The Time Before (Undertale)

19 ~ Dr. Gaster, the Royal Scientist

Sans had been awake for a good few hours now.

He had fallen asleep some time after Jeff had come... and then was forced out. How long he had been asleep he didn't know, but he had been awake for several hours.

At least, he thought it had been. It felt like hours. Maybe it hadn't been. Maybe it had only been a few minutes.

Maybe, it had been an eternity.

Maybe, decades had passed outside the lab, and monsters had all gone on with their lives, lived with their families, alive and well, and fathers took care of their children--

"Sans."

Sans half-opened his right eye. As soon as he did so, a wave of nausea flooded over him, but he forced it down. Gaster was standing beside the table, looking down at Sans.

"... hnnngn..."

"I need to take the bandage off. Check to make sure everything's still healing right."

"... 'kay." He closed his eye again.

"Sit up."

Sans blew out a slow breath. His head still hurt, and moving too much made him feel sick.

"Sans. Sit up."

Sans took a deep breath. Slowly, right eye still tightly closed, he pushed himself up on his elbows. He paused there for a moment, breathing slowly to ward off the oncoming nausea. After a moment, he began to push himself to sit up.

By the time he was sitting upright, he felt like he was going to puke. He was shivering fiercely, and doubted he would be able to stay upright for long.

Suddenly, though, there was something pressed against his back, supporting the base of his skull, keeping him up. Sans realized it was Gaster's arm, his hand holding Sans' head in place.

Sans leaned into Gaster's arm, still trembling and nauseous, but just a bit less so with the support.

Gaster, meanwhile, began unwrapping the bandages around Sans' skull. Once the bandages were off, Gaster tilted Sans' skull forward, looking along the back of it.

Sans tried to stay still, stop trembling. He took deep breaths, eyes tightly closed, trying to block out the pain in his skull and the nausea that made his vision swim.

Then a sharp stab of agony tore through his skull. He cried out, lurching forward and away from the pain.

Gaster let him sit for a moment, hunched over, head nearly to his knees, breathing hard, before carefully but firmly forcing him up again. This time, though, Gaster gripped Sans' jaw, tilting his skull upwards.

"Open your eyes."

"n-no-..." Sans whimpered. Opening his eyes would only mean more nausea.

"Sans."

"n-no-- don'-- wanna--... m-makes me s-i-ick-..."

Gaster sighed frustratedly. "Sans, I need to see your eye. The sooner I can make sure everything is in order, the sooner you can go to bed."

Bed... sounded good. Sans wanted to go to bed. He wanted to curl up under the covers and sleep, sleep forever, just sleep.

Slowly, taking shaky breaths, Sans opened his eyes. He struggled against the wave of nausea that threatened to drown him, his trembling getting worse every second, his breaths coming sharp and fast.