[mingle] what's the dream and what's the reality?

[lovetheme]

Lately the castle's nights have been very clear and almost warm, even up so high among the clouds as they are. But regardless of the weather, they are generally peaceful nights, and few things seem to stir during them...apart from the castle's inhabitants, be it with late-night roving or with sleep. The dreams, by extension, are at least undisturbed...if maybe not always pleasant. That sort of thing tends to vary by the person, of course.

But now--and for several nights, consecutively--the castle residents may find their dreams starting to take on stranger shapes: memories they've never had, friends that don't usually arrive, strangers they've never seen. These odd impressions might cling and continue to confuse even upon waking, vivid as they were; was it really just a dream, or maybe something more...? Does that newcomer in your dream remember you there too, in the daytime?

Either way, there seems to be an strange energy in the air during these nights. And it's bringing dreams together.

((ooc: And here's the catch-all post for the dream-sharing event! Feel free to top-level with your character's dreams here, or thread around in others! The event should only last about a week, but backtagging is eternal c: The ooc planning post can be found here!))

Comments

C for now~

[dustless]

They should really know how to do that. Temporal means time, and they should be an expert on time stuff, but they're not. They're just squinting at the screen, watching wavy lines make their way across it.

"...don't think that's right," Frisk informs their boss, then ambles off to poke at the reports. Which they can't read when they pick up; the lines on it are moving just as much as the screen had. Great.

Sans looks calm. They don't see why he wouldn't be. There's no DT for it to extract, since he's a monster. They nod to him, and wonder if he can see how bewildered they are from the angle he's at.

[sansational]

Gaster leans over Frisk's shoulder to regard the display. His eyesockets widen, and he nudges them carefully but insistently aside. "You're quite correct, that is not correct at all. Well done!" Hastily, he bends over the keyboard to tap out new parameters.

Sans looks over just in time to see Frisk return with the reports. He frowns at them for a moment, looking equally bewildered. But then the moment passes, and he goes right back to staring up at the DT machine, waiting. Gaster, meanwhile, reaches down to pick the reports out of Frisk's hands. He shuffles through them quickly, muttering to himself.

"Yes, all still appears to be in line with our last test. Well. We're probably as ready as we'll ever be, aren't we?" He looks up at Frisk, his expression grave as a skeleton's can be. "I will need you to keep an eye on his HP levels, while the procedure is underway. A decrease is to be expected, and we have failsafes in place. But, I would appreciate as many redundancies as possible."

[dustless]

"Right." It's important. HP is very important. They have a very important job.

Frisk steps forward, pressing their face against the glass. The DT machine seems to be looking at them...they have an odd urge to push some gold under its beak. It jangles in their pockets, loud, distracting. They put their palms on the sides of their labcoat to make them quieter.

"But. Why does he need to be tied down? If things go wrong, running is good, and he can't."

[sansational]

Gaster rests a hand against the glass, staring out into the room beyond along with Frisk. His nails scratch a little against it as his grip tightens for a moment. The question falls like a shove. It's a question he very much wishes he didn't know the answer to. "This is a very delicate procedure. He needs to stay still. But it will also be a very painful procedure, and so he might not be able to." Gaster turns resolutely away, but his anxiety continues to betray itself in the way he twists his fingerbones together. "If he moves or tries to run, things will become...imprecise."

The scientist nods to himself. His mouth draws into a thin, tight line. "Imprecise things are dangerous. So we must make certain that nothing goes wrong. That is our job. Staying still is his."

He leans forward to check the measurements on his side of the console again. They're probably right. He needs to be sure. "I am very glad that you decided to work with us, Frisk. The project made a great deal of headway with your input, in much less time than we could ever have managed alone."

[dustless]

"Glad to help," they answer automatically. Helping is their job, always has been, always will be, and they are glad when things go right thanks to them. So this is good. They did good. Maybe.

They can't mirror Gaster's anxiety--if he messes up, they'll need to fix it, they need to be calm--but trepidation rises in their chest anyway. "Wish I could do it," Frisk blurts. "Instead of him."

The wavy lines on the screen start pushing their way out in ripples, slowly searching for fingers to grab.

[sansational]

"I understand. I wish the same." Gaster taps his fingers together, staring at nothing very much, before suddenly looking back to Frisk. "Is it strange, for your determination to render you unable to do something? You can't be given what you already have, after all..."

He's interrupted in his musings by the lines starting to push their way out - not just on Frisk's side, but his. Gaster swats his hand sharply against the screen, letting out a loud, staticky hiss. The lines retreat, slinking back into their proper place like a chastised cat. He brushes Frisk aside to do the same to their side, before stepping back to regard the console as a whole.

"Everything is getting restless, now. Not just us. Well." He sighs, looking to his assistant. "There is only one fix for that, now, isn't there?"

He reaches forward to press the button for the intercom in the next room. The words Gaster says next are...clearer, somehow, lacking even the undertone of static. The words also don't quite match up to the movement of his mouth, even if they're definitely said in his voice.

"I know we have very little choice, and I know you already know this, but Sans...our experiments with determination infusion have only been marginally successful in the past. Even though we have a better grasp on how to do this now...I'll ask you again, are you sure?"

There's a thoughtful silence from the other side, that's at last broken when Sans looks over to them.

"i'm sure that you guys are stalling."

[dustless]

"...yes. It was the answer to lots of stuff. Everything I had to do. And now..." Frisk's is useless for this.

They weave their fingers together and lean over so they're resting against Gaster's arm, holding their face close to the speaker.

"Determination isn't good for monsters, Sans. We care about you. We're kinda worried."

The DT machine creaks impatiently. Hurry up, its metal noises insist.

[sansational]

"and now you two aren't just stalling, you're fussing." Sans snickers to himself. "nerds."

Gaster draws away, trying to frown in an attempt to hide a fond smile. "Well," he says, looking down at Frisk. "If he can still make jokes, he can't be having too many second thoughts. Get ready, Frisk." Trusting them to do so, he turns on the intercom again.

"Typical monster bodies cannot handle large amounts of determination, that much we have seen. Human bodies, with their much larger proportional amounts of physical matter, can handle it with ease." He nods to Frisk in acknowledgement of this fact. It's just a shame that their much larger proportional amount of physical matter is precisely what makes them invalid for taking Sans' place. "Along with the DT infusion itself, this process should condense parts of your body into a more physical than magical state, allowing them to channel both determination and your magic."

They've gone over this already. Frisk probably knows this lecture by heart by now. He's still stalling, and Gaster can't ignore as much forever.

"You will need a strong soul, of course. Fortunately, we know you have one. But do not hesitate to say something if you feel something is going wrong. We will abort the process immediately, and we have emergency care on standby."

His hand is shaking a little when he pulls it away. Gaster stares at it for a moment, and then clenches it tight.

"Well. Here we go." Slowly, he pulls down the lever that will start the culmination of all their work. The pipes are wires around the DT machine come to life with humming and crackling. It almost sounds satisfied, like a large bird that has just sighted prey. Energy courses down along its surface, pooling at the prongs of its beak, before beaming down in a thin laser of light that hits home right between Sans' eyesockets.

Even unable to hear anything from the room beyond, it's a visibly painful effect. Sans tenses, staring straight up without seeing anything. Sweat beads on his skull, his mouth opens and shuts like a fish out of water, trying to scream but unable to find the breath or the sense. He visibly tries to get out from under the light, but the restraints hold him fast. That's probably for the best. It has to be for the best. They've come too far for anything else. This is the only way.

But Gaster, after a first glance, very deliberately does not look into the room beyond. He keeps his eyes on his readings, on his work, and trusts Frisk to do the same. So they'll probably be the first one to notice that Sans' HP is dropping steadily as the seconds tick on.

[dustless]

The words resonate. They wait. They watch.

They swing their arms at their sides, staring hard at their screen, and imagine Sans with circles of copper over his eyes.

"...Gaster." The numbers were supposed to drop, but not so fast, were they? "Gaster. Gaster, there's something weird--"

They look up and their voice cracks in their throat, their hands slamming over their face. "SANS--!" This is wrong wrong wrong wrong, but they realize as they see it that there are doors all over the lab, and they don't know which one leads to him.

[sansational]

Gaster doesn't look up from his side as Frisk calls out. He's still bent over the numbers, muttering to himself even as they twist and writhe on the screen, even as he lines try to creep their way out before he smacks them forcibly back into place. Maybe he doesn't hear or maybe he just can't keep up long enough to notice. He certainly doesn't even seem to notice the other doors.

Getting any sort of sense of which door leads where probably isn't helped by the noises that are audible from the other side. There's laughter behind one and the sound of a monster dying behind the other and a roar behind the third and someone is crying behind another...

"doesn't matter," Sans says, from just behind Frisk. "we all get to the same place in the end. have you seen my brother?"

He's gone the second they turn around, though. He's gone, and so is Gaster. But the machine in the room beyond is quiet and dark. The Sans on the operating table is no longer struggling. The occasional shuddering twitch keeps him from being entirely motionless.

Just in case Frisk doesn't want to risk trying any of the doors set into the wall, what appears to be a dog door of sorts has appeared in the protective glass of the window.

[dustless]

"Why? Why when things go so bad?" they ask the Sans that isn't there, their voice a frustrated echo. Things are what they are, things can get better, but that doesn't mean they care for when things go wrong.

Frisk only thinks to answer when they're shoving the flap of the dog door open. "Papyrus is okay. He's waiting outside, just like everyone," they tell the Sanses, and clamber through.

They're over the table with no memory of walking there, fumbling with the restraints. The DT Machine snaps at their head, and some of their hair falls onto their hands and Sans' bones.

The straps are too tight. They can't work them open. They scowl down at it, then glance around for something sharp.

[sansational]

There's a knife on a nearby table. It looks sharp enough, right up until the point Frisk picks it up. Then it will reveal itself to be just a well-crafted toy. Which is probably a strange enough thing to find even outside of a lab. You don't see many toys like that, nowadays.

Sans is awake, at least, even if he's not trying to move much. He's at least conscious enough to glower up at the machine. "hey," he says, as sternly as he ever can. "you got what you wanted. behave."

The machine grumbles at him, its beak creaking, but slowly falls silent once more.

Gaster appears beside Frisk, as though he's been there the entire time. "It's all right," he says, resting a hand on Frisk's shoulder. "There's a trick to it." Which he shows by reaching out and undoing the straps for them. Or at least, he moves his fingers over them and they simply vanish. But it gets the job done anyway.

[dustless]

They huff and nod their thanks to Gaster, pocketing the knife. There's a faded ribbon tied around their neck, they notice--they're not watching from inside their body anymore, but from the blank eyes of the machine itself.

Frisk watches as they put their hands on Sans' shoulders, trying to sit him up. Even if maybe that isn't the best idea, with how agonized he just seemed to be.

"Gotta get you to a place to heal."

[sansational]

It might not be the best idea, but since Gaster moves to help Frisk get Sans sitting up, it also might not be the worst. They're all in uncharted territory, right now. All they can do is keep trying.

"We also need to see if it worked."

"what time is it?" Sans asks, looking from one to the other.

Gaster tells him, or at least he probably does. Somehow, the actual words don't seem to get spoken, but Sans' eyesockets go wide anyway. "gotta get home," he says suddenly, trying to shrug them both off, trying to stand up.

And suddenly, he goes from making that attempt to finding himself collapsed in a heap by the door to the testing chamber, without appearing to move. Gaster says something indistinct, but something that sounds decidedly alarmed, as he hurries over to check on his brother.

[dustless]

What time? "Too late," the machine whispers in their voice.

"Sans." Frisk is watching him from atop the table. "Sans. Sans. Sans." They can't say anything else, their voice is stuck on a loop.

They jump down and feel the floor crack around their feet. "Sans." They stagger forwards, following in Gaster's footsteps.

"Failure."

[sansational]

"Too late. The clock is broken. The clock cannot be fixed."

Gaster reaches down to help Sans up. Sans accepts the offer of assistance, and all but bounds to his feet. He smiles up at them, looking excited, looking overjoyed...

But whatever he's saying is indistinct, and he doesn't notice Gaster look to Frisk and shake his head sadly. "Failure is not always immediately apparent. Should we tell him now?"

"tell him later," the Sans in the hoodie says from Gaster's other side. "papyrus gets cranky if he doesn't get his bedtime story."

"The timer is at zero seconds. The timer is at negative one seconds."

[dustless]

The machines unweave their lines

the machines reach out

the machines spool around his bones

the machines sink their wires-data-time into him

the machines stain him with lines of

[҉҉҉R҉҉҉E҉҉҉D҉҉҉A҉҉҉C҉҉҉T҉҉҉E҉҉҉D҉҉҉]҉

"Wait," Frisk whispers.

[sansational]

Sans looks down at the marks on his hands and arms with complete incomprehension and visible hope that they don't mean what they obviously do. The machine is what they used to give him these powers. The machine must be a good thing. Hope is the thing with feathers, and so it must inevitably die. But they haven't heard him, and he hasn't heard them, and suddenly they're all sitting together in the river person's boat, heading safely home for Snowdin.

Gaster continues speaking as though the shift in time and space hasn't happened, picking up a conversation he never actually began.

"I will not be here to tell him. I am never here to tell him. Please promise me that you will." Gaster wrings his hands miserably, except he's only doing so with one. The other hand seems to have disappeared, somehow.

[dustless]

Frisk reaches over to touch Gaster's one hand. They're in their normal clothes now, labcoat gone (it's hanging on an echo flower, it's bending under the cloth's weight, and they don't know how they know but they know it'll break and they're sad for the wish that it once held) and replaced with a dusty tutu.

"I--I want to. I want to promise." They don't know why they don't think they can.

They look between Gaster and Sans mournfully. The sound of clicking, ticking clocks vibrates through their teeth.