Spring Rain (hp!GASTER X READER)

Chapter 1

ONE YEAR LATER....

Docile and quick to sweep one's fatigue from its high ground, the early eve's first tides of comfort reached out to those seeking release, beckoning them into her warm embrace. However, Gaster's troubled mind could have been put at ease, albeit a discordant clash of mellowness against disquietude if she only reached deeper into the crevices.

The scientist weaved through the crowd whose first impression of him had seemingly been unsatisfactory to itself, opting to double the number of its bodies teeming across the sunburnt asphalt. And while for once in the year that they had been here, the humans' gazes didn't burn holes through the back of the Monsters' heads, Gaster still couldn't find it in himself to deem it even a small bit comforting to be within the confines of hot air and moving bodies, human or not.

Gaster gripped his briefcase closer to his torso, scowling like a prickly owl as he tripped over others' feet more times than he could care to count. Sweat dewed onto his ivory visage, his hands aimlessly switching between his belongings and his stars-damned glasses that wouldn't stop falling from his face each time a shoulder bumped into his. He let out an exasperated huff, grumbling to himself as he wished that this singular gust of air would have swept away all of his frustrations like wind to mounds of sand, the feeling instead renewing its presence with each sigh. If only tangible, these tiresome feelings, he would have collapsed them in his hands like a piece of paper and skipped them through the water of disregarded burdens as he did when he was once a younger Monster. But alas, his negativity's foundations have grown too strong, only serving to weigh his shoulders down like those of a hermit...yet all the same, Gaster had to remind himself of the reason for this day's exceptionally thicker crowds.

This day would be the last congressional meeting between the Ministry of Monster-Human Affairs and the Monsters' Royal Embassy. Through months of writing, researching, and contention, Gaster had seemed to find a serendipitous home within the Embassy, diligently fulfilling his role as Royal secretary to the King and Queen. Since a fortnight, however, the slow arrival of the deadline for said meetings had set a thick air of tension over their heads; the closer they had gotten to it, the more humans and monsters butt heads like angry bulls to their matador.

While the Monsters and more righteous humans fought civilly to embed the former's rights into what sacred book the congress kept between its corrupted despotic hands, the prejudiced sorts roared their throats out till they bled their injustice into every grain on the table they slammed their fists on, denying any chance of rebuttal on the monsters' end. Dyed in the wool as his position was, Gaster found it quite pestilent, their hard-headed persistence. He had to admit, nevertheless, that he greatly appreciated the humans that stood on the side of righteousness. Ever since...the War, the scientist had had qualms regarding the future of Monsters and humans when the day came that the barrier would be broken, so the humans' immediate need to help the monsters integrate into society was a pleasant surprise, if not quite heart-warming.

However, Gaster liked to believe that he and his kind didn't necessarily need support from the humans to get their way. That Frisk had freed them at such an unforeseen chance did not mean that they couldn't do so themselves, no matter how long it would have taken them. When hardening their resolve and holding on to their hope, the Monsters knew that they could accomplish all that they wanted. They cared not that this society had voided itself of their history, they would expect to come across violent racists, but the only thing their minds zeroed in on today, was that they win their spot as rights-deserving members of society— that they prove themselves capable of overcoming whatever hatred-inspired acts the prejudiced made against them.

A timid rush of hope coursed through Gaster's body as he took in a deep breath. He knew he wouldn't be getting any more than that until the meeting came, so he would hold on to what he had, for now. Gaze pleading for a break from the sight of people's backs, he let his eyes wander overhead.