Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale.
Iterations
Sharing Notes
She opened her eyes and found herself in Sans' Hotland sentry station that doubled as a hot dog stand. She shook away the disorientation at finding herself so far from where she had started. Sans gestured over to the only seat in the room and she hesitantly took it. Though Sans was still smiling and seemed comfortable as he leaned against the only door, she felt trapped. She struggled to hold his gaze and twiddled her thumbs. She waited for him to speak.
"now, i like a good – and bad – joke as much as the next guy. but even i know there's a time and place for that." He paused, flipping the sign on the window to say 'Closed.' "you really aren't doing this?"
She could not give him a definitive 'no.' She hesitated.
Sans voice was noticeably lower as he prompted her again. Not a question, a demand. "kid?"
She whimpered but answered honestly. "Not... not always."
This time when his eye glowed blue, it stayed that way. "explain."
She shivered, hazy memories of him running her through and burning her body to ash with his magic flit through her mind. She tried to subtly shift his focus off of her. "I know I'm not the only one who can."
He rolled his wrist with an 'on-with-it' gesture. She was relieved to see the blue glow had faded.
"Flowey and–"
"who?"
She blinked, confused. "Flowey?"
He said nothing.
"You don't remember?"
He sighed and sat down. "not everything."
"But you said..."
"a lot of what i know is from making connections. paying attention to deja vu and looking over notes from previous runs."
"How do you – "
"bring things into the next run? i've got my ways. but i don't control whether or not i keep my memories. i'm pretty sure i get to keep some from each time around. but it's not perfect."
She always remembered everything.
"either way, who's flowey?"
She gave him a quick overview of how the talking flower was the first person she had met in the Underground. She went over how he had used Papyrus to lure everyone together in some runs and deliberately ignored the grinding sound of bone against bone as he clenched his fists. She told him about them all going free.
"i'm assuming you didn't reset those times?"
She laughed, mirthlessly. "not likely."
"when did you reset?" he asked, reaching for a bottle of ketchup.
"When I died," she answered bluntly.
The bottle slipped through his fingers before he caught it again. He knocked it back like a champ. Setting it down with an overly loud thunk, he answered. "oh...that makes sense."
She continued in a whisper. "...and when someone else did."
The sound of bone against bone again. There was no confusion about who he was thinking of.
"That was the first time I had forced a reset, you know?" she murmured, looking down. "I mean, I had reset before. But it was like, whenever I died, a prompt would come up asking me if I wanted to. I'd just, you know, choose 'yes.' That was the first time I made it happen without my own death. I woke up, same place as always, but everything was weird, warped. I couldn't see very clearly. And I couldn't move. There was a loud ringing in my ears. Then... my body started moving on its own."
She glanced up at Sans to see him staring at her intently. She continued, "The disorientation. The ringing, so loud. I couldn't think. Couldn't process anything. Everyone and everything felt familiar but it was like something was blocking me from remembering. And the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a pile of dust with Papyrus' skull in my hand. He was talking, but I couldn't hear a thing. And I felt my hands squeeze."
She pulled her legs up onto the chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She sobbed. "And I couldn't remember his name, or his voice. But I remember screaming in my head, even as I could hear distorted laughter coming from my lips. 'No.' The pull in my chest started then and I knew everything was going to reset."
Silence. Then, "and the other times?" The other bad runs. The runs that were so so much worse.
"Sometimes, I had no control at all."
He picked up a bottle of ketchup in each hand before offering one to her. She took it, just to have something to do with her hands. She rolled it between her palms.
"kid, i think things just became a hell of a lot more complicated."
"Nope. They've always been complicated. You just didn't have all the pieces."
"i still don't."
She frowned. "I don't think we ever really will."
He clinked the glass ketchup bottle against the one in her hands before gulping it down. She looked down at the bottle and shrugged. She liked the stuff well enough on fries. With so much new in this iteration, she might as well try it. She filled her mouth with ketchup, face scrunching up involuntarily, and swallowed hard. She held the mostly full bottle out to Sans, who was looking at her incredulously. Then, he grinned. Then, he laughed long and hard as he took it from her.
"lightweight."
–
A/N: Now this chapter's pretty short, I'll admit. But I've always thought you should make chapters as long as they want to be. Or as long as it takes to get where you need to be. And with this out, we can get on with the next.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time friendlies,
Dfsemina