The cloud came again, swooped over us in a buzzard's call. I stayed on that bed for longer than even Papyrus could tell. Papyrus stayed there, too, stayed in that chair, stayed staring for what seemed to be the longest time, for the rest of his life. And or the rest of his life there would undoubtedly be a part of him that would stay there. That's how it would always be for him.
Me?
I moved on that bed, almost curled under the sheets, tucked in my knees. I left the song in the background and let it play over and over again. I let the scent of the flowers go into my nose.
I held the jacket to my chest, let my fingertips run through the dust over and over like it was nothing but sand on the beach.
I let my feet run over the indentations where the beast had forced him to claw out the sheets.
What I would have given to stay there. What I would have given to leave.
An hour passed by. Two hours, and we were still in that room. Papyrus had been the one to disconnect the heart monitor, and the room hung still again. This was the same room we had walked through Grief with, the same room we would have to walk through it again. We didn't howl, we didn't scream or shout the way we did before. We only stood, and we paid tribute, and our hearts sunk down, down, down. Yet our faces didn't sink.
Three hours, and Toriel came in, and Papyru stirred himself to movement again, at least to the upstairs. Toriel gave him everything that a mother could have and should have gave him, guided him to the shower upstairs, told him over and over again the constant half-truth of how everything would be alright, gave him a steaming mug of chamomile tea.
We had seemed to be the direct opposite from how we reacted when he died the first time. When he died the first time. I still get chills each time I think that I can get away with that statement. We weren't screaming, weren't crying. We weren't ranting or raving or swearing or blaming anyone. We were silent. We were almost nothing.
I remember that three hours after we first buried him, Papyrus and I sat in the dining room and said nothing. We didn't eat anything. We didn't drink. We didn't play games or laugh or look for college scholarships, or work. We didn't know what we were, but that seemed to be alright now. We were a family now.
We were a family.
And even as Asriel came in the door, eyes green and bright, none of us said a word.
"I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of man and despised by the people.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are wracked. My heart like wax, melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws. You have laid me in the dust of death.
I can number all my bones."
-From a book that I discovered not long after my son went there again