spaghettimonster | Canyon: Inbox

[Now they can add worm to the list of things Sans is. The early bird gets the worm, the late skeleton angel bird is the worm, or something. Papyrus takes a minute to eat some of the pasta - farfelle with a cheese sauce, for extra calcium - and leaves Sans an opening in which to talk. When his brother doesn't take it, Papyrus sighs again.]

If you just want couch company, I can do that. But... [He has the sense Sans should be talking. Had been starting to talk, before Papyrus's frustrated hurt and belated fear about not helping... interrupted things. So it needs to be Papyrus to uninterrupt it.] Were the videos... in a very terrible place?

[There's a logical step to extend from 'found the videos' and 'watched the videos,' but Papyrus isn't in a hurry to leap it.]

[Sans doesn't move from under the blanket, so his voice is a little muffled.] He's got a home theater. They were in there--on a flash drive locked up in a desk.

[Sans still has the flash drive; he can feel it thrumming in his pocket, drenched in that feeling of death.]

Oh. How... fancy. [Seems a little rich and extravagant, a whole theater in one's home. But, then, he has a whole workshop situation going, taking fully over a large space in the house, with designs trickling up into his bedroom. Priorities. (His are the better priorities.)]

And you know it was them... So you must have loaded them up. [A slow leading question, asked of the blanket lump - has the blanket been climbing higher on Sans since he last looked?]

[The blanket, which had been shifting a little, goes completely still. Even Sans's wings, which aren't entirely covered, don't move. The silence stretches until he's almost sure Papyrus is going to prompt him again soon, until he's sure he's going to have to say something, and it just--comes out, the way sometimes when Sans is particularly, unusually upset words just start coming out of him.]

Eight videos. I watched them all.

Edited 2021-10-24 03:52 (UTC)

[There's no jaw to open, when Papyrus readies himself to talk, so the signs of aborted words are subtler than they used to be. But the whirring gets louder, a mechanical deep breath as his mind gets to racing and his body reflects it. Watched them all. Each of them, like a preview...? No, Sans sounded... too precise for that. Allof each of them.]

Them all... All of...? [His voice is tight, worry and frustration and a little grief. What an awful thing to imagine. What a worse thing to experience. His arm reaches around the lump, pulls him closer.] ...Sans...

[Sans comes alive again when Papyrus moves him closer. He shifts all at once, clinging to Papyrus like he could hide and stay there. His soul hurts all over again, but it hadn't really stopped so much as Sans had been trying to ignore it. He doesn't cry, sounds exhausted and angry more than anything, but between his vulnerability to intent and the spiritual vulnerability to emotions layered on top of it, it all hit him even harder than he could have expected. Not than anyone can expect videos like that.] Needed evidence. And--it was there. You can see his face in Lisa's, and the back of his head in Lily's. [Papyrus would know Lisa is Jenny's little sister, but Lily is a new name. Sans didn't know it until he watched the videos. He isn't going to forget any of the names now.]

There wasn't a video of it, but I'm pretty sure he killed his wife, too. There was a photo with her in it in his apartment, and--I could feel it. [The feeling of death on that photo wasn't as powerful as the flash drive, but it was there all the same. The way Sans is talking about it, it's like he's trying to justify his watching it--not to Papyrus but to himself. It has to have had a point, all these images he now has swimming around in his mind.]

Edited (let me break up that paragraph) 2021-10-24 04:30 (UTC)

[Papyrus's robot arm squeezes around his brother - gently, gently, mechanical arms are stronger than bone and he doesn't want to use too much force if something even more upsetting comes up. But he tries to make sure Sans feels protected.] His wife, too...? We... we do need that evidence. [He has to validate that much, especially with the way Sans keeps explaining himself in ways he almost never does.] Guess we couldn't just... turn it in, without knowing if it's... proof.

[Still, he's bitter in saying so, voice trailing off as he notices the frustration leak into his tone again. His brother is yet again shielding Papyrus by taking too much on himself. This is becoming a pattern. The moment Sans starts responsibility and trying to help, he goes right for the ways of doing it that hurt him. It makes a skeleton wish they believed they were gods, with all the cheer and confidence that had gone to Sans in it. Couldn't he go for a more moderated approach...?]

...You can feel it with all of them, huh? Like you see them all. [It hasn't come up too much, the details awkward to really get into, but he's noticed how Sans keeps being drawn to death, or spooky places, or so on. It just... doesn't usually seem to hurt him.]

Yeah. That's how I found it--the room it was in felt the most like death, and then the desk drawer felt even more like it once I got close. [He's like a death detector.] It's messed up, y'know? It feels like a graveyard. But--it shouldn't. Someone's apartment shouldn't feel like that. [Sans doesn't know if that makes any sense because it's hard for him to understand, and he's only just now tried to put it into words. The feeling is still comforting, but in Dylan's apartment, he just keeps thinking about how that feeling shouldn't be there like that. A graveyard in an apartment complex.]

[It's strange to imagine sensing death. Sensing electronics makes sense, there's electrical charge and waves and everything. Things any mundane machine with the right parts and design could pick up on. Death, though... That's so much more fleeting for monsters. Ineffable to imagine anything of substance sticking around long enough to feel.

So Papyrus isn't sure he understands, but nods along slowly. Offers, with mild emphasis:] Especially not somebody's living room. [He lets that sit for just a second or two for the pun to sink in, then pushes on.] A-And, when you said 'all' of them... All of the ghosts we've heard about?

[The pun gets a small, short chuckle out of Sans--just one muffled sound. But it's a relief to know he can still laugh at all.] Yeah. Eight videos, nine people. One--one had two girls in it. [And that one was especially awful, though Sans isn't about to rank them. Of course, Dylan's wife would make ten, but she doesn't have a video and he hasn't heard anyone mention her ghost being around.]

[It is a relief, some of the tension leaves Papyrus's chest at the chuckle. Sans's couch lump state isn't new, but the combination of that and this unexpected willingness to share details is. In the context of talking about sensing things, it was just adding to the sense of unfamiliar changes. The followup comment... Well. He's still plenty tense with the topic.]

...Kids, huh? [The human had been a kid too, he thinks, but... Doesn't make it any better.] I didn't think this story could keep getting worse. Guess Emily has reason to be so mad so much...

Yeah. [Not the only kids, either. Sans loosens his grip on Papyrus finally in favor of settling into something more like a lean.] It was--bad. All of it. [The things he did and the things he said and all the emotions filling up his soul, terror and sadism and pain.] The last video was last year. He's not going to stop. [Not unless he's made to stop.]

Oh. He... definitely hasn't changed his ways, then. [When Papyrus learned that Jenny and Emily had died decades ago? He'd held out a thought that maybe, just maybe, Dylan had figured out there was no good reason to go around killing people. That he should spend his life making people feel welcomed and entertained. But the previous year...] That's... a lot of years, to keep killing over. And sneaky, to hide it for so long.

The stuff he did, and the things he said when he was doing it--he needs to be stopped. [Sans doesn't want to go into detail, feeling less shaky, more able to keep his thoughts behind his teeth, but he can still see scattered scenes when he blinks. He doesn't want to think about what his next nightmare is going to be like.]

That's... vague. [A conspicuous lack of elaboration, compared to the rest of the conversation. Papyrus takes a moment to think back to his own experience with dying, his scolding and encouraging, bracing for an impact he hoped wouldn't come. He drops his voice to something quieter.] ...Do I want to know how bad it got?

No. [That's an easy one. Sans would prefer if he hadn't found out how bad it got either. One of his hands drifts to his chest, like he can massage the pain out of his soul.] I've never felt anything like that before. [The anomaly's LV-soaked determination was different. Again, it's not something he can rank, but it was different. That he's admitted to being able to feel that kind of intent through a video doesn't entirely occur to him.]

[Papyrus gives his brother a side glance, and watches that hand drift up. He's not sure whether Sans means he felt weird at the seeing it all, or... something else. Not after that talk of sensing death.]

Well, who would want to. Seeing such horrible sights... [Other than, he assumes, the sorts of people who go in for making such horrible sights.]

Well, Dylan went to all the trouble of putting it all on a flash drive. [Transferring between media is always a hassle, but he'd done it plenty of times across different decades of mediums. Sans has some proper tone back in his voice, but it's that bitter tone now--all dark humor, like when he'd first arrived in the canyon.] So I guess if you're a murderer you'd be into that.

I guess so! [Papyrus's tone is its own kind of off, concern and fear and brittle cheer mixed together. It's unsettling to hear Sans talking like that, but everything's so unsettling about this situation that his voice is a blip on the old unsettleness meter. Just one more thing. Fans whirr a little louder with a sigh.]

...So. You found... proof. Video evidence, and everything. Do you think... it's enough? [If it's anywhere as vivid as Papyrus is imagining, surely it is. Even the best special effects he's seen still take a lot of money to put together, and, well, maybe the show does have enough of a budget to go giving people a couple hundred dollars for prizes... But they don't have enough to go making a fake of something like that.]

I stole proof. [A little different. If he walks into a police station right now, he's going to have to explain how he got it.] But yeah. I think so.

[It's not a full response. He thinks the videos will be enough for the police, sure, but is that enough to make Dylan regret it?]

I'm going back to his apartment. Not tomorrow. The day after, probably. [Sans needs a break, but he's not done. This is the kind of thing he wouldn't tell Papyrus, except for how worried Papyrus looks right now. Except for how he'd been understandably upset when Sans talked about having gone there without letting him know.] Got some stuff to leave.

[Okay, one thing of his own and then hopefully things from Jenny, assuming Sans can work out the logistics. Emily, too, if she's up for it and can go along.]

[That's semantics, if semantics an officer would care about, but Papyrus won't argue the point. Not when Sans immediately follows it up with future plans - with actually sharing those plans. And the detail at the end, well, he jumps to a few conclusions.]

The I know what you did, so confess plan stuff? You know I'm a fan of it! [Having come up with it, he knows it's a great plan. Not foolproof, obviously, but great for his own morale.] But, with so many people with ghosts, looking for proof... I feel like, maybe, we should tell about your find.

[Well, it is basically still that plan, even if Sans wants to ruin his life and any confessions are more of a side effect. Getting Dylan to confess would still be good, of course. As far as letting other people know...] I can tell people on your post, I guess. [The ghosts do deserve to know. And if Sans can figure out how to get Jenny to be able to leave some messages herself, maybe he could extend that to the other ghosts, too, beyond just Emily. Of course, that does involve potentially having to field questions about said videos, so:] Tomorrow.

That sounds like a plan! Tomorrow. [He has to agree with the sentiment of 'not today,' as today has already been a lot. If it turns out to be the day after... Well, for this, he won't have any chiding to share. The ghosts might feel differently, but hopefully they're more patient than that - they've been dead years and years.] And... For this. Maybe. A little more back-up, than just a ghost. [Maybe a little chiding. But only a little.]

More than one ghost, if I can. [Sans can see them all, so if he can, he'll bring all of them who want to come. He's reluctant to actually drag Papyrus along, but if Papyrus asks, he wouldn't be opposed to Papyrus acting as a physical lookout. And...] I can let you know when I'm heading out. [You know, as opposed to just heading off for the day and then coming back traumatized.]

[It's a conspicuously absent invitation. Better than the alternative of today, but still, Papyrus squints at him for a moment before grumbling.] Just you and a bunch of ghosts, huh? I guess I can be computer backup. Listening to police scanners... Let you know if anyone notices your illegal entry. [It's not like Sans getting into this constitutes breaking and entering, unless the stuff he plans to leave is broken stuff, in which case it's more entering and breaking.]

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ribticklers - 2021-11-02 06:46 (UTC) - Expand