Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Among other things, Kris struggled with the sound of Velcro. It would be difficult to give an exacting reason why, really, but they were used to that— it was kinda a de facto thing that came with being a human in a place like Hometown (that is, having a body with a lot of annoyed whys pinned to it like little post-it notes), where the only doctors with bodies like theirs were at the city hospital about an hour's drive away. That was, of course, if there was no traffic, which there always was, because they'd been doing construction on the big overpass since they were in fifth grade, which was where every major highway in the local area suddenly has to merge at the exact same time, for some reason, and while the Jersey barriers got shuffled around every once in a while, from three lanes down to two down into one, nothing ever got built.

They had other struggles, too, and honestly they probably had even more now than they did as a kid. At least when they were little, they were still brave enough to try new things, new textures, etc., like eating raisins from those little cardboard boxes they gave you at the Church daycare, which they used to do just for the hell of it; nowadays the smell of raisins was too pungent for them, even though they'd asked Jockington about it during lunch once, way back before it would've been awkward to talk to someone more than two layers removed from your immediate circle of friends (though they could barely be said to even have one layer), and he said there was no real smell to a raisin, and seemed to think it was a really funny question. After that they just started assuming all their tastes were strange, 'cause they only really liked a few foods, including spicy instant ramen and pesto grilled cheese (on sourdough, specifically), though sometimes they'd watch old movies with humans in them where couples ate big vats of spaghetti drenched in red sauce by firelight, their hearts and taste buds ignited by passion, and they wondered why those people seemed to have it all figured out.

Now, this is not to say they wouldn't try some foreign new substance on a dare or a whim— consider, perhaps, earlier this week, when Susie had found a piece of tough pink fluff lodged in the caulk of the back wall in Alphys' room, which could only really be described as seeming vaguely carcinogenic, and dared Kris to lick it like cotton candy for five bucks, to which Kris had decided to swallow the thing whole and make it a double-or-nothing. Of course, they only said that after they'd already swallowed it, which is not how a double-or-nothing works, but they wanted ten bucks really badly so they could buy a lighter they'd bookmarked on some sketchy online storefront that spits out sparks of crimson-red flames.

This particular lighter was stuck on Kris' mind at the moment because of the upcoming class camping trip, which they were supposed to be packing for at this very moment, actually. They figured it'd be a cool gizmo to whip out and terrorize Berdly with, and also maybe start a fire with, if they were feeling up to it. However, they had not bought it, because they had still yet figured out a way to ship packages to themselves discretely without Toriel going through them first, and despite their pleading Susie still refused to let them ship it to her address for indirect pickup.

Again, they really needed to be packing right now, but they kept running into roadblocks: for example, the one big backpack they owned was laced from top to bottom with Velcro straps of adjustable lengths, because it was a hand-me-down from Asriel, so every time they'd actually worked up the focus to throw some more socks in the side pocket they would eventually have to face the Velcro, which sounded like someone was scraping out the insides of their ears with a Q-tip made of chicken wire. So then they'd end up taking a break, to settle themselves down, and then they'd reach for their phone again, and as such the whirlpool of lethargy drew deeper and deeper down the drain. They were a bit surprised just how miserable it made them feel; it was funny such a trivial annoyance had them stewing in nauseous self-hatred all of a sudden, especially considering how much they'd been through recently, with the Dark Worlds collapsing and all.

Kris had attempted to scrub themselves and their memory clean of whatever residual traces might remain from that whole series of events. Despite that, there was still one major holdover from the Dark World escapades lurking in their life, who was currently kneeling on the carpet about six feet beyond the foot of their bed, draped in an aura of serenity. Ralsei folded his laundry bin of borrowed clothes with the piety of a saint, as if each new t-shirt was a new holy relic to be contemplated and cared for with the utmost love. And when the dwindling dusk light took the right angle through the canopies of the trees outside, the silky-soft white fur adorning his face would begin to glow ever so faintly, so for a moment it would seem like he really was a saint in one of those Renaissance frescoes. He hummed to himself, just barely audible, nothing more than a tickle in the air, but Kris leaned closer from their perch on the edge of their bed and listened intently, trying to make sense of it, and all of a sudden all of the other noise in the world didn't seem so loud.

But there was a sudden pause— his floppy ears perked up because of a creak from Kris' bed, and his eyes quickly followed, at first dilated and nervous, their gorgeous dusty pink fully exposed, but soon tranquil once they'd settled on their target. Ralsei was thrilled to have Kris' attention; even though he'd been staying in Asriel's bed for the past few weeks, and was probably going to end up staying there for a while longer, Kris wasn't the type of person to be very talkative when they were in their private spaces, and so the two hadn't talked much more than usual despite suddenly being roommates.

Still, the goat offered a cheery smile. "Hi!!" Then, a giggle. "Are you excited for tomorrow, Kris?"

He thought the way he'd said it was a little funny; he intoned as if Kris was just entering the room, when really they'd been here the whole time. He supposed he'd just gotten a bit too settled into the routine of packing, and forgot their silhouette wasn't just another lamp or chair in his peripheral. It was really quite a meditative thing, even if Kris didn't seem to think so.

Anyhow, he tried his best to sound warm, just like Miss Toriel's fireplace, because Kris seemed down as of late and he'd taken a vow to make them feel smile-worthy. He really was in high spirits for tomorrow's trip, so the enthusiasm wasn't just an act, but there was also a bit of crackling at the edges of his words, maybe more like the blackened logs at the edge of a fire that only smoke and don't burn, since he'd had a very long day at school, too, and his voice was a bit tired. He had been struggling with adjusting to a world where he suddenly knew nothing, instead of everything: he'd even had to ask Noelle to tutor him on decimals and fractions, which she'd been very kind about, but he could tell from the apprehension of the others that it was something he should probably have known a long time ago, and he felt incredible shame that he was unprepared to assist his friends in the kinds of challenges that they tended to face in this world.

Kris nodded along at the goat boy's words and appeared to become possessed by a smile, but it was the kind of snarky-Kris smirk that Ralsei was electing not to count towards his personal mission. "Yup. Camping. It'll be great. Wait 'till you try an outhouse for the first time. Our bathroom's gonna seem like heaven."

"Oh, g-goodness, Kris…" Ralsei ducked his head into his lap and readjusted his glasses before they fell to the floor. He had been told by Kris that hiding your face when talking was considered 'weird' among Lightners, but it was a bad habit he couldn't shake— it was hard for him to not get overwhelmed and have his whole face start glowing bright pink, especially when he was around Kris, and it was too embarrassing for everyone to see that!

But he really wished Kris would stop teasing him about the bathroom incident. It was a relatively minor occurrence, all things considered, from just a few hours after he'd finally managed to leave the Dark World for the very first time. He had been seated on Kris' sofa just trying to rest, when he suddenly felt a really ticklish sensation just beneath his stomach, like nothing he'd ever experienced before, and he'd told Kris he thought something was wrong, like something was about to escape from his body, and he thought it might be was a punishment for his choice to defect from the Darkness. Kris just seemed amused, and proceeded to slip their hand under Ralsei's shirt and press down right on the spot Ralsei was worried about, and when the poor goat squealed in response Kris told him it was just his bladder, and that he just needed to go into the bathroom and take a piss. While Ralsei appreciated Kris' confidence, the whole situation had still been rather upsetting, so he had (politely) requested Kris accompany him into the bathroom to ensure the 'pissing' process went appropriately— to this, Kris began to double over belly laughing and told him to 'please for the love of God go figure it out by yourself.' Of course, he'd since realized using the bathroom was a very simple thing, but it wasn't the sort of moment he'd like to be constantly reminded of.

He had begun to say as much— "I can use the restroom just fine, I p-promise! You don't have to—" but there was a light rapping on the door from outside, and so he dropped back into silence while Kris yelled at the visitor to come in.

Peeking her head through the door was Toriel, wrapped in her staple purple cardigan, looking just about ready for bed. She would have to wake up earlier than usual, too, since she was a chaperone for the trip.

"Hello, children!" She'd had to make a conscious point of not saying my children anymore; she had gotten so used to saying it around the house before Asriel had left for college. To be quite honest, she would be more than happy to embrace Kris' well-mannered friend as one of her own, particularly because it seemed the poor thing did not have a safe home to return to, but she did not want to come across as too forceful, either. "Just checking in to make sure everything is prepared for tomorrow!"

Ralsei beamed. "I'm just about finished now, Miss Toriel!" His backpack— well, Asriel's backpack, really— was stuffed to the brim with an overwhelming mass of stuff, obscured beneath zippers and straps which looked as though they might burst at any moment. "Kris informed me that I might be overpacking for the occasion, but I, um….well, I suppose I just wanted to make sure I have a proper supply of backup undergarments and sleep clothing in the off chance of rain. I also figured it would make for a useful reserve if Kris were to forget anything important!" There was an accusatory edge to that last bit of his chirping which Kris did not appreciate.

"That's wonderful to hear, Ralsei. And I am sure your judgment is appropriate— you are a very thoughtful young man!" Toriel then turned to face her own child, deepening her tone. "And, err, Kris, I trust everything is coming along with you as well?"

"Uh, yep."

"I don't see very much in that bag of yours, honey."

"It's fine, mom." Does she really have to do this right now? They were going to pack later anyways (in theory), but they'd also survive just fine with the clothes of their back if they had to. They weren't exactly a stranger to re-wearing certain preferred articles.

"Well, Kris, the forecast is saying that the temperature could drop to below forty degrees at night, so I just want to make sure you're appropriately prepared. You could get seriously sick." Toriel had drawn up that sickly saccharine smile of disappointment again, the type that tells you that you're going to have to talk about this when you're not in the presence of outside company.

"Oo-kay. I'll bring a coat then."

While Toriel furrowed her brow at the indignity she was being served by her own child, Ralsei suddenly lit up again and raised an upstretched finger, as if he was a excited little pupil in one of her classes. "Um, I can always assist Kris with packing to ensure they'll be properly prepared, so please don't worry, Miss Toriel!"

Kris was vaguely insulted, but not enough to refuse the offer. "Yeah, see? Rals's got it."

Toriel's mouth coalesced into the general shape of a smile again, but she was mostly just grinding her teeth. "Ralsei, you will do no such thing. Kris, I expect to see you fully packed and prepared by yourself before you go to bed tonight, or we are going to have a serious problem on our hands. Am I understood?"

"Can you get out now?"

"I said, am I understood?"

"Yeah, whatever, bye."

The door clicked shut with a firm thump of air behind it. To Ralsei, it kind of felt like everything in the room had suddenly been imbued with some kind of dangerous electricity, and he didn't really want to touch anything, or even breath too heavily. That was the funny thing about the Light World— there was no magic, but every so often you'd look at an object only for the lighting to change, or for your mood to change, or for someone to tell you to look at a certain spot on it, and sometimes it was as if you were looking at a different thing entirely, as if it'd magically transformed. It had gotten darker outside, so once the door had closed there wasn't much for light in the room at all, but neither of them wanted to walk through the static to turn on the light-switch, so they both just sat alone in the dark for a while.

"K-Kris, I…" He had to gulp down saliva as he tried to organize his thoughts. "I wish you'd be a little kinder to Miss— um, to your mother. I understand she might—"

"I wish you wouldn't try forcing yourself into shit you don't know about."

They hated it as soon as they said it; they wished they could run to the downstairs closet to get the mop and clean up all the words they'd just thrown up all over the rug and swallow them right back down their throat. But they couldn't do that, because there was no magic in this world, and because they were a useless excuse for a person in this world, so they just fell back into their pillow and refused to move their shaggy bangs out of their eyes when they'd fallen askew across their face.

Ralsei actually let out a audible gasp when he'd heard Kris' comment, as humiliating as it was authentic. He was still kneeling on the floor, but his legs had started to shake so bad that he could barely keep his balance, so he let his shivering palms rest against the ground for support. There was a sharp burning suddenly pushing at the edges of his tear-ducts, like the time he'd gotten smoke in his eyes from Kris overcooking a batch of muffins in the oven, but he really tried to hold himself together, and ended up leaving deep marks in the rug from where he was digging in with his fingertips. His voice had regressed into a pathetic, whimpering thing. "I'm so sorry, Kris, I'm….you're right! You're absolutely right! I'm sorry, gosh, I can't…" He briefly lifted his glasses to wipe his eyes. "I just— I just get so worried about you, Kris, because I can see how much you've been…struggling, but I…end up getting too far ahead of myself. I'm…sorry if I'm only making things more difficult for you."

There was an uncertain pause— Kris knew better than to start talking, and Ralsei knew it probably wasn't fair to say what was on his heart right now, but he couldn't quite hold it in before it was suddenly leaking out of him anyways. "I k-know, uhm, that we've…already discussed this before, but, Kris, if my presence in this world ever becomes too much of a burden to you, sealing the School's fountain would already be a much safer alternative to our current situation, so I really would encourage—"

"No. Ralsei, no. Stop. Stop talking." They growled under their breath as they stumbled out of bed and knelt down on the floor beside the dimly lit figure of their friend. It was a bit awkward for a moment, with the two of them now only inches apart, just breathing at each other, but suddenly Kris lunged out with both hands to wrap Ralsei up into a deep hug, unapologetically impassioned. "It's not you, Rals. It was never about you." They tucked the words into the crook of his velvety ear with a gentle touch, like they were playing a lullaby real soft on the piano. "Sorry if I lash out sometimes, or if I seem all messed up. But, please, don't say stuff like that about yourself. You're awesome, dude. You're the only thing keeping me sane these days. Even if I'm bad at showing it." The ends of their voice petered off into the static of the air.

"T-thank you…" Ralsei was really just a puddle of tears by this point. He didn't even mind that he couldn't catch every one of Kris' words, because Kris had made him feel so tremendously warm by just being there at all— but the words he did pin down, he wanted to carry around with him for the rest of his life. "I don't deserve your kindness, Kris…"

"Yeah, I know. You deserve a lot better."

"Oh, s-stop that!" The knot in his throat loosened up a bit as he snickered. "There's nothing in the world that makes me happier…than just being held by you like this."

That comment specifically emitted a strange pull from the depths of Kris' gut. It kinda felt like a bigger admission in scale, because he knew Ralsei wasn't often hyperbolic in his speech, and that he may well have really meant that being touched by Kris was truly his favorite thing in the world. They weren't quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing— if they'd made a horrible mistake or if that was the most beautiful sentence they'd ever heard— but it definitely made them feel uncomfortable, so they didn't respond, and instead elected to sway in silence for a while. Just sharing the moment with Ralsei was nice, even without words.

Not too much happened after that hug: Kris briefly wandered off to throw the bare minimum of stuff their mother would require of them into Azzy's stupid bag, but both of them went off to bed pretty early.

In terribly embarrassing fashion, Ralsei found himself wrapping up a second blanket into a cocoon-esque form and pretending it was Kris as he laid sleeplessly with it in between his arms. There was a flustering, hot sensation in his stomach every time he imagined being so close to Kris, and the more he thought about it, the more it became like putting his hand closer and closer to the stove-top, scary but maybe also just a tiny bit exciting. He thought it was unfair that even in the elusive moments when he could hug the real Kris, he could only touch about half of them at a time— he wished there was a way to flatten their bodies out like you do when you calculate the circumference of a circle, and then run the two of them flat against each other so that they could feel all of each other at the same time. Is that a normal thing to want to do with your friends? Sometimes when Ralsei thought too much about Kris, the fluttering heat would rise up into his ribcage and start to get way too hot, until it felt painful, like something was pulling apart his sinews of his heart piece by piece, and he'd have to take a break to think about something else for a while, like his favorite birds or one of Susie's funny jokes. Needless to say, his mind was so preoccupied that he'd only managed to sleep for a couple of hours. Ever since he'd come to the Light World, his friendship with Kris had suddenly begun causing him a great deal of stress, which he didn't think was a good thing for a friendship, but it was a very peculiar kind of stress that almost made him feel good sometimes.

Kris didn't sleep very well either, though they were naturally a light sleeper. Despite themselves, they couldn't stop turning over to watch Ralsei, asleep on the other side of the room. His form rose and fell under his comforter in steady rhythm, like gentle waves crashing on the shore, and every so often a soft cry would emerge from his breaths, the coo of a dove. They felt like they were seeing something far more beautiful than they had any right to look at. Above him were the glow-in-the-dark stars and cross-country trophies and academic medals that Asriel had collected, newly Lysol'ed and dusted off and made pretty by Ralsei himself, and Kris thought he fit in perfectly with the scenery. Of course he did.

Kris wiped away a tear and turned over again, hoping to at least catch a few hours before tomorrow.

Chapter Text

The bus ride to the campsite was really nothing of note— everybody was too sleep-stricken to come up with anything worth doing or talking about, so they let the hum of the engine do the talking on their behalf. It didn't help that Berdly was nowhere to be found; surely, he would've been obnoxiously chatting away to Noelle about some new game update or study hack or other frivolous item.

Seated together at the second-to-front row of the bus were Kris and Ralsei, crumpled into one another like sardines even though their stiff gray seat had plenty of open room on the aisle side. They'd hit a turn early on which sent an unprepared Ralsei tumbling right into Kris's side, and he'd simply opted not to move away once things had evened out again— this was greatly embarrassing to Kris, particularly because Susie could definitely spot them from where she was sitting and would probably try to sneak a few pictures, but they still felt too bad about how they'd acted towards Ralsei last night to tell him to scoot back over. Sitting so close to the front would have never been Kris' willing choice, which they hoped would be obvious to any nosy onlookers, but the two had arrived early with Toriel, and she had encouraged them to take seats closer to her own supervision. This meant Kris couldn't occupy themselves with the usual long drive tricks— namely, scribbling profanities and phallic silhouettes onto the back of the next seat— which, honestly, was probably for the best in the grand scheme of things. Instead, they found themselves admiring how Ralsei gazed out the window in awe over their shoulder, totally transfixed by whatever flashed by, studying the mundane apparitions of trees and birds and squirrels as if he was watching the most beautiful documentary anyone's ever shot. In their residual grogginess, Kris had nearly rested a hand on the exposed fur of the goat boy's lower thigh, where his pants had rolled up a bit— the kind of possessive gesture which was a usual habit in their daydreams— but they snapped out of it enough to stop themselves, emitting a tight gasp of fear upon realizing just how close they'd come to actually petting him.

But Ralsei didn't seem to take notice, or at the very least he wasn't bothered by it too much. Well, actually, he absolutely had heard the sudden shift in Kris' breath— it was a bit embarrassing to admit, but Ralsei was always taking careful register of all of Kris' cute little noises and sniffles and the like, and he often found himself silently wondering what kind of mood they were in based on the kinds of unconscious noises that would bleed out from the walls of their body. It was all conjecture, of course, but he could've sworn that Kris seemed a lot less tense against his shoulder now than they had seemed when they were first getting on the bus, and that thought alone was enough to hold over his heart with joy for the rest of the day.

Uncharacteristically, Noelle found herself towards the very back of the bus, far back enough that she was having to curl up her hooves into her chest to avoid the plastic hump of the back tire beneath her seat. She was joined by Susie, currently snoring, who had been the one to drag the doe by the wrist all the way to the back row. She'd spotted Noelle mulling around aimlessly outside the unfolded bus doors with about five minutes to spare before departure, in the midst of an internal argument over whether it would be fair to take a seat before Berdly arrived, even though she truly had no desire to sit with him— Susie didn't know that, naturally, but she knew Noelle well enough to know what her 'headlights-spiraling' looked like (that's what she'd coined it, at least, because she thought Noelle acted like a deer in headlights when she got too stressed out), so she knew that Noelle probably needed someone to make sure she just got into a seat and took a moment to breathe. It was a terribly embarrassing thing for Noelle, really, getting so caught up in anxious thoughts that she couldn't even get onto a bus without getting dragged on by her crush like a scared little puppy (though she truly was grateful for Susie, and for the reprieve that came with finally sitting down after all her endless circling). It was just that Berdly had a tendency to hermit quite a bit, and it had been starting to really worry her.

Berdly was a strange case, and a tough person to care a lot about. He had an ineffable arrogance to him that made him almost untouchable in a social sense, equal part local myth and forgettable loner; he strutted around their school with his cobalt blue feathers quite literally greased back, spewing out the kinds of Berdlyisms that might end up geting quoted for weeks, but she had a growing suspicion that bubbling under some of that arrogance there was a sort of self-imposed exile, or at least a preconception that he would never really be liked, or accepted, and she'd been trying to work him out of that thinking for a while. That's how she'd ended up power-walking laps around the bus in the first place, doing a pacer test of her own design, because she'd been so busy silently hoping Berdly had only forgotten to set his alarm and not ditched the trip entirely. Then, of course, Susie had grabbed her shoulder from behind and asked if she was 'just gonna get on already or not—' by the time she'd managed to stammer out a hasty 'yes,' the much stronger dragon had already pulled her onboard and reserved an admittedly cramped seat for the two of them (not that she was complaining).

When the bus did finally begin its crawl from out of the front lot of the school, coughing off to the races with a sputtering shove, Susie had also made the decision to drape her right arm directly around Noelle's neck with a surprisingly muscular grip, and then asked her if it was okay if she tried to catch some sleep like that (as if Noelle's heart-rate hadn't suffered enough). What exactly Susie was asking for was honestly a bit confusing to Noelle at first, but it was presumable that 'sleep[ing] like that' meant using Noelle as a pseudo-headrest, at least based on how much weight Susie was suddenly resting on Noelle's head and shoulders, which was certainly unconventional but perhaps understandable— all the dizzying beauty of Susie's features still couldn't hide the deep swollen bags hanging under her eyes. Now, Noelle had been keen on using this bus ride as an opportunity to break some conversational ground with Susie, especially given Kris wasn't within teasing range for once, but she'd be a foolish woman to refuse a million-dollar opportunity laid out at her doorstep, and they'd have the whole day for talking, anyways, so she nodded along with a big wide grin and settled into her friend's miraculous touch, even doing some light massage work on Susie's body as she tried to work her previous worries down beneath the dragon's tough skin.

It was interesting, though, the kind of comfort that being wedged deep in her crush's arms offered her, because what she ended up feeling wasn't at all like what she might have imagined. For example, she'd always had a very specific infatuation with Susie's signature purple flannel; it was a rugged thing and a statement piece, the tattered flag of a rebelling nation, an unwashed majesty that flaunted the best contours of Susie's muscular arms and seemed to only gain character with each new stain, like an unconventional patchwork. But actually being wrapped up in it, all she could think about was how itchy the fabric was, almost like sandpaper to the touch— surely dragons had thicker skin than deer, but how could Susie fall asleep wearing something so awful, much less go everywhere in it? There were several little rips and tears and exposed seams near the armpit, too, that Noelle hadn't noticed before but which now loomed somberly right next to her eyes. All of this made her feel a lot of sadness and maybe even some guilt, but also something else, something warmer. Her headresting suddenly became a rather thoughtful experience, and a stunningly intimate one too, and while she wasn't really comfortable lying there she didn't feel like she needed to be to make it worthwhile. Besides, being around Susie made her feel truly safe, in a way that made her feel like she'd never really known what 'safe' meant beforehand, and that was way more important that just 'comfortable.' Though it didn't hurt that Susie's shirt did smell heavenly, if heaven could be counted as a mixture of body odor and spilled coffee. Still, she made a mental note to go out and find her friend something nicer when she got the chance, no strings attached— just a simple gift, a way of saying thank you for being herself. And maybe Susie would find that super weird, or even kind of patronizing, but Noelle thought it was worth the risk, anyways.

Eventually the sun finished its rising, and the bus let down its rusted bones to rest— it was just past noon when they'd finally arrived. The campground itself was an overwhelming mass of forestry carved into one of the biggest State Parks in the state, with a rather daunting footprint in pure terms of square footage, but for the most part the only places the Hometown School campers really went was within their own small Lots, numbers 110 and 115, diagonally across from one another but separated by a small access road, which only really ended up meaning that the kids in one Lot didn't talk much to the other Lot. The two chaperones, Alphys and Toriel, had decided to divide the ten or so campers into two groups— Toriel would stay overnight in Lot 110 and supervise a group consisting of Jockington, Catti, and some others, while Alphys would be in charge of supervising Susie, Noelle, Ralsei, and Kris (who had made a special request they not be placed with their mother) in Lot 115— she would've been in charge of Berdly, too, but he'd stayed home, apparently to sink some Day 1 hours into a highly anticipated new game release. This was at least according to Kris, who knew that somehow. (When further pressed by Noelle about his choices via text, Berdly had responded with the following: "the Platonic ideal of the digital ether far surpasses the plebeian joys of crude prehistoric cosplay.")

Speaking of cell phones, all of the campers were being forced to store theirs away with Toriel overnight, which earned the usual groaning but wasn't actually too big of a deal for anyone, really, with the exception of Kris, who was so used to using their phone as a social crutch that attempting to talk to someone without it felt like an entirely foreign language of socialization. They did have a dead burner phone they'd bought at a thrift store specifically for situations like this, but Toriel knew very well what Kris' real phone looked and acted like, so there wasn't much of a choice unless they wanted to risk stealing it back during the night. And so, in defiance of every pulse of their instincts telling them otherwise, they did indeed wait in line to go drop their "cellular device and all other non-medically essential electronics" away into a dusty old Ziploc bag, spacing off behind a weirdly eager Ralsei (not that he used the safety phone he'd been gifted by Toriel very much anyways). Kris figured they'd give their phone one last check out of passive habit, but the only new notifications were a pile of spam emails and a news pop-up— something about rates of human-on-monster violence spiking up this year— then their fingers squeezed tight on the power and the lower volume button until it was dead.

But after that, the four members of Lot 115 were pretty much left to their own devices. Of course, they were still being supervised by Alphys, theoretically, but the great part about having Alphys as a chaperone is that she was too terrified by Susie and too indebted to Noelle to say no to either of them, so they were all pretty sure she'd turn a blind eye to anything short of a life-threatening emergency, and even that was a coin flip. The largest and most important way this allowance of freedom manifested was in the group's sleeping setup. The plan for the trip, as specified on the take-home permission slips a parent's signature had previously needed to be signed or forged onto, was to have all the kids sleep together in a four person tent (only 'four person' in the sense that four bodies, laid out straight against one another, could technically fit, if they all squeezed a bit), while Alphys would sleep in her own tent. Kris, however, really hated tents, and loved personal space, so they had smuggled in hammocks for themselves and Ralsei, and convinced Noelle to bring in spares for herself and Susie— Kris also believed there was something inherently more immersive and natural about hammock-ing, through getting to take in the scent of the pines firsthand and enjoy the gentle sway of the fresh breeze. While they had truly despised the family camping trips they'd been dragged out to as a younger kid, they used to count on getting a few fleeting glimpses of relaxation in the moments when they could slip away to their hammock and float on air for a while, alone but not feeling particularly lonely, as their skin melted into the overhanging bark and their humming became just another birdsong on the breeze.

So instead of setting up their tent at the center of the Lot as they were supposed to be doing (though the Lot itself was really little more than a few feet of trampled dirt and a lousy, sand-coated firepit), the four of them trecked up the small root-infested hill towards the back of the campsite that led out to nothing but deeper woods, in the hopes of finding a good place for their hammock-ing setup. Thankfully, there was a really pleasant clearing not too far from the edge of the Lot with a few hearty oaks, so Kris and Susie got to work, ensuring that their own hammocks were the highest in the tangled configuration, while Noelle's and Ralsei's ended up swooping down below. In fact, Kris hung their own hammock so high up that you had to step into Noelle's hammock just to have a chance of being able to get into theirs, and even then you needed a pretty good jump to get the weight transfer right. Noelle had, of course, protested to this, but she wasn't even tall enough to reach Kris' strap, so unless Susie decided to show her some pity she was resigned to her fate as an occasional step-stool.

After all that hassle they still had a while to spare before the day's scheduled activities, so everyone took a moment to get comfortable. Even though there was a small lull in the energy, Ralsei had such a brightness in his heart that he could hardly stand to sit still, and he found himself fidgeting with the cuffs of his collared plaid shirt, taking shallow pants instead of real breaths.

"It's so beautiful, isn't it? Gosh." The sun was tickling the white fur on his face from where he was sprawled out in the center of his hammock; he had to adjust his glasses as he stared right up into the sky. It was impossible not to be transfixed by the high, arching branches of the canopies above him: they carved out an intricate pattern of absent space, a jagged hole of the sky, with each individual tree stretching out millions of delicate, splintering, haunting fingers, and when viewed together as a whole they all collapsed into an inconceivable form, miles removed from the Euclidean geometric shapes he was just getting the hang of calculating the area of. "There's so many pretty things to take in."

He cocked his head a bit— he was not really addressing anyone in particular with his thoughts, but somewhere deep down he really hoped Kris was listening. "It feels like we're on an adventure out here, o-or a secret mission, or something. Or maybe even like we're the only people alive! Is that strange to say? It's just odd to be all on our own like this, so…set apart from everything else. And yet, everything is so alive! It's…well, I think it's really incredible."

Susie snickered from above, but her mouth was turned into her elbow, so it ended up coming out a bit muffled. She was trying to block some of the sunlight out— as pleasant as her bus ride with Noelle had been, the touch of the doe's fur had made her heart rate had get all fluttery and weird, so she didn't actually get all that much rest. "Yeah, dude. Well, it's pretty for now, at least. Wait till they cut it all down!"

A gasp. "Susie!! Don't say that!!" Not sure what to do with the sudden welling of upset in his gut, Ralsei tugged on his ears until they hurt. "That's awful!"

He thought it was a really cruel joke— she was referencing the Biology class they'd had last Monday, when they'd started the unit on climate change they were in the middle of now. It was more of an introductory, lecture-heavy class, which is to say that none of them had done any reading or anything like that beforehand, and so Ralsei had no idea what was going to be discussed; when Alphys got to the slide detailing the global and local environmental damages caused by resource exploitation in rainforests, Ralsei had gotten so overwhelmed with grief and worry that he'd started sobbing right there in his seat, and it had gotten so bad that Alphys needed to pause class and ask Noelle to walk him to the nurse. Susie had made sure to comfort him after school, and admitted it was 'really fucked up stuff,' but ever since then she'd been making a running joke of yelling 'trigger warning!' every time Ralsei walked by a tree. He supposed he deserved it— he hadn't meant to make such a scene— but the whole thing just caught him off guard, in a sense.

He'd hoped that though all the pain he'd endured in the Dark World, and all the meticulous planning he'd done, and all the white lies he'd used and all of the heavy truths he'd told, he could at least give back the gift of a kinder world; he could at least give himself up for the sake of the better lives Kris and Susie were meant to lead in a better world. But now he was here, too, still alive, and he was starting to question if this world was really any kinder, and if there was even anything he could do to make it better, and things like rainforests made him worry about that a lot, though perhaps that's a bit of a selfish way to think about them. Either way, he really didn't appreciate Susie's continual teasing, so he tried to shrug her off at let things be quiet for a while, but he couldn't quite still his mind.

"…I just, g-gosh, I just don't get how anyone could…look at all of this, and see all of this nature, and then think of doing something like cutting it all down. It's so cruel." He was pinching the corner of his jaw to stop his voice from shaking. "And for such…frivolous things."

"It's 'cause you've got a beautiful heart, Rals."

It was Kris speaking now, in a low hum, though Ralsei could only see the dark outline of their lower body from through the bottom of their hammock. "Like, the oil execs or whoever the fuck that're deciding to cut rainforests down, they don't see this all this stuff—" they stretched their arms out and gestured to the trees and the sky and everything else— "as, like, anything but money to be made. Like, all this stuff's only beautiful 'cause you're the one looking at it, and you're a beautiful person, so you've got beautiful eyes for all of it. Without you, then it's all back to being just a bunch of…stuff. Y'know?" They chuckled to themselves. "I sound crazy."

As Kris wound their way through that thought, Noelle was frantically pressing her fingertips over and over and over again against Susie's back— not directly touching her, but pressing through the material of the hammock, since she was laying directly below her. Noelle was a sharply observant person, as unassuming as she might come across at first, so when Ralsei had first came to the Light World she was early to notice that Kris and Ralsei's relationship did not resemble a conventional friendship— while some things could be reasonably explained by Ralsei's undersocialization and new-ness to their world, other things could not (like, since when had Kris ever been so touchy with anyone?) So she'd swiftly confided in Susie with these thoughts, and Susie was absolutely thrilled to have someone to talk about this relationship with— she said that she already knew 100% that Ralsei liked Kris, since he acted absolutely ridiculously around them, but she wasn't really sure if Kris liked him back, as they led a life full of bad personal hygiene and void of any romance. But for Noelle, it was the other way around— she could've sworn she'd deduced with certainty that Kris harbored deep, deep feelings of affection for Ralsei, but she couldn't tell if Ralsei was really returning that love, or if he just acted that sheepish around anyone who showed him a lot of attention. As it stood, Susie and Noelle had a running twenty dollar wager on which of the pair was going to confess their love to the other first— and after that comment from Kris, Noelle was pretty sure she was going to be a little bit richer very soon.

Meanwhile, Ralsei was cupping his cheek fur in his hands to try and push back the burning blush. "O-oh, Kris, I don't know about all of that, haha!"

Then, a beat later, came quieter words, lushly whispered: "But, um…thank you."

Susie and Noelle had run off to the bathroom as a pair, so Kris and Ralsei had the Lot to themselves for a few minutes— not too long, though, since the day's semi-mandatory activities were set to begin soon anyways.

Kris was sprawled out on Ralsei's hammock (which really belonged to Asriel), since they didn't feel like being all the way up in their own. They were mostly just laying there, but they were also passively watching Ralsei, who had been kneeling on the ground by himself and silently tracing the uniform patterns of ants in the dirt, taking great care not to accidentally disturb any of them. Eventually he stood up and dusted off his khaki pants, catching Kris' stare with a soft smile.

"Say, um, Kris? Do you think…"

Despite being the one to raise a question Ralsei grew suddenly pensive, fingering his pockets passively and letting his shoulders sink into the forest floor. "Do you think this outfit is cute? I'm sorry if that's weird to ask!"

Again, it wasn't really Ralsei's outfit as much as it was a temporary rental from Asriel, but Ralsei had styled the outfit by himself, so there was something of his perspective in it— besides, Kris had worn plenty of Azzy's old clothes, and they'd still call those their own clothes. Anyways; adorning his chest was a long-sleeve, collared plaid shirt with stripes of mint green and gray, which had been steeply tucked on all sides into a pair of baggy tan khakis and pulled together with a cheap belt that was clearly a bit too small. Ralsei's stomach was a little bigger than Asriel's—their brother'd been in cross-country shape during high-school, after all— so there was a bit of excess weight hanging out over the waistline of the pants, and maybe that was a bad thing in the tradition sense of fashion, but Kris thought his friend looked wonderful.

"You look like you're a member of the LDS."

"Oh! Uhm, the, um…." Ralsei wracked his brain, trying to study Kris' expression to discern if this was something he was supposed to know. "I'm sorry, Kris, I'm not familiar with that term, but thank you!" The poor goat's smile was clearly strained, and Kris felt a small pang of guilt bounce around in the cracks of their ribcage.

"Nah, I'm just messing with you. You look great. You're a handsome young man, Rals." Seeing Ralsei sheepish, they felt an urge to push a little further— it was just because pranks made them feel really excited inside, or at least that's how they reasoned it out. "Better not let the ladies see you in that."

"Kris!! That's not what I—" He snickered softly, lightening some of the tension heating up in sinews of his muscles— "y-you're just trying to embarrass me, aren't you? And, h-hey, how do you know I'm trying to attract ladies?"

He earned a sincere chuckle from Kris, who sat up in the hammock. "Yeah, sure, whatever. You're right. By the way, what're you doing for your activity?"

"O-oh, um, I was planning on doing Miss Toriel's nature walk."

"Come do the trail ride with me, dude." A pause. "Uh, if you want to."

There were only supposed to be two scheduled activites for the day, which students could choose between— Toriel was leading an educational nature walk through a two mile-long lake trail, where students would learn to identify local species of plants and trees, while Alphys was leading a collaborative, discussion-based seminar themes of environmentalism in Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2. In a desperate bid to avoid doing either of those things, Kris pleaded to their mother to be allowed to do a trail ride on horseback instead, since there was a stable located in the park not far from their campsite that offered them; Toriel had not wanted to agree, but riding clearly meant a lot to Kris, and she also needed them to attend the camping trip since she was already chaperoning and refused to leave them home alone.

Kris had been riding horses since they were about seven or eight. It started, weirdly enough, in the immediate aftermath of their parents' divorce; Asgore had made a habit of taking Kris on a bunch of day-trip outings during that time to try and keep in touch with them, since he hadn't been able to get joint-custody, and one of those outings was to a local farm with a stable that he had a connection with from the flower shop. Kris tried riding a horse that day and immediately loved the thrill of it, and since Toriel had been patiently hoping for years that Kris would one day take a genuine liking to a sport or activity outside of video games, she agreed to sign them up for lessons almost immediately, which was not something she did with many of Kris' big asks. So they'd been riding ever since, mostly for themselves, but they'd competed in show jumping events on occasion, and they'd been working at the farm taking care of the horses part time for the past two summers— they'd always been the type who connected better with animals than people, so it was a natural fit.

"Um, do you really think I should?" The goat boy swayed in place. "I don't really have any experience with horses at all, outside of the Dark World, at least. Even then, I was the one who was the horse, so I doubt that'd very helpful, haha!"

"Nah, don't worry about that. I've been riding horses forever. I'll teach you."

Ralsei supposed it made sense that Kris rode horses— he'd been wondering how their legs appeared so well-defined despite their typical living habits. Actually, he found himself thinking really frequently about all the little quirks and handsome features of their body, and he felt awfully guilty whenever he did, even if he couldn't quite name why, other than perhaps because he never really did the same with Susie or any of his other friends. "You really don't have to do all of that for me, Kris, really! I can just—"

"Here, get on the hammock."

"I, uh...what?"

Kris rolled their eyes, though they understood they were being intentionally vague. "Like, literally get on the hammock with me. I'm gonna show you what the proper form looks like."

Ralsei tentatively padded over to the hammock that Kris had co-opted, arms awkwardly tucked behind his back. "Um, i-is there any room for me in there? I promise, Kris, it's really no big deal!"

"No, dude, it's fine, I promise. Here, just sit on my belly, like as if you were getting on a horse." They offered a hand to help Ralsei up but ended up freezing in place— were they being too pushy? "But if you don't care about the trail ride thing then don't worry about it. It's kinda a stupid idea anyways."

"No, no, um, I t-think it sounds cool! I'll, uhm, I'll come up…"

With a bit of a hesitation, Ralsei took Kris' hand and stood up on his toes before properly committing for the jump into the hammock— he overshot it a bit and nearly ended up sending both Kris and himself tumbling over into the leaves below, but he managed to pull himself back in and somehow got himself sitting upright, with his shaking legs straddled across Kris' stomach, staring down at their sly smirk. It took feeling it firsthand for Ralsei to really realize what he had just gotten himself into, and it suddenly felt like he could die or throw up at any second.

"Mmmm, so see how hard you're gripping my shirt right now?" It was true— Ralsei hadn't even realized that he was pulling on their signature striped sweater so hard that he was at risk of ripping the seams. "It's funny, everyone treats horses like that at first. People think riding's about how hard you can pull on the reigns for some reason— probably 'cause they get scared and try to overpower the horse, but the truth is even the strongest person couldn't do shit to a horse. Like, seriously, they can take you out with a single kick to the head. It's really more about, like, feeling the rhythm in your legs and your core— that's where all your control is gonna come from, just having proper balance. Even if a horse starts up bucking on you, it's still all about balance. Just trying to pull on the reigns as hard as you can is gonna get you nowhere." Casually, they brought their hands to Ralsei's waist and rested them there softly. They were speaking with a genuine, tender warmth that Ralsei had never heard from them before. "Here, see how far forwards you're leaning right now? I know this hammock is messing everything up, but you're gonna want to be way further back in the seat, with your spine straight, like perpendicular to me, if that makes sense. Just put your weight back a bit."

Ralsei let out a polite hum, since his throat wouldn't open enough for him to do anything more, and gradually rolled back a little lower onto Kris' stomach, letting himself be guided by their hands. It felt as though he'd been holding his breath for about a minute straight at this point, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded, but he simply couldn't breathe with Kris this close.

"Mmm. Attaboy." After the words had left their mouth, it dawned on Kris that they'd just spoken to Ralsei the same way they talked to horses.

There was an incredibly loud thwaping as Ralsei's tail flicked back and forth against the curled vinyl edges of the hammock at an alarmingly fast pace. He didn't say anything.

"That's, uh…that's pretty much it, really, at least for what you need to know. I mean, this'll all make way more sense when you're actually in a saddle, and also actually have stirrups to work with. You don't even— this was all probably unnecessary, but, uh, thought it might be nice to at least show you a little bit of the right feel so it wouldn't be so scary when you're up there for the first time, 'cause I know it was for me."

They began to pet gently across the length of Ralsei's leg with their right palm, moving from his waist to his thigh in slow, easy circles, traveling lower each time around. "It's funny, though, I promise you, when you're actually up on one of those big ol' beasts and you're really in control, at least a little bit, it's the freest you'll ever feel in your life. Kinda ironic how freedom is really about having control."

"M-maybe!" The words came out wrapped in a bleat that was somewhere between a voice crack and an instinctual goat affect.

"Dude, are you good? What the hell was that?"

"K-Kris, I-- I can't do the trail ride!! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I just can't— I can't—"

In an instant, Ralsei had ripped himself free of Kris and tumbled sideways off of the hammock, plummeting to the ground with an ugly thud and coming mere inches from slamming his face and his glasses directly onto a small buried rock. He scrambled onto his feet and crawl-sprinted to this nearest tree; he forced his back against the bark to feel something other than crawling anxiety that felt like it might split him alive, like millions of ants crawling out from under his skin and carrying him off into a million little pieces. He was crying, and his glasses had fallen off somewhere along the way, and he still couldn't breathe. "Oh, Angel, I'm so sorry, Kris! I just— I really apologize, I just needed a moment—"

"Ralsei." Kris' voice wasn't a yell, but it had the same presence— a command of attention. "Stop. You didn't do anything wrong. I…fucked up."

They clamored out of the hammock, their body suddenly lethargic, and made a point of gently collecting Ralsei's circular glasses from off the forest floor. "I pushed things too far, Rals. I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was making you. You should've said something earlier, man, I didn't even…shit." They reached the tree that Ralsei'd pinned himself against and offered up the glasses with a bowed head.

"T-thanks…" They readjusted the frames between their ears. "I do mean it, though. I'm sorry, Kris. We were having a really good moment, and I was really enjoying myself, but it just started feeling l-like too much, like every inch of my body was suddenly ten times as sensitive, a-and I couldn't—"

"Ralsei, Ralsei, it's okay. Everything's okay. Can you just breathe with me for a second?" They offered a simple count they'd learned in the one year of choir they'd done— in for four, through the nose, hold eight, out for four, through the mouth— and they did that together for a while.

"Are you feeling a little better?"

"Y-yeah. Yeah. Thank you." He cleared some residual mistiness from his eyes with his sleeve.

"Look, Ralsei, I don't ever want to make you feel like that, okay? So please, I…I know I should've been paying more attention to the signals you were giving me, but I also need you to talk to me when you start feeling off like that, because I'd hate if you felt like you have to put yourself through any kind of pain for my sake. That's not fair to you at all." Their voice was showing its wear, becoming hoarse and undone in the silent spaces between thoughts.

"It's really alright, Kris, but…thank you. I'll try to be more clear next time."

There was a part of him that wanted to leave it at that, but he couldn't rest with the weight still left on his heart. "Actually, I meant to say something earlier, w-when you initially brought up the riding idea, but I purposefully told myself not to— uhm, n-not because anything you did! But I've been thinking recently that maybe feeling uncomfortable…isn't always such a bad thing?"

He saw Kris' jaw begin to tense up, so he tried to soften his approach. "I don't mean it in a bad way, I promise!! It's just that…when I'm with you, Kris, you push me outside of the…comfortable, uhm, sorts of boxes that I like to hide in. But it's the good kind of push. It's…I don't know. It's uncomfortable, but it makes you think about things differently and feel a little more deeply, even if it hurts a bit at first. And with you, Kris, I always feel like you'll take me seriously if I really get upset, or say no, so it's easier to be a little brave around you. I hope this isn't too weird to say, but you're the person who I've always felt the most comfortable saying 'no' to. I always know you're going to really listen to what I have to say, and even when you get upset with me sometimes, I think…it comes from a place of taking me seriously, and caring about my opinion. And that means a lot. So, um, even though I messed it up a little this time, I guess my point is…thank you, Kris. For caring so much."

Out of instinct, Kris reached for Ralsei's hand, not even thinking that he might need a break from all the touch— they tried to whisper out a sorry as their fingers collided with his awkwardly, but Ralsei caught their ring finger before they could rip it away and didn't let go, and then the rest of their hands found their way into one another. "You're too sweet for your own good, Rals."

They swayed like that for a moment, but it could've been hours and neither of them would've been the wiser.

But in truth, the moment broke quickly, as those kinds of moments have a habit of doing-- they were interrupted suddenly by the thunderous noise of crunching branches and heavy panting. "Hey, losers!! What the hell are you doing? You're already supposed to be at the stupid—"

Susie was frozen in her tracks by the sight of Ralsei and Kris, still pressed together against a tree; Kris ripped their hand away from Ralsei's and scowled, forcing their fingers down into their pocket.

"Uhh, my bad for, uh, interrupting the moment. Take your time, guys."

She turned away and took a few hasty steps; then, against her better judgment, she stopped: "Hey, but Ralsei, don't give Kris too many hickeys yet. Can't have Toriel seeing that!!"

She sprinted off before Kris could attempt to strangle her.

Chapter Text

Night fell quickly, as it tended to do on those few special days a month that you've really, fully enjoyed, and so the darkness dripped down into their soul like the microwaved-hot chocolate they had a habit of enjoying during the first snowfall of winter.

Kris had gone off for the trail ride earlier and found great peace in the seat of the saddle; in the gentle rhythm of walking or even trotting, when the trail guide wasn't observing too closely, and in the rough leather of the reigns held tightly in their palms, which also held an accumulated record of small nicks from their knife, some accidental and some less so. But the ride was a solitary endeavor, since Ralsei had stayed back, and their loneliness seemed to hex the gnarled roots of the forest and incur strange hauntings along the way— they saw ravens who warbled only to themselves, and dusty branches snapped apart at strange joints, and a bunchless leaf, which is to say a leaf that had no neighbors or friends or even enemies connected to it at the stem, and the detritus which remained of an old sparrow's corpse, both picked apart and turned away from by all. Kris wanted to believe their eyes only registered these things selectively in their momentary pouting over Ralsei's absence, and that therefore they were not wholly representative of the forest, since they believed that there was a great peace and fairness in nature. And yet, is it not true that their eyes were natural entities too, and their mind as well, and so what they witnessed could fairly be considered the wild, natural way of things? They truly hoped not— they were far too strange and far too depressive to take responsibility for all this shit. (Were they going insane?)

Those wild winds of fear didn't last very long, though, since soon enough they were back at the campsite, huddled besides the dwindling fire, really cracking up over something stupid that Susie'd said. Ralsei was in cheery spirits, too, and he proved he could be surprisingly loud, shouting out some sharply-worded retorts (only when first provoked by Susie, of course) and little snickers that slapped against the trees with solid thuds. And Noelle seemed happy enough, but she was mostly just staring up at Susie with a half-conscious fascination, like when you put on one of those stupid baby sensory videos for a kid.

Although, she was still awake enough to note that Ralsei had his pink journal clutched snugly against his chest, which he'd recently been making a habit of taking with him everywhere. When he'd first learned how to take notes in school, he'd loved how the process of writing and bulleting helped him process things, so he'd gone out and bought a small notebook to jot down random little facts and tidbits about the Light World that he didn't know before, little things like the names of plants and books (Kris teased him that it was 'the nerdiest thing that's ever happened'). Noelle happened to sneak a glimpse of the book's table-of-contents earlier, since Ralsei'd been writing in it during their nature walk with Toriel, and she caught that there was an entire section solely dedicated to 'Kris Quotes,' which was crazy, but she felt like she wasn't quite close enough with Ralsei to ask about it directly. That's not to say she didn't really like Ralsei— she loved him, really, loved spending time with him, and genuinely looked forwards to their tutoring sessions, for the small talk if nothing else, but he was somewhat of a tough egg to crack, since he tended to only dwell on the subjects that were safe enough for easy conversation and resisted diversions into anything that might endanger his sweet face or pleasant smile. That's a good word for it: he was always very pleasant to be around, but she got the sense he was withholding quite a bit to make things feel so pleasant, and so it made it hard to get a gauge on how much of a connection they'd really made. Plus, it got awkward sometimes with Kris whenever she'd share a small joke or hug with Ralsei, just between the two of them. Kris had never said anything directly to her about it, but they'd start staring and fidgeting all dramatically whenever they saw Noelle with Ralsei, and almost always tried to steal Ralsei back for themselves immediately afterwards. Oh well— perhaps that's just the nature of being young and in love.

But tonight, those little lumps and tensions were all smoothed out for a while— being in the wilderness will do that for you sometimes. They spent the sunset all crowded around a fire that'd taken forever to catch, since the fire-pit was so crappy; it ended up being a drizzle of Noelle's gingerbread-scented hand-sanitizer drained haphazardly onto the kindling that did the trick, even though that probably wasn't super safe. But it did the trick. And once the fire was up and going, several hours burned away in it, filled with nothing except aimless chatting and preparations for a dinner of packaged spicy instant ramen, which itself only involved drawing a pot of hot water to a boil and pouring it in the plastic cups. At one point Ralsei did burn his hand a little attempting to strain some of the water out of his cup, which prompted Kris to scurry over and start cooing and coddling over the tiny little spot on the webbing between the goat boy's thumb and pointer finger, even though he kept insisting he was fine in a flustered daze. (Noelle found the whole thing so ridiculous that she'd had to cough back a giggle, which earned a glare from Kris so nasty it'd have to rank in one of the top-five most hateful looks they'd ever given her). Spirits were so high that even Alphys had come out of her tent to share a brief round of s'mores with the campers she was meant to be supervising, and for perhaps the first time she even found herself genuinely bonding with Kris and Susie, over a shared love of marshmellows burnt into the dismembered form of a chocolate muffin. At some point things devolved into Susie coaching Alphys on how to 'rizz up' Undyne, which would've been an inconceivable thing to say or even think only yesterday, but their hearts were all so warm and full that the ordinary way of things seemed a little malleable.

Things wrapped up at that natural point when it'd all lurched over into heavy darkness and heavier eyelids. The four kids stumbled back over to their hammocks, led by the shivering guide of their flashlights, and hoisted themselves aboard. But of course, with the exception of Ralsei, this was not a group of people who stopped things at the natural time of the night, so their conversation ended up staggering on well into the after-hours; when the only signs of life were the dismembered howls and swishing of creatures deep in the thicket, where there was that buzz of silence that might have been the loudest thing in the world, where their laughs struck out beyond the arms of the thorny branches and seemed to reach out to Heaven, aching to be heard, to be witnessed. That might sound a bit dramatic, but if you could've felt just how deliriously cold it was that night, you'd get it too— their stupid hammock setup and lack of sleeping bags meant they were all freezing their asses off (Kris couldn't even feel some of their toes), and when you're surrounded by a bunch of your friends and you're putting yourselves through some terrible self-induced torture of your own design, it's the closest thing you'll ever feel to true love.

In fact, it was so cold that Susie had scooped Noelle out up of her own hammock and dragged the flailing deer up into her own, offering nothing more than a half-hearted grunt of acknowledgement when Noelle yelped to ask what was happening.

"You're soft. Like on the bus." The words came wrapped between a yawn and a weary groan, deep and grumbled, arrestingly earnest. "Need you again. As a blanket. 'Cause you make me feel really warm inside, and…" Now she was a little more alert, or at least self-conscious enough to think beyond the primal instinct to heat up her cold-blooded scales, and she started stashing her words away behind her yellowed teeth. "…stuff. Dunno."

Kris cleared their throat. "Yo, can you guys, like, get a room, please? Noelle's house has like twelve for you to use."

"Oh, shut the hell up, Dreemurr! You're just jealous I have a blanket and you don't!"

Noelle thought her heart might rupture from the pressure of being squeezed between the shivering arms of her much larger and much stronger friend, but after a second of adjusting she could breathe again. Everything was very, very hot. Still, she she was alive and happy enough to let out a snicker at Susie's words. "Hey, Kris, Ralsei's got a lot of fur, and you're always talking about how soft it is. Why don't you two share a hammock tonight?"

"Yeah, yeah, do that, do that!"

The comments had prompted poor Ralsei to curl himself up into the fetal position— thankfully, it was pitch black, so nobody could actually see how pathetic he was, and the only giveaway was the light crinkling of the hammock. "Oh, uhm, Kris!? I s-suppose I could, if, you know, if you'd feel comfortable—"

"Nah. I'm fine." Truthfully, they thought Ralsei's fur seemed very pleasant at that moment, since they were grinding their teeth to the point of real pain from the sheer bite of the cold, but they felt a strange pulling in their throat that they couldn't quite place, and that uncertainty made them want to be alone right now. Still, they felt a bit guilty. "I'm a light sleeper anyways."

And so this was the setup for the rest of the evening; there were light jabs exchanged between Kris and Susie before the chatting wound down to a few delirious comments every here and there, which caught friction with the night air and slowed into an inevitable slumber. But then Kris spit out one last stupid phrase, something that Susie and Noelle'd know, a joke suggestion whispered under their breath: "truth or truth?" And from the ashes of fatigue scattered on wet leaves below, a new social fire suddenly billowed, built of shouting and swearing and name-calling of a variety of immature colors, and all of a sudden they were all dying to play truth-or-truth.

Truth-or-truth was never meant to be a serious game, at least not to any of them. The whole thing had started as a stupid in-joke between Kris and their brother: allegedly, when Asriel was up at college, a couple of the frattier guys on his cross country team had pioneered this party game called 'truth-or-truth,' which was just truth-or-dare without the dares; firstly, because nobody actually likes the dares in truth-or-dare, and also because all of the fun, juicy, revelatory parts of the game happen on the truths. Now, the funny thing about it was that these douchey frat guys (Kris' words) would never actually have anything meaningful to ask the totally-hot girls they were trying to bag, so after a good two-or-so rounds the 'truths' would always just devolve into something asinine like "take your shirt off!!"

That basically became the premise of the joke between Kris and Azzy, and then Kris and Susie, and eventually Noelle too— examples of it in practice have included "truth-or-truth: stop drawing dicks on my goddamn paper!" (from Susie to Kris, during a recent history test) or "truth-or-truth: go have a sloppy French kiss make out session with Susie right now!" (from Kris to Noelle, in the middle of the school day, in the middle of the hallway). But the three of them had also tried to play the game seriously before, at sleepovers or whatever else— well, at least as seriously as truth-or-truth could ever be taken— and they all actually liked it as a game, even if, true to its design, it would always self-implode eventually.

But Ralsei didn't know any of this, and as the conversation began to heat up he offered only short and skeptical responses, playing absentmindedly with the fur between his fingers.

"Dude, Ralsei, it's easy, I promise!" Susie babbled uproariously. "Like, so if it was my turn to ask you a truth, I'd say like, 'Hey Ralsei, what's in that little dork notebook of yours,' and then you'd read it aloud and say, like, I dunno…'Dear Diary: today I once again woke up to the sight of my beautiful partner Kris beside me in bed. It was so—"

"I don't want to play this game!" The goat shoved his mouth into the cold vinyl of his hammock out of shame. Still, he was careful not to let his horns puncture any holes in the material— he was only borrowing it, after all.

Kris coughed away a giggle. "It's fine, Rals. You can ask about whatever. It doesn't have to be crazy, just something you're curious about someone."

"Yeah, yeah, what they said." Susie shuffled impatiently and squeezed tightly on the flushed deer between her arms— it hurt a little bit, but Noelle didn't really mind that at all, because it was for a good cause, of course, and Susie's scaled limbs were really quite cold to the touch. "Alright, who's going, though? Does anyone have anything?" There was some awkward hemming and hawing between the lot of them. "Hey, Noelle, why don't you go? You're smart and shit. Think of something."

"Oh, me?! Oh, crap…" She was flustered to the point that her ears and nose had picked up a reddish hue— along with the rest of her face, probably— and even if Susie couldn't see it, she could most certainly feel it. But it didn't seem to bother the dragon; in fact, she ended up resting her head in the crook of the deer's soft neck with a content huff. "U-uhm, Susie, truth-or-truth?" She didn't have to do much more than whisper.

"Mmm….truth."

"Okay, um, what's your biggest fear?"

"Huh."

Kris boo'd from above. "Oh, come on. Lame ass question. You should ask, like, 'which body part of mine would you be most willing to consensually bite?"

Noelle's antlers knocked Susie's jaw aside as her head shot up to face Kris directly. "I'm going to push you out of that goddamn hammock, you little shit!"

Kris just snickered, while Susie doubled-over laughing from the shock of hearing Noelle actually cuss someone out. "Dude, Noelle, holy shit??"

Noelle snapped back into fear. "Oh, gosh, uhm, did I hit you? I'm really sorry, Susie!" She patted down her matching striped pajama set and lowered herself back down into the hammock, keeping some hesitant space from how close she'd been with Susie previously. "Did I hurt you? I just got a bit carried away there, I'm really…"

Her thoughts were interrupted as Susie tackled her back into the clutch of her arms and they both sank into each-other from the hammock's natural gravity, the dragon's hot breath spilling out messily over the deer's straightened blonde hair. "Dude, never apologize for doing shit like that. I think I could listen to the sound of you swearing at people for literally, like, the rest of my life."

"Alright, can we play the goddamn game?" Kris was still pouting.

"Oh, whatever, Dreemurr. Uh, okay, something I fear, right? Shit, uh…" Susie grimaced. Tonight had been one of those special occasions for her, a rare moment when she was actually comfortable enough to really let loose and not be super skeptical of everything, so the thought of suddenly doing an introspective exercise was less than thrilling, to say the least. Still, she tried with sincerity, for the sake of the game, and for Noelle.

"I guess, uh, I guess losing you guys, really. Maybe that's corny, but like…I dunno. Everyone always says that stuff about people losing touch once they go to college and shit, but, like, we've been through so much together, all of us. We've literally saved each other 's lives on multiple occasions, and, like, basically saved the whole world, too, or at least our stupid town. So, like, I dunno, I don't feel like we just have to…forget each other, like we're supposed to. I don't know if I could live with myself if I forgot you guys. So I'm just gonna keep believing, that like, it's gonna be different for us. And that we'll be exceptions to the rule."

"Gosh, that's…" Ralsei was suddenly welling up, to his own surprise, though it really wasn't very hard to get him to cry. "That's really beautiful, Susie! And, uhm, for what it's worth, I have no intention of forgetting any of you all, either. You're all the first and best friends I'll ever have!"

A loving sigh escaped from Noelle. "Yeah, I second all of that. Susie, you know, you really speak so beautifully when you put your heart into it…"

Kris cleared their throat. "Alright, let's get on with it. Great stuff though, Susie."

It was Susie's turn: she asked Ralsei something trivial, basically just 'what his type was,' romantically speaking, and he stumbled through a nothing answer that essentially amounted to 'a kind personality.' (Shaggy hair and a good sense of humor weren't bad to have, either, but he kept that an inside thought.) The interrogation was an utterly terrifying experience for him, but Susie showed him some mercy and didn't prolong it for too long, so soon enough it became his turn to ask a question himself. He'd had a loose thought on his mind that he'd been meaning to ask Kris for some time now, and his heart had been wrapped up in the rare warmth of Kris' real laugh all night, thump-thumping against the mortal limits of his ribcage, so his direction was already naturally inclined in their direction.

"Okay, umm…truth-or-truth, K-Kris…?"

"Will you marry me??" Susie earned a giddy chuckle from her personal blanket.

"Alright, can it, Susie. I select truth, my precious Ralsei." They couldn't help but smile at the bleat which followed from their caprine friend.

"Why do you avoid going down by that bunker in the woods? You always get so nervous if we go any further than the Church during our walks."

The words were dead on arrival, cold and flailing in the dirt, like a bird that'd flown into a window. It was as if the entire forest had suddenly become vacuum-sealed shut; if there was any life still out there in the dark, it dared not to move any longer. The spirit of warm banter they'd had going wouldn't return for the rest of the night.

Noelle and Susie drew rigid and cold, drawing their lips into tight discipline. They were prepared for something somber, maybe even a funeral, ready to offer concessions and flowers for the family.

"Uhm, Ralsei, that's not really….you know…hmm. Noelle bit her fingernails between thoughts, trying to scavenge for gentle words under the cold wound which had just been re-opened in her chest. "I know it's probably confusing, because we've all been asking very personal questions tonight, but the point of this game is to ask about things that're a little less…heavy, y'know? So maybe you could ask about something else?"

The poor boy had already deflated. "Oh, gosh, I'm— I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to bring up anything that might be uncomfortable to talk about! Kris, please just forget I said anything."

"Nah. I'll do it." Kris' voice was cutting, bitterly cold, but determined. It didn't sound very much like them at all; perhaps a spirit had begun speaking through them. "It's a good spooky story. That's what you're supposed to do when you go camping anyways, right? Tell scary stories? This is a good one."

Noelle pinched the webbing of her fingers between her canines. "Kris, you don't have to do this."

"No. I want to. I won't go near it because—" They held themselves momentarily, and turned to address Ralsei directly. "Well, first you need to know that that place has a history of tragedy attached to it already. It's not important to get into the specifics, but it's charged with a certain, I dunno, energy, and just a great deal of grief, for me and for all of us. But the big reason I don't like it back there is because of the time I got myself trapped inside of the bunker. It has bad vibes now."

"You did what?" Noelle was shocked, and she wasn't alone— it seemed like nobody in the circle knew what they were referencing.

"….hey, don't act so hurt. It was only like partially intentional. Anyways, uh…so when I was, like, I dunno, maybe a…sophomore? It might've been, like sophomore summer? Oh, who cares. But, you know, around that time in your life is when you start to think of yourself a bit more relationally to the outside world, which is just to say you start seeing outside of yourself a little more. And there was this pattern I was starting to see with people in Hometown, especially right after Azzy left, where they'd try to avoid looking at me too closely, because I think I made them a little uncomfortable. I mean, it was probably deserved at that time, 'cause I was doing a lot of things to avoid getting trapped in people's looks of me; like, you think I'm gonna be a perfect model child? No, I'm not fucking doing that, because I don't owe you that. Or, like, you think I'm gonna hold your hand and tell you humans are just all nice and friendly and cute? And you think I'm gonna go out of my way to wear clothes that makes sense to you? Like, fuck you. That's what angsty little me thought, at least. But the issue with defining yourself in negatives, or just like, making your life a bunch of missions of things not to be, is that you aren't actually anything. So when people looked at me, and they couldn't make sense of me, and they didn't see anything else that might prove I really existed, they just…like, started looking away a little bit. It was only a fraction of a centimeter at first, but then it got to be inches, and eventually there really wasn't anybody left who seemed to even want to look at me at all. And, uh….do you know those optical illusion images, where there's a few black shapes and a bunch of blank space, and your brain just fills in the image even without the completed lines? It started feeling kinda like that when people looked at me, when they bothered to. Their eyes just filled in the gap around me, you know, edited out the inconvenience. After a while of like everybody I knew looking right through me like that, it started to feel true, too— like, I was alive, I guess, but was I really there? If all these people's worlds seemed so unchanged when I wasn't in the picture at all, then what did that make me? I hate to say it, but it started reminding me of how like, to this day, nobody in this fucking town will dare to even utter the name……….well, anyways."

Ralsei's entire body was shaking involuntarily, like a leaf getting tossed around by the wind at the end of its life. "I'm so, so sorry Kris, I, um, I didn't mean to bring up such a difficult topic. Please don't m-make yourself so uncomfortable for my sake! Just, please, forget I ever said anything—"

"Wait, hold on, I'm not even at the good part yet." They drew a shaky breath. "So, I think it was on like a random Wednesday, when I decided I was gonna skip school and go hide in the bunker, where I knew nobody was gonna come look for me, because of all that aforementioned ugly history associated with the place. It was a kind of personal test, just to see what would happen, to see if people would come and search for me, to see if they'd start looking again. Nobody ever believes me when I say this, but I wasn't trying to……like, I had every intention of coming out eventually. Mom was gonna make a bomb-ass casserole that night, anyways, so I definitely wasn't trying to miss that. I just…I dunno. I guess I was just curious to see what kind of shape I'd leave behind." A beat. "Anyways, so I get there, and I go inside, and get this— when I close the door behind me, it makes this awful, rusty clank!, and I was instantly just like, 'oh shit,' so I try to push up against it, but it doesn't budge at all. Turns out, there was an old electric lock on the door, which like, how? But point being is that I was fucking locked inside."

Then their eyes widened, and the timbre of their voice cracked open, booming in peaks and valleys it dared not to explore in ordinary times. "That's still not the fun part of the story, though. Because I'm in there, right, and I'm basically just like, am I cooked? 'Cause I must've been sitting down there for like, an hour or something, and it was just pure darkness, like could barely see my own hands. I mean, I don't know— the time scale was really hard to figure out, 'cause my phone wouldn't turn on at all, for some reason, which also meant I couldn't even call anyone. But then, after a while, I get an idea to look directly behind me, further into the shelter, and all of a sudden there's this strange man standing there. It might be a stretch to call him a man, because he wasn't really that, like….tactile? It was more-so the silhouette of a man: like, uhh, like the unconnected dots of a connect-the-dots puzzle, or that weird half-image you get when you try to take a night mode picture of yourself in pure darkness. He kinda blended in with everything else. I deadass thought I was hallucinating at first. Honestly, I probably was— they say that happens to the people who get locked up in the empty white rooms alone. But it gets crazier, because this creepy ass man starts talking to me, directly, but the words don't come from his mouth at all— his speech just kinda surrounded me as static noise on all sides. It almost seemed like it was coming from his hands, as if they were a radio; they were this freaky pure ashy white, too, like when they put the makeup on the corpses in the caskets. I dunno. But he starts—"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Susie spit out the words like a burning match on the tip of her tongue. "Are you being serious? Why are you describing shit as if its, like, brain puzzles? Is this, like, a gag? 'Cause if it is, it's not a very funny one. I mean, I dunno, don't mean to be a downer, but that bunker shit isn't funny. Also, were you joking about all that depression talk at the beginning, or were you being serious? Do you…need help, man?" The end of the phrase broke something in her throat, and it took a few deep breaths to get it back.

Kris turned away, towards nobody, towards nowhere. "It's a ghost story."

"Alright, and? Are you just making shit up to scare us?"

"Nah, it's all true. It just happens to be a story about ghosts. But it's a true story." A pause, teeming with invisible life. "Can I continue now?

The dragon's rage still flared in her chest, but she knew better than to let it fly untempered. Maybe they had something important to say. "…I mean, sure, man, whatever. Hit me."

Kris cleared their throat. "So, as I was saying, the guy starts saying all this shit to me, which I was only kind of half-listening to, because you know I'm still internally freaking out, but he addresses me name and shit, and is like: Kris…you'll be a goner soon…I can help you. I can set you free. Let me help you. Don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but, I dunno, I was just like, sure, man. What the hell. I didn't see any other way out of there. So he reaches out to me all creepily, and the next thing I remember is huge, like, searing flash of pure white light, and all of a sudden I'm lying there face down in front of the bunker on the grass, and my Dad is standing over me pressing on my chest, like Kris! Kris! Can you hear me? Now, my initial instinct was to say 'no,' but for some reason, I just couldn't do it. Instead, my mouth opened for itself, and something else put its hand into down my throat and said 'yes' for me." Kris seemed to withdraw a bit, and their tone became more pensive. "And that's the story of how I came to be possessed by the Soul. Surprise! I guess I never did get the chance to tell you all how it all started. Weird, isn't it? At first, I was just like, I'm so screwed. Like, how am I going to survive only being able to control my own body in fifteen minute intervals? But then something really funny happened. When the Soul was inside of me, people started looking at me again. Like, when I went to school, and my throat would say words for me to people, they didn't seem so off-put anymore. They'd look me right in the eyes; they'd even laugh at my jokes sometimes. My mom actually took me aside and congratulated me on how much improvement I was showing: that I was getting out more, being more social, working harder in school, yadda yadda. Other than maybe, like, Noelle, everyone just seemed so much more comfortable around my body when I wasn't the one who had control of it. It was as if they'd been waiting for me to be possessed my whole life; as if having the Soul was the natural state of me that they'd all just been waiting to see come out. Kinda funny, isn't it? 'Course, now that I've gone and banished it, so its just back to me now. Now I'm just waiting for everybody to start looking away again. And as much as I hated that goddamn thing, I do think…it was nice to be in view for a little while."

There was fuzzy silence. All of them were sprawled out but still, quiet and a bit light-headed, trying to figure out what to do with their hands. Eventually, a hiccuped whine broke from Ralsei's lips, followed by a real sob, and suddenly he was full-on weeping, so he had to use his hands to take his glasses off before he could cry a lot more.

"Sorry, Rals. Didn't mean to scare ya so much." Kris tried to lighten their phrasing, but it didn't really work— the words were just too heavy on their own.

"Kris, o-oh Angel…." A heaving, hacking breath. "…how can you be so c-cruel to yourself?"

His words struck an odd nerve in the human, and they didn't try to fight the rush of fear that followed— it was like a bull charging movement, just an act of instinct. "Well, you know, Rals, not all of us are fucking angels with fluffy, fuckin', perfect hearts. Some of us aren't worth throwing pity parties for." They caught the early mist of an onset tear in their right eye, but pushed it back angrily. "Oh, and in case you forgot, how about that thing you were saying to me last night? You can seal the Dark Fountain if you hate having me around so much! Did you think that wasn't cruel? Did you think that didn't make me feel like the whole world was slipping through my fucking fingers?"

"Kris! That's enough." Without fanfare, Noelle disentangled herself from Susie and lurched down from the high hammock onto the tough earth below. She strolled cautiously to Ralsei's hammock and offered a consolatory caress to his ears, which were folded inwards and paralyzed by guilt. "Hey, Ralsei? If you're feeling up for it, I was thinking of going for a small walk around the campground, and I'd love to have you join me." Her words were hushed and patient, though truthfully she felt as though she needed the walk just as badly as Ralsei.

The goat boy nodded meekly, and Noelle assisted him in disembarking from his hammock. Armed with a single flashlight, they took off into the night, clambering down the hill and out to the access roads which looped around the entire campground in messy webs.

For the rest of the park it seemed to be a rather tranquil night, and while you'd occasionally catch some slurred murmurs from one of the few lonely tents still alight, most of the natural world had long-since said its goodbyes.

The two friends marched along in synchronized step, displacing pebbles and sand carelessly, a little faster than they needed to be going; they were both still quite shaken. Noelle had reassured Ralsei several times that he didn't need to say or tell her anything— she just wanted to make sure he got a moment to take a breath and process things in his own environment, and while he was too busy sobbing to properly express it, he really appreciated the gesture. Ralsei loved Kris, but it was hard to think straight around them sometimes, especially when they got upset.

The cold was starting to take a wear on him, though, and he sniffled here and there as the bite of the weather bled under his fur and into his sinuses. Still, he had so much crowding his mind, and he wanted to be brave about it; or maybe it was weakness, really, because it all seemed too heavy to hold alone this time around.

"Did Kris ever tell you it was supposed to be me w-who…" It took him a while to gather all the words together, but Noelle was patient and kind, endlessly so in Ralsei's mind. "Back in the Dark World, w-when they sacrificed their Soul to banish the darkness…it wasn't supposed to be the Soul that was left behind. It was supposed to be me. I was, I was m-meant to be the sacrifice. But at the last second, K-Kris, they…used the Soul for the seal instead, even though I'd told them that I wasn't sure they could survive without the Soul at a-all! It was thanks to Susie's healing, really, that they managed to make it out okay, but they were so, so, sick, for weeks on end. Noelle, I was…"

Ralsei's chest rattled with ragged pants, up and down and up again, and the deer offered an outstretched hand for comfort. "I was so scared, Noelle. And I— I'd greatly enjoyed all my adventures with all of you, obviously, and c-cherished them all so deeply, but I didn't……you know, I didn't h-have any obligations to get back to, o-or family to I'd be disappointing, or goals I hadn't achieved yet. I was at peace with taking the hurt, a-and I let myself stay in that head-space for a long time, s-so…now that I'm in the Light World, sometimes it feels like, l-like, that I've…overstayed my welcome? When I first saw Kris up here as themselves, t-they, you know, to me at least, it seemed like they had such a beautiful family, and all these beautiful little stories about themselves. And, honestly, everyone had such rich lives, and such lovely stories to tell, and— and— I had nothing! I j-just haven't done anything quite right yet, you know? I told myself: I'm going to make myself useful by making Kris smile, a-and I can't even get that right! It seems like people only smile a-around me when they pity me! Everyone's been so kind, and I can't offer anything in return, s-since there's no big purpose already written out for me a-anymore, and I don't think I'm good enough to mean anything to anyone on my own. And I can't even give repay their kindness with money, because I can't get a job, b-because I don't even have a Social Security number, and—"

"Ralsei. Ralsei. Shhh." Noelle draped her polished hooves between the gap in Ralsei's feet and wrapped him in the tightest hug she could muster. "It's okay, Ralsei. It's going to be okay. I know that probably sounds stupid, but I really mean it. You're going through some really big changes right now, but you've been so brave! And you've done incredible things, too! Do you know— I don't think I've ever enjoyed school as much as I have in our tutoring sessions!"

They both chuckled a bit, unsure of how else to burn off their sudden warmth. "But— I mean it! Honest! Ralsei, you have such a kind way of thinking about the world, and you're funny, and personable, and thoughtful….all of that. I'm so grateful for our time together, and I know everyone else is, too. Susie, Toriel, Kris— especially Kris. I've never seen them light up as much as they do around you, even if they can be a bit of an ass about it. And honestly, if you ask me, I think they're just scared of how much they love you. So please, Ralsei, never think…I hope you never think you don't belong here. Because you've brought so much joy to all of us, a-and I know that however things play out, whatever bigthing happens next, that you'll make it so much brighter, and warmer, and kinder just by being there. We're all so lucky to have you. So don't sweat the little things so much, alright?"

"Noelle, I…" His mouth hung open in the space of indescribable love, too big to be held in words like this. "Thank you. Thank you. G-gosh, I don't even…know what to say…"

"That's alright!" She smiled, the crease of her heavy brow just visible in the soft glow of the flashlight. "You don't have to say anything. Just being here, and being willing to be vulnerable with me— that's all you need. You're doing great."

Their hands stayed joined together for the rest of the walk, shivering fingers jammed into the warmth of the other's, until they finally made it back to the campsite.

Susie threw her head back, trying to swallow her throbbing migraine deep enough to form a coherent thought. The only conversation since Ralsei and Noelle had left was Kris' ragged breath and her own ugly snorting.

"You know, uh…Kris?"

A long, rolling pause. "Yeah?"

"Look, uh, don't tell Noelle I said this, 'cause I'm pretty sure she'd be mad at me, but, like, I kinda think you're right, in a way, about the Ralsei thing. Like, y'know, Ralsei doesn't…really know what he's talking about, with regards to your life. You've been through a lot of shit, and you're still going through a lot of shit, and just pretending that it doesn't hurt isn't gonna help anyone."

She steeled herself— she hated being so intimately confrontational with someone she held so dearly, who she didn't want to scare away like everyone else. "But, that's also the thing. He doesn't know stuff yet. He's had to learn and adapt to so much, so quickly, and like…even if its imperfect, he's trying to care. And he really cares, like, so much. So please, just try to…work with him, at least. Because I know it really hurts him when you're all cuddled up and cooing over him one second and cussing him out the next."

A dam broke inside of Kris, and a sigh escaped them with the force of an exorcised spirit. "Yeah. Shit. You're right, Suz. Oh, damn it all…"

They clicked their tongue and looked to the sky for answers, trying to make sense of the stars through the cover of muddy clouds. "I think that when we did all the Dark World shit, I was really expected an answer to it all. Like, was I chosen for a reason? Is this Soul thing gonna teach me something about myself? Was I supposed to say something different to that dude in the bunker? Is that what……is that what she saw, back when she got left in that bunker way back then? What would she have said to him?"

They turned over and pressed their hot forehead against the cool hammock vinyl, enjoying the sensations of the circled creases against their skin. "But I didn't get anything. I'm just back to being…shitty old me. And, man, I love Ralsei, but he makes me think dangerous stuff about myself. He makes me, like, embarrassed I didn't brush my hair in the morning, and sad I don't have a better relationship with my mom, and stuff like that. When I'm with him, I start thinking I could actually be something worthwhile, and that I need to be someone really worthwhile, like just for his sake. But I'm actually a shitty, shut-in loser, and I don't think he knows this world well enough to know just how much of a loser I actually am yet, so he keeps—"

"STOP. Stop. Stop."

"But, wait, my point is—"

"Nope. Not going to let you finish. Not even close."

"Susie—"

"KRIS!!" With tremendous force, the dragon hoisted herself to the top of her hammock so she could grab Kris' hand and shake it about wildly, looking a bit like a dog snapping the neck of its prey. "Ralsei's not dumb! He's not! You know that! He knows exactly what and who you are, and he loves you. I probably shouldn't be saying this, but he's, like, desperately in love with you! He laughs at every stupid joke you make, and— I mean, God, you can see it— he's so into all the stupid gaming stunts and whatever the hell else you do. You could literally projectile vomit onto his shirt and he'd probably keep the stain for the memory. And he's right! You're awesome, Kris!! You're smart, you're a bad-ass, you fight for yourself and your friends, you can be super sweet, at least when you're not trying so hard to be nonchalant…so I don't want to hear any of this not good enough bullshit. You laid down our life for all of us, and you're, like, basically the only good thing in this town. You're awesome, dude."

They scoffed. "Heh. Well, thanks, Suz. Appreciate it."

But she didn't let them go quite yet. "But you need to have a conversation with him, ASAP. Like tonight. Go talk to him. Figure your stuff out. And maybe also make out with him."

"I'm not— oh my God, Susie, I will talk to him, b-but this isn't—" The human curled up into a pathetic ball, the ridge of their spine just visible through the edge of their ratty old t-shirt.

"Oh, really? It isn't? What is it, then, exactly?"

"I—"

"Just— if you do get to it tonight, can you tell me who kisses who first, please? Some of us have been dying to know."

Kris motioned to protest, but was swallowed up by something indescribable. "…fine."

Before they knew it, they were being hoisted up beyond gravity and thrust straight up to the sky in boisterous celebration, for all the forest to bear witness to. Susie's roaring might have woken a neighbor or two up, but this was too giant of a moment to be observed in silence.

When Ralsei and Kris had finally completed their bumpy, silent trek to the ambiguously defined 'cool spot Kris knew about,' both of them were shivering and whittled down to the bone with fatigue— neither had a gauge on the exact time, but it was well into the delirious hours of the night, the sort of time when your brain scatters into incoherency and your stomach folds itself into strange new pains and sensations. Still, they persisted, because they cared too deeply for each other to rest without knowing the other could rest peacefully too.

It was a gorgeous outcropping; a small diversion from the main road into a narrow, muddy path, which emerged out to a tall stretch of boulders tapered by thick canopies of oak leaves which wept in the wind overhead. The boulders themselves stood guard above a large, misty pond, with a surface that gently rocked in small peaks and crests, pacifying as the loving hold of a mother. And well above them, years away, laid a heavy moon indenting the deep sky, pimpled with thousands of craters, pregnant and full of the possibilities of the night.

Kris clicked off their flashlight and clambered onto the rounded peak of the largest rock, their silhouette dancing gracefully under the strange rays of the moon. "Nice, isn't it?"

"Mmm. It's pretty." Ralsei settled down into the soft, marshy Earth between the thick roots of a tall oak, his back propped forwards by the strange bend of the trunk.

They let the shore wash over their hearts for a while, just laying like that. Still, Ralsei grew restless.

"Kris, I want to apologize to you, for earlier. I—"

Kris couldn't help but to laugh a bit to themselves. "Ralsei, you don't have to apologize. I— I got too caught up in my own insecurities. I'm the one who needs to be better towards you."

"No, but Kris, I want to apologize. So if you don't mind, I'm…I'm g-going to give you a real apology."

With a soft breath, Ralsei ran through the loose mental script he'd been revising and playing out thousands of times over in the course of the last hour. He locked his palms into one another, as if he were praying, and steadied himself against the tree. "Kris Dreemurr, I want to offer a sincere apology for how I have treated you as of recent. When…okay, um, well….I think that when I first came to the Light World, I noticed quickly that you were struggling a little bit with fitting in, like at, l-like at home, and at school, and in the community. And it really freaked me out Kris, because— just because you mean so much to me, a-and you make me feel such…deep, deep feelings, feelings, things I think my body still hasn't quite learned how to hold. I wanted to help give you a life that was just as wonderful you deserved, s-so when I saw you struggling, I think that care spilled out into an attempt to, say…correct things, to…to get you to 'fit' right into those places that you were struggling to fit into, at l-least, according to my very narrow perspective of what the 'right' fit looked like, with as little fighting and tension and bad feelings as possible. But, the more I've listened to you talk, and seen of your life, I think….I think I'm starting to see a lot of this world is…well, it's b-bullshit!"

Kris jeered in exuberant joy. "I m-mean it! Someone as caring, and determined as you, Kris…you deserve a lot b-better than what you've gotten! And, the more I thought about it, the more I've realized that the world I truly love isn't the Light World. It's…it's your world. Kris' world. I love the way you make the world feel, Kris. I love when you smile, or when you make s-strange jokes nobody else would ever think of, or get all flustered and protective, or when you…point out the constellations to me, and….honestly, I even like it when you make fun of me!" His tight composure loosened a bit as he broke into a smile. "So, uhm, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I'm…I'm going to make a promise to myself, to not try to force you to fit into things that just aren't fair. Because I don't want you to bend into everyone else's world— I want you to be happy in your own world, Kris. And I'm not gonna rest until I can help make that world as bright and beautiful as possible! So, I hope you can…accept that."

There was a long pause kept alive by nothing but the gentle touch of the breeze, until Kris' voice broke through.

"R-Rals, I…"

But they couldn't hold the thought for long before a whine enveloped their voice, and they had to hunch their stinging eyes into the rough cotton of their sleep shirt to hold back sobbing, which was suddenly gushing out uncontrollably from their eyes. Their entire form began to heave in shocking rhythms, a sort of call and response with the same force of lighting into thunder. Ralsei scrambled up onto the rock to perch beside his friend, and attempted to wrap him up as firmly as he could muster without losing his balance. Never once had he seen Kris really cry.

Kris turned their chin towards the light, towards Ralsei; they beheld his soft features, the warmth in his pink eyes, now unadorned by glasses and left exposed in their natural beauty, the gentle sway of his fur in the breeze, the ticklish glow of his smile, the astute regiment of his soft breaths, in and out, in and out, an ordinary angel right here in the flesh. They sat up a bit, nearly bringing the bridge of their sharp nose into contact with Ralsei's face, and brushed their low bangs out of their eyes, though tears still stung at the corners of their vision— they wanted to squeeze every moment of sense they could get from this moment.

"I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Ralsei smiled, but didn't flinch at all— the two of them continued to fill each other's hearts with hot air from their scratchy throats, and in the close quarters they occupied it felt as though they were in the midst of the stickiest, most humid, most awfully hot summer's night that's ever known to man. Their hearts revved and roared with life; the sinewed legs of racehorses in the pen, itching to burst forth with all the strength and all the life that has laid dormant for most of their lives leading up to a singular, extraordinary moment.

Kris let a chilled finger drift to the corner of Ralsei's cheek, at first a shocking, alien encounter, which eased as Kris laid more and more and their palm into the boy's fur, and began to take a tighter hold.

"Can I…"

The thought didn't need to be complete— they collapsed into each other's lips as if it were simple gravity, as if they had no where else to go— and then they fell into one another entirely, pleading and pressing and sliding against each other's legs and hips and stomachs, trying to let out some of the scorching heat as friction. Kris eased Ralsei down onto the flat of his back, gentle against the uneven rock, as they mashed their mouth and all of it's saliva and bad breath and teeth into sticky, desperate contact with the roof of Ralsei's mouth, and they both believed it was the greatest moment of their lives.

They were breathless, hopelessly entangled in the other's limbs after an eternity of quiet smooches and violent making-out, though every so often Kris would manipulate Ralsei's body to bring him closer to their chest or more directly in their grasp. Even though Ralsei had packed an entire spare lint roller for Kris' clothing, since his fur had a tendency to stick onto standard textiles, he was still nervous it wouldn't be enough to clean up the furry mess he'd made on their shirt and loose flannel shorts— he'd hadn't been expecting such direct encounters.

Kris tucked their hand into the crook of Ralsei's ear, rubbing gently up to where his horns began and back down again in gentle circles. "Y'know, I suppose I can tell you this now, but I've been having, like…strange, kinda, uhh…fantasies, about you, for a while." They snickered to themselves, while Ralsei's tail began to brush gentle circles against Kris' stomach. "Like, I'm like, the laziest person in the world, right? But I've been, just, having these reoccurring daydreams of, like, you being sick, and me driving out at 2 AM to go pick up cough medicine for you, and being there to take care of you. Like, what the hell does that mean? If it were anyone else in the world, that would sound like hell to me, but I, like, desperately want to do that for you. Good God, I'm sappy. And, like, even just looking out here—" With their pointer finger, they took an arm draped around Ralsei's shoulder and traced the treeline on the other side of the pond— "Most of the time, I'd think living out here in the woods just seems…mosquito-y, and annoying, and a pain in the ass. But now I'm thinking that I'd love to, just like, escape out here with you, and have to build a shitty shelter out of sticks to share, and you could help make the camp look all cute and efficient while I'd go foraging for creepy mushrooms and berries and shit, and we'd share it all together at the end of the night by the fire. You know?"

Ralsei hummed excitedly. "I could make homemade apple cider!" He'd become a huge fan of apple cider ever since Toriel had organized a Dreemurr Family + Ralsei trip to a local orchard a few Saturdays back.

"Yeah. Yeah, you could." They couldn't help but giggle aimlessly, like a little kid who'd just discovered the concept of humor for themselves. "We could have everything."

They guided the top of Ralsei's head inwards, closer to their cheek, laying to rest between their horns. "I just want you to be a pain in my ass. For forever, I think. Or like, a canker sore, on the inside of my cheek, but a good one. You can give me a little nip every so often, you know, remind me I could actually be something good one day."

Ralsei hummed wearily, still profoundly flustered but at peace, and positively exhausted.

"Anyways. Think what I'm trying to say…" They gritted their teeth. "…is that I'm in love with you. And I'd love to…take you on a serious date, someday soon. Partner. Babe. Sweetie? Eh, those all suck."

Once he'd managed his laughter, Ralsei drew deeper into Kris' scent to ground himself; it was a rustic mixture of artificial green apple shampoo, body odor, smoke, and the crunched-up leaves of early Fall. He hoped he'd never get the chance to forget it. "I…I l-love you too, Kris. And…I'm still a bit nervous, you know, that something could still happen with the fountain, or that I might not be able to stay here with you forever, but, uhm, well…" He weighed heavily on his next words. "I think being with you here tonight has filled me up with enough love to last me for the rest of my life. So I'd love to take…every day I can get with you. My love."

Kris drew Ralsei in for the hundredth kiss, but paused when they felt a resistant strain from Ralsei's neck.

"Well, under one condition." It was hard to tell in the soft moonlight, but mischief flickered unbound in Ralsei's eyes.

"Yes?"

"That you…let me assist you in re-packing your daily lunches for school."

Kris feigned anguish, bowing their head in shame. "Oh, Ralsei, please have mercy! Anything else!"

"A half-eaten bag of Cheetos and a Celsius is not a meal! I cannot have my partner treating their body so carelessly!"

There was a moment where Kris caught Ralsei's eyes in the perfect slit of light as they stared each other down in jest, face to face, heart to heart; they thought that if they had to pick right now, they'd have to call it the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen. "Alright, fine, but only if you let me actually teach you how to play Super Smashing Fighters. And, like, really play, not the Susie way with fifty stocks and every item in the game on screen at once."

"I suppose that sounds…agreeable." He beamed, as brightly as his cheeks could hold.

The banter carried on like that for a few minutes more before they'd drifted off in each other's arms, having to take no special effort to collapse into a much needed slumber. They'd be woken up by the sunrise, and they planned to sneak back to camp before Alphys learned of their treasonous sleeping arrangement— but, truthfully, even if Toriel tore into Kris for it with the full might of her rage, neither of them would've traded anything for this moment of having the whole world to themselves, even if just for a few hours. They had crossed a hope on the tissue of each other's hearts too strong, too sacred, too binding to be undone by anything in this material plane. (Plus, they both thought was a nice gesture to let Noelle and Susie have the hammocks to themselves, so that maybe they could have a special talk of their own).

Kris couldn't remember the last time they'd been this eager to wake up tomorrow. And, oh, who really knows— maybe Ralsei's worst fears were right, and maybe this would all end up as nothing more than a temporary fantasy— but at the very least, it would make for a better story to tell over the next campfire.