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"You know," Chara says one night, "I have another wish. Like. A twin for the one we shared the other day, in Waterfall."
It's late; the sort of late that's brushing up against morning, probably, since it's been lights out for a few hours now. You had crawled into Chara's bed—it was your night to have a bad dream, apparently—and you'd caught them at a lucky break, because touching is okay right now and they fitted themself as much against you as you had sprawled across them, warmth- and contact-hungry. Chara's chest is your pillow, and you were dozing off to their breathing and heartbeat when they spoke.
You stifle a yawn, nose scrunching as a sneezy sort of shudder lances through it. "Save that for the Wishing Room instead'a now," you say. "You'll jinx it."
"You just want to sleep." Chara's tone is matter-of-fact, just missing the mark of unkind.
"I was so close!" You give them a squeeze around their belly. "C'moooon, I can't be like SOME people around here."
"It's not my fault that humans have notoriously irregular sleep cycles, Asriel."
You glower against their collarbone. "That sounds like something you made up."
"Wow. Scandal."
"Saying it like that isn't helping!!"
"Then behold my counterargument: Have I ever proven it wrong?"
"Could just be you, weirdo." You pause; a couple seconds of reflection doesn't make you feel great about how that sounded. "Th-that's... it's not a bad thing, though? You could just say you don't sleep well a lot." You rub a thumbpad along their ribs, drawing small self-conscious circles. Ugh. You're too tired to do this right, aren't you? Stupid. "I'll stop poking fun about it, if that hel—"
"Ree?"
"Huh?"
"You're babbling. It doesn't matter."
That too falls short of unkind, but it shuts you up anyway.
Chara goes quiet themself. They're not breezing right back into the original topic, but they haven't pulled away or pushed you off like they're upset either. It's not unlike Chara to bide their time on pettiness, though, so you brace yourself and calculate some choice retaliation as their breathing softens to a near standstill, their pulse picking up against your ear.
"The thing is," they say, at length, voice entirely different, "it's not something I can share with the Wishing Room."
That makes you pull back. Just a little, enough to angle your head up to check Chara's face. They're not quite looking you in the eye (which isn't unusual for them, too dark in the room for their human eyes or not), but their head is canted downward. Their expression is flat, impenetrable.
Still, and especially because the two of you didn't stay in the Wishing Room that day, it cements your suspicion: What they really mean is, "It's not for the Echo Flowers to remember."
With a swallow, you scoot up a few inches and reclose the distance, your chest going flush with Chara's. They allow that, along with your head settling into the crook of their neck. "What were you thinking?" you ask, hushed.
Chara readjusts their arms, right hand slipping to rest between your shoulder blades. "So, funny story," they say, faux-casual. "Once upon a time, humanity shoved you down a hole. We spent so long pretending it didn't happen that we practically believe our own lie now."
You snort, even as your gut squirms the tiniest bit, from an emotion you can't pinpoint. "You and everyone else have told me about all that. Plenty."
"Consider this set dressing. It's important."
"If you say so."
Chara trades a pithy answer—an "I know so", along those lines—for poking their nose under your ear. Then their face, too. They do this with care, just shy of nuzzling your cheek, like that part of you is precious and fragile and they might flee into the open again at any moment. It sends gooseflesh to attention on your back, wherever Chara's arms aren't touching.
"Human history is... a whole world removed from down here," they say, matching their hush to yours. "By our own making. On the surface, monsters are myths and magic is a dead art."
You shiver. That last part isn't something you think about very often. "But magic is all we are."
"I know." Chara's left hand finds the nape of your neck, fingers digging gently through fur to skritch at the flesh there.
Chara strikes you as so... so solid, all of a sudden. Like a castle's keep that breathes and tells jokes and hugs you in bed sometimes. Like they could go on forever, despite all their sick days and protests to the contrary.
But: "How—I mean. Can humans even express themselves like that?" you ask. "Without magic?"
"Attempts are made. We often don't, though. 'Can't' might be a better way to put it, for many."
"... That sounds sad."
Chara tugs you closer, their legs hooking into yours at the ankles.
"We're stunted, essentially," they go on. "It makes us afraid. Or at least, that's our excuse." They bark a laugh that turns brittle in your ear. "It's horrible, right? We were terrified shitless, even back when some of us still had a rapport with magic."
That squirmy feeling reasserts itself, bad enough that you shift position a little.
"... Sorry. That's belaboring the point." Chara sighs, stiffly, giving you a soft squeeze as they lower their chin to your shoulder. It's a tentative perch, like they're not sure if this is okay after all. You nose their neck and hope that's reassurance enough. "Hey, Ree."
"Hmm?"
"Do you want me to finish?"
They ask it lightly, but you feel the weight to the words anyway. You know this voice. There's no take-backsies whichever way you answer, and—and it makes no sense here. At least, you don't think so? What are they even up to with all this?
"Well, I mean," you say, almost petulantly, because of course it would be dumb to back out now, "you said this was a story, right? If you have an ending in mind, of course I wanna know what it is."
Chara's breath hitches. Not like they're caught off-guard; it's the pause between stanzas, or the space between pages, like when you make them read your favorite picture books (because the cadence of their voice is the best, better than your mom's or dad's or anyone you know) and they're being super theatrical about the whole thing.
That impression doesn't vanish when Chara whispers, warm and hoarse, "It's not written yet. That's why it has to be a wish."
Oh.
You blink against their hair, mouth pinching downward. Chara said this wish was a twin to the one you both shared in Waterfall. You had wanted (want) to climb out of this mountain, to stand under the sky and amidst the rest of the whole wide open world. It's the sort of thought wishes were made for: Impossible, too daring and dream-like with the way things are now.
Maybe you shouldn't be surprised that Chara's so fixated on the impossible.
Your pulse surges, beat insistent and nervy at the tips of your fingers. "How," you say, "would you write it? If you could?"
A corner of Chara's mouth pulls tight against your cheek; the etch of a smile, thin, honed to a point. Your stomach flips.
"Imagine," they tell you, "monsterkind surging out of Mount Ebott. All to a one, pouring through the crevices humanity had plugged up tight with dead magic. Magic they don't have. Magic you do."
They stop to swallow, then inhale, breath lapping the edges of ragged.
"You emerge, alien and magnified to everyone who had the gall to forget you, power ablaze. Showing—showing everything because they, we. We forgot it all, our strength and your weakness, and you need to take advantage before—" Another pause; their fingers have bitten into your upper back and their heart has outpaced yours, hammering your sternum too. "And then you do. They're unprepared, and they run. You..." Chara laughs, toneless. "It'd be opportune, would it not? You could... boss monsters could tear a swathe into their fucking cowardly backs. Like so much tissue. Because we don't know better, about our absurd listless stores of power or anything at all, and maybe then, maybe finally, in the spirit of absolute fairness, you can take one of their souls for your own and d—"
"Chara, we can't!!"
They go still, in the same instant your mouth snaps shut. That was... jeez. A lot louder than you'd meant it to be. And you realize with a kind of sickly rush of shame embarrassment that you didn't just cut Chara off for their own sake. Your ears are still whooshing, with the dull ebbing roar of blood and magic. Of thrill.
After a moment, Chara pulls back to look at you dead-on. The smudges of exhaustion below their eyes are suddenly very, very stark.
"We... it'd never work," you say. Your voice is guttering, like anything you say from here on out is destined to be lame, the lamest, but Chara is just staring, so you can't leave things at that. C'mon, Asriel. "The humans would just... they'd figure everything out again, eventually. If we went all out—m-maybe we could make a dent and, cut a bunch of the bad humans down, sure, and scare others away, and that'd be" (pretty cool) "good, but... it's. It's all happened before, Chara. That's the thing. We don't have anything on our side that we didn't back then. And... "
You suck in a breath. Chara's face is still too rigid and illegible for your liking, but there's a softness around their mouth now. It makes your chest squeeze with something... something warm, and aching, and you unwrap one arm to place a paw on Chara's sternum, over their stubbornly fast heart.
"I'm not sure you'd be safe with us anymore, either," you say, softer than the rest. A wince pinches Chara's lips and shoulders before you add, "I just want you to be okay too. Y'know?"
If Chara does know, they only show it by papering over their wince and not pushing your paw away. You fall silent too, just... waiting. It's Chara's turn, and you've run out of words.
They keep saying nothing, doing nothing, for seconds. And seconds. And seconds. And—
You sigh (more like a groan, and again, louder than you mean to). "Look, if you're gonna make fun of me for being a stupid diaper-baby worrywart, could you, like? Get it over with already??"
They blink at that. Then it's a cascade, from snorts to peals of uneven giggling, which would be extremely too loud for lights out if Chara hadn't buried their face in your PJ top.
"... What??" You're too annoyed to reflect on how this feels like an improvement, like a sigh of relief. "What did I—oh my gosh, if you don't stop I'm going back to my bed. I'm leaving. I'm going!!"
"Noooo no no no, no. No!" Chara cranes their neck to look at you. Their eyes, their face are absurdly red and alight, but they gulp lungfuls of air like they hadn't gotten enough over the past minute. It squelches their laughter to embers, mostly. "It's just. I would never call you that," they say.
Oh. Ohhh, they did not. "Would too!!" you volley.
"Would not." They scoot up further, to meet you at eye level. The giggles are vanquished, but traces of them hang off of Chara's lips in a lopsided grin. "Monsters don't wear diapers," they declare. "Implying that you ever used one would be a factual error."
Your mouth pops open. Chara shuts it again with their fingertips. You scowl.
"Really," you say.
"This is my sincerest of faces, Ree. C'mon, you know what it looks like."
"Ughh, you're the worst."
"... I mean." Chara mashes their lips together, in a not-quite-frown, then tilts their forehead to meet yours. "I know I'm a certified shithead," they say, lowly, "but I can promise you that this insult is an indignity I'd never pay you. On my honor."
You sigh, this time deflating in more than one sense. "You're not that bad," you mumble back.
"Mmm." Chara runs their teeth over their bottom lip, catching it for a second. "Anyway," they say, now entirely sober, "you were right."
"About what?"
They bonk you with a soft headbutt. "You know what."
You do. You whuff air through your nostrils against Chara's mouth, frowning. Being told you're right is usually the best feeling, especially when it's coming from Chara, but...
"It's... I." You stifle a small, wordless noise. "I dunno, I was being dumb. That was just a wish. They're not supposed to be realistic or anything, but—I-I guess. I freaked out a little? Haha." You rub the side of your nose, eyes downturned. "It was pretty stupid to get that worked up, huh?"
"It wasn't." The sudden steel in Chara's voice snaps your eyes back to theirs. "Flights of fantasy or not, this is... it's all real to you. You're a monster. You're always going to have more at stake in this than I ever will."
"But you're—"
"I can't change what I am." A waver has seeped into their steel, but then—you'd almost say it's a switch being flipped, but it's quieter than that. Like a flicker, passing through Chara's eyes and the gauze-like skin around them. They inhale through their mouth. "Asriel. On my own," they go on, carefully, a little grim, patting the paw you've spread over their chest, "this right here? The human meatsack with a soul? This is all you get. If monsterkind has any hope of living freely on the surface, the least I can do is think through the logistics of it, if nothing else."
Chara has... pretty much lost you by now. Before you can say that or ask questions—not that you can think of any aside from What are you even talking about?—they lean forward, making contact, mouth pressed to your nose. Their lips are chapped, but warm. Soft, too. Your head goes a little fuzzy and you don't understand why (except that it feels nice, very nice) as Chara pulls back marginally.
"That's why I need you, Ree," they say, with a smile. It's their real smile; the extra tired and thin version of it, but still real, creasing their eyes just a touch. The hand they were using to pat your paw latches onto it and squeezes. "You understand what I can't. That's what makes you a great partner."
And—it's just a flash in your head, but you think of the future, the far-flung one where you're grown and as big as your parents and Chara's there at your side. They're... you only know so much about adult humans, based on comics and books and movies that have filtered down from the surface and the few things you've heard from other monsters, so the Chara you imagine is more like a scribbled outline with the most important details filled in. That Chara is taller, less soft; more crisp, handsome angles from head to toe. They stand straighter. Their laugh is deeper and can still charm the pants off of anyone, but there's a shrewd gleam in their eye and a gravity they can snap back to like clockwork. Even their eyebags are gone (forever, because growing up means conquering all your old problems, like not sleeping enough or being too afraid all the time, right?). And when they look at you? It's like you're the most important person in the room, or the whole world, in any world.
This vision is... quieter. A far cry from the picture Chara just painted, where you get to be a cool hero who rains fire and stars and ghastly rainbows until it grinds bad humans into dust (you know that's not how it works, but dissolution means a lot more to you than goop and guts when it comes to death). But the part of you that likes sitting in the garden with a book in your lap while Chara gets their hands dirty with the weeds and flora, sunlight pouring down like fingers, hitting you both just right—that part likes the sound and look of this. A whole lot, actually.
"Uh. Asriel?"
... Oh. That was more than just a flash, then.
"Haha, um." You scrub an embarrassed paw over your face, over and over. "Sorry."
"Pff, welcome back. I was starting to think I'd have to contact Houston."
"I have no idea what that means, Chara."
"It means you're a space cadet," they say brightly.
That one you do get, so you stick out your tongue. "You should be nicer, jeez! I was just thinking a whole lot and I was gonna say that I... uh." You waffle. Heat springs to your face, spreads down your ears too, and... and. Sheesh. There's no way you can make this next part sound cranky, even if you want to. "Golly. Chara, I need you too. That's what I was gonna say."
You're almost too afraid to look, but... you can't help it. You need to know. You gauge Chara's reaction, from their blinking to the minute twist of their mouth. It's the extra color blooming across their cheeks and nose that makes relief sing through you, both the regular kind and another that burns fluttery and warm and mysterious in your stomach.
"That... " Chara stops, opens and closes their mouth a couple times, averts their eyes. "That's. A thought, I suppose."
You laugh, and won't feel bad about that until later. "Aw, you don't believe me, huh?"
"Mm."
"That's okay. I'll make you believe it someday." You try to discreetly extract your paw from the sandwich of Chara's hand and chest, but they fail to unlatch. The maneuver ends with the two of you holding hands against their hip, which... that's good too, you won't lie. "Anyway, uh. It made me really happy, hearing you say that about me," you tell them. "I'm still happy."
This gets you another blank stare, but only at first. Chara breaks it with a fond sigh. "Thank you," they say, with another headbutt, "for out-sapping me, sap. I might be able to salvage my cool and detached reputation yet."
You scoff, snorting. "With who?? Me, my parents or the walls?"
"Hey, I'll have you know I hold these walls and their opinions in highest regard."
You roll your eyes, making a show of scooching downward on the bed. "I'm going back to sleep, dork."
They snap off a salute. "Sounds like a plan, nerd. I'll keep watch."
"Of course."
Quiet is maintained as you both work to reconfigure yourselves, to more or less the way you were holding each other before. That Chara's fine with this is sort of a relief, to be honest. Even if you're nowhere near as keyed up or comfort-hungry as you were earlier, it's... you don't know. Something is settling weird with you, in a small anxious knot your brain can't pick apart. You're both too tired and too nervous to try hacking away at it, so Chara's presence would have to do for soothing that to the backburner.
(You're able to pick out one thread, though: The one convincing you that Chara's company is too important to give up right now. That wants you to tell them, hey, maybe—maybe monsterkind's freedom can wait? Not forever. Just another lifetime, that's all. Because you'd be just as happy staying down here if Chara's at your side, for however long the rest of their life lasts. At least that way they wouldn't have to worry about stupid wishes or logistics or whatever else their brain is cooking up. They'd be safe. Humanity would never have to be their problem again.
You should tell Chara, but it's... it's a lot. Too many people would be disappointed, maybe even angry, and you're tired. It can wait.)
Your head lolls against Chara's ribs as they give your paw a squeeze. Not for a particular reason, you think, just for its own sake. You squeeze back, the fizzy feeling in your chest interrupted by a yawn that stretches your muzzle until your jaw pops, just a little. It doesn't hurt.
"Teeth," Chara observes.
"I know," you say. You'd roll your eyes again if they weren't closed and you felt like opening them just to make a point. "They're pretty neat, huh."
"I keep forgetting how many you have. Your parents... they'd have to have three times as many, right?"
"Pfff, no way. But it's still a lot, yeah. I'll get there someday and be even cooler then."
"... Yeah." Chara falls silent for awhile. "Ree?"
"Mmm?"
"You are going to stay the whole night, aren't you?"
You giggle, a little vague and foggily. What kind of question is that? "Of course I am! I wouldn't leave unless you kicked me out. Which you have, thanks very much."
"Ha. Right." A pause. "I was—" They swallow, and you hear their heart thump oddly, like it's stumbling over itself. It re-steadies and Chara's squeezing your paw again, fleshy thumb tracing patterns on your knuckles, so you fail to think much about it. "Nevermind. Goodnight."
"Mmkay." You squeeze back, soft and sleepy. "G'night, Chara."
You drift off while Chara doesn't, feeling warm and sheathed, your new dreams featureless.
--
Two weeks later, you and Chara are horsing around in the throne room. You start off fiddling with the camcorder near Dad's potted, fledgling experiments with black mulberries, while Chara steps gingerly around the milkvetch. Then you grin and ambush them with a revenge prank, because they've been getting quieter the past few days, listless, or else devoted to Mom's private archives—different from their early days, but. Still. It's too close to an old Chara you're loath to see. You think some dumb fun will help them.
Chara sideswipes you, softly, with a question. You answer them. Recounting, babbling, not sure what this has to do with anything, anything at all. When you ask them, they tell you to turn off the camera.
You do that. And then it's the beginning of the end of your world.