Red Wagon, Rusty Birdcage

In theory, this should mean less than nothing to Kris. After all, they live in a house with goat monsters. They’re friends (friends?) with Susie. Their teacher is a dragon, albeit the most nervous one Kris has ever heard of. They’ve met Rouxls Kaards, even. Prehensile (purple) hair really shouldn’t be that impressive.

But... it looks... cool? Intriguing. Engaging. It has their attention, and they’ve been following her for a short distance now, waiting for her to slow so they can get a closer look. They don’t mean to be creepy- even as they think they should stop, though, the thought slips away. They only have room in their mind for the fascination.

Their palms itch, and they press them against their thighs hard.

Oh, they want to touch it. They can’t, of course. They won’t. But they want to.

When she slows, they can hear her talking into her phone. Their head tips, and the curiosity about what she’s saying takes up residence right next to their fascination with her hair. They edge closer, again, closer-

And of course, she turns around, for whatever reason, right at that moment, and they stumble back, eyes wide before they duck their head to shake their bangs into their face, peering through them at her. Their hands lift, quickly, defensive.

«Sorry.»

▼

Kris doesn’t have a mother, but they like to dream about what it would be like if they did. They take the traits they liked best from each of the women who’ve fostered them, and laying in bed at night, sleepless, they construct a woman who will love them, and take care of them, and never hurt them.

She’ll be tall enough to protect them, and soft and warm when she holds them. She’ll have kind eyes and a ready smile, and when she scolds them her voice will be mild, never shouting.

She’ll be perfect.

▲

Kris has a mother. When they lay in bed at night, sleepless, they think about the woman who came and brought them home, saved them. She’s nothing like the others who’ve fostered them, and yet somehow she has all of the best traits from all of them. She loves them, and she takes care of them, and she’ll never hurt them.

She’s tall enough to protect them, and soft and warm when she holds them. She has kind eyes and a ready smile, and she never yells at them- her voice is only ever mildly reproving, even when they deserve much worse.

▼

The worst thing is other people touching their hands. They don’t remember the first time, but they remember enough of the times after that to know that there’s nothing worse. Not being tied down, not being slapped or spanked or shaken, not being starved. They can sit through any of those things.

The worst is when someone grabs their hands, because it means they’re going to hold them down, or put something in them and force Kris to hold it- they’re going to take away their ability to communicate, their ability to move.

The monster who chose to foster them sight unseen reaches down and gently grasps their hand in her soft paw. It feels… nice, but Kris knows better.

They yank their hand away, and her face falls.

▲

The first time Toriel gestures at them with her hands, they think she’s mocking them. They almost ignore her, tuck their hands under their arms, shuffle back to their room.

She makes the gesture again, though, and says, calm, as she must talk to the babies she teaches, “This means, ‘hungry’.”

Kris stares, and she smiles. “It’s called sign language, Kris. I thought you might like to learn, so that you can talk to people.”

▼

Their third foster home has a lock on the pantry door. It’s not, they explain gently, that Kris isn’t allowed to eat. It’s simply that they eat so much- they need to ask when they want food, instead of just taking it, from now on. Just until they see the doctor- just until they make sure that Kris isn’t making themself sick.

Kris can’t ask. They stopped speaking a long time ago.

(The family returns them, eventually. It has nothing to do with the food at all- they just don’t feel they’re a suitable family for such a… high needs child. But the food is what Kris remembers.)

▲

The butterscotch pie is a marvel. It’s the most delicious thing Kris has ever eaten. They weren’t supposed to eat it until morning, but they don’t sleep, and it smelled too good to ignore.

Toriel sits across from them at the table, taking dainty bites of her own slice. It’s only their second week here- she found them wandering the hall and sat them down, made them a glass of warm cocoa, gave them a slice of pie.

And another.

Together, in the quiet hours of dawn, they finish it off, and Kris lays their head down and falls asleep right there.

cw / child abuse

▼

Susie kneels in front of the king, strong frame shuddering in pain, panting. He’s approaching her, bearing down, and the look in her eyes…

It’s raging. It’s betrayed. But worst of all, it’s defeated.

He lifts his hand, spades rotating in front of him, all pointing at her. Kris barely understands their own impulse, the impulse that raises their shield, that pushes them to their knees, turns them towards Susie.

He fires.

They jump.

▲

Lancer reclines on the throne, tongue lolling out. It looks something like a smile.

He seems… happy.

In the beginning, there was light.

Or, that’s how it started, anyways.

She’d been noticing them all week - spots at the edge of her vision, little distracting flashes that no one else could see. They acted like sun-blotches, moving in perfect sync with her eyeballs, but they still looked like they were in three-dimensional space, curving gradients of illumination around tree trunks and casting deep, bubbling shadows that made her head hurt to think about.

She closes her eyes, tries to remember –

– perched on top of the radio tower, a second sun behind the clouds –

– a flash of light in the closet with Jupiter, strange shadows of invisible hands –

– a tall lanky stranger in the woods of Tranquility, casting their own shadow, writhing and unknowable –

Venus’ eyes snap open, and she looks around, startled. The light is gone, but she can still make out the shape of the stranger moving in the darkness.

“Hello?” she calls out. “Is someone there?”

It’s too dark to respond to the call with their hands, not before getting closer. They could speak- they have the ability, they always have. Their silence was never an inability but another choice. The only power they’ve ever had was the power not to speak. The presence inside them whispers in their mind, like sound vibrating along the channels of their skull, that they could open their mouth and call back. Introduce themself. Put the stranger at ease.

Their lips part, but then press closed again and they lift their hand and wave, instead. No. This is still their power, their silence. They won’t give it up. They didn’t give it up to Asriel or Toriel or Asgore- they won’t do it for someone whose face they can barely see clearly.

They don’t stop approaching, though, gait casual and steady. They slow, then pause, still a distance away but clearer in the moonlight now, only when they’re close enough that if the stranger can see at all, she’ll be able to see their hands.

[They said I have to buy it back with M-O-O-N P-O-I-N-T-S.]  Chara spells it out slowly, pointedly.  [Because I just arrived here, I won’t have enough yet, no matter what.]  They don’t say it’s not fair, but they want to, because it’s not a weapon and it’s just an entire fiasco waiting to happen if they press further.  They’re still too tired to want something like that; not that they’d ever want it, because blowups like that draw attention, and they don’t want unfamiliar eyes on them.

[I don’t want to rest again.  I’m not tired.]  If they ignore that offer of company, maybe it’s kinder that way to everyone.

Well... that’s pretty clear. Not answering a question is exactly the same as answering it, when you’re not using your voice. Sign language is only half in your hands- the other half is in your body, the tilt of your chin, the set of your shoulders, whether your feet are facing or at an angle to the person you’re talking to.

Chara’s entire posture screams aversion. Kris knows, because theirs does too, when they look in the mirror, as rarely as they may do that.

«Okay.» That’s simple enough. Kris shifts their weight, takes a step back. The bird has fled- they probably shouldn’t leave such a small child alone. But they know the look of a child who can take care of themself. They saw it often enough in the facilities, in between foster homes. Chara won’t thank them for pushing, and they don’t have it in them to try, anyways.

He shrugs his shoulders, ignoring the peculiar stares he’s getting from the crowd of… What were they? Oh well, he’ll find out later. It wasn’t important right now. What was important was what the human had to say! “Is that so?” He raises an eyebrow, “If thou was famished, thou could have gone to me, could thou not? I believe I may have some goods on hand, still. It will only require a few gold coins.” Really, he wasn’t sure if he had that fragrance he had, nor did he have the cookies Lancer had given him before he left to the Sea, but one way or another scamming the human would be quite entertaining! If he couldn’t do a puzzle, pranks worked well too! But now it’s time for his explanation, “Since trekking away from the Lorde King, I havs’t been on a queste to discover myself and with that, I have ended up in an entirely different universe!”

Kris exhales slowly, remembering the Dark World, and the shop... and the exorbitant prices from the coins scrounged up, tossed at them every time an enemy ran away.  «I didn’t even know you were here,» they sign, careful not to show too much frustration in the movement of their hands.

It’s not like Rouxls Kaard has technically done anything wrong, he’s just so... so. Well. Him.

Eight stops smacking the surface of the pancakes with the flat of his fork to reach for the syrup, frowning. “What’s a goat? And, uh…what do you mean by monsters?”

The syrup certainly smells sweet. Eight’s never really had that much sugar, and if the pancakes are sweet too, he should err on the side of caution - he pours a small amount of the stuff on the side of the plate, watching it slowly encircle the pancakes like particularly thick ink. He uses the side of the fork to tear a chunk of pancake off and takes a bite, eyes widening a bit at as the fluffy bread more or less dissolves in his mouth.

Okay, uh. Wow. Did they have these in Inkopolis? They needed these in Inkopolis.

The next chunk gets a little syrup (because the pancakes are good, they’re amazing, but they are a little dry), and Eight suddenly realises how hungry he’s been since his arrival a few months back. Rice and pickled vegetables seem so paltry compared to this, now.

“This is really good. What did you get?”

Who doesn’t know what a goat is?

Kris watches him with increasing curiosity, glad at least that he seems to like the food. They think about that question long enough for him to present the next one, which is easier to answer, at least.

«Hashbrowns, they sign,  «And ranch dressing. Potatoes and milk and herbs. It’s a simplistic explanation, but it works well enough, and they’re still distracted by the first question he asked.

How does one explain what a goat is? How does one explain what a monster is? Kris has always known these things- there was never any learning, that they can recall, and so they don’t have an explanation to fall back on. They scrape their fork over the hashbrowns, creating furrows in the dressing, and think hard.

«A goat... is a. It’s. Like a horse, except it has horns and can eat anything. » Their frustration is clear in the sharp movements of their hands.  «I don’t know how to explain it. »

One down.

«A monster is a person that has traits like an animal? Like my family. They’re not humans, but they’re people, and they’re goats, probably, so they’re monsters. Monsters are better than humans.»  He tips his head and considers them.

▼

A field of flowers, bright and cheery, buttery yellow and sweet-smelling. They sit in them, and methodically place one petal after another onto their tongue. They don’t taste as good as they smell. They don’t remember why they’re eating them, but they feel sick. They want to stop, and they can’t. It never stops.

They wake and roll onto their side, lifting their arm to wipe across their eyes. Their face is wet, but they don’t know why- there’s remnants of a dream, a dream that they’re sure they’ve had before, but their eyelids weigh heavy, and soon enough they’re drifting away again.

They won’t remember, come morning, why their pillow is stiff beneath their cheek.

▲

Asgore pushes the bouquet into their arms, and they look down at it, then up at him. He stammers something about giving them to their mother, and they know what will happen to them. She’ll throw them in the trash without hesitation. She always does- their trashcan always smells like flowers, now.

They nod anyways, and their father’s eyes light up, and they think that it’s okay, for now. Maybe this time, they’ll say that they bought them themself.

CW / ableism, bad aba ‘therapy’

▼

Kris has been bad. They know this because the teacher is pressing their hands down into glue on the desk, holding them there, and Kris is screaming and pulling and can’t get away, and this is what happens when Kris is bad with their hands. The glue will dry sticky and tacky and it will hurt them to try to pull them away, and so they won’t be able to, and they’ll finally sit still. They’re afraid of this- they don’t like it. They don’t like how it squishes under their fingers and makes their palms feel like they’re on fire. They don’t like how the teacher leans over them, holding them in place.

In their next school, with their next family, the teacher will tell them to sit on their hands whenever their fingers start to flutter excitedly, and Kris thinks he’s the nicest teacher Kris has ever had.

▲

At the dinner table, on their first night with the Dreemurrs, they’re so excited that their hands rise up, fingers fluttering, and their leg jitters, until they see Asriel (their new big brother!) watching them, and remember the glue. They drop their hands, stuff them under their thighs, and bow their head over their bowl, tense and afraid.

There’s a whispered conversation, and Toriel makes a soft sound, and then stands and moves around the table to kneel next to Kris’s chair. She gently touches their elbow and asks, “Is this okay, Kris?”

Her fur is soft. Kris nods, slow, and she slides her paw down to their wrist and tugs their hand out from under their thigh.

“It’s okay,” she says, calm, “if you want to move your hands. We won’t punish you for that here.”

Kris doesn’t quite understand, but they nod anyways, and Toriel goes back to her seat, satisfied for the moment.

Oh, he recognises that sound - him and a gaggle of his sisters in a hallway somewhere, hiding from their commanders. Their first, tentative steps in exploring their newfound freedom from Octavio’s control, bad attempts at jokes or mimicking the DJ’s horrendous puns leading to a lot of muffled, strangled noises that, eventually, turned into laughter. 

Eight wonders what’s keeping Kris from laughing.

«Are they bears?» He’s seen a few white bears around - mostly when it gets really cold outside. «Or really big cats?» Aaand he’s officially exhausted his knowledge of large furry mammals, both of which he belatedly realises are hornless. The deer he saw on his flight with Temeraire had horns, but it was small and brown and the horns were very, very big, and it didn’t seem like was wearing clothes at the time.

Before he can sign anything else the waitress reappears and sets down a couple of plates in front of them, including some sort of pitcher of dark brown liquid that almost looks like ink.

The ‘pancakes’ are steaming gently and…smell kind of good, actually. Eight stares at them. “They are flat,” he whispers.

Kris watches Eight examine the pancakes, and wonders at someone who’s never seen one before, who doesn’t know what tomato juice is. Their gaze drifts down, for a moment, to their own plate- dry hashed potatoes, which seem to be basically hashbrowns, and a small cup of something that smells like dill. Ranch? They had hoped that was what they were indicating on the menu. They take the time to scoop the ranch out onto the potatoes and smear it around with the knife before setting the utensil down and lifting their hands again.

«They’re sweet. The syrup will be sweet too. And very sticky.» They pause, then, and shake their head.

«You can juice a tomato?»

That’s…weird. Eight hesitantly reaches out for the glass and inspects it, watching the residue from the liquid cling to the sides. Almost like orange juice. He takes a sip through the straw and his face immediately scrunches up - it’s not bad, but it isn’t at all what he was expecting. He quickly pushes it back over to Kris, shaking his head. 

«Thanks, but I’ll stick to orange juice.» Eight pauses and drums his claws against the table, glancing around the cafe. He feels restless, uneasy; he keeps seeing the Octotrooper plush in the seat next to him and remembering all at once that Iso Padre is probably gone and he can’t do anything about it.

He needs a distraction.

«What’s your family like? So I can keep an eye out for them.»

Kris ducks their head at Eight’s expression, and there’s an odd, strangled little sound that escapes them- a laugh, though it’s gurgling and doesn’t sound much like one. They lift their hand to their mouth, then pull the glass over to themself and take a long drink, after removing the straw from it. It tastes like tomato juice- sweet and acidic and salty all at once- but they suppose it won’t be for everyone.

Their head tilts at the question, hair sliding away from their face enough to bare their eye, part of their forehead. Their expression is... not empty, but fiercely blank, as they think about how to describe their family.