Grillby enjoyed his time as a barkeeper and restaurant owner. It was a rather simple job with long term rewards and pleasurable people. Every day he would wish his daughter well at school and open the bar at eight. Fuku would come around at six after a bit of hanging out with her friends before going to their home in Snowdin, and he would soon close at ten. He'd done around the same routine for a good decade or so, but things began to change once his daughter began to start school in Hotland.
She had come in one day with that purple friend of hers, when she mentioned meeting a spider monster. This had caught the bartender's interest, and he prodded for more information.
"Just this spider monster," she shrugged. "Wanted to sell me a pastry or something, but it was way too expensive." Grillby looked at her as he continued to clean the glasses. "Is that so? How much was it?" he asked. "Nine hundred ninety-nine G."
Grillby wheezed and coughed at the price. And it was of a single pastry, no less. "Well, it sounds as though she's a bit greedy, don't you think?" he hummed, straightening the glassed on his nose. Fuku, of course, agreed, as she couldn't even afford a single pastry with that insane price. He thought negatively of the unnamed monster, but still pushed it out of his mind as he went back to his job. However, during the upcoming months, he began to hear more about the spider monster from his daughter's afternoon chatter.
"She's always surrounded by all these spiders."
"She doesn't talk much. Mostly stare."
"I think she's holding some kind of bake sale."
"Yeah, she's kinda freaky. She's got an accent. Can't tell where from, though."
Grillby didn't care much for whoever this stranger was, and he surely didn't mind as long as his daughter was safe. From all the negative comments, though, the picture in his mind wasn't a particularly pleasant one. He imagined some horrible, half spider/half human monstrosity with a hunger for money. However, he let her slip from his mind.
One morning, though, he found something rather curious in his restaurant as he was opening up. He went to the kitchen to prepare a few items, when he noticed several spiders huddled up in the corner. He didn't exactly mind, as long as they didn't disturb his patrons. Days began to pass and the spiders' web only grew in size. He felt a bit bothered, but didn't want to throw the poor spiders out; it was cold outside and they could possibly freeze. So instead, he kept them around a bit longer, letting them roam the restaurant while he cleaned. They even began to help out, bringing him empty glasses and the like. He found it rather nice to have a set of miniature helpers, but he knew he couldn't keep them around forever. The number of spiders only kept growing and the spiders themselves weren't able to go outside. Because of this, he decided to move them.
Pulling on his usual coat and gloves, he gathered the group of arachnids into a small box. He had first planned to venture outside of Snowdin, but soon came to the realization that it meant passing through Waterfall. He was fine, thank you. So instead, he ventured west towards the old ruins. It took a bit of time, but and the time he arrived, he could feel his core temperature dropping. He carefully set the box down and attempted to open the doors, but they wouldn't except for a small sliver. Still, this was enough. The spiders soon crawled out and scampered into the Ruins to escape the cold environment, and once each and every one of them were gone, he shut the doors and went back home.
Two days later, he noticed Fuku come in, munching on some sort of food. When he asked her what she had there, she held it up for him to see. "It's a donut," she explained, a smile evident in her voice. "That spider monster gave it to me for free." Grillby was a bit taken aback, and thus requested to know why. She only shrugged. "Not sure. She just told me to thank you specifically."
"Me? Why is that?"
"Not sure. But hey, free donuts, dad. They're pretty good, too." She continued munching on hers until there was nothing left but burnt crumbs. Her father, however, was a bit lost in thought. He soon came to the realization that the spider he had taken to the ruins must have been somehow related to the monster in question. He felt pleased, knowing he had helped a fellow monster, even if she was one he thought relatively negatively about. "Well then, tell her she is very much welcome."
The next day, Fuku had apparently delivered the message, as she came to the bar earlier than usual. "She said she'd like to have you over for tea sometime," she said, the sly tone in her voice hinting something devious. He was once again slightly surprised. "Well then, tell her I would love to, but I don't enjoy crossing Waterfall, and tea would actually kill me. Perhaps she could come here instead. I'd be happy to serve her."
Fuku happily took this information, and once she came back after the next day, she had a response. "She said she can't. She has to look over her web and spiders. She'd still like to meet you, though." Grillby had his interest peaked at this point. While he was a rather reserved and silent monster, he still enjoyed meeting new people. "Well I would like to get to know her, as well. What is she like?"
Instead of answering, his daughter waited until she had asked the spider herself before returning with a response.
"Her name's Muffet," she informed. "She lives out in Hotland, runs a small bake sale she hosts every so often, and enjoys web building, cooking, baking, reading, drawing, and crocheting." Her main flame flickered for a second. "Sounds like a keeper, huh?" Grillby stopped cleaning his glass to look up at her. He knew what she was thinking, but he wasn't having it. Not now, anyways, as he hadn't thought of being in a relationship in years. "This is just a friendly conversation, sweetie. Nothing serious. Now, I want you to tell her that-" "No need!" Fuku interrupted. "I already told her everything she needed to know."
Oh no.
"What… did you tell her?" he asked slowly. "I said you liked cooking, drinking, managing your bar, long walks through Snowdin, dinner dates, and snuggling by a fire," she giggled. Grillby instantly turned a deep shade of blue, his flames burning bigger and brighter from sheer embarrassment. "Fuku!" he scolded, while also trying not to make a scene. "C'mon, dad," she whined. "It's been forever since you met someone."
"I'm not looking for a relationship, Fuku," he replied sternly.
"You haven't been interested since mom left," she retorted with a huff. "Well at least just think about it!"
"I would prefer if you stayed out of it," he muttered. "Now, the next time you see her, I want you to apolog-"
"No need," she interrupted once again, handing over a small slip of paper. "Here's her phone number." She gave him a pleading glance. "At least just give it a try." And with that, she left the building. In his frustration, Grillby merely crumpled the paper up and tossed it over to the trash can. The ball almost made it, had it not bounced off the rim and into a small space between the bin and the wall.
For the next two weeks, there was no conversation between the two monsters, and Fuku didn't report anything new. She claimed she had apologized, but knowing her, he doubted it. It wasn't until he was cleaning up one night when he found the paper again, all crumpled up and dusty. He sighed, remembering his frustrations of that night. Yet, he couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty, just leaving the monster without a response. He tucked the paper into his vest pocket, deciding he may message her later, but not that day.
A few more days of silence had come and gone before he had finally decided to send a message to Muffet. He started out with something simple: a nice "Hello" would do the trick. Sure enough, within the hour, he got a response. He was slightly surprised to see she had written him "Bonjour", instead of the the traditional greetings.
The two soon hit it off, talking with each other as though they knew one another in real life. Most of the talk was rather small, but was still rather informative. While he was more quiet and reserved, responding in short, coy messages, Muffet seemed to be a bolder personality. She had no hesitation in thanking him for saving some of her spiders, while also being slightly critical for taking so long to respond. She also had no shame in hiding her origins, with each "yes" replaced with a "oui", or the same "bonjour" he'd get when they would start up a new conversation. She had even called him "Monsieur" and "dearie" at one point. He had to admit, he rather liked it, but he didn't say such a thing, unlike her. She quickly caught onto his reticent nature rather quickly, telling him she thought he sounded cute. That had him blue for a few minutes.
As the days passed, they talked more and more about themselves and each other. As Grillby would talk about his bar, Muffet would tell him about her dreams to open up a bakery of her own. He would describe his daughter, while she could go on about her over three hundred forty-seven siblings, all of them spiders. Their messaging became a daily habit for the bartender, and he would often take a quick moment from another of Sans' jokes just to reply to a text Muffet had sent. A few of his patrons had noticed this, but he would always brush it off once they brought it up.
Over the next few weeks, the two became rather close, to the point where Grillby felt as though he could open up a bit more to her, as well as help her when she needed advice. Even when they ran out of things to talk about, they continued to do it anyways, just for the pleasure of talking to one another through their only means of communications. More than once they had brought up the idea to just call, or perhaps send photos. However, both agreed it would be better once they met up in real life.
Soon enough, though, it all came to an end.
It was on the last day of their messaging, the human arrived. They came in and seemed rather nice. Sans pulled the ketchup prank as usual, and they left soon after. He didn't really expect to feel the barrier to the Underground break hours later, but it sure happened, and everyone was stunned.
During the next month, the messages between the two cooks had ceased, as they were both too busy trying to set up aboveground to really talk anymore. He didn't really mind having to move his entire bar, but it was easy once he had found an available empty building for a rather cheap price with the G he had saved up. Within thirty days, he had his bar ready and set up, good as new. He kept the building relatively the same, with almost nothing changed. A few monster had pegged him on to give it a new name, but he decided to keep it simple. That didn't stop Sans from calling it Grillby's 2: The Searquel.
Grillby was pretty much swarmed with patrons the moment he opened up shop. He barely had time to do much, but he at least got to meet a few more shopkeepers from around the Underground. Gerson, an old turtle from Waterfall, had a nice little antique shop set up a few stores down, and a small Temmie had set up her cardboard box store just outside his bar, which he didn't mind. He enjoyed meeting the two of them. So it was a bit understandable that he got a bit psyched when he noticed that the building next to his had been purchased. It turned out to be a small bakery, which he thought nothing of at first. He was rather surprised to see a rather petite spider woman come to greet him. He almost didn't recognize her.
"Hello," he greeted calmly as he approached her. "My name is Grillby. It's nice to meet you." They spider smiled giddily at him when he outstretched a hand.
Grillby's flame's flickered in surprise when he heard her reply, "Bonjour!" Blue flickered in his orange core, something she seemed to giggle at. She grasped his hand with two of her own. "Muffet. I believe we have met before, oui?"
