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findmeabowlofundertale · 4 months

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PART 7 IS HERE

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It might be the longest yet but to be completely honest I have no idea. So uhhhh read it when you have plenty of time bc I thrive on reactions there’s a lot of important stuff in here, just like with part 6.

I took tons of inspiration from many, many sources. I feel like I should have a works cited page or something haha ^^;;

But yeah, as usual there will be notes at the end.

I really wanted to give a better progression of time, but between part 6 and this one, not gonna lie, I got a little mixed up moving things around. So. Sorry, as usual, for the lack of realistic relationship progression. (Though, it has been several weeks for them…) It should be slower, but for one, I’m excited, and for two, when you don’t spend much time around others and then suddenly meet some you really click with, you can get attached pretty fast. I just want them to be good friends already! Realism be darned, this is primarily for myself, so… yeah. Anyway, enjoy(?)

- - - -

Hey! I was just checking if tomorrow was still a good day to meet? <

> HELLO. YES. TOMORROW STILL WORKS FOR ME

> ALPHYS WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US. BUT IS TOO SHY TO ASK.

A new message in a different conversation popped up on Asteri’s phone. It was from Alphys. She opened it.

> HI PLS IGNORE WHATEVER DR G IS SENDIGN

She rolled her eyes with a good-natured sigh.

Alphys chill. You’re welcome to join us if you want. <

Back to Gaster.

I let her know I’d be happy to have her. <

> THANK YOU

> SHE JUST GETS LIKE THIS. SOMETIMES

No problem. See you tomorrow! <

Tomorrow she was finally going to ask him why he texted like that. Her phone dinged. Alphys again.

> If ur like totally sure! I dont wanna impose

You’re not imposing. <

Besides I think I worked out some of the Japanese from the books you guys found. I found a few things in the dump that helped. I wanna run it by you, if you’re free. <

> OMG REALLY?!?

> Ok yeah i’ll totally be there!!

> Happy to help!

Turning it around as an invitation seemed to work well. Asteri smiled. She almost put her phone down, but then an idea struck her.

Can you do me another favor, actually? <

Tell me what you two have eaten lately. <

The typing message came, went away, returned, and went away again several times before Alphys answered.

> well uhh haha so he tried making pasta last week i guess but it didn’t turn out, so he’s just been bringing in the leftovers and “forgetting” them in the break room fridge??

> I was going to eat some so it didn’t go to waste but

> asteri it’s So Bad

> so

> Idk

> but theres been a new box of donuts in here like every day so…

Asteri dragged her wing down her face.

How good of friends do you have to be with someone before you can strangle them <

> LMAO

> u want me to ask him?

Asteri sat up straight in her chair.

DO NOT TELL HIM I SAID THAT <

> LOLLL ok i won’t

Alphys I MEAN IT. <

I don’t want him to take it the wrong way. <

> lmao i won’t tell him don’t worry

> don’t think you can strangle a skeleton anyway

I doubt it. Not when their heads can come off <

> hIS WHAT

Asteri grimaced. Whoops.

My bad I thought you would have known about it considering what happened <

> wHAT DO YOU MEAN CONSIDERING WHAT HAPPENED

She snorted a laugh.

> ASTERI

Apparently skeletons come apart. <

They can move their bodies from their head but if they go too far they lose control of one or the other. And apparently one time he tested that without warning anyone ahead of time and got too far from his head so it was just his body wandering around blind until he ran into someone and freaked them out <

> Oh My God

> I wanna say ur joking but that would literally be just like him

Ask him if he knows he dropped a phalange in the break room and see how long it takes him to tell you that story <

> asdjklf;hsk I can’t just say that!!!!

Trust me he’s way too excited to talk about it. <

If it goes badly you can say I dared you. <

> omg ok i’ll do it

Asteri chuckled and put her phone down. Alphys was a lot of fun to talk to. They had kept in touch since the dump, since she was more adept at texting than Gaster. He absolutely texted like an old man. Which was hilarious considering that he had absolutely no excuse for being out of touch with technology. He quite literally worked with it every single day. Well, who knew? Maybe he just wasn’t one for written communication. After all, people wrote much differently than they spo—

Wait, no, that really didn’t make sense for him.

…Is that how he would talk, if he spoke aloud? Geez.

She shook her head and got up. Not worth thinking about. She should go get her notes on Japanese in order for Alphys.

⁂

Bread was shoved against Gaster’s chest.

“Sandwich.”

He looked down at the plastic baggie-covered-sandwich and took it, then gave a grateful but confused smile. “Thank you, but… why?”

Asteri didn’t have arms to cross, and her wings were too big, but she approximated the gesture well enough and her tail flicking in agitation against the red rock beneath her made her mood clear. “Because I said I would start bringing you food if you didn’t eat.”

A startled, somewhat indignant noise caught in his metaphorical throat as he straightened in mild offense. “I made pasta when I got home last time!”

“Did you eat it?”

The silence and the way his eyelights immediately flitted away were answer enough even if Alphys hadn’t filled her in yesterday.

“Gaster!” she scolded.

He threw his arms in the air and signed with a blue pair of hands that blinked into existence instead. “It was inedible!”

“It can’t have been that bad.” Surely nobody who had been alive this long didn’t have basic cooking skills. No matter what Alphys said.

“H-Hi, um, am- am I interrupting?”

The very same lizard had walked up to them without either of them realizing. Gaster lit up, though more in triumph than delight. “Not at all.”

“Hey! Good to see you again,” Asteri greeted. “You’re just in time to watch me lecture an old man.”

Gaster made another offended noise. “I am not the only monster who fought in the war, you know!”

“Alright, fair enough,” Asteri conceded. “But you’re the only one of my friends who has, so I’m teasing you about it.”

The finger he had held up in anticipation of giving a rebuttal drooped as the indignation melted away, and a slight smile pulled at his expression instead, eyes flicking away with a hint of green. He still wasn’t used to being called anyone’s friend.

Asteri looked down at Alphys. “Did you get some of it?”

The lizard monster nodded and pulled a container out of her bag. Monster food didn’t spoil, so the fact that it was a week and a half old didn’t matter, fortunately. Which was not the case with human food, as Alphys had learned the hard way from scavenging at the dump. She handed the container over. Gaster’s flattered smile immediately disappeared, replaced with dawning horror.

“Asteri.”

She manifested a green hand.

“Asteri, wait.”

She took the lid off. Well… no, it decidedly didn’t smell great, but…

“Asteri, please! Do not eat that. It is inedible.”

She huffed and swung her head back over to look at him in mild annoyance. “It cannot be that bad. Look. I’m a decent cook, so I’ll try it and give you some tips on what could be improved. I’m not going to judge you.”

That was a lie, she had already judged him a little bit.

He looked mortified. “I am begging you.”

Asteri raised an eyebrow and glanced at Alphys for input. She gave an awkward smile, so stretched it was more like a grimace. “I-It’s, um…” The question put her in an uncomfortable position between her two friends.

“Alphys, tell her! It is horrendous! Nobody could eat that!”

“Oh come on! Nobody can be that bad at cooking. It’s PASTA, how bad could it possibly be?”

“BAD! It’s terrible! You will take damage from that penne!”

Asteri scoffed. “You can’t accidentally put malicious intent into food, now I know you’re exaggerating.”

Alphys looked back and forth between them, growing increasingly anxious as they argued, until finally she screwed her eyes shut and clutched her bag and blurted, “Okay, i-it’s awful!”

They both turned to look at her again. There was a beat of silence before Gaster lit up in a triumphant grin.

“See?!”

Asteri made a face. “Hmph. Well, even if it somehow does deal damage, I’ve got plenty of HP.”

A green, drippy hand reached into the container and picked up a fistful of pasta. The two scientists looked on in terror as she opened her mouth and tossed it in. She chewed. They held their breaths. She swallowed.

There was silence at first. The anticipation was tangible. She closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them again.

“How do you two feel about heading to my place?”

Alphys blinked. “O-Oh! Sure…?? I-I don’t mind the walk.”

“I am not opposed,” Gaster agreed, slightly confused.

“Good. Because I’m teaching you two how to cook. My god, that is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

⁂

The attempt ended four and half hours later with the three of them covered in sauce stains and on the kitchen floor. Asteri held her face in her wings, Gaster was face-down, and Alphys was flopped over onto her side, staring at the various spills and the overturned pan and bowl across the floor from her.

Asteri raised her head and stared upward. There was a splatter of something on the ceiling. She heaved a sigh. “Terrible job everyone. But at least we tried. Let’s get this cleaned up.”

With a grunt, Alphys righted herself. “Okay…”

“Gaster, are you conscious?”

The man didn’t move at all, but a pair of blue hands manifested above him. “Unfortunately.”

“Alright, well, get up. This is no time for embarrassment. You’re helping clean.”

He sighed silently but obeyed, pushing himself up from the ground and onto his knees. His glasses were barely hanging onto his face. He made no effort to correct this. “I am so sorry about this mess. What can I do?”

Asteri stood and dusted herself off with her wings, then gestured upward with her tail. “Help me wipe that splatter off the ceiling.”

He craned his neck to look where she was pointing. “Ah...” How did they even manage that?

She looked around, utterly overwhelmed by the chaos her kitchen had descended into. “Alphys, can you get the dishes in the sink? Then we can collect the rest of the dishes, and… ugh, wait, no. There’s the pans. And I didn’t put away the plates on the drying rack. Uh, okay. I can get the counters, but the leftover ingredients that are still good can… no, um. The rags are… But first, the floor. No.”

There was nowhere to put anything, and stuff was everywhere, and there was ruined food to scoop up, and good food to find containers for, and she needed to find a bucket for the mop, and… This was too overwhelming.

“Th-There’s containers with lids in that cupboard, but the fridge is… If you, uh…”

It was exhausting to even think about. Looking at it just drained her. All she wanted to do was sit back down, but then the spills would just dry and get even harder to clean. She didn’t know how this had even happened. She was exhausted from trying to keep the both of them on track, and as patient as she was, it had run out after two or three hours of damage control. This was so far beyond reckoning, she was beginning to shut down. If she didn’t get a grip, she was going to end up crying in frustration, and nobody needed that right now—

“Asteri.”

She turned her head. Gaster had approached without her having noticed until she saw his hands move. Whatever dismayed look was on her face must have been bad, because he set a hand on the closest thing she had to a shoulder and looked at her with an level of concern she really, really wished she didn’t warrant. He shouldn’t have to worry about her, this was her idea, and… and…

He looked into her eyes, his own flared in a deep blue, almost indigo. She couldn’t seem to look away. They burned like fire magic, warm and captivating. There were shades of blue she didn’t even know existed. The colors danced like flames, swirled like milk in coffee. The stress bled out of her. Her posture relaxed; She felt… calm. Serene.

The color in his eyes slowly faded, and he smiled softly.

“Do not worry about it. Let us clean up our mess.”

“How did you do that?” Asteri asked, a bit hazy, as he steered her to a seat at her kitchen table.

He signed something with his blue hands that she didn’t recognize first, then realized his mistake. “Lighting our eyes with color, or—” He repeated the sign, which she interpreted as “eyeglowing”— “was one way skeletons expressed certain emotions, but it was also how we calmed each other. It was context-sensitive. I was unsure if it would work with you,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head a bit sheepishly, “but I acted instinctively.”

“It was really nice,” she murmured, leaning forward on the table until her head was resting against her wings. “Made me tired though.”

“It simply calmed you enough to realize that you were already tired.”

“Mm…”

He stepped away. “Just rest.”

“But there’s so much…”

“Alphys and I have cleaned up far worse.” Several more pairs of blue hands manifested around him once he reached the center of her kitchen.

“D-Definitely,” the younger woman chimed in. She wasn’t thrilled to be cleaning up the entire kitchen, but could tell Asteri needed to sit this one out. “Me and Dr. Gaster got this.”

“Technically,” Asteri mumbled into her wing, “‘t’s “Dr. Gaster ‘nd me.””

Alphys stared at her and ignored the correction. “Where are your dish towels, Asteri?” she sighed instead.

The shapeshifter pointed to a drawer with her tail.

She then watched as each of Gaster’s several floating hands went about doing something different, all while he stood in place, real hands folded behind his back except to levitate a few heavier things to different places. Alphys worked on whatever he wasn’t doing at a given moment. They worked in perfect sync, like they had done this dozens of times before. It was fascinating to watch.

They were finished within an hour. It passed in a blur.

“Thank you guys so much,” Asteri said once they finished. “I really appreciate it.”

“It was the least we could do after making such a mess.”

“I know we were going to talk linguistics, Alphys,” she said as she sat up and stretched, “but I don’t think I have the mental energy for it. Do you guys want to watch a movie instead?”

“I can’t remember the last time I watched a film,” Gaster mused. “I would like that.”

“Y-Yeah, a movie sounds nice!”

Asteri stood. “I don’t have much to eat though… I’m sorry.”

“I-I can make sandwiches, if, um, i-if you don’t mind. That’s not really cooking, so…”

“That’s fine with me. Here, I’ll help. I can do that much as a host, at least. Gaster, do you want to look through the movies I’ve got?”

Once they finished making the sandwiches, they met Gaster in the living room. After agreeing on a movie, they sat on the couch, Asteri in the middle. Too tired and distracted with the film starting, she forgot she had wanted to try to watch how Gaster ate. Oh well. She was exhausted. She didn’t last much past the halfway point of the movie, soon thereafter conking out and beginning to slump over. Being much taller than Alphys, the shorter woman had to keep pushing her back up.

“Doctor,” she hissed after the third time. He startled, having been completely engrossed in the film, and looked to his coworker. “Doctor, c-can you help, please?? She keeps falling over.”

“Oh! Yes, my apologies, Alphys.”

It would have been easier to turn her SOUL blue and pull her upright, but this wasn’t a battle, and she wasn’t conscious so he couldn’t ask her if it was alright. So instead, he turned and carefully clasped her not-quite-shoulders, then gently pulled her upright. She started to fall over again as soon as he began to let go, though, so he tilted her towards himself instead. Her head fell limply against his shoulder. She sighed in her sleep, but otherwise did not stir.

Alphys watched the way he smiled down at her before turning his attention back to the movie, noticed the way Asteri settled against him, and she smirked.

The movie ended after midnight, and the two reluctantly woke Asteri up to bid her goodbye. She was only half-awake, but thanked them for coming and told them to be careful on the way home. In the back of her mind, she realized she had ended up leaned on Gaster’s shoulder, but told herself not to think about it too hard and went to bed.

⁂

In lieu of the cooking lesson disaster, Asteri and Alphys met up at the former’s house on a different day to go over Asteri’s notes on Japanese.

“I am s-so sorry about, um, a-about the other day,” Alphys stammered as they approached the house. “I d-didn’t even! I-I didn’t even kn-know cooking c-could go… l-like that.”

“Honestly, neither did I,” Asteri said grimly, holding the door open for her friend. “But it was nice of you two to clean up for me. I appreciate it immensely.”

“I-It was mostly him! Thank goodness f-for blue magic, right?”

“And multiple pairs of hands.”

“O-Oh, r-right!” Alphys chimed as they walked through her front room. “You never saw him with a bunch of hands before, right?”

Asteri led her into a room toward the back of the house, something like an office, where she kept her notes. This room had magical fire burning in a few alcoves to lower the humidity. She flipped the lights on.

“Yeah, I didn’t know he could summon that many,” she mused. “He had three summoned when he showed me green magic, but I assumed that was about the limit. I didn’t expect— what was that? Ten?”

“Y-Yeah, I think ten is- is it. I think he f-felt really bad about the mess, so…”

Asteri gestured to a chair if Alphys wanted to sit, and sighed as she dropped into her own seat at the desk. “Yeah, I know. I told him it was fine, though. I hope he didn’t push himself for my sake.”

The lizard monster plopped into the offered chair and waved a hand. “He’s fine. Just, um, y-y’know, he gets. Self-conscious.”

“I do know that,” Asteri mumbled with a knowing sigh, sitting at her desk.

Alphys’ eyebrows furrowed. “W-Why, um, w-why did he need three extra hands to show you green magic, though?”

The memory of the skeleton shrugging out of his dark coat and yanking his sweater all the way up to his armpits brought heat back to her face. She pushed the feeling down and managed to maintain an otherwise calm expression. “We were discussing SOUL magic, which I wasn’t familiar with since I don’t make a habit of fighting. He said that because we didn’t know each other very well, he didn’t want to use it on me. I didn’t understand, um… turning a SOUL a certain color, so he…” She swallowed, beginning to struggle not to look as embarrassed as she felt by the memory. It wasn’t a big deal, it was educational. Surely it would be more embarrassing to make it a big deal to a scientist of all people. She shrugged as casually as she could manage. “…He showed me.”

Alphys’ eyes turned into dinner plates and she giggled incredulously. “He turned his own SOUL green and SHOWED you?!”

Asteri’s whole face flushed. “I-It stayed in his body!!”

Alphys was grinning, claws over her mouth. “Oh my god.”

“It was purely educational!”

“Did he- D-Did he, like, take his shirt off??”

“He pulled it up,” Asteri muttered. “But it wasn’t a big deal, alright‽”

“You’re preeeeetty defensive f-for it not being a big deal, Asteri,” Alphys teased.

“I-I just didn’t know what to expect! It’s not like I’d seen a skeleton’s body before!”

Alphys wiggled her eyebrows. “Why’re you blushing so hard then?”

“BECAUSE I SAW THE MAN’S SOUL, ALPHYS! That’s not exactly an experience I’m accustomed to having with someone!” She sighed and rubbed her face with her wing, tail reaching over to grab her papers.

Fortunately, Alphys dropped it, though the smirk didn’t quite disappear.

“Here. Look. These are some words I believe I have the meanings of.” Asteri shoved a handful of papers at her with her tail. “But since you’re familiar with the actual speech, I was hoping you could help me by giving me the pronunciation of any words you know. Then, once I know which letters make which sounds, hopefully we can meet again and compare what else I’ve transliterated. The writing has almost no spaces, so I can’t tell where words end and begin. I was hoping you would be able to help with that once we make some progress.”

“A-Ah, okay!” Alphys shuffled through the papers. “Um, so you have the word for “goodbye,” and I know that one!” She held the paper out and pointed to it. “It’s, um, “sayonara.””

Asteri frowned, leaning forward. “That can’t be right. The text is only five letters.”

Alphys’ expression withered into confusion, then uncertainty. “Oh… um, okay, let me look again.” She searched the papers once more. “Okay, here- here’s “yes,” I know that one is- is definitely “hai!” And, um, here, you have a few! A-A few different ones. For “wait.” I’ve heard, uh, “matte o,” uh, th-the most.”

Again, Asteri looked at the papers, and it didn’t make any sense. “None of these have enough letters to be those words… Did I get all of these wrong??”

Both of them stared at the columns of words in silence for at least a solid minute.

“Maybe… M-Maybe you should watch some of, um. Some anime?”

Asteri sighed and flopped back against her seat. “You know, you’re probably right.” Her head turned back to the other woman. “Alright. Hit me. What are we watching?”

Alphys lit up like a lightbulb. Before she could answer, though, Asteri spoke up again.

“Just! Know. That there will be a lot rewinding and pausing.”

“Th-That’s okay! I know exactly what we can watch! And!” Alphys reached into her bag, then pulled out a DVD case and held it aloft. “I always bring my favorite with me in case I meet someone who wants to watch it!”

Asteri squinted at it. “Sailor… Moon?”

It was a lot more productive than Asteri anticipated. Seeing Japanese text in the background occasionally along with hearing the way it was spoken helped her get a better sense of how the language worked. Brief segments of seeing a character write something or sound something out helped immensely. By the time Alphys left, they had tossed around theories ranging from the language not having written vowels to each letter being a word. Some of the words in Japanese that she heard translated to a whole phrase in the subtitles, or vice versa, which fascinated Asteri to no end. She had spent almost the last two decades studying monster languages, but now, to try to puzzle apart a brand new one? Oh, it excited her like nothing else. Words for things that their language didn’t have, entirely different grammar, and most immediately interesting: a new alphabet.

It left her with much to think about. Alphys promised that next time, she would bring some of her other series to pick from. That was great, and Asteri was looking forward to it, but more than anything, this had made her all the more determined to learn more about fonts and speech-based magic from Gaster. The next time they met, she was getting to the bottom of it.

(The next time they met, she did not.)

⁂

This time, their walk was less meandering through Hotland, and more making a beeline for New Home. Gaster had been having actual meals all week, so Asteri agreed that they should get donuts together.

“I feel like you’re the only reason this donut shop is still open, Gaster.”

He grinned, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head as they walked in. “They know my orders by heart here…”

That pulled a little snort from her. “Of course they do.”

“Doctor!” greeted the man behind the counter. “Where have you been!? We haven’t seen you all week, we started to worry you tripped and fell into the CORE!”

He laughed humorlessly. “There are safety rails to preventing that, fortunately.” In most areas, anyway. “Asteri here has been trying to get me to eat a more balanced diet.”

“Oho! Good for you! We sell sandwiches too, you know!”

“Perhaps I will try one, sometime. But today I am being rewarded with donuts for eating well all week.”

The man laughed, hearty and loud, and turned to Asteri. “You’re taking good care of the doctor for us all, huh!?”

“I’m certainly trying,” she answered, unable to help her smile. The worker— owner? —knew Gaster well. She was glad he knew that there were other people who cared about him.

“You picked a good one, Doctor! I’m happy for you! It’s about time you settled down!”

Oh.

Both of their faces flushed with magic. “No, no no no, it’s not like that!” she clarified, while Gaster frantically signed more or less the same thing. The monster behind the counter just shrugged and let it go.

“My bad! I’m sorry, I just got excited for ya, Doctor! But still, glad you’ve got a good friend! So! What can I getcha!?”

After they ordered (though Asteri insisted it not be an entire box of donuts this time, just a couple), they found a booth to sit in and made themselves comfortable.

“He seemed very excitable,” she giggled.

“Every one of his sentences has at least one exclamation point,” Gaster informed her with a chuckle. “Even his questions. I have never seen him use a period.”

“Wow, really? Is that tiring to read?”

He picked up a donut and hummed for a moment. “No, not any more than it is to listen to.”

Alright, this was good! This time, she was finding out more about speech and text magic, and she wasn’t going to let anything derail her!

“Speaking of which, Gaster,” she began, looking up from her own plate, “I was going to aaaaaaa….sk…..”

She had looked up in time to see Gaster mid-bite. Yes, that was right: mid-bite. His mouth hung open as their eyes met in mutual confusion. Then, after a split-second, he finished biting the donut and signed while he… chewed, or whatever it was that happened next. “Asteri? What’s wrong?”

She gaped at him. “Your mouth opens‽”

Well, there went tact.

Understandably, he shot her a confused, mildly worried look as he took another bite. “Asteri, we have eaten together several times now.”

She felt her face heat up. This is why tact is important. Good grief Asteri, does all your sense go out the window when you’re around him‽ Pull it together!!

“W-Well, um. I was busy writing notes the first time we met… and the other time, with the pizza, I got distracted… then, um. Last time, we were sitting in the dark and the movie was starting, and I was exhausted. So I. I never… saw you… do that?”

He raised one brow and stared at her in what could only be described as a mixture of skepticism and concern, then opened and closed his mouth a few times as if to show that yes, it really did work that way. His teeth clicked together. Despite her best efforts, she just stared. It definitely made the way his head was shaped make more sense.

“You truly never saw me open my mouth, this entire time?” She shook her head, eyes still glued to his jaw. He breathed a single laugh and took a sip of his drink. “Perhaps I should teach you about skeleton biology, then.”

Her eyes blew wide and immediately flicked up to meet his, incredulous. If her face wasn’t hot before, it was now. For a split second that felt like an eternity, he just looked back at her, not comprehending what he had said that could have elicited such a response. Then it registered and his face turned red, eyelights blazing hot pink.

“I meant explain it!!! Here! In the booth! In an educational and—” He was signing too quickly, she didn’t make the second word out, but she imagined it was probably “professional” or something— “manner!! Obviously I would not…! Make any such advances!!”

“R-Right, yes,” she stammered, looking away. “O-Obviously.” She debated pointing out that he had practically taken his shirt off and showed her his SOUL a couple weeks ago, but decided that what had just happened was enough embarrassment to both of them for one day.

The awkwardness was palpable.

“I’m...” She released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I was already a little flustered, so my mind jumped right to…” God, what was wrong with her?! She rubbed her face with her wing. “Th-That was beyond inappropriate of me, I apologize.”

“I certainly could have worded it better,” Gaster objected on her behalf, still embarrassed but fortunately not upset. “It is not your fault.”

Asteri sighed. “I feel like such a heel, though. I don’t know where my mind is today. God. I shouldn’t have even gone there. You’re my friend. Obviously you wouldn’t suggest that. Especially like… that.”

Yeah, it was way too smooth of a line, he’d never be able to swing tha— what is WRONG with me‽

“No, no, please,” he insisted, “do not berate yourself! I was careless in my wording, and neither gave any consideration that you might have been embarrassed by the misunderstanding at the counter. Forgive me.”

The misunderstanding at the…? Oh! Yes. She was a little frazzled by that. But mostly she had been flustered by…

The realization almost knocked the wind out of her.

It was his mouth. I was watching his MOUTH.

God, should she just tell him that? No, no, it would make things uncomfortable because he would think it was for a way weirder reason than it actually was and then he would never want to eat around her again. She just needed to get a grip. There weren’t a lot of monsters with teeth that weren’t covered by something like skin or a beak. The form she preferred to stay in was a lot like her parents’, and lacked lips. They didn’t kiss each other, they would just gently nibble wherever was convenient: shoulder, cheek, neck. (It was only once she got much older that she had learned that biting someone’s neck or shoulder was not considered an innocent display of affection by most other types of monsters.) She had just gotten caught up with the subconscious realization that he was like her in that regard. Skeletons probably didn’t kiss either. Maybe they bit, like her family. That was all. She was thinking about biting (kissing) and how nobody else did that, and then he said that and it completely threw her.

Shoot, she had been quiet a few seconds too long. “Don’t- Don’t worry about it, Gaster! Really. Um, look, I feel terrible about making you uncomfortable, and you feel bad about making me uncomfortable, so now we both feel bad and are uncomfortable. Let’s just start that conversation over, yeah?”

“Yes. I would like that.” He nodded, sitting up a little bit straighter with a grateful smile.

For a moment she hesitated, but then decided that embarrassment aside, it probably would be good to know. “If… If if isn’t too uncomfortable of a topic after all that,” she started, tentative, “it might be beneficial if you did tell me a little about skeleton… biology. J-Just the basics. So there aren’t any future misunderstandings.”

Gaster nodded once more. “I think that would be wise.” He shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. “Since it has become relevant, I will start with our jaws. I can open mine, as you saw. However, I do not need to, technically speaking. Neither to vocalize, as you have no doubt noticed, nor to eat. Some skeletons had fused skulls, lacking this hollow here.” He pointed to the space between his back teeth and the hinge of his jaw. “They could not open their mouths, so they ate with magic. Like so.”

Asteri watched in stupor as he held a donut up to his closed mouth and it began to disappear.

“This is fine, and sometimes more convenient, but it takes more concentration for me, personally, so I prefer to simply bite my food.

“Some skeletons appeared to have fused skulls, but were just particularly skilled with distortion magic, and pulled the magic that made up their skulls around their mouths so that they could emote more similarly to monsters with skin, showing more or less teeth depending on their expression. All skeletons use distortion magic naturally, which is how our eye sockets emote and we appear to frown and smile.”

Asteri nodded. “Distortion magic is used by shapeshifters as well, to some extent. Though, our nature is to be able to change forms, so it isn’t what allows us to shift, only what we might use while in a particular form.”

“Then you understand.”

“Yeah. Though you use it so subtly I didn’t place it as distortion magic until you said so.”

He smiled at that. “Thank you. I have a decent amount of skill with it, though I am by no means particularly adept. Generally, skeletons emoted with a mixture of eyeglowing and changes in font. But only other skeletons could see fonts, and eyeglowing required knowledge of what each color meant in each context— something other skeletons knew innately— so when confronted with other monsters, or humans, some skeletons chose to use more distortion magic to make their expressions and emotions clearer.” He paused. “Being… the only skeleton left, I admit I am at times tempted to make more use of distortion magic so that others may better read my expression. But, at the same time, I do not want to act like something I am not.”

“That makes sense,” Asteri murmured. “I can understand the pressure to change in order to be understood, while also feeling like you shouldn’t have to abandon your culture.”

He looked on, waiting for her to continue if she wished. She hadn’t meant to get into it, this was about him, but if wanted to listen…

She took a breath.

“My parents were big on that. Shapeshifters were never especially numerous, even on the surface, I guess. Even so, there were many clans, never a single kingdom like other types of monsters had. The one my family was from didn’t generally take bipedal forms. They were more inclined towards the reptilian, amphibian, and piscine or other aquatics. Legs and tails were prioritized over arms. More legs, stronger tail, easier to run or swim, easier to hunt. As a result, the ability to form arms was slowly lost. I can become a many-legged creature easily enough, even something with grasping forelimbs, like a crustacean. But “humanoid” arms? Those are beyond me, no matter how many times I’ve tried over the years.

“When I was a kid, I shifted a lot more. My parents encouraged me, of course, to experiment until I found a form I was comfortable with. But I knew what came easily, I knew what felt nice to exist as. But… I didn’t like how it looked. I didn’t like that I didn’t have arms like everyone else. Even the dogs in Snowdin were bipedal and used their front legs like arms. I wanted to be solid, all in one piece, like everyone else, and I wanted arms. I was always trying to shift to look more like the other kids, especially the lizard monsters, but whenever I tried to form the arms…”

She held her wings out and focused. They condensed and solidified into two humanoid arms, but rather than finish turning lavender like the rest of her body, they stayed a bluish color. Within a matter of seconds, they started dripping, becoming almost goopy, and it only took a few moments for them to melt back into the semi-transparent cloak of magic that draped around her as “wings.”

“Doesn’t work. I learned how to form hands, like you’ve seen me do, but they’re drippy too, and they’ll fade if I don’t stay focused. I used to be really self-conscious about this form, but my parents reminded me that I didn’t have to pretend to be ‘not a shapeshifter.’ Shifting was for my own comfort, not the comfort of those around me. There was no need to imitate others, only to take inspiration. If I preferred to stay in multiple pieces, then the other kids would learn to just accept that that’s how I looked. I didn’t have to look like other monsters; we had our own culture, our own look. We didn’t have arms, or lips, and we didn’t resemble any particular animal like a lot of the other monsters did, but we were us, you know?”

She smiled, bittersweet for a moment as she remembered them, then looked back to him with a happier smile. “Did you know, the first time I saw you summon extra hands, I felt so validated?”

His eyes widened slightly. “Truly? Even though I have hands naturally?”

“Yeah. I’d never seen anyone need to summon them, so it was kind of nice to see that there are other people who do after all. I-I feel a lot less self-conscious about forming them when I’m with you. O-Or Alphys, I guess.”

He smiled down at the donut on his plate. “I am glad that I helped you in some way. There were… not many skeletons who signed, and as such not much accommodation for someone who needed their hands free. So I understand some of the anxiety that comes with summoning hands. Nowadays, though, nearly everyone understands sign language, and no one has ever questioned my extra hands. So don’t feel self-conscious, I am sure no one questions yours either.”

Asteri’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “You might also not get questioned because you’re a bit eccentric,” she teased.

“Heh.” He hid a smile of his own behind a donut. “Is there anything else you would like to know about skeletons?”

Plenty, like what it was like to grow up signing in a culture where speech was so vital to expression, but she wasn’t about to say that. Instead, she pretended to think about it while she chewed. “What do the colors your eyes turn mean?”

“An excellent question,” Gaster commended her. “It is heavily contextual, though...”

She materialized a hand out of her magic and took out her pen and notebook. “Alright, hit me.”

He chuckled at the fact that that was her immediate response, and launched into the explanation.

“Green is happiness, safety, or contentment. It may also flare up when healing or using green SOUL magic. If I had expended much energy or focus when I explained turning a SOUL green, it may have lit my eyes. Green is rarely seen in a negative context, but it can be associated with hope for change or asking for help from another person, such as healing.

“Pink is surprise, or embarrassment. It may also show hesitation or anxiety.

“Red is associated with physical pain, but may also show up as resilience or fortitude despite injury or impending harm.

“Orange, like it, may show resilience in the face of hardship; a call for bravery. An act of defiance, perhaps. However, that is red-orange. A more neutral orange, or yellow-orange, is typically confusion, puzzlement, or, more rarely, betrayal. Using orange magic extensively may light one’s eyes, as with green. This goes for any colored magic.

“Yellow may show stress, fear, or a feeling of righteous indignation. Other times, however, yellow can convey a sense of absoluteness or surety in one’s actions.

“Violet is associated with need. It can also be fear, when it is less saturated in color, but it is fear more in the sense of helplessness. It more often expresses exhaustion or hunger; a display that one is in need of something in order to go on. It can also convey a frightened anger. Certain shades of violet can show sadness as well. It is one of the more versatile colors, like yellow.

“Blue, specifically light blue, is calm, but not in the sense of contentment, as with green. It is a calm in spite of something. A sense of waiting, of…” Something clicked in his mind. “Patience. A conscious decision to wait, to endure. For this, eyes may also glow light blue when highly stressed as an outlet.”

Asteri wrote as fast as she could to get all of that down. When she was finished, she looked up. “What about dark blue, like the color your eyes turned when you calmed me down in my kitchen?”

“Ah,” he hummed. “That is where context becomes important. A skeleton’s personal magic has its own color, similar to how monsters with flesh may have different color irises, hair, fur, or skin. Mine is the deep blue you saw. That is also why the hands I summon are blue. Contrary to what it may seem, my skill with gravity magic—that is, colored magic of the blue variety— is entirely unrelated. Thus, if I glow my eyes intentionally—” His eyelights lit up blue— “it is this color blue. In terms of meaning, though, it is similar to red in that it is a call to endure, but also to green in that it conveys a sense of calm. It is something akin to wholeness, a feeling of completeness… Importance. Community, perhaps? Deep affection for those around you.”

“Love,” Asteri supplied, the word tumbling out of her mouth before she even gave it a second thought.

Gaster stilled, the simple answer taking him by surprise, then slowly broke into a smile. “Yes, that’s it,” he signed slowly. “It is love. Selfless love, specifically.”

She thought it prudent not to comment on how appropriate that color was for the situation in the kitchen.

“That’s fascinating, Gaster,” she said softly, instead. It was always so enjoyable to listen to him. She always learned so much. Even if, yet again, she hadn’t gotten to talk with him about fonts.

Appropriately, his eyes turned green.

“Colors mixed together, flickering, or alternating can also change the meanings,” he added, “but again, context is necessary. Knowing those basics will allow you to understand the essence of what is being conveyed, even if not all of the nuance.”

“Thank you for the lesson. Mm, I should tell you more about shapeshifters sometime,” mused Asteri once she had finished writing everything down. “Since I’m learning so much about skeletons.”

“I would like that very much,” he agreed, perking up more.

“Well, it’s not like I have to be anywhere, if you want to hear now. Is there anything in particular you want to know?”

Gaster thought for a few moments, and Asteri took the opportunity to finish her second donut. It had a lemon drizzle on it, and it was delicious.

“Can you take any form, disregarding arms?”

She grinned and nodded. “Yeah. Want to see something weird?”

He didn’t say no, so she went ahead. Her features melted away and shifted around, and a moment later Gaster was looking at an almost-mirror image of himself. He made a startled noise.

“Oh, this is really weird,” she said in her own voice. Her jaw— his jaw— moved as she spoke. She wasn’t accustomed to speaking in a form like this so she used distortion magic to enunciate, which looked very strange

He shuddered, grimacing. “Stars above, that is not how teeth work.”

She laughed apologetically and let herself melt into something formless again, then into a familiar yellow lizard. “How’s this?”

“Quite good!” Gaster grinned, a little more relaxed. “Alphys has one more head spine, though.”

“Oh, whoops.” With a little melting, she moved the head spines around and added another one. “Better?”

“Perfect.”

Laughing again, Asteri melted once more and then returned to her regular form. “Good! Alphys is easier, I’ve been different types of lizards before. I’ve never been a skeleton. That was my first attempt.”

His brow bones rose. “That was impressive for a first attempt!” He looked to the side and tilted his head. “Highly unnerving, but impressive.”

“Thanks,” she chuckled, flicking her tail out behind her. “Sorry if that was too strange.”

“It was only a little strange,” Gaster admitted with an awkward smile. “It was odd to see another skeleton— but not bad!” he added quickly when he saw her eyes widen. “I know you are going to apologize, but there is no need. It was not odd in a bad way.”

She rubbed the back of her head with her tail. “Ahah… you know me well.”

He might have puffed up just a little at that. “May I ask more about shapeshifters?”

“Oh! Yeah, go for it.”

“I have two questions. Please answer whichever you like first. Can you become larger or smaller? And when you imitated Alphys and myself, you appeared to have arms. How is that?”

Asteri nodded. “Ah, right. Well, they weren’t real, functional arms. Did you notice how it looked like my clothes changed to look like yours? That was all part of me. The imitations were only that: imitations. I couldn’t walk around like that. Well, maybe as Alphys, but not for long. It was more like I shaped my magic around myself like a shell rather than created an actual, functional form.

“And no, I can’t change sizes… exactly.” She held a wing up. “These “wings” are all of my unused magic. Since I can’t form arms, I keep it wrapped around me like a cloak, and I can use it to grab things or gesture. But in essence, it’s all the bodily magic that isn’t being used as part of my current form. If I used all of what’s available to me, I would be huge. And I’m already pretty tall! So I can get bigger, yes… within reason. Getting smaller is more complicated. It would leave more magic left over, which I would have to do something with, so it would likely end up as part of my wings. I prefer to be bipedal, and I think the size I am now looks best in proportion to my wings, so that’s why I stay like this.”

“Fascinating,” Gaster signed, exhaling as he shook his head slightly in wonder. “May I ask why you chose the colors you did for your form?”

“Sure!” She took a sip of her drink and shifted to get more comfortable. “But you may be surprised how little of it was actually a choice. My parents were usually shades of purple and blue, so it’s sort of a default. Shapeshifters do have “base forms,” so to speak. We’re sort of goopy. Not sticky or anything, but kind of… gelatinous? But not totally transparent; complete colorlessness is super rare, I guess. And just like most other monsters, what your parents look like will affect how you look. My parents’ families tended toward cool colors: greens and blues and grays and purples. So this lavender color is actually more or less the color I am naturally. I did decide to make my hair and a few other features green, because I like the color. Sometimes it changes shades, though. My eyelights are purple too, but that wasn’t actually a conscious decision. It’s difficult to go completely white, but I can if I focus for a second.”

Her eyes turned white instead of their usual heliotrope.

“How does it look?”

“A bit unnerving,” Gaster confessed.

She chuckled and let them return to normal. “Yeah, I bet. I think they’re purple because the rest of me is, too. Maybe I’ll experiment with colors, I haven’t done that in a long time.”

Gaster tilted his head, brow bones furrowing slightly. “You are perfect as you are.”

Asteri’s eyebrows shot up, and she gave him an incredulous smile to hide the blush that crept back up her face. “Alright, Mr. Smooth-talker…. You sure you aren’t flirting with me?” she half-teased.

Watching him get flustered again was funnier when she knew he hadn’t meant it that way. “No! I meant that your form suits you! There is no need to change what is already—” His eyes went pink. “I merely intended to say that you need not worry about how you look! That… That is all. You look… like Asteri.”

“You’re sweet, Gaster,” she cooed, propping her head up on her wing. “I knew what you meant that time. Well. Sort of.”

He covered his face with both hands, then dragged them down his skull. “I apologize. I do not know what is wrong with me today.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m feeling a little off myself. There’s one last thing, if you’re still interested.”

“Yes, please.” Anything to change the subject.

“So, when I melt, I’m mostly purple still, right? Well, if I melt completely, I’m actually more like a gradient. Purple in the center, around my SOUL, and then it fades to this blue-green the further away it goes. So my working theory is that the more “solid” magic is this lavender color, and the magic that’s easier for me to manipulate is this.” She wiggled her other wing. “So all the easier-to-manipulate magic subconsciously ends up together in my wings, rather than being intermingled with the rest of me. It can become solid, and it turns purple then, or whatever color, but this is sort of the color it is “at rest.” Which is also why the hands I make are green. They’re not “summoned” so much as “materialized,” since most of my extra magic is around me at all times.”

“That is very, very interesting.” Gaster studied her wings from across the table. “I did not know other monsters’ “extra” magic was colored, I thought it was only skeletons.”

“Maybe you should study biology next,” she offered with a snicker.

“Perhaps I should.” He thought for a moment. “That is a good idea, actually. Magical biology has much bearing on what I am working on. I know enough for the project, of course, but studying how various monsters’ magic works may be beneficial.”

“Oh?” She hadn’t expected him to agree. “What, like study their magic compared to their bullets or something?”

He perked up and pointed at her. “That is an excellent idea!” He pulled a pen out of his coat pocket and scribbled something on a napkin. Asteri only got a glimpse before he tucked it away, but she couldn’t read any of it.

“You have terrible handwriting, Gaster, yikes.”

His head snapped up so quickly she thought it would go flying off his neck. He looked mortified. Maybe it was a touchy subject. She immediately tried to backpedal.

“N-Not that there’s anything wrong with that! As long as you can read it, that’s all that matters!!”

His eyelights flicked to the side, pink and yellow magic blurring along with them. After a moment of uncertainty, he answered, “I am… a little self-conscious about it.” His signing was slower, more unsure. “Usually I write more… legibly. But I tend to forego that discipline when writing to myself.”

Discipline? Maybe she misunderstood his signing. Either way, she shook her head. “Uh, hey, don’t sweat it. I’m not judging you. I shouldn’t have commented on it, I’m sorry. Nothing wrong with writing however is quick and easy if it’s just a note to yourself.”

He just nodded.

Well, this was going nowhere. He had all but shut down, his eyes were still pink— she was guessing anxiety and embarrassment— and he was sweating bullets. Ah, bullets. Yes. She should change the subject.

“So, um. How would you compare a monster’s magic to their bullets?” She summoned a small one of her own and let it hover above her held-out wing with a big smile. “I made ones that look like asterisks! Isn’t that fun?”

He looked up at the bullet for a moment, just blinking. “You… made it look like an asterisk?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I thought it was sort of funny, considering my name and their uses as footnotes, and for marking reconstructed or hypothetical words in linguistics. Though I guess that last part is more of an inside joke—”

“No, I meant: you consciously decided what your bullets would look like?”

Asteri blinked at him, face blank, then slowly her mouth pulled in a sheepish smile and she stared down at her lap, letting the bullet disperse. “Is… Is this one of those things that I think everybody does, like biting each other, but it’s actually just a shapeshifter thing?”

“I—” He squinted at her. “I want to ask about the biting, but we can come back to that. Yes, most monsters do not consciously shape their bullets. Mine, for example, are almost exclusively bones. As were most skeletons’. I can change their size, damage output, and orientation, but I cannot change their shape.”

“Oh…” She frowned in thought. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Huh…”

He pulled the napkin back out and wrote on it again. Though, this time he held a hand between her and it so she couldn’t see. She must have really hurt his feelings. She’d have to figure out how to make it up to him.

“I am curious about what you said about shapeshifters biting each other, though,” Gaster prompted once he had put the napkin away again and moved to stand, one brow bone raised.

Asteri smiled anxiously as she stood to follow him to the door. They waved to the man behind the counter before she responded.

“Well! Um. We don’t— well, my family didn’t have lips. Usually. So I never saw my parents kiss, they always just… you know… bit each other.” She shrugged, still clearly awkward about it with the way she was smiling and looking everywhere but at him. “Like a little nibble! Not a chomp or anything!” That was probably more like bedroom stuff. She shuddered. Gross. The last thing she wanted to think about was her dead parents’ intimate life. “Just wherever was convenient: cheek, shoulder, neck…”

She expected him to look alarmed, like most people (including all two of her past partners, as brief as they had been in her life). Instead, he just nodded thoughtfully, looking off somewhere in the distance. “Biting as kissing. That makes a great deal of sense. I am surprised I did not see more skeletons do that.”

She swallowed. “What… did skeletons do to show affection?”

He looked back to her and smiled, fond memories that she couldn’t see playing in his eyes. “We tapped our skulls together. Romantically, yes, but also between family or friends.”

She wondered who he was remembering. His parents? Siblings, maybe? Dear friends? A partner? It dawned on her then that he might have lost children. God. How awful! She desperately hoped that was not the case.

“That sounds really nice,” she said instead. Bumping heads sounded more than nice, actually. She should focus on that. “I think there’s a shortage of physical affection between friends. As a culture, we should have more of that. Physical displays of affection are not inherently romantic!”

His grin widened. “I agree completely.”

Maybe he was thinking along the same line that she was. “Were there any particulars? Like, facing each other was romantic, but from the side was platonic, for example?”

“No. Though, naturally, facing each other could be more intimate. It was not necessarily though.”

“Was it specifically for greetings or goodbyes, or could it be anytime?”

“Anytime it felt right.”

Asteri smiled lopsidedly and leaned toward him. “May I, then, my friend?”

His eye practically turned into stars and lit up green. He leaned down to meet her. “Please.”

They tapped their heads together, his forehead against the top of hers. It only lasted a second, but both of them felt giddy.

“I have not done that in years,” Gaster confessed with a pleased laugh that squinted his eye sockets shut. “I forgot what a pleasant gesture it is.”

It was, too. Just enough to feel important. Not as impersonal as a handshake, but not as vulnerable as a hug. “I liked it,” Asteri agreed. “We should do it to Alphys.”

He giggled. “Good idea! I hope she will be agreeable to it.”

“I think she will be.”

They had started walking, slowly. Since they were all the way in the capital, she should probably head home soon. But, like always, she didn’t want their time to end yet. She hummed a sigh and swung her wings. “It’s too bad I live so far away. It’s like there’s never enough time.”

Gaster hummed softly, silent in thought for a moment, then seemed to settle on a decision. “Asteri,” he began, uncertain. “If I promise to go home and sleep at a reasonable time, would you mind terribly if I accompanied you on your way home?”

The thought was nice, but… “Gaster, you live right by this shop, I’m in the middle of Waterfall. That’s nice of you, but even with the ferry, that’s just too far. You’d have to turn around as soon as we reached my house if you wanted to get home at a decent time. And I know you work tomorrow.”

“Did you know that collapsed stars are so dense, they are thought to affect the fabric of spacetime?”

She squinted, then broke into a knowing smile. “That’s fascinating, but trying to get me wrapped up in something else so we can start walking in that direction without me noticing won’t work. I’ve got another friend who does that. Nice try.”

“No, I am getting at something,” he insisted. “Truly.”

He looked so unsure, it was a little unsettling. Asteri nodded. “Alright… go on.”

He took a breath. “Objects with large amounts of mass have more gravity. Spacetime is like fabric, and things like planets and stars are like marbles sitting atop it. They dip into it, warp it. A gravity field, ultimately, curves spacetime. So if one were to manipulate gravity just so, one could “fold” the fabric of spacetime and jump to another location.”

She blinked. He waved his hands as if to clear his previous explanation away. “Imagine this instead.” The blue hands appeared and held the edge of his lab coat out taut. He located two stray sprinkles from the donuts and stuck them to his coat a few inches apart. Next, he made a fist and gently pushed against the fabric. “It dips,” he explained with yet another pair of hands. “The pressure of my fist on the fabric is like gravity on spacetime. See those two sprinkles? Watch them.”

“Alright,” Asteri murmured. “I’m watching.”

“If I push harder, it pulls the fabric downward.” He did just that, and when the fabric was too taut to stretch, he moved the edges of it inward with the extra pair of hands. He kept going until his fist was all but enveloped in the fabric. “See how the sprinkles are now closer together?”

She nodded.

“Those are points in spacetime. With enough gravity, they get “closer,” even though there is technically just as much fabric between them.”

“I think I understand,” Asteri said. “What are you getting at, though?”

He smiled, lopsided and still a bit hesitant, and all the blue hands disappeared as he went back to signing regularly. “If one can generate enough gravity, one can affect spacetime. If the gravity is high enough, two points in space can be brought close enough together to travel in less time.”

He watched her for a response, his hesitant smile becoming a nervous grin.

It dawned on her. “And you can manipulate gravity. Hang on—” Asteri held one wing out and dragged the other across her face. “Gaster. Gaster. Are you- Are you implying that you can teleport‽”

He giggled.

“Yes?”

The sheepish look, like he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar rather than had just told her he could do something largely considered impossible, was simultaneously endearing and infuriating.

“You’re offering to TELEPORT me home‽”

Actually he had meant that he would walk with her, and then teleport himself home later, but the excited glimmer in her eyes that she was trying to hide beneath her incredulity was too much. He shrugged one shoulder and let his grin stretch.

“If you would like?”

She had to bite her tongue to not instantly scream yes. “Please,” she said instead, though that barely restrained her excitement. “That would be so cool.”

Her enthusiasm was beyond endearing. “You will have to hold onto me,” he prefaced. “Tightly. The closer we are, the most smoothly it will go.”

“I can flatten, if that’s better?” Asteri offered, already beginning to spread her magic out. She could wrap around him like a piece of paper, if that was what it took. But he stopped her with a shake of his head.

“No, no, that isn’t necessary. I have taken others with me before, there is no need to change shape.”

“Oh, even better.” Within a matter of seconds she reverted to her usual form. “I’ll try to stay solid, though… in case part of me falls off or something.”

Gaster frowned in thought and rubbed his chin. It should be fine, but… “Just in case,” he agreed.

She focused, and her body fused together. She rolled her head on her neck afterward. “It feels so weird to make my actual form this solid. How do you deal with such a limited range of motion?”

He scrunched up his face. “I have never seen you turn your head especially far…”

Asteri smirked. “Would you like to?”

He tilted his head and returned the smirk. “Would you like to see me remove mine?”

She laughed. “Sure. Here, hang on. Let me turn around. Alright, count of three. One, two…”

She let her magic loosen from her neck—

“…Three!”

— and spun her head 180°. Just in time to see Gaster pop his head off and hold it in his hand. She shrieked in a mixture of surprise and amusement, and he gave a startled giggle. Several passersby did spit takes.

They returned their heads to the way they ought to be and laughed.

“Not many people take well to me doing that,” Asteri confessed.

“Not a single person in the underground thinks it funny when I remove my head either.”

“You do it that often?” she asked, snickering.

“Well, no…”

“That may be for the best, actually.”

“I am glad that you, at least, enjoyed it. We should get going, though. This way.” He led her around the side of a building. “It is better to do out of sight; less questions. As you are no doubt aware, this is not a common ability.”

“Ah, right.”

Once they were away from the main thoroughfare, she moved closer. After making sure she was all in once piece, she nodded. “Alright. How close should I be?”

He shuffled closer. And then closer still. “You will have to hang onto me.”

Oh, that was right, he had said that. “Just…?” She held her wings out.

“Yes. And I will hold onto you, also. Just so you are aware.” He looked a little unsure. “We will be very close.”

Was he uncomfortable with it? She hoped not, but maybe she should check. “Well… I don’t mind if you don’t?”

“I do not mind, I just did not want you to be uncomfortable, after the… misunderstanding earlier.”

She almost snorted. “It’s not a problem, Gaster, don’t worry about it.”

He nodded once and took a breath. “Alright then, here we go.”

They pressed their sides together and she wrapped her wings around him, her tail winding around his hips. Both of his arms curled around her torso. He seemed to realize that she didn’t exactly have shoulders that he could hold easily, so he needed to hold around her waist. They ended up mostly facing each other.

It’s not a big deal Asteri, it’s just for safety. …But good lord, when was the last time anyone held me?

“Ready?” A pair of blue hands asked.

“Ready.”

And the world shifted, blurred, darkening until it seemed it couldn’t possibly get any darker yet somehow it did, until was nothing but pitch black. In a matter of seconds, the bright light of New Home had given way to nothingness. It was the deepest, emptiest dark she had ever known. That such nothingness could even exist was beyond her. Asteri couldn’t see anything, anything, not even the glow of her wings. She couldn’t see her own magic! What was happening!? She was alone…! There was nothing. Nothing. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her breathing shuddered. She couldn’t breathe! The absolute and perfect darkness panicked her, and she cried out, grip tightening around the only solid thing there was to hold onto.

And then she was held closer in turn. The feeling of arms tightening around her pulled a gasp from her lungs.

“G-G-Gaster? Gaster?? Wh-Where- Where- Where are you‽” She could feel him holding her, still, that hadn’t changed, but in her panic she wasn’t thinking.

She heard a hum. No real melody, just a hum, but it was a familiar voice, close to her head. Close to her. Close to her. A voice, right there. Her breathing evened out, and she relaxed slightly. Gaster was with her. She wasn’t alone.

He tugged her, gently, in a direction, still humming, and they walked— carefully, awkwardly— toward what she soon realized was a teeny, tiny speck of light, very far away. But the darkness gave way to that light far more swiftly than she expected, and soon she could make out the cave that held her house, in Waterfall, within the light. Despite seeing it, she still couldn’t see herself or Gaster, like the light didn’t reach them somehow. But they reached it, and suddenly they were stepping out into the green-blue grass near her house.

She looked around frantically, still clinging to Gaster. The darkness was gone. She looked down. She could see herself. Her eyes flitted upward, and she realized Gaster was looking down at her with immense concern and, it looked like, guilt. His eyes were rapidly flickering between deep blue, yellow, violet, and red-orange. It took another second for her to realize that a pair of blue hands were signing near her.

“—SO sorry, are you alright??”

“I-I’m okay.” Her voice came out weaker than she meant for it to. “I didn’t catch… what you were saying. I’m sorry, um. J-Just give me a second?”

He gave her as long as she needed, which ended up being closer to a solid minute, after which she realized she was still clinging to him for dear life and disentangled herself, embarrassed.

“Are you alright?” he asked again, worry clear on his face.

“Yeah… Just, um. Just a little rattled.” The wording occurred to her only after she said it aloud, and her head snapped up. “UH! Sorry, not sure if that’s, um. O-Offensive??”

He shook an arm back and forth, rattling his bones. “Not at all.” She smiled a little at that, and he relaxed a little in turn.

Still, he practically dripped with guilt. “Asteri, I am so, profusely sorry for not warning you about the dark. I was so preoccupied with explaining how it works that I neglected to mention that strong enough gravity bends light. I am accustomed to it, but I should have warned you.”

“That was scary,” she admitted quietly, and hated how juvenile it sounded. “It was like it got dark, then even darker.” She wrapped her wings around herself. “I’ve never been unable to see my own magic before.”

He met her eyes. “I am sorry for putting you in a situation that made you afraid.”

The urge to deflect was strong, but once again, the look on his face silenced her before she could even speak. His eyes glowed ultramarine for her. Earnest, always. Never a modicum of condescension or mockery. She had been afraid. “Can we go inside?”

He nodded, and they went to the door. It was dark inside when she opened it; she immediately looked down at her wings. Still visible. Thank god. She wanted to cast some kind of fire magic, but she was embarrassed that the darkness of her own home had her so afraid. She knew where the light switch was, could have found it with her eyes closed, so instead of summoning fire, she took a deep breath to steel herself and then made a beeline for it. The lights came on, and she sagged against the wall in relief. Gaster stepped over the threshold and, after slipping his shoes off, approached her and crouched beside her where she had slid down the wall.

“Asteri…”

She looked up at him with some unnamable, weak emotion. “Gaster?” God, her voice sounded so pathetic.

“Let’s get you off the ground.”

He held out his arms, but she shook her head. “I’m too shaky,” she whispered.

“May I lift you then? With blue magic?”

She paused, unsure, then nodded.

“This will probably feel strange.”

There was a ting sound, and suddenly she felt heavy.

“You are blue now. Just relax.”

He stood. Slowly, she lifted off the ground. The whole time, she kept her wide eyes fixed on Gaster’s continually glowing blue ones. He moved her over near her couch, walking as he did so that he was never more than a few feet away. Once there, he lowered her to her feet, holding out his arms. She fell against him once he released her SOUL. This time she didn’t bother with dignity, she just wrapped her wings and tail around him and pressed her face into his shoulder.

She was still shaking, Gaster noted as he brought his arms around her.

He gave her a second, then carefully moved them until they were sitting on the couch. She clung to him like he might disappear if she let go.

“Can you… hum again? It’s okay if you don’t w—”

He didn’t let her finish, just hummed whatever tune he could think of. She relaxed a little. He wished he could offer her more than humming.

“Are your eyes open?” he signed with blue hands behind his shoulder after a minute or two. He wanted to check if she could see him signing before he tried to say anything. She nodded.

“I don’t wanna close them…”

His heart clenched. He supposed some took better to the darkness of tessering (or “teleporting”), but nobody had even been this affected. Then again, the only people he had taken with him before were Alphys, one of his old lab assistants, and… Well, that was it. He really should have thought this through instead of acting on impulse just to spend more time with her.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Not mad at you,” she mumbled into his sweater. “J-Just. Scared. I don’t even know why.”

“You do not need to have an explanation.”

“Gaster?” She hesitated, then asked, “Could you… do that with your eyes again?”

“Of course.”

His eyes actually had never stopped glowing from the moment Asteri had begun to panic during the tesser, but she couldn’t see him then; all light was pulled away. But he knew what she meant in asking him this. She pulled away, but didn’t completely let go of him. He made no move to let go of her, either. He waited until she looked up at him, then flared his eyes even brighter. Deep shades of blue whirled like eddies.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He didn’t sign anything, only nodded and hummed another slow tune and let her watch his eyes as long as she needed.

After a few minutes, she had stopped trembling and seemed to have mostly come back to herself. Once she looked away on her own, he let his magic fade. For a regular skeleton, the whole ordeal would have been exhausting. Using gravity magic to bend spacetime, using it again to lift her so delicately, glowing his eyes so brightly for so long, and summoning hands over and over— those things together expended a lot of energy.

For a regular skeleton.

But she didn’t need to know that.

“You have beautiful magic,” she muttered as she finally relaxed back against the couch. Their shoulders pressed together, but he didn’t mind. It seemed like the contact was helping her.

“Thank you.” His eyes glowed a soft, pale green. “I am quite proud of it.”

“No I mean… the stuff that comes naturally. Your eyes.”

His cheekbones and eyelights dusted with pink and he smiled, unsure what do with such a personal, genuine compliment. “Thank you… very much,” was all he managed to say, along with: “Your wings are quite stunning too.”

That warmed her face along with her heart. After another few minutes, she spoke again. “Gaster, you’re a really good friend.”

“Aha,” he chuckled humorlessly. “I do not feel like it after frightening you like this. But thank you.”

“You are though. You keep taking care of me. C’mere.” She pushed herself upward and managed to tap her head against the side of his. The smile it earned when he turned to meet her eyes again was worth the slight exertion.

“You take care of me too.”

“Bullying someone into eating well and making him sandwiches one or twice a week don’t count as taking care of somebody,” Asteri argued with a little smile that betrayed the way his words had warmed her.

“But creating two disasters and then trying to make up for them does?”

She laughed, and the sound made his SOUL feel lighter. “Well when you say it like that…! Maybe we’re both just a little bit of a mess.”

“Only a little,” he agreed with a quiet laugh.

They leaned back against each other, and the ensuing silence was amicable.

“Really though,” Asteri murmured after another few moments. “Thank you for everything you’ve done to calm me down and reassure me. I don’t even know what it was about the darkness that scared me, really. It was just… all-encompassing. It was darker than dark. I’ve never, ever been in total darkness. Maybe that was it. I always have leftover magic, my wings always glow at least a little. But in that… place, I couldn’t even see my own magic.”

Gaster nodded slowly. ““Darker than dark.” That is a good way to describe it.” He let a moment of stillness pass. “I do not know if it is a comfort or not, but so long as we were touching, you were in no danger.”

She looked up at him.

“It is easier to affect the gravity around a smaller area, which is why I said we needed to be so close. If you had pulled away, though, so long as I could still feel where you were, I could bend it in a larger radius around you. It is merely more effort and concentration, but it would not have hurt you.” He wouldn’t have let it.

“What if… someone stepped outside the radius?” She asked quietly, not sure she wanted to know the answer. “What if someone got lost?”

He shook his head slowly. “In truth, I do not know.”

It was probably best not to dwell on it.

“How do you know where to go if you can’t see anything?”

“Hmm…” How to explain it? “I need to know which two points I am traveling between. I cannot do it without a set destination. Otherwise, I would not know the exact way to manipulate gravity. It is much easier to do when I have already traveled to a specific location.”

“Like creasing paper,” Asteri suggested.

He stilled. Creasing paper. Now there was something he had never considered. “I meant that it was a familiar feeling, a better sense of how much gravity to use. But the notion that repeated travel creases spacetime, creates paths that are easier to follow with each subsequent use… that has fascinating implications.”

“Hopefully good ones,” Asteri murmured. “Creased paper is hard to write on, and you can never quite smooth it out again. Would that be… bad? For spacetime? Like if things got caught in the creases?”

What an intriguing concept. He hummed in thought.

“Because… you said collapsed stars warp spacetime, that things with a lot of gravity dip it. I don’t know much about outer space, but aren’t stars actually really, really big?”

He nodded.

“Then…” She pressed the end of her tail against a couch cushion. “They do something like this, right? Make a curve over a large area?” Another nod from him. “Then isn’t what you’re doing more like pinching spacetime? Not curving it?”

He raised his brows and gave a slow, conceding nod. “That is… not incorrect.”

“Is spacetime like lycra? Or like linen?”

He frowned in confusion and looked to her. “What do you mean?”

“Because stretchy material is hard to crease, it goes back to its shape. But linen wrinkles and creases so easily it’s infuriating.”

“I believe it must be fairly elastic,” he answered after a moment of thought. “Or else the movement of small celestial bodies would create permanent effects.”

“Hmm…”

Then again, smaller objects typically had less gravity. ‘Small (relatively speaking) object with a great deal of gravity’ would be approaching the description of a stellar remnant. But she didn’t need to worry about all that. He would do more research on it when he got the chance. For the time being…

“I think that with as long as I have been doing this, it is reasonable to call it safe for the universe at large. I am not the only monster to ever discover a way to traverse a distance in less time.”

“That does make me feel better,” Asteri admitted.

“Good.” He sat up a little, and she did too. “Have you recovered from our travels?”

She stretched and nodded as she began to yawn. “Yeah. I think so. Thank you. Do you want something more to eat? All we had was donuts.”

He waved his hands, “I don’t want to trouble you after all of that.”

“No, it’s no trouble. I would end up cooking for myself anyway.” She stood up and gestured with her head toward the kitchen. “Come keep me company. But I’m doing the cooking.”

That drew a dry laugh from him. “That is probably for the best. I am sorry I cannot help more.”

“Your company is plenty of help. Come on. I was going to make youvarlakia. It sounds… really nice after everything. It’s a soup. I think you’ll like it.”

Asteri cooked, and Gaster followed her around the kitchen, handing her things and making lighthearted conversation about people at work and silly things that had happened. She told him about some of her friends, in turn, and things they had gotten up to in the past.

“They sound like they are a great deal of fun to be around,” Gaster said as she finished a story about one of their last get-togethers. “I would like to meet them one day.”

She laughed. “They would flip. They still don’t believe that I’m friends with you, they think it’s some kind of drawn-out prank.” Granted, she hadn’t talked with them much in the past month or two, so there hadn’t been much opportunity to tell them more details.

“I still do not understand that,” he said with a huff as he helped set the table. “I am only a person. People speak about meeting the king with more nonchalance than they do me.”

“The king isn’t known as a recluse, or the underground’s most brilliant mind.”

His eyelights flicked away, faintly pink. “Hmph.”

“Alphys has mentioned some of her friends too. We should all meet sometime,” suggested Asteri as she dished out the soup.

He tugged at his turtleneck as the sat down, looking uneasy. “That sounds like a… greater than average number of persons.”

Oh, he didn’t like big groups. That made sense. “It doesn’t have to be everyone at once,” she offered instead. “We could just meet one or two people at a time.” She brought her spoon to her mouth to taste the youvarlakia. Ah, delicious. She loved that lemony tang.

“That would be preferable,” Gaster admitted. Turning his attention to the bowl in front of him, he tried the soup. It was thick, and savory, and warmed him from the inside. He smiled. “This is delicious. I was unsure what it would taste like, but it is wonderful.”

Asteri beamed. “Aww, thank you! I’m glad you think our supper tastes… soup-er.”

He snorted mid-bite and almost choked. She laughed.

“My family used to make it after trips to Snowdin,” she continued once he recovered. “Sometimes I just make it because it sounds good, even though never gets very cold here. It’s better with bread, but I didn’t make any this time.”

“I have not visited Snowdin in a long time…” He took another bite and then set his spoon down to sign. “Mm! If you make this again, may I have some? I can pay you for it—”

She reached around the table with her tail and smacked his hand. “You aren’t paying me for anything. Absolutely not. A meal with a friend is its own reward.”

He giggled sheepishly. “Alright. I admit…” His eyes roamed around the room, took in the light and the warmth and the feeling of being there. “…This is much better than eating alone.”

Asteri laughed in agreement and raised her spoon. “Exactly! That’s the spirit! “Better scraps shared with love than a feast shared with loneliness.””

His smile couldn’t get much wider. “Here we have the best of both: a feast, and good company.”

She beamed and lifted her bowl. “To good friends, and terrible jokes!”

He laughed and lifted his bowl in agreement. “Hear hear!”

- - - -

TADA

So, yeah, I know, kind of a weird place to end, but after putting Asteri through that I wanted to leave it on a high note.

I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD LIST SOME REFERENCES! Number one is Handplates, which is where the concept of bone-rattling, Gaster’s blue magic hands (along with ten being the upper limit of how many he can summon at a time), and eyeglowing is from. Though my take on it is a bit different. Glowing various colors happens more often (at least for Gaster), and I changed the meanings of some of the colors. But I really liked the idea that it helped skeletons who had more fixed features emote. However, I also love the idea of highly expressive skeletons, so I borrowed the idea of distortion magic from @ asktheasterfamily! I loved their Gaster, he’s great. (I should reread that sometime…) “Tessering” is a direct reference to A Wrinkle in Time, one of my favorite books as a kid. If you’re wondering how that kind of gravity doesn’t affect everything else around them, especially in such a small space, the answer is, “don’t worry about it.” Something something magic, [insert explanation.]

Oh, also!! Alphys’ favorite anime is Sailor Moon because Mew Mew Kissy Cutie hasn’t been made/released yet.

I felt like I couldn’t fully express just how much and why Asteri was affected so much by the darkness while tessering, but if you can imagine perfect darkness in every direction with no sense of up and down… yeah. Oh, and now imagine that you’ve never been completely immersed in regular darkness before because you glow naturally. Yeah.

She and Gaster are in that awkward friend stage where you’re not sure if the strong feeling of really really liking someone and wanting to be around them all the time is platonic or romantic. Hence all the awkwardness. I guess that isn’t a universal experience, but it sure has been a consistent thread through most of my friendships. So, yeah, no. No real romance yet!! Just the awkward beginnings of a deep friendship~ (Which is the basis of romance anyway.)

Okay wrapping this up, there’s a lot of stuff in here that sets up future events and plots points!! But it might not be the things you expect… ;)

Thanks for reading!! I absolutely love screaming in the tags or replies (YOU ESPECIALLY BENANA), so if you haven’t commented but feel inclined to, don’t be shy!! Even a “!!!” is appreciated. Maybe I should just post this on ao3 man idk

I’ll be working on part 8 soon!!

#WOO IT’S DONE #But as always I’ll probably edit it later pfft #OH AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THE COLORED TEXT IS HARD TO READ AND I’LL CHANGE IT #Asteri backstory #(gonna make another poll for the title soon)#seeker writes #seeker oc #asteri #gaster #⁂ gaster #long post #good lord this is SO long #⁂ fic #⁂

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