A/N: This chapter takes place at the same time as when Sans and Toriel are falling asleep. Sort of a filler. Expect it to be a bit short.
Wet coughs erupted from your chest, muffled by your arm to not let him hear. Times like these make you wonder why you ever felt Stockholm syndrome for your demon of a father. With your torso crying out in pain, aching internally, much deeper than the skin, your flesh marred with an assortment of minor injuries and made sensitive to the touch, and your burning lungs that couldn't breathe fast enough, choking-! but strained effort would provoke a short but violent coughing fit.
Your arms and legs rested limply, clearly not to be disturbed, lest to invoke the searin assault of pain that even your bones would feel. Even now they fully throb, the slightest jostle or movement coming just short of bringing tears to your left eye. What you wouldn't do for a spider donit, or spider cider for that matter... anything that would heal you up some. Worse than that, though... your SOUL pounded. You couldn't see it, but you heard it beating loud and clear. It sounded close - why wouldn't it be? - and it filled the silence that had stretched, besides your forced but careful breaths scratching your throat, precious oxygen burning it all that were very gradually evening out, though not anytime soon. It felt weird, though... like it was in... like it was supposed to be in an awful sort of hurt, but at the same time felt just on the border between discomfort and the slightest sharp pain of a pinch. It was... disorienting, to say in the least.
You mentally thanked whatever or whoever cared to listen that you had collapsed on your bed and not on the floor. Crummy as it was, it was better than the floor. At least, you'd like to assume that. Quite a number of times you actually had spent the night on the floor, unwilling to move any further to the bed. While nice for your fatigued form, it actually was quite comfortable but in the morning you would wake up feeling stiff, sometimes with a crick in your neck, any form of sudden movement or stretching causing your sore form to cry out in pain.
While you knew you should be getting a first-aid kit from your backpack and at least disinfect the open wounds, your entire being moaned in protest to the notion. Apparently you wouldn't be doing that for the time being, instead relaxing a little further into your bed and focused on your breathing. You slowly started falling into time with the steady beat your SOUL emitted, the tone mute to all others to which you would fall into light sleep with.
Cigarettes wouldn't cut it anymore. You hated that you were following the same descent you had the first time around, but simply wtting your feet wouldn't be enough anymore. In the morning you'd have to go looking for your 'stuff', or maybe restock with some old... connections. You mentally shook your had at this. You wouldn't be calling them up. You'd rather not, even if you could. They're jerks - what much else is expected, really - and you had other means to reach the end. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.
It went like this the first time... a particularly bad punishment would be fished out, and the feeling would slowly grow. The feeling itself is rather hard to explain, and can be best likened to suffocation. Like you were retching, hundreds of pounds of pressure that should be killing you but your are alive, feeling all the effects and it HURTS. You can't breathe, it's crushing your chest but you're watching everything and everyone around you through a hazy film (Why can't you see their faces? Why can't they hear your cries?!), always unresponsive, but they can breathe.
You snapped out of your dark train of thought. That wasn't what you wanted to be thinking about tonight. Why you sunk the first time was quite simply a long period of bad nights, and the bullying was turning physical at the same time. Physically abused by day, and physically, then emotionally abused by night. You hated your father but as if he could read your mind he would emotionally blackmail you, mostly about your dead mother. You then found resources by which to make it stop hurting, and you used them. Similarly, you had temporarily forgotten how bad it was, and it hit you, rearing its ugly head once again. That's all. This night had been another particularly bad night.
It was because you had gone to Papyrus' birthday, but you didn't blame him at all. You're glad he enjoyed the party and his gift, so instead you chose to blame your father for doing this all in the first place. Pinning your mother's death on you. Pinning the blame for loneliness on you. Really, instead of listing it, you'd just flat out say it's the whole damn cake.
As long as your friends would be happily oblivious, though... you would remain determined.
Word Count: 887
Gee, this chapter is shorter than I thought it was. I was hoping for at least 1k.