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This is stupid. [Negative Sans, of course.] You've always been the only thing that really matters, when you get down to it.

[At this, even positive Papyrus stops readying the tools to instead turn and stare, surprise and skepticism as close to negative as he gets. Negative Papyrus keeps staring as well, his screen lighting up with an image of a Greek temple. Instead of anything in time-appropriate lettering, the temple has SANS written on it. Some of the caryatids are shaped like Papyrus, figures in place of columns to support the weight. One of the statues cracks before the image fades.]

...Are you serious? [His voice and body shake.]

I care about other things, too. [This time it's positive Sans who answers. It seems when it comes to this, though, the two Sanses are in agreement enough that there's a common conversation to be had.

Negative Sans waves a hand, dismissive.] Sure, yeah--I mean, sometimes about all sorts of shit I can't do anything about, or people who are just gonna--look, the point is that I thought about it, and if I have to pick one thing to care about, it's you. If it gets so everything else just--doesn't matter. For whatever reason. You still matter. That's the point.

[The baffled staring from both Papyruses continues, with far more appall in the body language of negative Papyrus.]

But you're the only person you're stuck with forever?? [It's not a threat he'll leave, or a wish to do so... for all that the basement feels too small and crowded all over again.] You... I know you know that!

[He can remember dying, and has bits of Sans's memories of stalking the human after that, a confrontation in the golden hallway. (He remembers bits of dying way more than that, with genuine surprise, betrayal at a flower's bullets - but no other memories of what Sans might have gotten up to then.) He remembers Kassabian's probing questions about how much he pretends things for Sans's sake, remembers that artwork in that first post she made.]

Bad luck for me, right? [Negative Sans says, like it's a joke, though he can't exactly find it funny. Ironic, maybe. But he doesn't disagree. Still, that ironic, bitter joking tone continues.] 'Course, that's less true for us.

[And now positive Sans is looking at his negative counterpart, surprised. It's about as close as he can come to alarm.] Pretty sure you guys need to cool off. Like, maybe out of this basement. So maybe focus on the door--

[Negative Sans barks out a laugh, attention momentarily on his positive self.] Y'know, maybe you're the one who lies more, between the two of us.

[Negative Papyrus watches the back and forth with slight shifts of his monitor, torn between wanting to take the suggestion to leave (and being unable to), wanting to keep venting his fears at his brother(s), and wanting to hear what they're making of all this. Trust Sans to get distracted by metaphysical time confusion, to make it an excuse to argue with himself, instead of... Well, instead what Papyrus had wanted, insofar as any of his sharp words have purpose. Trying to goad Sans into some kind of realization about the ripple effects of self-loathing. It doesn't seem to be working, not unless they're going about it some entirely different way than he did, years back. He doesn't know what to say, what to do.

Behind him, positive Papyrus nods at that reiterated notion of the door, agreement spreading across his face. The way the tension is turning on themselves and each other is palpable even without directly feeling the unpleasantness of it all, and the internal model's various projections how this could go are full of warnings that they're riling each other up further. He turns to the door, lining the tool up with the screws of the door's hinges.]

[Without Papyrus jumping in, it's easy to keep going. Sans is great at arguing with himself. He does that way more than he argues with Papyrus.]

C'mon, seriously, this isn't a good time-- [Positive Sans starts, still calm, but in a slightly more directed manner.]

It's never a good time. Obviously this isn't a good time, but neither was before this happened, or a few weeks ago, or before we even got here. All that new stuff rattling around in our heads, I know you remember it too, but we can't even remember how many times Papyrus died. It's too many, even when we can remember it. And that's--

Stop. [Positive Sans interrupts, about as close as he can get to dropping his voice into that dead echo without the emotions behind it to really put his back into it. It's not exactly that positive Sans feels distressed by this conversation, it's that he knows this is supposed to be a secret and it should probably stay that way, at least right now.]

...Why stop? [Negative Papyrus, of course, autotuned voice distorted with static. The stop wasn't directed at him, but when he was already wavering on whether to chime in, it's that much harder to voice anything.] It's not just you, you know. I--

[His words cut off with the power tool's activation, a buzzing whir against one of the screws holding the door up. His monitor shifts a little in a reflexive attempt to shoot his counterpart a side glance, but his peripheral vision isn't enough for it, and he settles for a few dozen annoyed pings.

Twice more he starts to vocalize, barely getting a syllable or two of I know out before the sound goes off again. A sullen resentment fills his posture, and his screen fills with static - or maybe a flurry of snow, there's hints of something purple in the center, or maybe something yellow and green.]

[When the power tools drown out the conversation, positive Sans is relieved. Negative Sans glares in positive Papyrus's direction, mostly at his back. It sounds like negative Papyrus is trying to say something about knowing, about it not just being Sans, and that's--something to think about, except for how hard it is to hear himself think over the noise. Fine, if it's going to be like that. Negative Sans vanishes from the basement.]

[Negative Papyrus stiffens as one of his brother(s) leaves, especially given which one. Now he's alone down here, in a way - outnumbered by the nice halves, who clearly are working together to manage the negatives into some kind of inoffensive harmlessness. The static lighting up his screen blanks out like he's closing eyes, and replaces with the dimness of notifications of ongoing processes around the edges, and the occasional text or image in the center.

Right away, that's the literal text of one impulsively flung at the Sanses, the better not to let anyone escape this conversation before he can.

\E1SO WHEN -IS-&A GOOD TIME,&ANYWAY??/

Agitated speed texting means he flings the question in the text whole and sends it immediately, without pruning the formatting to look as if he'd typed out out, which leaves it with those extra details, and it's embarrassing and frustrating to see. Even with Sans able to read it, having seen days on end of that as Papyrus's only way to communicate, it's not the point. He wants to be a skeleton again, even if it takes... even if it takes dying again, winding up underground with only fragments of memories again.

Behind him, the power tool keeps going, between brief pauses to remove screws and deposit them in a container. Apparently the conversation's done, to that guy's mind.]

[Positive Sans reaches for his phone and, seeing the message, looks over at negative Papyrus. The screen in place of a head makes some things easier to notice and some things more difficult. It means Sans can't read his face, but also sometimes he can literally read Papyrus's face. It's complicated.]

first of all nobody should be in a welded shut basement
second of all nothing weird should be happening

[Negative Sans doesn't respond as quickly, but he does eventually.]

hell if i know
never if the other two have anything to say about it

[So apparently negative Sans has decided to go sulk, just judging by the contents to that message.]

[Positive Papyrus pauses as his phone receives those responding texts, tool deliberately still whirring in hand as he focuses on their words and guesses at what might have instigated them. He glances back and up with a skeptical expression at his counterpart.

Negative Papyrus, pointedly and sullenly, doesn't look back. Instead, a brief text exchange shoots back and forth, including things like TEXTING, REALLY? and \E1WHAT DID YOU&EXPECT/ showing on his screen. He crosses his arms, and positive Papyrus turns back to the task of detaching the door's hinges from the wall. Eventually, another text reaches the Sanses.

\E1FINE./

Maybe he's not yet physically going off to sulk as well, given that'll take a little more doing, but emotionally he's already striving to escape this place before any more 'help' can come along to undercut whatever he's trying to accomplish.]

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silent tag to give Sans a chance to say a thing before positive Papyrus interrupts w/ [tool sounds]

future combined sans wishes positive papyrus would interrupt with tool noises

he did! ...eventually. everyone later wishes he had sooner, though.

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