Chapter Text
The day following Noelle’s visit to Castle Town was, for lack of a better word Kris could come up with, odd. All three of them had sat in the same spot as yesterday, but even as Kris was physically present, their mind was far, far away. No matter how hard they tried to bring it back to focus on Noelle and Susie, the tide of their thoughts were too strong for them to resist. Fortunately for them, neither of them seemed to notice; or maybe they did, but brushed it off alongside their other quirks. They weren’t much for talking even after they and Susie had fallen into Castle Town for the first time that Thursday back in November.
They were sure, determined even, that Noelle would be joining them in the next Dark World. And when that happened, they could only hope that she would remain none the wiser to their odd behaviour. Her having found out about the supply closet was bad enough, let alone the prophecy, or even the Knight. How were they going to protect her when the Knight was right there in front of her? Worse yet, her being able to see through their visor and–
The cool water from their bathroom tap consumed their face, mixing with the sweat from their brow to create an all consuming sensation before they buried their head into the face towel kept next to the mirror. They looked into their reflection and it stared back at them, returning their blank, distant gaze. The porcelain of their sink was smooth underneath their steeled grip.
The door rattled against Susie’s fist as she slammed on the door with reckless abandon, “Kris? You there? Your ice cream’s melting!”
Kris had always enjoyed her staying over for a multitude of reasons, the primary one being their feelings for her. But even without taking that into consideration, it was good for them to have company. Typically they slept together on the couch, with reruns of decade old thriller movies playing softly on screen. Other times they’d crawl into their bed, silently curled up together, illuminated by the faint glow of the stars above Asriel's side of the room. She’d be the one holding onto them, like an impromptu plush toy. Occasionally, it veered into lung-crushing territory, but they never complained, mainly out of fear of waking her up. Despite initial impressions she turned out to be a light sleeper.
Susie had made her place within their home. She had her own set of pajamas that Toriel brought out for her, freshly washed each time. There was a tooth brush which lived underneath the sink, that whenever she came over found its place next to Kris’s own in the plastic cup next to the sink. She filled out the empty space in the house that was left behind by Asriel leaving for college.
They left their now-empty bowl in the sink and climbed up the stairs to their room. Without asking, Susie had splayed herself out on the floor between Kris’s and Asriel’s beds. She didn’t have to ask, and she knew she didn’t. They silently laid down on their bed, tapping away at their phone, leaving her to do whatever it was.
They deeply enjoyed moments like these, where they and Susie could simply exist together. It made everything feel normal. Her presence alone was able to break the glass they always felt like they were stuck behind; take them from watching the world pass by and make them a part of it. She made them feel real.
The bed creaked as they rolled over, eyeing what she was doing.
In her claws was a thin booklet of piano music. She held the pages delicately, pinched between her pointer and thumb, slowly feathering through the pages.
“Do you know how to read that?” They asked.
“A little bit,” she said. “I asked Toriel about piano stuff and she just handed this to me.”
“You asked my Mom about piano stuff?” They sat upright.
She shrugged, “Yeah.”
They crept off the bed and shuffled over to her on their knees. It was a book of classical pieces they’d learnt front-to-back when they were still in middle school. She had the page open to “Le Cynge”. They pointed to the treble clef, “Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah, duh, it’s like, the higher one.” She pointed to the bass clef, “‘nd that’s the lower one… right?”
“Yeah,” they leaned closer to her. “And you know what time signature it is, right?”
“Uh,” she mumbled, claw hovering over the page. She squinted, pointing to the ninety-four written above the first bar, “this?”
“That’s the tempo,” They grabbed her hand and guided her claw to point at the tiny fraction at the start of the first bar, “That’s the time signature. It’s three-over-four, so it’s a waltz.”
Her eyebrow furrowed. “Heaven be damned, why is this so complicated?”
They giggled, “Dunno. Maybe ‘cause they’re trying to gatekeep. You’ll get it eventually.”
“You really think that?”
“Of course you will,” they said. There wasn’t a hint of irony in their voice. It was sincere, something Susie was decidedly not used to.
“If you say so, dumbass,” she smiled coyly. “Does Noelle play piano too?”
“No,” they frowned. “I’m the only one that can teach you.”
She failed to see the venom behind that assertion.
“Dang. I kinda just assumed she would play an instrument, like maybe violin or something? I can totally see you two duetting or something.”
“I think…” they hesitated, knowing the majority of what they wanted to say would be less than desirable, “I think so.”
“Yeah. She’d be awesome at that music game thingy that Tenna had us play. She’d be pretty into it,” she said, before her smile faded as she remembered something. “But we probably should focus more on that bunker stuff.”
“Bunker?” their eyes widened, ”Oh, yeah, right, that.”
“Yeah, Noelle says that she thinks that Delta Rune symbol definitely has gotta do with the church. And she could totally search her house again for–”
“Wait, you… told her?”
“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I? She’s smart, with a brain like hers we could finally get somewhere.”
At that moment, Kris felt like the floor underneath them was about to fall out underneath them.
They spoke slowly, “How much did you tell her?”
“Everything, which isn’t much, to be fair. We’ve kinda been procrastinating on everything, you gotta admit.”
“Yeah,” they murmured.
They felt like they weren’t in the room. They retracted from Susie, withdrawing their body heat and slowly meandered to their bed. The bedframe thunked as they dropped their body onto their mattress in defeat.
~
They emerged downstairs in the morning to the soft sizzling of pancakes. Toriel was always delighted to have her over for breakfast, even outside of sleepovers. Saturday-morning-pancakes had become a tradition, which Susie seemed to enjoy despite it being the prelude to her first ever church visit. She inhaled them, as per usual, and meanwhile Kris only poked a cut piece of pancake with the edge of their butter knife.
Susie looked at them from the corner of her eye, maintaining her focus on her highly important breakfast eating. “You gonna eat that?”
“No,” they said. Without asking, they put the contents of their plate, one and a half pancakes that were drenched in maple syrup, onto the side of her plate.
“Dude, you sure? You look kinda tired.”
“I’m fine,” they lied.
She shrugged. “If you say so, thanks dude,” she said in between mouthfuls. It was amusing enough to distract Kris from their lack of sleep.
Instead of sleeping that night, Kris had had no choice but to dwell on every single mistake they had made that had led up to Noelle knowing about the bunker codes. She had said that she was going to get supplies and they didn’t listen because they were too distracted. The moment she said anything about supplies they should’ve done something, she had been sitting with them in the first place which led to her going looking, Susie had invited her to be there in the first place, because she had been dating her in the first place, and Kris hadn’t done anything to stop that.
The most important failure, however, was them letting their guard down in the first place. They shouldn’t’ve let themselves get this far in the first place. If it hadn’t been for Susie, or Noelle’s crush on her, or that god damn kiss on the ferris wheel that had been replaying in their head at least once a day for what felt like ages, maybe they wouldn’t be in this spot right now.
A stronger, more normal version of them would’ve been able to be angry about it. But watching her snore away on the inflatable mattress next to their bed- the frustration hadn’t gone away, but they had calmed down enough to fall back asleep.
Toriel swiftly removed their plate from the placemat, placing it with a clatter next to the sink.
She circled back around, standing in the space between their chairs. “You know, this morning Pastor Alvin wants a hand with the dusting and getting the place clean.”
“Neat,” Susie said, blissfully unaware of what was gonna happen.
“And I was thinking, well, I have an awfully strong monster and human with me today…,”
“We are pretty strong,” She grinned. On a good day, Kris would’ve found her ignorance amusing. This morning, they did not.
“So, I was thinking… you two could help around the church, do some cleaning?” She asked.
Susie groaned. “Fine– uh,” she cleared her throat, correcting her tone. “Yeah, why the hell not?”
Their mother laughed in response. Last time they were roped into going to church was when it had been moved to a Saturday for the festival, and it panned out poorly for everyone involved. Given the circumstances, Kris didn’t expect this time to go much better. But they didn't have the energy to argue, nor anything better to do.
The two of them immediately resigned themselves to the next two and a half hours of their lives and put on winter coats upstairs, not bothering with a change of clothes as there was no need to dress up fancy, according to their mother.
The snow covered the footpath leading up to the church, prompting them to walk across where the grass would be. The snow from the day before yesterday had dusted the town in a half-inch or so of white powder, which Susie scooped off the grass beside the concrete sidewalk and fashioned into a snowball absent mindedly. She chucked it onto the unploughed road, creating a small mound within the sheer white.
Neither Kris nor Susie could see the church in the same light since the Dark World had opened there; though both of them had vastly reasons for doing so. Toriel pushed open the double doors, the bottom scraping away the snow beneath it, leaving an arc shape on the ground.
In the foyer, Pastor Alvin greeted them all warmly, hurrying them in.
“Come in, come in! Take off your coats, if I had a fireplace I’d get you warmed right up.”
The pastor whisked Toriel away
in platitudes about work and family whilst Kris and Susie hung up their own coats on the coat stand placed by the door. It took a moment to find a hook that wasn’t taken, but eventually, they both found a spot, directly next to a red and green cardigan with snowflakes.
“And I’ve enlisted some help,” she pointed towards the two of them.
“Excellent,” He said, “You go inside, I’ll take them off your hands.”
He invited Kris and Susie to follow him into his office. Kris saw her frowning out of the corner of their eye, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. She did well to hide her guilt for their former breaking-and-entering as he handed them two sets of brooms, a dustpan and a feather duster, from the hooks on the wall.
“Thank you, Pastor,” Kris said, with a reverence Susie found odd.
“Thanks, Pastor,” she imitated, although the word ‘pastor’ felt deeply unnatural coming out of her mouth.
He addressed her, “You get started on dusting the windows, please.”
“Sure,” she said.
There was a short pause.
“Could you,” he clasped his hands together, “go do that now? Thank you,”
Susie immediately left, not having to be asked thrice to leave the room. He watched her, until he was sure she had left, then turned his attention to Kris.
“My child. Has she given you any trouble?” He asked.
Kris considered for a moment, spelling everything out. They were already technically going behind her back, and their betrayal was inevitable, so why not speed it up. Yes sir, she is. She’s trying to stop the Knight and we have to stop her now. She’s terrible and is making my life hell.
“No,” they said. They figured messing up their only true friendship they had in years would make everything worse. Whether that made them a good person or a coward would be something a future version of themselves could figure out.
“Excellent,” he said, “If you need anything, come by my office. ‘Mi casa es su casa’, is that how it goes?”
“It should be ‘mi office, su office’, I think,”
He laughed, “You are a funny one. You get that from your father. But do take my words to heart. You’re doing so wonderfully,” he remarked as he disappeared into the hallway.
They waited, gripping the broom they were holding before they heard the sound of Toriel and Alvin talking again. They stuck their head out just past the door, seeing Susie was busy dusting the window on the other side of the church, blissful and unaware and ignorant as always. With a creak, they closed the door as much as they could without fully shutting it, lest they draw anyone's attention. Spidery hands made their way under their sweater as they gently pushed between their ribs. There was a hollow pulling sensation that radiated out from their chest as they pulled out their soul.
It sat in their hand, red and beating. They slinked over to the desk. It was large and sturdy, made from polished oak and consisting of half a dozen drawers, each equipped with a lock. They took pause seeing the drawer Gerson’s ashes were left. They shook their head, quickly forgetting the old man from their head.
Where they saw there was an unlocked drawer with a key still inside. It rolled open, before they ungracefully shoved their soul in and slammed it shut, locking it away.
Kris emerged back into the hallway. Susie had moved onto another window, making a surprisingly sincere effort to dust off every part of it. No-one had properly cleaned them, at least not in their living memory. It was just busy work. The same way their adventures with her in the Darkworlds were busywork. But at least it was something they could call their own, something which, if they allowed themselves to foolishly believe, was something belonging solely to the two of them. But then Noelle had to fall into Castle Town.
The door to the hall opened, Noelle poking her head around. “Excuse me, Pastor, we found Snowy’s sheet mus– oh!” She laid eyes on Kris and Susie.
“Yes, excellent!” He answered, “We’ll start shortly, then. I just need a moment with Miss Dreemurr if that’s alright.”
“Yes, Pastor,” Noelle said, before going over to the others, smiling at the two of them. “What are you two doing here?”
“Cleaning, boring stuff. You’re here to sing right?”
“No, she’s wearing choral clothes for fun,” They said with a dry smirk.
Noelle gave a laugh which was difficult to tell if it was genuine or not. “Faha, no, I do sing! We’re practicing for Christmas mass.”
“Neat. It’s cool if me and Kris come and watch when we’re done, right?”
She blushed. “Of course you can. You can come and watch anytime, actually!”
“Sweet! You should come to the Dark World, there’s this like music thing and–”
“Noelle, we’re starting now,” Pastor Alvin interrupted as Toriel waved goodbye and walked out the double doors.
“Sorry, gotta dip,” Noelle apologised to the both of them. She checked over her shoulder to see that the room was empty before giving Susie a short peck on the cheek. As she pulled her face away, she noticed Kris staring.
They frowned, before they thought quickly to grab their broom and sweep directly at Noelle's feet. “Go, sing choir girl, sing!”
Susie joined them, collectively brushing her out and into the main hall where the others waited. “Break a leg!”
The two of them started ‘work’ directly after. They started from opposite ends, sweeping dust and crumbs of dust left from by dozens of church goers. Kris let the repetition of large sweeps soothe them, letting their thoughts be replaced by the mixing sounds of bristles against wood and the sounds of the muffled choir from the other room. Noelle had been singing since they were little, in the similar way they played piano. It seemed to just be something she did rather than a passion.
There’d been plenty of choices for both of them, including multiple amateur guitar lessons from Dess. She’d try to teach them both at multiple times, but they both wound up giving up after several attempts at playing a single chord and failing. Then they’d ask her to play for them instead. Following that, she’d break out into what was at the time was an incomprehensible flurry of movement, all of which somehow made a song; one from those old Featherwood Mick CD’s they’d heard her playing as they walked past her room.
There was the blunt clash of their back against something solid, making them lose their balance. They jumped with a yelp, the wooden handle of the broom sharply and loudly clattering to the floor. Frustrated, they went to pick it up.
“Huh? You wanna fight?” Susie spun around, grinning.
They grabbed the handle to make it seem like a sword, with the head as their hilt. Susie attempted to imitate them, but seemed far less comfortable in her grip, both too loose yet too tight in places. They let her have the courtesy of having the first swing. Hers was slow and heavy, which gave them leverage to easily dodge by ducking underneath the arc of her swing. As they came back up, they made a sharp, calculated jab at her stomach. She flinched– crap, that wasn’t meant to hurt.
But instead of yelling at them, she snickered with a playful jest in their direction, “Little shit–”
She attempted to get them again. This time was slightly better than the last, with her coming just an inch or so away from hitting them, rather than the previous foot. They’d still gotten a few swings at her legs, but she retaliated in spite of her being obviously bested. She’d seen them fight in Dark Worlds with the same agility. It was her own fault for assuming that wouldn’t’ve carried over to the Light World.
In what felt like half-an-hour, which was really only ten minutes, the both of them had wound up out of breath. Mostly it was Susie who was out of her depth, but they didn’t fare too much better than she did. Neither of them had bothered to pay attention to the noise they were making, and naturally not to the chorus coming to a stop.
“What?” they prodded, “Tired already?”
“Does it look like it?” she asked back, only slightly sincere.
They geared up to take the first swing this time, and were halfway through their arc before being interrupted.
“Hey, we’re done with prac…” Noelle trailed off as she saw Kris poised to hit Susie squarely in the snout “...tice?” she took a pause, observing the two of them, “What are you two doing?”
“Having an awesome sword fight?” Susie said.
She shuffled her hooves slightly, turning her body towards Susie, “Um, well, once you two are done with your… awesome sword fight, Toriel said that you can stick around with us for morning tea, if you’d like,”
“Heck yeah!” Susie perked up, the promise of food enough to tempt her, “free food!” She hurried over to the door, “You coming, Kris?”
Noelle resisted the urge to scowl, “Faha, right, Kris can join us, too…”
The inside of the main hall wasn’t much different from the foyer, with the same plaster walls and stained glass windows encased in steel frames; save for a small plastic table laid out with snacks. A thin and cheap pink table cloth was laid over the top, with a surprisingly generous amount of snacks laid out, courtesy of Mayor Holiday’s personal investment into the church from her own pocket.
Susie helped herself to the punch, filling her cup as close as physically possible to the top, inevitably spilling several red droplets onto the table mat. Noelle was enthusiastically close to her side. And Kris was there too, hovering by the pie and doing an unconvincing job they weren’t going to eat it.
Their head was beginning to feel light, and they shoved a slice inside their mouth to try and distract from the feeling. They were flying too close to the sun, but they’d rather die than have that thing within them any longer than they had to. But their relief was only mental, turning every thought into a fuzzy grey haze, which was favourable to them than having to think clearly.
“Did you look at the game I sent you?” Noelle asked
Susie gulped down the entire contents of the cup in one swig, “That uh, su… ee, nee kee thing?”
“Suimen Nikki?” She gently corrected, “did you download it?”
“Yeah, but I can’t figure out how to set up the emulator thingy on my phone.”
“I can do it after we finish here, and we can play together. Well really I’ll just watch you play, I just want to see someone play it blind. I looked up a guide my first time, so I can help you if you get too lost on what to do. And you might recognise some stuff, there’s this really cool easter egg with a one in sixty-four chance to-”
Susie put a claw on her mouth “Ah! you’re gonna spoil it! You gotta stop doing that.”
She pulled her claw away, “Sorry, I just get really over excited about stuff,” she took another bite of pie. This one was key-lime, bought from the supermarket further down the road in town.
Susie eyeballed the slice in her hands, and accordingly, Noelle grabbed another slice from the table and held it up to her snout. Hesitantly, she sniffed it, reminding Noelle of those teen movies about girls and their horses.
“You know, me and Kris were thinking of going to Castle Town this afternoon, you wanna join?” her face lit up in a subtly unsubtle way Susie was known for. Combined with her tail softly wagging from beneath her jacket made them grit their teeth, clicking together, covered in a thin layer of sugar from finishing off the last slice of pie.
“Actually, I was thinking about that,” she looked over her shoulder, seeing the only person in earshot was Kris chewing away, “Those codes you said were on the bunker; I know there’s one probably in my house, but there’s padlocks in places, so I can’t just go in anywhere, plus Mum might see me.”
Kris nearly choked. Just as quick as their body reacted they moved to hide it, swallowing the food down their throat and paying careful attention.
“You’re padlocked out of your own house? Damn. Your Mom really does hate you. Got any other ideas, then?”
“I was thinking, since one of the codes has the Delta Rune symbol on it, it might have something to do with the church, which we can have a look at now. Right Kris?”
Shit. Fuck. Shit.
They shrugged, “I guess.”
“Let’s go then!” Susie threw the plastic cup for her punch in the bin.
They split off, wandering around the church without any particular commitment to one place. Noelle spoke to Toriel, and Susie wandered off towards the front of the foyer. Kris joined Susie, keeping an ear out to their conversation; which wasn't difficult given Susie couldn’t come up with much to say after staring at the back of the pews for several minutes.
“Where do you usually keep our music sheets?” Noelle asked,
“Usually Alvin keeps them, he just shoves any paper work in there. Probably why we took so long to find Snowy’s sheet music this morning.”
Oh dearest angel no she cannot go in there.
They had to think fast.
“I have to go for a bit,” they buzzed
“Why?”
“Gotta- have to… I think I need my coat.”
Susie only shared at them while they shuddered over to the door in the foyer. With the grace of a bulldozer they ripped their coat off the hanger and scurried outside, a few moments ahead of Susie and Noelle arriving in the foyer.
Snow crunched underfoot with urgency. They stumbled over their own feet a few times, their pulse pounding against their skull. But there wasn’t anything they could do about that. They scurried over to the window on the outside of the office.
“Kris?” a single lone voice echoed.
Pastor. He followed them out here, or maybe he was wandering around for the sake of avoiding talking to people. Either way, they weren’t in the mood for anything he had to say.
“Sorry, can’t talk right now.”
“Is she giving you trouble?” he asked, shuffling towards them
“No,” which was a half-truth.
“Then what’s all this for?”
They grunted as they lifted themselves through the open stained glass window, “Can’t say. It isn’t important,” and they shut the window closed behind them before he could speak again.
They dashed over to the door, locking it shut. As soon as they heard the click their body relaxed. It could only ever be locked from the inside; That fact had been hidden from them, as most things were. The reason why became apparent after the incident after the second sanctuary.
Just as the door hinge clicked, it rattled from the other side.
Susie’s voice hissed, “Shit, it’s locked.”
Noelle sighed “Of course it is.”
There was a swishing noise as she leaned her back against the door and slumped down into a sit. Another swish and Noelle had joined her. Without making a noise, Kris joined in sitting on the floor, pushing their ear up next to the door to listen in. The morality of eavesdropping on them was questionable, but it wasn’t any worse than what they had been doing for the past month.
“Where did Kris go, anyway?” Noelle asked.
“They went outside for something, I dunno,”
“What’s up with you two, anyway?”
“Huh. what do you mean?”
“Are you two…”
Their face flushed anticipating her question.
“Are we two what?”
She laughed, “Nevermind. You two seem like good friends, is all. Those Dark Worlds really brought you two together, huh.”
“Yeah. And now you’re there it will be even better, and we can all hang out together in Castle Town, it’s awesome!”
“Yes but…” she spoke slowly and deliberately, “we should also have some dates with just the two of us.”
“Oh, right,” she said sheepishly.
“We are the ones who are dating, remember?”
“Yeah, you’re not gonna let me forget,” she laughed, “But I don’t wanna wind up having to choose between the two of you.”
“I suppose,” Noelle twirled her hair in her finger, “but if you had to… you should probably choose me, since I am your girlfriend.”
“Right, right. Is that how it usually is?” She had a naive sincerity to her voice only reserved for the clueless boyfriends on sitcoms their mom liked watching reruns of; the kind that made Kris want to punch the screen.
“Yes” she replied, the word too short for her to hide her annoyance.
Susie couldn’t figure out how to do anything other than lean against the door in awkward silence.
“Sorry, that was rude of me,” Noelle huffed, “if I’m being honest, I’m not sure what to think. They can be your friend, and I could be theirs, but,” she pulled her legs to her chest, steeling herself, “Don’t you think it’s weird how quiet they are?”
“What? If they’re weird I’m like… weirdo city. And they’re not quiet. Not now, at least.”
“Not quiet, but like, don’t you think that it’s… nevermind, actually.”
They felt ill. They tried again to move silently again, but their body was heavy and lethargic, it took them several moments to get to their knees, and several for them to stand up straight. They clawed at the drawer with the key, and the moment it was open they tugged it on its hinges to reveal its contents. That red thing that they stashed away in there didn’t move, only sitting there. It was cold in their hands as they shoved it into their chest. The moment it made contact with their skin, a wave of relief spread over their body.
They rubbed the back of their neck, relieved the blood felt like it was flowing into their brain again. The two of them were still talking. Talking talking talking. And they didn’t want to listen. There wasn’t a single other thing they could gain out of it.
They needed to escape. So they crawled back out the way they came, and began a slow walk over to where their school was.
~
Sound blared from Dess’s laptop. She studied it intently, Asriel lounging beside her with his legs crossed, a glass of chocolate milk in his hand. He’d got it from their kitchen, having offered one to Kris and Noelle– Dess didn’t like chocolate– and both of them had declined. Having drinks would get in the way of playing, which they did a few metres away from them.
She pressed down on one of the strings, before slowly strumming out something similar to what was playing, opened on the table in front of her. Briefly, it clicked, and she came up to speed with what was playing. But then her finger went out of place, and she stopped.
“I swear to heaven, I wanna know what they fed this guy,” she lamented.
Asriel finished a sip “You’ll get it eventually, he’s like, the lead guitarist in one of the biggest bands in the world–”
“Biggest band in the world, as of right now,” she smirked.
“I dunno if you’re gonna end up as big as Featherwood Mick,” he laughed with a nervous look in his eye.
She only glared at him as she returned to her laptop, flicking over to a web page with the guitar tabs, “Maybe,” she looked over the tabs before searching up another song.
She’d been practicing the guitar for a while. Despite not having any bandmates, and only ever having performed once before in the school’s talent show, she’d still had the determination to become something bigger than herself. It was something Asriel admired about her, and by extension, so did Kris.
There was another song she pulled up, one of the songs The Beagles made after they got the tapes from their late band member. This one, she was gonna perform at the next talent show, her last one before she graduated. It would just be her up there, a fact which sent a small shudder up her spine, but she was gonna do it regardless. You only live once, as she explained to Asriel when she put her name down.
She played it as Asriel watched, with him offering the occasional feedback. No, I think you should do the whole chords during the verse then you swap to the arpeggios, and no, I don’t think you should use metal growl… anywhere in the song. Each time, she took a pause before immediately going back to the song. Each time, she went back into the song as if ducking her head back under the water, back into the world she created. She was so completely enveloped into the music that she didn’t see Noelle or Kris pause to stare at her. She didn’t notice as the two came up to her side of the lounge, watching her patiently over the armrest.
“Can I have a go?” Kris asked.
Dess jumped, not having realised either they or Noelle were directly next to her, “Christ! Don’t just sneak up on me like that!” She let go of the neck of her guitar, “And no, ‘cause you didn’t use the magic word.”
“Please?” Noelle butted in.
“No, Kris has to say it,” Dess asserted.
They went quiet for a moment, before speaking again, “Can I have a go, please?”
“Course ya can!” she shuffled over closer to the middle of the lounge, giving Kris enough room to squeeze in beside her.
Noelle sat down on the chair next to them, resting her head in her arms as she watched them. She was never one for instruments, largely preferring singing. Carol had been throwing around the idea of her joining the choir so she could sing next Christmas mass, which didn’t bode well on account of her stage fright.
The guitar was far too big for them, comically so, but neither them nor Dess seemed to pay it any mind. She arranged their fingers into an A major chord, with them patiently waiting before they strummed. It didn’t sound like much of anything.
“You gotta press down a little harder,” she directed.
They tried again, this time what came out was more distinctively a different chord from just strumming on the open strings. She repeated the same instruction for the second time, flicking through the tab variations before they came to what she decided was the easiest version for them to play. They strummed again, repeating the same mistake, and from underneath their bangs, Dess could clearly see them scowl as she corrected them.
“You’re okay, little dude, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna,” she said.
They peered up at her. It took them a brief moment for them to calculate what Dess was feeling. The slant of her tone, the lowered eyebrows; she was disappointed.
“No, I wanna,” they asserted.
“You sure?”
They nodded affirmatively.
They struggled to fully wrap their hand around the guitar’s neck, but it sounded somewhat okay. It paled in comparison to their piano playing, which they were acutely aware of as they warbled out another chord. But sitting next to Dess, with Noelle and Asriel watching them, they weren’t too worried about it being good.
Both of them continued, with Dess becoming a mentor for them.
…
“You’re a natural at this, little dude,” she said.
Asriel eyed the time on the digital display from Dess’s laptop, “Carol and Rudy are gonna get back soon.”
“Right, gotta pack up,” she said, rising from her seat.
They stared at her, wide eyed, speaking gently, “Can you teach me more guitar?”
She ruffled their hair, collecting her guitar from their lap, “I promise.”
~
Castle Town was asleep. Every shop was shut, the lights were down, everything was quiet. Kris had known that it would be like this, which is the main reason they came here.The starkness of the silence was soothing, the same way it soothed them as a kid to stick their hand in a glass of ice water.
The same was true for the studio. Darkness crawled out from the corners of the room, crawling up the walls, only broken up by the flashing lights of the instruments that lay on the stage. Opening the door felt like intruding, despite the lack of people. Empty chairs were laid out in an array that went all the way back up to the back wall. Far too many for anything that would happen in this place, yet it felt appropriate to them in a strange way.
They stumbled over to the panel of various switches that lay on the table behind the back wall. Every button had symbols and signage that made no sense; the consequence of it being based off of the vague idea of a control board rather than the real thing. However, the dial for the stage lights were marked clearly enough. The overhead lights lit up into a soft glow that was off-white with age it couldn't logically have.
With a small jump, they crawled onto the stage. It lacked any proper ramp or stairs to get onto it. They walked past the drum kit and the mic and found the guitar. It was shiny, pointy, in a nearly white baby blue. The strings rang out, the sound tinny and half formed as they picked it up, sliding the strap over their head to sit on their shoulder. It was cool to the touch, shiny and smooth and plastic. From memory, they tried to play a note or two. It rang out, just slightly louder than they wanted it too.
Their first instinct was to try a scale, going up the neck of the guitar to pick each note, from a “C”, then a “D”, then to something which sounded definitely like an “F”, then something that was below that, but just slightly too low. They’d had a guitar lesson or two before, they were sure of it, but it must’ve been so long ago they could barely remember anything.
They retrieved their phone from their unseen inventory, and placed it on the amp close by. From their previous visits they knew that the Dark World’s service was terrible, if not non-existent, which is why they’d downloaded a diagram of the notes. It was slightly daunting seeing every single note along each string at once, but that hadn’t stopped them before, and especially not now, given the lack of audience to witness any mistakes. Once they finished a clunky, inconsistent C major scale, they figured they could try and play an actual song. They flicked over to a screenshot of some chords, and began to render a slow imitation of a song they’d picked out.
They’d never touched a piano, much less a guitar, in years, only having done so extremely recently. Not out of any dislike, but because of an innate sense of wrongness they got whenever they tried. Maybe it was from a lack of permission, or maybe it was that it felt like they were trying to reach something they couldn’t have. That something was a lot of things; their parents still being together, their brother not disappearing off the college, them still being able to look Noelle in the eyes, and Dess still being there– existing like she always had.
Before she had gone away, the thought didn’t ever cross their mind that things would change. Their life up until that point had been blurs of playing toys and video games and various instruments. They’d never clicked with the guitar like they did with the piano, and they never really bothered to practice. Now they wished they had learnt more. Not because they wished they were a guitarist instead, but because they would’ve spent more time with her; more memories to draw in for them to try and recreate her in their mind.
It was Dess’s thing, for one, but also they didn’t get as much praise for it, which had significantly lowered their tolerance for their own mistakes. Now that they weren’t a small child, it was easier to get a grasp on.
They flicked over to another set of diagrams, this time with chords. They resettled, coming to sit cross legged on the hard wood of the stage, with the guitar placed in their lap. It was slightly awkward, given its pointed shape, but they managed. They put their hands around the neck of the guitar. Their fingers trembled. They stared ahead, and the darkness stared back.
The first few attempts were shaky and broken. The sound reverberated across the room, down to the small sound of them moving their fingers across the fretboard to the next chord. They kept their gaze solely on the guitar, only briefly looking away to see the diagrams on their phone.
*maybe add a little more desc here idk
A sudden, sharp noise echoed throughout the room. They jumped, looking around the room to try and find the source. It was Noelle. She was clapping.
She put her hands back in her lap. “I didn’t know you still played guitar.”
They only stared back at her, the sound of their own heart beat drowning out any words. From her spot in the front row, the lights illuminated her in a subtle glow. The small bits of glitter on her cloak sparkled, refracting the light into dozens of colours, making her look like she was covered in snow. She looked like an angel; beautiful and delicate and untouchable. She was a delicate thing, that if she was handled incorrect they would surely leave an ugly mark on her.
“Is that the same song you were playing on the piano earlier?”
They slowly nodded.
“Ah, I thought so.”
Kris swallowed, which was enough to get their mouth to be able to form words again. “When did you get here?”
“Oh, just like a few minutes ago. I thought you might be in here.”
“You were looking for me?”
“Yes. I just… was wondering where you were. So I came here to check, is all,” she waved the thought away, “I never got to go here last time, to see the TV stuff I mean. We could all play together sometime, like we did at the festival when we were little.”
They couldn’t help but smile, “Yeah.”
“But we should more so be focusing on the bigger picture. As fun as all of this is, you guys are prophesied heroes… that feels really weird to say out loud, faha.”
They jolted upright, “You know about the prophecy?”
“Yes. Susie… told me, and then she brought me back here for a bit and Ralsei told me.”
They felt their heart sink again. They wanted to travel back in time, or just run over to Susie’s place, wherever that was, and start screaming at her. But they knew they couldn’t do that. They failed, they failed and failed and failed some more.
“How much… why did you…”
“Kris, I know– I know that it’s a big burden, but you don’t have to do it alone. I can help you now, and Susie too.”
They wanted to tell her to go away. They only wanted to come here and play guitar, but now they were trying their best not to cry in front of her. Instead they silently prayed she would just leave. Their lack of words was enough to make her get up from her chair, pausing to look at them just before she walked down the aisle towards the door.
“I–” she tried to say something, but her voice wandered off, “I should probably go. Mum’s gonna notice if I get home late. I’m already lying that practice is running over time an hour, I don’t think two would be as convincing.” She looked to them to see any reaction. Any flicker of emotion in their body language or face or voice. Instead they tilted their head down, letting their bangs cover their eyes.
The door closed behind her with a loud bang.