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Toriel teaches Chara how to knit, when they first get—adopted, or whatever, into their household. She's sitting out in the rocking chair in the living room, and they've been awakened by another nightmare.
She looks startled to see them, adjusting her reading glasses. “Hello,” she says warily. Chara knows Toriel is a kind person, but she's still just the littlest bit cautious of them—and they, likewise, are cautious of her. “What are you doing up this late?”
Chara bites their lip. “Nightmare,” they whisper, voice hoarse. It's been hard to talk since they first fell down here—it was hard before then, but now that there are all these monsters being so nice to them…
Toriel settles her needles and ball of yarn back; it looks like she's midway through a sweater. A tired smile crosses her face and she drops her hand onto Chara's head, stroking gently at their scalp.
“Tell me about it, child,” she says, scooting over a few inches. It isn't enough for Chara to sit, and so they fidget, jaw clicking.
Toriel seems to realize this, and so hoists Chara into her lap. It isn't uncomfortable—far from, Toriel is warm and soft beneath them. But still, any touch makes Chara want to squirm.
They don't, sighing and frowning at the wall.
“If you don't want to talk about it, my child,” Toriel assures in a lulling tone, “it is fine. I know what it is like to have… unpleasant memories.”
Chara silently looks up at her. She laughs, a high sound like a bell chiming, but it sounds more like a bleat than an actual laugh.
“Oh, dear—I didn't mean to say that.” Toriel claps her hands together, beam now strained. “Well… if you do not want to talk about it, would you like to just sit here with me?”
They nod; she looks them over, seeming like she wants to ask something, but she just clears her throat and reaches for the knitting supplies again.
“Can I...” Chara trails off, their words caught in their throat. They tap the needles, and Toriel looks at them, surprise etched in her features.
“Why, yes!” she exclaims after a moment, sounding upbeat as she usually does. “Of course, of course, my child…” She steers their fingers to the needles, adjusting their posture in her lap. “You just—go like this, and…”
Toriel keeps rattling directions while Chara half-listens, caught in an odd way by the movement of the needles and the way they weave out something that's going to be beautiful. Maybe a few months—hell, even weeks—ago they'd have been fascinated by the sharp edges, and now they still are, but somehow the sweater is more interesting.
She falls asleep after a while. Chara barely notices, continuing to knit through the night; their tiny, cold hands working at the yarn and the needles.
By the time the sun comes up, they're still awake, their eyelids tugging down but adrenaline still coursing through them. The sweater's just over half done, work of hours and hours making it worn around the edges. Its sleeves dangle over the arms of the chair, its entire width stretched across Toriel's lap.
Chara swallows back a yawn, then, and twists their head when Toriel shifts to see her eyes slowly peel open. She stares at them, and they stare back, fingers falling back to their sides.
“Goodness, my child,” she breathes in a sleep-worn voice. “Have you been up all night working on this?”
Her gaze falls onto the sweater with that, mouth falling open. Her paws curve along it, nails catching a bit in the holes, but otherwise she seems impressed with Chara's handiwork.
“This is beautiful!” Toriel exclaims. “And to think you didn't even know how to beforehand—” Her entire face shines with pride, and Chara chews the inside of their cheek to keep from smiling—it's something they've rarely seen directed at them before. “Oh, I'll have to teach you some more of this. I wonder what else you can do…?”
“It was fun,” they manage.
Toriel's smile softens, and her eyes with it—she pats Chara's head gently, before easing them onto the hardwood floor, and rise with a stretch and a yawn. Then she's bustling down the hall, sweater blowing in her hands alongside her, and shouting, “Oh! Gorey, you should have a look at this!”
Chara is asleep not ten minutes later, crashing finally with the weight of the all-nighter beneath them. When they wake a few hours after, from a dreamless sleep, there's a blanket tucked over them, and the smell of pie wafting through the house.
The next sweater Chara knits is for Asgore—he'd beamed at Chara as they finished the first one in the living room while he flipped through the newspaper, and his birthday had been circled on the calendar for ages, approaching slowly but steadily.
Toriel's eyes glow when they ask for more yarn, and she produces several shades of pink. Chara takes this and the other supplies to their room, where they spiral out a hideous, giant sweater claiming MR. DAD GUY by Asgore's birthday in a week. They get a little help from Asriel, but he mostly loiters around their bedroom and tiptoes around the items spread across the floor, really only helping to hide it when Asgore ducks in.
Toriel helps wrap it, in equally ugly pink wrapping paper, crowing all the while about how beautiful it is, and what a good job Chara's done on it.
Mostly, Chara thinks she's just being polite, but they can't help but flush and duck their head when she praises their work. And Asgore, upon opening the box labeled with a tag reading FROM CHARA with a curious look in their direction, absolutely lights up, his eyes going wide and brightening. He hugs Chara gingerly after that, as though he's afraid he'll overstep, and they just smile back at him.
“Thank you, Chara,” he says, grinning. “Thank you so much.”
Even though it's so ugly, he still wears it at least once a week, looking down on it and smiling throughout the days he does.
After the Mr. Dad Guy sweater, knitting becomes more of a stress reliever to Chara. Their bed becomes covered in yarn and half-done projects, spread across the room—Asriel studies them doing it sometimes, watching interestedly as they knit for hours on end. It's fun, and Chara… hasn't had actual fun in a while.
The clicking of needles is a regular fixture in their evenings—maybe, beforehand, Chara would have laughed at the thought of knitting. That seemed like something only grandmothers would do, but now?
Now, Chara actually enjoys it.
They knit a pattern of flowers into a set of matching sweaters for the entire family; they don't realize how ironic it is then, of course, they're just thinking of the spread outside and how all three of them tend to them. It's how most of their time is spent, really.
Asriel, upon being presented with his own, frowns. “Chara, where's yours?”
Chara laughs, surprised by the question. “I didn't make one for myself,” they say.
“But you are part of the family, my child,” Toriel cuts in, apparently just as curious about why there are three and not four sweaters. She smiles, sincere and just—nice. Asgore, behind her with his hand on her shoulder, nods in agreement.
“Oh,” Chara says.
They've never been treated as kindly in their life as they have while living with these amazingly kind monsters. A good night for them used to be when the menacing footsteps outside in the hall faded and they could crawl out from under their bed, or out of the closet.
“Oh,” they repeat, their lips twitching up into a smile.
They spend the rest of the night making one of their own, though Toriel takes it from their hand once they've gotten a fourth done and finishes it herself.
“It's only fair,” she says with a chuckle.
They take a family portrait after it's done, all of them smiling at the camera and looking happy. It's framed in the entrance hallway, set upon a bookcase, and it looks as though it'll stay there forever.
(Good things can never last, Chara supposes as their anger flares after a while, and that is the day they approach Asriel with a plan to get their freedom.)