A little oneshot for my Project SA-N5 universe. This one's for Daydreamer B.A

You don't stab people with salad forks

Asgore's entire speech is, of course, tooth-achingly sweet and heartfelt. Heartfelt in the sense that it's giving Gaster a heart burn the longer he has to listen to it with a forced, toothy smile. It does sound like he's almost done at least.

"The position of Royal Scientist to the Crown of Underground," Asgore says, and fucking hell, people actually break out into applause just at the mention of the title, "is one of utmost prestige in our kingdom. It is therefore with great joy and humbled honor that I... King Fluffybuns ‒ " Gaster's groan at the overused joke is drowned out by the good-natured chuckling all around " ‒ officially welcome my dear friend Dr. Wing Ding Gaster into this position today."

More applause, more teeth in Gaster's smile.

It's not like he has a huge problem with people singing his praises, per se, but this has been going on for far too long and he's fucking starving. An enormously long line of waiters is ‒ well, waiting on one side of the dining hall, each of them already holding a large, covered tray with the first course.

Asgore proceeds to gush about Gaster's supposed qualities of character, more than half of which are a complete fabrication of the king's mind. It is only five minutes later, when Gaster actually very subtly sticks out his arm to lightly elbow him in the knee, that he finally concludes his speech with a "Congratulations, Dings! With you in charge, great things are sure to come."

"Naturally," Gaster says dryly as the man sits back down while glasses are raised all along the rows upon rows of tables, occupied by what is largely considered the crème de la crème of the scientific world. The look that Asgore acknowledges his comment with is, for a change, more fond than exasperated.

In a sudden bout of something akin to actual contentment, Gaster reins in the sharklike qualities of his answering smile. Even if all the pomp and circumstance is a bit over the top in his humble opinion, he did work hard to get this far. Allowing himself to bask in the sense of accomplishment for a moment surely couldn't be held against him, not even by himself.

The arrival of the food might have something to do with this more positive line of thought as well. Like a well choreographed dance number, the army of waiters gracefully descends on their charges, carrying a collection of appetizers that looks a little too tiny to quite justify all the flourish of its presentation. Well, whatever, food is food.

It only takes a short while after everyone inspects and compliments the first few bites of salad (Gaster doesn't care if the menu calls it Herb Tabbouleh with Pomegranate and Za'atar Vinaigrette, it's a motherfucking salad) for the small talk to start up. It's like little murmured clouds of irrelevance that slowly begin billowing up, starting at the tables the farthest away their end of the tables and sluggishly spreading around the entire hall. When the first meaningless comment about somebody-or-other's recent involvement in charity-number-so-and-so is directed Gaster's way, the small amount of good mood immediately leaves him by way of long suffering sigh.

"Truly? What a benevolent monster she is," Asgore quickly jumps in, probably not even in an attempt to rescue anyone ‒ Gaster from getting too grumpy or the speaker from getting stabbed with Gaster's fork ‒ but purely out of genuine interest and appreciation.

One would assume that in this cluster of some of the most accomplished and esteemed scientists of the entire Underground, somebody would find something of value to talk about. But, as Gaster is painfully aware by now, being held in high esteem by the general community does not necessarily go hand in hand with actual intelligence. It's likely a little hypocritical of him to think this way, what with the fancy new title attached to his name now, but in the end, one's standing and position seem to say more about an ability to network and manipulate rather than that of producing actual strides forward in the fields of science.

He let's his judgmental gaze wander over the people come to celebrate his promotion, grouped together by field of research and ordered by importance. The ones all the way in the back were probably the most ecstatic when they received their invitation, enabling them to their first steps into a world that must have mostly been hovering just slightly out of reach for them until this point.

It's a close-knit crowd. Everyone knows everyone, nobody likes anyone and every single person in the room that's smiling at their colleagues right now probably has carefully scripted plans on how to best stab them in the back. Friendships don't exist here, luckily, only alliances for as long as one's goals happen to overlap with someone else's.

It's a structure Gaster finds comforting, even if most people's clumsy execution of the idea and their insistence on pretending that the system is not as corrupt as it is grates on him quite a bit. There are so much more intricate ways to form alliances than bloody small talk.

A group of elderly department directors right in Gaster's sight is apparently busy watching those tables in the back with cold eagle eyes. They are not bothering at all with lowering their voices as they point out some poor sod's apparent lack of table manners, swirling the drink in their glasses and chuckling with what he's sure they believe is a sophisticated air.

Following the direction of their ridicule with his eyes, Gaster finds one of the younger scientists back at the very last table, seated behind a large pillar that likely drastically limits his view of the hall. The two seats on his right are empty, while the people to his left are not-so-subtly turning their backs towards him and engaging in their own conversation. Even from all the way over here Gaster can see the signs of perspiration on his shirt as two large, crescent stains underneath his armpits. Obviously the man is painfully aware of them as well, pressing his arms close to his body in a futile attempt to hide them and likely only making them worse this way.

What has specifically attracted the mockery of the old sacks on Gaster's end of the hall is the fact that the man apparently jostled the many forks laid out next to his plate, upsetting their order and in turn confusing himself over which one to use first. In consequence and much to the unending amusement of his observers, he is currently using the dessert fork to eat his salad.

How wild.

Gaster can barely contain his complete and utter shock at this terrible display.

If he's not careful, he might even start tutting.

"Do you think he's even at the correct event?" says Dr. Kniles, director of the Electromagical Research Department, small blue flames sparking from the nostrils of her reptilian face as she fights to contain her laughter. "I have certainly never seen that young man before, have you?"

"Well, not in my department," says director of Bioengineering Dr. Carthy with her annoying sing-song voice and daintily wipes away a bit of ash that has fallen from her black flame-hair to her shoulder.

"He likely just wandered into the wrong room, didn't he?" chuckles Dr. Name-that-Gaster-can-never-remember, director of the Something-useless-and-stupid-like-geology-or-whatever Department.

Nobody could just wander into the room without having their invitation and ID on them, which the three know just as well as Gaster. Making fun of someone who is obviously not used to the kind of high-end luxury they grew up in and who has, judging by the look of his suit, simply never been to an expensive dinner because he couldn't afford it ‒ fair enough.

But their banter isn't even clever.

That is the absolute only reason why Gaster is feeling an increased amount of annoyance creeping up on him, he tells himself as he glances at the man once more. He is desperately chasing a single pomegranate aril around his plate now, until giving up and quickly scooping it unto his fork with a finger.

Dr. Whatshisface actually huffs in put-off amusement. "Did I just see that?"

"Oh dear, I really wish I could say you hadn't," says Dr. Carthy.

Dr. Kniles shakes her head. "I'm telling you, that generation just doesn't learn manners anymore. This is exactly the kind of unprofessional behavior that makes young folk so insufferable to work with nowadays."

Gaster snorts loudly into his wineglass.

The peeved looks that turn towards him are smoothed out within seconds as they realize it's him who made that unsavory sound. Just as someone offers him a napkin, he roughly puts the glass down and targets the three Doctors of Ye Olde Righteousness with a feral grin. "I know, right!" he starts with a rough voice from when he choked a bit on that sip of wine. "All those young whippersnappers pushing pomegranates around the lab with the wrong fork. It's truly abhorrent."

The chuckles he receives in answer are only slightly awkward, as the three seem more thrilled by the fact that they now get a chance to talk to him. Dr. Kniles raises her glass in his direction with a smile. "Ah, well, that might be taking it a little far of course ‒"

"I mean, it does explain a lot," Gaster interrupts her mercilessly, throwing down his own cutlery so it loudly clanks against the plate. "It's not exactly a problem I've ever encountered in my lab, so I suppose that's why our work is always going so smoothly. Did you know that no less than fifteen newbie researchers in my department have earned prices for their accomplishments within the last year?"

It seems as if she wants to comment on that, judging from the sucking-up-face she quickly slips on and that Gaster knows all too well. But he swiftly stares her into silence and reaches for his steak knife. "But I digress. The point is, I had been wondering about the lack of ‒ productivity, shall we say, that seems to be a growing problem in your department."

Reveling in the growing anxiousness visibly creeping up the woman's back, he jams the sharp tip of the knife into a piece of tomato and then proceeds to eat it right off the knife. His teeth scrape along the blade with a sound not unsimilar to fingernails on a chalkboard.

"If I had known it was all due to bad table manners, I would have paid attention to this serious crisis threatening our society a lot sooner," he says, chewing loudly and leaning both his elbows on the table.

There is a bead of sweat running down Dr. Kniles forehead.

"It's not like the progress in your department is stagnating because of the lack of fresh talent. A bunch of old and wrinkly scientists sticking to their ways and refusing to catch up to the newest state of research does, after all, never ever lead to a standstill due to what I can only refer to as an inbreeding of knowledge. That'd be absurd."

Gaster swallows, gulps down a huge mouthful of wine ‒ it's a very good wine ‒ and continues his speech while gesturing wildly with the cutlery, spraying little salad pieces over his extremely uncomfortable listeners.

"True, some people consider the continuous recruitment of new talents into the sciences to be the only possible way forward; especially nowadays that free and high quality education is easier to access than ever before for children and adults from all paths of life, enabling us to gain unique perspectives on old problems. And yes, it's true that most great breakthroughs in the entire history of monsterkind can be attributed to scientists in and around their thirties, since at that age the brain is often particularly prone to creative thinking and has also already formed all its major connections in order to use this creativity to maximum effect."

"But!" He takes a deep breath, leaning forward in his seat. "Never mind all that! After all, you, Dr. Kniles," and he thrusts the knife tip in her direction, making her flinch, "you know with which fork to eat a salad."

The silence spreading over their little corner of the room is Gaster's instant reward for a job well done. Not even Asgore's resigned side-eye can dampen his good mood now, as he picks lettuce leaves up with his fingers and continues chewing on them as obnoxiously as possible.

Doctors Kniles, Carthy and Who-gives-a-fuck quietly leave the very second not all the attention is focused on them anymore. Gaster pulls Carthy's chair closer and rests his feet on it.

He completely forgets about the young man in the cheap suit with the pit stains, right until he finds himself standing next to him outside the building during his smoke break.

It's a stupid habit but he hasn't had the mind to break it yet. For evenings like this it's the perfect excuse to get away for a while, so, whatever.

The man hasn't noticed him, he's on the phone (girlfriend, from the sound of it) and he didn't hear Gaster coming outside.

Oddly enough, even outside of the whole fancy environment, he's still nervous. His hair is a wild mop of orange curls and he keeps running his fingers through it, pulling lightly on a singular curl and stopping to scratch his twitching cat ears every once in a while. Even though the conversation with his girlfriend appears to be a completely casual and amiable one, his voice still wavers sometimes as if he's in an argument and attempting to rein himself in.

Obviously very invested in hiding parts of himself. Not especially good at it though.

The way he sighs quietly with something akin to relief when he hangs up suggests he's not a fan of phone calls. Or maybe not a fan of his girlfriend. Hand still buried in his hair, he turns around to head back in.

The sudden sight of Gaster grinning down on him makes the man yelp and actually jump up into the air a little. He quickly braces himself against the wall and then crosses his arms, still a very ineffective way to hide the sweat stains.

"D-Dr. Gaster!" he says loudly, his voice apparently carrying a constant nasally, whiny quality. "Hello!"

For a second, his face twists in a way that suggests he wants to kick himself, as if he considers saying "Hello" to someone he doesn't know a weird kind of social faux pas.

Gaster confirms him as the perpetually nervous type in his mind, as well as the way-too-easy-to-intimidate kind.

"Hello," he says lightly, then holds out his packet of cigarettes. "Want one?"

The kid's obviously not a smoker, the way he looks at the offering ‒ also, he's pretty young, not older than twenty. Remarkable that he even got an invitation to this kind of event.

With shaking hands, he takes a cigarette and croaks a "Thank you" as Gaster lights it for him.

Not good at saying no, then.

To his credit, he manages to take a drag without having to cough too much.

Gaster glances at his name tag and extends a hand. "Dr. Pollard. Okay to meet you." It takes the kid a few seconds to man up and shake his hand. His grip is weak and wet like a dead fish, only disgustingly warm. Gaster is not at all subtle about wiping his hand on his jacket. "What department are you in?"

"Uh, E-experimental Medicine. Sir," Pollard says. The cigarette is quietly burning down between his fingers.

Interesting. He wouldn't have pegged Mr. Nervous for that sort of field. All they do in Experimental Medicine right now involves high profile animal testing, not a lot of people have the stomach for it.

Gaster stares him down for a few seconds, just for fun, before nodding and dropping his own cigarette butt to the ground. "Okay. When you head back in, go sit with the lot at table seventeen, they don't really know what they're doing here either. Don't mind the seating plan, now that the whole pomp is over nobody gives a shit about that." With a lazy, two fingered salute and a "see ya," he returns to the stuffy dining hall.

When he remembers to glance over at table seventeen about an hour later, he sees Pollard in an animated discussion with three other younger Doctors who were lucky to even be invited in the first place.

And another month or so later, when Gaster receives the list of eligible candidates for the position of Assisting Royal Scientist, Pollard's name is nowhere to be found.

But Gaster has a fancy title now and can do whatever the hell he wants, so he hires the kid anyways.