I'm so sorry this chapter took ages, at first I was just being lazy (it happens every year around Christmas; I just sit around and do literally nothing but eat and sleep), but then my computer broke again for about a week so I was unable to write.
I've barely looked back at what I've been writing in this chapter at all, so it may be weird. In a good way, hopefully.
Also, another thing to mention is that one of my friends and myself were testing that Discord link, and for some reason it wasn't working? I tried fixing it, but I have no idea whether it works now or not. Sorry about that as well.
Anyway, on to the chapter!
"Chara! Chara! Get up, it's time for- ARGH!" Asriel cried out in pain as their new pet bat bit him on the nose. Served him right for barging into their room at whatever ungodly hour it was and yelling at them.
The aforementioned bat flew back to hang on Chara's closet where they'd been sleeping as Chara themselves turned to Asriel and murmured "Ughhh… Come back when it's not so early, Azzie…"
They pulled their covers closer on them as Asriel left the room clutching his sore nose. They'd probably feel bad about it later, but they didn't just then. They were too busy trying to get back to sleep.
A couple hours later Chara deemed it the right time to get up. By then it was around midday. Their bat, however, seemed to disagree. Of course; it was a nocturnal creature! Well, whatever. It could stay in their room for the rest of the day anyway.
They pulled on their usual attire and headed to the bathroom (that had been specially installed in the house for the humans since monsters didn't use bathrooms) to take a shower before brushing their hair and, finally, heading into the living room.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARA!" They would've jumped back in surprise if it weren't for the fact that this happened every year. Even if it didn't, the lack of noise and people running around despite the fact that their siblings were staying over would've made them suspicious anyway. Instead of being surprised, they were more annoyed by the unnecessary noise. (They were clearly trying to repress a smile, though.)
"My child, your presents are on the table. But before you open them there is a small matter to discuss." Toriel looked quite serious.
"What seems to be the problem?" Chara asked curiously.
"This morning, Asriel came to your father and I claiming that your new pet bat had bitten him on the nose. Now, we know that you do not like to be disturbed in the early morning, and we told Asriel to not wake you again, but that does not excuse you for letting your pet attack him." Before Chara could reply, Toriel added. "And Chuck has told us that your bat drank all of the consommé we made last night, as well."
"Well it wasn't as if I could've stopped it if had wanted to, I was half asleep because it was really early." Chara grumbled. "And it was hungry last night, I had only just found it and I don't think it had eaten in a while."
"We know that, what we're asking is that you try to train it so that it doesn't happen again." Asgore cut in. He too looked quite serious. Mum must have put him up to it.
"Pfft, as if I could train a bat. If you want it to be trained that bad, you should try yourself." They immediately regretted their words. They had gotten a bit cocky as it was their birthday and all.
"My child, I do not like your tone of voice!" Toriel glared at Chara. Asgore, as well as all of their siblings, took a step back. "You WILL teach that bat some manners!"
"Ugh! FINE!" Chara grabbed the biggest present from the table and stormed back to their room. The others let them go. Toriel already looked remorseful for her outburst, but Chara didn't see that. They were too busy muttering about how this happened every year. (It's pretty much true; almost every year on their birthday they get a bit arrogant and say something mean, which leads to an argument.)
They slammed the door of their room, waking up their bat, which flew around squeaking for a bit before calming down. (Chara didn't know this at the time, but Frisk had briefly forgotten that they were a bat in the shock of being woken up.)
"Sorry, little buddy." Chara said, patting their bat on the head as it flew over to land on their arm. A wicked grin grew over their face as they put down the big present on their bed. "Say… I have a couple presents left on the table in the living room. I don't suppose you could go and fetch them for me?"
The bat regarded them with its head tilted to the side for a second, before shrugging (don't ask me how) and nodding. Their grin grew wider as they added, "Make sure you bite at least one of the people in there too, okay?"
This time the bat took a bit longer to decide, but eventually nodded again. Chara walked over to the door and opened it to let the bat fly out of the room.
Revenge is sweet.
Frisk silently flew along the corridor towards the main room. At first they'd been hesitant about biting someone, but they thought that they kind of owed Chara for all of the murdering business, and also it'd probably pretty funny as well.
They stayed close to the ceiling as they entered the room. So far all of the people inside had yet to notice them, as they were all milling around in the same area discussing what to do about Frisk themselves, although they still thought they were an ordinary pet bat. How wrong they were.
They located the table with presents on it, swooped down, picked one of them up, and flew off the way they came. They dropped the present on Chara's bed and headed back to get another one. This continued until there was only one left. As they entered the room for the last time, one of the humans finally noticed something was up.
The cook, who Frisk believed to be called Chuck or something, looked at the table and asked, "Hey, what happened to all the presents?"
The rest of the family turned around to look at the table as well. "I don't knooo-oooh. Um, Chuck. You might want to look up." The cowboy-looking human, Macy they thought, said while everyone else turned back to look at Chuck as well.
"What is it, is there-" Chuck looked up and saw Frisk, who had moved to be hovering right above his head. While his face was upturned they took the opportunity to drop onto it and stare into his eyes. He froze.
After a couple of uncomfortable (for everyone except Frisk, who was having lots of fun) seconds, they moved down slightly, bit the human's nose, and flew off to grab the last present before anyone could catch them.
"THAT BLOODY BAT!" Chuck yelled, clutching his nose as he watched the bat fly off down the corridor with the last present. Toriel didn't even remember to say "language."
They all heard Chara laughing in their room.
"Well, today was fun." Chara commented as they flopped down onto their bed. Their bat squeaked in what they assumed to be agreement as it flew over to their desk and sat down.
After the shaky start to the day, Toriel had asked Chara to apologise to Chuck, which they had done without argument as they were already feeling kind of bad about what they'd asked their bat to do. Then they opened all of their presents, played a couple games, some on their own and some with their siblings, and finally they had some birthday dinner and cake. All in all, it was completely useless to distract them from the traumatizing experience that was the anniversary of their fall.
Chara sighed, running their hands through their hair. They doubted that they'd ever completely recover mentally from the whole ordeal. They hoped that they'd be less confused over time, however. Their confusion stemmed, of course, from the fact that they had just yesterday been murdered twice, and yet were still alive. They had no idea what was causing the time repetitions, but suspected it probably had a lot to do with the new beast-human…
…The beast-human…
They felt so conflicted when they thought of that human. It was just adding on to the confusion. On the one hand, they were the reason Chara was traumatized in the first place.
…but on the other hand, they were really hot.
Goddamnit, is that the best counter argument I can think of against being murdered? Ugh, that's really shallow! Chara thought to themselves furiously. Remember the top rules of life; love hurts and never trust anyone.
They knew that wasn't true, but they were too angry at themselves at the time to acknowledge it. Maybe they used to believe it when they first fell, but they'd lived with the Dreemurrs (and after time, the other adopted humans) for six years and one day exactly, and if that didn't cause them to give up on all of their old beliefs, nothing would.
While Chara had been raging at an inner turmoil on their bed, Frisk had been watching the proceedings worriedly. After some thought, they flew over and landed next to Chara and nudged them with their wing-hand thing. Chara snapped their head around to look at Frisk with a shocked look on their face. They obviously hadn't heard or seen them coming over.
"Oh, it's just you." They sounded immensely relieved and Frisk had to wonder what it was that they'd been thinking about. They probably looked quite worried (for a bat), because Chara added, "Sorry, didn't mean to worry you. I was just thinking about… yesterday."
Frisk flinched visibly, but luckily Chara didn't seem to notice. If they did, they showed no sign of it as they just continued talking. "Well, at least I got one good thing out of that whole disaster." Chara was now stroking their head and it felt amazing. They'd unconsciously started purring, except bats can't purr (or maybe they can, do I look like an expert to you?) so they made bat noises instead.
A smile came to Chara's face as they heard Frisk purring/making bat noises, and they stroked them a bit more before stopping. Frisk looked up at them with puppy dog eyes and Chara faked an annoyed sigh before starting again. While they were doing so, they said, "I don't know how to feel about all of this anymore."
Frisk detached themselves from the absolutely awesome at stroking hand, I bet it tastes great as well… Wait, no, no! God, not the hungry thoughts again! Focus…
Uh, where were they? Oh yeah, they had detached themselves from the hand so that they could listen to Chara without being distracted. Chara continued talking. "I mean, believe it or not, I actually thought that the human would be nice. That was stupid of me, huh? Humans are never nice."
They sounded very bitter. Frisk whimpered (I don't know if bats can do that either but whatever) and looked down in guilt. This was all their fault. If they'd been able to control themselves better, then they wouldn't be having this one-sided conversation. They might even be friends with Chara, and the rest of the royal family. Plus they wouldn't be stuck as a bat. Hopefully they'd be able to figure out how to turn back soon. Doubly hopefully they didn't accidentally do it at an awkward time.
"I guess I let my guard down; which I hardly ever do, for obvious reasons. It did not end well this time." Chara kept going. They seemed to need to talk to someone about everything, even if they thought they were just talking to a bat. Their last comment had intrigued Frisk, and they tilted their head and let out an inquisitive squeak.
"Right, you don't remember… Forget I said anything." Could Chara also remember the time resets…? Also, are they going mad…? They are talking to a bat and assuming responses… Correctly assuming responses, actually, which is quite surprising, but still. They shook themselves out of their thoughts in time to hear Chara add, "I don't usually let my guard down so quickly; hell, it took me at least a couple of years to warm up to every one of the other humans. I was blinded by my stupid celebrity crush, I think."
Frisk snapped their head up at that. If a bat could say "What?!" in a very shocked and embarrassed voice, that would've happened. As it was, they just squeaked again.
"I know, I know. I don't usually crush on anyone. But that beast-human… they're really hot. And when they're all beast-y, they're all muscly as well…"
…Are they drooling? Frisk thought. Their own mind was incredibly conflicted as well now.
Yeah, they've definitely gone mad. The Hunger piped in.
Where have you been all day? They asked indignantly as Chara stared off into space.
Well, you may be an insomniac, but I prefer to get some sleep. And in case you haven't noticed, this form sleeps at different times to what we're used to. Hunger replied with perfect logic.
Frisk admitted that with a mind-grunt, before asking, So, uh… What should we do with Chara?
I've got no idea. Maybe nudge them a bit, see if they snap out of it. Frisk moved to do so and Hunger added, This whole thing's hilarious, by the way.
Chara shook off their, uh, interesting thoughts as their bat nudged them. They felt their face flush as they wiped the drool of the corner of their mouth. They cleared their throat and got up off of their bed, and moved to their wardrobe.
"I, uh… I'm going to go to bed now…" Chara told their bat in an embarrassed voice, before wondering why they were embarrassed. And also why they'd been talking to their bat like it was sentient for a while now.
Well, to be fair, it does exhibit many behaviours of a sentient being… They thought, defending themselves in their mind as they grabbed their pyjamas. They pulled off their normal clothes and put on the pyjamas they'd just picked up, turned the light off, walked over to their bed, and lay down.
As they dozed off, a thought came to mind, and without realising it, they murmured it out loud.
"I wonder why they seemed like they couldn't control themselves…"
Frisk heard it, and had an idea.