spaghettimonster | Canyon: Inbox

Safe...? Maybe. [Right now he's largely unemotional, and sometimes forgets to monitor others' emotions, wellbeing, and so on - memorization isn't active attentiveness. He's not sure which mistakes exactly led to Sans's suspicions, but that conversation hadn't started in a friendly way. If experiencing a happiness powerful enough to overwhelm the theoretical lock on his emotions, would he be anywhere near as attentive to that monitoring? Would he find himself too cheerful to care about the impact of his actions...? It is, he realizes, something of a worry. Worrying about not worrying. Best to cap that recursive tendency.] It seems... better than guilt. Or a lot of other options.

I'm not going to use something negative. [Which he said already, but it bears repeating. No guilt. No sadness or anger or anything like that, either. However...] I have to be able to imagine the feeling, though. [So focusing on, say, optimism probably isn't going to work. Negative emotions are easier for him to picture, but for Papyrus, he can work up some happiness.]

You have to...? [Papyrus's focus centers on him again, intense. He hasn't actually answered Sans's offer yet, for all that the ongoing questioning clearly implies a potential willingness, but. This changes things, a little.] So. It would be... the other side of it. I'll feel your feelings.

Yeah, kind of. [It's not as direct, in that Sans can work with an imagined feeling rather than having to feel it directly, but still.] You won't feel all of them. Just whatever one I'm focusing on. [He isn't going to give Papyrus depression cooties.]

That's... not what I thought would happen. [It's better than he thought, when he imagined Sans forcing thoughts into peoples' heads. It's easy to imagine how Sans might have found feelings of guilt to force into Dylan - especially when he'd taken helping the ghosts so personally. It's concerning that Sans, presumably in possession of all his feelings, thinks there's some he couldn't feel enough to do this with...

But not as immediately concerning as this potential solution. He does a doublecheck of things. Phone disconnected, network quiet beyond the ambient radiowave chatter. No ability to broadcast. No easy access to anyone but Sans, and Sans is volunteering for whatever comes of this. No real way to reliably anticipate what the fallout of this will be, and... something like impatience to find out. He nods, slowly, again.] ...Okay. Give it... Give it a shot.

Okay. [Okay, they're doing this. Sans would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous. Good thing he's so used to lying.] If you want to stop, just say so. [He reaches out to touch Papyrus's arm. Not a handshake; the last time Sans did that, it didn't go so great.

It doesn't happen immediately. Sans is trying to be careful, and he's thinking about the process now instead of just doing it, so the flow of magic is hesitant at first. Just a hint of happiness. Nothing explodes, nobody is hurt. Sans thinks back to Gyftmases spent at home, to making the battle body with Papyrus, to sitting around on the couch watching Papyrus go on about how great Mettaton's newest show was. The magic pours in then, a flood of emotion that Sans is pushing Papyus's way.]

[Papyrus nods at the instruction about stopping if he wants, and keeps some of his attention on his own comfort with the situation. The delay isn't a reason to stop, but it's enough for him to wonder whether anything's going to happen. The initial mild happiness is easily mistaken for relief nothing's going wrong.

Then the flood starts. His lingering concern, doubt, unease, even the irritation over the knife are overwhelmed by happiness as his system tries to process the emotion with the available functionality. After the relative numbness of the last several days, it's a boggling intensity - but it's not enough to process everything of the external command to feel happy pressing on him.

It's just as well Papyrus isn't gripping Sans's hand - his hands clench tightly as internal errors flare up like a wave of pain, until the existing directive to record everything gives way. The confrontation with Hannibal, the rude men on the street, the moment of paranoia when he first discovered a text in which Sans addressed him as bro... As the ongoing emotion processing abruptly shifts to the current happiness, the memories fragment and corrupt with random errors. Papyrus starts to laugh.]

I don't... Nyeh heh heh, I don't remember everything, I don't... I don't remember exactly what your face looked like, a few seconds ago! [It's not overwhelming happiness anymore, nor hysterical laughter. It's funny, now that it's happened, what a relief it is not to be remembering those things so vividly. It's disconcerting, alarming, scary to have parts of his mind just up and disappear - but it's hardly the first time that's happened. There's other emotions starting to fill in the spaces that were left in stasis so long, with the happiness is taking center stage, framing his reactions to everything happening. He slouches back against the couch, still grinning to himself.]

[Was Papyrus memorizing his face in particular earlier? Well, that's not really the point; if it's started interfering with Papyrus's memories, it's time to stop. It'll have either worked or not by now anyway. With Dylan, Sans had just pulled away and left him with all those emotions swirling around. With Papyrus, Sans pulls the magic back, trying to leave Papyrus in a more normal emotional state. Ideally one that isn't muted, but he's not going to have any expectations there.]

Okay, stopping. [He pulls his hand away, keeping an eye on Papyrus.] How d'you feel?

[The happiness is lovely, full of feelings of comfort, home, family. He basks in it while it lasts, still giggling with the relief that he isn't trying to memorize every detail, that the machine directive could fade away. But the happiness abates too, and he's left hiccuping as he very much does not calm down, but gets overwhelmed by other emotions instead.]

I'm, feeling too much? [So many strong feelings, disorientation and shame and guilt, irritation and relief. Everything's loud, and he wants to hide more badly than he's wanted anything for more than a week, but that want is jostling with a dozen other strong feelings. He'd forgotten his brother's existence, and dying, and his resolution to not hurt people. He'd flitted about in some pattern of disdainful, angry impulses and whatever artistic whims occurred to him...? And then, hadn't been feeling even that much...?

Papyrus leans forward to bury his head in his hands, and fingers catch in the scraped grooves on the sides of his skull, reminding him of that part all over. He flinches, ducks down lower, and unconsciously leans towards the comfort of his brother's presence.] Oh my god. What... What was I doing?

[It worked. At least, Sans is pretty sure it worked. When Papyrus leans toward him, he reaches to touch Papyrus's arm, though only his fingertips brush against Papyrus as he wonders if Papyrus is going to flinch away thinking Sans is trying to pump more feelings into him.]

You made a cool robot arm. [Not at all what Papyrus means, of course, but Sans doesn't really know where or how to start.]

[He startles at the touch and glances up, long enough to see what it is, before hiding his face again - but he doesn't pull away. Let Sans decide when he wants to escape this situation, if he does. Papyrus's loneliness aches too much to want to go hide by himself, even if he wants to make something to cover the gaps in his skull, even if he's sniffling with tears trickling out his eye sockets now. (He didn't know he could cry so much, still. Thank goodness his body hasn't shown signs of shorting out when wet, the way others complain about happening.)]

You saw those...? No, no, I showed you one, didn't I? [He's unsure, and that's disorienting and horrifying. It's familiar too, comfortingly so, to have to stop and think to remember things instead of instantly drawing back the full memory of the moment. He's feeling too much, contradictory things, and he wipes at a wet cheekbone.] It's... p-pretty cool, of course, because, I built it.

[Sans freezes when Papyrus startles, but when he doesn't pull away Sans lets his hand rest on Papyrus's arm again. No doubt Papyrus has his emotions back, but that doesn't mean Sans really wants Papyrus to be crying.]

Everything you make is cool. Is your memory working okay? [That had seemed important to Papyrus before they did this, after all.]

[Papyrus doesn't immediately answer, leaning a little more as he wipes at the other cheekbone. He half wants to just sit here and weep, letting his suddenly strong reactions to the last couple weeks splash around for a while, before attempting any conversation. But he's already feeling the embarrassed discomfort of crying so openly, and Sans is here and asking concerned questions, and... he still doesn't want to be alone.]

I'm... I'm, a little, confused. [He admits it in a halting, downplaying way as he tries to settle down, tries to think back. What does he remember? What doesn't he? The last few moments, he recalls pretty coherently, in a normal way. Or, the new normal since all these transformations, where with effort he can piece memories back together enough for pictures and videos - not the continuous, thorough recall he's had for a while. Had for a while. No longer has? They're in pieces of vivid detail, but the pieces don't line up right, and some of them are obviously nonsense. He makes a frustrated noise.]

It's dreamlike. Nightmarish. [He hopes he remembers some of it wrong.] I remember you took my tool. I... think I'm glad you did? More than I'm mad. [He's feeling very much both. Wants to yell about it, wants to thank his brother, wants to lie down and cry that he damaged his little remaining bone like that, wants to finish the job before anything else cracks on him... He settles for scrubbing at his face some more.]

[Sans winces a little when Papyrus brings up the stolen knife. He's still not sorry about taking it, but that doesn't make talking about it easy.] Yeah, it seemed like kinda a bad time to leave that sitting around. [For multiple reasons. Papyrus leaving it there like that and only acting mildly alarmed to find it there in full view of Sans is its own issue entirely. But maybe that part of it is solved, at least for now.] Sorry, I was hopin' it wouldn't mess up the memory stuff too bad, but I guess when you dislodge some of it other stuff breaks off too. [Which is not really a programming metaphor, exactly, but it's not as if Papyrus is all programming.]

[Papyrus makes a frustrated noise at 'sitting around,' since he very much had been using it - he thinks. He'd intended to use it, later, when he discovered it missing. But he doesn't know what he wants to actually do about it now, when he's feeling so conflicted about the situation. Sans shouldn't secretly take things out of his workshop, and he wants to yell about that - but he's grateful and embarrassed about the rest of this help. He reaches up to gently trace the outline of the hole to the new port, where sensitive bone is more aware of the chill of the air. Put a pin in it, come back to it later, and keep listening to his brother's apology.]

...It felt like... too much. It all feels like too much. But it had to be? [His voice is mostly rhetorical with his uncertainty, as he tries to pick apart the conversation leading up to this. Sans admitting to a power with emotions, and the idea that a strong enough emotion would force the others to reset to normal. That it wouldn't be Sans making him feel just whatever way, but sharing his own feelings. Something about that tipping Papyrus towards agreeing with the idea, and that overwhelming happiness that ended in tears he remembers more clearly.] ...I don't know why it worked like this. I've copied other things. And trimmed them down, to just pictures and sound. They didn't break. [Is it comforting, that he's more complicated and delicate than the bits he can copy out of himself?]

You've always had better control than--well, everyone, basically, but better'n me, too. [Sans doesn't know if it was his fault, but it was at least related to the magic he pumped into Papyrus. Maybe if he'd used that power more before this, gotten in some practice... But he really doesn't like it. There must be some interplay of magic and technology, Papyrus's soul mixed in with wiring and programming and robotics, but that's hardly Sans's department. Yet again, he wishes Alphys were around.]

Well. When you put it that way. [He sniffles again, but with more good cheer leaking into it. Of course Papyrus managed to do something delicate and careful, when he's been feeling code like magic anyway. Of course Sans rushed from 0 to 100 in his power and forcefulness, and maybe, his effectiveness...?] Naturally, I've been working... with a particularly deft touch! And getting through this took, a less deftly one.

[He offers it partly as a bone to throw for Sans's own self esteem, before he starts blaming himself for what was, Papyrus remembers, a tentatively offered maybe-solution. Partly, it's a reframing of the situation for himself, before he starts dwelling in the remembered frustration over forgetting things, how this is partly exactly what he wanted and exactly what he feared. He mumbles to himself:] ...Why did I want to remember that stuff so clearly, anyway...?

[Even a small sign of Papyrus perking up a bit helps Sans feel better, too. Not amazing or anything, but better. And Papyrus is probably right that if delicate would have worked Papyrus would have managed that already with his diagnostics. (Now, if Papyrus's emotions worked on a quantum level, then Sans would be fine. He's great at detail work. Just, you know, quantum details.)] You wanted to make sure you remembered the important stuff. [At least, that's what Papyrus said earlier. He's not sure if Papyrus's memories are scrambled up enough that he forgot or if it's that the motivation was altered by his earlier lack of emotions.]

The 'important' stuff. [Papyrus scoffs, amused and annoyed, between the ongoing tears situation. For all he's perking up at the compliments and the ongoing banter, he's still slowly crying - from the freshly overwhelming strength of his emotions, from his general disorientation.] I just, I don't like... not remembering things...?

[He squints at a sudden sense of deja vu. Belatedly remembering, he said that - verbatim - the night before. When Sans cornered him about acting weird, and he protested he didn't want to delete anything. Of course, he hates giving more fuel to weird nightmares about forgetting and being forgotten. But there was something more specific...]

[Sans doesn't like not remembering things either. Nothing he can do about it, though.] Well, who likes forgetting stuff? [Except the bad things, but Sans would rather remember the bad things that happened to him in case they happen again. He's not sure if that's healthy or not.]

Nobody! [Rhetorical as the question might be, Papyrus assumes his answer emphatically enough to exclaim it, based largely on the strength of his dislike for the experience. Which... may be part of why it took so much to help him stop memorizing everything. Maybe it's not that urgent for him to re-remember what he was trying to remember so much...? He slumps back against the couch, tilting his head forward just enough that further tears don't slide back into his cameras.] Except... I guess, people who drink to forget. Or other things.

[Sans shrugs. He can't say he's never tried that drinking to forget thing, but it doesn't work for him. It just makes him morose and loosens his tongue, and nobody needs to hear about those kinds of thoughts.] Lots of stuff happens here. I guess you never know when you might want a hard drive of stuff you remember. [Like when you forget your brother and start trying to stalk and threaten to hurt people. Or when you think you're a void god. You know, normal things.]

Yeah... Oh! Yeah!! I started making one! [Papyrus brightens up again at the recollection, as multiple memories of the last few day come to mind. He reaches under his shirt for his phone, fumbling to disconnect the cable before pulling it out.] In case things got... worse, again. A regular scrapbook of important memories.

[It was meant to be a later surprise, a secret project with work still to do. But with the intensity of everything he's feeling right now, Papyrus rushes to open the image gallery and show it to his brother. Low resolution images of moments he never photographed, a video of chasing one of the younger rabbits around town, parts of a spar with Undyne, the start of burning her kitchen...]

[Sans leans in a little to see the images on the screen. One of the rabbit kids (evacuated), Undyne (dead)... It's not like Sans doesn't have photos on his phone (mostly of Papyrus, but not all of them), but these are new. Things Papyrus remembers. Those moments you don't take pictures of, because they're just normal life. Until it's not normal life anymore, anyway. (Until the reset. But Sans doesn't know what happens with the reset while they're here. He's pretty sure by now this has never happened before; he'd have felt some sense of deja vu somewhere by now.)]

How many times did you guys set that kitchen on fire, anyway? [A very dangerous subject, but it's out of Sans's mouth before he can think on it, too busy trying to keep his own feelings under control.]

Oh, a few times! We mostly got it under control, except the one time... [He says, with the breezy comfort of someone who's never had hair or skin - whose friend with both just laughed in the face of pain. But thinking about that one time leads to thoughts of the aftermath. Undyne, crashing at their house the one night. Papyrus, even more sleepless than usual, wired with the excitement of having a guest. Sans, increasingly himself through the night. The next morning, Undyne thanking him and borrowing clothes - and staying at the Snowed Inn the rest of the nights. Still visiting in days, still training. The popsicles, and the incredible mess they made... Before he knows it, he's choking up again.] I'm... glad! We're confirming! The important memories...! Are all okay...!

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last tag was as i was falling asleep - want to emphasize, he did feel happy there! did

that came across! sans was just overthinking it

as he does

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what if I just steal that icon

crimes! but yeah it's a good one, an uncommon scene but important mood

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