No One is Happy with This (Undertale)

35 ~ Too Smart

For a long time, you and Dr. Gaster just look at each other. His face is blank; you have no idea what he's thinking.

And then you find yourself being lifted into the air and slammed against a wall, Blue Magic and Gaster's hands all but immobilizing you. Then he summons another hand, right over your throat, and begins to strangle you.

You look at his face, struggling and gasping. He looks

Perfectly.

Calm.

Not even mildly disturbed, excited, angry, nothing.

Black spots start to appear in your vision, your lungs are burning. Every heartbeat seems to pound in your skull.

You try to plead. Nothing but a choked gasp escapes your mouth.

You try to struggle. Your limbs are weak.

You try, you try, you try--

Suddenly, it all lets up, and you collapse to the floor in a heap, gasping and choking.

When you finally get around to looking up, you see Dr. Gaster has crouched down next to you on one knee. He's looking at you with mild interest, as if you're some specimen to be examined, an unusual statistic turned out of an experiment.

Not a living person. Not someone he almost just killed.

He waits until you've calmed down a little, and you're not making so many gasping noises, before speaking, still all the while with that calm expression. "Frisk. I want to make one thing absolutely clear to you: I hate humans. They're a filthy, cruel race who deserve to be slain like the demons they are. It would be my genuine pleasure to kill them all. You especially, you freakish little anomaly. I would love to rip out your throat. And when you reset, then I would disembowel you. And when you reset again, well, I would find another way to kill you. I hate you especially, after everything you've done to my sons, all the times you killed them. Yeah, I know about that. And I would fight you again and again, just for the sake of it. I don't care that you can come back, I would keep fighting you. And you could never win, because you can't kill what doesn't exist to die."

He pauses for a moment, looking at you, perhaps to see if you understand.

When he talks again, his voice is low and threatening. "There is only one thing, one thing standing between you and an infinity of painful deaths. That is Sans. Because he knows. He knows everything you've done, yet he still decides to trust you. And I trust him. So I'm going to say this, and I'm only saying it once: I'm going to accept that you exist. I'm not going to be happy about it, in fact, I'm likely going to be downright hostile about it. But I'll spare you the eternities of death. I will never like you. But I accept that you are here." He pauses a moment, then leans forward, lifting your chin so you're looking directly at him. "And if you ever, ever hurt one of them again, you'll only have the rest of eternity to regret it. Understand?"

You nod. Very quickly.

"Good." Dr. Gaster rises and turns away from you, stepping back to where Sans and Papyrus sit unconscious. He starts checking over the machines, making sure Sans is still okay.

You rub your throat. It still hurts. In fact, most of you hurts: your gut, from when Chara punched you; your back, from when Chara slammed you into the floor; your head, from just now, when Dr. Gaster smashed you into the wall; your wrists and ankles, where he held on to you; and your throat, as he had strangled you.

You know you shouldn't. You're already in pain, and Dr. Gaster doesn't like you. He just said so.

But...

Nnnngh...!

You're so curious, back to the thumbless cat.

You can't help it.

"Are you- are you really their dad?"

Dr. Gaster looks up at you, a mildly irritated look on his face. "... Yes."

That makes you feel a little bad, because it's clear in the way he's taking care of Sans and Papyrus that he really does love them, and you said he didn't to get Papyrus to work on the machine. And he does love them. He was trying to protect them from Chara.

Speaking of Chara...

"Chara said you needed a Soul to escape the Void, but you still got out while they had your Soul... how did you do that?"

Again, Dr. Gaster looks up at you with an annoyed expression. But, surprisingly, he actually explains. "The demon may have had my Soul, but it was still my Soul, and the Soul and body are irrevocably connected. Everything they put into the Soul, like, say, their determination, went straight to me. So I just used that."

You think about that for a moment. Then you smile a little. "So it was like a trade. They may have had your Soul, but you had all their determination!"

Dr. Gaster grins, just a little, his mouth twisting viciously upwards. "Except when I got my Soul back, I still had all the DT they gave me. I still do have it." He glances down at Sans, his smile softening just a little. "... Maybe even almost as much as he has."

You blink a little. "But... how can Sans have so much determination? I thought it melted monsters. I mean, he told me that a long time ago, he could reset, and that takes a lot of determination. So... how can he do that?"

Dr. Gaster lets out a slow sigh without looking up from Sans. "Determination is... tricky. It's not a static thing, not like a humans have it and monsters can't have it thing. It's largely dependent on how much physical matter one has in their body, and monsters generally tend to have less physical matter in their bodies, and simply can't contain DT as well as humans. But, I mean, look at Sans. He's not fat, he's big boned. Thick. Solid. As a result, he's able to sustain more deter-..." Dr. Gaster trails off, looking at you.

"What?" You ask, suddenly a little concerned. Dr. Gaster looks rather annoyed, and that kinda scares you.

"No." He responds. "No, no no no. Stop it. Stop it now!"

"Stop what?!" You ask, just a little bit of panic in your voice.

"Stop--" he gestures wildly, his hands moving in erratic, frustrated motions. "Stop- being so smart! I don't like you, and when you keep asking relatively insightful questions, my knee-jerk reaction is to answer! So stop... making me socialize with you!"

You can't help it. You burst out laughing.

Dr. Gaster just glares at you for a long moment, then apparently resolves to ignore you.

Oh, yes, there's no denying it. Even if Dr. Gaster doesn't like you at all, you really do like him. So long as he's not trying to kill you.

§

A/N

So I drank a can of Pepsi waaaaay too fast and now my stomach is really upset and I keep burping. It's kinda annoying.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!