Dart tries to endear himself to Thread again when she's the only MC-adjacent option left. Thread knows this and has self-respect now (and three way better bfs) and horrible-nightmare-bastard-man has to grovel if he wants her attention back. It's humiliating. It's beneath him. He's basically all-powerful. He is desperately BEGGING her to let him stitch up a loose hem for her to prove he can at least still be useful to her. Please...
Couldn’t help it. I wrote a bit.
“please.”
He couldn’t believe this. He was all-powerful. He was the creator of this world, the creator of everyone in the world... He made her, for fuck’s sake! She owed him everything! He stitched her together, he threaded in and combed out each string of yarn in her hair, every seam and line was his work...
... His first work...
... And here he was. Grovelling. Kneeling in front of her, gripping onto the bottom of her shirt, face pressed into the fabric.
He’d tried to make small dolls to fill the emptiness, after you left with the real versions of everyone and he’d been so absorbed in his own fury that he’d confined himself to a small, inaccessible area of the anti-void, not wanting to even look at his ‘failed’ creations and the happiness they were making together. Little, soft dolls had been his only way to pass the time, to have some, ANY company. One of Stitch, Patch... fuck, even Lockstitch, the failure who ruined everything by keying you into the fact that everything was fake. He’d worked so hard on the doll of Thread, every seam perfect... he refused to admit to himself that it was because he missed her so much, he missed them all so much, he missed having people so speak to and listen to and touch and feel...
He kept telling himself he didn’t need anyone. And all the while, he was meticulously and obsessively brushing out the yarn hair of a lookalike toy in empty silence while the finished others sat nearby. All the while he was trying to fill the gaps in his Soul with lookalikes of the people he’d desperately hoped could be his make-believe friends. All the while... he was hugging an inanimate object close to his chest and silently begging it to hug back.
... That’s all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? Company. Love. He was never that Sans, the one he saw being loved by you, the one he saw surrounded by others who cared. He was some kind of creature who’d mimicked ‘Sans’ to the point of losing it’s own identity. He was never meant to have that life... he just peered into another universe and saw so much love, so much happiness, and he wanted it. He was overcome with loneliness and jealousy. He wanted that life, he wanted it so badly...
... And he thought that if he copied every detail, he could have it. He thought if he made himself look like a Sans and act like a Sans, if he made creatures that looked and acted like ‘Red’ and ‘Skull’, if he had you...
... He wouldn’t be alone anymore.
“... How did you get in here?” Thread asked. “Where’s Patch?”
She was angry. And cautious. Understandably... he threw her away when she wasn’t close enough to what he’d idealised. He was so stupid... a perfect, willing person to love him, right there, waiting... and he’d thrown her away because she didn’t match the fantasy he’d latched onto and built his whole world around.
“he’s asleep. p... please.” He was so unused to asking for anything. He always just... got it. “please. j-just let me... please, please!”
“Calm down. Stop touching me.” One hand pressed against his shoulder, the other tried to pry his hand off her shirt. “Dart. Let me go, I don’t want you here.”
He felt his Soul clench tightly, painfully. Just hearing her say that made so many emotions well up inside him- anger (how dare she!? i made her, who does she think she is?!), fear (don’t make me be alone again, please, please), panic, loneliness, desperation... his gut response was to cling tighter to her shirt, and he felt the sharp ends of his phalanges start to cut into the fabric.
“Let me go.” She had more conviction in her voice. More conviction in everything... she knew she had protection. She had protection and love now, the two things he denied her. “I’ll scream.”
He blurted it out. “i know your wrist seam is loose.”
...
... She froze at that. He heard the rustle as her hand instinctively snapped up and covered her left wrist- an oversized hoodie conveniently masking the area.
The others hadn’t seen. But he’d seen... you see so much when you’re stalking from the shadows, when you're forced to remain on the outside of the box.
“... H... how do you...”
... He finally made himself pull his face away from her shirt, still gripping it so tight it was tearing slightly. He looked up, into her cute little buttons that served as eyes... God, why did he miss those shiny little buttons more than he missed your real eyes? Why did it make him so angry that he couldn’t just grab her and make her be with him?
Why was he trying so hard?
“...i made you. i can tell when you’re hurt.” His voice felt so thin. It was the first conversation he’d had with another living being in what felt like years, but was most likely only a week. “... i’m... the only one who can sew you. i can fix it.”
... She didn’t respond. She just stared at him.
...
“... please. i can be useful. just... just let me fix it. let me mend something, i-instead of breaking. please.”
He rose to his feet, slowly, taking her damaged hand in both of his. The material he’d stitched her out of was so soft, so fragile... He could feel his Soul pounding faster and faster against his ribs with every passing moment. He didn’t even think he’d get this far; he thought she’d see him and immediately scream for Patch, and his old hound would tear him into ribbons in a cruelly ironic death.
(He had learnt, very quickly, that Patch could cut through his strings with the blade-like ends of his legs. Dart almost found it funny that the monster that’d once been at his beck and call could destroy him so easily.)
A crease formed between Threads brows as she thought. Even the fact that she was considering just proved to Dart that she was so much kinder and more loving than he could ever be. He’d never understand how he, a cruel, desperate and pathetic abomination had managed to create something so pure, so kind...
... So forgiving.
...
...
“... Alright.” Thread said. “... Just the wrist. If you try anything, I’ll scream.”
... His Soul jumped into his throat.
... All he could manage was a small nod.
“... g-give me your hand. i can show you the stitch i used...”
"I won't." Aizawa-sensei folds his hands over each other and sits, slouched. His eyes pierce through Hitoshi. "Find someone else."
"But—"
Aizawa-sensei gives him a flat look. It's the same half-lidded gaze that Hitoshi will glance over and find paired with a flat line of a mouth, like the time Hitoshi asked if Aizawa-sensei was any good at art history the day before the exam.
"It would be easier…"
Aizawa-sensei's brows draw together, just slightly.
"Are you here," he says, tapping the desk that separates them, "because you thought being a hero would be easy?"
No. Aizawa-sensei is right.
Hitoshi bows. "I'll—find someone else."
A shuffle of paper as Hitoshi turns away.
"Here," Aizawa-sensei says. "You forgot this."
It's a folder, thin, but Hitoshi flips it open and blinks at the fact that it's filled at all.
