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benanazauce · 7 months ago

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PUT A REMINDER IN MY NOTES YESTERDAY AND I STILL READ IT LATE AUGHWUSBIWVJWH IM SO SORRY

BUT OH MY GOSH????? TEARING UP THE WALLS I LOVED THIS SO SO SO SO MUCHH OAHAIBWJB 💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞 EVERYONE LOOK NEEOOOWWWWW

CHAPTER! 10! IN! ITS! ENTIRETY!!! I thought I’d never get this done. It’s been. Over two months. Thank you for your patience. The good news is that I actually tried working on this so many times since February that I have a lot of material for chapter 11 already ready. The bad news is that… that chapter is exhausting just to think about. BUT FOR NOW, THERE’S THIS!

If you’re reading this shortly after posting, then you probably read the first two parts of this in that other post, and will have to scroll down to the second ⁂ to get past it. Sorry about that, but it was the only way to have a reasonable place for author’s notes.

Speaking of! This one is uhhh different in tone from chapter 9. I heavily debated breaking it into two parts, but I decided that part of my problem is that I don’t let more than one thing happen at a time, and that’s what has made this whole story so long. So, even though I was worried it felt like too much at once, the second half of this (or maybe the last third? Idk) has multiple things (like 2) going on at once and it was kind of stressful to write but I’m trying something different!!

Also. Asteri. She’s a mess. I have bestowed my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria upon her. Also the ‘tism. Probably. And several other things. She’s my little doll. I love her. But I certainly don’t think she’s always right or justified. There’s a lot of her just being miserable here, and I know it’s kind of exhausting to read but I have just spent so much time working through that same scene (the one that immediately follows where the last post left off) and I. I can’t do any more editing on it I had to just get this done. I also think it’s important to see this part of Asteri, though I certainly think I could have written it better. One day when I rewrite this whole thing, I’ll make it nicer.

Thank you for reading anyway!!!!

[Prev]

——————

After he left that morning, Gaster had sent her a picture of the Aster alphabet, and she had spent a long time staring at it with a strange sort of wonder. This is how the way he sounds looks.

At least, sort of. Asteri still wasn’t entirely clear on whether the sound of a skeleton’s voice and their font were two separate things. Complimenting Gaster’s voice had all but brought him to tears, and he had confessed that he had been told he sounded like “static” and “garbage noise.” She assumed he had meant in general, not just when speaking Aster, but upon further thought she wasn’t sure. When she had repeated that he had a nice voice, later, he had told her that she might not feel that way if she heard him speak his own font. Did he mean that his voice was entirely different, or that he believed it sounded even “worse” when speaking Wingdings?

There was no way to find out without asking him, but he had been busy. It would have to wait. At any rate, after their discussion about her intentionally altering her text magic over breakfast last week, she had taken to trying to mimic him. Mostly in front of her mirror, and with a voice recorder. She couldn’t get his voice right; it was even more difficult than she had anticipated. Whether that was because she hadn’t heard his voice enough to truly familiarize herself with it, or because she couldn’t shape the magic in her words to match his, she didn’t know. It would probably be easier if she could just see her words, like he could.

She looked in the mirror again, at his face, and just studied it. Mostly, she was looking for inaccuracies or anything she had missed. Generally, shifting was intuitive, but the greater the difference from the type of monster or animal your clan tended toward, the more difficult it was without practice. Skeletons were not very much like reptiles or anything that lived in the water. However, Asteri’s preferred form was bipedal, and her head was fairly— as much as she hated the term— “humanoid.” So it wasn’t terribly difficult to be a skeleton… at least superficially. (She couldn’t get his arms (obviously), and she had only ever seen part of his upper body once. So to make up for the rest of her not looking quite right, she kept his coat draped around her.) She would need to figure out how his voice worked if she wanted to mimic it, though. But his voice wasn’t exactly shaped by his mouth. That was part of why this was so difficult.

Again, shifting was mostly intuitive. Mimicry came naturally. However, imitation based on sight alone was far more superficial. The best mimicry came about only after seeing and touching. There was something, entirely unconscious, something a little like telepathy. But not telepathy. It had nothing to do with thoughts. It was more like getting a biological reading of someone, but also a sense of how an individual monster used their magic in regard to their form (such as with distortion magic). Asteri had touched Gaster’s face and head multiple times, so she had that part down, everything about how his skull worked without having to think about it. In the mirror, it was HIS face that looked back at her, and despite her scrutiny, it was a perfect copy. It was kind of funny, actually, because now that she understood how he used distortion magic, she could give his face some really funny expressions.

She could also glow his eyes. Since she was not a skeleton, glowing and changing colors didn’t actually require any emotional input. It was exactly like changing the color (or luminescence) of any other part of her body. She cycled through the colors she had seen before: all of them, apparently, except red. What would that look like? She tried it and immediately grimaced.

“That does not look good on you, Wingdings,” she muttered in her own voice.

Unlike him, she couldn’t talk without moving her jaw in his form, even though she should be able to unless she had missed something. But touching was essentially guaranteed to allow her a perfect imitation. So why couldn’t she talk like him at all? Even if she couldn’t get it exactly right, she should be able to get a rough semblance of it, since she had his head now, and had heard his voice a little bit.

The only thing she could think was that his voice didn’t come from his mouth or head at all. Hers didn’t either, technically, but it was most obvious when she was in her “true” form: a gigantic blob of semi-transparent magic surrounding a SOUL. Since having a mouth was pretty common, and the types of monsters and animals her clan tended toward all had mouths and throats used to vocalize, it was second nature to speak with a mouth whenever she took any kind of form. But technically, unlike most of the more physically stable monsters, her voice came from her magic, from her SOUL. So perhaps his did too. That was fine, but if that WAS also the case for skeletons, then mimicking Gaster’s voice was going to require an extremely awkward conversation.

She sighed and stared into the mirror. She tried to make her (his) eyelights glow that deep blue. It wasn’t exactly the right color blue, nor did it have quite the same effect as when he did it, but it still made her feel a little calmer.

“Can’t believe you don’t think you’re handsome,” she mumbled after several long seconds of looking into the reflection. Asymmetrical eye sockets… As if that matters! And dark circles? Come on. She scoffed inwardly and smirked. If anyone could prove that it wouldn’t make a difference, it would be her.

Staring intently into the reflection, she leaned forward and focused on her (his) right eye socket, willing her magic to make it mirror the left one. Then she got rid of the bags under her (his) eyes. When she was finished, she stood normally and took a look.

“Well damn.”

She attempted that goofy grin he did, and the resulting image in the mirror was startling enough to make her laugh.

“Ohh, Wingdings,” she chuckled slowly, shaking her head. “You really were a cutie. But you look way too young like this.”

When she returned to his normal appearance, she couldn’t help the warm smile. “There you are.”

Seeing this expression on his face startled her a little, actually. He had looked at her like that before—exactly like that. Did that mean he had been feeling warmth in his SOUL when he looked at her, to have made this expression, the way she felt warmth in hers right now, looking at his visage in the mirror?

She hoped so.

It made her blush a little, and it was funny to see her own blue-green magic color his cheeks. (Were she more familiar with his form it its entirety, it would have been pink like his blush, but as it was she could only mimic parts of him.) What if she added the blue eyeglow to this expression…?

Her (his) eyelights lit up blue, the right hue this time, and it made her jolt a little. It was too tender, too soft. Too close to how he really had looked at her.

That was enough practice for now.

Asteri reverted to her own form and checked her phone as she exited the room. He had hardly answered her messages since last week. It worried her. Things had seemed like they were going so well. Had she been mistaken? He had never been the type to keep things from her if he was upset (not that he ever really got upset…) but maybe it had been too much too fast? He shared a lot, after all. Maybe he felt self-conscious. That was manageable. She had tried to be as reassuring as possible, but sometimes being vulnerable still felt uncomfortable; she could appreciate that. By his own admission, he hadn’t been close with anyone in a long time, so it would be understandable if he felt a little awkward. Yes, that was all. He wasn’t avoiding her, that was silly. She would see him again at their regular time in two days, and she could give him some reassurance in person. It was fine!

⁂

Raw magic. Like a SOUL. How had he never put that together? What if the answer to creating an artificial SOUL was as brilliantly simple as raw magic? With two human SOULs in their possession, they had made leaps and bounds in their understanding. Yet there was still so much they didn’t understand. Even one more SOUL would help them immensely, but Gaster didn’t wish for anyone else to die in this senseless war, neither monster nor human. They would make do with two SOULs, and hope that they could figure something out before another human fell. Not that the likelihood of that happening was high to begin with.

He could not make heads or tails of the yellow SOUL, truthfully. The cyan SOUL, the one he had spent the most time on, resonated more with him for some reason. Still, they hardly understood anything, despite all that they had learned. What made human SOULs so persistent? Part of what made humans so powerful was that their bodies were mostly physical, unlike monsters’, which were mostly magic. But SOULs were different. Monster SOULs were pure magic— love, hope, compassion, and so on, so it was said— and thus were closely attuned to their bodies, which were something like “refined” or “organic” magic; “bodily magic,” if you will. But the absolute nature of SOULs was unknown. Even less was known about human SOULs. Could they even be replicated? It seemed a crime against nature itself.

Wingdings Gaster loved the universe. He loved everything in it and everything it was, and in his heart, he believed that the universe loved him too. What was being asked of him required him to potentially break the laws of nature. As a scientist, as “Dr. Gaster,” the premise was thrilling. As a person, as Wingdings, the premise frightened him. Would the universe forgive him, if he succeeded? This role he had been given was not one that he wanted. Once more, he was thrust into a position that forced him to choose between what was necessary and what he felt was right.

Nothing good ever came from breaking his integrity. But he would gladly take the punishment if doing so freed everyone else. Even if the universe hated him for his betrayal, he would willingly accept that pain for the sake of all monsters.

Yet it was difficult to actively pursue this line of research when everything in him believed it was a bad idea. SOULs were not meant to be created as mere tools, not even human SOULs. If he could only find what made them so powerful and then isolate that, then perhaps he could find a way to synthesize that thing on its own. They would not need actual SOULs. He would not need to break the rules or challenge the powers that be.

And Asteri— that wonderful, clever woman— had, for the second time now, asked just the right questions and led him to a hypothesis.

Could raw magic from the most powerful kind of monster— a Boss Monster— be used like a SOUL, if enough of it was gathered and maintained?

In a living monster, magic regenerated over time, so long as they ate and slept. If there were a way to prevent it from dissipating, what would happen if he repeatedly summoned that raw magic into one place? If he did it enough times, could it become a SOUL, or something like a SOUL? True, it would take every monster alive just to equate one human SOUL, but he was immortal. Time was no issue. If preventing raw magic from dissipating worked, and he summoned it enough times, what if, over a period of time, he could generate enough magical energy to equal a human SOUL?

Actually… if he could prevent magic from dissipating, then when monsters died, what if he could gather the magic that made up their SOULs as well? But ultimately that came down to the question: What was it that separated regular magic from living magic?

That was something he had left up to the biology department to determine, for the time being.

The question remained: What would happen if he could summon enough raw magic? If he could create a SOUL, or something like a SOUL— something with that sort of power but no sentience— then theoretically he could repeat it indefinitely, so long as he cared for himself, and eventually generate enough magical power to break the barrier. What he needed in order to test this, however, was a means to prevent raw magic from dissipating. Some sort of stasis device. A machine that could house a SOUL.

Technically, they already had something similar: the glass housings for the human SOULs. While human SOULs did persist after death, they did not do so indefinitely. Thus the housings. Something that could contain the power of a human SOUL should be able to contain the magic of a monster, yes?

No.

SOULs naturally hold their shape, with all the power inside. They are self-containing. Raw magic is formless, unless it is in a SOUL (which brought him back to the question of living magic), and besides that, the magic he could summon was, as he had told Asteri, violent and explosive. It blasted through anything nearby. He needed something with the ability to contain an explosion that could disintegrate an entire person— an entire human.

And so when he arrived at the lab that morning after staying at Asteri’s, he threw himself into his work, alongside Alphys and his most trusted assistants. The fact that a week had passed only occurred to him because Alphys asked him if he was still coming with her to meet Asteri.

He very much wanted to. Oh, he wanted to see her. Everything that had transpired last time made his very SOUL feel bright. But he was “on a roll,” as Asteri herself might say, and he knew that if he went to see her, he would lose focus on his work. His mind would be filled with whatever delightful conversation they would end up having, and he would think about skeletons, and fonts, and speaking Aster, and whether he could eventually bring himself to speak his own font in front of her, and about how one day he would miss her very, very much.

But his own happiness was not worth the freedom of all monsters, so he needed to think about machines and magic and SOULs and science. This was the closest he had come to any real progress in years.

And so he canceled, with an apology and a brief explanation. Asteri said she understood. And that she still had his coat, if he wanted to drop by to get it sometime. Ah, that was right! She had texted him about it the day after he left. He had a few black coats, and lately he had hardly left the lab, so he didn’t mind. The one she had was his favorite, but it weren’t as though she were going to lose it. It was alright if she held onto it for now. He told her so, and she simply responded with, “Oh. Alright.”

Good, then! She didn’t mind, and he was making great progress!! Back to work it was!

⁂

He canceled.

Well, showing up in front of the lab early was her own fault. But come on, he could have let her know sooner…!

He was probably just busy. She knew this, logically. But the little needling in her head, the one that was hardly even a voice at all, more like if a feeling could be whispered, told her, ‘He doesn’t want to see you,’ without ever putting those exact words into conscious thought.

No, she reminded herself, No, he was reluctant to leave last time. He wanted to stay and talk more.

‘But that was before he had the chance to mull everything over,’ the feeling told her, now daring to speak in almost-words. ‘You made him uncomfortable, and now he doesn’t want to see you.’

Asteri gulped and tried to focus on her surroundings: the hot orange stone beneath her, the off-white laboratory building, the dark and looming cavern walls whose distant ceiling only seemed darker with the bright light from the magma far below. It didn’t help. Did I make him uncomfortable? He didn’t seem uncomfortable. I even asked if I’d said something when he was leaving, and he said no. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not about something like that. But… that was before he had time to think it over. But I didn’t do anything…! I gave him all the encouragement and support I could think to!

Still, there was a pit forming in her stomach. ‘You don’t think all that stuff you said was waaaay past the point of platonic?’ wheedled the feeling, now a voice. Her stomach lurched. ‘You don’t think you made him wildly uncomfortable?’

It felt like she couldn’t move. The only thing she could see was a little orange pebble by her boots that she was flicking around with her tail. It felt like she was being scolded, (keep your eyes on the ground so you don’t see how upset they are at you) but the only person there was her.

‘But you already knew that. You’ve just been avoiding thinking about it. You really think he wants to talk to you after you took advantage of his vulnerability to push your feelings on him?’

What feelings? Asteri shook her head back and forth, like there were someone there to convince. Her tail wound around her ankles. I didn’t—! It’s not like that! I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong! I don’t think of him like that…!

The voice in her head sneered. ‘As if you’d be able to tell anyway. The man’s lived for centuries; you really think he doesn’t know better? Do you really think he took “I want to take care of you” platonically?’

Asteri’s face burned with shame. That was platonic! she insisted weakly.

‘But it didn’t sound like it.’

He knows me! He… He knew it wasn’t…!

‘Really? When you saw him in tears and had the goddamn AUDACITY to say “I want” something!?’

She curled further in on herself.

‘You were all over him, you freaking disaster! “Stay the night.” “Cuddle with me.” “Let me just flirt with you directly to your FACE after you just entrusted me with an ultra vulnerable piece of yourself!” DO YOU THINK HE’S STUPID!?’

Asteri’s tail writhed itself into knots like a dying snake. I didn’t mean to!! I was just—! I was just trying to help! I didn’t ask him to cuddle, it just happened! And staying the night was…!

‘It doesn’t matter what you meant! You know how this goes! How many times do you have to learn the same lesson, you absolute idiot!?’

Her eyes stung.

‘You KNOW better! You know that you always overstep!! Why would you do it AGAIN!? And at his most vulnerable!! How selfish can you get!? Of course he canceled! Why would he want to talk to you after everything you pulled?’

She swallowed thickly.

He doesn’t want to see me. I should know better. I always overstep. And nobody ever tells you, they just stop talking to you.

Tears welled up in her eyes as it dawned on her.

I ruined it.

Again.

I’ll never be able to fix this. I overstepped when he was vulnerable. He took a chance and I shoved all delicacy aside just to—!

I ruined it. I ruined it. He’s gone. There aren’t second chances. You went too far!

She covered her mouth with her tail to stifle a hiccup, and backed up until she was against the side wall of the building.

You can’t undo this.

“A…Asteri….?

Her head whipped up when she heard a familiar voice a few minutes later. Alphys was peering around the corner at her with a frankly humiliating level of concern. It only got worse once she saw the shapeshifter’s damp, puffy eyes.

“Oh my god, a-are you okay??”

Asteri straightened immediately and tried to pull herself together as she clambered to her feet. She cleared her throat and nodded. “Y-Yeah, I’m. I’m fine. Totally…” She forced a smile. “All good!”

Her smile was not convincing enough, if Alphys’ expression was anything to go by. “Are… Are you sure?”

“Yep!”

Alphys definitely wanted to push it, but, after several achingly long seconds of deliberation, opted not to. Thank god.

“Are… A-Are you still, um… Do you still… want to hang out…?”

Asteri nodded, though she looked everywhere but at Alphys. “Y-Yeah! Yeah. I just thought, uh. I thought it was canceled.”

The lizard monster shook her head. “Oh! Um! N-No, that was j-just…! Just, um, Dr. Gaster.”

“Oh.” Asteri swallowed. Then smiled. “G-Good! Great. Awesome.”

Alphys eyed her uneasily, looking a little sweaty. “A-A-Are you sure you’re okay?”

Asteri’s smile tightened, like she was putting every ounce of effort into maintaining her expression. Because she was. Despite this, her eyes started to water again. She smiled harder. It looked worse.

“I’m pEAchy—!”

Alphys had never seen the shapeshifter so upset, despite how obviously she was trying not to look it. She looked… rough. That was an understatement; Asteri looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears. No, actually, it looked like she had interrupted Asteri in the middle of bursting into tears. Then she had asked her one last time if she was alright, and Asteri’s tenuous composure finally crumbled. But that didn’t mean the shapeshifter wasn’t going to stand there in staunch denial of the fact and continue to force a smile like there weren’t tears streaming down her face. Alphys was beginning to really worry.

“I-! I-I’m going to get Dr. Gaster!” she announced, turning to run back the other way.

“NO DON’T!”

Asteri’s tail shot out and grabbed her shoulder. Alphys froze and turned back to her friend. The shapeshifter looked frighteningly intense about it.

“I’m okay. Don’t… get him.” She swallowed. “He’s… He’s bUsy!”

Alphys didn’t say anything, just stared at Asteri as her voice hitched (again). What did she even do in this situation?? What had she missed?

“A-Asteri…” she began, entirely unsure how to comfort her, or even begin to address whatever was going on with the older woman. “I, um. A-Are… Are you upset he isn’t coming?”

Asteri’s eyelights flicked away. “…No,” she lied.

Alphys gave her a doubtful look. She would have thought that a monster whose very nature was to imitate others would be a better liar.

Asteri sighed in defeat. “Okay, yes! But there’s… more to it.” She shuffled her feet and wilted in on herself. “Can I tell you somewhere not here?” The heat and the distant, heavy drone of machinery felt at odds with everything. Hotland was the last place she felt like she could think straight. It was too dry. She looked up at Alphys.

After a second, Alphys nodded. “O-Okay. Wanna go to… uh… C-Carlope’s?”

A few moments of hesitant deliberation passed, and then Asteri nodded too. “Yeah.” Her voice sounded too small when she spoke. “…I’ve been wanting to try one of his sandwiches.”

⁂

“H-He’s just been really, um. “In the zone,”” Alphys told the shapeshifter, regarding Gaster, as they stepped into an elevator.

“I get it,” came the response, with a little too much inflected compassion, a little too high in pitch. It was the tone of voice someone used when they were trying to sound understanding and not upset (but they were upset, they just didn’t want to be).

Alphys wrung her hands. She had missed a lot of whatever had been going on with her friends, having been busy studying for exams, but she didn’t think having to skip a few hangout sessions would leave her this out of the loop. Asteri and Gaster definitely had something going on, even if they themselves didn’t know it, but Asteri was acting like he was avoiding her on purpose or something.

What had she missed?

Asteri didn’t seem very forthcoming about it, but maybe she was just too worked up right now? For… whatever reason?? Alphys was endlessly curious, but more than that, she was anxious that her friend was upset. She didn’t want to push the topic, but if something had happened she wanted to know! Dr. Gaster hadn’t said anything, or made any indication that there was an issue. But was Asteri really this upset just because he wasn’t joining them? No, no, there had to be something, didn’t there?

“He… stayed over last week,” Asteri said quietly after a few minutes, out of nowhere.

Alphys’ head whipped up so quickly she nearly gave herself a headache. Dr. Gaster?? Spent the night with Asteri???

God, FINALLY!

Oh, wait… but he’s hardly been away from the lab all week. And now he canceled last-minute. Ohhh…

Asteri still wasn’t looking at her. Her eyes were trained on the ground in front of them as they stepped off the elevator and walked. She did glance over, briefly, and frowned a little before looking forward again. “Not like what you’re thinking, Alphys,” she muttered. Her cheeks were turquoise.

The lizard monster deflated a little, then perked back up in confusion. She didn’t have to ask; Asteri continued.

“He came over for dinner. We talked about my work. He ended up… sharing some personal stuff. I offered to let him stay because some of it was… heavy.” She swallowed, and her expression grew sadder. “No good being alone after talking about stuff like that. So we watched a movie and stuff, and ate an entire cake, and… fell asleep on the living room floor.”

Her mouth twitched up in a smile, but it slipped right back to a frown. Her wings wrapped around her body, and she almost looked like she might cry again. Several long seconds passed. “I think I messed up, Alphys,” she said finally, and her voice came out wobbly, like a spinning top running out of momentum.

Alphys looked up at her, worried. She had never seen Asteri look so unsure of herself. “Wh-What do you mean?”

They stopped walking— Asteri first, and then Alphys— and Asteri’s wings tightened around herself even more. Her jaw trembled, eyes still fixed on the floor even as they threatened to water. “He was really vulnerable,” she almost whispered, “a-and I was trying to be encouraging, and supportive. But I think instead I-I…” She swallowed thickly, mouth wobbling in defiance of her attempts to keep her composure. When she spoke this time, her voice cracked. “I think I got weird…!” A few tears spilled over and she curled in on herself. “I-I think I ruined it! I was too much, a-and I made him uncomfortable! I always ruin it.”

Alphys had no idea what was going on, much less what had transpired between her two friends. But she could gather that whatever they had talked about was important, and whatever Asteri said or did was weighing on her. Which meant…

“You think he canceled because he’s… m-mad at you?”

Asteri sniffled and nodded. “O-Or uncomfortable…”

Alphys blinked. While it was true that Dr. Gaster didn’t stray much from whatever topic he was fixated on when he got like this, during the last week, whenever he had mentioned Asteri, it was with the same glee as ever. Maybe even more, come to think of it.

“He’s… not mad at you,” she told Asteri simply. “A-At least, he doesn’t seem like it. He, um. He talks about you the same, so…” She shrugged and offered an awkward half-smile. “H-He really is just busy. Um. He gets like this, sometimes.”

Asteri raised her eyes, hesitant. “…He talks about me?”

“Everyone at work knows who you are,” Alphys confirmed. “I-In a good way! B-But, um, yeah! So. I-I think you’re, uh, m-maybe overthinking it?”

She waited while Asteri processed that.

When, after a few moments, the other woman was still silent, the lizard monster shuffled up to her. She wasn’t sure how exactly to comfort her friend, especially given her height. But, awkwardly, she held her arms out. Asteri stared down at her for a moment, long enough for Alphys to feel incredibly uncomfortable and start regretting offering the gesture. But then, in one fluid movement, Asteri melted down to a closer height and pushed into her arms.

“…But I got really weird, Alphys!” she cried into her shoulder.

Alphys slowly wrapped her arms around the older woman and awkwardly patted her back. “Dr. Gaster is like, s-super old, and, um. Scientists are all…? Kinda weird?”

“But he trusted me with stuff a-and I got too familiar and too weird, and I totally overstepped a bunch of boundaries.”

“I’m pretty sure the only thing h-he gets, uh, uncomfortable about is, um, his voice? L-Like if people ask about it? S-So unless—”

Asteri tensed immediately. Alphys’ stomach flipped.

“Oh.”

That was a big deal, then. Alphys knew that much. Once, just once, she had heard him speak. He was talking to himself, and when he had noticed her, he’d looked so mortified, so genuinely frightened, that her mind had gone completely blank. So she picked up where he had left off in his tangent and offered her thoughts on whatever calculations he had been talking through— the only thing she could think to do. And he went from scared to flabbergasted. She never really understood why. But he had asked her, in apparent disbelief, if she could understand him. Out loud, in his sleep-deprived haze, he asked her. She couldn’t think of a reason why she wouldn’t be able to. He had mumbled something about speaking a cipher. But he returned to signing and asked her not to mention this to anyone. So she didn’t. And she never brought it up again, either.

“I-It’s not my place to share anything,” Asteri mumbled into her shoulder, “but he… brought it up first.”

Well now Alphys was even more confused. She patted Asteri’s back one last, awkward time, and pulled away. Asteri returned to her full height and wiped her eyes with her tail. “Maybe, uh… Well, I don’t really, um. I-I don’t… know? The s-situation? But you’re… upset. And, um, my dad used to say that y-you’ll feel better if— if you eat.”

Asteri nodded. Right. They were barely into New Home. Carlope’s was still a bit of a walk. And she was hungry.

⁂

It was silent until they got to the shop. As soon as they walked in, Carlope himself looked up from the counter and threw two of his arms open with a huge smile. “Asteri! Alphys! So good to see you! No Dr. Gaster this time?!”

Alphys always flinched a little at Carlope’s booming voice. She didn’t like to draw so much attention. But the other patrons only glanced up for a moment, then returned to their meals. Half of them didn’t look up to begin with, being accustomed to the owner’s manner.

“N-No, he’s, um. B-Busy.”

“That’s too bad! My daughter is here, and she loves to see him!“

“Oh, um, s-sorry… Maybe, uh, next time?”

“Next time! What can I get you ladies?!”

Asteri shuffled closer to the counter. “What kind of sandwiches do you have, now?”

He lit up and launched into an excited explanation of the various new sandwich combinations he had come up with. She smiled a little. It was hard to feel as sad as before around Carlope. He was so genuine and… jolly. But being here did make Gaster’s absence all the more noticeable, and despite Alphys’ reassurance, the fear that she might never get to come here with him again twisted her stomach.

Once they ordered, and had their food, they slid into a booth in the corner, as far away from the other patrons as they could get in the small area. Alphys took a big sip of her soda and glanced at Asteri, who was nibbling her sandwich. She waited until the shapeshifter had eaten a decent amount before taking a deep breath and placing her hands on the table. “O-Okay, so… what, exactly? Happened with you and Dr. Gaster?”

Asteri already looked miserable. “I… can’t tell you. It’s not mine to tell.”

“No, no,” Alphys said, shaking her head. “N-Not that. What, uh… what did you do that was so… “weird”? B-Because, um, he seems… normal. I- I really don’t think he’s upset. He, uh… Okay so like he kind of gets this… look? When you text? And there’s definitely a- a different look when something bothers him. And he didn’t have that look! A-At all! He had the… the normal look.”

All that earned her was mildly confused blinking from Asteri. She sighed.

“L-Look. Um. Even if you asked a-about his voice, I don’t think he’d just stop talking to you. H-He’s not like that. Come on, Asteri. You really think he wouldn’t tell you if he was upset?”

Asteri stared down at the last little bit of sandwich in her drippy, green, magical hands, and sighed. “No,” she acquiesced, “he’d… he’d say something. You’re right.”

Alphys frowned and held her plate out across the table. Asteri plucked the lone olive off of it and popped it into her mouth. “He burst in last week talking about how you’d given him th-this brilliant idea, and he hasn’t stopped working since,” the former said.

It was always difficult for Asteri to overturn something when she felt it this strongly, even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary. She was open to being wrong, but it took her longer to process that she hadn’t messed up. It was so easy to blame herself, and so much harder to accept that other people might still care about her after she made mistakes. It was easier to run away and stick her head in the sand and beat herself up over her mistakes than to stick around and let someone else do the beating. Nothing was worse than the disappointment, the resentment, of someone else.

“He’s not upset with me…?”

Alphys shook her head. “No. I really don’t think so.”

Asteri just blinked down at the table. It was quiet for too long. Her mind was swirling.

“W-Why do you think you messed up?” Alphys’ hesitant voice cut through her thoughts. She looked up to see the younger woman’s nervous smile and frantic hand movements. “I-I mean you don’t, uh, y-you don’t have to tell me! B-But since, uh, w-we’re all, uh, f-friends, I thought… um. Yeah.”

It was quiet between them again. The shapeshifter stared at the table and the rings stained into it by the moisture of cups or bowls. Her mother always hated when Asteri forgot to wipe the condensation off, and accidentally ruined the finish. Why was that what popped up in the back of her mind? Maybe it was because she felt like such a child right now. So often, it felt like she had never really grown up. Sometimes she spoke to children— teenagers, adolescents mostly— and felt like she was one of them. Until inevitably some miscellaneous line was spoken by one, and it slapped her in the face that she was so much older. That no matter how much she felt like she had never grown past that stage, she had in too many ways that mattered. Yet still, whenever she got upset, all she could see herself as was a little armless lizard in stripes, sniveling on the bridge, where she went to run away whenever she was scolded. Even when no one was mad at her.

“I don’t know how to be a good friend.”

It came so softly out of her mouth with no prelude, so matter-of-fact and quiet and yet underlined with such a deep-set sadness, Asteri surprised herself by having spoken at all. But now it was out, and she felt her metaphorical soul pressing her to confess. Alphys was gaping at her, beginning to stammer some reassurance, but that wasn’t what she needed.

“Alphys.” Her voice stayed low. Alphys stopped stammering, just stared at her. She curled her tail around itself and held it on her lap like a pillow. “I don’t… really understand romance,” she admitted. “I don’t understand friendship. I guess I don’t… understand how they’re different.” She spoke slowly, studying the table like it held all the answers. “I mean, I understand when I see it. I understand in fiction. And I know that romantic love needs to be based in friendship in order to be sustainable and lasting. I know that love between friends is just as strong and powerful as romantic love. But don’t you ever think that sometimes it’s… just so unclear what’s what? When you’re in the thick of it?”

Alphys didn’t get the chance to respond. Asteri gave a single, subdued laugh and shook her head. “When I first got to know the monster who’s now one of my best friends, I thought I had a crush on her. We used to like, cuddle? And stuff? But for the most part everything we did is the same as what we do now. And it’s definitely not romantic love between us. The only real difference is… the feeling of it? I think?” She shook her head. “I’ve met friends and thought I felt something romantic for them, but didn’t; and I’ve met people I thought I felt only friendship for, but I ended up romantically involved. Where’s the line? What makes it different??”

The chatter of the small dining room seemed to fade into the background. All Asteri could hear were her own thoughts pouring out of her mouth uncontrollably.

“I love my friends. I would live and die for them, I would take care of them and comfort them and share my favorite things with them, but I don’t want to bi— kiss them. I’ve been in love before, shouldn’t I know what makes it different? I don’t, though! It’s like it’s just the air between us that changes. Tiny, imperceptible things. Magnetism, I guess you could call it. But I feel that whenever I’m excited to know someone! I want to be around them all the time, and I want them to tell me everything and I want to tell them everything— and then it simmers down into friendship. It feels like being hungry, like I want to know everything they could ever share, and I’ll hold it for them, and I’ll feed them with everything about me too.” She sat up, then, but her frown only pulled deeper and her eyes only grew sadder. “I… I just desperately want to be known and understood! But I don’t even understand myself. It’s emotional intimacy I want, but I don’t understand boundaries! I just want to be close, and closer, and closer! But it’s never satisfied! It’s like water without a cup, it soaks into everything! And it gets too much, it ruins friendships, and then I beat myself up for not being able to hold back.” She laughed bitterly. “God, all it ever takes is one mistake! And suddenly someone you thought understood you never wants to speak to you again!”

Asteri rubbed her face with the tips of her wings and took a deep breath, resting her “elbows” on the table as she cradled her head.

“He’s my friend,” she all but whimpered, “and I care about him so much. But I see myself inching closer to an edge, except I don’t actually know where the edge is, just that it’s somewhere around here. And you’d think, “Gee Asteri, maybe you should stop before you accidentally slip over it,” but no! I’m so hungry! And— And selfish, and greedy! I can never just stop! I want everything I can have, and I always think that I’ll see the edge coming. And sometimes I do! Or sometimes the other person is actually really cool about it, and I can tell them about not being able to see the edge ahead of time, and they’ll tell me nicely when I hit it, and everything is fine. But then other times it feels so consuming, so all-encompassing, like it’s too dark to see. And that’s what it feels like this time. But I don’t want to pull away. I like it. I’m afraid, but I can’t stop. We get along so well, Alphys, I’ve never… I just want all of it! But because it’s so good, I’m so scared of messing up. But it’s like my mouth runs on its own around him! I don’t know the last time I felt so comfortable and so nervous around someone at the same time!

“Everything always feels the same at first, to me. But everyone says that if I feel this intensely, in X or Y ways, then it’s romantic. Or at least, not platonic. But I always feel this at first with people I click with. I mean— not with you. It’s easy to tell that it’s not romantic. I mean I respect you as an adult but… to me you’re still too much of a kid. No offense.”

Alphys waved it off. “None taken.”

Asteri’s little smile in response slipped away back into an anxious frown, and her gaze returned to the table between them. “I’m just… so scared to overstep. But I want to know him. When we get talking, the excitement feels so mutual. It feels like being seen. A-And understood. And god, it feels so good. B-But…” She looked down, curling around her tail on her lap. “Being seen never goes well for me. There’s always a point where I’m too much.”

The tip of her tail flicked slowly against the larger segment it was coiled around. “I mean, my friends, Kelinn and Sembie, they’re not like that. They’ve… they’ve always stuck by me, no matter our disagreements, no matter my mistakes. But they don’t… get me. They listen to me talk about what I care about because they love me, of course, and they ask questions, but it isn’t… it isn’t the same as talking to him. With Gaster it’s like we’re on the same wavelength all the time. We see things in exactly the same range of colors— metaphorically speaking. My other friends, we have to sort of… tune ourselves every time we meet up. Which is fine! And worth the work! But it… It’s not just … I-It isn’t…”

“E-Effortless?” Alphys suggested gently.

“Yeah,” Asteri breathed. “It’s so effortless with him. And I don’t…” She swallowed, looking up with a frightened vulnerability the younger woman had never seen in her before. “I don’t want to lose something like that.”

Alphys nodded and scooted forward, craning her head to give Asteri a crooked smile. “I, um… I-I can’t exactly… r-relate, to some of that, t-to be honest,” she admitted, “and that’s… a lot. But I don’t think you’re going to ruin things w-with Dr. Gaster. S-Sometimes, um. The little voice in my head isn’t… very nice.” She looked sadly away for a moment, then back up with a renewed smile. “B-But you can’t listen to it! E-Even if you make a mistake. He isn’t that kind of person. I-I mean, you’ve heard him talk about Kleg. He, uh, m-makes it obvious i-if you… mess up. B-But like he’s nice about it! It’s hard to upset him. And that’s coming from me! I-I make… uh. A lot of mistakes.”

Asteri huffed. “Yeah but he sees you like a daughter— he loves you!”

“He loves you too!”

She froze.

Alphys gulped, but held her ground. “H…He does. He loves everyone he works with, too. And he talks about you all the time! H-He won’t admit it, but to him, his friends and coworkers are- are family. Zatienne, and Tsil, and Guy… M-Me, and you too! All of us! And maybe… maybe you should tell him this? I don’t, um, I don’t think he’d think any less of you.”

Asteri didn’t answer right away. But after a moment, she let out a breath and nodded slowly. A small smile crept across her face, and she let her eyes fall back down to her lap. “No… I suppose he wouldn’t, if I think about it honestly.”

Alphys was right. If she thought about it without the blurry filter of emotions, she knew better. Gaster wouldn’t abandon her, even over hurt feelings or if she made him uncomfortable. After she lashed out at him after trapping herself with purple magic, and he saw her have that humiliating breakdown, he told her that he wouldn’t be so easily put-off by what she said or did. He had lived long enough to be able to tell when someone simply made a mistake. Asteri was being overly hard on herself. And like Alphys had said: he would mention it if there were an issue. He’s a grown-ass man, Asteri chided herself. If there is a problem, he can communicate it to me like an adult. I may mess up a lot, but if my friends have taught me anything, it’s that people who actually care about you will assume the best when you mess up, and make the effort to repair or clarify things. No point in being anxious about it when there’s no actual evidence that anything is wrong. It’s fine. Alphys is right.

Alphys smiled hopefully at her. “When I was a kid, and I felt bad about… about myself, um. My dad would invite my friends over. Sometimes for a sleepover, i-if it wasn’t a school night. You don’t have to, y-you know, talk about it, b-but I think it’s, um. Helpful? To be with people wh-who care about you. You know? N-Not that you should have a sleepover… I-I mean unless you want to! You can do w-whatever you want—!”

The sound of Asteri chuckling softly prevented Alphys from rambling further. She thought back to how Gaster had said he’d never had a sleepover before. “That’s not a bad idea, you know…” Her head lifted and her eyes turned to look at Alphys curiously. “Would you want to sleep over? After your exams, of course.”

Alphys blinked— “Me?” —then broke into a toothy smile as her eyes sparkled with excitement. “I-I-I’d love to! I c-could bring the— the rest of Sailor Moon, and those sodas I found, and w-we could have a pillow fight, and—”

Asteri smiled wider as her friend went on. Alphys was right. Being around friends definitely helped with this kind of thinking. It didn’t make it go away completely, but it helped. Alphys was a good friend. She felt much, much lighter now.

“You have exams, this week right? No, next week?”

“Huh? O-Oh, um. They start the middle of this week.” Alphys sighed like she was already exhausted— she probably was, come to think of it. “I don’t know why they did them like that. B-But yeah, um, this coming week, then next week.”

Asteri grimaced. She definitely did not miss that part of university. “And you’re sure you’re going to be up to meet Kelinn and Sembie that weekend?”

Alphys shot her finger guns. “I’ll be r-riding the high of espresso and relief.”

Good grief. Asteri shook her head. “I’m gonna make you lunches so that you eat something healthy this week. Anyway—” She waved her tail as if to shove that matter aside. “Do you want to stay over that night? You’ll already be here. I won’t let my other friends stay too late. What do you think?”

“That—! That sounds good!” Alphys wiped her claws on her lab coat. “I-I need to wash it anyway,” she justified before Asteri could even say anything. “What, um, w-what about Dr. Gaster?” she asked, a little hesitantly. “Or, uh, is that n-not…?”

Asteri shifted in her seat a little in consideration. She would very much like to have him stay over again, if he wanted to. It would be fun. When she invited Alphys, she did hope that he might stay too, if things were truly alright between them… “If he wants to stay,” she nodded, “then I think that would be fun. If you don’t mind.”

Alphys didn’t mind.

They spent the next little while talking about it— what to bring and what they might do— and Alphys reassured Asteri that Gaster was simply wrapped up in his work, but he wouldn’t cancel something they’d had planned this long. She didn’t stay longer than an hour or so, because she had to finish preparations for exams, but when she left, Asteri felt a thousand times better. She went to wave again, from where she still sat at the booth, only to see a little spider child running up to Alphys by the door to try to hand her a drawing and a little box. Alphys took them with an awkward smile, and the child skipped back inside and behind the counter. That must be Carlope’s daughter. She was cute. Pale purple, not unlike Asteri (though a bit bluer) with dark pigtails that bounced as she skipped. Unlike her father, who had six eyes, the little girl had five: two on each side and one completely vertical in the middle of her forehead. Huh. Asteri wondered if that was just a variation. She didn’t know much about spiders, except that most of them were quite small, and some of them could use purple magic. Would it be in bad taste to ask Carlope about that? she wondered absently.

She watched as the heavyset spider bent down and picked his daughter up— she couldn’t have been much past the very first years of school— and carried her around in one set of arms while he ran the register. The little girl seemed utterly enthralled by the machine. She waved goodbye to some customers with him, and they laughed together. Asteri was enchanted. What an adorable child. She had never thought much of having children— she didn’t think she’d make a very good mother— but she supposed that if she met the right monster, the thought was appealing.

Gaster came to mind, and she shoved that notion away as quickly as it appeared. She was not thinking about that!! They were only friends! That was the whole reason she had gotten so worried! The last thing she needed was to have actual romantic feelings for him, instead of these totally manageable pseudo-romantic ones that she felt for lots of people. Not to mention, she was still a little anxious about the whole matter of their relationship (their very, strictly platonic one) despite the reassurance from Alphys. She should really just ask him directly. That was the mature thing to do here, instead of dancing around it and looking for subtle clues when she could just communicate like an adult. She sighed and pulled out her phone.

Hey. I know you’re very busy, but this has been bugging me. It’s probably not even a big deal, but in case there is something, I just wanted to ask directly. Are you mad at me? <

She nervously scraped her upper teeth over the lower ones, then quickly added:

I mean I know you’re probably not but like just in case <

This was stupid, ugh, she should’ve done this so differently.

Actually sorry it’s fine I’m fine just ignore this! Sorry <

If this last week was anything to go by, he would take a long time to respond. At least another hour. She dragged a wing down her face. Why couldn’t she un-send messages? Every subsequent message she sent would just make it worse, but the longer it took to get a reply, the more tempted she would be to write more. Why did she do this?

To take her mind off of it, she flipped through her notebook for a little while, but all her notes on fonts and skeletons and the printed-out picture of the Aster alphabet she had taped in there just made her think about everything that happened with Gaster last week all the more. She resisted the very, very strong urge to slam her head into the table at the memory of unconsciously shifting from how protective she’d gotten, and offering to beat the crap out of someone for him.

Instead, she tried to see how many hands she could materialize before her focus was split too many ways and they all lost form. Most of the magic returned to her wings, but a little of it dissipated into the air like how bullets did. She got up to four. She was trying to get a fifth one to form without losing focus when the little spider girl caught her attention. She hopped up into an empty booth, a toy tea pot carelessly held in one hand now set on the table. She was very small in the big booth seat; her legs that kicked back and forth didn’t come anywhere near the ground. The shop was practically deserted now (Carlope must be closing early), so the little girl was probably bored. There were a few other things on the table: a cup, a saucer, a… very large glass jar. She appeared to be playing with a… muffin? That had legs?

Asteri stared. Was that an animal? Or just a really strange muffin? Was it a monster? She couldn’t tell. She watched as the little girl tipped the tall, rectangular, glass jar, and the muffin creature crawled inside. The jar was tipped back upright, and the creature scuttled in a circle at the bottom. The spider girl pulled what looked like a cotton ball out of… somewhere? Her pocket? And held it over the opening. The muffin(?) tried in vain to climb the slippery glass walls, and the girl giggled at its struggle.

Asteri frowned. It wasn’t very nice to torment the poor creature. She glanced at the counter, but Carlope must have been in the back. Her attention returned to the child. She assumed the girl would continue to tease the muffin creature. Instead, to the shapeshifter’s absolute horror, she picked up the toy tea pot and poured the entire contents of it into the jar, completely submerging the creature.

Asteri gaped.

SHE JUST KILLED THAT MUFFIN!

While she reeled in abject horror (she thought that pot was empty!), the young spider monster dropped the cotton ball into the jar, where it promptly disappeared. The strangely opaque, violet liquid drained away as if there were a hole somewhere, but there was no puddle on the table. When the liquid was gone, several unevenly spaced purple lines were stuck to the inside of the jar like cobwebs, all of different thicknesses. The little girl huffed at this, apparently unhappy at their appearance. The cotton ball was stuck to one of the webs, looking more violet but otherwise unchanged, somehow. Most importantly, however, and to Asteri’s immense relief, the muffin creature was moving about at the bottom, apparently completely unbothered by the attempted drowning.

Too many questions swirled in the shapeshifter’s head. What just happened? Where did that purple liquid go?? What was that stuff? How is that muffin alive? (In general, but especially after having been submerged?) What are those webs, were they there before but just not visible? What’s with the cotton ball?

The child said something to the jar, or perhaps to the creature inside, and the muffin began to “climb” the purple webs, pulling them toward itself. Except it didn’t move upward— the webs slid down toward it and disappeared!

It hit Asteri like a basketball to the face. That’s purple magic. Carlope’s daughter can use purple magic.

The muffin reached the cotton ball— or rather, the cotton ball reached the muffin— and the little girl cheered. It tore into the thing with a ferocity that seemed disproportionate to its size. When the cotton ball was torn open, dozens of tiny dots poured out. The muffin went wild trying to eat all of them. Asteri’s eyes bulged.

That wasn’t a cotton ball.

Before she could even begin to process either of those realizations or what to do about them, her phone buzzed, startling her out of her horror. She picked it up, and her stomach twisted with a different kind of fear. It was Gaster.

> WHERE ARE YOU?

> WE SHOULD SPEAK. IN PERSON.

Oh god he was mad at her. Her tail twisted into knots, and she replied with magic hands.

I’m at Carlope’s. But it’s fine I know you’re busy! <

We can talk another time don’t worry about it!! <

She was such a coward. She sunk down in her booth and went back to trying to make as many hands as she could, now trying to see how far away she could move them in whatever direction. Maybe he would just let it go. She glanced around. The last person had left. No one here now but herself and Carlope’s daughter. She sighed. She should just go home. It was getting late, and Carlope would probably ask her to leave soon anyway. One of her hands picked her phone up again. No response. Thank god. Maybe he got distracted—

All the sudden there was noise from the back, and Carlope’s daughter perked up. She slid out of her seat, jar tucked under her arm (it was half as big as she was), and ran into the kitchen. When the door swung open, Asteri heard Carlope laughing and asking someone about using the back door. Asteri was curious, but was too focused on her own misery, and seeing how far away she could get her hands before they fizzled. She didn’t have time to wonder about whatever had happened in the kitchen, however, because the door swung back open and Carlope exited, immediately followed the answer, who ducked through the door after him:

Gaster.

He didn’t have a coat, which made him look even skinnier, somehow.

“—ep, she’s still over in the back!” she hear Carlope say.

Crap!

Asteri slid even farther down, meaning to blend in against the booth, but a strange sensation caught her attention by first: one of her hands wouldn’t come back. It was like it was stuck. It wouldn’t dissipate either, for some reason. She camouflaged herself and peeked over the top of the booth, and almost groaned in dismay at what she saw. Carlope’s daughter, who had exited the kitchen unseen, had somehow managed to capture one of her hands in that jar! It was stuck in the purple magic!

Movement caught her attention: Gaster was no longer signing at Carlope and was now looking out over the dining room in confusion. Thank god for camouflage. Unfortunately, something must have given her away, because he suddenly perked up and started walking toward her.

He didn’t look upset…

He stopped beside her seat and looked down at her with a mixture of sadness and tired amusement. “Your clothes are still visible, Asteri.”

She swore internally.

“Carlope is about to close. Could we go somewhere else?”

She was too embarrassed to say anything. He knew she was there, there was no pretending otherwise, but un-camouflaging was just admitting that she tried to hide on purpose. He sighed and looked at her pleadingly.

“Asteri, please do not shut down on me. I am not angry with you. At all. But I would like to talk about this elsewhere.”

A pang of both relief and guilt squeezed her. Gaster only gave her a second this time before trying again. He had an unusually anxious energy.

“Please. I don’t want to trouble Carlope further than I already have by teleporting into a bucket of mop water.”

Asteri looked down. The bottom of one of Gaster’s pant legs was soaked. She grimaced, and then sighed and let herself fade back to the right color, texture, and shape. Her cheeks were turquoise, and she didn’t meet his eyes.

“Hi… Gaster.”

He knelt down and looked up at her anxiously. “Hello, Asteri. May we go?”

She nodded and got to her feet. He stood as well and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. What?? Her face burned.

“Ready?”

“Y-Yeah.” She hunched inward, and her pulled her against his side. Holy shit what’s happening? “B-But—”

“Good. I’m just taking us outside. It will only be a second.”

The world started to darken, and Asteri realized in that split second that what he meant by “go” was different than what she had thought. “Wait! Gaster!” She looked up at him, panicked. “My hand—!”

But it was too late, and all she saw before the darkness set in was his alarmed expression.

The “travel time” was a grand total of five seconds. They stepped out of the darkness and into an alley by a park. He let go of her immediately to begin worriedly signing. “Your hand? What? Are you alright??”

She stumbled backward a step and frowned. “I’m— I’m fine…” It was a surprise to her as well. “Carlope’s daughter caught one of my hands in her weird magic jar while I wasn’t paying attention, and it wouldn’t return. I wanted to get it out before we left! I thought you meant “can we go” like “can we walk out the door that’s 10 seconds away”!”

Gaster covered his mouth, mortified. “I am so sorry. Let’s go back and get it—”

The trip back was uncomfortable, even if they only had to be pressed together for a few seconds. Gaster landed in the mop water again and almost lost his balance. Asteri was too busy panicking to notice and pulled away from him as soon as she could. Carlope poked his head back through the kitchen door with a confused look. “Oh! Hello again!”

“My apologies, Carlope,” Gaster began as he stepped out of the bucket, “but we left something. We think your daughter has one of Asteri’s hands caught in her magic.”

“I meant to say something before we left, but I didn’t get the chance,” Asteri fretted.

Carlope leaned back the other way through the door. “Muffet! You didn’t take someone’s hand, didja‽”

Gaster’s eye sockets widened. “Carlope…”

The little girl came running up the doorway, giggling with the jar in her arms, empty save for the muffin creature. “Ufufufu! I had it but it went away after I left it with Daddy!”

Asteri stared at the jar. No hand. But she hadn’t felt any magic return to her. It wasn’t like it was something that could be “taken.” And she surely would have felt it if the girl had fed it to that muffin creature. That thing was ferocious.

She sagged. Where had her hand gone? It wasn’t much bodily magic, but it was still a little. Is it just gone??

“Hmm, sorry! I haven’t seen it!” Carlope shrugged, though he did look worried. “Are you okay‽ I know ya don’t exactly… got a lotta hands to spare!”

Gaster nudged her anxiously. “A-Ah, Asteri…?”

She shook her head. “I-I’m okay, it’s… it’s fine. Um. Thanks anyway.”

“Sure thing! Sorry about your hand! Hope you find it!”

Asteri wasn’t about to explain how her magic worked to him. The man looked exhausted, despite his ever-enthusiastic demeanor, and his daughter was running around in circles, full of energy. Asteri turned back to Gaster, frowning down at the floor. “Let’s go.”

Gaster was still staring incredulously at Carlope. He nodded slowly, then tore his attention away and awkwardly pulled Asteri to his side again. They waved goodbye and faded away. A few seconds later they were by the park again. Asteri sighed as they stepped away from each other. Gaster shuffled nervously. The silence between them was palpable.

“Asteri, I’m sorry—”

She whipped her head up, scowling at him. “What the hell were you in such a big hurry for‽”

He took a step back, startled. She took a step forward. “If you need to get back to work that badly, why even come‽ You could’ve just told me you weren’t mad in a text, and spared me the anxiety! And— And whatever just happened to my hand! I don’t summon those like you do, Gaster, they’re actually part of me!” Her voice grew louder and more desperate with each accusation. “A-And it’s not a lot, no, but god, a piece of me just disappeared!!”

She pinned him with an icy glare, ignoring the dismay on his face. “What the hell could have possibly warranted coming all the way to see me, and then rushing out like that‽”

If a seven-foot man could shrink, then Gaster most certainly did under her withering gaze. His eyelights burned his shade of blue, purple flickering in here and there, and it didn’t take another skeleton to figure out that it was guilt. It took several aborted hand movements before he found the words.

He ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”

She just watched him.

“You are right, that wasn’t warranted. My haste cost you—”

Asteri huffed, and he flinched a little. “Stop, I know you’re sorry!” Her voice didn’t sound angry anymore so much as frustrated. “Just answer the question!”

Gaster looked away. “…Guilt.”

She blinked. “…What?”

“When you asked if I was upset with you, it occurred to me why you would think that, and I felt terrible. I wanted to apologize in person, immediately. But I did not want an audience, and I knew Carlope wanted to close so he could get his daughter home. I was so anxious to sort matters out…” He sighed sadly. “…that I made them worse.”

Asteri felt the tension and anger bleed away, leaving only confusion and emptiness. Of all people, she could understand being in a hurry to correct a misunderstanding. She was all too familiar with how anxiety could eat at you— she’d experienced it earlier.

“Canceling our plans at the last minute was inconsiderate, and I did not give any thought to how you might feel beyond the surface of your response. And now I have caused something irreversible.”

She looked at him now without the lens of indignation and panic, and he seemed too small. This… This was not how any of this was supposed to go. After last week, things were supposed to be better. They were supposed to be closer, and understand each other better. But all today had proved was that the opposite was true instead. Gaster always seemed to have a grip on his emotions, they always seemed to be in their proper place, even if his excitement sometimes made him come across a bit absentminded. But he was just as driven by his feelings as anyone, wasn’t he? All these months, and she was only now beginning to see that.

He’d just been scared of hurting her.

And then he actually did. How bitterly ironic.

Asteri sighed deeply and moved toward him. He looked up at her movement, startled— fearful? —and her expression softened a little. She felt more tired than anything. She extended her wings and wrapped the ends around his upper arms. He peered down at her, looking far too much like a kicked puppy. “I’m not mad mad at you,” she sighed. “I’d be a hypocrite to be upset when I would have panicked the exact same way.”

His eyelights flitted away. His eyes looked even more sunken, somehow. “You have every right to be angry. My haste cost you a piece of yourself. I cannot imagine…”

Asteri looked down. “Look, I think we should sit down somewhere.”

She tilted to look past him. Beyond the alley they were standing in, there was an empty park with a few benches and a small fountain in the center. On the far side, high above, was a wall full of windows: a hall that was actually part of the castle. This area was one of the few places that got direct sunlight from above, so during the day the light streamed into the hall. Right now, though, the distant sky that might show through the cracks in the ceiling was dim with the fading light of dusk. Not that much sunlight reached the park so far down anyway.

They made their way over to a bench and sat down. Gaster still looked guilt-ridden. Asteri still felt exhausted. What a roller coaster today had been. Was this just how visits with him were going to be now? She remained facing forward, but swiveled her head to look at the skeleton beside her. No, she wasn’t about to brush off the fact that she had just permanently lost a small chunk of her body, but she also couldn’t really blame him for the whole thing. Anxiety didn’t exactly let you think straight. And if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with hiding, she could have gotten her hand back from Carlope’s daughter.

She glanced behind her, then back to him and sighed inwardly. “Wingdings,” she called as softly as she could. “I—”

He recoiled like she had struck him, and stared at her with a mixture of fear and what could only be called betrayal. His eyelights flickered rapidly between orange and red. (Wasn’t red for pain—?)

Her heart fell into her stomach, and she held her wings up, eyes wide and expression open as she stumbled over herself to clarify, “Wait, no, I-I’m not angry! Th-That’s why I called you that, that’s what I was gonna say! I should’ve thought that through better, I’m sorry!!”

Gaster studied her for a few seconds, then relaxed, eyes returning to normal. She felt awful.

“I… would never do that,” she said quietly, fidgeting with her tail. “No matter how angry I was. I’m sorry.”

He sighed and looked down at his lap. “…Communication is more difficult than I remember.”

Asteri nodded deeply in agreement. “It’s like it gets harder the more you get to know someone.” She paused. “…Are you mad at me now?”

Gaster blew a dry laugh through his nose. “No. You scared me, but you immediately realized.”

That was a relief, at least. Though she still felt awful for frightening him. She scooted just a few millimeters closer. “Well. I’m not mad at you either. For anything.”

They looked at each other at the same time, and shared a little smile. He scooted a bit closer too, when they looked away. Her tail curved behind them both and curled on the other side of him. Noting that his one leg was still wet from the mop water, she cast a little fire magic down by his foot. He made an appreciative noise and stuck his foot into it.

“I mean, yeah, I’m… upset about my hand,” she began again, leaning back against the bench. “But mostly because the whole idea that that can even happen is terrifying, not because I actually lost very much, or because it hurt.” She paused, uneasy. “Is… Is that what happens when something is left “outside the radius” of you bending gravity to teleport? It just… vanishes??”

She heard him swallow. “About that…”

Asteri lifted her head. He had a strange expression.

“Do you remember when I told you that you use interrobangs?”

Her brows furrowed in confusion, but she nodded.

“And do you remember when I told you how Carlope always has at least one exclamation point in everything he says, including questions?”

“Yeah…?”

“When we returned to retrieve your hand, he asked two questions during the conversation.” Gaster hesitated, looking disturbed. “Both of them ended with interrobangs.”

Asteri gaped.

“I don’t know what that means, truthfully, but he has never used them before, even when he asked me about using the back door when I first teleported in. It cannot be a coincidence.”

She was silent for a long time as she processed that.

“The only thing I can think of,” Gaster began again, slowly, after several long moments, “is that your magic was scattered as we stepped through spacetime. But I have no idea how or why that would affect someone else’s text magic.”

Asteri shook her head. “I… I don’t… I mean, you don’t think he like, ate it, do you??”

Gaster waved a dismissive hand. “As far as cannibalism goes, spiders only eat other spiders. He would not do that. Additionally, you must remember: teleportation is instantaneous from the outside. We were gone even less time than it felt like, which was under a minute to begin with. Even if he had attempted to eat your hand, and you somehow did not feel it, there was too little time. Spiders eat slowly.”

One thing Asteri appreciated about Gaster was that he offered thorough explanations, even to ridiculous ideas.

His brows knit together in thought. “How did Muffet manage to “capture” your hand? The jar she feeds her pet in is only glass, and I did not see a lid. Your magic should have been able to return to you. Your hands require concentration to remain materialized, do they not?”

So that muffin was some kind of animal. Asteri filed that trivia away. “They do, yeah. I was watching her earlier and I’m pretty sure she… cast purple magic?? In the jar?” Gaster’s eyebrows shot up. “It was a lot different than when I did it though.”

“I did not realize she had a propensity for purple magic…”

“She must have gotten my hand inside while I was distracted, but before it fizzled. I saw it stuck to the purple webs.”

Gaster’s brows furrowed. “Perseverance… SOUL magic… That certainly adds another layer to this.” He sat straighter suddenly, struck with a thought. “Perseverance and SOUL magic! They prevented your magic from dissipating! Even though it was not used directly on your SOUL, it affected your magic!”

He jumped to his feet and began pacing. His eyelights darted around excitedly, and Asteri could practically see the gears working in his head. She was pretty sure he was muttering to himself now, and her eyes widened. Is… Is he speaking Wingdings? The curiosity was killing her.

But before she could debate with herself whether it was right of her to try to listen, he stopped suddenly and looked up. “There must be some property of certain magics that allows them to persist. You can use purple magic, and this happened with its use as well. There is something about perseverance. Persistence. Is it able to influence others’ magic more easily? Perhaps by outlasting…? No, no.” He started pacing again, but now he was signing to himself instead of muttering. “Do other colored magics have unique properties? How do they interact? What bearing does this have on how human SOULs are colored…?”

Oh. Asteri frowned. “Are you working right now?”

Gaster stopped again and snapped his head up like he had forgotten she was there. “No. Yes. Somewhat? It is related!”

She walked over to him and gripped his forearms with her wings. Now that she was looking at him, he looked more tired than she had ever seen him. She narrowed her eyes. “When was the last time you slept?” He smiled proudly and summoned blue hands to answer, but she interrupted. “More than two hours?”

His smile disappeared.

“That’s what I thought. Go to bed! At home. You’ll think better! There’s nothing we can do now, and we can figure out what happened and why later. Sleep!”

He heaved a sigh. “But…”

“No buts! You’re going to accidentally step off a catwalk one of these days.”

Gaster humphed and crossed his arms. “I haven’t even been in the CORE this week.”

“Good. You still need rest. This isn’t sustainable. No wonder you can’t think straight! Don’t make me guilt-trip you.”

He grumbled. “At least let me take you home first?”

Asteri narrowed her eyes at him. “Is it even safe for you to be manipulating gravity when you’re this sleep-deprived?”

He waved it off. “I’ve done it under worse conditions.” She raised an eyebrow. He sighed. “But I promise I will sleep afterward.”

“More than two hours? And at home?”

“…Yes.”

She let go of him and peeked behind his back to make sure he didn’t have fingers crossed on any extra hands. “And you promise you aren’t going to teleport us into a wall?”

Gaster gave her a vaguely indignant look and rolled his eyes. “Give me some credit. I’ve only been doing this for centuries.”

“Okay, okay. Wait for me to be in one piece though.” While Asteri fused together, he rubbed the back of his skull. “Okay. Ready.”

He paused, and looked up at her guiltily. “Asteri, I am sorry about your hand. I know it was not a lot of your magic, but it must be disturbing to be missing a piece of yourself.”

“I’m trying not to think about it, to be honest,” Asteri admitted, stepping back into his space and turning so her back was against his chest. She craned her head up to look at him and smiled a little. “But, apology accepted, if that’s what you need to hear.”

He blinked a few times, but then returned the smile, hopeful, as his arms wrapped around her middle. “Thank you.”

The trip from New Home to Waterfall was longer, closer to five minutes, but Asteri knew to expect the darkness now. True, it was unnerving, to be in that place-between-places for so long, where even her own wings weren’t visible, but she could feel Gaster behind her, and he hummed for her without her even needing to ask. It made it less frightening, didn’t give her the chance to think about getting lost here, and if doing so would “scatter” her and make the rest of her vanish like her hand had. She focused on the melody instead of letting herself wonder what would happen if she suddenly disappeared. She tried to hum along with him.

Green-blue grass greeted them. Gaster immediately pulled away to look her over. She smiled at him. “I’m okay. And all in one piece.”

Blue and green lit his eyes in relief. “Good.” He paused, looking more serious. “I know you accepted my apology. But…”

“Really. It’s forgiven. I’m not happy that it happened, and I’m still kind of scared of the implications, to be honest, but it’s pointless to be angry when you already feel bad.” She rubbed one wing against the other. “I’m sorry I yelled at you in the alley.”

“That was completely reasonable given—”

Asteri sighed. “Please don’t justify it, just accept my apology.”

Gaster nodded. “…Very well. Apology accepted.”

“I mean you didn’t have to accept it, I shouldn’t have told you what to do, you’re not obligated to accept an apology.”

He blew a good-natured huff out his nose. “It is forgiven.”

They stood there for a moment in not-quite-awkward silence, until Asteri perked up suddenly. “Oh! Your coat! Let me go get it.” She ran into the house, and a moment or two later she jogged back out toward him, coat in her tail. “Here.”

He took it gratefully and put it on. “Thank you. I have others, but this is my favorite.”

Asteri smiled lopsidedly and look him up and down. “It looks good on you.”

Gaster looked like he was trying not to be so obviously flattered. “Thank you. And thank you for taking care of it.”

I didn’t take care of it so much as wear it, she thought to herself. “Uh, no trouble.” She glanced over her shoulder at the walkway to her door. “I’d invite you in, but I really want you to get some rest.”

“Ah, right.”

“Don’t want you accidentally leaving your head behind or something,” she said, trying to make light of the matter so she didn’t have to think about the weight of it. “I’m not the only one with body parts that can get left behind.”

Gaster didn’t seem to think it was funny, he just lowered his head guiltily. “Asteri… I promise I will take better care of you.”

The wording surprised her a little— not ‘be more careful,’ not even ‘take better care.’ He said ‘take better care of you.’ She ignored the warmth in her chest and face. “You have to take better care of yourself to do that.”

That gave him pause, but he smiled in acquiescence. “Very well. For your sake.”

That seemed to please her. “You can’t take care of anyone if you don’t take care of yourself. And aren’t you the one who said no one is infallible? Do you really think you’re fully functional without sleep?”

He sighed. “I suppose not.”

“And take breaks. Your work will still be there when you get back. Listen to Alphys and your assistants!”

Another sigh, not in annoyance but in defeat. “As you wish. But… what we are working on is bigger than any of us. It is crucial that I not lose focus.”

“Then take care of yourself so you can sustain that focus.” She poked him in the chest with her tail for emphasis.

Gaster nodded slowly. “I… I will do better. But I may not be available next week. I have not forgotten about meeting your friends the following week, but in order to do that, I may not be able to see you before then.”

Asteri was disappointed, yes, but it felt much better to hear it from him now than to find out at the last minute. “Okay.” She gave him a little smile. “Thank you for telling me.”

A small nod, eyes not quite on hers. “I should go.”

“I agree. Make sure you eat.”

“Ah, right…”

He made to step closer, but hesitated. “I do want to finish our conversation about fonts. Last week was… truthfully, the lightest I have felt in a long time.” His expression grew troubled, and he looked at his feet. “But I just can’t justify taking a day off when this could affect everyone in the underground—”

She stepped toward him and draped her tail around his shoulders with a bittersweet smile. “I understand. Just take care of yourself, okay? And I’ll see you when I see you. We’re— We’re still friends.”

His hands gripped her shoulders, just lightly, and she felt the fabric of his fingerless gloves catch on her wing. His eyes searched hers like he was trying to fight something, like there was something else he wanted to say. Instead, he smiled in the same sort of bittersweet way and nodded once in acceptance. Asteri tugged him down, and they bumped their heads together.

“𝐢- 𝐢 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐒-𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐘𝐘𝐨𝐔 𝐒𝐨𝐨𝐍, 𝐚-𝐚𝐒𝐭𝐄𝐑𝐢.”

It sounded like he was trying to promise.

Her smile brightened. “Be safe at work, Wingdings.”

———

I eagerly await your comments and… speculations

(Replies as comments are always welcome! It doesn’t have to be tags!)