thisavrou_log | what did the skeleton say to the other skeleton

Entry tags:

what did the skeleton say to the other skeleton

Who: Sans & YOU
When: From the 16th on.
Where: All around the ship.
What: Catch-all log for May!! Some post-void shenanigans, some general around the ship shenanigans, fun for everybody!
Warnings: Will add if any come up! Probably some talk of mass murder, though.

( All prompts below! Please either PM me or PP me on plurk (

safelybeds) if you'd like to hash out a custom starter!)

OTA (MEDBAY)
Sans tries to sneak out of the medbay after Magic Overload.

OTA (CRYOBAY)
Who wants to tell bad jokes and hang out around a bunch of kinda dead people?

OTA (TRAINING ROOM)
Magic burnout sucks. Let's talk about powers and why they're the worst.

OTA (CLASSROOMS)
Who wants to learn chemistry from the world's most tired man?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Just taking a nap, right?"

Just arriving. Ratchet stands with his arms crossed, looking out of place. The medbay was a place you visited when someone was hurt, or dying or...maybe coming back to life. It was hard to put a smile on your face in the medbay at the best of times, and Ratchet couldn't even manage to keep any semblance of placidity on his. He didn't know how he felt. Confused? Pissed off? Betrayed? Relieved?

Edited 2016-05-16 06:58 (UTC)

"...Right."

Sans knows how he feels in this moment. Sheepish. And he looks it too, skull ducked down between raised clavicles. He misses his hoodie.

"Heya, Ratch." He tries for casual, missing the mark by a mile. "Visiting someone?"

"Nah, I just like the scenery."

He shrugs, exhaling and trying to shake the stiff line of discomfort from his shoulders.

"I was...gonna bring you something. You know, a get well gift, but...I figured they'd frown on alcohol. Even ketchup."

It's not very funny, but he's mostly serious.

"Heh... yeah. Maybe you could sneak it in through an IO." Sans pauses, chuckling distractedly. "I'd really O you, heh."

The laughter doesn't last long, giving way to uncomfortable silence soon after.

"Hey, uh. Between us, I don't... really wanna be here right now." He looks back to Ratchet finally, expression caught between hopeful and apologetic. "Think you could find me some clothes or something?"

Whatever it's medically the right choice or not, Sans doesn't seem to care. He wants out, and that much is obvious from the tension in his brow bone.

"Yeah. Sure." He doesn't hesitate; Ratchet wasn't going to be the one condemning anyone to time spent in the medbay if they didn't want to be there. "Just hold on a minute."

Luckily the laundry was right down the hall from medical, a convenience for him, but someone unlucky would be missing a uniform in the morning. Sans is lucky he grabs a standard Moira jumpsuit, despite temptation to the contrary. It only takes him a few minutes, and when he returns he tosses the crumbled up clothing to Sans, grinning.

"Don't say I never did anything for you. And uh, I don't know who that belongs to, so...you might want to get it back to them or else burn the evidence later."

Sans is exactly where Ratchet left him, leaning up against the doorjam, looking hunched in on himself in a way that seems wholly unlike him. That seems to be a trend lately. He takes the uniform, grateful, even if he can tell from looking at it it's not going to fit right.

"Thanks." He flashes a wink and a thumbs up -- practically underlining just how tired he looks in the process. It's short work changing into it, and Sans doesn't bother with modesty. From what he can tell from most cultures, naked skeletons weren't exactly taboo and he didn't have it in him to care either way.

Hospital gown abandoned carelessly on the floor, Sans turns back to Ratchet with the sleeves of his new uniform hanging about a foot long off his arms. Ah well. He makes a half hearted attempt to roll them up before accepting his fate.

"You, uh, wanna get out of here?"

Ratchet nods, some of the discomfort unwinding, even just a little. He wants to say 'we should talk' but...maybe now's not the time. And it's not as if they didn't both know that. It's not as if that hadn't been true for a while now. Instead he shrugs mildly, gestures Sans along with him, leaving the medbay and it's loaded atmosphere behind.

"Are you...hungry? We could always go to the mess hall or, I mean I guess somewhere more quiet if you're not up for it, or...whatever. Whatever you want." It's a clumsy attempt at accommodation. Ratchet had never been all that good at this part of helping people. The small part.

"I mean, yeah, I guess." Sans mutters, barely paying attention as his mind follows its own similar line of thought. Where to go? Where to go where his brother wouldn't find him for a while. Or the kid. Or...

Alice. Ratchet. They were there too.

That lowkey sensation of wanting to die suddenly gets a whole lot more pronounced. Eugh.

"I know it's lame, but could I just crash out in your bed for like an hour. You don't have to stay there or anything."

Ratchet smiles; it was pretty much what he expected.

"Sure, it's...yeah. Tali moved out so it's actually quiet now." The joke being that Tali was about as unobtrusive of a roommate as anyone could ask for, of course.

Joke received, and Sans laughs dutifully. It's not quite as warm as their usual repartee, but that's hardly surprising. Things have been strained between them for a while now. Sans prides himself on being able to get used to anything, but this is still new enough to sting a little.

"Wish I could just... y'know, zap us there, but I think we gotta take the long way." He shrugs with a deflecting smile. "I'm not feelin' too hot."

"So we'll take the long way. It's good exercise." He flashes a grin, sincere but brief. There was something flat about their changes. Something hollow. He keeps his pace slow, sticking close as a concerned look coming over his face.

"You sure you're okay to leave?" He wouldn't argue, of course. It was Sans' decision one way or another. But he also didn't want to be responsible for Sans collapsing in a hallway. "If you need help, or, you need to lean on me or anything...tell me."

It doesn't sound like an offer, but an imperative.

"Oh yeah." Sans nods, his dismissal quick and perhaps a little too easy. "No offense to the medical staff, they did a great job with Pap's arm, but y'know... they wouldn't really get this."

It occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't be so vague, not when Ratchet is being so nice and worried. Not that it ever stopped him before, but, well... things were a little different now. His memory of the time in the void came in scattered bits and pieces, but he knew it couldn't have been pretty.

Not knowing what it was he said... that was the worst part, really.

"Think of it like... idk, really bad dehydration in humans." He shrugs, taking advantage of Ratchet's offered arm after a moment's hesitation. Pride didn't stand a chance against laziness, not now not ever. "It'll fix itself eventually, I'm just feelin' a little brittle right now."

"Because of all the magic?" It's a little blunt of a question, and he doesn't look over at Sans. But dodging questions and avoiding subjects hadn't exactly done them a lot of good so far. "Using so much I mean?"

It's a blunt question, sure, but it hits its mark. Sans actually looks a little swayed for the half second it takes him to contextualize why Ratchet knows about that.

He's ready for this headache to subside. Delayed reaction time isn't a symptom he's used to.

"Heh... yeah, that's about the size of it." He shrugs, trying for easygoing. "I'm a small guy. It takes a lot outta me."

Another beat, longer this time. Sans wonders if maybe he could risk it and just try to teleport away from the awkwardness that hung between them, but all that would probably give him was an uncomfortable trip back to the medbay.

"Sorry about all the bones, by the way. Wasn't personal."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I never take people trying to kill me personally." Not that he thinks Sans was actually trying to kill anyone (he sure hopes not anyway), but his point stands, and he gives the skeleton a gentle elbowing in the ribs to emphasize the good-naturedness of the comment.

Something doesn't translate though; something lost in that awkwardness. Ratchet looks down as they walk, his smile falling away as fresh questions form and go unsaid. At least for now. He lets silence settle between them, nothing comfortable about it, all the way back to Mero deck.

Silence isn't Sans' natural state. Not out of lack of appreciation for it -- there's something to be said for a quiet Sunday at home with nothing between him and his mattress save the passing urge to grab a bite to eat -- but rather an allergy. The longer it stretched out, the antsier Sans got to fill it with something.

Even alone in the woods on long sentry shifts, Sans would practice jokes aloud to himself. Get the timing down, make sure his cadence was right, rehearse and rehearse until it sounded unrehearsed. Jokes were the perfect death knell to any uncomfortable silence. Whether it landed or not, a joke could at least put two people on a track towards anything else.

Unfortunately, Sans was plum out of jokes.

Getting to Ratchet's room, Sans stared down at his feet. They looked small and strange without his slippers or socks bulking them up. Vaguely, he realizes in that moment that he can't for the life of him remember what Ratchet's feet look like. Huh. You'd think he would. They were friends, after all. A friend is supposed to know the general topography of a friend's feet.

Instead, Sans clacks inside the room, suddenly extremely aware of the sound his bones make against the floor before tumbling face first into Ratchet's bed.

"Oh yeah," he says, voice muffled through bedding. "That's the stuff right there."

Ratchet half smiles at Sans’ collapse into the bed. You had to admire the guy’s appreciation for the simple things. Even if that appreciate was born of severe exhaustion.

He sits on the edge of the bed, back to Sans, staring hard at what had been Tali’s portion of the room. The emptiness of it was strange; Tali had been his roommate since day one. And more than that, she was someone he could talk to frankly, someone who understood, and who he didn’t have to lie to. Not about most things. It wasn’t as if she were gone, not from the ship, no...but the absence of her nearness was unfamiliar. Her empty half of the room like a wound, not particularly deep but still unpleasant.

He looks down, tapping his heal against the side of the bed.

“Do you want me to let you sleep, or...” He trails off, but there’s a significance to that 'or'. A weightiness that makes it clear he has more to say, even if he's going to let Sans decide if it's the time to discuss it.

For a long moment, it looks as if Sans has already fallen asleep, face pressed down against the pillow in an impressive imitation of lifelessness. One of the perks of being a skeleton. But the stillness is short lived, and all at once Sans rolls onto his back, eyelights pinged squarely at the roof of the all-too-familiar bed.

"Nah." He seems to decide all at once, with a sort of confused force that implies this is news to him too. "Let's just do it."

Right, don't make it sound like a chore or anything, Ratchet thinks but doesn't say, aware of his own stunning hypocrisy. He exhales, a familiar sense of maybe it was none of his business rearing up, but he pushes it back. They were way past not being in each other's business at this point. He glances over his shoulder very briefly, before looking straight ahead, the line of his shoulders tense.

"What happened back there, Sans?" And with barely a pause, and some added sharpness: "...And don't give me some bullshit answer or try and brush me off."

Options they both knew were all too likely.

He was already considering not doing that, for once, when Ratchet's laser-focused order puts an end to any version of reality where he isn't straight with the guy.

It's almost annoying. Or it would be, if Sans wasn't so damn tired.

"I told you before." He stares up at the roof of the egg bed, focusing on the line where it eclipses the room's ceiling. "That kid took everything."

Was that bullshit? Sans couldn't tell anymore, but he erred on the side of caution. Just this once.

"It's... a real literal statement."

Ratchet does turn this time, an ill-concealed look of surprise on his face as he stares at Sans through the dim light, trying to find the joke that wasn't there.

"So that was..." He breaks off, looking for the right words, the right thoughts. It was a crazy concept....a horrible concept. "Are you saying that was your world, back there. That...." Nothing. "How?"

The void hadn't just been empty; it was nothing. Even the vacuum of space has more substance, more logic and consistency than that place had had. It isn't that he can't believe in all the infinite universes in existence that it couldn't exist, but that a place could be reduced to that...

that one child could reduce a place to that.

Edited 2016-06-05 03:54 (UTC)

"Home sweet home." Sans waved a hand in the air, in time with the sing-songy tenor of the statement. Everything about his vision was too focused, too sharp. He could really use a drink.

"It wasn't just a genocide. I mean, it was... families, running for their lives. Towns abandoned, covered in dust. But it was more than that, too. They destroyed it all. That's how powerful that kid is. Was. I dunno."

Another breath, hand coming down, raking impressively down his skull. He doesn't let it slip away again this time, either, instead keeping his face covered.

"... I dunno."

Edited 2016-06-05 23:19 (UTC)

Ratchet doesn't say anything. Sans' words feel like a physical weight and his shoulders slump. Turning back away, Ratchet looks down, a tightness in the back of his throat, a feeling like being sick just thinking about it. Thinking about that void, Sans' recollection, Chara, how they all tie together.

He doesn't want to think about it.

After a moment he falls back on the bed, his head somewhere near Sans' elbow. He stares up, although there's nothing to see but dark. There's another long moment of painful hesitation before he speaks, voice strained.

"So why did you go?"

The thud of Ratchet's body against the mattress is met with a muted laugh, reflexive more than anything else. There's a familiar sort of comfort to the scene, fitting like a sweater from the back of the closet. Still stretched out in all the right places, no matter how long it's been.

"Curiosity, I guess. Wanted to know what my future on this ship was." His smile crooks wider, another reflexive gesture. Ratchet wasn't even looking at him. "Now I know. It sure isn't through an Ingress."

"Geez, Sans." Ratchet wants to laugh, something bitter and burning and devoid of humor. Instead he sighs, closing his eyes.

"So it's not through the Ingress." He can't believe how logical it sounds, really. Maybe he was losing faith that any of them would see the other side of the Ingress. Maybe he never had it in the first place. Maybe he was still worried (like he was always worried) that there wasn't anything on the other side for him either.

Another thing he doesn't want to think about.

"I guess you'll just have to find it somewhere else."

16th

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject