Work Text:
Your day starts off bad and you’re not really sure why. There’s no reason for you to be this tired, already saddled with a headache, but here you are, rummaging for something warm and comfortable to wear. You just want to lay back down, curl into a tiny tiny tiny ball under your blankets and sleep forever.
Mom calls you down and you shuffle your way down the stairs, not having felt this bad in a couple of months.
You don’t want to go to school, don’t want to deal with the loud annoying voices of your classmates and the blatant misgendering of your teachers.
You go anyway, dragging your feet on the pavement and listening to music that’s meant to be quiet on full blast to block out the noise of the world.
School passes in a blur of lost attention. Your headspace is so foggy that you don’t even register pulling the sharp thing from your bag and digging it in your arm. You’re just lucky it was in the bathroom and not the middle of class.
Your favorite teacher calls you a “she” and you whisper a small, so very small, “they” under your breath. The teacher barely even glances as he continues on in his story. You stop talking after that, choosing to sleep through the rest of class.
Your last class of the day is math, and you’ve made up your mind before the previous class is even over.
When the bell rings for you to go to math, you walk straight out the building. It’s cold, winds biting, but it doesn’t matter because you are not going to fucking math today. There’s no way in fucking hell that you’re going to that stupid class that you could learn in thirty minutes instead of the two hours you’re in there for.
As you walk, you vaguely register that this is your first time skipping class. A sick sense of pride rolls through you at the thought. Maybe you should leave school more. Not like you really care anyway. You could pass the class with your eyes closed.
It’s not until you knock on the door that you realize you’ve walked to Sans and Papyrus’s house.
You feel heavy as you wait.
And wait.
And wait.
No one’s home.
Doesn’t matter, you think as you grab the spare key from your pocket. Their couch looks inviting in all its raggedy glory. It takes you in, sucks you up, and you fall asleep with your backpack on.
---
“Frisk? Hey, buddy, you awake?”
You grumble something and turn away from the voice. Your ears say no sounds right now and you can’t help but agree.
“You okay, bud? I haven’t walked in to see you on my couch in a while.”
You can hear the worry in his voice and make a noncommittal noise in response.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at school right now?”
“Fuck school.”
He doesn’t say anything in response. It’s not often you curse out loud. It’s always unsettling to hear the words coming from your mouth, more for everyone else around you than for yourself.
Your head feels fuzzy and your stomach feels rolly and you really don’t want to throw up right now but maybe you’d feel better.
Probably not.
A bony hand rests on your arm, over your sleeve, above where you dug the sharp in. You jerk it back, curl it up against your chest, eyes blinking open to the back of the couch in front of you.
“Kid-”
“Not a kid.”
You’re not sure why you’re arguing.
No, that’s a lie.
You’re exactly sure why you’re arguing.
Maybe if you make everyone around you hate you it’ll make it easier for you to disappear from existence.
“Technically, you’re still a kid until you turn eighteen, and you’ve still got a year.”
You could make him hate you so easily. Bring up how good it felt to hold Papyrus’s dust in your fists, to kill Mom in one hit, to hurt everyone you both love so much. You could bring up how you still sometimes can’t stay in the kitchen when Mom uses flour.
You bite your tongue and stay silent.
You’re the worst kind of friend, worst kind of person.
Your fingers dig into the gash on your arm and you close your eyes again.
“Don’t tell Mom.”
“About what, the skipping or the hole in your arm?”
There’s a bite to his words that hurts so much more than it should. You don’t answer him, biting the inside of your cheek to shreds.
“Frisk.”
He has so much shit to deal with, he doesn’t need to deal with yours. And yet when you sit up, blood seeped under your fingernails, he looks at you with such sympathy that it makes you sick.
“I’m going home.” You say to no one in particular. “Or back to school. Somewhere. I’m going somewhere.”
“Nooooo you’re not.”
You’re standing and you look at the hand on your wrist dismissively. You don’t have enough care to even shake it off, favoring to just stand there with a half dead look on your face.
“The last time you went, ‘somewhere,’ you were halfway in the river. Not fishing you out of rapids again.”
You sit back down, pulling your hood up over your face.
“It’s so much, Sans.”
“What is?” He’s getting somewhere, you can feel the feeling coming from him.
“This,” you gesture broadly. “Everything. Today was so bad. There’s no fucking reason for it to have been bad. It’s been a good couple of months, a really, really good time. And I wake up and boom, it’s all out the window and I feel like drinking the bleach that’s in my teacher’s room or going up to the roof and disappearing, for good this time. Bad, bad, bad day, Sans. Bad day. Too many ‘Shes,’ too much noise, too many college emails, too many ‘Missed Opportunities.’”
You feel sick again. You hate talking about stuff like this. It makes it real, means you have problems.
He puts an arm around your shoulders and you lean into it. Your head feels heavy again and you want to vomit.
“Bad days don’t care how good your month has been. They just say fuck it and fuck up your whole mojo. But you don’t get to disappear again. I know you think it would be better, but no one wants you gone. No one wants to find you dead in the bathroom or floating upside down in the river. I definitely don’t want that. I know your Mom doesn’t.”
You say a small, “Yeah,” and go silent again.
“We can’t always have good days.” It sounds sad and final and he leaves it at that.
He ends up walking you home and staying for pie.
He doesn’t say anything about what you talked about to your Mom, and for that, you’re grateful.
You decide you can probably last at least another day.
You just keep telling yourself that.