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School was out by the time Susie and Kris emerged from the supply closet. The halls were deserted, leaving the afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows as their only companion and witness.
“Y’know, sooner or later, your mom’s gonna find out about all the skipping we’ve been doing,” Susie said, as she beelined for the front doors. Kris trudged along behind her, hands stuffed in their hoodie pockets. “Alphys might be the ‘cool’ teacher, but she’ll only keep quiet for so long.”
“Whatever,” Kris muttered. “Don’t care about school, anyway.”
Susie flicked them a raised eyebrow over their shoulder. They looked a million times more tired outside of Castle Town. That wasn’t unprecedented; ironically, Kris always seemed brighter in the dark worlds.
“Not gonna follow your brother to university or whatever?” she asked.
Kris’ lips pressed into a tight line. “Not going to university,” they said, flatly, and with a note of finality.
Susie sighed and scratched her cheek. She didn’t have the energy to continue this line of questioning, right now, and she doubted Kris did, either. She dropped the subject, saying, “Yeah. Me, neither.” Like any college or university would accept her with her terrible grades.
They emerged into the daylight. Kris reeled back, squinting against the light and nursing their forehead with their hand. Susie had an arm slung around their shoulders to keep them steady before she’d realized it.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Hangover’s come back,” Kris grumbled.
Susie grimaced, but not out of sympathy; rather, the bitter reminder of a reality she didn’t want to face. She had to face it, though. She’d decided she wasn’t going to abandon Kris, after all. “Wanna go to the lake?” she offered. Though it was a bit of a walk, the surrounding trees would provide some shelter from the harsh sunlight.
Kris nodded, and they let Susie grip their hand to lead them down the footpath. They were walking relatively steady, at least, so she didn’t need to carry them on her back.
“You hungry?” Susie asked. “I’ve got, like, five bucks on me. I could buy you something small.”
“M’fine,” Kris mumbled. “Not hungry.”
Susie swallowed an exasperated sigh, and she did her best to keep her voice even. “Is that ‘not hungry’ as in ‘not interested’, or ‘not hungry’ as in ‘I’m gonna throw up anything you give me’?”
“Latter.” A pause. “Should get yourself something, though.”
“Eh. I can wait ‘til dinner,” Susie replied. She made a pathetic attempt to smile, as if telling a joke. “I’d rather leave room for your mom’s cooking, y’know?”
Kris made a small huffing noise that was probably agreement.
Susie turned back to the road, letting the weak smile slip from her face. Hangover or not, she couldn’t blame Kris for being short with her, right now. Susie wasn’t in the best mood, herself.
They crossed the rest of town in a silence that wasn’t quite tense, but not exactly comfortable, either. Kris turned down a suggestion from Susie to visit the hospital, mumbling, “Don’t wanna see Noelle or Uncle Rudy right now.” Susie didn’t question this, either. Not after what she’d learned.
The lakeside was deserted, as it often was, to Susie’s great relief. She flopped down to the grass with a loud, hearty sigh, relishing the fingers of wind tousling her hair and the fresh, clean scent of nature. Kris sunk down beside her, folding their left leg against their chest and resting their elbow atop their knee. Then, without a word, they flopped their head against her shoulder. Susie pulled them closer with an arm around their waist, gently resting her chin atop their head.
She recoiled. Kris’ hair, despite being as messy as always, was sleek and silken after a fresh wash, and it smelled strongly of crisp, sweet apples. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Susie knew Kris only did the bare minimum to take care of their hair, unlike her. They hardly bothered to brush it, half the time. Revulsion rose inside her like bile, and her jaw tightened. Somehow, this felt like even more of a violation than if Kris had returned that morning with visible marks and bruises.
Susie didn’t say anything, though. She didn’t know what to say. Instead, she gently lifted her hands to run them through Kris’ hair, inspecting their scalp and roots. All thoroughly, suspiciously clean. It didn’t help her feel better. Still, she kept picking through Kris’ hair, carefully moving aside locks of their hair with gentle claws.
After several moments of this, Kris asked in a mumble, “What’re you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? Checking you for stowaways.”
Kris huffed. “M’not actually a dog.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Finally, Susie parted a lock of hair and spotted what she’d been searching for: a tick. She snatched it up in her claws and crushed it between the pads of her fingers, leaving spots of blood on her skin. Susie casually licked them off. It was far from the first time she’d sampled Kris’ blood, and the sharp, metallic tang was almost pleasant.
“Knew it,” she muttered, while she resumed her search without delay. “You’ve got hitchhikers. Stragglers. Invaders.”
“What kind?”
“Ticks.” A little of Susie’s disdain leaked into her tone.
Kris made an interested noise. “Guess I better tell Carol to renew her treatment,” they said, too bland for comfort.
Susie bit back the urge to make a scathing comment. If only she could crush that woman in her hands, too, like she was another bloodsucking parasite feeding off Kris’ vitality. Which, she was. But Susie couldn’t say that out loud. It’d make Kris upset.
“Guess so,” she said, instead.
They both lapsed into silence. Susie conducted a thorough inspection of Kris’ hair, snagging another two of the vampires before she finally declared them tick-free—as far as their head was concerned, anyway.
“Want me to strip so you can search for the rest?” Kris asked, smirking up at her cheekily.
They probably meant it to be funny, but Susie’s mind screeched to a halt, instead. She could only manage a disorientated, “What?”
Kris’ face went blank, as if they’d erased their expression like chalk on a blackboard. “Forget it,” they muttered, burying their face back into her coat. “It was a joke.”
“I, uh. I knew that,” Susie mumbled, lamely, through the embarrassed heat gathering across her cheeks and snout. It was hardly the first time Kris had flirted with her or made a suggestive joke, so why was she so rattled, now? No, that was a useless question. Susie knew why, and she couldn’t process how Kris could make such a joke so soon after…all that. “Sorry,” she offered, stroking their hair as if they were the one who needed reassurance. “How’re you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“I mean, aside from that. How’s the stomach?”
Kris idly rested a hand over their middle. “Li’l better.”
Susie hesitated. “And…the rest?”
“I’m fine.”
“Kris,” Susie growled, warningly, and they stiffened against her. She drew in a breath, forcing herself to relax. “Can’t you give me something more to work with?” she asked, trying to be gentler.
Now it was Kris’ turn to hesitate. “Not really,” they finally admitted, barely audible.
Susie sighed. “Fine. I’ll take your word for it.”
She had to, right? She had to trust Kris was telling her the truth, no matter how much she wanted to argue with them. If she wanted to help Kris shoulder the burden they were carrying, then she had to let them talk to her without shutting them down out of her reflexive rage and disgust.
Susie kept stroking Kris’ hair, and after a while, they relaxed back against her. As long as they weren’t getting up and walking away, Susie supposed that was a good thing. Not that it did much to soothe her. It was a double-edged sword, knowing what she knew now. It made Susie realize her own weakness, her own powerlessness. Was it really worth knowing Kris’ secret, she wondered, when she couldn’t do a damn thing about it? If there wasn’t a single option she could take that didn’t end up hurting someone, most of all the very person she wanted to protect?
Those classes the school taught on how to deal with abuse were no help, as Susie had suspected. Tell a trusted adult! Yeah, sure. Who was Susie supposed to talk to when the abuser in question was the mayor of Hometown? The same mayor who kept winning election after election, because she was that good at her job? Adults were all scum, anyway. Susie knew that first-hand. There were a few good ones, like Toriel and Rudy, but their existence didn’t change that fundamental fact.
“Hey, Kris?” she asked, after a while. Just softly, in case they’d fallen asleep against her.
They were still awake, though; as evidenced when they lifted their head enough to look up at her. Kris’ irises were thin slits of red between their long eyelashes. “Mm?”
Susie hesitated. Part of her didn’t want to know details, but another part of her needed to be sure. “Can I ask…about last night?”
Kris glanced aside, breaking eye contact. “What?”
“You and the mayor. You went drinking with her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” was the bland, mumbled reply.
Susie grimaced. As she’d suspected, Kris was nursing a fresh hangover. “And…you had sex.”
Kris still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah.”
At least Kris was admitting it upfront, instead of trying to hide away, now she knew about it. And Susie couldn’t blame them, honestly. How could she? After the fight they’d had? She’d driven Kris back into that woman’s arms, all because she hadn’t been able to control herself. Susie was as much to blame, this time around.
“It’s fine,” Kris went on in a murmur. “It’s nothing we haven’t already done before.”
If that was meant to reassure Susie, it had the exact opposite effect. It only made her feel sick to consider how many times this had happened already, even before she’d wandered into the picture. But all she said was, “If you say so.”
Kris’ brow knotted. “I told you, she doesn’t do anything to hurt me. She’s nice to me. And I—I do enjoy it.”
“Yeah.” The bar was level with the earth’s core, but at least, at the very least, Carol didn’t beat Kris like Susie’s father beat her. That was something. That had to be something, right? “So, last night…”
“I kissed her first.” Kris finally looked at Susie again. “Because I wanted it.”
“Right.” It wasn’t that surprising, she supposed. Kris came onto her more often than she did them, after all. They’d had to get that from somewhere…
Susie ground her teeth, glaring at her sneakers and digging the claws of her free hand into the ground, not caring if she got mud and soil in them. All this time, she’d thought Kris’ experience was from fooling around with other kids, or that it came as naturally to them as flirting with darkners did. But, of course, that wasn’t it. Not at all. Susie had been avoiding the possibility she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, that the only reason a lonely and weird kid like Kris would know about having sex was because someone else had taken advantage of them first. Like the way Susie herself wasn’t supposed to know how to deal with someone hungover, or the best way to clean blood out of a carpet.
“It’s not like I think you’re lying or anything, Kris. I just…” Susie trailed off; she’d forgotten what she was looking for with all these questions. She shook her head. “Dunno. Forget it.”
Kris didn’t say anything more, but Susie felt their stare on her, like a fly on her skin. This time, she was the one who avoided eye contact, instead watching as lake water lapped lazily against the muddy shoreline, and the long, wild grass rippled in the breeze.
She was caught off-guard when Kris sat up to cup her snout in their hands and kiss her.
Susie’s mind went blank as she registered the sensations. The warmth and softness of Kris’ lips on hers. The tickle of their long bangs and gentle breaths through their nostrils. The sweet, alluring scent of their apple shampoo. The faint flavor of their cinnamon toothpaste. Susie rested her hands on their waist, but she couldn’t make herself go any further. She could barely even will herself to reciprocate. All she could think about was, did Kris kiss Carol in the exact same way they kissed Susie? Did they come onto her in the same way, whether it was with a sly smile and a suggestive comment, or laying themself down and watching her with an expectant look?
Kris eventually noticed Susie wasn’t responding to them—they were too perceptive not to—and they backed off, neutral expression creased in dual confusion and concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I, um…” Susie hesitated, struggling to gather her thoughts into a coherent sentence. “Should we really be doing this, right now?”
Kris narrowed their eyes. “Why not?” they asked, almost petulant.
Susie’s jaw clenched. “I mean—dude, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you…”
She couldn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. Kris’ gaze hardened into a glare, and their hands dropped from her face to settle on her shoulders. “I thought you didn’t care who else I was with,” they all but growled.
“There’s a big difference between Ralsei and the mayor!” Susie snapped, unable to help herself as reflexive anger bubbled up inside her.
Kris’ hands tightened on her shoulders, fingers digging into her coat, and their lips curled back to expose their teeth. “What? You don’t want me any more, because she’s defiled me?” they accused, and they may as well have taken out their knife and stabbed it into Susie’s chest. “Is that it?”
“Wh—I didn’t say that!” Susie exclaimed, her own hands shooting up to grasp Kris by the arms. They went rigid under her hold, but she didn’t let go of them. “Listen to me! I’m just worried about you, okay?!”
“Why?” Kris demanded. “We’ve kissed before! We’ve had sex! Why is this even an issue?!”
Susie glanced away, unable to keep looking into Kris’ sharp red eyes. “I…I mean…”
She failed to come up with a reply Kris wouldn’t reject out of hand. Eventually, Kris’ hands relaxed, but their glare maintained its intensity. “Is this because I admitted she pushed me the first time?” they hissed. “So now I’m incapable of saying yes to anything?”
Where the hell did they keep coming up with this stuff?! “No, Kris, that’s not what I meant at all!” Susie snarled, and now she was the one digging claws into their hoodie sleeves.
“And you wonder why I go to Carol,” Kris snapped with enough acid to make Susie flinch, eyes burning like flames. “At least she doesn’t question it when I kiss her.”
“Kris, please,” Susie begged, “stop it, okay? Just—please stop talking for a second…”
She expected more pushback, but instead, Kris relented, letting their arms drop away while they turned their head to glare at the grass. They were still wound up with tension, teeth bared, brows knitted underneath their hair.
Susie took several deep breaths, trying to relax and push away her anger. Then, she wrapped up Kris in a hug. They didn’t struggle. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” she began, forcing herself to ignore the way her voice cracked. She needed to say this. She needed Kris to understand. “I’m sorry. I’m not—I’m trying my best to help, but…I don’t know what to do. I’ve never done this before…”
Kris remained rigid in her arms until, with a long sigh, they deflated, as if they’d pulled a plug and let the resistance drain out of them. “M’sorry, too,” they mumbled, lifting their arms again to wrap them around Susie’s shoulders. “I don’t…I don’t know, either.”
They sounded like they were going to cry. Susie desperately hoped they wouldn’t. Her heart ached enough for them without having to see them in tears again.
“Kris—please. Help me,” she asked in a quiet, strained voice. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
Silence pervaded for several tense moments, and then, Kris pulled away. Susie lowered her arms to let them sit back. Kris nibbled at their lower lip as they stared at the grass, pale cheeks flushed from the emotional exertion.
Eventually, Kris clasped one of Susie’s hands between their own. “Please…don’t treat me like I’m broken, too,” they whispered. “Please, Susie.”
Susie lifted her other hand and laid it atop Kris’. “I—I’ll do my best.” She couldn’t promise she’d never do it, because she was inevitably going to mess it up, but she could promise she’d try.
“I know what I want,” Kris went on, gaze settled on their connected hands. “And I—I want you, Susie, so…please.”
There was no need for Susie to ask what they wanted. Instead, she freed a hand from theirs to rest it on the nape of their neck, over their hair, and this time, she was the one who leaned in to kiss them. Kris made a small noise halfway between a hum and a whine, and they kissed her back. It wasn’t exactly a chaste kiss—there was heat, for sure—but neither tried to escalate it beyond the simple press of lips.
“That’s what you wanted, right?” Susie asked, when they both parted.
Kris nodded, wiping their mouth off on the back of their hand. The tension had melted from their face, and now, they looked tired. Tender and fragile. Without thinking, Susie slid her hand back to caress one freckled cheek. Her breath caught, as it always did, when Kris leaned into her touch, letting their eyes slide shut.
Susie didn’t fully understand, if she was being honest, but she got the gist of what Kris was asking her. To treat them as she’d always done, without handling them like they were a bomb waiting to explode, or a vase that’d crumble at the slightest pressure. Susie didn’t know if she could stop herself worrying about them, but…if Kris wanted it, Susie would do it. Anything, no matter how small it was.
“I guess,” she began, hesitantly, “I still don’t really get how you can stand it. I mean…I know if it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone touching me for a good day after.”
Kris smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was bitter and sullen. “It’s just the kind of person I am,” they murmured.
Susie retracted her hand, squinting at them. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Kris bowed their head, long bangs hiding their eyes from her sight. “Why else would I keep going back to her? It’s just…who I am. I’m just…” They folded their other knee against their chest, lowering their hands to cross them over their ankles. “Some needy bitch who’ll spread my legs for anyone who’s nice to me.”
The words were small and quiet, but that didn’t lessen their impact any. For a moment, Susie was stunned into stupor, as if Kris had walloped her with a baseball bat. Then she was grabbing them by the shoulders, growling, “Hey. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
Kris wasn’t smiling any more, at least. “It’s the truth,” they mumbled.
Susie forced herself to relax her crushing grip, but she didn’t let them go. “No, it’s fucking not. And I know that for a fact, ‘cos you’re my friend.”
“I’m not good for anything else.”
Susie had to let go of their shoulders, then, because she wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t snap their frail bones under her strength. “Hey. Kris—look at me,” she asked, slow and deliberate. Very reluctantly, Kris lifted their head enough to meet her eyes. “Who’s the person that stops us from getting lost in the dark worlds, huh? Who solves all the puzzles, guides us in battle, and keeps calm when Ralsei and I are freaking out? Who can play the guitar and the piano like a pro? Who’s third best in class despite sleeping through half the lessons? ‘Cos I can tell you right now, it’s not me.”
Kris’ face scrunched up, and Susie didn’t know if they wanted to argue with her, or break down crying. She sighed and lifted a hand to pet them on the head gently.
“Give yourself more credit, Kris,” she murmured. “You’re good at everything you put your mind to.” Unlike me, she didn’t add.
Kris shook their head slightly. “M’not. If I was, my family’d still be together, and Dess—Dess wouldn’t have…” They didn’t finish, opting instead to bite down on their lip.
As much as Susie wanted to shut down that train of thought, too, she knew she couldn’t. She hadn’t been there, after all. She didn’t know anything. “Yeah, well,” she said, instead. “Even the best people make mistakes, don’t they?”
It was a useless platitude, really, but Susie didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know the magic words that would shut up the part of Kris that kept telling them they were worthless. Was this the kind of poison Carol slipped them? That they were nothing without her? Well, Susie could relate to that. She’d been told she was worth less than trash all her life. Even her own mother had told her it’d have been better if she’d never been born to begin with.
“I don’t care about that, though,” Susie murmured. “You’re my friend, Kris.”
“Still dunno why,” Kris mumbled, downcast. “You could…do a lot better than me, y’know.”
“Maybe,” Susie scoffed, “but then, who else am I gonna skip class to visit Castle Town with, or get to the bottom of the church’s fruit juice with? Who else is gonna show me the best places in the woods to make out in, or treat me to lunch at the diner, or any of that other stuff?”
That lifted the corners of Kris’ lips, if only slightly. “There’s other people who could do those things for you, too.”
“But they wouldn’t be you, Kris,” Susie insisted. “Isn’t that enough?”
Kris didn’t answer her. Maybe they couldn’t. Instead, they raised a hand to hide their face, slim shoulders shaking, and—damn it all. Susie had made them cry, again. With a sigh, Susie cradled Kris against her chest, tucking their head under her chin, and she resigned herself to walking around with a damp shirt for the next while. Kris didn’t argue or try to push her away; maybe they couldn’t do that, either. Maybe Susie shouldn’t have been hugging them at all, but she kept her arms around them. She wasn’t going to leave them out to dry. Not for a second.
They both ended up lying down in the grass together, Kris’ weight settled comfortably on top of Susie’s, as they often did. Kris didn’t quite break down as loudly as Susie thought they would; instead, they softly sniffled and hiccupped into her chest, while she stroked a hand along their back. Past the mop of dark hair in her vision, Susie stared at the sky, watching clouds sneak across as the angle of the light changed.
“I’m the one who should be saying all that stuff, anyway,” she murmured, after a while. “I didn’t even notice what’d been happening, all this time…”
At that, Kris rested their chin on her chest to look at her face, quickly scrubbing the tears away from their eyes. “Of course you didn’t,” they said, in what was probably meant to be a scolding tone, but their crushed, wet voice made it come out soft, instead. “I didn’t—” Kris ducked their head. “I never wanted you to find out. About Carol and I.”
“Yeah, but—” Susie gritted her teeth and swivelled her head away. “I’m your friend. I’m supposed to look out for you, and I…I let you down, instead.” Kris had admitted to her face they’d been abused, and she’d turned around and yelled at them. What kind of friend did that?
“You haven’t let me down, Susie,” Kris said, with surprising stability for someone on the verge of tears. They cupped her cheek with their small, warm hand, guiding her head back so they could fix her with their vivid red eyes. “You never would.”
Susie clenched her fists, trying to dig her claws into her own palms rather than tearing up Kris’ hoodie by gripping the fabric. If they kept talking to her like this, then she’d be the one crying, next. “I just,” she choked out, squeezing her eyes shut, “wish I could do more.”
“You don’t need to,” Kris whispered. “It’s—it’s already enough, that you’re here.”
Susie rested her hand over theirs, opening her eyes again and forcing herself to meet their gaze. “Is it really?” she asked, because at the end of the day, she just couldn’t bring herself to believe it entirely. The idea that Kris wanted her around. That anyone would.
Kris nodded. “More than you know.” They glanced away, chewing on their lip with sudden uncertainty. “Because, Susie, I…”
They lifted their other hand to pinch at their throat, which Susie had come to recognize as a sign for when they were trying to find the words—or the will—to speak. She remained quiet as she waited for them, gently prying their hand off her cheek so she could hold it properly, her fingers laced between theirs.
“I used to…think about killing myself,” Kris finally said, and Susie’s breath caught in her throat. “All the time. Every day. I—I still do, sometimes. Dunno why I should…even keep on going.”
Susie’s chest panged. She knew the feeling. She’d had the same thoughts herself, more than she wanted to admit. “Yeah?” she prompted, her voice brittle.
“But now—” Kris stopped to draw in a breath. “Days will go past where I don’t think that. At all. ‘Cos when I’m with you or Ralsei, it…it feels like, maybe it’s okay. For me to…be here.”
Susie hugged Kris tighter against her, as much as she could, to block out the stinging of her own eyes. “Yeah,” she croaked, powering through the shakiness in her own voice. “Yeah. Me, too.”
Kris smiled at her. Actually smiled, this time, in that subtle and soft curve of their lips that was miles from the cheeky smirks or smug grins they usually pulled. It was even more tender, now, on their worn and flushed face, half-lidded eyes gleaming from under their hair. It would’ve been less embarrassing if they’d kissed Susie, instead. Especially since, without anything else to distract her, she found herself smiling back.
“Maybe we should go home, soon,” she murmured, partly to distract herself. “Your mom’s gonna be starting dinner about now, right?”
“Prob’ly.” Kris let their eyes slide shut, and they turned their head to pillow their cheek against her chest. Susie suddenly realized it was likely they’d fall asleep, again, and she’d have to carry them home on her back. “Can we…stay here a little longer, first?”
“Whatever you want,” she said, resting her hand atop their head. There was no point in arguing. She didn’t want to.