Chapter Text
A few stray leaves swirl in underfoot as you shut the door behind yourself, bracing against the wind. And you’d worked so hard on your hair, too…you resist a sigh as you push it back out of your face and tug your skirt back down into place.
Just as you’re about to turn around, a hand on your shoulder makes you jump. You whirl around to see Susie, a big grin on her face. “Noelle! You made it!”
“O-oh, Susie! Hi!” You can still feel a phantom tingle where she touched you, and you kind of don’t want to ever wash this shirt again now. (Wow, that was one embarrassing thought.)
Susie lifts an overstuffed shopping bag enthusiastically in one hand. “I got you some stuff! Uh, I know you said before that you like peppermint cookies. I hope that’s still true, cuz…I kind of got a lot.”
Oh dear, the shy little smile on her face is so painfully endearing.
But wow, “a lot” is a bit of an understatement…that is an absurd amount of cookies. You’re torn between feeling extremely flattered that she made such a sweet gesture for you, and concerned about how much she thinks that you eat. Rather than decide, you just tell her thank you.
As you put down your bag and take your shoes off, your phone goes off with a text. It’s your mom telling you to “have fun on your little study sleepover date with Kris”.
A twinge of guilt hits you at that, but you quickly dismiss it. You *know* you’re not doing anything wrong by hanging out with Susie…ugh. If only you could convince Mom of that. (Thank the Angel Toriel has to supervise that class trip this weekend…it makes you cringe to think of her accidentally letting something slip to Mom at church about the three of you hanging out.)
After you send her a quick reply, you toss your phone on the couch, determined not to look at it for the rest of the night.
As if on cue, Kris comes strolling in from the kitchen with their hands behind their back. It’s nonchalant in a way that reflexively puts you on guard. No matter how much time the two of you spent apart, your body remembers the tells of a Kris Dreemurr scheme.
“Alright, spit it out already, loser,” Susie says. “What’s the deal?”
Kris whips out a shiny wrapped brownie from behind their back and holds it up. Under the holographic cellophane, little pearls of sugar catch and reflect the light. Kris turns it this way and that, making sure all angles of the brownie can be properly appreciated. They finish in a proud show-and-tell stance, like a kid showing off the prized craft they created at school. The glint in their eye is cryptic, yet compelling.
Susie snorts and gives you an incredulous glance that makes you smile. “You just want me and Noelle to eat a brownie? You didn’t have to win a bet for that, dude.” She makes to grab for it.
Before Susie can so much as make contact with it, Kris has snatched the brownie away and is holding it close to their chest. “It’s not just any brownie,” they say in response to Susie’s affronted snarl.
“The hell d’you mean?”
Kris presents the brownie on a dramatically upturned palm and gestures at it like a magician about to perform a trick. “This…”
The dramatic pause runs a little long. Kris likes to make things just a little awkward.
(You can hear Susie growling a little bit under her breath. Fahaha.)
“...is the kind of brownie that gets you blasted,” they finish.
….
…Huh??
Susie’s lip curls. She squints and tilts her head back, crossing her arms. “What? No. You mean…?”
Kris nods. “Weed brownie,” they whisper.
“A what???” you squeal. Oops. You look down, clearing your throat and trying to pretend that it wasn't quite so high-pitched. Your heart is suddenly pounding.
When you work up the nerve to look back up at Susie, she’s shaking her head. “Man, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with that stuff.”
Kris does one of those little nose-exhales that are not quite a laugh. “Weed?” Then, looking at Susie, some of the levity drops from their face. “Wait, don’t tell me you thought all those DARE programs at school were for real?”
Susie’s teeth clench and flare out as she huffs, her cheek scales flushing. “Don’t LAUGH at me!! It’s…..GRARGH!” She turns around and drops her face into her hand. After a second of churning through her thoughts, she turns back around, fists clenched, and takes an inhale. “That shit messes with your head. You don’t….you don’t know what’s real anymore! You don’t know what you’ll do. And you’re just…fine with that??”
Your wide eyes dart back and forth between the two. This is not how you thought this sleepover was going to go. The train of your thought has flown off the rails and crashed in a fiery disaster, and all you can do is watch.
Kris starts to reach for Susie’s hand, but then stops and drops their arm. They stand there for a second, sort of dumbfounded, and then shake their head in a quick and decisive motion like they’re trying to clear an Etch-a-Sketch. “The worst it’ll do is make you snack too hard.”
Susie furrows her brows and tilts her head back disbelievingly. “Oh yeah? And how do you know?”
Kris does a little shrug. “Cuz Asriel used to do it all the time.”
“He DID?!?” you exclaim before you can stop yourself. You quickly clap a hand over your mouth, but can’t seem to wipe the shock off your face.
Kris turns to you and cocks an eyebrow. “Um, yeah? All the time. With, uh…” They trail off, biting their lip.
Time freezes for a second. Your mouth slowly drops open as the horrifying realization of what they didn’t say dawns on you. No way. “WHAT???? Both of them did??? Together?!?”
You’re met with Kris’s usual blank expression. The two of you just stare at each other in silence.
Now it’s Susie’s turn to look back and forth bewilderedly between the two of you.
“I thought you knew,” says Kris.
You fist your antlers and pace in a circle. You can feel your temperature rising with your heart rate. You have to resist the urge to start panting to cool yourself down. “No!!! How would I know???”
“Didn’t you see that red tin that she had in her room?”
You stop mid-step and turn to face Kris, the ambivalence on your face so vivid it’s almost palpable.
“....What did you think was in there?” they ask.
“I don’t know!” You yell. “I thought it was just some…unique leaves!” You can feel your face darken horribly at Kris’s snort. “Or something! I don’t know!!!”
Susie can’t help but crack a smile at that one. “Unique leaves, huh?”
You drop your face into both hands and grumble incoherently. The shame burns all the way to the tips of your ears.
Kris clears their throat. You can hear them trying to hide the laugh. Stupid idiot.
After a second, the sound of cellophane crackling breaks the silence. The moment has moved on, and alas, so must you. So you gather whatever composure you have left, slowly lower your hands, and occupy them in the folds of your skirt.
You look up to see Kris taking a giant chomp out of the brownie and starting to chew it. You never cease to be amazed by their audacity…they were gonna do this, whether anyone else liked it or not. With one eyebrow cocked, they glance at you and Susie, a question in their eyes. Your pulse is fluttering.
“‘Oo guysh don haf oo,” is the barely-intelligible thing Kris says through the mouthful of brownie.
Susie’s flabbergasted expression flickers into a conflicted one. She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then closes it. Pauses. Opens it, shuts it with an audible snap. She eyes Kris intensely for a second, but then shakes her head and huffs a sigh.
“Hrrrrggggg…..fine!” She snatches it up and bites into it. “Only cuz you won,” she mumbles through a mouthful of brownie. “I gotta respect the bet.” You see Kris give an appreciative nod to this.
Still chewing, crumbs on her chin, Susie reaches out to offer the brownie to you. Your eyes settle on it. There’s a breathless, tingling thrill in your chest.
She swallows. “For real, Noelle, you don’t gotta. It’s cool.”
“And be the only one to not do it??” You wring your hands. You see Kris shrug at you in response. Wow, thanks.
“Shut up!” Susie gently punches you in the arm. “S’up to you. Maybe we’re stupid for doin’ it. Well, guess we’ll find out.”
“I…never thought I’d be the kind of monster to do drugs.” You kinda cringe after you say that.
Both of them laugh at that. “And what kind of monster’s that?” Kris asks.
“Um…never mind! Forget I said that.”
“Said what?” Susie says, wide-eyed. You roll your eyes, but you smile.
You kind of…can’t believe this is real. You never expected Kris to offer drugs to you, either. It was always supposed to be sketchy strangers on street corners, or wild people at the kind of parties you wouldn’t be at. That sort of thing. Something that would be easy to say no to! But now, now, you actually have to think about it.
But, you mean…well…on reflection, maybe you shouldn’t be that surprised, actually. Kris has never been predictable. If there’s anything you can be sure of about Kris, it’s that they are a force of chaos. Kris has…never really been afraid of anything. And, you muse, neither has Susie.
…You’re actually considering it. Oh god, your mom would kill you…!
You can’t! She’ll know somehow. She’ll sense it, or she’ll smell it on you, or something! You want to bite your nails.
…But if Dess already did it, and you never heard about it, would Mom really know…?
Dess…
Dess. Of course she would do something like this.
She was never “the good kid” like you. She did what she wanted, no matter what anyone thought. And you…adults always described you as “well-behaved”, doing exactly as Mom said.
But what if you do it? This one thing? This one time?
You think about Dess. You think about that fierce look in her eye, and how she would never hesitate once she made up her mind, and how proud you always were to say she was your big sister.
Before you can rethink it, you grab it and stuff it in your mouth.
The cloying chocolate of the brownie is quickly overtaken by a wave of something that’s kind of…grassy and musty. You guess it kind of tastes the way the stuff in Dess’s room smelled. It’s….not good. But it makes you wonder. What did Dess feel like, the first time she did something like this? Was it easy for her? Did she hate the taste like you, and try to play it cool? Everything she did always seemed so effortless. But you kind of hope that she felt the same way, at first.
You try to chew it as fast as you possibly can without looking like a complete weirdo. Kris gives a nod of approval, and Susie is smiling at you. Despite the anxiety, you feel a small warmth burn in your chest. Maybe Dess would be proud of you now, you think.
You’re gotten most of the way through it. But as you’re chewing that last bite, listening to your friends talk, you catch the light reflecting off Susie’s fangs. And you remember. As she handed the brownie to you. You could plainly see the imprints of Susie’s big, sharp teeth in the brownie. Right next to Kris’s smaller, blunter teethmarks. You were the last one to get the brownie.
Some of their saliva is definitely in your mouth right now. Isn’t this totally an indirect kiss?? With both of them???
You choke on the brownie.
You quickly swallow as much as you can before you start coughing and hacking and spraying little bits of it everywhere. Susie, flustered, pounds you on the back. It helps but also kind of hurts at the same time. When you can finally catch a full breath, you look up to Kris holding a glass of water out to you, looking as stoic as ever. You can’t read them as well as you used to, but you could swear there’s an amused glint in their eyes.
You gulp down the water, take a slow breath in and out. Push all of the thoughts out of your head. “I’m good! It’s fine,” you say, while definitely NOT looking at anyone’s lips. “Fahaha, wow, it sure tasted…interesting!”
“Definitely not the worst thing I’ve eaten this week,” Susie shrugs. Kris nods agreement. You’re actually 100% sure they’re telling the truth.