Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is Winter… one of the worst we’ve had. A howling can be heard accompanying every piece of silence in all of Hometown.

Alphys stands at the front of the classroom: “Well, I guess that’s the end of everything i have to teach you today… so just remember that this weekend I expect you to finish your levera- oh everyone's leaving… ok.”  

“Well… not everyone… but whatever.” I respond under my breath. Sometimes I really think Alphys, no matter how sad her life is, overdoes her self-loathing a little. However, it’s true that most of the students are gushing out the door. Because i sit at the back of class, I quickly leap onto the cupboard beside the exit to wait for Asriel while he asks Alphys a Math question that I could’ve helped him with. The plan was to get up on here and just look around indifferently while everyone else sludged their way out of class, but that’s starting to be harder than I expected with all of these kids bumping into me as they leave. Well, whether I look indifferent or not doesn’t even matter all that much to me anyway… so I guess I'm succeeding. 

“HEYYYY DESSIEEEEEE.” Catty says, the final person in the giant line that just shoved past me. 

“Hey Catty… you excited for tonight?”

“ERM… YASSS… HOW COULD I FORGET?”

“Good shit… now we just gotta wait for Asriel… or I guess Mathsriel.” I say. I’m not even patronizing him when I say that — I find his unironic concern for his education honestly adorable — it’s just that I have an awful penchant for spontaneously generating puns when I'm nervous. 

“So Catty… you got any ideas about where we want to explore.” I ask. 

“Maybe like… somewhere my sister hasn’t like… already been before — it's actually embarrassing how much more rogue she is than me considering she’s only 12.” Catty sighs. 

“That’s easy… there’s gotta be heaps of places she hasn’t gone… right… ” I ask. 

“Well… she’s broken into pretty much everyone's house, she’s been in the school after it closed, QC’s after it closed, the church after it closed… i think she actually swam in the church font…  and um let me think… she went into grillbys WHILST IT WAS OPEN… even though she was a kid… to get some weird ingredient for something.” Catty complains.

“Well… i feel like the last one says more about grillbys than Catti… but the rest is like… disturbingly impressive… Does she do it alone…? I remember your mum saying something about her not having enough friends… and just like… why does she break into so many places?” I enquire trepidatiously.

“She has another friend now… she refers to him as her ‘Protege.’ Mum kinda forced the friendship at the start I think… but I think Catti’s really happy with him… and mum absolutely adores him… he’s really pretty funny. As for why, I have no idea. I think at the start it was mostly because she is really intelligent for her age and is fascinated with like… certain environments… often unpopulated versions of usually populated areas. But now it seems like she’s mostly interested in some weird secret plan she has. Her Protege certainly knows of the plan and… I think after he heard it… he started like engaging with Catti’s weird magic stuff more seriously.” Catty explains.

…

I gently slide off of the cupboard i’m sitting on. I need to feel my feet on solid ground.

“I can kinda see how Catti makes you feel inferior now. Like before i was thinking ‘oh Catty, you just can’t be jealous of your sister… that’s the most mistake ever’... but… THE frickin… CHURCH… SWI-SWIMMING IN THE FONT! That’s… a heavenly dream for me! Oh the Lord would be so proud of me for distributing his beautiful resources (most beautiful swimming pool) freely upon myself against the efforts of those lame old men who hoard it away from everyone else (alvin). God’s swimming pool… open 24/7, and on a snowy night… the stained glass illuminated only by the odd streetlight… god it’s so beautiful it hurts. I think your sister is my hero…” I rave. 

“DESS… YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME BRIDGE THE GAP OF ME AND CATTI’S COOLNESS DIFFERENTIAL… NOT INCREASE IT!”

“Well I'm not going to help you by LYING, am I!? We’ll just have to think of something… more awesome… than communing with the Lord via… non ceremonial… just — just… genuine bathing. Oh my god snap out of it Dess.” I say, snapping my fingers near my eyes and accidentally freaking myself out. 

“THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING!” 

“Ok we have to think of a cooler crime than that, yes… Any ideas?” I ask.

“Well… i tried coming up with a few ideas but i think we might need a genuine THREE WAY brainstorming session to reach peak neuron activation.” Catty suggests. 

“I had the idea of maybe building a ski ramp considering its winter. Maybe off of like… someone's porch… without telling them we’re building it.”

“That’s actually kind of awesome… And and what if… we made the ramp go all the way up to another persons porch… so it would be like… a half pipe.” Catty suggests. 

“THAT’S AWESOME!” I exclaim. “The problem tho is that we would need to find like the two sleepiest homes in Hometown to build the half-pipe between. Like people who won't wake up no matter how loud we are…”

“Or you know… you could just… actually be quiet for once.” Catty snaps. 

“Hey what the heck! I can stay quiet…” I retort.

“Oh yeah… can you stay quiet… through this!” Catty hisses.

Catty starts tickling me while I sit on the cupboard. I actually put up a pretty good fight against the urge to laugh… but the bigger problem is the massive donging sounds which reverberate from the huge cupboard beneath me each time I squirm under Catty’s fingers. 

Alphys looks away from Asriel’s math problem to make eye contact with me. I freeze in a very strange position indeed. My feet are flung out in a mid kick position, my hands are splayed against the sides of the cupboard searching for support and I'm balancing on my butt against my bag. Catty turns around to see Alphys, but turns back away and pretends to inspect… something — as if i had just contorted into this position completely on my own.

Alphys smiles however. She is very affected by acts of friendship, and seeing us supporting Asriel by waiting up after class for him, as well as messing around with each other just now, is no exception. Asriel remains, head-down, in his work… trying to put what Alphys has just been explaining into his own deconstruction of the problem. I awkwardly lift up my splayed hand from the cupboard, barely retaining my balance whilst doing so, and rotate it in the air in front of my face. The muscles in my hands are painfully tense though. The gesture almost looks like waving. Alphys winks and turns back to Asriel’s page:

“Anything you don’t get?” She says from afar. 

“I think… I'm almost there.” Asriel responds…

I slide off the cupboard and clump together on the ground… Catty lets out a massive sigh. 

“Did you have any problems with this week's math homework Catty?” I ask her. 

“Dude, I don’t take maths…”

“Oh yeah… i forgot… crap” I wipe my face with my hands.

“Dude… what…” 

“No it’s just… I was kind of hyping up to have a fat Math-talking-about session with Asriel on the way home, because I think he just learnt about differentiation for the first time today, but I guess it can wait.” I muse. 

“dUDE ARE YOU EVEN SURE HE WILL WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT.” Catty retorts.

“Come to think about it… sometimes it seems like Asriel gets pretty beaten down by maths.” I admit.

“We can all talk about visual arts tho!?” Catty offers. 

“Oh yeah… we all do visual arts… to differing degrees *cough cough*. Ok, what's your favourite um… feature of your artstyle.” I ask.

“Um… well, often after I've finished the majority of the drawing, I go back and rub out all the brightly lit points of the artwork so their COMPLETELY WHITE, so the characters look super SHINY and the light looks SUPER dappled… it’s awesome.” Catty raves. 

“So THAT’S how you make the light look so… wet. I need to do more comics you know, i always wanted to write a song and the lyrics are just the dialogue from a comic… oh here comes Asriel.” I say

“HIIIII AZZY.” Catty crouches down after saying this and tries to shore up the giant drawing tablet in her bag that she brings to class every single day that Alphy’s some how never notices. I reminisce on how good this class is to be a slacker in and consider regretting my choices to take all my classes so seriously… but nah… maths and science are awesome.

“Hi Real.” I say to Asriel carelessly, turning to grab my bag off of the cupboard and beginning to walk out the door way

“Bruh… differentiation makes no sense - Asriel” Asriel says, twirling past me and Catty to strike an impatient pose in the door frame while we sort out our bags. However, he notices and uses the opportunity to get in a free condescending head pat on each of us: Catty, while she is still fiddling with her zipper, and me while I am making direct eye contact at him. I wince… trying not to react.

“Bruh… differentiation makes no sense - Asriel.” I state directly into his eyes. “I’m quoting you on that.”

“Yeah, that’s why I included my name at the end when i first said it: so it’s easier to quote.” Asriel starts walking out of the school… Catty still messing with her bag. I catch up to Asriel a bit. 

“That’s very considerate of you Real.” I say.

“Can you please stop calling me Real… it’s like… such a facetious and larger-than-life nickname to have to deal with, not to mention that it gets pretty metaphysically confusing.” Asriel Complains.

“But you are Real!!!” I assert.

“This is exactly what i mean Dess… this is exactly what i mean: indiscriminately using the term Real as a qualifier and the name of a particular entity… you're sending me back to the pre-socratic era of philosophy bro.” He groans.

“Well you're sending ME back to the pre-newtownian era of mathematics with HOW LONG you're taking to understand CALCULUS.” I retort.

Catty bumps her head into the small of my back, causing me to breach through the threshold of the school: we are free. Some students are dawdling around the front yard, notably Catti and a snake-like young man who I can now identify as Catti’s Protege. Catti seems to be informing her Protege of some kind of plan, making frequent reference to a hand drawn map of some kind that she seems to have drawn during class. Catti’s mother calls out for her, and Catti starts to look around suspiciously. I instinctually go to make intimidating eye contact with Catti — a basic duty of being friends with her older sister — until I remember all of the things I just learnt about her, and then quickly turn away, so as to avoid conceding the countenance of admiration that I secretly have to show her. 

“Well… hehe…” Asriel begins, after clearly having thought of this comeback for a while. "If Newton can’t save me… at least I have Leibniz.” 

I pause for a second. Even Catty knows it was a weak comeback and she only knows Leibniz as a philosopher… not a mathematician.

“That’s not a good comeback at all, but you mentioned Leibniz so… you get a pass. Also I love the insinuation that Newton can ‘Save you’... like he’s some atheist version of Jesus or something that’s so funny.” I giggle. 

“Dude there are actually so many ‘Atheist Jesuses” it’s like a fricking… thing.” Catty says. “Atheists love praying to like… Renaissance people I swear.”

“Well I guess that makes sense… I mean… they do show the power of personality or the mind or something.” I mutter.

“Yeah… like um… Bach. He’s kinda like an Atheist Jesus” Asriel guesses. 

“Dude… seriously… Bach wrote… so much Christian music. He’s more like a christian Jesus than an atheist Jesus. WAIT… ” I exclaim..

“That’s true, but did you know that Bach's music was so beautiful he made it so you could believe in heavenly things without explicitly believing in a religion… because his music was so heavenly… all you had to do is believe in his music… which was like… right in your ears” Asriel Responds.

“When did you get so into Bach…” I ask.

“Kris has been playing him a lot lately… it’s like… you can see pastures in-between the notes… and the counterpoint it… it starts to make you believe in… certain things” Asriel mutters wistfully. 

“He’s not wrong Dessie… Bach is actually really fire.” Catty adds. “This is why you should follow the group playlists more closely.”

“dUDE I FRICKIN HATE THE GROUP PLAYLISTS. I just wanna listen to slow-core only forever.” I blurt. “Sorry… that was… that was upsetting for me to say. I just… get really upset when people threaten my ability to listen to slowcore. You know what…  ok if you guys are telling me that Bach is so good he makes you see things in between the notes… then we might need to incorporate some inspiration from him into a Dragon Blazers 3 song.” I say.

“You know… naming our band Dragon Blazers 3 is awesome but sometimes it gets confusing.” Asriel admits. 

I shrug.

We reach the road. The Cattenheimer van is parked directly in front of the school. Catty’s mum has finally found Catti and Jockington and is slowly coaxing them to the car. 

“So uhh… do we wanna like… cop this free ride home?” Catty offers.

“I do love a good van ride” Asriel says. I nod heavily in agreement.

“Alright… but I'm bagsing front seat, so uh…. Good luck guys… MUMMMMM!” 

Mother Cattenheimer turns to the sound of her daughter's whine.

 “Oh darling… are your friends coming home with us tonight too! This is going to be so fun… so intergenerational!” Catty’s Mum says.

“Like… yeah… um… and im taking the front seat… my friends already agreed” Catty clarifies.

“Oh ok… well if they agreed that's ok… um Catti, Jocky… it going to be a bit of a tight fit darlings… but i’m sure you all can work it out. You know Dessie and Azzy right Jockignton?” 

“YO LIKE… DESS THE YOUTH GROUP LEADER… bRO…” Jockington exclaims. I look down at my forearms and imagine them being predicated with that title. Wait when did I get that cut. 

Catti assesses the situation with cruel precision: “It’s fine. The people at the back can have Jockington laid out across their laps.” She states. Catti’s facial expression continues its state of extreme concentration after she says this, as if, after solving the seating problem, she immediately reverted to solving another problem in her head.

“Yo sick idea Catti… sharing is caring is the shit!” Jockington gleefully declares. Catti nods magnanimously 

Despite Jockington’s silliness the two of them have this aura of co-ordination that I find almost intimidating… like both their minds are together on some other thing… and what they do on this plane of reality is either silly or chorelike — this being the reason they can afford to have such dramatised personalities. Why not say ‘bRO’ after every sentence when you know something everyone else doesn’t?… What do they know? Did they visit th-

“Alright, you first Dess.” Asriel says, gesturing to the door for me. Asriel knows I take the left window seat. On our joint-family trips to Mount Hopeless as kids, I would spend the upward trip looking out the window, not talking to anyone. I wanted to load up on the serenity of the landscape as fast as I could by staring out the window, listening to music. The left seat was the best for that on the way up, because it had the view of the valley. Not having the valley view on the way down was fine for me, because i would already be filled with so much serenity that i felt in the mood to talk, and so, always facing Asriel, who was in the right window seat, I got to see the view whilst I talked to him. Plus, I could always just crane my body over Kris (who was in the middle seat) to look out of Asriel's window if we passed something really cool. Sometimes I had to look out of Asriel’s window on the way back… in order to see how small Hometown looks from the mountain at night with it’s silly little lamp lights. It’s been awhile since me and Asriel have ridden together in Mum’s van but… but I still instinctually vie for control of the left window seat in all other vehicles ever since.

“Real, Real… thank you.” I say wryly.

Asriel sighs: “No problem, Yes – OMG YES… THATS SUCH A CONFUSING NICKNAME YES THANK GOD THIS IS AWESOME.” 

I smirk: “Yes isn’t such a bad nickname. Pretty positive if you ask me hehe. Hard to not feel good when your name is yes” 

“Yes, Yes!” Asriel says a bit too excitedly.

“REALLL, Real! I say back annoyingly.

Catti is waiting for us to stop bantering. She doesn’t look impatient – just off with the fairies… or should i say… off with the morally ambiguous pixies. It creeps me out so i hurry up.

I step into the car and shuffle all the way to the left, Catti following after me with Jockington wrapped around her shoulder. The girl seems to have extremely poor hand eye coordination. Then Asriel hops in, laying his bag at his feet and doing his belt. 

“Jockington is going to stretch out now.” Catti announces.

Jockington unfurls to the extent of the entire row of back seats. Catti holds onto him protectively with a careful monkey grip. His head is lain on my knee. 

“Ok everybody BELTED UP!” Catty’s mum giggles. 

“Mummm.” Catty sighs. The engine and then the car starts to move.

“So uh… Jockington… your favourite thing in the whole world is… Aquatic Architecture. How does that make you feel” I like starting every conversation with an assertion whenever I remember to.

“No… my favourite thing in the world is NOT Aquatic Architecture… although it’s up there. if it was up to me every house would have an indoor pool. Not just the Cattenheimers. Oh and… every road would be a pool too.”

“So what is your favourite thing in the whole world then…” Asriel asks gently.

Catti is looking highly nervous. 

“Inter-dim-” Catty subconsciously grips Jockington too tightly, lightly choking him. Jockington gets the message: “Role-play.”

“Ah role play, the noblest, most spiritual and vivid of all the arts. For there is no skill to role play but belief in art itself and well, the ability to conduct yourself in tasks artistically… the ability to create artistic tasks … the ability to be a character…” I rant wistfully. 

“What do you guys role play.” Asriel asks. 

Jockington looks to Catti: “Uh… that we are fish underwater. Another thing i like about role-play is that you get to set the soundtrack to your adventures. And when you role-play right before you fall asleep it gets really cool because you get phantasmagoria and stuff.”

“Do you… hehe… stay up past your bedtime huh…?” I ask connivingly.

Catti looks nervous again, looking back and forth between Jockington and her Mother. She pats Jockington in order to signify him to be careful.

“Uh… a little bit… maybe… mostly only on weekends” Jockington says.

“You know… some groups of kids prefer to do the stuff that you can only do at night. So there's nothing wrong with staying up late. But, if i were you, i’d master one or the other - the day, or the night… so you can have at least one part of the day that your a pro at” I explain. “We…” I gesture to Asriel and Me and make a cool focused face: “Are night mains…” 

“Oh yeah… like the HOMETOWN ROCKDOWN! BRO Dragon Blazers 2 we’re like the masters of that night” Jockington exasperates. 

Asriel sighs: “Dude that wasn’t late… that ended at 8pm. Kids in your class performed before us and the school Jazz band was after us. That was like… a kid-event.”

“Yeah When I say late at night I mean like…” I go to a whispering voice: “...so late that you could like… have a picnic ON a roundabout.” … “Oh and by the way… we’re named Blood Crushers 3 now cause the new one came out.” 

“bRO you guys at the HOMETOWN ROCKDOWN was still so cool though… I bought your cassette. I listen to ‘deer in the headlights’ all the time dude and think like… wow… it must be so hard for you to… um… actually… what is that song a metaphor for?” Jockington asks. 

“Dude, it's literally just about my penchant for J-walking.” I correct him.

“Wait seriously… I thought it was about… how hard it is to be a deer… and the cars were like a metaphor for… the government or… society or something…” Jockington looks blatantly threatened.

“I don’t think Dess has like… ever written a song with a metaphor in it dude… I’m sorry.” Asriel intervenes. 

“Yeah… I think I'm inspired by my life in too straightforward a way… to do that…” I say. Jockington says nothing. I bite my teeth together and squint: “Like… I’m sorry dude…” I continue, “I just really like J-walking… i find it funny…”

Catti also looks tense and upset. I try to make eye contact with her but she looks away immediately. The car starts to park.

“Bro… they say never meet your heroes…” Jockington begins. “But I guess whoever said that never had a heroes who were friends with their best friend's older sister… I didn’t even get a choice in the matter” Jockington says, shaking his head, as Catti slowly rolls him up and puts him around her shoulder again. 

I am also so deeply invested in his agony despite not being sure how seriously I take it. 

“Um… I'm sorry… I can try and like… write a song that deals with more societal issues in the future? But J-walking is cool isn’t it?” I offer, turning to Asriel. We all start to get out of the car… starting with Asriel, then Catti and then me. 

Jockington seems to be slightly cheered up by my offer to try write about societal issues. He is facing me over Catti’s shoulder, resting his head on part of his coiled self. As Catti walks ahead of her mother to get beside the door.  

“J-walking is all right I guess. But punk bands… punk bands need to be commenting on society… I mean, if they dont… then who will … is all im saying… i guess.” Jockington states.

“Jockington… you know there are plenty of people who comment on society. There is a whole field of study called sociology JUST for that purpose! Oh and Catty and Catti, could you two help me with these grocery bags.” 

“Oh i could take one Mrs Catty’s Mum!” Asriel offers. 

“Oh, your so sweet thanks.” Catty’s mum gives a bag to Asriel and another to Catti. 

Jockington's face is planted against the bag, so he says the following quite muffled as he readjusts: “But… there’s no music in sociology, so whats the point. Only music could really solve society's problems… atleast, that's what I think.” Jockington retorts

“Ok Jockington…” Catty’s mum appeals. “But you should keep it open as an option at university. Did you know you can do a thing called a double degree where you could study music AND sociology at the same time… wouldn’t that be cool…solving the ills of society and making music at the same time. Think about the punk records you could make with that knowledge!” Catty’s mum says, opening the door with one hand whilst the other carries a grocery bag. 

“Maybe… it’s just… I just thought Dess was already doing that… I thought she was keeping us safe from society… standing up for people like me… i, i, i felt safe… and… and… you know what, it doesn't even matter.” Half of what Jockington says is muffled by the groceries when Catti has to shift her position to hold the door open for herself.  

I take Catty to the side and whisper: “dude what the heck… I swear I didn't know we had such an influence over people.”

“You know… now that i think about it… my sister DID log in to my computer to steal our demos and put them on her hard drive…” Catty whispers back. “And I did here them singing along to some of them in her bedroom…”

“DUDE WHAT… oh please tell me you didn’t had ‘i wanna be sexy’ downloaded on there PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME YOUR SISTER HASN’T HEARD THAT.” I beg.

“Uh………. Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s the one they were singing too actually… err…” Catty admits.

“Wait… so your telling me… they’ve heard that song… and they STILL HAD MAD RESPECT FOR ME?” I say as a wave of revelation washes over me. “But then I only lost it… BECAUSE DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS WASN’T A METAPHOR FOR SOCIETY!”

“Well I don’t really get why your so embarrassed by ‘i wanna be sexy’. I mean they probably thought it was awesome… I thought it was awesome… and well yeah: kind of sexy…” Catty giggles.

I make a dead pan stare at her face. “Save it for inside creep… im getting cold.” I say… booping her nose. 

Chapter Text

“So *cough cough* what would you all like for dinner?” Mrs Catty’s Mum offers. Asriel, Catty and I all helped put away the groceries and are now organising our next actions around the dining table (where will we sleep… what times of the night are the best to do mischief… how to enter the house through Catty’s window.) Jockington and Catti however, have a considerably more locked-in and well exercised sleepover routine than our own and do not need to discuss anything. Catti puts the things in her grocery bag away in their respective spots and then immediately goes into her room, whilst Jockington takes the bathroom. They both re-emerged with matching onesies: all black with skeleton bones where their own bones would be. Jockington is just a straight line of bones.

“Cheese burgers.” Catti says, walking in.

“Secounded.” Jockington supports. 

Catty begins: “Erm… we have the majority… so i wouldn’t act so-” 

“Thirded” I say. 

“But Desssssss… I wanted sushi…” Catty pleas.

“Oh yeah Sushi is good too, ok, Sushi lol.” I say.

“Asriel?” Catty's mum queries.

“Well… which one takes longer.” Asriel asks.

“Cheeseburgers is QC’s, for sushi we have to go out of town.” Catti mutters.

“Oh in that case, burgers ” Asriel says. I say the word ‘burgers’ in unison with him. 

“Ok nice, now we can all go together and you guys can eat in, or I can go pick it up and you can stay home… what do we want to do?”

“We would like to stay at home… thank you… mum.” Catti says, Jockington and her walking into her room as she says it. Under her room is a strange fire-like light, but when she opens the door, it is completely black. Jockington and Catti enter, slamming the door behind them. 

Unnerved, I turn to my friends. 

“I… kinda feel like eating out honestly…” Asriel wistfully suggests.

“Is it because my sister is weird…” Catty predicts.

“I mean, speaking for myself… your sister being weird actually makes me want to eat in… so that i have a greater chance of working out what the heck she’s up to…” I say,

“I just think it’d be nice you know to… be out on a friday… everyone in QC’s all excited… plus we will probably run into people we know! Plus it would be cool to like… plan our schemes out in one of those booths.” Asriel offers. 

“I guess if we run into people we know it means we could find some more confederates for tonight… and maybe advertise our upcoming concert…” Catty reasons. “Plus you guys won’t need the snake boy on your lap in the car!” 

“Hey… you know… he was the one making the sacrifice there… and i think he took it like more than a champ… You should respect him for doing that.” I provide.

“Oh… yeah… sorry.” Catty whimpers. “Uh ok mum… we’re going with you.” 

“Alright back into the car honeys!” Catty's mum declares.

“Yes ma’am.” Asriel says, getting up. I pinch him on the shoulder as he stands. “Hey what the heck was that for!?” Asriel says, turning around, and looking down at me.

"I just think you're very respectful is all… it inspires me. And a pinch was how I thought to express that excitement” I say, getting up to meet his height and stop him from looking down at me any further. 

“Thanks… I guess.” Asriel starts, and begins to walk toward the door with everyone else. I follow him closely. “I try, you know… sometimes it seems like everyone thinks it's cool to be rude… and I'm not disagreeing with them, I just think it's also cool to be nice. And it’s also NICE to be nice… too. So there’s like a kinda double deal there.” Asriel explains, constantly turning back to me to embellish his explanation with facial expressions, causing him to bump into the door on the way out.

“And yet you love crime.” I add, as we walk down the side of the car.

“Yeah but crime is different…” Asriel says, hopping into the right seat, and then continuing to make eye contact with me. I resort to climbing over him, whilst still trying to retain his eye contact. “Crime is like a beautiful angel across the water Dess…  Kindness is just the hardy lumberjack work that I do to get by and stay happy; and it truly does fulfill me: I love the pine breeze dwelling in my lungs and the foggy wind swelling in my ears. But crime? Crime I do in order to feel the depths of my heart… in order to feel the parts of my heart that don't arise in the natural course of life. The parts of the heart for which one must invent representative deities in order to remember that the part of the heart exists. The parts of the heart that only a poster on your wall of a fictional character can consistently remind you of.” I have found my seat and put my belt on. Catty’s mum looks disturbed at Asriel… but clearly our conversation is not stopping any time soon, so she just decides to start driving.

“Yeah… huh… for me crime is more like... the person i need to make out with at the party once every week… and then i just… I don't really need to see or think of them outside of that as long as i meet that criteria. Or… or it’s like… the pop tart that I randomly get hungry for at 2am on a school night for some reason. And i walk downstairs in nothing but a blanket and eat it on the couch in only the sound of the rain outside. It’s Like a moment that is so beautiful but based on premises completely unrelated to the premises used to ground any other aspect of your life. And so it like seems unpoetic… because it hasn’t been a long time coming… and it wasn’t set up or prophesied. But it still is poetic. Like it sneaks in the poeticness by getting past the poetry guards by seeming so unpoetic, and then BOOM… it’s poetic, you know what i mean…” 

“I think we feel… differently about crime… but the two different ways we feel about crime are different in the same way that enemies to lovers are different to each other, such that our two different ways of doing crime would make-out nasty if they met each other. What about you Catty?” Asriel asks against her headrest. 

“Can we… um… not talk about this… when, um… my mum… is here… please… please…” Catty whimpers.

Catty is looking out the window at the cold world… uncomfortably. It reminds me to look out my own window for a bit. It’s so blue outside. Snow world.

“Oh yeah… sure. So um… Mrs Catty’s Mum… do you have any embarrassing stories about Catty growing up…” Asriel enquires.

“What the fuck Azzy” Catty exclaims, turning around to deathstare him.

“Well… *cough cough*” Catty’s mum clears her throat. “I can either do one embarrassing story and two dollars in the swear jar… OR I can do two stories… What do you two think?”

“I think for THAT foul tongue, only two stories could ever be enough payment” I suggest in my kindest and most respectful voice.

Catty sighs, yielding to a weird concoction of just retribution against her swearing and Me and Asriel's yearning for embarrassing stories…

“Well… you see, Dess, when Catty was a little Kitten, she was very afraid of heights. This might be more common for deers, but this is uncommon for little kittens. Perhaps in retrospect, it was insignificant whether or not she was a climber, but I thought I should try to do something about it… So, whenever we got new rolls of toilet paper, I would stack them in the form of a big triangle and leave a lolly or something at the top of them. Then I put a mattress on the ground next to it, so that even if Catty fell, she would be fine.”

“Oh my goshhhh not this one…” Catty muttered.

“It worked, she started climbing more often… but it was really quite an out of the frying pan into the fire situation, you see… because it meant that she didn’t want to use the toilet paper for its… actual purpose.” 

“NOOOOooouhghhhh” Catty sighed. 

“Which was fine… because as you know… we cats usually prefer to use a kitty litter… we mostly sustain a flush toilet for guests. But just… the real problem was when she went to school and um…”

“You know what this is actually too embarrassing. Thank you for a beautiful rendition of the story but I think I've…  had enough.”  Asriel says. I can't help but agree… although I WILL find out the ending over a game of truth or dare.

“Yeah… y’know… I agree Asriel. I think i’ve had enough embarrassment. How about we listen to some music instead” Catty says, pressing one of the six options for CD’s in the car. 

A morbidly familiar kick-snare beat starts playing.

“Oooh i love this band…” Catty’s mum says… to my utter disbelief. “Catti’s been playing them alot… I didn’t really understand the low production quality at first… but then i just realised there’s something really raw about it you know… I don’t think i’ve heard this particular track though… Catti always skips the first track for some reason…”

“I just drank a bunch of honey straight out of the jar…

My mums out of the house and my sisters at the neighbours”

“You… love… this band.” I stutter… Asriel turns to look at me with white eyes.

“But most importantly… i made this epic beat”

“Yeah… the vocalist really reminds me of me when i was younger you know… Such a shame they only made one album” 

“And you know what i just wanna be SE-”

Catty stops the song before it can say the word ‘Sexy’. Evanescence starts playing instead. I mutter a prayer under my breath. Asriel is sweating bullets.

“Hey, I was listening to that! Oh well… this one’s really good aswell.” Catty's mum says. 

I sling my head down beside where Catty is sitting. 

“Hey Catty.” I whisper

“Hello… Dess.” She whispers back.

“Touche on the embarrassment… I mean seriously i think i started to see angels… which would be honestly even more embarrassing if they came to visit me whilst ‘I wanna be sexy’ was playing. Truce?” I offer…

“Absolutely. It would be a waste to waste all our mischievous urges tonight on eachother… or would it” She whispers and winks. 

If she is flirting with me… in the middle of making a truce is a horrible time to do so. 

“Let’s just truce… dude.” I double-down.

Catty nods, and we paw-bump on the truce. I thank god that I saved the worst of the lyrics for the second verse. 

“So Mrs Catty’s Mum… Did you ever make music… as a kid.” Asriel asks with a shaky voice.

“Well ofcourse… have you ever heard of the Math Rock Band ‘3 and a Half quarter’s walk through the Graveyard’.” Catty’s mum responds.

“NO… FRICKING…WAY” I say…

“That’s 5 cents in the swear jar Dess… and YES way… I was their Euphonist. You ever heard the track ‘Ten hours stranded at the bus stop at the graveyard in the rain not a single bus came except the one with the driver that doesn’t let me on’, from their last E.P: ‘Fine i’ll just teleport into your family dinner if you don't love me… you broke my fucking heart Jessica, you think i wont teleport’ ?” 

“YOUR THE ONE MAKING THE SOUND THAT SOUNDS LIKE CTHULU IS BEING BORN ON THAT TRACK?” Asriel shrieks. I wave my hands nervously.

“Yep… nothing but a Euphoneum, a church, 3 Delay pedals, 2 distortion pedals, 4 amps, 8 room mics, a tape recorder for some extra crunch and someone pressing down the sustain pedal on the organ and piano so that they both reverberate with the eupho.” Catty’s mum says smugly.

“Dude we like… SO need to do that… what the heck…” Catty says… “Sometimes you're so cool, mum.” 

“Well what can I say… It's just one of my responsibilities as a mother to have played a brass instrument in a highly experimental math rock band. That and feeding you… so come on now… hop on out.” Catty’s mum says.

‘Holy… fricking… cheeseburgers’ i think. 

We file out of the car and into QC’s. “I think like… a really reverberated Euphonium like the one on that 3AAHQWTTG could work well on this song I’ve been working on: ‘Transforming into a puddle of misery at the public park’.” 

“Dude Me and Alvin are OGs i reckon he would let us record music in there… especially if we just like… changed the name of the song a bit to make it sound more religious… or something… like… ‘Transubstantiating into a puddle of remorse at the public park’...” 

“OOh… I forgot to ask your sister what she and her friend wanted… can you text her Catty?” Catty’s mum remembers as she pushes open the glass door.

“But they both get the MEGA-CHEESY-DELIGHT-BURGER and share a large Chips every time.” Catty complains. 

“Catty… I’m going to ask you a question I've asked you before… Does correlation equal causation?”

“Nooooo… mum” Catty admits.

“And of two events which have consistently co-occurred in the past… is this sufficient grounds for our assumption that they will NECESSARILY ALWAYS OCCUR TOGETHER IN THE FUTURE?” Catty's mum asks.

“Nooooooh… mum, ok I'm sorry ill text her…” Catty concedes.

“Thank you… meanwhile… Dess, Asriel… feel free to find a nice spot in the Diner for us to sit.” Catty’s mum entrusts. She stares at the menu that is displayed above where you order.

Asriel finds us the booth in the back corner of the restaurant. Bro is always looking for the coziest of places. I slide in next to Asriel, and then Catty slides in next to me.

“Wow we look like… so dorkily in love.” I giggle looking to either of them. Catty is on her phone and Asriel looks down at the table.

I look over at Catty’s phone. She has opened her Discord to her direct messages with her sister. Her sister's name is completely blank, and her profile picture is just a black circle. Her discord mood is just a bunch of numbers… The only way I can actually tell it’s Catti is the text history

The whole conversation is just Catty sending Catti Dragon Blazers 3 fanart (the videogame, not the band), with Catti sending back word docs titled things like ‘SilverDrakexDragonfic3’ or ‘Thetouchofadragon’ accompanied with messages explaining where each doc fits within the lore. 

CattEXD: What do u want from QCs mum asking, Catty sends her sister.

“What is ‘SilverDrakexDragonfic3’” I enquire.

“It’s this stupid… ‘fic’ Catti wrote… I swear to troll me… she didn’t post it on her Ao3 so she clearly wasn’t proud of it.” Catty mutters.

“What happens in it?” I ask. 

“Basically… the Silver Drake from Dragon Blazers gets manipulated by the main Villain and ends up falling in love with the Dragon, instead of Catti’s self insert… the Dark CatLord. And then the CatLord goes on a rampage… idk i kinda stopped reading around that point in the story. Usually she writes stuff that's better than this but this seemed… REALLY rushed. Like more rushed than she usually writes. I think she wrote it like… during a lunchtime at school.” Catty says

“Maybe it’s like a metaphor for something.” I suggest.

“Probably… but I don't think I get metaphors much more than you do… well, at least not this metaphor. OOh look shes typing.” 

____: Please recite the following words to Mother: ‘We would please like two MEGA-CHEESY-DELIGHT-BURGER and a Large Chips and one Ice Cream Sundae to share because we both did well on the pop quiz today. Thank you.’ Thank you. 

“Damn… she actually wanted something kinda different. Man is mum gonna rub this in?” Catty wonders aloud

“Don’t worry… i’ll tell the order to your mum. Btw do you guys know what you want?” I say, turning to Asriel. 

“I’ll get the MEMORY-ERASER burger with pineapple…” Asriel says.

“I’ll get the LIFE-GIVER-DOUBLE-FUN burger… please” Catty says. 

“Allright cool ill go tell mum… I MEAN TELL YOUR MUM…  haha…” I say… skipping a bit as I walk for speed. As I do I overhear Asriel saying: “The real question is did she Freudian Slip because she thinks of your mum as her mum, or us as her siblings?”

“Hey Mrs’ Cattys Mum! I have all our orders so I’ll just wait in this line until we’re ready to order.”

“OOh how Helpful you are Dessie…” She smiles so warmly. I wink and bounce up and down on my toes.

“Yep… that’s me, infamously helpful. Rumours of my helpfulness ricochet around the old person’s home like a ph-ph-ph-phantom!”

I don’t think Mrs Catty’s Mum properly understands my 5th degree sarcasm… and, to be fair, nor do I. 

“Infamously helpful you say? I’ve only heard pleasant rumours of your helpfulness.” She admits

“No, my help is definitely infamous…  like, this one time, Asriel asked me to help him with his model Volcano project… and i made it too good… and the volcano foam like… overflowed everywhere… and actually now that i think about it that was like… actually just kind of awesome…” I say.  

“And I heard from Alvin that at youth group you use to always stay back with him and help him clean up… even when you we’re just a kid and not a leader” Catty’s mum retorts. 

“Ok, yeah… but that’s just cause Alvin is cool and i wanted to hang out with him one on one… that was like… completely selfish really if you think about it… thats probably why it didn’t go wrong… because I wasn't really trying to be helpful like the helpful part was just a means to an end.” I correct her. 

“Well… i think if you being selfish helps other people then that’s a very good thing… It means your soul truly loves helpfulness so much it desires it selfishly.” Catty’s mum retorts once more. I reflect on this statement for a moment, causing the light around me to all blur together.

QC comes up to the counter, a tired look on her face. She waves at me, and winks at Catty’s mum. “Hi” I say. “Could I get two mega-cheesy-delight-burgers with one large chips and one ice cream sunday take away, and uh us 3 at the booth at the back want one Memory-Eraser burger with pineapple, one Life-giver-double-fun and one ‘The-Dissapearer-Burger’... Thank you…” 

“And you?” QC asks Catty’s mum.

 “OOh could i get the ‘Taking Back Sundae’ waffle please heheh… thank youuuu muah.” Catty’s mum responds.

“Hehe… shall i put extra cream on it?” QC offers…

“OOh… yeah… don’t tell Catti when she comes in tho…” Catty’s mum giggles.

“I wont…” QC says, winking again and then walking to the back of the shop. 

“Hey wait… when do you go on break btw?” Catty’s mum adds.

“The moment Fire Elemental comes off hers and I make my dinner… so like… a few minutes? Wanna sit together out back?” QC offers.

“OOh absolutely… I have to get this dinner home to Catti and her friend after the older ones finish eating… but that’ll still give us a good 15 i suppose?”

“Cool I’ll make your dinner as I make mine and bring them out there together.” QC says, giving Catty’s mum a THIRD wink as she walks off. Fire Elemental girl comes out… anxiously doing her hair and trying to stay calm.

I look at Catty’s mum: “The Taking Back Sundae Waffle! What the heck is that…”

“You have to be extra special friends with QC to get it… it’s a secret menu item…” Catty’s mum notifies.

“Dude… what the heck… being friends with QC is awesome… Can I like… come to like Crochet night or whatever you guys do… hehe.” I say mockingly.

“No… maybe you can come to the intense bushwalks we do up Mount Hopeless… if your game for it.” Catty’s mum corrects.

“WAOW… you guys must be so strong… sorry but my body is a machine highly streamlined around loitering around at night and climbing trees only…” I admit.

“Oh well… better befriend someone else who works here then. QC is pretty much singularly obsessed with mountaineering.” Catty’s mum offers.

“Hmm… maybe I could befriend Fire Elemental. She seems nice.”

“Oh… she is superb. Her and her Father… such unbelievably patient and gentle people.” Catty’s mum acknowledges 

“Oh wow… I love patient and gentle people.” 

“I could introduce you two?” Catty’s mum says… so warmly that it sounds like she means something very warm. 

“Oh that would be so awkward, but… in a really funny way… so sure…” I agree.

Catty’s mum walks up to the counter, pulling me by my hand (which makes me feel really childish and shy): “Hi, Fire Elemental, when did you start working here!”

“Last Tuesday Ma’am. It’s quite exciting, I thought, considering my special abilities… that I couldn't work in food, but as long as I only help out with certain things, I'm actually able to be quite the asset. For example check this out.” Fire Elemental explains. I watch intently beside Catty’s mum.

Fire Elemental picks up a coffee another staff member had left on the counter, heating it up instantly. She shows us the coffee.

“See!” She exclaims excitedly.

You can't really see the fact it’s hot… but I know it is… and it's still really cool.

“Well I’m not surprised. Your father used to be the most awesome bartender back when I was in high school. And he was also a- actually, um, i shouldn’t say that…” Catty’s mum trails off. Fire elemental turns a pink colour… signifying embarrassment i think.

“Do you think I should get a job here, Elle?” I interject, stepping forward from beside Catty’s mum.

“Well I mean it depends. QC is really cool and chill but she’s also pretty stressed out and it makes me feel really guilty if i mess up.”

“Dang… I do have a tendency to mess up…” I admit.

“But that’s just you messing around intentionally… like for fun right? You could always just save that messing up for after work you know… sometimes some of the younger employees go down to the lake after closing and mess around…” Fire elemental suggests.

“Idk… i’ve been intentionally messing up for so long it’s like… can i even control when i do it anymore? I suppose i can find out.” I muse. 

“I think once you join you’ll feel like part of the team and you won’t want to let anyone down….” Fire elemental suggests.

“I think she’s right Dess… i think if you understand the gravitas of the situation, you actually act very mature…” Catty’s Mum bolsters. I turn around to look at her. I feel strangely supported despite not knowing these two overly well. I guess I forget that there are people who just are prepared to be caring by default.

“When do you guys go out to the lake after work? Maybe i can meet everyone before I decide to apply…” I say.

“OH! Well, we will be there tonight actually, at 8:30pm. Friday nights are when we usually do it… if people aren't too busy… I’ll need to RUSH out of here when I get off if I'm going to make it on time hehe.”

“Ah ok. I’m hanging out with Asriel and Catty tonight, but we… or maybe just I, could try to come bye later…” I say… leaning my hands on the counter and lowering my voice a bit.

“Ok cool… ill tell the group chat you might come. Seeya!” Fire elemental says quickly.

Me and Mrs Catty’s Mum leave the counter. 

“Do you have a crush on her??” Catty’s mum asks me…

“Well… she is… HOT. Lol.” I say incredibly calmly. 

“Okkkkkkkkk…. Well im going to hang out with QC’s out the back… i’ll come get you guys in 10 or so minutes… or i mean, you can stay here, but i need to get dinner back to Catti and her friend. You guys have fun.”

I join my friends at the table… Asriel is in the middle of speaking: “And then the giant evil guy takes the… oh hey Dess.” 

I sit down slowly and awkwardly, staring at him.

“Dude what… you watch anime too.” Asirel says.

“Yeah, but I watch cool slice of life anime… that has like…subtlety.” I jab.

“Are you kidding me bro… we are literally organising our mischief in a diner since when was subtlety something we did.” Asriel responds effortlessly.

“Whatever, I was just kidding… your anime addiction is cute… lets just discuss the plan.” I engender. Asriel sighs at my condescension — it’s so implicit that the extreme arrogance inhering within it cannot be pointed out or problematised, so he must simply accept defeat. . 

“Ok well um… So far OUR idea is winning Dess... “ Catty says. “The one about the half pipe. Asriel had the idea of making a bunch of bread batter and then getting a blow torch to cook the bread into someone's door… but we both kind of agreed that would be like… way harder worse to clean up than just making a half pipe out of snow… so… and also just like sort of weird.” Catty explains.

“I actually think the bread door is kind of awesome… definitely keep in your head somewhere Real… but it kinda… needs to be done on someone whose earnt it… someone who it would be like… a fitting punishment for.” I stipulate.

“Like a gluten free evil person?” Catty suggests.

“Well, not really… i think them being gluten free just makes the prank extra effective but not necessarily more ironic or poetic. I think a person who like bought up all the bread from the convenience store so no one could have any would be more fitting… or that stupid Berdly kid.”

“Dude… that kid is so…” Asriel starts… “Let’s just… not go there.”

“Dude he eats all my bread every time he comes over and I like come out for my midnight snack and there's just NO BREAD in my house and i just KNOW BERDLY’S OVER… I don’t even get it my sister doesn’t even like him why does she hang out with him… Anyway…” I trail off.

There is a silence. It’s awkward only for Catty, but for me and Asriel it is pensive and filled with painful avian thoughts. 

“So uh… The giant half pipe. Good idea, but… logistics: what are we gonna do.” Catti sets up. 

“Wait before we start tho…” Asriel scooches towards the centre of the table and lowers his voice… “What about the Shelter stuff you brought up yesterday Dess…” 

I shudder a bit, but make myself sturdy: “We can certainly… incorporate that into our itinerary. I wasn’t able to get much out of my mum considering she is nightmarishly careful and i didn’t want to give too much away… but I did get one thing out of her… it turns out that the chief of police… your dad, asriel, has access to the bunker.” 

I continue: “So if we get done for trespassing… there may be a silver lining to it…  Undyne’s away this week so it’s just your dad and nabstablook… it’d be like the perfect opportunity to search for a Shelter code.”

“I do not like mischief plans… that have like getting caught in the itinerary… can’t we just like… check my house… like my dads room?” Asriel offers.

“Getting caught isn’t in the itinerary … i’m just saying it’s an option to make a good thing out of a bad situation if said bad situation occurs. And… do you really think your dad keeps something  that important just… lying around the house… in a draw or something?”

“Idk… prObably… he’s kinda unreliable… Idk… Dess it sounds like you want to spend a night in jail dude.” Asriel says 

“Ok fine MAYBE i think it would be cool to search the police station but I GUESS we could just search your parents bedroom when they're out of the house one day…” I hang my head down. But then I shoot back up: “But,, there is another way this half pipe could get us closer to a Shelter secret….” I whisper. 

“Oooooooh.” Catty queries. 

“Well… I was thinking… you knew skeleton guys who moved in recently." 

“Uh… the one who moved into that weird shaped house.” Catty asks. 

“Yeah… the one with a balcony… well have you ever talked to the little one?” I ask.

“Was there like another one in addition to the little one?” Asriel asks,  confused.

“He has a brother who answered the door once without opening it. I have mainly talked to the little one, sans, at the grocery store… he’s honestly kind of sassy but… did you notice how he just randomly moved in the moment Grillby’s closed down and took over?” I ask.

“Yeah… that’s just like how… bankruptcy works Dess…” Asriel says. 

“Ok maybe… but he also has this like… a single carton of eggs in a special mini fridge at the back of his shop… and i asked him why he had it… and he said… ‘thats where i keep the good shit.’” I continue.

“Maybe that’s just where he keeps the good shit?” Asriel asks. 

“BUT! You remember I told you about that one night where I snuck out and spent the entire night camping outside the shelter in a bush right?” I remind him.

“Yeah… and it was raining and shitty… and… kind of really awesome.” Asriel admits. Catty hasn’t heard this stuff yet and her eyes are wide wide open. 

“And remember how I told you that the guy I spooked by jumping out of the bush was carrying an egg… and when he was running away he dropped it?” I continue. 

“Uhhh yeah…” Asriel supposes.

“Well… riddle me this beautiful prince of the dreamer family” I say, grabbing his shoulder gravely: “Who the hell else in Hometown distinguishes between precious and non-precious eggs.” 

“Uh… I distinguish between scrambled and sunny side up?” Asriel supposes.

“OK BUT WHY DID HE JUST GET RANDOMLY APPOINTED TO LIKE TURN GRILLBY’S SHOP INTO A CONVENIENCE STORE I MEAN HAVE YOU SEEN THE GUY HE LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING SPEEDRUNNER…” I stress. 

“What are you saying Dess.” Asriel asks. 

“Look I think… I think he is working with that guy from the bunker who dropped the egg… and… I think that city council are also in cahoots with the people from the bunker… and i think they gave him the opportunity to take over Grillby’s or something somehow.” I admit.

“Is the city council giving him grillby’s part based on something your mum said… or just vibes… or…” Asriel asks.

“Asriel… HOMETOWN HAD LIKE THREE RESTAURANTS AND NO SUPERMARKET! My mum would complain about it through her teeth sometimes… and she ALWAYS forces herself to express herself in positive language." I exclaim.

“So you think that… your mum is conspiring with the frickin ominous bunker guy and the ominous bunker… and the frickin speedrunner blue jacket man… to make the town more efficient.”

“It may sound absurd to you… but my mother being in an evil conspiracy to make things slightly more efficient is quite literally the story of my life.” I admit… and then i giggle a bit. 

“Wait… and so if we build the half pipe around sans’s house we might find something out in the process right!?! Do I smell a sub plot!.” Catty exclaims with glee. I sigh… her meta-ness sometimes ruins everything… like she's watching the things we're doing in real life on a tv… 

“Uhh… maybe?” Asriel voice-cracks on the last word out of nervousness “But maybe it’ll make him HATE us so that we never get to learn anything from him again…:

“Nah nah nah…” I assert. “Sans seems like the kinda deeply sarcastic guy who may possibly find a massive half pipe built on his house to be ‘just kinda funny’ and invite us in for hot chocolate or something. Which might keep us out of trouble with ur dad too Real.” I say making sad eye contact with him: “So u dont gwet gwounded!” 

“And have you seen sans’s house… the second story balcony would be like the most epic place place to build one half of a half pipe. The only problem is… the other half would have to connect to a frickin apartment. Thats like… so many people we could wake up.” Catty confounds.

“This is true… although i will still note that on top of the apartments would be a really sick place to have the other side of the half pipe.” I note.

“Wait but the roof of the apartments is like way higher than the balcony, we would only be able to board from one side to the other — but not back! That would like… super seriously suck.” Asriel retorts. I estimate he is getting slightly stressed out by my reservationless production of factors-to-be-assessed. Asriel’s style of planning is ‘careful and intricate construction’, whereas my style is ‘come up with so many ideas that the bad ones all eat  each other alive’, and so the multitude I produce, in his mind, feels like intentional derailment. 

“Wait… guys… what if… what if we just made a half pipe that looped back around onto the same balcony. Like a… full pipe? Or like a…” Catty says with insane excitement.

“Dude i don’t even know what that is but it sounds awesome.” I admit.

“Holy crap… catty your a genius.” Asriel lets out. 

“Yeah… and like the people in the apartment will just be like: ‘oh thats just sans doing some weird shit… welp that guys weird… no need to call the police’.” I say in an imitating voice

“OH MY  GOD YAY… WE FRICKING PLANNED SOMETHING!” Catty says very loudly. I turn to her and grab he hands and lift both of us up a bit in glee. She smiles like a strobe-light. Some people in the booth next to us look at us.

“Woo dess.” Fire Elemental says quietly from the counter in the loudest voice I've ever heard that still also sounded very uncertain about what it was exclaiming. 

“You get it! Planning is hard!” I cheer at her, pointing a finger gun.

She nods wholeheartedly. I do a heart symbol at her with my hands but turn around before she can respond, blushing a little.

“Man everytime im hanging near a friend whose on shift… i just want to like spend the whole time standing near them… cheering them on. Like i don’t even want to resume this conversation anymore…” I say. “She’s just working so hard over there… it’s so beautiful it’s like… how can i just not kneel at the altar of that?” 

“Oh I totally feel the same way… that’s why we always come here when Catti is on shift! Except uh…” Catty trails off.

“Oh cool. Im glad someone else feels the same.” I say, not really processing what Catty meant with the last bit.

“Ok so we have the Cattenheimer snowboards and shovels…” Asriel clarifies.

“Yes.” Catty confirms. 

“And we start at what… 2am? Do you really think sans falls asleep at 2am… that guy just looks like someone who barely sleeps at all…”

“Isn’t that like so suspicious!? Like maybe he never sleeps because he spends all of his time inventing bunker stuff...” I prod. 

“Ok to be fair, Dess… people who work at convenience stores often are insanely ambitious. Like working at a convenience store would be impossibly sad unless you were just using it as a means to an end… so like… maybe you’re right about him.” Asriel admits.

I giggle: “Hehe… you said my name.”

“What… I always say my name… I mean- your name” Asriel stutters, face palming.

“WOW ASRIEL tell me how you really feel… Jeesh…” I laugh.

“Just… don’t dignify her with a response.” Asriel whispers to himself. 

“Hehe… I just think it's nice when we say each other's names like optionally, Asriel. Like… where going out of the way to specify each other in the most clearly defined way we can… so it makes me feel very known when someone does it. Well, at least, it makes me feel known when it’s done for the sake of fun and love… not like, for the sake of appearing official or authorative… eugh...” 

“Does your mum try to like… use her like… government strategies on you guys in a familial context, Dess…” Catty attempts. “And like… uses your full name as much as possible in order to establish a sense of ‘respect’ between you.”

“YES… AND IT'S FRICKING HORRIBLE.” I say… actually starting to tear up. “AND IT’S LIKE SOO MUCH MORE LIKE THAT… LIKE SHE HAS LIKE A LIST OF QUESTIONS SHE ASKS ME EVERY DAY AFTER SCHOOL THAT ARE MEANT TO BE LIKE CASUAL AND FUN BUT IT’S SO WEIRD BECAUSE SHE ASKS THEM IN THE EXACT SAME ORDER EVERY SINGLE DAY!? AND THEN SHE FOUND OUT THAT I CAUGHT ON… BUT SHE DIDN’T STOP SHE JUST STARTED CHANGING UP THE ORDER LIKE I WOULDN’T NOTICE. AND ITS JUST SO…” I wail.

“Oh gosh… I’m sorry your mum is like that…” Asriel says… looking downward under the weight of my pain. 

“It’s ok… we all make fun of her for it and sometimes she admits it’s stupid… but it takes awhile to crack that hard exterior she builds up at work, y’know…” I say. 

We’re all quiet for awhile. 

“Ok so… we have all the materials we need… if everyone remembered their dark change of clothes, that is. Anyway, should we like… perhaps… make a documentary of the process or?? I mean Dess, I know you’ve already started writing that song… what ‘Deer on the half-pipe’ but I mean… maybe me and Catty could do someth- OH… thank you so much.” Asriel says, as Fire Elemental arrives with the food. 

“Err… Umm… Memory-Eraser burger… with Pineapple.” She asks tentatively.

“OOh just here thanks.” Asriel says. 

“Hey Fire Elemental…” Catty says. 

“Um yes… hi!” Fire Elemental says, blushing a bit. 

“If you built a giant half pipe made out of snow, what would you do with it?” Catty asks. “Like what would you do… once you had finished it.” She adds. 

Asriel gently kicks Catty under the table as if she has just said something insensitive. I giggle at Asriel’s sense of justice… but I really think he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a flame.

“Hehe… well… I guess it depends. I would probably snowboard down it… or… maybe even race someone down it? And I think when it needed to be packed up, I could take my shoes off and jump from side to side as each side slowly melted down to the ground.” Fire elemental explains.

“WAIT… WHAT… How fast do you think you could melt a giant half-pipe made out of snow if your life depended on it?” I ask frantically.

“Well… not very fast if my life depended on it sorry… I would probably have a panic attack. But… if my life didn’t depend on it… maybe like ten seconds it really wouldn’t take that long.” Fire elemental admits. 

“Noted…” I say, turning away pretending to look out the window, as if my desperation in asking that question wasn’t super telling. 

“It has become abundantly obvious to me that you guys are here in order to plan mischief tonight… specifically the construction of a giant half pipe made out of snow.” Fire Elemental confesses, lowering her head.

“Not necessarily…” I say sharply, without turning to face her.

“Erm… wait can we like tell her… or no?” Asriel asks the group.

“Uhh… we’d have to investigate if your worthy before we told you anything…” Catty says to Fire Elemental. 

“Uh… I’m worthy… but I’m also on shift… so I don’t know if i can go through a hazing ritual right now” 

“Well… maybe we can… come find you later…” Catty has broken into her sister’s speaking style in order to become ominous. I figure it’s her most reference for speaking spookily.

“Well Dess knows where i’ll be, hehe! Good luck with things tho if we don’t talk again tonight.” Fire Elemental says, walking away.

“Dude… we need to stop speaking so loudly.” Asriel and I say at the same time. 

“Jinx.” We also say at the same time. 

“Double jinx.” I say 

“Isn’t real…” Asriel finishes. 

“I mean… I don’t think she’s gonna tell anyone. It seems like she wants to help us really.” Catty offers.

“That’s not even why I want to stop speaking so loudly… it’s just… I’m trying to cultivate a cozy sense of covertness regarding this mission, and her having worked out what we were doing by our extremely obvious methods of questioning is like when you try to run the heater, and you felt like you were all cozied up… but then you realise that you left the frickin window open, and it just… feels so hollow.” I say.  “I want to actually like… huddle in secrecy like it’s blanket!.” 

“Uhh… that, and also you don’t KNOW that she isn’t going to tell anyone… Like you don’t KNOW that… she might… accidentally…” Asriel notes stupidly.

“Ok… but i think it was really worth doing that i mean… we could totally have her on stand by to like… remove the evidence if Sans calls the cops. Like imagine sans having to try get the cops to believe a Flame Elemental came out of nowhere and melted a giant half-pipe that was constructed on his lawn JUST BEFORE THE COPS GOT THERE. Especially with his reputation of being a total jokester lol!” Catty humours. 

“Hey… that's kind of an instrumental way to think about her Catty, I mean, we’re going to invite her along —IF WE ARE GOING TO INVITE HER ALONG (which is still undecided by the way) — because we want to have fun with her.” Asriel notes.

“Yes… plus… I mean… Come on, i dont wanna put so much work into a thing just to melt it down the moment the police come cause I'm scared of being arrested. It'd be better if we just ran off and they had no way to PROVE it was us. And then the half-pipe can stand there gloriously… a monument to the power of mischief. And… we can watch Undyne try and manually disassemble it on the way to school on monday… or maybe they’ll just leave it there all winter…!”

“Yeah but then sans would just start using it and get sick at snowboarding while we just have to walk past.” Asriel conjectures.

“I mean we don’t have to… they invented trespassing for a reason… or we could like strike a deal with him or something.” I counter-suggest.

“That would be so cooooool.” Catty whispers. “Dude sans seems like a cool guy to be friends with.”

I nod. 

“I mean if we’re going to… uh… get Fire Elemental to help us with anything…” Asriel begins. “It might be cooler if she helped us with like… a decoy crime… like a giant hole in the snow or something.”

“I feel like giant holes in the snow are more illegal than large structures made out of snow.” I counter.

“I’m pretty sure neither are illegal… i think the tresspassing is the main problem.” Catty reveals. 

“Look… we’re not getting anywhere with this… we should just start talking about actual logistics and worry about police evasion like… closer to the event… i mean it’s… what… IT’S ONLY 7PM. We… dude its only 7 P.M. what the heck.” Asriel says… sounding kind of disappointed. 

“Yeah… shit… we need to make this plan WAY more complicated we have SO much t ime to prepare. And we’re go to Fire Elementals after work thing.” I say.

“Oh yeah said something about that” Catty asks.

“She invited me to this thing the people who work at QCs do at the lake after work on friday… at 8:30.” I explain.

Catty’s mum comes back inside, waving goodbye to QC as she enters behind the counter.

“Guys we forgot to eat our food.” Asriel announces… his face covered in shock. Asriel sometimes gets extremely anxious when he commits negligible domestic failures like not finishing his dinner. 

“Hey kiddos, you gotta get that take away cause we gotta go now… though… it is really quite adorable that you had such a good conversation that you didn’t even have time to eat. Hold on i’ll get some cardboard boxes for you to put your food in.” 

“Thank you Mrs Cattys mummmm.” I say. Asriel nods quickly.

I’m kind of glad that Catty’s mum came when she did because I think we were all starting to stress each other out a bit. I really like when i am interrupted right before i perform a hurtful behaviour because it gives me a chance to see what i was about to do more clearly than if i just shifted my behaviour myself. And in response to this clear vision of what i was about to do, i always overcompensate and resolve to do the EXACT opposite of what i was going to do. I resolve to be unapologetically and excessively nice  for no reason. 

“Catty have i ever told you that your extremely calming to be around.” I say.

“Aww… really?”

“You just genuinely seem so content with yourself… not just in a self esteem sense but in a stimulation sense. Like it feels like you would be just as happy to be around me if I came over and transformed into a puddle on your floor as if I came over and proposed to you dramatically with a slam poem. But it’s not just being happy… it’s like… in both cases you would still give me your whole attention. Like even if i was just being a puddle and literally doing nothing but surface tension and whatever else puddles do you would find a way to pay some kind of attention to it…. Like you really understand how to give people your attention unconditionally. Not your love … you don’t love the things I do unconditionally, but you… focus on the things I do unconditionally. And i love that about you.” I confess. Catty’s mum comes back with the boxes and we put our burgers in them. 

“Wow… well… it’s totally true. You can be a puddle on my floor whenever you want. And hey I think that pretty much everything you do IS really interesting. Like your so funny to watch after you’ve exhausted yourself… because i know your never exhausted out of boredom but out of trying too hard… and i can see it on your face… like, your exhaustion is like a kaleidoscope made up of all the things that you wish you were doing right now but can’t cause you’ve spent too much energy trying to do them.” Catty responds hopefully. We start to leave the building.

“Aww… Catty… you really… you would really let me be a puddle on your floor!… whenever i wanted! Cause i would like… actually do that all the time if your not careful”

“Yes, Dess.” Catty says, holding her hand out to mine. I grab it for a moment and squeeze, but then push it away dramatically.

“No… I cannot be tempted by this offer… we must… do crazy mischief, for it is friday night… Friday night mischief night… there will only be puddle time… after there is half-pipe...” I say in a pained voice, looking away from her.

Asriel starts to converse with Catty’s mum: “So… I heard you and Mum are knitting a giant chessboard blanket. Whose gonna crochet the white pieces?” 

“I’m crocheting the black pieces. Going first is way too stressful for me. I’m also crocheting little faces onto the pieces hehe.” Catty's mum gossips. 

“Oh yeah… i’ve seen my covering the board with like cool vines and flowers… it looks so pretty.” Asriel says, about to get into the front seat. 

“Cough cough…” Catty says…

“Oh sorry… i just… sorry…” Asriel admits. You CANNOT take Catty’s seat under any circumstances… there are no justifications and Asriel knows this…

I hop into the back seat and Asriel jumps in. The car starts. It’s Asriel’s turn now.

“Asriel… i had a friend come up to me once, and he was like… ‘Dess, i’ve got this story… it’s about a character whose stuck in a massive library… and they can’t escape it for like ever’ or something… i don’t know really know what was meant to happen in the story — he had sort of only come up with the premise — but it was basically like a psychological thriller about being stuck in a library and not knowing why … and when he told me it i thought… I would genuinely want to do this with Asriel… that wouldn’t be a psychological thriller for me at all if i was with Asriel in the library. I love you Asriel… i don’t know how to express it because I love you like toast! I love you like i love every piece of furniture in my house. I love you like how i love my couch when i find something that I left shoved down the side of it… like how my couch is this old and reliable thing that is always there but also sometimes surprises me with new old stuff that you didn’t know it had waiting inside of it. I love you like… ugh… like this car ride right now… i love you like being driven somewhere whilst im fiddling with my knees in the back of the car. I… i love you like this.” I say… and then try, against the will of my seatbelt, to lie horizontally onto Asriel's knee. I stab his ribcage a bit with my horns, the seatbelt kind of chokes my lower stomach and i’m still about 20 degrees off horizontal. 

“I love you like how shitty and uncomfortable it is to do this.” I say, giggling a bit. 

Asriel is completely silent after I say this. I don’t move because I don’t want to find out i’ve upset him. From this position, all i’m being told is that his heartbeat and his warm skin don't hate me to the point of stopping me from sensing them. This seems like a fine fate for a young Dess… i’ll just sit here… and listen… and be gently warmed- 

Asriel starts to cry. 

“Oh god…” I whisper, immediately turning around and getting up to face him… careful to not let my horns stab him this time. He looks like he did when he was younger. His eyes are closed and he is trying to collapse into some kind of position, but again, the seat belt is fighting against it. I offer him my hand and he takes it ferociously. 

Catty and her Mum are talking in the front and don’t notice. I… consider asking him if he wants to talk about it…

“Hey… i am like so here… i am like so here… i'm sorry i’ve been kind of absent and inconstant lately but i am here right now… i am not going anywhere forever.” I whisper gently but urgently.

He sobs silently into the air beneath him, trying not to make too much noise. But it’s ok… because I am amplifying every sound he makes in my heart… so really he is expressing himself loud and clear. The car stops, and Catty’s mum begins to get out… obviously feeding Catti and Jockington is on her mind. I shuffle across the middle seat and leave out his door so he doesn’t have to let go of my hand. Catty excitedly trots after her mother, still holding some conversation.

Even though he was the first to get out, he leaves it to me to lead the way into the house.

Chapter Text

“You guys can put your uh… ‘leftovers’... in the fridge if you don’t want to eat them yet.” Catty’s mum mentions without turning around… struggling to find a word for when you go out to eat but don’t eat any of it. She then moves to the get two spoons for Jockington and Catti’s sundae

I take Asriel's leftovers from him and put them into the fridge while he makes a beeline towards Catty’s bedroom down the hallway.

“I’ll meet you guys in my room. I uh… gotta go use the bathroom.” Catty says wandering down the hallway then turning to the right. I close the fridge. When Catty is inside the bathroom, Asriel turns around and gestures for me to follow him. 

Catty’s mum then cuts between Asriel and I, walking down the hallway with a paper bag of food and knocking at Catti’s door. Jockington opens the door slightly, revealing the light of a flame flickering purple within. 

“Hello Jockington… um… I hope you guys don't have an open flame in there.” Catty’s mum states innocently.

Jockington turns his head back in for support. “It’s just my… Plasma Ball… mum.” Catti states from the darkness. Jockington turns back to Catty’s mum.

“Wow… thank you so much for this food Mrs Catti’s Mum… it was so kind and awesome of you to get it for us!” Jockington smiles, hooking his tail through the handle in the bag. 

“Yeah um… thanks mum!” Catti says from the darkness. She is clearly distracted by something… but her distractedness makes her voice sound MORE filled with pathos than usual rather than less so. Catti’s mum smiles at Jockington and Catti’s politeness, then turns around and starts to walk back to the living room. 

Asriel holds my hand gently when I catch up to him and opens Catty’s door very slightly: just enough space for him to fit through (my Antlers get caught a little tho). We get  inside before Catty’s mum walks past us. Asriel then guides me by the hand across the carpet into Catty’s double bed, but loosens his grip entirely once he reaches the perimeter of the bed. Diving within the perimeter, he scoops up Catty’s Togapi plushie from the crevice between the bed and the wall, incorporating it into his dive by pulling it against his chest: A tackle pounce. He lodges himself in the place where the Togapi plushie was initially, then curls over even more in order to face against the wall, leaving me with a vast amount of the double bed to lie down; enough to spread my limbs almost entirely. However I lie down in a very formal position; in a line directly down the middle of the bed as if I was someone in a coffin. 

He speaks softly, occasionally pausing to choke out some tears: “It’s like… I don’t know. Sometimes i feel like… I always default… to not wanting anything… because… I feel like if i want things… it’ll just… like. Ok so like… sometimes i feel like i don’t know how to talk to anyone… and it makes me upset… because i want to talk to you guys… and not being able to talk to you guys makes me upset… but then I don't know how to actually complain about this thing that's making me upset because the thing that’s making me upset IS my inability to speak in the first place… so then i just assume by default that it’s not a problem I deserve to complain about if i dont EVEN KNOW how to complain about it… like i don’t feel like i can put the burden of articulating my own sadness FOR ME on you guys… so then i just corner myself into not getting upset at all about it. …But being able to talk to people is like… the only… thing… i care about it!… so if i dont let myself get upset about not being able to talk to anyone  — if i don’t let myself be upset about losing… the only thing I care about — like then it just slowly I start to not care about anything. Like if i’m not getting upset about how i can’t even speak to my friends then why would i get upset about like… not being good at drawing… or the fact that we don’t go out for dinner with Alvin to talk about life anymore. And then it reaches a point at night… after all the colours and sounds from the day are gone, where I’m left with like just the facts of my life… and I just feel like… I don't exist… because I sort of have given up on the pain that reminds me of the things i have fallen in love with’s absence. And like… feeling like nothing at all is scarier than being sad. And like… i feel like my best sort of form of encountering my inability to articulate myself is my goody too-shoes act that i get into sometimes. But I only really do that because like… it just gives me a lot of stuff to say, because there are so many rules that exist so theres always a rule or convention that i can just refer to as a thing for me to say to you guys… and so I just start acting all upstanding or whatever but it’s only because i desperately want to say just… anything that snaps me out of the drowning spiral of silence in my head. And so what i end up saying is often just like some… completely generic thing about what the right thing to do is, because it’s the only thing that’s obvious enough for me to be able to say. But like… it’s not enough. I mean for one, I can’t refer to rules in intimacy because… no one has invented rules for this stuff… no one made a rule about what to do when Dess tries to lay her head on your knee but ends up stabbing you with her antlers. No one has made a rule for when Dess compares you to her seatbelt choking her or her furniture, out of comfort and affection. And so when something like that happens… and I’m unable to describe or explain… this beautiful thing which i love that is happening to me… because all i’ve practiced saying is just… pre written lines… it just scares me. It scares me because i feel like i’m tricking you… like your laying your head on a dead body, and it’s my fault that there is no life in that body. I’m not in my skin… I’m not anywhere… I’m only like… in my head talking to myself.” He stutters. Upon consecutive chokings-up he has lodged himself further and further into the crevice between the bed and the wall. I don’t want him to slip behind there. For some reason in my head I imagine the fall from the to the floor is far longer than it probably actually is. I decide against turning to look at him as he has clearly decided to face the wall intentionally and not looking at me may be one of his reasons. I wish to be closer to him though still, so I turn my torso to face him whilst my head still looks toward the ceiling. My vocal folds have cemented themselves into a vigil out of respect… they work against my moving them. 

“I…. I think maybe you… or we … need more silence sometimes. I think in order to… stay on the same page… you know, without you feeling like you need to but can’t complain… and that entire dialogue happening… we should just like… be quiet and stare at eachother. Because then your not being able to articulate yourself won’t hamper communication at all… because it’s impossible to not articulate your physical form, and your facial expressions. And you know I really like speaking, but I also really like… whatever is going on in your head too… and I think in a way us becoming intentionally silent… is like a mix of both speaking and letting whatever is going on in your head out. It would be like I was saying something that meant the unconcealing of whatever is going on in your head… it’s just that that thing happens to be silent.” I whisper. 

Upon saying that I decided to offer him more space on the bed. I turn away and splay my limbs across the right side of the bed, leaving 2 thirds of it to him. This shape also feels like a very aerodynamic one to be in for embracing Asriel’s pain. Asriel takes advantage of my turning over and pushes against the wall in order to thrust himself onto his back. In doing so he flings one of his arms over the bedhead, where Catty’s cow plushie is precariously placed. The cow plushie is knocked and rolls across the bedhead onto Catty’s desk, blocking the lamp placed upon it such that my upper body is cast in shadow. But it’s cool and warm in the shadow. Our breathing creates a polyrhythm. I feel sad, but i feel like following this sadness… it will lead me around the small lake that is Asriel.

I stop and notice how unambitious towards him I feel… he is so… unfunny to me, he is not… designed to be amusing. I don’t want to do anything but realise how much he already exists. I truly meant what I said when I compared him to furniture.  

“Ok… being silent sounds… cool. I mean, I don't think this matter leans against you as a fulcrum point… it’s not like something you could do would fix t he whole thing… but i’m glad you found something for you to do that was affected by what I just told you.” Asriel speaks in the same manner his mother does to young children. But in a way it seems like a formalised distancing tactic.

“I mean…” I begin, but then pause. “Do you want it to be like that?” I offer… “Do you want me to not be the fulcrum point of your problem?” 

“I… don't know what that would mean if you were…” Asriel explains.

“No, me neither… but I was just… uh… curious.” I claim. I sense a deeply emotional conversation would open up along that path, and wish to go down it deeply, but i hold it in mind for later.

“I don’t even know like… what you would even say to help me with this.” Asriel says, then coughs.

“I mean… I don’t have to like… offer a solution… we can still do tangible things, like practice talking. That isn’t like solving the problem rationally but it’s helping it empirically… practice does make perfect or something like it.” I offer. 

“You know…” Asriel begins. “‘practicing talking’ actually sounds really nice. I don’t like how people pretend it’s not a skill… it’s probably the one skill with the highest skill ceiling of all and like… the most subtlety and expressivity. Plus… I like talking to you… so practicing will be fun.” Asriel admits. I hear his hands and arms move as they rub at his eyes.

“I like talking to you… and… I want to practice talking too… I love talking and want to study it…” I say. “...and I want to practice talking to you specifically too.”  I add. I take a peek at Asriel at last when his arm catches the corner of my eye. He is thrusting a limp hand up toward the ceiling. The movement beckons an interpretation but I do not have one. If i had to give one i would say that i like seeing him moving around a bit more. 

We sit in silence for a moment. 

“When you… the other day, the whole um… ‘Research’ for Dragon Blazers 3 that you did.” Asriel begins. “I thought that was really cool. It made me upset… but then i realised… like… you we’re making yourself upset… that was kind of the whole point. It was interesting, because I realised… i felt so entitled to my own sadness about your absence… kind of parallel to your absence being an effect of you entitling yourself to your own sadness.” Asriel explains softly, his hand falling back to his chest. “And that felt kind of nice… like, i want to try and remember to entitle myself to my own sadness.” He adds. 

I start to move my left hand into the air too, curious to see what it looks like. I move my right towards his slightly… in part to stabilise myself… and the other part ‘to stabilise myself’ is just an excuse for: “I wish you told me you were upset.” I mutter wistfully.

“But like I didn’t think it was a bad thing and I didn’t want you to like… not do it again…” Asriel interjects.

“I wouldn't have thought it was a bad thing or wanted to not do it again if you just told me you were sad and upset! I just like to hear when you're sad and upset is all.” I explain.

Asriel breathes in sharply when I say the last part: “... But I kind of don’t like how I acted like the takeaway from your absence was just some fact about me: like ok sure… ‘I learnt to be entitled to my own sadness’, but I was still sad about another person . Like… it’s just like the typical cop out I use all the time: ‘Oh no, this doesn't pertain to other people Asriel… it’s just a you thing… other people aren’t the fulcrum point of this.’” He does finger quotes and moves his head from left to right as he says this. “If other people are never the fulcrum point of my feelings then where am I in emotional space?? I’m just floating in a void in which no one else exists again. …But when I noticed your absence… before I started to analyse it and tried to make inductions from it, I was just lying in bed feeling sad… but this time I knew EXACTLY who and what I was upset about. Like there was a specific idea and image connected to what I felt. Usually when I'm in bed at night it’s like… I have so many things which I could feel sad about that it doesn’t make sense to choose any one of them to treat with particular clarity. So I just don’t go into the details of any of them and therefore they all get compounded into me as an abstraction… like just this horrible general self-concept. Like I’m probably sad because of particular things that are happening in my life and the fact that things i care about are changing, but I’ve severed the connection between that information and my emotions through some process of re-intepreting my feelings such that the sadness manifests in only the form of me lamenting my own intrinsic badness or unworthiness something. It’s like so egotistical in the most useless way.” He pauses… his breathing had gotten shorter but now he’s trying to stretch it out manually.

“But the night you disappeared… I was upset and alone in bed like usual, but this time I had such a clear image of who and what it was that was upsetting me. The image of you flooded my room… for once I had something to actually look at. And it was… mesmerising. Like my room was covered in a greenish-blue light. And so yes, in a way I could come up with some takeaway an induction which revealed some fact about myself…. But more vividly… there were also facts I learnt about you… and… things i saw and felt.” Asriel says. He has stopped moving or choking up altogether, and almost seems peacefully lost in a thought or vision. Not stuck in his head like in the way that hurts him… but perhaps in fact… this particular reverie is bringing him closer to me?

I am more relaxed now. I think Asriel is in safe hands with his intelligence. Maybe not his whole mind as an entire system, but each discrete disorganised part of his mind as an entity in itself is very efficacious. “What was a fact you learnt about me?” I ask. I would be lying if I said that asking that question wasn’t completely exciting. All the sadness lying around is catching in the wind of our speaking and performing a fog. All the allure… so spellbound. 

“Your physical presence is a gift and I will always only see it like that.” Asriel prefaces. “But just like it was a part of heroism for heroes of old to test and strain the limits of a god’s favour for them, I like to… pretend this gift is something I can replicate or extend or continue… like the act of receiving the product of the craft was enough for me to become the craftsperson.” Asriel says. 

“How is that fact about me?” I giggle in a high voice.

“Because, no matter what I make in my own mind… no matter what i think... No matter how I think ‘tonight's gonna be ok… you have friends waiting for you down the road for you… she’s in her bed right now too… just as sad as you are’ or ‘Dess is just being stupid’... no matter how I recreate you in myself when you are far away… she always looks and acts exactly like you… she never looks or acts anything like me. Even though I’m the one making you… it’s always you still.” Asriel admits.

“Like… when your upset… and you think about me to remind you that other people exist?” I ask. 

“It’s not even just when I'm upset… You have to be constantly affected by the people you love, otherwise you don’t love them… that's what sadness is… sadness is just the simultaneous belief in the absence and existence of someone. Sadness is the choice to be affected by someone's ghost.” Asriel explains. “What I'm trying to say is the whole ‘entitling myself to sadness’ is not exactly me doing something for myself. It’s almost more like i’m just me getting your ghost to remind me of something and make me upset.” 

The thought of my ghost befriending him is making me upset too. It just feels weird that I’ve never thought of sadness as as clearly social as he is articulating… which is funny considering how much I’ve taken interest to the emotion as of late. I try to contribute an insight myself:

“When I was researching… it was like 4am… I had been like… thinking for so long… I was trying to think about how one kind of moves themselves — in the form of a concept — into the world outside their body. This idea reminded me of this one time. I was at a con, and this guy randomly asked to take a photo of my Vriska cosplay without even saying hi… and then after he took the photo he walked away without saying thank you. It felt weird cause it was like: there was all my enthusiasm… my stupid grin, my blotchy grey face paint. The photo, it still smiled my smile after i stopped smiling…. It still wore my cosplay and my shitty facepaint even after mum didn’t let me sleep with it on. And it wore it on his phone even though he was the one that sort of interrupted my fountainhead-self’s smiling. That photo is still being me on his phone in a way that is different to the way I am being myself on say… a random school day. And just because I'm wearing my school clothes doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I am wearing in that photo too. Because I still mean what I was doing in that photo… I mean my Vriska cosplay like all the time. And so… I was just thinking about the way…. things that emanate out from you… they still carry… nerves when they go into the other places. As long as you still mean whatever version of you emanated out from you… it’s like everything that happens to that thing happens to you still.” 

“...What do you mean by ‘fountainhead-self’.” Asriel asks.

“Oh… it was just a term I came up with to refer to like… the version of you that is the perspective you see from. And it goes around and creates all the other versions of you like that Vriska photo of me for example. I picked the term ‘fountainhead-self’ because it is like the self that spouts all the others out.” I explain… Asriel looks concentrated… or worried… I can’t tell. 

“It’s not a bad thing by the way… like this is a happy idea… I know that I started off with that example but…” I append. 

Asriel is thinking. Inside thought. I decide to talk more to give him more to think about because I like the idea of him thinking hard. 

“And… that lead me to thinking about what it means to be emotionally inside things too. I mean if i can send off little versions of myself- …or rather… have little versions of me snatched into that guy's phone… then surely I could put my fountainhead-self inside things too… but with my legs i guess… instead of like lightwaves and a phone camera. So then i was thinking about like… all the different things i feel like im inside… and I came up with a lot of answers for someone who was physically… very outside at the time. Like even though I  was outside I had this strong feeling that i was still inside a bunch of things. I felt like I was inside multiple of Noelle’s plans for things to film… I felt like I was inside your mum asking you questions over dinner… I felt like i was still in that Vriska cosplay, getting my photo taken. I came to the conclusion that… the feeling of being inside something in these cases… it isn’t a figurative application of the literal physical instance of being in a room. It’s the other way around… the feeling of being inside a room physically is a figurative application of what is the actual literal part: the feeling of being emotionally inside something. Like do you ever really feel like you're ‘inside’ a physical structure as much at ICE-E’s as you feel you are ‘inside’ when you are at home. And don’t you additionally feel more inside your bedroom when your listening to music… or hanging out with friends in there… than you do when you are doing math homework. Like when I'm doing math homework in my room i feel like i'm still in public. because it’s like I’m existing in relation to all these non-intimate deadlines… and  Alphys. But when I'm with my friends I feel, with certain conversation topics, that I am literally folding into them against the outside world… and it just makes my bedroom walls feel more solid. Like the conversation we're having is directly supervening on how much I feel like I am physically inside the exact same room.” I explain 

Asriel thinks. But he is doing the kind of thinking that doesn’t generate some  extra information in your head which you would have to then explain in order for the people around you to understand what you're thinking about. This is instead the kind of thinking that just simply goes over the surface of what is already out in the open, like a blanket dragging across the floor and then the mat and then the floor again. All the allure, so spellbound. 

“I think my parents are going to get divorced.” Asriel says after a while. I can tell he was listening to what I said, and I think he brought this up because of how hard it is to think hard about things like the different ways of being inside your bedroom when there is such a point blank and violent change in dispositions and appraisals threatening itself such as divorce.” 

“Yeah…” I begin. “Not to be facetious but my mum predicted that. Not in a voyeuristic way or anything… she was just strategising about what the fallout might be if it did occur and confided in me when she was doing so.”

“I… think that’s kind of sweet honestly.” Asriel comforts: “I suppose you could see ‘strategizing’ as something cold, but you could also just see it as her very tangible way of acting on emotion. It’s like a parallel to the grieving process… she’s equally desperate as anyone else about the divorce except her desperation takes the form of trying to salvage what she can.” Asriel explains, and then mournfully adds: “Carol's probably talking to you about it more than mum or dad are talking to me about it… I think it’s really beautiful that she considers you similar to her in both knowledge and investedness regarding the future of our two families…”

I nod, pushing myself back against the bed head a bit and turning to look at him directly after a lot of half looking at him. He is still slumped over in the same position he’s been in for awhile but he is fidgeting and performing more ambient movements now. His head however, is more still, almost as if the remains of his tears are weighing down against it. It’s nice to be able to point my face towards him again and use it as a form of expression… and it’s nice for me to see his too.

“What about Kris?” I ask. “Me and Mum we’re um… worried about them.”

Asriel sits up a bit to try to match my head height… still without facing me but then decides against it and slumps back down. I follow him, slumping back down again and looking up at the ceiling.

“I’m mainly worried about them too. Not that I don’t think Mum and Dad aren’t gonna be messed up by this… but I just don’t even understand their idea of what ‘an ideal state of affairs’ is nor do I understand what they're trying to do with their lives. Whereas with Kris I know exactly what this fucks up…. And Kris doesn’t like… have the means to sort of… structure their own support network at they please…. Like Kris can’t just build a new support network using their friends because they cant exactly just walk over to someone's house when they need a specific kind of emotional support. Their pretty much just tied down to our house." Asriel reasons. “Meanwhile I feel like I will just be growing closer with my friends like I already have been and be mostly fine.”

“But… there’s lots you can do for them still. I mean for one, you could take Kris on adventures and stuff… leverage your agency and responsibility to approximate some agency for them?” I offer, turning to face him again. He is still staring at the ceiling. 

“Yeah… I expect there will be a lot of that… for now though they seem fine. Actually now that you mentioned Carol’s predictions… is that why Kris has been able to have sleepovers with Noelle so much?” Asriel asks, putting his hands onto the bottom of his ribs and lifting up his chest in order to stretch his neck.

“... Uh… straight up yeah.” I say. “I also think she really appreciates Kris because she kind of thinks that Noelle is so weird that her having any friends at all is like… a miracle… but yeah she quite literally told me she planned to ‘strongly encourage’ them to sleepover whenever they would like.” I am informed. I am amused by the spaced out look in his eyes. 

“Your mum is so weird. It’s like her surface layer is so obviously fake and calculated , and then the layer under that seems genuinely EVIL, and then the layer under that seems like… bizarrely benevolent.” Asriel muses, giving a little gig(gle) that has some deeply severe gladness and thankfulness in it.

“Yeah… I find it pretty cool actually. I think that the layering thing she does with her personality is an incidental phenomenon that is really a consequence of her heart sharing her chest with a haphazard sense of ambitiousness both of which feed into each other. Like she wants to amass resources in order to love people, but then sometimes she works against her heart in order to secure her amassment of resources and so on. And so naturally because of this she has like… noticeably different layers of motivations behind her behaviours waiting to be discovered.” I explain

“But i think growing up I kind of saw the layering thing she did as an art in its own right… an end in itself. I thought it was a fun way of intentionally and humorously embarrassing herself a little for my sake when she would switch in and out of her work voice at home. But then it was weird cause… by the time I was 12 and I had learnt to do the same thing by observation I realised that she saw the whole layering thing as more of an artifact inherited, which she aligned herself with for its benefits, rather than an instrument in itself. It wasn’t something she conceived of in isolation as just something to do like I did.” I explain, rolling onto my back and looking into the ceiling myself. 

“Huh… so you like… have the Machiavellian toolbox, but for the sake of playing around it, not for the sake of any actual ambitions.” Asriel prods.

“Hey… playing around can be your ambition!” I defend-laugh. Then I giggle a bit extra at the fact that I’m starting to feel better… and my emotions are  pretty lockstep with Asriel’s right now… so if I’m feeling better… he probably is too.

“Im like… really glad your mum is doing that for Kris.” Asriel interjects, bringing our conversation back.

“Hah… you should come over with them sometime and see it, it’s like… so unsubtle. She’s always reiterating how Kris is welcome ‘any time’ and she always puts emphasis on the ‘any’ to make sure they get it.” 

“Why are you laughing? That's literally amazing of her.”

“I think I'm laughing because I can see into her imagination. Like I think she’s imagining that the moment Tori tells Kris they're just gonna like running out of the house in a panic and need somewhere to go.”

“That’s still not funny…” Asriel begins: “That’s actually less funny. Like I genuinely think that's something that could really happen and having somewhere to go will be amazing for them.” Asriel says, turning to me and laying his head on his hand, I seize the opportunity and lie on my side to face him. 

“No it’s not like… Kris running… that’s not funny and probably true. It’s just my mum like… having that image playing in her head whilst Kris is over to like… rave in my living room or like… steal one of my keyboards and a guitar and make the most horrible mixed-metre monstrosity possible with Noelle. And my mum is trying to leave this like… super obvious hint for Kris but it’s not working at all because Noelle just info dumped at them about ICE-E and Kris can’t focus on anything else now. It’s just my mums steadfastness that is the funny part is all.” I explain.

“Ok yeah… i guess the contrast is pretty hilarious.” 

“See! I’m not being facetious or anything… I know this is going to be really hard for Kris and I really love Kris. And honestly I AM JUST THE SAME AS MY MUM — just as unsubtle too: I always tell them that they can come over and knock on my door whenever they want to hang out.” 

“Well… I’m glad… that you two are already completely mobilised. I just don’t know what I'm gonna do when college starts. Like… how am I gonna support them from so far away.” Asriel wonders. 

“And support yourself at the same time remember! It’s a new environment and a lot of homework and… no highschool friends!” I disagree.

Asriel sighs.

“But… yeah…” I begin. “Maybe we need to like… plan out what’s going to happen here when we leave for college more seriously. Because Kris will pretty much only have Noelle and like… Berdly… I guess… idk how much them and Catti talk anymore. And like… it might also be a lot for Noelle too… especially considering how sometimes she can overthink things. Like I have no doubt that Noelle would love supporting them… but… it could still be alot. Maybe we should like… take shifts coming down here on weekends and checking in on them.” I conjecture.

“I’d like… totally do that. It’d be so funny too like: ‘Hey asriel… we're all gonna go out this saturday’ ‘Sorry gang… gotta take the 3 hour train ride to hang out with my younger siblings.’ Oh my gosh, that's like the coolest.” Asriel explains excitedly.

“And hey maybe every once and awhile we could plan to come down on the same weekend and see each other." I suggest excitedly.

“Heh… like a crossover episode. Like they miss out on one of us one week but then get both of us the next.” Asriel laughs.

“They would love that… They love big things to look forward to.” I state.

“But isn't that like… sorta emaciated? The thought of them looking forward to something that we used to have like… every day…?” Asriel asks.

I shrug: “I mean i think it’s just differenet… think about all the cool stuff we’ll have to tell them about from college… and all the cool stuff we’ll be learning. Plus maybe us being away the whole week will make them think in a more structured manner… like… they'll start little projects during the week and try to finish them in time for when we come on the weekend to show us. I think periodicity can sometimes be a cool thing.” I offer

“Same goes for us too! Maybe me and you can plan stuff over the course of the week to surprise them with. Like idk… make a song maybe” Asriel notes. We are both avoiding presenting plans that specify us going to the same college… just in case. Asriel’s eyes are still red even though he stopped crying a while ago. Maybe he has just been ever so slightly crying since when i thought he stopped such that the redness can’t go away.

“Hey you can cry some more if you want, like… you don’t have to stop for me, I don't mind… in fact I think its nice when you cry.” I offer.

“I… don’t want to make you upset.” Asriel admits.

“No it doesn’t work like that. Me becoming sad when you're sad isn’t akin to you hurting me… it’s not like a labour of my love for you that you could make go away by not being upset. When I say I love you I mean I love following you into everything that is happening to you because I love the way you find yourself in those places. Think of it the same way you think about becoming sad for yourself… you don’t become sad only to torture yourself… you become sad because thats the way things are and feel for you. I want things to be and feel for me in a way that is similar to you because I like getting to be as you as much as I can, and I like getting to do things inside your subjective circumstances. When i get sad when you are sad you aren’t just making me ‘sad in general’... your making me your incredibly specific type of sad… and when i i approach being sad in the way you are i’m also approaching like… the way you love people … and the way you feel distant from others… I am getting to see and touch so many things for free  honestly it’s amazing.” I explain. 

Asriel smiles, and then stops: “Well in that case… I’m also worried Mum is mad at me because I’ve sort of been distancing myself from my parents in anticipation of what’s about to happen… even though it’s going to be hard for both of them too.” 

I just pause. It kind of makes me sad too. I don’t think the sadness really acts on Asriel's choice though: I think teenagers should be free and I think Toriel thinks that too.

Asriel pauses, and turns to face me dead in the eye, tearing up. “Ok I’m gonna cry now.”

I sit up such that my back is parallel to the bedhead and open my arms: “I’m all yours darling.” I say tired and expectantly, as if this is routine. I presume I can afford some funny dry-ness and still be entirely sincere considering how luscious and fond my word choice was.  

Asriel dives himself gently into my stomach. I lose a little bit of air out of my lungs from his horn’s impact. His face is covered in my shirt. It looks sort of funny. I make a singular giggle sound.

I feel some liquid slowly creeping against the surface of my stomach.

“I just… I really like being a person… I just like… want to keep being one.” Asriel starts to choke up. 

I put my hand on his head between his horns and my other one along his back and sink down into the bed a bit further so that our bodies can integrate into each other's gaps. The skin on my upper arm is caught against his shoulder. 

“I just want to like… be able to be… wherever I am when I am there. I don't want to think about… things that aren’t here… anymore. I want to be in my eyes… and my arms and mouth… and my knees.” Asriel chokes against my stomach. Each phrase comes in waves. It is quite a viscous kind of crying. “Not be like… exclusively… stuck in… self reflection… to the point where all there is is reflection and no images. I think everything else will be fine if i can do that. I’m fine with my parents getting divorced… I’m fine with having to study and only getting to see Kris and Noelle on weekends…  I’m fine… just as long as I have the ability to like… see these things unfold in the present… and not just learn them as facts to be reflected upon later. Like i want to see people when they are infront of me.”

I don’t like the image asriel is painting about himself: “I have a vested interest in you seeing people when they are infront of you too to be honest… don’t leave me alone out here….” 

“Shit.” Asriel lifts his head up and stares directly at my face. We have rearranged such that we are both sitting in an approximately legs-folded position opposed to each other. His face is so colourful, his fur swirling in so many directions: I almost feel underdressed. His desperation is so much more life-demanding than my curiosity and speculation. 

“Darling?” I ask… not waiting for his answer to move closer to and more around him. I lean my chest against his and run my hands down the sides of his torso. The weight of how he feels feels like a blanket on me. 

“Everything sucks.” He chokes up again. “And… Catty’s ceiling has so many cobwebs on it.”

“I know it’s like… spider town in here.” I say stupidly

“And they put barely any pineapple on my burger.” Asriel cries stupidly. 

“Oh my poor darling… i can get you some pineapples from the store right now if you want…”

“And you smell bad.” He cries… and then starts to giggle a bit. 

“Yeah… oh my god… like… do i ever shower?” I commiserate. By the time I finish my sentence he’s started crying again. He finally pulls me into himself and I slump around him, leading to us falling onto the bottom end of the bed. As we fall Asriel's legs meet each other between mine. It is difficult to remember the last time where becoming like a blanket helped me fulfill my ambitions rather than work against them. I love lying in a bed like this… where my head is at the bottom and my feet are near the bedhead. My temple is lain against his lips and his cry-choking is vibrating my brain in a soothing way. I feel like I am being employed to physically act out the weight of his emotions. I just didn’t know lying limp like this could feel this energetic. 

I decide to curl around him hard and move my arms so that they go underneath his and so my hands meet up underneath his head, cradling it gently. I then fold my legs such that my knee pits go under his but my ankles are on top of his toes, essentially pinning them between me and the bed. My head is tucked between his neck and my head. It’s hard to not giggle as he cries because it feels like crying and giggling have the same grounds here… I just want to express every emotion ever in no specific order because I finally feel so safe to do so.

I really love that we are the exact same height. It makes the positions effortless to work out. 

“Can we…” Asriel begins to say. I bring my head from beside him and raise it above him. Because I am getting off him as a form of being affected by his will and voice, I still feel like I am hugging him. Like, listening to his voice and his request is just another form of hugging him. 

Asriel breathes in a bit before starting to speak. It is kind of like… his face just is not prepared to be seen… or to have light shone on it. Luckily the shadow of my head covers the majority of his face… and surely I don’t count on the list of people who it isn’t meant to be seen by. He moves his arms under mine where previously mine were under his. “Like… this.” He says. He is touching the small of my back, waiting for me to lie back down on him.

Catty opens the door. I lie down against Asriel, our heads more aligned now, as Catty starts happily chirping: “Sorry I took so long guys… I was just thinking about how… well like y’know we're going to a party, and I got distracted by the cosmetic stuff my sister has and thought about maybe doing eyeliner like Ryan Ross… but… Idk… what do you guys think.”

I lift myself up from Asriel to her and see genuinely epic eyeliner. The eyeliner bursts into tendrils and runs down her cheek, as if her tears grew in the systematic yet free way that trees did: “WOW… dude how did you even do that” I exclaim. “But also… if your gonna go with Ryan Ross eyeliner i feel like you need-”

“OH MY GOSH ASRIEL ARE YOU OK!” Catty interjects when Asriel turns to her with a face covered in tears. The sound of genuine concern in her voice is like like music to my ears. I wish I cried more often in front of people so I could hear it.

Asriel laughs: “Haha… No.” His voice goes extremely high for the last word. “Your eyeliner is really cool tho.”

Chapter Text

“Oh my gosh what’s wrong!” Catty asks. 

“Well… to summarise…” Asriel begins. “I’m sort of in a viscous cycle where I solve all my problems by minimising my emotions and I’m worried that i’m going to incidentally harm myself forever like my dad. Like some sorta joke guy who never really looks anyone in the eye.” Asriel says angrily.

‘That wasn’t a summary at all’ I think. ‘He just added all that stuff about his dad just now.’ 

“Well, if theres one thing im certain is healthy to do…” I note: “it’s disdaining your parents. No one is better position to see a persons flaws than their child.”  

“Yeah, not that i hold it against him: he’s so invested in emotional repression that I think it’s come to the point where he just stopped producing emotions for himself to repress.” He explains.

“But your dad is so happy all the time… oh wait…” Catty starts and then stops. 

“Yeah, that’s just it right… there CAN BE no fluctuation. Happiness, sadness, whatever the underlying substrate emotion he picks it’s the same: the point is that he is a monism of that one emotion and that is the same as him not being affected by those around him.” Asriel explains.

“Ohhhhhh… is that why like… Kris is like that?” Catty asks. Sitting on the bed. Her knees are really close to where me and Azzy’s head are.

“No.” Azzy and I say at the same time.

“Kris… is affected by others… They just have a weird sense of humour. If you want to work out the manner in which Kris is affected you can see it in their morals, principles and relationships, but you won’t ever see it in their face or in what they say ever…” Asriel states.

“That's actually true I suppose… I guess i’ve only really been the butt of their jokes… never the butt of their… principles ?” Catty admits. 

“The fate of many is as such…” I say looking out into the distance. 

“I just… can we… lie down and do nothing for a bit, Catty… I have a headache from crying” Asriel says, readjusting himself around me as he asks this.

“Well we have quite a bit of time before it’s late enough to start so yes…” I interject.

“Dess…” Asriel mumbles. “Dess you… like live in your plans.” 

“Oh… um… sor- wait im trying to work out if i’m sorry?” I put forward.

“No… it’s comfy… it’s  like you're always plotting a big plan for us all to fit in… kinda like Me and Catty’s mum with their chess blanket.” Asriel affirms.

“Oh ok so ur cool with it… Well in that case let me adjust my 5-D holographic model of our mischief tonight to fit in your breakdown! Hehe, just kidding, I actually love you… can i kiss you on the head? I’m really glad you shared all of that with me and I wanna test how it feels to kiss you after being told all that.” 

Asriel giggles and looks honoured. Then he gives me a side eye: “Only if it helps the plan…”

“Well… it helps my ultimate secret secret plan to love my friends forever? FUCK! I wasn't supposed to tell you that… my co-conspirators will have me thwacked for this!!!” I pout.

“You have co-conspirators for that plan!?” Catty enquires curiously. 

“Yeah… um… Gary the Sad Dragon. He is highly intelligent, really.” I swear. 

“Like… that soft toy?”  Catty asks.

“Um… he has a name you know… and he beat Asriel in a fight!” I counter

Asriel pushes his chest up to stretch his back: “To be fair… I thought we were playing chess…” he notes.

“Hey, that's not Gary’s fault… Gary just said ‘let’s battle’ in front of a set-up chess board… that never excluded him punching you…” I explain.

Asriel makes the noise of a pained old man to signify his befuddlement. I lift myself up to make myself seem more intimidating and cover him in shadow more. I plant my knees on his stomach and my arms on his shoulders — causing him to lose breath like he made me lose earlier, except I do it intentionally this time. He shrieks like a small goldfish. Catty looks confused about what to do. 

“Hey… you didn't answer my question from before.” I ask him from above.

“Well… “ he says, semi-choking. ”I-uh…  feel like I need more information about… your ultimate secret plan to love your friends forever first… before I can agree to let you kiss me.” His eyes light up with a genuine desire for the information, regardless of whether I’m making it up on the spot or I have actually thought out a real plan for loving my friends. 

I get off him a bit, instead positioning my hands and knees parallel to his stomach and shoulders and looking down on him. 

“Hmm… ok… I suppose my confederates are already going to beat me up for leaking info so i may as well tell you a little more… anything you would like to know in particular” I ask.

Asriel giggles: “Well… what tactics are you going to use to execute the loving step? ”

“…” I pause… “I’m going to… rope my friends in to consecutively weirder and weirder adventures which demand consecutively more and more individuated responses from within us. And then we know so many embarrassing things about each other that we have to live in a house together.”

“We’re going to live in a house together?” Asriel lights up. I imagine the thought of a new home after his current one is especially sensitive to him.

“OOH so you assume you are one of the friends im trying to love forever in the plan huh?” I question.

“Uhh… Freudian slip again… but, Dess… it’s true, isn’t it.” 

“Well… you could always let me down and become a horrible person?” 

“Yeah… but I won't do that… you know that.” Asriel acknowledges.

“Huh… yeah, you wont, will you?” I say silently turning my head away from him. “Ok is my plan good… Can i kiss you yet?” I whisper impatiently. 

“Your plan is pretty good. I think you’ve already sort of been doing it since year 12 started… and you can kiss this wrist.” He says, sitting up and offering me his arm. I lock my arm around it and just hold it. Turns out I am too excited to kiss it.

“Yay…” I say gently. I like when Asriel stipulates specific positions and timing when we are being physically affectionate. It’s fun that he has physical analogues for his changes in emotion that I get to be the measuring device for. 

We both lie down into each other. Catty is somewhat confused by the conversation, wanting to say something but unsure what it could be. However, unlike Asriel, Catty is less perfectionist about having the perfect thing to say and is happy to just resort to inputting any fun or generous idea: “I’m going to make hot chocolates. Do you guys want some?” Catty offers. 

I light up and straighten my back completely.  “Wait… can mine be really fucked up and cool.” I ask with a pitiful voice.

“Uh… like how…” Catty asks… bewildered by how I thought she could make anything of this request.

“Like can you just put heaps of random sweet stuff in it. Like marshmallows… and gummy snakes and like mint flavoured chocolate if you have any? OOh and coffee!” 

“Well… I guess we are going to be up very late so… I guess that’s not bad for you. Any requests Asriel?” Catty asks. 

“Can I have one that just has exactly one red gummy snake melted into it. And also could i have uh… my burger… Are we allowed to eat in your room.”

“Well… i mean I would say no ideally, but to be honest i eat in my room all the time… so i guess that would be a double standard teehee.” Catty says, leaving the room.

“Feeling emotions is like… not tiring but… gives me this extra energy that proactively  wants to gravitate towards a soft surface and lay.” Asriel grumbles. 

“Well… i mean… I like when i feel like that. Like… when i’m crying. I cry alot… did you even know that?” I say the final sentence in a surprisingly chipper voice.

“No… is that a recent thing? I mean… i kind of assumed you did: you must get all that energy from somewhere. I just assumed you had a reckless abandon to produce emotions, and thus extrapolated that on the other side of the whole ‘let’s do everything’ was like a… ‘let’s sleep and cry for a whole day’ that you also produced at other times which i didn’t see. It’s also reflected in some of your song lyrics.”

“What… all my song lyrics are completely badass… Well… except for- ok…” I admit. 

Asriel starts to sit up, and I unlock from his hand as he does so. He sits up on his shins and looks over me. 

“Do you want to kiss?” Asriel asks me. His head is lit by the lamp but the rest of his body isn’t. 

“Yeah lol. Can we like… turn on the fairy lights on and turn the lamp off though. This lighting is currently aggressively understimulating. It was kind of better when Catty had the door open but….” I muse, lifting myself upright off him and stretching.

“Do you want to… open the door too?” He asks, turning over and pouring his arms over the side of the bed, walking them to where the fairy lights are. There is no button on the fairy lights, so you have to plug it in or take it out of the plug in order to turn it on or off.

“No it’s fine… I think Catty might not be ok with that. But ugh, i love the sound of TV that’s all distorted from travelling down the hallway.” I say. The fairy lights come on. I turn off the lamp, passing my arm directly above Asriel's head as he tries to lift himself back up from his slouching under the desk. He bumps my funny bone and we both ‘ouch’ at the same time.  

“Ok I mean that sound-” “omg so pretty”, I interrupt, commenting on the lights. “-is cool if it’s at a friend's house but I feel like it actually makes me really upset when it’s my own parents for some reason… it just feels like they're wasting themselves” Asriel admits.

“Yeah… that checks out… but I feel like my mum actually like… watches TV in a really campy way so it doesn’t make me so upset.” I explain.

The fairy lights are about as bright as the lamp, but each one changes colour out of sync with the others making the room feel alive in a magical but not biological sense. Animated. He lifts his body back onto the bed and turns to me, making a singular movement with his mouth that tells me what he is about to do. He grabs his neck suddenly but gently with his mouth. I choke up at the intensity of feeling. My right arm bolts upright, my fingers tensing like a tree. I put it around the back of his neck and push him toward me, causing him to eat some of my hair and get his spit on it and pushing myself down into the bed with him as a medium. 

“It’s like… Christmas reruns, isn't it.” He says softly directly into my neck, and pushes his right paw underneath my right shoulder blade. It feels like my my stomach acid is bubbling into my brain through my throat. 

“Wait… wait… I want to listen to fall out boy while we do this… but keep going.” I say, leaning up over the top of Asriel in order to look for where Catty’s aux cord is lying. 

“Ok…” 

“Also yeah… It’s just… there’s so much christmas stuff in my house i always think ‘Oh mum is watching those movies about like… conventional families’ again… cause y'know christmas-themed as a term cannot be used to differentiate items in my house.” I say, turning back for a second to actually answer his question.

The aux cord is under her table near where Asriel just was. I take out my Ipod from my back pocket and start fiddling my way to Under the Cork Tree. Asriel puts his hand on my stomach and starts tickling it. It makes me misspell fall out boy as ‘Fal our boh’: Fall out boy still shows up in the search results tho.

“You know I'm not ticklish right?” I rebuke him as if he is a complete idiot. I’m completely lying though, and have to say it through my teeth in order to not laugh.

“Oh yeah totally no… i’m just doing this for like some other reason.”  He says, passing behind me in order to reach the fur in my kneepit. His tickling there causes me to flop onto his back towards and towards the top of the bed. However I still manage to suppress all laughter from my mouth. I strain my arm out towards the aux cord just as Azzy puts his hand in the small of my back. I seize up and almost drop my phone. 

“Asriel you fucking…” I say in the place of screaming with laughter. I bolt my back upright, catching Asriel off guard and ‘accidentally’ hitting him in the face. I use the little time this affords me to plug the phone in but as im about to press play he pulls my legs away from the AUX chord, causing me to accidentally play Mount Eerie’s ‘Moon, I already know’ instead. The mood completely changes, and we are like deer in headlights. I am collapsed over the side, not stupidly anymore, but instead only unable to get up.

“Asriel I fucking what…” Asriel says to me… referencing the flirting that would’ve proceeded had this song not started playing at me in this strangely serious new state. 

“I don’t know…” I say in a daze. I’ve been talking to other humans for so long but when i listen to songs like this it just feels like… my ability communicate pails in comparison like all the progress i made with people was illusionary. 

Catty returns with a yummy hot chocolate in each hand. Me, Asriel and the blanket beneath us have been shuffled around and splayed inexplicably considering the mood the room was in when she left and the mood she returned to it in. It would be hard to guess what commenced between the two points. Catty places the hot chocolates on a shelf and assess the situation.

“I just think… The monster race as a whole, is better at being silly with eachother than being serious with eachother.” I say, sitting up. “Whenever we try being serious with each other it just feels like we aren’t doing justice at all and it just seems like a grating and stupid imitation of seriousness. And it’s not seriousness’s fault at all… it’s just that we’re completely useless at being serious for some reason.”

I look up from below and see that Catty looks like she is being criticized for being too silly. What I said has nothing to do with her particularly. But I don't attempt to soothe her directly: making the kind of conversation where we attend to each other so directly is not something i want to do right now. Instead I just throw a spanner into the entire mood of the room.

“Look… look how much better this is.” I bolt my back up, transform my hands into the shape of claws. “RARRR… im Scary-Dess… dess’s evil twin!” I say. No one moves or says anything.

“Isn’t that so much better…” I say. Ironically, the lyric ‘My soft hands replaced by claws’ is playing.

“Well… I mean… maybe if we just keep growing closer as friends… we’ll be better at being serious together…” Catty offers feebly.

“Maybe it’s not that we are bad at communicating seriously… maybe serious things just get communicated at a slower rate than silly things do. Like serious things aren’t communicated a sentence at a time they are communicated like a conversation at a time.” Asriel states..

“If that is true Asriel… than serious communication is not even useful for people. Conversation-at-a-time communication is just too slow to be relevant to a person. It’s like the communication gap between people and mountains. Like it’s lovely and all that mountains are so big and they move that slow... but it makes it really difficult for us and mountains to be friends yknow.” 

“Well…” Asriel begins.

“-Like seriously Asriel, have you ever befriended a mountain like you have a person?” I interject sharply.

“I haven't tried.” Asriel states. There is an air of heroism in the way he answers with this 

“Sorry for… sounding mad when i said that by the way.” I add…

“It’s ok… sorry for…” Asriel trails off. Possibly into a thought.

No one says anything. I don’t even want to ask him what he’s sorry for. The part of me that does assumes Catty will ask him anyway. 

“I’m sorry for… missing so much important conversation oh my gosh.” Catty exclaims. “I can’t believe you we’re crying while i was having fun in the frickin bathroom of all places.” 

“It’s ok Catty… we can just say more stuff now that you're here.” I say. “Wow… I sound so horribly sarcastic sometimes… but I like… genuinely meant that.” Even though we haven’t been doing much except bring up obscure and subtle problems, this conversation is still keeping me motivated to keep talking.

The Microphones finishes playing and everything falls silent.

“Wait, I think I worked it out, Dess.” Asriel juts in fascetiously. 

“Oh…” I say. 

“Maybe… the funny and silly things are serious too… secretly.” Asriel utters. 

“Ok that is just true tho.” Catty says optimistically. 

“Fine… you guys are right.” I say. "In fact my whole personality was already kind of contingent on that being true so… yeah… let’s kick ass.” 

“Yeah… let’s make out.” Asriel says. 

“WHAT!” Catty said. 

“Well… Me and Asriel were about to make out before I accidentally started playing Headless Horseman… Not that I wouldn’t make out to Headless Horseman.” I note: “It would just be like… an incredibly autumnal experience." 

Catty laughs: “Do you guys always start crying before you make out?” 

“I mean we are emo.” Asriel mutters. “We must be emo…” He specifies.

I nod, and start crawling toward him weakly. It’s funny because I think the desire to kiss people can just run parallel to any change in tone or mood and to any rate of change of the change in tone and mood. Kissing is not something that fits inside of moods but is something which moods fit around. 

Catty realises this is really happening. “Wait the door is open… hold on.” She says terrified. Asriel begins to grab me by the hair. I close my eyes for a second.

“Dude… no there’s no way your mum is like… against kissing.” I say to Catty, putting one hand in Asriel’s mouth and another on his sternum.

“Uh… no… I’m more worried about my sister.” Catty turns to me and is confused how I am even engaged in a conversation with her.  I fall down the side of Asriel and then run my hand down the side of his ribcage. He starts gently biting and suckling my neck. I, in response, cling around him in order to stabilise myself in my feeling of this sensation.

“Will she like… foretell a weird prophecy about it?” Asriel asks, gasping sharply at the end when i start to claw at his collarbone.

“No… I'm more worried that she will incorporate it into her fanfiction or something. She’s very curious about physical affection and sort of writes about it like a mad scientist. Mad scientist in the sense she makes ‘scientific observations’ on like… everyone all the time and does whatever she wants with these ‘observations’” Catty answers, her voice filled with fear. She has her hands behind her back… I think out of some weird awe of us in this current form as an amorphous entity.

I push myself above asriel for a moment. “Can I kiss you in the mouth?” I ask him. Then turning to Catty I then note: “It seems like Catti is really busy though with whatever she’s doing in her room” 

“Yeah Catti’s busy… but like Jockington keeps coming out of the room to get random stuff from around the house.” Catty continues. 

“Is he an equally mad scientist?” I ask

“No, I think seeing you two make out would just make him upset actually… I think he is very afraid of like… intimacy other than hugging.”

“Aww… that’s really cool.” I exclaim, turning back down to Asriel. “Yes by the way.” He says calmly. I look down at him and smile. He points his snout upward in meditative preparation or to look like a pretentious posh gentleman judging me… I can't tell which. 

I leverage the weight of my shoulders on my forearms and lower my tongue into his mouth from my neck. He pushes his chest into mine quite far and then tries to emotionally stabilise himself by grabbing onto my back, which collapses me down into his stomach and makes us roll over to the right. 

“Nice going idiot-” I say as Asriel shoves his palm in my mouth to stop me from  taunting him. I pull my mouth away: “OH MY GOSH I'M CALLING THE FRICKING POLICE.” I say, rolling over. I see Catty standing in silent fascination and make eye contact with her. I try to lift myself up onto my hands but don’t realise how far to the right we have drifted and try to support my weight against air, causing me to slip down onto the floor. 

“Hi Catty, would you like to join us?” I say in a waitress voice.

Catty looks nervous: “Uh… i mean… yes… but… it’s um… IT’S ONLY 7:30pm… oh my gosh we’ve got so much time.” 

“It’s like… barely even dark yet”  Asriel notes, putting a paw on my leg as he lifts himself up to check outside the window.

“But like what… do i even do… like i don’t even know…what to do.” Catty says in a way that sounds partly worried and partly hopeful at the fact.

“That’s ok i don’t even know what I'm doing either.” I say. “It’s not very scary.”

“It’s a little bit scary…” Asriel interjects. 

“Yeah, but it’s scary in a fun way… like being thrown by someone you love… onto a bunch of pillows. Like it’s a-priori guaranteed that you'll land on a bunch of pillows.” I note.

“Also drinking the spit so much spit makes me feel funny. It’s like my brain lags cause my saliva confuses her saliva for a slightly different version of itself… it’s like uncanny valley” Asriel adds confidently, falling back down beside me and biting at my jumper. 

“But you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, Catty. We can like… do something else if you want. Like i had this idea for a boardgame actually like… during biology today…” I add. 

“-No I want to do this… i just like… I mean I don’t know like… I feel like I’m entering some established thing.” Catty interjects walking slightly closer.

“No trust me this is not like an established thing… like we just do this randomly lol. I mean there are like… memories and… muscle memories… but there aren’t any rules.” Asriel says, without getting up to make eye contact.

“Ok… Can you like… give you a tutorial…” Catty asks, fidgeting with her fingers. 

“Ok… but I thing the main thing I could put in a tutorial would be just helping you feel comfortable with asserting yourself as a particular. Like I don’t know if… suggesting things for you to do to me would be very good. But i could help you feel comfortable like… doing whatever you felt comfortable with. And you don’t need to ask stuff like ‘what do i do?’ — or anything. If you do something i don’t like i will just tell you… but i kind of doubt you would do something I wouldn’t like considering you cherish me.” I explain.

“Ok…” Catty says. “I do cherish you.” She digs her knees into the bed, with her feet hanging off of it quite a bit. I am cornered in by her and Asriel and it feels nice.

“Yeah I know that's why I said that.” I snap.  I turn around and catch Asriel mid bite of my jumper. “Asriel you're going to BREAK MY fricking JUMPER. Sorry Catty, ok…. Would you like to hold hands?” 

“Ok… yeah… that’d be awesome” Catty 

Catty’s soft right paw reaches out and falls gently, nervous to unfold itself and fit around mine. She looks at one of the artworks on her wall for a second. It is the album cover to Alex G’s 2011 album Winner. I can tell that she was actually absorbing the image with her eyes and not just looking at it to avoid making eye contact with me. 

“Woah… like isn’t this is crazy am i right?” I say, widening my eyes at her turned head. I am using a sarcastic tone because its funnier but i also mean this sincerely.

“Yeah… this is awesome.” Catty says softly, slowly drifting her gaze back to me, wiping her gaze across a few more of the pictures on her wall along the way.

“It’s like I'm like… it’s like we are a snake.” I suggest, wiggling my upper arm up and down.

“Like jockington?” Catty says distractedly. She is getting used to the sensation of her arm being dependent on mind.

“Not really cause he’s like… different but yeah kinda.” I say. Asriel gets up from behind me and crawls over to my phone underneath Catty's desk . Catty watches him out of curiosity… not out of worry about what he’s doing. 

“How is he different?” Catty asks.

“Well…  isn’t your sister like teaching him the occult?” I say… Catty slowly navigates her other hand over to mine like trying to find something in the dark.

Better by sign crushes motorist starts playing. The aura of the room already felt like this song so the song's arrival on the speakers feels like expectations being met rather than a supprise, and the song itself feels like even more warm water being poured on me. 

“Yeah but… Catti is benevolent so it’s ok.” Catty says, sighing benevolently. She is clearly warmed or exhausted by thinking about her sister’s beautiful morality. So much so that she relaxes her muscles and falls into my chest and arms, making me feel like Mary Mother of Jesus in La Pieta by Michelangelo. I have my breath two-fold taken away from me: both physically and emotionally at the same time. Asriel finishes fiddling with my phone, crawls into the part of the bed beside the wall and vibes, his jumper getting caught on my horns on the way and tugging my head back slightly.

“Kris said that Catti summoned a demon in front of him.” I whisper.

“She just calls them demons but I don't think they actually are demons… I think they are just guys.” Catty says, pushing her head under my chin. My spine tingles. “Hi by the way.” I squeeze her between my chin and my sternum. 

“Hi.” Catty whispers. She leans even further into my sternum such that i fall back against Asriel. 

“WehetkeasfoIJ.” Asriel stutters from behind me.

“What’s wrong Asriel, can't handle a bit of being squashed?” I cackle, as I place my hand behind Catty’s head and run my fingers through her hair. 

“Yeah… I can…I was just super zoned out to this song… and… you have frickin… antlers… so um… revenge is in order.” Asriel says, pulling me down onto him by my shoulders, and dragging Catty over collaterally. I see him gently through my hair and stick my tongue out at him, getting a mouthful of my hair, which is more a prank on me than him, but whatever. He then brings his head down and puts his mouth around my tongue, getting a mouthful of my hair, which is more of a prank on him than me, but whatever. 

I spit his tongue out and lift myself back up in order to face Catty. My back when fully straightened leaves me incredibly close to her forehead. I kind of freak out a bit at how much of my field of view she’s taking up. This overwhelmingness however makes me feel confident.

“‘Uh… can i kiss this thing?’… I say to myself out loud.” I say out loud.

Catty giggles. I look past her to the things in the room. I think it might be how warm and stuffy the room is plus the body heat but I am feeling really drowsy in a nice way. Then I look at the things on top of her cupboard. A wood carving knife that she used to draw things all over the surface of her desk is covered by a rainbowdash t-shirt.

“You can.” She says at last.

“Ok just give me a sec.” I put my hair back behind my ears and out of my face, and then reposition myself so that my hips are aligned with hers. “Can you um… put your… arms around me.” It’s funny because Sign Crushes Motorist’s music is about being rejected… but the general atmosphere of self-attention and self-reflection makes it really comfy music to share affection to. 

Catty puts her hands around my waist and I feel my body try to fold around its y-axis. My chest is tight. I lean over gently and start by kissing her on the eye. Not the forehead because that’s kind of a too-obvious place to start. Not the mouth because im genuinely scared. Just the eye. Alot.

She makes a squirmish face at the sensation but it’s imbued with enough smile that i know she likes it. I mean it is gross and sloppy, but the germs come from a good place and will bring her back to a good place. I have a habit of looking off into the distance when i’m nervous but every time i try to look away from Catty I see her in object-form. Her clothes overflowing from the drawer. The poster of Rose Lalonde and Jade Harley as kids crouched over a pond, surrounded by symbolic references to what would happen later in the webcomic (e.g. a frog, a red scarf) that she made. This is alot to take in and I want to hold hands with Asriel for support. I try to move my hand back toward him but get so hazy from overthinking about everything that i just sort of gently pass out. My body forms a triangle without a base facing away from Asriel, the opposite of what i wanted. Asriel chuckles: “Well… well… well… if it isn’t the old Dess Triangle from… uh” 

“Dude… dude…” I say, from my stupor, without getting anywhere

“Haha what the heck you just fell over...” Catty says says. 

“Yeah… sorry I'm shy and overwhelmed… jeesh.” I admit. I get up. “I’m just getting whiplashed cause… this feels natural, which makes sense. But regardless its nice to know our previous friendship is supporting this. I feel like I'm continuing what we were already doing before and not starting something new. But… your like… calm demeanour around people translates into like this really impressive confidence in the context of making out…not that we are doing that… but that’s just… like… uh…” I trail off. 

“Yeah… I feel… even more comfortable now than usual maybe, like… I feel like i don’t need to talk as much.” Catty says. 

“Maybe you just feel free to do whatever you want though. And right now you want to not need to talk, but maybe you’ll want to need to talk later, you know.” I suggest.

“Yes i think thats true. I like it when I'm desperate to talk sometimes.” Catty chirps. 

I think about her:  “Can you please… crawl over me and kiss me.” I say, my eyes still closed… my body still triangle.

“Who?” Catty asks?

“Oh haha… like i don’t mind… or both” I giggle. 

Asriel moves over to me, whispering something to Catty. Catty then also moves closer. I laugh at the noises of their shuffling and whispering and the sheets tickling me in waves. Catty whispers something back. Then Asriel chuckles and pokes the centre of Catty’s browridge. Catty swings back and then head butts into his finger.

“Ok Dess…… what if we both kiss you at the same time.” Catty suggests innocently.  

“WOAH that would be so cool!” Asriel exclaims.

I freak out, opening my eyes properly for the first time since I passed out, and touch at my lips. “Guys… I don't know if I have enough space on my lips for that.” 

“Welp… better try your best cause it’s happening.” Catty says! Asriel nods. 

I’m freaking out not in a tactile but purely metaphysical sense. I think i can handle my face being smothered with mouths, but I’ve never had to process both of these wonderful people in such high detail at the same time. It’s the personhood im worried about: I am not sure what will happen. Should i get up to kiss them more horizontally? — it’s somehow scarier but more perfect that i should be stuck lying down before them. It is like admitting two kinds of substance into the metaphysical system that is my heart. They collectively begin to block out more and more of the surrounding light from the fairy lights. Oh god, i have never used plural they in such a desperate manner. Come to think of it, i’ve never used singular they- what am i saying! Now is not the time fo- 

Just as they are about to kiss me, they turn around and kiss each other literal centimetres away from my mouth. I actually scream: 

“EEEGHHAGH WHAT THE FUCK GUYS! FUCK THAT!” 

“2 DOLLARS DESS!” Catty’s mum sings from the living room. Catty and Asriel laugh. Then Catty finds eye contact with Asriel, clearly wanting to do it again but more spontaneously and interstitially.

I duck under them so as not to hurt their ears out: “SORRYYY.” I say in the loudest voice i can make sound weak and apologetic. 

“IT’S OK DESS, YOU’VE BEEN DOING ALOT BETTER LATELY!” She bellows. 

“Thanks…” I say… whilst losing my will to yell. Catty’s mum definitely doesn’t hear me.  I refocus to other, more pressing matters. Literally; as their knees are both pressing against the sides of my torso. 

“You guys… are really funny… like genuinely.” I murmur, in an incredibly wistful tone… although I sincerely mean what I said. It was so funny.

“Thank you… it required a lot of coordination.” Asriel giggles grinning at Catty and then grinning nefariously at me: “Um… are… uh… you ok?” Asriel refocuses.

I am crying… gently… and giggling. I am doing a great job holding my tears in… but the main difficulty for me holding them in is not how incredibly upset I am, but rather how funny it is to me that I'm crying, which is causing me to giggle; causing me to let out tears. 

“I just… hehe… really… thought it was really gonna… *sob*... happen… hehe.” I stutter out.

“Hmmm… let me convene with my co-conspirator.” Asriel says. He then goes to whisper into Catty’s ear, finding Catty already beginning to lean down toward me. She stops to nod at him.

“Nooo like… now… I don’t know now…” I say, as I realise what they are about to do. “Do you even trust me…” 

“Trust you to do what?” Catty asks sillyly? 

“I don’t know… I feel like I have become unworthy of experiencing this event because I won't be as surprised about it now as I was gonna be before…” I say. “Can you guys… like… surprise me with it somehow. Or maybe that’s not your responsibility… maybe i can just… become as surprised as i was gonna be?” 

Asriel and Catty look at me and then at eachother… unsure how to proceed.

“Ok never mind it’s fine just please fucking kiss me.” I say, squinting and recoiling back at the velocity of my own words. Quite quickly hair, breath and fur fall around my face like rain. The funny thing about kissing is that… it’s such an information overload that i can’t tell if each kiss is completely different or similar. For all i know each kiss could all be quite similar but there’s just so much to process each time and so much little of each kiss that i actually do process such that each time i’m working on processing a part of the kiss i haven’t before. But… I don't know. I feel Catty’s tongue slide from a strange angle against my teeth. The emotional weight of the two of them makes me feel like I'm being dragged underneath them towards the end of the bed, but when I open the visual data contradicts this and the sensation of movement slows down, although not completely. I also see two very blurry, colourful faces. I don’t really know what's making it so difficult to see but I can tell I trust it. As their lips depart I begin to cry and giggle again… but this time the difference between why I am crying and why I am laughing is completely indiscernible. I want them to come back I dont care. The two of them don’t problematise the fact I am crying this time: it is pretty easy to tell it’s an effect of only the affection that just happened. My hair is covering my face and I aimlessly try reaching up my arms to touch the two of them again — without making any effort to grasp or hold either of them. I just brush their face and chest area over and over again randomly. Asriel gets tickled by this. I eventually get tired of doing even that, turn over and sob into the mattress.

“Dude… what the heck…” Asriel says in a very high voice. Catty is wiping her eyes.

“I KNOWWWWW.” I groan at him. “Catty hi.” I wave from my slump. 

Catty puts her hand through my wave, causing it to plummet against the bed.

“Hi Catty.” Asriel says moving his hand out to her but patting it gently rubbing her on  her head instead

“Guys…” Catty says. “What should we do now… surely we could do so many cool things because of this. Like not even related to kissing but just like… as friends.”

“Dude… but we gotta build half-pipe.” I bubble. 

“Dude my bed is covered in spit now.” Catty giggles. 

“Um is anyone else hungry?” Asriel whimpers. “We haven’t eaten since like ages…” 

“Oh yeah Asriel you wanted me to get you your food but I was carrying both the hot chocolates first!” Catty exclaims.

“Don’t be sorry… we distracted you from what you were doing.” Asriel explain.

“Ok… should we like… all eat dinner?” Catty asks to everyone.

“WAIT!!!!… Catty I want to kiss you one more time please, please.” I say, putting up my index finger from above where I am slopped over in the bed.

“Ok you guys can do that… I’m gonna go eat my burger tho...” Asriel says, taking his hot chocolate with him as he walks out. He pauses to take a swig in the door frame dramatically.

“They’re in the fridge!” I add as he leaves.

“What?” Asriel asks, turning around.

“The leftovers, I mean...” I mumble, lowering my head and big eyes like i did something wrong.

“Yes… thank you” He mutters and nods… turning away and closing the door. 

I finally get up from my slump and sit upright on my knees in the middle of the bed. Catty turns to face me, her legs over the edge of the bed. I feel stable and peaceful and ready. Better by Sign Crushes Motorist is playing again, by design (I added it multiple times to the playlist that Asriel and I’s shared playlist which he put on). Both Catty and I are quiet cause we know whats about to happen: It’s a fact of the gentle magicalness of the lighting and the warmness of our breath. I don’t need to say anything , but i still do anyway: “Catty could you um…” I begin, and then let the heat of the words overflow my face. She nods her head and puts her hands around my ribcage, which is actually the greatest thing ever and a thing I love doing to others. I start to wince again and feel as if I am going to sink into that same depression in the bed that I spent so much time in earlier, but I regain strength and tense my core to stay upright, just a bit longer. I use this lease on upright-life to run my hair through Catty’s, but I get overexcited and immediately sit up a little bit to reach her face with my lips. I then push strongly against her mouth whilst pulling her down onto me by the shoulders, causing me to fold over my calves and become diagonal. Then i suck on her neck through my teeth. She seems unable to do anything but try and ingest the sensation.

“I like… really want to spend a lot of time with you right now… but I also know it will be really funny if we like… have to spend the whole night doing silly tasks instead of kissing each other… because the flirting will just be… insane.” I say.

“Wow… you really are an evil genius.” Catty says.

“Yeah except I'm not evil.” I say.

“So just like… a genius?” Catty attempts.

“No, just like a non-evil evil genius…” I state. 

“Oh o-” I cut her off by pinching the top of her throat with my teeth. “Hgheeey.” She weakly retorts, pushing me down from her and then hanging her head over mine. I grin maniacally. She moves her hand downward a bit to a part that seems like my centre of gravity in this context. Her eyes are really busy but not with seeing anything, more with just bearing this. I giggle at that. She dollops a kiss on my forehead as my comeuppance for giggling. I stop giggling because her kiss startles me and jambles my brain. My mind then resets in the silence left after my giggling stop, and I consider what it is I might like. I decide I want to kiss her again, and go about this by looking up and giving her the puppy-deer eyes. 

“Are you ok!?” Catty asks, confused. I imagine her ability to understand facial expressions is probably contorted due to the fact we are both drowning in heat so she assumes the worst case scenario for any facial expression she can’t make out. I find it really funny that the puppy-deer eyes do not work as intended so I keep doing them. She then sees what im doing with the pattern of be haviour though:

“I’m still going to kiss you even with that weird face…” Catty threatens. 

“Fuc-” Catty cuts me off by forcing my words back into my throat with her saliva-y warmth. This is a really funny bit in my opinion… cutting off someone complaining by kissing them. 

It is kind like she has given my tongue’s house its fourth wall. So… insulated. 

When she lets me breathe again I say: “Ok… I feel dizzy, can I lean against you?” 

“Sure.” Catty sits properly next to me on the bed. I move my shoulder against hers, careful to hold my gaze at the size of her head so as to not hit her with my antlers. Then i tuck my arm under her arm to integrate my lean into her body more smoothly.

We sit there for awhile…

“Ok but Asriel was kinda right… I am really hungry for her burgers…” Catty states. 

“Burgers…” I babble. “Lead me.” I say, offering her my hand. She laces around  it.

Catty stumbles out of the bed pulling against the slack of my arm to try lead me towards the door like an impatient dog-walker pulls an overcurious dog. Except in my case, it’s not so much curiosity at my surroundings that’s working against Catty’s pulling but rather my inability to see past my own feelings enough to notice and navigate through my surroundings. Catty puts her hand around the door and then stops: “I… I’m not sure if I want to hold hands in front of my mum. She thinks you and Asriel are dating and she’ll ask me a million questions about it.”

“WHAT… well that’s stupid. We aren’t dating: hasn't she heard about friends before...” I pout, noticing my hot chocolate on the shelf by the door and pick it up. It’s not like there’s much else to do as we wait before this big wood door; the impasse of whether or not we're going to hold hands down the hallway. ‘Catty’s dark purple hair is so beautiful’ I think. Her words come out from under it:

“Well… I think it’s mainly that she’ll be suspicious that I have a crush on you… and it’ll become this big thing in her head.” Catty says, starting to walk towards the kitchen, slowly. We lower our voices due to the subject  matter.

“Why is having a crush on me suspicious… plenty of magnanimous and non-suspicious people have a friend-crush on me and it brings forth only good happenings.” I prod. 

“Ok so a friend-crush is where you like… feel really affectionate towards someone as a friend and like… want to support them and defend them in arguments in public places.” Catty conjectures.

“Yeah like the library… I would defend you in an argument in the library… loudly… IN THE FRICKIN QUIET SECTION. But, seriously… I need to tell your mum me and Asriel aren’t dating… and explain what friends are to her.” I state.

“Ok you do that… but I… don’t want to hold hands with you in front of her. Like only because she's there not because I don't want to hold your hand” Catty asserts.

“I mean… I could explain that you don’t have a friend crush on me too while im at… and then we could hold hands?” I ask. I take an awesome swig of my hot chocolate: so awesome that my right leg kicks backward as I swig. It tastes like so many things i can’t tell if this hit of stimulation is from the coffee or the amount of flavours at once.

“But you can’t tell her that because I do have a friend-crush on you.” Catty asserts. I gulp my coffee in. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure… I’m like… an incredibly bad friend.” I giggle. 

“Yeah… that’s the impressive and mysterious part .” Catty says strangely seriously. It makes feel the guilt of being naturally blessed or of honour rather than the guilt of having done something wrong. 

We walk to the kitchen in a two person long row. Asriel looks zoned out AF (as frick), eating his burger straight out of the box in the little part of kitchen that juts out into the garden in which the dinner table is placed. He is staring at the pine tree that grows directly at the window but I can't tell if he is meditating on the trees existence or just needed somewhere to point his head.  

“How’s ur memory going, pal?” I ask him in the most cringe father-figure voice imaginable. Me and Catty come up to him without sitting down. Behind Asriel’s seat is the opening that serves as the entry to the loungeroom where Catty’s mum is sitting and watching Season 1 of Commodore Hustle. Catty must have shown it to her. 

“Dude I need to get a refund on this burger.” Asriel confesses in a deathly voice. “It didn't erase my memory at all, what the hell…” 

“LOL… technically ‘hell’ is five cents for the swear the jar, but because friends get their swear fines halved, and half of five cents is like… not an actual coin, you guys can say ‘hell’ without getting fined. I find that loop hole so funny though.” Catty mentions.

“Man what a waste… the H word is my least favourite swear ever so i’m like… never gonna be able to use that….” I complain.

“Why?” Catty asks. 

“I just think hell is like the stupidest and saddest concept and never want to bring it up even implictly… are there any other five-cent swears that we can do for free?” I ask.

“Um… not really… I mean sometimes if I say ‘flip’ in a certain way or too many times she charges me five cents…”

“Man what the flip… that’s stupid.” Asriel says ironically. “You can’t just be non-consistent with the swear jar man…”

“I mean, it’s pretty clear when she’s gonna be mad at the word flip. Flip can sound really  rude or somewhat rude if you use it in such a way where it's just really obviously covering up the… uh… ‘F-word’.” Catty says. “Like if I said …Flip you.”

“Yeah… but what the flip is different. BUT HEY RE: CATTY’S MUM… REAL did you know she thinks we are dating?”

Catty hangs her head in embarrassment. Asriel begins to eat in a more refined manner.

“Well… well… well… that makes sense, I suppose…” He says elegantly

“Ok yeah it makes sense… but I'm going to tell her we aren't.” I declare valiantly!

“Dude wait… can you wait till i finish my burger so i can like… not be here for that.” Asriel pleas. “It’s gonna have like… ‘Asking your mum to go to the counter and ask the waitress to put more pineapple in your burger because you’re too scared too’-type energy otherwise.” Asriel says… with slightly too much gravity.

“Uh… no… You are my most valuable witness.” I say sensually.

“Jeez why would you flirt at a time like this… That’s like evidence for her to use against your case!” Asriel grumbles.

“My case is not that I don’t flirt with you idiot, it's that we aren’t dating…” I say smartly because I’m smart.

“Bet ok… let’s just hope this Memory-Eraser burger™ kicks in soon so that I can’t help your case then.” Asriel resorts. Catty gets her burger out of the fridge and takes a seat next to Asriel, angling herself such that she has a good view of Me and her Mother’s conversation. She seems to be coming around to the idea that this will be funny and cool. I take a big swig out of my rainbow-flavoured hot chocolate in preparation. Then I dramatically slam the mug against the table and turn to walk into the living room: 

I walk into the living room. “Hey Catty’s mum… I love Asriel. He is my best FRIEND… Do YOU have a best friend?” I ask. 

“Ah yes… it’s hard to pick because it changes! Sometimes Catty’s Dad is my best friend… somet-” She pauses because I started face palming.. 

“Bro…”  I mutter.

“Something amiss?” Catty’s mum says.

“Ok i’m just going to cut to the chase. Why do you think I’m dating Asriel dude- uh I mean ma’am?” I plea.

“Oh did Catty tell you about my idle curiosity about that. Sorry if that made you uncomfortable dear.” Catty’s mum says. 

“It didn’t make me uncomfortable… i’m just so confused why you think i’m dating him…” I say.

“Well i just thought… cause you guys are always following around eachother so closely.” 

“Yeah… cause we like hanging out with each other… not because we have some special relationship or something… where we have to do that. We just want to.” I defend.

“Well there was that one time where you also got him red roses.” Catty’s mum notes. 

“CAUSE THEY LOOK CUTE WITH HIS FUR… AND I’LL FLIPPING DO IT AGAIN! DON’T TELL ME THAT BOY WOULDN’T LOOK SO ADORABLE WITH A RED ROSE TUCKED INTO HIS EAR RIGHT NOW. EVERYONE THINKS THAT NOT JUST ME I’M JUST THE ONLY ONE BRAVE ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! AND ME BEING BRAVE ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT DOESN'T MEAN WE’RE DATING!” I crackle violently, pointing my thumb directly behind me without looking. The sound of someone choking on their food can be heard from that very direction. 

“December darling! That’s… oh wait… it’s 2.5 cents… never mind.” Catty’s mum answers simply.

“Heh… get owned ma’am. Catty taught me the exploit where guests can say flip without getting fined!” I flaunt.

“OOh what was that word that Catti taught me the other day… Newb? You can’t own me newb!! Your too newb-y…” Catty’s mum giggles with glee. 

“Wow ok i guess I can’t own you then since you called me a noob.” I say sadly. We stand/sit in silence for a bit, Catty’s mum pausing the TV and adjusting to face me more seriously.. “We aren't dating, we just love each other ALOT.” I add.

“Ok, ok… I believe you… So what are you guys getting up to tonight? OOh i forgot to ask "do you need to get me some mattresses for Catty’s room?” Catty’s mum asks curiously.

I look back at my gang, and then back at Catty’s mum: “Uhh… we can do that later….” I say. 

“Ah ok…” Catty’s mum says. She still had a questioning look on her face. 

“We’re um…” Asriel starts. 

“We’re um…” I add. 

“We’re um… going to a party… and then we’re gonna um…” Asriel starts. 

“Then we’re gonna shovel all the snow out of the way of the Holliday family drive way!!” Catty asserts. 

“Oh wow… that sounds… real exciting.” Catty’s mum says.

“You just need imagination, Catty’s mum, and then it's really fun.” Asriel says in an empty and sad voice.

“Well… I suggest you all wear your utmost warmest clothes… you have something warmer than that right, Dess?” 

“Uh…” I say, looking back at Asriel.

“Dude you can’t just wear all my clothes you flipping munchkin. We explicitly discussed bringing dark- uh, I mean… warm clothes for tonight” Asriel bites.

“But I help you with things… like your math homework… kinda… ok you know what nevermind.” I say, facing back towards Catty’s mum. “I think I’ll be ok… they don’t call me Dess HOLLIDAY for no reason.” 

“Um… i think the reason they call you Dess Holliday, December, is because your family are obsessed with christmas… and i’m pretty sure being obsessed with Christmas doesn’t make you resistant to the cold…” She explains.

“Well it doesn’t make me more resistant in a biological sense i suppose … but it DOES make me like it more, which can function quite similarly to resistance in non life-threatening, if you think about it.” I say, pretend-intellectually. 

“Haha… yes, I suppose it does. Oh by the way… if you guys are going out, could you get me some things from the supermarket?” Catty’s mum asks.

“By supermarket do you mean… SANS’S?” I say, turning around to my gang and winking loudly at them. Asriel looks unamused. Catty is cheering me on a bit though. 

“Uh yeah… that’s the closest one…” Catty’s mum responds unassumingly, confused by my surprise. 

“Gotcha… yeah we can… do that… I guess.” I say, turning back to my gang and winking loudly. 

“The shopping list is on the fridge! Um.. Catty! Could you come here I need to give you some money!” 

“Yeah ok!” Catty says, getting up to go to her mum.

“Awesome…well this burger aint gonna eat itself so i’ll see ya round Catty’s Mum. Bye!” I say to Catty’s mum, winking and doing a finger gun.

“Bye kiddo!” Catty’s mum says. I spin around excitedly, almost bumping into the Catty walking past me as I do so. Then i walk over to the fridge, open it and lean against the inside of it non-chalantly with my arms crossed and a smug evil genius look on my face.

“Man… I'm so cool… AND NOT JUST BECAUSE I'M IN THE FRIDGE!” I giggle through my making of the worst joke ever.

“Idk queen… it was kind of all passion, no technique. Like I think you just scared her I don’t think you taught her about non-monogamous physical affection.”

“ALL PASSION NO TECHNIQUE IS ALOT COMING FROM YOU… always trying so hard n shit….” I whisper-hiss. 

“HEY DON’T TAKE IT OUT ON ME YOU CAN WORK OUT HOW TO TRY HARD AT THINGS.” Asriel whisper-yaps.

“I DO TRY HARD AT THINGS, IT’S JUST THE THING I TRIED HARD AT IS THE FOLLOWING OF AN ILLUSIVE STRAND.” I retort. I actually really mean it too. We kind of fall silent. Asriel eats the singular bite of his burger which is all that remains of it. 

“Also we could’ve just gone there on our own volition: don't act like Catty’s mum needing groceries is some masterstroke of fate, affirming your investigation on sans.” Asriel speaks through the chews, gulping at the end of the sentence. 

I do the thing where you make a speaking puppet with your hand in order to mock someone. Then I put my other hand into the fridge without looking and feel around for my burger. I spin towards the table when i find it, knocking the fridge door in order for it to close on it’s own behind me. 

I sit down. “Wow…” Asriel wails sarcastically “I could totally do that… oh and by the way the fridge didn’t close.” He adds seriously. 

“Do it then.” I taunt quietly and primly, keeping my eyes on the burger. 

“Nah… I gotta finish something i was doing in my mind palace before you guys came out.” Asriel says epically.

“Mind palace? I though you had like a mind-… stoner’s-house-… in-a-swamp.” I ask. 

“Yes I mean… visually it looks like that… but that’s because we focus on what’s important in there. We don’t need multiple stories or spiral staircases. We hang our towels over our doors when we need them to dry… even if it means we can’t shut them.” 

“Is the disorganization of your mind palac- i mean, sorry… stoner house … part of why you are so sluggish in your movements sometimes?” I ask sassily. 

“No. It is rather because I am, at all times, saving up my un-sluggishness in order to do the sickest kickflip ever whenever the opportunity provides itself.” Asriel says.

“Hmmm… I wonder if one can even kickflip on a snowboard?” I say, looking up and getting excited again at the thought of the giant half-pipe we are going to build tonight. But my reverie is shattered the moment I realise what kind of response I just walked into. 

“Not until tonight…” Asriel says with insane swagger. 

I groan: “Oh dear.” It always amazes me how Asriel is able to be obsessed with purely kickflipping… not skating — he doesn't even own a skateboard. But whenever there is some kind of flat object that he is allowed to put his feet on, he will try kickflip on it. Very rarely does he succeed with most objects, but he’s been doing this for so long that he can actually kickflip on a skateboard pretty consistently when he gets a hold of one. 

Asriel seems to have become considerably more at peace after owning me with that response.  

“Let us see what is even on this shopping list.” He narrates, getting up and going over to the fridge: “Holy crap dude, does like… sans even sell this stuff. It’s all obscure gardening tools…” 

“Well… I have been telling you, sans’ is suspicious.” I acknowledge.

“Suspicious enough to sell HEDGE SHEARS and a LOPPER?” Asriel asks exasperatedly. “Dude he’s going to arm a generation of gardeners to turn Hometown into some kind of hedge-art nightmare realm.” Asriel conjectures for the silliness.

“Well maybe he needs them to like… cut secret pathways through the forest… in order to get to the shelter more efficiently?" I conjecture for the somewhat-more-seriousness. Asriel folds the list into his pocket.

Catty comes into the room. “Err… Dess… my mum thinks ur gonna be really cold with only that flannel on…” Catty says. “I have a really warm and cool jacket in my room you can wear tho if u want lol.” 

“OOh, exciting.” I giggle. Asriel and I follow her to her room. I bring my burger in it’s box and continue to munch on it as I walk. We get into the room and Catty prods at numerous piles of clothes in order to find the jacket in question. She eventually comes to a  small fountain of clothes leading from the bottom of her bed onto the floor and the jacket is at the bottom of it. “Dude why do you have a jacket that says ‘I love civil engineering.’” I ask, still chewing food in my mouth

“Oh my dad got it from a work thing and I thought it was so funny and random lol. Plus it's low-key really warm.” 

“I mean… you would hope you knew something about civil engineering, December, considering our plans tonight.” Asriel notes.

“Ok 1. You KNOW how you using my full name gives me tingles and stuff and you should use it carefully. And 2. Dude… snow is the greatest building material of all time… it literally just freezes together with other parts of itself… we’ll be fine. Why do you think ICE-E chose ice to be the medium for his corporeal incarnation?”

“Please do not talk about ICE-E with me in the same way you do with noelle… it’s actually horrifying.” Asriel says whilst adding a black ‘Alex G’ jumper on top of his usual jumper.

“Ok GROCERY TIME!!!” Catty says, clapping and jumping up and down. We leave the house and I throw my burger box into Catty’s outdoor bin, taking the last few munches as we enter into the sea of icy hometown streets.

Chapter Text

The walk to Sans’s is insanely short. I feel underdressed due to how little outside I consumed between home and the shop. It’s like I’m not really coming into the shop with my ‘outside’ self, but the same cosy self that I feel when I'm in Catty’s house. 

The outside of sans’s supermarket looks like the cosiest place you’ve ever seen and, and if you came here not so long ago you’d’ve been right… It was a very cosy tavern. The inside of sans today however, is still somehow cosy even though it pretty much looks like the most generic supermarket ever except with horrible lighting. “Uh… how did your mum even like… think to try and buy gardening tools from here?” I ask Catty.

“Um… she’s really talkative with like people who are working. She tries her best to just talk to them like completely random people instead of people who are employed to have a certain conversation. I dunno if that’s how but it probably has something to do with it.” Catty explains. I nod.

Sans comes out of the cold room. Large plumes of gas leave with him. 

“hey guys.” he says, and walks behind the counter: “what can i do ya for.” 

“Mum said that he keeps the gardening stuff behind the counter.” Catty adds. 

I look over behind the counter. There are a bunch of cardboard boxes.

Asriel walks towards the counter, getting out the list and reading the first item as he walks. “Um excuse me sir… you wouldn’t happen to have uh… pumpkin seeds would you?”

“yeah sure! we got some out back… anything else I could get you while im out there?” sans asks. 

“Uh… well could you just get everything off this list if you had it.” Asriel hands him the list.

“Uh… yeah we should have all of that… might take a minute though… it’s real tough without any coworkers, y'know.” 

“Uh… I’m pretty sure my sibling put in their resume here?” Asriel probes.

“oh uh… kris… oh yeah, im still screening them.” sans says

“Screening them on what?… it’s just a convenience store!” Asriel rebuts, slightly defensively, laughing but perhaps more in a concerned than humorous way.

“well, ya see, what’s most important about a potential employee is not just their skills as a worker but their skills as a customer!” sans explains facetiously.

“like… how good they are at buying stuff?” Asriel attempts.

“yeah… and just having fun in the store in general…” sans adds. 

“Does Kris even buy stuff from here? Their just a kid so they don’t really need groceries…” Asriel reasons. “Does Kris hang out have fun!?” He considers, horrified.

“they shop lifted some snacks to see if they could do it but then put them back… kinda like people who go fishing just to throw the fish back, y’know?” sans explains. 

“Gosh damnit Kris.” Asriel says under his breath. “At the site of an employment prospect… really dude?” 

“nah it was pretty cool actually… plus you never know when we’ll need a thief on the team.”

“To like… steal from opposing stores?

“look… sans’s was born from a spiritual theft… i’m sure it might also need a physical one to help it out at some point.” sans mentions.

“You mean… Grillby?”

“yeah… i sold out in ways he never could, and that’s why it’s called sans’s. plus monsters like him don’t do too well in the summer months.” 

“A lot of people here still really love that now-absent tavern tho… it used to be so busy…” Asriel says wistfully, lost in thought.

“And yet they embrace me, it’s executioner, as one of their own.” sans chuckles.

“I’m pretty sure you were just doing business sans. You aren’t an executioner.” Asriel assures.

“‘just doing business’ has been used to justify a lot of things kiddo…” Sans giggles nervously.

“Well I don’t know… i’m just trying to be comforting i guess… if you feel so bad about it why did you do it?” Asriel asks

“Favour to Grillby. Also to pay off the MULTI-DIMENSIONAL tab I owed him.” Sans chuckles: “And while i am doing something with the shop that he wouldn’t do himself, i was a really big fan of how it used to be too, so i try my best to retain the laid back spirit of the place… by leaving the mop around randomly in the aisle, being majorly understaffed… and catering to criminals! I’ll be out back… if you need me just ring the bell…” Sans turns around and walks off. Asriel frowns when he realises that the criminals thing was either referring to kris as a criminal, or implying that even worse criminals shop here. 

The moment sans leaves I rush my hand to my back pocket in order to note it all down on my phone. Unfortunately I left it Catty’s room plugged into the aux chord… In fact I'm pretty sure it’s still playing me and Asriel’s playlist. In light of this I just try to commit everything I heard to memory as hard as possible in order to use it later. 

Asriel turns around to look at me, his face all nervous and searching. Unfortunately for him, mine is just as nervous as his. “Man i do not want kris to work here.” Asriel whispers. 

“Why… I mean sans seems like a laid back boss atleast.” I say.

“Dude nothing that guy says makes ANY sense!” Asriel exclaims. “I mean no wonder he is the centre of your conspiracy theory… he spouts ominous sounding stuff like a fountain.”

“Yeah… he spouts ominous sounding stuff… because he KNOWS and PARTAKES IN ominous stuff.” I explain.

“Considering that Asriel seems to have covered mum’s list… thank u by the way… wanna look around for snacks?” Catty asks us.

“Heck yeah lol!” She says. Catty seems like she is starting to get more mischievous and hyper. She seemed to become really gentle and delicate when we were kissing earlier and I was kind of worried that the three of us wouldn’t be game to do some crime. I was worried I was going to have to resort to some kinda tactic. 

“H-h-hand hold” I mutter to her, as we begin to walk. My hand is offered to her this time in the form of a claw, to make it seem cool and hype.

“Meow.” Catty says, and rests her gentle one on mine. I suppose everyone is a natural at physical affection but I’m still really impressed with how effortless Catty is about it. Like a baby in a pool thinking it’s back in the womb.

Looking at the products I notice for the first time that this shop has a religious lack of ICE-E’s products. 

“Um… can I also hold your hand.” Asriel says shyly, almost like he is sorry.

“UM… YES…” I say, making a derp face at him randomly. “I wuv it when u hold my hand prince… you we’re so heroic talking to the scary man… you like asked him so many questions too it was amazing….”

Asriel blushes a lil. I think he was actually kind of messed up by the encounter so it’s nice to be able to make contact like this. 

My gaze drifts over the selection of greeting cards to our right. “What the frick wait i need to get this for you… 'congratulations on your first kickflip’” I pick up the card from the rack. 

“Dude… i’ve already done my first kickflip… you need to edit it to say like… 3 millionth kickflip.” Asriel flaunts. 

“Dude I think he like… hand made that card!” Catty conjectures. As she says this the door to the shop opens. I turn to see who it is and we both freeze. Catty let’s go of my hand but it’s too late.

Catti comes into the store wearing fingerless arm warmers, an mcr t-shirt and an insane amount of eyeliner. She turns down our aisle and goes even more pale than her makeup.

“Wow! Your outfit is kind of awesome Catti.” I say unreflectively from across the store, walking toward her to inspect more closely. 

“My UNIFORM… you mean…” Catti corrects me, hastily cobbling together her countenance of apathy. She then turns to Catty: “You… are in… a polycule.” She states as a fact.

“NO… SHE ISN’T. We’re just holding hands cause wer-” I state, pulling my index finger out like a sword.

“Dude… it’s not gonna work.” Catty interrupts. “It’s like… basically a pol-”

“Hey YOU DON’T get to decide whether or not we are a polycule buster.” I reprimand Catty, turning my index finger/sword on her: “Come on man… I'm tryna help you out here!”

“You… are in.. a polycule.” Catti reiterates at Catty says. What this statement she keeps repeating makes her feel is unclear. It could be anything from gladness, pride, jealousy, despair, joy — but it’s probably all of them at once. Despite this, they seem to all average out to a mostly blank facial expression, except for occasional quivering. 

“Dude literally chill you're freaking me out.” Catty says onto her sister. “And wait… hey… you’re sneaking out right now aren’t you! There’s no way mum would let you go to the store on your own at this hour — Wait did you guys change in your Onesies just to trick her into thinking you weren't going to be sneaking out.”

“No… the onesie is… a different uniform… we wear it for a different step… of the process. Im here because… I forgot… ingredients… for tonight.” Catti states. “Goodbye… sister.” She adds and begins to walk past us. 

“Uh… well… we’re just going to follow you around by the way.” Catty says. “Out of curiosity.” 

“UGHHHHHHH… Just don’t tell mum what I'm doing… or what I'm buying… or else i’ll curse you.” Catti says. 

“Yeah yeah… you do look really nice by the way…” Catty adds.

Catti nods. It seems that Catti manages to avoid smiling not by never feeling anything but feeling emotions in such a way that she either is completely apathetic… or too sensitive to handle the emotion, such that she freaks out instead of smiling. It’s kind of really funny and adorable. I reflexively clutch for Catty’s hand again, because holding hands helps me soak up as much of the funny and adorableness that is happening around me as possible.

Catti puts some batteries into her satchel.

“Why do you need batteries?" Catty asks. 

“Acid.” Catti replies. 

“Oh…” Catty accepts.. 

It’s curious how Catty is able to be so unsuffocating towards her strange sister. She is extremely good at letting people do their things. I think that's why we were able to become such close friends so quickly. Asriel on the other hand is good at being unsuffocating only because he hates imposing force over others like that… but he will make you hear about it. I turn to him — he looks lost in thought and afraid of his surroundings at the same time.

She then finds some mushrooms and puts them in her bag. 

“Why do you need mushrooms?” Catty asks.

“Essence of the fungi family.” Catti responds. 

“Oh…” Catty accepts..

I decide to pitch in, as clearly Catty is starting to disassociate from the amount of things she is accepting at face value. This is also a weirdly domestic situation for her to experience  during an outing at night with friends.

“Hi Catti…” I say.

“Hello… December.”

“Why are you getting breakfluid!?” I squeak excitedly.

“Silicone-fluid.” 

“I don’t understand why you would need such specific chemicals for an occult ritual dude like isn’t that stuff mostly about the emotions and vibes and shit.” I ask.

Catti looks like i’ve just said something that would get me banned from her favourite occult forum on the internet, but represses it. “Decline… to… comment.” Catti states.

“Unless… you aren’t doing occult activity at all and are just building like… a bomb.” I offer.

“Decline… to… comment.” She states.

“Ok… well are there any fun things you like to talk about. What's your favourite song from Danger Days.

“Decline… to… comment.” Catti states. 

“Jeez… ok… Revenge?” I ask.

“Ghost of you.” Catty says… quivering a bit. 

“Huh… really really desperate. one. Is it associated with like… some important memory or person?” 

“Decline… to… …comment.” Catti stutters. 

“Hey wait, those are the arm wearers Noelle’s wearing in the Ice Magic CD Cover you guys made.”

Catti just sighs. 

“That mix is really good by the way…” I note. “Even though it’s basically just Suicide Season with like random Duster songs interspersed between it… or maybe i should say, because it’s Suicide Season with like random Duster songs interspersed between it. Noelle always gets really weird when she plays it… although i guess that could be correlation with the fact that she only plays it when mums out of the house”

“Weird is an… interesting word.” Catti quivers, pausing right before the counter. She snaps out of it and rings the bell. 

“Where is Jockington by the way, Catti?” Catty interjects.

“Uh… Covering for me… at home… watching the system.” Catti says. “It’s a very… important night for him..” 

“Because he is proving his self-efficacy as an alchemist or whatever you guys are?.” Catty asks.

“Not so much competency… it is not difficult… It's the trust between us that is the hard part. ” Catti notes wistfully.

Sans comes out of the back carrying a brown cardboard box with everything that was on the list. 

“here ya go kiddo.” He says handing it to Asriel. Asriel lets go of my hand to grab the box from him.

“I can hold it if you like Real?” I offer, considering that I won’t be able to hold his hand anyway and I like cardboard boxes.

“Thanks, Yes.” He smiles.

“hey catti! so many of you tonight… the backyard bonanza is on tuesday you know right?”

“Backyard bonanza?” Catty asks.

“it’s gonna be a rager.” sans notes. “hopefully you guys can run into my brother when he inevitably leaves his room to use the toilet!” 

“Sounds like a… real rager… yeah…” Catty… ‘exclaims’. 

I decide to take the reins and begin a thorough questioning of sans conducted to my very own highest standards: “Hi sans… so glad to see your shop is doing well.” I say in a corporate-excited accent, walking in the footsteps of my own mother but for completely different ends. Asriel moves his head to check the tools in my box. I direct it toward his face whilst continuing my strong eye contact with sans. 

“uh… it’s kinda not… but thanks!” Sans admits.

“Well you must earn a lot of money if you're able to stay in such a nice house!” I say… my corporate accent teetering into the uncanny valley between engaging and prying.  

“eh… that old thing. the only good thing about it is the trampoline that papyrus got given for christmas one year that he keeps in the living room down stairs. I’ve been thinking of boring a hole through my bedroom so I can just jump down onto the trampoline instead of taking the stairs.” sans chuckles.

“Wouldn’t your landlord be pissed?” I ask. Catti is waiting impatiently behind me 

“nah… my landlord is my grandad… or… was my grandad. regardless, i’m not sure if he really has the capacity to get pissed at me right now.” 

“oh… did your grandad...” I trail off… “I’m sorry for your loss.” I murmur sincerely.

“well, you know… feel free to help me try find him!” sans chuckles, winking. Him saying this is so confusing — either emotionally or conceptually depending on what the heck he means. 

“When did he… like… live here, if I may ask? Sorry but I don’t remember anyone ever living in ur house b4 u…” I note.

“oh he lived here a long time ago. for the longest time now the house has just been storing his old stuff… and, thanks to me and my brother's laziness, it still mostly does.” sans notes. 

“Your brother… i spoke to him once through the door… he sounded very meek. How is he going?” I enquire caringly. Catti sighs and begins another round of the shop, estimating that she won’t be served for awhile.

“Better… he made his first friend last night! the move was really rough for him and he hasn’t been going out much. But this person just kinda… forced themselves into his life.” 

“Hmm… well I told him I wanted to be his friend before that and he told me to come last wednesday at midday… and then i frickin snuck out during lunch to knock on his door but he didn’t answer!”

“yeah… he can become pretty anti-social depending on his mood. Maybe you should try more forceful means… it worked with that other monster last night!”

“So… your basically encouraging me to break into your house? – because I will take you up on that offer.” I say, very seriously , my mouth watering at the opportunity to do consensual crime.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly how this monster did it… but I suppose that would technically count as a forceful mean.” sans notes.

“Wait… so is your brother’s friend like… a locksmith? How did they get inside.”

“let’s just say they are a proactive member of the community, who has their ways.” sans dismisses:”man… my bro made so much spaghetti that night! it was awesome.” He reminisces.

“Would he… make that much spaghetti for me!” I cheer, kicking my leg up in excitement. 

“Idk… my brothers new friend is really really Just… and my bro really admires that quality… so maybe the amount of pasta he makes depends on how Just you are…” Sans says. I turn to Asriel and do puppy dog eyes. 

Asriel shrugs: “I honestly can't tell how just you are, I mean you haven't done anything unjust ever yet… but you also proactively style yourself as an evil genius…”

“sounds pretty Just to me… — but don’t worry: i’m good at judging how just people are… i can run the diagnostics on your justice levels before he starts cooking.” Sans notes. Catti returns impatiently… the only items she added to her satchel were two bottles of chocolate milk: 

“May I please… pay… for my items.” Catti says. The first part of the sentence sounds almost aggressive — then she falters and becomes shy for the rest of the sentence, only to reassert the aggression on the last word. Catti watches sans with incredible scepticism and awe that brings even my own to shame. I mean, I think he’s strange… but he’s just way too chill to not feel calm around. Plus something about him just feels… slightly benevolent? 

“oh yeah… of course… sorry let me take that.” Catti slowly offers sans her items, quivering as she does so. “man serving customers is such a blast that sometimes i forget to serve customers… which is a shame cause serving customers is such a blast…” sans explains.

“By the way sans… do you have baskets for if people don’t bring their own bag or satchel?” Catty asks.

“Oh uh… did you notice that ominous tower in the corner… It's made out of baskets, yeah… you can use those.” Sans says, nodding towards the corner he is referring to. Meanwhile he fiddles with the cash register. 

I turn around to see that the giant tower looming beside the door under the broken light is in fact made of baskets and not some sort of weird element of the ventilation system. The basket at the top is a good 2 and a half metres off the ground: “Uh… I don’t know if we… can use those.” Catty mutters.

“having the baskets create that amorphous shadow in the corner just really makes this place feel like home y’know. oh by the way catti… i would use a bit of extra brake fluid tonight: it’s stormy and cold. also you maybe should’ve chosen shiitake mushrooms, but alas, we do not stock them… ill try get them for you next time!” Sans says, winking. Catti freezes up. Actually, we all freeze up.

“Hey what’s wrong kid… seems like maybe you need some break fluid yourself!” Sans jokes. Catti walks away slowly and robotically, completely contradicting the rush she seemed to be in before.

Asriel breathes in through his teeth. My eyes open wide.

“Uh that’ll be 20 bucks.” Sans states. Catty starts to get out the purse her mum gave her.

“So uh… do you know what she’s uh… trying to make with all that stuff then?” I whimper to sans. 

“Yeah… just the kind of stuff me and my brother used to make as kids. I made a lot of my friends doing that stuff actually.”

“Is it a time machine?” I ask, trying to cut through the vagueness.

“Not anymore so than a washing machine is. Hehe.” He admits. 

“Is it a portal?” I ask? 

“Sort of… I'm surprised you kids haven’t tried making one before.” 

“What!? What is it!?” I plead. 

“mmmmmmm… nah, Asriel’s mum would kill me if I told him… Sorry guys.” 

“FUCK!” I spit. Kicking the counter. 

Asriel puts his head in his hands and starts to walk away in a state of cringe. 

“Thanks for coming guys.” sans says.

“Thanks for COMING GUyuuiys.” I say mockingly, turning to leave, Catty following behind me

“heh… that was actually a pretty good impression.” sans says even though it wasnt. 

“Dude I'm really scared of that guy.” Catty notes. 

“My mum doesn’t even shop here dude what the heck is he on about! I mean he’s right my mum would kill me if i made some cool battery acid time machine but how does he know that… do i just look like I have a really careful and worried mother or something?” Asriel worries.

“Guys… I think I need to go do this thing to de-stress. You guys just… go do whatever” I say. Asriel just keeps walking towards the door lost in thought the whole time without any acknowledgement of what I just said. I start to walk down the aisle which has the refrigerated section at the end. Catty seems torn between Asriel and I and ends up just standing in the intersection between the pathway to the door and the aisle. 

I walk over to the freezer door and grip my hand around the handle, pulling it aside so I can stand before the winter kept inside. The whitish-blue light reminds me of when I was younger than Noelle; dad and mum helping us build stupidly massive igloos in the park… before they built that shelter for whatever reason. I can’t believe mum let them destroy the only play ground in town besides the one in the school. No kids want to go play near where they go to school, what the heck! Although… I suppose sometimes school feels like a completely different place after hours. Like… being in the main hall for band feels so much different than being in the main hall for assembly. But… ugh… I kind of regret quitting the trombone. I really liked the horn section of Jazz band. The guitar feels like it gets the job done on it’s own, but the horns have this ability to compound to a potentially indefinite degree. Like guitar is some kind of substance, but the horns are a quality like momentum.

I stand on my tippy hooves to get a better look of what's inside the freezer. In between groceries I see some machinery. I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be. I wish mum funded a giant cooling unit for Hometown so that it could always be winter xox. 

“Dessie… uh… Asriel found a plank of wood and is trying to kickflip off the pot plant…” Catty calls from oh so far away. 

I snap out of my head and start to wonder where I am. In my confusion I mindlessly let go of the freezer door. After a moment, the door slams closed, jolting me back into reality properly. I quietly walk back to Catty. I don’t feel embarrassed but I do feel reserved… It’s the way I feel after I perform, as I awkwardly stand there while they process what I just did..  

“Where you just… standing in front of the freezer?” Catty asks. “You’re always so drawn to out of bounds places.” 

“Not just in terms of the law though… coldness is like a naturally out of bounds place for a monster. The cold places in nature are the places that nature allocates for itself to be and do the things that it wants to do, without catering for us whatsoever. And so… being in the cold to me just feels like…  that level of friendship where… it feels like you aren’t a house guest in someone's house anymore… you're just like… a part of the furniture.” I explain.

“That’s… interesting. I’m kind of the opposite. I feel like a guest in my own house with the way my mum and dad are always trying to be so accommodating to us. I like it though, I like how they make just existing feel like I’m doing some big thing. Because in a way I think just existing kind of really is a big thing… I think anyone deserves to be cheered on just for existing. But I guess I understand why Catti can feel so pessimistic about it sometimes… if she feels anything like you do.” Catty explains.

“I’m always yearning to feel like a fixture in a room somewhere… a random arm chair that you are constantly given the ability to become aware of whenever you walk past it, but you can just as easily walk past without noticing it. Or like a family friend who was invited over by your parents that you can talk to if you want to, but it’s also just totally okay for you to stay in your room because you aren’t responsible for them as a guest because you didn’t invite them. I don’t think this feeling will pass. Not even after I die. I will just… still want to be existing in some room somewhere… casually encounterable. That’s the after life i want… which isn’t really an afterlife if you think about it because it’s not qualitatively different to just a normal life anyway. It’s the same ingredients, just forever. You just keep showing up to random house parties and looking sorta interesting in the corner... what afterlife do you want?” I ask, reaching out for Cattys and landing between her fingers from above, my palm on the back of hers. “I’m sorry it’s cold I say.” We begin to walk together towards the door

“It’s ok, coming to not mind the cold is kind of like… concomitant with liking you, even  though usually I hate the cold. And, as for my afterlife, well, immediately after dying I  would like to be able to nap for like… a year. And then when I wake up… I’d like to have my bedroom and the ability to listen to music and hang out with you guys. And… I have a hallway from my room that connects to my families house… but i can extend it by a billion metres or clog it with a billion blankets if i feel like it. And i can teleport anywhere.” Catty says. Outside the store and to the right, we can see Asriel standing on the corner of the intersection talking to a kid considerably shorter than him. The kid is just standing in the road. Luckily,Hometown is pretty scarce of cars, especially at this time of night. We continue our approach

“-you should definitely do that.” Asriel says. 

“Oh hey Kris.” I say. “Whatcha doing out so late?”

“Uh… getting food for your house.” Kris states. It sounds slightly like their taking a jab at the state of our fridge but their tone of voice is so deadpan and mumbly that if I interpreted it that way and said something about it I would seem baseless.

“OOOH can you get so many snacks so that you have leftovers when I come home!?” I exclaim.

“I’m just getting a fuck ton of bread. Because there's a chance we’re gonna make a spear made out of bread and execute Berdly with it as like… a creepypasta youtube video about the Breadler. But maybe, if we get enough bread, we can make clothe Berdly in it so that he actually looks like the Breadler and then we can film Berdly executing me. There’s also a chance we just eat all of it….” Kris states. “So if you want to eat like… bread that has been soaked in water and been used to stab Berdly… i got you homie.” Kris states.

“Why you gotta be the realest like that…  come on dap me up.” I say offering Kris my hand. 

“You got it.” Kris says. We commence our secret handshake which is just us pretending to hand shake and then actually us just trying to kick each other in the feet. 

“So awesome.” I declare. 

“Kris… we’re making a giant half pipe at Sans’s house if you guys manage to sneak out you should come visit us.” Azzy offers. 

“Carol is on like… a big work call I think all night… so I think it should be easy.” Kris states. “Maybe we can execute Berdly on it and it’ll make the video cooler.” 

“I find it so funny that Noelle has become brave enough to actually produce cryptids.” Asriel laughs. “Like it’s crazy that she just became the source of her own fear one day. Like… enough letting strangers on the internet scare me by sending me weird photo shops of ICE-E, I’m going to scare myself by making up ‘ICE-E’s LAB’E’ OF’E’ TH’E’ FORGOTT’E’N’.”

“To be fair your hazing rituals probably helped her in making that change but ur still an asshole for that shit dude.” I say at Kris. “But I don’t know… it’s kinda your job to be annoying so it’s fine.”

“It’s kinda YOUR job to be annoying.” Asriel slashes against me with his finger. 

“And it’s Noelle’s job to think everything is a cryptid… and she’s great at it!” I argue. 

“And it’s my job to do epic kick flips and draw cool dragons.” Asriel states. 

“And it’s Kris’s job to buy hundreds and thousands and make fairy bread for me.” I state.

“And it’s Dess’s job to work a dead end job for all of her adulthood and enter a controlling marriage and-” Kris says super fast and closes his eyes.  

“Shut the fuck up you shit.” I interject. “Dude why are you like the actual biggest asshole sometimes… anyway… seriously Kris can you make me fairy bread and put it in a container at the back of the fridge so I can eat it when I get home.” I plea.

“ Ok I guess… but you have to do something cool for me.” Kris stipulates.

“I’ll pirate you a mystery videogame.” I offer.

“Dude no it’s just gonna be freaking pirate-themed chess like last time i’m not falling for that.” Kris states.

“Ok… ok… I'll teach you a new dragon to draw.” I offer.

“I ALREADY KNOW ALL THE DRAGONS!” Kris complains.

“No, not this one… I just made this one up. And it’s awesome. People think it can teleport but it’s just really fast and camouflaged.” I flaunt. 

“Fine… but I'm gonna troll you a little bit… but it’ll still be yummy fairy bread. But i’m gonna put stuff in it.” Kris states.

“Fair. Put it in the tupperware container with the skull on it please.” I request.

“Nah put it in the tupperware container with the stupid lame stuff on it instead Kris” Asriel interjects.

“Noooooooo.” I whine. 

“Catty choses.” Kris says, putting a finger gun at catty.

“Err… hehe… put it in Carol's favourite tupperwear container.”

“UGHHH dude that one gives me an existential crisis every time I look at it dude.” I screech, recoiling back like a bird coughing up food for it’s chick. “Frickin ‘happy holidays’ with like… cartoon depictions of all of us doing the frickin parabola smile.” I mutter into the cold concrete. A headlight flashes over the back of Kris’s jumper and the sound of an engine can be vaguely heard.

“Well… I guess this is a good time to get off the road. Wouldn’t want to be a deer in the headlights .” Kris says ‘dear in the headlights’ in the melody of the Dragon Blazers 3 song. Kris slowly joins us on the footpath.

“Say hi to Noelle for me Kris… heh… and give her a hug for me Kris.” I say jokingly, knowing full well that they hug each other and try to hide it. Noelle gushed about this to me last night as if she was telling some massive secret. 

Kris just blushes: “We’ll only if you- uh actually wait… would that be self-pwnage?” Kris trails off. 

“OOh ‘only if I give your BROTHER a kiss first.’ Oh no! I wonder what would happen then ” I say mockingly. Kris face palms. I turn to Asriel, putting my hands together beside my cheek longingly, trying to signal myself as kissable so that we can troll Kris, but: “Nah… im with Kris on this one… fuck you.” Asriel says unnecessarily epically and puts the rude finger up at me. 

Kris, with their hair covering their entire face, staggers towards Asriel, slowly raising their right arm to perform an epic fist bump. “Get… owned… Dess… don’t… FUCK… with… the.. Dreemurs.” Kris says one word per heavy footstep and theirs and Asriel’s fists make contact on the word ‘Dreemurs’. The moment the fist bump is over they turn around and slowly start to epically walk away. 

“Oh… I fuck with the Dreemurs alright.” I giggle. Kris pauses their epic exit and rotates around, gazing sad and searching eyes at their brother, asking if it’s true. 

“Err… can’t really help you with that one Sib… sorry.” Asriel says, scratching the back of his head and looking off into the distance.

Kris sadly staggers away: “Next time Dess… next time…” they murmur at me without even meeting my eyes. 

We stand and watch them oscillate between being lit by the lamp lights and being covered in the darkness between the lamp lights. 

“You are seriously starting THE weirdest rivalry between you and Kris.” Asriel comments. “Like I'm worried this is becoming ‘which one of you can do the most weird stuff with the other’s sibling.’” 

“Oh it’s been like that between us for awhile now Asriel…” I say ominously. Asriel's mouth creates a perfectly straight line. “You just haven’t realised.” I add.

“Yeah um… let’s go home now please.” Catty states awkwardly