"THE TEMPERATURE?" Gaster asked, his hand shaped bullets repeating the question in sign as he looked down at the paperwork on his clipboard.
"87" Sans replied absently.
Gaster scribbled down the number before moving quickly to the next line, "AND THE MAGIC OUTPUT?" He looked up only to find Sans staring intently at the readout panel rather than looking at him. Gaster huffed a tired sigh and was about to sharply remind Sans that he needed to watch Gaster's hands when Sans replied.
"204"
Gaster quickly jotted the number down, the last digit becoming illegible as his hand skittered to a halt, his bullets winking out of existence. Had that really just happened? Surely not, no one had ever understood his spoken words before. Not even his parents.
"everything okay over there, doc?" Sans was still standing hunched over the readout panel, his head turned to look directly at Gaster. He had a brow ridge raised, likely only amused by Gaster's distraction rather than worried.
Gaster cleared his throat and summoned a matched set of bullets for more signing. "YES, I WAS JUST LOST IN MY OWN HEAD FOR A MOMENT." Gaster watched Sans's eyes, easy enough when they were glowing dots in the middle of pitch black sockets. They were on Gaster's face, though most signs are near the face so that doesn't mean much.
A soft grin spread across Sans's face, "formulating some new ingenious invention?"
"CALCULATING A BETTER MAGIC FLOW METRIC, DEALING WITH SUCH LARGE NUMBERS IS CUMBERSOME AND INEFFICIENT."
"eh, just drop the last digit and call 'em megadoulins."
"I WOULD THINK DECADOULINS WOULD BE MORE APPROPRIATE, BUT PERHAPS WE SHOULD SHELVE THIS DISCUSSION UNTIL AFTER WE FINISH THIS TASK."
"right." Sans turned his attention back to the readouts.
Gaster left his bullets up, an exhausting feat with how long he usually had to keep them summoned on a daily basis, but chose to leave them still as he continued. "HOW'S THE INFLUX FLOW?"
"holding steady at 102."
Gaster almost forgot to write the number. When Sans started to turn to look his way he quickly pulled up his drooping arms and scribbled the number down. "AND THE PRESSURE?" He glanced back up in time to find Sans looking back down at the readouts.
"32"
Gaster scribbled that down as well, the last reading to take tonight. "EXCELLENT… EXCELLENT."
"yup, all within the safe ranges. i don't have all the records memorized, but i'm pretty sure there aren't even any trends towards deviations."
"I DON'T THINK SO EITHER." Gaster's bullets twitched and gave a few half hearted signs, Sans didn't even seem to notice.
"so what next, doc?"
"I THINK I SHOULD GET STARTED ON THOSE CALCULATIONS BEFORE I LOSE MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT."
"sure, sure, i got some reports i've needed to type up for a while. if you don't need that," Sans pointed to the clipboard Gaster was still holding, "for your calculations, i do. compiling the data to check for drift is one of those reports." Sans winked, likely meaning he had lied earlier and had in fact memorized the data from the last few recordings.
"RIGHT, RIGHT… OF COURSE." Gaster handed over the clipboard, then stood there and watched as Sans sauntered casually away. Gaster let his bullets dissipate completely before calling out, "DON'T FORGET TO TAKE A BREAK."
Without turning Sans raised his free hand to wave in Gaster's general direction and called back, "take your own advice, doc."
Once Sans was out of the room Gaster slumped against the wall and clutched his shirt, right over his soul. Sans had understood him. Sans had understood him without Gaster having to sign! How?! And how long had this been going on? Was this something Sans had been slowly working towards for a while? Something he had picked up early on and Gaster was only just now noticing? Why hadn't he told Gaster? And why was Gaster's magic thrumming so? Gaster felt light headed, his thoughts continuously circling, leaving him feeling dizzy and confused. Always coming back to that one thought.
Sans understands him!
It took a while, but eventually Gaster got his breathing and magic back under control. He made his way back to his office, all thoughts of Doulins and magic flow metrics forgotten.
Over the next few days Gaster found himself distracted. This was a common enough occurrence that everyone assumed he was thinking over some scientific quandary or musing how best to make some idea into reality, but the truth was he couldn't seem to keep his mind off Sans. The small skeleton had always been an enigma: he never seemed to want to work but somehow his work was always done on time and was very thorough, he was always joking and being friendly with the other staff but didn't seem to actually be friends with anyone, he always looked rumpled and unkempt but somehow wasn't a walking hazard for his coworkers. In the past Gaster had just shrugged it off, Sans had applied here right after finishing school and his skills, grades, and long list of glowing recommendations was enough to get him hired. So long as he got his work done and done well, what did Gaster care?
But now Gaster did care. He found himself wondering what kind of monster Sans was to somehow learn to understand Gaster's garbled speech? It must have taken a great deal of dedication. Granted part of why Gaster hired Sans was because he was brilliant with patterns, but was that alone enough? Surely one of the few others that worked in the Lab would have figured out the trick before now if that were the case. Gaster had tested them, everyone else watched his hands. Perhaps Sans's way with words had something to do with it? He seemed able to pun and pull out clever wordplay in any situation.
Gaster shook his head to clear it of these circling thoughts, he was supposed to be looking over the reports on the Core's output and the projected numbers on the draw from the Underground's residents. With the extension of the dimensional power relays to Snowdin going online soon the draw on the Core was expected to go up quite a bit. Ah, here they are! Gaster picked up the reports and started looking them over. He noted they were written in Sans's round handwriting…
In disgust Gaster put the reports down and decided to go to the break room for a cup of coffee. This shouldn't be so distracting, why was his concentration so shot? Gaster sighed and berated himself over his inability to work as he prepared himself a cup of lukewarm, stale coffee. The object of Gaster's distraction walked in. It took all of Gaster's self control not to spit or choke on the coffee he was in the middle of drinking.
"heya doc, anything interesting going on?" Sans headed straight for the sink and rinsed out his own mug.
"NOTHING MUCH, JUST HAVING TROUBLE CONCENTRATING ON ALL THE DULL REPORTS I HAVE TO READ."
"you think reading them's dull? try writing them!" Sans winked up at Gaster before he turned his attention to the coffee pot.
"WELL PERHAPS THEY WOULDN'T BE SO DULL TO READ OR WRITE IF YOU PUT A LITTLE PIZZAZZ INTO THEM."
"oh sure, i'll just doll up the graphs on the core's recent readings with some glitter and stickers."
Gaster barked in laughter, the idea wasn't all together unappealing.
Sans grinned up at him like Gaster had just made his day. "i can turn all my reports into real craft projects. print them out on colored paper, get some of those scrap booking scissors, stickers, and glitter glue. jazz those reports up real nice, you won't be able to put them down."
Gaster wheezed as Sans continued, "IF YOU USE GLITTER GLUE I IMAGINE NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO PUT THEM DOWN."
"that's the point!"
Gaster laughed all the harder, then started to calm himself down. He had a wide smile on his face as he looked down at Sans, who was looking up at him with a smile just as wide. Gaster's soul gave an odd flutter.
Oh no.
"WELL THIS WAS A NICE BREAK, BUT I HAVE MY COFFEE AND SHOULD GET BACK TO WORK." Gaster's bullets signed wildly (he didn't even need them when it was just him and Sans, why had he summoned them?!) as he turned and power walked out of the room. He continued to power walk right to his office, where he shut and locked the door. He absently put down his mug of now cold coffee before collapsing into his chair, head on his desk, arms thrown haphazardly over that. He groaned loudly.
He can't have feelings for Sans! Sans was his employee for the Angel's sake! That would be highly inappropriate! Not to mention how much older Gaster was than Sans, maybe not quite old enough to be his father but close enough! And even if those two very good reasons weren't enough their personalities just weren't a match! Sans was very casual and immature, even if his silly jokes did always manage to make Gaster laugh… and Sans always knew when it was time to stop joking… and had proven time and again he was actually very responsible about his work load…
Gaster groaned again. No! This was wrong on too many levels! He sat up a little to look down at where his soul was fluttering in his chest, a soft light barely visible through his shirt. "YOU STOP THAT! I'M HIS BOSS, AND SO MUCH OLDER THAN HIM, IT WOULD NEVER WORK! AS ROYAL SCIENTIST I HAVE FAR TOO MANY RESPONSIBILITIES WITHOUT ADDING ANY COMPLICATIONS…"
But no matter how much he argued, his soul kept fluttering and glowing brighter and brighter.
Bonus:
Gaster picked up the file folder the next report was in, an unusual addition when most were just a few pages stapled together, then again this one felt a bit hefty. He casually flipped it open, some glitter fell out and onto his desk. Gaster looked down at the sprinkling of glitter in surprise, then focused back on the report itself. It was printed out on pastel green paper and seemed to have glitter thrown at it, just enough to leave the paper a little sparkly. There were also holographic smiley face stickers of various expressions stuck to the margins, one particularly frowny face was next to a section that was underlined. In red crayon.
Gaster had to repress a laugh, a hand over his mouth to hold in the manic giggles that were seeping out. He turned the page. The next paper was a graph that had been printed out on regular paper, parts of it colored in with marker, the whole thing cut out and pasted to a pastel pink paper. More holographic smiley face stickers at various data points. Gaster couldn't hold in the laughter any more. He dropped the folder and hid his face behind his hands as he laughed helplessly.