Sleep
The antidepressants weren't working.
Well, they weren’t supposed to yet. It had only been four weeks. You still had another two weeks before you would know if they worked for you. But you want them to work. You want them to work right now because it seems like everything only feels worse, and you know you should be feeling better but you aren’t. You had upped the dose to 10mg, but all that did was make you more restless and twitchy. No less depressed.
But hey, Alphys said that she’ll really know if the medicine is working for you in a couple of months. And… and that just seems like something you don’t want to have to wait for. If this one doesn’t work you’re half tempted to just give up. Why even try? If it takes three months or so to test out a medicine that you don’t even know will work, why keep repeating the process only to end up with disappointment.
Maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you’re just so unfixable that antidepressants don't work on you. Maybe you’re just so broken that you’ll never heal right. ...Maybe you’re just being a whiny baby, for god’s sake, it’s only week four. But something just… doesn’t sit right. Some thought at the back of your mind, that’s been at the back of your mind, comes forward. Maybe it would be easier to be gone. Maybe if you died, Papyrus wouldn’t have to worry about you getting better and stressing, Alphys wouldn’t have to worry about giving you proper doses of medicine, and you. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything. You could-
Selfish, selfish, selfish! Don’t think about that! Don’t make your friends and family go through that again!
You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place now. Living is no good, dying is no good. You’ve been in this dilemma before but… how did you solve it? You had friends supporting you, of course. But you have that now, and yet you’re facing the same problem. The same feeling that you had through the RESETS, and especially during this timeline. That same feeling of hopelessness that seems unbearable, no, is unbearable. What did you do?
Your wrist scratches, your wrist feels itchy, and of course, that’s what it was. The thing you can do without anyone knowing that’ll take away your thoughts. For a bit. But then you do it again, and again, and-
No. No, no, no, no. You are not going down that road again. Why should you? You’re finally getting better, aren’t you? Finally accepting the help that your family gives? Finally finding it in yourself to be happy?
But the thing is, you’re not. You were, but now, sitting alone in your room in the dead of night, you’re not. Maybe you weren’t even okay a few weeks ago. Maybe you put up a façade so strong it even fooled yourself. That must be it. Because no one can go from happy, from happy… to this.
So why not? Why not dig into your bone again? You deserve it for tricking everyone into thinking you’re getting better. Plus, no one has to know. Papyrus doesn’t check your wrists as often as he did before, and even then he never really checked your legs. You’ve never cut into your legs before. Maybe you’ll-
Stop. This isn’t right. You can’t. You can’t. Imagine the look of disappointment on Papyrus’ face when he sees, or if you feel guilty and tell him. You can’t.
You should… sleep. Yeah. That’ll get your mind of things. Hopefully. Maybe you’ll even feel better tomorrow and this whole thing will be over nothing. You’re fine, totally fine.
You roll over on your side and close your eyes. You try taking a few deep breaths before you feel uncomfortable and turn to your other side. You ignore the itching thought in the back of your mind to find a knife or something, and maybe even off yourself. Well, you try to ignore the thought.
Do you have sleeping pills in the house? You sit up as the thought occurs to you. You must, right? That’s like a thing all houses have in some variety. You really don’t need something strong, just something that can knock you out. Well, maybe you do need something strong then. Yeah, you’ll need something strong enough to make sure you don’t have nightmares.
You look over at Papyrus’ sleeping body, checking to make sure he doesn’t wake, then creep out the door. The air is significantly cooler outside your room, and you shiver slightly as you take a step on the uncarpeted wooden floor.
Where to look? That’s the question, ain’t it? You doubt Toriel or Frisk would have any in their room, and even so, you don’t want to chance running into… ehem… someone while you’re in there. Alphys probably wouldn’t keep her medicine in her room, and you seriously doubt Undyne has any need for sleeping meds. That leaves Asgore. Well, Papyrus as well, but you know he doesn’t have any.
Who knows if Asgore has sleeping pills? Why would Asgore have sleeping pills? Eh, it’s worth a shot, and you really, really want something to help. Why did you never think of this before? It honestly seems like a simple solution.
You snoop your way around the house until you reach Asgore’s room. Putting your head up against the door, you listen and hear the large snores, signifying the king’s sleep. You push the door open with a slight creak, and step inside. Since Asgore’s room is the main one of the house, the bathroom’s connected, and he doesn’t have to use the one that everyone else uses. That seems like a place for medicine, right?
You decide to check the bathroom first, which is all the way on the other side of the room. You feel uneasy for a few moments, not because you think Asgore might be waking, or the fact that you’re sneaking around the house, but something else.
Then it hits you. The last time you were in this room was when… Well. Just find the sleeping pills and you’ll be able to forget and go to sleep in a few minutes.
Your eye lights have adjusted to the dimness of the room thankfully, once you made your way into the bathroom. You don’t want to have to turn the light on and risk Asgore waking up. You shuffle through the cabinet above his sink, and surprisingly, you notice, he has a lot of pills there. You even spot a name that you think might be an antidepressant, but you’re really not sure because you’re not really into the whole ‘medicine thing’. That's Alphys.
You finally find what you’re looking for, a small bottle with a label you recognize instantaneously as coming from the underground. It honestly gives you a bit of nostalgia as you look at it, so used to seeing the shiny new bottles and labels of the surface technology.
You take a look at the back of the bottle to check the dosages, and strain your eyes to see, as it’s still very dark in the room, even with moonlight peeking through a window in the bedroom. A quick check reminds you, of yeah, monster medicine was based off stuff like HP and weight, not age, a little bit different from the human medicine.
It’s funny, and you almost laugh, but you stifle it, reminding yourself Asgore’s sleeping right next to you. You’re HP and weight aren’t even on the chart on the back. The smallest HP is 20, the lowest HP an adult monster usually has. You’re weight is even close to not being mentioned at all, but there are some pretty tiny monsters out there, so at least you’re on the chart in that respect.
The lowest dosage recommends half a pill, but honestly you don’t think that would do it. You have pretty bad sleeping problems. And you’re really tired right now and can’t bother to get a pill cutter, let alone have to put it back and clean it up when you’re done, so you just pour out some pills into your palm.
You take one will your other hand and swallow it, tasting the gross flavor of the medicine. Seems like these are the real deal, not the fake, artificially flavored kid’s crap.
You’re about to put the excess pills back in the bottle, but you pause, looking at them for a second. You know you’re already probably taking more than you’re supposed to, but honestly? Honestly you wouldn’t mind sleeping for a little longer than normal.
There’s three more pills in your hand. You grab one, then grab one more, leaving only one left in the original palm. You swallow the two, and think, ‘to the hell with it’, and take the last one as well.
You’re filled with guilt and regret and you close the bottle up, but.... But you’re kind of happy? In that maybe you’ll sleep in. Maybe you’ll sleep for a really long time, maybe you’ll never wake up at all! Your hands shake. No, that wouldn’t be a good thing. For Papyrus. For you it would be, but not for Papyrus. You have to remember that.
You shake the bottle in your hands, careful to not make too much noise while doing so. It’s actually pretty full, which you’re grateful for, and Asgore probably won’t notice that he’s missing any at all. You’re almost going to question why Asgore even has sleeping pills to begin with, but honestly, you’re too tired. Not from the effects of the medicine from what you can tell, because you were this tired before, but enough to make you put the bottle back in Asgore’s cabinet, and head back to your own room.
You lay back down in your bed, after making sure that Papyrus was still sleeping. How could you have not thought of this before! You would almost call yourself giddy with excitement if it weren’t for how tired you were. You finally have a solution! How could you have not thought of this before, that was pretty stupid. Oh well, whatever. It’ll work now.
You lay there on the bed for a little bit, still that restless type of tired, waiting for the meds to kick in. Slowly, a wave of calm overcomes you, and you feel as though if you shut your eyes, you could sleep for a thousand years.
Suddenly, you have this feeling in the pit of your stomach that this wasn’t a good idea. But it’s no use fighting against it because two seconds later you fall asleep.