Chapter 1: fallen down
Chapter Text
"A human has fallen from the Surface World!"
There wasn't a single thing Asgore wanted to hear less at that moment. Papyrus, bless him, didn't seem to notice the tension in the air, the stillness that had settled over them as soon as he'd mentioned human; he was too busy looking to Undyne for her approval. He received a half-hearted thumbs-up. Pleased with himself, he sat back down, sending an expectant glance into the round.
Everyone of import was gathered for something of a crisis meeting; Asgore himself, of course, as well as Undyne, Alphys, Sans and Papyrus. The latter was only here by virtue of the fact that the human had passed through Snowdin, right into the skeleton brothers' territory, and Papyrus was taking his guard duty about as seriously as he could possibly take anything.
"What can you tell us about the human?" Asgore asked cautiously, addressing Sans, but receiving an extremely long-winded response from Papyrus instead. Apparently, he'd gone on a date with the human. Or something. The way Papyrus' mind worked was a bit of a mystery to all present, and most of the information was very far from actually helpful.
"She was a human of very few words!" he chirped, "Which is unfortunate! I really wanted to talk to a human!"
"Thank you, Papyrus," Asgore said with a nod of appreciation. The tone he used was one that he usually reserved for talking to children, but Papyrus visibly appreciated it nonetheless. "Would you like to step out and keep watch for us?"
The tactic felt dirty. Papyrus was a very appreciated member of the Underground, no doubt, but he also wasn't exactly famous for knowing how to keep his jawbone shut on sensitive matters. And a human falling into the Underground for the first time in years? That was a sensitive matter indeed. It was enough that he knew. But then, the human was running free anyway, so it was only a matter of time until word spread.
Papyrus, being Papyrus, accepted the dirty tactic without even a trace of doubt on his features. He left happily, a spring in his step, wind fluttering under his red cape.
"So," Undyne began, "What will you have us do about the trespasser?"
Asgore sighed. "You know what to do. What needs to be done."
"We only need one more soul to break the barrier," Alphys supplied, voice thin and form awkwardly hunched together as though she'd rather be anywhere but here. Asgore shared that sentiment tenfold, though he took care to square his shoulders and keep his voice level.
"Then the barrier breaks, and we're free." Asgore didn't miss the hopeful glint in Undyne's eye as he spoke. He also didn't miss how it withered and died seconds later.
"And then what?" she asked.
That question was somehow even worse than the initial question that brought them all together, of what to do with the human. Take its soul, obviously. Break the barrier. That had been their one and only goal for decades. But what then, indeed? They were hardly strong enough to mount another war with the humans - a war that was surely coming, considering six, now seven, children would have wandered into the Underground only to never be seen again.
And Asgore himself had, in fact, declared war on the humans. It was rash, it was a decision borne of anger and despair at having lost two children in one night, and it was a decision that ended up being key to the morale of the monsters being restored. It was necessary. The deaths of the children following that were necessary. Seven lives for the lives of thousands.
But now? It had been so long since the last child fell that most monsters didn't even know what a human looked like (luckily for the human currently wandering around unchecked).
"We will cross that bridge when - and if - we get to it," Asgore said. "Until then, we must find the human, and make sure we know where it is. Make sure the monsters are safe. Let it come to me, and I will strike the final blow. Your jobs, until then, are clear. Guide the human, keep the Underground safe should it try anything. We will reconvene in New Home, when the time comes."
"Do you think it poses a threat?" Alphys asked.
"no," Sans supplied. "not this time."
Vague as ever, but then, no one expected anything else out of Sans. Only Asgore knew why he was here at all. He accepted the answer with a solemn nod.
"There must be another way," Alphys spoke up again, nervously pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her hand was visibly shaking as she did so.
He wished there was. Truly. "There isn't. We only need one more SOUL to break the barrier and reach freedom. We need to do this, and you know that."
If they didn't, then the sacrifice of the others will have been in vain. They had to do this. Asgore wasn't sure if he wasn't trying to convince himself of that as much as he was trying to convince Alphys.
She sniffled. "I don't want to use the machine again," she said, and it was very nearly a whisper, not meant for anyone's ears, but reaching them anyway.
"You must." Asgore was firm. He was resolute. He could not risk showing a single crack in his resolve, or everything would fall apart. Inside him, a storm raged. He felt sick. Alphys looked sick.
"There has to be another way," she repeated quietly, eyes downcast. She adjusted her glasses with an obviously shaking hand. But there wasn't another way - they'd spent two decades trying to find another way, and there simply... wasn't. The barrier would only yield to seven human SOULs, nothing more, nothing less, and this was the only way to acquire them; sacrificing monsterkind as a whole was not an option.
Asgore sighed, the weariness of decades past on his shoulders. "If you can find a way," he said, "Then I would be most grateful to you. If you cannot, then we will proceed with the plan." He turned to face the others. "I do not want any unnecessary bloodshed, nor do I want any unnecessary loss of life or SOUL, be it monster... or human. Circumstance has left us with little choice in that regard. I trust that I need not remind you of our predicament, and I lament that it comes down to us versus them. We have no other choice."
"We could just... stay. Here." Alphys said, still so quiet Asgore had to strain to hear her. She'd gone beet-red before she even finished the sentence. "... I mean, we've... we've been here this long right?"
"Then the sacrifice of the other six human SOULs will have been in vain, and we will be trapped here for eternity," Asgore reminded her, allowing a bit of gentleness to bleed into his otherwise stern tone. "If you can find another way, you are welcome to. Until then, we follow the plan as we have done for the previous humans."
With that, he rose to his feet, watching the others do the same in response with their heads lowered in respect. The conversation was over. There was to be no further debate.
"Well then. You all have your orders. The child should be in Waterfall now," he turned to face Undyne, who nodded in wordless understanding. It was up to her to capture the child or guide it further toward New Home. "Keep me updated on the happenings. Do not let any monsters come to harm, if you can at all prevent it."
Undyne inclined her head, taking hold of her spear. It caught the sparse unnatural light of the roundtable chamber, glinting like rubies (or fresh blood, his mind supplied, sending a shudder down his spine.)
"You are all dismissed," Asgore said with a nod to show his appreciation.
Alphys was first out of the room with surprising speed. Understandable. She was a gentle soul, a young soul, and none of this had been particularly easy on her. Asgore knew the SOULs of the six others rested heavily on her conscience. He wished he could take that burden from her - it was, after all, his orders that led to the creation of the DT Extraction Machine. To the deaths. It was necessary, he reminded himself. All of this was necessary, for monsterkind as a whole.
Wasn't it?
Undyne shot him a glance, a raised eyebrow. I hope you know what you're doing, it said. He didn't. He threw her a solemn smile in return anyway, and it seemed to satisfy her for now; she stalked out of the room, her armor rattling loudly in the otherwise oppressively silent room.
Sans remained. For a long time, they were both silent, stood around the empty and too-large table, in the too-large room meant for more than just their sad five-soul crisis meeting.
There were supposed to be more here.
Something was wrong.
Someone was missing.
How could he forget?
"you feel it too?" Sans asked, finally breaking the silence. Asgore almost wished he hadn't. "he's back."
He's back. Who was back? Who left? Asgore felt like he'd been punched square in the chest, forcing air out of his lungs, keeping it out, his throat was too tight. The room seemed to spin. He was back. He was gone. He was missing.
Who was he?
"Who?" he dared to ask.
"you know who."
He didn't, though he knew it was something he absolutely should know. It was on the tip of his tongue, always evading his grasp, flitting just out of reach. He really was forgetting something. Something important. Someone important.
"We have more pressing concerns at the moment," Asgore said. The human took first priority for now, though he would be lying if he said that he didn't feel like something was horribly wrong. "Keep an eye on the human. You know what you have to do."
"could be dangerous. been a while since he was around."
The pronoun game was really starting to wear on Asgore's patience, frustration bubbled in his lungs and coiled in his muscles, but he still dared not ask who on earth he was forgetting for a second time. Admitting that he didn't know who he was felt more dangerous than carrying on the endless game of pretending he knew what he was doing. Like forgetting an in-laws name. Except with much higher stakes.
"We will deal with him when and if it becomes relevant. We have more pressing concerns," he repeated firmly.
For a long time, Sans said nothing, studying Asgore through white pinprick pupils in a sea of black. Eyes that suddenly felt unsettlingly familiar, and not just because of Papyrus. There wasn't a doubt in Asgore's mind that Sans saw straight through him, but that, too, was a concern for another day.
"fine," Sans said finally, and rose to his feet with a dramatic groan and exaggerated stretch. "don't say i didn't warn ya."
Asgore dipped his head, a thank you, please leave going unsaid. Sans took the hint and, with a casual two-finger salute, shuffled out of the room, pointedly leaving the door ajar.
Spirits.
With a long sigh of his own, Asgore rubbed his face, hefted his trident, and made off toward the throne room.
Chapter 2: heartache
Summary:
In which Gaster appears
Notes:
I almost split this up into two chapters but. nah. take it.
I also almost dialed down the whump in this chapter, but I decided that this is my stupid fanfiction and I can make it as angsty and hurt/comfort-y as I want! So ha!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There was no visible difference between day and night in the Underground; at least, not in the traditional sense. The throne room was dimly illuminated by thin shafts of pale white light filtering in from above, almost like moonlight.
But there was no moonlight. Not in the Underground.
There was no sun, there was no moon, but the Underground still agreed upon a certain cycle supported by their artificial lighting, still said good morning when they rose and still said good night when they rested their heads. And nighttime remained the only time where life was anything close to peaceful, at least for Asgore. For a few blessed hours, everyone was asleep, no new metaphorical or literal fires were started, no one needed him to be anything, do anything, be anywhere. Of course, the problems of the days, weeks, years prior remained and still needed solving, but there was nothing he could really do except lose sleep about it; and that was something which he did diligently. Insomnia came easy with the sins of the past resting on his shoulders.
Asgore couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten any sort of restful sleep. Most nights, he didn't even bother trying. And thus, he found himself in the throne room rather than his bed chamber, kneeling by the golden flowers in the soft gloom and pondering the choices that led him to this point in time, pondering the night sky he would likely never see again in his lifetime, and pondering the newest fires in his ever-growing hell.
Perhaps peaceful was the wrong way to describe the night. The quiet gave him too much time to think. The weight of his past and current sins, the many deaths that rested on his shoulders, never receded. They waited in the shadows of the throne room, mocking him.
Still, Asgore valued this time for reflection. This time to take responsibility for his actions and pray for forgiveness to whatever being would listen to a sinner like him. It was important.
The list of people he'd wronged never seemed to stop growing and growing.
And someone needed to take care of these flowers, whose vibrant yellow color wasn't apparent in the dimmed artificial lighting, and Asgore almost laughed at how metaphorical the whole thing seemed. In the cold light they appeared just as faded and washed-out as he felt. Though, perhaps, they would both regain their vibrancy when the night turned to day and the stone walls turned to wide open expanses of sun-kissed land. It would have filled Asgore with determination, but that privilege was afforded only to humans. Still, he tried to find solace in it, even if he knew he'd likely never survive what was to come. Even if he knew he didn't deserve to survive what was to come.
There were so many others who deserved to feel the sun again more than he did who never would.
No parent should ever have to bury their children.
And it wasn't just them Asgore had failed.
He's back.
And how could Asgore ever forget? The realization had struck him like a ton of bricks on his way to the throne room, the gaps in his mind suddenly filling, the name on the tip of his tongue in his grasp as if it had never left in the first place. Memories of a time long past bloomed in his mind like roses with sharp-tipped thorns.
Gaster.
How could he be back? He was dead. Of that, Asgore had had to convince himself for one-and-a-half decades. He wasn't under any false beliefs that someone could simply reappear after such a length of time.
Gaster had been a valued, trusted friend, and his lack of presence at Asgore's back had been unnerving for the first couple of years after he'd up-and-vanished. Gaster was his stability, a level-headed man of science (and, notably, of significant apathy and bluntness) to offer a much-needed different perspective on any given situation. A counterbalance to keep Asgore from letting his emotions bleed into his decision-making. And Gaster had never been afraid of Asgore, had never cowered or bowed before him, and maybe that was what drew the King to the Scientist in the first place.
Despite their differences, particularly in temperament, Gaster had learned to understand Asgore just as Asgore had learned to understand Gaster, and it had made them inseparable.
When he'd first vanished, everyone was convinced this was just a Gaster thing and that he'd return eventually. He never did. And then... everything else happened.
Chara died.
Asriel died.
They had been too young to die. Far too young. Asgore often found himself wondering just what he could have done to stop all of it from happening. If only he'd stopped Chara from eating those flowers, none of it would have happened. They would both be grown-ups by now, living their own lives away from Asgore and Toriel. Chara wouldn't have dragged Asriel to his doom. But he could hardly blame them.
They were just a child, after all.
In his grief and desperation, he'd declared war on the humans. They'd killed Asriel. And he would make them pay.
Toriel left, after that.
And Asgore was alone.
The war with the humans had managed to drive a wedge between that which was once inseparable, unsinkable.
It had taken Asgore five years to reach a state of acceptance. To start functioning again after the loss of his wife, his best friend and the deaths of his children in such short succession.
But he pulled himself back together. He had to. He appointed a new royal scientist - Alphys - though she would never live up to Gaster. She was a very kind spirit with her heart in the right place but she wasn't... him. Would never be him. She hadn't lived through a war at Asgore's side, nor had she quite yet found her place in life. Asgore had faith that she would, in time. Without her, they wouldn't have the DT Extraction Machine; they wouldn't have a single hope of getting out. That counted for something.
It had to.
Life went on, because it had to. Asgore took Undyne as a protégé, trained her to the best of his abilities, and in turn, she trained something of an army.
An army that would never, ever be enough to win against the humans.
Asgore had never felt more alone than he did in that moment, surrounded by the metaphorical ghosts of his past, staring back at him from the pale yellow flowers. He frowned at them, and he could almost swear he saw them frown back.
It was then that his mandatory nightly ruminations were interrupted by a knock at the door, pulling him back into the present with a surprising effectiveness. Sorrow replaced by the mundane thrill of something as simple as 'who could possibly be at the door at this hour'.
He rose to his feet, hefting his trident beside him.
"Come in."
The door opened just wide enough for a skinny guard whose armor was too big and whose limbs were too long (ah, youth) to squeeze in awkwardly, helmet angled downward so he wouldn't have to look Asgore in the eye.
"My high- Your highness," he said, and his voice was oddly pitched, rising and falling in intervals almost as awkward as his posture.
Asgore raised his eyebrows, waiting for him to continue. He didn't. After all, he wasn't daring to meet Asgore's eye, waiting instead for some verbal cue.
"Yes?" He finally prompts. The kid was obviously well, a kid. He couldn't have been older than 16 or 17. He would be forgiven.
"Well, sir, uh..." He stammered, "You see, well..."
"What is your name?" Asgore tilted his head to the side and put on his best soft smile, looking the boy up and down. He wasn't familiar with this monster, yet. Must have been one of Undyne's freshest recruits. "I don't bite."
"... Orion, sir."
"Orion, you are safe here. Tell me, what is troubling you? Did something happen?"
The boy, Orion, cleared his throat, shuffled from one foot to another, and took a deep breath.
And then the floodgates opened. "Well, sir, there was an incident and a patrol picked up a really strange guy who was really, really insistent that he really, really wanted to see you, like, that second, and it's really urgent because we have him in the dungeon and he really didn't seem happy about that, and actually, it was kind of unnerving 'cause he looked like a monster but not like any monster we've ever seen and he really, really didn't seem too pleased about being taken to the dungeon and honestly I don't know what's gonna happen if we keep him in there too long and-"
"Woah there," Asgore said, stepping forward to lay a hand on the boy's skinny shoulder. "Slowly. The monster wanted to see me, yes? Did he mention who he was?"
"No, he really didn't want to answer any of our questions, so we put him in the dungeon."
How often did the Underground get genuine intrusions? Not often.
"You did the right thing. Good work, Orion. Now, can you tell me what this monster looked like?"
The tension seemed to leave Orion's frame, replaced by something like pride in the tilt of his chin and puff of his chest. "Really strange. Um... white? Ghostly white. Dark eyes. Nasty scar. Looked kinda roughed up."
Asgore felt his heart sink in his chest. "And he wanted to see me?"
Orion nodded.
Asgore offered him another smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "Then take me there. Best not keep our guest waiting."
The faintest look of relief washed over Orion's face, only to be swiftly replaced by a shadow of doubt. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" He paused. "... sir?"
"Of course. Its rude to keep guests waiting, isn't it?"
"And if he's dangerous?"
"Well, you see, so are we." Asgore flashed another megawatt smile, subtly turning his trident to catch in the moonlight, casting a slight ruby-red glow onto the flowers around them. That finally had the desired effect; Orion nodded and scampered toward the door, pulling it open and bowing to let Asgore through first.
The way to the dungeon wasn't long at all, but it still felt like an eternity.
Asgore's heart fluttered as they both trudged the long, dark halls of the castle in near-silence, drawing closer to the dungeon. Doubt nipped at his heels like a puppy, begging him for attention. Was this really Gaster? Could it be Gaster?
He's back.
This couldn't be Gaster, the Doubt yapped, he'd been gone for fifteen years. There was nowhere to go in the Underground, nowhere to vanish to, except six feet under.
Asgore had had to convince himself of that fact for over a decade, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let this give him false hope.
Many theories had arisen following the former royal scientist's disappearance, vanishing from cold-blooded murder (spirits knew that Gaster had irritated more than enough people in his time with his bluntness, and his past had always been a mystery), to betrayal. Toriel had been very vocal about her theory; that he'd found a way out, and left without them.
"He betrayed us," she'd said, "He's too smart to have gotten himself killed by someone. He's too paranoid for that."
There was vitriol in her statement, but she wasn't entirely wrong. Gaster had been a bit of a survivalist, a skilled magic user, and was known for his keen intellect. He could hold his own in battle, more so than one would expect from a lanky beanpole of a scientist who looked like he'd snap in half easier than a toothpick, that much Asgore knew. After all, Gaster had lived through the initial war that led to their exile at Asgore's side.
That monster was a cockroach if there ever was one.
So where would he have been? Where could he have gone?
The dungeon was an oppressive place. The walls were gray and the ceiling was low; the entire construct barely fit Asgore's bulky frame. The musty, damp smell of what was most likely mold only added to the claustrophobic, suffocating atmosphere.
One foot in front of the other, Asgore steeled himself and trudged the narrow hall. It wasn't hard to find the cell in question; a single guard flanked the side, staring straight ahead, his posture impressively straight. He noticed Asgore immediately, bowing low to show his respect. Asgore dismissed him with a half-hearted nod. He had greater concerns.
His chest felt impossibly tight as he approached that cell and stared into the darkness within.
There, he found a ghost.
An eerie figure sat at the back of the sparsely-furnished cell, wordlessly meeting his gaze with a single white, glowing pupil. His face was chalk-white, split by two deep black scars of which one snaked across a half-lidded eye, eyesight half-robbed by an explosion meant to take his life, once upon a time.
There was not a single doubt about it; it was him. W.D. Gaster, presumed missing for five years and then presumed dead for another decade beyond that, was alive. Asgore felt as though all emotion had been drained from him, leaving him cold, hollow, empty. All he could do was stare at the figure, at this apparition of his old friend, and fail to process what this meant.
He looked no different than he had when he'd vanished, clad in the same trademark black overcoat and white turtleneck, though both looked a bit roughed-up and worse for wear. Though perhaps that was true for more than just his clothing. Gaster's hands were cuffed in front of him, pulling his already hunched shoulders even further forward. He looked so very small there, in that cell.
"He made quite a fuss when we caught him," the guard said, breaking the tense silence. "He was very... incessant on seeing you."
It was a warning, Asgore knew. Both guards were braced for what could, for all they knew, be an assassination attempt. Gaster, for his part, turned his head toward the guard who'd spoken to shoot a very familiar irritated glare. He still turned his head strangely far to compensate for his blind eye.
"It's fine," Asgore said, against his better judgement, "You are dismissed. I will handle this."
Both Orion and the other guard shared an uncertain glance.
"But sir-"
"But nothing. I will handle this," he repeated. "This one is... an old friend."
"With all due respect, sir," the more experienced guard said, approaching Asgore and turning away from the cell, away from Gaster. Asgore pried his attention away for a moment, hoping the make it quick went without saying. He felt Gaster's eyes on him again. "There's something off about this monster. Something wrong."
"Thank you. You are dismissed." Asgore bowed his head, irritation prickling at his fur. Neither of these guards understood half of what was going on. Not that he could really blame them; both guards were probably too young to even remember who Gaster was from anything other than public broadcasts when they were children, and even then, the former royal scientist had been incredibly media-shy. "Wait down the hall."
This time, the guards had the sense to comply, trading concerned glances and finally marching down the hall.
Asgore turned his attention back to Gaster.
And Gaster flickered.
Like the image on an old television set.
One moment, he was sat against the back wall, and the next, he was standing right behind the bars, his long, bony fingers clutched around the cold metal.
The suddenness of it very nearly sent Asgore leaping out of his skin. He couldn't stop himself from physically reeling backwards, and every muscle in his body screamed run. But he didn't. Self preservation had never been one of his strong suits.
"Asgore," Gaster greeted into the shocked silence, and his voice was softer than Asgore had ever heard him speak before. Perhaps this was just a changeling or otherwise an illusion. There was no other way Asgore could explain this.
He swallowed past the knot in his throat. "Gaster. It's... been a while."
Gaster pulled his lips back in a snarl that looked more pained than hostile. His response was clipped. "Yes."
The edge of bitterness in his voice didn't escape notice.
Asgore looked him up and down. It looked like the universe had simply swallowed him up 15 years ago and spat him out exactly as it had found him. But something was different. Obviously, his mind supplied, he just teleported. He never used to be able to do that.
Or maybe he had and just never thought to tell him. That was a very Gaster thing to do, after all.
Or maybe this just wasn't really him.
"You do not believe it is me?" Gaster asked, as though he'd read his mind; the likelihood that he actually could was certainly not zero. His voice was hoarse, cracked from disuse, but the strong, lilting accent was unmistakable.
No one knew exactly where Gaster had come from or what kind of monster he was, and aside from looking different, he had also had a very particular way of speaking; jagged, sometimes in mere fragments, and dodging contractions like it was a sport. English hadn't been his first language, but there was no one else who spoke (or read) his native tongue. That fact never seemed to bother him. It certainly would have bothered Asgore. Regardless, the ghost before him mimicked the accent perfectly.
Asgore didn't know what to respond to the question. He wanted to believe it was him, that much was certain, but there were too many questions, too many impossibilities. So he chose to answer a question with a question. "Where were you, Gaster?"
The black-and-white monster looked down at the floor, the corner of his mouth pulled upward in something like distaste. "You would not believe me, if I did tell you."
The sentence was so simple, and yet so endlessly offensive to Asgore. The uncertainty and anxiety mixed with the irritation to form something even more volatile while tension burned at the back of his throat like acid.
"You leave for fifteen years and all you have to say about it is 'you wouldn't believe me'? Just who do you take me for? You are in no position to be keeping anything from anyone. Explain yourself."
And all Gaster did was study him, his face schooled into his usual stoic, stony mask.
"How am I supposed to know if it's really you and not just a crude imitation? After fifteen years you just reappear like nothing happened. Fifteen years, Gaster! You abandoned the kingdom. You abandoned me. And now you won't even tell me where on earth you managed to hide yourself for this long. Tell me, did you make it to the surface? Was it nice?"
The outburst left him breathless, anger vented all at once, leaving him empty once again. It was only then that he realized just how far his voice had climbed in volume. Something like shame burned under his fur.
Gaster flickered again, but remained in place. Asgore swore he saw something like betrayal flash across his features for the briefest of seconds.
"I was not on the surface," Gaster said, simply.
"Then where?"
"Nowhere."
"Gaster, where?"
"Nowhere," Gaster repeated, more forcefully, "And everywhere."
"That explains nothing."
"I told you. You would not believe me."
Asgore crossed his arms and huffed. "You're just not explaining it very well at all."
"I came here to warn you. Someone is coming. A human."
"So I heard."
"But you have not heard, you have not seen what I have. What it has done to you all."
The flickering had become more frequent, almost violent; Gaster winced, staggering away from the bars to lean heavily against the nearest wall while clutching his head.
"Gaster!" Asgore could only take a pitiful step forward, uselessly reaching out, but there was nothing he could do with the bars between them. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
That was a stupid question. Of course he wasn't.
"I am fine," Gaster lied through clenched teeth, hissing something in that strange language of his that sounded remarkably like a string of curses, judging by tone alone. The technicolor flickering subsided at least slightly, reduced to just a slight chromatic aberration.
"I watched you all die, over and over and over again. There are things at play here that you simply can not understand. I do not even fully understand it myself. That child- it is more powerful than any of you could ever know. It has to go. I need to make sure it is gone, and never returns. I have to-"
The monochrome monster's sentence was cut short by even more violent flickering, the force of the bout wrenching a pained gasp from his throat before his legs gave out and sent him crashing to the floor like a house of cards. Asgore's heart lurched, sending him into motion, taking a step down the hall and calling for the guards.
They were back within moments, rushing down the hall with their spears combat-ready and glinting dangerously in the sparse light.
"Unlock the door," Asgore commanded, and he made sure that his tone left absolutely no room for argument. He knew for a fact that neither of the guards agreed with this, but they were trained well enough not to question him. A jingle of the keys later and the cell door slid open, allowing Asgore to rush in and crouch by Gaster's side, reaching out to place a steadying hand on his back.
The moment his hand made contact with Gaster, his entire arm went pins-and-needles numb, almost painfully so. It was like touching a live wire, an energy unlike anything Asgore had ever felt coursing through his nervous system and lighting it up like a Christmas tree. Still, he didn't pull away, steadying him to the best of his ability and guiding him into a more comfortable position, propped up against the wall. Only then did he let go, and the awful feeling of wrongness subsided as soon as the point of contact did.
"It does not like me telling you about the child," Gaster laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. If anything, he sounded just a bit delirious. Maybe that explained it all. An experiment gone wrong, and now he was just out of his mind. "Of course it does. It is built for it."
"Gaster, we need to get you to Alphys."
His mood flipped like a switch. "Absolutely not."
"She's the..."
"My replacement, I am well aware. Some replacement you have chosen. That one has skeletons in her closet."
"If you're referring to Sans and Papyrus, I can assure you, they live in Snowdin, not Alphys' closet," Asgore joked in reply, and as expected, Gaster groaned, this time not in pain but in exasperation. Asgore couldn't help but smile.
"You are being deliberately obtuse," Gaster huffed, letting his head rest on the wall behind him, "She would not know what to do, anyway."
"You don't know that. Just save your breath, I can guarantee that complaining will only make you feel worse."
"Remind me again which one of us is a doctor." The words lacked vitriol. The resistance at this point, Asgore knew, was just for show.
"She doesn't bite," Asgore offered. Gaster raised an eyebrow - well, would have, if he had eyebrows. His brow muscle moved upward, silently disagreeing with that statement, clearly. "Can you walk?"
Gaster took a deep, steadying breath and pushed himself up from the wall, shooing away Asgore's offer of support. The movement was shaky, but he managed. "You know I do not like the Hotlands."
"You 'do not like' many things, and whining is beneath you," Asgore said with a soft smile. "Come on. At least give her a chance."
Gaster scowled.
So it was time to resort to threats, then. "Come on, or I'll carry you there myself," Asgore said, and took a step forward to make a point.
"You would not."
"I think you'll find I very much will."
The glower on Gaster's face only deepened. "Alphys knows nothing. I have more important things that I need to be doing."
Asgore raised an eyebrow. "You're still my prisoner."
"Surely you do not intend on keeping me here?"
It was probably the rational thing to do. Gaster was gone, and now he refused to explain where he had been, and seemed afflicted by something that no one in the Underground had seen before. Keeping him contained was probably better for everyone, for the time being.
Still, this was Gaster. This was his friend.
In true Gaster fashion, none of that deliberation mattered in the end. Asgore's silence had apparently taken just a bit too long for him; for one moment he was there, the next moment... he wasn't. In a flash of glitching colors, he'd simply vanished. Something clattered noisily to the floor just outside the dungeon.
Exasperation lent Asgore metaphorical wings as he stormed down the hall, guards in tow. Trust Gaster to undermine him at every opportunity. Sure, Asgore appreciated that Gaster had never been a yes-man, but this... this was something else. Not that any of what Asgore thought mattered any more, considering Gaster could seemingly teleport away and negate any effect of keeping him anywhere.
The audacity of it all.
Asgore rounded the corner to the source of the noise, and all his anger died on his tongue, withering into ashes.
There was a flickering bundle of black and white curled into ball on the floor. Asgore rushed forward to kneel beside him, concern flaring in his chest to replace the anger.
"Gaster?"
He only received a pained groan in response.
"Alright. That's it. We're going to see Alphys," Asgore declared.
There was no argument this time.
Notes:
who needs a beta when you can half-assedly read through your text at the end and decide it's good enough
bringing that "fuck it, we ball" energy to fanfiction since 2015
Chapter 3: uwa!! so heats!!
Notes:
am I even properly reading through this again? no. no beta we die like men. no editing we die like men. yeehaw.
In which the truth is revealed. The exposition chapter.
Chapter Text
If Asgore ever had to rank the many areas of the Underground from favorite to least favorite, the Hotlands would without a doubt always end up in the very last spot. The air was oppressively dry and arid in addition to the heat that lent it it's ever-fitting name, making it hard to even breathe normally. What else could one expect from a massive cavern filled with magma?
This wasn't what Asgore was built for. His thick fur made everything infinitely worse; it was meant to sustain him in cold climates like mountain tops and icy tundras, or, well, Snowdin. Now, Asgore just felt like he was being roasted alive in his armor with no escape. To call it ghastly would be the understatement of the year.
Speaking of ghastly, Asgore cast a glance to the scientist trudging alongside him who looked like he, too, was one heartbeat away from fainting or collapsing again. Every offer of help, however, had been vehemently denied, in typical Gaster fashion.
He was putting on a brave face, of course, but there was the faintest hint of strain in his scowl and a twist to his lips that really didn't belong. The flickering still happened from time to time, but nothing too debilitating. A constant aura of colorful distortion seemed to surround him at all times, though; unnatural colors came off of him in waves, like a chameleon who had spent a little too much time drinking at Grillby's.
Asgore could only hope Alphys could do something, anything, to help him, or at the very least explain what on earth was going on. Part of him was still not fully convinced that he could really trust this situation at all.
Gaster had been a user of purple magic, before he vanished, and he'd been quite adept at it, too; weaving strings together in an almost spidery fashion, connecting the dots both on and off the battlefield. Distortion wasn't part of purple magic. In fact, it wasn't like any type of magic Asgore had ever seen before, even before the population number of monsters and especially magic-wielders had been decimated by humans who failed to understand and saw them as nothing but a threat.
But doubting him was getting old. Gaster looked like himself, talked like himself, and was just as infernally stubborn as he'd been before he vanished.
So why couldn't he just tell him what happened?
Asgore sighed.
"What is it?" Gaster asked, craning his head to look at him. Even that detail hadn't changed. He still kept Asgore on his blind side. That alone said more than words could ever; he still trusted him.
"Tell me again why you had to build the lab way out here," Asgore said in mock exasperation.
Gaster huffed a laugh. "You wanted power in the Underground. The one thing we have in abundance is heat. It made perfect sense to put the lab here."
The CORE. Gaster had built the CORE. For some reason, that fact hadn't occurred to him, even though it was obvious. Where else would the CORE had come from? Asgore was there for the entire construction. He was there, forcing Gaster to maintain some form of basic self-sustenance. And he was there when it blew up in his face, giving him those scars. It was a fact. So why did he feel like he was stumbling upon a forgotten memory?
"It is slow to return, hm?" Gaster asked, interrupting his thought process. Reading his mind again. "Interesting. I can only assume it is normal."
"I don't know what you mean."
Gaster flickered again, but didn't falter. "I will explain, in time. I have not found the words."
"Tease."
He received a joking eye-roll in response, and that was that.
They continued in relative silence with the weight of questioned unasked and unanswered between them, one foot in front of the other, while the excruciating heat seeped through Asgore's armor and wove itself through his fur into his very soul.
Asgore knew Gaster didn't like the Hotlands, either. There wasn't very much anyone knew about Gaster's particular sub-species of monster (and he'd always been particularly tight-lipped about the topic of his species in general), but Asgore knew for a fact that if given a choice, Gaster vastly preferred the cool, damp climate of Waterfall. At least, once upon a time, he did. And he used to ceaselessly remind him of it, too. Now, he was silent. Not one complaint out of him.
But indeed, it couldn't be helped. The CORE was here. The lab had to be here, too.
Fortunately, Alphys didn't seem to mind the heat nearly as much; she certainly didn't complain about it. But then, she never really did complain about anything, as it was. Logic dictated that her lizard-like physiology was certainly better-suited to the hot climate than either Asgore or Gaster, so he wasn't exactly concerned.
In the distance, the lab flickered into view, warped, distorted, and mirrored upward by the hot air in a fascinating mirage. It stuck out like a sore thumb, a white speck in a sea of red.
"Almost there," Asgore said, and at this point, he wasn't sure if it was more for Gaster's benefit or his own. Too much longer out in the sweltering heat and he would have been the next one to collapse. The last thing Alphys needed was more work on her hands.
Gaster cast a sidelong glance in his direction, face pulled into a grimace. "I am still not certain this is a good idea."
Asgore had to bite back a sigh. "It's a little too late for your third and fourth thoughts. I need water, you need medical attention. And probably also water." He could feel the rebuttal coming a mile away, could already hear the accented I do not need medical attention, even before Gaster could open his mouth. That, or some other put-down of Alphys. Some replacement you have chosen.
Gaster didn't even know Alphys, he'd vanished before she was ever even a consideration, before she ever even existed to them. Asgore couldn't even begin to fathom the reason behind his animosity towards her. The Great Dr. Gaster was supposed to be above jealousy, but now, Asgore wasn't so sure if that was true.
Clearly, Gaster thought better of speaking up again, for he did not respond. The irritation in the pinch of his brow and downward quirk of his lips said more than enough.
The lab was a truly massive complex, shining bright white like a beacon through the red haze and towering before them. Almost threatening.
Still, Asgore wasted no time and gave the door three firm knocks.
The sound was quiet, drowned out by the ominous noises echoing throughout the chamber full of lava that the lab was situation in. The bubbling of scorching hot lava, surrounding them like glowing hot sea, mixed with the constant, low hum of the CORE to create a backdrop of sound Asgore could only describe as threatening, bearing down on them just as much as the heat did.
And it was the middle of the night. In the heat, both literally and figuratively, of the moment, that fact had slipped his mind. It didn't make much of a visual difference, after all.
He was just about to knock again and had already formulated a Plan B and C that involved calling the lizard monster on the phone instead or just waiting (and potentially dying) in the heat until a more rational time flashed on the clock when the door opened a crack to reveal an extremely tired looking, bright orange lizard who looked like she'd just risen from the grave. Her eyes were barely open and unfocused, fixed on some point behind Asgore.
"I'm sorry," she said with a big yawn, voice still heavy with sleep, "We're closed, please come back to-"
She paused for a moment, her tired eyes finally squinting up at Asgore. She blinked. Blinked again.
It was like all tiredness left her in a single instant. Reeling backwards in shock, she scrambled to retrieve her glasses from her lab coat pocket that was currently functioning more like a bathrobe and hiding incredibly pink pyjamas underneath.
"A-Asgore! I'm so sorry! Oh gosh. Oh spirits. I'm so sorry. Please come in." The words tumbled out of her mouth like a waterfall, her one-eighty mood shift hitting Asgore like a freight train. She moved out of the way, pulling the door open to allow him in.
Asgore reached out to pat her on the shoulder as he pushed inside into the refreshingly cool, climatized space. "It's me who should be sorry, it's late, I'm sorry for forcing you out of bed. Trust me when I say I do not do so without reason."
"Yeah! Yes. Of course. What's up? What's going on?" she asked.
When he went to turn to Gaster, whose appearance alone would have said more than words, he wasn't at his side any longer. No. He'd migrated somewhere behind Asgore, where he wouldn't be spotted immediately. Of course. Asgore huffed, though it was without any real annoyance, and turned to the side so Alphys could see him.
"Well, you see, I have an unexpected guest," he said, motioning to the black-and-white monster.
Alphys' gaze flitted to Gaster while she nervously wrung her hands. "Uh. Hi! I'm Alphys. Who are you?"
Gaster scowled. Flickered. The question remained in the air, settling for an uncomfortable amount of time.
"This is Gaster," Asgore said, just to break the tension.
"Gaster?" Alphys echoed. Her eyes widened, banishing the last bit of sleepiness. "The Gaster? W.D. Gaster? Dr. W.D. Gaster?"
Asgore nodded, "The very same."
Alphys wasn't very old. She'd have been only a child when Gaster vanished. And suddenly, Asgore felt ancient. Which, in fairness, he was, but it was times like this that just really drove that home. Then there was the fact of the matter that Gaster, even when he was the active Royal Scientist, was notoriously media-shy and notorious for being, well, not the best at matters concerning social interaction (which at this point seemed almost like a prerequisite for being the Royal Scientist). Very little record of him existed in the time he was away. Asgore made a mental note to start taking more pictures, whether he liked it or not; nevermind the fact that everything was awful and he still hadn't explained a single thing and everything was different now and-
Asgore was going to dig up the old polaroid. Things being different be damned.
"So, uh. It's a pleasure to meet you! I've heard a lot about you." Alphys laughed, and the noise was just a touch hysterical in her nervousness. She extended a hand. It quivered in the air.
Gaster didn't even look, let alone make any attempt to shake it. Instead, he crossed his arms, levelling her with an icy cold stare.
The hand was slowly and awkwardly withdrawn in defeat.
"Right uhm. Sorry. Uh. What can I help you guys with?"
Still, Gaster didn't say a word. Not a single sound. At this point, it was beginning to grate on Asgore's nerves. In terms of people to meet, Alphys was quite possibly the sweetest and least-threatening individual in all of existence, and for all her awkwardness, she was trying.
So fine, if he wasn't going to volunteer any information himself, then Asgore would do the talking. That's how it often was. "As we all know, Gaster here has been gone for a little while. And doesn't seem to be doing so good. So I was hoping maybe you could help him."
The ice-cold stare was turned on him, if only for a moment. Gaster had always had a threatening aura, but now, it was a real thing, making the fur on Asgore's arms stand up. He wondered if he was merely imagining the ringing in his ears from stress or whether that was also a symptom of the sheer wrongness Gaster was exuding.
Uncertain, Alphys glanced between the two. "What's wrong?"
"I would not expect you to understand," Gaster bit out.
"Weird episodes. Flickering. Flashing. Look at him, that's not normal," Asgore supplied, gesturing up and down at Gaster, who flickered rather hard in response. It seemed to be tethered to his irritation, which would have been funny if it wasn't so concerning.
"What kind of episodes?" Alphys asked.
"This was a stupid idea, and I told you this from the start," Gaster snapped, turning his full body to glare up at Asgore. "She knows nothing. No one here does. How would you? How would you know anything at all? I only need access to the lab, I will figure it out."
Asgore raised an eyebrow, then shot Alphys an apologetic look. "I'd say he's not always like this but he's always like this. Excuse us for a second." And with that, he took Gaster by the shoulders and half-pushed, half-dragged him a few paces away, like one would a misbehaving child. Except that the "child" in question was over two centuries old and touching him still felt like grabbing a live wire, sending something like an electric shock through his arms. Still, he didn't let go.
Alphys just looked terrified, her shoulders pulled together as if expecting a blow.
"What is wrong with you?" Asgore said quietly, crossing his arms. "I know you're not happy about... being replaced, I get that, but you were gone for so long, and I had to. Where are your manners?"
"I just need access to the lab," Gaster repeated quietly, and Asgore couldn't tell if his bowed head was from sheepishness or quiet seething irritation. Most likely the latter. "That is all."
"You need to tell me what in the seven hells happened, is what you need to do."
"I do not know why I agreed to this."
Technically, he didn't, Asgore had threatened to carry him here and that was apparently bad enough of a threat to get him going. "Well we're here now and what I witnessed back there was not normal. We both know that. It's obvious, right? And I think some part of you wants help, otherwise you wouldn't be here at all. So let her take a look. Maybe there's something she can do. And for spirits' sake, Gaster, be nice. She hasn't done anything to you."
Gaster considered him for a long time, and Asgore held his intense look with ease and a glimmer of challenge in his eyes.
"Fine."
Which really, was just another testament to the fact that Gaster really wasn't doing good at all, aside from the fact that they were here at all.
"Alright." Asgore nodded and let go so they could turn back to Alphys, who had not moved a single muscle in the time that they'd spoken. Fight, flight, freeze, it went, and Alphys was frozen in place.
Chin tilted upward in a show of confidence, Gaster stepped out from behind Asgore, carefully regarding Alphys.
"This is not a conversation to be had outside closed doors," he said firmly, and Alphys had enough mind to scamper away from her spot at the door, letting it swing open in her wake. Gaster stepped inside with his hands folded behind his back. If the sight of the lab stirred any emotion in him, his body language didn't show.
Asgore had almost forgotten how terrifying he could be, when he wanted to. Alphys and Gaster were like a night-and-day difference.
With a sigh, Asgore stepped in behind them and shut the door, relishing the relief of the cooler air within the lab against his heated fur.
"If you have any recording devices nearby," Gaster began, tilting his head toward the large monitor on the far side of the lab, "Or your cybernetic friend, I must ask that you disable them immediately."
Cybernetic friend. Mettaton. Not that Asgore kept up with the flamboyant robot - the robot that had secured Alphys' position as royal scientist - but he was quite sure that if he was there, they would have heard from him. That, however, was not the most pressing concern.
Mettaton had been created long after Gaster had vanished. The cold feeling in the pit of Asgore's gut worsened.
"He's not here. He's a-at the resort." Alphys seemed to fold in on herself even further, shooting Asgore a fearful look. Perhaps she, too, had picked up on the inconsistency. No, she definitely had. "How do you know about-"
Impatient, Gaster strode to the console of the large monitoring device, pressing his holed palm flat to the center of it and-
The lights flickered on and off. The wrongness shot across the whole building, hitting them like a wave, similar in nature to the one before but significantly weaker. Its effect the electronics nearby was instant. By the time the lights steadied, the monitor remained off, and Gaster made a sound somewhere between a labored breath and a sigh. For the briefest of moments, he looked surprised, even pleased with himself. Meanwhile, Alphys had cowered behind Asgore, who himself couldn't help his fur standing on end in fear at the display.
After a brief pause, a breath to steel himself, Gaster turned back toward the two. "I would ask what you know about the thing you chose to name Determination, but that seems like a rather pointless question. And I would hate to waste even more time. So let me... how do you say... 'cut to the chase'."
Alphys perked up, looking startled.
"What I am about to say might sound insane. It is insane. But I need you to trust me. I need you to believe me, this time." The last statement, Asgore knew, was a barbed spike pointed specifically in his direction. He continued, speaking more to Asgore than to Alphys. "Do you remember my theories on Determination? That the humans are in possession of supernatural powers transcending our idea of reality?"
"Yes, of course," Asgore said, straightening up. It had been Gaster's biggest theory, and it hadn't won him any friends. Especially not Toriel. He'd built a machine... what ever had happened to that machine? Asgore genuinely couldn't remember.
"I wish I could say I was pleased to have been right, but-" Gaster flickered again, and this time, it was getting bad enough to force him to lean against the nearest surface. "I am very much not."
"You mean to say you carry Determination?" Alphys asked carefully, almost too quiet to hear.
Gaster laughed humorlessly. "No. Well, perhaps. Spirits only know what happened when the human found me."
"You saw the human?" Asgore asked.
"If it were not for the human, I would not be here right now," Gaster replied, "The human, no, the entity meddled with one of the variables that makes up our world. The gray room between space and time - it exists only if a certain value is set to, or is randomly generated, to be 66."
Asgore blinked. "Values?"
"Yes." The look Gaster gave him was grave enough to send a shiver down Asgore's spine. The flickering intensified even further, distortion creeping into even his voice and lending it an almost robotic quality, as if he was speaking through a bad phone line and wasn't right there in the room with them. "... All of this is not real. This, our reality, it is nothing but a game. Everything is made of values, of commands, of things beyond our imagination."
"Metaphorically?" Asgore asked.
A sad smile. "Literally. The human, the entity, it is a player."
Gaster was right. Asgore didn't believe him. Didn't want to, really. If everything was a game, did anything they ever did matter?
Still, this once, he would suspend disbelief. "All humans?"
"No," came the prompt response, though he quickly amended, "Not that I know of. The human who is here now, it is important. Different. It has the entity within. It lacks a character of its own. The other humans... they had abilities, but they did not have the entity."
"That's... insane," Alphys remarked, "How do you know?"
"For the past... how long was it?" Gaster turned to Asgore. "How long was it in your time?"
Our time? "Fifteen years," he supplied, and crossed his arms.
The scientist nodded. "Right. Fifteen years. For the past fifteen years I existed quite literally outside of reality as we know it. Chara... they knew that I knew. What they were capable of. What they were doing."
Even the mention of the name, of Chara, knocked the wind out of Asgore's lungs. Of course it would all come back to Chara, in the end. There was only so long that he could run from the truth.
"You do not understand what they are capable of", Gaster had said, uncharacteristically desperate. "Please, you must believe me. The power humans hold, it is beyond any of our imaginations. Cast them out while you still can. They cannot remain here."
The very next day, the CORE experienced a rather explosive malfunction in the middle of the night, and Gaster, dripping with blood, wrapped in bandages, almost torn apart by shrapnel and burns and half-delirious on pain medication he hadn't wanted to take, had begged him to believe him. Chara was trying to kill him, he'd said. Would probably make an attempt on Asgore's life, too. Gaster never begged. But he did, then. Begged him to listen. Begged him to understand. Begged him to stay safe.
They didn't listen. Toriel accused him of trying to pin the blame for his own failure on a child and sent him away. Asgore didn't want to believe him. He didn't want to believe him even when he was vomiting his guts out when Chara had made him pie improperly baked with buttercups. It was a mistake, he'd convinced himself. It wasn't true. Chara would never be so cruel, wasn't capable of such callousness. They were just a child. Gaster had a grudge on humans, as did most monsters, of course he would believe them all evil. He just didn't understand.
Then Gaster vanished, without a trace.
Chara died, not long after that. They'd poisoned themselves and dragged Asriel with them to their doom.
And Asgore was alone.
"Chara erased me," Gaster said. "Threw me into my machine. I did not exist. I came to mind recently, did I not? Rather suddenly."
"... Yes. You did," Asgore said, though the conversation with Sans in the roundtable room felt like a lifetime ago, even if it was only earlier this evening. Who is He?
He is here.
He is back.
"For fifteen years, I did not exist. Every reference to me was wiped. But I saw everything. Do you know what it is like, to watch life move on as if you never existed?" Gaster laughed again, an edge of desperation to the sound, his composure rapidly slipping. Yet another thing to add to the list of deeply unsettling things Asgore had witnessed within the last twelve hours. "Watch everyone forget about you."
Something painful clenched in Asgore's chest. "But I remember you."
"You do now. The game... it filled the gaps. Filled the continuity. Could not just leave the holes." The bitterness in Gaster's voice was unmistakable.
Asgore put a steadying hand on his shoulder, pretended not to notice the shudder that went through the scientist's lanky frame and ignored the way touching him was painful. The intensity of the flickering seemed to correlate with just how awful touching him felt. Still, he didn't let go.
"Why is this happening to you?" Asgore asked. "Can we help you?"
"I do not know," Gaster said. "I have a theory. I came back wrong, incomplete, with knowledge I was never meant to have. The game sees me as a mistake, as a glitch. And when the human LOADs, the game tries to get rid of the error. When a computer malfunctions, you turn it on and off again. Ideally, no more error. Same concept."
"LOAD?" Alphys piped up again. Asgore had almost forgotten she was there at all. Judging by Gaster's soured expression, he had too.
"The human can SAVE and LOAD. When it dies, when it fails, whenever it feels like it, it can go back to a previous save point," Gaster explained.
"Like a videogame," Alphys said, realization dawning on her.
Gaster groaned. "Yes. That is quite literally what I said. Pay attention."
"Well yes but it's! A little bit crazy! Sorry!" Alphys hastily explained. "It's just a lot. Like, a lot a lot. A lot to process. I'm sorry." Then quieter: "I was listening. I really was."
"Of course you were," Gaster hissed, sarcasm dripping from his voice like venom.
"Gaster!" Asgore snapped, and Gaster at least had the decency to shrink back a bit. Alphys just looked mortified. Asgore didn't blame her. "It is a lot, and it is late. We are trying to help you."
Gaster huffed, frustration evident. "I do not think any of you can. As I have said. Repeatedly. Or do you have experience with being erased from time and space? If so, please, do enlighten me. I am all ears."
"Alright, well... no..." Asgore replied with a defeated sigh of his own. Sighs all around today. "You were explaining. Proceed."
"The SAVE and LOAD. Earlier, in the dungeon, you and I, we left, together. We made it to the entrance. It loaded. You were thrown back to where you were at the time of the save point - rewound, like a cassette. I was not. I remained where I was at the point of the LOAD. I was not trying to escape, for the record," Gaster said, and suddenly, everything made a lot more sense. Finding him flashing on the ground.
"You were almost deleted again?" Asgore asked.
"I am not supposed to exist, not like this," Gaster replied, staring at the floor as if it held the answers. Yes.
Alphys shuffled closer, hesitation evident in her steps. "So, you have Determination, then. At least some form of it. If you aren't affected by their powers anymore."
"I suppose so. Yes." Gaster tilted his head to the side. "But not the way a human does. Certainly not in the way the player does."
"And the current human is the Player," she said, repeating his words from earlier for confirmation.
"Yes. And it is getting bored. It has already tried so many things, played the game so many times. Everything. From saving everyone, to killing everyone, to killing only every other monster... it has tried so many things. And at the end of it all, it resets. I cannot let that happen again."
"And what about you?" Asgore asked. "Will you be alright?"
"I do not know. It is a process, but I will get used to it. I have to. Working out a way to get the player out is top priority right now, and that is where you two can help. You-" He spun to Alphys, "For what it is worth, you managed to build the DT Extraction Machine. I do not think that is enough to keep the player entity from simply resetting, but it is a place to start, at least."
"So... just like the others then?" Alphys asked.
"No, not quite. I do not know yet. But first, I am... lost. I do not know what it has done in this timeline. What was fifteen years for you... it was more, for me. Things blur. And I need to know how much of a threat it is," Gaster said.
Asgore crossed his arms. "And how do you intend to do that? I don't think it has been particularly violent."
A pinprick pupil met his eyes again. "I need to know if it took the knife."
Chapter Text
"The knife," Asgore echoed. "What knife?"
Whatever Gaster's response was, Alphys did not hear it. Couldn't, really, even if she wanted to. Her head was spinning like a children's top, around and around, looping into endless spirals of thought with no start and no end. If only she'd stayed in bed, she thought, if only she hadn't opened the door, she could have avoided all of this. Nothing good ever came from spontaneous nighttime visitations.
Gaster looked like a thing straight from her nightmares. Freakishly tall, freakishly pale, freakishly everything. And worse still, he was cruel. His stare sent shivers down her spine from the very moment she first laid eyes upon him, and that wasn't even considering the aura of pure wrongness he seemed to radiate, distorting like the image on an old television in a way that didn't seem physically possible. It was like he wasn't really there - a mere hologram, the projection of something alive.
Whatever she imagined her predecessor to be like, this was very much not it. She didn't imagine a monster in the purest sense of the word, with black eyes and pinprick pupils and scars that seemed to run up and down his face like rivulets of tar. And Asgore, Asgore was a kind king, a sweet monster, and she just couldn't seem to connect the dots between the two. It didn't make sense. How could the former royal scientist, first of his kind and former right-hand-monster to Asgore, a monster that the king had grieved for half a decade, be so completely and totally opposite to him in every single way?
Something was clearly wrong, but Alphys didn't have the first idea what. All she could hope was that whatever he'd done to the monitor was reversible, and that whatever he'd done wasn't something she would ever have to witness on living, breathing monsters.
They were talking, the two of them, about the human, about the knife, about a number of things that Alphys wasn't really listening to. Gaster respected Asgore, that much was clear. Not her. He'd come into her lab and been nothing but confrontational with her. Why? Why, why, why?
It was too late for this, though Alphys wasn't sure there was ever a good time for the past to come knocking on the door like this in the first place. And all she wanted to do was return to bed and pretend all of this was just a dream.
This really couldn't be real. Hells, if Gaster was to be believed, it apparently wasn't. Apparently her whole life was just a lie. Apparently everything was just a game. The implications of that were so large, she didn't even know where to begin processing it. She wasn't even sure if she could. Every way she spun the thought, it didn't make sense. It was as though the thought itself was covered in spikes, stabbing her every time she got closer and throwing her right back to the start.
It didn't make sense.
None of this made sense.
It didn't even matter, really, it didn't. Game or not, she had the misfortune of existing, a waste of space, a waste of breath. She was going to be replaced, that much was certain. What was the point of her now that Gaster was back? Gaster was back, Gaster was terrifying, and Gaster hated her, even though she'd never seen him before in her life. Worse still, Asgore trusted Gaster. He cared about him. She could see it in the tender expressions, hear it in the tone of his voice. His relief at Gaster's return was palpable, joy and concern mixed in equal measure. The monochrome monster was more than just an employee and more than just a subordinate. More than whatever she was to him.
And now, here they were, coming to Alphys for help, but Alphys didn't know the first thing about any of what Gaster was talking about, and she didn't even know where to begin trying to help him. This was the end for her. Who would ever even care about a stupid lizard and her stupid robot and-
"Alphys!" Asgore called, loudly wrenching her back to the here and now.
With a shaky breath, Alphys looked up to meet a concerned look from Asgore and a clearly annoyed one from Gaster. It was clear that the King had called out to her several times.
"Uh... y-yeah?" she said, and her voice wavered in a way that was impossible to mask. She was out of breath, her chest hurt, she'd been breathing too fast and gripping her arm in a way she was only now becoming aware of was quite painful, actually.
"I need to have a word with you," Asgore said, and Alphys' heart dropped into her stomach once again. Not that it had ever made it back to the correct place in her chest. "Perhaps we could step outside for a moment. Get some fresh air."
Uncertain, she glanced toward their guest, who still stood leaning heavily against the now-disabled console of the camera system, seemingly unbothered by the request.
"S-sure," she said. Because really, what else was she going to say? "Lead the way."
Asgore nodded and, with a small smile, put his hand around her shoulders before ushering her out the lab door.
"We'll be back in a moment. Kindly don't touch anything," he said over his shoulder before stepping out and letting the door close behind him with a soft whoosh. It occurred to her, then, that maybe leaving Gaster alone in the lab he very clearly wanted undisturbed access to maybe wasn't the very best idea anyone's ever had. Too late now, she supposed.
The air here was certainly outside but very much not fresh. Not that Alphys minded the heat. Quite the opposite, really. Lizards like her thrived in the heat. But she could clearly see the discomfort in the pinch of Asgore's brow, despite the warm smile. It was hot, and Asgore wasn't built for hot. Nor was he dressed for it, really. The armor couldn't have been comfortable.
He hadn't let go of her shoulders, steering her so she had no choice but to make eye contact with him. "Are you alright?" he asked.
And for a moment, his concern was for her.
Alphys gnawed on her lip, thinking briefly on what to say. "It's just... a lot to take in, that's all. The game thing. And uh. Him."
"He is quite the character," the King agreed. "I would be lying if I said I knew what to think, about any of it."
She gave a nervous laugh, fidgeting from one foot to another and desperately avoiding eye contact. A million questions hung in the air, unasked and in turn unanswered.
What happens now? Will you take him back? Will he replace me? What will happen to me? Why do you like him? Why is he here? Why does he hate me? Do you hate me? Does everyone hate me? Does he-
She wasn't sure there was even an answer to most of those question, and so they died on her tongue, heavy and thick like ash. Her throat felt tight.
"Try not to take what he says too personally," Asgore said, finally relinquishing his hold on her shoulders to instead stare out across the vast pools of lava that made up the Hotlands. "I wasn't joking when I said he's always like this. Gaster is nothing if not upfront. It's his best and worst trait."
With a sigh, Alphys crouched down, hugging her arms around her knees. "He hates me."
Asgore shrugged. "He doesn't know you."
"But he hates me," she repeated, more firmly. It was undeniable. Even Asgore could see that, surely.
"I think that Gaster is having a bit of a tough time right now. He's been gone a long time, something is clearly wrong, and I think he's scared. Just as scared as we are. Probably more. And I think, underneath all that bristly exterior, he's just... hurt and afraid. He's a monster just like you and me, at the end of the day," Asgore said, and sat down beside her. He let his cloak flare out behind him.
"You took over for him, while he was gone. As much as he pretends to be above it all, I think he's not above being just a mite jealous."
Took over for him while he was gone. So she was just a substitute. Alphys swallowed past the lump in her throat, hoping that the tears that threatened to spill would stay put.
"What's he got to be jealous of?" she asked.
"I had to replace him. That wasn't an easy thing to do. And I can't imagine it's very easy to find you've been replaced, either," he replied.
"But he was gone for so long. Surely even he sees that it was necessary."
"I think he does. But feelings aren't always rational. He's hurt, he's afraid, and he's lashing out in every possible direction. It's not ideal but... we need to cut him some slack. Let him get his bearings. I'm sure he'll come round," Asgore said, his voice a low rumble.
Be the better monster. But Alphys was tired of being the better monster. Yeah, what Asgore said made sense, but Alphys was exhausted. All she wanted was to go back to bed and not deal with this grumpy intruder who was supposed to be dead and had decided to essentially rise from the grave to give her a hard time and turn her world upside-down. So why did she have to be better?
Because you're the royal scientist, and that's what a good royal scientist does.
She would be better than him, and she would prove that she was worth keeping.
"Are you ready to go back inside?" Asgore asked.
It's not like she had a choice.
The panic fluttering in Alphys' chest flared back to life when they stepped back into the lab and Gaster was no longer standing at the monitor. Luckily, in just a few paces forward, it turned out that Gaster actually was still exactly where they'd left him, though he'd taken to sitting down with his back up against the machine with his head bowed forward so that he wasn't immediately visible from the door. That felt like something of a miracle.
Alphys let out a sigh of relief, while Asgore moved past her at a rather quick pace to kneel down beside the prone monster.
"Hey, Wingy, are you still with us?" he asked, lightly nudging Gaster's shoulder. Alphys barely had time to wonder about the odd name when Gaster cracked an eye - the one working one - to peer up at Asgore with a shade of annoyance quite unlike the kind he'd shown Alphys. This annoyance was almost playful. It lacked heat, lacked claws, lacked bite.
"Do not call me that," Gaster grumbled, pushing himself into a more upright sitting position.
Asgore grinned, victoriously clapping him on the shoulder. "You know you can't stop me."
"I think you will find I can do a great many things."
"And changing your name isn't one of them," Asgore pointed out. "Can't run from the truth."
Alphys drew closer, tilting her head to the side. "Your name is Wingy?"
It would explain the W. in W. D. Gaster, at least.
Gaster huffed in clear exasperation, letting his head hit the surface behind him with a dull thump. "Do not call me Wingy. It is not my name, no matter what Asgore will have you believe."
"It's close enough," Asgore shrugged. "And it gets the job done. You're awake now, aren't you?"
"I thought you wanted me to rest," Gaster grumbled. "Here I am. Resting. Just as you wanted."
"Yeah, on the floor. That simply cannot be good for your back. We're getting older, old friend," Asgore said.
"It is a perfectly good floor to rest on."
Alphys took another step forward. "So... if it's not Wingy, what is your name?" she asked. An olive branch. An attempt to get to know him. And she always had wondered what the W. D. had stood for.
But then, she really didn't know what she was expecting.
"I do not see why I should tell you," Gaster said.
"He's sensitive about it," Asgore supplied, earning another glare. "His name actually isn't even Gaster. He earned that nickname with his award-winning personality. Ghastly Gaster."
Gaster groaned.
"O-okay," Alphys said, unwilling to further pursue the subject and unwilling to witness this display that was uncomfortably close to watching the bickering and teasing of an old married couple. Now she didn't even know what was true and what wasn't, and she found that she really didn't care at this point. "Well... you look really tired... but we should probably run a few tests. You know. In case."
After all, it wouldn't have been the first time something had gone terribly wrong in the space of a single rest.
There was no counterargument made, so she cleared her throat and began digging through her various drawers for anything and everything that could be useful. A stethoscope, some syringes, some healing items. The basics. Medical stuff was never quite her specialty, there were other monsters who were better at it than her. Idly, she found herself wondering if Gaster had ever been much of a medic. The thought alone was terrifying. His bedside manner must be appalling.
"So," she began, padding closer to Gaster and kneeling beside him. He really did look exhausted, up close. "You're not fallen down."
He side-eyed her. "Clearly not."
"But... were you? You know, at any point?"
The look she received in reply was another one of his signature spine-tingling, all-knowing and deeply disappointed stares that left her feeling, once again, like a trapped bug, skewered by a nail in the styrofoam of existence. It was like he could see her very SOUL. Maybe he could. Nothing was really off the table, at the moment.
"No. Not that I know of," he said, "Though not for lack of trying. They tried. Quite hard. A valiant effort was made."
"They?"
"Chara."
"Oh." Alphys looked to Asgore, watched him once again bow his head down low.
It's funny, Asgore had always had unshakable father-ly qualities to him, but Alphys had never really known him as an actual father outside of the VHS tapes she'd found in the castle oh-so-long ago. Like so many things, his children were a thing of the past, long before her own involvement with the royal family. Yet another thing she knew of but now much about. Naturally, Chara was still a sore spot, even all these years later. For Gaster, they seemed like less of a sore spot and more of an open wound.
All Alphys knew was that Chara was human, and that they had died along with Prince Asriel.
Her heart ached for Asgore.
And maybe she was just imagining it, but she swore she could see Gaster's expression soften marginally, too.
"I am not fallen down. I was never fallen down. What happened was something else," Gaster said. "Something is different. I have not been able to establish exactly what."
Alphys shuffled forward a fraction, wringing her hands together and mustering up the courage to speak again. "I would like to CHECK you. If that's okay."
She received another suspicious sidelong glance, but ultimately, he bowed his head and broke the eye contact in a way that felt oddly like he was giving up. Submitting to her scrutiny. "Do what you must."
With a steadying breath, she reached out to him with her SOUL, summoning him onto the battlefield. Usually, this action wouldn't be hard at all, but there was a resistance, and one that was stronger than just a monster unwilling to enter a FIGHT. It was like his SOUL was distant, far away, but close at the same time.
"You have to let me in," she said softly.
"I am trying," came the curt reply.
His SOUL, she could see it now, slowly drawing closer, shaking and glitching in place, its form distorted against the green lines of the encounter space; a place which, come to think of it - which was something she really, really didn't want to do - wasn't at all dissimilar to a game.
The entire space felt wrong. Remaining there, in that theoretical space, took effort.
Still, she pushed forward.
Upon closer inspection she found the his SOUL was glowing a faint purple, bright against the dark space.
*CHECK
* [SPR_MYSTERYMAN] 66666 ATK 66666 DEF
* [REDACTED]
* [REDACTED]
Her heart pounded against her ribs. There was not a single being, not monster nor human, that had stats like those. If he decided to attack her -
But he didn't. His turn passed. He fled the battlefield. And just like that, they were back in the lab.
Alphys reeled backwards, putting some distance between her and Gaster.
"Alphys?" Asgore asked carefully.
"I'm fine!" she squeaked, "It's just... I didn't expected... it's mostly redacted. But the stats... the stats are high. Unusually high."
"When you say unusually high-" Asgore said.
"I mean impossibly high. I have never, ever, ever seen stats like those."
Meanwhile, Gaster himself looked just a bit shaken, his eyes glued to the floor, palms rooted to the ground and still distorting quite horribly. Worse than before, even.
"And you didn't sense that? That there was a change?" she ventured.
"Of course I did," he replied sharply, on the defensive. "But everything is wrong and I could not see the exact statistics." He paused, then continued with surprising earnestness. "Thank you for confirming my suspicions."
It caught her off guard.
"And the SOUL?" he asked.
"I mean, you still have a SOUL. It's not a normal monster SOUL, though."
"Explain."
"It had a color. Very faint. But there. Like... like a human." Purple, the color of Perseverance, if she wasn't mistaken. The fifth human to fall. How odd.
"Gaster, you said the human found you, correct?" Asgore said. "So... you really do carry determination?"
"It does not make sense." Gaster pushed up from the ground and began feverishly pacing. "Though perhaps it does. The human, the red human, it... opened the door. The door to reality. Without its Determination, I would not have been able to come back."
"So Determination is contagious?" Asgore raised an eyebrow.
"Do not be ridiculous. If it was contagious, we would not have the problems we do," Gaster said, rolling his eye. "Monsters would be able to cross the barrier and everything would be... how would you put it... 'hunky dory'."
"Hearing that word from you sounds wrong," Asgore remarked with a huff.
"So the human touched you, and uh... pulled you back to reality?" Alphys asked.
"Yes. It anchored me. I was too surprised to think too much on it." Gaster paused his persistent pacing, bringing his fingers to rest on his chin. Thinking.
"And you've had the abilities since then?"
"Yes. I was able to..." he waved his hand in the air, looking for the right word. "Teleport, I suppose. Away from that accursed room. But that is not an ability that the entity has. At least, not to my knowledge."
"But you said this was a game," Alphys said, cogs whirring in her still too-tired brain. Thankfully, she'd reached that level of sleep deprivation where she suddenly had too much energy again. "And games have cheats. You know. Like no-clip. Or like... teleporting."
"Determination is just extended permissions," Gaster concluded. "Just as I theorized. But I did not have a word for it. I did not have the understanding for it. Close, but too far. It has to be viewed from the lens of the Game. Then it makes sense. It would explain this... feeling."
"Care to explain?" Asgore asked.
"Data, at my fingertips. So much information, I do not know what to do with it. It is noisy," he replied. "I could reach out, push in the right way, pull in another. Alter the fabric of reality."
"That's... weird," Alphys said. "Like a peak behind the curtain."
Gaster huffed a laugh, and Alphys realized that for the first time in the last hour or so, the tension in the air had eased up. For a moment, they were just two scientists facing the same problem. "I suppose."
"Maybe we can do some more tests," Alphys suggested, wandering back to the spread out equipment. "Like we did in the beginning, with the humans. I could take a sample."
"It would make sense, yes," Gaster replied, albeit with noticeable hesitation. "I would like to perform the tests myself."
"I can do it. I've done it before. I'll be gentle," she said, trying very hard to ignore what was almost certainly another jab at her abilities or lack thereof. "Just one quick poke and it will be over, okay? I won't hurt you."
For a moment, Gaster looked uncertain, albeit unconvinced. Alphys padded closer, slow and steady as one would approach a wounded animal. He watched her silently, coiled like a spring under pressure, and every step she took towards him seemed to just wind him tighter.
"No," he said finally, firmly, teleporting a few meters backward and shooting her a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. "I am perfectly capable of extracting samples. And I am perfectly capable of running the tests myself."
"Gaster..." Asgore sighed. "What difference does it make?"
"It makes all the difference in the world," Gaster snarled. "It is important."
Asgore sighed yet another, long-suffering sigh. "Alphys, would you be alright with that?"
With him using her equipment. With them sharing the lab. With another step toward undermining her authority in her own lab. With another step toward her own replacement.
But what was she going to say? No? To the King?
It wasn't like she had a choice.
She gave a nod, stepping back with her head bowed.
Gaster slunk past her like a furious alley cat, taking one of the syringes between his skinny fingers.
"Surely this can wait for the morning," Asgore said. "It has been a long, long day. And I think we could all use some rest."
"Y-you can stay here for tonight," Alphys offered. "And then we can run tests in the morning."
"That would be good," Asgore said, smiling a tired smile. Gaster just glared at her.
"Okay," she said and scuttled off to prepare two of the hospital beds. It wasn't often she had overnight visitors, and it wasn't like she had a guest room or anything. But these would do. They were actually quite comfortable; she'd spent many an afternoon taking a small nap here.
The rapid change in tone made her head spin. One minute everything was alright, the next moment it was straight back to the open hostility. And all over some stupid tests that he'd agreed were necessary. She'd done tests like them before.
They hadn't gone well.
But Gaster was gone for all that time.
How would he know?
And anyway, the tests they had to do were nothing like those tests. All they had in common was Determination.
There was no way he knew.
Was there?
Notes:
Happy (slighly belated) Eggster Day to those who celebrate!
I know it's been a hot second since I updated but I'm still alive. Time for the Alphys hate train (respectfully). homegirl's done some dumb shit and we will be here to call her on it.
if you see an error no you didn't its 2:30 AMThanks for reading and as always concrit is welcome :)
Chapter Text
The night passed, blessedly, without any further incident after wrangling Gaster onto a spare medical cot and insisting he at least try to get some sleep after at least twenty-four hours without - not counting the fifteen years in between. Alphys needed sleep, Asgore needed sleep, but above all else, Asgore could tell there was a tiredness to Gaster that he wasn't used to seeing so openly, dark gray bruises under his eyes betraying his severe sleep deprivation.
He hadn't changed one bit. Before he'd died - no, he hadn't died, merely vanished - he'd looked just the same. Exhausted. He'd run himself ragged trying to fix the CORE following the explosion. More importantly, it would have been foolish to assume he would ever just drop his theories on determination. Not Gaster. Not this. It didn't matter how often Toriel scolded him or with how much vitriol she did so. It didn't matter that he was expressly forbidden from continuing his work on the matter and urged to 'mop up his mistakes' in the CORE. By the end of it, the sleepless nights and lack of self-care had been evident.
Though it still drove a twisting, sharp feeling through his chest to admit it, Asgore had more than once considered the fact that perhaps the scientist's disappearance had been of the more self-inflicted variety. The permanent self-inflicted variety. Not that Gaster'd ever been one for emotional vulnerability, but the war had taken its toll on them all. It was an ending Asgore himself had considered. The only thing that kept him here was the weight of his responsibilities. Meanwhile, Gaster had been all but forced to give up his own in the days leading up to his disappearance. And yet still, when grief ran its course and anger turned to sadness, to bargaining, Asgore found himself wondering if there was something he could have done to stop him.
The worst part was that the answer was a resounding yes. He could have done anything other than what he'd done, could have done anything but settle into a quiet, uneasy complacency.
The tiredness had even more of an edge to it now, running much, much deeper than just a lack of sleep.
There were some things Asgore didn't even know how to begin fixing. Many things, in fact. This was just one of them. The newest fire in hell. But he did know how to fix sleep deprivation, and it spoke to how exhausted the first royal scientist had been for the fact that he had almost immediately passed out as soon as he'd been forced to rest.
Even in sleep, his features remained tight, brief relaxation giving way to what were likely nightmares, judging by the scowl etched into his pale features.
Asgore could relate to that. Sleep came much harder to him; his mind working overtime to process any of the past twenty years, let alone the past twenty-four hours. It came for him eventually. At the end of the day, he was just a living being that needed sleep as much as the next monster.
By the time he'd woken up, he'd just about managed to convince himself that all of it had been a dream. The knowledge he'd gained felt... loose, somehow. Like it was a live fish, wiggling and slimy and constantly seeking to evade his grasp.
He's back.
Who's back?
Gaster. Gaster was back. He was back? Yes. Yes, he was back.
Blinking the tiredness from his eyes and stretching with a purposefully melodramatic groan, he pushed himself into a sitting position.
Was he actually back? A quick glance around the lab only served to prove that he wasn't on the cot where he'd fallen asleep the night before.
"Asgore. You are awake," Gaster said from somewhere behind him, not even looking up from where he'd been scrawling symbols upon symbols on spare sheets of paper that he hoped weren't something Alphys still needed. The bruises under his eyes hadn't lessened.
Asgore yawned demonstratively. "Good morning to you too."
"Yes, yes. Morning. There are things to do. You, too. Responsibilities, I assume?"
"Something like that." Though, at the moment, this situation took top priority. The human could probably wait. The human, actually, would have to wait. "What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"Enlighten me?"
Putting the pen down, Gaster scowled at the paper before him. "I am attempting to make sense of all of this. It does not. Make sense, I mean. I just- well," he said, hands tracing arcs in the air as he struggled to explain. Like his hand was supplying a secondary line of thought. It wasn't the first time Asgore wished he understood the scientist's native language, it was certainly fascinating with its combination of spoken word and hand-gestures, but alas. "All of this data. It does not make sense. What happened does not make sense."
"... how much did you actually sleep?" Asgore asked, eyeing the stacks of paper; an impressive amount that certainly wasn't there yesterday.
"Does it matter?"
Not very much, apparently. "What's the writing about?"
"Determination. What else? I need to understand the entity. I need to document. It is my job. To document. And I need to understand what..." Gaster trailed off, gaze drifting to the floor, hands stilling and sinking down uselessly. His expression seemed pained, though not in a physical sense. It was shame, Asgore realized.
"What happened to you," he supplied.
"...yes. What happened to me. What is happening to me."
With a soft sigh, Asgore rose to his feet and closed the distance between them, bridging the distance with a heavy hand on Gaster's boney shoulder. Still a live wire. Still wrong.
"Do not do that," Gaster said, quietly, his gaze still stuck to the floor.
"Do what?"
"Pity. I do not want it. My priority lies with the safety of the Underground. That is what is important."
"You know you're allowed to be a little afraid of what's happening, right?"
For a moment, Gaster's resemblance to a cornered animal was quite striking, with his eye blown wide and posture hunched in on itself. With a wave of the hand and shake of the head, he dismissed the thought. "The human. Where is it? It was in Waterfall yesterday. Was it not? Where would it be now?"
Asgore shrugged. "I don't know. That's Undyne's area, though. I'm sure she has an eye on it. Either they went to Waterfall, or backtracked to Snowdin. There's a hotel there. Real nice place."
"We need to go there," Gaster said firmly. "No. Not there. The ruins. The knife."
"What is it about that knife?"
"It is important."
Well clearly it was, to him. Asgore failed to see the relevance, if he was being honest. If the human really wanted to hurt monsters, surely it didn't matter what weapon they chose. But it was important to Gaster. He sighed heavily. Not only was it important to Gaster, but it also provided a necessary break to Alphys, who hadn't even left her room yet. Hiding, if he had to hazard a guess; trying to find the courage to face a doubtlessly difficult situation. The ruins though? Well.
"Fine. Alright. Suppose I'm overdue a visit to Snowdin anyway."
The River Person had always been a bit of a mystery, like a great many things in the Underground were. They were always there when you needed them, an almost supernatural streak of luck or perhaps evidence of something more. Asgore didn't want to think about it too hard.
As they approached, the River Person turned their head to face them, their face hidden in an unsettling shroud of darkness that persisted no matter which way they turned their head; a mass of sheer, unrelenting absence of light nestled within their hood. Truthfully, Asgore wasn't even sure they had a face. Perhaps it was a situation like the licking flames that made up the body of the kindly bartender back in Snowdin and there wasn't actually anything beneath that hood. It didn't matter, in the end. Monsters were a mysterious bunch, and the River Person was no different.
For a long moment, they simply observed, head tilted to the side as they regarded Asgore first, then Gaster.
"Greetings," Asgore said with a smile. "We were wondering if we could get a ride to Snowdin?"
More silence. Then, just when Asgore was afraid they were just going to remain that way, staring up at them with an unreadable expression, they finally spoke.
"Tra la la. Tri li li. Join me."
Shooting a glance back at Gaster, who seemed profoundly unbothered by the entire interaction, he climbed onto the small canoe with Gaster in tow.
"The man who speaks in hands," the River Person spoke, "Returned at last?"
"Something of the sort," Gaster replied, observing them with a schooled expression. "You have been busy, I take it?"
"Tra la la. Humans, monsters... flowers."
Gaster hummed. A low sound signalling he understood exactly what he was talking about, which was rather quite practical, seeing as Asgore really, really didn't.
"Flowers?" Asgore said, tilting his head to the side. "What do you mean, flowers?"
"Tra la la. The root of evil. Beware those that have no SOUL."
It was entirely too early in the morning for riddles, Asgore decided with a soft sigh. Beware those with no SOUL? Sure. Easy enough. It wasn't like soullessness was a particularly common affliction, or one he'd ever really come across at all. There were few rules to life, but one of them tended to be that those that lived tended to have a SOUL, whether it be a monster or a human. And Asgore really didn't have the time or capacity to start fearing the local flora.
"Last week it was 'beware the man that came from the other world'," Gaster said. "I must say, your anecdotes are truly... special."
"Tri li li. Though true they shall remain. Beware."
"And yet, here you are."
"Tru lu lu. This is true. Beware... be aware. Tra la la."
"Yes. You were aware. Care to explain?"
Slowly, the River Person turned their head to level Gaster with a silent stare, though it didn't last for very long. Responsible drivers kept their eyes on the road and all.
Gaster sighed. "I see."
Asgore raised an eyebrow. Small talk from Gaster wasn't exactly a common occurrence. He just wished it wasn't of the same cryptic nature as that of the River Person. It was like sharing a cab with a pair of magic eight-balls. He would have asked for an explanation, but at this point, he really wasn't sure he wanted to know at all. There were things at play here he couldn't even hope to understand. Going by the chill in the air, they were approaching their destination, anyway.
Though he found himself wondering if he was just imagining Gaster's expression growing more and more troubled, all the way until they reached the Snowdin dock and bid the River Person farewell to disembark into the shimmering white landscape that was Snowdin.
True to form, it was, in fact, as cold in Snowdin as it was hot in the Hotlands, with snow crunching underfoot and a gentle breeze stirring up tufts of snow in delicate patterns swirling through the air.
For a moment, Gaster hesitated, head tilted and one hand outstretched while the other wrapped around himself in some attempt to retain body heat. He was quite obviously shivering. Of course he would be, that tattered lab coat couldn't have been any help against the biting frost. He hummed quietly, thinking.
"You cold?" Asgore asked, somewhere between conversational and lightly bemused in a way he hoped would be disarming. He reached up, about to unclip his own cape to give to him.
Gaster shot him a warning look that made him stop in his tracks, letting out a long breath that steamed in the air as a twisting plume of light exasperation. "I have a hypothesis," he said, fingers weaving through the air in graceful patterns as if grazing the strings of an unseen instrument. "Destroy... create. Two sides. Same coin. If I can destroy..."
Suddenly, he seized the air, yanking the metaphorical string. Except, by the time the arc of his movement had concluded, a long, black cloak had appeared from thin air, dangling from his hand. Something like triumph flashed in his dark eye. "... then I can create."
Asgore blinked. Monsters were no stranger to magic, obviously; it was the one thing that set them apart from humans. Still, this was different. "Huh. How did you do that?"
"That data. It surrounds us. Everywhere. There is, somewhere, a list. Items that can exist. I merely have to find their code..." He flung the cloak over his shoulders in one swift movement. "...and summon it."
Asgore chose not to dwell on that too long. Sometimes, there were things in life that just didn't need to be understood, and video games had never really been his thing. He was too old for it. It was easier to just let the lack of clarity soothe him. Besides, the cloak suited Gaster.
They continued onward for a short while in companionable silence, accompanied only by the sound of the crunching snow and the occasional birdsong or dog barking in the distance. Between the thick fur and his armor, Asgore was damn near comfortable in the sub-freezing conditions. Even New Home got too warm sometimes.
It wasn't long before they had reached the outer limit of Snowdin Town, the walk from the river really wasn't a long one. Warm and inviting light flooded from the windows, casting the entire town in a sort of homeliness even despite the cold.
"You know, you are horrendous at names. Has anyone ever told you?" Gaster came to a stop, his tone light as he took in the scenery. "Snowdin. Snowed in. I can not believe you."
"Hey, it's better than Hotlands! ... Have you only just noticed?"
Gaster rolled his eye, though there was a distinct upward quirk to his lips. "Forgive me for having greater concerns than your odd naming conventions. Besides, it is only marginally better than the Hotlands."
"Please. It is vastly better. Not that there's anything wrong with the Hotlands - you know what you're getting. There's land. It's hot. And anyway, what kind of a name is 'the CORE'?"
"What would you have had me call it? Generator?"
Asgore chuckled, unable to stop a mischievous grin from sneaking across his features. "Well, I'd give it a name, but I hardly think it would generate much interest."
Gaster grimaced, knowing full well what he'd just walked into. "Do not start."
Not a chance. "Wait, so because you built the CORE, does that make you the AMP-eror?"
"Stop." His voice lacked any real ire or heat. In fact, Asgore thought he detected something akin to warmth, and all it did was spur him onward.
"See, I thought this conversation was just powering up. I have so many more generator puns. But, hey, I wouldn't want to overload you." He bumped Gaster's shoulder, grin broadening.
That did it. Gaster smiled, actually smiled, huffing a sigh of most-definitely feigned exasperation that definitely wasn't a disguised laugh. Definitely not. Never. "You are incorrigible."
Asgore laughed. He'd won. "Got you."
Gaster didn't respond, though the smile still remind even as his gaze drifted to the floor. This had to be a personal record. And the puns weren't even that good. For a moment, the fondness in his smile took on a more thoughtful shade. The kind that hid thoughts deeper than the ocean, distinctly existential and yet almost wistful. It faded almost as soon as it had arisen. He pulled the hood of the cloak up, obscuring his face. There was a distinctly wraith-like character to him, like this. Only fitting, Asgore supposed. The Ghost of Christmas Past. "Come now."
Just like that, the moment had passed, and Asgore couldn't help but feel a flicker of disappointment, but this was a victory he wouldn't soon forget.
As expected, Asgore's appearance in Snowdin Town hadn't gone unnoticed. Sometimes, he forgot that he was King. Just walking through town was something unusual, something special. Something concerning. As they approached, monsters paused what they were doing to stare up at him with either awe or suspicion. Here and there, he received a curt bow of respect. The air around them became charged with whispers left in their wake as they passed, soft questions like 'What's he doing here?' and 'Do you think this is about that weird kid?'. 'It was a human, they say,' someone replied.
'Who says?'
'Papyrus says.'
'Darling, you mustn't trust what Papyrus says. You know that.'
'But the King is here!'
"Mama, who's that?" said one young child, pointing straight at Gaster, who just pulled his hood lower. The child was hushed by its mother, pulled safely into an embrace.
How long had it been since Asgore had properly visited any of the smaller towns? Since Toriel, Snowdin especially was just... too close to home. What once was home, at least. And if Asgore was being honest, he hated this attention, charged and full of expectations. It was his own fault. He should have visited more often. What kind of a King was he when he didn't even see his people outside of New Home?
"Just passing through," Asgore said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile to some of the onlookers. "All is well, I hope?"
"Uh. As well as it can be! Sir!" One of the monsters replied.
A reindeer-looking fellow shouldered his way past the Lesser Dog. "Not well at all. The local youths have been capitalizing on my misery."
"Oh, Gyftrot. They're just bored. Not a lot to do, here," the mother from before, still holding her child, responded. "Besides, the string lights suit you."
"Ha! You like them because you like to laugh at me."
"Nuh-uh!" someone retorted.
Gyftrot snorted. "What do you mean, nuh-uh?"
Asgore blinked, unsure really what to respond while the small group began clamoring amongst themselves about the decorative trees and lights in Gyftrot's horns.
"These are trivial matters that we do not have time for," Gaster grumbled, for Asgore's ears only. Somehow, the hood of the cape seemed to lower a little bit every time Asgore turned around to look at him, reaching a bit of a comical extent at this point. "Can we move on? Please?"
For a moment, Asgore considered the group, who had rapidly seemed to lose interest in both Gaster and himself in favor of bickering amongst each other. Apparently, someone had already attempted to appease Gyftrot by offering him gifts. Multiple monsters had, actually. "Hey now," Asgore said, "How about we respect our fellow monsters? No non-consentual decorating. Okay? Boundaries are important."
Silence quickly befell the crowd, an awkward shuffling rippling through them along with quiet murmurs of 'Yes, your Majesty' and 'Sorry, your Majesty'.
"King Asgore!" "Your Majesty!" two voices, a male and a female, nearly overlapping, sounded from behind. Two dog-monsters, looking remarkably similar and standing close in a way that was distinctly non-platonic, approached. They were armored - Undyne's guard, then.
"We smelled something interesting, earlier," said the female, her tone measured.
Eagerly, the male responded "Smelled a human!"
"Smelled human, but it was another dog."
"But first, a human!"
"We don't know where the human went."
"I didn't know pups could pet other pups! It was amazing!"
"... In any case, it was a strange smell."
What was worse? Confirming that the human had been here? Half of these monsters already knew that. Although... now he really wasn't quite so sure. Several of these monsters were not even old enough to know what human really looked like, let alone smelled like. It had been quite a while since the last human fell, and they tended to look awfully different from each other. Smell different. Act different. They differed, all the way down to their SOULs.
"Yes, a we believe a human passed through here earlier. We are here to do some follow-up, that's all," Asgore said with a measured smile. "Thank you for your assistance. We will be on our way now. I will be back, I promise you, and I'll have time to listen to you all."
"Asgore!"
Gaster cursed behind him while another monster - bird-shaped, this time, with a pair of sunglasses perched atop his beak - ran up to him. "Y'know, I'm usually super anti-authority, I swear it. Authority isn't cool. Fluff the government! Anyway. I'm looking for my friend, Snowy. I ain't seen him since that yellow thing passed through here."
"We will handle the human," Gaster grit out. "If you let us return to our jobs."
It wasn't Gaster's usual brand of annoyance, this time. Like something the bird-monster said had struck a nerve, and a strong one at that. Asgore doubted it was the blatant authority issues.
"Wait, who are you?" the female dog asked, sniffing at Gaster while he did his best to pull away. Her entire face scrunched up, as if she'd smelled something particularly disgusting. "What are you?"
Of course, that was the exact moment Gaster's glitching returned, his form distorting into colors and shifting in place.
"What is he???"
One of the dogs started barking. Then all of the dogs started barking. The town square became a bit of a cacophony of overlapping voices and upset dogs.
... Damn the spirits.
"QUIET," Asgore yelled, putting as much authority as he could muster behind his shout. The town square was becoming more full by the moment - Snowdin was a quiet town by nature, and unfortunately for Asgore and Gaster, this was becoming more interesting by the second. But the shout had worked, tense silence befell the square. They were awaiting an explanation.
"... That's the old royal scientist." The one to speak was a purple bunny who had emerged from her shop, presumably to investigate the ruckus.
"There was a royal scientist before Alphys?"
"I think I read something in a book once."
"He smells weird."
Gaster took a steadying breath - he'd been shaking, Asgore realized - and spoke up. "We are here on important business. We will be going now." His tone left little tone to argue, much less so when he turned away and started walking towards the exit towards the ruins at a brisk pace.
"I'll be back," Asgore promised. "You all stay safe. We'll keep an eye out for Snowy. There's no need to worry, okay?"
Part of being king involved necessary lies. Lies that were white like the snow. Enough to ensure that this situation would be able to stabilize itself instead of spiraling further the moment he turned his back, the way problems (and crowds) tended to. The clamoring he'd turned away from subsided and grew distant as he followed Gaster, who was moving fast enough to make catching up to him a challenge.
Spirits, he really did need to visit towns more often, or at least introduce a more Underground-wide news system of some sort. Situations like these arose from eroded communication between leaders and their people. It wasn't good. It wasn't the kind of ruler he wanted to be.
Ha. Ruler.
One problem solved, new problem ahead. It wasn't long before the warm glow of the lights in Snowdin faded out behind them.
If someone had told him two days ago that he would be doing this, leaving New HOME for the first time in what must have been far longer than he really cared to admit, with Gaster at his side again, cracking generator puns and trying to ignore the heavy blanket of existentialism that came with recent revelations the he still didn't quite know what to feel about - or whether he could trust them at all - he wouldn't have believed them. Rightly so. Humans, he could deal with. Hells, even the prospect of potentially breaking the barrier, that was something real and tangible he could actually do something with. It was something he knew how to feel about. Hopeful. Afraid. Something in between the two that made his chest clench uncomfortably. There were real concerns there and plenty of unknown variables but...
There never was going to be an after for him once the barrier broke. It narrowed the scope of it all, and there was something comforting about that. A distinct goal. A neat and tidy end.
All of this not even being real? That was one level of existential crisis too many for him. Bloodthirsty humans were one thing, unknowable vague 'entities' another. Hells, the many systemic problems of the Underground seemed quite manageable in comparison. So Asgore chose not to think about it, shoving it all into a neat little box that he filed away somewhere behind all of the other smaller, more manageable tasks that came with it. Like dealing with the human. Like moving through Snowdin towards the Ruins.
Towards Toriel.
Toriel, who didn't want to see him. Who would rather see him dead than their people free.
Oh Spirits, he really didn't think this through. Up until now, he had been so caught up in so many other things, the whirlwind of the past day-or-so, that it had only now sunk in that this entire mission to find the knife will have been an exercise in futility, because there was no way in the Hells that Toriel was going to let him in.
He just had to rely on Gaster being an unknown variable.
"Do you know?" he asked, turning towards Gaster. "About me and Toriel, I mean. After you vanished."
Gaster blinked up at him in something like surprise at being shaken from his thoughts. His expression softened from where it'd been pinched with consternation since the confrontation with the townspeople. "Yes. I am... sorry. About the way things went. After."
Not like it was his fault, as it turned out. An uncomfortable prickle of guilt rippled under his fur for ever thinking differently. "How much do you know, really?"
Gaster didn't answer immediately, humming while he chose his words carefully. "I know... everything. Everything that could have happened, after Chara. Every possible outcome." He paused. "I do believe that this was the best."
That, he found hard to believe. Not with the blood of children on his hands. Not with him left alone like this. "How can you be sure? I mean... how would you judge that?"
"It is bold of you to assume that I am sure about anything. Some factors, however, well..." Gaster paused, absently breathing warm air onto his subtly trembling fingers. "The Underground could have been destroyed, many times. You could have been killed. You... were - in many outcomes," Then, quieter, as if speaking it aloud was dangerous: "Most outcomes."
His voice shook as he spoke, Asgore was sure he wasn't just imagining it, though he quickly cleared his throat and steeled himself to continue. Firmer, this time. More solid. Logical. "Toriel never understands. Too sentimental. This can be a strength but... when something comes with murderous intent, then what choice is there? Even without. The future of the Underground depends on the barrier. I do not believe it is... how do you say... correct... to let monster-kind continue to live in such conditions. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And the humans... children they may be, but capable of great violence. You did what needed to be done with the means at your disposal."
"You think so?"
"I am certain," Gaster affirmed with a nod. "And I am glad you are alive."
Hearing those words from Gaster's mouth was jarring on it's own - and would have been under any circumstance. But even more so now. As if Asgore was the one who'd spent the last decade and some change being quite literally dead. No, not dead, deleted. It didn't bear thinking about, in fact, it was quite literally unfathomable. It would need addressing, eventually; there were only so many empty 'I'm fine's Asgore would be willing to tolerate.
Whatever he could have said in response was choked out by the knot in his throat and the tension around his chest, all he could do was blink gratefully and will any tears to stay put.
It wasn't long before the towering mass of the ruins rose up before them. Something in Asgore's chest twisted at the familiarity. This was once his home too. But there was more to a home than just the walls - the ghost of Asgore's real home, Toriel, Asriel, Chara, of love, of familiarity, lingered here just as heavily, if not more so. He wondered if the smell of butterscotch pie was only in his head.
He didn't let himself hesitate for more than two heartbeats before knocking on the door, lest his thoughts trap him and drive him to run away like the coward he wished he could be.
Notes:
hi guys i'm in fact still alive
I do in fact have the broad strokes of the next chapter written. It comes straight from the archives of over-a-decade-old stuff I wrote when I was a teenager that just needs to be adjusted a little, so I'm hoping the wait for the next chapter won't be as long. Thank you all for your patience!
i don't have a beta so if you see a spelling error, no you didn't (actually please don't hesitate to point things out to me that are blatantly wrong or weird!)
anyway see you soon!
Chapter Text
For a torturously long moment, there was no response from behind the large wooden door of the Ruins.
Asgore felt as though his heart was about to leap from his chest to continue its ridiculous, pounding dance, leaving him to float up and away from this mess. He glanced back as Gaster for... something. Assurance, perhaps. But Gaster wasn't paying him any mind. Instead, he'd tucked himself away so that his tall but lanky frame was completely hidden behind Asgore's larger and bulkier one, staring at some spot in the middle distance.
Maybe Toriel just... wasn't home. That thought gave Asgore a small spark of hope. Maybe they could just go back to the lab and focus on putting out the existing fires before starting new ones.
But then, where else would Toriel be, if not here?
The question was too familiar to entertain. The simplest explanation was usually the correct one - and the ruins were plenty big enough for her to keep busy somewhere that wasn't in the immediate proximity of the door. Surely she had better things to be doing, to pass the time. Was she still so fond of baking, now that there was no one to taste it? What about knitting? Reading?
She'd chosen to banish him from her life. Logic would demand that he shouldn't care. And yet.
This, he decided, had been a profoundly stupid idea. He could see it now, clear as day before his inner eye. She would send him away without a second thought, casting him out once again without once entertaining the idea of gracing him with a minute of her time. How could he have ever been so naive as to think that she would ever let him in, even if she did happen to be within earshot? They would be better off leaving. At this point, even the threat of the human couldn't have been worse than the threat of her ire.
But as luck would have it, the moment he opened his mouth to suggest departure, a tired and achingly familiar voice sounded from behind the door.
"Who's there?"
Two words, like a punch straight to the diaphragm, knocking all the wind out of him at once. How long had it been since he'd heard her voice at all? When they'd last spoken, it was on the eve of the final and most critical test of Alphys' DT Extraction machine, years after she had initially left. It was then that she'd cursed his very name, declaring him the worst monster to have ever graced the planet. A monster in the truest sense, she'd said. Irredeemable.
He tried to draw breath, to muster up the words, but they lodged sideways in his throat. Perhaps the Spirits would do him a favor and just suffocate him to death right where he stood. Put him out of his misery.
It seems he'd stayed quiet just long enough to make it awkward, for she spoke again: "Sans?"
Sans? Of all monsters, Sans? He'd spoken to her?
No matter. It wasn't his concern who Sans spoke to or didn't.
He cleared his throat, summoning the dregs of kingly courage left in him, and croaked a pathetic-sounding "Toriel?" that made even himself cringe inwardly.
Once, they'd been as close as two souls could possibly be. Intertwined in every way, though it seemed like that was a lifetime ago. He didn't know what was harder to reconcile - the fact that they were strangers now, or that they were ever once so close. Spirits above, he could hardly remember the time when life was alright, despite the war, despite being exiled to the Underground. And now, here he stood, deathly afraid of the woman he once loved with all he had.
"... Asgore?" she asked, disbelief evident. And then, to his complete and utter surprise, came the sound of multiple chains being unlatched with a hurried pace. The door opened, spilling warm light onto cold snow. The gap was just wide enough to reveal the shadowed form of Toriel Dreemurr, who, to his surprise, still wore a robe with the delta rune emblazoned on her chest. The smell of baked goods hit him like a wall. "What in Spirits name are you doing here?"
The question came as a snarl, a demand, something like a threat wavering just beneath it. The glare she regarded him with was full of fury, almost hateful. It was enough to make Asgore want to just turn tail and abandon this 'mission', to hells with the knife, to hells with the human, his pride be damned. If only Gaster wasn't there to stop him.
He'd almost forgotten he was there at all until he delicately, but not shyly, stepped around Asgore to face Toriel himself with his holed palms raised slightly to indicate a peaceful approach. He didn't seem nervous. Until the events of the past day, Asgore wasn't even really sure he was capable of looking nervous. Asgore felt the skin under his fur burning hotter than the surface of the sun none of them got to see. Meanwhile, Gaster stood confidently, face impassive and with that defiant glint in his eye. As for Toriel, he could only hear her suck a breath between clenched teeth at the sight of the former royal scientist. Something like a gasp. Just angrier.
"I hate to disturb this family reunion," Gaster said, "But I am afraid that there are urgent matters to attend to for which we require your assistance."
The air was so thick, you could probably cut it with that illusive knife Gaster wanted to see so badly. Toriel seemed to flick through various emotions within seconds. Shock. Horror. Anger. Disbelief.
She settled on anger.
"You," she snarled.
"Me," Gaster replied easily.
"I don't believe it," Toriel said, a breathy, incredulous chuckle escaping her lips. "We thought you were dead."
"Sorry to disappoint."
Fury blazed in the former queen's eyes like twin cinders, ready to burn him to a crisp. Asgore was starting to fear she might do just that and turn them both to ash where they stood. "You betrayed us in our time of need. The fact that you are standing here right now proves that. How dare you show your face here, deserter?"
A hint of rigidness crept into Gaster's posture. Still, his voice remained calm as a puddle on a hot summers' day. "I did not betray anyone."
But Toriel was still boiling.
"Fifteen years you were gone. Ran off to Spirits know where. But not before trying to pit us against our own child. Chara is dead now, you know. Asriel too. Because you couldn't do your job. They tried to do what you couldn't, and they lost their lives for it. And you, you coward? You ran away. How dare you now shadow my doorstep?" Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she wasted no time in swatting them away like an angry cat. Even so, they gave her eyes the ferocious glint of a mother scorned. She was going for low blows straight out the gate.
Gaster's mask cracked then, his expression hardening into a scowl. The aura of wrongness that seemed to surround him was growing by the second, heavy and uncomfortable while the glitches shook his frame. Subtly, at first, but increasing in intensity. "I would not be here shadowing your doorstep if I did not have an important reason to do so. I will not waste your precious time, and I pray you do not waste mine. There was a child here. A human. I need to know what you know about it. This is of vital importance."
That did it. The mention of the child flipped some invisible switch to the rocket that was Toriel's unbridled fury.
"How dare you," she hissed, launching a host of flames in Gaster's direction that lit up the surrounding trees in an eerie orange as they whizzed past.
Gaster didn't dodge. He flickered once, twice - and the flames passed right through him as though he was a mere ghost. Toriel's eyes widened. Even Gaster seemed just a mite surprised that whatever he'd just done had even worked, though he had no time to relish his victory before she launched yet more fireballs in his direction.
While the thought of Toriel getting violent had occurred to him, he still found himself completely taken aback by her actually doing so. Usually, Asgore was good in situations like this. If you discount the time he started a war in the heat of the moment. But now? He felt like he'd been frozen in place, utterly powerless.
"You come back here after betraying us and try to turn us against yet another innocent child? What kind of monster are you?"
Gaster sidestepped the flames, then glitched out of the way of the barrage that followed. "It is humorous that you should think I betrayed you."
Beneath the sheer stress of this whole situation, Asgore's chest twinged with something like shame. But Toriel - it didn't stop Toriel.
"If it were not for you, Asriel and Chara would still be alive," she snarled.
"Toriel stop," Asgore said, willing the firmness of authority into his voice, moving between the two before she could throw more fire. He braced himself for the feeling of fire singing his pelt; a feeling that never came. He tried to see her hesitation as a small victory.
"You betrayed yourselves," Gaster hissed, "Because you refused to listen. Asriel died because you didn't listen. Chara killed themself. Nearly killed Asgore. All but killed me. And the most pressing matter - the one I came here to address - is that all of you, the entire Underground, have died horrible deaths. Over and over again. Because you did not listen. I am here now to prevent that from happening ever again. So let me ask again, what do you know about the child?"
"Stay away from that child, or I will show you true suffering, Aster."
"Will you, now?" Gaster sneered, chin tilted up in defiance.
The relationship between Toriel and Gaster had always been this bad. Perhaps not throwing-fire bad, but not far off either. Toriel had disliked Gaster from the start for his honest but abrasive nature, and she'd tried to dissuade Asgore from hiring him in the first place. She followed her heart, Gaster followed logic, and worse still, Gaster never really liked children. That just didn't fly with Toriel. It was a feud forged in hell, especially once relations with humankind had permanently soured. Gaster wasn't above showing his distaste for humans. Toriel disagreed.
Then Chara happened.
Asgore never quite knew how to deal with their disagreements, and he found himself at a loss now, helplessly standing between them in the hopes that neither of them would leave injured, at the very least.
"Tori, please just listen - "
"You do not get to call me 'Tori'," she snapped.
"None of this matters," Gaster said, raising his voice sharply, and frustration had finally made itself obvious in the volume of his voice. "Are the monsters in the ruins alive?"
"What?" Toriel seemed taken aback by the question. "Why wouldn't they be?"
Gaster glared up at her. "Guess."
"Oh, I see, we're straight back to your usual paranoia then. All humans are evil, terrible creatures. Of course."
"Did you check?" he said, more incessantly.
"Why would I?"
"And the knife? Is the toy knife still where you last saw it?" Under the fury was a distinct sense of urgency in Gaster's tone. Asgore wondered if he was only imagining the increased frequency of flickering.
Toriel crossed her arms, finally turning away from them both. "This is ridiculous. The coward and the child-killer. What a pair you make. Let me tell you something, Aster. I don't care what kind of powers you created for yourself, nor do I care. I will destroy you both if so much as a single hair on that human's head is bent out of shape."
"You never understood, I do not expect you to now. The Underground is at stake in a way you cannot even begin to-"
Mid-sentence, he flashed once, more vibrantly than before, and was gone. One second, Gaster was glowering up at Toriel, and the next second he was nowhere to be found. Just like that. Just like what had happened in the dungeon.
Toriel's eyes widened. Her eyes darted to Asgore's, demanding answers. "What... was that?"
Asgore wasted no time in immediately moving to search the snowy landscape for a speck of black. "Spirits, damn it. He's gotta be here somewhere."
"What was that?" she repeated, confusion giving way to irritation.
"Listen, I don't know either, okay? Something's really wrong with him. He came back wrong. I don't know what else to tell you."
Toriel raised an eyebrow. "'Came back wrong'?"
There. Next to a log, just a small ways away, flashing colors and leaning heavily against a tree, was the speck of darkness he was looking for. Asgore rushed forward, not caring if Toriel followed, just in time to see him go down like a sack of potatoes. In moments, he was crouching in the snow by Gaster's side. The glitching distortion wasn't stopping; his eyes were screwed shut as he lay in the snow cradling his own head as though to keep it from bursting.
Asgore cursed under his breath, completely unsure of what to do next. "Gaster, hey, come on, you're the doctor, how can I help you?"
"The child... they're progressing. Undyne..." Gaster wheezed through labored breaths. It was the last thing he managed to say before he seized up again, overtaken by the glitching, a garbled yell the last noise he managed to make.
Asgore's hands hovered above his glitching form, afraid to move him and afraid to touch, both for Gaster's sake and his own. Damnit. This must have been one of those resets that he had spoken about in the lab. That meant...
The child had fought Undyne.
"Gaster?" he asked softly, though he did not receive an answer. Of course not. He seemed to be struggling to even breathe, let alone talk.
Shit.
With trembling hands, Asgore fished his phone out of his saddlebag, scrolling through his contacts until Undyne's name flashed on the display.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
"This is Undyne. I'm not here. Obviously. Whatever it is, it better be important. Leave a message."
Asgore ended the call before the beep could even sound, immediately redialing.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
"This is Un-"
Again.
She couldn't be dead. She just couldn't. He didn't know what he'd do - she was like a daughter to him, because he, in his stupid soft foolishness never did quite manage to harden his heart after losing the first two children. He couldn't do this again. "Damnit Undyne, pick up-"
Five rings in, a hoarse voice croaked "hello?" and Asgore very nearly collapsed with relief.
"Undyne! You're okay!"
He only received a groan in response, spiking his concern once more.
"Where are you?" he asked, "Are you hurt?"
"Ngh. Not hurt. The hotlands. Don't worry, boss. I'm going home. It's too darn hot. The human's... they're going to the lab."
"Okay," Asgore said, releasing the breath he'd been holding. "Okay. I'll call you later."
"... sure boss."
The call ended, one crisis somewhat averted, the other crisis still glitching in the snow. Though slowly but surely, the glitching subsided, finally, back to a level Asgore had come to associate with 'normal'. Whatever that meant, now. The scientist seemed to gradually relax, sinking against the snow. Knocked out cold.
"What's wrong with him?" came Toriel's voice, suddenly quite thin, from behind him. Softer, this time. A touch of motherly patience, reserved for when the kids had taken it a little too far in their play-fighting and someone had gotten hurt. In his panic, he'd almost forgotten she was there. Part of him assumed she'd vanish back into the stronghold that was the ruins the moment an opening presented itself. He wouldn't even blame her too much for not wanting to get involved any further in this mess.
"Well it's.... it's a long story," Asgore said, ignoring the pins and needles shooting up his arms as he went to lift Gaster. He had to get him out of the snow, at least. He'd freeze to death. Or get sick. And what then?
They had to get back to the lab, he supposed, there wasn't much of a choice. He just had to walk back through Snowdin and get back to River Person. "I don't know how to help him," he confessed softly, sounding entirely more broken than he intended to.
Toriel blocked his way. There was still anger in her eyes, but it was concern that had pushed its way to the forefront. She watched Gaster twitch and tremble despite the unconsciousness, making Asgore wince every time he glitched. The silence was long and uneasy.
Finally, she took a deep breath. "Follow me."
And she lead the way into the Ruins. Asgore could barely contain his disbelief, his heart fluttering with bittersweet longing and pure anxiety. The tunnels felt like they stretched on for eternity and the silence was suffocating.
Toriel opened the door to Home.
It was beautiful inside, just how he remembered it. The smell of cinnamon and butterscotch wafted through the air. It made his chest ache. This had once been his home, too, and he longed for those days with a fervent desperation. When things were simpler. When the problems felt... manageable. When he had his family.
"Lay him down here," she ordered, gesturing to the couch. Asgore did as he was told.
She took a large blanket and threw it over the monster who she'd been throwing fire at minutes prior. Despite everything, Toriel had always been better at these things than Asgore was. "This'd better not be a ploy to catch me off guard. For both your sakes," she warned, shaking a finger at him, "And don't think this means either of you are off the hook."
"Believe me, I wish this was just a ploy," Asgore sighed, turning away from the couch and towards the warm glow of the fire. "You know, you shouldn't leave fire unattended."
"I don't get a lot of visitors."
Asgore huffed. Fair enough.
She watched Gaster, eyeing his unconscious form up and down. Hesitantly, she put out a hand to feel for his temperature, though quickly withdrawing her hand with a hiss. "What in the Hells...? He's burning up. And charged with some sort of electricity, it seems." She furrowed her brows. "I've never seen anything like that. That... flickering."
"Neither have I. It's new territory for all of us," Asgore replied. "He uh... I don't know how to put this but... he says he didn't exist, for the past years. Deleted, he said. Literally."
"What?"
"Yeah."
"That's ridiculous."
"Well," Asgore said, "We don't really have a better explanation for all this. Last time it happened, he bounced back on his own. Admittedly it wasn't quite as bad. Didn't pass out like this."
Toriel sat down on the footrest nearby with a soft oof. Old bones. Asgore felt it, too. The slow creep of time did not spare anyone; least of all them. It marched on, mercilessly.
"Whatever happened to him, I think he suffered enough," Asgore said, quietly. "I know you won't let me off the hook but..."
"He tried to turn us against our own children. I cannot forgive him for that," she said.
Asgore sighed heavily. "Well it's not that easy. Nothing ever is. Believe me, I wish it was. We... no, I failed, Tori," He winced, realizing his mistake immediately. The nickname was a force of habit that was immediately met with a fierce glower, "Sorry. I failed. I failed the kingdom. I failed him. I failed our children. I'm trying, I really am, to make the best of it."
"If you really wanted to make the best of it, you would have taken the first human SOUL and gone to the surface yourself to gather the rest of the SOULs. You could have freed us. You didn't," she said darkly.
"I wasn't thinking right, when I declared war. It wasn't what I wanted." That wasn't true. When he saw the dead bodies of his children, all he wanted was to cause pain. To hurt whoever had done this. to make them pay. "Not what I really wanted, at least. It wasn't what was best for the Underground, either. They would have slaughtered us. That war, we couldn't have won."
"So you decided to kill children instead."
"Do you want to stay down here forever?"
"I don't want children to die," she snapped. "Why is that so hard for you to understand?"
He really didn't want to be having this debate right now. It was one that had no end, just spinning around in circles. "Seven lives, for the whole of the Underground."
"Seven innocent children for the lives of the Underground."
And that was it. A key moral difference, the same place they always snagged on. It was what'd led to their divorce.
"Toriel, I didn't want it to be this way. I don't want to kill children, I really, really don't. Please, believe me."
Toriel crossed her arms, her eyes steely. "And yet, a child killer you remain."
Another deep breath, in and out. He couldn't let this get to him. Not now. "This child is different. Special. Not in a good way. All we need to know is whether they pose a threat, if they've hurt anyone. That's all."
"Special how?"
"Something to do with DETERMINATION, I don't know. It can reset. Or something. Gaster says this is all a game." Aware of just how insane that sounded, he braced for impact.
"And I say that sounds absolutely ridiculous. How are you so sure he's not lying through his teeth?" she asked.
Asgore gestured vaguely in Gaster's direction. "Look at him. You can't fake that."
"Could be just an experiment gone wrong," Toriel reasoned, waving her hand dismissively. "Wouldn't be the first time."
"Well, it's not like I have an awful lot to lose listening to him for once. I owe him that much."
Toriel rolled her eyes, "And then, if he is lying, you've done all this for nothing. He was gone for fifteen years, comes back claiming this is all just a game, and you just believe him? He could have been doing anything this past decade."
"You and I both know Gaster doesn't lie, for better or for worse. There's nowhere else for him to have gone. Do you really think he'd be doing... this..." he gestured to Gaster, still out cold, "voluntarily? Gaster? You should have seen him after the CORE thing. Couldn't keep him down."
Both of Gaster's eyes were still slightly open, but the pupil of the working one had rolled back. Lights on, no one home. Asgore didn't dare think of the possibility of him not waking up from this. Every once in a while, a small glitch would shake him. His skin looked ashen; paler than usual and clammy, an unhealthy sheen reflecting the firelight.
"He said... Chara did it," he said carefully.
"Yes. I remember. The CORE was his fault, and he tried to pin it on a child. That's sick."
"No, not the CORE. Well. No, yes, the CORE, too. But whatever led to this was their doing. The... glitching. The absence."
"So he's still trying to pin things on our dead child. Delightful," Toriel scoffed. "Could not even let their memory rest. How typical."
"And what if he's right?" Asgore demanded. "What if he's right, and Chara was a threat, and Chara did hurt him, did try to kill us, did have some weird superpowers? What then? You saw what they made Asriel do."
"Don't even start -"
The Spirits must have been by his side, for in that moment, before it could escalate, Gaster rather violently regained consciousness with a start and a sharp gasp, startling both Dreemurrs as he lurched forward as if awoken from a nightmare.
"Gaster!" Asgore exclaimed. "You're awake, thank the Spirits."
Gaster declined to answer, instead bracing against the couch and going as rigid as a board. Was Asgore imagining it, or had he turned a dangerous shade of green?
"Oh, heavens," Toriel muttered, quickly launching herself up to retrieve a bucket from the nearby pantry to give to Gaster, which he wasted no time in grabbing ahold of as if it were a lifeline.
Her motherly intuition was spot on, for he promptly lost the contents of his stomach to the bucket.
Hells, had he even eaten? Judging by the dry heaves that followed whatever bile had come up the first time, he had, in fact, not. Asgore made a mental note to drag him into Grillby's on the way back, as soon as he was feeling well enough to leave.
Gaster groaned, resting his forehead against the palm of his hand, still hanging halfway over the bucket. "Forgive me," he croaked.
"You should lay back down. You look terrible," Toriel said flatly.
"And I see you have adopted my bedside manner," he replied, the faintest hint of a smile ghosting across his lips for the briefest of moments before another glitch evidently brought another wave of nausea with it.
Clearly irritated, Toriel rolled her eyes. "Do you want to tell us what just happened?"
"It is a terribly long story. Would not want to be more of an inconvenience," Gaster said.
Toriel sneered. "Since when do you worry about inconveniencing people?"
"Since when do you care about what I have to say?" he snapped back.
"Guys, come on..." Asgore interjected, running a hand down his face. Somehow this whole thing was going both better and worse than he'd strictly expected when he knocked on the door of the ruins. He just wanted to leave. Go back to the lab, or even New Home. Figure all this out without fighting with his ex wife any more than he already had.
Toriel glowered at Gaster. "Asgore told me that you told him some very interesting things."
"Ah. That our reality is less real than would be good for us, I trust? Right," Gaster sighed. "And I trust you do not believe me."
She merely raised her eyebrows.
"Of course not. You wanted me to explain. That is the explanation. Believe it, or do not. The human was fighting, died a few times. Every death, a RESET," he explained, surprising Asgore a little with how oddly cordial that was.
"He uh. Doesn't take RESETs very well," Asgore supplied. "Obviously. This seems worse than the dungeon, though."
Gaster laughed humorlessly. "The human died... rather frequently. Your protegé fights well."
"Will she be alright?" Asgore asked.
"If memory serves, she is dehydrated, but alive, if the human let her live."
Toriel cleared her throat, pulling their attention back to her. "Why are you here, Aster? Surely not to regale me with your newest theory on how evil humans supposedly are."
Gaster opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. His gaze drifted to the floor. "I believe that I have seen what I needed to see."
They'd only just gotten here. Gaster hadn't seen anything but the snowy floor, for Spirit's sake. How could he have -
As if sensing his hesitation, Gaster offered an explanation: "There is time, between every reset. Annoying, to me. Very repetitive. I saw what I needed to see."
"The knife?" Asgore asked.
"... among other things."
Toriel scoffed. "What is your obsession with that knife?"
"It was not just the knife," the scientist replied with a bit of a defensive edge, his one-eyed gaze glued to the floor. He looked so small like this, his shoulders pulled together and his head bowed. Like a strong gust of wind could simply blow him away, disintegrate him into dust before their very eyes.
Asgore huffed a heavy sigh, already anticipating Toriel's next line of questioning and hoping to soothe her at least a little by getting ahead of her. "So what, then? Why take us here?"
"It was stupid. It was a mistake. My apologies," Gaster replied.
"No, you're not getting away that easily," Asgore said, crossing his arms across his chest. "You didn't just bring us here for nothing. That's not your style."
"Call it sentimentality."
"Now what does that mean -" Toriel bit out.
"I needed to know," he interrupted her sharply, though lacking any anger, still refusing to meet either of the Dreemurr's eyes. "The knife itself makes no difference, true, but... I needed to see. The monsters here, they are still alive. I know so much about the human, about the entity, and yet so very little." He scoffed a self-deprecating laugh, running a hand over his bald head. He was shaking. Hard. "One would think, after almost an eternity scattered across space and time... but it is all a blur. All of it. A senseless cycle of cruelty and mercy, repeated ad nauseum, random every time. So much death. Not the knife was important, but -"
Finally, he lifted his head to meet Toriel's eyes. The realization dawned on Asgore, slowly, surely, immutably, blooming like a wound in his mind. It was so obvious, he almost cursed himself for not suggesting it himself.
Toriel was the first boss monster the human would encounter.
Toriel was the first major hurdle for any human falling from the surface world to enter the rest of the Underground.
It didn't matter if the human took the knife or not. It mattered whether it killed Toriel. The only monster that Asgore wouldn't have been able to verify. And Spirits, it hadn't even occurred to him to check, so caught up was he in the technicalities, in maintaining the balance with the remaining boss monsters, in capturing the human, that he had completely forgotten that Toriel had been in danger.
"I understand that the feeling is not mutual, but I must say I am rather relieved to see you alive," Gaster concluded. "This was an informative trip, though I do apologize for fainting."
For a long moment, Toriel just stared at him. Her scowl was cracking, the rifts revealing something a lot more vulnerable. Gaster, for his part, pushed himself up from the couch, moving to stand up and just about managing. He nodded toward Asgore.
"We will take our leave, then," he said. "Take care."
Toriel blinked, once, twice, in disbelief. "The human..." she started, "Don't think that this means I will just accept -"
"Toriel, please," Asgore pleaded. "Please, just this once, believe us."
"With any luck, no other human children will need to be harmed," Gaster said, "I implore you, stay out of this. I refuse to let any more monsters die."
The air was still thick and cloying with tension, but Toriel let them leave without much more argument. She wanted them gone just as much as they wanted to leave, which seemed a fair tradeoff. Still, she insisted on guiding them to the door. Gaster looked like he was about to keel over any second, but kept walking.
"Do me a favor," she said as they stepped out into the cold, "Do what you must, but I never want to see either of you ever again."
Notes:
just in time for eggster day (happy easter to those who celebrate!)
life updates: i graduated, i got my drivers license, i got a car, and i got a job. big things happening here! can't believe I started this fic when I was 14 and now... I'm in my mid-twenties with a car and a full-time job. shit's weird bro. i'm still the same weird edgy bitch i've always been, still hyperfixating on the same characters. I like to think i write better now, though. a little. still full edge though because this is my house my rules.
WisteriaWinds on Chapter 1 Mon 24 Jul 2023 06:56AM UTC
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limelines on Chapter 1 Mon 24 Jul 2023 12:04PM UTC
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Gomy_el_camaleon on Chapter 2 Thu 27 Jul 2023 01:19AM UTC
Last Edited Thu 27 Jul 2023 01:20AM UTC
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limelines on Chapter 2 Sun 06 Aug 2023 07:42PM UTC
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ValentineCure (Guest) on Chapter 3 Thu 11 Jan 2024 02:55PM UTC
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limelines on Chapter 3 Wed 23 Oct 2024 12:26AM UTC
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Gomy_el_camaleon on Chapter 5 Wed 19 Feb 2025 04:47AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 19 Feb 2025 04:48AM UTC
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limelines on Chapter 5 Wed 19 Feb 2025 10:29PM UTC
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undertalefan2077 on Chapter 6 Mon 21 Apr 2025 04:37AM UTC
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Simp_Snowfruit on Chapter 6 Thu 24 Apr 2025 04:31PM UTC
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