A Different Kind Of Pain

by venomousindigo

Summary:

She hurt Kris.

But it was not the first time she did.

Notes:

My first work!! I was like "I'll write this in two days, watch me." It's been almost a month whoops, but it was worth it because I'm very happy with the result.
This fic is finished already, but ill be posting it by chapters. There's some heavy content so please check the tags before reading. Also, english is not my first language, so please tell me if you find any spelling or grammar mistakes.
Enjoy!!

Chapter 1

She hurt Kris.

But it was not the first time she did.

The first time was in high school, where they met. Where Susie would push Kris against lockers when no one was around. She didn't know why she did that at the time. Or maybe she did, and was hiding that truth from herself. She convinced her own mind that Kris was the weirdest, creepy human kid on the planet, never showing their eyes or speaking, wearing dumb turtleneck sweaters in the middle of summer and even during gym class, and pranking people around whenever they got their hands on a bottle of ketchup. And, who can blame her anyway, all that stuff was still true. Kris was weird. As weird as she used to be.

Now that she was working to be truthful to them and to herself, she realized it was pure, unadulterated jealousy. She didn't have someone to walk her by the hand, or a classmate who truly wanted to make their group projects with her (even if that classmate was just Berdly wanting to be with Kris cause they were both stupid gamers), or had a homemade meal in her backpack for lunch time. She would see Kris at the town’s diner as she walked by the window, laughing so loud she could hear it from the outside, with chocolate around their mouth like a maniac and drawing dumb stuff on the foggy glass alongside their brother.

It made her taste her rage in her mouth, feel it pumping in her fists. And she would use those fists to grab Kris by the collar, punch them on the stomach, pull their hair, drag them through the corridors, and other vile things that now made her insides twist.

There was this day, however, where Susie heard noise coming from the unused classroom at the east of the school, where she would hide to eat the chalk she stole when she was hungry. There was someone in there, and she would have left if she hadn't recognized that low, pained grunt. Who knows what came through her that day, but she entered that classroom to see a startled Kris at the corner of the room, green sleeves up their arms while their wrists bled over the floor.

She wanted to be the pain Kris would never experience, only to realize they had it already. One desperate enough to escape through their skin.

After that day, she left them alone. At least she wanted to, but she couldn't get the red wrists out of her head. Not only that, even. The bad posture, unwashed hair and constant pulling of sleeves. Kris would sleep through classes like they were dead, pass an entire school day without eating a damn thing, go to the bathrooms and come back to class in more than an hour. Susie would watch them every chance she got, her hands itching to stop them from walking to the east of the school.

All that observing proved to be useful the day Susie saw someone else picking on Kris. But it was not like how she used to, punches and pushing. This was different. Two kids, from an older classroom. While one of them was holding a struggling Kris on the floor of the empty corridor, the other pulled on their clothes. When she arrived, they had managed to get Kris’s sweater off, leaving them in their tank top.

She felt one of the kid’s noses breaking on her knuckles before they plummeted on the ground with her on top insulting and punching relentlessly. The other guy didn't even wait their turn, leaving the second she left the first one alone. They both ran away, one limping and bleeding. Susie turned fast toward a cornered Kris at the floor, as they quickly put their shaky arms over their face, bracing themselves. There, she saw those again. Couldn't even be called scars, just barely closed, deep wounds all over their wrists and arms.

As if it hadn't before, it hit her. She fell to the floor as well with her back against the wall, looking at the ceiling wide eyed and disoriented. Her hand on her forehead as she forcibly closed her eyes, trying to breathe consistently.

“Why are you crying?”

Her breathing stopped. She looked at them. They stared, said nothing for a while.

“Youre bleeding too” they said, looking at her hands. She hadn't noticed her knuckles were as red as the eyes she met that day.

Chapter 2

Things were different after that. They would just kind of be around each other. Kind of sit close during recess. Kind of stay together, even after class, before each had to go to a home they didn't want to be at. Next to Susie, Kris would eat. They would go to the unused classroom together, staying in the dark, Susie eating just-stolen chalk, Kris eating an unholy amount of chocolate, both laughing and not saying a single word. Not like they needed to.

She started finding new things out, things she couldn't gather just by observing from afar.

Kris was a prankster. Like, a serious one, even to the point of absurdity. On the surface, it seemed somewhat tame, like the ketchup stuff. Organizing the books at the library on the wrong shelves so Berdly had to stay hours looking for a single book, chewing pencils that belonged to others and leaving them back on their desks, throwing Alphys’s notes away so she forgot they had homework, pulling the fire alarm to stop class from happening. It was all fun and games. But one of the guys who beat Kris up (the one that got away unharmed) had to go to the hospital because some animal happened to be inside their backpack and stung them. Later, she found out it was a scorpion. A fucking scorpion.

Well, that explained a lot. It wasn't a coincidence, Susie thought, that the thumbtacks she would find on her chair before sitting stopped appearing once they became friends. Oh, if it was just that. Her weird allergies that made her sneeze so hard the windows would shake suddenly stopped; the water fountain worked perfectly during gym class, instead of blasting her face right after Kris used it; the things in her locker stayed locked there, and not absolutely anywhere else around the school, or outside of it, specifically in the town’s lake water. Huh. That sure was something. Something that, for some reason, couldn't upset her. Not even a bit.

“You’re insane”, she said to them and she caught them pouring some weird powder over the school's vending machine’s cat snacks, the cold light of it painting their face. How they managed to open it escaped her. How they got into school at night didn't, cause there she was as well.

“Sneaky as fuck. Cant believe you get past anything”

“Not past you”, their voice was low and mumbly, even when they smiled like that.

“Oh, come on dude, we both know that’s a lie”, she roared with laughter and they closed the vending machine, “there were times I couldn't find you anywhere".

“Watching isn't enough,” they responded.

They knew she did that, then.

She was silent. Then, “why didn't you try to stop it?”

They looked at her. “Didn't want to”.

Next day Catti got some awful rashes on her hands that made her go home early. Curiously enough, she had insulted Susie to her face the day before. Huh. There was that something, again.

Kris was insanely touchy. At first they just tested the waters, putting their head on her shoulder while they were alone in the old classroom. She didn't complain. After a while, she put her head on top of theirs as well. Then it skyrocketed. Throwing their legs on top of hers, climbing on her back to get carried when she wasn't even prepared (how could they jump so high???), literally throwing themselves at her arms out of the blue and making her fall. She also let loose towards them, shaking their hair, touching it or doing small braids, getting it away from their eyes from time to time. It was strange, touching someone else’s face. But not as strange as having them fall asleep on top of her. Their hair tickled on her nose as they snuggled between her legs, arms surrounding her torso. She couldn't even move away. Not that she wanted to, but she physically couldn't. Kris was strong, and that conflicted her.

Kris liked knives. If she didn't understand it, she would think it was the weirdest thing to like. She understood it? Kinda. Sure, sharp things. Edgy Kris, what a surprise. But they were not only interested in knives, but in doing stuff with them. They liked to cook because their mom would only let them close to knives for that (Susie wondered if Toriel knew. She didn't think so). They also liked to “play”, as they put it, stabbing their desk between their fingers back and forth. Fast. They would even do it right in front of a weirdly hypnotized Susie, sitting alongside her with their head on her shoulder. She couldn't get her eyes away. Kris never seemed to hit the skin, not a single wound or scar visible on their actual hands and fingers. That's why Susie usually didn't stop them from doing that one.

She did one time, when they were about to start stabbing their desk again. She surrounded their hand with hers, and held it. When she looked at their face, they didn't turn around. The knife stayed in the air, and Kris’s open hand slowly closed on the desk, no longer waiting for the blade to hit around it. She could hear- feel their breath tremble. Then, she stabbed the knife at the table, so hard Kris jumped out of their skin and onto the floor. “You thought I was gonna stab you or something?” she laughed holding her stomach, extending her other hand for Kris to take and get up. And for a moment, she thought they seemed disappointed.

Then, things changed.

Kris would not play with the knife anymore. In front of her, at least. In fact, relief crossed her when she discovered Kris wasn't carrying their knife around. She checked when they were sitting alongside her on the floor, sticking her hand inside their pocket. They backed away, looking at her like she was crazy, even though they never minded that before. They stopped sitting so close to her afterwards. Something was going on.

Sometimes, she would stop Kris from walking alone towards the east classroom. Well, not exactly stopping them, just getting them distracted at first. When Kris wouldn't budge, she’d go in with them. Some awful days, she didn't find them for the rest of the day. Not in the old classroom, at least. Not anywhere.

The day she did find Kris, they were just getting the knife out of the inside of their sweater. She got slapped by that. They always had it on, just changed its place.

Kris was surprised. And then they weren't, cause Susie was holding them by their shoulders and against the wall, letting the knife fall to the floor. Now, they were enraged. “Stop,” she said, trying to hold Kris while they tried to get her away with their hands and arms. “Leave,” they responded.

She started almost screaming “I can’t. I can't see you doing this.”

“Then don’t," they screamed, their voice rough and cracking, “go back to not caring”.

Both went stiff and shocked. She let them go, and they fell to the floor. They didn't look at her again.

They didn't stop her as she took the knife. Then, the thing got thrown with all her strength against the wall, breaking to pieces.

Chapter 3

She confirmed it. Kris was way stronger than they let on.

She didn't in a while though, since she stopped going to school. Not that she dropped out, she just decided not to show up. The thought of going was worse than the thought of staying at home, and that was something, cause staying was awful. But at least she was alone during the day.

One night, her dad finally found out she hadn't been going to school. “Too much food is missing”, he said. He started screaming a bunch of shit. Then, he started doing more than screaming.

While he did, she hoped again for those afternoons alone and locked inside the bathroom, where she would clean herself up while spitting blood in the sink, crying in front of the mirror watching the missing chunks of her hair. Her wounded skin would become impossibly darker as the hours passed, but that meant time was passing, and she was still there. It was relieving. Even if she knew it would happen again.

This time she didn't get to do that.

Kris was strong, and calculated. They could push and lift. Their nails would rip their way out of anything, as well as their teeth. She saw them do it right there.

She saw those tiny, human claws pierce through the skin of a monster, jumping on his back and gashing his face. When Kris got thrown to the floor and grabbed by their face, those small, square teeth bit that huge hand so strongly it started bleeding all over their mouth and face. They kept kicking and scratching with everything they had, managing to keep her dad’s other arm and body away. But he wouldn't let Kris go.

Susie saw him passed out on the floor before realizing she had a chair in her hands.

While sometimes Kris would sneak out on her, they managed to find her the time she needed them the most. She realized she sucked at observing. No, it wasn't that. Kris did more than just watching. Kris took action.

“Why didn't you stop me?” She asked again that night inside the flower shop, after getting out of her house by the only window, the one Kris used to get in.

All that time, they could have scratched her, bit her, pushed her away. They didn't. Not even once. They just stayed still, letting her throw them around like a ragdoll, receiving every punch helplessly. But they were never helpless; they were strong.

“Why didn't you even try?” she said, almost whispering as Kris held her wet face in their hands, cleaning it with stinging alcohol.

Why didn't she stop?

“You did.”

They held her tightly. She wanted it to hurt, but it was the only thing that didn't.

—

Turns out, Kris’s dad used to be a police officer. THE police officer, apparently. Just some talk here and there, some pics of her face and two minutes talking with Undyne, and Susie’s dad was arrested. Susie had to get a few stitches on her face. She wanted some deeper.

Without anyone to take care of her (not that she had that before), she was going to move with her dad’s sister now, who lived a few towns away. A woman she had never met at a place she had never been at. It was scary.

But Kris was scarier, as they told her to stay.

“I can’t,” she responded. But they both knew it wasn't true.

Chapter 4

“You’re in love with that girl, aren't you?”

Fucking Asriel, being so meddling. Almost as meddling as Susie.

Asriel sat next to them on the bed, putting his hand on their shoulder. Kris moved it out of the way, laying down while holding their stomach, arms under the cover.

All the screaming made their voice hurt. Especially in the last few days.

In a swift motion, Asriel grabbed Kris’s arm and got it out of the cover, lifting it and almost making Kris sit up on the bed. He checked it for new wounds to find none, just the scars from before. Of course, he was surprised. Kris sat up properly.

They heard their overly strained voice saying “She left because she hurt me.”

Asriel listened, how Kris saw it now. Susie knew. They shared the very same reason for taking someone else’s hits without defending themselves. Kris never stopped her from hitting them, because they thought that's just how it went. That's all there was, there was nothing else to feel. And they deserved it, because they had wanted it to hurt.

“And that's why she left. She can't do that to you.”

But Kris knew they didn't want to feel pain anymore. But she made them feel it again by leaving.

Time without her was different. Bland. Boring. Hopeless. School was useless, home was useless. Everything was without that laughter full of sharp teeth.

But at least it didn't hurt anymore.

Chapter 5

There was someone interested in her. In this new town, in this new school. There was this girl, Noelle. For some inexplicable reason, she asked Susie out on a date. And Susie said yes.

Noelle was sweet and nice looking, with yellow curls and cute antlers and freckles. She liked scary things, and would go to watch creepy movies every Sunday with her sister. She had a nice house, nice clothes, a nice family and a whole lot of friends. And yet, Susie wasn't jealous.

Living here was good. The house wasn't the biggest, but she had her own room, with a bed, a window, and a good amount of clothes to even pick from. Her aunt let her put posters on her walls and get haircuts. She was kind and understanding, making food for her so she would eat at school, giving her talks and advice whenever Susie needed, and letting her go outside during the day and weekends to have fun (not night outs though, but Susie was fine with that. She didn't even want to sneak out on her. She liked her a lot).

And she was having fun, especially at her job. She didn't know one could do that, work and have fun at work. But there she was, as a part time assistant in a tattoo workshop, attending phone calls, organizing shelves and watching people drawing on skin all afternoon. She couldn't use the tattooing machines, so a coworker (a huge guy with horns that wore a helmet, for some reason) taught her how to handpoke, and she started drawing on her thigh over the days and sleepless nights. She was proud of her tattoo, even when the others looked at it funny. She noticed, but didn't care. Only she could get it, even if she wasn't sure what she was supposed to get, even. She just knew it mattered.

And Susie also had a friend. One that she wouldn't see. Or talk to. Or communicate at all with. It was her doing, really. Kris didn't know her address or home number, and she didn't do anything about that, just standing that tugging sensation she deliberately ignored.

Here, her dreams were wild, and all about Kris. Sometimes, she would dream Kris and her were the same person, a weird combo of a monster and a human, so big and deformed it stepped on angry passengers. In another dream, she was licking Kris’s blood from their wounds as she opened them with her claws, and Kris was yearning for her to do so with a manic smile, pressing her hands deeper into their skin. At a different one, Kris was asleep on the floor of her old home, while she got out of it and next to Noelle, walking away even when she knew her dad would come back to find Kris sleeping. At the last dream she had, Kris was at one side of the world and she was at the other, but they talked through the core of the earth with a phone she made out of two plastic cups and a string, their voice amazingly loud in her ear. That last one was the first to make her smile.

They were always there, in her mind. They were always present. Too present, she found while kissing Noelle on another movie date. She wasn't really doing that at all- kissing Noelle. She was kissing Kris.

She stayed in her bed for days after that date, holding her twisting stomach. It was weird, like she was grieving. Like how she felt when she lost her mom. This felt like losing Kris.

She had no right to feel this way.

“All emotions are good”, said her aunt to her by the door frame, after watching her avoid her anger for months. "Feel, Susie. Let yourself feel it in your body”. Susie thought what her aunt said was weird. It was hard to believe that, somehow, emotions chose your body parts. But she trusted that thought. She listened, and she did.

The thought of her father was at her throat as she punched the mental image of him, covering him in bruises, making him bleed and wretch in pain. The thought of her mother was light and soft at her shoulders, like her hands were while she was little. The classmates that never loved her were at her head, the teachers that never helped her at her screaming mouth.

Kris was on her hands, arms, chest. Kris’s body on top of hers while they slept in the old classroom, that hug scratching her skin. She was so mad. At Kris for letting her hurt them, and at herself. She hurt them, and they wanted it. She was her dad.

She also hurt herself.

That thought made her yell into her pillows, punching her bed. Crying for hours and days and nights, struggling to breathe. Having to get out of class to sob in the bathrooms, remembering Kris wishing she was like before. Then, remembering the sensation of Kris’s breath when she took their hand. Then, memories of the day she hit her dad with a chair, something she always imagined, but never did. Only Kris made her do it. The thought of losing Kris made her find herself, and finally take action.

After all that, nothing. She felt nothing. Like her body was empty of emotions.

Well, not really. They came and went. Days and nights without sleeping followed by nothingness in her dreams. Carrying through her days with sunken eyes. And Kris was still there, but different. On another part. They were now fluttering at her stomach.

Chapter 6

“You love someone else, don't you?”  Noelle asked when she came to the tattoo shop one day. They got out on her break. Susie hadn't seen her since their kiss at the movies.

 

She wanted to answer no.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do they know you do?”

 

That made her think for a while. “I’m not sure.”

 

“I think you should tell them, anyway,” Noelle said with a sad but accepting smile.

 

Maybe she was right.

 

Susie wrote Kris a letter. Something ridiculously simple; just a hi, an extremely short summary of her life now, and a small apology at the bottom. It was all she could get out. She was so ashamed.

 

The next few days felt like death, waiting and scratching her skin out of nerves. It had been so long. Nothing could assure her Kris would write back. Maybe they were enraged by her chosen absence. Maybe her lack of words was offensive and disrespectful. Maybe they didn't miss her and were content to have no one bothering them anymore.

 

All those maybes stopped when she found a letter on her bed after school. It was equally short as hers, but way more laid back. At least it gave her that impression, because it was full of jokes and doodles, a bunch of anecdotes and what they had been up to, finished with a weirdly calming “waiting for my next letter, dumbass.” Kris was now out of her mind; they were here. There was air under her skin, floating through alongside their response.

 

They stopped missing each other by writing every week.

 

Susie sent her letters at the beginning of the week, and Kris sent them at the end. Susie would painfully wait through Saturday and Sunday for the week to start, to see their ugly handwriting and dumb drawings on wrinkled paper. On Mondays, she wouldn't leave for school until the mailman came at the same hour of the morning with a new letter for her, always stuck together with a heart sticker. Susie would take the letters with her to read alone inside the school's bathroom stalls, crying with a weird mixture of loneliness and companionship.

 

They didn't speak on the phone. Susie was afraid of trying it, and she had a feeling Kris also didn't want to. They would always say little, anyway. In fact, Kris was better at writing, they had more words like that. Apparently, their mom put them on therapy. Kris didn't say why, but, like- they didn't need to. It's surprising Toriel didn't do that years ago. They wrote school was boring, home was better, and Asriel wasn't leaving for college. Not yet, at least, and that made them happy. Kris wanted her to give them a tattoo. She wrote she wouldn't do it. They wrote she would eventually.

 

Susie wanted to ask if they ever fell for someone.

 

That didn't get written, like the other thing that made her start writing in the first place. Well, she did write about that, but those papers were never sent, because right after her high school graduation, she left town to visit Kris.

 

She was going to tell them everything.

Chapter 7

She didn't have to. They just looked at each other, and that seemed to be enough. The letters weren't, apparently, because Kris was so different. They were taller and slimmer. Their hair a bit longer and dyed red under. A badass piercing on the bridge of their nose, a bunch of earrings on their ears, nails painted black. They were even more stylish now, with long black sleeves under a (still green but new) sweater, and slightly heeled shoes peaking out of their long, flowy pants. It was like the wind had been knocked out of her.

Kris was having a similar reaction. Well, she guessed it made sense, cause she was so different as well. She was bigger. Her long hair was gone, replaced by short layers that were much easier to keep. Purple flannel over a tank top was her new to-go outfit. The ripped jeans stayed, and bits of the tattoo on her thigh were visible through the holes. She didn't think her look was that awesome, but Kris seemed to think otherwise.

Her aunt and Toriel disappeared right after Kris and Susie locked eyes. She actually forgot they were there until they weren't, which was funny, considering they were the ones to decide everyone was gonna meet at the diner. Where the fuck were they now, anyway? It was like they had expected to evaporate as soon as they could to leave them both alone. Her blush was probably visible, even on her purple skin, but only Kris was seeing it now, at least.

They didn't chat at first. Maybe I said it all in the letters, but no. She knew she hadn't. But speaking much didn't matter, cause they were smiling a whole lot. In the meantime, Kris drew on the foggy window, and she followed. Kris was staring while she drew, giving her a low look and toying with the straw of their milkshake. The thought of sharing the same milkshake passed her head while ordering, but she couldn't say it through her embarrassment. Who knew she could be so corny?

“You remember my stuff swimming around here, don't you?” She asked when they got to the lake. And then and there, Kris was embarrassed as well. “You still think all my watching didn't work?” she teased.

“Worked for something,” the fucker said smiling, looking at her in the eyes. Susie was gonna die today. So many feelings. So many words as well. Laying on the ground at night in front of the water, Kris became very talkative. Like, why now? And who cares? Their voice became raspy from using it so much, but they weren't stopping.

They both talked. Turns out, Kris didn't get bullied anymore after she left. When someone tried it, Kris scratched their whole face, even getting their disgusting skin under their nails. No one tried it ever again.

“Stopped carrying knives,” they said. She was not surprised they stopped that. She was surprised they said it.

She told them about her aunt, how she learned to make tattoos (or tattoo, since she has made one only), how she cut her hair herself first and then was taken to a hairdresser with urgency. She also told them about Noelle. Turns out, Kris dated around as well.

“Berdly?!” Susie sat up and half screamed as Kris covered their mouth in laughter. “Berdly?!” Again.

“He’s not bad,” they laughed while sitting up as well.

“He- what? You’re saying that? You’re still insane, dude” Susie was laughing as well now, her hand on her forehead while she looked at Kris in disbelief.

“For you.”

Those two dumb words were enough of a confession to break her. With the cat out of the bag, Susie threw herself at Kris and kissed them. They held her by the face, kissing back strongly. So strongly. She made a noise that made her stop abruptly, covering her mouth with her hand and looking anywhere else but Kris’s mischievous eyes. Then, Kris got close again, looking straight at her eyes seductively, getting her hand away from her mouth and replacing it with their lips again. Softer, slower. Hours, days. The ground was moving under them, she was sure of it. It couldn't be just the shaking of her own body, pulling Kris closer with every kiss, grabbing at their nape with a softness she didn't know her claws had in them.

They held hands on the way to Kris’s house, everyone around town at night seeing them. It was awesome to be seen like this. Except when they passed her aunt, with Kris’s mom and Kris’s brother now (cause of course all of them would be around town, for some stupid reason), and got teased about it for the rest of the night.

Susie didn't go back with her aunt. She understood, encouraging.

Susie could stay.