Summer has ended and so has the hiatus. How was everybody's time? I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Now on with this shitshow...
Morning comes too soon for him. Papyrus still feels like he needs hours of sleep to function normally again, overdue from all those nights he skipped in favor of more exciting things.
Now he would have nothing rather than a lifetime of rest.
But it's another day, and an other day too because it's raining and it wasn't raining yesterday or the day before that, which was also the day before that day, so that means time is certainly moving along nicely again.
At least one thing in his life is.
He gets out of bed and puts on his clothes, heads downstairs and sees what they'll have for breakfast. All the things a normal skeleton would do on a normal day.
And the machine hums away in the basement, loud enough for Papyrus to hear constantly. It whirs, static, breathes in and out in even beats that he can count to. Can set a clock to.
Except any clock set to this thing might just go backward.
He focusses instead, on his fingers and his hands and the best way to fry an egg, taught to him by the Queen herself.
Papyrus wonders how Asgore is doing.
Sans doesn't come downstairs by the time he's finished and Papyrus doesn't feel like waking him so he eats alone, contemplating on what to do today.
He thinks of his promise to Frisk. He had said he would tell them, but he has never said when or who exactly. But maybe they were right after all. Maybe alone wouldn't be the way to get out of this.
It had become a habit, he knows. And a nasty one at that. Somewhat of a compulsion maybe.
Papyrus doesn't like bothering other people with his problems.
The rain pours down outside, a torrent, but it's dark and Papyrus only sees himself reflected back in the glass. He looks tired.
A distant rumble, not the machine this time, and a few seconds later lightning cracks open the sky. He isn't going anywhere right now, so it doesn't matter.
He goes downstairs instead.
He touches it, bone to metal and if he didn't know any better Papyrus would say it radiates heath back at him. Its distant whir now a constant pitch almost akin to the human invention they call a microwave. An even sound, not as distorted as it was before and therefor way more bearable to listen to.
Maybe being close to it comforts them.
"I can't help you." He says, and it hurts because it's true. Something horrible happened he can't even begin to properly phantom yet and somehow this is all that's left behind. An unbroken machine and a million detached voices.
All that's left of an entire world.
And of course Papyrus wishes to help. He likes fixing things, when he can. He isn't always as good at it, not like when he's creating things from scratch. That's easier.
But this. This is impossible.
Possible?
Their question resonates within him, grows like a flame until it's all-consuming within his head, drowning out everything else.
Is possible?
Papyrus doesn't think so.
"Papyrus." Sans says, lightly. A breeze of fresh air. A sunny day in autumn.
His brother says his name like it means nothing.
"Yes?"
There's a pause, a hesitation that tells Papyrus that whatever comes next, he's not going to like it.
"Papyrus, I'm moving out."
Silence. Broken only by the machine's noise swelling, growing, expanding.
"Oh." Papyrus says, a sound of utter exhaustion mixed with surprise and a healthy dose of confusion. Sans is moving out.
Sans is leaving him.
"Is it because I-" Papyrus starts, then stops suddenly. Is it because I hurt you? It lingers in his thoughts but he hasn't hurt Sans, not in this timeline.
Except he has, hasn't he.
They've destroyed each other.
"It isn't you, it's me." Sans explains and Papyrus recognizes the line as something they heard in dramatic surface movies. Sans is leaving him and he's doing it in the most tired, cliché ridden way possible.
Of course he is.
"It's the job, I want to move closer to it. I want to-" And Papyrus can see him breaking, crumbling beneath it. One more lie and his brother might just learn. "You've not been yourself lately and I think it's just better if-"
Every sentence he starts stops halfway through. Their words have run out and they both know it.
"I understand." Papyrus smiles, grasping his brother's shoulders and Sans looks up at him with so much hurt on his face that for a moment Papyrus regrets everything.
He pulls him in, squeezes slightly and Sans clings to him, one moment of allowance that this can be ok. They will be ok.
Then Papyrus lets go and nods.
"I'll help you pack up your stuff."
The weather has cleared up. Papyrus is sitting at the table when he notices. It has cleared up and he has no excuse anymore.
Sans left. He's looking at a place right now and if it works out he'll be moving out as soon as tomorrow, the day after today or two days after yesterday. Or one day before the day after tomorrow then.
Today
He ignores them, gets up and opens the door and the distinct smell of pavement after rain hits him. The world always feels cleaner after a storm. Sharper. Papyrus noticed it the first time, back when the lighting and thunder were so new to them it send Undyne into an excited frenzy.
He remembers how ready she was to fight the world back then. How ready he was to face it with her.
How things have changed.
Their house is just a little while from his, his, his all alone his now, so he decides to walk again. He might go for a drive after, just to clear his head.
Just be careful not to hit a lamppost now, ok?
Their voice is off, mocking him. Their restless noise a million detached beings then flowing into one clear sound. Something Papyrus understands.
Because he belongs to them.
They're different, Sans and him. Papyrus has known this from the start. And it doesn't have anything to do with remembering. It has to do with forgetting.
Or not knowing where you come from. Just being all of the sudden.
He knocks at their door thrice, like always. He waits patiently for an answer, just praying Alphys is home alone. That will make everything so much easier.
It isn't every day you have to tell your friends you're hearing disembodied voices.
She opens the door slowly, just a crack at first as if nervous about who's there, then all the way when she notices it's just him.
Alphys has adjusted to surface life about as well as one could expect, with her history.
It's something they haven't really talked about, not openly at least, and even Papyrus himself has just pieced together the bare minimum over time.
But you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the weight resting on her shoulders.
"Papyrus? Y-you're back already." And he blinks, looking sheepishly over his shoulder.
"You're expecting somebody else, maybe?"
"No, nobody important."
He steps past her with a grimace, wiping his feet before entering proper. No crisis is sufficient to warrant a lack of decent curtesy after all.
She closes the door behind him, before leading the way into the living room. As he had hoped, Undyne wasn't there.
"I came to talk about something important, actually." He says, waiting for her to turn around and face him and Alphys nods, gesturing to the couch.
Papyrus takes a seat with a sigh.
"Is this about the machine again?"
She sounds just the tiniest bit exasperated, like she's trying to explain something difficult to a child and normally the notion would make him annoyed, but right now he doesn't have the energy.
You know what they think of you, don't you?
"Yes and no?" Papyrus tries. "I guess in a way it is."
"I told you I don't know how to fix it." Alphys says, her voice hardened by an unfamiliar resolve that has Papyrus taken aback for a second. He wants to ask what that means, but part of him fears the answer.
"You don't need to." He says instead. "It works."
Now it's her turn to be surprised, blinking at him repeatedly. "W-what?"
"The machine. It works. Or I think it does." He shrugs. "It's doing something at least."
Alphys stares at him for a moment and it's like the world shifts, pulling the rug out from beneath him. Everything becomes muddled in the blink of an eye.
"You think." She says, except it isn't her, is it? Not anymore. "You think you know something, do you?"
His head hurts.
"You think they can help. She can help."
"I don't-" He coughs, something lodged itself inside his ribcage and it crawls upwards, forcing its way into his mouth. Like bile, black and dark and he's choking despite not needing breath in the first place. Dust is pouring out of him.
"You are a foolish one."
It clouds his vision in a field of grey, yellow flowers swaying in the wind and a smile as sharp as needles, with long thorns that dig into his bones.
"Foolish." He had said.
The floor is cold, and Papyrus gets up quickly, grabbing the edge of the table to keep from swaying. It's raining outside, but the clouds are already parting in the distance, a sliver of sunlight through the darkness.
It's clearing up.
The room is shrinking, expanding, folding in on itself like a paper plane, bending in weird shapes unimaginable. Papyrus stumbles to the counter, coughing ever harder.
The static is maddening.
He shoves his hand into the drawer, grasping, searching. His fingers close around the blade quickly, around the sharp end and the pain is immediate.
Papyrus gasps. The room stops doing things a room has no right to do.
And outside the rain slowly stops pouring.