Work Text:
It’s weird, but it starts with the pencil.
School is lame. Everyone knows that. Alphys, try as she might, absolutely does not know how to hold a room. She writes on the board with half a piece of chalk and throws in weird anime references every other sentence.
Goddamn, Kris is so bored.
To their left, Catti taps on her phone with a carefully blank expression, but her ears keep twitching forwards whenever Noelle sighs. To their right, MK is curled all the way forwards so that their snout presses into the desk. It looks uncomfortable. Perhaps anything is better than listening to their teacher drone on and on and on.
Behind them, Kris can hear the drumming of a foot against the floor and the click-click-clicking of a pen.
Someone puts their hand up and asks Alphys something about how to stay motivated during exam season, and she launches into a tirade about how her hero, Mew Mew, never gives up and is oh so determined and wins every battle through the power of love and friendship.
Behind them, the sound of shattering plastic. Then there’s a prod on their shoulder.
”Hey, freak, hey,” a voice hisses, low and deep. Kris turns, and Susie stares back at them with huge yellow eyes.
They raise an eyebrow, mouth pressed into a thin line. There’s a massive blotch of black ink all over the desk and little pieces of the shattered pen spill onto the floor.
Susie finds it in herself to look at least a bit ashamed. “Do you. Have a pen I can borrow?” She whispers, stilted like she’s not used to asking, and lifts a hand to show the ink dripping from her claws. “Kinda. Broke mine.”
Kris stares at her. That’s a lot of audacity to ask; they kind of respect it. Without breaking eye contact, they reach for the case on their desk and offer the first thing they grab. It’s a Halloween pencil. It’s orange and black, all stripy, with a little pumpkin eraser on the top. Noelle had given them that once, a long time ago. It had faint imprints from when Kris’d thought it was flavoured, and Noelle had laughed so hard she’d cried.
”Cool,” Susie says flatly.
But when Kris turns around, they watch her from the corner of their eyes. She’s gnawing at the pumpkin.
Good taste, Kris thinks. They ignore the urge to smile.
*
Months pass and a pattern forms: Susie asks for a pencil, Kris gives her one, Susie chews on it, then gives it back when class ends.
It’s a fragile alliance, but Kris likes it. There is no childhood history in this, no shared trauma, no damning secrets. She doesn’t even go out of her way to bully them anymore — not that it ever really worked. It was just two kids sharing pencils with ever-increasing bite marks.
Noelle pulls them aside one day. It’s the first time they’ve talked since that first awkward week when school had just started, when she’d stared at them with her big doe eyes and asked if they were still friends. She’s grown a little since then and her antlers are bigger. They used to butt their heads together back when Kris still believed their horns would grow in and her antlers were just nubs, and they’d play like wild animals in the grass while Dess and Azzy sat by the lake.
They frown at the memory, shaking it off like water.
”Since when were you and Susie friends?” Noelle asks now. She’s holding some books to her chest, leaning against the lockers all casual-like.
Kris smirks. She hasn’t changed a bit, really. Not in the way her eyes dart around and her ears flutter when she’s nervous. “Not friends,” they sign. “Just not enemies now.”
“More progress than me! I try to talk to her but she acts like I don’t exist. I think I’d rather be enemies,” she sighs, almost wistful, then shakes her head. “Oh well. Thanks, Kris. Have a good day, okay?”
Kris stares at her as she leaves and pretends that somewhere in their chest, their heart doesn’t ache.
*
Susie corners them in the hallway.
Every slow, thundering step pushes them backwards until they feel cold metal against their spine. Their heartbeat thrums in their throat.
Long gone is the civil Susie now — her eyes blaze, sharp teeth bared in a snarl, fists pulling tight against her sides. She moves so quickly when she wants to. Massive arms shove them against a locker and their head bangs against it with a painful thud.
When they look up at her with their impassive gaze, she growls and pushes them harder into the metal.
”Quiet people piss me off,” she’s saying as claws pierce their skin through their sweater.
They want to tell her they don’t give a damn about her eating chalk. They want to tell her they sniff scented markers stolen from their mom’s classroom. They want to tell her they literally share chewed-up pencils every day. They want to tell her just how pretty she looks when she’s furious.
They don’t say anything. It’s hard not to laugh in her face and harder still to fight off the heat creeping up their cheeks.
She lets them go eventually, muttering threats, and drags them to the closet to find more chalk for Alphys.
Then they’re falling and fighting and whoever the fuck Ralsei is tells them they’re prophecised heroes.
Susie saves their life, calls them her friend.
When they leave the Dark World, something has shifted between them. They don’t talk about the dented lockers and the claw-shaped scabs on Kris’s shoulders. They didn’t even get the goddamned chalk.
But Susie is there, and she called them her friend, and when she grabs them this time, it’s gentler and her voice is warm.
*
See, here’s the thing.
Kris is selfish. Kris is greedy. Kris is strange. Kris wants and wants and wants, but doesn’t do anything about it.
It’s obvious that Noelle likes Susie. After leaving Noelle’s house, Kris has a horrible feeling that Susie likes Noelle back.
They must have some sort of death wish because no one else would subject themselves to this kind of torture. Sure, it’s not entirely their fault — being possessed does that thing to a person — but even then, running around being some kind of wingman for their childhood ex-crush and their current crush to get together must be a top three worst personal hell.
The festival is bad enough, with their stupid soul trying its best to slap the two girls together like Barbie dolls. The hammer game is awful. Susie and Noelle go together and fail miserably, and then Susie gives some roundabout romantic speech and Kris wants to die. The ballot is awful, because Noelle asks for Kris to write down Susie and Noelle. To spite her, they put down Noelle as king and themself as queen, then gets this terrible sense of deja-vu.
They used to do this when they were little. Fight over who was king or queen. Spell each other’s names wrong. Do their best to cheer up Noelle when she cried because they lost by scaring her on the ferris wheel.
When they look up at her, she’s looking at their voting card with her stupid big sad eyes and writes the two of them down as well, misspellings and all.
The ferris wheel is awful, because Kris doesn’t want to reminisce anymore and lets the girls go on the ride. Noelle can recreate her dream or whatever and kiss at the top. God. They want to throw dirt at the windows so bad. Even the ice cream is awful. Not really — the treat itself is delicious, and sure, Noelle gives them hers, but it means she and Susie share. Then Susie goes and draws the three of them and Ralsei on the punch card, but drawing-Susie and drawing-Noelle are making heart eyes at each other.
The lake. The goddamned lake. The lake is worse than awful.
They all sit at a bench and finish their ice creams and chatter about nothing. Kris signs something about being tired and Susie gives them a sympathetic look but thankfully doesn’t bring up last night. When their eyes droop, they let themselves sink down onto the table and smoosh their face against the cool surface, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their head and the breeze tickling their hair. The conversation continues as they drift off.
”—should we wake them up?”
”—nice being the two of us, sometimes—”
They come-to at the sound of laughter. Slowly, their eyes slip open.
Susie and Noelle are in the lake. No, that’s not right. Susie is in the lake and she’s carrying Noelle. In her arms. Their heads tucked close together.
They’re blushing.
Kris feels their world come to a shuddering halt.
This cannot be happening right now.
No. No no no no no.
Bile rises in their throat. No. Not like this. Not while they have to watch. Not ever.
It’s selfish. They know it’s selfish. An ugly, jealous, cruel thing claws at their chest. They want to tear it all apart, reset, keep the two of them far far away.
Every shriek of delight was Kris and Noelle’s thing. A knight and a princess a long time ago, when they’d play dress-up and Kris would carry Noelle around while she was still small and light enough. Pretending to drop her so she’d scream, but holding on tight because she was soft and sweet and they wanted to protect her. A bond formed through being different, weird, not belonging in their own bodies.
Secrets, because they had no one else.
Every unspoken tender moment should’ve been Kris and Susie’s thing. Was Kris and Susie’s thing, from the very first time they met, that little blossoming feeling from every brush of the hand and taking hits for each other and fighting back tears when things were too difficult to say in words. Each other’s first real somethings, quite literally forged in prophecy.
Unspoken, because they got each other.
The way they looked at each other, how they used to look at Kris when they thought Kris wasn’t looking.
That was Kris’s. Should be Kris’s.
What were they doing wrong? They were trying their best. Let Noelle back in. Didn’t let hard times shatter the bond with Susie.
And yet.
So when the splashing turned into squelching shoes against sand, Kris closed their eyes and pretended they were still asleep.
They pray to whoever is listening that their tears don’t fall.
*
In the Dark World, Ralsei sinks into the hot spring and closes his eyes. Kris watches as he takes off his glasses and shakes the water dripping from his eyelashes. He’s the spitting image of what Kris thought they’d become when they were little. It’s unnerving but it’s fun, and Kris has always been selfish.
It’s warm here, and Ralsei does not judge them, is not afraid of them, and is just as lonely as Kris.
Someone who will not leave me, Kris thinks, so when Ralsei says his happy ending is with them, Kris says it back.