[Okay, yeah, it's kind of relevant information right now, maybe. (Anyway, Alphys is probably dead.)] Uh--'s amalgamation, I think. [Alphys came up with the term. Sans remembers her explanation, though it had been--uh, shaky. She'd been upset. He'd pieced more of it together himself later.] Usually it just happens if you inject a monster with a lot of Determination. [Or a monster's Fallen Down body. Sans suddenly isn't sure which of those they'd count as, technically.] Our bodies can't handle it like a human, so we, uh--
[The sharp image, unbidden, of Sans watching Undyne melting after the anomaly had struck a killing blow. No, focus.]
We melt. Can't be the exact same, but it's similar.
[Speaking of melting, Sans has lost whole shoulder socket by this point. Sans flaps his wings to try and maintain some sort of balance.]
[Even with the metal wing, flapping has no chance of picking them up - far too much weight. Papyrus shifts his weight to try to keep them balanced, adjusting for the strain he's feeling from Sans as if it's his own strain. But he flinches again at the memory of Undyne... dying, like this? Are they dying?]
Wha... We're not even, super determined about anything right now?? [His voice is a little higher strung than usual, surely a forgivable lapse in cool demeanor. The foot that went tangible isn't quite all the way tangible, again - it hit the bed frame as he shifted, but made more of a soft flump against the blanket-covered wood than a crack of metal, as from his other foot. It's not just where they're touching (is this because they were touching?), it's spreading.
...And it doesn't even feel terrible, which might be the worst thing. Strange, alarming, but he's still happy from being near Sans. Wanting to relax and take a load off.]
[Sans wants to pat Papyrus on the arm or something, maybe try to calm him down, but he lost one of those already. He nudges Papyrus as best he can like this instead.] Doesn't feel like we're dying. [At least, not what Sans remembers it feeling like.] And I'm never determined about anything. 'S gotta be something else causing similar effects.
[Even though he's startled and unsure about what's happening, Sans is kind of surprised he's this calm about it, relatively. When he first learned about the amalgamates it kept him up for a few nights. This isn't nearly as bad as he imagined. He tries moving what was at least at one point his arm again, not sure if he's going to get any movement at all, just move his, uh, goop, or if he'll move Papyrus's, too. It's hard to tell the difference when it's goop.]
[The goop that is their combined arm moves, in a way that shifts their upper arms and shoulders with it. Papyrus stares at it moves, not actively trying to hold it stiffly - making sense of how it almost feels like he's moving it, of what he can feel from it. And he agrees, this doesn't feel like death, for all it seems like what Sans saw from Undyne, or from... Monsters injected with Determination, by Alphys, sometime? If he shoves their own associations aside, just looking at what's happening, what's been happening all night...]
Something like... Like thoughts, and feelings, and everything. Melting... together. [Very literally melting. And even with their arms melting together to where he can't tell one from the other, he wants to lean against his brother's shoulder.]
Yeah, something like that. [Exactly something like that, apparently. Does that mean they're going to become one monster? Are they going to be goopy, or reform afterward? Sans's memories flick through images of the amalgamates he's seen in the lab. Endogeny always seemed to like him best. Of course, the amalgamates were always hard to read, even for someone as good at reading people as Sans.
(It's not something Sans would think to focus on, just background information while he thinks about his encounters with the amalgamates, but one of his memories includes the room that's filled with golden flowers.)]
Uh. How're you... Thinking, I guess? Like--everything's in order? [Sans is being pointlessly vague. He often is, but this time it's especially ridiculous because Papyrus knows what he's thinking. He's trying to check for thought coherency. The amalgamates in Alphys's basement often have trouble thinking straight. Somehow, that seems more important to check on than figuring out if there's a way to detach himself is. Papyrus wants him here, anyway, so he's not going anywhere.]
[Expendable or not, Papyrus could probably detach his arm, if they needed. Sans would still have a goo limb, and they'd still want to be near each other, so it might just happen again... But if he doesn't, will they keep melting together? Form some metallic angel skeleton? Or just exist as a puddle together, all privacy lost as they wander from thought to thought like it's all their own...? Exhausting.]
I am thinking... I want to sleep this off. Which is maybe a you thought?? [Which is to say, in at least one way he's not thinking straight - they're too muddled together for that. Sans's vagueness isn't helping, as trying to follow the thoughts about thinking leaves him stuck on that image of familiar flowers.
Maybe they should stay on the couch, and not going anywhere they might touch flowers or bugs or basically anything else alive. Just in case they'd join the melting pot too. Is that what happened to his flower friend, some goopy monster wandered in a flower hallway..?]
Yeah, probably. [Sleeping things off definitely isn't Papyrus's thing. Papyrus detaching his arm is probably the practical solution here, but part of Sans hates the idea of being left alone, even if that's stupid and Papyrus would still be right there. Coherent trains of thought or not, this situation is probably not helping him think straight.
It's been a while since Sans has thought about Papyrus's mysterious flower friend who Sans was sure had been deliberately avoiding him. He'd been suspicious, but in the end, it hadn't really mattered. Other things to worry about. But now he guesses he at least knows what kind of flower it looks like.
It's getting kind of hard for Sans to differentiate who's thinking and feeling what here.] If you wanna pop your arm off, you can. I'm not gonna stop you. [It's natural to think that he couldn't even if he wanted to, but actually, could he? How attached are their bodies at this point? Sans moved their weird goopy arm just fine as one thing. Well, he's not going to try, no matter how he feels about it. Unless that's Papyrus's feeling about it, in which case--well, that's why he's leaving it up to Papyrus.]
> stay on the bed, i knew i was sleepy for doing tags
But, I'm a little worried... What if it hurts you? [He's fine with detaching parts, nearly all of his body is modular like that. But when he disconnects things, they're disconnected - inactive, no feedback. Sans has sensation in his floating halo, eyesight always and pain when it's injured. Would separating himself from that arm actually detach them, with no sensory feedback, or would it be more like Sans's halo...? Would Papyrus keep feeling it, despite it being connected to Sans? Would it go inert, a heavy weight dragging Sans down as badly as that metallic wing...?
At least the want to sleep is probably Sans, the conflicted want to split things off probably Papyrus. They can still distinguish themselves mentally, somewhat. He moves their arm this time, trying to flex it to feel if there's still fingers in there somewhere if they focus, trying to confirm if the melting is actively spreading upwards, the way he thinks it is.]
it's the power of the couch icon we were using a few tags ago
Is the goop in your socket yet? If it's all you it's prob'ly fine. [The conflict over splitting things off is definitely Papyrus, because Sans has gone from confusion and amalgamate comparisons to not wanting to go anywhere once a theoretical option was presented. That's weird, right? He's been the one acting weirder since this started. He feels kind of bad about it.
(In the back of his head, prompted by Papyrus's thoughts about how Sans's halo works, is the ridiculous image of Sans just hovering around Papyrus with one goopy, metal-monster arm. Or maybe Sans just getting dragged along the ground. It's a funny idea.)]
Probably... [Papyrus huffs a faint laugh at the image of Sans floating around like a balloon, and twists a bit to examine their shoulders. It certainly seems like they're metal and bone respectively. But he anxiously kicks his feet against the bed frame again, and remembers.]
...It's in my foot. [Even if it's not already in his arm's socket, if the melting is anything like mold in human food... It's already spread through them. Probably better to wait and see, try to take it easy and be kind to themselves, than get all worked up about it. Less effort, less chance of messing things up worse - no need to repeat the leech thing. It'll probably all fade after a couple days or weeks, anyway.
(Is this a Papyrus way of thinking...? But the thought is coming from him, isn't it? Is this what Sans thinks like, when nobody's shutting him down?)]
[There's something soothing about being in thought-based agreement, even if Sans also doesn't want Papyrus to think like him. Well, in this case, Sans isn't sure what they're actually supposed to do about it except wait. Maybe there's a trick to it, but when Sans tries to extend his spiritual senses he doesn't catch any signs of anything like the leeches. Extending his senses like that is weird, though, because he can feel Papyrus like he can feel his own magic, a suggestion of electricity and metal. Like that metal wing but more.]
Okay, yeah, I guess we're already pretty attached. [But it's not really that bad. It still feels nice. Not like the leeches, but maybe like how everyone else seemed to feel the leeches? No, this is still a calmer feeling than all that weird aggressive happiness.] But you'll probably be able to teleport again if you wanna. And maybe we'll get more invisible arms. You could build a lot of stuff like that. [He doesn't notice the "we" slipping in, like they're one thing. He also doesn't know why he's trying to be optimistic, given how rarely he tries that.]
St-Starting with... A new cool outfit. For... however many limbs, uh, we end up with. [Papyrus notices the "we" but matches it anyway, as part of his effort to try not to burn through energy making themselves miserable. It's easy to notice, when his background process of comparing his behavior with the closed model of his "normal" is running as usual, flagging other fluctuations in his priorities. (Popping up as questions and concerns, interrupting his conscious thought process when the variation is strong enough.)
But as Sans stretches out with spiritual senses to try figuring out what's going on, Papyrus feels the same impulse to search and figure things out - the exact same impulse, probably. He initiates something more active and comprehensive, to scan his body for strange error messages and signal interruptions and so on. It immediately starts returning signals from his arm and foot, of course, as well as spots in his chest, in a hip, and some of the components in his skull. (Well, his skull was probably the place it started, with thoughts and feelings flowing like they have been...) The mess of signals extends further than that, those from his arm a jumble with some other formatting, not quite electrical, not electromagnetic, but not not those things either. Something that reminds him... of magic, of course. (Strange to realize how much that familiarity's faded, in less than a year without it.)
That metal wing is the easiest to understand the signals from, with the same sort of error messages as the parts of them that have melted or that are apparently at risk of it - indications of the change? Getting signal responses back makes it seem even more a part of his|their body, and Papyrus experimentally tries to flex it before he thinks twice about doing so.]
[Sans's metal wing stretches out, to Sans's confusion. It doesn't look like it's melting or anything that might have made it stretch on its own, or--oh.] Was that you? [If it was Papyrus, that's--okay, he guesses. A little alarming somewhere in the back of his head, but Sans can't flag himself for personality fluctuations and so he's left to go along with them with less warning.
Sans's leg, the one on the same side as his melted arm, is starting to lose its form by degrees. It's less sudden than the arm was, and so Sans isn't quite as startled by it. It's just sort of a thing that's happening.]
[Papyrus cycles from shared-confusion, through realization as the question's topic sinks in, to a startled embarrassment.] That, uh... Yes, that was me! Sorry. I just... I didn't think it would actually work?
[Still, it was overstepping to just chase his curiosity without so much as a please, even if they do keep melting so there's no differences between them. Hardly a good start to a melting! (And maybe it's funny that he overstepped, given the ongoing and escalating situation with their feet. Heh.)
He leans forward a little, partly to get his face just out of halo range, partly to see Sans's leg melting from the outside. It... sure is a thing that's happening. At least the liquidity of it doesn't resemble either of their own deaths. That's something.]
It's okay. Just surprised me, 's all. [Maybe he should be more worried about it--intellectually, like looking over a math problem that isn't working, he can see the issue--but he just can't work up the emotional concern. It's Papyrus, so it's fine.]
This is gonna make going to work kind of complicated. [Maybe they could teleport back and forth?]
Oh my god, we can't both go to work! [It's a dismaying realization, that they'll need to choose one, or wear themselves out teleporting... or both call out. (Maybe not as dramatic as he makes it out to be, since it's a good distraction from thinking about unthinkingly moving Sans's wing.) The followup realization about how he worded that is no less dismaying.] ...Or. I mean. I guess, we both will.
[They'll both just need to... decide what they're going to do, if either. He can't really be involved in repairs at the shop if they're teleporting out every ten minutes to check on the dig, so trying to do both... It'd have to be part-days for each. The idea of Sans slacking off while he's at the autoshop, or of him stuck calling out from the autoshop indefinitely while this nonsense is going on... Neither's great, and there's appeal in just hiding in a bedroom while this settles out. But there's appeal in spending time joking around with people, or making something that makes the world better in some little piece of it. Indecision.]
It'd be pretty hard for just one of us to go. [Though, like there's some tiny, invisible crack, Sans's leg doesn't melt further at least for the moment. Not that he's about to admit it (even entirely to himself), but he likes his job at the dig site. But it should probably be Papyrus's job, if they're picking one, right? That's not even entirely a new thought; even if it's bolstered by the circumstances, Sans would put Papyrus's interests first under normal circumstances too. Just, uh, usually it's not quite so literal a matter of having to choose. Still.] Maka's good about sick time.
[The dig site in general is a more accepting place for the monsters who showed up there than a lot of places. Sans has more wiggle room. And he's better at talking his way out of this sort of thing than Papyrus anyway.]
Maybe too good, but I see your point. [Feels a lot more of the train of thought than he suspects Sans wants him to follow, for that matter. It's not good for them to always put Papyrus first, because even if he usually has more things that he wants strongly, they both have needs. Besides...]
...Auto-shopping, is a little harder to do, with goo hands. I bet. [He hasn't actually tried, yet, but it's harder to do with oil on one's hands, so having one's hands being goo is likely even more difficult.] And you're not usually digging, right...?
Nah, I'm not actually an archeologist. They make you go to school for that and everything. [Sans does a lot of math. It's mostly computer work, actually, which means he gets to sit under the tent and sun his wings and eat snacks. They do let him theorize and poke around the ruins, but nothing that might lead to him accidentally breaking any old buildings.
From this particular, up close and personal angle, it's very obvious how unnaturally the symbols sit in Sans's mind. They take up more importance in his thoughts than they should, even when he's only thinking about them incidentally as he thinks about the things he does at the dig site.]
Not all our arms are goo, y'know. [Sans has lost one but he's still got seven. Not as strong as Papyrus, but maybe if Papyrus uses them that'll be different...? He's not actually sure how that would apply. It's an extension of magic, so would it be an extension of Papyrus's magic in that case? Well, it's increasingly the same magic, so...]
Edited (lost track of how many arms sans has because it's an unreasonable amount) 2022-04-19 05:13 (UTC)
spider-sans, spider-sans, does some things that spiders do? no webs yet tho
Not yet, anyway... [It's hard to maintain any optimism that they're not going to completely melt into each other, after all. To some degree, he's almost hoping it'll happen and get over with already, instead of leaving them in this suspense about it. And so the idea of using Sans's ghost arms is appealing, if only because magic limbs seem unlikely to melt the way their bodies are.
But he's actively lowering the priority of this thought process and conversation, to focus more of his attention on the sudden distortion in Sans's thought process. It's not exactly jealousy, but he's uncomfortably aware of how important the symbols are, like they're taking Sans's attention away from where it should be. (Maybe it's a little bit jealousy? The symbols aren't that cool, and they don't remind anyone to eat healthy, that he knows of.)]
Hey, we've got plenty. The ones that're magic'll last. [Which is wildly optimistic for Sans, but when he hears Papyrus sounding so pessimistic he manages to pull it from somewhere. (From Papyrus?)
The symbols are definitely important to Sans. He's rationalized it as being something that must be connected to how they got here and will help with understanding it. They arrived in the ruins, and the ruins are covered in symbols, so it makes sense, right? But they're important on their own, honestly. Sans's mind came up with the reasoning just to explain to himself why he was so interested.]
[On some level, Papyrus muses that it's amazing the symbols aren't all circles, given the circular logic that he snags on the more he leans his attention towards those thoughts. It's no surprise when a few logic errors flag at him, but he waves them off impatiently and does his best to focus on Papyrusy things instead of sharing in a weird obsession with symbols.
(Maybe because it's not an unfamiliar obsessing, looking for ciphers or codes or mysteries to be solved in strange symbols. Some of the symbols that show up in the newspaper horoscopes... He knows they mean something. They used to. Hadn't they?)]
Okay, you're not wrong! But!! Can they wear gloves? It's important safety policies, that everyone be wearing gloves. Even magic ghost hands, probably.
[Sans put oven mitts on them once, but he only thinks about that for a split second, because he did that when he was in his leech-induced baking spree. Instead he replaces it with the funnier idea of each of his hands in a different glove, all of them seeming to float around behind him. This one in a boxing glove, that one in a winter glove, the other one in one of those fancy ballgown gloves that go up to your elbows...]
We could try it. They can pick things up, so probably, 's long as we kept enough magic in 'em to keep them kind of solid.
["Kind of solid" is how Sans thinks of their ability to touch and manipulate things while remaining invisible. Meanwhile, his leg has gone back to melting. Considering Papyrus is taller than him, he doesn't think he can reach the floor at this point if they got up.
As far as the idea of the symbols being circular logic goes, Sans disagrees, obviously. It's perfectly reasonable to study the symbols if you're studying the ruins. Sans is starting to hear that whispering again, but it's so common when he thinks too long about the symbols that he can mostly ignore it.]
[Things that don't emulate the leech time are vastly preferable, for all that it drives home that this really isn't that - go figure, that melting is a relief. The possibility of going from gloves to sock puppets comes to mind - they could run an entire puppet show, "single"-handed.]
We definitely can try it! With things we don't mind, uh. Melting around, maybe.
[So ix-nay on ock-puppet-say until they practice. And probably at least a day off work, as they practice various ways of getting around. Maybe a robotic extension for Sans's melting leg, so that they're more of a similar height...?
The whispers grab at his attention all over again. In theory, they'd just blend in with the ambient background signals of radio and phone and solar sounds. In practice, there's something about it that's different, and he's baffled by Sans's practiced near-ignoring.]
Once the melting stops. [Which it will, he's sure! ...For some reason. That's not really like him, is it? But actually it feels a lot better than his usual pessimism, so it's hard to worry about being optimistic. Anyway, if they don't stop melting, how are they going to put on The Best Puppet Show Of All Time (for a certain value of "best")?] We should probably skip work tomorrow no matter where we end up going. [Sans agrees with this "take a day off to figure out how their body is even going to work" idea. Getting a robo-leg sounds kind of fun, but Sans supplies Papyrus with the idea of Papyrus just carrying Sans around like a sack of potatoes forever. Finally, ultimate laziness.
When it comes to the whispering, Sans definitely doesn't like that Papyrus heard it, but it's more of a "hand caught in the cookie jar" kind of reaction, rather than the kind of feelings creepy whispering should probably invoke. This happens when Sans thinks about the symbols, it's not a big deal, nothing to worry about! But he'd been hoping Papyrus wouldn't find out anyway, because even with his symbol obsession, Sans knows the whispering is concerning.
(The whispering is getting louder. The more you think about the symbols, the louder it gets. That's the rule.)]
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spaghettimonster) wrote2021-07-31 02:32 am
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[The sharp image, unbidden, of Sans watching Undyne melting after the anomaly had struck a killing blow. No, focus.]
We melt. Can't be the exact same, but it's similar.
[Speaking of melting, Sans has lost whole shoulder socket by this point. Sans flaps his wings to try and maintain some sort of balance.]
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Wha... We're not even, super determined about anything right now?? [His voice is a little higher strung than usual, surely a forgivable lapse in cool demeanor. The foot that went tangible isn't quite all the way tangible, again - it hit the bed frame as he shifted, but made more of a soft flump against the blanket-covered wood than a crack of metal, as from his other foot. It's not just where they're touching (is this because they were touching?), it's spreading.
...And it doesn't even feel terrible, which might be the worst thing. Strange, alarming, but he's still happy from being near Sans. Wanting to relax and take a load off.]
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[Even though he's startled and unsure about what's happening, Sans is kind of surprised he's this calm about it, relatively. When he first learned about the amalgamates it kept him up for a few nights. This isn't nearly as bad as he imagined. He tries moving what was at least at one point his arm again, not sure if he's going to get any movement at all, just move his, uh, goop, or if he'll move Papyrus's, too. It's hard to tell the difference when it's goop.]
can't prove they have separate arms in that icon
Something like... Like thoughts, and feelings, and everything. Melting... together. [Very literally melting. And even with their arms melting together to where he can't tell one from the other, he wants to lean against his brother's shoulder.]
couch icon has so many uses
(It's not something Sans would think to focus on, just background information while he thinks about his encounters with the amalgamates, but one of his memories includes the room that's filled with golden flowers.)]
Uh. How're you... Thinking, I guess? Like--everything's in order? [Sans is being pointlessly vague. He often is, but this time it's especially ridiculous because Papyrus knows what he's thinking. He's trying to check for thought coherency. The amalgamates in Alphys's basement often have trouble thinking straight. Somehow, that seems more important to check on than figuring out if there's a way to detach himself is. Papyrus wants him here, anyway, so he's not going anywhere.]
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I am thinking... I want to sleep this off. Which is maybe a you thought?? [Which is to say, in at least one way he's not thinking straight - they're too muddled together for that. Sans's vagueness isn't helping, as trying to follow the thoughts about thinking leaves him stuck on that image of familiar flowers.
Maybe they should stay on the couch, and not going anywhere they might touch flowers or bugs or basically anything else alive. Just in case they'd join the melting pot too. Is that what happened to his flower friend, some goopy monster wandered in a flower hallway..?]
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It's been a while since Sans has thought about Papyrus's mysterious flower friend who Sans was sure had been deliberately avoiding him. He'd been suspicious, but in the end, it hadn't really mattered. Other things to worry about. But now he guesses he at least knows what kind of flower it looks like.
It's getting kind of hard for Sans to differentiate who's thinking and feeling what here.] If you wanna pop your arm off, you can. I'm not gonna stop you. [It's natural to think that he couldn't even if he wanted to, but actually, could he? How attached are their bodies at this point? Sans moved their weird goopy arm just fine as one thing. Well, he's not going to try, no matter how he feels about it. Unless that's Papyrus's feeling about it, in which case--well, that's why he's leaving it up to Papyrus.]
> stay on the bed, i knew i was sleepy for doing tags
At least the want to sleep is probably Sans, the conflicted want to split things off probably Papyrus. They can still distinguish themselves mentally, somewhat. He moves their arm this time, trying to flex it to feel if there's still fingers in there somewhere if they focus, trying to confirm if the melting is actively spreading upwards, the way he thinks it is.]
it's the power of the couch icon we were using a few tags ago
(In the back of his head, prompted by Papyrus's thoughts about how Sans's halo works, is the ridiculous image of Sans just hovering around Papyrus with one goopy, metal-monster arm. Or maybe Sans just getting dragged along the ground. It's a funny idea.)]
potent couch
...It's in my foot. [Even if it's not already in his arm's socket, if the melting is anything like mold in human food... It's already spread through them. Probably better to wait and see, try to take it easy and be kind to themselves, than get all worked up about it. Less effort, less chance of messing things up worse - no need to repeat the leech thing. It'll probably all fade after a couple days or weeks, anyway.
(Is this a Papyrus way of thinking...? But the thought is coming from him, isn't it? Is this what Sans thinks like, when nobody's shutting him down?)]
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Okay, yeah, I guess we're already pretty attached. [But it's not really that bad. It still feels nice. Not like the leeches, but maybe like how everyone else seemed to feel the leeches? No, this is still a calmer feeling than all that weird aggressive happiness.] But you'll probably be able to teleport again if you wanna. And maybe we'll get more invisible arms. You could build a lot of stuff like that. [He doesn't notice the "we" slipping in, like they're one thing. He also doesn't know why he's trying to be optimistic, given how rarely he tries that.]
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But as Sans stretches out with spiritual senses to try figuring out what's going on, Papyrus feels the same impulse to search and figure things out - the exact same impulse, probably. He initiates something more active and comprehensive, to scan his body for strange error messages and signal interruptions and so on. It immediately starts returning signals from his arm and foot, of course, as well as spots in his chest, in a hip, and some of the components in his skull. (Well, his skull was probably the place it started, with thoughts and feelings flowing like they have been...) The mess of signals extends further than that, those from his arm a jumble with some other formatting, not quite electrical, not electromagnetic, but not not those things either. Something that reminds him... of magic, of course. (Strange to realize how much that familiarity's faded, in less than a year without it.)
That metal wing is the easiest to understand the signals from, with the same sort of error messages as the parts of them that have melted or that are apparently at risk of it - indications of the change? Getting signal responses back makes it seem even more a part of his|their body, and Papyrus experimentally tries to flex it before he thinks twice about doing so.]
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Sans's leg, the one on the same side as his melted arm, is starting to lose its form by degrees. It's less sudden than the arm was, and so Sans isn't quite as startled by it. It's just sort of a thing that's happening.]
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[Still, it was overstepping to just chase his curiosity without so much as a please, even if they do keep melting so there's no differences between them. Hardly a good start to a melting! (And maybe it's funny that he overstepped, given the ongoing and escalating situation with their feet. Heh.)
He leans forward a little, partly to get his face just out of halo range, partly to see Sans's leg melting from the outside. It... sure is a thing that's happening. At least the liquidity of it doesn't resemble either of their own deaths. That's something.]
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This is gonna make going to work kind of complicated. [Maybe they could teleport back and forth?]
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[They'll both just need to... decide what they're going to do, if either. He can't really be involved in repairs at the shop if they're teleporting out every ten minutes to check on the dig, so trying to do both... It'd have to be part-days for each. The idea of Sans slacking off while he's at the autoshop, or of him stuck calling out from the autoshop indefinitely while this nonsense is going on... Neither's great, and there's appeal in just hiding in a bedroom while this settles out. But there's appeal in spending time joking around with people, or making something that makes the world better in some little piece of it. Indecision.]
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[The dig site in general is a more accepting place for the monsters who showed up there than a lot of places. Sans has more wiggle room. And he's better at talking his way out of this sort of thing than Papyrus anyway.]
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...Auto-shopping, is a little harder to do, with goo hands. I bet. [He hasn't actually tried, yet, but it's harder to do with oil on one's hands, so having one's hands being goo is likely even more difficult.] And you're not usually digging, right...?
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From this particular, up close and personal angle, it's very obvious how unnaturally the symbols sit in Sans's mind. They take up more importance in his thoughts than they should, even when he's only thinking about them incidentally as he thinks about the things he does at the dig site.]
Not all our arms are goo, y'know. [Sans has lost one but he's still got seven. Not as strong as Papyrus, but maybe if Papyrus uses them that'll be different...? He's not actually sure how that would apply. It's an extension of magic, so would it be an extension of Papyrus's magic in that case? Well, it's increasingly the same magic, so...]
spider-sans, spider-sans, does some things that spiders do? no webs yet tho
But he's actively lowering the priority of this thought process and conversation, to focus more of his attention on the sudden distortion in Sans's thought process. It's not exactly jealousy, but he's uncomfortably aware of how important the symbols are, like they're taking Sans's attention away from where it should be. (Maybe it's a little bit jealousy? The symbols aren't that cool, and they don't remind anyone to eat healthy, that he knows of.)]
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The symbols are definitely important to Sans. He's rationalized it as being something that must be connected to how they got here and will help with understanding it. They arrived in the ruins, and the ruins are covered in symbols, so it makes sense, right? But they're important on their own, honestly. Sans's mind came up with the reasoning just to explain to himself why he was so interested.]
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(Maybe because it's not an unfamiliar obsessing, looking for ciphers or codes or mysteries to be solved in strange symbols. Some of the symbols that show up in the newspaper horoscopes... He knows they mean something. They used to. Hadn't they?)]
Okay, you're not wrong! But!! Can they wear gloves? It's important safety policies, that everyone be wearing gloves. Even magic ghost hands, probably.
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We could try it. They can pick things up, so probably, 's long as we kept enough magic in 'em to keep them kind of solid.
["Kind of solid" is how Sans thinks of their ability to touch and manipulate things while remaining invisible. Meanwhile, his leg has gone back to melting. Considering Papyrus is taller than him, he doesn't think he can reach the floor at this point if they got up.
As far as the idea of the symbols being circular logic goes, Sans disagrees, obviously. It's perfectly reasonable to study the symbols if you're studying the ruins. Sans is starting to hear that whispering again, but it's so common when he thinks too long about the symbols that he can mostly ignore it.]
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We definitely can try it! With things we don't mind, uh. Melting around, maybe.
[So ix-nay on ock-puppet-say until they practice. And probably at least a day off work, as they practice various ways of getting around. Maybe a robotic extension for Sans's melting leg, so that they're more of a similar height...?
The whispers grab at his attention all over again. In theory, they'd just blend in with the ambient background signals of radio and phone and solar sounds. In practice, there's something about it that's different, and he's baffled by Sans's practiced near-ignoring.]
no subject
When it comes to the whispering, Sans definitely doesn't like that Papyrus heard it, but it's more of a "hand caught in the cookie jar" kind of reaction, rather than the kind of feelings creepy whispering should probably invoke. This happens when Sans thinks about the symbols, it's not a big deal, nothing to worry about! But he'd been hoping Papyrus wouldn't find out anyway, because even with his symbol obsession, Sans knows the whispering is concerning.
(The whispering is getting louder. The more you think about the symbols, the louder it gets. That's the rule.)]
reread the whole thread to figure out where his phone was last mentioned
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