Chapter Text
W.D. Gaster was in a foul mood. He swept through the lower level of his Hotland based laboratory, a location once considered to be a carefully guarded secret, juggling papers crowded with notes scrawled in writing that was incomprehensible to anyone but himself. Other monsters scurried around him, each one of his assistants busy with their own tasks as they hurried to set up for the first trial run of what might prove to be the doctor’s greatest invention since the Core. All except one individual.
“Must you always be in my way?” Gaster grumbled as his path was blocked a member of the royal guard. He’d had to get used to having guardsmen lurking about his lab, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Honestly, couldn’t Asgore have sent someone useful for a change?”
“Hey, don’t blame me. I’m only here because you can’t be trusted.” Despite his cocky words, there was an uneasiness in the guard’s expression and a nervous energy to his movements that betrayed the truth. He was a fairly young cat monster, no doubt a newer recruit to New Home’s chapter of the royal guard, and his inexperience showed. The feline kept fidgeting, twitching his long, striped tail and fiddling with the straps of his armor. Clearly Asgore and the guard didn’t think Gaster was any kind of true threat if they’d assigned this recruit to guard him. On second thought, ‘guard’ wasn’t really the right word for this. 'Babysit’ seemed more appropriate, and Gaster absolutely hated it.
He still maintained that this entire mess was not his fault. How was he supposed to predict that the soul fragments used to make the E2 series would regenerate that way? And even if they did, the creations had been his and his alone, crafted from his theories and comprised of his magic, his bones, and pieces of his own soul. That along with donations of magic and biological material from a few other members of his staff had created creatures that could look enough like normal monsters to go unnoticed in a crowd yet, when they showed their true nature, were strong and fast enough to take on monster kind’s greatest enemy. No matter what others said, the being he’d constructed were more animal than monster. And they were, by right, his property. Only, for some reason, king Asgore hadn’t quite seen it that way. Being the only one who truly understood the intricacies of the Core, let alone their best hope of ever breaking the barrier, Gaster was too important to rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life, but that didn’t spare him from the king’s wrath entirely. He had been stripped of his official title and allowed to return to his work only under strict supervision with the stipulation that he would never experiment with weaponized artificial life again. He still wasn’t happy about having to abandon so many years of promising work, but it was either this or face imprisonment for what others had been too quick to call a crime, so the doctor wasn’t going to complain. Not out loud, at least.
“As I have already explained, what happened with the E2 series was beyond my control. It is a mistake I would have corrected for and not allowed to happen again if the king would only see reason and let me continue with my original work.”
It had been going so well before his living weapons decided to do the unthinkable and develop fully formed souls of their own. He’d never intended them to feel the way monsters do, nor even to think beyond the problem solving skills necessary to hunt the humans that made their way into the underground. True there was a measure of uncertainty in dealing with new lifeforms and he’d had to attempt quite a few experimental procedures which hadn’t always worked, but the risks he’d taken had always been calculated ones. It wasn’t as if he’d just been throwing everything he could think of at them and hoping something stuck. There had been some procedures he’d deemed too risky to go through with and he hadn’t even started the E1 series without first doing rigorous testing on soul energy and the nature of Determination. He asked no living monster to take any risks he wasn’t willing to take himself, which was why the creatures were so important. It was also why he himself had been the test subject for the initial living matter stages of the Determination trials. If he hadn’t known the good it could do, how this 'human magic’ could enhance the capabilities of a monster in the right doses, he would have never used traces of it to help in the creation of his living weapons let alone administered proper doses to 001 – S. Yes the amounts he applied to his creation had been at much higher measures and mixed with concentrated monster magic as well, but all his testing and calculations had proven that it should have worked. Even when it hadn’t and the small creature had begun to melt, the doctor had still been able to stabilize it and adjust for the resulting unexpected fragility for the next attempt. Gaster wondered if it had worked correctly that time. Perhaps if he gave Asgore enough time to calm down, one day he could find out. Even discounting their potential as weapons, the E2 series were valuable test subjects.
“So,” the recruit said, his tail swishing across the ground and disturbing the thin layer of dust that had settled there during the day. “This … un-magic thing … “
“Anti-magic,” Gaster corrected, not even trying to mask his irritation.
“Same thing,” he said idly as he tilted a monitor towards himself, eyes skimming over readouts and figures that he had no hope of comprehending.
The doctor slapped the young guard’s hands away from the equipment for what had to have been the fifth time that day. “Not hardly. Un-magic, as you so ineloquently put it, implies simple undoing, which is not at all the function of void energy.”
Gaster checked the monitor and the console it was attached to, looking for any signs of tampering. He was far from the first to research the mysterious plane beyond their reality simply known as 'the void’, but he was the only monster still living who’d been part of the initial trials. For year after that ill fated series of experiments, the void had been deemed too dangerous to be of any use to monster kind. Gaster had turned his attention elsewhere, seeking more reliable means of energy and developing the Core and its electricity converters as a result. As revolutionary as that was, energy alone could not protect them. Having working lights and reliable heat could not stop any attacking humans. Humans were a rarity in the underground, but each time one fell down into their midst they brought chaos with them. Too many innocent monsters had lost their lives to the powerful attacks that even young humans could wield with ease. The king had asked him to find a better way to stop them and capture their souls in the hopes that monster kind might one day use those very souls to free themselves and see the surface once more. So he had. Or, at least, he’d thought he had. Now that his living weapons project was no longer an option, Gaster had gone back to the proverbial drawing board in search of inspiration. And in doing so, he’d remembered the void.
“The void, as you would know if you were at all paying attention to what we are trying to do here, is a level of reality beyond the world we know. The space beyond our dimension, if you will. It is a source of power that matches the magic potential of monster kind, only without any of the pesky limitations of physical matter.”
The feline guard flicked an ear, that nervous tell letting everyone know that he wasn’t as bored as he pretended to be. “So why not just call it magic?”
Gaster barely restrained a long suffering groan. He could feel a migraine coming on. “Because it doesn’t behave like magic. Void energy exists only in the void, it isn’t naturally occurring under any other conditions, and all efforts to bring that power into our reality have resulted in failure. Without proper containment, anti-magic comes into contact with regular magic and when the two combine they destroy one another in a massive surge of raw energy. If this rift gets out of our control, even just the ambient magic in the air could be enough to cause an energy surge big enough to destroy this facility.”
All his calculations pointed to this worst case scenario being distressingly possible if the containment system failed. More importantly though, his own experience proved it. He’d first begun researching the peculiar energy of the void with the scientist who’d discovered it. The man had been a friend and teacher to Gaster in his youth, a driving force in his life always encouraging him to try new things and master what he’d previously assumed was impossible. So when the man had asked him if he might like to join his team and tackle the questions of multiverse theory and inter-dimensional physics, how could he say no? It had been a dream … until that dream became a nightmare.
The energy necessary to pierce through the fabric of time and space was immense, but not unattainable. Thanks to the admittedly shoddy power plant that had predated the Core and the freely offered help of several monsters highly skilled in various forms of magic, it had been a fairly simple thing even then. No, what made it tricky was the precision needed. The theory was sound and indicated that what they hoped to achieve was doable, but the calculations had to be extraordinarily precise. Just the right amount of each type of energy applied in the right way on a very specific point, lest the power and force applied go awry and they wind up not with a perfectly proportioned window into what lay beyond their reality but a massive gaping hole into the unknown. Either that or an explosion big enough to level the laboratory.
The risks had been undeniably massive, yet not as big as the potential rewards. The official goal of the project had been to tap into a new energy source, though for the researchers involved it had truly been an attempt to discover what lay beyond their reality. They had accomplished both with catastrophic results. Void energy proved to be unstable, all too easily combining with their own magical energy with violent and deadly results. His friend had protected him back then, pushing Gaster and the few other researchers who’d escaped the initial wave out of the room and past heavy doors meant to keep energy of all kinds both in and out. The man had saved their lives and in doing so sealed himself in with the dangerous rift. He’d managed to close it, but not before the chain reaction of magic and anti-magic had already begun. The lab had been left in shambles, the air thick with smoke and dust. Gaster could not allow something like that to happen again.
“The last person who was able to fully breech the void was destroyed by that power, which is why we have taken precautions. And should I catch you putting your greasy paws all over said precautions one more time, I will make sure you are never allowed in this building again, are stripped of your rank, and are discharged from the guard like the disgrace you are so clearly intent on being. Have I made myself clear?”
The guardsman let out a small, choked sound, looking for all the world like he was trying to swallow a hairball. “C-crystal.”
“Good. Now, unless you happen to have some hither to unmentioned experience bridging the gap between dimensional planes, I must ask you to please shut. The hell. Up. And let my assistants and I work in peace.”
There was an abrupt rush of movement, a tense silence that he hadn’t even realized had settled over the assembled scientists suddenly breaking as they hurried to return to their assigned tasks. “We’re almost ready sir,” someone said, eager to try and appease him lest his anger be turned towards them.
“Alright, all nonessential persons are to evacuate this level.” He cast a poignant glare to the guardsman who squirmed a little under his stare and tried his best to appear tough.
“No can do doc, orders are I stick with you.”
“Very well,” he replied with a barely restrained sigh of resignation. “Then at least do us all a favor and stay out of my way.”
Most of the monsters present hurriedly finished their tasks and rushed out of the room, eager to put as much distance between themselves and the testing site as possible. At last the final assistant made her way towards the elevator, leaving Gaster, the guardsman, and a handful of highly trained scientists alone with the ominously humming machinery. The low, metallic thunk of blast doors locking into place echoed through the chamber. The doctor checked each machine himself, looking over the readouts from previous tests to make sure that everything was in order. There could be no mistakes with what he was about to do.
“Raise the shield.”
Gaster’s chosen team were all highly trained professionals, so there was no scramble of feet nor hushed, nervous voices as they worked to establish the barrier that their experiment and their lives depended on. Shielding magic, some fired by a clever device of the doctor’s own invention and some cast by a deceptively diminutive yet powerful monster, converged in the center of the room. The two spells merged, flowing in and around each other like water, and solidified into a transparent sphere. It glistened under the harsh, cold lights of the lab, faint traces of color reflecting on its surface. The spell had been specially designed to let energy pass into it yet allow nothing out. Once the fluctuations of its glassy surface stilled, Gaster nodded to another of his fellow scientists. The man raised a long arm and fired a simple magical projectile at the barrier. It passed cleanly through the shimmering skin with barely a ripple only to bounce off the other side and fall back into the center of the sphere where it dissipated harmlessly.
So far, everything was going according to plan. They’d run every test possible to prepare for this day, and there was nothing left to do but take the metaphorical leap. Gaster checked the status of the largest and most important of his machines once more. A single human soul sat at its core, perfectly passive and stable as it had been since it was placed inside. The doctor closed his eyes for a moment, trying to steady the wild pulsing of his own soul. It was now or never.
“Start the sequence.”
Buttons were pressed, switches flipped, and complex codes entered on waiting keyboards. Spells sparked, conjured up by hands almost as steady as the doctor’s own. Lights flickered and dimmed around them as the electricity powering the building was suddenly drained. The hum of barely restrained energy built into a dull roar for one pulse pounding moment and then burst forth. Bright beams of magic and energy pierced the shining shield. Power surged, forces converging and colliding at a single point in space. The air shimmered red with determination. The vibrant color turned dark, darker, yet darker as it collapsed in upon itself. It spiraled down into a concentrated point of inky blackness which radiated blinding energy. The spot shrank until it couldn’t be seen, until even its burning aura faded into the singularity, and then …
It was there, yet it wasn’t. When he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye he could see it clearly, a small gash in reality like a ragged hole torn through paper, yet when he tried to focus only on that spot it was as if the rip wasn’t there at all. There was only an overwhelming sense of energy, power, and wrongness. The scientist took a deep, steady breath and calmed his racing soul. He let his vision slide out of focus, the material world slipping away in favor of the bright, shining paths of magic. His colleagues were bright spots dotted around the room, their souls brilliant white and radiating various colors that he knew quite well. A rainbow of deep, vibrant hues pulsed from inside the machine, rich red swirling around them. His own soul’s aura cast the space around him in pale purple. The very air shimmered with their combined magical presence, an effect made even more pronounced by the massive amounts of energy produced by the Core not so very far away. And at the center of it all, something both dark and brilliant glimmered from within the hole they had torn in the very fabric of their dimension. Void energy. Anti-magic. All that power finally close enough to reach out and touch, though he knew better than to try.
“Doctor Gaster, are the readings supposed to be this high?” asked a voice from over by the monitors.
Gaster hurried over, his breath catching in his chest as he skimmed the ever fluctuating numbers being displayed. The energy output from the rift was higher than they’d anticipated. At this rate, it would burn through their shield and spill highly volatile anti-magic into the lab.
“Shut it down.”
“But sir, if we -”
“If we go slow we’ll be too late,” he snapped. He already knew the protocol about shutting down the sequence, he’d written it himself. Going quick there was an increased danger of the rift getting away from them and further splitting the fabric of reality. However, if they took their time and did things properly, the shield would fail before the rift had been closed at all. This was a lose lose situation, and they had to mitigate the damage as much as possible. “Shut it down now!”
The clatter of keys rang through the air as the scientists assembled each rushed to their stations, hurriedly trying to force their assigned devices to abort the sequence before it was too late. The two magic casters stopped their spells, but there was nothing they could do to take back the energy that they had already released. All they could do was try to strengthen the shield, pouring new magic into it and making its surface shine with renewed light even as the rift at its center grew. Gaster looked for the young guardsman who had caused him so much trouble but the recruit was gone, faint claw marks and the squeak of hinges as a heavy metal door swung back and locked itself being the only signs of his panicked escape. The doctor hoped he was going for help, but didn’t quite believe it. He hurriedly shut down the main device, the human soul contained within shuddering at the sudden change and throwing off waves of power that the metal walls barely contained. He rushed back to the machine monitoring the experiment, checking the readouts only to find that the energy levels were continuing to climb. The bubble of shield energy swelled, stretched thin as it strained to contain the raw power leaking into their reality.
The rift should have collapsed in on itself without the power sources that had formed it, yet it hadn’t. Why? The doctor glanced frantically around the room, searching for some trace of magic or electricity left active from the machinery only to find himself drawn back to his own station. A single strand of power connected the rift to the human soul trapped inside the large device. He couldn’t tell if it was caused by the soul itself having retained some form of consciousness and lashing out against its captors, the dark, mysterious energy of the void refusing to let this energy source go, or simply a bond between two unstable powers that could not be so easily severed. The one thing that the doctor did know was that this had to be stopped quickly or else the entire underground might be at risk.
“Help me get this open!” he cried as he rushed to the device. Hands, claws, and bright flares of magic pulled at the paneling, all but tearing the contraption open and exposing the glowing soul held within. Even without any mechanic influence, the thread of power leaching away from it held strong. There was no time to try and extract it by normal, safe means. Gritting his teeth against the magical backlash he knew was coming, Gaster reached into the machine and pulled the soul free.
He was too late.
A voice cried out in warning an instant before the barrier failed, its shimmering surface split open by a force it could no longer contain. Void energy seeped out, a dark cloud of raw power that was there yet not. Gaster saw the instant it struck the small monster who had tried so desperately to maintain the shield. The other scientist writhed, back arched, mouth hanging open in a soundless wail. His short, stubby claws raked at his face as something black began to ooze from his eyes and nose. His skin paled rapidly, all color and life draining out of him. Strange bumps and bruises sprang up across his exposed flesh as if his own magic were boiling just beneath the surface. The doctor watched with morbid fascination, feeling sick with grief and guilt but unable to look away from the horrifying sight.
Void energy leached out into their world, latching on to each and every source of magic that it could find. The air rang with voices raised in agonized screams, one of which he dimly recognized as his own. The human soul pulsed wildly in his grasp, its energy burning his hands as it seeped into him. It wrenched itself free, but he didn’t see where it went. He couldn’t see anything anymore.
Raw power roared inside him, invading his own magic until it became a violent storm that his body could scarcely contain. His thoughts turned to meaningless static. Something cold crawled within his bones.
W. D. Gaster felt himself falling. His soul twisted under the weight of this unrelenting power seeking to drag it down until all that remained of him was dust …
… but it refused.
—-
A shrill cry rang through the crowded little apartment above Grillby’s bar. In the past, such a sound might have startled the elemental into a panic, flames burning hot and ready to scorch anything that dared invade his home, but not any more. Now it had him out of bed in moments, hurrying down the hall to a small room that, up until recently, had been his office. He swiftly opened the door, radiating as much light as he could to announce his presence, his gaze automatically drawn to the makeshift blanket tent strung over a pair of small beds and the two children hiding beneath it.
When he’d first seen the pair, it was hard to imagine Sans and Papyrus ever being comfortable letting him close to them. Perhaps because they hadn’t truly been 'Sans and Papyrus’ back then, but rather '1-S and 2-P’, test subjects and living weapons crafted by the royal scientist W. D. Gaster himself. He didn’t know much about their lives in the labs, in all honestly a part of him was afraid to find out just what it had truly been like, but he knew enough about the mistreatment they’d suffered to give him nightmares of his own. So when the opportunity for escape had presented itself, they’d taken it. The boys had run all the way from Hotland to Snowdin in order to escape their master, and still it had not been far enough.
It hadn’t been anyone’s fault, not really, but the elemental still felt a stab of guilt when he thought about the limp form of 1-S being carried off to the guardhouse or how 2-P had broken down in bitter tears after learning that Gaster had reclaimed his sibling. He should have been faster. Should have seen the signs. Should have done more. But then, who would have thought that the royal scientist, someone so highly respected and trusted by all monster kind, could have done something like this? He’d grown new souls from mere fragments, forming them into skeletal shapeshifters capable of more than any monster before them, and treated them as mere tools. Gaster had created life, but instead of seeing the boys as the miracles they were he’d poked and prodded and tested them to within an inch of their lives. He’d trained them to be weapons intended only for destruction. Monsters weren’t meant for that kind of life. They’d been through one war already, and it was one too many.
Grillby found the two skeleton pups curled around one another, shaking so hard that the clatter of rattling bone filled the room. They jump as he entered, huddling closer together even as their crested skulls whipped towards him. Magic flared in their eye sockets, painting the dark room in different shades of blue shot through with flickering yellow and orange. Grillby didn’t need to turn on the light, his own fire illuminated the space around him well enough, but he did so anyway. Glowing eyes darted around the space, seeking out anything that might do them harm and finding nothing. There was only the elemental radiating a warm glow of his own, standing like a beacon in the middle of the room as the children calmed their frantic souls and reminded each other that this was a safe place.
Papyrus transformed, easily shifting from a somewhat canine creature into what looked like an ordinary skeleton child. The little pops and snaps of bones realigning were lost under choked sniffling and thin whines of distress. He reached for his guardian with one hand, unwilling to release his brother but desperate for something more to ground him in reality. Grillby ducked beneath the blanket ceiling and sat on the edge of the bed, back pressed against the headboard where the homemade tent was tallest. The younger child eagerly crawled into his lap, all but dragging his sibling with him. He pressed his face against the elemental’s shoulder, trembling and sniffling.
“It’s alright,” he whispered, “I’m here, and I won’t let anything hurt you.” Nightmares were a sadly common occurrence in his home now, one made somewhat easier over time as the kids allowed him into their lives more and more. They were used to having only each other for comfort, and learning to accept it from someone else was a new experience for them.
Sans followed his brother’s lead and shifted as well, his smaller shape more easily settling into the tangle of skeletal limbs. He pressed tiny hands over his wide eye sockets, whimpering and gasping as shimmering tears leaked out through the gaps in his bones.
“It was just a bad dream,” the elemental said as he pet their trembling spines, channeling warmth through his palms. “It wasn’t real.”
“No, no!” Papyrus cried, his muffled voice choked by fear and anguish. His tears were starting to soak through Grillby’s shirt, leaving a slight stinging sensation in their wake. “Real!”
“it got him,” Sans sobbed as loud as he could, which admittedly wasn’t much, “felt it!”
Grillby’s flames sputtered a little. He didn’t know what they could have seen in their nightmares, but anything that could affect children who’d already seen so much this badly had to be terrible indeed. “What got who?”
“him!” the boy wailed. His voice cracked and failed him, the raspy sound easily swallowed up by his sibling’s crying.
“Him!” Papyrus echoed, the word muffled as it was all but screamed into the elemental’s nightshirt. “It got him!”
There was only one person that made the boys react like this; Doctor Gaster. The kids dreamed of him far too often, and those dreams were never pleasant. Their memories would warp into nightmares in which they had never escaped the prison of doctor’s lab. Sometimes one child would jolt awake, a pained scream trapped in his throat, absolutely convinced that he’d just watched the other die at their creator’s hands. Not all of their dreams about the doctor were horrible, there were times when they saw him going about his daily routine in the lab as if nothing had changed, but even that was enough to leave either child shaken.
“It was only a dream.” Grillby wrapped his arms around them both, freezing in place when the little skeletons shook in fear at the unexpected movement and giving them the time they needed to adjust and remember where they were. “You are safe. Remember? Nothing can harm you here.”
But it was strange, they sounded almost like they’d had the same dream. This wasn’t the first time it had happened either. Grillby had to wonder if the bond these two shared ran even deeper than he’d previously thought.
Papyrus clung to his shirt, letting out a cry that was equal parts sob and howl, but at least he seemed a bit calmer than he had before. His trembling was slowly easing, leaving him to slump against his guardian. He was exhausted from the fear which stole his rest and made his magic race. Sans might have been quieter than his brother, but he was no less affected. He had his small fingers hooked into the thick black band secured around his neck and was tugging at methodically. The fused material stretched just enough to move with him but would go no further. His hand shook as he pulled, drawing the collar away from himself. Light caught on the tapered ends of long scars that marked his neck, slowly fading reminders of the past they had run from and the price he’d paid to escape it. Grillby frowned at the sight.
During the short amount of time that Gaster had reclaimed this boy, his claws had been clipped so short that they oozed raw magic. When he took on his other form and swapped paws for hands, the damage had carried over. The tips of his fingers had been blunted, ground down to short little stumps that Grillby had feared he might be stuck with forever. Luckily he was healing, but the fragile bones were slow to regrow and it was likely that the injury would continue to cause him trouble for quite some time. He claimed that they didn’t hurt, but the elemental saw the way his fixed smile tightened into a cringe when he held something, how he flinched each time his fingers brushed against a hard surface, and how his small hands shook even now.
He carefully wrapped his own larger hands around the boy’s, waiting patiently when he flinched at the sudden contact, and gently pried trembling fingers away from the black band. Grillby pressed his palms around thin bones and radiated soothing warmth into them until the trembling eased. “I wish you’d stop pulling at that,” he whispered into the uneasy quiet, “you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“want it off,” the child moaned, his recently restored voice thick and horse after even that small amount of crying. Tears trickled from his darkened eye sockets.
“I know, but for now we have to wait.” They had tried cutting the hated thing off of him with the strong scissors Grillby used in the kitchen, much the same way he’d done to free Papyrus not so long ago. Unfortunately, even though the band had been mostly deactivated and allowed him to shift freely between forms, it seemed that some of the safeguards were still intact. The moment the short blades began to pierce the material, it had started a chain reaction of violent magic which lashed out at the boy and anyone touching him. Only his sibling’s quick thinking had spared him from harm as Papyrus had instantly flung himself at the smaller skeleton and willingly let the dangerous magic flow into him as well. It had died down quickly enough, but the sting of yellow sparks had still caused damage and set back the children’s recovery. They’d been lucky, all things considered. After all he’d been through, Sans was still fragile. If the magic had been much stronger or he’d had to endure its full force alone, it might have done irreparable harm. That wasn’t a risk Grillby was willing to take. “When you’re stronger, we’ll try again.”
“i can do it,” Sans protested.
“When your health improves, then we’ll cut it off and you’ll never have to see it again. I promise.”
The boy began to complain again, insisting that he was strong enough to handle the force of the yellow and blue spells contained in the band, but a soft whine from his brother cut him off. Papyrus wrapped his arms around Sans, pressing closed eye sockets against the smaller skeleton’s collarbone. He nuzzled his sibling and let out another pleading whimper, prompting Sans to return the embrace and rest his cheek against his brother’s skull. They called softly to one another, whines and chirps and trills strung together in a secret code all their own. Eventually, Sans glanced up at their guardian once more, his eye lights dim but at least present. “okay,” he said, reluctant and resigned.
To be honest, Grillby was as eager for that day to come as Sans seemed to be, but unlike the little skeleton he was not willing to rush it. Especially not when the pair looked so worn and weary. “For tonight, you both need to get some more rest.” He started to get up, but the younger boy glanced up at him, the tilt of his eye sockets sad and pleading, and it made him pause. “Would you like me to stay with you?”
“Y-you stay?” the boy asked, unsure if he could even dare to hope that such a request would be granted.
“I will if you want me to, but if you’d rather not I don’t-”
He didn’t get the chance to finish his offer. Papyrus reached for him blindly, pawing at his shoulder. “Stay,” he whined, “staaaaay.”
“Alright,” the elemental agreed with a faint chuckle, “but you have to go back to sleep.”
It hadn’t been all that long since the children cowered in fear at the sight of him, but after much patience and hard work things had gotten better. Grillby had earned their trust in a thousand little ways. He’d poured love and magic into home cooked meals and stayed awake during long, sleepless nights when fever or pain or nightmares like this one kept them up. He’d caught them when they fell and hidden any signs of his own pain when they lashed out with wicked claws and growls fueled not by anger but by fear. He’d payed attention to the subtle signs of their confusion and taken the time to explain whatever new word or concept had caught their attention. Their room was kept mostly clear so that they could run, though admittedly it was Papyrus who did most of the running, with the beds pushed together and turned into a covered nest of blankets and pillows. They had soft clothing that more or less fit their small frames and a collection of toys, mostly donated by the dogs of the Snowdin royal guard, that they were gradually learning to play with. A shaggy rug was spread out on the floor, similar small rugs or flat pillows deliberately placed around the apartment in cozy, shadowy spots where they liked to curl up and rest. The soft glow of a nightlight shone from beside the door, ensuring that the moment anyone stepped into the room the boys would be able to see them even if the rest of the space was dark. The door was kept closed so that they didn’t feel like they were being watched, but not completely closed so that they didn’t feel trapped either. Bit by bit, Grillby had made this place into a home for the children in his care. Now they looked to him for safety and comfort, and that was a responsibility he did not take lightly.
After a bit of arranging, the trio curled up together in the center of the kids’ blanket nest, Grillby and Sans on either side with Papyrus wedged in the middle. The youngest had his arms wrapped tight around his brother’s waist, head tucked under the other skeleton’s chin, and his back pressed against the comforting wall of warmth that the elemental provided. He let out a contented, if somewhat watery, sigh. Grillby tucked in both children with a thin sheet and draped his arm over them, careful not to rest any weight on Sans’s ribs. The long, straight cut that had bisected his rib cage had finally healed, but the bones there were still weak. The dim light of the boy’s eyes watched him, weary but very much aware.
The light was still on, but the elemental did not get up to turn it off. With him staying, there was no way the room would be truly dark anyway. Besides, the extra light might help banish any lingering nightmares still lurking in the boys’ thoughts. The blanket nest, normally covered in cool shadow, glowed a faint orange with his light. He kept his flames low, mindful of the material above and around him, and focused on the particular way of burning that would make them crackle like a hearth. It wasn’t much of a lullaby, but it seemed to do the trick. He waited patiently as pent up tension slowly drained away from the two children, dim eye lights winking out as they surrendered to much needed sleep. Only then, when all was once more still and quiet, did he let his fire dim as he settled in for the night. If nightmares came to plague the boys again, he would be there to chase those bad dreams away.
—-
As W. D. Gaster woke, his sluggish mind slowly crawling back towards consciousness, a single thought came to him; he was cold. For someone who lived and worked in Hotland, that alone was cause for concern. As the chill gave way to pain and his memory slowly began to return, that concern morphed into soul stopping fear. His experiment had failed. Leeching the power of the human soul to sustain itself, the rift they’d manged to open had run wild and spilled void energy into their reality. He shouldn’t have survived what happened next, so why had he?
The doctor tried to move, only to find that what should have been a simple task was seemingly impossible. His body felt weightless, as if only frigid air remained in his hollowed out bones, yet he could not so much as lift a finger. The faint raspy hiss of his own breathing sounded otherworldly. From somewhere off to his right, he heard the telltale metallic thunk of the blast doors opening. They scraped along the tiled floor of the lab, pushing what sounded like broken glass and metal chunks out of their way. Heavy footsteps echoed through the space.
“You sure about this?” came a deep, low voice from somewhere near the doors.
A second voice answered, this one higher pitched and lilting. A woman perhaps? “They said the rift should be closed, at least according to their sensors, but keep your suit on just to be safe.”
Gaster tried to call out to the pair, hoping to get their attention, but the words came out soundless and painful.
“Stars above,” the woman gasped breathlessly. “This place looks like it got hit by a ceiling quake.”
“Over here,” her companion called, “I found somebody!” Footsteps thudded closer as the pair hurried over. For a brief moment, Gaster hoped that it was him they’d seen and help was on its way, but they stopped far short of where he was. Startled gasps of horror cut through the uneasy stillness.
“What happened to them?”
“No idea,” the man said, sounding faintly ill. Whatever state they had found the survivor in, it wasn’t encouraging. “They look like they’ve Fallen or something.”
“No, can’t be. I saw my mother when she Fell and trust me it doesn’t look like this.”
While one of the rescuers tried in vain to get the unfortunate monster to respond, the other began clearing a path through what remained of the lab. Gaster lay there helpless, listening as the wreckage was moved about. Something large and heavy was deposited against the wall not too far from him. He could feel the subtle vibrations through the floor as the monster began to walk away. Desperate, the doctor summoned all his strength and tried once more to move. His hand twitched, bones aching as he forced them to slide across the floor. Something sharp touched his palm but he kept going, brushing pieces of broken glass aside. The faint clinking sound they made as the little pile of shards collapsed made the monster pause.
“Hey, we’ve got another survivor!”
Gaster all but sobbed in silent relief as the pair rushed over. Gloved hands touched him carefully, as if their owners were afraid he might crumble to dust at any moment. He tilted his head to try and see them, knowing they should be close enough to make out at least their most rudimentary features. Something fuzzed and skittered like static on a screen at the edge of his otherwise darkened vision.
“Doctor Gaster? Sir, can you hear me? We’re gonna get you to a healer. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
The monsters carefully extracted him from the ruined mess of his lab, placing him on what felt like a stretcher. The back of his hand brushed against another body lying nearby. To his horror, he felt the unknown monster’s flesh begin to crumble even under that feather light touch, dry chunks of skin breaking off amidst a rain of oddly coarse dust.
New voices came as other rescuers arrived, the sounds blending together into meaningless noise. Someone came and lifted the stretcher, sending Gaster’s mind reeling as the world tipped and bobbed around him. He surrendered to the darkness that reached up to claim him until all that was left was the cold.