Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Despite what it may seem, being the golden boy of Hometown wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Yes, Asriel tried his very best to be the good son his parents wanted him to be. He went to church every Sunday and was practically the star of the choir. He got straight A’s in all his classes - minus the time he’d gotten a B in gym class and went running home to confess to his father, who could only laugh despite how serious he’d believed the situation to be at the time. He would constantly hear the other grown-ups mention to his parents what a nice young man he was. And despite the… challenges of having Kris as a younger sibling, Asriel did his darndest to be the best older brother he could. 

For instance, at the moment, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor with the young human in front of their TV, the sounds of button mashing being audible throughout the living room and into the kitchen. They both had a controller in hand, though the knockoff one Asriel held was worse in just about every way,  and they were in the middle of an all-out brawl in Super Smashing Fighters. The fight was far closer than it had any right to be. The younger Dreemurr sibling’s strategy mostly consisted of mashing the stick for the strong attacks and using up-B way way way too much. It was about all they could do when they were still a bit too small to properly hold the controller, and still not grown enough to know that winning wasn’t the only way to enjoy these games. So, Asriel would often go a little easy on them. He just wanted both of them to have fun regardless of who actually won, which was exactly the type of thing the golden boy of Hometown would do.

Asriel knew that all of these things were important to him. School, church, singing with his mom, gardening with his dad, and being a good older brother. It was there that his soul shined brightest, and the reason that all the grown-ups in town spoke so highly of him.

But it was the times between all of that where he struggled. Finding a partner for a group project. Choosing a table to sit at during lunch. Thinking of doing anything other than simply walking Kris home once school got out. That wasn’t to say Asriel was an outcast or anything. He never had trouble speaking up in class or talking to any of the other kids at lunch once he finally sat down somewhere, but he couldn’t say he interacted much with his classmates after the final bell rang.

He liked a lot of the other kids, and some of them also seemed to like him… but had any of them ever asked him to come over to their house after school? Not so far. And for some reason, Asriel always got a strange tightness in his chest whenever he tried to work up the courage to see if anyone wanted to come over to his house. He had acquaintances, sure, and a couple that he could maybe, maybe consider friends, but he wasn't one hundred percent sure, and if Asriel didn't have at least one guaranteed friend then it was impossible for him to have a best friend.

The nearest thing to that was Kris, and while Asriel wouldn’t trade that strange, tiny, quiet human for any other sibling in the world, it wasn’t the same as having someone his age around. Someone you don’t need to constantly keep an eye on, or walk to and from every place in town. Someone he didn’t need to go easy on. Kris would get there one day when they were older, sure, but Asriel didn’t want to wait that long. If he had to wait until he was in middle school to start trying against Kris, then Asriel would lose his mind for sure.

But making friends was harder than singing in choir, or studying for a test, or playing Super Smashing Fighters. 

A sudden knock at the door made both of the Dreemurr children stop and turn, only for Kris to snap their head back to the TV and get a free hit on Asriel, who felt a twinge of fear take root in his chest.

It was the reason he was so nervous tonight. It was the first time the golden boy would be having one of his classmates over, and it was all because of his parents.

“Coming!” Asriel’s mom sang from the kitchen, followed not long after by the sound of his dad’s heavy footsteps descending the staircase. His mom passed them by in the living room, giving each of them a soft tap on the top of their heads. “Kids, pause your game for a moment, would you please?” she asked, and Asriel was quick to oblige. He felt Kris trying to reach over to his controller so that they could resume the fight, but Asriel gave them a nudge with his elbow and a quick look to get them to relax for just a second. 

His mom opened the door to reveal a tall, smiling reindeer monster, who was quick to extend his arms and pull his mother into a warm hug. Asriel remembered this man. He was old friends with his parents.

“Seriously, Tori, can’t thank you enough for agreeing to watch the girls on such short notice.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all!”

“Carol sends her thanks as well. You know how her schedule can be sometimes, all over the- Hey!”

The reindeer’s smile lit up again as Asriel’s father moved across the kitchen and into the living room, his smile just as warm.

“Rudy!” his dad said. “Ready to hit the town like we’re in our twenties again?”

“Whoa there, big guy, I don’t know if these bones can handle that much fun these days, haha!” the deer replied, meeting Asgore's hand for a handshake that looked far less formal than the ones he usually did with people around town.

The adults continued to chat for a bit while the tightness in Asriel's chest refused to die down. He knew the reason other kids were coming over. His dad and his friend were supposed to go out and have fun with their other friends - his mom had called it a “guys night” - and they were bringing their kids over here because their mom was busy with work and couldn’t watch them. He could see the silhouette of two smaller antlered figures behind their dad, but he couldn’t make out any details from here.

Oh, why was this so hard for him? If it were a Monsters & Humans history quiz, or a series of math problems, or even a simple junior jumble, he could do it without issue. So why was this so hard? Was it because Asriel didn’t feel like he’d earned it? Like having someone over to your house before you even became friends meant that they would never actually want to be?

“Well, gosh darn, look at you two!” Rudy said, snapping Asriel away from his thoughts. “You’re both getting bigger every time I see ya! Especially Kris! Heck, I remember when you were small enough that your daddy could hold you in a single paw.”

“Heh, they’re certainly too big for that now.” Asgore chuckled. “And they don’t have any scruff to grab onto like Asriel does!”

The adults all shared a laugh, but Kris turned their head away just enough for Asriel to notice. He knew they didn’t like it when people pointed out how different they were from the rest of their family. It was the whole reason they liked wearing that headband with the horns on it. It was even worse, though, when it came from Mom or Dad. Obviously, they loved Kris just as much as he did, but some of these types of things could still go over their heads sometimes. Asriel gave them a soft shove with his elbow to let them know it’s okay.

“Well,” Rudy begins. “We should get going if we wanna be there on time. Don’t wanna keep the other fellas waiting on us too long…” He suddenly turns his head round to face the still-open door. “What are you girls still doing out in the cold? Come on in now, the Dreemurrs won’t bite!” The reindeer stepped aside, giving room for the two figures behind him to step through the doorway. 

The older of the two had dark hair that matched her dad’s and fur that was seemingly a few shades darker. Her antlers were very different, a cool shade of blue, the same color as her eyes and the tip of her nose, instead of her dad’s brown. The younger girl looked like she was holding onto her sister's arm for dear life, still halfway covered behind her. Asriel could at least tell that her hair was blonde and fur much closer in color to her dad’s, if maybe a bit lighter. Her antlers also much more closely resembled her father's. Both of them had warm-looking sweater vests on over their shirts

“Asriel, Kris.” Toriel began. “You two remember December and Noelle, don’t you?”

He did remember the older one at least, December. They were both in Mr. Boom’s class at school. She didn’t talk a lot, but when she did, it almost always got a hoot and a holler out of the old tortoise. Asriel had taken a seat at a table she was at during lunch a few times, but they’d never really talked to each other much. He was also pretty sure she was friends with Catty and Bratty, which was weird because those two never seemed to get along.

Noelle was even more unfamiliar, with his only real knowledge of her having been from seeing the young fawn walk home from school with her big sister, clutched to her arm very similarly to how she was right now. From that alone, they seemed like the exact opposite of Kris. He could hardly stop them from running off and causing trouble at times, but Noelle never seemed to be more than a few steps away from her sister outside of school. She looked completely terrified.

Asriel could sympathize. He was pretty scared of this whole thing, too. But he was the big kid of the house, so he had to do his best to put on a tougher face.

“Hey,” December eventually said, nodding towards Asriel before looking down at her younger sister and placing a hoofed hand on her shoulder. “Say hi, Elly.”

“...h…h-hello…” the blonde deer muttered.

“Hi…” Asriel replied with a soft wave, whereas Kris just nodded and stared.

“Now, girls,” Rudy said, getting down on a knee. “I’ll be back to pick you two up in a few hours. Until then, Asriel, Kris, and Mrs. Dreemurr are gonna play with you gals, alright?”

The two fawns nodded at their father, who reached out and gave a reassuring squeeze to Noelle's arm before tussling the hair between December’s antlers.

As the two men said goodbye and stepped out into the night, Asriel looked over and saw his mom leaning down with an eye on Noelle specifically.

“Hello, Noelle! It’s so nice to see you outside of the classroom like this!” Toriel said, beaming.

“...h-hi Mrs. Dreemurr…” Noelle muttered, inching out from behind her sister's back.

“Do you remember that book we read in class the other day? The one you liked so much?”

Noelle nodded, still not letting go of her sister.

“Well, I have a whole set by the same author upstairs. How would you like to come and read a few with me and Kris?”

Noelle shuffled in place a bit, eyes darting between her sister, Toriel, and the young human staring blankly. Eventually, a hand reached her back and began gently pushing her forward.

“She’d love that, Mrs. Dreemurr,” December said, nodding to her sister to go along. Though Noelle was still fidgeting with herself, it wasn’t long before she took Toriel's hand in her own.

“Great! Oh, we’ll have so much fun. Kris, come along! We’re going to read your favorites to Noelle!”

Krist let an absent huff from their nose that Asriel couldn’t quite place, but sure enough, they set down their controller and got to their feet.

“Asriel, honey, why don’t you show December that game you were just playing?” Toriel asked.

“S-sure, Mom…” he replied, shooting a glance at the elder Holiday sister.

As his mother took the younger kids upstairs, there was an awkward silence between him and December. He had no idea how these things were supposed to work. Did he just need to… show her his stuff? Did she even like video games? She was a girl, so maybe that was just something they didn’t-

“So what are you playing?” December asked, snapping Asriel back to his living room. She was looking right at him with her head slightly tilted.

“O-oh, um… Just… Super Smashing… Fighters…”

With a raise of her brow, December simply nodded.

“Cool,” she said, walking over and taking a seat on the floor next to Asriel, eyes darting across the pause screen. “You wanna restart or just pick up this match?”

“Uh…” he stammered. He hadn’t expected her to know what the game was without any explanation. “W-we can restart, um… here.”

Asriel reached down and grabbed the controller Kris had been using and offered it to the girl, who stared down at the device with a weird look. She did know that the controller was used to play the game, right?

“Dude, I’m not using that one,” she said, pointing to the normal controller. “It’s your house. Gimme the knockoff one.”

Again, another thing Asriel hadn’t expected her to say.

“Oh, uh… are you sure? I really don’t mind it,” he said, trying to stay diplomatic.

“Nah, it’s okay. If I knew you had this, I would’ve brought my controller over,” December said, reaching over and pulling the knockoff one from Asriel’s paws. “This’ll work, though.”

“O-okay…” he muttered as he brought them back to the character select screen. “So, this game has a ton of characters you can-”

He was cut off by the sound of the announcer triumphantly declaring which character player 2 had selected.

“I know,” she replied casually. Asriel couldn’t help but stare for a moment, but his confused look quickly turned into a chuckle when he saw which character December had selected.

“You… hehe, you’re gonna play Sword Magician?” 

The girl shot looks between him and the screen a few times, a few strands of her dark parting from the others and obscuring her brow.

“Yeah… what’s the problem?” she asked.

“Well, like… nothing, I guess. But she’s just kinda… lame, you know?”

December just shrugged.

“Eh, not really. I think she’s pretty sick. Besides, she has like one of the best movesets in the game.”

Asriel's brow furrowed.

“She does?” 

“Yeah dude. C’mon, pick your character, I’ll show you.”

Asriel was puzzled. How did she know something he didn’t? He and Kris played this game all the time; he would know by now if Sword Magician was actually good! Of course, he’d only tried Sword Magician a couple of times before…  so he supposed it would make sense that he didn't know as much about that character.

Moving his cursor over to his character of choice, Asriel pressed A and pondered over which stage to select. As he was debating his options, he heard the girl next to him let out a snicker.

“Green Lizard, huh? Interesting.”

With his cheeks slightly reddened, Asriel turned to face December.

“What’s wrong with Green Lizard?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just interesting.”

Asriel focused and turned back to the screen. Sure, he may not have liked Green Lizard as much as he used to - he still vividly remembered the birthday incident (thanks, Dad) - but it was still probably his best character. 

After a bit more internal debate, Asriel settled on Sky Temple because he liked how big it was, but he almost thought he saw December glance at him out of the corner of his eye. There wasn’t anything wrong with the stage either, was there?

As their characters began to spawn in, Asriel’s dropped to the ground and began moving across the stage towards his opponent. But when he looked across the screen to see where she was, December’s character was just dashing in place over and over again. He looked away from the screen and shot another glance at her, seeing the deer wiggle the movement stick rapidly left and right.

“Are you, um… ready?” he asked after a moment.

“Hmm? Yeah, yeah, just warming up real quick.”

December continued her frantic wiggling, eventually having her character just jump around for a bit and do a few aerial moves. Asriel didn’t remember Sword Magician’s jump being that short though, but it did make him feel more justified about not playing her. After around another thirty seconds of warming up, December turned to Asriel and nodded.

“M’kay, I’m ready.”

He’d been thinking about going easy on her just as he had with Kris, but after seeing her do all this weird stuff before the fight, Asriel decided to just play normally for now. He began with his usual opener, which was side-B. His character rolled up into their egg and went barreling over towards the Sword Magician. Kris always hated that move, so Asriel rarely did it anymore, but he wasn’t going to hold back against her. Just as he was about to crash into his opponent, Asriel's eyes went wide in shock.

His character was suddenly halted in its tracks by a grab move from Sword Magician. How did she manage to do that? He was moving so fast, there’s no way she would’ve been able to-

Before he could even finish processing what was happening, Sword Magician tossed the Green Lizard into the air and hit them with multiple aerial moves that sent them flying across the stage. Asriel was forced to react quickly and run farther to the left towards the edge so that she wouldn’t hit him again. He mentally thanked the Angel when an item pod spawned directly above him, and he grabbed it before she could catch up.

“Pfft, you play with items on?” December chuckled, which caused Asriel to send her another confused glance.

“Um, yeah? Items are super fun!” he replied, chucking the item pod against the ground to reveal its content. He was in luck; A super hammer was resting at his character’s feet.

He picked the hammer up and went rushing over to the Sword Magician, who was completely helpless to stop the multi-hit auto attacks now coming from Green Lizard.

“Yup… suuuuuper fun…” she deadpanned, her character doing some weird roll move as she hit the ground right as his hammer ended. He thought he was gonna have a chance to hit her with a down-B or maybe even a strong attack, but was again shocked when a single well-timed jab attack stopped his character in its tracks and allowed her to follow up with a series of moves that were so fast Asriel could hardly tell them apart. Then, to add insult to injury, she finished it off with a perfectly spaced strong attack that sent him right off the top of the stage and into the blast zone.

He turned his head as his character was spawning back in, but December was still completely focused on the screen, save for the slight bobbing of her head along to the stage music. Asriel looked back and leaned forward, determined to take one of her lives as well.

But try as he might, Asriel could barely get two hits in. Every time he thought he had an opening to land an attack, she’d whack him with one of her own, or grab him, or outright block his attack before following up with some crazy move that he never remembered Sword Magician being able to do. Before he knew it, he’d already lost another life while barely doing any damage to her.

He was never going to be able to take her down if things kept up like this, so he had to think of something quick. After recovering from another surprisingly lengthy combo from December, Asriel made a mad dash for the cave in the bottom left portion of the stage. It was a lot more cramped and way easier to hit strong attacks there, so with some luck he could get a few good hits in. But he hadn’t considered that it would be just as easy for her to make use of the tighter space as it was for him. She managed to get in a couple of beefy hits that sent him bouncing off the cave walls, but thankfully nothing so strong as to send him flying out of the cave.

After continuing to struggle, Asriel finally managed to get enough damage on her that a single solid strong attack would probably send her flying off the cave walls and into the blast zone, but she was still very tough to hit. Sword Magician was a lot faster than Asriel remembered her being, but he was starting to get used to the speed. He was able to get a soft hit in here and there, but she’d managed to shield almost every one. But he also knew that the shield wouldn’t last forever. If it took too many hits in too short a time, it would break, leaving her open for basically a free hit.

Suddenly, a miracle happened. She tried to poke him with an aerial attack that just barely missed, and he followed up with an aerial of his own, his character flailing their legs rapidly below them like they were a cartoon character about to break into a sprint. It wasn't a very strong move, but it had a lot of hits. Just enough hits to eventually break the Sword Magician’s shield after most of them had been blocked.

“YES!! Ha ha!!” Asriel cried, pumping a fist in excitement. He walked his character right next to hers and began charging a strong attack. With the amount of damage she’d taken, there was no way December would be able to survive the hit. Even though he was still down a couple of lives and pretty beat up on this one, there was a chance that this was the beginning of the comeback he needed.

After fully charging the attack, the Green Lizard let loose the ferocious headbutt that was their side-strong, colliding with the Sword Magician for a whopping amount of damage. Asriel wondered just how many times she would bounce off the walls before she flew into the blast zone, guessing at least five or six.

And then, just as her character was sent flying into the back wall of the cave, Asriel heard a loud and divisive click come from the shoulder button on December’s controller. At exactly the same time, he watched with dismay as her character hit the wall, flashed white for a moment, and then had all of their momentum cancelled completely, falling back down to the stage like nothing had even happened.

Asriel just stared at the screen, hardly even registering that December had gotten another attack on him that sent him flying off the stage once again. She’d just managed to cancel out one of the strongest attacks in the game, and she didn’t even react to it. The coolest thing that he had ever seen in Smashing Fighters, possibly up there for coolest thing he had seen in his entire life , and it wasn’t even worth noticing for December.

How is she so cool? He wondered.

“Hey, you okay?” December asked, having noticed that he wasn’t moving his character.

“How… how did you just do that?” Asriel asked, turning away from the screen to look at her, his widened eyes peeking over his half-frame glasses.

“What?” She said casually, “I just teched it.”

Asriel tilted his head.

“You what?”

“I did a tech on the wall.”

Asriel silently looked over to the screen, then back to her.

“What’s a tech?”

The girl let out a scoff, then began to snicker into one of her hooves.

“You don’t know what teching is?” she laughed.

The way she said it made him slump back where he sat. Was he supposed to know what that was? She did, and she made it sound like it was so obvious, so why didn’t he? This was supposed to be one of his favorite games… wasn’t it?

Of course he wouldn’t know what it was. He had no clue what she’d just done, let alone what it was even called. This was exactly why he’d never be able to make a friend other than Kris. Because he was just a nerdy loser who was actually terrible at a game he thought he was good at, and this girl can show up and just wipe the floor with him. Angel above, why was he such a-

“Hey, it’s okay, dude.” December suddenly said, snapping Asriel’s attention to her. It was then that he felt the moisture around his eyes and realized that he’d started to cry in front of her.

“Crap, I didn’t mean to tease you, Asriel. Really, I’m sorry.”

She reached out and placed a hand on his knee, causing a little twinge of something to flare up in his chest. Whatever it was, it wasn’t fear. It felt far too good to be fear.

“It’s - sniff - it’s okay. I just… I only ever play with Kris, and neither of us knows what that is, so…”

“You want me to show you how to do it?” December asked.

Asriel sniffled and nodded.

For the next half hour, December ran Asriel through some advanced Smashing Fighters techniques. She’d initially called them basic techniques, but that had made Asriel start to tear up again, so she was quick to redefine them as advanced instead. It helped him feel less like a loser than he already did. She showed him how to tech, and the difference between a short hop and a regular jump - another thing he didn’t even know was in the game. She told him what dash dancing was, and really blew his mind when she showed off this thing called L-cancelling. It was a lot for Asriel to take in, but he was completely enraptured. There was a whole hidden layer of complexity to one of his favorite games that he would never even have known about if it wasn’t for December.

Just as she was starting to explain what a wavedash was, Toriel came back downstairs with Kris and Noelle in tow to grab a quick snack. December paused and got up to go check on her sister. The younger Holiday girl seemed like she was adjusting alright. One of her hands was still locked onto Toriels like her life depended on it, but she wasn’t looking around the room like something was going to jump out at her at any given moment. Her face lit up when she saw December approaching, letting go of Toriel and meeting her halfway for a hug in the kitchen.

December wasn’t anything like what Asriel had expected her to be. She was always dressed up so prim and proper in school, which made sense because he was pretty sure her mom was the mayor, and that probably meant everyone in their family had to be dressed all fancy and presentable. Before today, he would have assumed she didn’t even like video games, let alone that she would know some crazy techniques he had never heard of. Asriel had never had much of an opinion of her before now because he really didn’t know enough about her for him to have one.

But after getting his butt kicked by her for the last half hour, Asriel thought she might just be the coolest person in the entire town.

“Your mom made apple slices,” December suddenly said, now holding two small plates, each with a few apple slices and a small cup of peanut butter in the middle. Asriel huffed and took one of the plates from her, having not realized that he’d been staring off into nothing.

“Thanks…” he said, putting his controller down and placing the plate in his lap.

“You do that a lot,” she said nonchalantly as she kneeled next to him and took a bite out of an apple slice.

“Um… do what?” he asked.

“You know, just… stare. At nothing, I guess. Or at least it looks like you’re staring at nothing. I’ve seen you do it in class, too.”

A flair of embarrassment swelled up in Asriel’s cheeks.

“I, uh… sorry, I guess I just… do that. When I’m, you know… thinking about stuff.”

“M’kay,” December nodded, scooping up a bit of peanut butter with her half-eaten slice. “What about?”

The redness in his cheeks grew even more, prompting him to use his right ear to hide it from her.

“Oh, just-uh, you know… how I’m gonna use those fancy moves you taught me to whip Kris’s butt later.”

“Pffft, sure you will…” she chuckled, taking one last bite of her snack before setting the plate on the floor next to her. “So what other games do you guys have anyway?”

“Oh, um… we’ve got Penguin Party 2, that one can be pretty fun. The mini-games are really-”

“You got Dragon Blazers?”

Asriel paused, thought over everything in his single-digit collection of games, and then shook his head.

“Oh, dude! You’re missing out! It’s like the coolest game ever.”

Asriel shuffled where he sat so that he was facing her directly. December had been at his house for less than an hour, and He already thought she was amazing, but then she takes it even further by saying there’s a game out there that’s cooler than Smashing Fighters? He needed to know everything about it right now.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You play as like a… a party of people. And you’re on a quest to save the world and stuff. The music is really really good, and…” She paused for a moment, turning her head between Asriel and the staircase. “Well, it’d be easier to just show it to you.”

“I… I bet it would… but I don’t have the game, December.”

She let out a small laugh that sounded more angelic than any of the songs he’d sung at church.

“Well duh, but we can go get my copy,” she said, nodding towards the front door.

Asriel wrung his fingers together nervously.

“Would… wouldn’t the game be at your house though?”

December simply chuckled, then let out a sigh and brought herself to her feet, and extended a hand to Asriel.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” she said, her open hand still awaiting his.

Asriel was hesitant at first. Surely she wasn’t trying to get them to leave the house, was she? His mom never let him or Kris leave the house without an adult to supervise. Plus, it was getting dark outside, and the only times he’d even been out after dark were for a camping trip and that one time Dad convinced Mom to let him stay at the Festival late.

But despite his reservations, Asriel reached a hand up to hers and grasped it. His reward for doing so was being yanked up to his feet by the girl and letting out a faint yelp.

“ Shhhhhhh…” December hushed, holding a finger up to her mouth as she moved them towards the door. Asriel was mortified when she reached up and untwisted the bolt, but did nothing to stop her except glance back at the staircase, expecting his mother to come down at any second.

Before he could put up any form of protest, the door was cracked open, and he was yanked outside by the deer, who dragged him across his lawn and down to the street.

“W-what… what are we…” Asriel began, too horrified to finish his sentence. 

“Come on, my house is right down here, we’ll be back in two minutes.”

The girl continued pulling him down the road. The only reason Asriel didn’t try to pull away and run back was because of the surprising amount of strength she’d used to pull him out of his house, and he wasn’t confident enough that he’d be able to get away without delaying both of them even further. He’d only gotten a B in gym class after all…

The night air brushed against his fur as he ran, and the sounds of crickets echoed throughout the streets of Hometown. Under normal circumstances, Asriel would love to stop and take it all in, but right now his heart was pounding in too much of a panic to truly notice any of it. He was just waiting for his mother to scream his name out from the porch at the top of her lungs.

As they reached an intersection - the west path being a large gate with a long pathway behind it, and the east leading to the rest of Hometown - the duo moved towards the towering gate.

“Okay okay, help me up,” December huffed. 

Asirel was so scared out of his mind that he’d barely even processed her request, but he also knew that any moment he waited meant it was all the more likely for his mom to walk down into the living room and see that they were nowhere to be found. 

The goat put his back to the gate and cupped his paws together, providing her with a spot to step up and hoist herself over the top. It took all of Asriel’s strength to lift her as high as he could, and he let out a sigh of relief as he felt her weight disappear as she clambered over the top of the gate and landed firmly on the other side.

“Wait for me here, I’ll be back in a minute,” she said before rushing up the road and disappearing from view.

Standing there alone at the gate, Asriel’s legs began to shake. This was bad, really, really, really bad. Why had he let December drag him out here? Mom was going to be so mad at him when she found out. He’d be grounded for the rest of the month, the rest of the year , even. He’d be forced to go to church all day every day for the rest of his life, and then he’d never be able to make a real friend.

He should just run back to his house right now. Run back and shut the door and go back to playing his games like nothing even happened. At least then he wouldn’t be in trouble. At least then he could look forward to actually having a life for the rest of his life. His hand let go of the cold metal gate, and he took a few tentative steps backward.

But the thought of December trapped inside the gate with no one to help her over stopped him in his tracks. Yes, she was at her own house, but what if she couldn’t find a way inside? What if it started raining and she caught a cold? What if some stranger came by pretending to be a friend and kidnapped her?

The thought that he hated the most, though, was that December would never want to be his friend if he left her now. She’d get in trouble with her parents and probably hate his guts forever. She’d never want to look at or talk to him ever again. She was probably one of the coolest people Asriel had ever met. He wanted to keep talking to her. He wanted to hear all about Dragon Blazers, and L-cancels, and wavedashing.

He wanted December to like him. She never would if he left now.

Asriel steeled himself and took a deep breath as he stepped back up to the gate, looking past it for any sign of December returning. Asriel’s mom had only just gone upstairs with Kris and Noelle. Unless she’d forgotten something in the kitchen, she’d have no reason to come back to the living room just yet. They had time, but every second they were out here was a second they could be caught.

“Please please pleeeeeease hurry…” he muttered, his heel anxiously tapping against the pavement.  Every moment that passed felt like an eternity, and the golden boy part of him that always did what his parents told him was screaming to get back to the house before things got worse, but he shoved those thoughts aside. His friend needed him here, and so here he would stay.

When a short pair of blue antlers rounded the corner and zoomed towards the gate, he let out a relieved gasp and glanced behind himself to make sure nobody was watching them. He turned back just as December got back to the gate with a video game case clasped in her hooves.

“Here,” she said, passing him the case through the gap in the gate. “Now help me back up.”

It took hardly a moment for Asriel to react. He was high-strung and nervous as all heck, but he needed to help her out. Placing the game case on the ground, he reached both his arms through the gate and cupped his hands together on the other side. Just like before, she stepped up on his newly made foothold and stretched to reach the top of the gate. It was much harder to lift her up from this side; he didn’t have as much leverage as he did before, but still, Asriel tried with all his might to get December high enough so she could pull herself over the top of the gate.

His muscles were strained, and just as Asriel thought his arms were about to give out and drop her to the ground, he felt the weight lift from his hands as December managed to get a grip on the top of the gate, hoisting herself over to the other side but landing hard on the pavement, stumbling over onto her side. Asriel was quick to rush over to her and grab her arm. 

“Oh gosh, are you okay?” he asks, helping pull the girl to her feet. He swore he was going to see a nasty bruise or scrape somewhere on her elbow or knee, but thankfully nothing caught his eye.

“Yeah yeah, I’m good,” she quickly huffed, dusting off her skirt with her hands and moving to pick up the game case. “Let’s go, quick!”

Asriel nodded and grabbed her free hand, tugging her along as fast as he could go back to his house. His heart was pounding out of his chest as his front door came into view, still cracked open from their initial exit. He swore that at any moment his mom would open it and give him a verbal smackdown the likes of which play in his head on repeat any time he ever thought of disobeying her for the rest of his days, but as they got closer and closer, no movement could be seen on the other side.

When they reached the front porch, Asriel had to fight himself from barreling through the door to get inside as fast as possible. That would create far too much noise for his mother not to notice. Their house wasn’t very big, after all. He pushed open the door just enough for both of them to slip inside before very delicately pushing the door shut with a soft click . As soon as it was fully shut, he reached up and twisted the bolt, leaving the door looking just as locked as when his mother had last checked it.

Both December and Asriel turned towards one another, their chests still heaving from running a dead sprint. After a moment had passed and both of the kids realized that they’d gotten away with their little breakout, they each started to giggle into their hands.

“Golly… Asriel said after a chuckle. “That was… that was crazy!”

“Really?” December laughed. “We went like fifty feet, dude.”

“Well yeah, but… we sneaked out! ” he said, the last words coming out as a whisper-yell. “I’ve never done something like that before. It was so scary!”

“Hehe, you’re such a dork,” She said, momentarily causing a frown to start to form on Asriel’s lips, but she had said it with such warmth and such a big smile that it was impossible for him to interpret it as a negative. “C’mon, I wanna show you the game.”

Asriel shook his head as soon as December turned towards the TV, freeing his mind of any lingering thoughts. He wrung his hands together as he sat down and crossed his legs in front of the controller he’d been at only a minute ago. He watched as December took out the disk for Super Smashing Fighters and handed it over to him. He then reached over to put the disk back in its case (something Kris never did, annoyingly) while she inserted the Dragon Blazers disk into the console and pressed the power button.

“So,” She started as she went back to her seat. “It’s a single-player game, but I just wanna watch you go through the first area. Oh, oh, and just chill on the main menu for a bit once it starts.”

“Okay… why?” Asriel asked.

“You’ll see,” December smirked.

As the game console booted up and the soft whirring of its hardware began piercing the silence of the living room, a sweet melody began to play from the TV speakers. The game company logo flashed on screen, the music only growing as the logo faded out, and the Dragon Blazers title appeared on screen with a triumphant crescendo of sound.

Asriel was floored. Not just at how good the music was, but how it just kept going. He would’ve figured that they would’ve built up all their fanfare getting to the main menu, only to have them end it as soon as you could press start, because who just sat on the main menu without hitting start? But the longer he sat, the more he became lost in the music.

It was also so different from the songs he’d heard in other games. Smashing Fighters had some good tracks, certainly, but they were all made for high intensity and action because that game was all about beating the heck out of people. This was slow, soft, and melodic. He felt at ease just listening to it, like he was transported to an entirely different place than where he currently sat.

Looking over at December, he saw that she had her eyes closed and her head swaying back and forth with the rhythm of the track. A soft hum escaped her smiling lips, matching each note of the track almost perfectly. 

He felt that little sensation of something spark in his chest again as his cheeks reddened. He turned away and thanked the Angel that she hadn’t seen, or she surely would’ve teased him for it.

As the track came to its triumphant end and left the living room in a lingering silence, December opened her eyes and turned to Asriel.

“Pretty awesome, right?”

“Y-yeah. Really… really awesome…” he replied.

“There’s like a gazillion good songs in this game. I seriously can’t think of a single one I don’t like… But the game itself is also really fun,” she said, nodding towards the TV.

And so for the vast majority of their remaining time together that evening, Asriel and December went through the opening section of her favorite game. He chose a character name, met his party members, and got started on the beginning of what was shaping up to be an exciting adventure. December was a great guide, showing him secrets and funny dialogues that he surely would’ve missed if she hadn’t been there. He found a crazy artifact behind a piano playing puzzle that she helped him solve, and she made sure he knew to always exhaust the character dialogue until they started repeating the same lines, so that way he wouldn’t miss anything. Asriel was enthralled by just how… open everything was. He could walk from one end of the starting town to the other, and not once did anyone or anything stop and tell him, “You can’t go this way!” Heck, there was even a funny line from the shopkeeper because Asriel had opened a chest that contained a gift, but because he hadn't talked to the shopkeeper yet, they jokingly chewed him out for taking it too early!.

He had just gotten out of the starting town with his party members when he heard a knock on the door. His heart sank as he begrudgingly made a save. He wanted to keep playing. He wanted to keep seeing new faces and having December show him all the cool secrets. He didn’t want the day to end.

His mom was quick to come downstairs with Kris and Noelle, who was looking much happier than when she had first arrived at the Dreemurr household. Kris even looked like they had the faintest little smile on their face, so the lengthy story time they’d had upstairs must’ve been pretty fun.

Asgore gave Torilel a quick peck on the lips as he entered with Rudy in tow, and Asriel had to briefly look away or he might've barfed. He could never understand why his parents liked doing that so much.

“Did you boys have a fun night?” Toriel asked.

“Very much so, Tori,” Rudy replied before kneeling down to scoop up his youngest daughter in his arms and give her a kiss on the cheek. “Heya, sweetie! Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yeah,” Noelle replied happily. “Mrs. Dreemurr read us stories, and Kris made funny faces!”

“Oh yeah, I bet they’re real good at that,” the reindeer chuckled. “And how about you, Dess? You have fun playing games with Azzy?”

“Uh-huh! I kicked his butt at Smashing Fighters.”

All the adults in the room broke into a laugh, save for Toriel, who looked almost shocked at what the girl had said. And even though she was technically putting him down, Asriel couldn’t help but laugh along too.

The adults moved over to the kitchen as Asgore and Rudy started going over their exploits with the other guys, leaving Asriel and December alone in the living room once more. The two kids shared a brief look with each other.

“Well…” Asriel eventually said. “I guess you should take your game back. Thanks for showing it to me, it was super cool…” 

He looked away from her and hunched down into his knees, feeling another rush of heat to his cheeks as he muttered his next words into his khakis.

“...you’re… super… cool…”

The little laugh she gave off caused another fluttering of something .

“Thanks, Azzy. It was fun teaching you how not to get your butt kicked,” she giggled.

Just like before, Asriel laughed as well. There was another pause before December spoke up again.

“You know, if you want to keep going on that save, I could just leave the game here. I’ve already played through it like six times anyway.”

“R-really?” he asked, utterly stunned. She was seriously going to just give him her favorite game?

“Yeah dude, it’s no big deal…” she said, flicking back some of her dark hair so it rested behind her ear. Asriel wasn’t completely sure, but he swore he saw a small blush on her cheeks as well. “Also…” she continued. “Maybe after school tomorrow, I could come over and watch you play it a little more?”

Asriel sat wide-eyed in silence. He didn’t know what to say. How could someone so cool show any interest in hanging out with him of all people?

“I mean, if you don’t mind, you know...” she quickly stammered, prompting him to let out a chuckle of his own.

“Y-yeah. That sounds like fun!” he said, beaming at her with his biggest smile.

“Cool,” she said with a nod.

“Cool…” he muttered back.

The two shared a quick look again, then sat in silence for a bit until the muffled clopping of hoof on carpet passed them by.

“Alrighty, Dess,” Rudy said, still carrying Noelle in his arms. “Let’s get you and your sister to bed before your mother gets home.”

“Okay, Dad,” December said, bringing herself to her feet and moving over towards the door.

As she was about to step through the doorway, the young doe looked back and smiled. 

“Bye, Azzy,” she said with a wave.

And there it was yet again. Something .

“Bye, Dess…” he said softly, waving back.

As the door clicked shut behind the Holiday family, Asriel turned to face the TV and hugged his knees into his chest with one of the biggest smiles he’d ever had hidden just underneath it.

He couldn’t wait to see his friend December again.

Chapter Text

Asriel suppressed a yawn as he pulled shut his front door, softly enough so that it had no chance of waking his still-sleeping sibling upstairs. The morning dew was still visible on the grass, and a light fog lingered down the street that led to the rest of Hometown.

He hated getting up early on the weekends. It was the only time outside of summer and the holidays that he didn’t need to worry about getting himself and Kris to bed on time. He should still be asleep, dreaming up another boss for that video game that he was totally gonna make one day, but instead he was stepping forward into the dawn of another Saturday morning to practice for his most exhausting extracurricular activity.

Although he was admittedly liking cross country a lot more than he thought he would, the strict practice schedule took up more time than he would like it to, and had the additional downside of making Kris walk home from school by themselves. They were big enough to do it on their own by now, and had been accompanied by Noelle for the past few weeks, but they always liked taking the stroll home with him, and truth be told, Asriel always liked it too.

It was strange that he found as much enjoyment in running as he did. Asriel had never thrived much at sports, as was evident by his barely passable B+ in gym class. Sports were always more of Dess’s thing, while he was more often there just to cheer her on while she kicked everyone else's tails. He wasn’t really sure why he had said yes when Dess had asked him to join the team when the season started. He was sure it would just take time away from doing his homework, which was always the first thing he did when he got home. But after several weeks of exhausting practices and a couple of less-than-stellar performing meets, Asriel actually found himself enjoying the sport. His time had gradually gone from “dead last by a country mile” to a respectable “middle of the pack”, and there was nothing quite like the high he got after finally crossing the finish line.

And because of that, he begrudgingly made his way through the town and over to the school to train a little more.

He saw the team gathering at the track field behind the school, some of them doing various stretches on the ground and against the bleachers, while others stood around and chatted, most of them having an extra layer on to fight against the chill morning air. The one person that seemed unbothered by the cold, a reindeer in running shorts and sports tee with a red flannel tied around her waist, turned her head and noticed his approach.

“Sup, choir boy,” Dess said, flashing him a grin. Asriel immediately smiled back. 

“Hiya, Dess,” he replied, moving to take a seat next to her on the bleachers.

Her antlers were still red, a small miracle after the apparent fit her mother had thrown after she had first dyed them. With the way Dess had described it, Asriel was sure that she was gonna have to wash it back to their natural blue hue, but he was glad to see that Dess had won out on that point (or more likely, her dad convinced her mom to let Dess try it out for a while). A new addition this time was a coating of red makeup on her nose that matched her antlers.

Asriel liked it. He liked seeing her red. He liked when she was blue, too, but red just seemed more “Dess” to him, and he couldn’t really explain why.

“Looks like Krismas didn’t try to follow you this time,” she chuckled.

“Hehe, nope. They’re still out cold," he said with a yawn. "Wish I were still in bed."

“Pffft, liar,” she sent an elbow into one of his ribs. “You like running.”

Asriel looked away and smiled as he started his own stretches, because he knew that she was right.

He’d learned quickly once joining the team that proper stretching and warmups were really what made the difference in a meet. Sure, good speed and a hearty endurance were critical, but if your muscles were tight and body unprepared, then it didn’t matter how good you were. And that wasn’t even mentioning the risk of injury. Asriel had seen a kid from another school tear a muscle in their calf at a meet not long after he had just joined the team, and it was not something he wanted to experience firsthand.

As he was doing his warmups, he idly glanced over at Dess, who had moved to sit on the ground and had both of her legs flared. He was always amazed at how much more flexible she was compared to him. He could just barely get his hands to touch his toes, but she had both of her legs split and could easily wrap her hand around her hoof without any trouble.

It was downright impressive considering how lengthy her legs were. They weren’t always that long, right? He was still a tad taller than her, if you didn’t count her antlers, so maybe it was just the stretch that made them seem longer?

Asriel realized suddenly that he was staring and snapped his head in the other direction, mentally scolding himself. Why was he doing that again? What about Dess’s legs was so mesmerising that he kept looking at them? It was probably just because she wore those baggy cargo pants most of the time, so he just didn’t get to see them all that often.

It was absolutely not because he had a crush on Dess, because he one-hundred-percent did not have one. Because you don’t have crushes on your best friend. Not that he’d ever had one before now (which again he didn’t have), but he was pretty sure that wasn’t how it was supposed to work. People in the movies never had crushes on their best friend. Granted, in most of those, the main character's best friend was another guy, but the general rule probably still applied.

Like sure, he thought Dess was pretty, but that’s only because Dess just so happened to be a pretty girl. Acknowledging that didn’t mean anything. He just thought that his friend generally looked nice, like how her dark hair was tied up in a ponytail now, but he also liked it when she let it down. He liked the little freckles of lighter fur around her cheeks and the faintest hint of a pair of bucked teeth that would poke out from her lips. He liked her blue eyes, so much so that last week when she’d mentioned the idea of buying some colored contacts over the internet to match with her antlers, he had actually gotten a little sad at the prospect of seeing them differently.

And suddenly Asriel realized he was staring again and snapped his head away because this wasn’t a crush.

This was probably just because of the whole… puberty… thing. Mom and Dad had both been really… awkward about explaining it. How he’d find the love of his life one day, and “start a family together”. The classes they’d had about it in school weren’t much better, but they had at least explained that as they became teenagers, they’d start to think things that they hadn't before, and feel things they hadn't felt. These confusing thoughts must simply be the type of stuff they were talking about.

They had also shown some diagrams and videos that were… weird. Really weird. Weird enough that he found himself weird anytime he thought about them again. Which was often enough that he sometimes worried that there was something truly wrong with him.

“Ready, Azzy?” Dess said, causing Asriel to jump a little in his seat.

He looked around and saw the rest of the cross country team preparing to start their run.

“Y-yeah, sure.”

The runs during practice were hardly a set-in-stone affair. The meets were always a five-kilometer race, but there was no end goal for practices outside of “We start at 7 am and end at 8. Try to stay moving for most of it!” The route they took also tended to vary. Sometimes they just ran around town, sometimes they went on the path circling the lake, other times they roughed it through the makeshift trails dotted through the woods, and sometimes they did some combination of all of them. This time it seemed that everyone wanted a nice jog through nature, so they were going to start around the lake and then take a dip into the woods before heading back to the school.

The team got pretty split not long after the run started, which was a fairly normal occurrence. The best runners always lead the way, and naturally, because they were the best, they would maintain their speed better than the others and break away from the rest of the team.

By all rights, Dess should be with them at the front of the pack. She was one of the best runners at the school, and consistently finished in the top five at almost every meet. But she would deliberately slow her pace during practices so that she could stick shoulder to shoulder with Asriel for the entire run. He was the one who set their pace, going just fast enough to push himself without draining all his energy. All he needed was to get just a little better each time, even if it was only by a second or two.

As their run started to circle the lake, he felt Dess’s elbow nudge against his own.

“Wanna take a detour?” she asked, nodding to a left-leading fork in the path ahead of them.

“You sure?” Asriel asked, puzzled. They could technically run wherever they wanted, but Dess usually liked to keep him stuck to the same path to get a better idea of any progress he was making.

“Yeah, c’mon. I wanna show you something.”

The deer picked up her pace and ran ahead of him, veering left off the path and onto the lesser-traveled trail. Not wanting to be left behind, Asriel put in some hustle and worked to keep up with her.

They pushed through the wooded path, her hooves kicking up dirt with his softer paws following not too far behind. He felt a bead of sweat start to run down his forehead as he had to actively force himself not to move his eyes to her fluffy brown tail, because that wasn’t something you did to your friend that you definitely didn’t have a crush on.

He sent a silent prayer to the Angel when she finally began to slow to a halt, allowing him to move up to her side so that he would not be tempted to look towards her rear. Both Asriel and Dess briefly hunched over with their hands on their knees as they caught their breath.

“Okay, okay,” Dess began, briefly glancing back the way they came. “You gotta promise you won’t tell anyone.”

“Uh, okay,” he replied. “I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

“Cool, cool. Okay, check it.”

When his friend’s hands moved down and grasped the hem of her shirt, Asriel’s eyes went wide.

When she began to pull it upwards, he was sure his heart was about to stop and the wind would scatter his dust among the fallen leaves.

Mercifully, Dess only lifted it enough to show her stomach, revealing more of the lighter fur of her undercoat that reached up to her neck. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Dess's belly before, she’d been wearing two-piece swimsuits when they went swimming at the lake for awhile now, but with all the very not-good-boy thoughts he’d been having about her lately, it was no wonder that his heart was pounding even faster than it should’ve been from the exercise.

But there was one thing that was different from the last time Asriel had seen it. A little metallic glint at the top of her belly-button.

His eyes widened even further.

“Y-you got a piercing?” Asriel asked, turning his gaze up to see her with a smug grin brimming with satisfaction.

“Yup. Just got it yesterday.”

“Oh geez…” he said, trying and immediately failing to stop himself from looking down again. “Does… does it hurt?”

“I mean, a little, yeah. But not too bad. It’s supposed to be sore for a while, and it might take a few months for it to fully heal.”

Asriel just stared at the little silver nubs peeking out from her fur and resting against the little divot of her belly button. He wanted to ask a thousand questions about it, but his brain was short-circuiting too much for him to formulate the words. 

His attention was finally snapped away when he heard Dess giggling.

“Fahaha, I’m glad to see you like it, Azzy,” she laughed, letting her shirt fall back over her stomach.

“S-sorry, " he muttered, embarrassed. “It’s just… where did you get it? How did you even get it? I thought your mom wouldn’t even let you get your ears pierced yet!”

“Yeah, she won’t. But just ‘cuz she knows I’ll get ones that are too cool and not “ladylike” enough for her.”

“But like… won’t she freak out once she sees it?”

“She would, yeah. But if it heals before she finds out, then it’ll be too late for her to do anything about it.”

Dess was certainly walking a tightrope there. Her mother was very strict, far more strict than either of his parents could be at their worst. It was something Dess had been starting to really test these past couple of years; sneaking out late, skipping school. The type of stuff the bad kids always did in movies and on TV. But what Asriel enjoyed about Dess was how she differed from those kids. She wasn’t mean like them. She never bullied anyone, and although she did sometimes tease him for still being a part of the church choir, she never really meant it. It was just another reason that he really really liked her.

As a friend. Just as a friend, nothing more.

“How did you get it?” he continued. “Did you do it yourself? Did someone else?”

“Yeah dude, of course I did it myself. Who do you know in this town that would give a navel piercing to a fricking fourteen-year-old?”

“R-right…” Asriel agreed. “Did you look up how to do it on the internet?”

Dess nodded proudly.

“Uh huh. Found a good tutorial and got the actual piercing delivered to Catty’s house. Paid for it with a pre-paid card from the store. I also used the laptop at the library, so there’s no way mom will find out before I want her to.”

Asriel shuffled in place, glancing down at her now covered belly.

“Is it… safe? You know, if any bacteria got in you when you did that, it could be-”

“Azzy,” she interrupted. “I did my research. Trust me, I’m gonna be practically babysitting this thing until it’s healed.”

Dess looked away from him briefly, then turned back with a mean smirk.

“But you know… if you ever get worried about it, I could always let you take another look…”

Asriel felt the heat rush into his face and ears and his back snap straight as his mind thought up far too many different ways that sentence could be interpreted, with none of the potential responses sounding good in his head, so the only thing he found himself able to do was laugh because how in the hell was he supposed to respond to that?

“Pfft, okay, enough show and tell,” Dess started before he could find any words to mutter. “Let’s get that blood pumping again!"

Asriel awkwardly shifted. It was already pumping for him.

“And Angel help me, Dreemurr, if I find out you told Kris about this, then I will beat those horns right off your fluffy head!”

She then shot him a wink and began running at pace back in the direction they had come from. Asriel shuffled in place for a bit before starting to move after her.

“Hey! Wait up, Dess!”

When the two teenagers made it back onto the main trail, they resumed their regular run, with Asriel again setting their pace. As the run went on, he couldn't help but steal the occasional glance over at her.

Despite his insistence to the contrary, along with the totally overwhelming evidence to support his argument, Asriel was beginning to believe that he might have a bit of a crush on Dess.

Which was also a complete lie, because yeah, he sure as hell had a crush on Dess.

The idea hadn’t been that complicated.

Asriel had feelings for his best friend. That was something he could no longer deny.

But Asriel didn’t want to have feelings for his best friend. She was, obviously, his best freaking friend, and the last thing in the world he wanted was for them to stop hanging out because he was being a little weirdo.

So, if he started having feelings for someone else, then surely his crush on Dess would fade and they could go back to being friends without him worrying about doing something stupid.

There had been one key problem with this plan: Asriel didn’t have feelings for anyone else.

So for a few weeks, Asriel endeavored to fix that. He had considered every friend he had, every classmate he talked with. His careful research into his peers resulted in one ultimate truth.

That his potential prospects were quite limited.

Sure, Asriel liked just about every one of his classmates, but there was a huge gap between simply liking someone and liking them in the same way he did with Dess. When it came down to it, most of them simply didn’t stir many of his feelings in the same way.

He had at least managed to narrow it down to a top three.

Pizzapants was a good guy and fun to hang with, if a little odd at times. Asriel certainly liked him more than others, but again, the gap between liking and liking . He needed to get across a canyon, and in all likelihood Pizzapants was maybe just able to get him over a river.

Bratty was a solid second best. They’d already hung out a few times (mostly with Dess as well), and he did admittedly think she was kinda cute. Though in fairness, that could likely be blamed on that one music video and that stupid dragon book that Dess had made him check out at the library. And unfortunately because of that, anytime he thought about Bratty being cute meant that he would think about that damn dragon, and that would just get him thinking about Dess again, and he’d be right back to square one.

In the end, Catty seemed like the person he could most likely acquire feelings for. He thought she was pretty, and thankfully not in any way that reminded him of Dess. She was also fun to be around, in short increments at least, and was pretty good at getting him to laugh. Plus, Asriel had always liked cats, so that was surely going to help things.

So, Asriel had decided on his target and made his move. He’d asked her to go to the Junior Dance with him.

He was relieved when she’d immediately said yes, and had been hopeful that this would finally get him to stop being so weird around Dess.

But judging by his vacant stare as he sat alone on bleachers behind the school, his jacket and dress pants still damp from spilled punch, and the distant glare of police lights around the front side of the building, Asriel’s master plan had completely fallen through.

The night had started out just fine. He picked Catty up at her house, managing to make it through the extensive blabbering of her parents, and the two of them walked over to the school together. He’d been ready to have a fun night, and had even prepared a cutesy little letter for Catty if he did find his heart beating for her. But the ink on that was probably runny and illegible now thanks to the punch Catty had spilled on him earlier. And that was after his mom had chastised the feline for grinding her butt up against him.

Asriel had gone to the bathroom to dry himself, praying that there was some way for him to salvage this night. But when he came back out, everyone was gathering outside to watch as Officer Undyne dragged Catty away in handcuffs. What she had even done to warrant that kind of response was a mystery, and one that he really didn't want to know right now. He'd find out Monday when everyone was talking about it.

He knew she was in trouble with the cops now. It wouldn’t be anything too serious. It was a small town; it’d cause some ruckus for a few days, maybe a week, and then it would be forgotten, only to be brought up again in passing as a funny memory. Catty would be fine, but Asriel was still worried about himself.

His plan had failed.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried or anything. Asriel had listened to her every word in the hopes that something would stir some feelings in him. When that failed, he figured that some dancing would draw his affection. But that too had failed to elicit any further emotions from him. At one point, he figured that if he just … went for it and kissed her, then that would be a surefire way of creating some sort of spark.

But now Asriel had missed his chance, and the more he thought about it, the less he cared.

The longer the night went on, the dumber the plan became.

When he picked Catty up at her house, all Asriel could think about was what Dess would’ve worn if they’d gone together. On the walk there, he imagined them talking about some stupid prank Kris had pulled on Noelle. When they were dancing (before the part with the butt grinding), the only thing on his mind was how he wished he were with Dess instead.

And now, sitting alone under the starry sky, there was only one person he could think about.

“Oh man…” he muttered to himself.

He was crushing for his best friend, and he was crushing hard .

Asriel had set out with one goal and had accomplished the exact opposite. He now liked Dess even more than when he started. He liked her face, her eyes, her lips, her voice, her laugh, her music, her attitude, her everything. Angel above, why did she have to be so perfect?

It didn’t make any sense. Dess was not the type of girl Asriel should be into. She didn’t get straight A’s, she rarely listened to her parents, and she had a penchant for getting into trouble that put even Kris to shame. She had a short temper and was seemingly adverse to any form of long-term planning. December Holiday was far from what he imagined his perfect partner would be.

But she was also so undeniably, unapologetically Dess. And in his eyes, that meant that she was perfect.

It was his first crush, and it was already this bad. He was doomed, utterly doomed. Out of everyone, why did he have to have a crush on her?

She was practically the reason he had other friends in the first place. Always dragging him out of his comfort zone (sometimes literally kicking and screaming) to try new things and put himself out there. He was usually too much of a wuss to try and do it on his own.  Asriel was lucky enough as it was that Dess even liked him at all. She was undoubtedly the coolest person in town, and he was just the nerdy teacher’s son. He sometimes wondered why Dess had even remained his friend over the years. Angel knew it wasn’t for his Smashing Fighters skills. She still regularly whooped him at that game, even after years of practicing.

Asriel was so absorbed in his self-loathing that he failed to notice a figure creeping in from the dark.

“Yikes,” Dess said with a chuckle, causing him to tense up in surprise. “Looks like the dance is going real well, huh?”

He grumbled and leaned forward onto his knees.

“Don’t get me started…”

Dess let out another laugh and plopped herself down next to him, leaning back into the row behind them.

“What are you even doing here?” Asriel asked. “I thought you said the dance was lame.”

“Oh, it is. But like twelve different people have been blowing up my phone about how Catty got freaking arrested, so you bet your tail I was gonna come down and see that!”

There was a pause as Dess turned her head upwards towards the stars.

“But then I caught a glimpse of this mopey dork sitting alone on the bleachers, and I figured he could use someone to cheer him up.”

“Yeah, well, you’d be mopey too if your date was dragged off by the cops.”

“True, true. But then again, I don’t have a date, so I wouldn’t really know.”

Asriel nervously took a glance at her, feeling his heart swell as if summoning up some courage that he didn’t even know he had.

“I mean… if you wanted to, we could… You know, the dance is still going for like, another hour… if you wanted to head inside?”

A little surge of hope flared within him when he noticed an uncharacteristic flash of red in her cheeks.

“Faha, yeah man, I… I totally would if it weren’t so… you know, lame and stupid and stuff… and like, I’m hardly dressed for it.”

Asriel just nodded and slouched over even more. He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to muster up that much backbone again.

“But you do, um… clean up pretty good, Azzy,” Dess blurted. “You know, in case you were wondering or anything…”

He leaned into himself even deeper, using his arms to hide the stupid smile on his face.

“And if you were looking for something to do…” she began. “I just finished downloading the new Blood Crushers movie onto my laptop before I left. You could run home and get changed, then head over to my place and we could watch it.”

After the rollercoaster this night had been for him, the idea of lying against a stack of pillows with a bowl of snacks and watching a dumb horror movie with his best friend sounded amazing. Crush or no crush.

Maybe if Asriel was lucky, he’d work up the courage to do something about it.

Chapter Text

It was over. Asriel had a good run, sixteen years strong, but now it was all over. His life was more or less forfeit at this point.

Sure, it would technically continue. Each day would still lead into the next, and he would be of sound enough mind to perceive the passage of time. But that didn't matter, because that life would be spent staring out of his bedroom window, watching everyone else in Hometown grow up and move on without him, Kris included, and it was all thanks to Bratty.

All thanks to one stupid kiss.

Why had he agreed to play truth-or-dare with her in the first place? Of all his classmates, why did it have to be her and freaking Pizzapants? They were all just being dumb and messing around, and then Asriel's supposed friend dared Bratty to kiss him out of nowhere.

His mom just had to walk in right as it happened. She couldn't have waited an extra twenty seconds for the moment to pass and allow the redness in his cheeks to fade. No, she just had to pick the moment their lips touched to enter his room.

He'd never heard his mother shout so loudly in his entire life.

It wasn't even a question of whether he was grounded or not. It was a question of how long. His mother hadn't bothered to mention when he'd be allowed to go outside again, and his father had relented all judgment in the matter over to her.

For the past three days, his life consisted of nothing but going to church and then heading home. Go to church, then head home. Go to church, then head straight home, or Angel help her, he was going to be in so much trouble. He wasn't allowed to deviate at all, not until this "crisis" was resolved, as his mom had put it. It was the longest three-day weekend he’d ever had, and the only one that had felt like active suffering.

Asriel was lying in bed, his arms over his head and the backs of his palms resting against his forehead. It was about the only thing he could do outside of his homework because he also wasn't allowed to play video games or use his computer. His phone was also gone, confiscated and only to be returned once Toriel was sure he could be trusted with it. He could watch TV, but only if it was with his father, and no offense to his dad, but Asriel was just not a fan of that weird puppet show.

The no-computer rule at least didn’t apply to Kris, thankfully. Just because Asriel had to suffer didn’t mean they had to as well. They were currently sitting at Asirel’s desk, building up the base in their private world in Minecrap. It was far too late in the evening for them to be up playing, but Asriel couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was already in trouble, so who really cared? If Mom wanted them to get to bed on time, she shouldn’t have gone to sleep so early herself.

Asriel would’ve loved to hop on with them and get a bit of mining done, but alas, his lot in life for the foreseeable future was to rot away in silence and think through his egregious actions…

All because of one stupid, stupid, stupid kiss.

And even worse, it had to be his very first.

That was maybe the worst part of it all. The kiss he’d been saving for Dess for almost two years was gone, just like that. Two years of waiting for the right moment. Two years of working up the courage to just go for it. Two years of failing to do any of it…

And now he was forced to waste away in his room while the rest of the world went along without him. He hadn’t even talked to Dess all weekend. What the hell was she even doing right now? Did she know about what happened? Pizzapants was sure to tell others, and Bratty probably couldn’t stop herself from gossiping if her life depended on it.

He needed to stop thinking about it and just try to fall asleep. Maybe tomorrow the Angel would be merciful and they’d get into a car accident on the way to church. At least then something interesting would happen in his life.

As Asriel continued to wallow in his despair, Kris’s phone vibrated on Asriel’s desk. The human paused their game and reached over to grab their device.

“...Asriel…” Kris mumbled as they swiveled the chair around. “...window…”

The elder Dreemur looked over to the window, then back to his sibling with confusion. It was only when Kris flashed him their screen and he saw a message from Dess’s number that it all clicked in his head.

His feet flung over the edge of his bed and carried him to the closed window of his and Kris’s shared bedroom. Out in the darkness, he saw an antlered figure standing on their lawn. He could just faintly make out the shimmer of a pair of blue eyes staring up at him. Carefully lifting open his window so as not to make too much noise, Asriel poked his head out into the night.

“Dess?” he asked in a whisper-yell

“Who else, dumbass?!” she replied, catching his attempt at a hushed tone and matching it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again.

“What, a girl can’t try to see her friend when he gets outed as a serial smoocher?”

Great, so she knew… Perfect… Awesome…

“I’m grounded, Dess. Sorry, but…you… you should get out of here before I get into even more trouble.”

“So what? Are you gonna get more grounded?”

“Yes! That’s a very real possibility!”

“Okay, so quiet down and don’t get caught! C’mon, Azzy! I haven’t seen you all weekend, dude.”

Though he was barely able to see it through the darkness, Asriel instantly recognized the look on Dess’s face. She’d given it to him plenty of times over the course of their friendship. It was a furrowed brow and a dangerous smile, along with a simple head nod directed down the road.

It was the look she gave when she wanted him to break the rules. To see all the things telling him he shouldn’t, and kick them aside because he wanted to. It was the look she’d given him the first time she had him climb out of his bedroom window and wander into the night, and the same one she’d given after convincing him to skip school to play the new Dragon Blazers game while her parents were out of town. It was the look she’d given when she had asked for his help with piercing her ears, because she’d just wanted to do it so dang bad, and he was the only one she trusted to help her do it.

When Dess looked at him like that, it was like the prospect of following her wasn’t even a question anymore. Because it was Dess, and he’d go with her to the ends of the Earth if she offered him a hand.

But Asriel also wanted to be able to openly leave his house sometime this decade. He knew his mom had already gone to bed, and he’d heard his dad snoring from the living room not too long ago - he probably fell asleep watching that dumb show again.

He looked back at his sibling, who was still blankly staring at him from across the room.

Kris brought a hand up to their mouth and pinched two fingers together around their lip and zipped it shut, then made a whole charade about locking it shut and throwing away the key.

“Thanks, Kris. I owe you one,” Asriel said, quickly grabbing his jacket before lifting a leg over the windowsill and climbing out.

The human just nodded, then swiveled around in their chair and got back to their game.

It had been a bit since the last time Asriel had needed to sneak out of his own window, but he’d done it enough times that he still knew where all the right footholds were. Getting back inside later was the much more challenging part, but as long as Kris kept the window cracked, he shouldn’t have any issues.

As soon as his paws touched the grass, he and Dess bolted away from the house and down the street, neither of them saying a word until they were sure to be out of earshot.

“Glad you finally came to your senses,” she chuckled as their pace slowed to a walk.

“And I’m glad to finally be out of that house… Angel above, it’s been an awful few days.”

“I bet. Locked up with only Krismas for company? I’d go insane too.”

Asriel gave her a light shove in the shoulder because the only person allowed to badmouth his younger sibling was himself.

“So who told you, anyway?”

“I’ve heard different stories from different people. Was hoping to get the scoop straight from the source.”

“Haha, I’ll bet…”

So the two began walking the now-empty streets of Hometown, with Asriel sparing no detail on the events leading up to his incarceration. The quiet little town had grown even more silent as the night crept in, the chorus of crickets chirping and their own footsteps being about the only noise that could be heard. The streets could hardly ever be considered busy, but at this time, the only two souls moving about the darkness were Asriel and Dess. They weren’t headed anywhere in particular - it wasn’t like there was anywhere to go in the first place. The pair was simply putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where they ended up. Asriel had just finished describing the look on his mother’s face as the two of them rounded the corner of the library and moved towards the front of the school.

“Oh my god, fahaha!” she laughed, knocking some of her hair out of her eyes with a couple of fingers. “Okay yeah, poor Toriel was probably about to have a heart attack! Oh, her precious baby, being defiled in her own home!”

“Hmmhmm,” he hummed, chuckling at Dess’s reaction. “I don’t know if I’ve seen my mom that mad since the Junior Dance.” 

“Right, right. With Catty and her courting display, hehe.”

“God, please don’t remind me…” he groaned. He was pretty sure he hadn’t worn that jacket since that night.

“What? It just seems to me like Hometown’s golden boy has become quite the ladies' man…” she said as she gave him a couple of nudges in the side with her elbow.

Dess was laughing, and he did give off a couple of chuckles of his own, but it wasn’t long before he grew quiet again, glancing to Dess at his right, then back away towards nothing in particular.

“You wanna know the dumbest part of it all?” Asriel began, staring off into the night.

“Hit me.”

“Just, how it didn’t even… mean anything…”

There was a long pause, and he looked over to see her looking somewhat confused.

“Like, no offense to Bratty or anything, she’s eh… nice and all. But like, man… I’m just bummed that my first kiss was just… nothing, you know?”

To Asriel’s surprise, Dess’s confusion only deepened.

“Wait, wait,” she asked, putting up her palms. “That was your first kiss?”

“Yup…” he replied, wincing. He was ready for the teasing. He’d been mentally prepping for a verbal smackdown from her as soon as he’d gotten grounded, because that was exactly the type of thing Dess would do. He was shocked when it never came.

“No shit…”

“Uh, is that… surprising?”

Dess turned and stared at him like he was insane.

“Yeah, Azzy, it is. God, you must be a bigger dork than I thought.”

Asriel tucked his hands into his jacket and looked confused.

“Um… okay, but why?” he asked defensively. “I really don’t get it, Dess. Why is this such a shock to you?”

“Because you’re the golden boy of Hometown, dumbass!” Dess shouted. “Everybody loves you!”

Asriel felt a blush coming and looked away.

“I mean, I don’t know about everybody …”

“No, dude,” she interrupted. “I mean everybody. Every adult thinks you’re great. Everyone in our class likes hanging with you. My parents love you, your parents practically praise the ground you walk on, Noelle thinks of you like a big brother, and Kris fucking adores you.”

“I…” he stuttered. “I don’t think it’s quite that deep, Dess. Like sure, Kris and Noelle and my parents, I get that. But everyone else… It always seemed more like they hung out with me because I was always around you.”

“No… no, you fucking dork,” Dess huffed. “You’ve got it flipped. People only started to like me after I started hanging out with you. Like yeah, I was chill with Catty and Bratty, but like… both of them got a lot closer to me after I started being your friend.”

“R-really?”

“Yes, dude. I know you think that I’m like the uber-popular bad girl and shit, but you’re the actual king of school. King of the town, even. Everyone here knows that once you graduate, you’re gonna go out into the world and do something big. Make a name for yourself, change the world, do something of note… and for some fucking reason you decide to keep hanging around the mayor’s perpetual-failure of a daughter…”

The air was heavy and cold as they both came to a halt.

“So yeah, Azzy. I’m pretty damn surprised that alligator-lips was your first kiss.”

“Dess…” he said, trying to find the right words. While he was a little bit giddy, yet still not totally convinced of her explanation, those thoughts were cast aside entirely by what she had said towards the end of her spiel.

“Dess, how could I not want to be around you?”

She turned just enough to look at him with one eye.

“I’m flattered you think I’m the cool one in town, but c’mon. That obviously goes to you. You’re the girl who’s gonna leave this place behind and become a rock star. The girl whose name is gonna be up in lights one day. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you?”

She scoffed and flicked her head away, one hand fiddling with her hair. Asriel felt a sudden surge of emotion at her dismissal. Could she not see how amazing she was?

“It’s… it’s seriously hard for me to think of a single thing about you that I don’t like. Your complete mess of a room, and the way you're so unafraid of speaking your mind, and how deeply you care for Noelle. Your music, your rebellious tendencies. And yes, even the way you smack Kris upside the head when they take a prank too far.”

He fought a tightness in his chest to get his next words out.

“I like you because you’re you. I don’t know if it would be possible for me to ask for a better friend, Dess…”

There was another long silence, with both of them shooting the other short glances, but being unable to hold them for very long.

“So…” he continued, “If other people can’t see how amazing you are, then they’re just missing out, you know-”

His words were cut off when Dess closed the distance between them in an instant, grabbing the side of his face and pulling him in for a kiss.

Asriel’s mind blanked. He was stock still, and his hands hovered awkwardly in the air. He couldn’t even shut his eyes and take in the bliss of the moment because his brain was short-circuiting, and the neurons weren’t getting the right signals for him to actually react to what was happening.

Dess was kissing him. Really, truly kissing him, and he could hardly even move a muscle. He wasn’t entirely convinced yet that he hadn’t fallen asleep in his bed and that this was all just a dream.

But then she must’ve noticed that he wasn’t kissing her back, because without warning, Dess suddenly broke the kiss and pulled her hands away, taking a few steps back and turning away from him.

“Shit, shit, shit!!” she yelled, stomping a hoof on the concrete. “Fuck, I…”

“D-dess… you…”

“I’m sorry, Azzy, fuck…!” she blurted, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her torn-up jeans. “I-I shouldn’t have done that… but Bratty knows how long I've wanted to kiss you, and I was really pissed when she told me earlier, and…”

His brain was still in the process of rebooting, and he was unsure if he was understanding her correctly. Was she saying…?

“I-I don’t want things to be weird between us, dude. I shouldn’t have jumped you like that… we can just…” he heard a crack in her voice. “We can just forget it ever happened.”

He saw one of her hands pull a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and flip open the top. Dess only smoked when she was pissed or nervous, and right now she seemed like she was both.

Asriel was desperately trying to think of something, anything that he could say to salvage this. That he wanted to kiss her as well, that he didn’t want to ever forget that moment with her. But his mind was still a jumbled mess, and she was taking out her lighter and saying something else that wasn’t registering because he was still panicking about what to do.

With his words failing him entirely, Asriel stepped forward and did the one thing he hoped would alleviate her worries.

Right as Dess was about to flick the lighter on, Asriel grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him, her eyes wide in shock as the cigarette fell from her mouth before he leaned in and planted a long kiss square on her lips.

His heart was racing, and he could feel his friend frozen stiff in his hands. For a brief moment, a trickle of fear wormed its way through his head, wondering if perhaps he’d misunderstood her and made things worse.

But then her arms wrapped around him, and she moaned into his mouth as she started kissing him back, and suddenly the entire world faded away into utter irrelevance.

Asriel had spent many a late night in bed pondering what it would be like to kiss Dess. He’d pictured her cupping his face and leaning in close, booping their noses together before tilting her head and pulling him into a sweet embrace. He’d be incredibly flustered, because even in his own fantasies, Asriel often didn’t have the courage to take the initiative, but in the end he would manage to tell Dess just how much he likes her. Then they’d kiss again and hold hands and look at the sunset together, or some other cutesy thing that he’d seen couples do on TV when they finally got together.

But he never imagined that it would be like this.

He had frozen up on their first kiss, but during their second one, after each of them realized that the other wanted it as well, it was nothing but fireworks. A little sloppy, sure, but the sparks were undeniably there. When the two had finally pulled apart, they both just stared at each other, beaming.

Then came their third kiss. And their fourth. Then midway through the fifth one, when their hands started to wander, they realized that they should not be standing out in the street while doing this, even in the dead of night.

So, they had hastily made their way to the only place nearby that had any semblance of privacy to start up their sixth, rolled through their seventh, and had gone through their eighth and ninth so fast that he had lost count of which one they were on now.

Asriel’s back clunked against the support beam on the underside of the school's bleachers, his horns missing the platform above him only a couple of inches. But he didn’t have any time to process how cramped it was because Dess was already on him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and pulling him into another heated kiss. Having started to adapt to her eagerness since they'd started, he moved his hands down and grabbed her by the waist, pulling their hips together.

He was in utter bliss. Pure, concentrated, finally-kissing-your-best-friend bliss. Each time they broke apart, the pair each took in a deep breath before diving back into one another because they were both just that hungry.

She was intoxicating. He never imagined that she would taste this good, not in a million years. One time he had snatched a stick of her peppermint flavored lip gloss from her room so he could get a better idea, but even that was overwhelmed by the full force of her. And Angel above, did she smell good. Like pine forests and a hint of hot cocoa. He’d always loved it before, getting whatever hints he could from a distance, but now it was flooding his nostrils and the sensation was unlikely to ever leave his memory.

A soft moan was muffled into Dess’s mouth as she slipped her tongue past his lips, prompting Asriel to move a hand to the back of her head and pull her in even deeper because holy shit, he never imagined that kissing her would be this amazing.

He was hardly cognizant that he was slowly sliding down the support beam until his butt hit the dirt. Thankfully, Dess had followed him the whole way down and straddled her legs over either end of his lap, all the while never pulling their mouths apart for more than a second.

There was a tingle of sensation as she moved a hand down and pushed it under his shirt, pressing her soft palm into his stomach. He initially flinched at the sudden touch, but it only caused him to mush his face even further into hers and run a hand down her waist and over her hips.

It was only when Dess’s hand tried to dip down below his belt that Asriel actually jumped where he sat and broke away from her.

“W-woah, um…” he stuttered with reddened cheeks.

“You okay?” she asked, her blushing face still less than an inch away from his. She moved the offending hand out from under his shirt and brought it up to cup his cheek.

“Y-yeah… yeah, it’s just… how far are we gonna take this?”

Dess closed the already miniscule distance between them and touched her forehead to his.

“As far as you want to, dude.” Dess purred, giving his lips a quick peck. “We’ve already stolen a couple bases. I’m down to round the bend to home plate if you are…”

A series of very not-good-boy thoughts flooded into Asriel’s head. Thoughts that usually only came to him very late at night or when he was in the shower. This was all moving way faster than he thought it would.

“I’m…” he began, breathing heavily. “I’m okay with just this, for now… I-I like this a lot…”

Dess nodded and ran a thumb along his cheek.

“Got it. We’ll keep things above the belt this time, choir boy…” she winked before pulling him into another kiss.

The mere implication of a “next time” was enough to send him into overdrive and grab hungrily onto her arm as their heads bobbed and dipped.

Oh, he was going to be in so much trouble if his mom ever found out about this. Being grounded for kissing a girl, only for him to sneak away to go and make out with another girl. Toriel would surely send him to a monastery in the mountains or something to have him live out the rest of his days as some kind of monk. But it didn’t matter, because if that happened he would still have the memory of Dess’s lips on his locked into his mind forever. At the same time however, he prayed he wouldn’t be caught because he needed to do this with her again and again and again.

Neither could tell quite how long they had been under the bleachers. Enough time for each of their hands to have dipped and explored more of the other's torso. He was fighting with himself not to shimmy a hand down her jeans, because he was certain that would kick up Dess's intensity even further, and he wasn't confident that he could handle that right now. But that didn't stop him from running a paw down her back and over her tail, feeling it flick against his palm with every breath she took.

Asriel was enraptured by every inch of her - she was somehow soft and firm at the same time. Soft because holy shit, the fur around her belly almost beat out his own in terms of sheer fluffiness, and firm because of the well-toned muscles he could feel underneath that fur. Dess spent so much of her time outdoors, just running around or playing one of the many sports she excelled at. Asriel very much enjoyed having her on top of him, but he hoped that later he would be able to truly experience just how strong she really was.

It wasn’t until they were back to kissing after spending some time suckling on each other's necks and muttering their names that they both realized just how exhausted they were, eventually breaking apart with their breath heaving and heads spinning. Even after however many minutes, hours, or days they’d been going at it, both of them were still holding onto each other for dear life, as if the other would simply vanish into thin air if they dared to let go.

For a bit, the only sound in the air was of their breath, lips still mere inches apart but now being far too tired to dive back in with the same fervor.

“Golly…” Asriel managed to mutter.

A snort escaped from Dess as she leaned her head down and muffled a laugh into the side of his neck.

“Such. A fucking. Dork.”

“Yeah…” he chuckled and ran a hand along her back. “But you like it, though.”

“Course I do,” She nuzzled her head into his.

“How… How long have you liked it?”

“Liked you, you mean?” she clarified, and he nodded. “A long time, dude. You?”

“A couple of years, at least. Probably longer, if I’m honest.”

“Oh god,” Dess said, pulling herself up to give him another peck on the lips. “We could’ve been doing this for ages, Azzy.”

“I know…” he muttered, palm tenderly squeezing the back of her neck. “I just… didn’t think you saw me that way…”

She let out a huff through her nose and moved to rest her chin on his shoulder.

“At school, I always got so jealous when I heard the other girls talking about how cute you were,” she said. “And seeing them try to flirt with you… ugh… it always pissed me off so bad. But no matter what they did, you just never seemed interested. I guess I kinda got it stuck in my head that you didn’t like anyone in that way…”

Asriel gingerly pulled her head back from his shoulder and kissed her again, hoping that it would alleviate any doubts that still lingered in her head, despite the smorgasbord of worries still residing within his. When the kiss broke, they almost immediately went back in for more. Then again, and again, and again, because even though they were both exhausted from going at it for however long it had been, they still wanted more of each other.

When they eventually broke apart again, they sat in blissful silence for some time before Asriel shattered it.

“So… wait, which girls at school were flirting with me?”

Dess looked at him in disbelief.

“Like all of them, dude! Me included! A couple of boys too, I think.”

“What? Really?”

Dess let out another snort, followed by a light chuckle that quickly grew into uproarious laughter that only began to subside when she leaned back into him.

“You dumb, dumb, dumb, idiot-baby boy,” she remarked, planting a quick kiss on his cheek. “Never ever change.”

He squeezed his arms around her even tighter, still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t about to wake up at any second. That the last thirty minutes of his life had actually happened, and weren’t just the result of his hormone-ridden brain throwing him through the ringer.

But it was real. She was real.

“I do gotta say, Dess,” Asriel began, his confidence bolstered. “You’re a way better kisser than Bratty.”

“Faha… Well, I kissed you a lot more than she did.”

“True, true. Quality over quantity, and all that. The thing is, you had both, so it’s not even a contest…”

“Okay, smooth talker, calm down… You’re not too bad yourself, you know. Best kisses I’ve ever had by a country mile.”

“O-oh… really?” Asriel stuttered. He knew Dess already had some experience of her own. He’d never pried into it too much because that was her business, not his… but also because the thought of her kissing other people always made him sad before. With her here though, in his arms and still straddling his lap, those insecurities began to melt away.

“What was, um… Who was your first kiss, anyway?” he asked.

Dess simply chuffed and shook her head.

“Nobody you’d know. Remember that girl I talked about from that summer camp thing Elly and I got sent to a while back? Yeah, that one was my first.”

God, Asriel remembered how in the dumps he’d been after she had told him about that. He became the most miserable monster in the world because he was convinced that Dess would never be able to like him back in the same way. Then that hope had sparked back up again once he asked her what that multicolored pin on her backpack meant, and he realized that it was possible for people to like both girls and boys.

“It’s so stupid…” Dess muttered, one hand clinging to his jacket. “I don’t even remember her name… but I wanted to kiss her so bad, because she reminded me so much of you, Azzy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, dude. Same fluffy white fur, same dorky behavior… and I was so desperate too, ugh it’s embarrassing… and when I got back and told you about it, I was kinda… hoping it would convince you to… try it… with me…”

Oh… oh…

How in the hell had he not put two and two together at the time?

“Wow… you’re right, I am an idiot-baby…”

Dess snickered and leaned back into his neck again.

“Yes, but you’re my idiot-baby now, Dreemurr.”

He chuckled back and lifted her face by the chin, giving her another kiss that lacked the heat and passion they’d had before, but it was still deep and just as meaningful.

For a while they just laid there in the dirt, eventually shimmying away from the support beam to just bask in each other's presence. She was resting against his chest with her head tucked under his chin in just the right way so she wouldn’t risk impaling him with her antlers. His hands came to a rest at the small of her back and he could feel her heartbeat against his chest, which only made his own heart pound even faster than it already was.

How this night had turned out this way was beyond him. It had gone from some of the most miserable series of days in recent memory to perhaps the single greatest moment of his life so far. How had he gotten so lucky? 

“So… what are we now, Dess?” Asriel asked, having mulled over the question for several minutes.

“What, you mean like are we boyfriend and girlfriend?” she casually remarked, causing the already deep blush in his cheeks to redden even further.

“I mean, yeah, I guess? You know, if you want to, that is…”

“Azzy, I think I’ve made it crystal clear that I want to…” Dess giggled. “And besides, I don’t even know if we need to, like, put that kind of label on it. Cuz at the end of the day, we’ll still just be us, you know?”

“R-right… Yeah. We're still friends, after all. Best friends, even.”

“Uh huh. Just a couple of friends. Who hold hands and make out. Exclusively with each other. Your standard affair, really.”

Asriel muffled a laugh into her hair.

“But yeah, boyfriend-girlfriend works just as well, dude.”

Another long stretch of silence passed. Each of their hands ran over and delicately caressed the other's torso and back, with Asriel specifically paying mind to not get too close to Dess’s chest because sweet Angel above did he want to touch her there, but he was still a bit too apprehensive to just do it out of the blue.

His head tilted when he heard a deep sigh come from her.

“Is it weird that I’m nervous about this?” Dess asked, her cheek resting on shoulder.

“Not at all,” He replied. “Frankly, I’m terrified.”

“Same, same… It’s dumb, I know it is, but I can’t help but worry that this is gonna… ruin us… somehow…”

He felt her fair flutter against him as she shook her head and turned to face him directly.

“But I know that’s not gonna happen. Not in a million years. Even if by some rotten fucking luck, we find out that… this just doesn’t work for us… I’m still gonna be your friend at the end of the day. And then we can make jokes about how lame and sappy we were towards each other.”

“Hehe, oh yuck! What did I ever see in you back then, December?” Asriel joked, deepening his voice.

“Why, I haven’t the foggiest, Asriel!” she replied, matching his mocking pitch. “All that sloppy kissing we did must’ve clouded my better judgment…”

“Ah yes, your famously clear and concise judgement…”

He felt her fist smack him hard in the chest, causing him to lurch and let out a guttural oof before joining her in laughter. As the moment passed, the two couldn't help but just stare into each other's eyes, their faces radiating contentment, and their hands clasped within one another's. 

After a passing moment, the two were kissing again.

It was only when that slow make out session came to an end that they came to realize just how long they’d been away.

“It’s probably getting late…” he said, disappointed that this had to eventually end. He’d stay under these bleachers forever if he could.

“Right… and if my mom catches me out, she’ll definitely tell Toriel, and then you’ll be super-mega grounded…”

“Yup… then you won't be able to kiss me anymore,” he joked.

Asriel was almost surprised at how quickly Dess pulled herself off of him.

“Okay okay, up and at ‘em then,” she said, dusting off her jeans. Asriel just stared at her for a bit, and she sent him a stern look in response. “Let’s go, c’mon. I am not gonna let this be a one-time thing, pretty boy.”

She reached down and offered him a hand, which he grabbed and didn’t let go of until they were back down the street.

Hometown was still just as empty, the two of them being the only visible souls around. Dess made a big show of rubbing her arms and shivering, which Asriel knew was a fat load of nothing because he’d been to her house way too much to believe that this was too cold for her, but that didn’t stop him from taking off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders, to which she just smiled and informed him that he’d passed the test.

When they finally came to a stop at the intersection, his house to the north and hers to the west, they stood in silence for some time, each of them unwilling to let go of the other. It was the best night of their lives, and they were just sad that it had to end.

“I… I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” he said, thumb running along the back of her palm.

“Yeah. See you then, dude.”

The gap between the two teens, tiny as it was, closed even further as they pulled each other into a deep hug. Neither of them could work up the courage to break it.

“God, I wish I could think of some bullshit way of letting you stay at my place tonight…” Dess complained.

“Same, same…”

He took one last whiff of her hair and pulled away, though his hands were still clasped in hers.

“We could maybe try to have a sleepover on Friday? I’m guessing my mom will have calmed down by then.”

“Yeah… totally, dude. You could bring Kris over too, so they can hang with Elly, that way neither of our folks will suspect anything. And I’m sure we could find a moment or two to slip away somewhere private.”

“Right… is that, uh, a concern, you think? They've never put up much of a fuss about me staying over.”

“Uh huh, but that was before you were tried and prosecuted as a heinous girl-smoocher,” she joked. “How does Toriel know you won’t try your dastardly tricks on me, huh?”

“Well…” he blushed. “Maybe I just might…”

“Fahaha, I always knew you had a little bad boy in you somewhere.”

They leaned back in and met for one long, final kiss goodbye, with one of his paws cupping her cheek when they finally pulled away.

“Bye, Dess…” he said, echoing her name with a tender longing.

“See ya, Azzy…”

When their hands pulled apart, and there was no longer any contact between the two for the first time in what felt like ages, every fiber of Asriel’s being wanted to just rush back to her and never let go. But he’d have time for that. Time for just the two of them to be them.

As he turned and began walking towards his driveway, a smirk appeared on Asriel’s face, prompting him to turn back to his departing companion.

“And by the way,” he said, causing Dess to glance over her shoulder at him. “Try not to make Bratty too jealous when you tell her about this, alright?”

The deer simply snickered.

“Fat chance of that! I’m gonna rub it right in her scaly face, because your fluffy tail is mine, dork!”

Asriel laughed and waved a hand goodbye as she disappeared from view, his heart bursting and hands shaking from the excitement.

He had no idea how in the world he’d gotten so lucky. No idea why Dess even liked him back in remotely the same way he did to her. No idea what she ever saw in him that made her want him like that.

But whatever it was, Dess clearly saw it. It was real. 

They were real.

Chapter Text

There had been a brief period of time the morning after their clandestine lip-chomping where Asriel wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure that it had even happened at all. 

He’d had dreams about stuff like that before, albeit ones that weren't nearly as thrilling, so for a bit he'd been legitimately concerned that it had all been a fabrication in his poor head. His phone had still been confiscated at the time as well; if Dess had texted him anything afterwards, he couldn't see it.

But then, when he arrived at school, and he saw Dess at her locker with his jacket tied around her waist, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that it had been real.

Of course, because Asriel was still Asriel, he still had to worry even after that.

They’d talked the previous night about what the two of them were, agreeing that both of them wanted to be with the other. Romantically. As a couple. Both boyfriend and girlfriend. But as the day went on, Asriel couldn’t stop the little doubts from creeping in. Not for himself, that is - he knew damn well how much he wanted to be with Dess - but he felt uncertain as to what she wanted from them. Which in and of itself was completely moronic because she had told him as much between bouts of smooching, but just because he knew his thoughts were irrational didn’t mean it was easy to silence them.

I didn’t help that Dess had been acting so decidedly normal. She nudged him in the ribs on the way to class, she flicked her eraser at the back of his head in the middle of a quiz, and still sat across from him at lunch. Not next to, like he was sure two dating people would, but across from. The doubts kept creeping in throughout the day. Was she having second thoughts? Maybe she had a change of heart while lying in bed? It was agonizing. Asriel just wanted to hold her hand or give her a peck on the cheek, but he also didn’t want to seem overbearing. If she didn’t want to do that, it was probably for a reason.

Thankfully, all of his worries were put to rest after school when Dess practically dragged him by the horns back to the bleachers, where they met in a tender embrace, in nearly the same spot they had less than a day before. They couldn’t go at it nearly as long this time because Asriel was still grounded, and if he wasn’t back home by the time his mom got back, he’d be dead meat, but it was enough to push his remaining doubts aside.

Dess wanted this, and boy did he ever want it to…

And so for the next few weeks, that was how the newly united lovebirds went about things. Get through their day, then sneak off somewhere private and chew each other's faces off. It only got easier by the time Friday rolled around, when Asriel’s mom decided that he had learned his lesson and officially ungrounded him. It meant that he could actually go out of the house when he wanted, and that he didn’t need to head straight back there after school. It also meant they could actually have that sleepover they had talked about doing. They'd pushed aside the couch and coffee table in the Holiday’s living room and set up little tents for them, pretending that they were on a campout under the stars. Their younger siblings both loved that they were included, and Asriel and Dess were still able to find a couple of moments during the night where they could sneak up to her room and make out for a bit without drawing too much attention.

As much as Asriel loved every opportunity the two of them had to go at it, he also appreciated the quieter moments. When it was just them sitting on his couch or the edge of her bed, and they could just be near one another. The moments where they walked through the woods or around the lake, his hand clasped in hers, and they could just simply be as they were. Asriel loved kissing Dess, perhaps a little too much at times, but he cherished any moment where they could just be together in comfortable silence.

The situation Asriel currently found himself in was decidedly not one of those quiet moments.

They were just supposed to be studying. That was the guise under which Asriel had been invited over to Dess’s house. Just a normal study session between normal friends. Hardly anything for either of their parents to bat an eye at. 

It had been obvious to Asriel from the get-go what the real reason was. One of the things he had caught on quickly over the course of their relationship was when Dess wanted to be alone with him. It wasn’t hard to tell, especially because from his experience that was something she wanted to do most of the time anyway. As much as he’d been looking forward to the affair, Asriel also wanted to help her with her grades. They were starting to slip - not enough to risk flunking out, but enough to make him worry about how it would look on a college application in a few years.

But when he had sat at the edge of her bed, and Dess was on him before he could even let the strap to his backpack slide down his shoulder, any thoughts relating to schoolwork or their future faded into a heated and enthusiastic focus on the present.

He dared not break their kiss as he flicked his shoulder to let the one strap still around his arm slide away, causing his backpack to plop face down onto her bed while he moved a hand up to cup her cheek. He felt Dess’s arms rest atop both of his shoulders as she shimmied into his lap, the taste of her breath still flooding Asriel’s senses.

He could hardly remember a time in his life when he’d been so happy. The only things that came close were memories of waking up on Christmas morning and the day that his parents brought Kris home for the first time. But those had only been single days. Solitary moments that had faded into mundanity as time marched onwards, and every amazing moment became a simple, pleasant memory. This was so much more. Each perfect day followed by another, seeing her perfect face looking at him with happiness and longing. Each class spent passing little notes back and forth. Each final bell led them to her house, or to the woods, or behind the bleachers, where they could just be alone and be themselves. Each night spent texting way too late than they should have, only for them to fall asleep waiting for the other's reply until they both woke up and could repeat the whole process all over again.

It was perfect.

Sweet Angle above, she was perfect.

Suddenly, Dess broke their kiss, throwing Asriel through a loop as he opened his eyes and stared at her. Their faces were still a mere inch apart.

“I heard Bratty talking about how she was gonna try to make a move on you tomorrow,” she said plainly, voice betraying no hint of her intentions. It was a minefield of a statement if Asriel ever heard one.

“O-Okay... She’s probably going to be disappointed if she tries, though.”

“Probably?” Dess responded with a glare.

“Er… Definitely. That was what I meant to say.”

“Better,” she said, giving him a peck on the lips. Asriel returned it and gave a quick chuckle.

“You know, jealousy is a new look on you, Dess. I’m still surprised you haven’t bragged to Bratty like you said you were going to.”

“Pfffft, you know why,” the deer chuffed, leaning in and pulling him into another heated kiss.

Asriel did know why. He wanted to talk about it, but he was too busy getting lost in her lips to try and broach the subject now.

The two monsters began their exploration of each other anew, hands wandering over waists and hips, mouths clashing in bliss, and minds completely blank, save for their deep and powerful yearning for the other.

When a quick knock was heard at Dess’s door, it took over a second for either of them to parse it.

Dess scrambled off of her boyfriend’s lap as the door began to creak open, lying back against the wall and casually propping her head against her arm. Asriel crossed his legs and hunched forward just in time to see the antlered figure standing in the doorway.

“Oh. Heya, Azzy,” Rudy said, glancing between the two teenagers. “Didn’t see you come in.”

“I, um… we just-”

“We were gonna do a bit of studying,” Dess quickly chimed in, her voice cool and steady. “I wanted to go hang at the lake, but you know how this dork can be, Dad.”

“Heh-heh, yup. A bookworm to a fault, ain’t ya, pal?” the buck chuckled. “Anywho, Dess, honey, just wanted to get your input on dinner later. You want soup or pasta tonight?”

“Oh, soup for sure. That thing you made last week kicked ass.”

“Sounds good, I’ll get started on the broth then. You still gonna be here ‘round dinnertime, Azzy? I could always set up an extra place at the table for ya.”

“Um, thanks Mr. Holiday, but Mom wants me back home by 5. She’s trying out a new pie recipe tonight, I think.”

Rudy chuckled and flashed them both a grin.

“Ah, fair’s fair. I would not dream of getting between that woman and her pies," Rudy chuckled and flashed them both a grin. "Anywho, I’ll let ya both get back to it,” The buck said as he gave a curt nod towards the teens and pulled the door closed behind him, making sure to just leave a little bit of a crack open.

It was a little thing, practically imperceptible to Asriel. As Rudy’s footsteps were heard clopping down the staircase, Asriel let out a sigh of relief and turned to face Dess, eager to pick up where they had left off, but Dess was just staring at the door.

“Shit…” she muttered, voice softer than usual as she turned to Asriel with a worried look. “He knows.”

“What?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“He knows, dude.”

“How can you tell?”

“The door, Azzy,” she pointed to the less than an inch wide opening between it and the doorframe. “When he comes in here, he always shuts my door if it was closed before. Mom will leave it cracked, sure, but never Dad. He thinks we're doing something.”

“Well… in fairness we were…”

“That’s exactly the problem, dumbass!” Dess said through clenched teeth, trying to keep her voice down. “Ugh, this is fucking bad…”

Asriel felt the nervousness creep in, one foot starting to bounce on the ground.

“M-Maybe he won’t tell her? Your dad is usually pretty chill most of the time.”

Dess swiveled to face him, her legs tucked up onto the bed.

“Yeah, most of the time. He’s not a stick in the mud like her, but he still tells her almost everything. Fuck, she’s gonna pop a fucking blood vessel when she finds out!”

Asreil awkwardly rubbed at his arm. Though the prospect of being caught together was certainly… stressful, if he was being honest, it wasn’t entirely the worst thing that could happen in his mind.

After all, he had wanted to be open about their relationship from the start.

Dess wanted to do things differently, and he understood her reasons plenty well. She was worried about both of their parents being all weird about it. The two of them had, throughout their entire friendship, been able to hang out alone with only the occasional check-in from a parental figure. If they found out that Dess and Asriel had started dating, there were decent odds that those liberties would be heavily reigned in. Carol was enough of a control freak already, and Asriel was basically the only boy she was ever okay with coming over, and only because they had been friends since they were kids. But Dess was convinced that would change the second she knew that he would be getting handsy with her daughter in her own house. As for Toriel, her reaction to Asriel’s kiss with Bratty spoke for itself. If she was willing to confine him to the house for a week straight just because of one little kiss, then she would surely go ballistic if she found out he was full-on dating someone. And with Dess of all people! She’d probably be convinced that they’d been sneaking off to smooch or worse for years!

Neither of them necessarily wanted to hide the fact that they were together, but there was enough fear behind the repercussions of such a relationship that they both agreed to keep things just between them for now.

So outside of the cherished moments where they could be alone, Asriel and Dess did their best to act like their normal selves. They stood a comfortable distance apart around their friends, and tried to keep themselves from giving each other little looks unless they were sure nobody was watching. So far, nobody had called either of them out for acting differently. But if Asriel was being honest, a part of him sometimes hoped that they would. That Pizzapants would catch the two of them holding hands and tell them to get a room or something so they could just drop the act. He shared Dess’s worries, at least in part, but he didn’t want to let them dictate their whole relationship.

Heck, the two of them hadn’t even been on a proper date yet.

Yes, they’d done things that one could consider a date. Taking a walk by the lake after school, or sneaking out at night to go to their secret spot by the graveyard. Things that they did alone, where they weren’t even remotely afraid of showing their affections. However, they had yet to do anything in public that would indicate they were an item, like going out to dinner with each other and holding hands across the table, or snuggling up close at the movie theater, or carving each other's initials into a tree by the lake to write their relationship into the earth itself. That last one, Asriel had tried to do with Dess’s pocket knife, but she had managed to talk him out of it.

He didn’t want them to be like this, hiding themselves away like there was something wrong with them.

“Dess…” Asriel began, scooting closer to her on the bed. “Is it really that bad if your parents find out about us?

She turned and gave him a look like he was insane for even thinking that.

“Yes dude, it is. We’ve gone over this already.”

“I know we have, but… be serious for a moment. Do you really want us to hide this forever?”

“N-No…” she said softly. “Of course I don’t, Azzy. But I know how my mom will react. She seriously threatened to take my door off the hinges cuz of my last boyfriend.”

Asriel had to stuff down the tinge of jealousy he felt at that line. Knowing that he wasn’t the first person to be in such a scenario with Dess… He shook his head and forced the feeling away. The past didn’t matter; that was her business. She was with him now, and that was all that mattered.

“Look,” he began, taking a quick breath through his nose and settling his hands on his knees. “I understand that your mom can be strict, bu-”

“That’s putting it lightly…”

“BUT, that doesn’t mean we should stop being ourselves around other people. Besides, your mom does like me, I’m pretty sure. Would she really make that big of a deal if she found out we were dating?”

Dess looked away and gave a defensive shrug.

“She might. As far as she could know, the only reason you ever wanted to hang out was so you could get your grubby paws on me.”

“Really?” he deadpanned. “You think anyone in this town would think that about me?”

The deer was quiet for a moment before turning her head and side-eyeing him with a small grin.

“No, but to be fair, you do like putting those paws wherever you can reach ‘em…”

Asriel felt the heat flush to his cheeks and ears.

“O-Only because you ask me to… Not the point!” he said, scooting ever closer to her. “Dess, no matter how bad you think your mom might react, we shouldn’t let that change how we act around her. And okay, obviously I’m not saying we should be fine with like, making out in front of her or something, I-I don’t think anybody would want that… but we shouldn’t be afraid to be ourselves.”

He slid his hand across what little gap remained between them, taking a hold of her own and giving it a reaffirming squeeze.

“You want to be my girlfriend, right?”

Dess turned her head back to stare at him fully and squeezed his hand back.

“Of course.”

“Okay, and I want to be your boyfriend. That should be the end of it.”

“I know…” she said, gently running her free hand up Asriel’s arm. “I just… I don’t want her trying to control us. To control you, like she tries to do with everything else in my life.”

“She won’t,” he said, like it was already a certainty. “And even if she does, what would that change? When have you ever been afraid to break the rules?”

“I mean… this is a little different than sneaking out past curfew, dude.”

“Ah, but that’s exactly my point! If Carol did freak out about us, would that stop you from swiping the spare key after dark and meeting up outside my place?”

Dess let out a little huff, glancing down at their entwined fingers.

“No…”

“Exactly. And I can tell you for sure, nothing my mom could do will ever stop me from climbing out my window whenever you come knocking. Even if the worst does happen, we’ll still find a way to just be… us.”

She sat in silence across from him, but Asriel could tell by the creeping smile on her face that his words were affecting her.

“No matter what our parents approve of, no matter what others might think, I want to be with you, Dess. I.. I want to hold hands when we walk to school together. I want to lean on your shoulder during lunch. I want to be able to just… kiss you whenever I darn well please, because… Golly, I’m dating December Holiday! The coolest, most kindhearted, and beautiful girl in the whole town! The whole world, even!”

“Heh…” she chuckled, moving a hand onto his knee. “You wanna show me off that bad, huh?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe, Dess. I’m serious I…” he stuttered, his emotions bursting out with little to constrain them. “If I’m honest, I’m still kinda flabbergasted that you even give me the time of day…”

“Hey,” She said, leaning and moving her hand from his knee up to stroke at one of his ears, earning a soft hum from his throat. “I told you, no more thinking like that, mister. You’ve got no idea how much of a catch you are, Azzy.”

“L-Like you’ve got room to talk… I bet every boy in town wishes they could get the chance to kiss you.”

“Well, too bad for them. There’s only one dork that gets that honor.”

She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips, one which scrambled his thoughts. Even after weeks of doing this with her, it still felt so unreal to Asriel that it was even happening.

“But… but yeah," he continued. "I do want to show you off. Jeez, like, I just wanna take you out on a date and show Hometown just how freaking lucky I am.”

“Faha… a proper date, huh?”

“Uh-huh. I-I won't lie, I’ve had ideas swirling in my head for a while. And now that we’re actually together, oh man…”

“Hmm,” Dess hummed with a grin, pulling away from Asriel and leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed. “Sell me on it.”

“W-What?”

“Yeah, c’mon flower boy. Sell me on our first real date.”

Crap. He hadn’t expected her to call him out like this. He hadn’t been lying about having a lot of ideas, but they were messy. A disorganized jumble of thoughts over two years of pinning, and further scrambled by their recent confessions. But she wanted to hear them, so he needed to improvise and try to assemble something from the chaos.

“We…” Asriel began, twiddling his thumbs together. “We’d start with dinner. QC’s, I guess, cuz like… You know, where else? And we’d both get all dressed up for the occasion.”

“Pause for a sec,” she interjected, raising a finger. “How fancy of a getup are we talking? You know I’m not really a dress-wearing kinda girl.”

“It… We wouldn’t go crazy or anything. Not necessarily our Sunday best, but still something nice. I bet you’d probably go for that jacket with the studded shoulders, and I… I mean, honestly I probably would go with my Sunday best…”

“Fahaha!” she giggled. “Better than ol’ punch-stained school dance getup.”

He blushed again and gave a light kick to her leg that was dangling off the edge of the bed before continuing.

“We’d get a nice booth, one with a window so we could still get some sun. A-And the whole time we’d be, you know… holding hands across the table, ‘n stuff…”

“In public?” she gasped with mock disgust. “My god, the sick, twisted things that go through that head of yours…”

He ignored her ribbing and continued.

“And I’d pay for the whole thing. Because, you know… that’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” Honestly, he didn’t know where he was gonna get the cash for that. He was broke, and although his parents always gave him money to pay whenever he took Kris there, he didn’t want to do that for this. Asriel wanted to earn it himself. How exactly he would do that was still unknown. Maybe mowing lawns or something, but that could be figured out later. He was just glad that Dess hadn’t interrupted to tease him about that, too.

“Then once we were done, we’d go on a walk around the lake. S-Still holding hands the whole time, because that’s just a thing we’ll start doing everywhere.”

“Such depravity…” Dess joked, but quickly leaned back and let him continue.

“We’ll get around to the lookout on the other side and watch the sunset. Then I’d reach out and just… kiss you. Angel, it’ll be hard to get me to stop kissing you.”

“You won’t hear any complaints from me.”

“But when we did eventually settle down… we’d go back to your place and throw on a movie. Something we’ve both seen a hundred times, because…” his face flushed red again. “Let’s be honest… it’ll probably just be background noise anyway…”

There was no teasing look from Dess, nor laughter at his awkwardness. Just a relaxed smile and a comforting stare that meant the world to him

“Alright,” She said after a beat. “Deal.”

“D-Deal?” he said in surprise.

“Deal,” Dess reaffirmed. “It sounds like a fun time.”

Asriel couldn’t stop himself from beaming. He didn’t even know why he was so giddy about this. They were already dating; it’s not like she wouldn’t want to go, but still, just hearing that she did made his heart flutter. By the Angel, he was so deeply in love with this girl.

“Great… Yeah, that’s great!” he said as he squeezed her hand again. “So it’s okay if I tell my folks about us, then?”

“I mean… probably? Maybe wait a bit on that, I still gotta figure out if my dad really knows.”

“We could always just tell him now.”

“God, no,” she huffed, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around Asriel’s back. “Let me pretend like it’s a big secret for just a little longer, at least.” She took a quick look over towards the door, eyeing the minuscule opening and flicking one of her ears. If she could hear something, it wasn’t present for Asriel. “Now shut up, and let me smooch ya a little more, ya big dork.”

Asriel put up no protest, eagerly meeting her in the middle as their lips clashed together. He sunk back into her as the rest of her room faded from his perception. He seriously had no idea how he was ever going to get tired of doing this.

But in the middle of their heated mouth-mashing, a thought popped into Asriel’s head. One that he knew Dess would hate. Considering what he was currently doing, Asriel would probably hate it himself, but he recognized an advantage when he saw one.

Suddenly, he pulled away from Dess, leaving her with a confused look.

“I have one condition-” he managed to say before she could get a word in. “About our date.”

Dess chuckled and tilted her head, his suddenness seeming to have piqued her interest.

“A condition, Azzy? You’re setting demands this early into the relationship, huh? This ought to be good.”

Asriel ignored her teasing, sitting himself up straight and putting on his best serious face, which was a little hard because his cheeks and ears were still burning hot, but he was trying nonetheless.

“I’ll go on a date with you, exactly as I described. But only if you pass that algebra test on Thursday.”

Dess stared at him, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“Y-You heard me,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Good grades, for a good date.”

The doe just laughed. In fairness, even he wasn’t really sure how she was supposed to respond to that.

“Dreemurr,” she began, her voice stern. “You’ve got your supposed girl of your dreams sitting here, enthusiastically trying to chomp your face off, and you’re gonna try and risk it all so she can do better on one stupid test?”

“Yes… But only because I care about that girl’s future, even if she might not. That, and I’ve got a hunch that she likes the idea of this date more than she hates school.”

Dess just stared. Her eyes narrowed, daring him to show a sign of weakness.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for her to relent and for a chuckle to start building in her throat.

“Oh my fucking god, dude,” She groaned, shooting Asriel a sideways look and a smirk. “You’re lucky you’re so damn cute.”

Asriel breathed a sigh of relief, reaching behind him to grab his textbook out of his backpack.

He just hoped that Dess was ready. With their date on the line, he was ready to tutor her so hard she’d skip a whole year by accident.

That, and he honestly did need to study up some more himself. He had spent way too much time kissing her recently to even think about it.

Asriel gave himself a final once-over in the mirror. He wiped a stray bit of fur off the shoulder of his jacket, then adjusted the collar of his dress shirt, debating for a moment between leaving the top button undone or not before settling on undone. It would be more comfortable, and it wasn’t like he was wearing a tie or anything, thank the Angel. Besides still not knowing how to tie one properly, there just simply wasn’t a need to be that fancy. They were only going to QC’s after all.

His lips tugged into a smile, and his face warmed at the thought. Gosh, he felt like the luckiest boy in the world. 

He was about to go on a date with Dess. A real date.

The gambit he had made with their algebra test had paid off. Not only did Dess pass, but she ended up with a nearly perfect score to boot. Honestly, all he had been looking for was anything above a C, but when Dess wanted something, she went all in. As the deer had explained it, “No stupid numbers are gonna get between me and my flower boy.” It made him giddy knowing that she wanted this as much as he did, and to see her go the extra mile to prove it…

Asriel couldn’t help but let out a quick little shimmy of joy. It was all going to be perfect.

All the details had been planned to a tee, much more so than his improvised detailings the other day. He knew when things were gonna happen, where, and for how long; He picks Dess up at her house at 6, they walk to QC’s. Top left window booth, the same one he always sat with Kris at after church. He orders them a strawberry shake to share after they're done with their food. By the time they get around the lake and reach the overlook, the sunset should be painting the sky in a brilliant orange hue. There, he’d hand her the bouquet of flowers, which he had stashed at the spot only thirty minutes ago, and give them to her. Then he’d say a few sweet lines and lean in to give her a tender kiss. Finally, they’d be back at her place by 8 and would settle in to watch a movie. They would snuggle up close and relax, and when it was over, Asriel would kiss her goodnight and head back home. And being realistic, he would probably stay up texting her for another couple of hours. Barring the interference of any outside elements, like the kitchen at QC’s bursting into flames, or Kris tailing them the whole time just to be a menace (something Asriel had specifically warned them against doing by threatening to take their access from his computer away for a whole month), then they were set for a memorable evening.

Running a hand through the fur on his head to get it just right, Asriel gave himself a final check in the mirror and nodded. He was ready.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he eyed his mother preparing dinner for the rest of their family at the stove. Toriel glanced over her shoulder at him, letting out a light gasp before a warm smile spread across her face.

“Oh my goodness, just look at my darling boy!” she said, holding both hands together at her chest. “I can still hardly believe it! It seems like just yesterday you were taking your first steps in the living room…”

The older goat sniffled and wiped a tear away from her eye, still staring at her son like she was watching him walk down the aisle or something. Asriel shuffled his foot and looked away, embarrassed. Of course his mom had to make this far more dramatic than it actually was.

“Mom, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like this is the first time Dess and I have had dinner together.” Asriel said, lying even to himself. He knew that this was far more important than just a simple outing, far more impactful than anything the two of them had done together as friends. This was where they would cement the foundation of their new relationship, proving its fortitude. But if Asriel vocalised any of that to his mom, she would probably start bawling her eyes out, and nobody wanted that right now.

Honestly, Asriel was still shocked that his mom had taken the news about him and Dess dating as well as she did. On the walk back from Dess’s house the other day, he’d received a text from her, claiming that her dad "definitely knew” and that he should just go ahead and tell his parents before they find out secondhand. After her overblown reaction to catching him and Bratty in their brief dare-kiss, he had been preparing for the worst, but to his delight and utter surprise, his mother was thrilled to hear that Asriel was going on a proper date with someone, and even more so that it was someone he already knew so well, like Dess. She didn’t necessarily need to know that they really had been dating for weeks now, and she certainly would not approve if she found out just how their relationship had started under those bleachers.

“I know, but just let me have my moment!” Toriel said, walking over and wiping down his sleeves. “You had better be the perfect gentleman to young December, mister.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will. Just like how Dess is sure to be super ladylike.”

“Not the point,” Toriel chuckled. “Now, I’m expecting you home no later than 10:30, perhaps 11 if you call ahead first. And I had better not hear anything uncouth about you two.”

Asriel batted away his mother’s hands as they went to fiddle with his fur, causing him to take a few tentative steps towards the door.

“I know, Mom, but I’ve gotta get going! We’ve got a timetable to keep!”

“Okay. Have Fun! Be smart!” Toriel said, waving at him as he moved.

As he crossed through the living room, Asriel eyed the extra pillow and blanket lying across the couch, causing his brow to furrow. He hoped that his parents wouldn’t get into another one of their spats again, at least not while he wasn’t around to distract Kris from it. Considering that his dad had already set up his “alternative sleeping arrangement” before he left for work, it didn't bode well. A lot of the time, Asriel didn’t understand it. Recently their arguments had become less benign and more random, each of them complaining about smaller and smaller things. He wondered if his mom would start to chew his father out as soon as he got home because he wasn’t there to see Asriel leave for his first date.

He pushed those thoughts down as he twisted the doorknob. He didn’t like thinking about that stuff. His parents would sort it out, somehow. Right now he just wanted to focus on making this a memorable night for himself and Dess.

Asriel turned and gave one final wave goodbye to his mother, then shut the door and bounded down the driveway and over towards the Holiday residence. The front gate had been left unlocked for him, so he was able to stroll right inside. He could feel his nerves getting to him, his hand twitching as it moved to brush back his fur one more time. Laughing off the jitters, Asriel found amusement in his own anxiousness. This was Dess he was going to meet, the same girl that had dragged him away from prying eyes to swap spit whenever she got the chance. If there was anyone who wanted this date to go well more than him, it was her.

Stepping up to the door to the Holiday manor, Asriel rolled his fingers before giving the door a quick triple-knock, then took a step back and clasped his hands behind his back. It was a brief moment before he heard the muffled sound of closing footsteps on the other side, and shortly thereafter the door swung open and a gust of chilling air hit him as it flowed outside.

“Ah, good evening, Asriel,” Carol Holiday said plainly, standing in the doorframe still dressed in her formalwear. Asriel instantly forced himself to stand up a little straighter and put on his best polite smile.

“H-Hello, Mrs. Holiday, erm-” he spoke, letting out a quick cough. “I’m here to pick up Dess!”

“Indeed,” she simply replied, her voice betraying neither malice nor enthusiasm. She turned her stern face away from Asriel and looked over her shoulder. “December! Asriel is here!”

“Okay, just give me a minute!” came the distant shout from Dess, probably from up in her room, judging by the sound of it.

The blonde reindeer turned back to face him, her face still sporting the same ever-serious look as always. It had always frightened Asriel a tad. He never felt threatened or remotely unsafe when Carol was around, but certainly intimidated at times. It was no wonder that one of the only people in town with the guts to defy her was her own daughter.

“So I must ask,” Carol began, leaning slightly against the doorway. “How long have you been interested in my daughter?”

Asriel felt a knot form in his chest. Lying was hard enough as it was for him; lying to the freaking mayor was next to impossible. Still, he didn’t want to do anything that would cause Dess’s parents to disapprove of their relationship.

“A-A while…” he said, awkwardly rubbing at one arm and briefly glancing away. “But not for nearly as long as we’ve been friends.”

“I see,” she remarked, arms crossed and fingers tapping lightly on her elbow as if jotting down a mental note. “Dare I ask how the idea for this date came about?”

The boy suppressed a gulp, wishing that Dess could somehow telepathically transfer her ability to tell a complete fib over to him so it could get him out of this talk unscathed. But just because he was awful at telling a lie, it didn’t necessarily mean he had to tell the full truth.

“We…” Asriel paused, thinking over how best to describe their clandestine night out in a way that would not draw her suspicion. “Dess confessed that she liked me.” Not a complete lie, Dess had kissed him first. “I was a little shocked, but I told her I liked her too.” Again, leaving out the fact that he had kissed her back. He didn’t dare attempt to clean up a description of their next thirty minutes under the bleachers, nor the numerous other times where the two had locked lips, instead deciding to skip ahead a good ways. “So I suggested we go out on a date,” Asriel said, a smile tugging at his lips. “She agreed.”

“Well, of course she did.” she huffed, the corner of one lip being tugged ever so slightly upwards before shifting back to her previous expression. “Have you two kissed?”

“I… Yes ma’am, we have.”

“Alright. I trust that you have not pressured her into doing anything she does not wish to do?”

“No! No, of course not,” Asriel quickly replied. “I would never do that to Dess.”

“Good.”

There was a long silence that hung in the air, with the sound of rustling pine needles from the nearby trees being the only reprieve from it. Asriel did his best to maintain his courteous demeanor, but he was praying for Dess to come downstairs and relieve him from this interrogation.

“One more question, Asriel,” Carol asked, her expression as steady as stone. “What do you see in December? What do you like about her?”

“Well, I… “ he stuttered, eyes darting around in thought. “This may be a bit of a cop-out answer, ma’am, but really… I like everything about Dess.”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Well… she’s cool, she’s funny, she’s… p-pretty…” he said, feeling a heat flush his cheeks. “She’s confident, and kind, and she’s been my best friend for forever. And she’s just so… weird, but in the best way possible.”

A brief chortle of laughter came from the elder Holiday.

“Yes, I do know what you mean.”

Carol looked over her shoulder once again, her gaze seeming to move over to her daughter’s bedroom door.

“I’m glad to see that someone else can recognize just how special December truly is. I just wish that she was able to see it herself… that, and learn how to plan further than a single day ahead…”

Again, silence hung for a moment, and Asriel shuffled his feet slightly. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember a time since middle school when Carol had given such open praise to Dess. Most of the time, it had been stern looks and uncomfortable conversations that usually required him to leave, but despite her features remaining as stoic as ever, Asriel could tell that she was being genuine. Perhaps she did truly love her daughter, but she just wasn’t very good at showing it.

“You have always been a good influence on her, Asriel,” Carol eventually said. “I must thank you for that. And I do hope that you will continue to be a good influence.”

“Y-Yes, of course, Mrs. Holiday.”

The deer let out another short laugh.

“You may simply call me Carol, dear,” she said, an honest smile forming on her face. “You’ve been a presence at our house long enough to drop the formalities, and besides that, I’ve a feeling December will not want to be rid of you anytime soon.”

Asriel felt his blush deepen, not knowing quite what to say. He certainly had no intentions of letting Dess slip away from him. Still, it did cause a surge of pride to swell within him, knowing that someone else believed that Dess liked him as much as she said she did. It helped to quell those nagging thoughts that tried to convince him otherwise.

Just as he was about to speak up again, a loud CLOP was heard somewhere behind Carol, causing her to turn around and Asriel to peer past her. There was no question as to what had caused the noise, as standing at the base of the staircase, having jumped from a few stairs up to properly announce her arrival, was the very girl that had his heart gripped like a vice.

“Sup, dork,” she said, shooting him a smile and a quick wave. The blush on Asriel’s face only grew as she started to approach, giving him a better look at the outfit she wore.

Much like Asriel’s own wardrobe, it wasn’t anything overly fancy, but was still a step up from what she normally wore to one of their typical, more casual outings. Her favorite red crop-top, which cut off just above her stomach to show off her navel piercing, something her mother had known about and begrudgingly allowed for well over a year now. Draped over her shoulders was that studded leather jacket that he had expected her to wear; however, that did nothing to diminish how wonderful it looked on her. The jeans she had on were not her usual pair, those being the ones that bagged down almost to her hooves and had years' worth of organically gained rips all along them. These were much more form fitting, but still had a few artificial rips around the knee for good measure. Add on the studded belt that hung loosely at her waist and a pair of leather bracelets around her wrists, and Dess was decked out like she was ready to saunter up to a microphone and scream her lungs out.

Before now, Asriel would’ve never imagined that Dess could look even more gorgeous than she already was, but thanks to her makeup, he realized that it was quite possible to improve upon perfection. Normally, the only makeup she tended to wear was a touch-up on the tip of her nose to match the red dye on her antlers, and on occasion a bit of eyeliner. Now however, she had liner, shadow, and mascara on that made her lashes flutter and her already beautiful blue eyes pop out even more. And thanks to the blush to lighten her cheeks and the glossy lipstick that bolstered her smile, Asriel could do little but stare in awe with his hands clutched at his side.

“Honey, I think you may have broken him,” Carol chimed, clearly meant as a quip but said with a dryness that almost masked her intention. Asreil quickly shook his head, which caused Dess to let out a chuckle as his cheeks shifted to an even deeper shade of red.

“S-Sorry, I just… good golly, Dess. You look incredible!”

“Thanks, Azzy,” she replied, flicking a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You’re pretty good yourself.” Asriel moved to pull her into a hug, but before he could do anything, the nimble dear already had her arms around him and planted a quick peck onto his lips. His blush only grew deeper. It was the first time they had kissed in front of anyone else, let alone either of their parents. Although his focus could be nowhere but on his beautiful girlfriend, he couldn’t help but shoot a worried glance towards her mother.

Fortunately, the elder Holiday did not seem to mind their short display of affection, as even her icy features briefly melted into a pleased grin.

“Well,” Dess began, pulling away from him before slipping her fingers through his, “Are we gonna do this thing?”

The goat nodded, excitement bubbling within him. He squeezed her hand a little harder, which she was lightning fast to reciprocate.

“Have fun, you two,” Carol said. “And December, please do not do anything that will result in Asriel’s father leaving a report on my desk in the morning.” Dess let out a groan far too exaggerated to be genuine, even for her.

“Oh my god, Mom! That was one time!”

“And it was one time too many,” her mother chastised. “Now run along, and be safe.”

“Uh-huhokayyeahwewill,” Dess spat out, already tugging Asriel down their walkway before her jumbled sentence was even completed.

“Goodbye, honey. I love you,” Carol called out to her daughter as the two of them were about to round the corner and head towards the front gate.

“Yeah, you too,” She replied, a light scoff present. Asriel found it funny; No matter how many arguments Dess got into with her mom, no matter how many times she complained about her or wished she would stop butting into her life, Dess would always say she loved her back. They had their issues, sure, but they were still family.

Just like how he and Dess would always be friends. That informal, slapdash little vow that the two of them had made on the night where this next step in their relationship had truly begun. It helped somewhat to settle some nerves in Asriel’s stomach, ones that were sparse but had still managed to rear their ugly heads every now and then. Worries about what this meant for them, their future. He had been around Dess so much that truly he wouldn’t know how to carry himself if she weren’t there, and fears that taking their relationship in this direction would lead to their ruin were not helping with that anxiety.

But glancing over at Dess now, seeing her with the brightest, smuggest grin he had ever seen plastered across her face made those worries fade away, just like they had under the bleachers. She was elated to be doing this with him, that much was clear. He didn’t fully know why she wanted him out of anyone else, but the fact that she so sincerely did meant everything to Asriel. It made him want to give her everything, to follow her down whatever road she wandered through. To be there whenever she wanted him to be, and hold her in his arms whenever she would allow it. Be it here in Hometown, away at college a few years from now, or even bumming it in a van off the interstate. Whatever the future had in store for Asriel, he knew that it would be okay as long as he had Dess in his life.

Tonight however, they didn’t have to worry about the future. Their only concern was with themselves, isolated to their tiny pocket of existence where they would enjoy a delectable meal, take a scenic walk, and snuggle up next to their favorite person in the whole world.

They would be okay. They would always be okay. And Asriel would do his darndest to make sure of that.