Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chara couldn’t believe their shit luck.

They’d planned everything out perfectly. First, they would put pillows in their bed to create the illusion of their sleeping body; second, they would sneak out the window; third, they would hike Mt. Ebott to the hole they’d scouted out a couple of days ago; fourth, they would throw themself down the hole; then finally, and most importantly, they would die. It was watertight. Completely foolproof.

Instead, Chara was lying in a bed of purple flowers, staring up at the hole they fell through. They lay in shock for a few moments before irritably getting to their feet. Their irritation grew as they realized the fall really should have killed them. That hole in the ceiling was a goddamn pinprick. Well, at least they hadn’t been hurt. Limping around on a broken leg would’ve been annoying as hell.

Looking around their surroundings for the first time, Chara noted a passageway to the left. Seeing as they really didn’t have any other plans, or anywhere else to go for that matter, they decided to meander in that direction.

The door at the end of the passageway opened up into a large room with a grassy center. On the other side of the room was a similar door. Chara began making their way towards it, but stopped when they noticed something peculiar. A purple flower, so small they hadn’t noticed it at first, was standing in the grass. Actually, standing was a strong word. In reality, the flower seemed to be… cowering?

Chara kneeled down next to the flower and examined it with a frown. Yep, it was a cowering flower. With a face. A terrified, cowering face.

“G-greetings. Wh-what brings y-you to the Undergr-ground?”

A cowering flower with a face that could talk.

Well, they had survived what should’ve been a fatal fall. The possibilities in life were clearly endless.

“I tried to kill myself. So I guess that’s what brings me here.”

The flower’s eyes widened. Then, to the honest shock of Chara, the flower burst into noisy tears.

Chara stared at it in stunned silence for a moment before awkwardly reaching a hand over to pat the flower on the head.

“Um. It’s okay. There there.”
“IT’S NOT OKAYYYY!! THAT’S REALLY SADDDDD!!!! WAHHHHH!!!!!!”

Dear sweet baby Jesus this was not what Chara was prepared to deal with.

“Look, um, hey. What’s your name? Who are you?”

The flower stopped wailing and settled for a miserable sniffle before raising his teary face to look at Chara.

“I’m Flowey. Flowey the flower.”

Oh no.

That was hilarious.

Chara tried and failed to contain their giggle.

“Oh my god, really? Did you come up with that?”

Flowey’s face looked stunned for a moment before crumpling again. Feeling slightly bad, Chara went to pat the flower on the head again.

“Ah crap, I’m sorry, I-“

“YOU THINK MY NAME IS FUNNY?!!!”

Chara stumbled backwards at Flowey’s outburst. They gaped in shock at the flower, whose face had warped into an angry nightmare. The flower glowered back at them for a second before shouting again.

“WELL??? DO YOU????”

This was a terrifying, fragile situation. If their survival was any indication, clearly they had been given a chance to face challenges like this, and better themself as a human being. Before Chara sat an unstable being with unknown power and strength, contained in a form whose full extent might well have stretched into infinity. Such a situation required an intelligent and delicate response.

“Pffft, yeah.”

Then again, Chara wasn’t exactly looking to get any older.

Flowey let out an infuriated screech, his face warping even further. Lights appeared in a circle around Chara’s prone form.

“IDIOT!!! I’M THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD!!! PREPARE TO FACE MY ENEMYLINESS PELLETS!!!”
“Enemyliness-?”
“RAGHHHHH!!!”

The glowing pellets closed in on Chara. Welp, maybe this was it. That was a fun 3-minute long epilogue to their life.

Just before the pellets made contact with Chara’s skin, another light filled the room. Flowey dissipated the pellets before turning to look for the source of the light. The source, as it turned out, was a giant fireball heading directly for the maniacal flower. It made impact, sending Flowey flying into the great beyond with a final howl.

Following the fireball was a huge monster with white fur, golden horns, and a simple purple robe. He glanced after Flowey before looking down at Chara with kind, dark eyes.

“What an awful creature, pestering an innocent child like you. Worry not, small one. I am Asgore, caretaker of these Ruins. I make my rounds every day, looking for humans who have fallen through the barrier. Here, take my paw.”

Chara hesitated. Asgore seemed kind enough from this first impression, but Flowey had seemed okay too. Besides, the guy was bloody massive. He could probably pop Chara’s head like a grape.

Seeing their hesitation, the large goat monster smiled.

“I have tea back at my home, along with quite a bit of chocolate.”

Oh.

Hmm.

Deciding he was trustworthy for now, Chara took Asgore’s paw and allowed themself to be gently pulled to their feet. Asgore squeezed their hand lightly before letting go. With a nod of the head, he gestured at Chara to follow him through the next door.

“My specialty is chocolate pudding pie. Perhaps I will gather some supplies to make that for us this evening.”

Yes, maybe this whole ‘living’ thing was worth it after all.

Chapter Text

Walking through the door with Asgore, Chara looked up at the magnificent staircase before them. Vines grew on the face of the ruins, granting both beauty and age to the architecture. Chara felt something swell inside of them. Determination? Nah, too strong a word. But maybe… Purpose? Chara could settle for purpose.

They followed Asgore up the stairs into the next room. This room had a series of pressure plates on the floor, and a lever next to a closed door.

“The Ruins are full of puzzles such as this one. Allow to me to demonstrate.”

Chara watched as Asgore walked over four of the plates and then pulled the lever. The door on the other side of the room clicked open. Asgore gestured to a plaque next to the door.

“If you ever become lost, hints such as the one here may help you.”

Curious, Chara walked over to the plaque and read it.

“Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.”

Looking over at the pressure plates, Chara realized Asgore had only stepped on the outer plates. Hmm. Clever. They could get behind this sort of thing. They were a smart cookie.

The next room was a long hallway with two streams cutting across it. Wooden bridges passed over the streams, and Chara could see a series of levers on the wall. Asgore turned to them with a smile.

“Two of the three levers in this room will help us to progress. I’m confident you can figure out which ones they are.”

Chara nodded at the goat monster and walked over to the closest lever. There was a 2/3 chance this would be one of the right ones. Before they could pull it, however, they noticed gold writing on the wall nearby.

“Remember to pull this one ]:)”

Was that… a goat smiley face?
Chara looked over their shoulder at Asgore with a deadpan look. He smiled sheepishly back at them.

“I, uh… just wanted to have reminders to myself. You know. Just in case.”

Amazing.
With a snort, Chara turned back to the lever and pulled it. Nothing seemed to happen. As they walked back to Asgore, the giant monster turned and strode to the end of the hallway. He proceeded to stand there with his paws clasped patiently, a series of obstructing spikes waiting behind him. There were two levers left, and they were both right next to each other. Chara walked up and read the notes from Asgore.

“Pull this one ]:)”
“Don’t pull this one ]:(“

If getting through the rest of the Ruins was going to be so difficult, Chara wasn’t sure they were going to be able to handle it.
As they pulled the correct lever, the spikes behind Asgore snapped into the ground with a clang. He gave them a warm and excited smile.

“Good job, little one! I’m proud of you.”

It was ridiculous. They’d barely done anything. The solutions were literally written on the wall. But somehow, Chara felt that swelling in their chest again. Nobody had ever told them they were proud of them before. The swelling culminated in Chara giving a small cheeky smile to Asgore, who beamed all the brighter.

“You have a lovely smile, child. Come, let’s continue.”

Chara followed Asgore into the next room. The room was very small, and its only occupant was a battered training dummy. Asgore went to stand next to it, and Chara stared up at it in confusion.

“I don’t want to frighten you, but as a human living in the Underground, monsters may try to attack you out of fear. I assure you they don’t really mean any harm. If you get into a situation like that, try striking up a friendly conversation. When they realize you aren’t a threat, they’ll leave you be. Here, practice on this dummy!”

Chara looked between Asgore and the dummy. Was he… serious? They seriously weren’t supposed to defend themself from something that was attacking them? And a training dummy was for fighting, why else would you have it? If you wanted to practice talking, you could find a real live person to talk to. Now that Chara thought about it, the dummy reminded them of the punching bags at the gym their, uh… “father” used to drag them to.
Remembering that man and all the stuff on the surface they’d tried to leave behind, Chara could feel a familiar, bitter anger building up inside of them. They’d always wanted to punch something, tear something apart, do anything to let off the energy inside of them. Maybe now they would have the chance. Besides, it wasn’t like they would be hurting anyone.

Glaring up at the dummy, Chara drew back their arm to punch it as hard as they could. This was going to be…

Unnecessary.

Chara paused as they felt a wave of calm pass through them seemingly out of nowhere. Punching the dummy suddenly just didn’t appeal. What were they even thinking, anyway? It wasn’t like punching some training dummy would make all of their problems go away. Lowering their arm, Chara glanced over at Asgore. He didn’t seem to realize that anything had been amiss.
Taking in a deep breath, Chara steeled themself and looked back up at the dummy.

“Would you, uh… Like a cup of tea??”

The dummy didn’t seem much for conversation.

Chara stared at it a bit longer before turning to Asgore. The furry goat monster beamed at them once more.

“Very good! That’s a route I often take, myself. There’s nothing like a cup of tea to remedy your problems. Not that I frequently have problems with other monsters, ohoho.”

The sides of Chara’s mouth quirked up. They couldn’t help it. They felt… happy with this monster’s praise. He seemed genuinely nice. Nicer than most people Chara had ever met. Maybe throwing themself down a hole had been worth it just to meet somebody like him.

The next room was empty, and led into a crooked hallway off to the right. Asgore smiled down at Chara.

“The solution to the next puzzle is in this room. I wonder if you can find it.”

Chara nodded at Asgore before looking around the room. There wasn’t anything on the walls. There was something hanging from the ceiling, obscured in shadow, but it didn’t look very solution-y. On the floor there did seem to be an uneven patch of color. In fact, when Chara looked at it, it seemed to almost look like a winding path through the room. Maybe the next puzzle involved a maze or something?

Asgore must have seen the thoughtfulness on Chara’s face, as he moved on to the crooked hallway and out of sight. They went to follow him, but were startled backwards when a large form suddenly landed in front of them. It was a large frog-shaped creature, whose eyes seemed to be in its torso. Before Chara could call for Asgore, however, something completely bizarre happened.
The world around them faded to black, and Chara could feel a tug in their chest. When they looked down, a red heart floated out of their body and came to a stop between them and the frog. The next time Chara blinked, a series of ethereal buttons had appeared before them. On the buttons read “Fight”, “Act”, “Item”, and “Mercy”. Was this some sort of video game? To make matters worse, a quiet voice sounded in their ear.

“A Froggit appears!”

Okay, calm down weird Pokémon announcer.

The Froggit watched Chara come to terms with their new reality very calmly. In fact, it seemed to be… waiting for them? Chara frowned down at their options. Well, obviously fighting wasn’t something they were going to be doing. They didn’t have any items. Considering the Froggit had initiated, they probably weren’t in any position to offer mercy. The only option left was to act, whatever that would entail.
As they reached out their hand and pressed the Act button, the quiet voice sounded in Chara’s ear again.

“You can check the Froggit’s stats, complement it, or… insult it.”

The voice sounded disapproving of the idea of insulting the frog monster. That probably wasn’t the way to go. Chara had absolutely no clue how to complement this thing, though. Looking the Froggit up and down, they cleared their throat.

“Um… You have very nice… eyes??”

The frog monster ribbited softly and blushed. That seemed to have worked. Before the Froggit could do anything, however, a voice sounded behind it.

“Excuse me. Am I interrupting something?”

The Froggit turned and looked sheepishly at Asgore, who had entered the darkness and was giving it a rather stern look. With a look of absolute shame, it slinked off, and the darkness dissipated.

“You got 0 EXP and 0 gold!”

Oh dear lord this was a video game. Or at least the voice seemed convinced this was a video game. Chara was leaning towards the latter. Unless they actually had died from the fall and been reincarnated inside a video game. Not the worst afterlife Chara could’ve chosen, admittedly.
A large paw landed on their shoulder.

“Are you alright, little one?”

Chara looked up at Asgore and shrugged.

“Yeah. They didn’t get the chance to hurt me.”
“Hmm. Good.”

With that, Asgore turned back down the crooked hallway and gestured for Chara to follow him. As they made their way down it, Chara noted a plaque on the wall probably describing the solution. When the hallway opened up to reveal a seemingly impassable floor of spikes, however, they figured they didn’t need it. The solution seemed fairly obvious. Despite this, Asgore frowned at the spikes.

“This seems a little dangerous for you… Perhaps I will lead the way.”

Oh come onnnn.

Chara grabbed Asgore’s paw, prompting him to look at them. They gazed up at him confidently.

“I think I know what to do. Maybe I could try?”

Asgore considered them for a bit, looking cautious, before giving them a small smile.

“Alright. I’ll be right behind you, child.”

Chara nodded. Still holding the large monster’s paw, they carefully advanced forward. When they stepped in front of where they thought the path would start, the spikes immediately in front of them withdrew with a click. The blueprint of the previous room laid out in their mind, Chara advanced through the rest of the spikes, taking Asgore behind them the entire way. When they got to the end, they let go of Asgore’s paw and grinned up at him. He grinned back. He looked so proud.

“Gee, you’re really something else.”

Chara shrugged up at him, still grinning. Asgore patted them on the shoulder and continued into the next room. The next room was a long hallway, and it didn’t seem to have any features beyond a swerving path and a lone pillar towards the end. Was this another puzzle?
Asgore and Chara walked side-by-side as they slowly made their way down the hallway. After a little bit, the goat monster cleared his throat.

“Ah, I’m curious, child. What is your name? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Chara shrugged.

“It’s okay. My name is Chara.”
“Hmm. That’s an unusual name. Did your parents name you after someone?”

Chara looked away slightly.

“Nah, my parents didn’t name me that. I chose it for myself. Most people didn’t even call me that.”
“Oh, I see. What did they call you, Chara?”
“It doesn’t matter.”

Asgore hummed in response. Was that… pity? No, it didn’t really sound like it. Maybe it was sympathy. That would certainly be new. To their surprise, Chara found that they appreciated it. Pity was annoying, but understanding … real caring… that was kind of nice. The idea that someone actually cared about them made their heart swell.
When they reached the end of the hallway, Asgore stopped and knelt down to look Chara in the eye. He placed a firm paw on their shoulder.

“I have some errands I must attend to, Chara. I would appreciate it if you would stay here. The rest of the Ruins have dangers you haven’t faced. I’ll come back to retrieve you very soon.”

Chara looked up at him skeptically. With a sigh, Asgore reached into his pocket.

“And if you decide you just can’t wait, I have a cell phone for you to contact me with. If you require help, or if you just want to talk, my number’s already in there.”

They took the cell phone from him and turned it over in their hands. Damn, this thing was ancient. Was it a Nokia? They’d heard about such phones in legend, but never seen one in person.
Chara pocketed the phone and nodded up at Asgore. He smiled at them patiently and stood.

“Okey doke. I’ll be off then. Be careful, little one.”

Chara nodded again and waved at the goat monster as he left the room. Listening to his footsteps disappear, they contemplated their options. On the one hand, there was a whole other half of magical, dangerous, monster-filled ruins to explore. On the other hand, their new guardian would really appreciate it if they stayed put. If they wanted to stay safe and get on Asgore’s good side, that was the obvious route to take.

Hmm.

Nah.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean I can’t pick anymore of this up?”

“You just can’t.”

“But why?”

“Look Chara, you’ve already taken it too far. Just walk away.”

“No! I defy you, weird Pokémon announcer!”

With that, Chara bent down and shoved as much of the fallen monster candy as they could into their sweater pockets. In their initial candy frenzy they had knocked over the regal bowl of free treats. To their annoyance, the quiet voice had begun to voice their disapproval louder and louder with every piece taken. Apparently the sign saying “take one” was really serious.

They triumphantly stood up, the front of their sweater bulging with candy. As Chara stepped back to the hallway that Asgore had walked off into they swore they could hear a resigned sigh in their ear.

Honestly, having the extra passenger was really weird. They had no clue where the voice had come from. Chara hadn’t suffered from auditory hallucinations at any point before this, so they probably weren’t one fry short of a happy meal. The next-best explanations were either that an invisible monster was following them around, or that they were being haunted. They were leaning towards the latter. Somehow Chara doubted that invisible monsters which could talk to you about complementing frogs mid-battle were a thing.

“Excuse me, human.”

Chara turned to look at the Froggit which had appeared in the hallway during their candy adventure. It looked a lot like the one Chara had “fought”, and maybe it was. Or maybe that assumption was racist towards Froggits, who knows.

“You seem awfully merciful for a human, ribbit. Allow me to give you some advice. If the monster you’re fighting doesn’t want to fight you anymore, please, use some mercy, human. Ribbit.”

Chara nodded at the thoughtful frog monster. Something struck them as odd about it, though. The ribbits had seemed a little forced, and there was a quality to the Froggit’s voice they couldn’t quite pin down. It sounded almost… cat-like? Huh, weird.
Waving over their shoulder at the Froggit, Chara moved down the hallway into the next room. Or at least they tried to. Instead, when they turned the corner, they ran right into a little floating creature. The creature turned around with a squeak, and the world around Chara faded to black as a battle was initiated. Finally, a real monster battle! No goat-dad to bail them out now! It was time to prove how awesome and diplomatic they were to the cat-Froggit, Asgore, and the voice inside their head.

“A Whimsun appears!”

Chara examined the floating monster. They looked extremely timid, and not at all like they wanted to be here. Maybe the Whimsun had just initiated this battle out of fright?
Chara pressed the Act button with a thoughtful frown. Hopefully one of their options was to apologize to the little guy, or perhaps give them a piece of candy. They had loads of spare candy.

“You can check the Whimsun’s stats, console them, terrorize them… or flirt with them.”

Why on earth would they ever terror-

Hold up a second.

“Uh. What was that last one?”
“You can flirt with them. You know, wink-wink nudge-nudge.”

Chara stayed silent as they processed this information. After a couple seconds, the voice spoke up to fill the gap.

“Personally, I would go for a classic pick up line like: ‘did you fall from heaven, because you-‘“
“Okay what the actual fuck, Pokémon announcer.”
“Languageee.”
“I am not flirting with a sad ghost monster. That’s just not a thing I’m going to do.”
“Hey, I’m just giving you all the options at your disposal. I would be a bad friend otherwise.”
“WE’RE FRIENDS NOW??”
“Shhhhhhhh don’t worry about it, just talk to the Whimsun.”

Chara took a deep breath, annoyance filling their very being as they turned back to the floating creature. Luckily, it didn’t seem to notice that anything had gone down. Trying to put a smile on their face, Chara spoke up.

“I’m sorry I bumped in to you. I hope you’re okay.”

Saying this had almost the exact opposite effect Chara wanted it to have. The Whimsun screeched, burst into tears, and ran away. The world faded back into color, and the quiet voice spoke up hesitantly.

“You, uh… earned nothing.”

Chara rolled their eyes.

“Stellar.”

The next room appeared to just be a small hallway, but Chara could see something odd about the middle. It looked almost as though the floor had transformed into those leaf traps you see in cartoons, where the floor will obviously fall through but the dumb protagonists step there anyway. Chara pondered the obvious floor trap before coming to a brilliant conclusion.
They could jump it.
Chara backed up a few steps, steeled themself for a second, then ran forward with all their strength and propelled themself to the other side of the trap. They just barely made it. A feeling of being impressed, one which wasn’t their own, swept through them. Though Asgore wasn’t here to praise them, Chara could feel the swelling of purpose in their heart.

Speaking of, Chara’s phone started to ring just as they made their way into the next room. They struggled for a second with the ancient technology before they were able to answer it.

“Um, hello?”
“Howdy! This is Asgore. Have you left the room?”

Chara couldn’t help but wince. Suddenly they were regretting their rebellious tendencies. The idea they might have ruined their relationship with the kind goat monster filled them with more than a little bit of fear.

“Yeah… sorry.”

However, Asgore had some surprises up his sleeve.

“Worry not, small one. As long as you are safe, that is all that matters to me. Have you encountered any monsters?”

Chara almost wanted to scold themself for the relief they felt. Honestly, why did they care so much about what this guy thought of them? They barely knew him. They felt ridiculous, but at the same time this was probably the beginning of one of those friendship-things they kept hearing so much about. It was probably healthy to have those. Caring about what friend-people thought likely came with the territory.

“Well, kind of. The Froggit that tried to fight me earlier talked to me about mercy, and I met a Whimsun. They tried to fight me, but they ended up just running away.”
“That sounds about right, ohoho. Poor things are so timid. I’ve never managed to talk to one myself.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you right now, little one?”

Chara looked around quickly.

“Um, I’m in a room with floor spikes on the other side, and there’s a rock right in front of me.”
“Ah, alright. Thank you for telling me, Chara.”

A thought occurred to Chara, and it was out before they could stop it.

“Didn’t you come through here? Why are the spikes still up if you solved the puzzle?”

There was a pause on the other side.

“Oh. Well, er… I just step over most floor spikes.”
“But you knew I’d be coming through at some point. You could’ve still solved them for the sake of convenience.”

Another pause. When Asgore spoke again, he sounded distinctly embarrassed.

“I, uh… didn’t think of that. But, um, besides! Puzzles build character! Growing children like you need character to become healthy and strong.”
“I think you’re confusing character with milk.”
“It was delightful talking to you, child, call me if you need any help!”

Click.

Chara pulled their phone away from their ear and stared at it in disbelief. He’d hung up on them! Despite the affection they’d developed for Asgore over the past hour or so, they couldn’t help but feel all sorts of indignant right now. They were going to have to solve every puzzle in the Ruins because their surrogate guardian was a gigantic, lazy doof. Okay, maybe doof was strong. But gigantic and lazy definitely applied here.
With a sigh, Chara walked over to the rock in the middle of the room. All they needed to do was push it onto a platform. Oooh, so difficult. Just as they began to push on it, though, their phone rang again. Chara took a moment to look at the tiny screen of the phone, this time. The screen indicated that “ASGORE ]:)” was calling.

“Hello…?”
“I’m sorry to bother you again, but do you have any allergies?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Oh good, thank you Chara. Stay safe!”

Click.

They were going to get a call every 30 seconds for the rest of their adventure, weren’t they?

Oh well. Chara could feel their irritation at the large goat monster ebbing away. You couldn’t blame the guy for not taking everything into account. He’d probably been stepping over every puzzle for years without having to worry about small, fragile humans with tiny legs.
Chara completed the simple rock puzzle and made their way into the next room. At first glance, this next room was impassable. The whole floor as far as they could see was made of the suspicious leaf-trap material. Using their smart cookie brain, Chara came to the conclusion that there probably was some way to cross, and they just needed to find it.

They cautiously tested their foot along the edge of where the suspicious floor started. Most places started to give under their foot, but there was one part that remained sturdy. Feeling confident that this was the starting point, Chara carefully shifted onto the material in that space. So far so good. They continued in this manner, carefully taking the time to test the reliability of the floor around them as they moved through the room. A lot of their cautiousness was driven by the unknown. If they failed and fell through, where would they land? Was there a spike pit right underneath them? Or a pool full of barracudas? Surely Asgore wouldn’t be so complacent about letting them do their own thing if certain death loomed below them.
After several minutes of careful movement, Chara finally reached the end of the room. They hadn’t screwed up once.

Feeling really great about themselves, they attempted to move into the next room. Like earlier, however, something was blocking the way. This time there was a large… jello cake… that was sitting in the middle of the doorway. It swayed slightly back and forth. Chara slowly approached and, when the jello cake didn’t give any indication of sentience, poked it with their toe.
Immediately, the world faded to black. As the game-like interface came up, the Pokémon announcer spoke up with more confidence than ever.

“Moldsmal blocked the way!”

Beautiful.

Not even bothering with their other options, Chara pressed Act.

“Whatcha got for me this time?”
“You can check the Moldsmal’s stats, imitate it, or flirt with it.”
“…”
“And I’m really serious about the flirting thing this time.”
“Ookayyy let’s not do that. Um, I’ll check its stats? I don’t know how a thing in real life can have stats.”

There was a pause as the voice seemed to check something over.

“Moldsmals have 6 AT and 0 DF. They’re basically jello cakes with feelings.”

“You can say attack and defense, dude, you don’t need to-“

Chara was cut short as the game interface vanished and the red heart was surrounded by a white fence. All of a sudden, pellets rained down near the heart and burst into packs of smaller pellets. When one of them made contact with the heart, Chara flinched. Pain bloomed in their chest.

“Ow, what the hell!! “
“Direct it with your mind!”
“Oh yeah Professor Xavier, let me just-“

Chara trailed off as they realized that they actually could literally direct the floating heart with their mind. With some concentration, the heart shifted left and right. They weren’t even entirely sure how they were doing it. The heart was hit a couple more times, but with the mind direction revelation out of the way it wasn’t hurt as badly as it could have been. Soon the arena faded out and the game interface popped back up.

“You can check the Moldsmal’s stats, imitate it, or-“
“Yeah, yeah.”

Swallowing their pride, Chara stepped forward and looked the Moldsmal deep in its invisible eyes. After a short pause, they began to sway slightly back and forth in time with the jello creature. They probably looked ridiculous, but that was okay. The only one there to judge them was the voice.
This continued for a little bit before the Moldsmal squelched happily. The game interface popped up again immediately.

“You can spare it now.”
“Oh, good.”

Chara pressed the Mercy button for the first time. As they did so, the world faded back into color and the Moldsmal shifted so that it no longer blocked the way.

“You got 0 EXP and 2 gold!”

Chara grinned as they finally walked through the door. Yes! They actually finished a real battle with a monster. The next room was just a 3-rock version of the other rock puzzle. Chara smiled to themself and spoke to the quiet voice as they started to push the rocks onto their platforms.

“Where does the gold come from?”
“The Moldsmal payed you back for your trouble. Moldsmals aren’t exactly rolling in dough, so 2g is all you got.”
“How the heck did it pay me? It never handed me anything.”
“It magically transferred the gold to your pockets.”
“Of course it did. And why didn’t I get any experience?”
“EXP. Well, the only way you can get it is through killing your opponent.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“No EXP for me, then.”

The voice hummed in approval.
Chara had moved two of the rocks, and there was just one left. As they put their hands on it to push it, though, they were startled backwards by an outcry.

“Hey now, what do you think you’re doing?!”

It was the rock. Honestly Chara didn’t know what else they expected at this point.

“Er, I was just trying to move you onto the platform. Sorry if I offended you. I, uh, didn’t know you were different from the other rocks.”

The rock took this in for a moment.

“Hmmm. I see. Well, no harm no foul. We all make mistakes.”

Chara just blinked at it.

“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Mmhm. Now was there something you wanted from me, sugar?”
“Oh, uh… I would really appreciate it if you would move to the platform? If you don’t like the platform you can move off of it as soon as I’m over the spikes.”
“See? Now all you had to do was ask! I can do that for you, pumpkin.”

With that the rock magically slid onto the platform nearby, allowing the floor spikes on the other side of the room to lower with a click. Chara smiled down at the rock as they passed by.

“Thank you!”
“No worries, sugar.”

The next room was just a hallway with a table. On the table appeared to be a block of cheese. For some reason, seeing the cheese reminded them that they had loads of candy in their sweater. Chara took out one of the candies and popped it in their mouth. It tasted distinctly like licorice. They regretted their whole life. Then again, for some reason the persistent ache in their chest they’d had since the Moldsmal battle was going away now. Maybe monster candy had special properties?

“Hey weird voice, does monster candy have special properties?”
“Yep. Monster food can heal you from magical attacks. And since all monsters attack with magic, you’re in luck.”
“Cool. Also, what the heck is that noise?”

The voice didn’t answer, but as Chara moved away from the cheese table they could hear a sound growing perceptibly louder in the next room. It sounded kind of like singing. As they stepped into the next room, their suspicion was confirmed.

In the middle of the room, a bright pink ghost was twirling in place and singing at the top of his lungs. Or at least Chara thought it was the top of his lungs. It sounded like the ghost was trying to sing as loudly as possible, but failing because he was trapped in a box made of cotton balls. Despite this, it was immediately clear to Chara that the quiet ghost was doing his damned best to belt “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher.

This all wouldn’t be a problem, were it not for the fact that the ghost was directly in Chara’s way. Chara walked up to the oblivious singing ghost and cleared their throat.

“Uh, excuse me?”
“IF I COULD REACH THE STARS…”
“Um.”
“I’D GIVE THEM ALL TO YOU…”
“Look, I just need to-“
“THEN YOU’D LOVE MEEE, LOVE MEEE, LIKE YOU USED TO DO!!!”
“OI!!! EXCUSE ME!!”

The ghost startled out of his trance at Chara’s outburst. He blinked down at the small human with heavily lashed eyes before gasping dramatically.

“Oh! An audience!”

Chara looked down and around themself.

“What? No, it’s just me.”
“Tell me, darling, what did you think of my performance?”
“It was good. Uh, can I get past you? I need to get to my goat-dad.”

The ghost didn’t budge.

“But what did you think of my style? My technique? I need to know!”
“Sorry, I’m not really into music, so I couldn’t tell you. I just want to get past.”

As Chara made to nudge their way past the dramatic ghost however, they felt the red heart inside of them shift, and the world around them faded to black. The game interface floated into being, and the ghost in front of them spoke with sugared malice.

“Oh no darling, I’m afraid that won’t do. I haven’t had a proper audience in ages. I’m dying for a thorough review, and you’re going to be the one to give it to me!”

Chara was not at all prepared to deal with this shit.

Chapter Text

The dramatic ghost was now staring Chara down with crazed intent across the blackened battlefield.

“Mettablook blocks the way!”

Chara grimaced down at their game interface. With a sidelong glance towards where they imagined the voice was coming from, they spoke with as much venom as they could muster.

“Can I please knock this stupid thing’s teeth out?”

A disapproving hum was all the answer they got.

With a weary sigh, Chara pressed the Act button.

“Okay then weirdo, what are my options?”
“You can check Mettablook’s stats, flirt with him, give him a gentle critique, or rain eternal praise upon him.”

Chara’s grimace deepened. None of those options appealed to them. Where was the “terrorize” option when you needed it?

“Does the critique have to be gentle?”
“If you want to live, yes.”

Chara snorted humorlessly out their nose. Of course they had to kiss this thing’s butt. Then again, that kind of gave them an idea. Where before the option the voice kept presenting seemed pointless, maybe… just maybe… this was the sort of monster it would work on. They hated giving into the voice’s weirdness, but it was time.
With a calming sigh, Chara stepped forward. They looked Mettablook dead in the eyes, clenched their fists, and spoke with the self-assurance of a master.

“Did you sit on a pile of sugar? Because you have a sweet ass.”

Chara waited for the ghost’s response as they fought the urge to vomit.

Mettablook blinked at them, and Chara could’ve sworn his cheeks glowed a little pink. The ghost recovered quickly, however, and smirked at the small irritable child.

“Oh honey, you’re too kind. I already know every part of me is a masterpiece, but I always appreciate compliments from a fan.”

As the game interface faded away and the heart battlefield popped up, Chara tried not to let a blood vessel burst in their brain.

They’d flirted with a fucking ghost for nothing.

Mettablook began singing once more, and this time the notes pouring from his throat became physical entities raining down on Chara’s red heart.

“DON’T YOU SEEEEE I CAN GIVE YOUUU, EVERYYTHING YOU NEED, LET ME BE, THE ONE TO LOVEEE YOUUU MOREEEEE!!!”

As Chara tried desperately to steer their floating heart away from the falling notes, they couldn’t help but feel that Celine Dion had probably never anticipated her music being used this way.
Finally, the game interface popped back up. Chara selected Act again and considered their options.

“Honestly, I don’t know if critiquing him is a good idea at all. Maybe I should just try to create the most elaborate positive review of all time. What do you think, voice?”
“People do generally like elaborate positive reviews. If this were a story, I bet the author would really appreciate having adoring comments rained down on them.”
“That’s oddly specific, but I can dig it.”

Chara pondered what to say for a couple minutes. It seemed that in these battles either time didn’t exist, or the opponent was just endlessly patient. Finally, they believed they were ready. They stepped forward and once more spoke to Mettablook.

“I may not know much about music, but I know this much: your technique is impeccable. Every sound you create resonates through my body and ignites something inside of me. If I were an emotional person I would be brought to tears. Your song choices suit your voice perfectly. It is my belief that if you were a singer on the surface people would crowd around for miles just to hear your genius. I may not know much about music, but I know this much: if I could turn back time, I would take back anything I’ve said to hurt you and convince you to stay. So that you could sing to me. Because I love you.”

Mettablook stared at Chara.

Chara stared at Mettablook.

Suddenly, tears began to form in the ghost’s eyes.

“…R-really?”

Chara shrugged.

“Sure.”

Mettablook began weeping wholeheartedly. While he was clearly pumping up the drama, a lot of it seemed to be genuine. The world faded back into color to the immense relief of Chara. Mettablook sniffled and looked down at the puddle of tears he’d created before gazing up at them with stars in his eyes.

“Thank you, darling. I really needed to hear that. I apologize for inconveniencing you; I’ve just been a little bit pent up. It’s nobody’s fault, I’ve just had to make… a lot of tough choices lately.”

Chara ignored the obvious opening for a dramatic story and waved their hand nonchalantly.

“Don’t worry about it. No harm no foul.”
“Did you just copy the rock?”
“I’ll see you around, Mettablook.”

The ghost smiled brightly at them as they walked around him and headed for the room directly in front of them.

“Of course! Knock ‘em dead, darling.”

As Chara investigated the sign and cobwebs in the next room, the quiet voice piped up again.

“Were you being serious?”
“Hmm?”
“About Mettablook’s singing. Because if you weren’t, that’s stone-cold, dude.”

Apparently the spiders in the cobwebs were giving away cookies and soda. When Chara bent down to look at the bottle of homemade soda stuck in one of the webs, a bunch of spiders extricated it and offered it to them with a chorus of encouraging squeaks. The sign guaranteed that all products of the spider charity were definitely not made of spiders. That was a relief.

“I mean, I embellished it a lot, but I was actually being kind of truthful.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s a pretty good singer.”

The voice considered this as Chara left the spider room and advanced up to a room with three Froggits. Each of the Froggits was just standing around, and almost seemed to be waiting for something to talk to them. The first Froggit complained that people always ignored it (so Chara tried hard to look as intent as possible), the second Froggit believed there was a fourth Froggit hidden somewhere in the room (so Chara nodded and agreed… honestly if there really was a fourth Froggit they wouldn’t be surprised), and the third Froggit asked if being merciful was difficult (so Chara said that it was, but that it was worth it).
The third Froggit nodded approvingly at Chara as they finally exited the room. Before they could leave, however, a ringing in their pocket interrupted them.

“Hello?”
“Howdy, Chara! This is Asgore. Have you made some progress?”
“Despite the best attempts of a jello cake, a sentient rock, and a singing ghost: yes.”
“Oh my. Are you hurt?”
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“That is good to hear, little one. Where are you right now?”
“I’m in a big room with some Froggits. I just passed a spider bake-sale.”
“Oh, good! You’re quite close to finishing your adventure, Chara. I’m proud of you.”

Since Asgore couldn’t see them, Chara allowed themself a cheesy smile in response to the praise.

“Thanks.”
“Did you get something from the spider charity? Golly, I hope so. Their cookies are excellent.”
“Yeah, they gave me a soda.”
“Good, good. Well, if you ever need anything, just give me a call. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Thanks, Asgore. Bye.”
“Good bye, little one.”

Click.

Goddamn these warm fuzzies building up in their stomach. They had an image to maintain, a certain amount of detached stoicism to their visage. They couldn’t be so easily affected.

Chara didn’t realize they were hugging their phone to their chest until an amused hum sounded in their ear. With a frown, they casually pocketed the phone again.

“I was just… keeping it warm. If it gets too cold it won’t work.”
“Right.”
“Oh, shut up.”

The next room appeared large and empty at first, but quick examination revealed six spots of suspicious leaf-trap material and a spike trap blocking the exit. The sign to Chara’s left said that there was only one lever in the room. Since no lever was in sight, that could only mean one thing.

“I need to stick my head in every leaf-trap to find the lever.”

Filled with purpose, Chara strode over to the closest spot and stuck their head through the trap. Below them, they couldn’t see anything except what looked like the top of a plant. That certainly wasn’t a lever. The spot across from them had nothing except a tattered ribbon. That wasn’t a lever either. As they were about to pull their head out, though, the voice startled them.

“Wait!”

Chara lost their balance and fell headfirst through the hole. Luckily they weren’t hurt, as the fall wasn’t that large and the floor was cushioned with leaves, but they couldn’t help but be annoyed.

“What the hell, dude, what was that?!”
“Pick up the ribbon and wear it.”
“What? Why?”
“If you’re cute the monsters won’t hit you as hard.”
“… that’s dark, man.”
“Just wear it.”

With a huff, Chara picked up the tattered ribbon and tied it into their hair. The red did go rather nicely with their eyes.
The stairs to their right lead back up to the trap room, though at the top they had to slide out of a narrow opening to get back in. A quick head examination of the other traps revealed where the lever was. Chara checked out the rest of the traps to see if there was anything else of interest. When the quiet voice didn’t startle them with any more revelations, they figured they were okay to jump down into the hole with the lever.
Chara had to admit, there was something satisfying about pulling levers. It felt very action-y. They pondered this as they pulled the lever and made their way back up. With the spikes at the end of the room gone, they were clear to go.

The next set of rooms were an absolute pain in the ass. It wasn’t that the puzzle about a rotation in perspective was hard; it was that there was a monster waiting behind every pillar for seemingly no reason. Chara couldn’t walk two feet without being attacked by a walking eyeball with a bullying problem, or a doom-saying rabbit, or another frigging Moldsmal. There were also sentient carrots that looked suspiciously like the plant from the other room. Those ones wouldn’t leave Chara alone until they agreed to eat these weird green vegetables that tasted like licorice.

Finally, Chara was able to flee from the final room of the perspective puzzle. There was a crossroads here, with a fancy path to the left and a normal path to another room straight ahead. As frustrated as Chara was, they couldn’t leave a good adventure only mostly finished, so they went to the room up ahead. Inside the room was another Froggit, and another door. The Froggit greeted Chara with a ribbit.

“Hello, human. You must be the one Asgore mentioned when he came through here. He was grocery shopping in Home, but he’s gone back home now.”

Chara decided to overlook the oddity of that sentence.

“Huh, okay. Thanks.”
“No problem… ribbit.”

Through the door was the entranceway to a small city. Chara blinked around at all the large buildings, unaccustomed with so much space after all the time they’d spent in rooms with low ceilings. There was just too much to explore, so they decided to leave this place for another time. As they turned around to make their way to Asgore, however, they noticed something lying on the ground. It was a plastic knife. What on earth was something like that doing here?

When Chara bent down to look at it, they noticed that it was coated in a layer of dust. A wave of repulsion swept through them. That feeling couldn’t be their own, as it didn’t make any sense. Dust wasn’t scary or unusual. Dust was everywhere. Though, now that they thought about it, the Ruins were very clean. They couldn’t remember seeing anything that was dirty, let alone anything that was dusty. Why was the only dusty thing they’d ever seen in the Underground this toy knife?

Weirded out, Chara decided to leave the knife where it was.

The fancy path, it turned out, lead up to a large black tree in a big open room. Thousands of bright red leaves lay around the base of the tree, though the plant itself was bare. Chara took this in for a moment before pulling out their phone.

The other end only rang for a couple of seconds.

“Hello?”
“Hey Asgore, this is Chara. I love the huge tree with no leaves; it looks like it would make a sick album cover.”
“Oh! You must be right outside! I’m coming, little one.”

Click.

Without pause, a large shape emerged from the building behind the tree. In fact, Chara wasn’t sure how they hadn’t noticed the building before. It looked like the front of a nice brick house.
Asgore rounded the tree and kneeled in front of Chara. He looked them up and down with concern.

“You’ve been hurt.”

Chara shrugged.

“I’ve had worse, it’s okay.”

Asgore frowned and placed a large paw on a burn mark Chara hadn’t noticed on their arm. A weird tingling feeling spread where his paw was.

“No, it’s not okay. Perhaps I was foolish to let you make your way through the Ruins alone. I’m sorry, child.”

Chara was not a fan of how sad Asgore looked right now. This had to be rectified.

“It’s not your fault. I think you were right to let me go. I would’ve had to face the Underground on my own at some point. Besides, I’m twelve. I can handle myself.”

They felt relief as a small smile appeared on the large goat monster’s face.

“Hmm, yes, perhaps. Let me know if you plan on getting into any more trouble, though.”

Chara shrugged cheekily and let Asgore get on with his healing magic. Once he was done, he stood up and extended a paw to the small child.

“Here, little one, let me show you your new home.”

Chara took Asgore’s paw and allowed themself to be led into the tidy brick house. While the exterior was brick, the interior was all warm-colored wooden panels. The foyer branched off to the right and left, and directly in front of the entrance was a set of stairs leading downward. Asgore pulled Chara into the right hallway, which looked to be where the bedrooms were. The two of them stopped in front of the closest door.

“This will be your room, Chara. If you want me to change anything about it, just let me know. If you ever need me, my room is the one right next to yours. There’s a bathroom attached to the kitchen if you have need of it. How are you feeling right now?”

Chara quickly took stock of their own condition.

“Um… I’m actually pretty tired.”

Asgore hummed and opened the door to Chara’s room.

“Well then, if you wish to rest, I will not stop you. I just finished making chocolate pudding pie, and I can put on a kettle of tea anytime. Sleep well, little one.”

With that, Asgore lifted Chara into the air and pulled them into a warm bear hug.

At first, they stiffened out of reflex. They couldn’t remember the last time somebody had hugged them. Very quickly, though, they felt themself relax into the feeling. The warm, safe, well-loved feeling. Cautiously, they stretched their arms to return the hug as best they could. Asgore squeezed slightly in response. The moment might’ve lasted forever if it wasn’t for the yawn that pulled its way out of Chara’s throat.
Asgore set them down with a small chuckle and patted their head.

“Alright now, off to bed with you.”

Chara nodded and walked into their room, slowly closing the door behind them. Without taking any time to look at anything, they flopped into the bed. The quilt surrounding them smelled like something homey, a chocolate pie was waiting for them, and the warmth of the hug still filled their bones.

They could stay here forever.

Chapter Text

They couldn’t stay here forever.

Or at least, that’s what the voice kept insisting. Every time Chara made a happy comment about chocolate pie, or snail fact books, or how cozy Asgore’s reading chair was, an increasingly restless hum sounded in their ear. At first they’d been able to ignore it, but now that they were a month into their perfect life the voice was finally starting to interfere with their happiness. They needed to try to fix this.
Chara poked their head into the living room, where Asgore was sitting down with a cup of tea and a book. He looked up when they waved at him.

“I’m just going for a walk. I’ll be back soon.”

The giant goat monster gave them a small smile.

“Alright then, stay safe out there little one.”

That was kind of useless to say at this point, since nobody in the Ruins bothered them anymore, but Chara nodded and gave him a thumbs-up anyway before heading out the door.
They needed to find a place where nobody would bother them. Since the Ruins were a bit cramped, that was a tall order. After a bit of walking, though, Chara decided on the best space. With a huff, they plopped down through one of the leaf-traps in the “find the lever” room and brushed themself off. Nobody seemed to be here.

“Okay, voice, I’ve got some questions for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why are you so unhappy about me staying with Asgore? He’s kind, he feeds me, he’s… the closest thing I’ve ever had to an actual guardian. Why do you want me to leave?”
“It’s a little difficult to explain.”

Chara sat down on the floor and propped their chin on their hand.

“I’ve got nothin’ but time, dude.”
“Okay, well, you know the red heart that you have to protect during monster fights?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s your soul. It’s basically the culmination of your being. That’s why you get hurt when the heart gets hurt.”
“Huh, okay. I guess I kind of figured it was something like that.”
“Now, the color of your soul is important. Human souls come in a variety of colors, and each of the colors indicates which trait is most integral to the person they inhabit. Cyan indicates patience, blue indicates integrity, etc. Your color, red, indicates determination.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“More than cool. In conjunction with the magic that permeates the Underground, you can use your determination to change fate. You can create points in time and space that are irrevocably yours, which you can return to if something bad happens. In essence, if you are determined, you can survive dying.”

Chara took this in for a couple of seconds. That sounded like something out of a movie or a video game. In fact, the whole “creating points you can return to” thing sounded like saving the game. Why was everything here so game-like?

“Okay… so I can go back in time if I die. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It makes you the perfect person to free the Underground from their prison.”

A ball of ice slid down Chara’s throat. No, no way. They were not having some heroic destiny forced on them. Asgore had told them what lay at the end of the Underground; they knew how impossible breaking the Barrier was. How on earth were they supposed to free everyone all by themself? From what little they’d gathered from Asgore, the most they would accomplish would be escaping the Underground alone. Why would they ever want to leave? There was nothing good waiting for them on the surface. Here, they had a warm home, delicious food, and at least one person who genuinely cared about them.

“No.”
“So, what, you’re going to grow up in the Ruins? Grow old in the Ruins? Die in the Ruins? You can’t stay here forever, Chara.”
“Shut up!!! I can’t believe this. I’m just a pawn in your scheme. Your totally batshit crazy scheme. You don’t care about me, you’ve never cared about me.”
“I do care about you.”
“Then why do you want me to leave, huh? Why do you want me to suffer?”
“You won’t suffer. You won’t even have to go back to the people that hurt you. If I can find a way to fix everything-“
“You don’t even know what exactly you’re making me do?! “
“You have all the time in the world, Chara. And from what I’ve seen, I think the answer is out there. There’s a way to make everything right, including for you. We just have to find it.”

Chara stared unseeing at a point in front of them. The voice was probably never going to leave them alone. It was going to nag and nag and nag until they ended up having a nervous breakdown. They’d had nervous breakdowns before, those were never fun.

“You’re never going to leave me alone.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll nag and nag until I have a nervous breakdown.”
“If I need to, yes.”
“I’m going to tell him.”
“… What?”
“I’m going to tell Asgore there’s a voice in my head trying to convince me to walk off to my death.”
“No. No no no, don’t do that.”

Chara stood up, filled with purpose.

“What’s your name, huh? Maybe if you have a name he’ll know who you are.”
“No. Never.”

Chara made their way up the stairs and rolled back into the trap room.

“That’s alright. He probably won’t need it anyway.”

The rest of the way home was filled with protests and whining in the loudest voice Chara had ever heard from the normally quiet tag-along. They ignored all of it valiantly. Eventually, they walked back through the foyer of Asgore’s home and marched right up to the goat monster still sitting in his reading chair.

“Oh, you’re back so soon! How was-“
“Asgore. I have… something to tell you.”

Something must have shown in Chara’s face, because their surrogate guardian looked quite concerned. He put his book and tea aside before gesturing for the small child to sit down with him. Chara obliged, crawling up into his lap like somebody many years younger.

“What is wrong, child?”
“You promise you won’t judge me?”
“I would never, ever, judge you for anything.”

The sincerity of Asgore’s words pulled at the lump forming in Chara’s throat. When had that gotten there?

“I swear I’m not crazy. I’ve never heard any voices before in my life, or seen anything I’m not supposed to, but ever since I’ve gotten here there’s been this… voice… talking to me. At first it was just during monster fights, or when I asked questions, but now they talk to me all the time. And when they talk, they try to convince me to leave the Ruins, even though I don’t want to. They don’t sound like anybody I’ve ever met, and they know things I don’t, so they can’t just be a figment of my imagination, but I don’t… I don’t really know what to do…. A-and maybe I am going crazy and I just don’t know it. M-maybe none of this is real, maybe this is all just a game, b-but it can’t be, because I’m so happy a-and I don’t want t-to-“

Chara was pulled into a tight hug as the dam burst and broken sobs started to fill the room against their will. They were so tired of being them. They were so tired from the abuse, and the bullying, and the suicide attempt, and now this. Why couldn’t the world just leave them alone? Why couldn’t the world just let them be happy?
Asgore rubbed their back and grumbled kind words as Chara let it all out. This lasted for almost an hour, with Chara crying on and off in waves, before eventually they seemed to have reached the end. Shaking slightly, Chara sniffled a little bit.

“I’m sorry.”

Asgore wiped at the child’s face with a gentle paw.

“You have nothing to apologize for. There is a great weight on your shoulders, little one, and I am so, so proud that you had the strength to talk to me about it.”

Chara nodded and whimpered. All pretenses of dignity and cynicism were gone.

“Do you… do you know what the voice is?”

The large goat monster considered this for a moment as he brushed Chara’s hair from their face.

“Hmm. Well, I think you are right that it is not a figment of your imagination. Perhaps there is a ghost monster following you around.”
“But they talk to me during battles. How is that possible?”
“… I don’t know, child. That is very strange.”
“I’ve been thinking… maybe they’re a real ghost. Not like Mettablook, but like a lost spirit. Can that happen to monsters?”

Asgore frowned down at them thoughtfully.

“The souls of monsters disappear immediately after death, so I think not.”
“Oh. Then…maybe it’s a human spirit?”

Asgore didn’t respond. In fact, that thought seemed to spark some sort of grief in his eyes. Chara reached their hand up to where his paw was resting on their head.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say something bad.”

The goat monster sighed.

“It’s not your fault, little one. It’s just… perhaps that idea has some merit. Six other humans have fallen into the Underground since I’ve come here. I’ve met every one, I’ve cared for every one. Every single one of them, to the best of my knowledge, is gone. They were almost certainly killed by Queen Toriel for their souls. I tried my best, I really did, but humans are so restless. Either they would sneak away, or they would convince me they would be okay. If Toriel has all of their souls, she only needs one more before she can destroy the Barrier. If you were to leave… you would be the target of the entire Underground.”

Chara squeezed Asgore’s paw.

“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Chara.”
“Do you want me to tell you what the voice said to me?”

Asgore blinked down at them in surprise.

“Alright. What did they say?”

Feeling much less like the world was suffocating them, they launched into a summary of determination, time-travelling, and world-saving. Throughout the explanation, Asgore’s face became more and more grim. Finally, when they finished, he spoke up hesitantly.

“What are you going to do, my child?”

Chara chewed their lip in consideration.

“I don’t know what else I can do. The voice is never going to leave me alone, and admittedly everything it said about why I should leave makes sense. I just…”

Asgore smiled sadly as they trailed off.

“You don’t want to leave?”

Chara shook their head. They could feel traitorous tears building back up in their throat, but they fought them down.
Asgore drew them back into a hug.

“The most important choices we make are usually the most difficult ones. Whatever you choose to do, I will support you.”

Chara nodded into Asgore’s chest. They stayed there for a long time, listening to the thrum of magic inside of the goat monster. Eventually, they spoke up.

“I… I think I have to do it.”

Asgore sighed and tightened his hold on the child.

“I know, little one, I know.”
“If everything goes right, I’ll be okay. And I’ll see you again.”

The hug tightened further still.

“I pray that will be true. I believe in you, Chara.”

They stayed like that for some time before Asgore sent Chara off to bed with a calming brew of tea. Their sleep that night was surprisingly easy. It helped that the voice hummed a soothing melody in their ear. When they awoke, they stepped out into the living room to find a backpack sitting on the dining table. Asgore wandered in from the kitchen when he heard their footsteps.

“I, um… found this in the spare room. I figured it would be useful to you on your journey. I filled it with a couple of things, but there’s a lot of room to put anything you find.”

Chara smiled sadly up at him.

“Thank you, Asgore.”

They lifted the backpack onto their shoulders. It was pretty light. They’d probably start to forget it was there. Turning slowly towards the foyer, Chara sighed.

“The exit’s in the basement, isn’t it?”

Asgore nodded and took their hand.

“Yes. Here, let me go with you.”

With that, Chara allowed themself to be guided down the basement stairs. In the basement was a long, winding hallway as cold as Asgore was warm. As they walked, their grip tightened on his paw. They wanted to remember this, if things didn’t work out. They wanted to remember feeling loved and wanted just from a touch.
Eventually the two of them reached a door. Asgore stopped and kneeled down, his paws on Chara’s shoulders.

“Once you leave the Ruins, you cannot come back. There’s a sealing charm on the outside door to prevent Toriel’s guards from getting in here. I must stay here to care for any humans that might fall down. I know that you are strong, and I know that you have the magic of determination, but please, my child, stay safe.”

Chara nodded stiffly.

“I’ll do my best.”
“If you ever need to talk, you can still call me. I’ll miss you.”

Chara moved forward and hugged Asgore as best they could.

“I’ll miss you too… Dad.”

The giant goat monster seemed stunned for a moment, before eventually he pulled Chara into the tightest bear hug he’d ever given them. They could’ve sworn they could feel him shaking a little bit. They wouldn’t blame him.
Chara pulled away and looked up at Asgore resolutely as he stood. He looked down at them, eyes shining.

“Goodbye, Chara.”
“Bye, Dad.”

They tore their eyes away from him and pushed the door open. A long hallway awaited them. With a final look back at the kind goat monster, they walked forward and let the door swing shut behind them.
The hallway got lighter and lighter as Chara progressed. When they got to the end, it was clear the light was coming from the crack under the massive final door. In front of the door, however, was a patch of grass very similar to the one near the beginning of the Ruins. They approached it apprehensively. If they had to deal with an unstable flower after having an emotional few days, they would be pissed.

Luckily, Flowey seemed to be nowhere in sight. Chara sighed and sat down on the grass. They examined the door in front of them as they took a series of deep breaths. Time to get back in the proper mindset.

“So. Weirdo.”
“… Mmhmm?”
“We’re on the same team now, and I’m not going to say anything more about you to Asgore.”
“Okay. I appreciate it.”
“Sure. But, um, now that we’re not fighting, could I… maybe know your name? If you have a name.”
“I do have a name.”
“Great. Do you wanna share? If you really don’t, I understand. I’ll just keep calling you Weirdo.”
“… I think I’d rather tell you my name.”
“Cool. What is it?”

The voice paused. Chara didn’t understand why this was all such a big deal, but they were patient.

“… My name is Frisk.”
“Frisk?”
“Frisk.”
“Isn’t that when airport security people feel you up for weapons?”
”I don’t know what an airport is, but I don’t think I like your tone.”

Chara made placating gestures at the air as they stood up.

“Sorry, sorry. Now, do you want to go face our destiny, Frisk?”
“Let’s.”

The door was as heavy as it looked, and it took all of Chara’s strength to push it open. As light and cold air fell down on them, they were filled with purpose.

Chapter Text

Chara adjusted the backpack on their shoulders as they looked around them. True to Asgore’s words, the huge door became immovable the instant it closed. They’d tested it out almost immediately.

Before them was a long path carved into a snow-covered forest. The trees were larger than any Chara had ever seen before, and they emphasized how tall the ceiling of the Underground was here. The ceiling could almost be mistaken for a stormy sky whose roiling surface was rendered immobile. When Chara thought about it, they weren’t sure why everything was well-lit. The light wasn’t coming from the ceiling. In fact, it almost seemed as though the light was coming from the snow.
The surrounding forest looked foreboding as hell, so it was probably best to stick to the path. As Chara started to move forward, though, the path didn’t really feel much better. The snow muffled all sound, so all they could hear was their own breathing and footsteps. The forest seemed like the perfect place for dangerous things to hide. Chara had seen their fair share of popular media. They knew Slenderman was real.

Looking around in paranoia as they walked, Chara whispered to the air.

“Hey, Frisk… do you think I’m being watched? Or, um, if you knew I was being watched you’d tell me?”
“If something were watching you, this probably wouldn’t be the best time to talk to yourself.”

Chara bit down their retort of “that doesn’t make me feel any better you asshole”, deciding it would be counterproductive.
A novelty presented itself in the form of a large branch lying in the middle of the path. Chara sidestepped it without much thought. The path seemed to end with a barricade up ahead, and hopefully-

Chara blinked and the branch was lying a few feet in front of them. It appeared soundlessly, unmoving, the snow around it undisturbed. They stopped and took this in for a few disoriented seconds. Chara blinked a few more times to see if anything else would happen, but nothing did. Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, they walked up to the branch.

It wasn’t the original branch. It was a realistic balloon decoy. Chara gently lifted it in their hand before turning to look behind them. The branch they’d sidestepped was still there.

“What the fuck…?”

Chara stared down at the branch decoy in terrified awe before setting it down and continuing forward. They couldn’t let the shenanigans of a mysterious balloon monster get to them.
Just as they thought that, they heard the distinct sound of footsteps behind them. Chara frantically looked over their shoulder, but saw nothing. Despite the sound, the only footprints in the snow were their own.

Letting the shenanigans of a mysterious balloon monster totally get to them, Chara practically ran for the barricade. When they got to it, though, they realized in horror it was totally effective. The bars were too close together to let them pass.

The sound of footsteps returned, getting closer and closer to the panicking child. Chara stared at the barrier, their arms wrapped around themself, as they contemplated how not-far they had come. They’d given up their life with a loving goat-dad for nothing.
The footsteps came to a stop. Chara watched their breath fog in front of them as the seconds passed. They were surprised they didn’t jump out of their own skin when the silence was finally broken.

“Human. Don’t you know it’s rude not to greet a new pal? Here: turn around and shake my hand.”

Chara turned slowly, their heart thumping in their chest. What the hell was this thing, and what was it going to look like?

The Grim Reaper, apparently.

The figure before them, whose arm was outstretched and waiting, was a tall skeletal being with a face cloaked in shadow. To Chara’s frightened mind, the being was almost certainly death-incarnate.
The reaper’s outstretched fingers wiggled slightly in impatience. Oh god, they were actually going to have to shake this thing’s hand. Welp… this was as good a time as any to test out their reanimation abilities.

Filled with hesitation, Chara reached out to grab the creature’s hand. When they finally made contact, the results were shocking.

Literally.

Chara jumped away with a screech as a buzz of pain shot up their arm. They shook their hand out frantically while soft chuckles started to float around them. Looking up, they saw the reaper pull back his hood.

Beneath the hood was a smiling skeleton. He was laughing quietly to himself around the cigarette in his teeth, and his eyes were closed in mirth. Eventually he calmed down and gazed back at Chara. There was a pause as he took them in.

“Hey there, friend, you don’t have to look so scared. It was just a prank. See?”

Chara flinched slightly as the skeleton outstretched his hand again. Seeming to notice their reaction, he gently tilted his hand so that the palm faced towards them. On the palm of his hand was a joy buzzer. Chara spoke up for the first time.

“Are you… serious?”

The skeleton took his hand back and shoved it in his hoodie pocket. How had Chara ever thought that red hoodie was the cloak of the Grim Reaper?

“No. I’m Papyrus.”

A beat passed as Chara took this in.

“Is that… your name?”
“What name?”
“Papyrus.”
“Oh my god, human, how did you know my name?!”

Chara stared up at the skeleton Papyrus with a deadpan look normally reserved for Asgore when he tried to tell jokes. With no change in expression, they lifted up their hands to perform jazz hands.

“… Magic.”

This seemed to go over well, as Papyrus snorted slightly.

“Well-played, tiny human, well-played. Do you have a name as well?”

They considered not telling him. Being a mysterious loner would be cool. However, they had a suspicion the skeleton wouldn’t accept that.

“My name’s Chara.”

Papyrus nodded.

“An unusual name for an unusual human. Now… I have something to tell you, Chara.”

After their little scare with the joy buzzer, they felt like they could handle whatever a weird skeleton could throw at them, so they looked up at him inquisitively.

“While I’m not really interested in capturing humans, my brother’s dream is to do so. He’s a bright guy, has a real spark for life, but he’s totally harmless. If you were to humor him for a little bit, it would really make him happy.”

Chara grimaced at him skeptically.

“Really? You want me to give myself up just to make your brother happy?”
“Nah. You wouldn’t actually get captured. By the end of the whole thing he’ll probably just want to be friends with you. I have amazing foresight, kid, trust me.”
“Okay. I guess that’s doable. But why should I care? I have places to go, worlds to save. I can’t just wait around to make friends with people.”

Papyrus took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his fingers pensively.

“What’s the rush? Besides, every friend made is a world saved. It’s been said that every individual is their own world. Surely that’s worth something to a good kid like you.”

Chara huffed and crossed their arms.

“You don’t know I’m a good kid. You just met me.”

Papyrus shrugged.

“I have a pretty amazing sense for people on top of my amazing foresight. You could say I can see your… Character.”

Right. Yep. Enough of this.

Chara turned back to the barricade.

“Please god how do I escape.”

Papyrus sauntered past them with a wink.

“I don’t know about any gods, but I can certainly help you out.”

Chara watched as the skeleton pushed on one of the logs until it swung outwards, leaving an opening behind. Papyrus gestured for them to walk through.

“Really? There’s a door right in this thing?”
“Yep.”

As they came out into an opening with a sentry station and an abandoned lamp, Papyrus stopped.

“My brother’s coming this way. Quick, kiddo, get behind that conveniently-shaped lamp.”

Chara couldn’t see or hear anything, but they complied anyway. After waiting a couple seconds, there was a sudden popping noise. One instant the only thing in sight was Papyrus, and another instant there was a blue blob standing in front of Papyrus.

“PAPS!!”

The blob was a second skeleton. Chara chanced a detailed look at him. He wore a chainmail cuirass that was a bit too long on his short body, along with blue knee-pads, blue elbow-pads, blue sneakers, blue gardening gloves, and a blue cape. He was vibrating up and down, looking at Papyrus with excitement. The tall skeleton gazed down at him calmly.

“Yeah, Sans?”
“Have you found any humans today?!”
“Hmm… maybe.”

Sans gasped, his eyes going starry.

“Really?! Usually you just say no, so you must mean yes!!”

Papyrus shrugged.

“You got me, brother.”

Chara bit their cheek to hold in their laughter as the smaller skeleton climbed up Papyrus and sat on his shoulders, hugging his head.

“We need to find the human right now!! If I capture a human, Alphys will be so proud of me!! My training’s been going well, but she says I still have a long way to go… if I could do this, I could prove that I’m not weak!”

Sans had looked slightly downcast towards the end, and Papyrus clearly sensed it. He gently pulled the skeleton off of his shoulders and held him at arm’s length.

“Sans, you’re not weak, that’s ridiculous. Remember what I’ve always said.”

The little skeleton perked up.

“That if you’re awesome, I must be awesome too because we’re bros?!”

Papyrus nodded sagely.

“Exactly. Now… who’s The Fantastic Sans?”

Sans wriggled and waved around in the larger skeleton’s hands excitedly.

“ME!! I’M THE FANTASTIC SANS!!”

Papyrus lowered his brother to the ground, allowing the little one to run in circles around him. He looked down at Sans affectionately. Chara once again had to stifle their laughter as they saw a “hug me” sign had somehow gotten plastered onto the smaller skeleton’s back. Did that even count as a prank?

“The human’s probably farther down the path. I’ll catch up with you once I check things out here.”
“Of course! Wee hee hee!!”

With that final adorable laughter, Sans popped back out of existence. Papyrus waited a couple seconds before calling out to Chara. They walked around the lamp and looked around cautiously.

“Uh. Where did he go?”
“He can teleport.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”

Papyrus looked into the distance as Chara stared up at him. Something was bugging them.

“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, kid, shoot.”
“Why would you smoke if you’re a skeleton? Do you even get any nicotine out of that?”

Papyrus looked down at them for a second, seeming to contemplate their question. Suddenly, he brought his hand up to his face, bit the cigarette in half, and held the other half away as he chewed. Chara felt like their jaw had descended into hell. The skeleton winked at them, a grin on his face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, human. This is a bonafide candy cig. I can’t afford to grow any cancerous boners.”

With that, Papyrus tossed the other half of the fake cigarette into his mouth, winked at them again, and strode off along the path. Chara stared after him. Frisk spoke up in their ear after half a minute.

“You, uh, gonna be okay there?”

Chara picked their jaw up from the floor.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay. What the actual fuck, Frisk?”
“Welcome to the Underground!”

Chara groaned and started to follow after Papyrus.

If this situation made them at-all hopeful for what the rest of their journey would be like, they hid it extremely well.

Chapter Text

“Snowdrake appears!”
“Why are these things always hiding around corners? Are they waiting for something? Is it me?”

Chara had run into a large snowflake monster almost immediately upon leaving the sentry area. Of course they had. They’d had it too easy for too long.
As they pressed the Act button, Frisk gave them their options.

“You can check Snowdrake, heckle him, tell him a joke, or laugh.”
“No flirting?”
“Don’t sass me.”

Chara snorted in reply and considered what they should do. Heckling seemed mean, and they had nothing to laugh at. Maybe they could try to tell a joke?
They cleared their throat and stepped forward.

“Hey there, it’s nice to meet you.”

Snowdrake frowned at them.

“I’ve heard that one before.”

Damn. Harsh.

Snowdrake’s attacks consisted of easily dodged ice-crescents, which Chara was grateful for. They had bad memories of hopelessly trying to escape a Vegetoid’s cascade of vegetables.
Chara grimaced at their options as the game interface returned.

“You think that pun was too weak? Maybe I should try another one.”
“Ehh.”
“What?”
“Ehhhhhhhhh.”
“You can tell me what you think I should do, it’s not ‘cheating’.”
“Maybe… check… his stats…?”
“There we go.”

There was a pause as Frisk did whatever it was they did when stats were called for. Chara was afraid to ask.

“Snowdrake has an AT of 12 and a DF of 7. He’s just looking for the right audience.”
“The heck does that mean?”

Chara went through the motions of dodging Snowdrake’s attacks, but as they did so the snow monster spoke up.

“Ice puns are snow problem!”

Amazing. The instant Chara had the interface back, they pressed Act and laughed.

“Oh my god, dude, that’s terrible. I love it.”

Snowdrake brightened up instantly. He hopped up and down excitedly.

“Yes! Laughs! Dad was wrong!!”

Chara bit back their snort of amusement as Frisk whispered in their ear.

“You can spare him now.”

They did so gladly, allowing the forest path to fade back into view. Snowdrake ran off without saying goodbye. He was probably going to tell someone about his successful joke.
Now that they weren’t being startled into a fight with a comedian, Chara was able to look around. They had come to a crossroads. The road straight ahead was more well-worn, so it was probably the way to go. There was also the sound of rushing water to the north, and a path that led there. In the center of the crossroads were a box and a sign.
The sign described how there were connected boxes all over, so if they put anything in they wouldn’t have to worry about coming back to it. Frisk was totally bewildered when Chara sputtered something about “Ender chests” and “Minecraft”. Maybe Minecraft was a book that had come out since their demise?

Chara looked inside the box, though they didn’t want to put anything in yet. They were surprised to find a set of pink leather gloves lying at the bottom. When they thought about it, their hands were a little cold. They pulled on the gloves and wiggled their fingers a little bit. The gloves were huge on them, but they were cozy enough.

“There are studs of some kind in the knuckles.”
“Dude, seriously?! Badass.”

A wave of disapproval waved over Chara. They rolled their eyes towards the ceiling and sighed.

“I’m not gonna punch anything, don’t worry.”

The disapproval went away instantly. At least Frisk was pretty easy to appease.

Before they progressed, they decided to check out the northern path. It ended abruptly on the bank of an icy river, and the only notable feature was a fishing pole stuck in the shore. Chara reeled in the line out of curiosity. Instead of bait or anything caught by bait, there was a note stuck to the hook.

“STOP calling me! Don’t call THIS number.”

Chara considered calling the listed number for shits and giggles. In fact, they couldn’t think of any real reason not to. They whipped out their phone and dialed the number. The line only rang once.

“Hey there, how-“
“AGHHHHHHH”

Click.

Well, that went well. Chara ignored the annoyed groan that followed them as they made their way back on track.
Standing in the middle of the path ahead were the skeleton brothers. Sans was facing away from them, but Papyrus immediately noticed them and winked. Catching his brother’s movement, the smaller skeleton turned around. Chara waved at him cheerily. Sans gaped at them for a moment as stars gathered in his eyes.

“Is… Is that a human, Paps?!”

Papyrus considered them thoughtfully.

“I dunno, brother, I think that’s a rock.”
“A rock- NO Paps, not the rock, the thing in front of the rock!!”
“Ohhh. Yeah, that’s totally a human.”

Sans started to vibrate with increasing intensity. He looked like this was the best day of his life. Eventually, still vibrating, he turned away from them. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. When Sans turned back towards Chara, he was just barely vibrating.

“HUMAN!! I, the FANTASTIC Sans, forbid you from passing this way!! If you dare to continue, you will be thoroughly japed by the puzzles my bro and I have created! Then, if and when you fail, I will capture you!!”

Sans looked like he had more prepared, but Chara raised their hand. This didn’t seem to dampen his enthusiasm.

“Yes, human?!”
“What happens if you capture me?”

This, however, did seem to dampen him.

“Oh! Um… Queen Toriel needs humans for soulpower! I’m not sure how she uses the soulpower, but I’m pretty sure she already has six souls! Knowing her, they’re probably all staying at her house and eating pie!”

Chara sincerely doubted that, but they nodded anyway. Papyrus patted his little brother on the head.

“Do you want to get the puzzle ahead set up?”

Sans bounced delightedly, enthusiasm back in full force.

“Yes!! Come on, bro!!”
“Alright, alright, yeesh Sans you don’t need to pull my arm out.”

Chara watched as the small skeleton dragged the tall skeleton into the distance. They weren’t sure what puzzles they were going to face, but they had a feeling they were up to the challenge.
Up ahead was a small, well-designed sentry station. There were decorations covering it, and a sign could be seen on the front of it.

“Sentry Station of Sans: Future Royal Guard :)”

When Chara poked their head in, they could see the floor of the station was covered in construction paper and other craft supplies. Sans must’ve been an artist as well as a future royal guard.

The next sentry station was preceded by a sign saying “absolutely DO NOT stop moving!!” Chara shot the sign a puzzled expression and walked up to the station. A dog-shaped monster was leaning out of the entrance, peering around suspiciously. He didn’t seem to notice Chara as they walked up to him. When they stopped in front of him, however, his eyes shot to them and widened.

“Not moving!! NOT MOVING!!”

And just like that, they were in a battle again.

“Doggo blocks the way!”
“I really brought this on myself, didn’t I?”

When they selected Act this time, Frisk only provided them with two choices: check and pet. Weird.

“Any… suggestions…?”
“I don’t suggest petting while it’s still suspicious.”

That didn’t leave many options. Chara didn’t want to check stats anymore. They had no basis for what the attack and defense stats really meant, so the numbers were useless to them. For the first time, they decided to try something totally new.

They pressed the Mercy button without the go-ahead from Frisk.

“I won’t fight you!”

Unfortunately, Doggo didn’t really seem to care. As the heart arena came up he started shouting again.

“KEEP MOVING!! MOVE!!!”

Chara followed his request and moved their soul around in a circle. An orange sword swept through the arena, and they instinctively flinched in anticipation of the inevitable impact, but the pain never came. The sword fazed through their soul harmlessly, and the arena faded away.

“Doggo thinks the coast might be clear.”
“Does that mean I can spare him now?”
“Nope.”

There was only one thing left to do, then.

Chara pressed Act and ran across the dark battlefield. They stood on tiptoe, patted Doggo on the head, and ran back to their standard position. Doggo was in conniptions as the heart arena reappeared.

“I’VE BEEN PET!! PET!!! PAT!!!! POT!!! PET!!!!”

Chara watched the dog monster freak out as they wiggled their soul around the arena. When the orange sword had made its sweep, they pressed Mercy.
The world faded to color, and Chara bounced from foot to foot. They had to keep moving if they didn’t want to go through Round 2. Doggo was looking around frantically.

“I… I was pet by something… something that stayed in constant motion…. I need some dog treats for this.”

Chara relaxed as the shaken monster ducked down behind the counter and out of sight. They thought they’d handled that well, all things considered. On top of that, they’d learned about another kind of magical attack. That might be valuable information later on.
Looking forward, they saw that Papyrus was leaning on a tree nearby. He was chewing on another candy cig and lazily staring up at the ceiling. He looked down at Chara as they approached with a wave.

“Hey there, friend. Nice gloves. They go well with the ribbon.”

Chara shrugged but smiled up at him.

“Thanks. Normally I’m not into girly stuff, but I can pull off anything.”
“Same.”

Instead of responding sarcastically to the skeleton’s high self-esteem, they decided to ask him a question that had been bothering them for some time.

“Hey, uh, can you see monster battles from the outside? I’ve never seen anyone else fighting, so I have no clue what it looks like.”

Papyrus nodded sagely.

“Don’t worry, human, I have great knowledge of mundane things such as that. When you’re in a battle, you and your opponent stand across from one another expressionlessly while your souls float in front of your chest. If your soul takes any damage in-battle, your body takes the corresponding amount of damage outside of the battle, but I’m sure you knew that.”

Chara decided not to comment on battles being mundane.

“How does the damage even happen, though? Where does the fighting happen?”
“Oh, that’s easy.”

Papyrus didn’t elaborate any further. He just gazed at them lazily, the candy cig twirling in his mouth.

Chara glanced around awkwardly.

“Uh. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, you gonna elaborate?”
“Oh. Right.”

Papyrus popped the candy cig into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully before answering.

“It happens in another dimension.”

Chara blinked up at the skeleton.

“Are you serious?”
“Super serious.”
“How does that even work?”
“Here’s a better question… What did you think of Doggo’s orange attack?”

This smartass was trying to change the subject.

“I dunno, I don’t really have any thoughts. I just know I have to keep moving if the attacks are orange in that extra-dimensional space of which I have no understanding.”
“Great, so you have the foundations to understand blue attacks.”

No more answers for them, they guessed.
Chara wiped their face with a gloved hand and shot the skeleton a deadpan look.

“What are blue attacks, Papyrus?”
“I’m glad you asked, Chara. Blue attacks are the opposite of orange attacks. You have to not be moving in order to avoid them. You’ll find this to be relevant later on.”

Chara looked away from Papyrus at the icy clearing ahead.

“Stellar. I think I’d better be on my way.”

The tall skeleton pushed off of the tree he was leaning on and started in the opposite direction.

“Stay classy, kiddo.”

As if Chara wasn’t 100% classy.

The ice was slippery as hell, and the trip across it to the sign in the middle of the clearing was definitely not worth the trouble. The only relevant info on it was that a town called Snowdin could be found to the east. Maybe they’d find a place to stay that wasn’t full of creatures wanting to turn them in for ransom.

The little-travelled path to the north led Chara to a smiling snowperson. It seemed to be watching them as they walked up, and when it spoke they weren’t even surprised.

“Excuse me, traveler, but are you going somewhere faraway?”
“If Toriel’s castle is considered faraway.”
“I would appreciate it if you carried a small piece of me with you on your journey. I want to see the world, but I cannot move.”
“Won’t you… melt?”
“I am a magical snowperson. I will not melt.”
“Oh. Alright, then.”

Chara hesitantly bent down and grabbed a lump of snow from the snowperson’s base. A happy hum was their reward as they placed the lump in one of the pockets of their backpack. They stood up and gave the snowperson a friendly wave before pushing forward with their adventure.

The eastern path ended at a flattened field of snow, and on the other side of the field stood the skeleton brothers. Chara stopped as Sans called out to them enthusiastically.

“Human!! I hope you’re prepared for your first puzzle!! This puzzle is a test of memory, wit, and physical perseverance!! I’m sure you’ll find this invisible maze to be… electrifying!”

Chara blinked at the starry-eyed skeleton from across the puzzle.

“You mean it’s an electric maze?”
“Yes!! Exactly, human bud!! Very perceptive! Step forward… if you dare!!”

As they were about to do just that, however, Papyrus cleared his throat.

“I think you might be forgetting something, brother.”

Sans looked up at the taller skeleton quizzically. Then he bounced upwards in revelation.

“OH!! THAT’S RIGHT!!”

In an instant, Sans had gone from standing next to Papyrus to standing next to Chara. He deposited a blue orb into their confused hands.

“You need this!!”

The next instant, he was beside Papyrus once more. Alright then.

The invisible maze was a literal pain in the ass. Chara slowly made their way through, cursing and spitting the whole way. They could feel Frisk wincing sympathetically with every shock. At one point, while they were near the middle, they looked up wearily at the skeleton bros.

“You know electric shocks can kill humans, right?”

Papyrus’ eyebrow rose, and the stars went out of Sans’ eyes. The smaller one stammered in response.

“You-you don’t mean that, right?!”

Chara rubbed the sore arm they’d been using to feel their way through the maze.

“Normally I’d be exaggerating, but yeah.”

Sans looked totally appalled. They almost felt bad for bursting his bubble.

“Here!! Toss the orb to me!! The maze can’t shock you if you aren’t holding the orb!!”

Chara did so without hesitation. The little skeleton caught it deftly and dropped it, still staring at them with shock in his eyes. They really needed to say something.

“It isn’t your fault, Sans. You didn’t know. And look, I’m fine.”

Sans slowly looked them up and down before regaining some of his previous momentum.

“Yes, you’re right!! As Alphys would say, this is a learning opportunity! I, the Fantastic Sans, will not waste this opportunity!! I must forge ahead and make my puzzles more human-friendly!!”

With a “wee hee hee”, the small skeleton popped out of existence. Papyrus remained, looking as aloof as ever. Chara walked up to him and shook out their limbs.

“Sorry for ruining the fun. I just value my life, y’know?”

Papyrus gave them a small smile.

“No worries, Chara. My brother’s a tough cookie. He knows what’s up. What do you think of him?”
“Uh, well he has more energy in his right pinkie than I have in my entire body. He seems pretty likeable? And I could probably be friends with him in, like, five minute bursts without spontaneously combusting.”

The tall skeleton nodded.

“Everybody’s got different needs. I can respect that.”
“Also, I don’t know much about monsters, but I feel like teleporting is some high-level magic. And he’s doing it all the time. I’m thinking I shouldn’t underestimate him.”

This got a full blown grin to pull its way across Papyrus’ face.

“How could you say that, kiddo? My brother’s as harmless as a fly. Well, I’d better be off. Sans is probably waiting for me. Catch you on the flip side.”

Papyrus walked past them casually, never sparing Chara a second glance as they stared after him. If the hint the skeleton had in his voice was any indication, their suspicions were totally correct.

They were going to have their work cut out for them, weren’t they?

Chapter Text

Craig sighed with the melancholic energy of a thousand emo bloggers.

He was all alone in the snowy backwaters of the Underground, with only the occasional Icecap for company. He hated to begrudge his boss, who had kind enough intentions, but was this really the best place to sell Canonfaits? As much as Napstabot insisted that every monster deserved to have a shot at eating their wholesome trash food, Craig sincerely doubted they were going to make any money off of rebellious teenagers.

Perhaps he’d write about this for slam poetry night.

He watched blearily as Papyrus walked by. That quiet skeleton was never going to buy anything of his, so he didn’t spare him much thought. Trailing behind the skeleton, however, was a weird monster Craig had never seen before. To his intense surprise, the creature walked up to his cart and started inspecting the menu on the front. He cleared his throat.

“Hello there!! Welcome to NPT Creations. What can I get for you, dear customer??”

The creature didn’t look up at him, but instead frowned at the menu.

“Uh, what’s a Harmonyburger?”

Craig’s eye twitched slightly.

“Unfamiliar with our products?? That’s alright!! A Harmonyburger consists of whole-grain buns, and three mystery ingredients guaranteed to give you a different experience with every visit!!”
“What are the mystery ingredients?”

Craig’s grin became manic.
“If I told you, that would spoil the mystery!! Each ingredient is randomly chosen from our roster of wholesome sandwich elements!”
“Oh. I guess that’s alright, then. I’ll have a Harmonyburger.”

Craig’s face stopped twitching.

“Excellent!! Great choice!! That will be 15G.”

The weird creature shoved a hand into their pocket, counted out a bunch of coins, and handed them to him. He deposited the gold into his money tin and reached into the cart for a pre-made Harmonyburger. With a final, slightly unhinged smile, he gave the monster their burger.

“Thank you for your purchase, valued customer!! Come again!!”

The monster gave him a weird look and nodded. Craig didn’t know why they were looking at him like he was weird… they were the one with a tattered ribbon in their hair.

Instead of walking away and leaving him alone, the creature sat down on a nearby rock. He tried not to stare at them as they unwrapped the burger, looked at it suspiciously, and took a bite. He tried even harder not to look surprised as the thing’s face brightened and they took another bite. Why anyone liked Harmonyburgers was beyond him. He’d only ever gotten unpleasant ingredient combos.

To his further consternation, the monster looked up at him thoughtfully.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

The eye-twitch was back.

“Oh, I’m just an NPT employee!! I really shouldn’t talk on the job!”

With a snort, the monster gestured around with their burger.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s nobody around.”
“ Yeah, but-“
“Are you really gonna get in trouble? Is your boss that much of a hard-ass?”

Craig deflated slightly.

“No, they’re not, but-“
“You need to relax, dude. Life is more than Harmonyburgers and… whatever the hell Espressivo Sandwiches are.”

Craig deflated so far he was lying face-down on the cart.

“Espressivo Sandwiches are… hoagies with 12 different sauces…”
“What do you care about Mr. NPT? What are your real passions?”

Craig considered this as he let the cold of the cart’s metal seep through his fur. Maybe he was finally discovering what it was like to lay down and feel like garbage. Finally he brought his head up and stared at the monster who was now half-way finished with their burger.

“I… really want to be an actor.”
“Hmm.”
“And my boss says I can try out for auditions any time they come up, but they don’t really do any huge productions with lots of actors. I have to make a living though, so I’m here, working for my boss’ food chain so I can stay in their sphere of influence until the time comes.”

The monster replied with food still in their mouth.

“You goth any hobbieth?”
“I write sometimes.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ve just got a lot inside me, you know? A lot of feelings.”
“Mmhm.”
“Maybe one day when we all get out of here I’ll share my vision with the world.”

The monster swallowed their final bite.

“Go for it, dude. Your time’s coming. Uh, you got a trash can?”

Craig straightened up.

“Yeah, I keep one in my cart. Here.”

The creature dunked the burger wrapper into the offered trash can with a gloved hand. This person certainly did have an eclectic fashion sense. They walked away from the cart with a wave.

“Have a good one, Mr. NPT.”
“Thanks.”

And once again, Craig was alone. Sigh.

Of course, the monster hadn’t been a monster at all. It’d been a hungry and very much human Chara. They wondered if everyone in the Underground was going to totally ignore their obvious humanity, or if the salesman had just been oblivious.

The nearby puzzle didn’t really seem to have a purpose, as far as Chara could tell. The road ahead wasn’t blocked by anything, and neither of the skeleton brothers was even in sight. It had to have something to do with something though, so they decided to have a go at it. The giant ball of snow they needed to direct into a golf hole was slippery for some reason, and moving it in the right direction before it melted was a greater challenge than they anticipated.

Eventually, after at least five tries, they kicked the ball into the hole. A congratulatory chime sounded, and a purple flag rose up from the hole. Frisk spoke up.

“Even when you felt trapped, you took notes and achieved the end of ‘Ball’. You earned 2G.”
“Wow. Two whole G.”

Having completely wasted their time, Chara decided to move on. This was probably the best decision they could’ve made, as the skeleton brothers were waiting directly ahead. Sans waved them to a stop.

“Human!! This next puzzle is sure to jape you… in safety!! For it is a dastardly puzzle hand-picked by my brother to confuse you! Safely confuse you!! This will be the time you falter!!”

Lying halfway between Chara and the skeletons was a lone sheet of paper. Chara walked over and picked it up. It was a crossword. They looked at it for a second before blinking up at Sans and Papyrus.

“Do either of you guys have a pencil?”

Sans bounced in place.

“Of course!! I should’ve given it to you before! Excellent thinking, human!”

The small skeleton skipped over to them and handed a pencil to them, making sure it went into their hand eraser-first. He then skipped back to his spot and gazed at them excitedly.

Chara sat down so they could use their leg as a writing surface and started to do the crossword. It was a fairly challenging one, and seemed to focus mostly on trivia about cartoons from the 90s. At one point Chara was tempted to ask one of the brothers for help, but they decided against it. The two probably wouldn’t help them.
With a final long answer of “powerpuff girls”, Chara completed the crossword. They stood up and handed the paper to Sans, who seemed ecstatic despite the failure of his jape to stop them.

“Wow!! That only took you six minutes! That’s incredible for a crossword of advanced difficulty!!”

Chara shrugged.

“I like those kinds of things. There’s usually a couple in the newspaper on the surface. Junior Jumble’s also good.”

Papyrus was the one who responded to this.

“See brother? The Junior Jumble would’ve worked.”

Sans just blew this off.

“Nah, bro, you were right to pick today’s crossword! Junior Jumble’s for baby bones!! Baby bones, and the uh, human!!”

Said human raised their hand.

“My name’s Chara.”
“For baby bones and Chara!! I rest my case! Alright, bro, I’ll be up ahead preparing the next japing!!”

The baby bones human walked up to Papyrus as Sans popped from existence. There was no accompanying “wee hee hee”, possibly because Sans was so focused on the increasingly difficult task of stumping Chara.

“You got any other wisdom for me?”
“Only this: never mention horoscopes around my brother.”
“Um, okay, random. Why?”
“He’s done a bunch of research into astronomy, and according to him the idea someone’s destiny is in any way affected by distant stars is absurd.”
“Makes sense. Why did he research astronomy?”
“Because he thought the horoscope was a puzzle and he wanted to solve it.”
“And he studied an entire branch of science to try and do that?”
“Yep.”
“How… in depth did he go?”
“Enough.”
“Ah. Well, um, I’ll see you up ahead?”
“See ya, kiddo.”

Chara walked past Papyrus, who remained where he was and tilted his head up to stare at the ceiling. They really weren’t sure what he was getting out of it.

Right up ahead was a clearing with a table in the middle. On the table were a microwave, a plate of waffles, and a hastily scrawled note. Chara moseyed up and read the note.

“Behold my most dastardly puzzle! The waffle puzzle! Your task is to consume my delicious waffles! A microwave, powered by CORE technology, has been provided for your convenience!! Beware: you will be so enraptured with my cooking that you may lose the motivation to progress!! Wee hee hee!!! ~~ Sans ~~”

Chara wasn’t really that hungry after eating a Harmonyburger, but they decided to humor Sans anyway. They pried a waffle from the frozen stack and popped it in the microwave. True to the note, the microwave worked despite not being plugged into anything. Every button on the microwave said “waffles”, so Chara picked a button at random and waited. After a short time the microwave beeped and opened.

The waffle seemed like it would’ve been good with some syrup and butter, Chara decided. If Sans asked them about it they’d have to let him know.

The next area annoyed Chara despite themselves. There was clearly a switch hidden somewhere to make the spikes at the end of the path go away, but their efforts were constantly thwarted by teenage monsters wanting to pick a fight with them. Hat-obsessed Icecaps fell before Chara’s feigned indifference, Snowdrake returned for a couple more rounds of comedy, and then there was… Jerry.

Oh, Jerry.

The irritating monster brought out a side of Frisk they’d never seen before. When they asked for options regarding him, the ghostly human replied bluntly.

“Ditch him.”
“Woah, seriously?”
“Yep. Ditch him.”

Chara was then able to talk to the other monsters and convince them to move to a different spot so they could ditch Jerry. The monsters were more than happy to comply. It was kind of bizarre.

They would’ve felt sorry for the guy if he wasn’t… well… Jerry.

When they finally discovered a map showing the location of the switch, the way was blocked by one final obstacle. A dog in a suit of armor was stationed over where the switch would be.
Chara expected a somewhat challenging battle, as it appeared that the dog was a member of the Royal Guard they’d heard so much about. They were pleasantly surprised to find that all they needed to do was pet their opponent. It reminded them of Doggo.

Frisk gave them the go-ahead to spare fairly early on, but Chara was having a whale of a time petting the “Lesser Dog”, whose neck got longer and longer with every pet. His head had nearly reached the top of the nearest tree when Frisk cleared their non-existent throat.

“You, uh, almost done?”
“I will never be done.”
“Right, I’m cutting you off, it’s time to stop.”
“It’s the candy bowl all over again! You have no power over me, weird Pokémon announcer!”
“Why do you keep calling me that, I don’t even know what that is.”

Eventually Chara remembered their mission to save the world, and they reluctantly stopped. By that point the dog’s head was at least two trees high.

They thought they were done with dogs, but unfortunately they were mistaken. Just past the lowered spikes was a pair of canine Royal Guards who found Chara’s smell to be incredibly suspicious.

“You face Dogamy and Dogaressa!”
“Oh sweet Jesus they’re holding giant axes. Options, Frisk, options.”
“You can check their stats, roll on the ground, pet them, or allow them to re-sniff you.”
“Should I… pet them?”
“They’re pretty suspicious, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

There was no reason to allow them to re-sniff, either, since nothing had changed. Maybe if they rolled around they would smell like dirt?
Somehow the dark ground of the battlefield held the same consistency of the ground back in Snowdin Forest. As they rolled around in unseen dirt and snow, they contemplated what Papyrus had said about alternate dimensions. Maybe he’d pulled that out of his ass?

The attack of the two dogs was fairly simple. A series of normal attacks and blue attacks swept past Chara’s soul, and they barely needed to dodge at all. This wouldn’t be so bad.
When the gaming interface returned, Chara was quick to press Act and offer themself to the dogs for re-sniffing. Their intuition had been spot on, as the married guards proceeded to talk among themselves about how Chara smelled like a snowy puppy.

“Alright Frisk, I’m ready to spare- OH MY GOD”

The dogs attacked with their axes, and there didn’t seem to be any space for dodging. Chara frantically tried to duck their soul under the descending weapons, but they sustained some hefty damage. After what seemed like ages, the heart arena faded away.

“I think my arm is bleeding. It’s going to need to be amputated. Say goodbye to Asgore for me.”
“Shhh you’ll survive. Pet them and you’ll be able to leave.”

Chara complied, ignoring the sharp pain as they ran over and patted each dog on the head. It didn’t feel so much like they were doing the sparing this time.
Apparently being pet by another pup was an enlightening experience, as the dogs walked away with stars in their eyes. Chara groaned and examined the cuts now covering their body.

“Dad packed you some monster food. It should heal your injuries.”
“Right.”

Wincing, Chara rummaged around in their backpack and pulled out a spider cookie. They shoved it in their mouth and chewed, allowing the feeling of magical healing to sweep through them. It didn’t take long for most of the stinging pain to go away. Swallowing, Chara made to move on but stopped. They realized something.

“You just called Asgore Dad.”
“You call him Dad. I picked it up from you.”
“… Okay.”

It wasn’t that big of a deal, so Chara let it go.

To the south was a small puzzle involving large X’s on the ground. A series of spikes stretched across the path ahead, and on the other side of the spikes was Sans. He waved at them excitedly.

“Chara! Human-Chara!!”

Human-Chara walked past the puzzle so they could talk to Sans. They gave him a small wave.

“Sup?”
“I see you’ve gotten past more of my puzzles!! Tell me: what did you think of the waffle puzzle?!”
“I thought it was pretty good. Your waffles would be great with some syrup and butter.”

Sans gasped, his eyes lighting up.

“Of course!! I should’ve provided some at the table!! I’m learning so much today!”
“Same.”
“It shouldn’t take you long to learn how to do the tic-tac-toe puzzle!! I’ll be up ahead, where the more challenging versions are!! Wee hee hee!!”

Chara turned back to the puzzle as Sans vanished. As the name suggested, they just had to turn the X’s into O’s by stepping on them. As the spikes fell and they were able to move on, Chara hummed to themself.

“Oh the X’s... and Oh oh ohs they haunt me… like ghosts they want me…”
“What are you even singing?”
“It’s a pop song back on the surface. You don’t know what airports are, so you probably wouldn’t recognize it.”
“Pop… song…?”
“Popular song. Catchy song. Song you hear five hundred times on the radio.”
“Radio?”
“… I think we need to have a chat later about how old you are.”
“I’m 10.”
“Somehow I’m doubting that one, buddy.”

In a quantum leap, the next tic-tac-toe puzzle had gone from two X’s to many X’s in a maze of snow lumps. Standing next to the switch was Sans, who was buzzing excitedly.

“While you were doing everything else, I arranged this puzzle to look more like my face!! It’s added a layer of challenge, and improved my self-esteem!!”

Chara smiled at the small skeleton and turned to examine the puzzle. It definitely looked like a challenge. According to the sign next to the first puzzle, you could only step on the X’s once. As they mentally plotted their route, Sans bounced next to them.

“If you ever need my help, don’t be afraid to ask!!”

Chara nodded, but they felt pretty confident. After a couple more seconds of contemplation, they picked their way through the skull-shaped maze. They nearly turned the wrong way or stepped on an X twice, but eventually the puzzle succumbed to their logical wit. Chara left the maze and stepped on the switch in triumph. Sans seemed to have entirely forgotten he was supposed to be stopping them with his puzzles.

“You did it!! So cool!! You must really love puzzles like I do!!”

Chara grinned smugly at him, ignoring the annoyed sigh in their ear.

“What can I say? I’m a natural.”
“Definitely!!! Oh boy, I’m so excited for what’s next! We’re gonna be such good buddies!!”

Sans gave them a friendly bump on the arm with a gloved hand before popping out of existence. Chara smiled to themself and walked on.

“Looks like you’re making friends.”
“Yeah- well, I mean, it only makes sense. If I’m friends with Sans he won’t capture me.”
“Mmm.”
“I don’t have any other motivations.”
“Right.”
“Shut up.”

Chara didn’t know why Sans had bothered teleporting, because he was waiting just up ahead with Papyrus. Between Chara and the skeletons was a glassy, tiled floor. The small skeleton called out to them.

“Alright, human, this is your penultimate challenge!! A randomly generated color maze devised by the amazing Dr. Undyne! Only one route will exist in the maze, so you must be clever! When I throw the lever, each tile will adapt a color signifying function! There are many different colors! Red tiles are alarm tiles, which will call a monster for you to fight! Purple tiles are electric! They will zap you, which obviously you don’t want as we discussed earlier! Green tiles are impassible! You cannot walk on them! Blue tiles are orange-scented! You will smell delicious, but beware! If you step on a water tile, the piranhas will bite you! This brings me to orange tiles, which are the water tiles! If they are next to an electric tile, you will be zapped! Yellow tiles are soapy! You will slide across! The soap also smells of lemons, which will eliminate the orange smell! Finally, there are pink tiles, which do nothing. Are you ready?!”

Normally Chara prided themself on their sharp mind and grasp of details. This was not one of those times.

They gaped at Sans for a second before finding their voice.

“Uh... y-yes?”
“Great!! I’ll throw the lever now!”

A hum filled the air as the tiles blinked through a massive number of color combinations. The colors changed so rapidly they began to blur together, until suddenly, they stopped. Instead of a complicated maze, there was just a pink path lined with green.

Chara and Sans both blinked at it in shock while Papyrus watched on passively.

Sans moved his mouth to say something, closed it, and stared a bit more. Finally, he disappeared. Chara walked across the color maze and inspected the machine responsible for generating the puzzle. It didn’t seem to be functional.

“Hey Papyrus, do you know why this thing isn’t working?”
“Nope.”
“Huh. Well, that was weird. Usually Sans’ puzzles have gone somewhere.”

Chara messed with some of the dials and switches on the machine, but nothing happened. By the time they looked up the tall skeleton had vanished.

The next area was chaos. Surrounding the path were a series of broken snowdogs, most of which were defying gravity. Chara picked their way through and examined the desolation. Heads and tails lay abandoned in the snow, and unconnected torsos twisted into the sky. Standing next to a small sentry station was a cow-like monster. They were gazing around in awe. When Chara walked past, the monster caught their eye.

“One of the Royal Guards just came through here like a hurricane. He was making snowdogs faster than I could blink, and then he just left. It’s like he had some burning artistic vision inside of him he didn’t know how to express.”

Chara nodded at the monster, not knowing what to say. Frisk whispered in their ear.

“You did this, man; you just had to keep petting that dog.”

Chara did not dignify that with a response.

Beyond the field of broken snowdogs was another tic-tac-toe puzzle. This one involved ice and looked tricky at first glance, but was actually quite simple. Chara navigated it quickly and slid through a dense alley of forest. They felt snow rain down on their head as they brushed against the closely-packed trees. When they emerged from the other side, they were startled by delighted snort.

“The snow looks like a hat!”

Chara really wished their cell phone had a camera, because that sounded amazing. They wanted to preserve the snow on their head, but it was so fragile that the instant they moved it crumbled onto their shoulders.
Life was full of disappointments.

The way ahead was clear, but the path did branch to the right. Chara decided to expend the last of their adventurous attitude on this detour. They nearly regretted it when they were confronted with an agitated deer-monster, but before the world could fade to black a calm voice distracted it.

“Hey Gryftrot, want me to take some of that stuff off of you?”

Papyrus had appeared out of nowhere. He must’ve had the same talent as his brother.

Gryftrot groaned and shambled over to the skeleton.

“Ugh… Please.”

Somehow Chara hadn’t noticed the mess of decorations covering the poor monster. They’d all just sort of blended into the thing’s appearance. Papyrus carefully unwound some tinsel from around Gryftrot’s antlers, and removed a talking fish head that was hanging from its neck. He stepped back and allowed the deer-monster to shake itself out.

“Thanks, Paps, I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it.”

Gryftrot trotted away and disappeared into a cave at the end of the path. Chara looked up at Papyrus.

“Why did that monster have decorations all over it?”
“The teenagers in the forest like to do that as a prank. As an occasional prank-puller myself, I think it’s pretty low-brow.”
“Low-brow?”
“Yeah. A good prank is something the ‘victim’ can laugh at too. It’s not really negative; it’s just all in good fun. Picking on someone isn’t a prank.”

Chara hummed.

“Life lessons with Papyrus.”
“You better believe it, kiddo.”
“Anything else lined up for me?”
“Just one more thing. I think you’ll be up for it.”

Without further small talk, the tall skeleton moseyed away in the wrong direction.

A field of snow poffs greeted Chara when they moved on. They examined each and every one, expecting Frisk to become frustrated with them. Instead the quiet ghost encouraged their behavior. When they found 30G in the middle of one of the poffs, they realized why.
The snow poff field was also home to a small dog house. Chara figured it probably belonged to a member of the dog squad, though they’d never encountered a Royal Guard that was so tiny. They had nearly passed the final snow poff when the poff moved. A tail wiggled its way out of the poff, followed by a head. The head yipped at Chara.

Chara grinned at it and kneeled down.

“You get stuck in a snow poff, little guy?”

The little guy answered by standing up. Chara’s vision was invaded by an enormous mass of metal and doge before a monster battle was initiated.

“Greater Dog appears!”
“Yeah I’ll fucking say.”
“You can check his stats, beckon him to you, ignore him, play with him, or pet him.”

Chara didn’t really know where to start since only one of those options seemed wrong, so they decided to go with beckoning. They waved at the dog monster and clapped their hands on their knees.

“C’mere, boy!”

Greater Dog replied enthusiastically, running across most of the battlefield to bounce around a couple of feet away from them.
When the heart arena appeared, Chara tensed and waited for the dog attack at the bottom to do something. It never did, and the monster’s turn passed by uneventfully. This sort of thing was always a blessing.

Next, Chara decided to play with the dog. It looked so excited, but it didn’t respond to Chara kneeling on the ground and play-posturing. After another uneventful turn by Greater Dog, they decided to try petting him instead. This was clearly the way to go, as the dog monster curled into their touch and flopped onto their body. Chara found it difficult to navigate their soul through the dog’s spear attack when said dog was blocking most of their vision. Turn after turn they soldiered through, petting the increasingly tired dog. Just as they were basically being crushed against the ground, Frisk whispered in their ear.

“You can spare him now.”
“Great. My lungs haven’t collapsed, right?”
“Your organs appear to be intact.”
“I’m not gonna ask how you know that.”

The giant dog crawled off of them as the world faded back into view, and it gave them a lick on the face before marching off to the east. Chara took a moment to rub the feeling back into their limbs and look ahead. Greater Dog was passing over a wooden bridge, and on the other side of the bridge were the skeleton brothers. Papyrus gave the monster a cool nod while Sans joyously hopped up to pat him on the head. Chara had no idea the small skeleton could catch so much air.

As they followed in Greater Dog’s footsteps over the bridge, they could see rooftops and smokestacks waiting behind the skeletons. They’d finally reached Snowdin. Or, at least, they’d almost reached Snowdin. Sans called them to a stop.

“Human-Chara!! Behold your ultimate challenge!!!”

Through some unseen magic, a series of deadly weapons and flamethrowers appeared around the bridge.

“When I give the command, these parts will work together to create an almost unnavigable path to-! To, um… Y-yes, human?!”

Chara had raised their hand.

“Doesn’t this all kind of go against the whole ‘not killing me’ thing?”

Sans seemed to shrink as realization washed over him.

“Oh.”
“Because fire… and maces… and spears… and cannons… those are all kinda lethal to humans.”
“Ah.”
“Um, do you want me to go through anyway? I’m pretty good at puzzles, maybe I’ll do okay.”

Sans seemed to come back to himself at this.

“No!! No, uh- this puzzle doesn’t work! See?! I’m giving the activation command right now in my head and the puzzle isn’t starting!! I might as well recall it!!”

The gauntlet of weapons disappeared from view once more, and Sans relaxed. He looked up at Papyrus.

“I think I’m gonna have to do this manually, bro!”
“Looks like it.”
“You think I’m up for it?!”
“Definitely.”

Sans turned back towards Chara, looking as enthusiastic as ever.

“Human!! This was only your pen-penultimate challenge! The real ultimate challenge will be just beyond Snowdin!! Rest up, eat some cinnamon bunnies, and prepare!! Wee hee hee!!”

With that, the small skeleton teleported away.

Chara finished crossing the bridge and gazed up at Papyrus.

“I’m gonna have to fight him, aren’t I?”
“Yep.”
“Uh, any pro tips? Unless you don’t want to help me, which would be understandable I guess.”

Papyrus raised an eyebrow at them.

“Why wouldn’t I help you?”

Chara blinked at him a couple times before gesturing around helplessly.

“I don’t know, because he’s your brother??”
“He is indeed.”
“And I’m going to fight him???”
“That you are.”
“Aren’t you worried about him? I mean, it’s a fight.”
“Yeah. But you’re a good kid. You’ve spared everything you’ve come across so far, even when you’ve been frustrated. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re not going to hurt Sans.”

Chara stared up at Papyrus for a couple seconds, and then looked down at their feet.

“… Okay. But, um… Is he gonna hurt me? I just, y’know, I want to be prepared.”

There was silence for a few moments. Chara was wondering if they’d said something wrong when they felt a bony hand on their shoulder. They hesitantly looked up at the tall skeleton, who was wearing a surprisingly kind expression.

“It’s okay to be scared, kid. Sans is a pretty powerful opponent. There’s no shame in it.”
“Yeah, I know. I guess what gets me is that I really like Sans? I mean, he’s a total goofball, but he’s also pretty sharp. I feel like we might be friends. And I just… I’ve never had to fight someone I’m already friends with before. It feels wrong.”
“I get you, Chara. I really do. You want my advice? Remember blue attacks, and keep talking to him. When it comes down to it, even if he’s in denial of it, he doesn’t want to capture you. Part of him knows the captured souls aren’t eating pie with the Queen. Appeal to that part if you have to. You’re a cunning kid, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Chara nodded shakily and took a deep breath. They were surprised to hear Frisk pipe up.

“Just hug him.”

Hoping nobody else was watching, Chara stepped forward and wrapped their arms around Papyrus’ torso. He was surprisingly soft for a skeleton in a hoodie. To their surprise, he didn’t hesitate to wrap one arm around their shoulders and place a hand on their head. He squeezed with the hugging arm and petted with the patting arm. Chara’s ear was nestled just under where Papyrus’ ribcage came to a stop, and they could hear the thrum of magic in his chest. The sound reminded them of Asgore. They really needed to call him soon.

When they stepped back, they felt much better. They shook off the last of their anxious mood with a decisive nod towards Papyrus, who nodded back. Then, without another word, they turned towards the town of Snowdin.

If they hugged another person they were seriously going to ruin their street cred.

Chapter Text

“Oh my god Frisk it’s a cinnamon turtle.”
“Yes.”
“I’m gonna bite its head off first.”
“The shop owner is watching you like a hawk while you talk to yourself, just so you know.”

Chara casually glanced out of their periphery to see the old turtle monster in a chef hat staring at them. They were pretty sure he wasn’t blinking. Turning their head away to examine the store’s clothes rack, Chara replied.

“I’m whispering under my breath, dude. There’s no way he hears me.”
“Whatever. Hey, you should get that manly bandanna. Monsters will totally be intimidated by the abs.”

Chara picked up the bandanna with abs out of a small pile of quirky bandannas.

“Won’t that conflict with the cuteness of the ribbon?”
“You can always take the ribbon off.”
“Hmm… nah.”

Deciding on their purchases, Chara walked up to the counter with a manly bandanna and cinnamon turtle in hand. The turtle finally blinked as he looked over their items.

“Well, hey there! I’ve never seen you around these parts before!”

Chara had been working on the perfect fake backstory. It was filled with drama and heartbreak, and they had thought out every possible detail that a random stranger might ask about. For now, though, they would just tell the turtle monster where they were from.

“Yeah, I’m from a village on the other side of Snowdin Forest.”
“Snowpeak, maybe?”
“Yep. That’s the one.” They’d never heard of it in their life.

The turtle monster hummed and slowly plugged some numbers into his cash register.

“What brings you out this way, kid?”
“I’m going to see Queen Toriel about some issues my family is having. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh don’t you worry, kid, I understand. No questions from old Gerson, nosiree. Your purchase’ll be 70G.”

Chara handed over the gold, thankful for the extra cash that snowpoff had given them. Picking up their purchases, they squinted at Gerson.

“Aren’t you cold here? Snowdin doesn’t seem like a great place for a turtle.”
“Wahaha! Well aren’t you a nosey one? Yeah, I always need to bundle up a bit, but it’s worth it. My brother loves this place. Speaking of, if you need a place to stay my brother runs the inn next door. It’s pretty cheap!”

Chara nodded at the kooky turtle and made for the door. They probably did need a place to rest. They’d been doing puzzles and talking to monsters all day, and they really needed to call Asgore.

The inn next door had a warm and spacious lobby that made Chara feel welcome. When they walked up to the counter, however, they found that nobody was there. Looking around, they found a bell to ring for help. They hesitantly rang it a couple of time before a voice rang out from somewhere nearby.

“Coming!”

A turtle monster hurried through the door behind the counter, wearing a cowboy hat. He looked extremely familiar. In fact…

“Um. Are you Gerson?”

The turtle waved a hand dismissively.

“Nope, I’m his brother: Berson. People get us mixed up all the time.”

Chara looked him up and down in bewilderment.

“But you look the exact same. You’re wearing the same outfit. Even your voice sounds exactly the same. The only thing that’s different is your hat.”
“Are you interested in one of our rooms? Snowed Inn offers a single-person room for the low rate of 30G.”
“……. Yeah, sure.”
“Great!! Here’s your key. The room is the second one to your left up the stairs.”

Chara waved goodbye to “Berson” and headed up to their room. It was a cozy space mostly colored with shades of red, and it had a small window facing out towards the town. They threw their gloves into their backpack, tossed their backpack to the floor, and flopped onto their bed with a huff. Bedtime was still a few hours away, but they were already pretty tired. Reaching into their pocket for their phone, Chara lazily speed-dialed Asgore’s number.

It only rang once on the other end.

“Chara? Is that you?”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Oh golly, it’s wonderful to hear your voice.”
“I haven’t been gone that long yet, but the feeling’s mutual.”
“Where are you right now? Have you run into any trouble?”
“I’m staying at Snowdin’s hotel. And, eh, a little bit. Nothing too bad, though.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Nah. I have plenty of monster food, so I’m doing okay.”
“That is good to hear, little one.”
“I think I’ve made a few friends. There’re these two skeleton brothers that are a riot. One’s an adorable bubblehead who I’m pretty sure has the intelligence and power to kill me but never will, and the other one’s a super chill guy who’s basically been explicitly helping me. Also, I think I might’ve accidentally helped a fast food worker work through some of his emotional issues? It’s been a packed day.”
“Gosh. That definitely sounds like it. And I’m proud of you, Chara! I think you’re a bit more social than you realize.”

Chara waved a hand even though Asgore couldn’t see it.

“Me? Nah. I’m just good at analyzing people.”
“Hmm. What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“Well, unfortunately I have to fight Sans. He’s the adorable bubblehead. It shouldn’t-“
“Isn’t that the one you just said is powerful enough to kill you?”
“Yeah, but like I said, he’s never going to. It’s pretty clear he just wants to be friends with me and he’s only trying to capture me out of a sense of duty. I shouldn’t have much trouble using the ole’ silver tongue to convince him to stop fighting.”
“… If you are sure, my child.”
“I know you’re worried, but it really is gonna be okay. I’ll call you afterwards to give you a status update.”
“Alright. I just want you to be safe.”
“I know, Dad.”
“Oh goodness, I think something’s burning. I look forward to hearing from you! Love you! Bye!”

Chara barely managed a “love you too” before the line clicked. They snorted in amusement and placed the phone on the nightstand next to the bed. Leaning precariously off the bed, they rifled through their backpack. They knew Asgore had packed one or two books for them. Sure enough, there was an oddly stained copy of Dune sitting at the bottom of the pack. It almost looked like the stains were from garbage or something, but Chara didn’t know how that was possible.

The first few pages bored Chara, so they decided to peek around the rest of their room. The dresser had flannel pajamas in different shapes and sizes, somebody had stenciled “RG 01 + RG 02” on a wall trimming, and there was a small bathroom that didn’t seem to have a toilet. This alarmed Chara, but they decided they could probably get away with peeing down the shower drain. They’d worry about other bodily functions later.

Pulling on the flannel pjs that suited them best (there was an extra arm, but that was no big deal), Chara flopped back into the bed for good this time. They continued reading Dune as the ambient sounds of Snowdin filtered through the window. Before they knew it, bright light was shining in their eyes. They flinched away from it.

“Ughh…”
“Rise and shine! I really should’ve stopped you from falling asleep with a book in your lap. That’s never comfortable.”

Chara looked down to find the book splayed on their stomach. Considering that Dune wasn’t a light read, it was definitely a bit painful. They picked it up and unceremoniously dropped on the floor. With a bit of convincing from Frisk, they followed soon after. Once they were on their feet it was a simple matter to go to the bathroom and get re-dressed. As they tied the ribbon around a clump of hair, they looked down at the bandanna they’d purchased yesterday.

“I don’t know how to tie one of those.”
“It’s pretty simple. Just fold it in half to make a triangle, and then tie two of the ends together behind your head.”
“Huh. Okay.”
“Make sure to get the abs up-front and center.”

After following Frisk’s instructions, Chara pulled on their gloves and piled their belongings into their backpack. They shouldered their pack and headed for the door.

“Do you think this place offers a continental breakfast?”
“I’m not sure.”

They got their answer as they opened the door. A wall of breakfast food-smell hit them in the face, and they quickly turned down the hallway towards the source. At the end of the hallway was a living room with plush couches and chairs. A couple of monsters were sitting around and eating, and when Chara looked around they saw a buffet table covered in pancakes, eggs, bacon, and cinnamon turtles. They wasted no time, piling as many pancakes as they could onto a plate. After pouring on some syrup, they settled down in a chair with a knife and fork. This was beautiful.

Chara glanced at the monsters as they shoveled down their breakfast. Two whispering volcano-monsters seemed to be a married couple, a rabbit-monster was chewing hesitantly at a cinnamon turtle as it read over an important-looking document, and a dark slime-monster was staring at the wall in front of it without eating anything. If Chara listened closely, they could hear it muttering.

“… No waffles… No ketchup… As a slime I am truly disappointed…”

They considered telling it they knew a guy who made waffles, but as a slime it might be offended by their approach.

When Chara was finished, they discarded their plate on the buffet table’s dirty dishes pile and adjusted the backpack on their shoulders. It was time to face the music.
“Berson” wasn’t in the lobby, and Chara walked outside without incident. As they looked around they realized that they’d barely seen anything of Snowdin. They wandered around a bit, always keeping an eye out for Sans, and explored the small town. A Christmas tree stood in the center of town, surrounded by presents. A bear monster explained to them that there was a local gift-giving tradition based off of the shenanigans of some teenagers. Nothing in the Underground surprised them, so they nodded. A shy monster was hanging around near the tree, and they smiled at Chara nervously.

“H-Hey, dude, are you here to put down a present?”
“Nah, I’m from out of town. I was just looking.”
“Oh. Sorry.”

Chara blinked down at the monster kid.

“You don’t have to apologize, everything’s fine.”
“S-sorry.”

Somewhere in the back of their brain, Chara recognized that this situation should probably annoy them. They weren’t a sympathetic person, they didn’t make friends easily. They definitely didn’t comfort random crybabies.

Chara ignored the back of their brain and smiled patiently at the kid.

“Have you put down any presents?”

The shy monster perked up a bit at this.

“Y-yeah. I have a present for my sister, a present for my mom, and, um… a present for Alphys.”

Chara raised an eyebrow.

“Isn’t she the head of the Royal Guard?”
“Yep, that’s her. I-I really admire her. She talked at school once, and she was super nice to me when I came up to her. She said she used to be nervous like me. I, um, I really want to be like her someday.”

Chara reached out their hand to pat the kid on the shoulder, but when they flinched they changed their arm motion to give a thumbs-up.

“I believe in you, dude. See ya around.”
“S-See ya!”

Most of the houses in Snowdin were north of the tree, and without being nosey there wasn’t too much to see. There was a giant wolf tossing ice blocks into the river, but that was about it. East of the tree, there was a diner and a library. They noted the library for later (maybe they’d be able to come back here if they finished Dune), and peeked a head in the diner. It was absolutely buzzing with activity. Most of the dog-monsters were there, multiple monsters were seated at the bar, and a man made of fire was conversing loudly with one of the patrons.

“Dave, we don’t even have a local culture. Most people come here from the city. You came here from the city!.... yeah, yeah, I get what you’re saying, but I’ve been here for years and I know this place inside and out. If we had a local culture I’d know about it.”

Hoping none of the guards had seen them, Chara left the diner behind. On the outskirts of town was a large house covered in Christmas lights. The lights trailed down to the mailboxes out front, and a few connected with the trees behind the house. Chara’s suspicion about who owned the house was confirmed when they checked the names on the mailboxes. One of the mailboxes had “Sans” written on it in beautiful handwriting, and was colored in a rainbow of hues. The other mailbox was very simple and had “Papyrus” written on it. An attempt at a snowman had been drawn on it (clearly Papyrus wasn’t an artist), and a smiley face was painted next to it in a different color (clearly Sans wanted Papyrus to believe he was an artist).

Chara walked up to the door and knocked. If it was Papyrus, great, they could delay the inevitable. If it was Sans, great, they could get the inevitable over with. Unfortunately, nobody answered. Sans was probably already waiting for them. Chara sighed and pushed eastward. To their bewilderment, the world around them became foggier and foggier. Eventually they could barely see their hand when they stretched it in front of their face.
They came to a stop when they heard a voice cut through the fog.

“Halt, human!”

Through some kind of magic, a silhouette became clear in the mist. It was Sans.

“I cannot allow you to continue!! It is my sworn duty to capture any humans I come across!! While it has been fun doing puzzles, there is only one way this can end! Prepare yourself, human, to face my might!”

Faster than they had anticipated, Chara felt their soul emerge from their body as the world faded to black. On the bright side, they could see Sans clearly now.

“Sans blocks the way!”
“I know, I know, give me my options.”
“You can check his stats, flirt with him, insult him, or talk to him.”

Chara regarded the small skeleton as they thought through their actions. They had a strong feeling that Sans would respond well to praise, and maybe flirting was the way to do that. Frisk was really getting to them.

Stepping forward, Chara cleared their throat and shot a finger-gun at Sans.

“Do you have a map? Because I keep getting lost in your eyes.”

The enthusiastic skeleton gaped at them, and a bright blue blush could clearly be seen on his cheeks. After a couple of seconds of speechlessness, Sans responded.

“W-what? My eyes? Are you flirting with me?”

Without changing their stance, Chara wiggled the finger-gun a bit.

“Yes.”

Sans blinked rapidly and brought a hand up to his heart.

“O-Oh! Wow! W-Well, I’m not really interested, but thank you!”

Chara deflated as the heart arena popped up. Flirting really seemed to be a mixed bag for them.

For some reason, all of the attacks were on the bottom of the arena. Several bones with platforms floated harmlessly below Chara’s soul, and they didn’t have to move at all. They spoke up when it was their turn.

“Hey Sans? What’s with your attacks? They’re not hitting me.”

Stars filled the smaller skeleton’s eyes.

“Of course they’re not! I was familiarizing you to the sight of bone attacks! This time, however, I will use my fabled blue attack! Prepare to be challenged!”

The next attack consisted of a series of blue bones flying across the arena. Once again, Chara didn’t have to move. They were starting to wonder if this would be the easiest battle of their life when a sudden heaviness pulled them down. As their body was pulled into a crouch, their soul turned a dark shade of blue and fell to the bottom of the arena. Chara winced when a final bone attack hit them.

Their soul was affected by gravity. The rules of the game had changed.

Chara struggled against their weight as they raised their arm to press the Act button. They needed to talk their way out of this, and fast.

“Sans, look, I understand why you’re doing this, I really do. I don’t fault you for it. But you need to know this is all wrong. Talk to me, dude.”

Sans was busy preparing his next attack.

“What did you say, human? I’m busy preparing an attack.”

Chara could see why the prep work was necessary, because Sans came right out the gate with the hard stuff. Platforms rose and fell as blue attacks swept through the arena, and it was a miracle they only got hit once.

“Sans, listen to me. The captured humans aren’t eating pie with Queen Toriel. You know they aren’t. They’re-“
“I can’t hear you over my attack preparation, human!!”

The next attack was more dodging than platforming, and it was already more difficult than the last attack. Frisk whispered in their ear that they should eat an item soon, but they ignored them.

“They’re dead, Sans. The humans are dead. How else do you use the souls? What else would Toriel want them for?”
“La la la, I’m not listening!!”

The next attack was a sweep of blue attacks and bone attacks, and once more Chara sustained heavy injuries. They finally ate a spider cookie when they got an opportunity, but it seemed almost useless when their health was immediately impacted by the fierce attack in the next turn.

“If you capture me and bring me to Toriel, what do you think will happen to me? What do you think-“
“LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”

This continued for several turns. Chara got the crap beaten out of them as Sans screamed over their attempts to reason with him.

“Will you just-“
“I’M GOING TO UNLEASH MY SPECIAL ATTACK VERY SOON, HUMAN!! VERY SOON!!”

Chara dodged the next attack fairly well. They were becoming numb to the pain. Why were they numb? It was almost like this reminded them of something. What did it remind them of?

“Sans, please, just-“
“AFTER THE NEXT TURN I WILL USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!!”

The next attack was not dodged so well. Chara was starting to feel that sort of helplessness they’d felt after Frisk threatened to bother them for the rest of their life. It mingled with the numbness in a messy emotional soup that tugged at Chara’s throat. When they spoke they felt like their voice was far away.

“Sans… Please…”
“ALRIGHT HUMAN!! THIS IS IT!!! I HOPE YOU’RE READY!!!”

Chara watched dully as Sans swept his arm out to one side and let a spark of magic light in his hand. As the spark grew, his eyes began to glow a bright blue that mingled with yellow. When the spark had become a ball the size of a melon, Sans swept his arm to point at Chara.

“HERE IT IS!!!”

The ball of magic grew and changed. Two small lights separated from the ball and floated above it. White matter sprouted from the lights and shifted to create points both soft and hard. As the shape came to fruition, it seemed to Chara that the small lights were eyes. When the shape hardened, their suspicions were correct.
They were staring into the face of a giant wolf-like skull.

Chara felt more far away than ever as Sans spoke up from behind the skull.

“THIS WILL BE THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!! DODGE THIS!!”

At some unseen command, the skull opened its mouth. Chara could see the original ball of magic in its throat. A whine similar to an airplane taking off filled the air, and the magic ball began to move forward to the skull’s teeth. As the whine came to its highest peak, the world went dark around Chara.

Had they finally died?

They were aware of some voice calling them in the distance, but it didn’t matter. They were dead. They were alone. They hurt. Why did they hurt? They wanted to rip away the pain. They wanted to stay still. They wanted someone to hug them. They wanted to be left alone. Were they still fighting Sans? They needed to tell Sans he shouldn’t fight. They wanted to live. They wanted to die. They’d forgotten they’d wanted to die, hadn’t they? That seemed like an awfully important thing to forget. That’s why they were here in the first place. Where were they?

A weight settled on their shoulder, and they startled at it. The darkness around them was interrupted by blinding flashes of light. The voice was still calling to them. Maybe they should listen to it? That seemed like it would be hard work, but they didn’t have much else to do.

“C-Chara? Can you hear me?”

Chara was their name. Somebody nearby was calling them their name. Maybe the somebody was responsible for the blinding flashes.

“Don’t be scared, okay? It’s just me. You don’t need to be afraid.”

Another weight settled on their other shoulder, and they felt like they were being tugged toward something. They were uncomfortable. Why were they uncomfortable? Maybe the tugging would take them to somewhere more comfortable.

The light blinded them as they allowed themself to be tugged out of their position. Snow was everywhere, and a line of trees stood not too far away. Their head was resting on something warm, and the same warmth surrounded their body. They took stock of their situation.

They were kneeling on the ground. That seemed new. They had a feeling they’d been hugging their legs a few moments ago. Their arms were pinned against their sides by a warm creature that had its arms wrapped around them. They could hear a high-pitched thrum next to their ear, so their head must be resting on the creature’s chest. The fabric on their cheek was soft and blue. Who did they know that wore blue?

“I’m so sorry, Chara. I didn’t realize. I just wanted to be a good guard… I just wanted to have fun. I thought you were having fun. This wasn’t very fantastic of me.”

Sans. It was Sans. They were being hugged by Sans. They’d been fighting him, they needed to talk to him, they needed to convince him, they needed-

“You’re right. I know Toriel doesn’t want humans for a very happy reason. I guess I figured it was for a good cause, and the Queen must know best. But you… You don’t deserve all that. I’m so sorry, Chara.”

Before they realized it, a voice had started to break its way out of their throat.

“Please… Please, Sans…”

The hug tightened.

“It’s okay, Chara. You’re okay. I’m never going to hurt you again. We’re going to be best buddies, and everything’s going to be okay.”

Chara raised their arms and returned the skeleton’s hug. Things were still really fuzzy, but they felt safer.

“I’m… sorry. This was… embarrassing…”
“It’s alright! I was just a little scared. You collapsed into a little ball, and I was really worried I’d broken you!”
“I’m not broken… you’re gonna have to try harder than that…”

Sans’ tone was quickly returning to its natural pep.

“That’s the spirit! I’m glad you’re feeling better! You think you’re okay to walk with me back to my place?”

Chara shrugged as best they could while being hugged.

“Sure.”
“Okay! Just lean on me: like in that song!”

It was easier than Chara thought it would be to get back to their feet. Of course, that was probably because Sans had an arm firmly around their waist. Walking came back to them as Sans dragged them through a couple of steps, but they stayed attached to the skeleton for the rest of the trip.
The two of them arrived at the skelebros household after what felt like forever, and Chara was gently deposited onto a couch. Sans gripped their hand, prompting them to look up at him.

“I’m going to make some hot chocolate for you! I’ll just be in the kitchen, so you’ll be able to see me.”

Chara felt like they should respond somehow, maybe at least nod, but that seemed beyond them at the moment. Instead they squeezed Sans’ hand. That seemed to be enough, as the small skeleton gave them a bright smile before letting go and bouncing off to the kitchen.

Back on the surface, they’d researched ways to try to help themselves when mental shit hit the fan. As they gazed unseeing at a point on the ceiling, they remembered something about “grounding techniques”. What were the techniques again?

Find five things that you can see. They saw the ceiling, but if they turned their head downwards they could also see a television, a bookshelf, stairs, a doorway, and Sans on the other side of the doorway. That was a good start.

Find four things you can feel. They felt the sweat inside their gloves, their hair tickling on their face, the warmth of the room, and the solidness of the couch below them.

Find three things you can hear. They heard the clangs of kitchenware as Sans prepared hot chocolate in the kitchen, his footsteps against the floor tiles, and the gurgle of a boiler somewhere in the house.

Find two things you can smell. They smelled an underlying sweet scent that seemed to permeate the house, and they were starting to smell chocolate from the kitchen.

Find one thing you can taste. They tasted their own mouth, which was dry and gunky. They hadn’t brushed their teeth since they’d left the Ruins.

Chara had shifted into a normal sitting position on the couch as they took this inventory of their senses, and they noticed they felt more like themselves. They still felt a bit distant, but they felt much less like they were watching themselves from behind their own shoulder. A sudden thought came to them. They made sure Sans wasn’t checking on them before they whispered.

“F-Frisk?”
“Oh my god, finally, are you okay?!”
“I think so. Why do you sound so scared?”
“I couldn’t talk to you. Whatever happened to you made you shut me out.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine; I’m not the one who had an episode. You feeling better?”
“Yeah. I’m feeling better.”

The conversation was interrupted as Sans emerged from the kitchen holding two mugs. He sat down next to Chara and handed them one of the mugs.

“It has marshmallows!! I hope you like it!”

The marshmallows in the mug formed a smiley face. For the first time since breakfast, Chara cracked a smile of their own. Sans saw this and vibrated slightly in excitement.

“I made sure it was cool enough to drink so you don’t burn yourself!”

Appreciating this, Chara took a long sip. It was delicious. They took their time to savor the hot chocolate, and they sat there with Sans for a few minutes without saying a word. The small skeleton took delicate sips of his drink. As he drank, his face mellowed into a serious expression. Chara didn’t think too much of it until they finished their drink and rested the mug in their lap. Sans spoke up quietly from beside them.

“Um, Chara? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Where did you come from?”
“The Ruins. I was staying with a monster there that cares for fallen humans.”
“Humans don’t come from the Ruins, though. Humans come from the surface. Where did you come from on the surface?”

Chara looked resolutely down at their mug.

“It doesn’t matter. The past is the past.”
“I kn-know the past is the past, but sometimes the past affects the present. Were you happy on the surface?”

Chara snorted humorlessly.

“Oh yeah, I was really happy. I had a whale of a time.”

Sans didn’t know how to respond to this, so there was an awkward silence for a bit. Eventually, Chara broke it.

“There’s a legend on the surface that those who climb Mt. Ebott never return. So I climbed it.”

They felt Sans’ eyes bore into their head.

“Why would you ever climb something like that?”
“As you would say, Sans, it wasn’t for a very happy reason.”

The small skeleton absorbed this as Chara fiddled with their mug. They felt like they might’ve revealed too much. Not only that, they’d revealed too much to Sans. How did they expect him to take all of this? They got their answer as Sans responded with a surprisingly calm voice.

“Did anybody care where you went?”

Chara didn’t respond verbally. They just snorted again. Sans paused to reconsider his words.

“Did anybody know where you went, or why?”

Chara shook their head. Sans’ gaze became distinctly sad. They wished he would stop.

“You didn’t leave a note. I thought… I thought people left notes when they did that.”

Chara shrugged and turned their head away from the small skeleton.

“Nobody cared, so what’s the point?”

A gloved hand on their arm startled them out of their funk. Sans was staring at them with stars in his eyes, but this time it wasn’t from joy. It was clear from his expression the stars were from determination.

“I care!! I’ve only known you for a day, but we’ve had so much fun, and I think you’re really swell!! If you need somebody to care about you, the Fantastic Sans will always be there!!”

Chara blinked back at him. They were at a loss for words. They still felt trapped in their emotional haze, but a positive emotion was bubbling up in response to Sans’ promise.

“T-Thank you, Sans.”
“No problem!!! Do you want another hug?”
“…… Yeah.”

The two empty mugs were set on the floor as Sans pulled Chara into a warm embrace. This time they really got to appreciate how soft and cushy the small skeleton was. His warmth radiated into them quickly, and it made them feel like they were meant to stay here forever.

In fact, why did they ever have to move? This was such a comfortable position, and they were so tired. If they closed their eyes for just a couple of minutes, what was the harm?

Sans realized that the human must’ve fallen asleep when their weight fully sank into him. It was only noon, but he understood why the human must be exhausted. If he’d had to fight himself and then have an emotional breakdown, he’d probably be really tuckered out too!

Keeping hold of the human, Sans teleported to his bedroom. He landed on the bed and extricated himself from the human’s grip so he could stand up and tuck them in. As he arranged Chara in the bed, he healed any wounds he came across with a gentle brush of magic. He really should’ve taken care of that earlier, but he had been a little distracted. When he was finally able to leave, he looked back at the sleeping human through the doorway. They looked much more at peace. Feeling satisfied, Sans closed the door.

Wait until he told Papyrus about this!

Chapter Text

When Chara woke, it was to a soft blue light flashing in their eyes.

They blinked several times. The blue light was just from a digital clock somewhere nearby. Disoriented, Chara looked away from the clock and tried to take in their surroundings. Everything was basked in twilight, as though the time was near sunset or sunrise. They seemed to be in a bedroom covered in posters and glow-in-the-dark stars.

Underneath the window on the other side of the room was the oldest computer Chara had ever seen, as well as a few science-y knickknacks sitting on the windowsill. A massive bookshelf took up one wall. Piles of books and magazines were stacked near it, as though the owner had run out of room. Next to Chara was a nightstand with the digital clock and a rocket-shaped lamp. When they looked down at themselves, they were pretty sure the bed they were laying in was rocket-shaped as well.

The clock had the time 6:30 on it. Unfortunately, Chara was confused as to where they were and how long they’d been out, so they had no idea which 6:30 it was. Pulling their attention to the window, they decided to pay attention to the light coming through. After a few minutes it seemed like the room was getting brighter. Maybe it was 6:30 AM?

Chara swung their legs off the bed to stand up. They were still in their regular clothes, but somebody had pulled off their gloves and the manly bandanna. As their mind clicked back into gear, they realized whose room this must be.

The smell of breakfast greeted them when they opened the door. Yep, definitely 6:30 AM.

They crept down the stairs, taking further stock of their surroundings. This was the skelebros house for sure; they were just seeing it at a different angle. Chara passed through the living room and poked a head into the kitchen.

Sans was quietly humming as he watched over a waffle iron filled with batter. At a dinner table nearby sat a figure obscured behind a newspaper. When Chara stepped in, Papyrus dropped the top edge of the paper to reveal his face.

“Hey, kiddo. That was a pretty impressive 18 hours of sleep. Doubt I could top it myself.”

Sans bounced in surprise and grinned over at Chara.

“Human!! You’re awake!! You must’ve been awoken by the scent of my delicious waffles!!”

Chara smiled tiredly and plopped down in a chair next to Papyrus. As Sans turned back to his cooking, they snuck a peek at the newspaper.

“’Froggit learns how to jetski’? Is that the only news?”

“Not much happens down here. There used to be stories about minor crimes and the like, but crime has basically been stamped out since Alphys took charge of the Royal Guard.”

Unease settled on Chara against their will.

“I’m gonna have to fight her at some point, aren’t I?”

Papyrus patted them on the back.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. If you can face my brother anything is possible.”

Being reminded of what happened yesterday just made them feel worse. Sans seemed to sense it, as he turned to look at the two of them determinedly.

“You don’t need to worry about what happened, Chara!! The past is in the past! Now we can all be cool buddies and enjoy a wholesome breakfast!”

Chara gave Sans a weak smile and nodded. It was hard, but if they were going to move forward listening to the small skeleton was probably a good idea.

Before they knew it, a steaming plate of waffles had been placed in front of them. Sans made sure butter and syrup were in reach per Chara’s suggestion the other day. Sans took small, careful bites as he chattered about the latest puzzle he was trying to solve. It wasn’t so much a puzzle as it was a research project into “Why the ‘Which Ice Cream Are You?’ Quiz in the Latest Newspaper is Horribly Inaccurate”. The small skeleton had been getting into all sorts of reading about personality theory, and Chara took enormous, syrupy bites as they listened intently. Papyrus occasionally interjected a comment or two, but for the most part he just looked at his brother affectionately. The waffles on his plate were gone by the end of breakfast despite Chara never seeing him lift a fork to his mouth.

After helping with dishes, Chara was led to the living room and plopped down on the couch. Sans sat next to them and bounced.

“I know you have to get going today, but first I want to show you my favorite TV show! It’ll totally relax you and get you into a determined mindset!”

Chara thought they probably needed that, since all they felt still was purpose, so they agreed. As Sans looked around for the remote, Papyrus walked into the room. He strode over to Chara and patted them on the head.

“I have some business to take care of, but do you wanna grab lunch with me before you leave? My treat.”

Hoping they’d be able to find a place to stay in Waterfall later, Chara nodded. The tall skeleton rumpled their hair.

“Great. See ya later, kiddo.”

“Paps!! Wait!!”

Papyrus paused and allowed Sans to barrel into him, the search for the remote abandoned. The taller skeleton picked up the smaller skeleton with an amused huff.

“Yeah?”

“Bye, bro!!”

“Bye, Sans.”

Chara fought the urge to vomit rainbows as the skeleton brothers hugged each other warmly. For all of Papyrus’ laid-back bravado, he sure did look happy in that moment. When Sans did eventually wiggle his way back to the ground, he gave Papyrus’ torso a final hug.

“Have a good day, bro!!!”

“You too.”

And he was finally out the door with a woosh of cold air. Sans looked after where his brother had left for a couple of moments before returning to his remote quest. He blinked in astonishment as Chara held it up triumphantly.

“Found it in the cushions while you guys were hugging it out.”

“Oh!! Great!!”

Sans sat back down on the couch and took the remote from Chara.

“Alright, I hope you’re prepared!!”

When Sans turned on the TV and flipped to the appropriate channel, Chara wasn’t sure why they had been warned to be prepared. On the television was a soothing video of a glowing stream running past some blue flowers, while two calm voices discussed the latest music trends of the Underground. It reminded Chara very strongly of a podcast. Some time later, the stream footage faded to a simple studio where a blue, stereo-shaped robot sat across from an artsy-looking rabbit. The robot thanked the rabbit for his insightful input, at which point the rabbit nodded and smiled kindly at the camera before exiting stage right. The robot went on to do a solo piece about the importance of developing personal expression. Though they spoke calmly, Chara had the strong impression the robot was nervous about speaking to an audience. They kept wringing their hands, and if they misspoke they stumbled for several seconds before recovering. Chara really enjoyed what the robot was saying, though, and the tone of their voice was calming them into a pretty relaxed state. It was jarring when the show cut to a commercial break. Chara blinked over at Sans, who looked back at them happily.

“I can’t believe they cut to a commercial break already.”

“Chara, we’ve been watching this for two hours.”

“What?!”

It turned out that the Napstabot Show had a mandatory commercial break every three hours. While this was partially due to financial necessity, it was also due to the catatonic state the show could put viewers into. Sans explained that some people had been missing work or school because they’d been too enraptured with the relaxing nature of Napstabot. The commercial break helped snap people back to reality.

“Are they on the air, like, all the time?”

“Oh no, they only do a live program in the morning! Most of the day has reruns of past broadcasts. Napstabot does need to devote time to other important stuff after all.”

“Huh.”

Chara and Sans were quick to return to their relaxed daze as the break ended. Napstabot was joined by a young monster that’d been developing a new technique to create dubstep. Apparently a single mixtape filled with wubs had fallen into the Underground’s dump last year, and the musical community had been struggling to recreate its unique sound. Part of Chara was confused how a discussion about loud electronic music could calm them, but the rest of them didn’t question it.

A few hours later, right as the next commercial break hit, Papyrus walked through the door. He nodded at Chara.

“You ready to go, kid?”

Chara blinked out of their daze.

“Oh! Yeah, just let me grab my stuff.”

They ran upstairs to Sans’ bedroom, where they found their bandanna and gloves resting on top of their backpack in a corner. Deciding to forgo the bandanna for now, they pulled on the gloves and stuffed the manly merchandise into the pack. When they came back downstairs, Sans was sitting on Papyrus’ shoulders and talking to him about the show they’d been watching.

“There’s gonna be a whole new genre of music, Paps!! It’s gonna be so cool!”

“Definitely sounds like it.”

Papyrus gently placed Sans on the ground as Chara approached. He nodded out the door, and they followed after him with a quick wave to the smaller skeleton.

“I’ll be back to say bye!”

Sans looked like he wanted to respond, but the commercial break had ended.

Papyrus chuckled as they slowly made their way to Grillby’s.

“So much for not having time to make friends, eh?”

Chara felt like the back of their neck might be burning, but they shrugged nonchalantly.

“I guess I had more time than I thought. It’s whatever.”

Papyrus hummed in a way that somehow conveyed both acceptance and total disbelief.

Grillby’s was packed when they entered, and every patron turned to greet Papyrus loudly. He was clearly very popular. Chara nervously stuck to the skeleton’s side as they walked past several of the dog guards that had tried to capture them. When they went to sit down on a bar stool next to Papyrus, they were startled when the seat tipped to one side and they nearly toppled to the ground. The tall skeleton quickly caught them though, and gave them a mischievous smirk.

“Wow, Chara, didn’t know you have a problem staying balanced when you sit down. You should get that checked out.”

Chara shot him a look of absolute death before readjusting the loose screw in the seat. Grillby, the talkative fire monster they’d seen yesterday, sauntered up to the pair of them.

“Good to see you, Papyrus! Who’s your friend?”

“Distant family member, believe it or not. I’m just showing them a good time before they have to head out.”

“Ah, alright. Very good! Would either of you like to order anything?”

“I think we’ll each have a cheeseburger, if you don’t mind.”

“Coming right up!”

As Grillby disappeared into a backroom, Chara gave Papyrus a weird look.

“Family member? Really?”

He shrugged.

“Humans are probably descended from skeletons, man. That’d make us distant cousins.”

“I haven’t taken any biology classes yet, but somehow I don’t think that’s right.”

“Suit yourself. I think I’m really onto something.”

Chara would have rebutted, but a glorious cheeseburger had just been placed under their nose. Grillby wished them well before turning to chat with a large fish monster sitting at the bar. They were so enraptured with the burger that they didn’t notice Papyrus hadn’t touched his until they were halfway done. He was just staring up at the ceiling. Chara spoke through a mouthful of food.

“Why arentchu eating?”

Papyrus turned to them, his gaze contemplative.

“Not hungry. Say, kid, can I ask you a question?”

Chara swallowed and nodded.

“Sure.”

“You ever heard any voices?”

Chara was very glad they no longer had food in their mouth, because they probably would’ve choked. They tried to sound as calm as possible.

“That’s random. Why would you ask that?”

“My brother says there’s a voice that bothers him sometimes. It’s not a voice he recognizes, so he’s pretty sure it’s not a hallucination. It whispers to him in these garbled words he doesn’t understand. He says it sounds like static. Sometimes he’ll catch a word or two, but it’s usually just his name. I think some ghost monster might be pulling a prank on him.”

Chara had relaxed throughout the explanation, but they still felt a sense of apprehension. This story was pretty familiar.

“Huh, weird.”

“Yeah.”

Papyrus leaned close so he was sure only Chara could hear him.

“Between you and me, though, I know sometimes things aren’t that simple. There are a lot of strange forces out there, kid. Dangerous stuff. Keep an eye out, won’tcha?”

Chara nodded numbly.

“Okay. But, uh, what kind of strange force do you think this might be?”

Papyrus leaned back to his normal sitting position, looking more like himself.

“I have some guesses. But it’s still probably just a prank, so don’t worry too much, kiddo. Finish your burger.”

Despite not feeling quite as hungry as before, Chara complied. They watched Papyrus in their peripheral vision as he resumed lazily staring at the ceiling. With a final swallow of food, Chara spoke up.

“Why do you do that?”

“Hmm?”

“Stare upwards all the time. It kind of made sense outside, but you can’t possibly be getting anything out of it in here.”

“I’m training.”

“Training? Training for what?”

The skeleton’s mouth turned up as he continued staring at the ceiling.

“For when we get out of here and see the stars.”

“But… You’re not gonna get out of here until the Queen has a seventh soul. And you don’t really seem to want that to happen.”

Papyrus finally looked down at them, still smiling serenely.

“I’ve just got a feeling, is all. Maybe it’ll work out. You seem to have an idea or two.”

Chara wanted to say they had no ideas whatsoever, but the words stuck in their throat. Papyrus obviously knew they weren’t planning to leave the Underground alone. Maybe that whole “saving the world” thing had tipped him off.

Without giving them a chance to gain their bearings, Papyrus stood up. Chara realized his long legs had been awkwardly folded under the stool this whole time. He gave them a nod and a salute.

“See you around, Chara. Stop by our house anytime.”

They dully nodded at him as he left.

Chara stared back down at their empty plate. They really needed to get used to having the rug pulled out from under them.