Chapter Text
“The…Void?”
“I don’t truly understand it myself,” Chara says as they look around the vast space. “One minute I was resting in a bed of golden flowers…Then I was here.”
Clover follows Chara’s gaze. “So…you’re trapped here?” They raise an eyebrow at Chara. “Can’t you just…wake up?” They ask.
Chara scoffs.
“Unlike you, I can’t seem to leave.” Chara crosses their arms. “The only time I’ve been able to see the outside world is when I connected to this one person’s SOUL.” Chara looks down at their dull red SOUL. “But…someone broke our connection. I think it was because of the barrier breaking…”
“...I…Didn’t catch any of that.” Clover’s cheeks flush slightly.
Chara sighs. “I established a connection SOULs with another human child and was able to follow them as a ghost in the outside world.”
“Connect SOULs?” Clover asks as they take a step closer to Chara.
“Something about The Void allows me to interact with SOULs from other humans,” Chara says as they take a step away from Clover. “It's like this place was made to watch people from.” A chill runs down Clover’s spine.
“So…You’d be able to kinda like…leave this place?” Clover asks, an idea forming alongside a smirk.
Chara sighs again. “Yes, what part of this do you not understand?” They turn to Clover quickly and angrily, only to be met with a smirk.
“So, theoretically speaking, you could connect SOULs with me and get to see the normal world again,” Clover asks happily as Chara groans
Chara closes their eyes and takes a deep breath. “And what makes you think I would do that with you, cowboy?” They say as they open their eyes
“Because who else could you do it with? I seem to be the only other person here,” Clover says as they take a step closer to Chara. “Besides, what do you have to lose?”
After a minute of consideration, Chara sighs once again. “Fine.”
“Yes!” Clover pumps their fist into the sky in celebration as Chara groans. “So…how do we do this…connection thing?” Clover asks as Chara sits down.
“Take my hands,” Chara instructs
The two link hands, and in a moment their SOULs glow brightly. Yellow and Red light mix, momentarily brightening the entire Void.
Then Clover wakes up
——————
Clover shoots out of bed, their heart racing and head pounding.
“Careful, the connection gives a massive boost of energy.”
Clover looks around the room until their eyes settle onto a floating figure next to their bed. Clover’s mouth drops as Chara watches them. “Th-that worked?!?” They exclaim loudly, then quickly cover their mouth, praying they didn’t wake Martlet.
Chara rolls their eyes. “Of course it worked, did you think I was lying?”
“Well, I wasn’t actually sure if you were real and not just a dream,” Clover says as Chara scoffs.
“First of all, how dare you doubt my realness. Second, go to the bathroom. The connection will give you an overwhelming amount of nausea any minute now,” Chara says as they look away.
Sure enough, Clover instantly feels the need to vomit. They quickly get out of bed and rush to the bathroom.
“You could’ve told me that before,” Clover says as they come out of the bathroom.
Chara smirks a tiny bit. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Then the hallway lights turn on
“Clover? What are you doing? It's the middle of the night.” Clover looks to their left to see a very tired Martlet.
“Oh, hey Martlet,” Clover nervously rubs the back of their head. “How are you tonight?”
“I’m fine, Clover. Mind telling me why you're up at 2 in the morning?” Martlet asks, for once, not getting off topic.
“Uhhhhhhh…” Clover quickly tries to figure out what to say.
“Lie! Tell her you had a nightmare or something!” Chara quickly says as they float overhead.
“I…threw up…” Clover’s eyes dart away, hoping that Martlet wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions.
Martlet’s eyes widened. “Threw up?!? Are you sick?!? Hurt?” Martlet squawks, worried for her child.
“I just threw up, Martlet. I probably just ate something bad yesterday.” Clover quickly says, trying to defuse the situation. “Like…the awful school pizza.”
“The school pizza?!? It should not be getting you sick” Martlet says quickly. “That is not okay. I’ll have to do something about it” She walks closer to Clover. “And you are staying home from school tomorrow, just in case you throw up again, understood?”
Clover nods. Guess they can’t see Kanako tomorrow to tell them about tonight.
“Good, now go back to bed,” Martlet says as she ruffles Clover’s hair affectionately.
“Ok, Martlet.” Clover turns to their bedroom, but they turn their head back when in the door frame. “Night”
“Goodnight, Clover” Martlet smiles before she walks back to her room.
Clover walks back into their room and sits on their bed. They’re too energized to fall asleep now.
“congrats, you get to stay home from school,” Chara says as they float just above Clover. “What now?”
“Now..?” Clover asks
“You aren’t getting sleep anytime soon, so might aswell do something with this time.” Chara says as they float down onto the bed, floating right next to Clover.
Clover thinks for a minute. “Wanna watch youtube videos with me” Clover suggests as they take their phone off their bedside table.
“What’s youtube?” Chara asks as they look at Clover’s phone.
Clover smiles. “Basically, it’s a website where anyone can post their own videos and other people can watch it!” Clover explains happily as they open the app. “What do you want to watch?”
Chara thinks for a moment. “Are there any videos about true crimes?” Chara asks.
Clover smiles brightly. “Yup! What kind you interested it?” Clover asks as they pull a blanket over themself.
“...serial killers” Chara says as they lean back, giving the illusion of lying down on the bed.
“On it!” Clover says as they search for a video that Chara would like.
“How about this one?”
“Too short.”
“This one?”
“Looks boring.”
“Okay, Okay. What about this one?”
“That looks…adequate."
Clover quickly clicks on the video and gets comfortable in the bed. Although the video is…midly disturbing, but Chara doesn’t seem to mind. Midway through the video, Clover pulls out a bag of packing peanuts.
Chara stares at them in disgust. “Please tell me you aren’t going-”
Clover eats a fistful of packing peanuts as Chara’s jaw drops.
“You did not just eat those” Chara immediately says as Clover pauses the video.
“Huh? What's wrong?” Clover swallows another packing peanut.
“What’s wrong?!?” Chara exclaims, dumbfounded by Clover. “You just ate a handful of packing peanuts!!!”
“It’s fine, Chara.” Clover says as they shrug off their comrade’s concerns. “I’m pretty sure I would be dead by now if they were poisonous”
“That’s not an excuse!” Chara immediately says back as they reach for the packing peanuts, but their hand phases right through.
“Chara, calm down. I’m fine, don't worry” Clover says as they put down the bag. “It’s just a bag of packing peanuts. I’ve been eating them as snacks for years now”
Chara sighs. “Fine…keep eating it.” Chara says before they mutter under their breath, “Your funeral.”
Clover pretends not to hear them as they unpause the video and resume eating their packing peanuts.
Chara watches the video, but their eyes keep being drawn back to the packing peanuts. It’s not their choice to make, but they still wish Clover wouldn’t eat them.
“What do they even taste like?” Chara asks, curiosity getting the better of them.
“It tastes like…cheese puffs without the cheese” Clover says after a second of trying to think of how to explain it.
“That…doesn’t sound like it would taste good,” Chara says with a disgusted look.
“That’s just because you’ve never had any.” Clover says as they eat another peanut. “One day you’ll eat one and find out just how good they taste.”
“And how would I be able to eat them? I’m dead?” Chara asks, for once, they are somewhat thankful to be dead.
Clover shrugs. “I’ll find a way.” Clover says as they give Chara a big smile. “I promise”
Chara stares at Clover. Then the smallest blush crawls onto their face. “You’re so stupid” They attempt to push CLover, not caring that their hands face right through.
Clover leans back, as if they were actually pushed. They giggle. “What ever, Partner”
A small smile forms onto Chara’s face. Then a look of horror as a blush creeps up further onto their cheeks.
Oh no. Anyone but them. Anyone but this stupid cowboy