[I'm super proud of this chapter so hopefully you enjoy it and stuff =)]
"Maybe, but that would mean you're made out of wood, and I don't think you're Stone Edge." Undyne deadpanned.
"Stone Edge isn't a tree though," Papyrus pointed out.
"Oh, forget about it. I was just trying to make a joke," she said.
"And it was a good joke. I just had to joke back. I made the original joke after all," Papyrus had said the word joke way too many times.
"Actually, I said the original joke, remember?" Sans asked.
"Oh yeah. Anyways, what are we going to do today?" Papyrus asked.
The great guy's brother shrugged. "I don't know, I didn't make a plan or anything. I got step one: don't pick up my sock. I don't have a second step."
He sighed. "Of course you don't." Then he pulled out his phone.
97 percent. That was great. Not just great, it was... calming? Papyrus was scared of stupid stuff. Not only was he scared of sleep, he was terrified of his phone running out of battery. If he told anyone this, they would think he was phone addicted, and maybe he was. But... he had a good reason for using his phone a lot, or at least, he liked to think he did: his phone was his escape. His phone was the only thing he could use that was fun, distracted him from his thoughts, and didn't take too much effort. When it ran out of power, Papyrus would have to use effort again to plug it in. Then, he wouldn't have anything to do until it charged.
He knew it was stupid. That's why he told nobody.
He somehow hadn't used his phone yesterday, probably because he was occupied with other things. But now that he had time to himself, he was using it.
And being the boring guy he was, he played on it the whole day.
Papyrus awoke the next morning with tears in his eyes. He laid in his bed for a bit before he realized what happened. He had a bad dream.
Why did those exist? Sleeping was already bad enough. You lose control of yourself, you think weird things, and to top it off, you could think of sad things. Scary things. Things you didn't want to think about that you somehow thought about anyway.
At least he wasn't dreaming anymore. Life wasn't much better than the dream he had, but at least he knew what was real and what wasn't when he was awake.
Papyrus' mind often jumped between subjects. That's how he found himself thinking about how he used to be. Happy. He remembered how he would frequently go outside just to make or fix a puzzle. He loved puzzles back then, and he still did but now he found them hard to do. He used to be excited about everything. Getting excited was a common occurrence, but now, Papyrus got excited about getting excited, because smiling sounded like the last thing he would do.
What had changed? He didn't know. One day, he was laying down when he realized he felt different. It somehow occured to him that he might be depressed. That's when he started researching. He searched and searched and searched until he was certain depression was what he had. And it was.
He didn't remember that day very well.
Finally, Papyrus sat himself up. In just a few seconds he was standing. First thing he had to do was brush his teeth. Papyrus didn't like the sound of that, for he had a lot of teeth. He hated to admit something so gross, but most days he didn't brush. He was proud he did today.
When the skeleton was ready, he headed downstairs, where his brother was, and where his friend would be later when she came over.
Sans didn't look okay. Papyrus chose to sit next to him.
"...You're worried about me, aren't you?" Papyrus asked.
Sans almost said no. "Of course I'm worried about you! Don't you remember what happened yesterday?!"
A sigh. "I do. But I don't want you to worry about me."
Sans' voice got louder. "Papyrus-"
So did Papyrus'. He put up his hand, signaling for him to stop. "We're not arguing about this. You are going to listen. I was surprised about what happened yesterday too, because I don't normally act like that. Sans, I don't normally do that and I don't normally attempt. It's occasional. I appreciate how much you care about me, but it's fine. I will try to never do that again, and if I do, you and Undyne will knock some sense into me. You guys are smart, and you'll know what to do. You helped me yesterday, so if need be, you'll help me again. But you won't need to."
Sans looked like he was about to cry. "But Papyrus..."
Papyrus gave his brother a hug. "Ssh, it's okay. Okay?"
It took his brother a moment to decide. "O-okay," he agreed.
"I love you, Sans."
Undyne walked through the door. She was frowning. Papyrus looked at her.
"I knew you'd be worried too."
Undyne didn't know what she was feeling. "What, do you want me to not worry?!"
"Yes, in fact, that's exactly what I want you to do. Look at me. I'm fine, aren't I? I'm not hurt, I'm not crying. I'm here and I'm fine. And you know why that is? It's because I have control over myself right now. I don't always have the best control, but it's usually better than how it was yesterday. Yesterday was terrible, I'm not going to lie, but you dealt with it very well, Undyne. You seem to have forgotten that you're a hero. That's pretty strange, considering say you are one every single day. Because of you and Sans, I'm feeling great right now, and I want you to feel great too. Listen, I don't want you to worry about me unless something bad is actually happening. And when something bad is happening, I don't want you to worry too much. I know you know what you're doing. Do you understand?" Papyrus smiled.
Seconds passed. Undyne nodded. "Y-yeah. Ok. I'll try not to worry."
"Great." Done with his pep-talk, Papyrus went into the kitchen to get some food.
His friends stared at each other. They were almost speechless. Almost.
"Wow," Undyne whispered.
"Yeah," was all Sans could say for a moment. "That was really good... heh," he smiled. "I bet he could get a job as a motivational speaker or something.
"Do you think he'd want to do that?"
Sans just shrugged. "I don't know, maybe. Either way, Papyrus is really great. He's always surprising. Not always good surprises, but they're always surprises of some sort."
Unfortunately, Papyrus didn't hear any of their conversation. As he ate he thought about how there were way too many sandwiches in the fridge. He guessed he was going on a sandwich diet.
He somehow had enough patience today to blow on the sandwich each time before he took a bite of it. Today was going to be great, he was sure of it. After eating he sat on the couch and started tapping on his phone.
Sans looked over. "Are you playing a ckicker game or something?"
Papyrus responded with "Oh, no, I'm not on any games or anything. I'm just tapping the screen over and over."
Huh, neat.
"Oh, we're not seeing Stone Edge today since it probably isn't very fun to go every day."
"Yep, sounds good," he said. He knew that going frequently would get very boring.
Papyrus had another good day. Nothing else happened that was really noteworthy or interesting. All the skeleton did was play on his phone and talk to Undyne and Sans once in a while. He did get a new puzzle game. Maybe it would help him get used to making puzzles again.
Then it was bedtime, but Papyrus didn't want to sleep.
No one would know if he stayed up all night. He could just tell them he slept, right? Right.
Papyrus wished he could sleep. He was feeling bad that he wasn't. Undyne was probably sleeping, and Sans surely was... and here was Papyrus, scared that someone would find out he was awake. He wanted to sleep. He was so tired. But he didn't feel like doing that. He slept last night. What was wrong with him?
Papyrus realized in the morning that he accidentally had slept. It was only for 2 hours, but he had slept nonetheless. He found that odd. That he hated the thought of sleeping, and yet, he was getting used to it. Sort of.
The scary part wasn't sleeping, it was trying to fall asleep.
Some days he was more scared about it then other days, which was really confusing to him. Was he scared or not?
It didn't matter. In just a few minutes he would be up, ready for a new day.