Another handful of days later, Asgore woke up panting.
His conscious mind had been dropping hints, but his subconscious was not so subtle.
He cursed inwardly. Gaster had just finished warding him off about either discussions about intimacy, and here he was, half-asleep, trying to grasp at anything, anything that could drive out the images of Gaster wiggling under his grip, mouth open-
It was just the topic, he reassured himself. This wouldn't be happening if-
Still, another corner of his mind, a deeper one, emanated wordlessly that Gaster was a challenge, a code to be cracked and a submissive to be put in place.
At that, the fire monster ripped off the covers of his bed and went to go douse his face in water. No one was a challenge, he bid that predatory part of himself to go back to its dream den.
It seemed to pace back and forth, taunting that everyone was a challenge, not physically, but intimately or rhetorically too, just because you treat them nicely makes no difference.
His father's voice echoed to him, though he couldn't make out any phrases clearly. It was draconian, both literally and figuratively.
He bared his sharp teeth. Fine, then, he replied. A polite predator.
It fits. But it is different. It makes all the difference.
It licked its own chops, appeased, and drifted out.
He leaned over the water basin, breathing a bit heavy.
By the time he had put on his robes, he had blessedly forgotten most of his dream about Gaster, though the edges of it clung to his mind.
Sitting on the floor of his garden, Asgore had crossed his legs and taken up a meditative pose.
Before he closed his eyes, he reached out and brushed a yellow petal between his forefinger and thumb, knowing full well that it would bruise later. The wood elemental's own yellow fur stood on end as the tiniest bit of magic trailed from it to him. Oh, to be a flower, he thought, with not a trouble in the world. How spoiled rotten you all are, you don't even have to endure pests thanks to me.
And, you aren't even aware of your crushing responsibility. That of keeping me sane.
My responsibility in turn, constricts me like a serpentine body. The one thing that dominates, no matter how much of an apex predator I aspire, or do not aspire, to be.
"Spiders couldn't keep pests out of your garden," Gaster had said, "they don't eat enough. But I believe ladybugs might?"
"Ladybugs are predatory?" the young prince asked disbelievingly. "Those silly spotted things, named after girls?"
The small spider grinned and glanced around. His sharp eyes spotted a spotted red bug and he darted, catching it easily. "Only in their level of the food web."
"Ewwwwwww," the other boy said as he crunched on it.
"You sound like a girl when you do that," the spider said impishly. He seemed to savor the surprise and distaste for his diet, but in the future he'd appreciate even more that his friend grew used to it. "We're still top Greaters, masters of that part of the web."
Gaster.
His huge chest expanded with a deep breath, and returned with the breath out. He repeated the gesture- gesture- gaster- he tasted the two similar words experimentally.
Greater. Gaster. Master.
Maybe his rejection of the dream had been too hasty. Gaster had said, what was it? That his wife was sometimes irritating. He had enough memories of them being happy together to piece together what that meant and didn't, he thought. So dismissing it on the basis of the spider's moratorium on sexual topics was not a fully valid reason. Obviously, a partner- and perhaps a potential partner?- was his exception. That he had never gotten the slippery spider to spit out what he really felt about two men being together, now that was the stickier problem. Sticky like a web. He had plenty of clues, and a good idea, but if he continued to-
The white part-lion huffed in annoyance.
He'd like to respect his friend's wishes.
After all, he'd let plenty of passing fantasies go. If he acted on every one, he'd have a lot more for the servants to gossip about.
But.
For some reason, he was not too troubled by this.
He brought to mind Gaster was sitting across from him, chatting away about his latest projects. Asgore wasn't worried that this might ruin their friendship. They had been through much worse scrapes. He would either find a way around this if it backfired, or he could make it work. He was confident.
But if he was going to . . . The master politician would have preferred to circle the topic at a distance and further measure Gaster's reaction to it, but it seemed the spider was forcing his hand. He couldn't help but picture the black suited, rail thin man grinning at him with his own pointed fangs and playing a trick, though he would have never dared.
Spiders were notorious tricksters, but the doctor had never taken an interest in that except if the king counted his slipping on solipsism and helping him against verbal opponents. That, and jokes that were word traps. Word webs. He loved setting those.
Asgore smiled.
But then he frowned. No, wait, that was sophism, not solipsism, he chided himself. The doctor was somewhat of an epistemological solipsist. But radical solipsism? Gaster never would have accepted a worldview where Asgore's consciousness didn't exist.
