Big ol' warning for this chapter: self-harm

Memories are bizarre.

They are shaped in peculiar ways, irregular from person to person. Some things you remember clearly, like maybe if you close your mind you can be right there again, feeling the same, being the same, the thoughts lingering. But other things remain stubborn in their vagueness, haunting you in equal traces of familiarity and foreignness, impossible to hold.

And for Papyrus, neither is true.

Sans once told him, so long ago it is doubtful in itself if it ever happened, that for humans their memories solidify in sleep. He didn't know if monsters are like that too, but it would explain a lot.

Papyrus barely ever sleeps.

He doesn't remember anything from before Snowdin. He remembers too much from after, all streams of consciousness blurring into an unpleasant maelstrom in his head. He is not like Sans, who was meticulous in his laziness and kept diaries full of timelines and the events that happened in them. Those notebooks probably made it up to the surface with them, but if Papyrus ever saw them he would gladly burn them.

He is not like Frisk, who has the burden of every mistake carved into their veins. Who probably can still taste the ramifications of their choices burning in the back of their throat. A child can only carry so much sin without being exactly aware of what they're doing.

He is not like Flowey. Nobody is.

Papyrus knows what happened. He doesn't sleep, doesn't dream, but he knows. He can't tell you when it happened, where it happened. He can't tell you the order in which it occurred or how many times it repeated.

If you want to know the exact number of times he has died you could ask Sans.

But Papyrus knows what happened.

And that's all he has to hold onto now. As it slips away gradually he tells himself that if he remembers it happened, it is real. And if it is real it matters.

"Hey Punk!" Undyne is holding the pot above her head upside down while the pasta is defying gravity, sticking stubbornly to the bottom. Holding on, holding on, still just holding on- "I don't think we're getting any better at this?"

"Not really..." he admits, swallows any further comments. He smiles, because it takes the sting out of the words he said and the ones he didn't, but that still didn't pry their way out of him. Undyne was never much good at cooking. Holding on.

She laughs in that way only she can, where it's kind of cynical and self-deprecating, but not sad. Papyrus knows what happened. He knows she was lying on their couch for days and screaming into a pillow when they couldn't find Alphys anywhere.

Undyne throws the pot down. The surface has made her restless. "Maybe we should try something else then? No more cooking and no more training." She stalks over to her piano, lets her fingers glide over the keys in one smooth rhythmic movement. "I'll teach you music instead."

The response comes a second too late to be natural but she wouldn't notice. "Wowie, you think I could learn that?"

"Of course, you'd be good at it. Maybe not the piano though? I think something else would fit you better." She seems to think it over for a moment but Papyrus knows. He knows what she is going to say because it already happened. "You'd freaking rock on the violin, though."

Part of him misses it, playing the violin. Sans brought it up sometimes, tentative questions whenever Papyrus was not feeling well and forgot to act the part of oblivious brother. One time he even bought one, gave it to Papyrus for that timeline's Giftmas and it had been so hard to pretend not to know the first thing about violins, holding the instrument upside down, plucking the strings so they produced the most heinous racket.

Later that night he had smashed it into a thousand pieces.

"I don't know, Undyne." He feigns uncertainty. "I never considered myself very violiny. What makes you think I would be good at it?" Holding on.

Her eyes are playful, her grin sharp, and she shrugs. "Just a hunch."

Papyrus knows what happened. He knows the songs she wrote for them by heart and the fact that they don't exist in this run means they're not real, no matter the echoes in her mind. What isn't real doesn't matter.

But other things surely did happen. He remembers them.

"How is the uh- paperwork thing going?" Sans asks him. Papyrus doesn't think he's genuinely interested. Papyrus thinks Sans is just trying to talk to him.

They haven't talked in days.

"It's all done, brother!" He shows Sans the empty table as if it just appeared out of thin air - as if Sans couldn't have noticed just by looking. "Ta-da!"

Sans kind of chuckles, kind of doesn't. "Guess you had it all under control."

"What about you?" he asks, because he cares about how Sans is doing too. Papyrus knows he cares about Sans because he knows he cared about him previously, remembers it, so it must be real. And if it is real it matters.

"Oh, about that- I got my letter back from the university and they told me if the citizenship thing went through I'd be good to go."

"What?!" Papyrus jumps up, nearly throws his chair to the ground in fake excitement and when he grabs Sans in both arms and hugs him like he used to it almost feels real again. Almost feels like it matters. Holding on. "Gosh, Sans I'm so happy for you!"

Sans pats him on the head until Papyrus sets him down again. "Really? I figured you'd be at least a little sad to see me go? It's close by but I will still be busy most days, you'll get bonely without me."

He huffs. "Honestly, Sans, I'm just glad to see you do anything productive, you lazybones."

He knows what happened. He remembers Sans was barely home to begin with. Leaving again – running away from the unknown – is just like him.

"That's more like it," Sans mutters, shaking his head as he steps out of reach before he can be caught in another spine crushing hug. "There's a lot of downtime too though, between trimesters. We could do something special during spring break? Go on a vacation or whatever?"

Papyrus knows what happened. He knows what vacations mean and knows the strangling force of being told your friends aren't dead when they are, he knows they were. Of being told they left you and went away without you, leaving you behind in a dead and ruinous kingdom as if that was any better, crushed beneath a weight you wouldn't be able to shake no matter how many timelines passed.

But maybe it didn't happen? Maybe it wasn't real? Maybe it didn't matter?

"Maybe if you earn it," he answers, grinning with a sideways glance.

Papyrus doesn't know if it happened. He can't remember anymore.

He doesn't sleep and he doesn't dream.

"Papyrus, is something wrong?" Flowey looking at him desperately. There's so much more in those eyes now, so much more emotion.

Papyrus isn't sure if they were brown before, can't remember.

"I told you that was a silly question, silly." Holding on, holding on, hold.

Flowey glares. At him, at the wall, at his reflection in the kettle on the table. The flowerpot means he can't run away anymore, he is confined to wherever people take him. "Why are you lying to me?"

Papyrus doesn't know if that happened. He doesn't know if it matters if it did. "I have never lied to you."

"Bullshit!" Flowey spits, rears back so hard it shakes the table. "You're so fucking full of it!" His voice low, laced with venom, laced with frustration. Laced with anger. Papyrus doesn't know if the anger used to be a part of it. Thinks maybe it never happened before and if it never happened it didn't matter- but he barely remembers.

"You've always liked to irritate me but this is something else, Papyrus. The results will be the same. I'll kill you!" Flowey says.

It's an empty threat. Papyrus can feel the hollowness of those words, how little Flowey means them. But Papyrus knows what happened. He knows the bones turned to dust by those vines, the words spoken between them before the inky black consumed him.

Despite everything else, which fades and crumbles, he knows the pain was real and it mattered. It is the clearest thing he can remember, the only thing. Holding on. "I never liked to irritate you, Flowey."

Flowey doesn't speak to him after that. He's probably upset but Papyrus doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore. Doesn't remember anything else.

That's probably around the time he realizes nothing matters.

It's comforting, in a way. And suffocating in a completely different way. If he doesn't remember then he will end up hurting them. If nothing is real he will end up hurting them. If nothing matters he will end up hurting them.

Not hurting them is all that still matters.

Papyrus knows what happens now.

He goes up to the bedroom he shares with Sans. Not his room, not the one back in Snowdin - which was real and mattered. He tries to collect in his memories all the things he brought back, all the things that he thought might be important enough to hold on to. There's the bed he used to love, the action figures he used to love, the battle body he used to love.

(There are Sans and Undyne and their little makeshift family, who he used to love, framed so perfectly in a picture they took right after coming to the surface)

Was any of it real? Did any of it matter?

There's something else he kept. Papyrus doesn't remember where he got it. Thinks maybe it used to belong to them.

The blade is not very sharp, nor very real. His ribcage feels empty, like there's some big void inside him and if he would just cut it out things would go back to how they were. Papyrus doesn't think he can do that.

He isn't scared, though.

But Papyrus knows what happened. He knows how it feels to die and it is not pleasant. Dying would mean Frisk would have to break their promise. He doesn't think that's right.

Instead, he puts the sharp edge against his ulna and waits. Nothing happens. He presses, softly at first and then growing firmer until the magic keeping his bones together gives way and turns into dust. Nothing happens. He moves the blade to the side quickly and the pain is blunt, more of an ache, not what he expected.

But it's real.

Four times is enough, dropping the knife onto the carpet between his knees spotted with dust. It hurts vaguely, it's not like the pulsing pain he remembers and that should concern him, though it settles him enough to think again, to remember the important bits pieced together from broken memories.

Of course he loves his room, loves his friends, loves Sans. He just needed to remember what was real. What mattered.

And if he forgets again he just needs the pain to remember again, bring his memories back into focus. Something solid to hold on to, cut into, hold And if he forgets again he just needs the pain to remember again, bring his memories back into focus. Something solid to hold on to, cut into, hold onto.

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