Archive of Our Own ^beta

After decades of work and frustration it stood before him, a pulsing beast of mechanisms that screamed in a language that mirrored his Font. He rested against the railing, watching with a lazy smile as the heat rippled against the surface. One by one the lights around him turned off until they were illuminated by nothing more than the power of the Core. The dark Underground was now filled with a light made by the effort of the most brilliant monster minds.

“Doctor Gaster? We did it,” his cat like assistant smiled, his fur considerably coarser than when they started. Gaster nodded his head but he didn’t tear it away from the machine. “We’re going down to the Hooves N’ Horn to celebrate if you want to join us, we wouldn’t have anything to celebrate without you,” his tail flicked with an unwarranted nervous tension.

Gaster fidgeted with the sleeve of his lab coat, “we had talked about going down to Snowdin but we really would like you to go with us.” Gaster straightened his back at the comment, well, if they’d put that much thought into it he might as well humor them. He nodded, “sweet Doc, see ya then.” Gaster waved as his assistant padded down the halls, eager to begin the celebration as soon as they could, but Gaster turned his attention back to the Core.

He’d finally done it, after everything that had happened he finally brought light to the Underground. More than that he’d brought energy, a spark of life that sustained everything. His eyes scanned around the metallic walkways, he was completely alone. His greatest accomplishment and he was all that was there. He raised an invisible glass of liquor to the hot metal, “to you and me!” He chuckled as he shot back the glass. Closest he’d had to a drink since the blueprints were first proposed. He rubbed his shoulders, now what was he supposed to do?

When you spent so many years dedicated to one singular task what do you do when the task is done? He clicked his teeth together, he supposed it would be back to the barrier but for now his colleagues deserved their celebration.

He walked into the overly crowded bar in Hotlands to a roar of cheers from more monsters than he could name. His sockets widened in surprise at the warm reception before he cautiously worked his way into a corner and found himself watching as the others drank, socialized, and crowed over their crowning achievement. They deserved it. It might have been his accomplishment, his name, his hours that twisted weeks of work into a single day but even he didn’t have enough hands to do it all on his own.

He watched his peers until the last of the night turned towards the first of the morning. No one really bothered with him, occasionally monsters would flinch as they suddenly realized he was still there, but no one approached him or his corner.

If Toriel were here they’d have all left hours ago, well fed and happy as she treated everyone with her generous hostess spirit. If Asgore were here there would have been a rowsing but bumbling speech as he brought the crew hope for a new chapter in their life. If Grillby were here, well, Grillby wouldn’t be anywhere near here.

He rested his chin on the back of the chair he was sitting in the wrong way to slothfully watch as everyone began to trickle out of the bar and back to their homes. To their families, where they would be met with the warmth of pride in a job well done. They’d worked hard for those they cared about. “Hey I’m closing up for the night,” the horse bartender prompted.

Gaster lifted his chin off of the chair, ‘sorry,’ he slid his fist across his chest.

“Pay up and go,” the horse’s tail flicked in the air.

‘I didn’t get anything,’ he signed with a confused expression.

“I don’t know Hands buddy, they said you were paying.”

Oh, Gaster rested his chin on his arms, oh. He traced a ‘G’ into the air, an upward pointing hand, hopefully he could understand that at least. The horse’s expression grew flat, right, common, common. He woke his tired mind up and drew out a ‘G’ in common in the air. The horse handed him a tab of paper, he scratched his head as he studied it: 500 G.

He sighed as he crossed to the bar counter. He took coins out slowly and deliberately to avoid the embarrassment of them slipping through his palm. There was a neat stack of gold in front of him by the time he was done. The bartender stood behind him and watched him count the whole while so he wouldn’t have to double check.

He hoped whoever set up this little joke was satisfied with themselves, granted they were probably too high off of drink to recognize their action. Trapped in that elated feeling when the world slips away and you just get to exist for a while free of the constant turbulence of thoughts that rattled in the skull like stones. Where the body relaxed as if it had never endured a hardship. A small hum escaped him as he reveled in the bliss of memories of such a sensation.

The bartender was just about to remind him to leave when he pulled out a pen from his inventory and flipped his receipt over. He deserved to celebrate too, this was his work, his crowning achievement, his vision, ‘how much would you charge me for a bottle of something strong and dark?’ he wrote out in atrociously sloppy common.

“Asgore doesn’t approve of the selling of alcoholic substances for personal use outside of establishments,” he looked the skeleton in the sockets.

‘Royal scientist,’ he wrote. ‘If Asgore has a problem he can tell me himself,’ that’s all he was good to him for anyways. Asgore would bemoan his problems to him for hours on end, all of the misery his decisions had caused, and Gaster would listen, for hours. Sometimes the monster would call him away from work just to push through some sort of issue that bubbled up inside of him. Gaster didn’t mind, he was glad to help his friend, but he never really seemed to get better. The days he was, when he was in high spirits, he was productive and didn’t have time to be bothered by the skeleton.

The horse seemed appeased by this and traded sixty more G for a bottle of something called ‘Dragon’s Spit.’ Gaster went on his way with the bottle clutched protectively to his chest by both hands. He gave his coworkers the next day off, they’d earned it, and they would probably be too hungover to come in anyways.

He slipped his key out of his pocket to insert it into his door. The house was a mess, papers, charts, recycled glasses, and disposable plates littered just about every visible surface. He set the bottle on top of the kitchen counter and reached up into his cupboard for a glass. His fingers scritched across the surface, what was he doing?

He stared at his reflection, he’d earned this. He’d worked his tailbone off to finish this project in his lifetime. He was old now, he wasn’t some impetuous child fighting for a scrap of attention. He was an adult. If he wanted to drink he could. He set the glass down, his mind pulsed with debate before he shoved the bottle in the fridge. It was too early in the morning for that.

Papers were published in their honor praising the team for their works. Interviews, that Gaster could not participate in, were broadcast live across the Underground’s radio waves. Monsters thanked them everywhere they went for their work- until they stopped. The bliss of their excitement would prove to be short lived.

Rolling power outages that lasted days started a few months after the initial celebration. Certain areas were prone to losing power entirely while others still had it: favoritism the citizens screamed. Gaster had stacks of mail on his desk every morning filled with nothing but complaints. Monsters would find him on the street, it wasn’t difficult to find an almost seven foot tall skeleton with holes in their hands, to inform him of how they could do his job better.

When he attempted to sign in response they grew agitated and claimed he was playing a game with them, the Royal Scientist can’t be a mute. Proving he was not a mute by speaking to them in his Font didn’t help either. His Font never helped. As weeks passed everything grew progressively worse. More hiccups in the Core, more coolant systems knocking offline, more complete failures, more problems than all of the wits and duct tape in the world could fix.

He finally reached a breaking point, he tore through the Castle walls and walked directly up to Asgore, ‘you need to talk to the citizens of the Underground! I am doing my best! I just can’t fix anything when everyday more monsters are bogging down my mind with entirely needless thoughts! I am doing everything I can for them.’ His breathing was hitched, he felt the waves of anxiety rolling out of his magic combatting with the King’s all consuming sorrow.

“Just do your job and everything will be fine,” Asgore replied flatly.

Gaster’s shoulders dropped, he picked up his hands to sign but then lowered them to his side. He was right, of course he was, if he was efficient in his job there wouldn’t be any needs for complaints. That was it then, he’d just have to do better.

He straightened his back then bowed sharply, ‘as you wish my King.’ He turned on his heels and ignored the sting in his soul as he stormed home.

The space between his eyes that had, at one point, held a nasal cavity wrinkled in distaste, did he own a floor at all? How long had it looked like this? Letters were everywhere, stuffed in dozens of boxes he had filled past the brim to get them out of his office. They spilt over and littered the floor along with the diminished blueprints. He slipped his shoes off near pretty much every other pair of shoes he owned and sank against the door.

He placed the heels of his hands up against his eye sockets, he just needed everything to stop. Just for a little bit. He could wake up on a day where everything was calm and normal and he wasn’t the only thing holding the Underground together. The King was miserable, he had every right to be with all he had lost, the monsters were miserable, he had less sympathy for them most of them hadn’t even seen the surface they were longing for, and Gaster- he was fine. He was always just fine. He had to be.

But he couldn’t get off the floor, not because he physically couldn’t but something compelled him to stay there, his knees hugged tightly to his chest. Eventually the thought of upheaval escaped him entirely and he screwed his fate to the floor. He was fine.

Time called to him in somber ticks that couldn’t be ignored. They grew louder and louder haunting him with wasted effort until he finally stood on shaky legs. It was his job. He had a job to do. He looked around the mess across his living room for the coolant system prints, he knew where everything was, he was just- spacing. He needed to focus, he looked over to the kitchen, to the glass now covered in grime on top of the table.

He should- get something to eat. He was just hungry and couldn’t think. He opened the fridge to find it a lukewarm wasteland except for the bottle of Dragon’s spit. He hadn’t eaten anything but vending machine food since he was appointed his title. Maybe he should go to the store?

Just the thought of the effort drained all of his energy. He started to shut the door when the light in the fridge flicked off then all of the other lights with it.

Another outage. Another round of letters. His bones rattled, he just needed everything to go away for a while. Just for a little bit. Then he’d be fine. He was an adult, he could handle himself. He grabbed the bottle. Just one glass.

The next day one of the cables that ran energy along the outside of the Core melted. The wrapping they had used to protect the wiring from the intense heat was apparently not enough. Soon all of the exterior cables would follow suit so they needed to work quickly to find a new casing. Just one glass.

Within a few days time they resolved the issue and developed a new shielding that they would apply to the more delicate parts of the Core’s exterior. The coolant system on the inside of the Core broke down and offered little relief to the team of monsters assigned to install the shielding. He was nerveless, the heat didn’t bother him like most monsters, so he decided to do it himself.

It proved far too much work for one monster, regardless of how many hands he possessed, and the heat filled his nonexistent lungs to smother every ounce of negative space in his skeletal form. His bones grew damp with sweat that trickled down his forehead then into his eye sockets. His porous bones lost their grip first. Then his footing. He stared down into the pits of magma as his soul pulsed with magic.

For a moment he was completely weightless as the earth’s natural forces pulled him toward the raising heat of the magma. It threatened to pull him deep into the beautiful shades of oranges and yellows that made his soul ache for someone nostalgic. Terror crept through his form as he debated on letting it consume him but the thought of not existing compelled him to action. He summoned his blaster to catch him still well above the molten pit below. Just one glass.

It was a week after that when the press came knocking at his door. His home. His only sanctuary from their incessant questions. He locked the door and sat in his office with the sides of his skull covered as if he actually had ears. They demanded answers he was working on but couldn’t give. Just one glass. Not enough- the numbness didn’t cover up the horrid taste that time, one more glass.

They got the blackout back online and slowly power returned to the Underground. With any luck this would resolve the blackouts entirely. It was a good day. Just one- he tipped the bottle over the edge of the glass, the dark brown liquid barely filled the base.

He lifted it to the poor kitchen lighting, it glistened and shone like a crystal as it sloshed against the sides of its imprisonment. Trapped in a single solitary space in its place in space time. The liquid served little purpose more than to be consumed by the greater world outside of its’ tiny domain. He tipped the glass back, he never cared for the flavor, somewhere between mossy cave wall and the garbage heap of WaterFall, but he didn’t drink for its’ taste. Stars he wish he had a glass of Fairy Fizz but he’d have to go to Snowdin for that.

He held the bottle between both of his hands and absentmindedly picked at the label, this was a cross road wasn’t it? This was the path between stepping back into his addiction or fighting for his sobriety. He set the bottle down to rub his temples, he just wanted a break.
It had been nearly three months since the last major power outage which was why Asgore was confused to be receiving a call from the science department, “Howdy!” He smiled as he spoke. He gently set down his watering can, it was such a lovely day, the sunbeams were dancing in from the surface which made the whole room shine with a golden light. It had been a while since a day had seemed this pleasant, this full of potential.

Oh, he snapped back to attention, he was on the phone, “Sorry I didn’t quite get that,” he held the phone against the edge of his ear.

“Dr.Gaster didn’t come in today, he didn’t text me saying he’d be late or anything,” Asgore’s eyes pointed to the ceiling. He knew the voice but couldn’t place the name of the Cat Monster that worked directly with Gaster. “He seemed pretty sick yesterday we were hoping he hadn’t- um- well he’s pretty old for a skeleton isn’t he?”

Asgore pulled the phone away from his ear to check his own messages. He hadn’t heard from Gaster in ages, usually he’d plague him with professionalism, attempt to show him every detail of his work. He knit his brows together as he attempted to piece together the last time he’d seen his friend, “I will go check on him and let you know what I find alright?”

“Yeah, sorry for asking this of you,” the assistant audiably squirmed on the other end of the line. Their voice tight in their throat.

“Oh it is quite alright, perhaps he finally discovered what sleep was,” Asgore chuckled as he hung up the phone but his smile dropped. He’d been in such high spirits he hadn’t even thought about calling WingDings anytime recently. He slipped his phone into his inventory and moved to find more comfortably casual clothes.

He knocked on the door in two short bursts, an old habit that cause him to panic and knock on the door a third time in a hope to suppress it. He hummed a low somber but quick tune to himself and waved at the monsters that passed by, it wasn’t like Gaster not to answer. Perhaps he was in the lab? He knocked again louder then raised his ear to the door. There wasn’t anything on the other side.

No quiet cursing as the skeleton quickly shoved his research back to the sides of the couch, he always insisted on acting like Asgore would throw a fit if two notebooks were in view while he visited. He didn’t hear anything that resembled power tools or the occasional explosion that sometimes occurred while the skeleton was working. Asgore knocked again, his ear perked against the door as he listened for the slightest sound. His soul tightened, surely he hadn’t just-

He shook the thought away and turned the knob, no luck, Gaster’s paranoia always meant the door was locked. He opened his phone: Otsd lt me n? He typed as best as he could. Gaster had made this phone with his large paws in mind but he still fumbled against the keyboard. Luckily, Gaster was a smart monster it was very rare he asked for him to rewrite a message.

When it seemed it was going to take a while to respond Asgore sat on the front step. This was all, fairly odd but surely it was just a misunderstanding. Maybe Gaster had just fallen asleep and when he realized his mistake sprinted to work to try to make up for lost time. He chuckled, that sounded like him. He combed through his beard as boredom set in, any minute he’d get a call from the science division with an explanation.

With the thought his phone buzzed beside him: NOT NOW.

Asgore blinked at the message as confusion wrote itself across his features: yr asst sai d u wrnt well.

SICK. Came the one word reply. Asgore scrunched up his face, Gaster didn’t get sick. As long as he’d known him he’d never once been ill, surely the skeleton had no idea how to deal with the ailment.

Cmg n, Asgore reached into his inventory and pulled out Gaster’s spare key then inserted it into the door. He was surprised when the door barely moved to open, Gaster wasn’t sitting on the other side of it was he? No he’d have heard that. It was hardly any effort for him to push the door open wider.

His soul stuttered, Gaster was by no means an obsessive cleaner but his house was always kept at a respectable level of presentability. Right now the walls and the floors seemed to be made of the same mess of fabrics and papers. Boxes filled the entire right hand wall that were, in turn, stuffed past the brim with envelopes of unopened mail. Asgore wasn’t sure if Gaster had gotten rid of the tacky green couch that sat in his living room or if it had merely been consumed.

He lifted his paw in an attempt to find his footing before he decided against it, he wasn’t even in the house yet and already he was needing to be careful of where he placed his feet. “WingDings? I’m coming in!” He shouted loud enough to be heard anywhere in the simple house. His chest swelled as it inflated with air before he racked up the nerve to step into the with a wide enough stride to shut the door behind him.

It was as bad as it looked, he ended up disregarding his previous caution and stepped directly onto the mess. Papers scrunched below the blanket that twisted dangerously over the slick surface. Asgore’s eyes scanned over each meditated step to hopefully catch anything dangerous to his exposed paws that could be lurking amongst the mess.

He dared a glance to the kitchen, the floors weren’t terrible but the counters and the table were filled with disregarded glasses that were beginning to get experimental themselves. His nose crinkled involuntarily so he quickly turned his attention back to the floor space. His claws hooked around a cylindrical object underneath a wad of shredded papers.

It was just different enough to grab his attention, he crouched down, and pushed the paper off of the object to reveal a dark green bottle. ‘Dragon Spit’ read the remains of the scratched apart sticker. He turned it over in his paw before he smelled the lip, alcohol. Asgore’s hair stood on end as his teeth bared themselves into a scowl. The sun like warmth of concern and sympathy washed away from him as a storm cloud.

His eyes flickered with magic as he tore his way through the garbage and down towards the basement door. “Gaster!” he roared. Some unintelligible gurgle of noise greeted him in a pained tone. Asgore rubbed at his teeth through his muzzle as he collected himself.

Gaster sat at the edge of his bed, his hands clasped to his face, his skull pointed down towards his knees. The scene was truly pathetic and Asgore nearly lost his nerve, “Gaster what is this?” He extended the bottle while his eyes sparked with cyan as he waited for the monster to look up.

‘Oh,’ came the simple response from his hands, he smiled cheekily, ‘that’s the one I couldn’t find.’ He took the bottle from Asgore and pulled a box out from under his bed. It was a wooden crate with specific slots sized perfectly for the bottle he slid in to the empty slot, ‘see we’ve got a pretty good system, if I bring back all of the bottles I bought he’ll fill them up again for a cheaper price.’ His sockets were half lidded as he prepared to flinch from Asgore’s voice.

Asgore’s lip quivered, “you realize what this is don’t you? What you’ve done to yourself, again. Don’t you have any remorse?”

Gaster’s long jointed finger traced the rim of the bottle, he bit something spiteful out in his Font before he picked his hands up, ‘this is me taking a break.’ His eye lights were tiny pricks of light inside of his dark sockets, ‘and no, I never regret anything I do.’ He smiled plainly, like he’d just told a cute joke that no one else quite understood.

“This isn’t a break! This is a complete meltdown!” his voice bounced off of the walls and returned to the pair. Gaster curled up on his bed, “where did this come from Gaster?” His voice grew soft as the skeleton writhed from the booming sound of his voice. Asgore had never seen him like this, he’d been told it had happened, back when he first started his research on the barrier, but he hadn’t seen it.

He sat on the mattress and buried his face in his hands, “what happened?”

Gaster slid towards Asgore as the mattress buckled under the King’s weight, ‘those are two separate questions sire.’

“Well I want answers,” Asgore spoke firmly.

Gaster hummed then laid back on the mattress his form pinned to Asgore’s, ‘if you want me to sober up just ask. I’m yours to command.’ He dropped his arms lazily to the bed the moment he finished signing.

His sockets started to close, “Gaster. I am not going to command you like some-”

‘Dog?’ Gaster suggested, ‘you’ve been hiring a lot of those lately. Never liked dogs much but I suppose we’re natural enemies aren’t we? I get along well with cats, or I think I do. Scratch that, I don’t really get along with anything.’ He curled his hands against his chest, the sound that escaped him was, altogether, quite unpleasant. It served as his laugh but it was always off putting to Asgore the way the pitches shrilled mechanised noises into the air in off putting undulating patterns.

“Gaster please, as your friend-” Asgore’s eyes widened as Gaster curled himself silently up to his feet and turned back to Asgore with vacant sockets.

‘Is that what we are?’ Asgore was not easily intimidated, he was one of the largest monsters in the Underground and, undoubtedly, the strongest but staring deep into those sockets his soul swam underneath the sea of spite that radiated from the skeleton.

“Of course we are, why would you even question it?” Asgore kept his eyes on Gaster’s even if he wanted nothing more than to look away.

‘From the moment your wife left,’ Asgore’s eyes pulled away briefly but he focused them back on the hands in front of him, ‘I’ve been your on call. Everything. I’ve helped you through wave after wave of your soul consuming depression. Do you even know how much your magic hurts? How hard it is to fight to keep a soul afloat underneath your Boss Monster magic?’

‘I coddled you as if compassion or kindness was in me. I lied and pretended everyday that I was a better monster than what I am because you needed it,’ his sockets shut as he bit down hard enough on his teeth for them to squeak. ‘It was okay that you ignored my presentations on projects in the name of your country. You didn’t understand the-’ his teeth snarled as he tried to think of the sign, ‘M-U-M-B-O-J-U-M-B-O,’ he spelled out. ‘You had more important things to grieve upon.’

Asgore let him vent at this point, he wanted to force him to the point, wring it out of him if he needed to but patiance was a trait of his. ‘But I did everything I could to help you Asgore but, stars, you didn’t want to talk to me on your good days,’ purple magic made lace like patterns along his cheekbones. ‘You’d turn me away and say you were fine today. So, that was my use. My purpose,’ he rubbed at his eye sockets. His hands were visibly shaking now as they grasped around his skull.

He crouched down to the floor and held his head between his hands as if it was about to fall off, which wasn’t an impossibility. He hummed to himself again as purple tears splattered against the ground. Asgore reached for him but a freshly conjured hand bullet blocked the contact, it dispersed as soon as Asgore recoiled his hand.

Gaster sat on the floor but turned his attention back to Asgore, ‘I should have known better than to expect anything in return.’

“So your saying this is my fault?” Asgore snarled.

There was that laugh again, Asgore did his best not to look offended but he never believed himself to be a convincing actor. ‘Of course not,’ he pulled the box over to himself and pulled a bottle out, ‘you didn’t buy this, I did. You didn’t make me drink it, I did. I chose this and as such you should respect my decision as I respect yours.’

He was at a loss for words, his lips would part just far enough to expose his fangs before they would disappear again. He wrinkled his nose as his thoughts tried to sort themselves out. What should he say? What was he supposed to say to that? “I can’t do that Gaster, too many people rely on you,” Asgore shook his head. “Come on, we’re going to go clean your living room,” he needed something to do with his hands.

Gaster pressed the bottle a bottle to his chest and shook his head like a child asked to put away a toy they were still playing with. “You’re at least going to watch me clean it,” Asgore glared. Gaster needed a clean area to straighten out his head space and not this dingy dark basement that resembled the hopelessness of the rest of the Underground.

Gaster leaned against the kitchen table in his chair while Asgore worked at sorting the floor decorations into piles. Had he really turned him away on good days? He looked over to the skeleton who was now drawing shapes in the dirt with his thin fingers. He’d been there for him since the day Toriel left, no matter what insult Asgore slung, no matter what hateful utterance he said about a monster the skeleton still believed in, Gaster was there.

When Asgore turned down his presentations he always bowed his head and asked what was wanted of him. He supposed he had treated him a bit like a servant, someone that was around for his benefit alone. His mind rolled with fog when he tried to place his last interaction with the monster. That didn’t matter though, it seemed he had a debt to repay.

He smiled over to Gaster but it hesitated and fell, the skeleton’s eyelights were out but he was still sitting in the same half sitting half lying position across the table he had been moments prior. He looked like a carefully posed mannequin, “Gaster?” When there was no response he crossed to place a hand on his shoulder, “Gaster?”

He performed a quick check, he was sitting at an even four HP, “Gaster!” The skeleton’s eyelights groggily came into a blurry focus but he seemed confused to see Asgore in front of him. “When is the last time you ate anything?” Asgore nearly toppled the meager fridge with how quickly he opened it.

Completely empty. In fact it looked like it hadn’t even been used, how often did the monster stay at the labs? ‘Not hungry,’ Gaster’s hands fumbled as he laid his head back down on the table, ‘just wanna sleep.’

“What can I get you?” Asgore’s skin was crawling, he should have checked his stats when he first saw him. Ever since they’d met he would refuse to eat if there was anything to be even remotely stressed about. He knew he took terrible care of his health sober but drunk was a different story entirely.

Gaster rested his forehead against the table, his hands signed underneath it, ‘a burger from Grillby’s.’

“That’s a bit far- if you’ll drink some tea before I go,” Gaster was suddenly staggering in front of him.

‘No don’t go to Snowdin, I was being dumb, I’ll eat whatever just please don’t,’ he grabbed his head as his eyelights swam circles in his sockets.

“I will gladly go for you my friend I am just concerned-” Asgore was interrupted as Gaster slipped an already open bag of chisps out of his inventory. The way he chewed them slowly indicated they had probably grown fairly stale. Monster food might not expire but that didn’t mean it kept the correct consistency forever. “I’ll make some tea,” Asgore decided.

Was he really the cause of all this? He’d hoped his friend would be willing to talk to him if that was the case. Perhaps they hadn’t been as close as Gaster was with the others but surely he wouldn’t hesitate. The monster never had troubles before stating his opinion. He poured himself a cup and then Gaster but served his friend first.

He happily put down the dry chisps to sip at the golden flower tea. Asgore drank his faster than he usually would to get back to his sorting of the rubbish. Most of it was trash but he kept anything with writing on it, except for the plates, those were past due for a trip to an incinerator.

His eyes kept falling on the boxes of letters, none of the envelopes he’d picked up were written by the same hand. Some of them even consisted of a few crass insults spread across them. He heard an odd sound like a stone tossed into a still puddle, “sorry what was that?”

‘Don’t bother with those, I need to finish looking through them,’ he rubbed his head as his eye sockets fought to stay open. ‘Just throw them on top of the boxes-’ He looked down to his hands with a mild amount of shock. ‘Sorry, your majesty, I can’t- I shouldn’t order you-’ His breathing hitched as if he was on the verge of tears.

Shame wrote itself across every last bone in the monster’s form. He shook with a realization of what had been seen as he finally was cognitive as to what had been happening. His hand slid over his soul over and over again as he wrung his apology over his ribs. His hands were shaking hard enough to be seen from the otherside of the room now, ‘I’ll stop drinking, I’ll clean this up,’ he rubbed his hand against his forehead, ‘just- stop. You’re the King of monster’s you don’t have need for my mess.’

His shoulders dropped, ‘I’m just making another problem for you.’ Finally the dam broke and Gaster curled in on himself, choppy metal grating sounds rang in the air as he grasped at his ribs. ‘You were doing so well and I’m gonna-’ Asgore approached him slowly, he knew when he was this unstable contact would only have adverse effects but he couldn’t watch this anymore.

“Gaster, listen to me,” it had been awhile since that feeling welled into his chest. Something proud but sad that sang to his broken soul, something paternal. “You are fine, I’m doing this because I want to help you. You’ve helped me so much. This is your payment, this is your return.” Gaster placed his head against Asgore’s shoulder and he laid his paws against his tiny rigid back.

“I’m going to help you through this okay? We’re going to clean up your home tonight and tomorrow you are going to go back to work,” Gaster shook his head but didn’t pull away. “Yes, you are going to go to work,” Asgore said firmly leaving no room for negotiation.

It had apparently been up for negotiation. It took almost a whole week to clean the house properly and since that was the first step in the agreement Gaster refused to budge until it was completed. They’d fought on several instances over trifle little things that hardly mattered in the big picture but they were enough for Asgore to have to storm outside on several occasions.

Gaster’s withdrawal symptoms weren’t unbearable but they were frustrating enough for Asgore to deal with let alone the skeleton going through them. He was moody, not that he wasn’t normally but this was much more of a swing then his usual hot or cold. When he was high he was ecstatic happily speaking of future inventions or theories and when he was low he was wallowing in self pity over more things than he had any right to apologize for.

Asgore had never seen a skeleton get physically sick before, it wasn’t a pleasant scene for any race but the purple magic that dripped from his sockets and mouth as he tried desperately to breath wasn’t a sight Asgore anticipated leaving him anytime soon.

They talked about the letters, the harassment, the constant extra stress put on a monster who already had one of the most stressful jobs in the Underground. They opened a few envelopes but when Gaster started to break down with anxiety they decided to set a date to just burn them all away. Gaster was initially excited by the idea but he slowly withdrew into a quiet state. He said it would be a while before that.

However after many arguments, and much more cleaning, Asgore managed to shove his Royal Scientist out the door and escort him safely to the workplace. He was anticipating a warm welcome for the returning Royal Scientist, they had thought he was dead at one point after all, but only his personal assistants even greeted him. Gaster didn’t show the slightest trace of the trepidation that had rattled around in his bones just moments before. As he began signing to his colleagues it was as if the last week had just been some fever dream of Asgore’s.

Asgore expelled a breath that had been caught in his lungs for far too long. He trod back to his home surprised that the solemn gray walls beckoned to him with songs of comfort. He rubbed wearily at his tired eyes, first came a long nap, then he would tend to his pour neglected garden and whatever papers he needed to sort through.

He laid atop his large, plush mattress, with a relieved and impassioned sigh as a smile plastered itself across his face. Gaster had insisted if Asgore was going to stay the night he use his bed with such gusto that the King could hardly argue, he certainly wouldn’t fit on the couch. He reached his arms out thrilled that only his fingers hung over the edge of the bed. He was grateful for his friends generosity in his time of need but his soul melted as it was overwhelmed with comfort.

He hummed a catchy little tune, he couldn’t place where he knew it from, as he watered his poor plants. He didn’t need to look down to know exactly where to place his paws to spare every last flower from his mass. He could save each and every blossom no matter how withered they had fallen he could revive them. There were no problems he couldn’t resolve here in his garden he was a wise guardian, needed, and liked.

In the Underground he was a foolish King, a spurned lover, a terrible father, and apparently an equally awful friend. He felt his soul grow heavy but he shook it free. He couldn’t think about himself right now, Gaster needed his assistance. It was selfish of him but having someone rely on him so much, to need him, helped delay the ice from piercing his soul. He tilted his watering can back up and rested it on the throne.

Gaster really was doing quite well. Asgore had the sneaking suspicion he had yet to hear the real source of his return to alcohol but he was hopeful his friend would tell him in time. In fact, he should do something special! His soul fluttered with the thought, this was one week sober after all. He debated on a few various gift ideas mugs, beakers, measurement devices, if he could find something sciency that would be even better. Even if he wasn’t exactly sure what something sciency would consist of but if he saw it he felt he’d know.

Granted the skeleton was pretty down, he probably didn’t see himself deserving of a gift. Asgore furrowed his brows, he actually couldn’t think of a time he’d accepted anything personal from the King. Most of it was received only under the implication that it was for the lab and not himself. So perhaps not a gift but he wanted to do something.

Perhaps he could make something. Food of some sort. The skeleton still wasn’t eating very well, it didn’t seem to matter what he made it would be picked at just enough to restore some health before it would be pushed to the side. He rummaged through his fridge, Gaster was particularly fond of junk food. Greasy messy food that dripped down his paws and matted his fur with a dingy brown liquid. He wrinkled his muzzle at the thought but his eyes sparked with an idea.

The clock informed him he had plenty of time, so he threw on his red holiday scarf with the fluffy white ends, the only pair of shoes that fit his cumbersome feet, and headed down to Snowdin.

The first few breaths of frigid air fogged in transparent puffs that tickled his nose with their icy chill. He ran his paw through a patch of his foggy breath to watch it disperse amongst the snowy backdrop. He made sure to visit Snowdin once every year no matter his own strife. No matter how down he was he had to take the time to visit the children of the snowy land, it was the one sliver of hope that he could still inspire in others.

The rustic warm exterior of the bar glowed against the white snow covered trees. It was the warmth and cheeriness of Snowdin's denizens given physical form. He peeked through the wide bay window, good, it wasn’t too terribly crowded today. He enjoyed speaking with his subjects but he wanted this to be a quick trip.

He hadn’t seen the flame monster since- well. It was a very unpleasant day for everyone and he wasn’t interested in bogging himself down with undesirable memories at this particular moment. He opened the door to a warmth that made the snow outside a distant memory. The wooden interior was well worn but it was polished and pristine, it was obvious the owner took excellent care of the place.

Asgore nodded to the guards sitting around a table playing cards before he leaned against the counter, “Howdy Grillby!” He singsonged. Grillby bowed his head in a short motion, never one for much conversation. “I’m just going to be quick today, we can catch up some other time,” he smiled, “I’d just like two burgers if you would.” The flame made no real indication he understood before he headed back towards the kitchen.

Asgore carefully positioned himself atop of the narrow bar stool next to a red bird monster who had him fixed with a curious look. “Howdy,” he smiled.

“Hello,” they replied with a chipper beat off their beak. The air hung quiet around them and Asgore began to get the impression he’d done something wrong.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Asgore’s thumb ran across the bottom of his velvety ear.

The bird seemed to consider this, “well, no.” The edges of her wings tapped against the countertop, “I was just wondering why you were here?”

Oh. Yes. It was probably odd for the King of all Monsters to go all of the way to Snowdin for a burger. “A friend of mine isn’t doing too well so I thought I would surprise him with a burger from here, he’s a big fan of Grillby’s cooking,” Asgore smiled. He wanted to tease that he was a fan of the bartender as well but the monster probably wouldn’t understand the joke.

“I see,” she hummed, “sorry to hear that.”

“I think he’s going to be just fine,” Asgore declared. He leaned on his arm, Gaster had been so insistent on him not coming here that first day. Nothing seemed to be amiss, maybe he just didn’t want Grillby to know he was drinking again? “How has Grillby been, I haven’t heard from him in a very long time,” he ventured.

“He is doing well, a bit tired but that’s only because business has been so good,” she sang cheerily. “He really likes what he does,” she looked towards the kitchen door a bit of fondness fell into her eyes.

“That is good to hear, perhaps I should visit some other time so we could catch up,” he smiled.

“Probably not,” she looked at him, “Grillby doesn’t involve himself with anything from the war.”

“What do you mean?” his brow quirked.

“Just that, he doesn’t want any reminders,” she looked up to Asgore, “he doesn’t talk to anyone about it.” She pulled her wings closer to her, “a year or so ago an odd looking monster with holes in his hands came in signing something about a project almost being done. Grillby ignored them the whole while. I’ve never seen him so stone faced.”

“I see,” Asgore hummed as Grillby set two sacks down on the counter. He exchanged the sacks for some G from his pocket but Grillby shook his head.

“Grillby says no charge,” the little red bird piped up.

Asgore smiled sadly to Grillby, since when did he refuse to talk for himself? “Just consider it a one hundred percent tip my friend,” he tipped his head to the bartender before he returned to the cold.

He hadn’t really considered the walk back, he paused in the spinning cold and heated his paws up as if he were about to conjure a fiery bullet. It would heat up his paws for a little bit before it would flicker into a dying ember of itself and need to be reignited. He felt his magic drain away from him as he fought to keep it so weak but hopefully the end results would be worth it.

He pulled open the gray door to see Gaster curled up on the couch facing away from the entryway. His meager form tucked precisely into himself in an attempt to disappear from the world. “Gaster I brought you-” Asgore’s voice dropped as he noticed the squirm to hide something within the couch. Gaster turned to face Asgore but when his sockets met Asgore’s burning eyes he squirmed guiltily under the gaze.

The skeleton weighed nothing and was effortlessly shoved aside as Asgore’s paw dove between the cushions. The smooth surface was obviously glass, he knew what the object was before he even removed it, “after everything we have done! You pull this?” Asgore’s soul shook with anger that settled against him like betrayal.

‘I just wanted to hold it,’ Gaster’s shoulders were tight as his hands moved in quick gestures. ‘I just wanted something that was here- that was real,’ he grabbed his skull in his hands as his breathing hitched in a sound similar to a fish coming up for air. ‘It’s from my bottle stash-still incredibly dry and down stairs, if you don’t trust me you can look,’ he held his eyelights firmly against Asgore’s.

“I’m sorry my friend but I feel I must,” he turned his head away just in time to avoid the broken look on his friend’s face, Gaster’s magic sunk into the air enough of a stinging requiem without his sorrowful gaze.

Asgore tread down the stairs, perfectly spaced for Gaster’s lanky legs but hardly wide enough for his clumsy paws. He slipped down the last few stairs but caught himself on the rail. He straightened himself up, happy no one saw, and pulled the box of bottles out from under the bed. Sure enough the crate was merely missing a single bottle, Asgore settled the bottle into its’ proper space as guilt wrenched in his stomach.

He should have trusted WingDings, he sat on the bed and rested his head in his hands. Gaster hadn’t had the time before Asgore arrived to obtain anymore, before that Asgore was with him every minute of everyday. Did he really expect Gaster to run off and do something reckless the second he was out of his sight? He’d been smothering the scientist, his friend was an adult, obviously he needed help right now but he wasn’t in need of being babysat.

He heaved up to his feet an apology already writing itself in his mind. He peeked his head into the living room to see a very tired Gaster stretched across the couch. Asgore bowed his head as he entered the room but he was cut off by a cough like sound, ‘sire.’

Asgore narrowed his brows, ‘you have every right not to trust me. I. Don’t trust me. Please don’t worry about it.’ Asgore scratched the back of his neck, he couldn’t tell if he was sincere or just trying to be subservient.

“One week Gaster,” Asgore patted his back, “you’ve made it a whole week I should trust you more.”

Gaster shook his head, ‘one week means nothing, this is something I’m going to have to fight the rest of my life,’ he rested his forehead against his fists. The cracks in his skull really had healed quite well just two narrowly open sections along the right socket that were already on their way to catching up with the rest of the seam.

“That may be, but I still feel you deserve a reward,” he grabbed a sack off of the table and a few plates, if the sack was any indication the burgers would easily drip onto the floor.

Gaster’s expression lightened up as he saw the burgers, he happily accepted his with a childlike gleam in his eyelights. Asgore sat back as he started on his own burger, “so how was work?”

‘You went to Snowdin?’ a pair of hand bullets conjured into the air in front of him.

“Yes I did,” Asgore stated simply, “you had mentioned-” his voice trailed off as he watched the skeleton’s ribs stutter. He sat up to look at him proper, his eyelights were round, which indicated he was elated, but tears streamed down the sides of his cheekbones. He ate ravenously, it was the first time since Asgore came over he’d displayed any sort of an appetite.

“What’s wrong?” Asgore wiped his greasy paw against his pants then set it on top of Gaster’s leg.

‘Was Grillby alright? Did you get to talk to him? His flames were orange weren’t they? They weren’t sitting too close to his core? Did he get mad at you? I’m so sorry, why did you do that?’ the bullets signed question after question faster than the last to where Asgore couldn’t even keep up with them. He realized they’d started signing with little thought from their wielder.

It was a unique habit that Asgore hadn’t noticed the monster had until this week they spent together. His thoughts would run rampant and his bullets would do their best to keep up, they seemed to be better at keeping up with the monster than Asgore. Occasionally he’d observed the monster conjure two sets to work independently on seperate jobs, a task that would have to take a lot of mental fortitude.

The bullets disappeared from existence as Gaster curled his knees to his chest after he finished his burger. That was definitely the most he had eaten in a single setting. Asgore offered him his burger but he declined, ‘sorry, I worry about him.’ Before he could say anything the spindly fingers began to move again, ‘I have a stash in my office.’

Asgore blinked, “what?”

‘I didn’t drink any,’ he signed solemnly, ‘I honestly forgot about it until the end of the day when my assistants went home.’ He smirked, ‘I grabbed the flask without even thinking about it. I don’t actually remember even doing it.’

‘I kept a small flask full to fight off all of the withdrawal symptoms,’ he looked so defeated, so small, ‘the headaches, the anxiety, my damn hands shaking so much I couldn’t even hold a pencil.’ His fingers rubbed against each other through the sleeve of his shirt, ‘just a quick drink and they’d fade away.’

‘The day before you showed up I sort of, gave up entirely,’ Gaster did his best impression of a chuckle, ‘I drank straight up to work, all six bottles. I came in just- messed up.’ His eyelights flicked off, ‘they asked if I was sick,’ his shoulders scrunched in a shrug, ‘I said yes.’

He rubbed the heels of his hands against his sockets, ‘and that was it. No one cared. No one questioned me, nobody knew me well enough to know how not okay I was!’ He stood up and turned to face Asgore directly, ‘so when I started hallucinating, seeing-’ his sockets widened as he focused on the monster in front of him, ‘things,’ he said simply his eyes bobbing down towards his hands, ‘I drank from the flask and I decided I’d rather be completely not okay than pretending I was.’

“So then today-”

‘I was going to finish off the flask,’ he flopped back onto the couch and pinned himself with his knees, ‘I thought there would be something in there, I forgot,’ still curled in his neat little ball he leaned to his side and rested his head against the arm of the chair. ‘So you shouldn’t trust me, you shouldn’t reward me,’ he rolled off the couch with an abrupt thought, ‘I’m going to bed.’

Asgore gently wrapped his paw around Gaster’s arm, careful not to close it too tight to risk any sort of trapped feeling from surfacing. He looked Gaster directly in the sockets, “I am proud of you.”

Gaster rubbed the base of his sockets, ‘thank you.’

Gaster was surprised at the difficulties he was facing with himself mentally. How often he had to pause his thought process to retrace when he’d fallen onto such a tangent. Far too many times in a day he would feel his teeth yearn for the firm rim of the glass bottles. It would hum in his skull until he couldn’t make himself think of anything but the sensation.

After a while his hands would begin to shake which made signing instructions to his peers nearly impossible, it was just an adverse effect of being sick at his age, nothing to worry about, it would pass. He clasped his hands together when they weren’t in use as tightly as he could muster in a pathetic attempt to still the shaking.

When he confessed the presence of the flasks to Asgore he asked for it to be placed in the box with the bottles so he had nothing to fill up at the Hotlands bar. It was a sound strategy, one that implied Gaster wouldn’t run out to fetch a new bottle or cling desperately to a coffee cup and beg for the bartender to fill it up- a thought that had crossed his mind several times in the last few hours.

He leaned back in his desk chair, there were only a few more hours left, he could get through it. As late as it was he was still drinking black coffee. The ceramic rim ceased the humming in his teeth, the black liquid filled him with the warmth he missed, the only downside was how badly it aggravated the shaking in his hands.

Surely, this was almost over, everything was about to slip into a distant memory as the withdrawal symptoms and the desire to drink just disappeared. He knew better, he’d done this before- never quite to this extreme, or at least he hadn’t recognized it being this bad. He was also a lot younger. His fingers squeaked against the ceramic mug, he set it down firmly as a headache settled into him.

Drawers flew open as he looked for some sort of alleviation for the budding pain, some tiny little morsel that he could massage in his skull before he ruined it. A touch of green magic would remedy it but he was a little short on that sadly. He tugged open the bottle of pills which contained powderized green magic but it was empty, he’d used the last of it this morning. The pressure built against the top of his eye sockets heavy while the inside of his skull slowly filled with cotton.

His eyelights fell over to his right hand that was planted on top of the desk. His thumb sat gently over his fingers, he tilted his wrist to see his fingers overlapped in the perfect shape for the neck of a bottle. It felt like minutes had passed before he finally extended his fingers out of the shape. That wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Asgore had been needling him for why he had started drinking in the first place, what in the Underground could possibly possess him to do this act of stupidity again. Asgore didn’t believe it was solely his fault but he wouldn’t accept Gaster saying it was all his either. He wanted a reason so it could be avoided in the future. Deep down Gaster knew why it was, what exactly needled the desire back into his soul, but right now with his mind full of cotton, his eyes burning heavy, and the ever present shaking in his hands he couldn’t quite recall.

The lights in his office flickered dangerously for a moment before they returned to their regular luminosity. He should probably go check on that. As he sat up his magic rushed into his skull with chilling streams so cold they burned, he winced as he set his head down on his desk. His assistant’s would get him if he was needed.

Almost a month, he was almost a month sober and yet it was all he could think about. It was all he wanted. Just a quick sip of something strong past his teeth, he took a swallow of his black coffee and grimaced, it had grown cold.

The walk back home was agonizing, Hotland was far too bright, the Capital was far too loud, and his house was far too far. His front door greeted him and he was appreciative of its support as he leaned his meager weight against it. The door would open, Asgore would be sitting on the couch with some simple project in front of him, he would look up, say ‘Howdy’, and then attempt to move himself aside to give Gaster enough space to sit on the couch properly.

After that he would be asked about his day to which Gaster would avoid describing how bad his symptoms were and instead focus on what they accomplished in the day. Asgore would ask if anything else happened to which Gaster would deny it before the Boss Monster would then give up with a hefty sigh and cook something. Everyday was the same thing. The same lies.

His hands took a while to still themselves enough to insert the key into the door but finally it clicked and he pushed the it open. Asgore was sitting on the ugly green couch in his bright pink button down reading over a packet of papers. He looked up from them with a casual glance, “Howdy!” He smiled. He set his papers down on the coffee table then moved over to the left hand side of the couch in an attempt to give the skeleton some space.

Gaster’s hand clung to the doorknob, this was when he should move to sit on the couch. That was the second step. His knees wouldn’t move, his feet wouldn’t lift, his body didn’t respond to the thought. His soul stuttered in distress as he dropped down to his knees, hand still grasping the doorknob.

What happened? Why was he on the floor? His bones attempted to rattle but they didn’t make any sound. He tapped his ring finger to the corner of his teeth, he wasn’t upset, he wasn’t feeling anything. Nothing. Not annoyance at the routine or anger at his pounding headache, he couldn’t even feel it now, not directly.

Asgore was approaching but his steps made no sound and his movement was oddly slow for his strides. It was all so fascinating he knew he was here he knew Asgore was as well but it was so- distant. Was this what Falling was like? Was he Falling?

He should be alarmed by that shouldn’t he? He’d been around for so long, so much longer than he should have. He should be fighting against the thought but he couldn’t feel anything. Everything finally stopped. He had his break, he finally had his break.

Green filled his vision, a pale light that he remembered being more vibrant at some point. Gentle brushes of wiry fur pricked through his clothes and against his bones. A heavy weight held him secured to a firm surface. “WingDings,” the voice was firm, authoritative but broken. He scraped his teeth, he hated being called that, “WingDings please.”

His hands were oddly unresponsive so he mumbled something he wasn’t exactly sure of but the sound was mortifying so it must have been something. Slowly he felt his ribs inflate and deflate in a steady motion and Asgore’s fur grew individual strands. Gaster sighed, so did Asgore, he had the distinct impression it was for different reasons.

“My friend, I fear you nearly frightened my soul out of my chest,” Asgore held his paw over his ribs as he folded his knees to lean against the couch.

He fought the urge to apologize, to grovel for forgiveness, but he really didn’t know what had just occurred, ‘what did I do?’ He scratched at the vertebrae that made his neck, ‘I collapsed-’

“Your HP was dropping at a consistent rate,” Asgore rubbed his face, “the sudden change caused your body to-”

‘I was Falling,’ Gaster sat on the arm of the couch.

Asgore’s muzzle curled, “No you weren’t.”

‘Old as I am my HP shouldn’t just drop,’ Gaster signed.

“What did you eat today,” Asgore’s voice was an inch away from an unpleasant snarl.

‘That hardly-’

“Gaster,” Asgore’s jaws snapped.

‘About two pots of coffee, a few chisps, I think,’ Gaster’s fingers intertwined themselves while he signed.

“You think? Gaster I told you, you have to eat something while you’re at work,” his eyes were fiery as they fixed themselves on Gaster, “you have to take care of yourself! Or else all of this is for nothing!” A roar caught itself in his throat that escaped in half of a bleat. His hands dropped, his body slouched, and everything left him.

For the last several weeks Asgore had been a pillar of positivity, a shining beacon wearing his true face. He was the hope of the Underground for a reason but now every line of his form read hopeless. “I can’t lose anyone else Gaster,” he cupped his paw over the end of his muzzle, “you can’t do this to me. You can’t.”

His eyes were a dull brown lacking any spark of color, Gaster did his best impression of swallowing. “I don’t know what I would do without you,” Asgore wheezed as waterworks built in his eyes.

‘I will try harder your majesty,’ Gaster signed solemnly, he supposed eating something in a day was the least he could do after everything Asgore had done. It hardly seemed to be the cause for whatever had just happened but if it would appease him he wouldn’t hesitate. He might forget but he would put in the extra effort.

‘I’m going to go get food, you don’t need to cook and you don’t need to suffer through mine,’ Gaster smiled.

Asgore’s eyes were heavy, “you shouldn’t go out by yourself.”

‘I’ll have to eventually, you need to go back to being King and not waiting around on your dog,’ Gaster smiled.

“That’s not what you are Gaster,” Asgore tried for a stony glare but missed on account of the glassiness over his eyes.

‘Well then trust your Royal Scientist to run out and grab something to eat then head right back, it’s a fairly simple trick,’ Gaster’s smile pushed mischievous as his eyelights sparked.

“I can go,” Asgore chuckled.

‘My treat, let me do this Asgore, you’ve put up with me for nearly a month now, please, just relax for twenty minutes. If I’m longer then that send one of your actual dogs after me,’ when Asgore chuckled he knew he was in the clear.

“Twenty minutes,” Asgore called as Gaster slipped out of the door.

The sound of the street accompanied Gaster, the King must be upset. Here he’d just passed out in front of him and without any additional aid he was being allowed into the streets alone for the first time since he’d been found out. His shoulders relaxed with his first taste of real freedom in weeks, as he walked further from the house he was surprised at how much he had missed independence.

Still he made his way to the market rather quickly, his independence had inspired a newfound hunger that had him rather ravenous. He quickly made his way through a vendor’s wares and quickly purchased Stoic Onion rings, a few non-spidery donuts, and a regular sized bag of popato chisps. He started on his way home when he realized it was all just junk food. He skimmed the vendors as he passed, got a pint of Puppy Dough Ice Cream on impulse before he grabbed the necessary Vegetoid grown vegetables to chop up a salad. He couldn’t cook but he was skilled with a knife.

Gaster walked away from the market munching pleasantly on the deep fried Stoic Onion Rings, they were best fresh and if he ate them before he got home Asgore couldn’t scold him for buying so much junk food. He hummed happily surprised to find himself content after nearly dusting. Well, Asgore said he wasn’t Falling even if the symptoms might have indicated otherwise.

As he approached his house he was confused by how bright orange his doorway was. No, the door was gray then why was it- he squinted to make out the shape in the distance. It was fire, his mind took a few seconds to process that the flames outside his door were debating on knocking. That they were shifting uncomfortably in their glossy black shoes as they weighed the decision in their mind.

Gaster clung to his grocery bags, Grillby was outside of his home. Grillby was working up the courage to knock. Grillby who didn’t want to see him or anything to do with the war was off work six hours early and standing on his front step.

Asgore’s ears perked up as he heard a door slam somewhere in the house, a gentle chime of glass indicated it had come from the labs, “Gaster?” He called out. He poked his head around the corner to see the skeleton hurriedly open the lab doors. “How did you get in here? Don’t tell me you-” He was cut off by the skeleton tapping his finger to the front of his teeth. Asgore cautiously lowered his voice to a whisper, “what’s going on?”

‘Just stay quiet okay?’ Gaster signed quickly. His eyelights darted over to the front door then back to Asgore. They stood in an exceptionally clumsy silence that danced around Asgore in a series of unasked questions. He tilted his head to get a better look in Gaster’s bag, of course it was mostly junk food, but there were vegetables as well so he couldn’t quite say anything about it.

It was quiet which is the only reason why the quiet knock against the door was even audible. ‘Who?’ Asgore’s paws signed clumsily.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Gaster signed around the sack he was clinging to.

‘Yes,’ Asgore signed.

‘No,’ Gaster’s fingers bit back.

“Gaster,” Asgore hissed, “who is it?” The soft knock came again and Gaster flinched as if it had been made against him.

‘Grillby,’ Gaster signed his eyelights pointed down to the floor.

Asgore laughed, “why are we hiding then?” He turned towards the door but Gaster dropped his sack of groceries to grab his wrist.

‘Please, he doesn’t want to be here, just let him realize his mistake on his own,’ his conjured bullets signed while his real hands whenced to grab his skull.

“Mistake? Gaster if he’s here it’s for a reason,” Asgore rubbed his wrist, “it would be rude to ignore your guest.” Gaster curled his fingers tight but he made no further complaint as Asgore made his way to the door.

“Howdy Grillby!” The monster sparked in shock, obviously he hadn’t been anticipating the boss monster.

The Eternal bowed their head swiftly, their flames darkened to a dull red laced with tongues of blue. Grillby straightened his back but his glasses pointed down towards the floor, he pulled up his hands to sign but dropped them. “So what brings you here today?” Asgore tried to shine with positivity but his soul was a bit tired for it.

Grillby rubbed his arms to shake off some of Snowdin’s lingering cold as his head tilted around Asgore’s large form to see into the living room. “Oh how rude of me, come on in,” he stepped out of the way but the flame seemed hesitant to enter.

Asgore scanned the room, he saw the discarded bag of groceries in the hall but no skeleton. “I assure you he is here, just give me a moment to find him,” Asgore scratched his fingers through his beard. “Please have a seat I’ll start some tea,” he smiled.

Grillby shook his head but sat on the green couch, “he’ll be with you shortly.” Asgore narrowed his brows, provided the skeleton didn’t just teleport out he shouldn’t be too difficult to find. He opened the door to the basement and was greeted with a plethora of crunching sounds with the rustling of a sack playing accompaniment.

The skeleton was sitting against the headboard of his bed with a bag of popato chisps in his lap. “I think Grillby’s here to see you,” Asgore rubbed the back of his head, “he didn’t actually say anything.”

Gaster released a hefty sigh as he wiped his fingers against his jacket, ‘because he doesn’t want to be here. Just tell him I’m sick or something.’

“Gaster why are you being so cold?” Asgore sat at the edge of the bed to face Gaster.

He rolled his eyes like an adolescent before he shoved a few more chisps in his mouth, ‘he doesn’t want anything to do with the war, not after-’ he bit down as he looked Asgore up and down the answer known but unspoken between them, ‘that includes me.’

“If he’s here now then he is here for you,” he tried.

‘A momentary lapse of judgement,’ Gaster explained, ‘he’ll see the cracks in my skull, the holes in my hands, he’ll start thinking about them and leave. I’ll save myself the insult.’

Asgore clenched his fists, “what happened when you went to the bar last?”

Gaster tossed his head into the air, a few chisps escaped their bag, ‘absolutely nothing. Just like Grillby wanted. I thought it had been long enough, I thought I’d given him some space, but it wasn’t enough. Trust me Asgore. He doesn’t want to talk.’

“That was over a year ago, maybe he’s changed his mind,” Asgore tried.

‘Did he say one word to you at the door or when you got the burgers?’ Gaster chortled.

“No, but he has a very specific grievance against me, I really think he’s here to make amends. Now are you going to sit down here sulking like a child or are you going to have tea with Grillby and me?” He’d left little room for argument, surely Gaster realized how childish he was acting, but still he sat defiantly chomping away on his chisps.

Asgore swiped the bag, “you are coming upstairs.”

Gaster tilted his head back and groaned in that strange Font of his, it sounded like a trolly grinding to a stop, but he followed the King upstairs with as heavy of feet as the skeleton could manage. Asgore moved to the kitchen but his follower loomed in the hallway before. He shot Gaster one last look before he got up the nerve to enter the room.

Grillby and Gaster sat on opposite ends of the couch while Asgore set up his tea set on the coffee table. He grabbed a chair for himself from the kitchen and began to pour the little cups full of the amber liquid. Gaster reached for his cup, his hands were shaking rather vigorously so he pulled them away then shoved them in his pockets. The room was filled with a crisp tight air that made Asgore’s fur stand on end. It seemed conversation wasn’t going to start anytime soon, he sipped on his cup of tea.

Grillby’s expression kept drifting over to the mountain of boxes that consumed most of the living room. Asgore sighed he wanted answers but he wasn’t going to ask, “they are formal grievances of the people against the shortcomings of the Core.” Grillby’s flames sputtered in shock as he dared his first glance at the skeleton who was trying to hide in the corner of the couch. “We were actually planning on burning them if you would be interested in assisting us,” he raised his brow.

The flame shrugged in apparent half interest but he rose to his feet to inspect the boxes. He traced a finger along the rim of the box, ‘a lot,’ he finally signed.

Gaster covered his face with both of his hands before he stood up, ‘is it really fair to burn all of this without reading them?’ He scratched along the scar that ran towards his teeth.

“There is a chance,” Asgore pat the boxes, “that some of these are positive telling you how much the Core means to them, but do you really want to read through all of them to find the few good ones?”

Gaster shook his head as he fidgeted with his boney fingers. Grillby pulled a few boxes into his arms, there was a long pause before his whisper like voice was heard, “outside.”

“Good idea,” Asgore sang as he pulled several boxes into his arms. Gaster tapped his teeth together with thought before he summoned a series of hand bullets to lift the boxes from the base. The Boss Monster watched as box after box passed in front of him, he was mesmerized by his friend’s skill. Skeleton’s weren’t exactly known for their physical strength but he’d found an entirely more efficient solution.

As the they laid the last of the boxes in the street Asgore stretched to pop his back, “I think it’s only fair you should get to burn the first letter.”

‘I don’t have fire magic,’ Gaster signed with a nervous glance over at the pile of letters.

“You still have my lighter don’t you?” Asgore winked. The skeleton had tried to give it back to him on several occasions but it was his now.

He retrieved it from his inventory, his shaking hands nearly dropped it, but he held it firm in his grasp as he conjured the flame from within. His teeth pressed flat against each other, emotionless, as he slowly moved an open letter towards the flame. He flinched when it caught flame but slowly his eyelights brightened as the fire clawed desperately at the paper and its horrid writing. Asgore could almost see his friend’s soul brighten in echo of the bright orange fire as fragments of blackened parchment danced through the air. A small smile that resolved itself in its’ existence over time crossed his expression briefly before he reached for another letter.

Grillby observed with his arms crossed as he tried to figure out exactly what they were doing but when Gaster began to smile openly the flame seemed content enough to join in. He’d pinch the corner of a letter in his fingertips and let his fire consume it. In mere seconds the letter was nothing but ash that fell sleepily around him. Asgore found his own satisfaction in burning the letters, after burning a few in the name of Gaster he began to grant worries upon them only to watch them burn away.

Neighbors began to poke their heads out towards the street but when they saw the Royal Scientist and the King of Monsters they decided it was little of their business, though Asgore could still see several monsters pressed to their windows. It was an odd sight surely, a Boss Monster, an Eternal Flame, and a Skeleton setting fire to envelope after envelope but as Gaster began to grow more and more excited as he torched each letter their prying eyes hardly mattered.

Eventually the joy of senseless destruction began to wane from them all as the fatigue of their efforts and the call of the night reached for them but there were still so many letters left. Grillby held out his hand ready to gift wrap the boxes in flames but Gaster quickly signed ‘wait’ before he slipped back into the house. When he returned he was carrying a, large enough to be concerning, carton of kerosene. He emptied all of the liquid onto the boxes then quickly ran to take shelter behind Grillby.

The Eternal Flame grew hot before a singular fireball escaped him and hungrily leapt to the boxes. They waited in eager anticipation for a few moments before the fire was inspired by the kerosene to erupt across the accursed letters. Gaster let out some sort of sound of excitement while Grillby laughed into his hand.

Asgore’s mind went back to time when they were all much smaller. Where Grillby was just a small spark of who he was now learning to use his fire properly. Asgore had taken the Flame’s training under his own paws as a means of practicing his own fiery bullets. Gaster well, he wanted to try learning fire magic too even though Gerson had informed him it wasn’t a thing skeletons could do. Never one to be defeated Gaster spent an entire day around camp trying to find a means to help flames grow wild.

It was about the time a tent burnt down that Asgore gave the tiny skeleton his father’s lighter. It wasn’t quite the same as throwing a fireball at an enemy but he’d been delighted anyways. As the first stars crawled into the sky the three of them ignited a scarecrow each, Asgore’s was the first to be engulfed, Grillby’s flames did their best but merely ended up scorching the straw, Gaster’s however burnt to ash and ignited the field around them.

He’d found a way to make the tiny lighter into something more potent than fire magic. He always found a way. They all received an earful from Gerson after that but they’d laughed about it the second the old war veteran turned away.

Gaster cupped both of his hands to his mouth as he leaned against the side of his house. Large purple tears sat in anticipation of their fall against the bottom of his sockets, “Gaster?” Asgore called. He paused in his approach towards the scientist when he felt the waves of magic that raced from his friend read bliss. He was too excited to know what to do with himself, Gaster laughed as he slid down the stone wall to sit at its’ base.

Asgore and Grillby both flagged his sides to accompany him as he watched the fire dance upon his miseries and reduce them to ash. ‘I’d just finished the Core,’ his hands twitched, ‘what I had spent decades of my life developing. An achievement unmatched by any other mind and as I stared at my creation- I realized I was alone.’ Gaster rubbed at his eye sockets, ‘after everything I’d done, after everything I’d been through, everything amounted to me standing there on that walkway alone.’

Grillby moved his hands up to sign but Asgore shot him a quick discouragement. After a month Gaster was finally talking and he didn’t want any misspoken words to stop him. The skeleton tilted his head back, ‘my assistant told me everyone was going to the Hotlands bar, that I should celebrate with all of the monsters that helped make my dream a reality.’ His fingers grasped fiercely at his sleeves in a sharp tugging motion before he relaxed them, ‘but they didn’t want me there. They didn’t even know I’d shown up.’

‘As I was preparing to leave the bartender,’ he scoffed, ‘a rather curt horse monster if I may say so, informed me I was supposed to pay for several rounds of drinks. I figured if I was buying alcohol I might as well buy myself a bottle too.’

‘I didn’t drink it- not right away anyways, I knew better,’ he looked at his trembling hands, ‘I knew what it did to me. But then things just started happening, everything began to swim, and I figured there was only one way to learn how.’

He rested his head against the top of his knees, ‘with my goal completed it didn’t really matter what happened to me anymore. I didn’t care, I couldn’t bring myself to even pretend anymore. I was acting to empty chairs and I couldn’t take it anymore.’ His ribs began to expand as his breathing turned into hiccups then gasping breaths, ‘I’m sorry I’m so weak, for buying that bottle, for drinking it and all of the ones that followed. I just couldn’t take it anymore.’

Asgore scratched his beard, he finally had his answer and, as he’d feared, it really wasn’t a pleasant one. “Gaster I’m sorry you felt like we didn’t care-”

‘Don’t apologize this last month has had more than that,’ he scratched at the side of his skull.

‘I’m sorry I pushed you away at the bar,’ Grillby crackled and when Gaster pulled up his hands he grasped them shut, “I can apologize I let you go through this alone and I never wanted that.” He turned his head up to Asgore, ‘well, I guess you weren’t really alone,’ he signed as he dropped the skeleton’s hands.

Grillby took a long slow breath as he turned to face Asgore, ‘I-’ His hands recoiled from the words.

“You do not need to make amends with me yet if you are not ready, I’m just happy to see you two together,” Asgore elbowed the fiery monster whose flames shot with magenta hues. This wasn’t going to happen again, he knew it wouldn’t as long as the monsters that meant the most to Gaster were at his side and Asgore had little intention of turning him away again. They were a family, a bond that they had forged themselves, they had their differences sure, they fought and squabbled, but it was the one family that had stayed by his side through everything. For that, he was grateful.