Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Noelle realizes the ice cream date was a bad idea as soon as she and Susie step into the store. She hasn’t been here in years, but this ice cream parlor, tucked into the street corner right where Kris and Noelle’s neighborhood bleeds into downtown, with its checkerboard floor tiles and little ice cream cone–shaped wall sconces, is stuffed to bursting with childhood memories. The nostalgic scents of two dozen ice cream flavors assail her, and she can practically hear Dess’s laughter as Asriel tries to keep Kris from pressing their face against the glass. It feels like she’s just run full speed into a brick wall, and she stands there, stunned, until Susie makes a questioning noise from behind her.

“Hey, uh, Noelle? You gonna go inside?” Susie asks. “Or, um, are we just standing in the doorway? That’s, er… That’s cool too.”

“S-Sorry, Susie.” Noelle follows the soft, embarrassed glow of her nose into the shop like it’s a lighthouse in a storm. “Hey, uh, why don’t you order first? Get whatever you want!”

“You sure?” Susie asks, though her tone comes across more like, You okay?

Noelle laughs it off. “Of course! My treat.”

“‘Kay.” Susie saunters up to the counter and orders a peanut butter fudge milkshake. Kris would always order a milkshake, too, though they went for chocolate, of course. Actually—not always. There was a stretch of time when they would instead order one of Noelle’s favorite flavors; they would protest loudly when Noelle pestered them for a sample, but considering that she did that every time and they still kept ordering flavors that she liked more than they did, Noelle often wonders, in these wistful moments when she finds herself reminiscing about Kris, if sharing with her wasn’t, secretly, the point. Like the time Kris had gotten strawberry, and they had been so stingy that Noelle had to scooch closer to them in the booth for a chance to—

“Noelle?” Susie asks.

“S-Strawberry!” Noelle blurts out, waving her arms around like a lunatic. Attempting to compose herself, she turns to the clerk and clarifies, “Um, two scoops of strawberry in a cup, please…”

There’s a split second where Susie is just looking at her. Then she smirks, and jokes, “What, not peppermint?”

Noelle laughs brightly, relieved. Susie is blessedly skilled at cutting through the awkwardness. “I like peppermint, but not in ice cream, for whatever reason. Dess would always get it, though…”

“Thought she said she was above the whole Christmas thing you guys got going on.”

“Oh, it’s all talk,” Noelle says, taking out her card to pay. “I’m sure she’s distraught at how many Christmas presents she’s missed over the years.”

They receive their treats, and slide into one of the booths at the side of the store. In a split-second decision, Noelle judges that sitting right next to Susie would perhaps be too forward, so she sits across from her, and immediately regrets it. It would be so nice to cuddle up against her side while they eat ice cream together…but, no, that would be weird, right? This is only their third date. How many dates is it before you can start subtly cuddling up against your girlfriend?

Surely there’s still something she can do to enhance the romantic mood. Their previous date was just watching horror movies at Noelle’s house, which was nice, but she’s craving something like that moment they had out on the beach, during the festival, right before everything in her life got five hundred percent more insane. Maybe she should ask Susie for a sip of her milkshake? That would be cute; an indirect kiss!

But that just makes her think, again, of sitting in this very same booth years ago, and pestering Kris for a lick of their ice cream. That was different, though. She never meant it like—like that, back then. It’d just been Kris, after all, and the relationship she had with Kris…it was special. She doesn’t really know how else to put it; it was a bond that transcended labels. She’s sure Kris felt the same way, at least back then.

Now, though…Now, things are so terribly complicated. A couple weeks ago, after years of distance, Noelle hadn’t even been sure if the two of them were still friends. But it turns out they had been doing the unspeakable for her. They had been lying to her, too—keeping things from her. But they had also gotten her sister back. They’d done everything for her; they’d nearly killed themself for her. 

Not just for her, obviously. Noelle isn’t that narcissistic. Kris had done it for everyone. But Noelle was there in the hospital, after everything went down, when Kris finally woke up. They looked right at her, and Noelle saw palpable relief wash out the exhaustion in their eyes. She thinks about that moment in the hospital a lot. She wonders if, in that moment, Kris saw the exact same relief in Noelle’s eyes, as she watched them wake up, realized for sure that she hadn’t lost them.

“So…Pretty good ice cream, huh?”

Noelle blinked, her mouth freezing and tasting strongly of fruit, and swallowed fast, humming almost too agreeably. “Y-Yeah! Really good ice cream. I told you this place was great!”

“Yeah, you were right.” Susie takes another sip of her shake, and Nolle is about to make her move and ask for some when Susie questions her, “Everything okay? You seem a little distracted.”

Noelle’s heart drops into her stomach. “What? No! I mean—I just—” She curses herself, staring down at her lap, ashamed. “I just have a lot on my mind these days. But spending time with you…” Noelle looks up at her, smiling, feeling her cheeks warm. “Spending time with you always helps me relax.”

She means it, and she hopes, prays, that Susie can tell. She seems understanding, at the very least, gazing at Noelle with those big, caring eyes. “That’s so real, yeah. You wanna talk about it? Whatever it is?”

“I… fahaha. I don’t even know where I’d start.” That one’s also true. “But thanks, Susie. I’ll let you know if I ever get my thoughts straight.”

And in the meantime, Noelle resolves, she will simply stop thinking about Kris. How hard can that be? She managed it pretty well the last several years. And, what, as soon as Kris comes back into her life, she can’t keep her mind off them all of a sudden? That’s ridiculous. That’s practically letting them win—though, win at what, exactly, she’s not sure.

But the point stands. From now on, she will stop thinking so much about Kris.

Roughly sixteen hours later, Alphys corners Noelle on her way to lunch. By the time Noelle manages to make a clean escape (because she does not have the mental bandwidth to volunteer for the dance right now, thank you very much), she’s already lost ten minutes of her thirty-minute lunch break. She speeds through her locker combination, grabs her lunch box, and hurries to the cafeteria.

Kris and Susie are at their usual table, which is now also Noelle’s usual table, engaged in conversation. So engaged, in fact, that neither of them seem to notice her approach. She’s about to call out to them when Susie loudly bangs a fist right next to her lunch tray.

“S-Shut up! It was only, like, our second date, if you’re not counting the festival.”

Noelle stalls. Susie doesn’t count the festival as a date? Why not? Noelle had meant it as a date! Did Susie not see it the same way? 

“And it isn’t like I have any experience with this stuff. Of course I’m nervous, dumbass.”

Noelle cringes; it’s no wonder Susie’s nervous after how awkward Noelle had made things. She wishes she wouldn’t tell Kris about it, though. Maybe Noelle should step in before Susie says something that makes Kris want to stick their nose in things. That’s the last thing she needs right now. 

“She’s down so bad for you it’s embarrassing,” Kris says, which is a little uncalled for, but Noelle can’t really deny it. “You really don’t need to stress so much.”

“I guess,” Susie says, then takes a small breath like she’s about to confess a real insecurity. 

Red alert! Noelle takes a few quick strides towards the table.

“It’s just, sometimes it feels like—”

“Whatchya talking about?” Noelle announces, loudly. Susie jumps a little, but Kris barely moves. Did they see her eavesdropping? They aren’t sending her any looks, but maybe they just don’t want her to know that they know.

“Oh, uh, hey, Noelle,” Susie says as Noelle sits down. “Didn’t, er, see you there?”

Noelle rolls her eyes. “I got waylaid by Alphys. She wants to know if I’m volunteering to help set up the Hawkman’s dance, as if that isn’t the very last thing on my mind lately. I barely escaped in time to get here soon enough to actually eat, fahaha!” She turns to Susie. “So what’d I miss?”

“Eh, nothing much,” Susie dismisses her, and Noelle isn’t sure if she’s relieved by the subject change or jealous that Susie doesn’t want to tell her whatever she was going to tell Kris. 

But then Kris says, “We were talking about your date,” like a little traitor.

“O-Oh! Right. Well, yeah, it was, um—” Noelle nearly bites her tongue, stumbling over her words. She tells herself that it’s because she really, really doesn’t want to talk about the date, and not because she’s talking to Kris. She knows how to talk to Kris. She doesn’t get flustered because of them. “It was nice.” 

“Which flavor was it this time?”

“What?” For a second, Noelle stares through them, memories flooding back unbidden.

Despite herself, Noelle chuckles. “It was strawberry this time,” she says. Susie’s giving them a questioning look, so Noelle explains the story, and Kris slips a jab in when she’s done. For a moment, it feels just like old times, before all the distance and the pain.

“Is that why you were acting all nervous when we got there?” Susie asks with a laugh. “And insisting I order first and everything? Cause you were still deciding?”

Noelle almost freezes—but a mother like hers inevitably teaches the skill of lying on your hooves, so she pivots seamlessly to a laugh. “That was exactly it, Susie. Embarrassing, right?” It isn’t gonna get past Kris, though, so she does the next best thing and gives them the tried and true no-snitching-look.

Kris narrows their eyes at her suspiciously in return: Why are you lying? Which is so nosy of them, really. She thins out her smile to let them know it isn’t a big deal, but that only makes them double down with the slight rise of their eyebrow, all like, If it’s not a big deal, then what were you really nervous about? But what the heck is Noelle supposed to say to that? ‘Oh, no biggie, just that I’m thinking about you so much it’s getting in the way of my relationship with Susie.’ No way! So Noelle flicks her eyes at Susie, trying to imply that she’ll tell Kris later, once they’re alone, even though she has absolutely zero intention of following through on that. But then Kris totally calls her bluff with a subtle tilt of their head, like, Why don’t you want Susie to know? Isn’t she your girlfriend? and that hits a little too close to home so Noelle ends it with a single, hard blink.

Kris, as they always do, respects the signal, turning to Susie with a casual smile like nothing just happened. The thought that it’s been years since Noelle and Kris last conversed like that, and yet the two of them haven’t lost the skill at all, hits Noelle like a bullet. It’s like the gulf between them never formed at all. Except, obviously, it did. Can the two of them really recoup the bond they had as kids so effortlessly? Can they really just pretend the years of drifting—of awkwardness, of sad glances across the room, of mourning a relationship they didn’t have the chance to define—never even happened?

Susie is making a joke about eating Noelle’s ice cream in one bite. Noelle needs to laugh. She does, expertly, and splashes herself with a mental bucket of ice water. Stop thinking about Kris. Susie is telling a story. Pay attention to her. You love her. You love Kris, too, but not like that. So stop thinking about them.

She’s not sure if she’s succeeding.

After school is out, Noelle is only halfway home when she receives a horrifying text message from Susie. 

Dinner out? With Susie and Kris? That sounds like a date, right? But with Kris. Rather, not a date with Kris, but rather a date with Kris in attendance; like the festival. And, Angel, after Kris pinned her with their scathing looks over lunch like a dead moth to a corkboard, there’s a distinct possibility that they plan to use this opportunity to corner her. She needs to avoid that at all costs. She knows she can’t put off talking to them forever, but her plan is to at least put off talking to them until she figures out why she can’t seem to think about them without nearly hurling from a sudden swell of raging, contradictory emotions.

Noelle could just decline the invitation. Judging from what Susie said at the festival, the two of them would be more than happy on their own. She could easily make up an excuse, considering the absolute chaos that is her current family situation, and she doubts even Kris would question it.

But of course, Noelle has never been good at saying no. 

Noelle giggles to herself as she closes her phone and returns it to her skirt pocket. She exchanges it for her house keys, passing through the gate, up the driveway, and finally shouldering her way through the front door.

“I’m home!” she calls out, and she receives an immediately reply from the kitchen: “Elly, the toaster isn’t fucking working!”

Noelle sighs, placing her keys into the dish by the door and walking deeper into the house. “Are you pushing the lever all the way down?”

“Obviously, but it keeps popping back up like the world’s shittiest jack-in-the-box.”

“You have to push it all the way down,” Noelle repeats, turning into the kitchen. “Until it clicks. It gets stuck.”

December Holiday is standing in front of the toaster, attempting to heat up frozen toaster waffles. She’s dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of boxers, and the way she’s leaning herself against the counter is utterly perplexing to behold from Noelle’s current vantage point.

“Hey, you know how you were making fun of me yesterday for my kaomojis?” Noelle says. “I just used one on Susie and she said they were cool.”

“Isn’t Susie, like, completely smitten with you? Her opinion is mega biased. I still think they’re lame.” She pushes down on the toaster lever, and it clicks softly. “There we go. Finally.”

“You think everything I do is lame,” Noelle protests. “Why are you having toaster waffles at four thirty, anyway? Did you just wake up?”

“Yeah? So what?” Dess shrugs. “And for the record, I am a trusted authority figure on what is lame or not. Nobody has this much swag by accident. That’s a fact.”

Noelle rolls her eyes. “Nobody says ‘swag’ anymore, Dess. And Mom’s gonna chew you out for hours if she figures out your schedule is this wonky.”

“Uh, came back from the dead, remember? I get a lifetime pass on both sleeping in and using outdated slang.” Dess turns around and jabs her thumb at herself proudly, and it is only now that Noelle realizes the reason Dess’s posture looked so strange before: the elbow on her left arm is bent around the wrong way, so when she puts her hand on her hip, it curves unsettlingly inward.

“Oh my angel, Dess!” Noelle exclaims.

“Hey, don’t be so dramatic. Swag is cool,” Dess says. “I like swag.”

“No, Dess, no, your—your arm is on backwards.”

Dess follows Noelle’s gaze and frowns. Experimentally, she flexes her arm, and Noelle can’t help but wince as Dess’s elbow folds up unnaturally against her rib cage. Dess stares at it for a few seconds, her eyes focused, and, slowly, her arm turns a liquid black around the elbow, warping and smearing like clay until it’s the right way around again.

“All good,” Dess says.

Noelle swallows. “Um, Dess, are you—”

“Allllllllll good,” she repeats, her voice an intensely focused calm.

“Okay,” Noelle says. There is a beat of terrible silence. “So I’m going to dinner with Susie and Kris tonight.”

Immediately, Dess perks up. “Like a date?”

“Yeah, or—well—sort of, I guess? But not really,” Noelle flounders, because, Angel, is it a date? She’s still not sure. 

“Ha, yeah.” Dess chuckles good-naturedly. “Shoulda expected things would be complicated between the three of you, huh?”

Noelle immediately enters Defense Mode and quickly replies, “Why would it be complicated? Susie and I are dating, and Kris is just a friend.”

“Oh. Right. I mean.” Dess opens her mouth, then closes it again, as though she thought better of whatever she was going to say. “Yeah, obviously. I just meant…you know.”

“No, go on,” Noelle challenges. She can feel herself smiling, and she can tell by Dess’s face that it isn’t her best work. “What did you mean?”

“Yeah, that, uhh…” The toaster dings, and relief washes across Dess’s face like a wave across a beach. “Oops sorry gotta go bye,” she says, snatching her belated breakfast and vanishing from the kitchen faster than should probably be physically possible for a normal monster.

Noelle watches her leave, and—not for the first time—has the thought that, despite Dess’s claims that she doesn’t really remember her half-life as the Roaring Knight, she spent a significant amount of time in that form actively conspiring with Kris. Noelle struggles to believe that every conversation that transpired between Kris, possessed, and Dess, undead, was all business. What did Kris tell her? What does Dess know? Is Noelle overthinking this? Why the heck is she thinking about Kris again?!

“I need to take a freaking nap,” Noelle groans, dragging her hands down her face.