Maybe this time he should just stay in bed.
He had never tried it before. Maybe he should.
Soft light drizzled through the window, muffled by the snow blowing past.
Maybe it wouldn't matter, and he'd be killed in his sleep instead of exhausting himself for no reason. Because there was no reason. It would all turn out the same no matter what. No matter how hard he fought, no matter how hard he pleaded, he would always wake up in the same room, in the same morning, waiting for the inevitable. Feeling himself slowly going crazy as the world reset itself over and over and over-
Abruptly his train of thought was interrupted by a knock. Strange, that had never happened before. Had he been laying around longer than usual? Were they here for him already? He hadn't thought it had been that long, but everything was blurry and unimportant, and time is a construct.
"SANS? YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK IF YOU DON'T GET UP SOON."
He supposed that made sense. He did work a ton of different jobs, some of which started insanely early. What day was it? Did it matter? Maybe he should quit the jobs. He didn't need money, did he? Food wasn't that important. What else did he use money for again?
"SANS? ARE YOU AWAKE?"
He was, he was pretty sure, at least in the traditional sense. You could also say he was dead to the world. He sure didn't feel like he was awake, even though his eyes were open and his mind was going.
"I MADE SPAGHETTI FOR LUNCH. I KNOW YOU DON'T LIKE HAVING SPAGHETTI FOR EVERY MEAL, BUT I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE NICE AFTER YESTERDAY."
Yesterday? What was so important about yesterday? Why did spaghetti feel insanely important, more than it had any right to be?
"SANS, YOU'RE KIND OF WORRYING ME. COULD YOU AT LEAST SAY SOMETHING?"
A noise came from behind him, and somehow his brain was able to make the connection between the noise and a doorknob being rattled.
"SANS, IS SOMETHING WRONG? YOU DON'T USUALLY LOCK YOUR DOOR."
His door was locked? Had he locked it yesterday? When was yesterday again?
There was a brief moment of silence.
"Is this about yesterday?"
Something about hearing that voice so quiet and hesitant was inherently wrong, like seeing a person without a limb. It was supposed to be there, and when it wasn't it felt...off.
"Frisk is fine. They were healed almost immediately." The voice laughed softly. "There were only five other monsters there to heal them, and it was only a scrape. Everyone could see how quiet you've been this week, Sans. They all understand how jumpy you can get, and they forgive you. Frisk said it was okay too."
He wasn't entirely sure what the voice was talking about, but the tone of their voice struck a chord in him and he felt his eyes fill with tears, even if he didn't understand them.
"SANS, YOU'RE REALLY WORRYING ME. YOU HAVEN'T LEFT YOUR ROOM ALL DAY, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. AT LEAST EAT SOME DINNER."
The voice sounded near tears. no, don't cry. He thought at the voice. It wasn't right for that voice to be sad. A vague feeling stirred in his chest, something warm and worried.
When he reached for it, it slipped away.
"SANS, PLEASE LET ME IN! I WILL CALL UNDYNE AND HAVE HER COME AND DRAG YOU OUT AND MAKE YOU EAT SOMETHING, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU PROTEST."
Liar.
Footsteps stopped right outside his door, just as they had been doing all day. At least he thought it had been a day. It was dark out again, the damn snow that never ended still blowing past the glass outside. The footsteps were familiar, something he had heard everyday for almost his entire life. No words were spoken this time, just a muffled thump and a slight creak as the voice sat on the ground just outside his locked door. He was tempted to turn his thoughts back inward, and he had almost given in to that impulse when he heard a tiny, almost inaudible gasp.
A gasp that was too familiar, too wrong sounding to ignore. Suddenly he could impossibly smell the salt of tears, could feel in his SOUL as they landed on the ground.
And as much as he hated it, it took his brother crying on the ground outside his bedroom door for Sans to process that he was not, infact, back in their house in Snowdin, because they were on the surface, and the kid wouldn't reset. They had figured out all their problems, apologies had been made and accepted.
His sheets were on the floor before he was all the way off the bed, he stumbled over something that wasn't important at the time,and there were definitely tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, but he was feeling, something other than the haze of apathy that had swallowed him the last day and a half. Suddenly he could feel the aching of his head, the gnawing hunger in his stomach, the stiffness in his limbs after not moving for a solid 36 hours, the bags under his sleepy eyes after just as long of not sleeping.
But as much as those things mattered, he ignored them all in favor of snapping the lock open and wrenching the door open to a surprised-
"p-papyrus." Sans gasped, his legs giving out. He hit the ground with a sharp crack, and threw himself forward, knowing beyond reason, beyond doubt, that he would be caught.
(A/N) Enjoy this depression-fueled short ficlet that I wrote in an hour to try venting some of this angst. I should be working on the next chapter of POS, and I'm sorry that that is so hectic. Have lovely lives people, and remember: chinken nunget.