Chapter Text
That night orange sits in the corner of kris’s room trying to devise a plan. Even if she can’t get them all out the house, she at least wants that lucky duck out. She watches as kris lies on their bed on their phone.
“hey. How’s it going?” kris asks to the person on the other end of the phone. Orange can’t really hear anything from the other end. The seemingly one-sided conversation goes on until orange starts to fall asleep “that’s so stupid it might really work.” Is the last thing she hears before she can’t take it and falls asleep.
Directly under their room, yellow walks down into the basement and is greeted by blue who jumps off and hugs yellow. The water dripping off his body doesn’t touch yellows despite it soaking blue. Blue pulls away and cups yellows face looking a little concerned.
“you weren’t away for too long right? No pain?”
blue asks before yellow waves his hands dismissively causing blue to move his hands out the way. Looking away trying to hide the blush covering his cheeks.
“we weren’t away fer long blue, ise fine!” blue smiles at yellows dismissiveness before re-cupping his face.
“there’s no need to be dismissive of something that happens to all of us. It doesn’t make you any less of a brave wonderful man if it happens to you quicker; which I have heard from flowery it affects you the fastest.” Yellows eyes widen for moment before he shakes it off.
“well like I said, we was gone fer like maybe an hour. Few miles a-way. Not far er long enough.” Yellow said confidently standing up a little straighter before instantly going weak in the knees after blue kisses him on the cheek.
In the room above the basement Susie sits on the couch eating a popsicle next to berdly. Berdly messes with the remote for a few moments before turning to Susie.
“you said you chose the password, right?” Susie nods before telling it to him;
“it’s uh, capital b, no spaces and the first e is a 3, “B3rdlyisstupid” also that ones wrong. I named ours “FBI survialince van” berdly looks up at Susie with a grimace.
“surveillance doesn’t have an ‘a’ in it. I would say something about the password but it’s quite strong I will admit though distasteful, but I mean what would you know about taste its-“ Berdly is interrupted by Susie's delayed reaction.
“No ‘A’?!” she says jumping up. She grabs the hair she had behind her ears looking at berdly genuinely distressed.
“Susan, we’re in collage.” Berdly says looking up at Susie then stealing her popsicle. Susie looks around the room for a reason she doesn’t know the answer too.
“ok yeah but how was I supposed to know that?! Its literally pronounced “survAylense”!”
Before berdly can try to calm Susie down they hear their names being shouted then kris comes barreling down the stairs landing on their chest. Susie jumps and kris lets out a small groan. Berdly tries to climb over the couch but he falls, he doesn’t get up just crawls over to kris to check on them.
“kris. Krismas. Kristopher Nolen. Kristine Katelyn. Kris kross apple sauce.” Berdly says poking them with each name. kris lets out another groan holding up one finger to shush berdly.
“fine. Didn’t fall. Didn’t think.” They say letting their arm fall back down. Susie nudges kris’s side with her boot. Kris doesn’t respond as Susie continues to nudge them until she just flips them over onto berdly, berdly pushes them back and Susie kicks them over again. Noelle watches from the top of the stairs in mild horror and amusement.
“what's happening down there?” Noelle says walking down the stairs and dragging kris by their wrists away from Susie and Noelle.
“I dunno I just wanted to see how long it would take for them to get mad and scream at us to stop.” Susie says shrugging.
“well I was waiting to see how long you planned on doing it.” Kris says looking up at Noelle them over at Susie as they stand up.
“anyway,” they clap their hands together smiling. “I was talking to ralsei and-“ before they can finish talking Susie cuts them off.
“oh ralsei? Dang its been like forever since we’ve seen her- she like is called she now right?” kris grits their teeth for a second before shouting.
“I was not done talking! But, yeah she does. Anyway though now that you’re done interrupting we were talking about the ghost guys we got. Right? So we can’t move because y’know budget is like hella low? What if? We just? Haunt them back?” they say putting pauses in what would be full sentences. Berdly scoffs looking away as he stands up. Susie opens her mouth for a second just staring.
“dude, ralseis a genius.” She says looking at kris as they remain in their slightly bent forward pose with their arms bent upwards, their hands facing her. They straighten their posture until their back is bent a little too far back then they lean forward until they go back and forth between the two as they talk with their hands, or more so just move them around making circles with them as they talk.
“yeah I know right? Like I dunno lets make them as miserable as they make us! You know funny thing, I managed to smack one with a broom but then they like ran through the wall.”
Noelle nods for a second her hand on her chin. “you hit one with a broom?” kris spins around one their heel before snapping their legs together putting their hands together gesturing towards Noelle.
“yup! They like became visible, then tried to drag me under the bed so I hit them a real nice wack in the face” kris says mimicking a batter swinging as they balance on the heels of their feet.
Susie chuckles a little walking over to kris and putting a hand on their shoulder causing them to stop moving all around. “hey next time Lemme know when one shows so I can spray them in the eyes with berdlys pepper spray.”
Kris looks past Susie for a second. “where’s berdly?” Noelle glances around the room while Susie walks outside.
“oh god” Noelle and kris hears Susie yell from outside. The two run out and see Susie by the tree staring down. What she’s staring it is groceries from yesterday that berdly brought back but forgot after kris almost died.
“he bought milk and everything.” She says disappointed picking up the warm half gallon. That disappointment dies after the ‘skim milk’ on the package “oh never mind” she says dropping it onto the grass.
“Alright uh imma go to the store and replace this. Noelle, you go upstairs and yell at berdly, he's probably in his room” Susie says grabbing the bags and walking to the trashcan by the door. Noelle follows Susie, giving her a hug before going inside to see if berdly is where Susie says he is.
Kris stares at the grass under their shoes, slowly dragging the tip of their foot trough the dew-covered strands. They look up as Susie walks to the van and follows her, getting into the passenger seat before she can open her door.
Orange suddenly wakes up hearing Noelle walk upstairs, the rooms empty. She jumps and runs out the room looking down the stairs. Seeing nobody she runs outside; seeing the van driving she starts chasing after. Given she doesn’t have a body anymore she can’t get tired, but also given she can only start off as fast as she could run and slowly gain speed she’s chasing after the van for most of the way just barely able to not lose it before yanking herself in, knocking over some of the clothes Susie has hung up in the back as she becomes tangible as to not phase out the van.
Back at the house Noelle glances into berdlys room and sees him sitting on his bed, looking out the window.
“hey, Susie said to come yell at you. You left the groceries outside.” Noelle says softly coming into his room and sitting next to him. Berdly continues to look out the window ignoring Noelle. She leans over putting her face next to his trying to see if he's looking at something; seeing nothing the leans away.
“can you please leave.” Berdly says less of a question and more of a command. Noelle straightens up for a second before getting off the bed and going to leave.
“yeah, totally! I'm sorry berdly I should have asked. Uhm bye have fun with your window!” she blurts out before closing the door. She stands by the door for a minute feeling bad about what she did.
‘maybe he’s just been having a bad week? That could be why he's been so aggressive lately. No, you did it.’
she thinks to herself before snapping out of it realizing she logically didn’t do anything, she still doesn’t fully believe it but she trusts herself enough to get over it. She walks downstairs and opens the fridge, barely anything but their food from yesterday. She pulls out her cold sandwich and sits down at the table eating the slightly soggy sandwich. Beside her sits someone quiet. They watch as she eats the sad excuse for a meal, with a frown they flick the sandwich a little causing her to drop it on her shirt. Noelle jumps up the sandwich to fall to the floor, rushing the bathroom to try and save her shirt. The ghost watches as she exists before they stand up and grab what little is in the fridge to try and make a soup, they go to grab the tiny bit of milk but one hand due to having a lot missing they swap hands; despite it being like that for almost 10 years they still sometimes forget only one hand wasn’t deformed beyond usage.
In the bathroom Noelle pulls off her top shirt leaving her in a tank top she stole from Susie. He throws the shirt into the bathtub and she starts trying to wash the sauce out, praying it doesn’t ruin her shirt. As the water flows into the bathtub and down the drain the color starts to take on a metallic smell and reddened color. Noelle yanks the wet shirt out as soon as she notices, before she can turn the water off the drain clogs and the water starts gushing out. She backs away as droplets of scarlet fly out. Then with seemingly no reason teeth start floating out. Noelle wastes no more time and runs into the other room dropping the shirt just outside the door. She bolts down the stairs trying not to fall, ignoring the sudden appearance of a fragrant soup on the stove she grabs the empty knife block near and sink and runs back upstairs. She rushes into the bathroom and sees a man crawling out the bathtub covered in the scarlet. Chunks of flesh come out the faucet finding their way onto the uncompleted man as he pulls himself out. Noelle lets out a shriek before charging and slamming the block into his head. The point goes into his eye as he lets out a cry higher then noelles as she holds in to him. Then he disappears, Noelle stands there seeing the blood and flesh no long where it was. She can’t take her eyes off it as she starts to shake and cry. She falls to her knees and starts crying as hard as her body will let her. The fear she felt in that moment is unlike anything she had felt before. That scarlet color burned into her eyes.
“red”
“red”
“red”
“red, why not blue?” Susie says looking at the live lobsters in the tank infront of the seafood.
“blues expensive.” Kris replies watching two lobsters that seem to be fighting even with rubberbanded claws.
“but reds expensive too. Like 20$ last time I googled it.” Kris says pointing at the two fighting lobsters. “I gotta show this to berdly he’d love it.”
Susie looks over at the two fighting lobsters and smirks.
“sucks how these ones are gonna get eaten. I think they’d do way better in a wwe match.”
“wwe is wrestling, ufc is like boxing I think.” Kris says tapping their fingers on the table that the glass box is set on.
“oh yeah you’re right” she says standing back up off her knees.
“anyway lets get going before we’re here too long” she says putting her hand on the shopping cart.
Kris gets up and starts following her as they leave the meat section. From the other end of the lobster tank orange watches with a burning jealousy, she glances over the lobsters who she’d never admit how interesting they seemed before phasing through the glass and following them floating at a walking speed. As the two walk through one of the isles orange pushes a box into kris, instead of getting hurt or freaking out the two just flee the scene not wanting to deal with the mess.
Orange opens her mouth in confusion trying to say something but nothing come out. After a few attempts to “haunt” kris shes gives up with subtility. She focuses as hard as she can and she slowly changes, her form mimicking a dead rat. Shes not sure how she does it but she’ll still use it. She crawls onto kris’s shoulder waiting for them to notice. After a few minutes of walking kris goes to scratch their neck but then touch the rat. They let out a yelp throwing the rat off them, the rat hits Susie who shouts out in shock and kicks it under a shelve.
“what the hell was that?!” Susie shouts wiping off her shirt where the rat hit her, when she looks up she see kris taking off their sweater.
“there was a rat!” they exclaim using it as a rag to wipe off their neck.
“oh well dang are you ok?” Susie asks.
“no…” Noelle says back at home holding onto berdly while they sit on the couch.
he glances away from Noelle as she dries her eyes.
“well there has to be some logical conclusion behind it!” he exclaims as Noelle pulls away.
“I know what I saw, it went through the floor after coming out the faucet piece by piece.” She says standing up and leaving him, she goes to the stair but the smell coming from the kitchen.
Looking over the counter into the kitchen. She walks back from the stairs into the kitchen and sees a pot of soup, two bowls already prepared on the counter beside the stove with tinfoil on the top to stop any bugs from flying in.
“You didn’t tell you made soup.” She says loud enough for berdly to hear. Berdly doesn’t respond so she just takes one of the bowls and brings it up to her room. She sits there thinking for a minute. ‘how can I get berdly believe me?’ she wonders then an idea comes into mind. She hit a ghost, they can be affected by things. She pulls out her phones and texts Susie.
‘ping!’ Susie pulls out her phone reading over the text.
“kris,” she says looking over in the cart where kris is sitting. “Noelle said she needs spray paint. You take the cart and go that way,” she said pointing to the back of the store “I go that way, first one to find it yells as loud as they can” she says before walking away.
kris stands up still in the cart and tries to jump up without stepping on anything, they can’t really so they just step down trying not to slam their thigh into the top of it. As they go through the isles a weird feeling crawls up their back. They feel watched, trying to ignore it they head into an isle with some home repair things. They find a can of orange spray-paint and set it into the cart. Before they can call for Susie they hear their name being called from behind.
“kris.”
they turn around seeing nothing. Then again, again behind them.
“kris!”
They turn around again, and see someone sitting at the end of the isle facing away. Then before they can say anything the person jumps up and twists their head around.
“oh krissy!”
She goes to run after kris but before she gets kicked into a shelf by kris. She sits there for a second before looking up, seeing kris with on foot on the bottom of the kart, propelling himself forward with the other foot.
‘he's just leaving?!’
she exclaims before getting up and turning invisible again. She follows them as they ride away on the cart. After a moment of contemplation, she turns into the rat and hides under on of the boxes in the cart, using the chance to stalk kris. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for on them but she knows it something. they roll over to Susie, bumping into her with the cart.
“I think they’ve followed us.” Kris says holding up the spray-paint they found. Susie looks up at kris confused.
“I'm kinda hoping they did or I just kicked a little girl with a broken neck into a wall.” They say looking a little worried at that idea. Susie's jaw drops and she starts laughing, really hard.
“ok- ok kris! Listen- pfffffftt… we need to go a-s-a-p. that might have been a little girl and we can’t risk that” Susie says pulling the cart with her to the checkout still laughing to herself.
Back at the house flowery paces back and forth through the basement his hand by his lip.
“yes flowery I'm sure. Like I said she left and then she was gone” Seth says looking at their book. Before they can turn the page yellow, whos been sitting quietly beside them suddenly falls onto them asleep.
“hey! Get off me your oaf!” Seth says pushing him off causing him to land on the floor but he doesn’t wake up. Flowery stops and knees beside yellow, poking him.
“yellow? Hello?” he says poking a little harder, its quite odd of yellow to be acting like this. Before he can think further on it yellow jolts awake.
“oh! Gosh I'm sorrie flowery” he says his hand landing on his noose. Flowery sets his hand on yellows slowly pulling them off.
“its fine buddy, don’t sweat it. Why don’t you go visit blue for a minute? He's over in the flower garden.” He says moving his hand to yellows shoulder. Yellow simply nods grabbing his hat and tossing it out the window that leads to the outside before phasing out into the garden. He takes his hat off the ground, dusting it off before he walks around the house to where blue supposedly was. He sees him sitting on a lawn chair set between the flower beds enjoying the sun. blue sits up a little seeing yellow walk over.
“oh hello yellow how are you-, dear what's wrong you look so tired.” he says getting out the chair and walking over to yellow. He reaches out and moves yellows bangs away from his face.
“I unno, I guess I just have been recently..” he says avoiding eye contact with blue, rubbing his fingers over the fabric so vigorously it looks ready to fray and break.
Blue grabs yellows hand and sets him down on the lawn chair, yellow tries to get out of it of the chair not wanting to steal blues seat but blues wet hand keeps him down. Blue kneels down beside yellow his chin just barely above yellows hand that he’s still holding.
“now yellow, we both know this isn’t normal tiredness. We don’t get tired like that and we both know that. So, I do expect you to allow me to carry your burdens with you.”
Yellow tenses up that that. Just so simply talking about it? No build up just sitting there between the rows of beautyful flowers? That’s nearly impossible.
“blue… I just…its been…nothing really-… its nothing I swear.” He forces out, its not a bad truth or anything but its nearly impossible to explain. Its like a forcing a square through a circle hole.
blue stares at yellow for a moment, seeing right through him.
“yellow, we both know. Would you rather just explain how you feel right now instead of why?” yellow looks at blue. This, this is the reason he told himself that he’d be beside his side ever since the first day that beautyful man stepped foot in his newly owned house.
“its just…Ise been thinking a lot more. All those thoughts that I’d been saying to em to shut up just keep getting louder. Just all the stuff tiring my head is making me tired. Its silly I know, I few lil thoughts should-“ yellow is quieted by blue, placing a finger on the lanky mans lips; blue looks into yellows eyes, they soften a little more at the sight of his beloved so troubled. Oh how he wished he could just pull all the problems out that man and yell at them for yellow, tell them to get lost before throwing them out. Sadly though he knows that not possible, at least for now while yellow just can’t seem to fully accept the support he genuinely deserves. Those nasty wrong thoughts just pulling him away from what he truly needs.
“its not silly at all. It’s the least silly thing I’ve ever heard, dear.” Blue says after a moment, wrapping his hands around yellows. Yellow silently chokes back a few tears at blues words, gosh just somethin bout makes it so hard’t breathe in the best way possible. Looking over at blues face he notices how one eye is twitching a little bit.
“yer eye” yellow says reaching out pulling one of his hands from blues. Before blue can explain his rather odd encounter with the reindeer girl the van pulls up and the two quickly vanish.
“Noelle we got the stuff!” Susie shouts walking out with some bags.