Work Text:
He never asked to know.
He’d thought, at the very least, he could keep anyone else from knowing. From bearing that burden. But… he messed up.
She was upset now. He was right to try to keep it from her, because now she was upset because he let her run ahead and see it and now she was upset and he shouldn’t have said anything he should’ve kept everything bottled up how it used to be and-
And…
Was it bad that he sort of felt… better? Having someone else know? That he wasn’t alone in being scared? That maybe they’d actually manage to figure it out together? That Kris had hugged him, comforted him, when they really didn’t need to?
It wouldn’t change fate. But… they’d defeated a Titan together. Maybe things could work out, if they all worked together?
… He shouldn’t doubt the prophecy. Getting his hopes up would lead to devastation.
But the cushion was nice.
He normally slept on the floor, or not at all. And he was used to that. A change in the status quo didn’t exactly make it easier to sleep, but… it was really nice. It was nice.
He was a darkner. Was he allowed to have this?
Kris had said it was okay. Or… whoever was… inside them. So… so if both the lightners wanted him to be himself, then…
He was done smiling. He was so tired of smiling.
He’d been holding in his anxiety for almost the entire TV World. The Boards helped to distract him a bit, but… he knew Tenna would get slashed, and the anticipation had had him tense. Not to mention the unresolved argument with Susie that hadn’t really been sorted out until the end. And Toriel was in danger, and…
He was really scared.
He was still scared.
What if Susie didn’t want to be part of the team anymore? Knowing where the prophecy leads in the end?
Rationally, that was silly. Undyne and Toriel were in danger. She’d clearly said she wanted to help him and Kris. She’d come a long way and certainly wouldn’t just let the world end.
But… they might grow distant. They might not stay friends.
… If that was what she wanted he had no right to complain, though.
The couch cushion was small. He had to curl up to fit himself on it. Susie had brought it and a ladder by and then left without saying much aside from some flimsy reassurances. She looked scared.
It was his fault. He’d led them to start fulfilling their destinies. Maybe if they’d diverged the path sooner… or not diverged the path at all… or if he’d just not let her see it? If she didn’t know, if… if he stayed alone?
He didn’t want to be alone again. He was scared of being alone again.
But this wasn’t about him. He had to stop being so selfish. Always so selfish. The worst thing for a darkner to be.
Tomorrow was the festival. They’d be going without him. And maybe Kris would buy Susie an ice cream, and maybe they’d keep each other company. Maybe Susie would go on a date with the girl she was destined to fall for. Maybe they’d all be happy, without him, for a day. Maybe they’d go back on their word and leave him behind. But if they were happy, he should be happy for them.
His heart hurt. His stomach twisted in knots. He could still taste cake frosting and tea on his tongue.
Susie and Kris hadn’t liked when he’d thought this way about himself. But… stopping had just reinforced it for him. Maybe it felt good for a moment, but it just wound up making everything worse. Susie was upset now. Susie was upset, so he shouldn’t have told her anything, he should’ve shut up and stopped being selfish.
… his room was still too empty. The weird Ice-E statue was staring at him creepily. He needed to get out.
He shut the door behind himself with shaky hands and wiped tears from under his eyes. The fur still felt damp but there wasn’t much else he could do. He sort of missed having his hat to hide under.
He considered going to the café, or to Seam, or the bakery, but before he could even leave the castle he ran into Lancer in the hallway. Lancer took one look at him, smiled, and then frowned.
“Toothpaste Boy? You okay?” He asked, brows furrowed in concern or maybe confusion, but tongue poking out of his mouth in betrayal of a more serious expression. Ralsei forced a smile again but it felt weak.
That nickname had been predestined.
“I’m fine, Lancer. Don’t worry about me.” He pat him on the head, but Lancer didn’t seem convinced.
“Is Susie okay?” He asked, and Ralsei tried to stifle any reaction to the question but a bit of a grimace shone through. “When she dropped by earlier she sort of seemed off.”
“Well, it was a long day yesterday.” Ralsei said, which wasn’t a lie. Ralsei didn’t tend to lie. He just… left out the scarier parts. The parts that would hurt people. No one else needed to be hurt. He could take it. “And she didn’t get much sleep the night before, since she was in the TV World. She might just be tired.”
Lancer’s face scrunched up. “Are you tired?”
“Are you?”
“Nuh-uh-uh! Not what I asked.” Lancer wagged a finger disapprovingly. “And I slept while you were at church. So no!”
“I’m glad you got some rest. Don’t worry about us, okay? We’re alright!” Well… That part was a lie. It tasted bitter in his throat, words crawling their way past the frosting and tea.
“Hmmm….” Lancer hummed, hand on his chin. He snapped his fingers moments later. “Aha! I know what we need! A Lancer Fan Club slumber party! We did promise sleepovers where we tell each-other secrets, didn’t we?”
“I-”
“The secrets part is optional for now. As is the rest of the club. Let’s go to my room!”
Lancer dragged Ralsei by the hand to his room, sprinting over in a way that left Ralsei stumbling and panting for breath. Lancer opened the door and gestured for him to enter first, so he thanked him and went inside.
“Construction’s not still happening, is it?” He asked, the scent of grass filling the room in a way he wasn’t yet accustomed to. The holes had all been moved over to the corner, making the floor less cumbersome to navigate.
“Nope!” Lancer said, sliding into the room after him. “They’re on break for the night. But tomorrow it’s back to treasure hunting!” He hopped onto his bed with a small bounce as Ralsei went to sit on the grass.
The grass was softer than he’d expected. The texture was different to the old dusty castle bedroom he’d grown used to. He brushed his hands against the blades slowly.
“So!” Lancer said, kicking his feet. “How was the church world? I didn’t see any of it!”
What could he even say? His mind was still spinning. Wall to wall covered in prophecy, their lives spelled out before them in unpleasant detail as some of the worst parts played out. The Titan rising from the dark… “We met… a kind old man, who helped to guide us.”
“Old like TV guy?”
“Um, older I think.” Tenna was old, certainly, by technology’s standards, but the man hadn’t been a television. He hadn’t really been a traditional darkner at all. He was light turned dark, dust taken new form. By lightner standards, he’d been very old. Probably older than the Dreemurrs’ television.
Though admittedly, Ralsei’s sense of time had never quite been the best. Nothing eventful had ever really happened until the lightners’ arrival. Moments had blurred together into meaningless noise.
“He was strong, and smart.” Ralsei recounted. “You might’ve liked him. I think Susie really did.”
“Will he be coming here?”
“That. Might be difficult.” Really, bringing any of the recruits from that world would be difficult. Stealing from a church likely wouldn’t go unnoticed. But the old man in particular was… much less feasible. And more morally questionable. “If he can come here, I’ll be sure to introduce you.” He settled on, because that much felt safe to promise.
“Hoho! I’ll be sure to give him the Lancer Grand Tour!” Lancer declared. “It involves many holes and tunnels!”
“Um. If he’s okay with it, I suppose.” Ralsei had sort of thought the holes he’d been digging were exclusively within the castle itself, but he hadn’t exactly established that as a rule. If there were holes and tunnels in town already, he hadn’t noticed yet. He hoped they weren’t causing problems. He was too tired to be a prince right now, so town responsibilities would have to wait for the moment.
“What about Susie? And Kris? Will they be back soon?”
He wished he knew. The voice scratching at the back of his head insisted they’d never be back. He tried not to pull at his ears or run his hands through his scarf and instead ended up yanking out some freshly grown blades of grass. It was so hard to keep smiling. He was so tired of smiling.
“There’s a festival in the Light World tomorrow, so I think they’ll be busy most of the day.” He said, aiming for a neutral tone of voice.
“Oooo! Sounds fun!” Lancer said, bouncing in place in excitement. “We should have one of those!”
“Huh?”
“A festival! Here in Castle Town! If we can’t go to theirs, we should have our own!”
Oh. That… wasn’t a bad idea. But…
But he’d have to plan it. And find time to set it up. The Addisons had experience with carnival games, and there were plenty of Darkners who knew how to make food, but he’d need to coordinate with them all. And of course they’d need to build the games and stands and that might take some time and he’d be busy with the prophecy before too long. Was there even much room to set up? Castle Town was still quite small.
And… they didn’t deserve it. They were darkners. There was no point in having a festival just for them.
“I don’t know. Maybe someday.” He said, because a ‘no’ would be too disappointing and a ‘yes’ would be a promise he couldn’t keep.
Lancer’s face scrunched up. “You’re doing it again.”
“Huh?” Ralsei startled.
“I’m a smart boy. I can tell when you’re lying.” Lancer said proudly, pointing an accusing finger. “I’m no detective, but I think something bad happened and you’re avoiding talking about it.”
Ralsei chewed at his lip.
“Digging a deeper hole is fun until you realize you don’t have a way back out.” Lancer said, in a stunning and uncharacteristic show of figurative language. “If you don’t tell anyone, the bad feelings are just gonna build up until you feel so bad it spills out and makes a mess.”
“Who do you talk to?” Ralsei asked, in part because it was easier to focus on Lancer right now than himself. “When you feel bad?”
“I used to talk to Lesser Dad, I guess.” He shrugged. “If you want to talk to him, I think he’s in Girldad’s room right now. Or maybe her neighbours’?”
“No, no, that’s alright.” He didn’t really want to talk to anyone about this. Certainly not Rouxls or Queen. Maybe someone who already knew the prophecy might be okay? Seam would probably dismiss it all as unimportant or inevitable. Swatch might be more understanding, but he might also be more busy running the cat café. Lancer was right that he should probably talk to someone , talking to Susie and Kris had helped him feel better before, but it had also sort of caused this problem in the first place and…
He needed to stop thinking about himself. Always so selfish.
“So, why’d you want to have a sleepover?” Ralsei asked, picking an easier topic once more.
“I’ve always wanted a sleepover!” Lancer said. “It sounded like a fun friend activity! And I didn’t have friends before. I had asked some of the guys to sleepover before but they always said no, and my dads wouldn’t either.”
“Hm.” Ralsei nodded. “But wouldn’t you rather do this with Susie? Or- or even Kris? Maybe Queen?”
“Well sure but I can do that later. You were there.” He laid down on his bed. “And you were sad, and your room doesn’t have a good place to sleep, so.”
“Wh- I- ?!” Ralsei sputtered. “When?? Did you see my room??”
“When you were at church.”
“I thought? You were sleeping?”
“I thought we were both lying.”
That. Okay. That was really embarrassing! Maybe he should’ve locked the door or something. Not that he had much to hide there, but… it just! Wasn’t very presentable! The statue didn’t really improve things, either.
“I-I wasn’t lying.” He said, because he wasn’t! He wasn’t lying. They’d had a long day, but they were okay. They had to be okay.
“I wasn’t really either! I took a nap. But I didn’t want to say I was in your room because I thought you might get mad.” Lancer admitted with a nervous frown. “You aren’t mad, are you?”
“No!” Ralsei rushed to say. “No, it’s not a problem!”
“Okay! Phew!” Lancer laid down on the bed. “King Dad used to get mad if I went in his room without asking.”
Ralsei wondered, for a moment, if it was better to have a dad that got mad at him or to not have a dad at all. Lancer seemed happier than him, but maybe it wasn’t his place to compare like that. There wasn’t much point in the line of thought anyway. And thinking about having a dad wasn’t making him feel better.
He did wonder, though, if things would have been different for him had someone else been there for him during his time waiting for the heroes. If he’d had a friend to pass that time with. If he’d never had to be alone.
Maybe… it was worth asking. “Do you ever feel lonely?”
Lancer tilted his head to see him better. “Not anymore! Because I have you guys. And the town’s starting to fill up!”
It was. Ralsei wasn’t sure it was helping him, though. It mostly just added more responsibilities to his plate, and overwhelmed him with crowds and noise. It didn’t help as much with the loneliness as he’d hoped it might. Maybe he just hadn’t been talking to people enough. Maybe he had to try harder. Or maybe he was just incapable of feeling fulfilled without the lightners.
“What about before?” He asked, not making eye contact.
“Well I didn’t have friends before. Um. I had the guys, and my dads. But it wasn’t the same, I guess.”
Right. It wasn’t the same.
Nothing was the same. The lightners changed everything.
“Have you been lonely?” Lancer asked, and Ralsei flinched.
“Not- no! No, it’s. I’m fine! Don’t worry about me.” He smiled, smiled, smiled. His cheeks hurt. Bitter lies overpowered any leftover sweet taste.
It was quiet for a moment. He was being weird, probably, and Lancer didn’t know how to respond. Maybe Lancer knew he was lying again. Ralsei looked down at the grass and realized the blue colour was starting to stain his fur and clothes a little. Another mess to clean, but one of his own so it didn’t matter right now.
“Do you think Susie’s been lonely?”
“Huh?” Ralsei looked up to meet Lancer’s eyes.
“She hadn’t had friends before either, right?” Lancer asked, pulling lightly on the ends of his mittens. “And two of her friends are us, so… she can’t see us all the time.”
“She has Kris, at least.” Ralsei tried. But he knew, he knew, he knew he and Lancer weren’t good enough and Kris couldn’t always be there. She deserved more real friends. She deserved better than him.
“Why doesn’t she have more friends? She’s so cool.” Lancer complained.
Ralsei often wondered how much of life was predestined. If things outside the prophecy were fated to happen as well, somehow. If, no matter what people did, their lives just had to turn out a certain way.
It wasn’t Susie’s fault she was alone. Maybe it was no one’s fault, just the way life had to play out. He didn’t like that. He wished good things would happen to good people more often. He wished Susie had had real friends, hadn’t been alone.
He wished he hadn’t been alone.
“She has us, now.” Ralsei said. “And she’ll make more friends, someday.”
It felt a little like he was optimistically talking about himself. He shut that thought away.