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A series of events including but not limited to Noelle being unavailable after school today and a weird fascination with Kris following that strangely vivid dream in the library led Berdly to the Dreemurr residence after Angel knows how many years, specifically to get some homework done with the aid of the aforementioned human. It was odd to admit that the catalyst for his big realisation came to him through a dream of all places, but maybe it was just his subconscious poking at him to finally own up to his… less than savory actions and make an effort to turn his life around (even if he was utterly lost on how to go about the matter) - and that, of course, started with him asking for help from people that weren’t named Noelle Holiday, as much as it wounded his ego to do so.
Who else would he go to but his sworn rival, the number three of the class, Kris Dreemurr? Now, despite all the talk earlier this wasn’t exactly his preferred way of spending a friday evening. It just so happened that Ms. Alphys assigned a particularly frustrating assignment to be done over the same weekend his dearest deer friend Noelle would be unavailable due to a variety of reasons, most of them being cross country training, and that he had a peculiar urge pulling him towards Kris as of late. It wasn’t a feeling too out of the ordinary, he reasoned just wanting to rekindle a rivalry (and friendship) lost to the troubled seas of teenagehood, and he isn’t one to pass up an opportunity presented on a silver platter.
Yet of course, he might have placed too much of his very precious trust in Kris’ grubby little hands, as Ms. Dreemur’s unamused look when she opened the door to him was enough for him to understand that her child had, as usual, not informed her of today’s plans.
“Hello, Berdly, what brings you here today? I do hope it is not about our library fees.” Her expression snapped into something more polite once she got over the initial shock of her uninvited guest, but her voice was still laced with warning.
Waving his free hand (hopefully) nonchalantly, he responded with a rushed explanation as to why he had shown up to her residence seemingly uninvited. He would have a talk with Kris about this later, but that relied on them actually showing up in the first place. Thankfully enough they hadn’t ditched on him and came scrambling towards the front door only a few seconds after.
Toriel’s eyebrows sprung up in mild surprise. “Oh, hello there.” She excused herself as soon as they arrived, waving away with a “Have a good time, Honey!” as Kris let Berdly in.
“Ah, Kris, Ms. Dreemurr is a bit.. How do I put this.. Intimidating at times. Is she always like this?” Berdly asked after making sure she was out of earshot.
Kris shrugged. “Nah, just with you. And you don’t have to call mom that when we’re at home.”
“But it would be highly disrespectful to call her by her first name!” He gawked, earning another shrug from Kris and no further answer. The walk to their room wasn’t very long, and he wasn’t comfortable enough to explore the rest of the house yet, so the two didn’t have much time for frivolous conversation.
Kris’ room was a lot to take in. It wasn’t his first time visiting their household, but most of their time spent together as kids was in the living room, since their older brother would promptly kick anyone out of their shared room if they dared to even go near it. Said brother’s side of the room was very distinctly his, walls lined with shelves littered with trophies and medals and other hard earned trinkets, and the distinct difference of a dusty but seemingly functional computer setup positioned in front of the bed. As much as he saw the potential in today’s study partner, he was well aware that their brother was the golden child of the family. Their beeline to the more drab part of the room without even stopping to glance at the other side only confirmed his assumption.
When he looked back he was met with Kris sitting on the floor patting their hand besides them, likely indicating Berdly to join them. It wasn’t ideal, but seeing as the only desk in there was occupied by their brother’s hunk of a desktop, he obliged. While settling down and unpacking what he came here to do, Kris mumbled “Do you really need help with this?”
Not even ten minutes in and they’re already questioning his intelligence! Maybe it was a terrible decision coming here, seeing as Kris clearly hasn’t changed one bit since they last talked-
“You wouldn’t really have much trouble with this if you sat down and thought about it. Is Noelle just there to help you focus?” Ah.
“W-well,” his voice strained a bit as he thought of an answer, “I’ll have you know that I did sit down and try it! Of course a simple assignment wouldn’t get in my way, it’s just better to have some company around so we can keep each other in check! Those As don’t earn themselves, after all!” He considered that a pretty solid argument, but when he turned to face Kris they looked like they were doing their level best to hold back laughter, and it seemed like their level best wasn’t enough because not a second later they were.. Making some sort of sound into one hand and pulling Berdly’s worksheet towards them with the other.
“Don’t you laugh at me! I’m being sincere here!” Berdly squawked, which thankfully worked at quieting them down.
“Okay okay, I’m not.” They pulled the worksheet closer to them, then nodded to themself in some strange satisfaction. “You’ve barely made it past the first question. You sure you don’t just struggle with sitting still and.. Doing it?”
Berdly narrowed his eyes at them. “Are you sure you’re not just making fun of me?”
“Pfft, maybe.” If he could see under their bangs they’d probably be rolling their eyes. “But really, I’m only saying that cus’ I do too.”
He opened his mouth to say something about how it was totally expected of them, and how it explained their disinterested and downright disrespectful attitude towards school, but decided against it. They were the only person who could help him at the moment and he didn’t feel like ruining that. Speaking of..
“If you struggle with it that much then why, if I may ask, did you agree to assisting me in the first place? Surely you must have some.. Ulterior motives?”
Kris threw their hands in the air, “Oh no, you caught me. I was gonna distract you and force you to play shitty browser games with me on Azzy’s computer.” Their monotone voice didn’t help with faking sincerity at all. Berdly mentally slapped himself for thinking how that’d actually be pretty fun to do with them.
“What, so I could yet again prove my superiority over you?”
“Nope, so I could see the look on your face when you struggle to get past the first level.”
“EXCUSE ME? I’ll have you know that I could solve anything that came my way with my eyes closed! In under a minute! While standing on one leg! Why you-”
A finger placed on his beak shut him up immediately, the sheer audacity Kris had to do that!
He opened his eyes to a shit-eating grin on the human’s face. Has he ever seen them smile for a reason other than pure malice against him?
Taking advantage of Berdly’s shock, they say “That’s the look I was talking about.” just quiet enough to startle him further. At some point during their little conversation they had leaned closer to him and looking at them now their grin had settled into something softer.
Berdly swatted Kris’ hand away and snatched his wrongfully stolen worksheet back.
“Alright then, if that’s how you want to treat your guest then I’ll just do this on my own! I should’ve known better than to ask you for help.” He huffed, placing emphasis on the word ‘you’. Kris went silent where they’d normally make a snarky comment, which he took as a cue to get started on his work.
A minute passed, then two, then five and Berdly had started to make some serious progress. Turns out Kris was right about him not needing help after all! A broken clock was right once a week, or however the saying went. He noted down a mental reminder to thank them before leaving.
The quiet of the room did irk him a bit, and he could feel the urge to look at anything but what he was doing eating away at him as it always did when he was alone. He wasn’t alone though, Kris was sitting right next to him! It wasn’t like it was unusual for them to be silent, he could swear that they’ve gone multiple school days without saying a word in the past. Yet something about the sudden disappearance of what he assumed was friendly banter between them worried him a little. Just a little.
He turned to speak to them again, but before he could get a word out he went mum. Kris was nestled in the corner between their bed and nightstand, absentmindedly fidgeting with their sleeves and staring.. Directly at him. They took notice of the sudden eye contact and fumbled a bit before turning away. Were they…? Yes, of course, Berdly could admit that he was far from an expert when it came to emotions, but even a fledgeling could tell that Kris was actively avoiding him!
“...Berdly.” Or not. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why, of course! Ask away.” Kris winced a bit as he spoke. Maybe acting overconfident wasn’t the right move here? A bit quieter this time, he followed up with “What is it?”
“Why did you ask me for help?”
“Well, I already told you over the phone- Noelle is MIA for the entire weekend and-”
“No, but why me?”
“Kris! I thought you knew better than to interrupt me mid-sentence.” He scoffed. “But as I was saying, Noelle wasn’t available and you’re the only other person in our classroom that comes even close to our standards. Still quite far away, yes, but close enough for me to swallow my pride…” He trailed off, slamming a wing over his beak to stop himself from finishing that sentence. Kris’ shoulders slumped further. Great going. Now they’re even more upset at him than they likely were before.
Quickly attempting to salvage the situation, he started again- “But that isn’t all, I.. I truly did want to spend some time with you again. It’s been quite a while since we last met up, and..” don’t mention the library don’t mention the library don’t mention the- “A certain.. Recent event blessed me with the realisation that you may be worth my time after all!” Kris was facing him again by now, but they still didn’t look fully convinced. “A-and I was.. I may have been pondering the possibility of staying a while after we’re done with our work to play a few rounds of Super Smashing Fighters together? As long as you allow it, of course.”
The last part wasn’t in any way a lie, yet at the same time he hadn’t envisioned himself admitting it so openly. As stated before- he just wanted to rekindle the passionate rivalry they shared as kids, and that day in the library… The Kris from his dream seemed so.. Disconnected from their real-life equivalent, but he knew well enough that he wouldn’t have conjured up such a heroic version of them without some real-life material to go off of. Really, commanding Susie around- of all monsters!- without breaking a sweat was a serious feat. How’d they become friends anyways? Last time he checked, Susie was just as hostile to them as she was to her other classmates.
Perking up at the suggestion Kris said “Really?” and Berdly nodded in confirmation. “Really. As with this,” He gestured around the poor excuse of a studying space the two had created, “I don’t really have anyone else to go to as of now… and it gets boring playing on my own after a while.”
The human hummed in consideration for a second. “Nobody at home? Not even your parents?”
“What? Of course not, why would my parents- My parents aren’t even home for a majority of the day, Kris. I thought this was common knowledge?” Apparently not, as Kris’ jaw dropped ever so slightly in what was most likely shock. “Oh. I didn’t… Know. My bad.”
“Really Kris, it’s alright with me. You haven’t ever gotten around to visiting my abode anyways, I won’t hold that above your head.”
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” He could see them fidgeting with their sleeves again. Odd that he’d see them do that multiple times now when he’s never observed them doing it before.
“At first, yes, but I’ve gotten used to it after a while! Being alone is quite nice once you settle into it, I don’t see any issues with having extra time to myself.” That was another thing he never expected to talk about, especially with Kris. Most of hometown’s residents pay no heed to his home life, which isn’t much of a surprise. It’s his family, not theirs, who are they to say anything?”
Kris nodded at him. Thinking about it now, he did wish his parents would’ve given more time to him as a kid. He got praise for his grades and the spelling bee, but that was the extent of the attention he received. He had Noelle, his closest and admittedly only friend, who never turned down a study session with him unless absolutely necessary. It was a bit of a shame that the human next to him, the resident quiet shut-in, had more friends than him now. They and Susie became buddy-buddy out of the blue one day, and they had started to warm up to Noelle again after the library. What was that about?
He was, strangely enough, happy for them despite his other feelings towards the matter. Why was he thinking about Kris again?
“Berdly.” Kris said again with a twinge of hesitation in their voice. Before he could respond, their arms were wrapped around him in what was possibly the most stiff and awkward hug in all of history. They were warm- a lot warmer than he expected them to be, they had to shuffle over a bit to hug them and they were still sitting beside him so it wasn’t a very comfortable position for either party but their hair was actually pretty soft despite its messy appearance and wow, they really did smell like apples.
They pulled away after a few seconds and Berdly could see them shaking as they heaved themself off the ground and excused themself to the bathroom, giving him absolutely zero room to ask them what the hell just happened. Mind blank and with a strange feeling bubbling up in his chest, he went back to his work to pass the time while Kris was gone.
By the time they were back, Berdly was practically done with his assignment. Whether it was a result of Kris taking forever to return or just a well timed boost in his concentration stat, he had no idea.
He had already finished packing up and was awkwardly lingering around Kris’ bed while waiting for them. Sitting on it uninvited would be plain weird after what happened earlier.
Once again, they were the first to break the silence. “I don’t know what prompted me to do that. Sorry.”
There was genuine worry in their voice that was all the more evident by the fact they had started fiddling with their sleeves again. Perhaps it was a nervous habit? They seemed pretty on edge right now.
“It’s- it’s alright. Just inform me beforehand if you’re planning on hugging me again, okay?” God how he wished Kris would hug him again, more comfortably and without running away afterwards.
Their expression turned devilish again as they pointed to each side of Berdly’s face. “What? What are you looking at???” He whisper-yelled, which pushed Kris over the edge and caused them to laugh.
“Your feathers- Do your feathers always puff out like that when you’re embarrassed?” They manage to say in between breaths. He frantically pats his face down. What in the world were they talking about?
“Embarrassed? Embarrassed about what?”
“I dunno, something. You usually only get this flustered when you’re losing to me.”
“I do NOT!”
“Yeah you do.” Their smile resembled the one from before the… incident, soft and genuine. Berdly felt a secret sense of pride in making Kris happy like that. He smiled too, then dropped it as soon as he saw Kris go back to their stupid grin. So much for that.
“Say, I’m gonna take up your offer from earlier. Looks like you’re done anyways.” They said, turning their heel out of the door. “Knew you had it in you.”
It took him a moment to recall what said offer was, but as soon as he did Berdly dashed down the stairs after them. “WAIT FOR ME! I KNOW you’re rigging my controller down there!”
“You snooze you lose!” They called out from their living room. “And I’m always down for a rematch if you are.”
“Wh- Wow Kris, admitting defeat already? We’ll see then!”
No matter the results of their matches, he knew he’d be coming back to visit them. He was sure of it.