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yeah

that's

a pretty big part of it

you know that birthday party you and papyrus threw for me?

that was really nice

but it also...it was weird because

i can't remember the last time i had one

i mean obviously it was "a year" ago but

but you know

and i can't remember it

just some vague details

I'm sorry.

[More apologies. They hate them. They hate them. He probably hates them too, hollow and empty and meaningless, because they'll probably forget this and go right back to playing with time like before if they ever go back.]

That was probably my fault. Mine and Asriel's.

I don't know when he started.

I don't think I could've changed that if I tried. I know he felt bad for it when he had a SOUL.

i know you are.

[And honestly, that's more important to him than Frisk probably knows. He doesn't think the kid back home ever apologized, because he doesn't think he ever bothered talking to them about it. Obviously they knew. Maybe they thought it was weird that he never brought it up. Maybe they were just waiting for him to say something.]

[Doesn't matter.]

it all gets jumbled

it ends up feeling like no time at all has passed but it

it also feels like it's been years

years and years

[Pages and pages and pages filled with tally marks, and at some point he stopped trying to count. Stopped trying to sort out if that stumble-jolt he'd felt was a Reload or a Reset or if his mind was just playing tricks on him. If maybe half the time he was just imagining it. Is every moment of vague deja vu a Reload? Is every unsettling dream a memory? Because those things happen normally, to perfectly normal people.]

on october 27th i'll have been hear an entire year.

[And nothing in the entire world, in all of Wonderland, scares him quite as much as that.]

[Don't know what to say to make any of this better. Don't think there's something one can say to alleviate any of this. Nothing makes it better. It doesn't get better, and it doesn't get easier.

You just learn to live with it. Eventually, maybe, you forget what it feels like to be hurt by it. Accept it, and live in that hole you dug for yourself.]

It feels like it's been longer than that. I've been here since January, right?

Everything keeps changing. I feel like I can never keep track of what's happening. Like it's all moving so fast and I can't even stop or pause to keep up.

And I'm not

[Not used to not being the one in control. They don't understand that. They can't understand it.]

And any moment one of us could go back or someone else could come through. And it would change anything.

I hate it.

I hate feeling like this.

Is this

Is this what it's like for you back home?

Every day?

yeah. i know exactly what you mean.

and

mettaton has been on the surface for a couple months

alphys was on the surface for a couple weeks

i don't know how long it goes

maybe it goes for years

i have no way of knowing

maybe this sort of thing happens every time where i just

kind of freak out heh

because i can't accept it

i'll have been here a year but that's two months away

and anything could happen

and i'm constantly waiting for the reset

and i don't know how to

not

and yeah i guess but

it actually

you get used to it?

sometimes it's almost liberating

you just sort of accept it after awhile

and hell sometimes it's...

it's a relief

knowing it's just a matter of time before it resets and you won't have to remember some of the bad things

knowing he'll

[Knowing he'll be alive again. Knowing you'll wake up in Snowdin and your chest will ache but he'll be alive again. He'll be calling you from downstairs like always.]

i shouldn't be talking like this to you

this is just going to make you feel guilty

i mean, i tell you to think about what you've done

but you've done that. you do that

i think you're always thinking about it.

Sans, I'm going to feel guilty anyway. I already do all the time. You think you can make that any worse than it already is?

[If there's a bottom to this pit, they hit it a long time ago. Still, the pit must be lined with quicksand, or something similar. Every time they feel like they've hit the absolute nadir, the universe finds a way to make them sink lower.

Maybe it's just what they deserve.

It's definitely just what they deserve.]

Sans.

I've never had a choice to come back whenever I die. Back home, every time I died, I would always wake up at my old SAVE point. I never got to choose whether or not I could come back. I could only choose to Continue, or RESET.

What happens when I get old? What happens when we've lived on the surface for years?

Will I be able to die? Will I be allowed

It's never permanent.

[Pause. And then:]

I didn't know that you'd tried before.

[It's true. It's true. They're always thinking about it, always guilty. There probably isn't much he can say to them that's worse than what already goes through their head on a regular basis.]

[God, they really are all messed up.]

i didn't know that.

[He had no idea. He thought it had to be a conscious thing, like the Resets--a decision. Determination is a decision, the decision to keep going against all odds, in spite of everything that the world can throw at you.]

[Was it Chara who pulled them both back to life, over and over? He doesn't think so. Not with the way Chara acts.]

i'm so sorry

[He has no idea how to answer. How do you determine something like that? How could you even make an assumption? What if Frisk lives to be...however old humans live to be and dies naturally? Will they immediately rocket back to their last Save, probably somewhere in the Underground? Will time unravel literal decades?]

[How unspeakably cruel is the world going to be? How could anyone go through something like that and stay sane?]

i don't know kid.

maybe...things change once you cross the barrier

i don't know.

[It takes him awhile to answer that last part. God, what was he thinking? What was he thinking, bringing that up? How could he just offhandedly mention something that awful? He never tells anyone, would never tell anyone, only made oblique references the last time he and Frisk talked about this but god, god, he just can't do it anymore. The secrets and lies and his entire facade are just going to pieces. He just can't do it anymore. It's been almost a year. Almost an entire goddamn year.]

[He's got to figure out a way to get himself back under control. Clearly sitting in a field staring at flowers wasn't the answer.]

it wasn't your fault

it

it was early on

papyrus was gone and

i think it had probably happened before

and i hadn't figured out how to

i hadn't gotten used to it yet

nothing happened

i just woke up back in snowdin and felt

sick

i'll never do it again

honestly there's just no point

i mean you think it'll be some

some kind of

respite

but

there's nothing there

nothing at all changes

please don't ever tell papyrus any of this

please

[Never tell him that. Of course. He never does. It aches to know that there's so much he doesn't tell his brother. That he doesn't tell anyone. God, is this the first time he's had to tell anyone this? Ever?

Maybe the first time he's told someone who will actually remember. Who knows how many times he might've tried to tell people, warn them, and Frisk or Chara or Flowey wound back time and erased it all.

Another promise. Another promise they'll probably break, ha-ha.]

I won't.

I know. That's why Chara nearly did it. That's why I nearly did it. I didn't know if I was going to stop them, Sans. I didn't know if I was going stop them or go with them until I actually did stop them.

Asriel asked me, you know. After the barrier broke.

He asked why I'd ever climb a mountain where people are rumored to disappear. There's all sorts of legends about Mt. Ebott. Stories about the place of the earth's crust being thinnest there, of legions of demons that want to break free, so you have to sacrifice a child to keep them from tearing apart the world. Send them up there without food or water and send them to the hole that leads directly to hell.

I guess Chara and me always had that in common.

And the other kids that fell down there too

Maybe they were the same. I don't know. I never got to meet them. [Not directly.]

Sans, do you have anyone you can tell this stuff to? I have Chara and you can talk to me if you want but do you have anyone else? I know I'm not always the best person to

I know i'm not always the best person.

[The funny thing, that isn't even remotely funny, is that on the way down he remembers thinking, I could just teleport, I could teleport right now, and he just. Didn't. He didn't.]

thank you.

[Papyrus will probably find out someday, but he also can't find out, no one can find out, especially not Papyrus, because Sans can't even stand the idea of the look on Papyrus's face.]

i'm glad you stopped them. and i'm glad you didn't.

and yeah

i've heard some of those stories

humans sure have weird ideas about monsters, don't they

so that

really was why you came to the underground at all

[And it's probably why Chara came. And it might even be why all those other kids came. It's not like he or anyone ever got the chance to ask them.]

and honestly it's

really really messed up for someone as old as i am to be dumping this stuff on a kid.

[The problem is that Frisk and Chara are the only ones who get it, the only ones who remember, the only ones who are fully aware of everything that's happened and is happening.]

[You can't understand how this feels. Except they can now, can't they? Because Wonderland has done to them what they always did to Sans.]

but no

maybe alphys but she's got enough to deal with already

and honestly i think she knows a lot of it already

she came out to find me yesterday, actually

[No one should have to deal with his bullshit. Not Alphys, not Papyrus, and especially not Frisk or Chara. And of course Frisk wants to be done with having to deal with him. Of course they do. They never should have had to in the first place. All it is is more guilt, more worry. They have themselves to worry about, and Chara. He never should have said anything at all.]

[What kind of adult puts this shit on a child?]

but uh

like i said it's not right to put this stuff on a kid so

so i'll stop

i'll figure it out. i always do

[It's just taking longer than usual this time.]

[It just feels impossible this time.]

I don't know if either of us count as kids, Sans. If we ever did. Either way, we're probably old enough to count as some kind of demon, huh?

Sorry. That wasn't funny.

[Maybe it's ridiculous. Maybe they shouldn't be thinking this at all. But after so many rewinds, so many retreads of the same ground, so many LOADs and RESETs and living the same day over and over and over again, they feel...

They feel so tired. Weary. Weary down to their bones. Older than a thirteen-year-old should feel, maybe.]

Yeah. Asriel asked me if it was fate.

That's a laugh, huh? Humans really are just that terrible.

[Loathsome creatures.

Just like you!]

Anyway. I get it if you'd rather not tell me this stuff. But I don't mind listening. I don't know who else might get it. I know you get it though. You and Chara.

That's not as bad as it could be I guess.

you're still kids

you still have a chance to be kids.

[Of course they think they're a demon, too. Did they come up with that on their own? Or did they learn it from Chara? It doesn't matter.]

i don't know about the ones on the surface back home

but the ones i've met here don't seem so bad

i think they're just people

some of them are good, some of them are bad

most of them are in the middle

just like monsters, really

[Though maybe that really isn't the case back home. Maybe humans really are all terrible. They sent children off to die, didn't they?]

i'm just

heh

you know me

i'm not good at talking about myself

and you just already have yourself and chara to look after

alphys gets it too

and asriel must have

i don't know.

[Maybe more people get it than they realized. Not timelines and Resets, but...this. Feeling like this.]

* Only the fearless made proceed.
* Brave ones, foolish ones.
* Both walk not the middle road.

That was on a sign in the RUINS. I don't know why I thought of it just now. I guess it's true. At least when it comes to humans.

The Librarby said that human SOULs don't need love or compassion to exist. I know they're not all bad. But they can be bad way easier than monsters can. And they can pretend to be good. I pretend to be good all the time. It's so easy. I hate it.

[Yeah. They can be kids still, huh? Even if they won't EVER be happy. Sometimes it feels like they can brush against something like that, achingly close to feeling like a kid, when they're doing something stupid like throwing ketchup at Sans's window or dancing at an old-fashioned party. Chara. Chara. It hurts how much they want that. How much they've always wanted it.]

I can LOAD a lot of things away, Sans.

I can't LOAD back to a time when I had a childhood.

[It's almost familiar. Like something out of a history book. History was never his strong suit.]

maybe you're right.

[He's no expert on humans. And he's too tired to argue.]

i know you don't think you're a good person

but you do know there's good in you, right?

you know it's not always an act?

because you're being good right now

talking to me, being honest

putting up with some lazy jerk who probably doesn't deserve it, heh

stopping chara from going through with it

all that stuff

[He's just repeating himself, though. And suddenly it sort of...hits him. This is what he does with Papyrus. This is what he did when Frisk said he was a good person. Maybe this is just part of going through all this bullshit. Maybe this is just part of feeling this way about yourself. People can tell you over and over and over and over that you're good, or cool, or not a burden, or a great brother, or a good person, and you just can't believe it. And it's not that you think they're lying. It's nice that they believe it. You just don't. You can't.]

it's really hard, right?

to, uh. see what's good about yourself

to see any sort of

yanno

redeeming qualities

like it feels like everything you see is just awful.

[Like you're fooling everyone.]

and i'm

i'm so sorry frisk

you deserved better

kids always deserve better

i get it

even getting that chance to finally be a kid, it just doesn't really...feel quite right

right?

it feels like you're trying to force something or

that it's just too late

there's no getting it back

sometimes you get to feel it for real, though

but

nothing fully makes up for it

i'm sorry

You're not a jerk, Sans. You're tired. We all get tired.

[They feel tired now. Even more than usual. Tired and teary-eyed, because that's the one thing they never grew out of. Being a big dumb crybaby. Dragging people's attention back to them.

This is why they think they prefer text. This is why they think Sans might prefer it too. Allows that barrier. Allows you to organize your thoughts before you say them.]

I guess you're right. What's wrong with us?

That was a joke. I mean I know what's wrong.

But if you need someone to remind you that you're a good person, you can talk to me. I mean I know you won't just believe it like that. Maybe people like us will never believe it. But maybe hearing it will help or something.

I don't know.

Never mind. It's a stupid offer.

[Yeah. Tired. No wonder they all just want to rest. Want to disappear for a little while.]

[And it's true. This is a thousand times easier than it would be if they were face to face. Not that he particularly thinks talking about any of this was a good idea, or even a healthy one, but it's still...easier. Even if it means his thumbs are getting tired. In person they probably both would have frozen up or distracted themselves or changed the subject.]

heh

wonder if we'll ever figure it out.

[If there's any such thing as "better." Not "okay," not "easier," but actually "better." He gave up on better a real long time ago, but that doesn't mean that better in and of itself doesn't exist somewhere.]

no yeah i uh

maybe

i mean the offer in and of itself is nice

and you know you can always do the same

sometimes hearing it does help

even if we don't believe it

that's why papyrus helps so much

even when he doesn't realize he's doing it

I don't know how he does it. I'm glad he does. I just don't know how he can always stay like that. Even in the worst moments.

He stills forgives me. He still believes in me and Chara.

I don't know what we did to deserve him.

[Sans probably thinks the same thing. It hurts that they can summon the thought so easily, and have so much difficulty banishing it in turn.]

Maybe we won't ever be okay. I don't know.

I don't know if I want to be okay. Do you have to want to be okay to be okay? Do you have to feel like you deserve to be okay to feel okay?

i don't know either.

i mean. he has off days just like anyone.

but he overcomes them.

he just tells himself to be happy and positive and it works

i don't know how

[If Papyrus can do it, why can't Sans? Why can't Frisk and Chara? Why is it so, so hard to be happy and normal?]

none of us deserve him, that's for sure.

and i don't know

i don't think so

sometimes you catch yourself being happy and then remember how uh

not okay you were just a few hours ago or something

i think it just happens

maybe deserving has nothing to do with it

it sure is easy to knock yourself back down with that mindset though

isn't it

[They'd asked him, once. Why is he happy all the time. Why does he get to smile and enjoy himself even though his brother only kills for him, never dies for him, never sacrifices for him. Isn't that what love is? Isn't that what love is supposed to be? Brutal, and painful, and agonizing?

They -

They do this because they love you.

They do this because they care about you.

If you weren't such a horrible child, maybe they wouldn't have to punish you for it, but they love you, you know they do, you know they - ]

Why is it so much easier to hate yourself? Is that just taking an easy way out?

I'm sorry. I know you don't know the answers any more than I do. I guess we just

We all get it. All of us. We all kind of know how it is. So if we're going to be like this, at least we're not alone, right?

That's something, isn't it?

yeah

yeah, i guess it is.

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