lostcarnival | [CLOSED] A COUPLE OF BONEHEADS

Entry tags:

papyrus,
sans

[CLOSED] A COUPLE OF BONEHEADS

Who: Papyrus, Papyrus' Nightmare, and Sans
What: Accidental napping leads to an accidental nightmare
When: Season 1 Day 15, late at night!
Where: The carnival grounds.
Warnings: Whatever comes with a nightmare, brother issues, maybe body horror.

Papyrus never meant to fall asleep. Really, he'd meant to not sleep at all while they were here, after the Ringmaster's first announcement. He could stay awake, stay busy, for a few days. If push came to shove, he could take a nap in the trailer, surrounded by his earlier attempts at dreamcatchers. Maybe a week without a nap was too much, or maybe he underestimated the power of the sleepy tea. Either way, it was his own fault, and no one else's, and he'd be sure to say so to the Ringmaster if he ever got the chance.

Maybe thirty minutes into picking up debris from around the ferris wheel, metaphorically skull-splitting yawns began to strike. Strong enough to make him dizzy. He leaned against the base of the ferris wheel, rubbing at his eyesockets, and considered going back to the trailer for a bit. In the minutes he considered this, he dozed off. After a week of depositing his creations near trailers and in the ownership of public nappers, there were no more stashed away in mysteriously deep pockets or secret phone-based dimensional storage spaces.

The skeleton sleeps.

The churning of the dreamworld twists his thoughts to unpleasant, frightening places.

The ambient magic of the place gives them form.

Shadows drip up, coalescing into a long, wavering figure. Its viscous form settles, as much as the word applies, with a bipedal form with long pale fingers... and a white, skeletal mask of a face. Broken, with cracks running through it and no particular distinction of the teeth. Like it had been partially melted, and even one of the eye sockets dripped nearly shut.

It was a mostly-forgotten dream, one that Papyrus preferred to avoid because... it made everything feel gray, and broken.

Like he felt, at the idea that Undyne was having so much fun that she couldn't bother to call. Like Sans wanted nothing to do with him. Like the people just wanted Asgore back, that they cared nothing for all the encouragement Papyrus had tried so hard to give them...

Lɪᴋᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡᴏʀᴋᴇᴅ ᴘᴇʀꜰᴇᴄᴛʟʏ ᴡᴇʟʟ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ʜɪᴍ.

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"Sans!" Papyrus bursts out, "speak for yourself!" He manages to hold on for just a beat before adding, "I think we're only significantly fucked up. Heh."

It's not funny.

He moves a little closer so Sans could brace against him, if he wanted, to help straighten the rest of the way. And he watches Sans' twitching tail, so the lack of eye contact maybe makes up for standing too near, so Sans doesn't do yet another of his rapid escapes from a situation that's getting too personal and involved.

The problem here is, his brother was right, things are different. And if the carnival has a library where he could check out a book on Reconnecting With Estranged Family, Papyrus sure hasn't found it yet. No brother filling in the tasks he overlooks... No yellow flower offering helpful tips... No captain or mentor or teacher guiding him. He's going through this with only dramatic movies to lean on.

"Do you... want to talk about it? This is the kind of emotionally cathartic scene where people make progress, talking about the things bothering them. I know, you don't like to! But you said you're different than I remember. Maybe...?"

Well, at least now he has the invitation. Maybe that will make anything that his words ruin slightly less his fault. He doesn't know. Maybe it's not anybody's fault, anymore.

He's too scared to look for physical support from Papyrus, feeling the irrational worry that he doesn't deserve it or that he might just be dropped because of something he says or does. He straightens a little more, on his own. In the place of panic, his look is becoming increasingly resigned. He just keeps telling himself that he can't stop now. If he stops, then he'll have to start all over later.

"That part hasn't changed much," he admits, with a quiet note of humour. It's hard. "But..." He tail curls itself up at his side, tense like his whole body is tense, filled with apprehension. "The... The truth?"

What an ugly concept.

"It's about a lot more than just stuff that's happened since I got here. I... I'm kind of a serial fibber, you know that right? I always kind of thought that... maybe you knew..."

"You are a master of deflection," Papyrus agrees, wondering just what the tail's changing motions mean. It's a lot more mobile than his brother's mouth, that's for sure. And if it's a secret bony barometer for Sans' mood, then that's very convenient.

...But doesn't that mean there's a risk Papyrus will get something terribly embarrassing or awkward, someday? Better not think about that too much.

"For years, you've plagued my every attempt to make you do things, or tell me things, with your awful jokes, and your fake obtuseness! Believe me, I've cottoned on to your mendacious habits, brother." He rocks back and forth on his feet, and admits, "but that doesn't mean I necessarily... have much idea what the true things are. Exactly."

Would it be tacky to summon some bones and spell out the words HINT HINT at this point? As an expert in standing in place for hours if need be, Papyrus will not be the one to end this conversation by leaving. He'll stay right here, by his brother's side... and conveniently avoid being alone, and asleep, again.

So, pretty much what Sans expected. It doesn't really make things easier, though, when Sans barely knows where to start. At least he doesn't feel like he could get much lower, at the moment, with tears on his face, his soul aching, and his clothing still torn to shreds.

"I used to tell you things. Sort of," he says, the words feeling clumsy and out of touch. "But no one ever remembered, so... didn't seem like much point in bothering... when it was just gunna happen again."

Which makes no sense out of context but he still doesn't really know how to explain.

"...Something really bad has been happening back home. More'n just the... the human. And what they did." AKA all those murders he lied about. "Something that no one could give me help with, so I stopped trying to ask for it."

When his brother is right, he's right; 'vacations' and secret paperwork aside, Papyrus doesn't know what Sans is referring to, which sure implies that he doesn't remember it. Though what kind of thing Papyrus could forget, that Sans would consider his responsibility to deal with... He has no idea.

Papyrus occasionally quickly glances at Sans' face, but it hurts to see him with those slowly drying trails on his cheekbones. Better to focus on the top of his skull, or that tensely curled tail, or those strange toes. And hope they don't suddenly disappear, when he makes his very important and valid objection.

"When I remember something but nobody else does... it's because I dreamed it."

Case in point, that nightmare. That cracked reflection of an old bad dream, those feelings of being forgotten and abandoned... But, Papyrus's fingers test and confirm again, his face is still as uncracked and handsome as ever. He shivers and hastens to add, "That's why I see no point in sleeping much! Why accomplish things in dreams... when I could accomplish them for real? But, you nap a lot, you're basically a master of napping, too. So maybe you can tell the difference more easily than me."

Despite Papyrus's attempted leniency in his suggestion, Sans immediately goes tense, his body curled and defensive.

"I didn't dream it," he snaps, like it's an argument he's had a million times and he just refuses to deal with it anymore. He looks away from Papyrus then, real frustration showing in his eyes with a harsh brightness. The flash of anger surprises even him - especially when he can't really remember being angry at Papyrus for at least a solid decade.

He knows it isn't fair, that it's out of place, and that reality immediately just makes him feel ashamed of himself. This isn't Papyrus's fault. It's never been his fault. He tries to force the hurt down, staring at the ground, his expression softening as his immediate remorse settles in.

"...I used to wonder," he adds, hoping to soften the response a little. "But... it wasn't a dream. I have proof of that now."

That much is invaluable to him, for all the pain it's brought him.

Papyrus jumps at the snapping, startled in a way that even a surprise headlock wouldn't have caused.

Admittedly, things had been getting a little more tense between them the last year. Papyrus, busy with the duties of kingship, of being present in the lives of all the people, encouraging them and pushing them to keep going. Sans, busy with his paperwork and organizing and behind-the-scenes work. Less time, broken routines, and those easy, comforting falsehoods about Sans told and Papyrus went along with them partly because Sans was, for once, working hard...

But even in their busiest, he can't remember Sans ever speaking so sharply. Almost speaking over him, instead of in the silences between Papyrus' words.

"There you have it, then! You know better and you can prove it to somebody else," Papyrus commends him, as there's two things anybody ever wants to hear: what they're hoping is true, or the actual truth. And right now it seems like both of those things are the same.

He considers what Sans has said so far. Something bad back home, that no one else recognized or could help with. Telling Papyrus about it, only for him to, somehow!, forget about it. Memory loss is a pretty bad thing. That could only mean...

"Is the bad thing back home a contagious short-term amnesia??"

Some of the tension is broken when Sans compulsively snorts at that, a bit of his usual humour returning. He can't look at Papyrus right now, but most of the angry defensiveness has drained away. He's still surprised that it came on so rapidly.

"Sorta," he admits, folding his arms over his knees. Obviously not totally, but... practically speaking. "Maybe if... instead of just wiping out memories, it wiped out everything else, too."

He's being needlessly opaque about the point, and he knows it. He doesn't really want to tell Papyrus this, so maybe if he just... softens the blow, it will be better. Imply some thing, but not get into the gruesome details.

"Oh no!" Sometimes being so insightful and right is a burden, he hadn't truly wanted to be right about it. At least it's probably not still happening. Papyrus thinks he remembers everything that's happened since making his deal with the ringmaster and working here.

Well. Except for the fine details of that nap, and fight, just now. But even that's not entirely gone.

Their conversation goes quiet for a moment as he considers, and Sans dithers, and it becomes obvious that Papyrus will need to prod for more information if anything is going to happen here. Which is nothing new! The new thing is that Sans hasn't distracted him with terrible jokes yet. Maybe there really is something to these changes that those notes ominously hinted at.

"But, what else is there than memories...? Feelings? It didn't wipe us out, obviously, we're still here!" It's almost too obvious to bother saying, but sometimes you have to start with the basics.

Well, they sort of are. Past iterations of them... maybe not so much. Wasn't Papyrus being king already in the past so far as his consecutive timelines are concerned? He really hates to think about it.

He considers how he's going to answer that question for a while. The pressure to say it right is heavy. Eventually, he raises a claw to tiredly gesture out pictures (faint lines in the air) to illustrate his point.

"Imagine if... you go could back in time," he says, slowly. "Whenever something didn't go your way, whenever you did something you regret... you could just go back and make it so it didn't happen. So you could try again. Hours, weeks, years. It didn't matter."

"Now... think about what happens to everyone else. When you go back in time... what happens to the people who are being rewound?"

The same person, but slightly different. Like building snow sculptures displaying his own greatness, building fresh ones when the old got messed up by magical wind and playing teens and whatnot. IT'S ONE OF HIS BETTER LUMPS, he'd said to the human once upon a time.

"They'd still... exist? They would just be young--errr," Papyrus cuts himself off, glancing sidelong at his brother. "Hmmm. That's tricky."

Minutes or hours, that was one thing. Not much happened in that kind of time. Well. Not much besides keeping houses from burning down, or saving a friend's life... But.

"Months or -years-... That's long enough for people to not even be born."

"...Yeah."

He says it after a long pause, looking distant. Papyrus hadn't quite gotten what he was alluding to, but that's fine. Maybe he did and he just hasn't voiced it yet. Either way...

"What I mean to say was... they forget."

He's staring at the ground between them, solemn and quiet despite the grin still fixed on his face. In some ways it's been longer than just there years since him and Papyrus really spoke.

"Like I did!" he exclaims, triumphant at having connected the dots. "You knew, but you couldn't prove it! So you couldn't get anybody to help make it stop!"

The way Sans isn't looking at him, is insisting that things were really messed up between them, that they were fucked up. The connections between the dots start to sink in. They forget. Used to tell you things. As though Sans was an exception to th rewind amnesia.

...That would explain a lot. A whole lot. As much as Papyrus enjoyed doing the same things day after day, comforting routines with the promise of accomplishment, it felt awful when he didn't believe he'd get the chance to do something else someday. Encouraging the people to keep going, when there were so few signs of progress... It got difficult. Difficult enough to take the chance to run away to a carnival for a few hours, difficult enough that he'd agreed to work a year in hopes of freeing them without anybody doing anything awful.

And, well, it's Sans. So prone to giving up. This last year... Papyrus' last year, the amount Sans had been doing and trying had truly amazed him. Normally his brother would have gone back to his slacking sooner or later, but he hadn't.

Though, come to think of it, Sans hadn't always avoided work to the same degree, had he? Years and years ago... He'd been brighter and interested in things, curious and hopeful.

...And Papyrus couldn't remember when that changed. Which was more than a little bit ominous when they were talking about people forgetting things.

"Ummm. How long have we... have I... been... forgetting things?"

Sans is becoming reluctant again, at that question. He runs his hand over his skull, scratching the surface with his claws slightly as he tries to figure out how to quantify it.

"Eh... hard to say..."

The truth is that Papyrus had been forgetting things for a while before that already - or one particular thing anyway - but there was nothing to be done about that. Maybe it wasn't relevant? He's not sure, but he doesn't want to talk about it right now.

"I didn't always remember everything myself, just... bits and pieces. Enough to understand." His expression flinches, for just a moment, with something like the memory of pain. "But... when I found the carnival, I asked to know more as part of my contract. It worked but... it's a lot."

"'A lot,' huh," He nudges a foot into one of the gashes in the ground, one probably left by a wayward bone.

A lot is, in at least two ways, not the answer he wants to hear. It means this has been going on maybe longer than he can imagine. It means who even knows what Sans remembers anymore, and no wonder he's being so weird and distant, and saying that he isn't who Papyrus remembers. A lot can change in a year, let alone... however long this was.

But they're finally talking again, so he makes himself keep thinking about what to ask, instead of yelling whatever first comes to mind.

And, admittedly, it's probably hard for Sans to describe how much time has rewound. How would you? The total amount of time lost? The total number of times things went back to an earlier state? Listing both out, and letting him guess how long the longest amount of lost time was? Figuring out all of that would be boring and awful. He couldn't blame Sans for avoiding figuring that out, when it's so much worse than other things Sans avoids.

"No, nevermind that. I can guess the answer, and it's 'too much,'" Papyrus offers. He stops poking the ground and sits next to his brother, instead.

It occurs to him that, if Sans could ask for all those memories with a contract, so could Papyrus. That if he ever really wants to know, he could just do the same thing; stay another year, ask another favor. The Great Papyrus could withstand it.

But there were more important favors to ask, first. Finding a way to make the rewinding stop, so everybody would go free and stay free. And... And, first, maybe...?

He drums his fingers on his knee, unable to quite keep still with a sudden exciting idea.

"Sans! Do, do you remember... the furthest things go back to? Is there any chance that things will go back to... when Undyne, and, Asgore, and. Everybody. Were still... around?!"

Edited 2017-01-29 19:02 (UTC)

Sans shudders at that question, and knows that he doesn't want to answer it seriously. He hates how transparent it feels now. Like both of them know that something is wrong, but that he still had the audacity to lie about it. His fingers clutch around his opposite arm uncomfortably.

"It... yeah," he barely manages, still shivering slightly, causing his bones to rattle ever so faintly. "Way before the human. Before... all of that."

Of course that's what Papyrus is still worried about. He's believed until now that those people were irreversibly gone. Everyone was gone in the freshest of his memories, too, but... for the longest time, it's felt as if everyone is both alive and dead simultaneously. Schrodinger's Friend Circle, or something.

"It was always centered around one person. It used to be someone else, but then... when that human showed up... the first one. It was them. Always them. Sometimes... lots of people got hurt. Others... not so much."

Except him. Sans was always still around for some reason. Someone has to ruin their fun. Or maybe he was just a coward.

Papyrus positively slouches with relief at Sans' first answer, at the news that Undyne's really not gone forever. Mettaton, and Alphys, and Asgore, they're all cause for gladness too, but especially his boss, his friend.

His relief fades back a little as the answer goes on. There's lots of subtle social signals that Papyrus sometimes misses, but not something as fundamental as the rattling of an nervous or unhappy skeleton.

Sans seems miserable, and no wonder.

"The human, the one I was friends with, hurt lots of people? Not just... the ones trying to hurt them?"

It was one thing, to think that maybe they'd had something to do with Undyne, and Mettaton, and Asgore disappearing. All three of them had... been really vocal, really clear, about what they meant to do with a human.

But he doesn't remember Doctor Alphys meaning to do anything awful to them. Indeed, he remembers that she'd been just like him, giving them advice and help! Lots of messages on Undernet, all about guiding them through the puzzles of Hotland! So why would they have ever hurt her...?

Sans honestly doesn't get it either. Over time he'd come to expect that the anomaly was searching for something - some kind of reaction from him, or the others, that they never quite got. But if Sans knew the answer to that, maybe it could have stopped a long time ago.

"Yeah," he says again, obviously reluctant. "Sometimes. Other times... I almost thought..." He trails off, a rare moment of looking as small and damaged as he feels. It's stupid, how he remembers feeling somehow betrayed when they made the wrong choices, like he knew they were capable of doing better. But yet...

"Sometimes they played nice. Sometimes they almost seemed like... a friend? Just maybe one that was scared, and got pushed around by the wrong guys. One that made some mistakes. But..."

He looks down at his hands for a few moments, thinking about it.

"...The last one I remember living..."

He trails off. After long moments of failing to say it, he just shakes his head ruefully, staring at the ground. He doesn't know if Papyrus realizes that he was potentially on that hit list, but Sans doesn't have the heart to tell him.

After a surprisingly long silence, Papyrus decides to fill in the gap for his brother. The answer seems obvious enough.

"The last one... Was the same one as me! Because, I'm here! And I don't plan to go home, until we find a way to fix everything..."

He hesitates. If the obvious answer were the true one, though, would Sans have trailed off so strangely? Wouldn't he have moved on to some other point? He pushes on.

"Otherwise -- this is too much like a comic book, I can't believe I'm saying this -- otherwise, there'd be another -you- back home! Or, another me??"

How unsettling. To go back home, time rewound so everybody's alive again, the barrier broken so they can live freely on the surface, his story told so he can be popular and respected without bearing the responsibility of their hope... Only for there to be another Papyrus around?

Sans actually chuckles, very softly, at Papyrus's apparent distress. It breaks him away from the depressing reality he was just thinking about, and only a subject much more abstract and complicated to explain. He'd wonder about this problem, too, if it hasn't already been explained to him over the years.

"Nah, it doesn't work quite like that," he says, his tail loosening from its bundle. "Though... how it actually does work may be something we have to see for ourselves." He's been researching it for a while, and he's not quite sure, even now. "From what I've gathered, our timeline is in a state of temporal flux up until all of its pieces get put back in... meaning folks like you and me. Once we go back, or commit to not going back..."

He gestures vaguely.

"Doesn't matter where we got pulled out, the timeline is going to try to balance itself so things make sense. I've been told to anticipate it being pretty confusing."

"Wow, I don't understand all of that," Papyrus admits after a moment of knee drumming. "I'm not in two places at once. That's good news. But..."

Commit to not going back? Not at all an option. But, if something happened to them, while they were out here. If they died...

"If we don't get back home, it'll be like we just disappeared...? With no hints how or why?"

How terrible. At least he'd had Sans to tell him something, unlike how most people had avoided the names of those who'd disappeared. If both of them never returned... Undyne would never find out what happened to her best and brightest recruit. Sans' many acquaintances would miss his horrible humor. And unless one of them chanced into the carnival...

Sans falls quiet for a few moments. There's really no good answer to that, or ways to mitigate how uncomfortable that might be to think about. Eventually, he shrugs his shoulders weakly.

"Yeah. I guess so," he says. He looks down, taking a bit of a darker turn, but mostly it's just sad. "Not too unusual, though. Back home."

It takes Papyrus a few seconds to speak, which is nearly an eternity.

"That all. Seems plenty unusual to me. People don't just disappear," Undyne, Alphys, Mettaton, Asgore. He corrects himself, "usually. There's hints."

They're being honest. Relatively honest. Honest enough. He might as well fess up.

"...I knew something was wrong, about Undyne and the others leaving. Everyone was... too sad."

They were never on vacation. But if time kept rewinding, keeps rewinding, it's like they're not really dead, either. So the polite not-quite-truth, in that case.

"I never guessed the rest of this. All these secrets, these things you couldn't say before. Are these things why you've been... avoiding me?"

"...Yeah," he says after a pause, thinking over that question. "I guess they are."

There's more to it than that, and he wants to explain, but it's difficult. Explaining why he does the things he does is one of the worst aspects of fessing up, because it means relating it to what he's thinking, and what he's been going through. Uncomfortable facts about time travel are much more distant.

"There was... never any point in gettin' into it, back home. With the way things were. I... I lied about what happened. Because... it was sort of true. In its way. They were going to come back, eventually. I just didn't... there wasn't any point. In making it worse."

He hadn't wanted to deal with it, and from the way Papyrus and him had always dealt with conflict he'd expected Papyrus wouldn't want to deal with it either. It was just so convenient to avoid.

"But after being here, away from all that... after remembering everything I did... I didn't know how to... talk about it. I didn't want to tell you, until it was fixed." He looks away. "That's what I've been tryin' t'do."

Papyrus shakes his head. This mix of vindication at guessing right, and being blown away by surprising reveals... It's all a bit difficult to keep track of. Especially for what, a half hour conversation? It almost feels like he's still dreaming.

"That's very noble and selfless. But also... a little bit silly?" Is there a more pleasant way to say that? The last thing he'd normally want to do is get on his brother's case for actually working hard. But if the work is making him lovely and miserable, what's the point? "Following my example to work hard is very flattering! But there isn't any point making this worse either. Two people can get the job done in half the time!"

He considers, tapping his chin, then clarifies, "well, maybe not half the time. I don't know much about this time stuff. So my help isn't a full share yet."

And there you have it. It's something Sans had known, in a way, all along but didn't want to face - if he shared this burden, he wouldn't have to be alone anymore. At the cost of Papyrus's ease of mind, maybe, but... if the other option was breaking down and avoiding his presence, what choice does he have? Heh.

"What can I say," he says, a bit of life coming back to him as the relief of this admission slowly takes effect. "I'm a silly kind of guy."

He'll take it, though. He has to remember - this time around things can be different.

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[CLOSED] A COUPLE OF BONEHEADS

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