Chapter Text

In many ways it was like their first day back from the dead. The world was wide open in front of them. They could go anywhere in town; they could hit up any of Frisk's friends; they could read any book, watch any show, buy any toy, walk, run, swim, leap, talk, scream, cry into their hands.

They were free. They could do ANYTHING.

They spent much of it doing nothing.

They had plans to see Asgore later in the day, yes, but there was plenty of time in a day. An almost frighteningly large amount of time for someone who hadn't consciously moved their body in over a hundred years.

They decided not to push themselves too much. They just went for a stroll. There were no threatening rain clouds dotting the sky today, and the temperature was perfect for just enjoying the fresh air. They took their sweet time enjoying the sun, and the breeze, and the feel of dry leaves they picked up off the ground. They'd felt it all before, but not against their skin personally in so long. Doing nothing felt like everything.

After some time spent walking their phone buzzed. They whipped it out of their pocket to find a text message from Jenny, asking if they'd like to meet up at the usual place. They hesitated.

"I told her I had other plans today," Frisk said reproachfully.

"Guess she hoped you'd changed your mind." Chara remained staring down at the screen, feeling uncertain. "...what do I do?"

"Um. Just tell her you can't make it."

"Are you sure?"

"Huh? Of course I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

"...you're bored."

"...oh. Um. You can tell?"

"I can always tell." They stared down at the phone. "...I guess... we could swap and let you hang out for a bit..."

"No," Frisk said firmly. ""Nuh uh. This is your-"

"My day, yes, I get it," Chara interrupted. "But that doesn't mean we can't still compromise. This whole mess started when we both wanted our way without being willing to give."

They scuffed their shoe awkwardly against the ground as they continued, almost bashfully. "Besides... it's not fun 'steering' with an unhappy passenger."

Frisk was silent—technically this whole conversation had been silent, but they didn't speak in their head either. When they spoke again it was more resolute.

"Tell her we'll hang out tomorrow."

"Are-"

"Yes, I'm sure," they butted in. "And your part of the compromise is that you've got to walk us over to the lake so we can skip rocks. We'll take turns. You throw one, then I'll throw one. That way we're doing nothing, but together."

There was that warm feeling again.

"What a dorky way to spend a day," they said.

"You're not sayin' no."

"...because it sounds... nice," they said sheepishly. It was completely unfair that talking to the voice in their head could fill their stomach with butterflies.

"Then do we have a treaty, your highness?"

"Not royalty. But... yes. We have a deal."

Jenny seemed disappointed but accepted their decline. The two fused humans made their way down to the lake and spent quite a while down there, just enjoying the feel of the sunlight and the breeze, and the sounds of birds and splashing rocks.

Frisk was by far the more talented rock skipper out of the two of them—this had apparently been one of their favorite pasttimes when they used to sneak out and spend as much time away from their home as humanly possible. Chara's life on the surface had had significantly less freedom; they'd never really gotten the chance to do childish things before they fell to the Underground, and there weren't many good rock-skipping places if you didn't want to make the trip to Waterfall. It felt good to try out the game, though, especially as Frisk was more than willing to teach them a thing or two about finding optimally shaped rocks.

It really was 'doing nothing, but together,' and Chara enjoyed every second that it was just the two of them.

Well, just the two of them, and Sans.

He was a few meters down the bank passed out asleep with a fishing pole lying on the ground beside him and a floppy sun hat on his skull. His snores did nothing to disrupt the teenagers who spent the next few hours skipping stones and laughing out loud at the jokes being told in their head.

Being alive was pretty great.

After a while they lay there in the grass a little ways from the bank, having exhausted most of their supply of small, smooth rocks. It didn't really matter. They'd had a blast, and now it felt relaxing just to sit here watching the ripples recede to the far shores of the lake.

Though relaxing, Frisk was realizing, felt very different from the inside.

They felt comfy on the grass, rolling dandelion leaves between their fingers, but it wasn't really them. They could simply feel their body making small decisions such as what interesting texture to reach for next, or at exactly what moment to breathe in or breathe out. They had no conscious control over any of it. It wasn't unpleasant, but they wouldn't want to live their entire life with their body on autopilot.

...that brought with it those uncomfortably guilty feelings. After all, this was exactly how Chara had been living for the past two years. Was it any wonder their already bossy personality had gotten a bit insufferable from time to time? It was like watching someone over their shoulder while they played a game, wanting to tell them every path to take or item to pick up, but a million times worse. Anyone would become a control freak about it eventually.

It took actually living to actually want to take it slow. To stop and smell the flowers. To treat life more like... well, life, and not a game with an end goal you had to beat. There was no final boss.

"Hey, where'd Sans go?" Chara asked. They sat up, slightly disorienting Frisk in the process, looking over at an empty lawn chair by the lake's edge.

"Probably on a break," Frisk offered, before a nice smell started wafting down from uphill. "Hey, what's that? Kinda smells like fish."

"Top tier narration, Frisk. It probably is fish."

They both became aware of their stomach growling abruptly.

"How long has it been since breakfast?" Chara groaned. "We should go eat."

"Definitely," Frisk agreed.

"Then let's go," Chara said with a hint of impatience. "Come on."

They blinked.

"Wait. That's not right. I am steering. Acquiring lunch, then, is my responsibility." They laughed a little awkwardly. "Sorry. Force of habit. A very, very bad habit."

"Nah, it's fine. I understand." Frisk meant it. They did understand a lot better than they had before. "But hey, you're in charge. Take us out to eat!"

"Don't make it weird."

"How's it weird? You're just taking your veeeeery special partner out to lunch..."

Chara's cheeks heated up as they gave only a flustered huff in response, making their way towards food to the sound of Frisk's internal laughter.

Frisk couldn't see their face, but they still thought Chara was pretty cute when they got like this.

Chara molded their face back into their usual polite smile as they approached the food. They never really felt right without it.

Unsurprisingly Sans had set up a food stand up on top of the hill. A sign was advertising fish tacos spelled out entirely in lower case; it was unclear whether this was actually any easier than writing the normal way.

"well if it isn't my favorite customer," Sans said, greeting them with a lazy half-wave. "and with a smile that goes on for miles. feelin' in high spirits today, kiddo?"

Chara felt slightly awkward, their pasted-on smile taking on a somewhat more guarded role than usual. They liked Sans, just like Frisk and practically everyone else did. It was just those eyes of his... they always felt like they were digging a little deeper than his grin would suggest.

"Yes," they replied finally, a little nervous. "It's just one of those days that makes me feel... happy to be alive."

"heh. don't i know the feeling." He closed his eyes for a moment, but swiftly plopped a large, somewhat greasy paper bag down on the table. "but, since i've got this all new, all smiles edition of frisk here anyway, could i interest them in some fresh fish tacos? they were really biting today."

Chara looked skeptically at the bag. They hadn't really thought he'd caught anything down there by the lake.

"Er. I never saw you as the fisherman sort."

"are you kidding? i'm a natural at sitting around doing nothing all day."

They noticed a small wastebasket beside his stand that appeared to be full of crumpled up receipts from a local seafood joint. Sans was smiling as though they were invisible.

"only twenty g apiece," he went on, leaning back in his chair while somehow again closing his eye sockets. "each one restores fifteen hp, raises def by one for a whole turn, and replenishes vitamin d. that last one's not a stat. but you'll probably die without it. human bodies are funny that way."

Chara laughed awkwardly, scratching their head.

"Your call, Frisk. Do we eat secondhand fish sold by a sketchy skeleton in a park?"

Somehow Frisk managed to convey the entire energy of an indifferent shrug without even having a body. "Whatevs. You know I'll eat just about anything that's not oatmeal."

"That I do." The memory of spider doughnut after greasy spider doughnut made them shudder. "I suppose we'll go for it. I've had worse stomach aches than any fish is going to cause."

They forked over twenty G and had the bag slid over to them, which they opened with a growing hunger. Something was slightly out of place on the inside.

"Hold on," they said. "You put an extra one in here by mistake."

"mistake? or a happy accident?" He gave them a conspiratorial wink. "consider it a special two-for-one discount. share it with someone special. even if that person is you—i won't judge."

"Ha. Thank you, Sans."

"no prob. just take care of yourself, kiddo."

They took the bag and left, feeling—as usual—confused but somewhat amused by the skeleton's antics. There were days when they really wanted to wipe that knowing smile off his face, but on days like this, it was almost kind of reassuring. If he was inclined to smile and joke with them then they couldn't be doing that bad a job at being Frisk.

The two of them found a nice place to sit and started to dig in, pleasantly finding that the tacos didn't taste anything like food poisoning. Chara ate ravenously, half out of regular hunger, and half out of the pleasure of actually eating again. They'd done the same with the quiche this morning. It was so good to actually be in charge of moving the food to their mouth again, not feeling like a spoon fed baby while waiting for Frisk to transport the food.

"Did you forget how to eat, or were you always this messy?" Frisk asked idly.

"Toriel... may have gotten onto me more than once for bad eating habits," Chara admitted, just barely preventing themself from wiping their mouth on the sleeve of Frisk's shirt. "...does it bother you?"

"Nope. Just a little funny. Sometimes you're all polite and stuck-up, other times you're eating messy and talking about 'butts pie.' It always surprises me."

"That's me. Chara Dreemurr. Full of surprises."

They ate in silence for a while—it'd be impolite to talk to the voice in one's head with one's mouth full, after all. They crunched down on lunch, scattering enough crumbs to attract the attention of eager looking pigeons.

"This is nice," they said, finishing off the last of their food. They licked the grease off their fingers a little too noisily to avoid Frisk's amused internal giggling. They decided to let it slide. "I think I see why you take your time so much."

"Mm hmm," Frisk replied philosophically. "It's nice to just stop and smell the flowers sometimes, you know?"

"I'd forgotten. Days a lot more pleasant when they're not rushed." They hesitated, hunching their shoulders as an awkward guilt settled over them yet again. No matter where they went or what they did, that feeling was never far behind. "I am... truly sorry that I've made so many of your days miserable. It was never my intent."

"Come on Chara, don't be like that. You've only made a few days miserable." They laughed, but grew awkward themself when they realized Chara wasn't laughing with them. "Uh... really. Sure, we get on each other's nerves, but I'm always glad I got to spend the day with you. It's nice to share the flowers, you know? 'Specially with you."

Hot cheeks again. Chara pondered this for a while before nodding thoughtfully.

"Yes... I think I see what you mean."

They gauged the sunlight they had left, taking a wild guess at the time before remembering they had a phone that displayed it in numbers. Technology sure was nice. They checked the time and realized it had gotten later in the afternoon than they'd assumed.

"Not to start rushing things again," they said, "But we should get moving if we're going to spend any time with Asgore today. Our little intermission is over."

"You're the boss!"

"Incorrect. He is the boss monster. I am a human ghost."

"Oh ha ha. Technically THAT'S incorrect 'cause I'm the ghost today. You're a human person."

"Perhaps." They smiled at Frisk's exuberance, but a part of them was still hesitant. Talking to Toriel had been hard. Would talking to him be any easier? It always had been before, but...

Chara took a deep breath, before nodding firmly.

"Let's go."