Red should have known that the brief feeling of being something-approaching-okay was exactly that- brief. The next day, he'd felt like utter shit again, and he hadn't felt any better since. To make matters worse, he'd ended up having a fight with Papyrus yesterday, an actual fight, not just a few tense words. He'd asked Red about staying here again, and Red had accused him of not fixing the machine so he could force Red to agree. Then Papyrus more-or-less admitted that it was true, and Red had just gotten so angry. He'd started shouting about being controlled again, and apparently he'd started picking at his fingers for the millionth time.

In the process, he'd actually managed to chip off enough bone to draw blood, but he hadn't noticed as he was descending into a panic attack. When Papyrus reached out to stop him from doing any more damage, Red lashed out with a row of bone attacks that Papyrus was too close to him to dodge.

Well, he hadn't meant to attack Papyrus. He had just reached the point where he couldn't differentiate him from Boss again. But once he had calmed down enough to realize that, Papyrus had started lecturing him about how the fact that he felt so unsafe around his own brother that such a thing happened was exactly why he shouldn't go back.

Their arguing only stopped when Blue stormed into the living room, actually, truly angry for once and yelled for the two of them to stop, saying that all they were doing was making each other upset. He'd sent Papyrus, whose expression had shifted to guilt at this point, to his room while he tried his best to get Red to calm down.

It was very late when Red passed out from exhaustion.

XXX

Sitting alone in his bedroom, Papyrus silently cursed himself for letting his argument with Red escalate so far. He was usually pretty laid-back, but today, he felt like he couldn't stop himself from getting angry. He was worried about Red, and as counterproductive as it was to fight with him, he didn't know what else to do at this point. He'd already tried backing off, and it seemed like it wasn't helping. Red wasn't getting any better. The only times he seemed to actually get anywhere with the shorter skeleton was when he pushed a little. Today, he apparently pushed a little too much.

He knew he pushed too hard when Red lashed out at him. Of course, he'd known that Red hadn't really meant to hurt him, and his bone attacks didn't do much damage, but the fact that Red attacked him just made him more worried. Papyrus knew that Red was seeing his brother.

He was still seeing his brother, still terrified of his brother, and yet…

Red was sobbing downstairs, and it was an awful thing to hear. Red had cried before, he had panicked before, but not like this. This was bad. This kind of crying was choking gasps and sobs and pain. He knew he should have backed off sooner. He should have backed off when Red accidentally hurt himself, but he hadn't wanted Red to keep hurting himself.

Papyrus took in a deep breath and flopped onto his bed. He would apologize to Red tomorrow. Of course, he still didn't want Red to leave, but if stalling was going to lead to things like this again, it would be best to avoid it. Best case scenario, Red would agree to stay by the time he fixed the machine. Worst case scenario, he went back to his brother, and… Well, hopefully that wouldn't happen. Hopefully, even if Red went back to his brother, he would survive it and maybe change his mind or at least find a way to live apart from his alternate self.

This situation sucked.

XXX

Blue was sitting next to Red on the couch as he sobbed. He didn't want to get too close and overstep Red's boundaries, but surprisingly, Red had clung onto his shirt. In the month he had known Red, this was definitely the worst he'd seen him get. Sure, that wasn't a very long time to get to know someone in the grand scheme of things, but he certainly hoped that Red didn't cry like this often. Part of him wasn't sure if he could really believe that, though.

He was a bit mad at his brother at the moment for making Red cry like this. Papyrus had promised to fix the machine, and even if he didn't like what might happen if he did, it wasn't fair to Red to pull him out of his own universe and then keep him against his will.

Of course, he knew why Papyrus was stalling, and he couldn't entirely blame him for it. They hadn't had a formal discussion about it, but he knew Papyrus wanted Red to stay in this universe, and Blue agreed. He didn't exactly know what happened to Red, seeing as Papyrus was usually the one to engage the other skeleton in the upsetting talks, but he wasn't stupid and he was neither blind nor deaf. He could hear snippets of their conversations, after all, Red could get pretty loud, and he had seen Red panic and flinch away. He knew Red had been afraid of Papyrus when he first came here and that he still was sometimes. He could remember how paranoid Red had been, thinking that they were going to harm him. It all added up to a picture that, though incomplete, was rather upsetting.

But even still, getting dragged to an alternate universe when you didn't even know they really existed and then being, in your mind, threatened with not being allowed to go home even though it was possible? That was scary and mean, and they couldn't do that to Red. If Red wanted to stay with them, that was great, but Red was an adult, and as much as they wanted to help him, if he didn't want their help, they couldn't force it upon him.

Red cried for a long time before passing out. When he did, Blue was actually kind of glad for it. Red needed the rest after that whole ordeal. And maybe he'd feel a bit better in the morning.

Red's grip on Blue's shirt had lessened slightly in sleep, so Blue carefully removed the skeleton's sharp fingers from the fabric. He frowned as he saw the tiny amount of blood staining it. He was pretty sure he had heard something in the argument come up about Red's nervous habit, so he wasn't surprised. Sure enough, when he checked out Red's fingers, one of them had a small wound on it. It wasn't a very serious wound- it would be pretty difficult to chip bone with another bone, after all- but Blue wasn't sure how much, if any, damage it had caused.

He [CHECK]ed Red's stats to be safe.

[HP: 0.95/1]

Okay, that wasn't so bad. Of course, it was a low amount of HP, but it was, proportionally, not that much. He knew from experience that Red could survive a lot worse. It was a bit worrying that Red's finger-picking had caused any noticeable damage at all, though. He decided that he should get the first aid kit.

Not wanting to wake Red up, Blue slowly laid Red back to rest on the couch before getting up as quietly as he could. Then, he snuck into the bathroom, grabbed the first-aid kit, and returned to Red's side. He got out a little bandaid with butterflies on it and covered the chip on Red's finger. There. That would keep the wound from getting worse until it healed up, which shouldn't take too long.

With that done, Blue reluctantly decided he should go to bed. It was very late, and though he wanted to sleep on the couch next to Red in case he needed him, he knew that was a bad idea. If Red started summoning attacks during a nightmare again, Blue couldn't risk getting hit in his sleep.

As much as he wanted to help, he had to retreat to his bedroom and just hope that Red wouldn't have any nightmares, or if he did, that he wouldn't start sleep-attacking. The last thing Red needed right now was to be woken up from a nightmare by the monster he'd just had such a horrible argument with.

Despite his own worries, Blue fell asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow. It was far past his bedtime, after all.

XXX

The next morning, Papyrus wanted to apologize, but Blue wasn't sure that was a good idea yet. He wanted to see if Red was doing any better before potentially sparking more distress. Still, they didn't want Red to wake up alone, or be alone generally, so Blue decided to take the day off work and stay home with his counterpart.

Red was still sleeping on the couch, though he thankfully appeared to be relatively peaceful, so Blue busied himself for the moment with tidying up.

XXX

When Red woke up, it took him all of two seconds to remember what happened and feel the panic begin to rise back up in his chest. He sat up on the couch, clenching the fabric of his hoodie sleeves as he looked around.

The house was quiet. A quick check told Red that no one appeared to be home, though he didn't really check as thoroughly as he usually would.

He crept into the kitchen, went to the drawer, and took out the dented knife. His breath quickened as the tightness in his chest grew worse.

Red teleported into the bathroom, not trusting his legs to walk there, and lowered himself onto the floor.

Rolling up his sleeves, he went through the process of cleaning his arms and the blade, just like he always did.

He had already chipped his arms about ten times when the bathroom door creaked open.

He had forgotten to lock it.

"Red?"

XXX

There's only one chapter left after this, so the story's almost over.

Sorry to leave it on a cliffhanger right before the end.