Chapter 10
Coffee, Confections and Confessions
The second time Stephen reported to Alphyne Laboratories' front door, nobody answered on the intercom; instead, the front door opened to reveal Ambassador Frisk. They looked much the same as they did the day before, except that now the rugby shirt was striped with three colors (pink, purple, blue) and they were holding a pocket notepad with a red ballpoint clipped to it. Frisk smiled at Stephen, vocalized their pleasure at seeing him, and held up their pad for him to read. On it was printed in capital letters, "WELCOME BACK STEPHEN! ALPHYS AND UNDYNE WILL BE READY FOR YOU SHORTLY".
"Thank you, Ambassador," Stephen replied, entering the foyer. "It's a pleasure to be back."
Frisk nodded happily and, with remarkable and well-practiced swiftness, wrote out in reply, "YOU CAN CALL ME FRISK".
"All right, Frisk. Is the queen—uh, that is to say, is Toriel gracing us with her—"
Frisk giggled a little and wrote out, "DON'T BE SO NERVOUS! MOM IS OUT GETTING US SOME FOOD".
"Sorry, Frisk. Your mother is just a little bit...imposing, in person."
Frisk looked pensive for a moment, then wrote out, "IF YOU STILL FEEL NERVOUS AROUND MOM TELL HER A DAD JOKE".
"What? A dad joke? Like, a pun?" Stephen asked. Frisk nodded and vocalized their assent. Stephen responded with a cracked laugh. "Really? I don't know, Frisk, I'm terrible at those."
"THE WORSE THE BETTER".
At that moment the door from the foyer to the laboratory opened partway and a yellow-orange, bespectacled head popped round the doorjamb. When she saw Stephen with Frisk she beamed. "Oh, good, you're here!" she said. "S-sorry Undyne and me couldn't greet you right away, b-but we got some stuff delivered to us early and w-we had to figure out where to put it. Come in, come in!" She waved them into the lab. Frisk and Stephen followed her inside.
The room they entered was a cavernous space with fluorescent lamps lining the ceiling and rows of black-topped lab benches, looking much like every other lab Stephen had ever been in. Old habits directed his eyes around the room to locate the doors, the sinks, the fume hoods, the fire extinguishers, the safety equipment: whoever had commissioned the construction of the lab—presumably Dr. Alphys—had done their homework well. Shelves on two walls were stacked with gear, equipment and books, some sorted, some not, a lot of musty and stained and scratched, making the lab feel and smell a little like the warehouse of a surplus store. There were a couple of PCs set up on one of the benches, one of them surrounded by discarded ramen containers and and a selection of action figurines. Dr. Alphys was busy adjusting the position of a newly arrived steel shelf as Stephen and Frisk entered; a few seconds later Undyne barged into view through a door at the back that had been wedged open. Slung casually over one shoulder was the steel and aluminum benchtop of a small optical table, a foot thick, six feet long and four feet wide; on her other shoulder she carried a heavy box that presumably held the table's legs.
"Hey, Alphy!" Undyne shouted. "This is the last one left, where do you want it?"
Dr. Alphys finished adjusting her shelf and studied Undyne's load for a second. "That's an optical table. It'll have to go in the b-basement."
"Thanks Alphy." She waved her head toward Frisk and Alphy. "Hey, punks! So you came back, Steve! Be right with ya." She disappeared into a stairwell, growling a little as she strove to maneuver her burden, and Stephen looked in astonishment at Dr. Alphys when she had gone.
"That table has got to weigh, like, five hundred pounds!" Stephen exclaimed.
Dr. Alphys grinned proudly. "I know, isn't she amazing? She's been so much help now that we're starting to get in b-bigger stuff. And when she puts anything she's carrying down, she's so precise and gentle...I c-can tell her exactly where it needs to go and she'll put it right there." Dr. Alphys clasped her paws with a dreamy sigh, and Stephen could practically see the stars in her eyes. Then she seemed to realize where she was. "Oh! um...heh. W-when Undyne gets b-back we'll start."
Frisk looked at Dr. Alphys, uttering an interrogative sound and making a quick sign. "Oh! That's right! I f-forgot, first Toriel is c-coming back with some coffee and p-pastries for all of us. Then we can start t-talking."
Undyne came back from the basement, stretching her arms and back. "You'll have to tell me later how it's supposed to go together, Alphy," she called out as she emerged and went over to Dr. Alphys, sparing a few moments to swoop down and scoop her up for a quick kiss. "Hey there, sexy nerd," Undyne growled.
Dr. Alphys giggled and glanced in Stephen's direction. "Undyne...m-maybe not in front of guests…"
Undyne snorted in friendly derision. "Hah! Nothing he wouldn't see in his first day of work anyway." She straightened up anyway and advanced toward Frisk and Stephen, taking his hand in a crushing handshake. "Glad to have ya back. Look, uh...no hard feelings, huh?"
"Undyne, there never were."
"Thanks, Steve," she said, smiling her still somewhat disconcerting smile. Then she reached down to pick up Frisk and hoist them up to eye level with her. "How you doin' champ?" Frisk signed an answer. "Aw, sorry, Frisk, I haven't picked up your language yet. I'll just guess that you're telling me you're doing great and you love your bestie Undyne, huh?" Frisk laughed and nodded.
At that moment Toriel's furry head appeared at the doorway to the foyer. "I have coffee and a dozen donuts, friends," she called out. Her face lit up when she noticed Stephen among the group. "Stephen! You're here. Do you all want to gather in the conference room again?"
Undyne scoffed. "That cold, boring-ass place? Four white walls, a white table and some whiteboards." She gently set Frisk back to the floor and clapped her hands. "We need to spruce that room up. Maybe put an aquarium in it or something. Let's eat in the breakroom."
Toriel came into the lab, carrying a box of donuts and a thermos, and Frisk ran to her side. They followed Undyne and Alphys as they walked the length of the lab, Stephen close behind, into a side room that was furnished with a sink, a fridge, a futon (still folded out into a bed), a Naugahyde couch in an eyestrain-inducing shade of fuschia pink, yet another PC with yet more figurines and empty noodle bowls scattered around it, a square table and two folding chairs. Alphys darted forward with a guilty laugh to fold the futon back up for sitting. "Heh, s-sorry! Sometimes Undyne and I, um, r-rest in here."
Frisk giggled. Toriel fixed eyes on them. "Do not be rude, my child!" she admonished, but Stephen could hear the suppressed laughter in her voice. She set the thermos and donut box on the table. Stephen recognized the same smiling, fanged, five-eyed face from the Danish he'd bought—wait, I never did eat that, did I?—and the same motto, "By Spiders, For Spiders!"
"Who makes these, Toriel?" Stephen asked.
"The monsters' best baker, Muffet," At this Frisk tugged her sleeve and signed something that prompted a bleat of laughter. "Oh, my child, you are too kind. But I am only an amateur. In any case, Stephen, you may meet Muffet soon, should you be employed here, as a client. I believe that Dr. Alphys has worked on food chemistry in the past, have you not, Doctor?"
Dr. Alphys nodded. "We k-kinda had to, at the Royal Lab," she said. "Finding s-substitutes for ingredients once we were cut off from the Surface was one of the f-first concerns of the Lab when it was created."
Stephen poured himself a paper cup of coffee and selected a plain glazed donut. He took an experimental bite. The texture was a little odd, chewier than he was used to, but the flavor was excellent. "Well, Toriel…" began Stephen, cringing inwardly from what he was about to force himself to say, "you may tell Muffet that, even though I don't normally, uh…" Oh God… "...go nuts for donuts, I enjoy hers."
Dr. Alphys went slack-jawed. Undyne facepalmed, muttering, "Fucking hell, not another one." Frisk burst out with a delighted chuckle. Toriel's brown eyes went wide, and then she dissolved into helpless laughter, abandoning herself to the joke so thoroughly that Stephen found himself laughing with her.
"Oh, Stephen," Toriel finally said as she collected herself, "that was very clever."
Uh...it was? "Thank you, Toriel...I had an idea you might like it." He caught Frisk's eye, and Frisk winked back with a grin.
Undyne glared at Stephen. "I know what must've happened. You met Sans in town and he put you up to it, didn't he?"
"I did meet Sans—he told me to say 'hi' to you and Dr. Alphys, by the way, I'd almost forgotten—but no, it wasn't his idea."
"Yeah, sure," Undyne replied, but she was smiling. The five of them munched their donuts and sipped their gas-station coffee for a few minutes in companionable silence.
Toriel interrupted it. "Perhaps we should now turn to business," she said, looking at Dr. Alphys.
"Uh, yes, your majesty," the scientist replied, hurriedly wiping some powdered sugar from the end of her snout. "S-so, Stephen, um, we know that you've had a somewhat, uh, checkered work history—"
"Yes," Stephen interrupted, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath before plunging into his confessional mode. "I think it's only fair that I lay it all out for you now rather than try to paper it over." He turned to Undyne. "Everything you implied about me, Undyne, is true. I gave up too easily on trying to get a better degree. I gave up on trying to find better jobs. I can tell you that I love science, I love working in the laboratory, and I'm capable of learning a lot of different things, but there's not much evidence I can give you on paper that I have that sort of...passion in me."
Undyne frowned. "Hey, Steve, I know I must've seemed like I was just trying to cut you down, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. When I was captain of the Royal Guard, do you think I imagined that everyone who came to me to join had to have all their shit together right from the start? I was willing to give anyone a chance, I mean, anyone. But I had to let 'em know from the start that I wasn't gonna hold anyone's hand."
"B-besides, Stephen," Dr. Alphys added, "after you left yesterday, I got in touch with a couple of your p-professional references. Everyone who contact me said you were a really bright guy who could pick up a lot of different skills. But they didn't say why they ended up letting you go."
Stephen's stomach lurched. But he was determined to be honest, even about this. "All of you should know...for some years now I've been struggling with drink. I lost good jobs for taking too many sick days because of drinking." He quailed from the look in Toriel's soft eyes. "I don't know how much you monsters might know about alcoholism…"
"We had drunks Underground, too," said Undyne. Stephen winced. "Okay, that was a bit harsh. Gotta be honest, it's not great news to hear. But…" Undyne screwed up her face in thought, scratching her cheek with one clawed hand. "I'm not changing my mind. I'm still willing to take a chance on you. But you'd better promise to stay off the sauce." She brought her face closer to Stephen's smiling her most menacing smile. "You break your promise and come in loaded and I'm personally gonna kick your ass and throw you out of town."
"Undyne," Toriel put in, her voice mild. "I appreciate what you are trying to do, but there's no need to threaten Stephen." She turned to address Stephen, who compelled himself to look her in the face. But she did not look sad now. "There is still much for me to learn about human society, but I have already learned that alcoholism is an affliction among some of you. One for which you have devised methods of treatment, have you not?"
"Yes. One of my friends has made me promise her to enter into a treatment program and keep her up to date on my progress through it."
"That is good to hear. I must then insist, Stephen, that you also report your progress to us."
"I promise."
"Thanks you, Stephen," said Toriel with a smile that returned a measure of hope to Stephen's heart. "You have been very forthright with us. In return, I must be honest with you. We are laboring under great disadvantages." Toriel sighed. "We are not without means, and we still have access to some of the resources with which were able to survive in the Underground. But most humans still wish to keep their distance from us, and finding those willing to conduct business with us has been difficult. Furthermore, after centuries Underground, monsterkind is unused to the Surface. I am one of the very few monsters who has any memory of life before exile." Stephen could feel the intensity of Toriel's gaze upon him. "We need friends, Stephen. We need humans like you, who are not afraid of us."
Am I unafraid? Stephen asked himself. Toriel's gravitas intimidated him, as did Undyne's ferocity, but did they or any of the other monsters he'd encountered frighten him? He found himself thinking how strange he felt when his acquaintances back in the human world would shrink in disgust from the sight of a bug or a worm, when all he saw was another spark of life among many.
They all looked at him, expectantly: Dr. Alphys's eyes wide behind her glasses, Undyne's eye intent and gleaming, Toriel's brimming with concealed power, Frisk's full of warmth. The ambassador scribbled on their pad and pushed it towards Stephen. It read:
"WE'RE ALL HERE TO BUILD NEW LIVES. I THINK THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HERE, TOO."
Stephen nodded. "All right. Give me an official offer letter and a W-4, so I know everything's above board, and I'll sign them. I'm with you."