[Sans has been sleeping more deeply than usual lately, but there are some things that will wake him up immediately. One of these things is his skull cracking in two places at once, a jagged hole in each temple. He bolts up, cursing, disoriented from pain and vertigo, and tumbles off the bed and onto his face. A new, smaller set of wings have forced themselves out of Sans's skull by the time he hits the floor, just big enough Sans could cover his face with them if he flapped them. They're doing a lot of confused flapping, actually, but they're just hitting the floor, making Sans twitch with dull, aching pain each time.
There's liquid magic staining the sheets and soaking Sans's shirt, and his glowing is already starting to shift from blue to red.]
[It's before dawn, early enough most of the surface world is quiet, if not sleeping - but that doesn't mean it's motionless. The insomniacs of the valley are awake, as are the various people who work at night. Garbage trucks are taking advantage of the relatively empty streets, and some days of the week Papyrus would be out there already - doing his best as the secondary person, getting out with each stop to guide containers onto the hydraulic lift. (He has a while to go before he'll have a driver's license at all, let a lone one for a vehicle of that size.)
Fortunately, tonight isn't one of his nights. He's in the hotel suite, lounging on his bed with phone and refurbished laptop in front of him, cords trailing behind them and himself into a recently bought surge protector. When Sans shoots up with the sound of cracking bone, Papyrus lurches to check on him - only to get tethered by the cord, and curse himself.]
Hold on, hold on... [He scrabbles with a hand, yanks the cable out with a sharp spike that might mean it's damaged - but that's a concern for later.]
Sans, are you ok--oh my god??
[He climbs off the bed, reaching for the light on the nightstand, but the splashes of glowing color are clear enough signs of injury. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the fluttering isn't just from the usual (usual!) set of wings, to get around to where he can see Sans's head and try to help him sit up.]
[Sans is at once relieved to hear Papyrus and desperate for Papyrus not to see whatever's happening, two feelings that lurch in opposite directions pointlessly, as Sans can't think long enough to coordinate any of his limbs before Papyrus gets there. The red glow brightens and Sans's shirt goes from blue to purple as more fluid leaks out from somewhere underneath it. Sans tries to reach for Papyrus, to help himself sit up or maybe just to anchor himself, and he ends up grabbing onto Papyrus's arm with three of his own. Two of those are invisible, and Sans's face screws up in confusion at the sensation.]
What's happening? [As if Papyrus would know. Sans's voice is disoriented and shaky with pain that's throbbing through his body, though now that his new wings aren't hitting the floor constantly some of it is starting to ebb.]
Uhhhh...? [He draws the sound out, buying time to try figuring it out himself. With only one set of eye sockets, Papyrus's gaze has to flick here and there to take in the whole picture. The glow of magic (and abandoned electronics) illuminates things to see a lot, but there's surely details missing. And it doesn't help that he wants to look away, give his brother the chance to collect himself.]
Y-You're oozing, a little bit. Feathers growing on your head? [Not just feathers, they're flapping like wings, aren't they? But he's distracted again by the sense of hands around his arm.] And... I don't understand what's happening on my arm.
[Not to say that there's something strange happening to Papyrus's arm, exactly. But he doesn't know how to describe this ghostly arm thing, since invisible ghosts are also notoriously intangible. Spooky, but it's the visible ghosts that move things.]
[Sans looks at Papyrus's arm, expecting to see something different, but Papyrus's arm looks the same as it did before Sans went to sleep. From there he looks down at his shirt. He just keeps ruining shirts. His thoughts are starting to organize themselves again, though that's only marginally helpful regarding his confusion. He presses a hand to his sternum and his shirt pushes in past where his ribcage should be like there's no bone there at all. All three hands tighten on Papyrus's arm.
He laughs thinly.] Thought this part was over after that party.
[That's not good laughter, Papyrus notes absently as he watches the shirt push in with a wince. How far it goes without resistance, the alarming red of the glow there. It's been months, why would it continue now...?]
I guess, there must be, some kind of dream party encore?? [Hint hint, Sans, any more strange foreboding dreams? Involving wings, or weird human blood, or dying again, or anything...?] Not that I got invited, even though I'm cool enough for any party.
[He thinks he wasn't 'invited', anyway. He hopes so, nothing seems to be dissolving or growing on him, and he hardly napped this night. But he's feeling things that don't seem to be there, and maybe that's the first stage of something else happening. Papyrus pats at his arm, over one of the mysterious hand sensations, the better to tell if there's something there or if he's particularly caught up in the confusion of it all.]
They didn't even give me a dream invite this time. [Sans's voice still has that thin quality, but Papyrus being here is grounding him. He doesn't want to completely lose it in front of his brother. Sans watches Papyrus pat his arm--he's looking for a distraction from his chest, some reason to deal with it later--and while Sans's arms are intangible enough for Papyrus's hand to go right through, Sans feels the sensation around where the hands would be, where he's still gripping onto Papyrus's arm.
Papyrus was talking about his arm... Sans's mind still feels like it's moving through molasses, but this sensation is almost recognizable. It feels more like magic taking a different form than the foreign sensations of growing wings out of his head, so while his movements feel shaky, he's able to let go of Papyrus's arm with one of the invisible hands and poke the one Papyrus is using to pat down his arm.]
That's still me. Got--new magic, I think. [Something similar enough to magic, anyway.]
[Papyrus hums sympathetically at the lack of invite. Sudden transformations were alarming enough at that party, and they'd all known to feel foreboding about it, from the dreams. Having it suddenly happen without warning... Now he's bracing himself for something to happen to him. He doesn't hear an uptick in alarmed phone calls, or immediate news broadcasts, about others waking up stranger... but, then, he hasn't figured out how to focus on any of it either, so it's always just fragments flickering in and out...
He misses his lower jaw. The ability to grind his teeth when frustrated, or realize he's being visibly nervous because he's already grinding them... Or, just to hold a straw hands-free. Somehow it's harder to feel like he's feeling upset, without that. It's disorienting. And the sensation of invisible hands isn't helping.]
Is it? Because, I d-don't see anything there. [He does a quick glance around the room, trying to confirm nothing else has inexplicably turned invisible on him. No go, but when he tries poking back, there's nothing to feel either.] Ghost hands?? What does that even have to do with, with birds, or...
[They can let the word 'angels' float in the air, unsaid. There's something about free-floating hands itching in the back of his mind, too, but it's too much to focus on at once already.]
Maybe this place has some really weird birds. [Or some really weird angels.
There's still red magic dripping from underneath Sans's shirt, though it's started to slow down. Still, Sans is trying to ignore it for now, and the invisible arms provide a good excuse. He feels out the magic (he's going to keep calling it that because he has no idea what else it could be) and pulls them away from Papyrus.]
Hang on, I think I can-- [His left eye flickers from the strain of pushing his magic in a direction it wasn't meant to go, but six arms, longer than Sans, light up in eerie red. It's like he's got six skeletal ghost hands attached to him. They fade back into invisibility a few moments later, though; Sans isn't feeling up to maintaining that kind of magic for any length of time right now.]
[Papyrus pulls back as well, startled at the sudden sight of the limbs. Red magic is rare, and alarming - especially so from someone who didn't have it before - and the sheer number of limbs is more than he was guessing at.]
Ghost spider hands?? [They're so long, and thin, and the phrase bursts out of him before he squints and recounts them. The arms fade again shortly after, leaving Papyrus squinting at where they had been, looking for hints they're still there.] That's... That's a lot of gloves, you'll need to buy.
[They can both take refuge in focusing on literally anything else than the gaping, dripping hole in Sans's torso.]
[Sans laughs again, still strained, but it's more of a dark amusement than someone on the edge of tipping over into hysteria.] I've been a spider this whole time and we never noticed.
[(That's the number of fingers on a spider. But he's got five on each of them. Always losing track after twelve, that's just how it is.)
The dripping has stopped. Sans looks down again, (regular) hand on the hem of his t-shirt.]
You'll have to change your name... [Papyrus's agreeing laugh is weaker, as he reflexively reaches for healing magic and finds nothing, nothing. Continued broadcast of some college radio station's all-nighter playlist, an emergency call for a fall, a microwave going off somewhere nearby...
He shakes his head, trying to stay semi-focused on here even if he's not watching the dripping, and looks up at the halo.] I- Eye can't believe we didn't see it coming. Eight arms... At least eight eyes...
[Another little chuckle, because sometimes laughing is all you can do. If you look at it right almost anything is funny. (Almost.)] You got any suggestions?
[Sans's grip tightens minutely on his shirt. His feathers fluff up, wings flipping over and over to try to get them to lay right. Nervous behavior he's picked up and isn't aware of enough to stop yet.
Okay, on three.
He goes on two, even just in his head, of course, and pulls up his shirt. His ribcage ends at his sides, kind of. Kind of because it does continue, but the rest can be best described as a translucent ghost ribcage. It glows as red as his magic is glowing right now, and even though the bone itself is gone the scar that had formed across his torso shines a brighter red than the rest. Inside, easily seen through his almost transparent ribcage, is an orb of magic. It glows red like the rest of him is, but much like the scar, it glows brighter. There are two more wings, similarly made entirely of magic, on either side of the orb, though these are much more stylized than the physical ones.
Sans recognizes the shape immediately, of course: the delta rune has filled up his chest cavity. And in the center of that orb of magic, shining white even through all the red, is Sans's soul, visible to anyone who might want to see. Or anyone who might not want to.]
[There's a lot of things where Papyrus knows how to (try to) play it cool, casual, and confident. A door slammed in his face, when he sought opportunities on request. The sounds of laughter at instead of with, and choosing to lean into it. A human lashing out from some terrible worldview, experiences, fears.
This, is outside that realm. He's drawn aback from the sight, recoiling before he realizes. Magic doesn't work like that, replacing bones with light and pulling a soul into view outside fights.
...Not any more than it dissolves and replaces bones with machinery, anyway, and he shivers a metallic rattle at the realization. But what's the point in weird deja vu dreams, if they don't even show up before people start suddenly looking like... like... angels?]
Oh my god. Does... does that hurt? [He isn't sure yet what he could do if it does, but there must be something.]
No. [Sans can't stop staring at it.] Bones are kind of sore. [It's the kind of pain that indicates a fading injury, though, rather than one that's still in progress. Never mind his whole torso looks like some kind of gaping wound to him. He feels half disconnected from his body. This is happening to someone else. He reaches in, hand passing through his ghostly ribcage with no resistance, just faint warmth where it intersects his arm, and touches the edges of the orb. It's almost hot to the touch, but not uncomfortably so. He can feel the magic there, where his fingers brush over the surface, humming.] Can sort of feel that. [This is happening to someone else. But even with that disconnected feeling, he doesn't dare try to reach into the orb.]
All of them...? [It's not clear to Papyrus whether Sans means that he feels the orb, or his hand sticking through his ghostly ribs, or both. He kind of doesn't want to ask a clearer question, for fear of what the answer might be.]
Those... arms... looked a little like that. Red. See-through. [Like the ribs, again. The only thing looking like that winged orb is that whole angel prophecy business, which... He glances away to search for the ghost hands again, like maybe they're extending from the sides of this translucent horror show. The better to take his gaze off Sans's inexplicably visible soul.]
[The arms are still invisible, so exactly where they are at this moment is a mystery. Sans is still staring down at his chest. Or a chest that belongs to someone whose skull he's riding around in.]
Just this thing. [The weird magic orb, that is. He presses just a little harder on the orb, and his fingers dip into the magic, but he pulls back his hand like he got scalded.] I think the arms are made of the same thing this is.
[Just magic, Sans thinks, without the dust that usually holds a monster together. If Papyrus is gaining matter, Sans is losing it.]
That makes sense... Probably. Happening at the same time... Being the same thing... [The arms and soul orb seem to fit together, anyway.
They don't explain the shifting feathers on Sans's head, even if there's the slightest similarity between the winged orb and a winged skull. Papyrus scratches at the side of his own skull, to wipe off a little sweat and try to shake the sympathetic sense of itching there.]
I can't believe, there was just no warning? [He doesn't mean to accuse Sans of lying, or forgetting something, though there's something skeptical slipping into the concern of his voice. Mostly he doesn't want to think something this drastic will happen so suddenly to him (again). Being an onlooker to another mysterious metamorphosis, without any changes of his own to be preoccupied, it's a different kind of horror. But there's plenty of horror and dissonance on his end. If it weren't for how rarely he dreams, and the sorts of things he dreams about, he'd be sure this wasn't real.]
[Sans shrugs and drops his hands. His shirt drops back down to cover the mess this place has made of his chest. Sans is still looking down, but it's less that he's looking at his shirt and more that he has no reason to move his head from its current position. Even his wings go completely still, like he's a very strange-looking doll.] Sorry, bro, if there was a warning I missed it. [His tone is casual and calm, that wallpapered over tone he can put on in almost any situation. He's never actually been sure if Papyrus can tell when he's using that particular voice, but if Papyrus never brings it up then it doesn't matter. He doesn't look up at Papyrus, he instructs his body to move so its face is pointed at Papyrus.] Maybe I slept through the emergency broadcast.
Edited (warning doesn't need to be in there twice) 2021-08-12 03:54 (UTC)
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spaghettimonster) wrote2021-07-31 02:32 am
August 3 morning; cw: broken bones, "blood"
There's liquid magic staining the sheets and soaking Sans's shirt, and his glowing is already starting to shift from blue to red.]
bringing the body horror in horror
Fortunately, tonight isn't one of his nights. He's in the hotel suite, lounging on his bed with phone and refurbished laptop in front of him, cords trailing behind them and himself into a recently bought surge protector. When Sans shoots up with the sound of cracking bone, Papyrus lurches to check on him - only to get tethered by the cord, and curse himself.]
Hold on, hold on... [He scrabbles with a hand, yanks the cable out with a sharp spike that might mean it's damaged - but that's a concern for later.]
Sans, are you ok--oh my god??
[He climbs off the bed, reaching for the light on the nightstand, but the splashes of glowing color are clear enough signs of injury. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the fluttering isn't just from the usual (usual!) set of wings, to get around to where he can see Sans's head and try to help him sit up.]
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What's happening? [As if Papyrus would know. Sans's voice is disoriented and shaky with pain that's throbbing through his body, though now that his new wings aren't hitting the floor constantly some of it is starting to ebb.]
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Y-You're oozing, a little bit. Feathers growing on your head? [Not just feathers, they're flapping like wings, aren't they? But he's distracted again by the sense of hands around his arm.] And... I don't understand what's happening on my arm.
[Not to say that there's something strange happening to Papyrus's arm, exactly. But he doesn't know how to describe this ghostly arm thing, since invisible ghosts are also notoriously intangible. Spooky, but it's the visible ghosts that move things.]
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He laughs thinly.] Thought this part was over after that party.
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I guess, there must be, some kind of dream party encore?? [Hint hint, Sans, any more strange foreboding dreams? Involving wings, or weird human blood, or dying again, or anything...?] Not that I got invited, even though I'm cool enough for any party.
[He thinks he wasn't 'invited', anyway. He hopes so, nothing seems to be dissolving or growing on him, and he hardly napped this night. But he's feeling things that don't seem to be there, and maybe that's the first stage of something else happening. Papyrus pats at his arm, over one of the mysterious hand sensations, the better to tell if there's something there or if he's particularly caught up in the confusion of it all.]
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Papyrus was talking about his arm... Sans's mind still feels like it's moving through molasses, but this sensation is almost recognizable. It feels more like magic taking a different form than the foreign sensations of growing wings out of his head, so while his movements feel shaky, he's able to let go of Papyrus's arm with one of the invisible hands and poke the one Papyrus is using to pat down his arm.]
That's still me. Got--new magic, I think. [Something similar enough to magic, anyway.]
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He misses his lower jaw. The ability to grind his teeth when frustrated, or realize he's being visibly nervous because he's already grinding them... Or, just to hold a straw hands-free. Somehow it's harder to feel like he's feeling upset, without that. It's disorienting. And the sensation of invisible hands isn't helping.]
Is it? Because, I d-don't see anything there. [He does a quick glance around the room, trying to confirm nothing else has inexplicably turned invisible on him. No go, but when he tries poking back, there's nothing to feel either.] Ghost hands?? What does that even have to do with, with birds, or...
[They can let the word 'angels' float in the air, unsaid. There's something about free-floating hands itching in the back of his mind, too, but it's too much to focus on at once already.]
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There's still red magic dripping from underneath Sans's shirt, though it's started to slow down. Still, Sans is trying to ignore it for now, and the invisible arms provide a good excuse. He feels out the magic (he's going to keep calling it that because he has no idea what else it could be) and pulls them away from Papyrus.]
Hang on, I think I can-- [His left eye flickers from the strain of pushing his magic in a direction it wasn't meant to go, but six arms, longer than Sans, light up in eerie red. It's like he's got six skeletal ghost hands attached to him. They fade back into invisibility a few moments later, though; Sans isn't feeling up to maintaining that kind of magic for any length of time right now.]
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Ghost spider hands?? [They're so long, and thin, and the phrase bursts out of him before he squints and recounts them. The arms fade again shortly after, leaving Papyrus squinting at where they had been, looking for hints they're still there.] That's... That's a lot of gloves, you'll need to buy.
[They can both take refuge in focusing on literally anything else than the gaping, dripping hole in Sans's torso.]
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[(That's the number of fingers on a spider. But he's got five on each of them. Always losing track after twelve, that's just how it is.)
The dripping has stopped. Sans looks down again, (regular) hand on the hem of his t-shirt.]
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He shakes his head, trying to stay semi-focused on here even if he's not watching the dripping, and looks up at the halo.] I- Eye can't believe we didn't see it coming. Eight arms... At least eight eyes...
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[Sans's grip tightens minutely on his shirt. His feathers fluff up, wings flipping over and over to try to get them to lay right. Nervous behavior he's picked up and isn't aware of enough to stop yet.
Okay, on three.
He goes on two, even just in his head, of course, and pulls up his shirt. His ribcage ends at his sides, kind of. Kind of because it does continue, but the rest can be best described as a translucent ghost ribcage. It glows as red as his magic is glowing right now, and even though the bone itself is gone the scar that had formed across his torso shines a brighter red than the rest. Inside, easily seen through his almost transparent ribcage, is an orb of magic. It glows red like the rest of him is, but much like the scar, it glows brighter. There are two more wings, similarly made entirely of magic, on either side of the orb, though these are much more stylized than the physical ones.
Sans recognizes the shape immediately, of course: the delta rune has filled up his chest cavity. And in the center of that orb of magic, shining white even through all the red, is Sans's soul, visible to anyone who might want to see. Or anyone who might not want to.]
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This, is outside that realm. He's drawn aback from the sight, recoiling before he realizes. Magic doesn't work like that, replacing bones with light and pulling a soul into view outside fights.
...Not any more than it dissolves and replaces bones with machinery, anyway, and he shivers a metallic rattle at the realization. But what's the point in weird deja vu dreams, if they don't even show up before people start suddenly looking like... like... angels?]
Oh my god. Does... does that hurt? [He isn't sure yet what he could do if it does, but there must be something.]
cw: depersonalization
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Those... arms... looked a little like that. Red. See-through. [Like the ribs, again. The only thing looking like that winged orb is that whole angel prophecy business, which... He glances away to search for the ghost hands again, like maybe they're extending from the sides of this translucent horror show. The better to take his gaze off Sans's inexplicably visible soul.]
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Just this thing. [The weird magic orb, that is. He presses just a little harder on the orb, and his fingers dip into the magic, but he pulls back his hand like he got scalded.] I think the arms are made of the same thing this is.
[Just magic, Sans thinks, without the dust that usually holds a monster together. If Papyrus is gaining matter, Sans is losing it.]
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They don't explain the shifting feathers on Sans's head, even if there's the slightest similarity between the winged orb and a winged skull. Papyrus scratches at the side of his own skull, to wipe off a little sweat and try to shake the sympathetic sense of itching there.]
I can't believe, there was just no warning? [He doesn't mean to accuse Sans of lying, or forgetting something, though there's something skeptical slipping into the concern of his voice. Mostly he doesn't want to think something this drastic will happen so suddenly to him (again). Being an onlooker to another mysterious metamorphosis, without any changes of his own to be preoccupied, it's a different kind of horror. But there's plenty of horror and dissonance on his end. If it weren't for how rarely he dreams, and the sorts of things he dreams about, he'd be sure this wasn't real.]
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