Nuttopia

Adoption day 34

3AM.

Control. They really needed to learn control. This was the sixth night in a row that they had pushed her out of bed with their Calls. Toriel picked herself up and stumbled to their room, turning on lights as she went.

"I am here, my children," she yawned.

Papyrus was in full, panicked, babble mode. "TherewasahumanandtheyhadaknifeandtheykilledyouandSansandtheyweregonnakilleveryoneand--"

"All is well. It was just a dream, was it not?"

Sans, always the quieter of the two, rubbed at his eye sockets. "...paps and i were facing him down with everything we had," he said. "...it didn't go well."

Toriel sat on their bed and held them in her arms. "Name five things you can see."

"You, my brother, the bed, the lamp, and... the door."

"Good. Now four things you can hear."

"Your heart. Sans breathing. The fire in the dining room. The froggit down the hall... he's snoring."

That earned a laugh. "Very good. Three things you can touch."

"You. Sans. The bed."

"Two things you can smell."

"Cinnamon butterscotch pie. And Sans needs a bath."

"...nightmares make sweat, bro."

"And now... one thing you can taste."

Papyrus smacked his jaws. "Sleep funk," he said. "Euw."

It worked. He was calm and headed back to his usual cheerful demeanor. "Those things are real. Dreams are just dreams."

He eased back into sleep, but his brother was still wide awake. "...i know why you're lying to us," he said.

"You are both still very young," Toriel soothed her paw over his skull. "You need to feel safe. You need to be happy."

"...that's pretty hard when we know what's going to happen."

"Now, Sans. You can not be certain that the things you see are certainties. I am sure that--"

"...you die, tori... you take in a human kid and you love them and you die... and then we die."

Toriel reflexively held him tighter, as if that could help drive away the evil he had seen. "You said yourself that the seventh child made things... vague."

"...yeah... i did... but that's one of the things i keep seeing."

There was no magic to stop that kind of nightmare. No potion that would give him ease. Toriel just held him close and loved him as hard as she could.