Occam's Razor Does Not Apply Here

Get School 2/3

"Wow," said Dorsal, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and flicking any crust off to the side, "You seemed to make an impression."

"Shut the fuck up," Baharia muttered. Then, after a moment, she pulled out the money owed for the swear jar, and put it in the nearly-full tin labeled "Baharia". Oh goody! Soon, Dorsal would have a bit more spending money. (Cae's swear jar system said that whenever a jar got filled, the money was distributed evenly among the team members. Cae was still working on his first jar, after all this time. Dorsal... was a little less skilled at keeping a clean vocabulary at all times.)

"...Would you like me to get you some hot chocolate from Antares' cafe?" Dorsal asked after a moment. Baharia, like most of the people on her team, responded well to getting sweets. Was she really the only person on the team who didn't have a sugar addiction? That was a little worrying, wasn't it. But why? But the outer Muffet was friendly enough, so... okay?

"...Sure," Baharia said, a small smile forming on her snout, which was about as close to a non-malicious smile as you could get when it came to her, "That sounds alright."

"Alright is not a positive," Dorsal said, waggling a finger. She really was trying to get Baharia to lighten up. Especially after recent events. Dorsal really doubted it would work. Baharia would just stay resigned to her current attitude until her inevitable and depressing death and oh boy they didn't have long before that happened nononono

"That sounds great," Baharia said, with only a little actual contempt. The rest was fake. Okay, okay, focus on that. The fact that she's been less sour. Right.

"Okay then," Dorsal said, turning out the door, "If Cane or Cae asks, tell them where I am." Her heart was still racing from her bout of worrying, but she was determined to get her thought process back to normal, and to not let the fact that she had nearly worked herself up to a panic show.

...Breathe. Yep, slow those thoughts on down....... Okay. That was better. Back to the thing at hand. Dorsal was having a normal day, normal thoughts."Yep," Baharia said, giving a half-hearted thumbs-up. Yes. Her plan was working. Totally. Not. Sarcasm.

On her way over to Antares' cafe, Dorsal saw a few people lazily getting out of their living areas. There wasn't really an official start to the work day (unless you worked in the G lab or in Management), but everybody tried to be at work by nine. Most things were spotty until then, and after seven in the evening.

Antares' little restaurant was kind of crowded, as it typically got in the morning (Dorsal found it a little hard to believe that people would get up early, just to get a drink). Luckily, it seemed that Antares had started to implement other people (also known as her spider children who finally started to remember resets). So, all Dorsal had to do, if point at the menu item, hand over her card to the little spider in tiny uniform, and sit back.

After a few minutes, a crowd of spiders scurrying on the starry ceiling slowly lowered down an iced tea, and a hot chocolate (along with her card). Dorsal thanked the spiders, took the drinks, and started walking back.

She could see Cae walking out of the elevator he (almost) always used (these days). One might think that Cae, being a swapped Sans, would be up earlier than she would be. The flaw in that reasoning would be assuming that he had a completely Papyrus-type personality. After all, their universe was only a stage three swap. Things stayed the same.

And admittedly, Dorsal normally wouldn't be out this much earlier either. But Baharia had sent her a barrage of grumpy texts, that had stirred Dorsal from her sleep. It also didn't help that Baharia had left something burning in the toaster of their shared apartment. (Fortunately, Dorsal had taken care of it before the fire alarms went off. Then she got to sit in the controlled rain of the shower, rather than fire sprinklers, which she couldn't shut off.)

Dorsal didn't really feel like racing her voice in order to call hello, but both her hands were holding drinks, so she couldn't wave hello either. No good morning for Cae, unfortunately. Cae being up also unfortunately meant that she couldn't work on her personal projects until he went somewhere else. Her Sans might not be lazy, but on task he was not. Ish. He could get frighteningly focused if he wanted to. Which was, admittedly, quite frequently. Like whenever he went into a universe.