Spring Rain (hp!GASTER X READER)

Prologue

This used to be their home. It was their home. They were back, finally. And yet...something about it felt bitter. To all of them? He wouldn't know. But to him—he felt some twinge of rancour somewhere from within him. He wasn't even sure why. What else was sure, however, was the feeling of fear which took hold of his Soul in a vice-like grip.

It felt as if the sky had come crashing down on him the moment it sunk in that the barrier had been broken. Not by the King's hand, not by his own outrageous, cruel, meticulously planned project...but by a human. As he stood beneath the threshold to the surface, suddenly the new hope and happiness around him seemed to suffocate him. While other monsters' Souls glowed brightly with euphoria, his was muffled by the dark sins that had come weighing down on him—a punishment well predicted, but not in such a startling change of fate. His foretelling of the King's, of Alphys', of everyone's unforgiveness towards his plan and his direct disobedience to the King's orders, of his eviction, his erasure from historical records, his definite imprisonment, his possible execution, all have seemed much more promising than whatever disaster has befallen him now. A bold proclamation, given how he had been shivering upon coming to terms with these possibilities the day he had first committed to this 'project'.

For one thing, he felt an enormous amount of relief upon the reassurance that Asgore hadn't.....he stopped that thought. In any way, that was at least one thing out of mind. But there was another, more troubling problem.

Said project was now prone to compromise.

He stood in his lab, an organized mess of papers and utilities occupying the entire surface of the metal table he was leaning over. A bead of sweat trickled down his skull. What was he going to do, now? What was he to do about...? A grimace screwed his face up as he saw his discarded nametag peeking from beneath binders and papers. He suddenly felt sick.

Doctor Wingdings Gaster. Dignified scientist of the underground, Asgore's personal servant, the greatest scientific mind to ever grace the monsters' world and possibly the humans' once he stepped back into the surface with the rest of his kind...how unfitting, how embarrassing, how useless all these shiny titles were, now. His usual superficial reassurance to his ego and repute proved feeble against his shame.

Wingdings was pacing his lab in frustration, baffled as to how something like this would happen in the first place. Of course, it shouldn't have been a problem; it was unprecedented that there'd be a day in which a human fell into the underground and Asgore himself accepted them with a sentimental 'heart'. All while an empty vial was preserved for a seventh human— who should've been this one, that incongruous Frisk— and monsters remained sat, waiting for their last call for freedom to finally be answered. No, this was never meant to happen. Wholeheartedly, there was no possible way he couldn't feel elated by the notion of freedom but by the gods, did it have to be won at such a terrible time?

Ugh! How did it happen? How did Asgore let it happen?! What was so special about that human that made him break his oath and neglect his own chil—

Gaster's fist shakes the metal table. Its uneven legs wobble upon the vinyl tiles, sending an echo throughout the spacious room. A couple of small, surprised whimpers sounded from behind him in return.

...No, he wouldn't return to that mentality. He had drifted far apart from the king and queen to consider himself their own. Their child.

He let out a laboured breath, a shaky skeletal hand coming to cover his face...he peeked right through. A sour chuckle escaped him. The tainted fruit of equally rotten labour.

Gaster's eyes closed like those of a defeated soldier as he slowly shook his head, his shoulders eagerly releasing their tension. Melancholy held on to his mind, stubborn.