I've been feeling very 'I need to write something or I'll explode' for the last few weeks, and I've managed it at last! And, hey, it's a Deltarune fic. Apparently I'm still capable of writing for things that aren't The Goes Wrong Show?

(This fic would be improved by the presence of Robert Grove, of course. Any fic could be improved by the presence of Robert Grove.)

Oh, wow, this is apparently the three hundredth work I've posted to my main AO3 account. How did that happen?


Title: Through the Cracks
Fandom: Deltarune
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1,400
Summary: Kris and Noelle end up somewhere else.
Warnings: Spoilers for chapter five of Deltarune, specifically the weird route.


You can’t breathe. There’s water in your throat and your nose and your eyes and—

Everything’s fading to white, and—

Noelle’s here, Noelle, Noelle, her hands still tight on yours. If you’re lucky, you’ll drown before you have to feel her grip loosen.

A moment later, you’re on your knees, hacking up lake water. You’re alive.

Are you alive? Is this being alive? It doesn’t feel right.

You can’t feel the water any more; you don’t even feel wet. You can’t feel the air against your skin. It was a warm evening a moment ago; you don’t have any sense of what temperature it is now. You can’t hear anything, except...

“I knew it,” a voice whispers.

It’s Noelle; it must be. It barely sounds like Noelle’s voice any more.

You look up.

There’s nothing here. Emptiness. It’s not black or white or grey; it’s just empty. You can’t find a way to describe it in your own head; there’s nothing to describe. When you stagger to your feet, it doesn’t feel like you’re standing on anything.

There’s no light, not that you can make sense of, but it’s not exactly dark either; you can see Noelle perfectly clearly, standing in front of you. Other than her, there’s nothing to see.

Maybe it would be better if you couldn’t see her. She’s smiling, grim and cold, and the sight of it would chill the air if temperature still existed here.

“I knew it,” Noelle says. “None of it’s real. That’s what you were trying to show me, isn’t it?” Her breathing sounds strange. “Nothing we do matters. Because none of it’s real.”

You’ve known for a long time that your world’s not real, exactly. You’ve had similar feelings yourself: what’s the point of any of it? It feels like you’re living and breathing; it’s always looked like you’re surrounded by living, breathing people. If they’re all just creations, though, illusions, characters putting on a performance for someone else’s entertainment, why do anything?

Right now, seeing what you’ve done to Noelle, it feels like your actions matter.

It hits you in that instant: there’s no one possessing your soul. You’ve slipped through the cracks in the world, and, whoever’s been dragging you down this path, they don’t seem to have followed you out here.

You should say something to Noelle, while you have the chance to speak as yourself.

What the hell are you supposed to say to her?

“Noelle.” Your voice comes out cracked and dry, almost a whisper. And then you’re not sure whether to say are you okay? or I’m sorry, and in the end you don’t say anything at all.

Noelle’s looking at you, strangely, sharply. “That doesn’t sound like you. That sounds like the old Kris.”

Noelle used to be the one person who’d prioritise you over everyone else; most people were more interested in Asriel, and Asriel himself was more interested in Dess. You could handle the idea of being second best to Susie, just about; Susie’s great. But apparently now you’re second best to another you, a counterfeit you, someone who stepped into your skin and became someone Noelle prefers. “Are you—”

“I need you to be that person, Kris,” Noelle says. “The person who got us here. The person who gave me the power to do anything.”

You spread your hands. “I’m just Kris.” And, after a moment, “Sorry.”

“No,” Noelle says.

“Elle,” you say, to make her name. It just comes out. It’s a habit from when you were kids; you used to say elle every time she said no, just because you knew it drove her nuts.

Noelle laughs, quietly, and just for an instant things almost feel normal.

And then she meets your eyes, in the midst of absolute emptiness, and nothing about the way that feels is normal. “Bring them back.”

“I can’t,” you say. “I don’t want to.”

“Bring them back.”

“They hurt you.”

“I need them. I don’t need the old Kris. I’m not a kid any more.”

You really, really wish you were anywhere else right now. The moment the thought’s crossed your mind, you try to bury it; it feels like something’s going to hear you and throw you right back into drowning in the lake.

Noelle raises her voice. “Come back! I’m here! I made it out!”

Are you ever going to be anywhere else again? Are you ever going to see the sky, your family, the Dark World, Susie? Is there a way back from here?

“Tell me you can hear me!” Noelle screams at the emptiness. “Tell me you’re still here! Tell me you can hear me!”

You reach out for her. Hesitate, your hand in mid-air. Maybe it’d be comforting, a hand on her back or her arm or her shoulder; maybe it’d at least remind her that you’re here. But she probably doesn’t want you to touch her, after everything you’ve put her through.

Or maybe she does, and that thought feels even worse.

“Noelle.” The way she snaps to look at you almost makes you take a step back. “I don’t think—”

She reaches out to touch your face, and you freeze. You search her eyes, your heart rattling like it’s trying to escape your ribcage: what is she doing? What happens next?

She used to be so easy to read.

Slowly, slowly, Noelle puts her hands around your throat.

It’s gentle, nothing more than the warmth of her fingers against your skin, the roughness of her fur. A light pressure, barely there. It’s hard to keep breathing, all the same.

You’re not making any move to back off, or to push her away. It’s a struggle to remember you can still move under your own power.

You’ve remembered it now, of course. Somehow, you’re still not moving.

“They wanted me to hurt people.” Noelle tilts her head. “You’re the only person left to hurt, aren’t you?”

She could kill you.

She isn’t killing you yet.

“Tell me to do it,” Noelle calls out. “If you want me to do it, tell me to do it. Talk to me!”

They may not have a grip on your soul any more, but that’s no guarantee they’re not still watching, no guarantee they don’t still have a way to communicate. Is it really just you and Noelle here? Or can someone else see this, somehow; can they see the wild light in Noelle’s eyes, can they feel how your breath is shaking?

You wince your eyes shut, listening for that instruction from someone else, somewhere else: Proceed.

After everything you’ve put Noelle through, you’d probably deserve it.

“Talk to me,” Noelle begs. “I can’t be here alone.”

And that hurts, maybe more than all the rest of it.

I’m here, you don’t say. You just stand there, Noelle’s hands around your neck, waiting to die or be spared. With your eyes closed, you can at least pretend that you’re dying somewhere real, that your body will be found, that your family and Susie won’t just be left wondering what happened to you.

Silence, and more silence. You’ve never known quietness like this before, here outside everything. All you can hear is breathing, yours and hers, harsh-edged and too fast.

Her hands drop from your throat at last. When you open your eyes, she’s crying.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “But you can’t – you can’t abandon me like that. You can’t just become someone else. I broke out because of you.” She gestures at your surroundings, the nothingness around you, the absolute absence of anything at all. “I don’t know what to do with this now.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. It’s almost hilarious, how inadequate it feels.

“I missed you,” Noelle says. “I missed the Kris I used to know. So much. But it’s too late for you to be that person again.”

You miss the Noelle you knew. Maybe you don’t have the right to. Someone else may have been involved, but it’s still your own voice and your own hands that broke her down and built her into this.

“Tell me what to do,” Noelle says. “Make me bleed. Do what you want to me.”

It makes you feel sick. You shake your head. And then you shake it again, harder, because you haven’t entirely managed to shake out the images that are creeping in.

“There’s nobody here,” Noelle says, pleading. “If you’re not them, you can become them. Can’t you?”

You hope, you desperately hope that she’s wrong.

You’re outside the world; you’re outside time. You guess you’ve got forever to find out.