Garden-Variety

Gaster almost spilled his ink when the knock on the door startled him. Nevertheless, he said "Enter!"

"Gaster! Was looking for you." Shane opened the door and leaned into the doorway of the room where Gaster was editing something. "I know Roy's the one who usually gets you to come out of your little hole, but I thought I'd be the one to fetch you for a change."

Gaster's face fell. "Training? Again?"

"No, something else entirely. I saw you in the gardens last night. Would you like to take a closer look with someone who can tell you what they are?"

It wasn't the revelation that Shane had seen him unaware that shocked him. It was the fear that someone would judge him for it. "It's not a distraction from my duties! I do it on my own time!"

"Bro, you don't need to hide that you like looking at plants."

"But it's not part of a Wizard's job -"

"Nobody else spends nearly as long as you on this stuff. You can take some time off. It's good for you."

"Good for me," Gaster repeated skeptically. "To shirk my duties."

"To restore your ability to focus, and come up with new ideas."

Gaster very much wanted to take up the offer, but something in him was curling up into a ball at the mere idea of doing something he had not been ordered to do. "Can you get someone to formally excuse me from my duties so I don't spend my time obsessing over when I'm expected to come back?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, Roy's downstairs. Come with me and I'll ask him to give you the afternoon off."

"And you'll take responsibility for bringing me out there if it turns out I'm not supposed to have left?"

Shane was visibly taken aback, but did eventually smile. "Don't anticipate it happening, but I'll take the fall if it helps you feel better about it."

"All right." Gaster placed the cover on his desk - a large tray that covered the whole thing, something that he'd thought of so he wouldn't have to spend several minutes putting away the piles of paper on his desk every time he left. "Lead the way."