postictal | ic inbox; entranceway

i guess that's true

are you okay?

[Stupid question.]

i'm alive and asgore's alive.
about all i can ask for

[It's more than he was hoping for, to be honest.]

[Sans is gonna take that as a "not really."]

yeah i saw his post

glad he made it back okay

and you also

so there's no problem

[Yeah, this is absolutely fine. Things are totally normal here now. They can just go back to that status quo, and nothing's changed. Right?]

[Sure, yes. No problem. Everything's fine. He's a huge fan of sweeping things under the rug and pretending everything is fine.]

[But.]

[God, he hates that there's a "but" these days. Trying to be a halfway decent person tires him out so much, and he never even knows if he's any good at it.]

i mean

if you want to talk or something

hash stuff out...

that wasn't normal
for either of us

shouldn't have acted the way i did

no

[No, it wasn't normal.]

you were panicking. it happens. you can't blame yourself for that

[He can't even deflect. He can't even say something like, so, were you and him close? or whatever other inane things people say to try and realign the direction of these sorts of conversations. He can't say that, because he now knows exactly how close the two of them were, and how close the two of them weren't.]

and what?
that makes it ok?

Edited 2017-09-05 00:19 (UTC)

i don't know

[You can't really blame someone for something they can't control, and it's not like Sans knows how hard Tim has tried or hasn't tried to get control. But he also knows that feeling--that condescending tone people get when they tell you you're not really to blame, it's just that there's that One Thing wrong with you that you can't help. On the one hand, it feels like they quietly resent you for it; on the other, it feels like they're trying to give you a free pass. There's a middle ground in there somewhere, but hell if Sans knows where it is.]

maybe there's just a difference between losing control and giving it up

they're both excuses

[He's fucked up, and he knows he's fucked up. Why the hell is Sans trying to excuse him like this? Like he's not...like he didn't make another mistake in a long train of mistakes?]

[And why is he still bothering?]

they're reasons

just maybe not good ones

either way, let's face it, it's not like i was helping matters

and i was?
i shouldn't even have been there

it was me being there that got him killed don't forget

i don't get it

do you want me to blame you?

[It'd be nice if someone would.]

[But people...already have. Chara has - or maybe they just blamed him for misleading them, for acting as though things were different from how they remembered a fusion between souls should be. Maybe they just blamed him for saying Asgore didn't explain it, as though it were his fault.]

its my fault isn't it
i put myself in the line of fire

[It should have been Tim.]

[It should have been.]

[And it comes back around. The same argument they had before. The same self-blame. It's like with Chara or Frisk, or like when any of Sans's friends try to convince him that he's not just abject garbage. He can remember a year ago, the echo of a ghost of someone who never existed telling him that he's not just some dumping ground for all the worst things in his life. They all have blinders on or something. Why do they all do this? Is it just that it's easier? Have they been taught to think like this? Have they been blamed so often for things that weren't their fault that they blame themselves as some kind of preemptive action?]

[It varies, he thinks. Or it's all of the above.]

[And he knows how this goes. They'll just talk in circles again, and then Sans will probably say something stupid and that'll be that.]

[He's tired.]

i know so many people like you

and like me

i think wonderland must make this kind of thing worse

it's almost funny

there's this whole world that thrives on people's suffering

but we'd rather blame ourselves before anyone or anything else

[As if it's a choice. It's not. It's just--what they do. How their minds work.]

i spent what feels like decades making blame and judgment my whole business

but it just doesn't work here

and i'm tired

so you're not gonna get any from me

so i guess at the risk of repeating myself

[That's a joke.]

it wasn't your fault

[So...what, then? He decides to stop making blame his business now? Right when he's faced with the guy who might have caused more pain and suffering and psychological agony than anyone Tim knows? The fucking source of it, patient zero, right here - he's talking to him, and he refuses to give him even that inch.]

[Because it doesn't make sense.]

[Your fault, said Brian.]

[Your fault, said Alex.]

[Your fault, said Jay.]
[You're a liar, said Jay.]
[HE IS A LIAR.]

[And they're right. They're all right.]

[He just doesn't know the extent of it. That has to be the only reason. If he doesn't think it now, he inevitably will - they all do. They swing back around and they comprehend, fully and without restraint, who it is that's truly deserving of blame and who should be the one to pay for it.]

so what the hell do you want

[What does he want?]

[Chara asked the same question. Frisk asked the same question. He doesn't...want things, really. He's always just contented himself with whatever he has. Wanting is too much like hoping. You build yourself up, and then things fall short. If you never expect anything at all, then you're never disappointed.]

[Except that's not really true.]

[So putting everything else aside--blame, misplaced or otherwise; complicated histories; secrets; all that endless swirling gray nothing that consumes the lot of them.]

[What does he want?]

[Feels like he's answering all three of them. Feels like he's about to bare his soul.]

a friend

[A friend.]

[But why...]

[Fuck, why him? What does Tim have to offer in the way of friendship that anyone else couldn't? Why him? Why this - this freak, this stupid college dropout chain-smoker who can't make eye contact, who can't talk to people without biting their heads off, who's to blame for everything wrong in everyone else's lives, who is and always has been ~~the source~~ ~~a LIAR~~ a freak of the very worst kind?]

[What draws people to him, other than the promise for answers?]

[Why did Brian grin at him in that easygoing, offhand way that implied of course we're friends, dummy, and why does Sans say something as flagrantly untrue as it's not your fault, as if he actually believes it?]

[Doesn't he know what happens to people who call themselves Tim's friends?]

why me

[Why. Like...like it's so baffling, so astonishing, so otherworldly that someone would want to be friends with him. That this random, piece of shit skeleton would want to be friends with him. It nails it home that Sans is asking too much, wanting too much. Tim doesn't know Sans's history, and Sans doesn't know Tim's history. They're both a mess. If Sans had to guess--and he can, he's very good at it--he'd guess that Tim has seen a lot more shit than just mistreatment and neglect at the hands of his family and a hospital staff. He's from the same world as Alex. The guy who had a problem with blank white faces, the guy who decided to take it into his own hands when a literal child decided to act spooky at him.]

[There's something about that world that messes people up, and Sans doesn't want to know what it is. He doesn't care. It won't matter unless the mess comes to Wonderland in the form of an event.]

[Why Tim. And why Sans. It's not like Sans has anything to offer. He doesn't even technically have an ear to lend. Ha ha. And how long until Tim learns the truth about him, if he hasn't already?]

[It all comes down to a simple truth.]

because you get it

you're the only person i've ever met who gets it

[Tim might be a freak, but Sans is a parasite. And worst of all, he's a lonely one.]

[Of all things, he doesn't expect Sans to have an answer. He's a friendly guy, isn't he? He's social by nature. He talks to people and he gets to know people and he's genuinely kind of easygoing, at least as far as Tim can tell.]

[But he does.]

[Because you get it.]

[The breath chills in his lungs. It. Being...like this. Someone sick, someone unwell, someone who always needs to be handled with care. Treated with kid gloves, because if you break, it's going to end badly for everyone. Who's lived their entire life knowing that they're never going to be easily forgotten, because who could forget someone who coughs and seizes and acts like they're fucking crazy all the time?]

[There's a long moment where he doesn't speak. Doesn't type. Doesn't answer.]

[Can't think of what it is he can say.]

you know it was a year ago right
september 1st
that's

when i showed up.
you were the first person here i met.

[The kids, the monsters from the Underground, some of the friends he's made in Wonderland--a lot of people get certain things. A less than stellar childhood, the mental stuff, the feeling like everything is pointless, even the science stuff, even the time stuff...people get it. In some ways, Sans has gotten lucky. He knows a lot of people, has managed to make and mostly keep some friends who genuinely understand.]

[But no one else gets this. No one else gets hospitals, HP, coming out wrong. Monsters never will. And humans, well, he just hasn't met enough of them, maybe.]

[The silence is long enough that he thinks maybe Tim isn't going to answer at all. The skeleton's gotten weird and clingy, time to back away and brush him off. All the better, frankly. The worst part is that Tim is probably thinking the same thing of Sans. Better for Sans to scrape Tim off while he can, or whatever.]

[Another thing they have in common.]

a year, huh

[September was not a good month. In a few days, it'll be one year since Sans died. A year since everything that happened.]

[A year since he needed to get away from it all for a bit, went up to the roof and found a stranger, smoking and standing too close to the edge. A year since an odd little conversation that was like a moment of calm in a raging storm.]

i was really the first person you met?

jeez

kind of a crappy intro to this place

[Back to the jokes. Maybe that's why he reminded him, fleetingly, of Brian. He still can't wholly process why it is that Brian felt that this weird kid who took pills and didn't talk to anyone and didn't meet eye contact was worth his time, except for maybe the fact that he must have pitied him on some level.]

[A guy who smiles, and has his secrets, and apparently wants nothing more than to help.]

[Maybe there's a reason Sans was the first person he met.]

better than you might think

[Better than he might think.]

[Ain't that something.]

september was kinda

a bad time for me

but that part was

i dunno. it was nice

i'm really not one for mushy stuff but i'm glad we met

[He remembers.]

[He died. It's immortalized on the network and everything - his brother made the solemn announcement, and everyone rightly guessed that "vacation" didn't mean what he claimed it did. The euphemism couldn't have meant anything good.]

[Tim being Tim, he stayed out of it.]

could've picked a better time to drop in i guess

[Sans isn't sure how many people know. How many people figured out what "vacation" meant.]

wonderland's got the timing of a very, very, very bad comedian

i should know

i'm only a very bad comedian

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