The Time Before (Undertale)

35 ~ Home in Snowdin

It was an incredibly good thing that Gaster had reunited with his creations when he did, as it meant he had somewhere to go to calm down on the rare occasions that his work became too aggravating.

When he finally managed to shove aside the lingering thoughts and ideas about the DTW project, and finally moved on to other ideas to break the Barrier, only to come to the conclusion that he had no other ideas, and inevitably got fed up with the whole thing, it meant he could slip away from the True Lab, and come to the little hotel room in New Home, and, at least for a little while, forget all the problems besieging him.

It used to be that his favorite place in the Underground was the True Lab. He knew it well, knew every inch of space, knew what every single funny-looking switch and large red button did. The place was his place, it obeyed his command, it followed his orders.

But now, Gaster's favorite place to be was the hotel.

Well. No. That wasn't true.

His favorite place to be was with Sans and Papyrus, wherever they may be, whether that was New Home or Hotland or Waterfall or Snowdin.

And it was to the brothers that he went when things at the Lab got too chaotic, or when he made things at the Lab too chaotic or too frustrating.

They helped him. Immensely.

There were questions, of course. Never directly to him, but he could still hear them, the questions and the rumors, whispered by nervous employees, behind his back.

Where does he go?

What does he do?

He never used to leave the Lab. Now he does on a daily basis, sometimes even in the middle of the day. Why?

...What went wrong?

But it never bothered him. It was none of their business, and he did nothing to make it their business.

By the time Sans was twenty one and Papyrus seven, (Papyrus being almost half an inch taller than Sans now,) something occurred to Gaster.

"Hey... Hey, boys."

They both looked up from what they were doing (Papyrus homework, and Sans napping) to look at Gaster.

"You know, I have a perfectly good house in Snowdin. All expenses paid, bigger than this little hotel room."

"are you suggesting..." Sans trailed off.

Gaster looked at Papyrus, who was just looking confused. "Hey, Papyrus. Wanna move to Snowdin? There's a big empty house there, one that needs some occupants."

"Oh, can we?!" He looked at Sans.

Sans nodded. "sure, if ya want."

Papyrus grinned.

~o0o~

Moving commenced that weekend. The brothers had lived in that hotel room for a good few years, now, and had amassed a considerable collection of odds and ends. Sans found it had not been the washing machine at the laundromat's that had been swallowing all his socks, but, in fact, the depths of the darkness under his bed. When they learned that, Gaster got a good few laughs out of it by pulling the dusty socks out from under the bed and throwing them at Sans.

Sans made a lot of puns about getting socked in the skull.

Papyrus wished Sans would stop with the puns, and was annoyed that they were getting dust everywhere and had Sans really bought that many socks and lost them all UNDER THE BED?? but that was all outweighed by his happiness at seeing his family so happy.