Papyrus clumsily raises a hand up to lay on top of his brother's, increasingly aware of the sound of powder as everything gets numb. Not completely, he can still dimly feel things - as though the metal itself really is part of him.

But even the metal is crumpling, and he's only still kneeling because it's studier than monster bone.

A dry observation passes through his mind, right after Sans' words. It seemed he was dying, not long after his stubborness in the storm... A sharp, lethal object, wedged within his armor, where he couldn't pull it out... even as he dissolved around it. There was something... full circle, about that.

"No, I'm... I'm not dying for real," he protests slowly, trying to pat his brother's hand as he sags. "Not... yet..."

He trails off as red fire blossoms and burns through the fog, red light spreading over them... and within, an orange light - one never stopping, always moving to avoid certain pains - answers the appearance of the red fire.

A crackling spreads through his legs as suddenly he can feel them again, the warmth of the fire just barely soothing it from being as painful as the fog had been. He stares down at the puncture on his hip as streaks of orange crystal and bone grow within, filling the complicated metal shell out again, and the thickest of the crystal scars bleeds out with bits of metal mingling in the stone. And suddenly, he feels whole again.

"...Not yet," he says again, a little more confident and wonderingly, and looks up to see what's next.