Chapter Text
There wasn’t even a trial.
There wasn’t a need for one, the police from out of town said; it was a “clear-cut” case. The deceased were merely a pair of teenagers. Still only kids, and from a town small enough to walk corner-to-corner without breaking a sweat. Why would there be a trial?
Susie kicked a pebble along the sidewalk, watching as it pitter-pattered against the concrete. She followed behind it, before catching up and kicking it forward once more. Kick, chase, kick, chase, kick again.
She’d been staying at Toriel’s since…it happened. Toriel broke down in public at the thought of a single night with both her children’s beds empty, and Susie couldn’t bear to look Ralsei in the face, couldn’t bear to tell him what she’d failed to prevent. She knew keeping this from him was selfish, but she promised herself she’d tell him soon. Eventually.
It was surprising how easy she found it to call Toriel’s house “home”. Susie slept in Kris’ bed, taking in the leftover scent of apple shampoo and cinnamon pie. She didn’t sleep the first night, but the smell of Kris still permeating the sheets rocked her to sleep the second.
Still kicking that damn rock, Susie’s stomach growled despite herself. She didn’t feel up to eating, not really, but she hadn’t felt up to eating for days now. Toriel had thrown herself into cooking, using it as a distraction more than anything, but most of it sat untouched in the fridge.
Sunset’s light painted Hometown a mishmash of reds and oranges, and Susie began the trek northward. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she caught a glimpse of the hospital, Carol’s car parked outside. The mayor hadn’t left Rudy’s side since the day of the Festival, leaving the Holiday house’s windows dark with abandon. Susie had been too scared to enter, even to talk with Rudy. She felt she owed Noelle’s parents a conversation, or maybe an apology, but she owed a lot of people a lot of things. Yet another task to put off.
Toriel was asleep on the sofa when Susie entered, a bottle of wine making a puddle in the carpet. Mr. Sans was at the counter, grabbing towels from the cupboard. Kris had hated him, Susie knew, and rightfully so, but he’d been holding Toriel together these past few days—at least until Asriel made the trip back.
Susie didn’t greet him, stepping around the stain and contemplating eating. She didn’t want to, but she hadn’t felt this weak since–
Since before the first Dark World. Since before Kris.
Appetite more than gone, she decided against getting a plate of whatever, beelining for the steps upstairs.
“Hey, kid,” Sans said, with that tone that adults got when they wanted to talk about something no one else wanted to talk about.
“What?” Susie barely refrained from snapping. She shouldn’t take out her anger on him, even if he wasn’t her favorite person.
“After I clean up this spill, do you wanna get something to eat from the diner? My treat.”
Frankly, no, going out for food with her dead best friend’s mom’s not-boyfriend sounded like Hell. But Hell had already let itself in, and Susie couldn’t imagine it getting worse, with or without Sans.
“Okay,” Susie said, lips pressed into a thin line. She leaned against the kitchen wall as Sans moved to blot up the mess. It resembled blood far too much for Susie’s liking. She turned her head away, stomach heavy with the thought.
Sans grabbed a bottle of cleaner and Susie considered changing her mind. She could go upstairs right then and sit with her grief until sleep stole her away once more. But she didn’t.
“All right, that’s the best we’re gonna get, I think,” said Sans, tucking Toriel in and grabbing the house keys from off the side table. “Ready to head out?”
Susie nodded, jaw tight as she followed him down the street. She glimpsed Asgore getting in his truck—where was he going at this hour?—but couldn’t scrounge up the energy to care. He was grieving, too. Maybe she should say something to him. Later.
The pair turned the corner and Sans held the diner’s door open as Susie stepped inside, hands shoved resolutely in her pockets. The smell of meat and veggies cooking from the back was admittedly appetizing. She slid into a booth and Sans placed himself across from her.
“Kris and I were just here,” she said after a long moment, eyes fixed on her menu.
Sans nodded, expression wavering. He said nothing. As much an invitation to continue as any.
“It was the day before…the Festival,” Susie choked out. “If I’d known…”
Sans closed his eyes pensively. “None of us did, kiddo.”
I should have, Susie thought. Deep down, I did.
No wonder Noelle had been so…brazen the day of the Festival. She’d known something. This had been planned, whether by her, or by Kris, or by the both of them.
Susie had seen that. She’d been seeing that since—since the library, since Cyber World, since Berdly.
“Hey, get outta your head,” Sans interjected. “Pick somethin’ to eat.”
Susie nodded quietly, deciding on a plain cheeseburger and fries. There was already too much going on in her brain; she needed something simple in her stomach.
The server took their orders, Susie’s nothing more than a whisper between dry lips. The diner was mostly empty at this hour, closing soon, but it still felt as alive as ever. As if nothing had changed. Susie tasted bitterness in the back of her throat.
The door jingled as another guest entered, blonde hair pulled back into a messy bun and blouse exchanged for a midnight black sweater. Carol’s eyes were sunken and her ears were drooping, looking older than Susie had ever seen her. The teenager turned her head, but still felt Carol’s glare from across the building.
“Black coffee. Iced. Large,” Carol said, not even bothering to take a seat. “That’s all.” She pulled out her wallet, and Susie was reminded of the wad of cash Noelle had tried to give her. It was so obvious in hindsight; why hadn’t Susie seen it?
Carol waited at the bar, refusing to glance in Susie’s direction. Sans noticed, because of course he did, and poured a hunk of ketchup into his mouth dismissively. “Ignore her,” he said, louder than Susie was comfortable with.
But Susie had never seen Carol so…exhausted. Guilt inched up her spine and threatened to choke her out. Carol was grieving, too.
A loving mother was foreign to Susie. Did Carol constitute as one? Was her love just…something unfamiliar, something different from the storybooks? Wasn’t it love which made it all hurt so much? None of that love was for Susie, but it wasn’t as if she deserved it, not anymore.
“That doesn’t look like you’re ignoring her, kid,” Sans said. “Have some ketchup, it’ll do you good.”
Susie wordlessly took the bottle, squeezing some into her mouth. It helped a little, but Carol sipping her coffee as she stared out the window made Susie shiver.
She barely poked at her food once it arrived, watching as Carol finished her glass and walked out the door. Susie ate some of the meat from her burger before abandoning it, throat tight. The air felt thick with unspoken resentment, settling in her lungs and making it hard to breathe. She swallowed her tears, refusing to cry in public.
“Susie,” Sans said. “It’s not your fault.”
She got to her feet, fists clenched tight in the refuge of her pockets. “Thanks for dinner, Mr. Sans.”
Asgore’s truck was missing from its spot next to the flower shop, Susie noticed, as she made her way by. She ducked under rows of police tape segregating the lake from the rest of Hometown, making her way back to the scene of the crime.
She knelt by the water, scraping her knees on the path packed thick with dirt and rocks and dust. She wondered what it felt like, to float, eyes blinded by watery darkness and clothes heavy, sticky, wet.
She shoved her face into the blackness and screamed.
She kept screaming, bubbles ascending and breaking the surface tension, a different echo of her grief escaping as each one burst. The water burnt her eyes, crawled into her nose like a parasite, trailing like fire as it reached her lungs. And her lungs were fire, if just for a moment, fire which the lake had set, fire which the lake couldn’t put out.
She came up for air, but only once her chest grew too tight to ignore. Gasping, she shoved her head underneath again, and again, and again, until there was nothing left of her to scream. Droplets traced down her nose, racing like she was their car window in a storm.
Tears mingled with them, salt and freshwater interlaced, carrying no difference in the shadow of the naked eye. If Susie focused hard enough, she could taste blood. She wondered whose it was, and hoped it was only her own.
“Why would you choose this?” Susie asked into the sky. “Is this really what you wanted?”
She remembered the shape of their bodies, perfectly slotted into the crooks of her arms as if they belonged there. She’d never imagined that was how she’d end up holding them.
Susie felt boneless as she got to her feet, upright by instinct alone. As she was turning to leave, a voice called, “Susie?”
“Mr. Dreemurr?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re soaked through! Don’t tell me you’ve been swimming!” Asgore said, making his way out of the woods. Belatedly, Susie noticed his truck parked just behind the tree line, engine off.
“No,” she said, aware of how hoarse her voice was. “I just…” How could she explain herself?
Asgore seemed to put the pieces together, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about that. What are you doing out here in the dark? Aren’t you staying with Tori? She must be worried sick!”
“Mr. Dreemurr, I—I was on my way home. I just took a…detour.”
The man sighed, eyes flickering with something knowing. Susie felt he could see through her, could count the sins settled deep in her bones.
“I understand,” Asgore finally said. Moonlight glazed his face, and Susie noticed how heavy his eyes were, weighted by grief. “In any case, you should hurry back, now.”
“Hold on, what are you doing out here? How’d you get your truck past the police tape?”
Asgore chuckled nervously. “There’s a path down the woods. I was just…looking around.”
“Around the woods?”
“I…yeah. I was…hoping to find some…clues. Something the out-of-town officers might’ve missed.” To prove them wrong went unsaid.
“Did you…?”
He shook his head again. “But I’m still looking.”
Susie glanced away. The surface of the water had grown still once more, as if she’d never bothered it. “I know it wasn’t Kris’ fault.”
“I do, too.”
Silence settled for a long beat, settling on Susie’s shoulders, heavy and empty all at once.
“It wasn’t Noelle’s fault, either.”
Asgore said nothing.
Susie tsked, skipping a stone along the lake, if only to remind it she was still there. She wished she could know what it knew, see what it had seen. But she couldn’t.
“Goodnight, Mr. Dreemurr.”
“Goodnight, Susie.”
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After days off from school, Susie finally returned, heart heavy with the weight of the three empty seats in front of her. Berdly was still in a coma, and Noelle and Kris…
Susie didn’t pay attention to a word Alphys said. She felt the stares of the whole class, some pitying, some full of blame. She wasn’t stupid; she knew half the town thought it was all her fault. The other half believed the cops.
Susie didn’t know which was worse.
Sure, Susie blamed herself for not stopping things, for not noticing the signs, for going to get ice cream instead of keeping an eye on the two people who meant the most to her. But she’d heard the whispers.
Officer Napstablook had come to Toriel’s house the night after the Festival, asking to talk to Susie, claiming someone had left an “anonymous tip”. Someone claimed to have seen Susie grab the victims’ heads and shove them beneath the water until they stopped flailing.
Susie, of course, had the goddamn ice cream as an alibi, which Sans had confirmed. Napstablook didn’t bother investigating past that, but the interaction had Susie hurling up yesterday’s dinner in Toriel’s bathroom.
She still didn’t know who had submitted that tip, but she wasn’t worried about that. It could’ve been anyone. That was the part that hurt.
The memory itself made her sick to her stomach, and she didn’t even bother excusing herself as she walked out the door mid-lecture. Alphys froze, but only for a moment, glancing away before resuming as if Susie had never been there at all.
She wished someone, anyone would quit pretending they had nothing to say. Their faces betrayed them.
You need to tell Ralsei.
She slammed her fist against Noelle’s locker, before immediately regretting the dent she left. Whispered apologies bubbled from her stomach and out between her lips like vomit, acidic and rancid. Hurriedly, she unlocked the door—the code was 1225, Christmas Day, Susie would never forget it—and attempted to soothe the metal back into place.
The picture taped to the inside had been warped by the blow, a portrait of Noelle’s family from when she was a kid. Susie’s fist had landed right in the middle, casting an illusion of all four Holidays being separated by the crease. She tried to smooth it out, but her claw only tore the edge of the paper.
With a frantic huff, she backed away, realizing she was doing more harm than good. She began to shut the locker before something caught her eye.
A…ring?
It was a wooden ring, carved to look like a bundle of rose thorns. Wouldn’t that…hurt? The sight of it made Susie feel uneasy, the same feeling she got when she was a kid and stayed up late to watch the adult cartoons. Like she shouldn’t be seeing this.
On the inner half of the ring, dried brown enough to blend in, she finally noticed the blood.
Susie slammed the locker shut and turned tail, racing to leave the godforsaken building. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
She didn’t want to risk upsetting Toriel by coming home in the middle of the day. Normally Toriel would be teaching, but after everything… Needless to say, there was a substitute, and Toriel hadn’t left home. The ring still had Susie’s heart racing, and she felt like she should tell someone, but…
No, it was only a ring. Surely she was just seeing things. There were bigger issues than a ring in Noelle’s locker. And anyway, how could she explain what she was doing in her dead girlfriend’s locker? Obviously the blame for the dent would end up on Susie’s shoulders, but she could put that off. She could put anything off. Maybe, if she put everything off, the good and the bad alike, time would stop moving forward without her. Maybe then she wouldn’t lose anyone ever again.
How many people believed the lie? How many people believed she had killed them? As much as Kris being written up as the murderer hurt, at least when people thought it was Kris, they didn’t think it was Susie. How selfish was that?
How did the out-of-town cops even know about Kris’ history? Kris was clean, for fuck’s sake! Susie knew they hadn’t cut in a long time, and they were taking their meds, they told her that. Noelle told her that! Just because they were more likely to commit a murder doesn’t mean they did!
Susie ran a claw down her face. It couldn’t be too late. Surely she could still set the record straight. She could tell Officer Napstablook–no, she could go directly to those fancy investigators, and she would ask to testify, to have a trial, however the hell that was supposed to work. She knew Kris had been holding Noelle’s chin out of the water, knew that Noelle had been acting just as oddly as Kris, knew that none of this added up the way all of the adults pretended it did!
And maybe, just maybe if she could do this for them, could prove to all of Hometown–to all of the world–that there was more to this story than a headline and a pair of teenaged statistics, maybe…everything would go back to feeling normal. Maybe everything would quit hurting so goddamn bad.
It was naïve, maybe even foolish. It was a childish hope. But who was Susie if not hope’s poster child?
She would gather evidence, find the truth, build her case. She owed it to them, surely. And Noelle loved those dark crime documentaries, didn’t she? Susie would make this story unforgettable, for her sake–for Kris’ sake.
But she needed to start with Ralsei.