Chapter Text
Kris has been through a lot of weird shit. A decent bit of that shit has been self-inflicted, they can concede to that, but the parts that weren't were pretty up there. Any group of punks playing 'Trauma Olympics' would think stuff they can barely remember is so bad it would be enough to take the cake, but the situation they found themselves in now? The badly photo-copied illustration of a human body, much too similar to their own, projecting against the white board at the front of the class? Angel save them, they wouldn't wish any equivalent of this moment on their biggest enemy, and it's pretty close to second on their list of 'Worst Things to Happen, Ever'.
"Alright, everyone! Lets, um, focus up here please," Alphys rubs her hands together nervously, raising her nasally voice over the din of the classroom. It's so close to the end of the day that everybody's already checked out mentally for the most part, so it took a moment for her to get every student's attention again. "Okay, so— last month we worked on xenopology and the different variations of a monster's physical makeup. Or the uh, the most common variations, that is. We could never cover every kind of monster, aha!"
She chuckles dryly, adjusting her glasses. The group of burnt out teens continues to stare at her with eyes glazed over by the knowledge they don't have to be here much longer. Kris watches the clock tick down to freedom above her desk, a sinking feeling in their gut. They catch themselves picking at the skin of their lip, and snatch their hand away, sticking both of them under their thighs and leaning forward to try to get themselves to stop. Alphys coughs, and continues.
"So, this month, you'll all be doing personal projects on our next topic— anthropology!" The reptilian with multiple PhDs gives them all a skittish smile like they were going to bite her. Kris feels the sinking sensation turn into a wave as all the air whooshes out of them in a quiet gust, their diaphragm growing tight. They might actually bite her, and happily. How much jail time would you get for attacking a teacher? They would definitely be tried as an adult now if she pressed charges. That had to be a bodily fluids charge, for sure.
There's the thump of a foot connecting with the plastic of their seat beneath them. Kris whirls around in their chair, the collar of their sweater straining against their throat uncomfortably as they glare daggers at Susie where she's leaned forward in her seat behind them. They try to channel every ounce of murderous intent they had into the gesture, but she's already grinning at them with a look that usually starts shit, sharp teeth glinting in the fluorescent lighting every classroom in the county seemed to favor. Kris understands she can't see the furrow of their brow to know they're glaring at her, but she can see the clench of their jaw and the set of their mouth, a clear show of their displeasure. Despite it, her grin only gets wider. They turn back around and slump down in their seat, soured by the teasing and all too aware of the eyes of their other classmates settling on them like a heavy weight.
"You'll all be doing a personalized presentation on any topic of your choosing as long as it pertains to the study of humans and how their bodies work, and it remains, uh… appropriate." Alphy's line of sight zeros in on Kris and the idiot vibrating in her seat behind them. Kris just slumps further behind their own desk, chin tucking into the now-stretched collar of their sweater. Their back hurt with the position, but they ignored it. As much as Susie still liked to call them short, they'd officially gotten too tall to be comfortable in the desks they'd used their entire adolescent life. 'This is going to suck major truck-nuts,' Kris thinks to themselves bitterly, biting at their freshly stinging lip until they taste iron. 'Angel, spare me.'
"This counts for a decent chunk of your grade, and—" The universe decides to answer their provocative prayer and the bell rings, interrupting Alphys. Kris has never heard a sweeter sound. "—oh, shoot! Please don't forget to grab a packet for your project at my desk on your way out, everybody. Have a nice weekend!"
As the room fills with the sound of general chatter and the scraping of chairs, Kris doesn't get up immediately, stewing in their own despair and embarrassment for a moment longer. A shadow falls over them, and they look up through their bangs without moving their head to glare up at Susie as she leans over them further, an annoying little smirk on her lips. Her bag is already slung over her shoulder, Toriel's very visible mending on the strap a bright splash against the dark color of the worn canvas. Seeing it made Kris feel slightly better, as did her invading their personal space. She's their meat shield, their barrier to the world outside of their peculiar dynamic.
"Come on dude, don't pout. This is basically a free pass for you, right?" Susie bumps her knuckles lightly against their forearm, a mockery of the violence they both prefer. Kris responds with an indignant puff of air, and turns away from her even more to begin slowly packing their school supplies back into their brother's old backpack. Susie just snickers at them, stepping back to sit on Catti's vacated desk, the old plastic and metal groaning beneath her weight. As she does, Kris catches Noelle glancing over her shoulder at Susie out of the corner of their eye. They zip their bag shut, and don't intervene as Noelle fully turns around in her seat to strike up conversation with Susie, just like she always did.
"Oh, Susie! I see you beat me to asking for Kris's help, faha." Noelle's eyes dart to them, then back to Susie, her smile kind enough. It rubbed Kris the wrong way anyways, because Susie hadn't asked them for help, yet. She totally would, but it felt weird when others perceived their relationship like that and pointed out the obvious.
On the other end of that spectrum, it's really easy to notice things about people when they can't see where you're looking. Kris had learned this in church first, when they'd fought their mom off just long enough about a haircut to actually have anything in front of their eyes, and immediately realized it was going to be their preference for the foreseeable future. They don't care how many jokes about being emo Asriel and Susie both make, their bangs are an evolutionary survival tool for them at this point. They pull out their phone, clearing the few notifications they had while pretending to not be nosy.
Noelle looks like she's doing well, for the most part. Her school uniform is always neat, with crisply ironed lines and a festive vest free of lint or the white fur that plague's Kris's laundry days. Her blonde hair isn't overly frizzy, or greasy, and her antlers shone with some kind of wax or polish that left Kris feeling particularly pissy for no good reason. Despite that, she looked… tired. The dark tracks in the chestnut brown fur by her tear ducks were a bit darker and longer than usual down the sides of her snout, her red nose dry of the usual moisture it held.
At least they weren't the only one stressed out these days.
"I don't have to ask them, they just got me like that," Susie boasts, picking up her knees slightly to be able to kick her feet back and forth above the ground. "Right, Kris?" They jerk a bit as she kicks their desk again from across the aisle, and Kris snorts, but doesn't look up from their phone. That gets them another kick to their desk, which pulls a small smile out of them that seems enough to sate her after that.
"Well, if at any point you guys want to work on stuff together, maybe we could all meet up at my place and—?" Today is a great day for stuff Kris doesn't want to hear getting interrupted. They might have some religious psychosis issues if this continues.
"Worry not, my cervine demoiselle!" Berdly is here now, interjecting himself down the aisle in between Kris and Susie. Kris wrinkles their nose at the sudden proximity and the unmistakable odor of pizza body spray, but spares him any grief due to their remaining gratitude. They had to talk to him about getting a different brand the next time they hopped online together, though. "I happen to know plenty on the topic of homo-sapiens and their general nature, and anything I don't know we can find in the upper portions of the Libarby's labyrinth of literature! Resort not to the little knowledge Susan and Kris may be able to depart on you, my dearest friend and partner."
"Look at that, Berdly just admitted he doesn't know something." Susie's entire palm settles over Berdly's face like a WNBA player's over a basketball, and she shoves him bodily out of the way so she can lean towards Noelle to answer her question. He stumbles out of the aisle, feather's thoroughly ruffled, and begins to squawk at her indignantly about personal space and boundaries like a total hypocrite. She ignores him, lip curled slightly in a way it always did when she's being a little mean and enjoying it. It's one of Kris's favorite expressions on her. "Anyways— you two grew up together, so you should be a human expert by now, right Noelle? We'd be down to come over at some point for sure to get some pointers. And snacks; we don't work for free."
Kris loves when Susie speaks for them… most of the time, but not this time. They did not want to work on this bullshit project with anybody else, snacks or no snacks.
"Oh, uh, yeah! I guess," Noelle giggles a little too hard as Susie pushes herself off of the desk, re-slinging her bag over her shoulder before pushing past Berdly to walk towards the door, who continues to berate her in increasingly creative ways. Noelle stands at the same time she does, calling after Susie and notably only talking to her when she says, "I look forward to having you guys over. I'll do my best to host!"
"Sick. C'mon, Kris. Let's go figure out what the hell to do for this dumb project." Susie rumbles over her shoulder at them, before dipping out the door without a moment of hesitation. Alphys had plopped down at her desk, looking worn out, but she picks up two packets to hand to Kris on their way out, fully aware Susie had no plan on grabbing one.
Kris rises to their feet like a soldier given an order when Susie addresses them, giving Noelle the tiniest smirk as they brush past her in the aisle, the only thing separating them being the bar of the desk between them. The faint smell of fir tree and clove fills their nose as they do, familiar and fake, like a seasonal display at a store. The tight smile she gives them fills them with a satisfaction that might not be super healthy, but they don't care too much to make any real observation on it as they chase after Susie, snatching the two worksheets from Alphys and skittering out of the room before she can try to talk to them in private about their feelings on the upcoming project, or something else dumb like that. Kris leaves Noelle to be the subject of Berdly's whining, catching up as Susie marches down the hallway ahead of them. The halls had already cleared for the most part, perks of living in a small town.
It takes them a second to catch up despite that— her legs were longer than theirs, not their fault —but once Kris does they fall into an easy cadence with her. Squinting as their eyes adjust to the sunlight outside the front of the school when they push through the double doors together, the brisk air only slightly colder than the AC of the hallways, they make their way off the school grounds. Kris and Susie don't talk much as they walk, their feet following the same path they do every day after school. Trudging down the sidewalk to the East of town, past familiar front lawns and the few businesses the town had, two pairs of worn-out sneakers scraped against the concrete until it turned to gravel, and then sandy dirt, and then cold lake water is lapping at the soles of their shoes.
"You good?" Susie asks them bluntly after a moment of silence. She didn't sit in silence very well when they weren't actively doing something, not like Kris did, but she's slowly gotten better at it over the course of their friendship. Slowly being the key word there.
Kris just shrugs, bending down to pick up a particularly flat stone, knees cracking with the movement. They don't bother to stand again before their arm lashes out, the stone plunging deep into the water instead of skipping like they want it to. The remains of the splash splatters against the surface of the lake in a rough ring. Susie chuckles lightly, and the sound makes them feel better instead of worse. They're downwind from her, and as the shivers across the back of their neck, it brings with it her familiar scent of cheap laundry detergent, deodorant on its last leg, and something musky-sweet that always had Kris taking a second, deeper breath in through their nose.
They were a big smells-person, they realized. They kind of knew that already a little bit, but still formally catalogued that information into the back of their head for later, not exactly sure what to do with it right then. They were always distracted easily.
"What if you just slimed out a fish, dude? With like, a loving wife and kids?" Susie jokes, large hands tucked into the pockets of her worn collared jacket. The scales on her hands, elbows, knees, and ankles chapped easily in colder weather, Kris had learned over time. She continues, "Fish-slaughter in the first degree. I'll testify as a witness in court. Justice, and all that."
That finally gets Kris to snort, maybe a little bitterly, and she leans over them where they're crouched on the ground with a triumphant expression on their face. She's always checking in on them, trying to cheer them up, or make them laugh. As they tilted their head back to look up at her, the hair obscuring their vision falling to the side slightly, they realized just how grateful they were that she hadn't been looking at them the same way the other kids in class had been earlier. She'd gotten their attention when she'd noticed their discomfort, smiled at them— even if she looked like a creep while doing it —and Kris couldn't help whatever their face looked like in that moment as they stared up at her. The wind swept it's way across the bank again, tousling Susie's hair into her face as her smile grew more and more nervous the longer they just looked at her, saying nothing. They could tell she's nervous because her snout tended to twitch a bit, and her mouth got tight around the edges of her smile, exposing the pink gums above her canines more.
"Dude, whatever— wipe that face off your face!" She snaps down at them, flicking the crown of their head harshly before raking her claws through her thick hair to try to fix it. Kris winces at the sharp thunk against their skull and looks away from her, cheeks feeling hot. "Lets figure out what our projects are, doofus."
"Mm." Kris grunts, staring back out at the surface of the lake. The water had finally stopped rippling where they'd thrown the stone; the only waves on the surface now were from the wind. They feel the vibration of the thud through the sandy ground as Susie plops down beside them, dumping her bag off her shoulders behind her and crossing her legs without a single thought on how dirty her clothes were getting. Her knee brushes theirs, and Kris doesn't move away. They were fine with someone being in their personal space as long as it's Susie. That isn't a hard thought to have, either.
Their best friend leans forward into Kris's direct line of sight, shaggy hair falling over her shoulder and yellow eyes glinting like the sun rays reflecting off the lake's surface. There it is, the same look from the classroom. It's the look that told Kris Susie had an idea, and they've given up on trying to predict the things she'd come up with a long time ago. They make a vague hand gesture at her that boils down to, 'Come on, out with it'.
"Okay man, hear me out…" As she leans in to loudly whisper her idea to them, Kris can't help but reciprocate the encroachment, leaning in to siphon her warmth from the air between them. They decide then and there that they'll put up with whatever stupid idea she comes up with as long as it means they get to be with her like this every day they work on it together.
It's one assignment, and while it's a particularly cringe one, but it wouldn't be that bad. They had flunked and passed plenty of projects together before, and it's part of the reason they even became friends in the first place. What's another commitment on top of the few they've already made?