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Idle Hands

Summary:

You needed purpose. You were just that type of person. If there was a task to be done, you worked toward it. Without a task, you were lost. Asriel and Frisk were both the aimless type, but not you. In purpose there was control. In control there was safety...

Notes:

So, I decided to go with the ship for a while and put a few fics with into a short series. Ha, I really don't deal with stress well. I just write and roleplay all day.

Why did I name the series the Jersey Devil? Because it looks like a mix between a goat, a demon, and a human to me, which is basically this ship.

Work Text:

Idle hands were the devil’s playthings.

That was one of the many things you remembered learning from your biological parents. You’re worthless if you do nothing, you’re useless if you work. You’re unworthy if you cry, you’re sinful if you smile. Everything you did was bad back then. That’s why it meant so much when the Dreemurrs praised the living daylights out of you. You didn’t need all that, but it was nice. They were nice and you were happy.

Too bad you killed yourself.

But that was in the past. You were alive again because a certain clingy human decided that they couldn’t let you go. No, no, if they had Asriel, they just had to have you too. What a greedy child, and Frisk had never grown out of the selfless greed. They called you tsundere for saying it, but you didn’t ask them to save you. It was safer if you remained dead, dead and harmless. Yet, here you were, years later, with a magic body and a pair of datefriends. You suppose you’re happy. It took you a long time to remember that feeling again.

But idle hands were the devil’s playthings.

You couldn’t work. You tried jobs in monster exclusive workplaces, but they all required magic and though you were made of it, you couldn’t use it. You couldn’t work with humans either. Nobody even considered asking you if you wanted to try it. Frisk and Asriel just knew you wouldn’t be able to. You still had too much fear and hate. It was a life time ago now, but you still hated humans.

Well, most humans.

No, all humans.

You weren’t human anymore. You were a demon made of magic that just so happened to look like a human and had been born a human, but you weren’t one. You were a completely unique creature.

That wasn’t to say you hated Frisk either. (You remembered you father saying that you had to hate someone to love them, but you never believed it. You remember how nearly killed your mother, told you he hated you and wished you were never born, then told you that hate was a part of love. You would never be like him. You were better than him.) Frisk just wasn’t human in your eyes. More like an angel, or some kind of weird mercy god. Maybe that was why their eyes were always closed. Eyes were the window to the soul and if someone saw their eyes, they would see your datefriend was divine.

They took such good care of you, Asriel and Frisk. Frisk was an ambassador, and with the money they made, neither you nor Asriel had to work. Asriel chose to, though, once he was sure you could take care of yourself, once he was sure you were well enough to not want to go back to being dead. He started working with your shared mother at the school. He was a good teacher. Everyone loved him (just not as much as you did). They always said that you didn’t have to work, that you could stay home all day and knit or watch Disney movies or something.

But idle hands were the devil’s playthings.

Knitting was nice. It gave your hands something to do while you mind worked on hundreds of different stories that you wanted to write. You liked writing. It gave you an outlet for your anger. You’d tried video games, but you scared everyone you tried to play with (Frisk broke your copy of Mario Party X by ‘accident’ after you told Papyrus you would grind his bones to dust if you knocked you off of one more god damned platform). Writing and knitting wasn’t enough to cover a lifetime, though.

Eventually you found your way to pay back your two datefriends. You couldn’t work and it wasn’t like you were just going to let yourself owe them. Instead, you decided the best course of action was to take care of everything in the house. Nobody would have pegged you for a housespouse, but here you were, chopping up carrots for a casserole. You felt like some kind of stereotype, but even then, you actually liked it. You like the rhyme of doing this, of destroying to create instead of destroying for destruction's sake. Cooking kept you grounded. You could work and still care for your loved ones. It hadn't taken you a while, you realized you wanted to care (not just protect) for Frisk and Asriel. There were everything to you.

Of course the same didn’t go for other chores. (You hated most of them but pretended to like them so you didn’t catch Asriel trying to do them behind your back when he should be marking papers!) But you did them anyways. You hate to feel like a burden. You needed purpose. You were just that type of person. If there was a task to be done, you worked toward it. Without a task, you were lost. Asriel and Frisk were both the aimless type, but not you. In purpose there was control. In control there was safety. You knew where your desire for purpose stemmed, but you didn’t talk about it. It was private. Nobody needed to know, least of all your datefriends. You wouldn’t worry them.

You finished chopping up the last carrot and put it with the rest. You really were the master of the knife, weren’t you? You’d give it a flashy flip, but right now your hands were covered with carrot juice and you were pretty sure that it would kill you if you accidentally stabbed yourself with it. Stupid delicate magic body. Instead you looked at what you’d achieved.

Oh the three of you were going to feast tonight. You grinned. Move aside Papyrus, there was a new Master Chef in town! You were going to put your knife away when you realized it still wanted to chop, it still wanted to cut…

Your fingers were so close to the knife’s blade. So close it could be an accident. You couldn’t get away with this kind of behaviour anywhere else. Frisk and Asriel always always always checked you for new scars, because they knew you. You let out a deep breath and placed the knife back with the others. The familiar pride from the day that Toriel first gave you knife privileges rose as a reward. Yes, you were good. You weren’t giving in to old impulsive today. You were stronger than that. You were getting better. Not completely fixed, but better.

Idle hands were the evil’s playthings, but your hands were never idle so they were nobody’s playthings. Well, maybe Frisk and Asriel when they wanted hand holding. Ugh, the things you did for them.

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