No One is Happy with This (Undertale)

55 ~ Uneasy Truce

A few weeks pass after the monster convention, and suddenly, it's been one entire year.

One whole year since you first heard Sans and Papyrus talking about their mysterious lost dad, one whole year since you started on the quest to find him. You're glad you did. He's a good person.

Even if he has some questionable morals.

As school finally ends and summer vacation begins, you find yourself gravitating more and more to the lab. Alphys, Sans, and Gaster are almost always there, and Papyrus and Undyne frequent the place as well. Gaster's also hired at least a dozen more monsters as employees, and fires and replaces at least one of them every week or so. (Sans assures you that in the Underground, he fired people almost daily.)

As the days go on, Gaster begins testing more and more CORE prototypes. He uses these runes in designing them, like some sort of magical written language that channels Magic... or something. He says every rune does something different, and different sequences of runes can do different things. In the proper order, apparently, you can do anything with runes and a little bit of Magic.

Yeah. Definitely a Magic language.

For the most part, the CORE prototypes are either too inefficient to be used, don't do anything at all, or blow up. Runes are, you suppose, a lot more complicated than you thought.

And then one day, Alphys comes into the lab leading a pair of humans.

The first is a man, about five foot five-ish. He's got flat brown hair and a fine fuzz of stubble across his jaw. The second is a tall woman with long, blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. They're both wearing lab coats.

Gaster has his back to them when they walk in, and he's in the process of explaining a particular detail of some Magic conversion units to Sans. Then he halts, mid-sentence, and slowly turns around, a look of incredulity on his face.

"Dr. Gaster?" The man asks. "Are you Dr. Gaster?"

Gaster gives him a cold look. "I am."

The woman lets out a sort of squeak noise, and the man starts babbling excitedly. It's a little ridiculous to watch, honestly. "Oh, golly, I've been reading that theory you published online about quantum mechanics and the relativity of space and time and can I just say it's amazing and I can't believe how accurate-"

"Stop." Gaster just lifts one hand, palm out, commanding silence. He is immediately obeyed. For a long moment, he just looks at the two humans, his face coldly impassive. Then, "Alphys. Why have you brought... these people into my lab?"

Alphys fidgets a little. "U-um, I w-was talking to them o-online, and m-mentioned that I knew you- and- heh--"

Gaster cuts her off with a sigh, reaching up to rub at his nasal bone with one hand. "Alphys... humans are not-"

"Hey, Gaster?" You interrupt, and the tall skeleton turns to you. "Can I, uh, talk to you a minute?"

He heaves another heavy sigh and follows you as you step into a side room. "Yes, Frisk?"

You decide it's best to be blunt. "You gotta be nicer to them."

Gaster frowns. "Frisk, they are-"

"Humans. Yeah. I know. Which is exactly why you have to be nice to them. Think, if you kick them out of the lab just because they're humans, how will that make monsters look to the rest of the world?"

His scowl deepens.

"Look, you don't have to be all buddy-buddy with them. Just-... be mildly civil, okay? Can you manage that?"

He gives you a glare. "What if I can't?"

"Gaster..."

Gaster throws his hands in the air. "Fine. Fine! I'll be nice to the filthy murderers-"

"Gaster!" You cut him off sharply. "Those two probably weren't even alive when the war happened! They've probably never even seen a monster before today, much less hurt one, much less killed one! They're decent people, not murderers."

Gaster doesn't reply vocally, but you can guess some of the things he's saying with each hand gesture.

"Look, just... treat them like interns you kinda dislike, okay? That'll be good progress."

He mutters something that sounds vaguely like confirmation.

You smile at him. "Great! Thanks!"

He turns to the door, reaching for the knob, then pauses. "Oh, and Frisk?"

"Yeah?"

"You're asking a heck of a lot of me, here, so you had dang better have some good compensation for it."

You chuckle a little. "I'll get Mom to make you some pie."

He scoffs a little, but still walks out, you trailing behind. You get a little nervous as Gaster stalks up to the two nervous humans, but he doesn't touch them.

(Not that that matters. You realize he could probably kill them without touching them.)

"Listen to me, and listen well." Gaster says in a low voice. "You touch any of this stuff, I'll drag you out into the street. You break something, I'll drag you out into the street then hold you there until a car runs over your legs, then I'll leave you there to rot. Don't. Break. My. Stuff. Understand?"

The humans nod quickly.

"Good." Gaster turns to Alphys. "You're responsible for keeping them out of trouble." Then he pivots on his heels and strides back to his desk. "Sans! Figured out that converter yet?"

And just like that, he's ignoring them.

You just smile as you make your way back to the spinny chair you had been sitting in.

§

A/N

Dunno why, but this chapter took forever to write.

Actually, scratch that, I do know why. It was because I was playing Cave Story, an amazing game that everyone needs to go play right now immediately.

Seriously. Go. Play it. Now.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

On another note, I have an idea for what I'll be writing after I finish NOiHwT (don't worry, the end is still a long way away), so we'll see if that pans out eventually.

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!