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“We should go on a road trip,” Kris says.
Ralsei blinks. Attempts to contextualize his surroundings: he is on the floor of Kris’s room. Various empty chip bags surround him. Kris is sprawled out at his side on their back. Their phone is balanced against a tissue box and currently playing a movie. Ralsei reaches out to pause it—Thelma and Louise. Right. He…remembers that. Halfway, at least.
Kris says, “oh, did I wake you up? Sorry.”
“No,” Ralsei says, “or, yes, or—I don’t know.” He pauses, swallows. His mouth is very dry. When he glances around for a water cup, Kris passes him their can of incredibly flat Strawberry Fanta, but it’s better than nothing so he drinks it and shudders swallowing. “What were you saying?”
“Me. You. Road trip.” Kris nudges him for their Fanta back, and Ralsei passes it to them without complaint. “I don’t care where. Just—away. You know?”
Again, Ralsei blinks. Still in Kris’s room. Kris has bags under their eyes—normal for them—and Ralsei’s mouth is still a bit fuzzy, because Strawberry Fanta is not water, and he’s still not sure where his cup ended up. Probably empty and under Kris’s bed. “Your car could survive a road trip?”
“Oh, ha, ha,” Kris says, rolling to their feet. “She’s powerful.” They pause, tilting their head as they open up the window to let the moonlight in. “Well, sorta. But c’mon. Road trip. Let’s do it.”
Ralsei rubs at his eyes. “Are you packing?”
Kris is shoving a pair of pajamas into their old school backpack, a beat-up black bag covered with patches and pins. “Yeah,” they say. “We’ve gotta leave before Mom wakes up.”
“Wait,” Ralsei pushes himself up so he’s sitting, watching Kris as they bustle about their room. “We’re—now? I have work tomorrow. You have work tomorrow!”
“You work for my dad,” Kris says, dumping a pile of sweaters on their floor to sort through. “And I work for Mom. Dad’s nice and will pay you anyways, and honestly I think Mom’s just impressed I’ve kept up assisting her at the school for this long.” They kick one of Ralsei’s shirts over to him. “Here, once I’m done with this I can help you get your things. You left Noelle’s window unlocked, right? ‘cause if you did we can just climb in through the window. Less chance of waking Aunt Carol that way.”
“I just.” Ralsei swallows. “Why do you even…want? To take a road trip?”
Kris points to their phone, left abandoned on the floor.
“The movie?” he asks, and at their nod, continues, “don’t they die at the end?”
“Yeah,” Kris says, “but you don’t see it. Just the final jump. Heading for the next bit of road.” They shoulder their backpack and offer a hand to Ralsei, which he stares at, blankly.
“This is a terrible idea,” he says.
“I know.” Kris tilts their head. In this light, their eyes almost glint red—like some distant twinkling stars, unable to contain all that is them. “But we’re adults. Nobody can stop us!”
Adults. Ralsei sure doesn’t feel it. Not here, in Hometown, where sometimes he has to catch himself, remind himself that yes, he’s safe here. That she won’t find him here. That he’s blocked her number and has an entirely new one besides. That in four days, it’ll have been four years since he…
“Okay,” Ralsei says, and he takes Kris’s hand. “Road trip. Let’s do it.”
For their part, Kris isn’t sure what they’re doing when they make the offer.
Maybe it’s that they’ve been living in the same podunk town their entire life, and the only times they’ve ever left were to visit their brother or Noelle and Susie at college. Maybe it’s that they’ve been repeating the exact same motions, over and over and over, and all they can see is the same worthless time spinning out into eternity until they collapse into dust and die. Maybe it’s the gap year. Maybe it’s the job. Maybe it’s all of Mom’s nice but useless affirmations, because no matter what she says, they know they aren’t cut out to be working with kids, and that’s not just because they’re bribing half the town children not to tell Mom all the curse words Kris keeps accidentally teaching them.
Maybe it really is a movie they’ve watched countless times over. A car in freefall. But right before the fall, what other word is there for it but flying?
Breaking into Noelle’s bedroom window, twenty, thirty feet up with nothing but wood and bark to support them isn’t doing a lot to dissuade that notion.
“I did leave it unlocked,” Ralsei says, inching his way across the tree branch like it’ll snap underneath his weight, even though Kris is pretty sure that particular oak tree is older than their mom a few times over. “So, I don’t think this really counts as breaking in.”
“More fun to say it is.” Kris decides, hopping down and glancing around Noelle’s room. Ralsei’s always hopped around their houses—back when Kris first sprung him loose he slept in their room on Asriel’s bed for about three months, at least until their Mom found out about the whole dating thing and strongarmed Aunt Carol into letting Ralsei stay in her guest room.
“I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone. So just pack like, smartly, or whatever.” Kris glances back, grinning a tad at Ralsei still on the tree branch. “It won’t break, you big baby. Need a hand?”
“Sorry I didn’t spend my childhood running around in the woods,” Ralsei says, tossing his head, but he takes Kris’s offered hand and allows them to help haul him in through the window. He lets out a breath when his feet are on solid ground. “Thanks.”
Kris shrugs. “No problem. I’ll be seeing if I can’t steal anything to bring up to Noelle and Susie. Just be kinda quick? Aunt Carol is one of those insane morning people.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Ralsei pauses at the doorway. “We’re visiting Noelle and Susie?”
“Well.” Kris plays with the first item they grabbed, one of Noelle’s old track trophies. The weight is nice in their hands, that and the cool metal. In it they can catch glimpses of their face: their eyes sunk into their eyebags, strands of hair that stick to their forehead. Maybe they should’ve taken a shower before leaving to go on the road. But there’s no time for that now. “I mean. I dunno where we’re going. But I figure they’ll make a nice stop.”
They’ve visited them exactly twice. Once to help move them in. Another because Susie insisted. Town’s quiet without either of them around. Empty spaces.
“Alright,” Ralsei says, quietly. They aren’t sure why he isn’t asking more questions. Quite frankly, they aren’t sure why he said yes. “I’ll see you in a bit, then?”
“Seeya then,” they affirm with a wave, and watch until they can’t see him anymore. Until it’s just them lingering in Noelle’s dusty room, stale with its disuse.
They’re nearly out of Hometown when Ralsei says, gripping the door handle of Kris’s 2011 Honda Fit like he might actually open it and tumble out onto the road, “we’re really doing this.”
“Uh-huh,” Kris says, not looking at him, which is good car driving, but makes something in Ralsei’s chest twist. It’s not like there’s anybody else on the road at this time of night, and besides, barely anybody in Hometown drives anyways. Ralsei only bothered getting a license because Kris and Susie did, and it’s not like he had anything better to do. “Did it not hit you?”
“I don’t…” Ralsei looks out the window, where he can just barely see the sky, sprawled out beyond the trees. Navy darkness dotted throughout with countless stars, half-formed constellations, cut off at this angle. Underneath him Kris’s car thrums, hums. The engine doesn’t cough as much as it sometimes will. “Everyone is going to wake up. And then we’ll be gone.”
“Thrilling, isn’t it?” A faint grin cuts across Kris’s face, lit only by the reflection of their own turn signal at an empty stop sign. But they glance to him and the grin fades. “Hey—how about you set up the music?”
“The—” He fumbles for their phone as they tug it out of their pocket and toss it to him, rubbing a finger down the scratched screen. Their lockscreen is an old picture of the four of them—them, Susie, and Noelle—that he thinks Catti took, probably to tease Noelle with. In it, the fur of his face is soft and fuzzy. Still growing in to its final adult shape. Now it’s started growing coarser. Lengthening around his face, down his chin. But he can’t get himself to look in a mirror to shave, and going by touch just left him with a bald patch that took two months to grow back.
“Music,” Kris repeats, “that thing people tend to like? You can use my Spotify or sign into yours, I don’t really care. Just put on whatever. Except the Christmas playlists. I’m breaking up with you if you make me listen to Christmas music in March.”
Ralsei rubs at his eyes. At some point, they’ve started moving again: the last few houses of Hometown, those on the outskirts, fall behind. Only grass left, grass and trees overgrown on the side of the two-lane road. Kris’s headlights are barely bright enough to illuminate the faded lines that divide the road in half.
He says, dragging his gaze down to their phone, typing in their passcode (Susie’s birthday, as agreed upon unanimously by them, him, and Noelle, much to Susie’s chagrin), opening up their Spotify, “you have Christmas playlists?”
“They aren’t mine.” Kris stretches out their arms as the car rumbles down the straight shot of road. “I put all my music in the starred section, because fuck making playlists, I shuffle everything and let it decide itself what plays like the Angel intended. The playlists are all Noelle.”
Ralsei squints down at the many, many playlists, scrolling through them. Quite a few seem to be Christmas-themed. One is just called, ‘Music You Hate.’ Another’s title is entirely in canine emojis. “Noelle makes these?”
“Yeah,” Kris says, “and I go in and randomly delete songs from them. It’s like we’re slapping each other across state lines. Some of them are pretty good though. Never tell her I said that.”
“Why does she have your Spotify login?” Ralsei asks, scrolling back up to the top to just put on Kris’s own motley mix of music.
“Oh, Noelle can get into any of my accounts,” Kris says, resting their elbows on the steering wheel as they adjust the cruise control. “I’ve been using the same password since I was like, six.”
“That sounds…ill advised.”
“Probably!” They grin. In the darkness of the night, Ralsei can only just make out their features, lit only by the lights of the car dashboard. He reaches for the end of the aux cord and plugs it into their phone. “But coyotelover159 isn’t going anywhere.”
Ralsei’s claw catches in one of the cracks of the phone. “Should you be—telling me that?”
“Eh.” Kris shrugs. Out the front window, the stars glow, dim. “I trust you. Plus, you still have to figure out where six-year-old me put the random capitals. Fair warning, there are a lot.”
Ralsei hums, taps the playlist, puts it on shuffle. Kris has nearly seven thousand songs in it, and something about that makes Ralsei snort—they really weren’t kidding, when they said they put everything in there.
“Here we go!” Kris cheers. “Music! Now I can drown out my thoughts.”
Ralsei grins. “You can say that again.”
Ralsei sets Kris’s phone in the empty cupholder, and leans back in his seat. Just an hour ago he was asleep in their room. Just an hour ago he was—not home, but as close as he’s gotten, since leaving. And now he’s leaving again. Somewhere else. Somewhere new.
Probably, this was a very bad idea. But he knew that when he agreed to go.
The first song comes on like some distant heartbeat. Kris hums approvingly. Ralsei closes his eyes.
Just to start this off, this isn’t the start of anything…just a song that I can sing to you…
It’s nearly six a.m. when their phone starts ringing.
It cuts off the currently playing song with a sharp sound like the alarm clock they threw out their window the second they graduated high school, and Kris snorts, jerks, slams their elbow against the steering wheel, bites out a series of curses. Somehow, even as they fumble to get their phone it doesn’t wake Ralsei, dead asleep with his head against the window and his fur sticking up in just about every direction there is. Hopefully he brought a brush.
A quick glance at their phone confirms their worst fears: Mom. But they know she’ll keep calling until they answer, so they ignore it for now and instead focus on finding somewhere to pull over. They follow most safety rules. They aren’t stupid, and besides, Asriel made them promise to be safe before he let his college buddy sell her old car to them, and they’re almost certain if they die in a car crash of their own making Asriel will find some way to resurrect them and scold them until they die a second time.
Thankfully, empty highway roads have a lot of dying grass and pine trees waiting to be clearcut, so it only takes two more calls from their mom for them to pull over and park, cutting the engine. Ralsei still doesn’t wake up, which they cannot understand. Half the time they can’t even fall asleep in their own blanket-drowned bed.
They huff, watching him as the predawn sky spills faint yellows and oranges across the horizon, tinting his fur cream. He fell asleep somewhere around the three-a.m. mark—one second they were talking, then his replies grew sparser, and sparser, until Kris looked over and he was out.
They probably could’ve stopped, then. Taken the next exit with any motel their meager savings could afford, actually get them both a bed. But instead they just lowered the volume of the music, prayed to an Angel they didn’t believe in that nothing too loud or aggressive would come up on the shuffle, and drove on into the night, where there was nothing to see by but the moon and the stars and their car’s half-broke headlights.
Their phone rings again, vibrating against their thigh, and Kris curses.
“Damn, Mom,” they mutter, unbuckling and opening the door. The grass is dew-wet underfoot as they step outside and give themself a shake, new aches blooming to life. They were sitting for a long time. “Gimme like, ten minutes to get my shit together, would you.”
They shut their door, step a bit away from their car, and answer their phone.
“Krismas Butterscotch Dreemurr!” Mom starts, and Kris winces. Yeah. Outside was the right call, even if the chilly morning air stings the tips of their fingers. They tug the frayed sleeves of their sweater a bit further down and wedge their phone tighter between ear and shoulder. Though honestly, Mom’s loud enough the phone could fall and they’d hear her just fine. “Would you like to explain why your car is not in the driveway, when usually it is a struggle to get you to wake before ten? And why, when I called Carol, she checked Ralsei’s room and found not only were some of his belongings gone, but he had left an apology note?”
Kris rolls their eyes. Of course Ralsei left a note, despite the fact that they both are, in fact, legal adults, who are not beholden to the rules of the older adults around them. Ralsei is, after all, the same person who made them all sit through countless funerals for dead bugs found in the corners of houses. But still, as their gaze drifts to him, still with his head up against the window, their chest doesn’t twist with annoyance.
Instead, they snort, and say, “he’s with me.”
“I assumed, but thank you for confirming.” Mom pauses to take a deep breath, like she always does before scolding them. Like she has to make sure what happened did, in fact, happen. Which is a tad unfair. Kris isn’t that bad. Mostly. Not at 19, at least. “Can you tell me where you two are?”
“Uh.” Kris considers. Driving since just a bit after one with basically no stops, and if it’s usually about a seven-hour drive to Susie and Noelle… “Like, two hours out from Susie and Noelle’s dorm? This is the first time I’ve pulled over since leaving.”
“Kris,” their mother says, in that long-suffering way of hers. “Please tell me they at least know you two are visiting.”
“You know,” Kris muses, shifting their head to grab their phone and put it on speaker so they can open up their texts, “I knew I forgot something.” They type out showing up in two hours lol got a ralsei w me you’d better sneak us into the dining halls cause im not spending like twenty bucks for a single fast food chicken biscuit into their groupchat. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I swear,” Mom says, though with fondness. “Kris…you will be safe, won’t you? Please do not make this drive all by yourself. Maybe Ralsei can drive you back?”
“Oh, we aren’t coming back,” Kris says, and continues, before their mom can start yelling again, “we’re gonna keep driving. A road trip, you know. Dunno how far I wanna go. Might as well hit up all the states nearby just to say I’ve been everywhere in the South.”
“You’re—” Another deep breath from their mother. “You and Ralsei both have responsibilities here.”
“Do we?” Kris begins to move, starting a loop, up to a splintered pine tree, turn, down past their car and to a crushed soda can someone must’ve tossed out the window. “I literally work for you, Mom. You’re basically just paying me a bigger allowance.” They trace a chewed nail down the spiderweb of cracks across their phone, press the palm of their finger into the larger break at the very edge. “I promise I’ll come back. Just. Give me a week, two weeks.”
For a long moment their mother is quiet. They wonder where she is, back at home—maybe still in their room, sitting on their bed, the empty space they once inhabited. If they were home, she’d be on her first attempt of waking them up, even though they both know Kris won’t stumble downstairs until eight-thirty at the earliest, if that, no matter what time teachers and their assistants might be supposed to arrive. At least it’s a quick walk.
Mom says, “is this about the lett—”
“No.” Kris’s voice comes sharper than they intended, nearly throwing their phone into the woods. When they catch themself just in time, there’s a cut across their finger from the shattered screen. “No. It’s—unrelated.”
“Kris.”
“I have to go.” Kris trips back towards their car. “Lots more driving to do and I need to get to Susie and Noelle in time for them to feed us.”
“Kris, you know you do not have to—”
But they’re already hanging up. Throwing open their car door, tossing their phone in the backseat, slumping down with their forehead pressed to the wheel, struggling to calm their racing heart. They’re—away. Literally in the middle of nowhere. Probably another hour until they’re forced off the backroads and into actual urban areas. And nobody knows them at Susie and Noelle’s college. Just one face in a sea of faces. One human face in a sea of monster faces.
“K—Kris?” They jerk at Ralsei’s voice, sleep-thick, but suck in a breath and rub at their eyes before turning to face him. He’s doing something similar, blinking a few times, pushing fur out of his eyes. “Did…did I fall asleep on you? I’m sorry, I left you all alone…”
Kris shrugs. Heart’s beating a bit less quick. “It’s okay,” they say. “Not like there’s much to do.”
“Still.” Ralsei glances out the windshield. The sun itself is starting to rise: golden rays drape across the misty clouds. Kris can still taste dew on their lips. The sky isn’t so vibrant, through the windows—the rich colors are all washed out. “I can take over driving the rest of the way, if you give me a bit to wake up. And you can get some rest.”
“You want me to sleep in a moving car?” But their voice softens. There’s something about the way the sunlight coats Ralsei’s fur. They aren’t really sure what to call it. When they look to their own hand, it’s the same dull brown it’s been their entire life. “…yeah. Alright.”
“Want me to put on one of Noelle’s playlists?” Ralsei teases.
“Don’t you dare,” Kris says, as they plug their phone back in, tab over to Spotify. “I will literally sleep kill you. It’s like sleepwalking but way more deadly.”
Ralsei snorts. It drags a smile to their face, restarting their shuffle. They turn the volume up a few notches as whatever was playing before Mom called fades out and a new one fades in.
“Hey,” Ralsei says, “hasn’t this one played before?”
“Maybe,” Kris says. “Spotify’s shuffle is sort of terrible garbage. But it’s all I have since my MP3 player is sitting at the bottom of the lake.”
“That’s entirely on you,” Ralsei says, as he goes to exit the car. Kris waits for him to leave and just climbs over to the passenger seat. Ralsei huffs as he watches them. “See, like that. You didn’t have to throw your MP3 at a wasp, and you didn’t have to climb over to my seat.”
“Yes I did,” Kris says, “it’s my most charming personality trait.” They buckle in and do their best to obtain some level of basic comfort, which mostly means they rest their arms on their knees and their head on their arms. About a three out of ten. “Wake me when we get there?”
“Of course,” Ralsei says. “Sweet dreams, Kris.”
Kris closes their eyes. They dream of nothing at all.
For a long fifteen minutes, Ralsei just sits in the parking lot closest to Noelle and Susie’s dorm.
It’s early, though not so early that there aren’t students out and about, and Ralsei watches them through the front window, up on the third floor of the parking deck. A bunch of people with backpacks and books and countless other supplies. A few with coffee. Ralsei watches as one dog-monster skateboarding down the road proceeds to trip over something that must’ve been left out and, as Kris might phrase it, eats shit. Ralsei winces. Next to them, Kris continues to snore, having somehow contorted themself into curling around their seatbelt.
He’s not sure how that could at all be comfortable, but still. He doesn’t wake them.
He knows Noelle at least is awake—she responded to Kris’s text about an hour after they sent it, a kris, you know we both have to go to class, right? >.< but if you get here before 9:30 you can eat breakfast with us. They’ve still got about 45 minutes until then. 44, now. He really should wake Kris.
But look at all those people, he thinks, leaning against the steering wheel and setting his own phone to the side. This could’ve been me. But…
He did try. Toriel and even Carol helped him a lot, figuring out what to do about the fact that, for all intents and purposes, he sort of just popped into existence at age 14 when Kris helped him escape. He didn’t know he never had a birth certificate, social security card, any legal documents that proved he was real. No school records, either. He’s pretty sure the only reason he was able to get into high school was because Toriel managed the school.
But he filled out applications. Wrote essays on Kris’s old desk they inherited when their brother moved out for good, while Kris balled up all the rejected essays he threw aside, and chucked them at the ceiling. Just rewrite the plot of Rapunzel, they’d tell him, or, no, submit a recording of the movie and be like that was it. That was my life.
That was not my life, Ralsei would retort. Kris never responded past that, and even here, over a year removed, his gut twists up, like something curdling, embers he can’t fan out. His hand twitches, without him knowing, to his phone. Sure, he has her blocked, but—
“No,” Ralsei says, aloud. “These are bad thoughts. I’m going to wake up Kris, go see our friends, and have a nice—or, uh, halfway decent breakfast at a dining hall they’ll get us into. And then we’ll…”
He falters. And then they’ll…what? Keep going? Keep driving? Kris certainly doesn’t seem keen to return home, and Ralsei…
Ralsei wants…
He shakes himself out, runs a hand through the fur on his face, too-long, and there his claws dig past it and into his skin, like he might claw it out at the source. But he doesn’t. He uses a tissue to wipe the blood off his nails, and then prods Kris’s shoulder.
“Kris,” he says, “we’re here.”
“Nnnnn,” Kris groans, twisting away from him. He’s almost certain their seatbelt has to be digging into them. He’s not entirely sure how it didn’t choke them, with how much they move when they sleep. “Go ‘way. Not gonna work today.”
“You aren’t working,” Ralsei says, ignoring the flutter in his own chest. He’s supposed to be at the flower shop. “We’re visiting Susie and Noelle, remember? We’re in the parking lot, and we need to hurry so they feed us.”
“Food?” Kris lifts their head, blinking up at him from underneath their bangs. “Wait.” They shake themself. “Why is there a seatbelt cutting off blood flow to my thigh?”
“Because you sleep in positions that would kill anybody else,” Ralsei says, as Kris flails about in their attempts to get free. “Do you want help?”
They fumble for the seatbelt buckle and finally press down. “No,” they say, spitting hair out of their mouth, “got it. Ow. I think I broke my back.” They push themself up sitting, smoothing down their messy hair. “…did you bring a hairbrush?”
“Kris,” Ralsei says.
“No.” Kris shakes their head. “Never mind. I’ll steal Noelle’s. Okay!” They clap their hands together, wince. “Hurt my own ears. I’m so fucking tired.” A yawn. Ralsei can’t help but laugh, and they glare at him. “Oh? You think you’re above me? I’d like to see you try to be a person on two hours of sleep!”
“I know, I know.” He finally kills the engine and goes to get up. “Ready?”
“If the dining halls don’t have those shitty limp hashbrowns,” Kris says, as they exit the car, “I am going to collapse and cry.”
It’s a short walk to the dorms, though they do have to double back when Kris realizes they forgot their phone. But after that it’s smooth, and they even make it to the doors just as someone else is leaving, so they don’t have to call Noelle to be let in.
“What if we were here to like, do murder or something?” Kris muses as they head for the elevator. “That girl didn’t even know us. We aren’t even students. But she just held the door open.”
“I…guess that is a sort of flaw,” Ralsei says. “Though…what’s your solution? Slam the door in people’s faces?”
“Yes,” Kris says, grinning. “Very satisfying. Once I saw Catti coming to the diner so I held the door open and then shut it right when she got there. Noelle says this is part of why Catti still doesn’t like me, but I’m a delight and if Catti can’t handle me, that’s her problem.”
It takes a few minutes for the elevator to arrive, but it does, and they enter. Ralsei presses the button for Susie and Noelle’s floor—fifth—and before he knows it they’re standing in front of a door smothered with holiday decorations.
“Wow,” Kris says, poking a wreath of poinsettia in the center. “Noelle’s really bringing that Holiday spirit with her.” And then they knock. “Yo! It’s us! I think my stomach is trying to eat itself, so you’d better be ready to bring us to food!”
Silence. Ralsei frowns. “Do you think they maybe fell back—”
He’s cut off by the door slamming open and almost immediately being yanked into a hug, him and Kris both crushed against Susie.
“You guys!” Susie says, and just her voice is enough to bring a smile to Ralsei’s face, even if it is a little hard to breathe, and he’s also pretty sure his neck is going to start aching if he doesn’t get to move soon. “You little nerds. Missed us so bad you had to break in?”
“Aren’t you the nerd?” Kris teases, as Susie drags the both of them into her dorm and drops them on the rug. “Only one of us is in college, and it sure isn’t me!”
“You’re just mad you got rejected from everywhere you applied to,” Susie says, grinning. Her grin is a mouthful of fangs, but Ralsei’s long past the days where he would’ve flinched at that. Instead, he pushes himself up to his feet, waving to Noelle, who currently appears to be trying to shove supplies in her backpack using only her mouth, her hands occupied with various loose sheets of paper.
“Just because I look like a human doesn’t mean I am—” Kris clears their throat when Susie taps her fist to their head. “Ahem. I mean. I’m not bitter about those dumbass monster colleges at all.”
“We know,” Susie says. “Still down to send them hate mail.”
Kris sighs. “No, that’s not big enough.” They take three big strides across the room and flop down in the only bed with blankets on it. “Thanks for offering though.” They roll onto their back. “Hey, wait a second!” They look between the bed they’re on, the empty one across the room. “Awww, you guys are sharing a bed, aren’t you!”
“Kris!” Noelle shrieks, half-muffled, and she throws her entire stack of paper at a cackling Kris, rolling onto their side and out of the way. “It’s called being polite to your guests. Lancer uses the other bed!”
Ralsei looks at the bed. Empty other than a bare mattress. Then underneath it, where Lancer sits messing with what Ralsei thinks is Noelle’s old DS in a pile of bedding. If you’d asked Ralsei yesterday, he would’ve said that Lancer was still in Hometown. Which is…sort of his fault, actually. They haven’t hung out all that much since Susie left.
“Lancer likes to sleep on the floor but the point still stands,” Noelle huffs.
“Hell yeah, dude. Floor beds are where it’s at.” Kris holds out their hand for a high-five. Lancer launches himself across the room to slap his hand to theirs.
“It’s better that way!” Lancer says, bouncing on his feet. “Also, easier to fit my motorcycle in.” He returns to his pile of blankets and sheets to uncover a child-sized bike painted to look like a motorcycle. He lowers his voice to a whisper, which for Lancer, is Ralsei’s normal speaking volume. “I’m too tall to ride it anymore but I don’t tell it that so it doesn’t feel bad.”
“Does your dad, uh, know you’re here?” Ralsei asks.
“My dad knows nothing about me!” Lancer grins. “Lesser Dad knows though. But he had to get a hotel. This room is for teens only!”
“We’re actually technically adults,” Noelle points out.
“Oh.” Lancer’s quiet for a moment. “This room is only for Lancer then! Out, out!” He scrambles to charge for Susie.
“Fight!” Kris cheers, jumping off the bed to join Lancer and Susie, charging right past their mock-posturing battle stances, and attempting to knock Susie to the floor. “Lancer, team up with me! Defeat Susie!”
“No, team up with me!” Susie says, laughing, messing up Kris’s hair worse than it already is. “Team Dark Fun Gang, back together!”
“Dark Fun Gang!” Lancer yells, and wraps himself around Kris’s leg, dragging them to the ground. “This is for beating us in dodgeball!”
“That was three years ago!” Kris laughs, twisting out of Lancer’s grip and ducking Susie’s grab. “But fine. I’ll beat you like I beat you then! With a dodgeball to the face! Ha—woah!” Kris yelps as Susie grabs them by the middle and picks them up. “No fair, my arms are weak!”
“That’s a you problem,” Susie says, and then, “Lancer, the door!”
“We bring our battle outside!” Lancer cheers, throwing open the door, and he and Susie race out, Kris in tow.
“Well, I’m sure they’ll remember they’re hungry at some point and meet up with us at the dining hall,” Noelle says. There’s a note of fondness to her voice, and Ralsei turns away from the still-open door to Noelle. “Give me a minute? I have to grab my meds, for some reason I didn’t put them where I usually do…”
“Oh, uh.” Ralsei blinks. “Yeah. Right. Uh—sorry we never really said hi to you or anything.”
Noelle shrugs. “It’s alright. Even if it was very short notice, I’m glad you guys came up! Feels like it’s been forever since we’ve seen you.”
Ralsei scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah…” He clears his throat. “Do you, um, want help with your bag? You seem to have…” He considers the papers strewn about the floor. “Do you need a folder or something?”
Noelle snorts. “These are the papers that don’t fit into a folder. I really should not have listened to my mom’s suggestions for electives. But if you want to help me shove them all in my backpack, that would be great!” She slides open the bottom drawer of the nightstand nearest her bed. “Aha! Meds! Must’ve got the wrong drawer in the dark.” She tucks them in her pocket and then joins Ralsei as he makes his way over to her backpack, stepping around the various clutter strewn about the floor. Probably from Susie and Lancer, because Noelle always kept her room tidy.
“Meds?” is what Ralsei manages to ask, kneeling to pick up some papers. Noelle shoves them haphazardly into her bag; Ralsei at least tries not to crumple them. But his hands are shaking. The edges of the page curl.
“You know,” says Noelle, after a satisfied nod at the state of her bag. Ralsei shoves the final paper in, stumbles back to his feet. She zips up her bag and slings it over a shoulder, heading for the door. “Same sort of stuff I’ve been taking since…gosh, I don’t even remember anymore. Actually, it’s a bit of a walk to the dining hall, let me…” she pulls one of the bottles out of her pocket, dumping a pill into her hand. “Estrogen I have to dissolve under my tongue,” she tells him, “and talking makes that go faster! Plus I usually do it walking to eat anyways.” She caps the bottle and continues on down the hallway. Ralsei freezes in the doorway.
He…knows this. Knows exactly the medication Noelle takes, why she takes it, lived with her for three years of his life, and no, they didn’t share a bathroom, but he—saw. Sometimes. Bottles left on the counter. Her at the dinner table. He swallows. When the elevator dings, he nearly jumps out of his skin—he didn’t even know they got on. That he started moving again.
“How does it.” Is there something stuck in his throat? Noelle glances to him but he drops his gaze before she can—see. She’s—he’s happy for her. He’s… “How does it taste?”
“Taste?” Noelle laughs. Holding open the door for him, the sunlight catches in her hair, so much longer than Ralsei’s ever been. Before he had to cut it short, because Mom—she made him. After… “Um…like a pill, I guess? Do pills usually have a taste for you?” She squints at Ralsei as he exits. “Are you okay? If you guys were really hungry, you could’ve asked me or Susie to run ahead and bring something back for you. Plus we have a few snacks in the room?”
“I’m fine!” Ralsei holds up his hands. “Fine, fine, just.” He can’t look at Noelle. But everywhere else is the campus, this college life he doesn’t have, and Kris never bothered to try for it but he—he doesn’t know, can’t, can’t stay in Hometown his whole life, can’t…
“We should catch up with the others,” is what he says.
Noelle frowns. “If you’re sure.” She hesitates. “Ralsei, we did share a house for three years, okay? If there’s something you want to talk about—”
“I’m fine,” he snaps, pushing past her, where he doesn’t have to look back. Not at Noelle. Not at her and her pills and her I’ve been taking them for so long, and he remembers, vaguely, where the nearest dining hall is. Remembers vaguely that Kris is probably there, Kris with as much of a dead-end life as his.
His nails dig into the palm of his hand, splitting the skin.
But Ralsei has thick fur. It’s not like anybody else will notice.
College dining halls, Kris has come to decide—with their expert opinion of having eaten at about seven in their entire life—are probably the best places to get food, ever.
Mediocre food that they don’t have to feel guilty about craving because everybody else has to eat the same thing? Check. People rocking the clothing gamut from full suits to naked save for their undergarments? Check. Bribable employees? Uh, check, and yes Kris did get them to take out a tray of hashbrowns just for them, even though its potato cake day.
“Dude,” Susie says, when Kris drops down at the table she claimed, “I think you just set a world record for most limp hashbrowns ever put onto a plate.”
“These don’t deserve to be called hashbrowns,” Kris says as they spear their fork directly into the middle of their pathetic potato mountain. Entirely unseasoned. No condiments at all. Just pure raw mushy potato with the occasional burnt bit, as a challenge. Tastes like failure. “It’s been years since I had these.”
“You were here, like, last October.”
“Years,” Kris stresses through their mouthful. Susie snorts and turns her attention back to her own meal. “Where’s Lancer?”
Susie points off to the left. “Fighting the waffle maker.”
Kris looks. Lancer is, indeed, at the paltry waffle station, consisting of a single waffle maker, batter dispenser, and a mostly empty bottle of syrup. He’s pulling at the lever on the dispenser as hard as he can. Barely any batter is coming out. A group of three shadowy monsters are attempting to tilt the machine to get the batter to pour faster, to no effect.
“Man,” Kris says, “that’s so sad. Back home Mom just makes me chocolate chip waffles to bribe me to go to work.”
“Still cannot believe you work at the school,” Susie teases, pointing her fork at them. “What do you even teach kids? Swearing?”
“It’s the nepotism.” Kris grins. “Plus my aunt being the mayor has some perks. Mostly because Mom can actually win arguments against her. It’s really fun to know your own aunt wants you fired.” They perk up at the sound of hooves, and turn to see Noelle and Ralsei, both looking rather lost in the middle of the crowded dining hall.
“Hey!” they call, leaning forwards and across the table, waving their hands. “Noelle! Ralsei! Over here! Look at my terrible potato mountain!”
Noelle perks up, hurrying over to them, while Ralsei lingers some behind. Kris tilts their head. But before they can call him again—did he not hear them?—Noelle is shoving at them to drop down in their seat, and Kris squawks, flailing to catch their balance.
“You’re sharing,” Noelle says, and she doesn’t waste a second before taking their fork and spearing herself some hashbrowns. “They never put these out anymore!”
“I have my ways,” Kris says, holding their head a little higher. It means they catch Ralsei’s eye across the room, mouth, hey, did you hear me? He blinks, waves his hands—that way of his that means sorry, sorry—and then points over to the main breakfast line. Kris nods and returns their attention to Noelle, shoving her off their chair. “Get your own terrible potatoes.”
“Absolutely not! Why would I, when you’re right here?” But she giggles. “Seriously, though, I will be very mad if you don’t save a few for me.” She heads over to Susie, resting her chin on Susie’s head. Kris sticks out their tongue and mimes gagging. Susie throws half a piece of bacon at them. Kris tries to catch it in their mouth, fails, and resigns themself to eating it off the table.
“Are you gonna get food?” Kris asks through bites.
“Hmm. Maybe. Maybe I just want to wear you down.” She nudges Susie. “Were there any good pancakes today?”
“Eh.” Susie wobbles her hand. “It’s the coconut ones.”
“Oof, jury’s out, then.” Noelle stands to her full height. “Well, I’ll make do with what I can. Be back in a moment!”
She hurries off, and a few minutes later Ralsei comes over, pulling out the seat next to Kris and setting himself down into it.
“Hey,” Kris says, “got anything good?”
“They had biscuits,” Ralsei says, “and jam. And some grits. Sort of watery, though.”
“Oh, they never aren’t watery,” Susie chimes in. “Still pretty okay, if you like mush.”
Kris snorts. “We’re a mush family over here.”
Soon enough all five of them are sitting and eating, even Lancer, having finally achieved his waffle. It’s…nice. Familiar. Like they’re back in high school again, except there’s more people in this dining hall than went to their school at the same time as them. Or currently. Or, honestly, at any point in Hometown’s history. Quite frankly there’s probably more people in this building than live back home.
Ralsei’s mostly quiet, though he hums if Kris nudges him, tries to drag him into the conversation. But that’s—hard. All the stuff they’ve done—working, watching movies, wasting hours just lying around—pale in comparison to the stories Susie and Noelle share, and Lancer’s clearly been having adventures of his own. Still, though, Ralsei lets them have a bit of biscuit, which is nice. The jam is sweet and sticks to their teeth. Like bloody bits of pulp. Or orange juice!
Halfway through Noelle digs out one of her meds, and Kris thinks, oh, shit, I forgot about medication. But when they go to reach into their own pocket, pluck out a few stray pills—pocket lint makes them taste better, Mom, they don’t need to invest in a pill holder—all they find is, well, the pocket lint.
“Kris?” Ralsei asks, as they frown and dig harder.
“I, um.” Think. Packing. They threw like, three shirts into a bag. Probably their phone charger. They think they got their toothbrush, but they’re pretty sure they’re going to be borrowing Ralsei’s toothpaste. And their antidepressants…
Hmm. Yeah. That one. Didn’t make the list. Did it.
“So,” Kris says, breaking the silence that’s befallen the table as everyone is now staring at them, and oh, this is also familiar, but not the warm sort, the sort that’s like ants crawling up their skin, like some itch deep inside they can’t scratch. “I might have. Perhaps. Forgotten something at home. Something a little bit important.”
Noelle swallows her own pill. “Kris!”
“Noelle,” they say, “bestie. Neighbor. My favorite sister-adjacent kinda-cousin.”
“Oh, no,” Noelle says, “I don’t like where this is going…”
“You wouldn’t happen to have some of my antidepressants back at your dorm, do you?” Their voice inches up a few notches at the end there. Tongue feels dry. Somehow the only place they can look is Ralsei. Not Noelle’s disappointed eyes. Susie’s overwhelming care. Even Lancer’s worry. Ralsei looks a little bit like he accidentally ate a bee. Unrelated to their thing, hopefully. They scoot their chair a bit closer to him.
“Kris!” Noelle repeats, but this time she sounds a little too much like her mom for comfort. “You—how do you even forget to pack those? That should be number one!”
“Yeah, well.” They slouch down in their chair. A few bits of potato fall onto the floor. “We all remember how Mom had to hide the pills in my food for like four months to get me to take them. You really shouldn’t be that surprised.”
Kris figured that trick out about three weeks in. Made them feel a little bit like an idiot baby. Like something entirely unhuman.
…they. Just played along to make Mom happy. Not for any. Other. Reasons.
Their hand twitches.
“Look,” they say, “do you have any or not.”
Noelle sighs. “Yes,” she says, “but you owe me, Kris. You can’t play with your health like this.”
“Yeah,” Kris snaps, “believe me. I know.”
Noelle closes her eyes. Takes a breath. Kris slouches further.
“Just—Lancer can let you guys back in,” Noelle says. “They’re in my closet. Second drawer of the dresser in there.”
Conversation doesn’t really pick back up after that. Kris pushes potato around their plate. Really not good, the potato. Ash in their mouth.
…they could’ve gone anywhere else. Literally anywhere in the entire world. And yet.
They only realize Susie and Noelle are leaving when Ralsei puts a paw to their shoulder, and they jolt, looking up.
Noelle won’t look at them straight-on. But she says, “will you two still be here when we get out of class? We do have the extra bed.”
A sleepover. Like they’re all kids again. Cramming into Noelle’s room. Staying up too late. Kris trying to scare Noelle with ghost stories. Susie stubbornly trying to fix Noelle’s terrible sewing machine, for the tenth time that week. Ralsei at Noelle’s desk, frowning at his homework, until Kris tackled him over to the rest of them.
Back then they didn’t even bother with the bed. Usually because they all passed out on the floor, halfway to insisting they’d totally stay up all night this time. Kris was always the last one awake. Standing guard in the low-light.
Ralsei speaks before they can figure out some way to put all that into words.
“No,” he says. Kris tilts their head back, watches him. He’s shoved his hands into his pockets. Their own twitch. “Or—I mean, um. You guys have to go to class, have lives to live. We…Kris and I, we—we really should. Go.”
“Oh,” Noelle says.
“You can also sleep on the floor if only a mattress isn’t that appealing,” Susie adds. “And like, you know we can share blankets with you guys and stuff.”
Ralsei shakes his head, looks to them. Kris thinks—is your no longer, too?
But they say, “yeah. Gotta roadtrip. You know how it is.”
“Do we?” Susie asks.
Goodbyes are short and sweet. Lancer lets them back into the dorms and Kris grabs a small bottle from Noelle’s closet, labeled with their name, a little face, and a Kris please stop forgetting your meds!!!!!! I love you and don’t want anything to happen to you! They rub their finger across it, but the ink doesn’t smear.
Back in the car Ralsei takes the driver’s seat before they can, and Kris pauses, pivots, drops into the passengers.
“Ralsei?” they ask.
He’s already got his hands on the steering wheel. Isn’t looking at them. “What was your plan, after this?”
“I, uh.” Kris ducks their head as they go to plug their phone back in. “Didn’t have one. Figured we’d just keep driving.”
“That’s good,” Ralsei says, backing out, heading for the road, again, somewhere out of here. “That’s what I just came up with.”
The days pass in an odd sort of melancholy.
Ralsei can’t entirely describe the mood of the car. It’s—thick. Heavy. But not in the way fog can be thick or heavy, because it doesn’t obscure anything. But like there’s fog everywhere else. Kris blinds him and the car is too-small and his legs cramp whether it’s his turn to drive or not, but there’s nowhere else for either of them to go. No sound but whatever comes up on Kris’s Spotify and the road that rumbles below and the stuttering engine of the car that should probably be dead, but refuses. Neither of them have a plan if it breaks down.
He’s not sure where they’re going. Doubts Kris knows, either. Knows neither of them care.
They take backroads. Empty countryside, sometimes with cows, with fields still fallow, waiting for warmth again. On times where he has nothing to do but stare out the window, Ralsei counts the houses they pass. Dingy things that have collapsed in on themselves. The same sort of empty space he once lived in: where there was nobody else different at all.
Nobody was supposed to exist here. Ralsei leans his head against the window, and the roar of the road floods his ears like a second heartbeat. At least, nobody but me.
They mostly eat fast-food, occasionally pull over for some small mom-and-pop place when they really are in the middle of nowhere. Sit there together in the car for minutes after the engine is killed. The silence is a thing Ralsei can carry. He watches sparrows in the parking lot peck around for crumbs.
Kris leaves before he does. Hauling themself to their feet, and pushing their way inside.
Mostly, the spaces all blend together. Was this the place they ate at on day three, day five? What about day seven? Like finger-paints all smeared together until there’s nothing left but torn paper and muddy colors.
“What do you think Hometown is like without us?” Ralsei asks.
“Boring as hell,” Kris says, pushing their eggs around their plate. They’ve already broken their yolk, and the yellow bleeds into the white. “We’re the only cool people left.”
Ralsei considers. His own food is…fine. A bit bland. He probably should’ve asked for extra jelly with his toast. “A…lot of people have moved away, haven’t they?”
Kris snorts. “No duh. We’re the only young adults left.” For a moment they’re quiet. “…you want to go back eventually?”
Ralsei says, “where else would we go?”
“Yeah.” Kris shoves a forkful of egg in their mouth. “Where else.”
That night they actually splurge on a motel, and Kris takes a shower while Ralsei triple-checks the bed for bedbugs, just in case. He’s on check number five—look, better safe than sorry, and he knows Kris won’t do it, because they simply don’t find bedbugs as viscerally upsetting as he does—when he hears a shriek from the bathroom.
“Kris?” Ralsei calls, dropping the sheet and hurrying to the door, though he hesitates before opening it. “Are you okay?”
“Stupid—it just cut off my hot water!” He can hear Kris stomping around in the bathroom, and then the sound of water getting shut off. “Fuck. Now I’m freezing. It wasn’t even that long. How dare you.”
Ralsei sighs. “But you didn’t hurt yourself or anything?”
“I’m fine,” Kris says, “you don’t have to worry about me.”
He doesn’t get much sleep, that night. Isn’t sure if Kris does, either: they thrash around a lot, but they do that even when they’re sleeping. He stares up at the ceiling and finds shapes in the damp patches and counts the popcorn bumps, and turns on his side so he can see out the dingy window, tinting everything with grime.
They keep driving. Through and around various states. In Georgia Ralsei sees signs for a nearby state park and so he follows them, and he and Kris end up hiking all the way up to the view, nearly collapsing over each other at the top, but there even with his throat parched and water not doing much to help, his fur sweat-soaked…
“Damn,” Kris says, too-close to the edge, where the world drops away below them. It would be brilliant in the fall, Ralsei thinks—but even with just budding trees and evergreens peppered throughout, the mountains take his breath away. “We should’ve brought the car here.” Kris toes at the rock under their feet. The roar of the river below is like an engine. Ever-present and alive. “Could fly right off.”
“Kris,” Ralsei says, touching a hand to their shoulder.
“What?” But they don’t shake him off.
When they make it back down Ralsei has three missed calls and eighteen unread texts from the same unknown number that should not be able to contact him. Kris’s phone rings, rings again. In line for the snacks they decided to buy it rings a third time.
Ralsei nudges his shoulder to theirs. “Shouldn’t you answer that?” he asks, shifting his bag of purple rock candy to one arm. Kris’s phone keeps ringing. Kris themself isn’t looking at it or him—they’re just staring straight ahead. “I mean, we’ve been gone for a while, Kris, if your mom or dad—”
“It’s not my dad!” Kris snaps, and Ralsei jerks backwards before they can push him, their hackles up, teeth bared in the half-snarl they tend towards. Their hands twitch. Their phone keeps ringing. Their chest heaves, ragged enough even Ralsei can hear it, and he shakes through his own fluffed-out fur.
“It’s.” Kris drops their gaze to the floor. “It’s…nothing.” They shove their candy at him. “I’m waiting in the car. I’ll pay you back later.”
Ralsei finds them there, fifteen minutes later, lying in the backseat with their phone held up above them, staring at their own face reflected in the dark screen.
“Do you think we should start heading back?” is what Ralsei says, opening the backdoor to dump his bag into. Kris glances at him, drops their arms down.
“Back where?” Kris says. Their voice is hoarse.
“It’s been two weeks, Kris.”
“Not an answer.” They roll onto their side. “I don’t want to think about it, Ralsei. I just want to keep going until my mind’s all…worn away. Like all the bright lines on the roads that never last.” They peer at him through messy bangs. “Do you want to go back?”
“I…”
His claws dig into his palms. Fur stands on-edge. He can still feel his phone heavy in his pocket. Some part of him wants to read those texts. Some part of him is probably still back in that house, where he had nobody and no-one except her, at least until Kris came along.
He asks, “why did you invite me along?”
“You were there,” Kris says, “isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
Ralsei takes his rock candy out of the bag. Unwraps it and bites down, thinks, this is how I lose a tooth, isn’t it? But it doesn’t break. His jaw just aches, and he closes the door, gets into the driver’s seat, and turns on the engine.
That night he watches the stars through the windshield, and the planes that wink out between them. He doesn’t know what Kris sees. He doesn’t look back.
He dreams of an Angel that looks down upon him and turns up her nose. He wakes to find Kris, lit only by their phone’s screen, a few thousand levels deep in some sort of Candy Crush knockoff. Their face illuminated in washed-out colors. The tinny music from the game rings out in the otherwise silent car. Above them the stars glint.
How do you do it, he wants to ask. It’s been two weeks, he wants to tell them. Why did you ever have to find me, he could never voice aloud.
In some other world he still hasn’t left the house he was born in. In some other world, he’s still back there with her, but there is no blocking her number. There is no high school, no friends, nothing and nobody but him and his mother.
In some other world he loves her without a second thought.
“Kris?” Ralsei says, quietly, and next to him they jump, nearly smacking their head against the back of their seat.
“Jeez, Ralsei,” Kris says, “I thought you were asleep. Holy shit.” They drop their phone onto their chest and run a hand through their hair. “What? Wanna start driving again?” They glance to the red-light of the car’s clock. “Three a.m. is a good time to get driving.”
Ralsei knits his hands together. “What are you doing?”
“Huh?” They tilt their head. “Oh. You mean the game? Look, I know mobile games are all garbage and just trying to get you to pay for their microtransactions, but the thing is I’m more powerful than them, and I like to taunt them by playing the games without—”
“Kris,” Ralsei snaps, and they go silent. “I don’t mean—I mean, what are you doing, out here? Why are we out here? It’s—it’s been two weeks, Kris, people must be missing us, and you’re just—”
“Uh, I could ask you the same thing.” Kris’s eyes narrow. “You do know we’ve both been doing the driving, right?”
“Who was calling you earlier?” he asks, sitting up. He can taste his heart in his throat, thick and cloying. He’s pretty sure his hands are shaking. “Why haven’t we gone home yet? Why—we could’ve just visited Susie and Noelle. But we’re here, why are we here?”
“Are you hearing yourself right now?!” Kris has shoved themself up as well, gesturing between them with wild motions of their arms. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want to stay with Susie and Noelle! You told me you just wanted to drive around nowhere too!”
“Well—” Ralsei’s words stick inside of him like thorns, pressing at the barrier of his skin, trying to burst out. Two weeks on the road and he has nothing to show for it but scabs on his arms where he dug a little too hard into his own skin. Two weeks and all he’s done is see how great his friends are doing, while he wastes his life away. Two weeks and all those missed texts, missed calls, and he’d never even be here if it weren’t for—
“You—you’re the whole reason I’m even out here!” Ralsei says, jabbing a finger at Kris. “You’re—we’ve been doing nothing for a year!! A whole year! Just—lying around your house, and, and we still aren’t doing anything! I—I could’ve been working on applying to colleges, or getting an actual job, but—but instead—”
“Oh, you and what birth certificate?” Kris snarls, pressed up against their side of the car like a cat trying to arch its back. “I’d like to see you try and get an actual job when legally you don’t even exist.”
“At least I try!” he yells. His voice rings out, echoing, in the car. Kris’s eyes are wide and red in the moonlight. Ralsei’s breaths catch, panting.
“What.” Kris’s voice is low.
“At…at least I try to make something of myself!” Is he crying? He rubs at his eyes and presses on. Somehow the words tumble out. Like he doesn’t even have to think them first—like they were there already, just waiting to be released. “I try so hard! Even when I know it won’t ever work, when—when all the odds are so comically stacked against me—you didn’t even try when we were still in high school applying, and your mom was right there offering to help you!”
“Didn’t—” Kris bristles, fingers flexing into the seat beneath them. “I did try! Do you know how many stupid schools I applied to?”
“Oh,” Ralsei scoffs, “sure. All those monster colleges. You knew they wouldn’t accept you.”
“You mean the schools my parents went to?” This time Kris does arch their back, spits like some cornered animal. Ralsei’s own nails pull at his fur until it aches. “That my brother went to? That all of my friends were going to?” Their voice curls with scorn. “You sure talk a big game for someone who only has the life he does because I broke you out!”
“You think I wanted this?” Ralsei’s voice cracks. His chest heaves. He wants, with all the ferocity of a burning fire, to be literally anywhere else: somewhere he doesn’t know Kris, never met Susie or Noelle, never had anybody but the one person he knew his whole life, never had anybody but— “At least back with Mom everything made sense!”
Kris’s mouth opens, closes. A hand twitches his direction, falls back down. “Ral—”
But the deluge of words doesn’t stop. “I—I never asked for any of this!! I’m—I wasn’t supposed to be like this! This, and—if Mom could see me now, she’d—and if she knew the stuff I think—the people I’m friends with—”
“Ralsei,” Kris says, again. He sort of wants to throw open the car door and walk into the woods. He sort of never wants to hear anybody say his name again. He wants to wake up and be 14 again, and this time when Kris comes up to his window, he wants to look back. He wants to say no.
“And you!” When they reach for him he shoves them back. “You just—you ruined my life and you don’t even—you get parents who love you, family, who, who.” He rubs at his eyes, which really just makes the world more blurry. He can hardly make out Kris, the car. All that fog crawling back over. This time it’s smothering them too. “You could’ve gone to a mixed college. You could’ve—had everything—”
“And if I didn’t want to go to college with humans?” Kris asks.
“That’s your problem!” Ralsei cries. Four years out and he’s barely left Hometown. Four years out and he still wants to unblock his mother’s number, say sorry, sorry, I’m doing it all wrong, you were right, you were always right about me. Four years out and he can’t even watch Noelle take her stupid pills— “You aren’t ever going to be a monster!”
Four years out and he’s still never going to be more than a boy locked in his own room.
Silence hangs heavy in the car. Ralsei can taste it, with every jagged breath that manages to make it to his lungs. Can taste it in how still Kris is. Like all the fog’s been whisked away by some being far more powerful than either of them, and left him with nothing in the world but Kris in front of him, eyes wide, halfway to recoiling.
But they move first. With rough, deliberate motions, their eyes narrow, they sit straight-up in their seat, grip the steering wheel hard enough Ralsei’s half-convinced it’s going to break.
“K—Kris,” Ralsei tries. His chest is cold as ice. He wants to say, I didn’t mean it like that. He wants to say, you can’t change what you are. He wants to say, why did you ever break me out, if some part of me was just going to be trapped there forever?
“No,” Kris says, their voice level and robotic. “No. You’re right. I won’t ever be a monster.”
They press their foot to the gas. Ralsei turns away, slumps down in his seat, stares out the window, to the stars so cold and far away, the only thing he has to see by.
The silence is broken only by the road. Ever-roaring.
Kris is not thinking.
Nope. No thoughts happening. Staring straight ahead at the road. All that matters is that they’re matching the speed limit exactly. Just a nice, even sixty. Nothing else to fill their head with. Just the road. Just how fast their car is going. Just the sound of the only other person with them breathi—
…Just the car. Only the car.
They aren’t even sure if it’s worth it anymore. Like, why fucking bother, right? Around and around and around. They’ve always been repeating the same motions. This time there’s just slightly different scenery to accompany them.
Though not even that, right now. In these hills and fields, they could be coming up on Hometown. Turn off on the next exit, and it’s like these two weeks never happened.
They’re gripping the steering wheel so hard their fingers are actively aching. Somewhere around four they figured they were probably just going to be having jaw pain for the rest of their life, and that certainly still aches. Someone is breathing next to them. Not any easier to tune out.
…road. Right. Empty highways. Hills bordered by grass and pine trees to be clear-cut. Probably this was all some great forest once. Not that it was ever going to survive. Cut down and now it’s just a snakethrough road slicing across everything.
Scenic overlook, reads a sign they pass, white-on-green and illuminated by their car’s shitty headlights. Four miles ahead.
Four miles. They can make it another four miles. Just keep repeating the speed limit until it’s all that’s in their head. Sixty miles per hour. Four miles ‘til I stop. Well. Three and a half now. Maybe less. How long is a mile again? Did Ralsei see the sign too—
Kris sucks in a breath.
The scenic overlook is a pathetic scrap of a turn-off, a small curving bit of road that goes up a short hill, and right back around to the highway, with a single picnic table and enough cut-down pines for them to see through. Kris pulls up alongside the metal fence, kills the engine, unbuckles their seatbelt, and leaves the car.
Outside is cold, but not enough that they’re willing to get back inside. There really isn’t anywhere to sit, so they just hop the fence and sit down right in the grass on the other side, stretching out their legs. Not much to look at. Some more hills. Grass that looks almost blue in the light. Patches of trees here and there. The occasional light from tiny towns nestled in the valleys.
Basically, knockoff mountains. They pull up a fistful of grass and let it flutter across their legs. Glance up above them, to the faint twinkling stars. It’s cloudy enough they can only make out the occasional one, and they’ve never been good at finding constellations, anyways. No sounds but the wind and the rare sound of a car passing by, some other lonely traveler.
And then, after some time, a car door opening, and footsteps, and a person sitting next to them. Not so close they could touch—Ralsei is about an arm’s length away. But sitting in the grass same as them.
Kris presses their fingers together. Bends them back until it hurts.
“Kris—”
“It was my birth father.”
Out of the corner of their eye, and through their bangs, they see Ralsei jerk, cutting himself off. Kris huffs a bit, looks back to the sky. Not like they don’t know he’s right there. But at least the stars couldn’t give two shits about them.
“What…?” Ralsei’s voice trails off.
“The call. Back at that hike. The reason I’m out here.” They stop, swallow. They didn’t bother to grab their phone before leaving, but they can almost feel its cold weight in their hand. “I’ve…met my birth mother before. Mom wanted me to like, be able to connect with her if I ever wanted to. But neither of us did. It was mostly just really awkward.” And they were like, five when it happened, which is saying a lot. Though they think Mom still sends her the yearly holiday card. “But I never knew my birth father. It was a one-night stand sort of deal. But—I don’t know how, maybe he found her, but—a few weeks ago, he sent me a letter. Then two letters. Three. Then he got my number somehow. All…excited.” They splay their hands into the grass. “Like we were family.” Dig their nails into the dirt. “He called me his son.”
“Kris…” This time, they do look over at Ralsei. His fur’s fluffed up against the wind, and that sends a familiar ache through their chest. One more thing they’ll never have. “Kris, I didn’t…”
“Know?” They shrug. “No duh. I didn’t tell you. Didn’t want to tell you.” They drop their gaze back to the view, lift a hand like they might grab and crush one of the little towns within. “I don’t know what I am. I know I’m not a monster; I’m not actually six years old still. But—whatever my birth father wants? I’m not that, either. I’m…Kris Dreemurr. Not a monster. But I don’t feel like a human, either.”
Ralsei’s quiet. But it’s a better sort of quiet than the car was. And the grass is cool against them.
“Probably should’ve told you before dragging you along on this trip,” Kris says. “So.”
Ralsei hums. When Kris looks to him he’s watching the stars, so they follow his gaze, wonder at what shapes he might see, up there, what lines he might draw between the three disparate stars left uncovered by the clouds.
“I just…” Ralsei sighs, turning away. “I don’t understand how you do it.”
Kris tilts their head. “Do what?”
“You’re…” He’s still not looking at them, though they can’t really begrudge him for it. His hands are shaking where he’s knit them together. “You’re a human. There’s no getting around that. No matter what you feel, you—you never get to be what you want. And knowing that, how can you still—say you aren’t human?”
Kris blinks. Squints, a bit, like Ralsei might somehow come into more focus. Doesn’t work. They scoot a bit closer to him anyways. “Speaking from experience?”
Ralsei says nothing. Refuses to lift his head.
“It’s not…” They pause, consider. It’s not something I ever bother to explain. But Ralsei’s the first person who’s asked. “It’s not easy. Or anything. I don’t…I mean, I don’t know shit either, Ralsei. I’m just—trying to exist, even when nobody else bothers to respect it.” They flex their fingers. Entirely human fingers. Hasn’t ever stopped them from trying to use them as claws.
“I know I can’t make the world see me as a monster,” they say, quietly. Curl their fingers and rest them on their thigh. “But I can’t see myself as a human, either. It’s going to hurt either way. Might as well pick the path that I want more.”
They really did try, then. Maybe not after. Actually, for sure not after. But when they were all thinking about college—sure, they had no idea what they wanted to do. But they really did think…
They sigh, long and loud. “I’m sorry, Ralsei. I didn’t mean to drag you into another one of my messes. I mean—you were right, you know? In the car? You should be out being amazing, taking on the world. You’re a hell of a lot more than the family disappointment.”
This time, Ralsei does look their way. There’s a softness to his eyes they don’t know what to do about, so they drop their gaze back to the grasses below. Not that it does anything to get the mental image to go away.
“You aren’t a disappointment, Kris,” he says.
“Yes, I am.” They stretch their arms out in front of them, pull up their knees and rest their chin atop it. Not helping the jaw pain. But a bit warmer. “It’s okay. I don’t mind it.” Certainly nobody else would drag someone out into the middle of nowhere with them. They’d do the mature thing and go it alone. Not…hold someone back with them. “…we aren’t very good for each other, are we?”
“Not always.” Ralsei shifts so he’s entirely next to them, and they lean into his side. Warm as hell. Stupid goat fur. They don’t pull away. “I don’t mind this right now, though.”
“Sitting next to each other,” Kris can’t help the humor, gesturing out with a hand. “Not kissing. Yeah, we’re a real pair of romantics, us.”
Ralsei snorts, bumping his shoulder to theirs. “Do you want to kiss?”
“Hell no!” They bump back. “Tried it once and I’m over it. Not sure what Noelle and Susie get out of it.”
Ralsei laughs—like, actually laughs, shaking his whole body and everything. They—haven’t heard him laugh since they started this drive, have they? They…aren’t sure they’ve laughed like that, either. But he’s laughing now, and it drags a grin to their face.
Ralsei rubs at his eyes, smiling. “It’s overrated, isn’t it?”
“Quite a bit.” Kris sits up so they aren’t crushing Ralsei with all their weight. “I’m sorry about all the stuff I said in the car.”
“Yeah.” Ralsei rests his hand atop theirs. “I am, too.”
Nothing big and grand swells in Kris’s chest. Mostly their legs are sort of itchy from the grass. But it should be big, they think. Big like—life-changing. Like some great sigh of relief. But they’ve still got unanswered letters at home, unanswered calls in the car. The sky is dark and the few stars they could see are now gone, buried under layers of clouds. The view is grass and paltry patches of trees that won’t ever be as big and old as they once were.
They ask, “think this is the part where we break up?”
Ralsei snorts. “What, under these clouds? After this moment?”
“Yeah, yeah.” They flip their hand so they can squeeze his. “I don’t know. I just feel like that we should be, like, passionately making out or something. But I’ve literally never wanted to do something less in my life. It’s like we aren’t doing this right. Like we’ve never really done it right.”
“…it’s scary, isn’t it?” Ralsei squeezes their hand back, then lets it go, lifts his own up and traces out nonexistent shapes between hidden stars. “When there—when you don’t do it right, but you…sort of like it anyways?”
Kris lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I don’t care about the words.” Ralsei draws his hand back down. “Partner, relationship, whatever you call it. I just—you’re my best friend, Kris. I do really love you. But—I don’t know. Not in the right way. Not like that.”
Kris laughs, delight like butterflies in their chest, and isn’t that a strange feeling? They always sort of assumed Noelle was making it up, whenever she’d talk about her crushes to them. “Not like that,” they echo, and then, “you ever feel like—everyone else got a handbook you never did? Like they know all the rules, and you’re just playing catch-up? But the game is rigged against you.”
“Look at me, Kris,” Ralsei says, deadpan, “what do you think?”
“Ha, ha.” They stretch out and flop across his lap, rolling onto their back. They are definitely not small enough for this to be comfortable at all, but they wriggle until at least their spine doesn’t feel like it’s breaking in half. “I’m…really glad you get it. Because I never want to lose you, Ralsei, but sometimes I think I can’t—love, it’s just…”
“It’s…not very kind, is it?” Ralsei brushes their bangs out of their eyes.
They grab his hand between both of theirs. “I think it’s not much of anything at all.”
But it is nice, this right here. Ralsei’s always run hotter than them—probably the fur—and they like tracing the lines of his palm, where the fur parts. He’s got scars same as them. Across him like this they can feel the rise and fall of his breath, sort of hope he can feel theirs, too. When they free his hand he rests it in their hair, and they curl into that, eyes half-lidded. Maybe playing games on their phone instead of sleeping and then driving for like two hours was a bad idea, but it also brought them here, so. Clearly they were onto something.
They’ve nearly drifted off when Ralsei’s voice draws them back to the waking world, hushed and trembling somewhat. “Can I tell you something?”
“Duh,” Kris says, but with less snark than usual. “I spilled my heart to you. Wouldn’t bar you the opportunity.”
“I think…” Ralsei hesitates, as if the words are trapped in his throat, but then says, so quickly the sounds all blur together, “I think I’m a girl.”
“Awesome,” Kris says, after a split second to process. “Welcome to the trans club. I’ll steal Noelle’s extra estrogen for you.”
“Kris!!!” Ralsei flicks them on the forehead, and they cackle, rolling out of—of her lap, and onto hands and knees in the grass, grinning. “You can’t—that’s not—”
“What?” They sit back, stretching their arms out in front of them as they lie down. “She wouldn’t mind! She’s got an insanely good doctor, Ralsei, this lady rules. I actually begged Aunt Carol to get me an in with her, and I never beg to Aunt Carol.” They tilt their head. “Though she never could get me goat hrt. Medicine isn’t there yet.”
“I’m pretty sure I can’t just take someone else’s—I mean, surely it’s, they have to tailor it to…”
Kris sprawls out in the grass. Can’t bring themself to care about all the bit of various nature that will end up in their hair. Not with this, and they grin again, can’t get it to go away, really. “Deer, goat,” they wave a hand, “you’re like, basically cousins. Besides, my antidepressants are the same sort monsters take, so clearly there’s overlap.”
“Very different sorts of medication, Kris.” But Ralsei goes quiet.
Kris bumps a hand to Ralsei’s knee. “It’s really overwhelming, isn’t it?”
Ralsei says, “I can just…I could—I mean, if this is real—I can…change it. All the stuff I don’t…want, I can just…”
“You make your body a place you want to live in,” Kris says. “If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you known?”
Ralsei shrugs, taking their hand in her own, rubbing at their palm. “I don’t know. I...think I tried not to think about it. But I guess—seeing Noelle again. She just…gets to do that. She gets to—be herself. Why was I never able to…?”
“I mean, nothing’s stopping you. I already told you we got an in with Noelle’s doctor.”
“I think my mom would hate me,” Ralsei says.
Kris snorts, sitting back up, using just the one hand they currently have free. “Well,” they say, bumping their head to Ralsei’s chest, “I mean, that ship’s long sailed, hasn’t it?”
“Kris!” But there’s a delighted sort of offense to her tone, petting their hair. “…she really would, wouldn’t she? I guess I’ve always known that. Ever since I met you and you started filling my head with all these wild fantasies. All these—boxes, that I thought were infallible?” Ralsei looks at them, and Kris falters under the attention, ducking their head so the warmth isn’t so overwhelming. Ralsei just laughs a bit. “You broke them all.”
Kris flushes. “I do delight in breaking boxes.”
Ralsei says, “thank you.”
“For,” Kris fumbles the word, backing away. “For being a decent person?”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Ralsei teases, and that makes Kris laugh. She pats the ground next to her and they curl up there, back against her knee. Ralsei rests her arms on their back, and that’s a good sort of weight.
Soon, Kris knows, they’ll get up, and go home. Soon they’ll actually have to start trying again. Tear up some letters. Yell a lot about stupid monster colleges and stupid human bodies and keep applying anyways. Help Ralsei navigate this new brave thing she’s doing. Probably still steal like, one estrogen from Noelle. It’s for a good cause. She’ll understand.
“I mean thanks for…” Ralsei pauses for a moment. “I guess just…for making me go on this trip. For—offering. For not leaving me behind. Despite it all, I…I don’t think I ever would’ve found all this stuff out if I didn’t…get out. See something else.”
Kris hums. “Like a car off a cliff?”
“Yeah,” Ralsei says, “a car off a cliff. But we’re still in the air. There’s a chance we make it to the other side.”