Chapter Text
Dess was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her treehouse, waiting for her friend. She’d been waiting patiently for the past hour, or more playing on her old Game Box portable, trying to take her mind off of the potentially catastrophic news she may hear at any moment.
She had been nearing the end of her favourite platforming game when she finally heard what she had been anticipating – someone ascending the steps to join her in her realm. She turned off the game, all thoughts of beating it thrown aside with the console. The time between each successive step seemed to get longer and longer, until her anticipation finally ended as she saw the top of a familiar face.
However, their arrival this time was nothing short of a tragedy. The human tried to hide their emotions the way they usually did, but Dess had learned how to see through the façade by now, and what she saw drained her of hope.
“Cut the crap, just tell it to me straight.” Dess cut right past any pleasantries, before the human had even had time to settle down beside her. She knew what they would say before a word had left their lips – even still, the anticipation was killing her, made worse by the fact that Kris was taking much longer than usual to speak, seemingly thinking.
“You were right. They’re definitely dating.”
“You’re sure?”
“100% sure. They were holding hands nearly the whole time, and I even saw them kissing for a sec as they-”
“I get it, I get it! Urgh! Oh, Angel, Krissy, can you imagine how insufferable the two of them are gonna be about this?”
“I don’t have to imagine, I SAW them.”
“Yeah, but you don’t live under the same roof as Noelle, do you? She was bad enough talking about her raging crush before, but now?” Dess shivered as she imagined just what that would entail, while Kris stayed silent, as they knew Dess had a point. Kris could avoid Noelle easily enough by day by hiding in at home or in a tree, but Dess had no such long term options.
“Anyway, we need to get back at them for this. Gotta make the two of them know how it feels to die of embarrassment every time they step outside.” Kris agreed with the general sentiment behind her words, but didn’t feel quite ready to condemn the pair to death for their actions. Still, they knew better than to argue against Dess when she got fired up like this. They figured that they could cut the tension a little before they began brainstorming for real, with preferably limited violence involved.
“We could pretend we’re dating too.”
“Mhm, maybe that would – wait, what the HELL are you on about?” Dess had spent the vast majority of her life around Kris, being privy to some incredibly hare-brained schemes. Yet, for all her experience with Kris, this was maybe the last thing she was expecting from them.
“You heard me. I’m certain Susie wouldn’t be very happy to hear me waxing poetic about my lovely girlfriend all day and all night, and I get the feeling Noelle would be quite the same.” For being intended as a joke, Kris realised the idea had more merit than they initially thought, and so decided to go forward with it. Dess seemed to realise the same thing.
“I mean… I guess not. Hah, remember when I teased her by joke dating Asriel years and years ago? She had to complain to Dad to get me to shut up! Still, that only worked because everyone assumed me and Azzy WOULD get together, so it was believable! It wouldn’t make sense if it was the two of us!”
“Why not? I mean, I don’t entirely remember those days, but I’d be willing to bet we hang out more now than you and Asriel ever did back then.” Dess thought a little about it, and came to the conclusion that they were right.
There was hardly a day where Kris and Dess didn’t spend the majority of their free time together, regardless of if it was in school in a group with Asriel and Noelle, or after school was over, or on weekends.
Kris and Dess had been close ever since their first meeting, being similar enough in their interests and personality to hit it off despite their two-year age difference. However, they only seemed to grow closer and closer with time, to the point that now both of them spent more time with each other than everyone else combined, a fact that didn’t sit well with many people around town, Asriel in particular. However, Kris found his passive aggressiveness funny, encouraging them to spend even more time with their friend, something Dess in turn appreciated, despite hardly ever showing it.
“Heck, Azzy already implies he thinks I’ve got a crush on you when he’s in a bad mood. You know how popular he is with people in town - all we’d need to do is convince him and within the week, everyone’s gonna treat us being a pair as fact.” Kris’ mind seemed to be operating on autopilot, their words not quite their own. Still, their points were good, good enough that Dess finally seemed convinced.
“Alright, assuming we go along with your ridiculous plan, what next? How are we supposed to act? I don’t have much dating experience, and I know you’ve got even less.”
“Same way we usually do. We already spend enough time around each other to make it look natural, I guess. Plus, just in case we need to look more convincing, we could always-”
“Stop. Don’t say anything. I’m going to make one thing clear – under NO circumstance am I going to kiss you, you got that? Try it, and I swear to the Holy Angel above that my bat is meeting your face faster than you can start to regret your life choices.” Kris knew, or at least hoped, Dess had stopped hitting people with her bat a few years back, carrying it around only intimidate people (or to ‘look cool’, in her words), but couldn’t help but feel ever so anxious at the threat.
“I was just going to say we could hold hands if people don’t believe us, sheesh. Seems to me a certain someone’s afraid of a certain something – don’t worry, I know how to kiss people properly.” As they predicted, Dess began to laugh while giving them a fake wedgie to signify her “anger”.
“As if I’d ever wanna kiss a skinny freak like you, Dreemurr! Har har har! Well, good to hear we have that cleared up, at least. I…I suppose the plan is a go, then? What do we do?”
“I say we go down to QC’s and reward ourselves for our brilliant plan. Hot chocolate?”
“Only if it’s mint flavoured.” Kris wasn’t the biggest fan of mint, preferring cinnamon apples, but was too lazy to argue against it.
“Deal. You’re paying, then?” Dess jumped down the last few steps of the treehouse ladder to join them at the bottom.
“What do you mean, ‘you’re paying’? Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because I came up with the plan, so you owe me.”
“I owe you a beat down, maybe. Besides, it’s not nice to make the lady in a relationship pay for her own stuff, so YOU should be the one to pay for the both of us now.”
“Ahh yes, the ‘lady’ who carries around a big wooden bat everywhere she goes. You’re a shining example of a princess, you are.”
“Shut your trap!”
They argued happily all the way until reaching the gate, which they both climbed over, as was the norm by now, despite Dess having her keys on her. Once they did, she began to speak before either of them took a step forward
“Do you think we should hold hands on the way there?”
“Why? I thought that was gonna be the last resort in case no one believed us.”
“Maybe, but it can’t hurt to start now, right? We might see Asriel on the way, and that’d probably convince him better than anything we could ever say.”
“So would a kiss.”
“I swear to the Angel, Krissy…” Dess held her bat more visibly, but Kris was well aware she wouldn’t use it.
“Ha ha ha, you know I’m joking, calm down. If you insist, then we might as well.”
“Oh, I’m doing this for your sake, y’know? I’m betting my monthly allowance you’ll clam up once we get there, so you wouldn’t be able to convince anyone that you’re able to speak, let alone that we’re together.”
“Good point. Fine, come here.”
As they locked hands, they both felt a jolt run through their bodies. They didn’t really hold hands back when they were children, Kris preferring Azzy and Noelle as handholding partners and Dess being averse to handholding, or in very rare cases, begrudgingly letting her dad hold her hand. However, it felt like they had been doing so since their very first meeting, the way that their hands slipped into the others’ as though they were personally fitted for the other. Despite neither hand holding the other tightly, they both seemed very inflexible and unmovable.
“Earth to December. Are you planning on staring at the wonder that is my hand forever, or are we getting something to drink?”
“Don’t call me December, you’re not my mother. Thank Heaven for that.”
“Yeah, but you need a pet name, and ‘Dess’ won’t do, since literally everyone calls you that.”
“I don’t need a pet name, damn you. What am I supposed to call you, then? ‘Krismas’?”
“Nope, that’s more your father and Noelle’s thing, how about…”
This continued all the way to QC’s, the pair of friends perfectly fitting their roles by bickering as though they had been a couple for years and years.