Work Text:
There are nine seeds in your pocket.
You counted them by the incandescent glow of tangled string lights, orange and green and blue mixing together into a muddy warmth. One fell. A little black speck, rolling off of your sweaty palm. You scrabbled at the concrete with blunt, bitten nails until you found it.
You don't know why you counted. The label is clear: Contact Poison Control if ingested, it says. May lead to vomiting, hemorrhaging, and death. Eight is as good as nine, but you'd held the worn, aged packet open with one trembling hand and dropped the last seed inside.
The paper crumples in your pocket as you shift. You're in your room, now. In bed. You'd stood outside the closet door in the empty school until your eyes burned, but in the end, there was nowhere else for you to go. You went home. You croaked out a conversation-ending "Dad" when your mom asked you where you'd been, and went to your room.
It's just you, now. The empty you.
The other you—the one that always knew the right thing to say, the one that helped people and made friends and saved the world—glows faintly through the blanket thrown over its cage. You'd hoped it would feel better, like this. It was the one that wanted those things.
It still hurts.
The air is stale. Your clothes are dirty. Alone with yourself, you lay with your eyes open and think about Susie.
She'd asked you to walk her home. That was when it started. All day, you'd watched her slip away from you. At the festival, where everything went right and the tender, budding thing between her and Noelle grew fast enough to choke you, where no matter what you did, it lead back to them. At the lake, at sunset: Susie on one knee. Noelle in her arms. Even in the Dark World, your last desperate bid, you couldn't escape it. Anyone who looked at her could tell.
But she'd asked you to walk her home. You took slow, meandering footsteps down the main street, trailing your fingers against the sides of houses, over empty stalls and tattered streamers. You waited for her to say something.
Eventually, she did. She said it slow, like she was testing the shape of the words as she spoke. I've… just been thinking about that, she said. Thinking about… us. If it had just been you, you might have stumbled. Together, you walked.
You reached the fork in the road. The gate to Noelle's house ahead, yours to the right. Again, hope came creeping in, like fresh blood pushing pins and needles out from a body that had fallen asleep. Walk me home, she'd said. You turned right. You could have a home for her. She could have Asriel's bed. She could have yours. You would sleep on the floor, in your cage, if it meant having her there.
She grabbed your wrist to stop you. Her hand was warm. She said...
*Think about Susie
You'd turned onto the path that leads to the lake. Your lake, yours and hers, where you'd sat with her and listened to the waves that first night. Where the other you fell away, or where you fell back together. A place where you didn't need words.
You wanted to go back. One more night at the lake, where it all started. You wouldn't mind if she didn't say anything. You wouldn't mind if she didn't even look at you. You could just sit there, together.
She stopped you. Her voice was low and gentle, but her eyes were faraway. She said...
*Think about Susie
On the way to the school. Lump in your throat. She'd started and stopped a few times. If you looked away... if you imagined the darkness concealing a rosy flush and mistook her hesitance for nerves, it could have been a confession.
And then, she said,
our thing no one can take away
our special thing
our secret
she said,
our thing that's just better
if it's just the two of us.
And for a second, just a second, you'd hoped. You had no reason for it. You'd heard enough by the lake, as the picnic table pressed diamond print into your cheek, to know that there was no room for you in the world they were creating. But in spite of that—in spite of the distance between you as you'd soaked your feet together in the onsen and her laugh after you forced through cracked lips, me next—in spite of the Ferris wheel, and the ballot, and the diner plans, you hoped. Maybe it would never be your heartbeat in her ears. But you had this: something special, something better, something no one can take away.
You lead her into the school. Heavy footsteps down worn linoleum. You think that if she'd asked you to come with her, you would have done it. It would have ruined everything, but you would have gone.
That was Susie's power. Her hope, shining bright enough to blow away the darkness. Bright enough to make you believe in impossible things.
And then she said...
Blood fills your mouth, salty tang of wet copper.
Your fingers dig at the scar on your chest. Nothing happens. It's just skin, stretched over the hard plate of your sternum. You're already empty, but you scratch and scratch until it's red and raw. You want to be less of you.
There's nothing left to take out. It's just you, the empty you, with blood in your mouth and a hollowness that will never be filled. You'd realized it then, as she'd closed the closet door behind her. That hope… that brilliant, shining hope… it wasn't for you. It was for Noelle, who'd wished for this for so long. It was for Ralsei, who would never see the sun but chose to change, to grow and believe. Susie's hope was for everyone with a future to reach out and grasp, even if it was only a dream.
For you, there are nine black seeds in your pocket.
You lay in bed, and try to think about something else.