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Michael likes the radiator. It edges into the little room with him, warm and crackly. It gets hotter at night, and when he leans his forehead up against it, he can feel it purr. It is the warmest thing he has, and it smells like burnt socks.
It sounds like Boo-dad humming to him, on the nights he has long teeth and his eyes get all purple. Michael misses his fathers. He wants T’bbo to sing to him and run a comb through his fine pinkish fur. He wants Boo to play dolls with him. He wants to eat an entire stack of pancakes with strawberry sauce.
Strange man comes to bring him breakfast. Golden carrots, his favorite. So this man must be nice. “Where Da?” he tries asking.
Nice Man goes stiff and drops the carrot he’s holding. He leaves without hugging the little piglin, or even patting his head. Michael shivers. He misses being touched and caressed and held. Boo always carries him around like he weighs nothing, tight and secure to his chest, and he feels like the most precious thing in the world.
So where’s Dad?
He closes his eye and presses himself to the radiator and pretends.
One night, there’s a scary scratching at the wall, of claws on stone. Michael shivers and whines. There are monsters and bad men out there in the dark. Bo-dad has told him. The wall shears away, and a long-long-creature crawls into the space with him. It has backwards-elbows and powdery-black skin and glowing eyes and fangs. “Boo?”
Not-Boo curls himself into the tiny room and makes a quibbling sound. The way he moves is wrong, bendy and sinuous. Michael lets out a little squeak of fear. The creature drops a piece of rooted grass at his feet and stares up expectantly. Michael oinks, and stuffs a red-clover in his mouth. It tastes sweet.
“Where Da?”
Creature doesn’t answer. Instead, it cups Michael’s exposed skull with a long, shivery, hand. Feels like Boo, but not quite as loving, work-worn, not-soft. He leans in anyway with a high-pitched whine. The touch feels comforting and almost-familiar. The Thing vwoops into his floppy large ear.
That’s not an answer. What does it mean?
He sniffles, and breaks into sobs. A tear drops from his eye onto Not-Boo’s forearm. The inky skin hisses and releases a whitish mist. His visitor skitters away with a horrible shriek. Michael’s mouth hangs open, and he wipes his face with a hoof. “Sorry! Plea’ come back!”
He’s alone again with the radiator.
He cries and cries and can’t stop, sadness ripping its way out of him.
Eventually, Man comes back, fuzzy green fur pressed flat behind his metal mask, dark-wet-sad eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asks flatly, “why won’t you stop? What do you need?”
He wants the Boo creature to come back and play with him. He wants his fathers. He wants someone to pick him up and hold him, so much so that he leans in instinctively to the Man with a little croon. No reaction. He wraps his stubby arms around himself, as far as they'll go, and squeezes tight enough that it aches. Still doesn’t feel quite right.
“Are you hungry? Are you thirsty?” Man shakes his head and hands over a slice of pie, a little glass of milk. “Have this, okay? And just…be quiet. My head hurts.”
He eats messily, pie-filling between his hooves, milk-mustache on his fur. He tries to lick himself clean. If ‘Bo were here, he’d wipe Michael down with a warm washcloth and call him neat and pretty. His throat aches, his chest still feels empty. He squeaks and keens and whines ‘til he slumps over, exhausted.
When the Creature visits, Michael knows not to get it wet. It’s like a piece of fancy-important paper. “Hel–lo.”
It voops lowly at him, like it wants them to be quiet.
He puts a hoof over his mouth. No talking, shh. Careful. No talk, no cry, no wet.
A soft burble, and the creature is lowering itself on backbending knees to place something soft and plush in his lap.
Chicken! It’s his stuffy-from-home, same ragged fleece, cock’s-comb gummy where he’s chewed it. He sniffs. It smells like Bo, lot like Bo, like he’s been holding onto it real tight. “Da,” he murmurs in appreciation, “Dad chick’n.”
The creature crouches down, folding up, getting comfy, and stares at him with blinkless eyes. Michael gives it a brave smile. “Boo?” he asks. It keeps staring. “Where is da?” This creature has to know Boo-dad. It’s weird-long-tall in the same way as him. “My chick’n.”
It stays with him for hours. When he goes really still, it gets brave and comes closer, lifting his little head into its lap. It pets his fur, long-long fingers sharp claws but always gentle. He babbles. Room is cozy, and the powdery-skinned creature feels cool as a breeze. He starts to feel very warm, very sleepy. Not-dad even purrs.
When Michael wakes up, he’s alone. He clutches Chicken more-close. It still smells like Tubbo, but not quite as much. He hates this. He wants to go home and read stories in the window seat and eat veggie noodle soup.
The Man comes by with red dust in his fur and worry crinkles around his eye-corners. He gives Michael a cardboard box of colors and a pad of creamy paper.
“They’re crayons,” he explains, holding up a waxy stick, “don’t eat them, okay? You can draw stuff, right? That’s fun. That’s something to do.”
He scrawls green-and-red eyes and a big toothy smile.
The sad-fluffy man goes pale and says he has to do something in another room.
Michael finishes his drawing. It doesn’t look like it does in his head. It’s hard to hold the crayon in his hoof. He frowns. Tubbo could draw something better. Boo would say it was perfect-already and hang it on the fridge.
He starts hammering on the radiator. It makes a clatter. The man comes back, looking harried. He has armor on, which always means something is going on, bad-dangerous. Michael shrinks back, apprehensive.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, see?” A huge gauntlet-clad paw that could wrap around his whole neck. “I’m Sam, remember?” Michael shakes his head furiously. “I…what did you want?”
“Food. More food.” He snaps his shovel-shaped teeth.
“I-I can do that. Hang on.” Sam leaves and returns and gives him bread with the crusts cut off.
The piglin shoves half of it into his mouth, and leaves the rest in the pocket of his overalls, as a gift for the long strange friend next time it comes over. It has scary claws but that makes him feel safer. He just wants to be home. Everything here is a little bit wrong. Food tastes different, air smells off, room is too warm. Most of all he wants a hug. He wants it more than anything. Real-proper-squeezy-hug, not the light-stroking touch from not-Boo creature. Warm hug. Dad hug. He’s crying again, and creature won’t come if he cries. He has to be brave.
Brave like he knows his dads are. Like Uncle Tommy. Like the heroes in the stories Bo tells him, who fight withers and stand up for their friends, even when they're scared or hurt. He runs his tongue over his lips and breathes in deep. He’s brave and good. They will be so proud of him. He hiccups and shuts his one-eye tight.
If he were bigger, it wouldn’t be so hard to be brave. Someday he will be strong. But for now, he shudders and twitches until he hears the familiar-loud-scratchy sound.
“Boo?”
The creature rests a feather-light hand on his head and pets him like a cat. It tickles. He holds out the extra bread, but it just looks sideways at him and quibbles.
“For you,” Michael explains. “Eat it.” Doesn’t work. “Take!”
Creature bends down so its glowy-purple eyes are mesmerizingly close to his own. Its large jaw goes unhinged. Michael balls up a morsel of bread and puts it in the mouth.
“Eat,” he coaxes, “Yum?”
Slowly, the monster chews and swallows. It hesitates, before giving him a tiny nod.
He really wants to show somebody his art. The Thing watches quizzically while he takes another piece of paper and draws a big puffy flower, purple-pink color. Michael shoves over the finished work with a little grunt. “Gif’, he explains, “present.”
It keeps staring.
“Take. Keep. For you.”
The fanged mouth splits into a jagged smile. It crumples his drawing into a little ball, and holds that tightly to its chest.
Michael topples backward with a satisfied oink. “You draw too?”
Creature takes a green crayon and stares at it suspiciously. Then, suddenly, it snaps the stick in two and shoves both pieces into its mouth, swallowing.
He lets out a grunt of frustration. “No!”
“Vwoop?”
“Not food!” he protests, “You ate my stuff!”
It makes a tiny, ashamed noise and slinks back toward the narrow crack it entered through.
“No no no,” Michael says quickly, “I’m sorry, stay!”
But it’s already melting away into shadow.
He’s alone again. His special-est crayon is gone. His chicken smells like wet grass. That night, he cries inconsolably.
***
The door trembles in its frame. Not like when Sam brings food, or when the creature visits. Michael wobbles backward, hoof in his mouth to stifle a frightened squeak. It wrenches off its hinges. There’s a smaller-than-usual shadow in the doorway. “Michael?” He recognizes the ragged-hurting voice, the fuzzy patched-up coat, the little horns.
He launches himself forward, excited, wrapping himself around a leg. “Bo?”
Dad looks sad and anxious and angry and scared. His eye-circles are dark-colored and his clothes are dirty. He collapses to his knees and grabs for the piglin with both arms. “Are you hurt, baby? Are you hurt anywhere? A-are you okay?” He’s patting his son all over, searching, touchy, desperate. Michael lets out a soft, contented, huff.
Bo-Dad never cries. Now he’s sobbing and howling while he grips Michael way too tight, like he’ll never let him go again.
He wiggles a bit in the vise-hold. “Ow.”
“S-s-sorry, sorry…” His shoulders heave up-and-down. He lifts him up, and it’s like a crazy carnival ride. “I’ve got you, piglet…it’s okay now. I’m going to take you home.”
His brow furrows. “Where Boo?”
And his dad’s face crumples all over again. “I-I don’t know,” he gets out at last, “I’m not sure where he is.” His eyes are bloodshot and his hands are shaking. “But I know that he loves you. We both love you so much, little man.”
Tubbo brushes back his pinkish fur in exactly the way he always has, combing it into neat little lines. He traces soft-gentle-affectionate down the itchy line where skull meets fluffy skin, and Michael leans in eagerly to all the touching and petting. He’s missed being held, even if his dad is holding him so squished-up it kind of hurts. Even if Tubbo has a funny not-normal smell, like sickness and smoke. Even if his other dad is Missing.
He coos into the fur-lined hood of a jacket and rubs his closed eye until he sees glowing-purple in the dark, and he knows for sure that someone is watching over him.