I've always loved writing about children and I adore the skelebros, so of course I have to do a piece about them. I got some other one-shots planned for this series as well.

This of course implements some of my headcanons concerning Gaster, so feel free to ask questions if anything seems unclear.


A thin strip of light illuminated the room as the door was pushed open just a fraction.

Sans could see the lump under the sheets that was his father, curled facing the other way and seemingly deep asleep. He pushed the door a bit more, ignoring the soft crack it elicited.

"Is he in there?" His younger brother, Papyrus, asked from behind him. The child was making an effort to talk in a whisper, which was a hard feat for him.

"Come on." Sans answered, slipping through the crack of the bedroom door and tip-toeing towards his parent's bed. Papyrus followed him in, with about as much grace as one could expect from a 5 year old.

Gaster was an early riser at the best of times. Most days he had already left for his lab by the time his sons woke up, leaving behind a note and some food to make it through the day.

Sans tried his best to not be bitter about this, he understood his father was a scientist, the royal scientist to be precise, and he was working on freeing the entirety of the monster race. He had even promised Sans they might work together someday, when the young skeleton was a bit older.

In the meantime, Sans had enough on his plate trying to keep his younger sibling out of trouble and making up for a very absent father.

The two monster children managed to cross the room without waking up their father and climbed the bed, Sans had to help pull Papyrus up since it was pretty high.

The brothers gave each other a mischievous glance, took a breath and simultaneously yelled.

"GOOD MORNING, DADDY!"

Gaster shot up in a flurry, eyes shinning bright orange and blue with repressed magic. The sudden movement effectively send the younger sibling backwards over the edge of the bed even as the oldest burst out in a fit of giggles.

Their father took a second to wake up properly. His sons were lucky he had such complete control over his magic, or he might have blasted them both out of the room entirely by accident.

In fact, he might still do that, on purpose.

"What are you two doing?" Gaster asked warily, an odd concoction of both irritation and fondness in his voice.

Sans had turned around to observe his brother lying on the floor besides the bed, also laughing hard. He extended his arm to pull Papyrus up once again.

"We came to wake you." Sans stated matter-of-factly, not even suppressing a grin at his fathers debauched state.

"Evidently, you have done that quite effectively..." Gaster murmured under his breath.

Papyrus was now standing up on the bed and bouncing around, risking a repeat performance of his earlier tumble any moment.

"We want to play!" The child cried, shaking his father slightly. "You are almost never home, but today you are, and we want to play."

Gaster frowned at his sons nagging. It wasn't like a royal scientist had a lot of vacation days, and the few they did have should be spent catching up on missed sleep, as he had been doing just now.

Obviously, his babybones had other plans.

"I know I'm not often home, Pap." He said gently, pulling the child down by the hem of his PJ's, lest he fall off the bed again and crack his skull. "But daddy has very important work and gets very tired."

Papyrus pouted but settled down anyway, half-lying in the crook of his father's arm.

Sans scooted closer, taking up Gaster's other side, so their father was now trapped between 2 small skeleton bodies.

"Daddy is working very hard to destroy the barrier, so all the monsters can go live on the surface again." Sans told his brother, obviously very proud of his father's life goal.

Gaster smiled. Sans was an extremely intelligent child, even at his current 12 years old he already spent many hours stealing his fathers scientific notes and reading through them, making his own set of scribbles.

He would certainly be a most helpful lab assistant one day.

"What are we going to do once we get to the surface?" Papyrus questioned innocently. At his age there didn't seem a reason to leave the underground, everything they could possibly want was down here anyway.

Ignorance is bliss.

Both children turned to look at their father expectantly. He was the expert when it came to the surface world, after all.

"We will...uh..." Gaster hesitated a bit. It wasn't usual for his logical mind to get ahead of himself like that. He had been so busy finding a way to reach the surface, he had barely spared a thought for what they would do once there.

But 2 sets of eye sockets were still looking at him, waiting for an answer. So he improvised.

"We'll get a house with a big garden..." He began, knowing it was the right thing to say by the look of pure happiness on his sons faces. "So you two can enjoy the fresh air anytime you want. I'll buy you bikes, so you can cross around the garden all day long, and in the winter we can build snowmen or throw snowballs without having to pay a tax."

"And without having to go all the way to Snowdin." Sans helpfully provided.

Gaster nodded. "We'll go camping so we can discover all the beautiful nature the surface has to offer. We'll go to the beach and see the sea for the first time. I won't have to work so much anymore, of course."

Just like that, Gaster had become invested in the fantasy himself.

"There is actual wind up there, not like the draft we sometimes get in the caverns, so Pap can finally fly that kite he found at the garbage dump. And Sans will be able to use his telescope to see real stars for a change."

Without realizing it Gaster had stared addressing himself instead of his sons. Not that it mattered, as both children had drifted off to sleep listening to their father's low contemplation.

Gaster sighed. Maybe it wasn't that bad to get ahead on business form time to time. It reminds you what you do it for.

He closed his eyes and dreamt of babybones playing in the grass, with real sunshine on their bones.


Please review, it makes me happy.