Chapter Text
It was painful.
It hurt in every way. They felt nauseous, freezing, sweltering; every worst symptom all at once, and then one at a time.
It felt like their insides were melting. Probably because they were.
Their bodies were disintegrating, then reforming, then crashing into one another.
Breaking apart and trying desperately to pull themselves back together, over, and over, and over.
Awful, searing pain.
The kind you don’t really remember when it’s all over. Even though you were pretty sure it was never going to end.
And they can’t do anything but lie there, and gasp for air.
The world around them is spinning, and spinning. There are spots dancing in the corners of their eyes, and they hear nothing besides a high, keening, muffled tone. It rings and rings.
And even though the worst of the pain seems to be fading away, there’s this awful, gut wrenching feeling that something is definitely wrong.
Their bodies don’t feel like bodies anymore.
The world around them is hazy and distant, and the floor beneath them feels transparent, unreal.
They wonder if they’re dead.
But. They can’t be, because they have this god-awful headache.
And something is so wrong.
When the ringing begins to fade, and their ears start to take in the quiet ambient sounds of the room they’re in, they try to think.
what happened?
where are we?
what are we?
And nothing makes sense.
The ringing gradually picks up again.
Nothing makes any sense.
Where are they?
What’s going on?
I think I’m supposed to be somewhere.
I think I’m supposed to be someone.
I need to find…I need to find…someone…
but…they’re here….they’re right here….
I’m right here.
Nothing makes sense for a long time.
It feels like no time, but they can feel that , at least. The feeling that time has passed. Whatever time is, anyway.
If that’s even real.
And. They know something went wrong. They can feel it in their bones.
They can piece together the memories they have, like a puzzle. (As they’ve been shattered and jumbled all together.) Some of it is lost, but they can manage to think just long enough sometimes to really let it sink in.
So they know that it’s all his fault.
It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
He never should have. Tried to fix it.
Falling down isn’t something you can fix. He knows that. They know that.
but he was a coward.
(No, no, no…)
and he just couldn’t bear to live on without his brother
(It’s okay, it’s okay..)
And he remembers
Running as fast as his short, weak legs could take him while carrying his twice-as-big-as-him brother. The cold sweat dripping down his face is seeping into his eye sockets, only making an already horrible situation worse. The tears that have been steadily pouring down his face aren’t helping, either.
He takes another shortcut, just a small distance away, but just a little closer to Alphys’ lab. He’s too afraid to jump too far, in case he triggers Papyrus’ already- disintegrating soul. He’s totally limp in his arms, and Sans thinks he’s going to be sick.
He can’t, though. Won’t. At least not yet. He’s getting Papyrus to this lab. He’s been chanting it in his head the entire way here. Wheezing, drenched in sweat, and slipper-less, (they were ditched all the way back in Snowdin.) he is getting Papyrus to this fucking goddamn lab. He is getting Papyrus to this lab. He is getting Papyrus to this lab. He is.
Tripping.
He catches himself just before he can truly lose his balance, and jumps just far enough to land about a hundred feet in front of the lab.
Okay.
He quickly rights himself, briefly readjusts his brother in his arms, and sprints faster than he thinks he’s ever sprinted in his entire fucking life towards that stupid, stupid lab.
He reaches the door.
No time to knock.
He jumps in.
The cool air inside the building hits them hard, and Sans is winded for a moment, before wheezing loudly. He tries to scream for Alphys, but it comes out as a weak mewl.
He takes a deeper breath. Swallows. Tries again.
This time, he yelled loud enough that she had to have heard him. But as he’s standing there, shaking so hard he’s afraid he’ll drop Papyrus if he doesn’t pull himself together, the only answer he gets is the sound of his own haggard breathing.
He sobs, and starts breathing quicker.
no, no, stop, you can’t have a panic attack right now.
..you are already having a panic attack, but you can’t let it get any worse. you have to breathe. you’re going to pass out if you don’t breathe. you’re going to drop Pap. you’re going to let him die. breathe.
He manages to take a couple steadying breaths in-between shaky sobs, and tries one more time to call out for Alphys. He shouts as loud as he can. There is no answer.
can’t panic. you can’t panic.
He gives up trying to find her. She’s not here. He has to do this himself.
His vision is getting too blurry, and the world is swaying a little, but he’s able to make it to the elevator, and punches the button by slamming his whole body into the thing. The elevator hums to life, beginning its descent.
Sans doesn’t like this place.
He knows it won’t fix it.
Deep down, he knows that.
But. He has to try, doesn’t he?
There’s a chance, isn’t there?
He doesn’t sit down while the elevator moves. If he does, he’s not sure he’ll be able to get back up.
The rest is a blur.
He rushes out when the elevator lands and the doors slide open. He’s pretty sure he scared the shit out of some amalgamates, but he’s too frantic and focused to care. He scrambles to set Papyrus down (as carefully as he can) on a bed, and finds Alphys’ research notes easily. He hasn’t been down here for a while, sure, but he still remembers where most things are. Right now, that knowledge is saving him time, something he desperately needs.
He’s preparing everything, and this is where it all goes wrong.
The amalgamates watch quietly from around corners, and under beds. They mourn for these two sad, hopeless brothers. There’s nothing they can do. They understand far too well.
With his shaky hands and blurry vision, Sans trips up. Injects a little too much. Attempts to fix it. And for a moment, it seems like things are okay. Papyrus stops looking so fuzzy, like he was going to disappear into a puff of cloud. Sans stands there, trembling, the world swimming, and grabs the side of the bed for purchase because he’s going to fall over, he’s swaying so badly.
He stands there and breathes hard and waits.
And waits
And waits
And when nothing happens, and Papyrus steadily appears more solid, less transparent, less deathly. He closes his eyes. His forehead meets the bed sheets. The tears still haven’t stopped, and they soak into the bed beneath him. He stands there and cries quietly for a while, before exhaustion finally overwhelms him, and in his delirious state, he crawls into the bed next to his brother. (Almost falling off in the process.)
He shakes and sobs and presses himself against his side, and that’s all he can do. There’s a ringing in his ears, like a siren. A high, muffled tone, and it lulls him to sleep.
And the next time he wakes up, it’s to that pain. Awful, searing, mind-numbing pain. And he knows he fucked up.
so, it is all his fault
It’s not, it’s not…
it’s his fault that they are this mess of two people. stuck down here, mindlessly wandering back and forth all day and all night. husks of the people they used to be. riddled with sadness, and confusion, and painful emotions that are hard to process. difficult to understand. impossible to understand.
Nothing feels real, and half of the time they can’t even remember where they are. Or how they got here.
Those moments are blissful, in a way.
But they don’t last forever, and when they are able to think straight, and their thoughts are able to pull themselves together for brief moments of real consciousness, they cry. And they thrash, and they try with all their might to comfort one another. Both remembering, realizing what happened, why it happened, and twin feelings of guilt and sorrow threaten to overwhelm them. They melt and spasm and scream, and they know they can’t keep this up. They’ve got to figure out how to stabilize themselves, how to keep themselves here, conscious and seeing, but they disappear too quickly every time. They fade, helplessly, back into their default delirious, demented state. And there’s nothing they can do but try, and be patient with themselves.
They know Alphys can hear the screaming when it happens, so when she comes down to feed the other amalgamates every night, they hide in the darkest corners of the lab. Fear wracks through their body, making them shake and shudder. They can’t let her see them. She can’t find out.
Everyone must think they just disappeared, as easily as they appeared in the first place. Showing up in Snowdin, pretending like they’d been there their whole lives. People accepted their presence easily enough. They probably wouldn’t think it too odd that they just. Decided to leave, one day.
Their friends…they don’t want to think about what their friends might’ve thought.
How they might feel angry, or upset, or confused. They left without saying goodbye. Without packing up, or cleaning the house. Not even a note.
It doesn’t occur to them, that she might already know. They choose not to think about how smart she is. How she could’ve put the pieces together easily. How they left a trail of sweat and tears and scattered, stolen notes behind them.
They choose not to think about the cameras.
They choose not to think about how she must feel, to know. To be the only one who knows where the skeleton brothers disappeared to.
They choose not to think about how she comes down every night, and only after making sure everyone has gotten a taste of the dog food she lays out does she look around. And quietly call out for them. How she tells them there’s food, and water. And if they need anything, she’s here.
They choose not to think about the look in her eyes, like she’s almost ready to give up.
They wonder how she hasn’t fallen down.
One night, as she’s busy filling bowls up with food and water, they snap very suddenly from their dazed state into another panic. Amidst their attempted-muffled half-screams and seizing in their dark dusty corner, they realize this is very bad timing. Dimly, they knew this would happen eventually. Somehow, in some way they were going to have to confront Alphys. They just really wish it didn’t have to be like this.
With them, writhing and shifting and dripping in agony. Crying and shivering and melting, and Alphys stumbling over to their favorite damp corner, holding her hands out and stuttering out words and reassurances they couldn’t comprehend.
She reaches forward, as if to touch them, and the panic worsens- they let out a pained cry, half-warning, half-feral - before a string of splintered bones rise out of the floor and swerve towards her. Only two hit, but it’s enough to knock her back and off her feet. They freeze.
It’s only silence, their stunned faces staring into Alphys’ own, before they start to crumble. Start to fold.
They collapse into themselves, and begin to softly cry. There’s nothing else they can think to do.
They’re a monster. A mindless, dangerous monster. They have no control over themselves, over anything anymore. If they ever did.
Now, apparently, they only have the capacity to hurt. And feel hurt.
And so they sit there and sob quietly on the floor, hugging their two gloopy arms around themselves tightly.
A voice slowly filters its way into their muddled minds, and unconsciously, they listen.
“Breathe,” it says. “Deep, like this,” and they hear the sound of someone taking a careful, deep breath, before slowly exhaling. There’s a slight whistle to it.
She repeats the process, and through little sobs and hiccups, they begin to follow.
In, wait a moment, and back out. In…and out….
Their racing, competing thoughts die down, and they’re almost thrown into their usual trance-like state again, but push it away. They cling desperately to the present. Focus. In, and out.
They open their eyes, one at a time. Alphys is sitting on her legs in front of them, with only a couple slight scuff marks on her face and coat. It’s enough to make them tear up again, but they manage to keep up their breathing, albeit a bit shakily. She gives them a wobbly smile.
“That’s good. Very g-good.”
They blink at her. They have so many questions. They have so many apologies. They say nothing.
“…h-how do you feel? Are you hungry at all? Do you think some w-water would help?” Alphys speaks gingerly, making sure her words are clear and concise. She’s wringing her hands somewhat roughly.
They fight to stay present, and the fight gets easier as they sit still and breathe. And breathe. And breathe. They wrangle their thoughts together, grateful for how patient Alphys is being with them. They haven’t tried speaking out loud yet. Screaming doesn’t count.
Finally, they settle on something to say.
“I’m so sorry.”
It comes out strangled, and their voice sounds so different. It’s all warped and strange, like two sick people are speaking at the same time. They are.
“I’m so sorry,” they repeat, tears finding their way back down their already dripping faces. How they still have tears to cry, they don’t know. “I’m so sorry.”
Alphys seems lost, like she doesn’t understand what they’re apologizing for. She has this look on her face that reads pain and hurt, and pity and sadness, and guilt and hatred. All at once. It’s hard to look her in the eye. One of them looks away.
Alphys stares hard at them, her throat working and her lip trembling for a moment. She tries to quell the rising urge to burst into tears.
“Guys, I…you’ve got n-nothing to apologize for. I…I….”
She fails. The tears spill quickly and heavily. She sobs once, hard.
“I’m the one who should be s-sorry!!! This is all m-my f-f-fault.” She puts her face in her claws and begins to cry.
They’re both just sitting there, crying on the floor in this dirty corner of the basement of the lab. And how did they not realize how much she was hurting, down here.
They hesitate for a moment, unsure, before gradually scooting forward. They reach her shaking, sobbing form and lean into her. She startles a bit, hiccupping, before softly leaning against them as well. They stay there, just like that for a long time. It feels sad, and hopeless, and the guilt is eating both of them up inside, but it’s also comforting. And the contact is grounding. And they missed being around people. And they missed feeling so aware, and real. And even though they feel awful, and their minds are reeling from the shock and fear of being discovered, they’re so grateful to know that they’re real. That someone can see them. That they aren’t crazy. That they have hope.
It doesn’t last forever, and eventually their minds, exhausted from the night’s events, gradually dissolve back into their incoherent state. Alphys can tell from the way they sluggishly move off of her, and their eyes go all fuzzy and stare past her, into nothing. She swallows, sniffs, and wipes her face. This will take time, she knows this. But it’s still hard.
She slowly moves her hand toward them, careful not to startle, and wipes the drying tears from their faces.
Progress is slow, but it’s still progress.
Every night when Alphys comes down to feed everyone, she works with them.
They practice breathing, and she teaches them simple grounding methods. They aren’t always truly there, when she goes down to the basement at the end of each day, but she still speaks to them and tells them how her day went, or shows them what she put in the food she brought.
As time passes, they get better.
Their minds begin to grow more and more stable.
At first, they could hardly comprehend what they even were, what had happened, and so they didn’t question why there were two voices in their head. Or why they had four sets of eyes, two arms that seemed to have different opinions.
As they worked each day to remain coherent, they also worked with each other.
They worked on the excessive apologies, the constant overwhelming waves of guilt and sadness and anger and fear. They talked to each other. And it was easier, now, that they were one, but it was hard. It was hard to be honest, and to accept that every secret, every bad, evil, depressing thought would be shared with the other half of them. They had to learn how to be patient with themselves, how to reassure the other that it’s okay.
It’s okay to be sad. Or angry. Or sick. Or afraid.
All the disgusting, fearful intrusive thoughts that wrench themselves into their brains aren’t true, they aren’t real.
They’re not, and it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
And they begin to feel okay.
They begin to forgive themselves, because one half of them forgives the other. So it must be okay. It must be.
There are no more secrets between them. Everything has been laid out on the table, bare for each other to see. It’s sad, to see the truth. To see what the other was hiding. To see all the times that they were so close to losing the other half of themselves, to not have known. The guilt is crushing and sickening and flows thickly through their dual-mind.
But through comforting words and reassurances, they begin to settle.
They know that it’s all in the past, now. It can’t be changed.
And they forgive each other. For anything, and everything.
And they begin to feel okay.