PATCHWORK SOUL - NEW MEDIUM

HUMANS? IN MY UNDERGROUND? CHAPTER 8

The wee hours of the morning were encroaching. Undyne had long since left and even so — and in spite of the grey around his eye sockets — Gaster had still not even attempted to sleep. Frisk couldn't be sure, but she suspected his reasoning might be similar to when she or Sans pushed themselves to keep awake. She wondered why. He was so quiet, though. A combination of feeling ill and exhaustion, probably.

Despite that, the old skeleton looked content. Even if the chills came back a few times and his soul played its song in reverse, he had become relatively stable after two slices of pie.

The solidarity play— now titled "The Dark Prince and the Time Travel Princess", for whatever Mettaton's reasons were— was still playing on the MTT channel. It was an edited version, though, cut with extra special effects and close-ups from cameras Frisk didn't even realize had been filming from certain angles. Her father seemed fascinated despite his obvious exhaustion. She was watching him a lot more than the show as she lazed with her back against one of the armrests.

Frisk tried not to doze. It was hard, though, and her eyelids were getting heavy. She could see a shadow around Gaster when she squinted. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and that jarred her upright a little. It was Asriel.

"u ok?" he asked.

"yup" she said.

"lol so I guess u kno i saw ur dad" he said. "thats gotta be the weirdest thing thats ever happened like ever so...."

"I know right????" Frisk said. She couldn't help but smile. "i'm super happy tho"

"me too. for u and dad" he said. "they were like bffs, i mean, he's basically my uncle so this is pretty cool. how are the boneheads btw?"

"paps is like T_T but also ^_^" Frisk said. "and sans is just sans"

"lmao ok" Asriel said. "good?"

"he was so chill it was really good" Frisk said. "hes so nice to me when weird stuff happens, seriusly. think i'd kinda go nuts without him"

"lol u 2 r super weird but i'm happy for u" he said. "hey its really late, go 2 bed ok? i got your back tomorro."

Frisk smiled fondly. She was glad to have him, too. "ok ok i'll go soon. gotta babysit this giant skeleton tho i think he's trying to do the antinitemare strat lol"

"pffffff guess u really r related =P" Asriel said. "goodnight love u"

"<3 love u too!!!!" she said.

She looked up from the screen as she dulled it and checked Gaster. His eyes were glowing faintly.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh. Just fine," he said. "Who is this playing the piano?"

"Undyne," she said.

"So she... knows your song," he said softly. "It was playing. Before. And yet..."

"Oh. Yeah." She smiled. "It kinda mashes with Asriel's. We dunno why. Something probably to do with weird time stuff. Kinda cool, right? She was the first one that noticed that they went together."

The skeleton smiled slightly. He nodded and brushed his fingers across his eyes.

Frisk watched him silently for a few seconds. She grabbed up one of the blankets she'd dragged down earlier and pulled it up over herself before scooting right up against his side. He froze for a moment and looked down at her with wide eyes, seeming to forget the show entirely.