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“...”
“...shut up”
“...”
“grilbs….c’mon.”
“...”
“auuuggghhh…. why did i even tell you.”
The skeleton pulled his hoodie over his head in the closed down bar as he sat across his stoic yet smiling friend.
The fire monster signed an apology. But his smirk did not make it sincere.
It was the next day when Sans finally went back to the bar to let his friend know he was okay. Now he wasn’t sure if it was better to leave him worried instead.
“c’mon grilby, i’m sure you’ve had similar mishaps, too?” he hoped. This was embarrassing.
The fire elemental shook his head ‘no’. He signed that he hasn’t even experienced any play fighting like that since he was a child.
The skeleton frowned. “so what, you lose the ability to be ticklish when you hit puberty or something?” that was unfair. Why didn’t that happen for him? Did he mentioned he was still embarrassed?
He shook his head again. Before his friend could protest, he placed his hand on Sans’. It was warm, but he could also feel five distinct fingers pressing into his hand, much as his brother’s, or any other non-ghost monster. The elemental took a breath, and then his fiery hand phased through the skeleton’s and rested on the table.
Sans stared in wonder as he felt the harmless flames licked his hand. It traced but phased past his bones softly, stroking his metacarpals just enough for him to tense up a little. Pulling his hand back, he then found a way to understand it.
“right, magic.” He rubbed his hands together to escape the tingles. “so you can just change your phase from solid to gas when you learn how to control your magic.”
The fire monster shrugged. Pretty much. “..”
“....grilbs, don’t you dare….”
The fire monster shrugged again, but this time with a smirk. As if to say ‘I guess you haven’t grown up enough if you can’t control your magic response, yet’
Standing up, the skeleton grinned and only half joked “i’m going to find your weakness, just wait.”
Another shrug. Another smirk. Good luck with that.
---------
The door closed behind Sans as he walked into the house of his best buddy. Toriel was out collecting snails from the garden, but would be back in soon. The house was warm and inviting with the scent of cinnamon and pie crust. He went over and sat on the couch and turned on the television that played both monsters and human TV shows. For ambassador research.
*click*
“”-at are you?” “... A stupid sandwi-”
*click*
“-turing real action! Real violence!--wait. I’m being told that isn’t allow-”
*click*
“-EADY FOR THIS HALLOWE-”
*click*
“”-an’t”” “But Jerry, I hate that I lov-”
*click*
“-rrow night. Monsters and humans alike will be together for the anniversary celebration of the release of the monsters that were trapped under Mt. Ebot. There will be a live performance by Sir Knight Mettaton and Wanye Kest playing their hit single ‘It’s Sunday’..... Even though the performance will be on Saturday. Followed by fireworks and monster cultural experience booths.” “That’s great, Arin, it’s looking to be a clear day fo-”
*click*
Some mindless cartoons that didn’t speak.
Now that the TV wasn’t talking to him directly, he noticed a small human sitting at the top of the stairs, watching him.
“...tell me what’s up, kid?”
The human fidgeted and slowly came down the stairs. They glanced at the TV, and then at the floor. Their hands stuttered before asking if Sans was at Grillby’s earlier.
“Yeah, I had to have a quick talk about my tab with him… why? Did you want to get a burg? Is your mom making snail pie again?”
Frisk shook their head ‘no’ and signed that it was lasagna tonight. But that they also think they might be afraid of Grillby.
“...? that old match stick?” He asked, jokingly, “ listen, half the things birdy tells you aren’t even true and-”
Frisk shook their head again. Their mom was making them study both human and monster history of the war. Both mentioned fire monsters as scare tactic monsters. They could light a whole village on fire and because they were elementals, they could practically shapeshift and be untouchable. Humans wrote them as invulnerable to any attack, except water. They even-!
“woah, woah, kid. calm down. even if they lit the village on fire, it was only magic fire. it could never actually burn anything. just make it really toasty. here, let me see that book-”
He turned the page of the library book. It was marked as historically inaccurate now that monsters were out, but Frisk needed to know how humans were raised to think of monsters before they came back up on the surface. To better understand the climate or some bull.
“Fire monsters can take any attack without damage. Axe and sword sliced through them like air. No ropes or chains could hold them down and bullets only made them laugh”
Sans frowned. Yeah, that made them sound pretty terrifying. “.....yea, there’s a reason this book is flagged. wait up, i’ll get you a better resource.”
The skeleton stood up, and much to the human’s protest, left through the kitchen door frame and disappeared. Moments later, he walked back into the front door with a friend.
Heats Flamesman!!
“YOU REMEMBERED!!!” the small fire monster was shocked. Too shocked he needed to get in the house or Tori was going to scold him to letting earth flies in.
Nudging the monster inside, Sans leaned over and handed the book to his new friend. “can you tell the kid this is all baloney?”
The fire scanned the page with his large eyes “Baloney, no. But is it true? Yes.”
The remote fell out of the skeleton’s hand. What? “what?” Frisk looked grim.
‘Well, yeah. Adult elementals aren’t really hurt by physical things that aren’t water. I can dodge your attack pretty well otherwise”
“while you are laughing evilly as bullets fly through you?”
The flame shook his head “Hey now, I didn’t read anything about evil laughing. You must have given me the wrong book.”
Now fully concerned, Sans grabbed the book back as though it would help him make sense of the situation. “you’re telling me if i threw a bullet at you, it would tickle???” That’s a terrible idea! He wanted revenge, but sans could never do that! Not for any type of payback! HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE-
“No, of course not!” The monster sighed. “Don’t you know anything about fire elementals?”
Deadpan, Sans replied “Do you know anything about monster or human skeletons?”
“....Touche… Okay, so, let’s have a quick lesson.”
Throughout dinner provided by Toriel, Heats helped Sans and Frisk with any questions regarding flame monsters How to help them, how they are different, and how they are also practically harmless. By the end of the night, Frisk was no longer afraid and Sans finally had an idea.
----------
The day of the festival and the lake was crowded. It was late summer and there were monster food booths, cultural items, information booths, a stage for the musical performance and even a large boat out on the lake for fireworks. It was as if a summer festival and Halloween had merged together for a whole month and condensed onto this day.
When the monsters came to the surface, they were so scared to face the same type of people who trapped them underground. But instead, it was as if that piece of history was erased. In fact, most humans fully embraced monster-kind. Once the message of the truth came out and was fully convinced it wasn’t a joke, it was already late fall and the ambasador started a welcoming program where monsters said hi to their neighbors and the neighbors would give a gift of candy. Most humans were already fully accepting of this plan! Of course, later the monsters found out this was Halloween, but it worked so well, they embraced and made it their own.
Sans and his brother were hanging out by the lake when Grilby decided to show up. The fire monster looked at his friend who looked ridiculous, as usual for a human holiday. He had a sun visor, Hawain shirt and shorts, socks with sandals, a bag of fireworks, a caramel spider apple and someone even face painted a bone on his cheek. The fire monster only wore a tank top, shorts and sandals since the sun was warm and comforting to him.
Two teenage girls walked by and stared at the group of monsters. One wore cat ears and the other candy skull face paint. The latter suddenly hid behind her friend.
“Oh my god, Alondra, I didn’t know there were skeleton monsters, too!” She whispered harshly. “I bet they think I’m insulting them, shit, I don’t have any wipes on me-”
Sans grinned “Hey grillbs, looks like i got another point! what’s that, 5 to 0 now?”
The elemental gave his friend a stink eye. It wasn’t fair, what were the humans supposed to do? Light themselves on fire? Skeletons were so much easier. He folded his arms and then suddenly noticed another human in the distance. They had a black flame tattoo on their arm. Pointing at himself and then at the human, he almost giddily tried to get the admittance from his friend.
Sans looked over, stared for a while, and then sighed. “okay, 5 to 1, now. but if i see a skull tattoo, i should get points, too.”
The elemental gave a small fist pump. Things were finally working in his favor.
Meanwhile the girls watched them walk away until they decided to visit another booth. It was going to be a fun day for everyone involved.
-----
By now the sun was setting. Frisk and Papyrus boarded the boat to help light the firework show while the two friends found a spot on a cliff away from the humans. The firework show wouldn’t be as great from this angle, but they had a better view of the boat and crowd.
Grillby wiped one of his palms over the other. “It’s nice”
Sans nodded his head in agreement. It really was. He pulled out a bag of monster candy and motioned to his friend. “hey, catch”
Grillby was surprised and held out his hands. What he didn’t expect was a sudden toss of multiple white items thrown his way.
SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP
“G!-H!-H!-H!-A!-H!-A!-H!-A!”
Grillby’s face had both a wide grin and an incredibly confused expression. “Wha-”
“some human thing called ‘snap-its’. they are like baby fireworks that pop from impact or temperature.” The box was empty, but he reached into his bag and pulled out a stick and then lightly set it against his friend’s arm..
The elemental flinched, but nothing really happened. The stick was strange and almost made of metal.
“you know i was helping frisk and learned a lot about fire monsters… but things changed for you once we came to the surface, right?…. of course, living in the underground, you never really would come across fireworks or gun powder.. It’d be soaked once it entered the dump… “
The stick continued to remain inactive in his friend’s arm. It was both annoying and suspicious but Grillby was also curious. What was Sans getting at? He knew his friend would never hurt him.
“who would have known… all this time… i just had to fight fire with… fire?”
The sparkler suddenly ignited.
“E!-E!-E!-E!-P!!!”
Now feeling cocky, Sans continued to prod his friend with the sparkler, knowing it was the sparks that tickled his friend. “geeze gilbs, why don’t you grow out of this? don’t you have control of your magic now that you’re an adult?”
“H-A!” *psh* “E!-H!-A!-H!-A!-H!-” *ch* “N!-A!-H!-A!”
“what’s up pal, do you want to enlighten me?” Sans did it, he won. Here he saw the biggest smile on his friend as he literally lit up from their play fighting. Grillby cracked and popped as Sans continued to prod lightly at his arm, neck, side, and leg.It really was fun to see his serious friend smile.
The smell of sulfur was suddenly apparent as Grillby’s giggles died down and the sparkler went out. But now... Now his friend didn’t have the same smile as before. Now the skeleton was boned.
--------------
“WOOOOOAAAHHHHHhhh” The crowd cheered, watching the fireworks light up the sky. A loud pop and fizzle sounded and another white firework showered the night, almost appearing to land on the nearby hills. And if a few event go-ers were lucky, they happened to witness the most spooktacular event to kick off the next season. A skeleton. Cackling. On Fire.
---------
“Grih-ih-ih-llbe-be-eeeehehe!” The skeleton shrieked. After all of this studying, he did not factor in this. If ancient fire monsters could throw their flames onto houses but still control them enough to not burn, what would stop a spiteful friend from throwing fire at a hollow friend and control those flames as well?
In between each rib and across his neck the warm flame poked and prodded, specifically paying attention to the spots that made the skeleton monster shriek. At the base of his head and just under the arms. The fire elemental hoped he wouldn’t have to do this again, but if his friend thought he could pull this off once more, he was taking notes.
“aih-aihmehehe--sooreeehehe!” *snort* “eh-HAH- itittit whas ah jo-oh-oke-EE!” It was the strangest thing, being tickled silly while still standing up. The flames lifted him up slightly and he wasn’t falling over. “Iah wohohon’t-whohoho-on’t doo eet-titit- ahahahagahahain!”
Grillby put a finger to his mouth, then changed it to a full hand against his other fist. “Promise?”
Sans slapped his hand on his leg as fast as he could. He was too busy giggling to answer verbally.
The fire elemental raised his hands and the fire dissipated. His friend collapsed in a fit of huffs and giggles, then rolled over with his eyes dark.
“You okay?” his friend asked with concern. He hoped he wasn’t too hard on him.
“never again…you killed me… i’m burnt out.”
Rolling his eyes, Grillby sat back down on the grass to enjoy the sky lights as he leaned over and put the previously mentioned sweet treat onto the skeleton’s socket.
“...I’m still the apple of your eye”