Work Text:
Kris and Susie strolled along the streets of Hometown as usual, aimlessly wandering along the sidewalks and roads until one of them sprouted an idea of where to settle down for the day. The apple scent wafted through the air as Susie lingered behind her friend. She would never tell Kris, who was under the guise that she walked slower so they didn’t have to jog next to her, but she often stayed slightly behind to catch that scent–the one of artificial apple shampoo, and when pushed up next to them, chocolate musk following.
There were certain things she appreciated that she felt she would never be able to say aloud.
“Lake?” Kris turned towards her, wind whipping their bangs and revealing a slight streak of crimson red. They quickly put their hands up to their face to adjust their bangs again.
“Hell yeah,” she responded coolly.
Really, there were many other places that they’d both try going to first on a bright, hopeful day like this, many hours left until sunset, but Kris and Susie had lately been settling into the routine of visiting the lake often. Kris liked the peacefulness of it all, the warmth hitting their bare hands where their sweater let up, their skin tanning further the longer they both stayed. Susie could admit– it was peaceful. Something about looking at the lake’s horizon line, or maybe looking at Kris and their relaxed posture, so different from how… tense they usually were, she couldn’t tell, but something brought inner peace to her usually conflicted and hyperactive heart.
Susie couldn’t say she didn’t relate to Kris seeking out peace, but she always thought it kind of funny that she was also there. She wouldn’t necessarily describe herself as someone peaceful , that's for sure. Honestly, despite being friends for months now, she didn’t really understand why she of all people was still “allowed” around Kris during their more…quiet moments. She didn’t know if it was because she was so annoying that she missed social cues and just kept circling around Kris like a fly, or if they genuinely didn’t care that she hung around for some reason. The former scared her whenever she entertained the thought.
She supposed it didn't matter though, because the past few months, it felt like they had been doing everything together. Susie slowly started to gain an understanding, a perceptiveness, towards her usually neutral and collected friend. Every action and noise signified something to her, whether they were happy or upset or uncomfortable or thought that the pie they had just eaten together tasted amazing. Seeing Kris so relaxed and enjoying what the Earth had to offer bloomed a new kind of feeling in her–but not one she allowed herself to indulge in.
As she spoke to herself in her head, she almost didn’t notice how the human in front of her stopped walking and looked back at her, humming a noise of confirmation as they settled by the bank of the lake.
“Sorry, jus’...thinkin’.”
Kris nodded, gaze shifting to the water, a look of calm contemplation on their face. She followed their gaze; the sunlight painted everything with a glistening brightness, and it seemed like sparkles rimmed the small ripples caused by the falling autumn leaves, red and orange. The falling foliage contrasted with the dusty yellow dirt roads they had just trekked, reminding Susie of some cheesy dirt-road themed romantic country song. Hometown really was beautiful. Susie regretted her past few years in the town, wishing that she was able to appreciate the nature of it instead of being in flight-or-fight mode as a younger teen. That didn't mean that she couldn't do it now, however.
Sitting down, Susie felt her palms get sweaty as she clung to her backpack strap, feeling the frayed edges and split fibers dig into her scales. She didn’t know why lately she had been getting nervous when it came to these more… intimate moments (and she hated using that word, but didn't know what to call it). She bit the inside of her cheek, and her eyes naturally wandered over to her best friend. Kris slightly looked over back at her, smiling gently. Even just sitting next to them, they were both aware of how Susie towered over the smaller human, who stood right under her chin usually. She slightly leaned over them, trying to get a better view of their face, of what they were thinking. She swore that a gentle red tinted their cheeks, but maybe she just stared at the leaves for too long, or perhaps got a glint of their eyes once more.
Kris let the wind mussel up their hair, bangs plastering to the side of their face more. Susie lifted up an eyebrow in confusion and smirked, back at them, a teasing session brewing in the back of her mind and easing the anxiety she felt in her stomach.
“What?” Kris’s voice trembled like always, soft-spoken and not used to projection. Around Susie, they always unconsciously tried to be louder, but they weren’t sure why. Maybe they wanted to keep up with her, or maybe it was just more important for them to know that she heard them. They had a light-hearted joking tone to their question.
“Your hair,” Susie teased.
“What about it?” They asked back, a jokingly frustrated look appearing on their face.
“Nothin’! You’ve just been… letting it go all around lately.” She laughed, painting a picture of the wind whipping around her friend’s hair with her hand.
“Well, it’s not like I can change my haircut or anything,” Kris hummed, challenging her friend. “Did it myself–”
“Obviously,” the dragon joked. “I always wondered where you got it. Doubted you had to pay for something like that .” She cringed at herself and hoped her joke hadn’t come across as too mean-spirited. Besides, Susie knew the truth, what she really thought, that…
“But, uh…it looks good anyway,” Susie said, barely audible. Though she quickly looked back at the lake’s wavering pools, she swore that through her peripheral she could see Kris’s ears slightly go pink as they did the same.
“Smells good too, huh?” Kris asked, smugness lining their rhetorical words. Their face wasn’t getting any lighter though, a blush sprinkling over their nose as they finished their statement. “I know why you stay behind me,” they said matter-of-factly. “ And I can feel your nostrils when you smell my hair when I’m asleep during class too, you know.”
Susie whipped her head as fast as she could at them, a look of bewilderment plastered onto her face.
“What, freak?” She swallowed hard. It hit her all of a sudden, that it was too late in their friendship, their relationship, to try to ‘bully’ her way out of this predicament she found herself in. To try to hide things anyway.
“...It smells like apples.”
Kris laughed, and Susie didn’t know if it was at her or her embarrassment, but it didn’t really matter, because they shuffled closer to her, until the two of them were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, just looking out past at the water. Everything glimmered and felt warm, like a blanket fresh out of the laundry, something Susie had only ever experienced recently when sleeping over at Kris’s house.
All of a sudden, she felt a small pressure on her shoulder. Nestled in between the crook of her neck and her shoulder joint was her best friend, who sighed contentedly. She looked down for a slight second before she realized her face was breaking out in shades of fuchsia and darker purple, and she quickly diverted her attention back to the interesting sport of leaves grazing water surfaces.
“...freckles are nice,” Kris whispered in awe. Susie could tell they were looking up at her from their position, intently inspecting her. And for some reason, it didn’t make her feel like she was being examined from under a microscope. It made her feel… appreciated, almost. Like no one had ever gotten this close to her to say something so nice about her before, and even if someone did, they would never be as nice as Kris was to her, as…genuine about it.
She lopped her head atop of theirs, her mop of hair covering their own.
“...shut up.”
Kris quietly snorted to themselves and soon settled further into their friend, sleepiness soon dragging their eyelids shut. Susie wrapped an arm around their waist to support them, forearm pressed against theirs, but instead of joining them in their well-needed slumber, she could only thank the heavens for the situation she currently found herself in, and breathed in the goodness of chocolate musk and disgustingly sweet artificial apples. It reminded her a lot of Kris's personality.
After a few hours of sitting in the sun, Kris napping like a cat over Susie, they began to rustle. There was a slight breeze that began to drift into the town and creep its way between the two and their resting spot. Susie nudged Kris’s shoulder a few times before they blinked themselves awake, arms immediately going up to rub themselves in desperation to create heat, respite from the cold they felt in their bones. The breeze was nothing for Susie and various other Hometown monsters, but she knew that Kris was always sensitive to it. Susie shrugged her ripped-up jacket off and gently draped it on her shivering friend's shoulders. She knew that it was thin and falling apart, but it was something.
The pair quickly and quietly gathered their things and Susie held a hand out for Kris to support themselves on their way up from the knoll, crisp autumn leaves cushioning their previous nap and freeing themselves from Kris’s trouser folds.
They never let go of Susie’s hand as they walked back to their place.
As they both stood in the yard, paved driveway to the right, Kris’s bangs fluttered across their face again. Their eyes almost matched their mother’s car, Susie thought. Striking. Strong . But a gentleness behind them, of something used for good, for the purpose of caring for others.
Kris let go of her hand, to both of their dismay, and the sleeves of their borrowed jacket drowned their hands as they fumbled with their pockets. They tried not to look as upset as they clearly were, but to Susie, who had seemed to dissect every facial expression the human had ever made at this point, it was obvious.
"Keep the jacket, I can have it back tomorrow." She knew they’d see each other the next day, and the day after that, and that there was no reason to be upset, and she knew that they knew that. They smiled at her awkwardly, slightly hurt, and began to walk up to their door.
Susie turned around and began heading down the bath back to the center of town. She looked back to see Kris fiddling with their keys, going through each one on the keyring and trying to inspect which one was the correct one.
She quietly laughed to herself as she turned around and began to walk again, finally hearing the familiar click of the unlocked door.
“Susie?” She heard a quiet call. She stopped and looked back again, barely having made it five steps from the yard.
Kris was looking back at her, face spotted with hues of red and pink. Their tanned skin beautifully complimented their flush, and their hair, though messy, gave way to their eyes as if a curtain was drawn. Their eyes looked so genuine, so full of want, so full of love.
“D–do you want to sleep over tonight?”
Susie cracked a big smile and felt the same love overflow her heart.
“Hell yeah,” she tried responding calmly, but her gleeful skip to the front door betrayed her as she met her friend through the door frame.
After making various preparations of pies and popcorn and television set-ups, the both of them sat next to each other in the exact same way they did at the lake. Kris sat up and slid off the couch in order to get them both a blanket that they had previously stuffed in the dryer to warm up, and as they happily made their way through the living room, Susie found that the right side of her neck still smelled like Kris.
As Kris reached into the dryer to fish out the mass of fluff, they caught a scent on their neck, most likely stained from the jacket they borrowed from their friend. Making their way back to the couch where she awaited, they found that the right side of their neck still smelled like Susie.