Chapter Text
In all fairness, Kris was real fucking high, dab pen resting loosely between their thumb and pointer finger, limp on their chest, and rightfully abandoned after two hits.
In their right hand, Kris scrolled aimlessly down the unfounded recommended streams the surely all knowing witch.tv home page assumed they’d be into. Regrettably, no channel they followed was live at the time.
They weren’t quite sure what they were looking for. Just something to sleep to. Or, more accurately, pretend to sleep to, while their brain listens idly.
“DRAGON BLAZERS 1 HITLESS” was the title
No Shot. Was Kris’ only thought upon reading it.
The motivation of disproving it resulted in a zero viewer live stream ranking in a single person audience.
Kris tensed with a sudden realization. Their username. It had surely appeared in the “users in chat” tab. And with the embarrassing viewer count, it couldn’t possibly go unnoticed.
demon.blood.07
Damnit.
They kept meaning to change the name, once carefully typed by Azzy and equipped with the necessary email extension. Kris watched over his shoulder then, breaking into an excited and malicious grin that notably lacked a front tooth. Asriel probably thought it ridiculous, and incredibly corny. But Kris audibly whined when he suggested something more mature.
“Who knows how long you’ll use this email, Kris. You should really put more thought into it.” How right he was.
Before they could be embarrassed enough to leave, dive for their profile settings and make some quick adjustments, a sort of strangled gasp cut into the game’s audio.
Kris blinked. Confused by the sound. Then a voice, broken with unkindled excitement, a poor attempt of a whisper, carried by certainly the lowest audio quality known to monster and man.
“W- h- welcome to the stream!” Oh? In the dark confines of their vacant, once shared bedroom, Kris cracked a smile. They fumbled with their phone, fingers lagging on account of their muddled mind.
demon.blood.07 th anks
There was no face cam, but Kris could infer when the streamer eventually read their message, as the game went momentarily idle and there was a second surprised sound.
“M-mhm! Of course!” He was so awkward; and his voice wavered as if horribly nervous. Kris wondered if he had ever had someone stay in his chat, let alone send a message. Maybe he was new to streaming entirely. A plausible theory based on the low frame rate, and the choppy audio. There was a moment of silence where the game continued, avatar pushed into motion. Then, as if remembering his audience, the streamer spoke again, rushed.
“I--” the mic stuttered, “-- earth kingdom.” Kris glanced at the time elapsed. 32 minutes. Huh… If that was true, he hadn’t died yet. When the character tab opened, Kris’ eyes darted immediately to the health bar, a solid red color housing a complete 50/50 HP. Damn.
demon.blood.07 ur actlly goin hitless
Once again, the screen froze. Then,
“Oh?” Maybe he could read Kris’s authentic surprise. Because with a tone of sudden confidence, he remembered his pride. “You doubted me?” A shiver started at the top of Kris’s spine, hitting each vertebrae on the way down. The sensation was familiar, a lovely reaction to any auditory stimulus they labeled: inspiration. And when the game started up again, the sound of the character’s footsteps on the rocky bridge to the Earth Kingdom’s gates were perfectly on beat to a pre-chorus yet to be written. Kris sucked in a breath. They wanted him to talk again…
Opening the keyboard, they felt mild inconvenience at their high, as typing correctly required more effort than usual.
demon.blood.07 kinda
demon.blood.07 steam like 2 fps
demon.blood.07 stream*
demon.blood.07 not vry professional
Ragebait never fails.
“Is it actually?” Oh angel His voice cracked, the mic crunched, and Kris bit hard on their lip. They heard it, like a sample in the flat space between the bridge and the last chorus. They typed again.
demon.blood.07 i mean, not 2…
demon.blood.07 maybe 4? Lmaooo
A pause. A bit deadpan, he spoke again.
“I assume you’re being hyperbolic.” Who says that? “But I--” the mic cut. “Troubleshoot.”
In his aforementioned attempt at trouble shooting, the streamer’s avatar went still. All the while, a Rock-Guard was slowly approaching. Kris could theoretically send a message to alert him of the enemy, but…
BATTLE ENGAGED. This would certainly be funnier.
“Maybe.. Mmm.” His hum too, shit, and with the battle theme in the background... Kris started tapping their finger rhythmically against their chest like a metronome.
In the very moment the streamer returned to the game, the enemy launched it’s first, in any case, easily dodgeable attack. And the audio clipped with his panicked yelp. Kris winced at the sound.
The avatar jerked, a second too late, and the pixelized rock found the corner of his hit box. The battle theme carried on harmlessly, as the player went unmoving. Kris was already smiling, unable to bite back the amusement. Five seconds passed, then ten. Wordless dodging, then, a whisper.
“How unforeseen…” Kris was bewildered, and barked out a laugh. The song fell into their brain like a blanket unfolding. An intro, and the stupid streamer’s absurdist comment in 138 beats per minute.
They clipped it.
Kris was rocking back and forth in Asriel’s swivel chair, flicking their fingers as they plotted the synth. High hats tapping sweetly in their headphones. A filtered swing with the prechorus, and entirely unnecessary, diabetic levels of ear candy. They had clipped two other parts of the stream, which was currently still playing on their phone, muted, but occasionally observed out of sheer curiosity towards his progress.
They tried pitch shifting, tampering with the speed, but it was pointless. His voice, his tone, his delivery decidedly couldn’t be altered.
“How unforeseen” played refreshingly in between lines of the first verse, momentum abruptly cut for his voice to intercept, then the refreshing return. Angel, Kris was breathless. They sampled the game too, splicing and making their own drum out of the environmental sounds. In the second clip, they didn’t even isolate the voice, as the sharp damage sound effect fit quite nicely before his cry of disappointment. Kris’s face hurt, forced into a poorly restrained smile every time his voice clipped the mic.
Then, at the end of the chorus, a sharp and surprised laugh, followed by a gentle “shhh.” It was a childish joke…
demon.blood.07 stop getting so damn close
demon.blood.07 y u edging
But he giggled at it, abruptly as if he didn’t mean to, shushing Kris as if they had spoken aloud. Kris felt their heart leap at the sound. They clipped it. Hesitated before downloading. They played it back. Once, holding their breath. Twice, they grinned. Three times, to be sure…. Four, to be certain.
Five times was enough. But they listened a sixth time when they remembered to exhale.
At five a.m., when Toriel opened their bathroom door to find Kris tucked in between the shower wall and the sink, microphone held gently in their lap, eyes wide with a guilty stare, she only sighed, rubbing her temples. Kris opened their mouth to apologize, but she beat them to the struggle of speaking.
“Save your progress and get in bed. I will get you up for school in an hour.”
“Damn dude, did you even sleep?” Kris flushed, but didn’t retort. Their excitement swallowed any speech, and they quickly forced an earbud behind Susie’s hair. She laughed sharply, edges of her claws brushing cold against warm fingers. She gently took the headphones, guiding them to her ears. “That’s a no then.”
They bit on their cheek, fishing out their phone and pulling up the MP3 with haste, racing against the shrill expected cry of the school bell.
Susie never really knew how to react to Kris’s music. They didn’t fault her for it. It was a bit awkward, they imagined, listening to a piece of their soul while they observed with an unrelenting stare.
She’d never quite make eye contact, sometimes closing her eyes entirely, while Kris watched her face twitch. Sometimes she nodded her head, but the sound spilling out of wired headphones proved she wasn’t remotely on beat. Kris found it painfully endearing.
Though it sounds rather cruel, they liked watching her struggle to keep up, blinking in bewilderment at the overwhelming amount of noise. This time, however, Susie, eyes closed, cocked her head curiously. Kris swallowed.
It wasn’t complete by any means; a messy draft of ideas, lyrics abysmal. Only mumbled melodies they hummed shortly after composing. And they abruptly paused it a minute and twenty seconds in, before the bridge or… lack thereof.
Susie opened her eyes in a flutter, her expression was unreadable. Slowly, she pulled the wire from her face and Kris matched her exact pace as they tightly gripped the sides of their pants. Maybe Susie could tell this piece was particularly important to Kris. Maybe she couldn’t.
“Dude.” Maybe she was being honest. “That was good.” Ah, breathing. Yes. Kris knew how to do that. “Like crazy good.” They caved, and nodded, a quick jerk of their head.
“I know.” She smiled, delighted by their admission. “Fuck, Susie, I know.” They repeated.
“This might be the best-”
“-best thing I’ve ever mixed?”
“Like ever.”
“Susie.”
“Mm?”
“This song…”
“It’s good.”
“It’s been in the sexiest dreams of my life.” She choked on a laugh and shoved Kris, lightly. Even still, fatigued, they landed roughly against the locker behind them and the metal clang felt awfully refreshing to their brain.
“There’s something seriously wrong with you.” Kris grinned, mischievous.
“Kris, did you sleep last night?” Noelle’s voice was a mix of amusement and genuine concern as she found her preserved place to the right of Susie, who grinned all too wide at her arrival.
“G’morning, Elly.” They tried for a smile.
“You look awful.” Susie wasted no time finding her girlfriend’s waist, wrapping an arm loosely around her lower back. Kris watched Noelle meet her touch, leaning in so casually. The whole exchange was fluid, practiced, perfected and now effortless. In their pocket, Kris vaguely registered their phone vibrating.
“When did you go to bed?” Noelle persisted, but Kris didn’t feel like talking anymore. It was far too much energy to simply rake their eyes up and off of Noelle’s waist, where they instinctively watched Susie’s hand come to rest. Her claws held Noelle’s hip, and Kris felt the ghost of her touch on their own sweater. “Kris?”
“Mm..” they held up their hand, five fingers, and Noelle’s face contorted in worry.
“In the morning…?” The bell rang. And Kris visibly sagged in relief, momentarily fishing for their phone.
Their eyes quickly caught the notification; one new message under the audio file they sent an hour prior.
@prince_inthe_dark: Kris! Wow! This is really good! You should be proud!
@cageless.music: ty ral
@prince_inthe_dark is typing…
Susie’s hand moved, finding Noelle’s lower back as she practically led her into the classroom. It was embarrassing, the way they had to sort of shift to get through the door. The way Susie sort of stepped behind. The way Noelle giggled and the cluster of color that washed over Susie’s cheek. Kris blinked, tearing their eyes away as they followed slowly.
@prince_inthe_dark: Did you want help with the vocals?
Kris could feel their smile, slipping one of their earbuds back behind their hair and typing back with one hand.
@cageless.music: yes omffffgg marry me.
Ralsei reacted to the message with a ring emoji, and Kris scrolled up to open the MP3 again. They had barely pressed play when a grating sound tore through the hard and heavy baseline in the first measure.
“-before the bell.” Kris came to a dead stop in the front of the classroom on the commute to their desk. They backed out of the file, and turned their head to face the offender.
“What?” His expression was smug, chin rested up against his wings, head cocked to the side. He seemed thoroughly pleased to have gained even a minute amount of attention. And the way he stared at Kris, like he was winning at some unsaid challenge, made them feel itchy.
“I was saying, Kristine, most people are already in the classroom be-”
“No, shut up. I actually don’t care.” They spoke in a rush, eager to cut him off by any means possible, and weaved through the chairs to their desk.
“Dude, Alphys isn’t even here yet,” Susie objected, as Kris slipped into their seat in front of her. They groaned internally, fighting to get their headphones in before he spoke again. Though opposing Berdly was entertaining, his voice was insufferable. It always carried this tone, chirpy and drowning in a misplaced confidence. He seemed to always speak a decibel above his conversant. As if volume determined correctness.
“So then, Susan-” Shut up. “Does morality only apply when a witness is present?” And his manner of speaking too, stretching vocabulary and contorting grammar to be unnecessarily formal. Only Berdly could talk smart stupidly.
“Morality?” Susie scoffed.
“Being respectful of class time is expected of any good student.”
“So right now is class time?” Berdly turned to face Noelle, whose willing involvement in this conversation was an enigma to Kris.
“The bell hath rung, has it not?” Kris shuffled the last playlist they had open, their urgency making it seem an act of survival.
“So… you’re talking during class?” Berdly’s beak snapped shut with the slow fade in of a gritty guitar. Laughter from a few peers blended into the verse quite pleasantly. And Kris felt a wave of satisfaction at his dumbfounded silence, folding their arms on top of their desk and dropping their head horizontally against them.
With Berdly gasping in a breath to speak again, Miss. Alphys hastily rounded the corner, presumably apologizing for her tardiness based on her frantic movements. Kris yawned, pressing their face into their arm and shutting their eyes at the force of it. They decided it would take too much effort to open them again after the fact, and buried their head further into their crossed arms, music lulling their brain into numbness.
…
Vaguely, Kris registered a tingling sensation against their scalp. And what started as a gentle, ghost of a touch, quickly became firm, routine combing. Her claws grazed their neck, and they exhaled in a deep sigh, vaguely registering Noelle’s amused giggle over the sound of their music.
“Not sure that’s helping, Susie.” Then a tug, sharp and abrupt. Kris’ head jerked up with the motion, earbuds slipping out and dropping onto the desk with a tapping sound.
“There we go. Awake now?” Kris bit back a groan, dropping their head again to hang loose from where Susie gripped their hair. “Stop playing dead, dude. Class ended like ten minutes ago.” Huh. Kris cracked an eye open, scanning the classroom from the pockets of visibility behind their hair. Sure enough, the room was empty. All except Miss. Alphys, who was typing briskly on her computer, and Berdly’s tail, which slipped wordlessly out the door to the right just as Kris managed to catch his presence.
Susie intercepted their observations, bending over to look at Kris with curiosity. They were grateful for the opportunity to see her. Her hair was tied up, poorly, still fallen over the sides of her face, while messy scattered bangs framed bright eyes. Her subtle smile swallowed them, as it always does. Under their insistent observation, Susie’s expression shifted, subtly unnerved by their disconcerting stare. Her claw released their hair suddenly, and their head dropped at gravity’s return, snapping back up in surprise.
“Noelle and I were gonna get ICE-E’s.” Susie brushed Noelle’s hand, just out of sight behind their desk. “Wanna come?” If Kris listened hard, they could hear their music still leaking through their wired earbuds. The familiar kick and heavy melody poured the currently indistinguishable lyrics of isolation and yearning into their brain. Go easy on me. You’re still all that I see.
“Nah.”
Kris walked home alone, stepping in time with their demo, which looped five times over.