Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I told the human I would visit Alphys as soon as I could, before anything else happened. I wouldn't know why they'd care in the first place, but when promising that I lied.

It happens; they lie, I lie. Well, to be more fair, I forgot. My inevitable confession to King Asgore was at that point the only thing on my mind. That and all the dust that I had to scrape carefully off of my hands and coat. ...And my very loud travel companion, with the kind of lungs I didn't expect from a fish monster. So in all that, visiting Alphys and all the awkwardness that was sure to ensue slipped my mind completely. Oh, well, I had left our phone call with a definite air of finality. So it's not like she would be expecting me to drop by on the way.

The meeting I had with Asgore was painful enough.

Now that I am back in the true reality, everyone has remembered that I existed. I don't know if Sans has told them what I did, or even if I am back- the only monster I'm assured he told was Queen Toriel. With good reason, I and my escort avoided running into any of the monsters in New New Home, so I still don't quite know the answers to those questions. And so when we reached the palace, and Asgore, not knowing what he knew, I don't know what exactly I was expecting from the king.

A big bear hug was, however, most assuredly not on the list.

He was overjoyed to see that I was alright. Apologetic for not realizing that I was missing for so many years, although admittedly less so when he knew that everyone else had suffered the same kind of amnesia. But he grew more solemn in time as I told him everything that I had done. In as clear terms as I could.

Yet by the time I finished, I realized that he wasn't surprised by a word of it. Apparently... Toriel had already told him, angrily, by phone, before I arrived. Something he neglected to tell me until I had finished giving every sordid detail of my crimes.

I would accuse Asgore of wanting to make me suffer by that retelling, or at least to use this moment as a sort of test, but knowing him as well as I do I'm sure he just was too polite to interrupt.

So that just left the matter of what was to be done with me.

Unorganized as it was, that took a while to be decided. Queen Toriel was also brought in on the discussion; although she'd separated from him, she was still Asgore's wife and had a role in governing when situations like these--like me--came up. It was probably for the best. She was far angrier than his Majesty, which is how it should be, and did not want me to rejoin monster society. The harm I'd inflicted on so many, not just Sans and Papyrus but those I'd harmed while lost outside of reality, could not be overlooked. As I suspected, Asgore did not share her pragmatism. There was an argument--a long one, of which I didn't hear everything that was being said but I got the gist of their separate sentiments. And of the pain carried in each one. More pain that I had caused.

I have no opinion on how I wanted the sentencing to go. As it stands I am a murderer who has conducted illegal experiments on- on children. I've stolen funds, and I've apparently? assaulted the human ambassador of New New Home, and various other crimes both petty and great. Everything I tried to do, the goals I told myself I was working for, that all came to nothing in the end. I was only racking up that list, indulging myself, and in doing so I helped no one.

Saying I have no opinion is another lie. I don't want to exist anymore.

Eventually, though, they came to an understanding, and Toriel was more the victor of the argument. I'd be imprisoned indefinitely for what I had done.

Although by now I'm seriously wondering if "imprisoned" is the word that I would use. There isn't a jail in New New Home, as the crime rate in this city is next to nonexistent. So for now, I'll be rooming in the castle basement. It's not that bad. It's below-ground, so the air is a little chilly, but Asgore showed me where the thermostat was if it got too unbearable. As far as furnishings go it is fairly empty, only a few chairs and untouched chains in the corner, and everything is the same grey color as it was upstairs. So that I wouldn't get bored, Asgore gave me a notebook to write in and said if I needed anything at all I could just ask.

I'm not sure he really gets the "prison" thing. Oh, well, I'm grateful for the notebook.

Only a day or so has passed since I "moved in," so to speak. Not that I asked at any point, but I haven't had any updates on what happened to the human, or those two. Sans and Papyrus. I'm assuming they went back home without any more trouble. There's probably also been a few funerals held already for the dusted monsters that were brought back. I wonder what Undyne and Asgore did, when their families asked what happened to their loved ones. What did they tell them?

I haven't slept since coming back. Maybe I should at least ask for a bed. Sleeping would take up some of the time I can't pass otherwise, although I know if I start thinking that way, I'll start sleeping more and more until that's all I do. Like... Sans.

Is someone coming down the stairs?

If he wasn't going to come see her, she was going to come see him instead. ...Even if it took her a couple days, two liters of soda, and several episodes of the new series "Strike on und Ubermensch" to work up the nerve. Each day she didn't go check out what was going on in the castle, ignoring phone calls, felt terrible. She ended up hiding under the covers and staying up all night on the last day she spent at home. But, as was happening more often, she was surprised by how the tension in her stomach relaxed when she finally walked all the way there and learned what was up from Asgore.

It was just a little bit, though. Alphys still felt butterflies when she crept down to the basement. It was easy to enter; although there was a sticky note reminding whoever saw it to lock the door on the way out, that same door slid open way too easily when Alphys tried the knob.

"Oh-! Umm..!" There was no going back now. She could see him sitting on the floor at the opposite wall, with a journal he'd been in the middle of writing in- now he was looking up, in her direction, shock written on his face as well as could be on a skull. "Uhhhh..."

"Dr. Alphys?"

She stopped and started again, stammering harder. "Y-yeah, it-it's me! I-I'm sorry if you d-didn't want any visitors, b-but Asgore said it w-was okay s-so I thought I should t-t-try and come down and s-so I did..."

He straightened his posture a little, letting her stammer until she trailed off. Then he asked, "Are you afraid of me?"

At that she gave a sharp start, "N-no! N-n-not at all! J-just a little bit? B-but it's just..." She risked coming a little closer in, closing the door behind her. "I-it's just m-me. Being me." She gave him a wavering, contorted smile, but he didn't smile back. "I-I-I wanted to... to come see you earlier but... y-y'know. Me being me."

"Yes, I remember," he murmured, his hands clumsily signing it. Slowly he added, "I had meant to see you as well, but certain things came up."

"Y-y-yeah, Asgore said," Alphys said, forcing a laugh. "H-how have you been doing i-in here?"

He shrugged. "It's not bad."

"T-that's good." She said back, and that was it for a second. But she couldn't, she couldn't just leave it at that. She looked up, heaving a deep breath. Come on Alphys, you can do this! She forced the words from her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut. "I.. I... I came too so that I could... o-over the phone it just felt... and I know other people were there, so I-I couldn't, and..."

"Alphys-"

"I'm really-!" No, she had to do this, and she had to do this without shouting it. "I'm really sorry..." That might have been too quiet, but whatever. "For what happened to you."

From across the room, she heard Dr. Gaster sigh heavily and shut the notebook, and she opened her eyes. Although she could guess what was coming next, her stomach was still seized up while he stood, placing the notebook on a chair next to him. "You don't need to worry about that. It was an accident," he said, watching her carefully.

But as tears started to gather in the corner of her vision, Alphys shook her head, "Y, you don't understand-! It wasn't j-just our fight, y-you know?" Their fight. That day which she'd recently remembered clearly, when before she could only remember vaguely. She was shouting at him, and he sounded so eerily calm, so unlike himself, as he dragged her nearer with his blue magic. She'd attacked him. The first and only time she'd ever, ever fought someone. The only reason she managed to escape was because he wasn't expecting it.

The memory was fresh, now, and still painful. But what came after, for her, was even more painful. So she desperately wiped her eyes, as her former colleague stared at her. "W-when you fell into the C-core and- and when I realized that no one knew who you w-were, I just... I just left you like that!" Stupid, stupid, stupid, to start crying like this. "I m-mean, I didn't want Sans and Papyrus to know, but... but I d-didn't even tell Asgore, or anybody. I, I didn't do anything!" The words were coming faster now.

"Alphys-"

"A-and you were trapped for all t-those years. N-not even just y-you..." The other missing monsters. She'd ignored all of them. She didn't even think she'd remembered all the ones that fell in until they came back, in hindsight. "And I u-used your theories and your equipment and your lab and y-your data, a-and didn't tell anyone and... I'm so... s-sorry...!"

Unable to speak for a second, Alphys yet felt something touch her while she sniveled and sobbed. Dr. Gaster had walked across the room and was now patting her on the back. She could just see his hands signing at her, while he spoke, "It's alright. If I were you, I wouldn't have wanted me back either."

"N-no..." She wiped her eyes another time, although it didn't do much good as she looked back at him blurrily. "I j-just... I didn't understand. I didn't understand why, why you..." She rubbed her nose and cheeks on her sleeve, trying to stop crying so hard as she dared to look back at him. Dr. Gaster only faced the floor, continuing to offer awkward comforting pats. Persistent, she choked out in another sob, "I understand a little, though. N-now. How you must have- have felt. Having something y-you can't tell anyone."

He looked up, but didn't say anything.

Taking deeper breaths, calming just a little that it was all out in the open, Alphys said hoarsely, "I r-really messed up, t-too, when you were g-gone."

Now that she wasn't sobbing so hard, Dr. Gaster took a half-step away. "I find it difficult to believe."

Alphys sniffled and laughed, weakly. "I..it's true. I c-can show you s-sometime. S-some of the monsters I had in T-true Lab during my D-d-determination experiments."

He looked again shocked, but didn't say anything for a moment, gaze traveling again to the floor. She was starting to see more clearly now, rubbing her nose and eyes one more time. For the first time, Alphys noticed that his hands didn't have the holes in them anymore. Should she ask what happened to them? Would that be rude? Maybe he didn't want to talk about that...

She cleared her throat. "S-so..." he looked up. "I... I mean, I just mean I know how it feels. Even if it was t-terrible, you just wanted to help too."

He shifted, uncomfortably. "...For the most part."

For the most part? Well, she could also get that. Alphys laughed again, a quieter one for herself. It wasn't just to help monsters, with her. Maybe, just a little bit, she'd wanted to impress Asgore. But that certainly didn't work out very well. "Yeah. For the most part."

They were silent, Dr. Gaster eventually sitting back down while Alphys regained the rest of her composure. "W-we both make quite a pair, huh? Uh!" Then her face turned red. Oh no, oh no, oh no, "A-a-a-a pair of scientists, I mean."

"Yes Alphys, I understood what you meant."

"A-a-a-and I just want to say," she squeaked, speaking through her raging blush, "T-that if you ever want to talk about it... with someone. I-I can be there for you. I-I'll understand. I-I won't judge you or, or anything. I-if you get internet service down here, w-w-we could even chat on Undernet???"

Dr. Gaster frowned, and he sighed again, not looking at her. Alphys swallowed, clasping her hands together and feeling queasy. Why was it always so hard?

Finally, he said, "I don't think I'm ready to talk about it. Besides, Sans and Papyrus are... friends of yours, now, aren't they?"

She swallowed. "... But you're my friend too. R-right?"

He stared at her. Blushing again, even harder this time, Alphys nodded and murmured, "Uhh, but I guess, um, I'll go for now, i-if you want."

"Alphys-"

She'd been inching to the door before she realized it, and his unintelligible voice stopped her in her tracks. She looked back over at him, "H-huh?"

Dr. Gaster awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Thank you." He looked up and smiled at her, albeit the smile was weak and sorely underused. "Thank you for remembering me."

Chapter Text

She woke up in a cold sweat, finding herself out of breath and tangled in the sheets, unsure for a moment what it was that had woken her-it had not been the dream itself. The child could not discern what it was until the images in front of her eyes, burned there from her closed eyelids, faded away completely; then she looked around, squinting. At this hour there was typically darkness in this blue room, except for the little purple nightlight in the corner that had dimmed over an hour ago, but this time there was something else. The phone on her bedside table was glowing, and so she blearily reached to it.

Someone had sent her a message. She looked at the sender for a long time.

Then, sitting up and throwing the sweaty covers to the ground, the child pulled the phone into her lap. It had been the ping of the message that woke her up.

SANS sent you a text!: heya tori. are u up

Exhaling, Frisk rubbed her eyes and typed back: Its frisk and i am now

Then she lay back in back, waiting for the time it would take him to respond. At its worst, it was half a day before he sent something back, when she had already forgotten the conversation entirely. Would she fall back asleep by the time she heard that pinging again?

As it turned out, she only had to wait ten minutes. She had not fallen asleep by then. SANS sent you a text!: oh crap srry

SANS sent you a text!: this is toris phone so.

With a brief smile, Frisk responded: She let me borrow it and its okay i was having a bad dream.

SANS sent you a text!: eyyyy me too This one only took five minutes.

But now it was Frisk who hesitated when sending her message. She rubbed her forehead and set the phone down for a second, chewing on her upper lip. Her eyes fell on the dim purple nightlight, letting out something between a sigh and a yawn, and she hesitantly typed out a message: Ouch you okay?

Ten minutes. SANS sent you a text!: yeah im fine

Five minutes. SANS sent you a text!: lucky paps barely sleeps

Two minutes. SANS sent you a text!: cant get back to sleep though

Frisk lay down and for a while held the phone over her face as she replied, at least getting to rest her arms while waiting for Sans to complete his message. At some point, that would be replaced by laying on her stomach, and from there hanging off the bed. From there, forgoing the bed entirely and just sitting with her back against the wall while the phone's light illuminated her face. I probly wont sleep either.

SANS sent you a text!: hey how did the dentist go

At this, the child had run her tongue over the new tooth in her mouth, smooth and pearly and not quite fitting in with the rest. They said that it was the strongest tooth in her jaw, now. She'd asked if they could knock out all of her teeth and replace them with these ones, and the dentist had just laughed. Toriel took her out of the building before the child could make it clear she was serious. It was okay. Tori healed me up so it doesn't even hurt now.

SANS sent you a text!: that's great

Yeah its pretty sweet.

Twenty minutes. SANS sent you a text!: srry we didnt come w/ you

Ten more minutes while Frisk rubbed her eyes. Sans sent you a text!: idk dentists r weird Another came immediately afterward: pap here he is also vry vry srry

Frisk laughed. Pap it is okayyyyy

SANS sent you a text!: he says if youre suuuure

I'm suuuuure.

And then there was silence between the both of them, as Frisk chewed on her inner cheek thoughtfully and looked up at the ceiling. There were some stars painted on it that weren't quite white enough to glow in the dark, closer to yellow when the lights were on. It was nice, though, to see them there. She yawned. This would be a good stopping point. A good place to change the subject, to one that Sans could sleep to. If he fell asleep, there was hope for her too. The phone's inner clock told her that it was three in the morning. Four more hours before she could get up for real.

Frisk touched her tooth again. "Huh..." it was so smooth, not like her others. Of course when she was little she bit all kinds of things, and when she ground her teeth at night that just made the problem worse, so they were all sharp in their own unique ways.

Pretty tooth.

SANS sent you a text!: whazzup

I think I'm gonna go to Asgore's after school tomorrow.

SANS sent you a text!: cool

Gonna show Gaster my tooth.

SANS sent you a text!: not as cool

Do you wanna come with me?

SANS sent you a text!: wtf no

What does wtf mean?

SANS sent you a text!: sadkfkSGJRTHYTIJRNKvkdfkghgfjldtseibthmyrknbk gtrksks ksfkkk

SANS sent you a text!: dskfgksdfk

SANS sent you a text!: opppadm

Alarmed, Frisk was in the middle of writing out a text message to ask if Sans had just had a stroke from her question, and if she should call an ambulance or something, but right before pressing send another messaged pinged her way.

SANS sent you a text!: IT IS I PAPYRUS I HAVE COMMANDEERED THE PHONE.

SANS sent you a text!: FRISK CAN I COME WITH YOU TOMORROW?

Frisk blinked. It was a decision she made on the spur of the moment, and maybe in the morning it wouldn't seem like such a smart one. Hence just telling it to Sans. But it looked as if she had no choice now. At least she would get to talk to Asgore, too.

After the dream she had, that would do her good.

Clacking her teeth together against the new one, Frisk sent a message a minute later: Yeah if you want!

SANS sent you a text!: GOOD BECAUSE I DO!

She smiled, in spite of herself. Okay, I'll meet you after school.

SANS sent you a text!: kfksf

SANS sent you a text!: YES GOOD!

Also what does wtf mean?

SANS sent you a text!: YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW THAT GO TO BED.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine goodniiiiiight sleep welllll

It took her forty-five hellish minutes to go to sleep.

Elsewhere in New New Home, someone else's phone would ping periodically.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: Hey! Are you up?

The text that followed was sent quickly, and then each flew back and forth just as fast.

How did you get this number?

I just got this phone today.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: Um? I asked? Asgore? He said it was okay?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: Anyway I guess that is a yes? :0

Yes I am up.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: Me too haha watching a really good movie for the fiftieth time. What's your excuse? :V

I can't sleep.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: Oh geeze is it something I can help with?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: omg you did get a bed put down there right?

I don't know.

Yes I asked for a bed.

Dr. Alphys why did you text me in the first place?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: uhhhhhh uhhhh uhhhh

ALPHYS sent you a text!: I wanted to make sure I got the right number

ALPHYS sent you a text!: ;u; I can stop if you want?

Here the chain was broken, as the next text took a few minutes to send. Dr. Gaster rubbed a hand over his face and curled up by the wall with a soft sigh, the only light in the basement being that phone that stared placidly back at him.

This phone Asgore just up and gave him because apparently he was going to need it for whatever he would be doing in the future.

Today had been weird. The king insisted he stop moping in the basement and gave him a tour of the castle; it was the exact same as the old one, minimalist color palette and all. It had made Dr. Gaster feel sick inside, so he asked his Majesty if he had anything better to do with his time and mercifully, as it turned out, there were some things he had forgotten.

Slowly he typed: This phone isn't ideal.

It's a little old.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: lol come to my lab tomorrow I can upgrade it for you so it's more like your old one.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: or even BETTER than your old one? :O

Is that really alright?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: uh uh yeah I think so? literally just ask Asgore he'll probably say okay

ALPHYS sent you a text!: I could come over there but my equipment is here orzzz

There was another surge of that sick feeling. In this basement there was nothing to make it go away, nothing he could concentrate on, nothing he could use to distance himself.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: if it really makes you uncomfortable I mean I'm sure someone could bring it to me??

I broke Sans' eye.

There.

Now she wasn't sending anything. Not for a long, long time, and the light of his phone dimmed waiting for her response. Dr. Gaster sighed again and leaned back against the wall.

Then, just when he was sure she'd forgotten and gone back to her movie, he heard a ping from that dreadful phone.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: OMG???

Ten minutes. He put the phone down again.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: I mean he seems to get around okay?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: i mean if you were worried about that

ALPHYS sent you a text!: i never saw him crash into anything :V

ALPHYS sent you a text!: so i think youre good

Five more minutes.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: gaster?

Ten more.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: did u go to sleeeep?

ALPHYS sent you a text!: ah i'm literal trash im realy really sorry

ALPHYS sent you a text!: sorry i'm really sorry i really really am

ALPHYS sent you a text!: you can drop by or send the phone or whatever still if you still want to

Twenty more.

ALPHYS sent you a text!: ok

ALPHYS sent you a text!: try to get some sleep.

He didn't pick it back up.

Chapter Text

Some time has passed, and I wake up from what I can only assume was a few minutes of sleep. The day passes slowly.

Sometime after lunch I'm once again visited by King Asgore, who persists in misunderstanding how a jail is supposed to work by asking me if I wanted to come up again today. Although it feels almost silly to imprison yourself if your own jailer isn't going to do it right, so I'll agree to come up. I'm tired, so I don't have the will to ask what he has planned this time.

After all, he has been pulling me out of the basement a lot since my return, and most of them are pretty flimsy reasons. Such as to help him water the plants or have a cup of tea, although on one of these occasions, he asked me to help him attempt to make a butterscotch-cinnamon pie, which was not successful between the two of us. All of them are things which I don't know if I am bothered by or not.

It's clear what he's trying to do, and while I appreciate the effort, I... don't think he entirely understands what he's doing. He has only ever known one side of me, and the other side he's only experienced through hearsay. Nothing I say can dissuade him, however. That's how it's always been; even when he himself did unforgivable acts, he didn't change in that respect. It's remarkable.

Although his majesty is also tricky, in his way. I realize immediately what his reason is this time, when I come to the first floor. He didn't tell me he has company.

Oh god, it's no wonder he didn't. I should have known this was coming, that he was going to attempt something like this. Although he says that they are here "to visit me," so it must be more of that human's doing. That human's far too presumptuous for their own good; I know it has to be their idea, those two would not come here of their own will, at least not Su- Sans at any rate. He has to only be here for his brother's sake.

Yes, much too presumptuous. Although Asgore himself could have given me some kind of warning so I could decline his offer instead of being caught up here like a rat in a trap-

"HI GASTER! YOU LOOK DIFFERENT WHEN YOU'RE NOT WEARING YOUR COAT," Papyrus said first, cutting the awkward silence off at the roots.

It didn't help much that Dr. Gaster was having a harder time replying to even that. "..." As some kind of noise came out of him, Frisk made sure to turn on the Wingding Translator App, which caught him as he finally uttered, "You're still wearing that... costume."

"OH- MY BATTLE BODY! YES! I HAVE TO ALWAYS BE PREPARED!" Papyrus said, rapping a fist on his so-called armor as if to illustrate his point.

Nobody was looking down at anyone's shoes, so no one noticed that Sans had actually put on sneakers today. They were untied, but Frisk had clapped anyway when she saw them. Now that they were actually here, he wasn't venturing to point out the slight change in outfit. Standing beside Frisk, she could feel a sort of energy coming off of him and it was unnerving, when he was normally so chilled out.

Well she hadn't a change in clothes to share, unless anyone was going to care that she wore white under her sweater today, but she did have something to venture while Dr. Gaster only said, "Uh, that's nice."

She cut in, stepping forward, "Oh, I want to show you-" Frisk then pulled her lips apart, looking as at ease as always to a casual observer. "I got a new tooth! The dentist said that it's ten times stronger than my old one." And to somehow demonstrate that point, she licked her tooth with her tongue.

The unspoken words in that sentence were, To replace the one you knocked out. Rigid, Dr. Gaster nodded with a small bob of his head. "That's. ...Nice," he repeated.

"cat got your tongue, wing-dingus?" Sans said, and frowning Frisk nudged him- to which he carelessly nudged her back.

Despite her concern, the jab seemed to give Dr. Gaster something to hold onto instead, whether Sans meant it that way or not. He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, one hand smoothing back the tape with which they were affixed to his skull. "I was not expecting your visit."

"I wasn't either." Nearly everyone glanced to the side of the room, as if they had all forgotten Asgore was here until he spoke up. "Although I'm happy for the visit! Actually," he inclined his great head in Frisk's direction. "I did want to speak with you over some political matters, Frisk, if you don't mind."

Dr. Gaster blinked. "Oh, that's right." He stared at Frisk, who stared back. "You are apparently more important than you led me to believe."

"Huh?" The child's smile halted before she looked back at Asgore, understanding. "Oh, not really. I just have a cool job. I don't get paid or anything, though."

Dr. Gaster inclined his head. "You don't?"

"Nope- oh," she cut herself off as Asgore cleared his throat. "I'll tell you about it in a minute."

"WAIT, YOU'RE LEAVING?"

She felt a small pang as Papyrus half-approached her, then stopped himself. Sans, whom she guessed would be irritated with her for a while longer, wasn't looking and was instead slowly eating a ketchup packet. Frisk bunched the edges of her sleeves over her hands. "I'll just be a minute. I'll be right in the other room."

"UH, WELL, OKAY! BE GOOD FOR HIS MAJESTY!"

"I will." The child nodded over at Dr. Gaster, too, who was glaring at the seemingly oblivious Asgore. "See you."

"—Yes."

It was just in the other room, but Frisk didn't know if she was really going to be right back to see the skeletons all talk to each other. There was a still-hot pot of golden flower tea sitting on the stove, and Asgore gestured to the child to sit as he poured it into two large round cups.

From where they left them, Dr. Gaster had started speaking again and was being spoken to. The phone no longer picked up what he said, though, making it impossible for her to know if he was trying to make conversation or making death threats or just choking out "that's nice" over and over. She frowned and closed her phone for now.

Asgore set the cup of tea in front of her, sitting down on the opposite side of the table. "The walls are too thick in this castle."

"You didn't actually need to talk to me about anything, did you?" Frisk asked, twisting around in her seat. Right now she could understand only Papyrus and some snatches of Sans' naturally low voice. Asgore, while he sipped his tea, also had ears that twitched like they were listening.

But his words drew her back around, softer so as not to be heard, "No, no, I do, but... er. I confess, I can't help but be a bit worried. This is the first time they've been alone together since he came back, isn't that right?"

Frisk poked, and then took a sip of, her tea. "Yeah, it's true. The last time was when we were in Mt. Ebott. I hope they're doing okay."

Gaster, for his part, was from the moment that they left silently cursing the king for all of this. Sans and Papyrus were watching his movements. Sans seemed to be enjoying his discomfort, his smirk faint but nonetheless directed at him. It was rather like being stalked by two dogs, although as soon as that thought showed up in his head he threw it away.

He wanted to ask them things.

He also didn't want to ask them things.

He wanted to say something.

But he didn't say anything.

Papyrus was the one who ventured further. "OH! SO- YOU LIVE IN THE BASEMENT NOW?"

At that, he nodded. And when nodding didn't seem enough, he said, "Yes. Until further notice." Both of them clearly understood him, so he didn't sign it. "It's an arrangement I have with His Majesty."

"SO ARE YOU WORKING WITH KING ASGORE, THEN?"

"Not exactly..."

"WELL," Papyrus tilted his head and tapped his jaw in thought, "IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE ROOMMATES, IT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO ME, ESPECIALLY SINCE I DON'T THINK THE BASEMENT IS VERY WELL FURNISHED AND IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO EARN MONEY THROUGH A STABLE POSITION (UNLIKE SANS WHO HAS LIKE TWENTY WEIRD JOBS.) AND AFTER ALL, IF YOU WERE THE ROYAL SCIENTIST BEFORE IT'D BE EASY TO-"

It was babbling. Nervous babbling. "Papy-"

"OH!" His eyes bugged for a moment and then he scratched the back of his head, "I FORGOT ALPHYS IS ALREADY IN THAT POSITION! WAIT, CAN THERE BE TWO ROYAL SCIENTISTS?"

"I'm not going to be the royal scientist anymore."

That startled the other skeleton. "HEH-NYEH? WHY NOT? WELLL... I CAN SEE WHY NOT? BUT I'M SURE THAT THERE'S OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO! BECAUSE ALSO I WOULDN'T THINK THE BASEMENT OF THE CASTLE IS THAT COMFORTABLE..."

Oh god. "Papyrus, I don-"

"IF YOU WANT, I CAN HELP YOU PICK OUT THINGS! I'M VERY GOOD AT INTERIOR DESIGN! I HELPED SANS WHEN WE MOVED INTO THAT HOUSE IN SNOWDIN."

Oh god, oh god. "That's not necessary."

Even as Gaster was emphatically saying as much, Papyrus wouldn't stop, his voice only cracking once while he continued, "I DON'T KNOW, KING ASGORE ISN'T THE BEST AT IT... NO OFFENSE TO HIM, OF COURSE! HE'S VERY NICE! BUT THIS PLACE IS KIND OF GREY AND DEPRESSING," and a quick look around was enough to illustrate that, with everything so monochrome in the room, flowers aside. Papyrus shrugged, "IN FACT IF IT WAS DARKER IT WOULD LOOK KIND OF LIKE BACK IN THE LAB, SO SERIOUSLY IF YOU NEED ANY HEL-"

"Be quiet 2-P."

I didn't mean to say it; I wasn't even trying, wasn't thinking.

It used to be that he never interrupted me, was never this insane level of talkative- except on the days where he was trying his hardest to reason with me while I was working. All of that inane chatter coming out of Papyrus right now brought it back, and I wasn't thinking. Yet somehow, deep down, I also knew that if anything would make him stop talking, it was that.

So I must have been thinking, at least a little. I can say to myself that I didn't mean to call him that, even when I did it on purpose.

But this hurts a lot more than I remember it doing. Especially to see the effect in front of me.

I can't hide, I can't distract myself from it.

It's pathetic. Even after all this time I can't help but wish that those two wouldn't look at me this way. If I had chosen another path, just once, they wouldn't- and we wouldn't even be here right now. One different choice, that's all it would have taken for them to look at me without that fear or hesitation they show now. And I would be changed, too, I'm sure. Between the three of us, then, no one would ever know what I was capable of, that I was willing and able to hurt other people to serve my own goals. It'd be a blissful ignorance for me.

But, in a way, that's also wrong.

In a way, this look they are giving me is also better. No, not better, perhaps. Easier, certainly. Because, with this, I think I've hit my limit of how low I can sink today.

As the silence became prolonged, so that Asgore's voice should have been carrying over from the other room while he was talking to Frisk, neither Sans nor Papyrus moved. Papyrus especially, predictably, was frozen in place, like he might burst into tears or lose control if he made a move to acknowledge the old "name" of his, suspended before his face. Sans looked more like he did in the Inner Core- or in their first meeting in the void, as Gaster recalled- those times before he started attacking him. He was motionless for his brother's sake more than anything.

But over the seconds, Gaster went through a few changes. His own shock at the words he had said faded, his gaze turning inward instead. Unable to keep himself from trembling, however easily it could have been overlooked to the observer, he squared his shoulders and turned his gaze back outwards. At Sans and Papyrus. It might be that no one was talking even now because no one was breathing; Gaster was the first to exhale.

And he spoke, again without signing, "Well. I think we've established why this won't work."

It wasn't serious, but it wasn't a joke either. Papyrus was next to start thawing at the words, with Sans following with a look towards his brother. Definitely, neither of them were even pretending to smile now. Well, Sans was, but he also wasn't.

But, even unfrozen, they still didn't reply. Gaster was only one with even a vague idea what to say, and perhaps it was that the two recognized that. Or, maybe they were both still struggling to move past the memories he dredged up. He wished he could stop. That they would stop.

It wasn't going to happen. "What you're both feeling right now won't go away," he continued. "No matter how much I- or you," he glanced quickly at Papyrus, who trembled. "-Might want it to."

They knew this better than anyone else involved. They knew better than Asgore, better than Toriel, better than Alphys, and better than the human what kind of person he could be. So after seeing that, how could he possibly expect them to see him as anything else? They'd panic if he so much as picked up a power tool. Gaster found himself gripping his arms, not looking at them with his one good eye. "Since small talk won't make that any less true, let me say this much. I am n-." Breathe. "Never going to hurt either of you again.

"My experiments with you two were... mistakes, I've realized that now." Breathe. "And despite Asgore and that human's effort, I have no intention of interfering in the lives you have currently, either. So in the future... I think it would be easier for the both of you to ignore that I exist. Since," he couldn't help but add, "Unfortunately, I do again."

Sans for the moment looked at a loss for words, although surely if he had any he would have said "sounds good to me." But tugging mindlessly on the edge his glove, Papyrus suddenly burst out, "BUT! I DON'T WANT TO JUST IGNORE THAT YOU EXIST! I JUST WANT TO GET PAST- WHATEVER THIS IS!" He shuddered, but only once, when he looked at his hands. "AND I ALREADY FORGAVE YOU! BECAUSE WE'RE FRIENDS NOW, AREN'T WE?"

Gaster sighed, "You don't want me for a friend. The only reason you 'forgave' me is because you've overlooked everything that's happened."

"NO! THE REASON I FORGAVE YOU IS BECAUSE I WANTED TO!" Papyrus cut in, and Gaster again froze. "I DIDN'T OVERLOOK ANYTHING, I SWEAR!"

He took a deep breath, and then kept going, "I SAW YOU HESITATE ALL THOSE MOMENTS WHEN YOU DIDN'T WANT TO HURT US, LIKE WHEN YOU PUT OUR PLATES ON AND I SAW YOU FLINCH A BUNCH OF TIMES! AND I SAW ALL THOSE DAYS WHEN YOU DIDN'T TAKE US AWAY OR DO ANYTHING TO US! I REMEMBER WHEN YOU TOLD ME THAT YOU BLINDED SANS BY MISTAKE, AND YOU WERE CAREFUL NOT TO BLIND ME TOO! I HEARD YOU PROMISE TO GIVE ME THE COLOR CUBE WHEN I WAS UPSET-"

Again with the color cube; once more, Gaster had started to tremble.

"I EVEN REMEMBER WHEN YOU HELPED ME GET MY ARM BACK ON, AND FRISK TOLD ME HOW YOU DIDN'T KILL THEM BECAUSE THEY'RE OUR FRIEND! AND I REMEMBER HOW YOU ALWAYS TOLD ME THAT YOU WERE DOING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS BECAUSE PEOPLE NEEDED YOU TO!" Triumphantly, although a little less so when he gazed back at Gaster again, Papyrus finished just a little bit quieter, "YOU SEE? I DIDN'T OVERLOOK ANYTHING! NYEH-heh. ...Th-THERE IS A LOT MORE, TOO, IF YOU WANT ME TO KEEP GOING."

He didn't move, except for the shaking. "No. Stop."

So Papyrus stopped, clenching his hands into nervous fists. Sans beside him kept making small darting glances towards his brother; when Gaster made eye contact with him, as if demanding that he do something to put some sense in this idiot's head, he grinned bitterly at his creator. "yeah, uh, i can see how i'd be your best bet, but you're outta luck. i'm just here for moral support."

Papyrus smiled at Sans and then at Gaster; Gaster, in turn, shrank back and shook his head. "I... don't..."

The smile faded a little, but all the same this other skeleton extended his hand. "I-IT'S ALRIGHT IF YOU'RE NOT REALLY GOOD AT IT- AFTER ALL, I'M AN EXCELLENT BEST FRIEND! I CAN TEACH YOU HOW TO STOP DOING THE CREEPY SCIENTIST THING!"

"That's not- you're not-" Gaster cut himself off with a sigh, and despite the expectation on Papyrus' face he just stared at that hand.

But Sans piped up again, and he flinched, "you might as well take it, bud, he's not gonna give up."

Finally, at the very end he did take it. Papyrus was completely ecstatic, once more, even at something so simple as a handshake.

"No, I suppose not. You two don't ever change."

"What do you think he just said?" Asgore asked in a voice so quiet that Frisk had to strain to hear, when Gaster's outburst was followed by stillness.

Sans and Papyrus weren't talking anymore, that was for certain. "Something bad," she whispered back.

Across from her, she heard the king sigh heavily. "I think you're right."

Frisk drooped her head down and let the steam of her tea warm her cold face. This was not going very well. She hadn't really expected it to, but she at least wanted to be able to understand where it went wrong. For next time, if nothing else. She looked over at Asgore, who was tapping his furry fingers on the table silently.

She picked at her cup and took a gulp. Some seconds passed, in which there was still silence from the other room. Some more passed that felt more like hours, and then they heard Gaster's wingding speech and nothing else. It didn't sound very good either, and there were a lot of pauses in-between sentences. Frisk tapped her fingers together and took another gulp of the tea. She almost choked when, off guard this time, it nearly burned her tongue.

By the time the child was done quietly ghhhing her throat, her narrow eyes aimed towards the boss monster in front of her. "You've been really nice."

"I, uh, thank you."

She shook her head, "I was kind of thinking you would be as mad as Toriel, as mom was. Like, really mad." Another ghh to clear her throat. "But you've just been really nice. Even though... um, and I think it's... helped... a little..." Her words trailed, and she finished only faintly, "Um, so, thanks back."

But as she finished Asgore shook his head, and right then he seemed very exhausted, seemed older. "It's not completely well-meaning. In part, I think I give him so much slack because I am tired. I... I could be enraged that he lied to me, over and over, and made all of us worry. That he experimented on two very nice monsters right under my nose. That he did questionable things while he was gone from existence.

"But even if I were to try that kind of rage just doesn't... come easily to me anymore." He shook his head, as if mocking himself. "I'd rather go back to the way things were, as much as possible."

The human in front of him didn't reply.

He used a moment's thought in the silence and then he said, taking up his cup, "But more than that, I've known Dr. Gaster for a very long time. Although I know he has done something unforgivable for Sans and Papyrus, he has done many good things for other monsters as well. Many hard, hard things." He looked uncomfortable as he spoke, but continued, "I believe that deep down my friend has been, and is still, a good person... Even if he does not believe it anymore. And I know that no good will come of forgetting that."

"Tor- mom still seems really mad at him, though." Frisk mumbled into the table.

When she looked up again, she saw the king smile gently at her while he sipped his tea, "Regarding Gaster, there is... a lot she has to come to terms with. But I'm sure that she agrees with me. Even if she is not as quick to forgive his crimes personally. But after all, when hurting children are involved, that's the kind of woman she is."

"She's not like that at home." Indeed, with her Toriel was very patient. The only reason Frisk could imagine her otherwise was because she witnessed it in person some precious few times.

"No," Asgore laughed, "I imagine not."

"I wish everyone could just be friends. I wish Sans and Papyrus would go back to the way they were, too."

As Frisk rested her head on the table, Asgore kindly did the same. "I fear that that is a tall order, child. You can't change someone's feelings with willpower."

"...But I want to."

In the next moment, she felt his large and warm paw running over her head, smoothing her hair. The gesture was almost too much, and she blinked heavily. "You sound much like my child did whenever they got upset." When Frisk stiffened at that, he added, "I'm sure that things will get better for them. It just means having patience, and perhaps some persistence. I think you of all people would be good at that."

The girl didn't reply, except to sigh and close her eyes.

They easily heard Papyrus shouting in the other room. Both Asgore and Frisk sat at attention then, sitting up in their chairs to listen. It was in wingding, too. Maybe none of them wanted the two to listen in anymore, which was extremely disappointing.

But it didn't sound like an argument, at least. The shouting was Papyrus' normal level of volume, and after a while there came talking from the other two as well, all at normal volumes. So it was a discussion, even though they couldn't hear what was being said.

And, at least, when Frisk and Asgore risked coming back in, pretending as though they had been talking about something important and unrelated, none of them had killed each other.

Chapter Text

The child awoke in a dark place after a long fall, yet again.

The first time it happened, they hadn't been in a place like this. It was someplace nice, covered in flowers and gentle ruins, their opposition weak and easily cowed with intimidation. The first person to greet them in those ruins had been kind, even if in the end they were only wasting the child's time. Not long after leaving that place they couldn't help but feel some regret, because none of the other areas that they fell into since were as pleasant. None of the other people who greeted that child were nearly as kind. It was only by having their trusty tools at their disposal that they were able to make it through.

But the consistent effort that it took to get through took a toll on them. And now they were in these dark surroundings with nobody there to greet them, monster or man, and almost no space in which they could move. Just trying to get up, they banged their head against a low ceiling. Trying to go forward, they hit their face against cold metal bars. They could not stretch out their arms or legs, or see through the darkness. Several sticky things were on their stomach underneath their shirt, of a nature that they did not know- only aware that they were laying on top of wires. All of it was confusing, with no illumination of any kind. Still as the human came more awake, they didn't need light to know what was going on.

It was like a carrier box, one that they might've used to house their own dog back at home, which they were imprisoned in now. That was why there was very little room to move around. They were naturally quick to pick up on this and already exhausted, sighing and lying down against the cold floor of the carrier beneath them. They already knew there was no point trying to break out. Their weapon, their weapon was gone from their person, along with all the food they had been stockpiling in their pockets. And they were still weak, health low and hungry. Something in their midsection might've been broken.

They didn't care what happened next, so this time the child just went to sleep and hoped that it would bring a bit of that health back.

But when they were startled awake, by the sound of blasting and booming magic, it hadn't recovered that much.

Still, going back to sleep right now would be much harder. For one thing there was a lot more light, when their eyes opened again, then there was back when they woke up for the first time.

There was a lot more noise too. Once the blasting faded, the child could swear they heard talking. A lot of it, in a familiar voice, was a bunch of words that they couldn't understand, a bunch of words that they had never understood. It fizzled and pulsed like so much noise, the only way they were able to distinguish it as speech was the deliberation by which that familiar voice made each word. Whatever it was, it gave the child a headache- although they already had one, for obvious reasons. Some of it, though, was in another voice that was not as familiar and yet, at the same time, more understandable.

Although the child couldn't catch most of what was being said, their ears clogged as though they were underwater.

Ssshzoowm!

Sssshzoowm!

The sound became louder, but they weren't scared.

Through the bars of their makeshift prison, some of the light poured in along with a view of the larger room beyond the carrier. There wasn't much to look at. It was a gray floor, a gray wall as far as they could see, and several scorch marks supposedly at random all around alongside bones that stuck out at odd angles.

Somebody was standing not too far from the carrier, with chalk white feet. The child didn't need to guess what it was- they already knew what it was. It didn't surprise them anymore. Maybe it was from the owner of those feet that this loud, almost intelligible voice was coming. "DON'T WANT TO DO THAT!"

The child blinked slowly at the white feet. With one small, sluggish hand they rooted under their own shirt for the wires they lay on top of. Too much effort was required to pull the sticky things off, and all that resulted in was the child laying on top of their own hand, dragging it back out... just as the carrier began to shift.

The tug on the carrier that pulled the carrier foreword wasn't just on the carrier, but also a tug that the child felt within themselves. The child struggled weakly and groaned with discomfort at the sensation, but regardless of what they did or tried to do they soon found themselves much closer to the white feet in the room. The completely unintelligible voice boomed on overhead, and the feet were so close, close enough that the child was sure that they could hear the figure if they would just speak again.

They knew that it wouldn't work, that it would accomplish nothing. But still, the child started to drag themself forward until their nose pushed against the bars of their prison, and they raised their voice to speak. What came out was soft and hoarse, the kid fighting to make themself heard over their own low health. All they wanted was to ask for help, ask the being if it could let him out. All they did was insist that they just wanted to go home, that they didn't want to hurt anyone.

"IS THERE SOMETHING ALIVE IN THERE?"

Evidently, their speech reached the figure somehow, even if only a little. They did not stop trying to make it reach more and more, even if ultimately the level of volume in their calls remained the same. The told the figure that they were trapped, they tried to ask him where they were, who the other person was, if they could have some food- all pointless things, words that spilled out in little whimpers until there was no more voice in the child's throat to speak with.

The shouting going on above the carrier drowned out the rest of it, anyway. The white feet moved in agitation, stamping, no longer facing the carrier, while the voice to which they belonged screamed at someone else. His words were muddied in a fog while the child groaned again, desiring to drink water but not expecting any at any time soon.

Each time that loud voice spoke, the unintelligible odd one rebuked him, all at the same level of volume. The child did not understand, but it gave up wasting energy to think about it a long time ago. The voice of the white feet simply was sparring with the voice of odd non-words.

Until eventually his arguing got to a feverish pitch while he screamed at that person, and while the child didn't care to pay attention to all these words they couldn't ignore them anymore, once so loud. "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME, I'M NOT GOING TO KILL ANYTHING!"

The child disagreed. Anyone could be driven to kill, if it was necessary.

"I'M NOT, I'M NOT, I'M NOT!"

So loud, so loud. His voice was getting so frantic and shrill- it could only end badly.

"I WON'T!"

The human tried to bury their face in the floor of the carrier, gritting their teeth.

"I WON'T... I'M... I...

"I..."

At first, when Subject 2 faltered, Dr. Gaster believed that he might be able to press him into completing the task after all.

In his grasp he could feel Subject 1's utter terror, his soul shaking as hard as the rest of him while the bone of his attack just barely scraped against the bone of his skull. Like this, if even a little of his magic were not under his control, he could turn the little skeleton to dust in an instant. He knew that, and so did his two subjects- keeping that in mind, it would be better for 1-S to stop shaking quite so hard like he was doing.

There was nothing else for 2-P to do. Gaster knew that there was no earthly way he would let his "brother" die; the concept seemed to frighten him more than anything else on this laboratory. In order to keep his brother from dying, he would need to destroy the carrier with his new attack, regardless of his own squeamishness at taking an insignificant life. It was inevitable- so much so that even his breath was caught waiting for it, expecting it.

But...

2-P didn't move.

His eyesockets were squeezed shut against Sans' inevitable transition into dust, tears running down his face. His voice was utterly broken, but all Gaster could hear him say was, "I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it... I'm not... going to do it..."

Gaster's chest seized up. The only sound in that testing room was whimpering, whimpering from every other living being from him.

Too much time passed with nothing happening, and he finally let out the breath he'd been holding. Gently, to prevent any unnecessary damage, he set 1-S back down on the ground, releasing the hold he had over his creation's SOUL. 1-S trembled in place, wrapping his arms around himself, and it looked as if he was about to collapse from the strain of his ordeal. 2-P cracked his eyes back open, and Gaster glimpsed immediate relief on his face to see his brother intact.

"It seems," he said, his voice flat, "that we now know how little you mean to your 'brother', Subject 1."

2-P began to tremble, as hard as 1-S was now. "I... I... DIDN'T WANT..."

"That's enough." With a wave of his hand and a solid grip on 2-P's SOUL, he carried him back onto the observation deck beside the other subject. "There will be no more testing today. Come with me, you will be returning to your rooms." So saying, he led both of them after himself with two magic hands, appearing as if summoned out of the air and immediately brushing them forward.

For once, 1-S did not have any snide commentary to give at the end of the test, nor did the brothers speak any words to each other on the way back to their cells. There was still a little bit of whimpering from behind, from one or the other, but he didn't turn back to check on them.

He didn't waste any time getting them back into confinement, shoving them quickly inside the dark little room that comprised of their cell at the end of a much too long and dark hallway. Right before he left, he was unable to avoid catching a terrified look from 2-P, the subject turning around where he stood. His eyesockets were as of yet still filled with tears, unimaginably wide for someone with such a narrow face. 1-S, on the other hand, did not turn around and only stared at the opposite wall, arms still wrapped around himself.

Gaster paid them no more attention and silently walked away down the hallway. He did not see as both skeletons crumpled up together by their miserable excuse for a bed, 2-P pressing his face into his knees to conceal his sobs.

Not that there was any reason to with the testing over, but he couldn't deal with them right now. He had a specimen to handle that was at the moment of higher priority. So he returned to the testing room where the carrier was still sitting, mentally calculating how long it might take to clean off all the scorch marks from 2-P's intensified magic attacks.

The carrier was making no more noise. Gaster took a deep, steadying breath when he entered deeper into the room, stepping into his repurposed firing range. Keeping his magic at the ready, he knelt down next to the barred box and listened, still hearing nothing. So then, deciding that for the moment there was no danger, he unlocked the carrier and summoned disembodied hands to take out its cargo.

The cargo being the human child.

The second to fall down into the Kingdom of Monsters, and the first to have the misfortune to almost literally fall right into his grasp.

Slowly, Gaster dragged the human out of the carrier- first by the hair, and then by the back of their shirt once it was within reach. The wires threaded through the back and attached to their chest didn't want to cooperate with first getting caught on something, and so it was only with a few hard yanks that he got that little body all the way out. The whole time, although they were gripped by glowing disembodied hands and in an unfamiliar, threatening environment, they didn't resist.

That didn't mean, however, that they weren't awake. Their eyes were open, albeit not all the way. They stared at Gaster with a weak, clouded gaze, more so as he rolled them off their stomach and detached the wires he'd taped to their chest- it wasn't necessary to keep track of their vitals anymore. The whole time the human specimen only made weak, cursory movements that spoke of a discomfort with being touched, but there wasn't any energy left for them to struggle.

Their eyes were the strongest, that cloudy look at getting clearer as time went on. The expression they made was easy to read and easy to expect, burning holes in him or at least trying to.

Since the experiment did not progress the way he had hoped, he would have to take up these measures by himself. With a physical hand he reached into the carrier and removed the prototype capsule he had rigged up, open as if expectant. All the while the specimen kept staring at him, not saying anything- probably not able to.

The look in its eyes at this moment was just the same as... That of the first human.

Dr. Gaster kept the capsule in place and took a step back, no longer seeing a point to sharing eye contact. Using his disembodied hands, he took the child by the neck and snapped it.

Sitting down at his desk later, beside him a capsule containing a bright human SOUL, Gaster typed up a new entry.

"Today's experiment was a mitigated success. I was successfully able to transplant a new, more powerful magical attack onto 2-P with no apparent side effects or immediate loss of impact, using the high-intensity magic emitters. Quantification of the strength of the attack will be a job for another day, however. 2-P was too resistant to using his blaster on this occasion. Perhaps I will have more success after attaching the emitters to 1-S.

"However," he continued, glancing towards the capsule. "I will need a new specimen with which to help appraise their blasting power. I could not risk leaving the human alive any longer. At the least, I have also had success with my capsule prototype. It has safely contained the SOUL of the specimen and left it at no risk of absorption. Tomorrow I will present it to his Majesty. I imagine I will need some form of cover story for how I acquired it, but I'm sure regardless he will be relieved to have not done the deed himself."

The constant typing paused for a moment, as he sighed briefly. "If it was up to me, he would not have to do any of it. But it's difficult to predict what the circumstances will be for the next humans to fall down." And then out loud, he said, "... If any more humans fall down."

To the entry Gaster added, "Although I wish to dispose of the human's remains myself, I have a feeling that King Asgore is not just making coffins for fun." There were freezers in True Lab that he could use, if he could just drag one into this hidden part of it, that should slow the decomposition process human bodies went through. It was going to be an awful pain, but better to be safe than sorry.

"Their personal effects, however..."

With one hand he slid open the drawer of his desk, pulling out the small toy gun and hat that he had taken from the child several hours earlier. He opened the chamber and emptied the gun of its BB pellets.

"...May as well go to the dump. They are of no use to anyone now."

Chapter Text

It was always windy around Mt. Ebott, and in fact it was sometimes pretty windy within Mt. Ebott as well- Frisk didn't know where that wind came from, but it was welcome all the same. Near the top of the mountain it got a little chilly, but since she was always wearing a sweater she didn't mind. The real problem was her backpack, stuffed with board games, which kept sliding from side to side on her back as she trekked up the mountain.

It eventually settled once she reached the right ledge, able to stand up straight and readjust the straps on her shoulders. Without it threatening to drag her off, or fall over her face, or smack her cheek, Frisk could see her surroundings clearly. Her eyes darted over the grassy space where the barrier used to be, searching for a little troublemaking flower.

Typically the ledge was the riskiest place for them to meet, or at least risky for Frisk. There wasn't any point where it was easy to SAVE, so if Flowey was not in a mood to be disturbed or was just feeling especially sadistic, there was a chance Frisk could lose a lot of progress by visiting.

If Flowey was deeper in the mountain, or acting docile, she at least had a chance to dip behind the Barrier site and protect her progress with a SAVE point that way. Frisk never made a set time for when she would arrive, to increase the chances that he wouldn't be there to meet her.

When she reached the ledge today, she didn't know if it was a docile day or not. This time, regardless, she found Flowey waiting for her and she was at once on edge. The flower was in the middle of the grassy ledge, surrounded by smaller stalks and wearing his usual disarming expression that turned cruel once they made eye contact. Taking a deep breath, Frisk gripped the strap of her backpack with pale fingers and waved. "Hey, Flowey."

"So you made it," Flowey said back, roots wriggling under the dirt. "I hope you brought something for me."

No attacking yet, despite the grouchy edge to his voice; Frisk was encouraged. "Yes, I did." She knelt, unzipping the backpack, and drew out battered rectangular boxes, most of them full of paper money, cardboard cards, and metal game pieces. "These are the games I told you about last time. We have Sorry!, which I think we might need one more person to play..."

"We can always have Alice play with us."

"There's also Monopoly, and Guess Who, and Battleship..." Frisk continued, ignoring the bitter remark. She looked up, after laying each game side by side before the little flower. "Which one do you want to play first?"

Flowey hissed and retracted his roots from where they had spread under the earth, bursting only one of the winding things through the dirt in front of the games. He scowled and waved a root over each box, disgusted by Frisk's placid smile as he did. "... I'm feeling prehensile. Let's play Monopoly."

That sounded good to her, although it was going to take the longest. She pulled the board out of the box. Flowey, in turn, pulled back his root and watched her work. It wasn't that he couldn't help, but he probably was hoping to see the wind blow her cards away. "Boy," Frisk said as she sorted through the money, "There's a lot more flowers around here than there were last year."

In fact, this part of the mountain has almost always been bare of flowers. They were new, too, all of them buds. Frisk hesitated in setting up to investigate them with curious poking fingers.

"Huh?" Flowey bobbed left. "Oh, I've been firing bullets at birds who land up here. Sometimes I miss and they get buried in the dirt."

Frisk set the money down and yelped when the wind tried to carry it off- she used the dog for a paperweight. "Huh? These grew from your bullets?"

"You do realize they're not literally bullets, right?" Flowey raised up a root and edged a white bullet from under his petals, usually levitated and shot at high speeds. Frisk gripped Mr. Monopoly hard in her hands, enough that it hurt, but didn't speak. Rolling his eyes, the flower lobbed the bullet down before her.

The child carefully took the little white oval into her hands, and her eyes widened. "Oh, it's a seed!"

"No duh."

And then, setting the seed down carefully on the grass, a realization struck her. "Wait, you mean these flowers are all from seeds you planted?"

Flowey was not as similarly struck. "Uh, yes? I'm a flower. Did you miss that?"

"You have pollinated seeds!"

"What."

Monopoly forgotten for the moment, and not yet noticing when she scattered the chance cards all over with her feet, Frisk crawled to the nearest bud. Flowey's bud. She needed a second; so badly did she wanted to see it unfurl, so badly did she want to see it greet the sun. To see them all greet the sun together.

Her voice was a breathless whisper, "I can't believe this. You actually reproduced!"

"...You're getting way too excited over this, Frisk," the flower said as he surveyed his own growing offspring.

She poked a curled petal, wide-eyed while she watched them tremble in the mountain air. Gradually her voice gained its normal volume, "But Flowey, this is amazing! You're actually creating life, you're contributing to the mountain's ecosystem!" Her vocabulary was a score one for biology class. "Don't you think that's fantastic?"

If it was possible to, Flowey would have shrugged. "Please, this has happened almost every year. I just uproot them when they finish growing. ...I make a little game out of it, actually."

"What?" Frisk started back on her feet with a yelp, "But that's terrible! You're like their mom!"

"Oh my god, I am not their mom."

"Well. Dad, then." As Flowey bristled as her, she sputtered and kept an eye out for roots or bullets with her name on them. Things were getting better when it came to how often she died during her visits, but Flowey was easily irritated. "They're your kids all the same."

No roots were tangling her feet yet, but the flower gave an aggravated sigh, "Frisk, they are not kids. They're dumb, brainless, DETERMINATION-less flowers. I barely even do anything to make them! They just grow out of the stuff that I shoot at things with."

Lots of human children were conceived with just as much carelessness and just as little concentration.

Even so Frisk was forced to admit that Flowey had a point. Still, these flowers that were just barely starting to bloom looked so cute—like little egg yolks, curled up into ovals and colored a sticky, pale yellow. They would probably smell sweet, when they finally opened. "Well, can you at least give me these ones?"

He snorted, "Ew, no. I'm not giving you my own kids."

"Flowey."

But he remained obstinate, scowling at her with his fangs out. "You're getting creepy about this. Just forget it, they're not that big a deal."

Mouth pulled tight, Frisk clasped her hands together. "Pleeease? It can be my belated birthday present."

"I was never going to give you a birthday present."

"I'll be your best friend!"

"You already are my—I said forget it!"

"I won't ask for anything else, pleeeease?"

And finally, Flowey had looked at Frisk's big pleading eyes (bigger than they usually were, at any rate) and grunted. "Mrn fine. If it will shut you up."

It didn't. But the board games were at least amusing.

"Wasn't it your birthday recently?" Leo had asked, looking at the little pail that Frisk held out to him, one filled with dirt and a flower that was just barely blooming.

The girl shrugged, continuing to hold out her gift despite her arm starting to get tired. "Yeah, but this isn't related to that. I just wanted to give it to you!"

"Oh! Well it looks really pretty!" Leo whistled at the flower, before he drooped. "I didn't get you anything though... uh, um, sorry..."

No, no, no, he couldn't get upset. The whole point of this gift to him was to avoid that. Because he had been sad far too often lately, and deep down Frisk was certain that some of that was her own fault. So she didn't want him upset over something silly like this. Hoping that he might take it and be unable to talk, Frisk held the pail more firmly out to the monster child. "Oh, Leo, that's okay, I wanted to give this to you! I want you to be happy. So if you are, that's something you gave me right there, don't you think?"

At that, he seemed to perk up a little. Not too much, but it was something. "Heheh... If you insist. Gosh you're cool, Frisk," he said, his words becoming muffled as he gripped the handle of the pail in his powerful teeth. The weight didn't seem much of a problem for him, the child only bending under it a little before shooting back upright. The flower bobbed in place and reminded Frisk of how Flowey did his little dance. "Where'd you get them?"

"That's the best part!" She bounced on her feet, "I got them from a magic evil flower. Isn't that cool?"

She could practically see Leo's formerly melancholy eyes turn to stars. "R-really?!" He said, half-mumbling out of the corners of his mouth. The flower danced again. "Are you serious!?"

"Yeah!"

Leo jumped up and down, spilling dirt on the sidewalk. "Yoooo!" He said, or tried to say. It came out rather muffled.

But Frisk picked up the slack. "Yoooo!"

Laughing, Leo rocked the pail back until it was steady, watching the gold flower with shining eyes. "I bet this's magic too, huh?"

Frisk grinned wide; she hadn't thought of that. "Yeah, it might be!"

"I wonder what kind..."

"You should find out." As much as she would have loved to do that with him, Frisk spoke and pulled her wagon of flowers closer to her feet. "Although I gotta go now. I've got to get these magic flowers to people who need them."

Leo's tail wagged behind him and he nodded, starting off towards his house. "Gosh, okay. See ya, Frisk!"

Frisk waved at Leo until he was no longer looking and pulled her presents along. She had quite a bit of walking to do today, as she reflected. Luckily she didn't have far to go for the next recipients; the skeleton brothers' house was just a block up the street.

Sans and Papyrus also had positive reactions to the flowers—she put both their buttercups in the same large flowerpot, one that was meant to hang close by from a fixture. She painted "My Best Friends" on the base. She was half tempted, though, to tell them not to let Undyne see the base whenever she visited.

With groggy eyes Sans examined their present from the couch, while Papyrus looked the pot over for cracks with the hugest smile on his face. "how come they're both in one thing?"

Frisk tapped her index fingers together and said, "uh- Well that way Papyrus can take care of both of yours easier."

"wow," Sans sniggered, "you have no faith in me do you?"

Papyrus hung the pot from the stair railing. "SANS! IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS! BESIDES," he added as he dashed into the kitchen, seeking out water, "NOW THIS WAY MY PLANT AND YOUR PLANT WILL NEVER GET LONELY!"

As Sans grinned at that Frisk nodded and smiled across from him; besides, though, he couldn't even take care of a pet rock. It was looking empty of sprinkles today. (She half wondered if it actually ate them itself, or if Sans ate them off the rock while Papyrus wasn't looking. She and the rock had never spoken before.)

She forgot it in the next second, plopping down on the couch next to the skeleton. The two buttercups waved at them while Papyrus watered the pot from just above, standing on the tallest step with a cold teapot in his hands. "How are you guys?"

"not bad. got nothin' special to do today," Sans said in a sleepy slur, threatening to fall asleep again. "it's great."

"SANS CLEANED SOME OF HIS ROOM TODAY!" Papyrus said. "I WAS VERY PROUD."

As Frisk sat up straight, she heard, "yeah, don't get too excited though. in a couple days no one will be able to tell."

She heard disappointed tongue-clicking from a being that didn't have a tongue. "THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE TO CLEAN SOME OF IT TOMORROW, TOO!"

Sans took a second to think about this, holding hands loosely on his stomach. Finally he uttered, "mmm... nnnnah. hey, kid," before Papyrus could say more the smaller skeleton shifted, tugging on Frisk's sleeve. "we got a new tv yesterday. gonna watch some old stuff we got in the dump way back when; wanna inspect the visuals with us?"

Inspecting visuals was something that Frisk did best, with a near-constant squint. "Maybe later," she said though, scooting off the couch. "I have to get the rest of these flowers taken care of."

"'kay. see ya later, buddy," Sans said. He didn't sit up while Frisk left, but he did give a thumbs-up from where he was laying.

"BYE FRISK!" She heard Papyrus call after her, as well. "THANKS FOR THE THOUGHTFUL PRESENT!"

Once outside, she bent and picked up the handle of the wagon, flinching to find it had gotten hot in the afternoon sun. Taking a deep breath, and smiling faintly to herself, Frisk went rattling down the street with her bunch of buttercups.

Frisk had actually been a bit overeager to see Alphys get hers; she had spent a really long time studying the logo letters for Mew Mew Kissy Cutie to get the writing font right on the flowerpot. Being so stressed lately, it might just help to have something pretty and familiar in the house. She hoped Undyne liked hers, too, of course.

But now the child couldn't seem to get either to come to the door. She ringed the doorbell once every couple of minutes, and then with increasing frequency, but nobody came to answer it. She was left with these two pots sitting by her feet, unattended and unseen by the two people whose names were on them.

Frustrated, Frisk couldn't help but stamp one foot quietly, before it fell to tapping. She pressed the doorbell again and called, "Alphys? Undyne? Are you guys there?" But that didn't yield any results either, after three minutes that felt like forever. Frisk threw up her hands and turned from the door, sitting on the front step between the brilliantly colored flowerpots.

What on earth could they be doing? Were they watching something with the volume twice as loud?

This wasn't the first time that this happened; it was a semi-regular occurrence whenever she tried a surprise visit on the two. When they finally saw her, she would ask what they were doing and Undyne just said she'd "look back on these moments and say 'ohhhh.'"

Alphys said there was a "trope" for it called Fridge Brilliance.

Whatever. The plants would probably be fine until someone answered the door, and she was already getting hot just sitting here. Frisk pulled out a stubby pencil piece, tiny ribbon and notepad from her pockets. On both plants, she tied the note:

Buttercups for you! Don't eat them please, it's not the tasty kind of buttercup.

I hope you like them!

And she left Alphys and Undyne to whatever it was that they were doing.

Her wagon had a distance to go yet, with four more pots and dancing flowers left inside.

"Oh, my!"

Asgore had been very pleased with his present, a shyly blooming buttercup inside a flowerpot that had "Best King and Gardener" written on the side in red paint. "This is very thoughtful of you, Frisk, thank you!" He gave it an appreciative sniff, the sweet scent the same as in his old throne room but packed into one flower. Frisk had grinned back, pleased at her own success with the wagon of remaining sprouts just outside.

Next to him Dr. Gaster was less enthusiastic, setting the pot labeled "World's Coolest Scientist" down on the nearest table. The clear and yet unintelligible sounds of his real voice echoed as English came out over the phone, "I appreciate the thought, Frisk. But I'm not... much of a buttercup person."

She bounced on her feet, clasping her hands behind her back, "But it's not just a buttercup, it's Flowey's buttercup."

"...Beg pardon?"

"Flowey has seeds, and these grew from them!"

Asgore perked up from admiring his bud, while his roommate-of-sorts stiffened. The king scratched his beard, "So you mean to say that Flowey is a parent? What a novel concept." He laughed, looking back to his own bloom, "I guess that makes this more of a sonflower, wouldn't you agree?"

You feel as if somewhere Sans is screaming.

After a beat, Dr. Gaster now regarded the flowerpot warily. He prodded at the occupant's stalk and petals with his detached magical hands, as if to maintain a certain distance. "Oh. So it is potentially a murderous buttercup you gave us?"

"Murderous or not, it's beautiful," Asgore said, elbowing him. Whether he thought his buttercup would start attacking him or not, he didn't make clear. "And I think you could use some life down there anyway, Gaster."

Frisk beamed.

"...Yes, well. As long as we're giving each other things, come with me." Dropping his study of the plant for now, the other monster left the flowerpot behind and beckoned to the basement. "I might as well give you this week's homework assignment."

The beaming stopped; this was not as successful as she hoped. Frisk groaned and followed after Dr. Gaster, unable to keep from saying, "You're giving me vocab now?" The last sheet wasn't finished yet.

"You said," signed his floating hands, popping up in front of her face, "That you wanted to learn sign language. If it is too hard for your-" something, something, something, and then she caught, "-give up".

Steeling herself, Frisk catapulted after him.

And Asgore, shaking his head, took both potted plants over to the windowsill.

The last person to gift one to was Toriel, naturally. Technically, she was the same as Asgore in that two would be in her house—one for her, and one for Frisk. Toriel's was the best, in the girl's opinion, in a bright blue flowerpot with "Best Mom Ever" painted in pink.

"Wherever did you get such a lovely little plant, my child?" She had said, smelling it with a smile. "It's simply exquisite! Just like the ones that used to grow in the ruins."

Frisk had opened her mouth to reply to that, like she had with Gaster and Asgore, but something caught her tongue before the words popped out. Toriel caught on to things faster than Asgore. "They—a lot of them grow around Ebott village."

"Oh, so they do." At that, her large eyes took on a more wistful expression, and she stroked a petal lovingly. "It's a very thoughtful present, Frisk. Thank you."

Thoughtful; no matter who it was, flowers were always "thoughtful" to them. The thing was, she had no idea what "thought" it was that she was giving them.

The flowerpot Frisk painted wasn't as important to the gift in the bigger scheme of things; her mother decided that it would be nicer to transplant the flower into the garden beside the house. That way it would have the best exposure to the nice weather and other plants to "keep it company," as she assured her child.

Frisk was tempted to let her own flower, one that lived in the only plain pot on the wagon, be transplanted beside it. Eventually, however, selfishness got the better of her and that plant went right up against her bedroom window. No one else named theirs to her recollection, but she called it "Hyperbeam" and put her toys in the dirt around it.

Luckily Hyperbeam didn't mind.

The buttercups of Mt. Ebott were already remarkable, but these ones were even more so- even if they weren't really magic.

Instead, what they were was strong and healthy, more than any other of their kind. Under their caregivers they bloomed year-round, a lifespan unheard of. Their petals were a rich yellow, like pictures of the sun, and on strong stalks they stood straight and tall. Some, of course, ended up taller and more obviously cared for than others, but they all smelled just as sweet.

Frisk told Flowey some of this on subsequent visits. But whenever she brought it up he seemed more annoyed than anything else, so she resigned to keep the news to herself for the rest of their time together. It was alright if it didn't seem to mean much to him. It still meant the world to her.

And gradually, the breezy Barrier ledge of Mt. Ebott was covered with golden flowers anyway.

Across them all, thankfully, none of them turned out to be murderous, not even after months of careful observation. In fact, they didn't talk or move or even have a face at all. The most that they were was toxic, which everyone knew well enough. They were ordinary enough physical plants.

At the same time, while none of the buttercups had the same "personality" as their father, Frisk liked to imagine that whenever she talked to Hyperbeam, it bent a little more in her direction. As if, even if it couldn't speak, it was listening.

Chapter Text

For a while the only sound in that room was the whirring and clicking of machinery, Papyrus' whimpering, and occasional garbled beeping speech from Dr. Gaster. In between those moments there was an air of calm, quiet, and methodical.

It was a rainy day in New Home, which meant that the grey-bricked basement of King Asgore's castle was a mere reflection of how gloomy it looked outside. Well, to be fair to the basement, it wasn't all bad anymore- the king had finally worn down Gaster's protests against getting his "prison" furnished, insisting that his mental and emotional health couldn't be getting any better living in a big empty room with little to do. Out of the generousness of his own heart Asgore "lent" him some new furniture, a bed among them, and gradually the scientist decided to give in to having some of his old lab machinery brought in.

Even if he didn't really have a project to use it for anymore.

He was able to make some use of his tools, though, that afternoon. He had Papyrus' hand in his, keeping a firm grip to prevent him from pulling away, and with his power tools he worked on something that he might have done well to do a long time ago.

Of course, it irritated him that he had to keep stopping and starting, because Papyrus could barely handle the sound of the tools. Each time he flinched, whimpered, and tugged, Gaster stopped. He kept taking deep breaths and mentally counting to ten, forcing himself to remember the reason why the boy was like this. "Be still," he said to him, after he felt a tug for the twentieth time.

"I'M PRETTY SURE I FELT IT THAT TIME," Papyrus whined.

Gaster released his saw for a second to rub his temple. "It does not matter if you can feel it. You are going to feel it no matter what. You only stop if it is unbearable." Flinching at his own words and bubbling memories that he didn't want, he added, "Okay?"

"R-R-RIGHT! I CAN DO THIS!" He tried to stand still again, but Gaster could feel the tremors in his bones.

"We are almost done." God, how long had they been doing this? Felt like hours. The child who had come to accompany Papyrus was already done sifting through their vocab sheets and were signing mindlessly to themselves, blowing on their bangs in utter boredom. This time, he considered holding Papyrus still through old and familiar magic methods, but he had enough to worry about with the saw. Surely, too, he was regretting trying to put on a brave act and telling the human he didn't need for them to hold his hand. They stuck close, but he hadn't recanted his declaration yet.

Finally, though, by some kind of miracle, he felt the saw nick through the last of the metal.

And the handplate popped off.

"AAH!" Papyrus screamed, and this time Gaster released his hand. "I FELT THAT!"

Gaster set both the saw and piece of metal down on the tray and removed his green safety goggles. "Papyrus, we are done."

"WE-" Papyrus' jaw moved but his speech cracked, sputtering out for a minute, before it returned in an even louder volume than before. "WE'RE DONE?! WE'RE REALLY DONE?!" He lifted his own hand up to his face, seeing only two tiny holes where his "nametag" plate used to be attached, and his eyes got big and wide. "WOWIE! I-I-IT'S GONE!"

"Yes, it is. -Ohgod-"

He couldn't help uttering as much when Papyrus threw himself over him in a giant bear hug, his eyes sparkling. He was babbling continuously, while Gaster struggled in his grip as if on impulse, "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!"

The human as well looked happy, jumping up and down with a big smile on their face. "Congratulations Paps!" As time passed they continued to grow a little bit taller, a little more mature, already an inch or so higher than they were on the day that they met- and yet sometimes they were just as loud as Papyrus.

Awkwardly trying to pry his arms off him, Gaster murmured, "The holes will likely not heal at this stage-"

"THAT'S OKAY!" He said immediately, beaming at him and at last letting him go; in the next moment, he was pulling his red gloves over his hands, his smile turning rather wistful. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HOLES."

A bit of the tension eased out of Gaster's spine, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Then, if tw... if Sans desires the same, he can come in an-nytime that he wants."

"OH YES! I'LL TELL HIM! I CAN BRING HIM, I'M SURE HE'LL NEED ME THERE, I'M NOT SAYING IT WAS SCARY FOR ME, BUT SANS-"

Gaster himself was on the verge of interrupting him, sensing that a little more babbling was about to happen, when the door to the basement opened and cut Papyrus off in a squeak. In came Asgore's smiling form, elbowing gently inside with a tray of hot chocolate in his arms. "I heard some celebratory yelling down here. I hope that I am not spoiling anything?"

"No, we're finished," Gaster said quickly, now signing in addition to his regular speech for the king's benefit. "And how long have you been listening at the door for?"

It was almost impossible to hear anything happening in the basement from up on the ground floor. An annoying habit that the king seemed to have developed was often listening in on his roommate's conversations, should he have any. He wished that this invasion of his privacy was not warranted, but even worse was that Asgore seemed to be doing it less because he didn't trust him and more because he was worried about him.

Even after this long, he hadn't given up trying to fix his mistakes.

This time, as always, Asgore didn't resent his assumption. He put on a rather sheepish look, "Oh, uh, not long. After all I didn't want the hot cocoa to cool down. Would any of you like some?"

"YES!" Papyrus eagerly took a mug, taking big childish gulps, and Asgore laughed before patting him on the head. When he brought the tray over to him, however, Gaster shook his head. He had no appetite for anything right now.

The human was the last to be offered, and they accepted with a little less gusto. "Chocolate always gives me a headache if I have too much," they mused, staring into the hot drink. "But I can never seem to stop having it." Smiling, they took a big sip for themselves.

"As I recall, Alice used to love this brand of hot chocolate," Asgore mused as he set down the tray.

Frisk spat out their drink.

In the process, they sprayed Papyrus.

Immediately, and obviously, he was the first one to react. "AAAAH! HUMAN! THAT WAS EXTREMELY RUDE!" He flecked the hot chocolate from his gloves, and Frisk began to wipe their mouth with effusive and repetitive apologies. "MY BATTLE BODY! IT'S GOING TO GET STAINED!"

"Sorry sorry sorry-"

"Now, now, it's alright, I can fix this-" Asgore said, rushing to the both of them. "Everyone calm down, it's just a little chocolate. Goodness knows I've developed a way with the laundry after being a bachelor for so long..."

"AHHH I HOPE SO! I MEAN NO OFFENSE FRISK, BUT IF IT'S TOO HOT YOU SHOULD SPIT IT SOMEWHERE ELSE INSTEAD OF ON ME, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!"

"I'm so so sorry," Frisk whined, covering their face. As Asgore began to herd Papyrus out of the basement, insisting that he could prevent the already forming stains, the child stood and started to scurry after him, wringing their hands.

Before they could make it out the door, Gaster had stood and stopped them by their sleeve. "Actually, I would like to speak to you alone, human," he said, and signed the words before their face. If they were carrying out their lessons as they should, then they would understand everything he signed to them within reason.

Sure enough, they stopped and allowed Asgore and Papyrus to go on ahead without him, turning back with an uneasy expression. "Uh... okay."

He released them and they walked up to the vocab sheets again, saying nothing. Gaster looked to the door, waiting until Asgore and Papyrus were probably back upstairs, before speaking and signing again. "I was curious about something."

The uneasy look grew; he learned over time that they didn't like being asked questions, at least not serious ones or any that were hard to answer. Apparently that was an issue with Sans, as well. "Yes?"

Gaster folded his arms, trying to think of a delicate way to word it. This was not the first time that he had wanted to ask, every other time barred by how culpable he was in their suffering over a year ago, but seeing their reaction to the chocolate just now had finally given him enough of an excuse to bring it back up. "It is about when you were... where you were, after I threw you into the Core. You never quite explained the situation with Alice." He inclined his head, eye narrowing inconspicuously. "I also learned that you did not inform Sans of Alice's presence at all during our trip through the void."

The child tensed. "You and Sans shared notes?"

"Only incidentally."

"I don't know that word," Frisk began, and he sighed. "But did you tell him about Alice?"

Gaster shook his head, and they breathed out. He frowned at that. "Is keeping secrets really the basis of your relationship with Sans?"

"Of course not!" Frisk sputtered, rubbing their arm and speaking a little too fast. "I just... don't want him to worry more than he already is when I don't think she's going to be a problem anymore. Now what's your question?"

Gaster would roll his eye if it was visible to them. "Alright, I will let that slide. But if I may ask, why not tell him? Or to be more precise, what would Sans have to be worried about?"

The human looked away, and more quietly said, "When Alice was still alive, did you... like them?"

The question gave him room for pause. His feelings towards the fallen child of so many years ago were mired in unpleasantness and painful memories, not to mention everything that ensued after their death. But how he felt about them at the time, with all the trouble that they caused, with how dear the Dreemurrs held them...? He smirked at Frisk, then. "Is my response going to affect your testimony?"

"Yes," Frisk said, with no hesitation.

"Just tell me the truth."

At last the child glared at him, turning back to the cup of hot chocolate that they had set down on a countertop that they probably should not have set it down on. "I actually really hate chocolate... Since gives me headaches."

"I can wait."

Frisk shook their head. "Alice was... was... mean. And she was scary." They picked the cup up and took a sip, before spitting it back out and grimacing. "Even scarier than you were. And I don't know why, or how, or if it was maybe just all in my head, or if she's even really the real Alice... so I don't want to talk about it." They glared, then. "I'm not talking about it."

"Is that your final answer?"

Closing their mouth into a thin line, Frisk signed "yes" to him.

At that, Gaster only shrugged. While he would never characterize Alice as 'scary' when that child was alive, not to him anyway, they didn't have an amazing track record. Poisoning the king, however "accidentally," was not even the first clue when he thought back. "And you don't think this will cause issues?"

"No," Frisk signed again. They seemed to consider something, absently rubbing their throat. They never did buy a replacement for that locket that they always wore.

Finally, no doubt because they didn't have a great grasp on their vocabulary, they eventually added in plain speech, "Besides, if I was going to tell anyone it wouldn't be you. No offense," at that he didn't respond. He understood well enough why they might not be their first choice, even though he probably was the only person who would be equipped to deal with this phenomenon- but it wasn't his business. Probably. "I mean, you only know about Asriel being Flowey because you figured it out yourself."

"Yes,yes. I get it." Gaster sat back down at his workbench, no longer interested in maintaining a semblance of eye contact. "I suppose that's all I wanted to know, Frisk."

"Sorry," they said hesitantly, and he would have again rolled his eye if possible. "Um... gonna go check on Papyrus now." They waved goodbye, which he in good manners reciprocated. Opening the door back up to the top, they let out a semi-cheery, "Hey Asgore, 'scuse me."

Gaster stiffened.

Asgore walked into the room, his face inscrutable, and allowed Frisk to go on past. He was looking at Gaster in particular, clasping his hands together. When the human had gone upstairs and out of hearing range, he said quietly, "What was that about Asriel?"

Chapter Text

Not at all the conversation I wanted to have with His Majesty.

That was the only way to describe it.

When it concerned his own son, and the unpleasant form that he'd taken in death, what words could I use to explain it to him? I immediately recognized that look in his eyes, that helpless and yet hopeful look. The look of someone who had given up once before only to now be offered a second chance.

And no matter what option I picked, I would be shattering that second chance for him.

The first thing that came to mind was to lie. To tell him that he had heard wrong, or that he hadn't heard everything. When the human said 'Asriel being Flowey' they were just talking in metaphors. It was a hypothetical situation. That murderous little plant wasn't his son reincarnated; obviously, such a thing would be impossible and he should put the idea out of his head.

But though it came easily to me, and though it would be so easy to convince him that he had misheard something... I couldn't make the words come out. I suppose I'd already kept far too many secrets from him, lied to his face far too many times, to start doing it again. Not when he still showed even a modicum more faith in me than I deserved.

And yet, explaining Flowey's unique situation to him was like pulling teeth. It wouldn't grant him any peace of mind to know what his son had become. I'm sure Flowey wasn't eager to share it either; he'd had ample opportunity since even before the barrier went down. It also won't be just Asgore; I know that he'll want to share it with Toriel too. The Dreemurr family deserved so much more than what truths I could offer.

That goddamned human, they make everything they touch more difficult.

In the end, I told him as best I could. Somehow, from a chance experiment, a being was created from Determination, dust, and a vessel. A being that--at the least--has Asriel's memories. And this being was Flowey, who was even now living on Mt. Ebott.

Some part of me worried throughout that he'd be angry with me for not telling him these things sooner. Instead he became frantic; rather than focus on how long I had known, he asked how long had Flowey been this way, why was he living all by himself, and if he was alright--questions like this that I nonetheless loathed to answer truthfully. I hastened to explain that Flowey was not necessarily the same as Asriel, that even if he had his son's memories, he wasn't necessarily the same person. I even added that in that state, he didn't have a soul of his own. Something which I suspected would account for his nature being so much crueler than the child I remembered.

But that made His Majesty even more frantic.

Suddenly we had to "see" him, suddenly we had to "help" him. Suddenly we had to "bring him back home." The fact that I was supposed to be under house arrest was entirely forgotten to him as he urged me up from the basement.

It was all I could do to point out that a trip to Mt. Ebott wasn't something to take so lightly, and that we needed to prepare first.

But thanks to Sans, that only bought me so much time.

"so you're gonna have to explain what's goin on," said Sans, as Asgore rushed about his house gathering supplies. Food. Plant Food. Water. A picnic blanket. "cause i don't figure most anyone would be interested in a quick trip back to where we were imprisoned, 'cept Frisk."

Asgore paused in his packing to give Sans a gentle expression, one that was strained and troubled, much like how troubled Gaster looked now. "There's just someone I have to meet. To--to talk to. Goodness, I'll need to call Toriel too, I suppose she will also want to come with us..."

"maybe we could make a second trip, uh," said Sans, sticking his hands in his pockets. He gave a hard glance towards Gaster, as if certain that this was his fault somehow. As if he would encourage some scheme to get away from here rather than trying and failing to calm a worried parent. "it's enough drama bringin him along."

"I really do not think this is the sort of thing to wait on, for Toriel's sake-" Asgore began.

But Sans was quick to shake his head. "i mean, if it gets her as riled up as it gets you maybe it'd be a better thing to wait on it."

Asgore was silent, and then he quietly replied, "Agitated she may become, but she would never forgive me if I intentionally delayed her finding out about this."

Several paces away from their little group, Gaster wasn't looking at anyone now. He looked at a corner, arms folded, clearly becoming absorbed in his own thoughts. Sans scowled at him, as much as he could with a frozen smile. "so uh. then why does he have to come with us, again?"

"I... I can't..." Asgore began, glancing Gaster's way, and Gaster flinched--not too noticeably, such that you'd have to be looking closely to see it. "... leave a prisoner unsupervised, of course." He ended the sentence with an uneasy, wavering smile, like it was a joke... and realizing what an awful joke it would have been, the smile vanished. "He is simply coming with me. I... I am sorry."

"whatever."

"IT'S KIND OF LIKE A FAMILY OUTING!" said Papyrus, and the lights in Sans' sockets went out for a millisecond as his brother walked back in from the kitchen, sandwiches in hand. "WE SHOULD MAKE IT SPECIAL! I COULD EVEN TAKE US IN MY SHINY RED CAR THAT I'M TOTALLY AWESOME AT DRIVING, IF YOU WANTED ME TO!"

"There is no time," said Gaster in a flat tone of voice, and Asgore nodded reluctantly.

"Perhaps on the way back--oh, but, how would we--er, perhaps another time, Papyrus."

"AWW..."

The sandwiches Papyrus brought out were wedged in with cookies, a thermos, a watering can, and a big bag of plant food. Suddenly Asgore was done, which he announced by snapping the lid closed on the picnic basket he had been preparing. And Gaster looked absolutely sick to his stomach; if Sans weren't in such an uneasy mood, he would have enjoyed the rare show of emotion from him.

What was about to happen? It didn't feel like anything good. Sans couldn't even get a good enough read on Asgore to understand what he was planning to do up on Mt. Ebott, or who he was going to see.

He had a sneaking suspicion that the kid was involved in this.

"anyway," he said, as he approached the three of them--Asgore awkwardly carrying the picnic basket, Papyrus taking out photos of himself and his car, and Gaster looking like he desperately needed a smoke. "it'll only take a second to get over there, so uh. you can call toriel when you're there and i can pick her up on the way back or somethin." As Asgore continued to look at him, fidgeting and sweating, he added, "you can blame it on me."

Asgore was either convinced, or he was simply too anxious to go meet whoever he was going to meet. He made a glance off to the window, as if asking Toriel across town for forgiveness, and then he nodded. "Alright, alright. I will call her."

Sans didn't quite get why he felt so relieved.

"okay. fair warning, first timers-" by which he meant Gaster, "you might get sick and throw up. so. that's cool huh."

Papyrus was in the middle of telling Sans to not be gross when the four of them, with picnic basket, disappeared from Asgore's home.

Then they were on the ledge on Mt. Ebott, where they'd first looked upon the surface. Where the barrier had been broken, and they'd seen the sun for the first time. Looked at the stars. Where their future began.

Where Frisk came often, for a reason that made Sans gradually more uneasy as their time and adventures went on.

Coming here with Gaster felt like a betrayal, like he was sharing one of his most precious memories with someone who had sought to take away anything precious in his life. Sadly, Gaster did not throw up (could they even throw up? Sans wasn't 100% sure,) although he did look genuinely taken for a loop at the sudden distance they crossed in a moment's time.

He turned to look over at the view, the expanse of green and New New Home rising in the distance. His expression softened in that way which was so alien to Sans and Papyrus, who had once seen him in so precious few other contexts. Enjoying the scenery, perhaps.

But the look faded, as Asgore raced to the entrance of the cave. "Asriel!" he called.

"Your majesty-" Gaster began, trying to use his magical hands to sign at him where the king could see. But Asgore brushed past them, and so doing he entered the cave. "Your majesty, please-!"

Gaster was headed in after him. Sans' comment stopped him. "asriel?"

"I'm sure you are familiar with the name by now," Gaster said, looking back with an almost irritable expression. "Everyone else in the underground knows it."

"that's who he came up here to see?"

"I'M CONFUSED," said Papyrus, who had until this point been shading his eyes and squinting his hardest as the sun as if trying to present it with a challenge. "ASRIEL ISN'T AROUND ANYMORE RIGHT? IS HE VISITING HIS DUST?"

"In a manner of speaking." Gaster looked to Sans with a searching gaze--wondering what he knew, perhaps, as he had already written Papyrus off as not knowing anything about it and he clearly didn't want to actually explain.

Sans didn't know everything. He knew Frisk didn't tell him everything. But he had that bad feeling, and in this case he'd already seen the entries in True Lab. Maybe Gaster had too; he'd spent enough time in there back when they were all stuck with him. "so, that's what this is about." He almost grimaced as he looked out towards the cave. "you shouldn't have let him go, you know."

"I could hardly dissuade him on this," Gaster said.

It was so strange; the first thing Sans had summoned to mind was an image of Gaster dragging the king around by force, simply using blue magic on his soul and carrying him away. But that wasn't on the table. Just for them back in the old days, he supposed.

"WAIT, WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?" Papyrus had picked up his brother's unease, a finger touched to his teeth as he peered in after Asgore. "IS ASGORE OKAY?"

Gaster didn't respond, so Sans took the initiative. "he's gonna be okay, bro. he's just finding out some hard stuff."

"'Hard stuff'." With his one good eye, Gaster shot him a look.

hey, Sans thought suddenly, as he met that gaze and made his own as poisonous as possible, do i look like that when i wink? What a thought. Maybe he should stop doing that. "what, not using enough complicated words for you?"

No reply to that. Any time they were alone, Gaster seemed to find it easier to say nothing at all. Usually Papyrus was carrying enough conversation for everyone in the room, so it was fine by some measure of fine, but Papyrus wasn't in much of a talking mood for once. Sans wished he hadn't stopped Gaster from leaving.

After a moment, with the only sound being the whistling of the wind through the cave beside them, Gaster sighed and put a hand over his face. "I should... see how it's going. God, what a nightmare this is. He'll go into that corridor, he'll see what his son has become, and then he'll call Toriel..."

"WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS SON? YOU MEAN ASIDE FROM THE BEING DEAD THING?"

"...I can only imagine how much worse it will be for her when she comes here," Gaster uttered, with the regretful tone of someone who would not be able to be there for her when she did. Because she couldn't stand the sight of him. Gaster was one of those people she didn't give Christmas cards.

But.

"toriel's not gonna come up here," Sans said, putting his hands in his pockets with a bitter expression.

At first Gaster misunderstood, and spoke with a dismissive wave, "If you believe that any of us will stop her from seeing her own child, however changed..." But then his voice trailed, and he looked at Sans a little more closely. "...Why do you say that?"

Sans just stared at the ground, the light to his eyes gone. "why do you think i said it?"

From beyond the cave opening, there came a loud banging sound. Gaster stiffened, and as he looked towards the darkness of the cave he seemed to be straining to hear anything more. A cry, a shout, or worse still a laugh.

The cry erupted from the cave, shortly.

"Your majesty-!"

The laugh--that familiar laugh--came after. The boys were frozen in place, Sans stiff and Papyrus trembling, but Gaster was already racing into the cave with a frantic desperation that they had never had the chance to see on him before.

It was a blessing that, despite Flowey's tendency to appear to Frisk in the final corridor, they didn't actually need to go all the way there to find him this time.

He, wearing a malicious and yet inscrutable expression, was in the throne room--looming high like a beanstalk.

And so was a picnic basket, and a pile of dust.

Chapter Text

King Asgore was dead.

His dust was lying there in a scattered mess over the old flowers, overgrown greenery, and warm tiles of his throne room. The picnic basket he'd brought, complete with plant food, was untouched beside it. Even his boss monster soul, which would ordinarily have lasted for just a few more moments, was also gone. Perhaps destroyed by the creature looming over his remains.

Gaster fell completely still at the sight; if he were a human, he would have been white as a sheet. As it was, it was one of the rare times that he was glowing, purple and yellow light washing over the scattered grains. He couldn't move, he might not have even been breathing.

"Well, well, well, isn't THIS a familiar sight," crooned Flowey, waving back and forth above him. Gaster's gaze flickered up, but the horror that had struck him dumb didn't leave from his face. "I think Frisk had a look like that the first time this happened. And the second time. Hehehe!"

Gaster didn't move even at the sounds of Sans and Papyrus entering the throne room behind him. The cheerful expression on the flower's face suddenly soured, and he looked away from the first intruder to the others.

"FLOWEY!" Papyrus yelped, looking upon the king's remains with as much horror. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

"Gee, I don't know Papyrus," said Flowey, taking his eyes off of Gaster. Sans put himself protectively in front of his brother. "What are you three doing? Frisk and I had an agreement, so which one of you blabbed?"

"it wasn't us so leave him alone," Sans snapped before Papyrus had so much as a chance to ask what they were supposed to have blabbed. His one good eye glowed threateningly.

But Papyrus wasn't one to be quiet just because he was interrupted. His gaze fell to the dust, and to Gaster, who stood trembling and seemingly unable to speak. "YOU KILLED HIM, DIDN'T YOU... HOW... HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING? HE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!"

Flowey laughed, and he reeled away from them. "Gosh." And then his voice became erratic, warped, and cruel, "Are all three of you IDIOTS?" At the silence, and noting the confusion from both the brothers, Flowey determined that it was Gaster he should be talking to. His voice got menacingly low. "Do you think this hasn't happened before? Do you think you're the first one who tried this out?"

Asgore was dead.

A tendril from the ground tilted Gaster's head and Flowey swayed back and forth. His expression... was purely that of someone who wanted to hurt. And perhaps, a little bit of someone that was hurt too. "You think that Frisk hasn't brought them BOTH here before, like the hopeful idiot that they are?"

The implications of Flowey's words triggered movement in Gaster, when nothing else did. He couldn't speak--when he tried, it came out as a choked croak. But he raised a hand, and with that small gesture a giant blaster flickered to life with a face like his own. He whirled it around to face Flowey, not really thinking anything except how much damage he wanted to do.

But just before Gaster could blast the murderous weed, a thorny vine wrapped around his neck and pulled him roughly off to the side; startled and choked as he was, the blaster disappeared. "Ha ha! You think that's going to SOLVE anything? That's not going to bring him back," Flowey hissed. "You know what will bring him back."

...That was his game. It seemed that Sans had realized it too, for the tension in his shoulders and eyes was slowly leaking away--although even then, he stayed in front of Papyrus, as if his little body could provide any real protection for his brother. Papyrus was shouting at Flowey over him, "PUT HIM DOWN!"

"or don't, who cares really."

"And get blasted again? Now really, what would the point of that be?" Flowey swung Gaster around like a child holding a rag doll by the head.

The repetitive movement made it hard for Gaster to concentrate enough to make any significant attack. His heart was hammering and his head was starting to pound.

He didn't have lungs but the discomfort in his chest didn't seem to care. Gaster clawed at the vine on his throat; when that didn't bear any fruit, he tried to loosen the grip with the simplest thing he could do--a row of bones stabbing directly into the thick plant flesh.

It did a tiny chunk of damage and Flowey hissed; he dropped Gaster to the floor, and the larger skeleton gasped for air that he didn't technically need, rubbing his vertebrae with one hand. He was fine.

"Okay, I'm getting mad."

Asgore was dead.

That was his dust on the ground.

The tiles cracked and the dirt crumbled as Flowey rose higher on his stalk, thorny tendrils shooting out like tentacles alongside him. Even the floor around Sans and Papyrus was starting to shake; with a grunt, Gaster summoned a line of bones behind them and whatever tendrils were emerging were battered back.

Although Sans and Papyrus didn't seem to appreciate the sudden appearance of his bullets behind them, and they raced to the opposite side of the throne room. Sans was sending attacks of his own, with a little glare in Gaster's direction as if to say that they didn't need any help. That Sans didn't need the help. It was still strange for Dr. Gaster to see him being capable in a fight.

But even Sans with his karmic abilities wasn't enough against a creature that was an expert at dodging. Albeit, he was fairly good at dodging too. As bullet seeds flew and long thorny vines lashed at them, Sans avoided them all with ease, although that didn't stop Gaster from having a tiny heart attack every time he caught sight of them, distracted as he may have been by making his own attacks. Papyrus wasn't fighting at all, but trying to reason with Flowey. He wouldn't leave, even with both Sans and Gaster insisting he make for the exit.

For his trouble, the boy got caught up in one of the vines and suddenly Flowey had the advantage. He looped his tendrils around Papyrus' not-throat and head, sneering at Sans and Gaster in a clear message of what he was about to do. It was enough to throw Sans off, and he was the next one caught up in Flowey's thorny grip--although not killed, not yet. But he could be killed, very easily. All it would take was a simple, single little bullet seed lodged in his skull or in his chest, the same way it must have happened to--

A thick tendril wrapped around Gaster last, and his attacks abruptly stopped.

It had only taken a few moments for Flowey to ensnare them all, in the end. The points of his thorns as he squeezed around their arms and legs stung. Come to think of it, Flowey didn't look especially happy either, and not just because his petals were tattered and the bruises from his injuries showing on his biologically puzzling face. "If you're all done," he said.

Asgore was dead.

Gaster was the only one still struggling; great as his intellect was it seemed he was slow to process on some things. But he became still soon enough when Flowey started to crush his not-really-a-windpipe again.

And Flowey pressed close to him, his face morphing into his normal one. "For once I'm not in the mood for a fight so let's stop going around in circles. As I said before, only one thing is going to bring 'his majesty' Asgore back." The pressure around Gaster's neck lifted, although the grip was still solid and hard. "So go call Frisk, and tell them what happened."

"..."

Flowey laughed. "How long has it been since the last save? At least a week, I guess. Sucks for them! But don't worry," he sneered. "That won't give them pause to fix it. They can't stand it when something gets ruined."

Asgore's dead.

Asgore's dead.

"Call Frisk."

He let Asgore get killed.

"CALL FRISK." His face transforming into a terrifying skull shape, Flowey gave Dr. Gaster a violent shake as if he were a bottle of separated mustard.

Gaster let out a wheeze, and then inhaled. For the first time since entering the throne room, he spoke; when he did, even he was startled by how weak and scratchy his voice was, and the magical hands he summoned to sign with trembled. "Let me go, first," he said.

"Pssht," said Flowey, and he unceremoniously dropped Gaster back on the broken shards of throne room tiles. He then dropped Sans and Papyrus into the field of flowers, while the older skeleton was picking himself off the floor; Gaster wasn't even waiting to stand up fully before digging in his pocket for his phone, his glasses now crooked on his face. He was shrinking back down into the floor. "Just don't start the tough guy act again."

No chance of him trying to be a tough guy. Flowey's voice and cruel face were both getting far away in his head, and Gaster could barely type in the numbers on his horribly old phone. He ignored Papyrus trying to talk to Flowey, he ignored Sans staring at him with his empty eyesockets. The phone was ringing.

It was ringing for too long.

Pick up.

Asgore's dead.

Pick up.

A click.

"Frisk--" he said.

His soul shuddered when that small voice on the other end of the phone cut him off. "Gaster? Hold on, lemme turn on the translator, I don't have that signing app thing on my phone yet."

They had better hurry up, he probably couldn't go this long without breathing before passing out. Well, at least he was close to the floor while he crouched like this.

Finally Frisk's voice sounded out again, their cheery tone making him feel dizzy. "Okay, what's up?"

Asgore's

"Dead," he choked.

"...What?"

"--Asgore is dead, Asgore's dead," he tried again, and this time Frisk's voice wasn't so cheery.

In fact, he couldn't quite determine the kind of tone that the child had as they spoke, "What how? When? What happened?"

Something curled around Gaster's foot, but he didn't have the energy to kick it away. "Tell them to fix it~" Flowey sang in the background.

But he couldn't form those words. He was still struggling to say much more at all. "Flowey," he finally croaked into the phone. This demonic flower, not Asriel at all. How could it be Asriel? He remembered Asriel, and that sweet child could never do something like this--the child whose kindness had even been his own undoing. Just like it had been for--

"frisk!" Gaster's phone was being ripped out of his hands, so suddenly that he hadn't had the presence of mind to tighten his grip against it. Sans held it now, backing up a bit as he pressed it to his skull. "frisk, listen to me,"

What was he doing? Asgore--

"listen to me, take a deep breath and stop what you're doing and--and what you're right about to do." Sans' eye was glowing. Was it glowing blue? Purple? "remember what you promised me," he was saying. Frisk's replies were faint, but Gaster could just pick up the intensity of their tone. Not so soft-spoken right now. But Sans kept going. "no, i'm not saying you can't, i'm saying you promised me that you would always--no, i mean, i'm not saying you can't, i'm saying you have to think about it."

Flowey was back to his small innocent looking self, sticking out his tongue in a goofy grin. Even the tendrils that had briefly held them captive were gone. But Asgore's dust was still there. What was that damned human waiting for?

"you promised me you'd--you have to think about it, okay? i'm not saying you can't i'm saying you have to think about it, Frisk, you have to actually think about it, okay? right? tell me that y

Chapter Text

Learning the same lessons again. Eating the same food again. Repeating the same smiles again. Laughing at the same things again. Repeating the same art projects, saying the same little quips, making the same jokes and puns, again.

That was impossible.

Frisk rushed through the lessons, she rushed through the food. The smiles were a little smaller, the laughs were a little weaker. The art was a little worse, and as for making jokes she just didn't bother. She passed the beats of the last several days as quickly as she could, just so she could get to her phone or computer and find something new that she didn't do before. Even with that, the days were painfully slow.

It was just her that changed. Everyone else did exactly what she expected they would do. Well, within reason. Toriel noted the rush. But when Frisk showed her the newest art project being hung up on the ceiling, she didn't seem to even notice the drop in quality.

At the very start, she had to make a list so she knew what things absolutely had to be done over again. She had to do it as far away from Flowey as possible. She didn't think she could handle talking to him right now.

Being the emotional support, dealing with the same issues, was easily the most painful part. The encouraging smile that Frisk stretched over her mouth whenever Papyrus looked her way was the weakest. Luckily he didn't seem to notice. In fact, by the time that they were back in that basement with Gaster and the power tools, he seemed just a little less uneasy than she remembered...

While all that crap with the handplates was happening, she just idly flipped through the lesson sheets Gaster gave her. She already half-remembered them. The other half of her cognitive abilities merely reduced Papyrus' squeaks and complaints in the background to white noise.

The complaints suddenly turned into celebratory shouting, hugging, and then--she'd forgotten the exact timing of it, it was a little longer than she remembered--Asgore coming down, a tray of steaming mugs in his hands.

This time she didn't say anything about headaches, she just took the mug with a grin. "Thanks Asgore!"

He looked upon her fondly, and then he set the tray down. "You know," he started to say, "Alice used to-"

Frisk's gut twisted and she spat her drink, quite deliberately, in Papyrus' face.

The same apologies, the same wringing of hands as she followed them to the doorway. Frisk couldn't put the same kind of force into it. After all, it had turned out that Asgore couldn't get the stains out of Papyrus' costume (he'd seemed very distracted at the time.) But Toriel had been able to manage it when Frisk went back home with him later that day.

She'd tried, genuinely, to go up after them. But despite her preventative measures, she heard Gaster speak behind her, his hands signing in front of her face. "Actually, might I speak with-"

She didn't wait for him to finish, screwing her eyes shut. "No," was all she said. Gaster had grabbed her by the arm, and she tried to yank free. "I'm gonna--I'm gonna go check on Papyrus."

"-strange dream the other day-"

Oh.

He kept signing, his grip on her arm remaining firm. Frisk slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone, with the wingdings translator. But as she was doing so, she continued to look towards the door.

Observing the movement, Gaster cleared his throat. "I had a strange dream the other day," he said, and the speech came out in plain English through the translator. "I suppose you could call it more a nightmare. Involving myself, Sans, Papyrus, and His Majesty."

Frisk didn't reply.

"I spoke to Sans. Unwilling as he was to respond to my texts, it seems he experienced the same, though he was unable to give any real details. Just a feeling that something bad happened. If I asked Papyrus..." Gaster inclined his head, gaze quite deliberately meeting Frisk's as she looked back at him. "Do you suppose he might say something similar?"

Frisk finally managed to break free from his grip with a particularly aggressive pull, and she held her arms in against her body. "I had to go back. I didn't have a choice."

"Elaborate on that."

She inclined her head towards the stairs. "Asgore. He found... things out. About Flowey. And he got killed because of it. So I had to go back to... the last time I SAVED." Gaster's brows furrowed down into a frown, and he was suddenly looking more at the floor than at Frisk. "...I'm sorry."

"You 'had' to," Gaster repeated to himself, not signing it but the phrase being caught by the translator. The gradually more disturbed expression on his face caused Frisk to become disturbed as well, until he finally looked back up and said, "You make stealing time sound like such a simple thing."

The phrase caught her off guard. "Stealing time? No," she started to fold the lesson sheets up into smaller pieces. "I was trying to help Asgore."

But that just seemed to make his expression worse. "...Coming back from death with that power was understandable enough. But how often have you 'had' to do that? Turning back the clock to undo a sticky future?"

"What are you talking about? Barely ever." She rubbed at her own wrist. "I don't like doing it. I won't do it for small things. But if somebody dies, or something like that, then I can stop it..."

"Not 'stop' it. Make it never happen, more like."

"That's the same thing." Frisk frowned, and she pressed her back into the door, trying to gauge how much time had passed. If this was getting into 'would be bad if he overheard' territory. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

At that hurt tone his expression softened. But then Gaster simply looked away from her, and the frown reappeared. "...To know about your... abilities is one thing, but it's another to go through it, I suppose. To go through it and... know it."

Frisk felt a little sick. "I didn't know you were going to know it." She fumbled, rifling clumsily through her mind for the words that would take away that concerned tone. "Most people don't."

Those weren't it. "Being in control of such an awesome power, with no one else aware to hold you accountable for your actions-"

"It's not like that," Frisk said quickly, cutting him off mid-sentence. "I would never do anything bad with it like, like..." she kept glancing to the door, rubbing her palms on the backs of her sleeves. "Like Flowey did."

Whether or not Gaster believed that... he didn't say. Considering the kinds of things that he had gotten up to when there was no one around to hold him accountable for his actions, maybe he thought that he didn't have the right to trust Frisk on that point or not. But there was a huge difference between what he did and what she did.

So why did he seem so... "Whether or not you're the kind of 'person' that Flowey is seems beside the point when the possibility is there. You erased the past week of everyone's lives, potentially more for all I know."

Afraid?

"For a good reason!"

Before continuing, suddenly Frisk stiffened and stopped. She turned around, and before Gaster could speak again she pulled the door to the stairway open. "Do-do you need something, Asgore?"

Gaster stiffened, and Asgore jumped--not directly in front of the door as she'd been fearing, but on his way down the stairs. He didn't have that nervous, guilty expression this time--the one she hadn't noticed until long after the fact. He was just startled, and caught. "Oh, no no, I was just checking in on you two. Is everything alright?"

"We're fine," Frisk said, smiling. "I'm just talking to Gaster about sign language stuff."

Asgore made his way down the rest of the stairs. "Oh!" He patted Frisk on the head with one large hand. "I'm glad, you're such a good pupil, Frisk."

"Thanks..." It was easy to do the ones she'd already practiced a hundred times before.

"Well! I'm making cookies to go with the hot chocolate. Please come up and get some when you're done." He glanced to Gaster, and added, "Both of you."

Gaster didn't respond. His shoulders had tensed up. Frisk didn't feel right answering for him, so she just nodded, forcing the smile to be brighter. This wasn't the kind of conversation she wanted to have with Asgore. Not with Gaster in the same room, anyway.

"Well! I will see you two in a bit." He clapped his hands and was off, back up the stairs. Frisk closed the door after him.

When she was sure that Asgore was gone, she turned back to Gaster with her smile slipping away. "Why are you acting like I killed somebody?"

"You may not have killed anyone, but what you did had the same gravity. I know I have little right to speak in this area, but that's precisely how I know so well the significance of playing with other people's lives."

"I wasn't trying to play with anyone's life, I was just saving him. If you got really badly hurt or killed, I'd go back to save you too! Just like I already did save you. Or if Sans, or Undyne, or--or if Gyftrot... it's only if someone gets... or if something else really bad happens..."

Her voice trailed off as Gaster held up a finger for silence.

"Let me ask you a question. Imagine this hypothetical scenario, if you will." He folded his arms. "Let's say that something happens to a monster that lives here. Perhaps another human, less peacefully inclined, kills them. Let's say that this monster's dust is hidden. Let's say that the monster has few friends, so that they are not noticed missing..."

"You mean like Jerry?"

"-So that-" Gaster raised his voice, scowling at the interjection . "-by the time the monster's death is discovered, you have already SAVED over it. What would you do, then?

"You told me once that you believe you could go back to the very beginning of all of this, if you tried. Well, would you try, to save that one monster?"

"Would you?"

Without missing a beat, Gaster responded, "As Sans has made abundantly clear, going back and changing the past is something I can never do. So that is irrelevant."

Frisk moved her teeth back and forth a little, as if she were literally chewing on the question. The thought of going all the way back, of doing everything all over again... Years of backtracking, of connections and projects and birthdays and interdimensional rescues, all lost. She was dying inside just thinking about it.

But lost time seemed to be a small price to pay so that someone else could keep living. How much time was expendable? How much of the same could anyone sit through for years and years?

And what if by the time the future came around again, she couldn't actually stop it or didn't know how?

As Gaster tapped his finger on his arm in wait, she clenched her teeth.

"You were the one that called me!" she cried. "In that timeline you're the one that told me what happened!" It wasn't an answer. In fact, she didn't really have one. So all she could do was throw out other things, clutching at where her locket used to be. "You didn't hear yourself! You sounded like-!"

Gaster became still. She swallowed, and squaring her shoulders she said, "It was Asgore. I know you care about him a lot. You wanted me to fix it. You're happy that I went back and brought him back to life."

"Do I look happy to you?"

"No--but-" She struggled, fingers clenching. Sans never said any of these things to her before. Sure, he'd looked at her funny sometimes, and he'd made some very dry jokes about it that came close, but to go and say these words out loud seemed... unfair. When it was the right thing to do, that she was still being hounded about it was unfair. Being treated like she was a bad person because of it was unfair. He was being unfair.

Frisk decided that she really didn't like Gaster knowing.

The solution reared itself in her face, in a way that it never had before, and her stomach burned.

Expression stony, Gaster was reaching for her, grabbing her by the arm with one of his transient magic hands. "You are," he said, his original wingdings voice more tremulous than before, "Very easy to read, human."

The magic hand felt like paper mache wrapped around her wrist. Frisk raised her hand. "W-what, you think if I was really going to do it again that this would stop me?"

The magic hand disappeared as if someone had sprayed it with acid, and Frisk gripped her wrist to replace the pressure of contact. She was biting her lips, she was thinking of things she could say but coming up with nothing.

The machines in the basement gently hummed.

"-Even if you did," Gaster eventually ventured, "The same thing would happen. I-I would be able to tell, and we would just end up having this conversation at some other point."

That was probably true. This was different from the deja vu that the others got sometimes.

"Unless that's already happened, as well."

Frisk's shoes needed washing. She hoped she hadn't tracked dirt into the castle when she came in, she couldn't remember if she'd had the presence of mind to wipe her feet.

Gaster was still looking at her. Frisk offered him a smile, not a forced one but not a happy one either. "It. It hasn't, I. Look, I'm... I'm on your guys's side."

"And if, one day, you're not?"

Alice flashed uncomfortably through her mind.

"That won't ever happen."

Gaster stuck his hands in his pockets. "...You probably already know the worksheets I was going to give you, so how about you just practice on your own today?"

"...Please give them to me. My memory's not that good." He wordlessly went, and it took him a moment to rifle through his desk. Frisk cringed at the rushed way he did it, as if he didn't like having his back to her. "I like it. I can talk to a lot more of the monsters here. And some humans too."

"I'm sure."

"I really like being able to talk to people. I like to know what they all have to say."

"Here." He shoved the papers into Frisk's hands, adjusting his glasses after she had taken them. "I included some of next week's."

"Oh." She flipped through them, pulling back her lips. "Great."

The near-silence as she went through each sheet deafened her, so instead of trying to talk again she tried practicing, like a good student, as she then signed, "I'm gonna get cookies. See you."

Gaster nodded, but didn't respond. As she left, just out of the corner of her her eye she could see him sit down heavily in his computer chair. He was rubbing his face with his hole-less hands. And then she closed the door.

As loathe as Frisk was to risk running into Flowey again, tomorrow the child would head back up to Mt. Ebott.

Chapter Text

The door to his cell--well, "cell" meaning the castle basement--opened, but Gaster hardly looked up from his gloomy, contemplative position in the corner. He had immediately guessed who was coming down the stairs, even before he'd started speaking. "Gaster? Sorry it's a little late... are you up?"

He didn't need to sign, technically. Any speaking at all would be sufficient to answer the question. Still, he summoned two of his magic hands to say, "Is there something you need, your Majesty?"

"Oh, you have a visitor. I wanted to make sure you were... ready for one." The king stepped into his line of vision; by the rumpled appearance of his casual clothes and the flustered expression on his face, as if he had been caught off-guard, something was amiss. "...You could use the bed if you wanted to, you know."

Gaster raised an eyebrow. Up above, the door to the basement opened again. "It isn't Sans and Papyrus again, is it?"

"No, no, it is-"

She stepped quickly down the stairs, and in doing so cut Asgore off short. Then it was Gaster's turn to be taken off-guard.

"Your Majesty," he began, and this time he wasn't referring to Asgore.

Toriel stepped through the door to the basement. Like Asgore she was dressed casually, with a simple dress and jacket rather than any royal regalia, but she was also looking far more put together than either of them. But then, she also felt far colder than Gaster remembered her being.

Her face was as hard as stone, unreadable. She spoke quietly as she turned to Asgore. "Do you think that I may speak with him alone?"

Asgore nodded fast before he could speak, although Gaster was already trying to sign "no" at him as discreetly as possible. He couldn't. Hearing her yelling during his sentencing about the things Sans had told her, in that heartbroken voice, was bad enough. Having to face her alone would be impossible. But Asgore said, "Of course. I'll just wait upstairs. Did you want me to get you anything? Tea? Muf-"

"No."

Asgore nodded again. He choked out, "Right. I'll wait upstairs. Here I," a quick glance at Gaster, and at Toriel--she stared ahead and did not look at either of them. "Here I go."

Toriel only looked back up when the door to the basement softly squeaked closed, and then for a few moments she peeked around the so-called cell as though she were the only one there. She took stock of the bed, of the sparse furniture, of the notebook discarded on an endtable. Perhaps she was looking for equipment, some sign of his evil, or more luxuries he had been allowed by Asgore's generosity. During that time, Gaster tried his best to disappear and to stare at an inoffensive lamp standing upright on the floor.

When Toriel finally spoke to him, Gaster flinched. "I suppose Asgore is responsible for all of these things."

"It-" His magic hands wavered as he signed; Gaster took a deep breath and tried again, steadying himself. "It certainly was not my idea. He insisted."

"Mm." Toriel looked down at the floor and nodded. "And you are comfortable here?"

It felt like a trick question. With a bitter spike of humor, Gaster said, as he began to stand up, "You can throw out whatever you like if it looks too comfortable," and then hated himself for saying it.

It made her look up. "Gaster..."

No, no, no. Not that tone of voice. That pained tone of voice.

At the sound of it all he could do was stand helplessly, and Toriel said, "I did not want to believe in the... the things that Sans told me."

"Whatever he has said, it was the truth," Gaster replied without hesitation. He did need to stop himself from adding that a lot of the account was probably colored by Sans' clear vendetta against him and wasn't an entirely accurate picture of-

That vendetta is earned. Let it go.

"And that is what you confessed to Asgore as well," she murmured. "So I had no choice but to believe it." As she frowned, eyes closing, he wondered what she could see in her mind's eye. Sans and Papyrus, two young baby bones suffering at the hands of someone she'd protected and comforted for all those years? Her own adopted child, that human Frisk, being hurt and worse for his own selfish desire to go home? The monsters that he'd dusted, whose existence their families only just now remembered? Maybe she could see the people that he'd hurt in the past.

Maybe she could hear her words to him a long time ago, about how killing had changed her, and now she realized how much it'd changed him.

"And it was as if... I could not even recognize you."

He wanted to apologize.

That after being separated from her for so long, and when she finally saw him again it was like this... that he had failed in her eyes just as Asgore had, on that day that the king lost his temper for the last time. Asgore's quickness to forgive him was so painful, but by far this was worse.

Gaster gritted his teeth. To apologize wouldn't fix anything now.

"Gaster..." Suddenly Toriel was looking at him again, and Gaster lowered his head a little more in shame. "That day when I hid myself in the ruins, I left you behind too."

She gripped at her chest, looking his way and he unable to meet her eyes. Why was she saying this? Where was she going with it?

"I know why you did what you did. It was to set us free, was it not?" When she said that, Gaster didn't move--especially not to raise his head, not even so much as to nod. But he couldn't stop himself from flinching. That seemed to be all the answer that she needed. "But even with that--how could you possibly believe that that was the best way? Did you not think of the pain you were causing, to two innocents no less? And after how you had been-" Toriel's voice rose, and then fell.

She pressed a hand to her face. "And yet it is also true... that while Asgore and I both sat content to twiddle our thumbs, hoping for a better solution as our people, and those poor human children, suffered... you put everything into m-making... one."

Suddenly she approached him.

He recoiled, naturally.

She pulled him into her arms.

Gaster stopped, standing numb with shock before trying weakly to push away. But Toriel held him close, her furry chin resting on his shoulder. A nostalgic sensation from when he was younger, only he wasn't hugging her back. Her voice was cracking as she said, "If we had done more. If we had carried out our duties as a king and queen should have... maybe you would not have decided to do such things."

No, no, no, no... "You did not cause this, your-your inaction was not why this happened," he signed it, he said it aloud, he tried to stay calm and keep his aching chest in check. "I am an adult, and I made my own decisions."

"I know that." She squeezed him but was stiff, like she'd been waiting to hold him again for a long time and wasn't sure if she was doing it right anymore. "You are not a scared child, and you are not innocent. But oh, Gaster..."

The warmth coming from the queen caused him to tremble, Gaster shutting his good eye tightly even though he didn't even need to look at her anymore. All words were trapped in his throat--to be precise, he could feel them rising and he refused them, locking them halfway to his mouth and far away from his signing hands. Don't forgive me, was all that he could think. Don't waste your forgiveness on me.

"How alone you must have thought yourself." Toriel's voice was low now. "And even after that, how alone you were. In that awful place. Frisk told me... some of it."

Of course, despite his best efforts that human was one of his advocates as well. "I-I..." he started to protest, but he'd held himself back from speaking so well that it was too hard to start now.

"I am sorry, for what led you to do these awful things. And I am sorry it has taken me this long to visit."

Don't be, he wanted to scream. Don't be sorry, I failed you, I failed Asgore. I ruined so many lives, even my own, all for nothing. You had the right idea before, you didn't do anything wrong, don't be sorry!

Suddenly Toriel pulled back, her arms on his shoulders. Her expression, in contrast to her warmth, was more fierce than before. "...But please understand, and do well to never ever forget again. You are not alone. You have never been alone. The things you've felt, whatever darkness you felt compelled you to do those unspeakable experiments, you were not-!" The fierceness grew and then softened, just a little. Gaster still didn't look her in the eye, his hands half-raised and expression shaken in her grip.

She reached down and brought his face up, his eyes meeting hers. "And, even during the times when you weren't here in our world... my child... I still loved you. And I know, Asgore did too."

You shouldn't, Gaster thought.

But to his horror, all that came out was a sob.

Then just for a moment, just for today, she was holding him in her lap like she did once upon a time. When he committed his first sin. How many more he'd committed since then.

He didn't apologize. But, like Asgore, Toriel didn't ask him to.

...She did say, however, that he owed some pretty big apologies to some of the other monsters around New New Home.