"Damaged Soul"

"Chapter 9: Laying A Few Cards On The Table"

No pleasant conversation ever started with 'we need to talk'. Adelle kept her eye-sockets trained on Grillby as he fixed her drink, wishing that she had ordered something a little stronger than a Shirley Temple. If she did that now, though, Sans would know that he had unsettled her. "What about?"

Sans took in her body language. Completely closed-off. She either didn't like him or she didn't trust him, and frankly he couldn't blame her. He hadn't given her the warmest reception, even if his reasons had been good. He noticed that she began to drum the fingers of her right hand on the bar, but he could barely hear the spidery skittering noise over barroom chatter. His grin stretched wider; he was amused. "i'm not gonna bitecha, lady."

"Good to know..." She said dryly, thanking Grillby when he set the glass of fizzy pink liquid in front of her. She paid him, took a sip, then looked over at Sans. "You said you wanted to talk?"

Sans leaned forward, not wanting their conversation to be overheard, and he was pleased to see that she didn't lean away from him. This would be easier with her cooperation. He just hoped Papyrus would be able to forgive him if he found out about this. "how do you feel about my brother?"

She had been expecting him to interrogate her about her 'nighttime activities', be it the drinking or the...well, 'human hunting' wasn't the right term for it, not exactly, but she supposed it would have to do. She relaxed a little, and had another sip of her drink. Boy, this was good! Adelle didn't know how the food was here, but Grillby sure knew how to make a mean Shirley Temple! Oh, yes...she supposed she was avoiding the question. Well... "He's nice. Now...I've got a question for you. Were you following us today? The truth, please."

"heh. i might get cryptic or keep a few things to myself, but i'm not a liar."

Adelle heard a slight edge in his voice, and she knew that she had insulted him. Maybe she should apologize...

Before she had a chance to do more than open her mouth, Sans shrugged as if dismissing the issue. "nah, I wasn't following ya. don't need to. my bro's a big boy now. besides, there isn't much he doesn't tell me." Still leaning forward, he lowered his voice enough so that she had to lean forward as well. "he really seems to like you. and it's scarin' him to death."

She shifted in her seat, stirring her ice cubes around with the little red swizzle stick. She still hadn't eaten her cherry. "Why are you telling me this? Do you think he'd appreciate us talking about him like this?"

"because," Sans looked as serious as he ever did. "i told him about you this morning."

Adelle felt the heat rising in her face as she felt herself grow angry, and it was only when Grillby got in her field of vision and shook his head warningly that she realized her eye-sockets had lit up green.

"No magic use in my bar, please."

Adelle shut her eye-sockets tightly and pressed the heels of her hands against them, willing herself to calm down. Losing control in a populated area was never a good idea for a monster of her type. It would never do to have bones begin to form and fly about, smashing bottles and clocking people upside the head. "I'm sorry."

"If you cannot control your temper-"

"No, I..." Adelle lowered her hands, the white pinpoints of light in her otherwise dark eye-sockets proving that she had sufficiently calmed herself. "It won't happen again, Grillby."

The bartender nodded and addressed Sans next. "Behave yourself."

"moi?"

Grillby stared at Sans until the skeleton held his hands up in surrender. Satisfied, Grillby went back to wiping down the bar, still keeping an eye on them. Or, at least, the tilt of his head seemed to suggest that; he didn't seem to actually possess a face, so it was difficult to tell.

So, Papyrus had known the whole time. And Sans, the little snake, had called her on her activities the night before; she remembered it clearly now. Maybe she should cut back on the drinking, if it was making her careless. She looked to her right again, and nearly gritted her teeth at the shorter skeleton's mild expression. "Why?"

"why'd I tell him?"

"Yes."

"because he seems to think he can help you. for some reason. but we know better, right?" he winked with his right eye-socket, but the significance of such a gesture was lost on her.

"...Maybe he can. The question is, should he?" Adelle wasn't thinking of her own secrecy now; it was a bit late for that. Right now they were discussing Papyrus. And, although she was a little bit angry with Papyrus for having an ulterior motive for spending time with her, she had to admit that she enjoyed his company. And, unfortunately, this was a problem. She didn't want help, and the thought of either wasting his time, or worse, of hurting him, were very unappealing. And the thought of letting him get close and then losing him, possibly through her own actions, made her feel ill.

"why shouldn't he?" Sans asked, almost gently. "he might be able to help. ya never know."

Unable to shake the feeling that she was being quizzed or manipulated somehow, Adelle drank more of her Shirley Temple. The drink tasted sickeningly sweet now, and she didn't want it anymore. She drank it anyway. "You should tell him not to try."

"i did."

She took this in stride, but she was surprised that his remark actually stung a little bit. It must've shown on her face, because Sans sounded kinder when he spoke again.

"c'mon, don't look like that. it ain't personal. it's just...that's my baby brother we're talkin' about here. i just don't wanna see him get hurt. you can understand that. right?"

Adelle flinched so badly at that remark that Sans actually sat back a little. There was something about this exchange that he was missing. Something had upset her, and badly, but she did a good job of covering it up. "I have no intention of hurting him."

"i believe ya."

"No, you don't."

"i do. but i don't care about 'intentions'. i care about the outcome. look...i suppose you got your reasons for doin' what ya do. and i'm not gonna judge ya. but if things blow up with you and the humans, and my brother ends up getting caught in the crossfire..." Sans leaned in again, his eye-sockets dimming completely. "you're gonna have a bad time."

Adelle laughed softly, a humorless staccato chuckle that actually sent a chill up her would-be intimidator's spine. "Nothing you can do to me can even begin to come close to what set me on this path in the first place. Don't bother trying to threaten me, Sans. There's only one thing I've ever been afraid of. It's already happened, and it can never happen again." She turned away, feeling less alive and more bitter than she had in a while. "You don't have to worry about your brother. We won't be seeing each other anymore."

Sans opened his ketchup bottle. "or you could just stop this. right now, you could make the choice to stop."

"No."

"...he really does like you, ya know."

"Yes, you've said that," she bit out savagely, popping an ice cube into her mouth. Her magic-based body consumed it immediately, as it did with everything food-related that went into her mouth.

"and you like him, too. right?"

"What is this, kindergarten?" Adelle forgot to lower her voice, and her shoulders hunched as several monsters turned to look at her. Grillby frowned, or gave the impression of frowning. She flashed a brief smile, as if to say 'we're still fine', then turned back to Sans and lowered her voice again. "What do you want from me, Sans? Do you want me to avoid him? To not avoid him? You're sending out mixed signals here. You don't want him getting hurt, yeah, I got that, but-"

"for starters, I want you to calm down."

"Yeah, because telling an angry person to calm down always works so well..." Adelle shut her eye-sockets, forcing back the rising anger once more.

"yeah...we learned pretty quick never to say that to undyne." Sans drank some of his ketchup. "come to think of it, ya both got anger issues. you should meet her sometime. ya probably will, since she works with paps."

Adelle merely shook her head, her eye-sockets still shut, trying to center herself. She was shutting out the rest of the bar, but with Sans sitting directly to her right, she couldn't quite shut out his voice. She would not be meeting Undyne. She wasn't sure how she could avoid Papyrus now, but she knew that she just couldn't let him get any closer than she already had. She didn't appreciate his deception-how had he even managed to keep it to himself?-but she understood the reasons behind it. Papyrus was a good person. And she wasn't.

"you still in there? you've been sitting with your eye-sockets closed for ten minutes now, and it's kinda freaking me out. usually i'm the one who falls asleep sitting up. maybe it's a skeleton thing, but papyrus never does it..."

Adelle looked over at him, and was surprised to see genuine concern on his face. She looked away, ashamed. This didn't help, because now she was more-or-less facing Grillby, who was still watching her. He pointed to her glass and cocked his head, wordlessly asking her if she wanted a refill, and she shook her head. Turning back to Sans, she asked him, "Would you apologize to Papyrus for me?"

So, that was her decision, then. Sans still wore his usual grin, but his flat voice gave away his opinion of her request. "you seem to be pretty okay with getting your hands dirty. you're a big girl. I think you can handle it."

"Oh, nice. You butt into my personal business, then you cop an attitude."

"figured it was my turn."

She plucked the maraschino cherry out of her cup of melting ice, weighing her options. Could she get away with lodging it into Sans's eye-socket? Probably not. She ate it, leaving the stem on her cocktail napkin. She could have eaten that too, but why be crass?

"usually, when people do crazy shit like you've been doing, they've lost something. or someone." Sans watched Adelle's face, saw it turning that rather interesting shade of green, and he knew that he'd hit pay-dirt. "who did you lose, adelle?"

Adelle didn't bother to shut her eyes now. Her temper was under control, meaning that her eye-sockets weren't glowing green, and she let the wave of anger wash over her. Let herself experience it. It was an odd sensation, to be so angry and yet so calm at the same time. It was that calmness that she embraced now, and it probably saved Sans from being thrown across the room. That was what she wanted to do, of course. How dare he? Instead, she got slowly to her feet and left a tip on the bar for Grillby. "Prick."

Sans watched her leave, wondering if he had gone too far. He caught Grillby's head-shake of disapproval, but instead of acknowledging it he hopped off of his bar stool and peeked out the window. Good...Adelle had gone to the left, in the direction of her house. At last he hadn't sent her over the edge! "welp," he said to himself, "nobody's perfect."

Note: So...Adelle and Sans really haven't gotten off on the right foot, have they? I don't want to give too much away, but they actually don't end up hating each other (no, they don't get together either). For now, though, she'd kind of like to pop him one.