THE SLEEPOVER

Well, now’s the time. Summer sun isn’t threatening to set just yet, and won’t for quite some time. You’d have until eight, and it’s barely six. Still, it’s pretty late in the day for your mind.  

You find yourself standing outside Lavender’s house once again, but this time, you have with you the contents of an overnight bag and some amenities. A few days ago, Lupus and Lavender organised with you a sleepover, and well, yeah, why not? You’ve nothing else to do, and they’re your friends. So, you made this plan known to Chrome and Tabitha (Which was presumably what Lupus meant when she said to make sure to tell your… Dads? Eugh.), and set the date.

Every other time you’ve been over to Lavender’s house you’ve been letting yourself in for the sake of staying out of sight, but something about this makes you nervous. Eh, it’s irrational, you’re irrational, what can ya do? Sometimes a change in context is all a person needs to be put at unease, but you know your brain better than it knows you, and you open the door.

Oh fuck, and of course they’re here.

“Hey, come on in!” Lavender calls over to you from the far side of the plant-laiden room. She’s shuffled it around some, pushing stacked palettes together so there’s more usable floorspace around the pair of settees and television. All the more space for you to put between you, and Markus.

“So what’s the general plan, then?” You speak with a sweeter tone than usual, setting down your (borrowed from Chrome, far too chic for your liking) bag on the couch adjacent, pulling some DVDs from its massive side pocket. “I brought movies, but I can’t vouch for quality.”

“Mostly just hang out, movies is good.” She makes her way over from the kitchen door frame. “I have a couple party games on the Uss, most of them areeee--?” She glances to Markus.

“Shovelware.”

“That’s the word! So we have a couple real games, and then some hot garbage.” She says, delighted.

“That’s good.” You affirm. “Because I’d wager the same for these.”

Lavender and Lupus lean over the coffee table as you splay a selection of five dvd boxes across it. Markus stays put in their seat.

“... Woof.” Lavender meows. “Yeah that’s not a great batch. Who picked these?”

“Chrome.”

“So not even someone who has the excuse of being a literal alien with no cultural knowledge?”

“I mean-” You cut yourself off mid sentence to to exhale through your teeth, clicking your tongue. “From the way he talks, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t watched a movie in like, five years.”

“This one’s not that bad!” Lupus lifts the corner of one box off the table. The one with the rabbitoids. “I liked it.”

Lavender grimaces. As does Markus from afar, leaning ever so slightly forward to see the box.

“Ghhhhnnneehhheehhhuhhhh….” Lavender makes a high pitched nonsense sound. “I mean, the first one was alright, but the spinoffs are kindaaaaa….”

You watch with intent as she tries to not say anything too mean, and she mostly just says a couple scattered comparatives and adjectives before trailing off. Lupus looks on with innocent confusion in her eyes.

“... But this one’s alriiight?” She tentatively slides another one of the dvds across the table with her middle finger. “--Though we could just stream something.” She addends.

“Yeah, that might be an idea.” You nod. She nods in return, smiling grimace betraying that this is probably the correct choice. You begin stacking the boxes back into a neat little pile to confirm their dismissal.

Markus leans forward enough to rest their elbows on their knees. You awkwardly make eye contact with them for a brief second before their gaze flits to lavender. “Everyone’s here, isn’t it pizza time?”

As much vague animosity as you have with this guy, you will say you’re a little enamoured by the Shape of the Creature, so to speak. Especially now you’ve been out in public enough to have seen enough normal people out and about, you can tell this guy is like, weird, right?

Lavender gasps an ‘Oh, right!’ and pulls out her phone, plopping down on the same sofa you're on and swiping around apps. “What’s everyone’s preference? I’d go for a meat feast-?”

Lupus nods and Markus concurs with a mumble of ‘Meat feast is good.’

“Lemme take off the ham if there is any…” She fiddles with the customisation menu.

“Why?” Markus’ face scrunches up in questioning. Their snout is so small compared to even Lavender’s. All the wrinkles bunch up just below the eye, with nowhere else to go; and most expressions seem to pull back on their lips more than you’d expect, frequently baring teeth. And while it’s rude to stare... The teeth don’t seem to be in quite the right order. At least, not for a cat, which is what they look most like, but... Uh.

“I don’t do ham.” You casually explain, drawing Markus’ big black eyes back to you.

“There isn’t any on it by default anyway.” Lavender waves her phone around a little. “It’s all beef and cavvy. Do we want it spicy though?”

There’s a quiet affirmation of ‘Yeah?’ all round, and Lavender taps a couple more options as you and the canid in the room huddle and lean over her, acting as the devils on her shoulder when she asks if she should add sides. Yes. Yes to the fries.

She sets the phone down and plugs it in, delivery timer ticking. Then, almost immediately;
“All~Right! Let’s go get some snacks!” Lavender chirps, pulling you by the arm as she stands.

The kitchen is now home, presumably temporarily, to a few ex-livingroom plants, making it just that bit more worrying to be in. You feel like you’re inevitably gonna knock something over in here, the question is merely ‘What?’.
Markus bumps up behind you as you tentatively hover around the doorframe. They loom. Jesus, they do kinda loom is the thing. You let them pass and eye them some more. Lupus steps past you, carrying three litre bottles of pop over her shoulder as if they were lumber, with a stack of cups in her free hand. You hang back a touch longer, standing a little further away from the door to let her pass. The pinkish fur on Markus’ body seems to stop dead where their tail starts, transitioning into the kind of soft scales you’ve seen on Adder and Naga. It explains the stark colour difference. You wonder if it sheds? It stays angled upright even as they bend down to look in the fridge. With how big it is, it must be second nature to use it as a counterbalance.

“Why do you have tortilla chips in the fridge?” They call out to Lavender, who is pulling plates and jars of salsa out of various cupboards.

“Why don’t you?” She takes the upheld bag of aforementioned doritoalikes and slips past back into the living room. “That’s basically everything, just grab the sweets from the crisper in there.”

You take this as your cue to follow her back in, hands in pockets, as you hear Markus close the fridge door behind you. You feel compelled to try and hide the fact that you didn’t actually carry anything yourself, but it just manifests as slouching.

As you sit back down, Lavender pours out the chips onto a plate, with Lupus opening several jars in distressingly quick succession.

Markus swaps the bags of candies for a TV remote upon their return, and navigates over to some streaming service or another. Lavender does a frantic little handwave and goes ‘OOh!’ at one of the things they scroll past.

“That one-that one! I didn’t know they had that on here!”

“Eh, I’d be down to watch Denizens Two?” Markus shortens down the listed title by quite a few words, implying to you a level of cultural acceptance. They glance to Lupus as they say it, looking for a consensus.

“Yeah--!! It’s a fun one.” Lupus says, swallowing a chip midway through her sentence.

“Yeah it’s just good popcorn- well, tortilla- faire. Easy to follow, which is good because…!”

Lavender punctuates her sentence by pulling a couple small clinking vials from her hoodie pocket and sets them on the table, somewhat distant from the food. Oh! It’s nail polish.

“I just thought this might be fun!”

“Yeah!” You agree, honestly. It’s been a while.

Markus shuffles back in their seat again. “Mm, I’ve never painted mine or anybody’s nails before…” They mumble.

“Me neither!” Lupus exclaims in a decidedly more enthusiastic tone.

“Oh..” Lavender looks to you. “Ali?”

You shrug. “Yeah, I’ve painted my nails before. Painted other people’s too.”

The creeping look of worry vanishes from her face. “Perfect then! We’ll do it in pairs!”

Without any hesitation she begins pointing out the colours she has. They’re just the stuff she had on hand, so they’re all things that go with her biologically purple and blue self. Pink, green, orange, yellow, and a deeper purple that matches her nose.

Lavender grabs the orange and yellow and begins holding them up to Lupus’ face, matching them against her sclera, presumably. “I think you’d look great in red, but I don’t have any… But which of these do you think is more like your eyes?”

As they converse, the realisation seems to dawn on both you and Markus at the same time. You see them look up from the remote they just hit play on, just in time to lock eyes with you once more, and watch the corner of their mouth twitch in and out of a grimace. Well, you, for one, aren’t going to cause a scene at this here wonderful sleepover hosted by your good friend Lavender, and so you slip past her and Lupus with a stride and sit down with your target on the adjacent couch.

You look up into Markus’ deep navy and bright teal eyes once again as they rise from their slouch. Now that you know the average height here seems to be about 5’5”, their 6-foot figure is all the more odd. You straighten your back in return and pull the deep purple nail polish from the table.

“Hand?” You lay your palm out flat upward.

Markus puts their paw in yours less hesitantly than expected, they seem to have regained their confidence somewhat from your last encounter, where you ended it indisputably top dog.
A sharp, hitched inhale through your nose is drawn from you, but you don’t do much more than flinch as you feel Markus’ hand tense, and more importantly, their claws unsheathe directly into your skin.

“Well, not this purple then.” You respond to their little stunt, hooking your thumb under their palm and lifting it to dislodge their mercifully non-hookshaped claws. “Since then it would blend into your little handsock markings.” You were basing your decision on the light near-pink violet of their main body, but their extremities, like tail and hands are indigo. Not that anybody needs to know that you just straight up forgot.

”... But how about this…” You pick the orange that Lavender has set down. “Seeing as there isn’t a blue to go with your eyes and undertones.”

“Sounds… Good.” They aren’t trying as hard as you are to hide the distaste, but they’re at least trying a little. You get the impression they don’t want to ruin the night either.

You settle into it. The movie is finally rumbling past its super-wide establishing shots and is starting to set up its characters, or just re-establish them, given the tone and the two at the end of the title-- Lavender and Lupus are happily chatting away over it.
Painting Markus’ nails isn’t too hard, though a little odd, seeing as the thinness of the claws makes it so that the brush covers the whole topside in one stroke, but the three-dimensionality means you have to paint all four sides separately . You push one of their fingers up forcefully, as they aren’t so much cooperating with you as not-not cooperating. It’s a weird feeling. The finger, you mean. Not the antagonism. You’re used to antagonism.

It has like? It’s not got a paw-pad, per say, but there is a leathery bounce to it that human fingers don’t have. There’s just straight up more flesh around the bone. Chrome and Tabitha’s hands are similar, although softer- more, uh, catlike. You’d call this paw… Doglike in ‘give’? Mostly in that it reminds you of a werewolf, so you could be wrong. You move onto the next finger.

The palm and attachment points all seem very human, though. You suppose that’s just the shape a dextrous grasping appendage takes. There’s still fur on the palm, again, no real paw-pads, but it’s thinner than elsewhere. This yet again betrays to you the way that Markus, specifically, seems to have scale-like skin, even below the fur. Not true scales, obviously, since you’re pretty sure those things don’t mix, but it’s still clearly not just skin the same way say, Lupus’ seems to be. You finally glance back up to Markus’ face, about to make a genuine question about the biology of this world, when Lavender’s phone rings.

“Oh! The pizza!” Lavender deftly screws the lid back on the nail polish and stresses to Lupus not to touch anything with her hands. Lupus positively stands to attention, while staying seated, of course.

“Hello?”

“Aeahh, um, hi.” Everyone’s quiet enough that you can hear the other side of the line and oh, that’s not a great start.

“Um, hello? Is this…?”

“Yes Miss, this is a call from Otho pizza. I’m sorry to say-- We have your order, Miss, but…”

“But…?”

“We legally aren’t allowed to drive into your postcode.” They’re what?

“You’re… What?” Lavender voices your thoughts exactly. “You.. I’ve had you deliver here before?”

“Uh, yeah, um.” Oh this poor guy. “We can’t update the system to exclude postcodes or anything, since uh, it’s not ours? So we just made your order… And then…”

There’s a pause.

“... Y’know that bit of cliff that fell into the ocean?”

“Yeah? Like, ten minutes from here, other week?” Lavender doesn’t sound mad or anything, just bewildered.

“Yeah, there. We’re not allowed to go past that. Makes the road too close to the sea or something. Sorry...” It’s clearly just some fellow teen on the other side of the line. But also uh oh, not a fan of learning this place really is actively eroding.

It goes quiet on both ends for a moment before the guy speaks again.

“Uh, so, would you like a refund… Or…?”

“Nnuh… Um… If I were to walk there- to the edge of the bit you’re allowed to go to, I mean- could you meet me there and hand the pizza over?” She suggests.

“Yeah, I think so? Let me check.” The line goes quieter for a second but you’re pretty sure you can hear him yelling for someone else in the pizza place, if ever so distant.

Lavender looks back to you all and shakes her head, minimising her statement. “It’s only ten minutes of a walk. If I just picked up the pace a bit it would take no time at all.”

Lupus nods and Markus mumbles an ‘If you’re sure…’. You don’t really know what to make of it, personally. You join in on the muttering and just say something along the lines of ‘At least they sound unionised?’ Then, the guy’s back on the line.

“Uh, yeah? We’re allowed to do that. I’ll send someone then.” Though he slips in a couple more ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ than you’re reporting here. “Would you be good to pick it up by the Lycandied-- it says here on the maps that’s its name? One of the shops?”

“Yeah, I know there! I’ll be there in ten!” Lavender affirms over the line.

There’s a few more mumbled confirmations, and she hangs up.

“Oookay, well.” Lavender slips her phone very deliberately into her hoodie pocket. “Looks like that’s what I’m doing.”

Before anybody else has a chance to say anything, Lupus bounces to her feet. “I’m coming with you!” She makes a little jab-jab-cross motion, implying she’ll be protecting her from any potential dangers. Of which you assume there are at least some, sadly.

“Ah!! Your nails!” Lavender gasps, causing Lupus to un-ball her fists and realise that balling them had smudged yellow nail polish all over her palms.

“Oops…” She looks a little sheepish, but doesn’t get much more chance for a word in edgeways, as Lavender shovels a few million items into a shoulder bag.

“We’ll fix that when we’re back. We gotta get going.” Lavender pats her on the shoulder and hands her the bomber jacket she’d left on the sofa arm. “You two stay put.” She points to you and Markus. “But I might get more snacks since I’m going out, so text me sharpish if you think of anything.”

The two of you nod quite vigorously as you watch with how much determination and haste Lavender is moving. She’s really set into mission-mode.

Aaaand…..! She’s out the door, and Lupus with her.

And you are stayed put.

And Markus with you.

Again.


They remove their paw from your hand, having had it there for this whole exchange, and sit quietly.

You also sit quietly.

The movie’s still going and you let your eyes drift to it. It’s still in its opening third, though you aren’t super sure what’s going on. A white dog with shoulders twice the width of his waist is being reprimanded by a teammate for…. Mmmm. Something. You weren’t paying attention, but what matters is that his black-and-red superhero suit is all torn up out of, presumably, a recklessness that will be the focus of this film. You know a character arc setup when you see one. The actor playing the teammate has a lot of charisma, you like her. She’s dark blue and larger than he is. There’s a small timeskip and the hero (The lady called him Sobaka and you can’t tell if that’s his legal name or hero name) steps out in a new, mm, worse, green outfit. But the framing is all triumphant and he and the lady seem happy with it so, uh, good for them.

You don’t take your eyes off the screen, if only because you’re curious to put this movie together with context clues, and finally grab one of the tortilla chips that’ve been sat on the plate in the middle of the table this whole time. Absentmindedly, you just bite into it plain.

“WHAT is the DEAL with this?!” Markus yells, making you jump.

“What’s the deal with what? Good god…” You take the next second to clear your throat. A piece of chip got stuck somewhere when you were startled. Eugh.

“What do you mean, ‘What’s the deal’?” They put a weird amount of emphasis on the word ‘You’. “No matter what weird shit is clearly going on, everyone around me just seems to treat it like it’s completely normal!”

You? …? You point at yourself as if to say ‘Me?’

“Yes! Y- Bwuh- Why am I being expected to treat it as NORMAL that there’s an ALIEN at a SLEEPOVER?” They raise their voice again, punctuating the end of their question with a rise to their feet.

“Nnnnn?” You lean back a little, maintaining a veneer of distance. What’s the big deal? Maybe you’ve just gotten lucky, but nobody else so far has reacted like this.

“Why are you here? Why aren’t you freaked out by all this?!” They take a step forward a little too quickly for your liking and you stand up also, to, well, about mouth-level with them. They’re weirdly tall, sure, but compared to you it’s not by much.

“Why should I be?” You turn to walk back over to the other couch, raising your hands dismissively. “Your baggage, not mine. Clearly.”

They grab you.

Oh, fuck this.

You take a few more deliberate steps forward in quick succession to clear the threshold of the sofa and table, before turning back around to destabilise the grasp they have on your shoulder, grabbing their arm and--

Shit shit shit--! You hear them protest incoherently as you fuck up your move. There wasn’t enough space to move around the couch quite yet, and instead of being able to drag them in front of you to confront them, they lose their footing and fall on top of you, sending you backwards to the ground.

“What the hell! Again?!” They remove their elbows from you and start trying to stand up. You grab them by one of the horns and pull them enough to keep them down.

“Nope. This’ll do.” You lay as casually as you can while sandwiched between a table leg and the end of a sofa.

“Hey, don’t make this weird.” They mumble, trying to get your hand off their horn. It has the texture of a flocked toy, only warm and with the displacability of skin. It’s kind of fucked up actually; you thought it was just gonna be keratin.

“You’re the one making it weird.” You rebut. “No-one else has thrown up this much fuss about me.”

They stutter a couple random syllables before coming down on one word: “Exactly!!”

You genuinely don’t know what to do with that response, and your eyes dart about your fuckin’ weirdo conversation partner’s details. You grip their horn harder again and shove your weight upward and sideways, not quite getting on top of Markus, but pushing them down into the foot of the sofa. “--And why is that a problem?” You finally manage as you shove a knee into their abdomen.

“Ow-! Hey- Stop-! But it’s weird!” They grab at you the way your siblings used to, making it real obvious they’ve been in about as many fights as you have, which is to say, none. “I’unno, just… Every time...”

You raise an eyebrow, and the sofa gives; sliding back a jolt along the floor- lending you an unexpected burst of forward momentum and making you let out a weird grunt. You use your free hand to remove theirs from your ear. “What’d’you mean ‘Every time’?”

You watch as Markus’ head rests down on the floor now the couch is out of the way. They gave up on trying to rag you about pretty quickly and now just look dejected.

“Hello?” You try and prompt a response. “I don’t get you. I know this place has less fantastical shit than I’m used to back where I’m from, but has something like this happened before?”

They’re quiet for a moment longer before mumbling “No.” They’re avoiding your eyes too.

“Not exactly, but.” They continue. “I don’t know… It’s just, constant.”

You finally take your hand off their gross warm fuzzy horn and rest your cheek to your upturned palm. You watch as their face gets progressively sadder. Oh they’d better not cry. That shit is so intolerably contagious.

They swallow and you watch their brows furrow. A couple blinks later and they seem a little more composed. You lean back and sit on your heels, still with a knee over their leg.

“I feel like I’m permanently kept out of the loop.” They mutter. “Every question I asked about you was brushed off...”

“By Lupus?” You ask.

“Yeah.”

“Well that's probably because I haven’t told Lupus shit all.” You shrug. “Mostly ‘cause she doesn’t ask questions.”

They finally focus their eyes back on you. You can visibly see them dilate and contract again. Their pupils aren’t smooth around the edges. They’re slit upright, but kinda wobbly, like a gecko, maybe.

“And it’s not just you…” Markus also rises from the floor somewhat, pulling themselves up on the couch with an arm behind them. They glance away again. “I’m sure there’s some weird shit going on with… Me. My family. But everyone’s so tight-lipped.”

Yee-e-e-e-sh! You aren’t touching that one with a ten foot pole. You pivot the conversation as hard as you can upon standing up.

“Nyeah, uh. So how little do you know about me, anyways?” You do the polite thing and offer a hand down to them.

“Well I, know you’re an alien?” They pull on your arm slightly too hard and you almost lose balance, but they put their hands out to steady you once they’re up. Clearly they just don’t know their own strength, plus, you’re still working on a level of muscle atrophy.

“Well, I’m also a demon, I guess.” You readjust your big jacket; the neck of the thing has almost made its way under your armpit by this point.

“Oh, don’t fuck with me.” They say, genuine annoyance in their voice.

You round the back of the sofa and shove it back into place, with a little more effort than you feel it should be taking. “I’m not. I really am a demon. How’d you think I got here?”

“Well, considering there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a spacecraft…?”

You laugh so suddenly that you snort, how very uncharacteristic of you. Markus’ nose wrinkles to match their furrowed brows.

“No, no, sorry. It’s just that my species super hasn’t figured that shit out yet. Plus, the concept of someone letting me near any kind of--” You wiggle your fingers to indicate an interchangeable word, “--’craft is really funny.” You take stock of the table as you sit back down. Amazingly, your bullshit didn’t knock anything over. And also nobody had poured drinks yet, which probably helped. “I used magic, right?”

Markus sits down next to you, clearly still skeptical.

“Magic has like, a meaning, and rules, where I’m from. I don’t just mean magic in the bullshit sense.” You gesture vaguely with one hand. “It’s just a matter of energy usage, plain and simple.”

You pause for a second, thinking about how best to explain it logically, since for the most part you just vibe it out whenever you’re actually doing it.

“So everything has energy, right? Thermal, kinetic, potential…”

“Uh, thermal is just a form of kinetic energy.” Markus corrects you. “The two types are just kinetic and potential.”

You blink a couple times, lips pursed. “... Yeah. But yeah, all energy can become any other type of energy if you try hard enough, right?”

“Right.”

“So just like, add magic to the list of energies, basically.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So everything has inherent magic-- Well, not here it doesn’t, but it does on Earth, where I’m from.” You digress, “Being able to actually use magic is just knowing how to tap into sources of magic, like fucked up rocks, and point that energy elsewhere.”

Markus nods once very deliberately, with quite the thinking face on. “Sooo… If you wanted to set something on fire, you’d be capable of turning magic energy into say, radiant and thermal energy?”

“Yeah, basically. That’s pretty much how a flame spell works.” You shrug. Markus raises one finger and you pre-empt them. “No I can’t do one now. There’s legit no magic in this universe.”

“Oh.” They look a little disappointed, then seem to startle. “Wait. This universe?”

“Right, yeah. I’ve been working off the theory this is a different universe, not just a different planet. More shit makes sense that way.” You wave a hand around. “All the weird similarities, the lack of language barrier; makes more sense to me that I fell through the cracks into an alternate universe than popped onto some planet halfway across the galaxy.”

They stare at you.

You make a noise like a shrug. “Mhhruh, I’ve always been of the belief that there’s some kind of demiurge. Or maybe Plato was just right about the whole ‘forms’ thing.” You finally reach for another tortilla chip, and put salsa on it this time. “Fuck if I know.”



“-Anyway!” You snap your fingers to get Markus’ now existential attention and point at the screen. The movie is still going. “I wanna know what’s going on here. Can we rewind it?”

You watch Markus’ pupils physically constrict again as they snap back into focus, blinking. “Ah-uh, yeah, sure?” They pick up the remote and set about skipping back… Quite a bit. How long were you two fighting for? And, how long has Lavender been gone?


“Uh, this one’s a sequel to, well, the first one. But it’s not too complicated…” They start explaining some background to you. “It’s basically standalone… But in the first one this guy was a double agent for the villains, then he turned good at the end.” Markus points to the white dog guy.

“So is he like, having to reinforce that he is in fact, trustworthy, in this one?” You say, mouth half full of chips, and hands full of things that look like M&Ms but have the letter E on them instead.

“Yeah, basically.”

You nod along. A couple things do make more sense given the context. Maybe that’s also why he's in a gross green outfit now? Because like… Green = good? It’s anybody’s guess.

“Parts of this were actually filmed around here…” Markus remarks. “Not exactly this town, obviously. But like, an hour's drive.”

You nod, finally cracking open one of the litre bottles of presumed-cola. “I heard it’s a popular filming location. No legal protections for actors.”

“Ah- Yeah.” They tap their claws on the table for a second before mumbling to themselves. “Oh that is probably why, isn’t it…”

“That’s how it always goes.” You sip your cola. It is cherry flavoured. Oh no. “My country’s cities got used as architectural doppelgangers for the more important country next door, ‘cuz the economy’s cheaper.”

“Architectural doppelganger?”

“When you film a city but pretend it's a different city.”

“Right… Right.” They nod but you aren’t sure if they got what you meant or not. Maybe that’s not a thing they do here, but you presume it has to be, logistically.


The blue lady’s name is Harrier, like the bird, or perhaps the dog. You suppose she does have some avian features, though she lacks a beak of any kind. Is that possible? Once again you wonder how much you can believe of what you see on TV. You learned your lesson from the house hippos, even if it was several years too late. Anyway ohohoho big lady throw car as display of power.

You finally relax your shoulders from their tensed state and the two of you sit quietly, just watching the film like normal people. The villain seems weirdly understated for what you presume to be, like, what superheroes should be fighting? He’s just kinda a guy, though maybe there’ll be a twist. Hmm. You reach for the E&E’s again.


“HOOOLY SHIT.” Lavender’s voice rings out hoarse behind you, accompanied by the sound of the door handle denting the wall upon impact.

The two of you on the couch flail and jump simultaneously, taken off guard by the sudden noise. Markus wheezes.

“You good?” You manage to address Lavender. She looks ragged. What the hell happened? She’s holding two pizzas and looks to be splattered in some kind of blue substance.

“Oh! Sorry about that!” She springs back to her cheery demeanor nigh instaneoustly, letting Lupus past her and into the house. “Things got a little crazy, and we ended up with an extra half a pizza?”

The door closes and Lupus wipes her muddied feet on the doormat, (You’re really wondering what’s up with the bias against shoes in this world) as Lavender gently moves a few things aside on the table so she can put the pizzas(?) down.

“Half a pizza?” You query.

“Yeah, like I said, things got crazy.” She giggles.

You cannot begin to fathom what kind of scenario leaves someone with one and a half pizzas, muddy feet and--

“Um, are you..? What’s with the blood…?” Markus looks visibly distressed.

“Oh!” Lavender tugs on the bottom of her hoodie as if to show it off. “Don’t worry, it’s not mine.”

Markus opens their mouth to speak, but only manages the vaguest possible ‘Yeah I could tell that…’ before Lupus puts a shopping bag down on the table that seems to be full of bagged candy. Like full-full. You won’t ask about that one either.

“How long were we gone?” Lupus asks, tail wagging.

“Nnnno idea.” You reply

“No idea at all.” Markus affirms after you.

She sticks her tongue out and puts a knuckle to her chin. “Oops.”

“Well, I’m gonna go change- Lupus, you probably should too-” Lavender remarks with a shockingly casual cadence, “And we’ll get back to nail painting! C’mon.”

She ushers Lupus upstairs with her to, well, presumably, go change into some un-bloodied clothes. You and Markus exchange glances, left alone yet again.

…

…

“Do we wanna see what’s in them?” You allude.

“Well, which one’s the real pizza and which one's the… Extra?” Markus tentatively raises a painted claw to the pizza boxes.

“We’ll just have to open them and… See which pizza is the pizza that is only half a pizza?”

“I guess?” Markus lifts the top box from the stack of two and rests it on their knees.

Slowly. They pry it open… You look inside to see half a pizza, no sauce, no cheese.


The two of you speak in unison.

 “... Why the fuck does it have meatballs on it?”