Work Text:
This fight had been going from bad to worse. Even with Kris doing the best they could, it was clear the trio wasn't going to win this one. This shouldn't be happening, they had gotten past harder enemies, they had won bigger battles.
"Susie; attack left. Ralsei; heal Susie." Kris commanded, as deadpan as ever. For how insanely weird Kris was, they were at least pretty good at telling her who to beat up.
Kris tried to ACT against the enemy, it barely made a dent. Susie threw herself towards the enemy, it didn't deal enough damage. Ralsei tossed out a healing spell, it didn't heal enough HP.
The enemy retaliated, Kris was sluggish in their dodges. Ralsei tried to soak the brunt of the damage, but he looked weaker and weaker with each attempt. He straggled back into position once the attack was over, nearly falling over as an attack he took to his leg threatened to finally do him in.
Finally, with one wearily slash, Kris dispatched the final enemy. It was done, and they were still in one piece.
"All right Kris! I kn..knew you had it in you!" Ralsei cheered, as usual, before looking over and seeing the state they were in, "youu, I can h-, you're hurttt, I I I." He started to stumble over to them, slurring his words as he tried to speak.
Susie could barely turn her head in time to see him smash face-first into the dirt.
Carrying Ralsei wasn't close to an issue, he somehow weight even less than he looked. Susie wondered if his clothes weighted more than the goat himself.
The rest of the trek back home was a quiet blur, Kris obviously wasn't much of a chatter and without an easy target to pick on Susie didn't have much to say. Susie watched the ground the whole way back, only looking up occasionally to make sure she was following Kris.
Castle Town was quiet without Ralsei; the two of them walked past the darkeners, not bothering to make any of their usual conversation. Susie carried Ralsei directly into the castle
Somehow, the castle itself was even quieter. Susie took Ralsei into his 'room', before remembering how little amenities the goat gave himself. She took him into nearby Kris' room instead, laying him down atop the blankets.
Walking out, Susie turned to look back at Ralsei's still body. She felt a pang deep inside her from seeing him hurt like this, she turned back and dash out of the room before that feeling grew any stronger.
Susie had gotten good at shrugging off feelings, even with her recent adventures she still liked to think she was above those mushy things. But even so, she could feel it creeping in, freezing her veins as it worked its way through her. Ralsei was asleep, Kris had left to go do Kris actions, the Darkeners were all in the Castle Town shops.
Susie was alone. No Noelle, no Kris, no wacky boss monster. She was alone, slumped over in some wing of the castle away from the sounds of the town, finally letting herself rest for the first time in hours.
She didn't fully know why, but without realizing it she began to hate those "friends" of hers. The stupid idiotic way Kris wanted to "help" everything they came across, that infuriating smile Ralsei always tried to put on, the way he always pushed the three of them to get all 'close'.
Well she had tried, and because of that they almost got killed.
There was a crash in a nearby room, the first Susie has heed in over an hour, she didn't know what she expected had happened but regardless she grabbed her axe and rushed down the hall. She barged through the door and didn't fully realize where she was until she saw who was in front of her.
"Kris! Kris! I can heal you! KRIS!"
Ralsei had crawled from the bed and, once again, smashed face-first into the floor. He was writhing on the ground, trying to get his worn muscles and torn body to obey him.
"KRIS! Wh-where are you! WHER-" he focuses on Susie, "wh-w-w-where are they?- where ar- I- wh," he was babbling nonstop, even as Susie tried to pull him back onto the bed.
"Dude, quit moving! It's over! It's- dammit," Ralsei began thrashing around trying to escape Susie's grasp, only pausing to desperately choke down gulps of breath.
"They're FINE! We're FINE! Quit yelling already! Just calm down dude!"
"They're HURT! They're hurt and I need to help them," Susie had managed to fully pin him by this point, and his attacks smouldered into the occasional shake between breaths. "Please please I need to- pl- they're hurt- I-hic-I I n-hic-eed to- I h- ple-hic." His gasps for breath broke into a full sob as he gripped on to Susie.
"p-pl- I- I cant- plea- they-," Susie looked down at his broken shaking body. "Dude, Kris is like, okay and stuff." He tried to pull himself closer to Susie, she moved herself away before she could even process what was happening.
"Hey! Will you chill out! You're the hurt one here. Jeez dude you are, uhh, you look really bad. Like really bad."
This was the first time Susie had fully looked over Ralsei since she had brought him in, she had no clue how darkener injuries worked but she knew what bruises looks like, she could hear his pained-breaths whenever he tried to move.
Looking down at him, she felt that same pain in her. She slowly reached out her claws and lightly laid it on Ralsei's forehead.
"Ahhhss", Ralsei singed at the feeling of the pressure. Susie ripped her hand back, feeling a tingly pit open up inside her at hurting her friend.
"Sorry uh... sorry," Susie tried to lighten her hand, even barely grazing his forehead she could feel that he was concerningly hot. "You should... probably... uhh. One sec dude." She awkwardly got up and left the room looking for a towl, punching herself for being so stammery around someone so nerdy.
She returned quickly to the room, towel still dripping hand. Even as she laid it over Ralsei's burning head she felt a tingle in her hands, her causing Ralsei to gasp in pain.
"I'm... gonna go get some more... medicine... n stuff." she awkwardly stammered out while shuffling from the room.
Walking back to her isolated section, she passed by her room. She kept walking, that room felt too close to the others, too "connected" to the rest of the group. Soon enough she was slumped back down on the cold stone.
Her festering hatred had quickly grown inwards, she had let them get hurt, she had hurt him. She was supposed to care about them, but she had let them down again. But lets be honest, what did she expected? She was violent. She was destructive. She was a time bomb with a short fuse. That's just what she was, why did she ever expect she could change for her friends?
Her friends...
Her friends.....
What a "friend" she was.
She hated Kris for pretending to like her, she hated Ralsei for pretending to care about her, she hated herself for pretending she could be anything different.
Pushing herself up with her axe, she made her way towards the Castle Town exit. She had had enough of this nice-girl act, the least she could do now is stop hurting her friends. The least she could do now is stop acting like any of them would consider themselves her friends.
She had just started down the steps when she heard even more crashing. This time she didn't have to guess where it was coming from.
Ralsei wasn't looking at her with anger as much as he was with a disappointing sadness. His glare seemed to apologize with every look he gave Susie.
"Y.. you really don't h-"
"Shut up."
The room was silent as she shifted the ice pack around his body over the various bruise sites.
"I... i can probably heal thes-"
"Shut. Up." Susie's voice had quickly turned from compassionate to annoyed with each attempted blurb by the goat.
"Look dude, you fucked yourself up in the fight and you're continuing to fuck yourself up now. So just sit still and let me do this."
Susie had had to drag (honestly it was more of flinging him back on there) Ralsei on to his own bed after he crashed out of Kris' again. She hoped being in his own 'room' would make him calm down a little more. Thankfully this attempt had left him so destitute that he didn't have a choice in staying still. The tears in his eyes still threatened to give way with every move Susie made.
By now, Susie's plans of leaving had subsided, replaced by an inexplicable urge to help Ralsei. She guessed the sheer patheticness he held in his face was enough to keep her by his side, and here she thought Kris had dramatic puppy eyes.
She still didn't want to stay, she still didn't want to keep hurting the only people who pretended to care about her, but looking at Ralsei's battered body she struggled to come up with any way to make his situation worse short of an axe to the face.
The ice had melted by now, and a small stream had started running down her hand. She stood up and moved to put the ice pack on the...
Ralsei didn't have a table in his room, or a desk, or a chair, or a... anything. Even the bed he laid on was improvised out of pillows and covers from her and Kris' rooms. She was hit by a sudden sense of familiarity to her own childhood room.
"Hey, Ralsei." She felt almost guilty bringing this up to him in his current state.
"wwuhghh?"
"Why... don't you have anything?"
Ralsei only lowered his eyes.
Susie waited for an answer, but the silence stretched so long it started to hurt. She almost took it back, almost muttered some dumb excuse about teasing him. But before she could, Ralsei finally spoke.
“I... don’t need anything.”
His voice was thin and strained, as he forced the words through a throat that didn’t want to work.
"You guys are the heros, the lighteners. I don't want to take anything you guys may need. I'm really ok like this."
"Wow. That's like, mega-sad."
"It's not that bad. I just want to make sure you two have enough, I just don't want to drag you guys dow-."
"No."
There was a pause as Ralsei took in her interruption.
"N-no?" he stammered out.
"No. You're not gonna be some self-sacrificing hero. We... you need to care about yourself, you need to do things for yourself. I mean look at you dude, you're not even strong enough to walk. You need to put yourself first sometimes. Because, well, we need you y'know. You keep us alive. You're the one who tells us everything." By now Susie's gaze had glued to the floor.
"You're-" Ralsei tried to sit up and speak but collapsed back down in a coughing fit.
"You're right, this is... I'm... I'm being selfish with all of this, aren't I?"
Susie's gaze exploded back to Ralsei as she made a face of anger, confusion, and surprise-dissapointment
"I'm keeping us stuck here, I'm forcing you to eat up time healing me. Dammit!" Ralsei had laid back down, curling into himself with his knees on his chest. Susie had been knocked into a moment of silence by hearing the small goat yell like that.
"How, how am I supposed to help you guys if I'm just constantly acting so selfishly."
Susie had snapped out of her stunlock by now.
"No it's, ughhhhhh!" She wished she could have Ralsei's ability to explain things, she wished she could just cut open her chest and let the thoughts wash out instead of trying to tack them into stupid little words.
"You shouldn't just care about this because of your stupid prophesy!" she shouted out. "You shouldn't give yourself cool stuff just because it helps others! You shouldn't see yourself as important just because you're useful to us!"
"Then, why?" he sounded almost sad having to ask such a question.
"Because..."
Susie stopped, she felt her momentum come crashing in to her. She looked for anyway to back track out of the position she had thrown herself into, or at the very least anyway to get herself out of this room.
"Because Kris cares a lot about you, and I need Kris for... school n stuff." she hated the words as they came out of her mouth. She hated how even now all she could do was run away.
"And... and even if we didn't care about you, even if we hated you, you should still put yourself first sometimes. Because sometimes, sometimes you just have to be selfish in life."
"But, what if I hurt someone because of that? What if people don't like me when I'm selfish?"
"Welcome to life, dumbass. Stepping on toes is just what happens." she gave Ralsei one last look back before she left.
Ralsei laid awake into the night. It wasn't all too surprising, he wasn't very tired after lying in bed for hours on end. Susie's words rattled around in his head.
To him, he existed first and foremost for the prophesy and, by extension, the foretold lighteners. His worth, his value, his everything had come from how useful he made himself.
And now he couldn't even get the useful part right. He debated trying to get up again, to prove to himself that he was fine, that he just had to push himself a little bit more, but even thinking about that caused his head to ache in a dull pain.
Susie had been back occasionally, washing his wounds, feeding him, icing his bruises, but neither of them had said anything beyond the usual "thank you" and "stop saying 'thank you', nerd". He was almost glad at not having to talk, even thinking too hard made his clouded head throb with pain.
He had never hated himself more, and judging by her face Susie hated him too. She had kept him at arms length the entire day, never meeting his eyes. She only kept glancing around the room whenever she came in.
Every meal he was fed, he could only think about how hungry the others must be. Every bandage he used up, he could only imagine Kris' blood.
Even looking around the room he had been bedridden to, he could only see wasted space. How much more could his friends have if he wasn't so self-centered?
What Susie had said, even with her little speech, it was clear she didn't believe it. He had seen how she looked away, how she faltered for just a moment before saying he should care about himself. She was talking nice to him, trying to calm his already battered body down.
He could have done so much more. If he just wasn't so selfish, if he just wasn't so lazy, if he had just pushed himself a little bit harder to help his friends.
His friends...
His friends.....
What a "friend" he was.
Susie entered the room again, arms filled with a mix medicines and soup-adjacent liquids. She laid her haul on the bare floor next to the growing pile of used napkins, bandage packages, and empty cracker wrappers. Ralsei was almost glad to have it there, a motivating reminder of just how taxing he was.
He wanted nothing more than to apologize, to ask for forgiveness for letting the others down, for being too weak. If it was Kris he was facing, he might have refused these services, but it was clear Susie wasn't in a mood to debate him.
And so once more he sat up and removed his blankets, cringing as his cuts hit the cold air and wincing as the movement built an uncomfortable pressure within his skull.
Susie began the first part of their new routine. She looked over him, inspecting each bandage and carefully unwrapping and rewrapping the ones that had gotten dirty, flinching back each time Ralsei gave a pained gasp. She passed the ice pack over his bruises, repeating over and over until the cold had been sapped from it.
It was different seeing Susie take such precise care with her movements, Ralsei had never seen her be so cautious. Using her claws as delicately as she could to dress his wounds.
Ralsei laid back down, turning his head away from Susie. It was already enough that she was healing him, but he couldn't bear having her feed him too. He could get his own food, and if he couldn't, if he was too weak to get out of bed and take care of himself, then maybe he didn't deserve it.
Susie didn't move, Ralsei could sense how disappointed she was with him. She gave a low mumble, lightly poking Ralsei in the side until he eventually gave in and turned back over. She still didn't meet his eyes.
Finally sitting up, Ralsei watched as Susie brought over what little food he could stomach. The usual gourmet of plain rice and unflavored yogurt had been replaced with a cloudy bowl of soup(? Ralsei assumed it was soup, he'd have to teach her how to properly conjure dark world food.).
She held up spoon of the soup to Ralsei's shaking face. The liquid barely had any taste as it went down, all he could sense of it was the warmth it gave to his body. He suddenly became very aware of what poor shape he was in, he began shaking from his hunger and weariness. Years of sacrificing himself all suddenly catching up with him at once.
Even in his state he could smell it, reigniting his body's hunger. It was a final tipping point for him, he was tired and cold and hungry and in pain and he didn't care.
Susie took the spoon away, scooping up more soup. But she was taking too long. Ralsei rolled over towards her, he shot out his hands with what little strength he had regained. He grabbed Susie's hand and yanked the bowl towards him.
He tipped the bowl towards him, the soup was spilling all over him but he didn't care, he greedily drank it down, savoring the warmth it gave him, all the warmth he had denied himself over the years. He moved his hand onto Susie's arm, pulling the bowl closer so that he could have more.
He was still too lost in the warmth to notice Susie grinning at him.
"I'm sorry."
It was the first word either of them had said in the past few hours, the first change from their routine. Ralsei could barely make it out from the rest of Susie's grumbles.
The next awkward minute passed with no other words, just the clink of medical supplies and occasional pained gasp from Ralsei.
"What?" Ralsei just assumed his sickness had progressed into hallucinations.
"Really?" This time Susie grumbled out of anger rather than laziness.
"What ar-"
"I'm not going to grovel, I'm not going to write you an essay, I'm not going to give a whole theatre play about this. You and Kris get a 'sorry' and that's it."
"I don't... what are you apologizing for."
"Dude, what did I just say." she snapped back before shrinking back. "I'm sorry ok?, after this is done and you're healthy again I'll leave. I'll be out of y'all's hair. We can all go back to how things were, and you guys don't have to pretend around me anymore."
Ralsei wondered if he could have fever dreams like lighteners did.
"I'm sorry I got you guys hurt and I'm sorry that I forced you two to pretend to be my friends and I'm sorry that I made you waste so much time trying to deal with me and and and" hot tears were streaming from her eyes now. The bandages she held dropped and rolled away on the floor as she gripped the side of the bed.
"Hey, hey, hey" he tried to soften his voice as he noticed her falling tears and small hiccups, "you can talk to us, we're your friends."
"No. No you're not." venom had started to drip from her voice
"I don't have friends. I... just don't"
"But, our adventures, what about all the time we've spent together? Doesn't that make us friends?"
"I don't... I can't make friends, even when I try, even when I think I finally get close, there's just something wrong with me that fucks it up in the end."
"Susie," Ralsei weakly raised his hand onto her rough arm, "you don't think you're 'broken' in some way do you?"
Susie could only respond by dipping her head even lower.
"Oh, Susie." Ralsei wanted nothing more than to embrace her, to give her a warm hug, to melt away this wall and just hold her close.
"I. Hurt. You" she growled out. "You tried being my friend, and all I did was make fun of you the entire time. And n-sniff-now you're hurt bbbecause of m-sniff-me."
Ralsei pushed himself onto his side to face the groveling lizard, ignoring the screaming from his sore muscles.
"A-and that's j-sniff-just how it is, that's j-just how I am." she was shoving her face into the bed to smear away the tears.
He reached over, attempting to wrap his arms around Susie's giant body.
"Susie, why would you ever think that?"
"sniff-Because why the hell would you ever want to be around someone like me?"
"Because you're kind, and you're strong, you care about us. Even if you like to mess with us or push us around, the fact that you've done so much shows that you care. I mean just-" Ralsei motioned around to the piles of used up supplies from the past few days, "just look at all the things you're doing for me."
"But... but what about when I fuck up? What about when I do something to hurt you guys?" her voice had fallen into a a broken whisper.
"If you mess up then you mess up, and when that happens we'll forgive you, and we'll help you back up." Ralsei tried to give a smile through the barrage of pain he got from moving around too much.
"I-sniff-I don't deserve you guys, I don't deserve any of the things you guys do for me."
"Hey!" Ralsei tried to yell, but it came out as a raspy growl. It took him a good 30 seconds of coughing to get his voice back. "Don't you ever say something like that about yourself! We care about you Susie, and even if you can't see it now, it will still be true. I know you still can't fully accept it, but we will be here for every step of every minute of every day."
Susie had raised her head up, her wet eyes watching Ralsei.
"And I promise you, I promise that I'm not going anywhere, Kris isn't going anywhere, we aren't leaving you." he pulled Susie's head onto his shoulder, letting his fur soak up her tears.
"But i-i-i-"
"You're not perfect, none of are, and that's what makes you you, that's what makes you Susie. And that's why we stick together. I don't care what others have said about you, I don't care how others expected you to act, I care about you."
Susie couldn't respond, her throat choked with sobs. She pressed her face into Ralsei, letting herself fully sob into his fur as he wrapped his arms even tighter around her.
The next day Ralsei felt somehow both better and infinitely worse. The throbbing in his head had grown into a full searing pulse, his now-covered wounds shifted uncomfortably with each movement. There was still pain, but thankfully more of it seemed to be manageably dull.
Susie showed up again, sporting what might optimistically be called a smile. The tray she carried had expanded from simple soups and crackers to more complex snacks.
She set the tray down on a makeshift table, she hadn't been subtle about with the amount of things she had been "sneaking" into Ralsei's room.
They repeated their ritual, cleaning gunk off of wounds, icing particularly nasty bruises, and helping to keep Ralsei entertained with news and gossip about Castle Town events.
Thankfully by now, enough control had returned to Ralsei's limbs that he could start to eat on his own, but even still it was painful to move around too much. He began going through the more simple parts of the meal Susie had brought, a warm ginger tea along with small bits of sliced apples. By the time he worked himself through the peanut butter toast he could almost feel his hunger returning.
He laid back down, heeding the growing ache in his arms, and Susie picked up where he left off.
"Hey uh, me and Kris-"
"Kris and I." Ralsei corrected.
"Heh, you're lucky you're still so sick or I'd punch you for that." Susie joked.
"I know!" Ralsei replied with a bright mischievous smile, earning a chuckle out of Susie.
"Well Kris and me decided to make something for you." She brought over the platter with a slice of cake tantilizingly sitting on it.
"We uh, we can't use that cauldron magic as good as you can, but we got some help from Top Chef."
"Susie, that's amazing!" he beamed a smile at the proud-looking lizard, he quickly tried to sit up, reaching for-
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow." his body flared up at him all at once, collapsing him into his pillows.
"Hey, dumbass! Quit moving like that, you're still all banged up! You can't eat cake if you're dead." Susie held the cake behind her, out of Ralsei's sight.
"And besides," her face took on a sly grin, "I'm not just gonna give you this for free."
"Susie, you know I don't have money, Kris always keeps it all after the battles." Ralsei said between lingering winces.
"Nah, it's not gonna be that." she stared down the tired goat, "ask for something." she stated bluntly.
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm not feeding you this until you ask for something for your room. Like uh, a bed, or a chair, or a lamp."
"Susie, please, I, I'm still really tired. It still hurts to talk too much."
"Exactly. Which is why you're going to tell me to give you something, something nice, something selfish. And you're going to do it without a thousand additional 'sorry's tacked on."
"May I please have the rest of that cake?"
"Nooo, you're not getting out of this that easily. Tell me, directly, to get you something that you want."
Ralsei sighed, maybe if this was another situation he would have kept fighting. But he was tired, his body was tired, his head was tired, his everything was tired. His head was still thumping, he didn't have the strength to think about what he was saying anymore.
He could only think about how warm that soup was, how much weariness had fallen from his shoulders when he finally took something for himself, how freeing it was to do something for himself.
And besides, it was a really nice looking slice of cake.
"Give me a beanbag chair, a big one." he meekly answered.
"Hell yea dude."
"I want it to be blue, and I want it to be big, so big that we can all lay on it. And-and-and I want a lamp to go with it, so I can read on it. And-and-" A damn had been opened up, Ralsei kept rattling off things after thing he wanted, relishing in the newfound freedom that had been thrust upon him. Each demand imbuing him with more energy and motivation.
Eventually his adrenaline rush wore off, and he once again let himself drape against the pillows, which is when the feeling came rushing back to him.
He quickly turned his head (ow, ow, ow, ow, ow) towards Susie, ready to levy a barrage of apologies, but before he could even make the first sound he was met with a slice of cake thrust in front of his face.
He could barely feel the burning in his muscles as he scarfed down the food, Susie couldn't help but chuckle watching the normally so timid boy be so destructive.
Now she just had to find out where the hell she was supposed to get a magically enchanted tea set.