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Asriel let Chara take his bed the first night they arrived at the underground.
Chara didn't look good at all, and maybe sleeping together would make them uncomfortable. Something that he learned within the first hours of meeting them is that physical contact does not please them. That discouraged Asriel, who likes physical contact too much, and being affectionate with others. Sooner or later things would relax, or so Asriel thought.
Chara couldn't sleep. They don't know how many hours have passed since they went to bed. They could only keep their eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, alert for any sound. Asriel was sleeping on the floor; they didn't look in his direction.
Something about this situation was keeping them awake. In addition to the fact that they had accidentally fallen into an underground full of monsters just to protect themself from the rain inside a cave in that mountain… Mount Ebott. Whatever.
They were very tired!
They were very afraid. Fear of discovering that this is a dream, but also that it is not.
Sleeping in a bed they didn't know, in a house with smells they didn't know made them agitated. The only good thing was that the house smelled like pie, although that saturated their nostrils so Chara covered their nose with their sweater when they arrived. Now they didn't have their sweater, because they were wearing one in better condition from Asriel. It didn't smell bad but it smelled unknown.
Chara tried not to think about it. They could handle it, they always had to handle that kind of thing.
Lights could be seen in the hallway through the gap in the open door, the adult monsters were still awake. Toriel and Asgore, respectively.
Chara couldn't sleep until they knew that no one would come and... Do something to them. Chara couldn't allow something like that, they couldn't stand it. No again.
Chara didn't know it but they began to whisper their thoughts; “no again… please go to sleep. Do not come”.
Asriel had not heard Chara speak such long sentences in all that time. At first he thought they were deaf and that was why speaking was difficult or something like that. But they just weren't very expressive with their voice; or anything really.
Asriel was surprised by the things that Chara began to unconsciously whisper. He didn't know if Chara would want to chat with him but he needed to at least give them emotional support.
“Uhmmm… Chara”
“No.” Chara responded quickly, not sure if they were telling that to Asriel or to someone else.
“Uhm, you're safe here. I won't let anything happen to you.”
“...”
“Falling asleep can be difficult but, I can stay awake watching if you want.”
Chara made eye contact with Asriel, rolling over their bed. “Would you do that?”
“Yeah” Asriel knew that nothing would happen but he didn't want to say anything about it so that Chara wouldn't hesitate.
Chara continued looking at the door for a long time. "I usually sleep with the door closed…”
“Why would you do that?”
Chara didn't respond after that. “Well, I like to see that there are more people with me." Asriel added, trying to lengthen the conversation a little.
Chara slowly ended up falling asleep. Asriel almost fell asleep repeatedly but he kept his word. He fell asleep for a while after confirming that Chara did too.
Then he heard screams.
He stood up suddenly to see what was happening; It was Chara, who screamed in their nightmares. Asriel began to get nervous, not knowing what to do, he tried to call his parents who arrived in the room before he opened his mouth.
“What happened?" Toriel asked. Chara was no longer screaming but they seemed very uncomfortable, sobbing and with a sour expression on their face.
“I… I don't know, we… Chara Chara was sleeping and started screaming…” Asriel said, sobbing, scared that something had happened.
Toriel approached Chara as Asriel explained what happened earlier, she began to pet Chara's head, looking for a way to calm them down without waking them up. While humming a song, Chara slowly became calmer.
Toriel looked towards Asgore, who was trying to comfort Asriel by hugging him, giving him confidence. “Chara is fine, they just need to rest.” Toriel looks up at Chara, still touching their hair and covering them with their blankets. “I'll stay here in case something happens”
“But, I told Chara that I would watch that nothing happened!" Asriel exclaimed.
“Did Chara ask you that?" Toriel asked.
“yes! Please let me stay here. You can go to sleep mom, Chara... I don't think they'll like it.”
There was silence for a few seconds, until Toriel got up from her place and headed towards the door with Asgore, before greeting Asriel again.
Before his parents left, Asriel said “mom! Chara prefers to sleep with the door closed…”
Asriel believes that if he had closed the door when Chara told him, they wouldn't have had nightmares that night.
