solnet | [video] (It's long. Sorry.)

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[video] (It's long. Sorry.)

[ A handheld camera -- quite likely Wade’s smartphone -- ‘pans’ over the gleaming exterior of a convertible. How a car managed to get here is anyone’s guess, but anyone guessing a being like Ozuma may or may not have been involved would probably be close. With its bright red paint shining in the cold winter unlight, the sight of a convertible with its top down might be alien, surreal, or even nostalgic. ]

[ Either way, whoever’s holding the phone seems to understand that such a wondrous sight deserves a proper tribute-- namely, draping yourself seductively on the hood and taking a goofy pin-up video. Which apparently is exactly what Wade has decided to do. From his position on the hood, the viewers can spot someone tucked across the back seats of the car, an almost shapeless mass of voluminous galaxy-print hoodie, t-shirt (this one is blank, save for the faded and occasional condiment stain), track shorts and shabby once-pink slippers. ]

[ Sans appears to be reclining here, sprinkling ash from the end of a cigarette all over himself and the back seat. As he lifts his skull at Wade’s arrival, he quirks a supraorbital ridge at the phone in his hand but his grin doesn’t change. Somehow, being a skeleton with no respiratory system to speak of doesn’t stop him from seemingly exhaling a stream of smoke into the air.

Smoking in the back seat of a new car? Well, it ain’t like its intended recipient is ever gonna enjoy it. ]

sup, you tryin’ out for america’s funniest home videos?

Heh. More like Ripley’s Believe It or Not. You probably can’t tell from where you’re sittin’ but I’m makin’ the most righteous duck-face right now. Oh, yeah-- Cryptkeeper, eat yer heart out. What’s with the sudden wheels, bee-tee-dubs? You suddenly win the lottery or kill a hooker or somethin’?

or somethin’. ...you like it? [ Sans eases upright like it’s the hardest thing he’s had to do all day, but pats the seat with one skeletal hand as he tucks the filter of the cigarette against his grin again. How he does that is a mystery. And given the way he always smells like, uh, greasy burgers or hot dogs and usually ketchup, he ain’t a habitual smoker, either. ] took every last G i had. it’s for Papyrus.

Aww… no kiddin’? [Wade turns away from the phone screen to look at Sans directly. He recognizes that smile-- the smile of someone who would move mountains for his beloved family member. It’s pretty cute, the lengths Sans is willing to go for his brother. ] Quite the expensive Christmas present. I’m guessin’ he’s a huge car buff then, huh? Want me to videotape his reaction when he sees this thing? Could make for some entertaining cinema. I’m imaginin’ something like the Nintendo 64 kid. [A chuckle.]

yeah, ‘bout that… [ Rasping a hand over the crown of his skull, Sans swings his eye lights over the car itself. ] couldn’t wait ‘til christmas, so i went lookin’ for him.

but, hey-- [ The skeleton hunches up his shoulders in a shrug, grinning at Wade. Casually, he passes that partially-consumed cigarette to Wade, like it’s nothing, or normal, or something. ] --turns out there’s no place like home for the holidays. [ That’s when Sans glances again at the phone. That’s, uh, that’s not the setting for taking pictures. He might actually have to do something about that. ]

[Wade’s not a smoker either, barring a brief stint in his teenage years when he wanted to be more like James Dean. Still, when your best bro casually offers you a cigarette, you don’t really say no to that. It’s not like he could get cancer again, anyway. Wade’s in the midst of plucking the cigarette from Sans’s phalanges when the bombshell he’s dropped so nonchalantly registers in his brain. He stops, cigarette held expertly between two fingers as if he’d been smoking for thirty years rather than thirty days, and looks over the windshield at his companion.]

Dude… [He stops; runs a hand over his head and tries again.] I mean-- shit, man. You okay? [Wade lowers the phone, only just now realizing that the recording light is blinking, and hastily turns it off.]

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[Yes, this is good. On the scoreboard of victories in her mind, that's another tallymark under her name. Sans's name on the empty side of the scoreboard is just a placeholder, of course, in lieu of not having any other name to give the sad elephant in the room. For the skeleton himself, her win is his win the way she sees it, so it balances out.

Crumbs dance to the floor as she takes a bite from her s'more, a smidge of gooey chocolate sticking to the corner of her mouth. Scrubbing it away with the back of her thumb, she covers her mouth in an attempt at manners as she chews around her food.]

What sort of burgers? An actually decent hamburger, or the greasy fast food junk?

You say that like greasy fast food and decent burgers can't go hand in hand.

[ Did she ever see that table piled high after the food shortage ended, full of foil-wrapped greaseball burgers? Wade and Sans sat there tucking in until they felt sick, and it was magnificent. Of course, they'd been kinda starving -- in Wade's case, literally wasting away -- but still. His garbage habit shows no sign of stopping. ]

Though uh, I remember this one time Sanji whipped somethin' up.

[ He twitches the fork away from the fire before he ends up over-toasting his marshmallows. ]

Kills me to say it, but, uh, best burger I ever had. Guy had a magic touch in the kitchen.

[She did not, in fact. After her larynx had nearly been crushed by Tim's alter ego, Rin had holed herself up in her room until her Magic Crest could heal the ring of bruises around her throat and her speech returned. She'd had Masaomi bring her all of her meals in the meantime.

Well, other than that night she'd lost track of time, and he'd already gone to bed before she could ask him to fetch her dinner. She'd snuck out to the kitchen then with a scarf around her neck, only to fail to steal anything from under the nose of — you guessed it — Sanji.

Bathed in a flickering orange glow, Rin's face softens into something wistful as Sans praises the chef's skills.]

He really does. [...] I wasn't going to mention it, but he's the only reason I was able to figure out how to do this, you know?

[Finishing the remaining bits of her s'more, she reaches for a marshmallow.]

There was this soup recipe he and I worked to perfect together. Like it wasn't already mouthwatering delicious, but Sanji wanted a miracle soup.

[She rolls her eyes fondly at this. Sanji had given her a bowl of that exact soup the night he caught her trying to steal from the kitchen, hoping it'd heal her throat.]

Anyways, when we were stumped on the last step to the puzzle, he came in one night and said he had an idea! It was based off something he picked up learning how to make monster food for you, apparently.

[Rin smirks at him over her marshmallow fork.]

If he was as particular about that burger as he was the soup, I bet it was the kind of burger you'd find in a five-star restaurant.

Miracle soup? Heh. He can be a real sap when you ain't expecting it.

[ Sounds like the sorta stuff you bring to an ailing friend. Big ol' softie under that bristling, irascible exterior, Sans thinks, and not without a small tickle of fondness. He never really... kept in touch, and for that, Sans really has no excuse. It ain't like he's busy doing anything worth talkin' about, right? ]

So he taught you that trick.

[ One socket closes, as he fishes out a graham cracker and piece of chocolate from each bag. ]

Nice. Uh, so how's he do it? Never could figure it out how a guy without magic pulled that off.

It's not as easy as it sounds! He never actually showed me, exactly — only the technique he came up with for the soup based on it. I had to reverse engineer it from that. But based on his notes, I think it was...

[And insert here some lengthy babble about Sanji's notes and her theories for how he did it, as well as her own application of it. Which. Mostly follows that theory, other than some notes she couldn't puzzle out experimented with, utilizing magic-science theory to fill in the gaps.

Be glad you don't have ears, Sans, she'd talk them off.]

[ In this time, Sans has accomplished... not much.

Assembling his s'more, anyway, not to mention eating it, leaning back in his chair as he savors the warm glow of the fire and the way magically-imbued comfort food does just what it says. It's... comfortable.

What a nerd, Sans thinks, not without fondness. ]

[ And she keeps going. Turns out, this is a more complex process than he thought, but she obviously feels passionately about the subject, bein'... a mage and all, he guesses.

Sans listens, gazing indolently at the fire, resting his phalanges over the impossible illusion of girth that layers of clothes offer. ]

[ Uh... next time Rin looks, she might discover that Sans has literally fallen asleep in the middle of her discussion on magical-scientific theory. ]

[OKAY, SO THIS LAST STEP WAS THE REALLY COOL THING SANS, GET A LOAD OF THIS— Wait, wait, is he even listening anymore?]

...And then I realized the key ingredient was an infusion of uranium and nutmeg that I could only acquire by slaying an elder god, so I had to sacrifice my roommate in a ritual to summon him, of course.

[SNORE. Yup, that and the floating Z's over his head (what is this, a cartoon?) would be a no.]

[Jerk. But fine then, Rin knows just to thing to wake him up. Since intellectual conversation bored him to sleep, there's really only one option to engage him:

She presses her palms to her mouth and blows, producing a juicy and particularly loud farting noise.]

[ That wet, flatulent ppbbbrrraaap! sure does the trick; Sans's skull snaps up in the closest thing he gets to a real, genuine start. ]

Zz-uh?

[ One stunned period of silence stretches out over a span of tense seconds -- and then Sans crumples. It starts with the eye sockets, they sort of... crinkle a little, mirth making his eye lights bright, and then he's doubling over in his chair, shoulders shaking with the high, breathless tumble of laughter that sounds like it's been surprised right out of him.

He holds up a shaky phalanx. Give him a sec.

Pretending to wipe away a nonexistent tear, he finally looks over at her. ]

Holy moly, I can't even take credit for that. You dropped the class act all on your own.

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. [She says, turning her chin up high and haughty. It's ruined somewhat by the fact she looks entirely too satisfied with herself.]

But if I did — and that's an if! — I'd say it was worth it. For a guy who's so into bad jokes, you don't laugh a lot. I think that's but the second time I've heard a good one like that out of you.

[Ew she got spit on her hand. Well. She's going to try to wipe that off on her sleeve discreetly and spear another pair of marshmallows onto her fork!]

[ For a moment, Sans looks a little happy, with eyelights bright and sharp and attentive, the carriage of his shoulders somewhat relieved of the weight that usually slants them. Laughter, as their mutual acquaintance says, is good anesthetic.

Except Rin points out the infrequency of it, draws attention to it, and Sans reminds himself of how little he deserves this when he's let down his brother over, and over, and over, until the Queen's amassed her own collection. And, uh, he doesn't really want to disappoint Rin on top of it all, so he keeps all of that to himself, makes the weight pressing him into the chair look like he's just relaxing after a good laugh.

Sans sets his own marshmallow fork to the side, lacing his phalanges over his absence of a stomach in a show of contentedness. ]

Heh heh. You got me pretty good. Nice job, pal.

[ And for a want of changing the subject as quickly as possible: ] Guess I better step up my payback game for next time.

[...he's better at hiding it than Shirou is, with a perpetual grin in place of a mouth that only rarely seems to turn up at the corners. Still, it's perhaps because she met that boy that she can grasp the moment Sans commits the same sin: right on the cusp of enjoying himself and being happy, he pulls back.

It's heart-wrenching in a way that pisses her off. After everything she's learned about Shirou, knowing Archer's life story, you'd think she'd be more sympathetic to this kind of tragedy now.

Maybe in some ways she is. She won't take the blame for how hollow that little heh heh sounds now, but that was stupid of her. She shouldn't have called attention to it.]

For what? [She tuts amiably, holding her marshmallows aloft over the flame. Two can play at this acting game.] That was my payback for you sleeping through my explanation, like a big old jerk. We're even now.

Guilty as charged.

[ He tips his skull slightly to one side, lifting a few phalanges from where he's resting them across his absence of a stomach. Sans cracks open one eye socket to add: ]

But, y'know, a prank war sounds a helluva lot better than the one we're in.

[ They can both pretend. Maintain the comfortable atmosphere, bathed in the gold-red light of a warm fire, like good friends with some good food, some bad laughs.

It's better than being alone with their thoughts and the absence yawning around them in this place, the empty spaces they can't name. ]

I'll give you a hint. Y'know, a freebie. Better sleep with one eye open on Pranksgiving.

[A prank war does sound better than the one they're in. But you know what sounds even better than that? Option #3, where she goes home to that other war she spent her whole life preparing for.

The corners of her mouth quirk up, instead of down. Anytime now. I'm getting rusty here.]

Pranksgiving?

[The word rolls on her tongue, like someone trying to determine the taste of an unfamiliar dish. She takes her eyes off the fire to glance over to him again, bright-eyed.]

That sounds made up.

Yeah? You guys like to call it 'April Fools', still the same thing. Heh heh, heck--

[ He rolls his skull against his shoulder as he angles to look at Rin, grinning in lazy contentment. ]

Should'a seen all the pranks we set up last year. Practically spent all night on it, me and--

[ And.

And someone. Someone with sticky tape on their fingers. Someone who laughed at a table along with Zuko's baffled stare and music playing, again and again, locked on repeat. Someone he remembers sitting on the counter in the kitchen, both of them wrung out and silent. On a bridge bathed in golden light.

Static white noise where their face should be in his memory, strings of data unraveling into black. A smudge of soot where something used to be, no longer human again.

That sounds made up, Rin said.

He didn't make it up. He didn't make them up.

Did he? ]

...

[ He seems to have lost his train of thought, as he turns his skull away and sits there and doesn't think about this anymore. ]

Oof, guess I'm more tired than I thought. Thinkin' I might call it quits today.

[He's being really weird.

It's not that he cuts off mid-sentence, but the way he freezes when the words stop tumbling out. Forgets those little mannerisms you'd expect from a flesh and blood body — fidgeting, breathing — that he doesn't have to do, but is so good at. In someone as lazy as him, it has to be habit, she's always thought.

She's grateful he does, actually, because it looks really creepy when he stops bothering for less than five seconds. Head twisted towards her like that, stuck at that canted angle; he looks like a marionette waiting for the puppeteer overhead to get back to moving his strings. Factor in blank sockets and a fixed grin, more than that he looks dead.]

H-Hey—

[She actually jumps a little — trying not to look like she jumped a little — when he moves, skull rolling to face away from her again.

Fumbling for her lost composure, she latches back onto the conversation instead of the question that had been waiting in the wing: What's wrong?]

A-Already?

[She stutters instead, irritably tucking a rope of hair behind her ear. It's only then the words really register, though. Oh.]

We haven't been here long. [Rin tries, accepting even as she says it that it won't matter much.] ...But I guess it is getting late.

[ Yeah, there's, uh. No really disguising there's something wrong and, quite frankly, Sans feels like bothering to gloss this over or candycoat anything to be much more trouble than he feels like going through. Which, uh. Makes him kinda a jerk to someone who's being so nice to him, but he's never been a particularly good monster, or a nice one. He doesn't deserve this, either, it's more a credit to her than anything he's got coming to him.

She gives him the out, though. Another kindness. ]

Thanks for doin' this.

[ There, that's... an attempt, that's gotta be enough, because that's all he's got right now. Slippered feet shuffle as he heaves himself up out of the chair, pauses to scratch at his hip, then passes his other hand over his skull as he attempts to wink at Rin sideways, grinning. He doesn't even have hair to smooth down, but hey, it's used to make... somebody he used to know smile. Somebody. He can't remember who. ]

I'll see ya around, maybe we can do this again sometime.

[She thinks that's the first thank you she's ever wriggled out of him. That should leave her satisfied; indeed, she'd get huffy at him if he didn't say anything. Honestly. After all the work she did, she deserves at least that.

But it feels hollow where it shouldn't. A thanks not earned. Ever the perfectionist, Rin just can't be satisfied with this, even as she simultaneously acknowledges she can't pull off a better outcome. It's... It's frustrating. But she also has bigger things to think about.
And empty spaces she'll try to think about but can't recall.
So Rin nods. Recovering from her scare and the following disappointment, she snaps back to her usual impudent self. Straightening her posture, she pulls her marshmallows off the flame and props the fork to the side, so she can use her hands.]

Hold on. [She orders, turning to the side to gather up the food laid out, haphazardly shoving what was out back into the ziplock bags. When she's done, she thrusts them out to him.]

You're not going to help with the clean-up, so take these off my hands. Since you're sticking me with the mess, it's the minimum you ought to do.

[ He's not exactly a good friend, either.

Hold on, she says, and Sans humors her, watching her gather up the ziplocked bags of broken up chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallows and seeing what she's probably intending to do with those before she's holding out the lot for him to take. Heh.

Yeah, she would. Gotta balance the books, right? Make them... even, or something. He doesn't recall exactly when he had that part of her pegged, but still feels the same way: the books aren't balanced, she's overcompensating. For what, he doesn't really know. Sans takes the bags by their ziplock strips in one hand, and then folds his other hand over hers. Does something a little different, for a change.

Tightens the cool, strange phalanges there for a moment and flicks another wink before he goes ducking around behind the armchair with the bags in one hand.

The fact he doesn't emerge from the other side just means he's gone. ]

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[video] (It's long. Sorry.)

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LMFAOOOO HOW ARE YOU SO PERFECT 1/??

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/BOWS. I'M ONLY WORKING OFF YOUR PERFECT SETUPS. 1/2

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1/2 LOSING MY SHIT

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