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[punful]

hey, sup?

























just kidding. leave a message.

Comments

WELP

[punful]

[Yep. That's about what he expected.]

[Shouldn't have asked.]

sorry.

[He.]

[Needs to go.]

[Can't stay in this room anymore.]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[determinedest]

Me too.

[And that's all they wrote.]

8/28, anonymous note taped to sans's door

[determinedest]

[* It's a photograph of a photograph.

A picture taken of a picture that Sans might recognize. Taken via someone's phone, and apparently printed up for this express purpose.

* don't forget.

On the back, there's a short message.]

I'm going to forget.

8/28, text, later

[punful]

[Yeah, well.]

[He expected this. This sort of thing has probably happened in a thousand timelines, every time he gives them a key. And if Chara was there tearing pages out of his notebook, Frisk was almost certainly there, too. His room wasn't broken into, it was quietly unlocked.]

[And you know what, this is fine. This is fine, in that level of serenity that comes with completely breaking down and actually surviving and actually feeling. Maybe. Slightly. A little bit. Better?]

thanks for not taking the actual drawing.

it's getting old. kinda fragile

also i think chara's still trying to translate that page they took

it's nothing important but wingdings is kinda headache-inducing

so if you could keep an eyesocket on them for me that'd be cool


there's nothing i can do that will help you remember, though

even if i wanted you to

sorry kid. it just doesn't work like that.

text

[determinedest]

[He put the clues together, like they knew he would. The picture of the picture, the fact that they knew what to look, subtle references to past conversations. Maybe even their handwriting.]

They were just making a drawing to prove a point. Sorry about that.

But that's not what I meant.

I'm trying to forget. But I can't.

text

[punful]

nah, it's okay.

i can recreate the page, it's not a big deal.

[And. Well. That's not what he was expecting.]




oh.




you're not having dreams about him, are you?

text

[determinedest]

I'm sorry we went through your stuff. We just sort of started exploring the mansion. Going into everyone's rooms. Needed a distraction.

[Dreams?

They're not sure. They don't know what he looks like, just spr_mysteryman and even then that conceptualization is very...hazy...]

I don't know. I don't remember what he looks like all the time.

At first I was trying to remember him all the time. Reminding myself constantly. But it was for all the wrong reasons, and now that I'm trying to forget I can't.

text

[punful]

it's okay kid. really.

i never would have given you the key if i didn't think something like this would eventually happen.

same as back home.

[Well, damn. This is...new. And potentially not good. Possibly a byproduct of Determination, or maybe seeing the drawing triggered something?]

heh well, that's how it always happens

you want to forget something and end up thinking of nothing else

or vice versa

are you okay? is it bothering you?

[Is he bothering Frisk? Because if that's the case, Sans might have to go looking. Not that it will ever help, since...well. Multiple reasons. Nonexistence is tricky.]

[He can't help wondering what the "wrong reasons" were.]

text

[determinedest]

Not exactly. Not anymore than anything else bothers me. Mostly I just feel bad. I'm sorry if I made anything worse for you by prying. I shouldn't have.

[Doesn't matter though, does it? They still did. They owe Alphys an apology too. Dipper, maybe. They'd probably acted strange when they were asking him those questions.]

text

[punful]

nah it's okay.

who doesn't like a good mystery, right?

but i'm glad you stopped digging

it's really just not worth it

text

[determinedest]

It's not like I'm supposed to be able to dig. I mentioned that I'd picked up on some things based on what you told me. Things I remembered.

They didn't like it. Kind of started screaming a little bit, thought I was a liar. We're okay now. It was just kind of scary for a little bit.

There's more to home than any of us realized.

text

[punful]

not supposed to be "able" to dig?

[That's an...odd way to phrase it. And when they mention Chara's reaction, well...that's mildly disturbing. Chara is digging into Gaster themselves, so why is it bad if Frisk in particular is doing the same? Interesting.]

well jeez. i'm glad you're both okay.

there's probably more to any place than the average person realizes

i was telling chara about some stuff the other day and

i think i really scared them.

text

[determinedest]

["Okay" is kind of optimistic. They're not sure they're ever really "okay". But "okay" doesn't always mean okay so, okay.]

You mean the stuff about how Chara and me aren't constants? We're interchangeable with other versions of ourselves? We're not the only Frisk or the only Chara out there? There's more of us and we're all different in different ways and there's no telling us apart? How there's nothing that makes us special at all compared to others that might be like us?

Yeah. I'd say that scared them a lot.

text

[punful]

[Fuck.]

[Of course they'd tell Frisk. And of course it would still be resonating with both of them. Isn't this exactly how he's been about Papyrus? Thinking of himself as the "wrong Sans" and never bothering to examine the effect that might have on others. On Papyrus, especially. He thinks maybe that whole thing affected Papyrus a lot more than his brother has been letting on.]

i didn't mean it...quite like that.

but i really just shouldn't have said anything

i'm sorry.

text

[determinedest]

Sorry.

I didn't mean it like that either. But they think so little of themself already. That's why they keep running away. They think we're all better off without them.

[Can they blame them, really? Not exactly. Not when they were looking into something so horrifically similar for the "wrong reasons," right?]

I think we might be the only two from the same time. But I guess we're not from your time, are we?

text

[punful]

yeah i know.

i wasn't thinking

they were asking about how papyrus and i are different and it just sort of came up.

[Just sort of came up. That was his excuse with Max, too. He can't be like this anymore. He feels like he's got a bit of solid ground beneath his feet again, so he has to use that. Has to go back to being more careful. More careful about what he says. Not saying anything.]

[Or...well. That's part of the problem as well. Either way--careful.]

you're not from the same point in time as me

aside from that, i don't know.

text

[determinedest]

I guess not. Guess we all get to be different.

[He doesn't need this right now. This isn't what they even meant to talk to him about. They're not really sure what they meant to talk to him about at all, other than to simply come clean about the fact that they were in his room. Which he probably already knows. Definitely already knew based on the way he responded to them.]

Sorry. I just wanted to let you know. And I'm sorry for us going into your room like that.

text

[punful]

guess so.

but you know, it's not so bad.

it's better than none of you being here at all.

[That was a pretty lonely time, even if it only lasted a few months.]

and it's okay, seriously.

i'm not mad.

like i said, i sort of knew it would happen eventually.

text 1/2

[determinedest]

Are we really that predictable?

text

[determinedest]

That was a joke. We kind of spent a few days exploring other people's rooms. Chara's been doing better but I think it helped a little bit.

[Just a little bit. Not by much.]

text

[punful]

heh, it's not such a bad thing

you've both always been curious.

[Sometimes too much for their own good.]

kind of an odd way to pass the time, but hey

whatever works.

text

[determinedest]

None of the people Underground seemed to mind whenever we did it there. But I guess monsters are different.

Do you guys always have an open-door policy or something?

text

[punful]

haha, kinda? no one ever locks their doors in the underground, that's for sure.

[Except for Sans.]

i dunno, i mean. robberies don't happen all that much, since everyone pretty much knows each other. and if someone's gonna just walk into your house randomly it's usually cause they're a friend, so.

text

[determinedest]

That's what we figured.

[Monsters are just like that. Inherently good, and kind. And they...

They don't deserve to live among them. Never did. Never should have. But this is exactly what they wanted to erase by talking to him about this. That feeling of not belonging.]

Most of the people we met are friends anyway.

text

[punful]

it's probably a good way to meet new friends, too.

or at least a good way to troll some people.