[Sans goes quiet, thinking about what it was. What it is. He's still trying not to think about that, but the reminder sets his mind spinning. And yet, the comparison to the leeches isn't inaccurate.]
I didn't like how those felt either. [Something crawling up out of the lake, another spot with particularly bad energy as far as Sans can tell. Something forcing its way into you and feeding off of you and making you different. Of course those leeches live here.] But. It looked different.
[Papyrus's clawed appendage tightens around his torso, as he looks sidelong at Sans. Did he hear that right? He takes a few extra seconds to arrange syllables cleanly, the better not to have static or jumps that might confuse the question.]
...Looked?
[Well, it's not a long question, but the tone of concerned skepticism - as near as he could get it - is important. Just how far did Sans abstract himself underground, or... did he see something when it grabbed him...?]
When it dragged me down to eat me. [Or part of him, anyway. It doesn't matter when it comes to how he experienced it.] It was all--slippery. In and out of reality. Not like me, I understood that, I understood how I was working, but it was-- I don't know what it looked like, but I saw it, and it, it was, I don't know--
[Sans goes rigid again. He saw it, and even scraping at the barest outlines of comprehension had driven him into senselessness, and he can remember that. Black tentacles and chanting he couldn't stop. He's dizzy and shaky just thinking about it. If he keeps thinking about it is it going to happen again? He needs to stop thinking about it. He needs to stop, but he can't, he can't do anything--]
[The more Sans's words ramble and loop in on themselves, the more Papyrus lets out a distressed static - and it only picks up when Sans goes stiff. He should be talking to reassure his brother, but it's an effort just to string syllables together at a nearly conversational speed, let alone as quick as he needs to talk here!
At least he's still offering that half hug. Easy to squeeze a little tighter, in hopes of pulling Sans's attention back from wherever it's gone. It's fine if Sans panics and attacks him before realizing - Papyrus is sturdy, now more than ever. Even if he damages something, they can just replace it with something even better.
And as he loosens up on the hug, he shifts that arm so his... his hand, the distress of it is barely a blip compared to this, is freed to stroke down Sans's wing. He's seen his brother do that when trying to calm down enough times, and knows how comforting it feels.]
everyone needs to be reassured on a couch sometimes
[Sans doesn't need to breathe, but his chest feels humid and stuffy anyway, leaving him trying to suck in air like it'll do something to fix it. He feels like he's going to die again, but in a different way, because now he feels like he's going to jitter out of his own bones before anything else can kill him first.
When Papyrus tightens his grip just a little, Sans's wings snap forward just once, smacking into Papyrus's back. It's unfocused, and Sans is hardly the strongest guy around. It gets Sans to stop talking in circles, though, and that slows Sans's thoughts enough to process Papyrus's hand on his wing. It is comforting; by slow degrees, he eases out of his full-body flinch. He's not underground, he's at home. Papyrus is right there. Sans is--is broken, a little more than he was before, but he's not more dead. Papyrus didn't get hurt.]
I'm. [His words feel strange. But it's getting better.] I'm really tired.
what are couches for if not sitting and having feelings, then taking a nap
[The smack is only a surprise in the exact timing and location, but less impactful than he'd been bracing for, so he lets it go without complaint. There's more important things, like nodding and continuing to try grounding him.]
If... you want, to slee-p. I'll keep wa-tch.
[There's reasons why he sometimes wants Sans to read him stories before he sleeps, after all. It feels safer, knowing his brother's there and safe. Like it reassures some deep worry about his family disappearing, that otherwise leads to nightmares. But there's not much point to thinking about it.]
Dunno if I can. [Sans's grin quirks ever so slightly lopsided.] Funny, right? [But Papyrus probably won't think so. Regardless, Sans slouches down on the couch again after his flapping shifted him around a little. He could use some sleep. Might as well give it a shot. He's great at doing nothing.]
Of all the tim-es... [It's too forced to be genuine agreement, but playing along a little. He considers, glancing around the room, and settles on a pile of discs scavenged in various dump dives.] ...Put on a mov-ie?
[Of course, that'd take getting up from the hug for a minute or two, but it'd be something to look at, maybe laugh at. He is not even slightly going to risk turning the TV on directly and risk exposing Sans to info about some other terrible thing happening for them to feel even more helpless about. There's enough distressed calls and texts about the eye flowers, religious folks expressing hopes and fears, and so on as is.]
[Sans doesn't want Papyrus to go anywhere, or to go any distance from Papyrus. But as soon as he thinks that, he feels bad about it. It's a stupid thought. He's being clingy, and he's not clingy. It's not even that far.]
Yeah, sure. [Sans shifts, but then he remembers how trying to pick up his phone had gone. His legs aren't entirely magic, but...] Uh, maybe you should do it.
Of cour-se! I was off-ering. [As much as Papyrus sometimes pushes Sans to do things like chores or having structure in his life, the last time he'll do so is when Sans is freshly injured (possibly permanently maimed) and traumatized. He pats Sans's wing two more times, and slowly stands to go get the scavenged DVD player going.] Someth-ing... funny? Space?
Space. [It's an easy choice--space is comforting. It's nice to imagine getting away. Hopefully he doesn't start spacing out; this really wouldn't be a good time. If Papyrus is right next to him it'll probably be fine.
Speaking of Papyrus being next to him, he's already starting to feel his stress ratcheting up as Papyrus moves away. He's being ridiculous. He needs to stop that. He curls his wings entirely around himself, since he won't hit Papyrus now.]
[He nods and sets to checking through them - there's a few action adventures set in space, but that's probably not the thing. Something to help sleep... Maybe this documentary on the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope? Science and tech, he's been saving this one for a day they both needed to relax into things. He puts it in, turns on the device, shoots his brother a glance...
...Ah. Already curled up miserably. Would it be too much for Papyrus to go grabbing the heated blanket? Probably, given Sans already didn't want him cleaning up the flowers. Pity none of the drones are up to that kind of weight load. He'll just have to keep offering a hug, for the combination being there and warmth. For now he finishes getting things set, and grabs the remote to bring back with him.]
[Oh, the Hubble--Sans likes the Hubble. A ray of fondness pierces through the gloom of Sans's mood; Papyrus is so cool. When Papyrus joins him on the couch again, he loosens up once more. His wings are still wrapped around himself, but it's less clingfilm and more blanket. With that second set of wings at his hips still hanging around, he can make a pretty complete cocoon.]
Y'know, I've got one of those big coffee table books of pics the Hubble took. [Papyrus absolutely knows. When Sans brought it home he'd gone through the whole book more than once and had often demanded Papyrus come over to look at pictures, even knowing Papyrus could look up high res photos with his mind.]
[Seems like Sans has the hugging situation handled, if with all his... newly persistent wings? It looks like he's being fully tangible, but there's definitely more feathers around than usual. Still not as distressing to look at as it was yesterday, likely because it's been so much today that his metrics for these things are all out of whack.
Papyrus nods knowingly as he settles back down, because he does definitely for sure know. He's seen it multiple times, on Sans's demand. In fact, isn't it floating around the room somewhere right now - like the shelf under this coffee table?]
But tha-t's a gal-lery, still pic-tures, of its work, and not... vi-deo, of the buil-ding pro-cess. ['Motionless' and 'construction' were the first words he considered using, but the more polysyllabic, the more a pain it is to splice the syllables together quickly enough. He's saying this slightly jokingly anyway, pretending Sans is inviting him to yet another round of looking at that book, when they could watch a video about machines for space.]
[It sure is. Its spine is pointing in a different direction from the other books, because Sans has no sense of neatness and he looked at it again recently. But right now he's just going to sit here and watch this video and lean against Papyrus, but only a little bit.] Yeah, this'll be really enlightening. [Because the Hubble is a Cassegrain reflector telescope, and so it reflects and focuses light from stuff in space. ...Okay, so that one's a little out there. Sans is just relieved he can still come up with a normal joke, rather than being stuck calibrated to dark humor forever.
...Heh. See, the Hubble is already lightening things up.]
[Laughter is a harder sound to accurately recreate with syllable splicing, as the NYEH HEH HEH he could make doesn't hit the right theatrical and triumphant tones without outright finding a sample and replaying it. But he lets off the same static he's made when laughing before, leaning a little back towards Sans. It's different than the more distressed or frustrated sounds to his hearing, but whether non-mechanicals can make it out...? The important thing is, even if Sans is making jokes for the sake of seeming normal, the effort involved is still better than no effort, and that's some kind of relief.]
[Sans recognizes the sound as a laugh mostly by context; the static is pretty similar to his own non-ears, though the more he hears the various kinds the more he's starting to differentiate. Sans is--well, not happy, given the circumstances, but willing to keep commenting on the video. Sometimes jokes, sometimes his own factoids about the Hubble's construction and use. Telescopes are one of the few things he's put the effort in to know how to build properly.
Sans's commentary is getting more and more spread out, though, the words starting to melt together like watercolor. He can't say he feels safe here, with what he knows about what's underground, but he's safe enough to start dozing off. He really could use sleep.]
[He chimes in here and there, sometimes replying to jokes with jokes of his own or obligatory jokes, other times pointing out design choices that he bets he could do better, given the time and tech. An important part of demonstrating presence to someone trying to fall asleep is hearing their voice, after all - he make sure to keep talking from time to time as Sans drifts off, lowering his voice as to not startle him back awake.
In the end, Papyrus is watching the end of the documentary by himself, and carefully using the remote to set it to replay without jostling Sans. A year ago, sitting here doing little but being a heater would have been an uncomfortable, boring strain. And it still is - he's starting to use his phone, and the altered toy is still floating around gathering the trash it's capable of grabbing. But he's not vibrating with the urge to get up and do things himself.
Maybe he's too accustomed to sitting and charging for hours on end. Maybe it's because there's been a lot of awful, unheard of things since back then, skewing his sense of scale all out of proportion. Something like sending a toy down into a cave, of all places, turned into an unseen Something eating part of Sans's soul, and maybe there's nothing they can do to get it back. Maybe they're still dead and will get eaten soon, and... And, just sitting here not-alone, is desperately important.]
[For two hours, Sans sleeps without more than the occasional wing twitch as his body works to heal itself of all the trauma it's taken on today, let alone the broken wings from a few days ago. Then he starts shifting more, suddenly restless, as his mind forces together mismatched, jagged puzzle pieces. A squirming octopus with a smile fit to split its face. A thing dripping red with determination biting through his soul like an apple. An endless darkness keeping him pinned down, smiling and smiling and cutting his soul up with a knife, taking piece by piece. There's going to be nothing left, it's going to take everything--
Sans jolts awake and lurches forward off the couch, fit to land face first on either the coffee table or the ground if Papyrus doesn't grab him.]
Papyrus'll talk next tag, after seeing how well he caught him
[After a while into the nap, the coffee table was repurposed into a workspace. When Sans wakes, Papyrus is leaning a wheeled leg on it (with a pillow to keep from scratching the table's surface), the better to clean bits of debris from inner mechanisms. He startles and drops the tool with a clatters off his leg, trying to catch his brother without putting an arm through ghostly ribcage and risking jostling his soul. More static, startled and concerned this time.]
[Papyrus catches Sans just short of hitting all of Papyrus's stuff and scattering it everywhere, lucky for everyone. Disoriented from nightmares, Sans flails a little, but he's uncoordinated and has even less energy than usual, so he only succeeds in knocking one of Papyrus's tools to the ground before just hanging in Papyrus's grip.]
Sans? It's okay. [The same sounds from earlier splicing, the better to soothe him again. But wakefulness might need more than reassurances, given what an obvious nightmare that was, so he follows with twisting the sound up into a question.] You're okay?
[Beyond the obvious, of a nightmare and the still-eaten soul fragment and all. But even repeating the obvious would indicate Sans is awake and in the present.]
[The eyelights in Sans's halo, previously darting aimlessly, snap to Papyrus as soon as he speaks. He recognizes the tone even before the rest of him catches up with what's happening. Papyrus is right there. He had a bad dream. He's on--well, he was on the couch. Clumsily, he tries to sit back down.]
I'm okay. [Maybe if they both say that enough, it'll be true. His soul is throbbing again; Sans isn't sure if it started up in response to the nightmare or if it was his sudden burst of activity. It probably doesn't matter. It looks like Papyrus was working on something.] I knock anything over?
Just a screw-driver. [Dismissive is another tone that's hard to splice on the fly, so he goes for something bland and waves the matter off with a hand. There's one change from when Sans went to sleep - there's no tension of disgust in Papyrus's expression, not as he looks at his brother nor as he sees his hand in his peripheral. Concerned is more the expression, as much as he's toning it down.] It's okay, I'll gra-b it.
[He would have the helicopter drone do it, but there's not enough space between the table and couch to fit. Next project, a new floor bot... Or reattaching his hand... There's a lot of things to do, really. For now, he stays where he's at to help make sure Sans is sitting back down comfortably, before he ducks forward to retrieve the screwdriver in question (lest Sans do some sleepy fretting and try to get it for him).]
[Sans sags against the back of the couch, scrubbing at his face to try and wake himself up more while Papyrus retrieves the screwdriver. He's not sure how long he was asleep, but he knows it wasn't long enough. But with echoes of anomalies and things underground drifting through his thoughts, going back to sleep right now's just asking for another bad time. He sorts out his ruffled feathers instead.] Were you working on something?
[It's safer to focus on whatever Papyrus was doing.]
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spaghettimonster) wrote2021-07-31 02:32 am
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I didn't like how those felt either. [Something crawling up out of the lake, another spot with particularly bad energy as far as Sans can tell. Something forcing its way into you and feeding off of you and making you different. Of course those leeches live here.] But. It looked different.
[Sans meant it when he said he saw it.]
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...Looked?
[Well, it's not a long question, but the tone of concerned skepticism - as near as he could get it - is important. Just how far did Sans abstract himself underground, or... did he see something when it grabbed him...?]
cw: panic attack... again
[Sans goes rigid again. He saw it, and even scraping at the barest outlines of comprehension had driven him into senselessness, and he can remember that. Black tentacles and chanting he couldn't stop. He's dizzy and shaky just thinking about it. If he keeps thinking about it is it going to happen again? He needs to stop thinking about it. He needs to stop, but he can't, he can't do anything--]
pretend their positions are swapped in this icon
At least he's still offering that half hug. Easy to squeeze a little tighter, in hopes of pulling Sans's attention back from wherever it's gone. It's fine if Sans panics and attacks him before realizing - Papyrus is sturdy, now more than ever. Even if he damages something, they can just replace it with something even better.
And as he loosens up on the hug, he shifts that arm so his... his hand, the distress of it is barely a blip compared to this, is freed to stroke down Sans's wing. He's seen his brother do that when trying to calm down enough times, and knows how comforting it feels.]
everyone needs to be reassured on a couch sometimes
When Papyrus tightens his grip just a little, Sans's wings snap forward just once, smacking into Papyrus's back. It's unfocused, and Sans is hardly the strongest guy around. It gets Sans to stop talking in circles, though, and that slows Sans's thoughts enough to process Papyrus's hand on his wing. It is comforting; by slow degrees, he eases out of his full-body flinch. He's not underground, he's at home. Papyrus is right there. Sans is--is broken, a little more than he was before, but he's not more dead. Papyrus didn't get hurt.]
I'm. [His words feel strange. But it's getting better.] I'm really tired.
what are couches for if not sitting and having feelings, then taking a nap
If... you want, to slee-p. I'll keep wa-tch.
[There's reasons why he sometimes wants Sans to read him stories before he sleeps, after all. It feels safer, knowing his brother's there and safe. Like it reassures some deep worry about his family disappearing, that otherwise leads to nightmares.
But there's not much point to thinking about it.]no subject
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[Of course, that'd take getting up from the hug for a minute or two, but it'd be something to look at, maybe laugh at. He is not even slightly going to risk turning the TV on directly and risk exposing Sans to info about some other terrible thing happening for them to feel even more helpless about. There's enough distressed calls and texts about the eye flowers, religious folks expressing hopes and fears, and so on as is.]
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Yeah, sure. [Sans shifts, but then he remembers how trying to pick up his phone had gone. His legs aren't entirely magic, but...] Uh, maybe you should do it.
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Speaking of Papyrus being next to him, he's already starting to feel his stress ratcheting up as Papyrus moves away. He's being ridiculous. He needs to stop that. He curls his wings entirely around himself, since he won't hit Papyrus now.]
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...Ah. Already curled up miserably. Would it be too much for Papyrus to go grabbing the heated blanket? Probably, given Sans already didn't want him cleaning up the flowers. Pity none of the drones are up to that kind of weight load. He'll just have to keep offering a hug, for the combination being there and warmth. For now he finishes getting things set, and grabs the remote to bring back with him.]
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Y'know, I've got one of those big coffee table books of pics the Hubble took. [Papyrus absolutely knows. When Sans brought it home he'd gone through the whole book more than once and had often demanded Papyrus come over to look at pictures, even knowing Papyrus could look up high res photos with his mind.]
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Papyrus nods knowingly as he settles back down, because he does definitely for sure know. He's seen it multiple times, on Sans's demand. In fact, isn't it floating around the room somewhere right now - like the shelf under this coffee table?]
But tha-t's a gal-lery, still pic-tures, of its work, and not... vi-deo, of the buil-ding pro-cess. ['Motionless' and 'construction' were the first words he considered using, but the more polysyllabic, the more a pain it is to splice the syllables together quickly enough. He's saying this slightly jokingly anyway, pretending Sans is inviting him to yet another round of looking at that book, when they could watch a video about machines for space.]
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...Heh. See, the Hubble is already lightening things up.]
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Sans's commentary is getting more and more spread out, though, the words starting to melt together like watercolor. He can't say he feels safe here, with what he knows about what's underground, but he's safe enough to start dozing off. He really could use sleep.]
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In the end, Papyrus is watching the end of the documentary by himself, and carefully using the remote to set it to replay without jostling Sans. A year ago, sitting here doing little but being a heater would have been an uncomfortable, boring strain. And it still is - he's starting to use his phone, and the altered toy is still floating around gathering the trash it's capable of grabbing. But he's not vibrating with the urge to get up and do things himself.
Maybe he's too accustomed to sitting and charging for hours on end. Maybe it's because there's been a lot of awful, unheard of things since back then, skewing his sense of scale all out of proportion. Something like sending a toy down into a cave, of all places, turned into an unseen Something eating part of Sans's soul, and maybe there's nothing they can do to get it back. Maybe they're still dead and will get eaten soon, and... And, just sitting here not-alone, is desperately important.]
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Sans jolts awake and lurches forward off the couch, fit to land face first on either the coffee table or the ground if Papyrus doesn't grab him.]
Papyrus'll talk next tag, after seeing how well he caught him
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[Beyond the obvious, of a nightmare and the still-eaten soul fragment and all. But even repeating the obvious would indicate Sans is awake and in the present.]
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I'm okay. [Maybe if they both say that enough, it'll be true. His soul is throbbing again; Sans isn't sure if it started up in response to the nightmare or if it was his sudden burst of activity. It probably doesn't matter. It looks like Papyrus was working on something.] I knock anything over?
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[He would have the helicopter drone do it, but there's not enough space between the table and couch to fit. Next project, a new floor bot... Or reattaching his hand... There's a lot of things to do, really. For now, he stays where he's at to help make sure Sans is sitting back down comfortably, before he ducks forward to retrieve the screwdriver in question (lest Sans do some sleepy fretting and try to get it for him).]
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[It's safer to focus on whatever Papyrus was doing.]
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small text, small voice, shhh
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