I was home. The heat surrounded me, and the furnaces churned in the background…
I didn't waste any time opening my eyes, and my other son stooped in front of me. His eyes were covered with the best type of relief, the type of relief to make me forget about that dream for the rest of the day. It was trivial, so trivial. Only a product of my brain having to sort through the grief that it has to, that's all.
"Hello. Am I glad to see you up."
God, his eyebags were practically reaching to the floor. How much healing magic did he use? I even saw him shaking when he sat down, and the others were staring at me for at least a second each despite what they were doing initially.
How much healing magic was I worth?
I sat up to hug him, and although I felt Papyrus relax and perhaps try to sleep for a few moments, I felt a pain in my chest almost worse than the pain in my back when I was fighting Betty earlier.
Betty. I hadn't stopped her, not in a long shot. I'd left her laughing at the end of the nullifier hall, and Jessica- Alphys- Alphys-
I tried to ask a "Where's Alphys? Is she alright? Because if she's not, we can still rescue her. We might be able to rescue Jessica, but that might be too much for us" before my chest lit up in horrible fire and I had to sit back on the couch.
Is this how it feels to have a javelin inside it?
I could almost hear Papyrus shake his head, and I craned my neck to see him fly to the living room, get the red plaited blanket he had knitted for me in the Underground, asking me to hide him from Undyne for fear of her disapproval. Undyne…
"Where's Und-" The pain came back, doubling itself.
"You need to rest." As soon as the words came out, I knew it was final. "You've had a… a rough day, to say the least."
"Alphys, where is Alphys, she said-"
"And she'd keep her promise. She's fighting her. And she's an extremely capable monster. I should know. I remember spending time with her when I was a kid knocking down dummies for fun and almost challenging me one time. But I knew that she couldn't be-"
This did not help at all to the worry in my stomach, all knotted up, bunched up, feeling as if it would all fall out in gallons of ribbons. I almost tried to get up from the couch again, but Papyrus put a hand on me, and the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt the son I still had left.
I bit my lip, and I was more than aware of the pain in my back now.
"And Jessica? Is she helping her?"
"She brought you here."
I looked at her, and she was staring at her hands, trying to override their shaking.
So she brought me here. Something doubled back inside of me… not quite went away, but doubled back. I didn't quite know what it was then, but I sure as ever know what it is now. Not that I was about to go up then and prance around, lauding her greatness and borderline divinity. Instead, I brushed back the plan I was formulating to bring her back to Alphys and replaced it with another one. A lesser one, but still one that would do what I wanted it to do.
"Sans-"
"Would be proud- is proud of you, Gaster. We both know that."
My legs shook. I knew I couldn't stand up. I had suffered extensive nerve damage from all of the times I was tossed against the wall, and the tingling would likely never go away, even with medical treatment. But I still commanded my legs to shake.
And in a few moments, they went rigid.
I could hear Papyrus protesting, and I smiled at him, a toothless, wayward smile, and told him to go help Jessica if she was shaken up at all. It'd slipped out. Stupid me, it'd slipped out. Through all the pain, I'd said it.
I put one foot in front of the other.
It was that simple.
If only there were other things in life that were.
And part of me would always be in the sand that day, writhing, thrashing hard, willing with every ounce of my breath not to be dragged into the water…