entranceway | [action/video] where does a skeleton go on vacation? death valley [backdated]

ACTION, CLOSED TO PAPYRUS

He wakes up in Snowdin.

The dull, ambient light of the Underground filters through the curtain. Ah. He's back. Back to this again. Wonders what the last one was like. Good one? Bad one? They all bleed together, blend, tiny fragments of memory and shadows of dreams or nightmares. Lines he knows but doesn't remember speaking. Doesn't matter anyway. Not worth wondering why the human Reset this time. Never worth wondering.

Here we go again.

He doesn't move. Waits for the line he knows. He remembers. He wakes up, and Papyrus always says the exact same thing. He'll call from downstairs any second now.

Any second now.

He doesn't.

Sans's eyesockets widen and he sits bolt upright with a strangled cry, one hand clawing at his chest, over where his soul would be. Wonderland. He's in Wonderland. It's sunlight filtering through the curtains.

He reaches for his left shoulder, gripping at bones that should be shattered and broken. The bones are intact. He's whole. Solid.

He--

He'd saved Papyrus.

And then he'd left him alone.

He stares at his knees, starting to shake. He can't bring himself to look up. Can't bring himself to see whether Papyrus is sitting in his room, has been sitting in his room the whole time, like Sans did when Papyrus died, counting seconds. Has Papyrus been counting seconds?

"p-papyrus?" He must be here, or at least nearby, but Sans can't look. "papyrus?"

VIDEO/ACTION [backdated to the twelfth, two days after Papyrus's post]

[It's Sans, and judging by the fact that he's sitting on a bare mattress, he seems to be in his room. He is conspicuously not wearing his hoodie--instead, he's wearing an oversized T-shirt with the words "World's Best Grandma" on it in neon letters. There's a hairline crack in his skull leading upward from his left eyesocket, but it's less than an inch long, small enough that it might be hard to notice. Other than that, everything seems normal. He's obviously tired, but when is he not tired?]

hey. so, i'm back from vacation. figured some people might want to know. was pretty nice. beaches, palm trees, margaritas. sailboats and stuff. just me on an island in the...

[He frowns and looks downward off camera, then seems to be trying to read something off paper.]

the...carrie...bean? carrie-bean. yeah, there. i'm guessing it's an ocean. actually, i didn't know oceans had names. looks nice, though. check it out.

[He holds up what appears to be some kind of vacation guide, flipped open to a page with some stereotypically gorgeous photographs of beaches and tropical fish and such.]

i dunno, this was just the first book i pulled outta the closets.

[He sets the book down and gives the camera a rather apologetic grin.]

heh, sorry, this bit is kinda nowhere.

[He pauses, glancing away off-camera.]

by the way, apropos of nothing, uh. who here doesn't know what happens when you drop mints into diet soda? cause i have an idea.

...uh, but if you already know, don't go popping anyone's bubbles. we could use some fun after all that, right?

[He grins again and cuts the feed.]

[ooc: Sans will be in his room for the foreseeable future if anyone wants to visit.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

heh.

[He falls silent until they finish writing, watching them work.]

[This might be the weirdest and stupidest thing he's ever done. So needlessly dangerous. One shaky HP, a bunch of borderline-explosive powder and a kid who has probably been playing with matches their whole life and death.]

...i like the idea of a big pile. you can make it look like a star or something.

[He stands up again, surveying the handiwork.]

heh. it looks great so far.

[Make it look like a star. Ha!]

It'll be the most convincing star Wonderland's ever seen. I mean, it'll be made out of dust and fire, just like real ones are. Right?

[They artlessly scoop up the remainder of the creamer and just. Go to town. Dumping it all into a fantastic massive heap, occasionally trailing off a little arm so that it's kind of vaguely almost sorta asterisk-shaped.

What? Star shapes are hard.]

...Are you willing to do the honours igniting this entire hot mess? We might be a little less in trouble if we can claim an adult was the one handling the open flames.

[They don't bother to mention the 1 HP. They're not his mom or dad or... skele... do skeletons even have parents? Do they just get, like, assembled from a kit or something? Whatever. They're not his boss. If he didn't want to take risks, he wouldn't have gotten out of bed at all. Ever, probably.]

my thoughts exactly.

[There's a joke in here about going out in a blaze of glory or something, but ah well. The star looks pretty horrible, which is fine.]

[He chuckles.]

either the actual child or the one-hit wonder. let's face it, if toriel or papyrus find out about this, we'll both be in trouble.

[Living is a risk. Living at all is a huge risk. Sans gets to his feet and holds a hand out.]

guessing you have a lighter?

Of course I do. What kind of demon doesn't come with fire?

[They, in fact, brought two. But they can maybe keep one up their sleeve, just in case Sans has an unexpected surge of responsibility and decides not to give one back when he's done. So they fish a plastic bic out of their pocket, hold it up triumphantly.

Now, they... don't like to get to close to Sans. That's kind of stupid, they realize. He could kill them at any distance. No matter how far they go, nothing would stop him from teleporting right next to them. Standing out of Immediate Stabbing Range probably doesn't make him feel any better, either. If they're scary, then they'll always be scary.

But they aren't the one with telepathy they can wave around whenever it's handy. So they shuffle a little closer, deposit the lighter in his outstretched palm a little too quickly and a little too inelegantly.]

Fire at will. Literally, ha ha.

[He notices the hesitation and notices the awkward way they move forward and hand him the lighter, as if they don't want to give him any chance to maybe grab them or something. They're probably always going to be cautious around him. That's fine. He's always going to be cautious around them, too.]

[It's not as bad as it used to be.]

[He grins at Chara.]

alright. better back up, just in case. don't think your kind of demon is immune to fire.

[He's really not sure why he's doing this. He doesn't take risks, not until he has no other choice. But, man. You die, you come back, it sorta puts a perspective on things. Or maybe it just makes you want to be stupid. Just for a little while.]

[He flicks the lighter, then crouches down and lights the fuse. He teleports back several feet the moment the creamer catches, because he might be being stupid right now but he's not that stupid.]

[The whole thing goes up like a goddamn magnesium flare, violently bright, and the creamer that has been shaped into a star practically explodes as it turns into a literal fireball.]

[They're both perfectly safe, however, since coffee creamer burns fast and bright and doesn't really go anywhere.]

[Sans just starts laughing.]

[Chara positively hoots with delight as it all goes up in one spectacular burst. They'd maybe expected it to burn like a sparkler or a fuse out of a cartoon or something, but instead, it's like someone lit a match inside a grain elevator. One second it's there, then whoosh. It's gone.

They're laughing, too, in a breathless, awed kind of way.]

It all just went up at once!

[Why does it burn like that? No, not just burn, explode. Is it really safe to consume something that volatile?

...Flour's probably just as flammable.

That gives them an idea, but it's one they have to forcefully cram down into the Don't Ever Actually Do This It's A Terrible Idea bin.]

Sure brightened you up, didn't it? There's something inherently satisfying about wanton mindless destruction. My theory is that explosions are one of the most cathartic things on earth.

[Even if this one doesn't quite compare to a "I got to fire a tank" kind of explosion or even a "I own a rocket launcher" kind, the fact remains that this one does have a very charming bepis-shaped aftermath. So, you know, there's that.]

[He's done this sort of thing with chemicals before, but never with freaking coffee creamer. He kind of wasn't expecting such an insane light show.]

heh, right? had no idea it would go that fast.

[Honestly he probably should have backed up more, but oh well. Too late now, and he survived, so.]

i'd be willing to agree. i figure they're cathartic if no one's getting hurt and nothing's getting permanently destroyed.

[This is what fume hoods and blast walls are for.]

[And, hey. He actually does feel better.]

[They're... a little surprised he agrees, for some reason. It seems incredibly obvious that Maybe Different Standards Apply When It's Literal Murder, but all those judgements in that golden hallway, all that talk about how he never does anything... somehow, they hadn't considered him the sort of guy to enjoy the visceral satisfaction of fireworks.

Has he even seen fireworks in this timeline? Surely Wonderland's had fireworks. If they wracked their brain a little harder, they could probably recall what was fireworks and what was falling stars, telescopes, constellations.

Or, you know. They could just continue with the big, fiery distractions.]

Wanna do it again?

[Normally he wouldn't. Explosions and destruction are kind of...needless, for the most part. Whole lot of effort. But. Maybe this is just the sort of thing that happens when you die and come back and you come back a day later, instead of a day before. He's not the sort of guy who particularly needs to feel alive, and fire and such has never exactly been his go-to for that.]

[Maybe it's not so much feeling alive as feeling real.]

[Or maybe it's the science. The bright flare of a chemical reaction, the near-instantaneous transformation of one thing into another. Maybe it's not so much destruction as it is transformation. A transfer of energy.]

[Maybe it's just cool to look at.]

sure. let's do it. gotta use up all this creamer, right?

[action/video] where does a skeleton go on vacation? death valley [backdated]

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