Number All my Bones: There and Back and There Again

chapter one: the older one

"DaaaAAAd!"
Once upon a time, when Papyrus went his own amazing way into elementary school, there was another little boy who was already in the third grade. This little boy's name was Sans, and he was Papyrus' brother. I loved him. I loved them both. I loved them both in different ways, but it was the same love.
But just as this little boy went home from school that day, he started doubling over in what would be the worst pain in his life or mine. There wasn't anything he could escape from or ignore... the pain had latched onto his skeletal system, started to send his little ribs into spasms. He practically was the pain.
Of course, I knew better than to go to the pediatrician, although that would come later. This was just for the diagnosis. I had much more qualifications than they did, even though a trip to the pharmacist for some sort of prescription would be probable. I raced the whole of us to the lab, which was just a few miles away at the time, and I prepared myself for the procedures. I knew exactly which tools to produce for a biopsy, which antibiotics to ask for when the time came. I gave him some Advil, and the three of us sprinted to the lab. Since everything was compressed to less than a mile or so, having anything faster than running wasn't our forte at all.
I can remember just how fast everything blurred on by, even when I was carrying about ten pounds. First, snow blurred, then rain. We sprinted into the Waterfall. Sprinted into the core. When a sharp turn came, I could feel his hand digging into my coat. I looked back at him and he told me he was alright, but I could see the way his eyes crinkled just a little, just a little, and I didn't know how fast I'd ran until Papyrus tugged at my other hand.
"Daddy?" Only five years old and already able to run without stumbling.
"Yeah, bud?"
My voice didn't shake, but his running became a little irregular, and I knew he'd found out. My son's pain and mine were on the same tether, the same beam. Only his was in his bones, and mine was... somewhere else, somewhere that logic doesn't like to address.
"When are we gonna get there?"
"Almost there, son. Almost there."
As soon as I made the diagnosis- osteomyelitis- we all made our own way, hurrying and scurrying to the hospital. The lab was just behind us, all dark. We went right around that turn, and Sans turned his head away, his eyes wet when he turned it back. Once we went in the hospital, I started my speech on how his bones were infected and the doctors had to give him antibiotics before it got any worse, but I was quickly shooed away. Before long, I found myself in the hospital seat, all of this pain tearing away at me, knowing there wasn't anything I could do. And that was a worse pain than what he was going through.
Nearly ten years later, I found myself in the same position, almost motionless on the floor. I couldn't bring myself to see him again, and not one scientific principle, not one comforting fact, would bring me back up.
But Papyrus came running from the corner, and even though it was one of the most difficult things he could have done, he held out a hand and practically hoisted me up from the floor. He was tapping my shoulder, and things that were almost words, all stuttered out, came from him. I tried asking him what was wrong, but I could see the tears, and I knew that I needed to find out myself.
Something... felt different. As a scientist, I'm not supposed to say I can feel these sorts of things. It goes against logic. But it was as if my cerebrum was all discombobulated, each and every sound pouring in a different way, an eerie way. The heat pumping out of the furnace was a little colder than usual. The family pictures on the wall hung a little more crooked than usual. And there was a taste in the air that comes whenever I'm out of the house for longer than a few hours.
It was only a few hours later that I learned death had been the one to do it.
But not yet. Not yet.
"DaaaAAAAd!"
It had come from that room in the back where I'd put him, surrounded by countless IV tubes and tools for medical procedures I knew wouldn't do anything but confirm what I already knew.
Sans.
My legs lurched forward, but everything else in me stopped. The air hung in the air, all dark and complete.
He'd woken up.
All I wanted for him was to go in peace.
I stepped inside the room, and I didn't know I was shaking until I stepped in the door.
All I wanted for him was to not be in pain. Is that too much to ask? Isn't it?
I could tell he was in more pain than I've ever been in before I even went close to him. His eyes were all blue, and the same eyes that had the type of wonder to leave even me transfixed were in pain now. His little fists were scrunched-up, grabbing the sheets like they were the only thing that would save him. His feet were kicking against the glass in the bed, and-
I couldn't look.
But he looked at me, and I knew... I knew... that this right here, right in my home, right in his bedroom, right now, right in the middle of autumn, was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.
I was going to teach him how to die.
But the funniest thing was that I didn't know how. As a scientist, I knew a million ways to live, a hundred thousand ways to help another person live. I know how to root out which cells in the body are tumors. I know how to conduct a successful angioplasty surgery in order to save someone with a heart attack. I know which drugs help this organ system to function, which procedure will stretch out someone's life by another full year.
I was going to teach him the one thing I didn't know.
And I stepped in that room- Papyrus stepped in a few moments later- and closed the door.
Hours and hours. Hours of pain. I won't go into it any farther. I can't. But by the time it was over, the sky turned black.
Watching the light drain from his eyes is something I can't put down on paper. But there is something I can put down.
"Dad. Dad. I'm so scared, Dad."
"I know. I know."
"Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"Do you still have the scarf?"
Papyrus snatched it off his neck, and it was only when it touched his brother's hand that he started to cry.
He looked into his brother's eyes until they turned into marbles, glazed with water. He smiled, the way he always had.
And he died shaking.