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How, he asks himself, is he supposed to openly defy his parents yet again? With THIS, of all things? When they’ve never been so stern or serious, when they’ve never had more of a right to demand control over his actions? When the world as they know it is crumbling to pieces in front of them?
The heroes in his human movies would know. They wouldn’t wait for any sort of permission. They would rush to the rescue atop their trusty steed regardless of the dangers that awaited. He urges himself, begs and pleads himself to show that same courage, but his legs remain locked in place. Even as alarms ring out to the south. Even as his family packs up their entire house behind him.
He isn’t scared, per se. What sort of sheriff would let something trivial like fear stop him? He’s just weighing his options, is all. Even the bravest heroes would show an ounce of hesitation at the fierce demands of his mother, the desperate pleas of his father. The consequences of a betrayal would be heavy, so he’d have to be sure he could shoulder them. A little analysis paralysis isn’t unbefitting of a sheriff, surely. In fact, there was this one movie where-
“I can’t get it open!” His brother’s screaming releases him from his own mind. As if he was yanked from the icy lakes of Snowdin, he says nothing, does nothing, remains frozen by the path as his parents rush over to Orion’s side. The older boy abandons the key he was twisting in its hole and tugs and tugs and tugs at the cellar. “It’s jammed or something! The key isn’t working! It isn’t- it’s-“
“This is my fault,” his father mutters, his face sinking with the weight of the world. “I noticed it was a bit sticky last season, but I told myself I’d get around to it next harvest. I never coulda thought that this- that we’d be needin’ it so soon.”
“So what I’m hearin’,” he finally unfreezes himself to say, “is that I have time to go an’ get Ceroba.”
“Starlo, don’t you dare take a step off this property!” The bark in his father’s voice is unlike anything he’s ever heard from the otherwise mellow man. He shudders, preferring his chances against the invader he’s so scared of over the loving wrath in his father’s eyes.
“We have to fix the cellar door, dear, go pack up more,” his mother adds. “Please. Don’t just stand there!”
That settles that. His dreams of heroism die in his failed attempts at a rebuttal. He turns on his heel and starts towards the house, hastening when he hears panicked shouting coming from town.
Thoughtlessly shoving essentials into bags gives him time to pick up where he left off, at least. He reflects on the valiant cowboy of that movie night, grappled with similar indecision in the face of two railroad tracks. Tied to one, a singular damsel, the object of his affection. Tied to the other, five strangers, writhing and wailing just the same. A masked ruffian cackled as he urged the hero to pull the lever, killing his beloved by his own hand, or leave it be, letting one life take priority over five. Isn’t this quite the same?
Well, not really, he reasons. He cares deeply for everyone involved in this train problem. And he doesn’t even know what a hero would choose. He remarked at the time that he could never let five people die, no matter how much the one meant to him. Mooch teased that he better not let Ceroba hear him say that. He became so inconsolable that he couldn’t even finish the movie.
Dread shoots through him like a bullet.
Ceroba.
He can stay, hide with his family, but it would be all his fault if Ceroba gets hurt. And if he dies on his way to her, at least he wasn’t standing idly by.
Suddenly, he thinks he knows how the movie ends.
He dashes out the door.
“Starlo!” His mother calls after him.
It’s too late.
How, he asks himself, is he supposed to go about waiting for his best friend to answer her door? She doesn’t seem to hear his incessant shaking at her old gates, which makes his SOUL leap into his throat. Surely the intruder hasn’t made its way here already, right? Surely they wouldn’t pick on a singular house, separated from the rest of town. Surely, even if they did, she would be able to defend herself. He’s sure of these things, so why is he so scared?
He eventually settles for making a game out of pacing. Just as he sees in the movies. Just as he’s always dreamed of doing someday. Maybe that excitement will distract him from the churning in his stomach.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten- TURN, BANG! I’m getting quicker than I used to be. Okay, again. One, two-
“Star? Star!”
The voice he’s been waiting so desperately to hear stops him abruptly in his tracks. His head snaps around to meet his best friend’s gaze, brimming with confusion and fear. He wishes to rush to her side and soothe her, but he finds himself struck by a confusion of his own. If her house is behind him, why is she standing in front of him?
“Ceroba…”
She rushes up to him before he can get another word out. She throws her arms around him, squeezing like the world would end if she let go. He swallows harsh emotions with a thick gulp as he reciprocates the gesture, just happy to have her here, just happy to see her safe. Nothing else in the world matters in that moment. Not even his stupid, unhelpful, but ever-present feelings for her that won’t go away. Not even the sounds of chaos all around them.
“What are you doing out here?” She finally breaks the silence. “Why aren’t you with your family? Why aren’t you hiding?”
“I could ask you the same,” he mumbles back. Though, should he have expected anything else? Of course Ceroba — strong, kind, brave Ceroba — would be helping other monsters get to safety. He’s so proud, and yet, the thought of her in danger spills out of his brain and through his mouth with a choked sob.
She looks up at him, concern etched into her dainty features. “Don’t tell me you came all the way out here for me.”
“What, did standin’ in front of your house during a mass evacuation not give it away?”
He forces a chuckle, attempting to make any sort of light of the hopeless situation, as he always does. She only responds with a swift punch to his side. He recoils with a small “Oof!”, but doesn’t go far, because she still hasn’t loosened her hug.
“And what if the human had seen you here with your back turned?” His expression drops with her voice, turning cold and bitter. She waits for a rebuttal, but nothing comes. She shakes her head with a scoff before continuing. “You weren’t prepared for that, were you? Did you really think I couldn’t handle myself?”
“No, it ain’t like that!” He grips her kimono tighter, absently fascinated with how she reacts to the tug, but too preoccupied with her glare to take much note. “I just… wanted to help. ‘Sides, what kinda sheriff would I be if I didn’t-“
She grabs him by the shoulders before he can react to the shift in her movement. Her claws digging into his poncho, her muzzle drawn into a scowl, it’s enough to shut him up on the spot. He’d prefer his chances against the human over the loving wrath in her eyes.
“Drop the act!” She yells, and he can’t remember the last time she got this loud. “This is real, Starlo, and it’s dangerous! This is no time to be playing sheriff! This is the time to go hide with your family like everyone else!”
“And what about you?” His voice breaks as the shame in his stomach gives way to anger of his own.
“You know full well that I don’t have a family to-“
“I don’t want to hear it!” He’s shouting now, too. Tears prick at the edges of her eyes as her jaw snaps shut. “You have us! You’ve always been family to us! You’re just as important to me as anyone, Ceroba, and all the safety in the world couldn’t make up for that!”
He’s crying now, too, and she notices his signature accent fizzle out to nothing. His choked sobs are paired with laboured breathing as he initiates the hug this time, tighter, as if pleading her to stay and never leave. She stiffens, not daring to move her arms from their vice grip between their chests, and seeming to forget how to move any other muscle. As if plunged into the icy lakes of Snowdin, time seems to freeze around them, whether the havoc in Oasis Valley has slowed or just been tuned out, they are oblivious. They exist only in each others’ presences, and in the shame that seizes their SOULs while the anger slowly dies.
“I’m sorry for shouting at you,” he finally unfreezes himself to say.
“Don’t be. I deserved it.” Her voice wavers, as if the thick silence had trapped it in her throat.
“You’ll come, right?” He snivels and dabs at his eyes with his bandana. “You’ll wait this out with us? Promise me you will.”
She takes a deep breath, the last of her own tears staining her fur. “I promise, Star.”
Their eyes lock in that moment. He drinks in every inch of hers, because it makes his SOUL flutter with such intensity, but also because he knows that look. The heaviness and resolve that clouds her gaze has imprinted itself onto his mind from his countless evenings beside her, holding her gently as she weeps for her husband and daughter. When night falls, no matter how broken she still appears, she insists that she’ll be alright. He offers, again and again, to stay as long as she needs, do whatever he needs to pick up her pieces and make her whole again. She meets him with the same lidded expression every time, pleading for help but refusing to ask for it. It means she’s made up her mind. It means she won’t say what she truly thinks.
Dread shoots through him like a bullet.
It means she’s lying.
He scrambles to contain his emotions so she doesn’t see his face drop with his SOUL. He has to stop himself from getting angry, so angry, because he knows nothing will make her see differently. Besides, what right does he have? Did he not do just the same moments ago, to his own family, no less? He left seeing Ceroba as something to be saved, but he should have known salvation was the last thing she’d accept. Truthfully, she’s tied to the same track as everyone else, just another obstacle in the path of a murderer. This human, tainting the lever with the dust on its hands, is the only one choosing who lives and dies, and none escape their judgement.
He can accept this, cling onto the same futility as the others, but he’ll be in the same pecking order as them. Or, he could tie himself to the free track and lure its path of tyranny his way, throwing the others off its trail.
He only hopes she can’t see his expression shift to match hers, pleading for help but refusing to ask for it.
“I’m gonna go back to the farm,” he says, slowly, so she doesn’t hear how absolutely terrified he is. “You got things you need to get from the house?”
“That would be wise, yes,” she responds, slowly, for what he can only imagine to be the same reason.
“I’ll head through the East Mines, so that-“
“DO NOT go to the Mines. That’s where they’re saying the human is now.” She grabs him again, and the sincerity, the genuine fear in her eyes confirms what he already knew about her true intentions.
“But Angie and Gillbert-“
“They’ll be fine. They should have been alerted ages ago. Just… don’t do anything stupid, Star.”
“Me? Stupid? You wound me, Ceroba.”
He jabs her lightly on the shoulder. The soft chuckle he elicits is enough to distract him from the millions of things he wishes he said instead.
“You should hurry.” She releases their embrace, and it’s all he can do to not beg her to come back. “Beat the human to town. Be safe. Please.”
“I swear it on my honour,” he says, because if she can make false promises, why can’t he?
She gives him a satisfied nod and opens the ornate gates to her home.
I love you, Ceroba, he wants to call after her.
It’s too late.
How, he asks himself, is he supposed to go through with this?
He grips his six-shooter tighter, to quell the trembling in his hands. The dummy in front of him has no SOUL, and yet it stares into his own. Watching, intimidating, judging. What is he to do when he actually shoots, and blood (that’s what it’s called, right?) is on his hands?
He closes his eyes and conjures an image of the human in his mind. A towering titan, looming over the poor citizens of the Underground with a beady red glare. Crushing innocents under its step, guffawing as it sends tremors through the ground. Surely, for the evacuation to have spread this far, that must be what he’s up against. Surely he wouldn’t hesitate to fire in the face of such an atrocity.
He channels all of his heroism into a piercing glare. He steadies his aim at the dummy. He imagines the human in its place, licking the dust off its fingers, taunting him, threatening to go after his family next. His fingers tighten around the trigger.
He releases it all in the form of a frustrated yell and chucks the revolver as far as it will travel. It hits the sand with an underwhelming thud.
“They make it look so damn easy in the movies!” Well, of course they do, he thinks as his boiling hatred rears around to face him instead. They’re actual sheriffs. He’s nothing but a copycat — a fraud, even —, and he’s never been anything more. How dare he think himself a hero when something trivial like fear stops him from acting when he’s needed? When it isn’t stopping Ceroba from putting her life on the line? When there could be nothing left to save at the end of the day?
The sound of shuffling in the sand startles him out of his spiral. Footsteps, unmistakably. But the only ones stupid enough to be out here in a time like this would be him and-
Dread shoots through him like a bullet.
It’s time.
He breaks into a run faster than he realizes his legs are moving. He lets pure muscle memory guide him to the Wild East. Maybe he can still make it back to the farm, he thinks, maybe he can pretend like none of this ever happened.
He stops dead at the path. He can hear clanging sounds up ahead. They’re still fixing the cellar. The human is rapidly approaching, and they’re not even safe.
They’re still on the track. But there’s still time to tie himself to the other one. To lessen the casualties, to take fault for himself.
He lowers his hat over his eyes.
He knows how this movie must end.
He turns back towards the town before he has time to think about what this will mean for him. He doesn’t care. He can’t care. He’s always wanted to be a hero, and now he gets to.
He faces the bell tower when the silhouette of the human comes into view. He can’t let its stature intimidate him, not when there’s still time to change his mind. Not when the realization of what he’s sacrificing has settled in.
The footsteps stop. He braces himself for the end of his life. Nothing happens.
“She told me to run. She told me to hide,” he says, because the chance always exists that he could talk some sense into a mass murderer. He expects an evil laugh in response, or, in his wildest dreams, some expression of sympathy. Nothing happens.
“But nah… that ain’t what a dignified sheriff would do.” Trying to feel cool, to feel anything but raw fear, he spins on his heel, preparing himself for the image infesting his mind. What he sees instead forces a strangled sound from his throat.
Stars above, that’s a child.
A child, he notes with some disgust, that dons the same attire as his movie heroes. The rim of their hat casts its own intimidating shadow over their face. He waits in his pure shock, but they stand perfectly still, their expression perfectly blank. He scrambles for something to say, because he isn’t just talking to a genocidal maniac anymore, he’s talking to a child.
“You see, I’ve heard you’ve been up to no good. You’ve been mozyin’ ‘round…¦” Say something heroic, say something serious, say SOMETHING! “…terrorizin’ the nice folk of this underground settlement. You’re an outlaw.”
He searches desperately for any reaction to his monologue, but the child continues staring into his SOUL with their lack thereof. He’d prefer the cartoonish villainy he was expecting over their pure listlessness. He has to steady himself with a gulp.
“My job… my job is to bring justice upon folks like you. Folks who take pleasure in disturbin’ the peace.” Finally, this seems to elicit some reaction from the child. Their lips curl into a scowl so quick he would have missed it if he blinked. He winces, preparing once again for the offence to be punishable by death. But still, they don’t move, they just stare, emotion unreadable.
“Now… you have a method to what yer doin’. You coulda shot me by now, but ya haven’t.” He begs, pleads for this to unlock something within the child, for them to break down into tears and repent for their sins. Nothing happens.
“Howabout we settle this fairly? A… dual.” The child snickers, wraps a hand around their gun, but nothing else. Hope surges through him before he can stop it, that if they’re playing by his rules, they’ll be ready to end their charade. Or, at the very least, that his family has retreated into the cellar.
“Fastest to their weapon wins.” This is what prompts the child to move into position, though their facial expression remains stony. He takes a deep breath and approaches in kind, fighting terror with every step. It doesn’t waver even as the child has to crane their head to meet his gaze.
“Ten paces.” The child turns. He turns. He wraps his fingers around the BB gun he keeps just in case, because the chance always exists that he could teach mercy to a mass murderer. He takes a deep breath and falls into the rhythm he’s dreamed of for so long.
One, two, three, four, five, six-
BANG!
He clutches his chest. Dust cakes his hand.
He turns back towards the child. They’re not smiling, or frowning, or reacting to their victory in any way. They just stare. Stare at his wide eyes. Stare at the hole in his chest.
He falls to his knees.
“Star?” A familiar voice pierces him just as harshly as the gunshot. “Everyone’s evacuated! Why are you still here?”
He forces back a gurgled sound. He’d have half a mind to wonder if she was here to keep her promise after all, if he had just made a terrible mistake. But he can feel himself slipping away fast, so he devotes his entire being to looking okay for her. To being okay for her.
“I told you to-” She comes into his fuzzy view and chokes back agony of her own. He hears her scream his name, and then he’s coddled in her arms before he even sees her close the distance. He wants to bathe in the warmth she provides his every shivering muscle, but he can only mourn that he wasn’t able to pull himself together for her sake.
“Ceroba, I...” His voice fizzles out. He wants so desperately to offer an explanation, an apology, an anecdote of comfort, but words won’t leave his mouth. The harder he tries, the more he can feel bile rising in his throat, so he coughs it all back down.
“Nonononono, why didn’t you listen?!” She’s shaking him, she’s grabbing at his poncho as if to force the fabric to close his wound. He doesn’t think he’s seen her this manic in a long time, but he can’t see much of anything at present, so he can’t be sure.
“I almost w-won…” he finally forces out, and with it comes a surprisingly genuine smile for a lying, dying man. It doesn’t bring her the relief he wishes it would, and he can only watch as the strong, kind, brave woman he spent so long trying to put back together crumbles to pieces all over again. She squeezes him against her, and even above the searing pain, he can feel her chest rise and fall like it’s refusing the air. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and soothe her like he has so many other times, but he finds they’re too weak.
After what feels like an eternity, she pulls back just enough that he can see her face. Beautiful, he notes, even stained with tears and warped with grief. “You did your best,” she whispers. Her voice is beautiful, too, even when it’s shaky and syrupy. “You’re the greatest s-sheriff in the Underground, Starlo. You are.”
He laughs, letting her beautiful words and her beautiful warmth bring him comfort. She reacts to the sound, holding him tighter, so he makes it again. If his sacrifice can protect such beauty, he knows he can be at peace with the decision. The last of the tension leaves his body, and he feels what he can only imagine to be true serenity.
“Th… thanks for playing a-along all these… years.” He cups her face in his hand as her expression goes cold. It’s another that he’s seen time and time again, wide eyes barely containing rage and despair beyond his comprehension. It tells him exactly what she’s going to do. She’s going to charge straight at the child, who, he barely notes, seems to be enjoying the show they’re putting on enough to allow it to continue. So, he keeps acting, pulling her head into his chest and feeling her lips quiver against his tingling muscles. “Now… d… do what’s right. Deliver… j-justice.”
If she responds, he’s none the wiser. He can feel the last of himself being torn apart inside. He doesn’t want to think about that, or that Ceroba could be next, or that he doesn’t know if his family is safe or not, or that he can’t stop tears from streaming out of his eyes. Such final moments don’t feel befitting of a hero. Instead, he revels in her presence, joining their hands and letting his SOUL soar when she eagerly accepts the gesture. He can be okay with this ending, he thinks.
“I love you, Ceroba,” he tries to force out.
It’s too late.