Little Miss Iron Body (Part 5)

Kris’s mid-morning walk to Susie’s house was uneventful. Unlike his walk the previous night, he managed to stay on the sidewalk and out of any snowbanks the whole way there. In fact, the youngest of the Dreemurrs proved such a competent pedestrian that he found he had arrived at Susie’s place early, a little to early.

The plan had been for Kris to arrive at Susie’s after Susanne had left for work. Judging by the fact that Susanne was walking out the door while Kris was walking up the driveway meant the that the plan had been an abject failure. As a result, Kris had to do the one thing all young men loved doing more than anything. He had to engage in polite conversation with his girlfriend’s mother.

Now to be fair, Kris had no qualms with Susanne. In fact, of all the “real adults” he knew, she seemed to be one of the most level headed. He and Susie were able to act like a normal couple around her. Which was quite the departure from how they needed to act around Kris’s mother. The matron of the Dreemurr home had very, “traditional” views of how a courtship should be carried out.

Susanne was fast approaching and Kris did not much care for the expression the woman wore. It was a tired look, one not born of physical or mental wariness; rather, it seemed to come from a place of motherly concern. Kris had seen that look on his own mother’s face after his brother departed for college. He knew the cause of that look was not something that left on its own accord, it had to be actively exorcised.

As Kris had spent most of his pre-Dark World life listening rather than talking, he figured he could dust off his old skill set to help bare some of the dragoness’s load. It was the least he could do for her; she had after all, never given the couple any real trouble. In fact, when you got right down to it, she had always been totally supportive of the two lovebirds.

“Morning Susanne” Kris began with a slight wave as he continued closing the distance between them. It still struck the human as odd to call a “real adult” by her first name. But Susanne had insisted Kris do so, something to do with never caring for her last name. So, Kris did as he was told.

Susanne dawned a half smile and returned the wave, “Morning to you too sugar” the dragon matron replied. Kris had come to accept that Susanne called anyone she liked by a nickname.

“Uh, you alright?” Kris asked. He knew the dragon had to get to work and figured that cutting right to the point would be the best use of both their time.

“That obvious huh, damn. Guess I need to work on my poker face. No wonder your old man and Undyne always clean me out at card night.” Susanne responded with a half shrug.

“Yeah, sure, guess so. But uh… back to you though. I don’t know, you just look kinda tired, long night?” The human fought to steer the conversation back towards Susanne and away from the relationship between his father and officer Undyne.

The half smile on Susanne’s face turned to a full frown. Her shoulders dropped and the look she gave Kris made the human almost wish they had kept talking about Asogre and Undyne. “Is everything okay between you and Susie?” Susanne blurted out, her concern obvious as could be.

“Yeah! Unless something changed since we were at QC’s last night. Why, did she say something?” Kris asked, fear tinged his response.

“No, no sugar. Nothing like that happened, she just seemed off last night is all. She faked being asleep when I went to tuck… er say good night to her. Then later, when we met in the hall, I tried to bring her in for a hug and she… she juked me!” Mild indignation had crept into Susanne’s tone as she made her last point but it left as soon as it appeared, replaced again by worry. “She also said she was feeling sick. Put it all together and well, I’m just worried is all. Mom’s right to be, I’m sure you know all about that, huh? Susanne ended with a resigned chuckle.

"Oh… yeah, believe me.” Kris replied with his own less than sincere laugh. “You’re right though, that is odd even by Susie standards. I promise I’ll make sure shes alright and if she is sick, I’ll take care of her while you’re out.” As the last words left his mouth, a look of loving determination filled Kris’s face.

“You’re a really good guy, you know that Kris Dreemurr?” Susanne said as she stooped down and hardily embraced the human in a hug. Kris returned the hug. A second later, Susanne ended the embrace when she realized she had lifted the diminutive human off the ground. “Sorry about that sugar” she said through an embarrassed smile.

“No worries, happens more than you’d think” Kris replied as he looked down to hide a blush.

“Ha; anyway, hate to run but I gotta get to work” Susanne began as she opened the door to her car. “You go right inside, doors unlocked. Unless she got up while we were talking, Susie should still be asleep in her room. I would have woken her up but after last night… I just wanted her to get as much sleep as she could, you know, in case she really is sick.”

“Of course” Kris said with a nod. “Have a good day Mrs…” A sharp gaze from Susanne froze Kris mid sentence. “Er uh, Susanne” he finished with a stammer.

A huff of laughter left the dragon’s mouth as she got into the car. “You too” she said as she closed the door and started the car’s engine. Kris gave a brief wave as she pulled out of the driveway and then out of sight.

With Susanne gone, Kris turned and walked towards the house’s front door. After clearing the stoop, he reached for the doorknob but before he wrapped his hand around it, he was struck by its shape. The former orb had been partially crushed into an oval. “Huh, which one of them did that?” He wondered. Kris turned the knob and found that it still worked and that the door itself was unlocked, just as Susanne had said it would be.

Upon entering the meager bungalow, Kris smelled freshly brewed coffee. After taking off his shoes, the human made his way to the kitchen and saw half a pot of the still-steaming beverage sitting in a worn, drip coffee maker. The human had never been one for the bitter liquid, he was more of a hot chocolate kind of guy. But Susie drank the stuff and he figured a cup of Joe would make a wake up call at least semi bearable. “Besides” Kris thought, “its customary to bring an offering when entering a dragon’s den.” He chuckled at his joke as he prepared the coffee the way Susie liked it, with plenty of cream and sugar.

With the coffee poured and prepared to a very light hazel color, Kris walked up the flight of stairs and down the hall towards Susie’s room. Once there, he rapped his knuckles against Susie’s bedroom door a few times and waited for a response. When no reply came, Kris decided to press his ear against the door to see if he could hear Susie’s snores. No sound could be heard beyond the door. Kris had been around a sleeping Susie often enough to know that she was most definitely not a quiet sleeper. The lack of noise combined with Susanne’s earlier comments now had Kris worried.

Kris bit his lip as he contemplated how to proceed. After a brief internal struggle between respecting Susie’s privacy and satisfying his concerned curiosity, Kris opted to enter the room. “She’ll forgive me... eventually” he reassured himself. His course of action set, Kris turned the door’s handle as gently as he could. He slowly pushed the barrier inwards until he had made just enough space for himself to get through. With a slight shimmy, Kris wormed his way into Susie’s room.

Kris had been in Susie’s room before, so the fact that it looked like a hurricane had blown through it did not surprise him in the least. What did surprise him however, was what he could see of Susie. While the covers lived up to their name for the most part, they did leave the dragon’s head and shoulders exposed. Her shoulders are what had caught Kris’s attention. They were completely bare, no t-shirt or jacket sleeves covered them nor could he see any bra straps. “Is she wearing a shirt or even a bra under there?” The question flashed through Kris’s mind as his face reddened.

“Susie” Kris said quietly, barely even a whisper. Her lack of response was not surprising. She would have struggled to hear him from a few inches away, let a lone across a room while asleep. “Susie!” Kris tried again, louder this time but the human still failed to wake the sleeping dragon.

Kris realized that he was already in deep by entering Susie’s room uninvited. “Well, “in for a penny in for a pound” as mom says” he reasoned to himself. With that, he placed the coffee mug down on a beat-up dresser near the bedroom door, and made his way towards Susie’s bed.

Upon seeing Susie up close, some of Kris’s previously held fear about her being sick abated. Aside from her hair being an utter mess, he could see nothing outwardly wrong with his lover. Kris bent his head over Susie’s sleeping form and tried once more to rouse her using only his voice,“Uh Susie... wakey wakey.”

When that failed, Kris placed his hand on Susie’s right, uncovered shoulder and gently shook it. His efforts earned him a grunt from the dragon as she tucked herself into a ball attempting to hide away from the waking world. Kris kept at it. “Mom! It’s a Saturday, let me sleep” Susie groaned as she turned away from her would be wakener.

“Its me Susie” Kris corrected. Hearing Kris’s voice caused Susie’s eyes to snap open. In an instant she turned towards her room’s invader. Scenes from the previous night filled the dragoness’s mind. It was then that Susie remembered that under her covers she was naked save for her boxers.

A cold sweat broke out across the girl’s plump, scaled form and she felt paralyzed with uncertainty about how to proceed. As far as she could tell, she was trapped. She could think of no excuse she could give that would convince Kris to leave the room without arousing suspicion nor could she fake still being asleep.

As Susie drew blank after blank about how to proceed, her subconsciousness decided on what to do for her. “The fuck are you doing in my room Kris!” Susie snarled at the human standing over her. Kris leaped back from the verbal assault. Susie then sat straight up in bed pulling her covers tight against herself as she did so.

“Just waking you up, your Susanne-er mom-er your mom told me to come and check on you” Kris sputtered. “She said something about you acting funny last night, or that you were sick, or something. I just… I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Did you even try to knock?” Susie roared. “You freak, you could have saw me nak-er doing stu-er... ugh. Not even mom fucking busts in like you did!” For once, Susie’s pet name for Kris held little endearment. It was in that moment that Kris realized just how badly he had messed up. He had never seen Susie this mad before let alone this mad at him.

“Susie, I’m sorry. I really was just trying to make sure you were okay is all.” Kris stammered as he stepped further away from the enraged dragon’s bed. It was his stepping away from her that caused Susie to stop her tirade. In that moment the young woman realized her hair-trigger temper had done what she had always feared her appearance would do for her; drive Kris away. Susie’s head dropped as the consequences of her actions came crashing down on her. The rage at her desperate situation quelled by an all consuming feeling of utter and complete aloneness.

Kris stood halfway across the room from Susie. He un-tensed after seeing her head droop. The human did not move a muscle for fear of setting her off again. As the seconds passed, Kris saw something he had never seen before, the sight of which broke his heart. Susie’s was crying.

Kris knew in that moment he needed to act. “This won’t be near as hard as that shield block slide against the king was” he thought. “So why do my legs feel like their made of butterscotch-cinnamon pie filling?” Kris looked down half expecting his legs to be shaking around like something out of a cartoon. Instead, all he saw was the first step he took towards Susie.

Susie for her part did not notice Kris’s approach. So lost in her own misery was she that she barely noticed Kris lean over and gently embrace her. It was not until she felt him press against her for a few seconds did she even realize what was going on. Another wave of anger surged up from the depths of Susie’s soul. She spasmed and jerked away from Kris while her hands continued to pull her covers tight up against her.

“The hell are you doing!” Susie cried out as Kris recoiled from her outburst. “I thought I made it clear, I. Hate. When. You. Hug. Me. Like. That!” She spat out those last words and each one struck Kris in the heart like an acid dipped arrow. His mouth fell open and his eyes squinted as if he got hit below the belt.

Upon seeing the human retreat from her, the anger left Susie as quickly as it had come onto her. It was then she realized just how awful what she said sounded and what terrible things it implied. Both Susie and Kris remained still as statues. Neither knew what to do or say.

Susie broke the stillness by slamming herself face first into her bed. She then curled up into a ball and began to weep. Her sobs were just barely loud enough to be heard by Kris. At this point the human was at an utter loss as to what he should do. So he stood there, just staring.

Clearly she was hurting but Kris had no idea what was causing it. “Susie, what… what did I do? What can I do? What do you need?” He asked these questions as he timidly moved back towards the bed.

Susie did not give a response. She was deep, deep in her own head. “Just do it already” a sickly sweet and distorted caricature of her inner voice chastised her. “Pull the trigger and be done with it. Might as well let your gross-ass body finish what your gross-ass personality started. I mean, you just treated your loving boyfriend like total CRAP not once but TWICE in just under a minute and all he was trying to do was help. Wow! Even by your standards that’s impressive work.”

The voice continued, it still dripped with sugary poison. “Well consider this, if you scare him off now, you can sit here and cry for as long as it takes to empty yourself all out. Then when your all empty… you can spend the rest of the day stuffing deep-fried garbage down your throat to fill the void. Hell, maybe you’ll be so into it (don’t lie we both know you LOVE it) that dear old mom will finally get the drop on you.”

There was a pause, Susie felt the voice savoring the taste of the unabashed self-loathing she was radiating. “Now, wouldn’t that be a great close to the day?” The voice started back up. “Your loving mother walking in the door as you throat fuck yourself by cramming half a frozen pizza down your maw. Think of what she would say! NO, think of how she would feel, how she would blame herself! You know that’s exactly what she would do, right? And you know why, right? Because just like lover boy over there, shes a good person... WAY to good a person for someone like YOU to ever deserve in their pathetic life!”

”So whats it gonna be little miss iron body?” the voice needled her. “Gonna chase him off with words, or are you gonna go for the kill and just show him the goods?” The voice went silent and Susie was left alone in the darkest part of her mind.  The dragon would have liked to stay there for the rest of her life. At least then, she would not have to do whatever it was she was about to do.

Susie knew that the voice’s narrative would play out exactly as described; if not today by some miracle, then someday, someday soon. The thought of her living hell continuing another day was enough to spark Susie to action. She looked up to see Kris staring at her. The mix of concern, and worse yet fear, on his face was clear as spring water.

Slowly, Susie moved to the edge of the bed, bringing her covers with her. Soon her feet touched the floor and she stood up. She shuffled towards Kris. When she was within a few steps of the human she stopped and stood in place not moving a muscle for what felt like hours.

“I’m so, so, so sorry Kris, I've lied to you this entire time” Susie said as she tilted her head down and released her iron grip on her cloth coverings. Her hair fell to cover her eyes at the same time the covers fell to the floor beneath her. For the first time in a very long while, Susie stood fully exposed before another person.

Time seemed to stop as Kris tried to process everything that had just happened. Susie’s volatile reaction to his attempts at apologizing and comforting her stung him. Her going catatonic for a few minutes scared the hell out of him. Then her deathly quiet rise from the bed gave him the same feeling he had right before she had pinned him against the lockers before they fell into the Dark World.

“And now… Susie is… is… is naked in front of me!”Kris’s brain screamed as his face filled with shock and his mouth fell open. The young man stood locked in place his mind unable to process it all.

Susie for her part took Kris’s reaction as the preamble for him to either laugh or run. “Damn it freak, do something!” Is what she wanted to scream but all consuming embarrassment kept her from doing anything. “This is what you get, no, deserve for being so pathetic-” her mental self-abuse is cut short as Susie sees Kris begin to move.

“Hes… hes not leaving?” Susie thought as shock riddled her brain with nervous static. For reasons Susie could not herself fathom, Kris was indeed clumsily walking back towards her. His gate and posture was like that of a deer walking directly into the face of an apex predator. Soon he was within arms length of her. A second after he was right next to her.

For a brief moment neither moved, neither breathed.

Kris broke the stalemate. As slowly as he could, as if he was afraid of spooking her away, he placed his right hand on Susie’s right bicep. He then gently wrapped his fingers around as much of it as he could before carefully tugging Susie towards himself. She took a step closer but there was still a slight gap between the two of them. Kris then brought his left arm up behind the dragoness’s back and used it to guide her the rest of the way into his waiting embrace.

Susie felt her plush form press against Kris’s toned one. As his right arm wrapped around the dragon’s back, Kris came to a beautiful realization; this was the first hug Susie had ever accepted from him since they had known one another.

Susie did not know what to do. Of all the ways she had imagined Kris reacting to her revealing herself, she had never in a million years dared hope he would do what he did. She would have remained standing there, simply accepting the hug had she not felt Kris’s left hand slide gingerly up her back. When his hand reached the base of her neck, Susie felt it gently push her down towards Kris’s shoulder. Soon, her face was nestled against the human’s neck.

A few seconds after her face made contact with it, Kris felt his neck grow wet. In a flash, Kris felt like he was being crushed as Susie returned his hug a hundred fold. The embrace continued like that until Kris’s hold began to slacken. A strange thought had entered his mind. “Susie is a lot softer then I thought she would be.” It was only then that Kris began to comprehend what he had seen moments ago.