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Down again.
You dig one of your heels into the crumbling tile floor beneath you and cross your arms in front of your face as you intercept a bullet aimed at Kris. The blast rattles through your entire body, something cold and numbing zapping through the magic at your core itself, like hitting your funny bone if your funny bone was your whole skeleton. You stagger back—catch yourself—keep moving, because Kris still hasn’t gotten up and this Titan is going to crush all three of you into dust and blood and whatever the hell Ralsei’s made out of if they can’t use that SOUL of theirs to seal it.
You land on your knees next to them, already pulling on the thready veins of power underneath your scales and aiming it at Kris’ upper torso, where you think a human heart is supposed to be (you’re pretty sure the heart is one of the important bits when it comes to keeping humans alive). It must do something because Kris’ eyes fly open and a horrible wet choking noise comes out of their mouth as they take in a huge breath and jerk upright. You catch them by the shoulders before they can fall back over and yell “KRIS!” into their face for good measure and then they’re wrenching out of your grip and wedging one foot underneath them. They trip when they get to their feet and you hesitate, thinking they’re about to fall, but then they’re putting out a massive ray of light that eats the shield like water on paper and the Titan is screaming and you have to look away so that you can dodge the giant orbs of raw magic and try to deal some actual goddamn damage. You let Kris worry about frying the little fucked up shadow fetuses with their SOUL while you hurl another shockwave towards the Titan’s face and Ralsei’s scarf billows out and blocks a row of projectiles.
Then the mask is back and you’re dodging again. Kris is still emitting that quiet pulsating glow which is weird as shit but you really can’t think about it. Some kind of fucked up hairy shadow centipede is scrambling towards you. You barely have time to brace yourself before it hits you, and it almost knocks you off your feet. Its legs clicking all over your scales feel like tiny intangible needles digging into your SOUL. You think maybe you’re fucked until Kris is there with their shield in hand, forcing the centipede back as it hisses and flails away from their light.
Back to dodging. A fresh wave of Titanspawn gathers above you in a teeming cloud of shadow before they descend, separating into what must be fifty squirmy little globs. A handful dart towards you and you take a huge swing with the old man’s magic axe like you’re playing baseball in gym class—you never really learned the rules, you stopped paying attention when you figured out the main deal was just to hit the balls as hard as possible with the bat—and five or six recoil, hissing. One of them spins into Kris’ Holy Aura of Fuckass Cleansing over where they’re carefully inching through the crowd of darkness with their shield up, and it screams and shrivels into something gray and wispy before dissolving altogether. Another ducked under your swing so you throw a punch at what you assume is its face, and it makes a noise like you imagine a deflating balloon would if it knew how to feel pain. At the same time something prickles at your ankle, and you grit your teeth and swing your leg up in the highest kick you can manage. The spawn on your ankle loses its grip and hits one of the fuckers still in the air with a gross squelch and you grin again before taking another swing with the axe.
That cold, SOUL-deep ache lingers under your scales in every spot you’ve been bitten or pinched or blasted in the past ten minutes and you realize mid-swing that the ache is spreading , like wet blood in a washcloth, but at that same moment you also realize you don’t have time to worry about it because there’s like eight spawn on Ralsei and a ninth behind him. You launch yourself towards him and he yelps when your axe comes down inches away from the back of his head but the Titanspawn goes down anyway. Ralsei is already handling the rest of them with a few broad sweeps of his scarf.
Somewhere behind you Kris is radiating again and the shield crumbles like wet chalk. You dodge away from Ralsei, dig your heels into the dusty floor, and send a chain of shockwaves at the bare wound in the Titan’s face.
In your peripheral, Kris takes another blast to the ribs—stumbles, falls, and is down again. Ralsei yells Kris’ name so you know he’s on it. Instead of retreating you raise your axe—even though your shoulders kind of feel like they’re about to fall out of their sockets—and take another swing.
Kris falls and you fall with them. The edge of their face is nearly indistinguishable from the cloudy darkness of the Titan’s throat. Their cape is a dim flicker in the corner of your eye. You think you hear them exhale, maybe, in the rushing silence, and then they start to glow again, and just as soon as you can see everything—the ridged, fleshy, oil-dark walls around you, the grim cast to Kris’ face and their gauntleted hands clenched tight at their sides, something bright red somehow hovering just outside of Kris’ ribs, just in front of their chestplate—it all disappears again into a flare of white so bright you could swear it leaves your ears ringing.
You learn how Ralsei’s fur looks when it’s matted with your blood, and what that vacant look you see cross his face every so often really means. The tapestry shattered under a hit hard enough to cut through your scales. You know it’s gone by the array of shattered blue on the stone floor but your eyes are still seeing that damn picture and that goddamned text, and they’re still stinging, too, just as bad as they have been since Kris sealed the Titan. When you laugh, you don’t manage to keep your eyes open and you have to turn away so that neither of them will see the tear that escapes. Your head is buzzing and all of your insides are a tight mess. Even with your eyes closed, the words are still there. It cannot happen, which means it won’t. You try to tell this to Ralsei, but you can’t hear anything you’re saying, so fuck knows if you got your point across. And then you blink and you’re standing in front of the Fountain.
You keep blinking in the silence. By the time you hear Kris’ boots clicking up behind you, the afterimage of the tapestry has mostly been replaced with the Fountain’s blurry imprint. Your hands have started shaking again so you stuff them into your pockets and you tell Kris that you aren’t ever going to let go of them. And then Kris steps forward and seals the Fountain and the two of you wake up in the empty church.
While Kris pokes around in that weird way of theirs, staring down every inch of the ruined congregation hall, you step out of the two sets of double doors and into what feels like the brightest night you’ve ever seen, even though it’s only a half moon. You squint. When you take in a breath, it feels like being dunked in cool water. It’s like the grime and dried blood are being washed out from underneath your scales. You exhale. You can hear earlier’s rain dribbling from rooftops and drainage pipes in an uneven rhythm. Other than that, Hometown is quiet in the same empty sorta way the inside of the church was. Except out here, you breathe and it feels like you’re actually alive, so.
Kris slips out the door behind you, and the two of you stand there for a minute and look at the sky.
“It smells nice,” you say. “After the rain.”
Kris doesn’t look at you, just breathes; now on top of the dripping water, it’s two people breathing, not just you. You don’t look at them either, just settle one hand on their narrow shoulder and sigh.
“Kris… Let’s go home.”
It’s not something you really think about before saying, but Kris gets it just fine, that the “home” in question is really their place, not yours, and turns and walks in the direction of their house.
It’s across the street from the hospital that it happens. Not that you’d really been paying attention to anything other than your fuzzy exhaustion and the heavy chill in your chest, but you’ve spent three whole adventures now dogging Kris’ step and part of the haze over your mind clears before anything even happens because you can tell that something is wrong: Kris steps down off the corner of the sidewalk and onto the street, except they aren’t trying to step down at all, dumbass hasn’t even noticed the sidewalk ending, and one knee buckles and then the other as they undershoot the ground in front of them. You aren’t sure how you manage it but you’ve got them by the shoulders before your brain can catch up, and before they can get a faceful of damp concrete. You steady them, set them upright, and they drag one hand through their bangs and take three more steps before you have to catch them again. This time they’ve tripped on nothing but air.
The last time you offered to carry them was back in Cyber World, after the fight with that creepy puppet guy left them all shaky and weird and pale. They’d fended you off with a sort of stinging hiss you’ve never heard from a human throat before. This time you aren’t offering, and they don’t hiss at you either, so you count that as a win. You keep one arm slung behind their shoulders and hook the other under their knees and pull them in close to your chest until you can feel their breath on your neck.
Kris secured, you cross the street and pass the hospital, pass rows of houses and the gate to Noelle’s crazy mansion and QC’s, whose lights always stay on way later than is reasonable in a town as small as Hometown but which is now dark and quiet and empty. Something is tweaking in your ankle—from that bite you took from the Titanspawn earlier, you think—and it is not appreciating this uphill march, but you tell yourself to man the hell up and keep it moving. Kris shifts in your hold. You try your best to change your grip. You’re pretty sure maybe one of your talons is digging into the meat of their side at a weird angle but then the change reveals a new buzzing pain in your wrist and you nearly drop them altogether, so you give up on trying to fix it. They’ll have to deal with a little discomfort. You’re uncomfortable, too. Tough luck.
Then you’re turning the corner and stepping onto the driveway outside Kris’ house. The lights are on in the living room, for some reason, which stops you in place. Hell. You’re not in the mood to field questions from Ms. Toriel about what happened to her beloved child on your sorry watch.
Kris must notice you stopping, because they lift their head from your shoulder and look over at the house. They exhale loosely and mumble, “prolly Mom stayed up for me…”
“Dude, she’s gonna think I fucking killed you,” you grit out. Kris sighs, thin and resigned, and for a sick second you think they’re about to ask to stay over at your place, but then they tap your arm twice and don’t give you any time to process what the hell they mean by that before they twist away from you and almost fall right out of your arms. You have to stumble forward to keep an arm under their shoulders. Your other hand comes up to catch them when their knees inevitably buckle—but somehow, they stay upright, even though you can feel them shivering where you’re grabbing them.
“Kris,” you hiss. “What the hell, man?”
“Looks better this way,” they mutter, then take two steps toward the door, and you have to follow them, otherwise you’ll drop them. This shitty excuse for an explanation does not satisfy you but you have to admit this probably looks a lot better than the full-on bridal carry from before, a lot less like Kris is completely dead, so you take the last few steps with them and hoist them up onto the front stoop.
It’s only after you knock that your tired brain informs you that you can now hear loud music coming from inside, for some goddamn reason. Then the door is swinging open, and yellow light spills across the stone steps and your legs and across Kris, slumped against you like an oversized leech.
It’s the skeleton from the grocery store. He’s standing there with that dumb grinning stupid face of his and for a moment you think you’re already asleep and dreaming, you’ve passed out in the middle of the road like Kris almost did or maybe the Titan got you after all. But then there’s Toriel leaning over his shoulder with wide eyes. You catch a strong whiff of alcohol and wrinkle your nose. Something heavy and gross forms in your gut.
“Hey, kid. You get hit by a truck or somethin’?” Sans gets out before Toriel pushes him to the side, her eyes wide and only half-focused, you think, on the pitiful sight at her doorstep.
“Children. Kris! …and Snoozie!” She lets out a hiccuping giggle. Kris tenses, buries their face in your shoulder. “Is everything alright, my dears? You both look tired, er—” here she snorts— “down to the bone !”
“Good one, Tori,” Sans says. “Your delivery could use some work, though.”
“You… weren’t at choir practice.” It’s all you can think of to say.
“Well, no, I suppose I was not!” Another giggle. “I simply had to cancel—because of the terrible rain, you see—and then I took a quick detour to the store, and…” She glances sideways at Sans. “Um, Kris? Susie? Have you two met Mr. Sans?”
You give him a long look. He is far from leaning half against the doorframe the way Toriel is—you wonder if skeletons can even get drunk—but he’s just standing there and watching you. You think maybe his face looks kinda worried, but you really can’t tell.
“Children!” Toriel hums, taking you by the shoulder and pulling you inside, shutting the door behind you. Your grip on Kris’ shoulder slips and your stride stutters as you adjust their weight but Toriel doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “You need to relax. Come dance the jitterbug with us!” She sways over to the gramophone, and the living room fills up again with jaunty music. Toriel laughs.
The thing in your gut grows. You feel kind of dizzy, which is dumb. It’s not like you wanted Toriel to flip out. This is really convenient, for purposes of secret-keeping.
“Uh, no thanks, Ms. Toriel.” You look at the carpet. “I think we’ll just…”
You edge past her toward the stairs. Something must click for her, then, because she takes a few steps after you and calls, “Kris…? Is something the matter…?” but Sans’ low voice cuts in before she can follow you up the stairs, so you ignore her and continue on to Kris’ room, pushing the door shut behind you with your shoulder.
When you get to the bed, they wrench out of your hold, landing face-down on the mattress with a grunt. The room is dark—the Susie Award, along with its estranged family on the other side of the wall, isn’t really glowing this time of the night, just looking kinda green. You trudge over to the window and untie the curtains; when you turn around, Kris is curled up on their side on the bed. You can’t see their face, but you watch as their shoulders jerk once, twice.
You move before you can really think too hard and kick off your shoes, climbing onto the bed next to them. They don’t react to the mattress dipping so you lay down beside them. You reach out toward their shoulder and then you stop, your hand hanging stupidly in the air as you hesitate. Kris, with their freak reflexes, darts a hand up and grabs your wrist and yanks and before you’ve even finished yelping your shock, you’ve got one arm over their shoulder and your shirt is pressing up against their back and you’re goddamn cuddling them.
You manage not to launch yourself backwards off the side of the bed, but your entire body still spasms once you realize what’s just happened. Your arm snaps back to your own side.
“Kris, you dumbass!” you hiss into their ear. “The hell are you doing?”
Kris emits some kind of muffled grunt before turning their head to pin you with a stare from one dark eye. And then says nothing.
You stare back for a few whole seconds, which is a record for you against Kris. Then you grunt and look away and run both hands down your face and then back up again for good measure and then grunt again.
“What the hell ever, asshole,” you mutter, and after another moment, lay your arm back over Kris’ side. They turn their head back and their fingers find yours, tugging you close. Their hand is chilled in a way that sticks damp to your scales. It’s pretty gross. You inhale and curl your fingers tighter around theirs. They’re still shivering all over. You lean closer, tuck your snout against their shoulder. A few minutes later, you feel the trembling in the muscles of their back slow, too, and then stop.
A muffled burst of Toriel’s laughter cuts through the floorboards and their whole body twitches. You pull your hand out from theirs—they let you go, but only after digging their nails into your scales for a moment—and you reach up and grab their pillow and plant it firmly across both your and their ear. Kris’ shoulders shudder again. It takes you a minute, but you realize they must have laughed. Your arm is slung over the pillow and consequently over Kris’ head, so it isn’t hard to give them a halfhearted sideways noogie. Of course, they press into your hand like a cat, like the freak they are, so you leave it there, and they don’t pull away.
You’re just settling in when something buzzes under you. You swear and flinch back, and just as quickly Kris is moving, yanking their phone out of their pocket and jabbing at the screen with prejudice. You try to lean over their shoulder, curious who the hell is calling them at this hour, but by the time you get a look at the phone they’re already back on their lock screen, clicking the off button and shoving it back into their pocket.
“Dude, who was that?” you ask. They just grab your wrist and pull you back over them like an unwieldy blanket. The call must have made them jump just as bad as it did you, because their heart’s going about twice as fast as it was before, but as the two of you lay there it starts to calm down and so do you.
You lie there and feel as Kris just breathes, their side moving up and down, slower and slower. Before you let your own eyes fall shut, you wait—up, down, up, down—for the dumbass kid next to you to finally go to sleep.