Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a struggle, breathing.

Susie fought back against the sobs that racked her chest and constricted her throat. She wanted to scream, to shriek into the night the unfairness of the world, to force it from concept to object. Something to defeat. She burned with rage, spiteful for the isolation of her sorrows, for nobody else understood her anguish. She wished, from the bloody depths of her heart, that she was stronger. She trembled, unable to force the venom from her mouth, yet incapable of breaking under the pressure of her guilt. Above all, she longed to cry.

Yet, no matter how they blurred, her eyes were dry.

Her healing wasn’t strong enough.

First, it was Kris losing their hand. The Knight was simply too powerful, too overwhelming. She and Ralsei did everything they could to stem the tide of blood, but the wound was severe enough to force Kris to back off. They entrusted the final task to her and Ralsei, granting their fellow heroes their power. Fear threatened to overwhelm her. Fear for Kris’s life, fear for the future. She remained standing.

But then, Ralsei. If it had just been an arm, he could’ve been healed, and retreated like Kris. Darkners were easier to heal, being more magical than Lightners, and with Kris’s power thrumming in her very soul, Susie felt overwhelmingly strong. Yet, when she saw him fall, the heart on his robe cut to pieces and his outline flickering black and red, black and red, she knew it was too severe.

She knelt down to his side, cradling him in her arms as he struggled to maintain his form.

“No! No, no, no, no, Ralsei!” she choked out. “Ralsei, you… why…?”

Coughing up black and red mist, he smiled at her. “Don’t you… remember, Susie?” he began in a rasp. “If there’s… any pain I can take… in your place…

“I’ll be there, okay?”

He wouldn’t.

“I… know you, Susie. So long as… you live… you won’t let it happen.” Tears filled his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her, the fluff more insubstantial than ever.

“You’re the Prince from the Dark!” shouted Susie. “You can’t… you can’t die. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!

“I thought what we did was enough! I thought you knew better by now! I… I…”

Susie clutched him close to her chest, feeling him curl up in her embrace. The red and black mist poured out from within him like wraiths, an opaque curtain rising around them endlessly into the sky.

“Please,” she whined. “Just hang on a little longer…”

His fur was needles against her skin, piercing the gaps of her scales so precisely and in so great a number that she might as well have had none. Red mist spewed upwards from the massive wound in his chest. It clogged her throat, the scent of incense, dust, and iron tearing into her nostrils. It clawed at her eyes and pried at her scalp, begging her to give up and let it in. 

“Susie.” 

Ralsei’s quiet voice rang out with such authority as to shock her out of her tears. She froze as Ralsei raised a hand to her neck, thumbing the scarf between his digits. She felt it tighten around her, warm and secure. His eyes met hers.

“I love you, Susie. I’ve always believed in you. You and Kris will survive. You will win.”

The curtain lifted.

Susie hid her face in her hands. Even a year later, it hurt just as much. The absence of him, the person she wanted most of all to save, ached from the bottom of her chest. Why couldn’t she cry over it? Why couldn’t she laugh about it? Why, every time these memories bubbled to the surface, did she find herself paralyzed?

She groaned. Forcing her eyes open, she stared out into the inky darkness through parted fingers. The sky was densely overcast; she could hardly see but for the slivers of moonlight piercing the thinnest clouds. For tonight, the world was a stageplay of silhouettes, a shadow puppet show of trees and grass and reeds and the yawning divot of Hometown Lake and the girl who observed them.

The silent air was borne away as a breeze picked up. Wind whispered unintelligibly through the reeds. The lake lapped gently at the shore. Her spot, a little clearing north of the lake, was the perfect getaway for times like this. Peaceful. Quiet. She only wished she felt like coming here on better days; when her mind was preoccupied, she found it impossible to truly appreciate the place. Or anything, really. 

She set her breaths in time with the gentle waves. In, out. In, out. There we go. Just breathe. Just dig the mental canal. Chip away at the thoughts, one by one. Don’t think about–

his labored wheezing in her arms, how he–

–someone’s coming.

“Go away,” growled Susie anxiously, raising her voice over the sound of crunching grass.

There was a long pause. “Susie? Is that you?”

Shit. “Oh. Hey, Azzy,” she mumbled, shooting up onto her feet.

In the darkness, just like everything else, Susie could only make out his outline above the reeds. Tall, lanky, and long-armed, with long, spiraling horns and a distinctive gait, Asriel crunched his way into the clearing.

“What the heck’re you doin’ out here?” he asked, a bit too casually.

The last thing she wanted to do right now was talk about it. Especially not to him, of all people. Not when she couldn’t so much as look at him without thinking of–

–but she couldn’t see him. It was too dark. 

“Could ask you the same question,” she deflected quickly.

“Fair enough,” laughed Asriel dully. Susie watched the silhouettes of his arms flutter this way and that as he patted wildly at his jacket. “Now, where is… ah, darn it… there’s one… aaahhhha!”

A lighter clicked to life, revealing the white fur of his hand. Its tiny flame flickered, casting shadows this way and that, leaving much of his face and clothing obscured. Another white hand raised from the darkness, placing a cigarette in his mouth. Susie couldn’t help but stare at him, the town’s star, their golden boy whom many seemed to believe could do no wrong, as he sighed and took a massive drag of the cigarette.

“Want one?”

Susie stared at him a while longer, her eyes squinted and her snout wrinkled up. In such an odd and inconsistent light, Susie found it was hard to recognize him at all. 

He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Oh, sorry. You probably don’t like the smell, do you?”

Susie shook her head. “Nah, I’m used to it.”

His hand appeared in front of her as he took another drag, holding the pack in front of her in offering. “The offer still stands.”

“Don’t smoke,” she grumbled, pushing his hand away glumly.

Asriel chuckled. “That’s probably for the best. It’ll kill ya eventually.” Another long, slow drag. 

“So, er. Susie,” he began haltingly.

“Yeah?”

“...Are you okay?”

Susie glared at him, then softened just a little. The last thing he probably wanted right now was to have his head bitten off. He wouldn’t deserve that. Instead, she lied, invoking some vague connection, some shared past they didn’t have because they’d known each other for less than a year and barely ever talked one on one. Her smile was all show and yellow teeth hidden in the dark. “‘Course I am. You know me.” 

He pinched his face and sighed, her facade bouncing off of him in an instant. “Look. It ain’t my place to pry, so if you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine.” His green, focus on the fact that they’re green eyes locked onto her from behind his rectangular glasses as he blew out a huge puff of smoke. “But you’re family, so… Susie, are you okay?” he finished, carefully enunciating each and every word.

Susie couldn’t lie: it was extremely tempting to shut him down. To simply push it away like always, pretend it’s not there. Just keep watching the dam for cracks, the groaning of the splitting cement making her wince before she’d quickly mend it with a new batch. It had gotten her through a year—perhaps more—so why stop now?

Yesterday was why. After the incident on the ferris wheel, it was clear to her: the dam wasn’t going to last.

Her sigh caught shallow in her throat. Pushing with all her might, she helped it escape in a loud, racking breath. “Hell if I know,” she admitted.

As if toasting her words, Asriel tapped the tip of his cigarette upwards. When he contributed nothing more than a large inhale, she continued.

“It’s like… I thought I had it all figured out,” she began. “Before I moved in with Kris and your mom, I never had a place that… that felt permanent.

“I used to… have to move around a lot. My family, Dad and I, we were poor as dirt,” she said, scuffing at the lakeshore with her boot. “You know how Toriel calls out everyone’s names at breakfast? ‘Ooohhh Kris! Azzy! Susie! Your food will not wait for you forever!’” she mocked in a high-pitched voice, still laced with her personal rasp and tinged with choked-up melancholy. 

Asriel chuckled, his cigarette’s smoke launching out from his mouth in uneven spurts. “Yeah?”

The corner of Susie’s lip split in a wobbly smile. “I didn’t have that. No kind voice, no… no food aside from some scraps left over from last night’s dinner, if I was lucky. A freakin’ wasteland. Just me and my old man’s mess.

“No siblings or nothin’ either. Sometimes, I, heh, I’d wish I had one.” Her voice softened, near a whisper. “Not because they’d be my friend, or listen to me, but so someone’d… be there. And they’d be hungry with me, and that’d suck, but I’d be looking out for ‘em. Give them the crumbs I snacked on. Sounds nice, right?”

Asriel paused. “But… then you’d starve.”

Susie shrugged. “Yeah, well. It’d make me feel better. Couldn’t exactly go out and make friends when I’d be moving away all the time; that stupid thought was all I’d got.”

She smirked dully. “Hell, I didn’t realize I was bi ‘til I was seventeen. Wanna know how I found out?”

“It won’t be anything weird, right?”

She laughed. Loudly. “God, you really are a good church boy. Relax. It was just when I met Noelle.”

Asriel visibly deflated. “Oh. That’s it?”

“Yup. Y’know that shitty thing kids do where they pretend to like somebody as a joke?”

“Some of my friends at college had gone through that,” replied Asriel. “It hardly ever happened here, though. Too small a town for kids to get away with it for long.”

Susie snorted. “Guess that’s true. Wasn’t a secret people hated me. But like, before her, it was all bullshit. All the girls thought I was gross. Guys I liked’d only be talking to me ‘cuz it was so funny to make me think someone liked me,” she spat, her face heating up from remembered rage. “Only thing that was actually funny was their friends’ faces when they saw their buddy get his punched in. Served them right.”

Asriel remained silent, not electing to chime in. 

She leaned her neck back and shot him a wry look. “Yeah, yeah, rumors were true. Some of ‘em. Others, well, people anywhere can still be dicks, I think.”

“True that.” He inhaled some more of the cigarette.

“Anyway. Point is, ‘til Noelle, nobody’d really gotten me… interested. In a way that felt safe. You know what the worst damn part is? Before I realized, I only left her alone because of a pencil. A freakin’ pencil! All the times I glanced at her to see if she was smiling at me. Over a pencil! A cheap one!  I tried to eat the damn thing ‘cause it had a candy cane spiral on it. My dumb ass just saw something that looked like food and went all in. Of course it was a candy cane spiral! This is Noelle we’re talking about!”

Asriel laughed once. “I’d be worried if it wasn’t Christmas-themed.” Seeming to sense the slight ebb in her manic energy, he seized the opportunity.  “How long’ve you been living here, Susie?”

She stuttered, caught off guard by the sudden change in direction. “Uhhhh… year and a half? Give or take? Came here in June last year.”

“Well,” began Asriel, holding a pause whose quiet manage to lower Susie’s hackles a little. Adding a conspiratorial edge to his voice, he continued, “I’ve known the Holidays for twenty-three years. You’ve only gotten a tiny taste of their fervor.”

“That’s scary,” deadpanned Susie. “How much worse was it, before…” She caught herself. Shit. Bad idea. Don’t bring up Dess. That’s dangerous territory. And especially don’t bring up Rudy. Shit. Shit.

“Before…?” intoned Asriel. He caught on fast. “Oh. Yeah, trust me, it was almost kinda terrifying. Christmas Eve? They coulda fed and decorated the entire town.”

“Even Onion?” countered Susie, grinning a little more.

“Who the heck’s Onion?”

“This weird onion… tentacle… octopus… thing in the lake who showed up a little while back. He’s huge.” Susie gestured with her arms, the limits of her wingspan vastly insufficient to emphasize the monster’s bulk.

Asriel merely chuckled. “Maybe with a bit more cooking time. You could bet he’d be covered in Christmas lights, though. Make Kris look like a chump, that time when they got caught in one of the Holidays’ light displays.”

Susie let out a poor attempt at a whistle. “Damn. She’d probably try if she got the idea in her head.”

“Who? Noelle?” asked Asriel.

“Mm. Get her to do it sometime; she’d love it.”

There was a long, awkward moment afterwards. Susie followed Asriel’s eyes out onto the inky lakefront, hidden all the more behind the faint light at the end of his cigarette as he gently pried it from his lips. His mouth opened, as if he wanted to speak, but it closed soon after. He let out a long, unsteady breath. 

“So you two… aren’t a thing anymore?” he managed.

And there it was. The question that Susie’d been avoiding all day. The instant she’d woken up from a night plagued with insomnia, the difference between yesterday and today had made itself crystal clear. Instead of an early call to warm breakfast and a morning spent sharing dumb memes, Susie had woken up late to an empty house and cold food layered in plastic wrap. Toriel had left a note, saying that she and Asriel had gone to help clean up more of the Festival, while Kris had left her an uncomfortably brief text saying they’d gone to Noelle’s. That had turned out to be far from the only moment in the day that’d leave a foul taste in Susie’s mouth; it didn’t take a genius to figure out why they would spend the entire day at their best friend’s house after how the previous day had gone.

She swallowed uncomfortably. “Doubt it,” she rumbled. “After the shit I pulled? I’ll be lucky if she ever wants to speak to me again.”

Asriel stared at her, eyes wide. “It was that bad?”

Susie didn’t have a good answer, for she didn’t fully remember what had happened. It was only something she understood posthumously. She shook her head. “Like I said, I thought I had a good thing going. But it’s me, so I had to go and fuck it all up.” She started to rant again. “Yesterday was bad enough, but now with the way Kris was looking at me at dinner ‘cause I totally screwed Noelle over, their best friend, and how Toriel’s gonna react when she hears and the hell Carol’s gonna make me pay for this, I just… I just fuck things up ‘cause I’m fucked up.”

“Susie–” tried Asriel, hoping to make a pause for himself to speak, but Susie kept going.

“I got all this good stuff that I never imagined having before my dad fucked off and now I just break shit and can’t fix it and nobody tells me what I’m doing ‘til it’s too late. Hell, Azzy, I even took your damn room from you! It’s yours!”

“Susie, that’s not–”

Her temper boiling over, Susie raised her voice. “Makes you feel like shit, huh? Sleeping on the couch all the time? Like a guest taking up more space than they’re worth? Don’t you want your room back?! Don’t you want a room with a nice bed and a kind family you can come back to whenever shit gets rough?! Huh?! Don’t you!? Come on! Tell me I’m right! Just tell me that I’m fucking your family up! I’ll stop! Come on!” she shouted. “Don’t you want your family back?!”

Her chest heaving with every breath, Susie watched with eyes frozen wide Asriel’s cigarette, tumbling from his agape mouth to the dirt. As it spun over itself, its faint light illuminated Asriel’s features in small slivers. She saw the curve of his cheek, imagining–

–her blood-slicked palm gently feeling its contours–

–or seeing the fangs on his lips and being unable to forget–

–how they clenched in shock at the terror before him–

–and she thudded to the ground.

“I just…” she choked out, beginning to sob, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Rage having given way to anguish, Susie’s floodgates burst. Tears spilled from her eyes in thin, icy rivers, running along her downturned face and threatening to sneak their salt in between her lips. She could taste the snot that trickled down from the back of her mouth into her throat as she shuddered beneath the sobs. Asriel took a moment to snuff out the cigarette with his shoe. The two of them were cast back into the darkness.

He sat down carefully next to her. “Is that… what you really think about me, Susie? That I resent you for moving in with Mom and Kris?”

Susie managed a scoff. “How couldn’t you?”

Shaking his head, Asriel replied, “Because you were there for them when they needed you.”

“H-Huh?” she sniffled.

“Did Mom or Kris ever tell you why I came home for the Festival last year?” he said calmly, a strange warmth in his voice. When she shook her head, he continued. “The internet had stopped working, so I couldn’t contact them. For a while. The Festival seemed as good a time as any to check in on them. I had no idea what to expect when I got back. Before that, I…” 

Asriel’s voice wavered. “I hadn’t been home in over three years.”

“What…?” breathed Susie.

“Yup,” continued Asriel, popping the ‘p.’ “I stayed on campus the whole time. Or went sightseeing with friends. I still called, of course,” he hastily defended himself. “It’s not like I forgot about Kris, or Mom, or Dad. But, y’know…”

“Know what?” she probed, unsure if she should reassess her understanding of him. Until the first day in the Dark World, everybody with eyes could tell Kris was an absolute mess. Susie wouldn’t have said she had the best hygiene, but Kris’s was bad, like they’d only done it when they were forced to. And she hated them for it. Hated them for brushing off their mother’s affection, for hating themselves despite that they lived in a world so separate, so much better than hers. The remembrance of that emotion swilled like bile in her gut. Now, here was their brother, the person she could tell they—and, uncomfortably, seemingly everyone else in the town—idolized, admitting his own guilt in the matter. He’d been making it worse the whole time.

It was a relief that Susie’s jaw was strong enough to stop her from yelling at him again. A relief which Asriel seemed to pick up on, for he ducked his head and rubbed at his neck while fishing for a second cigarette. “Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. I’m a mighty piece of shit for doing that to Kris. To Dad, even, since he didn’t have a consistent phone to use once he moved out of Mom’s.” He swallowed audibly. “It’s true.”

Susie glared at him. “If you knew how shitty you were being, the hell’d you do it for?”

Click. The lighter sprung to life, spreading its flame to the end of the next cigarette. Asriel smoked a single breath, then sighed. “Because I was afraid of being back here.

“When I’m in Hometown, I’m ‘Azzy’ to everyone. The guy everyone talks about. And no, that ain’t me being egotistical,” he defended. “Kris told me how constant the questions and conversations about me were while I was gone. It’s like I was all they ever thought about. Maybe because I looked, I dunno, perfect?” 

He shrugged, playing off the slight wobble in his voice as he recalled the creeping unease he felt upon first hearing about it. Slapping his fingers into his palm, he counted aloud the reasons one by one. “Track team; church choir; robotics; art; academics; volunteering; friends; romance; family. All of that was apparently so incredibly memorable to people I barely talked to. You ever wonder what it’s like to hear that a girl you kissed as a dare when you were twelve is still talkin’ about that like it’s the biggest thing in her life, a decade later?” A shiver racked his frame. “It’s creepy.”

“Really sounds like you’re bragging,” grumbled Susie, eliciting a mild cringe from Asriel.

“Yeah, I know, I know, look how great I am, yada yada. Point is, ‘til I left for college, I didn’t realize how nice it would be to… to find it harder to be friends than strangers,” he confessed.

Susie squinted. “Huh. I always thought it was better the other way ‘round. If there’s one thing great about this town, it’s that it’s hard to feel lonely.”

Asriel took another drag. “You’re from the city, ain’tcha? You’d be used to it. Maybe it’s a ‘grass is always greener’ phenomenon.”

“I guess,” she shrugged. “Not perfect either way.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” laughed Asriel. “Anyhoo. When I’m back here, I’m supposed to be all those things. Things I was when I was still a kid, not who I am anymore. Bratty’s not a friend of mine, just an acquaintance. At best. Even five years ago, that would’ve been charitable. Being in the city was like being free from all that. I could just be ‘Asriel.’ Not this ‘Azzy’ person with all this history and expectations and… everything,” he concluded, tilting his head and waving a hand indecisively in the air.

His story ran so counter to everything Susie thought she knew about him, to everything she thought about life in this little town, that the best response she could manage was a hushed “jeez, dude.” 

“Yeah. Heck, you’ve spent enough time around Noelle to have probably heard about it already, but do you know where that nickname even came from?” asked Asriel, a hint of melancholy seeping into his voice.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh, no. Why, was it her idea?”

He shook his head, smiling sadly. “No, not quite. After that whole… escapade with Bratty and Mom’s subsequent freakout, Dess constantly made fun of me for it. Mercilessly. She came to church every day that week just to get in some jab at me on the way out. No way was she ever gonna let me live down the public embarrassment ritual Mom put us through. Kris, somehow, took it all in stride, even joining her in giving me grief over it.”

Susie grinned, punching him once on the shoulder. “If you were anything like people say, you totally deserved it.”

A fond chuckle escaped him. “The last day of that week, though, Dess walked right up the aisle in the church. During service. Waited patiently right by the podium and pretended like it was perfectly normal. As soon as Father Alvin’s sermon was finished, she grabbed the mic and announced, and I quote, ‘And let’s give our congratulations to Asriel, finally free from a whole week of boring sermons! Now, tell us, was the kiss worth it?’”

Susie snorted. “That’s incredible."

“Right? Shouted me out just to get under my skin one last time. I remember hearing Gerson laugh louder than anyone else, his wiry ‘gyaa-ha-hack!’” he imitated. “I wanted to crawl under one of the pews and die, I was so embarrassed. But it gets better. When I was done trying to hide, she sauntered right up to me, put her hand in mine, pulled me up from the floor—”

“Pfff! You were actually tryna squeeze under there?”

“From the floor,” repeated Asriel firmly, “and said, with a huge shit-eating grin and the most smarmy voice she could muster, ‘Careful, Azzy! I’m not as easy as the other girls you’re into.’”

Susie’s sides split with laughter, her face flushing red as she cobbled together the image in her head from the old Holiday family photos she’d seen around. “Oh my god.”

“Yyup. In front of half the town. That was the finishing blow. No way could I ever recover from that.”

“I aspire to be that petty,” responded Susie with uneven breaths, still unable to put a lid on the hilarity of the situation.

“She seriously was something else. So when that nickname caught on with the entire town, somehow, I had to admit defeat.” Asriel shook his head, grinning properly. “Heck, it was so effective that it stuck around, when I bet you most of everyone who was there don’t realize that that was how it all started.

“And, for a while, it was… comfy, I guess,” he continued, gesturing vaguely forward with his arms. “Someone’d say my name and I’d be reminded not only of the most embarrassing moment of my life, but the only person who could’ve hit that line home. ‘Azzy’ became synonymous with Dess. I don’t know if she was aware just how hard that one stupid joke hit me.”

Susie realized where this was going. “Oh, shit,” she muttered.

“Mhm. When she… disappeared, it hurt. A lot.” A long, deep breath, this time with the cigarette out of his mouth. “But my name was hers. She was still with me. Even when I threw myself full-throttle into all those distractions, she was there, and that was so special.”

His expression flickered with an emotion Susie couldn’t describe, yet one whose meaning she could somehow recollect. “Then… why not stick to it?”

“Hm?”

“‘Azzy.’ Why go back to being ‘Asriel?’” she said quietly.
Asriel sighed wistfully. “Six years is a long time. As much as I loved having that little piece of her with me, the piece stopped… being that. It’s like it got watered down by all the other things everyone started thinking about me, by the way they all looked at me. None of them looked at me the way she did.”

“It felt wrong,” contributed Susie.

“Mm. That’s why I kept getting cold feet about coming back here. I didn’t…” Asriel sighed. “I didn’t want to go back to being ‘Azzy’ when it meant that. Honestly, I still don’t want to, not completely. Anonymity’s got its downsides, but being nothing more than ‘a guy named Asriel who happened to graduate from university last spring’ lets me be… me.” He smiled for a brief moment. “Nothing else.”

Susie, despite her apprehensions, managed to bend the corner of her mouth up into a slim smile. There was a sentiment she knew and held close. An ideal whose standard she wholeheartedly wished she could proudly fly. 

“So stop crying, ‘k? Everything’s gonna be alright.”

How long had she been doing this for?

“...Would you rather I just call you ‘Asriel’ from now on?” she asked, softly.

“I think I’d like that,” answered Asriel.

Susie sat silent, tracing with her eyes the outlines of the clouds just barely pierced by the moonlight. Asriel was nothing like she’d expected, yet exactly what she should have imagined him to be. Nobody could be that perfect, so why had she expected otherwise? The simplest answer was that she had been refusing to look past the veil conjured around him by their little town. Everything was a matter of why-aren’t-you-like-hims, constant comparatives to his unreachable superlative. Kris’s attachment to him made a lot of sense; when they were with him, they could at least know about and acknowledge his imperfections. A look behind the veil. Being compared wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, mollified by the knowledge that the person receiving the praise detested it as much as they did. 

That had to be why Kris was in such an awful place a year ago. As soon as she met Asriel, Susie was quick to key in on just how pivotal he was as a ground for when they were overwhelmed. He understood their pain. He’d gone through just about all of it with them. Without him, and with what happened to Dess, it unfortunately stood to reason why they were so isolated. No more barriers from other people’s bullshit, no friends to rely on, a family that didn’t understand or didn’t want to address the issues. Susie could only imagine the hell their life was. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better, having helped to fill those voids for them, or if it made her feel worse, knowing she had spent months exacerbating their problems.

“So, uh. Asriel,” tried Susie, looking to test the waters. If nothing else, she suspected she now understood the family she lived with a little better.

“Yeah?”

“Is, uh, all of that ‘Azzy’ stuff why you came out here? To get away?”

Asriel took his cigarette out of his mouth, nodding. “That’s right. I snuck out to avoid one of Mom and Dad’s huge blowouts one night. It was all too much for me.”

Susie squinted. “And Kris?”

“Noise-cancelling headphones,” he responded simply. “I bought a pair for them once the arguments got frequent so they could sleep. God knows they needed it. They shouldn’t have had to deal with that on top of everything else.

“Once I started coming here, though, I didn’t stop. A break from family, friends, academics, all that stuff,” continued Asriel with a dismissive wave. He snorted. Wagging his cigarette in the air, he added, “Turns out constantly being reminded that the person who only ever really got you vanished without a trace makes you feel like shit. Like… you’re suffocating, and the only way to breathe is to just get out.”

All at once, Susie felt she was drowning in tiny pieces of memories of the previous day. But these memories were falsified. Her recollection was limited to merely the rudimentary experience of sense, moments of thought and sensation that melded the reality around her so perfectly with recollections of what had been, what could never be again, and what had never happened into a rancid, stomach-churning slurry. Blood mixed with tears mixed with the residue of a greasy meal, the metallic scent Susie knew so well damping out the flavor of salt and grease, soon supplanted by the rich smells of coffee and perfume and then by the smell of a length of woolen fabric around her neck with no weight or sight to attest to its existence, back and forth and back and forth in nullifying conflict that seemed to rebirth itself over and over again. It was a cascade so powerful, so overwhelming, that Susie wasn’t sure when its tides had sucked her into the abyss, or how long it was until the endless buzzing in her head had faded away enough to give the world its silhouettes once more. 

Somehow, though, Susie found she wasn’t hyperventilating. She wasn’t reacting at all. Her eyes had stopped their rote, detached appraisal of the silhouetted world before her. She forced herself to blink, first once, then twice. She twitched the corners of her mouth, pushed her shoulders, bent her elbows, flexed her fingers, rotated her ankles, wiggled her toes, relishing the cold feeling of her body returning to her. 

Susie turned her head to look at Asriel. He had his knees pulled up to his chest, his cigarette perched at the edge of his lips but with its faint light just as far along the length as it was several minutes ago. 

“I…” she began, faltering after a single sound. It took her a moment to gather her voice again. “I didn’t realize how much she meant to you.”

A dull chuckle escaped him. “I’m not surprised. Most of Hometown didn’t pick up on it. Mom and Dad had to have known something was up, but I guess I just looked fine enough to be a second priority to their bickering. Heck, I don’t know if anyone other than Kris, Noelle, or Rudy knew. No idea how that happened, given her… less than discreet behavior.”

Susie barked out a laugh. “That’s a hell of a way to put it.”

Examining his body language, everything about Asriel felt so strange to her. How was he so casual about all this? He seemed even-headed, friendly, willing to build bridges over chasms Susie had thought could never be crossed. She had to figure it out.

“Hey, Asriel.”

He cocked his head at her. “Yeah, Susie?”

Alright. Here goes. “How’d you… get over it? Losing her?”

Asriel stared at her for a long while, then shook his head. “I didn’t, really.”

“But… you seem so okay about all of it,” she retorted.

He sighed. “It, well. Having her death confirmed a year ago… hurt. It hurt to learn that she was fully gone. That she ain’t coming back. But it’d been seven years already, Susie. I suppose I… knew it had to be the case. Even if it didn’t go how I expected.”

Susie rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Oh. I see. Uhm. What did you do, before we found out? Were you still hoping she’d come back?”

After a beat of hesitation, he offered a very slight nod. “‘Disappeared’ didn’t quite reconcile with ‘dead.’ Every year that passed, I lost a little hope, but never ran dry. Sometimes I was more upset, sometimes less. Sometimes sad, sometimes…”

“...sometimes angry?” offered Susie, having spotted the slight scowl on his features.

“Mm.”

“Yeah, I know what that’s like. My dad was a total piece of shit, and not just ‘cause he ran out on me,” explained Susie. “I hated the bastard long before. Sometimes, though, this stupid part of me gets all sad over it. What would I want from him? Not like an apology would do anything for seventeen years of not giving a shit about me.”

“It’s not rational, I don’t think,” added Asriel. “But you know that. You and Kris both lost a friend last year, too, yeah?”

He said it with such disarming nonchalance that Susie had to do a double-take. “...I forgot the two of you met,” she whispered.

“Only for a couple minutes,” he replied. “He seemed like a good kid. Kris hasn’t told me much about him, but he left a good impression.”

Susie tilted her head down, staring at the dirt. “Yeah. He was,” she responded. 

She sucked in a large breath. Now that she thought about it, Asriel seemed like the perfect person to talk to about the thoughts that crowded her head and stifled her awareness; sure, Kris had lost Ralsei too, and was torn up about it on top of losing their arm and having Dess’s death confirmed, but there’d always been a wall between them when the topic came up. Drudging up more bad memories was the last thing they needed, Susie figured. She’d also talked to Noelle about him a good amount, but she’d purposefully left out some of the more important details. Noelle was also grieving for Dess, and Rudy, and while Susie liked her and had been considering dating her for a long time before the fiasco at yesterday’s festival, talking about the finer points of her relationship with Ralsei felt like too much. Asriel was different. Somehow, she’d never picked up on just what Asriel and Dess must’ve been like together. Perhaps because going through Dess’s stuff to find the signs of him felt like an even greater sacrilege after she was dead instead of while merely “disappeared.” Who was she to have the right to such memories, anyway? She never knew the girl.

Steeling her resolve, Susie set to work. It was a struggle, teasing out the memories and weaving them into a comprehensible fabric. She hardly knew where to start. Perhaps the beginning would be best.

“Wanna know the first thing I thought when I met Ralsei?” she began quietly.

Asriel glanced over to her, making eye contact. “What?”

“‘This guy’s a lunatic.’”

Her stone-faced deadpan shocked Asriel into a bout of sudden snickering.

“Seriously. The moment I met him, he was prattling on in his soft, slightly nasally voice about how Kris and I were gonna work together to save the world. Kris. You know, the person I spent the first six months in town despising.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What’d you do when you heard that?” he asked calmly, offering her an easy answer. His experience was already paying off, it seemed.

“Told him he was stupid and ran off to do my own thing, of course,” she stated simply, a tinge of humor working into her voice. “Not that that mattered. He and Kris just hounded me everywhere around that first bit of Card Kingdom—the Dark World we were exploring—while I tried to get them off my tail.”

“So you admit you have a tail,” quipped Asriel.

“SHUT UP!!” barked Susie in faux-outrage. “Anyway, those two followed me everywhere, while I was just sending those puzzle guys flying left and right. Totally unfazed. And I know that because, when Kris found a little piece of ribbon, they gave it to him. Wanna know what he did with it?”

“Oh boy.”

“He tied it around one of his horns, whipped right around to look at me, and decided the best course of action would be to freakin’ flirt with me!” she exclaimed with a single, breathless laugh. “Got up on his tiptoes, did a dainty lil’ twirl, and started badgering me into calling him pretty!”

While Asriel doubled over laughing, she continued, “So you better believe I thought he was even crazier, if he was even serious to begin with! But, no, every single time we found a little accessory to wear, or a new scarf to tie around his neck, he’d flash me this stupid look, practically begging me to tell him I thought it was cute!”

Catching his breath, Asriel asked, “Well, did you? Think it was cute?”

“Duh, obviously!” exclaimed Susie, throwing her hands up in the air. “I wouldna admitted it over my cold, dead body, but jeez, dude. The ribbons, the scarves, the little way he’d clap his hands and smile when we beat enemies by mercy… hell, even his weird pseudo-British accent was doing him favors. He said stuff that made him sound like a freakin’ Victorian child, with all his ‘wa-ho!’s and ‘yahoo!’s and whatever, stuff that shoulda pissed me off because it was so over-the-top sickeningly sweet, but it didn’t!”

“Wait, he was British? Didn’t know you were into that,” interjected Asriel with a smirk.

“I said pseudo!” roared Susie. “And I don’t think you of all people wanna get into that territory, Mr. Eight Year Overdue Library Book,” she countered, grinning outright as she aimed right for the jugular.

Asriel flushed bright red. “W-w-wait, hey now, that wasn’t me, that was Dess’s idea! And I was out of town for half that time!”

“Yet you never returned it. Curious,” pressed Susie, a toothy, almost predatorial grin on her face. “Hey, come to think of it, both Toriel and Kris knew about it. Why didn’t either of them return it for you?”

“W-well, er, maybe it was just too embarrassing?” he stammered. “To walk into the Librarby and have to tell either little smartass Berdly or dear old Ms. Boom ‘hey excuse me yeah my son or brother, yes the famous one, checked out this scandalous book that probably had drastic effects on his psyche several years ago and has racked up hundreds in fines by now, I’d like to return it finally?’”

Susie chortled. “Now, how much more embarrassing would it be for you to have to be the one to do it?”

Asriel stopped dead in his tracks. “...motherfuckers.”

“HAHAHAHAHAH! Knew it!” She laughed even harder when Asriel buried his face in his hands, muttering vengeful curses under his breath.

It took a solid couple minutes for her to stop laughing, and for Asriel to pry his hands off his face, before she continued. “You see, though? I’m awesome at messing with people. But when Ralsei acted all cutesy and flirty with me, I had absolutely no material to work with. Best I could do was dumb name-calling like I was in elementary school again. The worst part? He saw me pulling my stuff with other people. He had to know he’d gotten under my skin, so all those little glances he shot me were little smug yeah-I-know-you-know-I’m-cutes and I was too much of a freakin’ tsundere to admit it.”

“‘Tsundere?’” echoed Asriel. “I didn’t take you for the type to use a word like that.”

“...damn you, Berdly,” she muttered. “Ugh. Anyway. I had no clue how to mess with him without acting like a huge asshole. I’d never met anyone like him, so it tracked, but he’d never met anyone before, and that sure as hell didn’t stop him from getting at me. He drove me crazy.”

Asriel smiled. “Did you ever figure it out?”

Susie huffed. “Honestly? Not really. If I had the right setup, sure. Other times, I’d try stuff like stealing his glasses, or showing him how sarcasm works, or trying to get him to speak in some ridiculous cutesy way ‘cause I thought it’d be funny. But… when I tried to poke fun at him, it was like it’d just bounce off. Or he’d turn it around on me and make me look like a total dork. It wasn’t for a little while that I learned why I lost that little game every time.” She sighed. 

“He… didn’t have much of anything for me to get under his skin about,” she explained. “Not in a good way. Everything he did that I thought was a hobby or a talent was just an obligation to him. He sang, and it sounded great, but he wouldn’t do it so he could enjoy it. It was only a tool to him. He could knit, and sew, and design, and personalize, and cook, but never for himself. It was all just… stuff he thought Kris and I would want, or need. As though what he wanted didn’t matter,” she spat.

She caught Asriel’s brief glance at the dirt. “Yeah. He didn’t… he never really let on what was going on with him. Not intentionally. All those times I couldn’t get a reaction from him, I’d be thinking ‘am I messing this up? Am I hurting him?’ as though it would be my fault, and sometimes it was. Sometimes I could be genuinely shitty to him, and made him hurt, and didn’t consider it. That was something we were equal at.” She paused, her throat tightening as the memories of the little wounds she’d given him without noticing ‘til later pricked at her like shots whose needles stayed under her skin a little too long.

Asriel spoke up. “And yet… you still cared about him so much?”

Susie nodded. “As much as it could hurt… More than anyone, I think.

“Being around Ralsei was… It was like I wasn’t myself. Or the person I thought I was. Kris? Before we started doing the hero stuff, I think they liked me because my shittiness was just proof that something was wrong. I hated them ‘cause I thought they were ungrateful for not being a better kid to Toriel. They felt guilty. My shittiness made sense to them. I’m glad we’re close now, and I think they get me pretty well. I still can’t talk to them about some of these things.

“Similar deal with Noelle. When I first came to school, it felt awesome that she took a look at me and didn’t cower or talk behind my back or feign niceness, instead giving me a pencil. A tiny kindness. She thought I was cool because I was scary and strong and didn’t take shit from people lying down. Even cooler if I was trying to do good when acting that way. Her and Kris, they both made me feel… okay with being ‘me.’
“Ralsei, though?” She chuckled wetly. “Like I said, all my old tricks couldn’t work on him without being shitty, and this guy was utterly convinced that’s not what I was. I’d spent months making Kris’s life hell, and he didn’t even mind. He was a ‘lunatic.’ But when I could reach out to him, to help him when Kris wouldn’t or couldn’t, it was like I was someone completely else. I wasn’t the ‘me’ I thought I was around him. Ever notice how I basically never hug Kris, or Noelle, or Toriel?”

Asriel gave her a long look before nodding. “I ain’t gonna pry into why, but yes.”

“It’s ‘cause I don’t like touch much,” stated Susie nonchalantly. “Never really felt special to me at best. But with Ralsei, even if he lied or hid away or did any of the other shit that made me furious with him, I could do it. I could tolerate a hug, and he’d tease me about it. Wouldn’t give me shit. Just said stuff as though it was encouragement, because he knew I wouldn’t listen to him if he told me to be more receptive to it. He had me figured out. There were times where…” she sniffled, “Times where I could only reach out to him by touch. He completely broke down in front of me one time, and without thinking, I let him hold my hand as he cried, and that?” Her voice began to waver. “That felt incredible.” 

She could feel herself beginning to cry, but she pushed on, unwilling to let the flow of thoughts clog up now that she’d gotten so far. Asriel seemed happy to let her. “When I was with him, the person I was… I liked that person. I didn’t know I could be that person who enjoyed sappy shit or liked touching and being touched. And it’s not like I forgot who I was; I woulda thrown him like a frisbee if he tried to make me wear ribbons or dumb stuff like that. Only that I could… heh… see that I was more than I thought, that I liked things I wrote off or straight-up hadn’t bothered to try. And the more that happened, and the more I realized how much he had the same problem, I didn’t… I didn’t ever want to let go of him,” she choked out.

A hand rested tentatively on her shoulder, large, heavy, and warm. She froze up. Part of her screamed no, no, this wasn’t for him, not for anyone else so thunderously she could barely hear her own sobs. Part of her wanted to get mad at him again, to push him off. She’d spoken so much, aired so much dirty laundry that he’d probably gotten sick of her inane ramblings and was just being polite so he could make an excuse to leave. It’d be stupid to trust him, stupid to let him in on something that was only hers and Ralsei’s, because look how well the last time she’d gone and gotten all touchy had gone. Tears and betrayal and shame and broken friendships. She should tell him to stop. She had to tell him to stop.

Instead, she relaxed, letting Asriel press her shoulder reassuringly. It didn’t feel terrible.

“It’s alright, Susie. Let it out. You’re okay.” A stream of tiny phrases flowed out of his mouth, each word’s precise intonation belying a bevy of experience that only he could have from being Kris’s brother when their world was falling apart. He was rusty, and clearly not used to the weight he’d need to put on Susie to have it achieve the same effect as it likely would’ve on Kris, but it worked.

“Wanna know what makes me so fucking terrible?” she whined. “It’s my fault he’s gone. This was supposed to be the ‘better ending,’ the one where we’d all be fine! But he’s dead! I told him I’d never let him be thrown away, and now it’s my fault I’ll never see him again! If I’d just been a little stronger, a little smarter, a little kinder, maybe I– I–”

She stopped in her tracks. Those words echoed in her head.

Down the long hallway, she listened to Ralsei’s tears.

“I’m sorry, Kris,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say the whole Prophecy at first. I just… I thought if I said something different… if we did something different… if we were just kind enough… perhaps by the time we got here, it would change.”

Who was she fooling?

Susie pulled her knees up to her chest, burying her snout in between them. “Ralsei was,” she began through breaths labored by tears, “Ralsei was the first person who ever told me he loved me. Not my dad. Not Kris. Not Noelle. Not Toriel. Ralsei. He loved the ‘me’ that was okay with being touched, with wanting to touch him. The ‘me’ that smiled and drank his tea. The ‘me’ that always tried to teach him new things and help him, even when I hurt him more. The ‘me’ that got seen through when she tried to pretend she was okay while wiping away his tears.” She swore, loudly, and laughed pathetically as her sobs distorted her cry into some unrecognizable noise. “The last thing he ever got to say to me was that he loved ‘me.’ That he believed in ‘me.’ But I…

“I don’t even know if I’m that ‘me’ anymore.”

Asriel pulled his hand off her back, seeming to understand that she didn’t want to be touched anymore. “Susie… it’s okay, Susie.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “About yesterday. I made things weird. You’re nothing like him. But sometimes, I see your face, and… you’ll hate me for this, but… why can’t it be his?”

“Huh?” It took Asriel a moment to focus on what he remembered of how Ralsei looked. There had been some stark resemblances, hadn’t there? It dawned on him. The weird looks and glares yesterday at lunch. The way she seemed to avoid him at home. “Oh, shit.”

She curled further into herself. “I know. It’s shitty of me. You don’t deserve it. I just,” she hiccuped, then laughed hollowly. “I got what I wanted, huh? I can’t let go of him.”

When Susie’s false, heartrending laughs died down, Asriel took a deep breath. “When I started to realize Dess wasn’t gonna come back, I… that’s when I started to realize how ‘everywhere’ she was.

“The nickname, the clothes she left with me, the stuff I left in her room, Kris’s piano playing, Mom and Dad’s split, all of it. I couldn’t talk to the Holidays about her, ‘cept sometimes Rudy, but even then I’d be reminded that he probably wouldn’t be able to make one of his crass jokes about the two of us anymore,” he explained calmly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not when I was still ‘Azzy.’ Not when there was a chance she could still be alive.

“That’s why I left. I needed to be somewhere… somewhere I wouldn’t be ‘Azzy.’”

Susie wrenched her head out of her legs just enough to peek at him with tear-filled eyes. “But there has to be… more, right? Than running away?”

Asriel took a long drag of his cigarette, shrugging. “I don’t know. Even now that she’s dead, I… still can’t stop thinking about her, sometimes. You ever hear that saying, about how losing someone leaves a hole in your life?”

“Mhm?”

“I don’t think it’s possible. Filling it. It’s just there.” He idly twirled the cigarette in his fingers. “These things sure don’t cut it. I only smoke ‘cause can’t kick the habit. But I know now,” he stated firmly, “that there’s more to my life than her. I guess what I’m trying to say is… I’m still ‘Azzy’ sometimes, but I’m mostly ‘Asriel’ now. I can’t be all one or the other.”

Susie managed to pull her head all the way out, resting her snout on her knees. “I… think I understand.”

“I’m not you, and I didn’t know Ralsei, but… don’t worry about which way you’re ‘Susie.’ How much one way or the other. You’ll figure it out,” he finished, smiling kindly at her.

“...So what you’re saying is, you shouldn’t have offered me a smoke?” she joked quietly, managing a grin. “Way to try to make me worse.”

Asriel groaned, rolling his eyes. “Damnit. You’re right.”

They sat in silence a while. The clouds began to thin, slivers of moonlight shifting the black silhouettes into dark shades of gray. The stench of tobacco filled the air, but little by little, the breeze was blowing it away. Hints of freshwater and dirt made their way into Susie’s nostrils. She breathed a little easier. The world looked so peaceful like this, even if it was only grayscale. 

Eventually, Asriel stood up, extinguishing the cigarette on the sole of his shoe. “Alright, I’m heading back. It’s probably super late, and I need some sleep. Want to come with?”

Susie shook her head, remaining on the dirt. “Nah. I’mma stay out here a while. You go on ahead.”

“Alrighty,” he responded. “Good night, Susie. Careful about the tobacco stench, by the way. Mom hates it.”

She chuckled. “Thanks. Night, Asriel.”

Susie listened to the crushing of the grass and reeds under Asriel’s heavy steps. Soon, she was once more alone in the little clearing.

Which ‘Susie’ she was, huh? She needed to do some thinking.

Chapter Text

The Dreemurr family fridge was plastered with pictures.

Susie found herself staring at them often. Having lived in Hometown for only a year and a half, most of the scenes enshrined were ones she never experienced, only understood through hearsay. A photo of Kris smiling wide, with shining ruby-red eyes and a pair of little red horns atop their head. A lineup of the Dreemurr family years later, its patriarch conspicuously absent, with Asriel mid-growth spurt and Kris right next to him in front of Toriel, who towered over them both. These two pictures at the center were the most long-standing, having been the only ones pinned back when Susie first moved in about a year ago.

The photos on the edges weren’t necessarily newer. After the chaos of a year ago, Kris and Toriel had dug up some old photos, creating a collage that represented the family history far better. There was a picture of Asriel and Dess, both perhaps eight years old, wearing matching flannels. Dess was sticking out her tongue. There was a picture of Kris and Noelle in front of the TV. Toriel and Rudy sat behind them on the couch, laughing and smiling. Another picture showed a rare sighting of Asgore, smiling with a fish on a hook next to a wavering Asriel who seemed more interested in the flower he held. 

Some photos were much newer. One photo showed her and Kris making silly faces at the camera, while another was of her, Kris, Noelle, and Asriel all together. Susie liked these ones the most, but she couldn’t deny that a few photos felt like a paltry sum in the face of such an extensive family history.

Susie sighed, tearing her eyes away from the collage back to the homework binder laid out before her on the dining room table. Procrastination was perhaps one of Susie’s most long-standing vices, the result of routinely avoiding the shitty old man she used to call her father. So now here she was, on a bright, beautiful Sunday, cramped up at home trying to do math. Only she’d been staring at the same page for… how long, now? She looked at the clock. Just before 4 P.M., which meant…

Forty-five minutes?!

Damnit. This was gonna eat up the rest of the day. And she hadn’t even gotten started on the reading assignment yet. At least she’d had the forethought to start before dinner, and not after… Though working on an empty stomach wasn’t doing her any favors.

Susie was in the midst of idly tapping her eraser against the page while staring daggers at one of the equations when the phone rang. Thank god! A distraction! She rushed to pick up the receiver.

“Hello?” she answered, the sharp eagerness that came with temporarily refusing to care about her responsibilities ringing through her voice.

Through the muffled, slightly staticky landline receiver, a familiar voice drawled. “Howdy, Susie! How’re you doing?”

“Uhhh,” she droned, staring at the pages on the table. She could swear they were staring back. “...Fine. You?”

“I’m doin’ alright,” he replied. “Is Mom or Kris there?”

Susie instinctively shook her head, a year’s worth of experience with a phone losing out to the muscle memory of seventeen without. “Nope. Toriel’s out shopping—something about needing supplies for her students so they can do their projects—and Kris is over at Noelle’s.”

“Again?”

She let out a ‘hmph.’ “Yup. It’s, like, every day these days.”

There was a pause on the other end. “...It’s a bit like when they were little again. Always attached at the hip, no matter how many times Kris made her shriek with one of their pranks.”

One of the photos Susie found herself staring at often was a side-by-side of Kris and Noelle as little kids. Kris, wearing their horns, had been leaning over to Noelle, whispering something in her ear. Somehow, the picture had perfectly captured the moment Noelle’s eyes went wide, but before she could otherwise react. “Like the old days, huh?” she quietly wondered. 

Asriel’s subsequent hum, distorted through the old phone, buzzed in her ear. “Maybe that’s not the right way of putting it. When they were little, I sometimes wondered if they felt it was obligatory; me ‘n Dess were together all the time.”

“Noelle said something like that once,” replied Susie in an attempt at airiness that failed to stop a cynical bite from creeping in. “That it was ‘forced.’”

“It sounds like you disagree,” commented Asriel plainly.

“Dude, one of her screensavers was a photo of Kris up to something. Before they reconnected. Noelle’s good at a lot of stuff, but lying? Nah.”

“What was Kris doing? In the screensaver.”

Susie snorted. “Oh, get this: it was super blurry, like a smear frame. Either they were sprinting, or whoever was taking the picture was falling over or something. Could barely even tell it was Kris in the photo.”

A jagged laugh met her ear. “Heh. I bet I know what that was. We were on a camping trip, me, her, Kris, and Dess, and she’d decided to start taking photos with Dess’s camera. Dess and I would pose whenever we saw her train the lens on us, but Kris? Kris’s reaction was to pick up a worm with a stick and bumrush her with it. She must’ve clicked the button in the middle of dropping the camera. We were so worried it’d break from the fall, but it ended up fine.”

“Hahahah! Didn’t know Kris was so direct before!” exclaimed Susie. “Feels like these days they just tease a lot more. And act weird.”

“Oh, yeah, back in the day, Kris was a real menace. Dess would always chase them with a wiffle bat if she felt they went too far, and Kris would always eventually get caught and be forced to pay lip service to reforming. We all knew they’d do it again.”

She shook her head. “If Kris stopped being weird, I’d assume they'd have gotten themself possessed again. Or replaced by a bodysnatcher.” Susie paused for a moment. “Noelle loves old horror movies. Did they ever try convincing her they’d been body-snatched?”

“Once,” answered Asriel grimly. “They stopped doing any other pranks for weeks on end. In for the long haul. The day they finally gave up the act, Noelle cried the most I’ve ever seen her. She was relieved, but it really had been a step too far. Dess made sure there’d be hell to pay.”

“Guessing that made them go back to the old reliable stuff,” wagered Susie.

“Mhm. All the way until… well, you can probably guess.”

“When Dess disappeared?” she hazarded.

“Yeah.”

Susie thought for a moment. None of the anecdotes Asriel had told her in the past about those days involved him, not really. It was all Kris and Noelle, or Noelle and Dess, or Dess and Kris. That was odd; with how close the four of them seemed, shouldn’t he have been a bigger part? He could’ve just been choosing anecdotes that weren’t about him, of course, but it still felt off.

“...Hey, Asriel?”

“What’s up?”

“Did you ever feel like…” Susie struggled to find the words, let alone the strength to express them. 

It was one of the hardest feelings, watching Kris and Ralsei from down the hall. Listening to Ralsei as he spouted nonsensical, heartshattering words that Susie desperately wanted to yell over if she had any confidence that her voice wouldn’t break. 

“It’s okay, Kris. Look, I… I’m smiling!”

She couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t see whatever stomach-churning rictus likely split his fangs.

She wished it were otherwise. She wished she could be there to tell him off for falling back like that. For daring to retreat now of all times when she’d just learned how deep his strength ran. But Kris was there first. Kris’s voice wouldn’t break.

“It’s okay not to smile,” they said, and at that instant, the moment belonged to the two of them.

Susie still listened, her heart swelling at Kris’s words and Ralsei’s proclamation that he’d listen to her hope as much as he could. But it wasn’t supposed to be her moment. In the dark, it probably didn’t even look like she was there, with her bloody fist still trickling red onto the floor.

She walked around the frigid town with Kris and Noelle. It had been a few weeks since… since everything. Only a couple days until December. The conversation was casual, relieving, even. But Susie couldn’t help seeing the way their faces would flash dark when they passed certain places, when their gazes wandered just a bit too far to the south or when the hospital entered their periphery. There was something in their voices that was strained. When they got near Noelle’s house, though, Kris spoke up.

“Hey, Noelle…” they mumbled, in the deadpan tone of voice Noelle had once told her about.

“What’s up, Kris?”

They glanced down, then offered her shoulder a slight pat. “Remember that winter, when it snowed for three days straight?”

“Mhm?”

“I heard we’re supposed to get a lot of snow next week.”

Noelle stepped forward, squinting at Kris. “You’d better not be thinking of what I’m thinking of.”

Kris raised their arms. “You think I’d repeat a prank like that? Me?” They pressed a hand to their chest, feigning offense. “Never.”

“Kris!! Agh! Now you’ve just put me more on edge!”

Susie heard them laugh. “A master never reveals their secrets.”

The three of them walked the rest of the way to Noelle’s house. Susie didn’t know what they were talking about, but the tension in the air had irrevocably loosened.

“Like those moments… weren’t yours? Like you could only watch,” she attempted finally.

“Humph,” mumbled Asriel, filling the time so Susie knew he was listening. “Now that you mention it… I guess? The thought never really crossed my mind before… hm.”

“Sorry, weird question, I know. Probably just me being stupid and selfish. Not everything’s gotta be about me, ” backtracked Susie hastily.

“No, it’s fine,” he assured. “I s’pose I never considered it ‘cause I was always with Kris and Dess. If you mean Noelle, though… no, she and I were always kinda distant.”

“Really?”

“In a sense, yeah. Noelle never mentioned calling me to catch up or anything while I was away, did she?”  probed Asriel.

Susie shook her head. “Nah. Don’t take this the wrong way, but she didn’t talk about you much.”

“That’s about what I expected. The only person in her family who ever kept in contact with me while I was at university was Rudy.”

“Heh. Sounds like him.”

“Yep! Christmas Eve, three P.M. sharp, he’d ring me up and say ‘Hope you haven’t forgotten about the Holidays!’ while laughing like it was the funniest joke in the world. Freshman, sophomore, junior year, same thing. I had the room to myself, since my roommates would be at home for the break by then, so I could just talk about whatever with him. Catch up, spitball ideas, that sort of thing.”

Susie couldn’t help but feel a little envious. Rudy had died before she’d so much as had a handful of conversations with him. None alone. He was yet another person known to those around her that she’d never been able to understand. Yet another person Asriel had somehow managed to grieve for while sounding okay. As much as that talk after the Festival had helped her understand his imperfections, the void between them yet yawned wide.

“Sounds nice,” was all she could reply.

“Mm. It was.”

“But, uh. With Noelle. Do you ever, um, want to? Talk to her more?” she probed, caught between curiosity and concern. For whom, she wasn’t sure.

She heard Asriel sigh through the receiver. His next words were announced by a loud breath. “I’d be lying if I said no. Outside of the holidays,” he said, then groaned at his unintentional pun, getting a laugh of Susie. “Outside of the season, I don’t ever see or talk to them. I think it could be good. For Noelle to hear more about her sister. Or even for Carol, no matter how much her and Dess butted heads.”

“But…?” preempted Susie.

“But I don’t know if I could take too much of it. I had enough of being a sounding board for people’s problems. Too much, well, ‘Azzy.’ And as I said, I think I moved on a while back. I wouldn’t have kept her room like that for seven years,” he stated matter-of-factly. Though she couldn’t see his face, Susie could tell he was smiling. “It’s probably better for everyone if they talked to someone less attached.”

Susie let out an exasperated grumble. “You’re talking about me.”

“Didn’t you say you want to keep being friends with her?”

“‘Course I do,” she retorted. “I’m not you, though. How the hell would I be able to talk to her about Dess? About any of that stuff?”

“You’ve listened to me talk about her this much, haven’t you?”

Such a simple response. Dammit. He was right. Despite appearances, Susie took pride in her attentiveness. She’d long gotten used to parsing conversations for deceit. Turns out that also made her a pretty damn good listener. “Ugh. Yeah. What should I say back, though?”

“That, I couldn’t say. That part’s up to you.”

Susie smiled mildly. “How’d you get so wise?” she quipped.

“Therapy.”

“Figured.”

“You ever thought about trying it?” he floated.

Susie shook her head. “Not really. I think I’m still a bit busy figuring out which ‘me’ I am.” Her voice dropped. “If either.”

“Haha, fair, fair. Just sayin’, it can help,” he drawled, adding a bit of playful vibrato to his words. “How’s that been going, by the way? I know it’s only been a couple weeks.”

“Euh, it’s been… though. Dunno really where to start. It’s like… I have ideas about which is which, but they’re not exactly separate? It’s weird,” she attempted to puzzle out. “How’d you ever manage it?”

“I went to a bar.”

His matter-of-fact delivery made Susie do a double-take. “You smoke and drink? Damn, Toriel would really freak out if she heard,” joked Susie, grinning.

“Not quite what I mean,” chuckled Asriel. “I didn’t go to any for most of my freshman year. Got invited out a number of times, but it felt weird. Hometown’s golden boy, drinking while underage and hitting on girls? No way.”

“What changed your mind?” asked Susie, simultaneously listening hard for any advice she could parse and trying to figure out if she could needle him along the way. 

“My roommate said something to me eventually. They told me they didn’t want to go either, ‘til they realized that it wasn’t about pressure. That’s a shitty reason to get drunk. It was actually about freedom.”

“So, heh, what? You just got up, went to a bar, and got shitfaced, and that suddenly made it all click?” Her humor dropped to muted disbelief. “There’s no way that’s it, right?”

“Mostly. It hit me when I was hung over: ‘Azzy’ wouldn’t have done that except on a dare. I wouldn’t have realized had I not stepped outside my comfort zone.”

“And, to clarify, I don’t need to get drunk or smoke to do that, right?” asked Susie tentatively.

“Nah. Just something you wouldn’t normally do.”

Susie gritted her teeth to stifle any obvious sigh of relief. “Alright, alright. I think I get it. And, uh, I won’t snitch to Toriel that you drank underage. Probably don’t want to suffer the consequences this Christmas, heh.”

“Thank you,” replied Asriel with a sudden, intense gravity that threatened to make Susie roar with laughter. She could bet he wasn’t looking for a repeat of the spin-the-bottle story, and while smoking or drinking on their own probably weren’t enough to cross that line, but breaking that rule… yikes.

“So. Asriel.” Susie said after a pause, buying herself time for a change in topic. “How’s, uh, work going for you?”

“It’s a grind,” he answered. “Long hours, some awful customers, and low pay.”

“You still searching for jobs at dev studios?”

“Yep. It’s a tough market. With all the layoffs, you’d think positions would be opening up, but nope! They’re just bein’ gotten rid of.”

“Shit, dude. That sucks.”

“I’ve even been doing commissions for extra income. And to keep myself sane.” An exasperated sigh crackled from the receiver. “Enough about me, though. How’s school treating you?”

Susie glanced back at the homework binder wide open on the table, silently hurling insults at her. “Uh, I, uh... think this conversation has reached a natural end I’m gonna bounce now bye!”

“Wait, at least let Mom know I called before–” 

She laughed, having sufficiently gotten under his skin with the bit. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I got you. Talk to you later.”

She heard Asriel groan through a chuckle. “See you, Susie.”

Susie put the receiver back with a definitive click. Okay. Something she wouldn’t normally do, huh? What would that even be?

At the insistence of the open binder’s constant stream of annoyances that skittered like bugs along the back of her mind, she had an idea. It wasn’t exactly out of her comfort zone on a normal basis, but in the weeks since the Festival, she’d been of a different opinion. Maybe now, though, she could kill two birds with one stone.

“I banish you from this kingdom until you start your project!”

Damn nerd. 

Snatching her phone off the table, Susie tapped in the password and navigated to her contacts. A couple clacks of her claws against the screen later, she put it on speaker so she could hear them while being heard on the other end, and waited for the ringing to stop.

On the fourth ring, the call went through.

“What up?”

“Hey, Kris. You still at Noelle’s?”

“Yup.”

“She there right now?”

“One sec.”

Susie waited patiently as a pause seemed to stretch further and further before her. That familiar sting of rejection creeped up her throat, premature though it was. No, don’t expect the worst, she reprimanded herself. It’d be nice, but not the end of the world if it didn’t work out. 

A cheery, wobbly voice interrupted her thoughts. “Hiya, Susie!”

She sounded surprisingly chipper. “Hey, Noelle. You guys busy?”

“Not really!” she chirped, though a year of friendship meant Susie could tell there was some of that familiar nervousness underneath. “We were just playing Outlast together.”

“Oh, cool.” Susie swallowed. “You guys, uh… mind helping me study? I’m way behind.”

“How much have you gotten done?”

“Uhhhhh,” she droned, long enough that Noelle giggled.

“Susie, fahaha, it’s almost five! We should get started then, shouldn’t we?” There was a slight delay. “Oh, Kris, Susie wants to come study. Hey– HEY! Don’t run away! I know you haven’t finished either! Get back here!!”

Susie could hear the thumping of Noelle’s hooves along the floor through her phone, and a distant “You’ll never take me alive!” from Kris.

“You bet I will! Hold still!”

“I’ll, uh, grab their stuff, too,” said Susie, holding back a chuckle.

“Thanks! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta remind this little gremlin why I’m the track star!” Noelle exclaimed, the pace of her hoofbeats changing as she ran down the stairs.

“See ya soon,” Susie responded, ending the call with a familiar beep. 

Alright. Step one down. Now to not completely fuck this up.

It was eleven-thirty P.M. on a Wednesday night when Asriel’s phone buzzed, the caller ID reading ‘Home.’ 

Shocked from his glacial progress on one of his commissions, he snatched the phone up into his hands, fumbling for what seemed an eternity as it kept ringing and ringing. Had something happened?! Why were they calling so late?!

Pressing down any instincts to panic, he accepted the call, and began, “Is everything alright?!”

“Uh, y-yeah? Did I call at a bad time?” rang out Susie’s familiar, slightly scratchy voice through the receiver, sounding bewildered.

“Oh, er, sorry about that,” he apologized, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t normally get called by y’all so late. What’s up?”

“Nothin’ much,” she admitted, “I just had a question. If you’ve got time. I know you’re busy.”

Truthfully, he was swamped, as usual. His job search had turned up no leads, so he was stuck waiting tables and living off tips and commissions for the foreseeable future. What a great use of a game design degree. Really, who could’ve seen this coming. Pushing his drawing tablet and stylus to the side, he replied, “Sure, I’ve got a little. What’d you want to ask?”

“So, after last time we talked, I ended up going over to Noelle’s to get her to help me and Kris with homework.”

Asriel smiled, though it teetered on uncertainty. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah, I think so. But, uh, when we had enough messing around and playing Dark Souls together–”

“Wait, which one?” he interjected, curious. “I wanna know what Kris is doing to you two.”

“2,” answered Susie matter-of-factly.

“Oh, that’s fucked up.”

“Nah, what? 2’s great! Kris gets to suffer too when it’s their turn to hold half the controller.”

Asriel snickered. “You know what, that tracks. You all get to suffer it together. That’s sweet.”

“Honestly? Not as bad as Kris and Noelle made it out to be. It’s actually fun.”

“Fun?” echoed Asriel incredulously. “Are you crazy? The levels are terrible. The enemies are placed in precisely the best spots to completely screw you over. And the world design makes no sense! Why the hell does a mountain have an elevator that goes upwards from the top and enters a new area coming out from under the ground?”

Susie scoffed through the receiver. “Y’see, though, that’s why I like it. The world being all wonky and stupid feels kinda nostalgic? Like, uh…” She trailed off. 

“...like the Dark Worlds?” tried Asriel. He didn’t get to experience any in detail, but from the stories Susie, Kris, and Noelle had told, their incongruities seemed to be a recurring trend. 

“...Yeah,” replied Susie, an air of distant fondness in her voice. “It’s like I, or, uh, Kris, since they can only control the left side of the controller, whenever we turn a corner, I don’t know what’s gonna be there. Maybe we’ll come out over the water. Or at the mouth of a pirate bay. Or in a badass lava temple. It’s awesome.”

At the familiar feeling, Asriel smiled. “I think I get what you mean. When I was little—like, really little, before Kris came along—Dess and I would go exploring. All over town. We’d find these little trails, or spots where the grass was thin, and it was like the world was massive.” As he spoke, his voice began to swell with proper understanding. No matter how terrible the game was, Susie was right in this one way. “Sometimes, I’d just sit by the lake and stare across the water, imagining that, just past the trees, there was a whole separate world out there. A world with all its own paths, and its own towns, its own skies, its own weather… and my brain would fill in the gaps. A whole world, just a little past what I could see.”

“See, you get it!” exclaimed Susie triumphantly, like she’d just beaten him in a fight and not reminded him of an old pastime. “Shit didn’t make any sense in the Dark Worlds, but in a cool way. Areas would kinda fold into each other or stretch weird. Tiny rooms could suddenly get all huge. Heck, one time, we were walking through this forest, when suddenly the path turned a single corner and in minutes looped us all the way back to this bake sale we’d passed like an hour before. Gave me a headache at the time, but now? I think it was kinda awesome. I wish the world could always feel so… new. And anything that makes ya feel like that? Good in my book.”

“And you’re not just saying that because the game lets you pick up and swing around two giant axes at once?” he teased. 

“LISTEN. Not like that’s a minus.” Asriel laughed. “Anyway, when we were done slamming enemies into the floor, we had to actually go study. Y’know, do the thing I asked Noelle to help me and Kris with.”

“Mhm?”

“So we went into the study to, well, study. You saw it, you know it’s an awesome room to work in. Comfy chairs, tons’a space on that huge desk. Dunno where the hell Carol got all those reference books from, but they’re super helpful.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she ordered them in a single massive set. The only other places I’ve seen those books are in libraries. Big ones, not like the Librarby,” clarified Asriel. He shrugged. “They’ve gotta come from somewhere.”

“God, that family’s full of nerds.” Susie scoffed on the other end. “Eh, maybe not Rudy. Just Carol and Noelle.”

“If Dad’s stories are anything to go by, yeah,” he admitted. “Silly, big-hearted, masculine. Huh. Mother and daughter really share a type,” he added teasingly.

“Oi! Shut up!” she exclaimed, clearly a bit flustered, and maybe a little pissed.

“Sorry,” replied Asriel. “Maybe not the best joke to make when y’all are still…” He struggled to find a good descriptor for how her relationship with Noelle was, as far as he knew. He came up empty. “Still y’all.”
“I’ll say,” deadpanned Susie. “Anyway. Studying was going great. Assignments done left and right, yada yada. Kinda like what happened a few weeks ago… didn’t.”

“I’m glad,” sympathized Asriel, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knew that pause in her voice was leading up to something.

“But the whole time, it was, I dunno, weird. I think I only came into this room once before Noelle and Carol remodeled. There were still those glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Y’know. Dess’s.”

“They kept those?” wondered Asriel aloud.

“Yup,” she replied, popping the ‘p.’ “The whole time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were in a different world from me. Same room, but to them, it was…” Susie paused, searching. “More.”

Asriel hummed wistfully. “I understand. Carol probably didn’t want the room to stop being, well, more like didn’t want it to be as though Dess never existed. That might be the only thing worse than the way it was before.”

“...It was probably hard for you too, huh? Seeing it get changed?” asked Susie after a delay.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I spent so much time in there as a kid, listening to her play her guitar or playing pretend with all the little military figurines. Her room was, how do I say it… a home base for us, of sorts. If we wanted to get away from Mom and Dad’s constant PDAs and endless talk or Carol’s bull, we’d just hole up in there. Sometimes with our siblings, but not all the time.”

“I imagine you did more than just ‘hole up,’ Asriel,” said Susie, probably with a maniacal grin on her face, as she suddenly did an all-too-good impression of Toriel’s voice whenever she was being strict or skeptical. The same voice before she found out that the rumors about the spin-the-bottle incident were true. 

Asriel gulped on reflex. “I mean, yeah. Obviously. You already knew that she and I were an item. I don’t see why you’re trying to get under my skin over it.”

He heard Susie chuckle through the receiver. Restrained, like she was saving up for something big. “When we were moving stuff out, there was that old retainer stuffed in one of the boxes. Bet that was fun to deal with when you were snogging all the time. Like I said, ‘cept Rudy, a whole family of nerds. Wonder if that’s why Kris was so cagey about tryna hide it. Ruin the family reputation.”

She got the wrong impression, though a near miss. Thank god. The evil look on Kris’s face whenever they threatened to use that little tidbit about the old retainer as leverage was not something he needed another person in on. “Y-yeah. That old thing of h-hers was always fun to deal with.”

There was a too-long pause. Quickly, Asriel realized how much damage the resurfacing of that old stammer of his might have done, and that the longer he remained quiet, the faster Susie would figure it out. Oh hell. “A-Anyway, a-about the room, w-what as it you wanted to ask–

“AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!” roared Susie malevolently, peaking the mic of her phone and causing Asriel to flinch. He took the moment of silence to reflect upon his blunders. And to pray for mercy, of which he would be shown none. “It was YOURS! That’s SO much funnier! Hahahahahaha! Little nerd boy and his nerd lisp with fucked-up teeth, makin’ out with his cool girlfriend! HAAAhahahahaha, aha–!”

Susie suddenly went quiet. In the midst of his self-directed cursing, he could’ve sworn he heard a muffled “shit” on her end.

“Oh hell, I better not have woken them up,” muttered Susie.

“Does this mean I’m spared?” asked Asriel, picking up on the fact that Kris and Toriel were probably asleep by now. 

Susie sighed. “Only because it’s too funny for me to make fun of you for now. Expect hell on Christmas, buddy.”

Pinching the skin between his eyes, Asriel groaned. “Mercy?” he entreated.

“Nope!”

Damnit.

“But, uh. What I wanted to ask was, uh.” A sudden hesitance seized her throat. “There’s photos of you all everywhere. Toriel’s fridge, Noelle’s computer, the desk in the study, all over the place. D’you, uh, have your own? Photos?”

Behind Asriel’s computer and drawing tablet, at the flanks of his desk, were three distinct photos. One was of him and Kris, him in his late teens, and Kris around twelve. Kris was holding onto his hand tightly, wearing one of his old sweaters, hiding their eyes behind a mat of hair. Asriel himself was standing tall, his horns mostly grown in, with a large backpack, an old pair of glasses, and a suitcase. It was the day he’d left for college. He remembered that Kris had been crying the day before, but on that day, there was an odd smile on their lips. It was a bit of a distressing photo to look at during the breaks he spent on campus, though normally it served as more than effective encouragement to keep up with his calls home. He’d prefer that to idly pretending everything was fine.

Next to it was a photo older by a good five years, and quite the opposite of its neighbor. Asriel and especially Kris were utterly dwarfed by their parents’ heights, all four of them with bright smiles on their faces. They were standing in front of the school. Asgore was clean-shaven and in uniform, his badge glinting proudly on his chest, and a hand resting on Asriel’s shoulder. Toriel had a beautiful blouse on, with a long, flowing skirt, and held a book under one arm, her free hand resting on Kris’s shoulder. Kris had a huge, toothy grin on their face, while Asriel, having only recently been prescribed glasses, was managing a smile without a shred of confidence behind him. He remembered Dess making fun of him relentlessly when she saw it.

And on the other end of the desk was a photo of him and Dess together, taken when both of them were fifteen. Asriel had on a track jacket, though with no special adornments that would later be plastered on for all his successes (which he always wanted to tear off), leaning on Dess shoulder to shoulder, one hand strictly at his side while the other’s fingertips meekly peeked over her shoulder. Dess, meanwhile, sported an unbuttoned flannel over a white tank top, grinning wildly with her shock of short dark hair almost covering one eye and her bat swung over her shoulder to rest behind Asriel’s head. To complete the image, she was giving him bunny ears behind his head, a fact whose subsequent laughter Kris had barely been able to contain as they took the photo. This photo was Asriel’s favorite, being one where he could remember with an uncanny acuity every little feeling of the moment: the wind on his face, the cool autumn air, the heat that threatened to rise in his cheeks because being like this next to Dess was simultaneously so natural and yet so daring in the face of what would happen should his mother ever decode what he was feeling when he stood there. 

“Asriel? You there?”

Susie’s rough voice calmed the swirling storm of memories that started to rise around him. “Sorry. Yeah. I do. Have photos.”

“Of Dess?”

Asriel nodded. “Dess, Kris, my whole family. Though the last one…” Asriel leered at it. Not only had his family not been anything like they were in that picture, but it had looked even more wrong in the past year, and yet more wrong in the past couple weeks. “The last one’s a bit out of date,” he settled on.

He heard a sharp intake of breath. “Gotta admit, I’m… jealous.”

“Of…?”

“All that history,” she elaborated.

A switch flipped in Asriel’s mind. “Is that why you’re calling so late?”

“Mm. Don’t want to tell Kris or anyone about this,” confessed Susie, “It’s the last thing I should be worried about, I know, but… not yet. They shouldn’t have to deal with it yet.”

Asriel frowned. “Hey. You might as well be family now. You shouldn’t feel bad about feeling bad. That’s just going to make you spiral.”

“I know, I know,” she replied falteringly, “I mean. I don’t know, but I know. Y’know?”

“Yeah.” 

“I just wish that… that I could have my own pictures. Of my history with Kris.”

Confused, Asriel asked, “Weren’t you in the Christmas photo last year?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What do you mean, then?” he said, trying to come off as placating at the increasing sharpness of her tone.

“I mean, what we shared,” she breathed, her voice rigid but fragile. “Us and… and Ralsei.”

Oh. “I’m sorry,” murmured Asriel. He was lucky, wasn’t he? To have these physical memories around him. Little bits of proof that Kris’s smile existed, that his old family’s happiness existed. That Dess existed. “I never even considered…”

“Mm.”

There was a long beat of silence. Asriel wished he could do something to help. She deserved to have what he did. She deserved to have something, anything that could show the world that what she went through wasn’t a fake. He never realized how much he took that for granted.

He heard a sniffle on the other end. “It’s… it’s late. I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Wait, Susie!”

A wet chuckle dripped through the speaker. “It’s fine. I just… I need to think.”

“Are you sure?” asked Asriel, knowing full well that she was.

“Yeah. Night, Asriel.”

“Good night, Susie,” he barely managed to fit in before the call went silent.

He checked his watch. Past midnight. Tossing his phone to his mattress, he stood up, grabbing a sleeping pill and a glass of water as he headed to the kitchen. Susie had given him a lot to think about. With work looming large in the late morning, he figured it all’d be better tackled unconsciously than fought with all night. Knowing his sleep wouldn’t be dreamless, he swallowed down the pill, chased it with water, and began to get ready for bed.

Chapter Text

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding.”

Kris snickered at Susie’s side. “Yep. Hope you don’t mind your retinas burning,” they commented dryly, staring blankly at the massive display.

Susie screwed her eyes shut, rubbing at the lids. “How do they even have this many Christmas lights?”

“They’re the Holidays,” they stated, as if it were the most obvious conclusion in the world. In retrospect, Susie should’ve seen this coming. The lights and displays at the Festival had been incredibly involved and intricate on their own, arching across the streets, encircling fixtures, shining bright and drowning out all hints of the late autumn night into which it stretched later and later. However, the thought had never crossed her mind that any large fraction of that could have come from the Holidays themselves; she’d always figured that they were the overseers, not the source.

How wrong she’d been.

It wasn’t just the house. The long stretch of deciduous trees lining the stone path up to the front of the mansion had all been decorated; ornaments and collections of light strips took the place of the leaves lost to the winter, replacing their orange-gold shades with dazzling hues of white, green, and red, while each and every tree had somehow been topped with battery-powered stars (all Kris’s doing). Santa figures were one thing, but having one on each side of the path followed by twelve empty-eyed reindeer monsters had taken the display from beautiful to strikingly uncanny in Susie’s opinion. Especially with the strings of aggressive red lights overhead, bathing them all in crimson. Maybe it would’ve been wiser to have the strings of lights arranged by color widthwise over the path, instead of massive lengths of differing colors. Somewhere in the trees were speakers that quietly played various festive tunes in a music box style. Idly, Susie had wondered if the point was to bridge the divide between happy seasonal celebrations and shots ripped from slasher flicks. 

Yet all of those lights and disturbing imagery paled in comparison to the house Susie was currently barely able to see. The freestanding, old-timey street lamps were covered with decorations, their individual panes different colors from one another to the point of gaudiness. The hedges and huge pine trees were dense with their own lights and contrasting red-and-white candy canes and sleighs and Santas. Every inch of space at the bottom rims of decorations or lamps or trees was coated with incredibly realistic fake icicles. Cobalt-blue snowflake light patterns with complexities and details that outstripped anything in Susie’s experience with the season lined the house. Every window was adorned with a snowflake design, unique from the blue-lit design and encircled by an elaborate wreath, and crowned with red and green ribbons on each of the top corners with star-shaped lights shining between. Whatever lights were on inside the house that would otherwise make themselves known through the window on the front door were obscured by the brilliance of those wrapping around the columns and along the sharp angles of the awning, another piece of architecture crowned with stars. The roofs of the turrets on each flank looked as though coated with some reflective surface, brilliant with blue and white and gold and green and red all at once, though still maintained their old spiraling icicle patterns. Above it all towered the Holidays’ roof sleigh, covered with lights and surrounded by blinding gift boxes that gave it the appearance of being twice its already massive size. The massive Santa riding it was at least to scale.

Susie screwed her eyes shut tight, watching the phantom lights dance behind the eyelids the light display was doing a remarkably good job of penetrating. In hopes of escaping to somewhere where there would hopefully be fewer lights, she strode towards the front door.

“Hey, uh, Susie,” mumbled Kris.

“What?” she replied, stopping. 

They fell silent, considering something. “...Nothing. Nevermind.”

Susie scoffed, resuming her walk. Kris was only a good liar by means of not answering; their tone of voice was enough for her to know that something was obviously up. She’d interrogate them once she could see again. The door had to be somewhere around here. Confidently running through the possibilities in her head, she stepped forward.

Thud!

Her snout slammed against the hard stone and pine needles of the column at the front of the house, the pain lancing through her face being enough to jolt her eyes open. “Ow! Agh! Ow ow ow ow!”

Kris chortled behind her. She whipped around, squinting to block out the blinding lights. It didn’t hurt that she also looked more threatening in the process. “Kris?” she asked accusingly, drawing out their name.

“Mmmhm?” they answered, their face stony.

“You knew I was gonna hit the damn thing, didn’t you, Kris?”

“Nope,” deadpanned Kris, so convincingly that if not for their earlier attempt to stop her that Susie might’ve believed they weren’t lying.

Susie stepped forward, pushed out her chest to make herself look bigger, and towered over Kris with a demonic grin. Huffing the pine needles out of her nostrils, she growled, “I’ll fucking get you.”

“Sure you will,” they responded absentmindedly. Seemingly undisturbed by the massively overzealous light display, they strode up to the door and loudly knocked to the tune of Jingle Bells.

“Just a second!” carried a melodic voice through the door.

Susie turned to Kris, the sound of Noelle’s impending presence momentarily putting her on edge. “You, uh, think this’ll be, uh, okay?” she stammered. “Me being here?”

Kris shook their head. “Dude, it’d be weirder if you weren’t.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she huffed. “Just like… me and Noelle? Think that’s a recipe for disaster after. Y’know.”

They squinted at her. “We’ve been hanging out together for weeks. It’s not like it’ll be any different.”

“Uh, yeah, but that’s, like, studying. Plausible deniability,” countered Susie.

Kris sighed at her stubbornness. “Fine. If you’re so worried, I’ll simply humiliate you publicly. A year's worth of dirt.” A malevolent twinkle shone in their ruby-red eyes.

Susie wasn’t buying it. “Who would care? Not like Carol would. Your dad’s cringey as hell. Your mom would find it cute.”

“Noelle invited Berdly,” they stated dully.

She paled at the thought of Berdly of all people knowing about her taste in anime. Though it could be worse. It could be Alphys. “...Goddamnit,” relented Susie, just in time for the sound of the latch opening to make her jolt to attention.

“Kris! Susie! You made it!” chirped Noelle from the opened doorway, dressed to the nines in holiday-appropriate colors. “Early, too!”

“Hey, Noelle.”

“We figured we could help out a bit before everyone else shows up,” explained Kris.

Noelle pouted a little. “'Help out?' Kris, you don’t think I’d believe that for a second, do you? What’s your plan?”

“Plan? What on earth are you talking about, Noelle? What ulterior motive could I possibly have other than the magnanimity of my own heart?” they denied, sighing dramatically for effect.

Noelle squinted dubiously at them. “I’ve got my eye on you, twerp.”

Susie cut in, nudging Kris’s elbow. “I think they just wanna hang out, right, Kris? No need to pretend you’re not lazy as hell.”

“Your attacks on my character are grossly unfounded and slanderous,” they responded in an impressively haughty voice. “Just you wait ‘til Mother hears of this.”

“I’ll tell her to stick you in our light displays! String you up!” exclaimed Noelle, holding back giggles.

Kris shook their head condescendingly. “Mother would never betray her child like that,” they countered, refusing to let go of the weird voice they were doing.

“That’s true, but what about…” An evil grin spread on Noelle’s lips. “Oh, Suuusiiieeee!” she trilled.

Susie smirked at Kris. “Any last words, buddy?”

Kris, maintaining their stony facade, mouthed the word ‘blackmail’ at her.

She thought for a moment. It would be incredibly funny to see Kris tangled up like that; the story of that happening to them by accident when they were a kid was an old favorite, and she wanted in. No way in hell was she gonna give them the reason to pull the Berdly trigger, though. Hm.

“You know…” she began contemplatively. “I might not be tall enough to do that, and if Toriel and Asgore, who are both taller than me, are out of the running…”

Noelle’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Aha! Do you mean, maybe…?”

Kris’s eyes widened. “Susie, no.”

Susie grinned maniacally. “Susie, yes.”

“Noelle, please. Help.” Kris clasped their hands together in mock-prayer, giving Noelle puppy eyes all the while.

“Only if you behave!” was her response.

Kris sighed, seeming to admit defeat. “Alright, alright, you got me. Can we come in now?”

Noelle snickered, stepping aside to let them and Susie inside. “I know it’s not as impressive as it used to be, but I think we did a great job! Wouldn’t you agree?”

Above all the other parts of the house that only looked even more festive than usual, Susie’s eyes were glued to the massive tree at the center of the foyer. Though tall enough to reach all the way up to the second-story ceiling, its entire height was decked out with a massive assortment of crystalline ornaments and shining lights that stained the white walls with their colors. “Woah…” she breathed. “How in the hell did you even fit that inside?! That thing’s huge!”

Kris simply pointed at the large, tall, hinged windows in the sitting area that looked out into the garden. “Opened all those up.”

Susie blinked. “...Y’know, I was wondering why they could open up like those old, uh, window-shuttery things. Guess that explains it.”

“Yep!” chirped Noelle. “Mom and Dad made sure that was part of the plans when they got the house built. It’d be a bit ridiculous for the Holidays to be outdone, don’tcha think?”

“Noelle. Please. You don’t need to hide it. We all know you’re…” began Kris. Barely out of Susie’s earshot, they poked at Noelle’s antlers and whispered into her ear something that made her turn bright red.

“K-Kris! No! Bad!” yelped Noelle, lightly thwacking them on the head like a misbehaving dog. “A-And you know that these are antlers, not horns! Augh! Why are you like this?!” she protested, caught between hiding her face and failing miserably at looking authoritative.

Stepping back, they smirked thinly. “Fine. You’re antler-y for it.”

Noelle groaned, drowning out the little snort Susie made. “Oh my gosh, Kris, are you ever going to let me live that down?!”

“All I’m saying is you should’ve been a little more careful clicking those pop-ups,” said Kris dryly, clearly relishing their position.

“It’s not my fault the dolphins were cute!” she retorted, the blush on her cheeks fading.

Susie cocked her head to the side. “Dolphins?”

“O-Oh, I, er, uh,” stammered Noelle, suddenly all the more flustered now that Susie had interjected. Though, unless Susie’s eyes were deceiving her, Noelle looked more nervous about it than usual, and not in the embarrassed-about-her-crush way she’d been way back when. “T-they were back in the Cyber World! The ones that’d throw a bunch of pop-up ads at you to hide their attacks!”

“Oh, those guys! Their ads rocked. Always wanted a bazooka so I could blow shit up,” she reminisced dreamily. What else was there? It was so long ago that she couldn’t remember the particulars, except–

Except for one.

Susie’s eyes scanned the window Ralsei was staring at. He’d been told to ACT by Kris, but hadn’t seemed to actually be doing anything yet. On the screen in front of him were tons of ads. Cake, castles, guns. Seemed like pretty tailored stuff. Maybe less so for the guns… But there was the Thrash Machine he made with Kris, and that thing was absolutely loaded with them. Was it his idea?

She leaned over to him. “What’s taking so long, dude?”

“O-Oh! Sorry!” he apologized immediately. “This is… a lot of information all at once. I’m not used to it. Nor doing my own ACTs.”

“Well, you better choose soon, or the enemies’ll attack us while you’re still staring!” warned Susie, just waiting to see if he’d mess up.

“O-Okay!” he replied. In his haste moving the pointer to close the window, Ralsei clicked slightly too early. A moment later, the entire screen became covered in a massive webpage filled with generic images of people, garish colors, atrocious fonts, and copy-and-pasted hearts in true, crusty jpeg form.

Susie read the flashing, rainbow-y comic sans text at the top of the page in disbelief. “‘Lightners 4 darkners in ur area!?’” She shot Ralsei an even look, which soon turned into ! smirk, which in turn shattered under a tide of raucous laughter. “HAHAHAHAHAHA! RALSEI! Dude! Hahahahaha!”

He panicked, immediately sending the cursor diving for the browser extension on the taskbar. “W-Wait! Susie! It’s not what it looks like!”

Doubling over with laughter, Susie pointed a finger at him. “Haha, dude! ‘Lightners 4 Darkners?!’ Didn’t, haha, didn’t know you were into that, ahahaha!”

“No no no no! That’s not it at all!” he cried, hovering over the extension and slamming a finger down on the Delete key.

The horror that then spread on his face went unnoticed for a moment as Susie roared with laughter. “Dude, just lemme know and I’ll set you up! People in Hometown seem real interested in fluffy boys!” she teased, somehow only laughing harder and harder.

Ralsei grabbed the side of her jacket, tugging at her to try to get her attention. “No no no, Susie, you don’t understand! I-I just! Just!”

“Outed yourself?” she laughed. “Yeah, I BET you did! Turns out you’re just a normal teenager after all, Mr. Mysterious!”

“No no no! Susie! Listen to me! I deleted the Internet, Susie! The INTERNET! You’ve got to help me!” he blubbered, eyes wide with panicked terror.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment. “You… what?”

“Look!” he exclaimed, jabbing a finger at the taskbar where the browser extension used to be. “It’s gone! I deleted the Internet! Oh, what have I done!?”

Susie locked eyes with the panicking boy in front of her. “Pfft… heh. HehaHAHAHA!”

“SUSIE! This is no laughing matter, Susie!” cried Ralsei.

“HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH!”

Susie bit the corners of her lips to stop herself from laughing. As good of a memory as it was, now was not the time for it. “So, uh,” she began. “What sort of ads did you two get?”

“Oh, Kris got–”

“So Noelle got–”

They turned to each other, interrupting themselves to begin some sort of intense staring match. Susie watched both of them closely. Neither of them were blinking. She wanted to know what they were going to say, but she didn’t need to interrupt. Kris’s years of self-isolation had paid off in the form of an unbelievably stoic facade that they could cast up when needed, though Susie found it did have its cracks occasionally. She knew they would be the winner.

Yet, for whatever reason, Kris and Noelle were still staring at each other. Susie lost count of how many times she’d blinked in between. She wondered if the two’s shared childhood meant Noelle was even better at spotting the ‘cracks’ than her; since the first time she’d been in Dess’s room with her, Susie had suspected that was the case. All the while, her mind was still strangely desperate to know exactly what was going through their heads right then.

There. A tiny nod from Kris. Did they lose?

No, Noelle nodded too. What just happened?

Suddenly, both of their heads whipped right towards Susie.
“Kris clicked on–”
“Noelle clicked on–”

They looked at each other again. The air was electric with a silent tension. Noelle was staring daggers at Kris, who in turn was having a really hard time not smiling.

Kris moved first. Starting to run, they hollered, “hotfemalesantasBYE!”

“KRIS!” Noelle yelled back. Ignorant of Susie’s snickering, she sprinted after them, hounding their footfalls up the stairs. “GET BACK HERE!”

As soon as Noelle reached the second floor, she and Kris engaged one another in a sort of dance at the opposite ends of the hall. Kris would threaten to go down a step, and so too would Noelle. Then, Kris would threaten to go back up one, and Noelle would match their movements. Back and forth, hands on the railings, they continued this game of chicken until Noelle had enough and launched after them along the second floor landing. Kris, in a single acrobatic leap, flung themself halfway down the stairs, landing on the railing and sliding down the rest of the way to the floor. “YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!” they hollered, sprinting around the tree and flinging open the kitchen door, likely hoping to use the door that led from there to the side patio to escape.

An icily humorous voice crawled out from the kitchen door, undeterred by the skidding of Kris’s heels. “Ah, there you are, Kris. Would you care to help set up the dining room before the guests arrive?”

Recognizing Carol’s offer to spare them from Noelle’s wrath, they relented. “Sure thing,” they answered, sullenly stepping into the kitchen and closing the door behind them.

Noelle skidded to a halt outside the kitchen door. “Darn it! Mom! Let me have my revenge!”

“You have all night,” responded Carol through the door. A laugh could faintly be heard. “Make it spectacular, would you?”

“Fahahahaha, of course, Mom!” replied Noelle, cheery but with an exacting edge to her voice that rarely ever came out.

Susie removed the hand she’d been holding over her mouth to bark out a laugh. “So. ‘Hot Female Santas,’ huh?”

Noelle reddened. “Is it that surprising?” she asked, teeth grated.

“Hell no,” answered Susie. “Almost scarily in character. That was the blackmail Kris was hesitating to use against you?”

“W-Well, um…” Noelle trailed off. “A-Anyway! W-We’ve got revenge plotting to do! Where to start, where to start?” she rambled.

As Noelle drowned out the silence with idle chatter masquerading as a train of thought, Susie realized with a start that this was the first time they’d been alone together for anything longer than a bathroom break since… since the Festival. Shit. Shit. She told herself to stay calm. It was just like the study/gaming sessions. Kris was just in the other room. Nothing was different.

“S-Susie, c’mon, any ideas?” pleaded Noelle. “You’ve got to have something to use, faha! Help me out here!”

This was easy. Come on. “I’ll help if you tell me what you were going to say.”

“About…?”

“The Poppups,” clarified Susie. “I know you’ve got dirt on them too. Spill it, and I’ll help.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Noelle, eyes lighting up with a conspiratorial fire. Her lips stretched into a malevolent if shaky grin. “I saw them click on an ad at the same time as I got the, um, female santas thing. ‘Monsters 4 Humans.’ Guess they couldn’t resist the dolphins either.”

Susie laughed. “Shit, kinda glad Kris broke the stalemate. Even playing field and all.”

“They couldn’t just play it cool for a little longer,” huffed Noelle, still a bit embarrassed. “Anyway. Evil plans.”

“Evil plans,” concurred Susie excitedly. “We should go somewhere Kris can’t hear us. Don’t want them to catch wind.”

“Good idea, Susie!” Noelle tilted her head towards the back door. “This way! They’ll never know what hit them, fehehehehe.”

Susie grinned. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard Noelle laugh that evilly before.

“Wait, your plan is to let Kris prank you again?”

“Mhm!” hummed Noelle excitedly, her green eyes shining brighter than the swaths of fairy lights. “You live with them, you probably know even better than I do that they’re always up to something. Ratting me out is more like an appetizer for them at these things. Gosh, they might not even be counting that as a prank! Maybe there’ll be two in store tonight!”

Susie narrowed her eyes. “You’re, uh… really excited about that, huh.”

“Of course! It’s not every day you get Kris to prank a whole dinner party,” answered Noelle. “Anyway, where was I? Oh! Yeah! So. We know Kris knows we’re up to something, so we’ve got to play along. That’s the first step. Then, once they think they have the advantage, we spring the trap.”

“No offense, dude, but that’s probably the first thing they’ll think of,” replied Susie skeptically. “If you just let yourself get pranked, they’ll know something’s up.”

“Hmm… Yeah, you’re right. They’ll see it from a mile away…” Noelle closed her eyes, tapping her fingers against her wrist where her hands were folded in her lap. “What if… What if we set up two pranks of our own?”

Susie caught on immediately, leaning forward just a little. “Like a dummy prank? Make it look like you got back at them, then hit ‘em with the real shit once their guard is down?”

“Exactly! But it has to be a convincing dummy prank. They can’t figure out that it’s a smokescreen…” remarked Noelle.

“Got anything in mind?” asked Susie. She was hardly finished speaking when Noelle answered, her bright eyes shooting open and a mischievous smile spreading along her lips.

“So you know how particular Kris is about chocolate? Like, they’ll still eat it by the truckload, but especially the super dark stuff?” Susie nodded. “I may or may not have individually switched all the dark chocolates’ wrappers with the white chocolate ones.”

“All of them?” repeated Susie, surprised. “And wait, aren’t they gonna be able to tell the wrappers were opened?”

“As many as could be replaced, anyway. Nothing that can’t be solved by a handful of clear glue sticks or some folding.” Noelle rubbed her hands together. “I wonder if they realized I might have prepared for their tricks, fahaha.”

“That’s evil. Like, I know that’s the point, but damn.”

Noelle chuckled. “I’m getting even. It’s completely different. Besides, the idea you had for the main prank… Now that might be a little too cruel.”

Shaking her head, Susie replied, “Nah, trust me. They think they’ve been sneaky about it. No clue that I’m onto them. It’s gonna be perfect.”

“Even with Berdly here?”

That gave Susie pause. Debating anything at all with Berdly was typically a fool’s errand, except if trying to make him mad. She mulled it over. “...Eh, if anything, they might be happy about it. You just know Berdly’s gonna try to start a debate over it, and they love pissing him off.”

Animatedly poking a finger into her palm, Noelle began to speak in a hushed voice. “So, to review the plan. Stop me if anything sounds wrong. Step 1: We wait to see if they’ve picked up on the prank I’ve set. If they haven’t, then we try to nudge them subtly towards it. Step 2: Whenever Kris pulls their real prank on me, we act surprised. Not too surprised, though. Then, step 3: Once everyone’s gotten settled with dinner, you calmly excuse yourself, saying you have to go to the bathroom. Then?”

Excited, Susie struggled to keep her voice low. “I sneak out, nab the incriminating evidence, and sneak back in. Then, when it’s photo time, we hit ‘em with it.”

Noelle stared at her for a second. “...Not literally, right?”

“Probably,” responded Susie laconically, eliciting a quiet giggle from Noelle. “Either way, they’ll never know what hit them.”

Pumping her fist in the air, Noelle flashed her a wink. “It’s perfect.”

For a long while afterward, the porch fell silent. It was still a bit early for everyone else to show up, so while Kris and Carol worked on dinner, that left Susie with Noelle. Alone. For nearly twenty minutes already. Having something to talk about had been a miracle; any other day, Susie would’ve worried about five minutes. Despite a month and a half having passed since the Festival, she couldn’t get what had happened out of her mind, especially not with Noelle so close.

The doe herself seemed uncomfortable, too. Every now and then could Susie see those emerald eyes glance towards hers before swiftly looking away, never making direct eye contact. More than once did Noelle seem like she wanted to say something, her jaw shifting down as though readying her to speak before snapping back into position. Susie wondered what could be going through her mind; if she had to guess, probably thoughts about what an asshole she was for how things went down, or how to stop thinking those thoughts and fill the air with idle nothings until time was up. 

Recollection struck Susie at that moment. The night of the Festival, after what happened on the ferris wheel, she’d been stuck in that same position. Aflame with an insatiable desire to speak up, to try to talk about what happened. Frozen with uncertainty. 

Susie snorted. Still the same, almost two months later.

“Is something funny?” asked Noelle, glancing at Susie before following her unfocused gaze to the light display surrounding the backyard. “Yeah, fencing off all the trees with fairy lights was maybe a bit overboard, faha.”

Her laugh was recognizably forced, her smile uncomfortable and laden with poorly-buried wist. “Nah, it’s nothing. Was just thinking,” replied Susie.

“About what?” pressed Noelle, perhaps entirely unaware of the magnitude of the pressure under which she was crushing Susie by asking, or perhaps entirely all too aware and hoping for a lighthearted answer. 

“About, uh…” This was the critical moment. Susie had two choices at the front of her mind. One would be to apologize for everything that had happened, her weird evasiveness, whatever could come to mind. Two would be to take the out for which Noelle seemed eager, to try to distract them both with some halfhearted joke or anecdote that danced around the problem and never addressed it. Mired by the second option for over a year, she knew she shouldn’t indulge the instinct behind it any more than she already had. She needed to be honest with herself. 

Yet, as much as she tried, her lips wouldn’t form an apology. She was still trapped.

Fuck it. Dichotomies were stupid. Option Three it was. “So, uh, Noelle. About… about that night…” began Susie, trying to meet Noelle’s eyes.

The eerie rictus on Noelle’s face vanished. “You mean the Festival.”

Susie nodded. “After I…” She swallowed. Come to think of it, every time she attempted to conjure an image of what happened on the ferris wheel, its form was misshapen. Like half of it was vivid and alive and sensible, while the rest was distorted and awkward, gaps filled by reason rather than recollection. “After I did what I did…When you gave me my sweater back. You, I, uh.” Shit. Words failed her again as she tried to locate the precise moment. “...Why?”

Noelle raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you wanted to ask about?” she responded, disbelieving.

“Not that!” exclaimed Susie, jolting back a bit and waving her hands like an idiot. “I mean, why, uh… why’d you apologize? After what I did?”

The look on Noelle’s face made Susie’s heart hurt. It wasn’t scorn, nor was it confusion. It was an expression of knowing recognition, grim yet undeniably certain of the events who existed only as a haze to Susie. “I, um…” She tented her fingers together rigidly in her lap. “I felt bad? Like, I should’ve noticed something was wrong sooner.

“The whole day, I could tell you were… off. You kept staring off into space, or looking away, or glaring at everything. You’d say things that didn’t make sense. Like thanking me for taking your sweater. It sounded like your usual embarrassed bluster, at the time…”

“Bluster?!” blurted out Susie, indignant.

“Yeah, bluster,” jabbed Noelle, chuckling a little, though the amusement slipped off her face like slime. “But as I thought about it more, and as it kept happening, I started to wonder…” She drew out the words, as though interrogating each and every one as they left her lips. “...And then the ferris wheel happened. You, faha, really gave me a good scare there.”

Susie’s mouth hung open. Was Noelle trying to spin it positively? Back on the wheel, Noelle had been crying. Cornered in the back of that rank carriage, trembling, telling Susie to stop right where she was. That was one of the clearest details in Susie’s mind. 

“...Good?” she mumbled angrily.

Noelle let out a confused hum. “You know, like the saying?”

“I don’t,” bit out Susie, the clack of her colliding jaws accentuating the dental stop. “That… none of that was good. You looked, Noelle, you were terrified.”

“What? Faha, no, I-I wasn’t terrified,” protested Noelle weakly. “I-I was caught off guard, yeah, but, but I was just surprised, is all!”

Susie rolled her head away with a frustrated huff. “Cut the bull. I’ve seen you scared more times than I could count. Almost every time, you smile afterwards. Not then. Look,” she added, buying herself a bit of breathing room. “It’s, uh, okay to be scared. In a bad way. I’m. Sorry if I made you feel that way.” 

Noelle’s tongue clicked quietly off the back of her teeth, surprised. “No, it wasn’t– actually, I guess it was? Bad-scary. When we were…” Despite everything, her face flushed red. “When we were kissing, I kinda shoved that worry down. I was into it! And you seemed to be liking it, too. And when you made it French-style? Cheezus.”

“Cheezus?!” sputtered an unprepared Susie.

“Yeah, like, wow. I, um, hadn’t thought you were gonna go that far, faha.” continued Noelle. The humor left her features. “Then you kept going. It was only a little much at first. I think, um, that was kinda scary, but like, good-scary? Like ‘wow, she’s that into this?’” She let out another false laugh. “At a point, though, it started feeling like… like you weren’t even hearing me. And when you s-started crying and said his name…”

Shit. “I did?” breathed Susie. On some level, she’d understood the truth of the matter long before Noelle said as much. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she’d looked so repulsed. Hearing it confirmed, however, surprised her with a sharpness she hadn’t expected all the same.

“Mm,” affirmed Noelle. She managed a wistful smile that failed to reach her eyes. “Susie, when you said that… that was terrifying. I’ve thought about it so much since then, I don’t even know what to say about it. I was scared of you, and I was scared for you. The signs were so obvious that I didn’t even miss them. I just pretended they weren’t there!” Frustrated, she threw her arms up in the air. “That’s why I said I’m sorry. Because I am.” A quiet sigh escaped her. “I should’ve known better, Susie.”

Ache spiked through Susie’s chest. “That’s not fair,” she rebelled.

“Isn’t it?” contested Noelle. “I could’ve taken the chance to ask you if you were okay. Not just then, but beforehand, too. I knew you and Kris were leaving stuff out when either of you talked about him. Like an idiot, though, I just assumed that if it weren’t fine, you’d bring it up. ‘She’s Susie, loud, boisterous Susie, of course she’d bring it up!’” she added, gesturing air quotes. “That’s what was unfair. I acted like I knew everything about you.”

Susie scoffed. “That’s not your fault. Honestly, I…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I didn’t want… ‘Til recently, I didn’t talk to anyone about him.”

“Not even Kris?” inquired Noelle, prompting a calm head shake from Susie.

“Not even them,” she affirmed. “Only person I’ve talked to, really talked to about it is Asriel.”

Noelle’s eyebrow raised. “Him? How come?”

Susie shrugged. “I dunno. We were talkin’ once, and when I heard about him ‘n Dess, I figured he might, I dunno, get it?”

“Did he?” 

Susie didn’t fail to detect a hint of bitterness in Noelle’s voice. She probably deserved that. With a nod, she replied, “Yeah. I mean, I was totally wrong about him. Not my place to talk about it, but he’s got shit, too. But, uh, yeah. It helped. Even if I’ve barely got any of this shit figured out.”

“I’m really beginning to think nobody does,” said Noelle, somewhere between sincere and joking. 

Susie snickered. “Heh. I guess it could be worse. Like, uhh… Kinda hate to say it with how much better he is now, but frickin’ Asgore.”

Noelle laughed breathlessly. “Oh my gosh, he was so weird about it! I wanted to shrivel up and die whenever he and Toriel were in the same room, fahaha.”

“Yeah, heh. God, I felt so bad for Kris. I didn’t wanna call their dad a loser to their face, but I swear, I’ve never seen that much of a loser in my life,” added Susie. “Once saw him meet Toriel at the convenience store when I was hanging out with them. Holy shit that was awkward.”

“Oh, you think that’s bad?” countered Noelle. “Back when he used to clean for us, I’d hear him muttering to himself about which flowers to get for her around the house. Roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, you name it. He and Mom barely crossed paths, but the looks Mom gave him when they did were hilarious!” she laughed.

Shaking her head, Susie replied, “God. Glad he’s past that by now.”

“Hear, hear.”

As the last of the laughs left her system, Susie smiled. It was starting to get dark out; the rest of the guests would be here soon. She was glad to find her prior trepidations wrong, but there was something still nipping at the back of her brain.

“Hey, uh, Noelle?” she began carefully. “If you… If you knew that Ralsei and I were an item, or however you call what we were… would you have acted differently? Said something?”

Noelle chewed on the corner of her lip, gaze settling into a rigorous slant. She let out a breath. “Honestly, faha, I don’t know. I think, either way, I would’ve taken the Festival date. Maybe, going in, I would’ve felt a little more jealous that he had something with you I didn’t, or maybe I would’ve been sympathetic, that you’d wanted to have the experience before, too. You did talk about trying to invite him to last year’s a couple times.”

“Really?”

A wry grin spread out on each side of her buck teeth. “You bet you did, Miss ‘He Goes To Another School.’ You really aren’t very subtle about it, you know.”

Susie buried her face in her hands, a little red in the cheeks. “Oh my god. I can’t believe that’s what I went with.”

“Fahahaha! Gosh, I was so confused at the time. You and Kris had suddenly been friends for, what, two days, and suddenly you made it sound like you’d had a boyfriend who was also their friend?” Noelle’s smirk turned contemplative. “Come to think of it, was that before you two were a thing?”

“By a day, yeah,” admitted Susie. She scowled. “Which is why it felt so damn stupid to talk about. ‘Boyfriend’ sounds so… blegh. We weren’t even like that for two days.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “That’s the stupidest thing about all this. You all knew these people for so long. Decades. I only had Ralsei for five days. If you count the day I spent being a prick to him.”

Noelle offered her a sympathetic look. “Is that why you didn’t bring it up?”

A nod. “You, Kris, Toriel, Asgore… you all knew Dess for so long. Rudy even longer. And that new friend Toriel had made, even though he was a total jackass, poof! Gone! She was left completely alone. You only had your mom. Kris wouldn’t say it, but they considered Dess and Rudy family, too, and now both of them are dead. All of you lost your family all over again. No way in hell was I gonna drag everyone down with some sob story for a guy I knew for less than a week.”

“Oh.” Noelle scooched her chair closer to Susie’s. “Susie…”

“When you apologized to me that night, wanna know what I felt? Fury. I had no right to make you feel shitty when I made all those mistakes, when I made sure you weren’t looking at me, when I was too much of a damn coward to put anything to rest because I was afraid of making you feel shitty. I…” She sniffled. “It’s my freakin’ fault. All of it. I just couldn’t deal. Hah.” Screwing her eyes shut, Susie pinched the encroaching tears away from her eyes. “Can’t believe I’m such a coward.”

Noelle shook her head sadly. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Susie. I don’t think that’s entirely true.” She turned around in her seat to face Susie directly. “Remember that night we stayed up until like three A.M. playing horror games and stuff?”

Not caring to remove her tented hand from the middle of the face, Susie managed to meet Noelle’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“And when we stopped playing, we just started talking, and you mentioned that you didn’t used to have a lot of friends?”

“Mhm?”

Noelle tilted her head down, keeping her eyes on Susie’s. “I don’t think it’s stupid to feel the way you did. My and Kris’s families, we were lucky. To have each other for that long. Heck, our parents were friends in college. They’ve known each other for forever. But if I’d lost a friend I’d known for only a week? I’d still want to grab something comfy and bawl my eyes out all day, fah. And if I was in love with that friend? I’d be crying for days.”

Susie didn’t have to consider those words for long to recognize the truth Noelle spoke. “Mm. You’d, uh, have to run out that whole fridge of bottled water to stop yourself from dying of dehydration,” she joked feebly, eliciting a laugh from Noelle.

“I could get my mom to set up a giant water bottle in my room, like those things you see in hamster cages,” she added, getting a watery chuckle out of Susie.

“Dude, did you ever see the jail we had to put one of the Darkner kings in? We gave him one of those things,” she responded, turning to face Noelle again.

“What?! Why?!” laughed the doe, taken aback.

“He was evil,” deadpanned Susie. “Not like we were gonna let him dry up in there, of course, but that guy was evil evil. Threatened to kill his son and backstabbed Ralsei to try to get the rest of us.”

A searching expression crossed Noelle’s features, before her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh! Him! Right, you and Kris told me about him. Wasn’t the thing with his son a bluff?”

“Yeah, not like the fall would’ve killed Lancer, but we didn’t know that at the time. Still. Dick move.”

“Total dick move,” concurred Noelle.

Susie flashed her teeth in a wistful smile. “Yeah.”

A few moments of silence, warm despite the sub-freezing temperatures of Christmas evening, passed slowly on the little patio. There was still so much Susie wanted to say. She wanted to tell Noelle just how much three little words from Ralsei had meant to her, the first time the phrase had ever been sincerely gifted to her. She wanted to ask about how much Kris had divulged about her and Ralsei’s relationship; she could gather that Noelle didn’t know much, but she felt it might be good to pin that down. She wanted to ask more about Dess, too, to hear it from Noelle’s perspective. To hear it open and honest, not in an offer of one-sided support as she’d been doing for a year. She wanted to tell Noelle how much the past year meant to her, too. Even though she’d been hiding all this stuff away, she’d been happy, sometimes. For now, however, she was content that she’d gotten this far.

Noelle shot up out of her seat at the sound of the doorbell, set to the tune of ‘Deck The Halls.’ “Oh! Sounds like everyone’s arriving!”

Susie stood up, intercepting Noelle just before she could open the door to go back inside. “Wait, just real quick.”

“Yeah, Susie?”

Susie flashed another toothy smile, less wistful than the last. “If you, uh, ever wanna hear more about me ‘n Ralsei… I’d be happy to talk about it sometime. Warts and all.”

Noelle paused, then closed her eyes, smiling wide. “That sounds great. I’d love to hear about him.” She turned the handle, but not before glancing Susie’s way conspiratorially. “Ready for the prank?”

“Oh shit! Yeah, I’ve got you. Kris’ll never see it coming.”

Clambering back into the Holiday house’s bathroom via the window, Susie instantly set her sights on the heat switch. Running all the way to Kris’s house and back without her coat in the middle of winter was maybe not the best idea in hindsight. Especially with scales. Damn things didn’t help one bit when it got cold.

Click. The warm air in the bathroom switched on, bathing the room in soothing heat. Susie sighed contentedly. That hit the spot.

As she relished the chance to replenish, Susie glanced around the room. What she’d brought wasn’t all that big, but it’d still be a bit conspicuous if she walked back into the dining room with it in her pocket; it needed a good hiding spot, so that Kris wouldn’t spot it if they got up to use the bathroom before photo time. The sink drawers? Nah, too easy. Behind the shower curtain? Better odds of not being noticed by accident, but if they had caught on, it’d be game over. In the cabinet behind the mirror? Not bad, but maybe a little small. Despite Susie’s newfound intent to use it to prank Kris for their earlier misbehavior, it’d suck if it got all wrinkled. Well, any more than it already was, having been smuggled over from the box under Susie’s bed that she’d been hiding for a week. What else, what else…

Aha! Susie put the object carefully down on the countertop, checking it for wrinkles. Only a couple. Phew. Then, very cautiously, she wrapped her hands around the huge ceramic hunk on the back of the toilet, hefting it with her powerful arms. If she crammed in some towels to make sure it didn’t get submerged, in Susie’s opinion, it’d be the perfect hiding spot. She lifted the ceramic all the way off.

Only to find that inside the little compartment next to the machinery, half-submerged in the water, was a small tupperware container. Filled with bath bombs.

Goddamnit, Kris.

Instead, Susie checked the garbage can, and was pleased to find it spotless. Noelle and Carol really went the full mile in prep for tonight. Putting the evidence inside the trash can felt maybe a little mean-spirited, but so long as she made sure it couldn’t get any dirty stuff on it, Susie figured it’d work. Tons of tissues from the box later, she created a makeshift layer of protection around the critical piece, and gently lowered it into the bin. 

She smirked to herself. All that was left to do was to wait. Well, that, gorging herself on more of the feast Carol had put together, and maybe ribbing Asriel a bit more. 

At nine o’clock sharp, Carol stood up from her seat at the end of the table. “Is everyone ready for pictures?” she asked, though everyone at the table knew it was a rhetorical question. Even Berdly, who nonetheless piped up in response.

“Indeed, Mrs. Holiday! I believe I speak for everyone in saying so,” he answered, rising from his seat while dabbing a napkin at the tiny shreds of food on his beak he’d neglected to check for until now. Those familiar with Carol’s excessive insistence on propriety cringed in preparation for a calm, stern reprimand from the cold matron for speaking with food on one’s mouth. Susie herself could tell this was somehow a faux pas.

However, the reprimand never came. “Very well,” responded Carol. “If you would follow me into the living room, then.” There were some surprised looks on the other partygoers’ faces that Susie noticed, mostly sharply of all Asriel’s, who looked outright dumbfounded. After a slight shock-related delay, the party rose.

While everyone followed, Susie caught a tiny nod directed at her from Noelle from where she stood, just behind Kris. Susie had to suppress a smile. The time was nigh.

She also caught Asriel looking her way with a mild curiosity. A silent question built upon what they’d talked so much about, and one that Susie had to consider very carefully. The prior year’s Christmas party had been subdued, everyone dealing with the weights of their own grief to put their all into it like they had this year. Today, as far as Susie was concerned, had been a hell of a good day. She wasn’t sure how things were gonna go with Noelle, but for the time being, she’d been content with how she started. She felt sure Kris was going to both love and despise her imminent prank. The only uncertainty remaining was this silent question. After how little she felt about last year’s photo shoot, having been in the depths of her own concealed suffering, could this year be any different?

And what ‘Susie’ would she be tonight?

As soon as the opportunity came, Susie broke out from the line, sidling along the wall and trying to back up the stairs before anyone noticed. Asriel sent a quizzical look her way, but by some mercy didn’t break her cover. By the time anyone could notice she disappeared, she was making her way into the bathroom to grab what she needed. As she dumped out the spare tissues and pulled open the plastic with her claws, slowly and carefully so as not to damage the inside of the package.

“Where did Susie go?” echoed Toriel’s voice from below.

“Beats me. Probably just to use the bathroom,” covered Asriel, going along with whatever she was up to. 

“She just went,” stated Kris’s voice.

“So what? Maybe she just drank a lot of water, that’s not weird at all! Faha!” retorted Noelle waveringly.

Damnit, Noelle was gonna blow her cover! She had to go faster!

“I shall go forth and search her out! We can’t take pictures if we aren’t all here!” chimed in Berdly nasally.

Oh god no.

“Yes, great idea, Berdly,” said Kris, that evil bastard. Any potential moral quandaries about what she was about to do just flew out the window.

Mercifully, before Berdly could go on some horrible quest to find her, Susie managed to get the wrapping out of the way, stuffing it down into the garbage can. Tucking the item under one arm, she strode out of the bathroom and onto the overlook into the living room from the upstairs walkway.

“ARRIGHT, Y’ALL!” exclaimed Susie, grabbing the attention of everyone below. “So. I know presents are supposed to come after photos. But. I’ve got a present for Kris that it’d be a crime for them not to have on.”

Kris raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “This had better not be like Noelle’s ‘present’ of fifty white chocolate squares masquerading as extra dark.”

Grinning malevolently, Susie shook her head. “Nah, nah. It’s an actual present, dude.” Holding the fabric in her hands, she found the seam, and let it unfold for everyone to see. Bellowing like an overexcited sports announcer, she continued, “An authentic, limited edition special sweater merch with added wristbands and tiara for their self-proclaimed ‘favorite anime ever,’ that’s right folks, it’s from Mew Mew Kissie Cutie 2!” she finished, throwing the sweater down to Kris.

Susie watched with delight as Kris caught it, ruby eyes shining, only for their expression to shift to horror as Berdly and Asgore whipped around towards them. Even Noelle and Asriel were caught off guard, while Toriel and Carol observed, the latter with a grin on her face. She must’ve figured out what happened.

“Kris! How could you! Mew Mew Kissie Cute 1 was always the objectively superior show! Oh, how could I be betrayed by someone with such horrid tastes!” decried Berdly. The next words he said blended with the sudden cacophony of voices that broke out, enough that Susie couldn’t tell exactly what he was saying.

“Oh, golly, Kris, I didn’t know you were a fan of it, too!” interjected Asgore, talking over Berdly. “If you share those tastes with her, perhaps you, Alphys, and I should all get together for a watch party sometime! Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“KRIS?!” exclaimed Noelle, utterly bemused. “How– What– I thought– Really?! THAT’S your favorite? Whatever happened to Jojo’s?!”

“There’s no need to be so judgemental, young ones,” said Toriel warmly, mischievous glee poking out with her fangs along a growing grin. “I, for one, think it’s nice of Susie to get such a thoughtful gift for Kris… especially if they’re so stunned, hee hee!”

Asriel stared, blinking repeatedly and pinching himself. “Holy shit. Since when?”

“Language, Azzy!”

Carol simply smirked. “I assume this was part of your plan, Noelle? Or is there more to come?”

“I– Yes, or, well, maybe, I shouldn’t say, but– I didn’t know she was gonna do that!”

“Either way, well done, Noelle.”

Kris, meanwhile, was visibly dissociating, their expression having gone completely blank as chaos swirled around them. Whatever thoughts were going through their head had them completely stunlocked in the middle of the room, as everyone continued to fill the space with one-sided debates or invitations to hang out with the teacher they still wildly disliked or disbelieving exclamations or warm teasing or outright questions. Susie stared down from above, relishing the chaos. That’s for letting her run into a wall. 

When the chaos eventually died down and the light returned to Kris’s eyes, though Berdly was far from finished with his jabber, Susie took her chance. Pumping her fist up and down, she chanted, “Wear it! Wear it! Wear it!”

Asriel was the first to join in. “Wear it! Wear it!”

Noelle was the next to follow. “Wear it! Wear it!”

Toriel jumped to embarrass her child. “Wear it! Wear it!”

Asgore was next, grinning dopily. “Wear it! Wear it!”

Somehow, even Carol jumped in. “Wear it.”

It took a good number of chants before Berdly ceased his chatter. “Well, I suppose if I cannot convince you of the flaw of your tastes, then I must join the crowd.”

He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Wear it! Wear it!”

Kris whirled around on all sides, completely surrounded by evil chants. Still reeling from the sudden betrayal, their mouth hung open. Though they didn’t look entirely displeased. Maybe even a little impressed.

Calmly, they slipped the plastic tiara out from the sweater pocket, eliciting a sudden hush from the room. They began to pull the sweater over their head, wordlessly accepting Asriel’s help to multitask in lieu of their missing arm. Everyone watched with bated breath as the absolute barrage of dark-eyed magical girls unfolded from their chest, stunning the room with its wild display of gloomy colors.

Once they were fully in the sweater, they silently took the tiara back from Asriel’s hand, carefully parting their dark brown hair so they could hook the crown over their ears. When they finished, there was a long moment where everyone in the room seemed utterly frozen. Kris’s lips tensed, pursed, then spread into a smile.

They twirled on one foot, showing off the ensemble of tiara, sweater, skirt, and heels to all.

“YEAHHHH!” erupted the room, everyone cheering as Kris took a long, low curtsey. 

Susie hopped down the stairs, sliding down the banister to land at Kris’s feet. She met their smile and grinned. “Merry Christmas, dumbass.”

Having recovered from their shock, they gave her an impressed look. “I feel outdone,” they confessed, smiling ear to ear. "So much for my plans for my own prank. You win."

“Well, that’s why ya don’t mess with me, yeah?”

They stared at her. “All that means now is that I'll have to outdo you back,” they commented, their voice frighteningly even in the face of the massive threat they had just made.

“Wait, what?”

Noelle butted in. “Welcome to the prank wars, Susie! Good luck!”

Susie gawked at her. “Wait… you…” she puzzled out, connecting the dots. Her involvement wasn’t just incidental, was it. “YOU SET ME UP?!”

“Good luck!” she repeated in a singsong voice. 

“Now, now, ladies,” interjected Berdly. Kris coughed. “And theydies,” he amended. “It’s picture time, is it not? Let us hasten!”

“Yeah, yeah,” responded Susie automatically, still reeling. Just what had she gotten herself into?

As everyone lined up in front of the massive Christmas tree, adults in the back with the teenagers in front, Asriel produced a camera on a tripod and pointed it their way. “I’ll be giving this a fifteen second wind-up. Get ready.”

Susie felt Kris’s hand pass over one of her shoulders, and one of Noelle’s hands over her other. Their arms were warm, wrapped around her, just like– just like back then. This time, thankfully, there wouldn’t be any overly cutesy speech to make her shove anyone off her out of embarrassment. No need to play it off. This was nice, and that was the simple truth of the matter. Even if her heart still weighed so heavily at the lack of what maybe could’ve been.

Berdly was next to Kris, wrapping an arm over their shoulder with a signature look of superiority. Behind them stood Carol, Asgore, and Toriel, with a gap between the latter two for Asriel to fill. Haltingly, Susie raised her arms, settling them over her friends’ shoulders. It was going to look just like last year’s photo.

As if in recognition, Asriel shot her another glance. The same question as before.

She met Asriel’s eyes, nodding. He smiled at her. “Alright, here we go.”

The camera beeped, signaling the impending photo. The imminent permanence of this night, solidified into a single image. Would she emblazon the memory of tonight in the same way as last year’s? 

She needed no time to make her answer.

As Asriel shuffled behind her, Susie traded glances with Noelle and Kris, all three of them offering photogenic but otherwise casual smiles. She met both pairs of eyes with nonchalance.

Then, her grin widened, both rows of yellowed teeth showing in their entirety.

Horror, happiness, and curiosity spread on their faces.

Five.

Four.

Three. 

Two.

With a powerful exertion, she yanked Kris and Noelle into a bear hug. The camera clicked, capturing the very moment Kris and Noelle’s faces widened with shock, Berdly squawked with the sudden jolt, all whilst Susie let out a large laugh. As she’d later see when the picture was shown to everyone, it had been too fast for everyone in the back row to fully react beyond drifting eyes and widening mouths, showing precisely the moment of incipient chaos. Asriel, however, had seemed to anticipate her having some shenanigan up her sleeve, having slid his arm off of Asgore to give her bunny ears. His smile, proud and radiant, was just as bright as her own.

Chapter Text

Susie smirked to herself, watching from the trees as Kris neared the lake. With the ground cover of the fresh spring, she knew she wouldn’t be spotted until it was time.

She’d given Kris the perfect excuse. The two of them were supposed to meet up at the lake shore and hang out, but Susie had told them she might be a bit late after hanging out with Noelle; little did they know she purposefully left Noelle’s early to set up for this. They were in for the scare of their life!

However, when she spotted their approach, Susie noticed they had their phone up to their ear, speaking in hushed tones. She was only just close enough to make out the end of a sentence.

“...Next draft?” they mumbled.

Although far from predisposed to gossip and its fodder, Susie’s curiosity was caught. Next draft of what? Maybe something for that song they’d been composing the other day? Though “next” sounded a bit more than a single thing, and as far as she knew, that piece was still in its early stages. Not to mention that their creative process was usually pretty guarded; they’d become comfortable with people listening to their piano playing in the same room as them, but getting close enough to see their fingers move in detail always made them uncomfortable. 

Susie was too far away to hear the voice on the other end, not even in pitch or timbre, but soon enough, Kris spoke again. Now that they were closer, she could make out more of their words.

“Think it’ll be ready in time?” they said, nodding to themself.

Okay, that raised a LOT of questions. Maybe she shouldn’t be hearing this. Or maybe they were just talking to MK or Catti or someone about the essay Ms. Alphys had the courtesy of assigning right before spring break. Could it be that simple? Susie would be lying if she said she didn’t feel the slightest twinge of reticence at the unreasonable thought of Kris hiding something. As soon as it crossed her mind, she wanted to hit herself, but she managed to shove the instinct down.

“Good,” replied Kris to something Susie couldn’t hear. Their voice lowered, enough that she could only hear three words. “...Think Susie… deserves…”

Before she could think better of it, the words tumbled out of Susie’s mouth as she shot up from behind the bush she’d been using for cover. “Deserve what?”

Kris yelped, accidentally launching their phone into the air. “Agh! Where’d you come from!?” they exclaimed, stunned, as Susie dove forward to catch their phone midair. She only managed to catch it a foot above the ground, making her hit the dirt with a dull thud.

“Ow…” she groaned from her place on the ground. 

“Kris, are you alright?” asked a familiar voice through the receiver. She quickly recognized it as Asriel’s voice.

Susie coughed out a laugh and pulled the phone up to her ear. “You’ve got Susie,” she answered. 

“O-Oh. Howdy, Susie,” replied Asriel, oddly shakily, whilst Kris lunged to get their phone back from her.

Susie rolled over, narrowly dodging Kris’s outstretched hand. She used the momentum to propel herself to her feet, though not without an awkward stumble that Kris tried to use to close the distance. With a breathless laugh whose fidelity was threatened by that same idiotic twinge as before, she asked, “Y’all talking about me?”

She held the phone high out of Kris’s reach and pressed the speaker button as Asriel spoke. “What? No, we were just, uh, talking about video games.”

Kris’s attempts to take back their phone, hopping on their tiptoes to try to get enough reach, bore no fruit. Susie looked down at them. “Suuure. What game did I deserve?”

“Something better than Dark Souls 2.”

“Something better than Dark Souls 2.”

Susie facepalmed. “Damn, not my fault you guys have terrible taste.”

“Dude, why are you making us replay it?” asked Kris, aiming to use Susie’s momentary lapse to nab their phone. “Have Noelle and I not suffered enough?”

“At least give 3 a fair shot.”

Swatting away Kris’s arm, Susie replied, “Yeah, fine, at some point. Does it have any more half-bug women?”

Kris and Asriel fell silent.

“Noelle’s gonna be devastated. How do we break the news?” she joked, getting a chuckle out of Kris. 

“Find another game she can thirst over an enemy type in.”

“Don’t tell me that’s why you all started playing Souls games in the first place,” chimed in Asriel, somewhere between amused and woefully unimpressed.

Susie jumped to make sure Kris’s newest attempt at grabbing the phone failed. “Nah, the idea was Kris’s. They thought it’d be real funny to make us do two player/one controller stuff in the hardest games they could pick.”

“It was,” they stated simply, a shit-eating grin on their lips.

“Lucky that locking on is on the right stick.”

“No kidding,” agreed Susie. “I, for one, like being able to hit stuff.”

“If you were just better at the game, it wouldn’t be a problem,” jabbed Kris smugly. “Skill issue.”

This idiot. Susie grinned wide. “So what you’re saying is we should keep playing 2 until Noelle and I are good enough for your pranks to not matter?”

Kris’s face fell. “Please no.”

“She’s got you there, Kris,” laughed Asriel.

After a bout of celebratory laughter, Susie turned her attention back to Asriel. “Alright, enough of that. Tell me your secrets.”

There was a pause on Asriel’s end of the phone. “Why should we tell you that? Maybe it’s a surprise.”

Strangely enough, his words sounded sincere to Susie’s ears. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that there existed a depth of meaning behind them to which Kris alone was privy. Oh well. Time to rely on the old reliable.

Slamming her arm against the tree, she held the phone up against it, like she was trying to corner the person on the other hand against it. “Tell me your secrets, or else…” Wait. Shit. He couldn’t see what was going on. This wasn’t gonna work, was it.

“She’s pinning my phone against the tree. Trying to be threatening,” supplied Kris helpfully, though not without a wry chuckle. 

“Yeah, uh. Just imagine me pinning you to a wall and being intimidating. Now, spit it out,” continued Susie, staring daggers at the unseeing phone.

“I think that works best on people who are shorter than you, Susie,” deadpanned Asriel. “And I’m at least a foot taller than you.”

At the mental image of him smiling like a right bastard on the other end of the line, Susie faltered, giving Kris just the perfect window to snatch their phone away from her.

“Wait– KRIS! I wasn’t done yet!” hollered Susie, dashing after them as they bolted onto the path.

“Talk to you later, Azzy.” they said, narrowly dodging Susie’s lunges long enough to hang up the call.

“Gimme that!” called Susie, chasing them along the path. Kris bolted straight for the picnic tables, and though Susie was gaining on them, they managed to vault on top of them before she could nab them. With a dull metallic thud, they landed on their feet, holding their phone up in the air away from her.

Kris looked down upon her. “Oh, how the tables turn. Can’t get it now, can you, Suz?”

Susie glared up at them from the end of the table. “Sure about that?” she asked, violently stretching her arms out to try to pick Kris up by the waist. As much as she enjoyed roughhousing, she couldn’t really go for their legs without potentially getting them hurt. Trying to jump up on the table herself could make the whole thing topple, so that was out, too. Damn Kris for being so light.

Artfully, they dodged away from her grasping reach, moving almost like they were dancing. “Pretty sure,” they countered smoothly, gliding impossibly along the table with every step as Susie tried to reach them every way she possibly could, all to no avail.

“Do you yield?” they said with a falsified air of superiority.

Susie sighed. “Yeah. Yield. I’ll get answers out of you two later.” She glared at them. “But I will get ‘em, mark my words.”

Kris promptly jumped down from the table, slipped their phone in their pocket, and headed towards the lakeshore. As they brushed down their clothes from the dirt and dust they’d kicked up, they tapped their pocket and commented, “You could’ve just used your own, you know.”

Susie paused. “...Goddamnit.”

With a laugh, Kris beckoned her along. “C’mon. You said lakeshore, right?”

“Yep. I’m gonna beat your ass at rock-skipping this time!” she declared proudly. “I’ve been practicing. You’re dead meat.”

“It shouldn’t be hard for you to beat your record, at least. What was it, three times?” asked Kris smugly. Trailing behind as she was, she couldn’t see their face, but she bet even now they were managing to keep a straight face. Susie wasn’t sure how they did that in the slightest.

“Four,” she growled back. “Less talking, more me winning!”

Kris shook their head. “If you say so.”

“One, two, three, four, five…”

Splosh!

“SIX! Haha! Eat that, Kris!” exclaimed Susie, pumping her arm in the air. 

“Huh.” Kris squinted. “Not bad.”

“Like I said, been practicing. Gotta keep up with you somehow.” She grinned. “Now, let’s see you beat that, huh? 

Kris nodded in return. They casually threw their next stone out onto the water.

“One, two, three… four?” Susie let out a hum. “Wanna run that one back? Normally you do better than that.”

“...You can go next,” they said plainly. “I just need to warm up.”

She glanced down at them. “You sure?” When all she got for a response was a limp thumbs-up and a terse smile, she hesitated. “...Alright. Here goes.”

With a deep breath, Susie slipped her hand around another rock. Smooth, flat, and even. Just right. Then, she opened her eyes and let the stone fly.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, SEVEN! Hot damn, I’m on a roll today!” She whistled, flipping her bangs forward and stretching her mouth into a confident grin. “Gonna be hard to beat that, heheh. Your turn, Kris.”

Susie idly watched Kris search for a rock, thinking about earlier. Jumping out at them was probably not the brightest move, but in the moment, she’d felt weirdly tense about it. It was stupid, but ever since Christmas, she’d been more on edge around them than she should’ve. Talking to Noelle about all the things she’d been hiding for over a year was a slow process on its own. Ditto finding a therapist that’d take her stories about the Dark Worlds seriously. Hometown did have one, technically, but Susie felt justified in her avoidance about seeing them; going to the same person everyone else in town sees felt deeply wrong to her. With how entrenched the small town was in gossip and rumors, the idea of anything getting out or being traced easily back to her was mortifying. On paper, Kris should’ve been the best person to talk to about everything: they knew about what had happened at the Festival from Noelle; they had been almost as close with Ralsei as she had; she’d slept in the same room as them for well over a year by now, so secrets were hard to come by in the first place.

Perhaps, Susie considered, that was why. Secrets were such a rare and valuable thing in such a small town as theirs. The few shreds of privacy she was allowed, meager as they were, were not something she’d be willing to sacrifice for no good reason. But the recent discovery on Kris’s end that there were secrets in the air had poisoned it. Most nights she’d either stay up late doing homework or mess around on her phone in the living room, anything she could think of to not go to bed before Kris was already asleep. The fact that, as soon as her secrets couldn’t escape their notice, they knew what she’d been hiding made thoughts of what they might spontaneously say to her one night. Maybe if they said the wrong thing, or asked the wrong question, she’d accidentally blow up at them, or say something stupid that just made them hurt. Silence and distance were the better options.

Though Noelle’s kind reception of her confession advocated for just the opposite. Denying herself any and all chance to talk would just make things worse. She needed to just spit it out already. Anything. Some stupid, disarming half-joke, some half-assed attempt at asking a question, whatever she could muster. So why didn’t she?

The tap of Kris’s finger on her arm snapped her out of her reverie. “Susie?” they asked.

“Huh?”

 “...I threw.”

Susie blinked. “Oh. I, uh, was kinda zoning out there.”

Kris raised an eyebrow. “I gathered.”

She rolled her shoulders. “So, what’d ya get? Six?” They held up three fingers in response. “Dude, for real?”

“What?” they retorted, catching Susie off-guard with a sudden bite that they seemed to swiftly regret. Their eyes widened for a split second before they turned their head away.

“I’m just used to you kicking my ass is all,” she answered placatingly. When they turned a wary eye back to her, Susie decided to go off her gut feeling. “Is… Is this about earlier? Should I have kept my mouth shut?”

Kris rubbed their shoulder awkwardly. “No… I mean… that call was supposed to be private. It's not your fault you didn’t know.”

“Oh. Heh,” breathed Susie. She wanted to sate her curiosity about whatever it was that was intended for her, but now wasn’t the time. Instead, she sat down on the shore, gesturing at them to join her. “You wanna, uh. Talk about it?”

Their eyes widened. “...Sure.”

Susie watched the waves lap at the shore, electing not to look at Kris as they sat down. A year’s worth of being others’ rock meant she’d become a damn good listener, and the first thing she knew to do was to let the other person pace themselves. She levelled her breaths, keeping her ears sharp for any change in Kris’s. The more information she had to work off of, the better. Less likely to say stupid shit.

She nodded towards the water, not looking at Kris save for through her periphery. Her ears caught the quiet sound of their tongue smacking off the roof of their mouth. Dry lips parting, though it took a couple minutes for any words to come out.

“...How come you don’t talk to me?”

Susie recoiled, taken aback at the straight-faced question. Quiet, as was Kris’s norm, but none the lesser in force. She made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. There was no point in dodging or putting off the question; they wouldn’t have asked it like that if they weren’t sure she would exactly understand their meaning. “I dunno, man… Feels like whatever I say’d sound stupid to you.”

Kris scuffed their shoe on the soil. “Why?”

“‘Cause you knew him,” she replied quietly. “You were there for most of it. I’d just be sayin’ stuff you already knew.”

They leaned forward, watching the waves right alongside her. No eye contact. “That’s what I used to think.”

Susie arched an eyebrow. “‘Used to?’”

“It made sense, right? There’s nothing to be said if it’s all known. But what you did at the Festival proved me wrong,” they scoffed. Susie only managed a guilty gulp. “I could tell you were off that morning. I expected some rough parts, like when you looked uncomfortable at the diner. What I didn’t expect was Noelle texting me during your ‘date’ that you two were through.”

“Ah,” breathed Susie. 

Kris tugged at a stray thread on their old sweater. “...I’m still mad at you for that, you know.”

Susie winced. Kris was always looking out for their old friend, even when they were making it their life’s mission to scare her half to death. “Yeah, I… probably deserve it, heh.” She glanced their way. “Has Noelle said anything to you? About what she and I talked about?”

They wagged their hand noncommittally. “Not much. Enough to tell you two’re doing alright.” That, at least, they seemed content with.

“Yeah. Doing better, one thing at a time,” replied Susie, smiling a little despite herself. “Which I didn’t think was possible after what happened. I got…” She hissed through her teeth. “I got friends that I dunno if I deserve. You, her, Asriel… It feels, it felt too good to be true. So, I…”

Kris silently put a hand on her shoulder, eyes still locked on the far shore.

Susie sniffled. “I hid it all away. You all were dealing with shit, and I was… I was scared. That I wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“I see,” they murmured.

“I still dunno what to say,” she admitted. “It’s easier with Noelle. She missed so much that I can just, you know, fill in the blanks for her. Make it all make, uh, sense? Followable? Whichever.”

“Gotcha.”

“And since Asriel knew basically none of it, even easier with him. I just… I dunno how to explain it all to you. Since you were there.”

Kris grimaced. “That’s the thing. I wasn’t.”

Susie turned to face them. “What? ‘Course you were. I mean, I guess not when you were doing stuff like playing those weird games in that dingy back room, but, like. Sometimes it felt like you and he were a package deal outside the Light World.” She shrugged. “All the times you guys were off having your talks when I was gone, or adventuring around when I was busy knocking heads… Heck, the way he just seemed to know things about you I didn’t ‘til I went over to your place the first time.”

“That weirded the hell out of me too,” they responded. Slowly, they added, “If anything, though, it made me feel even more left out. There you two were, talking like it was nothing, but I couldn’t speak. The thing inside me, my own secrets, Ralsei’s… Ralsei-ness, I had to mind my words carefully.”

“Yeah? So did Ralsei,” countered Susie. “Dude was hiding important info from us all the time, dodging questions… Pissed me off, sure, but not like it made me wanna hang out with him less. I was just worried.”

Kris huffed. “Now you know how I feel.”

“Come again?” she said, confusion mixing with a twinge of anger in her voice.

“After you scared Noelle,” they retorted. “Susie, I could barely sleep after she told me what happened. What was I supposed to feel? Not angry at the girl living in my house who’d just completely screwed over my best friend I’ve known since before I can remember? Not frustrated that you’d been keeping all this shit from me for an entire year under the same roof? You’re one of my best friends, one of the people that makes me feel okay the way I am. I wish you’d just trust me.”

Anger simmered in Susie’s head, making her eye twitch. She turned her face back towards the water, hoping that the gentle wind-carried waves would cool her temper before she went overboard. “Oh, you wanna talk about trust? Back then, you could’ve just told me something was wrong. Not only did you nearly get all of us killed by that damn Knight, you also kept doing creepy shit behind our backs and nearly getting yourself killed! When it turned out Dess was dead, I didn’t wanna say anything, ‘cause you were miserable. 

“And the more I heard about her, the worse I felt for not trusting you. Dess meant so much to all of you! And then Rudy…” She shook her head, her voice falling to almost a whisper. “I dunno, man.”

Kris stared at her a while. Angrily, perhaps, but sympathetic, bordering on pitying. Their eventual following words were nearly swallowed by the gentle breeze.

“I won’t lie. I don’t know if any of us could’ve gotten through it without you,” they confessed. “I did everything I did because I was scared of exactly what happened. Dess being really gone, Rudy not being able to recover, Ralsei… not being able to make it with us. Me, Noelle, and Mom too, all of us needed you. No thanks would be enough for what you did for our sakes.”

“Yeah?” managed Susie weakly.

“Yeah,” they breathed. “Never can have too much Susie.”

Susie gritted out a laugh. “Damn straight.”

“All I want’s that… if you’re gonna do something stupid… tell me next time, okay?”

Despite her overwhelming trepidation, she smiled, turning her head back to the waterfront. “Okay. I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” said Kris, scooting a little closer to her.

For all that those two words did to loosen the gag inside her throat, for which Susie was endlessly grateful, she couldn’t help but linger on what Kris had said about them not being around. Now that she considered it, a lot of the time she spent closest to Ralsei was when Kris was busy endangering themself with basements or haunted games. Staring at his pretty eyes, teaching him how to play video games with her, eating cotton candy and giving each other lessons on things they weren’t good at. For all the time she spent with Kris in the Light World between adventures, messing around or hunting for clues, had she really never considered what they were thinking when they knew she and Ralsei were enjoying themselves?

“Hey, Kris?”

“Mm?” they hummed, tilting their head to the side.

“Did you mean what you said? About feeling like you weren’t there for what happened?” asked Susie slowly. “I didn’t even really think about it before now.”

They nodded. “Yeah. I was happy you two were… getting closer. You deserved more than just me for a friend. Both of you. But I couldn’t help but feel a little… left out.”

“Oh.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I wanted to be with you guys, but… all that stuff meant I couldn’t. I shouldn’t have been jealous, but… I was, just a little,” they added, looking nervous.

Susie shrugged. “I know what you mean. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mm.” Shaded with wist, a sad smile pulled at the corners of their lips. “Would you mind a… difficult question?”

“Of course, dude,” she said, training her eye on where theirs were behind their messy brown locks. “Anything.”

Kris gritted their teeth, sucking in a fractured breath. Their canines sank into their lower lips, drawing their voice into a distorted muffle. “When Ralsei died… did he say anything to you?”

Susie’s mouth slipped open. “I… never told you?”

They shook their head. “No. I always wondered… but now, I’ve got to know. For your sake, and mine.” Turning their neck towards her, they asked, “What did he say?”

“Susie.”

She froze under the touch of his fingers against her, the warmth of his scarf dancing around her neck.

“I love you, Susie. I’ve always believed in you. You and Kris will survive. You will win.”

She looked down, her lips forming a pained smile that displayed her sharp teeth. It took a lot of force to get her words out, the strain on her vocal chords exaggerating the roughness of her voice. “He told me… he told me he loved me. He told me he believed in me. He told me, with this certainty in his voice I’d never heard before, not even when he stupidly thought he was ‘less’ than us, that you and I, we’d get through it. That we’d win, even though you were down for the count and he… he was falling apart in my hands.”

Kris’s mouth hung open, hurt bright in their eyes. “Oh… god, Susie… you held him, while he…?”

Susie nodded, tense. “He was smiling the whole time,” she strained. “Really smiling. Not forced, or sad… he really believed what he was saying. I… he was so strong. I don’t… I have no idea how he did it.”

In the midst of blinking away the tears that attacked her eyes, Susie felt Kris’s arm wrap around her own. “It’s okay to cry, Susie,” they whispered.

“I know,” she said weakly. “I, I mean, I don’t always know, you know, but… thanks.”

“Anytime,” they replied, leaning into her. Susie closed her eyes, appreciating their warmth beside her. It didn’t quite feel like enough; maybe nothing would. 

That wouldn’t stop her from enjoying this moment to its fullest, however.

Slowly, tenderly, she twisted over to meet them, wrapping her arms around their shoulders, careful not to let her scales scratch their neck. Little by little, she pulled them into a tender embrace, closing her eyes and melting into their warmth.

“Susie,” they breathed, shocked.

“If you move I’ll bite your face off,” she joked, holding them tight.

Kris chuckled. “Understood.”

As Susie relished every moment she could get away with acting like this, she wondered if this was what Asriel meant back then. Doing something she wouldn’t normally do, to uncover who she really was. A hug was a simple thing, hardly anything like going out to a party or drinking or smoking like Asriel had, but to Susie, it felt like this simple act had made the whole world turn on its head. Ralsei had been the only person to receive such tenderness from her, and for long, Susie had thought that would always be the case. It was a part of him she’d held onto so dearly, that warm electricity of giving comfort through touch beyond a hand on a shoulder or a punch on an arm, that she realized she’d been terrified of ever letting it change; to share that experience would be to make it less his, to break that special connection she’d dedicated herself to preserving.

If she were to break it, however, she couldn’t think of anyone better to choose than her best friend in all the world. Her best friend, who knew exactly who inspired this behavior in her, whose love had made it possible for her to behave this way. She never could do it without them.

Susie didn’t know how long she spent holding Kris before eventually letting them slip out of her grasp; hardly a minute or nearly an hour, she couldn’t tell. She watched with precise content as they reoriented themself to face the water, poorly hiding the stretch of the biggest smile she’d seen on their face in quite some time.

“You know… Despite how dumb it sounds, I’m a little jealous of you, too,” she said eventually.

“Hm?”

“With Dess, with Rudy, you guys all have those… pictures. All over the place. We’ve got that awesome photo from last Christmas, but… you ever sit there and wish there were… more?” spun out Susie slowly, like a seamstress unwinding frayed thread from an old spool, careful not to do any damage. “Not just with me, but, uh… Ralsei, too.”

To her surprise, Kris nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s… hard, sometimes, looking at those things. ‘Specially since I never… got to say goodbye to him.”

“Kris…” offered Susie.

“I’ve thought, sometimes. What if…” They swallowed nervously. “What if we were able to open another Dark World? Find some new way to get there, try to see him again?” They scoffed at themself. “It’s not possible, I know, but… sometimes I still wish I could.”

Susie tilted her head away. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought the same a couple times… but even if we could, I don’t think I would.”

“No?” asked Kris.

“Nope,” answered Susie. “It’d be cruel, you know? Bring him back only to leave him forever again?” She bit her lip, shuddering. “Not to mention that there’d be a chance of what happened to– to the old man. If he came back wrong, I… I don’t wanna think about that.”

Kris winced. “Ugh. I hadn’t considered that.”

“Shit sucks, right?” she replied, breathing out a single chuckle.

“Shit sucks,” they concurred.

Susie elbowed them lightly. “I think that hug was the best thing we’ll get. To keep him around. Worth it?”

“It was pretty nice… Maybe if you give me another,” teased Kris, elbowing her back.

“ARRIGHT, buddy, don’t push your luck!” growled Susie, hefting her weight to shove Kris over.

Kris cackled from where they lay on the dirt. “It was worth a shot.”

Susie recalled one of the biggest teases Ralsei had hit her with, way back when. “Supply and demand, dude. If I give ‘em out too much, they won’t be as nice.”

“Says you,” they jabbed back, slipping their phone out of their pocket.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said with a snort.

She glanced over at where Kris lay on the ground, holding their phone above their head. “Texting?”

They nodded.

“‘Bout me?”

They froze, quickly clicking their phone off and trying to shove it in their pocket before Susie could steal it from them. However, Susie was too fast, diving forward and successfully snatching their phone from their hand.

“I know your password, loser,” she gloated, jumping away from them as she violently tapped it in. “Now, lessee what we got here…”

gotcha dumbass

Susie paused. Wait. This was her contact.

She fished her own phone out of her pocket. There was a new text from Kris.

“...KrriiiiIIIISSSS!” she roared, slamming their phone into their outstretched hand. Though she turned her head away, she could feel Kris’s smug grin burning holes in the back of her head. She huffed. “Alright, fine, I getcha. Be all mysterious.”

“Naturally,” replied Kris evenly. They stood up behind her. “So. What was it you wanted to do in the first place?”

Susie halted in her tracks, having completely forgotten what her reason was for telling Kris to meet up with her in the first place. “Uhhhhh,” she droned.

“We could go prank Berdly at the Librarby,” they suggested.
Grinning back at them over her shoulder, Susie responded, “Great idea! Been a while since we messed with that birdbrain.” She chuckled. “Let’s go!”

Kris nodded. “Right behind you,” they said, following at a short distance. Unbeknownst to Susie, behind her back, Kris opened up their phone again, navigating through their texts to a different conversation.

spot on, dude

It took a moment for them to get a reply.

Did she figure it out?

nah

i accidentally bought us more time before then

but you better get to work asap

this can’t be any less than perfect

Golly. No pressure.

If I put all my time into this, I won’t be able to work on anything else.

I could get away with it, but it’ll be tight.

i’ll pay you

Seriously?

yeah

like it’s another commission

Normally this would cost a lot, you know.

All these drafts and everything.

i’ve got money saved up

and aren’t family discounts a thing usually?

…I think I can make it work.

I’ll figure out how much I need and try to keep it low.

you’re a lifesaver dude

Happy to help however I can.

You two deserve something nice.

no kidding

welp first order of business is to change my phone passcode

Wait, she knew it?!

We must’ve had some mighty close calls.

truly

i can talk more later tonight

for our new sis, yeah?

Right. For our new sis.

Chapter Text

“Have you ever thought about what comes next, Susie?”

Susie glanced over at him, knocking her heel against the rampart. Far below them, the denizens of Castle Town had begun to bustle with the morning they seemed to sense instinctively: setting up parties, arranging concerts with terribly clashing genres of music, dancing, auctioning, strangely, advertising, playing carnival games. It was like the end of the world didn’t exist to them. Or maybe it did, and they were all choosing to celebrate while banking on the Heroes’ success.

“What comes next?” she repeated, bumping his shoulder with her own. She wouldn’t admit it, but her heart was still soaring from the words that had slipped from his lips just minutes ago. ‘I believe you,’ he’d said calmly, quietly affirming her when she’d been shying away from learning the truth of what he might’ve thought. 

“After the Prophecy is completed. After we…” he sniffed, smiling, rousing his courage. “After we win. What would you like to do then?”

She groaned. “Dude, do we have to think about that now? C’mon! Ride the high with me a bit here! Not everything’s gotta be about the next thing.”

“Perhaps,” said Ralsei. “It is very appealing, letting myself get distracted by the things I like.” He nudged her shoulder affectionately. “Like you!” he chirped.

“That’s the spirit,” she concurred, her face warming at the unnecessary cutesiness. Spotting a particular Darkner in the crowd, she arched a clawed finger. “Look at that guy. Think he’ll manage to sell that hunk of junk next to him for any more than pocket change?”

Ralsei raised an eyebrow. “Junk? That’s what you see?”

“Uh, yeah, dude. Look at it. That thing’s a mess. Bet it’s even worse up close. You ever get splinters?”

Ralsei shook his head. “I don’t entirely know what those are.”

“Gimme your hand.” Grasping the arm he proffered with one wrist, she bent a claw down and sank it deep into the white fur of one of his fingers until she felt herself poking at skin. “Feel that?”

“Mhm?”

“Now imagine that it’s actually, like, stabbing at you. Just a little. Then…” Without warning, she twisted her wrist, sinking claws into each finger on his hand and stopping just short of breaking his skin.

Ralsei yelped, starting backwards. Susie tightened her grip on his wrist to make sure he didn’t lose his balance.

“You good?”

He made a face. “You must be glad for your scales, keeping your skin safe from that.”

“Just another reason I’m awesome,” she bragged, fighting to keep her bravado as Ralsei sank back into her side.

“Still, splinters aren’t much. I just wasn’t ready for them, is all,” he laughed breathily. “A couple of those would be worth it for that.”

“You really wanna buy a ratty desk?” asked Susie incredulously. “I mean, I guess you’ve got as much money as you want, being the prince and all.”

Ralsei poked her cheek, at which Susie swatted away his arm on instinct. She didn’t protest when he did it a second time. “Well, maybe I want it for my room,” he contended. “There’s plenty of space.”

Susie huffed. “I’m aware.”

“Think about it,” continued Ralsei. “That desk must’ve meant a lot to him. Look, he’s hanging his head, like he doesn’t entirely want to let go of it. Oh, even that such a thing can even exist in that state in a Dark World… Isn’t that lovely, Susie?”

Susie blinked. “Huh. I guess I see what you mean. Like whoever buys it’s gonna be carrying a bit of him with them.”

“Exactly,” he said. “If I put it in my room, I could roll over at night, catch it in my sight, and think, ‘oh, how lucky I am to have something so meaningful with me!’”

“But don’t you want what’s in your room to be, y’know, yours?” she wondered. “Not just some other dude’s stuff? Wouldn’t you rather be thinking about your own things if you can get ‘em?”

An odd look shadowed Ralsei’s eyes. “Don’t you see, Susie? I want it because I like that sort of thing. I like the idea of… waking up and seeing something in my room that reminds me of someone else. I’m not the type to put up statues of myself in my room,” he joked.

“I told you before, that thing’s not me! It just looks cool!” protested Susie weakly.

“Oh, come now, Susie, it’s even got your hair exactly right!” Ralsei raised a hand to brush one of her bangs out of her face. “There’s no shame in liking yourself!”

The words seemed to leave his mouth before he could recognize what he’d said. Predicting his attempt to open his mouth and append some weak exception, Susie trapped him in a rough noogie, tousling his hair. “Hey, that’s more like it!”

“No, I just meant–! Hahahaha! Susie! That-that!” He squirmed out of her grasp and smiled at her. “Will you admit that it’s a statue of you already?”

“Hell no. I don’t wanna sound all up my own ass,” she denied. “You’re crazy. Seeing stuff that’s not there.”

“Alright, alright,” placated Ralsei, deciding not to press the issue. “If you won’t admit it… I’ll simply have to keep teasing you about it. I could get Kris to point out all the similarities to you if you aren’t certain.”

Susie’s eyes widened, recognizing imminent defeat. “Uh, nah, we don’t gotta do that! They’d, uh, they don’t need to be bothered this early!”

With an uncomfortably feral look in his eye that betrayed his pride, Ralsei smiled placidly. “Then just tell me what you want to do after. Please?”

“Do we really gotta?” 

Ralsei nodded, determined. “I’ve always found that having a goal helps. If I can think of you doing something you like, it… it might help me. When things get stressful.”

Sensing the potential for a downspiral, Susie hummed. “One thing, eh? Hm.”

She racked her brain for a moment, wobbling her head from side to side to keep Ralsei’s attention on her. It took a moment for her to settle on one. “I want… I wanna get everyone around that table you set up the other day. In my and Kris’s rooms. Get Noelle, Lancer, Toriel, heck, maybe even Berdly if he agrees to not piss me off. Anyone who wants to come. I wanna sit there, make dumb jokes, eat your cake and drink your tea.

“How’s that, Ralsei?”

Ralsei sniffled. When his sleeve rose to his eyes, Susie felt her hands drift towards his glasses, lifting them off his face.

“It… it sounds wonderful, Susie,” he breathed, near the point of sobbing but not going over the edge as he blinked away any threat of tears.

Susie snaked an arm around his shoulders. “Your turn.”

“Huh?”

She poked his side with her elbow. “C’mon, I gave you one!”

“...Okay,” he said haltingly. “If I had to choose, hm. How about…”

Time seemed to pause as a massive wave of deja vu struck Susie. She’d experienced this conversation before, hadn’t she? Everything he was saying sounded eerily familiar. Yet, somehow, her mind went blank when she tried to predict his next words. 

“Oh! How about a movie?”

He said it with such an uncertain edge that made the idea sound scandalous. The blush on his cheeks only furthered the issue. Shocked from her reverie, Susie couldn’t help but laugh, at which Ralsei pouted.

“Susie! Don’t laugh!” he protested. “I’ve never seen a movie before, and with how you were talking about them the other night… I think it’d be nice. They sound like they’d make you smile.”

“I dunno what else I should’ve been expecting,” admitted Susie, laughing. “Sure. When we’re done, let’s go see a movie. Uh… just you and me? Or d’you think you’ll want Kris there, too?”

“Hm. I would hate for Kris to feel left out.” Ralsei smiled. “If we’re having that tea party, however, perhaps we can make time for… just the two of us.” He blushed. “As, um… haha!”

“What’s so funny?”

Ralsei shook his head. “I don’t have the vocabulary for this,” he realized aloud. His voice shrank. “It’s all so foreign to me. Is there, er, a certain decorum for movies? What to wear, perhaps?”

“Pff, nah. It’s all dark ‘n stuff in there, if you’re going to a theater. Wear whatever you want. Just, don’t talk during the thing. People don’t like that. Oh, and bring snacks. Don’t listen to what they say, sneaking food in’s part of the experience.”

“Got it.” He rested his head on her shoulder. “I’ll have to pick out something to wear, then.” His eyes then went wide, spying the state of the auction in the town below. “Oh! Susie! The dresser’s up next! Let’s go!”

Susie saw the guy pushing the old dresser up towards the stage. “Oh, shoot! Better run, dude! I’m right behind you!”

On her way down the stairs, thundering two steps at a time, the rush of wind in her ears began to transform into a tinnitus-like whine, drowning out the world around her. Louder and louder it grew as the stairs seemed to unravel before her, the spiral stairs unfurling from their pillar and stretching out into an inky abyss.

“Ralsei?” she called, nervous. “Ralsei, where are you?!”

From somewhere in the darkness ahead, a familiar voice rang out. “I’m right here, Susie!”

Her body shuddered. If he was ahead of her, why couldn’t she see him on the stairs, that seemed to fall ever onward into the darkness? There wasn’t anywhere else he could be.

“Susie?” the voice called again, softer, closer. 

She shuddered again. It didn’t sound right. “Ralsei? You okay?”

“Of course I am, Susie!”

Another shudder. It sounded just like him, until he said her name.

“You sure, dude?”

“Of course I am, Su–

–sie!”

Susie snapped to attention, launching the pillow she’d been holding onto across the room and flinging drool onto Toriel’s face.

She heard a distinct, quiet ‘oof’ as Toriel smiled at her, primly wiping the drool off her face with a sleeve. “Good morning, Susie!” said Toriel with a chipper voice.

Susie rubbed her eyes, blinking away sleep. “...Morning, Toriel,” she grumbled.

Toriel turned her back to her. “I assume that woke you too, Kris?”

“Ymph,” she heard them respond, muffled by the pillow that was smushed over their face. Susie chuckled. 

“Good,” said Toriel. “Breakfast will be ready in just a few moments. There is no rush today, but I assume you two will want to eat while it is hot. Pies are best enjoyed that way, after all.”

“Pie?” asked Kris, shooting out of bed. “What kind?”

Toriel smiled. “You will see in a few minutes,” she offered, before stepping out of the room and closing the door.

Kris wasted no time; in mere moments they’d gathered a change of clothes from their dresser, including a simple button-down.

“Takin’ a shower?” asked Susie. Kris responded with a curt nod before ducking out of the room, leaving Susie to her own devices.

She let out an unsteady breath. That same dream again. Or rather, a memory, of sorts. It had been the morning of the last day, but no matter how many times she relived it in her sleep, certain details had eluded her. What exactly Ralsei had been appraising changed every time; sometimes a desk, sometimes a dresser, or a nightstand, or an armchair, or a lamp. None of the answers provided by her subconscious clicked into the grooves of her recollection. Frustration set her blood boiling every time the pieces didn’t connect; she knew the truth was always as close as it was beyond her reach.

However, what stuck with Susie this time, unique amongst the others, was the sense that a boundary had been crossed from memory into true dream. Ralsei’s answer had been drowned out by the sudden chaos that seared the rest of the day into her head, with all its cruel details. All in place of the detail she now desired to recall the most. Yet the answer she’d heard this morning, even as it slipped like sand through her fingers, was more than she’d heard before. What had changed, she’d no clue, and what dream-Ralsei had said, she remembered less by the second, but something had at last penetrated the fog. No matter its veracity, the breakthrough made Susie smile despite herself.

Today might be a good day.

She slipped out of bed, straightening out her tanktop and sweatpants. The mouthwatering smell of pie carried upstairs and into her room through the door Kris had left slightly ajar in their haste. If she took any longer, chances were Kris would already be out and trying to sneak the entire thing before anyone else could get a slice. Hell if Susie would let that happen.

Bleary-eyed, she stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a seat at the table, relishing the heat emanating from the stovetop. She sniffed. It wasn’t a butterscotch pie, nor apple… meat, maybe?

The clunk of a ceramic coffee mug on the wood announced Asriel’s presence at the other end of the table. “Howdy, Susie,” he said, politely placing down his phone. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” she answered, stretching and reclining back as far as the wooden chair would permit. 

“Big day,” he commented back. “You think you’re ready for it?”

Susie rolled her shoulders. “It’s not like all that much is gonna change. At least for me.”

Toriel’s lilting voice and the clatter of plates put the conversation on hold. “Breakfast is ready, everyone.”

At that instant, Susie heard the water stream stop dead through the bathroom door. Both her and Asriel instantly sat up and grabbed plates, snapping into a line behind Toriel. Susie noted, as Toriel sliced what she now could confirm was a steak and cheese pie, that the oven was still on. 

“There’s something else in the oven?” she asked Toriel, accepting the wide slice with glee and grabbing a fork from the ones Toriel had set out. Toriel simply put a finger to her lips. Ah. If Susie had to guess, there was a second pie on the way. That one had to be butterscotch, and the scent in the air that came with Toriel checking on it only confirmed her suspicions.

It was some great stroke of luck, then, that Kris entered the room in tandem with the click of the oven turning off. Their wet hair was plastered to the back of their shirt, but they didn’t seem perturbed to Susie’s eye; they simply walked up to the counter, grabbed a plate, and stared expectantly at their mother until she giggled and offered them a slice. They didn’t even pause to grab a fork, instead choosing to stuff the entire slice down their throat and hold their plate out again in a silent plea for more.

Toriel gave her child a knowing look, holding strong despite their puppydog eyes. “You may have a little. There will be plenty of pie to eat later, you know.”

Kris whined pitifully at the sight of the thin slice on their plate, but didn’t push the issue, accepting the offering and winding their way over to the table.

Between bites, Susie spoke up. “Hey, Kris. Know what you’re gonna talk about today?”

They shrugged. “Probably whatever. It’s not like what I’m supposed to say would be news to anyone.”

“True enough,” agreed Susie. “Maybe it’s just ‘cause it hasn’t actually happened yet, but I don’t get the hype. Seems like just a normal day to me.”

“Now, now,” dissented Toriel, “it may seem trivial for the time being, but in the future you will look back and find many things changed afterward.”

“She’s right, you know,” added Asriel. “Took a few months for me to really understand it, but things changed fast.”

Susie aimed to skewer a big piece of her slice with a fork, before deciding that it wasn’t worth it and grabbing it with her hand. “I’ll take your word for it,” she replied noncommittally, spewing crumbs from her lips.

Toriel fixed her with a stern gaze, though her maroon eyes were lit with humor. “Manners, Susie.”

Susie swallowed. “Yeah, yeah,” she said, grabbing a napkin from the table and wiping her mouth. 

Susie squirmed as she and Kris walked through the early summer heat. “Do we really gotta wear these?” she asked, tugging at the sides of the huge, one-size-fits-all gown. “Shit’s way too hot for today.”

“And Mom and Alphys insisted on doing it outdoors,” they groaned. “What’s the point? It’s not like there’s enough of us to have a proper-feeling ceremony. We don’t even do the speeches.”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Was thinking about in the shower and, like, if today’s really that important… We can enjoy the fact that we’re all suffering, heh. Look back on that fondly, at least.”

“That’s one way of looking at it…” said Kris, uncertain.

It wasn’t a long walk to the school, but while Susie had the chance, she took it.

“So, uh. I had another dream last night,” she began. 

“Ralsei?”

“Mhm. That one about us watching that, uh, Darkner auction.” Susie folded her arms in front of her, then raised a hand to gesticulate. “But it was different this time.”

Kris cocked their head to one side. “Did you remember what the thing was?”

Susie shook her head. “Nope. This time, he… heh. He actually got to say what he was looking forward to.”

“Yeah?”

“He asked me about going to a movie.” She snorted. “Sweated all the details, too. What to wear, how to carry himself, y’know. Stuff like that.”

Kris chuckled. “That sounds like him.”

“Right?” agreed Susie. “And it was funny, like, he wanted it to be a date, but couldn’t put the words together. Said he didn’t have ‘em.” Kris cocked an eyebrow at her, silently urging her to continue. “Which I mean, sounds right for him, yeah? But it got me thinkin’, what if… What if I’d had this dream earlier, and he’d been able to find the words then?’

“How do you mean?” they inquired, keeping their voice low.

Susie grumbled to herself. “Like, back then, my brain woulda been perfectly happy with him calling us a couple. But now…”

In the gap Susie left, Kris supplied, “You don’t feel like that’s right?”

“I dunno, man!” she exclaimed. A sigh. “You’re right, though. I felt… relieved, really, when I thought about it. But, like, isn’t it stupid? That I’m still having these dreams?”

Kris shook their head fervently. “No. You two… You had something really special. It’s okay to miss that.” They kicked a couple stray pebbles down the road. “I still dream about Dess, sometimes. I wouldn’t want those to ever stop.”

“Hm.”

Kris and Susie continued their walk in silence. Birds chirped freely from atop the phone lines and rooftops. Blooming flowers swayed and trees rustled in the breeze. A bit ahead, they could see other people heading towards the school: Catti’s family, Snowy’s dad, Asgore, and a handful of others, including QC. 

“Welp.” Susie clapped her hands together. “Race you?” she offered Kris, who took one look at her and sprinted forward, getting a head start to account for their shorter legs.

“You’re on!” she called after them, breaking into a run. 

Hometown High graduations weren’t anything like the typical ones Susie had heard about.

There was a stage in front of the school, as the school was far too small to have an auditorium of its own, but instead of being flanked by teachers and staff and speech-givers preparing for all the pomp and circumstance, there were only a paltry few chairs scattered about. By Susie’s count, enough for everyone in the graduating class, plus two. Bleachers had been set up facing the stage, enough for maybe a few hundred people at most. By the time she and Kris were sitting on the stage, most of the families had filtered in, while other townsfolk were making their way over. Of course Berdly was there long before either of them, flashing them a signature look of superiority. He’d earned it, for despite all his testimonials about being dumber than Noelle, he’d held onto his valedictorian status. Noelle was happy to be salutatorian instead, although Carol likely would’ve been highly unimpressed were she ranked any lower.

Susie spied Asriel in the stands, sitting as far away from Bratty and Pizzapants as he could. Which wasn’t far, because they seemed eager to be near him, but he’d managed to get away with it by putting the Cattenheimers and Asgore between him and them. She was a good enough read to tell something was up with him during breakfast, judging by his oddly clipped speech, but now he looked ecstatic, like whatever had been bothering him was gone. He seemed to catch her gaze, locking eyes with her and offering an encouraging nod.

The crowd fell into a hush when Toriel, simultaneously teacher and school principal, took to the podium. She didn’t say much, merely talking about the bright futures she saw for the whole class. The particulars she left to Ms. Alphys, who took the stage next. Ms. Alphys made sweeping attempts to sound like she was digging into the characters of each and every student, from Snowy’s humor to Temmie’s vague ambitions, and though it was really rather surface-level, it paid off with the crowd, garnering cheers at the end. Even if Susie wasn’t described by name as the most-improved student, she didn’t bother to hide a wide grin at the mention of a student who “grew faster than any other student she’d known before.”

Then, it was time for everyone to come forward and accept their diplomas. Toriel gave no order for who should go when; all she did was step to the side of the podium, the basket of diplomas at her feet, and wait for whoever so wished to speak.

Unsurprisingly, Berdly took to the stage first. Accepting the diploma with a humble thanks, he then went on to speak at wildly unnecessary length about many things. He prided himself on his admission to one of the nation’s top universities, having gotten in with an early action application that, by his words, stressed the constant work he put himself under. He did, however, thank his classmates for all the help studying, crediting them with being the reason he managed to get so far (he looked at Noelle the most directly, because she helped him the most, but Susie remained silently thankful for all the ways in which the joint study sessions she’d had with the two of them had boosted her own grades). He received particularly loud cheers from the town librarian, Ms. Boom, who’d borne witness to many of the fruits of his labor through his volunteer work with her and had in return written a letter of recommendation for him. When his long speech came to a close, Susie found herself clapping more loudly than she’d expected, though her enthusiasm faded when Berdly shot her a smug grin that seemed to counteract the nuggets of humility he’d presented to the crowd.

Noelle took to the podium next. Unlike Berdly, who’d shot straight for the top in terms of school rankings, she’d chosen a much closer school with an excellent program in her desired field of psychology. She’d told Susie before that the discipline appealed to her greatly as a consequence of her love for horror; “Psychological is the best kind of horror there is, because it always manages to stick with you and catch you unaware,” she’d said with a bright grin on her face. Susie found that funny, for despite the pursuit of understanding this horror, Noelle never seemed to stop appreciating getting scared in more mundane or cheap ways. Even though she sanded off some of the edges in the speech she was currently delivering for the sake of the audience, she spoke animatedly and passionately about her interest in the field, leaving Susie enraptured. Through all the little concessions to the public she’d espied, at their heart was a woman Susie still found herself admiring at times. When the speech drew to a close, Susie’s cheers were very likely the loudest.

Then, one by one, the rest of the class took their turns. Catti followed Noelle’s act with an incredibly brief and vague threat of cursing anyone who didn’t wish them good luck, setting the crowd a bit on edge. Susie thought it was funny. Jockington then turned things around, managing to convey his own success in getting a free ride to a state school through his success in sports (somehow) through his ramblings about other sports, earning some laughs from the crowd he seemed to take in stride. Temmie’s rant was even more incomprehensible, but the sheer ferocity with which she seemed to be describing her dream was impressive. Susie whistled a bit when it was time for applause, impressed with her gumption.

MK’s speech was next, and it went in one ear and out the other; the most Susie recollected was that he’d be going to a woodworking trade school. Luckily, Snowy sensed that his friend was feeling a bit down about the lukewarm reaction to his speech, and used his speech to ease the tension with a storm of jokes that ranged from genuinely funny to groan-worthy to outright cringey. What Susie remembered the most, however, and what got her applauding loudly was the look on Snowy’s face that he’d flashed back to MK over his shoulder at the end of his act. He was right there with them.

When Snowy sat down, that meant it was either her or Kris next. She made to rise, thinking Kris would prefer to end the ceremony on a bang, but Kris held out a halting hand. Smirking confidently, they strode up to the podium, gracefully accepted their diploma from their mother, and bent the microphone down towards their level. There was a long moment where they seemed to chew on their words, before they eventually spoke. All they said about themself was that they were looking forward to going to music school; ever since they’d lost their hand, they’d gotten deep into digital composition. Susie knew they’d be excellent at it; their early compositions already sounded great. But then, with a little laugh, they added, “I’ll let you all have the best speech for last. C’mon.” They beckoned Susie up with a tilt of their head, then sat down amidst the quiet cheer.

“Dude, really?” she whispered at them, nervous under the weight Kris had casually dropped on her.

They placed their diploma in their mouth so they could offer her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. A silent “you’ve got this.”

“...If you say so.”

The short walk to the podium was excruciating. Hundreds of pairs of eyes snapped onto her all at once. The heat at the front of the stage, in direct sunlight whereas the back row was mercifully cooled by shade, seared her exposed scales. Toriel, however, seemed to have her sixth sense activate immediately; before Susie could falter, she was taken into a firm handshake, handed her diploma with the words “I am so proud of you” mouthed in support, and introduced kindly to the crowd as if everyone there didn’t already know who she was.

Susie cleared her throat, offering a brief thankful glance to Toriel. Snatching the mic with one hand and bending it with an ear-piercing creak, she peered at the crowd. Totally silent. As if urged by the breeze, she opened her lips.

“Hey, everyone. I’m, uh, not the best at speaking sometimes. No matter what that jerk back there says,” she said, jerking a thumb back at Kris where they sat in the shade, “So don’t get your expectations up. This ain’t gonna be all that impressive. But, uh. Anyway. You all know that I’m still new around here. Moved in, what, two years ago now? Doesn’t feel that long.”

She cleared her throat, plunging deep into herself to find her confidence. “Somethin’ they don’t tell ya about the city is what it’s like to step outside your apartment and realize nobody knows who you are. Just some random girl like everyone else on the street. There’s something… kinda comfy about anonymity, y’know? Like you could just go anywhere and not be asked questions, unless you’re doing something real sketchy. I bet some of you have thought about it, though, heh.”

At the sight of a few sympathetic nods amongst the crowd, she pushed forward. “But in the city, what they don’t tell ya about smaller places is just the opposite. They don’t tell you what it’s like to step outside and realize everybody knows your name, your birthday, your doctor, all that stuff.” She breathed. “Not gonna lie. It was weird as he–, uh, heck coming out here and learning that. But ‘cause people expect to know you, if they don’t, they wanna fix that. Immediately. I don’t think I’d be the person I am now if some people didn’t reach out to me.”

She swept her eyes over the crowd. She caught Toriel in her periphery, holding her hands to her mouth with her eyes shining. Susie chuckled. “I guess what I’m saying is, don’t take for granted what you’ve got. So, unlike these nerds behind me, I’m gonna be sticking around. For just a little bit. Pretty much everyone else in my class only knows what it’s like bein’ here, but I’ve still only gotten a taste, y’know?” She closed her eyes, grinning. “Plus, hey. Someone’s gotta pick up the slack they’re gonna be leaving behind. Y’all think Berdly does a lot now? Imagine what it’s gonna be like when he’s gone halfway across the country, heh.”

Susie drew a long, deep breath. Just a little more. “So, yeah. To everyone who was looking out for me, even when I didn’t notice it… thank you.”

The next minutes were a blur. An eruption of cheers from the crowd, caps thrown into the air, a huge hug from Toriel, fist bumps with Kris and Noelle, and even a sincere smile from Berdly with nary a trace of his typical smugness. So much happened so fast that it made her head spin, but she found herself basking in it nonetheless. 

Soon enough, the whole Dreemurr family found themselves sweeping through town towards the diner, having just been reopened by QC after she’d closed it for the graduation. Noelle had gone back to her house to prepare for another one of her family’s signature parties, though these days it was really always a joint venture between them and the Dreemurrs. This time, the whole graduating class and their families were invited, but there was still some time left. Susie just wanted to get out of the stifling gown as soon as possible, though having some air conditioning would do.

Before they all got there, though, Asriel whispered something to Toriel, then tapped on Kris and Susie’s shoulders. “Since there’s going to be a wait,” he said, “Wanna put those gowns back down at home? Bet you guys are miserable in those things.”

“Oh thank god,” mumbled Susie, taking off towards home at a run. Kris and Asriel hounded her steps with a sudden, strange urgency. She’d find out what hastened them soon enough.

As Kris and Susie downed glass after glass of water, eyeing the butterscotch pie on the counter hungrily, Asriel reappeared from upstairs. “So, Susie. Before the party happens, I figured now might be the best time to give you this.” Susie glanced over at him. In his hands was a tightly-wrapped present, rectangular in shape and a bit bigger than an oversize book. “I know there’s supposed to be more gifts at the party itself, but this one, well…”

Kris jumped in, placing their water glass down on the counter with a definitive thud. “It’s not just a graduation present.”

“Yeah,” continued Asriel. “We thought that, since you’d been living with us for over a year and a half, and since you’re basically family now, we should… get you something nice. To celebrate.”

“For real…?” muttered Susie, accepting the present gingerly. It was surprisingly light in her hands.

“For real,” nodded Kris. “Asriel put a lot of time into it, so… hope you like it.”

Susie stared. She hadn’t given it much consideration before, but now that she thought about it, she really was a part of the family, wasn’t she? Asriel had called her as much on at least two occasions before, and though Kris seemed a bit more reticent, they’d shown the same signs. And come to think of it, how many times had Toriel referred to all three of them as her children? Susie had always figured that was just a product of having Kris or Asriel around, but if it was also meant to include her…

She felt her nose stuffing up. Sniffling didn’t help matters. “You guys…”

“Open it,” prompted Asriel, smiling warmly. In that moment, she could really see the family resemblance between him and Toriel; the faces they wore when encouraging others were identical. 

After a last moment of hesitation, Susie tore open the wrapping. It looked to be a picture frame, black in color with a faint sheen. Time seemed to slow as the colorful paper tumbled to the floor, revealing more and more of the gift proper. In the middle of the frame was a large print, protected by a firm sheet of cardboard which Susie’s claw failed to penetrate on the back, and by a layer of transparent plastic on the front.

Transfixed, breathless, Susie murmured, “...what? How did…”

At almost the direct center of the print, Ralsei dominated the image. Against the dark backdrop Susie recognized to be the front gate of his castle he seemed to shine, dressed in an elaborate ballgown of diaphanous green, white, and black fabrics. He was up on his tiptoes, one foot raised in the air, and with his back arched slightly, as though his image had been captured in the middle of an elaborate twirl. The thick pink scarf he typically wore was replaced by a long, translucent fabric, almost appearing to be a cape were it not for the two highly distinct ends that each wound in opposite directions around his form. His face was oriented off to the side, nearly in profile, with his head arched backward and his neck turned to partially face the perspective. One pastel pink eye twinkled brilliantly, unobstructed by the round cork-bottle glasses that rested further down his face and highlighted by dark mascara expertly applied, while the other, just as brilliant, peeked over the arched ridge of his snout. His mouth hung open in a wide, airy smile, no teeth showing but for the long points of his white fangs. The Ralsei of this art looked weightless. Free. 

Slowly, her eyes drifted towards the sides of the print. At each of the flanks in the foreground were her and Kris respectively, both dressed in elaborate finery in their own right with long coats of magenta and cyan, flat shoes and heels, arms raised to give the appearance of Ralsei twirling from one end to the other, spun free by Susie with Kris waiting to catch him at his landing. Looking more carefully, she could notice that Ralsei was slightly closer to her, leaning back towards her. Deeper in the background, she could make out the blue-lit torches on the walls, the ramparts (on which, to Susie’s further delight, sat Lancer, observing the scene below), the tower, the Grand Fountain, and the pale light shining through the front door that bathed the whole scene in forward-facing shadows. 

Though minor imperfections existed, perhaps because Ralsei’s exact face could only be replicated by an act of photography that Susie knew to be impossible, a rush of emotions slammed into her all the same. Sadness, joy, relief, awe… They all served to create a tincture that brought tears streaming from her eyes.

“It’s… it’s incredible,” she cried, ugly sobs threatening to break the surface of her voice. “When did… How did…”

“Kris encouraged me to try my hand at drawing him. They even paid me in place of the commissions I normally make,” explained Asriel softly, gently sliding Susie’s other hand onto the frame to make sure it was steady. 

“It was Asriel’s idea, though,” they added quietly. “What you talked about with the pictures really made an impact. On both me and him.”

“A friend of mine majored in art, so I asked them for criticism, too. With their and Kris’s help, well. We made that.” Asriel smiled down at her. “I hope you like it!”

Susie laughed a breathless, teary laugh. “How… How long did this take you?”

Asriel glanced at Kris. “I asked Kris their thoughts on it last winter. Been working on it ever since.”

“That’s what the whole “drafts” thing was about,” they elaborated. “I made sure he turned out as best as I could. Distinct, like him.”

Hugging the frame to her chest, Susie looked up at Asriel. The similarities she’d always seen on his face crumbled away like dust, leaving behind a face that was entirely his own. Asriel was Asriel, just as Ralsei had been Ralsei.

“I drew it digitally, too, so I’ve always got a backup if you need one. For any reason,” he said. 

Sliding a hand off the print, Susie lunged forward, throwing her arms around him into a crushing embrace. “Thank you… Thank you!” she smiled into his chest, letting the tears flow freely. She heard Kris take a single cautious step closer; without giving them a chance to say anything, she yanked them towards her and Asriel, crushing them alongside him. “Guys, I… I’m so…” Susie grinned tearily.

With a stalwart, watery conviction, blanketed in a heavenly warmth, she murmured, “I’m so glad you’re my family…”

SEVEN MONTHS LATER...

The shrill sound of the doorbell cut through Susie’s head, pulling her focus away from the plates she’d been setting out.

“Just a sec!” she called, closing the cabinet.

RING RING RING RING RING RING RING

Susie unlocked the door and furiously yanked it open. At the threshold stood Kris, smug grin on their lips, pressing the doorbell one more time for good measure. Without a moment’s hesitation, she yanked them inside and shut the door, desperately trying to keep the frosty winter air at bay. 

She gave them an affectionate punch on the shoulder. “Good to see you, dumbass.”

“Good to see you too,” they replied, setting their bag down by the couch and shrugging themself out of their coat.

“How was the walk over?” said Susie over her shoulder, getting back to putting the plates out on the table.

“It’d be nice if it were a bit closer,” they stated matter-of-factly, “But not bad. It’s a pretty good spot.”

Amidst the clattering of plates, Susie agreed, “Right? Damn miracle I got it for this cheap. ‘Specially for something that’s got more than one room.”

Kris stretched, listening with satisfaction to the popping of their joints. Unceremoniously, they flopped right over the back of the couch, legs sticking up over it. “When d’you start work?”

“Tuesday night. Small shifts to start with, but six days a week. Sucks that my biggest ones are on Saturday nights.” She punctuated her words with the thuds of ceramics on the wood of the little table. There was hardly enough space for three people, but if it was only gonna be used for snacks today, that didn’t matter much. “Think you’ll have time on Sundays?”

They flashed a thumbs-up over the back of the couch. “Good with me.”

Once she finished putting the dishes out, Susie grabbed the pre-packaged snack boxes she’d picked up and began to put their contents in their respective places. Mostly cheese, meat, crackers, and berries; Toriel would have her covered on sweets whenever she arrived. Though that didn’t stop Susie from picking up a small thing of generic grocery store cookies. She couldn’t help herself.

“Now that you’re back in classes, Kris, how’s that all goin’?” 

“Murder,” came the answer.

“The workload, or do you have a hit list?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.” 

Susie chortled. “Sounds about right.” 

Seemingly getting bored with how they were sitting, Kris righted themself on the couch, then stood up. “By the way, I got you a housewarming gift,” they said, dipping down to grab their bag.

“Oh, you didn’t have to… Thanks. What is it?” asked Susie, having just finished with the snacks. She grabbed a couple mugs.

“Space heater,” they answered, the loud zipper grinding under their words. “Figured you could use one.”

She poked her head out from the kitchen. “Oh, hell yeah! It gets cold as hell in here at night. You’re a lifesaver.” She stepped over to Kris, taking it from their hands and promptly hoarding it in her room. “By the way, Kris, mind holding off on the cookies? I figured we should save those for–”

Hunched over the table like a gargoyle, Kris stared at her, their mouth covered in blue frosting. “Too late.”

Susie sighed, chuckling. “Fine. But don’t grab any more. Unless you don’t want the thing I was gonna make for you.”

Kris cocked their head to one side. “Sugar?”

“Yep,” she nodded. “Sit down, it’ll only take a couple minutes.”

Busying herself with the idle work of filling the mugs she’d set out with milk and grabbing the packets out of the cupboard. Within minutes, she had two steaming mugs of hot cocoa ready, topped with marshmallows and a cinnamon stick each. 

“Check it out,” she said, setting the mugs down on the coffee table. “Tried to make it the way Asgore said you like it the best. Dunno if I got it all right, though.”

Despite the fact that it was steaming hot, Kris wasted no time in downing a massive gulp that was sure to burn their tongue. They smacked their tongue against their lips, gathering all the little bits of taste they could. Then, after a long moment, an approving nod. “It’s good. Hits the spot.”

Susie blew on hers a couple times, exercising a surprising degree of moderation. “Anytime, dude.”

She and Kris sat in silence a while, enjoying the quiet for as long as it’d last before everyone else showed up. Though her new place wasn’t much, Susie figured she’d grow to like it quickly. She’d been able to afford it with a combination of money given to her by Toriel and the savings she’d earned from the part-time jobs she’d worked in Hometown in the months after graduating. It meant her savings now were admittedly much slimmer than she’d liked, but she figured that once her new job kicked into full gear, she’d make enough to stay afloat. Maybe even, little by little, earn enough to pay Toriel back. 

A momentary frown crossed her features. “Hey, Kris… d’you think I left Hometown a bit too early?”

“How do you mean?” they asked, taking loud sips.

“Like… I wanted to stick around there for a while, really get to know the place on my own terms,” she tried, slowly piecing her thoughts together. “That, and I wanted to make sure Toriel wouldn’t get too lonely; would’ve kinda sucked for her if we all just picked up and left all at once. Leave her alone in that big house.” Susie, wrapping her hands around the mug, took a long drink. “I’m happy to be out here now, so we can hang out more ‘n all, but… should I have stayed longer?”

Kris stewed on the thought for a few moments before responding. Calmly and slowly, as though watching their steps carefully, but comfortingly. “I mean… I think Mom would’ve been happy to have you for as long as you wanted. She thinks the world of you.”

“And spoils me rotten,” joked Susie, eliciting a quiet chuckle from Kris.

“Truly. And… maybe she will be a bit lonesome. She’s lived in that house for, what, twenty-five years? I imagine it would’ve felt weird with both me and Asriel gone; with you out, too… yeah. She might get pretty lonely. But I think with her friends at the church choir, Alphys, Carol, Dad, and her students… she’ll get by. She’s strong.”

Susie hummed. “I know. I know she’s strong, I think I was just… being stupid.”

Kris shook their head. “Nah. You’re just a total softie.”

“HEY!” she barked.

“That’s what great about you, Suz. You care about everyone, and a hell of a lot,” they insisted. In a sincere mimicry of one of her most common gestures, they gave her a light punch on the shoulder. “Don’t you ever change that.”

Embarrassed, Susie averted her gaze, first to the door, then her half-full mug. “...Thanks.”

“The therapist you’ve been seeing isn’t too far from here, yeah?” they asked, the change of subject an act of subtle mercy on her tolerance for embarrassment. “How’s that going?”

Susie took another sip. “I dunno if he believes any of the stuff I’ve said about the Dark Worlds, but… the guy takes it all seriously. Like, he gave me an odd look when I first brought it up, but I asked him to suspend his disbelief, and he’s doing it. That’s probably the best I can ask for.”

“That’s good.” They smiled at her. “I’m really happy for you, Susie.”

“Heh.” She looked out the window at the calm grey skies. “Things’re looking up, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Kris gulped down the rest of their cocoa, wiping their sleeve along their lips to clean off any of the remaining chocolate.

“So,” they continued, pointing a finger across the room. “Since when did you get a piano?”

“Surprised you didn’t ask about it earlier,” replied Susie. “It’s not exactly small. I mean, it’s just an upright, but still.”

They shrugged. “You seemed busy earlier. But, uh… How’d you even afford it?”

“Like this,” said Susie, placing down her mug and walking over to it. She ran her fingers along a scale, noting the tune-up it needed, before crashing a finger down into a high F. The piano let out a huge, shrill whine. 

“Ow,” winced Kris, holding their hand up to one ear.

“Yeah, it really needs some work. If you’re careful, though, it sounds okayish.” She grinned widely at them. “Wanna play with me?”

Kris nodded furiously, the need for words to affirm her discarded. As they sat down on the bench, Susie followed their eyes, to where a familiar print sat on the back of the piano. A nostalgic look filled their gaze.

“It’s a good place for it, yeah?” asked Susie, sitting down next to them. “Figured it was either here or on my desk, but this spot felt more… right.” She scoffed. “I think he would’ve liked to see something like this out here, and not holed up in my room. Even now, I don’t really have the words to express why… One step at a time, I guess.” 

“One step at a time,” agreed Kris.

Susie glanced up at the print. Ralsei still looked as weightless as ever, but here, his visage was inviting. Even though this facsimile of him was nothing more than just that, it had a certain power over her. Nostalgia, perhaps. Before, she might have said longing, too, but the serrated edges of that unbridgeable gap between her and the boy she remembered had dulled over time. Rejoining him was impossible, she’d come to accept, though the occasional visits to him her dreams took weren’t unwelcome in the slightest. She liked that she could remember him so vividly, still. The closest, most difficult special person she’d ever had in her life.

Kris tapped her on the shoulder, then moved their hand down to the lower registers. They asked her if she wanted to start playing with a nod; she nodded back, placing her fingers on the middle and high registers, waiting for Kris to start things off. She watched them slide their fingers up and down along the notes, modulating by half-steps, taking their time to choose a key. Their fingers split apart and condensed, feeling the intervals one by one. Then, with a quiet ringing, they pressed their hand down on the notes they’d chosen.

Susie listened, letting them set up a pattern for her to follow, before joining the music with them. The sounds of the old upright piano, with its creaky pedals and whining notes, gradually filled the apartment, echoing off the walls and building upon each other bit by bit. Behind the keys, the strings hummed with their sounds, as Kris dictated the pace with the bassline and sustain while Susie created a melody on the spot. If she listened closely to the sound coming out of the wooden box, as closely as she could, the music would pick up an otherworldly quality, ensconcing its performers in its magic as the scenery around them slipped away.

It was almost as if, looking down on them from his place atop the shelf, Ralsei was humming, too.