Fault
“Sans?” Papyrus says again, but this time much quieter.
He gives you a second to respond, and when you don't, he goes over to sit down on the bed next to you.
Somehow managing to sit up yourself as well, you look up at him as he wraps his around around you in a small hug. You stay like this for a few moments before you try to speak.
“s-sorry.” You stutter out.
In response, Papyrus only sighs sadly. “You do realize you have nothing to be sorry for…? These nightmares, at least that's what i'm assuming this is, are not your fault. Nothing you did caused this.”
Papyrus sleeps peacefully in the bed beside you. Unfortunately, you couldn't manage to get yourself to sleep, so you just stare at the ceiling absentmindedly. This seems to be a reoccurring problem recently, not being able to sleep. It's not like you don't know the cause of the problem though.
A soft click emits from downstairs, accompanied by a rather loud slamming of the door. Your father is home.
It's silent for a bit, and you assume he's going off to his own bed, until suddenly you hear the loud stomping of his boots making his way upstairs and towards your bedroom door.
Without even caring to see if either you or Papyrus are awake, he angrily opens the door, and you close your eyes, feigning sleep.
Whether or not he knows if you're awake or not, he doesn't seem to care, and roughly yanks you up and out of your bed. You try to muffle a small yelp as to not wake Papyrus, as he drags you out of the room and into the hallway.
“What. Was the mess. I saw in the living room?” He says, making sure to emphasize every word with maliciousness.
You don't respond, trying to wrack your brain for what that could've been. In all honesty, you don't remember, and that doesn't seem to bode well with your father.
“Did you not see the fucking crayons all over the floor?! Or did you just conveniently chose to ignore them?!” He growls, not even trying anymore to keep his voice quiet.
The crayons? Oh. Oh no. You forgot to put away the crayons Papyrus was using to color. “i'm sorry, i-”
“Oh, you're sorry?” He says in a sickly sweet voice, obviously mocking you. “Sorry won't cut it this time. I'm ‘sorry’ of your pathetic excuses! Why couldn't you just be a decent child and clean up simple messes?! It's not hard!”
“i'm-” He cuts you off once again, this time with a sharp punch to the face. You feel bone cracking right below your right eye.
“WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SAYING SORRY!”
You try and cover your face, because, god, it hurts, it hurts so bad. But he doesn't let you. Grabbing your hand, you try and run away, but don't get far.
He grabs the shirt you're wearing with such a force, that it actually rips straight down the middle. Whether it be from how badly you wanted to get away, or how badly he wanted to make sure you get what you deserve, or a combination, you don't know. What you do know, is that your bare ribcage is now exposed, meaning two things. You're more vulnerable to his hits. And your scars are now exposed.
The only thing you manage to do is look at his face, too afraid to try running away again. You watch his expressions change as the realization dawns on him. “What's this…?” He asks rhetorically, a strange, psychotic curiosity present in his voice.
You try to cover your chest with your arms, but to no avail. “I knew you were pathetic, but this?!” He laughs hysterically, “I can't believe you're actually weak enough to do this!”
He looks at you know, straight in the face. “I would punish you, but it seems you've already done it yourself! Even you know how much of a worthless failure of a son you are! That's great.” His laughing trickles off, “Don't ever. EVER. Leave a mess like this for me to find again. Capishe?”
He finds it in himself to give you another hard punch, this time to the ribs. You groan a stumble onto the floor, clutching your chest.
“Go to bed. And no food tomorrow. You need to learn a lesson.” He punctuates this fact with a final kick to your ribs again, causing dust to form on the cracks he's made.
Your father only turns on his heel and makes his way to god knows where, but you don't care. You're actually such a mess up! If you think for a second that you didn't deserve your father's rage, you're wrong.
You try and push yourself up, failing a few times and falling back down, but eventually working your way to stand up and grip the doorknob to your room. You stumble in, swaying slightly, as you try to make your way inside.
“Sans?” A voice calls from the other side of the room, so soft and timid, but so noticeable in the silence of the house.
You turn around to see Papyrus looking at you, looking at you with a terrified expression, never having seen the true effects of his father's anger.
He gets out of bed as soon as he sees the state you're in, helping you make your way to your own.
“sorry P-paps.” You say as you sit down on the bed, Papyrus sitting next to you. “didn't m-mean to wake ya.”
A tear drips down his face, followed by a stream. “I-I'm sorry Sans!” He shouts quietly, “I d-didn't meant to leave the crayons out!”
“hey, hey…” You say softly, trying to reassure him by pulling him into a hug. “it's okay. it doesn't even hurt.” That's a lie. “it wasn't your fault.” It was yours. “it's all gonna be okay.” No it won't.
“B-but Sans,” He whines, “You have a c-crack in your skull, a-and, and, on your ribs-”
“shhh…” You whisper to him, interrupting his thoughts. “it's all okay now, i'm fine.” You try to put a convincing smile on your face.
“B-but he shouldn't have done that! You didn't deserve it!”
Yeah, you did, but you won't admit that outloud. Papyrus would never believe you.
Papyrus pulls you into a tigger hug. “Do you want to talk about it?”
You shake your head no. You would usually make an effort to tell Papyrus, he deserves it, but you're too drained right now to even speak.
You're just so tired.
Papyrus seems to pick up on this fortunately, and doesn't comment on it. “How about we both try and get back to sleep?”
You can't. You know for certain you'll have another nightmare, and you can't let Papyrus have to comfort you again. You can't do that to him. He doesn't need to be up early because you had another nightmare.
You already started shaking your head no, not even aware. Papyrus, apparently, is surprised by your answer. Probably expecting you to just agree and ‘go to bed’ by lying on your bed fully awake till morning.
“Well… Um…” He glances over at the clock. “Do you want to just talk?”
“about what?” You ask quietly.
“About anything! We could talk about the surface, about Underground, anything really. Whatever you like.”
“yeah, that seems… nice.”
And it does seem nice. A way to keep your mind occupied to withhold your negative thoughts. You're a bit guilty, keeping Papyrus from sleeping, but he seems happy enough to just speak with you for some reason, so you talk.
And talk you do, mostly Papyrus, but you do interject sometimes. Somehow the conversation leads to when you both were children.
“Paps, you were the best. you were like my sunshine.” You sigh sadly, “i'm so glad i had you back then.”
“Why's that?” Papyrus tries to ask innocently, still curious about what happened.
It's not like he could hate you more, and you're in an okay mood, so decide to indulge him. That's not to say you're not hesitant about the matter.
“well… he wasn't a good dad, y’know? and… um… you were a pretty natural healer. that was… uh… pretty helpful. you were also good company.”
“Healer? Why did you- …oh.” Papyrus says, subdued.
“it wasn't that bad…” You say to reassure him, “it was just over little stuff though.”
“Like what…?”
“oh, um…” You think back for a second to your nightmare. “like one time you left the crayons out and i didn't clean them up before you came home.”
“Oh… I did?”
Shit. You didn't mean to say that Papyrus was the cause of that one. Because, in reality, he wasn't. You were the older one, the responsible one who had to clean things up. But Papyrus might blame himself for it.
“nah, it was kinda both of us. i just forgot to clean it up.”
“But I could've cleaned it up!” Papyrus says, almost like he's whining.
“it was my responsibility though.” You say, trying to get Papyrus to drop the subject and forget about it.
“I could've cleaned it up! He shouldn't have done whatever he did to you for a mess that was mostly mine!”
“but it was my fault for not cleaning it up!” You almost shout, wondering why Papyrus can't see you were the one at fault in this situation.
“No it wasn't! Why can't you just see that is wasn't your fault! It wasn't… It wasn’t your fault. I wish you could just believe that. Believe me when I tell you that none of this was caused by you.”
You don't know how to respond to that. You might see how Papyrus sort of blames himself, even though he shouldn't, but you can't believe that he thinks you did nothing wrong. You did everything wrong! Sure, he wasn't the best father, but you deserved the punishment you got. You didn't clean something up. It's your fault. It's your fault.
Or is it? Papyrus says it isn't, but how could that be the case. Doesn't he see how you failed to do something, so you got punished? A simple system to understand. So what if he was a bad father? So what if he used violence when you did something wrong? That's the point! You did something wrong!
“So if I didn't clean it up,” Papyrus starts, seeing that you're not going to respond, “would it be my fault? Would I deserve to be hit by him if i was the one responsible for cleaning the mess up?”
“no, but-”
“No buts. If I wouldn't deserve it, why would you? Don't try and make excuses for you deserving what he did to you!”
You give a small huff in annoyance. You guess Papyrus is right in some respects, but it still doesn't mean you didn't get what you deserved. At least a little.
You give in, if only for Papyrus’ sake. “i guess…”
He looks at you as if knowing you don't truly believe your own words, but decides it's a semi-victory anyway. “WELL OF COURSE! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS RIGHT! NYEH HEH HEH!”
“course you are, Paps.”
He looks at the time, “LOOK AT THE TIME! WE MUST GO MAKE BREAKFAST NOW.”
“we?”
“BUT OF COURSE! YOU WERE SO HELPFUL LAST TIME!”
He's about to grab you and go, except a voice is heard from the hallway. “PAPYRUS! I'm tryin’ to sleep!”
“SORRY UNDYNE!” Papyrus says apologetically before picking you up and heading downstairs.