Chapter Text
Kris laid awake in their bed staring up at the ceiling. It was 3 AM and, like always, they couldn’t sleep. This time, it was for an entirely different reason than what took over their life for the past four years. Their mind replayed over and over again the events of their journey, experiencing years worth of drama, excitement, and pain in only seven days. They could only wonder if they truly did everything they could, and even then could they accept—
Tink.
The sound startled them, their heart beating out of their chest in the silence that followed. Were they just imagining it? They mentally chide themself for being so scared, but are interrupted when it happens again.
Tink.
Oh, the old throwing pebbles at my window to get my attention trick.
They sighed and got up. Not like they were getting any sleep anyways. They shook off their weariness and opened the window, instinctually putting one hand out to catch the third pebble about to hit them in the face. They peered down at the intruder, one red eye piercing through their messy bed hair.
Pacing in their backyard was the one and only Angel of Hometown, Noelle Holiday. She had an unreadable expression on her face, hidden behind her own unusually messy hair. They waited patiently for her to notice them as she picked up another pebble and prepared to throw it at their window again.
When she finally did notice them, she let out a small noise of panic and nearly tumbled over. “Kriiisss,” she whined, her voice a half-whisper, “How long have you been just watching me? You’re supposed to ask what I’m doing here at three in the morning!”
Kris rolled their eyes and obliged her, and asked her in the most monotonous voice they could muster “What are you doing here at three in the morning, Noelle?”
Noelle put her hands on her hips, about to scold them for not taking this seriously enough, but her resolve quickly crumbled, hands falling to her sides. “…I… I…” She paused, getting off to a few false starts, before finally breaking. “I can’t… I can’t be here anymore, Kris. I need to leave. I just… I don’t… have anything left here, a-and everywhere I look I see them and what we did and I can’t take it anymore. So…”
She took a deep breath and looked up at them. “I’m leaving, Kris.”
That didn’t really come as a surprise to them. After everything that happened, who wouldn’t want to get out? They weren’t really sure if Noelle counted them as a friend still, but regardless…
“Alright. I’ll meet you downstairs in five.”
They didn’t give her time to be confused, they just pulled away from the window and began packing a few essential items into Asriel’s backpack. Honestly, they felt the same way. Hometown had always felt lonely and isolating, but now it felt… poisoned. Like existing here and pretending everything was just okay and normal twisted something in them. They looked around corners for an enemy that was never there, saw faces in the chipped paint falling off the buildings, and heard their cries in the wind as it whistled through the trees.
They had tried to confront it, but that initial trepidation they had upon seeing the Darkness pour from the school closet the first time had returned doubly so now. All the fun they had seemed like a naive waste of time. Susie tried to help them, but she didn’t get why it affected them so much; she never could. That’s part of the reason why they’d started to drift apart. Without the Dark Worlds to spend time together in, Susie eventually got bored of their Light World antics.
Of course she did, everyone does eventually.
They grimaced and forcefully stuffed the last of the things they planned to bring in the backpack and zipped it up tight, standing quickly to leave. They couldn’t wait to get out of here.
Coming downstairs, they grabbed a piece of paper and pencil and wrote a quick note to their mother and Asriel, telling them that they are okay, that Noelle and them are going to leave, and instructing them to not attempt to follow them. They didn’t necessarily like the idea of leaving Azzy so soon, but they didn’t like the idea of letting Noelle wander away on her own even more.
They stood up and walked past the Susie sleeping on their couch. They quickly opened the door, not giving themself time to think about bringing her. She would be better off here anyways. They thought about how they were going to miss her as they walked out the door to find Noelle, only to immediately bump into her.
She made a small noise of panic, her nerves overtaking her. Once she recovered, she glared down at the little human in front of her. “Kris, you coming with me is not up for debate.”
“I know. Let’s go,” they said with a completely straight face, but couldn’t keep from sounding smug.
All Noelle could do was roll her eyes. She knew that there was no arguing with Kris when they got like this. Her eyes rolled to land on the sleeping Susie, who was beginning to stir. Noelle spoke up in a hushed tone. “Kris, do you think… umm… do you think we should ask Susie to come too?”
They were about to tease her about how she still hadn’t confessed her crush, even after everything that happened, when they realized why she brought it up. Their ears picked up on the shifting of the couch and they half turned to look at her. They were paralyzed, not wanting Susie to come ruin her life with them, but at the same time, not wanting to seem like they’re abandoning her. They couldn’t decide between grabbing Noelle and running, or having to deal with feeling like an asshole for almost leaving her behind. Would she even want to come?
They didn’t get much more time to think, because Susie opened her eyes and stared at the two silhouettes at the door. “Noelle? Kris? Whatsup?” she asked groggily.
Noelle was the first to speak up. “I… I’m leaving Susie. Leaving Hometown, and not looking back.”
Everyone was quiet for what felt like hours to Kris. They were convinced everyone else could hear their heart beating out of their chest.
Damnit, when did I get so scared?
Susie finally broke the silence. “Arright, where we goin’?”
This seemed to startle Noelle a little, her ears perking up as she practically bounced on her hooves at the prospect of Susie accompanying them. “Umm… I… I have no idea… I just need to leave,” she said, her voice started out strong and excited, but slowly broke down into wavering uncertainty.
“Cool,” she said with a smirk, “I got a plan, then. Just need to do some breaking and entering. Meet me at the bus stop.”
Kris breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe having her with them would be good, if she had a plan. They for sure didn’t, and were just going to go along with whatever they found. They knew Noelle wouldn’t be able to even make it that far, but together they thought they could make it.
With Susie coming along with them with a plan in mind… Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe they could be friends again, and pretend everything’s normal for once.
“Thanks,” they mumble without really thinking about it.
Susie walks up to their post at the door. “Don’t mention it, I’ve been wanting to get outta Hometown since I got here… just never found the right time for it.” She then looked back at the home she’d been living in for a while now and whispered a faint “Sorry,” directed at Toriel, even if she couldn’t hear her. Then she stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and walked out the door past the other two.
Noelle gave her a nervous nod and followed after her.
The last one left was Kris, still stunned in the doorway. They couldn’t delay any longer, giving the house they grew up in one final look before turning away, looking towards a hopefully brighter future with two of their closest, and maybe only real, friends.
They walked down the street together for a while in silence. The night time wind blew through the gap between them, widening it until Susie took a step in the street. Kris presumed she was headed off to do the crimes she talked about.
Only a few feet away, she turned around and asked “Oh, yeah, you two wanna go grab Ralsei and Lancer?”
Kris frowned and Noelle looked off to the side, holding her arm. Kris had to be the one to speak up. “No.”
Susie smirked, rolling her eyes. “Making me do everything huh? Whatever, fine.”
She began to leave when Kris had to speak up again. “No, Susie. I don’t want them to come,” they said firmly. “The whole point of leaving is to get away from… all of that.”
Susie dropped her hands to her sides, just staring at Kris. Her mouth slowly twisted into a frown over the course of a full, silent minute. Eventually she took a deep breath and sighed, resigned to her fate. When she next spoke, her voice was full of defeat. “Oh. Right… Well… Guess I gotta say bye to them, too.”
Now that made Kris feel even worse, making her split her friend group like that. Leaving Hometown would mean leaving behind the only place she felt she belonged and meant something. Maybe wherever they were going would be different. They hoped she could find some sense of belonging with the two of them. At the end of the day, it was her choice to come.
No one said anything, letting Susie’s words hang tensely in the air as she left. Kris and Noelle exchanged a silent, painful glance before continuing to walk to the bus stop.
The two walked side by side through the trees they used to play in with Dess and Azzy when they were little. Each tree and rock they passed had a bittersweet memory etched into their mind, and they couldn’t keep from reliving the nostalgia. When they arrived at the lone bench and sign at the edge of town, Kris felt another poisonous memory begin to surface. It was of the time the last person they could talk to in Hometown left them. They froze in place and stared at the bench, watching their older brother leave for college again, despite their pleas for him to stay.
Noelle broke them free from their stupor by sitting on the bench and looking back at them with sorrowful eyes. They pushed down the poison for her and sat next to her, offering their hand to hold if she wished. She took it and rested her head upon their shoulder. Kris typically hated being touched like this, but just like the memory, they quashed their own feelings to comfort her. Their presence like this was more meaningful to her than any words they could say.
They felt warm tears stain their sweater and heard her trembling voice speak up. “Kris… I… I… I fucking hate this town!” she sobbed out, which turned into her laughing at herself in disbelief. Noelle never swore.
Kris tried to laugh along with her, but the laugh got caught in their throat, and the moment passed. They instead simply nodded and gently rubbed her hand with their thumb, forcing themself to calm down as well. After all, they had to be there for her. This was the one time in the past four years that they’d had the opportunity and will to support her, and if they couldn’t do that, then what kind of friend were they?
There was a sniffle, and Noelle’s watery voice whispered next to them. “Are… Are you sure you want to come? Your family still loves you… and they’re gonna be worried, Kris…”
“They’ll be fine… I uh… was gonna leave after graduating anyways…” They sigh, taking a moment to collect their thoughts. “Dunno what I was gonna do… but… maybe together we can figure something out.”
Another sniffle, they could feel her smiling. “Yeah, Kris. Together.”
They felt Noelle’s ears shift and perk up at the sound of something behind them. They turned to look, seeing Susie trudging through the forest towards them.
The two childhood friends awkwardly separated and tidied themselves up. Kris turned around in their seat and threw a casual peace sign at her, acknowledging her presence. She sat down on the bench next to Noelle, making it creak under the sudden increase in weight, setting down an old, weathered envelope into Noelle’s lap.
She gingerly picked it up and inspected it. “What’s this?”
“The plan,” she said, leaving it at that for several seconds while Noelle fumbled with shaking hands to open the envelope. When she finally got it open, Susie continued her explanation. “Apparently my grandpa owned some land and knew how shitty my parents are, so he passed it down to me.”
Noelle stared at the inheritance letter, rereading it several times in disbelief.
Kris picked up the discarded envelope and pulled out a stack of cash, counting it. “Hell of a plan, Susie,” they commented, looking over to her with the faintest of smiles creeping in. Maybe this will all work out after all…
Susie smirked and leaned back against the bench, resting her arms on the back of it, reaching all the way past Noelle to touch Kris’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know, I’m kinda smart like that…” she paused, then added in a more serious tone, “Obviously this is an invitation for you two to stay there with me, if you want.”
Noelle suddenly wrapped Susie in a tight embrace, trying to squeeze the life out of her. “Thank you,” she managed to squeak out.
Susie flinched, but awkwardly reciprocated the hug, patting her back a few times. “…Yeah it’s apparently in some small coastal place called Pelican Town. We should be able to get there in a few hours if we take the bus… just gotta wait for it to actually come…” she trailed off, not really sure what else to say.
Noelle pulled back from the hug, a little flustered and nervously cleared her throat. “Y-Yeah…”
The three of them resumed their normal sitting positions: Susie with her arms resting on the back of the bench and legs spread wide, Kris leaned forward with their elbows resting on their knees, and Noelle sandwiched between the two of them, sitting with her hands politely in her lap with perfect posture.
A cool night breeze brushed past the three of them, playing the notes of poisoned memories again in Kris’s head. They shook the poison off, wicking it away by speaking up and forcing themself to stay positive. “Thanks…” They directed it at Susie without looking at her. She just responded with an affirmative grunt.
Minutes passed with nothing said between any of them. Kris’s mind wandered back to thinking. Luckily, their mind fell onto a good path this time, and wondered what the town would be like. They’d get to see the ocean for the first time, and hoped the sounds it made didn’t remind them of that… sound they heard upon first entering the Outlands. They hoped, while knowing it couldn’t be possible, that they could make new memories unburdened by the hell they went through.
It was probably even worse for Noelle, but Susie seemed relatively unaffected. She never had to make a difficult choice or go through the same kind of unique hell that they or Noelle did. They hated her for that. It was a good thing, and not her fault even, but they hated that she didn’t understand what it was like for them.
But… at the same time… she’d been basically the only other person besides Noelle to even understand them. She put effort into their friendship, even if it fell flat sometimes. She somehow got through to them and made them smile for the first time in four years… Noelle had stopped trying.
They never noticed when their head fell to rest on Noelle’s shoulder, and they never noticed when they fell asleep either. Their whirlwind of confusing thoughts glided seamlessly into unconsciousness.
A horrible screeching noise was what they woke up to. Kris winced and cracked open their eyes to see a barely-functioning bus pull up beside them. It opened its doors expectantly.
The predawn sky was just turning a lighter purple, granting them enough light to see the morning dew still half-frozen covering the grass. Kris groaned and forced themself to get up, looking down to their sleeping friends. Susie snored loudly, sprawling out to take up over half the already tiny bench. It was a miracle they got to sleep before her. Noelle looked terrible: tired, stressed, and disheveled. If she saw herself now, with her head laid on Susie’s shoulder and her arms wrapped around Susie’s arm, she would probably explode from a mix of excitement and embarrassment.
To not get left behind, they shook Noelle awake as well. She groaned and mumbled something about five more minutes. They did not have the luxury of time, so they pulled her free from her death grip on Susie, bringing her up to stand on her own hooves. The jostling woke Susie as well, who echoed Noelle’s complaints.
“Wake up. Bus is here,” they stated, and used all their energy to drag the sleepy duo onto the bus.
The bus driver, a human who smelled like cigarettes and alcohol Kris noted, gave them a confused look for half a second before deciding it wasn’t her place to question them.
The bus squeaked and groaned with each step the three took inside it, as if it were on its deathbed, and any additional weight might finally end its suffering. The air inside tasted metallic and stale, and the seats were barely big enough to seat Susie, but to Kris, this old bus was a guardian angel, come to whisk them away from their pain. Even if that metaphor wasn’t as impactful as it once was after everything that happened.
As the bus lurched forward on its last journey before death, Kris, Susie, and Noelle embarked on whatever waited for them beyond their journey’s end.