what the situation with the inhabitants from the Underground actually looks like here in the cave. Their living situations. Their relationships. At best he's an outside observer peering at their world through cracked and fogged glass.
"And, now that we are talking about it, how many of you are here?"
no subject
Those bizarre weeks with the malfunctioning Door didn't help manners any.
"Nine, counting the humans." Didn't realize the number'd climbed that high, but there you go. "And...yeah. Just about everyone's gotta different story."
no subject
"I can't remember the exact words but an author back in my world wrote that when someone says things like "it shouldn't be this way" its as if they have some vision or knowledge of another plane of existence. Another parallel "right" universe. One where what they think "should" have happened happened and the fact that it didn't in their current timeline is evidence that time has somehow been "put out of joint". " Lee's fingers fumble with the buttons of his cardigan as he tries to remember. " 'put out of joint' were definitely the words he used. I remember that part clearly for some reason."
It was Rushdie, if he remembers correctly. Some book Gary's mother had lent to him that he had nosed through on the subway. After a moment Lee makes a distracted gesture with his hand. "Never mind. Its not important."
He's wandered away from the point.
"Sans. Is it always Frisk?" Rosen nods towards Sans' notebook, the drawings of circles and lines. "Is the child that falls always Frisk? Or has that ever changed?"
If the timeline changes do the people involve change?
no subject
Inconsistent, consistently. Hilarious, right? Maybe it would be, if it weren't so damn true.
"Other humans fell before them." Six, to be exact. All kids. "But none of 'em skewed things the way Frisk did. The anomaly...like it or not, it was always centered around 'em."
Why Frisk? Chara was the first human to fall, the very first, and yet - their SOUL must'a lingered after their death. If they had prime pick of every human that fell below, what made Frisk special enough?
Being the seventh, maybe.
Having a SOUL as red as determination.
But, hey. It's just a theory.
no subject
Seven including Frisk.
All kids and all falling from some godforsaken mountain. Bit by bit as he gathers information about this place, Rosen begins to feel that the world Sans and Frisk hail from seems more like an allegory than a reality. Some message about the innocence of youth perhaps or a warning about the failures of society. Whatever it is, it is appearing distinctively more and more grim.
He pauses and notes those numbers down, circling 7 to emphasize Sans' point about Frisk being different.
"And can you tell me what became of the other 6?"
no subject
He leans back in his seat, eyesockets smoothing shut as his shoulders hitch in a minute shrug. He probably looks just about as weary as he feels.
"Breakin' the Barrier that kept monsters trapped Underground...well, it was a pretty powerful spell that sealed us all down there, y'know? Took the power of seven human SOULs. Or so they say."
Funny thing, regret. His grin, for whatever little it's worth, assumes a somber edge.
"Takes seven to break it."
no subject
Rosen's gut tightens in an uncomfortable knot of unease.
He doesn't like where this is going. He likes it even less than where they have just been.
"Please.... please tell me the way to get a SOUL is not exactly what I think it is."
no subject
On where that places him.
"I don't wanna lie to you, Doc," says Sans, tiredly. That rictus never slips; it may as well be locked into place. "Told you I did a real shit job of keepin' that promise, huh?"
He's a smart guy. He'll put it together.
Regardless of whether or not Sans can claim he cares any, he sure as hell didn't act on it. 'Cause once you care, you're fucked.
no subject
'Six children' plays on a constant loop in the back of his head as he feels hot drops of tears beginning to leave stinging, salty tracks on his cheeks behind his fingers.
Six children.
or.
...Seven...? or...? Could it it be that...
Lee's mind flares against any new thoughts, trying to in fight or flight desperation to shut everything down to haze and numbness.
six children. six children. children. child....
Air. Rosen becomes intensely aware of his need for air. His breathes feel like they've caught in his throat, digging claws in and refusing to go in or out around the heave of sobs. Without signal and with great clumsiness he gets himself to his feet and makes a bolt for the door. He grabs at it, fingers splaying against the wood before he finds the handle then when he finds it he yanks the thing open so roughly the hinges whine.
He then drops himself to the ground, knees in the dirt, and head bowed. All of him has wilted.
no subject
Should'a figured, honestly. Not everybody's gotten so sickeningly desensitized to child murder that they can talk about it, easy as you please, simple as discussing the weather. Maybe the guy's lost kids. Or maybe - maybe he's just got enough basic decency to be appropriately horrified.
Probably for the best he didn't bring up Asgore in the slightest. Things're tough enough for him as it is.
Whatever it is that galvanizes him into finally getting up, fumbling with the door until he exits, Sans, uh.
Sans stays right where he is. Slouched over in his chair, skull bowed, regarding the floor without really seeing it.
How's it feel, then, to know that even when someone's askin' to know the details of your own problems and everyone else's, it's still too much for 'em? This is what you get. Step outta your comfort zone, and get burned. End up burning damn near everyone else in the process.
Why even try?
The temptation to get away is almost unbearable, in the tightening of his fists in his pockets, in the minute shifting of his weight, rocking to the balls of his feet in a preparation to stand - or, possibly, to simply slip through space and end up on his couch for the remainder of the day.
There's not a thing he can say that'll make any of it better. So he don't say anything at all. In the next moment the chair is empty, and the room is vacant.
He's done enough damage.
no subject
He can't remember the last time he's be so undone by something. Most likely over a decade ago when his marriage fell apart. No. Fell is the wrong word for that. He had stood at the side and watched it in its death throes and done nothing, then had had the audacity to shed tears for himself.
He knew he wasn't strong enough for this. He's not Strong.
At long last he gets himself onto his feet and pads gingerly back inside. Lee isn't surprised to find Sans gone. Only distantly confused as to how, in the literal sense, did he leave? But he doesn't have the energy for it.
He doesn't blame Sans for leaving. He had asked him to come. Had said right to his face that he was in this for the long run. And then he had been broken. Rosen rubs a hand over his face. "Go to hell, Rosen," he murmurs to the shadows in the corner.
Exhausted he drops back into his chair. Takes out his phone. And with no ceremony he sends Sans a simple text:
"I'm sorry."
Then a moment later he sends one more:
"But I'm not going to give up"
Rosen doesn't expect a response.