A/N: Here's your daily dose of angst while I work on the other fic.

There was one main reason why DR. W.D. GASTER avoided sleep. Even if it was... for a childish one.

To sleep gave him the chance to dream. To dream... well, it was synonymous with dashing his hopes once he woke up. If he dreamt for a happier ending for Monsterkind, his waking world would only remind him that he would never get there. He was slowly growing more and more desperate to find a better ending. Surely, they couldn't stay trapped down in Mt. Ebbot forever, right?

Once, he might have dreamed about Toriel coming back from the Ruins, only for her to not even acknowledge him as he followed her throughout the Underground's areas. Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland and New Home. She never acknowledged him, like some old pair of socks that were so ratty and torn, you might as well throw them out. He'd woken up from that one, tears streaking down his cheekbones as he tried to at least salvage some of his work that he'd inevitably fallen asleep on. What was worse was that Toriel was perhaps one of the more motherly figures in his life. Someone who he'd trust without hesitation, and someone who would give him the affection and attention that he'd longed for. At least, before she went away. Some part of him assumed she was dead, while another longed for her back.

Another dream may have been about the War. Hundreds, potentially thousands, of monsters had turned to dust around him, leaving him on a corpse-ridden, bloodstained battlefield, cluttered with weapons and long-lasting magical attacks. The scent of dust lingered heavily in the air, and in the distance, he could hear the marching of a human battalion. He couldn't move, he could only stare ahead at the humans as they began to throw their weaponry at him. Perhaps he dreamed about this because he was a doctor on the battlefield. He'd watched several people, one of which he'd sworn to protect, die. Their dust littered his bones, and he was never happy about it. And then there was the matter of the Barrier. He'd seen how bad Asgore was getting, how his face was streaked with tears every time someone else fell down into this hellish cave system. The both of them, the king and the scientist, were running out of time. Asgore Dreemurr was running out of time to delay getting the last human soul and potentially becoming a mindless beast, enslaved to the promise of power and glory. Wingdings Gaster, however, was running out of time to ensure a solution. He was running out of time to provide the solution that didn't ensure the death of another person. He was sure that they deserved to live as much as he did.

The last soul to be collected had been a teenager. They had stated that they explicitly wanted to die. That was their reason for coming here. Strangely enough, it reminded the scientist of Chara. How they'd come here for... a less than happy reason.

Yet another dream was about him. He recognized a lot of things in these ones. Sans and Papyrus seemed to be locked in a room, wearing some sort of medical gown. Noticeably, they had plates on their hands, which seemed to be nailed in. They read out as WDG 1-S and WDG 2-P. In one of these dreams, he had Papyrus strapped down on a table, and was preparing a laser to fire directly into his eyesocket-

He hated dreaming.

As a result, he came to detest sleeping in general.

Yet, when one too many sleepless nights pass, his body would force him to sleep. He had an ample amount of time to get to somewhere that was at least mildly comfortable before he'd pass out. He could feel it coming- his mana levels would dip quite harshly. Was it even possible for a skeleton to go pale?