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There’s a bone-crushing tiredness making its way through Kris’ body as they settle down in bed for the night, pillow tugged over their head as the phone call clicks off. They know by now what the Knight wants of them, the thing possessing them, but it doesn’t make it any easier to carry out. They couldn’t force Noelle. They couldn’t freeze Berdly. They couldn’t put that ring on her finger, not in this timeline, and they knew that whatever they were attempting instead was all for naught. It’s only after Susie leaves for the night do they let themself feel the weight of the world inside them, clawing at their chest because there’s just not enough air making its way into their lungs anymore. They rip the Soul out, not needing it to sleep or do anything unaligned with the Plan, and prepare for another restless slumber.
A knock at their window startles them out of their daze, panting from the exertion of digging into their own chest and carving out their insides. For a moment, Kris thinks it’s Susie again, but,
“Hey, Kris,” comes Noelle’s small, small voice, “let me in, my mom’s gonna freak out if she notices I’m gone.”
Kris moves with the speed of, well, someone possessed, and lifts Noelle through the window in shock and awe.
“Noelle? Why are you—”
“Remember when we were kids, and you’d sneak into my room to hide under my bed and scare me in the middle of the night?” Kris nods in affirmation as the pair move to sit on their bed “This isn’t that. I just thought...y’know. Since you and Susie had a sleepover last night, maybe... like, old times. Right?”
Kris is absolutely dumbfounded, but they don’t question it. Noelle’s already in her pajamas, and whether or not she intends to stay the entire night while being highly aware of Carol’s watchful eye is not something Kris can concern themself with right now. If it were to really be like before everything went wrong, then even with the vestiges of wrongness all around them, they’d take it.
When they were kids, Kris and Noelle would put something on the TV and fall asleep in the living room, sometimes curled up on the floor, before magically waking up in Kris’ bed the next morning. Tonight they skip a step, opting to watch something in Kris’ room from the start. Kris hooks up their computer to the projector so it plays a little bigger against the wall, and crawls straight into bed next to Noelle. The two of them don’t fit as well as they used to, and it’s not exactly a welcome change, but Kris pushes down the proof of time passing in favor of the familiarity of it all.
“Madoka’s okay?”
Noelle’s eyes sparkle—or maybe they don’t, and Kris is just a little homesick—as she nods her head in affirmation. She’s got herself dressed in one of Dess’ old sweatshirts and some tacky pajama shorts with candy canes on them and Kris can’t help the way their heart twists in their chest.
You have no idea, they think, Angel above, you have no idea.
The two are curled up in Kris’ bed now, not unlike a pair of cats, projector on the far wall of the room with its light spilling all over and illuminating the otherwise dark space. Noelle has tangled her legs in between Kris’, arms wrapped around the other’s waist with her face resting on their chest and tilted towards the show just enough to see Madoka and Homura meet for the first time.
"Homura is so badass here," and her voice is a little muffled in Kris’ chest, giggling a little at her own cuss, but it hardly matters. Kris is going to be sick. They feel their chest rattle a bit on an exhale, their insides quivering like a leaf.
Kris is carding their fingers through Noelle’s hair, careful not to aggravate her antlers, as she rattles off about the show, her honeyed locks braided for bed with some strays curled around her face just so. She looks a bit like a poodle and Kris smiles despite themself at the comparison. It’s about halfway through the third episode that Noelle starts to doze off, and that’s when Kris makes the elective decision to turn in for bed. They struggle a bit to reach across and pause the show from the connected app on their phone without moving Noelle too much, but they succeed nonetheless.
“Noooo,” Noelle whines, “Krismas, I was still watching! Why’d you,” she yawns through her next words, and Kris’ heart does something traitorous in their chest, “why’d you turn it off?”
“You were so asleep, Noelle,” Kris murmurs. They wish they could just stay here, but they’re greedy and sick for taking even this much. Kris pushes past their heart, screaming at them to take even more, when they ask, “Shouldn’t you head back to your mom’s?”
Noelle offers no response, just squeezes tighter around Kris’ waist and yawns into their chest again. Kris pets her head gently, as if Noelle were the scared cat between the two of them. They allow themself at least this, at least for a little longer. When they think Noelle is asleep, the antlered girl surprises them.
“Hey, Kris?”
“Hmm?”
“Between the two of us, who do you think I’m more like? Madoka? Or Homura?”
Kris rolls the question around in their head a bit, paralysed by the implications, sick to their stomach about what they know. In another route, she’s not here by choice. In another route, Kris forced her into this, turned her into a narrative tool and the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter and a frail maiden and a weeping angel and.
Kris feels their gut tighten. They not want to think of the two of them in relation to each other, not like that. Not in quasi-romantic, timeline-jumping, fated-to-be, self-sacrificial relation to each other. They do anyway. When they answer, they swallow their nerves and will their stomach to stop flipping, goddammit. They pray Noelle can’t feel the stutter in their chest.
“Madoka.”
Because Kris knows. Because all of their friends think Noelle needs Kris to survive, that she’s the only one still clinging to the past and what they used to have, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Kris knows Noelle could do anything. That she could be anything. What is Kris, without the red string that wraps around their body, constricts their throat, and ties them to Noelle? What is the Earth, without the moon, the sun, and all the stars? Kris misses it. They miss their life before this. They miss what they could have let themself have, and a sick part of them mourns the alternative, where Noelle is unquestionably theirs, even if she isn’t, not really. Kris burrows themself deeper and deeper into a hole of their own heartache.
“Oh.”
And Noelle doesn’t really sound disappointed, but.
But.
“Oh?” Kris echoes, voice barely above a whisper.
“Guess it makes sense,” Noelle chimes in, “You’ve always been something of a prankster. Of course you’d jump through timelines if you could.” Her tone is still unreadable, and Kris doesn’t know where to take it from here. They attempt a joke, but their track record with those was never great.
“Well, what’s 12 years of time loops anyway? I’ve done worse.”
The tension is thick, or maybe Kris is just imagining it. So many horrible, awful things are increasingly more real these days, and maybe this is just another one of them. Still, Noelle hasn’t pushed herself out of Kris’ arms or anything, so that’s good. That’s perfect, actually.
“You’re cool, Kris,” Noelle says after a while, and Kris feels their chest relax. “Wish I could be Homura, though.”
Kris snorts at that. “Madoka becomes a god at the end, Noelle. That’s infinitely cooler.”
“Aww, Krismas, I’m infinitely cooler than you?”
“Hold on, I never—”
“You’d live through a hundred time loops just to see me be cooler than you in all of them? Kris, that’s so kind!” Noelle is teasing, and Kris is fracturing at the edges, like shards of glass catching light in all the wrong angles.
“I would,” they say, I’ve done worse, they don’t. Their tone is a little too serious for comfort, but they can’t stop it now, “I’d find every way to get to you and I’d do it all over again, every time. Because it’s you.”
Noelle peers up at them at that, face backlit against the projector that’s still paused on the episode. In the background, Madoka and Sayaka are watching Mami fight a witch. They have no idea what happens next.
Nothing could have prepared Kris for what happens next.
“Anything?” she asks, voice frail and thin like she’s afraid of something. She should be. She doesn’t know Kris anymore, and she’s here in their bed like they’re kids again. She’s leaning in like Kris doesn’t have the capacity to hurt her, like they haven’t already, like Kris doesn’t know too much and isn’t keeping her in the dark on purpose. If anything, Kris should be equal parts remorseful and mortified at the fact that they let the two of them get here. Their lack of self-preservation in this moment doesn’t allow them to be anything more than desperate.
Kris nods their head, voice trapped in their throat as Noelle stares up at them, internally debating something. She shifts around some and promptly deposits herself in Kris’ lap, looming over her like some Angel, like some god. Kris was right to liken her to Madoka.
“Anything at all? You have to say it,” her voice shakes a bit at the end, “if you mean it, Kris. You have to say it.”
“Yeah,” Kris answers, though it comes out like more of a croak, their throat parched and their nerves thrumming through their body like electricity. They want this so bad. They’re going to regret this in the morning. They’re regretting it right now, “Yeah, Noelle. Anything at all.”
Noelle intertwines their fingers. Kris starts praying.
“Can I kiss you?”
Kris would, without a doubt, give up their soul to live through this a hundred times. They’re sure they already have.
Please don’t.
“Please.”
Noelle brings her hands up to rest on either side of Kris’ face, palms cradling them and thumbs brushing over the moles scattered all about. Kris places theirs around Noelle’s waist, bringing her in as close as possible as they scan all over Noelle’s face for any sign of uncertainty, and then they’re kissing, and it’s so, so over for Kris.
Noelle still tastes faintly of mint toothpaste and Kris exhales a laugh at the thought of her hurriedly brushing her teeth before sneaking in through Kris’ window. Her lips are so soft, and it makes Kris a little unsteady, holding Noelle a little tighter in an effort to ground themself. Guilt and remorse snake their way through Kris’ body and they push their lips against her harder in an effort to drown them out. If Noelle notices, she doesn’t do anything but inch herself closer and closer into Kris’ lap, as if trying to make them one. Oh, what Kris would give for that.
Eventually, it’s Noelle who has to break the kiss, coming up for air and grinning this stupid, wide smile in Kris’ face. The grief comes barreling into Kris at full speed.
“Noelle, I—” is the first thing that almost comes out of Kris’ mouth. They cut themself before they create another regret for the night.
The computer has timed out by now, displaying only Kris’ wallpaper of a crudely drawn Seam onto the wall. In the corner of the artwork is a doodle of a little Noelle holding hands with a little Kris. It should be more embarrassing, how Noelle is still in every part of Kris’ life. It would be, were they not in the position they were in right now.
“Say it, Kris,” she... demands? Begs? Kris doesn’t know anymore, but they know this can’t end well for either of them.
“No.”
“C’mon Krismas,” Noelle softens, tucks a lock of Kris’ choppy hair behind their ears, and Kris leans into it despite themself. “Won’t you tell me?”
“You know,” Kris mutters. They avert their gaze, fingers idly rubbing circles into Noelle’s back. They don’t want to talk about this. Noelle knows them better than anybody else ever has or ever will. Why is she making them say it? Why is she being so mean?
“But I want to hear it, I—”
“What, Noelle? What do you want to hear?”
“Don’t do that.” she says sharply. It shocks Kris, just a little, but they remember how confident and sure of herself she’d grown in Cyber World. It’s great that it’s doing her some good, but they hate that it’s at their expense. “Don’t shut me out like that. Not now.”
Kris freezes, a little dumb, a lot miserable. They meet Noelle’s eyes again. “You’re serious.”
“Seriously scared,” Noelle laughs nervously, and ah, there she is. Kris relaxes a bit. “Please say something.”
Kris feels like the Angel is mocking them. Haven’t they done enough for the night?
“I would do anything for you,” Kris struggles, “So many horrible, selfish things. I would live through the worst of it a hundred times over if it meant fixing everything of yours I’ve ever broken.” And Angel knows I’ve broken so, so much. “I’d die—I’d live for you. I’d put myself through so much, fucking,” Kris is staring down at nothing now, grasping at their shirt and mimicking the motions of tearing out the Soul again and again and again, “so much pain for you. For you. Why do I have to say it? You know. You know.” Noelle would have no possible way of knowing this. Not everything. Not in the way Kris needs her to know. Not in the way Kris could never let her know. They think they’re crying now. “Dammit all, Noelle. It’s all I can do to just keep you near me. How could you not know?”
Noelle answers with a kiss, a lot gentler than their first. Heavens, their first. Kris feels her wipe their tears away and it brings fresh ones springing to the surface. They feel Noelle’s tears splash onto their cheeks and mix with theirs, and maybe like this they can be one.
Noelle leans back to look at them, and maybe Kris will never be rid of this feeling of homesickness, but that doesn’t stop the universe—all its timelines, all its red strings and intertwining dimensions that lead back to Kris and Noelle, and Noelle and Kris, and this moment right here, and a million other moments just like it—from shining in Noelle’s eyes, bright as ever.