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It’s chilly when you wake, but there’s a tangible breach of cold to warm air when you move your arm in a groggy, post-awake, pre-coherent arc. You know the sun’s been up for some hours.
Light has been filtering through your bedroom window, warming the empty spot on the bed next to you. It’s deceptive, you think briefly behind stubbornly closed eyes. Normally, it should have cooled, its occupant having risen hours ago with a soft, fuzzy good morning kiss (Asriel’s therapy sessions are early on Saturdays), but it’s warm and he isn’t there but you need him.
So you roll over with a grunt and the blanket slides off you.
Awful.
Now that it’s your own fault you’re steadily approaching wakefulness when you’d really rather not, you prop yourself on your elbows and look around.
A gentle, pink-orange glow touches the surfaces of your room. Shelves filled to the brim with books, spaces for toys that have made way for more grown-up things, a large armoire not quite fit for three persons' worth of clothes, a couple of computers, posters plastered on the walls, a few figma from Alphys—reminders of the life you’ve been building for the past six-ish years.
It’s nice.
You feel far too old in your skin, though. Soul incongruent with the rest of your body, even after all this time.
Frisk shifts beside you, and you turn to watch them roll onto your blanket, becoming a larger human burrito than they were earlier, brown hair sticking out from the top end. A soft, amused huff escapes you and you crawl toward them. You’re awake when you don’t want to be yet and someone has to suffer through that with you.
“Frisk,” you call, petting their hair. “It’s morning…”
An incoherent mumble is your reply.
“Friiiiisk.”
A small hand takes yours hostage and a particularly sleepy face emerges from the warm roll of sheets, squinting at the sunlight.
“G’m’rn’ng.”
You giggle and nuzzle their cheek a bit awkwardly because they’ve gotten your whole arm already. “Good morning to you too—nng!”
Frisk is planting slow, warm (very warm) kisses up your arm.
“Leggo, you flirt monster.” You don’t mean it. You really don’t.
“G’morning,” Frisk sighs again, eyes closed (but still kissing!) and you’re pretty sure they aren’t functioning yet or they’re doing this on purpose.
You concede and snuggle close, sitting up so they have to as well, if they want to keep kissing you. They follow, and soon they’re wrapped around you from behind like a starfish, aggressively nuzzling the back of your neck, sighing deeply.
You hold their arms in place around your waist.
“What do you want to do?” you ask. “Azzy won’t be back with mom before lunch. Do you want breakfast?”
“Mmget it. ‘llbring it here. Mmbed.”
You laugh. “I have no idea what you just said.”
Frisk huffs in annoyance and jabs their chin on your shoulder. “Said ’m gonna be the one to go get food for us, but later.” And they burrow back behind you.
Something swells in your chest, no less tender as it is intense. It’s love, you’re pretty sure. You idly stroke Frisk's hands with your thumbs, a habit both of you picked up while you were still sharing a body, a sign of reassurance and a source of comfort. You hear them hum in response.
For all your alleged eloquence, all you can say is it’s pretty amazing that you’re enjoying moments like this. It’s all so very extraordinarily ordinary, the way you are here, a physical body, breathing again albeit a hundred years after your time, surrounded with people, with family who love you, living a life as normal as you could make it. You can only strive to be even more grateful for this than the day before.
You breathe in, and breathe out.
Once you think Frisk has fallen asleep again, a pair of very warm hands slides under your shirt.
Well then.
“You’re in a mood,” you remark gently, turning to see the mop of hair still burrowed behind you.
“Wanna kiss you,” comes quietly, a bit muffled, but you hear it loud and clear. Heat crawls up your neck.
“O-okay,” you whisper.
Both of you move to face each other. You settle against the rise of pillows and Frisk kneels before you, gazing at your face with an odd sense of awe you can’t quite keep the eye contact of without become self-conscious.
Frisk kisses your lips, gently, a couple of times for good measure. They make a soft sound when you rise to meet them on the third. Your lips are slightly parted, and you nip and suck and bite on their own, until they’re making more sounds and poking their tongue into your mouth. Both of you breathe hard through your noses, and your hands are running up and down each other’s backs, rumpling shirts, sheets, and hair. The room heats up, but Frisk is always always warmer than you are. It’s funny, because you’re sixteen and they’re sixteen and hormones are everywhere.
There’s an intake of breath and you realize you’ve been bounced back on the bed, cushioned against the pillows. Your shirt has ridden up and Frisk’s hands are on either side of your chest. You look up at them and the way their hair falls framing their smallish-face is lovely.
“Hello,” you greet, and they smile.
You’re sure your own face is red as well and both of you giggle as Frisk lowers themselves on you, cupping your cheek with one hand and titling your head so they can plant soft, sloppy kisses down your neck and shoulder. You hum appreciatively, because it tickles, it tingles, sending really good waves of something down your whole body and there and oh boy, you’re both gonna be at this all morning, huh?
But then Frisk pauses and sits up. They look like they’re contemplating something, knees straddling your waist.
You meet their look with slight confusion. “What is it?”
“Can I…?” their grip tightens at the hem of your shirt. “If only…only if you’re okay with it.”
“Oh.” You swallow. “...Okay.”
Frisk isn’t entirely convinced of your answer, but they slowly and gently ease your shirt off above your head. Your heart is pounding in your chest and you’re bracing yourself to beat down emotions rising within you—vulnerability, disgust, fear. You, Frisk, and Asriel have talked about this. You’ve never liked being touched or exposed, but lately you’ve become more comfortable, at least with the two of them. You haven’t really gone over the next step yet, and now you aren’t sure you even want to, and christ, all you want to do is hide somewhere forever and—
You inhale sharply when Frisk takes your face in both their hands, hoisting you out of your head. You try to smile for them.
“Sorry…spaced out.”
“’Sure you want to do this?” they ask gently. “’Cause I can stop if y’really don’t…”
Something stubborn pushes past your nerves. “I want to. But…I still don’t feel good about uh…this.”
There’s mischief in that smile. It’s still gentle, but knowing Frisk, you’re in for something. “I’ll take care of you.”
You smirk at that. “You always have.”
You help them take off your binder. You were never big, so there’s very little to bind, but putting it on anyway grounds you. You like the pressure (nevermind feeling like an old person). You toss the binder aside and lie back on the sheets, (almost but you might as well be) entirely naked, warming under Saturday morning sunlight like a cat.
For a moment, both of you aren’t too sure what to do next, but kissing is a good an interim as any. A soft meeting of your lips with a gentle sound, same as the ones before, but now holds a certain sense of reverence between you. You aren’t quite finished chasing that thought when Frisk begins trailing kisses on your jaw again, down your neck, slower than the last time, gently sucking on the skin they find there. A noise escapes you, high pitched and needy, and you feel Frisk’s hands on your back and waist grow warm upon hearing it.
“Ch-christ,” you mumble while they giggle.
They kiss all the way down your chest, sitting up to rest their palm on your bare sternum. They look at your flushed face and red lips.
“You’re beautiful, Chara.”
Something in your throat seizes and an old, slow zing of tension winds up under your skin, like an impending, painful cramp. You want to hide, to shy away from the touch. This really isn’t your thing, you aren’t ready yet, but when on earth will you be? One of the only two people whom you trust enough to touch you is sitting right in front of you.
Guilt flares inside your belly and cold settles all over you.
Almost immediately, Frisk’s hands cup your face. They’re so warm you wonder if your temperature’s suddenly dropped to freezing. They kiss your nose lightly and rest their forehead against yours, eyes closed. “Sssh, sssh,” they say.
It’s an exercise you’ve devised during your own therapy sessions. You close your eyes as well and listen to them, echoing the shushes in your own brain in the hopes that it would shut up. (It doesn’t work, but it makes you feel better, of only for a little while)
“Are you okay with me touching you?” Frisk asks, pulling away.
“I-I honestly don’t know, “ you say, helpless. “I want to be.”
Frisk nods, the look on their face something hilariously close to determination.
You’ve never really…liked how you look. Back when Frisk fought for a way for you and Asriel to get your own bodies, Toriel and Asgore had insisted that you retain your old physical appearance as teams of both monster and human scientists and magicians poked at your bones, trying to bind flesh to half a soul and your essence without violating physical and cosmic laws. You’d wish they’d given you…you dunno, laser vision at the very least.
Frisk shifts to run their hands down your arms and kiss the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of your forearm, near your armpit. You jump, squirming.
“F-frisk…”
“Your skin is really pale, and smooth, and pretty,” they mumble in between kisses.
They lace their fingers in yours and bring their lips to the pad of each one, slow, and reverent. “Your fingers are really long, and elegant.” They take one in their mouth and give it a suck. It sends a shock down your arm, fizzing out into something short of amazing down your spine. “I love watching you knit, or play the piano, or draw, or write, just to see them move.” They look up at you, eyes bright. “Like spider legs.”
You’re covering your face with your other hand at this point, peeking at them incredulously through your fingers. “Oh my god, oh my god what are you doing.”
Frisk runs their warm, warm hands down your waist, touch light but sure. They kiss from your chest down to your belly, sloppy and wet, leaving tracks of cooling saliva in their wake. You squirm even more.
“You’re tall,” they say. “And long,” a kiss. “And strong.”
You’re laughing now. “Rama lama ding dong, oh my god, Frisk, what are you doing?”
“Admiring you.”
They’re by your thighs, and you’ve gone very still.
Your breath hitches when they gently kiss the skin on the inside of your thighs. Your heart is hammering in your chest when they pause by the most intimate part of you, covered in pineapple patterned boy shorts.
They run their hands down your spindly legs, fingers pressing the sensitive underside of your knee and you jerk, narrowly preventing yourself from kicking Frisk in the face.
They kiss your bony ankles, before taking your feet and flexing them one after the other, lacing their fingers in between your toes and pressing down hard on your sole with their thumbs. It’s awkward, and your body jerks again, but the pressure feels unexpectedly good.
“Woah…” you croak out, unsure of yourself once more. Thankfully, they release you.
Frisk settles themselves between your legs. You feel acutely vulnerable, and under the intensity of their stare, you aren’t entirely sure whether you like it or not. Your heart settles for a jog instead of a full on sprint, so you guess it’s okay. They crawl up once more to meet your lips, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding into their open mouth. Frisk breathes in, and you’re getting lightheaded.
By some craft of shaky relief, fizzing through you like an open bottle of soda, you meet their sloppy kisses with your bitey ones, and both of you are making sounds that send the good tingles down your shoulders, your belly, up your spine to the top of your head and into the rest of the week.
“Was that okay?” Frisk asks once you’re apart. Barely an inch, barely above a whisper. You can feel their breath on your cheek.
You nod, not trusting your voice quite yet. “Y-yeah…yeah, it was good. Whatever that was.”
Frisk shrugs. “I know you don’t like people touching you—“
“Other people, Frisk. You and Azzy are different…”
“—so we figured we’d ease you into being comfy with it?”
You snerk and laugh. “Holy shit! There’s no way I’m going to let anyone who isn’t you two grope me—wait, you and Azzy talked about this?” More giggles erupt from your chest. “Oh my god, oh my god. What even.”
“You still don’t like it when mom or dad hugs you,” they say forlornly. Your heart goes out to this kid and their love of hugs.
“Yeah, well…”
It’s not that you don’t appreciate the sentiment. You can’t possibly express how grateful you are to the people around you, but being touched simply feels awkward (disgusting depending on who’s doing it) and touching someone else feels similarly…ill. That’s just how you are. Except towards some people. You laugh again. A jumble of contradictions is what you are, you think. If you rationalize it, touching isn’t so bad. You really do want to let others know you care, and physical contact is what is immediately reassuring to them, you want to be able to do that. With how crazy your life is, you want to approach at least some level of normalcy.
“I’ll try,” you say. “But if you think this is the way to do it, I’m calling both of you thirsty liars. If you two have plans, we’re gonna wait until we’re all eighteen like we promised.”
“Both of you are a hundred years older than I am,” Frisk reasons mock-incredulously.
You’re in the good mood to ignore the statement. “Being dead doesn’t count. Or other lifetimes. If it does, then we all add up to a millennium each, probably.”
Both of you fall silent, sobered.
“I’m sorry, that was depressing,” Frisk says.
You snort. “Don’t let Azzy hear you, you know how he feels about that.”
“How I feel about what?”
Both of you jump. Neither of you had heard the click of the door opening and suddenly, Asriel is there, preoccupied with entering the room holding his bag while carrying a plate with three pieces of French toast. He turns around and sees the state of your undress.
His lovely maroon eyes widen slightly. “Oh," he says. "Um, hello.”
Frisk grins and bounds off the bed, giving him a sure smooch on his snoot to which he sputters at and you’re equal parts endeared and embarrassed.
“How’d the session with mom go?” you ask.
“G-good. It was good. I’ll show you what we’ve done in a while.” Asriel says, letting Frisk take your breakfast to the bed while he takes off his scarf and coat. “I figured you two weren’t up? Because neither of you got any sort of food ready so I took some up and I didn’t know…”
You put on your binder with a grunt. “Yeah, we uh…”
“Started without you. Wanna join?” Frisk winks and dodges your pillow throw with expert ease.
“Oh my god, go eat or something.”
They concede, taking a bite out of the toast. Asriel laughs and settles by you on the bed. You gently tangle your fingers in his fur and kiss his face. His hands settle by your waist. They’re warm. Everyone around you is so damn warm, and you want to laugh again.
“So I guess Frisk told you about our brilliant plan?” he asks.
“Yeah, yeah,” you say and he snuggles up to you.
You settle against him, incredibly comforted more than anything else. Frisk asks Asriel about the day’s meeting with Toriel and you tune them out.
You sigh through your nose and look down at yourself. Clay, monster magic, human alchemy, half of Frisk’s determination, your old bones and memories are sitting inside you in a patched, jumbled mess of a body, but you’ve never felt more at home in it.
END