so to fill people in on the longer story: i woke up vomiting up this black goop, and uh. kinda couldn’t stop vomiting.
lazy (@sans-nyan), roan (@the-innocent-papyrus) and dread (@the-dread-papyrus) came over to uh. help/keep me company, but it. got really bad, so we called for help and llyr (@tanezumi), peppy (@peppy-sans) and cal (@comicalcium) wound up coming over. llyr realized that the black goop was actually void matter, cal realized it was actually like. in my soul. so lazy suggested using his timeline’s dt extractor to get it out. and it worked! no more goop in my soul.
don’t really know how it got there, though. other than the obvious “i’ve been in the void at some point” part.
The house was quiet, largely because the biggest noisemaker was still asleep on the couch. Roan and Brio were tangled up in some blankets, having apparently tried to vie for control of the couch in their sleep. It was hard to tell who was winning. Both were still on the couch, so perhaps it was a tie.
Brio slept with one arm draped over his eyes and the other draped over the back of the couch. It didn’t look like a particularly comfortable position, but he wasn’t exactly complaining. Roan’s limbs were in a similar state of disarray, with one arm reaching up behind his head as he tried to bury his face in his nonexistent armpit. Such graceful skeletons.
Both skeletons were sleeping peacefully. There was no sign of anything being amiss. Except maybe the occasional twitch of the arm in Brio's case. And the occasional muffled groan. Or whimper. But other than that, they were peaceful.
Until Brio woke with a strangled scream. He flailed reflexively, waking Roan before sending himself crashing to the ground, hard.
Roan sat up, dazed and alarmed. It took him a moment to figure out where he was, let alone what was going on. But his gaze was quickly drawn to Brio, who was half dangling off of the couch. His arms were wrapped around his midsection and he was making a noise that sounded like a mixture of wheezing and dry heaving.
Roan sat bolt upright, at which point he spotted Orion by Brio's side (probably teleported in when he heard the scream). He was rubbing Brio's back and murmuring words of reassurance, words that didn't seem to be getting through to him.
Roan pulled Brio up so that his face wasn't mashed into the carpet. He cradled Brio's upper body and took over the task of stroking his back. Brio's body shuddered against him, hard enough to cause Brio's bones to rattle.
"SANS, GET A TRASHCAN!"
He had never encountered a vomiting skeleton himself, but Dread had told him that if you can convince someone who's about to puke to puke in a trashcan it makes for considerably less mess.
Orion nodded and vanished into the kitchen, returning shortly with the trashcan from that room. He deposited it in front of the couch and Roan carefully held Brio's upper body over it. Just in case those dry heaves stopped being dry.
"*do you think healing magic'll help, paps?"
Roan considered this for a moment. Brio didn't look injured, sure, but maybe it could help somehow?
"IT'S WORTH A SHOT, AT LEAST!"
He summoned green magic to his hand and pressed it to Brio's back. Just as he thought, there was no damage to heal. But maybe the feelings behind the magic, the love and concern and the desire to help, would get through to Brio.
Orion reached for one of Brio's hands and carefully unwrapped it from around his midsection. He gently started tracing the hole in Brio's hand, hoping that maybe he would be like Roan and find the gesture calming.
Between the healing and the tracing, Brio began to calm down. His breathing evened out, his bones stopped shaking and rattling as much. He leaned tiredly against Roan's shoulder. Roan dismissed the green magic and held Brio close, rubbing his back between the shoulder blades.
"ARE YOU ALRIGHT, BRIO?"
Brio nodded, too tired to speak. Roan nudged his head in a display of affection. Brio nuzzled into Roan's shoulder.
"can i get a do-over on today?" he said, his voice shaky and cutting in and out.
Roan let out an irritated huff.
"THE DAY HAS BARELY EVEN STARTED YET! THERE'S HARDLY ANYTHING TO DO OVER IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
"perfect time to do it over, don't you think? nyeh heh."
"*he's got a point, y'know," Orion piped up, grinning up at Roan.
Roan rolled his eyes at the both of them.
"UGH... FINE. I SUPPOSE I CAN LET YOU REST FOR A LITTLE WHILE. I'M GOING TO GO GET READY FOR MY MORNING JOG. YOU MAY NAP UNTIL I COME BACK DOWNSTAIRS. AFTER THAT!!!" Roan poked Brio in the nose hole. "I EXPECT YOU TO GET UP AND GET READY TO FACE THE DAY!!!"
Brio chuckled and flashed Roan a tired grin.
"alright, deal. g'night, brother."
"GOOD MORNING, NYEH HEH HEH!"
Roan detangled himself from the couch blankets and headed upstairs, cackling all the way. Brio just laid back down on the couch. He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them and grabbed the trashcan, holding it under one arm.
"just in case."
"*gimme a shout if you need me. or a kick, whichever's more convenient, heh heh."
Orion hopped up onto the part of the couch Roan just vacated and settled in for a nap of his own.
Brio just muttered an acknowledgement before putting his arm over his eyes and falling back asleep.
It’s just an empty, gaping void for miles in every direction. Not that “miles” or “directions” have any bearing in a place like this. But it’s not empty. He’s there, after all. He’s something that exists.
Just as nature abhors a void, the void abhors interlopers.
It’s like the darkness itself is tearing at him, pulling him limb from limb, unraveling him.
He can’t breathe, he can’t think, he just can’t.
The void is going to consume him until there’s nothing left, until “Papyrus” no longer exists...
He woke with a start when his head hit the floor. His soul pounded in his chest as he struggled to catch his breath, too disoriented from the dream to immediately register where he was. The feel of the carpet against his skull slowly helped bring him back to reality.
He was in his room, in Snowdin. He was hanging halfway out of his bed in the most undignified pose, but he didn’t really care.
He was alive. He was safe. He just had a nightmare, that’s all. Not that he could really remember what it was about. The memory was already fading away, like water slipping through his hands.
Maybe he’d just lie here for a little while. You know, until he calmed down some. Yeah, he could get behind that plan.
well i dunno 'bout you but when i ain't got nothin' in my system an' i puke black gunk'll come up. like. excess gross magic i guess, somethin' like that. its weird but normal. shit though man- really? what kinda orange pap are you, heh. hell i could take ya drinkin', uh, guess that'd be easier if y'knew who i was eh? heh, whoops. name's spade, user name spadetheskelton. simple shit. anyways, s'nice ta finally talk to ya
ah, yeah, that would make sense. i mean i know skeletons in my line can puke, it’s just not that common. last time i saw it happen was, well, with my sans. ate something that didn’t agree with him, gave him like. pastel rainbow puke lol.
heh, well, i just never found drinking appealing enough on its own to give it a shot. but yeah, i wouldn’t mind going drinking with you, spade! feel free to hit me up in like ims or tag me in a post or something.
yeah that's pretty good at least. still though, gonna really fuckin' suck if it happens again. hopefully y'all get to the bottom of whatever the heck happened. an' it ain't a big deal, least i've never puked up void stuff. black gunk maybe but not nothin' nearly as bad as whatever you did. s'only when i get sick though, any other reason i might be pukin' is when i drink wayyy to much, heh.
ugh, yeah. fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen again, but m a n would it ever suck if it started up again. at least i had it together enough to sorta call for help this time. and i’ve got an idea of who to call if it ever happens again.
well, there’s only so many black things you can puke up lol. at least it wasn’t void gunk. still wouldn’t recommend it, though.
i’ve never gone drinking before, so i’ve never had the experience of getting drunk enough to start puking. to be fair, before that incident i’d never actually puked anything up at all.
