.
you lie a lot.
you realize this one day, how much you do it, when you tell papyrus everything's gonna be ok, the human's gonna be a great friend, you'll all make it to the surface— like you have plans for a future that will actually happen.
you. you lie.
it's like- it's sort of a natural reflex. it comes easy (it didn't used to, not really, but you've gotten used to it, grown into it, it's easy now really), and to be fair, it's not like you really have a choice in the matter. you can't go around babbling nonsense about timelines and resets and living the same weeks over and over and over, because. you'd sound crazy, a part of you is pretty sure you are crazy, that maybe this is all in your head, all a big nightmare because that's what it feels like sometimes, when you wake up over and over again to your ceiling in your little dirty room.
so. you lie a lot. you lie to a lot of people.
you lie to papyrus (i slept like a rock- i'm so good at it, i could do it with my eyes closed; i've gotten a ton of work done today; i'm fine don't worry about it; this is the best spaghetti i've ever had; i'm fine don't worry about it i haven't watched you die over and over again for who knows how long now why would you think that?).
you lie to papyrus a lot.
which really isn't cool. as far as you know pap never lies to you, he's never been very good at lying, and he's cool, super cool, and you love him a lot, and so you have to lie to him about some stuff sometimes.
(you explained it to him once, you think, you tried to explain it to him once: the resets and the saves and how you've seen everything and how you've seen him and frisk and it took too too long to explain and get him to believe you because he thought it was another one of your pranks until your voice cracked; you don't think you could do it again, and you haven't tried it since, and your brother is blissfully unaware and you want so so so badly to keep it that way).
you lie with the grace and ease of a professional—
pap looks at you sometimes when you reply too quickly or avoid an answer and a part of you wonders if maybe you're not as good as you think you are.
(you're not.)
.
.
you're sitting in an armchair with a cold drink in your hand and the sun on your bones.
you're on the surface.
you're asking papyrus for a refill, and he's saying 'no way get it yourself'. so you get up to get it yourself, you're getting up. getting up.
Get Up! Sans, C'mon!
getting up?
blinking awake and shivering, sun replaced with snow, back sore from slumping against the wood of your post, your… post.
in snowdin.
and instead of not getting you a refill, pap is talking about how he's doing Very Important Things and you're being Too Lazy and you're not really listening.
(you thought they'd done well, this time.
the snowball your brother throws at you feels like the frozen cherry on the top of a world full of snow laughing at you.)
—you smile and joke because you aren't sure what day you've been tossed back into. they all blur together, reset after reset, sometimes you're walking down the path to Waterfall in the evening and almost fall down the stairs of your house with the rising sun peeking through the window.
—you don't bother picking things up because they end up right where they were, sitting there and staring up at you: the ketchup stain on the counter pap keeps telling you to clean, your socks on the floor in front of the tv, the trash in your room (the mirror you tossed out the window miraculously stays out the window, hundreds of jagged glass shards littering the snow; it's funny.)
—you don't bother getting a permanent job. you landed one at grillby's one timeline; you slept through the reset; you woke up early to get to your Special Brand New Job and found out you never applied for it (it's funny, you laughed, you played it as a joke about your poor work ethic, you never tried again, you never want to).
—you sell shit like half-assed hotdogs and looks through your telescope cuz you still need the money. you have to pay for the house, and food sometimes.
—the resets reloads saves happen sporadically sometimes, don't happen till the human gets out sometimes.
—they all blur together and you stopped trying to keep track of all the resets rewinds loops a long time ago, thinking about it makes you sick.
you had some things you wanted to do. you don't think you'll get to do them. pap had things he wanted to do. still has things he wants to do. he won't get to do them either, but he doesn't know that, and his enthusiasm cuts you like the shards of that ugly mirror because
he'll never get to do them.
you wait for the world to fall apart.
.
.
you lay on your bed and you want to hate. you want to hate a lot of things.
you want to hate alphys because she did this, she gave the damn flower determination and that was not a good thing to do, she trapped all of you in this hell (who's hell? your hell? are you in hell?) and now your bones are dripping a horrible red that match the gleam of that child's hands.
you want to hate asgore for staying in his castle and ruling over a broken kingdom with a broken heart and a broken will, too caught up in his own moral dilemmas to do anything, really, other than have moral dilemmas about whether or not it is moral to take the souls of human children, and then taking the souls of human children anyways. and if the queen could see what a rough time he was having maybe she'd be a little more sympathetic.
and you want to hate mettaton for being so so so so loud and everywhere and playing the same episodes every timeline and papyrus loves watching the cooking one and you've seen it a thousand times maybe, you lost count, you can practically recite every word every damn facial expression or laugh or pose and the robot is so loud about it and the creaking of metal grates against your skull.
and you want to hate frisk for all the resets the reloads the replays the mercies and the fights and the spares and all the dust they leave behind and all the sunsets you've gotten the tiniest taste of before everything rewinds rewinds rewinds.
—you want to hate them for murdering your brother over and over and over and you find that red in the snow and sometimes you see his skull being crushed under their foot; you want to hate them for murdering everyone- undyne and papyrus and alphys and the spider lady and papyrus and mettaton and papyrus- and then smiling and making friends with everyone when the next reset happens.
—you want to hate them for that matching shade of red all up their hands and arms and dribbling on their shirt and down your spine and clashing with the blue blue of your eye because you have killed so many times and they have killed so many times and you have killed each other so many times.
and you want to hate papyrus for dyi— but no, you don't want that, you'd never want that, you could never hate papyrus you love him he's your brother your super cool bro who doesn't hate anyone, your brother you don't deserve who you can never save who you disappoint who you annoy who you'll never be able to save because you can't SAVE.
you want to hate so much and so many but you can't, not really.
you don't think you have it in you to hate anymore.
(you're bitter, you're very bitter, and sort of hollow-ish and you know that nothing you do or anyone does matters and you wake up screaming in the middle of the night and you're angry, you're so angry at the knife and the flower and your damn ceiling you open your eyes to every reset, but you can't hate because you don't have any room for it, and you have too much room).
(you think maybe you hated in the beginning, but that was. that was so long ago.)
you lay on your bed and wait for the world to fall apart.
.
.
you sit on the hard wooden barstool and you think that grillby is a Pretty Nice Guy.
you think that grillby's is a pretty nice place with pretty nice people that know your name and say hi every time you walk in and seem concerned when you don't come around at your usual time or something.
you think grillby's a pretty good guy, pretty chill for someone so hot-headed (it's funny: he's fire, he's burning, combusting all the time and yet he's the least fiery person you know). and sometimes you wander in a little bit later than usual or when the sun is setting and order a drink because you're full grown bones and you can do what you want.
one drink turns to two three four— you have a low alcohol tolerance (it goes right through you, it's funny), so you get a little a little drunk and grillby tells you in his soft crackling voice that we've been closed for an hour when you look up long enough to ask where everyone is.
and he knows you pretty well, as well as a casual friend could know a casual friend or an owner could know a regular or a fire could know some bones. so when he strolls around the bar and sits next to you and tells you that you can vent if you want to, that he's here and he'll listen because you are his favorite regular after all and he cares about you and he knows you well enough to know that something is wrong
(something something everything)
you give in, and you talk.
(you wonder, if you started crying, if a tear fell on his arm, would it put out a bit of the flame or would it evaporate into steam? you wonder what would happen if he grabbed your arm, if he could burn through you, if you would turn to charcoal here instead of dust there and what difference it would make, if you remained a pile of charcoal after the next reset.)
it doesn't matter, you tell him, stupid drunken babbling,
everything's pointless anyways, nothing you do will ever change anything,
we're stuck in a timeless hell and everything you do is pointless, and it's all so fucked up—
it's hilarious.
(and it doesn't matter what you say. because he won't remember it soon.)
he's a really good listener.
when you're done, you feel a pat on your shoulder and see a phone swallowed up by his flaming hand and no no no nono don't call pap not right now goddammit not right now—
but pap does come, because he's actually a good brother, a better brother than you, he's not useless he's Great. he scoops you up in his arms and he's so tall now and you feel like a child held against him, those bones that crumble to dust too easily too quickly too many times and shit: you're crying this time. he shifts you in his arms and holds you a little tighter and doesn't ask questions and something inside of you shatters just a little bit more.
pap will maybe make you talk about it tomorrow and you won't know what to say because anything you say won't make sense. and all of this will be forgotten. and papyrus will die and everything—
Everything.
Everything.
—is so fucking pointless.
.
.
.
[you give up.]
.
.
.
gaster is somewhere, writhing around in the dark.
with no body, probably, no physical form. completely forgotten, erased, scattered across time and space.
and you
are the only one who seems to remember?
(bits and pieces. white white coats and hands speaking where mouths could not. eyes melting into cracks along a broken horrible face. 1 hp.)
(1 hp. 1 defense. 1 attack. the easiest opponent. you need to be better.)
gaster is somewhere in the dark floating through nothing and the world keeps on turning without him; everything functions fine without him; the world does not need him.
you wonder, if you disappeared, faded, would you be glossed over and forgotten too?
you think yes.
you know yes.
you wonder what would happen if you tried.
you think maybe gaster wonders too.
(it's rude to talk about someone while they're listening.)
.
.
you wait for the world to fall apart.
the world falls apart.
you give up.
.
.
night terrors mix with nightmares mix with twisted timelines and blur together in a rush of terror and ten flavors of guilt that rips from your throat and your eye in the middle of the night, horrible horrible sounds and lucid pictures.
the crack of magic and your voice breaking and your brother calling your name somewhere far far away—
(not really though, he's dead, he died, you saw, it was your fault you saw it's your fault it's all your fault failure disappointment you can't change anything your fault).
—someone grabbing your arms from where they're clutching your skull, grasping at bone and shaking shivering you can't do this anymore.
your brother's voice, clearer this time, right there, hands that are his shaking against your wrists. you jerk awake (awake? real or not real you can't tell right now it's hilarious).
I'm right here, he says, I'm right here, and he is, he's right there. you try to catch your breath and shove your heart back down your throat and bury your sobs in your brother's shirt.
(you are weak. you are so weak. you are weak and broken and you want to rip yourself apart.)
he's right there. everything's fine.
he's right there and then he's not, he's dust again,
scattered in the snow or on the floor of your house or your hands— two three four five twenty fifty sixty times
he's right there and he's not and when you wake up screaming, eyes flashing, he's right there, and it all happens again and you're so tired.
you've done everything so many times and everything's so tired.
you've done everything so many times.
you wait for the world to fall apart.
.
.
you shake the kid's hand.
you don't know how their hands are clean, or how your bony hands are white, because you're both so red and dusty, so so red and dusty—
pap wraps the kid up in a hug and has no idea what those tiny hands could do, have done, will do
—and you're drowning in each other's sins.
.
.
you lie a lot.
you realize this again, one day, when you tell papyrus everything's gonna be ok, the human's gonna be a great friend, you'll all make it to the surface.
like you have plans for a future that will actually happen.
.
.