Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Falling. Falling. 

Endlessly he was falling.

Until he wasn’t.

His body collided with something hard— a dreadful smack to the side of his skull. Pain, like a bolt of lightning, shot through his mandible, his cheekbone, through his socket, and looped over the dome of his skull. The piercing throb reverberated like the aftershock of an earthquake. A sharp hiss passed through his teeth.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, his rib cage expanded. Magic rushed through the core of his being, cascading down long-frozen mana lines and filling his marrow with a delicate, painful warmth.

The surface underneath him felt altogether too cold and stung like a thousand needles but he had not the strength to move.

The ringing in his skull gradually subsided, giving way to sound. The low hum of electric equipment registered first, then the even softer frothing bubble of an unknown liquid. The tinkering pop of a beaker, rattling slightly in its stand over an open flame. These sounds were familiar to him, achingly familiar , but as Gaster opened his eye-sockets, the light, color, and shape of the visages that greeted him were starkly less so. 

“-reading’s negative. The accelerator is functioning within normal parameters-” 

What...

That sounded like his voice but he hadn’t spoken. What was this, a dream? A memory? Was he hallucinating again? Had his mind not tormented him enough?

The blurry white figure in front of him slowly took shape. The low voice intoned again.

“... can you hear me?”

 Was it... talking to him? 

He didn’t have the will nor the strength to reply.

His vision slowly cleared, and unable to move his head, Gaster slid his sole functioning eyelight over the space he had found himself in. 

Strike white walls. Linoleum flooring. White tables... 

This was not his lab.

“Ah. Good. You are conscious.”

Movement. Gaster’s gaze snapped to the figure-- hallucinations did not typically move in this way-- only for the feign magic in his ribcage to hitch. His own face stared back at him. The features of his skull had been warped, for his face looked longer, the hollow of his bone starker and less smooth.

The lab coat, at least, was familiar but it was disconcerting to see it draped over a body that most assuredly was, and was not, his .

The double tsk’d . “It seems energy transferal is turbulent. I will make a note to correct this. I have questions to ask you, but it seems you will be unable to answer them until you have collected yourself.”

The double knelt and applied a healing item of indiscernible make and quality to his skull- the touch of magic alone made the morrow of his bone boil, but he was far too weak to protest. Let alone move— he was led (read: dragged) to an off-white chair in the corner of the lab where he sat, unmoving and limp as his double examined the strange device Gaster had apparently materialized under. 

The device was best described as a domed wire cage. Underneath which stood the platform Gaster had collided headfirst with. Attached to the wire cage were numerous electrical cables and a grey tube connected to the ceiling above. Gaster deduced this led to the device’s power source.

Following the wires as they looped through the lab. His attention was brought to the many beakers that lined the table across from him. There were multiple desks situated around the room. This would not be a point of interest to him, were it not for how neat and well organized the lab was. 

Now, Gaster did not consider himself disorganized by any means but the state of this lab boarderlined on meticulousness. And as he studied his environment, processing, absorbing the sensations bombarding his senses; the cold air, the sterile smell of chemicals, the smooth leather under his phalanges and the way the material bent under the pressure of his claws— it solidified the fact he was reluctant to believe: he was not in the void.

The environment surrounding him was not the product of his own mind but a physical plane .

He didn’t want to give himself false hope. But at last, the truth was undeniable. He had made it out.

“I see you’ve collected yourself.” the low voice of his double intoned.

Gaster followed his approach with his eyes, wary but no less curious. Now that he had determined he wasn’t in the void, but in a physical plane of existence, his perspective on this strange environment had changed drastically. At long last he had escaped the void, but where to?

“By your calm state of mind, I assume you have deduced where you are?”

His hands shook as Gaster considered what to say, how he wanted to say it. He brought his hands together and began to sign the appropriate symbols for the spell. ‘ In theorem .’

The double’s eyelights glinted in understanding. He lifted his palms so Gaster could see them clearly and signed as he spoke. “I have many questions to ask you. I am sure you have many of your own. It was my machine that brought you here. Into my reality.”

Yes... Gaster had thought as much. Or rather felt. He had known of other dimensions, of other worlds long before he fell into the void. He had only lacked the means to observe or traverse them.

The double, satisfied by his acceptance of this statement continued. “I see. Of course. You are a variant of myself, naturally, you have pursued a similar field of study. Tell me about the world I took you from.”

Well now, this was a little difficult to convey. He began at the basics, describing at first the ruling bodies of the underground, then other constants; his coworkers, the monsters of Hotland, and at last the personalities of his former lab assistants. This subject in particular caught his double’s attention.

“Interesting. It seems that while most events have occurred in the same way, the environment of your world was less hostile than ours. I could not imagine Theta behaving with diffidence. Her daughter, certainly, but not her.” Scratching. The double dotted down a series of notes on a clipboard. 

And then Gaster got to the part where he explained how his counterpart had not pulled him from another reality to begin with, but a dimension that existed between space-time. 

“I see. I should have led with that question. It was my hope to connect this reality to an alternate and open a gate between them, but it seems I miscalculated.” Muttering, his double made another note on the clipboard. “This void... it may be worth investigating. I wonder, how did you survive in such a place?”

He would have found this subject more interesting himself but he was just so tired. And frankly, sick to dust of even the passing mention of that accursed place. 

Gaster took the short reprieve from answering questions to rest his head in a palm, only to wince, hissing as his knuckles made contact with a particularly tender patch of bone. He must have hit the floor harder than he thought. The impact had reopened that old wound of his. 

The double looked up from his clipboard, frowning. “How did this injury occur?”

How had...?

His soul squeezed painfully at the memory. It felt a bitter acidic taste in his mouth. A cloying tight thrum of magic, that was altogether suffocating and unpleasant.

He did not want to speak on the details of that event. They were too painful to recall. 

But it did bring up an interesting line of thought. 

When he had entered his counterpart’s timeline? Obliviously, he thought with a touch of bitter resentment, the accident had not happened to his counterpart yet. But would it? What events were shared between their realities? Which differed? Would this timeline experience negative repercussions due to his actions, his mere presence here?

Gaster considered.

His soul pulsed with a dull ache. He found he didn’t care. It was not his world. 

‘ I do not care to speak of it. ’

For the first time since meeting his double, something resembling emotion flickered across his face: surprise, then disappointment. “This experiment was not a total loss. I have more questions to ask you about this ‘accident’ you have described. I will keep you here for the time being and when I have the data I need I will return you to the plane you came from.”

His phalanges clenched around the armrest, but Gaster said nothing as his counterpart spoke.

“I am certain the data you will provide will be invaluable to my research.”

When his double had deemed Gaster’s strength had returned sufficiently enough, he was given a tour of the lab. 

The prospect of returning to the void was never far from Gaster's mind and as his double described to him the purpose of each room and the various experiments conducted within, Gaster thought on how he might convince the other scientist the merits of allowing him to stay. At least long enough for him to figure out how to return to his own reality.

The difficulty of this task was further exacerbated by the difficulty Gaster had conveying his thoughts to his counterpart. There was a sense of mild frustration on his behalf; it seemed that while they both could speak in hands, the other scientist had far less patience for the spell. 

A fact which he considered odd. Did this mean his counterpart could be understood, verbally, by other monsters?

That thought ignited a spark of envy.

As the tour reached its conclusion his double led him into a room aligned with a row of cages on either wall. 

Gaster stilled midstep as he took in the creatures housed within. 

The beasts resembled his blasters in a sense, but smaller in size. Comparable in height to dog monsters, with bodies that more deeply resembled upright-walking skeletons than the beasts Gaster typically associated with his blasters. 

The torsos of the creatures were elongated, that much was similar, and their skulls were a near, perfect replica of a blaster’s skull. It was their limbs that struck Gaster as off. Hindquarters straightened to allow for walking upright, while their front limbs were longer to accommodate for walking on all fours. 

The beasts growled, watching his approach with dim eyelights, but most shied away from the attention prostrating themselves on the floor of their cages. 

Gaster found the creatures curious but ever so slightly off-putting. Something about them did not feel quite right.

There was something in the ambient magic in the room. Something charged he could not immediately identify, but with which sent a sharp prickle down his spine. 

His double stood in the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back while he waited for Gaster to finish his inspection. As Gaster looked to him for an explanation, the scientist smirked.

“Not my greatest achievement. As I'm sure we both agree that title rests with the CORE, but one that I am nonetheless proud of. The King requested that I create a weapon to aid in the eradication of humankind. This is the result of those efforts.” 

His counterpart gestured for him to follow as he turned to the equipment at the end of the room. 

“Without this, Asgore’s desire to eradicate humanity would surely lead to the destruction of monsterdom. Our forces are simply too weak. While humans had time to recover, for their society to flourish, we have not.” 

Shelves of various vials lined the wall behind him. But Gaster’s attention was drawn to the examination table in the center of the room and to the equipment that surrounded it. Jars of specimens lined the shelf underneath the table, displaying the early developmental stages of the creatures. 

“These beasts are modified clones, modeled after my, or I should say, our blasters. The missing sequences in their genetics are supplemented with skeleton monster DNA, as our kin were most compatible with the experiment. Unfortunately, the sample size was... low.” He cleared his throat. “They are sapient, to some extent.”

How he managed to obtain such a thing he did not elaborate on. Gaster decided he didn’t want to know.

After a brief moment of contemplation, his counterpart looked at him expectantly. “I am curious to see how your blasters compare to mine.”

Gaster chose his words carefully. The lie came easily enough. “ I have not yet recovered enough to manifest my magic in this way. ”

Regardless, a blaster would simply not fit inside the lab. A juvenile might have room enough to stand, but the lack of room for it to move would cause disarray and would undoubtedly aggravate his counterpart.

The other scientist tsk’d. “A pity. Another time then.” 

Thankfully, the other scientist was pulled away from the conversation by a shrill beep. He hurried off to attend whichever experiment required attention and Gaster took the moment to examine the lab without supervision.

On the door of each cage was a small metal plate, designating the individual residing in it, their primary soul trait, and a number. Distressingly, many of them were named in the traditional way of skeleton monsters. But out of remorse or sentimentality? He couldn’t be sure.

A cage in the bottom row drew Gaster’s attention. In it was a small beast. It looked notably younger than the others. By its size, this one was clearly a juvenile. The other beasts appeared to be fully grown. A quick glance in his counterpart’s direction confirmed that he was distracted. Gaster knelt to look at the creature.

The beast scuttled to the back of its cage the moment it realized it had his attention. The beast’s long serpentine tail tucked between its legs. Its skull was less elongated than the others, smoother, with rounded cheekbones. The horns had not grown in yet, they were but stumpy nubs on the back of its skull. Yet, it was the little one’s wide black sockets that sent a pang of familiarity through his heart. 

Before he knew it, he had the cage door unlatched and pulled the little one into his arms. Perhaps it would have been wiser to allow the creature to smell his hand first, assuming he and his counterpart had a different scent. Gaster did not feel steady enough in this reality to tell one way or another. His senses had yet to acclimate. But the little beast did not attempt to bite him. The opposite, in fact, it went limp the moment he picked it up. 

The poor thing trembled in his grasp, curling up to make itself seem smaller. A pitiful, soul-wrenching sight. 

“Shhh... shh.” Gaster murmured, the low hush of his voice quieter than a breath. The creature flinched when he brushed his fingers over its skull. The apparent fear it held for him made his soul constrict in grief. 

He could not place why... but there was something deeply familiar about it. 

“I see you’ve finally found your voice.” his counterpart said, pleased. As Gaster stood, his counterpart glanced down to the beast in his arms and scowled. “You are fortunate that one is weak. Had you chosen another to pick up, it would have bitten you.”

“Weak?” Gaster repeated, unable to properly sign with the little one in his arms and too weak to materialize the extra hands he would need to do so. The projection of his voice came sharp and stilted, but of course, his counterpart was unphased and understood him. Their magic was nearly identical.

The other scientist studied him with an expression that felt distinctly bored. “I created these beasts with raw power in mind. That one’s stats are abysmally low. Frankly, it is astonishing that it survived the trial phase.”

Trial phase?

Lifting his hand from the little one’s skull, he finally noticed the small grooves, cuts, slashed across the dome of its head. They were not deep, but Gaster knew from experience that the younger a being was, the less tolerance they held for pain.

His counterpart continued monologuing but his words did not register. Gaster counted the cuts down the little one’s spine. There was a nick on a rib. A chip missing from the natural ridges that protruded from a blaster’s spine. The little one’s eyelights had returned, a familiar and bright cyan, ringed by yellow: patience, justice. Though the light quivered as they studied him. Fearful and wary but gradually less so.

There was a collar around the creature’s neck he had not noticed before, so tightly did it cling to the bone of its neck. Slowly, as to not startle the poor thing with any unnecessary movements, he lifted the tag with a claw to read the engraving underneath.

Ice filled his soul. He stared at the tag. Read the script again, then again. 

His counterpart said something then muttered the word: “euthanize-” and he was snapped back into the moment.

“Yes, yes, it is a pity. But I simply have no use for the creature. It is a mercy to put it down now. It would not last a moment on the battlefield, even if it grew into adulthood.”

Magic coiling ever tighter around the core of his being, Gaster struggled to project his words. “Could you not find another home for him?”

The double scoffed. “Hardly. The average monster would not have the equipment to provide adequate care. I do not make this decision lightly. I kept it alive until this point in the hopes it would show some potential for growth, but with the fragility of its health, it's only a matter of time before more problems emerge. No. I have concluded euthanizing it is for the best, to save the thing from suffering later in life.”

“... you won’t change your mind,” Gaster concluded. His counterpart's tone was resolute. 

“Rest assured, the process is painless.” A pause, as the double studied his expression. Gaster forced himself into a state of calm, despite the vice grip dread had on his soul and the sick coiling of nauseous below his ribcage.

“By the angel, you are soft .” A scoff. “If you agree, I will allow you to observe the process. Perhaps that will assuage your pity.”

“I will watch.” Gaster said slowly, the acidic taste of rage and illness behind his teeth. His thoughts raced.

His counterpart directed him to the examination table in the center of the next room over. 

Approaching the table took an eternity despite the absurdly short distance. Each step felt heavier than the last. Gaster’s soul pounded. The flow of magic in his bones a hearty pulse with each step he took.

It was a struggle to keep calm, to keep his hands from shaking. 

His counterpart instructed him to place the little one on the table. He did so, reluctantly, painfully aware of how the little one trembled under his hand. The table seemed far too cold for a creature so young— the little one’s claws scratched and clicked noisily over the surface. 

Gaster ran a hand over the beast’s back, gently stroking his skull to the end of his spine. A low rumble came from his chest, a persistent sound that had once soothed his oldest. It did the trick. The small beast remained still but his trembling grew less violent. Those wary eyelights watched him. Confused. Vulnerable. 

The fear in those eyelights...

That cold rage in his soul uncoiled like a serpent- he smothered it. 

His double didn’t notice.

Out of the corner of his eye socket, Gaster watched his counterpart reach for a vial on the shelf above the counter behind them and inject the substance into a long glass syringe. He took out another syringe and filled it with a different substance.

“...what are you injecting him with?” The words came forced, a stilted warble, but once again his counterpart paid it no mind. Confident and so self-assured. Arrogant and bloated with pride. He saw no fault with himself. No measure of doubt that anything could possibly go wrong.

“A two-part cocktail.” His counterpart explained, tapping the syringe with a single claw. “The first part is a sleep agent. Once injected the subject will fall unconscious within minutes. Afterward, I inject a magic nullifying neurotoxin. A fast-acting poison that first disrupts the flow of magic from the soul to the rest of the body, then shuts the soul down completely, dusting the subject without pain or suffering.”

Turning around, the other scientist met his eyelight. Grim but impassive. Gaster stared into his reflection. He felt cold and at once resigned by the sight of the monster that stared back. “The beast will in no way be aware of what is happening to it. I have ensured this process is as merciful as possible.”

The double came up to the table. 

He swallowed back the acid fire behind his teeth and far more calmly than he felt made a simple request. “Allow me.”

His counterpart’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. He offered the syringe for Gaster to take. 

It took every ounce of self-restraint he possessed to hold the instrument delicately. Miraculously, his hand did not tremble this time. 

He examined the needle, the lights of his eyes vacant, then turned, took a step away from the table, and held the needle up to the light. 

The liquid within was clear and glinted a sickly lavender under the light.

 “Ah,” he hummed, the sound of his voice warped and distorted. A pop of static. “A defect.”

“What? Give it here.” Gaster watched him reach for the syringe out of the corner of his socket. Time slowed, his gaze fell to his double’s arm, tracking the radius to where it met the wrist. A vulnerable place and not well protected. Gaster jammed the needle down—

A hollow smack and clatter echoed through the room. The needle missed its mark but the syringe had not fallen from his grip. A firm hand clenched his wrist. “What the hell do you think you are doing!?”

Gaster pushed all his weight down. 

His counterpart grunted, then snarled as the small of his back was shoved into the ledge of the table behind him.

Gaster’s arms shook with the effort it took to hold the other monster back. The glass canister of the syringe rattled in his hand. The needle gleamed under the harsh fluorescent light. Already he felt his strength waning. Every joint, every chip and fracture in his bones ached .

“Enough of this!”

A rough force threw him back. White-hot pain shot through his spine as his back collided with the counter. Gaster’s mouth parted in a silent agonized cry. The atmosphere snapped and uncoiled. His vision had not yet cleared as his double staggered to his feet and shot a rippling wave of bones his way.

There was not a lot of space between them. Even less to dodge and move.

The sound of fabric ripping- Gaster flinched as a long bone tore through his coat, just shy of his rib cage. He jerked to the side in time to avoid a second piercing bone that promised to hit its mark. His eye light flashed violet and a row of bone shot up from the floor in time to meet a second wave.

In the corners of the lab where the few shadows stretched, the darkness pulsed, bubbling like hot oil. His magic ached to pull it, to wrap it around his bones, but it tumbled from his grasp almost as soon as he reached for it. The lab was too bright. Too much light.

Crack. Bones on either side splintered. Something sharp struck him on the tender side of his skull and his vision went white.

He did not recover in time. A hand wrapped around his neck and slammed his back into the counter. The bones of his neck groaned. Gaster felt the splinter snake down his spine. He struggled. Shaking, his claws dug into the fabric of the other’s sleeve. He clenched his teeth. Straining to open his sockets against the throbbing molten pain that wrecked his spine.

“Yield.” his counterpart snarled. His grip tightened.

Gaster reached behind him, fumbling clumsily for something to grasp. Anything. A blunt object. Something sharp. It didn’t matter.

The lights in his counterparts’ sockets burned indigo. The pressure the other exerted suffocated, an overwhelming flood of power that threatened to smother any spark of life. A lesser monster would have quickly buckled in diffidence to spare themselves the pain, but Gaster was made of a stubborn will. He endured.

In his lifetime, he had failed to submit to a mage. He had failed to submit to a Judge, to a King, and he would not submit here. 

His vision swam. He felt something cold hit the gap in his palm. He didn’t hesitate. He jammed it into his counterpart’s neck— a syringe. Gaster had dropped the other one when his counterpart had thrown him into the counter— the needle slipped between vertebrae discs. 

His counterpart released him with a violent jerk.

Sockets wide, he stumbled back from Gaster. He fumbled, limbs convulsing, as he grabbed at the needle. He ripped it from his neck, a spray of morrow coming loose with the violent tug. He stared at the canister in his hand, then slowly looked up. 

“... what have you done?”

Already the potent cocktail was taking effect. Flakes of dust peeled from the other scientist’s skull and neck. His legs buckled. 

Tremors wracked Gaster’s body as the seconds ticked by. He did not break eye contact, not once, as the light faded from his counterpart’s sockets. At last, the monster collapsed into a heap, bones shattering as his skull hit the floor. 

And then he was dust.

Gaster sank to the floor himself, haunted by the phantom pulse of his LV and EXP rising. It was a familiar sickening sensation that he had not experienced for a long time. Not since he fell into the void, not since his time as the Royal Scientist. Not since...

Stars... he hadn’t meant to! He liked to think of himself as a practical pacifist, avoiding violence when it could be managed. He detested violence, detested unnecessary acts of cruelty. 

But that was what he’d been confronted with here.

The moment he read that tag, the moment he saw for himself the signs of abuse over the little one’s body... he couldn’t stand aside and do nothing! He couldn’t bear it. He had watched his children die too many times.

Had he wanted to kill his counterpart? No. No... of course not! 

Ideally, simply knocking his counterpart unconscious should have been enough. But then what? Hide his counterpart's body and take his place? He would have woken up eventually, and then where would he be? There was no easy solution. He had acted, very, very rashly. 

Did he regret it?

The tiny whimper that came from the examination table, the fact the little one was alive now at all, answered this question with a solid: No.

Gaster closed his sockets, pain pulsed through his body. He waited a few moments for it to subside. The wait was unbearably long. Guilt and shame warred within his soul. Another whimper finally motivated him enough to move. Gaster heaved himself to his feet. Half dragging, half stumbling his way to the table.

The little one, a pup, and this world's variant of his son scuttled away from him. And it hurt, it hurt deeply to see the fear in Sans’ eyes-lights. But at least he was safe now. He looked no worse than he’d been before his strife with his counterpart. Gaster performed a quick check to be sure and sighed when the readings came back normal.

“...It’ll be alright now, little one.” He murmured, and offered his hand for the young monster to examine. 

It took a moment, but slowly, Sans approached him. He sniffed his hand cautiously. He didn’t move any closer, but Gaster supposed it was a start. 

He hoped it meant they were beginning to establish some form of trust-

A skull-splitting wail caused Gaster to flinch violently and Sans quickly scuttled away from him. 

The lights of the lab flashed red.

An alarm system.

Desperately, he searched the lab for what in the stars had triggered it. His gaze fell to the pile of dust that remained of his counterpart. His lab coat remained, and tugging the fabric aside with a claw Gaster found a small electronic device. He picked it up. It was round, about the size of a gold coin, and a small bulb in the center of it blinked red.

Ah. 

That must have done it. 

It wouldn’t be long now before whatever security his counterpart had in place entered the lab. Gaster could not recall where the exit had been, then cursed under his breath as he realized his counterpart had not shown it to him. He could only assume then, that the exit or entrance into the lab was through any door his double had not offered an explanation for.

He did not have a lot of time to prepare himself.

There was an electric crackle, and through a PA system his double had also neglected to mention, came a voice. “Uh...I’m so s-sorry to disturb you. T-there’s something wrong with our emergency alert system? There’s been a malfunction, it uh-” Then nervous nasally laughter that sounded more like a gasping sob than anything resembling humor. “-the system seems to think you’re dead, sir? B-but! That’s impossible. S-so. If you’re not too busy, c-could you please respond to the c-comm?”

A click.

Right then.

Pausing for only a moment for the child to be forewarned before he was picked up again, Gaster hastily bundled the child in a towel he snatched from a nearby drawer. He would have to think on his feet. Knowing he had not seen anything resembling a comms panel, he realized searching for it would be fruitless and a waste of time. 

What did give him pause, was the knowledge he held Sans in his arms but not Papyrus. He quickly scanned the cages nearby but none of the blasters within sparked the same recognition. Sans- this strange variant of him- was so little, he wondered if he had arrived prior to Papyrus's creation. The thought of one child existing without the other felt unnatural in his mind, but it was a possibility he had to also consider.

He threw open cabinets, shoving handfuls of any healing items he came across into the pockets of his coat. He found a green vial, popped open the lid with his thumb, and downed it in one go. The concoction lessened the ache in his joints considerably, but the fractures down his spine, wrist, and skull throbbed.

Another crackle. “Sir? Dr. Gaster? Is-is everything okay? Y-you’re taking a long time to respond to the comm... U-usually you’d be yelling at me by n-now? So...” Click.

Oh, oh, child abuse AND a hostile work environment? Did this man have no sense of decorum?

As Gaster passed by his counterpart’s remains he vindictively stomped his heel into the former monster’s coat. (Of course, the monster could no longer feel anything, but Gaster felt better for it.)

From within the bundle in his arms, the little one stared at the mess on the floor with wide sockets.

Gaster paid him little mind and staggered through the room with the cages and into the room his counterpart had first brought him to. There he found a door his double had given him no explanation for, presumably the exit. But as he neared, he found it had no knob, handle or control panel. He ran his phalanges along the frame but found no mechanism there either.

The alarm continued to blare. The beasts in the other room were howling now. Snarling and barking viciously at the insistent drone.

Another crackle.

Gaster stepped away from the door as a shadow appeared in the frame of the door’s semi-translucent window.

“Uh, Doctor? I-I know you’re probably okay and you’re going to be r-really mad but...! I’ve sent someone to break into the lab to check on you, okay? I-I’m really, really sorry, sir!”

Click.

Gaster backpedaled, frantically searching the room for an alternate exit. 

Inevitably his eyes landed on the device that had brought him into this reality. 

There was no time to think. No time to consider. His counterpart had designed the device to bridge the gap between separate realities and though the initial test that only succeeded in pulling Gaster from the void -- it was still clearly functional. Gaster had no desire to return the void, non-what-so-ever. But if he could adjust the settings correctly...

On the other side of the door, he heard shuffling. A series of clicks and beeps. He was running out of time.

Gaster rushed over to the device. The panel before him blinked to life. Then agonizingly, loaded the menu very slowly. Gaster stared at the thing in outrage. He had only seconds to read his options. Seconds to open the navigation and only seconds more to take a wild guess, enter a string of numbers based on the foreign pattern that flashed across the screen and pray to beings he did not believe in that the device would fling him not into the void but somewhere else.

The machine whirred to life.

From the other side of the room came a loud thud. The groan of gears turning and the door slid open a crack.

Under the wire cage, a sliver of orange shot down to the platform below like a bolt. The surge of energy that followed caused the lights above him to pop. A wave of electrical current hissing and snapping at every metal surface within the lab.

The body of a monster was attempting to wedge itself through the door. The nasally voice came again, from behind the monster, in the hall beyond. “D-Dr.Gaster?”

Like a curtain, the sliver of orange energy parted into a rift. In the passing seconds that followed, Gaster had no time to process the strange familiarity that overcame him as he stared into the fissure. The door snapped open and Gaster stepped through the gate.

As Alphys and the guard stumbled into the lab, they saw only a flash of light and the tail of a black coat. It would not take them long to find the Royal Scientist’s dust. His premature death, and a missing subject, the only indication that an imposter had been there at all.

Chapter Text

The cold bite of snow was unmistakable against his back and as Gaster opened his sockets, his ribcage hitched at the sight of an evergreen canopy.

That hitch turned into a rasp in his throat and then hysterical laughter. 

It worked. It actually worked! His counterpart’s machine that had not coughed him up into the void. Instead, it had thrown him here, Snowdin of all places. He almost couldn’t believe it. Never before had the sharp bite of ice felt so welcomed.

He dug his phalanges into the snow experimentally and marveled at his renewed sense of touch. He couldn’t stop grinning.

Actually sitting upright was considerably less pleasant. The fracture in his wrist throbbed if he moved his arm the wrong way, and his spine— stars did it hurt if he moved too quickly. He had to shift the little one into one arm so he could lean against the trunk of a tree to stabilize himself, but it seemed like such a trivial thing in comparison to the knowledge that he had a physical body and he was here . 

Despite these setbacks, he forced himself onward, staggering through the thicket to the tree-line. 

But as the light between the trees grew brighter, Gaster began to feel uneasy. 

Had the diurnal magic above Snowdin always been so bright or was it his own instability that made the world seem off-kilter? 

The trees gave way to a clearing and Gaster came to a halt as the snow reached just below his kneecaps. He stood still, processing the cold bite of the cavern’s ambient magic as it cycled through his own. He found his answer soon enough.

The snow-capped hill he found himself on dipped into a valley, then a black chasm, and over the crest of the cliff peered the triangular rooftops of Snowdin Town itself and the unnatural wall of white behind it. 

Even the power the CORE produced should not be sufficient enough to produce a light source this brilliant.

That and the light itself...

Gaster’s eye light trialed up. Above the towering cliffs and Snowden’s rooftops to the cavern ceiling... the ceiling that he now realized wasn’t entirely there.

He quickly blamed the void for his failure to notice the gaping hole in the mountain sooner.

The sky above shone a stunning endless blue. In the far distance, specks that could have been birds flew out of the cavern into the skylight. Their gentle passage and the clarity of the sky meant only one thing: the barrier was gone.

His heart sank.

This was not the world he originated from.

Of course... he should have expected that. It was foolish to think a spare of the moment change to the variables of an unknown formula would bring him home. The calculation had been made in a split second. He barely understood the mechanisms of the device his counterpart constructed, had he had time to study it in-depth, the results might have been different. 

Gaster dragged a hand down his face, a humorless chuckle leaving his throat. He felt so, so tired. 

He found a nearby tree stump and slumped against it. 

Well... there was no sense in ruminating over his mistakes now, he supposed. He needed a plan. He needed to gather resources, data on this current reality, and return to his original timeline as soon as he possibly could. But before he could do any of that, he needed to recover.

The ache in his bones had not lessened, and though the cold numbed the pain somewhat, it didn’t make the injury any less there . That scuffle with his counterpart had taken a significant chunk of his health. And speaking of health...

He laid the bundle in his lap and gently began to unravel the towel. 

The little one stayed where he was, blinking wide sockets in the harsh light. Removing the towel completely revealed no sign of further injury and a quick check relieved the last thread of worry from his heart. He was in fine health despite the turbulent journey. No worse than the state he had found him in.

Now free from the towel, Sans cautiously examined the change in scenery. He seemed too nervous to explore, but nonetheless studied this new environment with the same keen intellect Gaster would expect from his children. Sans had always been observant, smart beyond his years, while Papyrus was more difficult to read out of the two, and this fact seemed to be universal.

There were distinct physical differences between this variant of his son and the one Gaster had raised, of course, but now that he knew the truth it was impossible to look past the similarities. He couldn’t move past it. This was his son from another reality. His son.

How old was he? Surely not much older than a toddler. Certainly too young to be a child, his resemblance to a blaster made it difficult to pinpoint an exact age. 

He was so tiny on top of that. When had he been fed last? Surely, if they were so much alike, his counterpart would have kept to a feeding schedule. And then there was the fact he was without anything to wear. He would have to correct that. 

For that matter, could he stand upright? Did he know how to walk on two legs? Could he talk? Gaster had not heard a single intelligible utterance from the beasts, but was that due to maltreatment or a side effect of their hybrid nature? Had his counterpart crippled Sans’ ability to speak?

Gaster shook himself.

Ah, but he was getting ahead of himself.

“Let’s see about removing that horrid thing around your neck,” Gaster muttered. The metal tag gleamed a sickly gray in the sunlight. He hated it. It had no place around the vulnerable vertebrae of his son’s neck. And the longer he studied the thing, the more furious he felt.

The child might be frightened if he reached for the object around his neck without warning, but after thinking for a moment he thought of a solution. He plucked one of the candies he had stolen out of his pocket, and while the little one was distracted with it—small ‘paws’ held the hard candy in place while Sans attempted to crack it open between his molars— Gaster quickly slid his claws underneath the metal and undid the clasp.

He quickly pulled the strap free and Sans seemed to realize what he was doing. He ducked away from his hand, then stilled, frozen in place, as Gaster carelessly dropped the collar into the snow with a satisfying plop.

He slowly lowered his open palms for Sans to inspect. See? No collar. No needles. No sharp instruments of any kind.

‘ You will not be needing that again,’ he signed slowly. Theoretically, the spell should work, as the little one was fundamentally still a monster. Regardless of his origins. But children developed differently, Gaster couldn’t know for sure if the spell was understood until the child reached a point where it was possible for him to reply. If he ever did. ‘I would offer you the chance to destroy it yourself but I do not care to keep the reminder. ’

He could not tell if Sans understood or not. It could've been the slow movement, or perhaps the child sensed his intentions, regardless, the tension slowly fled from his bones.

Sans tilted his skull to the side, sockets wide, not with fear this time but curiosity. He sat back on his haunches and stared up at Gaster’s face.

Gaster smiled. 

Progress.

Continuing the trek towards Snowdin, Sans was considerably bolder in his arms. The towel, as a buffer and a measure of security, had been discarded, regulated now to loosely drape over his forearm, while the little one stood on his hind legs, as best could be achieved, and peered over Gaster’s shoulder. His tiny claws were nonetheless sharp and pricked through the fabric of his coat.

Gaster paid it little mind, overwhelmingly pleased that his son’s counterpart felt confident enough in his safety to be held this way, let alone observe his surroundings as he walked.

He suspected this was the child’s first introduction to a world outside the sterile white walls of the lab. 

The thought made his teeth clenched for a moment but the anger dispersed just as quickly. He didn’t have the energy for anger. There was nothing for him to lash out at, despite what the LV in his marrow might tell him. 

As he neared the final valley before the bridge into town, the path led up a steep incline, made all the more difficult by the pain down his spine and the curious child in his arms, who squirmed and wiggled to see and listen to every new sight and sound they came across. He did not trust himself to use a shortcut just yet. He felt too weak. 

The path ahead took a sharp bend. And here he came to a stop. The placement of the trees was different, and the clearing itself bare of what should have been there. But still, his soul skipped a beat. He remembered this place. Papyrus had built his first snow-monster here...

... how long had it been since-?

“I smell... a new smell.”

“Wait my love, I know this smell.”

Gaster paused, disgruntled, the voices came from his blind spot. He turned his skull, single eyelight scanning the cliff for the source.

He found them on the crest of the hill where the bridge into Snowdin began. Dogamy and Dogaressa. He almost didn’t recognize them at first. They were not dressed in their usual attire but wore matching suits. Pinstripe suits of all things. Dogaressa’s blazer clung tightly to her waist, while Dogamy’s matching blazer hung loosely over one shoulder. They were both armed with a revolver at the hip.

As he watched, Dogaressa lifted her muzzle, scenting the air. Her ears perked and sharply, her head swerved in his direction. “Oh! This smell. This is a skeleton smell... Don Wingding Aster, is that you?”

Don Wingding Aster? His name was not Aster . It was Gaster , as in; ghastly ghoulish spellcaster. He took a certain amount of pride in that name. 

“That can’t be right. I thought the Don was dust!” Dogamy barked. And the two dog monsters bounded down the slope to meet him.

Sans’ confidence sapped away when he noticed the two monsters approaching them. The little one slid down from his perch and pressed his skull into the crook of his arm. As though that might hide him. Gaster gently draped the towel over him. 

Both dogs came to a stop, feet away, and sniffed the air in steadily growing excitement. 

Gaster found himself at a crossroads. He squinted at the two canines, resting a protective hand over Sans, and considered how best to approach this situation. He was tired, frazzled, and had little time to spare to come up with a comfortable strategy to follow. Should he play into their prescription of who he was, or should he place his bets on their goodwill and explain himself? 

As he was still too tired to muster up the energy to summon another pair of hands and his arms were currently occupied, Gaster made to carefully, ever so carefully speak. After all, in the previous reality, his counterpart's behavior suggested the inability to be understood might not be a universal constant.

He kept his voice quiet anyway. Angel forbid he cause the canines discomfort.

 “I am afraid you have mistaken me for someone else...”

Dogamy let out a startled bark. His tail started to wag. “I know that accent anywhere, it really is you!”

“Your smell is different, but I would recognize you anywhere, sir! We are so happy to smell you again.” Dogaressa whined. “We all thought you were dust!”

Gaster blinked slowly and made to reply, mildly vexed and still not quite clear if they had understood anything he had said (at least now he knew they weren’t disturbed by his voice) but Dogamy beat him to it. “I get it now. You orchestrated your own death to throw off the Dreemurrs . As expected of a monster of your caliber, sir! Well done.”

Dogaressa gasped. “If that is true, dear, then we must escort the Don back to the estate! If someone besides ourselves were to catch on to his ruse...”

“I didn’t even think about that! You are so wonderfully clever, darling.”

Gaster’s eyelight darted between the two. Well... it seemed the decision was already made. Reluctantly, he acknowledged that it would give him the opportunity to gather data on this reality without unnecessary conflict. For the time being, anyway.

Provided his appearance didn’t raise suspicion from monsters who were not partially blind. The last double he encountered differed slightly in appearance. Who’s to say this, Wingding Aster, did not also look slightly different?

How difficult could it be to impersonate himself?

Variables. Damn variables.

Curiously enough, Dogamy and Dogaressa led him not into town, but off a side path just before the bridge that led down into the ravine Snowdin overlooked and to a large two-story lodge which sat hidden in its shadow, surrounded on all sides by tall fir trees. The building itself was not all that different from the log-block style the rest of Snowdin adopted. Built primarily with logs on a weathered stone foundation. It looked as though it was meant to be there, despite the fact that Gaster knew it clearly wasn’t.

Dogamy knocked on the door twice. Paused. Then nodding to each other, the pair produced a set of keys and held the door open for Gaster to step inside.

The warm air that greeted him in the foyer was a welcomed respite. Sans wiggled a bit in his cocoon and cautiously peered over his arm to see what all had changed. Curious himself, but also very tired and feeling his patience waning, Gaster scanned the main entrance hall for somewhere to sit.

Without waiting for Dogamy and Dogaressa, he proceeded down the hall and entered the first room he came across. A parlor. Decorated lavishly in plush red fabrics and corresponding pieces of dark mahogany furniture. Neither canine seemed to find this behavior unusual.

“Sir, wait. Allow me to take your coat.” Said Dogamy.

Gaster waved him off. Carefully, he eased himself into an armchair but was unable to contain a grimace as a hot flash of pain shot down his spine. The pain subsided after a moment but Dogaressa had heard his sharp intake of breath.

“That smell...! You’re hurt.” 

Dogaressa fussed. Dogamy fussed. Together the pair fussed obnoxiously.

Gaster closed his sockets in an attempt to contain his irritation but a quiet whimper from Sans loosened the tight hold he had on his temper. “Enough. Yes, yes, I am injured. Yes, my wounds have already been treated. What I require now is time and rest.”

Dogamy folded his ears back, looking for all the world as though he’d been kicked. Both dogs had folded their ears in fact. Gaster snapped his teeth shut.

Right. Of course. He was incomprehensible to their ears.

Dogaressa stared at the moving bundle in his arms. “Puppy?” She said, “I heard a puppy.”

Gaster pressed his phalanges to the bridge of bone between his sockets, muttering to himself. “Yes. This is a puppy. Do keep your voice down.” 

Her tail was wagging now. Dogaressa knelt next to the armchair, and Gaster felt and smothered another spike of irritation. He knew she meant no harm, but the LV in his marrow did not discriminate. (It was a wrathful petty thing and it screamed that she was far too close to his child. He ignored it because he knew better than petty instinct.)

Unaware of the glass she was now treading, Dogaressa set her muzzle and paws on the armrest. Sans tentatively pushed his skull out of his towel cocoon and cautiously sniffed her back. His tail started to slowly wag.

Be gentle , Gaster almost snapped but caught the words before they could escape through his teeth.

Dogaressa gasped, her tail thumping wildly behind her. “This is not just a puppy, this is a skeleton puppy!” 

Dogamy brightened. He approached the armchair more cautiously, a gesture which Gaster appreciated right up until he spoke again.

“Congratulations sir.”

His nerves tolerated their curiosity for a few more minutes. The pair fawned over Sans and asked a myriad of questions. Who's the lucky mistress, sir? Is she someone we know? Will we meet her? Did you find him? Is he adopted? What’s his name? Gaster ignored most of these questions. Sans didn’t seem bothered, gradually he emerged from his cocoon, but was not quite comfortable enough to leave his arms just yet. 

There was only so much of this Gaster could take. He cleared his throat.

Both dogs turned to look at him.

He lifted his hands to sign. Slowly at first, so they could see the symbols clearly and so he could be sure they were paying attention. The spell only worked when one was looking directly at him. 

‘ Would you be so kind as to find something for him to eat? ’

“Of course, sir!”

With that, she bounded from the room.

Gaster took that moment to process Dogamy and Dogaressa’s strange diffidence to him— to his counterpart rather— he didn’t feel comfortable under all this attention. But where did this behavior come from? What position did Aster hold exactly? 

Given his place of residence... It seemed unlikely Aster had the mantle of Royal Scientist and as that was the only position Gaster had ever held worth remembering, and already his counterpart’s interests seemed so wildly different, he could not even begin to speculate. 

He had never been never much of a socialite, and though it pained him to admit, Gaster knew he wasn’t exactly... fluent in the social hierarchy. Despite Asgore and Toriel’s many attempts to drag him into the limelight, he never took to that sort of social life. Gaster was an observer, not an entertainer. He did not fare well in the royal court. In any court. He built things. Pushed limits for the thrill of it. If in the pursuit of knowledge or efficiency, something benefited monsterdom he was glad but did not have any strong desire to seek recognition for it.

(In this way, his curiosity was selfish. Gaster pursued knowledge to satisfy the churning of his own mind. Bureaucracy, money, power... none of that mattered as long as Gaster was satisfied with his research.)

Without his wife there for moral support, Dogamy stood back, dejected. He held his paws clasped behind his back.

Gaster scrutinized the hound for a long moment. Perhaps it was time to conduct a small test. What similarities would he find between himself and Aster? He tapped a claw against the armrest to catch Dogamy’s attention and then began to sign.

'Tell me what has happened since I have been gone.’

But now Dogamy seemed nervous. “W-well, following your clever ruse sir, we lost the east end in Ebott, but we’ve managed to hold the border here in the underground-”

‘Ebott?’ Gaster interrupted. As in the mountain itself? Or did he mean the east end, as in, from Snowdin to the catacombs? ‘Elaborate.’

Dogamy gulped. “Word of your death spread quickly through the underground. It wasn’t long until our rivals up top heard about it. The human crime families, the Ponzees, and the Dillingers decided to take advantage of it. They took out our warehouse in the artisan district, shot up our men, and burned down the distillery.”

... Oh. Don Wingding Aster ran a criminal enterprise... that was not what he expecting to hear but it explained the dog’s strange nervousness and placating behavior. 

What in tartarus compelled his counterpart to become a criminal?

He flicked his phalanges, gesturing for the hound to continue.

“On top of that, Don Asgore pushed his advantage. Our bases in the city were raided simultaneously. There were no casualties thanks to Sans and Papyrus-“ Gaster sucked in a sharp breath. “-but we lost the last foothold we had.” 

“Were they hurt?” Dogamy stared at him blankly. Gaster clicked his teeth together and repeated himself in sign.

“Oh, of course not sir! The underboss and his soldiers are sharpshooters. But erm...”

Dogamy wilted, ears flat against his head. “In your absence, Sans placed Papyrus as the stand-in Don. Papyrus is... very happy with the position.”

‘ Is that all? ’ He asked after a moment, unsure why Dogamy was nervous. He seemed to be expecting disappointment, or perhaps anger. Gaster couldn’t imagine why. 

He was still reeling. His children in this reality were high-ranking members of a criminal syndicate.

Stars have mercy.

Dogamy said something else but he missed it. “Sir?”

Gaster gestured for Dogamy to continue but froze, as a familiar magical current snapped through the air.

A blip. For only a split second, for the amount of time it took for one to blink, a tear opened in the fabric of space. Gaster perceived it as a folding of light and matter within the visible spectrum. To another monster, as far he knew for all the studies he had done on the subject, they would perceive the one stepping through the tear as simply not there one moment and there the next. But Gaster saw the figure as they stepped through and he was not ready.

His blunder into the CORE had occurred months before Sans’s birthday, barely an adolescent at the time. Gaster’s perception of the timeline was nonlinear. In the void time did not flow, distance did not matter, and thought had just as much substance as physical action. Because of that accident, Gaster was robbed of the chance to see the capable adults his sons would become. He watched them grow up in fragments, flashes of moments between delusions, but with a limited sense of what was real and what wasn’t, he could not be sure of which events had actually occurred. The time loop he was sure of. But the gap between then and the night of the accident? Those moments were fuzzy at best.

This Sans, this variant of his son, was significantly older than the teenager Gaster had last seen. Older, but worn down. Taller, broader. He wore black slacks held up by pinstripe suspenders, and a white button-down. And like Dogamy and Dogaressa, he carried a revolver holstered about the waist.

Gaster couldn’t bring himself to move or speak. Marveling at the monster his son might have grown into if the anomaly had not created a time loop, were circumstances different... but such thoughts had no place here. Now was not the time to consider such things.

Now came the moment of truth. Would he pass for Don Wingdings Aster?

Chapter Text

For a moment, Sans stood stock still, expression slack in shock. The light in his sockets had gone out completely.

This brief pause afforded Gaster the rare opportunity to watch genuine emotion filter through Sans’ face. Unbridled and unmasked.

In his teens, Sans had started to distance himself. And in doing so, crafted for himself an impenetrable mask. A number of things contributed to this. Pressure at school. Dwindling sources in New Home. The existential crisis all teens experience as they discover who they want to be. The stress of coming to terms with the finite world he and his brother had grown up in. It couldn’t have helped that he had been swamped with work. It had been a difficult year. The King wanted results and Gaster had found himself blocked in by a massive obstacle in his research, unable to be everywhere he needed to be.

(... why had he gone to work that day? Why had he respected Sans’ demands for space? He should have stayed home. He should have pushed. He should have taken Sans and Papyrus out of school for the day and sat them both down for a long talk together- should have, should have, should have -)

At least, his son’s counterpart gathered his bearings. The shock that had dominated his features quickly gave way to something closer to alarm. 

And in response, Gaster stiffened, alarmed himself by the other skeleton’s sudden nervousness. 

What on tartarus….?

As a bead of sweat rolled down Sans’s skull, his eyelights returned, and with them, a wide plastered grin.

“…heh, y’know when you said you’d put the fun back in funeral I didn’t think you actually meant it.”

...of course. Gaster shook his head in disbelief, quietly sighing. A member of his family, back from the dead and the first thing his son’s counterpart did was tell a joke. 

“Welcome back to the land of the ... well, we are walkin’ corpses aren’t we? Can’t say I appreciate you pullin’ the wool over our eyes, but damn if ya didn’t get Asgore’s goat.” 

He took off his hat, shook it against his hip, and still grinning took the couch to Gaster’s left. “How the hell did you manage that? I saw ya take a bullet square between the sockets. ”

Gaster grimaced. Though Sans had stated it casually, the false bravo behind his smile was unmistakable. What a horrible thing to witness. 

He felt cold as he thought of what to say and how to respond. The idea of lying to his son’s counterpart did not sit well with him. The ethical decision would be to admit that he really wasn’t Aster, that the hounds had made a mistake and he had gone along with it out of convenience. 

But then his gaze was drawn to the concealed weapons on their person. His son’s counterpart had one himself. A weapon like that was far less personal than one a monster traditionally conjured themselves. It spoke of individuals accustomed to violence in a difficult place where magic conservation was a practice chosen over personal connection. Furthermore, the history Dogamy had shared… in this world, Sans and Papyrus were members of a criminal syndicate.

The situation might become far less favorable for him, but more importantly for the child in his arms if he admitted the truth.

However… he believed in his son. 

And surely, even in this world, his son would hesitate to hurt a child?

Shifting the child in his arms so he held him securely but had his hands free, Gaster signed. ‘There has been a misunderstanding. I am not Aster.’

Sans snorted. “Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout, of course you are.”

'No,’ he signed firmly. ‘I am-‘

“You uh, you alright there Boss? You’re talkin’ funny and you don't usually speak in hands unless you're...” he trailed off. Gaster tensed, sensing Sans’s scrutiny, and kept his expression carefully passive. 

Sans’ eyelights fell to his exposed wrist, as Gaster had not bothered to roll down the sleeve, there his smile vanished. Gaster felt the ping of a check bounce off his being.

Sans cursed. “Dogamy, why didn’t ya get something for him?” 

“He insisted his injuries were treated-”

“And you listened to him? Get outta here, he’s lost a quarter of his HP!”

Dogamy yelped and scampered out of the parlor.

“Who tried to clip ya? The monsters down here should know better.” Sans pulled a cigar out of his pocket and when Gaster declined his offer, the lines under his frown grew. He hid it with a lopsided shrug and lit the cigar for himself with a snap of his claws.

Smoke rose above his skull in lazy ribbons. Gaster did his best to conceal his disdain.

... perhaps it was for the best if he assumed Aster’s name and position for the time being. It was not a decision he liked, but current data suggested this choice offered the least complications. They were so convinced… and he was so tired…

“Pap’s gonna be happy to have ya back. I think he’s starting to realize he’s bitten off more than he can chew.”

‘ You exaggerated .’

Sans grunted. “ ‘bout what?”

‘ Fifteen percent is not a quarter of my HP .’

Sans scoffed. A roll of his eyelights. “That’s still two hundred and seventy-three points knocked outta ya. ‘s close enough.”

How utterly bizarre felt it to have this vestige of his son fret over his health.

But Sans was still waiting for an answer, and after another moment of hesitation he gave in to the lie that was building on the edge of his teeth.

‘ In regards to your earlier question-“ Sans watched the symbols he made with his hands intently. “-I cannot answer that. I do not know myself .”

“What do you mean?” Sans’s brow furrowed.

Gaster canted his skull slightly, drawing attention to the webbing crack on the side of his head. 

A pause, and then his son’s counterpart nearly growled. “Someone gave you a concussion. Fuck. No wonder you’re non-verbal.”

Gaster nearly scolded him for swearing but caught himself before the words could slip out. Sans was an adult here. And it wasn’t quite his house was it?

“Do you remember anything about the attack at all?”

‘ No,’ He lied. ‘My memory is hazy .’

“How bad?”

Guilt stilled Gaster’s hand one more time, but he pushed on. He was past the point of backing out now. He had fully committed to this ruse and he would see it through. ‘ I could not recall where the lodge was located .’

His son’s counterpart muttered an angry stream of curses. “What else?”

‘ I couldn’t tell you. There are -‘ Gaster paused. At a loss for the word in question. ‘ Gaps. Pockets of time I cannot recall .’

Dogamy and Dogaressa chose that moment to return. Dogaressa with a glass bottle of milk under one arm and a platter of food on the other. And Dogamy with a medkit. 

The little one in his arms had largely held still since Sans’s arrival, a minor blessing. Sans was naturally so perceptive, he expected to be questioned regarding the little’s acquisition sooner, but there were only so many questions one could ask in a moment and Gaster supposed the sudden resurrection of the boss of your criminal organization took priority.

But with Dogaressa’s return, Sans, the little one (and Gaster was quickly reaching a point where he would have to find a nickname for him soon to avoid confusion) started to wiggle. Pushing his skull free of the towel cocoon and tail thumping, he looked happy to see Dogaressa.

Gaster’s LV was less pleased to have the two monsters approach the armchair, and even less so to have the attention of all three. He did his best not to scowl.

“So, who’s the little ankle-biter?” Sans asked. Gaster could not identify the emotion behind his expression.

“A child from an unknown mistress,” Dogaressa barked. “Isn’t this exciting? I love the smell of a new scandal!”

She broke off a small piece of dried meat and offered it to the little one, who cautiously sniffed it, then took a tentative bite. He chewed thoughtfully. His sockets grew wide. Eagerly he gobbled down the rest of the slice. Gaster wondered what in tartarus his counterpart had been feeding the poor child. Pellets? Stars, he hoped not.

“You sure about that, doll?” Sans said. The corner of his smile quirked. “ ‘think we’d know if our Boss was a tomcat. We’d be seein’ more flappers ‘round here than musicians.”

Gaster chose to ignore that comment. Sans and Dogaressa continued their speculative discussion regarding the little one’s origins. He was kept from intervening while Dogamy wrapped gauze laced with green magic around his arm, and all the while Sans gave the babybones furtive glances. 

His curiosity reminded Gaster of the day he brought Papyrus home. The sight was both endearing and filled his soul with a heavy melancholy. 

Unfortunately, he needed more time to cobble together the child’s origins. ‘ The child is mine. That is all you need to know. ’ He said, once his arm was released.

“It’s funny, out of the three of us, I always figured Pap would be the first to have kids.”

Two things; one the idea of either of his children having children of their own was a little more than Gaster could take at the moment and two... out of.. out of the three of us?

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve been scaring monsters off his tailbone since we figured out what date-mate meant. Never mind how the humans defined courtship. He’s always been good with kids, though. Heh. I suppose that’s why I’ve always felt wary ‘bout who he hooks up with. It’s one thing to fall in love with Pap, it’s another to want to start a family with ‘im.” 

Sans parted his teeth, exhaling a ring of smoke.

“Me? Ehh. Raising a kid... now that’s a lot of work. But for a workaholic like you, it’ll be a walk in the park.” Sans grinned. “I can’t wait to see the look on Pap’s face when he finds out he has a nephew.”

That little revelation sent Gaster reeling for several minutes. Scientifically, he found it fascinating. He already knew that a soul could persist across branching timelines: across resets. But across entirely separate worlds, where the origins of said soul matter less than the actual contents of the soul itself? Now that was interesting.

But emotionally confusing.

Thankfully he was not left to stew on it for long.

As the clock in the hall struck the passing of the hour, Papyrus returned to the lodge. His arrival was announced not by the enthusiastic slamming of the front door, or by the hurried, purposeful scuffle Gaster typically associated with his youngest’s stride but by a loud; “Sans! You lazy bones, you left work early!”

His footsteps were accompanied by others as he neared the parlor, but it was Papyrus who entered first, and it was Papyrus who occupied his attention for the next thirty minutes. No sooner Papyrus had seen him than his eye-sockets filled with tears and Gaster was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug. Gaster’s vision went white, overwhelmed by the piercing pain that shot down his back. Thankfully, he was quickly released.

While Gaster wrestled to collect himself, determined to smother and conceal how much that had actually hurt . Papyrus apologized profusely, Sans tried to calm him down, sweating enough to fill a glass and Dogaressa cheerfully introduced the little one (who may never leave the safety of Gaster’s coat again) to Papyrus and the rest of the gathered pack.

“Scram, the boss needs his space!”

One bark was all it took. The hounds whined but scampered, tails tucked between their legs, and Gaster was left alone with the brothers for the remainder of the evening. To his relief, Sans related a softened version of events to Papyrus, who nodded enthusiastically as he dried his face with the checked handkerchief he had pulled from a breast pocket.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help, brother! You must have spent hours wandering alone through the blistering cold, hurt and confused!”

“But fear not! Sans and I- actually mostly just I, Sans was a lazybones as usual, especially so the month after your funeral, and alas, even I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. But it’s okay because you are not actually dead and I have already forgiven you! AHEM, Sans and I have kept your businesses running in tip-top shape in your absence! Indeed everything is exactly as you left it, brother!”

Papyrus stared into his eyes, eagerly anticipating something. The look was that of an excited puppy, asking for table scraps, innocence only slightly offset by his ochre tweed suit and the tommy gun strapped to his back. 

Gaster studied the black gleam of the gun’s handle.

‘ I am pleased to hear it, Papyrus .’

Papyrus beamed. “While you recover from your ordeal Sans and I will train hard to be the best uncle-bones ever!” 

“Aw, Pap, you’re already so good at everything you won’t need to train for that.”

“Well thank you Sans, but even so! I mustn’t relax. Someone needs to be a good role model for the baby bones! And who better for the task, than me?”

“Welp. You got me there.” Sans shrugged. “I literally cannot think of anyone else who’d be more qualified.”

Papyrus squinted. “Hm. That sounded almost like sarcasm .”

“What? Naah. Sarcasm, pft. I don’t know her.”

“I’ll let it slide this time, Sans. ANYWHO,” Papyrus turned his attention to Gaster. “We must set up a room for him! We could remove the piano from the yellow room, or... wait! No doubt you’d like to remain close to him. In that case, we can clear out the blue room since it’s closest to yours!”

Papyrus waited a moment for confirmation. Sans tapped out his cigar on the ashtray. When Gaster did not immediately reply, he raised a single eye ridge. “Boss?”

‘ I am tired, ’ Gaster admitted. ‘ I would prefer to consider accommodations at a later date. ’

“Of course!” Papyrus grabbed Sans by the belt of his suspenders and spun around on his heel. “Come Sans, we must get the Don’s room ready for him!”

“Wait. Pap-”

And they were gone.

Gaster allowed himself a few blessed moments to bask in the silence. But he knew he could not remain in here forever, and so, reluctantly, he dragged himself to his feet. Now, if only someone had left him with an angel-damned cane .

He wandered the halls on the first floor, taking note of where things seemed to be and quickly determined the bedrooms must be upstairs. He was reluctant to climb the stairwell, but after narrowly avoiding Doggo, swallowed the metaphorical bullet and took it one step at a time.

Papyrus had mentioned Aster’s room was next to a ‘blue room’ if he could find that...

“Brother! Where are you going?”

Gaster flinched, silently cursing his blind spot, and turned to Papyrus and the corridor behind him.

“Do you not remember the layout of our house?” Papyrus asked with surprising gentleness. 

Gaster swallowed his pride, unable to lie when the truth was so visually clear. ‘ I do not .’

“That is... that is very sad. Do not worry, I will help you!”

The corners of his mouth quirked, despite how tired and worn he felt. Papyrus gave him a tour of the second floor until they reached Aster’s room. 

Aster’s room was off the main hall, towards the back of the lodge, where the wide windows overlooked the ravine Snowdin and the lodge overshadowed. 

Papyrus stood in the hall, out of, perhaps, some sense of respect. Gaster was too tired to speculate why, and he waited quietly while Gaster inspected the room. Aster seemed to have a fondness for the color red if the curtains and the bedspread and the canopy above it and the wallpaper were anything to go by. The color red and dark mahogany furniture. 

Gaster’s attention was drawn to the vanity and the large mirror above it. Across the top was a collection of photographs, nearly all of them depicting Aster, Sans, and Papyrus. A few frames held pictures of Toriel and other monsters Gaster did not recognize. He noticed none featured Asgore. Those pictures featuring Aster, he found disconcerting and uncomfortable to look at so he skimmed over them with the thought to compare their differences at a later time, when he was alone and not being observed. 

“Brother, is there anything I can get for you?” Papyrus asked, fidgeting with the sleeve of his shirt.

‘ No, thank you. You are free to do what you need to do, Papyrus .’ 

Papyrus hesitated for a moment, seeming caught between leaving and asking another question. There seemed to be something on his mind but in the end, he left without asking it. The door shut with a soft click.

The bed was looking more tempting by the moment. But there was one last thing to do before he could allow himself to rest. The little one needed somewhere to sleep. 

He looked around the room for something suitable. Unfortunately, he could not find a basket but in the corner of the room, between the armoire and a cheval mirror were two armchairs, and if one put them together, face to face, the form they took was not unlike a crib or bassinet.

It would do.

He pushed the two chairs together using gravitational magic, then pulled the duvet off the bed for padding.

Sans had fallen into a light doze in his arms at some point between leaving the parlor downstairs and stumbling across Papyrus on the second floor. Now, a limp bundle of bones and fragile magic, he didn’t so much as stir as Gaster went about constructing a place for him to sleep.

It’d been a long day. 

Carefully, Gaster lowered him into the makeshift crib. He lingered, worried for a moment that Sans might wake up, as this was the first time he had put him down since leaving his counterpart’s world but he didn’t. His ribcage slowly rose and fell. Peaceful and sound asleep. Despite everything. 

... despite everything indeed. In a few hours his world had been turned sideways, topsy turvy and upside down. How was he coping with all this, mentally? How much did he understand? 

All these questions and yet he had so little time to observe the little one’s behavior. 

He had a lot to consider regarding the little one’s care. Questions only time would answer. How much would this hybridization affect his growth and behavior? Would he follow the same developmental patterns as other children? What would he do if his health deteriorated? 

What would happen to him if this ruse was uncovered?

Gaster had felt thrown out of his depth, once, regarding childcare. He felt out of his depth now too, but not for that reason. He had raised two sons to adolescence, he could raise a third. That wasn’t an issue. 

He felt out of depth because now he stood in the room another variant of himself had once lived, and breathed, had possibly even loved. The room itself was cluttered with luxury Gaster had never once been selfish enough to accept for himself. Every trinket held some value, some precious memory, so important that after his death, this space had been left as a time capsule. (Wherein his own had not, not for anyone’s fault but his own, but still it hurt.) A snapshot into a life he had never lived, wouldn’t have been possible for him to have lived. And in every corner sat a little frame, a quaint visage of a monster who was dust and yet whose memory followed Gaster’s every movement with hostile reproach. 

Gaster wondered what Aster had done to have earned both fear and this reverence. 

Inevitably, these thoughts led to the monster responsible for ripping him out of the void.

He could still feel his hand around the vertebrae of his neck.

Gaster shuddered and took a breath to steady himself. And when that failed, sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped underneath him and he lost all strength to resist the pull of gravity and the weight of the task ahead of him. Tomorrow... tomorrow he would work on a means to find his way home.

Chapter Text

“Hold up, bro. Check this out.”

His brother let out an exasperated groan. His boots, two sizes too big on his feet, sloshed against the ground, each step a heavy smack as he stomped his way over. 

"This had better not be another japer, Sans.”

"What? Nah... it’s legit, I promise. Cross my soul and hope to dust-”

“Nyeh! Don’t joke like that! It’s not funny!”

“Hehehe-pft. Ok, ok. I’ll stop.”

Papyrus came to stop next to him. He squinted over Sans’ shoulder suspiciously. Even though he was the younger brother, Papyrus had an inch on him in height these days. If he’d been any taller this might not have worked. Sans tried, very, very hard to keep his smile straight.

"What is it?”

“C’mon. Get closer. You can’t see it from that far away.”

Justifiably cautious, his younger brother hesitated a beat. When he shuffled closer, Sans lifted his hands which he had cupped together to hide the surprise.

“See, I found this weird looking flower and-”

Sans opened his hands and a jet of water caught Papyrus square on the cheekbone, millimeters from his eye socket. His little brother had surprisingly good reflexes. So cool. 

Papyrus sputtered and furiously scrubbed water from his face. “I KNEW IT! I knew you’d do something like this! STOP LAUGHING! These were my nice clothes!”

“My nice shirt, you mean-” Sans wheezed. “Aw, don’t make that face. I thought we were close-knit.”

“Yes, well I am… I am-“ A pause. Papyrus scrambled for a pun. Sans’ smile grew.

“…cardi-gone?”

“No!”

“ ‘lright. How about cross-stitched?”

“NO!”

Sans rocked back on his heel. “Welp, you’re in luck bro. I’m running out of puns. I’ll have to stop at the fabric store for new material.”

“Considering your propensity for cheap punnery and obnoxious capers I find that hard to believe! And now I-” His eye-sockets bulged. “Did you just trick me into using a pun?” Sans burst out laughing. “Blast! You’ve won this round this time brother, but mark my words I will get you back for this tomfoolery! And also for the ruined shirt.”

“Wait wait, bro. I got another one-”

“NO! I will not hear it. You’ll make us late for dinner!” 

Papyrus deliberately and loudly turned on his heel. He hurried down the path to Hotland taking great care to avoid another puddle and suspiciously pausing every now and then to make sure Sans didn’t pull another prank on him from behind.

Sans nonchalantly pretended he didn’t notice. 

Papyrus stride was longer and inevitably that meant Sans started to lag behind. His little brother had disappeared around another dark bend in the cavern when Sans felt a tug on his sleeve. 

He stopped, glancing over his shoulder to find a stalagmite had caught a loose thread of his sweater. Whoops.

“Hold up, Papyrus. I’m stuck.”

He tried to wriggle his sleeve free and flinched when something ripped. Now, he was getting upset. This was his favorite sweater! He wore it every single day. He'd had it for as long as he could remember. It was warm and comfortable. Loose-fitting and a little too big for him, but Sans especially loved it because he could throw it over anything he wore. 

A touch more careful now, he followed the thread with his fingers around the stalagmite and attempted to untangle it the way Dad had taught him to untie knots. But the thread was fine and a little frayed, Sans tugged too sharply and the thread slipped between his distal bones and phalanges.

It didn’t hurt, but the sensation of something catching between two very delicate bones was distinctly uncomfortable. A bead of sweat dripped down his cheek as he tried to untangle his phalanges from the thread with his other hand but his blunt claws kept slipping. The thread was too tight. He pulled on it and- oh great. It caught in the bones of his wrist and every tug made the thread pull tighter and the mana underneath his ribs started to constrict-

“Sans, hurry up- oh... you really are stuck!” Oh, thank the stars.

“Heh... yeah. S-sorry.”

If they had been at home Sans would have slumped all the way to the floor in relief. Maybe even crawled onto the couch and taken a two-hour long nap there too. But if they had been at home, he would have yelled for Dad and a stalagmite wouldn’t have torn his favorite sweater. 

With a huff, his little brother pulled his backpack off his shoulders and started rifling through it. “This is why you must always carry an emergency fashion kit on your person!” 

“You’re so smart, bro.” 

Papyrus’ smile shone brighter. He fished out a pair of scissors from a small red box in his backpack and with a flourish, clipped the string in two snips. “Nyeh heh heh heh! There! Let’s walk together this time as a preventative measure from any further accidents!”

Sans agreed. What string couldn’t be saved from the cavern’s teeth was gathered into a loose spool and shoved into their pockets. Papyrus held his hand the rest of the way home and Sans couldn’t complain one bit.

Chapter Text

The next morning Gaster woke under the weight of a quilt and felt disoriented. The light drifting in through the curtains stung his eye sockets, and for a moment he couldn’t remember where he was. 

There was a picture frame on the nightstand, face down. He reached for it, pausing as the cuff of his sleeve caught his attention. Had it always been that color? He turned the picture frame over. 

It was a black and white picture of himself and Toriel. They were sitting in a garden somewhere, dressed formally. Toriel’s mouth was carved into a beautiful smile and he looked relaxed next to her. A happy occasion then. But his face was... off and her horns were sharper than he could ever recall them being and- like a switch had been flipped the gap in his memory slotted back into place. 

He was in another universe. In another counterpart’s bedroom. Who was dead. Not in the void, but dead. 

He returned the picture frame to its face-down position.

Every bone in his body ached but getting out of bed proved less challenging than he expected. He went over to the make-shift crib to check on Sans- he was gone. Fear pierced through his soul. Gaster’s gaze swept over the room, mentally scraping together what sense of numb calm he could to still his panic. Then he remembered the quilt. He didn’t tuck himself in last night. And Papyrus... Of course. If the little one wasn't here, he was with this world’s Papyrus. Who had been so eager to prove he would be a great uncle yesterday. That made sense.

Though he wanted to check on the two of them as soon as possible, Gaster made an attempt to make himself presentable first. He was reluctant to riffle through his counterpart’s belongings and handled the matter as quickly as possible. Aster, apparently, preferred white vests over black dress shirts, grey trousers and owned a respectable collection of trench coats. 

Gaster felt reluctant to shed his own, it was long, black, and made of a soft yet durable fabric. Comfortable to move quickly in and reached just above the ankle, but well, he had committed to this ruse, hadn’t he? So he changed his clothes, almost left his coat behind, but turned on his heel to grab it again at the last minute. Then he left Aster’s room to head downstairs. 

The lodge was quiet. He passed a clock in the hall whose hands read 10:32. Were the dogs at work?

He found Papyrus, the little one, and Sans in the kitchen.

Papyrus had placed the little one in a wooden highchair pushed up to the island counter. By the little one’s expression, he felt dubious about the whole thing. Watching Papyrus flint about the kitchen with an air of supreme skepticism. 

Sans sat on a stool next to him, nursing a mug of coffee. 

“-and no smoking before lunch! That human-tobacco smells horrible and it sticks to your clothes.” 

“Hey, don’t diss it until you’ve tried it.” Sans chuckled. He sipped his coffee, eyelights flicking to the hall where they found Gaster. “Mornin’ Boss. You feelin’ any better?”

“Ah, good morning brother! Sit down, sit down, I made everyone brunch today. My nephew has already been fed, so you don't have to worry about a thing! Nyeh heh heh!” 

Gaster opened his mouth then clicked his teeth shut. He cleared his throat. Despite his best efforts, there was still a hoarse crackle in his voice when he spoke.

“... what have you made for brunch?”

Papyrus beamed and Sans’s expression broke into a tired smile. “We are having chicken divan casserole!”

“Yep. Nothing like a cheesy, oven-crusted casserole first thing in the mornin’.”

“First of all Sans, it’s nearly elven, which is only an hour from luncheon, and secondly, if you want something else to eat you are perfectly able to cook it yourself.”

“Why’d I do that when you’ll cook somethin’ anyway?”

“Your laziness is ill-fitting for the position you've supposedly earned as underboss! I would even go as far as to say that you, my numbskull brother, are in fact, a turkey!”

“Don’t you mean I’m instufferable?” Sans winked.

Papyrus gapped in horrified dismay. “Am I to be forever cursed by your horrid puns? Spare me this abuse, Sans. I am done. DONE with your tomfoolery!”

Sans guffawed. “Well jeez, no need to get fowl.” 

Papyrus threw his hands into the air and turned his back to brother to resume vigorously scrubbing the dishes. 

Gaster sat down on a stool and draped his coat over his lap. The little one finally noticed him and chirped, nearly toppling over the bar of the high chair as he stood on his hindquarters to greet him. His torso was a little too long for the way the highchair had been designed. 

“Careful now, that is a long drop,” Gaster said gently.

He had been worried the little one would be frightened alone with his older counterpart and Papyrus. It warmed his soul to see for himself that this concern was unfounded. 

In a manner similar to a cat (a creature which he was approximately the same size as) the little one prepared to launch himself out of the high chair. His trajectory was off though and the angle would not allow him the momentum he needed to clear the jump. Gaster quickly reached out to catch him. 

And catch him he did. Gaster huffed a soft breath in amusement as the little one proceeded to climb up his shirt. 

“You’re sure taking this new dad thing well,” Sans commented.

“Well I, for one, think that’s a good thing!”

“Well sure,” Sans glanced towards Papyrus briefly. “It’s not like the three of us have an old geezer to model ourselves after. I was kinda expectin’ a little more wigging out ‘bout it though.”

“I suppose I had time for it to sink in.” Gaster carefully replied. The child found a comfortable spot against his sternum and settled there. Gaster shifted his arms to hold him more securely. He couldn’t help but marvel at the trust that had been established so quickly. Just yesterday, the little blaster ducked away from him at the slightest movement.

He wondered… 

Sans stared at him strangely. “Yeah, sure. How old is he anyway?”

Though his expression remained passive, Gaster was aware of every bone in his body locking for a split second. There were a lot of explanations he could’ve provided in that moment, Gaster decided to use the simplest. “I don’t remember.”

Papyrus spun around to gap at him in shock, sockets bulging. “YOU DON’T REMEMBER YOUR OWN SON’S BIRTHDAY!!?”

“Jeez, Pap not so loud.”

“My poor nephew!” Crocodile tears shimmering in his sockets, Papyrus leaned across the counter to take the little one’s tiny paw in his hands. The child opened his sockets in a startled blink and looked at Papyrus as though he had grown two heads and donned himself in a bedazzled pink polo. 

“Fear not baby bones who-has-yet-to-be-named! I, your great and accomplished uncle will not neglect you! Until your father and my numbskull brother recall your date of creation, I swear to celebrate every day as if it were your birthday. That way, we can’t miss it! Nyeh heh heh heh!”

“Heh, that’s clever of ya Pap, but whatcha gonna do if his birthday has already passed?”

Papyrus opened his mouth, blinked, then closed it again with a soft click. “Nice try Sans, but you cannot bamboozle the Great Papyrus! You see what you failed to consider dear brother... is the astonishing fact that the days of the year, do in truth, repeat!”

“I guess I can’t pull the wool over your eyes, huh.” Sans lightly rapped his claws on the surface of the counter. Though he addressed Papyrus, Gaster felt the focus of his attention. He forced a light chuckle.

“This is true, you could sheer a whole farm and never have enough wool to cover my magnificent sockets.”

“Eh, I dunno. I think I better bleat my case with the court.”

Papyrus finally released the little one’s paw to fully face his brother, hands on his hips. “It would behoove you to use less cliche puns.”

“Oh, yeah? Got any suggestions?”

“Yes! In fact I-” just then a ding rang through the kitchen. “That would be the casserole!” Papyrus spun around to face the oven. He pulled on a pair of plaid oven mitts, removed the tray from the oven with a flourish. He spooned out three servings and joined them at the island counter.

It hadn’t struck him until that moment, but this would be his first meal since escaping the void. He didn’t feel hungry, though he knew logically it was important to have something. 

Furthermore, he felt his son’s counterpart watching him closely...

There was a slight tremble in his hands as he lifted his fork. Nausea churned bellowed his rib cage after the first bite. And persisted after the second. And the third. In the end, he could only manage to eat a fourth of what was on his plate before he had to stop. 

Of course, Papyrus noticed the moment he set his fork down.

“Did you find the casserole to your liking?” 

He looked up to find Papyrus gazing down at the table, fidgeting. Sans was staring him down. They were both nervous.

‘ Of course. Your casserole is perfect, ’ Gaster assured. ‘ I simply don’t feel well. Would you save my portion for later? ’

Papyrus was stunned for a moment, then he beamed. “Of course! I’ll store it in the ice-box right away so it will taste as fresh as the minute it was removed from the oven!” 

He took his plate and did just that, wrapping it up in cellophane, then stashed it away in a short claw-footed refrigerator. They didn’t seem to be struggling financially, so why in Tartarus would they use such an outdated model?

“Heh, that was nice of ya.” 

Did he think he was insincere? True, the last time he ate a meal cooked by Papyrus he had been barely a teen at the time and Gaster had supervised the entire process. This variation of his son had significantly more years to hone his craft and it showed.

With the little one balanced on his lap, his hands were free to sign. ‘ It was kind of him to serve us lunch .’

“Yeah... yeah it was, wasn’t it.” Sans took a sip from his mug. After a moment of silence had elapsed, he pushed his plate aside.

“I’ve been meaning to ask ya about your head. Any new symptoms? I’d offer to take ya to a local quack, but Asgore’s got every good doctor in the city under his thumb. If I take ya outta Snowdin all of Ebott is gonna hear ‘bout it.”

Gaster shook his head, unable to find the will to respond verbally. He feared his voice would break if he did. The guilt was too thick. There was, admittedly, a persistent ache down his back that ran up his cervical spine, but he did not want to draw attention to that injury besides.

Papyrus reclaimed the stool across from him. “Could we not take him to Mrs. Snowdrake?”

“Nah. She’s good for hairline fractures and broken legs but she’s not gonna know what to do with an injury severe enough to affect a monster’s memory. I’m not gonna take the boss to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doin.”

“Brother... do you remember who attacked you on the way back to the lodge?” Papyrus asked him.

He shook his head again. They would not find a culprit. No sense in wasting their time.

Papyrus shared a look with Sans. “Hmm. This is a most troublesome quandary. I am reluctant to believe that someone from Snowdin would betray the family but…”

Sans grunted in agreement. He fiddled around with a cigar case in his pocket but Papyrus’ disapproving stare stopped him from removing it. “The alternative is even less pretty. Either we got a traitor in town or Asgore’s planted a mole. Either way, we’re gonna be busy for a few days…”

The conversation continued as the brothers exchanged theories. Gaster listened for a time, attention piqued whenever the Asgore of this world was mentioned, but as it became clear the brothers were more concerned with other, lesser parties, his attention drifted. The child had long since fallen into a light doze, limp in contentment. Gaster brushed his phalanges gently over his skull. The scratches and chips had yet to heal. They were old wounds and he knew if there was any chance for them to heal it would take time.  

That... didn’t elevate his concern in the slightest. 

Sans’ gruff voice snapped him from his thoughts. “You sure you don’t remember the kid's mother, boss? If anyone in Snowdin had a reason to betray the family it would be a mad dame.”

He didn’t like what his son’s counterpart seemed to be suggesting. “I do not care for that tone.” 

“ Sans .” Papyrus warned. “I’m sure our nephew is in our custody in good faith! After all, it would be reckless to leave a child of an influential figure unprotected. And, regardless of whether our brother’s significant other is well-off-” he looked to Gaster for confirmation, but found none. “-our nephew would be safer with us!”

“Think ‘bout it. Asgore still thinks he’s dead. I've been up all night working the streets and I haven’t heard so much as a squeak. Whoever took a shot at Aster wasn’t one of ours and whoever they were they didn’t work for Asgore.”

Papyrus opened his mouth to protest but Sans interrupted him. “ C’mon , Pap. And now he’s back with us with a kid in tow. What’d ya expect me to think?”

“I expect you to have more faith in our sibling!”

The situation was quickly escalating and Gaster had no idea how to amend it. By the grim strain to Sans’ grin and the rare note of anger in Papyrus’ voice, he was missing context. This was an old argument and his soul panged with guilt and grief to see the brothers fight. 

“I can neither confirm nor deny the situation, as I cannot remember it.” 

Sans chuckled humorously. “That’s rich. The one time you do something outside of work and you can't remember it. Is it any wonder I'd think it was a dame or some angry cat tryin’ to cut you down?”

Gaster carefully studied his son’s counterpart. Work and time. It always came back to that, didn’t it? Even here, in another universe, Gaster’s counterpart had trapped himself into the same conflict. Unable to balance all aspects of his life in a way that satisfied everyone. 

Sans leveled his ‘brother’ with the same scrutiny he was leveled with. His teeth were bared in a mockery of a smile, locked into place like a mask bolted to the wall. Whatever he was searching for, he did not find it. The corner of his mouth twitched. He faltered. 

“Aster...?”

“Your rationing is sound. I will not dispute it.” he said. Gaster scowled to himself and slid off the stool. There was no point in continuing this conversation, not while every monster in the room was on edge. There was no mistress for the brothers to find and he needed to figure out how to present this fact to them, but he couldn’t do that here and now.

He summoned an extra pair of hands to sign, as he turned to leave the room. ‘ I have other matters to take care of. Thank you for lunch. ’

“Now... where would variations of my children hide their baby clothes if they elected to keep them? Somewhere where a relative could not quickly embarrass them, I presume.”

He ran through a mental list of possible locations and settled on finding the basement first. It took a bit of searching but eventually, he found a door that led to a narrow stairwell that led downward. He flicked on the light, an oil-based lamp which hung from a narrow chain, and descended. 

The basement, naturally, was dark. The lighting here was minimal at best and the shadows were thick and inky. Nothing compared to the void, of course. Nothing in the waking world could compare to that sheer, impenetrable black.

Aside from the reminder of a space Gaster would love to avoid and the fresh wave of anxiety the reminder brought with it, Gaster found little in the way of what he was looking for. The basement was far from empty but seemed mostly dedicated to keeping barrels of wine and beer, jarred foodstuffs of the magical variety, and a cabinet containing guns and even more barrels of ammunition.

A cursory examination of the ammunition revealed that while the bullets in question were without a doubt, purely human in make, they had been enchanted. Infused with an insidious little spell that both sought heat and gave the bullets an unfortunate reluctance to dislodge from their target. The flavor of this magic, nearly identical to his own, had Aster written all over it. 

Disconcertingly, towards the back of the basement, he discovered another room, which locked from the outside and featured an envelope-sized sliding brass plate that allowed one to peer into the room without unlocking the door. It reminded him of a room one would find in a mental institution. Gaster hated it immediately and left the basement shortly after finding it. 

It took a fair amount of time to find the attic, due to the sheer size of the lodge and low magic reserves. Eventually, though, he found the entrance to it in the form of a narrow, spiral staircase. Unpleasantly cast iron. But so embroiled by the ambient magic of the lodge he barely felt its bite. He was pleased to find the attic had been properly finished and set the little one down to examine the various chests and crates found up here. It wasn’t long before he came across what he was looking for.

“Ah, here we are.”

Gaster knelt in front of the chest. The clothes within it had been folded neatly before storage and Gaster carefully removed each folded article as he found them.

“I wonder what color you would prefer...” He thoughtfully set down to watch his new son investigate their surroundings. 

...preferences were clearly not universal, Aster seemed near obsessed with the color red while Gaster did not care either way, and this Universe’s Sans had not worn a spec of blue in all of the two days he had known him. But where did those commonalities end? What traits were shared and what weren’t?

Gaster decided the difference in color preference was a trait of this universe. His sons, as he knew them, were prone to wearing the same article of clothing daily. There had been a time when doing the laundry required deceit and opportune timing, or Sans would rouse a tantrum over the theft of his then-favorite grey-blue sweater. Never mind how protective Papyrus had been over his blanket.

Blinking back the mist forming in his sockets, Gaster reminded himself to consider a nickname for the little one. He could not call them both Sans indefinitely. In moments like these, it was painful to call the little one by the same name. (Gaster tried not to think about how painful it was to refer to him as anything else.)

Sans set his muzzle to the ground, pressing his muzzle to the various odds and ends in their immediate vicinity. He seemed most curious over objects constructed with fabric and leather. He felt comfortable enough to leave Gaster’s line of sight to investigate the items just out of reach behind table legs and cardboard boxes. Considering what the little one went through this was a small miracle. 

Given this time to observe his behavior... he was starting to suspect that his strangely easy-to-earned trust had less to do with him having earned it, and more to do with the little one’s hybrid nature. Blasters were instinctive and reactive creatures. They relied more on the intent behind an action than any other creature Gaster had worked with. In this context, the little one’s ease made logical sense. However, he was not entirely a blaster either... hmm.

Or... had Gaster misjudged the situation? No. No, surely not. His counterpart had been planning to kill him . Evidence of maltreatment was littered all over the little one’s body. He had no reason to doubt.

A loud clatter. Gaster quickly turned towards the sound, almost rising to feet until he saw what had caused it. The child had knocked over a mannequin.

He tried not to laugh as the little one darted to his side and dove behind his knee, firmly placing Gaster between himself and the defeated fashion doll.

“Are you having fun?”

Sans looked at him, sockets saucer wide. He shook his skull. A gesture that caught Gaster’s breath and held it there, because this was the first time the child had actually responded to something he said.

He fought to contain his grin, lest he frightened him, positively giddy. 

“I see. You have nothing to fear, little one. That mannequin is empty and cannot hurt you. Push it from your mind, I have something to show you.” He directed Sans’ attention to the small stack of onesies he had gathered from the chest.

“Take your pick. Whichever you like, will be yours. We have blue, yellow, and red...” It would not be a perfect fit, but a limited choice was better than none. Most of the clothes he found were intended for a child of a different age but this too was agreeable as the little one’s torso was longer than a typical babybones. “I will have to make adjustments to accommodate your tail, of course. Once more: the choice is yours.”

The little one tilted his head. He nudged the sleeve of a onesie with his muzzle. Then poked at another. He looked back at Gaster. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ his expression said. Gaster smiled gently. “You will find out.”

In the end, it was a onesie with seafoam green stripes that caught his attention. The fabric on the outside of the onesie had a soft velvety texture while a fur-like fabric lined the inside. 

And then, of course, he began to chew on the fabric. The plating of bone down his muzzle scrunched up. His expression was that of consideration and uncertainty. Despite this, the little one did not stop chewing. 

Gaster couldn’t help but laugh. “I will accept that as an indication of your preference.”

He must be teething… that was actually quite helpful, now Gaster had a narrower estimate on his age. 

With the little one now clothed, Gaster exited the attic through a shortcut to Aster’s room below to set aside the clothes he had found for later. He felt dizzy from the effort and decided against pushing his luck for a second time that day and chose to descend the stairs in the manner they had been intended for. 

By the time he reached the landing, the child had grown restless and Gaster set him down on the floor. 

Papyrus and Sans had moved on from the kitchen into the foyer. Papyrus was pulling on a pair of dark leather galoshes and had donned the rest of his suit from yesterday, now with the addition of a navy peacoat. 

Sans had a lit cigar between his teeth, mouth downturned in an uncharacteristic scowl. He had his back slumped to a wall adjacent to the front door. Papyrus looked at him and looked distinctly unhappy. “That’s your third today, Sans. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

Sans shrugged. “You got the package ready?”

Papyrus stood up straighter. “Of course! They won’t know what hit them. Nyeh heheheh! Oh. Do remind our brother there is another serving of casserole in the icebox for him. It seems without his magic at 100% he has forgotten how to properly eavesdrop!”

At the end of the hall, Gaster sighed.

The lights of Sans’s eyes snapped to him with a small jolt. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Sure thing, Papyrus.”

“Nyeh!” A pleased sound left Papyrus’s ribcage. The front door swung open, allowing a gust of wind to hurl flakes of ice and snow into the lodge. And then his youngest was gone.

“Found what you were lookin’ for?” Sans’s eyelights dropped to the floor where the child attempted to maneuver in their onesie. He cracked a grin. “Stars that’s adorable.”

It was more of an awkward waddle than a walk at the moment. The little one didn’t know how to move with fluffy fabric wrapped around their limbs, and this made for a lovely impression of a four-legged penguin.

Gaster crossed his arms, phalanges resting over the smile threatening to tug on the corners of his mouth.

Though clearly frustrated with their predicament, the little one stubbornly pressed on and with a quiet huff staggered their way into the nearest room off the hall. (The Great Room, if Gaster recalled correctly.)

“Aster, look I-“

“-I want to apologize-“

They both stopped. Gaster blinked slowly, attempting to stifle his concern and a rapid sinking sensation in the core of his being as it became clear that Aster did not often apologize. Sans seemed to give another small jolt in shock. The lights in his sockets vanished for half a second and when they returned his smile was strained.

“Heh… think nothing of it, boss. I was outta line anyway.” Sans avoided his gaze then. He pushed himself off the wall and shoved the hand that wasn’t holding the cigar into his trouser pocket. 

“Papyrus and I got the business under wraps for now, why don’t ya take another day off and rest awhile? You don’t uh… you don’t seem like your normal self yet.”

Gaster dithered for a moment. Unsure what the correct response would be.

Sans took his silence as a reply on its own. “The dogs here are loyal to ya. If I thought one of ‘em would risk clipin’ ya, I’d dust ‘em myself. No one will dare touch you or my nephew here.”

“… I appreciate your assertion of their loyalty.”

Sans’s shoulders relaxed marginally. “Sure. Sure… Paps and I will find the louse that did this to ya. We swear it.”

He found his footing. “See that you do.”

Sans smiled grimly. A ripple of light in the fabric of space and he took his leave. 

Gaster’s passive expression dropped into one of exasperated concern. Perhaps he should have protested Sans’s insistence on seeking revenge on Aster’s behalf but somehow he got the sense it would have been a fruitless endeavor… Sans had watched his brother dust before his eyes. His son, as he knew him, was not one to let things go easily and as the reigning members of a criminal syndicate, he doubted that behavior would be any different here. If anything, he suspected his grudging nature was worse.

He could only hope he hadn’t doomed an innocent bystander in all this.

Gaster shook his head and crossed the hall to enter the room his son had waddled into.

He seemed fine where he was, entertaining himself with building… something in the corner of the room underneath an accent table, using chair cushions, a doily, and a dog bed. He didn’t seem interested in the dog toys littered throughout the room but instead had gathered a small collection of picture books. (Granted, he was not using the books correctly.) He made a mental note to gauge the little one's interest in reading at a later date.

Gaser leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and watched for a few minutes. The little one barely noticed his presence and eventually, he decided his son would be alright if he left him alone for a while.

With Sans and Papyrus gone, he had the lodge to himself and that was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to pass up.

He needed to replicate his counterpart’s machine. From scratch. Without schematics and only a vague, theoretically understanding of how it worked. There was no sense in coming up with his own design when he already had an example of what worked. Furthermore, he needed to document what he had learned about the multiverse in the last 48 hours. Information his double hadn’t possessed when they met.

Thankfully, Gaster had already discovered what he assumed was Aster’s study in his search for the attic. He hadn’t had time to thoroughly examine the contents of the room earlier, but now he did.

He stood in the doorway for a long beat, processing. Hesitating. He expected to feel something, some sense of wrongness trespassing into the room Aster must have spent hours in contemplation. What he felt was worse. He felt like a thief. 

Needless to say, the study continued Aster’s apparent fixation with deep mahogany furniture and the color red. Gaster was beginning to feel sick of the color. He riffled through the drawers of the massive desk in the center of the room. The top drawers contained abhorrently ordinary office supplies. Those below contained files, labeled alphabetically. Receipts. Letters. What looked to be law enforcement reports?

Gaster paused. He delicately removed the file from the drawer and thumbed through it. Instead, the file contained law enforcement profiles, written and documented by Ebott City Police Department. He recognized a few faces among those documented, but the side and frontal profile of Toriel’s face took him by surprise.

Asgore’s role as a rival Don had been explicitly stated, but somehow finding evidence of Toriel’s involvement took him back. He skimmed through her file, feeling a touch amused at the lack of evidence they seemed to have on her. She was suspected of being an accomplice in a great many crimes, including but certainly not limited to racketeering, arson (HA!), and the production and distribution of moonshine, but the evidence was circumstantial. The only thing that truly connected her to these crimes was her marriage to Don Asgore.

And then, at the end of her profile, her status read: missing. Not presumed dead. Missing.

Gaster thought back to the numerous pictures of her in Aster’s room. The absence of photos of Asgore and wondered.

Almost mindlessly, he returned the file to the drawer and carefully thumbed through the labels a second time. 

Aster had a police report file on Asgore as well, and it was considerably thicker than Toriel’s. His claws froze over the name on the label. Hovering. His eyes went from the aged yellow paper, wrinkled and frayed from use to the stillness of his hand and the numerous small scratches that coated his bones. The tiny fissures which crisscrossed over his joints marked his experience until they too ended abruptly. Cut clean into by the perfect circle in his palm.

He closed the drawer. 

Chapter Text

Gaster lost track of time cataloging all that he remembered of his double’s machine. As he only had a memory of what it looked like, less than a minute of experience working with it, and could only speculate as to what each part of the machine did, it was slow going. The process of this work consumed the entire surface of Aster’s desk and gradually began to eat away at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind it. Sheets of paper and sticky notes alike were pinned to the shelves and walls by tiny needle-like bones he had summoned for that expressed purpose. 

Chapter Text

The blue room was indeed, quite blue. Deep mahogany furniture seemed to be an inescapable feature of the lodge and that was true, even in the blue room, to the point where being confronted by such a bright color felt startling. 

A deep blue rug had been thrown over the wood floor; white filigree depicted a scene reminiscent of a human fairytale, though it had been so long since Gaster had listened to such things that he could not identify the tale being told. The wallpaper in the room continued this blue and white floral pattern, though accented lightly with petals of shimmering gold paint. 

Papyrus- Didot, Gaster corrected himself, was not exaggerating when he said the room needed to be cleared out. Though Didot had opened the door with little resistance, actually finding a clear space to stand in proved significantly harder. Didot’s naturally long legs allowed him to awkwardly crab-walk over upturned chairs and the numerous boxes which littered the floor.

Gaster bundled up the tail end of his coat to avoid tearing it on the things that jutted out from the wall of stuff , but he could not escape the debris hidden underneath. A disgusted noise escaped his throat as his heel landed on something that felt suspiciously wet.

“What in angel’s name possessed the two of you to store so much in here?”

Didot stuck his arms out in a proximate formation of a rotary blade to catch his balance on an unstable pile. “I am not surprised you do not remember this room! I too, wish to forget it exists.”

“And did you have a plan for where to relocate it?” 

“Heheh of course!” Didot found his balance. “Since we are already committed to the effort of making this room suitable for baby bones, it’s a good opportunity to filter memorabilia from junk. What we keep I’ll relocate to the Green Room and the rest will be taken to the dump.”

Gaster hummed in approval. He considered where to start. There was a lot to go through.

“It’s also my hope-” the softness with which he started to speak pulled his attention away from the room itself to Papyrus-Didot, who was watching him with an expression that could only be called vulnerable. “-that, the things we come across may jog your memory.”

Ah.

Gaster offered a tentative smile in return. Guilt like a stone lodged in his throat but it was a pebble he had to swallow. “That is very thoughtful of you, Papyrus.”

Didot’s smile brightened. There was a suspicious shimmer in his sockets and he turned away to wipe them dry. “Let’s get started.”

With so much to get through, Gaster approached the situation as, logically, only a scientist would: by using a grid. 

He mentally divided the room into a three-by-four grid. He began in box A-1, the corner of the room where one entered. When Didot asked what he was doing, Gaster patiently explained and then directed him to box A-2, also near the door. In this way, they worked through boxes A through B-3. 

Figuring out what Didot considered junk was quite simple. If it was dirty or broken it was tossed into the hall. It was set aside if the object in question was a photograph, a framed picture, a novelty trinket, or a precious book. Clothes that did not fit in the wardrobe or the dresser were tossed. Anything resembling stained paper was tossed.

He found it tempting to discard the cardboard boxes as none of them were in the best condition, but Didot was quick to scold him for laziness. “We must give each box a chance!” Gaster chuckled under his breath, setting aside the box Didot wanted to sort through and reaching for another.

Gaster ran a claw through the top, cleanly cutting through the tap. The sound of paper tearing captured Didot’s attention and as he opened it, Didot gasped. “This is exactly what I hoped to find!” 

With the utmost care, Didot removed a large photo album from the box. He held the book as though it were something precious and slowly sank to the floor next to him. “Aster... I... this album is very old, I am surprised to find it here. This book... It predates the construction of our lodge by several years. Since we’ve worked so hard, I think it's a good time to take a break!”

Gingerly, Didot opened the book over his lap. The first page contained black and white photos of Sans and Papyrus, much younger than they were now and closer to the age Gaster remembered.

The first five pages were... especially emotional for Gaster. He couldn’t hide the mist gathering in his sockets. His soul felt tight, constricting the mana flowing underneath his ribcage as he struggled not to weep.

Though the brothers were dressed in rags and dirt smudged their zygomatic plates, they were smiling. Goofing off and clearly having fun in back alleys and underneath bridges, Gaster could not even begin to recognize. If Papyrus-Didot noticed his emotional state, he didn’t say anything. Entranced by the pages he reverently turned.

In some photographs, there were monsters he did not recognize. Creatures who Aster had evidently known in this world, but who Gaster had never met in his. These pages were easier. He had no attachment to grieve.

Didot turned the page. This time, the subject was Aster himself. Again, Gaster found the mirror image of himself disconcerting. Several years younger than pictured in the photographs in Aster’s bedroom, Gaster was surprised and unsettled to find his counterpart’s resemblance to him grew more pronounced further back in time. 

He marveled at the fact that neither of Aster’s brothers had noticed.

Didot gently brushed his fingers over a large photograph in the corner. In it, Aster, Sans, and Papyrus were posed together. For the first time in the album, they were wearing formal attire.

“Humans have a strange fascination with propping up their dead loved ones and taking photographs of them as though they were still alive. I... I can see you don’t remember, but this was the first time we had enough money to ask a human who did this professionally to take a photo of us!”

He turned the page. “And this! This was the first time we saw a jukebox! It was Sans’ birthday so it was his turn to pick a diner and, lo and behold we saw this giant music box in the corner. Heh heh heh, naturally, we spent all our savings that week to listen to every song!”

Papyrus’s smile was wide and bright as he turned the page. “I took this one! I saw a double rainbow over the refinery but! By the time I reached the balcony to take the shot, it was already gone.”

He pointed to another photo. “And this one! You gave me a straw hat with a beautiful red ribbon for my birthday. Sans gave me a turquoise bandana. Of course, it is difficult to admire here because the photograph is black and white, but I’m sure I have both accessories somewhere in my closet!” 

He hesitated. Glancing quickly from the photograph to Gaster then back again. “Maybe you would remember if I showed you?”

Guilt was no longer a stone but a worm that had burrowed deeper into his soul. He smiled through it, pained. “It would not hurt to try, would it?”

“I will go get them right now! Don’t move, nyeh!!” Didot deposited the album in Gaster’s lap, shot to his feet, and stumbled out the door.

Gaster studied the empty doorway. He slowly blinked. The album was quite heavy. His soul was heavy, too. Though it was difficult, he managed to drag his gaze from the doorframe to the album in his lap. The paper was smooth and cool to the touch, covered by a thin film of plastic. Delicately, he turned the page.

Pictures of Aster grew steadily less frequent as the album went on. Sans grew older by the page. He smiled less. Halfway through the album, he appeared seldomly with most of the shots being of Papyrus, the city itself, and monsters Gaster assumed were friends of the brothers.

“You’re almost to the end! Without me!”

He startled. “My apologies. I will go back-”

“No, no, that’s okay!” Didot sat down next to him again. A turquoise bandana was tied around his neck now. He fidgeted with a straw hat, then exchanged it for the album as he spoke. “... I assume you noticed you weren’t in the pictures towards the end?”

Gaster inclined his head. The straw hat was made of a finely woven material. Just as Didot had said, the ribbon wrapped around it was red though it was a fuller shade now than he had implied.

“During that time, you were very busy. Don Asgore and Donna Toriel were rising to power in Ebott. And you... you were a driving force behind it!” Didot paused nervously. He held his breath, but when he saw the lack of recognition, he continued. “Sans was angry that you got involved without telling him. We were involved in small-time crime before then, but the Dreemurs were the big leagues, and we were supposed to wait for Sans to give us the go-ahead! I’m sure you had your reasons but... you didn’t listen. You committed yourself to the Dreemurrs and refused to change your mind.”

He fidgeted with his gloves. Plucking and pulling on loose threads. “You rose through the ranks and before long the Dreemurrs considered us family. Because you were Don Asgore’s Consigliere we received special treatment. Even Sans found it difficult to argue with the privileges we could suddenly afford!”

Didot seemed conflicted, expression waring between nervousness and something closer to awe. “I thought it was inspiring. Your passion... it was moving!  No matter what the human authorities threw at them, you always found a way around it! Though he was initially upset that you stuck your neck out for the most dangerous family in all of Ebott, I think Sans admired your tenacity too. In the end, we realized the benefits outweighed the risks and committed ourselves to proving our worth!”

“When you left the Dreemurrs, Sans was furious. Everything we had worked hard for, everything we had sacrificed, everything we’d accomplished together was stolen from us in one fell swoop move! He was furious with you for a long time. I didn’t understand why you left. Together, we were protecting monsters from unjust human laws and oppression. Why would you stop when so many monsters depended on us?” A pause. Didot’s brow knitted together. “Until he wasn’t? The two of you talked and... reached an understanding?”

“I think Sans has always felt conflicted about the business. On one hand, he can be as lazy as he wants to be! With you and I as his boss and fellow employee respectively, we are the only monsters in all of Ebott who can keep his hedonism in check.” Didot huffed, exasperated. “On the other... being a member of a criminal syndicate is difficult and time-consuming. And you, brother, are very passionate! Before your almost-death you were always busy. We rarely saw you at home. Granted, we were busy too but...”

A pause. Didot’s expression fell, and though he met Gaster’s eye, he struggled to maintain contact. “We saw you so infrequently, I think it hit Sans extra hard when he thought you had...”

He couldn’t complete the sentence, voice choked with emotion. His magic clotted in stress and instinctively Gaster pushed his own outward, blanketing his son’s counterpart in comfort and strength. The shadows of the room responded in turn, gravitating to the flow of his magic, muffling and cloaking the room in the sort of peace only experienced late at night, when the world sleeps.

Didot dragged the back of his glove across his sockets, sniffling. “T-thank you, Aster. You haven’t done that since I was a babybones. I ... I missed it.” Another hiccup and sniffle. He cleared his throat.

“Of course, you don’t remember so it would be unfair to ask how you survived when... we both saw you... but that doesn’t matter! Now that you’re back, Sans will stop blaming himself!”

Gaster sat up straighter. “What-”

“Nyeh! I think that’s enough lollygagging, we have a lot of work to do!” Didot quickly stood and took the album with him.

The whiplash left him stupefied for several long minutes. Didot fussed, in unnerving silence, with another box on the other side of the room. The conversation was over. Gaster retracted his magic, needing a moment to himself to process as much as Didot seemed to need a moment to calm down.

Gaster took in an unsteady breath. Stars , he didn’t think it was possible to feel worse.

Sans blamed himself for what happened to Aster. That... that won’t do. This had not been an ethically sound decision to make from the beginning but his priorities were clear. He had to consider Wolf’s long-term well-being first and foremost. He couldn’t risk his son’s safety. And no matter what transpired, he needed to return home. That was without question. But now that he knew, now that he had more context to the brother's relationship he had a clear picture of the pain his departure would inevitably cause.

Gaster pressed his knuckles to his teeth. His thoughts churned, tumbling and twisting themselves into knots. Doubt, he decided, was a poisonous and insidious thing.

Later on in the day, he found Bodoni in one of the back rooms on the second floor. It was a library, albeit a small one, comparable in size to a guest room or a study. And fitting for what he would expect of Sans’ counterpart, the room was in complete disarray. Papers and books littered the floor, side tables and any surface remotely large enough to hold a book. Some books and papers had been shoved haphazardly into something that resembled a stack but most had been dropped with no discernible order. 

Bodoni was slumped over in an armchair in the corner. The ashtray on the side table next to him was chock-full. There was a bottle of something alcoholic on the floor beside his heel and yet another cigar hung pinched between his phalanges. The air was hazy with the scent of tobacco.

He was reading but whatever was written in the text did not please him.

Gaster hung back, one hand braced to the door's wooden frame as one might cling to a cane. He waited for a moment, hoping Bodoni would notice his presence but when it became clear he wouldn’t, Gaster cleared his throat.

With a slight jolt, Bodoni looked up from his book. “Oh, hey boss. Didn’t see ya there. Did you need somethin’?”

We need to talk , he wanted to say. What came out was: “No. I wondered where you were.”

His hand dropped from the doorframe and resisting the urge to fold his hands together, quietly entered the room.

“Me? Goin’ somewhere on the weekend? I think you’ve got the wrong guy, buddy.”

The weight of Bodoni’s gaze followed him to the bookshelf. Gaster was too restless to sit down just yet and found the titles of the books on that particular shelf suddenly interesting. They were on subjects such as mathematics and physics, economics, business management, and poetry. There was a layer of dust, the non-monster sort, covering the bookshelf and its contents and- stars... this would be a difficult conversation.

Where should he start when he did not know the circumstances of Aster’s death to begin with? He had tried once, to express to this monster that he was not his brother. By now, all logic indicated it was far too late to correct this mistake. But if his brother suddenly left... how would Sans-no, Bodoni, take it?

Gaster realized he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t even begin considering it until he knew the two of them would be alright when he did. 

... but surely, Bodoni would not react well to the truth. Who would take care of Wolf, if something happened to him? And Sans and Papyrus... trapped in that hideous loop. Gaster was free of it now because he had fallen out of reality before the loop began. If that was the only means of escape for them they would never find it. And if they did they would only be exchanging one form of torture for another.

(He couldn’t... recall now... had Sans preserved the remains of temporalgraph? If he had, he hoped it would not lead to his son attempting anything foolish.)

No... no, he couldn’t doubt his convictions now. It was far too late to falter.

“Sit down or somethin’,” the strained, nervous edge to Bodoni’s voice pulled his attention away from the shelf.

Gaster looked at him and the words were gone before they had the chance to manifest. He shook his head and stood behind the chair across from Bodoni. He signed instead. ‘There has been a misunderstanding. A miscommunication I wish to clear up.’

“Oh yeah? ‘bout what?”

He did not miss the way Bodoni tensed. It was subtle. His shoulders hunched slightly. The lights in his sockets paled, flicking away from Gaster’s face and back again, as a bead of sweat dripped down his brow. The look was guilt-stricken and wary, but anticipative. As if, whatever he thought “Aster” would say, he had been waiting to hear it for a long time.

Gaster frowned. It felt as though he was missing something. Bodoni blamed himself for Aster’s death. That was not an uncommon reaction to have, but something in the way Bodoni held himself... was he expecting retribution from his brother? 

That thought made his soul twist unpleasantly.

‘I am not angry, I assure you. This has nothing to do with anything you have done.’

A sharp breath. Bodoni hadn’t expected that. His eyelights darted over his expression, his posture, and finally fell to where his claws dug into the back of the chair. Gaster forced his phalanges to slowly relax.

A beat passed and Bodoni slumped back into his seat. He exhaled deeply and pressed two claws to the bridge of bone between his sockets. Behind his hand, his smile suddenly seemed stilted and sharp. “Heh heh... don’t scare me like that, bud. I guess I should count myself lucky.”

He opened his mouth, then clicked his teeth shut. ‘Pardon?’

“Eh, forget ‘bout it,” Bodoni waved him off and just like that, the sharp edge to his expression was gone. “C’mon, sit down. You’re making me tired just lookin’ at you.”

Before he could answer there was a light rapping on the door. Both turned to look as Doggo stepped into the room, accompanied by Lesser Dog. The hounds took off their hats and stood at attention.

“Well, aren’t I popular tonight? I'm flattered boys, really, but what’cha want. The boss and I are having a powwow here.”

Doggo spoke up. “There’s been a development topside. Our bookkeeper for the bar downtown has been arrested.”

A low, displeased growl rumbled from Bodoni’s chest. Gaster’s eyelight slid from the hounds to his son’s counterpart. This was, perhaps, the second or third time he heard the other monster growl. Sans did not growl, or rather, he had grown out of it. So it was always startling to hear this older variant of his child do so. “Have you posted bail for ‘im yet?”

“Yeah. First thing we did. As ordered, we are waiting for permission to retrieve the books.”

Bodoni returned the cigar to its place between his teeth. “I’ll take care of it. Can’t afford to have yous mucking about while the coppers are on the beat.” 

As a lazy ring of smoke rose slowly above Bodoni, the hounds seemed to take this casual disinterest as a dismissal. They bowed their heads and left the room without another word.

Gaster watched the empty space where they once stood for a moment. Silently, he tried to gauge Bodoni’s mood. The tension hadn’t truly left him but he was putting on a front for ‘Aster’s’ sake. What were his thoughts behind that fixed smile? 

‘What happened to your lazybones act?’

That question startled a short chortle out of Bodoni. Good.

“Who says I’m acting?” He said with a wry smile. “I like that bar. It’d be a shame if we lost it. ‘sides, Papyrus is out right now. I can’t wait for him to do it.”

Gaster inclined his skull slightly, he accepted this explanation as logical enough. Bodoni dragged himself to his feet. Gaster looked up as he stood. He stepped out from behind the chair to follow. ‘Wait. I will accompany you.’

“You sure that’s wise, bud? I’m not eager to let ‘im know we haven’t put ya to bed with a shovel.”

That particular allegory gave him pause, as monsters did not bury their dead but then it clicked. ‘I am confident in our ability to use discretion.’ Gaster replied. ‘ What I wish to discuss cannot wait. ’ 

Bodoni scrutinized him for a moment, chewing on the stick in his mouth. Finally, he shrugged. “ ‘lright. But at the first sign of trouble, you get outta there, capiche?”

Chapter Text

Nighttime on the surface was a glittering show of lights. 

For subtlety and their own safety, Bodoni had led him into the bar through a shortcut. As Gaster had not been to that location before, he could not warp there without assistance. Naturally, he could not ask directly, but instead indicated he could not remember it. Bodoni was kind enough to leave the ‘bridge’ open long enough for Gaster to feel where the pinch of magic led. (A span of time that lasted microseconds) and then in a blink, he was there.

The shortcut dropped them in a backroom, off the kitchen. The surfaces in the kitchen were surprisingly clean. Glistening shiny metal, though thankfully not iron. The smell of grease, and hot food was present in the air, but pleasantly so and not overwhelming.  

Bodoni exited the kitchen first, walking out onto the main floor. The bar was dark as they found it but neat and orderly. The structure of the building formed a perfect rectangle, and from behind the bar counter, one could see the rest of the floor and the span of windows covering the far wall and the main entrance.

The world outside was dark. The streets were illuminated by a multitude of colors, shining over black concrete. A bright light ran over the bar’s interior as a vehicle passed. 

Gaster knew what cars were from books and magazines that managed to survive the trip through Waterfall, but witnessing the mechanics of such a device in person was something else. It was also quite loud. The exterior walls of the bar did little to muffle the sound. A dull roar emitted from the road as another went past, followed by a hiss: the sound of tires cutting through water.

“Boss, over here.”

Gaster tore his gaze from the window.

Bodoni had made his way through a sea of booths and tables and was now standing in front of a narrow stairwell. 

“ ‘is up here. Though... if you wanna enjoy the view, alcohol you later.”

Reflexively, Gaster lifted a hand to stifle a short-lived chuckle and followed him up to the second floor. The pun caught him by surprise and he couldn’t help it, but the guilt residing in his soul would not allow it to last.

The second floor could best be described as a staff lounge, complete with a leather couch, a kitchen table, and a row of mint-green filing cabinets against one wall. The window at the end of the room was covered by wooden blinds. Unlike the rest of the bar, this space was in complete disarray.

“The authorities have already searched the building.”

“Yep,” Bodoni said, popping the ‘p’. “but I didn’t hire a stupid bookkeeper. The bulls can look all they want but this ain't a china shop. They haven’t found those records yet and they never will.”

The soles of his shoes clicked as he crossed the room to a filing cabinet. Bodoni raised a hand and the cabinet turned blue. Effortlessly he rotated the cabinet on its side, revealing a crawl space behind it.

“Would ya do the honors?”

Gaster eyed the floating cabinet and Bodoni’s impassive smile. Another beam of light ran by the window from the street below chasing the shadows across the room. Hesitation fading, he knelt and opened the crawl space door. There he found a cardboard box full of manila folders. He stood back and Bodoni dropped the cabinet.

Bodoni took the box from his arms. He combed through it. “Looks like it’s all here. We’ve got one more thing to get and then we’re golden.”

They walked to the door on the other side of the room. Bodoni hooked the box under one arm and fished around in the pocket of his coat until he found a set of keys and unlocked the door.

Gaster’s gaze swept over the office. Nothing caught his attention. It was a typical office space. Though the lighting fixture above the desk was quite nice. It was made of stained glass, a bright emerald in color. The glass had been molded to resemble a petal-like form. Overall, the piece gave one the impression of a blossoming flower.

“Hey boss, what should you order if you just want a small drink?” Bodoni set the box on the large desk at the front of the office.

Ah, that was an easy one. “A marteenie,” Gaster replied.

Bodoni grinned. His sockets narrowed in mirth. “Aw shucks, consider my spirits dashed. ‘guess I’ll have to try harder to get a buzz outta you.”

While Gaster huffed in begrudging amusement, Bodoni summoned a long bone and stepped into the center of the room, directly underneath the light fixture. The end was hooked like a crowbar. Gaster expected him to start ripping up the floorboards. Instead he hooked the bent end on the rim of the lighting fixture and tugged. Another box, smaller than the first, fell from the chandelier into Bodoni’s hand. “And there she is.”

Bodoni's smile grew sharper. He thumbed open the lid with a claw to examine the contents. Satisfied with what he found, he snapped the lid shut with a gruff chuckle. “See, there's so much right in front of ‘em, humans forget to look up. It started as a joke between us. Humans look down on nearly everything, so why not hide our shit where they’d never think to look?”

Gaster smiled, the light in his socket soft. Indeed, that was clever thinking. Leave it to his children (alternate selves they might have been) to hide their secrets in plain sight. In the greater context, perhaps he shouldn't have felt so proud, but there was no denying that he adored his son's quick wit. However, they chose to express it.

Sheepishly, Bodoni rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s kinda nostalgic, showing you everything all over again. Really takes me back.”

“I agree,” Though for an entirely different reason he understood that feeling. Stars, every time he looked at these two, it was impossible not to see his sons. Albeit, much older and with a harder light to their eyes. 

The punning. The banter. There were differences of course. Little things he found hard to swallow, like their careers and the implicit violence Gaster found evidence of but never saw in person. Not once, during the course of his stay had he seen the brothers react to another monster with violence. But this did not mean it was not there. Simply that, it seemed to be an unspoken rule not to perpetuate it within their home. 

“You wanted to talk to me ‘bout somethin?” Bodoni asked. The inflection in his tone was such that Gaster could not identify the emotion behind it.

Gaster’s eye sockets narrowed slightly as he considered how best to approach this conversation. He had to do so delicately. He considered too, the other monster’s stance. The way he had shifted his weight to his heels. His posture was deceptively languid but posed like a spring.

“It was brought to my attention that prior to my... death-” A static crackle hissed its way past his teeth. As Gaster paused to steady it, the way the other monster’s jaw clenched did not escape his notice. “-we were not on the best of terms.”

“He told ya that, huh,” the cigar clutched between his teeth had apparently grown old. Bodoni removed it, huffed one last ring of smoke, and pinching the stick between two claws, ground the end into the desk. This act struck Gaster as disrespectful to the resident of the office but he did not call the other monster out on it.

Gaster watched his son's counterpart brush the ash off his claws.

“He shouldn't have. ‘wasn’t his place. But sure. Things between us were on the rocks sometimes. ‘Could even say it was downright icy, heh.”

That response made Gaster frown. Bodoni was trying hard to downplay his words, but the jovial facade was paper-thin, and when Gaster failed to respond how Bodoni hoped he would, his smile faltered.

“Listen bud. I get you wanna remember and Pap wants everything to go back to normal, but why rush?” Bodoni spread his arms out, palms up. “The way I figure it, there’s a good reason you don’t remember. The way things are now, it’s almost like a clean slate. Why not enjoy it while it lasts?”

A sense of unease wriggled its way into his mind. This was more than deflection or even avoidance. Bodoni actively did not want his brother to know the circumstances of their dispute. Why?

Gaster carefully kept his facial features as passive as magic would allow. When he spoke his voice was level but framed by that low buzz that seemed to haunt his every word in times of tension. “I would be more willing to drop the matter, but I cannot forget the fact that I have seen you flinch in my company. That nervousness... I would like to know what I did... and what I can do to ease the pain I caused.”

The impenetrable mask Sans-Bodoni always wore faltered once more. A flash of emotion. Surprise. Then confusion. After a moment, he closed his sockets.  “I’m that transparent, huh? You’re too observant for your own good, boss. That’s what got you into this mess. You couldn’t turn a blind eye and it made ya one hell of an enemy.”

An enemy of who? Why the secrecy? What did Bodoni blame himself for? “What happened?”

Bodoni shook his head. “Not important. For once in your life Aster, let it go.” These words were accentuated by a growl. “We’ll talk ‘bout it when and if you remember, but I’m not discussin’ it now.”

The light in Gaster’s socket hardened and that unpleasant twist in his soul became like a knife. He took a breath but held his tongue. Pushing his son when he did not want to talk about something never ended well and he could see the same was true for Bodoni. But allowing the conflict to be drawn out had also led to one of his biggest regrets. He did not want to make that mistake twice. This would not be the last time he addressed this issue. He was patient. He could wait. 

That sense of unease hadn’t faded. This exchange had all but confirmed that Bodoni was desperate to keep whatever had occurred from his brother. Yet he felt no ill-intent from the other skeleton, even while his frustration and stress mounted. Guilt was the primary motive behind the aggression, not maliciousness.

“Very well. But do not bottle your feelings. If you will not speak to me. Speak with Papyrus, if no one else.”

Bodoni hesitated, but at least the tension in shoulders eased. “You’re that serious ‘bout it?” a pause. “... ‘lright. Though you might regret it.”

“If it eases that which weighs on your mind, I will be content to live with that regret.”

Before their conversation could continue there was a loud crash downstairs. The sound came so suddenly and so quickly, it took the two of them a second or two to register the sound as a window shattering. 

Bodoni’s grin returned, sharp as a whip. “Welp,” he said, “Can’t have that.” He pulled the revolver free from the holster about his hip and turned to the door.

A step behind him, Gaster’s mind goggled at his misplaced enthusiasm. How could he be excited at the prospect of violence? “Are we not leaving immediately?”

Bodoni’s teeth glinted in the low light. Another vehicle passed by, bathing him briefly in red. “What, and let ‘em get away with messing up my favorite bar? Hell no. ‘Sides I know exactly who’s downstairs and I’ve been waiting to pound ‘em for weeks .” 

The door was left wide open as Bodoni sauntered over to the stairwell. He held the revolver with such bizarre casualness. He detested violence, but if the subject hadn't been a variant of his son, the pragmatic part of him acknowledged that it would be enlightening to witness how the residents of this world conducted themselves. There was always something to learn from a new experience.

How does a being made of magic refrain from using something so fundamental to their being? Were there long-lasting consequences?

Gaster shook himself. This was not the time for science.

“Hey, bud. Why don’t you head back to the lodge?” Bodoni hadn’t moved his gaze away from the stairwell. He kept his voice low now, his skull canted to one shoulder, and underneath his voice, the wooden flooring groaned under the weight of someone approaching the stairs. “I got things covered here. Can’t have ‘em seein’ you either way.”

He hesitated for half a second. It did not sit well with him to leave Bodoni to fight alone, but Bodoni was experienced and it would be inadvisable to engage in combat himself. (he had no desire to, to start. And by Bodoni’ admission, the rival family intended to kill Aster if they saw him. It would cause more problems for the brothers if he stayed.)

Reluctantly, Gaster inclined his skull. “Very well. I will take the documents to the lodge. However, if you have not returned in fifteen minutes, I will return with support.”

Bodoni rattled a laugh under his breath. The revolver clicked. “Fifteen? I’ll be done in ten. Vamoose before yer voice starts messin’ with someone’s head.”

Gaster dropped the documents off in Aster’s office. He checked the nearest clock on the way out, another item made of dark wood. The pendulum was in the shape of a skull. He started counting. 

The lodge was largely quiet and he did not see a single monster on the way downstairs, adding to his unease. Surely, the lodge couldn’t be empty.

He had left Kalluno in Dogaressa’s capable hands before he and Bodoni left. Her genuine and instant affection for the child assured him that he would be well taken care of. It wasn’t so late that Kalluno should be in bed, however, and Gaster was beginning to feel anxious.

That was until he entered the kitchen.

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

There was Wolf and Didot, who presumably had turned in the time he had been gone. They were both covered in flour. In fact, the majority of the kitchen was covered in flour. Flour, eggshells, and spilled milk. Didot’s nice, carefully pressed suit was absolutely plastered in dough. A piece of eggshell was stuck to the plate of bone just above his sockets.

Wolf was in no better condition but he was chirruping soft, warbling sounds that quickly registered to Gaster as giggling. Didot had seated him on the countertop and was carefully cleaning the raw dough off his horns and cheek with a damp washrag.

“-yes, yes I know it tickles dear nephew, but you must endure! I must get this flour off of you before my brothers return and assume I shirked my responsibilities as a responsible adult, caring for a child!”

“I could never think that. You are very, very diligent.”

“Aster!” Didot gasped, his hand flying to cover his teeth, but he seemed to have forgotten which hand held the washrag and the damp cloth smacked him across the cheek.

Wolf chirped loudly and spun around on the countertop to face him.

Wolf’s eyelights were so wide and bright, his soul soared to see his son so happy, but he had no time to bask in it. “Thank you, Papyrus. You are an excellent uncle.” He crossed the short distance to the island counter and took Wolf into his arms. He would absolutely need a proper bath later. A washrag was not going to get deep enough to clean the flour from between his joints.

“Really?” Didot’s eyelights brightened. “Oh, your nice shirt!”

“Oh, it can be washed. We do not have much time. I told Sans if he was not back in fifteen minutes I would return with assistance.”

Didot straightened. If the brothers' eagerness to engage in combat did not make him so uncomfortable, he would have found the swift severity of Didot’s demeanor impressive.  That kind of shift took skill and experience. It was not something one could be taught. “Where is he?”

The name of the bar had partially rolled off his tongue when the signature pull of spacial magic rebonding directed his attention from Didot to the other end of the kitchen. A blip and Bodoni staggered into the room.

Reflectively, Gaster bounced a quick check off of him.

“Hey, c’mon. I told ya it’d take me less than fifteen.” Bodoni hobbled over to the island and slumped across the first tool he could reach. At that point, the state of the kitchen finally seemed to compute. Gaster breathed a sigh in relief. He was too relieved to see that Bodoni hadn’t lost any health to truly appreciate his mystified expression. Which was a shame, because it was rather comical.

“Jeez, pap. What did ja do? Throw cake bombs?”

Didot put his hands on his hips. “I did not, in fact! Master Chief Kalluno and I were baking several batches of Gold Nugget Cake!”

That explained the excessive amount of flour.

Slowly, Bodoni began to smirk. “Huh... well, lemme share a nugget of truth with you-”

“Don’t you dare!”

“-you’ll never know what you’ll accomplish if ya don’t fry. So I’m proud of ya.”

“No! You will not distract me! Sans, you had Aster and I worried! I hope you did not attempt to engage in a shootout on your own.”

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. I guess I gave ya both a real fry-t.”

“UGH!” Didot stomped his foot repeatedly. After a couple of deep breaths and he turned to Gaster in a huff. “Well, clearly he’s in fine shape if his puns are at this caliber of debauchery! Still, I am sure our brother will EVENTUALLY come to appreciate our concern for him.”

Bodoni slumped. The smile on his face slipped a little. “Aw, pap, it really wasn’t that bad. Just a couple of greenhorns who thought they’d score extra clams outta their boss for an easy job.”

“Please just be more careful then, brother. It must have been direr than you care to admit if Aster came to me himself for assistance.”

Bodoni blinked and looked at him with an odd emotion he couldn’t identify. He frowned. “Yeah, I’ll be more careful.”

Under his breath Gaster could’ve sworn he heard the other skeleton mutter. “-why would-” but it was quickly masked by Didot’s loud proclamation.

“Good!” At last satisfied, Didot gestured for him to hand over Wolf. Gaster began to protest, but Didot was insistent. “I am responsible for his state, after all! If you want to help, you and Sans can clean up the kitchen.”

“Were you not concerned with shirking your responsibility mere moments ago?” Gaster lightly chided, amused by Papyrus’s attempt at dodging the larger mess.

Meanwhile, Wolf was content with licking raw egg off his paws. His onesie was in an absolute state, and the leftovers were getting smeared all over the front of Gaster’s coat.

Papyrus gasped. “I would never! But even I, as great as I am, cannot do two things at once!”

“Of course. We will clean the kitchen together. Then, I will allow you to escape with Kalluno.”

“Nyeh hehehe! Challenge accepted! Though, there’s no need to allow anything brother. I will escape with my dear nephew on my own!”

Sans relaxed against the island counter. Both of his arms tucked under his chin, content now that what had started as a serious conversation had dissolved into hijinx, though he was watching Gaster and Wolf more than he was watching Didot. “Careful, Boss. He’ll give ya a run for your money.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that.” He glanced from one brother to another. “However, he cannot leave until the work is complete or he will be shrinking his responsibilities.”

Didot’s eyelights shone with conviction. Gaster’s smile grew. “Of course, If he does most of the work, we would not be working together. This would be cheating. I wonder, Papyrus, how will you be able to escape under these conditions?”

Confident, Didot puffed out his chest proudly. “I will find a way! The Great and Dastardly Papyrus never backs down from a challenge!”

From there the evening dissolved into pure-hearted shenanigans. In the end, Didot did indeed manage to escape the kitchen with Wolf in tow. It took no less than four separate attempts, three fits of hysterics from Bodoni’s side of the kitchen, and two enthusiastic interventions from Wolf himself, who was much more concerned with finding stray globs of sugary-buttery batter than assisting Didot in any way. Three times this tendency led to a failed escape attempt until at last Didot figured out how to earn his cooperation.

By midnight, the kitchen was clean. Wolf had been bathed, put to bed, and Gaster’s coat had been confiscated by a rabbit Gaster did not recognize who was keen on doing laundry while the stars were out. The brothers parted for their own sleeping arrangements, and Gaster quietly slipped into Aster’s study to retrieve material to work on while the stress of the day wore off.

Toriel would have admonished him for writing formulas in bed but he felt pressed for time and if his mind was not occupied by calculations and a growing list of what he would need to reconstruct a complicated machine, it would be consumed by concern for the brothers and Wolf.

The second to last step on the stairwell creaked underfoot. He rounded the corner into the hallway that led to Aster’s room, idly flipping through a book he had taken from his counterpart’s study. He was slowly growing frustrated with what he found within the text, or rather lack thereof, when something brought his feet to a stop. 

It was instinct that compelled him to stop though he could not immediately figure out why. He glanced up from the book and slowly scanned the hall. His gaze went from wall to floor, and then to the opposing wall. When he found nothing amiss, he turned around to glance behind him. 

So then, what had-

He turned back to face the direction he had originally been heading. On a whim, he looked up. 

His ribcage hitched. The mana in his marrow froze as his soul fluttered fast.

The ceiling above his head had taken on an odd consistency. It did not appear to be solid. The surface warbled, like the disturbed waters of normally still pound. What was equally alarming was the strange opaque quality to it. There was something behind it that should not have been there. It was dark. Inky. And it seemed to breathe.

A sharp gasp left his throat. Gaster shook his head. He dropped the book in his hast to dig his palm into his socket. He pressed hard enough to see stars and only when his breathing leveled out and his mana calmed did he dare remove his hands to peer up at the ceiling.

It was gone.

The ceiling was solid and textured with fine, motionless grain.

What had...

He shook his head again and knelt to retrieve the book. 

He was tired. It had been a stressful day. 

He was tired. Nothing more.

Chapter Text

Sans opened his eyes to the sound of soft padding footsteps. 

“Papyrus?” 

He rolled over, squinting through the dark for the familiar outline of his little brother. Papyrus stood in the doorway, clutching a pink fleece blanket in one small fist and in his other arm he was hugging a werewolf plushie. One foot in the hallway and one foot in his bedroom. His sockets were wide.

Now slightly more awake, Sans sat upright. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He groaned and rubbed the sleep from his sockets. “What’s wrong, bro? Nightmare?”

Papyrus shook his skull vehemently, changed his mind, then nodded. “I can’t sleep. Can you read me a story? Please?” 

“Sure, sure. C’mon in.” 

Papyrus scurried over. Sans yawned and hauled himself out of bed. With a soft thump, he took the pillows and the fluffy blanket from his bed and gathered everything into a makeshift pile on the floor in front of the bookshelf.

This wasn’t the first time Papyrus woke him up in the middle of the night. It didn’t happen every night or even every week but it happened often enough that he and Pap established a routine. Instead of crawling into bed (Papyrus was too wiggly for Sans to fall back asleep and Papyrus complained that his sheets were too wrinkly, stinky and “Sans! Your laundry should sleep in your dresser! Not your bed!”) they moved the bed to the floor, where Papyrus could wiggle without kicking him and Sans could fall asleep to the smell of old books and sometimes to leftover cookie crumbs on his cheek from the snacks he and his bro stole from the cupboard. 

It was like a sleepover but without all the kids from school, except better.

“Alright, so what do you wanna hear? we got uh… we got… Fluffy Bunny, a classic. Fluffy Bunny ‘I love you THIS MUCH!’ Fluff Bunny goes on Vacation-“

Papyrus pointed to a large text book on the bottom shelf. 

“Thermodynamics, Plate Tectonics and the Lithosphere? Huh. We haven’t even covered continental drift in school yet.”

Papyrus nodded sagely. “Of course! Dad said I could read his text books when I’ve caught up on my schoolwork because my homework is too easy! But you already knew that, Sans. He lets you borrow his Physics books too.”

“I’m pullin’ your leg bro.” Sans winked, then broke out into muffled snickering when Papyrus gasped and pulled his legs underneath him.

“No! Don’t pull my leg! Your hands are too cold!”

“k. I won’t. I promise.”

Papyrus huffed. He tucked the blanket over his shoulders and snuggled the plushie in his arms. Sans turned to the book on Thermodynamics. It was a large tome. Extremely heavy and definitely too big to stuff into a backpack. With a little effort, Sans pulled it off the shelf and plopped it open between himself and Papyrus.

“What chapter were you on?”

“Chapter nine, but I want to read about volcanoes tonight!”

“You got it, bro.” Sans thumbed through the pages until he found the corresponding chapter. It was on page four hundred and ten. The chapter opened on an illustrated cross section diagram of a volcano. 

Sans began to read the first paragraph aloud. A few sentences in Papyrus tugged on his sleeve and pointed to the segment describing how volcanoes are formed. “Sans, we live in a volcano don’t we?”

“Yep,” Sans had a quip on the edge of his teeth but then he caught the concern in Papyrus’s eye as he intently stared at the illustration. Oh. “...that earthquake today was pretty big, huh. Is that why you wanted to read about plate tectonics?”

Papyrus fidgeted with his blanket glumly. “It’s the reason Dad is working late again, correct? Something was damaged in the explosion! I... I felt it before I saw the light!”

Sans winced. Everyone in New Home had seen that light. It was so bright he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told him they had seen the flash all the way from Waterfall. 

It also wasn’t unusual for Dad to work late. He preferred to be home when Sans and Papyrus were but sometimes he left to go back to work after dinner, after they had gone to bed. Sans honestly didn’t know when his old man went to bed some days. 

So it hadn’t surprised him when Dad had left immediately after dinner to return to work that evening. He stayed for long enough to make sure Sans and Papyrus had something to eat and their kitchen didn’t burn down and then he was gone. As the sole engineer of the CORE, the great thermal machine that powered the underground, maintaining the CORE was Dad’s primary responsibility. 

“Yeah but he’s got it covered, bro. Dad knows what he’s doing. This isn’t the first quake we’ve had.”

Papyrus hugged his plushie tighter. “Yes! But it was the loudest and brightest in living memory! What if the entire mountain erupts? What if the entire underground fills with lava?”

“Aw, bro...” He was really shaken up about this, wasn’t he? “We don’t have to worry ‘bout that. Magic’s got us covered.”

“That’s what everyone says, Sans!” Papyrus exclaimed, exasperated. “But the explosion still happened!”

“Yeah, and we’re still here, aren’t we?” Sans poked his brother’s cheek. Papyrus glowered half-heartedly. “Hey, do you know what they say about lava?”

“What?”

“I lava you.”

“Ugh! Gross!” Papyrus shoved him and Sans laughed. “That was horrible! The setup doesn't even make sense!”

“I dunno bro, I don’t see any fault in that statement.”

His brother huffed. Brow furrowed together as he tried to think of a counter pun. “Nyeh! Well I... I lava you too,” Papyrus said begrudging, and with his next words, Sans grinned wide. “But if I hear one more magma related pun I will explode! Nyeh ehehe!”

“Don’t you mean one more magmanimous pun?”

“I do not understand how you pronounced that word, but I certainly do not!”

It started as just one of those mornings Sans didn’t want to go to school. 

It was like a little itch in his chest. A needle prick. This sense of foreboding was so heavy it was like someone had wrapped a weighted blanket around his bones.  

He just... didn’t want to deal with it. 

The teachers at the school were fine. The work wasn’t hard. He had friends... he supposed. Sans was what you would call a class clown. He made the other students laugh, intentionally got on his teacher’s nerves and preened under the attention. He was late because he wanted to be, not because his father didn’t drop him off on time. He lingered in the hallway, hands shoved into his pockets and pretended he was part of the wall, that he was anywhere but here.

So... the monotony of school just didn’t appeal to him today, what does he do?

Sans rolled out of bed before the alarm clock. He crouched on the floor and peered under the bookshelves where he knew his brother kept a small stash of candy. He winced when the bag crinkled. It was loud. But after groping blindly for a few minutes, he felt the smooth surface of the piece he was looking for.

A hot rock.

He popped it in his mouth and quickly crawled into bed. 

A minute or two later, as Sans was beginning to feel his core temperature rise, the door creaked open. 

Sans pretended to groan. He rolled over, throwing an arm over his sockets and for good measure, whimpered out a croaking “Ugh... I don’t feel so good. I think I’m sick.”

The bed dipped slightly as Dad sat down. A cool hand lightly pressed to his forehead. “Hmm. You do feel warm. Symptoms?”

“Uh...” Shit. He didn’t think this through. Wait... that could be a symptom too, couldn’t it? Hard to think when your magic is boiling. “I dunno. ‘s hard to think. Can’t focus.”

His father hummed. “Do you think you could eat breakfast?”

Yep, he absolutely could. “Nope.” 

Sans lowered his arm so he could see his father’s face. Dad was studying him skeptically. “... is everything alright at school? Ms. Thistle tells me you seem disinterested in class.”

Sans was unable to keep himself from snorting. He allowed his arm to drop. “We’ve gone over the current subject, like, five times Dad. At this point she’s just giving me stuff to do.”

A sigh. “I will speak to her again about giving you more challenging material.”

“Don’t brother,” Sans mumbled bitterly. “It doesn’t matter anyway.” Then he remembered he was supposed to be sick and coughed.

Either Dad knew he was faking and decided to cut him some slack anyway, or that cough was better acted than he thought it was, because half an hour after Papyrus had been dropped off at school Sans found himself in the lab. His old man couldn’t leave him home alone; he was ‘sick’. (though Sans heavily suspected Dad knew he wasn’t, but Dad was sometimes very cautious.)

Dad had experiments to conduct so Sans had free reign of his office. Usually Sans took a nap. He knew where everything was, and Dad’s office was one of those few places in the whole facility where the temperature felt normal and not blisteringly hot or like you’d walked into a freezer. The door to his office was locked with a pad-lock. Only Sans, his brother and Dad knew the password. 

An hour or so passed with Sans tossing and turning on the couch. He stared blankly at the ceiling. Closed his sockets. Then stared at his father’s filing cabinets. He couldn’t sleep. That tense knot of magic in his chest was still there. He couldn’t shake the feeling. So he got up and padded out of the office. 

There was always some sort of noise in the lab. The low hum of equipment. The chatter of scientists. A beaker shattering. But the hall was quiet which gave him a sense of confidence. Heh. It wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong. He was just curious. And bored. And weren’t scientists supposed to be advocates for the pursuit of knowledge? That was what he was doing. Pursuing knowledge. So why was his soul beating so fast?

There were many locked doors in the laboratory and a few places he wasn't supposed to go. Sans wasn’t sure what had drawn him to that particular locked door. Might’ve been the voices down the hallway or the prospect of having to explain why he wasn’t at school to his father’s coworkers but whatever the reason, he found himself booking it. Then picking at the padlock until the light blinked green and there he was, inside a forbidden room.

It was pretty ordinary as far as rooms went. Glossy counters. Microscopes. Drawers and cabinets. It was clean. Immaculate save for one object that felt out of place.

On the counter, in the corner was a box. Its walls had been constructed with swirling violet light. Approaching, Sans felt the familiarity of it. His father had made this box. He felt it even before he was within reaching distance. 

He took it in his hands. It was a perfect cube. Smooth and cool like the fog expelled by a waterfall but deeper. It had no lid, seam, or hinge. Squinting Sans rubbed his thumb over one wall but whatever was held within the box remained obscured. What would Dad seal in a box without a lid?

Something he didn’t want messed with. Obliviously.

Sans pulled in a deep breath through his grin. He focused on the box and nothing else, pushing his intention forward, through his thoughts and his left eyelight. Waited for the magic to pool in his eye socket. To glow. Waited for it to warm. For everything to sharpen into focus. It did, and then Sans did a very foolish thing. 

He found the weakest point in his father’s seal and pulled. Unraveling that thread of magic like a knot in a rope.

The box splintered into a dozen tiny fractures of light. Something cold and hard fell into his hands. 

Sans’s brow raised in puzzlement. A shard of metal? He turned it over in his hands, brushing the tips of his phalanges over the smooth surface. It was not a raw piece of ore, but a solid grey chunk. A blacksmith had worked with this piece at least once. Under the bones of his fingers, the metal... tingled?

His soul started to pound. Pulsing faster. 

Suddenly, the magic around the vertebrae of his neck felt tight and clotted. 

His arms felt heavier. The metal in his hands increased in weight- no. That wasn’t it at all. It was sapping his strength. Sans eyelights flashed blue than yellow in alarm as he realized his mistake. He tried to shift gravity through his arms to lessen the weight but his grip on his magic slipped. His concentration broke, like a thought he couldn’t remember. And with each desperate grasp, he felt it drifting further away.

Stars. He needed to put this thing down. But he couldn’t move. His entire body was shaking. He couldn't move. Vertigo swept his feet out from under him. He couldn’t move. His vision washed grey—

“Sans- my child… wake up!”

Sans groaned as his eye sockets fluttered open. Everything was too bright. He was laying on his back on a soft surface. 

A relieved breath. “Thank the angel. You gave me a scare, son.”

The light above him cleared and Sans realized he was on the couch in Dad’s office. Dad must’ve found him and brought him here. There was another monster poking around his father's office and another hovering by the door, watching him with shared expressions of worry. They were wearing Doctor’s coats. A few questions, a quick exam and they were silently dismissed a few minutes later, assured that his father had things handled here.

“What happened?”

“Bane of my heart,” Dad stated in a gush of- well a mixture of things. The worry Sans felt in the trembling pool of his magic, the exasperation and irritation he heard in his father’s voice. Sans grimaced. “You have just experienced the drain of cold-iron! A substance I had sealed, specifically to prevent wandering hands from reaching it. In a room I kept locked, in a restricted area, also precisely, for this purpose! What in tartarus were you thinking, child?”

Sans blinked slowly. Uh… whoops? “You made a box outta violet magic. Wanted to see what was in it.”

Dad closed his sockets and took another deep exasperated breath. “You could have asked.”

Oh. “Well, where’s the fun in that?”

“Where is the enjoyment in inescapable exhaustion?” Dad countered. “You could have severely wounded yourself.”

Another wave of dizziness washed over him. His voice slurred. “ m’ ’sorry,” Sans mumbled.  

Yet another sigh. This one was accompanied by a gentle brush of a hand over his skull. Sans closed his eyes to the warmth of green magic, soothing the ache in his skull. It was like sitting by a calm fire, wrapped up in a soft blanket while someone hummed a comforting melody. He almost wanted to snuggle into the couch. He felt warm and safe.

“Better?” 

Sans nodded without opening his eyes.

“Please do not scare me like that again.”

“No promises,” Sans mumbled. He peeled open one eye socket. Dad watched him, brow pinched together in concern. “What’s cold-iron? Why did it feel like that?”

“Cold-iron… is constructed when a human, or another monster, intentionally polarizes the magic found within iron ore while in the process of refining it.”

“Yeah but why did it make me feel so weak?”

“I was getting to that, o’ impatient one.” 

Sans grumbled. 

“There are some properties in this world that monsters are averse to. Some are more averse to certain properties than others.”

Sans mulled that over. “Is that why you and Papyrus don't like salty food?” 

“Yes. Partially.” At his quizzical look, Dad continued in a mildly amused tone. “Your brother does not need a reason to dislike fast-food. And if I am exposed the most it will do is cause me discomfort. Think of it like an allergy. But yes. There is evidence in our lineage to support the notion that an aversion to salt is inherited.”

“But I like salty food.”

“That you do,” Dad chuckled. His smile quickly fell. “Cold-iron is a weakness shared across multiple family lines. Ours included. Ours most disadvantageously. Dangerous substances like these are kept here in the hope that we might develop a defense against them. Next time you discover my seal; that my power contains something unseen… please. Ask me before you attempt to break it.”

Sans nodded mutely. Dad’s gaze softened. “I do not fault you for your curiosity but these rules are in place to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Sans groaned. “I know.” He’d heard this song and dance so many times it was irritating. He got it okay? He was practically made of spun glass. Jeez. “I promise I’ll be more careful. Happy?”

“To an acceptable degree.” 

Despite accepting his solemn vow to be more careful, Dad stuck around the office until it was time to go home. Sans was finally able to get his nap.

Chapter Text

The numbers did not lie. The power-plant Gaster had asked Dogamy to look into would not provide sufficient energy.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Dogamy whined. His ears pinned back. “If it pleases you, we will investigate the refinery run by our competitors? Our associates believe there are interesting developments unfolding across the channel.”

Gaster rubbed the bridge of bone between his sockets. The pair of hands he'd summoned specifically to speak froze for half a second, caught in the turbulence of his frustration before they signed. ‘ No. That will not be necessary. Thank you for your time. You may go. ’

Dogamy bowed and quickly backed out of the room, replacing the hat on his head as he went. He seemed dejected by the dismissal but there truly wasn’t anything he could do to contribute.

Gaster sighed. He leaned forward, braced his palms to the desk, and absently ran through the list again. The desk was covered in such lists. Lists, blueprints, and sketches. Sheets of paper with sprawling calculations and formulas. 

The miniature model of Epsilon’s machine had already been constructed. Gaster was constantly tweeting it. He had made it smaller than originally intended, but its smaller size meant it was easier to store away, to hide. Currently, it was resting in Aster’s desk, in the large filing drawer. The completion of the model had done exactly what he had hoped and now he knew precisely what he needed to build the machine full scale. 

An entire month’s work compacted and completed in less than a week but for all the work he had done, it was all beginning to feel... useless.

For what did it matter if he finished Epsilon's machine, without the power to run it? What was the point of a lightbulb without an electric current? What potter could make a vase without clay?

He couldn’t return home in an empty husk, and yet, that is what this situation amounted to. Unless he found something that produced the same magnitude of energy as the CORE.

The CORE, as he had discovered, did not exist in this World. Apparently, it had never become necessary to power the entire underground. Or possibly, it did not exist because Aster had not furthered his understanding of science. With the disparity between worlds, it left Gaster wondering. If it had been necessary to provide power to the underground and if, in that world, a variant of himself did not exist, who would be responsible for the CORE’s design and construction? 

Would Theta, or her daughter fill that role? Was the CORE’s existence dependent on his own choices, some variable of himself? Was there a role to fill, or were his assumptions based on ignorance? His sample size was small, after all.

Gaster shook his head.

Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on task. Every avenue he ventured led to the same result. 

The technology of this world was simply too archaic for the project to proceed at an acceptable pace. 

The year was 1942. A date Gaster had stumbled across rather belatedly in his stay, though he had suspected for a long time that the timeline of this world was set decades in the past. Once finally presented with conclusive evidence, he had only felt resigned. 

Despite all his work... 

Epsilon had designed his machine to harness the raw power produced by the CORE. Without it, Gaster was left at an impasse. 

Time. Time was his greatest enemy at the moment. To power the machine he needed to build a very large, very dangerous engine, and do it all from scratch…

A low groan rattled his throat. He dragged his hand down his face and balefully regarded the cluttered walls of Aster’s office.

No. He refused to give in. There must be something he was overlooking. An incorrect variable in his formulas. Or some aspect of Epsilon's machine that was not as efficient as it could be. What was he missing?

Another twenty or so minutes passed. Eventually, he decided he wouldn’t make any more progress that afternoon and left to check on Wolf and the other occupants of the lodge.

The dogs were sparsely stationed. They greeted him with nods or shallow bows, and reverent glances that left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. So he left them to their work but quietly noted that they seemed more on guard than usual.

He found Wolf sitting on a windowsill on the first floor, staring out the window. He followed the little one’s gaze.

Indeed, it was a beautiful day outside. Partially cloudy on the surface but the light which drifted into the cavern thanks to the massive skylight made the snow that much brighter. Snowdin’s ambient magic allowed the cavern to snow, continuously, despite the missing chunk of the mountain. The sunlight caught each snowflake as it fell and this seemed to be what captured Wolf’s attention.

“Would you like to go outside, little one?”

Wolf gasped and spun around. He almost fell off the windowsill but caught himself on the back of the couch underneath it. He instantly gave Gaster the impression of a startled cat. 

He quickly covered his mouth to muffle a chuckle, but there was nothing he could do about his smile reaching his sockets: a decisive tell that had Wolf chirping in what could only be indignation.

“It occurs to me that we have not ventured outside much,” Gaster said after he had regained control of himself. “Perhaps it is time, for adventure?”

Wolf nodded eagerly and Gaster was very, very proud. His son was communicating more and more.

There was a garden located behind the lodge. Out of view of the main path the hounds had initially led him down when he had first arrived in this world. 

The lodge itself was surrounded by fir trees, a dense woodland that was eventually broken up by the steep cliffs of Snowdin. But their cover provided shelter and a natural barrier that hid the back of the lodge from prying eyes, and the frankly absurd size of the lodge itself prevented Gaster from discovering the garden sooner.

The garden was framed by a row of hedges. Perpetual snow naturally made the landscape difficult to maintain, but the groundskeeper had evidently found a compromise. Along one wall of the garden, facing the back porch, a flower bed had been planted. The flowers were blooming in colors not native to the underground. The plotting bed was framed by grey stone, and shuffling the soles of his shoes through the snow revealed a stone pavement underneath it. 

An archway led into a maze. A recent thaw and a consequent drop in temperature had led to a growth of icicles underneath the arch. The phenomenon was quite beautiful. The ice glinted an almost rosy lavender in the dappled sunlight.

Wolf seemed to think so too. The child shifted in his arms, peering up at the ice formation in wide-socket curiosity.

And to Gaster’s joy, Wolf murmured a sound that sounded less like a chirrup, and almost resembled a word.

“Ice is beautiful is it not?” Gaster said to him. “Would you like a closer look?” 

Wolf titled his skull back to look up at him, and then back to the arch with an air of eagerness. Gaster grinned and walked a short distance to stand under the arc.

Closer to the ice now, Wolf caught sight of his reflection. He wiggled, then stood, posed like a feline, and using Gaster’s shoulder for stability peered more closely.

“I would advise against licking the ice, little one.” Gaster laughed. He held his hand to the little one's back so he didn’t fall. Wolf batted at the closest icicle with a paw. He gasped at the cold and the wet droplet that landed on his muzzle.

“It is very, very cold. It was smart of you to not immediately leap into the snow when we first arrived. You would have been in for a nasty shock.”

Wolf had nothing to say to that. He sank back into Gaster’s shoulders and regarded the wider garden. Gaster hesitated to put him down in the snow, but he wanted to encourage his curiosity, and so he gently peeled his claws from his coat and lowered Wolf onto a dry patch of ground. 

The look the child adopted was comical. He blinked rapidly. His back arched in shock. The ground was quite cold, and the snow must have appeared more intimidating up close than it had from above. Gaster stifled a chuckle as Wolf stared up at him in wide-socket amazement.

“Go on. You wanted to explore, correct?”

Wolf gave a very small nod. Gaster’s heart soared.

They explored the garden together. Or rather, Gaster stood back and watched his son cautiously navigate snow piles, and offered a gentle commentary on each thing Wolf investigated. He had no way of knowing what Wolf understood, or the extent of his vocabulary and so felt it safer to narrate on the chance Wolf might discover something he didn’t have a word for. 

That caution turned to glee when Wolf discovered snow crunched , was not as solid as it appeared and hid things underneath it. Gaster never stood so far that he couldn’t quickly reach him if something went wrong, but gave him the space to explore on his own.

It was going well, until Wolf darted underneath a rose bush, and to follow him, Gaster was forced to step around the hedge. 

He was met with black.

Gaster was thrown back to the night before. A frightening sense of deja vu struck his heart. It was a tear. A sliver of black as thin as a finger in width. The air around it was distorted. Rippling. 

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. His thoughts ground to a halt.

He could not describe in words the visual impossibility the phenomenon in front of him presented. Logically, there was no wall in front of him. He was in the middle of the garden, far removed from any nearby structure. The tear, jagged and uneven, should not logically exist on a surface that was not... there. And yet. Here it was. As if there was some invisible wall dividing the garden.

It was like his soul had left his body. He did not feel present. The world felt very, very far away. Gaster took one step. Then another. He did not approach the tear but gave it a wide berth, attempting to circle around the thing. Maybe if he looked at it from a different angle it would disappear. The trick would reveal itself. A monster would pop out of the brushes, laugh, and boast that he had tricked the old scientist. Ha ha! Not as smart as you thought you were, huh!

No such event occurred. The phenomenon appeared the same no matter where Gaster stood. Visually it was as if it turned with him so they would always face each other.

Finally, his feet brought him to a halt, now directly behind the phenomenon. 

... the darkness in that sliver. It was not motionless. It breathed in time to the rise and fall of his chest. Or was it that he was so disconnected to the present, that his own mind could fool him into believing in patterns that did not exist? He was sure it must be holding his emotions hostage. For how else could he feel so calm, when confronted by that wretched nothingness again?

-the crunch of snow. He saw something small move out of the corner of his eye socket. Gaster did not move, but his gaze snapped down.

Kalluno. Wolf. His son. There was his son. 

Wolf did not chirrup to mutter a sound. He looked at Gaster, a wary quiver to his eyelights, and then... to his horror, relief, and guilt, looked to the tear. A final confirmation that what he saw was very real.

But Wolf was not nervous because of the tear. He had seen something in Gaster that had frightened him. 

Gaster blinked. Took a deep breath and the world snapped back into focus.

“I apologize little one. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

He knelt down and extended his hand to the child. The tear’s presence was an oppressive weight at his back but the child in front of him was more important. Wolf stared at his hand, then his expression. Nervously glancing between the two. Slowly, he placed his very, very small paw in his hand, but warily averted his eyelights.

“One day,” Gaster began softly. “I would love to hear your thoughts, little one. Not enough creatures tell me how much of a fool I have been. And if ever I make a mistake with you, you must tell me... but that is such a long way from now. I promise I will do my utmost to deserve your trust.” 

He waited until Wolf indicated he was comfortable enough to be picked up again. And when he did, Wolf hid his face in the collar of his coat. His claws were sharp and clung tightly to the fabric. Gaster hummed a quiet melody, stroking his back until Wolf’s breathing slowed to an acceptable degree.

… a lot had occurred in the last few days. And while it seemed Wolf had been doing well, it was a grim reminder that what he had experienced wasn’t so easily forgotten. 

Gaster remained by Wolf’s side for a long time that evening.

Following his discovery in the garden, Didot and his brother were seldom home during the day and returned late in the evening or well after the sun had gone down. These two facts had no direct correlation except through consecutive timing. 

Privately, Gaster began to suspect Bodoni was deliberately avoiding him, but it was difficult to prove when his brother was out just as late as he was. (Sans had a sixth sense for avoiding difficult conversations. So this behavior would certainly not be out of character) Gaster did not catch sight of them until well after dinner, and sometimes not at all. 

Wolf bounced back to normal the day after their venture into the garden. He played. He muttered sounds that were just shy of actual words. And still unable to progress his research, Gaster took the time to teach him basic skills. To test his knowledge and ability. Wolf picked up these lessons quickly and with the sort of focus that felt trained. 

This was evidently work Epsilon had put Wolf through as well and Gaster did not know how to feel about that except with a returning frustration and resentment towards the man, for how would he treat the child as disposable, argue that he was only “partially” sentient while simultaneously teaching him rudimentary problem-solving skills expected of children?

Wolf grasped these skills quickly and yet when it came to communication, the best Gaster could hope for was either a nod or the shake of the head. 

It was concerning, but Gaster reminded himself that they had made a lot of progress in a very short amount of time, and he was likely the first person in Wolf’s life who expected him to respond with something besides a yes or a no. Kalluno was intelligent. He would learn when he was ready.

Twice, Gaster returned to the same spot in the garden where he had seen the anomaly, both times without the child in tow, concerned either he or the phenomena itself might frighten him again. The phenomena remained each time. He did not dare touch it or venture too close. It was during the second of these excursions that Gaster made another discovery.

“Sir?” One of the hounds barked. “What are you looking at? Do the flowers displease you?” 

Gaster’s breath caught. He stepped aside.  ‘Do you not see it?’

The dog tilted their head to the side. “See what, sir?”

Gaster turned his head. Single eyelight bright and quivering. The phenomenon was still there. Stationed mid-air. The black pitch of its depth expanded and contracted in rhythm to his soul. His mind raced.

‘Tell me. Do you sense anything unusual here? A smell you do not understand? A sound out of place?’

“No, sir.” the dog whined, though their tail wagged. “Are we playing catch? Is there a hunt afoot?” Excited now, the dog’s neck began to extend. Their ears swerved, and before Gaster could reply, they fell onto all fours and took off.

They took off and leapt right through the anomaly. His heart nearly turned to stone. But nothing occurred. The phenomenon remained stationary, failed to react at all, and the dog oblivious to what horrors Gaster envisioned.

Gaster wondered and wondered. Could this effect be visual only? Why could he see it? Why could Kalluno see it and not the dog?

He took a step closer, then another, and raised his hand. His claws glazed over the tear and...

He reeled back. Soul pounding rapidly. It was so violent in the cavity of his chest, his ribs ached. 

His hand had passed through the tear, into the black beyond, not to the other side unphased as the Dog had experienced. He had felt it. The empty space beyond. A rational mind that had not fallen in the void as he had, might have claimed that true emptiness could not be felt. And to some extent this was true. But monsters did not live in emptiness. They lived in a world full of magicules, mana, and substance. Their bodies were fine-tuned for an environment full of stuff. To be suddenly without that constant was incomprehensible to the basic fundamentals of their physiology.

And Gaster had experienced this before. Without end. Without mercy. To him, the void was cold. A constant shifting state of turbulence and power. And with that single touch, it pressed into his soul in a tide.

Gaster curled his arms around his middle. Not in true pain, though his chest felt so, so tight. He left the garden in a flash of spacial magic.

That same night, Gaster stayed up late. He could not sleep, he had too much to think about. Uncomfortable for any extended amount of time in Aster’s room, he checked on Kalluno (he was fast asleep) and then went downstairs. 

His thoughts were all-consuming. There was a sense of urgency he could not escape. Why could he see the tears now? Were the walls between the void and reality breaking down? Had they always been there? Were they new? 

He needed instruments. Equipment. Thankfully this would not be as intensive as rebuilding Epsilon’s machine from scratch, as the tears were already there and he could use rudimentary tools and magic to study the phenomenon-

He took a breath, his steps brought to a halt. Why had the tear in the garden remained but the one in the upstairs corridor had not?

... or was it still there? 

He turned on his heel, hand already on the banister with the intent to return to the floor he had seen the distortion in the ceiling when a distinct, familiar pull of magic caught his attention.

In a multicolored spatial flash, Bodoni appeared in the hallway.

His steps were not graceful. The rise and fall of his chest was labored. One leg buckled- three quick strides brought him to Bodoni’s side. Gaster caught his other arm, supporting his weight before the other monster slumped completely to the floor.

“What happened?” He looked him over for injuries. A crack. A new fracture. Anything. Though his suit was torn and his tie loose, the most Gaster could find was a splattering of white powder on his sleeve...

Bodoni rattled a growl through his clenched teeth, sockets squeezed shut and Gaster finally recognized the state he was in. Bodoni was riding the aftershock of an LV spike.

The aura surrounding him was on pins and needles and when he spoke, the lights of his sockets were hazy with excess mana. “Heh… nothing to trouble yourself over, boss.” Bodoni rasped. “Some wise guys thought they could get the jump on me ‘s all.”

“Where are you hurt?” Before Bodoni even began to answer, Gaster was focusing on gathering magic into his palms. This would take a moment. It was not so easy to summon green magic with a high LV. At some point, it became impossible for a monster to do so. Luckily he had never reached that threshold and Gaster had had a long time to adjust and it had always been easier to summon green magic when it came to family.

“ ‘s fine,” Bodoni rumbled. Stubbornly he brushed his hand away. 

Gaster stepped back, the line of his mouth tight. The green magic he had gathered in his palms dispersed uselessly. He gave the other monster a moment to compose himself then tried again, gesturing further down the hall. “Come sit.” 

Another low rumble. The short skeleton glowered. Gaster stood back, hands clasped together where the other could see them. He kept his expression neutral. There was no need for posturing. (Such acts were beneath him) Eventually, his silent insistence won over and at last, Bodoni gathered the will to follow him into the parlor.

The moment they got there, Bodoni collapsed headfirst into the sofa. Gaster adjusted the seat cushion behind his back. When he was done he stepped back and scanned the room. The couch did not seem nearly soft enough. Now, where was... 

“Blast. Where are the blankets in this infernal house?”

Bodoni pressed his face into the couch cushion. His voice a low mumble. “Second crawlspace. To the left of the stairs.” 

Gaster went where directed and came back with two thick blankets. 

Only once his son’s counterpart was sufficiently bundled in blankets, did Gaster sit down himself. He crossed one leg over the other at the knee. Knuckles curled under his cheek, lest he rap the wooden arm of the chair with his claws. The temptation was there, to bounce a subtle check off Bodoni’s soul but while in the thick of a settling LV this was not always wise. So he let him be. 

Bodoni's ribcage rose and fell. It hitched once. Then settled into a smooth rhythm. 

“… I forgot ‘bout the blanket thing. It’s nice. Always helps.”

“Your magic cannot easily discern a threat while wrapped in warmth,” Gaster replied gently.

Bodoni closed his eyes again with a chuckle. “You and your tricks. I bet you’d even trick heaven if you’d the means to reach it.”

“Is that a jab at my height?”

His words startled a laugh out of Bodoni. Short-lived as it was, it brought a small smile to Gaster’s face. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Boss. Even your ego ain’t so big.”

He conceded that his pride was not so lofty. He looked away from his son’s counterpart. To the frame of the archway that led into the hall. Somewhere in the lodge a large clock ticked and beyond that, a cold gust skittered across the roof. He closed his sockets, smile gone.

“How many did you kill?” 

It surprised him that his voice manifested so evenly when there was a hot curling of anger beneath his ribcage. Perhaps he had been spoiled by this position. Able to ignore the implications of this world, the brothers' careers, and lifestyle, though he had acknowledged it from the beginning. 

Was it not that long ago that he ruminated over the fact that while the brothers themselves lived a dangerous life, they had managed to keep it out of their home? What a foolish small comfort. It would follow them wherever they went.

“Dunno,” Bodoni mumbled, hazy. “Six to seven.”

Six to seven… 

Gaster exhaled slowly. That rush of anger continued to churn his marrow. Senseless. How senseless. 

Cheekbone pressed to a couch pillow, Bodoni rolled his skull to the side to look at him. “… you feel angry, boss.” The corner of his mouth twitched down in a scowl. “Don’t ya think I tried to avoid it? I gave ‘em a fair warnin’. They know what they were gettin’ into' when they face off against one ‘f us. If I coulda avoid killing ‘em I would have.“

“No. I understand.” At the sound of his voice, Bodoni clicked his teeth shut. Gaster met his gaze steadily. “When you admit you did all you could. I believe you. I trust your judgment. It is more important to me that you come home at the end of the day. Understood?” 

The tension drained out of Bodoni’s shoulders. “Heh... so where’s all that temper comin’ from? You usually ain’t bothered by what we gotta do.”

Gaster considered his words. “You could say that I am... looking at your circumstances with fresh eyes.”

Satisfied with that answer, Bodoni settled back into the soft embrace of the couch. He seemed contemplative. When he spoke again his voice was raspy. Quiet. “ ‘guess that’s my cue to look at it with fresh eyes too. Papyrus thinks I should tell ya the truth...”

“You spoke to him,” Gaster stated. He was mildly surprised Bodoni had acted on his advice so soon but nonetheless relieved. “... proceed at your own discretion. You are under no obligation to speak on this.”

Bodoni shook his skull. “No. He’s right. I gotta tell ya.”

A breath. And Gaster’s soul ached for the way he seemed to hunch in on himself, ridden with guilt and shame. 

“What happened to ya... was my fault.”

“Sans-”

“Let me finish.” Gaster clicked his teeth shut. He leaned back in his chair and settled back to listen. Bodoni refused eye contact. His gaze leveled with the coffee table but once the words came to him, they were tumbling free in a flood.

“I’m sure you've figured it out by now even if you can't remember but this outfit we got going here is a group effort. You're the Don ‘cause of your experience. And to be honest? Out of me and pap, you’re the one monsters are most afraid of. It’s your reputation that matters. Papyrus’ got to work hard to be listened to. He’s got a baby-face and when fella’s look at ‘im they see a big softie. ‘Course, they’re wrong. Pap is just as ruthless as the two of us, but he rather manipulate than hurt anyone physically. So he lets ‘em think he’s not someone they have’ta worry ‘bout.”

“As for me? I’m the mascot of the operation. I do the screening on prospective business partners. I’m the build-up to meetin’ you. It’s my job to keep things in order. To secure the location of our meetings and make sure the people we’re meeting with don’t have somethin’ up their sleeve.”

“Most of the time, we let Papyrus handle the new recruits. They’re like pudding ‘round him so he feels ‘em out for us and if he approves I look into their history. It’s a process, see. When we work together, the outfit is airtight.”

Bodoni trailed off. His jaw tightly clenched, he ground his teeth together. The aura of magic surrounding him tossed and turned with the oppressive weight of storm clouds. “I’ll be the first to admit I got my vices. And sometimes I can’t resist ‘em. A dame on my arm, booze in my hand and a game of poker? Now that’s a night out.”

He ran a hand over his skull. Eyelights quivering. “ ‘wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. It was a night before a big meeting. Only the three of us knew where it was gonna be until the day of, to avoid slip-ups and leaks. …I sometimes wonder if I got too drunk. If I let somethin’ slip that night.”

He was shaking now. Gaze locked on to something Gaster couldn’t see. His heart ached. “I don’t remember. I ain’t a lightweight. I can hold my alcohol, I know how much I can drink before shit gets messy. I wouldn’t have, right? I know how important these meetings are for the business, I know to keep my mouth shut.”

His voice was raw. Thick with mounting distress. “I slept in. Like always. Wasn’t a thing outta place that day. The weather was fine. Nothin’ went wrong. Nothin’ felt different… I shoulda been there on time. You ‘n Papyrus are always tellin’ me to be there on time. I wasn’t. I slept in. Took a shortcut to the meeting not suspectin’ a thing and-“

With his next words, Bodoni’s voice broke. “I walked straight into a gunfight. Just in time to see you at gunpoint. Just like that- bam.” A choked sob mangled his throat. “Just like fucking that. You were gone.”

And now his son turned his head to face him, sockets rimmed by tears, eyelights burning with rage and grief. “And you don’t come back for fucking months! You let us think you’re dead- and then you come back missing a piece of your skull with a kid outta nowhere, and you can’t tell us jack shit because you don’t remember!“

The magic against the vertebrae of his neck was tight and thick. It was so, so very difficult to watch his son fall apart but it was a necessary step. Bodoni needed to release the pent-up grief he had kept bottled up.

Bodoni’s ribcage hitched. He turned his face away to hide his tears. 

Quietly, Gaster rose from his seat and knelt by the couch. He hesitated, unsure how Bodoni would respond, but as his son’s counterpart silently trembled rested a hand on his shoulder. “Let out. Shhhh. Shh.”

Bodoni’s mana tumbled, set into fitful motion by his emotions and his words seemed to unlock a great dam. Bodoni began to cry earnestly. Gaster pulled on the shadows to wrap the room in muffled stillness, as he had for Didot, to shelter him from all those little things that might disturb him.

Gaster rubbed his back. “You are not at fault for the acts perpetrated by others. Do not hold yourself accountable for them.”

Bodoni shook his head stubbornly. “I should've been there. If I hadn't slept in late-”

“It would have occurred anyway.” Gaster interrupted. Bodoni flinched and Gaster was struck with regret, for his words were harsh and he should have considered them more carefully. “Assassinations take careful planning. Regardless of your presence, the attack would have commenced. You could not have known and you are not at fault for what happened.”

“I've been in this business for years. How the hell didn't I see it?”

“I cannot answer that. Yet, I am confident you did all you could with the knowledge available to you in the moment. I know you, Sans, and you never do anything in half-measures.”

Bodoni sucked in a watery breath. “All this time I’ve been waitin’ for the ball to drop. Why aren’t you spittin’ mad?”

Gaster recalled Bodoni’s nervousness the day they met. He also considered what Aster might say if he had lived to be confronted with his brother’s remorse and guilt. He honestly couldn’t say what the man might have felt or said. This variant of himself seemed so vastly different at times, however… there was one thing he was sure of. 

“At some point, we must decide which is more important: the relationship we have with others, or the pain we experienced due to their actions. Through understanding it is possible to move past that hurt, to heal. Your happiness is more important to me. Though, I admit. Your behavior was suspect. Why were you so nervous?”

Bodoni huffed, a genuine chuckle, though the breath was heavy with exhaustion and he shifted to dry his sockets with a sleeve. “Ah, c’mon boss. You’re sharper than that. I was the only guest absent the same day someone tried to kill you.”

When one put it that way, Gaster had to admit it did paint Bodoni in a suspicious light.

“On top of that, you’re gone for several months. Lettin’ us think you’re dead... ‘s smart of you, ‘course. Woulda done the same thing if I wasn’t sure who was collaborating to off me. When you came back suddenly... don’t get me wrong, boss. I was happy to see ya, but my second thought was you’d pieced somethin’ together and you were back to flush out the snitch.” A pause. Bodoni looked at him oddly. “I couldn’t figure out the kid though. Ya really threw me a curveball with that one.”

He seemed to want to say something else but changed his mind at the last second. Gaster thought on all he had said so far, but there was one piece of the puzzle he wasn’t clear on. “You were adamant on not revealing the truth. Why?”

”Heh... I’m pretty selfish, ‘s all. If ya don’t remember, you can’t pin me as the snitch. And I meant what I said. I like the clean slate we’ve got now. Things weren’t always smooth between us and now it’s like... that baggage has been lifted.” A brief pause and Bodoni blinked slowly. There was still mist in the corners of his sockets, but he seemed calm though distant now. Recalling a time Gaster had not experienced. 

“Sometimes it’s like you're a different person. But then I turn around and see you and pap together, and I’m a decade younger and nothin’ changed at all.” He canted his skull to the side, as though he might be able to understand the situation from another angle. “Dunno... it’s like. Someone plucked you from the past and inserted you where my hardass, enterprising brother used to be.”

Though the words were heavy in his throat, he meant them sincerely. “Thank you for telling me.” 

Bodoni looked away again. “Shouldn’t have happened at all. I coulda done better. I failed you n’ Papyrus. I deserve a lot worse than what I got.”

Gaster’s soul clenched. “... try as we might, we cannot always protect those we love. You did the best you could. Papyrus forgave you, correct?” He already knew the answer to that question, but it seemed to be something Bodoni needed to hear. And sure enough. Those words drew a tentative yet fond smile.

“Yeah… yeah, he did.” 

“Then, it is time to forgive yourself.” He murmured. “Let go.” 

Bodoni took in another unsteady, watery breath. His entire body shuddered. “Okay… okay. I’ll try.”

Gaster gave his shoulder a squeeze and then he stood. “Good. Now, I will make us some tea.”

Chapter Text

February XX, 1942.

To our favorite bear cat - er... fish,

I’ll cut to the chase. I thought this whole thing stank of bullshit. You’ll have to forgive my french, Captain but I know the Don is not actually gonna read my fucking letter. I looked into that rumor you debriefed us about and there just might be something to it. 

Not that I didn’t believe you at first. Hell, you were the monster who shot him, right? If you’re the one telling us to look into it, we have no choice but to take it seriously even if it’s unbelievable. No one is questioning whether or not you actually shot him. It’s weird as hell though. We scooped his dust up in a box and sent it to his brothers on a bed of roses. A dozen monsters saw him eat concrete. He should be dead, Captain. We all know that. 

We gotta squash this rumor fast before Don Asgore hears about it.

            Signed, Mikey.

February XX, 1942.

Captain Undyne,

Hey chief, bad news. You know that rumor we looked into? Yeah. We got a positive ID. No, I’m not kidding. I wish I was pulling your leg, chief. I really do. Turns out, the rumor came from one of our associates. He didn’t see the man himself, but he heard him.

“It was weird. You know that feeling when you rub wool socks on the carpet and your fur stands on end? The prickle of static? It was like that, but it starts inside your head first. I thought it was the start of a migraine at first but then my partner, who was standing next to me, said he felt dizzy. I knew it had to be something else. It didn’t hurt, but it sure as hell was uncomfortable.“

Ring any bells, chief? I thought so too. There’s only one monster with a voice like that. Our associate is lucky he kept his voice down if what the old coots say about Aster is true. Apparently, if you had a weak constitution and the old bastard raised his voice at you, he could give you a serious headache.

Angel knows how, but Aster is fucking alive. And that ain’t the end of the bad news chief. We found a letter addressed to him from Donna Toriel. You might want to read it before the Don gets his hands on it. He’s gonna be pissed.

             Signed, a monster who appreciates his Don’s kind and forgiving nature. Mikey.

On closer inspection, he could not find anything amiss with the ceiling. He was disappointed. He had hoped to find something. Yet the grain was smooth under the tips of his phalanges. Not a blemish in sight. There was a thin film on the surface, presumably from smoke, naturally occurring dust and magical residue but this was normal phenomenon. To be expected of your average ceiling. 

He sighed and carefully stepped down from the chair. 

Hmm. Perhaps a different approach was needed. 

Gaster turned the chair blue, pushed it against the far wall, then retraced his steps from the previous night. 

After repeating this step twice with no new observations to make, he recalled that he had been distracted that night. Deep in thought. Tired. With so much in his mind, it made sense certain vital clues had gone unnoticed. Come to think of it, wasn’t he focused on other matters when he discovered the one in the garden as well? Wolf and the garden had been the focus of his attention.

A hoarse chuckle worked it's way up his throat. How absurd. Surely that couldn’t be the only correlation?

But it did raise an interesting thought. He hadn’t been looking for something then. Perhaps this particular anomaly must be intuitively observed. Sought out by some primal feeling. Yet this theory was also equally absurd. Why would he have that ability? Why would Wolf?

He turned to the only window in this part of the corridor and walked over to it. It overlooked the garden. Idly, he wondered if the angle was right to see the fissure in the garden. 

The window frame creaked, resisting efforts to open it. A final shoved and the window shrieked open. Gaster ducked his head out the window.

An endless fur tree forest stretched far into the distance until it was devoured by the black of the cavern. It was quiet. Save for the wind, whose low howl carried with it loose flakes of snow and ice. It must have been partially cloudy on the surface for the light that entered the cavern was a dull grey.

Gaster studied the snow-capped forest for less than a minute before his gaze was inevitably drawn to the region where the light could not reach.

Snowdin was a large sparsely populated region of the underground despite arguably being one of its largest caverns. The sheer vastness of it was often underappreciated. He could not see all of Snowdin from the lodge’s upper window, but the stretch of black where the light did not reach sprawled itself open like a canvas and completely engulfed the horizon.

It was a darkness he knew. One he was not afraid of, for having lived with it over his head for so long. And yet... as he focused his gaze to the far distance...

There was something off—

The darkness convulsed. It breathed. Like air trapped in a thin membrane.

With a sharp breath, he stepped back from the window. 

Staggering, he found something to lean against. A hard surface. Something papery peeled underneath his claws as his phalanges curled. 

Before his eyes, the floor underneath him faded. It was as though he were staring into a plane of glass. He was fixated on the abyss swirling behind it. The emptiness was not uniform. There were distortions, like stones breaking through the rapids of a river, the black tumbled where the distortions disturbed the current.

What did it mean? What did it mean… 

He focused on one such “current”, closest to his position. He slowly sank to the floor, to his knees, breathless. 

Vaguely, he understood what he saw. He wasn’t in the void because he felt the cold bite of the wind through the open window, and though his soul pulsed with the frantic flutter of a bird in a snare, he felt it still. Felt the grain of wood underneath his hand and reassured himself it was real, even while he saw through it.

He was still in the corridor in the brothers’ lodge. Over and over again, he repeated that thought to himself. If he recalled the layout of correctly, Aster’s private study should be directly below his feet, where the sliver of a tunnel, of a vein, lay. The other end of the vein reached so far into the dark he could not see where it led… but he was certain, with a fearful sort of growing excitement, that it led somewhere.

Paper crinkled. Something tore. Scratching, a pen soaring across the page. Frustrated muttering. 

Wolf blinked open his eyes. Groggily he lifted his chin from his paws and yawned. 

Across the room, on the other side of the desk, the skeletal monster in the black coat leaned over the desk. 

The other monsters called him by different names, so many in fact Wolf wasn’t sure what to call him. The skeleton monster who spoke in a deep gravelly voice and smelled like smoke called him Boss. The other skeleton monster, who was louder but playful called him Brother and sometimes they both called him Aster. The other monsters called him Sir and Don but the scientist in the black coat never referred to himself as any of those things so Wolf wasn’t sure. 

They said he was Wolf’s ‘papa’, but Wolf didn’t know what that meant either.

There were a lot of things he didn’t know. He knew all his colors, (but only because the Scientist in Black taught him) he could count. He knew the chair was soft. A table was not. Scales were rough and you should never jump on another blaster while they were sleeping but it was perfectly okay to, if they were PRETENDING to sleep. 

(Wolf didn’t have a concept of time. Sometimes something happened a long time ago and sometimes it happened even longer ago. He judged time by events. And a long time ago, before all the sharp needles and cold tables and blinding lights, the Doctor kept him in a large cage with another blaster. 

The other blaster had been longer than Wolf. His tail was so long in fact, that he could wrap it around both himself and Wolf at the same time! His skull was angular, his muzzle narrower too. At the time he could even fit his snout between the bars of his cage and if he was feeling bold he would snap his teeth at the Doctor’s shoes! He was so cool and brave. He was the coolest blaster Wolf had ever met! And Wolf still thought so! Though it had been a long time since they had last seen each other...

The Doctor took him away one day and didn't give him back. But somehow, Wolf knew he wasn’t... gone.)

He knew why things were soft too. He discovered the ‘why’ while playing ‘tug of war’ with another monster who shared his shape but was covered in ‘fur’ which is really soft and reminded Wolf of ‘fabric’ which he supposed was like fake fur. Fur but not really. She called herself Dogaressa.

Anyway, tug of war was a game you played with something between your teeth, preferably something chewy. Wolf had played this game before with other blasters, but he hadn’t known the word for it then. There you played tug of war with something you ate. Here, you played with something soft you couldn’t eat. 

Wolf’s teeth were sharp, very sharp and he was strong too. Dogaressa hadn’t known how strong he was and hadn’t stopped him from ripping her toy.

For the first time since the Scientist took him away from the Doctor, Wolf had been scared. Like... really scared!

But Dogaressa didn’t respond in the way he expected. 

She nuzzled him and fetched another toy from somewhere he couldn’t reach. Their game continued. No one was mad, not even the Scientist in Black, and no one locked him in a cage. And after their game, the Scientist nuzzled him too and then he was given food and a soft place to sleep and no one cared that he’d done something bad! The Doctor would NEVER have forgiven him like that.

And that was how Wolf learned that all soft things had fluff inside.

Other monsters, Wolf surmised, must have fluff inside too. Soft white fluff. He could see between the bones of other blasters, so obviously, they didn’t have fluff inside. But Dogaressa felt solid and soft when she held him. And the Scientist in Black felt the same way, which didn't make sense to Wolf, because he was made of bones just like blasters and the Doctor. (the Doctor and the Scientist in Black were alike in a lot of ways, but softness was not one of them. Someone must have removed the Doctor’s fluff a long time ago!)

Which was why, when the Scientist in Black pushed his arm through the desk, Wolf yelped. Half his arm just... disappeared through it! From his position on this comfy chair, Wolf SHOULD see the other half of his arm underneath the desk, but it wasn’t there!

Wolf ran across the room. The desk was too high for him to jump, so he heaved himself on his hindlegs, dug his claws into the hard-soft walls of the desk, and chirruped urgently. 

Arms weren’t supposed to disappear! He didn’t want the Scientist to spill his fluff like a broken tug of war toy! If he lost his fluff, he wouldn’t be soft anymore! He would be mean, just like the Doctor! And then who would protect Wolf if the Doctor came back?

The Scientist’s eyelight glided from staring at something on the surface of the desk Wolf couldn't see, to him. The look of concentration broke and he pulled his arm out of the desk. As he did so, the outline of his arm looked fuzzy, as though obscured by steam, but once it left the immediate proximity of the desk his arm was normal again. Wolf didn’t understand, why wasn’t he scared? 

“Are you worried? Did I frighten you? There is nothing to be scared of, little one. I am merely conducting an experiment.”

An experiment?! Oh, that was even worse! Experiments hurt! 

Wolf dropped down on all fours so he could grab the corner of the Scientist’s coat and drag him as far away from the dreadful experiment as he could. (His coat was longer than the Doctor’s too.) Unfortunately, despite being made of fluff inside, he was heavier than Wolf and didn’t budge, at all, no matter how hard he pulled. 

At last, he moved, but not in the direction Wolf wanted. He slowly knelt and Wolf launched himself against his chest. The Scientist in Black wrapped one arm around him to secure him there (another thing the Doctor would never do). He steadied himself and using his free arm as a prop on the edge of the desk slowly rose to his full height. 

“I wonder if I should explain...? Ah, but you are probably too young to understand.” He sat down in his desk chair and Wolf finally noticed he was holding something else. A small, shiny metal box. Wolf shifted, trying to turn around to get a better look at it, but the Scientist in Black saw what he was trying to do and moved the box to his other hand. 

Tied to the box was a very thin wire. It was long and reached the desk. Now that he was higher up, Wolf could, at last, see what was on top. 

But there was nothing there, except the wire, which looped across the desk and abruptly ended halfway over a wide, black crack. It was difficult to see like his eyelights really didn’t want to see it. It moved, rippled, like something made of water, and trying to make sense of it gave Wolf a headache.

Wolf titled his skull back to watch the Scientist’s expression. His eyelight was focused on the desk too. He was not quite smiling and not quite frowning either. Wolf had seen this look before. It meant he was thinking. Wolf nudged his arm to get his attention. 

The Scientist blinked and looked down. “Do you want to hear my thoughts anyway? I suppose it would not hurt to think aloud.”

Wolf started as two hands materialized above the desk. They took the wire and began to slowly reel it in. To Wolf’s amazement, the wire kept going.

He ducked his head, to look for the other end of the wire underneath the desk but once again it wasn’t there. The Scientist in Black huffed in silent laughter. 

“You will not find the end of it that way. I do not understand it myself but there seem to be... weak points. Spots in reality where the membrane between it and the- the v-oid-” An electric crackle-pop distorted his voice. He coughed and cleared his throat. “-is fragile. I can see these points... touch them even... but I do understand how that should be possible.”

He was still reeling in the wire. Wolf could see it catch the light occasionally, and knew it was moving. Even while the hands were grabbing and pulling, the wire was so thin, he could almost believe the Scientist was pulling on empty air. 

“I admit I am... terrified of that place. That is why I am conducting this experiment. If understanding can be reached, the fear will remit.” 

The wire kept going. And going. 

His soul was pounding in his chest. Wolf couldn’t tear his eyelights away from where the wire connected with the desk, through the black sliver. Now that he was studying it carefully, he could see how the wire bent, weighted down by something on the other end. But this barely made sense to his eyes, and the more he stared the more frightened he felt. 

What was on the other end?

Suddenly, the hands jerked. 

The Scientist in Black frowned. He leaned forward, concentrating his attention on the wire. Wolf leaned back until he could feel the hard points of the Scientist’s rib cage underneath his sweater. He wanted to be as far away from that thing as possible.

“... again? What could it be stuck on?” 

He canted his skull to one side, his eye light flickered, and the disembodied hands pulled sharply to the left. Then to the right. Another tug and the wire came free. He reeled it up quickly now. Minutes passed then thunk.

The Scientist shifted him in his arms and with his free arm reached through the desk again.

Wolf whined. He dug his claws into the Scientist’s sleeve. His hand was gone! The closest instance Wolf could think of that was at all similar to this, was when the tall loud skeleton pulled a plate out of perfectly still but extremely dirty water but the desk was solid! Why could his arm pass through it?

From out of the desk, tied to the other end of the wire, the Scientist pulled out another shiny metal box.  

A box.

All that for a box?

Wolf wheezed in relief. All that mounting tension sapped from his small body. He had expected something scary! 

The Scientist in Black tied up the wire around the first box and examined the second. There was a series of small lights on one side of the box and a round panel on another that looked kinda like the face of a clock. The screen displayed a series of numbers. A red needle trembled where it pointed to a specific number. This screen was not unlike those Wolf had seen in the lab where the Doctor kept him. 

(It wasn’t that long ago that Wolf didn’t know THERE COULD BE an ‘outside’ and an ‘inside.’ He had always assumed the world was called “the lab” or “my lab”, the world belonged to the Doctor obviously, and all there was to see were white walls, tiled floors, bright lights and glistening needles. He assumed that all the monsters he would ever meet, outside of other blasters, were the Doctor and his assistants. Now he had names for rooms he didn’t know existed! And the Scientist in Black hadn’t stopped teaching him new words, though Wolf couldn’t repeat any of them yet. There was always something new to learn!)

He turned the box over in his hands and studied the round panel carefully then rolled his thumb over a knob on the side. The panel changed. Wolf squirmed. He strained his neck up to peer at the box over the bridge of his snout. Just what was so interesting about this box?

The Scientist stared intently. He was frozen. He didn’t notice when Wolf cautiously batted the box with a paw. He also didn’t notice when Wolf wedged himself into his other arm so he could see what the Scientist saw. 

Maybe there was food inside the box? Was there another monster inside the desk, who hid food inside boxes and that’s why the Scientist was staring at it so intently? How could a box fit into a crack that size? Could the Scientist squish the box? Well, he didn’t know how to open it but Wolf knew just what to do!

He leaned back, gathering energy behind his teeth. He waited until his mouth felt very hot. 

When he felt ready, he opened his mouth, split his lower jaw in two, and then-

The Scientist jerked the box up. A stream of blue energy shot through the air where the box had been and left a black scorch mark on the corner of the desk. It was a short burst. Wolf couldn’t focus his magic to maintain a long beam like the other blasters could. 

He clicked his teeth shut belatedly realizing that maybe, the Scientist in Black, hadn’t wanted him to do that. He also realized, because his back was to the Scientist’s sternum and he could feel the older monster’s magic tumbling anxiously, like a teetering top, that the blast had startled him. He didn't know you COULD startle monsters so tall! 

“Why in tartarus would you do that, child?” He slowly lowered the box on the desk and shifted Wolf in his arms so they could see each other. Wolf whined apologetically. Dogaressa called it pouting, but she made the same face too!

The Scientist’s magic slowly calmed. “... were you trying to help? Oh, you silly thing. I need the box intact. I am using it to collect data.”

Oh. OH! The box was the experiment! 

Wolf felt very silly. He hadn’t realized the Scientist’s experiments were different from the Doctor’s.

“The data I am collecting,” the Scientist began as he reached over the desk to take a spiral notebook. “-suggests that it might not be necessary to reconstruct Epsilon’s machine.” 

He opened the notebook. Sketched across the first and second page was the outline of a familiar machine, and surrounding it, a familiar script. Wolf shuddered. The Scientist’s handwriting was nearly identical to the Doctor’s. 

“His machine has already proven it possible to travel between worlds. The difficult part is the journey. To force a gateway, a bridge of sorts to connect two separate realities takes a nearly incomprehensible amount of energy. The fabric of the world does not want to bend, you see. In truth, the fact that we are here now is astonishing.” He tailed off. Forced to pause, as a sharp electric hiss took over his voice.

“The Data- the data I have now suggests... that there are naturally occurring veins, for lack of a better term, between realities. And where they connect these weak points form. Through them, it should be possible to travel without his machine.” The Scientist cupped a hand over his face, rubbing the bridge of bone between his eyesockets. His phalanges were shaking, ever so slightly.

“... can you guess what lies between worlds, little one? That place that I hate. That place that I hoped I would never see again.”

“To go home... I must search for it through the void itself.”

Chapter Text

Didot walked into the great room wearing his best suit that morning. It was a warm, chestnut brown piece. Not one for fashion, it had taken a search through the brother’s library and Aster’s study for Gaster to pick up the terminology for this particular cut. Though fashion had not been the object of his scrutiny. It was a double-breasted suit, which meant it had more than three buttons and the lapels of the jacket were trimmed a certain way.

It meant very little to him personally, but Didot and his brothers were deliberate in their choice of fashion. Aster’s closet was full of dress shirts, vests, and all things formal. And while Bodoni wore his suits carelessly they were still, undeniably, of a certain quality that was inaccessible to most.

Didot was smoothing out an orange tie around his neck when he entered the room. And as his brother cleared his throat, Bodoni roused himself up from his nap. Blinked and then stared incomprehensibly at his brother for a solid beat. Wolf, however, could not be deterred from his, and merely pressed his muzzle deeper into the juncture of the couch’s arm and a decorative cushion. He was nestled next to him and Gaster dared not move, lest he disturb the makeshift nest the child had constructed for himself. He was more or less trapped.

“Aster! Did Bodoni tell you the significance of today’s date?”

Gaster sent the shorter monster a questioning look. “He did not.”

Bodoni did not seem concerned. His tone remained, what must have seemed to his brother, frustratingly aloof. “Aw, shit. Sorry bro. Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“Language,” Didot and Gaster scolded. Wolf was in earshot! He hadn’t yet learned his first word and Gaster did not want his first word to be profanity. Bodoni sank back into his chair with a chuckle.

“Don’t worry about it, Sans,” Didot said cheerfully. “I was and continue to be, fully prepared for this situation! In fact, I suspected from the beginning that you would forget,” He turned to address Gaster. “It’s the thirty-first! Which means tonight is the annual Wingding Brother’s jamboree at the largest, most historically significant building on the East Coast! The Ebott City Opera House!”

“Ehh. He’s exaggeratin’,” Bodoni stage whispered to him, from across the coffee table, in clear view of his brother fully anticipating face his brother would make. “It’s probably the thirteenth most historically significant building on the East Coast.” 

“I realize this announcement is last minute, and I apologize. Sans and I were hoping that you might recover a little of your memory prior to the event but it seems you need more time to recover!” 

Well, it certainly was the first he’d heard of it. The hounds hadn’t said anything. The event was likely so anticipated they hadn’t felt he needed the reminder. 

He sent a side-eyed glance to Bodoni. A pang in his chest at the reminder of the concern he was causing the brothers in their sibling’s stead. It had been a few days since their late-night conversation, and he could affirmatively say that Bodoni seemed more at ease in his company. Their conversations came easier. He seemed more interested in Kalluno as well but at the mention of his brother’s ‘amnesia,’ there was a downward twitch to his smile. There hadn’t been any mention of it from Bodoni since their conversation but Gaster could tell it was on his mind. 

Of course, it would be. Whatever had taken place between them in the past, ultimately, the brothers still cared about each other. (And here he was, selfishly occupying a space he did not belong in.) But there was something more to it than that. Suspicion.

It weighed heavily on his mind... when he chose to leave, if the potential alternative he was currently considering was viable, should he admit the truth to the brothers or leave without doing so?

To leave without a word felt wrong.

“Tell me more about this, jamboree.”

“ ‘s somethin’ we do every year,” Bodoni explained. “Important for business. Makes us look more powerful than we actually are. Heh. That’s not to say we ain’t the bigshots in town, ‘cause we are. But it makes us look even bigger.”

Didot nodded in enthusiastic agreement. “In light of your disappearance from the public eye, and assumed death, it’s more important than ever to appear strong! Our partners, our customers, and our rivals must see that even in our darkest hour we are not to be truffled with.”

“And that leads us to our dilemma.” Bodoni continued. “See, we need the whole crew onboard at the Opera House. We normally leave a small crew here to hold down the fort but that ain’t gonna be enough to protect you and Wolf.”

He was a little shocked that it was a concern of theirs. Gaster clicked his teeth. “Nonsense. I can defend myself. This is a non-issue.”

Didot fidgeted with his gloves. He tried to catch Bodoni’s eye. Bodoni silently shook his head and Didot’s brow furrowed. A silent conversation. “Ah, normally I would agree with you, Aster. But without your memory, I’m afraid you are at a distinct disadvantage. Not only will you be unable to identify your enemies, but I have noticed that you lack the tactical survival instincts you once possessed! ... and the social skills!”

He winced. He should have seen that coming. Gaster was accustomed to a less violent world, of course to them it would seem their brother had lost his edge. But all the same, he disagreed with their assessment. He did not need protection. He told them so, but again, the brothers were unconvinced. 

Bodoni shook his head, lazy smile firmly in place. “No offense bud, but we just ain’t comfortable leaving ya vulnerable like that.”

“But of course, this leads us to our next issue! I am of the mind that the best solution is for you to accompany us to the Opera House, as you always do! The experience might jog your memory, and there are plenty of backrooms where you may hide during the performance with the public none-the-wiser. And best of all, we will all be together!”

Bodoni’s smile grew tight. “And I still think that’s a stupid idea. We move you and that’s just askin’ for somethin’ to go wrong. It’s a straight shot from there to Don Asgore finding out you’re still alive.”

Didot turned to face Bodoni. His brow was knotted together, concerned. It was clear the brothers were taking this dilemma seriously. Gaster silently inhaled, to calm his nerves while the brothers were not paying attention. 

“Don Asgore will find out eventually and I will not ask our sibling to hide indefinitely. It’s unfair to him and a little insulting! And besides... with all the monsters and humans in attendance, are there not a few faces, in particular, Aster should see himself?”

Gaster frowned. “Is there something you are not telling me?”

The brothers froze. Bodoni spoke up first, grin fierce and defensive. “It ain’t like you’re not keepin’ secrets of your own.”

Gaster kept his face neutral, but internally, his heart gave a nervous flutter.

“You got too many if ya ask me.”

Didot swatted at his brother’s shoulder. “Don’t be rude!” Turning back to Gaster, he explained. “Sans and I are rather distressed that we have not made progress in fleshing out the mole, nor the monster who tried to assassinate you the second time. So, naturally, our thought had been to bait the rascal out of hiding during the jamboree! Everyone who's anyone will be in attendance. The mole will have to attend!”

Ah. He’d forgotten about the promise Bodoni had made to find the monster responsible. He had signed off his approval of it to align with what he knew of Aster’s character in the foolish hope the brothers would reach a dead end and nothing would come of it. But the brothers had not given up. Now he was facing the consequence of that promise.

Bodoni held his hands up. “ ‘s up to you, boss. It’d be odd if one of us wasn’t at the shindig. Won’t be good for our reputation. But the alternative is we leave ya here unprotected. ‘Course we have the after-party too Pap... we flesh ‘em out, bring ‘em back here for Aster to confirm it’s who we think it is.”

“That is true. On the other hand, is it not better to reveal your status on our own terms?” Didot countered, addressing Gaster. “If the Don of the Dreemurrs discovers that you are alive first, he will have the advantage! That is not to say you must reveal yourself tonight-“

“Damn straight he’s not,” Bodoni rattled a growl. 

“-but it’s something to consider! How we reveal our secrets is just as important as why we keep them. And I strongly believe that any more stalling on our part will be to our own detriment!”

Those words rang through his skull like a gang. Outwardly, his expression remained calm, mildly concerned, but caged behind his ribs his soul skipped a beat. Panged by guilt and a mild sense of alarm.

Pressed between his hip and the couch, Wolf shifted. He yawned in his sleep.

He chose to ignore the intense stare Bodoni gave him. “Kalluno would have to attend.” If the guard stationed here was not sufficient enough to provide support then it would not be sufficient enough to protect Wolf, regardless of whether Gaster stayed or went.

Bodoni studied him. He seemed to be itching to reach for the cigar box in his pocket. “We could drop the kid off on the way there. I know a dame or two who’d be good for it.”

He dismissed the idea the moment the words left Bodoni’s mouth. Gaster trusted Bodoni and Didot to care for their family. He trusted them to look after his interests so long they aligned with what they expected from Aster. Likewise, Gaster knew he could trust the staff here, Dogamy and Dogaressa in particular for the same reason but he could do so because he had seen their genuine care and affection for Wolf.

Someone Bodoni knew but Gaster had not yet met was a different story.

His disapproval must have shown on his face because Bodoni leaned back into his chair and chuckled. “Welp. That’s a hard no.”

Didot was staring at him hopefully. “It would be an educational experience for Kalluno! And I, your brother of extraordinary prowess, and capable uncle will ensure the experience will be as safe for him as any other!”

Gaster was silent for another moment as he considered. If he wasn’t already invested in the brothers' success, in their lives, and happiness, he would have said no without hesitation. It was a dangerous life they led, and such a gathering would pose a risk to Wolf and their prolonged stay here. His guise as their brother was already dubious. The hounds might be convinced, but he was not confident in his ability to navigate a crowd. Let alone influential figures, such as those the brothers seemed to be of the mind to impress.

 And there was his end objective to consider. At this point in his research, Gaster had reached a precipice. A fork in the road. It should be theoretically possible to leave this world without the machine, but to travel through the void ‘on foot’ was not a fate he wished to endure. There were so many risks to ponder. What if he was trapped again? Were the fissures stable? They appeared to be, yet the fact that he could interact with them suggested some level of precariousness. He would never, never wish the isolation of void upon a child, and if he was to take this alternative to Epsilon’s machine, he had to be absolutely sure he knew what he was doing.

As such, without the brothers and their staff in the lodge, he would have more time to conduct experiments.

An Opera on the surface though... had he ever attended anything close to it? Of course, there had been plays and performances put on for the royal family, back when their marriage was young and the pair were very much in love. Asriel’s birth had sparked a short renaissance of sorts in the capital. Festivals were common during that time. Gaster had attended a play or two, during his tenure as the Royal Scientist, on both Toriel and Asgore’s insistence, but this was the closest he came to the authentic experience.

He couldn’t deny he was curious. It would grant him a deeper glimpse into the world he now occupied. And Didot was right, it would be educational for Kalluno. Though Gaster had his doubts over how much of the experience the child would remember.

Perhaps it was the guilt of occupying a space he did not belong in. Or perhaps it was Didot’s hopeful expression, identical in almost every way, aside from the clothes he wore to his youngest son. Whatever the reason, Gaster knew at the very least, he owed it to the brothers to disturb their livelihoods as little as possible. 

This world was not his.

Didot saw the moment he had made his decisions and his eyelights lit up before the words had left his throat. “Very well. We will attend the event.”

Across the coffee table, Bodoni did not look happy but he accepted the decision with a shrug.

Papyrus’s counterpart beamed. “Hot diggity! I'm over the moon! You will have a good time, brother and beloved nephew! I swear it!”

As the flash from the spatial pinch of magic faded, fractals of multicolored light resolving into the uniform gold and white of the room he had stepped into, the first thing he noticed was not intricate wooden paneling or tapestries or even the rococo style furniture but the sound.

He had stepped into a room that led directly to a private theatre box. It was not a small room by any means but it was intimate. Curtains framed the arch that led onto the balcony and the voice of hundreds rose like the cords of a symphony from the amphitheater below.

The tones of individuals overlapped, impossible to discern from one another, and at once filled his skull with cotton as his magic struggled to process everything. Sometimes a laugh rose above the others. A note too high or loud to blend.

It struck a sharp contrast to the relative quiet of the lodge, where the sound of civilization was muffled by snow and distance. 

Wolf seemed to think so too. They chirped sharply in his arms, stunned by the sudden change in the environment, which they now regarded with wide sockets, and the cacophony of new sounds and smells. 

For their first shortcut, they had done fairly well though. Stunned and cautious but otherwise was not exhibiting any signs of stress.

A flourish, Didot stepped forward, drawing the little ones wide attention away from the echo of the amphitheater. “Welcome to the opera house, dear nephew! It may seem loud now, but rest assured it will be well worth the experience to come!”

Wolf stared at him, dubiously, and with his back to Gaster’s chest, tilted his skull back to shoot Gaster a questioning look. I’m not so sure about this.

“The food! The wine!” Didot sighed wistfully. “Only the best for the best. It is a shame you cannot mingle with our guests, brother. A lot of important faces will be here tonight. We are also hosting a famous Opera Singer. And if you were yourself you would no doubt aspire to meet her!”

“If he was himself, he’d taken back the reins of the operation by now,” Bodoni remarked. The cigar between his teeth bobbed. His words felt pointed, but his smile was light and airy.

That Didot a thoughtful pause. “That is true... I feel conflicted now- Oh! That reminds me! I haven’t thanked you yet!” He spun around and took Gaster’s free hand.

He blinked in surprise. “What for?”

“For allowing Sans and I to continue operation of the business! Even though you don’t remember anything, you still trust us with something you’ve worked so hard to build over the years!” 

Stars . The guilt of what he was doing was never far from his heart. As Didot spoke, the knife’s edge twisted further.

“I’m sure Sans has told you but, it's not easy being the stand-in Don. Even so, I appreciate your trust and confidence! When you came back, I was... worried... I thought you would reclaim your position. Instead, you listened to us. Put your faith in our hands while you recovered. And Kalluno too... I want to make my nephew proud! And that! Is why! Thank you for the opportunity to prove to you and Bodoni that I can handle the responsibility.”

Now Gaster felt truly awful. The opportunity to prove himself came not intentionally but through his passiveness. As a consequence of lies and an assumed identity that Gaster had not tried hard enough to resist. He had his reasons. He refused to jeopardize Kalluno’s safety. The brothers lived a difficult and dangerous life. Even now the brothers carried a concealed pistol on their person. The kindness they extended to him was only given because of who they thought he was. 

And in a moment of hurt and confusion, how could he be sure of Kalluno’s security?

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Didot seemed to believe he had to earn Aster’s approval. Though like his brother, his nervousness had gradually abated over time. As Gaster had lowered his guard, so had they. 

Didot deserved better than an unintended consequence.

Bodoni shifted uncomfortably. “... I didn’t know I’d made ya feel like you had anythin’ to prove, bro.”

Didot hesitated. “Your remarks, brother... sometimes I take them more personally than I should.”

His brother's eyelights dimmed a bit. “Aw, Pap. I ain’t your job to not feel hurt- shit I guess I got more apologizing to do than I thought.”

Despite the tension, Didot did not seem that upset. He held up a hand and spoke matter of factly. “It’s okay Sans. I know it’s not your intention to hurt my feelings and I know it hurts to see that I am under stress sometimes, but I can handle it! Please do not misunderstand, you gave me this opportunity to prove myself too!” He beamed. “So for now, let's enjoy tonight! We have a special mission, after all, nyeh heh heh!”

Bodoni’s eyelights glinted. Sighing, his shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets, and smiled crookedly. “Heh. Sure thing, bro.”

It did his heart well to see the brothers work through their issues. He was proud of them.

“In the meanwhile, while Bodoni and I are mingling with the guests, Doggo and Dogamy will prevent anyone from entering this room. Proceedings will be delivered to you by a courier and a sampling of cocktails and appetizers will be provided. And child-appropriate drinks of course. Once the performance starts we will rejoin you.”

No doubt they would use this time to search for their target... he could only hope their plans fell through. Gaster inclined his skull in acknowledgment.

“Lucky bastard,” Bodoni muttered humorously. Once again, Gaster and Didot shot him a disapproving look at the same time, causing the short skeleton to guffaw. “What? You get to sit here and sip martinis while I’m out there standin’. Sufferin’. Wastin’ away on my feet.”

Didot rolled his eyes. “You will have plenty of time to be lazy later. Aster will save us each a drink… wait-“ he looked at him with wide sockets. “You would not deliberately consume the confections just to mess with us, would you?”

Gaster stifled a smile into mock seriousness. He waved him off. “Of course not. Who do you take me for?”

Didot sighed in relief.

“I will give the confections to my son instead.”

Wolf perked up. Food, his expression said, you will give me food?? When?

Bodoni’s shoulders shook with his laughter and Didot stared him down in mock disappointment. “And cocktails, brother?”

Gaster looked at Wolf in his arms and pretended to take his next words very seriously. “Hmm. Well, based on his mass and weight. He could probably take two teaspoons of vodka...”

“No!!” Didot gasped shrilly. “That’s it, I'm taking the cocktails off the menu!”

“Excellent, my dastardly plan is a success.”

Didot gapped. “Hot diggity, I’ve been bamboozled! Twice!”

Bodoni stumbled over to his brother, wheezing. “C-c’mon bro, let’s scram before he pulls another fast on us.”

He tugged Didot out of the room by the arm. “We’ll be back in less than an hour,” he called over his shoulder. The door closed behind him with a click.

Gaster caught a glimpse of two dogs stationed outside the door. As the brothers left, Doggo and Dogamy entered. They greeted him respectfully and then stood guard within the room, stoically stationed next to the door.

Gaster regarded them for a moment. They were armed, naturally. Doggo had something resembling a rifle strapped to his back.

He set Wolf down. His arms were getting tired.

With nothing else to do but wait, he approached the balcony. He slipped his claws between the folds of the curtain and pulled it back just enough to peer out over the balcony railing to the amphitheater below.

It was truly a breathtaking view.

Five stories high, if one included the private viewing box he now occupied. Cascading plush velvet red seats gradually ended in a half-circle depression directly below the stage. Where, at the moment, the orchestra fine-tuned their instruments. As one’s gaze traveled up, they would be inevitably drawn to the statues and figures carved into the pillars which held the domed ceiling of the Opera House aloft. To his pleasant surprise, many of the statues depicted monsters. The carvings were too far away to discern facial expressions but by their posture, they seemed at ease. Serene.

Between rows of velvet benches, a steady stream of creatures intermingled. A river of grey flannel suits, black tuxedos, and monsters in long gowns glided from one row to the next. Sequins and beads caught the light. Directly below the balcony, he caught sight of no less than seven couples who’d seen it fit to wear pearls.

Such extravagance.

It was strange. Gaster had never enjoyed the fuss and splendor of the royal court. Mingling with socialites was stressful. And yet this sight made him feel strangely nostalgic for it. All that was missing was the royal couple and the picture would be complete. (Toriel’s twinkly laughter and Asgore’s bashful smile, their faces rosy. These were the memories that stuck out to him. The gentle nature of the royals in peacetime.)  

The soft click of tiny claws over polished wood drew his attention to Wolf, who nudged the edge of the curtain aside with his muzzle. Evidently, he wanted to see what Gaster was looking at. 

The little one breathed in a quiet gasp. Then swiftly backed up and hid behind his ankle. 

“There is much to take in. Are you nervous, little one?”

Wolf did not look at him but nodded mutely and Gaster’s heart clenched as it always did at Wolf’s subdued demeanor. There was a conflict of emotions, for while Wolf’s continued shyness made his heartsore, ever so slowly his responsiveness gave him hope.

Gaster smiled gently. “I understand. This is likely the first time you have seen so many monsters at once. Rest assured they will stay where they are. We may leave if it becomes too much, but if you can wait, tolerate it for a time, you will be in for a beautiful experience.”

Wolf wrapped his tail around his leg, watching the sea of glittering dresses and pinstriped suits. 

The orchestra began the opening notes to the overture. The audience quieted, voices a murmur, and made their way to their seats. The lights dimmed and Wolf grew bolder as the noise and the lights died down. He tip-toed past Gaster, peering through the balusters of the balcony railing.

A spotlight shone upon the stage. The curtains parted and the performance began in earnest.

A few minutes in, Gaster noted the brothers had not returned. He quietly intoned to the child where he would be and took one of the armchairs provided in the room behind the theatre box. He left the curtain partially open, so he could see Wolf, but the audience below, if their eyes would allow them to do so in the dark, would not be able to see him.

At the thirty-minute mark, there was a knock on the door. The hounds allowed a server entry. They placed a platter of crostini and wine on a side table. Gaster did not touch it. He summoned a pair of hands to sign instead. ‘Are you the designated courier?’

The smell of food drew Wolf’s attention. He ducked under the curtain and quietly approached the table.

The server, a fox-like monster, replied with a nervous but chipper. “Yes!”

Gaster asked them where Bodoni and Didot were. He was informed the server did not know and then was told of individuals, who seemed to be of a significant importance, who were in attendance. To be frank, this information went in one metaphorical ear and out the other. There seemed to be some sort of drama playing out between the two parties. He took in it passively, noting out of the corner of his socket that Wolf was too nervous to get any closer. He eyed the food platter longingly.

At the thirty-five-minute mark, his patience ran thin and the server was dismissed. With the stranger gone, Wolf snatched a slice off the platter.

Just after the first intermission ended and Wolf was fast asleep on the chair next to his, his fears were realized.

Bodoni and Didot entered the room with company. Bodoni had one arm slung over their ‘guests’ shoulder. A bear monster of unusually short stature. Gaster did not recognize him. Bodoni was talking to him amicably. Smile wide, teeth bared. But the angle of his mouth was sharp and the lights of his eyes too intense to denote any sort of genuine friendliness. As he watched closely, he saw Bodoni’s jaw clench.

Gaster straightened. His heart sank.

A glance towards Didot was even less assuring. Wherein his brother’s smile appeared sharper, Didot’s false cheer felt hollow, edged with conviction. When he shut the door behind him it closed with finality.

“-now whatcha say you did again? Run a barbershop?”

“Y-yes,”

“Right. That must be a pretty lucrative business in Snowdin. Half the town‘s got two layers of fur. Whatcha do with all of it, make your own coat? Stuff a pillow?”

“Of course not,” the bear bulked. “I dispose of the shavings as per regulations.” At this point, the bear finally took in the place the pair had led him. His eyes landed on Gaster and the monster dug his heels in, stopping dead in his tracks. 

While his expression remained passive, something in his chest constricted with a mixture of pity and dread. Didot had circled the room to stand in front of the balcony. He closed the curtains. Doggo moved to barricade the door and Dogamy stationed himself protectively next to Gaster, placing himself between Kalluno and the bear.

This... did not bode well. He was beginning to feel very cold.

The arm around the bear monster’s shoulders tightened. “Heh... why so nervous pal? We’re all friends here. Just me, my brothers, and you.”

The bear babbled. “I thought he was dead.”

Wrong thing to say. 

Bodoni’s arm dropped from his shoulders. There was a sharp click and the other monster went stiff as a board. “I don’t like how disappointed you sound, pal.”

“I find it interesting,” Didot announced. “That you keep large bags of cash underneath your floorboards. I have to wonder, sir, what you are selling? A business such as yours, in a place like Snowdin, should only be so lucrative seasonally. To have so many clients in the heart of winter, in the coldest cavern under the mountain seems odd.”

“I can explain-” the bear stammered.

“You may attempt so after I have finished speaking! Are you, perhaps, attempting to encroach upon our business? If so, you have done very poorly.” With his hands clasped behind his back, Didot began to pace. “I have also discovered, recently, that you were seen leaving your shop half an hour before Dogamy and Dogressa discovered my brother and his son, injured in the woods. And not only that, but when you returned, a witness claims you were feverishly brushing off your coat as if to clean it!”

If it was possible for his heart to sink any lower it would have. That was incredibly unfortunate timing. He was deeply regretting his decision to approve of the brothers’ manhunt. He should have made clear it was unnecessary from the beginning.

“Now you may attempt to explain yourself.”

The bear monster was sweating. “I know it looks bad but I swear I didn’t take a hit out on your Don. Look, I was out chopping wood and I fell. I was brushing snow off my coat.”

Bodoni cackled a vicious laugh. “Snow? You’re telling me the residents of Snowdin can’t tell the difference between Snow and dust? Shit, I don’t think I’ve heard somethin’ that funny since we were scamps on the street.”

“ ‘Our’ Don? Do you mean to say that you do not view my brother as the rightful baron of the land on which your house currently stands?” Didot echoed and underneath his fur, the Bear monster went deathly pale.

“All that’s left is confirmation. Aster! Please look closely, is this monster at all familiar to you?”

All eyes were on him, freezing his marrow. This could not be allowed to continue. Nothing good would become of this monster should the brothers find him guilty. It made him nauseous.

Bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, he pushed himself to his feet. ‘Doggo. Dogamy. Please take Kalluno and this man from the room.’

In stunned silence, the hounds scrambled to obey. Wolf gave a startled squeak as Dogamy picked him up and the bear stumbled as Doggo hauled him off by the arm.

Didot stared at the door as it shut behind the monster he and his brother had spent exhaustive hours searching for. “Brother... why did you order them to leave the room?”

“What’s the holdup?” The hand which held the pistol fell at his side. He gestured angrily to the door. “ ‘hell did you tell ‘em to leave for?”

Gaster breathed in slowly to steady himself. His gaze fell to the weapon his son’s variant held. He wanted to believe he would not use it, but in the heat of the moment, could there be any guarantee?

He clasped his hands together in front of him. “I wanted to spare us the audience.”

Bodoni stared at him for a long moment. His laugh sounded bitter. “Heh. Finally ready to get somethin’ off your chest, huh?”

Gaster looked to Didot who was watching the exchange, his jaw tight and silent. “No. I did not recognize that monster. Whatever crime you wish to accuse him of, he is innocent of assaulting me.”

“How can you be sure?” Didot asked. He stared at him with growing dread. “Aster...? Why are you looking at us like that, like there’s something you terribly regret?”

“I am sorry. I have deceived you both.”

“Heh... figured. Keep talkin’ pal,” Bodoni muttered.

“I am not your brother,” Gaster stated. He presented the facts as they were. There was no point in beating around the metaphorical bush. This was the truth.

Didot worked his jaw, increasingly distressed. “Of course you are! Who else could you be?”

“I am not,” Gaster repeated. “I do not have amnesia. This wound you see on the side of my skull is old. The man you brought in was not responsible for it. I went along with the assumption of my identity due to a misunderstanding between myself, Dogamy, and Dogaressa. When I came to understand what kind of operation you ran, I started to doubt the safety of myself and Kalluno if I told the truth.”

Despite his suspicion, despite the questions from the start, Bodoni looked the most hurt by that explanation. “Do ya really think Pap and I woulda hurt the kid?”

Gaster did not know how to answer that question delicately. “I was conflicted. I did not want to believe you would, however, I had just left a situation where Kalluno’s life was on the line. It felt irresponsible to trust in your goodwill after I realized I did not fully understand your situation. But I am sorry for the pain I caused through the deception.”

“I... I don’t understand.” Didot’s voice was so uncharacteristically soft and shaken that it hurt. “You look like him, you sound like him, right down to the way your voice snaps like radio static! You understand Sans and me as though you've known us all our lives!” He wrapped his arms around himself and Gaster was stricken by the vulnerability of the gesture. “Y-you can’t be anyone else!”

Bodoni took a careful step forward. He abandoned the pistol to its holster and raised his hands in a gesture of peace, though his teeth were tightly clenched. “Easy Papyrus. My brother’s got a good point though, pal. How'd you do it? Angel knows how many monsters have tried to impersonate Aster the phone, forged letters to look like his hand, so far you’re the only one who managed it.”

Gaster squeezed his sockets shut. Stars, this was difficult. “If you are open-minded I can provide an explanation.”

He went on to explain how he was Aster's counterpart, an alternate self from another reality. This explanation was met with disbelief from both brothers, but he did not let their initial reaction discourage him. He described the multiple-worlds theory; the mechanics of the multiverse as he understood it, and as he went on, their protests faded. Filled in by a hollow shakiness, that both twisted the soul and made him nauseous. It was not a pretty thing, when one's understanding of the world was flipped inside out and skinned bare, replaced by something awful and foreign. 

Multiple times throughout the explanation, he felt the brothers PING him. Checking for sincerity. They found no deception. That made it worse.

He described how he met Kalluno, the machine, and by the time he concluded his story when he met Dogamy and Dogaressa in the woods, Bodoni looked ready to wring his neck. Chewing listlessly on his cigar. His brother had his face in his hands, elbows to his knees, and shoulders hunched.

“Y’know,” Bodoni rasped. “I’ve done some shitty things in this business. Seen some shit. But this, pal? You’ve just single-handedly added a new fuckin’ tier.”

Gaster muttered not a sound. He flinched. He deserved nothing less and he knew it. What he had done had been cruel and as he came to realize much too late, an overreaction on his part. A miscalculation. But a piece of his heart broke, cruelly not caring how justified those words were.

“I don’t know what to say to you.” Bodoni ground his teeth together. “I need to think. Make sure Doggo hasn’t gone too far with that rat. Papyrus, don’t let ‘im leave the room.”

He stood and in a flash of spatial magic, he was gone.

Didot’s hands dropped. The look he gave Gaster was soul-crushing. Gaster met it, acknowledging the hurt he found there.

On the end of the couch, Didot’s hands curled into fists. He bolstered himself. “I want to believe you are not a bad person. You stopped us, so a false accusation could not be made. You sent everyone out of the room so they would not see my brother and I in a vulnerable state! You’ve done everything you could to mend the relationship between us and Aster, though it was not your place to! But I don’t understand, why did you find it necessary to deceive us? Why not simply return to the place you came from? Why continue the ruse when it is so clear you regret your actions?”

“I have to do everything in my power to return home.” He swallowed down the coil of mana constructing the vertebrae of his neck. “My family… it is imperative that I return to them as quickly as possible. If I could return to my world as simply as I left it, I would. Throughout my stay here I have been attempting to replicate the process that led me here, however…”

He was forced to stop at this point due to the unsteady crackle-hiss in his voice, pausing to allow it time to clear. “Until recently I had very, very little success.”

Didot did not look at him. Eyelights flickered through thoughts as though reading a book he could not see. “Would… would you have left us, without ever admitting the truth, if you had found success from the beginning?”

Gaster took a sharp breath. “If I had found success before I had time to get to know you and your brother? ... that would have been a likely outcome, yes.”

“I see.”

Didot stared down at the floor. “Thank you for being honest with us. I think I understand but... I am extremely disappointed. I also need time to think... For now, you may stay, not-brother as you have nowhere else to go and you are our guest. We are still hurt by your deception and my real brother and I must decide what happens next.”

Gaster closed his eyes. “Understood.”

He owed Didot and Bodoni a grace period, did he not? A few hours. Another day. He had been stupid. So stupid. Pathetic. Very, very pathetic. They were not his sons. Not his family. They were not related to him at all, but through the paradoxical workings of quantum physics and not in any way that mattered.

Didot stood and Bodoni blipped into the room, stumbling. His sockets were black and his breath labored. “That son of bitch knocked out Dogamy! He has Kalluno.”

The world came to a grinding halt.

Dizzy with panic, his feet moved on their own accord.

Bodoni caught the sleeve of his coat. “You’re not going anywhere, pal. You look exactly like Aster, remember? You’re ain't gonna make it five feet before someone stops ya.”

The sole light in his socket blazed. “You expect me to wait idly?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Spoken with such brazen casualness! “What do ya expect to do? Just five minutes ago you admitted you know nothin’ ‘bout this place or how we operate. Nah. You’re gonna sit tight, you’re gonna wait here while Pap and I take care of it. And once we get Kalluno back we’ll continue our little talk.”

He had a point, as bitterly reluctant as he was to admit it. Gaster did not express his acquiesce verbally, but took a step back. Silently bristling, the marrow in his bones boiled.

The brothers left the room in a hurry and Gaster was left to pace, claws tapping listlessly over his mouth.

Regret was rising like bile behind his teeth. He was angry. Everything he had attempted to accomplish had backfired spectacularly. 

He shouldn’t have tried to fix things between Aster and his brothers. He saw that now. He had only made the situation worse for them and added to the emotional trauma they had already suffered. And now, in an effort to be fair, he had jeopardized Wolf’s safety. The very thing he had been trying not to do! The one reason he had committed himself to the deception in the first place!

In an effort to do right by the boy, he had exchanged an oven for a nuclear reactor! 

Pathetic . Pathetic. Pathetic!

His chest felt tight. Gaster clutched at the fabric above it and ground his teeth. Magic was building at the tips of his claws. He felt it coalesce in the air around him. His LV was awake and it was loud but there was nothing to protect him from. Mindless, ceaseless. Even his own magic was useless.

Thunk.

Gaster nearly missed the sound under the rising music. It was followed by another, a forbidding crack not unlike ice. His attention was drawn to the windows. In the center of one, a white web had formed. It crawled outward with frightening speed and as fast as it spread, he had just enough time to compute the bullet lodged in the glass.

Gaster took a step back, raising an arm to shield his face as the glass shattered. 

As his arm dropped, the LV in his marrow shimmering in response to the threat, behind the cloud of twinkling glass a monster emerged from the window.

Glass crunched underneath her feet. She was tall. On either side of her head, a pair of blue and bright red fins flared. She raised her arm, the barrel of a gun leveled with his chest. Her lip pulled back over jagged crooked teeth, and before he could defend himself she pulled the trigger.

BANG.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returned to him in the form of a pounding headache. The left side of his chest throbbed. He groaned, blinking away the thin film of magic that had accumulated in the corners of his sockets. As he shifted, becoming aware of the fact that he was sitting upright, a piercing pain shot through a rib underneath his left arm- his sockets shot open- the break in the rib bone ground together, the sensation not unlike rubbing sandpaper on an open wound. 

The pain was fire hot. Gaster clamped his teeth together and sockets squeezed shut. Wave after wave shuddered through him. There was a howl behind his teeth, in the back of his throat but he swallowed it down until at last, the pain subsided.

That was right. He had been shot. 

He couldn’t move his arms.

Still shuddering and feeling slightly feverish, Gaster forced open his eye-sockets and gave his wrist another tug. He quickly took stock of the situation.

A cold, metal clamp pinned his wrists to the arm of a chair. His legs were free, ankles unbound. To his immense relief and shock, Wolf was curled up on his lap. Huddled in the space between the inward curve of his waist and the inner lining of his coat.

Had his wrists been free, Gaster would have scooped the child up into his arms and clutched him to his chest. Three separate Checks revealed that Wolf was understandably scared but unharmed. Gaster murmured a low, soothing sound to comfort him. Meanwhile, his soul was pounding, a deep unfurling alarm tightly coiling around his throat.

Plainly, the monsters whom the bear had worked for had now claimed both himself and Wolf, but why keep the two of them in the same room? Why grant him the mercy of seeing his son unharmed and returned to his custody?

He could only assume this had been done to manipulate him. What their end goal was, he couldn’t be sure.

It wasn’t in his best interests to find out.

Wolf’s ribcage rose and fell. His sockets were wide open. He seemed to want to make himself smaller and smaller in the shadow of Gaster’s coat. 

A pang of sympathy squeezing his soul, Gaster reached for the shadows of the room to free himself from the restraints, comfort the child, and quickly leave before his captors returned-

… his magic didn’t respond. The shadows in the corners of the room were still. A lifeless, shallow pool. His breath hitched. He tried again only to achieve the same result. He pulled in his wrist. The restraints didn’t budge. Gaster ground his teeth. He brought his gaze to the floor and focused on the polished panels of oak, on the grain itself, willing bones to manifest.

Nothing happened.

Now he felt cold. Magic suppression? From what? He scanned the room. There was a large bulky desk immediately in front of him. Behind it loomed a large window covered by dark blinds. A glass and dark wood wine cabinet sat to the left of it. Against the wall and to the right of the desk, a door of unusual bulk and height, and in that same corner stood a globe atop a side table and potted fern. Above him, an unlit lamp hung from a bronze chain. The desk was disorganized but nothing on it caught his eye or felt remotely enchanted enough to suppress his power-

He squirmed, pulling and tugging his wrists in every direction he could manage. Gaster’s eyelight fell to the restraints themselves. It was a thick band of metal, bolted to the chair itself. The metal was cold and bit into delicate carpals bones like dry ice, so cold it nearly burned-

Cold. The metal was cold, but the room was not. In fact, the room was quite warm. His sockets widened. Cold iron.

He was completely blind-sided. For a monster to use cold iron on another monster was exceedingly rare for good reason. It was a dangerous substance to use, and regardless of the intention behind the magic, cold iron would drain the energy of whoever touched it. 

But then he recalled the iron stairwell in the lodge that led up to the attic. He might not have known Bodoni for long, but he knew his son’s counterpart wouldn’t tolerate a dangerous substance anywhere near his brothers. There was plenty of silver and bronze around, use of pure iron was, therefore, unnecessary and easily substituted. The installation of it, therefore, could be seen as a silent aesthetic reminder of danger. Why else would he commission the stairwell to be made of iron? Originally he thought it was to deter thieves or vandals, but now...

Unless the monsters of this world were not affected by iron. To them, it did not matter one way or another. The stairwell had been made of cast iron purely for convenience and not for its unnerving resemblance to cold iron. He closed his eyes and bit back a groan. He felt exceptionally foolish. Of all the variables, he never expected something so fundamental, something he had accepted his entire life as a weakness he had to live with, would be the one critical difference that he should have known about!

Damn it all.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

He opened his sockets again, phalanges curling.

Alright. Calm down. What could he infer about his situation? His captors thought he was Aster. As he was not dust yet, he could safely assume they wanted ‘Aster’ alive. (Would they keep Wolf alive? What purpose did keeping Wolf alive serve? Blackmail. Incentive. Cooperation.) He could not use his magic to escape. His choices were few, wait for one of his captors to present themselves or-

A low creak, muffled by the thick door. Shuffling. Heavy footsteps and the hard click of leather soles on polished floorboards.

Gaster strengthened.

The doorknob turned. A hulking beast of a monster ducked through, emerging from behind the door open like a billow of smoke poured into a room through a clogged fireplace. The monster seemed to fill the space as he entered it. A pair of large horns arched over the back of his head. The keratin grooved and chipped. Long ears fell over his shoulders, framed by hair that, in the dim light, could have been any color shy of brown.

With his head bowed, the monster shut the door behind him. Then he raised his eyes and Gaster was very glad he was sitting down. Don Asgore... the look on his face... It was hollow. Haunted. 

And like the photographs he had seen of Aster and Toriel, his face was an unsettling mirror. Familiar enough to be unmistakably him, yet distorted. The dark rings under his eyes were heavier. The lines of his frown deeper. There was a sharper, deadlier edge to his aura that, in Gaster’s mind, was not at all present in the Asgore he knew.

“I see that you’re awake.” the massive monster intoned after a moment of critical study. “Forgive me for the rough treatment... had I known you had a son I would have pushed for Captain Undyne’s discretion. At it stands, his capture was a spare of the moment decision.”

Gaster tracked his every step, he breathed slowly but haltingly. His claws dug scars into the leather armrest. The restraints held fast. Subconsciously, he shifted to shield Wolf from view, dimly aware of how the child trembled as the other monster’s massive shadow passed over them.

The way a boss monster’s aura engulfed a room was universal. 

Asgore came to a stop as he reached the other end of the room. He stood between the desk and the wine cabinet fixed to the wall. Harsh light slanted through the blinds behind the desk and deep shadows obscured the goat monster’s movements. One hand remained clasped behind his back, while the other fumbled with something in the cabinet. 

“You must think me barbaric to hold you in such a way, old friend.” The fur of Asgore’s neck and shoulders, though matted in places, nonetheless bristled. His hair had not been combed in some time, though Gaster could no more make out its color in the dark than he could see the King’s expression from behind.

“But after that stunt you pulled... I could think of no other way to keep you in one place.”

Asgore turned around. Gaster could not make out what he held in his hand. Lifting his eyelight from the dark to Asgore’s face he found the Don studying him, brow furrowed in frustration. The lines of his mouth were tightly drawn.

“I should not be surprised. After all, you have never been one to abide by the laws of nature have you?” He shook his head. “Why couldn’t you stay dead, old friend? It would have been kinder on us all.”

Gaster flinched. Coming from that voice, though he knew logically those words were not meant for him, still hurt. But with both hands bound by cold iron, Gaster could no more sign than speak and be understood. He held Asgore’s steady gaze in forced, silted silence.

“Such hatred and will behind your eyes...” Asgore trailed off. “What have I done to garner such animosity? Was I not a kind and just leader? Was I not a faithful husband and doting father?” He seemed to gather himself. Posture no longer slouched, he held himself high and mighty and in two grand strides crossed the distance between them.

Gaster held his position, protectively covering the child. He refused to break eye contact with the other monster. He refused.

“To think, I once considered you my dearest friend. You, who found a loophole in every law the human government imposed on us. You, who I built the syndicate with. Who stood as my best man at our wedding... to think, you would be the same monster who hid my wife from me for the last twenty years .” 

Every word he spoke was laced with grief. Then anger. Soul churning, quaking anger. A deep rumbling thunderclap and then Asgore fell silent. His voice echoed in the empty room.

Wolf whimpered. Gaster dug his claws into the arms of the chair, still as stone.

When Asgore spoke again, his voice was fragile. Thin ice on a lake in spring, deceptively solid. “It is true you are not the one who held the pistol to the scalp of the monster who guarded her room. It is true, you are not the monster who escorted her out of the city. This I know, old friend, for you were never one to handle such matters directly.” 

Monotone. Gone was that thread of warmth that wrapped itself in Asgore’s grief. The Don studied him as an enemy would and Gaster bitterly marveled at the change.  

“All trace of her disappeared after that day. She vanished. Utterly and completely. I grieved for her, as I grieved for my own sons. And then I found out that you had been squirreling away resources from the syndicate.” A pause. Perhaps Asgore expected denial or even shame but Gaster was done embodying Aster’s regret and whatever the Don sought, he did not find. 

“I sent you into exile,” Asgore continued. “-and you crossed me yet again by establishing a rival outfit with your brothers. I am ashamed to admit I did not connect the resources you stole with my wife’s disappearance until a week after your death when my underboss found a note from Toriel addressed to you, expressing her gratitude.”

A deep shadow fell over Asgore’s face. There was a tremble to his jaw and lip as it curled up to expose his fangs.

“It was YOU who provided my wife with the resources she needed to go into hiding! It was YOU who organized the guard that day and it was YOU who sent an escort to wait for her on the outside!” Asgore bellowed. He slammed a fist onto the surface of the desk, causing it to rattle. Paper flew off the desk. A pen fell.

His majesty leaned against the desk. Growling lowly. His chest heaved. 

“Oh, my Toriel is clever, she is a brilliant strategist but she could not have done it alone. And who better to help her escape the syndicate than the monster who helped me build it?”

Gaster warily watched the Don slowly collect himself. “I digress... I have a proposal for you, old friend. It is quite simple...”

Asgore straightened, speaking calmly as if his outburst hadn’t happened. He turned around and Gaster’s soul shuttered as he grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up into his majesty’s hateful glower. 

“You will tell me where my wife is hiding or you will never see your child again.”

No . 

Gaster’s eyelight went out. He attempted to shake his head but couldn’t escape the goat monster’s firm grip. 

Asgore’s eyes glazed over. He roughly released his hold on Gaster’s jaw. “It is fair, is it not? My wife for your child...”

Gaster could do nothing to stop him. He struggled, silently pleading for Asgore to reconsider, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Asgore tore Wolf from his arms and his sudden absence was like getting slammed in the chest by a block of ice. 

No. No no no!

“Stop! Asgore, please! I don’t know where Toriel is, I cannot-“

And then Asgore turned his back on him, he didn’t acknowledge the incomprehensible static tumbling free from Gaster’s throat. He didn’t even flinch as Gaster’s voice rose. Gaster caught a glimpse of Wolf’s frightened face, desperately looking for him from the crook of Asgore’s arm and then he and Asgore disappeared behind the dark oak door and Gaster was left alone to stew in mounting panic.

Chapter Text

Shortly after Asgore’s counterpart left, men entered the room, dragged him from the chair, down the hall, and into another, equally dark room with no windows to speak of. His wrists were bound, by the same cold-iron bands to a new chair, and where the iron touched his bone, it numbed. He lost feeling in his digits some two hours ago. He couldn’t so much as make his phalanges twitch. 

The itch and the numbness were starting to crawl up his forearm. He hadn’t lost feeling in it yet, but as the hand of a clock ticked somewhere over his head and steady exhaustion ate at what mana wasn’t being used to heal his cracked rib, he knew it was only a matter of time.

He was too anxious to drift off and waited, soul-twisting for something to happen. For as long as his wrists were bound by cold iron there was nothing he could do. Nothing he could do but wait, grit his teeth and laminate over his regrets. 

He should have told the brothers the truth from the beginning. He shouldn’t have sent Wolf out of the room. He shouldn’t have left for work that morning, so long ago now. Now Wolf’s life was in jeopardy and he was in a situation where he was powerless to do anything but wait. What a fool he had been.

Gaster considered himself to be a patient man. He did not think of himself as impulsive or listless, but with every tick of that damnable clock, he felt a little piece of himself solidify into something not unlike ice. He ground his teeth. LV a hissing sputter in his morrow and likely a contributing factor to his ability to move his arms at all. 

A click, the sound of a metal key sliding into a lock, snapped his attention to the door. His soul pounded. The knob turned.

It did nothing for the frantic state of the mana fluttering about under his sternum when the first monster who entered was the same one who had shot him in Aster’s room. Her red hair was combed back and tied in a ponytail behind her head, and her suit jacket was slightly ruffled, but it was unmistakably the same monster. Her blue scales were a smokey grey in the low light. 

Behind her, entered Don Asgore himself and Gaster’s soul did a dreadful, sickening flip. 

Don Asgore’s size was such that his form blotted out the view of the doorway. Gaster could make out details he hadn’t noticed before. The stain on the Don’s right cuff, for example. A missing button. And the glittering, sand-like substance embedded in the fabric of his trousers and sprinkled over the laces of his shoes. Dust.

Gaster kept his back straight as they entered the room. He didn’t flinch when the door shut but internally, he was in a state of panic. That dust... it couldn’t belong to... no. No it couldn’t. It wasn’t logical for the Don to follow through on his threat so quickly.

The fish monster took up a defensive position off to the left of the door, arms crossed over her chest. Her lip twisted into an angry scowl. And his study of her earned him a glower and sneer in return. She seemed to have something to say, but bit her words back, presumably out of respect for the Don, who stood in front of Gaster’s chair and regarded him in uncharacteristic silence.

He seemed calmer, Gaster noted, then when he first met the man. This fact put him ill at ease. A calm, thoughtful monster was infinitely more dangerous than an impulsive, hot-headed one.

At last, the Don broke the silence. “I trust you have had time to consider our proposal.”

He waited for ‘Aster’s’ response, but Gaster could not respond in his stead, because his damn wrists were numb and bound by cold iron and the Don fully expected his former consigliere to have the ability to summon a pair of hands to speak! Damn him to Tartarus and back.

“Release my hands.” Gaster hissed. His words crackled. The Don’s brow furrowed and next to him, the fish monster winced.

“Why do you refuse to speak in hands?” The Don rumbled. “Do you not care for your son? Are you willing to accept his life as collateral damage for your pride?”

No! No, he was not!

Gaster bit back a frustrated snarl and tried again. He spoke slowly, drawing out the sound of each word. “Please. Release my hands. I am willing to cooperate. I cannot speak to you until my hands are unbound.”

The fish woman slapped her hands over her fins on either side of her head. The Don looked at her. “Are you alright, Undyne?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Undyne grunted.

The Don turned back to him, expression stern. “Old friend, you are hurting her. Please. Do not speak aloud.”

Gaster clicked his teeth shut. He stared into the Don’s eyes. Willing his intent to be understood.

It wasn’t.

The Don’s expression changed. Resigned. He breathed a low sigh and slowly reached into his jacket pocket. He withdrew a tattered piece of blue-striped cloth. It looked like the same fabric Wolf had worn. His soul plummeted to the pit of his being. What had he done to his son?

The Don brought the shredded piece of cloth close enough for him to inspect. Gaster barely saw it. There was a drum pounding in his skull. The Don’s words drifted in and out of focus. Was that dust on the fabric? What had they done to his son? No- no, Asgore couldn’t have- he wouldn’t… he would never.

“-I waited twenty years to reunite with my wife. How long do you think your son will wait for you? Will he survive a day? Two?”

Slowly, Gaster tore his eyelight away from the cloth clenched in the Don’s massive paw. Those words... it was difficult to compute the fact they were coming out of Asgore’s mouth. A face so soft should not be allowed to utter things so vile.

“Old friend, are you really willing to forfeit your son’s life to keep my Wife from me?”

Was he imagining it, or was Don's bottom lip trembling? No. He wasn’t imagining it... It wasn’t so much a tremble as it was a quake. It ran from his lip to his ears, his shoulders, and down every inch of him. Gaster braced himself.

Asgore’s lip peeled back and he erupted. All teeth and fire. “WHERE IS SHE!? WHERE ARE YOU KEEPING MY WIFE?!” The air was hot, suddenly rich with sulfur and invisible smoke. The Don’s magic was immediately oppressive. It was the weight of judgment. Of overwhelming strength. Of grief and wraith and hurt and disgust, flush with the intent to harm.

Gaster pressed his shoulders to the back of the chair. Against this suffocating plume of invisible ash, his teeth bared of their own accord. A snarl rose from his chest balking in the face of that suffocating cloud. His soul was pulsing frantically. 

A blue hand clasped Don's shoulder. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose, and to Gaster’s stunned relief, he regained control of himself. The Don drew back, pulling the weight of his aura with him.

“… thank you, Undyne. I do not know what came over me.”

Undyne nodded once. She looked at Gaster and glared. “He's a stubborn asshole. Don’t let his silence provoke you. That’s what the sadistic bastard wants!”

While Don Asgore took another breath, massaging his temple, Gaster carefully eased his features back into a state of neutrality. His magic had yet to calm and the pulse of it was so quick his chest ached.

“You are right of course,” The Don said. His whole body seemed to deflate. “Wingdings… I will give you one last chance. When I return, you will give us my wife’s location and if you do not… your son will not be returned to you in one piece.”

Gaster’s eyelight dilated sharply. No. No, he wouldn’t dare!

But as the Don turned to leave, and cold dread settled in his heart, Gaster knew he would. He would and there was nothing he could do to stop him. Not like this. Gaster could bluff and buy Wolf precious time, but he knew so little about this world it wouldn’t take long for the Don to realize he had been tricked.

Damn it! He needed to get out of these cold-iron cuffs!

When the Don had his back turned, Undyne leaned over his chair. She planted both hands on the armrest and moving uncomfortably close to his face, she spat. “I’ll find out what kind of blackmail you have on Alphys and I’ll make you fucking regret exploiting her. You hear me? I don’t believe for a moment that she would ever betray Don Asgore. Ever.”

… what? What did this have to do with Theta’s daughter?

Said Don had paused in the hall to wait for her. Undyne straightened and thundered out the door after him.

The door slammed shut.

A soft click and slanted light cut through the shadows of the room, slowly widening until a triangle of white formed and caught Gaster in the eye. He stirred. He felt numb.

A tattered cat monster in a suit that was one size too big entered the room. Distantly, and slowly regaining a sense of awareness, Gaster realized he did not recognize the feline from his world but couldn’t shake the feeling he didn’t quite belong here. There was something about the feline’s pensiveness that spoke of inexperience. 

If that was true... he had an opportunity here.

He held a metal tray in one hand with what appeared to be a bowl of soup and a glass of water. 

Gaster noted the gun holstered to his hip. He hadn’t bothered to conceal it.

The other monster muttered to themselves, gripping, and dragged a small end table from the corner of the room next to the chair to set the tray down. “Right. Don’t try any funny business. Don asked me to see you eat something.”

The feline stared. Gaster stared back.

“Y’know I thought you’d be a little more... I dunno. Intimidating? You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.” S-shorter? Gaster squinted. Compared to Asgore, every monster in the underground was pintsized! “Anyway... the Don said you’d feed yourself, so go ahead guy.”

The feline waited. Gaster did nothing as he couldn’t move and communication was pointless but his silence had its intended effect. As the seconds ticked by, the fur on the nap of the tabby’s neck stood on end.

“L-Listen. I can’t leave until you finish your damn soup. So start eat’n hombre.” Agonized, the cat peeled his lips back in a weak attempt at a smile.

... surely, it couldn’t be this easy?

Gaster dragged the focus of his eyelight away from the trembling youngster, to the cold iron which bound his wrists.

“Oh... I get it now. I need to uncuff ya. I mean... the Don told me NOT to uncuff ya, but he also said you could feed yourself. I don’t see how you could... with your hands cuffed like that... so.” The cat winced slightly as he knelt next to the chair. “Do me a solid and don’t try anything?”

He withdrew a key from his pocket. Fumbled. The key slid easily into the lock and clicked. The iron brace snapped open.

The cat seemed to remember he had a gun finally, and one of his hands flew to his hip as if he expected Gaster to immediately strike. Of course, Gaster didn’t move. He closed his sockets for a brief moment. His entire arm was on pins and needles but stars did it feel better. Already, warmth returned to the marrow of his arm, flushed to his wrist and the tip of his claws. He curled his phalanges experimentally. Pleased to have them respond at all, though his wrist still felt numb.

Guilt stirred in his heart for what he was about to do, but Wolf’s life hung in the balance. Bluff or not, he couldn’t risk his new son’s life.

“Uh... you okay, guy? The cuffs weren’t hurting you were they? Oh shit, do you think I’ll get in trouble for that-”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Gaster rasped. The feline grimaced, a violently shudder rippling through their pelt. “I apologize for interrupting your rant, but I am afraid I cannot wait for you to finish.”

The feline groaned, clamping his hands over his ears. Gaster raised his voice, dragging each syllable out until the monster next to him doubled over. “I am sorry. Truly I am, but my son’s life is on the line and though you are not directly responsible, you are an obstruction.”

The feline’s hands were balled into fists over his ears now. He resisted Gaster’s attempts to pry the key from his fingers, but as Gaster continued to speak, his grip loosened. Once he had the key he wasted no time in jamming it into the lock on the other cold-iron band. And then he was on his feet. The room swarm from moving so hastily.

The feline regained his bearings. He reached for the gun at his hip but Gaster was faster. His eyelight weakly flashed violet and three blue bones shot through the feline’s torso. He went still, terrified.

Gaster rubbed his wrists. His carpal bones were on pins and needles.

‘They will dispel, in an hour. Do not move until then.’

The feline’s face was comically aghast. 

He took the shortcut to Don Asgore’s study, as it was one of three positions he could remember well enough to shortcut to, and had done so mentally prepared to enter combat immediately if the room should prove to be occupied. 

By the grace of the angel, the study was empty though, and the moment his legs were steady enough to not immediately buckle underneath him from stress and exhaustion, he was frantically searching through the Don’s desk.

He needed health items. Anything laced with green magic would do. There was no telling what state he would find Wolf in. He found nothing. Cigars. Wine. Scotch. No candy. No food items or bandages of any sort. He hastily popped the cork of one bottle in the hopes that it might do in a pinch but was sorely disappointed. The magic imbued in this would not make any meaningful difference. 

Gaster closed the cabinets forcefully and hurried out the door Asgore had disappeared down with Wolf hours before.

The hallways warranted caution. Though he stubbornly ignored the fact that he was so tired and strained he could feel his bones rattling, he could not ignore the fact that his mana was so low he had at most two shortcuts left in him before he passed out. One he reserved to get Wolf out of here. The other if he found himself trapped. He prayed to the deep resounding silence of the universe that he would not need it. 

He found a cage in a narrow side room. Wolf was not there, but he found scratch marks on the bottom of a cage. There was no trace of dust. It was not conclusive evidence, but until he found data that suggested Wolf could have been kept somewhere else, he would assume Wolf had been here.

He kept searching.

Voices.

Gaster froze. His LV sent a hot, electric sensation through his marrow in warning. He kept one hand to the wall and looked over his shoulder. The shadows of two men broke the triangle of light at the juncture between the two corridors. Their cleated heels preceded their approach. 

As silently as he could, he slide his heels back and rounded the corner, only to find himself facing another pair of men on patrol. Dressed in black suits and ties they were closer, feet away, conversing with each other. One looked up. Their eyes met.

Gaster stomped his heel and a wave of bones erupted from the ground, knocking the pistol from his grip. The second monster dodged the initial wave. He withdrew a dagger from his hip instead of a gun. The sight of such a weapon sent his marrow boiling and his claws twitch.

A dagger of a similar make had slain his children in the time loop.

The blade slashed through Gaster’s sleeve. He retaliate with a well-timed jab of a sharpened femur, yielding it like a cane. The LV in his bones sang with pleasure, filling Gaster with disgust.

The force of the blow sent the other monster reeling back, giving Gaster the opportunity he needed to put more distance between himself and the mobsters, but retreating into the juncture of the hallway pushed him right into the path of the first pair of mobsters he had tried to avoid.

Someone grabbed him from behind. A loud voice boomed. “Restrain him! The Don wants the bastard alive!”

Gaster shoved back against the force attempting to pin his arms. He twisted around and parted his teeth in an open-mouth snarl. The monster holding him yelped and reflexively released him in a moment of fright and shock. Gaster warped down the hall and then he was running.

He came to another bend in the corridor, spun on his heel, and went right. He dove through the first door he came across and kept going. 

At this point, he was quickly getting the sense that the blueprints of this building had been designed by a lunatic. The corridors were consistently long, wide enough to accommodate a monster of Asgore’s stature comfortably but seemed to loop back around in a confusing maze-like pattern. Years ago, this building might have been an office space, a hotel, maybe even a hospital. Now it was an enormous trap room with countless dead ends. 

Pitching left, he stumbled into one such dust trap. The hallway came to an abrupt halt. Breathing heavily, he stepped quickly into the enclave and waited for his pursuers to pass by. His heart sank as their footsteps slowed. Silence descended. They knew where he was. 

Stars, he was so tired. His chest ached. Every breath he took throbbed. He couldn’t run anymore, his legs were liable to collapse at any moment. Shaking, Gaster reached for the nearest shortcut back to Asgore’s office but froze. He was too exhausted. He needed what little mana he had left to escape this building WITH his son. He couldn’t shortcut now.

The lighting fixture in the enclave flickered, as though mocking him. The shadows weren’t deep enough here. The light was too bright. He was at his weakest.

He was trapped.

The next few minutes were best described as hellish. One of the men pursuing him eventually gathered the nerve to round the corner, while the others convened nearby. They held him at gunpoint. Gaster gritted his teeth. He was shaking with the disgusting, restrained desire to lash out.

He allowed the man to grab him but didn’t bother to contain his look of contempt. These minions of Don Asgore stood between him and Wolf. He needed to find his son and he knew when to bide his time, but the wait was infuriating. His bones were buzzing. His son could be in any state of pain or misery and he needed to get to him now.

“What do we do with ‘im?”

The monster holding his arm looked to his companion. “We take him back to the room the Don had him in, ya dead hoofer! Where do you think we’re gonna take him? To the next city over?”

“N-no,” his companion sputtered. “We’d need a riverboat to get that far south-”

“Meathead,” the first man hissed.

They escorted him all of ten feet when a thunderous noise rocked the ceiling above them.

“The fuck was that-” 

A pop. Then another. The sound was not unlikely the tightly contained explosions Gaster would unintentionally set off through inattentive planning with highly reactive chemicals. Like a fire crackle shrieking out of a tube, three more pops sounded in quick succession.

“Shit. They’re here already?”

“Of course they are, we have their boss!” His grip on Gaster’s arm tightened reflectively. Gaster glared balefully at his hand. He deeply, deeply, wanted to skewer it.

Another monster came running towards the party from around the corner, panting. “The Don needs backup, now! The Wingding Brothers are raiding the base!”

Meathead squeaked. “What’d we do with ‘im?”

“If the Don is facing his brothers, he’s gonna want him,” the monster holding his arm sneered. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Her fist balled the fabric of the onesie. With a sharp jerk she tore the sleeve off. Wolf yelped, out of shock and fright. It didn’t hurt. Her claws didn’t catch on his bones but the movement was so fast and the sound so loud, it scared him!

The cage door yanked open with a harsh metallic whine. Wolf stumbled as his paws hit the ground. He spun around, soul hammering against his ribcage. Unable to find traction, his claws slipped and he was not fast enough to wedge his muzzle between the door and the frame in time. The top of his skull hit the bars of the cage. Wolf whimpered.

No! Not again!

Wolf shoved his paw through the bars and pressed his whole body to the gap. He could fit his arm up to the shoulder blade through but nothing else. His skull was just too wide!!

“Sorry punk, you’re not getting through that!”

Wolf yanked his arm back into the cage.

The loud voice came from a pair of black leather boots, connected by wrinkled trousers to a torso wearing a disheveled blouse- the angle of the cage ceiling obscured the monster's face from view but he caught the grainy scent of brine and copper and thought: fish . Tall fish.

The leather boots paced.

The magic in his body coiled, shoulder blades tightly bound, he was ready to leap away from the cage door at a moment's notice, but the fish lady seemed unconcerned with him. The heels of her boots clicked. His eyelights followed her.

The Doctor did not pace like this. He was always doing something or had something in his hands. He didn’t mutter aloud, like this fish lady who grumbled and growled to herself “I have to guard a puppy. A puppy! Doesn’t the Don know he can trust me?” The Doctor glowered in silence.

Wolf didn’t like it. At least he knew the Doctor. He could guess what he would do next but he didn’t know what the fish lady was going to do. 

(He missed the smell of chalk, chemicals, and lavender. The Scientist in Black never locked him in cages, ever. He... he really, really wanted to be held right now.)

He sniffled. Tears gathered in the corner of his sockets. There was a whine in his throat but he held it back. He knew he shouldn’t because if you were in a cage and you whined, the monsters outside of the cage would see you and they would make loud frightening noises. And sometimes, those loud frightening noises meant pain! And the fish monster definitely looked like the kind of monster to make loud frightening noises. She wasn’t like the Doctor, at all, but there was nothing stopping her from becoming like him, was there? All that stood between them was the bars of the cage and whatever it was that made her mad enough to pace like that. 

But as long as she was angry at something else, she wasn’t paying attention to him. He wanted it to stay that way.

Wolf tucked his paws underneath him and laid down, draping the end of his tail over his muzzle. The cage floor felt cold underneath his bones, he could almost feel the ache in his teeth.

The fish monster stopped pacing. She looked toward the other end of the room, to the door the goat monster had disappeared through. She heard something. He heard it too but didn’t move. Another thump. Someone yelling? The fish monster cursed and stormed over to the door. She threw it open and slammed it shut behind her. 

Quite suddenly, Wolf found himself alone. 

This was his chance!

He shot to his paws and rammed his small body into the door. It held. The cage squeaked as the impact scooted the cage forward. He tried it again two more times but the door held fast. He growled and this time tried scraping his claws where he thought the latch was. That also didn't work. His claws slipped off the metal. He couldn’t get a good grasp on the latch.

Ugh! This was so frustrating! He wished his paws were like the Doctor’s or the Scientist’s or Bodoni’s or Didot’s! Then, he could open any door and pick up things like they could and he wouldn’t have to worry about tearing things up with his teeth!

With a growl so loud it rattled his bones, Wolf clamped his teeth down on the bars of the cage. Growing more, and more frustrated, he gathered energy behind teeth but he was too upset to wait, and as soon his mouth felt remotely hot he spat it out. 

The beam pinged off the bars. It left a scorch mark, but it didn’t do anything!

He was so, so mad now! He wanted out now!

The end of his tail smacked the cage walls. A metallic tang echoed through the room.

Someone gasped.

“Oh-oh my goodness... a-are you okay?”

At the quickly approaching footsteps, Wolf rolled over onto his belly and tried to scoot away from the approaching monster but he didn’t get very far.

“No no, it’s okay! I’m not here to hurt you! My name is Alphys a-and I work for your father in secret... I’m here to get you out?” The monster stuttered. Her scales were a glossy yellow and she wore a short rose gold dress that reached halfway below her knees, and then to her knees as she crouched in front of the door and fumbled with the lock.

“Y-your name is Wolf, right? You don’t look much like Don Aster... n-no offense! But um... you have his eye sockets... maybe? There we go!”

The cage door swung open with a squeak. Wolf stared. She smelled like citrus and sand, and something flora that was so strong it made him snort. And then sneezed. And swipe a paw over his muzzle to get the scent off. 

“O-oh. It’s the perfume, isn’t it? I’m sorry! We should really get going...”

When Wolf struggled to stand, Alphys’ face paled a little. She stuttered something about Asgore promising not to hurt innocent people and awkwardly reached into the cage to pick him up. Wolf went stiff, not expecting to be touched, but he didn’t squirm when she lifted him up. 

She felt like Papa, in a way. Despite the way her magic jittered. She felt... safe? She must have lots of fluff inside! This was good. Monsters who had fluff inside were good.

She secured him in her arms, against her chest. Experimentally, Wolf curled his paws into the fabric of the dress and studied their surroundings as she scurried to the door and then through the unfamiliar hallway behind it.

They exited the hallway into another room, and Wolf nearly squirmed free of her arms when he recognized the space they had entered. This was the room Wolf had last seen the Scientist in! He eagerly scanned the room for the monster’s familiar black coat...

The chair in front of the desk was empty. He was gone.

“O-oh no. I-it looks like they moved him.” Alphys babbled. Her face had gone pale again. Wolf let out a soft oof as she squeezed him unexpectedly. He felt like one of those large stuffed monsters he sometimes saw Didot with. “We-we need to find him before someone n-notices you are missing-“

“Alphys!”

Alphys slapped her free hand over her mouth to muffle her startled scream. “That’s Undyne!” She hiss-whispered to Wolf. “S-she must have noticed you're gone! Q-quickly, hide!”

She quickly set him down behind the desk and returned to the middle of the room. While she smoothed out her dress, Wolf clumsily crawled into a tight dark spot beneath the desk. His tail wouldn’t cooperate though and he had to grab it between his teeth so it didn’t stick out in the open.

No sooner had he done this than the door to the study slammed open.

“Alphys! I need your help-!”

“Undyne!” Alphys shrieked at the same time. Hands clasped together into fists over his chest. “I-I’m in big trouble I came here to c-check on the prisoner but when I e-entered the room he was gone and I don’t know what to do I-“

Undyne’s expression melted. The fins on either side of her head folded back, and a bead of sweat dripped down her brow. “Whoa. Alphys, it’s okay. Take deep breaths.”

She approached Alphys and cupped her hands in hers. Wolf couldn’t see their expressions from underneath the desk but the tension in the air seemed to cool. “That’s better, right? Jeez. I can’t believe I freaked out on you like that.”

“N-no it’s okay. It’s my fault. I w-was already... the Don worked s-so hard to capture Aster and when I saw he was gone...”

A soft gasp. Sniffling.

“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have yelled for you like that. Uh, actually, Don Asgore had Aster moved an hour ago. For security reasons.”

“Oh... I feel so silly now.” Alphys giggled between sniffles.

Though he couldn’t see Undyne’s face, nor could he place her tone exactly, her tone sounded lighter. “Hey, at least you’re not in actual trouble. Shit. I can’t believe I underestimated a prisoner like that.”

“Uh... Undyne, what do you mean?”

Another curse, Undyne said something very loudly that Wolf didn’t understand. “Aster’s kid is like, what, three? I totally underestimated that brat! I hear some shit down the hall, I leave the kid alone for five minutes and when I come back he’s gone!”

“Oh no!”

“Alphys, you gotta help me find him before Asgore realized I screwed up!”

“I-I’ll help! D-don’t worry we’ll find h-him— um, wait Undyne! If you’re out here looking for him, nothing is preventing someone from entering the storage room and finding out that both you and Wolf are missing!”

“Stars, you’re right! Fuck. I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s o-okay. I have an idea! You should go back and guard the storage room from the outside so no one realizes you screwed up, w-while I look for the prisoner f-for you.”

“Al, I can’t make you do that by yourself. It’s my responsibility. I should be looking for the brat.”

“N-no. It’s okay. I want to help! And this is the only way to do it without getting caught...”

At last, the loud fish monster deflated. Alphys stuttered out a few more words of encouragement and escorted her to the door. Once the door shut behind Undyne, Alphys held her breath until her footsteps faded down the hall. She slumped against the door.

“Whew... t-that was a c-close one.”

She went over to the desk and knelt, waiting patiently as Wolf shimmed out from underneath it. She bit her lip, eyes misty when he looked at her.

“I want to reunite you with your father but... I’m sorry... I-if Asgore took A-Aster to another room... I can’t in good conscience let you see what h-happens there...”

She picked him up. “M-my mission is to get you out safely. It’s what Aster w-would want. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

Wolf didn’t understand. Why was she sorry? Where was the Scientist and why couldn’t he see him? 

Before he knew it, Alphys hurried out of the study and turned back down the long hallway. The air was stifling and thick, humid and full of different scents and sounds, so muddled together he couldn’t tell them apart. At last, they reached a set of broad double doors and bright light engulfed his vision.

When his eyelights adjusted and he found himself in an alley between two strange stonewalls. Glancing up towards the bright light, Wolf gasped. 

It was so... so blue! Yes, that’s the color! The ceiling was so blue, he loved it!

Alphys shifted him higher in her arms, freeing up her dominant hand to fumble with a set of keys as she attempted to unlock the door to a weird and very big metal machine. It roared to life, startling Wolf. Alphys winced, no doubt also startled by such a loud noise, but to his astonishment, she had the bravery to step inside it! She set him down on the seat next to her’s and then the ground moved. Moved! 

He felt it sway underneath his feet and saw the world fly across the windowpane. The floor rumbled like the guttural growl of a very large and angry blaster. Wolf wondered if this was what it was like to be inside someone else’s ribcage.

Shaking, he dragged himself up to peer out the window. He couldn’t see the door they came out of anymore. The world went by so fast! He waited for the Scientist to appear in the seat behind them, fully expecting him to, but he didn’t. As he watched the world go by and grow darker, t finally dawned on him how far away he was. 

Mist gathered in his sockets. He sniffled. He wanted to go home. 

“I-I-I’m sorry! I c-c-couldn’t secure Don Aster!” was the first thing out of her mouth as Alphys barreled her way inside the building.

She held onto him so tightly he couldn’t see over her arms! He squirmed and finally found just enough leeway to look behind him.

“You did your best! We are pleased you managed this far.”

That shrill voice was like a lullaby to his ears!

Wolf whined. He tugged his arms free from the lizard monster’s embrace and twisted around to reach for the familiar monster.

Didot’s face was a welcomed sight. There were dark lines under his sockets and his smile felt strained for a millisecond, but as he caught sight of him, his smile brightened. In a single stride, he met Alphys before she reached him. A ping bounced off his soul. A gasp. “Nephew!! I am so pleased to see you are unharmed! I was worried about you!”  

Didot’s soft gloves hooked underneath his arms and Wolf wasted no time at all to bury his claws deep into the older skeleton’s vest. He was not letting go. No way!

“There, there, dear Kalluno! I am here now! I will never allow anything like that to happen to you ever again!” A wet sniffle. The corner of his eyesockets shimmered with unshed tears. He smiled through it, relieved. “Everything will be okay now. Shhh, I’ve got you..”

Didot’s warm mittens patted his back. He ran a hand down the back of his skull and it reminded Wolf so much of the Scientist that he began to cry. It was a quiet sort of sniffling but Didot heard it anyway and gently shushed him.

“Thank you for returning our nephew to us, Alphys!”

The lizard stuttered, her voice shrill and distressed. “Please-please don't thank me, I don’t d-d-deserve it.”

Didot waved her off. Wolf felt his body turn and dared to peek out from under the shelter of Didot’s coat.

Bodoni wasn’t tall but he was wide, and big and smelled heavily of smoke and a bittersweet tang of something burning. Wolf found all of that comforting but he wasn’t smiling. His teeth were closed in a grimace around the strange stick in his mouth. It was weird to see Bodoni without a smile.

“This ain’t good, Pap. The pup’s the only leverage the Dreemurrs had on him. If he figures that out and resists ‘em, they’re not gonna treat him with so much respect.”

“That is why we must act quickly,” Didot stated. Though his voice is nowhere near a shout, Wolf felt it as his rib cage rattled. Rising and falling with every word. “I have faith that our... other-brother’s acting skills will serve him well in the meanwhile.”

Bodoni snorted. “As long as Asgore remains ignorant, yeah.”

“E-excuse me, but, is there something I-I’m missing?”

The brother turned to their third company. Bodoni raised a brow, giving his brother a sideways glance. Didot shook his head. “Nothing to trouble yourself over. Merely a dispute between brothers!”

Bodoni muttered something under his breath, eyelights rolled skyward. He parted his teeth to exhale a ring of smoke. “It’s a family affair. Just focus on doin’ what we ask you to, toots.”

Alphys nodded mutely, suddenly very interested in locking her fingers together.

It seemed to Wolf that Didot wanted to say something. His mouth opened and closed, the light in his sockets hard, brow furrowed. Eventually, after staring hard at his brother for a solid minute, Didot found his voice again. “Sans... why did Aster really leave the Dreemurrs?“

“I dunno what you're talkin ‘bout.” Bodoni said slowly.

“Don’t lie, brother. There’s a reason Asgore chose to kidnap him this time! If Alphys and I understood his motives we could come up with a better plan!”

When Bodoni didn’t respond, Didot’s face softened. “I understand this is difficult to talk about and you have mixed feelings about him but…”

“It isn’t that.”

Didot perked up. “Do you forgive him?”

“Do you?”

A long pause. “Perhaps. Maybe! I am conflicted! A lot has happened in a very short amount of time, but I know one thing to be true!” He hugged Wolf tighter. “Kalluno’s happiness is important to me. I am tired of hurting, Sans. I don't want him to go through what we did. And, I think... I understand. That is why it’s so hard to stay mad! And I think you must feel the same way.”

Bodoni looked away. The bones of his brow scrunched in a grimace. “I ain’t gonna deny I’m still as pissed as all hell... he took advantage of our grief and I ain’t gonna forget that. But I see what he's like with the kid. Damn bastard is a big softie...” his voice got quiet, for a beat. Low enough that Didot leaned closer to listen. “can't tell if anythin' he did for us is genuine or not and ‘s trippin’ me up.”

He blew a frustrated puff on his cigar. “But I agree with ya. The kid doesn’t deserve to be left to the streets.” A pause and “Say... why don’t we just keep him and kick his old man to the curve? ‘s not like he’d really be an orphan that way.”

“Brother,” Didot scolded with a gasp. “That is an awful and cruel plan! In fact, that very idea is the backstory to many a vigilante-crime-sleuth! I will not have my dear, sweet nephew grow up to become a vengeful pig! Another Dick Tracy! A dastardly, good-for-nothing clubber!”

“Alright, alright,” Bodoni chuckled. “I promise I won’t turn the kid into another bastard gumshoe. Won’t give ‘im any reason not to love crime.”

Didot huffed back. “You better not!”

“As for why Aster left... ’s not my story to tell but-” Bodoni averted his gaze, glancing off to the far wall. “Look. Pap... Aster left the Dreemurrs because he was forced to choose between two people he cared an awful lot ‘bout. You remember how loyal he was. It tore him up inside but he committed himself to that decision to his dying breath...”

“Those two people... he didn’t choose Asgore, did he?”

The corners of Bodoni’s mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. “Nope. Instead, he chose the Don’s wife.”

A sharp breath from Didot’s left. Wolf turned to see Alphys had both her hands clamped over her mouth.

“Can’t tell ya more than that. If the two of yous wanna know more you’ll havta ask the old dame herself.”

Now it was Didot’s turn to gasp. Wolf found himself being squeezed again and let out a little squeak in surprise. He followed Didot’s ballooning eyelights across the room (and really, it was a big room), and across a field of abandoned leather booths and tables, another monster approached. 

Her fur was silky smooth, glistening white. Her ears were long. They draped over her shoulders and together with the pearls around her neck framed a soft face. She wore a blue and white floral printed dress that reached her ankles and everything about her was graceful. And as she neared, Wolf also realized she was very tall. She stood a head above Didot, and at least three above Bodoni.

When she was a pace away from them. The brothers took off their hats and Alphys stumbled and hastily dipped into a bow.

“D-Donna Toriel!”

“Mrs. Toriel!” Didot echoed. He fidgeted with his hat. Wolf resisted the urge to bite the brim as it smacked him in the face. “This is... this is an honor! If not also completely out of left field!”

“It is good to see you again, Papyrus, Alphys,” Toriel said with a gentle smile. “However regrettable the circumstances. I am sorry for your loss.”

Didot looked to Bodoni and his brother nodded once. “I told her everything. She knows.”

“And…” Didot said carefully. “You’re still willing to help, Mrs. Toriel?”

“Of course.” She took a breath, expression pained. “My cowardice cost my dear friend his life. He covered for me, all these years. He only expected gratitude in return. I would be heartless to sit back while an innocent’s life is in danger because of it.”

Bodoni chuckled humorlessly. “He ain’t so innocent, Tori, but I appreciate it.”

“Perhaps... but in the eyes of my ex-husband, it matters not. He is innocent of the crime my ex believes he committed.”

Wolf had honestly no idea what was going on, or even remotely what they were talking about. He tuned them out about then, catching snippets of the conversation here and there. Alphys expressed confusion throughout the entire exchange. Wolf caught a glimpse of her expression every now and then when he dared to look. Toriel’s voice was soothing and melodic and very different from the Scientist’s, whose voice was deeper and lilting with a sort of noise Wolf had no descriptive word for, only he was used to it and he missed it.

“And this is his son?” Toriel asked. At her question, Wolf felt the attention of the other monsters shift to him. Wolf cautiously peered over his shoulder and yep, that was a mistake. She was close.

“Indeed he is!” Didot puffed up his chest which had the unfortunate side effect of lifting Wolf closer to the white-she-beast. His sockets widened momentarily and stubbornly dug his claws deeper into Didot’s vest. “My nephew has made leaps and strides since we met him! I am so so proud of him. He is astonishingly brave for a- wait, how old did our other-brother say he was?”

“Uh... somethin’ somethin’ almost not quite a toddler anymore?”

Didot squinted. “So a child?”

“Yeah sure. Let's go with that.”

“Nyeh! Just as I thought all along!”

“ ‘course he also said he might be older than that too.”

“... so a child-child then.”

“Ok so maybe a child-child with a pinch of almost-child.”

“Ah! That makes perfect sense now! ... Sans you are making all this up!”

“No. Where did you get that idea?”

Toriel cleared her throat and the skeleton brothers looked to her, at once at attention. It reminded Wolf of how the other blasters reacted when the Doctor used the clicker, so he straightened too.

“As pleased as I am to hear Wolf is settling in well, now is the time to focus on rescuing his father. This situation is rather delicate. Once my ex-husband has me, he will have outlived his usefulness.”

“On the other hand, Asgore might not let ‘im go ‘til he’s seen you for himself. If we don’t play this right, we could lose both of yous in one night.” Bodoni countered. “Aster sacrificed a lot to get you out, I don’t want ya trapped in that situation again.”

Toriel sighed. “Nor do I. But Asgore has once again gone too far. It is my hope that he can be reasoned with. If not well…” she pursed her lips, “I will have to use other means. But I will not allow him to trap me again.”

“Toriel…” Bodoni said with surprising gentleness. “Doll… you didn’t ‘allow’ him to do anythin’ the first time. Nothin’ he did was your fault.”

For a moment the expression that struck her face was strikingly vulnerable, in sharp contrast to the wise and calm air she spoke with just moments before. Wolf’s soul squeezed. He knew that look. He’d seen it reflected in the polished metal walls of his cage. On other blasters after they came back from the Doctor’s- from Epsilon’s experiments. Fear. Shame. Sadness.

Wolf hunkered down and buried his muzzle in the crook of Didot’s arm. His sockets burned with tears.

“I will be careful. I promise,” Toriel said at last. Softly. “I trust you and Didot to watch my back where my experience fails me...”

Bodoni took her hand and pressed his teeth over her knuckles. “Between the four of us, doll? Heh. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

Wolf looked from one monster to another until he had made a full circuit of the room. The sense of anxiety hadn’t left, but now they were confident. Magic bound as tight between them as a pulled spring. It felt like a promise.

Chapter Text

A rough hand pushed the small of his back causing Gaster to stumble over the last step as they reached the ground floor. The journey had taken less time than he would have liked. To his shame and frustration, he had not found the opportunity to escape his captor’s grasp. And now it was too late. 

“Hey, boss. Look what we found.” 

The Don turned, silhouette haloed by a flash of light and the loud pop of gunfire. Anger flashed through Don Asgore’s eyes. Gaster held his gaze, teeth clenched and seething. Too angry himself to feel hurt by the hostility on what once had been an achingly familiar face.

“Is there no end to the misery you bring?” The Don shook his head. “No. I understand. You were trying to find your son. Bring him here, it is high time I put an end to this raid. Let us hope your brothers will listen to reason.”

One arm clenched around his arm was exchanged for another. Gaster sucked in a breath, shoulders locking, as the Don positioned himself behind him and led him away from the edges of the room. 

The room they entered was huge. A grand foyer. A high balcony ran the length of the room. The floor was hard tile, now cracked and disgraced by debris, glass, and dust. The thunder of gunfire deafened. Shots popped off at irregular intervals, and though the Don seemed to have it in mind to drag him to the epicenter of combat, their path was carefully orchestrated to keep out of the line of fire, behind upturned tables and pillars.

Gaster understood why, and that very reason spurred his thoughts into motion. There was movement up here, on the balcony. A flash of white...

He waited until there was a sufficient distance between the Don and his men. There was not enough shelter for the group to move as a unit after all and Asgore was arrogant. He did not believe their presence was necessary to restrain him.

Gaster dug his heels in, forcing the Don to halt mid-stride. The grip Asgore had on his arm tightened, and the weight of his presence bore down on his shoulders suddenly and oppressive. It wash over him and though the pulse of his soul jumped at the threat, the aggravated magic in his marrow sent buzzing, he forced himself to remain still and outwardly calm. Though he felt nothing of the sort.

If such passive defiance irritated Asgore in any way, he did not express it.

He summoned a pair of hands to sign. ‘Your plan will fail. Cooperation will not be achieved until I have seen my son.’

“Ah. At last, you break your silence,” Asgore rumbled. “And yet, far too late. Twice now, I offered your son mercy, and each time I was met with silence... What are you planning, old friend? Surely, you see the fruitlessness of your actions now. Your silence and callousness betray you.”

A puff of hot air rolled over his skull. Gaster glared coldly at the pillar of stone in front of him. The pair of hands he’d summoned was trembling slightly, aching with a steadily building rage. Self-restraint. He told himself. Self-restraint. If he spoke too carelessly Kalluno would feel the consequences. 

‘Speaks a man who would tear a frightened child from his guardian for the sake of selfishness.’ 

Well, there went his self-restraint.

“I question your sanity, to question me while I hold your life and the life of your son in my hands.” 

‘If you killed my son…’ the words were difficult to form. Difficult to process. The thought alone nearly turned his vision red. He could barely articulate what he would do if- no. He would not consider the possibility. 

 ‘-not only will you have slaughtered a child but a child of a once dear friend to Toriel. All in the name of forcing her hand. The betrayal she will suffer will be insurmountable. You dare stoop so low? To place the burden of that guilt on a grieving mother?’

This man was worse- much worse than anything the Asgore of his world became.  

“She will see reason in time.” The Don said, as though that this insanity was perfectly reasonable and not all deprived. He made no mention of Wolf, no comment at all acknowledging the threats he had made against his son. Gaster seethed. The low buzzing was gradually becoming a howl. When he signed again, the movement was sharp and stilted.

‘ Please. Reconsider. This conflict rests between you and Toriel. What grief you have with Aster should not extend to my son. Kalluno is innocent. A child. He is not yet old enough to speak , let alone understand the weight of past actions. He does not deserve this!’

“The gull you possess to speak so brazenly… On the contrary, your family became involved the moment you took my wife away from me. The consequences of your actions bleed to him. Perhaps it is a risk you should have considered when you chose to have the child… I find it strange you attempted to start a family while I yet lived.”

Gaster took a sharp breath. Forcibly smothering the wrathful buzzing in his skull lest he does something monumentally stupid. He couldn’t push too hard for fear of retribution being levied against Wolf. Asgore seemed unwilling to listen to reason and deaf to the harm he caused. He could not appeal to his pity or guilt. So then, what could he-

A loud clatter. With the sound of something heavy hitting metal, the grip on his tightened and Asgore moved. With a violent lurch, Gaster found himself shoved to the side. He hissed as his shoulder hit the wall. That hurt .

A hail of bullets peppered the ground where they stood moments prior. 

Asgore barked a name Gaster didn’t catch under two more consecutive shots. “-where is the boy? I ordered you to retrieve him!”

One of the monsters ducked around an upturned table to reach him. Gaster’s eyelight snapped to him. This is the first in a long while he had heard any news on Wolf. He had expected this, but still, his soul leaped in worry- after all, why present only one of your hostages? ‘Aster’ had failed to cooperate with him, so naturally, he presumed the Wingding brothers would be more willing to give him what he wanted for both their Boss and nephew.

Trembling in terror, the mobster muttered quickly to his boss. “Sir, I was told the kid is no longer in the Captain’s custody.”

“What?!”

Gaster stilled.

“S-someone took him from right under the Captain’s nose. Undyne is furious. S-she is working tirelessly to fix her mistake but-”

“Don’t bother,” Asgore’s blazing eyes snapped from the mobster to Gaster. A lip curled over sharp teeth. “If one of their men is clever enough to slip past the Captain, then the child is no longer on the premises. No matter. We still have their Don. They will not leave without him.”

A knot of tension unraveled from his throat. 

Bodoni and Didot had followed through. Kalluno was safe .

The light in Gaster’s eye grew cold. He had no reason to cooperate with Asgore now. Less reason to be cautious. Asgore could not hurt Kalluno while he was under the brother’s care. And though the situation between the three of them was... tense, to put it mildly, and regret stirred a painful pang through his heart, Gaster trusted the brothers significantly more than he did this farce of a King. 

The Don seemed to sense the change in mood, either through ambient magic or the hard glare of his eye sockets. He sneered. An uncharacteristic expression on Asgore’s otherwise soft muzzle. It stirred a sense of disgust.

“Do not think of escaping,” Asgore warned. “Cooperation is in your best interest. I will do everything in my power to ensure my wife is returned to me. Make no mistake.”

The tight grip returned to his arm. Asgore gave his back a push and continued walking at a brisk pace. His men hung back to provide cover, but it wasn’t long until once again, the Don’s progress was halted by gunfire. Gaster’s eye subtly followed each shot to its point of origin. They were getting closer. He needed to keep stalling.

‘ Your intention was flawed from the beginning. Do you earnestly expect Toriel to be receptive to you, after the way you treated her? ’

That instantly set the Don off. “I have treated my wife with nothing but respect! It was YOU who poisoned her mind. You, who manipulated her into leaving me! The syndicate was as much her home as it was mine. She would never have left if it weren’t for your influence! You who betrayed me time and time again-! Before I am through with you, Aster, you will rue the day you stepped foot in my city all those years ago!”

Ah, there it was again. That festering grudge. This variant of his majesty was a grieving, desperate man and emotion made him all the more volatile. Volatile and irrational. It was bluntly manipulative, and this knowledge stirred disgust in the pit of his being, but it was all he had to work with. He had tried civility and it hadn’t worked. 

‘You have yet to answer my earlier question. Does it make you uncomfortable?’ Asgore seemed to freeze. ‘I ask again, what do you hope to accomplish? Are you truly so foolish as to believe Toriel will forgive you?’

“Aster...” his voice had gone cold and quiet. His anger was steadily mounting. Gaster braced himself.  Despite anticipating what would come next, Gaster’s soul lodged itself in his throat. Tight as the wire of a snare.

‘ Ah, so her opinion does matter to you. Then the more fool you are to exacerbate her disgust. She will hate you. Break her will. Isolate her. Do as you like, but she will never again look at you with anything but contempt. Any merger chance you might possibly have will be voided. You have already lost her.’

“ENOUGH!” It happened so quickly. The Don spun him around and drew his hand back. He saw the trajectory, the downward swing, slowed to crawl and yet much too fast to process-

A soul beat elapsed and Gaster was blinking back particles from his sockets. Frozen in place, despite every step in his plan falling into place as smoothly and as elegantly as a key in a lock. 

Asgore’s counterpart reared back with a howl, but the movement was halted by a broken femur, sharpened to a wicked point, which pierced so far through his hand, that more than half of it came out the other side.

Shouting unlocked his frozen joints. He dropped underneath the Don’s arm, stumbled, and nearly tripped in his hast to put as much distance between him and the mobster as possible.

The Don snarled and forcefully yanked his hand free from the wall, bone spear and all with a sickening crack. He slowly, achingly, clenched his fist. His palm burst into flame. A ball of heat so dense, the bone whittled away into dust from the seer heat in a matter of seconds. And then he spun around, immediately in pursuit.

Gaster backed into another pillar. Hostile intent washed over his bones, sending needle pricks in its wake. His LV howled. He didn’t tear his eyes away from Asgore’s approach but he was not the only presence that was too close. Movement to his right; the metallic sheen of a pistol and on instinct he summoned another wall of bone. Jagged and splintered. 

The force of the summons cracked the floor. He felt his attack make contact with something and a skull-splitting howl thundered through the foyer

“Stand down! This is between me and Aster!” The Don bellowed. “Redirect your attention to halting the Wingding Brother’s advance!”

The mobsters backed down and did as ordered.

A wall of flame burst from the Don’s hands in a wide arch, briefly engulfing everything in sight in brilliant orange. The wall rolled, rising like a great snake, and as it fell in a cascade of heat and color, Gaster realized he had made another mistake.

While the Asgore he knew had lived through a war and would go on to commit acts of questionable morality, going as far as to kill children in the desperation to save his people- his violence was conducted in a limited capacity. Reserved for a strict purpose. Asgore did not execute his subjects and he did not cruelly torture them in the name of vengeance and possession. He was, by nature, not prone to aggression of any sort.

Gaster knew him and knew his logic. He disapproved of the slaughter of human children, he drew the line there, but Don Asgore’s purpose did not adhere to similar limitations. He had never exited the war mentally, despite it not seeming present in this world. What did that say for universal variables and constants?

The Don gave him little time to recover. He threw fireball after fireball. Ever two steps forward, Gaster took three quick steps back. Dodge and parry. But under the constant barrage, it was difficult to find the opportunity to escape. He needed to put distance between himself and the Don to take a shortcut, lest he drag the boss monster back to the lodge with him but every attack he summoned disintegrated in seconds. The Don’s anger was simply too intense- Gaster clenched his teeth. 

Damn this mockery of a King. Damn the blasted wound on his side and most of all, damn him for so foolishly assuming Aster’s name! None of this would have happened if he hadn’t done that from the beginning!

A ribbon of fire slashed across his chest too fast to block or dodge.

Ack- pain bloomed sharply across his rib. Fire licked across his cheek and singed his coat. Even the howling in his marrow was not enough to smother the pain this time. Gaster doubled over, wrapping one arm around his middle, and pressed down hard on the wound. 

Asgore advanced quickly. A sparking ball of molten fire pooled in the palm of his hand. Gaster felt the heat wash over him as he neared. Soul pulsing fast. He lifted his head, a grimace and a silent snarl on his teeth, unable to straighten or stumble back in time. A rough hand grasped his arm and he saw vertigo as Asgore yanked him to his side.

The pool of heat was replaced by something cold against his temple. “Stand down, Bodoni! If you want your brother alive, you will return my wife to me. He will not escape death twice!”

All gunfire suddenly ceased.

The heavy silence was interrupted by a multicolored flash and Bodoni stepped through a shortcut feet away. Grim-faced and bitter smile clenched tightly around the cigar pinched between his teeth. Hostile intent rolled off of him in waves. 

“You got a lotta nerve, I’ll give ya that. But you’ve made one big mistake, pal,” Bodoni plucked the cigar from his teeth. “See... that ain’t my brother.”

Asgore went still for several. Then he barked a strange, disbelieving laugh. “So even your family has turned against you. A pity.”

“You got cotton in those long ears of yours, pal? That ain’t him. You dusted my brother and sent his dust back to us in a box. You picked it out yourself, you cockeyed bastard. Aster is dead. Yer just embarrassing yourself now.”

The Don rumbled a deep growl. “My wife, Bodoni.”

Bodoni raised his hands. His smile sharpened. “Sure thing, pal.”

There was a sharp, harsh click, and Gaster felt the Don stiffen.

“Move not an inch,” the queen hissed.

The weight of her presence unfurled like a rolling cloud and washed over them in a gale. Warm at first, but brittle. Like sharply flung grains of sand grating over an open wound. She was furious.

“Toriel...” Asgore whispered reverently. He seemed to forget himself and shifted to turn, only to freeze for a second time as she said.

“Make no mistake, Dreemurr. I will blow your brains out.”

“Tori, please... let us not fight-”

Toriel’s counterpart raised her voice. “Asgore, you are going to listen to me and you are going to listen to me good. This madness must end. Aster is gone. He has been gone for months. Call off your men so we can end this civilly.”

“What are you talking about?” Asgore exclaimed. “He is right here! The monster who stole you from me!”

The gun pressed to his temple shook. Gaster closed his eyes, skull swimming, and missed the step Bodoni took forward.

“I was not stolen!” Toriel voice broke. “I am not an object to be traded between hands! I left of my own accord and you are delusional to think I would ever stay with you after what you have done!”

Grinding teeth, and then- “I see. You are too far gone to be reasoned with. Then I have no choice. Forgive me. I do this for your own good-”

BANG.

The weight against his back was gone. Just like that. A cascade of dust and embers fell across his shoulders and swept behind him like a shadow, sent into motion by the vacuum left behind.

Gaster breathed shallowly. It felt like the ground had been ripped out from underneath him. He stumbled away from Asgore’s remains- he couldn't get away from them fast enough. Bodoni grabbed his arm, a shoulder pressed to his to steady him.

“Easy, bud. We’re aren’t outta the frying pan yet.”

Somewhere across the foyer. There was an unsettling scream.

Toriel approached them. “Bodoni, we must leave quickly.” 

He nodded to her. She took his arm and in a flash of spatial magic, the grand foyer disappeared. 

Chapter Text

It took... a minute, to process that he was back in the lodge. 

He stared at the wall of the entrance hall without quite seeing it. Aware of the chaos around him but not quite able to acknowledge it. The dogs fussed over him and Toriel. It wasn't clear if anyone had explained to them that he wasn’t Aster but he didn’t have the energy, or presence of mind to correct them. And almost as soon as Bodoni had dropped them off, he vanished again.

It did not feel as though he was here. The spot where Don Asgore had pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple itched with a phantom cold. His words reverberated again and again through his skull, on Wolf, the threat to his life, the forboding notion that the consequences of his actions would inevitably bleed onto his son... (a sharp and cold dread dug into his soul like icy barbs) but he wasn’t there anymore. And Gaster’s black coat was covered in a fine grey-white powder.

He took it off. He wanted to see Wolf immediately but the idea of exposing the child to Asgore’s dust was frankly revolting and someone insisted they treat his wounds before he got up again. Toriel’s counterpart gazed at him in concern, though they exchanged no words. His HP was low but he did not have the mind to care.

It didn’t feel like it was over yet. He was waiting for something else to happen, to prolong the moment or to somehow punctuate it. Some seismic shift in his perception. But that did not happen.

Gaster was not struck by the same panic and disgust and fear for what he had done that he had felt when he had killed Epsilon. He felt somewhat cold. Strangely lost. And that was it. 

It was not satisfying. He was not happy. 

He was relieved and that stirred a strange mixture of guilt and a feeling he had no word for. The death of another monster should never feel satisfying, but the LV in his marrow hummed and quieted. A dull sense of pins and needles over his bones. It did not register Toriel, or indeed the dogs as a threat. Likely because Wolf was not yet in his arms. He had not dealt the final blow but the threat to Wolf, Bodoni, Didot, and himself had been neutralized. Now it settled, there but contented, and underneath his disgust for it, Gaster could not help but feel he had failed in some spectacular way.

Could it have ended differently?

Part of him had wanted Asgore’s counterpart to come to his senses in the end. To apologize. Make amends for all the sins he had committed. Could Don Asgore have listened if he had tried harder?

He would never know.

Around the time someone escorted Toriel upstairs he felt stable enough to not keel over when he stood. So he left the congested hallway into the parlor, unable to wait any longer to reunite with his son. Wolf and Didot were there waiting for him.

Shaking, Gaster gathered Wolf into his arms and squeezed so tightly the poor child squeaked. Didot stepped back to give them space, grinning and misty-eyed. He left the room quietly, proclaiming there was too much dirt in the air, but Gaster barely noticed.

Stars, words could not describe his relief. He was sure that there must be tears welling in his eyes too, but he was too relieved to care. 

He bounced no less than three separate checks off of Wolf in quick succession, unable to believe the results he saw for himself.

Was he just imagining it? Had Wolf lost health? No. No they had not. They were in perfect health. Thank the stars and the angel above and whatever luck the boy had managed to steal for himself despite it all. Wolf was unharmed. He found not one new cut or scratch, and Gaster cupped the child’s face with his free hand so gently, just to be sure his magic and eyesight were not deceiving him (they weren’t).

Wolf smiled. A toothy, cheeky thing on his dragonic muzzle. His eyelights were so bright. He clicked his teeth together and made a sound he had not heard from the child before- 

“Pa- aah!”

Gaster started. Eye sockets widened. Was that an attempt at speech? 

“P-pardon, could you repeat that, little one?” 

He held his breath as the child tried again. A small crease in the bridge of bone between his eyes as the little one focused. Wolf produced the same noise three more times and then, with undeniable pride, Wolf chirped, reaching out with his tiny paws and said- “Papa!”

Gaster made a choked noise, magic torn between laughing and crying out of sheer joy. “Child, we were hardly apart for a day and you have the audacity to learn your first word while I was not watching?”

He was smiling. He was smiling and laughing and crying all at once. Now of all times, his son had just spoken his first word!

Bodoni returned not long after that but the thirty minutes preceding his return were a bit of a haze. Gaster cradled Wolf in his arms, curled up on the sofa in the parlor. He was still processing the events of hours ago and would be for hours to come. He felt more comfortable doing so here, in solitude. 

Wolf was a comforting weight in his arms. Tucked underneath his chin and fast asleep over his sternum. His tiny ribcage rose and fell steadily. Gaster felt every breath he took and was reassured by it. He couldn’t get over how small he was. How fragile. It had been so long since Sans and Papyrus were that size. But here in his arms, he was safe. Cocooned in the weight of his magic and untouchable.

Gaster wasn’t of the mind to let him out of his sight anytime soon.

Minutes passed and the commotion throughout the lodge, set into motion by the return of several important figures, finally settled. Quiet footsteps echoed through the old wood of the hall. Then the hollow click of knuckles rapping on the frame of the archway into the parlor. “How’re you holdin’ up, Boss?”

Gaster frowned, eyelight flicking up to him in surprise. “Is that moniker not in poor taste?”

“Eh, you are the one with the kid here. That makes ya boss of somethin’.”

Gaster leaned back into the armrest he was curled up against. He nuzzled the top of Wolf’s skull, partially to reassure himself he was still there and partially to give in to the overwhelming urge to curl up around the child and hide him from all the world.

A rustle of fabric. Bodoni rubbed the back of his neck. With an edge of caution, he slowly crossed the room and sank into the armchair across from him.

“We uh... we have a talk to finish.”

That they did. Gaster took a breath, a stiff and slow nod, and gave Bodoni his full attention, aware he had much to make up for. It was time to listen.

Bodoni took a moment to gather himself. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar, lighting it with a quick snap of his phalanges. The light from above, and the brim of his hat, drew a long shadow over his face.

“I’ll be upfront with ya. I don’t know if I can trust ya again after the shit you pulled.”

It hurt to hear, and Gaster’s soul sank with grief and guilt but it was fair. It was absolutely fair.

“I’m conflicted. See, part of me wants to give ya cement shoes and drop ya off a bridge... but another part wasn’t willin’ to let Asgore clip ya for good.” 

Bodoni’s hand shook as he pulled the cigar from his mouth and puffed out an angry cloud of smoke through his teeth.

Gaster recalled vividly the direction Asgore’s dust had gone. A good portion of it fell on his shoulders, but most of it had been swept in the opposite direction. The shot that killed Asgore had not come from behind him. 

If Bodoni hadn’t shot the Don, Toriel likely would have, but he had acted first.

Nothing was said for a long, fragile moment. Despite the hurt, despite the anger, grief, and betrayal; despite this soul-crushing cocktail of emotions, Bodoni had not been willing to let Gaster die. 

Bodoni struggled to look at him.

“I didn’t make it hard for you to trick us. I was so desperate to have Aster back I was willin’ to look past the discrepancies. Pretend I didn’t see ‘em because you gave me and Pap somethin’ we’ve always wanted. A second chance with Aster. Not just ‘cause, y’know, he’s dust. But before that. Our relationship with him was shit.” 

A short pause. Bodoni’s voice went quiet, thick with emotion. “Despite that… he was still family. He was still our brother. We still wanted his time and approval and I’m still wonderin’ why I haven’t smashed your skull in because that time we had with you and the kid- that meant somethin’ to me.” Bodoni spat.

It hurt. It hurt to know that he was the cause of that anger. Gaster desperately, desperately wanted to look away from Bodoni. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t turn away from the mistakes he had made. 

Bodoni took a deep breath. Settling back into a fragile calm. “The cruel part wasn't so much tricking us. It was when you saw what we didn’t have and decided to give it. That’s what we’re hurt by. You gave us somethin’ that wasn’t real.”

“That is-“ his teeth clicked as he clamped his mouth shut. His first impulse was to argue against this. He couldn’t help but care about Bodoni and Didot. But he had lied, had stolen Aster’s name, and led the brothers to believe something that wasn’t true. Bodoni was right. That had been cruel of him. It would have been kinder, to begin with the truth and leave immediately if the brothers had proven hostile. But Gaster hadn’t done that. 

He had been confronted with a situation where he felt he had to choose between two variations of his family. One that had seemed dangerous at the time and another who was too young to defend himself. Too young to know better.

His first mistake had been to pick one over the other. The second was to not lead with the truth and the third to insert himself into a position that had never belonged to him to begin with.

In the end, he had acted out of selfishness.

Gaster tried to smother his reaction. He was not fishing for pity and he did not want to distract from what Bodoni was going through or needed to express. But Bodoni must’ve noticed before he could completely smother it because he stared at him for a long moment. Expression warring between surprise and a spark of relief that he seemed equally as desperate to hide. 

Gaster felt the check and allowed it to test his sincerity.

“So... some of it was real after all.” Bodoni looked exhausted as he averted his gaze.

“I cannot apologize enough for the pain I caused you,” Gaster said in a strained voice. “I acted out of self-interest and arrogance. Regardless of my reasons, I hurt you and your brother. I cannot excuse what I have done.”

Finally, Bodoni held his gaze again. A thought clicked into place. A piece of a larger puzzle Bodoni was putting together in the breadth of silence between words. “I had a hunch, bud. And it makes sense if I think ‘bout it now. You walked through the lodge like someone’s ‘bout to rip the floor out from under you. Sometimes it’s like ya can’t believe you aren’t dreamin’. Now I realize it was 'cause you were just as desperate to have us, as we were to have Aster.”

He scrutinized Gaster in a new light. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I believed it when you said you lied to us to protect the kid. Who wouldn’t? Somethin’ fucked with you, and you were scared. But that wasn’t the only motivation you had, was it? Something else pushed you to take Aster’s place even after you started to doubt yourself.”

His chest ached. Bodoni’s deduction struck startlingly close to home. He smiled sadly, bitter regret and shame on the edge of his teeth. 

“I acted selfishly.”

“Why?” Bodoni pressed. 

“I watched you and Papyrus die. Many. Many times.”

Bodoni froze. He searched Gaster’s expression for anything resembling insincerity. The slightest hint he was lying again because for someone who had not experienced a time loop, the idea must seem absurd. Gaster felt another, short yet sharp PING bounce off his soul, and then Bodoni's eyelights darkened. “How? How’d we die more than once?”

“...how familiar are you with the concept of a time loop?”

Bodoni slowly sank back into his chair, silently gnawing on the end of his cigar. He looked nauseated. “ ‘might’ve heard of it before. Never thought it was possible... stars.”

Numb himself, Gaster wondered what the first question that flew through his mind had been. He had yet to describe the context of the world he came from: he had tried, earlier, to convey the concept of a multiverse but looping timelines was a separate and equally complicated subject he hadn’t had the time to broach yet. But Bodoni didn’t ask. The details of his original world were perhaps better left for another time.

“I was bitter too, I admit. Despite the turbulent and complicated relationships Aster had with those around him, he was remembered. While I am... not.” 

He understood the mechanics of why. Aster was killed, dusted, in the physical plane of his world. While Gaster became victim to his own work, blinded by arrogance and the erroneous assumption he could control variables he did not yet understand, and quite literally fell through the walls of his reality. Gaster had dealt with exactly the kind of power that led him to where he was now. Aster had not. 

But it didn’t help. It still hurt in a way that was difficult to acknowledge. Gaster could not imagine indulging in the materialism and wealth Aster coveted. They had both danced on the precipice of death but Gaster had lived... in a sense, only be erased. Aster had died but was still revered by those who knew him. 

It didn’t seem fair that a monster who was sometimes feared by his own family was remembered but Gaster was not by his own.

Sometimes Gaster wondered if he might as well have died, for all his disappearance meant to the world he was trying to return to.

“It was comforting... to see the two of you grown, alive, and well. After spending so long in isolation, unable to act. Unable to do anything but witness tragedy, after tragedy... I suppose I wanted to occupy your brother’s space. I felt I needed to act. To make up for everything I was unable to prevent.”

Wolf shifted in his sleep and Gaster brushed a gentle hand over his head. “In retrospect, that was a terrible idea.”

Bodoni plucked the cigar from his mouth. “Bud, if you'd just been truthful from the beginning... well, can’t take it back now, can you?” 

Gaster closed his eyes. No. No he could not.

“But, y’know what? Paps and I... we learned somethin’ from this. Can’t say I completely regret hostin’ ya when you gave Pap the opportunity to be an uncle, gave us the chance to get to know a wonderful kid. And for me?” Gaster could physically hear the vicious smile that spread across the other skeleton’s teeth. “You gave me the opportunity to finally bop off the old goat. Been meaning to get to that for a while.”

“Consider yourself on probation. I don’t know if I can trust you, ‘least not yet, but I’ll let you stay. Just don’t go spittin’ in my face again, capiche?”

He nodded, blinking his eyes open, emotionally drained and simultaneously relieved. It was more than he could have hoped for. ‘ Understood. ’

“Nyeh! I am pleased to see that we are making up now!”

Didot stood in the archway into the parlor, hands placed triumphantly on his hips. “No need to explain, I have been skillfully eavesdropping on your conversation for some time now.”

“Rude, bro. Where's your manners?”

“They went out the door with that annoying pomeranian Doggo invited over last week!” While Bodoni chuckled, Didot crossed the room and confidently and gracefully sat down on the couch across from him. 

“Whoa. Who’re you and what’ve you done to my brother? Papyrus, sittin’ down? I don’t believe it.”

“Oh can it Sans,” a huff, and Didot crossed his arms. “I have something important to say and your levity does not add to the serious nature of this conversation! Number one: Gaster, I, your relative from another reality, have decided to forgive you! For the sake of our sanity, I announced to the dogs that you are in fact, not Aster but a distant cousin of ours. Of course... they don’t believe me. They are convinced you are Aster, no matter how many times I try to convince them otherwise!”

Bodoni snorted.

“It’s not funny Sans! Alphys did not take it well and the poor dame is already confused and stressed! In a very short amount of time, she was told Aster was alive and then later he was not! The dogs will only contribute to her headache!”

“Yeah, why did we tell her that anyway?”

“It was your idea!” Didot threw his hands into the air. “I believe your reasoning was: ‘she might not feel so loyal to ‘im if she knew she was risking her life to rescue Aster’s doppelgänger’ which was a valid concern at the time but it’s giving us problems now!” 

Didot raised his voice to drown out his brother’s guffaws. “Number two: I demand nephew visitation rights in compensation for the emotional distress you have caused!”

Gaster blinked, overwhelmingly pleased but still shocked. 

“I assume you plan on returning to your home reality, correct? Then, I demand the right to visit my nephew and any other pre-existing relative, whenever the time is mutually convenient! And... perhaps, when you least expect it!”

The joy he felt at such a demand... was indescribable. ‘Of course. Of course, Papyrus. Once the logistics are settled, you are welcome to visit anytime.’

With the widest grin one ever did see, Didot clapped his hands together. “With that taken care of, who wants a very late brunch?”

Chapter Text

“Other-brother, Gaster- it occurs to me that our time together has been lopsided! You see, you have had the chance to get to know my brother and myself- albeit without us knowing, but we haven’t had the chance to get to know YOU!” Didot said to him a few days later. “Would you... like to make breakfast with me?”

It did not even cross his mind to say no. Gaster felt tired enough from being held hostage, though he had time to rest, wary to move even five feet away from Kalluno, but even if he had been completely alert when Didot had asked, he couldn’t have denied him.

‘I would love to, Papyrus.’ he signed. He did not feel like speaking verbally that morning. ‘I will join you downstairs in a moment.’

Some part of him expected the atmosphere to be somewhat stilted and uncomfortable between himself and the brothers, and in some ways it was. Bodoni looked at him differently. And true to his word, he did not trust Gaster as he did before. As much as it pained him to be back at square one with Bodoni, he understood the other’s need for space and time. At the end of the day, his comfort took priority.

In contrast, Didot... was himself. Quick to forge a new path forward, open and optimistic, while his brother lingered and cautiously waited to see what lay on the horizon before he made a move.

He changed Kalluno into a new set of clothes and brought him downstairs. Kalluno was half asleep in his arms, lazily resting his skull against Gaster’s chest. He yawned once, as they descended the stairs, and fell back into a light doze once they reached the kitchen.

He gingerly extracted Kalluno’s velcro-like claws from his coat and placed him in the wooden highchair, then turned to join Didot behind the island counter, near the stove.

‘What is on the menu for today?’

Didot briefly turned away from the cookbook he’d been studying and beamed. “Hash with Tomato Gravy and Biscuits! Or possibly Cream of Wheat! I can’t make up my mind.”

Gaster looked over to the corner of the counter to a small, cardboard box labeled ‘Cream of Wheat.' It stirred a faint memory.

‘May I?’

Didot handed him the box. “Do you also have Cream of Wheat in your world?”

Gaster turned over the box, one hand still folded behind his back. The pair he had summoned to sign that morning hovered over his shoulders, unhurried in their movements. ‘Not quite. This is a brand I somewhat recognize. Cream of wheat is a human variant on porridge, correct?’

“That’s right! Would you rather have that than tomato gravy biscuits?” Didot asked eagerly. “We have jarred olives, kumquats, and okra we can add as a topping!”

He blinked at the idea of adding okra and olives to porridge. Gaster chuckled lightly and set the box back on the counter. ‘ A fascinating alternative. I would have thought you would follow a traditional human recipe for it.’

“I am! Humans like to add fruit to their porridge, do they not?”

A pause, as Gaster followed the logic of his son’s counterpart. Then he laughed. ‘You are not wrong. Those items are, scientifically, fruit. But, I believe a level of nuance is lost. If I recall correctly, humans have a sensitive palette. As Wolf does currently. I do not think the acetic taste of olives would be appropriate, first thing.’

“I see,” Didot brought his hand over his chin in thought. “I believe we still have dried dates and a jar of peaches. Would that be better suited?”

Gaster agreed it would. Didot beamed and gathered what he needed to make hash and porridge. Gaster offered his assistance and took over cooking the sausages Didot wanted to use for the hash while he chopped potatoes. Gaster still silently marveled at how freely meat was available above ground.

“I’ve noticed you seem to know what you’re doing, but I’m surprised! Aster did not like cooking.”

‘ Cooking is simply another form of chemistry. I am a scientist and a father, after all. It was a necessary skill.’

Didot lifted the cutting board and scraped neatly chopped cubes of potato into the frying pan. Gaster watched the way he handled the knife with a critical eye but found no fault. “What is- was my alternate self like?”

Gaster closed his eye sockets for a moment, pained. Is or was? Both verbs were applicable. He pushed that thought aside and focused on the question. The first memory that came to mind made him smile.

‘The Papyrus I knew... was enthusiastic and ruthlessly compassionate. He believed in the best in everyone. Even as a child, he was exceptionally kind and showed more care to those around him than I have seen in my lifetime.’ 

To this day, Gaster sometimes wondered how he had managed to produce a monster who cared so deeply for others. His past self, the one who was not yet a royal scientist and could never have predicted he would become a father, would certainly not have thought it possible. (hence, in part, why Gaster could not envision himself becoming a parent back then.)

‘He was remarkably intelligent and routinely thought of solutions to problems I would never have considered. I have always felt he had the potential to become a brilliant engineer,’ he frowned slightly, recalling with regret how, in retrospect, his high expectations might have contributed to pushing Papyrus away from that field.

‘Ultimately, I believe he was happier helping others directly.’

Didot nodded along. He was quiet for a moment, digesting that information. He seemed pleased. “And Sans?”

Gaster chuckled. ‘Ah, the bane of my heart. Incorrigible prankster. I admit, I often encouraged his behavior in situations, where, I should have thought twice to. He was so whip-smart with his wit and humor that I could not help but encourage him.’ 

Gaster had also been young, inexperienced, and in awe of what this tiny bundle of bones meant to him. At the time, his first creation— his first son , could do no wrong.

‘As yours is now, the Sans I knew had a penchant for laziness. He was loyal, competitive, and more sentimental than he cared to admit, though naturally more reserved than his brother. I fear I may have smothered him, when he was younger.’

“Why is that?” Didot asked. He added the cooked, and chopped sausages into the pan, along with other vegetables. Gaster poured water into a pot to boil for the porridge. He watched the flame of the gas range lick the bottom of the pot.

‘For his age, Sans’ HP was astonishingly low. Over time, it became clear to me that his condition was unnatural. Though I was never able to determine the exact cause, I had my suspicions... regardless, the fragility of his heath was a constant concern of mine.’

“I... I see. I am glad my brothers didn’t get sick often. Sans has always had less HP than both myself and Aster but… certainly not low enough to warrant such concern.” Didot said quietly. He added milk, water, and the oak mix from the box into the pot to boil. 

“I do not imagine we would have survived as long without Sans. Your world must have been kinder than ours.”

‘That is fortunate. I am happy the three of you looked out for each other.’ Gaster said. ‘ Indeed, it was. In general, monster culture was less violent. Peace-faring. Though we were not without our flaws.’

“Hmm. Yes. I concluded as much! You seem uncomfortable with weaponry in general. You never once touched Aster’s pistol! Which I felt quite odd. He liked to carry it on his person.” Didot hesitated a moment. “You also seemed uncomfortable with violence, and yet, your LV is the same as Aster’s! Yet another reason Sans and I did not suspect you right away! Though, of course, it would have been easy enough for you to conceal your stats from us.”

Gaster frowned. He did not recall Bodoni using Sans’ unique ability to gauge his LV. He had been looking at his health at the time and the brush of his magic had not gone any deeper than an average check. The ability to see LV, to Judge it rather, was a rare ability few monsters possessed, though Gaster had no reason to believe Bodoni did not have that ability. In his own timeline, Sans had been the first monster in two generations to express that rare form of magic.

But Didot’s conclusion did not seem logical. 

‘How did you obtain that information?’

“Ah. Well, If you recall, Sans checked you when you first met him!  I did not, because it is a bit smothering. I thought you were Aster at the time, and as the younger sibling, it would have been disrespectful of me to do so anyway. Sans, of course, doesn't care. But I digress. If Sans had felt your LV wasn’t right, he would have told me. Thus! I concluded that you and Aster must have identical stats.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that checking could be seen as disrespectful. It was a common practice underground. A simple and quick way to exchange information. No different than taking in another’s appearance or exchanging a short greeting. Gaster made a mental note to be a little more self-aware of his actions in the future. Customs appear to vary between worlds. Which was fascinating.

LV served two purposes. One: protect the user in a hostile environment. And two: to enforce one’s willingness to fight. Thus, ensuring survival. Over time, LV would build up as violence is perpetuated, but it could not decrease. It marred the soul permanently. One could learn to live with it, compensate for it, as Gaster had, but the effect it had on a monster’s soul was impossible to reverse.

Still, Didot was incorrect. Gaster told him as much. ‘Bodoni did not Judge my soul. I have no way to corroborate whether Aster and I had identical stats. Though the possibility seems unlikely.’

Gaster had... ended, that part of his life. But Aster had not. It was a simple enough conclusion to reach.

Didot seemed confused. “But I thought-”

A sharp chirrup pierced the air, Gaster’s soul leapt in fright and he spun around to look at the child. Wolf’s eyelights were wide and bright in the haze of smoke-

“The hash!” Didot cried. 

The porridge! Gaster yanked the pot from the range before the substance within could dry out and char.

A flash of multicolored light and Bodoni appeared on the other side of the island counter. “Whoa. Where’s the fire? I could hear scamp here squeakin’ all the way from the parlor.”

“Nothing was burned!” Didot denied shrilly as he scrapped the less charred half of the hash onto a plate and hastily shoved what was left under the sink faucet. 

‘Smoke?’ Gaster signed. ‘My apologies, I do not believe I know him.’ He transferred the porridge into individual bowls to conceal his embarrassment.

Bodoni snorted, eyesockets crinkling from barely restrained amusement. He slid onto the counter stool and nudged Wolf with his elbow. “Get a’ look at these two. Good thing we’re here to set ‘em straight, kiddo. ‘Otherwise, they’ll burn the house down...”

“Sans...” Didot warned. “Don’t you dare-!”

“And y’know what? I’m stoked to have ya as my partner in crime, kid. Who knows, this partnership of ours could take us to new fahrenheits.”

And Wolf, to Gaster’s silent pride, giggled.

Didot’s face fell into his hands with a groan.

“Would it not be prudent to redefine your position as our Consigliere?” 

Gaster held back a sigh. 

The brothers had been bickering back and forth for the better part of fifteen minutes now. It started when Didot had asked him about the “mess” he had meticulously constructed in Aster’s office, which led to a conversation about the machine he had described and how he came into their world. Bodoni followed them in because he had been curious about it too, but somehow the conversion had been diverted. Bodoni had called him “Boss” once and that had led to their current debate.

“I truly do not want a position of power within your syndicate.”

Didot made a disparaging noise. “It is not about power, other-brother. It’s about presentation!”

“You’ve been demoted from Boss, technically, so we gotta fit ya in on the ladder somewhere,” Bodoni added from his position on the corner of Aster’s desk. The glowing end of the cigar in his mouth bobbed as he spoke “I say we write him down as an associate. That way, our mademen don’t expect ‘im to command them, but his connection to us is clear.”

Didot frowned. “I dislike the degree of separation that comes with that title. He is a member, not a business affiliate!” Turning to Gaster he said. “Would you not accept the title of lieutenant at the very least? Even the title of soldier would be better suited.”

Gaster made a face. It was childish of him, but the idea of being referred to as a soldier, even in this loose adjacent sense, felt uncomfortable. “I do not understand the importance of establishing my position on the syndicate hierarchy. Given that I have no desire to be part of it.”

“It’s about protection and respect!”

Bodoni’s gaze flicked ceilingward. “See, the higher you are, the less likely some smuck will mess with ya. But you run the risk of becomin’ a steppin’ stone for someone else. That’s why I kept tellin ya, pap. We gotta write him down as an associate. In the family, we’ll all know who he is, but on the outside, no one will spare ‘im a second glance.”

“Brother, what you are failing to consider is the poor timing of the implementation of this strategy. What is left of the Dreemurrs... excluding Donna Toriel of course, will no doubt remember the ferocity of our retaliation. They will never fall for such a ruse!”

“We don’t need ‘em to. We just need everyone else to look away.”

This argument was going nowhere. Gaster sighed. He rapped his claws on the hardwood of the desk and the brothers stopped bickering to look at him. “We are overly deliberating on this subject. Bodoni, write me down as an associate and be done with it. Please.”

Didot glared at his brother. “Do not gloat.”

In reply, Bodoni’s smile was decidedly cheeky. 

Gaster decided it was time to get back on track. “You were curious about the machine that transported me into your reality, Didot?”

The brothers looked his way, eagerly. Gaster opened a drawer and removed the model from Aster’s desk. Mindful of where he knew the fissure to be, he placed the replica off-center. It did not escape his attention that neither Bodoni nor his brother looked to where it was. He did not expect them to, but the question of why he could see and interact with the fabric of reality in this way plagued his thoughts.

Didot’s eyelights brightened. “I did not realize you made miniatures- wait! Is that a model of the machine you told us about?”

Gaster nodded. He motioned with his hands, silently granting permission for Bodoni to pick it up. His brother leaned over his shoulder, keen eyelights admiring the intricate details of the model.

“Hot diggity! That is some fine detail work. I am impressed! You certainly have a keen eye, other-brother.”

Bodoni carefully turned it over in his hands. “ ‘reminds me of a tesla cage.”

“Astute observation, Sans! I was just thinking that myself! It’s like a tesla cage but in reverse! It looks as though the cage is meant to contain something, rather than protect from it?“ 

Silently, Gaster preened. The two were observant themselves. A shame he had not asked for their thoughts sooner. “In a sense, you are correct.”

The brothers looked at him.

“My counterpart designed this machine to channel energy from the CORE, a massive thermogenerator, into a concentrated space. I believe, as well, that he must have constructed a magicule accelerator. Without it, it would have been nigh impossible for him to concentrate energy into a form potent enough to force a hole in space-time.” 

Gaster directed their attention to the tubes that connected to the machine, but which he had been unable to connect to anything else without also creating a replica of the CORE. Something he did not have the space or resources to build at the scale he was working with.

“Initially, I believed it would be necessary to reconstruct his machine to leave your reality. However...” Gaster frowned, vividly reliving the frustration he had with this project. “-your world lacks the resources I need to complete it.”

“Is that all?” Bodoni said with a slow blink. “Whatever you need, bud, we’ve got the clams to pay for it.”

“We also have connections to many refineries and masters of industry. It would be a simple matter to supply the materials you need!”

He shook his head. “You do not understand. I have already exhausted that avenue. While I appreciate your support, it is not possible. The technology I need will not exist for several decades. I cannot wait for it to develop naturally.”

“How’d you know that?”

“The technology of your world is many, many decades behind mine.”

A pause. The brothers were quick to read between the lines. Didot’s eye sockets bulged. “You are from the FUTURE??”

“Roughly seventy years, give or take,” Gaster confirmed.

“Then, why do you look like a less hardened and world-wary mirror of Aster? Should you not be MORE world-wary??” 

Bodoni rubbed the bridge of bone between his sockets. “Hold up. I’m confused, here. When you explained that you were Aster’s alternate self, I was under the impression your world mirrored ours. How could your timeline be set seventy-ish years forward? Shouldn’t that be impossible?”

Gaster paused for a moment, frowning as he gathered his thoughts. He’d had time to consider the state of the multiverse, and though his sample size was low, (and basing conclusions off a sample size of three was hardly wise) current data already contradicted his previous understanding of it. But once he discarded those old conclusions, what seemed to be happening here made intuitive sense.

“If your assumption is that every world stems from the same shell in a sort of branching tree of possibilities, then yes. But that is not what I have observed. It seems instead that there exists a pool of commonality, from which any given world pulls. The difference, I cannot account for.”

The brothers digested that information, slow to process the significance of that assertion. Bodoni reacted first, hand dropping from a suit pocket, expression pinched as though attempting to piece together a distant equation, though it was Didot who spoke. “That is... confusing, but with the context of your previous explanation I think I understand.”

“What force determines what stays consistent?” Bodoni asked.

“An excellent question.” Gaster praised. Though the weight of it dulled his enthusiasm. “Unfortunately, I do not have the answer.”

The brothers fell into a contemplative silence, each lost in thought. Gaster quietly leaned on the desk, palms braced on the polished grain. His mind drew a frustrating blank on this subject. It was a breathtaking line of inquiry that he was nonetheless excited by. If he had a comprehensive understanding of which attributes of a world were shared, and which weren’t- where there was a pattern, there was a cause and he would be that much closer to an answer.

But finding his way home came first. 

“So, if you can’t build this machine, how do ya plan to get home?” Bodoni asked. 

“Ah, that. I plan to travel through the void, directly,” the word itself tasted bitter.

Didot stared at Gaster, concern thick within his ambient aura and Gaster swiftly looked away, reordering a pair of pencils on the desk so he wouldn’t have to see his expression. “You mentioned that before, but, I admit. I am still confused. What is this ‘void’? It causes you so much distress!”

“Simply put,” Gaster began, eyelight fixed on the pencil under one claw. “It is the space between worlds. A gap. Where-in nothing exists. It is the space I fell into before I met Kalluno.”

“Past observations imply that the void is not uniform. Irregularities in the structure, reminiscent of currents, as found in natural water systems, suggest there is some sort of- system, governing the makeup of the non-space--”  Gaster’s voice failed him, a sharp stoic pop. He struggled to work through it for a moment and made a sound of frustration when he couldn’t.

Bodoni shifted, leaning forward to rest a hand on his upper arm, and gave the fabric there a squeeze. “Take your time, bud.”

The pressure was reassuring.  The small, physical touch reminded him he was here, safely in a physical state of existence. Gaster took a breath to calm himself, rubbing a hand over his face to ease the tension.

“How do you access such a place?” Didot asked, once Gaster had composed himself.

“ That , I will have to demonstrate.” He went on to explain, briefly, how he had discovered the phenomenon and his strange ability to perceive it. How others could not. With the exception of Kalluno. Then he reached the part where he had to explain that he had discovered a fissure on the surface of Aster’s desk.

The brothers stared at him incredulously. “You’ve got to be kiddin’ me.”

“I do not see anything wrong with our brother’s desk,” Didot added dubiously.

Gaster considered telling him, how many, he had seen, just around the lodge. But decided against it. He didn’t wish to alarm Didot or Bodoni. Current data did not suggest the presence of the fissures themselves were cause for alarm, but he also didn’t have any way to prove that they were entirely safe either. Or that, they weren’t suggestive of a larger problem.

And they very well could be.

If he could just figure out why he and Kalluno could see the fissures, he would be that much closer to an answer.

“I am not surprised.” he took a deep breath. “Please observe. I am curious if you will notice, once I interact with it directly.”

It was a tricky thing to focus on. He had an easier time finding it when he searched for it in the periphery of his vision, and only once he was sure he had it, did he look at it directly. This process was getting distressingly easier with practice.

He found it again by doing just that, skimming his gaze near where he knew it would be, and it came into focus as though beckoned by his attention-adjacent. A gapping, black splinter in the fabric of the world.

 Like the one had discovered in the garden and the fissure he had seen in the hall, it appeared to turn its surface to face him, no matter the angle he approached it from.

The experience never ceased to be disconcerting.

His chest felt tight, soul pulsing progressively faster as he pushed his hand through the opening. A cold, prickling sensation ran up from his claws, up his distal bones, to his carpals then to his wrist.

It was like dipping his hand into a heavy, vicious-like substance. A heavy vicious-like substance with a strong surface tension. Words like; membrane and film, came to mind. As the depth reached his wrist, he felt that thin ‘layer’ break, and from the wrist down, he lost all sense of temperature and weight.

A noise of pain snapped his attention away from the fissure. The brothers looked ill. Didot dug his palms into his eye sockets, making a pitiful sound close to a whimper and Bodoni braced himself on the desk, appearing to stubbornly resist a strong sense of dizziness. 

“I think we’ve had enough, bud.”

Gaster yanked his arm free and felt the same, strange rebounding snap he experienced the first time he'd done this and almost immediately the brothers seemed to recover.

“Are the two of you alright?” He was alarmed by their reaction. The dog had not reacted to the fissure in the garden despite leaping “through” it. Wolf, though he clearly saw these fragile points in reality as Gaster did, did not seem to be adversely affected by the sight of them.

“Weirdest fuckin’ sensation I’ve ever had,” Bodoni muttered, grimacing. “ ‘the hell kinda magic was that? ‘s like someone shoved a beehive inside my skull. I couldn’t see shit. Everything kinda blurred together.”

“I think this must be what a ‘brain-freeze’ feels like, Sans. As humans describe it.” Didot wiped his face on his sleeve. He was not crying, but he was nonetheless wiping something away from his eye sockets.

“Your arm turned into a fuckin’ kaleidoscope.”

“Yes! It was as though you were being duplicated into many bright pieces of yourself at once! But only from the arm down.”

“Fascinating…” Gaster looked down into the black, gaping mouth of the fissure. He rubbed the carpals of his wrist as he thought, working sensation into the bone where a sense of cold lingered. “I apologize. I had no idea the demonstration would affect the two of you so greatly.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but... reaching into the void does not seem healthy. Neither for you or reality!”

“Should ya really be messin’ with shit like that? Are we in danger?”

And there it was, the question Gaster had been asking himself since he had first discovered the phenomena.

He honestly didn’t know.

“Unclear.”

Naturally, neither Bodoni nor Didot were reassured by that admission.

“I do not know if the fissures are a naturally occurring phenomenon. If they are a sign of erosion. Or they could be harmless. The most I can tell you is that before my-” he struggled for a moment. His voice crackled. “Before I was thrown from my reality, I was not aware of their existence. I did not see these fissures until I entered your reality.”

“Is there anything we can do about them?”

“No. I think not,” Gaster admitted, grimly. “We are dealing with forces on a scale barely within the realm of comprehension. It is one thing to puncture a hole in the fabric of reality, it is another to stitch it shut.”

If they did not have the technology to perform one function they did not have the technology to perform the other.

“... and yet, you’re sticking your skull in the lion’s mouth.” Bodoni pointed out.

“My very presence here could be causing them. If I lingered in your reality, the phenomena could escalate. The last thing I want is to endanger your world. Regardless, I must go home. I do not have many options.”

Bodoni did not answer, thoughtfully chewing on the cigar clenched between his teeth. 

“It seems presumptuous to think you'd be the cause of something like that,” Didot stated. Gaster looked at him. Surprised by the conviction he both heard and felt in the projection of Didot’s voice.

“Nyeh, heh heh! That’s right! I refuse to believe you are the cause behind something so cataclysmic! Yes, yes, you are a liar and a cunning actor to behold, but! I refuse to believe your soul is a blight on our world!”

“Papyrus…” Gaster didn’t have the heart to argue with him. You could not simply deny a truth out of existence. 

Bodoni met his eye. “You’ve stated yourself that you just don’t know. It would be also arrogant, wouldn’t it? To assume monsters like us, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, could throw a linchpin into somethin’ so cosmic as reality itself. What makes us so important?”

“I do not like it when you speak so nihilistically, brother.” Didot scolded. Turning to Gaster, he continued. “But, we understand! You have your own Papyrus and Sans to return to. Cosmic calamity or not! If Aster had been in your shoes, I think he would have felt the same. He was much too loyal to abandon his family.”

He pumped his fist to his chest. A solider making an oath over his soul. “We won’t allow you to abandon your family either! Fear not, for the Wingding Brothers will do whatever it takes to help you return home, brother from another world!!”

Gaster could not speak, not verbally, with emotion so thick in his throat. Instead, he closed his eyes and inclined his skull. ‘Thank you. Your patience and generosity, is more than I could ask for.’

One of the first questions Gaster asked himself before he even considered taking that first step into the void was simply: would he have the ability to leave it again? He already knew it was possible to survive in that miserable space. Infinitely even. That was a non-issue. 

If a child could tolerate a brief stay in the void was another matter entirely; hence the requirement for test subjects and Gaster’s disgruntlement with the lack thereof.

“Sir, I'd be happy to participate in your experiment!” Dogaressa offered in a cheerful yip, having apparently heard her “boss” had taken a sudden interest in science. Which, she had no doubt discovered by eavesdropping on Didot and Bodoni, with whom Gaster had shared his plans.

‘No. That will not be necessary,’ Gaster had signed sharply. 

An hour later, her husband volunteered in her stead. Gaster rejected his offer too.

And then Didot strutted into the study, gleaming with excitement and before he had even opened his mouth, Gaster cut him off with a brisk: “No” and no amount of pouting and begging could convince him otherwise.

He decided to drop small rodents through the fissure instead. Safely contained in a small cage, tied an appropriately sized chain, so he could extract them quickly if something went wrong. But nothing did. The mice seemed to barely notice the change in their environment and happily resumed their life in the lodge attic afterward.

The test conducted with the guinea pigs went the same way, though admitted with more fanfare, as both Bodoni and Wolf grew fond of them for reasons incomprehensible. For Wolf, this entailed whining until the rodents emerged from the desk. For Bodoni, it was non-stop guinea pig related punnery. 

Before he knew it he ran out of reasons not to step into a fissure himself.

Swallowing, Gaster trained his focus on the wall in front of him. Concentrating until the edges of his vision darkened, and, in a silent pop, the wall became impossibly transparent. 

The other occupants of the room were silent. Didot had a tight grip on Wolf in his arms. Bodoni stood next to him, hands in his pockets, with Dogamy and Dogaressa “guarding” the door. 

The fissure ran from the height of the wall and extended to an unreachable part of the earth below Snowdin. It was narrow for its height, wide enough for Gaster to step through, like a narrow cleft in a cavern, but certainly not wide enough for, say, someone of Toriel’s size.

The membrane rippled. Paperthin. Black and sleek as oil yet infinitely colorless. A great breathing chasma. The inside of a compressed and then expanding lung.

Gaster sucked in a sharp breath.  He reminded himself that he was tethered to this space, to this room by a chain and that his son’s counterpart held the other end of it. If anything went wrong, they could pull him back into their world. He had already proven this worked. As rudimentary as it was. This fear was irrational. He raised his hand and tried to ignore how he felt it shaking. He pressed his palm, flat against the wall and-

... it was discerningly easy. His bones prickled with the familiar, oppressive weight of the void but found no resistance as he passed through the walls of reality entirely and stepped into the fissure.

There was a split second when he was nearly consumed by panic. Darkness enclosed him in a thick shroud, surrounding him, smothering him, an unwanted sickening embrace. It was nominally unscientific to personify a place, but he couldn't shake the thought the void had missed him somehow and planned to crush his bones under immense pressure until he was too weak to leave it again. But the darkness was not still nor completely empty this time. There was a pull. Or rather a push, in one singular direction and- ah, that explained the odd resistance he had encountered in prior experiments.

It thundered and rolled over him like a tide. There seemed to be a distinct wall separating this ‘current’ from the rest of the non-space. He did his best to avoid breaching it, strongly suspecting he would have a far harder time leaving it than the fissure.

He walked a short way. Eventually, where the fissure seemed to end, he saw copper, grey, and red. Flickering images he could not quite make out from this distance. His sockets widened, eyelight shrinking to a narrow sliver. Another universe. It was so disconcertingly near, that he felt tempted to walk the rest of the way but stilled himself. He didn’t need it. He could see what it was. He knew somehow. But he didn’t trust the non-space. 

It had lied to him before. So many times...

He had been here long enough. 

Despite the pull, the void offered less resistance than expected when he turned around to leave. A great weight latched onto his legs, but his magic held fast and with a snap, he stumbled back into the basement. The soles of his shoes gave a satisfying click as he made contact with wonderfully solid stone.  

And when he looked up, Didot, Wolf, and Bodoni were still there. Waiting for him.

The corners of Bodoni’s eye sockets crinkled. “Welcome back to the land of the livin’ dead.”

“I do not understand how you are not terribly ill!” Didot whined. He shifted Wolf in his arms to rub his face. Wolf tilted his head back, made a concerned cheep, and batted Didot’s claws away from his face. Didot huffed. “Yes, yes, of course, nephew! I am nonetheless proud that your father faced his fears. Do not scold me.”

Gaster crossed that short distance and Didot relinquished the child into his arms. Wolf made a happy little churr with his teeth and snuggled against his chest. Gaster nuzzled the crown of his head. “I cannot express my gratitude enough. Without your support, I would not have the confidence to take this first step.”

“Nyeh heh hehe! I am pleased to inspire confidence!”

“Heh. Not to stray to sternum here but how was it?” 

Gaster looked at him. Bodoni put off a relaxed air about him, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets, but there was a genuine note of concern in the hard light of his eyes. 

Gaster’s own expression softened. “Better than anticipated. Theory and experience compliment each other. It is more than possible to proceed.”

“But how do ya feel?”

He thought for a moment, but aside from the quick pulse of his soul and the giddy fervent disbelief that somehow he had stepped into the dark and then out again of his own accord- “I feel… exhilarated .” 

“I… you are still determined to leave, other-brother?”

Gaster looked up from the bag he was packing. They were in the blue room, which had finally been cleaned out and was now suitable for Wolf’s use. Without the piles of boxes, the random assortment of houseware, and thankfully not nearly as ornately decorated as the rest of the Wingding brother’s absurdly sprawling lodge the room was actually quite pleasant to be in.

“I cannot stay.” He said gently. 

Didot fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. “You could stay with Toriel! I am sure she would not mind for a few days.”

Gaster gazed at the other monster in sympathy. It was difficult to find the words he wished to convey. They both knew it would not do well for Toriel’s mental health for Gaster to stay with her for any extended length of time. As kind as she was, he was still undeniably identical to Aster in almost every aspect. It wasn’t something that was easy to overcome. Gaster still caught himself slipping up on occasion and the brothers likewise had their moments. Just that morning Bodoni had accidentally called him Aster .

Didot slumped as similar thoughts went through his skull. 

Still, he had to try. “Are you not excited to visit my world?” 

He perked up slightly. “Yes! Of course, I am! I love my nephew as any good uncle should and I am curious about the world you came from! But… now that you are packing… my feelings are… different? Could you not stay for another week?” 

“To delay my departure will not alleviate your feelings. Your grief will only become more difficult to grapple with.”

A sniffle. Didot dragged a sleeve over his sockets. “I suspect you’re right.” Another sniffle and when his arm fell again, Didot forced a beaming smile. “Then! I shall work hard to make your final days here as pleasant as possible! And when the date of your departure arrives everything will go smoothly!”

The departure date arrived quickly.

Toriel said her goodbyes early that morning, as she had planned to leave that same day. Gaster had spoken a handful of words to her since their confrontation with Asgore. Once to thank her for rescuing him from the Don, and another time to answer her inquiries about Wolf and whether or not he enjoyed tea or coffee. Though she was polite and he was polite to her in return he could sense her obvious discomfort and this, in turn, made their interactions stilted and uncomfortable. 

So it surprised him when she gave him a tight hug before she left.

It struck Gaster, at that moment, that this was the second time someone had embraced him since his escape from the void. By the time he had processed this idea, she was gone.

Dogaressa and Dogamy were there when he headed into the basement. They waved goodbye.

Gaster studied the little in his arms. He felt an odd sense of deja vu, recalling the last time he leaped through a hole in the fabric of space-time. But this time Wolf had a name. This time he did not hide in a towel. He wore his own clothes. He could not yet speak fluidly and he had not said another word besides Papa , but he babbled to himself. Clicked his teeth together. Chirruped and made all the soft noises one would expect from a child comfortable in their surroundings.

His eyelights were bright and followed his own as Gaster pulled his attention from the child to the fissure.

This was it—time to go.

Gaster turned around one last time. 

“Aw, we’ll be okay without ya, bud. Don’t worry ‘bout us.”

“That’s right! After all, I, Papyrus, your competent other-dimensional brother, will keep everyone in line. Including, especially, Sans!”

“Of course. Thank you, both. I cannot imagine how far I would be from my goal without your hospitality.” Gaster looked down at Wolf in his arms. “And Kalluno too. The time we spent here gave him the opportunity to heal and grow.”

Didot was trying desperately not to cry, sniffling and dragging the back of his glove over the glistening moisture underneath his sockets. “I am. So. Happy. To have met him! Nyeh! To think I have a nephew now-!”

Bodoni chuckled. “The circumstances we met you under weren’t great, but, heh. The kid’s alright. Just uh… don’t forget to come back and visit. I wanna see my nephew from time to time, capiche?”

“And do not forget about our deal and my visitation rights!”

“Yeah. Remember you're still on parole with us, bud. If you don’t take a-rrest every now and then we’ll have’ta send some fella after you.”

Didot’s sockets narrowed. “Sans…”

“And it ain’t gonna be me. See, my heels are sticky. Guess you could say I got a bit of a gumshoe.”

“Brother, if you don’t find the gumption to come up with better puns I swear I will-“ a breathless pause. Didot’s sockets went wide in horror. “No…” he whispered. “CURSES! I’VE BEEN INFECTED!”

Unfortunately for his brother, Bodoni’s chortling was infectious. Gaster smiled, a short bubbling huff of laughter caught in his chest. Wistful. Melancholic, but also just... relieved. The brothers would be alright.

Gaster looked down at Wolf. “Ready to go, little one?”

The child had no means of knowing what he truly meant but he chirped as if to say: yes! I’m ready for our next adventure!

One last breath. Gaster turned towards the fissure and stepped through.

Chapter Text

The kitchen was warm and sweet with the smell of freshly baked bread. Dream’s eye sockets fluttered closed. He took a moment to enjoy the aroma, to savory it. Like a balm, it soothed the ache. And if he focused on it alone, he could forget where he was. 

If someone had asked him, years ago, if he would ever feel comfortable staying in an enclosed space Dream would have firmly but politely replied: no. There were too many strange smells in a house. The stiff, plaster walls unsettled him, and those buildings with stone masonry felt altogether too cold underneath his feet. Then, there was the still air and the dark that came with a structure designed to blot out natural light.

Even now, even here in a space wherein a sense of tranquility and quiet joy permeated the foundation, Dream did not think he would ever feel entirely comfortable. The emotional leylines embedded in the cottage certainly helped though. A lot of love went into many of the objects here. From the quilt draped over the rocking chair to the hand-sewn curtains, nearly every object he touched felt endowed with warmth. 

This place was filled with good memories. Some melancholic, some bittersweet, yet fondly regarded. But Dream missed the smell of damp earth, of moss and rain, and the whisper of grass and trees moved by the wind. 

It was not quite the same, though the potted ferns made the transition a little easier. He had the windows up, semi-translucent curtains drawn open to allow the light to filter in and that helped too. 

The conflict here was petty. Small misunderstandings built on good intentions. Those small everyday betrayals in life that weren’t all that important in the long run. 

Betrayals like the banana bread burning in the oven, for instance. 

Oops !

Dream shook himself from his stupor, the golden light of his eyes paling and quickly retrieved the red checkered oven mitts from the counter to take the bread from the oven.

A wave of heat washed over him as the door to the oven opened. He squinted against the heatwave, and carefully removed the upper tray. 

The crust had turned a dark, slightly caramelized golden brown. Dream bit the inside of his cheek, as much as a skeleton could, worrying over the slightly burnt edges of the loaf. Hopefully, the bread was still moist on the inside. Maybe he could cut off the burnt ends and Toriel wouldn’t notice? He expected her to check in on him sometime this afternoon. 

She had been kind enough to allow him to stay in a cottage at the edge of her property. Ink had been hesitant about it at first. He was insistent on influencing other worlds as little as possible, and ideally not at all. (it was a point of contention between them) But in this instance, he made an exception. 

“Well, the barrier between this universe and the multiverse is pretty weak. I don’t think the Creator wanted to keep us out,” Ink had told him. “I think visitors are supposed to come here.”

His eyelights were pastel pink and yellow diamonds. He sat on the railing of a small bridge overlooking a babbling creek, kicking his feet while Dream gingerly wrapped gauze around his arm. Nightmare had nearly broken it this time.

Ink looked down to Dream with that smile that never quite reached his eyes, yet shone with unrelenting brilliance. And Dream’s soul had seized in his chest, caught somewhere between breathlessness and apprehension.

“You don’t have a home to go back to and you gotta stay somewhere safe, right? So, I don’t mind.”

Though it might seem strange... it was comforting to be near Ink. He could be cruel with his opinions, and sometimes said things Dream hoped he didn’t mean but his bluntness meant Dream could trust him. Ink was not affected by the ambient positivity his soul produced and he could feel safe in the knowledge that Ink was not using him.  

There was no confusion with Ink. He didn’t mistake anything he felt towards Dream as something that wasn’t there. Dream hadn’t realized how much he needed that until he met him. With everyone else, he had to be careful. He couldn’t upset them or he would feel upset himself. He couldn’t relax because inevitably their relationship would become one-sided. 

He also just... didn’t feel safe, with anyone else.

Helping people was okay because it was something he wanted to do. Because it was something Dream had control over. He could set his own boundaries and focus on making sure they were safe, that they had the tools they needed to continue living in their respective worlds. He wanted to help others. He wanted them to be happy. It was his duty as Guardian regardless, to spread Positivity, but it was more than something he had to do, it was something he wanted to do.

(Despite what his brother said, Dream didn’t help people because their positivity empowered him. He wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t! Nightmare was a liar and only said that to hurt him. It wasn’t true. )

But developing a deeper connection than that? 

Dream shied away from it.  

The hurt was all too fresh in his mind. 

Which was why he was here, in this little cottage, in a world where the inhabitants had an inexplicable passion for cooking, slightly isolated from everyone else and left alone to lick his wounds and recover from the dread-fear-doubt his brother had inflicted him with.

His brother was insidiously clever. A painful needle of negativity pulsed through his magic, seeping into his marrow and physical body, a poison there was no cure for because no animal, monster, or beast produced it. Except for Nightmare himself, who like Dream, could take the essence of his element and mold it into something else . 

(Why? Why had it never occurred to Dream that if he could mold arrows and chalices and medallions from positivity manifested, that Nightmare could do the same thing? For years beyond counting, he foolishly assumed his brother’s magic was corrupt to mold into something so precise. For centuries, it had always seemed that way.

Was Nightmare growing? Was he getting stronger?

The phantom throb of a dagger piercing scraping across his ribs, so dreadfully close to his core, painfully reminded him that no matter what he did, no matter how much he learned, he would always, always play catch up to his brother.)

But Dream didn’t want to think about that right now. He didn’t want to acknowledge it. As though somehow thinking about it would give the truth more power and the lacerations across his bones would sting all the more bitterly. Like tiny shards of barbed glass, they burrowed deeper into his morrow with every new thread of fear and worry.

The bread knife shook in his hand. The slice that flopped onto the plate was a little lopsided. Dream blinked back the mist gathering his sockets and moved his plate to the tea table in the corner of the dining area; underneath the bay window, where it would join his now too-cold cup of tea and the rest of the day would go smoothly and he would not think about his brother.

He just... he just needed time. And this slice of banana bread. Yeah.

Dream sipped his tea, nibbled his slice of bread, and tried to reclaim the contentment he had felt earlier.

Outside the trees gently swayed. Birds sang. There was the faint scent of lavender and hydrangeas in the breeze.

“Dream!” 

Dream nearly dropped his teacup. 

“Blueberry?” Dream blinked, surprised, and quickly set down his teacup so he didn’t spill it in the inevitable collision- oof .

“Blue, B-Blue, please. My arm -“

“Oh! I’m so sorry Dream!” Blue quickly released him. “Are you okay? It’s been a week and Ink said you were still hurting and we’re getting worried. Should we take you to Sci?”

Dream shook his head and tried to smile reassuringly. “I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.” 

“I know,” Blue said sadly. “but it usually doesn’t take you a week to recover. So I bought you one of my awesome feel-better-you-are-amazing-and-we-love-you tacos!”

“Oh Blue, you really shouldn’t have,” He said to be polite, vividly recalling the last time he’d been subjected to one of Blueberry’s feel-better tacos. He had mixed play dough with the actual dough (for color. He made the taco shell from scratch of course) and used a combination of glitter and paper confetti. It wasn’t Blue’s fault. He couldn’t have known better. Dream hadn’t known better either. Otherwise, he would have gently tried to stop him.

Why would humans call an inedible substance dough if it wasn’t actually dough?

Blue caught his look. Instead of taking offense, he laughed. “Don’t worry Dream, Stretch helped me this time! No inedible glitter, I promise!”

Dream stifled a quiet laugh. “Oh, you found out about that?” 

“Yeah! Chara told me. Why didn’t you guys tell me sooner?” He pouted, hands on his hips in mock offense. “I want my friends to enjoy my cooking! You can critique my tacos, it won’t hurt my feelings.”

Dream was a little skeptical about that. Blue could be a little sensitive at times. “Are you sure?”

“Okay, maybe it’ll hurt a little bit.” Blue rubbed the back of his skull sheepishly. “But that’s okay! I won’t give up, I’ll try again and again until I’ve perfected my taco recipe and created a taco that everyone in the Multiverse will love!”

“I’m sure you will.” Dream smiled. Blue’s bubbly warmth and energy was infectious. It soothed the ache, just that little bit more.

“Thank you, Blue. I already feel better just having you here.”

Blueberry beamed. “Of course! What else are friends for? You’ll find no better friend than the Magnificent Blueberry!”

Dream offered to cut a slice of bread for Blue, gingerly pushing back the wicker chair to stand but Blue refused to let him get up and scurried around the kitchen to help himself. Dream wanted to protest. It felt wrong to do nothing.

“Ink isn’t still here, is he?” He asked when Blue settled down across from him. 

“Nope! He left shortly after he dropped me off.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No. But I don’t think anything is wrong. Ink would tell us if Error was on the move and he didn’t seem worried.”

Dream softly exhaled. “That’s a relief. Error and my brother have collaborated before and I wouldn’t put it past them to coordinate their attacks one after the other.”

Blue crossed his arms over his chest, nodding. “That’s true. But I don’t think that’s the case this time. We haven’t seen Error and Nightmare together for a while, and after that solid butt-kicking Nightmare will probably want to be left alone to sulk!”

Despite himself, Dream snorted. Yeah, Nightmare would be sulking be alright. His brother hated losing.

Their last fight had been brutal, and hard won. That whole confrontation had been a miscalculation on the Star Council’s part. No one had realized just important that world was to his brother, until they were already neck deep in battle and his brother’s hatred gutted them with all the viciousness of a collapsing star.

Now, the world was under Council control, but... they had lost a few members in the process, and Dream himself was ...

He stared blankly at the cup. His chest felt tight, suddenly. Like a cold invisible hand was squeezing it.

He had been close to losing consciousness by the time Nightmare had been forced to retreat. Doubled over and panting from the shock and pain of being pierced by a dagger of the darkest thoughts imaginable. But there, his brother stopped, hand still clutching the handle.

Nightmare could have killed him, but he hadn’t. Instead, he hesitated. He hesitated for long enough for Dream to find the strength to retaliate. At least, Dream wanted to believe his brother had hesitated. He didn’t voice this aloud, because to do so would garner pitying looks and Dream was tired of being seen as weak. And even though it just Blue- his friend , he still didn’t want to say it. 

Nightmare’s hesitation had spared Dream his life and cost him the battle. An entire world. And a keystone Dream and the Star Council hadn’t known existed, until it was there, in their hands, and Nightmare had vanished into a pool of viscous dark. And with him, those most loyal.

A wave of sadness and concern washed over him and Dream’s breath hitched. The cup in his hand blurred. His face felt hot and his eye sockets stung. 

Blue gently touched his arm. “I’m here, Dream. It’s okay. You’re safe now, I promise.”

Choked into silence by raw concern, Dream couldn’t manage a word.

Blue started to talk. He started small. Voice uncharacteristically low and soft. He talked about Stretch. He talked about his latest patrol and his progress in attaining his position in the Royal Guard. He talked about snow, wishes and dreams, and the wonders he had seen throughout the multiverse but also the little things he loved about home. The one-sided conversation shied away from the Council and the War until Dream felt hollowed out and calmed by Blue’s earnest care and loyalty.

He finished his share of bread and tea and didn’t stop talking while Dream slowly nibbled on the taco. Eventually, they migrated from the kitchen to the living room, then the loveseat, where Blue went to work building a pillow fort. Dream tried to help, but again his attempts to do anything useful were foiled.

“Not so fast! You’re supposed to be resting, Dream!” 

Resigning himself to his friend’s enthusiastic bedside, Dream reluctantly sank into one of the walls of the pillow fort. He tried to keep himself alert because wanted to catch Ink when he came by to take Blue home. But Blue’s affection and platonic love soothed the pain, and it was difficult to not feel warm and drowsy, cocooned in the friendship he offered.

Selfishly, Dream wanted to pull Blue closer to him, to drown himself in that sense of belonging, but knew it was wrong to want that, so he wrapped his arms around a pillow instead, and buried his face in the soft fabric as Blue babbled and bounced from one small task to another.

Basking in Blue’s presence had to be enough.

Chapter Text

Behind him, the thin barrier separating the void from reality closed as fluidly as a droplet of water merged with a larger pool. He felt the connection severe, like a cut thread, and then he was dunked in dry heat. The contrast in temperature was like stepping out of a freezer into an open oven. Scorching and overwhelming enough to make one brace. Gaster squinted through the haze, making sense of the blotches of warm color as his surroundings came into focus. The weight of the world anchored his heels. He knew where he was, almost instantly.

Kalluno made a surprised, inquiring chirrup, round eye sockets blinking as he adjusted to the harsh light. The child clung to him with all the adhesiveness of velcro. Gaster ran a gentle hand over his skull to soothe him. Breathlessly relieved.

“Welcome to Hotland, precious one.” 

They had entered the world on one of the many pathways that snaked along the outer edge of the great funnel that was Hotland’s main cavern. Mt. Ebott was, after all, an active volcano. Albit, one that had not erupted for many thousands of years. Other bridges, naturally formed, and artificially constructed by monster hands, cut across the cavern both above and below. Almost like the threads of a web, so thin and precarious they were in comparison to the cavern’s vast width. 

The view was magnificent.

The cliff he stood on overlooked the largest magma pool. The semi-liquid molten rock gurgled a considerable distance below. Deep ruby red where it met a black shore, and waning orange to brilliant yellow at the pool’s zenith. 

Somewhere nearby, hot steam hissed through a vent in the rock. And though it was some ways off, he felt the thrum of the great machine through the soles of his shoes. A steady rhythm; like a silent ticking of a titan clock as the great cogs of the thermal reactor slowly rotated.

Taking in the sight of it, Gaster’s soul swelled with emotion. The CORE had not existed in Bodoni and Didot’s world and the sight of it now soothed a part of him he hadn’t known missed it so sorely. And yet paradoxically, the sight made his soul quiver too. 

How was it possible, to be so relieved to be reunited with something, and yet, fear it at the same time?

Slumping against the rock behind him, Gaster shifted Kalluno in his arms and whispered. “Do you see that machine? The silhouette in the distance? That is the CORE, little one. Said to be one of my greatest creations. I spoke of it at length... Ah, but it is too soon to make assumptions just yet. It might not be mine.”

From this distance and the shape of the world... Visually, nothing about the immediate environment struck him as different. The ambient magic here felt... well, it felt like Hotland, bubbling, and frothing and always in motion. Deeply familiar in all that he could immediately see and sense.

But was he home? Or was this yet another refraction; another shade of the world he belonged to, almost his, but not quite?

Before he did anything else, he glanced out of the corner of his socket for the fissure he had entered the world from. Paranoia gnawed at his thoughts, but the black sliver was still there. Throbbing like a lung. It was above him, angled curiously as if it were positioned on a slanted wall. If worse came to worst, he could always return to Bodoni’s world through it. It would be fine.

As Gaster pushed off the cliff wall and started walking, he considered his options. He could head towards the laboratory first where it would quickly become apparent whether he was home or not, but almost as soon as he thought of that, he disregarded the idea. No. If this was not his world a counterpart of his might occupy the lab at present. And if it was his own, his replacement could be there instead.

So, to New Home it was. To verify this world’s history at the local library, then home if his hopes were met. If they weren’t, he would look for another fissure. 

Quietly he offered narration to Kalluno as he went and all the while, anxious anticipation kept him on edge. 

Though... it was hard not to smile, as Kalluno attempted to parrot him.

“Lava,” Gaster said slowly and watched in amusement as Kalluno opened and closed his teeth. The bridge of bone between his eyes pinched together in concentration. Adorable.

“La-” Kalluno tried. “La-ah. la-aH?” 

“Ah, would it be easier with context?” Gaster smiled. “Would it be easier if I said: I lava you?”

Wolf stared at him for a hot minute. Then he peeped angrily and batted his chest, as though insulted by the pun. 

Gaster laughed. And when keen indignation shot through Kalluno’s expression, he was reminded of the last time he had seen such an expression on his son and had to clamp a hand over his smile to stifle more laughter. 

“Have patience, small, angry one. You will grow and speech will come to you in time.”

He leaned down and nuzzled the space between Kalluno’s adorable nubby horns.

Kalluno sighed, such a grand expression of exasperation, or perhaps reluctant acceptance. And to Gaster’s delight, attempted to nuzzle him back. 

It was a clumsy attempt but absolutely precious.

While crossing a rope bridge over a steam-filled chasm, alight with gurgling liquid rock, Gaster met the first monster he had seen since entering the world. ‘Met’ by the loosest definition, as the moment the Pyrope spotted him, it made a nervous sizzling noise and quickly hopped off to parts unknown. 

Once on the other side of the bridge, safely on solid ground, Gaster looked after it. Wolf squirmed in his arms to get a better look himself, bold because he was being held, but the Pyrope was long gone by the time he was in a comfortable staring position.

“Odd.” Gaster mused aloud. “The teeth were abnormally tapered for the species.” 

He frowned, pushed aside that pang in his soul that insidiously whispered ‘it left because it was afraid of you’ and chalked up the encounter to a fluke. Body modification was not unheard of. And individuals could express odd traits not shared by peers. It meant nothing. 

It began to mean something the closer they came to New Home. He caught sight of other monsters off the main path. None ventured close enough for him to observe them in great detail but even at that distance, something felt… off.

As the path rose in elevation, the air cooled. Steam gathered and condensed under stone overhangs, and the once distant thrum of the CORE was now a steady drum. Not just felt through the soles of his shoes but through his legs and chest. It was so close now.

Wolf’s soul rabbited underneath his ribs, sent restless by the foreign addition to the environment. Gaster felt the rapid pulse of it through the layers of his shirt and coat and did his best to project a sense of calm. Wolf did not understand what that vibration was so it frightened him. But there was no reason for him to be. Gaster had no plans to enter the facility beyond the lobby, and no plans to go anywhere near where the incident occurred. 

Emerging from the dark ceiling above, crowned by stalactites so small compared they looked like grains of rice, the uppermost levels of the CORE came into view. Metallic walls glisten blue under the light of circuitry. Across the last bridge that led to the entrance, the red light above the door blinked lazily at him. A sleepy greeting.

A fountain had been constructed in front of the CORE’s entrance, to commemorate the passing of the young prince of the underground. Water had to be funneled from the cavern above Hotland, and pumped into the fountain continuously because it evaporated so quickly. And as such the fountain doubled as a respite for those monsters who did not share a natural affinity with heat and fire.

It made sense then, that the second monster he properly met would be here.

The Madjick stood in front of the fountain. Clad in black leather and red, the monster had long limbs, knobbly knees, and a gait that was just a touch too long. There was a sharper edge to its body that Gaster could sense but not immediately identify the source of.

It turned to him, made aware of his presence by the quiet crunch of sand and rock underfoot, and smiled with too-sharp teeth. Beady eyes shone ruby red under the brim of its hat, and Gaster stopped short. 

He was not intimidated, but the aggressive shift in the Madjick’s posture had his eye sockets narrowing. 

A colorful string of curses left the Madjick’s mouth. Malicious magic words with a double meaning, as Madjick communicated somewhat differently than the average monster. “ Oh, oh? At last, the infamous Dr. W.D Gaster crawls out from under his rock! ”

Gaster’s soul sank. It wasn’t the confirmation he was looking for, but if the Madjick recognized him…

The Madjick rocked back on the heels of its pointed, scuffed shoes. 

He summoned another pair of hands to sign. ‘Were you stationed as a guard here?’

A string of hexes fell from the Madjick’s scissor-like teeth. “Oh no, no, no doctor. I am here to demand a toll from anyone who crosses this bridge.“ The orbs orbiting his hat spun faster. Gaster clicked his own teeth sharply; a noise of warning. He had a child in his arms and the buzzing in his marrow would not tolerate an idle threat. 

'I do not want to fight you. Please, step aside.’

A snicker and a hail of flaming orb-shaped projectiles shot toward him.

After fighting off a twisted mirror image of himself and Don Asgore alone, both times wounded and shaken by rage and disbelief, brushing this attack aside was disconcertingly easy. It took little more than a flick of a wrist to send a low-sweeping femur to cancel out the attack.

Nervous now, the Madjick rallied itself to summon another barrage. Before it could, Gaster blinked, gaze sharp, and turned the Madjick blue. It became motionless mid-bounce, caught in a gravity well. Its eyes rolled wild as it fought his control.

Gaster stepped forward, keeping the monster in his line of sight until he was on the other side of the fountain. At that point, the situation felt well enough in hand to look towards the entrance to the CORE. He almost expected someone to be drawn out by the commotion. But there was no movement from within the facility, except for the light above the entrance which continued to blink mildly at regular intervals. 

The Madjick spat curses. His malice scrapped Gaster’s magic, feebly grasping to peel chunks from his health. The distance and strength of it were such that it felt like little more than a pinch. “Cowardly, wretched ghoul, dust me where I can see your eyes!“

Gaster faltered. ‘Dust you? Are you deaf to my intent? I have no desire to hurt you.’

Another snicker. It thrashed, wiggling enough control to roll its head back, needle-thin red eyes searching blindly for the opponent that was too far to reach. “You have been in that lab of yours for too long, Doctor. In this world, it’s kill or be killed. Or have you forgotten the day your Master signed that motto into law?”

Kill or be Killed.  

Ice crawled down his spine. If the Madjick recalling his existence wasn’t enough evidence that this wasn’t his timeline, then that declaration indeed was. Asgore would never . ‘I answer to no master, mage.’

The Madjick shuddered. A hitching, hysterical laugh. “Oh ho ho! Did I insult you? Is our King not your Master, spook? Ha! There is treachery in the royal court! Treachery!”

It broke off into incoherent gibberish. 

Wolf whimpered and was like a gut punch to the soul. Ashen, he reached with his magic for the nearest shortcut- only to reel back in alarm. He pushed deeper quickly, searching for the lay line he knew to be nearby, but the magic only seemed to slip through his touch. It wasn’t there.

Unwilling to waste time figuring it out with a frightened child in his arms while the Madjick dissolved into hysterics, Gaster hastily crossed the bridge.

He entered the building and reached blindly for the panel to the left of the frame. His claws clicked as he tapped the sequence for the command and to his relief, the glass doors locked shut with a satisfying hiss.

With his back to the wall, he tucked Wolf underneath his chin. Protective and on edge, he murmured a low sound to soothe him. In an ideal world, Wolf shouldn’t have had to witness that. 

He scanned the lobby, hoping to satisfy that protective instinct as Wolf slowly calmed. It was considerably darker inside the facility, as to be expected, but the space was thankfully empty. It would be unfortunate if he ran into his counterpart here, of all places. 

Blue circuitry ran the length of the floor and crawled up the walls in geometric ribbons. Embedded in the smooth, glossy paneling, the sterile blue light the wires produced refracted on every hard surface. The light glistered over a fine, grain-like substance caught in the gap between panels. Gaster hoped it was not dust.

The layout of the lobby matched his expectations and somehow, that was worse. He found he preferred the Wingding brother’s situation to this. At least in their world, he could mentally detach himself from the environment. But here? It was dream-like to the point where he almost felt woozy.

Due to the nature of time, the geography of the underground itself hadn’t changed despite incalculable resets. It had been both a morbid kind of comfort and a cruel form of torture.

He considered that, eyelight glued to a particularly scruffed tile where the floor met the elevator doors.

Perhaps he had taken that consistency for granted too.

Shortcutting hadn’t been an issue in Bodoni and Didot’s World. As Gaster had mostly stayed within the lodge, and any place he needed to go one of the brothers had graciously led him there. Once it became clear to him how much their world deviated from his own, he assumed the shortcuts he knew of would not apply. (One couldn’t shortcut to a place that didn’t exist, after all.)

But this world had appeared so much like his own that he had assumed...

Ah.

Technically speaking, he had never set foot in this variant of New Home before. One performed a shortcut by pinching two known points together. On an intellectual level, Gaster understood where these points should be, as the layout of the underground seemed identical, but the connection wasn’t there because he hadn’t made one yet.

Well... there wasn’t much he could do about that now. He would have to transverse the underground the old-fashioned way. But that still left him with a dilemma. If the underground was not only more violent but different enough that he could no longer make a quick getaway via shortcut, was it really wise to journey through it with a small child in tow?

He had confirmation that this world was not his own. It was therefore not as necessary to proceed to the New Home library. He knew where the fissure that led back to Bodoni’s world was. He could return to it now and attempt to find another vein branching off from it. One that led through a safer AU. 

Gaster frowned, torn. Traveling with a young child in tow was always going to have its risks. That was inescapable. All he could do was mitigate those risks. What would he do in a situation where finding a safer path forward was impossible?

It was also equally unthinkable to leave Wolf behind. Wolf was his son, his responsibility, and it was up to him to ensure his safety and care, regardless of where he went or what he did. To leave Wolf with someone else, even temporarily, would not only be soul-wrenching but also felt as though he would be shirking his responsibility as a parent. No. Wolf would stay with him. It was the only way to ensure, absolutely, that they would both make it home.

All things considered, it felt too soon to turn back. He was hungry for answers. And though it wasn’t as important now, gathering information from the local library could still prove beneficial.

Indeed, it seemed wiser to proceed with his original plan. Knowledge was invaluable, after all. The more he knew about the worlds he visited, the better his chances were to find a pattern of some kind. Some clue that would make finding his way home easier.

Mind made up, he pushed off the wall and summoned another hand to access the elevator. Half a minute later and the elevator doors chimed.

Gaster encouraged Wolf to perch on his shoulders as he stepped out onto the narrow streets of New Home. The second his heel made contact with the ground, he felt the hum of danger in his bones. Darkness clung to every corner, cast by silver sconces and lampposts, and poured into even the smallest of spaces. The sparse light that was present caught the reflective luster of obsidian within stone slabs, and what wasn’t made of stone was made of silver, reflective besides. He stepped through the shadows as he went, keenly aware of the weight of hostile eyes at his back. 

He tracked them in the periphery, observing the inhabitants as much as they observed him. Those that met his eyelight curled their lips and bared their teeth, and even those that did have lips or teeth bristled. But none seemed eager to test him, a fact he was grateful for. He would rather avoid a violent confrontation if possible.

Mistrust hung as a heavy fog over the streets. But for all the monsters here seemed aggressive, they were also cautious of each other. 

It was an ill-fitting kind of relief to realize it wasn’t just him , this time. He watched a Finale Froggit flick a barbed tongue at a Whimsalot in warning. The Whimsalot nervously backed away. The pair studied each other with wary reproach. Cliques likewise glowered at each other and congregated on designated street corners. Bared from interacting with each other by some mutually agreed upon rule. 

Lone individuals, a category Gaster supposed he was a part of, avoided them entirely, hugging the granite and basalt walls of the city.

Every monster he saw feared their neighbor.

Wolf sensed the tension and kept quiet on his shoulders. 

He was beginning to regret his decision to visit the New Home Library. The one in Snowdin might have been the safer option, though the journey was longer.

How had the Underground fallen so far? 

A shout tore through the ambient rumbling of the street. Gaster froze, a shot of ice through his heart because that voice sounded like…

He followed the sound across the street, up three cobblestone steps, and rounded the corner to a short square plaza. Boxed in on all sides by brick and mortar and between them yet more crooked and harrowed streets. 

“LET ME GO!”

His gaze snapped to the vendor’s cart in the center of the plaza. It was bright red and yellow as many things seemed to be in this world. But his attention was pinned to the vendor, a rabbit monster, and to the fragile arm he had clutched in one paw . In the other, he raised a metal rod over the child’s skull.

Chapter Text

Gaster didn’t waste time. He caught the metal rod in a snare of blue and yanked it out of the other monster’s hand. The rabbit jerked in place, twisted around to look— Gaster barked in outrage. “Release the boy at once!”

A violent flinch. He dropped Papyrus’s arm like it was made of cold iron to slap his paws over his ears. Gaster couldn’t remember the last time he’d moved so fast. In the span of seconds, he had placed himself between Papyrus and the vendor, protectively shepherding the small skeleton out of harm's way. By the time he had, the other monster had only just recovered. 

“Who the fuck are you? Back off.”

Papyrus seemed to be in a state of shock. Frozen, and folded in on himself. His shoulders hunched to his chin. Stars , he was barely eye-level with the food cart he was so small. Everything about his behavior felt wrong wrong wrong , but the rabbit monster was bristling now and Gaster felt the air condense, the LV in his bones writhing to meet it-

‘ I ask once: what is the meaning of this? ’

“That kid is a thief! I caught him red-handed.” The rabbit snapped. The other monster put his back to his cart, bracing himself on it. He eyed Gaster’s disembodied hands suspiciously. “What’s it to you anyway?”

Gaster glanced at Papyrus behind him. He took the moment to quickly and subtly bounce a light check off the child, and his anger was slightly appeased when the results came back neutral. Papyrus was not hurt. But the child kept his head down, avoiding his gaze. Gaster noticed a slight sheen to his small hands that suggested he had recently held something greasy.

‘All this over... what-’ he looked over the cart. The rabbit had been selling corn cats, of all things. ‘-cheap street food?’

“Cheap!?” the rabbit cried. “I do not sell cheap street food. I am the one and only producer of Mean-Cats. Look here-” he took a corn cat from his cart and stripped the stick of the bun and imitation meat. “There’s a new creative insult on every stick! This is high-tier merchandise.”

‘Valued enough to waste on a demonstration, I see, but not on a hungry child.’ Gaster signed pointedly. 

The rabbit growled. “Now look here-!”

‘The boy stole nothing. His hands are clean and I see nothing of yours on his person,’ it didn’t matter whether Papyrus had stolen something or not. The intent of the other monster was clear and Gaster would not allow a child to be beaten in front of him while he still lived. 

Behind him, he heard Papyrus make a shaky, rattling sound. It sounded like an aborted whimper. 

‘You made a mistake.’

“He stole nothing because I caught him before he could! He dropped it on the ground and now I'm down two cats!”

‘Perhaps I was not clear enough. The child. Stole. Nothing.’

The rabbit paled, and for a moment, Gaster thought he would back down.

“I lost two cats,” the rabbit hissed. “-one because of your kid, or whatever. It didn’t happen if I’m paid for both.”

‘I refuse. You intend to hurt my child for a slight I see no evidence of. The demonstration you presented was not asked for but freely given. In truth, I owe you nothing. The idea that I would compensate you at all, is foolish.’

At last, the rabbit had the decency to flinch back in shame. “I didn’t strike him!”

‘No,’ Gaster agreed, his smile thin and angry. The light in his sole functioning eyesocket was as thin as a needle. ‘But I have a distinct impression that you would have, had I not stepped in.’

The rabbit said nothing. Perhaps whatever constituted a brain for him had finally kicked in. Gaster stared him down, gaze cold, and then the other monster did something odd. He reached up to tug the collar of his shirt loose. This nervous gesture exposed a leather strap around his neck, buckled into place by a copper clasp. And attached to that, was a silver tag. 

He stepped back, putting the cart between himself and Gaster. All the while, postured in such a way that his neck was purposefully exposed.

This odd behavior meant nothing to Gaster, so long as the other monster moved away from him, so he didn’t react. His sole eyelight tracked his movement while he otherwise remained still. An imposing physical barrier between the other monster and the child. Even stranger, his passive non-response seemed to freak out the rabbit more.

“Um... you know what?” the rabbit tittered anxiously. “On second thought, I don’t need the money. It’s just a corn cat. I’ve got plenty.”

‘Wise choice.’ the magic he wove into his words was frigid.

He didn’t wait for a response and ushered Papyrus away from the vendor, deliberately keeping himself between the two just in case the rabbit monster changed his mind. 

Papyrus remained unnervingly quiet. His time with Bodoni and Didot had taught him to be careful of the assumptions he made about the monsters he met. Their likeness to those he knew, and personal bias (the bane of every scientist) had the potential to blind him to the individuals they were. But he knew, instinctively, this was not a natural quiet. 

Even Wolf made more noise, though he had been quiet throughout Gaster’s exchange with the vendor. He chirped now, shifting on his shoulders to watch Papyrus curiously. For the first time, Papyrus looked up, startled. He took in the sight of Kalluno in a moment of unabashed fascination.

Gaster watched the boys study each other for a moment before he spoke. “Why did you attempt to steal from the vendor?”

Papyrus flinched. 

Gaster frowned and slowly knelt to his level, hoping the child would feel safer if he was not towering over him. “I will not hurt you, little one. I only ask so I can understand your situation. I am not angry.”

“… I was getting it for Sans,” Papyrus ground out. The projection of his voice sounded hoarse; raspy from overuse. There was a slight lisp to his words too, a product Gaster suspected of the child’s sharp overlapping front teeth. 

Gaster considered his next question carefully. He could tell Papyrus would not answer just any question he asked. He was too defensive. If he asked too many questions, he would clam up. Shy away or even bolt. 

It hurt- it hurt to once again be met with a variant of his son that seemed terrified of him. How many did that make now? Three? Gaster swallowed back his horror because this constituted a trend now. A Tartarus damned trend. 

“...what happened?”

“What do you think happened!?” Papyrus snapped, at last whipping around to face Gaster in a fit of anger. The child’s eyelights, he noted, burned ruby red. “Sans was stupid! Again! He challenged a monster he shouldn’t and they beat him up-” Gaster’s eyelight paled. “-and now his stupid ankle is bent funny! I told him not to do it but he didn’t listen to me and...”

He trailed off. The fiery defiance that had inspired him to look Gaster in the eye drained fast. He snapped his teeth shut, petrified. Evidently, he hadn’t meant to reveal so much. The look made Gaster’s soul twist in agony. Papyrus should never look at him like that.

Gaster kept his voice calm and level though he felt anything but. There was a familiar rage mounting in his chest on Papyrus’ behalf. He smothered it because he had to. If the slightest spark of anger escaped his tone, he risked shattering any chance he might have at establishing trust. “I know you are frightened and you have every right to be. But I am not who you think I am. I promise, I will not hurt you or your brother.”

Papyrus didn’t move or speak. He simply held still.

Gaster took a breath. “I want to help you. Please, allow me the chance to prove my intentions.”

He untucked his arms and gathered a shallow pool of magic in his palm. The gentlest, warmest sort he could muster. He left it shapeless, worried that, even if he built the construct slowly, Papyrus might conclude he was forming an attack. Then he offered his hand, palm up, for Papyrus to inspect. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, Papyrus shuffled closer. He rattled a small warning growl but slowly reached out, rekindling that spark of defiance. First with his magic, clumsily, yet cautiously gauging the weight of Gaster’s presence. Then, the little one’s tiny claws scratched the edge of the pool. 

Papyrus drew back, startled but ever so slowly, and ever so slightly, he relaxed.

“Magic used for healing is warm, little one. I apologize for startling you.”

“... you really aren’t him.” Papyrus rasped. “Who are you? Why do you look like Doctor Gaster?”

Gaster chose his words carefully. He wanted to speak the truth, but he also did not want to frighten Papyrus. “In a word? I am best described as a counterpart. A doppelganger. I share his name but I do not share his thoughts or feelings. I am not from around here, you could say.”

The child grappled with that idea and shifted, uneasy. “So, a clone then.”

Not... quite , but- “a close enough definition, yes. If you allow me to, I can heal your brother.”

“You would do that?” He stared, expression suspicious. “What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch.”

A bitter scoff. Papyrus crossed his arms. “There’s always a catch. What are you getting out of this?”

He had the sense Papyrus wouldn’t believe him if he said he wanted to help them because it was the right thing to do. Or that, by virtue of being young and new to the world they deserved to be loved and protected. Or simply; ‘I care about your health and happiness.’ So once again Gaster considered his words carefully. Whatever he said next needed to be truthful or Papyrus would sense the hesitation behind it. It needed to be something they could both believe.

The words pooled like molten lead on his metaphorical tongue. “… I wish to spite W.D Gaster.”

Papyrus’s black sockets bore into him. “Do you hate him too?” 

Gaster worked his jaw, bitter, hurt, furious, and a low cloud of dread marrow deep because of course he did. Of course, he hated the creature that would make his own children afraid of him.

(In the depths of his heart, a part of him writhed in a deeper pain. Because what did it mean- what did it say of his nature that his counterparts inspired fear in those close to them?)

“Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”

He waited for Papyrus’s judgment.

After a long pause, Papyrus said; “Fine. But what about him?” He pointed over his shoulder. 

Wolf chirped. “This is Kalluno, my son. He is a child like you. He will behave himself.”

Papyrus’s cheekbones flushed in embarrassment. “I knew that! He’s wearing stripes”

He stomped off. After a moment, Gaster stood and followed. 

Papyrus led him down winding granite streets, and off the main road and to a short footbridge that stretched across one of many shallow canals that cut through New Home. Usually, aquatic monsters made their homes around, or in the city’s canals but this part of the aqueduct seemed deserted. A row of buildings walled in the canal on either side. As no streets ran beside it, and there was no need to light a path no one traveled, the water was ink-black. At a certain point, the length of the canal faded completely into the ambient darkness of the city.

Instead of crossing the bridge, Papyrus stopped short of it. Turned, and hopped over a ledge into the canal. It was a short drop. Gaster slid down into the canal after a moment's consideration. The stone was not slick but it did not hurt to be careful, especially with Wolf carefully balanced on his shoulders.

A narrow walkway ran along the interior edge of the canal. It sloped down into the water and allowed one to walk underneath the bridge without getting their feet wet.

Underneath the bridge, there was a cardboard box. At first glance, it appeared that someone had toppled it over, its contents spilled a short way down the embankment, but then the pile of shredded newspaper clippings and rags moved. A steady rise and fall. In one corner of the box, he could finally make out the small dome of a skull.

He faced the back of the box so Gaster could not immediately see his face, but as he slowly stepped nearer, he frowned. Sans was shivering. Beads of liquid magic dripped from his bones. (sweat, a creature with skin might say.) Each breath he took dangerously close to a wheeze. He quickly checked him, fearing the worst.

His health was down by one-fourth. For Sans, that number was especially alarming.

Papyrus shook his brother's shoulder, having knelt next to him in the time it took for Gaster to duck under the bridge. “Sans! Wake up! I made a business arrangement on behalf of your health.”

Sans stirred sluggishly. He lifted his skull just enough to glance over his shoulder. “What?” He croaked. “-the hell are you talking about?”

Papyrus straightened his back. “He says he wants to help us to spite the doctor.”

“And you believed him?” Sans rasped. He rolled over with enough effort that Gaster was sure the child might have a fever on top of everything else and propped himself up on one elbow. He glanced up, over Papyrus’s shoulder and recoiled. The same, petrified look that had locked Papyrus in place came over him. 

There was ice in his marrow now. Ice and needles, for how cold and sick he felt. As he had done with Papyrus, Gaster slowly knelt to the ground. Careful to keep his magic calm, and non-threatening. Anything to help the child feel safe. “I am not who you think I am. I will not hurt you.”

Keen betrayal and hurt flashed through Sans’ small body. He jerked his skull, stared hard at Papyrus, and rasped. “You led ‘im right to me, Papyrus. You led him right to me!”

Papyrus’ face flushed with anger. “I did NOT! He has GREEN MAGIC. Dr. Gaster does not have GREEN MAGIC!! I didn’t betray you, you numbskull!”

Gaster chose to intervene before tempers could escalate further. “As I said, I am not who you think I am. Your brother told me you were wounded but did not explain your situation in detail. I offered to help.”

Sans eyed him suspiciously. “What’s the catch?” He asked, unwittingly echoing the same question his brother had asked earlier.

“The satisfaction of knowing I scorned the Doctor.”

The child scrutinized him for a long beat. Eye sockets narrowed, and the light within them sharp and wary. Like his brother, Gaster noted, Sans’ eyelights were ruby red and burned within his skull like twin stars. 

“Why?” Sans challenged through gritted teeth. He made direct eye contact and Gaster had the sense it was meant to be provoking, though Gaster did not see it that way. He certainly preferred it over the child keeping his eyes downcast in a show of placating meekness. It would be one thing if the child was simply uncomfortable with direct eye contact, many monsters felt the same way, but this was a different situation entirely. 

“There’s a bounty on us, you know that right?” Sans spat before Gaster had the chance to speak. “He’ll give anyone who returns us to him a huge reward. How do we know you won’t turn us in? Why should we trust you?”

A bounty. His counterpart had set a bount y on Sans and Papyrus. He grappled with the implications of that- the state of the boys. They must have been living on the streets of New Home for at least a week or more if the state of their clothes was anything to go by. Both children were riddled with small cuts along their limbs that reminded him suspiciously of the kind he had found on Kalluno on top of that. Papyrus had a rather deep-looking nick on his left cheekbone. But most of these seemed old.

He did not like the logical conclusion that led to. He swallowed back the mixture of horror he felt for the boy’s circumstances, the simmering rage he felt for his counterpart, and spoke carefully, voice calm and measured. 

“You have every right to be wary. While I can offer you nothing but my word and intent, I can at least prove that I have no need for the bounty.” 

Moving slowly so the boys saw every move before he made it. Gaster reached into an interior coat pocket and withdrew the bag of gold coins Bodoni had given him. He gave them a chance to inspect the bag, untying the string that held it together.

The brothers stared at the contents. Sans ground his teeth together and growled. “Fine. I believe it when you say you don’t need the bounty. But you still haven't explained why you want to spite Gaster.”

He returned the bag to his pocket. “He has incurred my anger by mistreating someone important to me. By assisting the two of you, I am undermining his intent.”

Sans digested that but otherwise seemed stubbornly skeptical.

Papyrus rolled his eyes. “Oh for Angel’s sake, just heal him already. He will keep us talking all night to put it off!”

His brother bristled and spat back. “I’m not putting anythin’ off!”

“Very well. Let my actions speak for themselves, little one. I ask for nothing in return. I will not force your trust.” Gaster lowered his hand, palm up, and gathered magic within it slowly enough for the boys to sense the construct forming before he was finished with it. As Sans seemed even less trusting than his brother, he would want his space respected. 

“I am summoning a small attack. Because it will be constructed from green magic, it will not hurt you. Break it to heal your injuries.”

The bone that materialized in his hand was small and easily broken by equally small hands. Reluctant to take it, it took one last growl from his brother for Sans to find the courage to move. He seemed to be fearfully expecting Gaster to grab his wrist the moment he reached for the construct, so Gaster tipped his hand to allow the bone to float an inch or two free of his claws.

Sans yanked the construct close to his tiny body and flinched, hard. But his grip was so tight, that the bone splinted against his chest almost in the same moment he snatched it. Gentle magic washed over him. As it faded Sans blinked. Once. Twice. He twisted around and shoved the mess of paper and rags off his legs. Cautiously, he applied pressure to the injured ankle.

Gaster monitored his progress methodically. He subtly checked him again and sighed in relief. Sans’s miger HP had almost completely recovered. The hairline fracture that began from the ankle and extended halfway to his kneecap was still there, however. The bone around it was grey and small particles of dust flaked from it as the child moved, but Sans grinned and stood triumphant.

“Wow. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”

Papyrus crossed his arms over his chest in a haughty display of smugness. “I believe you owe me an apology .”

Sans scowled. “For what? You can’t honestly expect me to trust the first random asshole you drag under the bridge.”

“For accusing me of betrayal, fool!” 

Gaster coughed, partially to conceal an amused breath and partially to interrupt the boys before another startling swear word could be dropped. He could feel Wolf’s attention on the duo, and himself, eyesockets wide. He hoped the child would not be repeating that word.

Before he could gently scold or otherwise discourage the children from swearing further, the low buzzing in his marrow which had been on edge for the entirety of his visit to New Home blared sharply. Gaster followed the pull, attention snapping to the bridge above him. 

He didn’t hear it at first, but he felt the approach. A dense cloud of bristling magic, laden with aggressive intent on the edge of his perception. As it neared, the sound slotted a nearly forgotten memory into place. It was the sound of armored soldiers approaching.

“That’s the watch,” Sans hissed, eyelights flicking quickly between the underside of the bridge and Gaster. “It must be after curfew.” 

The boys went dead still. Silent and wide-eyed. Torn between watching the bridge above their heads and watching Gaster closely. He had the impression Sans expected him to draw attention to them intentionally. Maliciously even.

In moments the procession was above them. Particles of dirt and other unknown substances flaked down from the bridge above as the soldiers' heavy footsteps crossed it. The sound was quite loud. Frightened, Wolf slid down from his shoulders. Dropped to the ground and huddled against his knee, where the tail of his coat created a sort of makeshift tent. Gaster rested a comforting hand over the top of his skull.

No one spoke again until the sound of the march faded. 

Gaster’s eyelight dropped from the ceiling to study Sans and Papyrus. How small and fragile they were. Their torn clothes. The frightened edge to their magic... he was overcome with the urge to gather the two of them in his arms and never let go.

He slowly rose to his feet. “It is not safe for you here. I presume you two had plans to leave the city?”

A brief moment passed in which the boys were reluctant to reply. Sans glowered at everything. At Gaster directly and then his brother when Papyrus elbowed him in the ribs and gestured to Gaster with a significant look. 

“Yeah? What of it?”

Gaster nodded towards the road. “I have plans to travel as far as Snowdin. If the two of you have a guardian to reach along the way, I can escort you there.”

All things considered. He had no reason, at all, to believe they did. Excluding his alternate self of course. (That wretch of a man didn’t count.) But this way, he could offer protection without forcing the issue, without breaching that fragile margin of trust they’d given him. 

“We accept your offer-” 

“-no.”

The boys glared at each other. Papyrus grabbed his brother’s sleeve, mumbled a clipped “excuse us” and dragged Sans behind the cardboard box. For privacy.

It didn’t do much to muffle their heated discussion.

Wolf padded out from underneath his coat. Father and son exchanged a look. 

Wolf chirped, a little needy. He stood up on shaky hind legs and tugged on Gaster’s pant leg with his front paws. Gaster chuckled and scooped him up into his arms again. “... up or down, little one? You must make a decision.”

And Wolf did make a decision. He decided Gaster’s arms were more comfortable. 

The brothers emerged from behind the cardboard box a moment later. Sans looked particularly unhappy. “We accept your offer,” he ground out. “But you have to protect us from mercenaries and you can’t turn us in. We’re never going back to the lab, you got that?”

“Of course,” Gaster intoned gently. “I assumed I would be protecting you from monsters of that ilk from the beginning.”

“-and you can’t lock us up!” 

“No needles!” Papyrus added, firmly.

“No needles,” Gaster promised. The very idea made him nauseous. “You shall have the key to any locked door we encounter.”

At last, the boys seemed satisfied. “It’s a deal. We will hold you to that promise!”

Gaster inclined his head. “You have my word, I will do everything within my power to protect you both.”

Chapter Text

“We can’t leave now, you dumbbell! The elevator is locked after curfew.”

Sans scowled at his brother. “We can’t wait here either, Pap.” The little one turned his scowl on Gaster. “You promised to escort us outta the city, right? You got a plan?”

Gaster said that he did. He had expected a little resistance when he suggested the use of a shortcut, explaining that they could bypass both security and the locked elevator through the use of it. What he got instead was an uneasy silence. He could hit himself for his stupidity. 

Of course, the brothers didn’t understand what a shortcut was! Did anything about their situation suggest his counterpart would have taken the time to teach them how to utilize that particular skill set? Of course not. 

“Perhaps it would ease your mind, if we performed a... trial. Of sorts.” The word ‘test’ had been on the edge of his teeth, but he quickly thought better of its usage. Until he knew the details of their lives until now, he needed to tread carefully. The scars he saw on them were too similar to those he could still faintly see on Kalluno to not infer that they’d suffered under a similar kind of care. 

Though he could not definitively say what Kalluno remembered of his experiences under Epsilon's supervision he knew his son had not escaped unphased. His age had spared him, to some extent, but the evidence was there in almost every aspect of his youngest’s behavior. 

When no one immediately shot down that idea, he gestured to the other end of the tunnel, where the shadow underneath the bridge ended. “I will shortcut one of you from that end of the tunnel to where I stand now. As insurance that I will return, I will leave something of mine in your brother’s care. Are those terms acceptable?”

This was as much a demonstration as it was a trust exercise, after all.

Sans stared him down, squinty-eyed. “And what if we don’t want to?”

“Then, we will walk. Though I imagine we must wait several hours for curfew to lift. I will do my utmost to protect you, regardless.”

A pause and Sans said begrudgingly. “Fine. I’ll go first.”

Kalluno seemed too content in his arms to disturb, so Gaster shuffled him to one arm, removed the bag of coins from his pocket, and gave it to Papyrus to hold. Sans reluctantly followed him to the end of the tunnel, then he stood stiffly and nervously glanced behind him. 

Papyrus watched, expression unreadable. 

“Right...” Sans muttered and turned back around. 

“Usually... I would recommend that you hold my hand. This experience can be disorienting. However, if you are not comfortable, I can make do. Please stand next to me, or hold on to my coat. I will count to three before I initiate the transition.”

The child glared. “I’m not scared.” 

“I would never assume you were,” Gaster replied gently. “Proceed when you are ready.”

Grinding his teeth together, Sans puffed himself up and marched over to him. He took a fist full of Gaster’s coat with a kind of boldness that felt forced. Though he wore a brave face, a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his skull. Gaster kept himself still, afraid any quick movement might startle him. 

Wolf dug his claws in and climbed onto his shoulder. When the child had settled again, Gaster began the count. 

“One. Two. Three.”

Sans squeezed his eye sockets shut on three. 

Taking two passengers across this short distance was, of course, effortless. The child had only just shut his eyes when Gaster had moved them from one end of the tunnel to the other.

Papyrus jumped. He looked between Gaster and Sans and barked. “Sans! Why did you close your eyes?! You missed it!”

Sans’s eyes snapped open. He released his vice grip on the corner of Gaster’s jacket. Stepped back and stared at his surroundings in disbelief. “What the fuck.”

The little one’s startled expression was so precious, it completely slipped his mind to scold him for using such coarse language. They had only traveled a few feet! 

“Since you couldn’t do it right, it’s my turn!” Papyrus shoved the bag into Sans’s hands and marched the short distance to Gaster’s other side. Like his brother, Papyrus grabbed a fist full of his coat with false bravo.

“You may go. I! Am ready!” 

Amused, Gaster did as commanded. He much preferred this over the nervous-anxious disposition they’d had with him a few minutes ago. 

He repeated the trip with Papyrus, taking him to the end of the tunnel in the span of a blink. 

Papyrus gaped at the sudden distance between himself and his brother.

“Ha!” Sans crowed from the other end of the tunnel. “You missed it too, didn’t ya?”

Papyrus’ face flushed red. “Do it again but slowly this time!”

“I am afraid this kind of magic cannot work slowly,” Gaster said. “However, you may find what you are looking for if you pay close attention to the movement of magic particles, just before we make the transition from one space to another.”

And just like that, the lighthearted spell was broken. Papyrus stiffened. He seemed to remember himself at the same time his brother did. 

Gaster’s heart sank.

Papyrus released his coat. Stalked over to his brother and returned the bag of coins to Gaster in silence. 

Perhaps he should have said nothing at all. 

“Whatever. Just take us to Hotland.” Sans mumbled.

With a heavy heart, Gaster did as instructed.

Sometimes he felt like the product of some cosmic joke.

He scanned the cavern ceiling again, peering into the natural dark in the corner of his vision, but in every direction he looked, the fissure. Was not. There. 

But of course... of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing quite went his way, did it?

This wasn’t the first time the phenomenon disappeared when he wasn’t paying attention to it, but the timing... the timing of it felt mildly foreboding. 

He brought a hand to his mouth, phalanges curled over a frustrated smile.

“What’re you staring at?” 

The weariness in the child’s voice broke his concentration. Gaster’s expression softened as he turned away. He dismissed the hand he’d summoned as well, hoping (bizarrely) that he would feel the cold touch of the void if he examined the space carefully. Perhaps if he could not see the tear, he could feel it. Regardless, he couldn’t interact with it now.

Sans eye’d him up and down. It was subtle, but the tension in his small shoulders eased as the construct was dismissed. “I expected to find something here. That is all. We may proceed from this point.” 

He stepped back from the edge of the path and ushered the pair towards the downward slope that would lead deeper into Hotland. 

Sans and Papyrus waited until he was two paces ahead of them before they moved. 

They were walking on eggshells. Quiet. Cautious. Gaster felt the attention of one brother and noted when he subtly glanced over his shoulder, that while one kept his eyelights on him, the other kept their eye on their surroundings. Paranoia , he thought, a pang of grief and pity through his heart. They did not deserve this. No child should ever be under this kind of stress.

Wolf’s tiny claws prickled through the sleeve of his coat as the little one peered around his arm to look behind him, following his gaze.

“Why didn’t you just take us directly to Snowdin?” Sans groused. 

“That is beyond my capabilities at the moment,” Gaster admitted. “It is best if we keep moving. We must travel past the Laboratory to enter Waterfall, and I do not care to become familiar with my counterpart’s schedule.”

“You should assume he’s there,” Papyrus said, loudly. The sneer in his tone drowned out his brother's grumbling. “He is always working.”

“Dunno if he ever left the lab,” Sans added with an equally unpleasant tone. “He never went far. Made it really hard for us to get out. What with the cameras and all,” he glared at Gaster, as though challenging him. And as usual, when presented with posturing from an iteration of a son, Gaster deliberately did not react.

“But he chose to send someone after us instead of lookin’ for us himself. So yeah. He’s there.” 

Gaster could not think of anything reassuring to say in response.

The hike from there to the Laboratory went quickly and quietly. They were not seen or approached by a single monster. It felt as though he was the only one brazen enough to challenge curfew. Hotland seemed to be all but abandoned. 

The CORE hummed. Relentless, in the distance. A drum through the ground and a beat at his back. Occasionally the vibration sent pebbles on the ground quivering. But if the only threat came from the CORE’s ceaseless rhythm, Gaster considered himself lucky.

The closer they came to the lab, the more on edge the boys were. He gave them their space, carefully monitoring their progress as they descended to the lower levels of the cavern. 

(He hoped to see another fissure along the way, hoped to feel the cold dread of the void thrum in time to his presence. Which was a bizarre thing to hope for, and after examining that feeling, Gaster wondered if he had taken ill, but he neither saw nor felt any sign of it. 

This fact reminded him that he’d only begun to see tears in the walls of reality a few days after arriving in Bodoni’s world. It has been a scant few hours since he’d arrived in this one… He didn’t like where that thought led.)

Twice, Gaster had to manually bypass a puzzle to save time. It seemed that not one, but all his of old codes worked. This was not reassuring. It meant that his counterpart had at one point shared his thought process. 

That idea was disturbing.

And then over the ridge, the laboratory came into view. Pristine white. Metallic walls glisten orange and red under the haze of volcanic heat. The entirety of the facility was perched on an isolated plateau, with the lower levels buried deep under the foundation. A river of molten rock surrounded the island and the narrow cliffs that branched off from it. Gurgling and spitting. 

Gaster had chosen a roundabout path, winding along the sides of the cavern instead of taking the heavily trafficked road that cut directly through it. So when the facility came into view they were one level below it. 

They were nearing the narrow bridge hidden in the shadow of the plateau that spanned the gap between the outer cavern wall and the laboratory, when the heated conversation between Sans and Papyrus abruptly went from a hissing, barely audible verbal standoff, to yelling. 

“-shut up!” Sans snapped. 

Gaster paused, paces ahead of the pair, and turned around. He had not heard most of the conversation and he did not know what the argument was about. He could take a guess but whatever the case, it had clearly gone too far.

Additionally, they were too close to the facility to speak so loudly.

“Children—“ 

CLACK. 

Sans’s tiny skull snapped to the side with a sharp jerk. Sockets were wide and dark in the span of time it took for Papyrus to strike his brother’s cheek. 

Gaster froze.

Until now, the boys had maintained a certain distance from him. Out of “grabbing range” presumably. And until now Gaster had respected that distance. But Sans turned slowly, jaw tight, hurt and anger shining in his eyes. What he planned to do next was written clearly across his face.

Sans’s small fist clanked against an open palm. It did not hurt, because Sans was small, his intent faltering, and Gaster’s stats were higher than he cared to admit. Sans reeled back, a small frightened noise seeped through his equally small ribcage. Papyrus went as stiff and as still as the cliff face they stood under.

Their first impulse was fear. Stars . Gaster quickly willed the construct to dissolve.

He took a breath, the mana pulsing through his marrow cold, and said, as softly and gently as he could muster. “… there is nothing you can resolve with violence that you cannot also resolve with words. Please, do not hit each other.”

Papyrus took a step back. His fists trembled, but his eyelights were hard. “What do you know? You weren’t part of our conversation!”

“Be that as it may, it is not appropriate to strike your brother. Please, do not hurt him, in your anger.”

Papyrus scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. His posture was defensive but the action itself seemed self-comforting. “I wasn’t hurting him, I was enacting discipline! If I didn’t correct my brother’s moronic behavior, someone else will!”

There was… so much to unpack there.

He folded his hands together. The implications of that were enough to broil one’s heart— no, only calm thoughts now. He could fantasize about feeding his counterpart to a woodchipper later . “It is not your place to enact discipline, child. From now on… no one will strike either of you. And you will not strike each other. That. Will not happen here. Understood?”

Papyrus glowered into the distance. “Understood,” he ground out.

Sans bared his teeth but made no sound. Fist clenching and unclenching the hem of his shirt.

Neither child would meet his eye. No one corrected him.

Gaster swallowed. He… he... supposed this was good enough for now. This was not something that could be addressed in a single day. Nor was this a safe place to do so. No, absolutely not. He needed to get them somewhere safe first but this would not be the last time this was addressed.

“May I?” Gaster asked gently, closely watching the way Sans rubbed his sore cheek. Sans stiffened and then shook his head.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he said.

Gaster gazed at him in worry but allowed the subject to drop. He did not see any sign of physical damage to the young one’s cheekbone. He made a mental note to find food for the little one as soon as possible. Which would hopefully ease whatever pain, if any, remained by then. Who knew when their last meal was? And Kalluno would likely want something to eat soon as well. Shelter. Food. New clothes... the list went on.

Come to think of it, perhaps he ought to find something else to wear for himself too. Possibly with a hood.

He led the children across the rickety bridge. The gurgling hiss of molten rock could be heard quite plainly under the silence. 

Once on the other side, there would be a short climb up a narrow flight of stairs, footholds dug out of the cliff face decades prior. The stairs looped up and ended just behind the elevator shaft. The climb was somewhat steep, and the height of the plateau forced one to crane their head back to see the ledge and the facility above. 

Wolf leaned back, the nubs of his spin dug into Gaster’s chest. He made a quiet noise. The pulse of his magic skipped a beat. Gaster could not tell if his son was unnerved by the scale of the building, the elevator shaft they were approaching from below, or if it was something else that unsettled him.

Halfway across the rope bridge, Gaster tensed. Pins and needles crawled through his marrow, whispering the promise of a danger he couldn’t yet see. The feeling was similar to what he had felt underneath the bridge in New Home. Similar still, to the weight of power. The kind Don Asgore had exerted. Hostile, and stifling.

He stepped off the rope bridge under the shadow of the plateau and brought a single phalange to his mouth as Sans and Papyrus joined him on the other side. Once he was sure they were paying attention, he signed. ‘We are not alone here. There is a narrow path, and a stone outcropping to the south of us,’ the boys looked in the direction he pointed dubiously. ‘ If memory serves, there should be enough of a gap for the three of you to hide.’

“ The three of us?” Papyrus echoed.

Wolf gave Gaster a startled look. His claws clung like velcro to his coat as Gaster gently, but firmly pried him from his arms and set him on the ground. Wolf looked back at him, betrayed.

“We’re not babysitting!” Sans hissed. 

Papyrus looked at his brother, at Wolf then at Gaster. His look was calculating and grim. 

'No,’ Gaster agreed. ‘You are not babysitting. You are hiding. Now go. And do not come out until I return to retrieve you. No matter what you hear, do not move or make a sound. Understood?’

Sans scowled. Gaster waited for the little one to speak again, but the child ducked his skull away, teeth clenched and all but scampered down the path he had directed. Gaster’s soul sank, but what could he do? He could not confront whoever stood at the top of that plateau with three children in tow.

He waited until they were out of sight, hidden by the space between two large stones and a slit in the rock. (though Gaster had to give Kalluno a gentle push to encourage him to join them.) Then he turned, pulling what flimsy shadows lay here around himself, and climbed the stairs. 

Gaster placed a hand on the elevator as he stepped onto the landing. Footfall light and cautious. The metal paneling was warm, almost scorching to the touch. 

He peered around the elevator and stopped short.

Ah, and there it was. The inconvenience. 

Two monsters stood next to the laboratory entrance. Both were dressed in black leather from head to toe but neither had the appearance of a traditional guard, lacking the silver armor and weaponry one would expect. His attention skimmed over the first monster, drawn to the second monster by the striking hue of violet fire.

In his own world, he could not recall meeting an elemental who burned so hot.  

The elemental leaned almost casually against the wall. His arms were crossed over his chest. The picture of boredom. The flames of his body lashed high, crackling. He wore a fur-lined jacket and even though he had no mind for fashion, Gaster could tell it had been an expensive purchase. 

Gaster felt safe assuming they were men for hire. Anger burned behind his teeth.

He stepped back. The scorching metal of the elevator shaft dug into his shoulder blades.

The moment he stepped out into the open he would be in direct view of the camera above the laboratory entrance. Even if his counterpart wasn’t monitoring the feed at exactly that moment, he would spot him on the recording. Crossing that bridge without being seen in one form or another was impossible.

So... his options were few. 

He could wait for the mercenaries to leave. But the longer he waited, the higher the chances of discovery rose. He could confront them now, bearing his counterpart’s name and face, and dismiss them. Ah, but the risk percentage remained the same. He knew little of how his counterpart held himself in this world. Could he successfully imitate a man he had never met?

Disgust curdled in his chest, and filled his metaphorical throat with a taste both vile and bitter. He could justify claiming Aster’s name and face to himself, but here? The thought filled him with repulsion.

But he wouldn’t be claiming his name and face for himself, would he? He would be using it to secure safe passage. Even so, he gritted his teeth. He didn’t want this to become a habit.

There had to be another way to get past them.

It seemed, in the end, he thought on it much too hard. 

Not less than a minute later, he heard the familiar hiss and rumble of the lab doors opening. The first mercenary entered the lab, leaving his companion alone outside. The darkness within was as thick as velvet. He stared into it, willing his sole eyelight to make out a silhouette in the darkness. It did not.

The doors crawled shut.

A final glance up to the camera above the entrance. When it failed to blink, he stepped out of hiding. The warning in his marrow hummed louder. Time was of the essence.

The elemental looked up, molten white eyes widening a fraction. He pushed off the wall and approached him.

“Doctor,” the mercenary inclined his head in a shallow nod, a motion too slight to be a bow. He did an odd but subtle thing with his head, angling it a fraction to the side as though peering over Gaster’s shoulder. Paranoia of the kind that came with a history of raising children who were frequently up to no good compelled Gaster to quickly, and subtly glance over his shoulder, but to his relief that particular fear was unfounded.

So then, why...? No, it didn’t matter. 

Gaster unclasped his hands from behind his back. He signed. ‘There has been a change of plans. You are no longer needed here. Return after curfew has been lifted.’

The mercenary smirked. “Have your plans already gone awry? That’s too bad.” His tone dripped with mock pity. “I expect to be paid for wasting my time, poltergeist. I was under the impression you had a specific errand for me.”

Ah… Gaster drew a sharp blank. ‘Of course… As I said, there has been, a change of plans.’

The snide edge to the elemental’s smile dropped. His eyes narrowed. White and mauve sparks chipped from the corner of his eyes. Wisps of light carried by a black wind. 

Time slowed, as Gaster felt a probing check scratch the outer surface of his being. It was nudging, initially respectful, but with a bitter edge of suspicion. He blocked it. But such things happen so quickly, he knew he hadn’t reacted in time. Or made the right choice by doing so.

Shock. Understanding dawned in the elemental’s eyes. 

Gaster yanked a wall of bone from the earth as the air whistled— FWOOSH. Light and heat engulfed his vision.

The mercenary had his hands wrapped around the hilt of a sword, made of fire. The blade of his sword, molten white, slowly sank into his summons as easily as it would through flesh. The bone began to fizzle, and drip.

A sliver broke off. And then it shattered.

He staggered back. Chest cold and tight, his sole eyelight flashed and a row of blue bones jutted up from the ground. The elemental ducked and rolled. One spear ripped into the corner of the other man’s leather jacket but narrowly missed him. Damnit! He had hoped to avoid a fight. 

The elemental took one glance at his torn jacket, and the jagged line of his molten mouth pulled back in an outraged snarl. “You will pay for that!”

The loud, blaring warning in his skull transformed into a full howl.

Guided by instinct, Gaster quickly summoned another attack just in time to block a second strike. Metal shrieked as it peeled across serrated bone. Sparks danced over his claws. Hot and prickling, and as dense and scathing as the malicious intent that washed over his bones. He felt his own mana bristle in reply.

His heel met unsteady ground. The groan of old wood creaked underfoot, and the whole thing swayed under his weight.

Gaster brought up his arm. CLANG. A shriek and the weapon his hand shook. It began to splinter. His soul thundered. Skipped a beat. Molten white eyes narrowed and the elemental pushed all his weight down. 

A noise escaped his gritted teeth. His arm began to ache from the strain. His sole eyelight flicked to the bridge behind him then back again.

He fell back. One step after another, trying to put distance between himself and the mercenary. The farther he retreated, the more eagerly the elemental pursued him. Shark-like smile growing ever wider with every dodge and glancing blow. 

He seemed to be enjoying this.

The bridge swayed. Gaster counted the steps until he reached the middle of it. The thrumming drum in his skull deafened. 

Below them, magma bubbled and frothed. A great curtain of steam and heat rose, warping the distant shore. Obscured by the heat, he could not see the blinking red light of the camera above the laboratory entrance.

Dangerously close now, the elemental brought his sword down. Gaster caught the blade. Allowed it to slide down the length of his own attack and redirected the strength of the blow to the side. 

The elemental cursed as he stumbled. An opening ; the buzzing in his marrow sang. Take it. His back is exposed. He forced the construct in his hand to dissolve. The bridge swayed wildly. With little to hold onto, he fell into a crouch, the pulse in his chest stuttering, and turned his own bones blue to anchor himself to the nauseating swing of the bridge. 

The elemental recovered faster. He planted his boots down, bracing his knees apart for balance, and swung his sword wide. 

Gaster jerked back as heat scorched the vertebrae of his neck. The tip of the blade skimmed his jawbone. A flake of dust and bone snapped off. Caught mid-air in that same frozen half-second that Gaster reached for the point in space where the stairwell behind the elevator met the earth and yanked himself through—

—the heels of his shoes met the ground and he stumbled, and all but threw himself against the cliffside, soul pounding so wickedly fast in his chest, his whole body shook. 

Hands flew to his neck and on unsteady feet, he braced himself on the cliff wall. 

Ha... t-that, had been too close.

Gingerly, he brushed a phalange over the new chip in his jaw. Grains of dust did not part it, but the wound stung. The damage was not... severe, then. He did not need another fracture. He felt his jaw, but could not feel another crack forming.

He waited for the drum in his bones to slow. It was still hard in his throat and he could feel the rhythm of it through his teeth. He did not wait for long, he couldn’t afford to, but he did not want to approach the children while in such a state. Sans and Papyrus… stars, they were already so wary. And he had frightened Kalluno once before.

This was the last thing he wanted to expose them to. 

He waited until instinct told him it was time to move again. He took one shaky step, then two. His pace steadied. 

The children were where he expected them to be. Peering up from the crevice in the cliffside. With that expectation met, the still bristling part of him finally relaxed, metaphorically sheathing its claws. They were safe.

Wolf sat between Sans and Papyrus, who, despite the cramped space, did their best to lean as far away from him as possible.

The sight was briefly comical. Wolf was still so much smaller than the two. But his amusement swiftly died because he knew that it was not out of some, overexaggerated respect for Wolf’s personal space. Sans and Papyrus were under the impression that if they aggravated his youngest, it would anger him .

And that... that just— he wanted to weep. 

Gaster raised his hands to sign, but they shook too much. With some difficulty, he managed to rasp out instructions. ”S-soon, I will transport you to the middle of the bridge that leads to Waterfall and Snowdin beyond. Once there, run. Do not wait for me until you reach Waterfall. Understood?”

His voice warbled and crackled with static, but the boys nodded stiffly. Wolf chirped.

And then it was a matter of waiting. Under the gurgle of molten rock, he heard the elemental curse.

It went quiet. 

Gaster stepped back from the cliffside, footsteps light. And looked down the cliff wall, to the stairwell, and what he could see of the elevator shaft from that angle. 

In Hotland, all natural sources of light came from below. The shadows here hung from the ceiling. So his gaze tracked higher, watching them for a dreaded source of light that did not come from the river of magma. 

The shadows flickered, crawled across the cylinder, and Gaster turned back to the children. Stepped close to them and said. “Brace yourselves.”

In a multicolor flash of light, he brought them through the shortcut to the center of the bridge. The moment the soles of his shoes touched the wood, he pressed everyone down in a blanket of blue, just to be sure they all had a steady footing. The bridge had stilled by then, and only the center of it dripped marginally from their combined weight but he would never live with himself if one of them fell into the river below.

Sans’s soul pounded, skipping from fright. His brother’s reaction was no better. Pale and chalky boned, soul-skittering fast. Gaster released them both quickly, feeling wretched, but in a dangerous place like this, he had to be sure of their safety. 

“Go,” he said. Wordlessly, with a fleeting glance to the other side of the bridge, to the laboratory, and then back to him, Sans and Papyrus ducked around him and vaulted for the path to Waterfall. 

Gaster watched until their feet met steady earth and rock. He tore his gaze away, back to the laboratory, just in time to make out the faint, glowing outline of the elemental emerging from behind the elevator shaft.

The thing in his bones hummed in anticipation, but a squeaky whimper shook the dark thought with a hard mental smack. Wolf clung to his arm, to his sleeve, and pressed himself so tight to his chest he might as well have melted into the space between his ribs.

He ran the rest of the way across the bridge.

A shout just as the soles of his shoes met solid earth and he spun around. He clutched Wolf tight to his chest. The other man was feet away from the bridge. If he did nothing, the mercenary would follow him.

Gaster’s sole eye snapped from the elemental, to the bridge and back. He raised his free hand and yanked a column of spears underneath the supports that kept the bridge pinned to the ground. 

The attack severed the rope. And down, gracefully, the bridge fell. Floating like a clipped ribbon until, with a hollow wooden thunk, what remained of the bridge hit the opposing cliff. 

Under the hiss and gurgle of Hotland, the sound thundered. Reverberating throughout the cavern.

Across the chasm, the mercenary came to a halt. His body sparked and flashed. Howling in outrage, he threw his blade down. Piercing the earth. It dissolved in a light show of sparks and ash.

Gaster caught his breath. His pulse was heavy. The mercenary paced. Their eyes met once. The elemental raised a fist and sent him an incredibly rude inappropriate gesture. 

Well! Gaster slapped a hand over Wolf’s eyesockets. The child peeped, startled. He was having none of that. 

With one last parting glare, Gaster turned his back on the mercenary and followed the road to Waterfall.

Chapter Text

He ran until the orange-red glow of Hotland faded into the unfamiliar darkness of its neighboring cavern. Then, without warning an uncomfortable twinge surged through his leg. It buckled. Sans hit the ground with a pained yelp.

Papyrus caught up to him seconds later. “Fool! Why didn’t you stop sooner?”

“ ‘cause I don’t want him to catch up,” Sans snapped. Carefully, he pushed himself up. He glanced down at his leg and grimaced. He rolled down the hem of his sock. The fracture up and down his leg didn’t look worse, but it hurt like hell.

Ugh! Could anything else go wrong? 

Papyrus crouched down next to him. “He agreed to escort us to Snowdin.” 

“So?” His head snapped up. He fixed his brother with a glare. “Doesn’t matter what he says. He’s a clone of Gaster.”

Papyrus drew himself up. “I’m not stupid! I do not trust him blindly. But when was the last time you heard of a monster with GREEN magic, Sans? He had ample opportunity to deliver us directly to Dr. Gaster and he didn’t .”

“So what? That doesn’t mean shit. He said he was helping us to piss off the creep, but if Gaster wants us alive for his research, what else is this guy willing to do to spite him? There’s more than one way to skin a dog.”

Infuriatingly, Papyrus rolled his eyelights. “If he’d wanted us dead, we’d already be dust! Idiot.”

Sans worked his teeth. That was true. Under that bridge, they’d been completely at his mercy. But that didn’t mean Gaster’s lookalike had their best interests in mind. Sans hadn’t met a monster who wasn’t selfish at heart. He had to be gettin’ something more out of this. His behavior was just too—what was the word? Altruistic? Yeah. No one was that kind naturally! 

“His ultimate goal could be to replace the Doctor or somethin’. We don’t know!”

“I think you are squandering our chances to secure a strong ally!”

“I’m protecting us! Don’t you get it, Pap? We don’t have to take that chance at all if we ditch ‘im now!”

Papyrus crossed his arms. He said nothing. Why take the gamble when you don’t have to? “Fine,” he said. “But if your leg snaps off and we can’t find another Healer, it’s your own fault. I want it on record that I was against your asinine decision.”

“Consider it on record,” Sans said gruffly. “C’mon, pap. Help me up.”

Papyrus rolled his eyes again but rose to his feet. He held his arm firmly until Sans found his balance. Sans swallowed down a hiss. A sharp pang shot up his femur to his knee. He pressed his weight on it gingerly. After a few minutes of trial and error, they started walking.

This deep into the tunnel, the last rays of red light from Hotland had faded completely. The walls glistened a pale blue, damp, from rising humidity. A cool, white mist clung to the ground. Sans couldn't decide if he liked it more or less than hot steam.

Papyrus stopped briefly to gaze into a wide gap in the rock. The wall on one side of the cavern tunnel transitioned sharply into stalactites, and grey columns of cool, ice-smooth stone. But on the other side, a huge hole in the wall looked out over a deep, black pit. The opening was crowned by stone teeth. And through the mouth, the darkness went on and on until it was broken in the distance by the now dim glow of fire and heat. Cut out of that light stood the massive outline of the CORE. 

Sans shuffled over to stand by his brother. He swallowed. Uncomfortably aware of the itchiness of his dirty-raggy shirt. They were the farthest they had ever been from the Lab but a small quiet part of him was still convinced he’d never left it. 

They could go from one end of the underground to the other but it didn’t feel any different. They were just as trapped. All they’d done was exchange a small cage for a larger one. 

How long could they keep this up?

“C’mon... let’s get moving, pap.”

Papyrus jumped slightly when he tugged on his sleeve. He’d been holding himself tightly, arms wrapped around his middle. “My thoughts exactly.”

They kept walking. 

Sans strained to listen for the sounds that indicated someone was following them, but it wasn’t until they’d crossed another wooden bridge (This time, suspended over a bottomless canyon. Sharp stalactites grew on the cliff walls all the way down.) and rounded a corner that they heard something. Papyrus noticed first. 

A tug on his sleeve. As tense as a wire, Sans hunched his shoulders. He turned to growl a quiet “what?” but stopped. Papyrus tugged on his sleeve again, and Sans followed his gaze to the tunnel they’d just walked down. Then he heard it. Footsteps. 

Sans frantically scanned their surroundings for somewhere to hide. His leg still hurt. He’d really fucked it up running. And there was no way he’d to able to run now without making a lot of noise. And then he wouldn’t get far and they would get caught and—

“This way!” Papyrus hiss-barked which was honestly the quietest he could get. He grabbed his shirt and all but dragged Sans off the path. 

The tunnel led into a new chamber. The room seemed to glow blue from the ground up. Echo flowers. A whole field of them. The petals of the tallest flowers could brush his shoulders. Papyrus ducked down. Sans followed him. On their hands and knees, they crawled into the tall grass and sat under wide fan-like petals. 

“I thought you were against this,” Sans hissed to his brother.

Papyrus’s face flushed. “If my brother is going to be an idiot he better be the best idiot to ever participate in idiocracy.”

Sans snorted. “Thanks, Papyrus,”

“Shut up! You’re gonna get us caught!”

“You’re the one yelling!”

“You’re the one yelling!” His voice replied.

The brothers froze. Uh oh. Suddenly cold and very clammy, Sans remembered why they were called Echo Flowers . 

Papyrus glowered. Balefully. “Fantastic. Wonderful. How incredibly intelligent of you Sans. Now, Gaster’s doppelganger, the very man you wanted to flee from, will but have our whereabouts delivered to him on a silver platter. You should turn yourself in now and spare me the embarrassment.”

“Hey, you started it!”

“Ah, there you are. Are the two of you alright?”

Sans didn’t jolt. But if he did then Papyrus did too, except worse. A full body lurch. And then they both froze and craned their heads up and up. 

Somehow Dr. Gaster’s clone had seen them from the path because he hadn’t left it. He stood there, shoulders not quite relaxed but not tense either. Somewhere in between. One hand folded over the other in front of him so everyone could see them. Not that it mattered much when he could summon more at will.

Sans was reminded of some of the feline monsters he’d seen who made themselves seem laid back on purpose because they didn’t want you to know what they were thinking.

But the worst thing about Gaster’s clone, Sans had decided, was his face. See, he didn’t scowl like the Doctor, who bared his teeth a lot and sneered even when he wasn’t angry. And when he wasn’t frowning, or his mouth wasn’t drawn in a tight line, he smiled. And when he smiled, it was malicious and cold and you knew something really, really bad was about to happen.

His clone didn't smile like that, and it was weird. His expressions were milder and... hell, he didn’t know a word for it. But they were hard to read and that was all that mattered.

He was wearing one of them right now. One of those soft ones that made Sans sick with nerves because he didn’t know what it meant. But of course, he couldn’t let anyone know that. So he clicked his teeth and hunched his shoulders. 

If you didn’t know what Dr. Gaster was gonna do next (which was always) it was better just to put your head down and hope he didn’t notice you. Which was just about the best advice you could give anyone on how to deal with the mad Scientist. It was not a good thing to have his attention.

Sans figured, since this monster seemed to be a weird fucked-up clone, he’d probably be the same way.

Except… he wasn’t.

He didn't dismiss him. Hunkering down only seemed to put the older monster on edge. Like… like he was expecting an attack or something. But he didn't look at Sans like he was the threat (that would've been stupid), nah, it was like... something else was and he was waiting for it to approach.

Sans didn’t like it. 

At this point, the silence had stretched for an uncomfortably long time. Papyrus scrambled to his feet. 

“My brother re-injured himself.”

No!

“He… he’s exaggerating!” Sans said shrilly. He staggered to his feet, stumbled on the first step, and barely managed to swallow back a whine. The doppelganger’s expression didn't change but it still got worse somehow. 

He took a measured step toward Sans, and before Sans could even fucking blink, he felt a Check. And oh yeah, that was another thing he hated about this guy.

For some reason, his magic didn’t feel as bitting as the Doctor’s. ‘cause when Dr. Gaster Checked him it felt like getting dropped in a bucket of ice. But Checks from this guy were like feathers. Gentle. You barely felt them. Sans didn’t know how to deal with gentle . 

Anything that looked like Dr. Gaster should not be this quiet and careful and, and— 

“I'm fine!” He said. Forcing a defensive growl from his ribcage when the older monster knelt at a respectful pace or two next to him. He was suddenly very scared that the monster might be angry that he had wasted his valuable and rare green magic on a worthless good for nothing— Sans couldn’t even be grateful enough to not get himself hurt again!

“I apologize little one. I pushed you both to flee to evade discovery, but you were hurt as a result of that.”

…he was apologizing. Why was he apologizing? 

Sans clenched and unclenched his fists. He didn't know what to say or how to respond and he really didn't want to piss this guy off. But the words didn't come to him, so in the end he glowered at the nearest flower. His cheek hurt. 

The man sighed. He offered a closed hand, phalanges unfurling to reveal the small green attack he had summoned. Just like he’d done earlier. 

He didn’t have a choice. Papyrus watched him with his arms crossed, silent. Sans gritted his teeth. He picked up the bone. And like before, the doppelganger didn’t move until the construct had dissolved, and Sans could put pressure on his leg without wincing. 

(Green magic felt nice but he would never ever admit that out loud.)

“How’d you fi— er, catch up to us so fast?” Sans asked begrudgingly. He felt stupid.

“Ah, well, hmm. How to put this delicately... the cavern, at least this part of it, is naturally quiet. You two, it seems, are not.”

Sans grimaced. Another glance toward his brother revealed a similar expression of embarrassment. A little shaky, Sans sneered in his direction.

“Sound carries, of course,” his brother said stiffly. 

“In the future, it would be wise to contain your argument in silence. At least, until you are somewhere where sound does not echo. Perhaps gesture to each other, or write down what you wish to convey instead.”

Sans bristled. “Why are you telling us this?” It didn’t make sense. Why give them advice that might help them escape next time?

“I vowed to protect you. I would not be fulfilling that promise if I withheld information.”

The bridge of bone between his sockets scrunched up. That sounded like bullshit to him.

“You can speak silently,” Papyrus commented. It was subtle, which was a weird word to use for his brother, but there was a smug glint to his eyelights. 

Sans glowered back. Papyrus hadn’t proved anything yet.

The older monster inclined his skull in a slow nod. He seemed pleased. “If you wish, I can teach you.”

“… you would do that?” 

“Of course,” he slowly rose to his feet. Sans eyed the man as he stood. Nothing about him made sense. But Sans was starting to notice a consistency to his nonsense. 

He raised his hands so they were level with his chest. Formed a new shape by pressing the tip of a distal bone and the middle ring of two phalanges to the underside of his hand. After that, it was harder to follow what he was doing because he moved them so quickly. (Sans did notice that he kept his claws from grazing the hole in his palm though. Must be sensitive or something. That might be useful to remember later. Dr. Gaster wore gloves. His clone didn’t.)

‘ If you are willing, I will give you a lesson as we walk.’

Sans exchanged a look with his brother. He was still suspicious as all hell. The doppelganger was giving them a lot without asking for anything in return. Nothing about that felt right. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the clone to demand something. It couldn’t be just spite that motivated him . There had to be more to this.

Papyrus shook his head. Later. They couldn’t talk about it now.

They fell into step behind the man. Followed him like stupid ducklings. He didn’t seem to realize they’d tried to ditch him. Good. They needed to keep it that way. 

He signed something else. Papyrus soaked up the lesson like a sponge. Sans wasn’t paying attention. Let his brother be a distraction if he wanted to be.

Perched on the man’s shoulders, the weird blaster monster looked like the world’s weirdest cat. He wore stripes like a babybones. Stripes meaning: Mercy . Please don’t hurt me, under the pain of death. So he obviously meant something to Gaster’s clone. 

It still felt weird that he would trust the shrimp with him and Pap though . Didn’t he know what the Doctor had been training them for?

The babybones caught him staring. Looked at him full on and blinked very round and wide eye sockets. Then, he tilted his head to the side. And chirped.

Sans snorted and tilted his head in the opposite direction. The babybones mimicked him.

Okay… fine.

He was kinda cute. 

Still not his problem though.

“What’s the kid’s name anyway?”

“You're a kid yourself,” his brother sniped, before Gaster’s clone even had a chance to reply. Which would have been great except Sans actually wanted an answer from him right now.

“So are you, shuddup!”

“Ah, no need to fight now.” The older skeleton said with that infuriatingly soft tone of his, raising his hands as though that would pacify them. “My apologies, it escaped my mind that I had not introduced him to you. This is Kalluno or Wolf. My son.”

Wolf, huh? Well, he didn’t look like one right now, but he did have the face of a blaster so maybe he’d grow into it.

Sans had one more question but he was hesitant to ask it. The clone waited expectantly. Like he knew. Sans swallowed back the tight knot of magic tangled around the vertebrae of his neck and said. “Okay. Cool. But what do you want us to call you?”

Papyrus blinked and nodded sharply in agreement. “My brother is right. In the chaos of our meeting, I did not think to ask. You were clever to use negligence to fool me but no longer! If our alliance is to last we must refer to you as something.”

“… of course. But I am afraid you have caught me unprepared.”

Sans frowned. “You call yourself something , don’t you?” He had to, right? Even Dr. Gaster gave them something to call themselves. “The Doctor had to’ve called you something.”

“Pardon?”

“You are his clone, correct?”

A different emotion flitted through the man’s eyes. Sans thought it might be exasperation, but he didn’t know for sure so he took a step back. Exasperation looked a lot like frustration. Papyrus did NOT do the same though, and stood there, staring at the very dangerous mirror image of their father, waiting. 

“As I explained before, I am best described as a counterpart. A clone is a close approximation to what I am, but I fear that by saying so I may have confused you. Your Gaster did not create me. I did not mean to imply such.”

Papyrus looked just as confused as Sans felt. Sans scowled. “What, are you like his twin or something? You should’ve just said that!”

Frustratingly, Gaster’s whatever-the-fuck, shook his head. “That would have been dishonest. We are not siblings: I am not his twin and we were not raised together.”

Well, that just crossed off all possibilities, didn’t it? 

“Is Dr. Gaster YOUR clone then?” Papyrus asked finally. He was scowling too.

A pause, the older skeleton seemed conflicted. And worse, he said. “To my knowledge, no...”

Sans dropped his face into his hands and groaned. “Forget it! Just give us something to call you already.”

“Ah, but you see that is the problem, little one. While everything we just discussed is true, W.D. Gaster and I share the same name.”

Sans was just about ready to explode. Nothing about any of this made sense!

He looked at his brother for help—but by the unsurprised look on his brother’s face, realized Papyrus already knew that bit.

“Okay,” he ground his teeth because Papyrus was clearly not going to help. “What does the W.D. stand for, anyway?”

“He never told us,” his brother sniffed.

“Wingdings. My— our full name is Wingdings Gaster,” the clone answered. “Hmm. I will leave the nickname up to you. Please consider our options as we walk.”

Papyrus liked that they had been given control of the situation and for a brief second Sans wondered if that had been intentional on the clone-not-clone’s part. “We will discuss this at length. After all, we cannot call you Gaster!”

Wait… was that a flinch? Had Gaster’s clone just flinched?

Sans studied him for a beat. But the man was impossible to read. He dropped his gaze before the monster could catch him staring. Dr. Gaster and his clone-not-clone were wildly different, he could admit that. To himself. Reluctantly. But Sans wasn’t going to trust him. He couldn’t afford to. Not ever. 

In this world, the strong preyed on the weak. And Sans knew he was weak. 

The journey through Waterfall after that was surprisingly uneventful. But that ease was not achieved without effort. 

After locating the children again and mending Sans’s leg, Gaster took the deep shadows from the cavern walls and shrouded himself and the children within it. His magic was naturally cool, and as the ambient temperature in the Waterfall was already quite low compared to the cavern that came after it, the children didn’t seem to notice. Which was just as well because so far from the capital, this region of the underground was not as empty as Hotland had been. 

Shrouded by darkness, they went unnoticed.

He did not see every monster he passed, but the drumming in his bones never seemed to lose tempo. The LV in his system was on high alert, whispering insistently, and inclined to drag icy-hot claws down his spine whenever he or one of the children took a step too close to a hidden resident. He was inclined to listen to it. He could not sense the other monsters exactly, but dust-thirst seemed to permeate the very walls. The desire for it grated like hot coals. The experience was not unlike swallowing pebbles every couple of feet. 

Added to that was his general unease with the darkness itself. He could not bring himself to stare into it for any length of time, dreading and hoping he would see a tear, and always in the back of his mind reminded of the void. He wished his soul would settle on feeling one or the other. 

As they neared Snowdin, Gaster was very, very relieved to have made it this far without incident.

When finally they stepped out onto the snow, ice, and frost crunching under their feet, the children were well and truly exhausted. He could relate. 

Two steps from the grand cavern’s entrance he released the surrounding shadows from his hold and stopped to rest. To give the children a moment for their more sensitive eyelights to adjust to the change in light. The ambient magic of Snowdin’s chamber was biting. Surely a stark change from their residence in Hotland and New Home. The children shivered.

Ice and Snow, as it happened, aided Snowdin’s diurnal magic in spreading light throughout the cavern. This has been true back home and seemed to be true here too. Ice coated the cavern walls behind them, before gradually melting into ribbons of trickling water the closer it came to Waterfall proper. 

Naturally, this meant the ice coating the walls grew thicker in the opposite direction. Most of it went unnoticed as the bulk of Snowdin’s main chamber was so incomprehensibly huge. Darkness fell before one could see the other side, so the refraction of light went unnoticed. 

Nostalgia and longing washed over him, suddenly. His soul ached. This was what he expected to find after escaping through Epsilon’s machine. The Snowdin he remembered through snippets and clips of a world lived and unlived. 

Sans and Papyrus… they had so many good memories here.

Turning to the little ones he had with him now, he said with a soft smile. “Welcome to Snowdin. Just a little farther now and we can finally rest. The town is just beyond this hill.”

“ ‘mm not tired,” Sans denied with notably less enthusiasm than he had denied other things. 

Papyrus was trying and failing to subtly lean against a stray snow-capped boulder. “That’s right you-“ his jaws parted in a yawn. “-you haven’t kept your part of our deal yet. It doesn’t count until… until…” 

He seemed too tired to remember the rest of his demands.

Gaster’s heart melted. It was difficult to resist the urge to scoop the two in his arms and carry them the rest of the way. 

Wolf was already fast asleep, having long since migrated from his shoulders to his arms again. 

Gently, he encouraged them on. Almost there. They could make it.

They crossed the land bridge that led into town.

Behind a row of fir trees, black water ran parallel to the road. Rapids hissed and rumbled, lapping roughly against the stone bank. A sharp bend a ways off made the water foam. The sound was occasionally interrupted by the distinct plunk caused by chunks of ice bumping into each as the river carried them through.

Gaster wasn’t sure what exactly he heard underneath this sound, as they neared the first house and the cluster of trees behind it. But something compelled him to stop. Gaze directed to the cropping of trees that looped around the river bend.

It was a particular tree that he found himself staring at but he could not figure out why. It was like other fir trees. No taller or shorter than the rest. Its branches were thick and heavy with snow. As green and healthy as any other tree in the Snowdin region. It was the nearest tree to the river, and a small clearing sat in front of it. 

His eyelight tracked down. To the trunk and then to the ground where the roots would be hidden under half a foot of snow. 

A twig rested on top of pristine white snow. Bent to the point of nearly snapping in two. 

He had the distinct impression he was being watched.

“What is it?” Papyrus asked. He followed his gaze frowning, then darted behind Gaster. Sans had already decided it was a great place to be.

Frowning himself, Gaster summoned a pair of hands and signed where they could not be seen from the tree line. ‘Stay close. Do not acknowledge it.’

Then he silently gestured for them to follow him and continued walking. 

As he walked he listened. The crunch of snow. Two footsteps beside his own. The pace was a little quicker, as their legs were shorter, so the sound was brisk. 

The town was silent. 

When he reached the Inn, he turned to face the main street of town. Golden light filtered through a window or two. Casting yellow rectangles on the street below. A pale gray-blue contrasting gold. 

As Gaster watched, a shadow passed behind one window a couple of houses down. Their shadow darting across the rectangular on the snow in the street. The shadow pulled the curtain down. The light went off. 

The town felt darker for it but as it was, the street was deserted. Absolutely still. Save for the drifting particles of snow from the ceiling above. 

If whoever had been watching him had followed… they hid well.

Gaster opened the doors to the Inn and waited for the children to step inside first. He scanned his surroundings one more time and then shut the door behind him.

From his fuzzy recollection, he remembered the Snowdin Inn as a warm toned inviting place. He was not sure… if he would call the overuse of black leather on the furnishings here, inviting.

Did no one in this variant of the underground possess a unique color palette?

The flooring was black and white checked tile. Something close in appearance to marble but the peeling in the corners suggested it was perhaps vinyl enchanted to have the texture and appearance of marble, rather than pure stone work.

The walls were covered in a red wallpaper he was sure would give one a headache if they started into the pattern for long enough. And every piece of furniture was black. Chipped. Peeled paint. Torn fabric was hastily sewn back together as was the case with the leather armchair in the corner of the room. He thought he saw stuffing peeking out from between two seams.

He could at least say that the lit fireplace behind the innkeeper’s counter kept the lobby comfortably warm. A small sigh from one child to his right told him he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Deeply engrossed in a magazine, the Innkeeper glanced up as the bell above the door rang.

“We’re closed. We don’t accept customers after curfew.” She said dryly. The rabbit’s pelt was a deep velvet black. Her eyes were a scathing scarlet.

Gaster stepped up to the counter and felt a check graze him. He produced the bag of coins Bodoni had given him and divided a generous sum on the countertop. The Innkeeper stared at the gold, hackles raised, then to his face and back.

He summoned a second pair of hands to sign. ‘Two rooms, if you would be so kind.’

For the first time, she seemed to notice the two small skeletons trailing behind him. The look in her scathing eyes had him tensing. The bristling mana in his bones whispered. 

Her nose twitched. “This is enough for a week. You staying that long?”

He indicated that he was. 

As though afraid he would change his mind, the Innkeeper suspiciously took the gold and stashed it in her pocket. “Follow me. And don’t let your brats touch anything!”

The layout of the inn, behind the counter, reminded Gaster more of a private residence than a building designed to be an inn, and that was, perhaps, its only redeeming quality. The rabbit led them up a narrow flight of stairs. A glance down the hall that ran parallel to the stairwell, revealed what might have once been a living room and a kitchen. And at least three closed doors. Each with a gold plaque and a number.

“Don’t let anyone know I let ya in past curfew,” the rabbit told him sternly.

‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he replied, weaving a polite tonation into his words.

The Innkeeper seemed taken back. For some reason, this prompted her to give him another once over. Her gaze lingered on his long sleeves, and darted once, he thought, to his neck, but the collar of his coat was raised high enough to obscure the vertebrae there and he could not think why that would draw her interest.

He thought of the cracks that marred his face. He did not like to dwell on it and the thought that she was staring at the largest of them made his jaw lock. The fresh chip in his mandible burned from the attention, but why would she stare now? She had plenty of time to take in his appearance when he walked in.

She didn’t seem to find what she was looking for and nodded stiffly before leaving.

Once she was gone, Papyrus and his brother silently examined the upstairs landing. The change in environment had woken them up. The black and white theme of the downstairs lobby continued on the second floor. The red wallpaper had been replaced with black paneling, and the false-marble tiles had been exchanged for wooden planks, painted white.

As luck would have it, the Innkeeper had given them two rooms across from each other at the end of the hallway.

He turned to the children and offered them the keys. “As promised,” he said. “Pick the room you prefer. I will take the other.”

“You... you really meant that?”

“Of course,” stars, he wanted to give the little one a hug. The vulnerability in the child’s voice rattled him. “I await your verdict.”

Sans and Papyrus exchanged an excited look. They snatched the keys from his hand as though he might bite them. It stung. Sans ran to the left door. Papyrus darted to the right.

Gaster peered after them, glancing to each room but kept his distance as they conducted their assessment of the place. He shifted Wolf in his arms after a moment. Holding the little one for so long was making his arms ache. The child stirred and yawned. 

The guest rooms were identical in all but orientation. Red carpet. Dark grey walls with a black pattern. The furnishings were once again black. One room faced the cliffs the town overlooked, and the endless dark of the ceiling above, and the other—

“This one, bro! You can see the street from here.” 

Papyrus ducked out of the room he’d been examining and ran over to his brother. He had to stand on his tiptoes to peer through the window. “Excellent, Sans. This room will give us the ideal strategic position!”

“If you wish to use that window to monitor the street, it would be wise to keep the curtains closed,” Gaster suggested from the hallway.

They looked back at him. Sans yanked the curtains shut. “We knew that!”

Papyrus hesitated a beat, then padded across the room.

He held out the second key offering it to Gaster sternly. “Sans and I will have this room, so you may have the other!”

So precious. “Thank you, little one.”

Papyrus nodded to himself, once. “Thus far, our alliance bodes well. Sans and I haven’t decided on a nickname for you yet, but we will continue to discuss it. Until then, I propose we use a secret code to identify you.”

“That is a wonderful suggestion.”

Across the room and still leaning on the windowsill, Sans scowled. “He can’t use ours, Paps.”

“We will make a new one, just for him! After all, Dr. Gaster may have figured out our old one by now.”

“Yeah, I guess...” Sans deflated. Gaster wondered if the code had been a point of bonding between them. Perhaps it was something he was reluctant to share because it was meant to be a just-me-and-my-brother thing.

“A knock this time!” Papyrus rapped his knuckles on the door. One. Two. Three. Pause. Then once more.

Gaster repeated the pattern on the door frame. “I shall commit it to memory.”

“You better! Now, leave us alone!”

Gaster stepped back, mildly amused, despite the ache in his heart as Papyrus firmly shut the door in his face. Thankfully, he did not slam it. Even when the boy was being rude, he was precious. He listened for the lock. Once he heard it click, he turned and entered his room. 

After making a makeshift crib in the corner for Wolf, he all but collapsed into bed. He covered his face with one arm and breathed a weary sigh. 

By the Angel, it’d been an emotional rollercoaster of a night. 

From the disconcerting disappearance of the fissure, learning of the violence inherent to the culture here, to discovering the state the children were living in and the fight with the elemental. The events of the night were catching up to him. 

He was tired. He was sore. His magic reserves were low and still, still, the LV in his marrow hummed. It had quieted, but he felt it send a tremble through his arm as exhaustion went to war with it.

The door had been left ajar, just enough to watch its neighbor across the hall. His gaze went to it as his thoughts circled back to his new charges. It was not going to be easy monitoring Sans and Papyrus this way. But they had gone through so much, he wanted to give them this privacy. A place, if temporarily, where they could feel safe. And ideally, that meant they needed a space without him in it. 

His presence, it… it obviously unsettled them. They were so wary of him. It hurt. It hurt deeply. It made his soul ache and twist with nauseating dread because stars damn it , that was three iterations of himself now. Three . 

The signs of some form of abuse were as difficult to ignore as they were to process. It was all he could think about. A cold, almost feverish feeling crawled into his bones, his heart, something close to anger, he suspected, but the kind that came with bile behind one’s teeth. Disgust with his counterpart and a deeply nested fear that he was somehow destined to be cruel to his children. And he just…

Three. Three deviations of himself with a deeply flawed relationship to their world’s variant of his children. Logically, he understood that his alternatives were not him . Their actions and attitudes could not be directly attributed to his own flaws and mistakes. Aster’s existence had definitively proven this. A brother instead of a father. Something that would not have been possible if all worlds originated from the same source. (What this suggested of the multiverse at large was another subject he could spend hours contemplating.)

But even knowing that it was deeply, deeply disturbing to know a man with his face had created such a depth of fear in them. The thought itself made something in his chest seize. He had made light of the man hours ago, to keep himself calm and grounded in the moment, but the children’s continued distrust and silent distress had shaken him. He was not contending with a person like Aster, who while deeply troubled, had maintained a level of loyalty to his family, but someone who was closer to Epsilon. A man who was willing to disregard sentimentality and ethics for his own personal ambition. 

(Gaster wondered, not for the first time, how it was possible for Epsilon to miss that Kalluno was a sapient creature. Clearly capable of thought and feeling. He was glad Epsilon had not had the opportunity to create his own variant of Papyrus too. What a horrific situation that would have been for his soft-hearted, precious son. It was bad enough that Kalluno had been subjected to that.)

He dragged a hand down his face, applying pressure, as though to rub the exhaustion out. The rush was finally wearing off. He was just tired now. So very tired.

Well… he could speculate all night, but speculation would only give him so much insight. He needed hard data. He needed to know more about the man he was up against. He had brought the boys as far away from him as they could physically get but if he and his alternate self had anything in common, it would be dogged stubbornness. 

Until he found another fissure, until his alternate self had been dealt with in some way, he could not trust that the man would not come after them. The bridge would be fixed, eventually. And whomever the man hired would filter their way through Waterfall until they reached Snowdin. His alternate self would not give up easily. That, Gaster was sure of.

Chapter Text

The grainy light of the monitor flickered again. Grey static fizzled across the screen. A white text on the bottom read: << REW. 

The figures behind the screen retraced their steps obediently. Flashes of fire and light botched the quality of the video in specific instances that were marked by timestamps and noted for future filtering. 

Elementals burned hot. At 1400°C, even his most up-to-date equipment struggled to cope with the sheer heat Ignacio produced at his most passionate. A pity he did not have time to improve them. 

A pen guided by a gloved hand scratched a note on a clipboard. The pen was set down.

Each move was carefully observed and cataloged. Stripped bare of motivations, all that mattered was capability. Every attack successfully dodged was numbered. The range and shape of bones summoned were categorized and added to a list.

The white text on the bottom of the screen now read: PAUSED.

A leather chair groaned as the man who sat in it leaned back and crossed his arms. A single phalange tapped. One. Two. Three. Four…

He leaned forward. Pressed play. Four seconds later, he paused the video then hit rewind for two seconds and paused the video again.

There. A clear, unobstructed view of his face. His own face on a man who was not him. From the grainy detail of the footage, the structure of the replica’s impression of him looked nearly perfect. Nearly. 

There. A large crack on the temporal plate that he did not have. 

He plucked the locking wing divider on the corner of his desk and taped the needles to the screen. He measured the width in pixels and grains of static. Then he tapped play. Rewind. Pause. A new angle. This one was less clear but no less relevant.

It seemed his imposter was visually impaired on one side. He wrote that down, mentally calculating the angle one would have to approach to take the replica by surprise.

Ignacio’s voice crackled through the radio to his left. “I’ve been waiting for your answer, poltergeist. If I am free from the contract then-“

The harsh light of the monitor warped the shadows contouring his face. They crawled over the ridge of his cheekbone as he turned his head. Pale pricks of red light burned in the depths of his black eye sockets. He pressed the red button underneath his second monitor. The one observing his ‘guest’ . “Bridge or no. I gave you an order.”

Ignacio snarled. “How was I supposed to know you had a fucking impersonator running around?”

“It was your failure that allowed him to escape.” He turned back to the recording. “Such a significant disruption to infrastructure will reach His Majesty’s ears. Thanks to your ineptitude, I am left to mop up this mess.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to reach the other side by foot.”

“Oh, I have not updated you on your sister’s condition, have I?” He turned to the third monitor. The radio crackled and popped with a loud noise. No doubt unable to produce the full subvocals of the elemental’s rage.

“I imagine in a couple of days she will have the strength to stand on her own. Her souling is well and recovering. It is responsive with a growth rate of 2.3%. I have an attendant monitoring her. She is in good hands. Of course… that care can be redacted.”

Who knows what will become of the souling should her health decline again, went unsaid.

“If you touch her. If you lay even one damn claw on her , Gaster. I swear on the King’s fucking teeth, you will not find even one grain of ash left when I’m done with your lab rats.”

Unwitnessed by all, the corner of his mouth ticked down.

He would not be exploited. Less intelligent monsters who shared his rank knew better than to try. Ignacio was a fool for assuming he stood a chance. But what else could he expect from inferior beings?

“Bravo. For a moment I almost believed you. But this is where you and I differ, Ignacio. You are incapable of harming those two. But I dare you to do it. Find my wayward subjects and grind their bones beneath your heel. What consequences will befall you after that... I need not mention.”

Silence, then a seething hiss. “… why force me into service if you care so little?”

It was as close to an admission of defeat as he was going to get from the proud creature. He smirked to himself, satisfied.

“If there is anything I hate more than incompetence, it is a wasteful use of resources. Those two were an investment. Return them to me and you will have your coin and your sister. Alive.”

“If you hurt her…” the elemental began again.

“Break their legs if you wish,” he said dully. “I do not care. Though, perhaps it is best that you do so anyway. They will fight. They will resist and they will attempt to run again if given the opportunity. Do not give them that opportunity.”

“You disgust me,” Ignacio snarled. “You are a perverse sick fuck, and I hope you eat shit and choke.”

“Join the queue,” he said. “Three days. It will take three days to repair the bridge. After that, the timeline is flexible but tight. Find and return them to me before His Majesty thinks to question us. Oh. And if you manage to capture my doppelgänger while you are at it, I will triple your pay.”

“Fuck you!” Ignacio snapped.

With a smile, he turned off the radio. 

The bowl made a soft click on the table. Sans’s red eyelights darted from the bowl to the flakes of cereal and milk within, to Gaster himself, and then back to the table. The worn wooden grain of the table’s surface was, undeniably, fascinating. Truly. Fascinating.

A rough night had led to a rough morning. Kalluno slept fitfully through the night. And it seemed, the moment Gaster was sure he must be asleep again the child would wake up, peep shrilly in that urgent way all parents instinctively knew meant ‘help! help! I’m in danger!’ despite the clear absence of danger. In the end, Gaster gave up on Kalluno sleeping in his makeshift crib. The last time the child fell asleep on his chest, he kept him there and waited out the rest of the night. 

At most, he had, perhaps, four hours of sleep.

Sans and his brother seemed more alert than he felt that morning, but by the ashen shade to their bones, they had not slept well either. He offered to treat them for breakfast, and perhaps because they were so tired, they followed him downstairs without protest. Although, cautiously. 

The biggest change that morning seemed to be that while the brothers did not fully trust him, they trusted their immediate surroundings significantly less. 

Gaster cleared his throat. “A pity it is so cold in this region. In no time, I fear we may be eating frosted flakes.”

Papyrus jolted from the staring contest with breakfast. From where he sat in his high chair, Wolf made a noise that sounded suspiciously like an exasperated sigh. And Sans… Sans sat very still for a moment, then slowly peered up at his expression.

Encouraged, Gaster continued. “Though it may go against the grain, I cannot say I have ever liked cereal. As a food source, it is unreliable. One might even call it… flakey.”

“Oh, my god.”

Sans snorted. The corners of his mouth slowly ticked upward.

Gaster tried very hard not to grin. “I have brought it up in academic papers but it seems no one will take me cerealsly.”

That one earned him a full snicker from Sans and a look of aghast horror from Papyrus. “Cease this torment at once!” He cried. “We will not be subjected to your clever use of word substitution!”

Gaster rested his chin on one palm, partially to hide his smile, and said. “Oh, you thought my wordplay was clever?”

“I never said that!” Papyrus said. Like a liar.

“Do you think you can do better, little one?”

The child squared his shoulders. “Are-are you challenging me to a battle of wit?” 

“Careful, pap,” Sans said. He cautiously studied Gaster’s expression. “You oat to say you’re sorry before things get serious.”

Leaning back, Gaster chuckled. The sound seemed to startle the pair, who stared at him as though he’d suddenly transformed into a foreign entity. Sprouted two heads and swapped palettes with a neon rainbow. But perhaps that was a good thing. For them to see him as something different over something familiar.

“There is no need, I am merely waffling around. So to speak.”

Sans blinked. “Heh...”

“Hmph! As I thought, you aren’t serious.”

The boys went quiet. Sans’ tiny claws clenched and unclenched over his sleeves, betraying that something was wrong. And just like that, the lighthearted mood evaporated. 

Gaster’s heart ached. He thought back to their earlier conversations and tried to pinpoint if it had been something he said. Sans wore many masks, but unlike Bodoni and his eldest, this iteration hadn’t grown old enough to develop an ironclad veil. He did not have to reach out with his magic to understand how deep that anxiety ran.

Had something he said or did reminded Sans of his counterpart?

Then it clicked. “I would like to clarify, that I will not recant my promise now that we are in Snowdin.”

Sans cautiously glanced up. “... that was the agreement, wasn’t it?” Sans bared his teeth. The aggressive look was ruined by the way his shoulders were hunched. He was trying to put on a confident face, but his heart did not seem in it.

“You agreed to not involve needles, locked doors, or treachery,” Papyrus added, tense.

Gaster inclined his skull and lamented over the circumstances of this entire arrangement. “Yes, and I also agreed to protect you from mercenaries and other monsters with similar intentions. Despite the distance between us and the Capital, that has not changed. I will keep you safe, I promise.”

The tension in Papyrus’ shoulder’s eased but Sans did not seem reassured. His dark, ruby eyelights flicked off to the side. “Tch.”

The conversation lulled for a time as the focus shifted from the conversation to breakfast. Gaster did not have much of an appetite but made an effort to eat if only to restore his magic reserves. The boys waited for him to take the first bite, seeming to take that as permission to start (a fact which bothered him) but ate ravenously after that.

Hopefully, in time they would realize they would never need permission from him for something as basic and essential as this. The thought disturbed him. His chest felt cold. His counterpart had kept the boys from eating. What else had he kept from them?

By the time they were halfway through, Wolf had already finished his oatmeal and was wiggling in his high chair. Making noises of discontent.

“Would you like to get down?” Gaster asked, setting down his spoon. Sans and his brother paused to watch him. Ever cautious but keenly observant.

Wolf nodded vigorously. Tail sweeping behind him like a much-agitated cat. 

Gaster scanned the dining hall. It was not a large room, fitting for a small town Inn, with all the slightly worn furnishings one would expect. The black and white theme had carried on from the entrance lobby, in the form of a false marble floor and chairs backed with black leather. But someone had grown lazy with the wallpaper. Only one wall, the inner wall that connected the dining hall to the hallway that led to the lobby and the stairwell, was dressed in gaudy red. The other three resembled the standard walls of a log cabin. 

The three tables nearest to him were empty. One table, in the far corner, was occupied by a bear dressed in a black suit but they seemed engrossed in a newspaper. The atmosphere was calm. The magic within settled. So he said to Wolf, “Very well, but please do not wonder, little one.”

Wolf nodded one more time. Gaster unhitched the lock to the high chair’s table and gently delivered Wolf to freedom. 

Freedom, as it turned out, was a one-way ticket underneath the table. Wolf’s tail vanished under the tablecloth. His claws clicked, then stopped.

Hmm.

“Have you settled on a nickname for me?” Gaster asked, recalling the task he’d given them yesterday. 

Papyrus made a small noise of frustration. “Unfortunately, my brother is not content with any of my proposals! He called them and I quote—“ he made quotations in the air. “— stupid. Dumb. Laughable at best. Disturbing! ”

“If they were any good, pap, I won’t fight ya on it.”

“You, dear brother, are a numbskull!” The silverware clanked as Papyrus slapped his small hands on the table.

His skull throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. Gaster pinched the bridge of bone between his eyes. “Boys, please.”

Papyrus turned away from his brother with a snort.

Sans sank deep into his chair. Possibly wishing to drown in it. The tablecloth seemed to have now deeply offended him.

Gaster held back a sigh. “It is not an urgent matter. Perhaps, it would be easier to come up with one for yourselves first?”

The brothers froze.

“Ah. Was that not something you considered for yourselves?” It would make the situation a little confusing for him, but he would respect their wishes if so.

“Why didn’t we think of doing that before?” Sans groaned. “Anyone coulda overheard our names, Pap! ‘doesn’t matter if they saw us or not if they’ve heard our names!”

Papyrus frantically looked over his shoulder. “We’ve been such fools! Sans, why didn't you think of this yourself?”

“Me!? You’re the one who likes to plan this stuff out.”

“We must rectify this oversight immediately!“ Papyrus twisted around in his chair. But the room held no obvious answer for him. Nothing caught his eye so he sat back down. Then he looked down at the knife next to his plate and his eyelights lit up. “A knife’s edge... That’s it! Henceforth, I shall be known as... EDGE!”

Gaster made a noise of consideration and tried not to sound judgemental. Names, even a quick moniker were important. These kinds of decisions should not be made in hast! “I can perform a naming ritual. Perhaps the use of it will inspire us-”

“No! My name is Edge now.”

...well, he tried. There was no arguing with that tone. Once Papyrus had committed himself to something, there was no convincing him otherwise.

“...that is a unique, and lovely name, child.”

Gravely insulted, Edge reared back in his seat. “I am NOT lovely! I am DIABOLICAL! You will do well to remember that!” said the small child who barely reached hip height. “And you, brother?”

Put on the spot, Sans froze up. He cast his eyes about, teeth bared in a tense frown. His gaze fell on the tablecloth. “uh... Red. Yeah. I like that. ‘it’s simple. Red.”

“Really Sans? A color?”

“What else am I supposed to do? You already picked somethin’ cool. How am I supposed to beat that?” Edge smirked. “ ‘sides. Red is dangerous. It’s the color of determination, and human souls sometimes, and other junk.”

At the mention of such things, Gaster stiffened. It seemed too early in the timeline for this to be a subject of research. And was certainly something Sans and Papyrus should not know about at this age. Clearly he was mistaken. Either his counterpart had escalated his rate of work somehow, or the leg work had already been done by another party. Scientists rarely worked alone. His mind churned with possibilities.

“And lava,” Edge added.

“And lava,” Red agreed.

“La-ha!” Wolf chirped, just to feel included. 

Startled and in unison, Red and Edge peered down. Whatever look they gave him must’ve been somewhat judgmental. Wolf ducked back underneath the table. Embarrassed beyond measure, if the state of his aura was anything to go by. He hid underneath Gaster’s chair this time. Tail wrapped around his ankle.

Though tired, Gaster smiled at their antics.

“Well, now that that matter is settled,” Gaster said “To get back on topic. As soon as we are done with our meal, we will have time to gather supplies. After that, I will be conducting a survey of the town. Is this agreeable?”

He received tentative nods in reply. It was a start.

The bell above the door to Snowdin’s only General Store chimed cheerfully. Gaster scraped snow off his shoes on the welcome mat as he stepped inside. The gray morning light waned lavender. It was the brightest now it would ever be. And sweeping his gaze over the contents of the store his soul skipped once, unsettled by the tiny particles caught in the air by ribbons of lavender-gray light. 

He offered a strained smile to the clerk behind the counter, stepped aside, and gently ushered the children into the store.

The clerk’s eyes settled on the cracks marring his face, and they narrowed once. He felt a ping but her intent was wary over hostile, so he kept his focus on the children. 

Red and Edge wore identical expressions of quiet awe and curiosity. They took in the colors, and the sheer variety of things on display, and at once looked overwhelmed. Their expression was mirrored on Wolf, who'd never stepped foot inside a store before. The idea that Red and Edge might not have had this experience before either made his heart sore.

Wolf poked at the shelf nearest to Gaster’s heel. Endlessly curious yet too wary to leave his side. That particular shelf held jars filled with a colorful variety of foodstuffs. 

The interior of the shop was rustic and industrial. Small, all things considered, but crammed with everything a monster living in a small town on the end of the world might need. 

One wall was dedicated to dry foodstuff. Powder. Dried mushrooms. Canned things and the like. short aisles lined the middle of the store. odds and ends hung from metal hooks on the walls that reek of iron. Gaster tried not to pay these things much mind. As long as he was not required to touch the hooks and did not linger here too long he would be fine. 

On the other wall, there was a small section of clothes. For a small town like Snowdin, it was about what he expected. In small monster communities, it was more common for monsters to make their own clothing from scratch than purchase them from elsewhere. That seemed to be true here too.

The sample size was small but it would suffice.

Gaster raised his hands to the level of his chest and began to sign. The children saw the movement and looked up. ‘I believe a change in attire is in order. While I gather supplies, please, feel free to pick anything out from the clothes rack .’

Edge’s face scrunched up. “It would be pointless to don disguises. We are the only skeletons in the underground, our lineage and origin are unmistakable!”

‘Ah, but you would stand out significantly less.’

“He’s got a point,” Red grumbled, sounding as though he had just swallowed something sour. He plucked at a loose thread on his sleeve and grimaced. “Who would think twice about dustin’ us like this? They see the state of our clothes and they’ll know no one cares.”

Gaster felt his soul clench. ‘No one is going to dust either of you. Over the state of your clothes or for any other reason.’  

Red and Edge looked at him as though he were a very naive child. They only barely held themselves back from scoffing.

Edge crossed his arms. “Very well,” he said imperiously. “So we are allowed to pick out anything we want?”

‘Within reason.’

“…anything?” Red asked again, disbelievingly.

‘At your preference,’ Gaster affirmed.

Red worked his jaw and asked again. “Why? I mean. What do you get out of helping us like this? How's this supposed to spite the Doctor—”

“Shush!” Edge hissed and gave his brother a light push. “We’ve got an audience!”

“Watch it Pap,” Red hissed. Edge stiffened. They both looked up at him cautiously.  

... was this about yesterday? Gaster took a breath.

‘The most effective revenge is living well. Have the two of you not...’ perhaps it was best not to finish that sentence, at risk of embarrassing them. He tried again. ‘Would it help, if I gave you parameters to work within?’

A moment’s hesitation. They nodded.

Gaster thought for a moment, the back of his thumb pressed to his teeth. He removed it to sign. ‘Pick three outfits each. One for sleeping, and two for everyday wear. The only criteria being it must fit you, but otherwise, all other choices are at your discretion.’

Red made a face at the word ‘discretion.’ Edge nodded again. “What defines an outfit?”

He paused at that one. Fashion was not his forte. ‘Less than two articles of clothing is not an outfit. It must cover you.’

With that admittedly vague description, Edge made a noise of sagely understanding. Red, meanwhile, looked over what must have seemed to him like a bottomless pit of options. His face crumbled in despair.

“What is our time limit?” Edge asked.

‘Ah, there is no time frame,’ a subtle glance to the shop clerk watching them, he added. ‘But, perhaps it would be wise if we did not stay long enough to try the clerk’s patience.’

Squaring his shoulders, Edge once more nodded briskly. With the air of a soldier sent on a serious mission, he turned on his heel to the nearest clothes bin.

Red followed at his brother’s heels.

Gaster sighed and went about looking for something with a hood for himself and a new onesie for Kalluno. He was not keen to replace his coat (it was comfortable) but if he could find a separate hood he could attach it to the collar...

Wolf chirped urgently when he caught sight of him walking over to the next aisle. His claws clicked a rapid tap-tap and he all but skittered around the corner to follow him.

Before Gaster had time to say something, Edge came around the other corner holding a plaid shirt. He presented it sternly. “Is this acceptable?”

It seemed to be the right size. Instead of answering, he asked. ‘ Do you like it ?’

Edge examined the shirt again, expression pinched. “I’ll pick another,” he said and disappeared around the corner.

He was aware that Wolf was not all but leaning against his shoe. He signed. ‘ Would you like me to carry you?’  

Wolf shook his head slowly. 

Gaster blinked. This was the first time he had taken the child to a store after all. A little nervousness was to be expected.

Unable to move anyway, he examined the narrow row of fabric in front of him. 

A minute later, Red tentatively rounded the corner. Gaster pretended not to notice while he examined a shawl. It was red and black with a woven pattern that resembled spears. The shapes above the spears were unmistakably monsters falling to their deaths. Gaster decided this must be the kind of thing that inspired the invention of the word tacky.

Red padded up to him solemnly. He held out a shirt.

Careful to keep any movement slow, he dutifully gave the shirt a once over. ‘ Is this the one you would prefer?’

Red’s eye lights flicked away and back again. He needed another moment to gather courage and said quietly. “Yeah…?”

His response seemed sincere if uncertain so Gaster smiled gently. ‘ A wonderful choice. Carry it with you and I will add everything together at checkout.’

Stunned, Red stared at him. Then he ran back to his brother.

At this point, Gaster realized he didn’t have the luxury of time. In no time at all, he would be interrupted again. He looked over the clothes that were meant for toddlers, or young ones near that age. The pickings were slim. He picked a couple of things that were almost teal, of course, checking with Wolf for his approval. (Wolf made a quiet noise, smiled at a jacket with a bright white star on the back, then promptly lost interest in anything else Gaster presented him with. He seemed distracted.) Then he was interrupted yet again by Edge, who presented a copy of the exact same shirt Red had picked.

Hmm. Did Edge genuinely like that shirt or had he copied his brother because Gaster had praised Red for his choice?

‘I see you have picked out the same shirt as your brother.’

Edge squared his jaw, sensing something in his tone that he did not like. “Yes. Sans said you approved of it.”

Just as he feared. ‘Little one, it is important for you to choose something that you would like to wear. If you like this shirt, keep it. But this exercise is not meant to cater to my preferences. After all, I will not be wearing it.’

Brow furrowed, Edge looked down at his shoes in thought. “I see. This is an evaluation of our judgment, then. Of course! You did mention you were conducting a survey of the town.” He ran off before Gaster could reply.

Well, that... sort of solved the problem. Gaster stared into the empty space above the shelves and wondered helplessly how wise it was to let that interpretation go unchallenged.

He managed to find a black hood with a simple silver clasp before Red and Edge returned. This time, at least, with two pairs of striped shirts, shorts, and one set of sleepwear each. Edge looked proud of himself and just before he rounded the corner, Gaster caught a fleeting glimpse of Red smiling. The boy scowled the instant he realized he had Gaster’s attention.

Baby steps. 

Gaster smiled gently for the both of them and ushered the children to the cashier. 

(He had to admit that the hood added a pleasing element to his coat. And when he flipped it over his skull on the way out of the shop for the first time, he was surprised by how much he liked it.)

Snowdin was a small town. In many ways, it was the last outpost of civilization. Once you crossed the bridge east of town, you would find nothing but wilderness. The town was a blip in scale to the depth of the cavern it sat on the edge of and when one compared it to the hubbub of a city like New Home it felt even smaller.

Gaster had been too tired the night before to process that something had been missing from town, but exiting Snowdin’s only general store and looking down Main Street again, he realized something was. 

It appeared Grillby’s, the Bar Sans loved to frequent and whose greasy meals Papyrus so vocally opposed but begrudgingly accepted hot chocolate from, had not been established yet. A house stood where Grillby’s should be. In fact, the very same house that Gaster had seen turn off the lights the night before.

The other most striking change was the lack of a tree in the center of town. A wide but low circular brick wall stood in its place. Low enough that one could easily step over it. The top was capped by snow, and if so much as a light flurry came through he had no doubt the wall would quickly be buried. 

In the center of the circle stood a single wooden post, with a rusted chain looped from the top.

As they exited the general store into the brisk, cold air, he saw a commotion in the center of town, gathered around that low wall.

“What do ya mean the bridge is out?!” A voice yelled.

Gaster went stock still. He held out an arm to keep the children from stepping out of his shadow.

“That’s what I said! I had a delivery to make to New Home, right? I get all the way through Watchfall—it took me hours. I had to deal with Nautilus's gang—I get all the way there and what do I find? The bridge is gone. Someone cut the rope!”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Growls. Curses. Someone shouted. “How is the Royal Guard supposed to keep order if they can’t get here?”

“They’re fixing it, right? The capital is not going to abandon us, are they?”

The crunch of snow, under small boots. A step taken back, Gaster angled his skull to the side to glance behind him. The hood got in the way of this so he had to turn his head farther than he normally would to compensate for his blindside. 

All the same, Red and Edge were looking up at him gobsmacked. They were awestruck. Wolf just seemed mildly confused. “You cut the rope?” Red whispered. 

Edge’s eyes shone with… admiration? Well, perhaps that was just hopeful thinking on his part. Wishing… but the child was certainly stunned into silence.

Gaster brought a single phalange to his teeth. Without a word, he ushered the children toward the bridge to the east.

…they would have to visit the library another time. As the most recent stranger to a small town, he did not like his chances of falling under suspicion right now. Recently acquired hood or no.

In the end, he spent most of the day on the fringes of town, exploring the woodland surrounding Snowdin. He did not have the impression that he would find another fissure so soon. His expectations were unfortunately met. 

“Why’d you cut the bridge off?” Red asked him. In a rare moment of bravery, the child found the courage to search his expression for an answer. “I mean... what made ya think to do that. Won’t that draw more attention to where we went?”

Gaster signed his words this time. ‘Concealing our movements would not have mattered at that point. The bridge was closely monitored. Anything I could have done would have led to the same result. Heedless of how... dramatic my actions were. Cutting the line brought us precious time.’ 

Red’s ruby eyelights dulled. “The camera above the door, right? It blinks red when he’s watching.”

Gaster studied him closely. Wishing he could vanish the phantom haunting the little one’s mind. ‘ I did wonder... How did the two of you find your way to New Home?’

But of course, Red tensed at the question. Bared his teeth and snapped. “Wouldn’t you like to know! You think like a royal guard, ya’ know that?”

He realized what he’d said and how he’d said it seconds after that. Gaster saw the cold dawning drain the color from his eyelights. In a violent flinch, Red squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself. Gaster’s soul seized, gripped by agony. The little one expected to be struck. 

It took a moment. Far too long in his mind, for him to speak again. He needed his voice calm, and he needed to speak gently. He hoped he hid his rage well, because on the inside, his marrow was broiling. How dare that man strike his son. 

He took a deep breath, slowly inhaling the cold frost laden magic of the cavern, and knelt in the snow. The crunch of ice and snow made Red flinch again, jaw tightly clenched. And Gaster spoke very softly. “Sans. You are safe here. I am not angry.”

After several long seconds, Red cautiously opened his eye sockets. His eyelights were very pale.

Gaster kept his distance, pained. He wanted to hold his son. “You do not have to answer my questions. I will not be angry, if you simply refuse to answer. I… I apologize for bringing up a painful subject.”

Red swallowed thickly. He said nothing, ducked his head, and darted through the frost bitten thicket to join his brother. Who was waiting in a clearing beyond the treeline.

Gaster watched after him. His soul grieved. 

The Inn lobby was quiet when they returned several hours later. Red and Edge knocked the snow off their boots on the welcome mat. Then they darted upstairs. Red was avoiding him. Refused to even glance in his direction. Edge followed his brother’s lead out of solidarity. It was difficult to watch but he understood they needed space. He could only hope he hadn’t done irreparable damage. 

Gaster made to follow, quietly and more slowly so as to not wake Kalluno, who was fast asleep in his arms.

He felt the Innkeeper’s gaze. The rabbit gave him such an arresting look, that he felt obliged to pause and address her. “Have you heard?” She asked, “Someone sabotaged the Hotland bridge.”

He carefully kept his expression neutral. Concern was dutifully woven into his words, as he pressed his phalanges together to sign. A pair of disembodied hands summoned so he would not disturb Wolf in his arms. ‘ Ah. So I heard. I was lucky to arrive when I did.’

The Innkeeper’s eyes narrowed. Her nose twitched. “Ya know, you arrived in Snowdin at an odd hour. You wouldn’t have anything to do when the bridge collapsing, would you?”

‘Of course not,’ Gaster feigned surprise.

The Innkeeper studied him for a long moment more. The dark fur down her neck slowly flattened. 

“Most of my customers came from the Capital. With that bridge down… it’s bad for business.” She said by way of explanation. Her tone was something adjacent to apologetic. Gruff. He wondered if it was pride or social taboo that kept her apology discreet. 

‘Major arteries receive priority attention. I am sure it will not be long before the bridge is repaired.’

The Innkeeper nodded briskly. Hopefully assured that he was not put off by the accusation. She seemed distracted after that, so he made his way upstairs.

A part of him felt bad. His quick thinking had disrupted the lives of the locals, but he couldn’t say he regretted the actions he took. No one had been hurt. (He’d almost forgotten about the nick in his jaw. It was but one new mark to a collection, and besides he had more pressing concerns to think about.) A bridge could be repaired. Business would resume as normal for the residents of Snowdin eventually. And more importantly, it bought the children more time. 

But the conversation with the Innkeeper had reminded him that the time he was operating on was borrowed. As he’d said himself, that bridge would be repaired. And it would be repaired soon.

Chapter Text

Papyrus had a long fuse. He didn't get mad very often. But when he was disappointed, he barricaded his room with a quarter of an inch of salt, poured meticulously in a long line. ‘Cause he knew Dad had an aversion to salt and it didn’t matter if, logically, their old man should have been perfectly capable of stepping over it or shortcutting into his room.

Sans stood next to his father, a foot from the door and the emanate threat of sodium. 

“Dearest one, please. Come out of your room. I understand you are upset but there is no need to…” he trailed off, violet-white eyelights locked on the salt pile. “Go to such lengths.”

“Go away!” Papyrus cried through the door.

Sans shuffled an inch closer. He didn’t share his father’s aversion to salt. He could eat salty foods. He could even touch raw salt. He just felt weirdly like he shouldn’t. It was probably a psychological thing. “Aw c’mon, bro. How are we supposed to hangout if I can’t enter your room?”

Papyrus huffed. “You can’t! That’s the whole point!”

Dad turned away from the door. “That is a shame. I had hoped to bake cupcakes for dessert this evening but I fear without an assistant...”

Sans followed his father lead. “That’s too bad I was really looking forward to frosting.”

The patter of Papyrus’s feet cautiously approached the door. 

“Hm. Which kind? I was thinking of butter-cream.”

“Nah,” said Sans, glancing over his shoulder to his brother's door. “I was thinking fondant.”

“No!” Papyrus threw his door open. “That is the first sin of baking! Never use fondant! Especially on cupcakes!”

His father hid his smile. “This is precisely why I need a skilled baking assistant. How will I ever make the perfect batch of cupcakes without one?”

Papyrus eyed them both suspiciously. “Well,” he said. “You are a scientist. You should know better than to use fondant!”

Pfft. Sans’s gloved hands flew to his mouth.

Dad raised one brow. “Cooking is an entirely different subset of chemistry.”

“That’s not what you said the other day!” Papyrus placed his hands on his hips. Sans struggled to contain his snickering, as Dad also placed a hand on his hip in a mirroring pose. 

“Hmm. Perhaps I did. But have you considered...” he paused for dramatic effect. “That I am fond-ant of your company?”

Sans broke down, wheezing. 

“That was the worst one I’ve heard yet!” Papyrus proclaimed. “Horrible execution. Zero out of ten. Please never tell a joke again or my ears will surely fall off!”

“But Papyrus,” Sans managed between fits of laughter, “You don’t have ears!”

“Irrelevant!” Papyrus said indignantly. 

“’twas but a whisk I had to take.” Dad smiled and knelt down. “Am I forgiven?”

Papyrus made a valiant effort not to appear stern and unmoved, but his resolve quickly crumbled. “Okay, but just this once!” He wrapped his small arms around Dad’s neck in a hug. 

“Also,” he added, imperiously. “I am loaf to admit it, but that last pun was passable.”

Chapter Text

There was a low hum in the air that sent a weightless, dizzying flutter through his bones. It was one of many quiet sounds that felt almost familiar, but not quite. And that difference felt wrong. This feeling of wrongness gave him the impression that he should be hiding. 

And so he did. Underneath blankets and chairs and other things.

He’d thought about investigating those sounds, because either the Scientist in Black (his papa) didn’t notice or wasn’t worried about them, but his claws were very, very loud on the floor. And with each tap-click, he felt his soul jump. Bodoni’s floors hadn’t been so loud, had they? It made him think of the white, glossy tiles in the lab. Which made him think of the Doctor. And Wolf didn’t like thinking of the Doctor. 

But, there was a new sound today. It sounded hollow, like air through one of the many vents in the lab, but deeper, and stronger. And it came from outside. 

“Ah... It seems you will experience your first true Snowdin blizzard today, little one.”

At the sound of Papa’s gentle voice, Wolf wiggled his head free of the blanket and peered up. Papa was looking at the window, arms crossed, wearing his black coat. Outside, the world was gray and white. Snow streamed past the windowpane.

He chirped, eye-sockets wide and squirmed the rest of the way free. He jumped off the bed and hopped onto the chair underneath the window. (He was an expert at climbing chairs now.)

The windowsill was cold to the touch. When he pressed the palm of his paws against the glass, he shivered. The glass fogged up under his breath, and he watched, fascinated, as the lacework of frost faded under his reflection.

He heard Didot once say “…and then the snow came down in sheets! Which is unfortunate because I do not have a washboard sufficiently large enough to wash it!!” He didn’t know what that meant. But the snow came down so thickly, he could barely see the trees across the street! Wolf thought of flour. And cooking with Didot. And specifically of that bag of flour exploding into a cloud as it hit the counter. There must be a bag of snow somewhere really high up and someone had dropped it, just like Didot had dropped the bag of flour.

Wolf wagged his tail.

Papa’s smile was soft. Like bubbles, and snow, and cotton fluff. “If you think the snow we have experienced so far is impressive, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what the town will wake up to tomorrow. There was a reason fluffy-buns named this region, Snowdin.”

Wolf had no idea what he was talking about! But papa seemed less tense so he wagged his tail harder and chirped again. 

What was that word, papa had used? Blizzard?

Working his jaw, Wolf tried to mimic the sound. “Bahss—“ no that didn’t sound right. He scrunched up his muzzle. “Biss—“ that wasn’t right either!

He sent Papa a pleading look.

“Blizzard,” Papa said helpfully. And that was another great thing about Papa, he always seemed to know what Wolf was trying to say. “Blizz-ard.”

“Biss-rahd,” Wolf said. 

Papa tried to hide his laugh behind the back of his hand. But Wolf saw him! He was grinning!

Scowling, Wolf tried again. This time, in a bark. “Bissard!”

“Very, very close little one.” 

Very close was close enough. Wolf huffed to himself and turned back around to gaze out the window.

Behind him, papa murmured. “If only storms of this nature would plague Hot Land…”

Red and Edge were loud. He didn’t mind that they were loud. They reminded him of blasters. They didn’t growl nearly as loudly, though, and their teeth weren’t nearly as sharp. That was a good thing! Big blasters played rough and it could really hurt when they bit you. 

(Except for the blaster Wolf had shared a cage with, a long time ago. Though he had been bigger than Wolf, he was also smaller than the other blasters. Maybe because they’d both realized earlier on how unpleasant it was to have someone’s jaws clench around your neck-bones, they’d rarely used their teeth while play fighting. He missed him.)

But Red and Edge weren’t blasters. They were small skeletons. They were— oh, what was that word Dogaressa had used? Puppy? 

Didot had been tall. He was not a puppy. Papa was tall, too and he wasn’t a puppy either. Even Bodoni was tall, though he was shorter and wider around than the other two. Puppyhood therefore equaled smallness. Red and Edge were small, so they must be puppies! Just like him. 

He listened to them chatter at breakfast from underneath the table. It wasn’t fair that they could talk to Papa and he couldn’t. But he wasn’t really mad and that bitter sour-taste in his mouth became something tight around the vertebrae of his throat after awhile.

After breakfast, they didn’t leave the Inn like they had the day before. Papa said the storm was too intense. They should stay inside.

Wolf looked out the window. The Inn had a lot of windows. Every now and then something in the deep white-gray howled. It was a long mournful sound. Wolf shivered. He didn’t like the way the windows rattled, battered by the oncoming snow.

“What are we ‘supposed to do in the meantime?” Red asked. Looking out that same window, he scowled. 

“I am confident you will find something to do,” Papa said. 

“I propose we conduct a detailed survey of our accommodations. We did not get the chance to properly secure our base because we were out for most of the day yesterday.” Edge said.

Red rapped his claws on the table. “It beats doin’ nothing.”

It went quiet briefly. Wolf wasn’t watching, but he heard the reluctance in Papa’s voice. “I suppose I see no harm in that. At the moment, we seemed to be the only guests here. Regardless, please stay out of trouble and return to me immediately if you feel even the slightest bit threatened.”

Another pause, shorter this time. A chair squeaked. A light tap-tap followed as a pair of shoes hit the floor. Wolf peeled his eyelights from the window. Red pushed his chair underneath the table. He tapped his brother’s arm and they both scampered out into the hall.

Wolf looked up at Papa, who remained seated. “Do you wish to follow them, little one? Go on. The Snowdin Inn is… quite small. There are not many places you could go where I would not find you easily.”

He didn’t know about that. Everywhere seemed big to him, but Wolf nodded firmly anyway. Papa smiled, and he felt warm and happy too. 

He ran after Red and Edge, claws clicking and skittering across the hard floor. He hoped they weren’t too far ahead. 

Once out of the dinning hall it didn’t take long to figure out where Red and Edge had went. Immediately to his right was the lobby, the desk the rabbit monster who guarded this place stood behind, and the stairs that went up to the second floor. To his left a hall led a short way to the back of the building. Walls all made of wood and brightly colored wallpaper. It smelled strange here. A bit sweet, a little damp and somewhat chalky. 

Wolf followed the sound of hushed whispering to his left, and plodded up behind the pair as they hissed at each other. Red squeezed himself through a door, narrowly wedged open, into a cramped closet so slim that, had it been a cage, even the Doctor would hesitate to force a blaster into it.

Tilting his skull to the side, Wolf clicked his teeth in that way he’d seen papa do. What were they doing?

Edge turned to look at Wolf, attention drawn by the click and did a double take.

Red grumbled. His hip bumped a bucket. Which knocked into a broom, which caused something else to clatter to the floor.

“Red,” he said.

Now on the other side of the bucket Red peered around his brother. “What?”

They stared. Red eyelights like red blinking buttons and warning lights. Wolf ducked his head a little. He swayed his tail slowly. He didn’t want to fight. 

“What do we do?”

Red shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t think he can talk, so.” He side-eyed Wolf. Then ducked underneath the shelf in the back.

Edge crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Wolf with stern authority. “Hmph. Just don’t draw attention to us, shrimp.” 

Wolf nodded firmly, expression as serious as he could muster. 

Edge’s frown deepened. “Did you find anything of interest, Red?”

“Nope.” Something clattered against something else. The sound of metal scraping across plastic followed and Red re-emerged through the door. “Don’t think anyone’s used this closet in ages but it’s got too much stuff. We can’t use it.”

“A pity.”

Stumbling a bit, Red pulled himself free of cleaning equipment. Together the brothers pushed the door shut. “Well, now what?”

Edge adopted a thinking pose that reminded Wolf of Papa. One arm crossed around his middle, his lower jaw supported by his other hand as he thought deeply about something.

“If wouldn’t be wise to go upstairs,” he said. “We might run afoul of the Inn Keeper.”

Red shrugged. “Sure, but there’s not much down here. We might find a way into the attic upstairs…”

They continued to talk about where to go next. It got a little boring so Wolf tuned it out. He thought about returning to papa because following Red and Edge around wasn’t turning out as interesting as he thought it’d be. But then they started walking again, so he got up and followed.

There was a small foyer at the end of the hallway. The small room branched into three separate directions. Two doors, directly to the left and right, were locked. Edge tried one and Red tried the other. They tried the middle door last, because like Wolf, they could see out the narrow window next to it. This door led outside. And outside the wind was buffering the window. The frame groaned and rattled. An eerie whistle could be heard from it.

Red looked at his brother.

“It could be a potential escape route,” Edge said. and that seemed to be all the convincing Red needed.

The door groaned on rusty hinges. A gust of howling wind swept snow laden air into the cramped foyer. Tiny needle cold teeth nipped his bones.

Wolf squinted his eye-sockets through the gust, glad to behind Red as the older boy kept the door from slamming open.

“C’mon. Hurry up,” Red gritted his teeth. 

Edge shimmied out the door. Wolf followed quickly at his heels. He didn’t want to be left behind!

With some effort, Red pulled the door shut behind them. 

The door led out onto a patio. A spindly black iron fence ran the length of it, jutting up in the waking memory of cage bars from a frigid sea of white. Past the bristling curtain of snow, beyond the fence, was a grove of tall pine trees, just barely visible. If there was something beyond them, he couldn’t make it out. It was too dark and the snow was too thick.

Two steps from the door and Edge was buried in snow up to his waist. Wolf struggled to keep pace with him. The snow was thick, and cold. The wind battered his face and blinking didn’t help. He braced his hind legs, and jumped. Sank up to his chin in sand-soft ice, and jumped again, bounding this way across the patio as the three of them trudged towards the fence.

Red wrapped his small fists around the bars. He surveyed the patio, and the trees, spinning in a tight circle. “Tch. Not much out here either.”

Edge sheltered his eye sockets with one hand, squinting. “We could hide in the trees, if need be.”

“Yeah. Or someone else could.”

Edge conceded this point. 

They talked, but Wolf missed most of the conversation. He watched big snowflakes, the size of cotton balls race diagonally into the gray, and then into the black. The forest grew darker the deeper it went. The snow and made odd shapes appear and disappear between gusts. It was dark between the trees—

Something moved between the trees. A tall shadow clad figure. A flash of white. Red. Smooth but cracked open, like an egg shell step out from behind one tree and vanish behind another. 

His soul skipped a beat, hitching.

Wolf leaned forward, straining to catch sight of it again. It had to be a monster. Someone as tall as papa, or taller. Definitely not a puppy.

The small skeletons were still talking. That was bad. They should be quiet. If you were in a test, if the Doctor had put you in a trial, and a bigger blaster was hunting you, you had to stay quiet. 

Wolf yipped— a high pitched bark, as loudly as he dared. Which wasn’t loud at all.

Red jumped anyway, cursing. Edge stiffened. They both turned to him, glowering.

Wolf glowered back. They weren’t scary. Big blasters were scary. The Doctor was even scarier. (No one was scarier than the Doctor.) Even Papa could be scary, when he stared into the black cracks for too long. So no. Wolf wasn’t scared of two small skeletons only a little bigger than he was. They were puppies. 

Then, maintaining eyelight-contact for as long as he could, Wolf slowly turned his skull to point his muzzle in the direction he saw the shadow. He lowered his head too until his spine was as straight as a scalpel. He hoped they understood.

“What’s he…” Red trailed off.

The brothers stared into the tree line. 

The wind howled, battering them in another gale. Pine needles rustled, trees groaned. It was faint, but listening for it they heard it. Behind the curtain of snow, something crunched through frozen ice. Someone or something was watching them.

Edge sucked in a breath. Red’s hands clenched at his side. A bead of magic dripped down his skull, despite the cold. “Let’s get inside.” He said. Inside they went.

With the door shut firmly behind them, a wall between themselves and the cold and the monster in the woods, Wolf sighed. He shook himself off, but his onesie still felt a little damp.

The brothers stomped their feet and scraped their shoes on the mat. They began whispering again so Wolf started walking.

Half way down the hall, he looked over his shoulder. Why were they staring? Hurry up! He wanted to find Papa, right away!

Instead of waiting though, he hurried to the end of the hall. He heard Papa’s voice and peered around the staircase into the lobby. 

Papa was standing in front of the front desk, talking to the rabbit behind the counter. Wolf couldn’t see the rabbit monster’s expression but papa’s expression seemed a little impatient, a little concerned; the smile spread across his teeth looked strained.

Wolf peeped. Papa broke eye contact with the rabbit monster and signed. ‘Ah there you are, little ones. …why are you covering in snow?’

Red and Edge joined them a moment later. “Someone left a window open,” Red said at the same time Edge admitted. “We took a peek outside.”

Red looked at his brother stricken. Edge’s eye sockets went wide. He quickly added. “But! Before that! We walked by an open window! A strong gust settled in which! I must emphasize, we cleaned up!”

“Yeah,” Red agreed. Beads of sweat dripping down his skull down.

Wolf didn’t understand. Why did he say that? That didn’t happen. Why wasn’t Red telling Papa about the monster they saw in the woods?

Papa seemed to think what the brothers were telling him was mildly amusing. ‘Well,’. He signed. ‘How wonderful the three of you were there to clean that up. What convenient timing. I am sure our host appreciates your efforts.’

“Yeah,” Red said again, glancing down at his feet. 

‘The inn keeper and I were just discussing it, apparently the Inn has a patio one can enjoy when the weather is nice. How do you boys feel about having breakfast there, tomorrow morning, once the storm settles?’  Papa smiled. 

“That is acceptable,” Edge said. There was a small bit of liquid magic forming on his brow.

‘Splendid,’ Papa signed.

Though miffed that the brothers were refusing to tell Papa about the monster outside, especially because Wolf couldn’t tell Papa himself, he wanted to see what Papa was holding. It looked like a rectangular box. Was it another experiment? Experiments were scary, but he needed to know. Wolf jumped up and tugged on his pant legs. He wanted a closer look!

‘I see you have noticed your surprise.’ Papa turned back to the Inn Keeper. He thanked her, excused himself and gestured for Wolf, Red and Edge to follow him upstairs. 

“Whatcha got there?” Red asked. Small fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“A board game,” Papa said. 

“A what?” Red shared a confused look with his brother.

Papa’s expression looked pained. “I admit I have not played one of these in a long time, so it will be a learning experience for the both of us.”

He led them back to their room and settled on the edge of the bed. The brothers cautiously peered around the room before they joined him, settling down in a semi circle around the box. It was painted, but the paint had peeled. What was left was splotchy and messy and didn’t look like anything. Papa opened the box. Wolf peered inside.

Inside the box was a folded piece of… what was it called? Cardboard? Yeah, cardboard! Unfolding it revealed a confusing pattern on the underside. It almost looked Papa’s drawings! But prettier.

Also inside the box was a collection of small wooden pieces painted in yellow, blue, green, and red, which papa set around the board between each of the four corners. Then, he took out two small cubes covered in dots and a deck of cards. 

Wolf wagged his tail. He’d seen Bodoni play with cards before. He didn’t understand the “rules” but knew there were “rules”. It was a confusing game. Not like tug-of-war at all. But the pictures were pretty! The pictures also had something to do with the game. Bodoni had told him once, whispering around the stick in his mouth, to look at Dogaressa’s cards and to chirp twice if he saw a “queen” or a “king” in her hand. And Wolf did. Bodoni laughed very hard. Dogaressa whined. Something about “cheating” but Bodoni seemed happy, so Wolf was happy.

Anyway. The cards Papa pulled out of the box had a different set of pictures. Wolf did not see any numbers on them when he caught a glimpse of them, but saw instead faces of monsters he’d never seen before.

Papa clicked his teeth and set those cards down, face up. “Well…” he said, in a breath. He leaned back. “It seems this was something from the surface after all.”

Red and Edge leaned closer, studying the cards and the board. “This is… a human thing?”

“Couldn’t be anythin’ else. Look. It’s got humans all over the cards!” Red sneered.

“Fascinating,” Edge said. And Wolf’s spine prickled. “Is this a combat stimulation? A battle engagement thought-piece? A strategy trial?”

Papa made a dismissive noise. Though he was studying the brothers’ reaction intently. “Not quite. This is a game of logical deduction, played for fun. There are no stakes, except, perhaps for the sake of one’s pride.”

“Humans play this for fun?” Red asked, his expression puckered like he’d just swallowed nasty tasting medicine.

“Of course. Humans are living, sentient beings… like all creatures, they do things for their own amusement.”

No one spoke after that, Red and Edge seemed to sense the same thing he did. The silence felt heavy, uneasy, suddenly. Wolf couldn’t place why but… Papa seemed strangely distant.

it was Edge who bravely broke the silence first. “What are we meant to deduce?”

Papa blinked once, and his smile was warm again. “Ah, now that…”

He picked up a black slip of paper. “The goal of this game is to deduce which three cards are left in this black envelope. To this end, players take turns moving across the board, accusing each other of the crime in designated rooms. If the accused possesses one of three cards; a person, a room or a weapon. They must present it as counter evidence to support their innocence.”

Red narrowed his eye sockets. “Why do ya know how to play a human game?”

“We adapted our own variant of it after discovering a similar board game in the trash. Same premise, issued by different characters,” Papa said. “Now, who would like to go first?”

Wolf couldn’t “read”, whatever that meant, so he had the honor of rolling the dotted cubes—dice, instead. Wolf also didn’t have Papa or Red’s weird paws though, so he was given a paper cup, which he held with his teeth and shook. He liked this job. It was fun! 

Red and Edge seemed to have fun after a while too. They were tense at first, nervous for a reason Wolf couldn’t guess at. By the end of the game though, Red was smiling and Edge’s arms were uncrossed for once.

And Wolf had forgotten all about the monster he saw outside.

Chapter Text

A scant few hours later a loud thud shook Gaster awake.

What in tartarus’s name… He sat up, one arm flying to his chest to hold his son in place. Kalluno had been asleep on his chest, having moved there after waking up several times during the night and each time chirping shrilly to be held. He seemed convinced Gaster would be gone the next time he closed his eyes. Gaster had been up so often that night, he gave up on sleepwear and resorted to sleeping in his coat on the off chance walking around (again) might soothe his son. 

Another bang rattled through the floor. Wolf’s claws pricked through his shirt. The little one all but dragged himself underneath his chin.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. The air felt at once electric. Instinct snapped his attention to the door next, which was partially ajar, just in time to see two monsters he didn’t recognize bumble up the stairs onto the landing.

There was no time to think. Gaster set Wolf down and rolled out of bed just as a shadow moved outside his door.

The door open—Gaster slammed it shut with his shoulder. Thunk. The mercenary shouted. Stumbled back to cup her muzzle in both paws. Gaster yanked the door open again, stomped his foot into the ground, and a wave of sharpened bones shot up from the floor. The mercenary dropped to her knees, then froze as a sharp blue femur passed through her, and captured her soul in blue. 

Her companion, a fish monster of some sort, clad in that same, black armor, had a clammy fist around the doorknob. He twisted around, took one look at his fallen partner and launched himself at Gaster with a snarl.

Across the hall was really such a very short distance. 

He had only time enough to summon a serrated femur. It clattered against something metallic and silver—a rather nasty looking dagger. The blade sang. Shrieked, as Gaster pushed the femur down to the fingers. 

The fish drew back, hissing. Made to slash at his side with that silver blade. There was little room to dodge, even less to move, and the edge of the blade snarled like tearing leather over the outer layer of his coat. Following the arc of his opponent’s swing, Gaster slashed his serrated weapon across the mercenary’s arm. An upward stroke meant to disarm him. The mercenary leapt back with a curse. Had he paid a little more attention to his surroundings, he might have realized it would have been wiser to block instead. His heel snagged, he tripped, and fell backward over his fallen companion.

Gaster curled his phalanges and both monsters were caught in a gravity well.

They cursed through clenched jaws, straining to thrash underneath the weight of his magic.

Downstairs someone shouted. Gaster’s sole eyelight snapped down the hallway. Gaster saw him first by the harsh light that sent the shadows of the stairwell crawling. A man clad in black leather came running up the stairs. Violet, and radiant indigo.

“You—“ the elemental began, molten teeth bared. Gaster’s eyes widened. His marrow sang.

He didn’t give the mercenary a chance to finish. He flung the first monster encased in blue at the man, than the second. One solid body collided with another. The elemental grunted, stumbling down several steps but caught himself on the stairwell’s railing at the last moment. The second monster tumbled half way down but caught herself before her back hit the tile floor. Almost immediately, she began picking herself up. Her companion was not so fortunate. 

Gaster hadn’t expected this. Not so soon. The blizzard that had descended on Snowdin in the early hours of that same morning was still raging outside. The wind howled under the ringing in his bones in the passing few seconds he had to make a decision— his sons were trapped in the two rooms behind him. Separated. If he raced to secure one of them he’d leave the other vulnerable. He knew Red and Edge were wanted alive while he had no guarantee Kalluno would be treated with the same mercy. But they would not be after Kalluno, would they? He needed to get the boys out of here. Now.

The elemental ran up the stairs. Eye-light blazing Gaster yanked a wall of bones from the floor, from the last step. The elemental drew his sword, and in the same moment Gaster pulled a club-like femur from the wall and knocked it into the elementals chest like a battering ram. The man snarled. The flame of his body lashed and roared. 

Gaster had seconds. 

He reached for the door handle. Mana pounded in his marrow, terrified for a terrible short instant that he’d have to waste precious time rapping out a code because he couldn’t take a shortcut into a room he hadn’t set foot in damn it. But the door gave way. He heard and felt the bones on the stairs crack and strain in his teeth.

“G-Gaster,” Edge squeaked. Both he and his brother were huddled under the window in the process of trying to shove the damn thing open.

He did not have time to explain or offer reassurance. He heard part of the summoned-wall break. Crossed that short agonizing distance across the room in that terrible second. The moment he was close enough, he warped the three of them into the clearing they’d discovered the other day. The crunch of snow, nearly knee deep. Bitting, icy wind. He returned to the room where he’d left his youngest son in the next blink.

Across the hallway, the door had been obliterated. He came back just as the elemental marched through the open, and exposed threshold. The roar in his marrow was deafening. Wolf was not on the bed where he’d left him. Panic set in. Where—where had the little one gone? By the window? No. In the make shift crib? No. Under the bed? No. Not there either.

A warning wail shot down his spine. He spun around, a partly summoned a construct forming in his hand—pain erupted in his jaw, shot ribbons of hot-ice through his teeth. He felt the ache crawl like lightning through his damaged eye socket. 

Reflexively, he squeezed it shut. He stepped backward, tried put some distance himself and the mercenary. He didn’t have enough space. Another fist collided with his sternum sent him toppling backward onto the bed. He kicked, jabbing his heel into the mercenaries mid-section and rolled off the bed to the other side, as the other staggered back with a pained crackle-hiss. 

“You hit as good as you get. I’ll give you that.” the elemental grunted. One hand over his middle. Black soot darkened his violet flames. Jagged mouth down turned into a scowl. 

Gaster dragged the back of a shaking hand over his cheek. Dust flaked over his knuckles.

Where was Kalluno?

Furtively, and as subtly as he possibly could, he scanned the room again, thinking fast. There was a lump forming against the vertebrae of his throat. His soul pulsed painfully. Where was his son?

His eyelight snapped back to the elemental.

“Whatever you are thinking of doing, don’t try it.” The elemental warning, flames crackling. “Poltergeist wants you alive. If I have to hand you over in a bag, I won’t get my cut.”

The elemental rolled his shoulders, and edged slowly around the only barrier between them. With the distance closing Gaster tensed, hot anger burning like bile behind his teeth. ‘For gold… you would return the children to their tormentor, for gold?’

An almost imperceivable grimace rippled through the elemental’s flames. He quickly covered it with a vicious smile. “What else is there, when EXP is off the table?”

He clenched his teeth, and itched to summon an attack. Vile instinct tugged and pulled at his restraint but he could not allow himself to give into it. He couldn’t risk a stray attack hitting Kalluno. His son’s health and defense were already so low, one nick from any of his attacks would be significant. His stats were simply too high. And even a blue attack had its risks. If Kalluno flinched… if the child jerked in surprise, if they did not understand they were meant to freeze…

Until he knew exactly where his son was, he could not take that chance!

Standing now at the end of the bed, the elemental’s molten eyes narrowed. “Why haven’t you attacked me yet?”

Gaster felt his claws twitch. 

And there! A flash of white behind the short legs of the dresser. Kalluno’s bright, wide eyelights glinted in the corner as the child peered out from his hiding place. Skull and ribcage low, and close to the floor, in what he initially assumed was an attempt to remain hidden.

What he did not consider, or rather, what he did think to consider, was what Kalluno had been trained to do. 

Kalluno crawled out of hiding. No… not crawled, but stalked. A light began to glow through his ribcage. The fabric of his onesie shone blue. His lower jaw unhinged splitting the mandible in two down the middle. 

“Don’t!” Gaster rasped sharply, and three things happened in very short order. 

Kalluno squeaked, clicking his teeth shut. At the same time, the elemental whirled around. A ball of hot plasma formed in the palm of his hand but he froze, hesitated, at the sight of a child in stripes. And Gaster took the lamp on the nightstand and flung it at the elemental’s back.

The lamp shattered and the elemental staggered under the impact. A pained, crackling snarl ripped from the man’s molten-white teeth, and Gaster lunged to slip past him— 

His arm caught, shoulder popping, as the man grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!? That’s a blaster. One of Dr. Gaster’s constructs!”

Gaster all but spat in the quick flick of his claws. ‘That child is a sapient monster. Do not mistake him for a tool!’

His was released, amazingly. Perhaps from surprise. Or perhaps his aggressive intent convinced the mercenary of the wisdom of letting him. Either way, he did not waste time to ask why or to marvel at his release. He ran to Kalluno’s side, scooped the little one up his arms and was gone in the next blink.

He did not breath again until heavy snowflakes battered his cheekbones. Then he bounced a check off the little one, scarcely able to do anything else as the low buzzing in his bones slowly ebbed. The results came back normal but he needed to see the other two before the whispering ceased.

Red and Edge had found an upturned log, toppled over and caught by a neighboring stump, to hide under in the time he’d been gone. He saw Edge’s shoe poking out from its shadow, and rapped lightly on the bark before he ducked around it where they could see him.

Both boys startled, but aside from the snow on their shoulders, and the fact they were in their pajamas, they seemed fine. “Are the two of you alright?” Gaster rasped. Static thick in his voice.

They nodded solemnly. A quick check confirmed it.

He sat down next to them in the snow. 

Wolf wiggled in his arms. Uncharacteristically grumpy though he certainly couldn’t fault the child after what he’d just experienced. That— that had been too close. 

“I apologize,” he said, hoarsely. “I did not anticipate their presence in Snowdin quite so soon. The strength of the storm gave me a false sense of security. I thought we had more time.”

He thought of the fire elemental. The strength of the wind, ice and snow, and how he could not imagine the sensation of melting ice on a body made of fire would be a pleasant experience. Not to mention the hazardous journey through waterfall. And surely that would have him a couple hours, at the minimum, to traverse safely? 

An uneasy frown tugged at his face. 

Suddenly, Edge whipped around to face his brother and burst out. “We should’ve told him!”

Red growled through clenched teeth. He sank as deep as it was physically possible into the collar of his pajama shirt. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

“You are the one who thought to lie!” Edge snapped.

Wolf made a sharp clicking noise. Gaster blinked, puzzled because it almost sounded as though the little one was in agreement. “I beg your pardon, little one. Am I missing something?”

“Yes!” Edge took a deep breath, tiny fists clenched at his side. He looked down and refused to look Gaster in the eye, as he spat out. “We went outside when you explicitly instructed us not to!”

“I appreciate the honesty, however I was already aware of that.”

Edge looked up in shock. “Y-you did? How?”

“I mean no offense, little one, but the lie you told was rather… transparent.”

“Oh.”

Edge fell silent. That lull in the conversation did not last long. Wolf jumped out of his lap and chirped in a manner that almost sounded angry. 

“Kalluno—“ Gaster began, Surprised by the little one’s aggressive behavior. 

Edge squeezed his eyes sockets shut. “We didn’t tell you about something else.”

“Don’t—!” His brother growled at him. His ruby eyelights paling.

Gaster frowned. But didn’t speak as Edge continued, speaking loudly and rapidly as if to blurt it all out in one breath. “While we were out on the patio we saw someone in the woods behind the Inn!”

His soul stopped. Ice and needles crawled through his narrow. And than that ice turned into hot-cold shame and anger. That first time they’d entered Snowdin, he had sensed someone watching them. It wasn’t unexpected. Especially as he’d been a stranger to town and bore resemblance to the Gaster of this world besides, but he should have taken the threat more seriously. He cursed himself for incompetence. Angry that he had not been prepared enough. Angry that he’d nearly lost all three of his children in one night. And he called himself a father. 

A deep inhale. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again his voice was calm but the pang in his chest was no less grieved, twisting itself into thorny knots. He had to do better. Be better. “Why did not you tell me?”

Edge clamped his teeth shut. He refused to speak, let alone look at him. A painful living memory of how the two of them had met, not that long ago.

“ ‘cause you gave us instructions and we didn’t obey! ‘cause we brought your fucking kid outside and—“ Red’s voice cracked. “It was my fault. It was my idea, don’t get mad at Pap! Please don’t get mad at him!”

The little one on the verge of tears and it felt as though his soul had been ripped out. “It seems I owe you both a second apology. I should have been more vigilant. If I had kept a closer eye on you, instead of allowing you free reign of the Inn, this would not have happened. I bare the responsibility for this. I am so sorry.”

Red shook his head violent. Gritting his teeth against the torrent of unshed tears. The poor thing tried so hard to hide it. “Wasn’t your fault. You— you got us out. Woulda been caught if-if you hadn’t been there.” He choked out in a tiny sniffle.

“This does not change the fact that I misjudged the situation as safe, when it was not.” He closed his eyes for another moment to breathe, to feel the mana in his bones slow, and the torrent of the icey ambient magic swirl around him. “It will not happen again.”

This place had been a home twice. It could not be a third time. He was angry at himself. How long had he allowed the children to wonder on their own? Ten, fifteen minutes? Stars, he should have known better. But he had wanted to demonstrate that their trust in him went both ways. The guests of the Inn hadn’t been a threat. And the storm should have provided cover. He gave them their space and had thought they were making progress. And they were. They had. 

But…

He took another stabilizing breathe. All three baby bones turned and looked at him. “It is imperative that the four of us reach an accord. This situation could have been avoided if we had communicated with each other clearly. However… this is also a matter of trust.”

Two boys looked away. Wolf stared up at him steadily.

“I understand how difficult this is for you. You have every right to be wary and cautious of me. But if we do not communicate openly and honestly with each other, a situation like this may happen again. We cannot afford that. So, we must agree: no more secrets.”

Red nodded stiffly, gaze still downcast. Edge fidgeted with his sleeve, a deep furrow in his brow. He looked up, met Gaster’s gaze at last, and said, stiffly but confidently. “You haven’t told us everything either! If we are to make this vow, than you must also take it!”

“Yeah… yeah, that’s right,” Red said, slowly regaining his confidence. “If we don’t get to keep secrets, than you don’t either!”

Now… that’s not quite what Gaster had in mind, but he would not be setting a good example for them if he refused. But it was one thing to look like their tormentor (a sickening thought by itself) and another to suggest… how would they react to that knowledge? Were they old enough to understand it? The concept of having a self, who was and was not you, who, in some fundamental way, was systematically different to the point of being almost unrecognizable, and yet... if you looked closely enough, you could see the 'root' where your paths diverged? That horrifying sense of familiarity... How could he possibly explain that concept to a child?

“I will answer any questions you have.” He agreed. Frowned slightly, as a sudden gust battered them. “But let us do so as we look for more secure shelter. I imagine the three of you must be getting cold.”

Reluctant nods and grumbles in agreement. He took Wolf into his arms, and rose to his feet. 

Thankfully, the forest sheltered them from the worst of the wind, and the tail of his coat was long enough that, once offered, Red and Edge reluctantly took shelter underneath it. This made travel rather slow. 

Frankly, if he did not find adequate shelter within a certain time frame, he had solid plans to take them all back to New Home. It was a decent idea, though undeniably risky. His pursuers’ focus would be Snowdin for the time being as that was where he was last seen. And what he’d done to the bridge should place a strong emphasis on the Snowdin-Waterfall region of the underground, on top of that. Essentially, it would work as a convenience misdirect in a pinch. 

But it would only work once. Not to mention the many dangers inherent to the city: too many potential eyes keeping a lookout, ambient hostility, the royal guard… to name a few. Their chances of getting caught in the city were significantly higher and he could only take so many shortcuts in sequence. Best to save it as a last resort.

In the meantime, Red and Edge whispered harshly to themselves debating what to ask him first. Gaster did not his best not to appear to be eavesdropping. Wolf made no such committed, and openly stared down at the two of the them from the safety of Gaster’s arms. 

Falling snow, especially thickly falling snow, had a muffling effect on one’s hearing. Even so… Gaster found himself instinctively stopping. Pausing on occasion. The LV in his marrow hummed, pulling his gaze to the gaps between trees, into the white, the dark and grey… more than once, he was sure he heard something. But then, his LV whispered, in that oppressive quiet, and Gaster could not tell if it was his latent hostile magic stirring nonsense in his mind or someone was, indeed, following them. 

Either way, he decided to keep going.

At last, the brothers finally settled on a question. Edge tugged on his pant leg. When Gaster looked down, he found the child’s expression stern, chin held high in gathered confidence. “Sans and I have agreed on a question. When you first purposed that deal to us, you claimed you had business in Snowdin. And yet, all you’ve done is guard us!”

Edge crossed his little arms. “Were you lying? Did you actually have business here? Or was it part of a scheme all along!”

Silently, Gaster marveled at his cleverness. His sons were so smart. He smiled softly. “I did not lie. I do indeed have business in Snowdin. However, my priority was your safety first. I simply have not had time to do what I intended to here.”

Edge frowned and looked down at his feet in thought.

“What were you lookin’ for in Hotland?” Red asked. He met Gaster’s eye briefly, but prolonged eyelight contact made the little one nervous and he quickly looked anywhere else. A bead of sweat forming on his skull.

Gaster considered for a moment. It was unlikely the boys could help with it, but with the danger of this world escalating and still no sign of a fissure… well. It wouldn’t hurt. “How interesting that you have chosen this as our second question. You have a wonderfully sharp intuition, Sans.”

Red looked up at him sharply.

Gaster smiled. “In truth, I was looking for the same phenomenon in Hotland as I had hoped to find in Snowdin.”

The boys blinked. “Phenomenon?” Red muttered. 

Gaster described the fissures as best he could. To his surprise, Red and Edge did not react with the level of confusion or disbelief he expected. “It seems…” he began slowly, stunned by what he was about to ask. “...that I am not describing a wholly new phenomenon to you. Have you seen something like this before?”

“Yeah. In the Doc’s lab.” 

“Yes,” Edge agreed. “In the CORE’s main chamber, specifically.”

Red shifted uncomfortably. “ ‘couldn’t see them at first. Thought the old Doctor was going senile.”

Edge nodded. “He would stare at nothing, just as Sans has described you doing. Then one day, an earthquake shook the CORE.”

“I thought the whole lab was gonna blow!”

Edge sniffed. “I, however, was never scared at all. I knew the CORE would never explode. Dr. Gaster’s work is perfect.”

His brother scoffed. “Yeah right. You were so scared the whole underground could hear your bones rattling.”

“Shuddup Sans. Anyway. It nearly blew up but as I said, Dr. Gaster knew what he was doing. He got it stabilized. But something weird happened. He stumbled away from it and fell backward on his coccyx. When I peered at his face, his eyelights were out. After that day, Dr. Gaster would sometimes just stare into thin air.”

Gaster looked from one child to the other, still frankly shocked. “When did you begin to see the fissures?”

Red and Edge thought on that for a beat. 

“Must’ve been a couple of days later.” Red looked down. “I said something I wasn’t supposed to in front of one of his investors. He got mad...”

Gaster’s soul twisted at the hesitancy in the child’s voice. “You do not have to speak of this, if you are uncomfortable doing so.”

Red shrugged. “It's no big deal.” Though it clearly was, by the shaky way the child dug his tiny claws into his sleeves. Jaw tense. “He wanted to see if something could survive whatever was on the other side of that thing. ‘said I could earn my worth by doing that. So...”

He had to close his eyes at that, mentally reminding himself to restrain his anger. How dare he… how dare he…

In his arms, Wolf chirped and pushed his head underneath Gaster’s chin in concern. 

“After Sans survived, he was a blithering mess. So Dr. Gaster sent me in next to make sense of it.”

Red sneered. “Yeah? Well, you weren’t some perfect flower after that either!”

“At least I was ABLE to give him a report!”

Hearing those words was like being dunked in ice water. Gaster took a shaky breath. “Boys, boys please. Neither of you should have endured that. I am so sorry you were forced into that situation.” 

“Whatcha apologizing for?” Red muttered. “You didn’t do it.”

He felt ill, regardless. That cold blade through his heart twisted yet more. But a monster with my name and my face did…

“Thank you for telling me.” He told them, and hoped they did not hear the hollow, horror in his voice for what they had endured.

Red shrugged. He shuffled closer, shivered and mumbled something about the cold. Gaster resolved to keep moving.

If nothing else he could, at least, tentatively confirm one of his theories now. It seemed, to touch and see the fissures; these tears in reality, you must have touched the void in some fashion prior. 

It made sense, given in context with what he already knew. He had no knowledge of them prior to his own fall into the void. That would be his own trigger event. He did not begin to see the tears until a few days into his stay in Bodoni’s world. His stay in Epsilon’s had lasted a mere hour at most, so he could not say yet if time was a variable. (though, given how his stay in this world was going… he was beginning to suspect it was.)

But Kalluno could see the rifts as well… when had the child touched the void? 

Epsilon’s machine…? Yes… yes, that could have been it. That, or like the wretch of a man in this world, Epsilon could have forced his son into a similar situation. But somehow, he found this scenario less likely. Epsilon had not struck him as monster who encouraged needless suffering. (that very reason, had been why Epsilon intended to end Kalluno’s life early. The thought still made him sick.)

But now the only rift he knew of was located in the CORE. Provided it was still there, to leave this world he would have to…

He shook his head. No. There must be another rift, somewhere. He could not allow his sons to fall into that man’s hands again. Never. He would find some other way to leave this world without putting them at risk.

The treeline came to an abrupt halt. A clear path cut through the forest. Gaster shifted Wolf to one arm, and held the other out, low, to keep either child from stepping forward. Red and Edge stiffened, fell quiet and followed his gaze, down the snow covered trail to a cliff and to the massive black door, bolted into the cliff-face.

“What is this place?” Edge asked. 

“That…” Gaster rasped, astonished by how close they’d wondered to it without realizing. “—is the entrance to the Ruins.” The embossed Delta Rune on the metal door, speckled by ice and frost shone brilliantly even in the dim-grey of the caven. 

But that was not why he had stopped. 

Wolf’s claws prickled through his shirt, as the child twisted himself around to look up at him. He chirped urgently. 

Gaster had already taken a step back. His shoulder slumped against the nearest tree, and somewhat shakily, he lowered Wolf to the ground. 

“Whoa. Hey, what gives? What’s wrong with you?”

“Were you wounded in the skirmish?” Edge demanded. “Tell us! We are allies, are we not?”

Gaster pressed his claws to the bridge of bone between his eye sockets. Then pushed his palm harder, to that space above his eyes. “No… no.” he rasped, eye sockets squeezed shut to the nauseating tilt to the ground beneath his feet. “That door… is made of pure iron, child. G-give me a moment.”

Edge looked to the door with a deep frown. Red also scowled at it, but confusion and wariness pinched his brow. “So what? Lots of shit is made with iron. Why’s it making you sick?”

Gaster breathed harshly through his teeth. “W-where I come from, monsters are weakened by cold i-i-iron. Such a large de-deposit of it is overwhelming.” 

He felt Wolf tug on his pant-let, whining— and a loud sound broke the muffled stillness of the forest. A thud. A tremendous lock unlatched. Rusted hinges screeched, and the massive door slowly, achingly, pried itself open wide enough for a disheveled face to peer through. Emerging from the dark as one would a pool, small white horns appeared, then long ears, and big, yellow eyes that blinked like spotlights in the dark.

The boys joined their brother in hiding under the tail of his coat, behind his legs.

Gaster took a stabilizing breath and removed his hand from his face, as a low, buzzing, prickle of a song began again, deep within his marrow. Danger. It drew a cold claw up his spine, forcing a shudder. Power. It whispered. She surpasses you in raw power. 

…but of course. He would expect no less from Toriel.

Chapter Text

Breath caught somewhere behind his ribs, and thoughts racing, Gaster dipped his skull in a tense shallow bow. ‘Your majesty…’ 

… it seemed wise to resume common etiquette when greeting a member of the royal family. Etiquette that he raked through his mind to recall. He had never been fluent in the social graces of high society to begin with, and his close ties with the royal family meant that such formalities were generally dismissed. If not actively discouraged. At least when it came to his own behavior. He could not be sure if he had succeeded at a respectful greeting or not.

As he raised his head again, the gap in the door slowly widened. The hinges groaned, ominous, in the silent forest. “Doctor Gaster… what are you doing here?” Toriel rasped, her voice hoarse and ill used. “I thought I heard children…”
 
Hidden behind his coat and legs Gaster felt the children stiffen. Damn it. In all the chaos he had forgotten to pull the hood over his skull. Hopefully, his presence alone would not be enough to provoke her. It would be difficult to defend himself, the children, and grapple with the weakness brought on by cold iron. But did she pose a threat to the children?

He frowned. There was danger in assuming safety in the face of the familiar. Don Asgore had been cruel. And the Asgore of this world seemed no better. He did not know what to expect from Toriel. Every monster he had met was either wary, aggressive or exhibited that odd head-tilting behavior. (He had yet to figure out what it meant.) He had not heard a single resident speak of their King, but given the state of the kingdom and the current edict… could he expect Toriel to have the same mindset?

Toriel blinked and brought a paw up to her cheek, mirroring where, on the side of his skull the largest of the cracks would be. “What happened to your skull, doctor?”

‘That is… a long story, your majesty.’

She giggled, and, rather abruptly bounced a check off his soul. The attempt was clumsy. A drunken hand grasping at the nearest table for support. Her eyes narrowed and she asked again. “Do you have children with you?”

He checked her, gauging her intentions. She allowed it, her stare unblinking, just as he had allowed her to do the same. Her magic, her soul, was, in a word: frazzled. If Toriel was a warm hearth, then the flames within it had blackened the mantle. The fire burned too intensely for the fuel it had been fed. One strong gust would either smother her or ignite a wildfire from the embers. 

But he felt no ill-will. Just wary mistrust and a strong desire to protect.

One of his sons grabbed his pant leg and gripped it tightly. He felt the little one’s ambient magic shiver. Drawing in a breath, Gaster took hope in the concern she felt for children. If there was anything this variant of his old friend had in common with the Toriel he knew, it would be that. ‘Forgive my hesitation. The children are in danger. They need protection.’

She inhaled sharply, finally stepping out from behind the door. Her black dress was torn. Ripped from the hem up. She wore sweat pants underneath it. From head to toe the whole of her appearance was ragged. She rose to her full height. Raised her chin. “From who, Dr. Gaster? You? The monsters you associate yourself with? Do not think I have not heard of your experiments nor the lowlifes who fund your research. Even as isolated as I am, the walls have ears, Dr. Gaster.”

The accusation and the abruptness of it ripped the breathe from his ribcage and burned like a brand. He knew better. Of course he did, but coming from the voice of a friend it stung all the more. And yet… it made sense. Toriel knew his counterpart. Or at some point had known him in the same way Gaster had once known the royal family. It was clear she did not approve of him. With good reason, if all she had just revealed was true.

Good. The children needed more adults on their side.

He swallowed down the knot constricting the vertebra of his throat and pressed on.

‘I am not the man you think I am. It is in fact the Doctor that you know, that I must hide them from. His men are in pursuit as we speak.’

Toriel’s unnerving yellow eyes studied him in the stilted silence that followed. She checked him again, this attempt was less clumsy then the last. Her magic scrapped over his own harshly. He pushed forward his honesty, his earnest desire to keep the children from harm, and hoped the fierceness of it would not come off as hostile. The LV in his bones hummed lowly, constantly now. Toriel appearance had only fed into the whispering. It was an ever present thing at the tip of his claws. Just behind his teeth.

There was nothing he would not do for his children. 

At last, Toriel braced her paw on the edge of the iron door and with one arm, opened it wide. “Come inside. We will speak once the children are settled in.”

Gaster inclined his skull shallowly, and stepped side to usher the children closer. Red and Edge scampered to keep Gaster between themselves and Toriel. Their tiny claws grazed his coat as they kept step with him. Wolf openly stared at her, but nonetheless kept his head low and stuck close to Gaster’s side.

Toriel held her breath. Her wild eyes never left them.

That was just as well. The unsteady swing of the ground beneath his heels grew worse the closer he came to the door. Gaster swallowed back his nausea and fought to keep his steps steady. His skull pounded and he nearly stumbled as he crossed the threshold into the Ruins proper. As soon as he was across, he pressed a shoulder to the wall to steady himself. The dizziness was temporary. It would subside once he put some distance between himself and the iron door. He simply had to keep himself composed for that long.

The door shut behind him with a resounding groan and thud. The sound bounced off the walls and reverberated through the soles of his sole with finality. As the dust settle, a shiver ran down his spine.

Toriel stepped around him, watching with a gaze that felt calculating and a touch cold. Without a word, she swept down the dark corridor.

“I don’t like this…” Red mumbled to his brother.  

The dark corridor led to another, and then ended with a spiral stairwell, made of stone and brick around a center column. The cracks in the walls became more apparent here. They snaked like roots between and through slabs of stone. Webbing outward from some impact long ago. The stairs themselves have been swept and cleared of debris, but glancing down, one could still evidence of it in the small piles of loose rock and pebbles hidden in the tight corners between the floor and the wall. 

He nearly took a step back when he reached the landing.

The foyer was in a state.

The rug in the center of the space had been left askew. It was torn in places. Threadbare and blackened around the corners. The mirror on the wall next to him was in a similar condition. It hung at a slight angle. Part of it was cracked, and the scent of smoke, old ash and new lay heavy in the air. Almost sticky under the roof of his mouth. 

…the living room, likewise, was not as he remembered it. Granted, his memory of that time had grown increasingly fuzzy. Between resets, the actions of the anomaly, the lives his sons led after the Incident, and the nonlinear way time seemed to flow in the void, Gaster could never quit be sure which events had happened and which had been a product of his mind as it struggled to cope. 

But he was quite sure Toriel would not have allowed her home to become quite so… disorganized.

Books lay haphazardly sprawled on the floor… what seemed to be an abandoned sewing project sat in a wicker basket, sandwiched between the armchair and a push-petal sowing machine. The bookshelf next to the fireplace was home to just as many nicknack's and small trinkets as there were books.

And most strikingly, the garden which usually belonged outside one’s home had migrated inside. Though, he supposed the point was mute, since, technically speaking, all of the underground was inside. There was a potted plant in every corner. The dinning table had been converted into a nursery; instead of place mats and silverware it was now home to empty flower pots, spades, cutters, and garden gloves.

Flower pots hang from the ceiling on silver chains, even. 

Gaster soaked this all in. Silently noting that every visible pot, except for those on the table, housed some variant of rose. Except for the hanging pots. Those housed what appeared to be a hybrid plant. A rose bush crossed with a creeping vine. A Morning Glory, perhaps? 

“Make yourselves comfortable by the fire…” Toriel said. Now in the comfort and security of her home, she seemed reluctant to make eye-contact. Nervously brushing her fingers over the tangled fur of her ears.

He silently ushered the children towards the fireplace. At least the space was relatively clean around the mantle and did not impose an immediate fire hazard. 

No one had the inclination to sit. 

Wolf whined quietly and Gaster bent down to pick him up.

Toriel disappeared into the kitchen and quickly returned with a bundle of unfolded towels and blankets in her arms. Which she deposited on the armchair. “Here, little ones. Dry yourselves off and make yourselves warm. I believe I have a box of spare clothes somewhere…” She trailed off. Slowly rising to her feet, she stared at Wolf.

“I had thought from a distance… Doctor, is that…”

Gaster’s phalanges twitched. A wave of protectiveness washed over him and he tucked Wolf underneath his chin. ‘I will explain when we do not have an audience.’

Toriel stared at him now, a tight line drawn across her mouth. She nodded, and left the room.

“…she turned her back to us,” Red muttered. Gaster took a blanket from the pile to wrap Wolf in. Edge followed his lead and took a blanket himself. 

“Hmph! She must be overly confident in her abilities. Only a fool would turn their back on a stranger.” Edge sniffed.

Red made a face, baring his teeth as he took his own from the pile. “Or…” he said slowly. “She knows she could fuck us up—“

“Language,” Gaster chided, softly. “Our host was gracious enough to allow us into her home at obvious risk to herself. Mind what you say, lest you offend her.”

Red hunched his shoulders and Gaster worried, his soul squeezing painfully, if he had spoken too harshly. Red glared down at his feet and muttered quietly. “I’m just sayin’. You don’t let someone in unless you know you could dust ‘em.”

The LV in his bones whispered in agreement. Outwardly, Gaster kept his expression neutral, but inside his heart was twisting. Red was not wrong. Toriel was perfectly capable of defending herself, and likewise, he had no doubt that she could over power him if she felt she needed to. However… “It will not come to that.”

Doubt clouded Red’s ruby eyelights, but aside from a scoff and a sidewards glare, he didn’t argue. 

Toriel returned a moment later. She smiled at the children. And though her smile was strained, the softness in her eyes was unmistakable. “This way, little ones. You may use the guest room.”

Red and Edge were reluctant to follow her down the hall. They glanced up at Gaster first, expressions dubious. Gaster smiled reassuringly and gently ushered them after her. 

Toriel watched the way he interacted with the children closely. She directed them to the second room off the main hall. He didn’t remember who it had once belonged to until she opened the door. 

Asriel’s bedroom.

Oh, Toriel…

Compared to the rest of the house it looked completely untouched. The bed was made. Toys, books and little trinkets were tucked away where they belonged. These precious things were displayed reverently and with obvious care. 

Before Chara fell into the underground, monsterdom had confined herself to the very depths of Mt. Ebott. The farthest, deepest cavern they could reach, and housed everyone within those cramped quarters. That first settlement become the Ruins. By the time the young Prince came along, the populace had tentatively begun to Hope again. And by the time Chara fell into the underground, half the population had migrated outward to settle the rest of the underground.

But were not for Chara, monster kind may not have completely left the ruins for another hundred years. 

But now, there was little to suggest Prince Asriel had ever known a human. Little to suggest he was truly gone. Toriel had kept his room as if she was waiting for him to come home. Any day now, she expected him to walk through the front door.

Edge and Red were reluctant to enter, until Gaster slowly signed. ‘The door will remain open. Remember…’ 

“We will have the key to every locked door we encounter.” Edge recited. Squaring his shoulders, Edge gave Gaster a firm nod, then marched into the room to inspect it. Red eye’d Toriel warily, then darted after him. 

Toriel looked to him in question. 

Gaster signed, eyesockets sliding shut. ‘They are afraid of confinement.’

He heard Toriel’s breathe hitched. “Oh…”  

Sickened, Toriel quietly excused herself. 

Wolf squirmed in his arms. The little one chirped in quiet protest. It was clear he wanted to explore the room with his brothers, so Gaster carefully lowered him to the ground. While the little ones explored, He waited in the hallway, shoulder braced against the door frame, unwilling to leave the children alone, but equally reluctant to cross that invisible line Red and his brother had drawn.

He had almost lost all three tonight. Stars… the night could have ended so different. If the fire elemental hadn’t released him, he would have…

Gaster found himself frowning. Why had…?

A small cough, and the clearing of a scratchy voice broke him out of his thoughts. He blinked and found Edge standing in front of him, a bundle of clothes in his arms. “We wish to get changed.”

‘Of course.’ Gaster signed in reply, equally stern, but it was difficult to remain completely so. Edge tried so hard to have a demanding presence, but despite his efforts, he only came across as adorable.

As he closed the door behind him, Edge called out. “But not do leave! You may… you may stay in the hallway. Yes, that’s right. Guard the door!”

Before Gaster could replay, Edge shoved the door shut. Gaster huffed a hoarse chuckle, and dutifully kept guard. Sooner than he expected, the door creaked open again. Red’s bright ruby lights peered through the gap. For a brief moment, relief flashed across his expression, but he quickly covered it with a scowl, and huffed “The ‘baby bones wants you. He won’t stop whining. Its annoying.”

To his surprise, in addition to changing their own clothes, they also changed Wolf out of his onesie into a cute, light blue pajama set dotted with yellow rubber ducks. Wolf seemed just fine with change. In fact he seemed perfectly content, and Gaster had doubts that the little one had been whining at all. He certainly hadn’t heard him through the door. 

Red watched his reaction nervously. Gaster smiled gently, but Red did not relax until he scooped Wolf up into his arms.

Edge rubbed his sockets. “So? Have you reached an accord with our hostess? A trade perhaps? What does she demand in exchange for our continued survival?”

‘Her Majesty is a kind and patient women. And while I doubt such an exchange is necessary, that is for me to worry about.’  Gaster frowned and knelt to be eye-level with them. Movement, his knees did not agree with. He hide a wince. ‘I want you three to rest. Do not worry yourselves over the semantics.’

Edge sniffed. “No doubt she is simply lulling us into a false sense of security. Worry not, for I, the Great and Terrible Edge will sniff out the deception-“ his speech was interrupted by a yawn. “Unlike yourself and my dolt of brother, I will not be fooled.”

Red suddenly jolted. “Wait. Her Majesty? Yer tellin’ me, the Queen let us into her house? I thought she was supposed to be dust.”

“Of course, you numbskull! How many goat monsters do you think there are?”

Red’s cheek bones flushed. “S-shut up! We thought Dr. Gaster was the only Skeleton ‘sides us, and then he shows up!” Red gestured wildly at Gaster. “I’m not stupid!”

‘Of course not, child. Neither of you are unintelligent. We can only drawn conclusions from what information is currently available to us.’ 

Edge crossed his arms with a huff. 

‘It has been a long night,’ Gaster signed. Slowly rising to his feet, his joints popped. ‘Toriel has granted us permission to stay in her home for the time being. I would like the three of you to get some sleep.’ 

Grumbling, but too tired to wholeheartedly protest, the boys climbed into bed. They were small enough that all three could fit comfortably. The fact that Red barely seemed to register that Wolf was joining them spoke of how truly exhausted he was.

Without thinking, Gaster gingerly sat down at the end of bed, moving out of habit to tuck Sans in. 

“What’re you doing?” Red asked, wary and groggy with exhaustion, and Gaster’s heart broke a little more as he slowly retracted his hand. 

‘Ah… I am… tucking you in. We are ending the day by saying goodnight.’

Red’s face scrunched up. “Why would you do that?”

Oh, little one.

Gaster smiled sadly. ‘Most find it comforting.’

Wolf chirruped sleepily. 

“We’re not babybones,” Red mumbled and drew the comforter up over his skull. He looked so small. 

“Is ‘tucking us in’ a tradition, where you are from?” Edge asked. He struggled to keep his eye sockets open.

‘In a sense.’

“Tell us more about it!” He demanded. 

Was Edge asking for a bed time story? How precious. ‘What would you like to know?’

“Tell us about… where you lived,” the precious boy said through a yawn. 

Gaster thought for a moment and began to describe the small house he lived in when the boys were very young. He didn’t get very far. A few minutes later, Edge and his brothers were fast asleep. 

Gaster found Toriel waiting for him in the living room.

When Toriel faced him, her eyes were like molten lead. “ I was not aware the Doctor had children. Explain yourself. Who are you—what are you, if not Doctor Gaster? And the children, how did they come to be in your possession? The littlest one is a Blaster, is he not?”

Gaster took a stabilizing breath and began to sign. The earnest truth would be best, in this case, if dispensed tactfully.

‘I found Red and Edge on the streets of New Home. In their own words: they had escaped the Lab in Hot Land, and had no desire to found. They were, and are perused by men hired by Dr. Gaster. They’ve followed us from Hot Land to Snowdin. The forest was our last resort.’

 “And the littlest one?”

‘Kalluno was raised as a disposable experiment. They are what they appear to be. A hybrid between a blaster beast and a skeleton.’

Toriel sank into her armchair. “You speak so coldly.”

Gaster’s eye stuttered harshly at that. Hearing those words, spoken with the voice of a friend rankled. He felt his control slip for a brief moment. And with a fragile sense of calm, and the distinct feeling he had become the facade of a person, he signed. 'Kalluno’s safety and wellbeing is nothing short than my highest priority. They are young and just as capable of thinking and feeling as any child. They should be treated no differently.’

Toriel stared him down. “You are different from him. I ask again, who are you— what are you?”

Gaster closed his eyes. His jaw ached. ‘I am another him. From a different world, from a different timeline. Where events have conspired in a such a way, that monsters are kinder then they are here. I saw how my sons were being treated. It was wholly unacceptable. So I took action.’

He was taking a risk here, but not a tremendous high one. Though the Toriel of his world had not been as interested in his work as Asgore had been, he had been mentioned core concepts to her in passing. Could the same be said here?

Silence. He nonetheless felt Toriel’s sharp, slightly unsettling gaze. “Such a place… truly exists?” Then a giggle, a hitching, unnerving sound that had him snapping open his eyes.

Toriel’s magic did not seem to know how to express what she was feeling. Her mouth twisted, torn between a grimace and a watery smile. “Ha..! So it’s true. Our Kingdom truly is curse.” She wiped her eyes. Blinking back moisture. “You say monsters are kinder in your timeline… my family… are we still divided? Does Asgore…?”

‘I cannot say with confidence what his majesty does and does not do. But in my time, the two of you lived separately, in the end.'

Toriel lifted her head, her yellow eyes wide and shallow with grief and asked. “And my children?”

Gaster stiffened. He needed to think carefully before answering her question honestly. He was placing her in the same position he stood in. Faced with the knowledge that even in a time that was supposed to be better than his own, the same mistakes were made. The same ignorance existed. A universe filled with constants and variables and still events conspired to end in tragedy. Would it have been kinder to lie? To allow her to think that, somewhere out there, beyond the boundaries of her world, Asriel and Chara lived to see adulthood? 

Perhaps that was still true… perhaps, if he was more optimistic, he would be willing to believe it. But three worlds deep in a branching tree that was supposedly infinite, and certain constants keep arising… was Gaster himself the exception? Or was he simply experiencing a string of cosmically improbable bad luck? 

Gaster opened his mouth. Clicked his teeth shut. And could not bare to look into the face of his old friend as he signed. ‘The multiverse, it seems, is not kind.’

Toriel let out a sob. 

Chapter Text

The bed was cozy. 

Maybe too cozy. 

He struggled to keep his eye-sockets open. He was warm and comfortable. Blink once and the room was dark and Papa was gone. Red’s ribcage rose and fell gentle. His expression was more at peace than Wolf had ever seen it. Blink twice, and Wolf found that he had moved a little. The corners of his eye sockets felt crusty, but the room was still dark, and Red had rolled over. He had thrown his paw next to his skull. Drool dripped from the corner of his mouth, but he was still asleep.

The next time Wolf opened his eyes, they felt less crusty, and had he rolled over to his other side, facing Edge. And as he watched, Edge stirred. The other puppy rolled over, onto his front and made an unhappy sound, quietly losing the battle against consciousness.

Wolf swiped a paw over his muzzle and turned his head. It was hard to see anything over the pillow. His skull sank right into it. 
He was not used to that. Papa had introduced him to many soft things but…

The soft fluff of the bed sank under their weight in a way that, while very cozy, and warm, and soft was just a little weird. Not bad weird. Weird in that way that was different. That was all. It was softer than the bed Papa had slept on. The weight of the blanket was nice too.  

He felt warm and safe, and the blanket felt so nice he wanted to go back to sleep, but, he was too awake now.
Papa never made him sleep on something that wasn’t soft, but as he flexed his claws, he thought of a hard, metal floor, cold and sterile walls, and the smell of chemicals and soap, and dust, and wondered, why the Doctor in White had never made him something soft to sleep on. Did the Doctor not know you could sleep on soft things? Maybe he had been made to sleep on hard things too. Maybe he didn’t know better. 

Papa knew a lot of things. Papa must know more things than the Doctor. Papa traveled a lot. He took Wolf to so many new places! And each time, Wolf saw something new he hadn’t realized was possible! The Doctor in White hadn’t done anything like that. That was a new word; travel. Who knew the world was so, sooo big, you had to make up a word for moving around in it?

Yawning, Wolf sat up and stretched, arching his back and tail, parting his lower jaw, because he was sleepy still and it felt nice to stretch his jaws sometimes. 

“What the fuck.” Red rasped. 

Wolf blinked. He looked at Red, who was awake now and crusty eye’d, and chirped. 

“Don’t act all cute, shrimp. What the fuck was that?”

Edge groaned. Propped himself on his elbows, rubbed his eyes and groused. “Sans, what are you yammering about now?”
“He just split his jaws apart!”

“What.” Edge said. 

Red pointed at Wolf. “He did! He opened his mouth like a snake or somethin’.”

Wolf had no idea what he was talking about. He chirped and thumped his tail. 

“Well,” Edge said dryly. “We did theorize he was some sort of Blaster thing. There's your proof!”

Edge nodded to Wolf approvingly. Wolf knew what his nodding meant because he had seen the Doctor do it before. Though never in response to something Wolf did. The nodding was usually directed towards the blaster he shared his cage with. The Doctor seemed to like him more. 

Wolf didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Ugh, never mind.” Red rolled his eyelights. He threw back the blanket and crawled out of bed with a soft plop. 

While Edge stretched, Wolf crawled over to the edge of the bed to survey room. He had seen it earlier, but he had been very tired then. Sometimes, when you were sleepy things just disappeared, and than reappeared when you weren’t sleepy. But there were no windows and the room looked just the same as it did when Wolf had fallen asleep. The door was shut and a narrow slant of warm light shone underneath it. 

Red poked around a bit until Edge woke up enough to join him. They grumbled to each other and talked about stuff Wolf didn’t care about. Edge went over to a cardboard box and pulled some clothes out of it. The two of them got into an argument, which Wolf didn’t follow, because he was busy sticking his muzzle under the door and wondering if this was how the other Blaster felt when he snapped his teeth at the Doctor as he walked by.

No wonder he was so cool. This was exciting!

“—I’m just sayin’ we don’t need to piss her off by wearin’ somethin’ else!”

“Sans, you are an idiot. Why would wearing something she is allowing us to borrow piss her off?” 

“Because… because she is the fucking Queen of the Underground and we’re stealin’ her fuckin’ air!”

Silence. Then, “Former Queen,” Edge said, hesitating. 

There was a thump as Red threw something soft and not all that heavy. “These clothes belonged to the Prince, right? She’s making us wear the Prince’s stuff.”

A click of teeth. Edge tsked. “She is not making us do anything Sans. She is ALLOWING us to BORROW it.”

Sans snorted. “Don’t pretend I’m wrong. Doesn’t it feel weird to you? We’re soiling the Prince’s shit by touching it. We’re sleepin in his bed. Wearin’ his clothes. Like… like we deserve it, or somethin’. We don’t, Pap. We’re like slugs to monsters like her.”

Edge had nothing to say to that.

Wolf sat back and looked over his shoulder. Red and Edge stood with the box of clothes between them. Staring at it, like Papa stared at the black squiggles he could make things disappear into and out of.
Wolf whined quietly. They were thinking of doing something dumb again, weren’t they? He padded over to them, determined to supervise.

Edge gritted his teeth. He glared down at the bundle of clothes in his arms. “If we do not wear what she has given us, will we not be insulting her hospitality? And what of Gaster’s lookalike? Clearly, he wants to make use of her generosity.”

Red snorted. “We seriously gotta think of a name for him. I’m not calling him, Gaster.”

The bridge of bone between his eyes wrinkled in disgust. “Neither am I, when I can help it.”

“I dunno, Pap. Maybe he just trusts her. He seems soft like that.”

Edge raised a brow. “I thought you didn’t trust him?”

“I don’t!” Red snapped defensively. Then sputtered, when Edge’s expression changed to disbelief. “Shut up! Maybe I do but we shouldn’t, okay? We still don’t know what he actually wants or where he came from or where he got the shrimp.” He looked at Wolf. “I dunno. Maybe he wants to turn us into Blaster beasts or somethin’ or whatever the hell the shrimp is.”
His brother snorted. “Unlikely. But I find myself more inclined towards your very first theory; that he is some escaped clone of Dr. Gaster.”

Red growled to himself as he pulled a red, stripped shirt out of the box. “He seems to believe otherwise. Keeps denyin’ it when we ask. Instead, he gives us some cryptic bullshit. I dunno what to believe, Pap. Nothin’ he says or does makes sense. I bet he was brainwashed. ‘Could still be a clone. Just doesn’t realize it.”

Edge sighed. “If that is true, then I pity the poor fool. But that does not explain where Kalluno came from. I certainly never saw Dr. Gaster experiment on blasters. We were privy to many of his experiments. Surely, we have known if he had?”

Red shrugged. “It also doesn’t explain why he’s so soft on us. Shouldn’t a clone of the Doctor be just like him?”

“Could that not also be explained by experimentation? Perhaps he is an altered clone. Consider the possibility that Dr. Gaster may be attempting to isolate and remove weakness from his subjects. A kind soldier is a poor soldier indeed.”

“Well, if that was his goal, he failed with both of ‘em. They’re both soft.” 

In unison, Red and Edge turned to look at him. Wolf canted his skull to the side. He had no idea what they were talking about. 

“True,” Edge admitted. “It seems we are no closer to the truth then we were yesterday.”

“Whatever. Let’s just get dressed.”

Edge crossed his arms, smugly.

By the time they were through with him, Wolf had definitively decided he hated getting dressed with the brothers and much preferred Papa pick out his “clothes” from now on. But of course, he couldn’t do anything until Red or Edge opened the door so he had to put up with them for the time being.

(Stupid paws. Wolf wished his paws were like their’s.)

Thankfully, a few minutes later, they were finally ready to leave.

Red hedged the door open first. Just a smidge. Enough to squeeze his skull through. Wolf waited impatiently. 

Red looked in both directions, once, twice to be sure of himself, and then he led the way down the hall, past the front door and the stairwell. Though, not before taking a moment to peer between the bars of the railing and down into the darkness. Edge did not bother looking, but Wolf did. He stared into the dark and waited for his vision go funny, like it sometimes did when he stared at the black squiggly lines Papa stared at. But his vision didn’t go funny so he shook himself and scampered to follow. 

On the other end of the room Papa stood with his arms crossed, looking into another room. Two disembodies hands floated in front of him. They were moving and forming odd shapes. He couldn’t understand what the shapes meant, right now. Usually he did. But right now he couldn’t.

He chirped and scampered right on over to Papa. Brushing past Red and Edge as he did so. Red hissed at him, but then grew quiet when he saw who Papa was talking to. 
Wolf skidded to a halt. Quiet and feeling very small as he came face to face with the soft-faced goat monster. 

She had paws clasped together over her apron, and offered a wobbly smile as she caught sight of him. “Good morning, little ones. Did you sleep well?”

Wolf stared at her. He pressed his side against Papa’s ankle. His eyes were wide. 

Toriel giggled nervously. “How precious. He is quite shy.”

‘Very,’ Papa signed. Finally, finally, he bent down to scoop him up. Wolf settled down in his arms. Suddenly, he never wanted his paws to touch the floor ever again.

“Ah. We were just in the process of discussing what to have for breakfast. How do you feel about Egg and Hash Brown pie?” Toriel said. She was staring in the direction Wolf had entered the kitchen from, so he assumed she had spotted Red and Edge. 

They must have nodded, or mumbled something Wolf didn’t hear because Toriel seemed pleased. She turned to Papa. “Have them wash up and clear the table. I’m afraid it’s quite messy… oh. Be careful not to break anything. You will have to handle the pottery… you will find the china in that cabinet over there…”

Papa signed something in agreement, and ushered the other two to work.

 
Wolf watched from the comfort of his Papa’s arms. 

The brothers followed Papa’s gentle instruction dutifully, though they seemed confused by the whole thing. Wolf didn’t blame them. He had seen Bodoni and Didot and also Dogamy and Dogaressa ‘Set the Table’ before too. But, despite having seen it done several times, he didn’t understand why it was important either. 

By the time they got the table clear, breakfast was ready. It smelled delicious. Red and Edge each took the seats next to Papa. Wolf didn’t want to leave his arms, so he stayed where he was. Finally, Toriel delivered the “pie” to the table. She sat down, her face warm and pink, as Papa offered to ‘serve’ breakfast. He used his floating, disembodies hands to do so. 

Wolf waited with the brothers for Papa to take the first bite. Toriel frowned. “Is something wrong, little ones?”

“No,” Red mumbled to his plate. He kept his eyelights downcast. It was only when Papa cut off a piece for Wolf, that Red took his first bite. Toriel continued frowning. 

Edge noticed. His shoulders hunched slightly as he ate. 

“Please be at ease, little ones. I promise you are safe here.” She looked to Papa helplessly. 

Papa sighed. He rapped his claws on the table in thought for a moment, then signed. ‘Your majesty, what kind of flowers do you grow?’

“Why, roses of course.” 

Papa smiled slightly. ‘What did the rose say to the bee?’

“Oh no.” Edge whispered. 

Toriel’s yellow eyes widened. A small tugged at her lips. “What did the rose say to the bee?”

‘You are really pollen my leg.’

Toriel giggled. 

Edge dropped his face into his hands. 

Red stared at Papa like he was crazy.

But Papa wasn’t done yet. ‘What do you call a flower that runs on electricity?’

“What?” Toriel asked.

‘A power plant.’

“Oh, I am not rose-ponding to that one.” Toriel laughed.

“Please, stop.” Edge hissed. Wolf nodded firmly. Papa needed to stop. 

Wolf placed his paw on Papa’s much bigger paw-hand, and looked into his one eyelight, pleadingly. 

‘Oh, what is the matter little one? Is my humor too much? I am afraid you will simply have to… get clover it.’

There was a sharp clank as Edge forcefully, but carefully, set his silverware down on his plate. He inhaled sharply and bowed to Toriel. “I apologize on his behalf, your majesty. Please forgive him for his foolishness.”

Toriel only laughed, a delicate paw raised to her smile. Edge’s eyelights grew pale with mortification. “Nonsense! Why, I am considered to be something of a pun-ster myself. Please, relax. Enjoy your breakfast.”

Edge didn’t relax, but he did seem less scared for the rest of breakfast. 

After breakfast, everyone had to do something called “clean up.” Papa set him down on the chair in front of the fireplace: which is a cage without bars that keeps the fire from bitting your ankles. When Red asked Papa why he wasn’t making him help, Papa signed. ‘Kalluno is too young for this task. He also does not possess opposable thumbs. Asking him to do this, would not be fair.’

Red made a face at that. He seemed pensive afterward. Frowning down at his feet and grumbling to himself. 

Toriel clapped her paws together to get their attention. Red and Edge immediately tensed up, but Papa seemed to be expecting it, and offered both an encouraging smile. He stood beside them as Toriel spoke. 

“I will be leaving for a few hours, little ones. I must get the shopping done. I do not have enough food here for so many guests. I have already spoke to your… guardian about this, but while I am gone, and while you stay here, there are certain rules you must follow.”

“Here we go,” Red muttered under his breath. Edge elbowed him sharply. Toriel did not seem to notice. 

“Do not enter the room at the end of the hall or the basement. Do not leave this cavern; that is, you must not go beyond the tree in the front yard. You may play in the garden as you like, but do not pick yellow flowers. If you find yellow flowers, tell your guardian. I do not grow yellow flowers in my garden.”

Clasped together Toriel’s paws trembled slightly. She had a far-off look in her eyes. Wolf had seen this look on Blasters before. It meant she couldn’t see what was in front of her right now. After a moment, she shook her head. Her smile, when it returned, was frail. She continued.

“If you see a monster you do not recognize, do not speak to them. While the monsters of the ruins are not as aggressive as those outside… they cannot be trusted. That is all.”

Wolf looked up at Papa. His expression was hard to understand. He looked calm but… something about it told Wolf he wasn’t happy with something Toriel had said. 

When she passed him on her way to the front door, Toriel whispered something else to Papa, so quietly that Wolf did not catch it. Papa’s expression remained frozen. Then she left, and all was quiet as Red and Edge stared out the window.

“Well,” said Edge. “Now what?”

“Now,” Papa sighed. “We find some measure to pass the time.”

Red scowled. “What about our stuff? Our clothes and junk. We left it all in Snowdin!”

“That, I am afraid, cannot be helped. For now, we must keep our heads down until the threat passes in the region. Once his men have determined we are no longer in Snowdin, I will retrieve your things.”
Red didn’t look at all satisfied with that answer. 

“Perhaps we will find something to entertain us in the garden,” Papa suggested. “That will take our minds off of current events.”

 
When Papa said ‘Garden’ he expected to see Ice and Snow! 

A quiet chirp left his teeth. Awed, his eyelights grew wide. Papa chuckled, a deep but warm rumble humming through his ribcage. Wolf squirmed to be let down. He wanted to be closer to this new thing. Papa complied and slowly lowered him to the ground. 

“Ah. Do you remember, little one? These are called flowers. You saw them before in Waterfall.” 

Wolf cheeped in reply and dove head first between the… long thin green things. When he poked his head out again, balancing himself on his tail and hind legs, Papa had knelt in the flowers next to him. “This is a stalk, or stem. These are leaves. And this is a petal.” He plucked a red shape from a flower. Wolf gave it a sniff and sneezed.
Papa’s eyelight gleamed. “Can you say… leaf?”

“You’re not going to teach him a pun, are you?” Edge asked warily. 

Turning to look, Edge had his arms crossed. Wolf couldn’t tell if he was unhappy, disgusted, or just plain uneasy. Eye sockets narrowed, Wolf looked back to Papa. Was Papa up to no-good? It was hard to tell. 

“Of course not.” Papa said, smiling.

Edge scowled. “You were, weren’t you!” 

“What’s that about a pun?” Red asked. He sounded begrudgingly hopeful. 

Papa held a paw— hand to his chest. “I am the victim of slander.”

“Slander?” Edge sputtered. “How dare you accuse the great and terrible Papyrus of lies and falsehoods! That’s it! Consider our alliance over.” 

Holding his hands up in surrender, Papa rose to his feet. Laugh lines arched under his eye sockets. “Well, well, then! It seems I have crossed a line. Then, I will… leaf you be.”

“Nooo!” Edge screeched, smacking his hands over the sides of his skull. Red snickered. 

Rolling his eyeslights with a small huff, Wolf turned his focus back to the flowers. Flowers. Stems. Leaves. Flowers… stems… leaves. Leafs. Petals.

It turned out, flowers were even more fun to play in than snow! Petals were soft and smelled nice. Stems were fun to chew. Leaves were scratchy and fun to hide under. Wolf entertained himself by bounding, and even rolling through the flowerbed. Flowers smelled nice. He wanted to smell nice too! 

Every now and then he stopped to pop his head up to make sure Papa was still there, by the door step. He always was. Papa felt his gaze, looked up and waved. Wolf cheeped in reply and went back to stalking… the stalks.

Towards the far end of the house—or not quite, Wolf supposed it had to be called a house because it had a door, and windows, and monsters lived inside it (like cages. But cages only had bars and doors.) but as he as walked through the garden along the edge of it, he thought it looked more like a wall then a house. A wall connected to a floor and a ceiling. The house had no top. No ‘roof.’ He could tilt his head up and up but the house just sort of became the ceiling. 

Anyway. 

Towards the far end of the house, the wall ended in a rectangular shadow. Curiosity getting the better of him, Wolf crouched down and prowled through the flower bed. Abruptly, as he turned the corner, the green stalks turned gray. Red petals suddenly became shriveled, and black. Flaky like charred paper. 

Wolf had seen things burned before. The other blasters were sometimes praised for burning things. Sometimes they were punished for burning other things. Like, the white coat the Doctor wore. You weren’t supposed to burn that. Wolf knew he could burn things too. It was easy. Still, as he sat back on his haunches and stared over… what was the word? There were too many words for spaces. Didot had said the word before… alley? Yeah! That’s it. Alley! There was an alley between the house and the cavern wall and it was filled with black stalks, black leaves, and black flowers.

Black, like the rug next to the stairs. Black, like empty eye sockets. Black, like the cracks and squiggly lines Papa reached into. Black, like the bitter taste in his mouth. 
Wolf shook his head frantically and chirruped loudly, and urgently. He wanted Papa to pick him up, right now! 

In no time time at all, Papa answered his cry. “Little one? What happened?“

Papa froze. Wolf couldn’t see his face, because he couldn’t take his eyes off the black flowers. But he didn’t have to wait long for Papa to scoop him up and tuck him under his chin, where it was safe. (sometimes when Papa did this, Wolf thought of the blaster he once shared a cage with. There was no safer place.) Wolf snuggled there, and focused on the steady thrum of Papa’s magic instead of the nasty taste of ash in his mouth.

Red and Edge scampered to Papa’s side.

“What’s wrong with the shrimp?” Red asked, then fell into a stunned silence next to his brother. “What the hell…”

A quiet inhale. Wolf couldn’t believe how calm Papa was. “… it is not unusual for a gardener to clear their garden if they are not satisfied with the result. Ash can be used as fertilizer.”

“… you gotta be kiddin’ me.” 

Wolf peered over Papa’s arms. 

Red stared up at Papa, red eyelights hard and small fists clenched at his side. 

Papa caught his eye, and after a moment said softly. “This is a discussion best had indoors.”

Red ground his teeth, but bit down on the words in his throat until they all stood in the foyer, and the door shut behind them with a loud click. “Are ya gonna tell us gardeners burn their rugs on purpose too?”

“That—” Papa said slowly. “—we both know the cause of.”

Edge looked between his brother and Papa. “Naturally, the state of her entryway show signs of a struggle. What are you suggesting, Sans?”

“I dunno!” He crossed his arms right around himself. Teeth gritting. “Why doesn’t she clean it up, huh? Why didn’t she plant somethin’ over the burnt flowers in her garden? Don’t you get it? It’s a message!"

Moving slowly, Papa knelt in front of Red. “Little one, do you feel that you are in danger here?”

Red worked his jaw. Opened his mouth. Closed it again with a click. “I don’t… I don’t know!”

“Are you uncomfortable in Toriel's presence?”

Red’s brow furrowed. He was a silent for moment. “Kinda... I don’t know. ‘s just weird that’s all.”

“In what way?” Papa pressed.

Red looked away. “… she’s nice to us. No one is nice unless they want somethin’. With you, it kinda makes sense…” Tentatively, Red peered up at Papa. “You wanna pull one over on Gaster, right? You're keepin' us away from him ‘cause you wanna fuck with his plans. It’s like… how scientists fight or somethin’. You do it through sabotage and underhanded tricks.”

Wolf titled his skull back to peer up at Papa’s expression. Papa’s brow furrowed. “… I suppose that is one way to interpret my intentions. Little one, I am sincere when I say my only desire in this is to see you both to safety. If you are not comfortable here, we will leave.”

Red shifted uneasily. He looked at his brother. Edge crossed his arms. “Well,” he said imperiously. “I say we take advantage of her generosity! After all, it is not as though we have limitless resources at our disposal. I do not trust her, but not to the point that I think we should run away like cowards! As I said. I will sniff out the deception. I will find out what her Majesty truly wants in exchange for our continued survival.”

Papa sighed in exasperation. “And I told you I would take care of it. You need not trouble yourself with that responsibility, Edge.”

“Hmph!” Edge said.

Turning back to Red, Papa intoned gently. “Give it time. If this feeling of unease persists, tell me. I will not force you to stay where you do not wish to be. We are not without options.”

Red scowled at the ground. “Options. Yeah, right.”

“Red…”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Red muttered. With that, he stormed off. 

Papa slowly rose to his full height as Red broke into a run and disappeared down the hall.

“Well… at least he is beginning to communicate.” Papa said softly.

 
Red wanted to throw something. “He doesn’t get it! It’ll never end! The bastard followed us all the way to Snowdin! Where else are we ‘supposed to go?”

Shaking from anger Red reached for the first thing he could grab that wouldn’t fuckin’ snap the moment it hit the wall. 

The pillow— the pillow that, until a few days ago belonged to the former prince, hit the wall with an unsatisfying smack.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

Catching his second wind, trembling, mana roaring through his skull, Red was just about ready to scream. But if he screamed, Gaster’s lookalike would come running. 
He couldn’t break anything. He couldn’t even make noise. The hell was he supposed to do?

Red gritted his teeth and smacked a clenched fist against his skull. He didn’t hit himself hard. Had to be sure not to. Just enough to balance out the roar of mana with a dull ringing.

“Sans!” Edge stormed into the room. “That’s enough! Get a hold of yourself!”

“Shut up!” 

In a moment, Edge had closed the distance and grabbed his wrist. “Stop it.” 

“What do you care?” Red spat. He wrenched his arm free. “What? Can’t stand it when it’s not you hitting me? Get over it!”

Edge snarled. “We will both get in trouble if you continue this foolishness. Do you not remember what happened last time?”

Edge looked strangely uncertain for a fraction of a second. Just shy of vulnerable, before his expression twisted into an angry scowl. “Do you or do you not remember?” He snapped.

Red’s expression closed off. Of course he did. It was the most upset they’d seen Gaster's lookalike. It was weird, ‘cause he didn’t yell. His face didn’t contort and get all ugly. He didn’t shift into the horrible monster Dr. Gaster became when he completely lost it. Instead his voice got softer. Firm, yeah but not—not loud. When Gaster’s lookalike got upset, it was for weird reasons. Like, in his mind, Red and Edge weren’t allowed to be hurt by anyone, even each other. And that didn’t make sense either. 's not how the world works. It was Red’s job to make Edge stronger and vise versa. ‘Cause it was either that, either they were both useful, or one was the spare and spares were as good as dust.

Red couldn’t give Dr. Gaster a reason to think his brother was a spare. 

He didn’t like what he didn’t understand and he didn’t understand Gaster’s lookalike one bit.

Red shoved his brother. “Yeah, I remember.” 

It said something about Edge’s state of mind, that he didn’t shove him back. He just glared. 

Red crossed his arms defensively. Silently stewing. 

Edge drew in a breath. Made himself seem taller. “I understand that you are scared, Sans. Do you think that I am not? The fact that Dr. Gaster has sent men after us from one end of the underground to the other… do not assume that I am so foolish that I do not know your thoughts. The underground is a cage. A closed circuit. You and I knew this when we made our escape. Eventually, he will find us again. That, is an inevitability.” 

Red ground his teeth. He made to reply, shaking with anger, but Edge held up a hand. Raised his chin. Stupid little brothers. Stupid height advantages. “That does not mean we should give up! Think how far we have come. Not just to New Home… but through Hot Land, right under Gaster’s nasal cavity, to Waterfall and beyond!”

He raised his arms in a wide sweeping gesture. “And now we’re here, in the Ruins! The last place Gaster will ever think to look!”

“… ‘s not like we’re any safer than we were before.” Red felt the need to point out. They knew jack shit about the Queen. Hell, they knew jack shit about Gaster’s lookalike and they’d been with him for, what, a week now? Wait, no... that wasn't right, but it sure felt like it!

“True. But we have an opportunity, Sans.” Edge clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. Head bowed. A deep look of brooding concentration darkened his sockets. “Why did Dr. Gaster make guidelines for us to follow? To control our behavior and…?”

“… to keep his secrets in the dark.” Red muttered, recalling how paranoid the old man would get. The locked doors… the monitors. How rigidly he kept them to a schedule, and how, whenever a visitor was allowed into the lab, there was always a wall between the visitor and them. Gaster distrusted every monster he ever met.

Edge nodded. “Exactly. Naturally, the Queen must keep secrets of her own. We could not hope to challenge Dr. Gaster’s control over us. Our only choice was to escape. But the Queen…”
Nausea churned in the pit of his being. “You’re not suggestin’…”

“I am,” Edge said with conviction. “I will not have you brood for the entirety of our stay here. Collect yourself! You are my brother, are you not? Then enough sulking! We have an investigation to conduct. I was right from the start, Sans. Something about the Queen… does not feel right. I for one, have no desire to be caught off guard again. Do you?”

He rolled his eyelights, but slowly a wry grin exposed his teeth. “Hell no.”

Chapter Text

Over the next few days a routine formed. Every morning Toriel made breakfast. Some variant of a pastry; pancakes, scones, a danish with some variety of filling, served with a side of sausage, egg or bacon or some other form of meat. Gaster would set the table in the interim, enlisting the help of the children when appropriate. Wolf watched from his arms, a shoulder, or from the comfort and safety of a nearby chair. They ate. Gaster attempted to lighten the mood with puns and clever wordplay, Toriel responded in turn and once the children were freed from cleanup duty, they scampered off to play. 

Early on, Toriel dug up a box of toys for the children to play with and that seemed to entertain them for a while. She either spent the day knitting or working on her garden. In the evening, dinner commenced in much the same way as breakfast. Meat was the main course, and it was served either in pie, a casserole, or as a standalone dish. Gaster wondered where she was obtaining all this red meat from. Last he recalled, water-sausage and snails were more readily available. Perhaps this was another difference, another variant in her world that set it apart from his own…?

Mealtime aside, it was startling, how foreign the concept of play seemed to Wolf. At least with certain toys, it was second nature. Gaster had seen Wolf play tug-of-war with Dogaressa via a plush animal and investigate picture books and the like, but Bodoni and Didot had little in the way of traditional toys for baby bones. Blocks, for example were a wholly new concept. 

After observing Wolf sit back and stare at a pile of wooden squares, rectangles, and half circles with something akin to nervous uncertainty, Gaster’s heart broke just a little more. Wolf had missed out on so much.

Slowly, Gaster lowered himself to the floor. (wary of popping joints and the stiffness in his bones. Stars, he felt old.) and taught Wolf how to play. 

He demonstrated how to stack blocks first. And a little cautious but curious, Wolf trotted over to him. The little one looked at him curiously. 

‘Oh, what a stupendous construct I have made. It would be a shame, if, anything where to happen to it…’ Gaster’s eyelight gleamed and with a flicker of magic he knocked the building over. Wolf chirped in alarm, then did a double-take as Gaster’s shoulder shook in silent laughter. So precious!

 Now, he wasn’t creatively inclined by any means. The constructs he built were basic; houses, bridges, a simple pyramid followed, a tower. Wolf studied what he did with an adorably stern sort of intensity Gaster recognized from the face of his youngest. Papyrus had the same look of concentration whenever he worked on a puzzle, or built something from discarded parts. (and occasionally with materials from or in the lab. Supervised, of course. Nothing dangerous. While Papyrus followed the rules, Gaster had learned the hard way that he had to keep a keen eye on his children, thanks to Sans. Mischief and hijinks came naturally to his children.) 

Wolf had no hands to grasp the blocks with, so he used his jaws to pick them up and then used his muzzle to gentle push each pieces into place where his head might not otherwise fit without knocking the construct over. Impressed by how quickly the little one caught on to what he was doing, what was expected of him, and adapted to the challenge, Gaster gradually began constructing more elaborate structures. When he ran out of blocks he pulled books from the shelf. They made for a wonderful roof.

“May I join you?” Toriel asked. She had been watching the shenanigans for a while. At first with scrutiny, studying the way Gaster interacted with Wolf, a judgment light to her eye that he read as searching for fault, some similarity between him and the variant of his self she knew. It was a disconcerting weight to have on his shoulders. Gaster tried not to let it bother him, how frequently he was compared to that awful shade of a monster wearing his face.

‘Of course,’ Gaster signed. 

Wolf paused in his work and stiffly watched as the goat monster lowered herself to the ground, now forming a half circle with Gaster and the armchair next to them. Wolf glanced at Gaster, than back at Toriel, and waited. 

“May I have a block?” Toriel asked, smile wavering. Gaster gave her a block. Toriel made a table and chairs. Her confidence grew from there.

After while, Wolf began to relax. When Toriel asked for a red half-cycle, Wolf brought one over to her. Gaster took turns with her, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, Wolf was eagerly retrieving blocks for both of them. Quite without intending to, they began building an elaborate and carefully balanced castle. It was big enough for Wolf to poke his head through the opening for the drawbridge. 

Toriel giggled. “I had forgotten how fun it was to play like this with the children. When I was a little girl, I had this little wooden horse on wheels. I pretended it was the horse and buggy for my doll house. But of course, my dolls needed neighbors so I built a town out of blocks for them.“

Gaster smiled softly. ‘Most of my toys I either built myself or were modified from something that was not intended to be played with.’

“Oh dear, that does sound like you. I take it you were a little hellion growing up?”

He grinned. ‘Indeed I was. I believe a frequent turn of phrase paired with my name was something along the lines of: oh that ghastly, ghoulish boy!’

Toriel laughed. And left out of the loop, Wolf chirped indigently. He padded up to her and tugged at the fabric of her skirt. Toriel gasped. One hand flying to cover her mouth. Tears of joys sprang to her eyes. She looked to Gaster hopefully, silently begging permission, but Wolf had asked her first, practically demanding to be held, and so, his gaze soft, Gaster inclined his skull.

Lips trembling slightly, Toriel took Wolf into her arms. 

When it came to trust and confidence between Toriel, Red and his brother, progress was slower. Routine helped. As the boys learned what Toriel expected from them, and realized she was far from the cruel hand they expected her to be, they grew more comfortable in her presence. Gaster kept a close eye-light on all parties regardless. For as much as Toriel scrutinized his own interactions with the children, he scrutinized hers. It was a strange uncomfortable dance. In another time and place, they would have trusted the other explicitly.

Toriel could be firm when needed, but thus far, the boys were so well-behaved in her company that scolding never seemed warranted.

But perhaps, they were a little TOO well-behaved. 

That should have been his first warning.

As time passed a sense urgency grew. There was something not right with how long it had taken him to find another fissure. Though, admittedly, it was getting increasingly hard to look for one.

It was only means he had of leaving this world, and the only fissure he knew of lay precisely in the location he would like to avoid at all costs. Never mind bring the children along. It would be profoundly foolish to even try. His counterpart and his men had proved themselves to be resourceful and unpredictable. For as long as they stood in his way, Gaster could not take that risk. 

Some time had passed. Had his counterpart changed the passcodes? He didn’t know. It was necessary to find out. He could not proceed without more information. To gather that information he needed someone to watch the children or risk exposing them to danger himself, behind enemy lines. Danger had found them once through his own negligence. He could not allow that to happen again. 

It had to be someone he could trust. Who was kind and patience and had once had children of her own. A caring adult who did not share his face was precisely the sort of monster the children needed. Theoretically Toriel was he perfect candidate, but he hesitated.

Toriel… this variant of her, was… troubled. It felt wrong to compare grief, to compare the highs and lows and the process in which one monster copes with the loss of loved ones to another, but something had gone wrong in this world for Toriel to end up so profoundly shaken. Grief alone did not disqualify her and Gaster was of the mind that, despite what she had gone through, Toriel was and would be, a fantastic mother.

It also did not escape his notice that the children trusted him more nowadays. Slowly, gradually, they had grown more comfortable in his presence and that was… that thought alone threatened to bring tears to his eyes. Gaster could not wholly trust himself. He was biased. He would take Red and Edge home with him in a soul-beat. He wanted nothing less. He loved his sons so dearly, but he had to keep their future happiness in mind too; and if that meant that ultimately it would be healthier for them to grow up with someone else… well, it was a possible future he must accept. 

Ultimately, the choice was not up to him. And so the question circled around again. Did he trust Toriel? Did he trust her enough to leave the children with her while he secured passage home? Were the children comfortable enough to be left in her company?

He would have to have that discussion with them soon.

(Selfishly, part of him hoped they would never grow quite comfortable enough with Toriel to want to stay with her for good, but that was a shade of his soul he was determined to crush brutally, because, once more, the choice was not his to make and he should not seek to influence the outcome in his favor just for the sake of his own selfishness.)

And so, once the children had gone to bed that night, he found Toriel in the living room, knitting a small sweater in front of a gently crackling fire.

Gaster folded his hands behind his back. Closing his eye-sockets once to steady himself with a soft inhale. He stepped into the room. A disembodied hand rapped its knuckles on the door frame to grab her attention. Toriel looked up from her project. Long needles clicking together, she slowly lowered them to her lap and looked at him. Her eyes, as always, were keen, yellow, and too wide for the emotion behind them. 

“Yes? Is there something I can do for you, Gaster?” 

Gaster cleared his throat. He came to stand at a safe distance from her chair; where the second would be if Toriel had it’s twin. ‘There is a subject I need to discuss with you. It concerns the children, and the length of our stay.’

Toriel tensed. “Oh?” her paws curled around her knitting needs. His eyelight flicked to them, then quickly up to meet her eyes again. He ignored the whispering from his marrow. “Is there something they need?” 

‘We have no complaints. You have been a gracious host.’

Toriel did not relax. She smiled, nonetheless. “Then, I do not see what there is to discuss. If they are happy here, I could not be more pleased.”

‘And yet, I must.’ Stars, this was difficult. He felt as though he were walking on ice. So carefully did he prowl the fragile wall Toriel had constructed around herself. ‘While the children are safe here, they are safe no where else. That is not the kind of life I want them to live… Toriel, I cannot thank you enough for providing them shelter. But I have one more favor to ask…'

Her smile fell. “You wish to leave, don’t you?”

‘Temporarily,’ Gaster signed carefully. Aware of the unnerving and sudden stillness to Toriel’s magic.’I know of only one means to return home. I cannot take the children with me until safe passage is secured. But I also cannot leave them with someone I cannot trust.’

“No,” Toriel said softly. “You cannot.”

‘That is why—‘ he stopped short as she shook her head. Lifted her eyes again to find them as hard and as cold as iron. 

“No. You cannot leave.”

That… that he hadn’t expected. He looked at her. Observed the way her fur had began to bristle. The red circle under her eyes. The hard, forceful way she stared him down, lifting her chin. There was a new weight to ambient magic surrounding him. Gaster stiffened in response. Careful now, his marrow whispered. Cold, invisible claws dug into his spine. She sees you as the threat you are.

Slowly, he inhaled. Lifting her hands to sign—

Her eyes narrowed. He had the sense that he missed something. A social que. An expected response or behavior of some kind and the lack there-of angered her. 

“You will not leave.” Toriel commanded. “You have seen the state of the Kingdom, have you not? The monsters of this world are cruel and depraved. The first law Asgore passed after I abdicated the throne… do you know what it was? Kill or be killed, allow your dust to strengthen your fellows: a mandate our people have taken to heart. Our Kingdom has sacrificed its capacity for mercy for power and strength in a war that will never come to pass without seven human souls. It is the way of the world for the strong to suppress the weak.” she said bitterly. “I will not allow you to leave—the children are here, now, sheltered from the deplorable state of the kingdom. They will stay. You will stay.”

He was reminded, suddenly, of the weight, of the pressure of Don Asgore’s magic. The ferocity of his aggression and malice. Toriel was not malicious in the same sense, not malicious at all, but forceful. Queen of Monsters she would always be, and he would do well to remember that. 

Submit, the edge of her power seemed to say. And that… that angered him. More than ever the divide between Toriel… and his friend of many, many years, never seemed so stark and clear as it did in that moment. Gaster unclenched his jaw, and resolved to remain calm, even as he felt his own magic begin to bristle.

‘… the children will not remain children forever. What will you do when they become teenagers? At that age, they will challenge you. They will question you and everything you have ever taught them.’ 

He would know. From personal experience, he would know. But with a dawning sense of pity he realized she did not. Toriel had not been given the chance to watch her children reach that age of discovery and self-advocacy.

‘Will you keep them here until they become young adults? Where will you draw the line, Toriel?’

“I…” Toriel’s lip trembled. “They may leave once they are old enough to defend themselves.” 

‘And yet, I cannot?’

Toriel flinched. It brought him no pleasure. 

‘I will return,’  he insisted. ‘I will not abandon my children. I swear this on my soul. I need only to secure safe passage for them, and once I do, I will return.’

But that wasn’t enough. Toriel shook her head. She stood from her seat and avoiding his gaze, said tersely. “I’ve heard enough. Goodnight, Gaster.”

Gaster clasped his hands behind his back, watched her leave the room, through narrowed and dark eye-sockets. Patience. He told himself. Any mission worthwhile could not be completed in a day. He would figure something out.

The following morning it was as though the tense conversation they had the night before had created a thick miasma. Toriel altered between avoiding eye contact with him during breakfast, and maintaining it for much too long whenever he was addressed afterward. Weather the children sensed something was wrong or the hunched shoulders and wary glances were a by-product of a stressful upbringing, he couldn’t say. Overall, it felt as though progress had taken a step back.

Toriel excused herself to her room shortly after breakfast. He would not see her again for the remainder of the day. 

This trend, unfortunately, continued the next few days. With Toriel vanishing to do something or other, seemingly in an attempt to avoid him.

With a disapproving click of his teeth and Gaster rapped his knuckles on the wall. Edge and his brother whirled around.

‘Boys, what are you doing?’

The children, save for Kalluno, were standing in the long hallway in front of the door at the very end. Toriel’s room.

A bead of condensed magic formed on Red’s skull. “Uh…” he glanced at his brother. “We uh… we thought we heard somethin’.”

Edge nodded decisively. His stiff shoulders betrayed what confidence he meant to convey. “That's right. My brother and I heard a strange sound coming from this room…”

Gaster hummed. ‘…and so, you determined that you should investigate it yourselves?’

This time, a bead of sweat formed on Edge’s brow, but instead of backing down, he buckled in. “Yes. Exactly.” And then he crossed his little arms as though to suggest it was Gaster who was behaving foolishly. 

‘Strange,’  Gaster signed pointedly. ‘I seem to recall that our host informed us that her room was not to be disturbed.’  The door was still shut and the boys were standing in such a way that he did not think they’d already trespassed into her room. Best make sure it stayed that way.

Edge schooled his expression to the picture of neutrality. Red seemed on the verge of cursing but held his tongue. 

“We…” Edge spoke slowly, testing the words in his mind before he spoke them aloud. “We had forgotten that.” He straightened his spine. “I must thank you for the reminder. We could have been in a lot of trouble if you had not spoken up. We wouldn’t want to intrude on her majesty’s privacy, would we Sans?”

Smooth recovery. Gaster was mildly impressed.

“Yeah, ‘course not.” Red said. 

Gaster crossed his arms and waited until after the boys had scampered off to follow. As always his children were far too curious for their own good. 

Gaster had not quite fallen asleep when he heard the pitter-patter of small feet on the worn, hard wood floor. He had taken to sleeping in Toriel’s chair in the living room. Hardly comfortable accommodations, but he had slept in worse positions before. (… of course, that was back when he was a much younger skeleton. Discomfort was more manageable back then.)

 Gaster kept his eyes sockets closed. 

“…shh. Shuddup. Someone is gonna hear us, you numskull.” 

“You first, asshole.”

The sounds of a mild scuffle. He had heard and seen his children play-fighting  enough times to understand that this sound meant one boy had shoved the other. This short tussle was proceeded by a pause and the rattle of a doorknob. 

“…it’s locked.” Red hissed. 

“She must keep the key somewhere nearby.”

“Let’s check the kitchen.” 

Their footsteps drew near. Then stopped. A muttered curse and a soft smack as someone clamped a hand over their mouth. “Shhh! You’ll wake him up.” More scuffling. A small growl. 

“What do we do now?”

“Let me think…” Edge hissed back.

Just then, there was a shrill peep. Wolf came padding around the corner. The clicking of the little one’s claws on the floor was distinct from his brothers, and when Edge cursed aloud, Gaster decided the jig was up. He opened his eyes and exaggerated a yawn. He ended his performance in time to see Wolf copy him. Edge and Red stared at him as deer might, caught in the spotlight.

He feigned surprise. “Hm…? Boys, what are you doing up so late?” 

He kept his voice low and quiet, of course.

For a moment, the boys stood frozen. Wolf trotted over to them sleepily. Red looked at him. His eyelights brightened. “The shrimp was hungry!” he blurted out, elbowed his brother. “So, we thought we’d get somethin’ to eat. Right, Pap?”

Edge nodded. “That’s right.” He turned his red eyelights on Gaster. “Is there something wrong with that? You once said we could have food anytime we wanted!” 

Ah. He did say that, didn’t he? 

Gaster felt his expression softened and slowly rose from his chair. “Well, then… I will assist you.” He scooped Wolf into his arms and led the way to the kitchen. In doing so, he missed the way Edge’s shoulders sagged in relief.

Fortunately, Toriel kept her fridge well stocked. Gaster took out a bottle of milk and poured them each a glass. In a moment of inspiration, he opened the cupboards above the sink, and kept looking when did not immediately find what he was looking for.

“What are you doing?” Red asked. He sported a milk-mustache. Edge chugged down his glass of milk. Wolf had been given a bowl and was proceeding to stick his entire face into it. He’d discovered the magical enriching proprieties of blowing bubbles into one’s milk.

"Ah, there it is,” Gaster said, pleased. He removed a large jar from the cupboard. “I believe, you three, will enjoy this treat.”

At the word ‘treat’ Wolf’s head shot up. He look at Gaster with wide eager eye sockets and chirped. His tail wagged. And though the little one did not know it yet, he was getting a sponge bath before proceeding back to bed.

“Hey, watch it!” Red growled.

Edge rolled his eyes.

Somewhat suspiciously, the pair watched as Gaster set the jar on the table and opened the lid to reveal… a secret stash of chocolate chip cookies. 

Gaster did not fight a smile. Eyelight glinting in mischief. “Just as I suspected. It seems that this much remains the same.”

Edge narrowed his eyes. “What remains the same?”

“Ah, nothing of significance, little one. It is merely an observation.” 

Red groaned. “Could ya be more cryptic?”

“Is that a challenge, little one?”

“No!” Red and his brother exclaimed in unison. 

Gaster covered his mouth to hide his grin. 

It took less time than usually for the brothers to reach a verdict. “This is adequate,” Edge said, as he eagerly reached for a second cookie. Red said something to the same effect, though his words were unintelligible with his mouth full, cheeks smudged with chocolate and crumbs.  

Once they had had their full of cookies and milk, and once Wolf had been given a sponge bath in the sink, Gaster ushered the trio off to bed. How heartening it was to witness how comfortable the children were with each other. He could only hope thoughts of milk and cookies would distract them from mischief until they’d had a full night’s sleep.

“The basement is off limits.” Toriel’s shrill voice woke Gaster with a start. Wolf had required a nap and would not settle anywhere but in Gaster’s arms. Gaster himself had been fighting off a relentlessly fatigue. It was just one of those days, he supposed, and with the little one’s steady soul-beat settled beside his own, he had fallen asleep.  

He shook himself awake, transferred Wolf from his arms to the arms of the chair in front of the fire and quickly crossed the living room to the foyer. 

Toriel stood with her back to the stairwell, arms crossed, visibly bristling. Her pelt, usually disheveled, appeared more so now, like an frightened cat with it’s fur standing on end, back arched. To his eyes, the crossed arms looked to be more of a self-soothing gesture more than one of anger. There was fear in her eyes, and in the unstable quality of her magic. An invisible tempest that threatened to break at any moment. 

Red stood stiffly next to his brother. It was almost imperceptible, but he was breathing shallowly. Shoulders hunched, practically plastered to his brother’s side. Both had their eyelights lowered, positioning themselves in such a way as to make themselves seem smaller. Edge’s fists were tightly clenched, and the way he held himself reminded him starkly of the day he’d met the child. And suddenly, he was very, very angry.

He had to restrain himself from sharp, aggressive movement, closing the distance between himself and them within two strides. He failed to smother it, of course. He was seething, the LV in his marrow a sudden and insistent chatter, snapping and biting at his consciousness like the baying of dust-thirsty hounds. 

The moment he stepped forward Toriel noticed the sharp edge to his magic. She bounced a quick check off his soul, while he checked the children. Out of sheer irritation, he responded to her with a ping of his own. She twitched, a slight spasm of the mouth, but no one was harmed as far as his magic could tell. Thank goodness. If a fight had broken out in such a cramped space— 

His sole eyelight snapped to the only other adult in the room. He could not hide his hostility.

“Gaster,” Toriel said tightly. “I believe I made the rules very clear.” Her voice was shrill and defensive. 

Gaster closed his eye sockets and forced a calming breathe through his teeth. The exhale shook. He clasped his hands behind his back summoning pair of disembodied hands to sign. The air crackled with tension. ‘I ask that you calm yourself, your majesty. Children are naturally curious. They meant no harm.’

Toriel jutted her chin. “Intent matters not. I expect my rules to be followed. The children must face discipline for their actions—for their own good!”

‘I will speak to them,’ he promised. To the children, he signed. ‘Monitor Kalluno, if you would. The little one is meant to be sleeping. I suspect he is not.’

The pair gave him a wide-eyed look, part fear, part awe then scrambled out of the foyer as fast as their little legs could carry them.

“To speak with them is not enough! They cannot leave. I thought I made that clear to you!” She snapped. She breathed in a harsh through her mouth and rubbed her face with both hands.
 
Gaster frowned. Very carefully he signed. ‘What, in their behavior, suggested to you that they were attempting to leave? They were merely curious, your majesty. Nothing so entices a child then being told somewhere or something is forbidden.’

“Unacceptable! My rules exist for a reason, Gaster.”

He raised his hands, pacifying. ‘I am not excusing their disobedience. I merely hope to promote understanding.’ A pause. His sole eyelight glinted a dull lavender. ‘They were frightened, Toriel.’

She inhaled sharply and the hot prickly energy in the air dissipated. “Perhaps my reaction was…” she looked away from him. “Please excuse me,” she said in a choked breath and retreated to her room. 

Gaster waited a moment, staring after her. The violent whispers of his marrow hissed. His magic felt taunt. He waited for it calm, but even when it did, he was left with a distressing sense of dissatisfaction. That unnerving, vile shade of his soul longed for the bitter, acidic taste of dust.

Red threw himself across the bed with an angry flop. “Damn it!” 

“Shhh!” Edge hissed. “Control yourself, Sans. Be grateful Kalluno lacks the ability to tattle. You are loud!”

Kalluno, who was also on the bed, narrowed his eyesockets. He clicked his teeth. It was a pretty good imitation of Gaster’s look-alike. 

Red snorted. He kicked a pillow. “What’re we supposed to do, huh? This place‘s too small. If it’s not Gaster watchin’ us, it’s her Majesty. How are we supposed to investigate anythin’ with the both of ‘em around?”

Edge covered his mouth, deep in thought. “Erroneously, I assumed that without cameras and such it would be easier for us to do what needed to be done. Alas, neither her majesty nor Gaster have enough to do and their attention is sufficient that other surveillance methods are unnecessary.”

“No kidding.”

Edge gazed up at the ceiling. “What we need, is a distraction.”

“Like what?”

A pause. 

“We must wait for the ideal opportunity.”

“So… in other words, you have no idea.”

“Silence, bafoon. Let me think,” Edge crossed his arms. “Eventually, for some reason or another, Toriel will let down her guard. But perhaps we’ve been too eager. She doesn’t trust us, and certainly won’t if she continues to catch us breaking the rules.”

Red scowled at the ceiling. “Suppose… suppose we act real sorry-like. Like, we’ve really learned our lesson. ‘cause that’s what this is supposed to be, right?” 

“I believe the Gaster-clone called it ‘timeout’.”

“He also said we were ‘grounded’,” Red shuddered. “ ‘thought at first he meant he was gonna grind our hands or fingers to a paste or somethin’.” 

Edge snorted. “Please. He is too soft for such measure. Even Gaster—our Gaster—never went that far.”

“Yeah, but sometimes you wondered if he would,” Red murmured. Edge stiffened at the reminder. They were quiet for a heavy moment. Red cleared his throat. “So, what’re we gonna do ‘bout Toriel?”

Edge breathed harshly through his nostril cavity. “We will do as you suggest. As humiliating and unpleasant a farce it will be, it is not… a bad plan. It will have to do. Now, Gaster’s look-alike… that’s another matter entirely. He will not be so easily fooled.”

In unison, they looked at Wolf, who’d evidently grown bored of their conservation and had curled up on a pillow, then they looked back at each other. 

“We can’t mess with him, Pap. He might actually dust us for it.” 

“True… however, Gaster pays much attention to him. I suggest we give Gaster more reason to pay more attention to him, than to us.”

Wolf really liked the garden. He knew where not to go now, the scorched black flowers, stems and leaves marked the boundary of where he thought he should be, though Papa hadn’t said so.

He’d only been out a couple times since discovering that black patch of earth but after the shock of discovering it the first time, and the nervous stutter to his soul on seeing it the second, and then third time, the shock had worn off. Papa wasn’t worried. Maybe he shouldn’t be either.

Red and Edge were acting funny. Funnier than usual. They were strange puppies anyway, but for the last two days they’d acted exceptionally funny. That was a new word. Exceptional. Papa said he was Exceptional. Which meant you were Great, or very something, or meant something was in a big way that had nothing to do with size. Wolf couldn’t explain it well, so many words meant many things at once, it was so confusing ! But he sort of understood. It was a good word that meant good things. Except, right now. Red had been whispering to his brother for the span of time it took Toriel to  dig a hole. The dirt was dark and smelled a little strange, but in a good new way, and not in a bad way that had Wolf wrinkling his nose. 

“Would you like to help, little one?” Toriel asked. Her wide yellow eyes flicked quickly to Papa and back. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t approve. Wolf glanced up at Papa too. Papa smiled softly, but didn’t indicate one way or another what Wolf should do. He did want to help though. Digging was fun! 

He padded shyly to Toriel, she also smiled, and showed him where to dig. Wolf dug and when he looked up again, Edge was whispering to Red this time. Wolf narrowed his eyes. What were they up to?

Toriel filled in the holes they’d dug with seeds and dirt. She brushed off her apron. Said she would be right back with a watering can. 

Wolf decided he should dig more holes while he waited. But where?

He looked around. 

“Whatcha lookin’ for shrimp?” 

Wolf turned and there was Red, shuffling his feet, hands in his pockets. 

Wolf clicked his teeth and chirped but of course, Red just stood there, uncomprehending. He looked back to his brother for help. Edge gestured with his hands—when Didot made that same gesture it meant ‘shoo’ or ‘go away’ and sometimes ‘move’ or ‘go on.’ Were they fighting? Wolf hoped not. Blasters got mean when they were fighting. He whined. 

Red turned back to him, glanced at the freshly overturned earth and finally, he seemed to get it. Sort of. “You like digging, huh?”

Wolf nodded enthusiastically. Yes! Exactly! And now, he needed a new spot to dig! 

“Hows about you dig over there?” 

He looked to where Red was pointing.

The flowerbeds ended where stone slabs began and went on until the cavern grew darker and ended in a dark tunnel that reminded him awfully of the black tears his Papa sometimes reached into. A pair of torches guarded the tunnel’s entrance. Wolf didn’t want to go that far. That tunnel looked scary! But Red wasn’t quite pointing to the tunnel, he was pointing to the big tree that sat squarely between it and the flowerbeds. It was sort of in the middle of everything. The ground underneath it was covered in red leaves but Wolf saw flowers sprouting up amid the leaf-litter. They grew sparsely and Wolf figured, if flowers came from seeds, and if Mrs. Toriel wanted more flowers, than she would surely want holes dug under the tree. 

Wolf chirped his thanks and started towards the tree.

He didn’t think to glance back at Papa or the others because he figured he wasn’t doing anything wrong and he knew Papa was watching anyway. His claws clicked loudly across the stone floor but once he stood underneath the tree, which was very, very tall, he felt braver. He put his muzzle to the ground, using his skull to shove leaves aside until he found a spot that looked soft and began to dig.

No sooner then he started then there was a crunch and crackle of dry leaves next to him, and he heard a low, croak. 

Wolf cheeped in surprised. He jumped. Whirled around to stare at the strangest monster he’d seen yet. It was red, had big round eyes atop a leathery head and was covered in small nicks and cuts. It’s wide mouth was set in a watery-frown, Wolf thought it looked as close to tears as it looked angry. It smelled like damp earth, and between it’s pudgy front legs, it’s black belly had a second face, who’s eyes looked much sadder than the first set and also blinked. Wolf couldn’t tell which set of eyes he was supposed to look at. 

The monster croaked again. “Ribbit?”

Somehow, he understood this to mean: you’re not from around these parts, are you?

Wolf shook his skull and chirped. 

The monster nodded sagely. It croaked and introduced itself as a Froggit.

Surprised it understood him, Wolf cheeped and told it he was a Blaster-puppy, but a skeleton also because Papa said so. Froggit asked him who his father was. It seemed wary. Wolf pointed his muzzle towards his Papa. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that Red was tugging on Papa’s pant leg and pointing. Papa saw him and the Froggit. He stood. 

Froggit shivered. Wolf wondered if it would run away. He didn’t want it to though, so he dropped into a play-bow, wagging his tail so Froggit and Papa could see there was nothing to be scared of!

Alas, it was not to be. Wolf let a squeak. He was lifted into Papa’s arms. No! He had a hole to dig and-and he wanted to play with Froggit! As Papa spoke to the Froggit, he squirmed, attempting to wriggle free. Movement caught his eye. Wolf stilled, looking over Papa’s shoulder. Toriel had returned. Red and Edge were by the door. They pointed to him and Papa and Froggit. As Toriel approached, Red and Edge ducked inside the house. 

The closer Toriel came, the more nervous Wolf felt. 

Papa’s magic was heavy, like a soft blanket, and Wolf always felt comfortable with Papa. But Mrs. Toriel’s magic… it was warm—too warm. Smothering like a fire and suffocating, as wide and as wild as her eyes. He could taste the ash under the roof of his mouth.

“Gaster,” she said, with the sort of calm Wolf expected before something bad happened. “Go inside.” 

Papa frowned, hesitating. For a moment, Wolf thought he wouldn’t listen, but then, in a blink and a wash of lavender, chalk and something he knew to be called ‘soap’, they were inside Mrs. Toriel’s house. Red and Edge were no-where to be seen. 

They reappeared very quickly when Toriel stormed back into the house—appearing in the hall as she slammed the door shut, throwing her back against it. Something was wrong. She was breathing hard. Her chest rising and falling fast as though someone had put her through a tough experiment. 

Papa set him down on the floor. ‘Go to your room and stay there until I get you. Understand?’ 

Why? What was wrong with Mrs. Toriel? Did something happen to Froggit? 

But he couldn’t ask. Papa wouldn’t understand him. So Wolf ran to his room where Red and Edge were waiting, tense, and listless. Pretending they’d been there all along. They had seen the whole exchange, obviously so they knew where Papa expected them to be. Wolf studied the pair suspiciously. Where had they gone?

Later, when Papa picked him again, his coat smelled like ash.