EMERGENCY BROADCAST (text)

[justribbing]

(All active cellphones sound an alarm briefly during the delivery of this message.)

To: All Users
From: sans.
Subject: (SUBJECT HERE)
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URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT: The following is an automated message.

Nature of Emergency: cagey queen left us hanging


PRESS 1 if outside the vicinity of: home If it is safe to do so, follow the prompts to take and send an image of your surroundings to the administrator.

Users in the vicinity of: home are requested to congregate in the: mess hall immediately for: probably a good idea to come save us


Additional Notes:

* sup.
* not much, not much, just hangin' with about 3 new and old friends in this cage dangling precariously above the water.
* can't say i like the conditions either, but the cold and damp doesn't get under my skin. i think i see other cages, tho and, uh, i can't say much for them yet.
* six other occupied cages, with about three in each. hey, it's like those math problems you used to get in school.
* startin' to get a real sinking feeling so if there's anybody out there who ain't locked up, it'd mean a lot to me and over 20 other people if you bailed us out.
* see ya. sans.

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Comments

[postictal]

no i mean
these were card games and shit where i grew up.

they weren't real but people would play them and watch the cartoons and stuff.

[Not that Tim ever really had that experience. Most of what he remembers is what he gleaned through cultural osmosis.]

i'm kinda rusty but i can try my best to remember what i can? i think that's our ticket out of this thing.

[generalflirt]

There's a lot of real ones around this Castle, so give it a shot, Tim-san! If it looks like you'll be stuck though, because of that, you can ask around to the audience.

[ Assuming he's right, of course. ]

[justribbing]

Ring up AZ, or uh, one of that couple that works in the Day Care up on the roof. They know tons about this stuff.

[postictal]

i hope this doesn't require us to write the answers in our own blood or something like that because then i'm gonna be really pissed

[And lightheaded from blood loss, probably. But he's done worse to get out of similar scrapes.]

[justribbing]

* hey, if sayin' it don't work?
* try, uh, literally anything else.

* and if we survive this?
* then i didn't go refillin' your prescription for nothin'.

[postictal]

just wouldn't put it past our queen to

[His text abruptly stops as he reads the second set of texts.

His fingers kinda...

Freeze up for a bit. Ah. That's weird.]

what.

[justribbing]

* yeah, asked ozzy to do me a solid and fetch some of those pills you needed.

[postictal]

[For a long moment, Tim's just kind of frozen there in indecision. He's - what's he - why would he - would he do that? Would he just do that out of the goodness of his heart, or whatever the skeleton monster equivalent is? Do people do that?

No. People aren't just nice to him. It's gotta have a secondary motive here. Or maybe a primary one. There has to be more to this.

So he sends something back, slowly typed out, with trembling fingers.]

why

[justribbing]

* because i vastly underestimated just how unsafe you are, pal.
* don't thank me.

[postictal]

[Ah.

...shit. Shit.

He can feel his facial features trembling subtly before he remembers he doesn't have to hold his composure over text. Thank god. If his cellmates ask him what's up, he can just say the sea sprayed shit over him and he's making a face. It's fine.]

guess that answers the question behind that one night i still can't remember

[justribbing]

* and that answers one of my questions. here's another.
* we lookin' at you spacing out and attacking people tonight, too?

[postictal]

really really hope not
if you can get the meds to me asap you definitely won't have to worry about it

[justribbing]

* or this all goes pear-shaped and we get to have a swim.
* way i see it, we're lookin' at multiple ways this becomes a non-issue.
* great to have options, huh?

[postictal]

[Is it weird that he finds the gallows humor appealing? It's probably really fucked up that this is actually the most reassuring thing he's seen in days, right?]

oh yeah doubly so
given how shitty my lung capacity is you can stop worrying about me pretty quick.
so that's nice, always good to know how to prioritize

[justribbing]

[ There's something about it that takes some of the mystery out of it, exposes the end for the small and insignificant change to the lives of small and insignificant beings for what it is.

A footnote, at best. A punchline, if you know what you're doing. He'd be chugging ketchup like his life depended on it (ha ha) for dramatic effect if he had any. ]

* at least you have lungs.
* me and my bro are lookin' at permanent residency at the bottom of the ocean if we don't get outta here.

* keep an eye on that other guy in there with ya.
* turns out you ain't the only one with a liability in your back pocket.

[postictal]

you don't need to breathe though right? you don't have lungs??

[Is that...not how it works for them? He's not really sure what the minutiae of that is. But you know what, that second little tidbit Sans drops takes priority.]

you mean the guy here who looks like he's about to panic any minute
cause yeah i'd say he's not doing so hot
do i wanna know what's up with him

/threadjacks if it's okay?

[heritrix]

I had wondered about that.

GO FOR IT MY DUDE

[postictal]

[Ah jesus. Thanks for locking this and making it private, Sans. Not like Tim can multitask any more than he already is to encrypt his texts so - fuck it! Everybody gets to see his dirty laundry! Come one come all, bring popcorn if you can, make a day of it!

It's not like the other guy made much of an attempt to mask (he hates himself for the pun, immediately) that whole clusterfuck anyway, but he's still entitled to be bitter about it, he thinks.]

oh good. anyone else wanna step forward in the meantime
seeing as this looks to be testimonial hour

\o/

[heritrix]

Quit pitying yourself as if you were the only victim there. I went through a lot of trouble because of you.

[But from their few interactions when he was fully himself and sane, she's banking that that's only going to make him loathe himself more. Which pisses her off, because while she's adamant he take responsibility for anything he (or it, not that she knows that) did... From that brief brush against his head, she actually would posit that it's not something he can control, even if she's not sure what it was. Other than he wasn't under something else's influence.]

I won't drag your skeletons out into the open like this, but when this is over and we're all safe, we WILL have a chat about it. Got it?

[postictal]

[Quit pitying himself. Yeah. Okay. He doubts there's a right answer here, so he just...doesn't bother. When's he ever started to defend himself, huh? No point. No goddamn point.]

how nice of you
great. cool.
anything else?

[heritrix]

[It's like talking to a brick wall. Rin sighs, but doesn't close the phone. Yes, actually, there is more.]

Don't attack the cages.
Or anything to force an escape.
Queenie's rigged a nasty surprise for anyone who tries.

[postictal]

i'll be sure to suppress my violent impulses. it'll be a real struggle you know but i think i can manage it

[Is he being overly brittle? Definitely. But he's also trapped in a cage that's about to lower itself to the bottom of the sea, he's allowed.]

puzzle cracking only. got it.

[egotrigger]

Do you know their names? In case we can't get in touch with this 'AZ' person?

[justribbing]

Nope.

[ He's never met them. Surprisingly, there are still some people Sans just can't manage to pin down. ]

[egotrigger]

All right. I'll see if anyone else knows. Thank you for your help, though.