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kinda weird.

it's about the stuff that happened right before the barrier came down.

but i know this is outta the blue. so we don't have to talk about it if you don't want.

[Quite frankly Sans doesn't want to talk about it either, but this is a case of damage control. Fixing leaks. Finding out if there's a flood.]

asriel mentioned something weird that got me thinking.

[He's been talking to Asriel? Well, Asriel's said...a lot of weird things. They're not sure how much of it is him and how much of it is an old impulse born from watching a reaction, and jerking time back in a LOAD. A reckless impulse based on knowing that your actions have no consequences.

But suddenly, Frisk is sitting bolt upright, paying rapt attention. "Before the barrier"...he can't remember that. No one can, can they? Unless one of the three people that was present for that told him.]

Asriel sometimes says a lot of things.

What did he tell you?

[It's awhile before Sans answers.]

he said

see the thing is i don't remember that part. never do.

i don't even really know what happened to us. just that the flower ripped our souls out. then suddenly we're all waking up and the barrier's gone.

and it's a bit hard to tell if someone's messing with you over text. but he definitely knew some things.

[Some things he shouldn't. Some things no one should know.]

frisk did i

say anything weird?

[Man thank fuck this is over text he can't stand how pathetic this is sounding in his head or the fact that his hands are shaking as he holds the phone. He knows better than this. Knows better than to make himself vulnerable, but...]

[Frisk is the only one of the three of them that he trusts enough to ask.]

[...he told him about...the way he -

Well, Asriel would remember. Of course he would. The words were ringing in his head, after all. just give up. i did.

Why would he bring that up? Was it a slip? A worry? Something more?

They need to talk to him again. They're going to have to talk to him and not sound admonishing or judgmental, just need to know why, why Sans of all people, after he's dealt with so much and lived through so much and never gets so much as a break from anyone, even Frisk, and does he plan on doing this to anyone else?

Asriel's spilling the secrets. Telling people plain. There's no point in hiding it, so they make no effort to.]

Everyone said things that were weird. They couldn't remember who they were. None of you could.

I had to SAVE you.

[Do you remember who you were, Sans?]

[Makes sense that everyone would be affected. All of them were there--well, everyone but Mettaton. Getting your soul torn out can't have the best effect on...well, anything at all. But Asriel singled Sans out. He never even mentioned the others. What did Toriel say? What did Alphys say?]

[What did Papyrus say?]

think i've thanked you already but. bears repeating: thanks for that.

sounds like for all that asriel was the one to break the barrier, you were the one to help us first.

[Frisk's being evasive, though. Harder to tell over text, but he can tell. Which means...]

so asriel wasn't just messing with me.

...though i have to admit i don't know how i could do much talking as just a soul.

I didn't want to say anything without Asriel's permission, I guess? He didn't really want anyone to know about him. But he's already told you some of it, so...

[So might as well, right?]

You didn't say much, but no one really did. You didn't know who you were. I had to remind you. Everyone else kind of...reverted to how they were? Undyne said humans were the real enemy, and Alphys thought everyone hated her, and Papyrus wanted to capture me again.

[Until that dialogue had run out, leaving the exuberant half of that pair uncharacteristically silent.]

You were the only one who I didn't...understand, I guess.

[Reverted. Everyone reverted. Undyne back to fighting humans, Alphys back to hiding and hating herself, Papyrus back to capturing human. At least on that front, that's not so bad. Better than Sans had hoped, at least.]

[So what did Sans revert to?]

what did i say

[It's still his font, it's not shaking the way it did then. But the lack of punctuation is...disconcerting. Is he freaking out? Frisk thinks he might be freaking out. Never mind that they've never seen him actually freak out in a truly palpable matter, but that doesn't mean he's not capable of it.

The words are seared into their skull, in the multiple tiers of memory. Some things remain irrevocably, unshakably the same no matter what they do. A fixed variable. A constant.

How can something like that be so far from reassuring?]

just give up. i did.

why even try?

you'll never see 'em again.

[And what did that mean. Who was he talking to? Who's he looking for, who does he scramble and struggle not to forget? What names belonged to the poorly-drawn faces in that room behind the house? There's a memory of a man he knew, and the memory hurts their brain, like a red-hot spike to their temples. Was that Wonderland? Was that how it was? Was that how it...will be? Would have been? Would have, could have been?]

I couldn't see your face. Or anyone's face. But your voice shook, and it was quiet. so quiet I could barely hear it

[So Asriel wasn't lying. Wasn't lying at all.]

[Shit.]

[There's no familiarity, no vague sense that he's heard it before, nothing that feels like part of the script. It's not like when Chara parrots back his own words and he has to scramble to keep up, to figure out which timeline they're quoting him from, and when in the timeline. Although he certainly is scrambling right now, isn't he? Call him an egg cause he's sure feeling...haha.]

[you'll never see 'em again]

[So. Ha. That's what it boils down to. That's what he reverts to. That's what Sans is when you take away all the pretense and facade and puns and endless grinning. That's what he is when he is literally just a soul laid bare.]

[This is stupid and pathetic and once again he knows something he never should have known. Though, hey, on the bright side this is one memory he really won't mind losing when he goes home.]

[And, wow, now it makes a bit more sense why Chara and Frisk both somehow find it so easy to see what Sans's version of "okay" actually means.]

[Your voice shook.]

[Your font was gone.]

none of the others remember, right?

papyrus doesn't remember?

[If Papyrus heard his brother saying shit like that and actually remembers it Sans is going to sleep for a week.]

I haven't told anyone else. I don't know if Asriel will. I can talk to him and ask.

[They can't make him do anything, one way or another. But whatever he said clearly generated the ripples of something, and Sans isn't okay. Papyrus doesn't remember, and that's his first priority. Lie to his brother, or protect him? Is there a difference?

They don't know. They never did.]

I'm not sure I understood it. At least not the last thing you said. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, though. I'm sorry he asked you.

[you'll never see 'em again, with the bright spill of static obscuring his face and his grin - was he even grinning anymore? Was he simply empty, drained, wrung-out, and as tired as he looked, felt, sounded? And there's the phantom pinprick of a memory that never happened, a taller shape, older, chuckling about coffee, and Sans looking happy, grinning in a way that isn't splintering at the edges, cold or rigid or some kind of permanent fixture. They can't remember the name, the name. But there's a gray door in Waterfall, and it's a door you've never seen before. But when you turned back to check again it was gone...

Beware, now that's a familiar word. Why is it familiar? Beware the man, and why's that feel relevant?]

i'd just rather papyrus not find out about this

he'd

he's been too worried about me lately as it is

[And as far as Sans knows, Papyrus doesn't know just how deep it all runs, how it's not just Resets. And he'd like to keep it that way. Though it's starting to look like he's not going to be able to for much longer.]

it's okay. you don't have to apologize for him.

just caught me off guard.

[And now Frisk is asking. Chara asks how to ERASE. Asriel asks directly. Alphys asks because Sans gave her a way in. Frisk is subtle, careful, compassionate. Gives him a way out.]

[It's rude to talk about someone who's probably listening.]

don't worry about it frisk. it's nothing.

and listen i'm sorry

that's kinda a crap thing for someone to say to you when you're trying to SAVE everything.

[just give up.]

[Turns it inward. Directs it inward. Boy, that's familiar. Like he had any control over what he said like that, like anyone did. They didn't know who they were, lost, their names and identities and memories fuzzed over as they attacked, again and again.]

It's not nothing. And it wasn't your fault. No one was in control of what they said, and they all attacked me because they couldn't remember.

Did he ask you anything else?

[They hate to push, pry further. But it's occurred to them that they don't know what Asriel knows. How long he was trapped as a flower, pulling time back over and over again. How much does he know? How much is he going to press Sans for, the one who arguably knows the most after Chara and Asriel?]

it doesn't matter.

i guess you're right.

[You're a good person.]

[Except good people aren't left with nothing but hopelessness and despair when you strip them down to their core. Good people aren't such a goddamn mess.]

he wanted to know who i'd "never see again."

[And god now he has to know that all of them ended up like that, that there's more than just one lost, washed out gray monster hidden somewhere in the cracks. Not just the poor guy at the pier in Waterfall. All of them.]

[Asriel knew the name. Maybe he's even met them all.]

[Never see again. Never see 'em again. Plural. But they remember the shape of a man from the memories that didn't exist, slipped past the bright streaks of caution tape. Like he boarded the memory up, like he was ashamed of it.

Or like he was protecting something.

Or protecting them from something?]

Is this about that man from your memory? The one that didn't exist?

[He wants to be done with this but he's not going to be, is he?]

it's complicated

You keep saying that, but that makes four people who know about him, unless you've told anyone else.

[Somehow they doubt that.]

This isn't going away. It's just getting bigger.

Somewhere, a number increases.

[Doesn't matter. And yet things matter here. Won't make a difference anyway. Everyone will just forget again a few days later. Except Asriel didn't. Except Frisk remembers a man who doesn't exist. Except Chara keeps digging, even though they don't know what they're digging for. Except that Alphys knows and offered support.]

[Except Papyrus remembers it very, very differently. Sans hasn't even been able to ask just how different. Doesn't have the "heart" to.]

talking about it won't help that

would probably make things worse

but if your gonna push this then

we should do the rest in person

[He's definitely not okay. He's the furthest thing from it. Sloppy writing, not just in his deliberately casual sense, but dropped punctuation, scrambled words.

There's the guilt again, writhing uncomfortably in their gut. They're pressing and pressing and he's said no.]

I can't promise that Chara and Asriel won't have questions. They already do. And I think they know more than I do.

But I can meet if you want.

chara too?

did asriel talk to them already?

[Holy shit it's not often that things get away from him so quickly. Actually that's a lie. Things are always getting away from him.]

when and where

I don't know about that. Chara knows more about the way things...work back home than I do. They've been around longer.

[system_information_962. They throw numbers and words like that around, drop them in conversation like Frisk should understand. And they tickle, tingle, like static shearing through the skull. Like answers to questions they shouldn't have thought of in the first place.]

I can be ready now. I'd say the diner but Chara likes to go there sometimes, and you probably want this to be private. People in general seem to be kind of paranoid I guess.

[Maybe since that whole "spy" business cropped up. They haven't really had the time to pay attention.]

[After awhile,]

roof.

it's sunset.

[Ha...high places. They'd nixed the option of leaping off, because falling isn't fun for anyone, even when you're waiting for the moment when you hit the ground. Chara had agreed.

Whatever. It means they're not likely to be bothered, which is the important thing.]

I can be there in ten.

see ya

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