[Discontinued] Pursuit of Happiness (Chara x Asriel)

What We Fear

Asriel POV

I groan, feeling myself return to a world of consciousness after a small nap. I sigh and slowly sit up with a grunt, not feeling fully refreshed. I check the current time on the alarm clock across the room, my clearing vision taking in that it was 4:30. I look at the bed across from me, only to find it's open space empty. I blink, it not being to often Chara takes her free time to do something else than rest. It wasn't really any use for me to go back to sleep, so I got up and stumbled my way towards the door. Walking downstairs slowly, I hear Toriel and Asgore talking. I quietly listen in on the conversation, and what they said caused me to tilt my head in confusion. "Oh she just went outside dear, at a quite speedy pace too. It's hard to know what's wrong with that girl sometimes." I look at the figure whose voice spoke up, who noticed my strange look. Asgore smiled as he saw me, probably quickly forgetting I was ever tired in the first place. "You're awake I see. I was just mentioning to your mother that I saw Chara go outside." I nod my head in appreciation, and make my way out the door, not hearing another word from either of my parents.

I close the door behind me, almost instantly feeling the calming effects of nature taking it's toll on me. I look around the field, Chara having to be somewhere close. I spot a figure underneath a tree, brown hair and not moving. I sigh as I realize them as Chara, wondering now what else is troubling her. I walk with my hands in my pockets, carefully making my way towards her. Chara notices my presence coming closer to her and she just stares, an almost unnoticeable small smile on her face. She doesn't say anything as I get under the tree she was sitting under, sitting down next to her. We remain silent for the next few minutes, until Chara broke the silence. "Hey, you okay?" Chara listened to the sound of the birds humming, finding a peaceful time to enjoy herself the most. "Well yeah, but I was gonna ask you that though." Chara stared at me and sighed, scooting closer to me to close the gap in between us. "I'm sorry Asriel, it's just... Those nightmares again... I just don't know how to stop them." Chara gained a frown on her face, looking as if she wanted no more than to be happy.

I hug her, trying what small things I could to comfort her in a situation like this. "Come on Chara, you know there's something wrong... It won't go away until you solve it." That is when she stops hugging back. "But that's the problem. I don't know if I can solve it." I shook my head at that. Before our conversation could continue any longer, we were interrupted by another voice making it's way in. "Well, why don't you come up for a solution to it then?" Me and Chara stare up from where the quiet voice came from, finding nobody other than Frisk standing few feet away from us listening to our talk. I noticed a second figure behind Frisk, short and boney with a blue jacket on. "Say why don't we talk about this somewhere else?" Frisk looked back at her partner, a small smirk. "Where do you got in mind?"
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Much to my amusement, I find our small group in front of a wide restaurant, snow on the top despite it being summer. I really shouldn't have thought too hard when Sans led us to a random place to grab food. "Welcome to Grillby's my friends!" Sans led us inside the orange diner. I feel the temperature heat up as we enter the building, the smell of fried foods hitting us. There were few monsters and people seated around the building, all busy with their own quiet conversations. We follow Sans towards a somewhat distant table, two large cushioned chairs on parallel sides. Frisk sits down with Sans on one side, and I follow Chara and take a seat on the other side. We are silent for nearly a full minute, the silence only being broken when a fire elemental waiter came over, a notepad in hand. "Hey, Grillbz. How ya doing there pal?" The waiter stared down at Sans quietly, and nodded his head. He spoke in a deep voice. "I am doing well thank you. And have you decided at what you want yet?" Sans chuckles, grinning at Grillby as he takes his famous order.

"Oh you already know what I'm getting. I can't resist my bottle o' ketchup!" The fiery waiter let's out what seemed to be a short laugh. "And for the guests that you brought?" Frisk was to first to speak before me or Chara could ask what there was to get. "I'll just get some fries please." Grillby then looked to Chara, ready to write down her order. "I suppose I'll have some fries as well." Grillby adjusted his glasses and looked at me next, waiting. I wasn't big on all the greasy foods that this place had, so I decided to go for a drink instead. "You got a soda?" I asked, hoping for something a bit more simple. Grillby nodded his head and wrote it down, staring at Sans. "And I suppose you want me to put it on your tab... Again?" Sans just shrugs his shoulders and nods his head, the orange waiter sighing and taking his leave. All we had to do now was wait. Sans broke the silence among us, not wanting to stray further from the topic anymore. "So... I heard you two were having relationship issues?" I twist my head to the side, that not seeming to be the case. Chara speaks up, somewhat offended. "Were doing totally fine together, why do you bring that up of all things?" Sans just shakes his head. "No, that's not what I mean. You gotta figure out something if everyone figures out, those kind of relationship problems."

I blink, the sudden difficulty of the situation increasing. I didn't want to admit it, but Sans was right. I knew that me and Chara couldn't hide our secret forever, and all four of us knew somebody would stumble upon it one point or another. Frisk sighs and shakes her head, voice slightly increasing. "Sans, I thought we already talked about this. We don't need some sort of plan. Sans just scratches his head, confused. "You just want em to blurt it out?" Chara freezes at that, a sharp expression on her face. "You want us to what?" Chara spoke a small bit too loud, as some of the other customers look over to the source of the noise. Grillby comes back over, everyone hushing at that point. Without words, he throws Sans the promised bottle of ketchup and puts a tray down containing two bagged fries and a Pepsi. But before anyone could utter a thanks, he walked off, probably to tend to other customers. We took our respective items, continuing along with our conversation. I speak, confused. "What do you mean we don't need one? You do realize this will backfire without any sort of reasoning?" I open the bottle with a fizz, taking a small swig of it into my mouth, relishing the rare taste and flavor. Frisk just grunts. "I'm telling you, you'll be fine without one. You have to trust me on this one." I was still skeptical. While I have put a large portion of my trust in Frisk before and they all turned out well, this was a big thing for me and Chara. Frisk seemed as if she was able to read our emotions as we eat, it being blatantly obvious we didn't get a thing that she was talking about.

Frisk takes a deep breath, clearing her throat. "Alright, I see I'm going to explain this slowly to you guys." I shift in my seat, not liking where this was going. "Now I know what you guys are talking about, which is understandable. But you have to remember, this is a group of friends that we are talking about. They are people that you can trust. Just because you guys held a small secret from them for a while doesn't mean they're gonna have anything against you.-" Chara interrupted with a obvious question that was to be expected from our side. "What do you mean a small secret? Can't you tell that this is a big deal for us?" I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down and hope she doesn't grow too loud. Frisk continued. "I know this is a big thing, revealing to others something so secretive, but they will understand and accept you guys, you hear? Me and Sans have yet to tell anyone else about our relationship as well, isn't that right?" Sans kept an unreadable expression on his face, nodding in confirmation. I quietly take in the information that Frisk has told us, feeling Chara calm down and start to take the advice into consideration silently.

More and more I thought about it, Frisk did indeed know what she was doing. While I did have my doubts, I knew things would turn out alright. While telling a group of people you grew up with that what they were seeing was never true would be a slightly chaotic, ours in particular would come around for us and listen. Don't they always? Chara suddenly looked down, somewhat ashamed at herself for doubting Frisk. "Listen, I'm sor.-" Frisk cut in quickly, a caring look on her face. "Don't be. You know what'll help? Perhaps the four of us do this together." Sans mumbled something incoherent under his breath, an unreadable expression. Chara's face lights up at that, hope suddenly filling her. I stare at her oddly, wondering just how that would work. "And how exactly do we do that?" Frisk just smirks, shaking her head. "You know, there's pretty good weather this summer. You haven't forgotten already, haven't you?" Frisk made no sense to me for the first few seconds, but then I wanted to face palm myself for forgetting so easily. "Those monthly gatherings? You want us to do it then?"

With a nod of her head, Frisk chuckles. "Well I'm gonna go back home, you know where to find me." She got up to leave the restaurant, slowly walking out the door. Chara gets up as well, staring at the door. "Well, I guess we're done here... Thanks Sans." Sans just waves his hand, watching her follow after Frisk quickly and quietly. I looked around to see less customers than before when we came in, the most popular part of the day done with. Now it was just me and Sans left, who just stared off into the abyss of his own world.