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Being a ghost had a few unfortunate issues attached.
There were the obvious ones— you were reliant on your host to be a good little meat bag and do stuff when you asked it to. You could only see or hear or feel what your host did. You heard a lot of wayward thoughts. Nobody could see you. Those kinds of things.
But, most irritating was that ghosts can’t actually sleep.
Turns out sleep is a biological function and has diddly squat to do with your soul. So Chara didn’t get tired. Ever. Full consciousness, twenty-four/seven.
In the past, the idea of that would have sounded utterly dreadful to them. But it’s tolerable, now. Frisk is a good roommate, at least. They make an effort to avoid sleeping in. And they like Frisk’s friends, they’re all fun to watch. Fourteen hours of prime time entertainment to ten hours of absolute nothing was manageable. Besides, it wasn’t as if they could make Frisk stop sleeping. Well, they could, but they’d just pass out from exhaustion eventually so what’s the point?
Usually, they pass the time by thinking. About god-awful puns they can have on reserve for when Frisk is with Papyrus or Sans. About how wrong Alphys is about pretty much everything. About how glad they are that they can piggy-back off of Frisk’s senses and taste butterscotch-cinnamon pie again. About a lot of other things that only upset them, and leave them wondering why they don’t leave it be.
But, quite often, that wasn’t enough to keep them sane. They discovered early on that they could watch Frisk’s dreams. It felt like a tremendously inconsiderate invasion of privacy, but it was hard to resist what was essentially a poorly written, nonsensical television broadcast. And hey, that’s fair, isn’t it? Flowey, Asriel, their brother, whatever (they still can’t decide what they feel more comfortable calling him), he gets to sleep. Everyone else in the whole wide world got to. Being trapped in a thoughtless mind, unable to do anything was a displeasure exclusive to them, and they had the right to alleviate it. Besides, Frisk probably wouldn’t mind. Probably.
It wasn’t exactly a reliable source of entertainment. Some nights, their dreams ended up being absurdly mundane, nothing more than a mimicry of something that they’d probably actually go and do once they woke up— schoolwork, cooking, so on. Other nights, it was pure nonsense, although those were usually the more entertaining ones. Every now and then, it’d be something they had seen for real, and did not want to watch again.
This time, it’s one of the alright kinds of dreams. Stuff was happening, and not stuff that they’d expect to see out in the day. And it made sense so far, too— Frisk had summed up the courage to ask Papyrus out on another date (they can’t believe they still aren’t over him), and now the two of them were seated in an immaculately extravagant restaurant at a silk-clothed, candle-lit table, chatting it up whilst waiting on a double order of spaghetti. It was being prepared by Papyrus, of course. He just happened to be in two places at once. Because he’s so cool like that. Sans was their waiter, and while he was unrealistically punctual, helpful and clean, it seemed like him to hold this sort of job. It also struck them as a little weird (extremely weird, actually, and creepy) that he was waiting on his own brother’s date, but, whatever.
The date was going well. It was going perfect, in fact. Neither of them were tripping over their own words or getting caught in painfully long awkward pauses or any of the other stuff that’d make a date fun to watch. Sure, it was making Frisk happy, but boy howdy is it boring when everything goes to plan. They wished that something would screw up, one measly whoopsie-daisy-I-botched-everything moment.
Perhaps when Sans shows up with the spaghetti he’ll ‘trip’ and just slam it into Papyrus’s face. That’d be something.
Mere seconds later the shorter skeleton exited the kitchen with two steaming plates of freshly boiled pasta, with extra sauce on top. It didn’t appear as if it had been roasted over a tire fire or run over with a main battle tank so it wasn’t quite an authentic Papyrus™ brand dish, but they did suppose that it looked appetizing. Something he’d aspire to produce in the real world, one day. All that made them think of was how great it’d be if he actually did get hit in the face with it; the pointlessly wasted care and effort would only enhance the effect. It’d splatter exceptionally well, too, with a nice big spray of tomato sauce viscera and a guttural splorch-y noise.
Come on Sans, do it. Punch your brother right in the face with a platter of scalding hot pasta. Right in the friggin’ mouth. Wheel back and get a big windup going then just— Bam! In the face. Do it, you coward! Do it! Come on! I believe in you!
They shouted at him voicelessly from the sidelines of nowhere, desperately hoping he’d take the initiative and spice things up. He placed Frisk’s plate gently on the table without a fuss, and, dejectedly, they prepared a lethargic “Boooo”.
They were cut short when Sans braced his footing, reeled his arm back as far as it could go, and smashed the other plate between Papyrus’ eyes with laser precision. It was exactly as they pictured— massive shower of red in all directions, disturbingly wet splorch of projectile noodles and one very betrayed expression on Papyrus’ face.
Chara took the next few moments to be astonished. For one, Papyrus remained stationary in his seat when they felt rather strongly that the force of the impact should have sent him cartwheeling backwards through the restaurant. Second, while they had never been particularly good with odds, they were relatively certain that the chances of being able to successfully predict a dream were exorbitantly low.
Wow. That… yeah, that did indeed just happen. Huh. I’m surprised Sans didn’t have a one-liner prepped. He should have said something like, “Uh-oh spaghetti-o’s”.
Sans looked Papyrus dead in the eyes and said, “uh-oh spaghetti-o’s” without even the slightest trace of remorse. Finger guns accompanied his heartless remark.
Well then! But, I mustn’t assume anything. Scientific method dictates that I require a minimum of three examples of this behavior to form an accurate hypothesis. Or something like that. So, if, for example, Papyrus then were to say, “SANS! STOP PLAGUING MY LIFE—“
Papyrus scowled and let loose an aggravated groan. “SANS! STOP PLAGUING MY LIFE—“
“—WITH LOW EFFORT SLAPSTICK GAGS!”
“—WITH LOW EFFORT SLAPSTICK GAGS!” He put his hands on his hipbones for good measure.
Three for three, then. Oh, please tell me this means what I think it means. So, um… and then Sans slipped on the spaghetti sauce and broke his neck…?
True to form, Sans decided to take a big, cartoonishly wide step forward for no adequate reason, slipped on a puddle of sauce and hit the floor head-first, his landing accompanied by a sickening audible crack. It didn’t actually kill him or even seem to hurt, but he was lying face down on the ground with his head bent at an obviously unnatural angle. They were only sort of an expert, but that sure looked like a broken neck.
And, well, that about confirmed it. Their future suddenly seemed a lot less dull.
Oh my god YES. Ohohoho, this is perfect! Frisk, oh Frisk, you poor thing you are in for pure hell on earth.
They felt a sudden desire to cackle manically. They suppressed it, trying to contain themselves. Yes, this was all very exciting, and yes, this was sure to provide countless hours of enjoyment… but they should apply subtlety. Sure, they could just go ‘rocks fall everyone dies’ every single time, but that’d get old oh so fast. No, they must plan their adjustments with care. They’d been granted an invaluable gift. They weren’t going to waste it on juvenile outbursts and slapstick routines. They had to execute this with adequate buildup and a clever payoff.
They thought, meticulously, about what they could do that would most thoroughly derail the date. It didn’t take them long to come up with the perfect plan. They reflected that they were an apparent master at ruining things.
Let’s get this back on track… Sans leaves, Papyrus wipes the sauce off his face with a napkin. Frisk… huh…
They paused to wonder if they could control Frisk. They rapidly flip-flopped between “Probably, yeah” and “No way”, considering that since they can’t control Frisk in the waking world, they wouldn’t be able to here. And then they remembered that they totally can control Frisk in the waking world, and should be able to here. But, they can’t control their mind, only their body and even then only if they aren’t paying attention. Ultimately, they weren’t sure. An experiment was in order.
Alright, time out. Frisk decides to do a backflip.
Frisk did not do a backflip.
Frisk does a frontflip.
Frisk scratched their nose.
Frisk submits themselves to my will.
Frisk drummed their fingers on the table.
Damnit. Okay, fine. Hmm… oh! I know!
“WELL, I’M NOT SURE WHAT ALL THAT WAS ABOUT. I MEAN, YOU KNOW A GUY YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, ‘CAUSE HE’S YOUR BROTHER, AND THEN HE GOES AND DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND STRAIGHT UP BREAKS HIS NECK. SOME PEOPLE, RIGHT?” Papyrus rambled, tone rife with disinterest. Frisk stared meaningfully, granting even his nonchalant complaints their full attention. It showed they cared.
“ANYWAY! LETS GET BACK TO OUR DATE! AND… OH WAIT, HE SAY’S ‘NYEH-HEH-HEH’ A LOT I SHOULD THROW A FEW OF THOSE IN THERE— NO DAMNIT THAT’S NOT WHAT I WANT YOU TO SAY STOP THAT SHUT UP.”
Frisk’s staring changed from interested to deeply confused.
“AHEM, AS I WAS SAYING, OUR DATE! NYEH-HEH-HEH. HEH. NYEH. THAT THING WE WERE DOING, BECAUSE WE’RE IN LOVE OR SOMETHING STUPID LIKE THAT. THE DATE THAT CAN ONLY END WELL, AND ISN’T ABOUT TO BECOME A HORRIFIC DISASTER!”
“Papyrus, is something wrong?”
“NO! OF COURSE NOT! WE’RE JUST ON A LOVELY DATE, DOING DATE STUFF, LIKE SITTING AT THIS TABLE AND LOOKING AT ONE ANOTHER FOR SEVERAL HOURS ON END. AND… OH, I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANY LONGER…” His jovial tone cracked apart like dry leaves under a careless heel.
Frisk reached across the table and rested their hand delicately over his. “What is it?”
“HUMAN… I’VE BEEN… I’VE BEEN LYING TO YOU EVER SINCE WE FIRST MET. YOU SEE, I HAVE A TERRIBLE SECRET THAT WOULD SURELY CARVE A VAST RIFT BETWEEN US FOREVER, IF ONLY YOU KNEW!” He raised the back of his un-held hand to his forehead and monologued overdramatically. “HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO DISHONEST TO MY DEAREST FRIEND!?”
The human across the table didn’t seem disturbed by the sudden shift into soap-opera town. Chara realized that Papyrus probably really would do something like this, if he did in fact have a terrible secret.
“You can tell me, I won’t care. You’ll always be my friend.” There was nothing but sincerity in their tone. Chara couldn’t help but admire their tenderness.
“FRISK, MY LOVE, YOU SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND. IF I WERE TO TELL YOU… IT WOULD BREAK YOUR HEART! AND LITERALLY KILL YOU! WAIT, IS IT SAFE TO KILL THEM IN HERE? WOULD THEY DIE IN REAL LIFE? NO DAMNIT HE’S DOING IT AGAIN FUCK STOP ABORT MISSION.”
“Please tell me.” They urged him in a gentle, patient way. Not demanding that he come clean, only offering their view that honesty could be the best thing for both of them.
“UHM, RIGHT. FRISK… I DON’T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU THIS… BUT…”
He brought his un-held hand to the chest plate of his battle-body and peeled it open like a tin can. Inside, manning many levers and blinking buttons was a short, ugly monster with several noodly appendages. “I’VE REALLY BEEN JERRY THE WHOLE TIME!”
…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Frisk awoke with a glorious, horrified, deafening scream. Actually, now that Chara thought about it, it sounded rather akin to a bleat. It was the right kind of shrill.
They wanted so badly to bust out laughing, but no. No. Frisk can’t know they did this. Because if they did… well, there wasn’t much of anything they could do to stop them, but still. They wanted this source of enjoyment to last for as long as possible, and having Frisk whine at them would only spoil the whole thing. So they stifled their laughter and feigned ignorance.
“Frisk, are you alright? Did you have a nightmare?” Their tone was spot on; they sounded genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of their friend. They felt somewhat guilty that they were so good at this.
“Euugheugh…!” They shuddered and hugged their knees to their chest. “Uh, no? Yes? A little? I’m not sure. I… never want to fall asleep again, but it wasn’t… one of the really bad ones. It was just gross. And horrible. I’m fine, though.”
“’Gross and horrible’?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine, really. Trust me.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again.” Frisk noted, briefly, that they sounded oddly cheerful. “Well, goodnight!”
They gave a warm smile. “Goodnight. Thanks for making sure I was okay.”
“Oh,” they concealed their amusement. “Always.”
Mom burst through the door immediately thereafter, terror in her eyes and a river of concerned questions flooding the room in her wake. Frisk offered her roughly the same explanation that Chara had received. It was just a bad dream, nothing to worry about. Thanks for checking on me.
They waited, patiently, for Mom to finally leave and for Frisk to finally go back to sleep before completely losing their shit. They had a feeling that perhaps lying to them was wrong, and that turning pleasant dreams into “gross and horrible” nightmares was also possibly wrong, but they were having too much fun to care.
…
Soon, they were overlooking Frisk giving a public ambassadorial speech on-stage to a massive crowd of onlookers, plotting how they could make everything go disastrously askew.
They considered that this time, it’d be pretty easy to freak them out. Frisk had yet to give any public speeches on their own— being an ‘ambassador’ generally meant standing next to Asgore and looking cute, at least until they were older and could accept more responsibility. Of course, the dream made the whole affair infinitely more intimidating than it’d be in reality. The crowd was an impossibly gargantuan sea of judging eyes, monsters and humans both, stretching past the horizon. The entire world was watching them give this speech. The speech, of course, wasn’t real; it was just some “wah-wah” indecipherable noise. But, they could tell that they were nervous.
They wondered what they could do… an assassination attempt? Have some dude run up on stage and shank them? They rejected the idea nearly instantly. That was a bit… too real. It wouldn’t do to actually scare them, and have them be a paranoid wreck when the day came that they really did have to give a speech on their own. Besides that, they didn’t want to watch them get stabbed. Also, it wouldn’t be particularly funny. Yeah, mostly the last one. There’s no class there. No subtlety at all.
So, back to square one. Public speech, they were nervous… It was quite a bit like a puzzle, actually. A puzzle missing a single piece, but they didn’t know what that piece looked like or where it was needed.
They decided to start simple. Without warning, Frisk’s script burst into flames and disintegrated into flakes of illegible ash.
Though they seemed surprised that they had been witness to a spontaneous combustion (they shot a suspicious look at Asgore, standing amongst the crowd. He shrugged, confused as they were), they didn’t react further, and didn’t stop giving the speech.
Of course. They would have memorized the whole thing by heart.
Back to square one again. What, they pondered, could ruin a public speech? Have their pants fall down? No, too juvenile, and they’d just use it as an excuse to start flirting. Speaker system blowout? No, too mundane. Maybe… ah….
They were running out of ideas. This was harder than they thought it’d be.
For no reason, Sans plummeted from the sky and landed on the podium, crushing it into a pile of splintered plywood and breaking his neck (again) in the process. Chara barely smiled, largely dissatisfied.
“sorry to drop in unannounced, but i got breaking news.” He was now paralyzed from the head down and unable to make finger guns, but everyone knew he wanted to.
“Now really isn’t the time.” Frisk was far more annoyed than they were alarmed that Sans’ neck was broken or confused that the clouds had parted open and the heavens themselves had shat him out onto their podium.
Alright, let’s see where I can go with this.
“but kiddo, buddy, pal, breadslice, chummy chum friend fam partner amigo, this is some serious news i’m talking here. it’ll chill you right to the bone.”
Yeah he’d probably say something like that.
Frisk tapped their foot impatiently. “Tell me, then. You’re interrupting. I’m gonna lose my place!”
“anyway, i dropped in to— shit, i already used that one. i crashed your party to tell you that…” He trailed off, clearly having no idea what the news was supposed to be.
“To tell me what?”
“that… uh… um… err…”
“Sans!” They were barely able to stop themselves from ripping their own hair out.
“oh goodness me is that a meteor up there wow i mean look at that.” He pointed over Frisk’s shoulder into the clear blue sky. Chara forgot that his neck was still broken and that he shouldn’t have been able to.
Alright, I yield. I’m out of ideas. I’ll just nuke everything; that’ll wake them up and then we can move on to something else.
Frisk turned to glare resentfully at the approaching meteor, engulfed in a white hot re-entry flare. They waited patiently for it to come to them, and let it land on their open palms, not even flinching as they did so. They hastily lobbed it right back to where it had came from.
“I’m BUSY!”
“how the hell did you do that.”
They shifted their death-glare to Sans. “Spite.”
“okay i mean that’s nice and all but that was a giant space rock about a kilometer across and you just caught it and then threw it back like an underhand pitch softball what kind of shit are you trying to pull here.”
“It doesn’t matter, okay? I need to get back to the speech! I’ve…” their expression sunk. “I’ve already lost my place...”
“so i guess you’re pretty boned, huh?”
They grabbed him by the collar and threw him into space, too.
The crowd exploded into derisive, cruel laughter, it not occurring to them that they were mocking someone who was capable of throwing people into space. From within the ocean of jeering faces, Toriel looked at them with sad, disenchanted eyes.
“Frisk.” Asgore suddenly appeared behind them, and placed his hand on their shoulder. “You fucked that up so bad that another war has been declared. You are super fired.”
…
Frisk awoke with a low, gravelly growl bubbling in their throat.
“Something wrong?”
“No… I’m having stupid dreams tonight, is all.”
“’Gross and horrible’?”
“That one was more like dumb and frustrating and bad.” They pouted bitterly.
“That’s unfortunate.” A faint snicker escaped them.
Frisk rolled their eyes back, trying to cast a suspecting glare into their own skull. “...Would you know anything about that?”
“No, of course not!” They did their best to sound offended.
“Chara.”
“What, are you accusing me of tampering with your dreams to amuse myself?”
“Chara.”
“Only a little bit...”
“Chara.”
“I discovered I had the ability mere hours ago and I’ve already gone mad with power.”
“Did you… was the last, last dream I had… was that you?”
“Yes, I ruined your date.”
Their cheeks burned red hot.
“You seem torn up over it. I don’t know how you do it, really. Every day must be agonizing torment, knowing that he’ll never take you back.”
“Don’t make fun of me. And don’t ruin my dreams, please. That’s mean.”
“Oh, come on, I wasn’t—“
“Don’t even start with that, I know where you’re going.” they interrupted, folding their arms across their chest. “You’re going to tell me that ‘It’s just a joke, Frisk. It’s just harmless fun, Frisk. What was that? I hurt your feelings? Oh, I was just joking, Frisk. Learn to take a joke, Frisk.’ It ends the same way every time and you’re not doing it to me again.”
“Holy shit, lighten up! What’s gotten into you?”
“See? You’re doing it—“ they stopped and took a deep breath. Their tension snapped and fell loose like an overdrawn rubber band. “I’m sorry. I value my dreams, okay? Even if everything is good now, and I have everything I want, my dreams still matter to me. They’re special. Don’t ask why or tell me that’s stupid, that’s just… how I feel about it.”
“They’re special, huh? Why? That’s stupid.”
“Funny.” Chara wasn’t entirely sure, but something about Frisk’s deadpan tone made them feel like perhaps they didn’t actually think it was funny.
“You were practically begging for that one, I had to.”
“I get that you’re bored. I’d be bored too if I was in your shoes. Being stuck awake and unable to do anything, that sounds horrible, and I’m proud of you for taking that so well. I could never handle something like that. Heck, I’ll even admit it was actually pretty funny, as a one-time joke. But please don’t do it again. If you want, I can set my alarm earlier instead.”
“Well look at you, the little diplomat. Already out to negotiate better terms.”
“Please stop making fun of me.”
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to change your alarm or anything, don’t worry about me. I’ll stop.”
“Promise?”
“…Yeah, I promise. I’m strictly a spectator again from here on out.”
“Thank you.” They smiled. “That means a lot to me.”
“Wait, spectator again? Were… were you watching my dreams this whole time?”
“…Would you believe ‘no’?”
“Oh no,” terror seized their chest. “Oh no no no, that means you saw the one I had a few months back—!“
“NO!” they cut them off in a panic. “NO I DIDN’T! I stopped watching that one real fast!”
Frisk took the next moment to break their all-time personal record for most relief in a single sigh.
“I don’t stick around if it’s overly personal. Or overly… whatever… that was. Let’s not discuss it further.”
They nodded in agreement before arching an eyebrow. “A date isn’t too personal?”
“Not if it’s never gonna happen in real life.”
“He’ll come around eventually.” They spoke with an overblown wistfulness, acutely aware of how ridiculous they sounded.
“Pffft. Well, figures that you wouldn’t even think about giving up.” They gave a short laugh. “I’ll never forget the way you cried when he first shot you down.”
Frisk smiled with a hint of strain, remembering the moment with nostalgia but still sort of wanting to talk about something else.
“’I-I wasn’t g-good enough f-for him!’ It hurt to watch, really. Utterly heartbreaking.”
“Good thing the world’s crappiest babysitter came to my rescue. Forcibly dragging me through Snowdin to get nice-cream, yelling at me to shut up all the while. You’re so inspiring.”
“Of course I was yelling at you, you were making a huge scene in front of the whole neighborhood! Everyone was leaning out their doors, trying to get a look at the snot-nosed whining machine that had woken them all up.”
Their smile strained further. That last one was a little hurtful. They knew Chara was only kidding, but… no, no they were being too sensitive again. Lighten up, right? They forced a giggle.
“Anyway, I should try to get back to sleep.”
Their enthusiasm drained away. “Alright...”
“…I’m sorry you’re stuck like this. I’ll find a way, soon, for both—“
“Stop.” There was little force behind their words. They sounded worn-out.
“Okay. I’ll talk to you again in the morning.”
“Mmhmm.”
Frisk couldn’t help but feel guilty. They sounded so let down. It wasn’t fair, how they had to stay awake, alone all night. They hated that, they really did. Maybe they could reconsider. Give the green light once every three days, or something like that. That’d be better.
Or I could wait until they get impatient and break their promise anyway.
They hadn’t said it out loud, but they still felt an urge to cover their mouth with their hands. They really hoped that they hadn’t heard that. That was wrong of them. It wasn’t fair to assume they’d break their promise. Chara cared about them; they wouldn’t hurt their feelings on purpose or for kicks.
“I love you.” Those were words Frisk didn’t say to them often. They weren’t certain why— they were true. They’d never had a real sibling, but they figured that having one would be a lot like having Chara. And they told all their friends, all the time, that they loved them. Just not Chara. The words didn’t feel as safe with them.
“…That was sudden. I love you too.” They seemed unsure of themselves, but not because they were lying.
They would keep their promise. Frisk was sure of it. They were sure.
…
Going back to watching was hell. Cruel insult to grievous injury. They cursed their tactless slip-up every night for the next week. Here they’d found the perfect way to pass the time, and they’d blown it on night one. Go figure. That’s just their kind of luck.
They were watching the kid bake a pie with Mom, and for fuck sakes, this was something they had done that very day. Couldn’t have been more than four hours ago that they had taken the real one out of the oven. And it was taking so long and they weren’t even talking, they were just piddling about the kitchen doing nothing—
Deep breath. I can’t use Frisk’s lungs right now, but deep breath.
They couldn’t reasonably justify being mad at them. They hadn’t done a thing. They had been nothing but reasonable and compassionate. So, Chara reflected their frustration ambiguously on “themselves”. They weren’t truly angry with themselves— if they were, they would have been angry they had upset Frisk, or because they were stewing in resentment because they couldn’t continue to do so. No, they were angry that their new favorite toy had been taken away from them, and, technically, that had been their own fault.
Normally, cynical self-awareness would at least make them feel clever, but the bottom line was that they were back to being just plain bored out of their mind.
Frisk had left the kitchen to walk outside, for some nonsensical dream reason. Toriel was standing in the door, watching them patiently.
Well, you see, the recipe called for ‘cups of butter’, and we had all these buttercups outside…
But no, they weren’t picking flowers. They were meandering about again, not a care or a goal in the world.
Spite swelled within them.
Aaaand they’re sitting on the grass and looking at the sky. I wish I still had my own neck so that I could hang myself.
They got an idea. They had the smallest feeling that it was one of their patented Awful Ideas from CharaCorp™, the kind that usually ended with people getting hurt. But, whatever. Whatever. They said they’d stop, but come on. One more time. It’d be funny. That’s all they were asking for, just one more.
From the door, Toriel gave a hollow sigh and her posture slumped. “Hey, Frisk…”
“Mmhmm?”
“I’m sick of you now. I don’t want you in my life anymore, you feel me? Go find a new mom, I’m quitting.”
Before they could respond, she slammed the door and locked it with a click they heard clear as day.
“Wait— no! I’m sorry! What did I do?” They rushed to the door and tried, desperately, to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Please let me back in! I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did but I’m sorry I’ll be good I promise just please don’t do this!”
“Get lost, twerp. Also your friends called and they all hate you too, now.” She mocked from the other side.
“I’m so sorry Mom, please don’t do this. Please! Toriel—!“
They listened helplessly as her footsteps grew more and more distant.
“O-Oh. Oh no. No, no no no no no—“
…
They shot up from the bed with a gasp, forehead drenched with cold sweat, heart pounding and lungs burning. They struggled in vain to catch their breath.
Chara laughed. “You should have seen the look on your face!”
They didn’t have anything to say back. They put their head in their hands and began to shiver and sob, unsure if they were crying because they felt relieved or betrayed. “You… you…” they fumbled for words. “…Why? W-Why would you— you know full well how a-afraid I am that s-she’ll… that…”
“Oh, don’t— I wasn’t trying to scare you. Grow up.”
“T-This is why. This is why I… why I asked you to stop. Because I knew you would do something like this, you always do!” They narrowed it down; they were definitely feeling betrayed, more than anything else. “You promised! You promised me y-you wouldn’t do this, and then… I trusted you. I trusted you and you just used it to hurt me.”
“Geez, if I had known you were going to freak out like this I wouldn’t have bothered.” There was a hint of nervousness in their tone, but it didn’t stop them from deflecting the issue.
They took a shaky breath, sniffed and wiped their eyes dry. Their head drifted forlornly left and right in a gesture that was one part disgust and two parts disappointment.
“You’re not worth the effort it takes to love you, sometimes.” There was nothing but honesty in their tone.
Chara looked for a way, any way, to recoil in a detectable manner. They stumbled in shock for what felt like ages before they remembered they could do nothing but speak. They remained in silence.
“I shouldn’t have said that. That was cruel.”
Chara wasn’t ready to say anything.
They sighed, meekly. Their voice dropped to a raspy, helpless whisper. “…Why did you do it? Did I do something to you…?”
They felt a “No” somewhere in the back of their head.
“You promised me…”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I did know that you’re afraid that she will really leave.”
“I want to know why.”
“…I don’t know. I’m sorry, I truly am. Please forgive me, I didn’t want to hurt you. I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking…” ‘Of anyone but myself’ went unsaid, but they both felt that it belonged.
Frisk lay back down and rolled onto their side.
“I’ll stop, I promise. I understand that my word doesn’t mean anything anymore, but I will. It won’t happen again.”
“…”
“I’m sorry.”
“…”
“I love you.”
“…”
“…Goodnight, Frisk.”
They couldn’t take it any longer. As upset as they were, they didn’t want to do this to them. “I forgive you. And I love you. But you really hurt me.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t ever do that again.”
“I won’t.”
They nodded, their hair scratching against the fabric of their pillowcase. “Goodnight.”
…
A few days later, they’re having a nightmare.
Chara recognized it immediately. This was the one with Flowey. Big, six souls Flowey. Horrifying Flowey. That thing wasn’t their brother, they were sure about that.
They knew what would happen next. Frisk had already been stuck in the dark, empty room for hours upon hours, calling out for help. Flowey had already told them in detail what he would do to them. Pretty soon, he’d start laughing, then coils of rotting vines, coated with thorns like knotted razor wire, would begin to pull them apart, piece by piece. Their head was always last.
They wondered what they could say to them, in the morning. “It’s okay now” and “It wasn’t real” were timeless classics, of course, but it’d come out sounding hollow and pre-packaged. Ultimately, they found themselves wishing that Frisk wasn’t so hard to wake up.
You know, if only I could do something about this. If only if only if only. Alas, I am powerless.
Obviously, there was a lot they could do. They knew that, now. They had promised to never do it again, twice, in fact, but…
Well, they never really gave much mind to promises anyways. Why tie yourself down when you don’t know what the future holds, right? Rules have exceptions, or something like that. The rule, in this case, being not to hurt their friend, and the exception being that they shouldn’t stand by and let it happen, either.
It didn’t take them long to come up with the perfect plan. They reflected that they were maybe okay at fixing things.
The distant revving of an engine stopped Flowey’s laughter dead in its tracks. ‘Sweat’ accumulated on his monitor as the sound of a rumbling motor grew louder and louder.
As the rumble reached its peak, Frisk looked up to see Papyrus sailing through their air on a motorcycle, painted black with red flames and a super awesome chrome trim. On his back were two heavy machineguns. The ones that you can’t even carry by yourself. The big ones they put on jeeps and shit. Those. Fifty caliber and at least a billion kilograms each.
He back-flipped off the bike mere seconds before it crashed into Flowey’s monitor, punching through the screen and exploding into a massive cloud of fire, scrap-metal and shards of glass. As he fell to the ground, he unsheathed a machete and- wait, the machete was on fire. Yeah. On fire and as long as a sword, but it was still a machete. Actually, fuck it, it was a sword. A huge claymore that’d embarrass Undyne. It was imbued with the soul of a great old one and had been used in every war ever fought. And it was on fire.
He stuck the landing flawlessly, blade outstretched, and cleaved clean through the mass of vines constricting his friend, not so much as grazing them. Frisk saw now that he was also wearing aviator sunglasses that glinted dazzlingly every time he turned his head, and a super stylish leather jacket that they had last seen on Undyne, so long ago. It bore a feature they had never noticed before; “Bad to the bone” was sewn across the back in all capital letters.
“HUMAN!” He stood tall, handsome and heroic. His scarf billowed majestically in a wind that touched him and nobody else. “FEAR NOT, FOR I COME BEARING BRAVERY, HEROISM, GOOD LOOKS…” He paused to dodge a jet of napalm. “…AND A COMBINED TWELVE HUNDRED ASS-KICKINGS PER MINUTE!” He made sure to draw his machine guns as he said “ass-kickings”, it wouldn’t have been as cool otherwise. He also made sure that he had left them un-chambered before his arrival, so that he could punctuate the start of the aforementioned ass-kicking with a twin Chhck-CHHHK that crunched with the bass of tempered steel against shining brass.
The thundering of gunfire and twinkling of shell casing smoking like lit cigarettes roared even over Flowey’s ungodly screech of agony. He tried, uselessly, to fight back, but Papyrus dodged every attack with stunning grace and finesse. The hurricane of burning lead steadily gnawed and tore at the offending abomination of nature, blasting away pulpy chunks of plant matter to the tune of a fireworks show of arterial spray and gun-smoke with every second that passed
A minute of roll-dodges and a small fortune’s worth of spent ammunition later, Flowey had exploded at least thirty separate times, and was now back to his regular self, crying like a dweeb amidst brutalized giblets of his final form.
Papyrus plucked him from the earth, whispered to him, “I’m only sparing you because it will make you angry,” and then drop-kicked him into the sun. He survived, of course; he was just trapped in the sun now.
The world’s best skeleton dropped his searing, red-hot tools of justice to the floor and turned to look at his bestie in distress. They stared back with wide, starry eyes.
“FRISK! ARE YOU HURT?”
“No, not at all.”
“OF COURSE YOU AREN’T. I WOULD NEVER LET ANYTHING HURT YOU. ANYONE WHO TRIES GETS DROP KICKED INTO THE SUN. NYEH-HEH-FUCKIN’-HEH, BABY.”
“Thank you so much for saving me!”
“ANYTIME. ACCOMPLISHING ASTOUNDING FEATS OF HEROISM IS MY JOB, AFTER ALL! NOW COME, WE MUSTN’T DELAY! THERE’S A SURPRISE PARTY WAITING FOR YOU BACK HOME, AND I FEAR THAT THE ICE-CREAM IS MELTING AND THE SPAGHETTI GROWING COLD.”
“A… a party?”
“YES! A PARTY FOR OUR FAVORITE AMBASSADOR, HUMAN, AND FRIEND.”
Their eyes misted up. Chara restrained themselves from screaming because they were going to start crying again like seriously kid you have fire hydrants instead of tear ducts. “I… I don’t know what to say…”
“WHY NOT “GREETINGS” TO YOUR FRIENDS? THEY’LL ALL BE THERE, LET ME ASSURE YOU. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, OF COURSE, SANS, ALPHYS, UNDYNE, TORIEL, ASGORE, METTATON, NAPSTABLOOK. I EVEN WENT AND INVITED MUFFET AND GERSON AND GRILLBY AND… AND… UH… ALL THE OTHER ONES. ALL OF THEM! IT’S GONNA BE A RIOT!”
Their smile died away, and they looked up at him with great concern. “Chara will be there too, right?”
Somehow, they didn’t notice how he started beaming as if they had made his whole week. “OF COURSE! ASRIEL, TOO. THEY’RE BOTH MAGICALLY BACK FROM THE DEAD AND WAITING TO GIVE YOU A BIG HUG.”
Their face lit up like the sky over a sunrise. Wasting no time, they hopped onto Papyrus’s shoulders and let him carry them away to the best party they ever had. When they got there, both their siblings were waiting with open arms, wide smiles and kind words.
They hugged them as hard as they could.