i've got demons running 'round in my head [open]

[postictal]

Who: Tim Wright and YOU // Frisk and YOU
Where: The Bathhouse
When: 11/17 - 11/20
Rating: PG-13 at least
Summary: What happens when you copy a copy? The law of diminishing returns.
The Story:

[Just kidding. Starters are in the comments.]

Comments

TIM WRIGHT + SHADOW; set me free from my jealousy, won't you exorcise my mind?

[postictal]

The back of one wrist rubs against Tim's brow, brushing away the beading sweat that's begun to plaster his hair slick to his forehead. It's already clinging uncomfortably to the back of his neck. He's only got jeans and a t-shirt, but the curtains of heated steam are still making it hard to breathe. Definitely no smoking here.

He has to muffle each cough with a fist clenched over his mouth, his shoulders shaking. But eventually, eventually, eventually - he can't run anymore.

The specter materializes from the clouds of aromatic steam. It looks like him, to be certain; everything from the hair to the clothing to the build of his body. There's a slightly off color to the falling of its hair and the tint of its clothes and skin, like it's just a shade of two darker on the palette.

But most arresting are the eyes. They spark with treacherous golden light, and it looks at Tim with an expression of absolute disgust.

"Great," it mutters. "It's you."

"Great," says Tim. He sure doesn't fucking need this. He sure doesn't fucking need yet another copy of himself. There are far too many Tims running around this mansion already. He's pretty certain, in fact, that one Tim Wright was already too many.

"You hate me so much already." The shadow scowls at the floor with its hands shoved in its pockets, a slightly faded copy of Tim's own worn jeans. "You don't even know me."

"I know enough." Tim starts easing back, step by step, one hand creeping for his pocket -

The shadow's eyes snap to the motion immediately, greedily, skewering him into stillness with the sickly gold of its stare.

"You're gonna kill me. You're gonna kill me like you killed everyone else," it taunts, lip curling in a sneer. "It's getting easier for you, isn't it? Didn't even hesitate when you killed that shapeshifter. What's everyone gonna say when they realize you're a murderer? After all you've done to hide it?"

"Shut up." The knife is in his hand. He's going to gut this thing, here and now, no matter what it says.

"Does Max know you killed him? Killed her friend?" the shadow howls. "You killed him, and all he was doing was asking how it felt to kill one of your friends! You think he didn't know how that felt? You think it didn't tear him up inside?"

"Shut up!" The words rebound off the cloying heat, the sweltering billows of steam, his knuckles white on the knife and his jaw setting as he bites his tongue and refuses to fucking cry on the principle of it.

"You're poison!" the shadow shrieks. "The longer you stay here the more you're going to hurt everyone else. All these normal people with their normal lives - you're jealous! You're jealous that they're always gonna have when you never got!"

Tim covers his ears with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Go away, go away, go away..."

hey there, tims. it's me. ya boi.

[burntvideocassette]

Jay's running.

There is something back there in the steam, something shaped like him with a cruel glint in its eye as it peers into the screen of its camera. Jay's own camera is suffering, a thick layer of condensation over the lens, water dripping into the cracks, but Jay can't bring himself to turn it off. All he can do is keep it rolling, keep moving, keep glancing back over his shoulder until he stops seeing--

He collides with something--someone--the man's elbow digging hard into his side.

"Sorry, I--wait, Tim?"

ya bois

[postictal]

Someone slams into the shadow from behind. Tim skitters back abruptly several paces as though electrified. The shadow whirls on the offending interloper abruptly with a glint of white teeth bared in a snarl.

"You don't even care about Tim, do you?" it snaps at him. "You don't really have friends. You just have people you think you have to protect. They're not really people to you at all. And you - you're just something Tim feels obligated to save after he failed the first time!"

"Shut up!" Tim, the real Tim, lurches out across the space between them, stretching a hand out to snatch him away from the shadow's searchlight gaze. "Jay, we gotta go."

[burntvideocassette]

There's entirely too much going on.

He didn't hit Tim after all. The eyes are wrong, and the way it shouts at him is--well, not wrong, because he's heard this inflection before. He's heard this anger before, but it wasn't out of nowhere like this. Then Tim (the real Tim, it looks like) is reaching for him, and Jay grabs the offered hand. The real Tim shouts something at the fake one, and he's pulling at Jay, and Jay takes that as his cue to start running. They need to get out of there. He needs to get them out of here.

You don't really have friends. You just have people you think you have to protect.

"Shut up," he mutters, barely audible.

You're just something Tim feels obligated to save after he failed the first time.

He's not a person. He's the narrator. He's the cameraman. He's the means to an end. He's an obligation.

The words are cruel, but they're not wrong, are they?

(Of course they are. He's not some kind of psychopath. He doesn't think people are objects. Just because he's barely real doesn't mean Tim or Jessica or--or Alex are the same way. They deserve to make it out. They deserve to be protected.)

[postictal]

"Don't listen to him," Tim snaps. Never mind that Tim himself seemed fairly content to sit there and listen to the thing as it blabbed on and on about Tim's own shortcomings and personal failings. But now that it's crossed the line to Jay -

"Don't think you can get away with that either!" It's still howling as it gives chase and fuck but it's fast. It's fast enough to keep up with both of them. "You think he cares about you, Jay? You think you're not just some failure to him too? You're every insecurity he's ever had! You're ever wish he's ever had! He only gives a damn because he figured out that you're just as fucked in the head as he is!"

Tim slips across a puddle of perfumed water with enough force to bring him to the ground. One hand flies out behind him to keep himself from cracking his skull on the ground, but his elbow burns as it drags across in a high-velocity skid, taking the skin off its edges.

[burntvideocassette]

Tim says not to listen to him, and he's not, he's really not, but then he says something that Jay's brain hangs on.

You're every wish he ever had.

What? Is he saying he wants Jay around? Wait, is he saying he wants to be like Jay, exhausted and obsessive and paranoid and friendless and incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence? Why the hell would he want any of that? Sure, maybe he's not running around with a mask on at night, but Jay's life really isn't much of a step up beyond that.

And sure, he wasn't listening, definitely, but that thing assumes he thinks Tim cares about him, and that's just...there's no reason for that. They want each other to stay alive, and they want to watch movies sometimes, but Tim's a liar and Jay's a flighty asshole and there's no reason they'd care enough for that to sting.

And then he crosses a line (just as Tim slips on the bathhouse floor, and Jay can hear the crack of an elbow hitting the tile, and Jay automatically pulls down into a crouch to help him back to his feet) but he's on autopilot because this double or shadow or whatever it is has just crossed a line.

"Shut up!" Jay spits, eyes locked on the Tim who just spoke. "Just because that thing made me--just because it fried my brain once or twice it doesn't mean I have to be locked up!"

As soon as the words are out, he freezes, feeling a cold droplet of condensation slide down his back. He doesn't look at Tim.

He shouldn't have said that.

"Doesn't it?" The voice comes from their right, from an amorphous, backlit shape in the fog, but Jay recognizes the voice. He knows Tim does, too.

[postictal]

Shit.

The silhouette is undeniable, though how it manages to make Jay's wiry shape in any way intimidating is really beyond him. Maybe it's the yellow glint through the fogging whiteness, like a spotlight about to light the pair of them up in a halation of gold. Tim hisses between his teeth at the sting and burn at his elbow, cradling it up against his chest, but only manages to get himself half upright to his knees.

Doesn't it?

"It's okay to need help," he manages. "It's okay to need help. That doesn't mean you're gonna get locked up. You won't, I - "

"I won't let you!" the shadow says, its voice high-pitched and mocking as it closes in at their left. Hemming them in. No easy way out. "Isn't that sweet of him? Isn't that just like him? He won't let you get locked away. Like he has any say in it! Pretending that you're not dangerous. Pretending that you wouldn't have ki͔̥̟̜ḽ̵̼̭̠͕̙̱ḽ̵e͚̘̳͚̜͈d̷͉͕ ̘̭͈̲̹̝́h̰̺̰͔̩͜i͉͝m͉͎͠ if he hadn't stopped you."

cw: violence and jay's ten tons of internalized ableism

[burntvideocassette]

"No." He backs away, nearly knocking up against Tim. "You're wrong. I just--"

"You just wanted answers. You just wanted to make him bleed until he talked. You just wanted to sl̝͇̻̜i̩͉͞t́ ḫ̩̟̹i͏s̠̀ ͚̞̘t̙͖̲̠̱̩́h̠̣͕̼r̤̘͓͟o͔͍̥̼͎͓a̷̺̞͈̜̺t̟̬̰͕͔̼͉ once he stopped being useful." As the shadow closes in, it's possible to see what he's carrying: a camera in one hand, and a pale plastic mask dangling from an elastic string in the other. "Don't lie. You're godawful at it, and you're not getting any better."

The shadow swings the mask back and forth, gold eyes sparkling as it turns to Tim.

"Patterns of behavior that would warrant criminal arrest. Dishonesty. Impulsivity. Aggression. Blatant disregard for the safety of himself and others. Irresponsibility. Lack of remorse." He tilts his head, eyebrows raised. "Dunno about you, Tim, but he sounds like a textbook psychopath to me."

[postictal]

"That's not how it works, asshole." He surges to his feet, the rubbed-raw feeling of abraded skin on his elbow all but forgotten. "You can't get a diagnosis of 'psychopath'."

"That's cute," his shadow hisses. It's pacing, prowling to and fro like some great caged beast, watching the pair of them hungrily "Pretending you don't know he's just as ruined as you are, Tim. Maybe he always was. Maybe you can't even blame yourself for that one. But you like blaming yourself anyway; it's just about all you're good at."

He's doing a shit job at tuning the thing out, that's for damn sure. But as his gaze settles on the camera clasped in the imitation of Jay's hand, and then the other thing -

The words rasp sharply out of his throat in his shock. "The hell is that?"

[burntvideocassette]

(Jay's brow furrows for a moment. You can't?)

The shadow grins, crooked and familiar. He lifts the mask. "Oh, this?"

No no no no no--

It takes Jay a moment to realize he's saying it out loud.

The mask is small, nearly the same shape as Tim's. A child's mask. The eyes are ringed in wide, black circles, and there's a simple rectangular mouth drawn over the sculpted one, criss-crossed with lines to form teeth.

It looks the same as the first day he saw it, the day he woke exhausted after a night of spooling through footage from the hotel safe, the day he checked the security footage to find something unthinkable. He tore his room apart trying to find it, but no luck.

"Missed me, Jaybird?" The shadow squeaks in a cartoonish falsetto, running his fingers through the eye-holes to make the mask twitch.

[postictal]

Something about that apparently distresses Jay in a way that, for a split second, escapes him. Only for a second, until the moment the glaring white disk of a mask fits easily over the shadow's face like something out of a nightmare. It's like the kind of mask Tim always kicked away under his bed and pretended didn't exist (because you remember what happens when you try and get rid of it, don't you?), but the markings are all wrong.

Whatever it is, Jay recognizes it. There's no mistaking it. Jay recognizes it, and it terrifies him.

"Maybe that's your fault too, Tim," the shadow crows triumphantly. "Ever think of that?"

Tim -

Tim looks at Jay.

Looks at the recognition. The unmistakable horror.

"Jay," he says, drawing the word out, "what are they talking about?"

[burntvideocassette]

He can't explain it. He can't talk about this, not to Tim, not to anyone. This goes beyond a fever and a cough, this goes beyond "a little paranoid." Clipped out of the footage. Nobody needed to know this. This wouldn't help. It almost never happened. It wasn't important, and it still isn't.

He says all he can think of to say, unable to suppress the panic in his voice. "I don't know!"

"What did I say about lying?" The shadow shifts its focus from Jay to Tim, mask still strung across his face. It fits perfectly. "Awful, isn't he? Throws a hissy fit about you lying to him, and the whole time he was sitting on this bombshell. 'Cause he didn't need help, obviously."

[postictal]

"You too?"

He tears his gaze from Jay, helpless and stammering and panicked and terrified, to the mask, and then back again. He can't manage anything but flat disbelief. He remembers...he knows that particular design had shown up, once, in those videos he scoured over and over in the dead of the night, but he'd assumed it was just a blip, just some strange and off-kilter design. Maybe something Brian engineered; he doesn't know.

But he knew. He knew this entire time, and -

"You too?" The word nearly breaks.

"Can you tell, Jay?" Tim's shadow speaks with unmistakable triumph. "He's relieved. Relieved that it wasn't ever just him."

a sans for your troubles

[punful]

The whole place reminds him way too much of that tower, only a couple events ago. Two events ago? It's hard to keep track. The creatures are easier to dodge, however, not particularly dangerous if you're keeping an eyesocket out.

There's his Shadow, yeah, but the guy has been mostly innocuous so far. Just a blubbery, annoying hanger-on. Sans hasn't made much effort to get away from him. As far as he's concerned, this is just another event with really, really bad copies of everyone, here to annoy everyone to death. He's got no reason to think otherwise.

Yet.

He hears yelling up ahead, but can't see very well through all the steam. The voice is certainly familiar.

"oh no, it's tim!"

Sans walks a bit faster. "yep."

"no, we shouldn't go near him! he hates us now, doesn't he? he'd never want to see us! we should turn back! you don't want to see him either, right? right? you're afraid of what he thinks of you now, right?"

Sans makes a noncommittal sound and turns a corner. There's Tim, facing off against...yep, another Tim. He's wondering if maybe Wonderland is just running out of ideas. Or maybe shapeshifters and doppelegangers are just in vogue.

"tim. hey."

His Shadow immediately starts sniffling, again. "oh noooo, his shadow sounds so angry... this is such a bad idea, they hate us now, i know they do! they hate us cause everyone does!"

Sans completely ignores his own Shadow, and only spares a glance for Tim's.

"try and ignore it, yeah? i think i know where the stairs are."

can i offer you an egg in this trying time

[postictal]

The shadow whirls around, its look treacherous and bladed. A skeleton that sniffles and sobs pathetically is only slightly stranger an image than anything else Tim has seen, but the fact that it's Sans, who he's never seen cry or bare anything approaching that kind of vulnerability so completely, is enough to shock him into silence.

Not so for the shadow.

"You think he's gonna ignore me?" It leers out at the pair of them with a sickening yellowish glower. "You think he's capable of it? He's just as much a self-pitying moron as you are, but at least he admits it to himself."

Tim can't quite seem to meet Sans's eyesockets.

"Then...go find it," he mutters to the floor. "I'm not dragging this thing over to anyone else."

"This 'thing.' You hear him?" the shadow snarls. "I'm his true self. All the parts of himself he won't accept."

how about TWO eggs?

[punful]

Sans rolls his eyelights. The Shadow cowers under the weight of the other Shadow's stare, sobbing a little more now.

"yeah, yeah, we're all heaps of garbage, everyone's got secrets, everyone's a liar, everyone's a piece of shit, thanks, every event is like this, we get it. wonderland is running this 'be true to yourself' thing into the goddamn ground."

It's annoying, it's leaving everyone an emotional wreck, and it's humiliating, for everyone involved. If this wasn't the fourth time in a row that Sans had to deal with all the worst parts of himself, he might actually be more inclined to listen to any of this.

"he haaaatesss usssss..."

The Shadow says it in a stage whisper, peering nervously between Tim and Tim's Shadow. Sans ignores it completely.

"fair enough. you need help getting rid of it?"

He's not going to just dive right into it like last time. The Shadow might be over-dramatizing things, but Sans is pretty sure that he's the last person Tim wanted to see right now.

"they never listen to us shadows...it's sad..."

mmmmmmmmm are they bad eggs

[postictal]

"What am I supposed to do?" Tim snaps. "Accept it? I've told it that it's right about a million times now, and it doesn't do a damn thing!"

"You look like someone who had the shit beat out of him as a kid," Tim's shadow says to Sans, his head cocked to one side. "The kind of kid who got his lunch money stolen. You got any thoughts on this?"

"You," says Tim, glaring at the cowering shadow, the mirror image to Sans, "can shut up. And you?" His gaze snaps to Sans. "You can...we're just gonna be a breeding ground for whatever shit these things wanna throw at us. So how 'bout maybe you beat it, and maybe we can get out of this alive. That's what you want, isn't it? Me alive?"

"We're down to guilt-tripping already?" The shadow flares, its edges fuzzing like static. "Hey, Sans, I've gotta real good one for you: Tim ever tell you he's a murderer?"

one is a bad egg the other is a v bad egg

[punful]

Sans gives an exasperated shrug.

"look, i don't know. i heard there was a network post about all this, but i haven't been able to check. nothing's making these things go away."

He already knows half of what this stupid Shadow is saying. If accepting it is the trick, then why is this clingy idiot still around?

Sans levels a bored stare at Tim's Shadow.

"nope, and we don't have the concept of lunch money in the underground, so great job so far."

Tim snaps at both of them, and the Shadow gives a little wail and ducks behind Sans again.

"i knew he hated us, i knew it, they always do, even when they say they like us, how are we supposed to trust them... how? how? i don't know how!"

All these people talking is giving Sans a headache. He rubs at his skull.

"alright, you got a point. i'll--"

"see, he does hate us! we ruined it, we ruined it, like we always ruin everything with everyone!"

The Shadow immediately bursts into tears. Sans drags both hands down his face.

"yeah, thanks, we did the whole 'raise your hand if you're a murderer' thing already. this is the problem with shadows--they're always lagging behind. heh, cause--never mind. i'll head this way, you head that way?"

"he'll never forgive us because we're so bad at apologizinnnngggg! why do you have to be so awful sans? everyone hates you and it's your fault for being such broken traaaaash! we deserve it, we deserve it all!"

"oh my god, can everyone who's not real just--shut up for awhile? please?"

worst egg contest congrats u win

[postictal]

Tim flinches despite himself, despite the fact that Sans doesn't miss a moment of it, doesn't let it unseat him, doesn't let it uproot his fucking composure. Maybe Tim learned to be just as weary and empty to these kinds of shifts the way Sans has, but he's still pathetic and prone to crying fits and regular fits and curling up on the ground shivering because he can't live with himself.

The shadow isn't done.

"Did Tim ever tell you who he killed?"

"Don't - " Tim only manages that one word, a low, lifting warning, but the shadow cuts him off, overriding both Tim's anxious preemptive measures and the wailing of Sans's self-pitying shadow.

"Or has the name A̠͚͘l͎ͯͭe̥͋ͭx̖̃̽ K̛ͧͭr̈͏᷾a̶͍᷁ḽ̡̻iͭ͢͝e̱̙ͧ stopped ringing a bell?"

[punful]

He's tired. That's all it really is. Too goddamn tired of all of this, because it's been two years, and every third event in Wonderland has been something like this. Something that pulls the rug on everyone, makes them question everything about themselves, about the people they know, about their entire lives. Something as simple as "what if that one thing had never happened," something as complex as "here's all your worst traits made manifest." He just can't care anymore, not when Wonderland is recycling the same thing over and over and over. It doesn't even give anyone the proper recovery time. If you're gonna force something like this down someone's throat, you need to give them time afterwards, to process. To deal. To get past it.

Sans, though, has no idea what it's like to have that sort of time. He never really has. You either hit the ground running, or you just give up. And Sans is having a real hard time keeping his feet under him. Practically forgotten how they work.

Of course, nothing is over. The Shadows aren't done talking just because Sans is so done with all of this. Tim's Shadow is loud, vicious, easily talking past Tim and Sans and the weepy little Sans-shaped mess on the floor.

There's always gonna be something. Always gonna be that rug pull. You can roll your eyelights as much as you want at Wonderland rolling out all the chart-toppers for the umpteenth time. But Wonderland, if nothing else, always manages to put that extra, horrible little twist on things. A jerk of the knife.

Sans frowns slightly, and he should know better, should just--put all of this aside until the event is over and they can just talk properly, but...

"a...lex?"

"i thought they were friends? were they friends? did we just assume that? ohhhh, we're always assuming things, oh nooooo... sans, that's okay though, right? alex definitely hated us, and if someone hated us then, then it's better to just give up, right? so it's okay."

"just. shut up. everyone. my skull's killing me."

He narrows his eyesockets at Tim's shadow.

"this is stupid. it's obviously a lie. alex had the gun. he had LOVE."

Tim doesn't have...although, Sans has never actually Checked. It doesn't work that well with people who aren't from the Underground. The numbers are less...concrete.

[postictal]

"And now Tim does, too. Got two bodies that he dropped on his own - as well as everyone else whose lives he ruined, just by being there! There's nothing in his life that wasn't ruined just because he happened to be there!"

"Shut up," says Tim, but it's too small, too frail, too trembling. The shadow speaks louder.

"He stabbed him. He stabbed him in the throat! And when Alex lay there, screaming and gasping and trying to breathe through the hole in his neck, Tim started beating him, like some kind of animal! Tried ripping him apart! You should've seen the mess he made of old Alex Kralie. Guy was so red by the end of it that you couldn't even recognize him!"

"Shut up," says Tim, louder, desperately.

"It's not like he doesn't know he's a murderer," the shadow spits, like bacon fat sizzling in the pan. "He just doesn't want everyone else to know. Especially not the people who knew Alex Kralie. Who cared about Alex Kralie. Who gave a damn about Alex Kralie."

[punful]

Two bodies. So there was someone else, too. And Tim did say, back at movie night...

No, this is stupid. He shouldn't listen to the Shadow. What is he doing? These things are just--illusions, just a part of an event. Nothing but lies.

He can't help flinching as the Shadow describes it. Shouldn't be listening, but he can't not. The damn Shadow is too loud. The throat. He can imagine it. Humans...they bleed so much when anything damages their necks. He has no idea why. It's like that's where all the blood is and really, how can--how can creatures with so much substance and solidness be filled with so much liquid?

"okay. shut up."

The Shadow doesn't hear him or Tim, or it just ignores them both. It keeps going. The Shadow is watching with rapt, weepy attention, tears spilling down its face.

"this--isn't the time or place for any of this. i'm sick of knowing people's deep dark secrets any--"

"don't lie. stop lying all the time! knowing is how we protect ourselves. now--now we know tim can't be trusted!"

"stop it."

"what if he tries to kill you? he might! if he killed one person, he can do it again! you know how LOVE works."

"not in other worlds, i don't. i'm not listening to this."

"he's dangerous! he could hurt us! he already hates us...he could hurt us so easily! we can't trust him! he's too dangerous!"

Sans presses a hand to his forehead.

"everyone is dangerous. literally everyone. LOVE or no LOVE, it...1 point is the same as 99999. it's all the same. half the people i know could kill me by accident. so just--someone being dangerous to me isn't a good enough argument. try again."

"it's one of the reasons we can't trust anyone...no matter how much we want to. why? why is it so hard? it was easy when all you had to do was relate on how broken you both were. right? sans...you came out too wrong to ever get anything right."

Sans looks over at Tim, trying to meet his gaze. This is fucked up. This is all so fucked up, and it's too hot, and it's hard to breathe, and the only reason they ever got along in the first place was because they both understood misery. Self-imposed and otherwise.

It's so fucked up.

[postictal]

"Don't you know, already, that he can't be trusted?" the shadow crows. "You know what everyone back home likes to call him? HE IS A LIAR. He lies and he lies and he'll do it compulsively and he'll do it to your face, and he'll justify it to himself so it sounds like he had no other choice!"

Tim -

Tim says nothing.

He ducks his head and wraps his arms around his chest and doesn't look at any of them, not Sans, not the whining, tearful shadow in the corner, not the vindictive mirror of himself snarling out words he can't deny. Its eyes shine gold in spiteful victory.

"You can't trust him. Not a single word he says. Even if he pretends it's true. Maybe you were never friends."

[punful]

"yeah, well, it's a growing club. accepting new members every day. gotta come up with a cool name for it. 'liar's club' is kinda on the nose."

Tim isn't looking at him, or at anyone. Sans gives a very heavy sigh and glares at the Shadow.

"there's at least one thing i know i can trust him on. that's all i need right now."

"but what if you regret it? you probably will!"

Sans doesn't even dignify that with an answer. He steps a little closer to Tim.

"tim. i can get us outta here if you want. we can lose them for a bit."

[postictal]

"Don't touch me!" His tone is shrill and he immediately flinches back several paces, arms upraised to shield himself from something that doesn't come.

The shadow's gaze smolders, glinting bronze.

"You still trust him? Even if he can't bear to look at you?" Its tone is ravenous, the words hissing like steam from a kettle. "Even if he can't bear to let you touch him? You always hated people touching you, didn't you, Timothy? Too many doctors who grabbed you without asking and made you swallow those pills and had to keep you tied down because otherwise you'd hurt yourself, am I right? Does he tell you that, Sans?"

Shut up. Tim mouths the words but they issue soundlessly, his eyes heating and wet.

"Look at him. He's crying. He always cries. Does he tell you how much he still can't bear to look at you, because you remind him of a nightmare he could never really shake?" Its voice pitches upward into something akin to a roar. "A nightmare that might not even be real, Timothy! Because you're delusional, the same as you've always been!"