Work Text:
His ears were ringing.
The flowers felt… Strange in his palms. Like something he shouldn’t hold. Something that just shouldn’t have been.
His hands shook, feeling like… They held the power of Fate itself. An electric shock that rooted him in place, no matter how hard he tried to do something, anything.
And yet, he’d indirectly promised them—and promised he’d be the one to bear the plants in question. He couldn’t back down now; monsters always kept their promises. What kind of monster would he be if he failed his sibling now, after all they’d been through together…?
They, on their part, only regarded him calmly. The kind of calm that didn’t make sense—a collected, cool front that only showed in the direst of circumstances.
“Hand me the flowers,” they told him, a second time, the first having obviously failed. They didn’t look impatient at all. Not annoyed. Not forlorn.
Just…
. . .
Calm.
And, somehow…
That’s what made the young prince hesitate more than anything.
“I,” he gulped, “I-I—”
He didn’t want this.
He didn’t want this.
The way he saw his own father, writhing, bedridden. Once so strong and powerful looking weak, ashen.
Had it been his fault?
Had it been both of theirs?
Chara hadn’t seemed concerned. They laughed it off, like it was a funny joke that nobody else understood. Then they disappeared for the rest of the day. They locked themselves away in the bedroom. When he checked on them that evening, they were already in bed. It was peculiar because he knew for a fact they never slept well—what, between the nightmares they often had, and…
But then the next day they were fine. Smiled in that way they, on rare occasions yet somehow often now, did; a deflection of something, Asriel guessed. It showed up at strange times, after all. When he got hurt. When they got hurt themselves. Or, purposely tried to…
Maybe he should have reacted like they had. Then he wouldn’t be such a crybaby.
That was what he was right now, wasn’t he?
Just a crybaby. He felt the lump in his throat grow bigger the longer he said nothing, did nothing.
So Chara took matters into their own hands, and took the flowers from him.
“Fine,” was all they said, their gaze unreadable.
Still, he said nothing. They continued.
“Asriel.” He nodded, just a slight tilt of his head, in acknowledgment. “I understand.”
They stared at him. Then glanced to his feet. Thinking. About what, he couldn’t begin to imagine.
“…But I need to know I can trust you with this,” they murmured. “That… We can do this together. We will. We must.”
For the benefit of Monsterkind.
For everyone.
“You can.” The young prince looked them in the eyes, as much as he could—despite the pain that flooded his soul. “You can trust me.”
He didn’t like this.
He didn’t…
He didn’t want to see them like he had his father. Their father.
Bedridden, and ashen—so much weaker now, once so strong.
…But…
“I have to do this.”
“…I know.”
“We have to do this.”
“I know,” Asriel breathed again. “I’m…”
He tugged at the sleeves of his sweater. Trying so, so hard not to be a crybaby about it.
There was nothing to cry about. That’s what they told him. What they always said.
Big kids don’t cry.
“I’m sorry.” He choked it out, all the same.
They merely shrugged. Shrugging his emotions off, it seemed.
(Though, somewhere in their own soul…)
“You will not have to be.”
They picked one of the flowers from the bundle. Raising it.
“Soon,” is all they uttered, in a voice softer than he’d ever heard.
And they opened their mouth to let the buttercup in.
*
Shortly after, Chara went to their mother, complaining of stomach pain.
Shortly after that they could hardly move, hardly speak from the blisters littering their throat and esophagus. They couldn’t stop writhing, foaming at the mouth, causing their parents a great deal of shock and horror.
Asriel hadn’t needed much persuading on his part at all. Going to tend to the flowers that still needed taking care of.
When they finally called him back, Chara was seemingly sound asleep.
Days, nights passed—or so it felt. (Not that anyone truly knew.) The initial desperation died down. They no longer begged Chara to come back. They knew.
In the mornings, Toriel would sit by their bedside all of breakfast, promising to cook them whatever they desired, when they’d wake up. In the afternoons, Asgore would return home, setting himself on their mattress, somehow feather-light in how he cared to despite the room he took up, promising he’d be right there to fix them a soothing cup of Echo Flower tea next they woke up.
All throughout the day, Asriel lay with them. And in the evening, they would all gather around, Toriel with a bedtime story to tell and Asgore with hugs to give.
Hoping. Wishing. Praying.
And still…
. . .
He knew what he had to do.
He didn’t doubt them. He’d never.
Just six.
They only had to get six.
One night, he was sat up beside them. He squeezed their hand, pale, lifeless; but he could somehow feel the thrum of their Determination from deep within.
Together, he told himself. They’d do it together.
They’d—
A cough.
“…A… Asriel?”
…
He held tighter onto them, as they gazed up at him with glazed-over eyes. On the brink.
Somehow holding on.
Somehow… Just for him.
He knew, then.
He knew.
“I-I can’t,” he sobbed, choked, hurriedly trying to brush the tears from his fur but, “I can’t do it, I can’t. Chara, I…”
“You have to.” Their voice, a rasp, barely reached his ears. “It will be okay.”
“No—no, no, no, NO,” his own grew steadily louder—drowning out any potential theirs had. “I CAN’T, I—”
Not them.
He couldn’t do this without them. He couldn’t survive, he couldn’t live.
Not in a world without—
“You won’t.”
They squeezed his hand back. Giving him a smile, looking into his sad, sad eyes.
Somehow, they, too, looked sad a moment.
Guilty.
…
But maybe that was just his sad eyes.
“I will be with you,” they reminded. “We will do it together, remember?”
Their voice was gentle, now. Barely above a murmur.
“Do this for me. Please.”
. . .
Another squeeze. The light from their eyes was rapidly fading.
“Please,” they gasped, “take me… Take me to the village. To…”
The light around him faltered. A shadow took up the room, just briefly, a beacon flickering in front of him.
The young monster shook, a bolt of sizzling pain racing through his soul, filling him.
“Chara,” was all he could manage, gasping for something of his own somehow. He tried to suck it in, trying to gulp down air he didn’t need, but…
They tried to hold on tight.
In one last breath,
“I-I don’t… Want to…”
. . .
And the source of the light flickered out.
A burning candle, blown out by the dark wind.
At last,
they let go.
And the room around him darkened.
And the soul from hidden in their chest finally emerged.
Stable, and yet unstable. It shook—from weakness or something else, Asriel wasn’t sure.
He swallowed the last of his sobs. He heaved, he trembled, but he no longer cried.
…
With soft, oh so gentle and caring hands, he cupped his palms around the vibrant heart. A beautiful one, at that. Still so bold.
It floated willing to him.
It bobbed above his hands, awaiting everything that was to come. Patient in its way, yet so Determined.
Something he should hold, and yet shouldn’t. Something that just should have been.
Slowly. Delicately, he raised the soul close to his own chest.
His own being.
“We’ll do it together,” he whispered, softer that he’d ever uttered.
And in a flash of jolting, electrifying light, his soul let theirs in.
.
.
.
Over and over, the words repeated.
Over and over they heard them. They said them.
They screeched them, from somewhere inside.
We’ll do it together, they whispered.
. . .
And even still they remained.
No matter how hard they pleaded with their being.
No matter how they wished upon stars that were never there.
They watched, choking up, a crybaby in all its form, on faded knees as they were forced away from his own soul.
They watched what was left of him fade among the buttercups, forever ashen.
Together, right?