You wake up snuggling your Cross and Chara plushie on your bed. You remember waking up for a bit last night to brush your teeth and head to bed, but that's about it.

You wander down the hall to the living room where you find Chara looking into a small black box. He jolts and whips around to face you, quickly closing the box before you could see what's inside it. "*Oh... It's you. Sorry, kid I just... I guess I'm a bit jumpy.*"

You smile lightly before sitting down next to him. "Want to talk about it?" Chara hums closing his eyes. "*Yeah, I was planning on telling you today, anyway.*"

You turn to face him fully. "Story time." You whisper to yourself. Chara chuckles lightly as he settles down. "*Right, where to start...*"

"*I suppose I should start by explaining that when my universe was created only myself, Frisk, and Gaster were there. We were given a unique ability called Overwrite and our creator had a huge idea for the AU, but... They never finished. So, Gaster began trying to use our ability to create a world that we could grow up in.*"

/////////////////////

Chara smiles as he plays with Frisk and Asriel in the garden behind the castle. "Hey! Wait up guys!" Asriel calls out tripping over his feet as he runs.

Chara laughs as he turns around, running backwards now. "The point of the game is to catch up to us! So, do it!" Asriel whines as he slows to a stop. Frisk furrows his eyebrows as he stops and walks over to the young prince. "Are you okay, Azzy? You know Chara isn't trying to be mean."

Asriel nods and smirks. "Yeah, I know. Also, YOU'RE IT!!" Asriel calls as he pushes Frisk slightly, running off laughing. "Hey, no fair! I thought you were actually hurt!" Frisk calls out after the prince, laughing slightly.

---------

A grown Chara stands side by side next to a grown Asriel and Frisk. They over look the growing city with satisfied smiles. The three's matching heart lockets shine in the light.

That is, until everything goes white. Chara and Frisk are back in the white void they started out in, back to how old they were too.

"Gaster, what did you do that for?!" Chara asks turning to face him.
"The world was simply a test, and it did well. I want to create the perfect world for you two children."

Chara glares at Gaster, but Frisk puts a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, Chara. There's nothing we can do about it now." Chara sighs and his shoulders droop. "Fine."

-----------------

The next time Chara and Frisk grew close to Toriel. They kept close to her and loved the motherly attention she gave, but Chara was disappointed that Asriel wasn't the person he was before.

Toriel comforts Chara as he jolts up from a nightmare. "Shhhh. It's alright my child. I shall be right here whenever you need me."
Chara wipes his tears away as he hands the queen a familiar necklace.

----------------

Chara grew reserved and tried to stay away from this new Toriel and Asriel. Ashore comes over to comfort him. Time and time again. Taking care to be gentle and understanding.

"Dad? Can... Can I give you something?"

"Of course my child, what is it?"

----------------

Chara becomes close to then looses Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus, Muffet, Nabstablook, and Mettaton.

The final time was when Sans was given the locket, the symbol of Chara's friendship. This time, Chara and Sans fought with Gaster to try and wrestle away the Overwrite button, they only got half.

But Chara and Sans both lost half their souls in the struggle, so to keep themselves from dieing they worked together to create one whole soul from their two partial souls.

The Overwrite button was pressed and Gaster had disappeared, leaving Sans and Chara all alone in a white void.

----------

Months later Ink found them and introduced the idea of the multivere. Error had been there earlier to try and erase their empty universe, but in the struggle of Cross trying to stop him, Error had escaped with Cross and Chara's fused soul.

So Cross and Chara are stuck in the white void with nothing to do but wait for Ink to return. Cross had tried again, and again to convince Ink to help him recreate his universe, but Ink had explained that the Multivere didn't work like that, he himself couldn't create a universe, only help keep already existing universes running.

So, Chara had started to develop a plan, using bits and pieces from other universes to recreate his own.

---------

As Cross and Chara brood, feeling betrayed by Ink when he told them it was a stupid idea to try and recreate their universe. Ink hadn't been back since their fight, which was probably a good thing. Cross might have just done something he'd regret later.

Cross was also very scared. He was fading without his soul. Chara on the other hand was a very, no... Not angry, pissed. All these negative emotions storing around them, caught the attention of Nightmare.

---

Nightmare appears before Cross who is lying on the floor, staring up at the vast amount of nothing.

"You seem to be in a lot of pain, without anyone around causing it. That doesn't happen very often. Would you mind explaining why?" Nightmare says quietly, trying not to scare Cross too much.

That, however, was a futile effort as Cross jumps five feet into the air before scurrying back. "W-who are you?! How are you here?!"

Nightmare blinks calmly. "My name is Nightmare, God of Negativity and Nightmares. I was drawn here by your negative emotions. Now, will you answer my own questions?"

Cross pauses as Chara stares at Nightmare. "*I don't trust him. He feeds off of negativity he's going to use us.*" "Yeah, but, he might help us..." Cross mutters. Nightmare watches the interaction curiously. "While I do feed on negativity, I do not see any reason to use you to stockpile more power. I have quite the system now, and the monsters I have accumulated as help keep me from having to run around collecting negativity myself or laying waste to universes when it is inconvenient. I am simply curious about your... Situation."

Chara rolls his eyes. "*Cross, just ignore- did he just respond to me?*"
Cross's eyes widen in realization. "Yes, yes I did." Nightmare confirms, giving Chara a slight smile. 

Chara stares at him for a bit as Cross glances between the two, unsure of what to do. "*Fine. You want to know so bad? We were left here all alone when the mad scientist used our Overwrite ability to erase our world, a rainbow covered freak promised to help us then broke that promise, and some glitched out skeleton took our soul, leaving us here, all alone and slowly dying. We only have a few days at this point before we disappear.*"

Nightmare tilts his head. "Unfortunate. I happen to know of these skeletons you spoke of, if you wish I may be able to get your soul back for you. And if you give me a good reason, I may even show you how to leave this AU on your own." Cross stands up, reaching for his knife. "Why should we trust you. Why are you offering all this?"
"I know what it is like to be betrayed by someone you thought you could trust. As for why I am helping you, well... You are odd. I feel it may be interesting if you were to go out and interact with the multivere. That and I feel it would be in my best interest to befriend you two instead of become your enemy. You two will have an important role in the future, I can tell."

Chara sighs and looks over to Cross. "*I'll let you make the call on this one.*" Cross looks Nightmare over and sighs. "You said you have people working for you, what does that entail?"

"Simply put, you would help me kill and terrorize different universes and in return I will give you access to several different universes as well as a place in my castle." Nightmare explains.

Cross glances at Chara for a split second before looking back at Nightmare. "And... If we wanted to take some small bits of code from these to be destroyed universes?" Nightmare raises an eyebrow, clearly curious. "An interesting request, but it shouldn't be a problem."

Cross smiles before walking up to Nightmare and offering his hand. "Then I'd like to work for you, if that's alright with you."

"Welcome to the gang Cross and Chara."

//////////////////

You scoot closer to Chara and hug him, snuggling into his jacket. "Why did you want the... What did you say, code?"

Chara nods. "*Yeah, code. It's what all the different universes are made of, and... I, sorry, we wanted the code to try and rebuild our universe.*"

You squeeze Chara a small bit in the hug before looking up at him. "Why did all of you have to have such a bad life. You, Cross, Killer, Dust, Mama Glitch, all of you had such bad lives. You didn't do anything wrong, so why do you all have to be so sad and stuff?"

Chara smiles sadly as he pats your head. "*I don't know kid, I really don't. But, I'm glad you're here. You do make it more bearable.*" Chara gently moves you off of him before picking up the black box again and handing it to you. "*Here, I want you to have it. It shows that I really do care for you, that Cross and I consider you like family.*"

You carefully open the black box to reveal a golden heart locket with the word "Best" inscribed on the front.
You look over at Chara in shock and he just smiles. "*Go on. We talked about it, and we both wanted you to have it. Although, Cross wanted you to understand how important it is to us. That's why he wanted me to be the one to give it to you, he wanted me to tell you about everyone who had one before.*"

You smile and give him a big hug. "Thank you Chara, I'll cherish it." You release him and turn around. "Can you help me put it on?"

Chara smiles at you and carefully takes the necklace from you. "*Sure thing, sib.*" He slips the necklace on you and secures the clasp before letting the golden locket rest against your neck. "*There we go, fits perfectly.*" He says patting your shoulder.

You smile up at him. "Can we make hot chocolate with Cross and watch movies again today?"
Chara ruffles you hair. "*Sure thing kiddo, let's go, hmm?*"

You smile gently fiddling with the necklace, although you feel as if you are forgetting something. You shake your head and brush it off. You'd worry about that later, you still have three more skeletons to hang out with.

((A/N: For anyone wanting more on Cross and Chara's backstory, you can find it on YouTube under the X-Tale AU title.))