Snowdin, Underground 201X W. D. Gaster

Gaster looked at the small restaurant with no small amount of disgust. It smelled like greasy food, with faint undertones of cheap alcohol. At least one patron was drunken and half asleep. Amy expressed no visible discomfort, which came as a mild surprise for Gaster. He would think that, coming here straight from a life of comfort with little exposure to such indecency, she would be more squeamish about the establishment. Clearly, she was quite hungry. That was the only logical explanation for her unfazed attitude. “Welcome to Grillby’s, how can I help you?” a tall man with fiery red hair asked as Amy approached the counter. “Just a minute,” she replied, looking at the menu. She twisted slightly and looked over her shoulder at Gaster. “Are you going to eat here?” Gaster shook his head. “No, thank you. I’ll eat back at the lab.” Amy narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say a word in response. She knew he was only telling her a half truth. Yes, he would eat when he got to the lab…eventually. Why she cared was beyond him. Amy turned back and ordered her lunch. It wasn’t long before it came out. Amy paid and brought her food to a table by a window. All it was was a hamburger. Much less than one would usually get at a restaurant; only the main dish, without a side or drink at all. “This place is expensive,” she murmured as she sat down. “What did you expect?” Amy glared at him. “It’s a fast food joint, doctor. Fast food is supposed to be three things: greasy, tasty, and cheap. So far, it only meets one of those requirements.” She bit into her hamburger, looking out of the window. She paused for a moment, then finished the bite. “Make that two requirements. This is good.” “I’m glad to know that,” Gaster said dryly. “Exactly how long are you going to require my company?” “Until I have a place to stay. That may take all day.” Gaster groaned. “Of course.” “Nobody forced you to agree with my proposal. This was your choice.” “I know that. Unlike you, I’m no idiot.” Amy looked genuinely wounded for a moment, but recovered quickly. “Whatever.” Silence ensued. Amy watched the goings-on beyond the restaurant’s walls, eating very slowly. It was painful, waiting for her to finish. “I like it here,” Amy commented. “In Snowdin.” She finished off her hamburger and rested her head against the window. “I think I’ll meet with Mr. Blaise this evening. See if I can rent that house.” She looked at him out of her peripheral vision. “If you want to go back to the lab, you can. I wouldn’t fault you for walking out of this restaurant right now.” She half smiled. “I’d hardly be helping you get settled in if I left now.” Amy fixed him with a stare. “I thought you hated my company.” “I take no great pleasure from it, but I still have an agreement to fulfill.” “Yeah. Right.” She looked perplexed. “We just don’t really have much to do until six, I figured you’d want to go back to the lab.” Gaster didn’t respond. Amy cleared her throat and stood up. “I guess we should go do…something. We can’t just stay in here all day. There’s a library nearby, we could go there.” What she meant, of course, was that they would go there, as Snowdin didn’t offer much else by way of attractions. “Very well.” Amy led the way out of the restaurant. She hesitated for a moment, looking over her shoulder at him. “Do you want this back, or…?” She gestured to the lab coat. “Keep it. It won’t do me much good in Hotland, and I have others.” The offer appeared to surprise Amy. “Oh, um, thanks.” “You’re welcome.”



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Snowdin, Underground

201X

Amy Faustus





Amy tapped her foot against the restaurant’s floor, impatient. She knew, of course, that she had no right to be impatient; she and Mr. Blaise had never formally agreed to a meeting, he had only said that he would be here around six. It was only 6:05. She was working around his schedule, not the other way around. She would wait. She didn’t exactly have a choice.

She glanced out of the window at Gaster. He’d been outside for a while now, just sitting in the cold and smoking. She vaguely wondered when he’d picked up that habit. She pulled the lab coat a little tighter around her. The smell of cigarette smoke wasn’t as quite strong anymore. She didn’t even know you could get cigarettes in the Underground. Filthy habit, really. That and alcoholism….

The door opened. Amy looked over. Mr. Blaise was walking in. Amy exhaled slowly, relieved. She had thought that maybe it was Gaster. Thank goodness it wasn’t; she didn’t want to talk to him right now. Especially when he’d just been smoking.

“Hello, Heath,” the man behind the counter said. “What can I get you?”

“I think you know what I want,” Mr. Blaise replied amiably, not quite to the counter yet.

“Of course. Coming right up.”

Mr. Blaise looked around. His eyes settled on Amy, and his eyebrows shot up in mild surprise. He smiled and waved a little. Amy nodded. A couple minutes later, Mr. Blaise walked over with a milkshake in hand. He sat down across from Amy.

“Good evening, Miss Faustus,” he greeted. “I wasn’t expecting to run into you.”

Amy shrugged. “I figured I might as well come. I don’t really have anything better to do.”

“I suppose you’re here about that house.”

Amy blushed a little. Mr. Blaise looked stunned for a moment, eyes lingering on her hair. Amy took a deep breath and tried to get herself under control. She felt her hair change from green-tinged to its usual blonde. The effort left her feeling a little tired. “Well, ah, yes, that’s correct. I don’t really, um, I don’t really have anywhere to stay, so….” She bit her lip, knowing exactly how foolish she sounded.

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended or anything.” He smiled. “Luckily for you, I have the base of a rental agreement drawn up and sitting in the house, so we don’t need to spend much time writing down the fundamentals or anything.” He looked down at his milkshake for a moment, contemplative. “Would you like to go over now?”

“I guess so.”

“Right.” He stood. “Follow me, then.”

Mr. Blaise lead the way out of the restaurant. Amy looked off to the side. “Hey, doctor, come on,” she called to Doctor Gaster. Doctor Gaster looked over at her, frowning, and stood up, making certain to bring the suitcase of memorabilia. Amy kept her attention on Mr. Blaise. Was it colder than it had been earlier, or was she just not used to the cold anymore, after being inside?

They came up to the house. Mr. Blaise took a keyring from his pocket and unlocked the front door. The trio walked inside. Amy looked around.

The front of the house was made of two rooms; a living room, and a kitchen that doubled as a small dining room. It was painted white, with brown and dark blue accents. The rooms were already partially furnished, which surprised Amy. There was a couch and a small table with a few chairs in the living room.

Mr. Blaise apparently read Amy’s expression correctly, because the next thing he said was, “The couch and table are recent additions; I figured that the few people down here looking for a house might appreciate them.” He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “You don’t…you don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course not. I don’t really have a lot, so everything counts.”

Mr. Blaise looked relieved. “Good, good. Anyway, feel free to explore a little while I finish writing up the contract. Of course, if you choose to, ah, to turn down the agreement, that’s perfectly fine. I only want to be prepared.”

“Of course.” Amy neglected to mention that she had already made up her mind that she would live here, if she reasonably could.

She walked across the living room to one of the three doors on the back wall and opened it. Behind the door was a nice, if small, bathroom. The next door was a bedroom. That is, it was most likely intended to be a bedroom; there was no furniture in the room. The third door was a second empty room, this one smaller than the first. That was all there was to the house. To say that Amy was underwhelmed was, perhaps, an overstatement. The house was, more or less, exactly what she expected, but it was a great deal less than she had hoped.

Amy walked over to Doctor Gaster again. “Small place, isn’t it?” he remarked offhandedly.

“With all due respect, Doctor, I disagree.”

“Nothing new, then.”

Amy resisted the urge to chuckle at the statement. “It’s cozy, not small. I don’t need it to be big, anyway.”

“To each his own.”

Amy rolled her eyes. Mr. Blaise stood up straight again, holding a piece of paper and a pencil. Amy walked over to him.

“There we are,” Mr. Blaise said, a note of triumph in his voice. “Just read that over, if you will.”

“Yeah, sure.” Amy read the contract carefully. The terms and conditions seemed reasonable and typical enough. Not that she had any base for comparison. It detailed a month-to-month tenancy, rules and regulations, and that violation of any of the rules would be grounds for terminating the contract. She noticed that the rules weren’t very strict, and the terms forgiving.

“Are you always this lenient with tenants?” Amy asked.

Mr. Blaise blushed a little. “Well, no, but my tenants are usually the type of people who need stricter rules.”

“How do you know I’m not?” Amy smiled teasingly.

His face became even more red. “I don’t. Not really. Intuition tells me you’re not like my other tenants, and my intuition is rarely wrong.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Amy nodded. She understood that sometimes it was best to trust intuition, without thinking it over. “Hey, don’t worry, I get it. I really do.” She looked the paper over. “So, I just sign here, then?”