Falling Star

Coastline

Chapter 7 - Heavier: 7/9/25, 5 PM Eastern

Chapter 8 - First Punch: 7/30/25

There’s something about magic that makes you feel alive. There is a pulse to it, like a heartbeat, like measured breaths, a cadence, a flow, a current. It is a coursing river, the rush of wind, a blazing fire, energy and warmth and life, cresting movement, ceaseless flow. You can taste it faintly in the air, sense it radiating from Sans, feel the tether of silver threads to your SOUL, and feel that core of your being shining like a sun burning with power.

Your SOUL sings with magic.

...It’s so easy to give in to that song.

You sighed a deep breath and Gaster pressed a knuckle under your chin, coaxing your eyes up towards his, eyelights warm in his dark sockets. <Look at me.> he signed with a single gesture before taking your other hand and began leading you in a dance. It had been a few months since your birthday when he gave you your first (and only) dancing lesson. How different things had been back then, Gaster now corporeal again and your SOULs fully bound. He wasn’t as close to you this time, but you could follow his steps well enough. One might expect an awkward geek from the former royal scientist, but he was nothing of the sort. His moves were perhaps as dated as Motley Crue, but he made dancing look effortless and easy, just oozing charisma in his graceful motions. You hoped you could mirror a fraction of that.

He leaned down, kissing your cheek before rumbling lowly in your ear, barely loud enough to be heard over the music, [Relax.] The husky whisper of his wingdings made shivers roll down your spine. Oh how the fuck could you relax when his voice sounded like that?  

Stop thinking, don’t worry over what you look like. Trust me.

A half-formed image of being in the water at sunset flashed through your mind. If he could face his fears, so could you.

Move with me.

[Where do you think you’re going?] Gaster had drowsed, one long, skeletal arm curling around your middle when you tried to climb out of bed, pulling you back against his ribcage. He haden’t even looked at you, eye sockets still closed and his head half buried in a pillow.

“I’m...getting up?” you replied with a confused laugh.

[Not permitted.] he gruffly said, his voice partially muted by the pillow.

You giggled quietly at him, deciding five more minutes snuggled up with your boyfriend wouldn’t hurt.

You looked skyward and, much like the ocean view you’d shared earlier today, this too was nothing like your mindscape when you Fell. In your head, that sky was a perfect black with icy-white cold and distant stars, but here...

The cosmos stretched out before you in all its splendor. It was not monochrome, countless sparking stars glittered in shades of every hue, sprinkled through the Milky Way painted with a haze of purple and blue glowing dust. It was endless, an ocean of another sort that called to you just the same. Maybe it was the alcohol in your system, or just a feeling born of seeing so much space, so much more than you could ever perceive living near Ebott that had you lifting your arms, your fingers and magic reaching up into the empty air like you would float away amidst a celestial current, heedless of gravity’s pull.

And then then you were floating--Oh, wait, that was Gaster, lifting you up and cradling you in his arms. Your breath hitched in your chest as you beheld him properly now that your eyes had adjusted, his white bones bathed in starlight, exposed beneath his black, partially unbuttoned shirt. He effortlessly held you aloft, like you weighed no more than a feather, his skull canted up towards the heavens.