Sans and Papyrus had long since gotten better, and still Gaster visited them.

Granted, he was no longer at their home all day every day, as he was still the Royal Scientist, and did still have a job to do, but he stopped by for a few hours most days.

Papyrus absolutely adored Gaster, almost as much as he did Sans. He always greeted Gaster with a hug, and an enthusiastic "Hello!" Or "Nyeh-heh-heh!!"

Had anyone asked Gaster, he would not have admitted it. He would have said Papyrus was far too loud, far too excitable (despite acting similarly himself when faced with the prospect of an interesting project.) But the truth was, he was overly fond of Papyrus. Sans too. He loved them.

Jeff was a little surprised when one day he came to see Sans and Papyrus, and found Gaster there, too. Sans explained, though, that everything was alright.

Gaster's Lv continued to drop, too. By the end of two months, he was at Lv: 27. And it was quite obvious that he was happier than he had been in a long time.

~o0o~

It was Saturday.

Gaster had astonished all his employees at the lab by starting to take weekends off. Why he did this, where he went and what he did, he never told anyone, and, as they were all still quite intimidated by him, no one asked.

It was because of Papyrus. He didn't go to school on the weekends (much as he would like to,) and Gaster decided he was going to try to make up for all the pain he had caused them, regardless of whether or not Papyrus remembered it. So, he came to visit every weekend, typically ending up sleeping on the couch instead of just going to his house.

By now, at six years old, Papyrus was nearly as tall as Sans. It had appeared that Sans had come to terms with the fact that Papyrus was going to be taller than he was, and even started cracking jokes about it. Papyrus found this rather annoying, though. It was possible this was because he felt bad about outgrowing Sans and was only reminded of this by Sans' jokes, but it was more likely that he just didn't like puns.

When Gaster came into the apartment, Sans was snickering, and Papyrus was groaning. Both stopped, though, when Gaster came in.

The look of annoyance instantly left Papyrus's face, replaced by a wide grin. "Gaster!" He jumped up and ran to hug the Royal Scientist.

Being almost as tall as Sans, Papyrus was right about lower chest height on Gaster, but Gaster still bent down a bit to hug Papyrus back. "Hello, Papyrus."

"hey, dings." Sans' grin widened as Gaster straightened up. "so, pap 'n' i were about to head over to hotland today, since he's never been there before. we were just waitin' for you."

"Hotland, hmm?" Gaster looked at Papyrus. "Sans hasn't taken you there yet?"

"Nope!"

"Sans, why in the world have you not taken Papyrus to Hotland?"

Sans leaned forward at the kitchen table where he was sitting. "you don't wanna get into that, dings. we already had a pretty heated debate about it."

Papyrus shot Sans an annoyed look.

"Ah. I see." Gaster responded, voice totally even. "I suppose I wouldn't want to get that fired up again."

Papyrus just let out a frustrated shout as Sans laughed.

Eventually, they did make it out the door, and into Hotland.

Papyrus did seem to be enjoying himself, despite the puns. At Sans' warning, he was quite careful not to near any of the edges of the paths, for fear of falling in the lava. And at Gaster's insistence, he neared the edge anyway, holding on to the much taller skeleton's hand, peering out across the magma pool at the hazy shape of the CORE, standing in the distance.

"Wowie!" Papyrus exclaimed at the sight. "What's that?"

"That's the CORE." Gaster responded, no small amount of pride in his voice.

"The CORE?" Papyrus sounded a bit awed. "You mean where all the Magical power comes from?"

"Mmhm. Cool, isn't it?"

"Yeah!"

Gaster grinned. "I built it."

Papyrus was awestruck. "Really?"

"Uh huh."

"But- but everyone says the Royal Scientist-"

"I am the Royal Scientist." Gaster thought this was the first time he had ever said that sentence without the intent of intimidating someone or using his authority to get what he wanted.

Papyrus looked up to him, shocked. Needing an outside opinion, he looked to Sans, who just nodded confirmation.

After a moment, Papyrus asked, "Can we go there?"

"Of course we can. I'm the Royal Scientist! I can go wherever I want, and I can bring whoever I want with me!"

"Let's go!"

"hold up!" Sans interjected. "don't you wanna finish exploring hotland first?"

Papyrus hesitated, torn between his options.

"Let's stick around Hotland today." Gaster decided. "Otherwise, you'll end up like me. Remember my lab? How there were bits and pieces of everything everywhere? That's because I keep starting more things before I finish the first things. Besides, it's not like the CORE is going anywhere. Unless it spontaneously combusts, but I specifically designed it not to do that. So it should be there tomorrow."

Papyrus nodded, happy with this conclusion, and they continued on.

~o0o~

By the time the Magic crystals in the Underground's ceiling dimmed into nighttime, the trio had headed back to the hotel room.

As he had been staying with them for some time now, Gaster's skill at cooking had risen dramatically. So he set about making dinner, while Sans and Papyrus sat at the table. Papyrus had gotten out some crayons and some paper, and was drawing. Sans had his skull resting in his arms, and was comfortably half asleep. He did still have the oversized Magic capacity, and the day, although fun, had still been an exerting one.

And then...

"Hey, Gaster?"

"Yeah, Papyrus?"

"Are you our dad?"

Sans' head shot up. Silence reigned.

Papyrus thought Sans and Gaster seemed confused, so he clarified. "It's just, I've always heard about how people's dads do fun things with them, like take them places, or make dinner for them, or take care of them, and you do all that for me and Sans, and, well, Sans does that for me too, but he told me he's his brother, and you never said you weren't my dad, so..." Papyrus trailed off, running out of evidence for his argument. "So, are you our dad?"

Gaster looked at Sans, who seemed just as surprised as himself.

After a moment, Sans gestured a bit to Gaster. "if... if you... want to..."

So, Gaster looked to Papyrus, who was still waiting for an answer. Slowly, he said, "Y'know, Papyrus... Yeah. I am your dad."

And then, Papyrus leaped out of his chair and ran over to Gaster, slamming into him with a hug. "NYEH HEH HEH!!! I HAVE A DAD!!"

Gaster returned the hug, just as eagerly.

Then Papyrus looked up at Gaster. "Do I still have to call you 'Gaster' or can I call you Dad?"

"Of course you can call me Dad." Gaster replied, grinning. Maybe Sans couldn't quite call him "Dad" yet, and that was okay, but if Papyrus wanted to call him that, then he would love to be called Dad.

"but pap, you gotta listen for a minute." Sans interjected. "only in here, alright? see, it's, uh, kinda a secret that he's our dad. that's why i call him 'dings' instead'a 'dad'. so, uh, keep calling him gaster outside of the room. 'kay?"

It would appear that Sans still did not want people knowing of his relationship to Gaster. But, to be honest, Gaster was okay with that. He was just happy that Sans had forgiven him, and still loved him, regardless of how tentatively.

And, apparently, Papyrus was alright with it, too, because he nodded and grinned. "Okay!"

Gaster respected the fact that Papyrus so deeply trusted Sans that he didn't ask why.

As the night continued, Gaster realized his Lv had dropped another two levels. Every time Papyrus called out to him, referred to him as "Dad," he grinned, and a few more EXP were lost.

~o0o~

Sans was lying on the couch, almost asleep. On the edge of his consciousness, he could hear Gaster's voice, reading a bedtime story to Papyrus. Sans found the deep baritone and bass of Gaster's voice to be very relaxing, and, despite the fact that Sans couldn't hardly hear Gaster's actual words, and despite the fact that it was Papyrus that Gaster was supposed to be putting to sleep, Sans found that the soft rumble of his creator's voice was gently pulling him deeper into sleep.

It reminded him of all those times when he had woken up after one of the injections, sore and tired, and Gaster had hummed a lullaby for him, until he fell back asleep.

Those...

... Those were good days...

These were good days, too...

When Gaster slipped out of Papyrus's room, he found Sans was sound asleep on the couch, a content look on his face.

Gaster smiled. Carefully, he lifted Sans up, and carried him to his room. It was a little difficult to get Sans into bed, because he had wrapped his arms around Gaster's neck and snuggled his skull against Gaster's shoulder, and Gaster didn't want to let go, but eventually, he settled Sans down on the mattress, and tucked him in under the blankets.

When he finally stepped out of Sans' room, turning off the lights and closing the door behind him, it was fully with the intent of flopping onto the couch and sleeping. But something caught his eye. He walked over to it, picking up the paper off the table. It was the one Papyrus had been drawing on earlier.

The three figures were badly drawn, and the fact that they were in crayon and not a precise instrument, not to mention done by a young child, didn't help. If Gaster didn't know better, if he didn't know Papyrus better, maybe even if Papyrus hadn't asked that question earlier, Gaster might not have known what they were, other than... bipedal monsters of some sort.

But Gaster did know better. He did know Papyrus.

It was them. The three of them, Gaster, and Sans, about two thirds the size of Gaster, and Papyrus between them, pointedly just a little smaller, but definitely thinner.

For a minute, Gaster just looked at the drawing, smiling. It wasn't until something landed on the corner of the paper that he realized he was crying.

Gaster wiped away his tears, then dried off the paper as best he could. Then, he quietly folded it up, and slipped it into his pocket. He was going to keep this, keep it forever. He was never going to forget this day.

Still smiling, he settled down on the couch, and fell asleep.

§

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