i have a something. a deltarunes. have you ever had twisty messy noelle/dess thoughts? would you like to.
Sometimes, Noelle has this dream.
It feels nothing like a dream. It always starts with her waking up. A hand in her hair. A dip in her mattress. A shadow that leans over her.
Her first thought, always, is that it’s her mom. Doing what she used to do every night after Dess went away, when she thought Noelle was asleep and wouldn’t know. Sitting there beside her on the bed and stroking Noelle’s hair like she was a baby again, silently watching, to make sure no one took her away, not even herself. She stopped doing that at some point. Noelle doesn’t remember when.
It isn’t her mom. It leans closer. Noelle’s heart starts to race, and her teeth chatter. She starts to pull the covers up over her face.
“Hey,” says her sister, “Hey, ‘Ellie.” And Noelle doesn’t doubt for a second that it has to be her. It’s Dess’s voice as she remembers it, low and sort of rough—Mom blamed her smoking, said it’d ruin her singing the longer she did it, and whenever Dess brought it up, she’d laugh and take another drag. Noelle never could stand the smell, but she couldn’t stand to be apart from Dess more.
And she should know it’s a dream from the fact that Dess smiles so easily in it.
Noelle pushes herself up and into her sister. Hugging comes after; first she just wants to shove her face, her hands, her body into Dess like she can make her more real by tackling her. “Watch the antlers!” Dess says. “You’ve gotten big!” Noelle can smell her like resurfacing memories—sweet smoke and her hairspray and a whiff of sweat because Dess could never sit still, always on her feet, always up to bat.
“You’re back,” Noelle says. “You’re back.” The words fill up her mouth until she could choke on them. Her eyes sting. She holds onto her sister tighter and tighter, until her fingers burn from how they’re curled in Dess’s jacket. She never wants to leave the spot she’s thrown herself into, face pressed into Dess’s collarbone.
Dess’s fur feels cold where her shirt slips, where her chest is bared until it brushes Noelle’s snout.
“Of course I came back,” Dess says, like she isn’t lying. She cups Noelle’s face in her hands and reluctantly, Noelle draws back to look up into her eyes. Dess’s eyes have always been so brown they could be black, and Noelle would drown in them if she could. She leans in, as if to fall, as if to let her sister’s gaze swallow her whole.
Or maybe Noelle is the one who wants to take all of her, wide-eyed until Dess is safe as a glimmer in her pupil.
“How could I leave my little sis behind?” Dess says, stroking Noelle’s face in her hands. Caring so much that it almost feels like the question is one Dess really would have asked herself.
Noelle puts her hands over Dess’s.
“I’m gonna take you with me this time,” Dess promises, and her low voice gets lower, and Noelle’s belly feels tingly and strange. “You want that, right? You want to come with me?”
“Where?” Noelle says, and she can almost realize this isn’t real when she asks it. But she wants Dess’s answer to be real. Enough that she tumbles back into the dream to hear every word, and she forgets, forgets, and Dess is really in her bed, not missing.
Dess just laughs. “Somewhere scary.”
Noelle gasps. Dess smiles, and she doesn’t look much like Dess at all whenever she does that.
“Mom needs to know you’re back,” Noelle says because it feels like the right thing she should say and do.
“Mom doesn’t have to know everything about you,” Dess says. “Does she?”
She teases her fingers along the underside of Noelle’s chin. She marks an easy path to follow. In the dark, all Noelle can see are her eyes. She doesn’t know where Dess’s mouth is. She barely knows where her own is. Her hands are lost somewhere in Dess’s jacket, sinking into her sister and drawing Noelle closer.
Dess always waits for her to admit it.
“Take me with you,” Noelle says, and ffor a moment, can’t care about the people who’ll get left behind.
She wants to feel like Dess does.
Dess leans in and brings the shadows with her. Noelle feels her mouth against her own. Everything that was wrong is right here in the other world of Noelle’s dark bedroom. There are no rules. There have never been rules when Dess is involved. Noelle relaxes into the kiss that Dess steals her away with.
“You’ll like it there with me, ‘Ellie,” Dess says. Kisses on her mouth, kisses on her nose, a soft exhale over one ear until it twitches. “You’ll like it so much you’ll never want to leave.” Noelle puts a hand on her lower belly, where every feeling is welling in her, strange and scary and squirming. These things that make her dizzy; these things that feel so good that she doesn’t know what to do with them. Dess would know what to do.
“Let’s go,” Noelle says. “Let’s go right now before anyone wakes up.”
Dess puts her mouth to Noelle’s ear.
“Can’t. You already are,” she whispers as soft as the wind.
Noelle sits up in her bed and wants to scream. Her heart is beating so fast that it hurts. Her whole body shakes out of her control. She scrambles up to reach onto her shelf and finds the tiny flashlight she keeps there for emergencies. She shines it into everh corner of the room.
Her mouth is still cold, and no one is here. Noelle worries her blanket in her hands. She can’t help feeling like someone knows. About Dess. About- Noelle touches her cheeks where Dess was holding them.
She tries to make that enough.
She crawls our of her bed and sneaks. No one else in the house is awake to hear the door creak slightly. She slips into Dess’s bedroom like a fugitive.
Her sheets have long since stopped smelling like Dess. The room barely even has a hint of smoke left to its wallpaper. Mom keeps everything right where it was, except the mess that Dess left behind. It’s a tidy memorial.
Noelle gets into her sister’s bed. She shuts her eyes and puts her hands on her cheeks again. She shivers.
She touches her mouth again and again with soft fingers.
She won’t tell Mom she’s dreaming about Dess again. It’ll only upset her.
(Noelle should get to keep Dess for herself.)
