Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It's morning. You know this because someone has begun knocking at your door at an hour much too early to be civilized. Not that civility has meant anything in this house.

You open your sockets halfway.

Dim light cuts around the curtains in thin strips. The room is quiet, warm, and offensively comfortable. You turn on your side under the blanket. It's too heavy to get up from under it, so you may as well continue lying under it for now.

The knock sounds again, sharp and bright and quick which tells you immediately that it is not your brother at the door. Beyond the window, the world has begun doing its usual excessive impression of peace. You can hear birds chirping, annoyingly, as the light spilling inside begins to warm. You pull the blanket over your skull.

Silence follows. Maybe whoever was outside took the hint and went away. Good.

You're just about to drift off again when the aggressor calls merrily from the other side of the door.

"Graphite!" you hear Blue say. "Good morning! It is time to get up!"

No. It is not.

"Graphite?"

Still no.

"We are leaving for the shopping center in forty minutes!"

Forty minutes is still forty minutes away and therefore irrelevant.

"I know you are awake!"

You are not. You have never been less awake in your life. You are a corpse in a bed. Less a skeleton and more a pile of bones. There is no Graphite here, meaning no shopping center can require him.

"I can hear you ignoring me."

That is a ridiculous statement. Ignoring makes no sound. You are being maligned by an optimist.

The door remains shut, at least. Blue does not open it. He does not test the handle.

"I am going to keep knocking every five minutes unless you answer!"

You growl into the pillow.

"Graphite?"

No. 

“Graaaaphite?”

"What?” you rasp.

"Oh good! You are awake!” Blue sounds much too pleased with himself. "Your brother is already awake too! If we do not leave early, then the shopping center will be much more crowded."

Crude manipulation, you hiss to yourself. Still, Blue’s tactics work well enough since you throw the blanket back and, reluctantly, rise. Cold air nips at your ribs. You shoot one scathing glance at the yellow sweater where you left it thrown over the back of the corner chair.

"I’m up," you call.

"Wonderful!"

"Stop sounding pleased."

"Okay!"

You stand slowly, one hand braced against the mattress until the room finishes its short, unnecessary spin. Your magic stirs somewhere behind your sternum, still thin and sluggish. Better than before, marginally. Once your sockets stop trying to droop closed, you cross the room to grab the ugly sweater.

It smells.

Not like you, which you would like to have noted. It merely has begun to acquire evidence of having been worn by a monster for several consecutive days. Therefore it is not the same thing. It is not your smell. You do not have a smell. You are a professional monster of clean habits and austere personal standards who has been subjected to a growing list of increasingly creative torture methods including but not limited to borrowed clothing, comfortable beds, medical appointments, and harassment by multiversal idiots.

You pull the awful thing over your head and catch yourself reflected in the mirror above the dresser.

A skeleton in a yellow sweater stares back.

You bare your teeth at him.

He looks no more respectable for it.

By the time you exit your room, Blue has disappeared downstairs. You can hear him speaking in a brisk, organizing voice. Cap answers him with theatrical importance. A lower grumble follows—probably Classic—followed by a drawled laugh that could only belong to Stretch. Footsteps move across the floorboards. A cabinet shuts. Someone curses. Someone else corrects the profanity.

You step into the hall and close your door behind you. Two doors down, your brother’s room is already open.

Chalk stands near the landing, likewise dressed in the same clothes the house has given him for now. Somehow, he has managed to arrange them with more dignity than you have. A new scarf sits around his neck, soft and gray.

He looks excited, albeit trying to keep his excitement inside himself. The moment he spots you, though, he straightens and tries to school his expression neutral.

"Good morning," Chalk greets you, then squints. "You are awake.”

"Unfortunately," you mutter. 

His posture eases, and you follow him downstairs.

The first floor is a state of logistical disorder masquerading as a household. Blue stands near the front door with a small notebook in one hand and a bag over one shoulder. He is dressed, alert, and bright-eyed in a manner that suggests some people are simply born without mercy. Stretch leans against the wall beside him, hood up, sockets half-lidded. He is holding a thermos of some kind in his hands. It reeks strongly of honey and coffee.

Classic is worse. He stands near the kitchen opening, one slipper still on one foot and a shoe on the other. More than half of his weight is being held up by Cap who is more than awake enough for the two of them.

"Brother, stand up properly," Cap scolds, not for the first time by the sound of it.

"M' standing," Classic mumbles. "S'called style, Paps."

Stretch, spotting you and your brother, raises his thermos slightly. "Morning Chalk, Phite."

You glare at him. "Don't shorten my name before breakfast."

"Sure thing, Graph." He looks no more repentant.

You point at him. "I still remember my threat from before morning."

Stretch snorts. "Imaginary murder, yeah. I'm terrified."

Black is here too, you realize. He stands nearer the front window than the door, gloved hands folded over the top of a cane he does not appear to need. He is dressed sharply, as he usually is, though his shirt is not his usual dark red or black, but white instead. Unlike the others, he does not look tired or enthusiastic. He looks amused, which is arguably worse.

Your gaze catches on him for half a second longer than intended.

Black notices, of course. His mouth curves.

You look away first because there is nothing to be gained by acknowledging the exchange.

So, there are five of them, then. Blue, Stretch, Classic, Cap, Black, and the two of you. A convoy. A supervisory body. A small committee disguised as a shopping trip.

You narrow your sockets. "Is all of this necessary?"

"Yes," Blue says at once.

"No," Classic says at the same time.

Cap turns a sharp look upon his brother. "It is absolutely necessary."

Classic lifts both hands, or tries to. One immediately slips from Cap’s support and nearly sends him sideways. Cap catches him by the back of his jacket without looking.

Blue exhales through his nasal ridge. "Sans was originally going to take you and Chalk with Papyrus. I decided that I am coming along because he cannot be expected to manage a responsible day trip out, even with his brother's support."

Classic gives a lazy thumbs-up without lifting his head. "Kid invited himself."

"And my brother is here because I am," Blue continues.

Stretch takes a long, slow drink from his thermos. "Very forceful kidnapping."

Blue ignores him with an expression of very determined cheer. "Lastly, Black has kindly agreed to assist."

You look from one of them to the next. Blue with his notebook and offensive readiness. Stretch folded against the wall like laundry given up on halfway through. Classic barely upright and wearing two different articles of footwear, if one can place a slipper and a shoe under the same category. Cap standing like a junior officer attempting to drag his subordinate through a failed inspection. Black, unfortunately, looking calm enough for all of them.

"This is a parade," you hear your brother mutter under his breath and you cannot help but agree. Because what is this but a parade of colorful skeletons?

Chalk, though, isn't quite looking at the group with as much irritation as you are. Beneath his slight embarrassment of the number, there's a flicker of relief beneath the careful neutrality of his expression. That settles the matter more than you would like. Mostly because Red is not here and that improves the circumstances considerably.

Three pairs of brothers, you count, including yourself and Chalk. And one outlier.

"Is your brother not coming?" you ask Black.

His grin sharpens with interest, not mockery. "Rus? No. He prefers to stay in. Lazy creature, really," that last part was spoken with a note of warm affection. Black's eyelight slides, mildly, toward Classic and Stretch. "Though he is hardly alone in that affliction." His tone sharply loses that hint of affection.

Classic’s sockets do not open. "M’ awake enough to be insulted."

"Then wake enough to tie your shoes," Cap says.

Classic looks down at his feet as if discovering them for the first time. "Huh."

Stretch doesn't even bother to defend himself, which is answer enough.

Blue clears his throat loudly. He opens his notebook with flourish. Inside are written points, neatly labeled and numbered. His handwriting, from what you can see is neat, rounded, and infuriatingly enthusiastic. Little stars mark several items in the margins.

"Alright! Let's begin with rules and assurances," Blue says ceremonially. "First, Chalk and Graphite, if either of you want to leave a store, step aside, take a break, sit down, return to the car or home, please say so."

You, graciously, assume that these rules are additive to the house rules rather than supplanting.  

"Secondly, no one is going anywhere alone. We will stay in groups. If anyone needs to step away, they tell someone first. This," Blue adds, with a pointed look towards Classic. "applies to everyone."

Classic lifts his head just enough to crack one socket open. "What?"

"You know what," Blue says, then moves on. "Third! There will be humans. There will likely be many humans, even early. They may look at you, but that does not mean they know anything about you. As far as anyone outside this house is concerned, you are cousins from out of town."

"From a remarkably diseased family tree," you say quietly.

Stretch snorts into his coffee.

Cap sighs. "Please do not describe us that way in public."

The rules were agreeable enough. Try not to be too aggressive. Try not to be alone. Try not to pay attention to the humans. You have already been doing the first and last of those two. You supposed you could manage the second, for today.

"Fourth," Blue speaks up again, and your eyelights slide back over to him, "before we go, Graphite and Chalk, you both need to empty your magic."

Your gaze hardens into a glare. While Chalk doesn't scowl, his hand does clench at his side.

"No," you say.

"It is only for this first trip."

"No."

Classic finally opens both sockets, just enough to look at you properly. The laziness does not leave him, but something underneath it sharpens. Not threatening, but very present.

Blue continues before Classic can speak. "It is not punishment. It is not meant to make either of you helpless. It is a safety precaution."

"You intend to take us into a city full of humans and remove one of our primary defenses," you point out, jabbing a pointed phalange in his direction. You turn your attention onto Black. "You approve of this?"

"My brother and I were asked to do the same on our first trip outside," Black says pleasantly. "It is merely a precaution to reduce the chance of an accident."

You go quiet. Black, who did not seem inclined for the sake of obedience alone, had agreed to weaken himself and his brother in a crowd of humans. A monster distrusting of this world, and wary enough to survive his own, had disarmed himself willingly. If he—and all the others—could agree to it, then so could you. You refused to be seen as lesser to any of them.

Chalk steps closer to your side. His shoulder is a small, warm line of presence beside you.

"If it is only for the first trip," he says more to you than the room, carefully, "then I suppose I can understand."

"Agreed," you say after a moment, and Blue and Cap both visibly brighten. You drag a hand down the front of your skull. "How often do accidents occur here that everyone has become so fond of planning around them?"

Classic's shoulders sag. "In this house? Buddy, you don't wanna know."

Blue takes a breath and continues before you can answer that. "This will be your first real event outside the property. You will be around a lot of people and unfamiliar sounds, lights, smells, movement, and humans. That has been overwhelming for several of us before. It would be bad," Blue takes a breath and chooses his words with care, "if either of you reflexively shortcut while overwhelmed and we cannot find you immediately."

You feel your soul give a cold, irritated pulse. Shortcutting is not something you do by accident. Even while injured, depleted of magic, and startled by the sudden appearance of a human after ending up in a world not your own, you had not accidentally shortcutted.

Black coughs into his fist.

Stretch’s skull snaps toward him. "Hey."

Black lowers his hand, sockets wide with perfect innocence. "What? I coughed."

"You totally said my name with that cough."

Black’s smile is serene. "If one hears accusation in silence, perhaps one ought to examine one’s conscience."

Stretch scowls. "Perhaps one should mind his own damn business."

“Language, brother,” Blue scolds though he sounds less scolding and more tired. 

Stretch’s frown only grows. “C’mon, that wasn’t even a tier two swear.”

So Stretch shortcuts when startled. That was useful information to have. Your brother seems to sense pettiness radiating off of you and gives you a half-warning, half-amused look.

You and Chalk are promptly led outside into the backyard to empty what sparse reserve of magic you both had managed to recover. Not everything, Cap had explained, but just enough so that you can't easily form an attack without conscious thought.

You are not helpless without magic, no monster worth their salt should be. You have hands, teeth, weight, and a mind functional enough to think up several strategies and makeshift weapons if push came to shove. The world outside of this house, by all reports and your limited observation, is soft enough to mistake abundance for norm and humans for neighbors. It is still dangerous, certainly, but not with five escorting skeletons and no nuclear threat looming over your head. You tell yourself this repeatedly as you and Chalk step out onto the grass. 

"You first?" he asks. His face is controlled, but the brightness has dimmed somewhat. The idea of stepping into the city without magic unnerves him too. Of course it does. He is sensible enough for that. 

"Sure.” You resist pointing out that this is maybe the third time you have gone first. Then again, he is your little brother. 

Blue opens his mouth, perhaps to say something encouraging.

You point one phalange toward him without looking. "No."

His mouth closes.

You raise your left hand. Your magic gathers in the space before you, pulled out of the hidden space in your soul and forming in the air. When it dissipates, a skull-shaped engine of condensed magic stares back at you. You direct it just over the treeline, and its long, hollowed-out jaw gapes open around a glowing point of golden light.

A burst of energy tears across the yard, so hot it chills the air around it. The world around bleaches white in an instant. You watch in satisfaction as birds erupt from the tree line, shrieking in outrage.

Only when recoil begins to shudder up through your ribs do you let the magic fade. The construct flickers around the edges before fading away.

Classic watches you with one socket half-open. "Good enough."

"How scientific," you say, breathing more heavily than you would like.

"Want me to get a clipboard?"

"I want you to be quiet."

"Can’t always get what we want."

Chalk steps forward next, summoning his own construct. His is smaller than your own, less jagged around the edges. It fires at the same spot yours did in a clean line. The beam continues for a moment longer than yours had before trembling and fading out. Chalk exhales through his teeth and steps back.

He shoots a glance towards Blue. "Good?"

"Yes! Are you feeling alright?" Blue asks and Chalk nods. "Great! Then we can all be on our way."

The car today is different from the one yesterday. It has to be, obviously, since this trip included three additional skeletons that would not have fit in the previous car.

Cap is driving again, but this time Blue sits in the passenger seat. Black sits in the middle row behind them, Classic beside him. That leaves you crammed in the back beside your brother and Stretch who immediately begins complaining about legroom despite having chosen the seat.

The city and freeway are less startling now that you've already seen them for the first time. Still, you can't help but feel fascinated by the amount of green and bright glass under the clear, blue sky. There are less vehicles moving about than yesterday, and less activity too, you note.

Chalk leans slightly closer to you as Cap takes the car on an earlier exit than the day before. You are still not in the city itself, thankfully, but nearer to it than at the medical center. Traffic lights blink overhead with patient authority. Cars move in lines. The sidewalks are not empty, though they are not crowded either. Blue was right about leaving early.

A sign rises ahead, large and clean and full of bright lettering. Beyond it sits the shopping center. And then you think to yourself, that is not a shopping center.

Shopping centers were concrete buildings or narrow streets lined with stores of clerked counters, state-approved inventories, and boards labeling price and shortages. Markets, in earlier years, had been stalls under canvas and frost on crates. Bartering conducted in low voices. Contraband wrapped in paper and hidden beneath potatoes.

What stands before you now is not that.

This is a climate-controlled cathedral of want.

The glass front stretches along several stories of open walkways, ribbed in white beams and sparkling panels that spill morning light across polished floors. Through it, you can see balconies curve around over a open central space on the topmost levels, lined with railings and plants in decorative pots. Escalators climb between floors in smooth, mechanical diagonals.

All of this, and you have barely even stepped out of the car yet.

Beside you, Chalk has gone as quiet as you. For once, there is no need to look at him to know what he is thinking. You can feel the shape of his disbelief in the way his shoulder has drawn nearer to yours, not touching, but almost. A careful almost. His sockets are fixed through the window, wide and bright despite every effort he makes to keep his face composed.

The car rolls beneath an arching sign and into a wide paved lot where vehicles sit arranged in painted rows. Not parked by order of office or clearance or military necessity. Just sitting there. Private property by the dozens. Hundreds, perhaps. Machines belonging to ordinary citizens as if ownership itself has been handed out carelessly at the door.

Cap slows the car and turns neatly into a space near one of the entrances.

"Here we are!" Blue announces, much too brightly.

No one moves immediately.

Or rather, no one in the very back moves. Stretch unclips his seatbelt, stretches one leg as far as the confines of the car permit, and groans like a dying thing. "Finally. Pretty sure my kneecaps filed for separation back there."

Black opens his door with smooth efficiency. He steps out first, cane touching the pavement with a light click. Classic follows with less dignity, one hand braced on the doorframe as though exiting a vehicle is a negotiation he is losing. Blue is already halfway out, bag over one shoulder, notebook apparently stored away for the sake of pretending this excursion is casual.

Chalk does not move.

You do not move either.

Stretch glances between the two of you, then pauses with one foot already outside. For once, he does not make a joke. He only shifts aside enough to give you both room when you decide to leave.

Decide. As if that is what this is.

You look through the window again.

A family walks past the front entrance. Two adults, one monster and one human, and a child between them holding both their hands. The child is laughing at something. A bag swings from the human’s wrist, printed with some colorful insignia you cannot interpret from here.

"Brother?" Chalk says quietly.

You realize your hand has curled against your knee. Metal phalanges press hard enough against fabric to crease it. You unclench them.

"Fine," you say.

"I did not ask if you were fine."

"Mhm," you hum, then slide out of the car and step onto the pavement.

The air outside smells of sun-warmed asphalt, exhaust, cut grass from the decorative strips along the lot, and something sweet and fried drifting faintly from somewhere within the building.

The shopping center rises ahead. The automatic doors slide open and closed as your odd little group enters. Cold conditioned air spills over you, scented with sugar, cleaning chemicals, fabric, cooked food, perfume, and the electrical heat of too many lights. Above, banners hang from white beams, advertising seasonal sales and summer fashions and a food festival beginning next week. Words without orders. Letters without threat. Colorful commands to desire rather than obey.

Chalk’s shoulder nearly touches yours.

"There are so many," he says quietly.

"Shops?"

"Everything."

You do not have an answer. Because yes. Everything.

Cap turns around, addressing the group before it can continue its sluggish pace forward. "There are several types of stores here. Clothing, books, home goods, electronics, toys, personal care, hobby shops, stationery, shoes. There is also a food court upstairs, though there are smaller places for breakfast on this level."

"Food court," you repeat.

Stretch points upward with his thermos. "Big room. Lots of food places. Tables. Weird lighting. Occasional screaming toddler."

"Why is there a court for food?"

"Because humans like making things sound official when they aren’t," Classic says.

You glance at him. "Finally, an explanation that makes sense."

Classic grins. "Knew you’d come around."

"I have not."

Stretch rocks back on his heels, glancing down the long corridor of stores. "Could just go floor by floor. Meander a little. See what catches your metaphorical eye."

"What if nothing catches my metaphorical eye?"

"Then congrats, you’re immune to capitalism."

Blue frowns. "That is not—"

"No, let him cook," Classic says.

Blue’s skull slowly turns in Classic’s direction, eyelights extinguished. "You did not just say that." 

Cap, ever the optimist, holds up a hand and marches right through the center of the cluster. "Perhaps we should all have breakfast first! It is the most important meal of the day! After that, we can decide shopping to proceed by floor or by need."

Need, huh?

You look around at the shops with their glass fronts and bright displays. Mannequins in seasonal clothing. Shoes lined on lit shelves. A shop devoted entirely to bags. Another to small glittering objects whose purpose appears to be either decoration or financial irresponsibility. A stall selling drinks in colors no drink should naturally possess. A store window full of children’s toys arranged in little scenes of plastic abundance.

Need has very little to do with this place.

Want is everywhere here. Want polished and priced and hung beneath lights. Want folded in stacks. Want sprayed through the air in perfume. Want walking past in bags held casually from wrists.

In the Republik, want was dangerous because it made a monster careless. Here, it has an address and opening hours.

You follow the others toward a small café near the central fountain.

The café is open to the concourse, its tables arranged behind a low partition of wood and potted plants. A board above the counter lists drinks, pastries, egg dishes, fruit bowls, breads, and several terms that mean nothing to you. The prices are printed plainly. No ration class. No approval stamp. No calorie allotment. No worker prioritization schedule. Just numbers.

A young human stands behind the register.

You stop.

Chalk stops with you.

Blue, mercifully, notices before anyone bumps into either of you. His smile softens, but he does not make a performance of it. 

"I can order for everyone," Blue says. "Or Cap can. You can just point out what looks good."

The human behind the counter looks up and smiles. At you.

Not knowingly, nor with the trained smile of a border agent pretending not to be afraid of a monster’s claws. Just a bored, professional smile offered to customers in a café.

"Morning," she says. "Take your time."

Against better judgment, you do.

Eventually, breakfast is acquired by a combination of Blue’s cheer, Cap’s organization, Classic’s unhelpful commentary, and Black ordering with such crisp authority that the human cashier began treating him as the leader of the party within seconds.

You and Chalk end up with warm sandwiches, a bowl of fruit between you, and tea because the coffee here smells like something extracted from a burned factory pipe. Classic gets a pastry despite Cap’s objections, then somehow also ends up with eggs because Cap has ordered them at him. Stretch acquires something with honey in it. Blue gets a breakfast wrap and a smoothie of concerning color. Black orders tea, toast, and a small tart which he serenely enjoys as Cap tries to block Classic's line of sight from the nearest bottle of ketchup.

You end up seated at a table near the edge of the café, back to a half-wall, because Cap offers it before you can demand it. Beside you, Chalk eats half his sandwich before he seems to realize he has done so. His shoulders loosen by a fraction. He reaches for a piece of fruit, hesitates, then takes it. His gaze keeps lifting toward the concourse, toward the windows of shops, the escalators, the figures moving along upper balconies. Want and fear cross his face in alternating shadows.

You look away and drink your tea.

It is too sweet. You drink more.

Then you notice Blue watching you and your brother, beaming.

You kick him under the table.

"Ow," he exclaims, still smiling.

"Stop looking pleased," you mutter.

"I will try," Blue says, and fails immediately.

After breakfast, the clothing store is chosen by Cap on grounds of practicality and by Stretch on grounds of "it’s right there and I'm not walking past three stores before pants happen." The shop occupies a wide corner beneath the second-floor balcony. Its front is glass and the door gapes open hungrily. Within are rows upon rows of clothing arranged by color, season, and the occasional social category.

You pause at the threshold.

There are too many choices.

Shirts hang in ordered rows. Sweaters stacked in neat squares. Jackets on racks. Trousers folded beneath signs advertising sizes and fits and discounts. Shoes against one wall. Scarves, gloves, hats, belts. A section of formal wear near the back. Mannequins stand in coordinated outfits like silent citizens of a regime devoted entirely to fabric.

Chalk moves closer to you again.

You almost tell him it is only clothing.

Then you look at a wall containing twenty-seven variations of the same dark coat and decide that would be hypocritical.

Cap steps in first, immediately gaining purpose. "We should begin with basics. Shirts, trousers, socks, underclothes, sleepwear, and at least one coat each. Then we can consider personal preference."

"Personal preference," Stretch echoes. "Scary."

Classic nods solemnly. "Dangerous stuff."

"Which is why we are beginning safely," Cap says, with the tone of a monster who knows his words are being abused and is choosing, nobly, not to reward it with violence.

Blue steps farther inside, turning back. "We do not have to get everything in one store either! This is just a good place to begin. There are other shops with different styles if nothing feels right here."

Nothing feels right here. That would be the simplest answer and the answer that would get you out of the hellscape the fastest. Unfortunately, it would also be inaccurate because the materials here are better than the Ministry’s standard issue by half.

Chalk remains at your side as the group moves in, shoulder close enough to yours that the edge of his sleeve brushes your hand once.. You don't move away. His gaze travels over the tables of folded clothing, the hanging racks, the human-shaped mannequins with faceless smooth heads and impossible postures.

"They are not sorted by occupation," he says quietly.

"No."

"Or age."

"Somewhat by age,” you correct. 

He frowns. "How is anyone meant to know where they belong?"

You look toward the nearest sign. MEN'S CASUAL, stares back at you. Whatever that means.

"Perhaps they aren't," you say before you can think better of it.

You decide, for your own health, to begin walking.

Chalk follows. At first, that is.

You move toward a rack of trousers because trousers are practical and therefore less ideologically troubling than the wall of shirts with bright text printed all over them. Chalk stays with you through the first aisle, close enough that you nearly step on his shoes twice. You pretend to compare sizes while watching his reflection in a nearby mirror. His attention has caught on a display of dark vests and soft shirts in muted colors. Cream, green, brown, blue. They don't look like they would've been approved for school, work, inspection, or public mourning.

Cap sees it too. 

"Chalk," he says, bright but not loud. "Would you like to begin with shirts or outerwear?"

Your brother blinks, dragged back to himself by the directness of the question. "I… do not know."

"That is perfectly fine. Then we shall begin by looking. No commitment."

"No commitment," Classic repeats, strolling past with his hands in his pockets. "Worst case scenario, you end up with a shirt."

Chalk's gaze flicks toward you, quick, not to ask permission but to measure the room by you, as he has for too many years.

You force your voice to sound bored. "Go. Before Cap decides that you need a cape."

Cap takes no offense to this and touches a hand, proudly to his chest. "A well-cut cape can be extremely practical."

"No."

“Not sure about practical, but capes sure do look cool.” Stretch leans a heavy elbow on your shoulder. “You lack imagination.” 

You swat him away with a growl. "I was a government official. It was discouraged."

Classic makes a wheezing sound that you think is either phlegm or the laugh of a monster on his deathbed. Black chuckles outright from somewhere behind you.

Chalk looks at you for another second. Then he turns and follows Cap. Not far. Not out of sight. But away.

Good. This is good. You repeat that with clinical insistence while your soul does something unpleasant and soft.

He should look. He should choose. He should touch the fabric, reject it, pick another, ask questions, discover whether he likes blue more than green when no schoolmaster or ration clerk or older brother is choosing for him. He should step away from your side and learn that nothing immediately takes him for it.

You pick up a pair of trousers and hate them without knowing why.

"Too formal," Black says.

You put them back. Then you turn slowly.

Black stands beside a display of dark sweaters, gloved hand resting over his cane. His expression composed into something synonymous with innocent, which he most definitely is not.

You narrow your sockets. "Didn't ask."

Blue appears on your other side holding three shirts over one arm. "What about these? They are simple, not too bright, and the fabric is soft but not fuzzy!” One is blue, another is black, and the last is a burnt orange color that you immediately despise.

"No."

Blue’s face falls. "All of them?"

"The blue one is too blue."

"I see."

"The black one is trying too hard."

Black’s brow ridge rises. "Is it."

You give him a pointed look. "Yes."

"And the last?"

You look at it again. "Suspicious."

Right on cue, Stretch materializes from behind a rack holding a mustard-yellow shirt patterned with bright sunflowers across the chest. You move away before he can try to even present it as an option. Unfortunately, your small entourage follows.

The first ten minutes are intolerable. Blue keeps offering practical options with patient cheer. Stretch offers one hideous item for every three reasonable ones, clearly for the pleasure of watching your sockets narrow. Black says very little, and picks out some decent choices of clothing which is infuriating because you do not want to share a fashion sense.

You reject a sweater for having buttons. You reject a shirt for having a logo. You reject trousers for being too long. You reject a coat because the lining makes a faint sound when you move your hand over it.

Blue takes notes. Actual notes.

You catch him doing it. "What are you writing?"

"Preferences," he says as if that explains anything.

His observations, written or not, do prove to be useful. He pays attention to size, fabric content, wash instructions, and whether the fabric will catch on your graft. It's still intolerable, though, because you prefer him useless.

"How about these?" Blue asks, showing you an array of neutral colored shirts.

You consider them. The fabric is nice. The cut won't sit awkwardly over your bones. The gray one looks a little too close to the color of dust, but the others look fine. You pick out two, one in dark green and the other in navy.

Blue brightens. "Great!"

"Don't celebrate."

He does anyways.

In the end, despite the committee’s interference, a pile forms. Several shirts in dark green, brown, gray, and muted blue. Two sweaters. Trousers. Socks. Underclothes, selected with mutual silence and no eye contact from anyone involved. Sleepwear, because Blue insists sleeping without any is improper. A pair of long, glove-like detached sleeves you found that can more effectively hide your right arm without getting caught on the metal.

You stand before the pile with the grim air of a monster reviewing a confiscation inventory.

"This is excessive," you say.

Classic, who has returned with Chalk and Cap, glances at the pile. "That’s like five days of clothes."

Chalk has his own small pile of clothes as well. More color than yours. Not bright exactly, but gentler. Cream shirts. Vests and cardigans. Trousers and denim. A sweater the color of wet leaves. Cap holds another item, a long coat in brown wool, and is apparently debating with Classic whether Chalk will overheat in it.

Chalk sees you looking and stills, as if awaiting judgment.

You give the clothing a brief, official inspection.

"Good," you say.

His expression softens before he can hide it. "You think so?"

"Yes."

"Not too much?"

"No." You pause, then add more gruffly than you intend, "The jacket looks nice. Suits you."

Chalk looks down at it. "Oh. Thank you."

Cap beams. Stretch pretends to wipe a tear from one socket and receives an elbow to the ribs for it.

After you and your brother try on a few articles of clothing, exchanging sizes for ones that fit better, the next objective step is to pay for it all. Classic does, of course, since neither you nor Chalk have any money.

The clothes are folded into stacks by a smiling clerk. You stand near the counter with your arms folded, trying not to look as the cashier lifts each item one by one and passes it over the scanner. A small red light blinks. The machine beeps. Numbers gather on the display with clean, merciless cheer. Shirts. Trousers. Socks. Chalk’s brown coat. Your detached sleeves. A sweater you did not hate enough to refuse. More shirts. More socks. Something Cap had called layering pieces.

You watch the number on the little display climb.

You don’t exactly have a reference point for cost and price in this world. The money system here is not any ration credit or ministry-backed voucher script or coinage you recognize, and there’s no exchange rate for multiversal currency. But value is something that can always be pinpointed mathematically. You know what different materials cost in your world. Wool. Cotton. Synthetic fibers. Leather. Metal fasteners. Labor. Dye. Transport. Retail margin, if the concept applies here as obscenely as everything else does.

You estimate. You revise. You estimate again.

By the time the cashier places the last item in a bag, the number on the display has become, by any reasonable material comparison, completely deranged. You stare, frozen. You could sell all you own and still come up short of that price. 

Classic reaches into his pocket, produces a small plastic card, and hands it over without so much as a change in expression. The clerk takes it. The machine chirps.

Approved.

Just like that.

"No," you say.

The word cuts through the pleasant store music more sharply than you intend.

The clerk’s smile falters. Chalk’s sockets snap toward you. Classic pauses with the card halfway back to his wallet. Cap turns at once.

"Graphite," Cap says, gentle but immediate.

"That is too much."

Classic waves it away. "It’s fine."

"No."

"It’s clothes."

"It is too much for clothes."

Stretch, perhaps sensing actual danger rather than entertainment, stops leaning against the display behind him.

Blue says, "Graphite, it really is all right—"

"No," you say again, because apparently this is the only useful word this language has retained. "You are not spending that amount."

Classic’s expression changes by a fraction. It melts into something tired and careful, which makes you more wary because tired and careful monsters tend to make decisions before announcing them.

Cap steps smoothly between you and the counter. Not blocking your view. Not treating you like a spectacle. Just close enough that the conversation becomes smaller.

"Come here a moment," he says.

You glare at him. He does not return it, and for that you allow him to guide you aside near a rack of folded shirts.

"I understand why the number startled you," he says.

"You do not," you say, sharper than you intend.

"No," Cap agrees. "I do not."

That halts part of the argument before it can begin. You hate him briefly for refusing to be conveniently wrong.

"But I know what things cost here. And I know what we have." Cap continues. His tone is gentle and soothing, not at all as chiding as you expected it to be. "When monsters came to the surface in this world, we brought gold."

You frown. The word is simple enough that for a second it does not arrange into immediate significance. Gold. Not gold-colored paint on civic banners or gilt edges around the Queen’s portrait. Actual gold, which alone was already incredibly scarce and valuable in your world. Was it not, here?

Cap folds his hands in front of himself. "In the Underground, gold was common currency. On the surface, however, gold is worth a great deal more by material value. Many monsters arrived with savings that, once exchanged properly, became… substantial."

You stare at him. "That's absurd."

"Yes," Cap says. "A great many things about freedom are, at first."

You do not know what to do with that sentence, so you decide to reject it for later review.

Cap looks back toward his brother who is pretending to examine a rack of hats. Chalk is standing beside him now. Black has positioned himself near enough to be useful and far enough away to seem uninvolved.

Cap’s voice softens. "When the others arrived, they were given money, too, as a way to get settled. Clothes, food, rooms, documents, whatever they needed. This is not different because it is you and Chalk."

"It is different because we cannot repay it," you say, refusing to meet Cap's gaze now.

"You do not have to."

"That is not how debt works."

"It is not debt."

"You can call a chain ribbon if you want. It remains metal."

Cap’s expression shifts then. Not hurt, exactly. Understanding, perhaps, though that is still not a thing you entirely trust from him.

Cap’s voice becomes even softer, almost hesitant.

"My brother and I were helped when we arrived to the surface. We were frightened, though perhaps in different ways. The entire world was new and different from what monsters expected it to be. We had no idea what anything cost or what was expected. We were given help before we knew how to ask for it," he says, and then smiles broadly. "There is always help available, even if one does not know how to ask! That is why I wish to help, too."

You say nothing

"I understand that you are worried about gifts with conditions," Cap continues. "But I can promise you, this does not have conditions. No one will stand in front of a door tomorrow and say, after all we spent. And if they do, then you can tell me! The Great Papyrus will sort it out! That I guarantee!”

Cap’s smile returns bright and unwavering. Some small part of your soul wilts under its light. You wonder if Chalk has ever smiled like that. 

You look toward Classic despite yourself. He is still pretending not to listen. His sockets are half-lidded, his posture loose. Mars' advice about him rings in your skull. 

Cap follows your gaze.

"My brother is careless with many things," he says, with deep brotherly conviction. "But not this."

Classic calls over without turning, "He sayin’ nice stuff about me? Don’t believe him."

Cap closes his sockets briefly. "I am trying to reassure our newest housemate."

"Tell him I’m loaded."

"Sans."

"What? That’s reassuring." Classic finally looks back and lifts the card between two fingers. "Kid, you’re not bankrupting me with socks."

The sheer stupidity of that sentence nearly derails the entire shape of your panic by force. Cap sighs, but there is affection under it.

You look at Chalk again. He is watching you with careful, almost painful attention. Not because he wants the clothes, though you can tell he clearly does. But because he is watching to see whether accepting good things is permitted here. Whether a gift can be survived. Whether desire can exist without becoming subservience.

You are suddenly very tired.

"Okay. Fine. Whatever," you say with incredible eloquence.

Cap’s face warms. "Thank you."

You raise a brow bone. "I am not thanking you."

"No, friend Graphite, I am thanking you," Cap says with so much sincerity that you're forced to look away.

You mutter something.

"Sorry?" Cap tilts his skull. "I did not catch that."

"Technically, it'd be cousin Graphite, I think," you say again, louder this time. Too loudly, apparently because the others seem to have heard by the way several pairs of sockets are now wide on you. "….fuck."

Cap doesn't even bother to correct your language. His face is too busy shifting through confusion, realization, and then a kind of radiant joy so powerful it could charge a solar panel. Blue claps both hands over his mouth, eyes bright and—wait, did his eyelights just go star shaped? Stretch makes a wheezing sound that might be an aneurysm, if he had blood. Or a brain.

Cap’s hands fly to his chest. "Cousin Graphite!"

"Cousin Graphite!" Blue repeats, delighted.

"I did not give you permission," you hiss.

"You can’t un-cousin yourself," Stretch says. "That’s not how family trees work."

"This family tree is diseased. We established that."

Blue’s smile is wide and much too satisfied. "He said we!"

Two large hands land firmly on your shoulders, rattling you in place. "I am pleased," Cap says solemnly. Was that a tear? Did he just produce a tear??? "that you are beginning to understand your place in our remarkably expansive family structure."

"I understand that none of you should be allowed in public," you hiss, trying to fight away the blush that threatens to creep up your skull.

"Too late," Stretch shrugs.

The cashier, who has been watching this exchange with the cautious politeness of someone being paid not to ask questions, slides the last bag across the counter. Classic takes it with a lazy thanks, and the group begins moving again before you can bury yourself beneath the nearest display table and wait for institutional collapse.

The clothing store deposits you back into the shining walkway.

You are carrying only one bag because Cap insisted that everyone should help and because refusing would have made more of a scene than accepting. Chalk carries one too. He looks down at it every so often, not quite smiling, fingers curled carefully around the handles as if the contents might vanish if held too loosely.

After clothes comes the shoe store. Chalk does not like the noise of the measuring tool but tolerates it. You reject several pairs on grounds of ugliness, instability, or "looking too eager." Stretch finds this hysterical. You do, however, learn that this world has something called sneakers and that they are unreasonably comfortable and quiet. You take a few pairs, only because they are practical.

Chalk, meanwhile, has chosen boots. Not school nor military ones or ones that remind you of the pair you once had that cracked after one season wear and let snowmelt in through its seams. These are dark brown, lined inside, with sturdy soles and a little brass hooks for the laces. Your brother tests them by walking the short length of the aisle and back again, his steps quieter than usual, his expression arranged into thoughtfulness.

Cap watches him like a proud quartermaster.

"Comfortable?" Cap asks.

Chalk nods once, then again as though permitting himself a stronger answer. "Yes. They feel… stable."

"A fine quality in a boot!" Cap declares.

Classic leans over to you. "Paps once bought hiking boots for a grocery run."

"Preparedness is not a flaw," Cap says immediately.

"You wore them with formal trousers."

"And did I slip on the wet pavement? No."

"An indoor grocery, Paps."

"Yes and I made it inside because I was prepared!"

Chalk looks down at his own boots again, and this time the faintest smile appears before he can stop it.

The next store, you dislike immediately. The moment you step inside, you're immediately assaulted by the scent of various chemicals pretending to be fruit, flowers, and perfume. You try to reverse out of it before both your feet so much as cross the threshold.

Blue catches your sleeve before you can retreat. There’s the faintest pinch of fabric between his phalanges, and you are abruptly yanked backwards before you can march outside. He is holding your sleeve as if he handling a suspicious animal who might bite if grabbed improperly, which you suppose is fair given your track record so far. 

"Wait," he says. "There is a section farther in that may be better."

"The air is highly contaminated,” you hiss. You try to tug your sleeve back to no avail. 

"It is a personal care store.” Blue’s tone is very patient, though there’s an edge of exasperation that has crept in. “They sell soap, shampoo, lotion, cleaning products, toothbrushes, things like that."

"I know what soap is."

"Then you know why you need some."

You stare at him. Blue smiles back, bright-eyed and doomed.

Classic murmurs, "Bold."

Stretch whistles under his breath.

Cap looks abruptly interested in a display of bath towels despite there being no towels for sale in this store.

You lean slightly toward Blue, grin strained. "You are telling me I smell."

"Did I?" Blue says far too innocently for it to be true and drags you towards the back of the store with more strength than you expected from him.

The front half of the shop is miserable. Bottles seem to be arranged by color and scent. Citrus. Lavender. Vanilla. Rose. Ocean breeze, which is apparently a smell someone has extracted and bottled despite the fact that no ocean in history has ever smelled like aldehydes, pinine, nootkatone, and dimethyl sulfide. There are candles too, which makes even less sense. Perfume. Lotions. Little jars of mysterious creams. Scrubs. Bath salts. Oils. Things in glass droppers. Things in tins. Things shaped like fruit.

Chalk walks beside Cap, equally suspicious but more intrigued. He picks up a small round soap the color of cream and reads the label. Then he looks toward you with the faintly haunted expression of a monster who has encountered too many adjectives.

"Milk and honey oat comfort," he reads aloud.

Stretch perks up. "Honey?"

"No," you and Cap say together.

Black's mouth curves into a smile.

Blue guides you past the worst of it, toward a quieter section near the back. The lights here are less theatrical. The labels are plainer. Some shelves are marked for monster-specific needs: dust-safe cleansing cloths, scale polish, membrane-restorative soaking tablets, magic-conductive salves, horn oils, shell brushes, fur-safe soaps, claw files, wing creams, heat-resistant towels, low-scent detergents.

You pick up a bottle labeled unscented bone-safe wash. You open the cap and smell it. The only thing you pick up on is a slight mineral scent. No flowers. No medicinal sting. No aggressive citrus trying to burn your non-existent nose.

"Acceptable," you say.

Blue looks as though he has just won a minor diplomatic victory.

You take two.

Then you find another soap that smells faintly of cedar and smoke. Not the acrid smoke of coal fires and heating plants. Something gentler. Wood warmed by sun. You dislike how tolerable it is. You take that one too.

Chalk picks a soap with oatmeal in it and, after long consideration, a small tin of hand cream meant for dry bone and shell seams. He looks embarrassed by the choice until Cap picks up two tins for himself and declares them excellent for maintaining phalange flexibility during colder months.

"That is true," Black adds from behind you, examining the monster-care shelf. "I have used that brand."

Chalk looks reassured despite himself.

Classic, meanwhile, tries to put a bottle of ketchup-scented novelty body wash into the basket.

Cap removes it without looking.

"Absolutely not."

"Could be funny."

"No."

Stretch appears with honey-scented shampoo. Why a skeleton needs shampoo is beyond you. Blue removes that from his hand too.

By the time you leave, everyone has purchased something, though Stretch continues complaining about hair based discrimination. You have your own soap now. You are not pleased about this in any meaningful way. You are merely less displeased.

Shopping continues at a slow, not at all efficient pace. The group dips in and out of several more clothing stores, avoids the electronics stores entirely because of your and Chalk’s deep mistrust, and browses a small array of novelty stores with meaningless little items.

The next one is for stationery, Cap informs you. It is narrower than the others, quieter too, which immediately improves your opinion of it. Pens sit in neat displays. Notebooks are stacked by size and color. There are shelves upon shelves filled with more paper in more varieties of it than you ever could have imagined with different weights and textures. Mechanical pencils. Ink bottles. Fountain pens behind glass. Markers, clips, folders, planners, calendars, envelopes, rulers, drafting tools, little metal tins of colored pencils. There are stamps too, though they are so different from how you know stamps should look that they may as well be something else altogether. The air smells of paper, ink, cardboard, and wood.

Chalk becomes swept up by Blue and Cap who eagerly show him to the craft section. You watch from a distance as they chat eagerly over slips of colorful paper and bottles of bright glitter. Classic mutters something along the lines of, "don't need a repeat" to Stretch who then sighs and trudges over to the trio.

Before Classic can decide to be your chaperone, you look for Black, find him, and briskly make your way over. He's inspecting a set of watercolor tins, hand resting over one lid longer than the rest.

"For Rus?" you ask, still remembering the studio Rus had made for himself in the attic.

Black’s eyelight shifts toward you. "For Rus," he confirms.

You look at the display. There are several tins of varying sizes, each promising different numbers of colors in neat printed rows. Twelve. Twenty-four. Thirty-six. Little pans of compressed pigment arranged like ration trays for rainbows.

Black adds the one in his hand to the small basket hanging from his arm. There are already a few items inside. A packet of heavy paper. Several fine-tipped pens. A roll of masking tape. A little metal sharpener. A bundle of pencils tied together with paper. Not cheap, from the look of them. Black selects each item with the same care he gives everything else, which is to say excessive care disguised as indifference.

You look away toward a shelf of notebooks.

The notebooks are absurd. Some are plain, which is respectable. Others have stars, animals, flowers, cartoon characters, abstract color smears, metallic patterns, inspirational phrases, and one with a robot with long legs and bright pink boots. Their pages differ too. Lined. Unlined. Dotted. Gridded. Thick paper. Thin paper. Cream paper. White paper. Recycled paper. Waterproof paper, which feels like a challenge against common sense.

You reach for a plain black notebook and open it.

The pages are blank.

Pure, unblemished white stares back at you. The paper is thick enough that ink would not bleed through easily. It rolls forward cleanly, with no place demanding for date, name, department, subject, or any conceivable purpose.

Black watches you for a moment too long.

You set the notebook back down and squint at him. "What?"

"Why not try to continue drawing," Black says, tone casual but nothing careless beneath it. "You may find it useful to continue."

Useful? You didn’t think that making an observation record of one of your former workplaces had at all been useful.

“It was observational," you correct.

"Yes."

"Not artistic."

Black tilts his skull. "Do you believe those are mutually exclusive?"

You do not answer. Mostly because the answer is no, and admitting that would hand him a weapon.

He reaches around you and removes the black notebook from the shelf. He also picks up a smaller pad of heavier paper and a tin of graphite pencils, which is rude on several levels.

"My schedule is already full," you say instead, stepping away from the shelves.

"Of what?"

You glare at him.

He looks back serenely.

You hate him, briefly.

"Recovery," you say.

"Ah. A demanding occupation."

"Full-time."

"Of course," Black hums and places the notebook and pencils into your hands.

You look down at them as though he has handed you a grenade. The notebook's cover is smooth and glossy, and pencil tin pleasantly cool to the touch. A notebook would be practical. For diagrams, if nothing else. Records of this world’s technology. Maps of the house. Observations of local infrastructure. Notes on differences in magical physics and notes of comparison between your world and this one, if Alphys’ information is to be believed. Sketches of objects whose function remains unclear. Possibly a drawing of this shopping mall so that future generations may identify it as an early warning sign of societal arrogance.

And perhaps other things.

Trees, maybe.

Black’s expression remains carefully neutral, which is to say he is entirely aware that you have not put the items back on the shelf. 

"Fine," you say at last. "A notebook could have some use."

"How generous of you to admit paper has function."

"You are enjoying this."

"I enjoy very little."

"Liar."

He smiles.

You are about to put the notebook in the basket yourself, which would have counted as an action and therefore a decision, when Classic slides into the aisle beside you with all the grace of an idiot materializing from his hell-machine.

"Hey," he says, holding up a pencil between two fingers. "Guess this aisle’s really got the lead on you, huh?"

Silence.

Black closes his sockets.

You say nothing. 

Classic’s grin widens by degrees, pleased with himself in a way that suggests death would only encourage him.

"Y’know," he continues, giving the pencil a tiny waggle, "because pencil lead’s graphite and you’re—"

You place the notebook and pencil tin back onto the store shelf. Then you turn and walk away.

Classic calls after you, "Aw, c’mon, that was on point! Not sketchy at all."

You keep walking.

"Really drew you in, didn’t it?"

You walk faster.

Chalk finds you outside the store a minute later, carrying a small paper bag from the stationery shop. He looks pleased in a subdued, careful way. Blue and Cap follow behind him, both looking as though they have just shepherded a successful diplomatic exchange. Stretch trails after them with glitter on one sleeve and an expression of deep regret.

Then, the bookstore happens.

Honestly, by now, you really shouldn’t be surprised by anything in this strange world. Books are familiar and libraries exist. You have stepped into both civilian archive and stores and taken books both for purchase and confiscation. And yet, even after seeing the library at the house, you are unprepared by the sheer abundance of books and lack of restrictions in just one place. 

The store is large and warm and smells, thankfully, of paper more than people. Books climb every wall. Tables stand loaded with new releases, staff recommendations, discounted editions, gift sets, journals, calendars, maps, puzzles, and little cards printed with quotations. Everything is for sale, all for anyone to take. Each and every section announces itself loudly. 

BESTSELLERS. NEW RELEASES. ROMANCE. FICTION. NON-FICTION. YOUNG ADULT. HISTORY. SCIENCE. MAPS. COOKING. CHILDREN. GRAPHIC NOVELS. MANGA. HORROR. FANTASY. SCI-FI. SELF-HELP

You immediately mistrust that last category especially. Displays stand in the middle aisles stacked with books facing outward like propaganda placards. It feels like each cover is trying to seize your attention with color, title, and promise.

There are too many categories.

There are not enough guards.

Chalk is already looking toward the shelves with naked interest. You follow his gaze to where it has landed on a display of illustrated books on travel. Trains, cars, boats, planes, and histories of transit all sit displayed in bright covers. The signs around it show metal bodies crossing mountain, field, and sea. 

Your brother drifts almost immediately. Cap follows him, talking in a low enthusiastic voice about maps and guides and how some books contain entire histories of how grand cities came from little towns.

You force yourself to walk in the opposite direction.

Science is located toward the rear. You find it by accident, or so you will claim if interrogated. Physics occupies two shelves. Not enough by academic standards. Too much by emotional ones.

Beside it are books on astrophysics, thermodynamics, chemistry, engineering, geology, climate systems, and more. Some are popular science, clearly written for civilians. Others are introductory textbooks. Fewer still are more substantial. You open one on atomic structure and frown at the diagrams. Some of the terminology is completely foreign in some sections. Still, energy remains energy. Mass remains mass. Particles remain themselves without requiring the Queen’s permission.

You decide to take the book.

Then a chemistry text catches your attention. Then one on materials science. Then a field guide to minerals. Then an illustrated introduction to stars and constellations, which you open only because maps are practical and then continue holding because the star charts are beautiful in a way that annoys you.

By the time Classic finds you, you are holding six books and looking at a seventh with the serious expression of a monster selecting artillery. His gaze moves over the stack.

"Oh," he says and you can hear the grin in his voice, "so this is what happened to you."

You glare at him from over the topmost book. 

"Nothing happened," you say defensively, still trying to balance the seventh book atop the stack. The cover is hideous. The diagrams inside, however, are unfortunately quite excellent.

Classic’s eyelights travel from the book in your hand to the stack already pressed against your chest. "You know we got that one at home, right? Pretty sure Rus left bookmarks in it after he got bored. You can just borrow it from there."

Your phalanges tighten around the spine before you can notice.

Classic's grin seems to shift sideways at that, replaced by an odd expression you can't place. He shrugs.

"But if you want your own copy, that's fine too," he says far too casually before you can say anything at all. "Just sayin'."

You should say no. You don't need to own this book. Or any of these things already bought today, either.

Borrowing is practical. It reduces waste and prevents more of Classic's money being spent on you, therefore reducing the accumulating pressure in your chest every time his little plastic card grows your debt. If anything, borrowing is much better than owning anything because it would mean your room would not require shelves and this world wasn't quietly putting down roots beneath your feet.

Still, you can't find the strength to try and place the book back.

"Fine," you say.

Classic nods once, like that answers everything. "Cool."

No joke follows. You almost appreciate that.

Then he reaches over and plucks two of the books from the top of your pile.

You bristle at once.

"Relax," he says. "Not stealing science stash. Just making sure you don’t drop half of modern academia on your foot."

You decide to let him help, not that you needed help in the first place. Classic follows you loosely as you continue through the store. You find it much harder, though, to take books from the shelves with someone watching and likely judging your choices. To his credit, he doesn't comment on anything until you glance at a science fiction book longer than necessary.

Classic shifts the books under his arm. "That one’s actually pretty good."

"You’ve read it?" You pick up the book, turning it over in your hands. From the back description, it seems to be about a crew stranded in space having to work with an alien to solve a problem about stars.

"Yeah."

You look at him with fresh suspicion. "You read?”

Classic places a hand over his sternum. "Ouch."

"You drink ketchup from the bottle."

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it," Classic says. "You'll find yours soon, buddy."

You choose not to acknowledge his threat.

The next aisle is stranger. At first you think the books are children’s books because the covers are bright and crowded with illustrations. Then you notice the dimensions are too small and dense for any child to comfortably read.

Rows and rows of volumes are arranged by title and number, their spines marked sequentially. Some are in color, some black and white. Some show humans in exaggerated poses, some monsters, some strange creatures with weapons, capes, school uniforms, armor, wings, masks, and more. You cannot recognize any blatant pattern among them all. 

You pick one up and open it.

Pictures. Mostly pictures. But not a picture book. Rather than pages of text, these strange books show boxes and shapes of illustrations broken into parts. The panels advance with strange logic, each box a fragment of time. Words hang in little white shapes. Sounds appear as drawn explosions of letters. A fist crosses three panels. A city falls on one page. A face takes up half of another. 

"What is this?"

Classic leans closer. "Graphic novels," he says, then glances up with a horrible grin that tells you exactly what he is about to say before the words leave his mouth. "If you got one, I guess that would make it a Graphite novel. I'm really more of a Comic Sans myself."

You wince. Classic's grin sits there, pleased and waiting, like a rat at the mouth of a drain.

"That," you say slowly, "was really bad."

"Yeah," Classic says, without shame. "Might be one of my worst ones."

"One of?"

"Got a whole catalog."

You close the book in your hands with more force than necessary. "You should be embarrassed."

"Buddy, I was born past embarrassment," he chuckles, then shrugs one shoulder towards the shelves. "Anyway, yeah, graphic novels, comics, manga. That last one is mostly just Japanese comics, usually in black and white and read right to left. Alphys likes 'em."

Your gaze narrows on the nearest ones. It depicts a vaguely human individual, though you aren't entirely sure if the character is meant to be human because it seems to have cat ears and a tail. 

"Huh."

"Yep." Classic rests his shoulder against the shelf. "From what I know, she reads all sorts. Monster mecha, magical-girl stuff, tragic space lesbians, probably some things I'm too scared to ask about." He says that part under his breath.

You decide to move away from the manga section after that. Instead, you look towards some of the other covers. The different art somehow looks wildly different in each section in ways you didn't think possible. Most of the covers are incredibly bright and too crowded, and the majority seem to depict only humans. 

You scowl at one that shows a human catching different monsters. By humans, for humans, you conclude. At best, that makes it unimportant. At worst, it is treasonous. Before you can direct your disgust to graphic novels as a genre, your gaze catches on one that might be of a monster.

A small blue creature with sharp backward spines and white gloves stands on the cover of one volume, one foot lifted as if he has been caught mid-run. It is wearing bright red shoes that are much too big for it, and holds one finger raised. For a creature of that size, its grin is much too confident. 

You pick it up before considering whether you should. Classic makes a small sound.

You do not look at him. "No."

"I didn’t say anything."

Ignoring him, you flip through the first few pages. You squint at one of the words. "What's a hedgehog?"

Classic leans over just enough to see the contents properly. "Little spiky mammal. Kinda rounder in real life."

"Yes, I can infer that," you say impatiently, studying the blue creature with increasing skepticism. "But why is he blue? Are hedgehogs blue?"

"Nah," Classic shrugs.

You stare at Classic, waiting for more context. Classic, deeply unhelpful, gives none. The little blue hedgehog grins up at you from its place on the page. The color blue, by this point, has ceased to be a color and more like a conspiracy. Blue skeletons. Blue clothing. Blue name. Blue cartoon mammal. Even the sky outside.

"Why is everything here blue?" you mutter, flipping another page purely to examine the panel structure. 

The little blue hedgehog is shown running through a loop at impossible speed while a mustached human in goggles appears to be piloting some sort of machine in the background. Or at least you think that thing is supposed to be a human. Last you checked, humans were not egg-shaped. And that wasn't to mention the self-proclaimed fox creature with two tails on page six. It, uncreatively, seems to be named Tails. You conclude that this world's fauna and naming conventions are completely deranged.

You scowl. "What is his jurisdiction?"

Classic slowly turns his skull toward you. "His what?"

"The blue hedgehog," you clarify. "He appears to be opposing the human."

Classic’s grin becomes horribly wide. "Oh, you’re gonna love this. He runs fast, fights robots, saves little animals, hates being controlled, and has attitude problems."

You look back at the hedgehog. Then, quietly, move to hide the volume in your stack of books.

"Say nothing," you tell Classic before he can open his mouth.

He fails to look unamused. "I'm not sayin' anything."

You deadpan. "You are radiating commentary."

"That’s just my natural charm."

"You have zero natural charm."

"Then it’s unnatural charm."

It should be ridiculous to purchase this sort of thing alongside books on atomic structure, mineralogy, and star charts. You decide to file it under comparative study.

By the time you and Classic emerge from the graphic novel aisle, your stack has become embarrassing. Physics, chemistry, materials science, minerals, constellations, one book about the moon, one science fiction novel Classic claimed was "actually pretty good," a world atlas you had picked up because the maps were too detailed to ignore, and three volumes of the blue hedgehog creature because the first two apparently ended on annoying cliff hangers.

You adjust the stack against your chest as if arranging evidence.

Chalk is no longer where you last saw him.

Your soul gives a quick, unpleasant jolt before your gaze finds him.

He is across the store, near the travel and transportation shelves, standing between Cap and Blue. He isn’t watching you. He is holding a large illustrated book on railways open in both hands while Cap points to something on the page. Blue, for once, is not talking too quickly. Chalk turns the next page himself. Then another. His shoulders are loose. His scarf has slipped slightly to one side and he has not noticed because he is too busy looking at a picture of a steam engine.

Classic's voice snaps you out of your thoughts. "C'mon, lets go pay before you decide to adopt the rest of the science aisle."

"I don't adopt books," you retort. "Books aren't alive. They can't be adopted."

"Sure. Acquired under advisory conditions then."

You decide not to dignify the accurate theft of your vocabulary with a response. The cashier at the bookstore is a monster with moth-like antennae and small spectacles balanced low on the bridge of their nose. They scan each book with no visible judgment, though their antennae twitch slightly when the blue hedgehog volumes slide across the counter after the organic chemistry book. Classic notices, of course, and tries and fails to stifle a chuckle. He immediately looks away as if he is doing you a favor.

You resist the urge to elbow him in the ribs and watch the price climb. This time, seeing the numbers tick upwards comes with less panic, which is not the same as no panic at all but an improvement nonetheless.

Chalk's books are scanned next as he and Cap come up beside you and Classic. His collection is less embarrassing than yours. You count two books on steam locomotives, one with puzzle activities, and a set of bookmarks shaped like little train tickets. He seems to be trying to hide those ones from you under the puzzle book. You see it all anyway when the cashier scans and bags them.

"They had these," he says, voice quiet.

You look at the harmless, offensively endearing little things. "They're practical," you decide to say.

His expression shifts. "You think so?"

"I know you hate dog-earing pages. And losing one's place is inefficient."

Chalk looks down. His smile appears before he can stop it. Blue, who had been waiting with the others by the exit, smiles as well. You turn your head slowly and he looks elsewhere at once.

The shopping center has grown busier. Not quite crowded yet, but the spaces between bodies have narrowed. More humans pass along the railings. More monsters. More mixed groups. Bags swing from wrists. Children argue over snacks. Someone’s phone emits a cheerful little burst of music. You do not flinch, exactly, but a familiar ache is welling up in your right arm, burning cold against bone.

Black appears at your side without announcing himself.

"You are doing well," he says.

"I am carrying books."

"You are carrying books in a public place full of humans, uncontrolled noise, and no visible exits."

You adjust your hold on your bags and shift the collar of the ugly yellow sweater higher up your neck. "I'm aware," you grit out behind clenched teeth.

"Yes," Black nods. His cane clicks against the tile floor. "That is why I said it."

You notice that he is watching the crowd carefully, angled just so no stranger can make the mistake of brushing close. You find yourself grateful against better judgment.

After Blue checks his notebook and narrates, unnecessarily, that Edge had asked—demanded, you think he meant because you may not know Edge well but you cannot imagine him asking for anything, politely or not—for him to pick up a new riding jacket, your group ends up in yet another clothing store. 

You were beginning to feel that the amount of clothes you were being given was more than excessive and therefore tried to wait outside the store. But there were too many humans around the mall now, and you did not want to stand somewhere where you could not easily see or reach your brother if needed. And if you were already inside, then what would be the harm in at least looking around?

Compared to the first and last two clothing stores you had been ferried into, this one seemed more functional. There were fewer shirts with idiotic slogans and fewer mannequins arranged as if they were about to attend brunch, whatever the hell a “brunch” is. Many of the materials, from what you could tell, were quite weatherproof and durable.

You do not need another coat. You say as much.

Blue, who has learned nothing from repeated danger, only beams. "Well you may want one anyway."

"I already have one," you say again.

"Well," Blue says, "having something is not the same as liking something."

You fold your arms across your chest, side-eyeing where Stretch is watching you from over a rack of windbreakers. 

"Fine," you say. "If I go look at clothing, then will you tell your brother to stop presenting me with garments designed by a committee of children?"

Blue's smile falls from his face as he follows your gaze to his brother. Stretch is already holding up a jacket patterned with small smiling flowers.

"What?" Stretch says, sockets widening. "It's tropical. Don't tell me Phite doesn't strike you as a tropical kinda guy.”

A different sort of smile spreads across Blue's face as he crosses over to Stretch in three brisk strides. He places both hands on the taller skeleton's shoulders and spins him toward another section of the store. "You are going to help me find Edge’s jacket,” he announces loudly. 

"Oh come on! He's easy to shop for. All he wears is black and red," Stretch protests, but Blue is already dragging him bodily away.

You watch them go. Then after a quick check to make sure Chalk is still where you last saw him—near a display of gloves listening with grave attention as Cap explains the difference between water-proof and water-resistant—you turn to explore the coat rack. You flip carelessly through most of the options, only with enough energy to look interested.

Though when your phalanges catch on a something shockingly soft, you pause. You push aside the other polyester fabrics until you find the source of the texture. It's a coat with some sort of material softer than any fur you've ever touched. You assume, immediately, that it is synthetic because you cannot picture in your mind any living creature so soft, even in a world as bright as this one.

One coat is white. The other is gray. You reach, automatically, for the gray one.

Your soul twists.

You see the door of your old apartment where gray walls constrict around you like metal bars. You see gray wool damp with frost from an unending winter of an unending day. You see gray soot, gray smoke, a gray coat the color of dust and an inner pocket heavy with gray papers no one else is permitted to read. You can smell frost, ink, metal oil, and the cold, stale air of civic offices.

You take the white coat instead.

A voice from behind you says, "Yellow accents."

You close your sockets. Stretch has returned, orange colored plague that he is. How he escaped from Blue, you do not want to know.

"I do not know what you mean," you say very calmly.

Stretch plucks the coat from your hands and holds it up to inspect. He points. "It's got yellow accents. Didn't know my bro's sweater was growin' on you."

"The only thing growing right now is my annoyance."

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say, Murdercop. Try it on," Stretch says, pulling the jacket off of its hanger and tossing it on you. "Blue won't let me hear the end of it if I stop you from gettin' something you actually express the smallest amount of real interest in."

You catch it before it can fall over your skull. The plush material gives beneath your hands. You notice how the fabric doesn’t rip when the clawed ends of your phalanges scrape against it.

"I don't take orders from you," you mutter pointedly. You try the coat on anyway.

The weight settles comfortably over your shoulders. Not too tight around the ribs, nor too heavy. The fabric makes minimal noise when you move, which is already a point in its favor. You test the pockets, checking the lining and zipper as if you were conducting an audit. All acceptable. You check the hood next. You pull it up over your skull. 

The world around immediately narrows just enough so the store ceases to press itself at you from every angle. The lights are still bright, but less so. The sound of music and conversations around you lose some of their sharpness. You can still hear the sound of chatter, register beeps, and Cap's voice somewhere off to your left, but it all becomes less immediate. Present, but buffered. Contained.

Stretch snorts. "Kinda looks like you’ve got a brooding snowfield assassin thing going on."

"Stand in a snowfield and I'll become just that."

Stretch ignores your threat. "You got a weird way of saying thank you,” he says instead. He reaches out, pinches one of the yellow drawstrings between two phalanges, and pulls it down before you can stop him.

Your vision constricts into a small circle. The skeleton staring at you from the mirror no longer has scars cracked over his skull. With your hands tucked in your pockets, no metal is visible either. He looks whole. Unbroken.

"Keep it," Stretch says.

You glance at Stretch in the mirror. "I didn’t ask."

"Yeah, but your face did."

"You can't see my face."

"And you seem very pleased by that fact," Stretch hums. "You can wear it out after buying it, y'know. Just ask to have the tag cut off."

You look down at the sleeve tag dangling from one cuff.

"That’s allowed?"

Stretch blinks. Then his expression shifts into something less teasing. "Yeah. Long as you pay for it."

You consider that.

What a strange little rule. Or absence of a rule, you suppose. You couldn’t help but feel that purchased items should remain wrapped, stamped, and sometimes logged depending on category until moved to its designated space. Clothing, if issued, should be marked and cleaned before use. In the Republik, wearing merchandise out of a shop before proper record would have looked like theft, or arrogance, or both. Here, apparently, the border between want and purchase was thin enough to step through while still warm from the decision. 

How odd. Dangerous too, probably, if you allowed yourself to think hard enough about it. You decide to wear it out. 

Admittedly, the coat does help when you all leave the store and move on. You force yourself to focus on the feeling of warmth and softness on your bones instead of the crowd of humans around you. The hood is not enough to stop your sockets from tracking every sudden movement and exposed weak point, but it is enough to make you focus on the path in front of you. 

You feel less visible from the sides. The attention of a child passing by lands on your group. The tiny human points, saying something about skeletons, but you are cast in enough shadow that its attention brushes over you and onto Cap's height instead.

Chalk begins walking a bit closer to you.

You remind yourself that these humans are civilians, not soldiers. They are simply clueless civilians buying shoes and pastries and novelty mugs. They are not the same as the creatures from your childhood, faceless and hungry and looming beyond the border.

Observe, you remind yourself. Do not conclude.

At the very top floor of the mall is the furniture store. It's at least three times the size of the biggest store you've been in thus far, and arranged in islands of possible domestic rooms. Blue leads the way with renewed purpose, which is never a reassuring thing to see from a monster carrying a notebook. Classic ambles after him, already looking as if he may fall asleep on the nearest display couch. Chalk and Cap are beside you, and Stretch is somewhere behind you all, humming some tune from the store speakers under his breath.

"I do not need anything for my room," you announce the moment the store doors open.

Blue, without even turning around, says, "Of course not."

You narrow your sockets at his back. "Do not agree with me like that."

"Well I am not arguing, am I?" Blue says brightly. "You have a bed, dresser, chair, lamp, and basic linens. Very functional."

"Yes."

"Barely habitable," Stretch adds.

You shoot him a look from under your hood. "You are still under treaty."

He zips his mouth shut with exaggerated solemnity.

Blue turns and clasps his hands behind his back. His face is arranged into something far too innocent to be anything but a trap. "However,” he says, “since you bought books, you may want somewhere to put them."

"The floor exists."

"Not for books." Blue smiles. "And you seemed interested in preserving them."

You scowl at him. He smiles harder.

Manipulative little optimist.

Chalk, who has been quiet beside you, pokes you with his elbow. "You cannot put books on the floor," he says as though correcting a hazard.

"It's my room isn't it?" you point out. "I can."

"You should not," he amends.

You fold your arms as well as the bags permit. "Books have survived worse."

"The ground is where people walk and dirt gathers and someone may step on them," Chalk lectures you, deeply disapproving. "Your habit of folding pages is bad enough already."

"I'll put them in a drawer then," you mutter.

"Drawers are for things that fit in drawers."

"You can give a better definition than that."

"You can be tidier with your belongings."

Classic leans toward Stretch not quietly enough. "Kid's got him cornered."

"I heard that," you say at the exact same time Chalk scowls and says to him, "I am not a child."

The two of you stop. Something eases in you both. 

For one fragile second, the world shifts on its axis. The two of you, standing in a furniture store surrounded by staged bedrooms and decorative lamps and overpriced furniture, arguing over the proper treatment of books as if this is just another morning from a life that might have existed somewhere kinder. Just for a breath, this feels like something almost adjacent to normal, though you are no longer certain what normal between you and your brother is meant to be anymore.

Guilt and loathing follows immediately after warmth. The moment sours. You move on before it can grow.

"Fine. A shelf," you relent.

Cap's whole face lights up. "Wonderful!"

"One shelf," you warn, directing that to him, Blue, and Stretch in particular.

"And a lamp," Chalk adds.

You turn on him.

He gives you an almost stern look. "You read in poor light."

Blue, seizing the opening before it closes, guides you toward the shelving displays before you can retract your agreement.

Every few steps, a new little room waits to suggest a different possible life. Here is a desk for a student. Here is a chair for someone who reads by windows. Here is a bed with curtains and pillars for some reason. Here is a table for meals with no ration schedule. Here is a lamp shaped like a moon, because apparently even celestial bodies can be reduced to accessories. Eventually, you find a narrow wood bookcase with three shelves and a small drawer at the bottom. Plain. Sturdy. Not too large. Functional enough to justify itself without insisting on emotional meaning. Blue records the serial number of it in his notebook.

Chalk, who was following to make sure you do not go back on your word, quietly selects a lamp with adjustable brightness settings and places it into the cart. You silently approve of his choice. 

Your brother spends more time searching for different items for his room than you. In the rug section, Stretch fills the air with chatter about a certain rug dying because of some sort of "spaghetti incident" in the past which you decide not to ask about. Then comes bedding, spare sheets, a desk, and the dangerous question of whether Chalk wants something "for decoration."

He answers no at first. It is immediate, polite, and false.

Cap seems to know this because he does not contradict him. He only hums thoughtfully and guides the cart onward through the arranged little rooms, past shelves of framed prints, small lamps, artificial plants, clocks, and bins of cushions in colors no practical person would invent. Chalk follows with his hands folded neatly around the handles of his bags, head turning despite himself every few steps.

He slows near a display of miniature objects. Not children’s toys, since the section is not labeled as for children, though the distinction seems largely arbitrary and emotional rather than categorical. 

Chalk’s attention hooks onto it all. Wooden models. Painted figurines. Puzzle boxes. Little mechanical sets. Among them sits a small train set, not a large kind with complicated tracks or electrical parts, but a polished wooden engine with three little cars behind it. The wheels are dark. The body is red and black. A tiny golden stripe runs along the side.

Chalk stops walking.

You stop because he does.

No one says anything for several seconds.

Then Classic, with unexpected tact, leans one arm on the shopping cart and says, "That over there is pretty neat."

Chalk’s shoulders raise, then lower. "It is for children."

"And?" Classic says.

Chalk looks at him, confused by the simplicity of the answer.

Classic shrugs. "Kids get good stuff sometimes."

"I own several model cars!" Cap says proudly, offering a broad, encouraging smile to your brother. Then adds, "and Blue has spaceship figurines!" and the skeleton in question nods.

"Edge collects little motorcycles, but don’t tell him I said that," Stretch chimes in.

That makes your brother’s expression change in a way so small you doubt anyone without your exact history would catch it. Want, again. Want carefully folded beneath embarrassment. Want checking every corner for punishment before daring to become visible.

You look at the little train.

You remember frost on a window. Not clearly, but well enough. Your brother’s small phalanges pressed right up against the glass, already white with cold. Your own hand over the back of his scarf, keeping him from falling backwards into the aisle as passengers shifted past with bags and elbows and hollow eyes. The whistle had startled him so badly he had nearly climbed into your coat. Then, ten minutes later, he had decided the train was the finest machine in creation and began asking where it was going, why it stopped, who told it when to leave, and whether it would be lonely after all the passengers got off.

One of his earliest memories, probably. One of yours too, though you had been old enough to know the trip was not an adventure back then.

Your brother seems to be thinking the same memory because he picks up the train and says, "It reminds me of the East Line."

"No.” The word comes out too curt. His shoulders tense and you add, "The East Line was uglier. This one looks better. An improvement."

Chalk’s sockets soften and he places the little train into the cart.

After that, the furniture store goes more quickly. Or perhaps it only feels quick because you spend less of it arguing. Chalk chooses the wooden train, a small framed railway print, and a box with little compartments where he can keep the bookmarks and papers he has acquired. He also takes a soft green throw blanket that matches with the chair that came with the desk set he selected earlier.

The purchases are arranged for delivery when possible and bagged when not. Classic pays again. The number remains unpleasant. You begin debating if you should try to get a job in this world.

It is while the clerk is explaining delivery windows to Blue that you notice Black is no longer with the group. You glance around the store, trying to recall where you had last seen him or heard the rhythmic tap of his cane. He had been standing beside a table of lamps a few minutes ago, looking faintly amused by one shaped like a smiling cloud. Now the place beside the lamps is empty. There’s a peculiar sense of absence without the sharp composure he carries like a second coat. 

You turn your skull.

Chalk is with Cap, looking down at his train set as Blue asks the clerk a question. Classic is leaning over the cart and pretending not to be tired. Stretch is spinning one of the storage boxes on its corner until it clatters loudly and he pretends he wasn’t doing anything at all. No one is watching you.

You step aside. Not far. Just enough to see past a staged living room, through the store’s wide front window, and out into the concourse. Early morning has loosened into late morning now. The crowd has grown again. Bodies pass in steady currents. Human, monster, human, monster. Bags in hand. Drinks in hand. Children dragging adults toward shops. Adults dragging children away from them.

You reflexively try to summon your magic into your socket, but your soul is still sluggish after emptying all your magic out this morning. So instead you scan over the crowd’s movement the old fashioned way.

There.

Across the walkway, Black exits a store you hadn't been in yet with a paper bag hooked neatly over one wrist. He pauses outside, checks something inside the bag, then turns toward a clothing store two shops down. The display windows there are full of denim, linen, and hats.

Rule two, as Blue had said, was that no one was to go anywhere alone. Not just Chalk and yourself, but everyone, which he very particularly specified. Hence, that is why you care to notice. 

It is not that you are concerned. That would imply you had a personal investment on whether or not Black wandered unaccompanied into a clothing store full of humans, which you do not.

A small, mean amusement unfurls in your ribs. A rule is a rule. And as gracious as you were, you were obligated to preserve the integrity of the group's agreed-upon movement protocol. Since you noticed the breach first, it would only be fair that you address it.

You glance over your shoulder toward Chalk. Still safe. You are still not being watched. You doubt your absence would be missed for the next several minutes which means, technically, if you cross the walkway and enter the clothing store that Black has gone into, you would not be violating the supervision rule. You'd be with Black. Or more accurately, Black would be with you.

It was only reasonable. Really, you were doing Black a favor. If anything, he should be indebted to you.

You step out of the furniture store, hood drawn up as the concourse receives you with noise and light. You make sure to walk briskly, steering away from the crowd and the too-loud human behind a kiosk advertising some sort of local voting event in the center of the walkway as best you can. You only catch something about a fair and a mayor. 

A human child veers too close with a paper cup in both hands. You sharply angle yourself aside before either of you collide. The child's guardian murmurs an apology without looking up at you. You ignore them both.

You find Black near the back of the store he has entered. The air here smells less like detergent and perfume. Instead, you catch the scent of cotton, canvas, and starched fabrics. There are racks full of flannel shirts, raincoats, and thick shirts. Things suited for weather and friction, you suppose.

You see Black with one gloved hand moving along a rack of linen shirts. The new paper bag hangs from his wrist. His cane is tucked under his arm now, apparently deemed unnecessary while he inspects the clothing in front of him.

You stop behind him.

“So,” you say, with deliberate mildness. “Is this a sanctioned excursion?”

Black, unfortunately, does not turn immediately because he is an insufferable creature who has learned the value of timing and uses it with the same shamelessness Classic uses puns. His phalanges continue moving along the row of shirts, testing cuffs, seams, collars, buttons.

"More sanctioned than yours, I imagine," Black answers without looking up. He lifts a shirt from the rack and inspects its tag. "Are you lost?"

"No," you say. "Following supervision protocol."

He glances at you then, brow ridge lifting.

"You were alone," you say, lifting your skull. "Now you are not."

"How dutiful."

"I am a model of civic responsibility. Unlike some."

That earns you something close to a laugh. Black restrains it with admirable discipline. He turns back toward the rack and continues examining the shirts as if this conversation has concluded in his favor. It most definitely has not. 

"For the record," he says,"I informed Sans."

You scoff. "He's barely qualified to supervise himself."

“True,” Black says serenely. “Nevertheless, I fulfilled the spirit of the rule.”

“You fulfilled a technicality.”

“How strange. I assumed you appreciated technicalities.”

You open your mouth to try and come up with some sort of witty retort to that. Finding none, you let out a frustrated sigh and turn your attention elsewhere. 

Your gaze drops to the paper bag. The top is open enough for you to see a collection of folded fabric inside. Not clothing, raw material.

You nod down at the bag. “You went to a fabric store.”

“Astute.”

“Why?”

“I like sewing.”

You squint at him. “You sew?"

Black nods. “Yes.”

You try to place this information among the rest of him. You look him over. The polished shoes. The gloves. The cane. Black, with his sharp posture and formal speech and rank without uniform, who is now, apparently, a monster who buys fabric and sews.

“You do not look like someone who sews.”

Black pauses. His expression twists into something half amused and very much incisive. 

“What does someone who sews look like?”

You try to consider this. Maybe you could imagine someone like Cap with a needle between their phalanges and a basket of thread sorted by color. Or perhaps someone like Jupiter mending gardening gloves on a porch in the evening’s dying light. Softer, your mind supplies, which is so spectacularly wrong in every possible direction that even you have the sense not to let it leave your mouth.

Black’s smile sharpens. “Careful.”

“Fair,” you grumble. 

He has moved onto the next shirt. This one he pulls out rather than returning it to the rack. It is broad across the shoulders, made of a thick green flannel, and looks nothing at all like anything you could imagine Black wearing. Then again, you couldn't imagine Black sewing, either, so perhaps some reevaluation was in order. Thirdly, though, there was the matter of sizing.

“These are for Mars," you conclude, since clothing of this size could only belong to one skeleton out of the rest.

"Perceptive,” Black praises and you look down at your feet. “And yes. He asked for more clothes.”

Your nose ridge scrunches. “He asked you?”

“Mars asks little of others. When he does, I try to listen.” Black removes a brown shirt from the rack, considers its size, then replaces it. “Most standard stores are already poor at accommodating skeleton monsters. While the large sizes fit Mars just fine in length, they are often much too loose around the sleeves and collar. Jupiter, meanwhile, is more difficult.”

“Too tall," you finish and Black nods.

“And broad in the shoulders,” he adds. “Most things either strain at the seams or hang incorrectly. The fabric is for alterations. And possibly to make something new for Jupiter outright, if the base pieces fail.”

You regard Black carefully.

He is not browsing casually. He is measuring width, seam allowance, sleeve length, texture, closures, whether Mars could manage the buttons easily, and whether Jupiter would tolerate the fabric against his frame. He picks nothing quickly. Each possibility is considered and dismissed with quiet precision.

Thoughtful, your mind supplies. You quickly shove the word aside. You remind yourself that thoughtful is not a useful classification. It is vague, imprecise, and prone to creating inconvenient assumptions about character. 

The Republik could have been described as thoughtful. It had committees and budgets and seals and revised procedures for every cruelty it wished to render efficient. A monster could be very thoughtful while deciding how best to ruin someone.

Still, Black is holding a green flannel shirt up to the light as if the thread count matters. You suppose the more accurate assessment would be that Black is observant, methodical, and willing to perform labor for members of his household. He rubs the sleeve between two gloved phalanges, frowns, and checks the tag again before replacing it.

Not that one, then.

You understand why a second later. The fabric is stiff. It would scratch. You doubt that Mars would complain about that. He strikes you as the sort of monster who would notice discomfort and then leave it beneath several more important things until it ceased to be worth mentioning.

Black continues to the next rack. “If you intend to keep standing there, you may as well assist.”

“Assist,” you echo, momentarily startled, “in choosing clothes?”

“Yes,” Black says. He is already moving farther down the rack. “It is a word meaning to provide useful help in a task. You may have encountered it before.”

You shove your hands into your pockets, scowling. “I’m familiar, yes,” you snort. 

“How fortunate.”

You have half a mind to refuse. You already accomplished what you came here to do. Black has been found, rule two has been rescued from hypocrisy, and no disaster has occurred. You could return to Chalk and the furniture store with the safer irritation of Blue’s notebook and Classic pretending that his spine has been personally oppressed by retail. But instead, you remain where you are.

There is no reason for this except that you have nothing better to do. There is also, perhaps, the memory of Mars sitting beside you on the porch, plucking cherries from the bowl with surprising care and laughing so hard that the birds fled the trees in righteous terror. You tell yourself that this is merely context and a repayment of tolerance.

“What am I looking for?” you ask.

Black’s smile does not widen, which is wise of him. “Durable fabric. Soft, if possible. Wider cuts. Easy closures are preferable. Mars dislikes small buttons, though he will not always say so. Nothing that pulls across the shoulders.”

Helping Black shop for Mars is much stranger than shopping for yourself. Your own clothing can be sorted into simple categories. Acceptable. Unacceptable. Intolerable. Useful despite aesthetic offense. Things that make you look like any of your other counterparts and therefore require immediate rejection.

Mars is more difficult. As Black said, finding properly fitted clothes is a challenge. From what little you did know of him, he seems to favor loose clothing, softer colors, and comfort. You imagine that any fasteners that required delicate pinching would likely annoy him.

You stride past a section of shirts and immediate reject the first shelves you see. Too stiff, too thin, too many buttons. You do stop to consider the variety of different pullovers and sweaters in neutral colors with Black. Many are close, but close is not good enough once you begin thinking seriously about it. One shirt has good fabric but would hang poorly off any skeleton's ribs. Another has the right shape but the collar would sit oddly. You find yourself holding a heavy canvas jacket and try to imagine Mars wearing it. You cannot, so you put that one back harder than necessary.

"Shopping is difficult," you grumble under your breath.

Black hums as if this is the first sensible thing you have said all morning. “It is, when the buyer is thoughtful.”

You scoff, glaring at the shirt in your hands. "It's an eye for detail, not thought. I'd prefer not to waste time, money, or fabric."

“Of course,” Black says, smooth as polished stone. “My mistake.”

You dislike his tone deeply. You shove one hanger aside and pretend interest in a row of jackets that look less like clothing and more like blankets.

“Care is imprecise,” you say, because apparently your mouth finds this very important to distinguish. “Attention is practical. If an item is poorly made, it fails. If it fails, it becomes waste. If it is uncomfortable, it will not be worn. If it is not worn, purchasing it was pointless.”

Black doesn't immediately respond which is fine since you aren't waiting for a response anyway. But when immediacy turns into several seconds, you look up across the aisle at him. You catch him regarding you with a quiet, measuring expression. You feel as if you are under inspection.

"What?" you snarl, defensive.

His study continues for another second, annoyingly calm and not rising to your challenge. "I enjoy competence when I see it," he answers instead which is frustrating because it is not an answer at all.

You refuse to press further, though.

Instead, you distract yourself by marching to the back of the store where various items of clothing hang from a wire rack on the wall. Your attention catches on a line of denim overalls on display. One in particular manages to, somehow, look both respectable and civilian enough not to stand out on the streets well enough. The straps are wide and fastenings secure when you test them. The pockets are also quite deep which you count as a point for practicality.

The one caveat is the small embroidered sun on its front. You are about to dismiss it for solely that until you remember your irritation from being compared to a lemon. Planets are stars are loosely related enough.

You shove them towards Black. "These."

You expect a witty comment. Instead, Black nods and says, "A fine choice," which confuses you more than you care to admit.

You try to look for something for Jupiter next. Despite nearly no clothing sizes fitting him, as Black had explained, trying to shop for Jupiter proves much easier. You credit that too the more limited range of selection to pick through.

Hats, you find, make the most sense. Jupiter clearly spends a great deal of time outside and enjoys gardening. Hats, especially sun hats, are the natural and most useful choice. There are some made of straw, others of canvas, and most made of synthetics that scratched unpleasantly against your bones. You settle on a cleanly woven one with a brim wide enough to cast shade over the skull and neck. It has a pleasant green ribbon around the brim.

"For Jupiter," you say, holding it out towards Black.

"Jupiter owns several sunhats already." Despite saying that, Black still takes it.

You pause. Your hands twitch, caught between wanting to take the hat back or leave it with the cart. "Then this would be redundant."

"Likely."

"A waste, too."

“Well,” Black turns the hat over in his hand. It sits absurdly harmless. Straw-colored, green-ribboned, and broad-brimmed, built for sunlight and soil and afternoons spent bent over rows of plants. "If you would like to get it for Jupiter, you may."

Like. Like, was it? Since when was any of this about like? Since when was any of this about your like?

Disgust burns sour behind your teeth.

A gift for Mars and a gift for Jupiter. Balance and fairness. It's ridiculous because since when did you ever consider anything as fair? Why should you mind whether Jupiter owns another hat or Mars has something new? Why should you mind whether Black finds good fabric, whether the straps on those overalls are comfortable, or whether Jupiter has shade while he kneels in the garden?

None of this is yours. None of these monsters are yours. Jupiter, Mars, any of them—they are not your anything. Pretend as they may under the guise of cousin, none of them were family. They are merely copies, clones who steal yours and your brother's names and likeness.

You have a brother already. You have a responsibility to him and only him. He is your one duty, the one permanent fact and living piece of your life that has followed you through cold and sickness and the light of every impossible hour of this poisonous world.

Everything else is temporary.

The house, these stories, this mall full of stupid colors and irrational wants mean nothing. They are nothing. There are no more tangible than dreams.

You realize, with so much loathing that it turns your breath shallow, that you have let your guard down. You have let your guard down far too much. You have walked beside humans. You have accepted a coat to flee into because it made the world quieter. You bought books and furniture for a place you were not meant to stay, of all things. You have given false security to your brother, let him choose a wooden train, and let him hope just for it to inevitably be taken away again.

This is not care. This is carelessness.

You take the hat back from Black and return it to the display.

“There,” you say. “Problem solved.”

Black watches you.

“It is not needed,” you add, because he continues watching you and you dislike how much he seems to hear when you have stopped speaking. For a moment, you brace for him to argue with you. To try and take the hat back for purchase.

Instead, Black turns away and nods. "Jupiter will be pleased enough to know you helped choose something for his brother."

You have nothing to say to that.

Black carries the overalls to the register before you can retreat further into yourself. You follow at a distance that is not beside him and not far enough to imply abandonment. The cashier—a human you avoid looking at—scans the different items of clothing. Black asks the clerk to bag the overalls separately. You pretend not to hear.

The mall noise rushes back in, disorienting and ringing sharp in your skull as you exit the store. You look toward the furniture store across the way and find your brother still near Cap. Safe, or close enough to safe as can be managed at the current moment.

Black comes up beside you with one bag in each hand. The larger one is hooked over his wrist with the fabric and shirts. The smaller, however, is held separately. He offers that one to you. You spot the dull blue of the denim overalls inside.

"You should given them to Mars yourself," Black says.

You look from the bag to him. You could protest. There are many protests, in fact, all arranged neatly. But they collapse before they can so much as make a queue. You are tired. You are tried of arguing with this whole day. You are tired of gifts and money and warmth and choices that should not matter. You are tired from the ache in your mind down to the burn where metal meets bone in your arm.

You take the bag. It weighs very little.

Without further word, the two of you begin walking back to the others.

They have already begun exiting the furniture store, postures still loose with the miserable ease that has consumed this day. You try to focus on the shapes of them all while the mall tilts unevenly around you.

Stretch and Classic seem to be going back and forth on jokes judging from the looks on Blue's and Cap's face. Stretch says something about something being "shelf-aware" to which Classic responds with something about "unfinished cabinet positions".

"Must you both continue? We are in public," Blue sighs.

Stretch points at Classic. "He started it."

"Hey, the joke was right there," Classic shrugs, grinning. "Would be irresponsible not to furnish the conversation."

Cap presses both hands over his face.

The building still feels like it is moving around you. You know it isn't. The only thing that is moving is the crowd breathing around you, dragged obediently between levels and escalators with open metal mouths. Sunlight catches on a purse clasp, reflecting into your sockets. You fight the urge to wince.

"Graphite? Chalk?" Blue's voice snaps you out of your momentary daze. "How are you both feeling? We can go home now, if either of you would like."

Chalk looks down at the bags in his hands, then up towards you. You are not sure how well he reads your expression, but you can read his well enough. You know that he is still full of energy, still excited, still hungry for all of these new things this world has invited him to taste.

"We can always come back again another day as well," Blue says, smiling. "As many times as you wish!"

That was a lie. If you and Chalk were sent home tomorrow, then how could you return to this horrible place? Coming back here was not a guarantee. It was not a promise, no matter how confidently Blue says it to be.

Metal phalanges into the bone of your palm. It helps steady the world, somewhat.

"We're already here," you say before Chalk can ask. "May as well continue. I'm fine to go on."

You can feel your brother hesitate. You keep your skull tilted downwards, face hidden under the shadow of your hood. You know that if he meets your gaze, he will know you are lying. Or worse, he will not know, and you will have to watch him believe you.

"Only if you are both sure," Blue says after a moment.

"There is only one floor left, right? I'd like to see it," Chalk says. You feel him step closer beside you.

Cap takes the lead, marching onward. “Then we will see the last floor!” he says, tugging his own brother along.

You make a low sound that could be agreement if one is generous. Chalk nods properly, because he still has manners.

The group moves on. You move with them. It's hard to register much outside of that.

You smell food cooled in oil sweet enough to make the air heavy. You see colors dazzling off of metal railing and glass smeared with sweaty hand prints. You feel warm air curl around your bones like hot breath, pushing sticky fingers into your thoughts, viscous and vicious.

Mark the human near the railing. Mark the one behind you. Mark the child running, unpredictable. Mark the man with the heavy bag. Mark the scaled monster speaking too loudly. Mark the exits. Mark the distance to Chalk.

Cut away the unnecessary. The jokes made with carelessness of monsters who can afford to let their attention wander. The eyelight lingering on the line of your shoulders and measuring position so that the group stays cohesive. The prickling needling up from your phalanges to where the LV in your soul remembers violence before your mind permits it, reaching for weapons that are not there.

Your brother is just three faces away. He is trying not to look like he is amazed by all of this, but failing in every small way that you know. His steps slow near the displays. He shifts the handle of his bags, again and again, to remind himself that the contents are there and remain there. His skull tilts up, out towards the open center of the mall, and his steps speed up in an excitement he cannot quite restrain.

He has smiled more today than you have seen in years. He smiled at train bookmarks. He smiled at a wooden engine. He smiled at toys and food and clothing and colors and books. He has enjoyed being asked what he wanted and allowed to answer.

That must count for something.

Even if nothing lasts.

Especially if nothing lasts.

Sound spills out into the walkway in bright, uneven pieces. A low pulse. A ringing note. Someone testing keys one at a time. A string strummed badly and then corrected. The front window is wide and full of instruments arranged under clean light. Guitars hang on the walls like lacquered bones. Brass instruments gleam in glass cases. Keyboards stand in a row beneath little signs. Near the back, you can see the shine of cymbals.

Classic’s posture improves by approximately one official unit.

“Oh, right,” he says, drifting toward the entrance as if pulled by gravity. “Needed to check something.”

Cap narrows his sockets. “Sans, if this is another excuse to purchase something ridiculous—”

“It’s a replacement part,” Classic says, sounding faux wounded by the accusation. “For my trombone, Paps. I can't leave the band without their star player, can I?"

"The real backbone of any band," Stretch hums.

Blue gives a distressed "Mweh!" at the same time Cap grabs his brother by the shoulders and shakes him.

You should find this all irritating. You do, but only distantly.

The music store is cooler inside, or perhaps it only feels that way because the lighting is lower. The carpet dulls footsteps. Instruments line the walls and stand in little islands throughout the room. Some are familiar in broad principle. Many are not.

You remain just inside the door. The mall continues behind you through the open storefront. Humans pass in the corner of your vision. Inside the store, there are more of them. A human clerk at the repair counter. A human examining sheet music.

The instinct to hold position is strong. Too many angles. Too many fragile objects. Too many humans. Sound comes from everywhere here, but it is less shapeless than the mall noise outside. Each sound belongs to something. A string. A key. A cymbal. A voice.

You do not like having this much happening around Chalk.

Your brother is loosely following Blue who is pointing out different listening stations on the wall. Headphones hang from hooks beside small screens, different categories all blinking alive. You are able to read only about three of them—Jazz, rock, electronic—before it all begins to blur together. It's too much to sort among all the noise.

Blue says something to him that you do not catch over the low hum from a nearby keyboard, but you see the shape of it. Encouragement. Permission. One of those little verbal nudges this household uses instead of orders.

Chalk looks at the headphones warily, then reaches up and takes them.

Blue remains beside him, bright but careful. Cap is near the brass instruments with Classic. Stretch has found a display of novelty picks and is turning one over in his phalanges, probably considering whether it can be used to torment you later. Black stands a little behind the group, close enough to watch all the exits without looking like he is watching them.

Chalk places the headphones over his skull. His expression changes so quickly that you cannot help the sudden spike of alarm that shoots up through your bones. But Chalk's hand is rising to hold the headphones closer to his skull, not to tear them away.

You are moving across the store over to him before you can decide not to. Blue, noticing, shifts aside to leave enough room for you beside your brother.

Chalk removes one side of the headphones slowly.

"It is..." He stops, brow ridge drawing together, frustrated by the failure of whatever word he had reached for. "It is not like the car radio."

His gaze flicks over the buttons. He studies the list with the same grave attention he once gave ration substitutions and school notices, then taps one of the options. The sound must change because Chalk's expression shifts again. When he notices you, he removes the headphones and holds them out toward you.

"You should hear this."

You stop abruptly. "No."

"You have not heard it."

"I do not need to hear it to refuse."

Chalk's sockets narrow stubbornly. You concede, taking the headphones from him and placing them on your skull before he can lecture you.

The noise of the store vanishes. Instead, you hear a low note, then another. A rhythm follows, soft at first, then stronger, joined by something bright and metallic and quick. Strings, perhaps. No, not strings. Something plucked or struck. A drum underneath it, but not the military kind. It moves without warning, counting in numbers and patterns that you cannot understand at all. Some part of you waits for the melody to resolve into some sort of anthem or signal, but it never does.

You take the headphones off.

Chalk is watching you with quiet intensity. "Well?"

You hand them back. "It sounds disorganized."

His sockets brighten.

"Yes," he says, as if you have agreed with him.

"That was not praise."

"It sounded free."

You look away at once.

There are things your brother should not say in public, even here. Especially here. It is not that anyone would understand the danger in the word. In fact, that is exactly the problem here.

In this world, freedom is spoken lightly enough to hang on banners in cafés and little advertisements for summer sales. Buy one get one free. Free drink refills. Freeways. No one lowers their voice. No one looks for the nearest flower listening from a corner.

Chalk seems to realize the old shape of your silence and lowers his gaze. Still, the wonder remains in him. He puts the headphones back on, tries another option, then startles so sharply that you nearly step into him.

"What?"

He removes the headphones, looking offended and fascinated at once. "That one is angry."

Blue leans over to check. "This one is rock music. Not to be confused with music for rocks!"

You take the headphones without waiting this time, if only to verify the category’s possible threat level.

The first sound cracks across your skull like a door kicked open.

Your shoulders tense. There is a guitar, you think, though it sounds less like an instrument and more like electricity made spiteful. Drums hammer underneath it. A voice enters, rough and human-shaped, though you cannot follow the words at first. The rhythm runs hard and fast.

You listen longer than you intend.

"It is loud," you say when you take the headphones off.

"Yes."

"Needlessly."

"Maybe," he allows. Then, softer, "I like it."

You realize that he is smiling again.

For a little while, the two of you try different sounds. Electronic music, which makes you immediately suspicious because no instrument should sound like a machine thinking too brightly. Classical music, which Chalk prefers more than he admits and you dislike less than you claim. Folk songs with stringed instruments and soft voices. Something called metal, which makes Chalk remove the headphones very slowly and say he supposes it does sound like metal.

You are aware, faintly, of the others behind you. Classic at the repair counter, elbows on the glass, making the human clerk laugh despite Cap’s visible suffering. Cap beside him, one hand on his hip, correcting whatever mangled attempt at humor his brother is trying to make. Blue, who left you and Chalk after the third song, drifting alongside stretch who picks up an instrument every now and then just to make Blue say, "Careful," in increasingly strained tones. Black thumbing through a collection of records, studying the cover art in a way that tells you he is thinking of how Rus would judge them.

Always pairs, even when separated.

Then there is you and Chalk. You stand beside him, close enough that your sleeves brush. You try to remember when you last had a day like this with him.

Not a good day. That would be asking too much. Just a day where he was allowed to look at things. To touch something because he wanted to. To smile without first checking whether smiling would cost either of you.

There had been the East Line, perhaps, but that had not been a day. It had been travel under necessity, packed bodies and cold windows and you too young to understand how to be gentle without turning it into command. There had been school fairs before ration tightening, maybe. You remember paper lanterns. You remember him wanting to try a game with little wooden rings and you telling him no because the line was too long and the tickets too expensive. You remember buying him a sugared roll after because he had not complained.

Was that a happy memory?

You cannot tell anymore. So many of them have been handled too often in the dark that the edges have worn away.

Chalk touches the screen again, trying another sample. His face opens at whatever he hears. You should be happy. You are, maybe. Some part of you is. Some part of you looks at him and feels something so soft it hurts.

Another part stands apart and watches with disgust.

You should have done this. Not this exactly—anything remotely close to this place or this day would have been impossible—but something, anything. You should have found a way to give him more than survival and warnings and rooms where the walls listened. You should have been more than a locked door with a pulse behind it. A brother should have known how to let him have a day to himself.

Your hands curl inside the sleeves of your coat.

Chalk looks up from the headphones, smiling still, and says, "Listen to this one. It has bells in it."

You take the headphones because refusing him now feels impossible.

The bells are small and bright, scattered through a melody that sounds like winter if winter had not been cruel. You listen to the first few measures, then hand them back.

"Acceptable," you say.

He laughs under his breath. "High praise."

A sharp spray of rhythm interrupts your conversation like gunfire. You and Chalk turn at once.

At the back of the store, a human sits at one of the drum kits with sticks in hand. Beside them is a monster with long white ears, holding an electric guitar and following along. The human plays a short pattern, fumbles it, then laughs at themself. Their friend says something you cannot hear and strums a chord that buzzes through the air. The two sounds clash, then nearly meet, then fall apart again.

Chalk’s whole attention catches on them.

So does yours, unwillingly.

Hearing the drums in person is nothing like listening to the samples of them through the headphones. Up close, they are bodily. The toms move through the floor. The snare claps dry and high. The cymbal hisses after each strike like steam. The kick reverberates up through your legs and against your soul. The human tries again, slower. This time the rhythm holds for longer. The monster with the guitar follows, clumsy but eager, and together they play something steady enough to carry.

Chalk takes a step forward before you can pull him back.

The human notices the movement and looks up. Their smile is ordinary. Too ordinary. Brown skin, short dark hair, loose shirt, little silver rings on two fingers. A human face, open and unafraid, directed at your brother.

Your LV stirs. Not much. Enough that you notice, though.

You breathe out through your teeth and force yourself to count. Not the room. Not the exits. Not the angle between the human’s hand and Chalk’s chest. Count the beat instead. Kick. Snare. Kick-kick. Snare. It gives the old thing in you something to hold that is not a throat.

The human lifts the sticks slightly. “Hey. You wanna try?”

You answer, “No,” at the same time Chalk says, “May I?”

The human’s gaze shifts between you both, then settles on Chalk. “Yeah, sure. I can show you a basic pattern, if you want. It’s a demo kit, so it’s fine as long as nobody goes completely feral on it.”

Chalk looks to you.

There it is. The check. Is he allowed to want this? Is he allowed to step away? Will he make the room worse by asking?

You hate yourself so abruptly that for a second that the feeling of your LV vanishes entirely.

“Go on,” you say.

He does.

The human steps away from the stool at once and gestures him in. "Cool. Sit here. You can keep your bags with your brother, yeah?"

The word sounds strange spoken aloud.

Chalk hands you his shopping bags and moves carefully to the drum kit. The long-eared monster moves back a step to give him room. They smile at Chalk and say something about not worrying because they had nearly dropped the guitar the first time they held one. Chalk gives a polite, nervous nod.

The human hands Chalk the sticks, ends first, keeping their fingers well away from his. A careful habit, maybe. Or luck. You force yourself to remain in place. You do not want him to feel your fear as another wall.

"Hold them loose," the human says. "Like this. If you grip too hard, the sticks bounce wrong and your hands get tired."

The human demonstrates with their own empty hands, curling and relaxing their fingers. Chalk, dutifully, mimics them.

"Good. Try the snare. That one there."

Chalk taps it. The sound cracks out abruptly. He jerks back, sockets wide. The human laughs, but not at him. "Yeah, it can be loud. Try softer."

Chalk does.

The second sound is quieter. More controlled. He looks up at you immediately, as if to see whether you saw.

You did. You do not trust what might happen to your face if you try to smile, so instead you nod once.

The human shows him the kick pedal next. Chalk presses too hard and the low drum thumps through the floor, startling him into a laugh. The sound is so young that something in you feels like it may break.

You remember teaching him blue magic with wooden blocks on the floor. You remember him throwing a crooked little bone that clattered off a cabinet and made you both laugh until he coughed. You remember scolding him for wasting magic because he needed to rest. You remember the scolding more clearly than the laughter.

A failure, your mind says with no cruelty at all.

Classic and Cap come into your vision near the brass cases. Cap is holding some small part in its packaging while Classic is grinning and saying something that makes Cap swat his shoulder with the back of his hand. Blue and Stretch have wandered closer too, drawn by the drums. Stretch says something to Blue, low and amused, and Blue’s expression softens as he looks toward Chalk.

All these brothers. All these pairs made strange by grief and history and whatever private disasters tore them into their current shapes. Yet they stand together. They bicker and buy each other ridiculous things and know how to make space for one another in stores full of people.

You had kept Chalk alive.

For years, you thought that was enough.

The human taps a rhythm against their thigh. "Okay, try this. Count four. Right hand on the hi-hat first. One, two, three, four. Then snare on three. Kick on one."

Chalk listens with grave concentration. The first attempt collapses immediately. The second lasts two beats. The third makes it almost through the pattern before he strikes the rim by mistake and freezes.

"You’re good," the human reassures him. "That’s normal. Keep going."

Chalk does. His smile returns, smaller this time because concentration has taken most of him. He tries again. The rhythm wobbles, recovers, and wobbles again. The monster on the guitar adds a note, then another, careful not to overwhelm him. Chalk glances over, surprised, and then back to the drums.

He keeps playing.

You stand there holding his bags and Mars’ small gift bag and your own books, watching your brother learn to make noise in a place where no one tells him to be quiet.

Your soul hurts.

This is temporary. You tell yourself that because it is necessary. Because the machine will eventually be fixed. Because someone will decide where you belong. Because the world, no matter which one you've been moved to, has never given anything without taking inventory. Because if you let yourself believe in permanence and lose it, there may not be enough left of you afterward to hold Chalk through the loss.

None of this should have happened. You should not be here. Chalk should not be here. There should not be several other skeletons and a music store and a human teaching your brother drums. There should not be a day where he smiles like that under clean lights while you stand uselessly by and realize survival was too small a gift.

Yet here you are.

And if this is all the world intends to give him, if it is only one bright, fragile day before the hand closes again, then he can have it. You will not be the one to take it from him. Not this. Not today.

Chalk looks up again, flushed with pride in all but color, and plays the little rhythm once more. It is uneven and wonderful. His grin widens as if he has brought you proof of something.

You nod again.

This time, you let the corner of your mouth move.

Only a little.

When Chalk finally steps away from the kit, he returns the sticks with both hands and a thank you so formal that it makes the monster and human pair blink at one another before smiling wider.

"Anytime, man," the human says. "You picked that up quick! I teach beginner classes as a summer gig in one of the practice rooms back here. If you're interested, stop on by some weekend, yeah?"

The pair leave soon after, the friend teasing them about recruiting students in the middle of shopping. Their voices fade into the mall.

For a moment, no one says much. Then Blue clasps his hands tightly in front of himself, visibly fighting the urge to explode. "Chalk, that was wonderful! You kept the rhythm very well, especially for a first attempt."

Chalk lowers his skull, embarrassed but pleased. "It was only counting."

"You should definitely pick up the drums," Stretch says, leaning an elbow atop Blue's head. "Then we'll finally have someone to drown out both Sans' trombone and Edge's yelling in the house."

You pretend to listen as the group bickers among themselves on the way out of the store. Classic gets his replacement instrument part. Blue buys a beginner music book after far too much not-so-quiet whispering with Cap, though you do not see for whom. Stretch purchases novelty guitar picks shaped like little bones and insists that they are necessary despite not owning an instrument. Black says nothing, but when you glance at him, his expression is almost gentle.

The ride home is thankfully quiet. The trunk of the car is packed full of bags and boxes, and what hasn't managed to fit back there is crammed between legs and under seats. Chalk's train set rests in his lap where he turns it over every so often in his hands. He looks exhausted as he stares at the window at the city slipping away. Happy too, though the word remains difficult to apply.

His shoulder touches yours when the car turns. Somewhere along the way, you register that he has fallen asleep. His skull has lowered onto your hood.

By the time the trees close thick around the road leading home, your eyelights feel too heavy to keep open. You tell yourself you are only resting them. Your skull tips slightly.

You should shift upright. Your brother is asleep, therefore you should remain alert enough for the both of you at least until the car stops. You should not sleep in a moving vehicle surrounded by monsters you still do not fully trust.

But the day has been long. Far too long.

Your last clear thought is that Chalk's train set is wedged safely between his knees and will not fall.

Gentle rocking. Soft fur around your skull. Sunlight warm on your bones. A door is open somewhere, letting in cooler air that smells of trees. Voices reach you through a layer of thick, warm dark.

"Should we wake them? They may want to go upstairs."

Who was speaking?

"Nah." That one is Classic, you think. It's hard to tell. "Let 'em sleep. Long day."

A yawn. "I could go for a nap too, if anyone's handing those out."

Footsteps shuffle away on gravel.

Hands move near you. Your seatbelt releases with a soft click. Alarm flickers distantly through you, too weak to become movement. Chalk shifts beside you, and some part of you tries to reach for him.

A hand settles briefly over your shoulder.

"I've got him." That voice comes low and close to your skull.

Your soul stirs harder at that, but then you are lifted carefully from the seat, bags rustling somewhere beneath you. The motion should frighten you more. It does frighten you. The fear rises, meets the solid warmth of an arm under your back and another beneath your knees, and loses its shape before it can become useful.

You hear Cap whispering something about the bags. Blue answering. Stretch saying he will get the door if someone else carries "the tiny library."

You mean to open your sockets.

Instead, your skull settles against something warm and firm and soft as sleep drags you back under.

When you wake, the room is gold and dim.

For several seconds, you do not know where you are. Not the car. Not your room. Not the apartment. The ceiling is wrong but familiar. The couch beneath you is too soft. A blanket covers your ribs, tucked loosely enough that you can throw it off if needed. The television is dark across the room, reflecting the windows and lamps and the long shadow of evening.

The living room.

You sit up too quickly and immediately regret it.

Your neck aches in three different directions, likely from sleeping with your skull tilted poorly. One shoulder feels stiff. Your magic lies low and dull in your soul, still drained from the morning. The new white coat has been removed and folded over the back of a nearby chair. The ugly yellow sweater remains, unfortunately, on your body.

A second blanket lies rumpled on the cushion beside you.

Chalk had been there.

You look around.

No Chalk. No immediate danger. No one watching you wake. From the kitchen comes the faint sound of dishes and low voices. Somewhere upstairs, footsteps move across the floor. Outside, evening presses purple against the windows, and the trees have gone dark at the edges.

You sit there for a moment longer, letting the house resolve itself around you. Home, some treacherous part of your mind tries.

You crush that word flat.

When you stand, your neck protests sharply. You grimace, rolling one shoulder as you retrieve your coat from the chair. The fabric is soft under your hands. There is no sign of Chalk’s train set, which means someone carried it upstairs or he did. Either possibility is acceptable.

You should check on him.

You make it to the stairs before reason catches up. He is likely in his room. He is likely exhausted. If he wanted you, he would have come back downstairs or stayed beside you. That should be enough. It is not enough, but you have become very practiced in moving around insufficiency.

Your own room is two doors down from his. You glance toward Chalk’s door as you pass. Closed. Warm light shows faintly underneath. You can hear movement inside, soft and contained. Good. He is fine then.

You open your own door and immediately stop.

For one strange second, you think you have made a mistake and entered someone else’s room.

The bed is where it was, but not exactly. The chair has been moved nearer the window. The narrow bookcase you selected stands against the wall, assembled and clean, three empty shelves waiting with unreasonable patience. The small drawer at its bottom is shut. The lamp Chalk chose sits beside the bed, its neck bent neatly over the little table. A plain rug lies on the floor where there had been bare wood before. Your bags from the bookstore sit beside the shelf, books still inside but arranged carefully upright so the spines do not bend.

The room has been changed. Not invaded. You do not know why that distinction arrives, or why it matters, but it does. Nothing has been searched, not that there had been anything to search in the first place. Still, a familiar anger begins to rise—

—only to be cut short by the sight of three items laid out across your bed.

The first is the small bag for Mars, paper handles folded down and tied with a yellow ribbon you do not remember seeing before. The second is the black notebook from the stationery store that you had put back after Classic's horrible pencil joke. The last is a tine of graphite pencils atop it, its little metal lid catching the lamplight.

You step inside and close the door behind you.

The room is quiet. You are alone.

Still, you speak aloud in case someone or something is listening.

"None of this means anything."

Your voice is soft. Too soft to sound convincing.

The room, warm and furnished and yours, holds you all the same.