sciencelizard | « [IC Inbox- Hadriel]

[Mistakes have been made. He's not what he'd call a heavy drinker, most days, but turns out - gettin' inebriated does wonders for patching a friendship he figured was all but salvage.

Unfortunately, this lends itself well to even more horrible choices.

So Alphys's phone is gonna go off two, three, nah, actually, better make it four successive times, only for whoever's calling to hang up before anyone picks up.

When someone finally bothers to leave a message, there's something like idle chatter in the background.]

Tibia. 'S a bone in the...

[The voices fuzz out, and trail off. And then return with a vengeance:]

Is that a challenge? Because I think I'm way ahead of you. [If she's ever met Shadow, she might recognize the voice the call picks up next.]

You gotta leg up on me. [Sans protests, voice rising and fading.] Lower body mass means you get drunk quick - [The conversation lapses, and the voice message clicks off. Seems he's done a somethin' of a coccyx-dial.

To start with.]

[And then, at long last - a call. An actual, genuine call.

Or, to be more semantically correct? A voice message.]

Alph. Hey. Heya. [He sounds kinda...off. Maybe a bit less laid back, a bit less composed.] 'S me.

[Pause.

Yeah, so Sans has definitely consumed more than his fair share of alcohol tonight. That marks a first. It marks a first, and it weren't for any good kinda reason but - but that's beside the point. He's pretty sure it'd be sad and wrong to call up a bunch of kids while he's like this.

They hate him, anyway.

But Alphys - why's she still stickin' with him, huh? Why's she still here?

She's good people. That's why.]

'S Sans, [he drawls.] 'Sssss Sans. Sans the skeleton.

Heh heh.

Anyway. I just - wanted to call 'n see how you're doin'. You're a - you're a good pal. Y'know that, right? Y'know that you're a good pal? 'Cause I'm real bad at, at textin' you back sometimes and I want you t'know that it don't mean anything, yeah?

[BEEP. New message.

Seems he cut himself off mid-ramble.]

- never told him that. I never told him - I never told him goodbye, y'know? And that's - 's what it was. It was all just a - a big ol' long goodbye, and it weren't like it was s'posed to be.

Hell if - if - if there's a supposed to be in this.

None of it was supposed to be.

[...]

I sure as hell don't know.

["This is Alphys. Uh, l-leave a message, please!"

If you insist. He's apparently been going on for a while, not stopping to bother and see if the phone's catchin' his every word.]

- ve you. I never even said it. Not once. What the - what the hell kinda person, kinda brother am I if I can't just fu -

[Click.]

[Click.]

- ey hate me. 'N that's - 's fine, 's okay, 's all -

[Click.]

[About twenty minutes later, there's a new message in the old inbox. Sorry, Alph. He didn't set out to fill it up before the night's end.]

Okay. 'Kay. We're good now.

[Sounds more like he's affirmin' it to himself than the person whose inbox he has been indiscriminately spamming all night, but - no big, right? Yeah. No big.]

Sorry 'bout that. That was kinda meant to be a big - a big long thing that I'd delete 'cause it's... ['Cause he just wanted to say it. Without anybody hearin', just so he could have the illusion that someone out there - ] Heh heh heh. I, uh, I ever introduce ya t'Wade? He's good people. He's a real, real good guy. You'd like him.

He knew 'em, y'know. He knew Newt and he knew Hermann and he misses 'em and he don't say anything but y'can just - y'can tell, all right?

Don't, uh, don't tell him I said that.

[The next message catches him mid-ramble. The words sound oddly cogent, despite his...obvious state.]

Y'hold onto 'em.

You hold onto her.

You hold onto anybody who makes you feel like you're worth something.

I'd say - promise me but, uhhhhh. Y'know. Promises. They're overrated stuff. Real overrated, promises. Just, just real - not the kinda thing you wanna make, world like this.

Just hang onto her. She's - she's important.

And - and look. Hey. Listen.

Alph.

You're important too.

Don't forget...that.

[Almost left it at that, hanging. Don't forget. But that'd be wrong, and that'd be cruel, and he just said goodbye and he - he needs to be asleep for a couple hundred years, he thinks. Just to start with. Yeah. That's a good beginner's estimate.

A pause.]

'Night Alph.

[Click.

Good night.]

[She'd passed out mid-episode of Mew Mew, snored right through all the calls. The one thing about living with the Amalgamates-- and now Undyne-- is that she could probably sleep through a cave-in. But she stirs awake from sleeping in a weird curve around 5 or 6 AM, checks her phone, and is baffled at the amount of messages. Nobody calls her. Much less late when only she's awake, much less--

Sans.]

[She's suddenly awake, adrenaline spiking through her SOUL. 11 missed calls. Seven messages. Lord, she slept through this. He could've been in trouble, he could be dead, she has no earthly idea why he'd call her if he was dying, she's no help, maybe he wanted her to get Undyne or something, some good backup, desperate calls as he's backed into a corner, oh no, oh no, she fucked up she fucked up she fucked up he's dead she's sure of it--]

[There's another voice. One she doesn't recognize, but it's not... desperate. It sounds like an accident.

The rest aren't an accident.]

[He's talking, to her, to himself, on and off and she goes from cramming the phone against her ear to hear snapped bits of whispers to having to tilt her neck back at the volume. She should've been awake. Should've been there to catch him and let him talk and not be so alone. But he sounds... okay? Maybe tired.

He's always tired.

She's always tired, too.]

[She ends up lying in bed, in the darkness, letting the light from her computer illuminate her dimly as she listens, over and over, catches every word, thinks about it. Thinks about where she's been. The things they've said to each other in the past, and here, and now. What she'd say if she was calling him instead. About the people she loves, and cares about, and the people who hate her and the people she could hate.

Some lists are longer than others.]

[It's morning, she thinks eventually. It's probably morning. Time has likely passed, at least. Regardless, she slides out of her room quietly, moves to the couch. Sits and plays with her phone until she sees him emerge from his room again, whenever that is.

She doesn't wait, or stop, or say anything. She just gets up, approaches him directly, and tosses her arms around his neck. Presses him close, cradles his head in her hands.

For however long he wants.

You're important too.

Good morning.]

[So, full disclosure - he kinda never wants to drink again. Turns out mixing ketchup and alcohol and downing...three? Consecutive bottles? - is never a good choice for anybody. He kinda lost track of how things went with Shadow. Pretty sure they went better than he expected, but he pays the price with the sickening pressure of a headache that'd ordinarily be the kind drilled into his skull after turning something or another blue, along with the additional sluggishness to his limbs when he shambles outta his room, nearly trips over the step, and -

Walks face-first into an armful of lizard.

Or does the armful of lizard walk face-first into him?

It takes him a second to cobble together what's happening, and by the time he manages that - okay, nope, things still aren't comin' together with any kinda reassuring clarity. All he knows is that Alphys is there and giving him this - hug, and it's nice, it's nice to know that she cares, but he's also got no clue where the -

What did he do last night?]

Uh, [says Sans, eloquently. Manages an awkward pat on the shoulder.] Morning?

[It hits her, like the moment he speaks, that maybe he has no fucking idea what he did and she's been up for the last like, what, six fucking hours for absolutely nothing.

Well.

Regardless, she pulls back so she can see him, but she's not letting go quite yet.]

M-Morning.

I, uh... got your messages, uhm. Last n-night. I thought you might, uh. Need that? But I'm realizing that maybe you don't even remember calling me and you look nervous and I'm sorry I just, uh, yeah.

... Yep.

[Messages...?

Oh.

Fuck.]

[That trickles on back to him in a glaring rush. Words - spilling endlessly from his stupid, gibbering grin, just confessing every wretched thing wrong with his life and with himself to someone who'd had more than enough problems to deal with. He was a mess. A wreck. An absolute wreck.

Can't ever let that kinda thing - do that to him.

He's better than that. He's locked up tight. He's implacable. He smiles, he smiles, he smiles, he doesn't - he don't open up the chinks in the armor like that, easy as you please, and just expect it to go well.

But.

It's Alphys.

His shoulders creep upward in a faint shrug, his skull tipping downward.]

Heh...so. Uh...

[What's he say to that. She doesn't - hate him for it. Even if she should, should be tearin' him five or six new ones for dumping his nonexistent guts on her door step and then fucking off and expecting her to just deal with it like it's no big deal.

What's he say to that?

Same thing he always says.]

Turns out that, uh...some of that stuff Delight stocks 's pretty strong.

[She worries at her lip for a bit while he pauses, thinking she shouldn't have been privy to all that, maybe it wasn't on purpose and he accidentally invited her somewhere too personal. Like he didn't actually want to talk to her or let her know anything but...

He seems nervous. Like... he's worried what she'll think of him.

As if, somehow, he could do something to ruin what she thinks of him.

Well, she can relate.

She searches his features for a moment after he speaks, opens her mouth to talk, and just... laughs. All her words get lost in her throat to a flurry of laughter, where her anxiety spills over the top, where her fear of judgement or intrusion melts into nothingness. She just ends up putting her head on his shoulder, shaking her shoulders with each giggle, before finally pulling it up to face him.]

Well, it, uhm... s-sounds like you needed it, at any rate.

[She's smiling. She actually feels... a little better, for some stupid reason. Maybe she's just spent so long thinking of what to say and wrapped up in it that any kind of release is catharsis.]

Do you... feel any b-better?

[Default to the easiest common denominator. Default to the joke, the stupid aside. Never goin' out drinking again, am I right, folks? End on a stinger, close on everyone's smiling, laughing faces. Roll credits.

Only it don't work like that at all. Sounds maybe like he needed it, but he either didn't have nearly enough to drink or too much. If he'd gotten to the point of black-out drowsiness, maybe he never would'a bothered her at all.

He chuckles faintly, rubbing at the back of his cervical vertebrae with one hand with the rasp of bone on bone.]

Heh. Uh. Feelin' pretty lousy. Hangover's not worth it.

[That's what it's called, right? He don't drink nearly enough to get all the proper terminology down.]

Sorry I - must'a woken you up a dozen times, huh?

[She laughs just a little more, mostly out of embarrassment this time.]

Not, uh, r-really... I slept right through them. All of them. I had passed out with my computer on and uh, d-didn't hear a thing.

[One day Hadriel's gonna get hit by a fuckin meteor and she won't know until she's damn good and ready to be awake, apparently.]

Do you, uh... want breakfast, or something? I've just kinda been up for, uhm, a while now.

[So instead he...must'a given her a real heart attack when she checked her messages and, for once, found herself to be the one overwhelmed with a smattering of several consecutive messages, a big long string of 'em.

Great. Good on him.]

Sorry 'bout that.

[Feels redundant, but he did kinda...lead things to this point. Did kinda make her beholden to helpin' him feel like he ain't a smear on the foot of whatever cosmic irony set things playin' off like this.]

But, uh, sure. Sure thing.

[He seems... so tense, now. She should've expected this. He was drunk. Like, super drunk. He's usually dodgy and not wanting to talk about himself.

She's still hoping he'll want to say something, though. Or at least he feels... somewhat better? Or that it helped?

Regardless, she digs around the kitchen for some cereal, or just whatever the heck is in there at the moment.]

So, uhm... w-who were you, uh, drinking with? It sounded like, uhm, a good friend.

Shadow? He's, uh...

[He ain't real sure what to call him at this particular juncture. An acquaintance? An ally? A once-time enemy, those differences now resolving into something he ain't real sure what to call?]

...short. He's real short.

[That buys him time, at least. Torque the exchange into a joke, as is his only skill in life. He slides into one of the kitchen chairs and resists the urge to simply drop off right then and there. It'd be so easy, and never has the prospect felt more tempting.]

I, uh...dunno what we are, actually. Weren't real fond of each other until kinda recently. Or - I guess he weren't real fond of me. Somethin' like that.

[She does feel a little laugh in her chest at that description; they're all short, Sans, if he got on her shoulders they'd barely equal like One Mettaton.

Eventually, she ends up finding some dry pancake batter. That's good stuff. She's even getting better at not like, burning all of it. So she grabs a pan, starts heating it up on the stove, roots around in the fridge for milk and eggs.]

So you... w-went out and like, talked and stuff?

series of voice messages, early morning of 3/2

voice

voice

voice

voice

voice

voice

the last message

1/??

2/more

3/i didn't count these oops

4/6 I believe actually

5/6

6/6

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1/2

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