Chapter Text
Asriel's best friend won't talk to him anymore, and it's all his fault. The two of them disagreed so horribly over everything that actually matters that now Chara is ignoring him despite living in the same house and sleeping in the same room, but they can at least agree about whose fault it is. Or anyway, Asriel assumes they can, but Chara won't even respond to his groveling, so it's not like he knows for sure he isn't somehow wrong about that too.
He is sure he's not wrong about it being his fault, though. It's not just that he couldn't follow their plan, it's that he's the reason they came up with the plan in the first place. He was the one who guessed that maybe "cups of butter" meant the flowers. Chara told him that was a wonderful idea, but looking back on it now, he's pretty sure they had that smile that meant they were laughing beneath their words. They must have known he was wrong and gone along with it just to see what would happen—and boy, did things ever happen!
Maybe it didn't even start with the pie. Maybe he was already ruining everything a whole year earlier, back when he'd only just met them.
Chara had finally healed enough from their fall that they could go up and down stairs, so Asriel took their hand and offered to show them around the castle. "You can lean on me again if you have to!" he said. He probably sounded way too excited about it, because Chara then made a point of not leaning on him, instead using the walls to brace themself. They led the way, which was not at all how showing a guest around was supposed to work, but Chara seemed to know where they wanted to go, so Asriel followed them.
Chara took the stairs down and strode purposefully through the lower-level corridors. They barely paused to look around even when they passed through the great hall with all the pillars and stained glass. Asriel nervously wondered whether the surface was just so full of cool things that nothing in the whole Underground would impress Chara much. That would have been awful, mostly because Chara was stuck down there with him even if they hated it, but also because Asriel really, really wanted them not to hate it, and would still have wanted that even if they weren't stuck.
They passed by the throne room and continued on until they found more stairs. "All that's down there is the basement," Asriel told them. "It's kind of a mess right now." Really, it had been a mess for as long as it had been a basement, and it would remain a mess for the foreseeable future. There was so much old junk no one had been able to figure out what to do with after the move to New Home. "There's a garden in the throne room, though! You said you like plants, right? And you can see the barrier out back! That's pretty cool too. I mean, it looks cool, even though it's obviously kind of evil."
"You really do not want me going down there, do you?" Chara asked with a weird grin.
"Huh? I mean, you can. But it's boring, and since your ankle is still kind of-" Chara turned their back on him and began to descend. "Oh. Okay." Asriel followed along, telling himself that it wasn't a big deal and that maybe Chara would lean on him later if they tired themself out.
The stairs dead-ended against a wall of boxes stacked higher than the kids' heads, all of them full of outdated books that no one had wanted to read in centuries or half-ragged clothes that no one would ever again need to wear thanks to the windfall from the dump. Chara pushed some of them around to clear a path through, but even at the farthest end of the room they found only more boxes with more junk.
"I warned you," Asriel said.
"Warned me," Chara repeated. They weren't grinning anymore. "It's just a normal basement. What kind of castle is this? You don't even have a dungeon."
"Why would we have a dungeon under our home?" Asriel asked, then immediately regretted it when Chara stared at him like he'd just said something weird.
"Your mother bakes," they pointed out for some reason.
"Yeah?"
"You have mentioned your father gardens. And makes his own tea."
"Yeah, and?" What did any of these things have to do with the basement?
"Are you really royalty?" Chara asked.
"Of course we are! I wouldn't lie to you!"
"Of course." They didn't sound suspicious, just deeply unimpressed—and that was worse, because Asriel couldn't prove that they shouldn't be unimpressed.
"I told you the throne room was the other way! It really is cool!" Dumb, panicked bleating. Probably none of it made any more sense to Chara than what Chara was saying made sense to him. What if nothing Asriel could show them would interest them at all? What if the surface was just that much better than anything he had to offer?
"Yes, I am sure the garden is lovely. We can visit it in a moment. For now, though..." Chara leaned back on the wall they'd cleared a space in front of, one leg pulled up to rest their bad foot against it, their arms loosely crossed. It was a really cool, casual-looking pose. If Asriel hadn't already known they were doing it to shift their weight off of an injury, he never would have guessed. "Tell me. What does this kingdom do with criminals?"
"Well, uh, that's a whole... topic?" Asriel did not understand the flow of this conversation at all, but if Chara wanted to hear about something, then he wanted to talk about it. "Generally speaking, if someone takes something that belongs to someone else, then they have to give it back or replace it, possibly with interest. If someone hurts someone else, then we find a way for them to work to make amends."
"Community service!" Chara said with a giggle. Asriel had no idea why that was supposed to be funny. "But what if a convict refuses to comply with the sentence?"
"They wouldn't. The Underground is small, and there aren't very many of us here. We all rely on each other, so we all want to get along as best we can."
"You could say the same of the village where I grew up. And yet. Surely you must have some means of control." When Asriel took too long trying to think of how to answer, they shrugged. "So you use a light touch. Perhaps light enough to be imperceptible." They grinned in full force as they continued, "But what about murderers? How would they 'make amends'?"
"Uh, well, nothing like that has... come up... for way longer than I've been alive, so my parents have never talked to me about it," Asriel admitted.
Chara burst out laughing. "Incredible! Monsters really are different! No wonder you are content simply waiting for me to die!"
"No one is waiting for you to die!" Asriel blurted out in horror. "What are you talking about? You aren't really dying, are you?"
"Aren't we all? Well. Not you, apparently. But all of us mortals."
"What the heck?! You're just rubbing that in out of nowhere!" When Chara had first asked Asriel what he was, he'd eagerly told them everything about boss monsters. He wouldn't have done that if he'd known they were going to turn around and taunt him with it. "Do you hate me or something?!"
"Oh. You aren't happy about it." Chara stifled their laughter and flattened out their smile. Though they managed it quickly, the corners of their mouth kept twitching in a way that made Asriel suspect it took them real effort. "I did not realize."
Of course they hadn't realized. Asriel had been smiling and even sort of bragging when he'd explained it. I can live forever! Isn't that cool and not at all terrifyingly lonely because I'm the last one? It wasn't Chara's fault that being around them somehow made him feel even clingier and more insecure than usual. He took a deep breath, pulled himself together, and said, "Sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. You didn't deserve that."
"It's fine," Chara said with another shrug. Asriel knew they probably didn't mean totally fine, or that they hadn't been hurt at all by him yelling at them for no reason. But if they did mean that, wouldn't it have beeen kind of unfair, when there he was getting all twisted up inside over what they thought of him?
Asriel took another deep breath. He couldn't let that matter right then. What mattered was: "For real, though, no one is waiting for you to die."
"Why else would you all be so happy that the enemy has shown itself?" Chara argued.
"We're happy because we don't have to be enemies anymore!"
Chara rolled their eyes at him. "It's fine," they said again. "You need my soul. I am lucky monsters are nice enough not to want to hurry up the process."
"I'm sure that's not the point!" And this, Asriel thinks as he looks back on it later, was probably where he made his first big mistake. He should have asked his parents what the point was, or maybe told Chara to ask them. But he wanted to be the one to reassure Chara and make them feel welcome. And after everything he had been dwelling on, a new thought popped into his head that excited him so much, he just had to run with it. "It's probably the other way around! Mom and Dad aren't going to have another kid, so they'll just get older and more mortal instead of... Well, anyway, when they do pass on, maybe you can take the halves of their souls that are left!" That way Chara might never have to die, and Asriel might not have to be alone. "Then you can go through the barrier and seek out help from the other humans! I bet it'll be a lot easier to get them to listen if one of their own kind explains it!"
"It will not!" Chara snapped suddenly into motion. Their arms unfolded, and their hands balled into fists. They lunged forward from the wall, wincing and stumbling slightly when their bad foot struck the ground, but not stopping until they were right up in Asriel's face. Their eyes, wide with fury or terror or both, glared directly into his own from just inches away. Asriel could see in stunning detail how the rings of amber-red around their pupils radiated like sunbursts through the brown. "You will not make me go back there! I can't be an ambassador! I am a fugitive!"
"Sorry!" Asriel squeaked, then instantly felt ridiculous for squeaking. At least he hadn't startled badly enough to jump backward. He was, quite literally, boxed in, so that would not have gone well. He probably would have knocked things over and made a mess and looked unbelievably stupid. And Chara wouldn't still be so close that he could make out all the tiny human hairs scattered across their skin, so close that he could even feel their breath shifting the fur on his own face. Or maybe that would have been a good thing, because at least then he might have been able to think straight. "Just forget it! Maybe that's not what anyone's thinking! I'm really sorry, I didn't know you were in so much trouble, or that you felt so... so..." Scared? Would Chara be upset if he said they sounded scared?
"You didn't know?" Chara wasn't yelling anymore, but their voice still had a desperate edge to it. "You thought I went for a hike on Suicide Mountain because I was enjoying life on the surface just so much?"
"Suicide?" It barely came out as a whisper. Asriel wanted to reach out and grab hold of Chara and pull them those last couple of inches toward him into a hug, but that would have been a bad idea for a lot of reasons. And anyway, he didn't seem to be able to move.
"Did you not get that? I told you about the rumors. No one comes back from Ebott. Did you think I was stupid? Reckless?"
"I thought you were cool and brave," Asriel said.
Chara huffed out a laugh. "Sorry to disappoint."
"You didn't! I still think that!"
Chara pulled back just enough that Asriel could see their face as a whole again, and they could probably see his. They stared at him in silence for a moment, their expression blank, which Asriel hoped at least meant they weren't mad anymore. Then they said, "Sit down, Asriel. I want to tell you something."
"Okay." Asriel sat. He had a bad feeling about it, because no one ever meant anything good when they said you should be sitting down to hear something. Chara had just been talking about suicide like it was hardly a big deal, so what could possibly be so horrible that even they considered it shocking? But then Chara sat down too, their legs crossed and their hands folded casually in their lap, and Asriel realized that maybe it was just a long story that they both ought to settle in and get comfortable for. Not that the floor of the basement was particularly comfortable, but whatever.
"I will tell you why I ran away," Chara said, "but only if you promise not to tell anyone else. Not even your parents."
"I promise!" Asriel rushed to say without missing a beat.
"Thank you. I will hold you to it. Now, it was a perfectly ordinary day..." Chara paused and seemed to consider something. "I want to emphasize that. Do not expect the story of a world-shattering tragedy. It is not even really a story about the straw that broke the camel's back. What happened was simply... an epiphany."
Asriel was struck for maybe the millionth time since he'd met Chara by just how smart they were. Once, early on, he had complimented their vocabulary. Chara had rolled their eyes at him and said, "I read books," their tone witheringly dry. Asriel had felt bad about it at the time, but he understood better as he got to know them. The way Chara talked was so cool not just because of the words they used, but because their mind worked on a whole different level than his did. They saw the world through a lens that Asriel could only ever seem to glimpse by listening to them. Going on about how impressive all their big words sounded had been missing the forest for the trees.
"My siblings had friends over," Chara continued. "I attempted to escape the house, but my mother caught me. Because I was not hosting anyone, she assigned me chores. While I did the dishes, the others ate in the kitchen so that they could gossip about me where I would overhear. As they finished their lunches and pelted my back with empty soda cans-"
"Why would they do that?!" Asriel blurted out, then sheepishly covered his mouth when Chara glared at him. He hadn't meant to interrupt.
"What do you mean 'why'?" Chara demanded. "You think they had a reason?"
"No! I mean, not a good reason, obviously! There couldn't possibly be any good reason for treating you so badly! But it all sounds so strange to me, and you're talking about it like it's something that doesn't need to be explained."
"It's just how humans are," Chara said. "I could not explain it even if I wanted to. Practically every aspect of my existence has been criticized at some point. I cannot begin to guess which of their complaints were the real reasons they started hating me, and which were excuses to punish me more."
"I am so sorry," Asriel said.
"Do not pity me," Chara told him.
"I'm not looking down on you or anything!" he assured them quickly. "You're really strong! I know that!"
"Even so," they insisted. "No pity."
"Why not, though? What's so wrong about feeling bad for someone?"
"What's wrong is that it is useless. As useless as feeling bad for yourself." Before Asriel could argue, they added, "Do you want me to finish the story or not?"
"Oh, sorry! Go on."
"Thank you. Anyhow. That was when I came to a realization that had been building for as long as I'd been alive: I was not truly a part of that world. I never would be. No one wanted me there. And I wanted nothing that anyone there had to offer."
Chara fell suddenly silent. Asriel doubted the story was over, because they didn't look at him expectantly. In fact, they stopped looking at him at all and instead stared down at their hands.
"I was toweling off a steak knife," they said slowly. They curled their left hand as though it were holding something, and moved their right hand in short, repetitive stroking motions just above it. "The others were laughing. For so long I had been pinioned by fear of consequences. But now I knew that I had nothing to fear. Because I had nothing to lose. No escape except one. No matter what, the enemy would hound me until I died. I could not evade the consequences of doing what I wanted, but the consequences did not matter." They pressed their palms together, then drew them apart with their right hand curled—wrapped around the handle of the knife in their memory, Asriel realized. "So I took hold of the hilt. I turned." They lifted their head to look at Asriel again, and also lifted and stretched out their hand, angling it to point the imaginary blade right at him. "And I fought my way out."
"Did you kill the bullies?" Asriel asked. It sounded to him like they had, and he wasn't as shocked as he should have been. After all the other shocking things he'd just heard, this one at least made sense. It was easier to understand than why anyone had ever wanted to make Chara feel so horrible in the first place.
"I don't know," Chara admitted. "Definitely not all of them. Maybe not any. Some were bleeding quite badly. But I could not stick around to make sure. I only accomplished what I did thanks to the element of surprise. With that gone, I would lose. I refused to let them have the satisfaction of ending me themselves. Or even of seeing me dead."
Asriel struggled to think of an appropriate response. Chara stared at him like they expected something from him, but they kept their mouth shut tight about what that something might be. Obviously he couldn't just say, I'm sorry. Chara had made it clear they didn't want to hear that, and anyway, Asriel wasn't feeling too bad for them just at that moment. Chara had fought back against the bad humans and won, or at least they hadn't lost, and now they were here with him and probably not missing the surface very much after all.
As the silence stretched out, Asriel noticed how still the air was. It hadn't struck him before, because the basement was too cold to feel stifling, like all of the chill in the whole castle had sunk to the bottom and stayed there. But the must of old cloth and older books hung heavily in the room, and the stone floor already felt warmer than when Asriel had first sat down, and the space around him and Chara seemed to have heated up a bit just from the two of them being there and breathing in it. The boxes rose around them like the crenellations on the castle's outer wall, blocking whatever airflow might have made it down the stairs. Asriel and Chara sat tucked away together in a fortress within a fortress and a hole beneath a hole, the center of the center and the bottom of the bottom of the world, alone with each other and their secrets. So far, though, only one of them had told any secrets worthy of such a hideaway.
Asriel realized he'd been thinking about everything the wrong way around. He should have been trying to come up with the least appropriate thing he could possibly say.
"I hope some of them did die," he said, and tried with all his might to mean it. He had never even seen those people and knew almost nothing about them, which made it easier not to care too much about bad things happening to them, but harder to really hate them like Chara did. "Or... or at least I hope you hurt them badly enough that they never get to be okay with what happened. That they regret being cruel to you for the rest of their lives, however long those are." That was an easier wish to get his heart around. If Chara was still upset about it, then everyone else involved should have to stay upset about it too.
Chara's stare softened. They let out a breath and let their shoulders slump, then lifted their chin up and smiled. "I hope so too. That is part of why I did not want to be caught. With no body, they will always have to wonder whether I'll return to finish the job."
"It would serve them right!" Asriel agreed.
"You are interesting," Chara said, which was the best thing Asriel had heard all day, or maybe ever. "Why are you still not scared of me?"
"I mean, I knew from the start that you can be kind of scary," Asriel told them. "You're a human, after all! But it doesn't bother me. The scariness is part of what makes you so cool."
"Because I am human." Chara's smile wavered. "The other humans did not see it that way. They called me a demon. I scared them by being different, and they did not find that 'cool'."
"Really?" Asriel said. "That doesn't make much sense to me. If they were so scared of you, why were they always doing things that would obviously make you angry?"
Chara's smile widened slowly, first showing their teeth, then cracking open to reveal the space between. "Asriel," they said. "Usually you are an idiot. But sometimes you are a genius."
"I am?" Asriel asked, then winced when Chara burst out laughing. That was probably a stupid enough question to ruin whatever he had just done right.
But Chara reassured him, "You are! I should have realized so much sooner that they were all lying! The real problem was that they were not scared enough!"
Asriel sighed with relief and smiled back. "You sure showed them!"
"Hm. Did I really, though?" Before Asriel could ask what they meant, they went on, "Regardless, it is nice to hear you say so. I know that I do not truly belong in this world either. But, I could get used to being here."
"You do belong here!" Asriel told them.
"Well. If 'here' is an oubliette built to imprison enemies of humanity..." Chara giggled. "You're right! That is fitting!"
"No! I wouldn't say that! That's awful!" He could tell that much even without asking what an oubliette was. "I meant that you belong with..." With me, was what he really meant. "With us. My family and me and... and everyone. Just... monsters in general! We'll treat you better than those bullies."
"Asriel..." Chara looked him over in thoughtful silence, and Asriel could almost see their mind at work behind their eyes. They really did think he was interesting! After a moment, they held out their hand. "I am tired. Help me up."
"Okay!" Asriel jumped to his feet, grabbed Chara's hand, and pulled them up beside him. Chara slung an arm over his shoulders, and Asriel wrapped his arm around their back, and the two of them walked together like they had when they'd first met beneath the hole at the end of the Ruins.
"You will not speak of any of this to anyone," Chara reminded him as they leaned on him, and Asriel agreed just as easily as he had the first time.
He kept his promise, maybe a little bit too well. Not only did he avoid spilling anything about Chara's past, but he never suggested to them that they should tell anyone else, and he didn't try very hard to convince them that his parents obviously wouldn't punish them for what they'd done beyond the bounds of the kingdom. Asriel liked having Chara's secret all to himself.
It didn't occur to him that Chara would keep worrying about what it meant that they were supposed to be the future of humans and monsters, because Asriel wasn't worried. Like a lot of monsters, Asriel was pretty good at not worrying about things that hadn't happened yet. But Chara's mind never stopped whirring away at a problem until they arrived at a solution.
He should have said something about all that while he still had the chance. He had over a year's worth of chances, so there was no excuse not to. But he didn't, and when Chara stood smiling at him in the garden as they calmly explained The Plan, he was too upset to say anything intelligent at all.
"Asriel, I am not going to live forever," they replied to his inarticulate protests. "I will not even have the few centuries most monsters can expect. Whatever we do, I will be gone in a blink of your immortal eyes. And what if your parents' plan is for someone else to take my soul and traverse the barrier after I die?"
It was horrible to consider, but so was the alternative. "I don't like this idea, Chara," Asriel managed to get out around the lump in his throat.
"You're about to cry, aren't you," Chara said, disgust overwriting the fondness with which they had been regarding him just a moment earlier.
They were right, of course—about that, and probably about everything. All Asriel could do to hide the tears was lie, and then quickly agree to whatever Chara said, and then rush off to gather the flowers somewhere he could let it all out without them watching.
Asriel returned to the castle with a basket full of buttercups and a chest mostly empty of feelings. He and Chara met back up in the basement, where there was less risk of being interrupted than there would have been in the garden. He sat on the floor with the basket in his lap, and Chara sat so close in front of him that their knees brushed against his. They made a face when they bit down on the first flower he pressed into their mouth, but then giggled with self-satisfaction after they managed to swallow it. Just a game of showing off how many gross things they could eat, the same as how they'd taught themself to like snails. Except obviously Asriel had never hand-fed snails to Chara, so this should be even more fun, as long as he focused on the feeling of their lips brushing against his fingerpads and not on the reason they had to do it this way.
Mom had been so upset about the pie that she'd grabbed Chara's wrist and not backed off even when they'd flinched at the touch. "My children," she'd said, holding their hand out where Asriel could see the glaring red chemical burns on their fingers and palm, "why would you ever feed someone something that does this?"
All the dumb crybaby feelings came bubbling back up as Asriel pictured that happening to Chara's mouth and all of their insides. They would get even sicker than Dad had gotten, just like the poison had marred their hands so much worse than it had Asriel's.
His arm locked up midway through raising the second flower to Chara's lips. "I..." he stammered. The stupid lump was back in his throat. "I can't..."
Chara ducked their head down and plucked the buttercup out from between his fingers with their teeth, then straightened back up and rolled their eyes at him as they swallowed. "Of course you can. It's not hard. I am the one doing the difficult part."
Asriel wondered what even just two flowers might do to them, and how many flowers it would take for their lips to stop being soft and wet and start being the papery-dry texture of burnt skin, and whether at some point they would lean down over him like that again and cough up blood.
"Asriel, don't just sit there like an idiot," Chara told him. Then, when he still couldn't move or say anything: "Stop being such a coward!"
"I'm not a coward!" Asriel blurted out. Tears sprang from his eyes as his voice escaped his throat, but at least something was finally working the way he needed it to. "It is hard! I would do what you're doing! I would!"
Chara sighed and made a visible effort to look less angry. "You cannot. I already explained that. We know doing it this way around can work. The other way... We cannot risk what would happen if I were too slow to take your soul, or if it did not go as theorized."
"But I would if I could! So I'm not a coward!"
"Words are cheap! And hypotheticals are even cheaper! I am doing what has to be done in this reality! Stop blubbering and help me out already, you big, soft baby!" Chara grimaced, their patience clearly fraying.
What had Asriel thought was going to happen? That Chara would be impressed with his stupid whining? That going, Would too! on repeat would somehow change their mind and not just annoy them? Of course he could never win an actual argument against them.
If he wanted them to be happy with him, he needed to stop thinking and start feeding them flowers again. If he wanted to not go through with this, he needed to say so and mean it and maybe even tell his parents if Chara wouldn't let it drop. But that first choice would end with Chara dead, and the second would probably make them hate him forever.
Instead of doing any of that, Asriel set the flowers on fire. It wasn't an accident, but it wasn't exactly a choice he made either. He cast the magic on a fleeting whim, before he could think it through for even a second, and then suddenly he was holding a burning wicker basket and screaming about it.
Before he could do something even stupider, like dropping it into a box full of books, Chara grabbed it out of his hands, jumped to their feet, and dashed up the stairs. Asriel pulled himself together enough to follow. He caught up to them in time to see them chuck the flaming mass through the nearest overlook and out onto the stone streets of the city.
Chara didn't turn to him as he approached, but just stood at the edge of the overlook staring down at their hands. "Failure," they murmured "Complete failure."
"I'm sorry," Asriel said. Then, because he really wanted them to move away from that huge drop and stop looking so upset, and also because he was an idiot who couldn't think of literally anything else to say that might make them do that, he blurted out, "I'll fix it! I can get more flowers!"
Chara rounded on him and thrust their hands out in front of his face. Their palms were reddened and bubbling with blisters. "It's useless now!" they snarled at him as Asriel recoiled. "Everyone will know we were up to something!"
"I'm sorry!" Asriel repeated helplessly.
"No, you aren't! You never wanted to help me with this!"
"I'm sorry you got hurt, though!"
"Shut up! You're the only one who cares about that! I do not!"
Asriel looked away from the injuries on their hands to make himself meet their eyes, but was startled into forgetting what he wanted to say when he saw their dark lashes glittering. "Chara, are you crying?" he asked.
Chara turned away from him and fled.
"Hey, wait!" Asriel called after them as he gave chase, which was kind of a pointless waste of breath since he had no reason to think that they would listen. When they actually did come to a halt, he was so surprised that he almost ran into them.
Chara stood with their back straight and their shoulders squared, their hands hanging down at their sides and balled into fists so tight that all Asriel could think about was the blisters popping and oozing into each other, the wounds sticking together so badly that they would need to be torn open like a taped-up package whenever Chara finally managed to relax. They glared at him over their shoulder and said, "Stop following me or I will make you stop." Then they took off again.
Asriel watched them go, like a coward who was more scared of them hating him than of what they might do to themself. His own eyes started to sting and mist up. He tried to move, but his legs refused to work, and he just knew that soon they were going to fold and he was going to fall to the ground crying like a baby.
He wished that he were strong like Chara. Chara wouldn't just collapse and throw a fit if he needed help. Chara would come up with a plan and act on it. Chara wouldn't let anything stop them.
Chara would lie to Mom and Dad and not feel bad about it at all.
It was incredibly obvious, but Asriel felt so smart for figuring it out that, filled with the power of fresh confidence, he was able to make himself wipe away the tears and get moving again. He found his parents and told them that he and Chara had been picking flowers together and arguing about something stupid, that Asriel had gotten so mad he'd set the basket he was carrying on fire, that Chara had grabbed it away from him to dispose of it somewhere safe and burned their hands, and that they'd run away like they were scared of him after seeing his magic do something so awful. Clearly someone who wasn't Asriel needed to find them and take care of their hands and stay with them until they calmed down.
It was nerve-wracking the way his parents watched him with serious eyes as he explained it all. He kept waiting for them to cut in and say that they could tell he was lying and they needed to hear the real story, but that never happened. What happened was: it worked. Asriel was able to get help for Chara without betraying any of their secrets. He was so proud of himself that, for a moment, he managed to fool himself into believing that Chara would be proud of him too.
Chara was not proud of him. Chara was furious. Over a week later, they are still furious.
They speak to him tersely when Mom and Dad are around, and not at all when it's just the two of them. Though it's almost never just the two of them these days. Chara stays holed up in the bedroom whenever Asriel isn't there. When Asriel tries to join them, Chara leaves and goes somewhere else. It's gotten to the point that Asriel just avoids his own room as much as possible, because that way he at least knows exactly where Chara is, even if he can't be there with them.
He does get to be there with them at night, but that's actually worse. Aware of Chara's presence just beyond his reach, Asriel lies awake mulling over everything he wants to say to them until he's so tired and agitated that he stops caring about not annoying them and just comes out and says it. Chara never responds. They're always either asleep or pretending to be. Across the room in the dark, Asriel can't see them well enough to tell which it is, not that it really matters. The gap between the two beds might as well be a bottomless pit that his words fall into without ever reaching them.
Once, at dinner, Asriel offered to sleep in the living room until Chara felt better about what happened, just so things could maybe be the tiniest bit less awkward. Chara rolled their eyes and said, more to his parents than to him, that he was being overdramatic and should not do anything of the sort. Asriel briefly considered doing it anyway, both because it might help him sleep better and because he secretly hoped just a little that Chara would feel bad about it and decide to make up with him. But that would never happen, because Chara is too sensible to blame themself for something they specifically told him he doesn't have to do.
It turns out Chara was right to nix the idea, because even just bringing it up seems to have alerted Asriel's parents that what's going on between him and Chara might be something bigger than they realize. Or maybe they're just getting concerned because it's been going on for so long. Either way, Dad has taken him aside a couple times to try to talk to him about it, and he's noticed Mom doing the same with Chara. Asriel has been able to deflect all the questions so far, but if his parents decide to switch tactics and Mom comes after him, then there are very quickly going to be problems.
It occurs to him that he can explain that to Chara, and then they'll have to talk to him, at least for long enough to tell him what to do about it.
"Hey, Chara," he says as he opens the door to the bedroom, intending to launch immediately into his plea so that he can get it all out before they run away again. But when he walks in, they're sitting on his bed, holding one of his stuffed dolls and examining it with a calculating gleam in their eyes. "What are you doing to Torgore?!" Asriel blurts out instead of anything he meant to say.
Chara looks up and regards him with that same coldly intent stare. Then they toss the doll to the side and say, "Nothing interesting."
Asriel lets out a sigh of relief, then instantly feels ridiculous about it. Of course Chara wouldn't hurt Torgore. Or rather, they wouldn't damage him, because Torgore isn't a real monster and can't be hurt, and Asriel isn't some dumb baby who thinks otherwise. They're probably just so bored and lonely that they started to consider playing with the very same toys they always make fun of him for liking. They must be so embarrassed that he caught them!
Before Asriel can remember what he came here to do, Chara rises to their feet and approaches him. At first he thinks they're making for the door, and he tenses with indecision over whether or not he should get out of their way, but then they stop right in front of him and say, "Asriel, I want you to do something for me."
Do something. Not just talk. Words are cheap, Chara said, so of course making up with them is going to require action. And Chara is the one bringing it up, so they must want to give him a chance to make up with them.
Asriel puts out of his mind the speech he had prepared and just says, "Okay!"