Arc II: The Lab

Chapter I


"No, no…it's all the same words. It's just a different way of pronouncing each letter."

The concept of language among monster kind was difficult to teach in general because it wasn't really Gaster's field of interest. He'd never bothered to question why or how he had two font systems to his mind, just placidly accepted that it was the case and instead interrogated the makeup of the soul, and the physics of magic. So now of course he only had vague notions of how it worked to explain to his new children, and the expected roadblocks had arrived.

Not that it was necessary for them to know. He could communicate just fine already. But a small part of him that he hadn't heard from in ages insisted that it was…important.

With a small stick that he'd crafted into a pointer he tapped the symbols he'd scrawled up on a poster for them and wished they weren't so fidgety about having their faces touched. He could coax their jaws into forming the proper sounds if they weren't, and it would be so much simpler than trying to describe with language a tactile concept.

"-You're just speaking nonsense right now."

"it sounds exactly like nonsense when you say it."

That brought a slight scowl to Gaster's face, and he lightly tapped Sans over the head with his pointer. "Well it is not nonsense. It is merely another way of saying things. I don't understand why you're having so much trouble with this. I was born speaking wingding."

"I WAS BORN SPEAKING ENGLISH."

While Sans might have been failing to pick it up at least in part because he wasn't trying, Papyrus' difficulty wasn't a lack of effort but a misunderstanding of what they were trying to do entirely. Towards him the scowl relaxed, and instead Gaster patted him on the head.

"No, no dear boy it's still English. It's just a different way of encoding the language into letters."

Perhaps he should use more simplistic terms. They were still children after all. But he didn't really know how to explain things to others in a simplistic way. Usually his coworkers either got what he was saying or their understanding wasn't necessary to the success of whatever he was undertaking.

"…BUT IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE ENGLISH."

"Try thinking of it like an audio cipher."

"A CIPHER?" Papyrus cocked his head in a manner very similar to the puppies living in Snowdin, Sans picking at some leftover breakfast sausage stuck in his teeth. "WHAT'S A CIPHER?"

"It's like a sort of letter puzzle—"

"A PUZZLE?"

The word seemed to excite him to a strange degree, and Gaster filed away a note in his mind to address that later. It was a skill area worth exploring, in his opinion.

For now he merely said, "Calm down, Papyrus."

"even if it's as clear a translation as you say—" Sans had this irritating habit of appending statements to information that his caretaker had given him as though he believed it to be false. He barely offered a glance the boy's way, feeling a small and brief flash of spite. "—that still doesn't explain how we're supposed to actually say any of it. your voice gets all—weird."

Gaster merely sighed, finally, and put a hand to his forehead. "Then I suppose even if you cannot master being able to speak it there must still be hope for teaching you to know wingding when hearing it. Especially as I so often tire of aster." After a moment though he smiled, going to place his hands on both of their heads in a comforting gesture. Or one he hoped was taken that way, at least. "[Then we will all understand each other.]"

From the expressions on their faces he could tell only a word or two of that got through. …Ah well. Patience was a virtue.

At that moment a beeper went off in his pocket. Startled, he had to fumble with the buttons on his coat for a minute before getting the darn thing out and checking the message it was programmed to say. Muttering a curse to himself in wingding—which was at least one benefit to their not understanding yet-he then glanced down at his charges. "Come on, we're going to be late to work."

Obediently, they got up from the small desks he'd arranged for them and ran to get their coats. Or rather, Papyrus ran to get his coat. A shiny orange jacket that said "Slim Jim" on the back, with the "Jim" part fervently crossed out and replaced with "Papyrus". Sans of course was still in his plain white T-shirt that he never added to regardless of how windy it got in the underground, and he merely ran to the door.

Oh well. Couldn't say Gaster hadn't tried. Might as well have saved his money, though.

It was just lucky for the little smart aleck that it was a relatively warm day.

He didn't need them in the lab—not yet, anyway. But they were too young to leave alone in the house, and too volatile to trust with any old babysitter. That is what he had ascertained in his time as their guardian. So for the past few weeks now, Gaster had been taking the children to work with him. Sometimes there were problems—Papyrus could be distracting and Sans initially had problems keeping his hands off the projects—but overall his coworkers had taken to them quite well, and it kept them entertained. It also got them used to the environment, which was very good.

He wanted them to be able to relax when his planned experiments involving them started for real.

The path to Hotland from New Home wasn't particularly long but it was devilishly complicated. After making some recommendations to Asgore there had been some progress in developing much more straightforward paths—the risk of humans coming down to the underground was far outweighed by the massive inconvenience to anyone commuting through the area—but it still took a little bit of time and frustration to navigate.

"…COULDN'T WE JUST USE THAT BOATPERSON?"

"No."

All in all they ended up about five minutes later than was usual. Usual for Gaster, at least. There were no real penalties if he didn't make it in to the lab on time, being the Royal Scientist, but it set a bad example for everyone else.

There was no one in the main floor of the building as they strode inside, shoes clacking with each step. That meant that everyone had already made their way down to True Lab, and so a little more hastily than usual he hustled them into the elevator.

Initially—the work day after he had adopted the boys—Sans and Papyrus had stayed in the gathering hall, not talking much to anyone but each other, keeping confined to the room while occasionally looking at the data entry station inside it. As a few more days passed they had become more and more bold, until they ended up splitting off to pursue their own personal interests the second Gaster allowed them to explore autonomously. As of yet he hadn't been paying too close attention to what they did—perhaps it would have been in his best interest to but as of yet most of what they did do was observe and occasionally pester his coworkers.


Or perhaps it would be more appropriate in cases of people like Arbogast to say that his coworkers pestered them?

"I got a surprise for you two!" The monster chirped to them that morning, jagged mouth held in an odd fashion. Papyrus had very quickly taken to most of the people who were there in the lab—new friends, he'd called them—and despite being one of the strangest creatures the two of them had ever seen, Arbogast was no exception. It helped that he always conducted himself with utmost thoughtfulness and good manners, something that scored well on the younger brother's list of admirable traits.

Sans on the other hand tended to be a little wigged out by the fact that he had no actual body, and just appeared to be a head sprouting out of the ground. It didn't make any physiological sense to him. He appreciated much less the fact that somehow he was able to keep a labcoat on despite not having any shoulders to speak of.

"yeah? …where are you keeping it, in your mouth?"

"Yes."

Naturally.

He opened his wide maw and deposited in front of them two small cubes. Each side was a grid of nine squares, all of them assorted colors. "I found these in the dump. I hear human children like to play with these so I thought maybe skeleton children would too."

While Sans stared down at them in mild, concealed disgust, Papyrus eagerly scooped up the blocks, looking over their tiled surfaces with enormous curiosity.

"WHAT ARE THEY?"

"No clue."

The different segments appeared to rotate—Papyrus twisted them a little in his hands, eyes lighting up. "WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE?"

Arbogast let out a little nervous huff of breath and somehow shrugged. "No clue. But I hope you enjoy finding it out!"

Sans had already pulled away from the two of them to go look for the resident intern; the only person—the only normal person—who would spare time out of their busy schedule to talk to him. And really the only person who didn't treat him like he was the same age as Papyrus. They talked about normal things. …Or at least things that were less weird and childish than carrying around colored cubes in your mouth.

He remembered the first time that he'd seen her. She'd come crashing into the lab an hour late, huffing and out of breath with her glasses askew on her bright yellow face. It was probably a million times less disruptive than what she had to be imagining in her head, looking as though she was going to wring her hands right off. Gaster had—

Well he hadn't been furious exactly. He'd actually seemed…almost paternally concerned? But the way that she'd reacted-

"I-I-I'm sorry—" She had been trembling pretty badly, weakly trying to tuck her hands into her armpits for support. "I was up late last night looking over a—a thing I found at the dump and I over—"

"Does it have to do with your project, Alphys?" It might have sounded like a punishing rhetorical question but everyone knew enough by now to tell it was genuine. Alphys stammered so hard that her response wasn't entirely intelligible. Something about "inspiration for ideas". Gaster didn't look particularly impressed and cocked his head, the brow over his healthy eye flattening. "If the products of your little excursions are interfering with your work, perhaps it would be best to stop, yes?"

Sans had thought she might start crying right there and he'd felt—bad.

So he'd told a joke.

And Alphys hadn't laughed and Gaster had stared at him.

The "Royal Scientist" never laughed at any jokes, he didn't know why he'd spoken up. "I do not understand. That was not a word."

"no it—i made it up. it—" He had never, in his entire life, ever had to explain a pun before. But he did.

There was a beat. Alphys' cheeks had been remarkably red -she had to have been holding her breath. Then there was a spark of understanding in Gaster's eyes as the joke had clicked. He put a hand to his cheek, curling his fingers in his eyesocket somewhat and then laughed like it was the first pun he'd ever heard, smile stretched wide over his face.

…Actually, maybe it had been.

And Sans had grinned wider even as Papyrus slapped his back behind him, huffing, "YOU ALWAYS TELL THAT ONE! NEW DAD DON'T ENCOURAGE HIM!"

So Sans added another one. The older skeleton's mirth halted and his eyes fixed on him for a moment while he processed the joke. Then he started laughing so hard that that it had suddenly switched to wingding.

…It was a nice memory and she always reminded him of it in her own way.

Alphys had thanked him profusely for that when everyone returned to their work. Like he'd saved her from some great humiliation instead of a light scolding. And that had made him laugh. He'd always thought adults were supposed to be put together and aloof. Maybe she wasn't as grown up as the rest of them.

That pattern of nervous behavior had continued, though lessened somewhat with him, at least. Today she seemed to be trying to melt into the machine she was working on, doing more leaning against it than the calibration corrections that she'd been tasked with yesterday. Glancing back, Papyrus seemed wholly distracted with the cubes that that Arbogast had brought, and Gaster certainly wasn't paying attention to them anymore.

"hey."

Alphys dropped the wrench that she had been half-heartedly using and Sans jumped at the clattering of metal on tile.

"Oh! –H—hey Sans." She made her little nervous, shaky grin and went to recollect her things. He shoved a hand in his pocket as he watched her scurry about, before pointing towards a piece that she'd been trying to jam into the workings of the machine.

"you got that backwards."

"What?" She looked to where his phalange was gesturing and blanched, going to carefully extract the piece and put it in the right way. "—Th-thanks. I guess I'm—I'm pretty tired today. I keep—making mistakes."

"were you up all night watching those human cartoons?"

Her face went beet red again and he guessed that it was correct. "They're just—so addicting, oh my gosh. I start one when I get home from work and then it's just—midnight. Then I'm too excited to sleep."

That makes him chuckle. "you know i think there's a nap for that."

Alphys snorted and gave him a look, before handing him a screwdriver. "…Thanks for—helping me out with the extractor, by the way."

"no problem."

Unprompted, she continued, as though embarrassed, "I think I did better earlier it's just—I've been at it for so long, I'm kind of bored of it already."

"that part over there is out of alignment." This time she smiled when she saw the error, and he could tell she was starting to relax a little bit.

"You know Sans—" It took a few more minor corrections before she'd fixed the mistake, and then Alphys pulled off another panel and began to sort through an incredibly convoluted and tangled mess of blue and red wires. "—You're really picking up a lot of this fast." When she smiled back at him all the confidence seemed to naturally drain out of her voice. "Um—I mean for—for a kid you know."

"yeah?"

"I was just thinking—well King Asgore wants as many minds working on this stuff as possible—and it's not like you don't have a direct line to the Royal Scientist himself—" It was fortunate for her that she turned away before she could see the slight displeased tint that entered Sans' expression at that. "—I think if you, you know, talked to him? You could probably work in here a little, like—like an intern, like me. We could uh—" By the time she looked back, that embarrassed little grin on her face, he was back to his usual look. Guarded but not actually looking guarded at all. "—We could be work buddies."

"eh." His eyes relaxed a little and he scuffed his shoes on the scraped linoleum floor. Not that it was an entirely unappealing concept in itself. "i don't know if I wanna make that a thing. it sounds like a lot of effort and…i already have to live with the guy, i'm not sure I wanna work with him too."

"But-!" Alphys' eyes widened somewhat behind her lenses, face flushing. "But he's the—the greatest mind in the underground! Maybe even among hu-humans too! I'd give my left lung to work with hi-here! –I mean I—I do work here, but…I'm a long way from being…a doctor."

He almost laughed and called her lame but instead he nudged another piece of the "extractor" into its correct place with the tip of his shoe.

"…I do understand though." When he looked up again her features had softened somewhat, and her gaze seemed intensely distracted. "I mean, he is pretty intimidating. …After all, he's the one who, you know. Made the Core."

Alphys liked to bring that up. Apparently it was something she thought was particularly amazing.

"you sure do like garbage, huh?"

Something in her tone was quick and snapping. "—What?"

He pointed down at a dirty and rumpled cover of some comic book sticking out of her labcoat pocket. "…that's from the dump, isn't it? you go there a lot."

"…Oh. –Yeah, I do."

"that's weird." When she gave him a bit of a look he added quickly, "my bro and i used to go there when we didn't have anything and—we never got anything that was really worth much. just a bunch of junk. i didn't even know there were movies there that weren't busted up."

Alphys face seemed to light up—not necessarily from cheer but the sudden influx of knowing something and being able to share that knowledge with someone else. "You just uh—you have to know what to look for! I know all the best dumping spots, where things are in good condition."

"yeah?" That sounded a little far-fetched considering how much digging through rotted fruit and half burned clothes the two brothers had to do when they were desperate, but then again—the dump was a pretty big place. And the water replaced the garbage almost daily.

"I have some…girls I tend to go there with. They're sort of like my little sisters I guess?-?. Maybe—you and your brother could come too some time?-?"

The offer genuinely surprised him, and he looked back in her direction as she returned to her work. Willing to talk or not—Alphys was an adult. …True, she was less of an adult than any other adult he'd met, but…he still saw her as such. Watching him while he kicked around the lab waiting for when he and Papyrus could leave and fighting off boredom was different than going on an actual outing together.

Granted, it was still to the dump. But-

"…yeah. yeah i think that'd be nice."


Author's Note: I apologize for my slowness—college has gotten extremely busy and it's hard to find energy or time to write. I also have a tendency to juggle many personal projects at once—this isn't the only thing I'm doing. I do very much intend to finish this fic if I can, however—there's a lot I want to get to. It's just a little difficult to get there quickly.