Warnings- purposeful injuries, cigarette burning

You look at the bruises covering your legs with a faint smile. When you got home earlier that evening, Sans freaked out. You rarely saw the shorter skeleton get worked up, but boy was he upset. He threatened to vaporize anyone that was messing with you, and you quickly had to assure him you weren't being beaten up, that it was an accident.

It was an accident, this time. You were walking through Waterfall, listening to Shyren sing a little ways off. She was still nervous around company, but you loved to hear her sing, so you did it from a distance. Your footing slipped on the damp rocks and you skidded into a shallow pool of water. It hurt, but there was no blood, so you figured you were fine.

By the time you made it back to Snowdin, your legs were a masterpiece of blue and purple and green. Sans honed in immediately and began his big brother rant. You smile a little more at the memory. If felt nice, you realize. Having someone worry and care about you. It felt like nothing you knew. Maybe…

You shook your head, trying to rid yourself of the thought. You couldn't… but at the same time. You shook your head again and laid back on your bed. It was late, almost three in the morning. You decided this was all from lack of sleep. That would make sense, right?

Flicking off the light, you close your eyes, fall asleep and dream of bruised legs and worried voices.

You were standing in Hotlands, wandering around. You had gotten bored and didn't want to make yourself food, so you figured you would pay Sans a visit at his hotdog stand and get some lunch. You could see his stand up ahead, but a small river of lava dripping down the stone wall caught your eye. Without really thinking, you reached out and let a drip of the red hot rock splash onto the back of your hand.

With a cry, you pull your hand back to your chest, scolding yourself for doing something so stupid. Sans heard your cry and teleported over to where you were, leaving several confused customers muttering behind him.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice tight with worry. You felt a strange but vaguely familiar sensation blossom in your chest. You let his examine your hand, the feeling growing as he made a horrified face at the welt forming on the back of your hand.

"I-I guess I was walking too close to the wall, and it splashed be. It hurts really bad." You let your bottom lip tremble, partially for effect but also partly because it did hurt quite a bit. Sans gasped and moved closer, holding you away from the dripping lava.

With his arms still around you, he walked you over to the stand. Nudging monsters aside, he brought you back behind the stand and made you a hotdog, on the house. As he apologized and served the customers, you took a bite of the apostrophe dog.

Instantly, you felt the burning on your hand fade. Halfway through the 'dog there was only a faint red pucker. After you finished your lunch, there was still a faint white scar, but that's how it always worked. You were covered head to toe in faint white, almost silvery, scars, from battles and accidents over the past few months.

You sat behind the stand and watched as Sans worked, the warm feeling in your chest slowly fading. You ached for it to come back, but you knew it was too risky to do anything right then.

After the last customer left, you perched on the stand's counter like a bird on a branch. You watched Sans slowly clean things up, and by clean things up, he just kind of shuffled some things from one area to another.

"Ready to go Kiddo?" He asked, turning to you. With a smile and a nod, you hop off the counter, purposefully landing bad. Your ankle twisted under you and you fell to one knee. The pain wasn't too bad, but it was worth it to play it up a little worse than it really was.

"Oh man…" You whimpered, clutching at your ankle. Sans rushed over to you again, looking worried. He only ever rushed when it came to your safety, you thought. The king of Lazy himself rushing over to you. The feeling blossomed again.

"Whoah there Kid. You gotta be more careful. Can you stand?" He helps you up, catching your weight as you began to tilt to on side. You shake your head slightly. Sans scoops you up in his arms and teleports straight to the house. He gently placed you on the couch and went into the kitchen to get ice for your ankle.

"Human! You are injured?" Papyrus came out of the kitchen, tears in his eye sockets.

"I-I'm fine Pap. Just landed badly." You felt bad, making them worry like this. But at the same time, your chest felt warm. You weren't used to others caring so much about you.

Sans came back with a plastic bag filled with ice. He wrapped a towel around it and told you to swing your leg up on the couch. Obeying his instructions, you put your leg up and he placed the ice pack on your swelling ankle. The cold felt nice, but their worry felt better.

"Sans, do you have any more shifts today?" You ask, wanting more attention.

"Nah, that was my last one." He smiled warmly at you.

"Wanna watch some television with me?" You suggested, lifting your foot a little. He took the bait and sat next to you, letting your ankle rest on his lap. He readjusted the icepack and clicked on the screen. You were instantly bombarded with Mettaton's loud voice. Papyrus heard the show and came to sit on your other side.

Your ankle was feeling almost good as new by the time the show ended, but when Sans asked how you were feeling, you told him it still hurt pretty badly. You felt a little bad about lying, but you wanted him to carry you again.

And carry you he did. He scooped you up as if you weighted nothing and walked you up the steps. His movements were very soothing, and soon you could barely keep your eyes open. He opened your door with a magic nod of the head and placed you on your bed. You flinched a little as the movement jostled your ankle, and he grimaced.

"What are we going to do with you kid?" He asked, gently pulling the covers over your shoulders.

Weeks have passed since that first incident, and you've only gotten worse. Accidental slips in the kitchen, which left Papyrus frantically trying to bandage your bleeding finger. Accidental slips in training, which had Undyne apologizing as her spears slipped through layers of skin. "Accidental" spills while running, "accidental" burns while cooking.

No one thought these incidents were anything but accidents, but their worry soon faded. Soon, a knick while chopping vegetables had Papyrus simply offering you a bandage. Slipping and falling led to a smile and a shake of a head from Sans as he patched up your knees.

Soon, the warm feeling in your chest was replaced with something cold and heavy. Why didn't they care about you anymore? Why did they stop?

You weren't supposed to find them, that much was obvious. Sans had hidden them quite well, but you were curious. The small, rectangular box was almost full when you pulled it from an old sweatshirt Sans was going to donate.

Both the skeletons were purging their closets, getting rid of old clothing and donating them to Alphys, who had a special shop set up for the monster children. It was a really nice idea, you thought as you folded the clothing to get them ready for donation.

Some of the clothing couldn't be donated, due to sauce stains or random holes, but a majority of it was fine. The box felt heavy in your hands, and left a heavy feeling in your chest. You carefully knocked one of the cigarettes out of the container. It didn't seem like something that was dangerous, you thought as you twirled the stick between your fingers. Everyone Above taught you how dangerous they were, but it looked so simple.

You tucked the box away and finished your job of packing up the clothes. After everything was finished, Papyrus set off with the boxes of donations and Sans decided to take a nap. The house was silent when you snuck behind the house.

Lighting the first cigarette with the kitchen lighter, you couldn't even take a full inhale before choking. It was disgusting, to say the least. Your eyes watered painfully and you felt your throat contracting.

Out of habit, you placed the red hot end of the cigarette to your arm, hissing as the pain shot up your arm. Realizing what you did, you dropped the cigarette into the snow. You couldn't show this to anyone. They wouldn't worry, they would just get mad.

You looked down at the bright red circle forming on your arm and furrow your eye brows. If it was so wrong, why did it take away the heavy feeling in your chest? You pick the cigarette up out of the snow and see the tip is still glowing faintly.

You made two more circles on your arm, not nearly as bad as the first but still pretty painful. You pull your sleeve down and slink back inside, almost giddy over your new little secret.

It was hard, getting more cigarettes without anyone suspecting anything. At first you used the excuse you were picking them up for Sans, but the shopkeeper was suspicious as she handed over the carton.

"Sans hasn't smoked in years. Why would he suddenly start up again?" She had asked, causing your stomach to drop. You just shrugged and handed over the gold coins.

"I don't know." Was your brilliant response.

You didn't smoke them. You had tried again a few days later with the same results. Stinging eyes, burning throat and a cough that kept you awake that night. No, you used them to make more circles.

No more on your arm. Too obvious, you realized. You put them on your stomach, on your legs. Soon, it became a habit that was harder to break than purposely hurting yourself.

You tried again. You had been walking with Sans somewhere, you couldn't even remember where. You tripped over an obvious rock and scraped up your knee pretty badly. Sans had just sighed and helped you up, offering you a monster candy to heal the cut.

Accepting it with a muttered thanks, you knew it was over. They didn't care if you got hurt anymore. You were no longer injured. You were just clumsy. No one worried if a clumsy person slipped or fell or cut their finger. It was normal for them.

For you.

Back to the present, you hissed as the cigarette burned another circle into your skin. You, having an "artistic mind", had to make sure the circles were in an even line, going all the way down. It was oddly satisfying, you thought as you saw the lines fit perfectly with one another.

"W-what are you doing?" A soft voice asked at your door. You quickly dropped the cigarette and pulled your shirt down to cover the evidence.

"Sans haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Your voice trembled. He caught you. He was going to be mad…

"I smelt smoke and thought something was wrong… turns out I was right about something being wrong." He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. You try to cover yourself more, but the heat of the blanket and the pressure from your hand caused the burns to throb in pain.

"N-nothing's wrong." You tried to convince him, but it was obvious it wasn't working. Strong hands, stronger than bones should be, pulled your own arms away from your chest. With slow movements, Sans lifted the hem of your shirt to survey the damage.

He gasped and let out a slight whine of pain, as if he had the burns on him instead of you. You tried to pull away, but you couldn't find it in you to do so. The look on his face, the gentles of his touch. It was just like before.

You realized he did still care, but little scrapes and bruises weren't going to cut in anymore. You needed big injuries. Broken bones, burns, gashes…

Your thoughts trailed off as he wrapped his arms around you. You could feel him trembling, and you realized, finally, what you were doing.

You realized that even though you felt good when they cared about you, you were scaring them. Every time you showed up with a new cut, a new burn, a new bruise, you were scaring them. Because they were realizing how fragile you really were.

"I'm s-sorry." You whisper into his shoulder. He just holds you tighter.

"Why do you keep doing this to yourself kid?" He asks, his voice tight.

"I…" You weren't sure if he would understand. "I wanted to feel cared about."

"What do you mean cared about? Of course you're cared about!" He pulled away. Looking at you like you had just told him you weren't really a human, but an eight armed alien from Pluto.

"Everyone seemed to care so much when I got hurt, so I kept getting hurt. I wanted you to keep caring." Your voice sounded hollow, even to you.

"Oh kid, we could never stop caring about you. You scared the crap out of us a few times, with this stupid plot of yours. What if something went wrong? What if you were hurt so badly we couldn't fix it, huh?"

"I didn't think…"

"Didn't think that we cared?" He asked, his voice softening.

"Yeah…" You whispered, trying not to cry.

"Of course we cared. We'll always care about you." He held you close, letting you cry into his chest. After a few minutes, you calmed down enough to keep talking.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay kid, but what's not okay is what I walked in on. How long have you been doing that?"

"A few weeks… I thought you stopped caring about my little accidents, and I found some old cigarettes in the pocket of one of the jackets you were getting rid of… I don't know why I did it, it just kind of happened. Then, I guess I just couldn't stop."

"We're going to have to talk to someone about this. It was bad enough you were getting hurt on purpose, but this? This is another story all together."

"I know." You felt tears stinging your eyes again. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen… but you were so glad it did.

"Oh kid…" It sounded like he was talking more to himself than to you. "What are we going to do with you? What would we do without you?" He pulled you in tight and hugged you until you realized he did care.

"Thank you Sans. I really needed this." You sniffled, pulling away. He just smiled at you and wiped your damp cheek with a warm bone thumb.

"Of course Kiddo. I care about you no matter what. That's a promise. Now, let's get you some Cinnamon bunnies to heal your stomach, okay?"

I did it! I promised one before the end of the week, and I did it!

I'm sorry that I combines two of the requests, but again, the list was starting to get extremely long and I wanted to get to everything.

I've gotten the list down to 36 prompts, but I'm going to be combining a few so everyone gets their request written in some way. I'm thinking I'll be opening the suggestions back up in a few chapters.

Thank you everyone, not only for supporting my story, but for supporting me as well. I said I wasn't quite feeling myself, and while I am starting to feel better, I'm a ways off from being 100% again. It's always scary to relapse, but that's just a step in the road to recovery.

If you've reviewed and I haven't responded, I'm so sorry. I really do mean to respond, but between the PMs and the writing and everything else, I simply forget. I'm so sorry about that. I do read each and every review.

If you've reviewed and I haven't responded, just shoot me a PM and I'll definitely get back to you!

Until next time!

~Starlight