Sans startled awake from the depths of a bad dream. Someone had been talking to him, someone wise and important and big. It wasn't Asgore, but the feeling was similar. It had been a nice feeling, but then something had happened. The person talking to him had been pulled away, far away, and then they were swallowed by a cold, inky darkness that moved almost like jello. It was terrifying. The small skeleton looked around desperately, trying to find that void that had taken his-

"SANS!"

He jumped up and raced over to the door to his room. That sounded like Pap, and if Sans didn't respond in less than a minute, Papyrus would come into his room. Being a medically frail brother of a monster who constantly worried about you was hard.

Sans stuck his head out of the door and said, "yeah, bro?"

"I'M GOING TO PICK UP SOME MORE OF YOUR SMOOTHIES. WHAT FLAVORS DO YOU WANT?"

Oh. Another RESET. Sans wondered what had triggered this one. Everything had seemed to be working out fine. Well, he'd better not ask for strawberry this time. What was it he usually asked for?

"can i have some tomato ones?"

Papyrus' familiar sigh was music to his nonexistent ears. Finally things were back to normal.

"SANS, I AM POSITIVELY CERTAIN THOSE KETCHUP "SMOOTHIES" ARE NOT GOOD FOR YOU. THEY HAVE FAR TOO MUCH SUGAR!"

Sans snickered. "aw, but i'm positively sweet on them."

His brother groaned and Sans grinned. This was more like it. Papyrus might play at hating them, but Sans knew he secretly loved when Sans made puns. He even made the occasional one himself, and they were always better than Sans'. Then again, Pap was older, so he'd had more time to practice.

"I AM GOING. TO GO. TO THE STORE. AND YOU WILL GET NO KETCHUP."

"aw, bro," Sans complained, knowing it was useless but used to blindly following the script, "how else am i going to ketchup with my favorite flavor?"

The slam of the front door was Sans' only answer. He relaxed. Now he could take his time and rela-

Vines wrapped around him, cocooning him, trapping him. Sans screamed, but just as he did, his voice spell gave out. He clawed at the vines, trying to free himself. It was no use. The hold he was in was tightening. Soon he was curled up in a fetal position with vines pressing in on all sides.

Then a familiar, flowery face poked into the ball right in front of his face. ** The expression on Flowey's face was almost manic; manic tinged with hate.

Flowey said in a sing-song voice like a schoolyard bully, "You've been taking up too much of his attention. I want all of Papyrus' attention, so you'll have to go. It's too bad you won't remember any of this, because I really want to know if dying is a universal feeling. Oh well."

Sans wouldn't have even had a chance to scream before the vines pressed in on him again, crushing and cracking and breaking and...

Cold, inky darkness swallowed him whole.

Banners hung around the living room, each one of them painted with the birthday wishes of a different school in the Underground. Presents were stacked all around the edges of the room; the piles reached so high that the ceiling almost touched them. A brand new kaftan in Chara's favorite colors was laid across the stuffed chair. A giant cake was in the center of the table. It was dark chocolate with chocolate ganache and a sculpted peacock stood on top.

Standing in the doorway, staring at all the fanfare with wide eyes and shaking hands, was Chara. Their eyes kept darting between all the things like they were going to attack four other members of Chara's family stood in the center of it all. They're huge grins were slowly fading in the face of Chara's confusion and fear.

"Why did you all do this for me?" Chara asked, clearly upset. "I like our normal, quiet birthday celebrations. This...this is too much!"

Toriel said, quietly, "Papyrus found a video in the dump. We watched it to make sure that it was appropriate for you children. There was a part of it that said that humans make a big deal of 21st birthday parties. We wanted you to have that experience. Was that wrong?"

Chara sighed and wiped their face. "It's just the age when humans in the country up above can finally drink alcohol. They usually go out and get roaring drunk, then throw up all the next day."

All the monsters except Sans looked shocked. He was too busy trying to free himself from Asgore's hold. Lately he had been wanting to hug on Chara's leg all the time. Everyone thought it was cute.

Toriel spoke her feelings, "No! You are far too young to have alcohol in your system. The law here is that you have to be at least 150 to try alcohol. Having it before then can cause irreparable damage to your soul."

Both groups looked at each other with squinted eyes and twisted heads. There was such a huge gap in culture here it was ridiculous.

"I...okay," Chara said. They didn't want to deal with the whole 'I'm probably only going to live until I'm around 80' business. It was just...Chara didn't want to know what their parents would do when they learned that. As nice as they are...Chara didn't want to make them mad. "Can I have hot chocolate instead?"

Grins spread over every face in the room. Things were back to normal. "Of course, my child. Do you want the colourful little marshmallows, too?"

Chara nodded, walking over and scooping Sans up to rock in their arms. "I'd love that. Then we can start opening all these presents. What did you do, ask the entire Underground if they wanted to give me something?"

Asgore looked sheepish as he stood up and motioned to the banners. "We did. The children helped decorate these for you, and the rest are presents from almost every family in the Underground. They really care about you, even the ones who've never met you. You give them hope. Hope that, one day, we can all stand under the sun again in peace."

Chara did what they usually did when Dad said things like that, which was to ignore it. Instead, she started tickling Sans and making him laugh. It was such a wonderful sound. Chara couldn't imagine a world without it.