Friendly Stalker

You open your eyes to the white blurry ceiling of your hospital room yet again. Your throat aches, your head throbs and your muscles spasm yet you stay emotionless, empty, on your bed. After a few minutes of near paralizis you sit up slowly, your skull still complaining about your movement and the continuous beep of the machine next to you. Its incessant beeping reminding you that you are indeed alive. You breathe slowly in and out to calm your shaking while you remove the needles in your arms.

“This time was quick…” you croak out. “Gaster, are you there?”

It takes a moment but he answers back. Yes. Good morning. he finishes softly with your name.

“When did I wake up this time?”

Same as last time.

You nod and thank him. Your exhausted body is wracked by tremors as you twist yourself to face the electrocardiogram. “Do you perhaps know how to turn off that thing?” You hope he does.

He lets out a soft laugh as a ‘Finally’ dangles through your thoughts momentarily and your arm lift itself to push at a few buttons. Seconds after, the machine turns off and you can remove it.

“Thank you…” You hoist yourself out of bed to sit in one of the chairs next to it. You feel his proud, somewhat smug, smile roll on you shoulder and you quickly add. “…smartass.” With a smirk on your own lips. He lets out another short laugh and you put your prosthetic on.

You get up and go about your routine of dressing up, chatting with nurse 1 and 2 and Doc. and get out of there.

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Walking through the forest you put all your stealth training to the test as you tiptoe, climb and crawl through the thick vegetation You make sure to look out for any of the rangers roaming the place. It'be useful to know this side of the mountain's patrol schedule, but you don't have the time to map it out or find one of their bases. You'll just have to rely on your instinct. Your mask is dangling at your hip in the eventuality that you do get caught by one of them. Don’t want the same episode as last time happening again now, do you? Alongside it is a thin, but very strong and long rope you decided to add to your equipment, graciously proposed by the disembodied voice of your male friend.

You arrive at the entry, put your mask on and take the rope from your hip. You tie it up to a big, half buried, rock and test-tug it before descending back first into the dark entrance.

Once your whole body as gone through the cavernous hole in the ground, Gaster asks you to wait. You wonder .

“What’s up?”

I’d like to test something, if you’d be willing to indulge me.

With your agreement, one of your hands tighten its hold on the rope as the other lets go to try to grip back the ledge. Before it can reach it, your fingers hit an invisible surface. You settle your palm on the force field.

Mnh… Just as I suspected.

You nod, taking the rope back into two hands to restart the descent ‘I won’t be able to get out through here.’ He acquiesce. ‘Well, too bad I guess…’

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After sneaking your way past the ruins and Toriel’s house while she was out on one of her patrols, you re-open the door leading to Snowdin and get engulfed by the fresh wind blowing inside. You start your fast walk, hoping to catch your little Frisk on the way. Without all the encounters, they shouldn’t be too far a head.

How are you feeling, dear? You seem a bit sluggish. Gaster ponders.

‘I’m taking my time on this one, I want to do everything correctly.’ He hums. ‘I was stupid before. I just wanted Frisk, I didn’t stop to think. I’m in unknown territory here. Even if I’ve got you to aid me, I have to be cautious.’

Agreed.

You stop at the guard post, a bit confused.

‘Where is he?’

You put a hand on the counter and lean to look inside.

‘The skeleton. He should be here, sleeping, shouldn’t he?’

Gaster calls your name, effectively getting your attention.

You’re being followed.

You frown and snap your head up and around, looking for any clue of some movement.

‘Where G?’

I am not sure, I’m picking up some magic in your surrounding, but my vision is... It's actually blurry? I can't focus.

The both of you feel incredulous at his words. This doesn't sound good, it sound like it's unusual for Gaster too. It makes no sense.

You step back from the guard post and start running.

‘All right, let’s go then.’

The faster you find someone or a public spot with eyes on you, the safer you’ll be.

.

.

.

After a few seconds of not seeing your retreating back, Sans comes out of his spot behind a couple of trees. Did you sense him? Looks like you did. Teleporting near were you should be was an easy guess and everytime he would wait for you to disappear from his vision before teleporting foward near you again. He won't bet on the possibility of you noticing him if he ever moves too much. He doesn't know yet how you'll react.

You arrived a bit sooner, this time around. After the last reset, he wasn’t sure he would see you again. You appearing out of nowhere is another anomaly added to the lot.

Are you tied to the kid? Maybe. Maybe not. There were a lot of resets made by them before you started showing up, but now that you do, you're actions have yet to set a pattern.

Seriously, you baffle him. Why you? Why a skeleton? Why now? Why not sooner? What is your role in all of this? Asgore forbid, so many unanswered questions…

Obviously the kid is one of your goals. After your stunt on the bridge, it’s obvious you’ve taken interest in them.

What could they bring you? Are you after their soul? Are you… Are you working for the king?

No, he wouldn’t have kept that kind information from him, would he?

The royal guards would've been made aware of a mercenary like you. Are you scared of falling down? It's a strong possibility. Alone as you are you'd need something strong, something to drive you. But after all those years, you still emmanate such a strong energy. You must've been something in your youth.

Are you beginning to panic? Desperate enough to desire a human soul? You do look like nothing holds much value in your gaze except the kid…

Or maybe you were born long after the the war and you have nothing to do with this? It could be the case too, except… you should have a file. Every skeleton in the underground used to have one and he never found another live one except Papyrus’ and his.

All this pondering, it's gonna give him a migraine. No time, he snaps out of his "daydream".

You’re almost at Snowdin now. The kid is still nowhere in sight. You've shown up and they didn’t. He really hopes they've just decided to take their sweet time and that they'll catch up with Paps later on.

Once in the town, you finally stop running.

Yeah. Wow. Finally.

He was gonna die from exhaustion just watching your race so relentlessly all the way to here. He teleports in the crowd behind you to follows your slow pace, only a few steps away. You shouldn't be able to recognize his magic throught the bustling street and even if you do, he's just one of the people living around here. He can pretend.

You look at your surrounding like you’ve never even seen this place. It fit with the fact that he or his brother (who would probably be very curious about you honestly) have never seen you here before.

The deeper you go in Snowdin, the more people start to greet and joke with Sans while he follows you. Nervousness well hidden behind one of his smile, he nods to them or throw a little pun/joke over his shoulder, much to the delight or disdain of the listeners, and continues on his track. That is, until Punk Hamster struts up to Sans calling him loudly before reaching him.

Sans turns to him in silent panic, a fake nonchalant air covering his tight smile.

“Hey, what’s up?” He ask calmly, hoping it gives a hint to the green-haired monster to lower his volume.

"What up with you, you mean?” The hamster monster says, just as loudly while Sans cringes. “It’s been two days, man! Two days we haven’t seen you at the bar. The place’s ‘lready getting boring without ya. Don’t tell me that you’re finally running away from Grillbz and your tab.”

He laugh just as loudly, maybe more, and elbows the small skeleton amicably. Said skeleton only let out a short and jerky laugh.

“Nah. Don’t worry bud, I’ll-” He tense up, his words dying in his imaginary throat as he notices you heading his way.

You’ve heard the voices behind you a little while ago and when you turned around, you realized one of them actually belonged to the skeleton you were supposed to ‘meet’ at the guard post. Not seeing Frisk around and knowing that he is supposed to meet them eventually, you decide to go to him. You'll try and find a way to know the whereabouts of the kid later.

Your body grows tenser at every steps toward him and you do your best at trying to calm Gaster. Just before you reach him, his friend bids him farewell as he nod to him quickly before looking back to you.

What the fuck should he say? What the fuck can he say? What do you want with him? Damn, calm down! ‘Just do what you always do.’ He thinks. He put on a friendly grin and force his body to drop lazily.

You are making him nervous, dearest. The voice in your head informs you.

‘Is he as much as you right now G? Do all skeleton get so jumpy when they meet another of their kind?’ Gaster let out something akin to a growl of annoyance at you, much to your surprise.

‘Relax sweetie, you're making me nervous. I swear, everything will go just fine. Don’t worry.’ You squeeze your own hand in empathy and feel him squeeze it back reluctantly as he lets himself be calmed down.

You stop in front of the smaller skeleton, both of you just stare at each other for a short while. The suspense is wrecking Sans’ nerves. At this point, he's not even subtle. Just before he can break the silence, you lift you hand to him, silently asking him to take it. He looks back into your empty eye sockets as you patiently wait for him. You dip your head to the side in, what you hope, looked like a friendly gesture. He looks at your hand again and finally move to take it.

His hand never reach yours.

Time resets.

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Where are they? Where are they? Last time they were right behind them, so where are they now? They waited for them for a while now.

Oh no, Sans would never forgive them if they did a reset for nothing. That skeleton has to come back. Frisk has to find them.

Where. Are. They?

The stress is eating to much at Frisk, they’ll start over, from the save this time. Just to find them. It’s not a full reset so it’s fine.

...Right?