Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Monday

Noelle

Noelle, despite having plenty of reasons to do so, does not hate her mother. Sure, her mother had nearly caused the end of the world to bring Dess back, and sure, her conspiracy to bring Dess back had involved doing things that had deprived Kris of their autonomy, but she just cannot bring herself to hate the woman. She still hasn’t forgiven her, of course. While Dess’s disappearance was not Carol’s fault, and the complete deterioration of her relationship with Kris wasn’t either, the cause behind the deterioration was part of Carol’s plan.

Of course, even if Noelle did not hate her mother, she still didn’t want to be anywhere near her in the month of December. Dad was…gone, and Dess had moved in with Asriel and had explicitly stated her intentions to interact with her mother as little as possible, so it would only be Noelle and her mother home for the holidays. Before, Kris was still in Hometown, and Susie was too, so Noelle would spend the holidays with Kris and their mother and Susie, but it had been a year since the two had moved out together, so this would be the first year Noelle wouldn't spend with her best friend and her crush (a word that she was realizing applied to both of them, frustratingly enough)

There were a lot of unpleasant things Noelle was willing to put up with, but spending a whole month with her mom alone in their house without the ability to run away to spend time with her friends was not one of them. Thankfully, her crush (Susie) texted her in the group chat that she shared with her and Kris at that very moment, giving her an excuse to not do that very thing she was dreading having to do.

>YO! NOELLE! ME N KRIS ARE GOING ON A MONTH LONG ROADTRIP! WE’RE GONNA GO ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY AND LOOK AT DUMB TOURIST TRAPS AND EAT LOCAL FOOD AND SLEEP IN OUR CAR. WANNA COME WITH?

Kris doesn’t add any words in the chat, but they helpfully react to Susie’s message with several emojis: A dinosaur, a deer, a car, and a blue human. Then, they post 3 fire emoji.

Noelle struggles coming up with something even moderately intelligible in reply, but finally just settles on “Sounds Great!”, sending the message and then falling onto her bed and screaming into her pillow. On the one hand, Susie and Kris had just handed her an excuse to get away from her mother on a silver platter, but on the other, her mother still did not particularly like Susie (it was mutual) and her feelings on Kris had soured considerably since the collapse of their collaboration (Kris hates her), so telling her mom that she would be spending all month with the two of them sounded like a recipe for disaster, or, at the very least, it sounded like a very unpleasant lecture.

And that's when the sound of a loud, familiarly stupid novelty car horn snapped her out of her screaming. Susie and Kris were outside in her front yard in their car waiting for her. What. Further inspection revealed that they had in fact driven through the gate and Kris was currently leaning against the hood, holding a boombox, blasting a song that they used to listen to as kids. WHAT.

Kris

Kris had to admit, this was the most questionable decision they had ever agreed to in regards to either Susie or Noelle. But they knew that with Dess going no contact and with Rudy’s passing, that would mean Noelle would have to spend the whole month of December with her mother, and spending that much time with Carol was not a fate they would wish on their worst enemy. 

But destroying her front gate seemed…okay, no, it was funny, actually. Carol deserved it for locking her daughter out whenever she lost her keys, and for disliking Susie so much that she would ask Kris to cockblock their festival date (A plan that backfired horribly for her) and for stopping Kris from running after Susie the night the two of them had come home to see Kris’s mom drunk.

Of course, this whole plan depended on Noelle saying yes and packing quick enough for them to get away before either Undyne (bad), Toriel (Worse) or Carol (Worst) see the damage they caused. 

     “Kris! She said yes!” Susie exclaims, and the two of them high five, then do their 25 step secret handshake

     “It was totally the song.” Kris says, even though that is almost certainly not true.

Susie laughs. The sound is so pleasing to Kris’s ears that they have to stop themselves from grinning. They knew they had it bad, they’d been told as much by everyone who knew both them and Susie back home, but it felt especially intense now that they were back in Hometown, however brief their visit here was going to be.

     “WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!” Noelle shouts from her window, clearly shoving things into a suitcase while she shouts

     “Roadtrip” Kris and Susie say simultaneously. They high five.

     “YOU BROKE MY FRONT GATE?!” Noelle replies, clearly already exasperated with their nonsense.

     “Your mom is like, stupid rich. She can get it fixed” Susie retorts, clearly not getting the big deal

     “Emphasis on stupid” Kris adds confidently. Susie fistbumps them

They can hear Noelle stifle a laugh, then groan at the fact that the joke actually made her laugh. One of their favorite Noelle reactions, for sure. She finally exits the mansion, dragging a large suitcase behind her. Susie grabs the suitcase for her, and Kris gets to approach and…really be able to look at Noelle for the first time in a while. Yep, they  still have a crush on her. Shit. 

This might have been a bad idea, They could handle living with Susie and sharing a bed with Susie and calling Susie their girlfriend to strangers if it meant getting a free dessert, but that was because their relationship with Susie had largely stabilized in the zone of “More than friends, but not dating” or, as Susie had called it to Ralsei the last time she’d been over in the dark world, “A Warrior’s Bond”. But Noelle was different. Kris had been in love with Noelle for so long that it was a struggle trying to think of a point in time where they weren't.

     “Kris, are you okay? You’re staring.” Noelle’s voice cuts through the haze of overthink that plagued their brain whenever they thought about either her or Susie (or Berdly sometimes, but they did NOT have time to get into whatever the hell that meant for their psyche)

     “I missed you” Kris says, because it's A. True B. The first thing that came to their mind and C. Better than the alternative of just telling her that she’s pretty (Which was true, obviously, but just speaking bluntly like that reminded them too much of how their former possessor would make them speak. Granted, it never picked an option like that, and usually leaned toward whatever it thought Kris wanted to say (with 80% accuracy, to be fair), but the wording certainly felt like something it would make them say.

Noelle makes a squeak, then a confused noise, then laughs it off “I missed you too, Kris” she says, then laughs some more.

Noelle opens her mouth to say something else, but Susie cuts in “Chat later, time to go!” and with that, the three of them drive off and out of Hometown, narrowly avoiding the people they did not want to run into.

Susie

Susie wasn’t an idiot. She knew Kris and Noelle had something between them, but also knew something was between her and Kris, and her and Noelle. The obvious solution of “why can’t we all just date each other” had come to her head on more than one occasion, but seeing as she hadn’t even been able to cross that line with Kris, crossing a further line by adding Noelle into the mix seemed impossible. 

The first twenty minutes of the drive pass in comfortable, albeit awkward silence. The first stop that she and Kris planned to visit, the world’s largest meatball, is several hours away from Hometown, so they'll be on the road for a while. Thankfully, Kris breaks the silence by fiddling with the radio. Unfortunately, the radio in her car has always been a piece of junk, so it gets stuck on some stupid catchy song about pancakes for almost 10 minutes before Susie shuts it up by punching it.

Noelle is next to break the silence, talking about what she’s been doing in her college, and then asking Kris and Susie what they’ve been doing in their classes. Susie reminds her that she hadn’t started college yet, but she does get to tell both of them that she had been accepted, something that never would have happened without the long nights the three had spent online together studying and getting her application together.

Kris, on a far less exciting note but still cool since they're her best friend, has been composing music. They talk about how they finally beat the art block they’d been suffering from by taking all the feelings their dark world treks had made them feel and putting it into song, something meant to recreate the rush of adrenaline they’d felt whenever they entered a dark world that didn’t remind them of the fact that they couldn’t really go into the dark worlds anymore with their soul in the state it was. Stopping the roaring for good had severed the connection between them and whoever was controlling them for good, and slowly, their soul had returned to being, well, their soul, with the caveat being that they couldn’t really enter the dark world anymore without full body paralysis.

The three pass the time for another forty minutes or so before they stop for some lunch. Kris had carefully budgeted their funds for this trip, a skill they’d picked up on their adventures from making sure they had enough dark dollars for healing items, weapons and armor. They had been budgeting hotel rooms at first, then Susie had suggested they just sleep in their car instead of wasting money on a hotel. That made budgeting a lot easier. Upon being told about this, Noelle admits that she had taken a couple hundred from her house as she was leaving. Kris digs through their pockets and pulls out a notebook and writes that down, then points out the greasiest diner they can spot.

     “Yo, Suz. Think that place’ll have some stupid food challenge you can beat?”

Susie smirks, already making the lane switch to take the exit there “Let’s find out”

The diner did, in fact, have a food challenge. The amount of food was, frankly, absurd, but it wasn’t anything Susie couldn't handle, especially since clearing the challenge would mean the three of them would be eating for free.

     “Susie, are you sure you can eat all that food?” Noelle asks, worried, as she eats her comparatively smaller meal

     “Oh, easily” Susie says with a smirk as the timer starts and she digs in

     “She eats this much for fun, Nelle. Y’think she won’t eat this much in the name of free food?” Kris adds, devouring their lunch.

Huh, Nelle. Susie hadn’t heard Kris call Noelle that, before…Whatever, thoughts for later! She had a challenge to win!

She wins quite easily. The staff seem a little annoyed she actually won the challenge and thus the whole bill was waived, but Noelle makes sure to tip them well as the trio make their way back into the parking lot

Noelle

Nelle??! Kris hasn't called her that IN YEARS! Not since Dess vanished! What was possessing Kris to suddenly do that now?!

She suppresses her panic at that and finds herself loaded into the passenger seat. Susie was in the back, preparing to take a nap, which meant Kris was driving until they reached…huh, she realized she never actually asked either of them where they were going today

     “We’re going to the world’s largest meatball. Susie wants to take a bite. I’m pretty sure that it’s an art sculpture, but I still wanna see her try.” Kris answers her before she can think to ask the question. At her confusion, they say “You were kinda obvious, Nelle”

There it was again. Nelle. Why were they using that old nickname?

Unfortunately, Kris does not decide to answer that question, and before Noelle can vocalize it, she’s cut off by the sound of Susie snoring.

Kris

They needed to shut the fuck up. They were about to ruin a perfectly good thing with all the stupid callbacks to their childhood they were doing. It’s clear on Noelle’s face she noticed the old nickname and wanted to know why. Kris doesn’t give her an answer, not because they don't have one, but because here in the car was not the place to reminisce about their childhood. They give themself a deadline of tonight to actually bring anything up to Noelle. They would really not like to exclude Susie, but a talk like this would make no sense to include her in. 

The remaining time passes comfortably. When they reach the World’s Largest Meatball, they have about a quarter tank of gas. On the bright side, this meant they would get to try middle of nowhere gas station food. On the not so bright side, the smell of gasoline made them nauseated and made Susie anxious, so they'd both feel like shit early in the morning

Turns out, a place that sells itself as having the world’s largest meatball really has nothing else of note. Kris’s phone barely has a signal, which makes trying to look at a virtual map for the least illegal spot to park all night painful to say the least. Also, the meatball is made of concrete, and the paint is fading, so it’s not even a particularly cool meatball. But that's okay, the whole point of this roadtrip was to chill and look at stupid tourist traps, and this was in fact, a stupid tourist trap.

Susie runs off to get snacks, drinks and to use the bathroom. Kris takes this opportunity to start a chat with Noelle

     “Hey…Noelle” They start, immediately cringing at how pathetic they feel, like they're back in high school uselessly pining over their two best friends, instead of being in college and pining over their best friends.

     “Not going to call me Nelle?” Noelle asks. Kris doesn’t have an answer at first, but finally they settle on one

     “I wasn’t sure if you liked it” They say, mostly lying.

     “I…I did” Noelle confirms “It reminded me of when we were kids…before Dess disappeared and my mom shoved some weird soul in your body because she tried to use your original soul to bring Dess back.”

Ah, yeah, that did happen. Kris nods “I…wanted to mix it up. I call Susie Suz, so I wanted to give you a nickname too…because you two are really important to me” Kris sucked at this. They sucked at being vulnerable, they sucked at talking about their feelings, they sucked at expressing themself without making stupid jokes or repressing their feelings or deliberately choosing options that would sacrifice their happiness.

Noelle doesn’t say anything for a while, but eventually, she slowly, silently pulls Kris into a hug, and slowly, Kris hugs her back. It wasn’t all they wanted to say, but it was a start. They had a whole month to have better talks.

Chapter Text

Monday night

Kris

The distance between them and Noelle was a lot closer, but still felt immeasurable. After their chat and hug, the two of them fall into a comfortable silence until Susie runs in.

     “YO! KRIS! THEY HAVE MANGO SODA!” Susie shouts, tossing a can at their head. Kris catches it, cracks it open and drinks it down like they've done this every day of their life (This was their first time actually catching the can first try)

Noelle screams seeing the can flying toward their head.. Kris would tease her about that, but they've decided that they should go a little easier on her for the time being. Also to be fair to Noelle, she did literally see Kris die in her arms that one time, so.

     “They also had this. Sounded kinda gross, but you like that Chrismassy stuff, so I grabbed it for you.” Susie says, handing Noelle a bottle of peppermint soda. Ew. Susie  then hands a second can of soda to Kris, who shakes it violently and aims it at Susie’s mouth, preparing to open it.

     “Wait wait wait! Back away from the car. Don’t wanna have to clean soda from my seats” Susie says, then she and Kris back a few feet away from the car and prepare to fire the soda into her mouth

     “You say that like you won’t just make me do it.” Kris teases, opening the can and blasting Susie with the soda.

Noelle stares at them. Oh, right, she probably wasn’t paying attention to them when they went to grab the punch at church, so this is an odd sight. Or maybe she’s just taken aback by their sick soda blasting skills (it’s the former.)

     “What, and you won’t? It’s your car too, dumbass. You need it to charm the ladies”

Kris scoffs “What ladies? My dating life is nonexistent.” Not that they wanted a dating life, when the two people they wanted the most were…well, it was hard to say inaccessible when they were literally so close in proximity that Kris could (and will, the moment Susie wiped her face and sat down) lay across them like a cat.

Susie mutters something that Kris doesn’t catch, then grabs a towel from the trunk, wipes her face, then sits down next to Noelle. Kris pretends not to notice the way Noelle’s cheeks instantly redden the moment Susie sits next to her, and additionally gives her no time to process because they immediately put their “Plan” into action, laying across the girls’ laps with a precision that could only come from doing this a lot

     “Yo, Suz, remind me, what’re we doing tomorrow?”

Susie pulls her phone from her pocket even with Kris laying on her lap with the skill of someone who has had to deal with Kris doing this many times “Uhh…if we cross the state line tomorrow then I think there's like, a big lake that’s so salty that people can walk on it that we can visit. I bet they have some killer fish dishes.”

     “I wonder if we can get like, fish on skewers, so we could walk around and eat those.” Kris says, in a rare moment of not filtering their thoughts out as either a joke or not at all.

     “Dude stooppppp, you’re making me hungry! Gonna make me break the snacks out too soon!”

Noelle

Kris laughs at Susie’s comeback. It’s an almost startling sound, just from how long it's been since Noelle had heard them laugh. Not just because she’s been busy going to a separate college from Kris, but just because it was rare to hear them laugh like that even before they all went off to college. Post-Dess’s disappearance the two of them rarely talked, post-cyber city it wasn’t really Kris making the laughs, and post-saving the world Kris was in and out of the hospital due to soul problems so she had even less time with them than before.

But Susie…Susie got laughs out of them so easily! And Kris…they fit into Susie’s life perfectly! Those two had such a good thing going, and it hurt Noelle to see, not just because of her stupid crushes, but because it almost seemed like there was no place for her between them, and she had no idea how to ask them to make one.

She took a drink from her peppermint soda, then spat it out, eliciting a laugh from her friends 

     “Yeah, figured that’d happen. So I got you a normal drink” Susie says, handing Noelle a normal cola.

Noelle drinks it gratefully, then looks down at Kris, who is still sprawled across her and Susie’s laps, but is looking at their phone 

     “Azzy wants us to swing by and visit him and Dess at some point, by the way.” Kris states nonchalantly to Susie, who nods and pencils that in. “He totally clocked that we’re mostly gonna be sleeping in the car and told me that Dess was gonna kick my ass if I don’t let her sister spend at least one night in a real bed. As if I need him to tell me that Dess’ll kick my ass for that”

Susie laughs “You could take her. You have before!”

Kris fighting Dess? Noelle kind of wished she could have seen that.

     “That was, like, 60% you throwing rude busters and 40% the soul making sure me and Ralsei kept you alive” Kris points out, then coughs roughly, wincing suddenly in pain. 

     “Hey, Nelle, hand me my cane? I think I might have trouble walking for a bit” Kris says. Susie wastes no time moving them and sitting them down on the bench, while Noelle runs over to the car and grabs Kris’s cane from the trunk. 

The cane had a stupid novelty design; the head of the cane is a skull with a gem in it, and when you push a button at the top, it cackles and the eyes of the skull glow red. Despite these features, the cane was very high quality. Noelle remembered her mother arguing with someone on the phone over the price of it, as she was paying for it, and they were  likely trying to give her a bad deal.

She hands Kris the cane, and they stand up wobbly. Both Susie and Noelle move to hold Kris steady, and their hands brush against each other. Noelle at least has the self control not to panic over this while she’s trying to make sure her best friend doesn't fall over.

Kris stabilizes eventually. To indicate this, they press the button on their cane, then they hobble over and steal a bag of gummy worms from Susie’s snack bag

     “Hey! Come on! Those are mine!” Susie exclaims, trying unsuccessfully to get the bag out of Kris’s hands before they ate all of them while also trying not to knock them over.

     “Are they? I hadn't noticed” Kris responds between spiteful handfuls of gummy worm, doing a horrible job of not convincing Susie to punch them in the face

Noelle can’t help but laugh at the chaos. She had missed this a lot

     “Hey come on! Quit laughing, you’ll encourage them!”

     “No, keep laughing, it's cute, Nelle.” 

The statements are said at the same time, giving Noelle little time to respond or process either of them. Oh, ANGEL, she was not going to survive this trip.

 Susie punches Kris in the arm, and, as Kris goes to dramatically fall over to the best of their ability, Susie snatches the bag of gummy worms

     “Ha! Gotcha!” Susie laughs, then wolfs down the few remaining in the bag.

     “Disgusting. I hope you know you pushed down someone who can’t walk for those” Kris says sarcastically, laying across the bench in a dramatic fashion that was very typical for them.

Susie looked at her phone “Okay, it’s getting late, and this place’ll probably start being annoying to sleep in pretty early in the morning, so it’s time for bed!” She announces, and between her and Kris, they set up the backseat to be a…passable sleeping experience for three people. There were blankets and pillows, and just enough space for the three of them, assuming they all sort of cuddled together

     “You two sleep like this?” Noelle asks, laying down

     “This dumbass needs someone to be nearby when they sleep.” Susie explains without really explaining anything, laying right next to Noelle.

     “You were there when the doctor said it.” Kris argues, as they lay on the other side of Susie

     “I was also there when you pulled your soul out and tried to stab Noelle’s mom!”
They did what?

     “Hey, she told me that I had to hurt you and Ralsei! I knew the soul would never, but sometimes the soul doesn't have the option to not do things!”

SHE WHAT?

Susie seems just as shocked as Noelle feels “She did what!?” 

“It was like the night after the Dark Sanctuary. She messaged me and told me that she was tired of your meddling both in her plans and in her daughter’s life and told me to put an end to your meddling! She did it IN FRONT OF YOU! So I said “Fuck that”, pulled the soul out, then ran at her with a knife.”

Noelle sits up to stare at Kris. 

     “I wasn't going to actually do any lethal damage! I just wanted her to know that I would not be laying a finger on my friend Susie, and she should be careful not to do so either!” Kris says

     “I wish you guys didn’t try to exclude me from that stuff…” Noelle says, sadly. It was true, but it felt like one of those thoughts she would have kept to herself and never actually verbalized

Susie lets out a sigh “We didn’t want to exclude you, but after the cyber city, things started getting too intense to drag you into”
Kris is far less gentle about the whole thing “I wasn’t about to drag you into a dark world where you could get hurt by your sister when she was not in a state to recognize you, Nelle. Especially when I couldn't just tell you it was Dess! I’m sorry you missed out on the dark world adventures, though. Would have been nice to have you there with us…”

Noelle opens her mouth to say something, only to be cut off by the sound of Susie snoring, so she drops it for now, and eventually sleep finds her.

Tuesday

Susie

Okay, so she hadn’t actually fallen asleep last night during that dark world chat, but she didn’t want it to go on any longer. Noelle was great! She liked Noelle! She had a big dumb stupid gay crush on Noelle!! But the dark worlds…that just felt like her and Kris’s thing! If Noelle joined in then Susie would have to share Kris with her and it would…it would have been weird and not-as fun and it wouldn't even have been not fun because of Noelle but just because someone would be there who knew Kris more than her!

Susie’s life absolutely sucked before she and Kris went into the dark world. It had taken a combination between their genuine care for her despite how much of an ass she was to them and Lancer being the coolest guy ever to make Susie finally wake up and want to actually do the hero stuff, and wanting to do the hero stuff led to her actually wanting to get up every morning other than not being near her bastard of a father. Kris changed her life for the better, was it so wrong that she didn't want to share the experience that gave her Kris with someone Kris had history with?

Ugh…look at her! Getting possessive over someone she wasn’t even dating! She had thought she was pretty quiet, but as Kris stirred awake beside her, she decided to put a pin in that thought process. Mostly because she needed to make sure Kris could walk. Most of the time they were fine, but something with the soul in their body did not agree with their body, so they were fit to bouts of full body paralysis, which meant Susie needed to carry them, half body paralysis, which was actually more accurately just one leg, which meant they needed to use their cane, or, on really bad days, full dissociation, which she, frustratingly, could do nothing about.

     “Hey, are you good this morning?” Susie asks softly. Kris nods, moving their legs to prove it.

     “I’ll take the first shift driving again today. You had to use your cane yesterday. Don’t want your legs locking up and you driving off a bridge killing us all”

Kris nods “Yeah, if anything is gonna kill both of us, it’s gonna be a giant pizza monster, and we’re gonna die together, in battle, and they're gonna find our bodies and bury us together because we’ll be fused together by the molten cheese.”

This is when Noelle decides to wake up. She is, obviously, confused by that statement (Susie is too, but she’s learned by now to roll with the punches when it comes to Kris and their incredibly specific bits and gags

     “Bwuh?” Noelle asks, then yawns loudly

Damnit, why did she have to be so cute?! Why couldn’t her competition for Kris be some horrible person?

     “Wait, my body’ll still be like, together?”

     “Well, the molten cheese will take your shape, but it’ll be like a hollow object? I think all the dust’ll be inside or something.”

Noelle yawns again “Why are you two talking about this?”

Kris shrugs, “Had a weird dream.”

Susie shrugs “Felt like it’d be funny to indulge them”

Susie gets up and climbs out of the car, resetting the back seats as the other two climb out after her.

     “Alright, so the salt lake thing is a couple hours away, so let's get something quick from the gas station, fill the tank, then leave as soon as possible.”
Noelle raises an eyebrow “Why the rush?”

     “Smell of gasoline makes Kris nauseous.” Susie says, getting into the driver’s seat. Kris climbs into the passenger, and immediately starts fiddling with the aux cord. This time, it’s not some stupid pancake song, but instead it’s some old rock song by some band that Kris likes.

Noelle perks up when she hears the song "That's from the album Dess showed you, right?”

Kris nods “Yep. Made me want to do music. Last time I saw her she gave me a signed record of that album for my birthday. I just about lost my shit”

Filling up the tank goes without incident, as does the rest of the trip to the lake. It turns out, they do, in fact, have fish skewers, and they're really good. The rumors about being able to walk on the water are pretty inaccurate, though. Or maybe it was true years ago and isn't true anymore.

Susie has fun anyway. The boardwalk has plenty to do, and thanks to Kris’s inhuman (ha) skill at gaming the system when it comes to those stupid rigged claw machines, the trio leave with only slightly less money than they entered with

They park the car in a nice, secluded area by the beach, and walk to a nice cafe. Kris spots a piano in the cafe and wordlessly moves to it to play it. At first, they play a longer, more completed version of the piece that Susie recognizes they played on the piano in the dark sanctuary. And then they hit her with a megalovania, whatever that is.

Chapter Text

Then

Kris

Mom and Dad are arguing downstairs, like usual. Kris grips the headphones and holds them on their ears. Dess had bought them those earphones, because she had seen them in a store, and thought the little horns on the top looked like Kris’s old headband. Kris liked Dess. Dess was the coolest person ever! It was a shame she had a crush on Azzy. Azzy was lame and stupid!

Ok, Azzy wasn't stupid, but he was lame! He hid How to Draw Dragons  from Kris and wouldn't tell them where it was no matter how much they asked. They didn’t even care about the naked girl in the book! They saw a cool knight with a sword and a red scarf, but the character was a monster, and Kris wanted to get good enough at drawing so they could draw themselves like that.
If Kris was a knight, they’d keep Noelle safe, and Noelle could be like a princess. The princess always got with the knight, after all. Kris liked Noelle. She didn’t make fun of them for being a human, or pity them for having no human parents, and even if she screamed from their pranks, she always laughed afterward, and never wanted to stop being friends with them.

Kris hears a knock at their door. When they open, they see Azzy, Dess and Noelle, all together, carrying a bunch of stuff. Kris saw a camcorder, a microphone and a couple flashlights, all in a large black bag that Azzy was carrying.

     “Yo, Krismas, we’re gonna play ghost hunters down by that old bunker. Wanna come with?” Dess asks.

Kris nods before she can even finish her sentence. They didn’t even know what she meant by ghost hunters, but anything is better than listening to mom and dad argue. Which they can still hear them doing! Those two had guests in the house and kept arguing!

They sneak out past the two adults and make their way to the bunker. On the way, Dess explains what the roles are. She and Azzy are going to be on camera, playing the roles of the hosts. Noelle is going to hold the camera, and Kris will be providing an extra flashlight’s worth of light, since the bunker is very dark, as well as managing the mics.

     “Here it is, the old bunker, one of Hometown’s seven mysteries” Dess announces to the camera, as she kicks the door open

Something goes wrong.

Kris hears Azzy shouting, they hear Noelle screaming their name. They see Something, and they see Dess run deeper into the bunker. Not willing to leave her alone, they run in after her.

Pain. Kris feels their SOUL torn from their body. They see Dess scream, her body turning to dust. They see their SOUL shoved into her body, darkness covering her, consuming her. They hear her scream again, but it’s wrong. It’s not Dess. What happened to Dess?

They feel something shoved into their body, and they fall to their knees, weakly reaching after what used to be Dess, but their arm feels weak. They fall over, darkness overtaking their vision fully…

…

Asriel

He told Dess that this was a stupid idea. He told her that there were at least 4 or 5 better places to take their siblings to if she wanted to get Kris out of the house. She told him to relax, and to trust her. 

So he did.

That was a bad idea.

He runs into the police station, carrying Noelle on his shoulders. He’s panicking, so all he can get out is “Kris, Shelter…Dess”, before he nearly falls over. Officer Undyne grabs Noelle and places her onto a counter, then sprints out to grab Dad.

Asriel rushes back to the bunker, only to find the door securely closed, and neither Dess nor Kris are outside. He bangs on the door again and again and again in a panic. He wants his sibling back. He wants Dess back.

At some point Mom and Dad and Aunt Carol and Uncle Rudy show up, as well as several other adults. Asriel is pulled away from the door as Mom and Dad use their strongest magic to try and open the door, to no success

*SO IMPATIENT

*HERE IS THE CAGE. AS FOR THE GIRL. SHE IS…UNAVAILIBLE.

*THE NEXT PHASE SHALL BE VERY, VERY, INTERESTING.

The voice rings out loudly. At the phrase “The Cage”, several of the adults go pale. Asriel is ushered away, but he refuses. He wants to know Kris is alright.

The bunker doors open, and Kris falls out of the darkness. They immediately close afterward.

     “Kris! My child! Are you okay?” Mom asks. Kris doesn’t seem to understand the question. They mutter “I’m sorry”

Asriel doesn’t remember anything else about that day.

Now

Wednesday

Asriel

Asriel wakes up with a start. He’s covered in sweat. Dess is awake beside him. He lets out a sigh of relief. Dess was with him. Kris saved her, and they saved the whole world. She was safe.

     “Bad dream?” She asks, getting up and heading out of their bedroom

     “Yeah. Had a dream about the night you vanished…” Asriel admits, turning the lamp on his side of the bed on and heading to the bathroom to splash some water in his face. 

Dess makes a noise Asriel can’t quite parse, then returns with a glass of water

     “Drink.” She demands, and Asriel gulps it down

     “I haven’t had a dream about that in ages. Wonder why I’m having one now?

Dess shrugs “Maybe cuz your sibling is coming here in a few days with Noelle and that Purple girl, so you’re thinking of the last major moment we were all together? Or maybe your nerd brain is just being weird like usual.”

     “I am not that much of a nerd!”

     “Azz, you’re literally in multiple tabletop games. You’re running two of them. I’m helping you run one! You’re a nerd! But, you’re a cute nerd” She says, kissing him on the cheek. Then she slaps his ass. “Come back to bed. It’s three in the morning, and we have a raid tonight”

Then

Kris

There was something controlling them.

Kris hated it. They hated being a puppet on a string. They hated not being able to talk to mom or to Asriel or to Noelle. They hated that Dess was gone and they couldn’t remember what happened. They hated that because Dess was gone, Mom and Dad argued so much that they got divorced. They hated that Asriel went to college, leaving Kris alone in Hometown with no friends.

They didn’t want to go to class, but their mom makes them. They don’t want to deal with some stupid group project, but they have no choice. Berdly claimed Noelle, and that means that Kris is either alone or

*SLAM*

Oh, right, Susie. Great. They have a partner after all, and she hates them for no reason. Whatever. They’ll put up with this group project, and then they’ll go to the diner and drink some cocoa. That always makes them feel better

That was their last thought as the floor of the closet gave way, and once again, darkness consumed them

Chapter Text

Wednesday

Noelle

She could tell something was wrong, because when she awoke, Kris was clinging to her. That hadn’t happened in a while, but when it did, it was always when they thought about that night at the bunker. Susie was in the front seat, looking at something on her phone. Noelle lays there for a little bit longer, until Kris finally stirs awake. 

     “Morning, Nelle.” They say, voice scratchy. Their eyes were red, like they’d been crying. Given the likely subject matter, she couldn’t blame them. This time, Noelle sits with them in the back of the car.

They’re very quiet during the whole drive, but it is an odd sort of quiet. It felt more like they wanted to absorb her and Susie’s presences without speaking, rather than the full closing off that Noelle expected from a quiet Kris.

Susie attempts to tune the radio, but all she can get is some weird, off season Halloween music channel

     “Kris, how the hell do you work this radio?” she exclaims

Kris shrugs “Guess I just got the magic touch.” To emphasize this, they waggle their fingers, first toward Susie, then right in Noelle’s face

     “Kris! Stop that” Noelle shrieks, although she’s laughing.

     “Nah. Don’t wanna” Kris says, leaning forward as much as their seatbelt allows to continue to mess with Noelle. Noelle chooses this moment to fight back, smacking Kris’s hands away as best she could.

Eventually, Kris tires themself out, and leans back “Hey, Nelle, did you hear that Susie finally got the permission from Father Alvin’s family to continue the Lord of the Hammer series?”

Noelle raises an eyebrow “Oh, did she?”

Kris nods “She’s going to loosely adapt some of our later dark world adventures into a book, and then we’re going to do an audio book for it. I’m going to be scoring it, and we talked Berdly into doing the narration.”

Noelle had heard from both Kris and Susie herself about how Susie really connected with a dark world version of Gerson, but didn’t imagine that it would get to this point.

     “Most of that old book series was based on the prophecy and we proved that it was bogus, so the people deserve a better ending than the prophecy promised.” Susie says

     “I’m just wondering where the Dragon Blazers games’ll go when your stuff is published” Kris comments

     “Well, if they wanna make a game outta my new stuff they can, but I want free copies for me and you…and Noelle…and Berdly” Susie says

     “Ugh, speaking of Berdly, he's gonna be so…annoying about this whole trip” Kris grumbles

     “You two still talk to him?” Noelle asks, a little miffed that they would talk to BERDLY and not her

     “Kris does. They play some MMO together. I don’t really get why” Susie clarifies

Oh. That was…better(?)

     “He’s worse than me at the game but he tries so hard that I can’t help but indulge him. I’d love it if you played it with me, Nelle. Susie refuses to.”

     “You think we have the internet for two people playing an mmo?”

     “Just leech off the neighbor! You don't like them anyway”

Noelle falls quiet as the two go back and forth. Okay, maybe she should unpack why it was fine to her for Susie and Kris to live together but it made her feel weird for them to interact with Berdly and not her.

The obvious answer was that she was in love with both of them. She was aware of this answer. It didn't mean she liked it. The obvious solution was to date both of them. She refused to think about that solution. It felt both too complicated and too simple at the same time. It all felt so complicated that it gave Noelle a headache even thinking about the idea of letting herself be that happy.

     “...elle? Hey, Nelle!” Kris’s voice jolts her back to reality. Noelle glances at Kris. They look really worried, for some reason

     “What?” Noelle asks.

     “We’re gonna get food from that taco place. What do you want?” Kris asks, their hand on her leg

     “I’m…I’m not hungry” Not true. She was hungry, but she had overthought to the point of making herself sick with a stomacheache and did not think adding food to the equation was a good idea

This serves only to make Kris more worried. They press the back of their hand to her forehead, causing her to squeak. They narrow their eyes for a moment, then, thankfully, drop the matter for now “...Okay. Next time we find a good place to rest a bit, I’ll make mom’s stomachache remedy”

She never said she had a stomachache, but she realizes that by now Kris can definitely read her like a book.

Susie elects not to drop the matter. She digs through the glove compartment and hands Noelle some sort of medicinal drop for her stomach “You don’t gotta get anything from the taco place, but take one of those and pick something out, cuz there prolly won’t be a town like this for a while. Unless you wanna try your luck with rest stop vending machine food”

No, she did NOT want to do that! Noelle takes the medicine and immediately gets looking at the other food places. 

Susie

She was lying. There were at least 2 or 3 towns between them and their next destination, but she knew that if she gave Noelle no choice, she wouldn’t starve herself. Kris needed the same kind of lie, sometimes.

     “You should still make her that remedy, though, Kris.” Susie says. Kris’s mom’s Stomachache remedy also made a really good hangover cure. Granted, the first few times they made it for her it actually made it worse, but Susie figured out pretty quick that the remedy was made for a human and so the ingredients would need to be modified for a monster.

She still didn’t like drinking, but in the controlled environment that was their apartment, it was fine. Kris didn’t have Susie’s aversion to alcohol, but they avoided it because Susie didn’t like it.

Susie sees Kris nod and shoot her finger guns in the rearview mirror. Seeing as Noelle didn’t eat much meat, Susie elects to avoid the taco place entirely in favor of just a sandwich stop.

     “hey. welcome to sans’”

Oh no. no no no.

     “Susie.” Kris says. They don't even need to finish their sentence. Susie speeds out of the drive thru. They drive to a different restaurant, a coffee shop, on the other side of the town

     “hey. don’t be a stranger, kid”

HOW IS HE FOLLOWING THEM?!!

     “SANS! STOP MESSING WITH THE CUSTOMERS BY WARPING TIME AND SPACE! WE NEED THE MONEY”

     “ok bro”

Noelle goes to speak up before Susie can hit the gas again, but the fucking skeleton cuts her off

     “no need. i know your orders already. pumpkin and peppermint spice latte for the doe girl, purple girl wants 6 different flavors of energy drink poured into one cup and then shaken with ice made of frozen soda, and the human wants a deathwish coffee”

Fuck, he was good.

Susie nods, defeated. The fucking skeleton hands them a drink tray, having already prepared their drinks. Susie goes to pay, but the skeleton winks.

     “no need. already took it from your wallet”

Huh. He sure did.

Susie drives away, defeated.

     “I fucking hate that guy” Kris says, without elaborating. They don’t need to. Susie knows exactly why.

“Um…why is that?” Noelle asks

Ok, maybe they did need to elaborate 

“Pretty sure he…” Kris sighs loudly “...Boned my mom”

A rimshot sounds from somewhere. Susie doesn't know where.

Noelle gasps “He what? She did what?”

     “We came home from the dark world in the church. Susie was going to stay over again…but mom and that skeleton guy were there, getting drunk and dancing in the living room, and Susie…she doesn't do well with alcohol, so she ran off, and just as I was about to jump out the window to keep her company, your mom called me and…incentivized me-”

     “She threatened them” Susie pipes in

     “SHE DID WHAT?” Noelle shouts

     “--INCENTIVIZED me to stay home. It was one of the worst days of my life. And then the next day I learned that he ate my leftover pancakes”

     “HE DID WHAT?!” Susie takes her turn to shout

     “He ate my leftovers and replaced all the food in the fridge with ketchup.” Kris clarifies, sipping their disgusting, caffeine filled coffee. 

Susie drinks her disgusting energy drink abomination in silence “Does your dad know?”

“Nope, never told him. Mom doesn’t want him back anyway, and the drama of seeing my dad try and “challenge” that skeleton for my mom’s affection sounded more pathetic than funny.

Yeah, that did sound pretty pathetic. Especially because Susie just had a sinking feeling that Asgore would lose that fight anyway. Not just because sans could probably kick his ass, but just because, like Kris said, Toriel didn’t want Asgore. 

     “Can we stop talking about this? I’d much rather talk with Berdly about this trip than talk about that stupid skeleton guy.”

     “Yeah, you mentioned that earlier, why is Nerdly gonna be a pain about this?”
     “He thinks I'm a harem protagonist. Just because I’m going on a road trip with two beautiful ladies”

     “Beautiful ladies? Did he word it like that?”
     “No, he was way more annoying about his wording, but I agreed with the you two being pretty part so I’m parroting it”

Susie did not need to know whatever stupid nerd shit Berdly said about her and Noelle, but the fact that Kris thought she was pretty? That-Oh shit right, she was driving! Pine over your stupid best friend later, Susie! In fact, pull over at a rest stop so you can do that, preferably alone!

Kris

They had said too much. They didn’t disagree with anything they said, but they felt like they had overshared, and it was a bad feeling in their stomach. Maybe they needed mom’s stomach ache remedy too

Or maybe they just needed to sit in a bathroom stall and scream into their hands. The night was still young! Well, ok, it was actually pretty late.

Completely unrelated to Kris’s current crisis, Susie pulls over at a rest stop

     “I think we’re stopping here tonight. I don’t have it in me to drive for much longer.”
Kris nods, then digs through the perpetual mess of stuff in the trunk of the car to make the remedy. Mom had hammered it in before they had left for college, so they knew it by heart now. They start with Noelles, then, once finish, they make one for themselves

They gulp it down. It doesn't do much to soothe the pure, unadulterated panic in their body from earlier, but it does settle their stomach a little.

That being said, they do run off to scream into their hands in a bathroom stall. 

Chapter Text

Then

Kris

Kris really likes Susie. They figured this out about halfway through the dark world adventure yesterday. She's funny, effortlessly cool, and the ‘Kris’ Susie considers her best friend is only, oh, 60% the annoying other presence in their body? She was better than Ralsei, that's for sure. Ralsei always felt like he was addressing the other presence, and didn’t once feel as if he was looking at them. Also, he looked a bit like Asriel, but more disturbingly, more resembled the ideal look Kris yearned for when they imagined themselves as a monster.

Noelle approaches them Susie as they go to visit Ralsei in the closet. She asks the two of them what they're doing. 

‘Crimes’, the other presence unhelpfully suggests.

     “Crimes” Kris says, because they have little choice in the matter although admittedly that is funny, so they would have said it anyway

So, when they saw the second dark fountain had been opened on schedule, they wasted no time diving in with her. They may be working with the forces behind this, but that didn’t mean they couldn't ignore that for a time and hang out with their best friend

That all changes when they see Noelle in the dark world, who is then immediately grabbed and pulled away.

No, no NO! SHE SAID THAT NOELLE WOULD BE SAFE! CAROL WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!

Kris grips the hilt of their sword, teeth clenched. They feel overly aware of everything, as opposed to the cold, all consuming nothingness that they usually felt while being piloted around like a puppet on strings

     “Dude, are you okay?
The other presence gets no option here. Kris likes when that happens.

     “Just…worried about Noelle.” It wasn't a lie. It was most of the truth, in fact!

     “I know. Let’s save her, $!$? Squad style” Susie says, with that wonderful, charming smirk of hers

A scandalized gasp indicates to them that Ralsei has arrived, and that Kris needs to be less themself. 

     “Susie, I told you, we’re not calling ourselves that!” Ralsei protests

     “And I told you that you were outvoted. Democracy and shit” Susie responds

     “Kris-” Ralsei starts to plead

     “Ralsei. Don’t ask Kris, you know they will agree with whatever is funniest”

Ralsei sighs at this. He knows Susie is right, and it annoys him

Eventually, they make some form of progress. Susie (rightfully) questions why Kris has to be the one to act, and she makes it so she and Ralsei can act. Finally, it was getting annoying that they had to be the one to direct everything!

     “Oh Hello Lovely Soon-To-Be-Peons” Queen greets, laughing like some stupid anime character

     “Oh Hi You Must Be Kris Noelle Has A Lot Of Search Results About You” She says, then throws a wine glass of…something at the ground. It explodes.

What
Queen doesn't get the chance to elaborate, much to Noelle’s relief and Kris’s…frustration(?), because this is when Berdly shows up. Great, another civilian involved in what was not supposed to be CIVILIAN business.

They fight. Kris kicks his ass, just like he does whenever they play super Smashing fighters. Which is to say, they keep spamming one attack and rendering Berdly unable to harm them or, more importantly, their friends

     “KRIS! STOP SPAMMING YOUR ATTACKS!” Berdly shouts, rather pointlessly, as he should know by now that telling Kris not to do something raises the chance that they do it out of spite

     “Simply stop standing in range then, dude. I never had this problem when I fought Azzy! Sounds like you’ve got a bad case of SKILL ISSUEEEEEE” 

Sword meets Halberd with a loud CLANG. Kris isn't aiming to maim, or even actually harm at all. They're just playing the distraction while Susie and Ralsei do the actual work. Thankfully, Berdly isn't aiming to hurt them either. He takes a swing. Kris Jumps onto his halberd. Before Berdly can process this, Susie and Ralsei ram into his roller coaster cart, and it breaks and explodes, giving Kris barely enough time to backflip back to their cart.

And then they run out of track anyway, meaning Kris probably could have just stalled Berdly the whole time. Goddamnit! They wasted time flexing on him! And now they smell like trash because that's what they landed in. Wonderful.

The $!$? Squad comes to a fork in the road. Ralsei asks who they want to go to. The other presence chooses Susie. Kris also chooses Susie, but, before they can say that, Susie has grabbed Ralsei and ran off, and the way is blocked off. Shit.

They go the only remaining way, and, after some chaos typical of a dark world, they’re alone with Noelle, in a way they haven't in years.

     “Um…Kris, are you okay with another truce?” Noelle asks

     “Yours is the only truce I will honor” Kris says, covering their mouth right after. Damnit, that was an INSIDE thought, and they said it anyway! 

Now

Thursday

Kris

Kris wakes up with a yawn. They weren’t expecting a dream about the dark world. They glance beside them, and see that Susie has (once again) moved to the driver’s seat, leaving Kris with a sleeping Noelle clinging to them. They know for a fact that their cheeks are blushing profusely, but they haven’t been able to do this with Noelle in over a decade, and are not about to waste this opportunity.

Kris would usually deny themself this moment of emotional vulnerability, a skill they had picked up in the time since Dess vanished, so they weren't completely overwhelmed by the grief of that and the weight of being dragged into Carol’s plans, and the stress over their parents falling out of love. It was all so much that they had no choice but to repress their emotions.

But all of that was quite handily going out the window now. Kris hated not having control, and they had a suspicion that Susie had set this up, at least partially. She was lucky that she had irreversibly changed their life for the better, or else Kris would at least punch her in the arm.

Although, admittedly, they doubted she would even feel it if they did. Kris wasn't exactly muscular. In fact, their doctor showed concern about their weight. And this was the fancy human doctor that mom had driven for like 3 hours to see! Kris was getting better about actually eating, but sometimes Susie needed to threaten them into it.

Then

Noelle

Kris was being weird. At least, she thought it was Kris. There was something off about them, and it was driving her crazy! It wasn't just the weird way of behaving, the weird way they sounded, the fact that they were even talking to her at all, but the lie they’d told about their plans with Susie! The fact that they were even hanging out WITH Susie! 

This wasn’t the Kris she knew. Well, annoyingly enough, sometimes it WAS! The mouse room thing where Kris messed with her? Classic Kris! The oddly specific actions they thought of to pacify enemies? That was Kris. The Moss eating? Classic Kris! The protectiveness over her to the point where it impacted their own health? That was…well, that was a Kris thing, but it was never that bad. She supposes she had Dess to thank for reeling Kris in in that regard, but with Dess…gone and Azzy in college…Kris had no one to stop them. The two of them were all the other had left of those old days. 

Darnit! She was supposed to be over them! She likes Susie now! She was definitely over Kris!

She looks over to Kris, and they give her a look she can’t decipher. Their face is oddly unemmotive

Finally, they reach a hand toward her face, flicking away some fluff she had stuck to her antlers. “You gotta pay more attention to these, N-Noelle” they say, their voice more emotive than it has been this whole weird dream she was having

Ok, she knew it might not be a dream, but she pretended like she did so she wouldn’t have to think about what all this meant. Also, more importantly, she wasn’t over Kris at all. That was wonderful news. (It was not)

Despite her quite intense inner turmoil, she wasn’t unhappy about this turn of events. She got to see Kris again, after all. Something about their outfit reminded her of something that they had shown Dess…right! They showed her a picture they had drawn of them as a knight! They told her that they wanted to be a knight, because they thought Noelle was like a princess and the knight always got the princess. Wow! That was some information she had been repressing!

Absently, she wonders if that drawing is still in Dess’s room. Unfortunately, thinking about her house means she has to think about if mom will even let her into Dess’s room long enough to look for that drawing. Maybe she will. She still likes Kris, for whatever reason. If she lied and said that Kris wanted it…no, then Mom would ask Kris.

     “Kris…if I asked you to lie to my mom about something—” she can’t even get the full sentence out before Kris says “I would. No hesitation.”

     “You would, huh” Noelle isn't sure how she feels about that. This whole conversation is, unfortunately, rendered rather moot, as Berdly approaches them, accusing Kris of…something stupid, probably. She won't pretend like she was listening..

He takes a swing at Kris, who can’t bring their shield up in time, causing them to take the hit, sending them flying into a wall. Blood drips onto the floor. Noelle screams. Berdly’s eyes go wide

     “I…I didn’t mean to…I thought you would block!” Well, his genuine regret does wonders to quell the very vocal part of her brain that wants to strangle him

     “Lucky…hit…” Kris groans, using their sword to help them stand up. Noelle rushes to their side. Berdly also rushes to their side

     “Okay…Berdly, I can’t explain everything, but if I explain some things will you stop trying to kill me and my friends?”

Berdly is still shaken, but he nods “I suppose I can indulge you, number three”

Noelle doesn't know how to tell him that Kris beat them both on their last exam. Mostly because she doesn't know how they managed it either.

     “Well, you see…”

Now

Noelle

Noelle wakes up. Kris is staring at her. Instinctively, or more so because her dream reminded her of it, her eyes move to their chest.

     “Kris, when Berdly hit you in the dark world…”

     “Unfortunately, dark world wounds don’t apply to the light world, so I didn't get a sick scar”

Of course that was their priority

     “Sorry, what’s this about Nerdly kicking their ass?” Susie asks, now very interested in their conversation

     “He took them by surprise”

     “He got a lucky hit. I thought he was gonna monologue more”

Noelle glares at them “Kris!”

     “What? The last time we fought it was all play fighting! How the hell was I supposed to know that suddenly he’d fight for real? I always thought that his weird thing with me being number 3 was him having a crush on me or something” Kris admits

     “What?”
     "Dude, what?”

     “Why else would he accuse me of having a harem? He’s jealous that he’s not part of it!”

     “Dude, I can’t tell if you’re serious or if you’re fucking with us” Susie says

     “Do I think he's a teensy bit closeted gay for me? Yes, I do. Do I actually think he wants to join my harem? No. I don’t have a harem.”

Oh. Good. They were just fucking with her and Susie. She didn’t have to kill Berdly for stealing Kris from them. That’s a relief. Once he stopped hitting on her and chilled out he was actually a decent person to hang out with. In group settings, that is. Like Kris’s Minecrap server!

It’s a shame the server had to shut it down because Berdly made an insane TNT cannon and blew Kris’s house up, and Kris retaliated by using mod commands and summoning so many mobs in Berdly’s house that his computer died.

In Kris’s defense, their house was also Noelle’s, and Noelle had spent at least 50 hours gathering the materials and building it. Berdly did have it coming.

     “Hey, Susie, do you play Minecrap?” Noelle asks. She sees Kris smirk out of the corner of her eye

     “Uhhh…sometimes? Kris made me play their stupid complex parkour deathtrap, but I beat it. They told me Berdly never could.”

     “I did fire arrows at him, to be fair” Kris adds, helpfully(?)

     “We should have a server for just the three of us…?” Noelle suggests, then adds “I’m…I’m really going to miss hanging out with you guys like this at the end of the month”

     “I agree. You can even stay in my house again if you want to, Nelle”

     “Kris, you were the one living in my house’s basement”

     “And I'll do it again.”

Noelle shoves them over, and they shove her back. This goes back and forth long enough that Noelle doesn’t even realize they’ve entered a new town.

     “Alright, says here there’s like…a museum dedicated to cheese here.” Susie says, parking the car.

     “I asked her if we could stop here” Kris points out

     “I was going to add it to the list! You think I won't eat like 12 different kinds of cheese with you?!”

The cheese museum doesn't require money for tickets, but they do give the trio little wristbands to make sure they visit every exhibit before they can go to the actual cheese eating part.

Susie puts her hands behind her neck “Well, guess we’re learning about the history of cheese."

Chapter Text

Thursday

Susie

Ok, so the history of cheese was only slightly as boring as she thought it would be. The cheese at the end of the tour was delicious, though. It was not nearly enough to take up the whole evening, leaving her bored and with an excess of free time. A bored Susie was a bad thing, it meant she was either about to overthink, do something impulsive, or both.

She glances toward the other two. Kris was giving Noelle puppy dog eyes, and Noelle was–nope, she was folding immediately.

Susie assumed it was over food. Kris liked to use that trick on Noelle for food (Because it kept working. It never worked when Susie tried it.)

It was not, in fact, over food. She learned this when she heard Noelle yelp. She turned her head and Kris was holding Noelle bridal style. Or, they were trying, anyway. Kris still didn't have much muscle on them, but they were at least lifting Noelle off the ground?

     “Need any help?” Susie asks, leaning in toward them
     “Susie! Don’t encourage them!”
     “Nope. Like holding a bunch of grapes” Kris says, lying as easily as they breathe. Noelle protests, but Susie can see that she’s having fun. Kris meanwhile, looks like they're having a crisis. Susie would ask them about it, but this feels like one of the things Kris would not talk about. Which was, bluntly, fucking annoying, but they were her best friend (not entirely for lack of trying on her part for them to be more! She’s literally kissed them on the forehead and they thought it was part of their warrior’s bond or whatever the hell they made up to not think about their feelings.

Kris’s annoying tendency to avoid their problems and vehement refusal to think about their feelings aside, Susie did hope they were doing okay

Kris

They’re vaguely aware that they're in the parking lot, but they can’t feel the outside air. They can’t feel Noelle’s presence in their arms. They try and will their limbs to move. Their limbs do not move. They try and set Noelle down. That works, barely. They sit down on the sidewalk, and try and push away the icy numbness gripping their body. They fail.

Then?

Kris feels cold. The Holiday house was already unreasonably cold all hours of all days of the year, but this is an oppressive cold. This cold is almost overwhelming. The layout of the Ice Queen’s Manor feels like it goes on forever. Noelle leads them through the maze. They grip her hand tightly, focusing on her. The Soul in their chest pulses nauseatingly as they approach the throne room.

     “So. You came, Kris. Noelle.” The Ice Queen Spits, standing up and summoning a vortex of ice that surrounded her and formed into armor.

     “Mom! Stop this!” Noelle pleads

     “Noelle. Leave.” The Ice Queen demands, summoning a volley of ice lances and launching them. Kris shoves Noelle away, and attempts to take the hits themself. This is a bad decision. Ice covers their body, freezing the blood leaking from their wounds.

     “KRIS!” Noelle screams. Suddenly, all the ice in the palace coalesces into a wall between the two of them and The ice queen. Kris hears her bang on the wall, but the wall doesn’t even crack. They hear her attempt to control ice, and they hear her swear when she cannot. It seemed that Noelle had taken control of the Dark World. Kris didn’t know that was even possible, but they supposed that if one could open a dark world in a dark world, with enough Willpower, one could wrest control of a dark world from the person who opened it.

     “Nelle…y’re just like an angel” They hear themselves say rather deliriously as Noelle uses a heal spell on them. They're pretty sure they lose consciousness for a while, or even die, because when they come too, they're met with Ralsei and Susie, both looking worried, and a hysterical looking Noelle

     “Kris! Your heartbeat was so weak! I was worried!” Noelle says. Kris doesn't have it in them to tell her that their heartbeat has been barely present since Dess vanished. They’re pretty sure they're at least partially a corpse, only still conscious through sheer willpower and the damn soul in their chest that controls them. Well, the soul didn’t make them jump in front of the lances. Ok, admittedly, the soul had been making some choices that lined up with Kris's wants, recently, but they were still pissed that they had to just accept that they would lose autonomy like that.

“Kris!”

They hear Susie’s voice, but her mouth isn’t moving…thats weird.

“KRIS!”

And there’s Noelle, but her mouth isn't moving either 

They shouldn't be here…this already happened!

Blinking, they remember where they should be

Now

Kris blinks rapidly. Their breathing is unsteady, their throat is dry, and their head is killing them. They can see the lights of emergency medical personnel approaching. Makes sense, they did have an episode in a public parking lot. Susie hands them a bottle of water. They drink it down

     “Kris, are you feeling good enough to talk?” Susie asks.

Kris shakes their head. 

“Do we gotta take you to the hospital?”

Kris thinks for a moment, then shakes their head. They didn’t need a doctor, they needed to drink their water, and take a nap.

Susie calls the ambulance off, then gets Kris to their feet, walking them to the car. Finally, Kris feels capable of speaking. They cough, then tug on Noelle’s sleeve

     “Had a…dream, I guess. About when your mom shot those ice lances at us and I…” they don’t need to finish their sentence. Noelle’s eyes grow wide. She remembers.

     “I called you Nelle, and I said you were an angel. It was weird. I don’t even know what made me think about it, but I just thought it was fitting. You were kind of an angel, Nelle”

Oh god, they were reaching that part post-having an episode where they had no filter and were way too genuine with their feelings. Ew, emotional vulnerability.” 

     “Oh god” Susie groans, realizing exactly what part Kris was at

     “What?” Noelle asks

     “They get like this whenever they have an episode. They get all mushy.”

     “S’more like my filter just shuts off and I say my real feelings without either shutting the thought out or making some stupid joke. I mean all the thoughts I say, Suz.”

Susie opens her mouth to respond, then, suddenly, her cheeks turn pink, as if she’s remembering something. Oh god, they said something mushy and emotionally vulnerable didn't they. And Susie thought it was a joke or a result of their brain being mush. Shit.

Kris could not for the life of them remember what they could have said to make Susie react like this, which honestly, just made it worse.

     “Kris…no, y’know what? We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m not making you have a conversation when you’re feeling like shit. You’re involved too, Noelle.”

Kris doesn't remember falling asleep, but evidently sleep finds them pretty fast.

Chapter Text

Friday

Susie

This talk was going to be…rough. Susie had decided that she wouldn't tackle the core “Why can’t we all date each other?” problem today (although that conversation WOULD be coming. Susie was tired of Kris looking at her like she was the most badass thing ever (only kind of true) and looking at Noelle like she was an angel sent from heaven (Also only kind of true) without acknowledging it or, heaven forbid, verbalizing how bad they had it.

The fact that their tendency to filter out their real feelings was only mitigated by them having a dissociative episode was concerning in a way that Susie could not put into words. She didn’t want them to suddenly be open with all their feelings, but they were clearly repressing more than was healthy or even necessary!

She gets up before the other two, silently moving the back seat back and seatbelting them both in without waking them up. She glances toward the list of destinations on her phone. Going purely off the list she’d made, they wouldn’t be at their next location for a couple days, likely 5 at minimum. Asriel’s university was closer, at about 3. Hmm. Actually, visiting Asriel and Dess might be the best idea here. She had only had a few conversations with Kris’s brother and even less with Dess, but she had gotten the vibe that they were both much better at calling Kris out on their bullshit than she was. 

She starts the car, hooking her phone in and blasting her “Songs that I should not be listening to while driving” playlist. If she was going to drive some of her feelings out, it was going to be to Free Bird. She hits shuffle, and thankfully, it immediately queues.

This was gonna be a fun drive. She hits the gas.

Kris

Free Bird was playing. This was a bad sign. Susie never put on her “songs to not drive to” playlist unless she had some serious venting to do. They look at her, but they see her quietly singing to the lyrics. The car appeared to be going at a normal speed, too. Of course, this was because the solo hadn't started. They shake Noelle awake. She would need to be awake in order to survive the ordeal

     “Buh…Kris?” Noelle says sleepily. Then she hears what’s playing, and her eyes widen. The solo approaches. Susie speeds up. She weaves expertly through the other cars on the freeway, one hand tapping the dash in tune to the drum beats whenever she doesn't need them both on the wheel. More cars fill the road as it curves and Susie does…ok, she totally stole that from that racing anime they watched…she does a Toocoolyo Drift, expertly driving around all the cars. Noelle looks both scared for her life and utterly thrilled by the sight of Susie in her element. She does like scary things, so she was probably having the time of her life. Kris couldn't blame her, they were too

Finally, the song draws to a close, and the car slows down, coincidentally right as they pass a police car with an officer outside it, holding a speed gun.

     “Oh, you two’re finally awake.” Susie says with a smirk, as if she hadn't been driving so recklessly that even the dead would be woken up. She adds “Bit of a detour, but we’re visiting Asriel and Dess. Figure after our talk today having to talk with people who’ll take even less of your bullshit will be healthy, Kris”

Kris stifles a groan at the prospect of visiting Azzy specifically to talk about their feelings. They didn’t dislike the idea, they really missed Azzy, after all, but it felt like Susie was specifically hitting them where she knew it would be the most effective. Which, considering she had been their best friend for almost a decade and their roommate for almost half of that…was pretty fair. 

Kris was absolutely dreading the upcoming talk, yes, but they knew something had to give. They didn't want to be stuck in this stagnant state, denying themself the ability to be genuine, no better than when the soul suppressed so much of them that they barely knew who they were.

They just hoped this was a talk about their lack of emotional vulnerability around people who they know they can be vulnerable around, and not a talk about their crush. In fact, they would much rather have that talk when they were visiting Azzy, because at least he was in a romantic relationship! Ok, granted, they were planning on venting to Dess, but that was only because they knew Dess would be blunt and simple. Azzy would come to the exact same conclusion, but he’d put it in a way where Kris could easily deny the actual message.

Susie stops at a rest stop. Absolute middle of nowhere, but there's no one around, which means she can address whatever the hell she wants. Apparently they still weren’t really allowed to tell people about the saving the world thing? Kris didn't get it, but they weren’t exactly raring to be widely known as “The Cage with human soul and parts”, so they didn't protest this when they were told it.

The trio get out, and sit at a picnic table. Susie is quiet for a while, clearly trying to think of how to start the chat.

     “Kris.” She starts, looking directly at them. “Why won’t you let yourself say what you want to say?”

Straight to the point. That was (their Susie) their best friend, alright. They mull it over for a bit, before they finally respond “When the soul was…caged in me, I didn’t feel like myself, I barely could tell who “me” was. When we became friends, it changed my life, but I still had that worry about if you were actually friends with “Me” or the version of me the soul turned me into. You didn’t know me as a kid, so you had no way of knowing that there was a difference, and I couldn’t tell you, either. Of course, our friendship was never fake, I know that. You looked at me and you…you saw the real me, even through the soul’s interference. You’re my best friend, Susie. More than Ralsei, more than Berdly…You…” Nope, they were not finishing that sentence, not here, not in front of Noelle

Not when they haven't asked Noelle if she wants to be part of it

They sigh, clear their throat, then turn to Noelle “You too, Nelle. You’re really important to me. I’m…I’m so sorry I wasn't there after Dess vanished. I don’t know if i would be…alive, if it weren't for the two of you” Noelle and Susie’s eyes widen at that revelation

Huh. They hadn’t thought about that in a while! Guess deciding to be emotionally open was working better than they thought!

     “I just…I was literally tearing my soul out. I didn’t care about anything, anymore. I let Carol talk me into a stupid plan to remake the world because I believed her words about how everything was great and cool and awesome until Dess vanished, so a new world where Dess never vanished would be better. It was all bullshit. She just wanted to use me because no one would raise an eyebrow if it was me doing that shit, but the mayor? That would be a scandal. She knew I had no friends and my family was broken. She knew exactly how to phrase it, too. I know she’s your mom, Nelle, but she was a total bitch back then.” 

Carol was still a bitch, actually, but she was at least just unpleasant rather than actively plotting a world ending event. Progress? No, not really. If Rudy hadn’t died, she wouldn't have learned anything.

Noelle takes Kris’s hand and squeezes it. “I know you couldn't have told me, but, gosh! I wish I could have been there! I should have tried talking to you more! I should have visited and gotten you out of your house!”

     “Did your mom ever realize it wasn’t, like, you? In control?” Susie asks, her face looking like she was dreading the answer 

     “Nope. Not once.” Toriel was a lot of things, but a good fit for Kris parenting wise was not one of them. Kris’s feelings about their mother were complicated and not particularly fit for a place like this. Thankfully, their single answer was all Susie needed.

     “Fuck, dude…” Susie grumbles.

     “It’s…not fine, but I've made peace with it. Mom is…I love her, but taking care of a human isn’t something every monster can just do.” that was putting it kindly.

     “She tried, but raising a child the age I was when Dess vanished while also dealing with the deterioration of her marriage made her parenting skills suffer immensely. Not that I blame myself or Dess. My parents’ divorce was so intense that it literally traumatized our TV! The night Dess vanished they were loudly arguing”

Noelle nods “I remember that. They…they greeted me and Dess as we answered the house, and then immediately went back to arguing about…something…”

“It was the bills. Mom was pissed because she thought Dad forgot to pay the power bill. He didn’t, she had just misplaced the letter that said the bill was paid. He got angry that she was accusing him of something he didn't do. It turned into a shouting match” Kris says, a little disturbed that they could remember that detail of the worst day of their life and still barely remembered the reason behind it being the worst day of their life.

     “Fuck, dude…” Susie says. “Look, I'm not saying your behavior isn’t…caused by genuine things, but you said it yourself, I’m your best friend. Can you not be a little more genuine for me? Me and Noelle, even?” 

Kris thinks it over. They really, really have no reason to say no. They don’t even particularly want to say no. “I’ll…try. Gonna be a total pain in the ass to unlearn this behavior.”

     “Yeah, well, you were being a total pain in the ass by not saying what you really thought.”

     “Touché. Are we…are we done here? I’m exhausted” Kris says

     “For now. There’s…other topics that I wanna get to, but I’m saving those for when we’re visiting Asriel and Dess.” Susie says. Kris has a…hope? A fear? A suspicion. They have a suspicion of what the next topic will be. Speaking of repressed emotions, they supposed it would be topical to address their (barely) repressed romantic feelings for Susie and Noelle. Blinking, they realize that their plan A, getting Susie and Noelle together for the sake of their happiness, Kris’s own happiness be damned, was never going to work.

Okay, it wasn't ever going to work, Susie’d pick up on it, especially since they doubted getting those two together would reduce the amount of time Kris spends with them in any way, shape or form, and the idea of Susie and Noelle getting together made Kris’s stomach tie in knots. Why did they ever think it was a good idea? 

Deciding to table that question for the moment, they head back to the car. 

     “Ok, we’re finding like, a bakery or an ice cream shop, I think we all need something sweet after that chat” Susie announces

As if Kris needed a reason to love her more.

Chapter Text

Friday

Susie

Turns out, getting ice cream after your best friend poured their heart out about how their tendency to hide their actual feelings was due to not feeling like a person was like, a REALLY good idea. The tension in the car, which prior to eating the ice cream, was so heavy it made her back hurt, had lifted considerably. 

Evidently though, while she was in the ice cream shop, Kris and Noelle must have had a conversation of their own, because she came back and Noelle’s eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. She waits until they're all finished eating before she asks about it.

     “Hey. You guys okay?” 

Noelle sniffles, but nods. She doesn't say what they were talking about, but the context clues lead her to assume that it was something Susie didn’t have context for.

     “We were talking about…Azzy and Dess, and how they got together before Dess vanished. Kris told me that they carved A+D into a tree because they got annoyed with Asriel pining over Dess and venting to them about it, and then uh…the rest is private” Noelle explains.

     “Azzy really didn't have many people to vent to, in his defense. Catty wouldn't have gotten it, plus she and Azzy have history, BP is…not someone you talk to about how you’re crushing on a girl. He’s a terrible wingman.” Kris says, their distaste for Burgerpants coming on so thickly that Susie was pretty sure they had personal experience with it.

     “What, did the guy try and set you up with someone? Susie asks

     “Yeah. Tried to get me to go on a date with Catti so he could try and get a double date with Catty.”

     “How’d that go?”

     “Catty laughed in his face, then she said, quote “Hey, Kris! Can you and Catti, like, go upstairs? I wanna tell this guy exactly what I think of his date idea, but I don’t want you to learn more naughty words!”. So Catti and I went upstairs and tried to summon a demon.”

     “How did that go?”

     “Pretty sure she’s like, a warlock, now.” Kris says, refusing to elaborate.

Noelle stares at Kris.

     “What? Either she’s a warlock or every goth girl can fire eldritch blasts, and she’s the only goth girl I know, so I can’t check!”

     “How do you know she can fire eldritch blasts?” Noelle asks

     “I helped her aim them at Bratty’s house so Catty would lend me a copy of Haunted Hand 3” Kris says, matter of factly. Susie realizes that there is so much of Kris’s life she doesn't know. It kind of makes her feel awful

     “What about Dess?” Susie asks.

     “She doesn’t consider herself goth, firstly, secondly, she can already do that shit because she used to be the knight!”

Susie groans into the wheel “What about…fuck, okay, you’ve got me, I don’t think we know any other goth girls. So, what, did carving A+D actually work?”

     “Yes” Kris says

     “Kinda?” Noelle says

They look at each other in confusion

     “Azzy told me that she was his girlfriend!”

     “Dess told me that she…kissed him a bunch but then she got flustered and ran off.”

     “Thats not how she told it to me.” Kris admits

     “She probably stretched the truth because she was embarrassed. You’re her boyfriend’s little sibling and her sister’s…”

A very awkward silence follows as Noelle seems to try and calculate wha

     “Kris, what are we?” Noelle asks

Ah shit, were they having that conversation already? Susie was hoping it’d happen after those two got to talk with their siblings.

     “I…I don’t know.” Kris says, but, apparently unwilling to let the silence fill the car again, they speak up and whisper something into Noelle’s ear.

Kris

     “When I saw you in the cyber world, I was furious at your mother. I…when we got out of the cyber world and I saw that you were safe, I…yelled at her over the phone. I called her a lot of nasty things. I felt…personally betrayed…” Kris whispers into Noelle’s ear.

     “Why’s that?”

     “When she…recruited me, let's say, for her little conspiracy, the thing she said that actually convinced me was that no matter what happened, you wouldn't be hurt. I don’t know what else we are, but, Nelle, you are so important to me that I was willing to actively work with someone trying to end the world if it meant you were safe…”

Wait, that sounded like, WEIRDLY romantic! Abort! Abort! Don’t think about how in any other moment this would be the time to kiss her! You agreed to be emotionally vulnerable, but show some restraint, Dreemur! At least until you tell Dess you’re in love with Noelle and Susie and she scoffs and goes “Yeah, duh.”!

Noelle’s cheeks go bright red, and she sort of half sniffles, half laughs 

     “Kris, stop. You’re going to make me cry again!” She protests out loud

     “Happy tears, this time, I hope?” Susie chimes in, as she had thankfully not paid attention to their conversation

Noelle nods “Kris said something really sweet…”

Did she consider “I cussed out your mother because she put you in danger” to be a sweet statement? Well, maybe by their standards that was sweet

     “Sweet, really?” Susie laughs 

Kris feigns offense with a gasp “I’ll have you know I am a DELIGHT to hang out with, and plenty capable of being sweet”

     “Oh yeah? Say something sweet about me then.” Susie challenges

     “Your unrelenting optimism and dedication to not giving up on me or Ralsei even when the two of us had all but accepted our fates, him as a sacrifice to the prophecy and me as a cage with human parts is so genuinely charming I am astounded you don’t have a girlfriend or anything. You’re my best friend and an absolute catch and it’s kind of a crime no one has realized that yet.”

Susie

Okay, first of all, she had that coming, second of all, the only people she wanted to realize she was a catch and act on that fact were in the car, right now, with her, not acting on that fact! If she could have kissed Kris stupid by now she would have! Same with Noelle!

Realizing she needed to formulate a response, she manages to say “Ok, yeah, that was pretty great, thank you Kris. Now do Noelle”

     “Susie?!” Noelle squeaks

     “I didn't hear what they said before that you thought was sweet! I’m not asking since that's obviously private but I want to hear them be sweet toward you!” Susie exclaims, keeping her voice just barely under control. Really, she just didn’t want to be the only person blushing in this car.

     “Noelle, you are-” Whatever Kris was going to say was cut off by Noelle shoving her hand over their mouth

     “Kris, come on! You already said something to me-STOP LICKING MY HAND”

     “Nelle, I would have thought you’d’ve learned not to do that by now” Kris says. Noelle bites them in retaliation.

     “Oh it’s like that, is it, Holiday? I’ll have you know this means war!” Kris exclaims, then starts poking her sides

     “Hey, quit flirting while I’m driving! I’m trying to hear the GPS” Susie finally gets the chance to cut in. She was lying about the GPS, she just wanted them to be quiet and stop flirting in her car

She wasn't jealous that they were flirting! This kind of thing wasn't even her preferred form of flirting! She liked sparring with Kris as a flirting method. Of course, whether or not they knew it was flirting was a whole other issue.

     “Yo, Kris. Did you pack your sword?”

     “Course i did”

     “Good. We’re sparring at the next rest stop” Susie says.

     “Now who is flirting, hmm?” Kris teases

Wait, if they knew sparring was flirting for her, why didn’t they-No, know what, forget about it for now. Susie pulls over at the nearest rest stop 

“Our spars are usually first to 10.” She explains to Noelle as she and Kris retrieve their training weapons from the trunk of the car. She was technically capable of summoning the Justice Axe, and Kris could summon the Blade of Shadows’ End, but she didn’t plan on going all out today.

     “Nelle, could you keep score, please?” Kris says, getting in their battle stance. 

Susie smirks. This is where the fun began

X

Susie and Kris take fighting stances in front of Noelle then rush at each other with the precision of people who have not only done this before, but people who have fought together and trust each other with their lives.

Kris is the first to get a hit in, jumping onto Susie’s axe as she takes a swing and tapping her head, and they get another hit in after they move back to their starting positions, dashing past Susie and whacking her in the chest “That's two for me”

Susie finally gets a hit in after this, throwing her axe as a feint and then punching Kris in the face when they go to dodge “Don’t get cocky, Kris. We’ve only just began” They return to their starting positions again, and Susie gets another hit on Kris, then another, then another, the monster girl attacking ruthlessly.

Kris finally gets a hit in by parrying one of Susie's swings, then roundhouse kicking her “Now who's getting cocky, Suz? You left yourself open.” Susie takes another swing, but Kris blocks it, and then punches her in the face. Susie punches them right back. Twice, to which Kris responds with another punch

Noelle

She could barely follow what was happening, as Kris and Susie were moving pretty fast. It wasn't as fast as Dess and Azzy moved during their fight, but it felt close. She chooses not to dwell on the fact that she finds the sight of them fighting like this attractive.

Unfortunately, the fight gets cut short by the arrival of a bunch of strangers who are (reasonably) worried about the two people beating each other up, and Noelle has to grab Kris and Susie and pull them apart before the cops show up, ruining both their fight and Noelle's chance to admire her best friends in battle.

     “Ah, damnit, we totally tied again, didn’t we?” Susie says, disappointed

     “Yeah, 6-6” Noelle confirms, realizing that despite the fact that she had trouble following the fight, she kept track of the hits”

     “Maybe we should go first to 5. Then we might actually have a result that isn't a draw” Kris says.

Susie nods “Well, got my flirting in with Kris, so I’m satisfied. I’d spar or something with you, Noelle, but I don't think that’ll work on you as well as it does with them.”
SHE WHAT?

Noticing Noelle’s (and Kris’s) confusion, Susie says “We can talk about that after you two talk with your siblings. It should be a shorter talk. Maybe.”

Chapter Text

Saturday

Kris

The Coasttown College Of the Arts, Azzy’s school, had an amazing art program, one of the best in the country. Its performing arts program was just as prestigious, as was its music program. In fact, if Susie hadn’t pointed out the college that Kris was now going to, they would have gone there. CCA did not, in fact, have a good computer science program. Despite knowing this, and being told it multiple times, Azzy had insisted he wanted to go there. Kris remembered the exact argument he’d had with mom over it.

She had asked why, and he had just shouted “BECAUSE DESS AND I SAID WE WOULD GO THERE, MOM”. This was memorable, because Azzy was not one to shout, especially at mom, but the topic of Dess brought out an anger in him that, honestly, Kris thought he could have stood to showcase more of that anger. At the very least, he could have in front of Dess, because she would probably find it attractive.

Dess and Azzy being gross and in love aside, Kris was actually looking forward to talking to both of them. As much as they (literally) loved Susie and Noelle, those two were the exact cause of the problem Kris was dealing with. But, on the bright side, they hadn’t gone with their plan to get Susie and Noelle together! Which, now that they thought about it, was a really good thing, because Dess would totally kick their ass about it. 

Dess was the type of person who would cut right through the bullshit and probably tell them to just stop being a coward and confess. 

As Susie drove the car into Coasttown, Kris texted their brother

     >Just got into Coasttown. Been kind of a long trip. I think Nelle is really looking forward to speaking with her sister

Asriel types for a while, then responds with 

     >Nelle? You haven't called her that in years

Kris freezes. They had been calling her Nelle internally for nearly a week in a row, so they had just instinctually called her Nelle in text form

Dess chooses this moment to text them

     >YO KRIS. Calling her Nelle? Did ya finally pull your head out of your ass and progress with her?

     >Not as much as you’d probably like. I think I'm in the dumbest love triangle ever.

Dess’s response is 6 laughing crying emoji, then

     >Yeah. Duh.

Before Kris can process that, Azzy hits them with

     >Why don’t you carve K+S+N into a tree?

Firstly, rude, secondly, Those were bold words for someone that Kris knew a lot of embarrassing things they could tell his girlfriend about

     >Bold words for someone who swore me to secrecy about the butterscotch incident. Not even mom knows about it. Does Dess?

Azzy responds in the affirmative, but Kris knows he's lying

     >Darnit Kris! Why do you have all the embarrassing stuff on me but all the stuff I have is stuff Noelle already knows?

Kris hits him with the classic 

     >Skill issue.

     >Also, where should we meet you?

Kris keeps their phone up. It takes a while to coordinate, and they have to park Susie and Kris’s car because it can’t really fit 5 people, but eventually they get in Asriel’s far, far less cool (in Kris’s opinion) car.

     “Theres a piano room in one of the buildings. Usually you have to be a student, but I talked with one of the professors and she said you could use it.” Azzy says excitedly

Kris totally fails to hide the way their eyes light up at that.. They also totally fail to hide their desire for Noelle to join them when they do go play on the piano, evidently, because Dess looks right at them with a knowing smirk. It’d be just like old times: Them playing piano, Noelle hiding around the corner listening…a concert just for her, as they put it on that blog post they definitely were not supposed to see and have been pretending like they hadn’t for over 10 years.

     “What’s that look about, Dess?” Kris says, as if they don’t know

     “Oh, nothing, Dreemur. Just…observing the grown up version of the idiot kid who had a stupid massive crush on my sister.” She says neutrally, as if she wasn't deliberately provoking them

     “You want to play that game, Holiday? I know you wrote some sappy love songs about Azz-” They're interrupted by Dess pointing a baseball bat at them. Perhaps provoking her was a bad idea, actually. Fortunately for Kris, Dess was riding shotgun and so she couldn't swing the bat very well

     “You wrote songs about me, Dess?” Azzy says, as if he hasn’t noticed the obvious tension between them

     “Course I did, dork. I don’t know how Kris found that shit. Thought I hid it”

     “Was hiding in your closet to scare Nelle and I found em.”

     “THATS WHAT YOU WERE HIDING TO DO? I THOUGHT YOU WERE HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN! YOU WERE CRYING!” Noelle cries out, suddenly offended (?) that she had worried about them 

     “Oh no, that came when I saw her guitar like 30 seconds after I saw her sappy love songs, which is when Nelle found me crying.”

     “Where are those songs now?” Susie asks, curiously

     “I followed protocol. I burnt that shit.” Kris says.

     “Protocol? The hell do you mean by-” Susie is cut off 

     “AYYYY THAT'S MY GUY RIGHT THERE” Dess exclaims, fistbumping Kris.

     “Dess, Kris, what are you guys talking about?” Azzy asks, confused

     “Like…16 years ago, Kris and I made a vow that we would destroy any embarrassing stuff the other made. I think mom was like, “Hey Kris, if you see anything in my daughter’s bedroom that might be dangerous please report it to me” and so Kris immediately told me because I didn't raise a narc”

     “You didn’t raise them?” Noelle says, rather confused

     “Raised them better than Toriel did, that's for sure!” She immediately goes to high five Kris. They do not hesitate to high five her back

     “Now, granted, I wasn't always…aware when I was the knight, but I felt, y’know, drawn to them and to you, Elly. You guys made me feel more…like me. Anyway, I watched Kris a lot, mom called it “observation” or whatever. I watched them, and Toriel kinda sucked at raising Kris.”

     “Your mom also insisted on stupid chess piece names” Kris pipes in.

     “You’re just annoyed because you were pawn” Dess says

     “That's right! I AM mad about that!! We didn't even have a rook!”

     “Um, Dess? You were saying?”

     “Oh, yeah. I was under orders to keep surveillance on them, in case they did something stupid to compromise the mission. Of course, the mission immediately went sideways because they went and got attached to Susie. Her words, not mine”

     “Her cool girl swagger and desire to indulge my stupid bits charmed me. I was smitten from the night we ate moss together” Kris says, only mostly lying.

     “Damn, Elly. Beaten to it by a moss eater. Shame. Actually, hold that thought, my song is on” Dess says, then turns the volume all the way up, smacking Azzy’s hand away at every attempt he makes to turn it down.”

December

Wow, Kris had it bad. Like, Dess had seen their texts, but their texts did not properly illustrate just how bad the kid had it for Elly and the purple girl. Honestly, she didn't know who she was rooting for, or if she didn't need to pick a side, or if Kris even had a chance here. She could tell it was delicate, that she needed to operate carefully.

Finally, the car pulls onto campus, and Asriel parks it. 

     “Kris, Noelle. I’ll show you two to the piano reason” Asriel says. Huh, guess he had his side chosen? Purple Girl didn't seem too unhappy about it, so maybe she had a plan or something

     “Yo, purple girl”

     “I know you know my name.”

     “Yeah, And? Come with me, there's a gym on campus and they have punching bags. These ones haven’t yet broken from me hitting them!”

     “Fuck yeah.”

Alright, Kris. Susie was distracted. Don't fuck this up.

Asriel

He didn’t know why he was doing this. He was pretty sure the plan was to figure out who Kris liked (turns out it was both of them) and to try and make them confess, because they deserved to be happy despite their protests and attempts to ensure the opposite, and he’ll be darned if he isn't about to help his sibling like this!

Of course, he knew the piano thing was a private, personal thing for Kris and Noelle, so he’d likely slip out and make sure that Dess doesn’t let Susie punch a hole through a wall or something.

They arrive at the arts building, and after a short chat with the student at the front desk, Kris and Noelle are led to the piano room. Asriel chooses this moment to slip out, because Kris isn't even looking at him and he could tell that they didn’t want him here.

Noelle

She sits down, and closes her eyes. She hears Kris start to play. At first, they play something stupid, the same song they’d pranked Susie with the first night of the trip, then, they play something prettier. She, of course, recognizes it as Clair de Lune by Debussy. She had started to look into piano songs in order to better relate to Kris. That hadn’t worked too well, she and Kris didn’t talk for years, but in the state their relationship was in now, it felt oddly nostalgic to listen to them play this.

She doesn't know how long she sits there, eyes closed, head leaned back, listening to Kris play piano, but Clair de Lune is not the only piece they play, they go through about 5 or 6 other songs. Before they can start a seventh, their phone starts ringing loudly. Noelle doesn’t recognize the song they set as the ringtone, but it says the word “Bitch” multiple times, so she has a guess

Kris groans, spins around to face Noelle, mouths “it’s your mother” then takes the call

     “Hello, miss mayor”

     “No, you lost your right to be called auntie years ago. I’d say it was when a dark world was opened in the same room Noelle was in, in fact, despite you promising me that she would be safe.”

     “Yes, Noelle is here with me.” They look at her. She shakes her head, and mouths “Please don’t make me talk to her.”

     “No, you can’t speak to her. She doesn’t want to speak to you. Can’t imagine why.” Kris says, giving her a thumbs up.

     “No, why would I pick you over her?”

Noelle isn’t able to hear most of what her mother is saying, but, she hears “...won’t let you marry my daughter” from the other side of the phone

     “Bold of you to assume you can stop me. Maybe we’re eloping.”

What the heck are they talking about?!

Noelle hears Carol start shouting, and that's when Kris hangs up

     “Well, your mom should be out of our hair for the remainder of the trip”

     “Will she, Kris? Because it sounded like you just made her mad”

     “I did, and she doesn't have Uncle Rudy to bring her down to any semblance of calm, so she’s going to have to calm herself down.”

Oh. Oh that was going to take a while. Her mother’s temper was famously fiery, ironic, considering her association with the cold. Dad was usually able to calm her down, but after his passing, that didn't happen anymore

     “Didn’t even really need to try to piss her off that much. She seemed to just to get pissed by me being myself”

     “You joked about us eloping!”

     “One, not a joke, two, admittedly, yeah, I did say that to piss her off, but she was being unpleasant, so.”

Not a joke??? Kris??

     “So you would…elope with me?”

     “Uh, yeah? I’ve had a plan of that sort for…” Kris pauses, then blushes “...nevermind, that's embarrassing. I don't want to say. But it was always a plan B for me, in the scenario I ever wanted to leave Hometown and never come back, I would grab you with me.” Kris says, slowly moving to sit with her.

She doesn't know how to feel about that. No, actually, she likes that. If Kris offered her the chance to escape…she would definitely have taken it. She presses her forehead to theirs.

     “I would have said yes, I think. After I got over the shock of you actually talking to me, I mean” She admits. Kris puts their hands on her face. They were…warm. It felt nice. Her heart pounds in her chest. She leans in…and…

     “Excuse me, but your time is up-OH I'M SORRY!” the student who was working the front desk earlier cuts in.

Noelle lets out a very undignified noise, somewhere between a grunt of annoyance at the fact that she was interrupted and an embarrassed squeak at being seen. She feels Kris’s hands move off her face, then she spots their hands clench, and realize they’d done it to not be rough with her.

Ignoring the fact that she wouldn’t mind, she was in love with Susie, she knew what she’d be getting into there, she did appreciate it. 

Kris pulls away from her, frustrated, then mutters “We’re definitely redoing that later, but for now, c’mere.” and then they grab her and peck her on the lips.
Before she can process that, they’ve bolted.

How was she going to explain this to Dess? 

Chapter Text

Kris

They were spiraling. They knew they were spiraling. They didn't even know why they started running. 

     “Stupid stupid stupid Kris you fucked it all up you dumbass! What kind of idiot kisses a girl and then runs away as fast as they can?” their brain unhelpfully asks. They growl at it to shut up and keep running. 

Unfortunately, it’s only now that they remember that Noelle ran cross country. As they remember this, she’s already caught up with them

     “Did you get faster, Nelle?!” They ask, out of breath 

     “No, I just knew you wouldn’t last long doing a dead sprint. Why did you run?” 

     “Panicked. Wasn’t thinking. My carefully concocted plan got ruined. Our cute moment got interrupted” Kris says, only able to get their thoughts out in short bursts as their body finally recovered enough for their brain to start working

     “You planned this?” Noelle asks

     “The moment Azzy told us there was a piano here, yeah. Knew I could form something cute.” It had actually worked, too! Well, almost.

     “Kris, what made you think that you needed some big sweeping gesture for this?”

     “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve had a big stupid crush on you for years, Nelle. You deserve a big sweeping gesture. Susie too. I don’t want to…” Oh great now they were embarrassed and they were spilling all their feelings “…I don’t want date you two without making sure you know just how much you mean to me, and that means I need to—” whatever stupid, probably neurotic insistence Kris was going to say was quickly drowned out when Noelle grabbed them and kissed them

The kiss very quickly goes from a simple resolution of feelings to making out. Which, Kris supposed, was still a resolution of feelings. It wasn’t Kris’s first kiss, they’d take the memory of that to their grave, but they hadn't exactly had any dates since, so they were out of practice. Noelle was a little better, but they were pretty sure no one had kissed her before.

Breaking the kiss, she says “Do you still need a sweeping gesture?

Dazed, Kris responds “For you? No. With Susie? Yes, but we can worry about that later.”

Susie

     “And then Kris looked their dad right in the eyes and said “that’s fucking stupid, dad”. Then when Ralsei and Noelle acted all shocked they just went “What? We were all thinking it!”. Which, like, me personally? Yeah, I was, but it was their dad so I wasn’t about to just call him an idiot” Susie says to Dess as she lifts some barbells

     “Sounds like they were really pissed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard them say fuck” Dess says, pummeling a sandbag next to her

     “Usually they don’t! They have me stand there and say it for them!” Susie remarks

     “Well, I doubt Asgore would listen if it was you swearing for Kris.”

     “He didn’t listen to begin with! We still had to fight him! He made his own child fight him! Kris couldn't even try to spare him!” Susie exclaims, lifting faster

     “So what? Did you just have to try and kill Asgore?”

     “Fuck no. You think I’d put Kris through that? We managed to like, talk him down, but then-”

     “Carol happened. I’m aware. So. You like both Kris and Noelle, huh?” Dess says bluntly, cutting straight to the core of the matter

     “I do, yeah.” Susie confirms.

     “Well, Noelle is my little sister, and Kris is like, they're a sibling to me, and whenever Azz pulls his head outta his butt and pops the question they’ll be my in-law. Normally i’d give you the whole shovel talk, but I like you. Not just because my mom hates you, although I admit, that is a good start, but I think you’re giving both of them something they need, so I approve. Now-” Whatever Dess was going to say next was cut off by her getting a series of frantic texts.

     “Shit.”

“What?” Susie asks

     “I owe Azz like thirty bucks. Noelle kissed Kris, but only after they kissed her.”

     “So who woulda gotten the money if i had kissed one of them before either of them kissed each other?” Susie asks, both invested in this and a little disappointed that she had missed that moment

     “Oh, that was a different bet. Can’t say the terms, don’t want to unbalance the stakes.”

Before Susie can ask her to elaborate, they're interrupted by some creep, yelling at them about how weight lifting is for men and they're posers and blah blah blah

     “Okay, so, remind me, why should I give a fuck what you think?” Susie cuts the guy off, which obviously pisses him off and causes him to ramble more, but nothing particularly makes Susie feel like not tuning him out.

     “Okay, I get it, you’re a fuckin loser. Can you answer my question? Why should I give a fuck what some loser thinks about my hobbies?” Susie is cut off by the guy throwing a punch. She blocks it, easily. 

     “Who taught you how to throw a punch? Your fingers are too tight.” Susie says, setting the weight down and punching the guy in the face.

     “See? Now that’s a punch. Now, if you actually wanna fight me, I’d suggest we clear away from this expensive equipment. Don’t wanna spill your blood on it” Susie grins, then cracks her knuckles. The dumbass doesn’t see this as an obvious bad sign, and gets right back up.

     “The gym should be open right about now. But, if there are people in it, all the better when I beat your ass you fucking bitch!”

Susie flashes him a toothy grin “Aw that's funny. You think you’re gonna win. Lets go”

They go into the gym. Kris and Noelle are there, somehow. Before she can question it, she sees Dess holding her cell phone. Oh. Duh. 

There’s no establishment of any rules, no statement of how long the fight is going to go. Good. She doesn't feel like following any complex rules about this.

The creep takes several swings, but they’re easy to dodge and counter, which Susie does with glee. A punch to the face, a chop to the head, a kick to the stomach. She kicks the guy, sliding him across the gym. 

     “You got lucky! Lets see how you deal with this you bitch!” he shouts, pulling out a baseball bat and charging in. Oh, he wanted to play with weapons, did he?

Susie holds her hand out, and the Justice axe manifests in her hand.

     “Oh, I get the feeling I'll be fine. You, on the other hand? Not looking good, bud” In one swift movement, she slices the bat in half and roundhouse kicks the guy into the bleachers, the impact creating a crater.

     “Was that also luck?” Susie asks. The jerk makes a noise, and goes unconscious.

Thankfully, he’s not hurt that badly, and, as it was both self defense and a fight that the guy chose to instigate, Susie is let off easy, but told not to use her weapon like that on campus.

     “That was badass, Suz” Kris says, fistbumping her. Noelle is not far behind, flashing her a thumbs up. She then elbows Kris, who turns to her and flicks her in the head

     “Kris.” Noelle says sternly.

     “No.” Kris says, just as sternly.

Noelle and Kris have a staring contest or something, Susie has no idea what the hell to make of it, but eventually Kris loses whatever fight they're having by staring at each other.

     “Ugh, FINE. You are such a pain in the ass, Nelle”

     “Someone has to be, or you’d sit around and be useless and pine over her” Noelle retorts

     “Oh, you wanna go there? Miss “literally had a statue of Susie in her room”? Are you sure?! We could go to Queen and ask her what your internet searches are. ” Kris says.

Susie cuts in here “Uh, dude? Weren’t you gonna do something?”

     “Gimmie a sec, Suz. Nelle is being a-” whatever Kris was going to call her was cut off by Noelle grabbing and kissing them, then shoving them away and pointing at Susie.

Well, if anything, Susie was comforted by the fact that she only felt envy seeing her best friends kiss. And specifically only because she wanted to also kiss them. Both of them! 

Conveniently, as she’s having that exact thought, Kris tugs her down (ha! Shorty), and kisses her. It’s as she rides the high from that that Noelle also decides to kiss her.

     “So, I take it you guys had a good talk?” Susie says, feeling a little dazed.

     “You could say that” Noelle says

     “I wouldn't call it talking, necessarily, but yes.” Kris says.

They stare at each other. Noelle elbows Kris

     “Ok this is like, really cute, guys, but can you make out in your car or something? I’m pretty sure people like using this gym” Dess cuts in, finally.

     “Well, we’re not set to leave until tomorrow, but I guess we could just go over there until dinner?” Susie says. The other two nod, both blushing.

Suffice to say, they almost missed dinner because they were so busy.