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[ She used to think it was. But people have a way of worming into hearts no matter how much you choose against it, seems like. ]

I don't know. I thought it was for a while, but then... Haven happened. Now here.

So why get bent outta shape over what you can't do?

[Sure, it ain't really that simple. But what if only helps for as long as it's still tenable. And right now, it sure don't look like it is.]

Could ask that of a lot things people get bent outta' shape over.

I dunno'. Just don't like putting people at risk, which they always are knowing me. Never have.

Lots of people're are a risk to other people. 'S what you do with it that really matters.

[ 'What if you always seem to do the worst fucking thing without meaning to,' she almost says. But that seems... pointlessly pessimistic. ]

Yeah, alright, [ she concedes, after a thoughtful pause. ] Fair enough.

It's just hard sometimes, I guess. Knowing that you being gone would mean people wouldn't even be put at risk in the first place.

Like I said: everyone's a risk.

[Sounds like that might'a been the reasoning that the kids succumbed to, back when they...got a hold of something. Something that would've wiped them clean from the face of the city. Can't quite remember what it was.

Weird.]

You're here now, and you're not gonna be able to change that by tryin'.

So I should just not try?

That what I said?

[There's a faint scritch of ossein against bone as he pauses to scratch at his head.]

Look. I get that you're talkin' to me, and not trying is pretty much just kinda how I do. But I guess I learned a thing or two since I got here. Funny how that shakes out.

[Funny how it was a pair of kids that taught him that.]

So I gotta question for ya:

What can you change?

[ It's what he has said, without always outright stating it. Figured she'd take a page from that book and then it's re-written. The feels like her luck these days. ]

I don't know, [ she admits. Feels like she's tried just about everything at this point. Well. Everything but feed, which sh swore she wouldn't when the Haven to Hadriel adjustment initially happened. ]

Guess that's my problem.

Well, you got some pretty fine control over what you do and don't end up doin' to other people on a good day.

[No one's ended up eaten - and if they have, it looks to be a casualty of one of the many nameless, faceless beasts roaming the caves rather than a product of Rosie's, uh, issues.]

Or you're real good at fakin' it 'till you make it.

It's a lot harder than anyone realizes. There's a reason I ain't been half as affectionate as I used to be with people. Kind of hard to when, y'know, everyone is a meal option and you haven't eaten in so long.

[ Yet, is the caveat there. It feels like it's only a matter of time. ]

But I haven't... My double tried to, which I guess I still see as me, but even then we didn't succeed.

She weren't you.

[Let's make that clear here. One hundred percent.]

Would y'say that anyone else's double was just some kinda extension of them?

[...cripes, he hopes not. Or the things his double did might reflect real strangely on the monster he was purportedly based on, and he's not sure how far he's willing to dig on that one.]

[ She was. A past version of Rose resurrected to cause havoc upon Hadriel; she's not that person now, but... she was. No one will ever be able to convince her that it wasn't some small part of her that still lived in the depths, still lurked deep down within. That was still entirely capable of clawing its way back to life. ]

No, [ she says, but, ] I think it was the versions of us... we do our best not to be. So, I don't know, that it was possible to be them. Under the right circumstances, with different outcomes in life. They weren't us, but they could have been. In another lifetime, another reality, whatever you wanna' call it.

[Well, maybe she's right. Maybe she would've been that.]

But they're not.

'Cause last I checked, that ain't you. Last I checked, no one's going missing to get chowed down in secret.

[ Maybe she would've.

Maybe she will. ]

No one has. Trust me, you'd know. I was pretty messy in Haven.

But that's how I found my set-up, too, which... Wish I could go back to that, but. That ship's sailed.

We all gotta make do here.

[Sometimes that means compromising everything for the sake of others. Not that Sans has ever really bothered to do as such - that would require more work than he's liable to put into anything.]

Seems to me you're makin' do about as well as anyone could.

[ Rose's problem is she's always done for others, never for herself. Even now, she's considering everyone else before herself. But maybe that isn't as bad a thing as she'd been led to believe. ]

Thanks, dude. And thanks for... the talk. We should hang again soon or something. Been a while, I know, but that's my fault.

Nah, that was pretty much on me.

[He's all but allergic to talking to people about the intricacies of his own fuck-ups and how they pertain to others. Just can't be bothered, most of the time.]

Still think it was pretty much on both of us, but. Hey. We'll get better at it, yeah?

[ A beat. ]

I'll see ya' around, Sans.

[ What a shame that she actually won't. ]

Heh. Yeah.

I'll see ya.

[...what a shame.]

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Re: voice;

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voice; cw: suicidal ideation

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