Since doesn't have a tagging system like AO3 I'm just going to add them all here at the beginning of the fic. And yes, this is mirrored on AO3 if you prefer to read over there. No major formatting differences (since Comic Sans shows up as cursive on phones and Papyrus doesn't show up on mine at all!)
Warnings for: Alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, male pregnancy (how do monsters even reproduce?), M/M pairing, references to depression.
Sans stumbled up the few steps to the basement's door and out into the snow, a cloud of noxious smoke followed him but quickly dissipated into the crisp evening air. He coughed into a fist a few times before collapsing against the house's back wall. He glanced back at the basement and the trickle of smoke still leaking out the darkened doorway, his grin turned rictus.
"heh, well there that goes. what a week, am i right?" He pushed off the wall and started slowly walking out from behind the house. "first the whole melting mess happened, then the experimental soul vessel went missing, and now i broke dad's only hope of ever coming back." Sans stopped to laugh hollowly, "i should look on the bright side, at least the damn machine spat out some results before giving up the magic smoke." He laughed again before starting his slow trudge around the final corner of the house and towards the front door. "some results, at least now we know why these infrequent cases of widespread intense deja vu keep happening. and happening. and happening. over and over and over and over… until it doesn't. don't know if i even should tell alphys about that lovely little data point, girl's got enough on her plate with everything else." Sans stopped and considered the steps to the front door, now only a couple yards away. "angel above, i need a drink."
Sans turned around and started trudging in the opposite direction. He shoved his grimy hands in his pants pockets before continuing to talk to seemingly no one. "just one drink, maybe get a burg, crack some jokes, hang out with scarlet and fischer and the dogs… yeah, a burg sounds pretty good right now. bet dizzy's already there, heh. yeah, just hang out a bit, unwind, come home for a good night's sleep, come back at this mess tomorrow with fresh eye sockets. maybe it won't look so bad in the morning."
By this point Sans had arrived at the door to Grillby's and pulled on it only to find it wouldn't budge. He stared down at his phalanges on the handle, trying to figure out how his hands or maybe the door could have possibly stopped working correctly. His eyes trailed up from the handle to find a sign taped to the door, he had to lean in close to read the hand written note.
[Closed temporarily due to family matters.]
Sans let out a sob as his head fell against the door with a hollow thunk.
Dr. Gaster sunk heavily into the pillows piled up behind him in the hospital bed, an IV dripping green magic infused fluid into one of his joints. Despite the dark shadows under his orbits he had a gentle smile on his face as he watched Asgore prattle on.
"… and when we woke up the barrier was broken," Asgore said happily. "Frisk was still asleep, that was when we all suddenly knew their name, by the way."
"AH, YES, THE SAME THING SEEMED TO HAPPEN TO ME," Gaster interrupted. "WHEN I FIRST WOKE UP THAT WAS ALL I KNEW, REALLY, THAT A HUMAN NAMED FRISK HAD BROKEN THE BARRIER."
Asgore stroked his beard, "It is strange, is it not? And they still will not tell us how they managed to break the barrier. But all that really matters is the barrier is gone, monsterkind is free, and there is no war waiting for us up there."
"THAT IS SUCH WONDERFUL NEWS," Gaster agreed.
"What a week it has been," Asgore chuckled before gently patting one of Gaster's hands. "I am glad to see you doing so much better."
"I STILL FEEL WEAK AS A NEWBORN MOLDSMAL," Gaster replied wryly.
"At least you have gathered the strength to speak with the rest of us."
Before Gaster could reply they heard the pounding of feet coming down the hall, growing louder as it approached. The door burst open and Papyrus paused a moment in the doorway before a brilliant smile lit up his face. "DAD!" He threw himself at Dr. Gaster, who happily returned the hug.
"HELLO PAPYRUS, IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN."
"dad!"
Gaster looked up to see Sans standing in the doorway now, Gaster held an arm out to him and Papyrus shifted to give his brother more room. Sans eagerly climbed up onto the bed and joined the hug.
"HELLO SANS, I MISSED YOU." Gaster pressed his teeth against each of his sons' foreheads. "I MISSED YOU BOTH SO MUCH."
"we missed you too, dad," Sans said from where his face was pressed into Gaster's clavicle.
Asgore had gotten up and moved to the door, he would have left but the doorway itself was blocked by a small crowd of the skeleton family's friends all leaning in to watch the touching reunion happen.
After a while the skeletons seemed to come to an agreement that their positions were actually pretty uncomfortable and they shifted so the three of them could talk comfortably. Papyrus pulled his boots off and lined them up neatly next to the bed before laying on his side next to his father. Sans didn't bother with such niceties like removing his footwear before simply curling up into Gaster's other side. Gaster put an arm around each of his boys so they could rest their heads on his shoulders while they talked and caught up.
"what happened?" Sans was the first to speak once they were all settled in. "how'd you get back?"
"I'M STILL NOT ENTIRELY SURE WHERE YOU DISAPPEARED OFF TO TO BEGIN WITH. SANS SAID YOU WENT ON A VACATION? FOR THE LAST TWO DECADES?"
Gaster looked at Sans, who merely grinned back. "NOT A VACATION," Gaster said with a sigh while Sans laughed quietly to himself, "A LAB ACCIDENT. WE WERE TRYING TO USE DIMENSIONAL TECHNOLOGY TO GET AROUND THE BARRIER RATHER THAN BREAK THROUGH IT. SUFFICE TO SAY THE EXPERIMENT DID NOT GO AS PLANNED."
"AH, SO YOU WERE PULLED OUTSIDE OF SPACE-TIME THEN?"
"got it in one," Sans said with a wink.
"INDEED," Gaster agreed.
"NOT THE WORST VACATION I SUPPOSE, EVEN IF IT WAS AN UNPLANNED ONE. SPEAKING OF UNPLANNED…"
"so what was it like?" Sans asked before Papyrus could continue. "being outside the universe must have been pretty interesting."
"I'M SURE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IF I COULD ACTUALLY SEE ANYTHING. IT WAS… DARK. VERY DARK. OR PERHAPS IT'S MORE ACCURATE TO SAY THERE WAS NO MATTER OR ENERGY FOR SENSORY INPUT."
"that would explain the photon readings dipping down into the negatives if the sensors weren't calibrated correctly, not having a true void to test before hand."
"SO YOU SPENT THE LAST TWO DECADES IN A VOID WITH NOTHING TO DO AND NOTHING TO SEE AND NO ONE TO TALK TO?"
"TWO DECADES FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE," Gaster said as gently as possible before continuing on in what his sons called his 'scholarly voice,' "FROM MY PERSPECTIVE ALMOST NO TIME PASSED AT ALL, OR PERHAPS EVEN LONGER, IT FEELS LIKE BOTH AT ONCE. AS YOU SAID: I WASN'T JUST OUTSIDE THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, I WAS OUTSIDE OF TIME TOO."
"matter's lazy big brother, can only bother going in one direction," Sans quipped with a wink directed at his younger brother. "so how'd you get back? i'd been trying for years with nothing to show for it."
"I BELIEVE FRISK BREAKING THE BARRIER HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT," Gaster replied. "OR AT LEAST IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY TO BE CORRELATED, CONSIDERING THE TIMING."
"Oh! I can tell them more about that part!" Everyone's heads turned to find Dr. Alphys had her hand up like she was answering a question in class, in her other hand was a small notepad with a pen hastily shoved into the spiral keeping the paper together. "I was doing a walk through in the Core to make sure everything was ready to go into low power mode since we now have enough emergency housing on the surface for most of monsterkind. I was the one who found Dr. Gaster, actually. After I rushed him here, to the hospital, I went back and checked the cameras to see if I could figure out who he was and how he got down there. I can show you the footage later, if you want. Anyway, on a hunch I went right to around the time the barrier broke and sure enough there was that bright flash of light that blinded all the cameras for about half an hour-"
"HALF AN HOUR?" Papyrus asked in astonishment. "I THOUGHT THE FLASH OF LIGHT LASTED FOR ONLY A MOMENT, TWO FULL SECONDS AT MOST."
"See, that's what it felt like to us, but we have all kinds of data that contradicts what every single person in the entire Underground agrees happened," Dr. Alphys said excitedly, her free hand started waving erratically as she continued to talk. "The magic readings were all over the place and even spiked a few times while everything trained on the barrier stayed steady and unchanging as ever until the barrier itself broke, about two minutes before the camera white out ended. And it was every single camera I had over the entire Underground too, not just the ones near the barrier. But uh… that doesn't… I mean it's not… that's not w-what we were just talking about, heh." Dr. Alphys blushed as she grinned sheepishly.
"NO, BUT IT WAS STILL FASCINATING." Gaster's eyelights were trained on Dr. Alphys, making her squirm. "I'D VERY MUCH LIKE TO GO OVER ALL YOUR DATA WITH YOU ONCE I'VE HAD A CHANCE TO RECOVER, IF YOU'D BE WILLING."
"O-oh, um… that's uh… that would be… nice? I guess?" Dr. Alphys's sheepish grin turned into a nervous one before she hid her blushing face in her hands, effectively smacking herself with her notepad. "Oh g-gosh! The royal scientist wants t-to look at MY data!"
"it's cool alphys, you're the royal scientist too," Sans offered.
"Well, former royal scientist," Toriel reminded them. Dr. Alphys looked down and away.
"And since we are dissolving the monarchy there will not be any more royal scientists, so former royal scientist is a very exclusive club." Asgore winked at Dr. Alphys, but rather than console her it just made her all the more nervous.
"A-a-anyway!" Dr. Alphys said decisively, "Dr. Gaster wasn't in the Core anywhere when the white out started, b-but he was when it ended. S-so uh… yeah. Probably some correlation there somewhere."
"THANK YOU ALPHYS, THAT WAS VERY INFORMATIVE." Papyrus gave Dr. Alphys his most supportive grin.
"Yeah! Look at you being all passionate! It makes me just wanna!" The blue, muscular woman Gaster had been introduced to but whose name he could not for the life of him recall picked Dr. Alphys up in a tight hug, though Dr. Alphys seemed to be enjoying having her insides squeezed.
"IF IT HELPS WITH ALL THIS SCIENCE TALK BLOOKY, MY DARLING COUSIN, MANAGED TO IGNORE THE FLASH OF LIGHT THAT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE BARRIER BREAKING." The robot looked utterly pleased with himself.
"I WOULD BE VERY INTERESTED IN TALKING WITH THEM ABOUT IT AFTER I'VE HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT DR. ALPHYS'S DATA, IF YOUR COUSIN DOESN'T MIND."
"I'LL ARRANGE AN INTERVIEW," he said happily.
"okay," Sans started, "so whatever broke the barrier possibly also brought you back, but that doesn't explain why it took a week for us to get a call from the hospital that you're here."
"SANS IS RIGHT," Papyrus declared huffily. "AS YOUR NEXT OF KIN AND VERY HANDSOME SON, AND ALSO SANS, WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN INFORMED IMMEDIATELY."
"I WASN'T CONSCIOUS FOR THAT PART, WHICH ACTUALLY SHOULD EXPLAIN ENOUGH ON ITS OWN BUT PERHAPS IT WOULD BE BEST TO HEAR THE STORY FROM SOMEONE ELSE." Gaster turned his gaze back to Dr. Alphys.
"Oh! Th-that's me, isn't it?" Dr. Alphys was gently set back on her feet by her girlfriend, she took a deep breath before continuing. "O-okay, so I didn't even do the walk through until uh… until a couple days after the barrier. W-when I found Dr. Gaster his condition was… that is… he was in pretty bad shape. O-o-of course I rushed him right here to the hospital! According to the nurses he… oh! And the doctors too of course, but according to them he was in and out of consciousness until just this morning. And well… we had no way of knowing who he was until he could tell us."
"In retrospect his identity seems quite obvious," Asgore said with a gentle chuckle, it then turned into a sad sigh. "If I had come to visit before you woke I would have definitely recognized you, and your sons could have been contacted sooner."
"I'LL HEAR NONE OF THAT," Gaster said sternly. "YOU WERE VERY BUSY MOVING ALL OF MONSTERKIND TO THE SURFACE AFTER BEING TRAPPED DOWN HERE FOR CENTURIES, AND CONSIDERING I WAS PRESUMED DEAD AFTER THE ACCIDENT YOU HAD NO REASON TO EXPECT SOME MYSTERIOUS MONSTER FOUND IN THE CORE TO BE SOMEONE YOU KNEW. I'M JUST GRATEFUL THIS WHOLE ORDEAL IS FINALLY OVER WITH."
"AND I'M JUST GLAD TO FINALLY HAVE YOU BACK!" Papyrus threw an arm over Sans so he could pull the three of them into another hug. Gaster happily returned the hug to a background chorus of "Awwww…" when his brow furrowed and he pulled back, slipping his arm out from behind Papyrus.
"WHAT IS IT, DAD?" Papyrus asked in confusion as he leaned back to give Gaster more room.
"THAT SEEMS TO BE THE QUESTION. SANS? WHAT IS THIS?" Gaster poked at Sans's middle, rather than meeting empty space like one would expect of a skeleton, Gaster's finger met soft, squishy resistance. "IS THAT… A BELLY?" Gaster lifted Sans's grungy shirt to reveal ghostly pale pseudo flesh, much to Sans's sputtering, blushing protest. "SANS?" Gaster looked back at his son's blushing face, his own wearing an expression of confusion.
"oh that uh… congrats, you're gonna be a grandpa. can we not talk about it with an audience listening in?" Sans jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at where all their friends were standing in the doorway with various expressions of shock on their faces.
Undyne looked particularly nonplussed when she simply said: "HE'S WHAT?!"