AN: Due to my moving crisis I haven't been able to work on this fic as much as I've wanted to. It's very doubtful that I will be able to finish before the end of the month. So, sorry about that. I will try to have it finished as soon as I can.
I do touch on the Chasriel ship in this chapter but I want to be clear: I don't have anything against it or those who ship it, but my Chara and Asriel would not work as romantic partners for several reasons (some of which has to do with events in the plotline of The Munificent Seven that I'm not at liberty to discuss at this time). Personally I feel the two of them work best as siblings or as lovers, but not both.
Asgore's minivan (or as Chara called it 'The Daddy-wagon') had two sets of seats in the back part of the cabin as well as a sizable passenger's seat. Asriel of course took the passenger-side seat, being taller and bulkier than both his adopted half-siblings and still not done growing. Frisk got into the back seat and wedged themself into the far corner. Chara was about to join them, but apparently sensed something in Frisk's body language Asriel must have missed and sat in the opposite back corner. The whole ride over to MK's house Frisk leaned to the side with the left tip of their forehead against the window. Asgore tried to start a conversation a few times but met with stony silence by the humans and polite, non-committal responses to his co-parented child he quickly gave up.
Asgore parked in MK's driveway and had not even gotten his phone out to text him when MK ran out the door, dressed in a solid shirt with a backwards baseball cap on his head, his head spikes sticking out through the hole in the cap. The door of the van opened up for him and he bounded inside. "Yo!" he greeted.
"Hello!" "Heya!" "Hey." "Greetings."
Asgore leaned over the side from the driver's seat to make sure MK got in okay. Chara watched him enter with a look that could only be called 'wary'; their hand gripped their knee in a way which suggested their anxiety was already dangerously high. Frisk continued looking out the window, not even turning to say their greeting to MK. After all, that would mean turning towards Chara.
MK took the middle seat all to himself, looking from Chara to Frisk before asking Asriel, "What's up with those two?"
"Trouble in paradise," Asriel said in a stage whisper. "Chara baited them into a pun and Frisk is being sore about it."
His eyes widened. "Woah, that must've been some pun."
"It was glorious," Chara reveled, to which Frisk only huffed. "Hey, I promised not to get mad at being woken up early, I never said I wouldn't get even."
"Hmph," Frisk sighed, continuing to look out the window. Chara was still smiling but there was a nervous edge to it.
MK asked, "So what was it? The joke?"
"There was too much setup to repeat," Asriel said. "I'll tell you later." Asriel's eye flicked over to Frisk for a brief moment and MK got the hint: having another person laugh at Chara's joke right in front of them would upset them all over again.
"All right," Asgore said, slipping the car into reverse. He turned his head to look behind the van, leaning so far he needed to put one hairy arm on Asriel's headrest for balance. "Off we go!"
The only time they brought it up was when they were both twelve. Chara was sitting on the bed with their back to Asriel, which could have been a signal that they did not want to talk but Asriel decided it was more likely they were trying to keep their book in the best light and did not realize the message it was sending to their half-brother. Asriel was sitting at the computer chair but not using the computer. He was poking something on his phone, was it a game or was he on social media?, he could not remember anymore but it was not particularly important. He had been focusing on something else. "Hey, Kar?" he ventured. Chara made a hum of acknowledgment, not sounding annoyed or dismissive but perhaps a little distracted. "Do you ever wonder if… you know, if things went differently, that we would have gone out together? Underground?"
Chara scoffed without looking away from their book, "God, that would have been a disaster." He could not help but feel a little offended, but he decided to let Chara finish their thought before getting outraged. "Everyone and their grandmother knows the trauma cocktail I was drunk on, and the Underground didn't have the resources or know-how to even begin detoxing that mess. They also did not have any books or resources about what happens to a human's body as they age, nor could they manufacture those lovely little pills that keep me semi-functional in a society I despise. I can't imagine where I would be as an unmedicated preteen getting ambushed by puberty in the Kingdom of Monsters."
Asriel really wanted to protest against their characterization of themself, but he had to admit the Chara he knew now was much different from the Chara he knew then, and mostly in good ways. "It's just… we were really close back then, remember?"
"The word you're looking for is 'codependent', we were codependent," they said with finality. They leaned backwards and dangled their head off the bed upside-down, their hair falling straight down like a curtain. Their eyes were shining in that way they got when they found an opportunity to share obscure knowledge with someone they were pretty sure did not already know it. "It means each of us used the other as our sole means of emotional support. It's very unhealthy, because any friction or problem in that relationship damages not just your identity but leaves you without an emotionally healthy outlet. Turning our relationship romantic would have exacerbated those issues while discouraging us from seeking real solutions. Even ignoring all that, I'd still be ace and you'd still be gay."
(Chara was not actually asexual but neither of them knew that at the time.)
"But we could have, right? We could have been in love, at least for a little while?"
"We probably would have given it a try but I don't see how it could have ended well. Why are you so concerned about this? It's not like a romantic relationship is a friendship that's leveled up, Ree. It's a fundamentally different thing. Just because we never dated and are never going to date doesn't make us worse friends."
"I guess," Asriel conceded. Part of it was, he wanted to understand how their relationship had changed. They were not as close now as they were Before. And maybe that was a good thing. But thinking about what might have been left him feeling wistful.
After he started dating he understood what they were trying to say. His relationship with Chara was still stronger than what he had with any of the boys he had gone out with, but the tone was different. It burned hotter but faster, and from the moment he felt that first spark of attraction he knew at once Chara had been right.
Even though they arrived relatively early the park was still bustling. Rainbow-colored banners flew from several streetlights and unfurled down the sides of nearby buildings. It was a warm day, so thin shirts and short shorts were the apparel of the day. The crowd was fairly evenly split between human and monster, which Asriel really should not have been so surprised by. Monsters did not really 'get' why it was important for humans to celebrate non-heterosexual or non-gender-conforming people but they did not need much of an excuse to enjoy a party. Some food stands off to the right offered grab-'n'-go food. He had no idea how Sans mustered up the effort to complete all the forms and inspections necessary to run his hot dog stand here, but he supposed it helped to have a brother in government. Asriel was not quite tall enough to see over the heads of the crowd and see his way to everywhere else; perhaps his father was, but if he saw anything the rest of them could not he did not share his findings. Instead Asgore rubbed his beard and took in the crowd. "It all seems fairly quiet," he mused. "Perhaps your mother was being too over-protective. You don't… really need to stay stuck to your old man the whole day, right? Ha ha…" There was a part of him that looked lost, though he was trying to put on a brave face. He would let the teens loose if that was what they wanted, but it would make him sad if his kids considered him a burden or a stodgy chaperone. Even, or even precisely, if that was what he was.
Chara shrugged. "I don't think it would be too rough, this is a sober Pride event after all. I suppose… we could split up? So we can each visit the places we want to without being distracted?" There was a vague unease in their voice, a tentative resignation in their plastic smile. They were looking everywhere except at Frisk. Gee whiz, really you two? Maybe Chara shouldn't have dropped a bombshell pun first thing in the morning, but Frisk was taking their irritation way too far. Asriel inhaled through his nose, preparing to have to talk with one or both of them.
Frisk sidled over to Chara, looking a bit sheepish. "Well… we can split up and still go the same way, right?" They had a tiny smile on their face, and their hand reached out tentatively.
Chara considered Frisk for a moment before their smile eased into a more natural position, their shoulders lost their tension, and the hunted look in their eyes receded. "Yeah… yes, of course. If you'd like." Chara placed their hand in Frisk's and they both breathed out a relieved chuckle. Oh, looks like they made up on their own this time. It was good they were learning to sort themselves out now, even if it did make him a bit lonely if they did not need him to put out their fires anymore.
"Now that that's settled," MK huffed. He held up a brochure, folded open to the map and stuck to the end of his tail with red magic. "How about we head to the, uh, Rose Stage? Mettaton is supposed to be putting on a concert there later, but if we get there early his opening act is-"
"Yo, Azzy! You made it!"
They all stopped and looked up at the familiar voice. Asriel smiled. "Ric! Good to see you!"
Ricardo was a human boy and Asriel's first boyfriend from his junior high days. These days cross-species romances were… to call them "common" would be stretching the word to the breaking point, but they were not that much of an oddity. There were his own boyfriends, of course. Both his parents had flings with human partners as well. (Probably for the same reason his past boyfriends had both been human; monsters were simply too intimidated to hook up with a Boss Monster. It was true that the Kingdom of Monsters had been disbanded, but to many monsters dating royalty was still too intimidating. Heck, MK was one of the few monsters who spoke to him as something like an equal.) There was the brief period of time Sans was going out with seven women at once but nobody, least of all Sans, wanted to bring that up. Heck, right now by the food stands he saw Muffet in a six-armed jacket and cutoff jeans with her short hair let down, feeding a Nice Cream to her human lover Aofil. Asriel did not know Aofil well but he got the strangest feeling the two of them would have been very close if the past few years had gone differently.
Ricardo looked Asriel up and down, mostly up. Asriel had aged well in the past year; the last of his baby fat had disappeared and his muzzle had grown more pronounced. His horns had grown in and curved back, not as much as his father's but longer than his mother's. His fur was still white but now it matted down closer to his skin, giving him a sleek, handsome look while finally defeating the troublesome cowlick which had plagued the top of his head for years. Ricardo whistled, "Man, look at you! Some guys have all the luck."
Asriel's smile thinned. "Hm, 'luck'. Yeah, let's call it that." Asriel had no desire to get into the details. Since he started to become less of a boy and more of a man he had been attracting the wrong kind of attention, especially from the internet. For the furry community monsters were a dream come true and they were not shy about showing their enthusiasm. Most furries were good people, actually the overwhelming majority were good people. But some of them. Some of them. The first time he and Chara had found a website counting down the seconds until Asriel turned 18 Chara had become supremely upset, to the point where it took him most of the evening for him to calm them down enough to articulate why they were so bothered. Once they explained he felt… spiky, like he had blood vessels and all of them grew thorns at once. Because ah, there were humans who were not shy about sharing that the law was the only reason they were not lusting after children. This was the side of humanity his parents tried to ignore, the side Chara was constantly trying to warn him about. It was a revelation which was not worth the three sessions of therapy it took for him to work through.
"Oh hey," Ricardo nodded toward Asriel's half-siblings and their clasped hands. "You're with Chara and Frisk. You two are still together? That's awesome." Frisk nodded happily and made an affirmative hum; Chara smiled but stepped slightly behind Frisk to shield themself. Ricardo then turned toward MK, looking a little less sure of himself. "And it's good to see you too, uh…"
MK laughed, not offended in the slightest. "Nobody ever remembers the whole thing, just call me MK."
"Right!" he laughed. "Sorry, I wanted to show off by remembering your full name but I guess it looked like I forgot you. Hey, I was gonna get something to eat, wanna join me? Catch up on old times?"
"Maybe later," Asriel said. "We just got here and ate a big breakfast before, so we'll be good for a while. You still have my number, right? Don't wait for me to call you, call me first. 'Cause it's good to see you again, just… let us get settled in first."
"Yeah, sure!" he promised, checking his phone to make sure he really did still have the number. "Sorry I haven't been in contact-"
"No worries, I'm going through the same thing right now so I know how it is. We'll see you around." They parted with a final lingering stare, each of them thinking whether they still would have been together if they had not gone to different schools and decided to amiably separate rather than do what for teenagers without cars qualified as 'a long-distance relationship'.
AN: The incident where Sans dated seven women is described in The Skeleton Mambo.
Aofil is from the One Falls Anthology by Congar, and appears with permission.