Woo, another! Look at me go! not intended to be connected with Dissemination but not necessarily not connected, either haha. this is going to be more like a collection of snapshots that I add to as and when inspiration takes me rather than a whole story. Babybones and Dadster fic ahoy!

Edit: Absolutely no longer associated with dissemination in any way, but you will notice some headcanons that carry through if you have read it. The Numbers 'verse has very much become it's own creature.

"Doctor Gaster, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We appreciate that your time is very limited." The teacher gestures for him to sit opposite her at her desk in front of the classroom, and he does after taking a moment to look back at his two boys. Sans was happily playing with Papyrus in the younger's stroller, and the younger of the two's giggles rang around the room.
"No, it's fine. Being a father is above being the royal scientist." He says with a smile, summoned hands translating font slightly ahead of his speech to keep up with himself. "...Although, I must admit, I am not sure why you've called me here. I've never been made aware of any previous problems." He spares a second look at his sons.
"Ah, right." The teacher, Gaster couldn't put his finger on her name right now, opens and closes a drawer on her side of the desk and grabs some papers before she begins. "Firstly, I must ask a question... Can you think of any reason why Sans would be unusually stressed or unhappy at the moment?"
Gaster frowns, and shakes his head, `. "There's nothing out of the ordinary at home. He sometimes gets a little upset if I am running late from the lab but as you know yourself, I always make sure they're looked after. And before you ask, they are both happy with Grillby on those days. He wouldn't go with him if he wasn't happy. As I am sure you know by now, Sans can be quite... willful, even at this age."
The teacher has to chuckle. "Indeed, he is. Sorry, I had to ask."
"I understand. With that out of the way, would you mind telling me what this is about and why that question was considered at all relevant?"

Ms. Hudder, that was her name, sighs and puts a small pile of papers on the desk for him to look through as she speaks. "We have noticed that Sans tends to default to your... uhh... more traditional font when he struggles to understand or dislikes an assignment, as was discussed when we noticed his written font and his spoken fonts weren't matching up." Ahh, yes. The whole Comic Sans/Mono Sans 'panic' that had also been worry over nothing. "In the last week he has been writing the bare minimum in readable font, and any spare time he has been writing... well, these." She gestures at the papers in his hand. "He's also becoming increasingly withdrawn, preferring to spend time sat in the corner and staring either into the room or out of the window rather than participating in, well... anything. We thought we could see if you could a) tell us what these say, and b) see if you could give us any insight into why the sudden change in behaviours are happening."
"Well, I can certainly clear up the first one." He puts the papers down, not yet seeing a reason for so much concern - but admiring their tenacity and attentiveness to his child (and, he is sure, the others). "They're numbers. A lot of them repeating. Here, one moment-" He draws up a quick table on the back of the paper from 0-9 with the corresponding symbols "-That's the numbers zero to nine. As you can see, they're all here. There's no real spacing here so I don't know if it's supposed to be just one number or many... have you asked him what they are?"
"Yes. He won't tell us." Gaster sighs at the response. Of course he won't.

"Sans." He hears Sans turn his head with a small 'hmm', obviously stopping playing with Papyrus because the younger one because the happy burbles stop for a moment. "Can you come over here for a minute? Bring Papyrus over if you must." Although, he mostly adds on the last bit to take the excuse of his brother away. He hears him sigh quietly, fiddle with the latch on the safety belt and finally footsteps towards them. He passes Papyrus to his father as he gets to the desk and sits himself on the chair with another huff.
"i got it." He huffs as Gaster reaches out to help him. The frozen grin does nothing to hide the confusion as to why he's been called over to the adults. "yeah?"
Gaster reaches out and taps the papers with a long bony finger, and he watches his son's shoulders hunch a little bit. "What's this number?"
"dunno." He mumbles into his chest, looking down and away from the picture as much as he can manage.
"Sans... What do the numbers mean?" The elder son starts kicking his feet on the chair. He only does that when he's getting antsy, whether that be through nervousness or boredom and impatience
"nuffin'." He replies just as quietly and solemnly, edged with frustration. He doesn't even look up when Gaster touches his legs to try and unsuccessfully still them.
Gaster can't help but sigh with his own frustration. "You're not in trouble, but we need to know what they are-"
He's met by empty and wide eye sockets, and a simple but firm "i said they were nothing" before the elder child takes papyrus out of his arms and starts playing with him again with his pupils back in place and the corners of his smile twitching as much as they ever do, touching the bottoms of the eye sockets and curving the bottoms in a way that belied his happiness. Gaster turns to the teacher, perplexed because that's a new level of serious for his eldest, and shrugs a little. "I can only ask him again later when we're at home, and give you my word that I'll be looking into it. Parent-teacher meetings are not exactly going to settle him if he's not happy talking about what they are in the first place. As for the font, if it's an issue I can write out a complete chart for translation if you feel it's necessary. I know I gave you one for the basics when we first started, but if you feel that-"
She shakes her head. "No, we don't need that but the offer is appreciated. We have enough to get the meanings of what he's trying to say when he defaults, but other than that we do try and encourage him to write in a mono format if at all possible and usually he aquiesces quickly - this may just be a phase he'll move on from quickly."
Sensing (or rather, hoping) that they were wrapping up talking about him, probably, Sans says the magic words to his little brother: "hey pap, wanna see if dad'll make us spaghetti for dinner?" The little one starts shouting for 'sgetti' rather loudly and excitedly, which makes Sans start laughing and has the adults join in - putting the final nail in their discussion.
"Fine, fine." Gaster says with a fond smile, standing. He offers a hand for the teacher to shake. "I will try and find out what's going on over the weekend and update you at the beginning of the week. Unfortunately, there's not much more I can offer than that." Closing pleasantries exchanged, he takes his boys back to the house in Snowdin.

"hehe, pap. you got it everywhere!" Sans laughs, wiping sauce off of his skull and from the bottom of his eye socket. Gaster's... well, his everything was covered. It was really funny to his boys seeing their normally clean and tidy father covered in spaghetti and sauce. Sans spots a few stray strands on Gaster's head and ends up creased over until he can't bring air into his ribcage any more. "you... gave... dad... hair..." He eventually managed to wheeze out breathlessly, while gaster himself laughed and started removing the offending strands. "now… he...looks... like... an... impasta!"

"NYEEEEEEH!" Little papyrus's shriek of displeasure only makes Sans laugh harder, and if it hadn't been for the moment earlier in the school, Gaster never would have thought there was anything wrong. Mind you, Sans was seeming like he was going to be the sort of monster to get really upset by things then all of a sudden shrug it off and keep on going. Maybe. They go through bath time with just as much mess, and giggles, but eventually manages to get all three of them changed into dry pajamas and the youngest settled for bed in his crib.

"Sans, would you like come sit up with me for a bit?" He asks Sans, knowing that he would almost certainly be chomping at the bit for the chance. He didn't have school tomorrow, and maybe he could try bringing earlier up again. He, on a low volume so as not to disturb papyrus, sets up the VHS he'd found once – a documentary on the solar system and the stars. It was Sans' favourite, and he quite liked it too. He found he didn't need to bring up the issue of earlier with the child, he found, as Sans spoke up before he did, pausing the tape about halfway into it. Obviously he was feeling comfortable and settled enough to talk to him... he knew his child far too well, it seemed. The though brings another fond smile to his face.
"dad...? what do the numbers mean? the ones in monsters?" poor kid sounded half asleep, too. Gaster raised an eyebrow. "like you, you gots your numbers-" yawn "-like everyone else does."
"It's a bit late for this." And that smile vanished, somehow knowing in his marrow that this was going to be a heavy conversation ahead of them. He was met by two stubborn pinpricks of light, and he's not even sure that he should have this conversation at all. "But you're not going to drop this tonight, are you?"
"nope. i asked at school when i first saw 'em, but they just said that monsters are made of magic and souls not numbers." His child gives a huff of frustration, sounding much like himself over a difficult piece of research in the lab.
"Well... they are made of magic and souls, but that doesn't mean there's no numbers. They're just not… visible." Sans frowned at him, ready to speak. He holds up a hand. "Wait for me to finish. Monsters are made of compassion and kindness, right? This means that everytime they hurt someone, it leaves a mark on their soul. We call these marks EXP and they add up to LOVE, which is... a level, in a sense." He spares the younger skeleton from an explanation of the acronyms, because all the while Sans nods, that means he is understanding somewhat and that's enough for Gaster. Plus, there's only so dark he can go with a child.
"do you think… that's what… the numbers are?"
"I've never heard of a monster being able to see them as actual numbers. We can see certain 'stats' through a *CHECK but that doesn't reveal EXP and LOVE normally. They can be revealed through more in-depth scans like in the lab's SOUL research area, however."

"hmmm." He hums thoughtfully, and Gaster can see the little Skelly's mind churning over on that information. Another yawn seals the deal, though.

"Right, young man. Time for bed."
"'m not tired." But his protests turn into squeals of giggles as Gaster stands and swoops him under an arm. "no, daddy, put me down!" He demands unconvincingly, and bedtime continues as if the discussion had never happened on the little one's part. Gaster, however, fills in his journal carefully with his thoughts from the evening before falling into a restless sleep.

Gaster makes a decision in the morning, resolving to try and solve this as much and as soon as possible because it was obviously weighing Sans down from the reactions yesterday. He watches his eldest feed Papyrus oatmeal, both of them full of their usual rambunctious energies. Gaster cleaned them both up for day, and forewent the stroller and carried Papyrus over to Grillby's with sans holding a hand and trailing along by a few inches despite how hard his little legs were trying to keep up with his fathers longer strides. After they said goodbyes to Papyrus and started making their way towards the castle then subsequently the lab, Sans was regurgitating a bunch of facts about how the core was going to work once it was up and running as they went. He was actually doing a good job of remembering some of the bigger things, needing minimal prompting even if the little one had no idea what more than half the words coming out of his own mouth were - mind you, he was pretty good about asking when he didn't understand a word so maybe, Gaster thought, he did understand in as much as a child could. His eldest, though still rather young, was already proving himself to take after his father in the more studious respects. Eventually, the excited rambling trailed off, and his pace slowed the further they got into the bustle between hotlands and new home. He looks down at Sans whose pupils are darting from monster to monster, scanning them vacantly with hazy and dim pupils. What am I going to do with you? Gaster asks himself as he lifts Sans onto his shoulders, sighing a little when there's no response to the action either good or bad. He quickened his pace as he heads to the lab, deciding to forego dropping in on Asgore as he was planning to beforehand, nearly knocking someone over in his about-turn.
"Hey, watch where you're walking!" the elderly gentleman shook his cane at them angrily. But before Gaster can apologize, a distant voice comes from over his head.
"...numbers are so big." Little bony phalanges suddenly dig into the top of Gaster's skull as his son tenses up like a cat seeing a snake. "what did you do? what did you do?"
"Ow, Sans, I would like a skull left." He starts reaching up to try and dislodge the child.
"I am a war veteran, do you dare let him speak to me like that? I deserve respect." the elderly gentleman puffed up. "Besides, you walked into me!"

With effort, he manages to dislodge the boy who's getting increasingly upset and loud, drawing attention, turning him into his chest and trying to calm him. "My apologies, sir" he adds a layer of vitriol to the word, but not quite enough to be rude, "but as you can see my son is sick with a sudden fever, and I simply didn't notice you as I turned to go and get him some help. Now I bid you good day so I can go and get him looked at as soon as possible." He stares coldly at the elderly gentleman before walking off. Now that his view has been blocked, Sans seems to be calming down, now just rattling quietly as he shakes against him.

The rest of the journey to the lab passes quietly, and soft snores tell him that Sans fell asleep shortly after the confrontation. He sets him down on the couch in his office, and starts pulling out some information on soul research to see if he can make any headway while Sans is still sleeping -even if it was just confirming or denying what it is he was seeing. It's an hour and a half later when his son starts to stir, and Gaster still only has theories.

"da...ddy..?" he speaks up sleepily from where he's laid.
"Good evening, lazy bones." he teased his son gently. "How do you feel?"
"mmm…. tired. and my head hurts. but the numbers have gone for now." Sans sits himself up, rubbing his eyes then perking up. "oh. we're at the lab already."
"Yes. Do you think… you would be up for some tests? To see if we can find out what you're seeing?"
"'spose." Sans nods, if a little reluctantly. He starts shifting himself off the couch, and Gaster chuckles. Sans follows him to the more medical side of the lab where they meet up with one of his team to start some scans. It doesn't escape Gaster's notice that Sans is much quieter than he usually is here - he loved going to the lab normally, asking incessant questions and having to be discouraged from touching anything periodically. But he also knows from visits to try and determine the HP issue that Sans has that his son hates the scanners - not the Gaster blames him at all. He places him on the seat behind the scanner, trying not to think about the fact that it is normally fallen down monsters in the device. He gives his son's hand a small reassuring squeeze as the machinery whirs into life under the watchful gaze of the wide-eyed monster working down here tonight.
"Hmm, the readings here are a little… different than what one would expect for a child of his age but his usual level of different. Has he started manifesting any magic yet?"
"No. Not that I know of, other than-"
"am i sick?"
"No, no." The eyes soften at him, and the assist gives him a smile. "They're just looking a little high, sweet pea." The affectionate name makes him giggle.
"Sans. Can you… try looking at the numbers again?"
"i don't know. i don't… i can try." He watches as his son steels himself. Sans doesn't like seeing the numbers much, Gaster was getting that message quickly. He watches as his son's gaze goes distant, focused and unfocused simultaneously like he was looking through him. The expression brings a crawling sensation to his spine. The assistant raises his attention again.
"The levels have raised, but no more than you would expect from a monster using magic. This seems to be some sort of primary manifestation of what is going to form his magic by what I can tell. Everything else is reading fine - except the hp which hasn't raised at all since the last time he was here. But, well, he's active enough and happy as far as I can tell, so the hp doesn't seem to be an issue. Although it is worrying that it hasn't raised at all with age or activity…"
"so... i am sick?"
"No, no. I keep telling you that as long as it's not making you tired out or making you feel bad, you just need to be careful." He shoots a look at the assistant, who takes the hint and moves on.
"Do you want a check up while you're in here doc? Getting you in for one is a right pain in the-"
"coccyx!" Sans cuts in. The assistant creases up laughing, as does his son.
"Yeah, yeah. You two laugh it up." Gaster pokes his sans in the ribs, whose pupils have faded back in as he's giggling.
"you gotta to have your check up too. you promised forever ago, 'member? when I get one, you get one - that was the deal."
"Fine." He gives in to the small skeleton with an overly dramatic sigh. They swap places, and the assistant pulls Sans onto her lap. She points out a few of the chart breakdowns and reassure him that everything is fine and nothing about his dad had changed. He sees his son looking over the charts, probably checking them against hazy memories of last time, then Gaster hears his son point out-
"those! those are his numbers! well, some of 'em." He hears the excited tapping of bone on the screen.
"Can you print them off?" Gaster asks the assistant. She does so with an affirmative nod, and Gaster pushes the scanner aside.
"hey, doc, can you find your numbers with that too?" A note of excitement creeps in, obviously pleased at getting either proof or back-up. "please."
"Well, how can I say no to you when you ask so nicely?" She chuckles, sitting herself down and pulling the scanner across. "Dr. Gaster, Sans might need some-"
"nope, you pressed this button-" click "-then this one and this one." Two more clicks and the sound of a printer throwing out information accompanies the sound of Sans' proud proclamations of "see? i did it!" as the assistant stands and gives him a smile and a proud pat on the head.

"Sans, can you tell me what the numbers are you see, and I'll check them on the paper?"
"for who?"
"Both of us?"
He grumbles in displeasure. "but it gives me headache when i try to see them." He narrows his eye sockets at Gaster. Wait for it, wait for it… "you owe me nice cream for this."
There it is. He laughs under the weight of his son's stare. "Okay, okay. Sounds like a deal to me."
There's a small celebration, and the assistant can't help but laugh along, until suddenly she's faced with the young skeleton's stare. It was like cold ice water made of bugs running up and down her spine. As she was being… 'read' was the term she was going to use… she recognised her hp but not the other numbers. She looks at Dr. Gaster, if nothing else so she could look away from the little one. She watches his face go thoughtful as Sans lists off a string of numbers.
"...Doc…?"
"Thank you, that will be all." He dismisses her with a wave, and to be honest she wasn't in the mood for sticking around after that sensation. She looks back over her shoulder as she leaves, to see him covering his son's eyes when he wasn't responding and snapping him out of whatever… that was.
"Hey, buddy. Hey." He smiles as the pupils focus in on him after a few lazy blinks. "Are you okay?"
"i'll be better after some nice cream." Sans sighs, slumping against him. Gaster chuckles quietly.
"Yeah, I know. I think we've had enough excitement for one day."

The rest of the weekend passes like normal, although normal is not exactly 'normal' when it comes to having a child and a toddler in the house. But it passes relatively pain free, and Monday comes around too soon. Papyrus is at Grillby's, and Sans is on his way to school. He's quiet, which Gaster is quickly learning he doesn't like much. "What's wrong, Sans?"
"...tired."
"And what's actually wrong?"
"...are you going to tell ms. hudder that she was wrong?" The little boots kick snow gently.
"Not in those words, but I will be talking with her. Why?" A shrug is the only reply. "Do you not want me to?"
"it's not that. i…" He waits patiently for Sans little skull to articulate whatever is going on in there. "one of the bigger classes has a boy with bigger numbers. i don't know his name but… he's scary. can you tell them about his numbers as well?" That's not what he was expecting, especially as he hadn't actually told Sans what he had found out about the numbers and that thought worried him a lot. Mind you, even if he doesn't understand the meanings of the numbers it makes sense that he would react accordingly to them if it was intrinsincly linked to his magic.

"Yes, I will speak to them. Now time for you to go, okay?" Sans nods and runs off into class, seeming to perk up immensely. Gaster flags the teacher down before they start class.

"Ahh, Dr. Gaster. Did you have any luck?"
"I did. He's mentioned seeing numbers to you before?" She nods, but he cuts her off before she can speak with a cold edge underlying his voice. "I don't appreciate that being left out of the conversation we held. It turns out that what he's seeing is likely some early manifestation of whatever form of magic he is going to hold."
"Oh… my apologies, I didn't think about that. Normally ones so young don't-"
"I am well aware. If he comes to you claiming to see something, you will not dismiss it and it will be reported to me immediately from now on if things escalate or he reports seeing anything new or unusual. I would also ask you track frequency of episodes. Furthermore, he has asked if you know anything about one of the boys in the older classes in the upper part of the school. He's claiming that he's scary, and I have reason to believe that he may be bullying the other students or have caused harm in some way to some-." He doesn't tell her why, especially as the skin under her fur goes ashen. "I see you know exactly who I am talking about."
"There is a problem… we are trying to get to the bottom of it, but the child in question has no contact with the younger stages of the school. He wouldn't have been able to bully Sans in any capacity, so how does-"
"The easiest way to explain it is that the numbers he sees are giving him a sense of how a person behaves. That's why he's prone to zoning out, he does not currently seem to be able to control the magic and I believe it is overwhelming him. If you struggle to get him to focus, I suggest removing him to a quiet area and covering his eye sockets if that alone doesn't bring him around. Not for long, I have found a period of seconds is usually enough."
"O-oh… well, I guess we can manage that."
"If you have any problems, do not hesitate to call myself or Grillby. One of us will be by as soon as possible." She nods, and he turns on his heel without so much as a farewell.

Things go smoothly for a grand total of 3 weeks.

"Hello, Dr. Gaster? We need you at the school immediately. Sans is- well, there was an incident and he's currently unresponsive. We've called a healer through to come see to him while we wait for you to arrive." He hangs up and makes his way directly to the school, not even taking time to excuse himself from his project. He throws open the doors to the lower school area and rushes towards the group of people by his son. Sans seems to be sleeping, but if it was as simple as that, he never would have been called in. "What is happening?"
"Well, somehow one of the older students-" he doesn't miss how the teachers eyes refuse to look at him "-got lost while trying to escape and play hooky. He ended up in this area of the school, and as the younger students approached and tried to make friends... he, well, reacted badly. Several of the smaller students got injured. But they're fine, and have been healed!" She adds quickly. He looks back to his sleeping son with impatience, and obviously the look said enough. "Sans wasn't one of the injured. But when people started getting hurt, he was able to get around the staff trying to manage the situation. He told them to stop it but his eyes were… well, the right eye was blank and the left was full of a blue… glow? I've never seen anything like it. Before we could intervene, he'd hit the older child with a barrage of attacks, white and blue bones and he even managed to push them away with some form of what we can only call telekinesis. We managed to pull him away after that, and he's been sleeping ever since he calmed down."
Gaster sits down next to him and pulls Sans into his lap trying his best to rouse him. No response. "Was the other child hurt?"
"Luckily, no. We assume it's because the magic is so new to Sans and not yet under control, but the physical damage done was minimal considering that a large amount of the attacks passed through him. However… he has also fallen into a quiet state and refuses to talk to-"
"Honestly, I don't care about the other's condition beyond whether or not he was injured. I flagged this up as a possible problem, and now it's become a problem." He stands, keeping Sans tucked up comfortably in a cradle. He's too big for just one arm anymore, but just barely. "between this incident and the fact it sounds like he's going to need to be taught how to get a handle on his magic sooner rather than later, I think it would be best if I withdrew him for homeschooling." There's no argument from anyone. "You can send any necessary paperwork to my home. That will be all." He sweeps out of the room without waiting any longer.

Sans wakes up under the scanner and promptly starts freaking out. He screams and screams for what feels like hours, although it is only a couple of seconds in reality, before he registers his dad's hands on him and the soothing baritone of his voice.
"don't like it, don't like it!"
"Hey now, just relax. The scan's nearly finished, promise."
"s-scan…?" His brain catches up to where he is. The lab. The medical scanner. "what…?"
"Levels are good doc. They've settled back to… well, where they were the other day."
"You've been asleep for a long while, Sans. What's the last thing you remember?"
"uhh… the scary kid got into the classroom… and... and… he…" he struggles to remember and Gaster watches as the left pupil flares yellow and blue. He gasps, before taking Sans' hands in his.
"It's ok…. It doesn't matter now. You're okay." The pupil fades and his white pupils fade back in.

The little skeleton curls up in his lap, shaking and crying. "I think… you're going to need a few more scans. Not right away, but we'll get to the bottom of this. Promise."

Well. They always say the road to hell is paved by good intentions.