Susie hastily made her way down the street, the afternoon sunlight barely getting enough time to warm her scales up before she burst into the busy diner and lunged at Noelle, masterfully weaving through all the other monsters in the building. Berdly barely managed to duck out of the way when the lizard missile successfully reached the red cushion next to the window.
She quickly flipped herself right side up and chomped down on her burger, waiting until the last drop of mustard had been licked off before she spoke. "So, uh. What'd I miss?"
While Noelle weighed rewarding this behavior against the overwhelming desire to kiss her giant clumsy girlfriend, Berdly slowly rose from under the table, adjusting his glasses after successfully dodging the purple cannonball. "Nothing of note. Our orders had just arrived when Noelle thought you needed some...." The bluebird looked at the plastic trays before them, with a sizeable chunk bitten out of the stack of napkins next to Susie. "...encouragement. You landed just in time for the drinks."
Noelle joined in, trying her best not to laugh: "Yeah! And to see me strangle Berdly for ruining my antlers, fwahahaha!"
Somehow, the threat felt genuine. "I-I told you, the lipstick wasn't mine! I don't even have lips!" But if he had them, he'd surely be pouting right now.
Susie grabbed a toothpick from the tray, fishing out bits of napkin flesh from between her teeth, "Yeah, what'd you even need them for, you sure as hell aren't kissing anybody."
Berdly paused, pushing his eyebrow up and putting on a fake, cheeky smile. "You don't need lips to be a great kisser, Susan~"
While Susie burst out in roaring laughter, Noelle put her hand up to her face, quietly wheezing: "Yeah??? Right, who told you that? Did'ja practice on someone???"
Berdly's eyelashes fluttered. He dramatically put his hand onto his chest, turning away, blushing. "Rule #3 of the Gamer Commune, Noelle. We don't snitch on each other."
Noelle gasped for air, almost hitting the table with her head from the sheer force behind her high pitched laughter. Susie suddenly recalled the one time Berdly and Kris showed up high to class, holding hands. If she remembered it right, Berdly got sick for a whole week afterwards. Something about human flu. "Come on dude, you're gonna make her pass out—" Susie gently put her hand on Noelle's head, keeping it from falling down. It took several more seconds of hysterical laughter for Noelle to finally calm down, wiping tears from her face as she imagined a duck making out with a dog.
Berdly crossed his wings, trying to steer the conversation away from the current embarrassing topic. "So, Susan. Did Kris not want to join us? You went to see them at the school, right?"
Susie subtly let her shoulders fall down. "Nah, just... Kris wasn't there. Haven't seen them since the party. I kinda thought you guys found them on the way here." Trying to play it off, she raised her hands and clasped them behind her head, leaning back. "I'm sure they're fine. Probably just hungover."
"From what?" Noelle butted in, putting her arms on the table, "I haven't seen them take a single drop." She lowered her eyes, looking at her two remaining french fries, one of those freakishly long ones, and a stubby, sharp one next to it. "Come to think of it, I don't remember them having any pizza, or anything else, really."
Berdly shrugged, "Me neither. Not to downplay your observations skills, Noelle, but you two were quite busy for most of the night." He made a gesture of holding two invisible dolls, moving his hands back and forth while making kissing sounds, or at least his best beaked approximation of them.
He felt a paper straw being hurled at his head with surprising force by none other but Susie. She gritted her teeth, quietly screaming. "Shut up, dumbass!!!!" Berdly tried to laugh it off, quickly stopping his charade, when Noelle suddenly got quiet.
"Maybe we should call Kris," she crossed her arms on the table, looking out the window at a couple of familiar employees from the pizzeria sharing a cigarette, "I'm worried for them, they didn't look well last time I saw them." She recalled their conversation, the jokes, Kris' quiet barking that Noelle tried to shush. If it was so serene then, why did she still feel this dread sprouting out of her chest?
Susie leaned down to look at the deer, worried at the sudden change of tone, and how grim Noelle sounded. "How... did they look?"
"I don't know! It's hard to get a read on them sometimes." She turned away from Susie and Berdly, herself not sure where this sudden panic came from. "It's like one moment they're fine, and the next they're staring me down like I... I don't know."
