Story Title: Echos of the Past, Part 1

Rated: T (for all the angst!)

Summary: Frisk has a nightmare, and Sans finally has that talk with Chara

Demons didn't dream. That's why Chara liked to stay close to Frisk when the other child slept. They could sit next to their companion and drift in and out of conciseness, relying on their psychic link to relay glimpses of Frisk's mind. It wasn't a dream of their own, but it was better then the blackness of demonic slumber.

Normally, Frisk's dreams had a vivid free form feel to them, encompassing emotions of kindness and a sort of elemental whimsy. They were open and breezy like air, fluent and changing like water, full of flares of fiery determination and all grounded in a sort of confidence that things would end up alright. But, the dreams weren't like that tonight.

Chara lounged on the end of a hotel bed, staring at the ceiling and drifting on the emotions of Frisk's mind. The dreams had started normal enough, Frisk seemed to be walking through some sort of woods. Chara caught the sound of songbirds, the feeling of sun on their face, the smell of pine trees and wild blackberries. But then, the scene changed. There was cold bullet like rain. They were in an ally, someone was screaming, Frisk was alone. The aloneness was crippling, and physically painful. Frisk was crying, they to disappear. Chara could feel a stinging on their arm, they caught an image of Frisk fiddling with a dirty bandage, keeping it in place. The scene changed. Frisk climbed the mountain, tears on their face, they were looking for a place to disappear.

In the real world, a sob escaped Frisk's lips.

Chara sat up and grabbed frisk's hand. They tried to send soothing emotions to their companion, but found that they weren't very good at the whole comforting thing. They tried to tell Frisk to wake up, but Frisk only cried more. Chara flinched away as Frisk's dreams grew more intense. There were flashes of half formed images. They saw Undyne with her spear, they saw Toriel fading to dust, Asgore as he brought down his axe, and, Sans...with a tormented expression and one glowing blue eye. Chara felt sick.

They felt an almost electric shock as Frick's dream self died.

Frisk let out a bloodcurdling scream. They sat bolt upright on their bed, sobbing and crying, yelling "I'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRY!" at the top of their lungs. Their hands moved to their head as they tried to calm themself down, Chara watched as Frisk gripped their hair and pulled it, using the pain to get some sort of grip on their reality, to prove they were alive.

Uncertain, Chara reached out and grabbed Frisk's hands, stopping their companion from hurting themself further.

"Frisk, calm down. It's just a bad dream." Chara murmured.

Frisk choked out something between a sob and a scream, collapsing on Chara and wrapping them in a hug.

Chara felt a heaviness in their stomach, feeling with full magnitude Frisk's emotions. Chara began to sob too, the pair sat there hugging each other.

"I-" Frisk sucked in a breath, 'I-I can't-" Chara could tell that Frisk had broken down. The other child wanted nothing more than to run, run away from the nightmares, and run far, far away from the emotions.

Chara hugged them close, but then, something changed. They felt a sort of tumbling sensation, and before they knew it the room was spinning. Chara felt gravity, they were coughing as their lungs started working. Suddenly, the emotions were much more intense. They almost recognized what had happened, but before they could make sense of the event, they collapsed. Soft covers from the bed piled around them, they were crying, crying harder than they ever could as a spirit. They sobbed, their chest hurt, their eyes stung with tears.

"Sorry Chara." Said the soft voice of Frisk. Chara could barely register the sound, they were too busy drowning in emotions. As a spirit, everything was cut off. Any emotions were purely mental. They lacked the physical hormones of a human, and the emotional burden of a SOUL guiding their actions. This was full force, something they hadn't felt in decades.

A door opened. Footsteps were heard. A light turned on. Chara kept sobbing, unable to stop.

"frisk?" Came a familiar voice. "what happened?"

Chara gave no response.

The skeleton went to sit on the edge of the bed. He gathered Chara up in his arms and held them in a fatherly fashion. Chara cringed away from him, but didn't do much else. Their head was still spinning.

"hey kiddo. another bad dream?"

Chara didn't know how to respond. They kept crying, thankful for the warmth of the skeleton, who, like most monsters, had the comforting thrum of magic running through him.

Slowly, Chara's situation came into full view. They were in Frisk's vessel again, Frisk had switched out in order to escape emotions. There was a warmth in Chara's chest that they haven't felt in quite awhile. It was a SOUL. Normally the ownership of Frisk's SOUL was split right down the middle, Frisk's to use, and Chara's to own, that was part of their little wager. This allowed Frisk and Chara to share a link, to share experiences and to share emotions. But Frisk, in an attempt to escape those emotions had made the rash decision to push ownership of the SOUL to Chara. Of course this wasn't a stable way to do things, the link would open up with time, but for now Chara felt everything, and Frisk nothing.

Through tear stained eyes they saw the ghostly outline of Frisk, utterly soulless, leaning against the hotel wall next to the door that adjoined Frisk's hotel room to Sans and Tori's hotel room. They looked calm, and unremorseful.

Chara took deep breaths, trying to reconcile with their mental state. They felt exhausted. Their body was heavy with sleep, their mind was flooded with feelings, and they felt fairly dizzy. They wiped their nose on the blankets, not daring to look Sans in the eyes.

"do you want to talk about it?" Sans asked.

"No." Chara's voice shook.

"kid," Sans said, he lifted Chara's head to look in their eyes, then froze, seeing Chara's red pupils. "you're not frisk." He looked absolutely disturbed, his eye lit blue.

Chara's lip quivered, the image of Sans mirrored Frisk's dream, which was still fresh in their mind. Shame. Self hate. Fear. Pain. Sorrow. Remorse. The emotions were too much, too confusing, and all muddled through the filter of sleep. They burst out into tears again, crying louder than before.

An icy cold seized their soul and they felt themself being lifted off the bed, hovering in spot. Sans had backed off the bed, he looked scared, disturbed, and angry, one eye was pitch black, and the other glowed blue, the same unforgiving blue that engulfed Chara's form. More flashes of memories hit. They could remember the battle with Sans, being levitated in the golden hall, a cruel smile on their bloodied face that was now red with shame and fear. Their legs dangled in thin air, they could hardly breathe through the sobs, and what's worse? The stupid voice was back.

'Look at you, pathetic. You really can't do anything right, can you? You died to save the monsters, and ended up making it all so much worse. Even your own life, the most precious thing you had wasn't enough, was it? He'll kill you, you know. Just like he did all those times before. Then you'll be back where you belong. And if you really care about anything, you won't come back.'

Chara sucked in a painful breath, "SHUT UP SHUT UP!" They yelled.

Sans seemed to freeze. He got a look on his face that could only be described as DETERMINED. With a wave of his hand, he lowered Chara to the bed, still holding them in place. Chara scrunched up their features, trying to calm down, Sans let them, and didn't speak until they were in a calmer mood.

"Do you have any weapons?" He asked.

"No." Chara responded. There was a pocket knife in the nightstand drawer, but that was it.

'you should stab him with it.'

Chara ignored the voice.

"What did you do to Frisk?" Asked Sans.

"Nothing." They choked. "They did this to me."

"Why?" Sans looked skeptical.

"Bad dreams. They didn't want to deal with it, so they passed it off on me." Chara said honestly.

"That doesn't sound like them." Sans commented.

Chara didn't know what to say, they had told the truth! Their eyes filled with tears again. Sans was just like every other adult, they believe every lie, but the second you're honest with them, they get suspicious.

"Is frisk in the room?" Sans asked.

"Yes." Chara responded through a sob.

"Don't give me those crocodile tears, kid." Sans said, accusatory.

A spark of defensiveness lit in Chara's SOUL. It, like every other emotion, was all empomasing. "I'm not faking you asshat!" They choked, "For the first time in decades, I'm feeling actual emotions, and it fucking hurts, okay?" They sobbed again, and felt the aura around their SOUL drop. They were free to act, but didn't move to.

'Stab him.'

Sans leaned against the wall, his eye still lit, watching Chara carefully. "feeling emotions, huh? boo hoo, you're just like the rest of us. except, you're not. do you know how much trouble you've put on the universe? and on me personally?"

Guilt hit them, but so did defiance.

"Ya, and what about you and the stupid DETERMINATION experiments?" Chara shot back. "I saw what you and those scientists did to my brother." Their voice cracked. "To...to all those people."

Sans expression broke, but only for a second. "you're not one to talk about hurting people." His voice was deadly. "What about all those monsters you killed?"

"They didn't die." Chara spat, "We could reset it all at any time. And we did."

Sans cringed at the word 'reset' but didn't let it show. "why did you do it?" Sans asked.

Chara thought about this. They were still shaking, and still exhausted, but at least now they could focus a bit better. "Do what?" they asked.

"don't play dumb with me. why would you ever choose to hurt those people?"

"You wouldn't understand." They said.

"try me." He countered.

'Stab him. The knife is right there.'

Chara's eyes did drift over to the nightstand this time. But yet again they felt a sense of defiance.

"Uhg. Hold on." Chara said, burying their head in their hand and taking a deep breath, "I need my mind to shut up."

They reached for the nightstand carefully, aware of Sans watching their every move, and pulled out the pocket knife, sliding it across the covers in a single flick of their hand.

Sans observed the object before carefully picking it up. "a knife." It wasn't a question.

"Ya." Chara confirmed situating themself on the covers.

"you told me you didn't have any weapons."

"I didn't! I just had it next to me. It's not even mine anyway."

"Did you steal it?"

"NO!" Chara said, defensive again, "Me and Frisk found it at rest stop, it was buried in the ground, must have been there for years."

"hmm." He held up the object, "we'll come back to this." he dropped it in his pocket. "you said you wanted your mind to shut up. maybe you should explain that to me first.

Chara opened their mouth, then closed it again, shaking their head, trying not to relapse into crying. Why should they tell him anything? but on the other hand, why shouldn't they? This would all reset one day, and if talking about it just once could take their mind off things, make life a little more barrable, then why not play along? "I...I um…" They began, "I hear voices. Well...a voice. I know it's me, people have told me that. But sometimes, I don't know that, because it doesn't really act like me. I guess."

'Shut up, idiot.'

"It just called me an idiot." They said it with an almost hysterical laugh, their shaking got worse, tears started to run down their face again. "See, I haven't heard the voice in a long time. It wasn't there when I was...a...um demon."

"was it there when you were human?"

"Yes."

Sans nodded. Chara remembered what he had told them about the anomaly. Maybe Sans thought that if he understood Chara he could stop them from resetting.

"tell me about that." He prompted. "you were tori's kid, right? fell into the underground? why would a human even climb mt. ebbot?"

In the back of the room, Frisk froze, no tuned in fully to the conversation.

Chara bit their lip, "It's a long story." They said.

"i'm all ears. even though i don't have any."

Chara actually snorted a laugh, Sans seemed to relax a little bit.

"Well," Chara began, "it all started a little over 30 years ago...if you add up all the timelines…"

Hold onto yo butts, folks, next chapter it's flashback time! Please leave a comment telling me what you thought! Also, starting next chapter, I will begin writing responces for any reviews I get at the end of every chapter. So any comment posted from here onwards will get an end-of-chapter responce! Thank you so much for reading this you guys! You all light up my life!