Chara sat down in Toriel's old chair and took a few minutes to rest and recover energy. Ever since they found that human, they had been doing everything they were able to to stop them.
Wether it was to think about what to do, to physically move as fast as possible, to reactivate the puzzles or the two times they tried to deceive the human, it had taken Chara all the strength they had to deal with all of this. Now they were tired.
Since the threat had now been locked away and promised to not attempt anything, Chara finally had a bit of time for themself.
They breathed out slowly over and over, their heartbeat reverting back to normal over time.
Once Chara was calmed down and back to their normal state. Another question rose up in their mind.
What now ?
Before all of this, all of Chara's thoughts have been devoted to finding a way to stop the threat that the other child was. However, they hadn't actually thought that far ahead about what would come next.
Now here they were, the human was no longer a menace, but it was still far from over.
Firstly, how were they supposed to find a way to make this last ? If Chara snuck out everyday to go to the ruins, Toriel and Asgore would definitly eventually realise that something was up. Especially is they had to bring some food to keep them alive.
Maybe they could buy it on the way ? But that would mean spending a lot of money every day just to keep that human from starving which wasn't an idea they liked very much.
In any case, trying to keep it a secret from everyone that they had captured a human seemed like a very difficult thing to do. How long would they even have to do so ? Decades ? None of this was very good news for Chara.
Did they have another choice though ? If the monsters did find out, they wouldn't resist wanting to free them even if Chara tried to warn everybody about the danger that they were. Monsters were just too nice. If anything Chara might end up being yelled at for locking them away.
They had one thing going for them at least, that the human was scared of Chara and promised to listen to them so that Chara wouldn't hurt them again.
From what Chara could tell, they had been sincere when they promised that, but at the same time if they were handed a chance to be free and able to do whatever they wanted to anyone including Chara, they would surely break that promise in a heartbeat. That was just how humans were. Personal interests over anything else.
They needed to find a more suitable permanent solution, something that would keep them away from everyone without causing Chara any problems either.
Frisk remained silent, twisting their thumbs while sitting down, their back against the wall.
They took some time to rethink through the events of today.
After their fall, they were injured and called for help. Another human responded but once they arrived, they tried to kill them instead. After that they did some… weird time travel thing a couple times without intending it. Then the human left and Frisk tried to find help by themself, they went though some traps, got killed once and time traveled their way back into the living. Finally, they found the other human again and let their guard down only to be betrayed right after, and when confronted with pain and the prospect of death again, they chose to swear their freedom away in order to get this endless nightmare to end at last.
And now here they were, stuck in a small room with nothing to do aside from waiting for something to happen.
Their captor would have to come back eventually, they wouldn't just let Frisk to die in here. That room was under renovations anyways and the door was old. If they tried hard enough they could probably kick it open.
However, risking to get on their captors' nerves was currently the very last thing Frisk wanted. Having sworn to do anything they would tell them just so that the other human wouldn't do anything like this to them again, they had no intention of breaking that deal and having to go through any of these horrors another time.
After today, they had already seen and felt enough to have nightmares for months. Not many kids have the 'chance' to get impaled and live to remember how it felt.
Their stomach tightened just by thinking about it.
Frisk's train of thought was interrupted by a voice calling out something from seemingly far away as it was too muffled to hear it very well.
"Chaaaraaaaaaa ? Are you there ?"
As soon as they heard that voice, Frisk suddenly also heard a lot of movement coming from not very far from outside of the room. They could only assume that this was the other human, having surely heard this voice as well.
A few seconds later, a very noisy sound made Frisk wince, it was like closing a door, except much much louder.
Soon afterwards, they heard that same voice again, but it was more clear and a bit louderthan before. Now Frisk could identify it more clearly. It sounded like a young male voice, probably that of a child. The next sound Frisk heard was someone going down some stairs.
Since the only stairs they had seen here were those that led down and that their captor was the only other person around, it wasn't difficult to figure out what was going on. Frisk stuck their ear on the floor and paid close attention to what they would hear next.
"Ah ! There you are Chara, mom has been worried sick about you." They heard the boy's voice again. He wasn't as loud as before since he was no longer trying to call for someone which made it harder to hear as Frisk was on a whole different floor from them.
Unless they had gotten it all completely wrong, this meant that "Chara" was the name of the other human child. This was interesting to know as they knew pretty much nothing about them so far.
"Sorry Azzy, i had… something important that kept me busy." Chara responded.
Frisk could only assume that "Azzy" was the name of the young boy.
"What was it ?" He asked, curious.
"I-it doesn't matter anymore, its fine now." Chara improvised. They had not expected to have to lie about this so fast.
Luckily, Asriel didn't question it further.
"Well you should come back home now, we've been waiting for you. I've also got a new drawing to show you !" He sounded pretty exited.
"Is it a drawing of the 'god of hyperdeath' again ?" Frisk had no idea what that was supposed to mean. The boy must have responded with a sign or something as they didn't hear any sort of response from him.
Judging by the way they were talking about how the boy refered to "mom" earlier, Frisk began wondering if the two of them were related to each other. How many humans lived down here ?
They heart a few footsteps.
"So, are you coming ?" The young male voice asked again.
"Im coming in just a minute, i just have to do something really fast." Chara explained.
"Oh, okay".
As soon as they heard noise from the stairs again, Frisk got back to their previous position as to not give any hint they had been listening. A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Chara with an anxious look on their face.
"Take this, stay here and keep quiet until i come back." They told Frisk, and with that, they threw a few more pieces of monster candy before locking the door again, leaving as fast as they came.
"Alright Azzy, im coming." Was the last thing Frisk heard them say before another deafening sound similar to closing a large door resonated through the ruins.
They had the feeling that they were going to be stuck here for quite a while this time.
As they walked through Snowdin, Chara was still struggling to believe that they didn't do anything. The human had them ! If they had called for help right here, Asriel would have heard them and everything Chara had worked for would have crumbled into pieces in front of their eyes.
But they didn't, they had actually did just as Chara asked. They just stayed idle. They didn't even attempt to try and take this golden opportunity to turn the situation around.
Chara barely listened to Asriel as they tried to figure out why didn't their prisoner do anything. It would have been so easy to at least try to scream, they could time travel away the consequences in the worst case scenario couldn't they ? Despite this whole promise stuff, if they decided to no longer follow it and did their thing again, there wouldn't really be anything Chara could do about it.
So why ? Why didn't this human take the chance to screw them over to regain their freedom ? Maybe they thought that Asriel was on their side ? They weren't sure how much did the human hear, they at least heard his initial call so they knew that he was there…
Well if they didn't try anything just now, surely they wouldn't attempt to break out while they were away right ? Chara wasn't sure about how strong they were or how solid that door was.
The only thing they could do right now was to go along with their day and hope that when they get the chance to come back, the human would still be here. That they gave them hard enough of an impression to scare them out of disobeying.
Once they made it back to New Home and passed the front door, those worries were quickly replaced by another.
"Chara Dreemurr" Toriel gave them one of her glares. Those glares. The ones that let you know that you screwed up pretty badly.
"Where have you been ? You were meant to be back by 6PM at the latest." She said as she showed them the time, it was 7:30PM. When she wanted to be, Toriel could really intimidating. This was one of those times.
They decided to tell a half truth, firstly because they couldn't lie about this, and secondly because Toriel's eyes were a lie detector that could fry a snail from the other side of the underground. Lying to her was not easy, they knew that from experience.
"In the ruins". They looked down to avoid Toriel's gaze.
"And what were you doing here for so long ?" She questioned.
This time Chara did not have a choice but to lie.
"I was talking with the spiders." They improvised, when they saw that Toriel didn't seem very convinced, they decided to add more detail. It makes for a more believable story right ?
"They saw that i took some monster candy so they asked me if I wanted to buy something from them. I didn't have enough money so i gave them the candy and kept them company as payement instead. They really need more money to get an efficient way to travel between the ruins and the rest of the underground. Snowdin is too cold for them. By the way do you think dad could maybe help them out with that ?" Chara was pretty proud of themself for coming up with that on the spot. They had even managed to try and change the subject towards Asgore by using something that was factually true as an excuse.
Toriel however, gave them a suspicious look. Did they mess something up ? Did they forget something ? Chara tried repeating their story to themself to see if there was any hole. They didn't find any...
"If you gave the monster candy to the spiders, why do you still have it ?" She asked while pointing at Chara's pocket where the clear shape of the last monster candy they had was visible.
They began sweating bullets. Damn it ! What were they going to say now ? They were screwed...
"Hum…" Chara tried to improvise another excuse but didn't have the time to do so before Toriel interrupted them.
"You took more than one didn't you ?" She questioned them.
They were confused for a second before realising she was talking about the 'take one' sign for the monster candy.
"Yes". Chara answered. Admitting to a lesser crime seemed like the better option at the moment rather than having her figure out they had made up the whole spider thing. Surely she'd be satisfied with having 'caught' them for the extra candy and not continue questioning the rest of their story any further.
"You need to be more responsible with your eating habits Chara, you eat way too many sweets." Toriel pointed out.
They wanted to bring up the argument they usually used, that monster food was all magic so they didn't risk sort any of dental problem or to get fat, but in this situation they judged it was better to just shut it.
"Yes mother".
Afterwards, Toriel gave them a classic mom speech about not staying out late like this again and listening to the deadlines, that she was disappointed in them and expected better from Chara, etc etc…
Overall, they didn't have a really good time, but at least they hadn't been exposed.
Toriel also made sure that Asgore had a talk with Chara as well, but he ended up being much lenient than Toriel. She was always the stricter parent. Asgore just asked a few questions and made them say they wouldn't do it again and that was the end of it.
They did their best to act normally for the rest of the day, to not show that they had something on their mind, but they couldn't help but to feel like they were bad at acting.
Perhaps they were just being nervous or paranoid. The Dreemurrs would never imagine that Chara could have done what they did today, the thought wouldn't even cross their minds wouldn't it ?
Asriel in particular was completely clueless as to the things they knew or were capable of doing if it was really needed. He was so innocent and nice, he saw them as a better person than they were. They really cared about the monster prince. Monsters like him were what Chara wanted to protect from humans, who ironically enough were the real 'monsters' here.
Before they knew it, it was already time to sleep. Chara stared at the photo frame of the Dreemurr family turned towards their bed for a bit before falling asleep fairly quickly.
When they woke up, the human was the first thing they thought about. They were plaguing Chara's mind and they hated it. If only they had never fell down here…
More importantly, they felt the urgent need to go check on them, they did not like the idea of letting a human alone in a place they could potentially break out of to hurt monsters. Even if they had promised not to move, Chara was not willing to take risks with humans, this was already way too much hasard for them. They'd need to find a better place to lock them in or to get a better door or something.
These thoughts temporarily faded away for a few minutes during breakfast. Toriel had made chocolate pancakes, Chara was a fan of those.
"These are the best !" Chara complimented Toriel to get her in a good mood for their following question.
"Thank you, my child." The queen smiled.
"By the way, can i go to the ruins again this morning ? Please ?" They pleaded. "I promise i won't be a single minute late this time." They added.
"Why would you want to go back there so soon ?" Toriel questioned, not understanding her child's motives.
"I really like this place, i also found a bunch of books i've never read before in the old house." Chara responded.
Toriel still found it strange, but she did know that Chara loved reading books so she conceded this point.
"Alright but you'll have to be back home by 11, and i mean 11:00. No excuses." Toriel insisted, strongly implying with her tone that if they were late again, they wouldn't get away with just a talk and get pancakes the next morning. They'd get an actual serious punishment.
Chara swallowed their saliva and nodded. "thank you, mother".
When Chara made it back to the room, they were glad to see that the human had not moved. They were still where Chara left them, that was one big weight lifted off their shoulders. They didn't take that chance to escape from them either. The human really was listening to them it appeared. That would make their job way easier if they didn't have to worry as much about them rebelling.
They were rolled in a ball on the floor and judging by how their eyes looked, they probably did not have a very good sleep after the events of yesterday. They had eaten the monster candy Chara had given them earlier. Overall, they looked pretty miserable, not that Chara cared much about that.
When they saw Chara, they suddenly perked up and stared at them. Then, they noticed that the human had a very small, almost unnoticeable smile.
Chara was taken back by this, why were they smiling after seeing them ? They had tried to kill them ! Did they just want to not be stuck here alone or something ? Even if it meant their only company would be their attempted murderer ?
"Hi" They told Chara with a neutral expression.
The first fallen human didn't answer. They just stared at the child.
"Can… Can we talk a little bit ? Please ?" They hesitantly asked, they desperately wanted some answers but they were quite scared of asking the other child about well… anything really.
Chara was a bit surprised by the question but after thinking about it a bit, it only made sense for them to want to know what all of this was about. As much as they weren't a fan of the idea of talking with them, trading information seemed like something that would benefit them both. The human would get a better understanding of why they were doing this and in exchange Chara would get to learn more about them which could prove useful if they had to deal with them for a long time.
Knowing your enemy better was always an advantage, they guessed.
"Alright, but i reserve the right not to answer if i don't want to and you'll need to answer my questions." Chara answered.
That didn't sound like a very fair deal but Frisk was in no position to negociate so they nodded to accept the proposal, at least they could get something out of this for once.
It was about time the two of them actually got to know more about each other.