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It’s the second Tuesday of the month. Papyrus doesn’t like the second Tuesday of the month because, if it’s the second Tuesday, that means Sans will be in the lab taking his special medicine. And if Sans is taking his special medicine, then Sans will be even sleepier afterwards and will spend the remainder of the day, as well as the next couple of days, in bed.
Papyrus wishes Sans didn’t get sick so much because then he wouldn’t have to play on his own as often as he did, because then Sans would have the energy to play for longer without getting tired or feeling sick. Most importantly, because then Sans wouldn’t have to take that special medicine that the doctor administers by sticking a long tube with a needle in one end and a bag of strange, pale red fluid at the other end into Sans’ soul.
(Papyrus once asked Sans in a hushed, awed voice if it hurt. Sans merely blinked at him for a second, bright reassuring smile never once faltering, before rubbing his skull, “What the needle? Nah, bro, y’know me, I never let anything get under my skin. …Well, pretend I do have skin for a sec and that joke totally works…”)
Still, Papyrus knows, even at his young age, not to blame Sans for this. It isn’t his fault he has to take so much medicine; apparently he’d just been sickly from birth. Besides, the whole point of medicine was to make the person better, right? And Sans always had lots more energy after he recovered from his monthly procedures, so Papyrus is happy, even if he doesn’t fully understand how it works.
So Papyrus decides to do some drawing while he waits for Sans to come back. It’s become a little hobby of his and maybe if Sans isn’t too tired when he gets back, he could join him. Drawing doesn’t require too much energy, so he’s sure Sans can do it!
Nodding to himself with newfound determination, Papyrus snatches up his pencils, crayons and sketchbook and flops down on the floor, lying on his front and kicking his legs back and forth in the air behind him. He decides that he will draw a picture of himself and his brother with the doctor and places the colors he will need on the carpet beside him. By the time he’s finished, Sans still isn’t back, so, tapping the end of his pencil against his mandible, he decides to draw a picture of his friend who visits him in his dreams sometimes. It turns out to be a great idea as his friend can change its form whenever it wants, which results in Papyrus taking longer to carefully draw each of them out.
He’s just reaching for the gray crayon when the bedroom door opens and the doctor enters carrying the limp form of his brother in his arms. Papyrus jumps to his feet as the doctor carefully places Sans into his bed and Sans… doesn’t look too good at all. He looks so tired his eye sockets keep slipping shut despite his best efforts to keep them open and his head keeps lolling backwards. Papyrus slowly creeps up to the side of Sans’ bed and can’t help noticing how his brother’s jaw is clenched and how his brow ridge is furrowed and how his eyes are now screwed shut like he’s in a lot of pain.
He’s out like a light pretty much as soon as his head touches the pillow, but his face doesn’t relax and Papyrus fearfully casts his eyes up to meet the doctor’s, a silent question written on his face. The doctor takes a moment to recompose himself, adjusting his askew glasses, and gently smiles down at the worried six year-old, “I’m afraid Sans needs to rest for a while now, Papyrus. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine in a few days, he’s just feeling very weak at the moment.”
“Oh,” Papyrus whispers, not exactly feeling better, “umm, okay… That’s not too bad, I guess.”
The doctor frowns for a moment as he finishes tucking Sans in, before straightening up and placing a hand on Papyrus’ skull, “So, I have a job for you, Papyrus.”
As expected, the little one’s curiosity is immediately peaked and he cocks his head to the side, “A job, sir?”
“Yes, you will oversee Sans recovery whilst I am in the lab upstairs. It will be your job to keep an eye on him and update me on his progress. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, sir, I promise won’t let you down!” Papyrus beams with a little salute that makes the doctor chuckle.
“Good boy,” He laughs, rubbing the child’s skull, “I know you won’t.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
The next few hours are passed by Papyrus alternating between drawing, setting up his action figures, completing the puzzles in his puzzle book and periodically tiptoeing up to his brother’s bed to check that he is still sleeping peacefully. He takes his assigned job very seriously despite the fact that he would have done this even if the doctor hadn’t told him to, as he always does. Still, it feels nice that the doctor trusts him enough to make it an official job for him, even if Papyrus knows the doctor is just trying to make him feel helpful. It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t mind.
Sans has barely moved since the doctor lay him down, though his face has relaxed somewhat, and boredom is beginning to catch up to Papyrus as he fiddles with his Rubix cube idly. Just as he’s about to put it back on the shelf, a loud groaning sound is heard from his brother’s bed.
“Sans?” Papyrus calls out tentatively, sitting up on his knees to see Sans shifting around. After a moment, Sans becomes still again and Papyrus goes back to fiddling with his cube. He’s barely made any progress on it before a sharp gasp breaks the silence and Sans begins to whimper and moan in his sleep. Papyrus slowly rises to his feet, cube still in hand, and hesitantly moves a little closer to his brother’s bed.
“Sans..? Are- Are you having a bad dream?” He calls out, squeezing the cube a little tighter and closing the gap between himself and the bed. Once he’s close enough, he places a hand on Sans’ shoulder and gently shakes it, “It’s okay, it’s not real, Sans.”
If Sans is indeed having a nightmare, it must be a really bad one as his whimpers have now escalated to pained gasps and cries. Papyrus shakes him a little harder, voice raised, “Sans, wake up! Bad dreams can’t hurt you, remember? So, you need to wake-”
Papyrus cuts himself off, completely perplexed when a horrible, wet gurgling sound reaches his ears. His hold on his cube tightens involuntarily until the pointed edges are hurting his fingers, but he doesn’t notice, he’s staring in horror at his brother. Sans is now writhing on the bed, the bedsheets tangling around his frail body. The sounds coming out of his open mouth are disturbingly similar to choking sounds, almost as though, if he had lungs, he would be drowning in them. The cube drops from Papyrus’ hand and lands with a dull thud on the carpet.
A thought drifts to front of Papyrus’ numb mind; It kinda sounds like he’s throwing up, but if he’s lying on his back… Leaning over and placing his shaking hands on the sides of Sans’ skull to hold it steady, Papyrus peers into his brother’s mouth but can see no glowing magic pooling inside that he could be choking on. Sans draws in several gasping breaths like he can’t get enough air whilst Papyrus struggles to keep his head still. There’s nothing in his mouth…
“S-Sans, are- are you playing a prank?” Papyrus asks in an attempted annoyed tone that is ruined by the sudden shakiness to it, “B-Because if you are, i-it’s not very funny.”
Sans only response is a whimpering groan that, without warning, turns into an agonized scream. His body lurches on the bed and begins to jerk and twist and contort itself into painful looking positions. Papyrus screams with him, instinctively pulling back. Except-
Except he can’t pull his hands away from Sans’ skull, for some reason they’re stuck fast. For some reason, Sans’ skull feels softer than it should… A whimpering sound escapes Papyrus’ throat as, panic-stricken, he desperately tries to pull his hands loose.
“This isn’t funny! This isn’t funny, Sans, stop it!”
The fact that Papyrus is already stood teetering on his tiptoes, combined with both of his hands being trapped and Sans’ body jerking, means that he cannot get the leverage to pull himself free, he can barely keep his balance. Papyrus can hear someone shouting and babbling incoherently and realizes after a moment that it’s him, as he frantically tries to jerk his hands away.
A blue and yellow glow catches the child’s attention; Sans’ eyes are now open, though his eye lights are gone and Papyrus is sure he’s not really seeing anything, and the glow is coming from his left eye, which is rapidly flashing between the two colors in a blind panic. The choking sound intensifies and Papyrus’ own sockets widen when he sees a pale red, viscous fluid is now spilling from the corners of Sans’ mouth.
It’s the same color as Sans’ medicine.
Beads of sweat are running down Sans’ skull, trickling over Papyrus’ trapped fingers, only… Only, when Papyrus looks again, the marrow in his bones churns and he fears for a moment that he may be sick…
It’s not sweat. It’s not sweat because Sans’ skull is melting, it’s melting over Papyrus’ fingers, and now he understands why he can’t pull them away, why Sans’ skull feels so soft, so malleable.
Papyrus screams. Screams so much that his skull hurts and he feels weak and dizzy. He screams his brother’s name, screams for the doctor, screams for his brother to wake up, please wake up!
The doctor won’t hear him, the doctor is upstairs, but the doctor installed an alarm in their room for an emergency. Papyrus turns his head in the direction of the button on the far side of the room. He needs to get free, needs to get to the button.
He’s forced to pull Sans closer to the edge of the bed so he can regain his footing and braces himself before first pulling his palms out with as much force as he can muster and then finally tugging his fingers free. The force is enough to send him tumbling to the ground, landing painfully on his coccyx in a shaking heap.
There is still the sticky, liquid remnants of Sans’ skull on his fingers and he can’t bring himself to look at the damage he’s probably caused to his brother’s head. Instead, Papyrus launches himself across the room and slams his hand down on the emergency button, feeling slightly sickened by the way his hand almost sticks to it.
As soon as he moves his hand away, Papyrus’ legs buckle underneath him and he falls to the floor, trembling, vision obstructed by tears he didn’t realize he had shed. He can only stare at his brother’s writhing form, praying that the doctor will get here quickly, why is he taking so long..?
It feels like an eternity has passed when the doctor finally opens the door, a look of concern but not quite panic on his face. Honestly, Papyrus is thankful for the doctor’s naturally calm demeanor right now.
“Doctor Gaster…!” Papyrus wails in relief, fresh tears streaming down his face.
“Papyrus, what’s wr-?” The question dies on the doctor’s (hypothetical) tongue as soon as his eyes land on the pitiful form of the elder brother. Once they do, Papyrus sees the look of complete and utter horror and fear enter them that he has never, ever seen from the doctor. It’s then that he realizes that that scares him even more than Sans’ condition, because the doctor is always calm, always collected and is never worried or scared. The doctor can fix anything.
“Oh, God, Sans!” Papyrus is snapped back to reality by the doctor rushing over to the bed, placing his hands on the child’s face so gently and carefully, as though he is afraid Sans might break underneath his fingers, and for all Papyrus knew, he might.
The doctor recoils and pulls his hands back when they start to stick, eyes glazing over for a brief, horrible second where he looks completely at a loss. But that’s ridiculous; the doctor always knows what to do, the doctor would never give Sans medicine that could potentially do something like this.
The doctor can fix anything…
Unable to touch Sans, a ping sound is heard as the doctor instead turns his soul blue and peels the bed covers away from him. He then carefully lifts Sans up, making sure to keep him hovering a few inches in front of him.
“Papyrus, stay here!” Doctor Gaster shouts over his shoulder, starting towards the door.
Papyrus’ head is swimming, so much so that for a moment he doesn’t comprehend what the doctor is saying. Once he does however, he manages to pull himself up off the ground, taking a step towards them on unsteady legs made of jelly.
“B-But, what was in that medicine..?” Papyrus whispers in a hoarse voice, before trying again, a little louder, “Doctor, what was in that medicine?!”
It doesn’t make sense, the doctor wouldn’t give Sans something dangerous, would he?
“Doctor! What was in that medicine?!”
Medicine was supposed to make you feel better.
“Doctor!”
“Papyrus, stay here!” Gaster repeats, swiftly exiting the room with his brother, leaving Papyrus to repeat his question to no-one, like a mantra.
“What was in that medicine? What was in that medicine? What was in that medicine?”
Papyrus collapses into a sobbing heap on the floor again.
This time, he doesn’t get back up.