On Friday evening, when Toriel visited Frisk…
“THERE YOU GO!” Papyrus exclaimed. “THE GREAT PAPYRUS’ GOURMET REUNIONGHETTI, COMING RIGHT UP!”
‘Reunionghetti’ was more or less a carrot spaghetti with a tomato base. Sprinkled with edible sequins. Lots of shredded carrots. Lots of tomato. Lots of sequins.
Typical Papyrus brand.
The tall skeleton proceeded to serve Alphys, Undyne, and Mettaton a plate of the same spaghetti. The only person truly happy to receive it was the robotic star.
“Oh darling,” praised the robot. “You accepted my suggestion after all! I’m so delighted~”
“IT’S A GREAT IDEA, METTATON! REUNIONS SHOULD TASTE OF HAPPINESS!”
Undyne wished she could suplex that robot into the trashcan right here and now. Papyrus’ unsupervised cooking was bad enough without the influence of his needless glam.
Alphys remained as quiet as a mouse ever since the pentagon incident. Her fish lover leaned to her side for a whisper.
“You okay, Al?” she asked.
The lizard lady nodded. “I-I’m fine. Just. Uh. Shy.”
“If you need me to get you outta here, just let me know alright?”
“Mhmm. Thanks. But I’m okay for now.” Alphys spoke with a quiet resolve beneath her mousy exterior. She’s trying to remember more about this mysterious Doctor Gaster.
‘Uncle Gaster’ stared at the plate with the same expression as anyone else who’d try a Papyrus-brand spaghetti for the first time: uncertain concern about its edibility, coupled with the strong desire to remain polite.
Effort was poured into this. Innocent, passionate effort. Everyone felt that it would be too cruel to critique.
The ever-flowing skeleton man picked up his fork and spoon with a sense of graceful refinement. He twirled a helping of spaghetti and popped it straight in the mouth.
“Hmm.” Gaster commented. “Who taught you to use carrots to sweeten the base?”
Beaming with pride, Papyrus answered: “TORIEL! SHE COULDN’T BEST MY CREATIVITY, BUT SHE COOKS WELL.”
The other skeleton chuckled in response. “Ah, Her Majesty. To be fair she had always been more of a pastry chef. Can never outdo her butterscotch pie. So, who taught you your basic culinary skills?”
“UNDYNE! SHE’S A WALKING STOVE OF PASSIONATE GUSTO!”
Discovering the true culprit behind the terrible cooking, Gaster shot the coldest of narrow glares at Undyne. His gaze of disapproval cut through her like a sharp sword swung at full strength.
There was no mercy for her culinary transgression against monsterkind.
The fish lady tensed up. Sans’ mentor was way more brutal than his protegé.
Gaster continued eating the spaghetti with the same straight-face professionalism as before. It takes a certain man to eat Papyrus’ meals without a single flinch.
“You have some good ideas.” He commented. “But… they’re unrefined. I’m afraid to say that as it is now, your dish will not achieve its fullest happiness quotient.”
Papyrus looked a bit disappointed.
“How about this, Papyrus. Give me a night to refine your recipe, and you will have a product that would truly bring smiles to at least ninety-percent of your audience.”
Ever clueless of the subtext, Papyrus gasped: “ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I COULD MAKE EVEN MORE PEOPLE HAPPY???”
“Indeed, indeed.” Gaster nodded.
“WOWIE! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU’RE AN ACCOMPLISHED CHEF, UNCLE GASTER!”
“Oh dear, I’m nothing of the sort.” He replied, keeping a cheerful yet humble tone to his speech. “I had learned much of the theories from your parents. All credit should go to them.”
The mere mention of the word ‘parents’ was enough to catch everyone’s attention.
Mettaton asked, “Parents…?”
Alphys echoed the statement. “Parents…? You knew Papyrus’ parents?”
Undyne recalled a strange circumstance in her Core case. The last time she tried to perform a background check on Sans and Papyrus, she found… nothing. As if someone forgot to fill in their details in the monsterkind citizenship registry.
And she was certain that they weren’t abandoned children. Asgore talked about their old folks dying young.
There were plenty of jokes that the brothers just puffed out of thin air. Or hatched from an egg. Or brought to the Underground by storks. Or they were the results of ghastly homunculi experiments from a hidden lab. Some went as far as to claim that they’re lost aliens from a different world.
Whatever stoked their fancy.
By now, Doctor Gaster had finished half of his plate. He’s far ahead of everyone else through sheer consistency on his consumption rate.
“Why yes,” he said, “Their names are Times Roman and Helvetica. My closest friend and his wife, respectively.”
Papyrus just stood there in silent shock.
No one dared to move. To breathe. To ask any more questions as Gaster continued his obligatory meal.
Well, Mettaton tried, but he was promptly shushed by Alphys kicking his shin.
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A full minute passed before Papyrus responded. “THIS… THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I’VE HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT MOM AND DAD.”
“I know,” Gaster replied. “Sans kept it a secret. He didn’t want you to feel sidelined with the knowledge that you’re an orphan. Nor he wanted you to be sad over people that you could never meet. Out of sight, out of mind. So goes the old sayings.”
“DOES THAT MEAN MY BROTHER FELT ALL THOSE COMPLICATED FEELINGS? ALONE?”
“Yes. I understand why he’d rather leave you ignorant. He wanted you to be free from the burdens of death.”
Alphys -- of all people -- spoke up against it. “Sans is wrong.”
Gaster stopped eating and raised a bony brow at the lizard. When he first returned to the physical realm, this lady was a shaking lump of scales. Hardly the candidate to speak out an honest opinion.
“Why do you think so, Doctor Alphys?” the man asked.
With more courage, Alphys replied, “I-I used to keep secrets. I thought that i-if I don’t tell anyone, people will forget and move on. But. T-they didn’t. They kept asking. And I kept hiding. Telling the truth and coming clean liberated me from all that stress.”
Undyne reached for her hand under the table. Squeezed it to show her support.
Bolstered by the support of love, Alphys continued: “Papyrus deserves to know about the people who brought him into this world. It didn’t matter whether or not they’re still with us. I-it’s… it’s all about honouring their memory.”
Gaster finished the last of his meal. He set the cutlery down. Rested the fingertips of his hands on each other and… smiled ear-to-ear with pride.
“You’ve come a long way, dear lady.” He said, “I remembered the day when I presented you the award for stellar students. You had brilliant ideas, but you the lacked maturity to follow through. Now I can say with confidence that you’ve earned the right to be my fellow peer.”
“T-that was you…?” she gasped. “I thought it’s one of the teachers! Ohmygodohmygod I remember now you were invited as a guest of honour to visit my school ohmygodohmygodohmygod--”
Alphys buried her face into her palms. Her scales turned red, blushing both from embarrassment and delight.
Some things just never change. Such were the wonders of life. Gaster watched the quirky shenanigans like the old uncle he had become.
He cleaned his mouth with a tissue and stood up. The ends of his form flowed down the chair as it trailed behind. “How would you react if… I told you that Papyrus’ parents were once caterers for Alphys’ school?”
Gasps of surprise filled the air. Mettaton added some dramatic posing to accentuate his expression.
“Hot damn like seriously?!” Undyne couldn’t believe her ears.
“They worked at our canteen?!” Alphys exclaimed.
“MY PARENTS WERE CHEFS???” Papyrus had other priorities as usual.
“Oh that means darling Alphys must have met the parents without realising it!” Mettaton chipped in.
Watching their reactions lifted Gaster’s heart. The wide-eyed wonder of his little juniors tickled his funny bone ever so warmly.
He said, “Alas, Alphys didn’t have that fortune. They passed away when Papyrus was just a tiny baby bone. Since she’s only a little older compared to their son, they were gone long before her school term.”
Now the robot didn’t know who to comfort first: the disappointed lizard friend, or the son of the deceased.
But… Papyrus being Papyrus, had his attention set at a different angle. He did not care about the sadness of their passing. He cared about the joys when they were alive.
“MY PARENTS! DID THEY MAKE DELICIOUS AND WHOLESOME MEALS?”
Watching his enthusiastic curiosity was all the cheer everyone needed.
“A thousand percent ‘yes’, dear boy.” Gaster replied. “I daresay that your father Roman, made the best ketchup in the whole Underground!”
Papyrus’ eyes started to sparkle. “REALLY?!”
“He had found the perfect balance between the tomato’s acidity and the onion’s sweetness, brought together in harmony by the correct proportion of the spices.”
“WOWIE!!!”
“Before he married your mother, he ran the hottest hotdog stand in Hotland! Best hotdog, best ketchup, best bread for years to come! That sentiment was shared by many: arrive too late, and it’s sold out. I once saw a dog walk away with thirty on its head.”
Gaster then winked. “…But he’d always reserve one for me. Very thoughtful man.”
“Oh my,” Mettaton was impressed. “Pap’s dear father should have started a franchise!”
“Well, he preferred quality over quantity.” Gaster replied. “Hence why he kept to that one stall. To him, it’s more of an art than a business. He wanted time to relax. And to talk with me, of course.”
He thought back with a nostalgic smile. “Contrary to his strong-sounding name, Roman was a meek and humble man. Easy-going. A good listener. That’s part of the reason why we clicked together.”
“WHAT ABOUT MY MOM? WAS SHE LIKE TORIEL???” To Papyrus, Toriel was the closest person to a true mother figure.
The old man chuckled and waved a finger before the young one. “My, my, my. If Helvetica was a scientist, she would have made a fine peer! And no, she’s not quite like Her Majesty. Your mother was more of an intellectual than a homemaker. Busy, busy up in the head. A mite cranky at times.”
“Helvetica would always brainstorm for ways to make healthy food appeal to children. Junk had an annoying tendency to win the flavour battle.”
He continued, “Whenever she noticed wastage, she would conduct a survey with the kids. Ask them why they didn’t like their meal. Peas, for example. So nutritious, yet so unpopular. They had a certain taste and a grainy texture that made many little ones cough.”
“So she puréed the lentils, strained them, and mixed the smooth paste into a delicious pasta sauce. Since that day, every child got their portions of peas without even realising it!”
The audience was blown away in awe. Especially the son who never knew her. It’s evident that she was a smart woman.
“SUPER-MEGA-WOWIE-LICIOUS! MY PARENTS ARE AWESOME!” Papyrus puffed up his chest and pointed to himself. “JUST LIKE ME!”
“‘Are’?” The amalgamate raised his brows without affecting his skull’s ridges.
“YES! NO MATTER WHEN IN TIME, THEY WILL FOREVER BE AWESOME TO THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!”
Gaster had the face of a person who was just one step away from weeping tears of joy. He then asked, “Papyrus, would you like to learn your parents’ art?”
Papyrus being Papyrus, his screaming squeals resounded: “YES! YES YES YES YES!!! I WILL GO CLEAN THE KITCHEN SO WE CAN BEGIN LESSONS RIGHT AWAY!”
The energetic skeleton dashed away in a heartbeat.
Once the cinnamon roll was out of sight, Gaster’s happy face flipped into one of sheer disapproval. He glided straight towards Undyne.
His dark, flowing being loomed above the fish lady. It was just like their first meeting so many years ago. Except with less annoyance and more fury.
Undyne understood there and then that she was in hot soup. Double boiled in a pressure cooker.
Gaster glared straight down on her. “I hope you now understand that you had committed a grievous sin against the memory of Papyrus’ dear parents. If I ever find you leading their son astray once more, I will sink you to the deepest abyss of the ocean. Mark. My. Words.”
He did not bother to wait for her response. Her acceptance -- or lack of it -- won’t change his threat. “Now excuse me, my throat requires respite.”
Gaster headed towards the sink to wash up and fill up a glass of water. Once he had his rinse and drink, he unwrapped a cough drop. Popped the candy into his mouth. Their menthol soothed his throat and drowned out the horror of the botched pasta meal.
The scowl was gone as he addressed his new peer. “Doctor Alphys, thank you again for these drops. They helped tremendously.”
“N-no problem.” Alphys stammered.
Then he left the room, leaving Mettaton, Undyne and Alphys at the dining table.
Whispering with a big grin, Mettaton said: “I like his style.”
Undyne snapped back: “Shut up.”
“U-uh, we still have a door to fix.” said Alphys. She glanced down on the now-cold ‘Reunionghetti’. “And. Plates to clean.”
The three exchanged glances at each other.
Mettaton said, “I need to feed my fluffy dog, darlings.” It’s his code word for the disposal of bad food. Either into a faraway trash bin or with the aid of the mysterious dog itself.
“I’ll go grab snacks.” Another codeword. Usually. Undyne would either make a reservation, or order takeaway for everyone. Papyrus always thought they’re ‘really large snack sizes’.
Plus, she didn’t want to be in the vicinity of Gaster for another minute. At least, until he cooled down. An angry Gaster was a scary Gaster. Here she thought Toriel was bad enough.
“I’ll do the repairs.” In Alphys’ case, it was the truth. Undyne had kicked down the door in a rush to get back home. Right now, it’s just propped up against a crate to stop the frigid night air from blowing in.
After a nod, the three parted ways to execute their mission.