Hello! You may call me CJ or Charm! Thanks for checking out my humble little blog <3
This is a blog for all of my fanworks, whether written or drawn! (Mostly written, though.) This is my main.
I tend to jump fandoms a lot, so don't expect me to write for just one thing only. On the same hand, I also write for myself. I may open requests at some point, but for the most part, this blog will be filled with things I want to write. I'm in need of assistance paying for cancer treatment for one of my dogs! If you are able to donate, I'll write a short fic in exchange!
I may write mature themes sometimes, but I do not write explicit material.
I would like to apologize if you followed for something specifice. I tend to just write what I want when I want. So... Sorry!!
Now then, on to my Masterlists! Most fanfiction should have a link to the fic on AO3, if you prefer!!
Character Only
Fics that involve characters only. May be introspective, may be platonic, may be romantic.
Art and Edits
Exactly as it says. Will mostly be anime or manga edits with some fanart thrown in.
Reader Insert
Simple and easy, fics about Characters I want to date<3
Original Characters(Coming soon!)
I have two original characters that I use for fanworks: Cass and Charm.
Fandom: The Freak Circus
Character: Pierrot, Pierrot/Reader
Summary: “Are you asking me to let you bite me?”
“Yes.” Pierrot smooths his face into one of careful placation.
Ice spreads through your veins, carrying Harlequin’s laugh with it. His tongue drags against you, infection rising in its wake.
Breathless, you nod.
Rating: M
2.4k // AO3 // Masterlist
Pain twinges through your spine as you drag the washcloth over your shoulder. The skin there is puffy, irritated, probably infected, and the way you scrub makes blood well in the shallow divots that burn a ring into your muscles. Scalding water whisks away every drop of red that slips from the teeth marks.
That damn circus... that damn Harlequin....
That damn Pierrot, for locking you up in the first place. Harlequin would not have been able to touch you had he just taken you back to the entrance.
You look for blood flowing into your drain, but the water washes clear.
The bite is still tender to touch. You pat it dry with your softest towel, then cover it with your softest pajamas. Adhesive bandages are abundant in your house, but you have none big enough to hide the whole thing.
Footsteps in your halls halt your hand on the bathroom doorknob. You sit on the lid of the toilet, curled over your knees, shaking palms clasped at your stomach.
“My Dear?” Pierrot calls, voice scratching through the cracks in the door. “I’ve made your lunch. It’s feijoada. Much healthier than the...” contempt creeps into his tone “...meals in your freezer.”
Your stomach rumbles. You haven’t eaten since last night’s drugged popcorn.
Trembling, you make your way to the door and open it a crack. “Do you even know what I like?” you whisper.
Pierrot stands just outside the threshold, hands wringing together in front of him. His fidgeting does not distract from the expanding of his pupils as he studies you, the sound of sniffing muffled by his mask.
“I-I don’t,” he remembers to answer. “It’s a dish from my home.”
You close the door a hair. He gasps, hands twitching toward the edges. “It’s not drugged?”
“Of course not, I promise!” His fingers fall into his palms, eyes scanning your floor. “You need to stay aware today.”
The growling of your stomach is the only thing that keeps you from slamming the door in his face and staying in the bathroom until he leaves. His lips twitch into an amused smile, and he holds a hand out to you. “Come, my Dear. Eat.”
Your hand is hesitant as it reaches for his. Pierrot watches every slow second of its movement, until the leather of his glove warms your palm. He folds both of his hands over yours and tugs you into your tiny kitchen. A large, burnt-red stoneware pot sits on the tiny table, a folded towel underneath. Oven mitts are balanced on the handles, heat radiating from its sides. Pierrot sits you at the table, then skitters from cabinet to cabinet.
When he returns, you have a bowl, a plate of friend bananas, and a spoon set in front of you. With one hand he uses an oven mitt to lift the lid of the pot, with the other he ladles a thick, dark stew into your bowl.
“Eat,” he whispers, settling into the chair across from you.
Fragrant spices grace your nose as you sift your spoon through veggies, black beans, and chunks of meat. The meat is tender, splitting on the edge of your spoon, but you avoid it. You don’t know what it is, but you no longer believe human is off the menu at the circus. Mouth watering, you lift a scoop of beans to your lips.
And gasp as flavor explodes over your tongue.
Deep earthiness unfolds as you chew, dancing with onion and garlic and pepper. Carrots crumble as you swipe them across your teeth. Something sweet and smokey lingers when you swallow, remnants of whatever mystery meat flavored the stew. Bacon, maybe, or sausage of some sort.
“It’s delicious,” you say. Pierrot smiles his goofy smile, face smushed into his hands.
“I’m glad you like it, my Dear. It was meant for the others tonight, but I wanted you to have it instead. You had quite the scare today.”
His words bring back a rush of unsavory memories. Your hand hovers over the bite that burns on your neck. Pierrot takes it, laces his fingers through yours. His face falls into a worried frown. “Ask anything. I’ll explain as you eat.”
“All those missing people. Did you take them?”
His eyes travel from yours to your bowl. You huff, taking a second and third bite of the stew.
“They’re just helpers,” he says once half your food is gone. “We don’t harm them, usually.” He mumbles the last word.
“Carol looked like a zombie. What did you do to her?”
His brow furrows, and he looks to the side. “I can’t say.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
Pierrot nibbles at his lips, and you wonder how he doesn’t hurt himself with how sharp his tee–
A tongue lathes across your neck.
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
It’s not real, just like the glowing green eyes that bore into your back.
Neither are real.
They’re not real. They’re not real they’re not real they’re not real they’re not real they’re not real they’re not
You yank your hand from Pierrot’s and storm to your bedroom.
“Don’t run away, my Dear,” Pierrot hisses from too close, too close, too close. He grabs your wrists and throws you onto your bed, hovering above you with a cruel grin. “I might end up liking pulling you back,” he pants.
Your body shakes beneath him. Your breath comes in gasps. Your vision swims.
“Oh,” Pierrot gasps. His face softens, his grip loosens, but he straddles you still. “Please, my Dear. I’m sorry. Forgive me. But do not... run. Not with such fright in your gaze.”
His eyes narrow, mouth slipping back into a cruel smile. “I can feel your fear, you know. Almost taste its sweetness on my tongue. And I can see it, too, clinging to you.” His voice shakes as he asks, “Do you know what it does to me?
“It makes my body burn. Throb. And yet,” he frees one wrist to brush tears from your face, “it terrifies me to think you... you might no longer be able to look at me.” His hand returns to your wrist, squeezing until it aches. His eyes hollow.
“It makes me want to hold you tighter, to break you with my heat. Until you forget that anything else in the world exists, except for me. Suffocate every thought of yours with my presence.
“Make your eyes cling to me...” he lowers his forehead to yours, rubs against your skin, “as much as I want to cling to you right now.”
A little nervous laugh slips loose as he raises his head. “If you run again, I don’t know if I could stop... not again.
“Would that make you scream?” he asks, gravel in his voice. “I could end up addicted to pulling you back, harder and harder, until you surrender...”
Both of you pant. Both of you tremble. You shut your eyes and turn your head. Pierrot rises, hands sliding off you and into his lap. “But... I also want so much to see you stay. Stay because you want me, too.”
The defeat in his words coax you into looking from the corner of your eye.
“I could do anything for you if you gave me a chance,” he whispers once he notices your gaze. A soft hand caresses your cheek. “Even if I had to crawl through darkness until I lost my mind. Even if I had to set the rest of the world on fire.”
Your face turns to his, nuzzles into his trembling palm.
His thumb runs across your skin. “I cant tell you anything about your friend right now,” Pierrot tells you. “But if you want her, I’ll bring her back to you. Just-just not now. He saw you looking at her too much.”
“Pierrot,” you begin, your hand cupping his against you. His breath hitches. “What’s happening in the circus?”
“I can’t say.” He takes your hands again, weaving his fingers between yours. “If you know more, they’ll get suspicious.” His eyes soften. “I don’t want them coming after you. The less you know, the less your eyes will give away to them.”
“Them?” you ask, heart thundering in your chest.
“Oh,” Pierrot sighs with a gentle smile. His fingers graze your chest. “Your heart’s racing... such a sweet sound.” His face falters. “I know you’re scared, my Dear. But trust me, you must return to the circus tonight.”
“What?!” you shout. “Are you serious? After everything that’s happened?!”
“I know, I know.” He glares through your balcony door, in the direction of the circus. “But if you don’t go today, he’ll remember. The others will get suspicious, and they’ll come for you anyway. B-but!
“As long as you have my red ticket, you’ll be fine! All you have to do is keep it on you and walk around the circus. You don’t even have to visit the attractions, not if you don’t want to!”
“Pierrot,” you say with an exasperated sigh. “You’re really trying to protect me, aren’t you? But why?”
His eyes widen, lips pouting. “Why?” he asks, confused.
Until his manic grin returns. Hearts spiral in his eyes, glowing gold as he stares down into you.
“Because I love you, my Dear!!” His grip tightens. “I love you, I love you! I love you so much it hurts, it burns!! Like Hellfire in my chest!!”
A shiver runs through his body and into yours.
“When your eyes met mine that day, it felt like my whole existence was screaming for you! Screaming your name, so loud and desperate until it echoed through my soul!
“You felt it too, didn’t you?! Please–”
You lift a hand to his lips, pausing him mid-word, desperate for time to think.
“You’re blushing...” Pierrot giddily whispers. “Did my words reach you, my Dear?”
“You’re really intense,” you say. “Did you know that?”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” His next words are hesitant, but he says them anyway. “Do you want me to leave? To give you some space? I know you need to calm down for tonight.”
There is no way his presence will calm you. Probably. You don’t think it will. Pierrot is dangerous. But...
Something inside him feels so broken. Something beautiful. Something sad.
It whisks your anger away, even after all he’s done.
Feelings are complicated. Messy. You want him to stay, you want him to leave.
You open your mouth to answer.
The memory of teeth on your neck clamps it shut.
Harlequin’s tongue grazes your neck, a ghost haunting your skin. You resist the urge to run to your bathroom to scrub it raw again.
“Stay,” you whisper to Pierrot. “Just... be quiet. So I can get my head straight, okay?”
A happy whine disappears into your chest as he nuzzles into it. “Very well,” Pierrot says, tilting his head just enough to speak clearly. “I’ll stay quiet. Anything you wish, my Dear!”
He settles an ear over your heart, body relaxing as he listens to it beat. You rest your hands on his hat, surprised to find something odd and rigid beneath it. You trace your fingers along it, trying to map its shape.
His body tenses. His breath shallows until it nearly disappears.
“S-sorry,” you mumble. You move your hands to his shoulders. “Won’t do it again.”
Instead of calming, he keens, wrapping his arms around your back and pressing his head deeper into you.
Pierrot, Pierrot, Pierrot. Crazy Pierrot. Unstable Pierrot. Pierrot trying his damnedest to protect you from his crazy, unstable world.
And because of him, some guy in green is stalking you, too.
“I have so many questions,” you mumble.
“I know,” Pierrot hums. “Get some rest, my Dear. I’ll alert you when it’s time to leave.”
You tighten your grip on his shoulders. A wave of exhaustion crashes into you. Not the groggy lightheadedness of poisoned popcorn, no, but the kind of lethargy that comes with a fully belly. You hum yourself into a comfortable sleep despite the strong arms locked around you.
When you wake, it’s to Pierrot’s hand at your collar, fingers pulling your shirt away. His face darkens as he stares down at you, shoulders shaking in rage.
“Pierrot?” you whisper, wondering if you did something wrong in your sleep.
“He marked you.” His voice is flat. You run your hand over his, covering the mark.
“He-I–”
“May I...” Pierrot pries your hand away, holding the back of it against his chest. “May I cover it?”
“You want to cover it?”
“With my mark,” he replies, almost before you finish your question. “Let me replace his with mine.”
“Are you asking me to let you bite me?”
“Yes.” His face smooths into one of careful placation.
“It’s going to hurt.” Your previous experience still lingers in your mind. “Is it really so important to you that you’d hurt me?”
A single claw traces the ring of teeth marks. “It is,” he whispers. “I’ll stop if you tell me to. If it hurts too much. All you have to do is say the word.”
Ice spreads through your veins, carrying Harlequin’s laugh with it. His tongue drags against you, infection rising in its wake.
Breathless, you nod.
Pierrot tips your head to the side. Presses his lips to your shoulder, your neck. His teeth graze the point where they meet.
Pierce through your fragile skin.
Wet warmth soaks your shirt.
God, it hurts. It burns. Every ounce of Hellfire he spoke of brands you, passing into your body from his. “Pierrot,” you gasp, one hand over your mouth, the other pressing him deeper into your neck.
He pulls away, breath heavy, pupils blown wide. “I apologize,” he says, but the smile on his face has never been bigger. Drool drips from the edge of his lips, half hidden by his hand in his face.
“Now,” he giggles, “when you feel that warmth on your neck.... hehe....
“You’ll remember me, not him.”
"Y-yeah,” you pant as you sit, “sure.”
You don’t think you’ll forget Pierrot for the rest of your life.
Fandom: Deltarune
Ship: Krusie
Summary: Susie was eleven when she first fought her mother.
Their fights ended with both of them broken, beaten, and occasionally in handcuffs. That was always when they would move — to run from the cops. Her mother would find some sad sap to post bail for her, then skip town altogether.
Susie tried to stay behind, sometimes.
“You ruined my life,” her mother would say. “You’re not getting your own ’til you fix it.”
“Good news, hag,” she mumbles in the restroom of the Librarby, “might’ve ruined mine, too.”
Warnings: child abuse, violence, unplanned pregnancy
A/N: I am offering fics in exchange for donations
12.5k // AO3 // Masterlist
Biology taught Susie that some mothers ate their children.
Her own mother taught her this was a mercy.
“Can monsters and humans have kids?” Catti asked one day during class. It was a question from nowhere; their lesson had something to do with rocks and dirt. Susie wasn’t really paying attention, she was too busy thinking of what quartz tastes like and whether slate would crunch or crumble.
But the sneer on Catti's face was directed at her, and her gaze never left Susie's as Alphys stumbled through an answer.
“O-oh! Well,” the teacher thumbed through her textbook, eyes also flickering over Susie and onto Kris, who was — as always — asleep at their desk.
“There have been claims of monster-human hybrids,” Alphys began, “but they are few and far between. Any specimen that claims such is subject to DNA analysis as proof, but the tests always came back inconclusive. Which–”
Susie ignored whatever lecture Alphys decided to start by jumping off her humiliation. Her cheeks burned hot enough to ignite, and her only blessing was that Kris slept throguh the mortification wrought by a single snide question.
Not that there was any reason she should have cared. The Roaring was right under their feet. Undyne had been missing for days, and the Knight got their hands on Asgore. The Prophecy continued to grow so dangerously close to fulfillment, to tragedy. Every Dark World they entered seemed to turn against them; hostility targeted them with every step. Catti's spite should have been shoved far into the back of Susie's mind.
They are not like that.
But it lingered. Clung to her. Made her blush.
They are not like that.
Kris mumbled to Susie at night, when it was just her and them. They leaned their head against hers. They trusted her with their fears.
They are not...
They are…
Soft glances passed between them. Words whispered for the other only. A brush, a graze, a barely-there touch of fingers as they walked.
When Kris saved Susie one time too many, she kissed them.
Susie kissed Kris, and they ran away.
She didn’t get a chance to ask why. They didn’t get a chance to apologize. Not until the Roaring passed and took the Dark Worlds with it.
Blank is how Susie would best describe the time between the closing of the Dark Worlds and Kris returning to her side.
Dating Noelle did nothing to soothe the edges of her missing piece. Diner dates and fuzzy cheek kisses served only as light distractions. Noelle herself pulled away when she realized Susie’s fingers were tipped in nails instead of claws.
Even so, they tried to make it work.
But Susie was an empty cup. Meaningless without water to fill it.
With their separation, Kris became petulant. Asriel tried to introduce them to his friends, which brought about thoughts of silly things like school and college and future. They would run and hide and wait until night to sneak back into their room.
And sit on the secluded lake beach they discovered, shared only with one person. This is where Susie found them, one winter night, when Asriel begged her to bring them back. They were shivering, arms locked around their knees. She threw her jacket over their head. They wiggled into it and pulled it tight across their chest. When she sat next to them, they lowered their head onto her shoulder and kissed her bare skin.
It felt wrong, even though she was two days past Noelle breaking up with her.
Life without Kris felt more wrong. A month of isolation slipped away as they started talking. Laughing. They needed each other. They would die for each other.
They had died for each other.
Susie gave her life to save Kris.
Kris gave their hand to bring Susie back.
None of that disappeared when the Dark Worlds closed. Kris still had their hand in the Light World, but it was limp and useless. Susie still had a heartbeat, but it sometimes skipped to remind her of when she didn't.
Comfort found Susie on that winter night. The most she’d felt in a while.
Maybe their friendship was bad. Maybe it was horrible, terrible, codependent. Maybe it didn’t matter. Susie certainly didn’t care when Kris crawled into her lap and pulled her lips to theirs.
Nothing changed after. They still wrestled and bit and threw each other around. They still wandered the town without aim, without goal. They still bought each other food and curled into each other to sleep and explored the woods together.
Nothing felt truly intimate to them — how could it, when everything they did was genuine?
Stolen glances and quick kisses were the only real difference between friends and more.
No one noticed. No one asked questions. They were just a fact: Kris and Susie, Susie and Kris. They go hand-in-numb-hand.
Susie was grown with violence. She was molded by the fists of her mother, controlled with their force.
It was love, her mother told her. I love you so much, she’d tell her. Do as I say.
When Susie was told to steal, she stole. When she was told to fight, she fought. When she was told to sit still in her room, hide away from the men her mother brought into their house, she sat her ass down and hid.
The first time she ‘disobeyed’ was against one of those men.
He had snuck into Susie’s room, found her in her closet. She knew what he wanted — she knew what happened behind the door of her mother’s bedroom, much too mature for her nine years of age. She’d had her first (and last) beer by then; she’d have her first (of few) cigarettes next year.
The man opened the closet.
Susie bit his hand until she tasted blood. Twice.
And her mother?
Her mother was a toxic cocktail of fear and rage. Susie had just scared off money. It wouldn’t be the last time.
It was the last time her mother showed her any mercy. Every touch was made with extended claws, every word sharpened by hate. Her hands left lasting marks on Susie’s flesh, her words burned scars into Susie’s heart.
“I'd be something if not for you,” she said all throughout Susie's childhood. Susie was never sure what that something was, between the booze and the drugs and the general assholery. Prisoner always brought a smile to her face.
She was eleven when she first fought her mother.
Her claws were much duller when she was a child, unable to tear through the dense scales that protected her mother. But she was young and agile, with the energy of a cheetah hyped up on sugar. Susie couldn't rip her mother to shreds, but she could damn well try.
Their fights ended with both of them broken, beaten, and occasionally in handcuffs. That was always when they would move — to run from the cops. Her mother would find some sad sap to post bail for her, then skip town altogether.
Susie tried to stay behind, sometimes.
“You ruined my life,” her mother would say. “You’re not getting your own ’til you fix it.”
“Good news, hag,” she mumbles in the restroom of the Librarby, “might’ve ruined mine, too.”
Kris and Noelle and Berdly are in the computer lab, studying(or procrastinating, depending on what webpage they had open) as they wait for Susie's return. She paces the restroom, shaking a plastic stick in her hand.
Five minutes pass. A line begins to fade into existence.
Two means pregnant. One means not.
They flicker once; two bright pink standing parallel beside the control.
Then dull into a pastel pink.
Susie growls as she slams it into the trash can. It’s the third one she's tried this week, but all have ended with that odd, half-formed result. They all said pregnant before they pulled that disappearing shit.
Fuck. She can’t be pregnant. She's dating a human, for one, and they’ve only had sex, like, twice — the night they first kissed and on her eighteenth birthday. Which, to be fair, was only a month ago. Timeline adds up, if what she’s read on human pregnancy is true. She stares down at the test in the trash can.
“Yo, dude!” The restroom door creaks open as Kris leans their head inside. “You good? You’ve been gone for, like, twenty minutes.”
“Throwing up,” Susie half-lies. It was the original reason she fled to the restroom, but it also made for a good excuse to take that stupid pregnancy test again. She makes a show of washing her hands and scrubbing her tongue.
Kris frowns as they enter the room. Susie shoves paper towels into the trash can to cover the test.
They stand before her when she turns back to them, right hand lifted to rest against her forehead. Their brow furrows. “Still no fever.” They lower their hand to take hers. “You sure you don't want to go to the hospital? You've been sick for weeks.”
“Pshh!” She waves them off. “Just the air in here, man. Turns my stomach.” Another half-lie; the Librarby is full of old dust and older people, with a smell strong enough to drown out all others. Her nose was already sensitive before… whatever it is that makes her sick now.
Kris studies her. She meets their gaze, trying her best to stop the sweat rolling down her face, until they give her a crooked smile. “The smell of Education sucks ass.”
“See?” Susie laughs, punching their shoulder. “You totally get it!” She throws her arm over their shoulders and guides them back to the computer lab. They stop her just outside the door to glance around the Librabry.
Standing on their toes, they give her a quick kiss before pulling her into the lab.
Not much work is done when they enter. Most of their time is spent throwing paper balls at each other while Noelle and Berdly do homework. Susie throws a ball that bounces off of Queen's screen, and Noelle gives her a narrow-eyed Look.
“Sorry,” Susie mumbles, patting the top of the monitor. The chair isn't comfy, but her back has begun to ache, so she sits to play around on the computer. Kris settles in a chair on the other side of the room, still taking potshots at her until Noelle tells slams her book on the desk and demands they get to work.
An amused smirk still lingers as they begin fiddling with the keyboard. Susie pretends to open their school's online classroom, letting it fill the screen on her monitor.
She opens another web page in the corner and, after checking that the others are occupied by their work, types into the search bar.
how 2 b un pragnant
An ad pops up beside the list of links: a human woman with dark skin, dressed in blue and white robes and a headscarf. She frowns into the camera, brows furrowed in worry.
Susie walks Kris home after a greasy Tuesday dinner of QC's burgers.
She walks them home every night, actually. It’s always dark, or close to it, when they shamble their way to the Dreemurr house, and tonight has run so late that the stars would be out if not for the clouds forming overhead. It’s dangerous at night, she said before they even started dating.
Too many encounters with less than savory monsters have left her on edge. They come to gawk(or worse) at Hometown's lonely little human. One — some sort of yellow snake — was sitting in the diner tonight, glaring at Kris the entire time it ate. Susie shoved herself into the booth next to them to cut its line of sight.
“Thanks,” Kris mumbled, knocking their shoulder into hers.
It waited until QC's closed to leave. The shopkeep let Kris and Susie stay another half hour as she closed.
Kris flings themself into Susie's arms as they approach their driveway. She catches them easily, despite her attention being trained on their surroundings since they left the diner. More than one monster has tried to stalk Kris home, and it’s left Susie paranoid.
“Oh no,” they say, full deadpan, “I'm not feeling well.” Their hand slides up her arm to hook around her neck. “I think I need a big, strong lizard to keep me company tonight.”
“Drama Queen.” Susie rolls her eyes. “Also I’m not a lizard.” She shifts them into one arm to flex the other. “I'm the fucking dragon, remember?”
Their eyes latch on the bulge of her muscles. A small smile curls their lips, and Susie realizes that's exactly what they wanted. Their left hand twiddles with the collar of her shirt — it’s regained some movement in the year since it was lost to the Dark World. Just not enough to do much more than twitch.
“My protector,” they whisper, fingers skimming her throat in just the right way to make her purr. Every motion is slow and languid, an attempt to rile her up.
An attempt that is working. Her breath hitches when they lean down and run their tongue across her forehead.
It takes every ounce of her tremendous strength to walk to the porch with their teasing. She grabs the doorknob and opens it to throw them on the couch.
The squirmy little bastard is right next to her before she has the door shut. They hang off her back, pressing kisses along her neck and jaw.
“You–” Susie struggles to repress her laughter “–your mom?”
A sour note plays across Kris' face before they can hide it, and it’s all Susie needs to know exactly where Toriel is.
“She's out,” they whisper, voice low and sultry in a way that travels down her spine. “It’s just us tonight.”
Who is she to refuse such a golden opportunity? She grabs their sweater by the shoulders and hauls them over her head. They nestle in her arms, hands wrapped in her hair, straining their neck to kiss her–
That stupid plastic stick.
Her hands freeze halfway under their shirt. Kris pulls back to look at her. Susie sets them down.
“Maybe…” she starts, eyes scanning the room. “I-I think I should leave.”
At that, their mouth drops open. They hook their left elbow around hers and try to sign. It's hard with just one hand — conversations are half guesswork now, but Susie has never needed much to understand them.
“Why–Are you–What…” Their hand stumbles through several shocked beginnings. None of which satisfy them. They throw their hand up and bury their forehead into Susie’s jacket.
“Don’t,” Kris pleads aloud, muffled by the fabric. “Please.”
“You good, dude?”
One red eye peeks out between their bangs and her jacket. They tilt their head to stare up at her, lips quivering in (what they hope Susie thinks is) mock fear. But she knows them enough to know that whatever is making them shake is real.
“You saw that guy at the diner.” Their words are quiet, genuine. “It was trying to murder me with its mind.”
“Hah!” Susie chuckles. “You scared of that wimp? It didn’t even have arms!”
“I can't defend myself like before,” Kris mumbles, frustrated gaze on their left hand. It’s still tucked in Susie's elbow, fingers twitching as they try to grab at her jacket.
She shifts it down her arm, works her fingers between theirs. “You know I’d stay if you just asked. No need to do all that.”
“Just trying to pass the time,” they pout. “Didn’t think you would run.”
Her lips press into a dangerous line. “I was not trying to run.” She was totally trying to run.
And just as she can read Kris, Kris can read her. They raise a brow at her adamant denial. She stiffens. “Look, dude, I just got problems. At home.”
“Worse than your usual problems at home?”
What to say to that? ‘Yes, because I’m pregnant’? ‘No, actually, I’m not sure’? ‘Maybe, because this should be impossible’?
Instead of answering, she shrugs, thumb running across their knuckles until she thinks of what to say. “Guess not,” she relents. “Better to just stay away from that bitch, actually.”
“As long as she won’t hit you.” Kris has seen the scars, the bruises, the tears that Susie tried to keep from falling. They’ve cleansed her wounds while the blood was still fresh, bandaged her knuckles after fighting back.
She’s made sure they never see the abuse as it happens. It would scare them away to witness the violence that raised her.
But they try. Oh, do they try. They try to sneak in on the worst days, try to stop the blows before they land, only to be met with a locked window.
Susie refuses to let them fight her battles. She can take a hit. Kris is human; humans are fragile. One wrong swipe from her own claws could land them in the hospital.
“C’mon, now. I ain’t a pussy. She can fucking try.”
A mischievous smile spreads across her face as she flexes again.
Again, Kris is enraptured by her muscles, trapped by their own scheme.
“Where were we?” she asks as she picks them up bridal style. Her hand tangles in their hair, tugs it harshly. Her smile grows at the sound that drops from their lips, the shudder that runs through their body, the red that flushes from their chin to their ears.
“Heading to my bedroom,” Kris squeaks out.
Susie carries them up the stairs.
That stupid Clopen sign lights the window of Sans' shop. Susie glares at it, standing in the shade of the awning. It’s a welcome relief from the dry morning heat.
The shade is welcome. The sign is not — she's conviced he only uses that one when he knows Susie is going to stop by. Somehow. Not even she expected to visit his store this morning. Toriel got home earlier than Kris or her anticipated, so she had to climb out the window. Sleepovers were meant only for the weekends; school took priority over fun, and Toriel might put a stop to sleepovers altogether if she knew they were dating. The sun had barely begun to rise as Susie snuck into town.
Clopen or not, she has time to kill before she needs to make her way to school. The door opens when she pushes. Sans gives her a lazy wave from the counter. She gives him an uneasy nod.
Her relationship with Sans is... strained, at best. She’s been a regular shoplifter of his store for months — all three of her pregnancy tests were swiped from the tiny medical section. She feels temporary guilt when she steals from Sans’ store, but Kris hates his ass. They encourage her every time she stares hungrily at a soda or a candy bar. They’ve even stuffed things they didn’t need or like in their sweater sleeves, just to spite Sans.
It’s been a year since Sans and Toriel started going steady. Not dating, like Susie and Kris. She’s not sure what the difference is; maybe it’s that Sans and Toriel are adults and don’t fumble through their feelings. Or maybe it's that they’ve had chemistry since they met, whereas Kris had to fight for their relationship with Susie.
Whatever the reason, Kris could sense the difference. They didn’t like the idea of Sans and Toriel before, and seeing their steady success brought about a rage that could not be quelled.
As much as Kris hates Sans, they're able to acknowledge how happy he makes their mother. They’ve settled for a truce, of sorts — Sans cuts back on ragging Kris and Kris doesn’t try to open a Dark World in Sans' chest.
Susie's feelings of Sans are more complex. She’s never had a proper male role model, just a slew of gross, creepy men her mom brought in, conned, and ditched over the years. Sans offers her advice and looks the other way when she should’ve been caught doing wrong. She is… conflicted when she enters his store, unless Kris is with her.
Best friend privilege trumps any other feelings Susie has.
Not that Kris is here. She’s alone as she wanders the aisles of junk food, slipping snacks into her pocket for later. Her hands take without looking as she tries to act nonchalant.
Squeaking sneakers follow Susie as she wanders to the medical section. Sans flips a page in his magazine.
The shelves — shelf, singular — of medical supplies remains half full at all times. No one in Hometown had any drastic health problems, save for Rudy Holiday. Susie skims the bottles, checking labels for things she can't pronounce, unable to find the one she needs.
She reads again, and again, but the words she needs elude her. She’s not sure what it’s supposed to look like, but she wrote down three separate things to look for.
“Can’t find it, huh?”
Her mouth goes dry as she turns. Sans stands next to her, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. Probably checking in because she’s been staring, unmoving, at the medicines for a while now.
What the actual fuck does she say? Her mind blanks as she swallows until she builds enough moisture to loosen her tongue.
“What’cha needing?” he asks when she doesn’t speak.
“M-morning after pill.” She winces as she mumbles, eyes darting around the store. No one else has entered.
“Hmm…” Sans rubs his chin with his skeletal fingers. “Usually keep that behind the counter. But, uh…” His gaze scans Susie up and down. Her spine stiffens.
Here comes the judgement — the ‘aren’t you a little young’ or the ‘don’t start what you can’t finish’ or some other shit. She read online about how others have been met with resistance when requesting pregnancy prevention, and she’s memorized all the arguments she found to dispute whatever excuse this bastard tries to use. And if words fail her, well…
She has a mean right hook.
“A little late for you to use, ain’t it?”
If there was anything Susie was expecting, that was the total opposite. Her breath leaves her in a sudden, shaky exhale. Shock drives her into a backwards step, knocking into the medicine shelf. The rattle of the bottles makes her jump again, turning as she looks at them.
There’s no way he knows.
There's no way he can know.
Well, sure, it is his store that she swiped the pregnancy tests from, but it's not like he's hyper aware of his inventory, is it? And she was sure no one was watching when she took them; she waited until Sans was dealing with other customers to hide them up her sleeves.
He. Does. Not. Know.
A bell rings, distant and muffled until Susie locks eyes with Kris. They pause, halfway through the door, studying her from behind their bangs. The scowl on their face suggests they see something they don’t like; the way the march towards her confirms it, and, shit, do they know too?
Susie holds her breath until Kris works their way between her and Sans. They completely ignore the skeleton (save for a stray elbow that lands near his jaw) to sign, “Are you okay?”
“Uh. Y-yeah, dude. Fine.”
Their lips thin, hands hovering over her face until they sign again. “Did he hurt you?” they ask, throwing a quick glare over their shoulder. Sans shrugs and returns to the till.
“Nah,” Susie says, forcing herself to wrap a casual arm around Kris' shoulders. “Just surprised me is all.” She eyes Sans as they leave, but he doesn’t acknowledge them as he flips through his magazine.
Later that day, as they’re sitting under a tree at lunch, Kris offers Susie half their sandwich. She waves them off and digs through her jacket to find her stash of stolen goodies. The first thing she grabs is a bear claw — one of those super dry, super gross donut bars wrapped in plastic.
It disappears faster than she can taste it; the pastry is filling enough, but the flavor always lingers in her mouth for hours after. Some other treat is needed to knock the taste from her tongue. The next thing she grabs is a bag of chips, based on the sound–
A cardboard box falls out of her pocket and into the grass. On it is a picture of two women, one holding the other from behind, both smiling as they look down at a stick in the hand of the one in front.
Her throat dries for reasons unrelated to the bear claw.
Kris’ brow furrows as they pick up the box. “Why do you have a pregnancy test?” they ask.
Susie shouts the only thing she can think of: “Where the fuck did that come from?!”
Score one for thoughtless action. Kris jumps, dropping the box between them.
“My bad, dude,” she says, taking the box to study it. Her own brow furrows. “It’s for humans?”
“Yeah,” Kris says as they hook their chin over her shoulder. They stare down at the box with her. “Maybe it fell in your pocket at the store?”
“Maybe.” Or maybe that slimy bastard slipped it in. All the pregnancy tests are on the bottom shelf.
Either she and Kris weren’t as subtle as they thought, or that skeleton just fucking knows everything.
“I'll take it back after school,” Susie lies.
“Keep it,” Kris shrugs. “Show him not to fuck with his customers.”
“Don’t think we could be considered customers. We never buy shit.”
Kris snickers. Susie empties her pocket before stuffing the box back inside.
It sits heavy on her heart for the rest of the day.
A quick search of the apartment reveals her mother in the den. She’s laid out on the threadbare couch, three empty bottles of beer on the floor. Not enough to get her blackout drunk, but enough to slow her down, especially if she’s been drinking already. From the scattered clothes and the pile of cash on the coffee table, she has been. Clients are always much more... giving when tipsy.
But she’s out. It should be safe for Susie to occupy the bathroom for the next ten minutes. She locks the door and opens the box. Inside are multiple tests; one for… ovulation, whatever that means. Two for pregnancy detection. All are different from the ones she’s already used. The plastic is thicker, the test heavier. The results come not from a faded pink line or plus sign, but as a word in a little oval window.
She paces, shoes scuffing the dingy tile floor, as she waits for the result.
Banging on the door interrupts her. She jumps, fumbling with the test.
“You been in there forever,” her mother calls, “I have to piss.”
Susie shoves the test and the box into her pockets, then slams the door open.
It’s like a fucking mirror glares back at her. The same scales, the same hair, the same colors. The only difference is that Susie is young, her snout still rounded, her face less wrinkled.
She shoves her way past her mother, both cussing the other, and makes her way to the barren little bedroom she uses. Tenna sits, crookedly facing the room, in one corner. She takes a moment to brush dust off the top of his monitor. Then she sits on her bed and holds her breath and fishes the test from her pocket.
Pregnant.
Days of rain, fickle to fall, decide now is the best time to drown the town. Clouds gather and split, twisting as a torrent of water soaks Susie through. She has half a memory of jumping from her bedroom window, body acting before she could think. The ache of her feet slow her steps, but she pays it no mind, too occupied by thoughts and theories and noises. Anything to distract from that despicable little word that hangs above her now.
Town passes in a blur of puddles disrupted by her shoes. When she stops, unsure of how much time has passed, she finds herself beneath Kris’ bedroom.
Safety, is her first thought. Warmth.
Doubt creeps in, chilling to her core.
What does she even say?
Toriel’s car is in the driveway, a distant part of her notes. Her main focus is on climbing the overgrown trellis below the window — fingers locked into green vines, shoes digging into wooden slats. The window slides open with the slightest touch; Kris keeps it unlocked for the moments she needs them the most. Susie does the same for them, of course, however rare their nighttime visits are.
Tumbling into an empty room leaves her breathless. She lays on her back until she no longer feels like she’s choking, then rolls and begins to sift through the trash underneath Kris' bed. Her hands swish back and forth across the carpet, but she cannot find what she's looking for.
Apples and linen scent the air, her only warning before the door creaks open.
“Susie?” Kris asks, draped in an oversized t-shirt, towel drying their hair.
“Ralsei,” she croaks out.
Kris' mouth drops open, then presses into a thin line. They’re upset she's not coming to them for the problem that dragged her through the rainy night.
It’s happened before. It'll happen again. They’ll get over it, proven by the way they kneel beside her and open the top drawer of their bedside table.
“Mom tried to throw him away,” they say as they pull Ralsei from beneath their messily folded clothes. Susie takes him — he’s just a child’s headband now, bright red, with small horns rising from the top. She tucks him inside her jacket and starts for the window again.
Kris grabs her hand. “It's still raining.”
“I’ll be fine.”
They press their forehead into her arm. “Stay. Talk.”
Her eyes remain planted on the window. If she turns, if she sees the hurt on their face, she’ll tell them everything she hasn’t had a chance to process. “Not now,” she pleads, voice barely above a whisper. “Not yet.”
Silence slips by. They shove something round and rigid into her palm. “Stay safe,” they whisper, kissing her shoulder.
She’s halfway to the graveyard before she opens the umbrella they gave her. It doesn’t work well; the wind forces rain into a sideways torrent. Water bounces into the trees, chasing a choked sound into the dark.
It's not until she’s seated at Gerson's bench that she realizes her own sobbing echoes back to her.
She plucks Ralsei from her jacket, making sure to protect him from the deluge. The bench is soaked, and so is she, but he doesn’t deserve to be as well.
“Miss you, Rals,” she says. “Miss all of y'all. Still carry Lancer around with me.” He's in a card sleeve hooked to a necklace that she only removes for showers.
Ralsei doesn’t respond. How could he? He's just an object now.
Susie had once entertained the idea of wearing him. Get him close to her head, let him speak directly to her brain. See if any of that Darkner magic carried over into the Light World.
She could not put him on without the headband snapping. It barely fit Kris' head anymore; the middle was worn and pale from their attempts to wear it.
Rotating the headband in her hands, Susie thinks of what to say. She’s never been good at words. Brawn, muscle, stuff that a brute could do — that’s what she was. Just a brute, no good for anything other than her strength.
And royally fucking shit up.
The last bits of the Roaring haunt her, still. The way she betrayed Kris, how she felt when they revealed to her the truth of their SOUL. She didn’t give them a chance to explain back then, and it almost destroyed the world.
So what does she say now?
“Wish you were here,” she starts. “I could really use some advice right now.” Her nose wrinkles, and she gives a joyless chuckle. “And a cake. Fucking love your cakes, man. Nothing tastes the same.”
A warm wind blows gently against her. She wants to think it’s Ralsei, somehow, trying to comfort her.
She waits until the breeze passes to speak again.
“I fucked up, dude. I got… God, Kris is going to kill me. I'm…” She flounders a bit more, trying and failing to explain.
“I’m pregnant, dude,” she finally grounds out. Saying it aloud rips a hole in her chest, empty and hollow..
The wind picks up, smacking a wet leaf into her snout. She jumps, nearly dropping Ralsei. “Dude, if that was you…”
Well. She’d probably cry. More. Happy-cry, if that’s a thing.
She peels the leaf off her face and watches it sway in her fingers until the wind dies down. Then she lets it drop to the ground. “Yeah, okay,” she relents, leaning back against the bench. “I deserved that.”
Nothing moves, save for the leaves swishing in the wind.
“I don’t know what to do now. I know I need to tell Kris, but I don’t know how. We shouldn’t even have a kid, dude. It’s not supposed to be possible. I’m not–” her voice falters into a shaky breath, then another. She brings her heels to rest on the bench, tucking her wet knees into her chest.
“I’m not meant to be a mother.”
The wind blows warm again, wrapping around her like a hug. The rain slows, stops, dying alongside the wind.
When Susie closes the umbrella, a red sliver of moon shines down upon her.
Music floats through the air, soft and slow, lulling Susie into sleep.
It’s not a comfortable sleep. The bench beneath her is hard plastic covered by a thin polyester cushion. Antiseptic fumes dry her eyes. Nurse Big Mouth shuffles through papers at the check-in desk. The piano is not quite in tune, but Susie has too little experience to describe how or why she’s able to tell. Kris doesn’t seem to mind all this, so she ignores it, too.
Three or four songs pass by, none of which guided by sheet music. Just Kris’ big ass brain telling them when and where each note is meant to fall in order to create something beautiful and old-timey. Classical, Susie remembers being told. Kris has made sure she knows what terms to use.
Their fingers twist across the keys to their right. The hand on their left lifts and lowers, unable to mimic the complicated gestures of its twin. All it can do is sustain a few notes for an extended period.
How lucky, then, that pianos are made so the left side is for lower chords while the right is for higher melodies?
That’s what Kris said, at least. She doesn’t quite believe they mean it. Their music always carries a hint of sorrow.
Susie has offered to play alongside them, to be their left hand. Her own hands are too big and clunky for her to sound any good alone, a fact that Kris always disputes. No hands are too wrong to play piano, just too unskilled. They’ve taught her much over the past year, and she’s reached a point where she can play on her own. Simple songs only, and she sometimes switches the notes around, but still. It makes her...
Proud.
As much as she's grown, Kris wants to play on their own for now. Their left hand has slowly regained feeling, and today they woke with the ability to bend their fingers. They rushed to hospital after school, barely waiting for Susie to follow. She had to run to keep up.
And now she sits, curled into herself on one of the hard waiting room benches, half asleep as she listens to them play.
It’s not the same as before, when both hands had full mobility. More than a few plinks and plops are made, but none of them sound too out of line to Susie's untrained ears. It just sounds like a lullaby.
The music slows, stops. Susie jerks awake to a hand on her shoulder. Kris stands above her, frowning. Their eyes are soft with worry.
“You should see a doctor,” they sign.
Susie snickers. “Is that why you were so eager to get here?” she teases. “Trick me into going to one?”
Their frown deepens. “Are you still getting sick a lot?”
She purses her lips. “Little bit.”
“You never–” they shake their hands for emphasis “–fall asleep while I play.”
“Ohhh, shit. Sorry, man. Was I snoring?”
“Not the problem,” they sign, shaking their head. Their skirt swishes against the floor as they turn to the hospital desk. Their arms move as they sign to the receptionist.
Susie doesn’t know where the eyes are on a monster whose head is a giant mouth, but they’re able to see whatever Kris signs. “Symptoms?” they ask, head tilting around Kris to view Susie.
She can’t see what they sign, but she has a pretty good guess — exhaustion, nausea, sore muscles. For like three weeks, too — can’t forget that part.
Three weeks. Four days have passed since the human pregnancy test — she's now five weeks pregnant. Probably. She plans to try the second test in a few more days, but getting some advice now wouldn’t hurt.
Hm. Kris, the little bastard, is handing her a golden opportunity.
Then Nurse Big Mouth makes a face. An odd one, considering they only have lips and teeth to work with. Their mouth scrunches at the top and pouts at the bottom in a way that Susie thinks is surprise. A gaze washes over her, lingers on her abdomen. The judgement in it makes her freeze.
“Fine, dude!” She stands before the nurse can say anything. She stomps her way to the door separating the foyer from the patient rooms. “Hey, you got some free time, right?” she asks Big Mouth.
“Susie,” the nurse starts, “you can't just–”
“Sure I can. ’Specially if you got something to say.” She glares at them, letting her eyes fall into the shadow of her bangs. “Come on. Let’s talk.”
Kris, wearing a relieved smile, follows behind Susie.
She wags a finger between them. “Uh-uh, not after that stunt.”
They frown, raising their hands to sign, but Susie cuts them off with a gentle hand placed on their cheek. “Play something for me,” she whispers.
A sparkle lights their eyes. They nod, blush furious on their face, and return to the piano. The song they pick is something a little hasher, a little faster. Susie recognizes it as one they wrote for her, back before they lost their hand. One she hasn’t heard since.
The notes don’t land where she remembers, and the beat is significantly slower.
Yet it makes her eyes smile. Tears threaten to fall, but she blinks them away as she gestures for Big Mouth to follow her into an empty examination room. At the far wall is a paper-lined cot, one end angled up to lean on. Beside that is a small rolling stool with a puffy leather top. Susie throws herself on the cot, the paper crinkling as she lounges with her feet crossed.
A counter sits on the opposite wall, bearing a sink, a bottle of liquid soap, a tub of wooden popsicle sticks, and other medical supplies. Different sized glove boxes hang by the door in plastic cases. The entire room is painted a shade Susie has dubbed ‘Hospital Blue’. Not baby blue, no. Hospital Blue is much lighter, more akin to white with a tiny drop of the most boring blue possible. It's meant to keep people calm, she thinks, but it just hurts her eyes.
“What do you want, Susie?” Big Mouth asks, arms crossed.
Damn. Where did that come from?
“What’s with the attitude?” she asks.
If giant lips could glare, it would look a lot like a sneer. The sides of their mouth split open to reveal their long, sharp, gnarly teeth. “You know how long Kris has been here, right?”
“Wha–”
Where the hell did Kris come from?
“Uh,” she says, sitting up, “Since they were, like, five. I think.” She mumbles.
“And you’ve only been here a few years.” Susie nods. “You understand that everyone here will stand with Kris, should things not work out with you two.”
“Whoa, whoa,” she waves her hands in front of her. “What are you talking about?”
The faint music changes, one song fading into the other, before Big Mouth answers.
“You’ve seen the way they look at you. How could you go sleeping around with them right beside you?”
There is nothing that Susie can say. Nothing comes to mind, her thoughts emptying as she blinks. “I don’t sleep around!” Is the first sentence her tongue can parse.
“So you’re not pregnant?” they ask. “You are, from the way Kris described it. Do they know?”
“They-wait, you’re assuming a lot here!” she leans forward, poking a finger at the air. “If I was pregnant, it would be theirs!”
“You can lie all you want, Susie, but that doesn’t make it true.” They move to stand in front of her, blocking her from standing. She pulls her legs up and scoots until her back hits the raised part of the cot. One foot lifts into the air, a barrier between her and the nurse.
“I'm not lying!” she exclaims.
“So you are pregnant.” Big Mouth steps back, with a scowl.
“It’s their kid!”
“A human and a monster?” They shake their head. “That's not possible.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter whose it is.” She holds her hands, palms out, in front of her shoulders; a gesture of submission. “I just‐I came for a pill. I read you can get an abortion from a pill before ten weeks.”
Big Mouth's lips thin around their teeth. “I will not help you hide this! You are going to tell Kris what you did!”
Susie groans, head in hands. She didn’t do anything. It was just a mistake, and she’s trying to fix it. She kicks at Big Mouth until they move away, then stands beside the bed. “You’re not a very good nurse, bitch,” she says.
They shrug. “Not my fault you’ll end up like your mother.”
The stool is in her hands before she knows what to do with it. Her body acts on its own, smashing it into the sink. Something shatters, glass on glass, soap oozing across the countertop. Big Mouth stands in one corner, huddled beside the open door, arms raised in front of them.
Footsteps race across the linoleum. Kris appears in the doorway, panting. They approach Susie slowly; she’s breathing heavily, half bent over, arms still extended from throwing the stool.
“Are you okay?” they whisper, one hand coming to rest on her cheek. Their thumb swipes her eye, wiping away the wetness on her face.
Instead of waiting for her to answer, they take her hands and pull her through the door. Big Mouth flinches when they turn their spiteful gaze to the nurse.
Outside, in the pink light of sunset, Kris drags Susie through the streets of Hometown. They walk in silence, the only sound that of bugs awakening for the night. The woods behind Asgore’s shop hides a path of crushed grass, not yet busy enough to form a proper trail. On the other end lies a secluded stretch of beach that borders the town and the lake. Asgore is the only thing that prevents other Hometown residents from finding it — the land is his. He ensures it remains a place of privacy for his children.
It’s the same beach where Kris first kissed Susie. Every step of their relationship, every moment beyond the Prophecy, started on this rocky shore.
This is their place.
No one else belongs.
Kris sits, flaring their skirt out along the sand for Susie. They lean their head against her shoulder when she lowers herself next to them. One of their hands runs back and forth along her arm, the other wraps around her wrist. “What happened?”
Her tongue scratches like sandpaper in her mouth. “Disagreement.”
“Hell of a disagreement.”
Silence floats between them. Susie refuses to speak until her anger has dissipated. Kris gives her time, happy in her presence.
Stars twinkle to life above them as the sun disappears. They’re reflected in the glassy surface of the lake, smooth and dark from the lack of the moon. Humid heat penetrates into the night, a stark reminder of summer. School will end just beyond the month.
“Think Alphys will let me graduate?” Susie asks. “She’s scared of me, ain’t she? She’d let me graduate just to get away from me.”
Kris snorts. “Nah. You’ve gone soft. No one’s scared of you anymore.”
She rubs a knuckle into the top of their head. “Who’s fault is that, huh?” Their laughter brings a smile to her face.
They laugh, grab her wrist, and push her onto her back. She rolls, pulling them to the ground, hovering above them.
Smiling, they run a hand up her arm. Then hook a leg behind her knee, shoving her shoulders to get her on her back again.
Several minutes of laughing and giggling pass as they wrestle across the ground. It ends only when Susie's arm is trapped between Kris' teeth. They have the jaw strength of a gator; she couldn’t escape even if they were gentle.
Neither of them are when teeth get involved.
“Alright, alright! Let me go, freak!” She lays on her back, smiling into the night sky. Kris climbs on top of her and lies across their stomach, arms wrapped around her neck, head to her chest. They close their eyes and count the beating of her heart.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
They press their ear deeper into her chest.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
“Trying to suffocate me?” she teases. “It’s easier at the throat.”
“I mean it.” They lift their head off her chest and plop it back down, chin first. “We die together or we don’t die at all.”
“Hey,” she gasps, “get your pointy bits off of me.”
A smile shoots across their face. “That’s not what you said last night.”
“Dude!” she shrieks, closing her hand over their face to hide her blush. A wet warmth runs along her palm, and she pulls it away to find Kris’ tongue hanging from their mouth.
She flips them over and runs her own tongue along their cheek. They giggle, redirecting her mouth to theirs, hands fluttering at the edge of her shirt. Their fingers wrap in the hem, tug it up, skim along her hips.
The ringing of their cellphone startles Susie. She jumps up, spine straight, hands raised in the air — though she stays on her knees, planted firmly on either side of Kris' thighs. They groan as they pull the phone from a pocket in their skirt.
“Hey, Mom,” Kris says when they answer. They jolt up, eyes wide, forehead ramming into Susie’s snout.
“Watch it, dweeb!” she exclaims, rubbing her sore nose.
“No, I-yeah, she's here.” They hiss as they poke at their forehead. Angling the phone away, they whisper, “Your skull's too thick.”
“Don’t bump into me, dumbass.”
That shit-eating grin returns. “That's not–”
Susie clamps a hand over their mouth. “Whoa! Your mom?”
Kris tilts the phone screen to her. Asriel reads the caller ID, surrounded by sparkly little stars. His laughter falls from the speaker as Kris increases the volume.
“Come on home, you two,” he says. “I brought cake from some fancy bougie bakery. Better get here before Mom and I eat it all.”
“You better save some for us, shithead!” Susie roars into the receiver. Then, after a moment: “Kris, quit licking me or I’ll break up with you.” She feels their lips pout against her palm until they pull away to bite the side of her hand.
“Freak,” she says softly.
A cute whine falls from their mouth.
“Looks like they’re busy,” Asriel teases. “We got the last piece to ourselves, Mom!”
“We’re coming, we're coming,” Kris flips the phone to their ear. “Give us ten.”
They hang up as they stand, holding a hand out for Susie. She takes it to follow them up, and, still holding their hand, flings them onto her back.
“Let’s get this cake, dude!” she shouts, beginning the run back to town with Kris hanging off her shoulders.
When they’re done eating, they’ll wash the dishes together, and they'll listen to the chatter of Asriel and Toriel in the living room, and they’ll sneak kisses when no one is watching.
Shit, her eye hurts.
Susie stares into the mirror, poking at the bruise on her left eyelid. The harsh, fluorescent lighting of the school bathroom highlights the worst colors of the bruise, but the swelling disappeared overnight. No doubt that was thanks to Kris’ care, keeping her warm and safe and making sure her ice pack stayed cold.
A common occurrence that is only growing more and more common.
Surely her mom isn’t trying to kill her?
Right?
It stormed half the night. She spent that time flinching at every clap of thunder, wondering what she did that time to earn her mother’s ire. Your mom's just an asshole, Kris told her, that gets off on hitting her own kid.
Yeah, they, uh. They're not wrong.
Susie's hand drifts from her eye to her stomach, poking twice. She whips her head around, peeking under the bathroom stalls, to make sure she’s alone. All are empty. Only Susie and the rain disturb the peace of the restroom.
When she turns back to the mirror, she tries to see if she's gained weight.
She’s never been thin, never cared for it. Bones poking out at all angles, skin stretched taut across ribs, cheeks and eyes sunken into gaunt faces. Why anyone would torture themselves so is beyond Susie. There's too much good food in the world; why avoid the best of it just to look like a corpse?
Skinny is more work than it's worth. Susie can never see herself falling prey to that tragedy.
The other end of that spectrum is gaining weight. Another thing she's never kept track of. Not until now. The fat of her stomach already folds over itself; how much bigger will she get if she decides to stay pregnant?
Seven weeks may be a little early for her to tell.
Shit. She still doesn’t believe it.
Her gaze flickers back to her eye. She touches it tenderly, wondering what kind of mother she'd be.
She wouldn’t be a soft one, that’s for sure. She’s not a soft person, she can’t be. Her mother made sure of that.
Susie was raised to be a weapon, to be shipped off as soon as she was out of school. She's raised fists against her own blood before, been in and out of houses to flee the belligerence of alcohol. Hell, she didn’t think she could feel any form of love until Lancer opened her heart.
Maternal instinct does not come naturally to her. Any kid of hers is going to wind up broken.
A knock sounds at the door. Kris pokes their head in.
Well. If that’s not a sign, she sure as Hell doesn’t know what is.
Takes two to tango or whatever.
“We need to talk after school,” Susie says before they can speak.
A look of panic crosses their face as they back out of the bathroom, and wait, shit, they heard that a thousand times before their parents broke their heart and–
She sprints after Kris and takes their hands. They keep their gaze steady on the floor. “Not like that,” she reassures, rubbing circles into their knuckles. “Nothing, uh. Bad?”
Actually, she’s not sure how they'll react. Not great, since they’re still in high school, even if it's only for three more weeks.
Kris finally looks up at her, brow furrowed.
“Well,” she starts, “it’s not like, suuuuper bad. But it’s not great either.”
They squeeze her hands.
“I'm not going anywhere, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
They look into her eyes, at the silent promise in them. Nodding, they give her a shaky smile.
Thunder makes them both jump, their grip on each other tightening. Susie scowls at the ceiling and the storm above it. If not for the rain, she could have eaten lunch outside and away from Catti's tuna-shit sandwich. The best she can hope for now is that the smell hasn't lingered strong enough to drive her into the bathroom again.
Kris licks the bottom of her chin. She looks down at the small smile on their face. Her eyes soften, and, with a quick glance down the hall, she leans down to press her lips to their forehead. They wrap their arms around her neck, holding her in place until the next clap of thunder. Susie straightens at the sound. Kris dangles, arms locked behind her head.
Mindlessly, she lifts an arm under their ass so they can sit on it.
“We should head back to class,” Kris signs.
Susie groans. “Yeah, I guess.” She carries them to the classroom door, sets them down before she opens it.
The smell of fish has not yet dissipated, but it has weakened. Will probably stay as Catti’s breath stinks up the whole room. Susie wrinkles her nose as she takes her seat. Kris sits in their desk and almost immediately passes out, head thunk-ing on the hollow surface.
How the hell are they so good at school if they sleep through every lecture? Everything Susie learns is forgotten the second she steps outside of class. She’s been trying to remember, but it just vanishes, lost among the hundred other things that occupy her mind.
Alphys drones on about atoms and energy. Susie plots how to tell Kris she’s pregnant.
Nothing big. Her running plan is to just sneak into her apartment, grab the test, and show them at their private lake beach.
If she can find the test. She hasn’t been able to track it down since she saw the results. Probably tossed it in her rapid runaway. Oh well. There was a second one in the box; she can just swing by her place to grab it after school.
After school takes forever. Alphys mistimes her lecture; final bell cuts her off mid-word.
“A-ah–” she struggles to be heard over the sound of students getting ready to leave “–make sure to read through chapter six tonight!”
Noelle gives her an enthusiastic nod. Berdly bows, the fucking nerd. No one else acknowledges the homework.
Susie stretches in her desk. She’s never in any rush to leave; Kris is always asleep when school is dismissed. They’ll wake up soon enough, and they'll stumble to the door of the classroom to find Susie waiting outside.
“Wait, u-um, Susie?” Alphys asks as she stands. “Would you, um, mind waiting for a bit? I need to speak with you.”
“Oh,” Susie says, unease creeping into her stomach. “Sure.” She settles in her desk with practiced nonchalance.
Alphys doesn’t say anything. She looks between Susie and the sleeping Kris.
Susie reaches forward to shake them awake. They jump up, glaring first at her, then the clock, then at Alphys, then back to her. “Hey, dipsh-uh, Kris. Al-Ms. Alphys wants to talk.”
They turn their gaze to Alphys. She clears her throat.
“Um, I’d like to speak with Susie alone, Kris. Please.”
“Why?” Kris signs, hand moving lazily to their forehead and down.
“Kris,” Alphys begs, “please.”
They turn to Susie, lips pursed. She shrugs.
With their brow furrowed, they gather their (literal) handful of school supplies and make their way out the door, slowly pulling it behind them. It does not latch.
A detail that Alphys misses. She approaches Susie, hands wringing nervously. And Kris thinks she no longer fears Susie.
“Susie,” Alphys starts, “final exams are rapidly approaching, as I’m sure you know.” She was vaguely aware. “And-and your grades for the year, well, they-they aren’t the best.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” Susie shrugs.
“A-and after calculating your average, well, you, um, it-it looks like you won’t be able to graduate.”
“What?” Oh, no. No no no. If she doesn’t graduate now, then... shit.
Her fists shake as she digs her claws into her palms.
A hand on her shoulder draws back her panic. Alphys stares into her eyes, a steady presence to ground her. Her gaze strays to Susie’s left eye. “I-I know that you, um, you probably don’t want to stick around Hometown longer than you have to.”
“That’s-no! I don’t want to leave! I just...” What to say? She’s not about to tell Alphys that she’s pregnant and will still be pregnant if she has to attend the next school year. Unless she can talk Asriel into taking her to the city without telling him why.
Alphys frowns. “I w-wish we could do more for you, Susie. I’ve talked to Undyne, but she-well, she’s tried to help you. You know that, right?”
Her brow furrows. “She has?”
“Susie...” Alphys sits sideways in Kris’ desk, waist twisted to face Susie. Her hand hovers over Susie’s black eye, not quite touching, not quite avoiding. She pulls it back in a fist over her chest. “It’s no secret how your mother treats you. Undy– er, Officer Undyne has tried to open investigations into her abuse several times.” Her face sours. “Mayor Holiday tells her not to bother, that-that she needs to just ignore you.”
Her shoulders shake until the anger drains from them. “I-I know it has something to do with what happened last year at the festival.” Alphys huffs, forlorn smile on her face. “I don’t think anyone will forget how she held that sword to you. Like she was-well, she was angry. Acted like you stole something.”
I did.
“What does this have to do with my grade?” Susie asks before too much slips free.
Alphys jumps, back straight. “O-oh! Of course, Susie! I’m-I’m sorry to, uh, to bring up sore subjects. Just know that Undyne and I want to help. As, um, for your grades...” She clears her throat.
“We — Toriel and I — have decided that, i-if you can make an 80 or better on your final exams, then that will be sufficient to raise your average to a passing level. You can graduate with the rest of your class.”
“Sure. Sounds doable,” Susie starts, scratching the back of her neck. “What are the exams about?”
The tight tilt of Alphys' lips suggests she was expecting this question. “I have asked, um, Berdly and No-Noelle to help tutor you. They should be waiting at the library in an hour.”
“Alright.” And then they sit there. Susie looks around the classroom, gaze lingering on the cracked door. Alphys continues to stare at her eye. “Is there anything else?”
“Oh!” Alphys stands and scurries to her desk. “No, no, I’m sorry. P-please, feel free to leave when you wish.”
“Cool.” Susie makes her way to the door. Kris is leaning against the lockers outside, pretending they weren't just eavesdropping. They wear a worried frown, brows furrowed and lips pouting.
“What’s up?” Susie asks, dropping her hand over their head and shaking it. “Don’t look so down, dude.”
“Noelle.” Kris signs. “She won’t want me there.”
“Psh. Sounds like a her problem.” She heads to the school doors.
“What about you?” they ask, walking backwards ahead of her so she can see. “Don’t think she’ll try to sabotage you?”
“Sabotage?” Susie can't help but laugh. “Not with Nerdly there. Besides, it’s not like she has any reason to.”
A nervous energy enters Kris' hands as they make half-formed words. She knows what they’re scared of, why they don’t want to voice their questions.
“The break up was mutual,” she offers in escape.
Kris stops her with a hand on her arm. They look into her eyes, still worried, and let out a tiny whine.
Susie sighs. “She told me it wasn’t my fault.”
“That doesn’t mean that she does not blame you,” they say, voice low and soft, a tone reserved only for her.
She says nothing as they step into the overcast afternoon. Kris walks into the road, halting when Susie sticks to the tree line. Jogging to catch her before she enters, they take her hand and give her an inquisitive look.
No, please. She doesn’t want them to follow her. All she wanted was to grab the test.
“Go ahead,” she tries to wave them off, “just got to grab something from my place.”
“Like what?” Kris signs.
“Books and shit. Study stuff.”
Kris shrugs, signs, “An hour, right?” and joins her.
“I’ll be back in like ten.”
They shrug again, smiling and taking her hand as they enter the forest. A small, overgrown trail runs beside the school to the apartments. Neither use it often — Kris feels no need to visit any residents except Susie, and Susie hangs out with Kris all day.
Once they exit the other side, Susie wrinkles her nose. “Mom's home,” she says, eyeing one of the busted cars parked along the street.
“Window?” Kris signs. Susie nods, and they hop onto her back, arms locked around her throat.
Her window is second from the left on the third floor. She climbs, fingers hooking in barely-there spaces between bricks, and wonders how the hell Kris is able to scale this wall with their teeny little fingernails. She stops beside her window — cracked and dusty, as always — and sets her palm flat against it.
It doesn’t budge when she pushes. She frowns, arm shaking as she puts more and more force into it. Kris joins in, one hand in the top sill, straining as they try to angle against Susie for leverage.
Both pause to look at the other. Susie grumbles as she climbs back down.
“Why is it locked?” Kris signs when they’re on the ground again.
“Good question.” Susie squints at her window before turning to the apartment entry. “Doin' this the old-fashioned way, then.”
Which is unfortunate — the apartment door swings into an open living space. Usually the only thing between Susie and her mother is a beat-up brown couch. She has to sneak along the walls to make it to her room.
It's been ingrained into her very blood at this point.
In the two years since moving to Hometown, Susie has learned stealth. Really, she learned stealth long ago — there are several houses and apartments across the state that she could enter without a single sound.
This is one of them. She knows how to turn the key so the tumblers fall quiet, how to twist the knob so it doesn't squeak. How and where and with what pressure she needs so the door swings silent. Where to place her feet so that the floorboards don’t creak.
She has never once been caught entering our exiting this apartment in the past two years.
Which is why she is not expecting the glass bottle that smashes into her skull.
“Whore!” her mother screams as she stomps to the door. She drags Susie into the living room with a fistful of hair, throws her to the ground. The corner of the coffee table collapses under Susie's thigh.
“The fuck is your problem?!” Susie shouts. She scrambles to sit, to back as far from her mother as she can. Kris stands angry in the open door, and she can only hope they stay outside.
“I didn't raise a slut!” her mother shouts.
“You didn’t raise shit, hag!” she shouts in reply, back pressed against the wall. Plastic bounces off her chest. Her throat dries.
The test.
She threw it away.
She–
She did throw it away, didn’t she? She hasn’t been able to find it, and–
Well, maybe she doesn't have the best memory of that night. She was distraught and distracted and moments blurred together before they became memories.
Whatever happened, it should not have been easy to find.
Fists close over the collar of her shirt, lift her off the ground to slam her face-first into the wall. She throws an elbow back and up, aiming for a nose or a throat.
It lands solidly in her mother's shoulder. She stumbles; Susie shoves her into the couch. It topples backwards and she rolls to the door.
Anger clouds Kris' face. They swing their leg as she pulls herself up, kick aimed for her back. She snarls when it lands.
Then snatches their ankle. Yanking them to the ground, she kneels, hovering over them. Her hand gathers the front of their sweater. She lifts them up and slams them back down. They cough, gasping for air.
“You the one to knock her up?”
Kris’ hands grasp at her wrist, fingernails digging into her scales. Their mouth twists in a snarl, red eyes narrowed in a glare.
Her mother lifts Kris again.
Susie jumps across the room. Her teeth sink into her mother's arm.
An elbow lands in her face. Warmth drips from her nose.
But she’s able to lock arms with her mother. Bring her to her feet. Twist them around so she can run.
Bending to scoop Kris from the ground, Susie throws them over her shoulder. Where her feet carry her, she does not know. Outside outside outside, echoes through her mind. She only returns to herself when the woods surround her.
Waves crash in the distance. She follows the sound.
The lake has always been a safe space for Susie. Before Kris, every fight was followed by a night spent half in the water, washing blood from her skin and clothes. Overhead trees provided some cover during rain, and a tarp hung among them offered her a mostly dry sleep. Warmth was another matter; a bundle of damp blankets, overgrown with moss, was her only source of heat.
Kris always hated her life by the lake, but it was never a permanent thing. She only stayed there when her mother was rampaging. She visits even less since befriending Kris.
Tapping on Susie’s shoulder reminds her she’s not alone. She flips Kris around, adjusts them in her arms until they’re sitting on one elbow. She stares out at the lake as they wipe blood from her face.
Waves swell in the water and crash into the beach in a violent explosion of bubbles. A similar feeling swells within her.
“Hey,” Kris mutters, dabbing their bloodied sleeve against her upper lip, “what she said...” They hesitate, fingers pausing in the air. “Are you really pregnant?”
Her brows furrow in a deep frown. “Think so.”
“Shit,” they curse into their palms. “Mom is going to kill me.”
Susie holds her arms out, Kris balanced on her hands. She lets go, yanking her empty hands back to cross over her chest.
Kris yelps as they land ass-first in the rocks, but she ignores them as she walks closer to the water. She lies on her back, staring at the stormy sky, arms spread straight out. Clouds float across her vision, forming the shapes of Lancers and Ralseis. Heat settles at her left hip, radiates against her side. She refuses to look.
“I was an ass,” Kris whispers, cheek pressed into her bicep. “Don’t hate me.”
Susie still does not look as she calls them a bitch. They laugh, once, since the word lacked any venom.
“Sorry.” They continue to lay by her side, as close as they can possibly be without slipping into her skin. Their gaze never leaves her face.
Until they shift, pulling themself up beside her. The warmth stays at her hip, but dissipates from her side the longer they sit away.
She won't admit to missing it, not yet.
A finger pokes at her stomach. Again. And again and again, digging a little harder each time.
“That’s our kid, dumbass,” Susie says, “don’t go breakin’ it.”
“Any kid of ours is already fucked,” Kris tells her.
And that is what makes Susie laugh, because damn if it ain’t the truth. “Fucked up kids make fucked up kids.”
Kris snorts and lays their head across her waist — half on her stomach, half on her chest. They listen to whatever noises her body makes, whether it be her beat of her heart or the growling of her stomach. She wraps an arm around their shoulders, thumbing at their sweater.
“Did you ever want kids?” they ask, words almost buried under the sound of the lake.
It’s a question that gives her pause, makes her think. “Dunno,” she settles on. “Never thought about it. Never really had a plan for the future.”
Silence passes, a million what-ifs tumbling through the space between them. “What about you?” Susie asks once the onslaught has calmed.
They shrug against her. “Never thought I had a future to plan for.”
The prophecy demanded blood. Kris knew this, and they always assumed they would be the one to make the sacrifice. Susie's death freed them of this duty, though it is her rebirth that keeps them breathing.
“Do you want to keep it?” they ask, even quieter than before.
To that she has no answer. Go with the flow has always been her plan for life.
But a child, especially when she is barely one herself, is a big change. There is little she can do for it, even now. Safety is a scarcity in her house.
Hell, does she even have a house anymore? If she returns to her apartment, her mom is bound to beat the kid out of her — if not worse.
“I think I’m homeless,” Susie chuckles. “Can’t raise a baby like that.”
“Live with me,” Kris offers. “Baby or not. You know you’re always welcome.”
When she looks at them from the corner of her eye, they seem… excited. A gleam of happiness sparks in their gaze as they stare, softly, into her face. Their hair is splayed across her stomach like the bars of a cage, a barrier to protect whatever's inside her from the outside world.
If their child looks anything like Kris, Susie will spoil it to death.
“Hey,” Susie starts a few minutes later, “since your brother’s name is just ‘Asgore’ and ‘Toriel’ mashed together, we should name this thing the opposite of Asriel.”
“Togore?” they exclaim, head lifting in disgust. “We're not naming our kid fucking Togore.”
“Would be cool to work ‘gore' into the name somehow, though. You’ve got to agree with that.”
They inhale, mouth opened like they want to agree, but the furrow in their brow reveals a dislike of the idea. “It sounds too close to Dad's,” they decide with a shake of their head. “We need a better name."
“Are we really thinking about having a baby?” Susie asks. “At eighteen?”
A bare hint of emotion twitches across their lips. “Dunno,” they mutter. A shadow passes their face, and they lay a hand across her chest. “Could be dangerous. Your heart…”
The sentence fades, unspoken fear lingering in the quiet. Susie runs her hand down Kris’ back. “Guess that’s what doctors are for,” she says. “I’ll need to see one no matter what happens.”
The chiming of their phone interrupts whatever Kris was about to say next.
“C’mon,” Susie says, “Noelle’s probably been waiting for a while.” She shifts, pulling herself to her feet, arms around Kris’ waist to carry them back. They scramble free of her hold, choosing to take her hand instead.
“I'm not letting my pregnant girlfriend carry me everywhere,” they say when she huffs at them.
“Not even sure I’m pregnant,” she mumbles. “Only got one positive test.”
Their brow furrows. “Out of how many?”
“Bunch of monster ones couldn’t make up their mind. The human one’s the one that said pregnant.”
“Let’s get another.” Kris stands on their toes to plant a kiss on her bruised nose. “We’ll get both. If we’re still not sure, we can talk to Azzy.”
“We can’t go to him for everything.”
“Better him than Mom. She’ll be furious.”
The thought of facing Toriel’s rage is… unsettling. Still, she doesn’t need to know. Right? Eventually, yes, if they decide to keep the baby, but until then…
Kris squeezes her hand. “We'll nab a few tests after studying,” they tell her. “We can figure it out from there.”
The walk through the woods is far too short. On the other side, when the concrete sidewalk is under their feet, Kris stops and turns to Susie.
“You’re staying with me tonight,” they decide, leaving no room for argument. “Actually you’re moving in.”
“And Toriel is okay with this?” Susie raises a brow.
“She will be,” Kris shrugs. They hold her face, thumb ghosting over her cheek — the area is tender, a new bruise sprouting . “I'll talk her into it.”
And with a single sneaky kiss, they drape her arm around their shoulders.
When the bell above the door rings, Sans rarely acknowledges it. Rush hour is over, everyone's already come by and left with whatever junk food they settled on for the evening. No need for him to lift a finger over latecomers.
Until he feels a glare on his skull. There's only one kid in town with the guts to stare at him like they’re plotting his demise — Kris Dreemurr.
Sure enough, it’s Kris Dreemurr who meets his gaze when he deigns to lift his head. Susie is at their side, as always. “’Sup, kids?” he asks.
A curl of their lip is Kris' only response. Susie has the decency to shrug, at least.
Sans returns to his magazine. He makes a mental note of all the things that slip into pockets and sleeves — two single-serve bags of chips, a chocolate bar, a soft baked pretzel. A bottle of soda is stuffed into the band of Susie's pants.
Let them steal in peace. He'll delete it all from the inventory when they’re gone.
He flips a page. They wander to the medical section. Three pregnancy tests disappear. Two of them are for various monster types, while the third is the same box that Sans helped Susie find the last time she visited.
A gallon of milk is set on the counter in front of him. Kris smacks down enough money to cover it before they march out with Susie in tow.
Not a single word is said, not to Sans. But he doesn’t need words. No one in town does.
He pulls a small black notebook from under the counter. His own handwriting greets him as he cracks it open:
Dating already: QC
Dating by 20: Monster Kid, Snowy
Dating by 30: Alphys, Undyne, Toriel
Dead by 30: Muscle Man
The list goes on. A dozen names, a dozen dates. Only one hopeful name sits beneath Never together.
QC's always been in the lead. She can read people, always been able to. Guess that’s just a skill picked up as a business owner in a small town.
But from what just went missing, she has a contender for the pot.
Berdly was the only person to put money on a child before twenty.
I need some help. One of our dogs, Wolfie, has a tumor on his leg, and is at risk of cancer spreading. He needs to see an oncologist, but we can't really afford that or any treatment he needs. So if we could get some help, I'd really appreciate it.
Thank you for your time.
Meet Wolfie, our mix-breed baby boy! He is twelve years old, soon to b… Cindy Morris needs your support for Help Wolfie Get the Cancer
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Characters: Tartaglia, ChiScara
Summary: Sparring. Sarcasm. Kisses exchanged in the heat of battle, the taste of blood passing from one tongue to another.
A/N: One of my dogs has been diagnosed with cancer, and i’ll need help to pay for treatment. I am offering fics in exchange for donations!
389 // AO3 // Masterlist
The wedding is…
Nonexistant. A fairy tale. Once upon a time, in a far away land.
But the ring still sits on Tartaglia’s glove. He doesn’t remember who slid it on his finger. He doesn’t know for whom he wears it.
Maybe it’s for the girl in Moreposek, the one he had a crush on as a child?
A drunken night in Nasha Town could also explain it. The laws are loose at the border; impromptu marriages happen all the time.
Or perhaps that man in Inazuma, the one that wanted to marry as research for his novel.
None of those theories carry the weight of reality. The girl's been gone for years, and Tartaglia tries to keep a clear head on the border. And the Inazuman…
Something akin to memory comes to the front of Tartaglia’s mind. Blue eyes. A black kimono. Red paint on porcelain lips. A steel ring, just a few shades lighter than black, slipped onto his finger. The same ring he wears every day.
It blends in with the rest of his jewelry. Whoever gave it to Tartaglia knew him well.
Or maybe it’s just another trinket from some forgotten adventure. A shiny thing to tinker with until it bores him. It’ll be gone, one of these days, sold to some swindler or gifted to a sibling or thrown into the icy rivers of Snehznaya. The emptiness he feels at its removal will surely be a fleeting thing, gone by the time the currents carry it away.
And yet the idea haunts him. The very thought that he would be separated from the one thing that ties him to some unknown paramour wrenches at his heart. Preys at his mind. Every time he removes that damned ring, he is consumed by dreams so wistful they hurt.
A pub in Nod Krai, floating among cotton-candy clouds.
A man from Inazuma holding a blade to his throat.
Sparring. Sarcasm. Kisses exchanged in the heat of battle, the taste of blood passing from one tongue to another.
Electro runs through his veins as someone teases him. As someone straddles him. As someone whispers words of love into his ear, quiet enough to hide beneath the rain drumming on the roof. Relationships between Harbingers are forbidden, after all.
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Characters: Kinich, Kinilani
Summary: Kinich doesn't mind a celebration if that celebration is for Mualani.
Technically, the celebration is for him, too.
A/N: One of my dogs has been diagnosed with cancer, and i’ll need help to pay for treatment. I am offering fics in exchange for donations!
325 // AO3 // Masterlist
The wedding is loud.
Like, loud loud. Live music plays throughout the entirety of Toyac Springs. People gather along the boardwalk, chatting and drinking. Couples dance across the waterfront, nearly dragging passersby into the ocean. It’s wild. It’s crazy. It’s…
Too much for Kinich.
Sure, he's no stranger to partying. He's drunk his fill at many a gathering. Nothing truly alcoholic, of course — that's one thing he avoids no matter the occasion. Except for today. He was coaxed into a glass of wine from everyone except Mualani.
Mualani. Kinich doesn't mind a celebration if that celebration is for Mualani.
Technically, the celebration is for him, too.
But Mualani is the one that pushed for it. And if there is anything he cannot do, it is to deny Mualani. And she is more than understanding. She let him sneak off after greeting their first few guests, and now he sits atop the roof of Colomche Plaza’s main building, legs crossed and hands in his lap. Fidgeting. Twisting around the ring on his finger — an emerald from deep within Coatepec Mountain, polished until it was smooth and shiny, then engraved with the symbol of the Meztli. A piece of his heart carved into a piece of his home.
Mualani has a ring to match. Lazurite sourced from Toyac Springs and carved with the Huitztlan emblem. They were a gift from Xilonen, meant to be a symbol of their union. Natlan doesn’t have such traditions, but she picked it up from a librarian and her wife in Mondstadt.
Kinich runs a thumb over the ring as he scans the party below. Mualani is dancing with Kachina, laughing as they twirl through the crowd, the skirts of their white pareos floating in their wake. The edges of the engraving scrape at his skin, and he presses the pad of his thumb into it until his blood pulses through his hand.
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Characters: Cyno, Tighnari
Summary: The wedding is secret.
No. Not secret. Secret implies a reason to hide. Secret implies shame.
A/N: One of my dogs has been diagnosed with cancer, and i'll need help to pay for treatment. I am offering fics in exchange for donations!
312 // AO3 // Masterlist
The wedding is secret.
No. Not secret. Secret implies a reason to hide. Secret implies shame.
Tighnari feels no shame, and neither does Cyno.
Their fingers twine as they lay in the forest, staring up into the night. The Traveler claims the stars as false, claims the sky that circles Teyvat is little more than show. The sun and moon and clouds all dance across some invisible shell to hide the true nature of the world.
Cyno points to a cluster of lights directly above them. “That’s you,” he says, finger tracing lines between stars that don't connect. Tighnari thinks he’s drawing a fox.
“How so?” he asks, and Cyno smiles.
“I can’t stop starring at it.”
True to the pun, Cyno’s eyes have not left the sky. Even when a cloud rolls over his imaginary constellation, his gaze remains locked to it.
Rain drizzles over them. They don't move. Cyno continues to stare. Tighnari doesn't feel jealous.
He doesn't.
But he does rise onto his elbows and flips onto Cyno, face hovering between him and the image his mind has conjured.
“You're pouting,” Cyno says, lips quirking into a smile. He lifts a hand to swipe away the hair that hangs between them.
“Am not,” Tighnari protests, but even he can hear how petulant he sounds. It makes Cyno's smile widen.
“I could see a thousand foxes in the sky,” Cyno whispers, “but they will never compare to you.” He cups his hand over the back of Tighnari's head and pulls him down until their foreheads touch.
“I’m yours,” he breathes, right before pressing their lips together.
There is no announcement. No grand declaration of love. No proposal, even.
But there are rings. Two simple wooden wedding bands; one that Tighnari wears under his thick ranger’s gloves, the other tucked into a pouch sewn to the inside of Cyno’s belt.
I need some help. One of our dogs, Wolfie, has a tumor on his leg, and is at risk of cancer spreading. He needs to see an oncologist, but we can't really afford that or any treatment he needs. So if we could get some help, I'd really appreciate it.
Thank you for your time.
Meet Wolfie, our mix-breed baby boy! He is twelve years old, soon to b… Cindy Morris needs your support for Help Wolfie Get the Cancer
Hey guys! As you can see, I'm in need of some help. If you are able to donate, I will write a short fic for you! Just provide proof of donation, please.
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Summary: “Penance must be paid,” she hisses, reaching out. Susie steps back, but the elegant indigo hand follows. Her wrist is snatched in an iron grip before it can make contact with her forehead.
>“I’ll do it,” Kris grounds out, forcing the words through stiff lips and frozen tongue. “I’ll take her punishment.”
3.2k // AO3 // Masterlist
The music floating from the Dark is soft and slow, drawing the faintest of forgotten memories to the front of Kris' mind.
Their body moves, swaying back and forth, as their fingers tap their thigh alongside the rhythm, hitting notes as they fall. The movement is not fully under their control, but neither is it guided by the entity that pulses between their ribs.
“Weird that we can hear it already,” Susie says, eyeing the hospital door, opened into pure Darkness. “I didn’t think anything escaped the Dark World until it was closed.” Her gaze moves to the sky, just barely starting to dim, then to their dancing fingertips. “Know what it is?”
Kris hums. The song is familiar, yet frustratingly distant. The past clings to them like smoke, ashes filling their mouth with every unwelcome memory. It is not often that they dredge the shadows of their life, but they think back, back, back to a time that was full of fun and light. Losing balance on the tips of their toes. Walls mirrored to see and correct their posture. Noelle standing stock-still as Kris struggled to keep their attention on the teacher.
“Ballet,” they mumble.
Her snout wrinkles in a sneer. “Hoity-toity shit, then.” A second passes as she swipes at her nose. “Which one?” she asks, lips falling into a curious line.
Flashes of story sprint across their mind: a forbidden love, a broken heart, a dancing death.
Which narrows nothing down. It’s a common formula for any performance.
“Dunno,” Kris tells her, half-shrugging. Even if they recognized the song, they couldn’t place it — they’ve only seen three or four different ballets in their teenage years, but they have been through showings of each.
The thing controlling them shivers. It takes all of their concentration to resist its command to jump, already, JUMP!
“Well,” Susie starts, stepping one foot into the door, “one way to find out.”
And she spins, shooting Kris a daring grin as the Dark swallows her.
Music assaults their ears as they follow. A transformation sparks across their skin, changing their clothes into armor and whisking away every ounce of autonomy they have. The entity — parasite, Kris has taken to calling it — tightens its grasp over them in the Dark Worlds. There are very few situations where they are granted freedom.
Kris is a mere spectator by the time they land beside Susie and Ralsei. They wave greetings that Kris can only return with a slight nod. And then they take off.
Rooms and halls and hours pass quickly, every step accompanied by music. Flutes and violins rise and fall, a drum beats steadily in the background. The soft tinking of a piano never leaves, always playing just below the other sounds. It follows along with their footsteps. Every step they take has the same note playing, over and over — a G chord. They listen, trying to gauge what sounds have been assigned to the others. A low C for Susie, Kris thinks, and a high E for Ralsei.
“Are you okay, Kris?” Ralsei asks as he stops before them. “You seem distracted.”
“The music,” they mutter, lips barely moving. Their already stiff back straightens as more words are forced from their tongue. “The music is watching us.”
Like a broken spell, flowers descend on them. Twirling petals circle Kris and Susie and Ralsei. Thorns reach out, grasping at their clothes, drawing them into a dance amongst a giggling cloud.
Kris spins on their foot, until vines wrap round their throat.
Ralsei is guided through a waltz over broken needles and shattered glass.
Susie thrashes until she’s free of the storm surrounding her. Her axe forms in her hand, and she waves it in front of her. “Stay back!” she shouts.
The flowers laugh, high and tinkling, as they fade into the dark. Kris and Ralsei fall to the floor, breath heaving. Susie kneels beside them, conjuring a ball of healing magic. “Ralsei,” Kris coughs, waving her towards him and his bleeding feet.
“Let’s hope,” Ralsei gasps as a hundred small cuts close over, “that we don’t see them again.”
“Music's louder,” Kris wheezes. They point to a large, ornate door at the end of the hall. “Boss.”
“And the Fountain after that, right?” Susie asks. They nod. She hefts her axe, resting it over her shoulder as she offers a hand to Kris. “Let’s finish this.”
They stare at her as they slowly take her hand — she’s beautiful, with the dim light of the Dark World highlighting the edges of her smile, the deep purple of her hair. She pulls them to their feet, and they extend a hand to Ralsei.
Together, they open the ornate door.
Inside is a forest of lilac and periwinkle. A low glow tints the fog a pasty blue. A floral scent permeates the air; a carpet of small flowers bloom under them as they walk.
The trees part. In the distance, the Fountain flows. Flowers extend into a large clearing. A casket sits in the middle, glossy black wood reflecting false stars from above. A Darkner — the first they’ve seen — twirls slowly around it, slipping through the grass on the tips of her toes.
She’s gorgeous. Her skin is a deep blue that shines indigo in the light. Her hair is coiled into tight locs that flow around her as she dances, ghostly white save for a few strands of black sprinkled in. Golden string wraps around her body, a skintight bodysuit that covers her chest and hips and falls into a sparse skirt. Tears sparkle as they fall from her face, turning to diamonds as she comes to a gentle stop above the casket. Her arms rest by her side, her feet crossed flat on the ground.
“Come to mourn the girl you killed?” the Darkner asks, eyes half-closed.
“We haven’t killed anyone,” Ralsei steps forward.
“Lies,” she hisses. Her gaze turns to glare. Anger mars her face as she looks at Susie. “You lied your way into my daughter’s weak heart,” she says to her, “and now you claim no guilt for breaking it?”
Susie’s eyebrow twitches. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” she says, raising her palms to the Darkner.
The Mother motions to the casket, lips parted in a sneer. “You do not care to even remember her name?”
And this is where Susie’s own lips twist as she pouts. She turns to Kris. “Any idea who she's talking about?”
The story, they want to say, she thinks you’re the prince.
“No idea,” falls from their mouth, completely monotone.
Again, Ralsei steps forward. “We're sorry for your loss,” he says, “but we must move on. All we want is to close the Dark Fountain.”
The Mother lifts a finger to his brow. An eighth note lights up between his horns. His body begins to sway, feet sliding through the grass as he twirls away, shouting at the loss of control. When she turns back to Susie, she is furious.
“Penance must be paid,” she hisses, reaching out. Susie steps back, but the elegant indigo hand follows.
Her wrist is snatched in an iron grip before it can make contact with her forehead. Silence — true silence, an utter lack of sound — falls as the Mother frowns at Kris. They had no plan when they grabbed her; pure instinct is what drove them to protect Susie.
“I’ll do it,” they ground out, forcing the words through stiff lips and frozen tongue. “I’ll take her punishment.”
The Mother stares. Sits. Lounges against her daughter’s casket. “Dance,” she says, and the music picks up once more: A light piano, poking out a back-and-forth tune beneath barely louder violin. A soft flute picks up as they step into the clearing, free of all tripping hazards. The music is unknown to them, but neither is it fully unfamiliar. It has the same ring of story that all ballet music carries.
If there is a specific choreography that the Mother desires, she will not get it. But Kris has spent their fair share of time consuming the art of performative dance. They can bullshit a passable routine.
The only problem is the parasite that has taken up residence in their chest. If it leaves them alone, they can make their way through this problem. If it grants them their freedom, they will make quick work of it.
They lift their arms above their head, stand on the toes of their armored boots. Begin a slow turn. Lower their arms. Leap.
When the music swells, their limbs go numb. They tumble as their ankles lock half-twisted. On the ground, their arms still extend, jerking in every direction. Something pulls on their chest, yanking them into a sitting position.
“What a farce.” The Mother stands above Kris, frowning. Leaves grow around her, blades of grass sharpened by her rage. When she lifts her hand they launch at Kris and Susie, sink into their skin with pain and blood.
The fluttering of the parasite disappears, just as it does at every battle. Kris can feel control flow into their numb body.
What a cowardly thing that has taken up residence within them. To cause a mess and run away from the consequences.
Battle is something they can handle. Pain is welcomed, as is the swinging of their sword. It is something they can find comfort in, the mindless hacking at whatever enemy blocks their way — except for this time.
Kris knows what item formed this Darkner. They’ve played it enough to know each mistuned string as it was struck. They know which key to hold to draw out the sound they desire. Which pedal to press to alter the music.
This Darkner, this Mourning Mother...
She came from the hospital piano.
She will not survive the battle.
And when the Fountain closes, and Kris stands above the ruins of the Mother, and the piano is shattered into a thousand shards…
There is no time to mourn. Patients stir deep within the hospital, woken from their slumber by the commotion. Footsteps thud down the hall, rapidly approaching the waiting room. Susie grabs Kris and runs to the door, jumping over the chaos left when a Dark World closes, carries them into the overcast night outside.
They’re hiding in the shadows of a lamp halfway down the street when Nurse Big Mouth storms out onto the sidewalk. They have no face, but the tilt of their giant lips speaks clearly of their anger.
Kris can’t bring themself to care. The piano is gone. Sure, they can ask the Holidays for access to theirs. Sure, the church has an organ they can attempt to play. But the hospital piano — it was special. It was a place they could go to get lost in music. It was a familiar friend when they needed to clear their head.
To find it destroyed leaves them empty.
Thunder rolls through the clouds. Rain sprinkles along the ground.
Susie guides Kris home, her hoodie thrown over their shoulders to guard from the rain until they stand under the Dreemurr porch. Their body remains their own, untouched by the parasite, as they hug the jacket to their chest. Reluctantly they hand it over, and she pulls the hood over her head as she disappears into the night.
Toriel makes them shower before bed. Their hair is still wet when she gives them a hug bids them good night.
Fury sits in their room, lays alongside them in bed. Festers. Rots.
Until they feel the tingle of the parasite settling into their chest. It makes them stand. It walks them to the bedroom door.
They rip it out before it can move them into the hallway.
“I had that,” they seethe. The little heart squeezed in their fist flutters. “I did not need your ‘guidance’ for it.”
It glows in their hand, pulsing in time to their own heartbeat. That is the only answer Kris ever receives from it, no matter what they do. Complete and utter silence.
Its prison sits open in the wagon. The bars rattle as Kris slams the parasite into the birdcage and twists the hook into the latch.
It shines, still flickering along with the pulse that thunders through their ears. Glaring proves no use in dimming its glow, so they slink over to the closet for a blanket. A navy blue comforter sits in the bottom of the closet, thick and dark and heavy enough to completely smother the light.
A small white box clatters across the floor as they toss it over the birdcage, landing upside-down. Kris stares down at the pink ribbon spilling from one corner. Their hands shake as they flip the box.
A small, worn pair of ballet slippers stay in the carpet. Crossing their legs, they measure the shoes along the bottom of their socks. Kris has long outgrown the shoes — ballet lessons held no interest to them when Noelle quit — but the arc of their feet still match the curve of the sole. A brief debate passes through their mind, but they find their hands acting before an outcome is decided.
The ribbons pull tight around their calf.
It has been a long, long time since Kris has practiced ballet. There were times in the past, after their mother dragged them to a show an hour away, that they would dig the shoes out and try to imitate the movement of a ballerina. When Dess disappeared, the Holidays were too stressed to continue Noelle's lessons. Kris only lasted four more without her, and all thoughts of ballet abandoned them shortly thereafter.
That does not stop the memory that surges through their muscles.
First position is the easiest to recall. Heels together, directly beneath the body, toes pointed out. Holding the position makes their spine burn; while their body may not have forgotten the postures, it has forgotten the work required to keep them steady.
Second position shifts their feet below their shoulders, arms straight out to the side.
Fourth position is difficult. Toes pointed to the sides, legs crossed at the knee, feet lined up with one in front of the other. Their arms windmill in an attempt to keep their balance, until they shift back into second position.
Pointe is not something Kris has ever been taught. They were warned of the dangers of dancing pointe before they were ready, or without the proper equipment. Their feet do not fit in the ballet slippers, and the slippers aren’t even pointe shoes in the first place. Trying pointe would be foolish at best.
Foolishly, they tilt their feet until they are standing on the tips of their toes. Flailing arms and tiny steps are not enough to keep them standing. Only ten seconds have passed when their balance finally falters. They make no move to stop their fall; instead they welcome the anticipation of hitting the floor.
Carpet is not what catches them. An arm across their back steadies Kris and pulls them into a chest. Wind blows through the room, rustling their hair. Susie smiles down at them, sheepish and shy.
“Sorry, dude,” she apologizes. They glance to the covered birdcage as she rights them, then to the now open window and the rain pattering through it. “Got a little heated at home. Mind if I crash here?”
Of course, they try to say around the lump in their throat. Despite their freedom, temporary though it is, they find themself tongue tied around her. They nod instead, moving to slide the window shut. When they turn they find her sitting on Asriel's bed, brow furrowed.
“Are you okay?” Kris signs at the same time Susie asks. They both startle, eyes wide and jaws popping open. Kris recovers first, hands moving slowly as they ask, “What happened at home?”
“Oh.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Just late, is all. Got bitched at.”
There’s a good chance she’s hiding a new bruise somewhere beneath her jacket. Kris doesn’t press any further.
“What about you? The piano–” Susie stops as their faces falls, numb anger-anguish-despair crumpling their expression. They sit in their bed, head down, until she switches to another touchy subject. “That… dance you did,” she starts, “it felt off. Like you knew what you were doing but couldn’t control how you moved.”
It’s not much better than asking about the piano. But the parasite is temporary. It will be gone, and hopefully soon. They force themself to not look at the birdcage.
“I'm fine,” Kris whispers, “just out of practice.”
Susie perks her head, then shakes it, feigning disinterest. “You one of them ballet nerds?” she asks to cover the excitement in her eyes.
“Ballerina,” Kris corrects, a small smile returning to their face. “Haven’t danced in years. Thought I could…”
The sentence trails, doubt and regret floating through the air.
“I mean,” sincerity seeps into Susie's voice as she thinks over her words, “it's kind of cool. Piano. Ballet. What else you got in that nerdy little head of yours?”
“Video games.” They sign. “Food.”
Susie snickers, resting her head in her hand. “That’s all I got,” she says. “All I’ll ever have.”
She doesn’t sound wistful. She doesn’t look sad. The only thing to give away any sign of negative emotion is the flickering of her gaze, slipping from Kris to the door to the window. Something about eye contact. Losing focus. They understand.
“You’re everything,” Kris blurts, and they feel just as surprised as Susie looks. The words came unbidden to their mind, for neither the first nor final time. It was a slip of the tongue, a small part of Kris wants to say. It was forced out.
But the parasite floats in its little cage, hidden from view. There is no escape for their blunder, no otherworldly entity they can blame.
Seconds of silence turn to minutes. Susie’s face grows the slightest bit pinker. “Y’think so?” she asks, eyes hidden in her bangs.
“Of course.” Kris goes to her side of the room, placing their palm flat against hers. “Warrior.” They slide one of their fingers into the gap of hers. “Healer.” Another finger slides down. “Pianist.” Another finger. “Ballerina.” Smiling, they wrap their pinky and their thumb around her hand. Her fingers curl, but not enough to return the hold.
“I’m not ballet shaped,” she says, frowning at how much her hand overtakes theirs. “Too meaty.”
“Nah.” They pull her to her feet and drag her to the middle of the room. Her fingers are long, long enough to nearly meet at the small of their back when they wrap her hands around their waist. “Lift me,” they whisper, and she raises them an inch off the ground.
They place their palms on her elbows and press them in. “Arms straight,” they guide, “back straight." She adjusts her posture, arms lengthening until they’re fully extended, spine stretched as she sets her shoulders.
“Higher,” Kris encourages.
Susie holds them higher. Higher. As high as she can, at Kris’ urging, until they’re above her head. “You’re perfect,” they tell her, voice soft and sweet as their hands rest on her wrists.
She looks up at them, eyes gleaming. Their fingers glide along her skin, slipping beneath the sleeves of her jacket.
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Summary: There’s a mark on her hand.
100 // AO3 // Masterlist
There’s a mark on her hand. Dark blue, almost black, wrapped around the middle knuckle of her left index finger. Susie wonders, for a brief moment, where it came from.
The answer is Kris, of course. They hooked their teeth into her finger as she wiped tears from their face, leaving an imprint of a kiss on her skin. It has since smudged into something nigh unreadable as they traversed the Dark World, but it bears that same vivid blue that sits on their lips.
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris, implied Frisk
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Trick-or-Treat
Summary: “What are your parents like? If I see them, I’ll send them this way.”
The child shrugs. “Didn’t like them. Ran away.”
Ah. The age old solution to every shitty situation.
1.4k // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
There is a backpack full of tricks sitting between their feet as they wait on the graveyard bench. The white stick of a chocolate-filled sucker hangs from their mouth. A chill wind blows their hair into their face, obscuring their phone screen.
Kris tucks their cellphone into a pocket. Nothing good on it, anyway. Instead of endlessly scrolling, they open the backpack to double, triple check its contents.
Six rolls of toilet paper.
Five cans of silly string.
Two dozen eggs.
Fire starters, matches, and s’mores ingredients.
A perfect recipe for a perfect Halloween.
Its all a little banal, to them. Disappointing. They’re known for much better pranks than… egging houses.
Which is what they hope everyone in town believes, too. No one expects such normal shit from them. All they need to do is show up at a few houses for candy, then ditch their shitty vampire costume to start the bland pranks. End the night with a bonfire by the lake, and they’re gold.
Susie's on her way with another bag of supplies. If not for her, they’d skip the trick-or-treating. But she's never been, and Hometown has always been lenient when it comes to the ages of candy collectors. Two houses, she promised, just for the experience.
The sucker is soft. Kris crunches through the outer shell to bite into the gooey chocolate center.
To hide their backpack, they stand and remove their cheap cape, retying it over the bag once they’ve put it on. They’ve just refastened the knot around their neck when a force knocks them back onto the bench. Shaggy brown hair half-covers the eyes of a human kid, looking at them with determination.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Kris asks, before realizing they should probably not be cursing in front of a child.
“Shh!” the child holds a finger to their lips, and in a dramatic whisper says, “There are monsters over there!” Their head jerks to the graveyard gate.
“Uh. In town?”
“Yes!”
“And that surprises you?”
“Of course!” They throw their hands up, exasperated by Kris' lack of alarm. “Monsters hate all humans.”
Raising a brow, Kris thinks of their monster family, their monster friends. Every monster in town learned sign language, just for them. “I don’t think that's true.”
“I do.”
“Have you ever met a monster before?”
An echo of pain twists their lips. “A few. They tried to kill me.”
“Not all of them.”
“Yes all of them!” the kids yells, glaring. “And it hurts, too!”
“I think the ones around you just suck.”
The kid pouts, crossing their arms as they plop onto the bench beside Kris. “You’re not listening.”
“Neither are you.” Kris stands. “Look, just stay here. Only a few monsters visit the graveyard, and they’re nice. They won’t do anything, except offer you a hot meal.” After a second of watching the kid sulk, they ask, “What are your parents like? If I see them, I’ll send them this way.”
“Don’t have any.”
“You don’t?”
The child shrugs. “Didn’t like them. Ran away.”
Ah. The age old solution to every shitty situation. "That’s something Susie needs to learn,” Kris mutters under their breath.
The kid looks at them, one eyebrow raised. “Who’s Susie?” they ask.
“Yeah,” a gruff voice replies. An arm locks around Kris’ neck, hot breath fanning across their head. Her rough chin rests on their hair, tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. “Who’s Susie?”
Though they cannot see her face, they know Susie must be making a scary face; maybe glaring, or showcasing her claws — or... or maybe she’s baring her teeth, and something warm settles in Kris’ gut, and their face burns like fire–
Nope. Cannot think about that right now. Not with an actual child present.
Said child backs into the arm of the bench. Their mouth and eyes are wide open. A noise between a cough and a scream rattles from somewhere within their chest.
Kris pokes a finger into her mouth, tapping the pointed ends of her teeth. “This is Susie,” they say, finger traveling up to her cheek. “She’s an ass.”
“No worse than you, dude,” Susie snickers, lifting her head to rustle their hair. She keeps them in a headlock as she asks, “Did you clone yourself?”
“Is that an insult?”
“Dude that guy looks just like you.”
And, yeah, okay. Maybe they do look alike. The kid shares Kris’ hair — the same color and very nearly the same style. Their eyes are hidden behind the same bangs the Kris uses to hide theirs. Even their sweaters are similar, if mostly different in color. The kid has a blue sweater with two pink stripes, while Kris wears a green one with a single yellow stripe.
“....not a clone,” Kris settles on. “They just showed up.”
“That so?” She bends down to study the child, making them press themself deeper into the arm of the bench. Kris tugs her collar to pull her up. “Why’re you so scared, kid?”
“Monsters keep attacking them,” Kris answers when they don’t speak.
“Why?”
“Because I’m human!” the kid finds their voice. They stand on the bench and yank Kris behind them, whipping a shaky stick between them and Susie.
A snarl curves Susie’s lips. She punches her fist into her palm and cracks her knuckles. “Monsters bullying you because you’re human?” she asks, “Who the fuck are they? I’ll take care of ‘em for ya.”
The quivering of the stick lessens, but it remains firmly in place. Their gaze flickers between Susie and Kris. “You’re not going to hurt us?”
A glint of something dangerous sparks in her eyes, an appetite to her smirk. “Maybe I’ll get Kris later,” she says, and it goes straight to their groin. “But I ain’t about to touch you, squirt.”
The child continues to look between Kris and Susie, not quite picking up the silent Fuck yous and Maybe laters that pass through the air. “She’s really friendly?” they direct to Kris.
“Everyone in town is,” they shrug.
“They won’t get mad at me?”
“Eh,” Susie cuts in, pulling Kris back into her arms. “Not like you’re thinking. Just don’t get caught doing any stupid shiii-stuff.”
“Speaking of stupid stuff,” Kris says, “how much did you bring?”
Susie slides a messenger bag off her shoulder. It’s scuffed and dirty, matching her costume of a zombie apocalypse survivor. Inside is another four rolls of toilet paper, two more cans of silly string, and one dozen eggs. She shifts the TP to one side to reveal a six-pack of beer swiped from her place.
“Woah,” Kris breathes. “They won’t be missed?”
“Just throw the empties back in here,” Susie tells them. “I’ll leave them in her pile. She’s already drunk enough to think she got through all o’ them.”
Susie will have exactly one, Kris knows, and she will only drink from it because of their goading. Who wants to get smashed alone, after all? Kris certainly doesn’t. Even if she barely sips from the can, it will feel better knowing that someone else is as close to losing their senses as they are.
Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.
“Let’s get this started,” Kris grins.
“Still missing a piece of my costume,” Susie reminds them, holding out her arm. They study it, move it, twist it to find the perfect angle. Once they find a place the deem artistic enough, they open their mouth and sink their teeth into her flesh.
Human teeth are incapable of breaking through a monster’s scales, but Kris has come pretty damn close before. Their bites leave bruises that Susie sometimes has to cover for weeks.
A minute passes with their teeth baring into her arm. The imprint is deep when they release.
“Sweet,” Susie says, using a ketchup packet to dot fake blood in the divots. “Trick-or-treating now, right?”
“Yep. We’ll hit–”
The hand that takes theirs is tiny, but it is strong, crushing their fingers in an iron grip. When they jump, trying to yank themself free, the child stumbles as they follow their movements.
“Kid!” Kris seethes, “That hurts!”
“Sorry,” the kid shrugs. They take Susie’s hand next, and she can’t shake them either. “I’m going with you.”
“Why?” Susie asks.
“I’ve never been trick-or-treating,” they say.
And the look, that damned begging look Susie gives Kris, works every fucking time. They sigh.
“Four houses,” they relent. “Then we party.”
Susie and the kid celebrate with twin cheers. Laughing, the kid makes a declaration.
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Scare
Summary: Susie is scary. She knows this; has been made to know it by a hundred different children in a dozen different schools.
People do not like her.
There is only one person who does not shy away from her: whatever man her mom has decided to entertain.
1k // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
Susie is scary. She knows this; has been made to know it by a hundred different children in a dozen different schools. They tiptoe around her, hush when she passes, stutter if they absolutely must talk to her. Flinch every time she raises a hand, no matter the context. People do not like her.
And who can blame them? She’s big and strong, with untrimmed claws and teeth that taper into sharp points. Even if others didn’t act like she was constantly three seconds from biting their faces off, she would know. Susie knows how scary she is.
The confirmation is just salt in the wound.
As it burns her, she will burn them.
The fear they show Susie becomes a part of her. She works it into her body, forms it into her strength. Her stance widens, drips with danger as she stalks down roads. Her expression remains angry and defiant, daring anyone to approach her. The sneer she wears always shows a hint of teeth.
People stay away.
Mostly.
There is only one person who does not shy away from her: whatever man her mom has decided to entertain.
Sometimes he stays one night. Usually he stays a few weeks. Rarely does he stay a few months, but there was one that stayed for a year and a half. That one was decent, until he was arrested. A myriad of men whose names she forgets the second she hears it, and they do the same. Every Jeffey or Phillip or Tex that passed through their door treats Susie as an object — something to walk around, something to ignore. A little trinket decorating his hookup's house.
Except for those more interested in Susie than her mother.
Never mind the fact that she’s twenty years younger than them. Never mind the fact that she's a fucking child.
Hungry eyes trace the curves of her body before she developed any. A number was whispered into his ear, and he would look away.
At ten, her teeth draw blood for the very first time. Joe or Bob or Don — some pedo with a single syllable name — grabbed her arm to force her from her bed. She reacted, half-awake and without thinking, by very nearly tearing off his hand.
That was the last night she slept at home while a man was inside.
Hometown offered a small respite. Susie still had to deal with her bitch of a mother, but men willing to occupy their shitty little apartment were few and far between. Some slipped in, every now and then, and tried to warm her up. A rare few tried to touch her.
She slams them into a wall. Glares and hisses at them. Uses every scary trick she knew to make them regret meeting her mom.
Then she would leave to sleep in the graveyard.
Or her room in Castle Town, once she got it. She’s going to repay Ralsei, somehow, for giving her a space to call her own. There are times she doesn’t ever feel like returning to Hometown.
A life built there would be fake, according to Ralsei.
Why should she care? Her life already feels fake. She’s reminded of that every time there’s a new car parked beside her mom’s beat-up red sedan.
Like the shiny new convertible she spots while venturing home for textbooks. She’s pretty sure that one’s been here before.
Kris comes to a halt beside her. She doesn’t remember stopping. Just the silver glare of the sun off the hood of the fucker’s car.
“Someone you know?” they sign, eyes flicking between her and the car.
A shiver runs through her. “Think that’s the guy that grabbed my ass two months ago.”
Their shoulders stiffen. That incident still bothers them; it was the third time Toriel allowed her to spend the night before a school day, and the fifth time she was offered Asriel’s bed permanently. Why she refuses to stay with them is a mystery to Kris; she is always welcome among the Dreemurrs.
Her tongue clicks as she makes up her mind. “Let’s ditch,” Susie says. “Do we really need to study that bad?”
“All Alphys asked for was a B,” Kris reminds her. “If you flunk finals, you’ll have to repeat senior year. Without me.”
“More time with Ralsei,” she grumbles. An elbow to her hip jostles her into moving. She sighs. “Let’s get this over with.”
Climbing to the third floor gives Susie plenty of time to prepare. She dons her scariest persona — back straight to give her height, mouth curled into a perfect sneer, the sharpest of her teeth poking through her lips. Messy bangs cover her eyes, a look she hasn’t had since the first Dark World.
By the time she reaches her apartment door, she’s sure she’s ready to face him.
The clicking of the lock unravels her just the tiniest bit. The door creaks as she swings it open.
And there he is. Asshole number who the fuck cares, draped across the couch with a mountain of booze. A smirk curves across his lips as he studies her chest, her hips, her ass. “Sssssusie,” he slurs, waving his third or fourth or seventh can of beer. He pats his thigh, then the couch beside him. “C’mere, sweetie.”
Her mom is nowhere to be seen. Likely asleep in another room.
Bile builds in Susie's throat.
Kris wraps her arm around them shoulders and stares at the asshole. Or, at least, she thinks they do. Her own glare is locked onto Asshole's face, making sure he stays exactly where he is as she passes by.
His face pales. His back straightens. He gulps, loud and nervous.
He... he’s afraid.
This fear is not Susie’s doing. She tried last time to scare him off. She tried several methods to scare him off. Nothing she tried ever worked.
Whatever Kris is doing, she doesn’t get to see. They smile at her the second they cross into her bedroom.
A roaring engine reverberates through the cracked window. The silver convertible is gone before they can look out at it.
“You are one scary motherfucker,” Susie chuckles, bumping the top of Kris’ head with the side of her fist. “Love ya, dude.”
hey kris we gotta save the world from a fascist governor whose last name shares 6 letters with foreskin. and we will fight him in a giant robot powered by us and our willpower. hmu
i couldn’t pick between their dw or lw palettes so I just did both :p
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Hot Cocoa
Summary: They race to the door. The knob does not turn in their hand. The door does not give when they slam themself into it. Words float through their head, encourage them to touch the flat of it.
The wood is cold under their palm.
Or maybe they are just too hot.
A/N: Promare AU inspired by this art, feat. Burnish Kris and Firefighter Susie
1.4k // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
There is fire inside Kris. It speaks to them. It burns them to ash.
They have tried, their entire life, to ignore it. Not only do Burnish walk the line of legal and criminal, Burnish humans are few and far between. The first time Asriel saw Kris summon fire left him a terrified, paranoid mess. “You can’t tell anyone,” he hissed as he doused the flames.
Never let anyone know.
They’ll take you.
They’ll experiment on you.
They’ll kill you.
Do not listen to the flames!
But they are so very, very, LOUD.
Kris ignored them. The voices that whispered of fearsome blazes. The images of buildings, trees, monsters burning in the sunset. Every outing was cut short, else they’d let the fire slip. When Mad Burnish attacked, they ran and hid alongside their family.
Their fingertips burned hotter as they passed from child to teen to adult. A constant flash of pink and purple under their nails, covered by whatever shade of black conceals it best.
December knows. She looks at Kris with mischief, sometimes, when her mother is nagging.
December burns. She’ll pass her flames to Kris. Kris will pass them back and leave.
Kris does not listen to the flames.
Not until the day they explode.
Snow melts under their feet. The blaze stays at bay, barely, painfully. Their body burns as they stumble through the wintry midnight wind. Shivers pass up and down their spine, despite the heat that threatens to devour them.
Embers glow along the cuffs of their jacket. They tuck their hands into their arms to smother it.
An inferno erupts from their back. It latches to the closest combustible — a nearby bakery — and it burns, and it burns. Fire spreads, licking along all three floors.
They hope there is no one inside. They pray for it, despite the absence of the Angel in their life.
A third floor window slides open. A child pokes out their head and screams for help.
Kris smashes through the glass door. The fire cannot kill them.
Smoke fills their nose, their lungs, chokes them to their knees.
Their chest warms. Their breathing evens until it is powerful again.
An empty display case separates the queue from the kitchen. Kris jumps it. Running past industrial mixers and closet sized ovens puts them at the bottom of a staircase. They take the steps two at a time, sprinting for the landing. It opens into a once-cozy living room, shadows now dancing in flames. Two mismatched sofas darken into coal. The fire flows under a wooden door opposite the one Kris stands within.
They race to it. The knob does not turn in their hand. The door does not give when they slam themself into it. Words float through their head, encourage them to touch the flat of the door.
They do not listen to the flames.
Except this once.
The wood is cold under their palm.
Or maybe they are just too hot.
Gray envelopes the door. Ash falls away in bits and pieces. A cloud obscures their vision as they burst through and rush up the other staircase.
The third floor is one big hallway, not yet fully ablaze. Cracked windows sit along the left wall, looking out into a dark alley. Three doorways line the right wall, all in various states of burning. Six people sit huddled at the other end of the hall, coughing and wheezing. Kris runs to kneel beside them — three adults and three children.
“Are you okay?” they ask, and immediately feel stupid. Both their house and their business are burning around them and a stranger just broke into their home. “Yeah, dumb question,” they whisper at the glares they receive.
“How did you get up here?” hisses a bunny monster with blue fur.
“A better question is how do we get out,” a pink dog snaps.
Voices buzz inside their head, a million suggestions tugging their thoughts a million ways. Kris presses their head into the carpet, trying to ignore the pressure that causes it to ache. They pluck a single strand of instruction from the multitude.
It tells them to stand. To punch out the window. To melt the sharp edges of glass into dull ones. To hold a hand over the empty air and force the fire into their will.
A black slide forms a gentle slope from sill to street. “Go,” they tell the family.
The bunny glares as her family escapes. She is the last to leave.
They draw their hand back inside.
The roof collapses on top of them. Hits their head, buries them under rubble.
And really, what a way to die. Consumed by the fire they’ve ignored their entire life.
Blood drips into their vision before it floats away as ash. They shut their eyes.
Glass shatters. “Found ‘em!” a gruff voice yells. Mechanical whirring fills the space above their head, and they can breathe again. Gloved hands pick Kris up, throw them over a pair of thick, burly shoulders.
An angel greets them when they open their eyes. Her face is long, purple, and covered in small, square scales. Her eyes and teeth are off-white, almost yellow. The muscles that ripple under their body are big and brawny. The Burnish flames light every edge of her in pink. And her smile–
Angel, her smile. It’s half manic, full of joy as she fires freezing bolts from her pistol. Ice spreads where fire once roamed, coating the room in blues and greens.
She is the very definition of beauty. Kris finds their face aflame — in a much less literal way than they fear.
The floor buckles beneath her. She laughs as she grabs a wench hook from her abandoned mecha suit and carries them out the window, using the line to rappel down the building.
She is much gentler on the ground. When she sits Kris on the sidewalk it is with enough care to make them feel pampered. Her face scrunches into a frown as she studies them, then removes her firefighter’s jacket, revealing a white tank top underneath, and drapes it over them. They bite their lip at the show of her bare muscles and the burn scars that wrap round them.
“Didn’t think the fire got ya that fast,” she mumbles. “Missin’ the whole back of your shirt.”
Cold has never bothered them. They really wish it did right now.
“Name?” they croak around their dry throat.
“Susie,” the angel answers with a smile. She lifts the edge of her jacket and pulls a canteen from an inside pocket. Water sloshes when she opens and offers it. They drink gratefully, water dripping from the corners of their mouth as she tilts it into them. She takes a swig next, and they try to ignore the fact that her lips now touch where theirs once did.
“Building’s clear,” she speaks into a walkie talkie. “Gonna flag down an EMT.”
She stands. Kris lunges for her wrist.
“Lunch,” they say when she looks back at them. “Let me repay you. Please,” they add at her doubtful expression.
“Tomorrow,” she answers after a dangerously long pause. “Top Bakery. Meet you there at noon.”
And so she pulls away.
And so they meet the next day.
And so their relationship progresses.
One year later, Kris stands in their shared kitchen, heating milk for their shitty holiday movie marathon. They don’t use the stove, or the microwave, or the imaginary kettle(why would they own a kettle?), but they do use a pot with a handprint burned across the bottom. It’s one they use to cook when they’re alone, when they can use their flames without fear of being caught.
Susie sleeps on the couch the next room over, waiting for them to finish. She doesn’t know she’s dating a Burnish. A ridiculous concept, really. A firefighter, fallen in love with a fire starter.
Not that Kris has started any more fires. The big one released a lot of pent up energy, a lot of the voices fed up with being ignored. They have since learned to utilize their flames in smaller ways. To light a fire. To perform tricks with Dess. To aid in ballet.
Or to cook. The milk boils in the pot balanced on their palm. They pour it into two mugs already half-full of chocolate and marshmallows, then carry them to the couch where Susie naps. She jumps awake when they kick it.
“Sorry, dude,” she says with a crooked grin. “You take too long.”
They shrug. It can be hard to control the fire for such small instances.
She settles next to the arm of the couch. They hand her one mug of hot chocolate, then snuggle into her side with the other.
If she ever finds out what they are, will burn bright enough to wipe her memory of it.
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: QC, Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Diner
Summary: QC watches. She listens. She knows everything there is to know about the sleepy little residents of sleepy little Hometown.
QC knows. But she never repeats.
2.5k // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
The diner doors have seen many a family pass through. QC has seen them, too, as she grew alongside Hometown.
Hell, Hometown wasn’t a thing until she hit eight. There was a single road. At one end sat the school, at the other was her family's diner, and there were maybe four houses in between. Everyone was on a first-name basis with everyone else, and everyone was invited to the lake for every celebration. Parties were wild and drunken, even for the under-aged.
At twelve, QC took her spot at the restaurant's register, taking orders and bussing tables. She remembers some big shot businessmonster, in his dark suit and darker sunglasses, coming in and ordering a coffee. He had one of those big brick phones, the kind that can be taken anywhere, and he chattered into without pause. If someone was on the other side, they did not get to speak.
He only spoke of the lake. Lake this, lake that. It doesn’t have a name, can you believe that? It's pretty. It's a steal.
And so the land surrounding the quiet little neighborhood was snatched up. Developed into houses, apartments, businesses. The school was expanded. The Librarby was built.
The ICE-E’S was inflicted. No one wanted that, not even the businessmonster. QC's not sure she ever saw it being built; it just appeared one day.
It did a meager job of staying afloat.
KC's Diner, on the other hand, did well with the influx of newcomers. QC was kept busy, helping her mother in the kitchen and her father in the dining room. Sweeping at night gave her a pile filled with tufts of fallen purple fur. Business did not slow for months.
Rumors flew just as fast as plates from the kitchen.
Relationship rumors were as good as gold.
There was a time, QC remembers, that it was Toriel-and-Carol.
This was long before Toriel-and-Asgore and Carol-and-Rudy. They were fifteen or so, in QC’s high school class, and she was witness to the only confirmation that they ever were — a single chaste kiss, shared while she was cleaning tables on the opposite side of the diner. She was rooting for them, excited to see where their relationship would land.
They fell out of love.
Or, maybe, it was never love. Maybe it was just… a desire to be seen. Maybe the only way they felt seen was by seeing themselves in each other.
There was no nasty breakup. No fighting, no yelling; they remained friends all through high school and into college. They just moved on, though they never strayed far. Neither from Hometown nor the other.
QC was witness to the growing bonds between them and their future husbands. She watched them come together, watched their families grow. Watched as new children filled the seats between loving parents. She inherited her family’s restaurant the week before her own child was born.
December Holiday came into the world months after the name was changed to QC’s Diner. She was a spitfire, even as a newborn, always knocking over the salt or spilling a drink or pouring food over herself. Carol was driven half-mad trying to care for her. Toriel — ever the mother, even that young — offered her respite by babysitting new December alongside the even newer Asriel.
They’ll be great friends, she told Carol one night in the diner, just like we were.
And there was a gaze between them, a longing, a brush of fingers so soft it felt intimate.
QC watches. She listens. She knows everything there is to know about the sleepy little residents of sleepy little Hometown.
QC knows. But she never repeats.
December grew up alongside Asriel. They played together. They explored together. They found trouble, then found a way out of it. Thick as thieves, those two, even after they were joined by their newly acquired siblings.
Noelle was a chip off the old block — the spitting image of a young Carol. Kris was... human. An odd choice, coming from the powerful Dreemurr family. Toriel insisted they belonged, that they were just as welcome as any monster.
Growing up the only human in a town of monsters is bound to mess with anyone’s head, QC told her once, but Toriel just waved her off.
“They’ll grow with love,” was her excuse. “They’ll never want for anything.”
Let her make her own mistakes. QC had her hands full with not just the restaurant, but also the twins inside her that still needed two months to cook.
Kris took to the town the same as Dess — a little troublemaker-in-training. They were nigh inseparable, save for Dess’s dates with Asriel.
The first date was a recipe for disaster. Asriel showed up to the diner ten minutes late, holding a bouquet of wildflowers he very clearly picked on the way. His furious blush was visible through his patchy, preteen fur. Not a single word left his mouth successfully the first time; he had to stumble through several iterations before the sentence finally slid out. But the real kicker?
He forgot his wallet.
Dess, for some reason, found all of this charming. She decorated her hair with the flowers. Showed more patience than QC thought possible as she waited for Asriel to speak. Picked up the bill, then took his hand and swung it between them as they walked to the lake. Rumors quickly swirled of Dess-and-Asriel, of the town’s latest sweethearts.
QC grew alongside their parents. QC saw their families come together. QC watched as they crashed apart.
The disappearance of December Holiday would have been ruled a runaway, if not for Asriel’s devastation. Flyers went up. Commercials were aired. Some sort of TV show shoved cameras into everyone’s faces, looking for any information on the missing teenager.
A rift tore through town. Asgore was dismissed as both Police Chief and Toriel’s husband. Asriel threw himself into his studies. Carol did not leave Noelle’s side for a year. Kris–
Angel above, poor Kris. They were found in the woods near the bunker the night it happened, and they were traumatized. Not a word left their mouth for months after, and when they did choose to speak, their voice was low and mumbly. Toriel adopted sign language for them, encouraged Hometown to learn as well. Nearly every resident still practices, all for their lonely little human.
Though they never said it, Kris was eternally grateful to them. It brought some comfort to their heart.
Carol stopped following Noelle on her thirteenth birthday. She was given a cell phone instead, and made to promise a call every few hours. While she never quite recovered from the loss of her sister, she was distracted by her newfound freedom. Kris did not stick to her as much, but she found other friends. Berdly was her self-proclaimed best friend and academic rival.
He also had a teensy little crush on her. Noelle never addressed it, never replied to or refused him. Just continued to stay by his side.
Though she doubts she will ever know, QC wonders if Noelle strung him along on purpose. She doesn’t believe so — a child is a child, after all, and they aren’t as well versed in right and wrong. She will grow out of it. Will respond to Berdly’s feelings sooner or later.
Sooner comes in the form of a subtle crush on the new girl.
Susie blows her way into town like a springtime storm — subtle, at first, with gentle winds that grow in intensity until the first crack of thunder. Her presence is small the day she walks past the diner, nose twitching at the savory scents floating through the door. QC gave her a wave, and she returned a small nod. She seemed sweet enough.
Unfortunately, a child is a child. Susie’s peers, the teenagers she shared a class with, all feared her.
And the fear spread.
Kids refused to go near her. Adults turned her away from their establishments. Leered at her. Told her to leave. Scared her.
QC felt like the only one to see the sad child Susie had become.
Until, one rainy day, Toriel brings her into the diner and sits her in a booth. Talks with her. Welcomes her into town with a smile and a burger. QC threw in a hot chocolate, just for her.
When Susie departs, it is with a smile full of hope.
Which is why QC is surprised when word of the bullying drifts into the restaurant. It is not the bully that surprises her — Susie was halfway there long before this incident — but the victim was a true shock.
Surely, surely, Susie would not target the child of the only person to show her kindness.
But Kris is strange. They had never really moved past the disappearance of December. It haunted them even when Asriel was still around to keep them distracted. The bags under their eyes whispered of countless nights without sleep. The scars that peeked from beneath their sweater whispered of countless hours spent in guilt.
None of this is counting the fact that they’re human, but the bullying never strays into that territory. It is a fact that QC is glad to hear.
The rumors grow in intensity. The town fears for Kris’ safety.
Kris is full of surprises. They drag Susie into the diner the day before the festival.
And they have never looked happier. QC gives them a hot chocolate to share, on the house. The mess they leave behind is well worth the smile she was able to spy on their face.
QC’s Diner closed for the festival. She spends her day at a mobile stand instead, her husband and kids helping her run their small space as close to the restaurant as they can. Carol Holiday visits. She has with her her husband, the healthiest he’s looked in years, and her daughters.
Daughters. Plural.
QC cannot help but hug the whole family. Tears run mat her fur as she squeals her congratulations. She asks Dess what happened, where’s she been, why has she only returned now?
Carol answers amnesia. She’ll need time to recall. It could take weeks. Months. Years, even, or her memories may not return at all. QC lets them go to enjoy what’s left of the festival.
It is not until two days later that she learns one disaster was traded for another.
Kris has not been seen since the festival. Susie was last seen looking for them.
Another devastating loss results in another round of trauma. Asriel does not return to college for months. December grows angrier and angrier. Toriel–
Angel, poor Toriel. She prints new flyers every day. She runs through town, shouting their names. She drinks herself to tears. Not even Sans can comfort her. Her baby is gone.
Her baby is gone.
“It was her,” she mumbles one night, head down at the diner bar. The stench of wine wafts from her clothes. QC pretends to ignore it. “Carol did something. I know it.”
Plodding footsteps alert QC to the skeleton that appears beside her. Not the squeaking of hinges or the ringing of the bell above the door. It is the footsteps that tell QC that Sans has arrived. She narrows her eyes at him.
He nods back, gathering Toriel in his arms. “Gonna get this one home,” he tells her.
The bell rings on his way out.
Life must move on. Asriel returns to his studies the next year, and December goes with him. She fought with her mother, exploded in the middle of the night, and actually dragged his ass back to college. Sans comforts Toriel, keeps her from drinking herself to death before Kris can see her again. Because, dammit, they’re going to come back, just hold on. Please.
They marry two years later. It was the only time Dess returned to Hometown.
Noelle took up waitressing alongside Catti. A shame, really. She had such a bright future ahead of her. Her grades plummeted after the festival, and she made the decision not to further her education. QC wants to ask why, but the darkness in Noelle’s eyes scare her questions away. She just pays her what she’s owed and ignores the growing bags beneath her eyes.
At night, QC’s dreams connect dots. December disappears, Kris suffers from guilt. Kris disappears, December comes back. She fights with her mom. She leaves. Noelle suffers from guilt.
Lines form a web of strings, all leading to a single answer.
She always wakes before she learns what the answer is.
Her twins graduate. They leave for college.
The town feels strangely empty.
One day, the bells above the door ring. QC greets the customer from the booth she’s cleaning.
Her smile falters when she finally lifts her head. A child stands in the middle of the diner, staring all around at the bright lights and flashing menus. It is a human child — a girl, she thinks — wearing a green and yellow striped dress. A ruffle of thick brown hair sits atop her head, and when she looks at QC, her eyes are a vivid red.
She looks exactly as Kris did at five years old.
“Are you a Darkner?” she asks, and it makes QC blink.
“Is that a type of monster?”
The girl shakes her head. “I’m a monster,” she says, one hand splayed across her chest, and, yeah. The tips of her fingers boast long black claws instead of normal human fingernails. If QC looks closer, she can see patches of purple scales half-formed along the girl’s bare arms.
The bell rings again. A low, mumbly voice echoes through the room, pierces QC’s heart.
“Your mother told you to stay close,” they say, and she is afraid to look.
“Kris?” she whispers.
The person sighs, shifts, waves an arm in her periphery. The bell chimes again.
A deep breath is all she needs to prepare. QC turns her head.
Susie stands beside Kris, one hand draped across their shoulders. She still wears that ratty old jacket, but it is clear she’s grown out of it. It’s tight across her biceps, doubled in size since she was a teenager. Her hair is cut short, falling in waves around her face. A scar crosses her nose, and another disappears under her shirt.
Kris leans into Susie. They’ve also filled out, their muscles lean yet defined. Their hair has darkened from chestnut brown to near black, and has grown down to the middle of their back, even while tied into a ponytail. Their shirt is old and off-white, stained with sweat and dirt. Their right hand grips the hand of the girl’s. A swathe of pink fabric holds an infant to their chest, head cradled by their left hand. More scars mar their skin, inflicted by something that was not themself.
The family stands proud in the bright, fluorescent lights of the diner. QC swallows a sob.
“Have a seat, hun,” she chokes out. “I’ll start some hot chocolate.”
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Carving Pumpkins
Warnings: Violence, Torture, Gore
Summary: Rude Buster hurts. It hurts like hell. She knew this from her fight with Gerson.
Rude Buster buffed by pure Darkness is hell. It rips right through her scales and cuts straight into her skin. Blood spills from a dozen wounds, all formed in a single half second.
A/N: this is a sequel to Carve: Perfect Faces
2k // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
Kris will be absolutely devastated. All their hard work, all the carving they did. Every moment of sweat as they cut away a new chunk, they way their hands shook as the faces of their friends took form. All of that, gone.
The pumpkins have been smashed.
Susie doesn’t remember where they put each one. She does know when she finds Gerson, though. He was the third one she found, stomped to pieces outside her room in Castle Town. His pumpkin hammer is the only thing still intact.
She’s been following the trail to the roof. Makes sense, considering the history there. The roof of Card Castle is, after all, where the Delta Warriors first encountered King. He’s probably heading for the Fountain.
Which is much more dangerous than an average Fountain. It's pure Darkness, unlike the Dark Worlds created outside Castle Town. If he’s able to get to that kind of power…
She shudders to think of it.
A Rudinn Ranger slithers up beside her. “Lancer is safe,” he says. “He has been locked in the dungeon under suspicion of assisting in his father's escape. We have our best protecting him.”
Susie told them that he had no part in the breakout; outside Ralsei, he’s been here the longest. So why did it take until now for King to get out?
But another argument won't help. “Any sign of Ralsei?” she asks instead.
The Ranger shakes his head. “We are still looking. Kris has been running all around to find him. Even now, they are searching through town.”
Shit. So no backup. “Tell them I’ve tracked down King. I'll keep him busy until they find Ralsei.”
“Can you fight him alone?”
“’Course I can.” Susie smiles, letting her anger show through the snarl of her lip, the baring of her teeth. She’s gotten a lot stronger since they last fought.
“I can send troops with you to help.”
She shakes her head. “Just make sure you find Ralsei. That’s all the help I’ll need.”
“Of course!” he salutes. He slithers away, barking orders down the hall. Susie runs the opposite way until she comes to a staircase.
Hesitating for only a deep breath, she ascends. Skips up every other step, passes right by every landing to every floor. Another broken pumpkin greets her at the rooftop door. It was Queen, she thinks.
Outside, standing tall and facing the Fountain, is King. His arms are outstretched towards it, absorbing the Darkness that flows into them. The entirety of his arms are black up to his elbows.
Susie fires off a Rude Buster.
He deflects it with a swat of his hand.
“I should have known one of you brats would find me sooner or later,” he growls. Inky slime drips from his fingers. When he swipes his hand, it lashes out in a whip. She lifts an arm to block it.
It wraps around her wrist, but does no damage.
“That it?” she snarls. She twists her wrist to grab the whip and yanks it with all her might.
King does not move.
Her smirk falters.
He shifts his weight and pulls. Susie stumbles forward. She cuts the whip with her axe.
“I can see how this is going to go,” King hisses. “You cannot win, child.”
“Just watch me,” Susie snarls. She lunges forward, swinging her axe. King jumps back, slashing with both hands.
Whips hit her hip and shoulder. She swipes her axe in a circle to break them.
More ink takes their place, drawn from the Fountain.
And, shit, he’s gotten stronger because of it. The Darkness spreads across his chest. When he swings again, it catches Susie across the chest.
And knocks her breath out.
She tumbles along the ground, left hand keeping grip on her axe. Blood wells from her collarbone.
Pulling herself up while still moving takes more effort than she’d like to admit. She pants as she settles on one knee, glaring at King.
He keeps his back to the Fountain. Tendrils of Darkness branch from it to curl around his shoulders, a constant supply of that shit he’s throwing around.
Simple solution, really. Get behind him and sever the connection. She doesn’t even need Kris to tell her that; they’ve fought something similar before.
Another Rude Buster sits on the edge of her blade. She launches it directly at King’s face.
Laughing, he raises his left hand.
Susie charges. Slips around his left side. Raises her battle-axe. Swings.
It cleaves the tendrils to wispy strings.
Her own attack crashes into her.
Rude Buster hurts. It hurts like hell. She knew this from her fight with Gerson.
Rude Buster buffed by pure Darkness is hell. It rips right through her scales and cuts straight into her skin. Blood spills from a dozen wounds, all formed in a single half second.
She lands on her back, unable to breathe. Her body twitches, muscles spasming in the aftershocks of pain.
Footsteps echo across the roof.
Her axe. Susie has to find her axe. She wills herself to get up, to look, to at the very least dodge.
All she manages is to roll onto her stomach.
A pumpkin is set in front of her. Lancer’s smiling face, carved by her own hand, stares back at her. She thinks, for a horrified moment, that King will crush it in front of her.
But he does not. “I’ve seen these around,” he tells her. “They piss me off. Decorating the castle in such a childish way. No hint of any regality.”
Chains circle Susie’s body. Thorns poke from the links, digging into her now broken skin.
“But at the same time, I’m saddened.” He brandishes one of his spades as he walks around her. “I could not find a single one of these bearing my royal visage.”
“Y-you don’t–” she breathes in through her teeth. “You don’t deserve one.”
The chains rise, lifting her by the arms, pressing the thorns deeper. They stop when she dangles half on her feet.
“Then I shall take matters into my own hands. But you’ll have to forgive me. I am no artist.”
What the hell are you talking about? Susie opens her mouth to say.
She gasps as a blade cuts through her shirt.
When Susie gets hurt, she expects it. She’s good at reading people in fights. She can see the tensing of their muscles, the race of their heart. Even if she isn’t expecting it, most injuries come from blows that only bruise or claws that barely cut.
The drag of the blade across her back is none of that. It is deep and angled, made to produce pain over anything else.
She cries out, weak and pitiful, before she can bite her lip to stop it.
“Come now, child,” King says, “your cries are half the fun.” He flicks the knife over another wound.
Susie bares down on her lip until there is blood on her tongue. She pulls at the chains, tries to free herself.
But her feet have no traction.
The blade carves into her flesh. She flinches away.
Chains wrap her neck, tighten until she can only get a whisper of air. “If you will not scream for me, then you must stay still.” The knife returns to her skin. Ice crawls from its edge. “You do not want me to start over.”
Something wet and warm slides down her back. She’s pretty sure it’s layers of her skin.
Tears gather in her eyes, but if there is anything she will not do, it is cry. Pain has never made her cry before, never. Even when starved, even when beaten half-dead by her own mother. There is no pain in this world that Susie cannot bear.
She gasps as the knife digs in a little deeper.
And is swept away, cutting a line from her waist to her tail. It clangs against something, another knife, a blade of some sort, or... or–
A sword.
Steel clashes against steel as Susie hangs limp in her bonds.
King falls to the ground. The chains dissipate, dropping Susie as well.
She lands — blessedly, blissfully — on her stomach. It does not stop the fire of her back burning through her resolve to never cry. She sobs, curling into herself, stretching the scraps of skin left dangling from her back.
Kris stands before her, face pale and a slightly green. Their hands shake, for just a second, and then they run out of sight. The sound of retching hits her ears, and she can only imagine how bad it must be for Kris, of all people, to crack.
Her head swims. She shuts her eyes.
When she opens them again, she is on Kris’ shoulders as they drag her down the stairs.
“I can walk,” she wheezes; it’s a lie even she cannot believe.
“Like hell you can!” they snap. There is anger is their words, but it is drowned out by concern.
“Where we goin’?”
“Infirmary. I’m out of food.”
Susie does not believe there’s enough food in all the Dark Worlds combined to fix her. “Ralsei?” she asks.
Their face softens. “That’s where all my food went.” They walk in silence for a moment, an ever-growing frown troubling their face. “I’m sorry.”
“For?” She has an idea, sort of, but the pain makes it hard to string the thought together.
“I can’t heal,” Kris whispers. “Ralsei is still out. He won’t wake up ’til tomorrow, probably.”
“Take me home,” Susie whispers back. “It’ll disappear. Mostly.”
“You’re not serious. You–” They cut themself off with a sharp inhale.
“I have no back,” she finishes.
The line of their lips suggest this is an understatement. “Ralsei will heal you tomorrow. Promise. I’ll take care of you until then.”
“You got a curfew.”
“Mom will understand.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“What can I say to make you leave?”
At this, Kris laughs. They don’t answer. She really can’t blame them; she wouldn’t have an answer to that either.
Inside the Infirmary is mostly empty. Ralsei is tucked into a bed at one end, sleeping soundly. A bandage is wrapped haphazardly around his forehead and one of his hands. Kris lays Susie on the bed beside him and gathers a bucket of water alongside armfuls of medical supplies. But when they return to her bedside, they hesitate, face going green again.
“Just how bad is it?” she mumbles. “You look like you’re about to vom again.”
They shake their head. “Don’t ask.”
It’s enough to get them unstuck. They wet a rag with water and dab it on her back, moving slow and steady from her shoulders to her tail. It takes them a while to finish; they had to switch out three buckets of water before the blood no longer tainted it.
A new cloth comes with a new substance — alcohol. “This is going to sting,” they warn before slathering her back with fire. She cusses from the second it makes contact to several minutes after the stinging stops.
Bandages are next. Kris lays gauze across Susie’s back, taping it on the top and bottom. They hesitate as they hold a piece at her side, dangerously close to her (almost) bare chest.
“Go ahead,” she grumbles.
The smallest of blushes can be seen along their cheeks as they secure the gauze.
“Guess that’s it?” Susie asks she starts to shift, to test her range of motion–
A hand on her shoulder stops her. Kris leans down, pressing their lips against it. They move to her other shoulder. Her back, in a dozen places. Her arms.
Every cut, every slice, every wound; each one is covered with a kiss.
Kris sits on the bed beside her head, fingers running through her hair.
“Get some rest,” they murmur. “I’ll be right here.”
The burning of her back will keep her awake for hours. The fear of King’s blade will haunt her for years.
But right now, as Kris pets her hair? With her best friend’s promise to stay by her side?
Fandom: Deltarune
Characters: Susie, Kris
Ship: Krusie
Prompt: Carving Pumpkins
Summary: Her first Jack-O-Lantern is finished with a tilted face, but it's a pretty damn good face for a first timer.
A/N: this has an optional part 2: Carve: Fear
595 // AO3 // Masterlist // Krusie Month fics
One of Kris' favorite fall activities is to carve pumpkins. It’s been a tradition since they were young; their father would drive them and Asriel out to some secret pumpkin patch, where they would choose — at minimum — eight pumpkins each. When they got their haul home, they would sit on the lawn, throw the guts at each other, and carve faces into each one. The next day was spent decorating the entire town with the new Jack-O-Lanterns.
It has been a tradition since Kris first entered the Dreemurr family, and it…
It was put on pause when Asriel left for college. They just did not have the same spark for it, not alone. They wandered the field of pumpkins, lost and aimless, until they chose a single, tiny pumpkin to cart home with them, and they would pout every time they passed by it, untouched, on the front porch.
Or so Asgore says. His stories tend to have a bit of exaggeration, Susie knows. But when he brought the pumpkins up to her and Kris, suggesting that they pick up the old habit, well…
The way their face lit up would have made Susie feel bad for saying no. Besides, she’s never actually carved a pumpkin before. Sure, she’s smashed them open to reach the stringy flesh and tough seeds inside, a mini-meal when she had nothing else to eat. But that’s very different to cutting it with purpose. Every stray jerk of her knife adds another imperfection to ruin the face she's trying to make. She's only on her first pumpkin, gouging out the rind in different ways to test different techniques.
Kris is on their third. Their skill with a blade is unmatched. Susie could carve pumpkins for the next three years straight and never catch up to them.
Her first Jack-O-Lantern is finished with a tilted face, but it's a pretty damn good face for a first timer.
The second pumpkin gives her a little more trouble. It’s a tiny bit smaller, the rind thicker, and she knows what she wants to do with it. She takes her time, slipping the knife along the edges of her cuts, gently carving away tiny piece by tiny piece until Lancer's face is at least somewhat recognizable. Half of her wants to keep fiddling with it. Make it look better.
That half is completely ignored as she grabs a third pumpkin. Quit while you're ahead, after all.
Gerson takes form on this one. His face is more difficult, lots of little wrinkly lines and old-person spots to work in. Kris is almost done with their seventh pumpkin when she finishes.
“Dude, look,” she says, nudging them.
They laugh when they see her three masterpieces.
She punches them.
Waving their hands to call her off, they turn their pumpkins to face her. Tenna stares back at her, alongside Queen and a Tasque and someone who could be either Asriel or Ralsei. All expertly done. She gives a low whistle.
“Didn’t know you were that good,” she says.
“Lots of practice,” they sign, grinning. They pick up a few of the discarded pieces and use them to fashion a hammer that they tuck into a notch beside Gerson's head.
“Looks good,” Susie snickers, “but what are we going to do with a bunch of Darkner pumpkins? Can’t exactly let the town know about them.”
“Let’s decorate the castle with them,” Kris signs like that was their plan all along.
Almost a dozen more pumpkins need faces. Susie starts on her fourth, trying to do a Jigsawry justice.
