It’s been a week since the accusing and requesting for the experiment, and Gaster was currently writing in his journal while sitting on his bed. He played with the pen when he wasn’t writing and instead thinking. He wrote down important events to him or drew in it randomly, mainly because he felt like it and it gave him something to do in replacement of the calendars. He also wanted to give the journal purpose, for it was a gift to him. It was the least he could do with it.
Gaster was thinking back on today, mainly on how nice Toriel and Asgore were being to him when he broke down, and he smiled at the memory. Soon after his smile became a frown as he noticed how attached he was getting. He sighed and just continued writing until he had nothing left to say, putting the journal to the side.
It was getting pretty late, and the family should be asleep by now, well besides Ouphre to help him. He was sneaking his way outside, only to hear voices from the living room. He stopped in the hallway to listen.
“So that’s where he’s from.” It was Ouphre speaking. “Explains a lotta things.” Gaster peaked a bit, luckily the two not looking his way, and saw Nomeus nod. He had a bad feeling.
“Means we also need to keep an eye on him. We’ll help him in anyway we can. The king doesn’t know exactly but I explained we’ll take care of him.” Nomeus explains to Ouphre and she nods.
“I’ll try to help in anyway I can.” She states. “I’d recommend ya be gentle with him though, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is emotionally fragile right now.”
Nomeus thinks for a moment before slowly nodding. “Just thinkin’ ‘bout it he’s been through a lo…”
The voices began to fade as Gaster sneaked back to the room, assuming what was happening already. It scared him a bit, no lie there. Climbing back in bed, he decides to wait a long while, maybe an hour, before going out to train with Ouhpre.
Later, Gaster successfully snuck out of the house and went to the normal training spot, only to start hearing a strange, but calming, instrumental noise. He goes to the training spot only see Ouphre sitting in the grass, playing a flute. He took a minute from shock before actually walking over and sitting down next to her. She stops playing and smiles at him.
“What were you doing…?” He asks, tilting his head a bit. She chuckles. He had actually grown to like Ouphre, getting close where he didn’t mind so many things like at first. He felt more comfortable now compared to over a week ago.
“Just playin’ my flute.” She replies, and continues playing. To Gaster, she played pretty nicely, and it helped him relax a bit actually. He let out a sigh, making her stop again. “Y’know, we may be a bit crazy,” She pauses. “Okay a lot crazy.” Gaster chuckled a little, nodding in agreement, making her chuckle too. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t like doin’ things that are peaceful like this, and it’s kinda a family thing.”
“Really? So Aella and Nomeus do play flute too?” Gaster asked. She smiled and patted him on the head before answering. Gaster didn’t seem to mind her doing this anymore, as he would just let her without complaint.
“Nah, but we all do play some calmin’ instrument. Sometimes we all like to play together, and take time to play a certain way so we sync when we do.” Ouhpre explains. “Nomeus plays the triangle.” She chuckles before continuing. “Sometimes he tries wakin’ us with it!” Gaster chuckled hearing it. It explained the ringing sound from the other rooms. “He just doesn’t do it to ya because he doesn’t want a bad reaction or somethin’. Manners and all.” She smiles.
“He can if he wants, as long as it’s a school wake up or something.” Gaster says and chuckles. Ouphre chuckles as well and noogies him, making him laugh more and try to break free, eventually doing so.
“I’ll let him know if ya don’t mind after all then.” Ouhpre says, messing with her flute a bit. “And lastly Aella plays the Xylophone, she likes to just mess around with it sometimes, especially if she gets mad. Helps calm her, and maybe all of us to our own instruments and others’ instruments in the family. We can help each other in that way kinda.” Gaster thinks for a moment, before responding.
“If I played it I guess you’d have to call it an xyloBONE!” He says, chuckling and finger gunning at Ouphre. She just noogies him again, chuckling herself.
After a while, Ouphre begins playing the flute again. It made Gaster realize just how tired he was. He tried to keep his eye socket open, but it was no use. It was only a matter of time before he passed out and was leaning on Ouphre. She looks down and notices, chuckling. The flute had helped make him fall asleep along with his already tired body. She sighs, picking him up.
“Kid passed out… Guess we’ll have to see if we will tomorrow.” She begins to walk back to the house.
The next morning, Gaster woke to the sound of dings. He rolled over, half tired, but knew it wasn’t a school day. “It’s not a school day!” He groans and pulls a pillow over his head.
“Come on Gaster! I need you to get up still!” Nomeus replies, dinging the triangle a few more times.
“Alright! Alright! Give me a few minutes!” Gaster replies. He yawns as Nomeus leaves, but instead of doing what he promised, he passes out from still laying there.
He jolted awake later when Nomeus picked him up and carried him out of the room, into the kitchen to eat. By that time, Gaster was pretty awake, and just ate the breakfast they had already in front of him. While he ate he thought of last night, and felt a bit of dread, calling him and Ouphre too close. He didn’t want such a strong bond, but he couldn’t seem to help making one, especially when you live with them.
Soon Nomeus was explaining something to Gaster on taking him somewhere today, and the whole why he got up early thing, but he wasn’t paying attention so he didn’t remember or hear some of it. He just went with where ever Nomeus was taking him at this point, and he walked out the door with Nomeus not too long after breakfast.
It wasn’t long before they were taking to a clearing with lots of people there, making Gaster halt, staring at the crowd. Once Nomeus noticed, he looked back for a moment of confusion, then headed over to Gaster. “I told you about this… We were going to a funeral of someone’s, and all these people are here to mourn him.” He explained, again, to Gaster.
“R-right…” He replied, but he didn’t really remember him saying that. Probably was earlier today…
After Nomeus began to walk off, probably to deal with the main part of the funeral, Gaster looked around. He recognized quite a few monsters, surprisingly. One being the yellow scaled lizard, making him assume whose funeral it could be now. He had a small urge to go and talk to her, having a slight feeling who it was, but he held himself back.
He instead sat at one area away from the people and watched them as they said goodbye and gave offerings for the dead. He had his main focus on the yellow lizard, who looked maybe a bit older than him. From the looks of it she seemed to have no aim as she wandered around, following what others seem to guide her to do. Gaster felt bad over this, eventually dropping his head as he hugged his knees.
“What are you doing over here…? Don’t you want to say goodbye or something…?” A sweet voice suddenly said after a while. Gaster looked up, seeing the yellow lizard right there in front of him. He stared at her for a moment, a bit shocked she was here or noticed him.
“I-I u-uh, don’t need to- it’s fine.” Gaster replied. She suddenly sat down next to him, surprising him again. He eventually started looking straight forward to focus on the other monsters here, spotting Nomeus every once and awhile. Eventually the lizard monster spoke up again.
“My name is Aksinya, what’s yours?” She asks, and Gaster looks her way. Out of a habit he’s recently gained for when he doesn’t want to talk about himself, he ducks his head down a bit so his scarf hides his mouth.
“T-the name’s Gaster.” He mumbles, avoiding any eye contact. He messed with and repositioned his scarf just a bit from on his neck and shoulders.
“Is that so…?” She pauses, thinking for a moment. Gaster was kind of glad for the silence. “So how do you know my father? I haven’t seen or heard him hang with you like I have most of the people here.” That’s what made it a bit more clear who she was, and whose funeral this was too. He tried answering vaguely since he wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but this all also made him wonder why Nomeus brought him here out of all places.
“J-just a friend. Taught me things and chatted with me. I-I’d- say we were close to each other. Almost like child and parent…” he replied, looking at the ground. He began resting his head and arms on his knees as he looked down. Aksinya didn’t say anything for a moment, making Gaster a bit worried.
“Sounds like him…” She says, making a weak smile that looks like it could fade with anything negative, even the smallest thing. She let out a sigh, looking at the crowd of people for the funeral. “At least I got to see him be happy achieving his goal being the Royal Scientist…” That made Gaster perk up and look over at her with wonder.
“Royal Scientist…?” He repeated, giving a questioning and confused stare. She looked at him, a bit confused herself.
“You don’t know? The king and queen’s personal scientist and the highest rank for them? Only the most approved by royalty to get the position? To be able to serve the kingdom as a scientist for all?” She explains in question, looking back at him, making Gaster surprised Vedran had achieved something so big.
“O-oh. I just didn’t know he was it-.” He replied, not wanting to look like someone who doesn’t know how the kingdom he’s under runs, even for a teen. She looks a bit surprised, but then drops the look after a while and looks back at the crowd.
“Right… he was never one to flaunt or talk too much about himself unless someone asked.” Aksinya explained, which did explain a lot. Vedran didn’t talk too much on himself in the lab unless Gaster was curious, which he did ask for if he had any family once. Vedran never gave any names but said he had a daughter. So this is who he was talking about… “He always had been so busy since he got a new job 5 years ago… He would even buy things he really didn’t need, saying, ‘this isn’t for me, but someone else who needs it!’ He was always kind like that, and I assumed it was part of his work since he’d take the stuff with him…” Gaster just listened, he didn’t have much to say. “I kinda… Wish I could have helped or… Hanged out with him a bit more before all this but… He was so busy and… This experiment stuff was apparently what he couldn’t tell me, but it was probably the project he mentioned before.” She pauses, then perks up, looking at Gaster. She takes a good look at him before saying something. “That scarf… that was one of the things he brought with him before!”
Gaster’s look grew scared and shocked almost instantly. “I-I- u-uh-” He didn’t have an excuse. He had really no way to back out of this.
“You’re the experiment, aren’t you? You’re who dad worked with almost everyday for the past 5 years?” She asks, giving a suspicious look.
“Shhh! D-dont-” He looks around worriedly, then lowers his voice before speaking again. “Don’t tell a-anyone o-okay…? I don’t want people to know-.” She stays quiet for a moment before speaking up.
“It’s okay- I won’t I just- wanted to know if you were the one he took care of those past 5 years.” She replies, making Gaster calmed down a bit more. “So that’s how you really know him…”
“H-hey I didn’t lie at least! I j-just-” he looks down in front of him. “I’m scared of people knowing… And I don’t want it to define me e-either.” He starts playing with the grass nervously.
“I would say that’s understandable.” She says, then sighs. “I won’t tell anyone, alright? I’m not one to go against someone’s wishes, it’s not how Vedran taught me.” She gives a kind smile to Gaster.
“T-thanks.” After saying that, silence pretty much engulfed the two for a while. Gaster didn’t mind it though. He was playing with the grass and guessed she was thinking this over anyways. It was big news to her after all.
The funeral continued and Gaster tried to get a bit more involved with it, and Aksinya tried to help make him more comfortable in the crowd. It kind of helped, but he still wanted to avoid most of them.
Aksinya also eventually got Gaster to meet her brother, Arthur. He kinda reminded Gaster of Vedran, the olive color scales and having glasses wise at least. Like father like son. Aksinya talked and explained him a bit, like how he works currently part time at a library and spends his time reading most of the day.
By the time it was getting dark, people started to leave, and Nomeus took Gaster home as well. He noticed Gaster sticking to Aksinya’s side most of the time, but didn’t make a comment. It was probably best left alone anyways…
