Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“There it is, I guess.”

The stars were gone. The moon, too. They had been there above Hometown before, twinkling bright in the aftermath of a messy and rain-drenched day. The storm, though, had come back. It had crept back into the sky and nudged all that out of the way. It wasn't done. No, far from it.

Susie felt the first few tentative raindrops beginning to fall from the darkened sky. She stood there, staring up at an apartment building with her shoulders hunched and her hands jammed into her pockets. It was like the weather was gently urging her to give up on the minutes-long staring contest she'd been having with it and just go in. Where else did she have to go at this time of night, and in this weather? Bite the bullet. Get it over with.

Her heart was hurting. That prospect was making it worse. But ever since she’d left the Dark World, the nasty thoughts’d been getting louder and louder. It make it difficult to think straight. And so she surrendered to the inevitable, taking a step forward towards the stoop as she prepared to head up and-

Thump. A footfall in the darkness. Susie jumped, flinched, and immediately felt a surge of anger. Anger either from getting spooked or the fact that someone had walked up to her in the midst of hope slipping away from her. Which was stronger? One way or another she whirled around, teeth bared, fists raised, ready to take a swing at someone unfortunate enough to stumble upon the frayed end of tonight's rope.

Susie froze, and her face contorted in immediate confusion as she saw the person standing just a few feet back from her on the sidewalk. Bathed in the soft yellow light of the streetlamp they were leaning against. Silent. She blinked a few times in rapid succession before her arms fell to her sides.

“...Kris?”

—-

"Man, you screwed up this time. Toriel's gonna flip when she realizes you didn't go beddie-bye. Hope she doesn't ground you for a decade or somethin'."

The rain was pelting at both of them from above now. Susie, ever generous (but don't you dare accuse her of such), had slipped her jacket off of her back and held it over their heads like the world's thinnest, crummiest umbrella while Kris stuck close to her side. She was sure she'd put a new hole in it today because water kept thumping the back of her head.

“....-Sleeps like a rock.”

“Huh? Speak up, dumbass! God, you’re so mumbly tonight.” She frowned. Actually, their voice kind of sounded different in general. Probably just sounded weird with the backdrop of the storm?

"If she has more than two glasses of wine, she sleeps like a rock." It was said a little more clearly. The regret came instantly; were they torn up about that? Coming home and seeing their mom in that state? Susie certainly didn't like it. It seemed… Wrong, somehow, to see who she had basically always imagined as the ideal mother partying like that. It was a selfish thought. But then again, teenagers were selfish things. Or "Big Stupids," as someone Susie knew would say. Either way, she had a license to be selfish and/or stupid for at least a few more years.

"...Hey, I-" Susie began to cobble together a half-hearted apology that probed at the problem as little as possible. To her surprise, Kris did something they almost never did and cut her off.

“It’s fine. Don’t really want to talk about it that much,” they said in that low and tired voice. It sure as hell didn’t sound fine, but over the past couple of days, Susie had begun to perfect her skills at not commenting on Kris’ weird-ass family issues.

"If you don't wanna, you don't hafta then." Susie sighed.

"Thanks." A gentle nod. A smile. Susie felt good for getting that expression out of them. Admittedly, she'd been feeling good ever since Kris showed up. Now was a bad time to be alone.

They pushed east through Hometown, suburban streets peeling away into untouched autumnal treeline. When the looming, shadow-covered face of the school finally came into view she was pretty relieved; her clothes were soaking through at this point. Susie didn’t mind getting wet, but wet and cold was a real sucky combo. She was happy when they slipped beneath the overhang above the doors, but when she pushed against them she let out a few irritated curses. Of course it was locked. Dammit.

"I dunno if I could break these down," she grumbled, barely restraining herself from attempting. It could be some fun stress relief to kick them a bunch. And… Oh! "Wait, I got a plan! Let's steal your dad's truck and ram ‘em! That’d get us through for sure, and it’d probably blow up a buncha wall so we could go in and out whenever we want!”

Click. Kris, who had been leaning in front of the deadbolt, pushed inwards and the double doors parted. They turned to Susie, blankly waiting for her to go. In their hand was a bundle of keys in their hands jangling amidst an adorably hideous ICE-EE charm they handed out when you shelled out for a membership card at the pizza place.

“Oh. Forgot your mom, uh, worked. Here. Alright. Cool job stealin’ the keys.” Not as cool as hitting a ramp and smashing the doors off their hinges, but building said ramp would have probably taken too long anyway.

Susie had never been in the school building after dark and something about it mildly unnerved her. Not because she was scared of the dark (that would have been pretty wild considering recent events) but because not hearing in this usually noisy place except their wet and squishy footsteps as they proceeded felt… Wrong? Somehow?

“I hope Ralsei won’t mind. That we’re going here I meant, this late at night. Actually, does Castle Town have a night? Screw that, does it have a day? It…" Kris had paused their stride to glance over their shoulder, eyebrow raised beneath their shaggy bangs. "Why are you looking at me like that?! Just thinking out loud!" She was admittedly just talking out to fill the unpleasant ambiance and distract herself from the cold-ass t-shirt that clung insistently to her scales as the school's super-strong AC was now beginning to hit it.

“He hugs us every time we go there,” Kris pointed out mildly. “And tells us how much he missed us.”

"Yeah, yeah, goddamn walking teddy bear, I know. But…" Susie rolled her eyes as they stopped in front of the doors to the supply closet. That wasn't true about Ralsei. Not anymore, anyway; nothing so one-dimensional. He was only like… MOSTLY teddy bear. "...Just feels different, y'know? Maybe because of… How we left him today. He was pretty shaken up."

Usually, Susie estimated, Kris would say something about Ralsei needing their help. Comforting them, whatever, whatever. The type of stuff that made them a leader. The type of stuff that, honestly, ended up making her realize she had been wrong about them for so long. But not this time. What came out of the human was decidedly less selfless mutterings: "Ralsei always goes on about how he wants Castle Town to be a place we can hide from the world. I don't want to be at home right now. Do you?"

Susie blinked, and a little flame of recognition sparked in her mind somewhere: they knew, huh? And they could be real blunt about stuff, too. She shook her head and snorted, her hair covering her eyes messily: "Made your point. Let's go. I hope the transform-y thing we do dries you off."

Kris didn't need to be told twice. The supply closet doors flooded open. The shadowy halls, in an instant, were flooded with darkness beyond darkness. And with a leap, they were flying, and they were falling.

And most important of all, they were somewhere else.

—

“It can RAIN HERE?! What the HELL, Kris?!”

“Ovv course it can! Do you thinketh we subsiste in perthpetual droughte?! It- Oh.” Susie, not taking her eyes off of Kris, scooped Rouxls Kaard up in one hand, pulled herself back onto one foot with her arm over her head, and pitched him in a random direction like the world’s most aggravating medieval baseball, “Understandabbbbbbbbbllllle-”

“I guess it can,” Kris nodded, though even they seemed a little confused. They were staring up at the…Sky? Ceiling? Whatever was above Castle Town was pitch black, but it was pouring down droplets of what seemed to be black water. Fascinated in their own dull way, they held out a single gauntlet-clad hand as rivulets of shadow dribbled and sparkled upon the metal. It was water, too- she had almost immediately stuck out her tongue to check, at least until Kris started audibly struggling to hold back annoying laughter and got her all flustered.

As they walked hurriedly down the center path through town, the little refuge for darkners that Susie had become increasingly proud of them building together felt unusually deserted. A few rudinns were scampering around and playing in puddles and Clover was arguing with herself about whether she loved or despised storms, but beyond that the population seemed scarce. All of the former computer lab denizens, particularly, were off the streets. Probably didn't want to short-circuit.

No Lancer, either. That sucked. Ah, well, he was probably chilling in the castle or something. She didn't know why not seeing him was making her nervous. The bad vibes of the night compounding on her, maybe?

"Never really thought this place could have, like, weather?" She mused, trying and failing to figure out how to angle the Justice Axe above her head just right to block the rain. "Now that I think about it, I don't think I've even ever felt a breeze here."

“Because it’s not real,” Kris noted. This was not new information. But it was said with such flat unaffected concern about that fact that it made Susie grimace.

“...Been thinking about that, y’know. Since things slowed down. How long did you know?” Susie asked, pausing beneath the front gates of the castle and its rain-obscuring stonework. “Before Ralsei’s whole spiel in the TV world, I mean.”

Kris stopped, too, pausing by the wall and palming the dripping bangs out of their face. Clear-black droplets scattered. Susie felt a slight tug in her chest as unobscured red eyes settled on her, unfamiliar and unidentified. Not gonna think about that, nope.

Instead, she focused on the fact that Kris looked… Different somehow. But at the same time, not. Like she'd seen them before but they were wrong all the same.

"A while." The voice, too. Different but familiar. Something old. Something irritating. But at the same time, she couldn't be; this was Kris. Kris was special. She wasn't mad. Not yet. Either way, that tracked. Kris was smart. They probably picked up on it right away.

“What makes us more real than them? They… We’re…”

Susie trailed off, more due to feeling stammery and stupid than anything. Kris was raking fingers through glittering tresses, fussing paradoxically about getting their hair just right into that messy flump of untended shaggy wrong. Covering those eyes again, tilting their head at her quizzically: “They’re cards and stuff. We’re people.”

"Yeah, BUT. Then you put them in here, and they walk, and they talk, and they… I dunno." Susie, crossing her arms to ward off the increasing cold, huffed. Kris was really off today. They were the ones obsessed with sparing every wacky weirdo they got in a fight with, come hell or high water. There was no way they'd never thought about things harder than that before, right? Not if she, of all people, was.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot. About the way Ralsei talks about darkners. It bugged me way back at the beginning too, the way he says they’re supposed to just do stuff for us?” Susie’s frown increased as she spoke. “It’s messed up, y’know? I’ve met enough of ‘em to know they’re basically people too when you get down to it. And no person deserves to just be stuck doing what they’re told and nothing else.”

Something about this drawn-out ramble made Kris visibly flinch, and suddenly, their confusion turned into a frown of their own. The monster girl nodded: “You don’t like the sound of it either, huh? Just controlling somebody.”

“...No. I don’t,” Kris mumbled. Well, that was normal at least.

“Well, whatever. I’m thinking so hard my brain’s starting to hurt.” She looked up at Ralsei’s castle as sheets of black rainfall beat against it. “We can think about that later. For now, let’s just check in on Ralsei and crash for the-”

"What would you do?" Kris suddenly asked. Susie's eyes went wide, and she stopped halfway through taking a stride forward, turning back to find her human friend staring up at her with a really serious look on their face.

“Uh, about…?”

"If you were in that position, being controlled, what would you do?" Kris asked. For the first time tonight, they weren't talking in that low, dejected tone; they seemed wide awake. Almost standing on their toes waiting for this answer.

“What a stupid question,” Susie smirked toothily. “I’d freaking rebel, dumbass! Nobody tells me what to do.”

“And what if that just makes things worse for you?”

Susie paused, raising an eyebrow before asking, “How the hell could freedom be worse?”

Kris didn’t seem to want to answer that one, looking down at their feet. Or maybe they were just having a tough time piecing the words together, which Susie could sympathize with. They really had a lot of things on their mind tonight, huh? As bummed out as she was feeling, she was getting more and more certain that she was going to end up needing to cheer up more than one nerd before the night was over.

“Listen, c’mon. We can talk about this when we’re inside and dry. I’m freezing my ass off here.” She put a hand on Kris’ shoulder, budging them forward. They made a reluctant little whining sound as they crossed the courtyard and into the castle. Truth be told? She didn’t mind focusing on other people for the moment. It was way easier than worrying about yourself when you got down to it.

Chapter Text

“Everything will be okay. It’s worth it for them. It doesn’t have to hurt. It doesn't matter even if it does. Everything will be okay.”

The room was empty. The curtains swayed. The wind had always been there, only here and nowhere else, to touch them. It was a reminder for him, a canonization of his intended loneliness. The rain was a newborn thing, though. It gained new life and it dove into it for all it was worth. Not a wasted minute. No purpose. Enviable. Unfairly so.

He watched raindrops flutter in through the open window, a shining black puddle feeding down into the cracks and the floorboards. For the sake of his friends, he tried to find what he had lost.

“You have to, for them. You have to-”

Voices downstairs. His head shot up from its resting place on the knees drawn to his chest.

He panicked.

—

“Hey, the hell’s Ralsei at? Not that I miss him doing one of those stupid mushy hugs on me the second he sees me, heh. Just…”

“Dunno,” Kris shrugged. “Sleeping?”

“Do they do that? Actually, screw that, why are you acting so unconcerned? You normally spend half your time figuring out ways to hug the guy.” Susie squinted at them, and for a moment they saw Kris’ face twist in an odd way. Like they had an immediate response to that, but held it back like a stifled sneeze.

Susie had started to realize something was off around the time she’d gotten halfway across the castle’s rainy courtyard. Not about Kris, them being weird was pretty well-established tonight, but with Ralsei’s absence. The dorky little prince should have been there. He always was, one way or another. Standing right at the entrance of town waiting for them, running to the rescue when a new Dark World came up…

Not this time. No one did. Like the school before it, the castle felt deserted and eerie somehow when they entered. Too dark, too lonely, too… too… Too like how it had felt the first time she’d come here. A dreary ghost town. What was going on? All that hard work making this place lively, and it was like it’d backslid to how it had been before they started closing fountains.

“Maybe he’s in the basement. Or he’s- Hey!” Kris froze on the second step of the upward stairwell, looking back at Susie. “Dude, you’re seriously just gonna go up without looking around for him first? You’re basically addicted to staring at unimportant crap, slow down a little.”

Kris stood there for a short time, one foot awkwardly raised, seeming to mull this over for a little too long in a way that they often tended to do, teetering backwards like they were going to flop onto the floor painfully. What eventually came was a perturbed question: “You actually like that?”

“NO! Er. I mean, I don’t hate it if that’s what you’re asking.” Something about this answer made Kris hunch their shoulders a little, Susie barely noticing as she scratched the back of her head sheepishly. “You come up with some funny jokes about it sometimes, I guess. Speaking of which, about that cactus thing you keep mumbling about, I think the word you’re lookin’ for is-”

“What else do you like? About me?” Kris asked, beginning to step back down into the entryway.

“I.. Bwuh? What the hell’s that question supposed to mean?!” The blush on Susie’s face was immediate and involuntary. Where did they get off asking something like that out of the blue with zero lead up or tact?! She would have almost thought she was getting pranked, but Kris’ pranks almost always ended with them staring dead-seriously at you, like they were trying to work out how the hell you ever fell for them. This time, though, their deadpan blankness was punctuated with a sudden mortified expression. And then, kind of… Panic?

“Uh, I meant… I didn’t mean…I was talking about…” Kris began to stammer, raising their hands in front of themselves.

“Y-You two..? You’re here already?”

A soft, meek, somewhat nasally voice from the stairs that Kris had been trying to head up earlier. Both turned to face it, Susie’s features immediately brightening upon seeing the figure holding the small lantern and peering cautiously in their direction. That he was okay was enough of a salve to make her ignore the fact that his signature mad dash to embrace them wasn’t happening

“Ralsei! Hey, dude, we just… Uh…?” Then came the stumbling block. He was wearing that big witch hat of his again, broad brim swamping his face in shadows that the little lantern he was holding didn’t seem to puncture. His mouth was dug into his pink scarf, too. Susie squinted: “What’s with the getup?”

Ralsei’s eyes got really big behind those round-rimmed glasses of his. She couldn’t see his muzzle but she could hear it open and a puff of air came out, a half-formed word that he thought better of saying. “I-It, um… It’s raining outside. So I figured it was better to bundle up, and…”

“Oh. Well, I mean, not a bad idea. That big stupid hat would probably be real good at keeping your face dry, heheh.” Susie grinned. She’d gotten real spooked when she’d see that outfit. All that talk about backsliding, and then getting given such a clear example of it?

“Why is it raining?’ Kris asked.

“I, well… I don’t know? It started right after I came back. It’s never happened before, at least not that I-” Ralsei turned to face them, and… Well, it was kind of hard to see with the prince all bundled up like that, but she could tell he got really stiff all of a sudden, their words cutting off. When it returned, it sounded nervous. “Oh. Kris.”

Awkward, awkward silence. The human and the darkner staring at each other from across the room, and then only Ralsei being able to do so when Kris’ eyes fell away from him. Susie rapidly looked between them in confusion until Ralsei’s voice, soft and unusually trembly, filled the space: “I… I see. Kris is here.”

Okay. Enough with everyone acting weird. She’d had it up to freaking here.

“Uh… Yeah? Who else would it be?” She took over by sheer brute force, the best kind of force. “Listen, Ralsei. We just wanted to use our rooms for a change? The bed parts, I mean.”

“Oh…? You mean you want to spend the night?” That prospect at least seemed to bring some of that typical cheery energy back to the prince, making him stand up a bit straighter. Warmth for her flooded his voice again. “Of course that’s okay, Susie! I haven’t gotten around to separating the rooms again yet, but as long as that’s fine with you. You, a-and…”

“Eh, that’s okay. I was like ten seconds from basically being in the same setup earlier.” Susie shrugged and glanced at Kris. “You don’t mind, right? Promise I won’t sleepwalk and eat you or anything.”

“Fine by me,” Kris mumbled. They were pointedly looking at only her.

“Come on then, let me show you to your rooms.” Ralsei turned, that long cloak that went down to his ankles swaying as he did so. Susie was right behind him, Kris bringing up the rear. Show them to their…? Man, he must have really missed that little butler getup Queen put him in.

“Why dontcha grab an extra blanket or something too and make yourself a little floor-pallet or something, Ralsei?” Susie grinned. “That could be fun. Like… A sleepover or somethin’. Never had one of those. Well, we almost had one at Kris' place before... All that."

"A sleepover? I've never had one either. I…" Ralsei's interest sounded a bit piqued, if only for a moment. He looked back as they rounded a corner in the dark stairwell, the lantern in his hand glinting off of the lenses of his glasses and making his eyes impossible to read. She did, though, get the distinct impression that he was looking past her at Kris. Behind her, the human averted their eyes and stared down at their feet again. "... Probably shouldn't. You've both had a long day, after all."

“Aw, c’mon!” Susie whined. “Couldn’t we at least hang out for a little? I wanna see Lancer! And check up on the others.”

“Most everyone in the castle is asleep at this time of night, Susie. You need eight hours a day at least. Even darkners know that!” That was news to her, but he was the expert she supposed. “I… I should probably do that too, eheh.”

“C’mon, Kris, tell him he’s gotta sleep with us or I’ll put him in a headlock. Dude, for real, it’s gonna suuuuck. Pretty much working on it as my signature move. Explain to him how bad the headlock is, Kris.” Susie looked back at them, a little more desperate than her silly tone might have let on. She got an aversion of the eyes and felt a growing sense of helplessness. Ugh.

Susie was… Well, she was bad with people. At people. That kind of stuff. But what was she supposed to do? Normally, her go-to was to rely on Kris and Ralsei being decent at it, but THEM being the one with the problem? It was like buying a knife, and the knife coming in one of those impossible to open plastic cases that you needed a knife. It wasn’t just something that Snowy would tell a stupid joke about, it was a real and really goddamn annoying thing.

She racked her brain for a solution, but frustratingly, nothing had come by the time they’d reached the doors of their rooms on the second floor. Ralsei stopped by the blue door and gave it a tug before turning back to them: “There you two go. Get nice and rested! You’ve got a festival to go to in the morning after all, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Guess we really do have to get up early and be ready for that.” She scratched the back of her head, Kris passing right by Ralsei and into the combined pair of bedrooms wordlessly. “...Ralsei, are you sure you don’t wanna join in? I could even take the floor and you could take the bed. If you aren’t afraid of the spikes, I mean. I just… Don’t want you to be lon-”

“It’s fine, Susie, really! We’ve all had a long day, I think. Don’t worry about me, okay?” Ralsei said hastily. And then, finally, it hit her. Scarf or not, it hit her what was going on that was making him feel so off to her. Her expression darkened. So we’re back to just not telling each other important stuff again, huh?

In she went, somehow managing to feel even worse now than she did at the outset of all this. Ralsei began to close the door behind her; she didn’t watch, just hearing the creak of the hinges. But before that final thump, there was one final thing.

“Kris, I…” Ralsei sounded hesitant. Like he was fairly sure he shouldn’t have been speaking at all. Nevertheless, out came the words.

“I-I’m… Doing my best. Like you told me to. Good night!”

—-

“....”

Minutes passed by. Silence. Uncomfortable, silence of the type that Susie was pretty sure she’d been born to shatter into a million pieces. But… She couldn’t. All she did was lie there, nibble a snack, and try to remind herself of the one silver lining still behind all of this: she hadn’t gone home

This place was better than her room in the Light World. That was not particularly an accomplishment, all things considered; the bed she was currently lying on with her hands behind her head had, for example, things like sheets. And no broken springs poking out of holes in the mattress.There were also toaster strudels in the fridge, one of which she was currently munching on. Already cooked ones? That you didn’t need a toaster for. Still had to spread the icing on top though.

Food was nice. Didn’t really fill you up in this world, but still nice. It was also only so much of a distraction. Across from her, a sprawled silhouette on the opposite bed shifted.

“I should be mad at them. Kris obviously said… Something.”

The lights were just dim enough to be relaxing and not bleed through closed eyelids. The rattling of rain against the window, too, was kinda cool. Rain could be nice when you were indoors for it. If you weren’t in a bad mood, that is. That kind of changed things up. And right now, she was feeling…

“I should be mad at them. They’re going through crap, and they aren’t even telling me. But…”

But as much she wanted to be pissed as hell… It wasn’t working. Part of her, admittedly, was, but every glance she stole across the room at Kris’ bed just made her feel bad. They’d taken off the plate segments of their outfit, leaving themselves in nothing but the black under-section of their dark world gear… And they were currently staring up at the ceiling. She could see the side of one of their red eyes. They were about ten steps away from her, that bed and her own… But there was a different sort of distance at play here.

“Goddamit, pull yourself together! You knew from the get-go you were gonna have to cheer this nerd up tonight. Stop moping and DO IT!”

Thwap. There was nothing but a small pittance of strudel that had been spared Susie’s jaws, but it was enough to make a satisfying little splat of blueberry filling on Kris’ face after she tossed it at them. Kris’ eyes fluttered then slowly crossed to focus on the mess lying atop their nose.

“You looked hungry. Gonna thank me for sharing?” Okaaaay, maybe that wasn’t the best way to move this situation forward, but dammit, the universe sent her of all people to be in charge of smoothing whatever this was over.

They plucked the thrown strudel off of themselves and promptly popped it into their mouth, lazily chewing. Betrayal! She had totally expected it to be thrown back at her. Though, after they gulped it down, they finally spoke: “Thanks.”

A word. Progress.

“You were all about goin’ to sleep, but you can’t, eh? Me either. Got that weird feeling like something’s trying to crawl up out of my lungs into my throat.” Susie paused, and then heard a low mumble. She grit her teeth, razors getting caught in other razors awkwardly and dragging near-hard enough to cause sparks. “Still in mumble-mode too. Great. Goddammit. What’s it gonna take to get your voice back to normal?”

She realized she’d said something wrong when Kris, instead of even giving the aforementioned mumbles in response, slowly turned on their side in bed away from her. Susie sighed, reluctantly raising herself up off of her bed.

“Scooch over.” Kris shifted in surprise as their smaller bed creaked and dipped a little with the weight of her larger frame. She had very casually hopped atop it to take a seat at the foot, back pressed against one of the bedposts.

“Why are-?” Kris began.

“If you wanna mumble, mumble. I’ll just get closer.” She shrugged, and grinned at Kris. “We’ll make it work.”

“...”

Being funny wasn’t working. It was easy to screw around, second nature; usually it made Kris light up when she did, which usually just made for a feedback loop where they got increasingly out of control. But… This wasn’t the right situation for it. She was gonna have to take the hard road for this one.

“Look,” Susie exhaled out her nose. “...I get it. I get it, y’know? Things aren’t easy right now. They should be. I mean, we’re like…Heroes. And we keep winning. You’d think we’d get good karma for doing good stuff or whatever.”

Kris looked at her strangely. She didn’t know what the near-unreadable expression meant, but she nevertheless treated getting them to stop staring at the wall by their bed to be a point of victory. She continued: “...But it’s okay one way or the other. Me? I’m used to stuff sucking even when you’re doing the ‘right’ things.”

“Yeah,” Kris said, almost a whisper.

“...You guys are really the first time I’ve ever felt like I got a reward for being myself.” Kris’ eyes widened. Susie didn’t really take note of it, her own vision becoming momentarily lost in reminiscence. “Every other time I’ve made a friend I always felt like I was pretending in one way or another. I was trying to make myself look tough, or I was pretending to be smarter than I was, or… Whatever. And it hurt. Even when stuff was good for a little while before we had to move again, it hurt, because I knew it wasn’t real. And if it feels like that, can you really call anything ‘good’ at the end of the day?”

“But with you guys,” She smiled fondly, “...I feel like, even when we run into stuff like this… It’s okay. Because I’m not playing pretend. You guys have seen what I’m like, and you’re not just stuck with it, or having to deal with it, or ignoring it, you… I dunno. You like it? I hope.”

“Sorry. I’m getting weird.” Susie shook her head, the sound of her voice and her voice alone becoming heavy as it always did when she started spilling a little too much of her guts like this.”Stuff is bad. But when you’re going through it with people that like you, really like you, it can only be so bad. I think that’s what I was trying to say.”

“What if you don’t really like me?” Not the answer Susie was expecting. Certainly not one she was wanting. She raised an eyebrow down at Kris, who had sat up now but was still a head and a half shorter than her.

“What?” Was all she could manage, caught off guard. “What’s with all the what-ifs you’re asking lately? Obviously, I-”

“Sometimes I wonder if anything you like about me is… Me.” Kris' voice was now above a whisper, but just barely. They couldn’t hold their gaze on her. “If you’d like me at all if…”

“I, um…Huh? Not you too… Ralsei has an excuse to talk about not being real but, you don’t, dude.” Susie felt a bit of panic; not at the fact that things had gotten even heavier out of nowhere, but because she had no idea what they even meant. “You’re Kris. you’re my-”

“I never feel like I have any control. I hate it. But at the same time, it feels like all the stuff you like about me is from when I… Feel like that. The fake stuff.” It felt like Kris was struggling to put this sentence together, dancing around the word choices and swapping things in and out just before they were said to keep something else unsaid. “The real me is… You know how Ralsei’s been acting weird?” Kris asked.

“...Yeah.” Susie nodded, reluctant at another left turn being introduced in all of this but following along and hoping it’d make sense soon enough. She definitely wasn’t going to stop them; this was the most Kris had said all night. “I realized right before we got in here that he… Wasn’t smiling. In fact, I don’t think he had a single time since he first saw us. That getup he had on was trying to hide it, but you could tell.”

“I.. He kept going on and on about how he didn’t feel like he was allowed to do what he wanted, after you left for the Fountain in the church. He just kept getting more upset, and I just kept getting… More angry. Because I felt the same way. He started freaking out about not being able to smile.” Kris seemed to need to focus on something to look at because Susie wasn’t going to be it- they raised their right hand. “... I should have comforted him, but I was… I pushed. I pushed as hard as I could. Not to do what I should have. To act on that. So I told him to shut up and keep smiling. Because it was what he was there for.”

“You told him what?!” Her jaw dropped. Kris had been there for every moment of Ralsei’s struggles over the last two days. “Y-You… That’s the worst thing you could have said!”

They flinched at Susie’s raised voice, that hand they were staring at beginning to tremble, as if it had somehow been what moved them to make the decision they had. The anger that was flashing and flaring inside of Susie, the outrage, began to subside almost as swiftly as it had come. And when Kris began talking, the sheer defeat and weakness in their voice only made that process faster. “That’s what I mean. That’s the real me. And I’ve… I’ve felt bad ever since. It made me realize, maybe I shouldn’t try. Maybe I should just let it all happen. Because when I make choices…? When it’s me? I do all the wrong things. And if I do all the wrong things, I’ll lose you, and.. And I don’t want to lose you, and-”

“Enough.”

Her fists had long since unclenched. She was still mad about what they’d said to Ralsei. It was impossible not to be, especially after seeing how the poor guy had taken it. But she was also not so blinded by it that she couldn’t see a hurt person in front of her. And hurt people tended to spread that hurt around even when they didn’t mean it. She’d been there about a few hundred times herself.

Purple-scaled fingers wound around that shaking hand and squeezed tightly. Kris flinched again- that mild panic. She remembered it now. She remembered the look in their eyes, too, that had been driving her nuts all day: it was from before. Back when things were different. Back when Susie’s only real goal in day to day school life was making Kris miserable.

The backslide was real. And despite herself, what she found herself looking back on to push past it was the prophecy. The thing that had seemed to make everything fall apart today was what she ended up finding strength in. “The Girl, with hope crossed on her heart.”

What the hell good was hope if you couldn’t share it with others?

She pulled them forward. Kris thumped against her torso, their head coming up just below her chest. Her arms wrapped around them tightly, their body feeling so limp and lifeless against her own.

“That’s enough,” she said again firmly, biting back a croak in her throat. Kris, you dumbass. Why didn’t they say any of this before now? How long had this been bubbling under the surface for?! And now she was right on the verge of tearing up because of it. “Do you think you’re the only person who does stupid crap sometimes?”

“N-No, I-”

“I screw up all the goddamn time. In fact, a lot of the time it feels like all I do. But I’m not going anywhere. Because no matter what you think is ‘you’ or ‘the other you’ or whatever you’re trying to say… I know the kind of person you are. And your screw ups aren’t all that makes you… Well, you!”

“You don’t understand,” they trembled in her grasp. Susie only held them tighter; that better have been appreciated. She hated hugs. Susie Hugs came at a premium! But it was the only thing she could think to do at the moment.

“No, dude, YOU don’t understand. You’re the first person I ever met… Ever, in my life, who smiles when they see me. Not because they feel like they have to, but because they’re happy I’m around.” She shut an eye in embarrassment, remembering their time in the diner together earlier today. It was nothing compared to the blush Kris now had; they didn’t even seem to have consciously realized that was a thing they did. “You’re the first person who gave me a chance, even after all the dumbass bullying crap I did to you after I moved in. Was that someone else?”

“...No. But-”

“Naw. I think this is pretty much the only thing I do understand. The person who’s saved my life twice now isn’t a bad person no matter how hard they’re pretending they might be.” She was so passionate about this that she hardly thought of the position she was in, inches away from Kris’ nose with her own. “Or are you going to tell me that was someone else too?”

“...I made myself move.”

No resistance or pushback to that one. No, instead, what she got was that confusing response, and then the hug finally being reciprocated. It was her turn to blush as Kris’ arms went around her waist and they held her, as tight as they could. She dug her face into their hair with an embarrassed huff. The apple smell was gone, washed away by the rain, only petrichor left in its place. She exhaled and watched the dark strands flutter. Her heart did, too, for a moment.

“I’m not gonna pretend I get your whole deal, Kris, but… I’m here for it, because I know you’re gonna do the right thing.” At last, she broke away from them, hands on their shoulders. She said nothing about the tears brimming their eyes right now, because she was pretty sure if she did she’d be right there along with them. “And if you need help? Well… Well, probably ask Ralsei because he’s better at that, but I’m like, totally second place.”

“Y-You’re better than you think,” Kris sniffled, laughing softly but voice cracking a little. She felt something slide down her cheek. “Susie. You’re-”

“Shut up.”

“....Crying.”

“Shut up! No I’m not! And even if I am it’s just one cry! I mean tear, one tear! You get one hug and you get one tear, dammit!” For a moment, the ordeal was forgotten as she transitioned her hug into a noogie. Kris wriggled helplessly, clutching at the bicep around their shoulders as the knuckles dug in. Rain fell. Rain shook the windows. Rain that had been here, but had once again been pushed back outside.

But upstairs…

“Speaking of…You really messed up with Ralsei.” She looked over their heads, towards where she was pretty sure Ralsei’s room would be “You’re gonna prove that whole dumb pep talk I just did correct and do the the right thing, right?”

Kris, who had begun to gather themselves from that fragile state as well as Susie’s affection, scratched the back of their neck awkwardly as the conversation turned back to the crappy thing they’d done. But the answer only took a few seconds to come out, and Susie was immediately validated by what she’d heard.

“Are you coming too?”

“Dumbass. I just told you, you ain’t getting rid of me now.” She slapped a palm on their back hard enough to make them hunch forward a little. “Besides, not gonna miss one dweeb cheering up the other for the world. Now c’mon. If we can save the world two times over, fixing this should be a cinch.”