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[Sans should sit up, at least. He should, but telling himself that doesn't make his limbs move. He stays where he planted himself, tugging the blanket over top of himself and feeling some of the tension in his wings loosen. He's still trying to get himself to sit up, but the best he can do is turning his head a bit more to better look at Papyrus.]

The sun lamp'll probably fit on the nightstand. [Some of the rocks might have to be shuffled around, but there isn't a regular lamp on it, so there's room.] Or just put it on the floor. I'll deal with it later. [He can't imagine Papyrus wanting to stick around in here longer than he has to.]

Too... ready for bed, for light, huh? [After this, he can't fully blame Sans for wanting to sleep and hope to be normal in the morning. But he glances at the floor, just long enough to make a face at the idea of adding to the mess there, before shaking his head. Yeah, no. He's taking a couple minutes shifting the mystery nightstand rocks around to make a good space for the sun lamp, where it won't fall off it turned off by a sleepy hand, then looks for the nearest outlet. The better to plug them both in, even if he's not going to light the sun lamp unwanted.]

[The rocks are smooth to the touch--polished. If Papyrus looks, some of them have writing engraved on them, because they're pieces of old gravestones. Sans is quiet again, unmoving. There's an outlet right behind the nightstand; Sans's leech had at least thought to set up all the furniture in a convenient way.]

Actually. Um. I sleep better with lights on. [Which he doesn't want to think about right now, because it's another change, but it's true and he doesn't want to be up all night in Papyrus's way.]

With them on...? [This leaves several mysteries, including why Sans seemed energized by them downstairs, and why he left them on up here. Was he...? Yeah, he was probably trying to give himself nightmares, or something stupid like that. Papyrus huffs a sigh as he reaches to turn the light on, angle it across Sans's position to the far wall.] Like that?

[He starts shifting the rocks around to make an interesting shadow pattern, and pauses to stare at one of them and grimace. Rocks with carvings. Symbols. They are from the ruins, aren't they? This is distressing. Should he wait to ask, until... they've had a chance to sleep all this off?]

Yeah. [Sans's plan is to just stay here curled up in this blanket and his wings and not move either ever again or at least until tomorrow, but he catches Papyrus's grimace. What was Sans thinking, leaving those gravestone pieces out and then not doing anything to make them less obvious when Papyrus said he was coming in? Stupid. He's really on a roll here.]

You don't want to keep standing around in here all night. I'm not goin' anywhere. [Papyrus can go do something he might actually like doing instead.]

[Sans isn't wrong about part of that, anyway. Standing around in Sans's mess of a sad lump room - even if the un-imposed books now add a little more decor to the place than socks or rocks - is not his idea of a great evening. And it's feeling like Sans wants Papyrus to get going, and this is a privacy he hasn't completely lost. But...]

...You promise? [He doesn't want to find that Sans has gone and disappeared, exiling himself to a cave or something, come morning.]

[As always, Sans hesitates at the idea of a promise. But if he can't promise Papyrus of all people something so simple, then there might not be a point to trying to hang onto who he's supposed to be at all anymore.]

Yeah, promise.

Okay. [He doesn't burst into song, but there's relief in his voice, and he sets the last of the suspiciously symboled rocks back down. The line of them are making a shape like a mountain against Sans's far wall, a silhouette like the paintings he's seen of what Mount Ebott supposedly looks like. It feels far away, these days, between all the death and changes. Overshadowed by the sunlight and distractions of the human world. But... maybe something worth thinking about, too.]

[It turns out the sun lamp specifically actually is hard for Sans to sleep in, at least when he's already worked up from everything that happened. There's a comfort to it, too, though, and he spends half an hour staring at nothing trying to turn his brain off before he switches the sun lamp off. That leaves him in the dark, and then it's another half an hour of fighting with something else--a crawling unease in every shifting shadow, like the darkness is closing in on him. He's spent his whole life before he got here underground, he's slept in the dark for years, he glows, but none of this rationalization makes the feelings go away. He reaches out with one of his invisible hands, hesitates, and then frees himself from his cocoon to turn on his regular light the normal way. Guess there really is a difference between the sun lamp and a lightbulb besides just brightness. He crawls back under the electric blanket and wraps it and his wings around himself all over again, and sleep finally has some mercy on him.

The sunlight through the windows wakes him up the next morning, like it has since he started changing. That doesn't stop him from lying in bed for another fifteen minutes. He could keep lying here, call off work and be the lump he was always meant to be, but he can't make himself even more of a burden to Papyrus especially after last night. So. Up. Come on. Get up.

Okay. He's up. Being up means the potential of crossing paths with Papyrus, if he's home right now, and Sans isn't sure how he's going to deal with that, but he's up. He's not sure if Papyrus being mad or Papyrus being nice to him is going to be worse, but he's up. (Papyrus being disappointed with him would be the worst, of course.)]

[Five more minutes, and Sans teleports to the kitchen. At least he's got leftover pizza to eat; that's even easier than cereal. He'll have to make the coffee, but he can deal with that. He's brought the electric blanket, unplugged and trailing around like a long fluffy cape held up by his wings.]

[It's a much slower, longer night than Papyrus had figured on. He'd requested it off, the better to be around for stargazing going late.

Which. It didn't. Not technically. It did for him, personally, in the sense of lying on the living room couch for a while, all the room's lights turned off, the better to stare up at the glowing plastic. Prettier than he'd expected. They were yellow-green instead of blue-purple, but apparently larger than real stars, which made them feel more like the view in the far side of Waterfall.

As the plastic stars fade and the homesickness gets to be too much, he heads to his workshop instead. The neighbors would complain if he used power tools, even if Sans wouldn't, so he sticks to the digital. This time, testing an expansion of an idea from the other week. If he can download things, saving them somewhere in the machinery making up his body... can he upload things, too? What if he thinks really hard about the view from the bridge outside Snowdin, can he make an image of it, no drawing involved...?

By the time reflected sunlight starts filling the workshop with bright glares, he's made several more discoveries with this ability, and even made a digital photo album of home. Some of the details are a little fudged and filled in with guesswork and imagination... But it's something. Of course, it's been hours since he's eaten anything, and as much as he's fully charged from being plugged in for so long, he could use a food... and also, to finish cleaning up? Whoops.

By the time Sans enters the kitchen, Papyrus is at the sink washing dishes and humming an MTT TV commercial jingle, with water heating on the stovetop. He doesn't turn at his brother's appearance, since the new teleportation's more subtle - no sound or visual to go with it.]

[Of course Papyrus is in the kitchen. Sans almost teleports back to his room on sheer reflex, standing stupidly where he appeared for a moment as he tries to decide what to do. Papyrus doesn't seem to be in a terrible mood, at least; Sans hates to ruin it. But Sans is already in the kitchen. He can be pretty quiet, but he can't sneak food from the fridge when Papyrus is right there. Anyway, if he goes back to his room now, he'll have to go through the process of getting up all over again to leave for work.]

Morning. [Sans keeps his tone casual and calm; his usual tone. But he doesn't say anything besides that, preferring to test the waters by watching Papyrus's reaction. Still dragging the blanket along with him, soaking up the residual heat, he finally heads for the refrigerator like he planned.]

[Papyrus startles a little at the sound, more than he can hide even with an exaggerated stretch, but he goes for the stretch as he places another piece of the disassembled blender into the drying rack.]

Oh, uh... morning. [Not a 'good morning,' and maybe that's no surprise. He had half expected not to see Sans at all today, and that part is. The sheer number of eyes watching him as Sans shambles towards the fridge is a surprise too, and not exactly a comforting one. But... Papyrus smiles a little.] So the blanket's a hit, huh? [He's as ready as ever to pat himself on the back for a job well-done, if that part's going without a hitch.]

Yeah. [Sans is talking around a mouthful of pizza even if he can't actually open his mouth. He's got a slice in each hand, and he puts the one he hasn't bitten into yet down on the counter so he can make coffee.

Sans would be fine with never talking about what happened last night again. But he's not sure if Papyrus will bring it up.] I'd take it to work with me but there aren't any plugs in the ruins. [Also it would get extremely dusty. And Sans probably doesn't need more heat out in the middle of the ruins.]

[The food-in-mouth tone is as reassuringly normal as it is annoying. Papyrus rolls his eyes and reaches for another piece to scrub... and hesitates. That reminds him of some concerns the last night.]

Yeah, about that... [He takes a few seconds to search for the right words, holds the blender piece under the slow flow of the water. Watching the water flow is a good excuse not to pick which eye(s) to look back at.] About those rocks. Are they... from the ruins? Those symbols you like? [Is there any chance Sans is being weird not because of changes directly, but because he's invited a secret whispering chorus to accompany him to sleep every night?]

[Sans is careful to keep himself still when Papyrus talks. He's pretty good at holding still, and waiting, and doing anything except taking action. But at least Sans can answer Papyrus's question without lying.] Nah, not from there. Don't think they'd like me smashing things into even more pieces. [Not lying, but not going into detail about what they are, either.]

Oh good. [Papyrus sighs and some of the tension drifts from his shoulders.] That's exactly why I worried! I wanted to ask last night, but...

[Well, but. After everything else last night... He didn't want to risk the answer being yes, and fighting about it. So even with the origin of those rocks still a mystery, he sets in to scrubbing with a little more cheer.]

[With that but hanging in the air, Sans wants to elaborate on the rocks even less. He tries willing the coffee to brew faster instead.] Don't worry about it. [Don't worry about him, in general, but Sans doesn't think Papyrus can do that. With the coffee resisting his willpower, Sans takes his usual spot at the table instead. He rests his head on his arms on the table, but that doesn't stop him from watching Papyrus. He's got plenty of eyes to do that with.] Nobody's gonna miss those rocks. [Sans is the only one who ever visits that particular graveyard, which is probably why so much of it is falling apart. It's easy to pick up pieces and take them home.]

Also good to hear! [If he were any less determined to clean this blender and seek the positive side of things, he'd be almost suspicious at how specifically targeted these answers are. As it is...] But don't worry about me worrying. I know how to pace my worrying! [Bent truth, some bravado, but he leaves little room for argument as he continues.] Somehow I suspect you stayed up late, tying yourself up in knots about... well, whatever happened last night. I'm a little surprised you're already awake.

[Even with it being new-normal for him to be awake this early. It's not the most subtle invitation to explain things, if Sans has figured out any explanations yet, but it's more invitation than guilt trip. He glances over - so many eyes, still on him - and back to the task at hand in the sink.]

[Okay, they are talking about this, then. Sans briefly considers the merits of playing dead. He takes another bite of pizza.] The sun always wakes me up. [He says, finally, which he knows isn't what Papyrus wants to talk about, but is easier to handle.] The sun lamp's the same. But normal lightbulbs help me sleep.

[Well, it's more that they chase away the darkness that sets him on edge.]

...Oh. [Sounds like turning the light on may have created a sleepless window in which Sans did more self-recrimination in... Oops, again. Papyrus gives another scrub to loosen the last bits of caked-on battery smoothie, and rinses it off.] That's, good to know. I thought it was just the chance to be in the sunlight...

[He's fully noticing the unanswered parts of his comments, but... but. The idea of pushing his brother about them seems more alarming than usual. For surely nonsensical reasons not worth exploring too deeply, but... He deposits the piece in the sink, grabs the next.]

[Sans shrugs, even though Papyrus is washing dishes so he can't exactly see it.] I didn't know until last night. It's dumb, right? 'S not something that should mess with me. [It's not just the issues with sleep that he's really talking about there.]

Well. [Papyrus glances over too late for the shrug, but he can see Sans's overall body language of resting his head on the edge of the table, and that conveys enough. Especially since glancing over means seeing the eyes watching him back, which sends him back to focusing on the dishes. Some things are just easier to talk about when he's pretending they're not hyper-focused on the conversation, after all.]

That sounds like, a little more knot-tying. Which I am not about to encourage. I will only admit it took us both by surprise. Your stuff... doesn't seem to have as coherent a theme, as mine. [Robot stuff being helpfully outlined by Mettaton's stories and various science fiction, and somewhat familiar with general exposure to computers, after all. Not like the, uh, bird stuff.]

Last night, I, uh. [And Sans doesn't want to say this out loud, like that will make it even more true, but he could have hurt Papyrus last night. It's not the same as the other secrets Sans keeps from Papyrus.] I wanted to go there. Into space. But not, like--I mean. I wanted to go back. To the void. [That was supposed to only be happening because he ate something weird that one time. But it's coming back. It's not even the first time since then he's felt that way, although while everything with Dylan was happening Sans hadn't had time (and certainly not the inclination) to examine it.]

[Papyrus pauses mid-scrub, slowly starts to scrub again, and stops. Turns to look at his brother, and for longer than just a glance.] Back... to the void...? [Repeating the words himself confirms that, yes, that sounds familiar.] You mean... That stuff, when I was rusting...?

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1/2 I'm putting all the introspection in a quarantine comment

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