Bandages
“wh- what?”
You’re too momentarily stunned by the question that you can’t form coherent thoughts.
“I SAID, CAN I SEE YOUR ARM?”
He says this a little quieter then the first time, and as you look up at his face, you can see he’s nervous.
What did Papyrus see? Did he see your tallies? No, that’s impossible. You’re wearing long sleeves, he shouldn’t have been able to see your arm, right? Maybe he did though. Maybe your sleeve got pushed up or something. No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO. Your breathing quickens.
He couldn’t have seen your arm. What are you supposed to do? What can you do? This isn’t good. This isn’t good! You can’t even hide your own inner turmoil from your brother.
“UM…. SANS?”
You try to control your breathing. Maybe Papyrus really didn’t see. Maybe he just saw something else. It could’ve even been on your other arm! Well if worst comes to worst, then you’ll… You don’t know what you’ll do. But for now you should just take things how they come, and try to hide your anxiety.
“oh yeah… sure.”
You slowly roll up the sleeve to the arm opposite the one with the tallies. You hold out your arm, and Papyrus seems to look it over carefully before questioning, “CAN I SEE THE OTHER ARM TOO?”
Trying not to look Papyrus in the eye, you roll down your sleeve, and hesitate to roll up the other. You don’t know what to do. He knows. What do you do? What can you do? It’s not the first time in your life you’ve felt completely hopeless, far from it, but that doesn’t stop how bad it feels knowing you can’t change the situation your in.
Papyrus is going to find out what a horrible brother you are. He’s going to be so upset at you. Using physical pain to cope with emotional pain. What kind of sick, messed up weirdo does that? You do. And know Papyrus is going to find out.
You gingerly roll up your other sleeve and hold your out like you did before, except this time with your palm facing down. A flicker of doubt crosses Papyrus’ face, but then he reaches out and gently grabs your wrist to turn your arm over.
You hear a gasp, and then look away to the floor. You don’t want Papyrus to see your hideous face right now. Or ever again. Papyrus has done nothing wrong to deserve you. Papyrus’ life would probably be better without you in it to mess it up, although he would probably never think that. If you were gone however, he would realize how much more improved his life would be.
“Sans? Did you do this?”
Papyrus’ voice is brought to an unnaturally quiet whisper, and you remind yourself that you caused this. You caused Papyrus be upset.
There’s no point in refuting the question, because the marks on your wrist are perfectly aligned, deep cuts, crossing the entire length of the bottom of your wrist.
Papyrus isn’t stupid. You hate when people say he is, because it isn’t true. He may be naïve, and sweet, but he isn’t dumb. He knows the answer to the question, but doesn’t want to believe it. Your too ashamed to actually answer, and instead you look more intensely at the floor.
Papyrus realizes you aren’t going to respond. “W-well, we should probably dress these, so they don’t get any worse. Some of them look n-new.”
You stand up next to Papyrus, still looking down, ashamed at your disgusting self. He carefully rolls down your sleeve and grabs your hand, leading you to the bathroom.
You would wonder why he was still putting up with you, but you know he would help anyone with their problems, even a stranger. Papyrus isn’t dumb, but he doesn’t realize how much of a lost cause you are, and how he would be better if he just forgot you existed.
Papyrus knocks on the bathroom door, and thankfully everyone is still getting ready in their rooms. As soon as you walk in, Papyrus opens the cabinet above the sink, and starts shuffling through in order to find what he needs. Papyrus has been abnormally quiet the whole time, which you hate because you rather him yell at you for being useless and self-destructive. But Papyrus is Papyrus, and he would never yell at anyone for their issues. So now your suffocating in this thick silence, filled with uncertainty.
At last Papyrus finds what he needs, and you wordlessly sit on the covered top of the toilet, and roll up your sleeve again. You wish Papyrus would break the stretch of silence between both of you, but like you, he seems at a loss for words.
He opens the cap to a white tube, and squeezes out a thick green paste that acts like an antibiotic for skeletons.
Papyrus comes over to you, and you hold out your arm. You take a gamble and look up at his face, which is filled with sadness and something else you cant quite read, but you pin it as disappointment.
He gently applies the ointment to your arm, and rubs it in delicately, afraid it might hurt you. But you’re already used to the slight pains that come from brushing up against something, or someone grabbing your wrist, so if it does hurt, you don’t feel it. You just feel numb.
After the paste is applied, Papyrus puts it back in the cabinet, and grabs the bandages he had set aside. He wraps up your wrist with the same delicacy he applied the antibiotic, and then puts the bandages back into the cabinet also.
“Sans… Can we go back to our room and…” He struggles to find the right phrase to use, “…talk about this?”
You shrug and nod your head, not really trusting your voice to work. You continue looking down as you walk back to your room, following Papyrus. You hear the sound of footsteps behind you, and see Alphys coming from her room with a towel and change of clothes, heading for the bathroom. She looks at you for a second, and you suddenly realize you forgot to pull your sleeve back down, but then she heads into the bathroom. If she did notice anything, she didn’t say anything.
As you go into your room, Papyrus closes the door behind you, and you walk over to go sit on your bed, still looking down. “So….”
You look up at Papyrus, and he looks at you expectantly. What do you even say? Now Papyrus knows how messed up you are, and you don’t have an explanation. You don’t know what to do. You’re useless.
“m’sorry” You mumble under your breath. Surprisingly Papyrus actually hears you and comes and sits next to you on the bed. He wraps his arms around you in a hug, and you lean into him. Papyrus’ hugs are great, even if you’re the last person that deserves them.
“Sans… You don’t have to be sorry. I- I just want to know why. Why did you do that to yourself?”
Of course you can’t tell him why exactly. You can’t burden him with the knowledge of the RESETS. Still you’re keeping the only thing you brother wants right now, an explanation, from him. Your brother, the person you love most in life, is upset over YOU. And you made that happen. Papyrus shouldn’t worry about you. Your life is a waste to worry on anyway. It’s not like you do anything important. It’s not like you actually saved anyone from a death you could’ve tried to prevent. You didn’t save Papyrus, or anyone, when you could’ve at least tried. You didn’t even try. You gave up. Your useless. Worthless. A waste of life.
“i’m sorry…”
You find yourself on the verge of tears, and bury your face closer into Papyrus’ trademark scarf. The same scarf whose vivid red contrasted against the stark white snow. A scarf that, once upon a time, was strewed with the pale gray dust of it’s owner. Your hands start shaking and your breathing quickens at the recount of the memory. Papyrus just sits there and soothingly rubs circles on your back, waiting for you to calm down.
A few tears silently fall from your face, and you look up at Papyrus, sending a pleading message with your face for him to just drop the subject of “why”. He looks at you sympathetically for a moment before speaking. “If you don’t want to say now, it’s okay. Hopefully you can tell me later? I’m not forcing you to… but I think it would help. Just… Can you promise to let me know if you ever feel like doing it again?”
Thankfully Papyrus hasn’t made the connection between the number of days you’ve been on the surface compared to the number of tallies on your arm. However, that would make this promise so much harder to keep. If you don’t keep track, what will you do in the morning when you don’t know if you’re back in Snowdin or still on the surface?
“i- i’ll try.”
Papyrus knows how much promises mean to you, and that you don’t give them out sparingly. Still his face holds a trace of disappointment. It seems he doesn’t want to push the issue and make you more upset, as he remains quiet. You sit there, clutching Papyrus’ scarf in your shaking hands, not caring for the moment that your being pathetic. Too soon for your taste, Undyne shouts at you and Papyrus to hurry up and go downstairs to go to the Library. Since you had your little “episode” with Papyrus, both of you weren’t able to get ready, so you and Papyrus get up and head over to your respective dressers.
You hear Papyrus hum while he picks out his outfit for the day, so hopefully you haven’t messed up his day too much. You stare blankly at your dresser, and take a moment to collect your thoughts.
You messed up. Now Papyrus is going to be concerned with your issues, but he shouldn’t have to worry about you. You aren’t worthwhile. And now you’ve probably made his day worse then it should be. You really want to stay home today, but everyone, especially Papyrus, would be disappointed in you if you didn’t even look for job offers. Maybe if you go and act like your usual happy pun-loving self, Papyrus might think that your better off then you seem. You’re still super tired, seeing as you haven’t had like ANY sleep the past week, but you’ll try your best to put on your happy façade and try to have a good time.
You open your dresser and take out a clean pair of shorts, quickly changing into them, then throwing the dirty pair onto your bed. Papyrus just finished putting on his outfit, and is folding his pajamas up neatly on the bed. He’s wearing a bright orange short sleeve shirt, and a pair of jean shorts that he has to use a belt to keep up. He looks over at you and gives an exasperated sigh when he sees your outfit.
“SANS. SERIOUSLY. ARE YOU NOT CHANGING?”
He’s back to his usually volume you notice, which is good. You look down at your coffee and ketchup stained jacket, which hasn’t been washed in a while, and probably should be. Not worth the effort though. Plus, it’s comfortable.
“i changed my shorts.”
Papyrus gives another huff of disapproval and looks like he’s about to say something until-
“PAPYRUS! SANS! You guys are taking forever up there! Hurry up or we’re leaving without you!”
“COMING UNDYNE!”
Papyrus slips on a pair of sneakers, while you do the same with slippers. You both head downstairs and see Undyne looking impatient waiting by the door with Toriel and Alphys. It seems Asgore and Frisk have left already.
“Jeez, seriously. You guys took forever!”
“WELL UNDYNE, MY OUTFIT HAD TO BE GREAT ENOUGH FOR THE GREAT PAPYRUS.”
Your glad he doesn’t mention your “incident”. As you walk out the door, Toriel and you start exchanging a slew of jokes, and Papyrus starts having a heated discussion with Undyne, with Alphys occasionally joining in.
It’s time to face the day.