Chapter Text
It’s the sound of something crashing downstairs that makes you jolt awake.
You’re not the type to sleep very long or very deeply—you never were—but even if you had been, you’re certain the soul-wrenching noise would be more than enough to make anyone’s lingering tiredness flee immediately. As it is, you practically shoot out of bed and race out your bedroom door. You only spare a passing glance at Sans’ room as you head down the stairs, confirming that it’s open and preparing yourself mentally for what that means.
By the time the bare bones of your feet clack against the cold, hard tiles, Sans is already curled up on the kitchen floor, broken pieces of ceramic all around him.
“Sans…” You call out as you approach, announcing your presence so that you don’t startle him. But at the sound of your voice, he flinches anyway and your soul clenches tightly with remorse. As you make your way closer, you can visibly see him start to shake.
You crouch down carefully by his side and observe the scene, eyeing the broken pieces strewn about the floor discerningly till you find the one you’re looking for. It’s jagged and sharp and stained with the deep, dark red of marrow. You pick it up, hands feeling as heavy as they would if they were weighted with lead.
You’re sure that if you look at Sans, you’ll find the wounds to match.
The thought of it makes your soul lurch in a sickening way, pressing at your ribs.
Sans isn’t looking at you but he’s mumbling under his breath. You put the broken shard down and inch closer to your brother. When you get near enough to put a careful hand on his trembling shoulder, you can finally make out the words.
“S-sorry. Sorry, Boss, ‘m s-sorry. I’m s-so sorry. I’m sorry—”
You immediately shut out his voice.
You can hardly handle him when he gets like this—his apologies only make it that much worse. That much more difficult.
You scoop him up into your arms and he doesn’t resist. He just lays there, body still shivering and apologies still spilling from his teeth. You try not to think of how light he is in your arms. You try not to think of how small and fragile he is either.
You’re careful not to be too rough as you deposit him on the couch.
You return to the kitchen and begin to clean up the mess. Your bones aren’t quite as soft and easily cut as Sans’ but you take out a dustpan anyways. You brush up the broken pieces—careful not to miss even a single tiny shard—and dump them into the trash. You pretend your hands aren’t shaking as you do it.
Cleaning done, you look around the kitchen, gaze practiced and sharp.
The knives are all safely stored inside a locked drawer. So are all the forks, just in case. Anything else that uses a blade either isn’t allowed in the house or shoved away behind yet another lock.
You’d dismissed plates as harmless.
You hadn’t been careful enough.
… you’re going to have to buy another lock.
Or invest in something more disposable to have meals on instead.
For now, you head to the sink and fill a clean, plastic bowl with warm water. You root around in an unlocked drawer for a fresh hand towel and then take both items back with you into the living room.
Sans has curled into himself even further in the amount of time you’ve been gone. He’s shrunken himself into the cushions, pressed tight against them as if trying to sink in and disappear. His hood is pulled up over his skull, keeping you from seeing his face. You sit down next to him and the cushion dips slightly under your weight. You put the bowl and the towel carefully by your feet on the floor and then place a cautious hand at Sans’ shoulder, ready to turn him around.
Your brother seems as if he’ll resist at first, not budging when you slowly try to move him to face you. But when you put a little more force into it, he relents and flips over onto his back. He still won’t look you in the eye, face tilted slightly to the side. Tears are steadily spilling down his face but he’s otherwise silent.
Sans is always quiet when he cries.
You gingerly peel his jacket off of him. Sans doesn’t help you do it but he doesn’t try to stop you either. He doesn’t hiss in pain—doesn’t let his flat, emotionless expression change in the slightest—when the heavy fabric catches against the fresh notches in his bones as you work his arms out of his sleeves.
You have to force yourself to hold back a sharp intake of breath.
The bones of his forearms are a mess.
You look away.
You leave his worn-out, red t-shirt on—it’s short-sleeved, it won’t get in the way—but you lift it up first by the hem to check for any injuries hidden underneath. Sans allows the inspection without a word of complaint. No doubt he’s used to the scrutiny you subject him to at the tail-end of these episodes by now.
You’re not quite sure how you feel about that.
You start in on cleaning him up.
The water you brought in the bowl is still warm and you dip the hand-towel into it, allowing it to soak. You wring it out once you remove it from the bowl, making sure it isn’t too drenched with water when you bring it back up to clean the marrow off Sans’ arms. Sans doesn’t even flinch as the cloth goes over and around the fresh cuts. He stays limp and unresponsive, soundless as you clean.
You find that you can’t look at him for more than a second at a time without your soul twisting up uncomfortably so, instead, you look away and try to keep focused on the task at hand.
You can clearly see where the edges of his cuts have started to dust, grey and blood red mixing up into something murky and dark. Going over them with the cloth feels gritty and wrong. Feels like it drags too hard and like the texture seeps its way through the cloth and crawls onto your bones.
You’re sure it’s all in your head—logically speaking, there’s no way you should be able to notice minute amounts of dust like that—but now that you’ve noticed it, there’s no way to un-notice.
You’re overcome with the need to wash your hands.
You wish you were wearing your gloves.
You force yourself to ignore it, concentrating instead on the repetitive motion of cleaning Sans’ cuts. You lose yourself in the pattern after a while, hands moving automatically over his bones. You’re unsure how long you spend meticulously cleaning his injuries but, when Sans finally speaks, it takes you a moment to realise he’s talking at all.
You look up and he’s staring at you.
You stare back.
You completely missed what he said.
“What?” You ask, and your voice comes too loud in the stifling silence.
Sans is clearly embarrassed to be asked to repeat himself if the way his face instantly flushes red is anything to go by. He only shakes his head jerkily, as if to say ‘never mind’ before he turns away from you again.
You sigh and put the cloth down.
This time, you deliberately soften your voice before speaking, “What is it?”
There’s a momentary pause as you wait and at first it seems like Sans won’t say a thing. Then his eyelights slide back over towards you and hold your gaze for the briefest of instants. His expression is still guarded.
“Leave it. I’ll do the rest.” He mumbles off to the side as he drags his eyelights back away.
You look down at his arms.
All that’s left is bandaging them up.
Neither of you is particularly skilled with healing magic but you always handle the aftermath at home. Sans adamantly refuses to see a healer for this sort of thing, so you’re left to rely primarily on time to knit his bones back together. The bandages are essential for that, packed with store-bought magic as they are.
Hesitation makes you slow to respond.
Sans always bandages himself at the end of these incidents.
He always does it and it’s never very well.
You want this done right.
But he’s looking up at you and his eyelights are still flickering in and out of existence and all you can do is hope that patching himself up offers him some sort of relief. Maybe having a little more control of the end result will soothe him a little. Maybe it’ll give him just the cathartic reprieve that he needs.
So, you nod and pull out the well-used medical kit from underneath the couch, stocked and restocked more times than you can count. You hand it off to him and watch as he opens it with shaking hands. You sit by patiently as Sans slowly wraps up his arms. You don’t correct the messy way he does it; don’t say a thing when he does some areas too loose and others far too tight.
When he’s done, his eyelights are looking a little more solid and he’s no longer trembling. The tear tracks have dried on his face and he properly meets your gaze at last.
Neither of you speak.
You’re the first to get up and you deliberately start to walk up the stairs. You don’t turn to check but you can hear as Sans follows after a moment. You make your way into your bedroom and Sans is only a step behind. You wait till he gets in and flops facedown onto your mattress before you shut the door behind you.
You pull out some clean sheets from your dresser.
You tuck your brother into bed.
You wrap him up in sheets, bundled tight around him like an embrace. You put a few more on top of him, half up over his skull like how you know he likes it. You drag your blanket over him next till he’s swaddled completely.
You stand back and look him over.
He looks small, ensconced in sheets and blankets.
Soft and vulnerable.
You turn away and walk back towards the door. As you twist the knob and move to step outside, he calls out to you.
“‘Night, Pap.”
It takes you a moment to find your voice and a second more after that to make sure it doesn’t shake.
“Goodnight, Sans.”
The door clicks shut behind you.
A pause, and then you allow yourself to untense. You slide down to the floor, careful to be as quiet as possible. You rest your back against the door and let your legs spread straight out in front of you. You bring your hands up to your face and let your skull rest on the hard bones of your palm.
You take a second to recompose yourself.
It would probably be better if you stayed with him as he fell asleep. Maybe it would even keep the nightmares away. At the very least, it would probably reassure him. You could hold Sans close and fall asleep together with your arms wrapped around him and it would be just like when you were kids.
Is it selfish of you not to give him that comfort?
Is it selfish of you not to want him to see you breaking down?
Because that’s what stops you.
Every single time.
You don’t want him to see how much this hurts you. How much it wears down on you and crushes the hope in your soul till you’re feeling empty and despondent. Your brother has more than enough to deal with without bringing your issues into the mix.
Besides.
You’re supposed to be the Great and Terrible Papyrus.
Unflinching in the face of horrors.
Not whatever you are in these moments when there’s that swirling pit of despair in the core of your being. When all you can think about is how useless you are. Because what use are you to the Royal Guard when you can’t even help your own brother? When you can’t stop him from hating himself enough to want to—
You cut off that train of thought and let your skull thump back against the door.
If you listen carefully, you think you can almost hear Sans starting to snore.
You don’t think you’ll be able to find it in yourself to go back to sleep tonight, but that’s fine.
You’ve never slept much anyway.