Chapter Text
“So he’s…the doc’s kid?”
The group of scientists stared from across the room where they had surrounded a table. They were a mix of humans and monsters, two human women and a man, an odd monster who seemed as thin as a rod while another had a bobbing funny flat head. The man had spoken up, his hair black as the slate of their chalkboard. His nametag said ‘Roswell’, and under it he drew a funny spaceship. He had sharp rectangular glasses that sat on the tip of his nose.
The flat headed monster, whose name was ‘Blobber’ surprisingly, nodded in the ragdoll way he had. “Yeah, Gaster said he went and pulverized all the online courses.”
“Yeesh.”
The doctor in question was at the markerboard of the room, magic hands scribbling away on it as he read over a clipboard. Next to him, barely knee-height, stood a little skeleton child in his own labcoat. The sleeves were too long and had to be rolled back, and he had big cute glasses on his face. Gaster had him dressed in a cute set of overalls under the lab coat. The only difference between a visiting child and him was the fact that he’d erase a number and shakily scrawl out a new one, a high-pitched voice squeaking out an answer like, ‘Dat isn’t da numewical!’ or ‘You fowgot da hypot-a-nuse.’
In response, Gaster would nod along, or smile down at him and chatter to him before going back to whatever problem they were solving.
One of the women, her hair blonde and in a ponytail as she sipped some noodles, spoke up. “I think it’s adorable. He’s a Dad, that’s like. Hot, you know.”
Roswell gave her a blank look. “Hot? Jill, really, hot?”
Jill shrugged, twirling a fork in her noodles. “Yeah, domesticity elicits warm cozy feelings in some of us, Rossy.” She stuck her tongue out, swallowing down her food before taking a drink.
Blobber nodded again. “It is rather…nice to see him like this, I suppose. Still. You don’t think that’s like, his clone instead of his son though?”
The other woman, half purple and half green hair in braids, scoffed. “I doubt it. If the doc made his own clone, he wouldn’t shut up about it for months, I can feel it.”
The thin monster laughed nervously, adjusting his bowtie. “Y-Yes, I suppose, Cara, but did any of us know he had a child?”
They paused on that, watching the father-son duo for a moment. No. No, none of them really knew the doc’s life beyond the lab. Sure they all sometimes went off to drink or relax, and invited him along, but he always declined. Jill made a noise. “Now we know what he’s got more important than bar hopping.”
Roswell nodded slowly, pushing his glasses up with the tip of his finger. “Guess so. You don’t think he’ll sign us up for babysittin’, do ya?”
The others shrugged, eventually returning to their interrupted lunch, every so often looking over at the small child who would argue about the nature of physics without a care in the world.
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“Watch him for a moment,” Gaster passed by, hefting the child up into a chair near Roswell who was on his normal break. He sputtered, sitting up from where he had propped his feet up on the table.
“Wha-me-why!”
“I have an experiment about to go wrong, just for a second. Be good, Sans,” Gaster kissed Sans’ head and Sans giggled, adjusting his glasses.
“I will, Daddy!” Gaster nodded, shooting Roswell a look.
“I hope to come back to him just in the same condition I left him.” Well. If that wasn’t a threat, Roswell wasn’t sure what was. He gave a lazy salute as the doctor whirled around, stalking down the hallway with ease. Roswell sighed, then looked over at the shorter skeleton. He was so short, he could barely peek over the table, his chin on top of his hands as he peeked at the human with wide eyes.
“Soooo. You want some juice?”
“Yea!” Sans tapped his hands against the table and Roswell hefted himself out of the chair. He got an apple juice from the vending machine, sliding it to Sans who tugged on the straw on the back curiously. Roswell flopped back into the chair, staring at him.
“Sooo. Just you and the doc huh?”
“Yuh-huh, me and Daddy,” Sans mumbled, his slightly stumpy fingers fumbling with the paper around the straw.
Roswell nodded. “Huh. Cool. You um, go to school?” A shake of the head. “…oh. You gonna…be here now I guess?” A shrug. Well. Enlightening conversation. Sans started pulling at the paper, tapping the straw fiercely against the table. “So have you ever gone to school? Wait how are skeletons made anyway?” he muttered to himself, overlooking Sans’ frantic attempts to open the juice.
He nearly had it if not for Jill appearing behind him, startling him. “Hey, what’s-oh shit!”
Sans squished the box of juice tightly in his hands, erupting the yellow liquid despite not having a straw inside. It spilled over his nice overalls, part of his lab coat, and onto the seat. Roswell stared, Jill had her hands over her mouth, and Sans…
…started to tear up, his breath hitching as he threw the box and nearly hit Roswell had he not dodged. His head hit the table and he cried, his shoulders shaking and Jill made an ‘aww’ noise. She kneeled down, gently rubbing his back as the poor kid sobbed his soul out. “Oh honey it’s okay, hey, juice is hard,” she comforted him, glaring at Roswell who gave a sheepish grin with a shrug.
Sans sniffled, scrubbing at his face with a juice-soaked sleeve. “B-But Mistah gave it t’meeee,” he whined out and Jill sighed.
“Then we’ll get another. We gotta clean you up before it gets all sticky.” Sans nodded sadly, hiccuping every so often as Jill helped him out of the seat. She peeled the lab coat from him, tossing a roll of paper towels at Roswell’s head. “Clean up the table.”
“Heeey why’re you mad at me?”
Jill huffed, a hand on her hip. “He’s a kid! You should’ve opened it up for him!” Sans stood next to her, looking smaller than ever. Roswell snorted, rolling his eyes as he pulled free a paper towel.
“I don’t have kids! I don’t know this shit.”
“Well now you do. C’mon, kiddo. What’s your name?”
“S-S-Saaaans,” he mumbled, still crying as she lead him to the small bathrooms to the side. Roswell grumbled a bit, but he did feel bad for not seeing the kid struggling with opening it. He just hoped Gaster didn’t, you know, kill him, or throw him in lava…actually what DID the doctor do when mad?
He felt like it’d be a bad idea to find out.
The table was easy to clean, along with the seat and some of the floor. When Jill came back with Sans, he had a new lab coat on, but his face was flushed (skeletons could do that?) and he looked downtrodden. Jill patted his shoulder softly. “I told Sans we could see the centrifuge and spin some dolls around in it.”
You can take the kid to a lab, but you can’t take the kid out of him. Roswell snorted. “Boring, let’s put some of Cara’s experiments in it and see if it explodes.”
Sans gasped and clapped, bouncing in place. “Boom boom!”
A huge regret, on both their parts, as Cara’s experiment ate through the centrifuge and they got a stern dressing down from Gaster (for endangering his son, ruining Cara’s experiment, and for not using a dummy like they were meant to), but Sans seemed pleased and happy, the incident from earlier having been forgotten.
Honestly, they both thought they got away with it, were it not for Gaster asking why Sans was in a different lab coat than the play one he had on earlier.
Whoops.
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“It gotta be a twee.”
Tonk, the tall thin monster, paused in his scribblings on the chalkboard. He blinked, looking over at the tiny child that was visiting that day. He laughed nervously. “H-Hm? What?”
The skeleton pointed at the top number, a five Tonk had wrote in. “Twee!”
Tonk blinked, slowly adjusting the number to a three…and then it started to flow better, the numbers no longer being cranked out slowly but flowing like a waterfall. He laughed, tapping the chalk against the board. “Good job! You’re brilliant! I wouldn’t have noticed for a very long time!”
The boy blinked, then brought up a special sippy cup for the in between ages of not yet able to hold a cup, but beyond the time for a bottle. “Thankee. Do you know wheres Daddy went?”
“Let’s go find him!” Tonk put the chalk down, brushing off his hands before offering his hand hesitantly. The skeleton took it easily, still draining the cup of whatever juice he had for the day.
In Gaster’s office, Cara and he were looking at something through a high powered microscope, Gaster scribbling down on a clipboard. Cara cleared her throat. “So.”
“..so…?”
“The kid, Doc, the kid.”
Gaster made a noise, a click sounding as he enhanced the magnification. “Yes, my son, Sans. Brilliant boy, isn’t he?”
Cara scoffed, lifting her eyes from her own microscope. “That’s not my question.”
“You didn’t ask one.”
Okay, he had her there. She sighed, standing up straighter as she leaned against the table. “What prompted this on? The bringing your kid to work day?” No answer, not for a while, just the steady scribbling of Gaster’s magic on a clipboard. “C’mon. We’re your team, you can tell us.”
Still no answer, and at first she thought she wouldn’t get one, until he sighed softly, leaning up but still staring at the microscope. “The doctors say he’s sick.”
Cara frowned, her mind flicking over what ‘sick’ could mean before pumping the brakes. Monsters. Right. Different. “…what do you mean?”
“Infant monsters start off at 5 HP. If you recall, Blobber once stated how a cousin of his oddly had 17 HP at age 8.”
Cara nodded. She didn’t know how HP played into things very well, but she knew like in a game, it was important to the well-being of the monsters. “Right, yeah, I remember.”
Gaster stared ahead for a moment. “Sans only has 1 HP. He had 5, at first…then last year he went down to 3…I took him last week to the doctor’s.” His hand started tapping a rhythm on the table. “His steady dropping is concerning.” He let out a slightly shaky breath. “…I’m spending time with my child.”
Cara reached over, and covered his hand, squeezing tightly for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
They sat in silence for a moment before the door opened, Tonk holding the hand of said little boy. “Hello sir-…ah…did we interrupt?” he mumbled, looking at Cara in worry before Sans hurried over, giggling as he held onto Gaster’s pant leg.
“Daddy! Tonk puts a five instead of a twee!” He squeaked, and Gaster smiled down at him, leaning down and picking him up.
“And you helped him, hm, smart boy?”
Sans grinned brightly, as bright as the sun, Cara imagined, if the sun came down to Earth to bless them with its warmth.