Susie grins up at the tent. Weird, maybe, to feel so proud over such a small thing—but she’s never [i]been camping, you know? At least, not for real. She’s always wanted to go. And now, here she is, staring up at a tent that she helped set up—her and her BFF Kris.

The human is busying themself around the campsite: setting up a firepit, making sure that their food’s secure. Kris is the more familiar of the two of them when it comes to camping, having gone with their brother and dad when they were younger. And when Susie had expressed an interest in going to them one day…

“I can take you,” they’d said with a nod.

Susie’d been taken aback. “Wha—r, really?”

They’d nodded again. “Mhmmm. Been plenty of times.”

Of course, life just had to get in the way; more adventures in the Dark World, not to mention school and the like. But graduation was finally behind them, as were both their eighteenth birthdays. The two of them deserve a break, right? A little time out, just friends hanging out and being bros.

The wind stirs the leaves above, the sound crinkly and inviting. Susie grins even more. And now, here they are. Actually camping.

It’s a bit colder than she’d expected, but that’s actually kind of rad in its own way. Like, it makes it feel real, y’know? Not some fake town-camping where there’s always a building to shelter in if the cold nips. This is real outdoors, the kind of cold you can smell. Her scales dance with excitement.

A distant snap resounds through the small glade Kris had picked as their campsite; the human’s managed to cajole a fire to life. They stand, face blank, and pocket the flint and tinder smoothly. Susie knows that Asgore or Asriel wouldn’t have to rely on that; they’d use fire magic instead. But Kris knows how to make do, and though it’s obvious that even now they hate their lack of magic, they never complain about it to Susie.

That’s just one thing Susie admires about them.

Susie takes the initiative to roll up a dry log to serve as an impromptu bench, settling it a few feet from the fire. She pats the wood and Kris sits next to her.

“Fuckin’ awesome, bro,” Susie exclaims, elbowing them excitedly. “A tent, a campfire… this is a real campout, right!”

Kris shakes their head. “Not yet.”

“H-huh?”

“We still need…” They pull out a plastic bag filled with pillowy white softness. “These.”

“Oh hell yeah! Marshmallows!”

Kris grabs two skewers, hands one to Susie, and then tears open the bag, affixing the mallow to the end of their skewer. Surrendering the bag to Susie, they hold the treat out to the fire.

“Trick is to keep it a few inches away from the flames and turn evenly,” they say. It’s as long a continuous sentence as Susie’s ever heard from them. “You want it to be golden brown, with a kinda bubbly exterior. The inside’ll be gooey and…”

They trail off, looking sideways, and Susie stares back guiltily. Her cheeks are bulging, she’s stuffed at least half the bag in her face. The skewer lies in the dirt, forgotten.

She swallows, eyes watering as the food threatens to stick in her gullet. “I… uh…”

But Kris doesn’t mind. In fact, they smile, and laugh, and Susie laughs back, socking them good-naturedly in the shoulder as if they were the one to eat all the snacks. The fire snaps merrily, a little feather of smoke dancing skyward.

“Y’know, Kris, you’re… my best friend,” Susie says after a moment. “Like, not to get sappy, but. Um. Yeah…”

Kris plucks the mallow off their skewer, inspects it, nods approval, and eats it in one gulp. When they speak next, their words are sticky—laced with sugary goodness.

“Thanks,” they reply. “You’re my best friend too, Susie.”

The fire snaps again and the wind stirs the autumn leaves, blowing a few off the trees. Above them, the sky is turning purple as twilight approaches. Susie doesn’t know what to say. It’s weird… this is so simple, and yet it might just be the happiest she’s ever been.

---

Night comes quietly on the two of them out in the woods. Susie stares skyward with a wide smile. “Wow…” she says.

In school, like. They always talked about light pollution, but she. She’d never thought that a little burgh like Hometown would have to worry about it. That shit was for like, big cities. Right?

But.

The thing is.

The sky out here.

Susie is laying a few paces away from the fire, heedless of the fact that her back is in the dirt. Laundry is tomorrow’s problem. Today, all she cares about are the stars.

Susie thought she knew the night sky. A big pool of blackness, a few twinkling jewels inside. Simple, right? But nah. Not like this. There are so many stars, they’re everywhere… spread out, their light spooling into one another. They look like fireflies dancing on the surface of an inky lake.

“Are they… always there?” she whispers under her breath. She reaches up one clawed hand as if to grab them, grasp them tight. If she can’t have them for real, at least she’ll always have this memory. “Always there and we just, we just can’t, like, see them?”

“Yeah.” Kris settles in next to her, also looking skyward. The fire is dying down slightly, the flames smaller, the embers filling the firepit with a color like cherry soda. “One time, when I was little, I got upset that I didn’t have magic. So my dad took me camping.” They breathe in through their nose. “My dad said that in old days, humans used all their magic to make the night sky shine with life. So that nighttimes weren’t scary anymore. He said if I ever felt sad, I should go out and look at the stars, because those were my magic.”

Silence falls between the two of them, and Susie doesn’t know what to say. It’s the first time Kris has ever really talked about their lack of magic—and how it bothers them.

“Hey,” she says, fumbling the words. Fuck. She’s not good at stuff like this. If only Ralsei was here… hell, even Lancer. Well, she’ll have to do the best she can. “You know, um. I never… thought less of you about, like, magic, or…”

Kris lays a hand on her arm and she almost jumps. (Almost.)

“I know,” they say levelly. They trail off. Less is more, for them.

But, uh. They leave. Their hand. On her arm?

Susie’s heart starts to hammer. She’s… she’s a complicated girl. (No matter what Ms. Alphys thinks.) Kris is a friend. A good friend. One of the first people to really treat her kindly, to respect her. She feels like her life is happier with them in it… like she’s a better person because of them.

She loves them.

But there’s this thing, like. There’s different kinds of love. There’s love for friends, and then there’s… romantic, love…

She swallows. She would be lying if she insisted she hadn’t had thoughts about Kris from time to time. If she said there weren’t feelings, simmering… But she. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Act on them. Because Kris is her friend. Because you don’t do that to friends unless you’re sure.

Because when you’re like Susie, and you’ve only ever had one real friend… That’s not something you want to sabotage.

One kind of love is as good as another, right?

But fuck. Kris’s hand is. Still on her arm…

The fire pops. The smoke dances. The stars shine down from above.

She swallows. “Hey Kris, your hand…”

They withdraw as if bitten. “Ah, sorry. I—”

“No, no! It’s okay! I just, uh, what was… I mean to say…”

“I just haven’t really felt scales like those before,” Kris admits. “Got lost in the touch. Felt… nice.”

Ah-ha. Just a sensory thing. Cool, cool. Susie can ride with that. That’s no big deal. Yeah, makes sense. Kris is a human and their family are goat… creatures. (Right?) Scales are probably new and interesting.

“Oh yeah, bet. Heh, if you wanted to, you can feel them again.”

They angle their head towards her. “Are you… sure?”

“Hell yeah!”

With her assent, Kris returns their touch to Susie’s arm, and the dragonling feels the warmth of their touch again. Yeah, this is no trouble. Just friends being bros, touching each other. Wait, fuck, that sounded wrong. Just friends being bros, exploring one another’s… fuck! Every time!

But wait, only Kris is exploring. For this to be real friendship moment, she’s gotta do it back, right?

She reaches a hand for them. “Um, can I…?”

They nod, and she touches her hand to their brow. Human skin was soft and supple, with a weird feeling underlying it. (Probably… what was it they’d talked about in biology class… oils? Human skin had oils to keep it healthy, right?) Moving gently, her hands brush up to her friend’s hair. The brown hair smells faintly of apples, even out here in the wilderness. To be honest, it’s kinda nice… She coils a strand around her finger. Heh. Yeah. Hella bro moment right here.

As Susie’s hand drifts upward, Kris’s drifts south. Their fingers trail down her arms, glide over her smooth scales. The touch is gentle. Soft. When they reach her hand, they hesitate for a moment—and then they sunk their palm into hers, fingers interlocking, hands clasping tight, warmth spreading between them.

Susie’s breath catches. Yeah, this was… this was just… friend stuff. Right? Bros held hands and trailed fingers over one another all the time, yeah, super normal. She wasn’t, like. Endangering her friendship with Kris or anything. Right? Right. Yeah.

Except, well, Kris shifts, and she shifts too (to look at them) and their eyes touch. Kris is blushing, which is decidedly un-bro-like of them. And fuck, that warmth in Susie’s cheeks—is she blushing too? Nah, gotta be the campfire. Legit.

The fire snaps, the only sound for long seconds. Susie finally swallows. “Um.”