Chapter Text
It made the news. That was how Grillby found out.
“Strange Machine Malfunctions, Kills Scientist and Assistant”
That was why he didn’t pick up the video calls. That was why the texts went unanswered. That was why she didn’t answer the emails.
They were dead.
They were. dead.
That just couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. Gaster wasn’t that careless. He couldn’t be. Asteri wouldn’t have let him…
And the article was all wrong. The coverage was all wrong. They said his name wrong. He didn’t even like being called “Wyndall.” He didn’t like “Direnç” either, but at least they said “Wyndall” correctly. He was Gaster. Just Gaster. And Windy to his friends. Asteri was more than just a footnote. (And her name wasn't "Aster-y".) She wasn’t his assistant. She was a scientist in her own right, just not the sort that people usually thought of. She was a linguist. Not an assistant. She didn’t have any training in any of the fields that would have warranted her being there. (Why had she been there?)
And they weren’t confirmed dead. They weren’t. There were no bodies. There was no forensic evidence. There was no proof! They weren’t dead. They couldn’t be.
They couldn’t be.
He couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it.
The news said that the machine had vaporized them, but the news also said that no one knew what the machine was even supposed to do. For all they knew, it had shrunk Gaster and Asteri down to the size of an ant, or teleported them to the middle of the ocean. He wouldn’t put such absurd things out of the realm of possibility.
But Gaster didn’t like to make a spectacle or draw attention to himself. He had accomplished great things since they had graduated however many years ago, things that made an enormous impact. Except he didn’t do interviews. He didn’t like fame. He just wanted to help people. He didn’t talk about what he was accomplishing because all that mattered to him were the results. It was like the opposite of every science-fiction story: his hubris wasn’t his downfall; it was his modesty that would condemn him.
Grillby raked his hands through his hair and closed out yet another dead-end article. ‘How can I help you if I don’t even know what you were doing? Why couldn’t you ever brag, just a little!?’ He slumped back in his chair and looked at his phone. It was after midnight. There was a text he needed to answer.
Nothing. Theres no info. You?
- - -
The funeral had been laughable. How dare they hold a service like this? How dare they make a spectacle of his friend’s life? The company paid for it. There were cameras. How was anyone who actually cared about him meant to mourn? The eulogy was so cookie-cutter, so bland, it took all his willpower not to jump out of his seat and push the person at the podium down the stairs so he could give a real eulogy, about the real person Gaster was. Is.
Is.
He sat through the service, but he turned his hearing aids off about halfway through and only turned them back when the nauseating speech was over. (Another sick irony: there was no interpreter, despite the fact that Gaster himself signed.) Everything about this whole event made Grillby furious and left a bitter taste in his mouth. Gaster’s parents even flew out for it, but they didn’t look particularly upset. Maybe they were just the types to leave their emotions for when they had privacy, but from everything Grillby had heard of them, he would be surprised if they mourned at all. More likely they were here to leech off the attention.
Nobody actually cared.
Or… maybe someone did. Across the venue, a younger man with black hair sat slumped, looking entirely out of place in his visible grief. Grillby had only met him a few times, but he recognized him from Gaster’s phone background. They had all been in a picture together.
He approached from the front so as not to startle him. “Hey, Tempest,” he greeted aloud.
The man lifted his head and stared up at him, squinting through thick, thick glasses and a whole lot of tears. “…Y-Yeah?”
"It's Grillby."
"Grillby." The younger man relaxed, offering a shaky smile. "Some production they’re putting on, huh?" He sniffled. "H-He woulda hated it.”
Grilllby nodded and leaned in closer, signing directly in front of the other man so that he could see. “Listen. This is wrong.”
Tempest shrugged miserably, resigned. “I know. But I wasn’t gonna not come to his funeral, y’know? Even if it’s nothing like he woulda wanted.”
“No. This entire thing is wrong,” Grillby signed emphatically. “He isn’t dead.”
That set off a fresh wave of tears in Tempest, which was immediately fought back with a forced smile that hid almost as much anger as sadness.
“H-Hey, now.” His voice was thick, and he was fighting very hard to stay smiling. “Don’t, with that. Okay? I-I get we’re all dealin’ with it differently, a’right, but don’t. Don’t.” He swallowed thickly, and what was left of his smile faltered into almost a glare. “He was the only good part of our shitty family. This is hard enough. I get you were close, but denial ain’t gonna change things. I felt the same way when Ma died, but it is what it is. Messed up or not.”
Grillby shook his head. “They didn’t find remains—”
“Please…”
“Not even a trace!”
“Please, just—”
“No clothes, or—”
“Stop, alright!?” Tempest snapped, drawing the attention of several people around them. Grillby frowned. “Just stop. I don’t want it to be true either, but sometimes awful things happen. They just do. I can’t take false hope like that. Yeah, this funeral was awful, but it’s still his funeral. Let me have that.”
Grillby glared at a few of the people still staring, and waited until the majority of the surrounding attendees went back to their own conversations before answering. He felt a little bad for upsetting Tempest, but not enough to back down completely. “Sorry,” he said. His movements were a little softer, but his expression was still resolute. “You’re right. This isn’t the place. I know I’m correct though. Have a phone?”
Tempest made a face, still not too happy with him, and suspicious of how those two subjects were connected. “A phone? Yeah… Why?”
Grillby pulled a business card out of his wallet, wrote his personal number on the back as large as he could, and held it up. “Can you read this?”
“I’m not that kind of blind,” Tempest snapped, snatching the card out of his hand. “Yes I can read it! I can see you signing, dumbass.”
Grillby clenched his jaw, but held his hands up placatingly. Back in college, he probably would have retorted that he was just trying to be considerate. If bartending (and Gaster) had taught him anything, though, it was that it was better to pick your battles. If he wanted Tempest on his side, better to tank the insult, despite his own simmering anger at the entire situation. Besides, a funeral— even a terrible one— wasn’t a good place to start a fight. (That, he actually knew from experience.) Not to mention, he reminded himself, Tempest probably had to deal with people making frustrating assumptions every day.
“Text me if you want. Dead or not, something isn’t right. Nobody cares except us.”
Tempest eyed him for a good few seconds, still scowling, before heaving a sigh and easing up. He let his eyes water again. Underneath the anger, he was grieving, and underneath the grief, he was tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes, still red. “Yeah… Fine. Alright. ‘S just a lot, y’know?”
“Mm.” Grillby nodded. “Sit?” he asked aloud, since the other man’s eyes were still closed.
No reply, but Tempest reached over and moved the folded-up white cane from the chair beside him onto his lap. Grillby took that as a yes and sat down.
He was learning how to be a little more considerate, lately. Plenty of people came drinking after losing someone. Navigating that was hard, but the more experienced bartenders at his previous jobs usually did one of two things: stay silent, or redirect. He nudged the younger man, who looked up.
“Let’s have a better funeral. For both of them.” He kept his expression open and movements light. He glanced over his shoulder at the table of finger food in the back of the venue. Funeral and company luncheon all at once. How tasteful. He turned back to Tempest and raised an unamused eyebrow. “I’ll make real food.”
The other man swore under his breath, disregarding the last comment. “Did I miss hers?” He groaned. “I only met her a couple times, but I know they were close. I wanted to go…”
Grillby nodded solemnly. “Last weekend. Small. Half was in Greek. Seemed good. Don’t think she was that religious though.” He cracked a little smile. “She would’ve wanted a party.”
Tempest nodded. “And my cousin wasn’t this secular. We could do better. Least for Wynda— Windy. Yeah.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“You drink?” Grillby asked eventually.
Tempest wiggled his hand in the air. “Eh. ‘S boring alone. Don’t got anyone to drink with.” He rolled his eyes at the next part. “Not a lotta people I work with think a drunk blind guy is a fun addition to a night out.”
“Their loss," Grillby said with a shrug. Then, smirking: "How about a drunk blind guy and a drunk deaf guy?”
Tempest almost snorted, but his nose was too stuffy. “Pretty sure I’m a sad drunk,” he warned.
Grillby handed him a tissue from his pocket. “Can’t blame you, today.”
That got a humorless chuckle. “Might as well cry with someone who actually knew him.”
They stood, Tempest unfolded his cane, and they made their way toward the exit. Grillby took one last glance at the depressing, fake scene behind them and let his lip curl in disgust. He was more than ready to ditch this place.
Just then, as he was scanning the crowd, he happened to meet eyes with a young woman—teenager? —in a poorly-fitted dress, half-hidden in the sea of corporate faces. She startled and averted her gaze, like he had caught her doing something she wasn't supposed to be. Had she been staring at him? He raised an eyebrow but kept watching her. Sure enough, she looked back up in his direction after a second. She startled again to see him still looking her way. So she had been staring.
He nudged Tempest to get him to look so he could sign. “Be right back. Stay here.”
- - -
Tempest’s mildly offended scoff went unheard, as Grillby was already walking toward the woman. He felt behind him to make sure that pillar was still there, then crossed his arms and leaned against it. Wyndall— Windy, he went by Windy now— sure picked weird friends.
He stewed over being left behind and glanced in the direction Grillby had gone. Not that it made much difference; even with glasses, he was so nearsighted he couldn’t make out much beyond an amorphous “crowd” that far away. With a sigh, he sunk into his shoulders and tried not to think about Windy, with little success. Every quiet conversation around him was about his cousin, but in all the wrong ways. “Brilliant scientist” this, “force for good” that. What about the guy who ate an entire pan of baklava and made himself sick!? What about the guy who, as a kid, heard out of context that Jesus cured blindness with spit and dirt and tried to "help" preschool-aged Tempest by shoving mud in his eyes!? Nobody talked about that!
Nobody even understood why Windy’s death was a loss. It wasn’t because of everything he had accomplished. It wasn’t because he went out in such a messed-up way. It wasn’t because he “could have done so much more good.”
It was because he was a person!! It was because he loved, and made mistakes, and giggled when he laughed, and ate cold pizza at 3am in his boxers, and mustered the courage to go to speech therapy for the first time as an adult, and dressed like a nerd, and forgot to keep haircut appointments, and kept in touch with his cousin even after everything, and finally found people who could match how much he loved, and… and… And because he had lived! It was a loss because he had existed!
And now he didn’t.
Tempest sniffled grossly and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. Why was it always the decent people who went first? First his mother, now his cousin. The only people left were his aunt and uncle, and they had better not try talking to him. Once upon a time, he had looked up to them. Once everything with his mother started, though, and he realized how they had treated her all that time...
He dug his fingers into his arms, crossed even tighter now. Not even just his mother, either. Reconnecting with Windy and realizing how bad things had been for him growing up? God! They were lucky the universe had nerfed him by making him blind. And short. That side of the family was built like skyscrapers. He would throw hands if he knew his fists would reach higher than their stomachs. They’d just punt him. And they wouldn’t even feel bad about it. Classist, ableist fu—
Grillby’s return into his range of sight broke him out of his thoughts. “I thought you ditched me!” he accused immediately, throwing his arms in the air and almost smacking someone with his cane.
- - -
Grillby frowned, directly in front of Tempest so he could see the expression. “Said I’d be right back.”
Tempest folded his arms. “Took you long enough.”
Grillby shrugged. It was probably better not to bring up the conversation he’d just had to Tempest. He would have to think about it later. Right now, he wanted to get out of here, have a drink, and swap stories about his friends. “Let’s go. Too busy in here.” Honestly, he was ready to take his hearing aids off. So much of this was just noise.
A memory floated into his vision at that thought: Asteri draped over the dorm’s sofa, halfway upside down. It was when she first found out how his hearing aids worked. She made that one face that was so her, and loudly remarked that she wanted to be able to just turn noise off when it was too much, too!
He remembered dryly suggesting noise-canceling headphones for her audio sensitivities, instead. She did end up buying some, after that, and even got one of her friends to stencil flames onto them-- to match the flame stickers he’d put on his hearing aids, she said. Every time she got a new pair after that, she'd make them match the stickers on his hearing aids. They always matched when they went out together.
A tiny smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, but faded as quickly as the memory once he and Tempest stepped out of the dark building and into the too-bright sun. Grillby squinted in the light. Who died in summer, anyway?
Summer wasn’t supposed to be like this. Gaster was supposed to have picked some garish color for him to dye the ends of his hair, and Asteri was supposed to have shown him videos of ridiculously complicated hairstyles to try before he cut it to his shoulders for the hot weather. That was what they always did. He wasn’t supposed to have hair this long in the middle of June.
But he couldn’t cut it. They weren’t here.
He still hadn’t completely processed that they were gone, since he didn’t see them on a regular basis anymore. But with the funerals, and talking to Tempest, it was starting to sink in. They were gone unless he did something.
He looked back down at his companion as they walked to get his mind off it, but it was only partly helpful. The blood tie Tempest had to his best friend didn’t exactly make it easy. They didn't look much alike, all things considered, but he had some of the same mannerisms, and the same curly hair. Though Gaster’s hair was— is— much longer. And messier.
Grillby realized he’d been staring, and was suddenly sheepishly grateful the younger man couldn't see him without his peripheral vision.
As if reading his mind, Tempest stopped walking and turned to him. “Hey, could you walk in front of me? I don’t know where we’re going and can’t see you next to me, so I’m just... walking. I assumed the parking lot?”
Right. “Sorry.” He nodded and added, "Green car," then stepped in front of Tempest to keep walking
“Green?” Tempest asked incredulously as he began following. “Who drives a green car? Oh, wait, you mean like the nice lime green?”
Grillby stopped walking, turned all the way around, and frowned. “We can’t walk and talk. I have to be facing you to answer.”
“You talked out loud in there?”
Grillby leveled him with the glare he used whenever he got this kind of question. Tempest held his hands up, as if to take the inquiry back. Grillby huffed and answered the original question before resuming walking. “It’s the ugly green. Used car. Was cheaper.”
Technically, he could speak aloud, yes. But he grew up signing, and even with the hearing aids, it was more comfortable. He didn’t want people to think they could skip learning ASL if they wanted to interact with him on any regular basis. He accommodated enough bullshit from hearing people. He was willing to make some exceptions, like earlier-- Tempest wasn't the average person-- but for the most part he only signed. Tempest was blind, but as he had said himself: he could see enough to be able to understand sign.
Grillby sighed. He missed Gaster.
- - -
Grillby’s restaurant was also where he lived: business on the lower level, and his residence on the top. Mostly. He did have a small sitting room downstairs, separate from the public area.
“Figured we’d sit at the bar,” he told Tempest after locking the door behind them.
They both shrugged out of their suit coats and loosened their ties. There was no need to be so formal here. Tempest climbed onto a barstool, and Grillby brought out a box of tissues. They were probably going to need them.
As it turned out, Tempest was one of the two versions of a bartender’s headache: he had no idea what he wanted. He asked if there was a menu. For the drinks. Grillby almost laughed. The poor kid had really never been out drinking, had he? Rather than make him feel bad about it— this was hardly the day for giving anyone a hard time— he tried to suss out what Tempest might like by asking him about known preferences. But even that conversation turned into whole ordeal.
After the latest wisecrack of an answer to his questions ten minutes later, Grillby shot Tempest exasperated look. “I’m just going to give you tequila shots.”
“Stereotypin' me now?” the younger man razzed him.
Grillby rolled his eyes. That hadn't even crossed his mind. “It’s a common order.”
Tempest heaved an exaggerated sigh and let his arms drop to the counter. “This is so complicated! I’ll just drink beer!”
That got a raised eyebrow. “You like beer?”
Tempest flushed a little. “Well. Maybe? I don’t know!”
“Not very strong,” Grillby warned, tilting his head. “Takes a lot to get drunk.”
Tempest sat up from leaning on the bar, shot him a deadpan frown, and waved his hands down his body. “I am five feet tall.”
Grillby sighed. Beer was fine and all, but a little boring. There had to be something better Tempest would try.
He perked up as an idea struck him. Ducking beneath the counter, he pushed a few things aside on a shelf until he found what he was looking for. There. The sight of the bottle made him smile but made his chest tight with a foreign sense of loss. He pushed the feeling aside rather than give it any place to be analyzed, and stood, setting the bottle on the counter.
“Was saving this for when Gaster and Asteri visited,” he said, and Tempest stilled immediately, as if everything that had animated him suddenly vanished. “His favorite,” Grillby added gently.
Tempest stared at the bottle blankly, then reached over and took it with careful hands. He held it there, just looking down at it for a few moments, and his eyes prickled with tears again. His voice was quiet when he spoke.
“Let’s have this.”
Grillby held his hand out, and the bottle was returned to him. If he had his way, Gaster and Asteri would still visit here. But Tempest needed to mourn, so so be it. Besides— he had a bottle for each of his friends. The fig rakı was for Gaster… but Gaster liked the ouzo that Asteri preferred almost as much, so he was sure his friend wouldn’t mind.
“It is best with melon slices,” Windy explained from the beanbag chair across from Grillby, sitting in a in a way that somehow made his gangly legs look even longer. “And feta.”
“I’ll remember to always have fresh melon on hand, in case you happen to come by,” Grillby responded sarcastically. He wrote down melon on the list anyway: Things to have in his restaurant, when he opened one someday.
Windy continued when Grillby looked back up. “One should only drink it with food—” He smiled brightly and leaned forward, a meaningful look in his eyes. “ —and with good friends.”
Grillby swallowed the ache in his chest.
He would see them both again. He would.
Gaster and Asteri weren’t dead.
“Need food first,” is all he signed in response to Tempest. He waved the younger man toward the door to the kitchen and gave some directions-- "Door left of the bar, back wall" --indicating for him to follow.
Tempest hopped off his stool and did so. “Not much I can do in here,” he muttered as he leaned against a corner by the sink, cane in hand, while Grillby filled up a pot of water.
“Talk. I’ll listen.”
Tempest considered this, but Grillby didn’t wait around for him to decide. Whether the other man opted to say anything or not, he had food to prepare. He pulled out the needed utensils and pans, then went about gathering the ingredients.