Work Text:
"FUCK FUCK SHIT PISS SHIT BITCH"
WHAP
"SHIT, SORRY NOELLE!"
You almost hear the controller breaking the sound barrier as it hurtles towards your face at record-breaking speed, and collides with a snap and a bang. ...Ow, that hurts. Ow. You zone out of Susie's profuse apologizing and swearing as blood drips down your face. Wait, wait. How the hell did you get into this situation again?
Oh, that's right. It started off with your own (admittedly miscalculated) decision to play Mario Kart with your best friend to pass the time. It was going well, well as in you coming 10th. But hey, at least you aren't one of the two bozos behind, right? was how Susie would've put it. Anyway, you remember gripping the controls so hard your knuckles went white. But the thing is, you weren't particularly riled up over the game, no. You barely even looked up at the screen. Your surroundings began to fade out as you became so transfixed on the fact that Susie was pressed up against you as she rocked back and forth with the motion controls like a swing, each touch feeling like static electricity pumping through your veins into your heart and leaving behind a sickly sweet residue. Yeah, that was the key. The elephant in the room, the overriding variable in your whole messy concoction of a situation. Yes. You, Noelle, have a fat, gaping crush on your best frien- never mind. After suffering an unbearably crushing defeat in second place, Susie had screeched like a bat out of hell and, with one thrust of her muscular arm, sent the controller flying like a cannonball. Flying, unfortunately, smack into your nose.
"Okay, I've got some bandaids and some liquid that looks like antiseptic. It looks like antiseptic. I sure hope it's antiseptic."
You angle your head just enough to take a look at the white bottle clasped in a purple hand clad in a ghost of black nail polish and rings with faded paint. A closer look tells you it's not, in fact, antiseptic. It's oxidised water. But goddamnit you'e too hazy and tired and out of touch to really care. It's nothing Ralsei can't fix, right? She kneels down beside you as you fight for consciousness in what feels like a particularly heated boxing match. DING, DING, DING! Point goes to the darkness as you fade in, and out, and in, and out, and...
"Hey, Noelle, it's okay. Breathe. Everything's fine, the blood won't kill you. Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?
The only thing poking through the fog in your mind is how red you're presumably going from her soft tone she so rarely adopts. You've never seen Susie like this, tender and caring. She shifts you around so you're on her lap, only making your insides squeal like a steam engine even more. As she dabs what she thinks is antiseptic over your nose with a precision you've never seen her exhibit (apart from that one time when you got stuck in the janitor's closet together and she started rationing out her chalk meals) you feel yourself melt into goop. You thought the spikes of her bracelets would hurt against your face, but the cool metal is oddly comforting as your face heats up past safe levels. Sure, Susie's a complete textbook idiot. But you wouldn't change that for the entire world and a KFC bucket. You're absolutely sick of pretentious "nice guys" like Berdly trying to show off their so-called smarts as a mating call that they think is considerably more attractive than it actually is. You're done with extravagant, attention-seeking, obnoxious douchebags. Of all the suitors you get on the daily, who would've thought your fantasy book prince would actually turn out to be someone so... so Susie? You consider making that its own definition, for someone who's smart but dumb and scary but loving and so pretty they make your heart feel like a hamster drugged on ecstasy doing laps on a wheel so fast it could be considered its own form of renewable energy. Fuck, you're getting off topic. and you're fading out again. You don't want to fall asleep in someone's arms whilst they're cleaning your nosebleed, let alone your pathetic little crush, but it's dark and she's warm and you're tired...
The first thing you wake up to is a fluffy blanket with a lingering smell of instant noodle seasoning. For the second time today, you find yourself asking what the hell happened, and... Oh, it all clicks into place. She's put a blanket and one of her tattered hoodies around you, probably worried sick from how you passed out from a tiny nosebleed. Susie...where is Susie? Your eyes scan around the room in panic before settling down on a purple shape curled in the corner of the room. She stayed with you the whole time, while she could've packed her things and bolted?
"Hey, you're awake. You feeling better?"
"I mean... I guess. Sorry for, everything..."
"Don't be an idiot, Noelle. I should be apologising, it's my fault I hit you with a controller in the first place."
The bed creaks as she sits down beside you. And you just feel this urge to dive into her arms and stay there like the small baby you are. So, your still slightly dazed brain calls on its single executive brain cell to make the decision and by god does it take it. Susie lets out a audible 'oof' as you tackle her with the force of a rugby player. And she's warm and smells slightly like laudry detergent and chalk but compared to a life of sickeningly fake perfumes it's welcoming and feels like home. It feels like Susie.
.
"Dude, you sure you're ok? You gotta be honest with me, I don't wanna have to drag Ralsei out of his cocoon for nothing..."
"...Yeah. Just please, stay a sec?"
Miraculously, for once, Susie is silent. Her arms wrap around you as a wordless yes. And miraculously, for once, you aren't worried about what she thinks or what you guys are. You're content with whatever the hell this is.