In Which Plans Are Made
Undyne took her time leaving Snowdin, making sure to make her footprints as deep as possible. With any luck, the stomping would help ease some of her frustration and fear about this whole situation. Since shaking the idiotic thoughts out of Papyrus was no longer a valid course of action at this time, Undyne wanted to talk to someone who might be able to give her some insight into this whole mess.
Who better to ask than Alphys? She's a doctor, after all. Doctors know stuff. That was definitely the only reason why she wanted to call the adorable lizard.
Thing is, Dr. Alphys tends to be nervous on the phone, and with the way Undyne is feeling, Alphys would probably hang up immediately and throw her phone against a wall. There were a lot of negative vibes coming from the fish woman.
Undyne figured that, before she makes the call, she should try to cool off a little. It had nothing at all to do with Sans telling her to "chill." She just felt that she should be discussing this calmly with her favourite scientist instead of blowing up about it and scaring her off.
Undyne continued stomping from Snowdin and all the way through Waterfall. She didn't see any monsters on the way back to her house. They probably heard her coming and could tell that she was in a very bad mood. She briefly felt a little sorry for Napstablook when her stomping grew louder than his music.
Once back at her own house, Undyne made herself a cup of tea. Hot beverages are supposed to be relaxing, right? And drinking something hot would most definitely not count as "chilling."
Three mugs later, Undyne's tongue was almost numb from the scalding drink. With something else to occupy a small corner of her mind, she was able to calm down a little bit and focus on what she was going to say when she called Alphys.
The goal was to get through this without shouting.
Yes, the situation was frustrating. Yes, Papyrus was scaring her a lot. No, she could not take it out on the person who might help her figure out what to do in this mess.
Undyne picked up her phone.
Maybe she should wait a little bit longer? Just in case. To sort herself out. It's not like she's nervous or anything.
Nerves would imply some small underlying fear, and Undyne had absolutely no reason to be afraid of Alphys. Definitely not.
The only thing that scared her right now was remembering that Papyrus was... doing that to himself. He was hurting that much, and there was nothing that she could do to help.
Was it possible that she was being too hard on him before?
No, Papyrus would always ask for more difficult training. If he didn't want something more difficult, then he wouldn't go out of his way to ask her to up the skill level. He was always enthusiastic and trying to go above and beyond her expectations of him. If she said one hundred push ups, he'd do two hundred on each hand. That's the type of person Papyrus is, always looking for more intensity, more passion...
Except earlier. He'd all but told her to back the fuck off.
Undyne had to consider the small possibility that she might have been the tiniest bit too forceful when talking to Papyrus earlier. Passion is a good thing, though, and passion for one's friends is the best type of passion there is! Although, abandoning Sans to the situation without any information beyond "something's wrong with your brother so go talk to him" might not have been the best choice she'd made.
Sans was smart, though. He'd figure it out. He'd be an idiot not to. She would talk to Alphys, Sans would talk to Papyrus, and then they would collaborate and figure out how to fix this whole mess.
This plan was foolproof.
Undyne pressed her speed dial number 1 and waited to connect to her favourite scientist in the Underground.
"H-Hello?"
"Hey Alphys!" Undyne nearly shouts into the phone. It was too early to almost break the no shouting rule.
"Undyne! Hi, um, what are you calling for? It hasn't been very long since you called l-last time." Alphys asked nervously.
"Just calling to ask you about... the weather!" Perhaps something small to break this ice before getting into the heavier topics?
"W-Well, here in Hotland it's, um, hot? I guess?" Alphys replied.
So much for small talk and ice breakers. The Underground doesn't even have weather! "Uh, yeah it would be. Say, is it okay if I ask you some questions? I'm really concerned about a friend and I think you might know how to help." Undyne spoke quickly.
"I can try my best. What about your friend is concerning you?"
Undyne took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Well, the last time I visited this friend, I noticed that they were acting kind of differently. Differently in a bad way. And they said something that made me worried and then they did something that I wasn't supposed to find out about and I don't know what to do and it's really scaring the hell out of me!" Undyne's voice grew louder and more frantic as she continued.
Alphys was shocked for a moment. Which friend? Undyne couldn't possibly know about... She needed more details.
"Y-You will need to tell me a little more than that s-so I can know how to help you." Alphys requested softly. Undyne didn't seem to be listening.
"I'm not sure I can even help them, you know? So I thought calling you might be a good idea because you would probably know something about stuff like this, right? You're you, so of course you know! Because you're so smart and awesome like that and this whole thing is really just-"
"Undyne! S-Stop and breathe!" Alphys requested loudly.
Undyne panted into the phone for a moment before Alphys continued.
"I-I understand that you're concerned for your friend, but, um, if you need me to help you, then y-you need to tell me more specifically what is going on."
There was a short moment of silence.
"I really don't want to say this Alph, but what can you tell me about someone who is... intentionally harming themselves?" Undyne asked quietly. Alphys had never heard her speak more seriously or gravely.
Good. It wasn't about what was in her lab.
Still not very good, though. Alphys briefly contemplated some of the faded scars under her own scales. Was Undyne unlucky enough to have met a second person with this problem? At least she had stopped doing this a while back.
"W-Well, if s-someone has taken t-to harming themselves, then it is likely th-that there is something that they d-don't really like about themselves. That or th-they're having a hard time coping with s-something that is hard f-for them to, uh, cope with? Do you know which it might be?"
"I don't know! Just yesterday they were super happy and talking about everything they liked about themselves and then suddenly today they're just different! Today I... I saw them." Undyne admitted.
"Y-You saw?" Alphys repeated.
"Yeah."
Alphys felt some relief. It wasn't her. "I'm so s-sorry."
"Don't worry about me. I need to know how to fix it, and you're a doctor right? Can you tell me how to fix their problem?" Undyne's voice held a lot of hope.
It was soon destroyed, "Th-The thing about self harm is that, uh, you c-can't really fix the problem for them. They h-have to want it to be fixed."
"How does that work?"
"W-Well, if you want to look at it from your perspective, you can't actually s-stop them from hurting themselves. You c-can't be with them all the time. Y-You can't even be awake all the time. Th-They can always find s-something new to hurt themselves with if you take away their f-favourite tool.
"Then, uh, emotionally, from their perspective, if they want t-to keep hurting themselves, if they, um, like it or think that they n-need it, then they won't stop doing it. Why would they?" Alphys explained.
"Why would anyone want to hurt themselves though? Why would they like it?"
"I-It's hard to explain that part... but, um, you know when you're mad and you start stomping to get rid of th-the anger?"
"Yeah..."
"And then later when you're m-more relaxed, your feet might ache a little b-bit because of all the stomping you did?"
"Sometimes... What does this have to do with it?" Undyne asked.
"W-Well, if your feet ache later, th-then the stomping was clearly, um, hurting your body. Maybe it wasn't good for you? B-But you do it anyway to, uh, keep yourself g-grounded, I guess?"
"But stomping doesn't hurt when I do it! It's just releasing energy!" Undyne complained.
"Y-Yes. And when s-someone is hurting themselves, it doesn't hurt them either. It's uh, it's like the unhealthy v-version of stomping. I-If stomping is the vegetables, then self harm is l-like, uh, the popato chisps and instant noodles." Alphys hoped the metaphor would make sense.
Undyne had to think for a moment, "So what you're saying is that he's got all this bad energy inside and he has to get it out but he's just choosing the wrong way to do it?" He? Undyne's voice grew in confidence, "Then that should be super easy to fix! All I have to do is go tell him that what he's doing is a bad idea and tell him that there's lots of better ways to deal with stress!"
"N-No! Don't go say stuff l-like that to him!" Alphys quickly objected, "I-If you do that, then he might, um, just get upset and stop listening at all. He th-thinks that what he's doing is probably o-okay so trying to force him to think something else all of a sudden... It might, um, i-it's not a good idea,:
"Then what can I do? I can't just not do anything! He's my friend so I've gotta help him!" Undyne complained.
"The b-best thing you can probably do is just, uh, sit and t-talk to him? Let him talk to you, a-and, um, if he tries t-to lie and change topic, then just, uh, d-don't let it happen." Alphys suggested.
"I already talked to him though, and he just shouted at me and told me to leave!"
"D-Did you really let him talk to you? Or d-did you just talk to him? The most important thing i-is listening and p-patience."
"Patience, huh?" Undyne was quiet for a moment as she thought, "Yeah, I can give that a try."
"S-So was that helpful? Or did you need something else?" Alphys asked.
"That was super helpful! You're the best, Alph! Don't you ever forget that. And we need to watch some more of those human history movies soon. They're super cool!" Undyne exclaimed.
"Y-Yeah. Just t-tell me when you want to come by." Alphys said nervously.
"Will do. Thanks again!" Undyne hung up the phone. Listening and patience, huh? She would be the best listener the Underground had ever seen, with even more patience than the cyan human. Sans or not, Papyrus was going to get fixed.
One clean kitchen and two MTT nightly special programs later, the skeleton brothers appeared to be very satisfied. Sans was dozing on the couch, and Papyrus was organizing the living area to make sure that everything was neat and straight for tomorrow. If it was one of the good repeats, the human would be coming for a date or a hang out tomorrow, so everything had to look perfect.
That, and Papyrus just could stand a less-than-neat house.
Papyrus had just placed another sticky note on the dirty sock, perfectly aligned with the previous one, when Sans stirred from his half-slumber.
"'s getting late. you want me to read you a bedtime story?" Sans rubbed his eye socket and stood up from the couch.
"CAN IT BE FLUFFY BUNNY?" Papyrus asked.
"course, paps."
"OKAY THEN! LET ME GO AND GET INTO MY BED WHILE YOU GET THE BOOK!" Papyrus bounded up the stairs.
Sans still couldn't quite figure out what he was supposed to learn today. Papyrus was acting completely normally, so what was Undyne so upset about? Yeah it was weird that Papyrus was skipping work to clean, and that the cleaning was happening in a different order than normal, but people can be spontaneous sometimes, right?
Papyrus was never spontaneous. He had his ways of doing things, and was loath to break from the routine.
Then there was the flour on his mitten. Papyrus was always meticulous in his cleaning, so how could he have missed that small spot of flour? It was cleaned at some point while he was sleeping earlier, but it really shouldn't have been there to begin with.
That small spot was really bothering him. Did it have something to do with what Undyne was talking about? How could flour on a mitten be terrifying, though? Something wasn't adding up.
Was the white dust actually flour? Papyrus wouldn't lie to him, and he generally wasn't very good at lying when he tried. What else could it have been? If it wasn't flour, then Papyrus would have told him. They are brothers, after all.
That mystery would have to wait for the next day. Papyrus was fine.
Sans made his way up the stairs and into Papyrus's room. Content with the snoring coming from his brother after the first five pages, Sans quietly left for his own bed.
Once he was certain that Sans was no longer in earshot, Papyrus sat up and crept out of his bed. He quietly opened the closet door and took his chisel from the box on the top shelf.
It had been bothering him all day, how his arms didn't match. Carefully, Papyrus made a few marks on his right side to complement the ones on his left. Sans had actually seen a physical clue, and still couldn't figure it out.
Papyrus was torn between disappointment and relief. The pain in his arm bones quickly smothered the disappointment. It was better this way. He had to keep Sans happy. His brother had far too much potential for self destruction.
This was all too clear after the worst repeat. Sans had spent the whole first day and night at Grillby's until Grillby had called Papyrus to retrieve his brother. Sans was intoxicated (probably fermented ketchup) and muttering what seemed like nonsense. He was talking about how "it" couldn't beat him, "it" never beat him, and how he beat "it" at least a few hundred times.
In that moment, Papyrus was relieved that his brother hadn't died to the human, but greatly upset that the experience had caused this to happen.
Papyrus swore to himself to make these repeats as easy for his brother as possible, doing everything he can to make Sans happy and prevent him from figuratively imploding.
If that meant that he had to take on unnecessary amounts of stress by constantly lying and keeping quiet about anything that bothered him, then Papyrus would do it. If it meant that he had to secretly hurt himself to relieve some of that burden, Papyrus would happily do that too.
After all, nothing was more important to him than his brother. Not even the respect that he so desperately wanted.
At least he almost had that from Flowey.
Papyrus smiled. He'd be seeing Flowey again soon.
He replaced his chisel at the top of the closet, swept the extra dust out the window, and tucked himself back into his bed. Tomorrow was the day the human would come. Hopefully it would be better.