It's weird to be back home, after more than a month away. It feels a lot like learning to walk again in the wake of being bedridden for too long. A familiar territory, but one that requires you to trod carefully none-the-less, lest you break a leg.

Or a spine.

That's how they treat him anyway, like he could fall apart beneath their fingertips without warning, fragile glass that needs to be precariously handled.

Papyrus wants to yell at them but doesn't.

They're all so different now, worlds from what they used to be.

Sans barely talks to him, tiptoeing around the gap between them, maybe he hopes ignoring it will make it go away by itself. They both know better. His jokes sound emptier than usual and it reminds Papyrus of back underground, of the emotional shield his brother pulls up around himself in order not to break.

But they're already broken.

Toriel tries to be comforting, but can't. Papyrus sees it in her eyes, the sadness whenever she looks at him. You're not much of a guardian if you can't even protect people from themselves. He asked her if he could help cook, but saw the way she tensed when he reached for a knife. As if he would pick it up and start at himself right then and there.

He wanted too, for a glaring instant, but he never would.

Alphys looks more nervous than ever, and Papyrus is simply surprised she doesn't disappear. She used to do that, sometimes. Withdraw both physically and mentally because she could not face the world. But she has grown since they came to the surface, perhaps more than any of them. She is there when he needs her and there when he doesn't, you would think the hovering gets on his nerves and it does. But she doesn't stop and Papyrus doesn't ask her to.

Is grateful she's decided to stay this time.

And then there's Undyne.

If he expected any of them to be an unchanging factor in his existence, the one thing he could relay on at all times, it would be her.

She is a storm. She is like stone, unyielding, stabilizing, it carries your weight. Like water, she adapts, calm on the surface but ready to uproot you any second if she sees it fit.

And so it breaks his heart a little bit, when he first comes home, and she pulls out the kitchen chair for him to sit on.

It's not the gesture that hurts him, or the intention behind it, but the knowledge that in her eyes too, he is not the same anymore, and likely never will be. He is now something that needs to be fixed, something that needs to be protected.

Something unpredictable and dangerous. Something Papyrus never wanted to be.

So in the end, he spends the weekend mostly around Frisk.

The human hasn't changed a bit. They are determination incarnate, all crooked grins and scraped knees and broken skin. They want something and get that something no matter what it is and their stubbornness teeters on the dangerous sometimes, but he feels safe when with them.

Frisk would never let anyone hurt Papyrus, won't let him hurt himself either. But they ask his help when they can't reach something, need his opinion and want him to answer in honesty, and Papyrus feels useful.

Feels like he can finally take care of someone, instead of always being taken care of.


It's barely forty-eight hours and at the end of it he is completely knackered. Things have changed yet somehow they haven't and one weekend really isn't enough to plan an entire wedding, but god forbid anyone that tries to keep Papyrus from trying.

There's venues to see and food to try and flowers to choose. Undyne drags him along for all of it, and besides her asking him every five minutes if he's alright, if he needs a break, if he's sure it's not too much too soon, he ends up really enjoying himself.

Asgore advices them and they choose rose in a startling golden color the same yellow as Alphys' eyes and Undyne adores them.

Before he knows it Papyrus is standing on the porch, Frisk is holding his hand as if they don't really want to let go, biting their lip, and Sans pulls him into an embrace, looking him in the eyes probably for the first time in two days.

"You'll be back before he knows it." His brother says, and Papyrus is unsure whether Sans is comforting him or himself or maybe just going through the motions.

They've always been excellent at that.

"There's always next weekend anyway." He answers, and finds himself actually looking forward to it.


He is about halfway with his collection of paper cranes now. They have long overflowed his nightstand, taking residence besides Alex's bed as well, and now the side table of the recreation room has become their new domain.

Papyrus is also fairly sure Marcus has abducted a few of them.

The man in question sits across from him, idly playing with one of the larger origami birds.

"I think they're just scared they'll do something wrong." Papyrus finishes his relay of the weekend's events. Marcus hadn't particularly asked to hear them, but it was quiet and Papyrus wanted to fill the silence.

Talking feels a lot more comfortable again now than it has in a long time.

"You think to much." Marcus mumbles, balancing one of the cranes atop another. "Have you tried actually talking to them about it instead?"

"I never talk with anyone about anything." Papyrus echoes his psychologist, the words Sans had long accused him of too. Honesty, remember?

Marcus watches his construction topple beneath his trembling fingers and abandons it, staring at his hands as he folds a bird of his own instead. "You know that's exactly your problem, right?"

"So I've been told. You call it a problem, I call it a solution." Papyrus replies, getting swiftly kicked in the leg for his dismissive attitude. "Ouch-"

"I thought you were here to find better solutions..." Marcus tries kicking him again but Papyrus quickly withdraws his legs, tugging them beneath the chair instead.

He doesn't immediately answer, concentrating on the folds he's making. He prefers puzzling, but it'd be stupid to stop before he got to a thousand.

"I guess I just want at least some people to... not worry about me all the time. At least one person who thinks this isn't such a big deal at all." He says after a while. "Just one person who would think it strange if I really did... kill myself."

Years of being like this, and this is the first time Papyrus said those words out loud. They taste bitter and raw, like marrow.

"Then maybe you should talk about that, don't you." Marcus implores with a little grin. He attempted to make a paper crane of his own, but it looks misshapen and wrong.

Papyrus thinks it looks cute.

"Who knows, maybe I should." He answers cryptically. 600 Origami birds.


Autism.

Papyrus has never heard this word before, hadn't known it existed.

Now he's sitting on an itchy stair in some stuffed room and is being told this might be the answer to all his problems. Or the rationalization of them, at least.

"How do you feel, hearing this?" Doctor Burke asks strategically, pen poised over his notebook and waiting for some kind of reaction. Observing him.

It makes Papyrus nervous, unsure. He feels like he's being tested for something without being told all the rules.

It reminds him-

"Actually, I'm rather ok with it." He answers honestly, trying to shake the evocative sensation. Concentrating on the here and now instead.

The physician puts his pen to the paper, starts to write then stops, scribbles through the little he wrote down. "You what?"

Maybe this wasn't the predicted way of acknowledging such a diagnosis.

"It doesn't change anything for me personally. But having some kind of insight might actually help me understand why I don't understand myself." Papyrus tries to explain. "I've been like this for-"

For how long has he been like this. Months, he wants to say. But it's probably been years.

"Forever." He decides. "I've been like this forever."

Burke nods, starts writing at last, though he's still frowning deep. Maybe it's different for humans, more difficult to except they do not fit the neat little labels they make for themselves and others.

They like it so simple. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl and that's the end of it. Papyrus knows the world doesn't work that way.

Frisk knew too, and look where it got them in the end.

"This is not something that can be cured. Not something that needs to be cured, for that matter. But we can help you learn to deal with it better." Burke says.

Papyrus agrees. He is ready to start dealing with things.


He's taking a break from reading because it makes his head hurt when Alex walks in.

"What are you brooding about?" they asks, presumably in reaction to the way Papyrus is cradling his face in both hands.

"I don't brood, I never brood." He responses quickly. "Sans is the one who broods."

"I'm sure he is." Alex laughs. "What are you doing then?"

"I'm thinking." He closes the book in front of him, let's it fall shut with a loud thud and looks at it like it personally offended him.

He can't remember the last time he read the adventures of Fluffy Bunny and somehow it bothers him now. In all the weeks he spent here, the ugly green walls and lumpy couch and tasteless food, he hasn't missed the outside world at all.

He missed his friends, sure. He missed cooking with Undyne and talking with Sans and watching movies with Alphys.

But now he misses his books. His stuff.

"Are you nervous about how they'll deal with it?" Alex asks suddenly, gesturing at the book Papyrus is currently giving a death glare. "Scared that they'll still treat you differently?"

With a sigh, Papyrus thinks back to the previous weekend and the unease he felt. If they hear this is not something that will be able to 'oh so magically' go away, will they just handle him as damaged goods forever?

Will they think him broken?

He pushes the books to the side, some of his origami birds tumble of the table and onto the ground in the process, before getting up.

"You done brooding?" Alex calls after him surprised.

"Done thinking." Papyrus doesn't close the door behind him.


He calls home and Toriel picks up, the others are out somewhere, living life, and it's so easy to forget that that's still a thing. That there lies anything outside these walls except his old, faded memories.

Most of which he'd like to forget

But Toriel is home so Papyrus just tells her.

The queen goes quiet, there's a crackling on the other side of the line and what sounds like a distant kitchen timer going off. She's probably baking pie.

Toriel laughs. It's sudden and bright and seems oddly out of place, Papyrus can relate to the way Dr. Burke felt about his response now too.

For a second, he considers she might not even know what it is, that the word is as meaningless to her as it was to him at first. But her school on the surface has been thriving, has opened itself to a lot of different children who might not fit in elsewhere and yes, she is familiar.

She knows what it means and she thinks it's great. She is happy for him.

Papyrus suddenly feels the need to cry.

"Aren't you-" He searches for the words, those that are stuck at the back of his head but feel too real to be let out. "Upset? I'm going to be a burden on all of you."

Papyrus isn't sure if he can life with that. He never wants to be a burden on anyone. What would be the point?

"My child." Toriel's voice is gentle and reassuring and Papyrus realizes he's glad it's her, he's glad she was the one who picked up the phone today. "You know this doesn't mean anything, except that you're different. And as far as I recall, The Great papyrus never was one for the mundane."

He stares at the floor, counts the little lines on the carpet because otherwise he might scream, be unable to keep his voice down. But she can't see the grin on his face either way. "Of course, The Great Papyrus doesn't do ordinariness."

And for just that moment, he can feel everything might be alright.


It's really funny how those things can go. One moment your fine, everything is fine and the world is turning the way it is supposed to and perhaps you smile or perhaps you don't.

And then the next moment nothing is. Nothing is fine and maybe it never will be again.

"Hey look, it's snowing." Emma says, excitement lacing her voice, and she's pressing pale hands against the flat surface of the window, skin almost as white as the little ice crystals falling from the sky.

Her eyes are wide, like a child, and Papyrus feels it in his soul, tugging along the edges, wondering if maybe this is what Undyne felt when looking at him.

He somehow hopes not.

He looks out the window too, the snow is falling lightly, barely there at all, and it bunches on the grass and around the garden chairs. A little bit of white to break the monotony of brown and gray.

It is falling in just the same way as it did back in Snowdin.

Exactly the same way as when he dies.

And abruptly all is not fine anymore.

Because he's not here, he's nowhere and everywhere and he is falling apart. He is turning to dust, and it hurts so fucking much but he can't say.

Can't look any of them in the eye and tell them: "Hey, I died." Because they don't remember. And he can't tell the only one who does because he can't, he can't, why can't he?

Why couldn't he?

Papyrus doesn't remember why he didn't tell Sans.

Because he thought maybe it would be more painful than not telling?

Somebody touches his shoulder and he shakes, breaks and crumbles, pushes them away and they're not here.

Or they are, but they won't be forever.

Because resets never change and suffering never changes and he has had plenty of both. He just wants it all to stop now, please?

He's not sure how he managed to move, how his legs are still working when he's so obviously nothing but dust. But somehow he manages to brush them off, to force his limbs into action.

And he blinks so it's not white anymore. The snow isn't real and the cold can't reach him.

Resets are over, they said. We're never going to do that again.

Papyrus wishes he could take their word for it.

The bed is lumpy, with thin sheets and the shape of a regular rectangle and it's not his. It's not his bed.

It's just some thing here where he is but won't be or will be some day so what does it even matter anymore.

He sinks onto his knees and screams.

Maybe barely a second goes by or maybe minutes. Maybe hours but he's sure somebody would have come by to shut him up by then.

"Breath. It'll pass." Eli says. His wheelchair bumps into Papyrus, the boy curses under his breathe and bites his lip as he readjusts the wheels.

Papyrus looks up and there is no frown on Eli's face now. No defensiveness in his features. He looks awkward and helpless and maybe a little bit nauseous.

Papyrus can relate to that.

"Do you want anything?" Eli asks, and hearing his own words echoed back at him like that is almost as upsetting as it is hilarious.

Maybe if he weren't stuck running in circles inside his mind considering his many untimely deaths, Papyrus might have smiled.

"I want it to stop." He says. Honesty is the highest price, he learned. He has to learn. He will learn. "I want it all to be over."

"It won't. Believe me, I tried." Eli gestures at his broken leg, broken bones, broken. Just like Papyrus, just like all of them. Somehow they're all broken. "And it won't be over until you say so."

It sounds like something his psychiatrist would say so Papyrus rests his head against the bed and ignores him.

It can only be as long as you allow it to be.

And while some things can't be fixed, shouldn't be fixed. Others should.

It's time he talked with Sans.


eeeey, back from the hiatus! Did you miss me?