Chapter Text
Kris lurched up from where he was sat at Noelle's computer like he had been grabbed by the shoulders and lifted to stand. Noelle had been in the middle of explaining a lengthy 'trick' she read online to get a rare cat in Cat Petterz 2, to a disinterested but cooperative Kris, but her breath caught mid-sentence now. She watched as he stepped around the computer chair with measured steps, head low to avoid meeting her eyes.
"Is it alright if I go and get a snack? " They asked, out of routine more than to actually get an answer, and indeed they barely waited for Noelle's silent nod before jerking around and pacing towards the dinning room.
Within moments, the house was filled by a haunting piano refrain, and Noelle rested on the couch to listen. This was the routine, as it had been for weeks. Her friend was prone to strange behaviors like this, seized by fey moods. She had come to accept it- what else could a child of 8 do but rationalize it in such simple ways. Even the slightly older Asriel accepted the unusual mannerisms of his younger 8-year-old brother- and so an example was set to follow.
Kris may be strange, but if his brother accepted it, then so would she as his friend. But, well, she could never completely stop being unnerved. S-sometimes he just, got a little intense, is all.
His dreams had been skewed and bizarre for the longest time. Longer than he could recall anymore. It had started very young, when he was just 7. It had been, scary, at first. Thinking something was wrong with himself. Knowing something was wrong with himself, rather, after he made Noelle cry. Sometimes when the moods were strong, he got fairly intense, and apparently scary. This reflected in his dreams- sometimes he saw himself coated in Dust and blood. Those dreams never lasted very long, thankfully.
6 years had passed since then- he was now 13, and in 8th grade. Despite his performance in school never being consistent enough to earn honors, his performance on tests had been exceedingly excellent for the last few years. The school had recommended he skip a grade at least once that he knew of, but his mom had thankfully declined at his request. He didn't have many friends as it was, and wasn't interested in furthering a gap between himself and Noelle.
A thundering banging at his bedroom door jerked him from his thoughts and he lurched upright, so quickly an observer might not have seen the movement at all- simply seeing him go from laying down to sat upright instantly.
"Kris! Kris, if you do not wake up, we will be late for school!" Toriel called from the hallway, before knocking again, loudly.
"I'm up!" he spoke up when her knocking toned down enough to get a word in. He threw his blanket aside and sat on the edge of his bed, waiting until he heard his mom's footsteps move away, towards the kitchen. It was then that he looked down at the aftermath. Some days it was worse than others. This, reflex, that he had. A readiness, like he expected to be attacked at any moment, a constant stress. It had come along with the voices.
His alarm clock read 7:20 AM, and that was what it would read for the rest of its days, though at least it would still be right once a day. The plastic frame of the digital clock was fragmented into dagger-like shards, exploding outwards from the crushed center where Kris' hand had pulverized it this morning in a moment of battle-panic. He cared little for the clock, though its valiant death was likely to result in his mom having to wake him more often in the future.
His larger concern was his right hand. Plastic shards had cut deep into the skin, leaving multiple rough and bleeding wounds that streaked his entire hand in blood, and was beginning to leave a not unnoticeable stain in his blanket. That would be hard to explain. No time to hide this, he would just have to explain it away.
Kris put on a shoe and reared back his leg, before smashing his nightstand with a side-of-the-foot kick as loudly as he could, swearing.
Toriel was through the door in an instant, rushing to see Kris wrapping his hand in his blanket. Quite the clumsy accident it had been, getting out of bed only to slip and smash his hand on his alarm clock trying to catch himself. He told mom several times he was ok, but she insisted on seeing to his hand- she knew exactly how stubborn Kris was. With the wound washed and wrapped Toriel and Kris were on the road in no time to school.
Toriel had of course called to tell the school they would both be about a half hour late, so when Kris entered class halfway through the first lesson, Alphys was unsurprised. Noelle and a few others cast nervous or curious glances at his heavily wrapped hand, which despite Toriel's efforts had still bled through slightly. But nobody commented, not even Susie who for the first time was not the last student to arrive, and soon class resumed.
Everyone left the class in a rush as soon as the bell rang, like a stampede. Kris' head was resting on his desk, his arms crossed as a pillow as he stared at the shadowed and blank surface, lost deep in his thoughts.
"These people are so weak, it's almost impressive. But it's mostly disgusting." Chara sneered as they watched the other children file out in a mad rush for their lockers. "It's great to know if we just started slaughtering them they'd all get congested in the door there though. Very useful insight, wouldn't you say?"
They scowled when neither reacted. They were both used to these diatribes by now.
"I could make you do it, you know?" came the predictable empty threat that always followed, and when they again both remained silent, they metaphorically turned their non-existing back to them in annoyance. It was hard to really describe, how Kris knew when they 'turned their backs' or 'did' anything when they had no corporeal forms- it was all a bit abstract, and he preferred to not think about it too much.
He was so lost in that silence that he didn't notice Susie was still in the room until he heard her chair topple, and she jumped into Alphys' chair. He heard two thuds that he assumed was her propping her feet up, but he didn't care to look.
"Hey, idiot!"
He took a soft breath, but didn't pay her any mind. Somewhere in his head, he remembered some cheesy anti-bullying VHS from school, but it wasn't his memory.
"HEY IDIOT!" she paused for a second before yelling, again, "KRIS!"
He looked up finally, staring at Susie intently through his draped bangs, which hid his eyes from her. She rolled her eyes with a sneer, giving him a good look at her rows of dagger-sharp teeth, like a crocodile's.
"Nice shampoo. 's apple flavor, right?" Her grip on the apple in her hands tightened a tad, something he registered without really thinking about it. "You'd better be careful wearing that around me."
Her jaws creaked open wide and then snapped shut like a bear trap, biting the apple clean in half, core and all, as she began chewing loudly through fruity flesh and seeds.
"Smelling like that, you might end up like this. Bitten." her glare intensified, "IN HALF."
Chara had had enough. They slipped into control with the subtlest of twitches, despite the other two's protest, and snickered. This, weakling, was trying to intimidate them? It was too much. They couldn't stifle the laughter, it was such an amusing image. Susie apparently disagreed, because the half-an-apple was launched at their head in a flash, almost too quickly to see. But not too quickly for them.
Kris' notebook was off the desk even quicker, deflecting the projectile straight up as everything went black and white in an instant. In the battle screen, the apple turned green as soon as it was deflected, so Chara grabbed it and took a large bite. It was pitiful in terms of healing items, but it wasn't about practicality. Chara was making a point.
That really pissed her off. Susie launched from the desk on her turn, grabbing Chara by the hair and jerking their head up to stare into their face. Chara's eyes were covered by their bangs, but she could feel angry breath on their face. They knew how close Susie was.
"You little shit." she growled, "One day, your mom's gonna get sick of you, you fucking freak. And when that happens..." her laugh was guttural, closer to a growl than anything Kris would call a laugh, really. "Someone is gonna make you disappear. And she'll finally realize how happy she was without you."
The silence was deafening. It felt like even the omnipresence of the LED's buzz and the distant ruble of the school's overworked air conditioning went hush for a long, torturous moment. It didn't take long for it to get to Susie.
"SAY SOMETHING, YOU IDIOT!" her roar echoed in the silence, until it too was swallowed up by it.
Only then, in that absolute lacuna, did Chara truly look at Susie. Hair parted, staring her in the eyes, Chara smiled. It was just a bit too wide, and their eyes opened for the first time that Susie had ever witnessed, revealing their bright irises. They gleamed red, almost seeming to glow in the darkness cast by the curtains of their long bangs.
They spoke in a clear whisper, sharp and cold yet crisp and clearly audible in the vacuous silence.
"I know."
They stood there for several long moments after Susie fled the battle. The spell was broken, and the ceaseless drone of LEDs returned like a flood.
Hands reached for control like talons closing around a rodent, clashing silently for dominion over the body that retched and writhed in struggle. Chara fought with ferocity and rage, clawing at the other hands as much as they did reach to grasp the body. Kris felt truly numb, knowing this song and dance all too well as he shielded the body from the raking grasp of Chara. Leaving the habitual victor, who usually won by default, as Kris' favored choice, to gently take the body into their hands.
Frisk was sympathetic to Kris' struggle, she disliked assuming control like this. But they had both long ago come to an understanding on these sorts of situations. If Kris had to choose between Frisk or Chara, and he often did, he would rather it go to Frisk. And so she ACTed in his place, as he shielded her from Chara and fought to placate them so he could resume control once more.
She turned to leave the classroom, stopping briefly to tidy up- brush some of the dirt off Alphys' desk, throw away the half-an-apple, and pick Susie's chair up off the ground. Then she left, quietly shutting the classroom door behind her. The halls were abandoned at this point- all of the monsters had left in a rush to go home and play, or hangout with friends. Well- almost all of them...
Frisk opened the suspiciously cracked locker door, finding what she expected. She'd kept an eye out while the other two were paying attention to Susie. Inside the locker, Noelle stood like a deer in the headlights, petrified. She shoots double finger guns at the doe to let her know that she appreciates her keeping an eye out on Kris, then ever so slowly close the locker, before turning and leaving.
Noelle was weird. Frisk likes her.