Prompt: Sad Gaster in the void - Written for my lovely partner Zeke
It fades in and out, ever-changing. Fluid, like him, though unlike anything that came before or ever will be.
And when it does return, he thinks of them.
It hurts. Not the physical pain, a constant of his existence now. An enduring ache that settles in his bones and drags him down deeper and deeper with every passing second. But something else, something vital that wrenches his soul and makes it hard to reason.
They don't remember him.
It is a realization that came to him quickly, sudden. Nobody remembers him of course, but they don't and that is most jarring of all. It slithers down his spine and lays its claws against him, a prickling awareness of his absence.
He remembers them. Vaguely, in blurs of color and motion, but he recalls Sans making jokes and Papyrus smiling up at him with wide eyes, lingering in his mind, stuck there. He remembers them as they were, whole and happy, and more than they are now.
Broken. Like him.
And the irony is bitter.
There is peace in knowing they can't miss him. They can't reach him beyond some scattered notes of eons past and the childish drawing of crayon colors. They might falter then, catch him in the corners of their minds like furniture overgrown with vines. Something almost real but not quite.
But in the end, they are without him - and in that Gaster finds solace.
Though it doesn't make him miss them any less in turn.
The child visits him, once. The human that is both cruel and merciful, a literal twist of fate and it is their powers that allow them to see him, if briefly.
Their eyes are as empty as his.
'What about you?' they want to know, with trembling hands overtaken by his coldness, the void that engulfs his being, and for that lackluster moment them too. 'Can I save you?'
And he thinks. Entertains the notion for the slightest of seconds, that maybe he could be with them once more.
But the very essence of his being is already fading again and the thought is quickly discarded. There is no merit in foolish hopes like that. He tells them as much.
They bite their lip, their head cast down and it is not something they want to hear but he repeats it over and over. Part of him wishes he could tell them though because maybe then things would be better.
Sans would stop trying and Papyrus could stop lying and they would be brothers again. If only Gaster could reach them.
Some people can't be saved.
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