Work Text:
You're nervous to say things are getting better. As if speaking it into existence would shatter this fragile truce you two have. But… they have changed. You talk with Kris, as much as you are able. Writing on a paper, only to recede from their hand as best you can. You wonder how much effort it takes on their end.
They do not feel like conversing often. And certain subjects are forbidden; the shelter, the Knight. The consequences of the plan you know so little of. But still, that just makes you cherish it even more. The tense, stilted moments that allow you to pretend you two could be friends. To pretend that loosening the strings is like setting them free.
You breathe in and out, and wonder if they can feel the breath leave their lips. They sit at their desk as you two trade their hand, pressing pencil to paper.
‘So… what do you look like?’ is scrawled into the paper. You feel yourself return to Kris’s hand.
‘Many things’ you scratch in, avoidant. You recede again.
Nothing comes in place- no, rather, as close as nothing as Kris can go.
‘Well, I was a human-’
The pencil stops. You worry you've done something to upset them. After a moment, they write.
‘Just draw it.. A picture paints a thousand words, and all that’
You allow them a moment to reconsider, but no feeling fills their hand. You quickly scrawl out yourself, proportions janky, eyes simple.
‘I know you can do better than that' they write, both of you staring at their hands. You twirl the wooden pencil in their hand absentmindedly; one of Noelle's, though who knows how long ago Kris took it.
‘It will take a lot of time’
‘That's fine. Less spent on homework’ Kris writes, their ears listening to the faint chatter of Toriel and Sans downstairs. You turn the volume down, quieting everything for them.
You begin to draw yourself. Scrawling lines as you reach into the depths of your mind to remember what you looked like. The shirt from your great grandfather and the square missing in your checkered belt. To think it's only been a few days; they seem to have dragged on like years.
You… reach the face. Yours- or, it's supposed to be. The memories of it are a bit fuzzy, but you put them down on paper and best you can with uneven lines.
The pencil stops.
…
‘Kris?’, you force. You tell yourself it's not bad, that it's with concern, you're not-
‘Continue’
You feel yourself return to their stuff hand. You flex the muscles for them, but it doesn't help. You remember a book in the library they didn't let you read.
You give them a beat, and then another to reconsider. And when nothing fills the space, you continue to create yourself.
Perhaps the first other human Kris has ever seen.