Chapter Text
“Dr. Gaster? You have a visitor.”
Gaster lifted his skull to stare blearily at the entrance to his office, Scratch standing in the doorway with a sheepish look on her feline face. She was a good assistant, that monster—a bit odd, but organized and very thoughtful. She also never joined her coworkers on their crusades to make Gaster “get a life” or “sleep in his own home for once,” and that was a quality Gaster could appreciate.
Scratch cleared her throat pointedly.
A paper that had been stuck to Gaster’s face fluttered down to the floor, and it took at few seconds of watching its slow descent before he fully woke up. And then, all at once, Gaster jumped and shoved his notes into a pile as he swiped his pens to the side and straightened his lab coat so it looked less like he’d been sleeping in the middle of the day.
“Ah! Yes, one moment. You can send them in—” He signed.
Gaster lifted a hand to his mouth and winced when he tasted the ink smeared across his teeth, the remains of the pens he’d chewed through in his research spiral the previous night scattered across his desk. It had, perhaps, been a few days since he’d gone home, and maybe Gaster didn’t know when he’d last slept for more than an hour, but! There was no need to make a poor impression.
Scratch gave Gaster a guilty grin as she shrugged. “Uh, sorry sir. He’s already here.”
She stepped to the side, and Gaster came face to face with an exhausted avian monster that he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d missed. The new monster gave Gaster a long look, and Gaster couldn’t quite place his expression, but he didn’t seem pleased at the very least.
Gaster stood to his full height and waved his guest in as he used a few hand shaped bullets to hastily clear the chair he had for guests free of papers. When that was done, he cleared his throat and switched to using aster to speak—an unpleasant necessity, but useful for in depth conversations.
“I’m terribly sorry about the reception. Please, please, come in. Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? Water or—”
Gaster looked over at the cracked coffee pot in his office that he’d knocked over sometime last night and hadn’t found the time to clean up since. He winced.
“…Water? Yes, sorry, just water.”
The avian monster blinked slowly at him before he shook his head and sat down on the side of the chair, the backing in the way of his wings.
“No, thanks.” He gave Gaster another indecipherable look. “…Something tells me this won’t be a very long conversation.”
“I really need to get more accessible chairs—” Gaster muttered to himself before he remembered that another monster was actually there and talking to him.
“Ah! Of course. And how may I help you today Mister…?”
“Tired.”
Gaster let out half a chuckle as he tried to figure out if that was a joke or the monster’s actual name. Tired shrugged, the corners of his eyes scrunching up into something less stern as he ran a hand through the feathers on the top of his head. The motion drew Gaster’s attention to the limb—for whatever reason, Tired had a bald patch and the faintest scar that almost appeared like… teeth?
Well. Far be it for Gaster to question someone’s scars.
“Yes, that’s my real name. Accurate, isn’t it? Tired Byrd, at your service. I work over at New Home’s Children’s Home. I’m here to talk to you about two of our kids.”
Gaster blinked. “Er. What?”
Tired let out an exhausted laugh. “Dr. Gaster. I’ll be blunt with you, since I’ve heard you appreciate that. We recently got two new residents—skeletons. One of them had already been placed with a family that we’d intended on being permanent.”
Tired’s mouth flattened as he shook his head. “The parents fell down. Now the first child and the family’s own child are left without a home.”
Gaster fidgeted with his pen as he stopped himself just in time to prevent biting down on the end. “I’m so terribly sorry to hear that. But what does that have to do with me?”
Every single monster that fell was a personal failure on Gaster’s part. He hadn’t worked quickly enough—hadn’t broken the barrier yet—if only he could be better—
But still. Gaster didn’t understand why he was being informed of this.
Tired shook his head. “Dr. Gaster, when we can, we place subspecies of monsters together with families that know how to support them. I’m here to ask if you would consider taking in the boys.”
“WHAT?!”
Gaster looked wildly around his office that he hadn’t left in days, papers scattered and the spilled coffee still splattered on the floor. The bitter taste of the ink that was smeared across Gaster’s teeth stuck to the inside of his mouth when he swallowed. His magic growled as if to remind him that he hadn’t eaten in quite some time.
“Why on earth do you think I am the best fit for that? I am the last possible person one should trust with children! Never mind the fact that I am at work nearly every hour, I don’t even know what you do with them. Feed them? Do you water them? Surely some other skeleton—any other—would be a better fit.”
Tired stared at Gaster with a gaze that cut him to the core. Gaster still couldn’t fully place the emotions, but he seemed… exhausted. And maybe something else. Pity, perhaps?
…Why pity?
“I agree. I said as much. But Dr. Gaster, I’m sorry to say you are the only one left.”
The room spun. Perhaps Gaster’s lack of sleep was catching up to him?
“What?” He rasped. And then he cleared his throat and tried again, his hands digging into his dress pants. “…What? You can’t mean…”
Tired closed his eyes, unable to look Gaster in the face. As if Gaster didn’t wish he could just close his sockets, bash his skull against the desk, and pretend like this conversation never happened.
“I do. I’m so sorry, Dr. Gaster. But we scoured the entire underground. There are no skeletons left other than you and the boys. We’re trying not to advertise this fact—it would surely bring HOPE to an even further low—but… It’s true. If there were any others I wouldn’t be asking this of you.”
Tired’s mouth flattened as he looked around the mess of an office. “To be entirely honest, I’m still not sure if I should be asking you this.”
“But there was a boy I met—Surely his parents—”
“Comic Sans Serif. Or perhaps you mean Papyrus? Those are the children I’m asking you to take in. Both of their parents have fallen.”
Gaster’s breath caught, but Tired continued to speak.
“I’m trying to find a home that can take in both of the boys. Sans’s current situation isn’t ideal, and he’s gotten more ill than we thought, and while his foster parents are wonderful people they just can’t support—”
“No.” Gaster rasped out as he gripped his desk. His vision swam and everything the stranger said sounded like it came through a tunnel. “No. I’m—I’m sorry. Even with the circumstances, any other place would be better equipped. I understand why you’re asking, but I am not suited to care for children.”
Sans was a bright boy. Gaster had enjoyed talking about fonts with him. He and the other boy—Papyrus—would find a good home to take care of them.
(There would never again be any skeletons to talk to about fonts and history other than those two boys. About culture and magic and the unique ways skeletons experienced bonds—No one else to ever understand, because how could they—?)
Gaster’s eyelights flickered like he was less than a century again, not in control of his emotions. Odd.
"If there’s no one else, I’ll help guide the boys through skeleton—” Gaster choked. “Skeleton culture and care later. As a mentor. They can come to my lab. But I’m not equipped to be a parent.”
“But—”
“Leave. Please. Now.”
Some part of Gaster registered the defeated look on the monster’s face as Scratch came in and escorted him out. Mostly, all he could hear was the ringing in his skull as he slid to the floor and pulled his knees to his chest, staring blankly at the unmopped tile as he counted his breaths.
Gaster’s people were finally gone. With all his knowledge, all of his pattern recognition skills, he should have seen this coming.
Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to.
###
Gaster’s phone rang on the other side of the lab, and he jumped as he smacked his head against the extractor prototype above him. The wrench he had been holding fell into his socket, and he yelped as he wheeled his way out from under the machine and desperately clawed at his skull to get the tool out.
“Curses! Gah, I supposed this is why safety goggles are so important…”
Gaster grappled his way over to his phone, clutching for it blindly as he picked it up just in time to prevent it from going to voicemail. He let the bullets holding up the equipment around him fade as he placed everything on the floor and cleared his throat. He blinked rapidly as the wrench fell out of his skull, and it took him a beat longer than usual to reach for his secondary font.
He answered, “Dr. Gaster speaking. How may I help you?”
A man’s voice came through the line, exhaustion dripping from his words. “Dr. Gaster. Do you have a moment?”
Gaster blinked, and he tried to ignore the twisting in his chest at hearing that voice. He wasn’t sure he’d ever forget it—not with the news it had delivered.
“Ah. Mr. Byrd. Yes, I have a moment.”
“Call me Tired, please. It’s way more accurate, regardless. I’m sorry to contact you after less than two months, but we’ve run into an issue and—well. We need your expertise. Papyrus is only 18 months old, but… He’s disappeared. We put out alerts! Posters! We’re trying to track him—we’ve called in the guard! Even the canine unit came up from Snowdin! But his scent ends at a solid wall?! And then when we find it again it takes off! As if he’s flying! I don’t—”
The monster’s voice caught, and it sounded like he was about to cry.
“…I apologize. That was out of hand. I just… I wanted to call and ask if you knew how on earth a toddler just… disappeared. Is there any skeleton magic that would do this?”
Gaster’s SOUL dropped.
One of the last three skeletons, and Papyrus was gone—?!
He swallowed thickly as he stood up to pull on his coat, ignoring the rest of his team milling about the room. “Skeletons have always had an odd relationship with physics. There’s a chance Papyrus decided not to obey them.”
“What.”
“Papyrus probably didn’t want to obey physics.” Gaster repeated himself at the question. “Skeleton children can be finicky to keep track of, if I recall correctly. I’ll assist in looking, however I’m unsure I’ll be able to find him unless he wants to be found. Hopefully he’ll show up when he gets hungry.”
Tired was quiet for a moment before he sighed. “…Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate any additional hands we can get on the matter.”
“Thank me if I can actually help. Have a good day, Mr. Tired. I will contact you if I find anything.”
“You too. I’ll let you know if we find Papyrus first.”
###
Gaster’s phone rang nearly two days later—the longest he’d gone outside of his lab in decades. He scrambled for the device, nearly dropping it in the process. When the familiar number flashed across the screen, he swiped it open with a desperation he hadn’t expected, politeness be damned as he cut straight to the chase.
“Yes? Did you find him—?”
“Sans is gone now, too.”
Gaster froze, the image of the small skeleton so very proud of his new little brother as he clutched a parenting book to his chest flashing behind his sockets. In hindsight, that little brother must have been Papyrus.
“Surely he’s just…” Gaster couldn’t finish his sentence, unsure of what he’d even wanted to say. Hiding? Magically invisible? Anything but the other remaining skeleton going missing as well.
Tired sighed, and Gaster felt for the boy—because that’s what he was, truly. A young monster looking after even younger monsters. Though, nearly everyone was a child to Gaster nowadays.
“Sans is gone.” Tired snapped. “And he’s just as impossible to track as Papyrus.”
Gaster closed his sockets and ignored the uncomfortable churning in his chest. “…I’ll continue to keep a lookout for the both of them—”
…Hmm. Odd timing, wasn’t it? Perhaps…
Well. Gaster kept his suspicions to himself for the time being. It wouldn’t do to accuse a child of kidnapping and make the entire situation worse, especially if Gaster turned out to be wrong. And really, Sans disappeared after Papyrus. But still…
Gaster sighed. “If I find either, I will do my very best to bring them back to your care. Thank you for keeping me informed.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Thank me when they’re safe.”