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Neon green glowing stars illuminated the otherwise shrouded veil of darkness that was Dess's room. To say it was better than watching the real night sky of Hometown and its shiny constellations was a stretch. Weighing them together, you wouldn't have the accompanying sounds of nature's ambience, like the chirps of crickets or the soft waves of the Hometown lake, but the interior of a bedroom could offer more privacy than any scenic area.
Was this a good idea? Was this a good idea?
Plus, there was the fact that you could adjust the temperature of the room and not have to worry about the unpredictable weather patterns of nature. You could also blast whatever kind of music you wanted without worrying about disturbing the peace and getting a stern lecture from Undyne, or all the people who would also rat you out to your parents, despite being adults.
Was it foolish to accept the invite? Was I stupid to invite him in?
But the cons began to outweigh the pros when you were spending time in a dark room with bright green stars stuck to the ceiling and walls, cuddling with someone that you care about, yet have complicated feelings within that even you yourself have yet to figure out.
Is this even…healthy? Did I make the right decision?
We decided to be friends again, regardless of that horrible argument months ago. Sure, we rarely texted each other, mostly sending funny videos to one another, desperately hoping that one would reach out to the other in a meaningful way. Plus, our siblings kept pestering us, questioning if there was anything going on between us, but we simply said that we were just friends again who needed a bit of space. Until today. The stars aligned, and suddenly we were cuddling in bed as if nothing bad ever happened, and totally not because we’re desperately touch-starved. Friends could just cuddle again without any bothersome emotions or previously attached strings getting in the way…right?
Aren’t friends allowed to do this…? Can friends even do this…?
“No. This doesn't feel right…” Dess pulled away from her and Asriel’s attempted cuddle session, then shifted towards the opposite edge of her bed, rubbing her forehead to regain her composure before laying it all out for him. “Friends don’t fucking do this.”
Asriel sighed then adjusted himself against the headboard. He rubbed his face with both paws before staring back at her with discontent. “Dess, we talked about this. We can still be platonic AND cuddle. Friendships aren’t confined to only handshakes, friendly greetings, and side hugs.”
She shook her head before pulling her knees close to her chest; frustration seeping from her face. “I know, Asriel, but it’s so hard to try being friends again when I still have these stupid feelings! So much painful pressure in my heart builds up that I keep thinking I’ll explode and soak you with my blood and guts!” She said as her arms flailed out in frustration.
Asriel could spare only so much as a short chuckle in reaction because he, too, had been experiencing the same kind of longing and pain since their break from each other months ago. He thought hearing Dess’s own words would bring him a sense of comfort and perhaps an opportunity to bridge the gap between the two once again….
Instead, he was met with hesitation — a sense of uncertainty about what this could possibly mean for them; afraid deep down that not even their friendship has an iota of a chance of being present in Dess and Asriel’s future…
A frail whisper of words escaping from Dess’s lips was what brought Asriel right out of his trance. “Asriel, please say something…”
He felt the searing pain in that soft delivery and internally cursed himself for not realizing how long he’d been lost from wandering the endless crashing waves that composed his mind. “S-sorry, Dess. I was just processing what you were telling me.”
Dess tilted her head from her knees to look up at Asriel. Out of fear of his potentially life-ruining response, her mouth ran faster than her brain could comprehend. “You haven’t been ghosting me, right? I’m not good enough to be floating around in your thoughts, huh??”
Asriel, taken aback by this sudden accusation, wore an expression mixed with confusion, shock, and mild annoyance. “W-what…?” He suddenly found himself growling deeply before responding to Dess’s burst of assumptions. “…Where is this coming from, Dess?? You know I’m always thinking about you! Even after all these months!”
“Liar.” She said, her head now lifted up from her knees, glared daggers straight into Asriel’s eyes.
“I’m not lying, Dess! It’s the whole truth!” Asriel pleaded while shifting forward on his knees, his hands anxiously folded over his chest. “You know how many nights I’ve spent trying not to cry myself to sleep over the fact that our relationship was fragmented from the get-go? Feeling anxious that I was never doing enough for us? That it always felt like you never really met my level of reciprocation, no matter how many times I brought it up?”
Dess continued to stare at Asriel as if peering through his very soul, her eyes slightly bulging out while processing everything he stated…only to snicker and snort as she broke eye contact, then held a hand to her mouth, trying not to burst out in laughter. “Jeez, Asriel, ‘get-go’? You couldn’t even say something more dorkier than that if you tried.”
Frustrated, Asriel smacks his forehead with the palm of his paw. “Seriously, Dess? THAT’S your takeaway from this??”
Dess cleared her throat and regained composure before raising her hands up and speaking. “Okay, okay, I’m done now. But, Asriel…you KNOW I’m aro-ace. You KNOW how difficult it is for me to return and match your feelings back to you. I’m not doing any of this to hurt you intentionally!”
He averted his gaze from her eyes. “Doesn’t make it any less painful…” He said as shaking fists formed on his thighs. She sighed while looking up in exhaustion, knowing that this would lead to their argument circling back once again, similar to months ago. She then took a deep breath and spoke up. “Maybe it’ll hurt less if instead of referring to it as a ‘break away’ from each other, you call it as it is; a 100%, honest-to-angel, relationship break-”
“I KNOW IT’S A BREAKUP!!” Asriel yelled from the top of his lungs before covering his mouth immediately, and with wide eyes and a burning throat, looked up at Dess, who was wearing a horrified expression from Asriel’s sudden outburst. After what felt like an eternity of silence and tension, both let out a breath they hadn’t realized they were holding. Noticing that Asriel is still hesitant to speak, Dess then clasped her hands together and prepared to express her feelings on the matter.
“Asriel, I’m genuinely sorry for all the emotional pain I have caused you. And I’m sorry for bottling up my emotions too often and not giving you the time of day to say how much I care about you or communicating as much as I should have been.” Dess shifted toward Asriel slightly with a pained expression displayed fully and exposed her raw emotions. “But I really did care!! You were always on my mind. I wanted to do what it took to make you happy! I just couldn’t…”
At long last, Dess let herself be vulnerable to the person who truly mattered the most in her angelforsaken life. The cathartic feeling, letting her deepest emotions release at full force, caused her to shake as if she were going to burst. “My system was ringing bells and yelling at me to give you everything. When I tried to make something happen, it kept falling apart from my own mind pulling me back constantly. I couldn’t push myself to love you as much as you deserved. Not even the most simple of gestures. My feelings became heavy, and I plunged every time…”
Dess didn't realize she was crying until she felt the tears stream down her face and drop onto the bed. She used her palms to cover up her eyes and wipe away the never-ending tears coming out. She mustered up enough composure to keep talking, despite her already strained throat. “I-if you had given me more time, I-I’d have found a sweet spot that I was comfortable with and–and figured out what would’ve worked for us!!”
Upon witnessing Dess's raw emotional exposure and admission, he could barely get a word out before covering his face and finally crying. Guilt and regret clouded every corner of his mind, his tears flowing out onto his hands, trying but failing not to make even more of a mess out of himself in front of the only person that he desperately wanted to reconnect with in his life again. Dess, raising her head up in response to Asriel's cries and with her eyes watery and blurred, looked at him somberly, her heart aching sympathetically. Ignoring the whirlwind of hesitant and complicated feelings pooling within her soul, she immediately reached out to wrap her arms around Asriel’s upper back and hug him for comfort and assurance. Her face buried into Asriel's shoulder as Dess let herself become a blubbering mess by unleashing the rest of her bottled-up emotions.
Asriel quickly adjusts himself to hug her back, his face buried into her shoulder in turn. Snot and tears stained their clothing while their arms around each other tightened. Their desperate attempt to speak resulted in only unintelligible sounds escaping their mouths.
After a long while of life-draining hysterics, Asriel and Dess finally calmed down; still choking on their short cries with occasional hiccups and sniffles. Asriel then shifted back slightly, loosening his grip on Dess, but she reached out to gently grab the back of his head and make him look at her. Asriel stared back down at Dess with wide red eyes, then bleated when she pulled him down to lean her forehead against his. Asriel, surprised by this motion, embraced it and closed his eyes as well to revel in their bittersweet moment of intimacy. Both took solace in their almost synchronised heavy breathing. With closed eyes and some sniffles, he reached his paws up to her hands and gently embraced them. They lingered in their affectionate hold, taking in the presence of each other through all their senses. Asriel smelled of butterscotch and sweet dreams, while Dess smelled like peppermint and pine with a hint of nicotine. His warm fur and touch soothed even the most coarse and doubtful feelings that seeped out of Dess’s soul, while Dess’s cool temperature tranquilized Asriel’s fears, bringing him back from falling into a pit of despair.
In their minds, the Earth had ceased its rotation. The planets of the solar system were frozen in place. The sun was idle in its everlasting glow. The entirety of Earth’s population had halted as if Dess and Asriel were the only monsters that truly mattered. Despite the deep-rooted tension that persistently hung between the two, both wished that this moment of faux peace could last forever — no other responsibilities or stresses of the world to worry about. As much as Dess and Asriel loved their little siblings, they felt an impulse to be a little selfish for the sake of their own degrading mental health and crumbling relationship.
Dess felt awful from spreading her deep-seated gnawing pain towards Asriel, corroding both of their bodies like a disease. She knew that finally speaking from the heart was the only path to take during their argument, but it still hurt horribly upon seeing how much misery her words brought upon Asriel. Why couldn’t the truth be capable of healing rather than creating anguish? She used her hands to wipe away the rest of the lingering tears after bringing back her head from Asriel, who looked back at Dess with curiosity, tired red eyes, and disappointment after another moment of intimacy in months that he longed for with Dess suddenly ended. However, an immediate wave of guilt washed over his consciousness once again upon seeing Dess's snivelling red face. He sniffed a couple more times, then cleared his throat to talk.
“Dess, let me just apologize for being a crybaby earlier…right after I yelled at you at a volume I didn’t think I could reach.” He says, looking away, embarrassed, and clearly full of unrelenting guilt. Attempting to relieve his feeling, Dess poked him in the stomach. Resulting in a bleat escaping from his mouth, along with a flinch. He whipped his head back at Dess, who, despite having red eyes from crying and dampened fur from her tears, managed a smug smile and a cocked eyebrow directed at Asriel.
“Angel, even after all these months, you're still so fucking dorky.” She said as she failed to prevent a wave of giggles. “It’s kinda cute how you can’t turn it off, like, at all!”
Out of embarrassment, Asriel turned red as beets from Dess’s comment, and he even covered his face with his ears. “Dess! I can’t help the way I talk! My mom was a no-nonsense parent when it came to proper pronunciation and etiquette!”
Dess only burst out in hard laughter from how eloquent Asriel sounded and fell back on the bed, clutching her stomach, as tears formed at the corner of her eyes. “HAHAHA! ASRIEL, STOP! YOUR DORKINESS IS KILLING ME!” Dess’s contagious laugh spread to Asriel as an ever-growing smile quickly formed on his face, and he broke out into complete hysterics alongside Dess. Their session of hooting and howling lasted for about 3 minutes straight before they both finally calmed down and took deep breaths. Both lay on the bed, looking up at the neon star stickers spread across Dess’s dark ceiling and took in the serenity of the moment, savoring it as much as possible.
…But they knew that peace was not in the cards for them.
Asriel then turned his head to look at Dess, relishing the tranquil and harmonious expression donning on her face. “I’m also sincerely sorry for essentially not respecting the boundaries of your uhhh…” His mouth hung loose as he short-circuited, leading to her snickering in reaction to his little struggle.
Despite their emotional spiral, she couldn’t help but still find him cute when he hesitated to pronounce certain words. She repositioned herself to lie on her side with her palm resting under her cheek and helped fill in the blank. “My sexual identity?” She said, smirking slyly, provoking him to chuckle awkwardly and scratch the back of his head.
“Heh, y-yeah precisely. It was disrespectful and extremely immature of me to push you to do something that was clearly uncomfortable for you. I was selfish, impatient, and blinded by my frustration with my parents’ divorce and the mess that was brought on afterwards.” Asriel shifted his gaze away from Dess, ashamed to look at her and fearful of her response.
Dess gave herself a moment to absorb every word before replying, “Apology accepted, Dreemurr. But as much as I hate to say it, I don’t think I can forgive you. Even after all these months passed by and I had time to look back at how you behaved, what you prioritized, and how you pretty much mistreated me exactly how your dad acted towards your mom.” She pushed herself to sit up and rested her arms over her knees while locking his hands together. “I was always there when you called, and vice versa, yet you only saw me as an outlet for your emotions and stress instead of viewing me as another being with a complicated soul.” Dess then turned her head towards Asriel and eyed him in a cold manner. “But your patience was much thinner than I expected. And now I’m putting my foot down again. I’m sorry, Azzy, but I can’t bring myself to forgive you at all…”
If Asriel had enough energy, he would be tearing up once again; instead, you could hear the quiet but loud shatter of his heart breaking apart into a million pieces. Asriel closed his eyes and tilted his head upwards towards the starry ceiling. Taking in her harsh yet truthful words, he simply nodded in understanding. Wasting no time, he pushed himself and stood up from her bed. Putting on his jacket that was hanging on the desk chair, he adjusted his clothes and hair, then made his way towards the bedroom door. His footsteps felt heavy, but the stinging tears forming threatened to fall harder. He placed his paw on the doorknob before turning his head slightly to see Dess out of the blurry corner of his eye.
“Thank you, Dess. You gave me a lot more to think about.” He spoke with a trembling voice, doing his absolute best not to cry again — he felt that he wasn’t deserving of doing so. “I…I love you, Dess. I always will, even if I’m not in your life anymore…”
Awaiting her reaction, all he saw was Dess staring at him with an unreadable expression before resting her head on her knees and looking in the opposite direction. The apparent indifference of her reaction threatened the dam that barely held together in Asriel’s eyes before he quickly opened and shut the door behind him, hastily shuffling down the hall of the Holiday household.
Once his footsteps became distant, Dess let out a deep sigh as she began to silently cry to herself while she shivered almost violently from Asriel's last words.
“Angel, did I do the right thing…?”