[Open] working your fingers to the bones, cause nobody loves you when you're gone

[coolskeletonnyehntyfive]

Who: Papyrus, Sans, and YOU!
When: March 12th and onwards
Where: Medbay
What: Papyrus had a really bad idea that nearly got himself and Sans killed. Sans put out a call for help. This log is for the general followup/aftermath.
Warnings: Broken bones and hearts, cracked skulls, life draining, will add more if necessary.

((OOC Note: The translator event will affect the skeletons, so anyone tagging in on the 13th will be in for a lively game of charades!))

Comments

[skelepun]

Sans shudders. It's hard to forget the sense of deep anguish that washed over him in that small room, nevermind the spike of raw fear when Papyrus went down.

"Nah, nothing specific. I know... he was a captain, I think. Maybe. I don't know what made him go the way he did, though. Maybe a sickness or something. His soul didn't look affected, but man. I'm not gonna lie, I know more about human sounds than most people, and I still only know enough to get that I don't understand shit."

Sans brings a bony hand to his temple, smiling and exhausted. "You guys have pretty complicated mechanisms in there."

[seeingscarlet]

"I saw his friends, I saw him working...I saw the change, but not why. I don't think he knows." Probably past the point of caring, too. He likes what he is now, but Wanda couldn't tell how much of that was the change and how much was the man. If there had been anything twisting his mind, she could have undone it, but whatever had happened looked pretty final.

"We are not that different when I look. But I don't see souls."

[skelepun]

"I do. A lot of monsters can, though not everyone knows how to read 'em." Sans shrugs, rubbing at his socket. It's a tired sort of statement, one that comes with some baggage of its own. Palatino's soul was heavy with the weight of his sins, draining him just to think about it.

"I could tell ya what yours looks like, if you want." He shrugs again, leaning forward against his brother's bed. "Wouldn't blame you if you don't, though."

[seeingscarlet]

"It is only fair for you to look." She's been in his head twice, after all. "But I don't think you will like what you see."

There are any number of reasons for that. Wanda's not sure what marks the Mind Stone might have left on her soul, and even if it didn't...well, she's certainly no Steve Rogers.

[skelepun]

Unfortunately for Wanda, Sans didn't need to look. Well, not in any conscious way. A person's soul was in their ever action, their every gesture, and the way they communicated with the world around them. Even now, the redness of her soul is obvious.

There's a quiet flash in Sans' left eye as he holds up a hand and carefully, so carefully, draws a small shape from Wanda's chest.

It's red, like he suspected. Small and fluttering and determined. There are sins there, weighing it down and slowing its movements, but it's nothing like the almost lifeless souls he's seen in true killers.

"Hey, pretty nice."

[seeingscarlet]

That definitely feels strange. Wanda watches with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension - she didn't think that by 'reading' Sans meant he'd be pulling it out of her. It's enough to make anyone nervous, especially someone who has already been tampered with quite enough for one lifetime.

Still, it's certainly interesting to see. She expected her soul would be cracked through with red or blue or gold but it's not. It's solid red, just like her powers, though it lacks the telltale trails of light. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

[skelepun]

The nervousness is reflected directly in the soul, as it seems to flutter faster, moving itself anxiously from side to side. Sans cradles the energy there without touching it before extending the small heart towards Wanda's own hands.

"There's no real supposed to with souls. Especially not human ones." He cocked his skull to the side slightly, squinting at it. "Don't worry too much. It might look fragile, but trust me. It's not."

He pulls back again, winking: "Sounds kinda familiar, huh?"

[seeingscarlet]

She takes it tentatively, letting it hover between her hands and raising them closer to eye level. It's a little brighter than her scarlet and her coat but she supposes the color still suits her, in a way. But was it always red or...?

It's not that Wanda regrets the things she went through to become like this. She can help people now. It has to be worth it. But it doesn't mean she's never once had doubts about how much of her is still herself or if she's in much more over her head than anyone realizes.

"I thought it would be...different, damaged." But it seems whole enough, even if it's putting her insecurities on display. "It isn't even scratched."

[skelepun]

"I'd show you mine, but monster souls aren't like human ones. Not much to look at." Not to mention his own was weak and sickly, hardly on par with the soul he was now peering at. If Sans was the sort of person with the gut for it, a monster with his magical capabilities absorbing a soul like Wanda's? He'd be unstoppable.

Luckily, he wasn't that sort of person. Stopping was kind of his entire deal.

"Been through the wringer, huh?" It's not really a question.

[seeingscarlet]

It would be a very brave or a very stupid person to try - the energy that suffuses her has ripped apart almost everyone else who's tried to wield it. If she hadn't developed an immunity to the Scepter, she'd wonder if this is only borrowed time, if no mortal flesh could ever hope to contain it for long.

"I don't think it was always red." She's fundamentally misunderstood the meanings of soul colors; the most sensible explanation Wanda can manage is that the Mind Stone did this, too. "I wasn't...humans are not born like this in my world."

Surely she doesn't need to elaborate - they both know what she means.

[skelepun]

Indeed they do.

"Your magic," Sans nods, slowly waving his hand until the red soul melted back against her chest with a soft red glow. "I assumed you were a mage. They're really rare where I'm from, I don't know much about how they're taught or brought up. All I know is that they're powerful."

Without the red glow of Wanda's soul illuminating the room, it was only Sans' eyelights that peeked through the dim light of the medbay sickward. They seemed to flash with something between curiosity, concern, and laziness.

"Who did this to you?"

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda can't suppress the small shudder that runs down her spine as her soul resettles. That was interesting, and perhaps comforting in its own strange way, but it's not an experience she's exactly keen to repeat.

"I volunteered," she begins, because while they did manipulate the circumstances, it's not like Hydra snatched people off the streets. "We volunteered. He said they would make us heroes, give us the power to protect our people."

Her voice is hollow, like she's describing something that happened to someone else. Wanda doesn't talk about this often, or at all if she can avoid it. Dwelling on what could have been doesn't help her now.

[skelepun]

"You and your brother." Sans supplied, drawing together the blanks of what he's observed over time through watching Peter and Wanda from a distance. Their stories might be different, scattered across altered timeline, but the love between siblings surpasses that. It's something Sans has a keen eye for. "I'm sorry."

Sans leans back against his chair, hand absently drumming along the hospital bed his brother now resided in.

"Do you know what it means, to have a red soul?"

[seeingscarlet]

She nods. Papyrus is much more innocent than Pietro had ever been, but it's hard not to look at their current situation and see a mirror of her own. Wanda had never trusted Strucker, wasn't sure about going through with the experiments. But Pietro had been so confident it was contagious and eventually he convinced her that it would be all okay.

How wrong Sans and Wanda had both been.

"No." So it did mean something beyond her powers. "But you are not making it sound like a good thing."

[skelepun]

"It's not not good." Sans explained, noting the heaviness between them. Like recognizes like, even through a veil of different circumstances. "It means that you carry on. You persist, y'know? Over everything else."

Sans brushes a hand over the thin scar in his skull, perpetual smile going thinner.

"You're determined. That's the scientific definition, anyway."

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda's hands curl into her coat. That...well. Wanda's used to being the one dispensing the painful truths, not the one on the receiving end.

"And this is not common?"

Because she does understand. 'Been through the wringer' is a bit of an understatement - many people in the twins' position would have given up or chosen an easier path. Perhaps it's why they survived when the rest of the volunteers didn't.

sorry for the delay, busy weekend!

[skelepun]

"Not really. All humans have it by degrees, it's what makes your body remain even after the soul has been destroyed. But a soul where determination is the leading force, enough to turn the entire thing red... well, that's pretty rare."

Sans recites the tired definitions effortlessly. In a way, they bring him back to his professor's lecture on SOUL makeup, the one he half-slept through back when he was getting his degree. Sans was always ahead of the curriculum when it came to the soul -- resulting in top marks with minimal effort, much to the ire of that particular professor.

To study the human soul and the magic they possess, it was once something Sans considered the highest echelon any aspiring scientist could reach.

Now, it makes him feel little more than empty.

"My point is, there's a lot of power in determination... and a lot of danger." His perpetual grin went lopsided, eyes drooping with quiet concern. "You gotta be careful how you use it, kid."

[seeingscarlet]

She thinks of how many volunteers before her didn't survive and wonders if Pietro's soul would have been red as well. There were so many theories on why they'd survived when the others didn't; maybe this is all it was.

(Is it only red? one of the scientists had asked. Shouldn't it be blue? Wanda had shrugged then, because she liked the red better anyway and it was hers and something no one else could touch.)

"I know. It's dangerous." She wouldn't have chosen to be here but at least everyone isn't afraid. No one seriously talks about locking her up. "It...frightens me sometimes."

[skelepun]

"Yeah?" Sans' voice is pitched quieter than usual, his typical jokey meter flattening out into something more serious. Less like himself, in many ways -- or at least less like the self he deigns to show others.

Talking to her like this, it reminds Sans more than a little of talking to Frisk. That fear, the wish to not hurt those around them, those they love... it's difficult to not draw parallels.

"You wanna talk about it?"