Scenic Our House - grubbin (2024)

Chapter Text

Waking up alone in the closet isn’t as hard the second time.

It feels different than the gray-toned cavernous darkness of the Cave and different than the crinkling blankets of powdered snow you sometimes slept in just to feel something. Instead, the world cradles you, warm and sepia-toned, and light from the cracked door of the closet seeps in quietly, curling over your skull to caress your body like a monster in mourning.

You wake so, achingly slowly.

You are down to your turtleneck and snow-pants, boots discarded for the time being. You discover why the door is slightly open when you shuffle over to investigate; someone had left a pile of clothes and a note written in all-caps. You read it in the dim light coming from Outside the Closet.

HELLO NEW FRIEND SNOWY! IT IS I, THE GREAT CLEMENTINE!

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOU NEED CLOTHES! I HOPE THESE WILL SUFFICE! I AM NOT LAZY ENOUGH FOR HOODIES, SO THESE WILL SUIT YOU BETTER. YOU CAN KEEP THEM! LET’S HANG OUT SOON!

YOUR COOL FRIEND,

CLEM

Strangely endeared, you rifle through the neatly-folded stack and find two large hoodies that look like they’ve never been worn, three sets of mismatched socks, and a pair of dark jeans that will likely be too long on you. Regardless, you change into them, rolling up the ends to tuck into your snow boots.

The hoodie is large and soft, but you still feel bare; after a moment’s deliberation, you shrug on your snowcoat and wrap your scarf around your neck.

Only then do you venture Outside the Closet, pausing to stick up the message from ‘The Great Clementine’ next to Classic’s letter on the closet wall. You use some plain tape you’d snagged from downstairs. The room looks much better with all these ridiculous notes and even more ridiculous font choices.

You hope you get more. You like looking at them as you fall asleep; they make you laugh.

They also remind you you’re Somewhere Else.

When you emerge, hesitantly, into Blue and Clem’s room (“It’s Like A Super-Long Sleepover!”) you find it strangely empty. There are no other notes from Blue and Clem, so you assume they are out doing something, like work. They must afford this mansion somehow.

You leave their room. The floorboards barely creak beneath your light steps as you step out into the foyer and then start down the curling staircase.

You’d thought the house empty, so it startles you to find Edge sitting alone in the living room.

You stare at him for a stunted moment, not quite registering. He’s wearing the same strange uniform as yesterday, but tied around his neck, alongside his blood-red scarf, is a purple apron that reads: GET THE HELL OUT OF MY KITCHEN.

“ONE HOUR AND FIFTY MINUTES.” Edge erupts.

You stand there frozen in place; he crosses his legs as he sits primly in the plush leather lounge chair. His silly apron crinkles with the movement. “ONE HOUR, AND FIFTY MINUTES. That Is How Long I Have Been Waiting For You To Drag Your MISERABLE Coccyx Downstairs.”

Edge uncrosses his legs, stands, and straightens to his full height, glaring down at you over his nasal ridge. The apron only reaches his hipbones and looks undoubtedly obnoxious. “Do You Think You Can Waste My Time? I Am The Great And Terrible Edge. My Time Is Precious. And You Have Wasted One Hour And Fifty Minutes Of It.”

“..Sorry?” you apologize, but it sounds too much like a question; you watch Edge visibly bristle and it only confuses you more. “I didn’t realize you were waiting, bud. I would’ve come down quicker if—”

“CALL ME ‘BUD’ ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL TEAR YOUR SKULL FROM YOUR SHOULDERS.”

He looms over you, something charged and tingling in the air. You stare up at him with wide, empty eye-sockets, when you realize if you don’t say something, well—he really might try to kill you.

“Uh. Great and Terrible Edge?”

‘Great and Terrible’ Edge pauses at the sound of your voice, narrowing his eye-sockets.

“..I apologize for making you wait.” The apology is about as genuine as you can make it, running on fumes as you are. “It won’t happen again.” Probably.

Edge huffs, seeming placated. Great. You’d like to keep your skull on your shoulders—humans are one thing, but you’re not sure how you’ll hold up in a fight against another monster and you’re not trying to find out.

“As Long As You Understand.” He huffs moodily, crossing his arms like an impatient child. Your eyes trail once again to the ridiculous message on his apron.

You feel like you should be getting mad about this, but you can’t find it in you to care. You let it all sink away as you always do and stare distantly toward the curtain-covered windows.

You wonder if this tour will include going Outside. It’s been too long since you’ve seen the sun. The dripping cave of your memories trickles through your mind; it feels peaceful yet mournful.

“What Are You Doing?”

Edge frowns at you; he’d made it halfway to the kitchen in your distraction. “Follow Me, You Pathetic Whelp.”

With a small sigh, you shuffle forward and dutifully follow.

Edge gives you a tour similar to Blue’s, with flippant comments along the lines of: “Lay Your Hands On My Door Handle And I Will Sauté You Alive,” and “Step One Foot Into The Basem*nt And I Will Refuse To Feed You For Two Weeks.” Which all sounds pretty bad, so you’re understandably stressed by the end of it.

The house continues to astonish you with its oddities. There’s a huge portion of the outer hall that has been hastily rebuilt as though it was recently blown to pieces, which does not improve your impression of this place. You duck under a pipe of homemade scaffolding where a pair of shoes have been tied up by their laces, loose and dangling. For some unknown reason, the shoes are covered in sticky notes.

The floorboards creak worriedly; as you cross into the foyer you breathe a sigh of relief. On your way through, you note a string of diplomas and trophies hung about or propped on poorly-built shelving.

You run your hand along the edge of the wood and your mitten catches flecks of dust. There are quite a few paintings of bones and images of what seem to be varying monsters, a few of which you faintly recognize. You spot one photo of what looks to be a small human child; it’s by far the most normal thing you’ve seen in this house.

Edge does not explain any of the photos nor awards lining the walls. Instead, he leads you to the kitchen and continues rambling on as though he’s running his own informative podcast or grisly, foreboding prison tour.

“The House Rules Are Simple,” Edge explains to you, and by ‘simple’ he means the house rules are basically a bunch of thinly-veiled threats. “Follow Them And You Will Be Much Better Off, I Assure You.”

You’re at your last stop, the kitchen. Among the perfectly polished countertops and scattered, sparkling dinner plates you spot a coffee machine. You step slowly forward.

Edge, assuming you’re going for the fridge, says, “I Wouldn’t Take Anything From The Fridge, If I Were You. Mars Will Likely Kill You, And I Will Not Stop Him.”

He then follows your gaze to the coffee machine. “That Is Black’s, And He Will Also Kill You.” Edge grins manically, his jagged facial scar curling with the motion. “It Will Be Fun To Watch.”

You send the coffee machine one last mournful glance and stay silent, expression buried in your scarf. One of the dish towels hanging over the washer has a whisk printed on it and a line of text that reads: Don’t be afraid to take ‘whisks.’

You stare at it dully and notice the skeletons had chosen storage containers that have stupid one-liners on them or obnoxious, obvious labels. You’re a fan of the occasional joke, but this is a little too much.

“You Have Been taking This Rather Well, I Must Commend You.” Edge muses. “Black And Rus Were At Our Throats For A Long Time, But You Have Been..Sloppy, But Polite.”

Salt, reads a salt shaker on the counter.

Edge taps at his chin, thinking, “..Docile? I Suppose That Is The Word. Take The Compliment, For I Am Terrible And Esteemed And Consistently Correct About These Matters.”

The word ‘docile’ sparks something in you you’d thought you’d lost back in the woods. You tug down your scarf and grin at him, and he pauses at the sight of your too-sharp teeth.

“So,” Your voice rumbles, charged, and you watch Edge tense as you let loose a subtle spark of chilling magic, grinning even wider. “When can I go outside?”

“Do Not Even Think Of Leaving The House.” Edge states, voice heavy as lead. “We Have Not Deemed You Safe To Go Outside Yet.”

‘You’ safe. As though you are the threat. To what? To whom? You raise a brow bone at him and decide to test the waters. “And if I go anyway?”

Edge’s eyes narrow. “You Will Not Make It So Far As The Front Porch.”

“Noted.” So he’ll kill you, then. Just like if you do anything in this stars-forsaken house.

Good. Great! You’re glad to know you’re trapped inside this place like a feral house cat, not even allowed to use the oven or make your own food. You even have to be escorted to the basem*nt laundry room like a child so you don’t try to break the ‘machine’ that so lovingly brought you here. What is it you call this? Being a prisoner in your own home?

Your eyes trail to the plaque reading Home Sweet Bone above the kitchen cabinets. This isn’t home, though. Home is long gone. Home is a place you can’t even remember.

Edge must see the vitriol simmering behind your casual smile because he grins back, sharp-toothed and challenging. “Do You Disagree With My Rules, Snowy?”

“Of course not.” You say mildly, slouching to tuck your hands into your pockets. “You’re the boss, Bossman.”

“...Docile,” He repeats smugly, and you grin even wider.

After Edge describes all the ways you could brutally die, all the ways he would’ve killed you in the universe he came from, and then offhandedly mentions that Mars and Jupiter ate humans, he shoves you into Rus’ room.

At your baffled expression he proclaims he is too busy to be your babysitter as he is both training to be a chef and working three line cook jobs. You hold a begrudging respect for him because of this new information, but it doesn’t make him any less of an asshole.

And now, at least, his stupid apron makes sense.

(“I Must Attend My Culinary Classes,” He’d said, gesturing to Rus, who’d been typing furiously on his computer and looking less than pleased about the whole idea. “Rus Will Be Your Keeper For Now.”)

And so, apparent programer-for-hire Rus, who works from home and ‘Has Nothing Better To Do,’ becomes your jailer.

His room is..cozy. You suppose that’s the word. There’s clutter everywhere, crumpled papers on the floor, various posters of that strange robot from the television lining the walls, and a bookshelf full of titles you can’t make out.

You note a sock on the floor with another odd stack of sticky-notes on it but you’re not close enough to read those either.

Rus has not moved since you’d been forced into his room, nor has he acknowledged your presence. Instead he types away at his laptop, occasionally mumbling to himself, blankets on his unmade bed circled around him in a plush, fluffy nest.

You don’t feel comfortable sitting down without him saying so, so you linger awkwardly in front of the closed door, sending careful glances to the closed blinds over the window, trying not to stare. He hadn’t reacted well to your gaze last time.

After a long moment you say something out of pure desperation. “Can I..go get something for breakfast?”

“No,” is his immediate response. The typing never stops.

You shuffle in place. Bury your hands in your coat pockets. Watch the digital alarm clock on his desk that has a visible film of dust covering its buttons. Rus likely never uses it.

12:02PM

Well. Forget about breakfast, you’re likely not getting lunch, either.

The lightheaded feeling has returned again and your hands are losing feeling in your pockets. You feel a buzzing numbness, a telltale sign of starvation. Yet you say nothing else—you bet Rus won’t react well to any sort of noise.

He continues typing away and occasionally mutters to himself. Specks of dust, flickering and glittering like snowflakes, appear in a small strip of light from behind the curtain. You watch them drift and quiver until they float to make their home on the carpeted floor.

“Jus’—sit down or somethin,’” Rus grunts. Your eyes zero in on his disgruntled expression, but he still won’t look up from his computer screen. “You’re botherin’ me.”

Hesitantly, you lower yourself down to the carpeted floor.

“The hell are you doin?’” He intones incredulously, finally looking up to stare at you. “There’s a chair right there.”

He jerks his skull toward a bean bag, sagging listlessly in the corner of the room. Whoever sat in it last had left a divot twice your size, its purple fuzz crinkling into the crater as though it’s collapsing in on itself. After a moment you stand slowly, cross the room, and lower yourself into it with painstaking care.

Rus seems content to ignore you as you sink lower and lower into the large, fuzzy purple sack.

Thus begins your mutual reluctant coexistence.

Edge had loved to fill the room with his own voice, but Rus, by comparison, is conversational as a rock—if one isn’t constantly pushing it around. But the beanbag feels as fluffy as a cloud and watching the lint flutter and drift to the floor is rather soothing, so soon you find yourself nodding off, the gentle muttering and typing a comforting background noise.

You hope he doesn’t mind you falling asleep.

When you wake the alarm clock reads 4:39PM and Rus hasn’t moved, plucking endlessly at his keyboard. The house is notably noisier, clanks and clattering and muffled voices reverberating up from downstairs, but your limbs feel heavy as lead and you don’t want to get up. Even the thought is a herculean effort.

Instead, you stare at the poster above Rus’ head that displays a sentient robot-calculator pointing to blocky, glitchy letters that readMETTATON.

It makes no sense to you, but it’s cool to look at.

A tinny ringing bounces around in your skull and you pull one of your mittened hands from your pockets, watching it and willing it to move. It does—barely.

4:40PM. Will you get dinner soon?

“..Huh.” Rus mutters, “Thought you’d dusted.”

You blink at him, the motion slow and deliberate. ‘Dusted,’ you’ve remembered, is another word for ‘dead.’

“You’ve bean lookin’ a little pale there, bud.” He comments offhandedly, his gruff voice achingly loud against your pulsing migraine. You have no idea what he’s talking about before you’d realized he’d made a pun about his stupid bean bag. “Here.”

He throws something at you across the room and you lift your hand to catch it in your palm, but your fingers can’t close around it so it drops into your lap. Rus snickers at the exhausted expression on your face.

The thing on your lap is a granola bar with bright magenta wrapping. It crinkles in your palm and shimmers in the low light. The label reads MTTGRANOLA in bright, clashing neon green. It’s incredibly unappetizing.

You huff in amusem*nt and squish at it with your shaking thumb. Rus seems content to continue ignoring you, so you subtly shove the granola bar into your coat pocket. With your fingers as useless as they are there’s no way you’ll be able to get it open without help.

Another ringing clatter ripples through the walls. You can hear Edge shrieking at someone downstairs, likely cooking in the kitchen.

You would love to cook right now. You’d love to linger in front of the oven, love to chop up carrots into chunks as the scent of your homemade stew rises with the steam—so delightfully warm, so spicy and herby.

In a room warm as humid hot mist, you turn and smile. There’s someone sitting at the counter, their eyes bright like little stars, laughing as you reach over to brush their feathery side and ask them about their day.

..Whose memory is this?

You rub at your chest as it aches, massaging gentle circles into your sternum; you’re barely able to feel your bone through your layers, but the gentle pressure serves as a reminder.

You stare at the fluffy sheets dangling off the side of Rus’ bed and remember.

Tangled in the comforter, their head on your chest, the quilt you’d made them for Giftmas tucked round their shoulders. They shoved a book into your stomach, shedding downy feathers, and demanded you read with silly voices. And each night, and each morning, they’d embrace you and smile as though seeing you for the first time in years.

You remember the tone of their voice—their laugh. They made joke after joke, shaking you, giddy with delight. Even when they were bad you always laughed. Yes, you always laughed—you just wanted to see them smile.

You see this world through different eyes, through a blue-tinted lens. They were soft as snow. Cold. Oh, the world grew colder and colder without them. How you wished to go home. How you wish to go home.

You don’t know their name, their face, but the world is so horribly dull without them. Sensations are buzzing and aching and hopeless, even sunshine gray and flat as stone, cloud-cover muffling every inch of it. It’s not just them you lost, you think; it’s the part of you that only they could bring out that would never exist again.

You’ve lost it all, even the remnants of them in your memories. These memories that are not yours. So strange, so far removed. Who was that person?

Who are you?

“Hey, uh, Snowy?”

Rus has closed his computer in the time between. He looks hesitant suddenly; you stop rubbing circles into your chest.

“Let’s go downstairs. You probably want somethin’ more than a granola bar, huh.”

He hops down from his bed and many of his joints click audibly. You blink at him sluggishly as he walks over and stands in front of you; now you have to crane your head up a bit—you’re not completely present, and his face looks a bit hazy.

“Heh. Don’t fall asleep on me again.” He states, though it sounds a bit like a warning. “I’m hungry even if you’re not. C’mon. Get up.”

With all the effort in the world, you manage to heave yourself upright and remain standing; though you wobble a bit and shift your weight to your heels. When you look back up at him you nearly knock your forehead into his chin.

He takes two large deliberate steps back, his nasal ridge wrinkling. “..After dinner you’re taking a shower.”

And with that subtle jab, he turns, pulls open his door, stomps out of his room, and gestures sarcastically into the hallway like a disgruntled teenager. You continue standing there blinking at him and curling your hand around the granola bar in your coat pocket.

“C’mon,” he urges, sounding impatient, “Edge’ll kick your ass if you’re not down for dinner. Or..” he says this mostly to himself, “..Is it Blue who’s cookin’ tonight..?”

Musing, he disappears from the doorway into the hall; after a stunted pause you stumble to follow.

And as you emerge down from the staircase, the screaming only gets louder.

“—MULTIPLE TIMES THAT THIS IS MY KITCHEN AND YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE STEPPING FOOT INSIDE IT—!”

“WHAT IN THE STARS NAME MAKES YOU THINK IT’S YOURS?! NEITHER OF US ARE THE BREADWINNERS OF THIS HOUSE, YOU PETULANT CHILD—!”

“CHILD?! REMIND ME WHICH OF US IS STUDYING TO BE A MASTER CHEF—!”

“‘MASTER CHEF?’ HAH! ON WHO’S DIME—!?”

You wince and resist the urge to palm your mittens over your non-existent ears. You spot Edge growling next to the fridge and brandishing a spatula over his head like a weapon, Black furiously gesturing at him with a coffee mug, and Blue hurriedly whizzing around them as he puts together a platter of..tacos?

“—I HAVE BEEN WORKING SEVERAL JOBS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE FOR—”

“Heya, snowflake.” Red sends you an uncomfortable grin from his spot sitting at the kitchen counter. You can barely hear him over the sound of his brother’s screaming. “Glad to see you didn’t flake out on us.”

You don’t designate that with a response, instead looking to Rus, who seems unconcerned about his brother’s shouting match as he lights up a dog treat and starts staring up into the ridiculous chandelier above your heads.

You follow his gaze to the crystalline figure as it speckles your skull with highlights and shadows.

“..Remind me who picked that out?” you ask lowly, though no one’s ever told you.

“—AS A LINE COOK?! YOUR SALARY DOESN’T COVER EVEN A THIRD—”

“M’lord,” Rus responds with an exhale of violet-tinged smoke. “He’s got good taste, huh.”

“..Sure,” you mutter dubiously. That’s one way to put it.

“YOU ARE BEING RIDICULOUS!” A bit of coffee from Black’s mug sloshes onto the kitchen tile as he gesticulates furiously. “—IT IS BLUE’S TURN TO COOK TONIGHT AND YOU ARE INVADING HIS SPACE—”

“—YOU THINK YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO?!” Edge shrieks, nearly poking the shorter skeleton between the eyes, “JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE SOME PATHETIC ALTERNATE—”

The next few moments happen in what seem to be slow-motion. Blue tries to move past Edge as he points at Black in utter fury. Black grabs at Edge’s wrist, Edge jerks out of his grip to step back, and Blue trips on the platform boot that’s been abruptly placed in his way.

He jolts forward with a strangled yelp and the plate goes flying into Rus’ face but he sputters and blinks out of the way—

—and you, not seeing it coming, can only stand there and shut your eye-sockets as an entire platter of tacos rains down onto your face.

You are showered in a crackling split–splatter of slimy warm things, shells and stringy cheese and goopy slushy squelching stuff that makes you shudder and ache and shudder and ache.

And when you finally open your eye-sockets, the kitchen is suffocatingly quiet. Blue, holding onto the counter, stares at you, horrified. Edge and Black are wide-eyed and notably silent.

You open and close your mouth. A bit of chunky salsa dribbles off your jaw and plops onto the floor.

The ringing in your skull starts up again.

“..Ah.” says Rus, finally, his voice faint and eye-lights wobbling in shock. “Taco ‘bout a mess..”

“Oh No,” Blue groans, his voice shaking audibly. “Oh No..Dinner..”

It does not seem like anyone is going to help you. Black and Edge simply look uncomfortable. Red, still sitting at the counter, is sweating with a somewhat guilty smile.

Rus’ expression schools into something flat and unreadable. He continues to slouch and stand there with his hands in his pockets, looking you up and down with the air of someone who’s worked a mind-numbing 12-hour shift at a grocery mart.

“..Do Not Fret.” Edge proclaims, sending you what seem to be a series of tense glances. “I Will Whip Something Up Immediately As I Am A Master Chef.”

He and Black share a long, infuriated glare and before Edge whirls toward the pantry and begins digging through it. His frantic ministrations are accompanied by multiple shattering sound-effects.

Something dribbles down the edge of your nasal ridge, tickling uncomfortably. You reach up to wipe it off and multiple skeletons in the room flinch.

You pause, hand hovering near your face. Are they worried you’re going to snap?

You look down at your sour-cream stained mitten. You don’t feel like you’re going to snap. You don’t feel much of anything at the moment. Turns out being covered in food really staves off your hunger, and all you are is mildly uncomfortable. And tired. Yeah, tired, that’s all.

“I could use that shower you mentioned.” You address Rus; he jolts to attention at the sound of your low voice. “And could I run a load of laundry? My coat’s startin’ to smell a bit..sour.”

You wave your cream-covered mitten in emphasis.

“Really?” Black mutters finally, exasperated and incredulous. He presses a gloved hand to his forehead. “A Pun?”

“What else did you expect?” you ask with a grin, shrugging, and waving your mittens about. “I’ma punny skeleton.”

For a second you hear the distant echo of chiming, young laughter. It tapers away into the kitchen’s stale silence.

My name is Snowy, you remind yourself, a bit delirious. Many of these people would be happy to kill me or see me dead. I am Snowy, Skeleton. Snowy Skeleton Somewhere Else.

That is what you know. That is who you are. That is all you can remember.

Blue and Black are sharing a weighted look until Black exclaims, “This Was Not My Fault And I Will Not Apologize.”

Blue seems to give up and sighs heavily.

My name is Snowy, you remind yourself. Guacamole on your right mitten, sour cream on your left. Is that cheese that’s tickling at your forehead? Snowy Skeleton Somewhere Else.

“Snowy,” Blue wrings his gloves together, voice suddenly serious and low. “I Am Sorry About Spilling Dinner On You.”

Edge begins clattering around at the stove. Something starts sizzling and smells quite nice. You stand there grinning and Black and Blue are staring at you and—right, you should answer them.

“..Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault.”

Black looks stunned. “Are You Not..Angr—?”

“WELL!” Blue interrupts loudly. “Snowy, I’ll, Uh, Show You Where The Shower Is! Myeheheh! It’s The Least I Could Do After Making Such A Mess!”

He sprints toward you before you can begin to react, grabs your mitten with a squelch of sour cream, and begins all but dragging you toward the spiral staircase. Red waves at you as you pass, and Rus blows some smoke at you in farewell, obviously high out of his mind.

Black says nothing, even as you stumble and likely shed meat and shredded cheese all over his ornate carpeting.

“You’re Doing Great, Snowy!”

Blue helps you to the bathroom, praising you for your sluggish movements and poor attempts at containing the mess; you end up shedding cheese and lettuce and meat bits all over the shiny tiles.

“Here, Let Me Help You—”

He assists you as you struggle out of your coat, and even shakes out your scarf over the trash and rinses the largest stains under the sink. You watch him distantly. When he’s finished, you manage to turn off the sink faucet with shaking hands.

“Thanks For Your Help, Snowy!”

He seems pleased by your slow grins and utter lack of communication. Maybe he notices how tired you are. When you spot yourself next to him in the mirror, he looks so utterly alive—cheerful, bouncy and animated, his skull a polished, shiny white, his starry-eyes illuminating his body in a glittering cyan glow.

And you look..ivory. A crack in your jawbone curling up your hollowed cheek. Teeth like serrated knives, your eyes blank, pitted as a void; big, empty sockets staring back at you.

“You’re Pretty Tall, Aren’t You Snowy?” Blue giggles when he sees you staring at the mirror. He sidles next to you and stands on his tiptoes, but the top of his skull doesn’t get much further than your chin. “Myeheh! You Have Me Beat! Here, Let’s Get The Bath Started For You!”

You stand there blankly as he whirls around, turns on the water and plugs the drain. He adds bubbles, “For Fun!” and a rubber duckie, “His Name Is Buttercup,” and gestures toward a big bottle of shampoo, “This One Smells Nice. Like Oranges!”

His gaze doesn’t linger on your cracked, black-tipped phalanges, even as you visibly struggle to peel off your mittens. He busies himself with setting a towel next to the sink as you strip off your hoodie in one motion, leaving your ribs bare.

“I’ll Be Just Down The Hall!” Blue proclaims, politely averting his gaze as you stand there in only your food-stained jeans. “Yell If You Need Me! And I’ll Save Some Dinner For You—Promise!”

Then he bolts out and slams the door behind him, leaving you alone with the tub of water and your thoughts.

Not that you have much of those left. Your migraine allows nothing but a sharp ringing inside your skull which drills on and on as you pull off your boots.

You step out of your jeans, hobbling over to the tub, bare heels clicking against the tile. Steam wafts from the bath, aching with a warmth you can feel in the air. It makes something on your back bristle up.

You pause. One of your hand slaps then grapples on the tingling feeling along your ribcage.

Your fingers thread through something tufted and soft. You blink down at soft puffs of whiteness growing from your stained bones. Your claws sift through the edges, enamored by the smoothness under your phalanges.

Feathers. You have feathers on your ribs. They’re short, prickly in places, downy like a newborn bird’s. They line the edges of the recently sealed cracks on your ribs. You hadn’t noticed them in the forest before. Have they always been there?

As you reach your hand further back and crane your neck, you find longer ones nestled near your spine, barely visible in the steamy mirror. Somehow, they do not surprise you. Perhaps you have always had them. Tufts emerge sporadically amongst your bones with no real purpose; it’s not like you have wings.

The feathers shift as you glance back toward the bathtub. Warmth. You can feel the warmth, just barely, just enough that it tingles deep into your bones.

You step over the rim and sink into the water.

It’s so warm. A feeling you’d thought you’d forgotten. Your senses so dulled, you thought you’d never feel it again. Something wells within you and you feel close to tears though you can no longer cry; a choked noise escapes you as you sink lower and lower into the water. The liquid fills your skull as you slump into it and the ringing fades to a dull, pulsing thrum.

There is no snow, no icy lake, no foxes watching you from the shoreline. You are alone with the water and the bubbles and the faint sounds of dinner being served downstairs.

Naturally, you begin humming.

You mumble Shyren’s tune to yourself. You wonder if Shyren exists in this universe—you’d like to hear more of her songs. You’re starting to sound like a broken record with how many times you’ve looped over the same melody.

As you hum, you slowly scrub your body with the orange soap and a bristled brush. You meticulously remove every inch of dirt and sauce from your bones, thread your hands through and pluck loose feathers. It’s therapeutic, almost, like scrubbing away the stains on a white tiled countertop.

The ivory tinge to your bones doesn’t go away, but they look and feel much better once they’re clean. Downy tufts drift and twirl on the surface of the water then sink beneath when you splash around a little. Your feathers are a brighter white than you’d expected. You wonder if the other skeletons have them too.

You scrub yourself until you grow tired of scrubbing, hum until your voice petters out, then amuse yourself by popping nearby bubbles. Eventually, the steam begins to fade. The warmth trickles away as though it were never there. You poke at Blue’s rubber duck— Buttercup, was it?—as it bobs toward you across the water.

There is a knock on the door.

“Snowy?”

You look up from the duck as you poke it once more with a black-tipped phalange. “Blue.”

“I Saved Some Dinner For You!” Blue calls, voice muffed beyond the door. “ And I Brought You Your Clothes!”

“M’kay,” you respond. “You can come in.”

“What?!” Blue bursts, sounding startled. “You’re Still In The Bath Though, Aren’t You?”

Wow, he’s surprisingly astute. Perhaps he can hear you sloshing around in the water out in the hall.

You guess you’re making him uncomfortable, which was not your intention. His respect of your privacy when you are just different versions of each other amuses you, but you appreciate it nonetheless. You straighten up in the bathtub and pull the heavy shower curtain on the side fully around it. The metal rings above audibly squeak as you pull them closed.

“I just pulled the curtain.” You inform him in case he couldn’t hear. “You won’t have to look.”

“Okay!” You hear a creak as Blue opens the door.

“I’m Putting Your Clothes Next To The Sink!” He tells you, voice much clearer now. “I Had Some Help From Clem, And We Got All The Stains Out! Your Jacket Is As Good As New..”

His words become lost to a rushing of suctiony sound. You see his shadow moving beyond the curtain. It seems to warp and stretch thinner and taller and take a different shape as you lean back against the rim of the bath, head popping dully as though full of water.

And the shadow murmurs, their voice distorted and strange, “How are you feeling?”

And you say, “Right at home.”

And the shadow asks, “How are you doing?”

“Good,” you say, “Good. Thank you.”

Silence, save for the distant hum of the air conditioner. The shadow moves, then pauses.

“Snowy?’” Says Blue’s voice, startlingly loud. “Are you alright?”

You blink. You’d just been talking to yourself, hadn’t you? “Um,”

Blue’s oddly large shadow takes the forefront of your vision. “..Snowy?”

“Sorry. My bad.” The excuse sounds feeble. You rub your phalanges over your bare ribs and the bones click with an uncomfortable skritcch, small feathers bristling. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Myeheh! You’re Probably Just Hungry!” Blue says with a chuckle. “You Act Just Like Papy When He’s Hungry. Your Food’s Downstairs. You Can Come Down Whenever You’re Ready!” You watch his shadow place its hands on its hips. “I Know, I Am Simply The Greatest! You Don’t Have To Thank Me!”

“Thanks, Blue.”

This makes him giggle as his shadow moves to the door and disappears beyond the curtain. “By The Way!” He informs cheekily, voice growing faint, “Your Singing Is Magnificent! You Could Give Shyren A Run For Her Money!”

The door slams shut.

You sit there, stunned, until you let out a weird, garbled noise that almost sounds like laughter.

When you return to your ‘room’ you spot both Blue and the cheerful skeleton from last night— Clem, was it?—playing what appears to be ‘Go Fish’ on the carpeted floor.

“Oh! Snowy!” Blue’s bright eye-lights swivel in his skull at your entrance. “Welcome Back! How Was Dinner?”

“Good,” you respond, glancing at Clem, who’s sitting cross-legged and seems to be vibrating in place. “Thanks for saving some for me.”

“Of Course!” Blue exclaims, gesturing wildly; though he’s a bit limited by the massive amount of cards in his hands. “I Just Did What A Friend Would Do!”

“Speaking Of Friends!” Clem pipes up. “It Is Nice To Formally Meet You, New Friend Snowy!”

He launches to his feet, his socks streaking across the carpeting as he barrels toward you. He’s not as tall as Edge or Jupiter, but you still have to crane your head to meet his eye.

He holds out a mittened hand for you to shake and sends you a thousand-watt grin that’s nearly blinding.

“I Am The Great Papyrus!” He exclaims. Well, that explains the nameplate on the door. “I Am The ‘Original’ Papyrus Of This Universe! Though You May Call Me Clem!”

“‘Clem?’” you question with a slight tilt to your head. You reach out to shake his hand and he nearly jerks you up and down with unrestrained gusto.

“Short For Clementine!” Blue supplies behind you as you’re tugged up and down by Clem’s handshake. Right, you remember reading that in his letter. “I’m Blue, Short For Blueberry!”

These two are very similar. It’s no wonder they get along so well. But their names..

“Black,” You add, pondering to yourself. You still haven’t let go of Clem’s hand, mostly because he’s still shaking it over and over. “Short for Blackberry..?”

“Yup!” Blue confirms.

“Huh,” you utter faintly. You wonder how Commander Clean-Freak got stuck with such a cutesy nickname. Probably along the lines of how you got stuck with yours—but you expect there was much more fighting and protest.

Clem lets go of your hand and you resist the urge to stumble back because man does the guy have a strong grip. “It’s nice to meet you too..Clem. And thank you for the clothes.”

“Of Course! You’re Stunned By My Incredible Generosity, Aren’t You?! Nyeheheh!” Clem props his hands onto the hip bones poking out of his strange armor.

His laugh sounds almost exactly like Edge’s—and Blue’s, if you think about it. Stars, If you hadn’t believed everyone was iterations of each other before, there’d be no denying it now.

“Want To Play Go Fish With Us?!” Blue blurts, literal stars in his eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” you relent with a chuckling sigh. “Why not.”

“FANTASTIC!” Blue and Clem shriek in tandem. They fling cards about as they excitedly deal you in, and the game begins.

Clem wins three rounds, Blue wins two, and you win..none, mostly because you keep revealing your cards when they fall out of your hands. Blue and Clem don’t seem to care about your losing streak, though, and encourage you enough that it makes you a bit embarrassed. They are almost unbearably sincere.

The door creaks open on your fourth round of getting absolutely crushed and Stretch casually pokes his skull in through the door. “Heya.”

“PAPY!” Blue bursts excitedly. He jumps to his feet in a whirling explosion of cards and races toward the bedroom door.

Clem, similarly, places his cards down and reveals his hand. You drop all of yours again, though not on purpose.

“Just brought up some snacks,” Stretch comments, stepping fully into the room. He’s holding a plate of what seem to be apple slices that immediately gets your non-existent mouth watering. He sends an amused glance toward the mess of cards on the floor. “Heh. I see you’re having a card time.”

Blue huffs and throws his skull back. “Papy,” This time the name comes out as more of an exasperated groan.

“Heya, Clem,” Stretch greets Clem with a grin. His eye lights flicker to your face and his smile pauses. He hesitates. “..Snowy.”

You nod at him as Clem jumps to his feet and bursts, “Hello, Stretch!”

“Here, Sans.” Stretch uses Blue’s real name and it briefly startles you, but a quick glance toward Clem and it seems he doesn’t mind, so you relax without much thought. Stretch holds out the plate of apples to his brother and states, “For the apple of my eye.”

Blue and Clem stutter into stunned silence. Stretch winks.

“Did You..Did You Bring Those Up Here Just To Make A PUN?!” Blue shrieks; it’s strange how quickly you’re getting used to his fluctuations in volume. “You’re Awful!”

“Down to the core,” Stretch agrees, plucking an apple slice off the plate and biting into it in emphasis.

“STOP!” Blue and Clem shout at the same time, Clem stomping his foot in fury. You notice his socks are decorated with cartoonish bones.

You smile in good humor, and your gaze flickers to Stretch as he hovers by the door. “Want to join us, Stretch?”

The lanky skeleton startles as you address him, an apple slice still poised between his teeth. He seems to startle even more as your words register.

“Uh..sure.”

“Prepare To Get Go-Fished!” Clem exclaims, plopping back onto the floor.

“Snowy, Have An Apple!” Blue offers, shoving the plate into your face.

You gingerly take an apple as Stretch carefully lowers himself next to the pile of cards on the floor. Clem deals him in and the game resumes with little fanfare; the apples on the plate rapidly vanish to blurs of quick hands; cards appear and disappear so fast you can barely keep up.

“Snowy. Do You Have A Three?” Blue interrogates, narrowing his brow-bones. His grave tone is slightly diminished by the devious grin on his face.

“Yeah,” you admit, loosening your grip on your cards so you can pick out the three of hearts—

—and all of them spill out of your hands and onto the carpeted floor.

“OH NO!” Clem exclaims.

“Snowy!!” Blue bursts, slapping his gloved hand over his eye-sockets. “Not Again!!”

Stretch takes one look at the cards you’d spilled all over yourself and bursts into warbling, hiccuping laughter.

“Papy, Don’t Laugh,” Blue scolds. You stare down at your lap and lift a hand to try to pick a card up again. You fail.

Orange..tears begin to build in Stretch's eye-sockets as he wheezes at your expense. He points at you and tries to say something but he’s interrupted by his own choking laughter. Your chest burns; you blink rapidly as you try, once again, to pick up the stupid card.

“Snowy,” Clem informs kindly, helping you gather your exposed cards and tuck them, surprisingly gently, into your shaking hands. “You Can’t Show Us Your Cards. You Have To Keep Them Extra-Secret!” He lifts a mittened phalange to his teeth and playfully hisses, “Shh!”

“Yeah.” You try to smile at him, but you’re not sure if you succeed. Your voice sounds oddly quiet beneath the fabric of your scarf. “Got it.”

Another card slips out from under your thumb.

“Oh—!” Blue jolts and catches it before it can flutter to the floor. “Myeheh,Got It! Here, Snowy—Maybe It’s Your Mittens. You Should Take Those Off!”

He grins and offers you your card, but you don’t take it.

Your smile feels tight. Stretch has since stopped laughing, and his gaze feels weighted. When you meet his eye-lights you see him staring at your shaking hands as his expression does something strange.

Quietly setting the remainder of your cards onto the carpet, you move to peel off your mittens.

But you hesitate.

“Oh!” Blue holds your dropped card to his chestplate. “I Have A Brilliant Idea!!”

“OH?!” Clem exclaims, looking suddenly excited. His orange-tinged eye-lights seem to glitter and sparkle as he pumps his fists. “What’s Your Brilliant Idea, Magnificent Blue?!”

“SNOWY!” Blue holds out the card to you in an enthusiastic offering. “JOIN ME! WE WILL PLAY GO-FISH TOGETHER AS ONE!”

“Uh, isn’t that cheating?” Stretch asks. He is ignored.

“THAT IS AN AMAZING IDEA!” Clem’s eye-lights have spun into little, spiraling stars.

“OF COURSE IT IS! BE PREPARED FOR OUR COMBINED MIGHT, GREAT CLEMENTINE!” Blue gathers all of your cards into his arms and cackles, “MYEHEHEH!”

“Magnificent Blue!” Papyrus points, looking proud and mighty from where he sits, criss-cross, with a patterned pajama set and bone-printed socks on the floor. “SUPERIFIC Snowy! I Will Destroy You In The Going Of The Fish!”

“Superific—” Stretch wheezes the word. You sit there, jaw slightly agape, stunned.

“C’mon Snowy!” Blue sends you a mischievous, competitive grin. “Let’s Do This!”

“Uh, ok,” you agree, dumbfounded.

“NO!” Blue scolds, holding his and your cards combined splayed in one cyan-blue glove, “Be More Enthusiastic! We’re Going To Win This!”

“..Go, team,” you say with a bit of enthusiasm.

Blue beams. “That’s The Spirit!”

The round continues with much fanfare as Clem dramatically draws a full four cards and Blue cackles at him obnoxiously. You’ve tucked your knees into your chest, leaning closer to Blue; he’s holding most of your cards, including his own. You’re holding on to only one: a slightly crumpled queen of hearts.

“Snowy, You Try Guessing This Time!” Invites Blue, coaxing you with an encouraging smile. His eye-lights have spun into stars again in his excitement, rotating slowly in his sockets. Clem mirrors his grin across the veritable mountain of cards.

You look at the cards in Blue’s hands, then to the single card in your own. You briefly consider the cards that have already been passed around. Then you look to Clem, who shakes his hand of cards at you as though inviting you to speak.

“..My name is..Superific Snowy.” Clem nods rapidly, elated that you’d used his obnoxious title for you. Stretch, on your left, elegantly snorts. “Great..uh..Clementine? Do you have a king?”

“GASP!” Clem says ‘gasp.’ “How Did You Know?!”

“INCREDIBLE Guess Snowy!” Blue exclaims. “I Knew It Was The Right Choice To Team Up With You!”

You stare at him. It registers, suddenly, that despite Blue and Clem’s boisterous enthusiasm they’d noticed your discomfort and found a subtle way to combat it.

You bury your face into your scarf and can’t help your bubbling, “Heh,”

Blue’s grin nearly tears his skull in two. “HE LAUGHED!”

“HE LAUGHED!” Clem repeats in awe.

“..I just, uh,” you chuckle a bit more, struggling to cover the crinkling of your eye-sockets behind the scarf bundled around your neck. “..Realized how cool you guys are.”

Clem’s skull flushes a brilliant yellow-orange as he lifts his cards to cover his grin. “A—A Genuine Compliment!” He squeals, voice rising to an uncanny pitch.

“We Are Very Cool!” Blue jabs his thumb into his chest, grin never faltering. “And We Appreciate Your Compliment! You Are Very Sneaky With Your Friendship Tactics, Snowy! Thus..We Will Give You A Compliment In Return!”

Blue and Clem turn to each other and seem to communicate through a series of exaggerated facial expressions that you can’t make sense of. Stretch watches all of this with a relaxing grin, seeming much more comfortable than he was when he’d come in.

“Snowy.” Clem turns to you gravely, and you jolt to attention, your baffled smile still plastered on your face. “We Have Just Realized..We Do Not Know You That Well.”

“It Is Hard To Compliment Someone When You Do Not Know Them.” Blue says, smile dropping into an utterly dejected frown. It looks totally off on his face.

“Oh, uh, hey,” you wave your hands about, suddenly desperate to placate them. “It’s no big deal. You don’t have to—“

“NONSENSE! ” Clem booms, “OF COURSE WE DO!”

Blue looks similarly enraged. “IT’S IMPORTANT TO RETURN A COMPLIMENT WITH A COMPLIMENT!”

You are..kind of overwhelmed. Clem and Blue begin talking over each other as they begin suggesting ideas. “SHOULD WE HAVE A SHARING CIRCLE?!” “NO, A BONDING GAME!!”

Stretch must notice you’re completely at a loss because he sends you a genuine smile. It startles you enough that you lose your fragile grip on your only remaining card.

“How about we bring out the bonding book?” He suggests, his low, quiet voice cutting over the obnoxious bickering.

“Papy!” Blue gasps with elation. “You’re A Genius!”

“You know it,” Stretch drawls with a lazy grin.

Clem tramples through the go-fish pile on his way to his bookshelf and Stretch waves a phalange as the playing cards are surrounded in a glowing orange light.

You watch, stunned, as he collects the cards into a neat pile with what seems like showy telekinesis. Magic, you think. It tingles with something smokey, warm, and syrupy.

“Papy, You Could’ve Easily Done That With Your Hands!” Blue huffs with a frown. “You’re So Lazy!”

“Sorry, bro,” Stretch apologizes, not looking very sorry as he tucks the deck back into its scuffed-up box. Someone’s written BLUE on the front of it in glittery marker. Blue, most likely.

“FOUND IT!” Clem exclaims by the bookcase. He struggles to tug a large book with ornate binding out of a pile in the shelving. Once he gets it free, he races back toward the circle, saying, “Let’s Pick Some Of These Out For Tomorrow!”

“This Is A Perfect Sleepover Activity!” Blue seems to realize all at once, waving his hand into his brother’s face. “Papy, Could You Please Get The Blankets?”

“Sure thing.” Stretch barely lifts a finger as blankets rise from the matching race car beds and float toward Clem and Blue.

Blue pouts at his brother’s use of magic but doesn’t protest when he’s tucked into a dark blue comforter covered in constellations. Clem laughs when his own, a blanket covered in prints of that strange robot you’d noticed in Rus’ room, floats down to settle on his shoulders.

You feel a gentle pressure and startle.

Your mouth parts as a blanket falls upon your shoulders, engulfing you in a subtle softness. Hesitantly, you reach up to pull it closer around you, marveling at its cream coloring and subtle fuzz. You huff and snuggle into it with an inaudible sigh.

You see the glow of Stretch’s magic dissipate and look up to see him staring at you, eye-sockets wide, as though he’d never seen you before.

“..Thank you,” you tell him, buried in the warmth.

“Yeah, uh,” he blinks at you; his expression loses a hardness you did not even notice was there. “..No problem.”

“Now That We Are All Settled And Sleepover Ready,” Blue barrels on, spreading open the book on the floor, “Let Us Choose A Bonding Activity For Tomorrow!”

“..Don’t you both have work?” you ask curiously.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” Stretch informs you.

“Oh, got it.”

“This Looks Fun!” Blue interrupts, pointing to a page.

You lean in to peer over his shoulder.

Draw Your Favorite Things And Share Them With Friends! Reads the title in a loopy, playful font. There’s a large drawing beneath the heading that shows a human child sharing a drawing of what looks to be a basketball with a tall bird monster.

“What Do You Think, Snowy?” Blue asks you. “This Way We Can Learn About Each Other’s Favorite Things!”

“Sounds fun,” you agree languidly.

“YES!” Blue exclaims, and, without even looking, he holds his hand out to Clem, phalanges curling in a coaxing motion. “Clem, Sticky Note, Please!”

Clem reaches over, ignores Blue’s outstretched hand, and instead sticks a sticky note smack into the middle of his creased, focused forehead. Unaffected, Blue snags the note off his face and slaps it onto the page with excessive force.

“NEXT!” He exclaims, flipping to another page. “What About Cooking Together?!”

“Sure.” Smack! goes a sticky note.

“Board Games!”

“Okay.” Smack!

“Oh! How About Stargazing?!”

“Why not.” Smack!

“Jeez,” Stretch grins at you easily, leaning toward you with amused, crinkled eyes. “If you agree to everything we’ll end up working through the whole book.”

“What can I say?” You shrug, feeling lax and loose in your plush, comfy blanket. “I’m easy to please,”

“Easy to cheese?” stretch suggests.

“Easy to cheese,” you correct, though you’ve no idea where cheese comes into the equation. You follow his gaze to the blown-up graphic print of a slice of cheese on the wall that you’d completely forgotten about.

Damn. You snicker to yourself and Stretch is quick to follow. These guys and their weird decorations never cease to impress.

“SNOWY!” Clem exclaims. “Would You Like Race?!”

“I’ll have to veto that one,” Stretch pipes in, “it involves standing up and running. I’ll run outta steam.”

Blue and Clem audibly groan but nonetheless continue flipping through the Bonding Book.

You watch them with a relaxed smile. Strips of light seeping through the curtains grow dimmer and golden, then fade into a hazy blue. Your responses to Blue’s queries diminish into mumbling, until finally you can hardly muster the energy to say anything at all.

“—This Sounds Fun! And We Can Go Outside..What Do You Think, Snowy?”

Your exhale is long and slow.

“..Snowy?” Blue asks, looking up from the book when you don’t immediately answer.

You’re dozing, a rumbling breath escaping you as his form blurs on the edge of your awareness. Your eye-sockets flutter closed as the blanket seems to wrap you in until you’re sinking, deeper and deeper, your breath lulling as darkness creeps in your vision.

“Snowy,” Blue repeats, voice both exasperated and strangely warm.

“Sleep-over indeed,” Stretch chuckles.

“Stretch!!” Clem hisses at a semi-normal volume. “Please Lower Your Voice!”

“Well,” Blue says, voice sounding far away. “He’s Had A Big Day, Hasn’t He?”

“I Hope Edge Was Nice To Him This Morning…”

“..Probably Not.”

“Whose Great Idea Was That Again?”

“Eheh.”

“Papy..”

Pressure brushes against your side as your vision seems to shift when your eyes flutter briefly open. Your skull hits something soft.

“Tomorrow Will Be Lots Of Fun, Snowy,” Blue whispers, sounding strangely close. You feel the brush of his hand on your shoulder. “I Promise!”

You mumble something in response; then you’ve fallen into a deep, quiet sleep.

You come to awareness as rustling and soft voices fill the room.

You remain half awake for a long moment, listening. The sounds shuffle around you, voices staying hushed and making a clear effort to stay quiet. You stretch one of your arms and your elbow pops. Lying on your side, you can feel the gentle thrums of footsteps padding across the floor.

You try to doze off again, but another thump and muffled whoops! makes you twitch awake. You huff and sit up, rubbing beneath a squinted eye.

“..Oh! Snowy!” You turn your skull to spot Blue holding a bundle of clothing near the doorway. He looks surprised to see you and you’re surprised he’d let you pass out in the middle of his floor. “You’re Up Early..?”

“G’mornin,’” You mumble at him, blinking languidly, completely wrapped in your fuzzy blanket burrito. You wiggle your toes and notice you’re still fully clothed from the night before, boots and all.

To your right stands Clem, who’s wearing a pair of bright red sneakers and is smiling at you kindly. His star-themed lamp is overturned off his nightstand and glowing dimly on the carpeted floor. It’s likely what fell just now.

“We’re Going On Our Morning Run!” Clem informs you, looking way too enthused for someone awake at..you glance at the window. It’s still dark outside. Holy sh*t, you think.

“Cool,” you tell him.

This seems to be the right thing to say because Papyrus straightens up with a grin, saying, “It Is Indeed Extremely Cool!”

Your eyes trail to his broad, puffed-out sternum. Hanging off his boney shoulders is what seems to be an old basketball jersey with the words C00L DUDE written on it in sharpie. He’s so stringy and tall it hangs off him like a crop-top.

“Damn, Clem,” You’re grinning, grinning so hard it hurts your face. “That’s the greatest shirt I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Clem flushes immediately, slapping his mittens onto his face. “Genuine Compliment!”

“Snowy, Look! I Have One Too!” Blue exclaims, bounding over and dropping the laundry he was holding all over the floor.

C00L DUDE #2 is written in navy-blue marker. The ‘#2’ has been crammed messily into the bottom right corner.

You send him a similar shark-toothed grin. “Epic.”

“Epic!” He squeals as though he’s won the lottery.

You laugh and the pair start laughing too. Then Clem’s snickering starts to sound too devious for your liking. He stares down at you with a triumphant grin; the warm light from his starry lamp shade speckles spots around his skull.

“You Haven’t Noticed My Sneaky Move, Have You?” Clem asks you.

You blink at him. One of the stars from the lamp lands on your face. “‘..Sneaky move?’”

“I Performed A Clever Jape. Harmless, I Assure You..”

You raise your brows and the action causes something to shift on your forehead, a blur of blue appearing in the corner of your vision.

You reach up and pluck a sticky note off your face.

“Nyeheheh!” Clem cackles, “Nyeh-Heh! I Got Your Forehead!”

“Oh, nice one,” you intone.

The sticky note reads: GOOD MORNING, FRIEND SNOWY! WE HAVE GONE ON OUR MORNING RUN. PLEASE HELP YOURSELF TO THE KITCHEN! YOUR FRIEND, CLEM.

They’d likely thought you’d wake up after they were gone. It was sweet of them to leave a note this time. You tuck the sticky note reverently into your jacket pocket; it’ll be a good addition to your closet wall.

“Oh! Snowy!” Blue sounds way too hyper at such an early hour. “Would You Like To Come Running With Us?!”

“Huh? Sure,” You agree distractedly. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

Surely Edge won’t kill you if Blue and Clem take you outside—you’ve noticed the pair can get away with basically anything in this house. You’re stupid, not dumb. This is basically your chance.

You send the pair a slow smile, climbing to your feet and extracting yourself from your blanket. After a silence you stretch your arms above your head, wincing as they pop with the motion. You realize they’ve been eerily silent, and grow concerned.

When you lower your arms to your sides, you spot both Blue and Clem staring at you like you’re some sort of insane person.

You raise a careful brow bone. “..Uh, is something wrong?”

“..Snowy?” Clem’s eye-sockets are as wide as you’ve seen them. “You, Ah, Want To Go Running?”

“Yeah..?” You scrunch your face at them. “Am I still not allowed outside?”

Blue and Clem share a long look. They seem to silently communicate through a series of contorted facial expressions you can’t make sense of. Then they turn to you, grab your arms, and drag you downstairs and out the door.

It’s cloudy outside.

Low-hanging grayness settles over the horizon, bloated with incoming rain. You try to keep your disappointment off your face but must fail as Clem sends you a sympathetic smile and a promise to, “Take You Outside Again When The Sun Is Brighter!”

After a few warm-up exercises that seem very much like hyperactive Zumba, Clem and Blue have you set off at a moderate pace.

You observe your surroundings with a careful eye as you jog along. The skeletons’ mansion is situated in a suburban middle-class neighborhood, full of plain cookie-cutter houses and white picket fences that contain modest front yards. You see a few flags hanging off the rooftops that proclaim things like: ‘THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS MONSTER-FRIENDLY!’ and ‘Don’t Be A Bigot.’ Otherwise, the place is normal and strangely underwhelming.

You’d thought this ‘different world’ would be..something foreign, perhaps. But it’s oddly familiar, overcast clouds and all. At least you’ve returned to civilization, somewhat—though technically you’re not supposed to be outside yet.

Blue and Clem seem unconcerned about this factor, or perhaps they weren’t told it was a rule. They remain on either side of you as you run, hiding you from passersby who mow their lawns or peer out at you from beyond the windows. You briefly meet eyes with humans and monsters alike. For some reason this strikes you as strange.

You don’t get a second to ask about any of this, as Blue and Clem do not stop talking.

“We Are Well Known In This Neighborhood,” Clem’s telling you, not even winded as he bobs along in a neat, consistent jog. “I Am A Monster Ambassador, As You Know, And Blue Works At A Nearby Park! For These Reasons, We Are Familiar Faces Here!”

You smile kindly as you bob along. “Are you the active ones in this family?”

“Actually, Black And Edge Are Quite Active As Well!” Blue informs you, an energized bounce to his step. “They Run Each Evening! I Am Informed That They Like To Race!”

“Why don’t they race with you two?” You tilt your head slightly, focused on the thumping of your boots hitting the ground. You don’t feel like you’re getting any sort of exercise, but you see the appeal of running. The wind feels nice against your skull and your coat flutters behind you like a kite.

“Black and Edge Do Not Like Us Very Much!” Blue answers you brightly. “They Work Out Together Instead!”

You nod, thinking briefly. From what you’ve gleaned of the pair, they’re consistently at each other’s throats, and seem to have some sort of vendetta against each other that you do not want to get involved with. In addition to their possessive streak over the kitchen, both have done nothing but direct hostilities toward you since you’d arrived.

Blue and Papyrus struck you as ‘let’s-all-get-along’ types, though, so Black and Edge’s exclusion of them unnerves you.

“..You seem pretty happy about that,” You note with a raised brow, neatly keeping his pace.

“I’m Not!” He says, grin never faltering in the slightest. “It Greatly Saddens Me!”

“Hm.” You hum absentmindedly. You turn your head to the sidewalk in front of you as your footfalls land in tandem. “Well, they’re missing out.”

You hear Blue stumble and skid to a stop which startles you enough that you stop as well. Clem nearly trips, limbs flailing comically as he tries to stay on his feet. You whirl around to spot Blue trembling at a high frequency, face scrunching up as he vibrates on the sidewalk.

“Snowy!” He blurts, near tears. Wait, he can cry? “You Are So Kind!”

“Uh,” you hold your hands up, somehow terrified.

Clem takes this opportunity to pull you into a hug that lifts you clear off the ground. Your ribs pang in protest and your snow boots dangle above the sidewalk, heavy as lead.

“Uh,” you wheeze again, feeling a bit like an abused chew toy.

“I Am So Glad We Became Friends!” Clem makes a giddy, choked noise that you feel rumbling through your abused ribs. “I Am Sure When Your Brother Arrives, We Will Be Fast Friends With Him Too!”

”Speaking Of!” Blue cuts in. “I Am Surprised Your Papyrus Is Taking So Long To Arrive!”

Clem drops you unceremoniously and you stumble and nearly fall flat on your tailbone. You scramble to regain your bearings, your coat sliding off one of your shoulders.

”I, uh, yeah.” Stars, this is going to get really awkward when they realize you can’t remember anything whatsoever. “That is weird, isn’t it.”

“It Certainly Is!” Blue props his hands on his hips, a contemplative furrow to his brow bone. “But Not Too Weird. Mars And Jupiter Did Not Arrive At The Same Time Either. Mars Arrived First, And He Was So Upset He Blew Up Half The House.”

So that’s what that was, you realize, vaguely remembering the destroyed hall and shoddy scaffolding. Remind you not to get on the big guy’s bad side.

”Luckily, He Scared Away That Annoying Dog That Used To Live Under My Sink!” Clem exclaims. He straightens up and points up into the air with a prideful huff. “All’s Well That Ends Well, That’s What I Always Say!”

“Yes, Like Your Arrival, Snowy! It Has Ended Very Well!” Blue exclaims, pumping his fists. “So, Let Us Dedicate This Next Lap To Our Friendship!”

“YES!” Booms Clem, pumping his fist into the air. “To FRIENDSHIP!”

You stutter, stumbling forward as Papyrus and Blue shoot past you, sprinting round the block with equally enthused shouts of determination.

It rains near the end of the second lap.

Big, fat droplets speckle the concrete and plop unceremoniously into your eye-sockets and nose hole. Your coat offsets the worst of it, but it’s meant for snow, not rain, so soon you feel puddles pooling in your snow boots that squelch with each halting step.

Blue and Papyrus begin competing with each other as you slow. You watch them jog together a few paces ahead as you stomp through a nearby puddle. A grayness seems to settle through the neighborhood, rain shrouding the homes like a fluttering fog.

All of the neighbors have retreated indoors. You recognize some of the homes—anti-bigotry flags and a big crooked spruce tree—and find that you’ve come full circle as Papyrus and Blue skid to a stop.

“Hmph!” Clem squints up into the sky, hands propped on his hip bones. “It Seems The Weather Does Not Agree With Us Today!”

“How Upsetting!” Agrees Blue, wringing out his bandana.

“Regardless, We Pushed Through!” Clem boasts, throwing a gloved fist into the sky. His C00L DUDE shirt is sticking to his ribs. “TO FRIENDSHIP!”

“TO FRIENDSHIP!” Blue echoes.

The two of them cheer together as Blue waves his sopping wet bandanna in the air like a flag. It smacks around comically.

You stare distractedly at the house.

The mansion looks different from the outside, now that you’re taking a good look. Its great, ornate awning and molded windows overlook a long gravel driveway framed by a precisely trimmed hedge garden. It sits at the end of the neighborhood; the land beyond sprawls into a forest framed by mountains and a speckled city.

You can’t see the house’s backyard from this angle, but you suspect it’d contain similar flawless, symmetrical landscaping. For some reason you suspect this is Black’s doing.

The home looks rather eerie in the darkened, rainy weather, like something out of a horror film. Considering its residents, this doesn’t surprise you. You shuffle into the gravel driveway and tilt your skull up to the sky.

In your distraction, Blue pads up next to you, his sneakers crunching in the slick gravel. “What Are You Doing, Snowy?”

Your eye sockets slide shut as cool droplets speckle your face. “…Enjoying the rain.”

“Oh! That Looks Fun!”

You hear him step next to you as he mirrors you at your side. Rivulets of water crest down the side of your skull, fill the sagging hoodie of your snowcoat with a plipping pond of water. It grows heavier and heavier as you stand there—a physical weight.

“..I Will Be Going Inside!” Announces Clem somewhere ahead of you, breaking the silence. You blink open your eyes just as another large droplet splatters on your face.

“Let’s Go Dry Off, Snowy,” Blue suggests. You turn to find him smiling quietly. “Ready?” His tone takes on a low, lilting note, as though coaxing you forward. As always, he sounds inviting and kind.

You nod at him even though the last thing you want is to go back inside that awful mansion.

Clem appears to feel differently as he slams open the front door and announces his entrance to the entire house.

“THE GREAT CLEMENTINE HAS RETURNED!” He bellows; you hear someone shriek accompanied by a series of obnoxious clattering sounds. “HELLO MY FELLOW FAMILY MEMBERS! WHEEEERE IS MY BROTHER?”

“f*ck do you have to be so loud—?!”

“Language, Red.”

“Shut the hell up Blackberry—“

“Classic’s still at the office, unfortunately,” Stretch’s voice carries out the door, muffed but clearly enunciated over the faint arguing beyond him. “He said he needs to spend a few more days..”

You step carefully onto the porch, the stairs creaking worryingly beneath your boots. Beads of smooth, perfect raindrops sit along the edges of the white-glossed staircase. They catch your attention and you nearly squat down to get a closer look, but you remember Blue’s still behind you and carry on.

You’re rather distractible today. Why’d you feel the urge to look at raindrops, of all things? It’s unlike you. You try your best to focus in on Clem’s soaked back as he strides into the doorway.

“Heh,” you hear Stretch chuckle from inside, voice still slightly scattered through the thick walls. “Clem, you’re soaked to the bone.”

“Stretch!” Clem nearly howls. Blue pushes past you in affront and you nearly trip over your own feet.

“Not such good weather for a run, huh? Sorry to rain on your parade—”

“ENOUGH!” Shrieks Blue shortly after, grabbing at both sides of the door frame and launching himself through it. “You are unbearable!”

Stretch makes a mischievous face from where he sits sprawled on the couch, clearly about to crack another joke. “Did you mean unb—“

“NO!”

You remain mostly unnoticed behind your wall of excitable, soaked skeletons and their squeaky sneakers. Ducking your head, you notice distantly the puddle you’d trudged into the living room.

..Will Black really kill you this time?

You don’t have a second to ponder this as Clem audibly clears his throat.

“Today I Have Planned A Bonding Activity For Us To Do With Snowy!” He announces to the uncaring house.

..Silence. Save for Red’s loud snores from the couch and the rustling of Black’s newspaper in the kitchen as he holds it up to hide his face.

You peek around Clem’s stringy form to get a good look at the scene you’ve walked into. Most of the skeletons are simply lounging around the main room. First the lovely, chocolatey scent of coffee hits your nasal hole, followed by Red’s odor and the subtle tinge of cigarette smoke.

You briefly meet Stretch’s gaze, but he choses to ignore you and everything Clem just said to promptly avert his eye-lights and hide his skull in an upside-down joke book.

“Oh!” Jupiter’s voice emerges from the hall. “I Will Participate!”

“Don’t bother,” grumbles Mars somewhere behind him. “We’re all the same, anyway.”

“Sans..” There seems to be a bit of murmuring and scuffle but it’s quickly silenced.

“Snowy Is Different!” Blue emphasizes, propping his hands on his hips. You feel vaguely like you’re being shown off like a special toy dog. “He Went On A Run With Us This Morning! Besides, We Need To Be Nice To New Guests! It’s Important!”

Like a tide parting, Clem and Blue step to the side to reveal you in all your wet dog glory. Suddenly nervous, you reach up to scratch at the back of your neck. Your scarf hangs limply, akin to a wet mop, and your sharp-toothed nervous frown is on full display.

Red snorts awake. Black drops his newspaper onto the counter. Stretch launches himself up from his arm chair, and Jupiter’s jaw hangs slack as though it’ll fall right off his skull, braces and all.

Mars simply stares, his huge red eye dilating as blinks dumbly at your face three consecutive times. “He..went running..with you?”

“You exercised?” Red says, horrified. “You, a classic-type?”

Okay, this is starting to freak you out. You try not to shuffle in place as your smile spreads wider. Are they going to kill you for leaving the house? “Uh—”

“Are you sure he’s a classic type?” Red asks Stretch, who works his jaw around silently and shrugs.

“That’s Why We’re Doing This Bonding Activity!” Clem explains gleefully, gesturing with his pointer finger as though teaching an unruly class of children. “To Find Out More About Him!”

Find out..more about you?

Right. That’s what you were talking about last night, ‘bonding activities’…Maybe you should start with the fact that you’re an amnesiac. But..jeez, what happens if they find out you’re not ‘Sans?’ Will they kill you? Starve you? Kick you out?

From what Edge has said, starving seems like the likeliest option. Starving sucks. You do not want to do that again. Living in the woods on the bear minimum was more than enough of a taste. Heh.

You decide to be as vague as possible in your responses to whatever the chosen ‘bonding activity’ entails.

“Okay, First We Need The Air-Dryers, Then—“

You’re rushed through the stunned house as both skeletons once again drag you by the wrists, this time into the bathroom. Blue turns on a—is that a hairdryer?—and starts blowing it into your face at a pressure that would rip a normal monster’s skin off.

For you, however, the high-pressure wind feels kind of nice.

Blue hands a dryer to you and you similarly flick it onto the highest setting and point it directly at his face.

He makes a funny expression, scrunching his brow bones together and wincing as the air blows into his eye-socket. There’s a comical suctioning noise as one of his eye-lights winks out.

You make a strangled sound, and it sounds somewhat gleeful. Blue starts to manically giggle. His remaining eye-light spins into a bloated star, spinning in rapid, streaky circles in the center of his socket.

In your distraction, Blue aims his hairdryer at your mouth.

You make a wheezing noise, cutting off what you now realize was your own gurgling laughter. The two of you aim the hairdryers at each other’s eyes simultaneously and there’s another loud suctioning noise.

“You Two!” Shouts Clem. “Stop Fooling Around! We Must Begin The Bonding Activities At Once!”

“Okay,” Blue snickers at him.

“Aye-aye,” You drawl. Unthinkingly, you lift up your soaking wet hoodie to point the hairdryer into your ribcage.

Blue turns back to you at that exact moment, a smile on his face. “Snowy, Yo—“

He stops short, staring. Clem makes a curious noise and stops too. You glance at them, halfway through gusting beads of water out of your tufted feathers.

Blue’s eye-lights wink out.

You twitch. For the first time you’re cognizant of how horrifying you must look on the regular, given that you don’t have eye-lights yourself. Clem glances between you and Blue then down at your ribcage, fretting in place over whatever he finds there. He does an odd wiggle then falls completely still.

”Snowy.” Blue states. You pause, your grip on your shirt falling lax; the sopping wet fabric slaps and sticks to your ribcage immediately, ruining all of your work.

“Uh. Yeah?”

“You Don’t Have To Do All That.” Blue states, his voice airy as though he’s not quite there. “We’ll Get You Some Dry Clothes.”

Clem nods, still eerily quiet. He glances between you and Blue pensively. Then back at your torso, your ribcage, where the lumpy, wet feathers create strange, puffy grooves in the fabric sticking to your bones.

The mood has changed, air sinking and heavy, sparking with a magic you’re unable to identify. Blue unplugs the hair dryers from the wall as Clem hurries out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

You’ve made a social faux pas, likely, but neither of them say anything about it nor attempt to correct you. What did you even do?

“..Blue,” You start quietly as you watch him shove the hair dryers under the sink. “Did I do something wrong?”

Blue turns to you. He smiles, though the expression’s somewhat bitter. The stars in his eyes are gone.

“Nothing, Snowy. Don’t Worry About It, Okay?” He reaches out and pats your shoulder, gloved hand squeezing water from your coat’s soaked fabric. He pauses, hand hovering. “It’s Just. Well. I Have A Question For You.”

“Ask away,” You return casually.

Blue’s eyes flit to your covered ribcage for a brief moment. “Can I Check Yo—?”

“I HAVE RETURNED!” Clem bellows, throwing open the bathroom door. It slams into the adjacent wall with a bang! that reverberates through the entire house. In his hands are a heaping miscellaneous fabrics and towels, stacked so high they cover his face.

You startle. Blue’s hand twitches then falls back to his side. When you look back at him he’s smiling normally again as though nothing had happened, his starry eye-lights spinning lazily in his sockets. “Thanks, Great Clementine!”

”No Problem, Magnificent Blue!”

When you were alone in the woods, you came across the small den of a snowfox. Its pawprints speckled the white pillows of powder, and that was all you knew of it.

For months you tried to trap it. Snare traps, tarps, pitfalls—but nothing worked. Somehow the fox sensed your Intentions through every innocuous treat you set gently above the tripwire.

Once, you caught it meandering near your trap. You watched it sniff at a slice of bloodied meat from your spot in the bushes, watched it walk, disinterested, away from your carefully laid wire.

You sucked in a breath. Then it turned and looked straight at you. Its eyes glowed bright yellow, its ears flickered quietly. You were treading on uncertain territory.Its gaze weighed upon you with a wisdom, a wildness—a warning to turn back.

So you say nothing. You do not push beyond clear unspoken boundaries. You smile when Clem hands you a towel, and that is all.

When you arrive Downstairs, the sun’s beginning to set beyond the windows. It’s been nearly ten hours since it rose. You muse on this as you amble into the living room, Clem and Blue following close at your heels.

Clem rushes toward a low cabinet and immediately begins rifling noisily through it. A crooked framed photo of a bone creaks dangerously above his skull.

Many of your housemates are where you left them, though it appears Mars and Jupiter have left while Edge has returned from his culinary classes. He sends you a displeased frown close by with tightly folded arms.

Blue, contrastly, sends you a friendly smile, but you continue staring out the windows. You watch on slight stripes of golden sunlight burn holes through the bloated gray clouds. The gold fades as it’s soon muffled by bluish darkness. You’re not used to seeing so many colors in the sky.

”Is Something Wrong, Snowy?” Blue asks you.

“The days are longer here than in the mountains.” You mutter distractedly. “But maybe they aren’t. It’s hard to tell.”

Edge sends you a questioning look, folded arms falling lax. “Mountains—?”

“Uh—Snowy!” Blue starts hastily, grinning widely; he’s been acting odd ever since he asked to ‘check’ you. The term sounds familiar, but you’re uncertain what it means. “How About We Start The Bonding Activity!”

Bonding Activity. Right. You smile kindly and this appears to act as an incentive as Clem nearly flips the coffee table over in his excitement. Literally. While carrying a pile of craft supplies he nearly topples straight over it.

You carefully lower yourself to sit criss-cross on the floor, but your boots, still clogged with rainwater, start to soak uncomfortably into your dry sweatpants. You unfold your legs away from you instead.

”..Which one are we doing?” You ask as an array of papers and writing utensils are spread out before you. You’d agreed to so many activities last night that you don’t remember a single one of them.

Clem hands you a crayon. The small writing utensil looks somewhat ridiculous pillowed in his massive red glove. You take it gingerly.

”Draw Something You Like!” He directs with an easygoing grin. He slides a sheet of paper in front of you.

”’..Like?’” You parrot quietly, staring down at the blank page.

Something you like. What a ridiculous notion. What is it to ‘like’ something? To be drawn to it? You were certainly drawn to food from the moment you woke up, but that’s not the same. You’d just been trying to survive. Food is a necessity. You don’t like it more or less than snow or trees or ridiculous jokes.

So what do you like? What, in your short stream of memories, has ever made you smile?

You close your empty eyes for a moment, the dull noise of the room fading into a whirring murmur. Then you open them slowly.

Clem and Blue have already started their own drawing on a shared piece of paper, the latter scribbling furiously with a bright blue crayon. Rus somehow appeared right next to you within that brief moment and Stretch is still staring at you across the table. Red and Edge are also appraising you, guarded, their eyes glowing like that fox in the woods. Watching. Waiting.

You set the crayon down for a moment and slip off your glove.

You feel their eyes. Your phalanges creak and click together. Black-tipped claws cut smoothly through the air as though parting a tide; you can almost hear their whistling sharpness. Somewhere in the kitchen, Black’s newspaper flips to a new page.

You pick up the crayon and begin drawing.

Long minutes pass and soon you lose yourself in each repetitive motion. Sometimes the thick wax of the crayon will stick itself onto the page, paper lifting with your stroke. You scribble. You hunch closer to the table. All the while, you feel their eyes leveled on you with a certain weight.

You remember the way trees would lower their branches to your shoulders, brushing with a coaxing whisper. Turn back. The way snow grew deeper and darker with each stumbling step. Turn back.

“I’m Convinced Now. He Is Absolutely Red-Coded,” Edge states. He snickers to himself as he passes by.

“Hey,” Red grumbles at his retreating back, “Even I’m not that bad.”

Okay, this is starting to get a little insulting. It’s not your fault it’s hard to hold a crayon with your stupid claw-like phalanges. They’re uncoordinated and shaky, too, minutely trembling as you try to draw a good outline of Blue’s big eyes.

The door to Edge’s room upstairs slams shut and Red’s drifted off again. You try your best to get a good grip on the blue crayon as you color in Blue’s bandana, but drop it twice.

You try not to draw attention to it and you definitely won’t complain. You’re lucky your hands aren’t dust, as messed up as they are. Yes, you’re just glad you still have hands. The thought comes out of nowhere and completely derails your next streak of crayon, which slashes out through a wobbly line.

“..What’s that supposed to be?” Stretch squints over the table and you resist the urge to slam your forearm in front of your drawing to hide it. “Uh..a blue basketball?”

“Snowy, Do You Like Sports!?” Clem exclaims with exuberant cheer. “We Should Play Together Sometime! I Am Very Good At Basketball, Because Of My Magnificent Height!”

“I’m sure you are,” you mumble, very concentrated on your drawing. You’ve started on Clem’s stringy form and Blue is a veritable midget next to him. Oops. Maybe the heights here are a bit skewed.

“Heh. You dropped your crayon again, Snowy.” Rus slips your red crayon back between your shaking black phalanges. His smile twists into a demeaning sneer, likely at your clear show of weakness. You try not to read too much into it. “Are ya trying to draw this out?”

You feel Stretch’s eyes boring into you across the table as he watches you, silent. You ignore them both as you scribble in Clem’s boots. You draw them way too big, but at least they’re symmetrical.

“He’s really goin’ at it with the red, huh?” Red grumbles from the couch.

“Look hue’s talking,” Stretch tacks on.

“Papy!” Huffs Blue. “You’re Ruining It!”

You tiredly tune them out and continue drawing, though your peanut audience, mainly Rus, has fallen suspiciously silent as you’ve begun coloring Clem’s crimson scarf. You try to cover most of your work with your arm as you draw in shaky clouds. The sun goes in last, even though you didn’t get a chance to see it today. Maybe tomorrow.

You lift your crayon and toss it onto the coffee table, staring down at the finished product. It is..less than spectacular.

That is you want to crumple it into a ball and incinerate it. “Done.”

Rus stares at it at your side and intones a quiet, “Huh.”

“Ooh!” Blue exclaims, pumping his fists up and down. Clem mirrors him at his side, cheering, “Hold It Up! Hold It Up! We Want To See!”

You try your very hardest not to pierce the paper with your fingertips, plucking it off the table to display it in front of you like a child.

Blue and Clem gape at you, eyes blowing wide.

“Uh..I like my new friends.” You mumble, bringing the paper up higher to hide your face. You may not be able to flush like the others, but embarrassment colors your voice, pitching it lower and lower. “..Blue and Clem.”

“We’re Outside!” Clem blurts.

“Yeah, uh..I like the sky too.”

“Of Course You Do!” Blue exclaims, voice wobbly. “The Sky Is Wonderful!”

Silence. Red lifts his palm to cover the lower half of his face, staring at you like he’s never seen you before in his life. This was a terrible idea and you want to take a nap.

“So.” You drop the paper down onto the table, shoving it away from you. It comes to a slow stop in front of Stretch, who reaches out to touch it, slowly, as if it were made of glass. “What’d you two draw?”

“OUR NEW FRIEND SNOWY!” The pair shout in tandem. As one, they lift the sheet of paper they’d shared.

“Ta-da!” Sings Blue.

You stare, inadvertently leaning closer. It’s you, alright. You’ve been drawn in nice, neat lines and your coat has been colored in with a light blue pencil. Your eyes are big and dark. You can’t tell if you’re smiling—the expression is covered by your big, penciled-in scarf.

The background is no less meticulous. Someone—likely Clem—drew a bunch of big yellow flowers in the scribbled grass at your feet. Above you is a deep blue sky.

“Oh. Huh.” You nod. “Very nice.”

It was kind of them to not draw you in the snow, you think.

“It’s You!” Blue bursts.

“Outside!” Clem tacks on.

They set the drawing onto the table and slide it toward you. Clem’s mitten smudges most of the graphite.

“You Can Keep It!” Clem says kindly, “For Your New Room. Welcome To Scenic Our House!”

“Welcome!” Blue parrots, grinning widely.

“Thank you,” You say. Your mouth moves again, but you don’t say much else. You carefully roll up the picture and tuck it into your hoodie’s pocket. “..I’ll treasure it.”

There’s a distant thud. Red straightens abruptly. Stretch flinches. Rus’ face scrunches upward into a strange, disquieted expression, as though he’s waiting for something.

Blue turns and a big, jovial smile spreads across his face. “Oh, Hi Mars!”

You turn to find the biggest skeleton in the house standing half-hunched beneath the scaffolding in the hall. His head’s lolling to the side, mostly to avoid a large wooden beam above his skull. His huge, glowing eye brightens, trained solely on you.

You blink. The last beam of sunlight sinks below the window. In three ambling, heavy steps, Mars stops just in front of you. His form shadows the window from view.

Mars grins down at you, his eye-light spinning slowly. “Who’re you?”

“Snowy.” You state. You’re not sure why he’s asking you to introduce yourself again, but ignore it in favor of shifting to stand. You step forward, your soaking wet shoes squelching under your weight, then hold out your ungloved hand to shake. “Good to see you—“

You cut yourself off as Mars slots his massive hands under your armpits and lifts you whole off the ground. Your boots dangle beneath you, heavy and waterlogged; one nearly slips off. Someone makes a choking noise behind you. There’s a clicking sound as Rus lights another cigarette.

“You’re tiny,” Mars informs you, his huge, cracked head suddenly much closer. His eye roils in his skull, bloated red and appraising. “Like a rat.”

“Thanks,” You return easily.

“I don’t think that was a compliment, snowflake,” Red intones on the couch, sweating profusely. He’s reaching out halfway as though debating whether to do something. You wish he would. Your boot is falling off.

Come to think of it, why are you considered small? Red’s a veritable midget compared to you, and Blue’s even smaller.

However, held up by the armpits by a monster nearly four times your size, you are reluctant to defend yourself. You continue dangling limply like a sprig of flaccid lettuce.

Mars hums. He appears appeased by the fact that you aren’t protesting whatsoever. Then he sets you back down on the ground about a pace away from where you were before.

You glance to your right and find you’d nearly stepped on a bright red button on the floor. It’s one of the puzzles—read, deathtraps—that Blue warned you about. And it’s located right in the center in the living room. Are these skeletons trying to get themselves killed?

You look back to Mars, who’s eyeing you carefully. His wavering gaze lingers on your thin, black-tipped hands.

“Be careful.” He states lowly. “Or somebody might take a bite ‘outta ya.”

”Yeah.” You return easily, then your smile spreads. “Of corpse I will.”

Mars grins maniacally. “Hilarious.” He states. Then he turns around and shuffles off, the floorboards creaking dangerously beneath each weighted step.

Bored and suddenly exhausted, you reach up and pick at one of your sharp teeth. Red looks absolutely flabbergasted. You stop poking your canine to stare at him flatly. “Is there something on my face?”

Red’s jaw flaps around. “Do ya got a deathwish, Snowy?”

Which is an opportune time to mess with him. “A ‘Deathwish?’ What’s that?”

Red’s expression contorts into something absolutely hilarious. There’s a muffled snort from the kitchen.

You turn. Red whirls his head around. Black’s head is covered by his newspaper where he sits at the high counter. His coffee’s unfinished, long gone cold, and he’s been reading the same page for the last twenty minutes.

“Did you just laugh at me, Blackberry?” Red asks dangerously.

Black lowers the newspaper, face unreadable. He smooths the paper on the counter with a casual sigh. “Was I Wrong To Laugh? Your Very Existence Is A Joke.”

“What’d you just say? You basta—“

You refuse to get involved in this. Sidling around the crimson red button on the floor, around Stretch and Rus’ lounging forms, and around Clem and Blue who are giggling to each other in private conversation, you start up the stairs to retreat back up to Your Closet.

You can do more Bonding Activities another day. It seems like you’ll be here a while, after all.