Hey, here's the next chapter! I'm just gonna take a moment to remind y'all to heed the trigger warnings, just in case y'all forgot during the long periods between posts.
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It had been almost a week since Sans's most recent attempt at running away, and this was the longest his brother had gone without coming back home. He had asked around a bit, thinking that, with a place as small as the underground, someone must have seen his lazy brother, but no one apparently had, or at least, no one admitted to having seen him. Papyrus was becoming a bit worried, and it annoyed the Hell out of him. What right did his stupid brother have to act like a damn child and distract him like this? He'd even forced Papyrus to look for his sorry ass. He was the Head of the Royal Guard! He couldn't show any sign of weakness!
Sans was going to regret coming home when he did.
Papyrus, for the time being, refused to consider the rather obvious possibility that Sans was already dead. He convinced himself that, had his brother been killed, he certainly would have heard about it. The killer would be gloating, or witnesses would have gossiped about it. He didn't let himself think about the possibility that it had been a sneak attack, perhaps while Sans was asleep, or that most monsters would be wary of inciting the Head of the Royal Guards's wrath and perhaps not want him to know who killed his brother.
The thought that Sans might have finally made his first and last kill was locked away even deeper in his mind.
XXX
It had been a little over a week since Red had ended up in this universe and, therefore, a week since his failed suicide attempt. He was surprised that he hadn't tried again yet. He still planned to go through with it, but part of him was hopeful that things might actually be better if he chose to accept this Papyrus's offer. After all, hadn't he tried to kill himself to escape Boss? The skeletons, plus the other monsters, in this universe were actually nice to him, and they didn't beat him or insult him or anything like that. Sure, it could still turn out that this was all a huge game before he was killed, but even if it was, he wouldn't feel the betrayal very long before he died anyway. Maybe he could be happy in this place.
And yet, his feelings on the matter of his life hadn't really changed very much. Yes, he knew this could be his chance at happiness, but it still didn't entirely feel like happiness was actually a real possibility, and he almost felt like he didn't want to accept it if it was. If he had hope, it would be harder to die. Because he really did still want to die. He was tired of the nightmares and memories of his own world and of what Boss had done to him. He was tired of feeling anxious and scared and sad. If he didn't have to face those things anymore, shouldn't those feelings have gone away? Shouldn't he be happy? But those feelings were just as strong as ever, and Red found himself itching for his knife. He cursed himself for leaving it behind, even though he knew he hadn't expected to need it again.
He found himself picking at his fingers a lot. It was a bad habit he'd had as a child, before he stole the knife and started chipping at his bones. It did such a small amount of damage that one couldn't even tell if they [CHECK]ed him. That was good because it prevented him from accidentally dusting himself before he decided it was the right time to, but it also didn't really cause a lot of pain, so it didn't actually help much of anything.
He knew there were knives in the kitchen. Red would have swiped one by now, but the two brothers rarely let him out of their sight long enough for him to actually do anything. If neither of them were home, they would usually drag him along to work, claiming that they didn't want him to feel lonely. Papyrus, however, had told him when they were alone that they were actually worried about what would happen if he took a nap and there wasn't anyone to wake him up from the nightmares he often had. Red had wanted to get angry and insist that he didn't need them to wake him up, but since he had been told that Blue had the same stats as him, he forced himself to accept that it was reasonable to be cautious with a guy who summons attacks in his sleep.
Even still, they couldn't babysit him forever, and after a night without any nightmares, which left him more well-rested than he had been in a while, the two other skeletons decided to leave him alone at the house while they went to work.
As soon as he was sure they were gone, Red went into the kitchen and opened up a drawer. It didn't take him long to find the knives, seeing as they were in the same spot as in his own universe. There were seven assorted knives, all but two from different knife sets and in different states of wear. He selected the oldest looking knife. The blade had a few dinks in it that probably made it hard to cut with, but he really only needed the tip of the blade to chip his bones.
Just in case one of the brothers decided to come back home unexpectedly, Red locked himself in the bathroom. Then, he took out the first-aid kit from where he knew it was under the sink. He rolled up his sleeve and started going through the process of cleaning his bones and the knife before bringing the blade to his arm. With a deep breath in, he jabbed the point in and broke off a tiny piece of bone.
[-0.01 HP]
Relief flooded through him as his HP dropped slightly and the stinging began to shoot up his arm.
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
He took a deep breath in again. Some of the anxiety was gone now.
[-0.01 HP]
[-0.01 HP]
"HEY, RED!"
[-0.2 HP]
"GAH!" Red gasped in surprise as he accidentally dug the knife in a lot deeper than he had intended to.
"Whoops, sorry! I didn't mean to startle you!" he heard Blue say through the bathroom door. "I forgot my scarf and I came back to get it!"
Red didn't want to respond, not knowing if his voice would betray him or not.
"I'll leave you to shower, then! See you later!"
Red heard Blue's footsteps walking away, and he realized that he had been so absorbed in what he was doing that he hadn't noticed their approach, or the likely slam of the front door as Blue entered the house. With a shaky sigh, Red looked down at his forearm. He had accidentally taken a pretty big chip out of it, and it was bleeding a lot more than they usually did. Not wanting to get blood on the floor, he took out a sterile pad from the kit and held it against the wound.
Luckily, it stopped bleeding so heavily before too long, and despite doing more damage than he had meant to, it wasn't really enough to kill him.
Red thought that he should, perhaps, actually take a shower. He hadn't done so since coming to this universe, which wasn't a huge problem since he was a skeleton, but he was beginning to collect dirt on his bones, and he wanted to wash off the tiny bits of dust on his arm. So, careful not to get any blood on his clothes, Red took them off and turned the shower on. He left the first-aid kit where it was, intending to bandage his new wounds after he was done. There wasn't much of a point to bandaging them just to ruin them, after all.
As he stood under the spray, he heard the front door close. Blue had stayed around longer than he'd thought, but he shrugged it off.
There's no way Blue could know anything.
XXX
He couldn't believe he'd somehow left his scarf at home. He literally always wore it, sometimes even in the shower! And it wasn't like him to be so forgetful. Blue didn't want to admit, even to himself, that he had sort-of left it on purpose to give him an excuse to check on Red. He couldn't help being worried about the alternate version of himself, even though Paps had insisted that they give Red a little bit of time to be alone. After all, who wouldn't be worried about someone who had so recently been about to dust right in front of them? And it wasn't like he was blind. He could see that something was wrong with the other skeleton beyond the slash that almost killed him.
When Blue had returned home, he was surprised to find both the living room and kitchen empty. He doubted that Red was snooping in their bedrooms. He thought Red might have decided to check out the machine in the lab, but before going out to see, he went to check the bathroom first. Sure enough, the door was closed.
What was Red doing in the bathroom? He hadn't wanted to shower since coming here. Had he not wanted to take a shower while they were around?
"HEY, RED!" he called out, trying to confirm that Red was there.
"GAH!"
Blue mentally scolded himself for spooking Red again. Most of the monsters he knew were used to his volume by now, and it was hard to remember how jumpy Red was sometimes.
"Whoops, sorry! I didn't mean to startle you!" Blue told him. "I forgot my scarf and I came back to get it!"
Blue waited for a response, but none came.
"I'll leave you to shower, then! See you later!"
Blue scurried away to get his scarf. Once he did so, he was going to leave, but he had a bad feeling. Red hadn't actually responded to him, and he had cried out when Blue startled him. What if he had made Red slip and he hurt himself? What if he banged his head on something? What if his HP was low enough to possibly kill him?
Blue felt an anxious worry build in his chest, but he wasn't really sure what to do. If something bad happened, he would have to find Papyrus to get him to teleport into the bathroom. Yet, if nothing was wrong and Red just hadn't felt like answering him, he certainly wouldn't appreciate Blue bothering him again or getting his brother to barge in on him. So, he just stood there for a few minutes, considering his options.
Just as he was about to try knocking on the door, he heard the shower turn on. He sighed in relief. Red was fine. He probably just didn't want to shower with Blue or Paps around for some reason. Maybe he was actually a bit shy?
With that, Blue left the house to return to his post.
XXX
If he were being honest, Papyrus was dragging his feet with fixing the machine. Usually, he was already pretty lazy, but had circumstances been a little different, he would have sucked it up and fixed it as quickly as he could so the poor monster it grabbed could go home. But in light of what Red had told him, along with what he had hinted at, Papyrus was reluctant to get the job done. He wanted to give Red time to think over his offer, and he wanted him to accept it. He was pretty much certain at this point that Red's brother had been hurting him, and he really couldn't just stand back and let Red go back to that. And even if he was wrong and Red's 'Boss' was just overly-controlling, Red had said himself that he didn't really want to return to his own universe. Based on what little Papyrus knew, he couldn't exactly blame him.
Point was, he was stalling. He had actually even been doing his job so he could avoid working on the machine.
In the meantime, Papyrus was trying to show Red that he was safe in this universe. He and Blue had been taking Red to work with them, both to keep him from being lonely and to awaken Red from his frequent nightmares during his frequent naps. At first, he thought that might show Red that they cared about him and wanted him to be around, but after a few days of that, Papyrus could see that the constant attention was starting to wear on Red's nerves. He was being jumpier and snippier and kept trying to slip away from them. Eventually, Papyrus talked to Blue, and they decided to leave him alone for the day. Papyrus got the sense that Red was more of a loner, and to be fair, he usually didn't like excessive social interaction himself.
But still, even though Papyrus wanted Red to stay with them, he wasn't sure that the smaller skeleton would. He knew that people often stayed in bad situations, even when there was a way out, for all sorts of reasons. Papyrus didn't entirely know what Red's reasons were for wanting to go back, but he figured that the reasons at least included the fact that literally the entire world was different than what Red had known. Plus, just because Red's world was apparently violent and his brother was likely abusive didn't mean that there wasn't anyone Red cared about there, or that everything in his world was bad. That was why Papyrus had pointed out that visiting his own universe was still possible. Though, he was slightly concerned about the possibility that Red's brother might be one of the people Red cared about there, which could very well put the skeleton in danger if he went to visit him.
But, Red didn't like feeling like he was being controlled. Papyrus had to give him a choice, or he would never actually want to stay with them. To that end, he had actually not yet discussed Red staying with them with Blue. He knew that Blue would, on top of being okay with it, likely try his hardest to convince Red that he should stay, which would, again, just push him away.
It was a tough situation that he didn't really have much control over, and Papyrus, more than anything, wanted to keep things from getting any worse.
XXX
Sans still hadn't returned, even though almost two weeks had passed by now. Other monsters were noticing the skeleton's absence, and he had even started hearing whispered rumors that he had dusted Sans himself. Of course, the notion was preposterous. After all he had done to keep the whelp from dusting, Papyrus wouldn't just outright kill his brother. Even if he wanted to, sometimes.
He himself was beginning to accept the likelihood of his brother's death. As such, he had been on the look-out for that hoodie Sans always wore. Finding it, especially covered in dust, would at least confirm Sans's fate. And perhaps it would be appropriate to hold a funeral. It would just be himself, of course, but there would be closure.
Papyrus wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the situation besides anger. Sure, everything would be easier without having to watch out for the smaller skeleton, and he wouldn't have to deal with Sans's disrespect anymore. But still, Sans was his younger brother, and he cared about him in a disturbed, twisted bastardization of a familial bond. And if Sans was just going to die, what had all of this been for?
All he knew he felt was a deep, unsolvable rage. How dare Sans get himself killed, or worse, do the deed himself? How dare he throw away all of Papyrus's effort? How dare he put him through this? What right did Sans have to just up and die?
What else was he supposed to feel?
Perhaps he should feel sad, and perhaps that was the heavy feeling weighing down the soul in his chest. But he could never admit to such a feeling, especially for someone so weak.
Some might say he should feel guilty for how miserable his treatment of his brother had made him. Being the Great and Terrible Papyrus, however, he had long since convinced himself that his actions were justified.
Should he feel hope? Hope that his brother was still alive? Hope that he would return? Only a naive fool still had hope in this world, and Papyrus was no fool.
Sans couldn't survive without him.
XXX
Some people have been asking about whether Fell Paps would return to the story, and, well, here he is.