entranceway | Entry #90

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Entry #90

action;

[Everything goes white.]

[It's slow, and it's immediate. It's an eruption of snowy white fur across his forearms, along his back, to contrast the black-brown of the hair on his head. It's not painful, but it blazes in a way nothing else can. The weight of stubby horns on his head, the white-hot torquing of the barbed wire of his nervous system as it rearranges itself, as his organs howl in accommodation of something a human body was never meant to endure. His shoulder blades prickle with an eruption of thorny growths, stark and black as the skeletal branches that always rake the sky in his dreams. A startled, agonized noise wrenches out from the back of his throat, sputtering into an abortive gagging when he discovers that his canines have abruptly sharpened into fangs.]

[That's when the memories begin.]

[He doubles over, hands snapping around his middle. He's taller than he was, larger than he was, and there's a bright sizzle of something in the palms of his hands.]

[Can't think. Can't do anything but - ]

[* ACT.]

[An eruption of white-hot flame bursts from his hands - his paws? It coils up and around, wreathing the Frost Giants in a fiery nimbus. They begin to shriek as the heat starts to melt their blueish skin into slurries of clear, watery runoff. It curls his lips upward into a snarl. His eyes are wet, blinding him with the heated prickle of his own inability to fucking cope. His nostrils are thick with dust. He's breathing in, sitting in, FIGHTing in Asgore's own fucking remains.]

[The interleaving of dualed memory digs into the posterior of his skull like a fingernail prizing away a scabbed over wound. Warm scents of butterscotch and cinnamon, of a crackling fire in a hearth, soft white fur smoothed beneath a large, heavy paw, the twining of horns in with tree branches and the musical chatter of a child's laughter at the sheer silliness of it. The bitterness that clenched in a Boss Monster's gut that left him bedridden for days, and the deep-voiced plea that begged the bedraggled, bleeding, sweating shape on the bed to * Stay determined.]

[Watching one child crumble to dust, so soon after the other stopped breathing.]

[He can no longer tell whose tears are burning in wet runnels down his cheeks.]

[...]

[He no longer cares.]

video;

[If Tim could have his way, he'd be issuing this announcement over text. But he can't - having learned, very far after the fact, that the new, clawlike shape of his hands makes inputting text commands rather impossible. It seems Asgardian technology doesn't account for impromptu goat-human hybrids. So instead, people get something different.]

[Something...very different.]

[On day four, a watery scarlet iris stares hollowly at the screen for several moments before Tim pulls back. If the presence of thick white fur and rounded horns and branchlike protrusions doesn't cement that something has gone really, horribly, terribly wrong, then the tremor in his voice and the glisten of tears down his cheeks certainly should.]

I, uh...

[Maybe it's the eyes - the eyes that, though they've changed in color, undeniably belong to one Timothy Wright.]

Asgore told me - he said that I had to, I had to take it before anyone else did. I didn't know this would - god - I didn't know.

[He's trying not to break down. He's trying not to. He can no longer tell whose guilt is swelling like a tumor in his chest, whose grief is eating at his heart. At the soul he allegedly, apparently possesses.]

I'm sorry.

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[There's a flicker of white...and red. Of course it would be red.]

[It suits him.]

[He's never seen Tim cry before. Or maybe that's Asgore. Or both of them. With things like this, it all gets mixed up. He wonders if it was the same for Chara and Frisk when they were one person.]

...okay.

[He can't judge. He won't. It's too complicated--far, far too many gray areas.]

[But all the same, he can't help but wonder if Tim has gained LOVE. He's never Checked. Can't tell over the network, either. He tells himself it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It's not even his business.]

how did it happen?

He was...

[Fuck. Come on, Tim. Can't you just - get it all together? Act like a real person, for once in your life? Or is that too much to fucking well ask?]

[Breathe. Breathe.]

We were just - there was a hole in the shield. And these things, these giant things, they started pouring in. He was fighting them back, but there were just - I got in the way.

[There's that tremble to his tone again. He got in the way.]

He did it to save me.

there's a hole in the--damn.

[These bullshit events with these bullshit, impossible foes with their impossible strength and magic. It's like some of these events are designed to kill as many people as they can. The people of this world probably could have handled all of this well enough, but no, it's just this huge group of losers and misfits all thrown in together.]

[Sans has long, long since accepted that the universe is unfair, but sometimes it's really just astonishingly so. Asgore didn't deserve this. Tim doesn't deserve this.]

i'm sorry.

[Stupid. Stupid to say. What good is that gonna do anyone?]

you should...there's probably more of 'em coming. you should get somewhere safe. i might be able to help, if you need it.

[He's useless, as usual, but maybe he can at least teleport Tim behind one of the barricades.]

[Something much worse occurs to him.]

tim, his...asgore's dust. is it still there?

...yeah.

[What's left of it. What didn't thoroughly coat him and every other beast this side of the shield. Whatever remnants of it still swirl in the chill of the breeze, in eddying currents. It should be more visceral to look at than it is. Maybe Asgore's used to the sight of it.]

[The same way you eventually get used to the sight of your own blood.]

I should...I should make sure I get it all.

Right?

[This isn't right. Tim should never have had to deal with any of this shit. He's got nothing to do with the Underground. He probably didn't even know that monsters go to dust when they die. Like Dipper and Mabel didn't know, until they had to see it happen to Papyrus.]

[And if it happened outdoors, it's probably scattered all over the place.]

if you...think you can. he probably, uh. he probably didn't have time to explain that part, huh.

[He didn't have to time to explain much of anything. But Tim's gaze drifts for a moment, losing its focus. Sinking into something half-formed, that nebulous swirl of concentrated grief and a battlefield streaked with dust, fingers of dying sunlight painting the horizon a brilliant red. He blinks, and - ]

[It starts to come to him.]

Monster funerals. They spread the dust over the things they loved. So they...their essence can live on. Right?

yeah. that's...right.

[Some part of Asgore must still be in there. But this isn't like with Frisk and Chara, and it's not like with Chara and Asriel either--at least not from the very little Sans understands about what it was like for those two.]

[Asgore is gone. He's just...an echo of himself, carried within someone else.]

he'll...i mean, he'll be back in a day, but it's...i guess it's the principle of the thing.

[Papyrus did the same when Sans died. And Sans...didn't. He just left everything down in the tunnels. Maybe he was just too out of it, or maybe it all had just...stopped mattering, sometime way back in the cycles. It's all too hazy, and there's no clear memory of ever gathering Papyrus's dust after finding it in the snow.]

[And if it's the principle of the thing, well, what does that say about Sans?]

he won't, uh, come back from it. from the dust, i mean. his body will just...reform itself. so if you can't...if you can't find all of it, it won't be a...

[A big deal? Really, Sans? It won't be a big deal?]

...he'll come back just fine, is what i'm saying.

[Except his soul's still in here.]

[Everyone else has started to panic, in regards to how he's meant to reform when his soul is in another living creature entirely. Does he wake up without it? Does Tim have to - have to gouge it out? Is that even possible? He could make sure. He could make sure that Asgore comes back, but if the host body dies, does the soul die too? Does it count as a second death?]

[It's never happened before. There's nothing in Asgore's centuries of experience and wisdom that answer the horde of questions now teeming behind his eyelids at an uncomfortable rate.]

...what about his soul? Does that just...will it go back?

[He wishes he could just do as he normally does. Just grin, be casual, make up some plausible-sounding lie. Like, sure, this sort of thing happens all the time, and here's what will happen. It'll be painless and everything will work out just fine and we'll all laugh about this in a month.]

[Being honest is honestly the worst. Of all the years to start, he had to pick this one.]

i...don't know, tim. there isn't much--there isn't really any precedent for this. i think...given how wonderland works, i think it'll just sort of...happen. but i don't know.

i...wish i had a better answer.

[Why him?]

[Because he was there. Not out of any sense of - of obligation, or because Asgore particularly liked him, because who would? But because he was there. Because he was unlucky and unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place and the wrong time.]

[(For once, that's the only reason.)]

I don't - [He can't look at the guy's eyesockets. He has to glance away and grimace. His underbite is deeper than he's used to - and it has fangs.]

I dunno how to tell his kids.

[God.]

[What is he supposed to say? "Oh, don't worry about it, they're so used to him dying, it's not like this'll be anything new to them." Sans isn't sure about Asriel, but Chara has helped kill Asgore dozens of times, as far as he knows.]

[It's different this time. And of course they'd care. Of course it matters. God, they're just kids.]

i don't...

[You don't know, Sans? You don't know? Surprise, surprise.]

just be...honest, i guess. they're smart kids.

[Be honest.]

[Be honest. Him.]

[He wouldn't know; wouldn't know the letters carved into the wall of Tim's skull that may as well be burned into every inch of his skin, stitched into every atom. HE IS A LIAR. Who would trust him? Who would be right to? For all he knows, none of them might even believe him.]

[None of them would be wrong for refusing to trust that. None of them.]

I did this. I did this to him, I - I should've just let him go instead of -

[Instead of what?]

[Instead of getting the blame he knows he deserves?]

[He stares at Tim.]

tim, it's not...it's not like you killed him. and you said he asked you to absorb his soul, right? it might've ended up with one of those creatures otherwise.

[And he's seen those things. He and Alphys saw one up close and personal. They're enormous, and they're virtually unstoppable. Add a Boss Monster soul to that, and...]

[He doesn't want to think about it. He can understand why Asgore did what he did.]

it just sounds like none of this is your fault.

[Maybe he's missing something. It's not like Tim is obligated to tell the whole truth.]

[He should laugh at that. None of this is his fault? None of this is his fault? He got in the way. He got in the fucking way, and Asgore put himself at risk to defend Tim in the first damn place. If he hadn't been there, if he hadn't put himself in the line of fire like that - ]

[Couldn't he have just kept it away from them until it broke, or faded, or dissipated, or whatever it is souls do?]

[(Shatter.)]

[(They shatter.)]

[He spits out the words with more fury than is intentional - they spray across the feed like venom, wholly self-directed.
His fingernails dig into the newly furred ridges of his arms, hugging them around himself.]

If I hadn't been there, none of this would've happened.

[Said the wrong thing. He knows it before Tim even responds, in the look on his face, the tensing of his posture. He digs in his claws like he wants to pull himself open and cut that soul right out.]

[Sans looks down and away after the outburst. He'd say the same in Tim's situation--he knows he would. Asgore might blame himself as well if--when--he comes back. It's easier to blame yourself than circumstances when you already hate everything that you are.]

[Sans doesn't know what to do. Even if this had all happened back in his own world, how could he judge something like this?]

you don't know that.

[Useless. Unhelpful.]

[You don't know that.]

[He's - right, on some level. He can't have known how things would go. But he sure as shit could've handled himself better. Could've handled things better now. Instead he's just making a nuisance of himself in front of the people that Asgore loved and the people who loved him in turn.]

He turned his back to keep me safe. [No one should do shit like that. Not for him.]

[Not for someone like him.]

that was his choice.

[This is starting--it's starting to hit something in him, and he doesn't want to do that. This has literally nothing to do with him, this isn't about him. He won't do that, he can't. It's not like he even really knows Asgore enough to guess why he'd sacrifice his life for someone. Ninety percent of the time, Sans can't really understand those sorts of decisions, what thought processes must happen or must not happen for someone to just throw themselves in harm's way to save a life. That kind of altruism. Sans has never been altruistic, never been the self-sacrificing sort, because this certainly isn't comparable to the ways he cuts down his own happiness so that other people--usually Papyrus--can be happy. He's never trusted happiness when it happens to him, anyway, so it comes easily enough.]

[And standing before the human at the end of everything, that doesn't count either. There's no sacrifice involved. There's no real risk. It's just the only thing left to do. If he doesn't, the world ends. If he does, the world probably ends. It's pure numbers.]

[There's only been the one time. Just that one time. And it wasn't a matter of moving fast enough. It was a split-second decisions, but it was still a decision. Still a choice. Save someone else and die in their place.]

[And Papyrus had blamed himself the same way Tim is blaming himself now. Because that's what happens when you survive. That's what happens.]

listen, he--he made a choice. you can't know what was going through his head. and, i think it's normal to blame yourself. but the--the choice he made, that's on him. that's...something he's gonna have to live with when he gets back. however he gets back. because...

[He's not really looking at Tim anymore, or at anything.]

dying for someone else, it's...noble and altruistic and whatever, but it's also...fucking selfish. and you don't get to realize how selfish it is, except in a place like wonderland, where you have to come back and just--live with it. wonderland makes you live with your choices, all of them.

[He needs to shut up. This isn't helping. He's making it about himself, like he always does. He's probably making Tim feel even worse. And he's getting all worked up, thinking too much about Papyrus.]

just...i dunno, tim. i'm no good at this. don't have an answer. but he made a choice, and you didn't. he made a choice for you. and he...trusted you to look after his soul. and you are.

you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. that's not--evil. that's just...

[He sighs very heavily.]

...shit luck.

[He can't throw that into anyone's face. Dying for anyone being - ]

[It's fucking selfish.]

[It's doing something for someone else, but it makes them live with it. He can't look at him now - can't regard those hollow, broken sockets. He can't look at him as he calls sacrifice a selfish action, as he calls living with your choices a selfish drawback, as he calls the loss of Jay, shot through the gut for the mysteries he never solved, the way Brian dropped from the windowsill, clawing for purchase to stay alive, the way Alex wanted and willed the death of everyone around him for the sake of those who still lived untouched, a selfish action.]

[Dying, wasting away from a sickness on a bed, or getting shot through with some mysterious human weapon (bullets, he places it, mentally, based on a memory both hazy and crystal sharp, based on a memory of someone else's memory, and the bright puffs of dust trailing from mysterious wounds. They were shout through with bullets.) - it's all fucking selfish. Because you have to live with it.]

[He didn't want to live with this.]

[He didn't want to live at all, but here he is.]

[Tim's voice still trembles. But the words are iron.]

I'm not going to blame him for his own death.

[He doesn't have to look at him. He hears it in Tim's voice. Sans's eyesockets go dead.]

[Well.]

[It was probably high time that Tim realized that Sans is not a good person.]

that's not what i'm saying.

[Isn't it, though?]

blame the things that killed him instead. blame wonderland. just...

[No. No more. He's done making things worse.]

...

...sorry.

It's selfish. It's selfish, isn't it? That he had to die?

[He can't hold it back anymore. It comes bubbling out, breaking like a tide. It's in his paws, his claws, his whatever the fuck, fisted into the fur of his arms, yanking at the torn fabric of the shirt that couldn't hold itself to his frame once it expanded. It's in the frantic way he can't look at the camera, can't look ta the black pits that yawn back at him.]

[It's in the way the words are a frantic babble. Like he isn't listening at all.]

It's selfish that I was - that I let him do it?

[What if that wasn't a hallucination at all?]

[What if this is my fault?]

[What if this is my fault?]

[You left Jay. And you left Brian. You let them walk into the crossfire. You let Jay go running into the bullet that killed him. You charged Brian with a piece of rebar, and swung it at him, knowing he'd fall. Knowing he'd crack his skull on the pavement and soak it in red.]

[You did this, you did this, you did this, you did this.]

[You were the source.]

I shouldn't have let him do it.

[He's ready to give up. Hang up. Let someone better suited manage this, because he's pretty damn sure any word he says is just going to make things worse.]

[But then Tim practically breaks down.]

[Wonderland makes you live with your choices. Eventually you have no choice but to start cleaning up your own messes.]

[Another thing Sans is no good at.]

no, that's not--that's not what i meant.

[God, he ruined this, he fucked this up so badly.]

tim--tim.

[Can Tim even hear him? God, what does he do? This is his fault, how does he fix this, how does he even begin?]

that's not--that's not what i meant--tim, you couldn't have stopped him. you didn't let him. he's a boss monster. there's no way you'd have been able to stop him.

this isn't your fault.

[Quit freaking out, right? Quit being so goddamn - quit acting out, like you can't control yourself, like you can't get a handle on yourself. Take your meds, pipe down, and sit like a good kid. Don't twist yourself out of shape. This isn't real. It isn't real. Take a breath, because ,i>it isn't real.]

I could've - I spend all this time looking for a way to blame him, and I'm the one that started it!

[He really is a despicable person, isn't he? A sickening, sickening human. Chara was right. They were right.]

[He's always the one that starts it. He's the source. The source.]

They were all right.

[Alex was right.]

[At this point, Sans is getting the sense that Tim isn't really talking about Asgore, at least not entirely. Like he's conflating two different things.]

[There's so much Sans doesn't actually know about Tim, or his life. He never bothered to find out. Things were fine when they were just--chatting about what they did have in common.]

tim...breathe. just...breathe, okay? in and out. count backwards slowly from ten.

please.

[He knows how to breathe. He knows how to fucking breathe. He's not some kid. He doesn't need to be talked down to, like he doesn't know what the hell is happening. He's done this before. He knows what it means. He's done it before. He's - ]

[He's - ]

[Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.]

[He knows. Fuck, he knows. Brian doesn't have to be lingering there over his shoulder, hissing words into his ear. He knows what he did. He knows that this is just what he does - curses people with his presence, until they can't cut him out.]

I did this.

this isn't your fault. it isn't. come on, buddy, please. you gotta try to breathe. come on.

[Feels almost like he's begging.]

Entry #90

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