Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I HATE YOU!”

The halls rang with the crustacean’s booming voice. This was a common occurrence, and no one was ever really surprised by his outbursts. Scared, maybe, definitely annoyed, but never surprised. Predictably angry as always.

“We know, Shrimpo,” Sprout sighed. “What did I do now?”

“YOU- You-“ Shrimpo fumbled to find an excuse. ”I JUST HATE YOU!”!

“Mhm. Well, have fun with that. I have things to do. Things people will appreciate me for.” And with that, the strawberry went off to the kitchen, leaving Shrimpo to just grumble and storm off to find someone else to hurl his anger at. He was about to do just that when he heard another voice from nowhere.

“Heeeey, berry boy!” Shrimpo turned around to see the form of Connie appearing in the air, a smug smile on her face as she looked at the retreating Sprout, who had froze in his tracks at the mention of that nickname.

“I- You- auuugghg… did Vee tell you that name??” he groaned in exasperation.

“Nah, overheard it and wanted to use it first chance I got,” she replied, the smug smile never leaving her face.

“Don’t… call me that again,” he huffed.

“Sure, beryyyybooooyy,” the ghost snickered, elbowing sprout in the shoulder with a growing smile.

“Stop that,” the berry ordered. Connie refused, the elbowing growing faster and the smile comically larger until Sprout finally let out the chuckle he had been suppressing, knowing he couldn’t let her win the exchange. The ghost took the chuckle as a sign of said victory.

“If you’re gonna stick around, could you help me out at least?” he asked with an eye roll.

“Let me guess- top shelf?”

“Top shelf,” Sprout affirmed. Connie floated up to said shelf, grabbing the ingredients he needed, all while Shrimpo watched with a look of contempt on his face, mixed with… confusion.

He had never understood why everyone liked Connie and hated him. Connie got on everyone’s nerves just like he did, except everyone was friends with her and got over it quickly. It was infuriating how unfair it was. He hated it.

“I STILL HATE YOU ALL,” he screamed as he marched off, not really having anything else to say. Connie and Sprout just looked at each other with a bored expression. Again, this was to be expected.

“I wonder if he’ll ever change,” Sprout muttered. “I can hope, but I guess we all know it won’t happen.”

“Yeah. At least he’s manageable,” the ghost pointed out.

“True. He has the imagination of a phone book. All he can say is that he hates stuff, and when it’s gone on for this long, it’s not too hard to just brush him off.”

“I shudder at what to think would happen if he started actually getting creative.” She shuddered in mock horror before chuckling.

“The horrors. Anyways, pass me those ingredients.” Connie complied and handed Sprout what he needed.

“Where’s Cosmo? I thought he was your baking buddy?”

“Oh, he’s on a run right now. I’m baking some cookies for when they all get back.”

“Ooooh, that’s what this is all for, got it.” Connie pulled a drawer and got out a cookie scoop. “Guessing you’ll need this?”

Sprout nodded and held out his hand. Connie instead floated up to the top of the fridge and set it there.

“You’re the worst,” he deadpanned while she giggled.

“Okay, okay,” the ghost relented as she tossed it over to him. The strawberry toon caught it and began scooping the dough. Cooking had always been therapeutic to the toon, and he always felt right at home in the kitchen. It was where he was happiest.

In the same way, Shrimpo’s therapeutic activity involved bashing his punching bag over and over until his fist went numb from the use. The shrimp couldn’t really say he was at his happiest when attacking a tube of stuffing strung up from the ceiling, moreso his least angry.

Every punch was something that made him mad that day, slowly letting anger out with each and every hit. The way Vee strutted about so smugly. The puns Finn made. The poor stock Dandy had. Sprout in general. He hit the bag again and again. Astro’s attempts to figure out why he was so mad. How loud Yatta was. How perfect Glisten was. Again and again and again.

Finally, the toon could think of nothing more that made him mad. His hand was burning with pain. Today had been a hateful day. There was a lot to get out. Shrimpo just flopped on his bed unceremoniously. He didn’t feel like doing anything. What was the point? He didn’t enjoy anything, and no one would have wanted him there anyways. He was too mean for them. But apparently, Connie wasn’t.

He sat up, his anger returning. Why did CONNIE get special treatment? Why was she allowed to harass others and he couldn’t? Why did they like it when she did it but told him to get lost when he did? What was the deal?

He crossed his arms and huffed. He didn’t care. He shouldn’t care. Maybe he should just yell at them more. Yet… the more he thought about it, the more he questioned what it was like. To not be hated for once. It was almost appealing. Almost. “I hate people being nice,” he hissed to no one but himself. “…I hate unfairness more,” he admitted. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. He wanted to be treated like Connie.

He just wished he knew how to go about that. He thought and thought, trying to think of anything that could work. As much as he hated it, yelling wouldn’t convince anyone, so he had to try something with nuance for once.

And that’s when his neurons finally fired up and gave him an idea.

“Sprout! Oh, you didn’t have to,” Cosmo shyly said as Sprout offered him and his group the cookies. Connie floated in the background,

“I wanted to, you all earned it!” Sprout insisted.

“Well, I won’t say no,” Gigi snickered, quickly taking one and trying to pocket a second before Sprout pushed her hand away.

“Let everyone get one, then you can have more,” he sternly said. Gigi just mumbled something and waited. One by one, the rest grabbed a cookie for themselves. Except Vee, on account of being a computer. She didn’t mind, though. Gigi went to take one of the two remaining cookies when it began to float and spin around. The gachapon toon just rolled her eyes while the rest chuckled at the prank.

“Very funny Connie, can I have the cookie now?” she asked as she looked over to the ghost in question.

“Oh, sorry, sure,” she said with a smug smile, making the cookie levitate into her face. The rest laughed a little more.

“Thanks, real help,” Gigi mumbled, snatching the cookie from her face and pocketing it. “Anyways, I’ll be off, that run has me wiped, hehe.” She turned around, but before she could take off, she noticed something. Or rather, someone.

“Oh. Eugh, Shrimpo. Why’re you here?” she questioned with clear disdain. The crustacean jumped, clearly not expecting to be seen.

“I- I- I HATE QUESTIONS,” he screamed. Gigi was caught off guard. Not by the screaming, no, it was how he screamed it. She had never heard him sound defensive of all things before.

“Oooo-kayy… I’m just… gonna go.” She promptly left, the others following suit.

“What is it now, Shrimpo?” Sprout sighed. “Here for a cookie? Or to tell us how much you hate us? I’m pretty sure I can guess which one.”

“I-“ Shrimpo didn’t really know how to respond. He wanted to scream that he hated them, but then he would be sent away, and he would have to try his plan again another time. On the other hand, he just couldn’t tell them what he intended on doing. He settled for just mumbling random words under his breath in an annoyed tone.

“…you’re acting weird, Shrimpo,” Connie observed.

“NO!” he denied. “I AM NOT!”

“Ah, there we go,” she deadpanned.

“Let’s just go before he starts a scene,” mumbled Sprout. Connie nodded, before taking the final cookie and tossing it to Shrimpo. He had never answered if he was there for a cookie or not, so if he was, hopefully it would keep him quiet. No one else was gonna eat it anyways.

Sprout grumbled and braced himself for the screaming of “I hate cookies”. Yet Shrimpo just stood there, looking at the cookie.

“I… just… get lost,” he muttered, stomping back to his room, leaving the other two confused.

“That… that’s not like him,” Sprout said, now more concerned than annoyed.

“Yeah… weird.”

Well. His plan to watch how Connie acted wasn’t going to work if they kept spotting him like that. But that wasn’t what was bothering him. One thing was one his mind; what was wrong with Connie?? The question played over and over in Shrimpo’s head. No one just… GAVE him stuff. Sure, when they were required to, but never just because. What was with her…

The shrimp shot up. Oh. This was why people liked her. She was nice despite her teasing. The toon grimaced. Ew. Being nice. That wasn’t what he liked to do. But… if he wanted what Connie had, he couldn’t do this by himself. He knew he couldn’t teach himself how to be nice.

There was only one option.

He was going to have to ask Connie herself for help.

Chapter Text

“I HATE GOING ON RUNS!” Shrimpo screamed as he stomped towards the elevator. He was in the rotation, along with Glisten, Boxten, Astro, Cosmo, Goob, and… Connie. He had felt a wave of nervousness when he first saw the listings. He knew he was going to have to ask her for help eventually, but the shrimp had been holding off on it for as long as he could. Should he do it on this run and just get it over with? No, horrible timing. He’d have to wait again.

“What else is new,” Glisten mumbled in response to the outburst. He adjusted his bow and sauntered into the elevator. “I’m ready, who else?”

“I’m ready, I think,” Boxten announced. Cosmo nodded in agreement.

“I suppose I am ready as well,” Astro said, his voice still thick with sleep. Shrimpo could only assume he had been recently woken up from one of his stupid naps. He hated naps. Naps were for the weak.

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be for this,” Connie stated, stretching her arms above her head before lazily floating into the elevator.

“I- I'M READY TOO THEN,” Shrimpo belted, marching into the elevator. “I hate runs,” he repeated under his breath. The others just looked at him with annoyance.

The doors closed and they went down to start thier run. The shrimp toon kept sneaking glances at Connie, frustrated that he hadn’t already just asked for her help. This didn’t go unnoticed by the others.

“If you wanna say you hate something about me, just say it already, bud,” Connie told him with a shrug. “You staring is weird.”

“Y- YOUR FLOATING IS WEIRD,” he weakly retorted before grimacing. Nice. She’d really want to help you now. Come on Shrimpo, you know what to do, you’ve heard everyone else say it a thousand times. “Sssss…”

“What, trying to hiss like a snake or some-“

“Sorry.”

The entire elevator froze. No. No, they were hearing things. They had to be.

“Oooookaaay…” Connie whispered to herself, floating a little bit away from Shrimpo. He had been acting so weird lately, and she had absolutely no clue why.

Before anyone could question him, the doors opened, and they all rushed off to do their jobs. Shrimpo himself didn’t really have one, thanks to his horrible… everything, really. Sprout once proposed he could scout for items and tapes and alert the people who needed them, but that would require him to be helpful, which wasn’t happening.

So, he often just sat around and grabbed any neglected machines. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do without dying extremely fast.

Speaking of neglected machines, there was one right over there. He stomped over to it and began the long, painful process of extracting. He hated extracting. The shrimp started to bang his head against the glass cylinder in frustration. He was lucky Goob was already distracting all the twisteds, otherwise he would have altered the entire floor by now. The machine finally dropped to completion, and panic mode started. He had taken so long to do this one that everyone else was already done by now. He just huffed and stomped back to the elevator.

The next few floors proceeded as normal. Nothing much happened, aside from Goob finding a medkit, which was absolutely huge. They needed their distractor to be safe if they wanted to be safe themselves, after all.

This floor had Twisted Finn. Shrimpo hated Twisted Finn more than normal Finn, since he made him slower than he already was after he completed a machine. He muttered a bunch of nasty things under his breath and stomped around to find any ignored machines.

He found one, and was the last to complete as usual. He felt the ichor pooling around his feet as Twisted Finn’s effect came into play. He REALLY hated Twisted Finn. He ripped his feet off the ground in attempts to step forward. Come on, the elevator was right there-

His thoughts were interpreted when he felt claws around him. He tensed, assuming a twisted had grappled him, but then saw the blue and red. Goob. Of course. The shrimp was promptly dragged to the elevator, and the doors closed.

Shrimpo was furious. He wanted to scream, to tell Goob off, to say that he would have been fine. Yet… he knew that if he did, Connie would definitely not accept his plea for help. He already doubted she would, this would just make it worse. He sharply took in a deep breath.

“Thhhhaaanks…” he hissed, almost retching. If the other toons weren’t suspicious of his behavior already, now they were convinced something was up.

“…Shrimpo, what’s going on?” Astro asked, rather confused. None of them were used to seeing him like this.

“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” he screamed. Everyone seemed to turn away at that, seemingly satisfied that Shrimpo was still somewhat himself.

“Eh, more fun to poke around,” Connie smirked.

“I HATE YOU! I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU!” The crustacean let slip. Great. Connie would really want to help him now.

The doors opened once more and Shrimpo bolted off, not wanting to interact with them anymore. He hated interacting. More than doing machines.

He began to bang his head on the machine he found again, fuming at everything that had happened in the past 20 minutes. He hated everyone, he hated apologizing, he hated saying thanks, and he hated how they looked at him funny. He let out another screech, not declaring anything this time, just releasing the pent up anger that had finally gotten to him.

“You’re never gonna get her help,” he muttered to himself. “I hate that I thought I had a chance.”

“Who’s help?” a voice rang out. The toon jumped, screaming once more and swatting his hands about.

“CONNIE! DON’T DO THAT! I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SNEAK UP ON ME!!”

“Well, I don’t like it when you scream, so we’re even. Now, who’s help?” the ghost asked again.

Shrimpo gulped. Should he just admit it? No, she wouldn’t accept his request after he had just yelled at her. Twice. But there she was, and he knew he wasn’t going to work up to asking by himself.

“…yours,” he forced out, eyes narrowing. He hated having to say it out loud more than he thought he would.

Connie was genuinely taken aback. “…my help? What makes me so special?”

“WHAT MAKES YOU- EVERYONE LOVES YOU EVEN THOUGH YOU ANNOY THEM AND TRICK THEM, YET THEY HATE ME? HOW COME YOU’RE SO SPECIAL? I…” the sea toon lowered his voice. “I want what you have,” he whispered in a scathing voice. “I know that I need to… to be nice… like how you are between tricks… that’s why they like you… and I… I HATE IT! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE NICE! IT’S STUPID!!!”

Connie just looked at him. On one hand, she owed him nothing. Heck, he owed everyone else for constantly making their days worse. On the other, this sounded like Shrimpo was asking for help on… being nice??? No one ever expected him to be anything other than mean and rude, so it would be foolish to not try and help him to improve.

“So, let me see if I’m hearing this right. You’re jealous of the fact that I can make fun of people and be liked while you can’t, and you just now realized the reason behind that is because I’m actually a decent person when I’m not tricking people and I’m not just screaming that I hate people all the time?”

Wow. It was stupid of him when she put it like that. His face burned with embarrassment. “Sh-shut up,” he mumbled. That told Connie all she needed to know.

“Hmm. Well then. I guess it would be a wasted chance to try and not make ya into a nicer shrimp. I’ll try and teach you the ways. But still, why me? Why not any of the super nice guys?”

Shrimpo was taken aback. He guessed she had a point, one that he couldn’t really answer. Yet a part of him knew he didn’t want help from anyone else. “JUST SHUT UP AND HELP ME!”
he screamed, before clamping his mouth shut.

“Geez, point taken. I won’t ask again. But first we gotta work on that yelling man.” Connie looked around. “Oh, right. We’re on a run. Would you look at that? We’ll talk about this later, K?” The ghost toon floated off, leaving Shrimpo alone with his unfinished machine.

“Hmph. Stupid run,” he grumbled, upset that the conversation between them had been broken up, not really sure why he was upset about that of all things. Yet despite the anger, a very small sliver of him felt a little lighter at the thought that Connie was actually going to help him.

He should have just her asked earlier.

Chapter Text

“There’s no way you ACTUALLY accepted,” Gigi said, eyes wide.

“That’s what I was telling myself earlier,” Connie huffed. The ghost toon was still reeling from how out of the blue and unexpected this entire ordeal was. “I still can’t believe I’m helping the guy.”

“Well, why not just take it back? No one would blame you, it is Shrimpo after all,” the gachapon toon suggested.

Connie sighed. “I want to. Take it back, I mean. But I also just… cmon, the guy wants help being a nicer person so people can like him. I can’t see how that hurts anyone. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if Shrimpo didn’t suck as much.”

“Touché,” Gigi shrugged. “I guess I can see why you’d accept. If it’s a chance to make the shrimp a better person…”

“See, that’s what I was thinking. If it stops him from being a little stain, why not?”

The two mulled it over for a bit, before Gigi was struck with a very important question to ask.

“Say… you have any ideas for how you’re actually going to go about this?” The gachapon seemed a little concerned, and for good reason. Connie didn’t have an answer.

“I… huh… I never thought that far,” she admitted.

“Well, now’s the time to figure it out,” Gigi said, matter of factly.

“Yeah but, I play pranks on people! I don’t help them with emotional problems…” Connie buried her face into her hands. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Hey, I’m just glad it’s not me. Buuuut…” Gigi closed her eyes, ruminating on the situation. “Astro has always been one to go to for advice. He might have some ideas for you.”

Connie nodded. “I’ll ask him that then. After that though… wanna steal Tisha’s cleaning equipment?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Shrimpo laid on his bed, arms crossed, face pouting. He hated everyone. Everyone was stupid. Everyone was annoying. He stifled a scream as he flipped upright and punched a pillow as hard as he could, before sighing and hanging his head.

He didn’t know why he suddenly wanted to be treated like everyone else. He had never cared before. Everyone hated him, and he hated everyone else. What was different? What had changed?

The shrimp racked his brain to try and figure out what was up. All he could settle on was that he had suddenly gotten jealous over the way Connie was treated. He didn’t know why he had gotten jealous or why he had suddenly noticed the difference. All he knew was that a part of him was suddenly filled with longing for something.

And he HATED it.

He had known hate and only hate his whole life. He wasn’t meant to be nice. He was a bully, and would forever be a bully. He wasn’t supposed to have feelings other than this. Yet, for the first time, he wanted something other than this. And he didn’t know what to do. At first, he had just perceived it as an unfairness. But he soon came to realize that was just what he told himself. Shrimpo felt like he didn’t even know himself anymore.

At least he still had his punching bag and his fists.

He got up, stomping over to it. He launched jab after jab, trying to blow off even a small amount of steam. He hated not being able to understand this. He hated how weak it made him feel. He hated how jealous he was over something that had never mattered before now.

He let out one last rage filled scream, threw one last jab, and stormed out of his room. He didn’t care where he went, he just needed to move.

“Ah Connie, what a surprise. You usually aren’t one to request advice from me.” Astro had awoken to a knock on his door to see the ghost toon, of all toons. He had been expecting someone like Cosmo or Boxten, they were frequent visitors. Connie, on the other hand, Astro couldn’t recall the last time she had shown up at his door for help, if ever.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just that I’m in a bit of a pickle right now,” she explained. The blue moon raised his eyebrow.

“Well, follow me and sit down.” Astro guided her to a couple of beanbags in his room. “Tell me, what is the issue you find yourself so entrapped in?”

Connie huffed and sat down. “Shrimpo,” she muttered.

“Mm. A problem caused for us all. What has he done this time?”

“Asked me for help.”

The answer took Astro off guard. That was the last thing he had been expecting, and his face clearly showed it.

“He… he asked for help?” He needed to make sure he had heard correctly.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “He wants to be nicer so that people don’t hate him anymore. He wants me to teach him how I manage to balance messing with people and getting them to like me.”

Astro nodded, still slightly reeling from the revelation that he had just heard. “And you accepted?”

“I didn’t want to, but honestly, it would be kind of stupid not to. If the worst person in the entire building wanted your help to be better, you kinda owe it to everyone to try,” the ghost toon said.

The blue moon nodded, seeing her logic sound. “I can understand that. Still, it must not be very pleasant. When did this happen?”

“Earlier today during a run. Shrimpo was acting off the whole time, saying sorry and thank you, even though he would clearly do anything else.”

“So he’s already trying? Why does he need your help then if he’s already accomplishing it from the sounds of it?”

“Well, he kept throwing in his usual tangents about how he hates all of us. He ain’t exactly there just yet.”

“I see. Please continue.”

“After a bit, he kinda ran off once the elevators opened again. I was curious, so naturally I followed him. I heard him mumbling about how “she’ll never help me now”, I become visible and ask who he means, and he tells me the whole story then and there.”

Astro sat for a moment, soaking it all in. It was an odd situation to be sure, but if Shrimpo was willing to turn for the better, anything could happen.

“Alright. He wants help. That’s a good start. He acknowledges he has a problem.”

“Eh, more like he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions, but we’ll take what we can get.”

Astro nodded. “Either way, he’s willing. For now, I’d simply advise you to watch him, notify him when he’s being overly aggressive or rude, and then try to steer him away from it. However, he may push back, so be prepared if that is the case.”

“Alright then,” Connie agreed. “I’ll get on that.”

Astro was about to say something else when they both heard the start of screaming.

“I HATE YOUR STUPID MUSIC! PLAY SOMETHING ELSE OR NOTHING!”

“Sounds like now’s the perfect time to try it out,” the moon toon muttered with a sigh.

“…yeah,” Connie agreed. This was going to be quite the challenge.

Chapter Text

“Shrimpo… please just-“ Poor Boxten was trying his hardest to defend himself, but the shrimp’s wrath was too much for him to handle.

“WHAT? LEAVE? I'LL LEAVE ONCE YOU STOP PLAYING THAT MUSIC! IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!” Shrimpo was breathing heavily and slightly hunched. The music box had no clue why his music was making him act so overly aggressive, even for the bully. No matter the reason, it scared him.

“Sh-Shrimpo, you know I can’t… really control what plays… i-it just plays…”

“THEN MAKE IT QUIETER! THROW A BLANKET OVER YOUR HEAD! I DON’T CARE, I HATE HOW LOUD IT IS!!”

“I-“ Boxten was interrupted again, this time by Connie appearing through the ceiling and floating down to them.

“Alright Shrimpy, what’s got you so mad?” the ghost asked with narrowed eyes.

“This TROGLODYTE is playing his music WAY TOO LOUD!” he growled, scowling at Boxten. Connie just sighed.

“Shrimpo, I hate to break it to you, but you have no right to complain there. I heard you yelling from the floor above.”

“WELL- then- HE STARTED IT!” the toon pointed at the defenseless music box, who just shook his head.

Connie pinched the area between her eyes in annoyance. “Shrimpo, yelling isn’t gonna fix the issue. Just… go somewhere else if it makes you that mad.”

“…fine,” he spat, marching off.

“Wait, no, first you have to apologize.”

“NO! IT’S HIS FAU-“

The glare Connie gave Shrimpo immediately silenced him. He glared at Boxten before hissing out a “sorry” and storming off.

The box breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you Connie…”

“No problem…” Connie’s eyes narrowed once more. “This is… going to be difficult, isn’t it.”

“What is?”

“Oh right, I’ve agreed to help Shrimpo with his anger issues.”

Boxten just stared at her. “W-why would you do that to yourself?”

“Because he asked me specifically and any chance to make him not a jerk is one we should take.”

“…ok, fair point… b-but still… I wouldn’t have…” Boxten sheepishly muttered. Connie didn’t blame him. She doubted most people would actually want to help him, despite them agreeing that him getting it was a good thing.

“I get ya Boxy. He’s going to be trouble, I can tell.”

“Should… should you go after him? To make sure he doesn’t yell at anyone else…”

“That’s… a good idea,” Connie realized. “Thanks Boxten, I’m going to go find where he went. And the music is great, by the way,” she winked as she floated off.

The ghost toon soon found Shrimpo, who had stormed back to his own room. He was hitting his punching bag as hard as he could, to the point Connie was surprised both his fists and the bag were still intact. The attacks increased in frequency and intensity until he finally reeled back after one partially nasty hit. The toon slumped to the floor, head in his hands, grumbling and looking like he was about to release another monstrous scream. Perhaps she should keep that from happening.

“So,” she said, revealing herself and making him jump, “how many punching bags have you gone through in the last week?”

“…shut up,” was all he managed to mumble out. He turned back around, away from her. She just sighed in response.

“Y’know, you can’t just go around yelling at people like you did with Boxten.” Stating the obvious, but she had to start somewhere.

“I’m aware,” the seafood hissed. He wasn’t yelling, but the venom in his voice was just as off-putting.

“You still do it,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, and you still scare people even though they don’t like it,” Shrimpo glared.

Connie hadn’t really been expecting that. “…touché, I guess,” she muttered. They sat in awkward silence for a moment after that.

“Ynow, for having a punching bag, you’re still so angry,” the ghost toon observed, gliding over and poking the object. “I’d have thought that would be the perfect outlet.”

The crustacean just looked away. “It… it lost its use over time. It doesn’t help as much as it did. I hate that.”

Connie was surprised yet again by the shrimp. “Hmm… maybe we could find another outlet that would help?”

Shrimpo just scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

“You’d never know unless you tried-“

“Just get out of my room,” he cut her off. He got back up and started hitting the punching bag again, signaling the end of the conversation. She just sighed and floated away.

“Huh. Who'd've thought.”

“Yeah, that just about sums up my reaction to all of that.”

Connie had found Gigi, and the two were chatting once more about Connie’s current predicament.

“So what’s your plan now? You can’t just follow him around forever, telling him off.”

“Yeah, I know. Finding another way for him to get his anger out would work, but I can’t think of anything.” She slumped forward, resting her head on her hands.

“Well, you don’t have to solve it right away,” the gachapon pointed out. “No deadline or anything.”

“I know, but I’d rather be done with this sooner rather than later. I have better things to do.”

“Like haunt Boxten?”

Connie put a hand over her heart in fake melodramaty. “You think so little of me,” she chuckled. “But yes. That may be one of them.”

Gigi snickered. “Of course it is.”

“What can I say, it’s funny,” she shrugged. “Besides, he never seems to hate me for it, so as long as I don’t reach that point, I ain’t ever stopping.”

Gigi nodded. “I think I’m starting to see why Shrimpo wanted your help, of all people. You both get on people’s nerves, but you got the self control to stop before they want to strangle you.”

Connie agreed. “That’s just about what he said when he asked me for help.”

The gachapon toon stood up. “So, what’s next?” she asked. “Are we stealing Tisha’s cleaning equipment or not?”

Connie followed suit, floating up from her sitting position. “May as well, I don’t see anything better to do.”

While they walked through the lobby, one of the elevators opened to reveal a party of toons, all very injured. The two exchanged glances before hurrying over.

“Geez guys, what happened to all of you?” the gachapon asked.

“Twisted pebble,” was all Looey said. The two understood. They had all had their share of encounters with the twisted. He was easily more of a threat than even Dandy himself when he was enraged.

“I still got my research,” Rodger mumbled. He seemed to be ignoring the large bite marks on his arm, using the other to cradle his briefcase.

“I doubt it was worth it,” Vee hissed. “We should have left while we had the chance. “

“Ok, guys, just… calm down,” Sprout said, waving his hands and eyes closed as if trying to focus. “I’ll make some healing sweets for us, just take it easy till they’re done.” The other three nodded, limping to the nearby benches. The berry toon looked up and noticed Connie and Gigi. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey,” Connie said, waving. Gigi waved as well. “Something tells me you had a bad time down there.”

“You could say that,” he groaned. “It’s always dangerous down there, but Pebble is on another level. I wish we had some way to fight back, but poor Looey just has to keep running in circles till we all finish the machines, and well…” he gestured to all the injured toons. “Even that doesn’t always work.”

Connie nodded. The most any of them could do was just run. They were too strong, and no one had both the guts and the power to fight a twisted.

And then it clicked.

Maybe there was someone. Someone who had a lot of anger and needed somewhere to put it.

The ghost toon grinned. This was going to be good if it worked.

Chapter Text

“I still can’t believe you’re making me do this. I hate it.”

Shrimpo stood in front of the elevator with Looey, Conni, Gigi, and Vee. The scowl on his face was second to none, and the other toons weren’t exactly excited to have him there anyways.

“Come on, just give it a shot,” Connie sighed.

“About that… what exactly are you two up to?” Vee inquired. The other toons nodded, equally curious.

“You’ll see,” the ghost said with a mischievous smile. Shrimpo just kept the same grumpy expression.

A couple days ago, Connie had come to him with an idea that would benefit everyone. He was in the middle of trying to relieve some anger via the punching bag. Key word behind “trying”.

“What do you want?” he asked, clearly not wanting to talk about anything, but obliging anyways. Maybe he owed it to her or something.

“Well, I have an idea that could help with your anger,” the ghost toon answered. Shrimpo turned around.

“I’m listening…” he grumbled, before turning back to the punching bag.

”Well, we both know you’ve got a lot of pent out anger you can’t help but let out.”

“Stating the obvious, aren’t we.”

“Ha ha. As I was saying, the punching bag isn’t working anymore. Buuut… what if you tried a different punching bag?” She smiled deviously.

“Like what, a different brand? Stupid idea, I hate it,” the crustacean hissed, still punching the bag.

“No- stop interrupting.” Connie huffed in annoyance. “What I mean is that you need a different outlet, and I know just the way you can let out anger in a way everyone will appreciate.” She took a deep breath and but the bullet. “Do you think you can punch a twisted?”

Shrimpo just looked at her like she had said the sun was cold. “You want me to… to punch a twisted.” There was no anger, no vitriol, just pure bewilderment.

“Well, look at it this way,” she explained. “You get free punching bags, and the other toons get safer floors. It’s a win-win.”

The shrimp snorted. “What makes you think I want to help them? I hate them all.”

“Suuure. But you hate the twisteds more I bet. Besides, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to get hurt, otherwise I might stop helping you”

That got Shrimpo to finally concede. “…fine. But only because I’ll get to punch something that can feel it.”

The shrimp scowled and growled as the elevator descended, remembering the conversation that had led to this. This was the last place he wanted to be today. Not like he wanted to be anywhere else, but still.

Vee stepped to the center of the lift, tapping her mic to make sure it was on and clearing her throat. “So, Looey, you distract them, Sprout, look for tapes. Connie and I will distract.”

“Oh, we won’t be needing distractors today,” the ghost waved her off.

“I-” Vee looked incredulous. “Connie, unless you have some crazy scheme, we need a distractor. It’s too dangerous with this amount of toons to not have one.”

“Funny you should mention crazy schemes,” she muttered, a smirk forming. “Don’t worry. Shrimpo will take care of it.”

All eyes turned to the toon as soon as his names was mentioned. He just growled. “Quit staring. I hate staring. Stop.”

The robot toon shook her head. “Connie- I’m sorry, but Shrimpo?? What are you thinking?”

“Relaaaax,” she waved her off again. “Just trust us.”

“I barely trust you, and I definitely don’t trust the ball of anger. If we get killed, it’s on you,” she hissed. Connie just held her hands up defensively, smirk still on her face.

The doors opened, and the toons piled out. “You know what to do, Shrimpy!” Connie told him as she floated away to the nearest machine. He just grumbled and growled.

The first few floors went as normal. No one got hurt despite the lack of distractor. Shrimpo had yet to do anything, and Vee was growing increasingly skeptical, along with the others.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t distract?” Looey inquired by floor 4.

“Just trust the process,” Connie deflected. She herself was unsure if she was making the right call, but she had too much hope this idea would work to back out now.

The doors opened once more to floor five. Like clockwork, the toons went off to do their usual business.

Shrimpo stomped along the ground. He hated this. He didn’t want to be down here. This was a stupid idea. Really stupid. He hated it so much.

Yet a part of him didn’t want to let Connie down. Even he could realize she had done a lot by just even trying to help him, and he owed at least an attempt at her plan.

Eugh. Emotions. He hated it.

Before he could get back to brooding, he heard a scream. Vee. His eyes darted over to see where she was. From what he could gather, she had been startled off a machine and was running from a Twisted Boxten. He really didn’t want to help her. He hated her stupid show.

But Connie probably wouldn’t forgive him if he just let her get hurt after she had gone to these lengths to help him.

He growled and stomped over. “HEY! UGLY! YOU COULDN’T PLAY MUSIC IF IT WAS CHECKERS!!”

The scream worked. The twisted turned its attention from Vee to him. Now for the hard part.

Vee’s monitor turned to see Shrimpo of all people luring the twisted away from her. Was this his purpose? A sacrifice? What else would he be? He couldn’t exactly get away once spotted.

However, he seemed to know that too. Instead of running, he planted his feet in a wide stance and balled his hands into fists. Was he trying to steel himself for the oncoming attack?

Nothing could have prepared Vee for what happened next.

With a roar, Shrimpo slugged the Twisted Boxten in the gut. Hard. For once, Vee saw something else in the Twisted’s eyes. Something that wasn’t fear, anger or sorrow.

Vee saw a Twisted in pain.

Shrimpo felt the flesh of the Twisted give way under his fist. It felt gratifying in a way he hadn’t felt with the punching bag in a long time. The Twisted Boxten fell to the ground, the key in the back of his head turning wildly. Its breathing was heavy, and its once permanent smile was now a grimace of hurt. Wow. How had he not thought to try this before? It felt… good. Real good.

For the first time in a long time, Shrimpo smiled.

Granted, it was a mean and vicious smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. He was sure Connie would be proud of him for this.

Wait. Connie? Why Connie? Why not Vee, who he had just saved? She didn’t even see this, she’s not who he should be thinking of.

The thought of her not seeing this moment put a slight damper on his mood, but his joy at finding a new punching bag was too much to be quelled. Still, he wished she would have seen that her work was paying off. He owed her that much.

He looked over and noticed Vee, who was just standing in shock.

“Gonna keep staring, or are you gonna go do your job,” he sneered. The robot toon’s eyes narrowed as she snapped back to reality.

“Sure, whatever, shrimp,” she mumbled as she searched for the next extraction machine.

“Hate her,” was all he mumbled back.

The run lasted much longer than any of them had thought, thanks to Shrimpo’s newfound usefulness. Every floor, the crustacean shocked a new toon with his strength at keeping the Twisteds down long enough for them to finish the machines without worry. As for Shrimpo himself, he was enjoying this. Maybe a little too much. It felt good for the thing he hit to actually give feedback instead of just swing around like his punching bag.

Yet, there was another reason in the back of his mind. People weren’t looking at him with disdain. They looked at him with awe, astonishment, and even thankfulness. Sprout had even thanked him directly after he saved him from a Twisted Yatta!

It felt nice. It really did.

Floor 17. They stepped out and were greeted with panting and growling. The smile on his face immediately vanished.

Twisted Pebbles.

Shrimpo gulped. The Twisteds he had subdued so far were the same size as him, maybe a little bigger. Pebbles was huge. He doubted he could take the beast out with just a sucker punch.

He really hated Twisted Pebbles.

At least that was a sentiment he shared with the others. They reacted with varying degrees of exasperation and fear.

“Alright everyone, be careful. Be as quiet and fast as you can. And Shrimpo, while I… appriciate… the help you’ve given us today, don’t try to fight that thing.”

He squinted. “You think I can’t take it?”

“Yea,” Vee bluntly answered. “I think you’re gonna die if you try it.”

Shrimpo had no response. He just walked away muttering about how he hated her.

Hmph. Who was she to think he couldn’t take on Twisted Pebbles? He probably could. If only to spite her. After all, Shrimpo was NUMBER ONE!!

He got lost in thought about the ways he could take on the big rock dog that he lost track of time. Before he knew it, the lights on the floor flashed red. Dangit.

He turned around and bolted to the elevator. When he got there, he noticed two things. One. He was the last one there. And two. Twisted Pebble was right there.

A wave of fear ran through him, but he didn’t want to back down. Not in front of Vee (and Connie). Especially not after she had said he would die. The shrimp bolted at Twisted Pebbles, throwing a haymaker he hoped would do enough damage to stun it.

It only hurt him. It was rock after all.

Shrimpo stumbled back, holding his injured hand and looking up in fear and anger. “I HATE YOU, YOU STUPID MUTT!” he sputtered out. The stone dog just looked at him and growled, opening its mouth for a bite. He braced himself.

And then he felt someone grab his shoulder.

He looked over to see Connie, mostly invisible. She yanked him away from the chomp, her transparency throwing the monster off. Quickly, she got Shrimpo back inside the doors right before they closed.

“What were you thinking?? I said you wouldn’t be able to fight that thing!” Vee scolded.

Shrimpo could only manage a weak “shut up” in reply. He was shaken up pretty bad at the prospect of almost being crushed in the jaws of that horrid thing.

“Well, he’s alive, and it was honestly kinda brave, if really, really stupid,” Connie shrugged. That was all the validation Shrimpo needed. If Connie thought he was brave for it, then it was worth it.

Ew. He didn’t like how he was feeling about her.

The fact that she had just saved him from death wasn’t helping the matter. Oh. Right.

“Thanks Connie,” he mumbled, not looking her in the eyes.

“It’s whatever. You can’t be a nicer person if you’re dead,” she snarked. “Either way, nice going. Told ya it would work.“

Shrimpo just nodded, still not looking. He didn’t like how warm her praise made him feel. It felt wrong. He wasn’t used to this “not hating” thing quite yet.

The elevator ride back up was silent, a stark contrast to the poor shrimp’s mind as it churned out proposals for why Connie made him feel so nice.

Chapter Text

Shrimpo laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The past week had been a lot to process, and he still hadn’t quite managed that yet.

He had been improving steadily, and everyone saw it. While they were still wary, as a week of semi-decent behavior didn’t undo years of hate, they weren’t outright scared of him anymore.

It would be a stretch to say any of them liked him, of course. Most still wanted nothing to do with him. But his newfound abilities for taking down Twisteds and his slightly less abrasive attitude caused more to approach him, be it for just an attempt at small talk or a thank you for saving them. It felt so strange to be tolerated.

That wasn’t to say he was strictly nice. He still yelled. He still hated things. He still insulted others. But it lacked a lot of the earnest venom it used to have. Most just brushed him off. Even Boxten seemed less outright scared and rather just uncomfortable around him. He spent most of his anger demolishing Twisteds, leaving less vitriol to be used against the others. Connie was right, it was good therapy.

Connie. Connie, Connie, Connie. The shrimp pinched the spot between his eyes. She hadn’t left his mind since that elevator ride after the first time he had tried brawling with the monsters that lurked below. She had explicitly gone out of her way to save him from his own bad choices, called him brave, and praised his efforts. Sure, others thanked him, but they didn’t have the same effect on him. He usually either begrudgingly accepted the praise or brushed it off. With Connie, it made him feel warm and content.

Shrimpo hated it and loved it at the same time.

It was so foreign to him, and he had no clue how to process it. He was so used to anger, annoyance, hate, and sadistic joy that genuine warmth was completely out of his field. Part of him wanted to reject it. It was new, strange, and not him. The other part of him clung onto how it made him feel. It felt like it had been given life for the first time, and needed more.

He still had no idea why it was Connie in particular. He had always fixated on her. He was jealous of her specifically. He wanted her help specifically. She specifically made him feel warm when she gave him encouragement. What was so special about her??

Maybe it was her pranks. He had always wanted to be able to be elaborate, but instead resorted to just spewing foul insults. Maybe it was how she was the first to see a chance of redemption, the first to really give him a chance. Maybe it was the fact that she saved him from Twisted Pebbles a week ago. But if that was the case, why did he focus on her before she did that?

The shrimp shot up in his bed, his eyes widening. No. No, it wasn’t that. It never could have been that. He was too full of hate to ever feel that way towards someone. Yet as he looked back, he realized that he just might have. It might have been covered up by the hate he put out, but he always did have an admiration for that ghost…

Oh no.

Before his mind could get any father, a knock sounded from his door, startling the toon.

“Shrimpo,” a calm and tired voice rang out. Tisha. “Dinner is ready if you’d like to come join us.”

“Y- YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” he frantically yelled. Tisha audibly sighed.

“It’s your call. I’m just telling you.”

“W- WELL THEN- J-JUST GO,” he ordered, not thinking he'd be able to deal with everyone at dinner, not with all the jumbled thoughts rattling around in his skull. He heard the pitter patter of footsteps as the maid toon walked away. Shrimpo flopped back down on his bed, dragging his hands over his face. He had no idea how to cope with this newfound clarity on his feelings, and he wasn’t about to ask for help on them. That would just be embarrassing.

No. He’d figure this out on his own.

Shrimpo had confined himself to his room for a few hours now, and Connie was starting to get worried. She understood him wanting alone time. This was normal for him. He still didn't socialize well. But missing dinner? Something had to be up this time.

The ghost floated over to the shrimp’s room, ignoring the walls on her way. On the end of the hall to the right was Shrimpo’s room. She stuck her head inside.

There were crumpled up balls of paper, a few holes in the wall, probably from anger induced incidents, and a punching bag strewn up in a corner. There wasn’t much furniture, a desk and a bed. On said bed was the toon himself, who didn’t seem like he was doing the best. He held his hands over his face and massaged his temples while laying on his back.

Connie wondered if she should try to talk to him. He was still volatile when he was in a bad mood. Heck, even during a good mood, he barely tolerated people. Still, he had been trying so hard to improve, she should at least try to see what was bothering him. It was the least she could do.

She dropped her invisibility and cleared her throat. “Hey Shrimpson? What’s up?”

Shrimpo jumped and scrambled to regain his balance. “CONNIE- WH- what are-“

“Woah, relax man,” she replied, throwing her hands up and trying to calm him down. “I’m here to make sure you’re doing alright. It’s not like you to miss dinner entirely, even if you hate what’s being served.”

The shrimp slowly settled down from the sudden scare. “I’m not hungry,” he remarked.

“You sure? I remember you complaining how hungry you were earlier.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Not sure that’s something you can just decide otherwise o-“

“I said I’m not hungry,” he finalized, turning his back to her. She just sighed.

“Shrimpo, whatever’s going on, I’d be a lot more helpful if you could just tell me.”

He gulped. He couldn’t tell them. “No.”

“Look, if not me, then Astro. He gives great advice, I would know. Please.”

Shrimpo would have said no right there, but the sincere empathy in her voice stopped him. The warm sensation crept back up in his chest. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could just sit on this. She was right. He needed help with all these feelings. Badly.

“…fine. I’ll consider it.”

That seems to satisfy Connie. “Best of luck man. See you later,” she said as she floated away.

Shrimpo curled back up on his bed, tucking his knees in. This was going to be a lot harder than he hoped.

Astro surveyed the spot in front of him. His soft bed, copious amounts of pillows, the softest blanket he owned, and a small cassette with the soft music from his episodes. He had been waiting all day for this.

He was about to step into his little piece of comfort and fall fast asleep when someone started banging on his door.

“MOON MAN! OPEN UP!”

Ugh. Shrimpo.

With a groan, he shuffled over to the door, opening it with the little stars he used to make things float.

“What is it?” he asked, the annoyance clear in his voice.

“I- I need your help, Astro,” the crustacean said through gritted teeth. That got Astro to raise an eyebrow.

“Help? With what exactly?”

“I- can I just come in?” he asked, tapping his foot. Astro didn’t want to invite him inside, but that would be rude. So he allowed him to enter.

Shrimpo made his way over to one of the moon toon’s beanbags and sat down, a sigh escaping him. “Astro… if you tell anyone what I’m about to say, I will throttle you in front of every person in Gardenview. Understand?” Astro simply nodded. “Good. I… I think… I like someone.”

Hmm. Friendship issues. “Well, friendship would be new to you. No offense of course, but you haven’t gone out of your way to make them. If you want to be friends with someone-“

“No not that, stardust for brains,” Shrimpo growled. “I… LIKE someone…” he seemed to be fighting to get the words out. After a moment, he managed to force out the reason he had asked for his help in one rushed sentence; “I have a crush.”

Astro started at that. His eyes widened and his jaw lay a little slack. It was unprofessional of him as the unofficial therapist as Gardenview, but he couldn’t help himself. Shrimpo had a CRUSH on someone???

“Pick your jaw back up before I break it off,” the angry shrimp muttered. Astro composed himself, not wanting him to follow through.

“A… a crush, Shrimpo? Are you sure?”

“Warm feeling, wanting to impress her, thinking of her constantly, I think that marks off the usual boxes,” he remarked snidely. He leaned forward, resting his head on his knuckles. “So, are you going to help me or should I just leave and you forget I said anything?” From the tone of his voice, you could have sworn he wanted the moon to pick the second option.

“No, no, I can help, Shrimpo. I’m just… surprised is all,” he stammered. “What exactly do you need advice on?”

“…anything,” he admitted. “I… I don’t know the first thing about this. I hate it,” he bitterly remarked.

“Hmm. Well, a good idea would always be to confes-“

“No. No, I’m not doing that. No way she’d say yes,” he inturrupted.

“I… I suppose it is too early for a confession. Forgive me, I’m tired and not thinking quite straight. Alright… what you should actually do first is try to get closer. Spend time with her, compliment her, do things for her to show you care, like small gifts. If she likes you back, then things should go smoothly.”

“…and if she doesn’t?” Astro hadn’t heard such vulnerability from the Shrimp before.

Astro was silent for a moment. “… then she doesn’t, Shrimpo. I’m afraid you can’t force her to love you. Only show her a side of you that truly cares, keep showing that side, and hope she returns that sentiment.”

The crustacean nodded. “…thanks…” he muttered, barely audible, before he got up and walked out of Astro’s room.

“…odd fellow,” was all the moon had to mutter. Now where was he? Ah, yes. Napping.

Chapter Text

Gigi had been keeping a low profile all day. She and Connie had finally gone through with stealing Tisha’s cleaning supplies, and while funny, was certain to incur the ire of the maid toon once she found out, and Gigi would be the first to be blamed. Not like she didn’t deserve it, as she was responsible for most thefts in Gardenview. The gachapon was a kleptomaniac at heart, and couldn’t resist swiping something every now and then, even if she ended up giving it back.

So, she was hiding in her room, sorting the various knickknacks and baubles she had found and “borrowed” over the years. It was a fun and calming pastime to her. She and Tisha might have bonded over this if it wasn’t for the aforementioned constant stealing. A pile for things she could use on future runs, a pile for things she loved, and one for things she didn’t want anymore. Of course, the last pile was the smallest.

Gigi had been sorting for about a half an hour when a knock sounded on her door. Oh no. Tisha maybe? She should just stay silent. Maybe she would go away.

The knock grew louder. “D.B. COOPER WANNABE! OPEN UP!“ Shrimpo? What could he want from her, of all people?

She got up and made her way past the cluttered messes still dotting her room and opened the door. The shrimp stood there, looking conflicted, nervous and angry. Mostly a mix of those last two. He barged inside without letting Gigi say hello.

“Hello to you too,” she muttered. “What’s all this about?”

He looked up at her, not making eye contact. “Gigi… you’re Connie’s best friend, correct?”

“Yeah, I am. What’s it to you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Shrimpo growled before taking a breath. “I… need to know things she likes.”

Now this was interesting. “Oh? What’s all this about?”

“Nothing,” he answered. A little too quickly, in her opinion. She smirked.

“What, someone got a crush or something?”

Shrimpo shot up to look her in the eyes. “Say that again and I’ll light everything in this room on fire.” Well, that sure struck a nerve.

“Ok, sure, fine, you don’t have a crush. Why do you need to know what she likes then?” She knew her smug face was getting to Shrimpo, and boy was it funny.

“I- I want- I want to… thank her. For helping me. Got a problem with that?” the shrimp hissed. Gigi held up her hands in mock fear.

“No, no, not at all. Hmm…” she thought for a moment. “Well, if you really want to know, she’s always enjoyed watching bad horror movies to make fun of the clichés. You could always go looking through the tapes for some of those. Maybe even watch it with her…” her smug grin only grew with each word.

“J- just shut up,” he snapped. Gigi could swear she saw his face heat up just a little. This was too fun. “Th-thanks,” he grumbled, stomping out and slamming the door behind him. She just laughed to herself. Oh, how funny. Shrimpo had a crush on Connie.

Her face fell in shock as it finally registered. Oh. Shrimpo had a crush on Connie.

Shrimpo found himself staring at one of the elevators in the lobby. Starting a solo run would be suicidal. He was slow, fumbled machines, and was loud enough to alert twisteds from a mile away.

But that was all before he figured out just how punchable they were.

He took a deep breath and stepped foot into the lift. A light turned on in the corner, indicating a run had been started. The shrimp tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the stupid flower to show up.

And show up he did. Dandy popped up from the trapdoor that served as his shop. He looked around, as if expecting more. “Where are your teammates?” he asked.

“Just me. Got a problem with that?” he snarled. The flower held up his hands.

“No, not at all Shrimpo! If you’re sure you can handle it!”

“Shut up and go down,” he grumbled. Dandy wordlessly obliged. The doors closed with a thud, and Shrimpo felt the sensation of going down.

“Make sure to apply your trinkets!” the flower told him. Shrimpo had never bought any, he had always seen himself as too good to use one. What a fool he was. He really regretted that now.

After a pause, the doors opened. Shrimpo stepped forward nervously. He had never dared go on a solo run before. Not with his miserable performance. However, he needed to do this to even have a shot with Connie. He breathed in, grit his teeth, and let lose a scream, daring the Twisteds to try and stop him.

And try they did. Looey. Tisha. Poppy. Flutter. One by one, they all fell. He scoured each floor for tapes, grabbing all he could hold. At least one of these had to have some cheesy horror segment on them, right? The workers liked to bring in tapes for personal viewing and killing time during breaks, so they weren’t all Gardenview originals. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a whole movie on one of these.

Yet he had forgotten one very important detail.

He wasn’t the only one looking for tapes.

“Say, friend, aren’t you going to spend some of those?” Dandy asked. Shrimpo just turned his back to him. The flower’s eye twitched. “Really? Not even going to say anything?”

“Hey, I came down here for these tapes, nothing else, if you want them you can have them when I’m finished.”

The answer didn’t seem to satisfy Dandy. “Those tapes are mine,” he muttered. The shrimp didn’t seem to hear nor care.

Goob. Gigi. Finn. None of them stood a chance against him. His fists were starting to sting from how many Twisteds he had taken down, but that wasn’t gonna stop him. Cosmo. Scraps. One by one. They wouldn’t get in his way.

As Shrimpo’s collection of tapes grew, so did Dandy’s irritation. His patience was wearing thin, and fast.

“Those tapes are MINE,” he growled, repeating his earlier statement and trying his best to intimidate him. Of course, Shrimpo being Shrimpo, it didn’t work.

“Go on your own run and get your own tapes,” he hissed. Dandy’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ll regret this, friend.” The shrimp toon whipped around to yell that they weren’t friends, but he had already disappeared. Weirdo. The doors opened again, and he stepped out.

He instantly froze when he heard the warped music box playing in the distance.

It had been oddly quiet today.

Connie was floating around, bored out of her mind. Usually she would be pranking someone or wrangling Shrimpo. She had already done the first, but Shrimpo wasn’t anywhere to be found. She was admittedly worried. First the isolation yesterday, and now the quiet. She didn’t like it too much.

Maybe she would check on Gigi. They always had fun talks.

The ghost floated to the gachapon’s room, ignoring the door completely.

“Hey giiirl,” she called, hoping Gigi was in a talking mood. Luckily those moods were many and often.

“Heeeey! Wasup?” she replied, turning to Connie.

“Not much, bored to death. If that’s even possible,” she snickered. “Still hiding from Tisha?”

“Yep. I don’t think she’s figured us out yet! Gotta be a new record.”

“Sweeeeet. I’m surprised she hasn’t realized it yet.”

“I think she’s still cleaning up from Shrimpo’s last outburst,” Gigi theorized. “Flour got EVERYWHERE.”

“Oh yeaaaah, hehe.” Connie thought for a moment. “Hey, speaking of Shrimpo… where is he? Have you seen him?”

“Oh, him? He stopped by earlier, why do you ask?”

The ghost sighed. “Just a little worried for him… wait, he stopped by here?”

Gigi nodded. “Sure did, girl.”

Now she was confused. “Why?”

The gachapon snickered. She wasn’t telling her something. “Gigiiii…”

She seemed to consider the options for a minute before finally responding. “Not my place to say, as funny as it would be. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“Okay… where is he then?”

She just shrugged. “Beats me. Feel free to ask around.”

Connie just sighed. “You’re no help.”

“Hey, I told you what I knew,” she said defensively.

“Whatever,” she just rolled her eyes. “Wanna watch “Caligula” again?”

“Connie. We’ve watched that ten times.”

“And every time, I find something new to complain about.”

Now it was Gigi’s turn to roll her eyes. “If it’ll shut you up,” she said jokingly. “Grab the tape, I’ll make popcorn.”

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Eyes widened. Head light. Breathing quickly.

Shrimpo hadn’t felt this kind of fear in a long time.

Of course it wouldn’t be this simple just to get Connie something nice. Why would it? The one time he went out of his way to give someone a gift, the world conspired against him.

Maybe he deserved it after all the years of mistreating others. Maybe this was his punishment.

He shook his head. He didn’t have time to think about that at the moment. He needed a clear head. The shrimp scoffed. Like that would ever happen. Still, he needed a plan if he wanted to make it out of this alive.

Shrimpo had never encountered Twisted Dandy, but had heard plenty of stories of him from the other toons. If Dandy wasn’t given tapes, he’d take it into his own hands to get them. And considering Shrimpo’s whole goal down here was to collect as many tapes as he could, that didn’t go well.

As for the beast’s strength, it was terrifying. Even the strongest among them went down instantly from a single swipe or bite from the creature. As much as he wanted to cave its face in, he knew he was no match.

He had to take this slowly.

Shrimpo breathed in and made his way to the first machine, treading as carefully as he could. He felt the cold valve in his hands and started to turn. He was unskilled, clunky, and slow, but none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was staying quiet. He resisted the urge to slam his head against the glass tube out of frustration at the sluggish speed. That would surely attract the flower.

Every so often, the machine would tighten up, and he would have to spin it in just the right way so it wouldn’t grind and alert every Twisted in the area. That would be a death sentence. He just had to take it slow.

The machine dinged, and footsteps broke out, heavy and getting louder. Shrimpo panicked and hid behind a crate, and just in time, for as soon as he ducked behind it, Dandy arrived, inspecting the machine, before snorting and walking away.

So the stupid weed could hear completed machines too? That was just unfair. Shrimpo hated Dandy more than ever. He had half a mind to run out from his hiding and attack the flower, but that would result in his probably disfigurement, and he couldn’t afford to lose these tapes, not after the effort he had put into them. No, he had to take it slow. Patience. He needed patience.

He had never been good with patience. He hated waiting. It was excruciating. Yet something told him being crunched in the jaws of Dandy would be even more painful. Breathe in. Breathe out. You can do this Shrimpo.

He didn’t dare run. He knew Twisted senses weren’t that keen to detect slightly heavier footsteps, but he was scared out of his wits. He hated this feeling. It was terrible. He wanted to go back up. But to do that, he needed to complete the machines.

Second machine. Grab the valve, finesse the tight spots, and keep an eye out for the flower. Almost there Shrimpo, you can do this.

The second machine dinged. He quickly ran to cover, making sure he was fully hidden. Sure enough, Dandy appeared once more. He inspected the machine, and once he saw no sign of the shrimp, left once more to patrol the corridors.

He hated this. He hated this so much. He had only come down here to surprise Connie with a gift and look at where that had gotten him. He tried to be nice and the world tried its best to make sure that didn’t happen. If Dandy wasn’t so lethal, he probably would have leapt out right then and there just to take him on. But alas, that would probably get him killed.

Third machine. He had found a soda and some chocolate in the ground by it. That would certainly help with his slowness. He gripped the valve tightly. His nerves and anger had slowly been getting the better of him through this, and he jerked the wheel too far. It screeched, and Shrimpo cringed. The flower certainly heard that.

He ducked behind a shelf right as Dandy rounded the corner to investigate the noise.

“I know you’re there, pest,” a low, guttural growl emanated from the beast. Shrimpo didn’t even dare breathe. What if Dandy could hear even that? “I’ll get those tapes, Shrimpo,” hissed Dandy as he left. The crustacean breathed a sigh of relief. He slowly tiptoed to the machine and spun the valve. The ding sounded, and he sprinted off before Dandy could catch him.

He searched everywhere for the fourth machine, but it was nowhere to be found. His breath became shallower and quickened with each passing moment. Where was it? He needed to get out. He needed to get back to the lobby. To Connie. To anyone who wasn’t trying to kill him. In his panic, he wobbled a little. He caught himself on the wall, but that wasn’t the end of his problem.

A couple tapes fell from his pockets and onto the ground.

Dandy was sure to hear that. They were what he was so mad about not getting, after all. Shrimpo quickly stuffed them back in his pockets and bolted off, trying to put distance between him and the sound as fast as he could.

Unfortunately, he chose the wrong direction, as around the corner was the star of the show himself.

“Going somewhere?” he asked. His voice gurgled with ichor and anger. Shrimpo just backed up, slowly and fearfully.

“I need those tapes, Shrimpo. I NEED them. I won’t let you deny them to me.”

“…I need them too, you botanical nightmare,” he growled against his better judgement. “Like I said, if you want tapes, do your own run.”

Dandy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “But you have so many right here… why not spare a couple?”

“If I give you some, will you leave me alone?”

Dandy chuckled. The noise was sickening, thanks to the ichor. “It’s too late for that now, you sad piece of sushi. Just keep this in mind for next time, mkay?”

And with that, Dandy swiped at Shrimpo.

He barely dodged, causing Dandy to growl in anger. The shrimp promptly dashed off, weaving in between boxes and shelves to try and lose the beast.

Dandy was persistent. It was clear he wanted the tapes as much as Shrimpo, perhaps even more so. He stayed on the trail, not letting up one bit.

Shrimpo ducked behind a corner, panting heavily. He couldn’t keep running for much longer. He had to shake him. Quickly, he popped open the can of soda and chugged it down. He could feel the relief washing over him as the cool liquid hit his parched mouth. He quickly crushed the can and tossed it as far away as he could. That might buy him some time if he was lucky.

Dandy took the bait. He heard the can and dashed towards it, hoping to catch Shrimpo unaware. The actual Shrimpo ran the opposite direction, putting as much space between the two as he could.

The shrimp slumped against a bookshelf, letting himself fall to the floor. He was absolutely wiped. He hated how he had always been the slowest one to do anything out of all the toons. His only redeeming quality was that he could hurt and stagger Twisteds, and not only was that something he had just found out a few days ago, that was taken away from him against this monster.

Shrimpo hit the ground in anger before immediately regretting doing that. He looked over his shoulder. No Dandy. Good. He would have hated himself if that slip up had led to him getting attacked. He pinched the area between his eyes. He needed to get out of here. If only he could find that last machine…

He looked around the room he was in. While he didn’t see the machine, he saw the next best thing; a valve. His eyes lit up at the sight of it. One of these things could fill a machine instantly. Perfect. He just had to find the tube now.

He tiptoed out from the room, taking caution and listening to the footsteps of the ichor drenched flower. He made sure to keep himself away from Dandy at all times. He wasn’t sure he had another chase sequence in him.

Finally, he found it. The fourth machine. He ripped the valve off the tube and screwed the new one in. The machine shook for a moment, then dinged. It was done. Dandy was sure to be arriving shortly.

The red lights flashed. He had to get to the elevator. Now. He took off as fast as his feet could carry him.

“SHRIMPO,” Dandy boomed. He had seen him. “I'LL RIP YOU TO SHREDS!”

“TRY ME!” Shrimpo screamed back. Now that the elevator doors were open, he had regained a bit of his confidence.

And the doors. There they were! Right there! He just had to make it.

Dandy was closing in. Was he going to make it? He had to. He absolutely had to.

The flower roared. He was too close now. If he got any closer than he could get him. C’mon, run faster!

The monster swiped at him. Shrimpo just barely managed to avoid it. He was so close…

Dandy leapt for him.

Shrimpo leapt for the doors.

The doors slammed shut.

Shrimpo finally breathed again.

He had made it.

He slumped against the wall, his breathing ragged. He could taste ichor in the back of his throat. His legs burned and screamed. He was done here. He was going back up.

Dandy popped back out of his shop, acting blissfully ignorant and downplaying what he had just done.

“Well, I’m sorry that had to happen, but I hope you learned y-” he didn’t finish before a hand grabbed him by the neck.

Shrimpo didn’t know how he had gotten back on his feet. All he knew is that one moment, he was out of energy completely, and now he was ready to decimate Dancifer.

“You are going to take us back up, or I will use you as a “she loves me, she loves me not” flower. Do you understand, you pathetic waste of air?” His eyes drilled holes into the toon held in his grasp.

Dandy’s eyes narrowed, yet his smile remained. “Shrimpo, bold as ever… fine. I guess you’ve earned it.” The shrimp let go as the flower descended back into the elevator and the sensation of going up returned.

“That’s what I thought…” Shrimpo said as the anger dissipated, and with no energy left to hold himself up, he collapsed on the cold metal floor.

There had better be a cheesy horror movie on one of these tapes.

Chapter Text

“They spend five minutes setting up the lamest, cheapest jumpscare ever! It’s so bad!”

“Connie, you bring this up every time we watch this, I think I get it.”

Connie rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault, blame the movie for being so bad.” The two had barely gotten 20 minutes into Caligula, as the ghost had spent the same amount of time whining about every bad trope she could see.

Gigi crossed her arms. “No, I will blame you. You wanted to watch this specifically to complain about how bad it is. I’ll blame you all I want.”

“Touché,” she sighed. “Just hit play then.”

Gigi playfully smirked in acknowledgment of her win, and did as Connie said. “You are right though, this movie is really bad,” she snickered.

“Absolutely terrible,” affirmed the ghost toon. “I find something new to make fun of every time I see it.”

“Heh, you’re starting to sound like Shrimpo,” the gachapon snickered.

“The new one or the old one?”

“Old,” Gigi clarified. “…hey,” she asked tentatively, “how do you feel about Shrimpo?”

Connie just looked at her. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, like, is he your friend now? Do you even like the guy?” Gigi had to know. After Shrimpo had made it painfully clear he had a crush, the backspin needed to know if there was even the slightest chance it would be reciprocated.

“… I guess I never thought about that,” Connie admitted. “He’s still kind of a jerk, but he doesn’t go out of his way to hate on people at least. He’s getting better.”

“So… not friends?”

“I guess not… maybe? It’s weird.” Connie crossed her arms and looked away.

“I see. Well, if it means anything, he thinks pretty highly of you,” Gigi shrugged. “He came to me basically saying he appreciates what you do for him. Seems to me like he sees you as a friend, or at least hopes to.”

The ghost just floated there for a minute. Huh. Shrimpo wanted to be her friend. She guessed that explained why he was always softer and nicer to her than everyone else. She almost felt a little honored, considering how much of an angry loner the guy usually was. “I guess I’ll see if he can keep his better behavior up. If he can, then I don’t see why we can’t be friends. Maybe we can prank Boxten together…”

“Hah, that sounds about right,” Gigi smirked. “Anyways, isn’t this the scene where-”

Before she could finish, voices started ringing from the hall.

“What happened to him??” Sprout.

“I don’t know, I just found him like this!” Tisha.

“He’s okay, right?” Goob.

What was going on?

Connie paused the movie as the two made their way over to the commotion. Whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn’t Shrimpo out cold, pockets full of tapes, and being carried by Goob.

Life was boring sometimes, but today, Tisha appreciated it.

While Shrimpo had been better as of late, he was still a nightmare when he was really riled up. She had been cleaning flour for hours yesterday, thanks to him.

He had been oddly absent today, and she didn’t mind. It let her get back to her regular duties of just sweeping and dusting.

Yet, despite the obstruction that was the shrimp being missing, it wasn’t long before someone else arrived to take his place.

“Hiya Tisha!”

“Hello Goob,” the maid toon said, lifting her head to look at the fluffball.

“What are ya up to?” he asked with those puppy-dog eyes of his.

“Cleaning, what else,” she answered curtly, going back to her work.

He nodded. “That makes sense.” He stood around for a moment, seemingly trying to think of a way to make conversation.

Tisha looked over at him again. “Goob, why-“

“Has anyone ever tried to use your hair as an actual tissue?”

The maid stared at the fluffy craft, a little dumbfounded. “I- no, why?”

Goob shrugged. “Just curious, I guess.”

Tisha huffed. “Goob, I appreciate the company, but at the moment, I’m working. Also… you shed Goob. You’re gonna dirty everything I just cleaned.”

“WHA- me, shed??” The toon put on the fakest surprised voice and face Tisha had ever seen. “Haha, I never-“

“I clean your room, Goob. There’s fur everywhere. And your sister is made of paper.”

At that, Goob deflated a bit. “…right… Can I still stay? Please? I’ll stand over there…”

Tisha stopped her cleaning and stood up to actually converse properly. “Why do you want to talk so much?”

The fluffy craft’s forced smile fell, and he looked away. “Sis is on a run… I just wanted someone to talk to ‘till she came back.”

Oh. Tisha felt bad now. “…I guess you can stay. Just sit on the bench, so you won’t scatter fur everywhere.”

Goob’s eyes lit up. “Really?!! Thank you Tisha!” He rushed over to her to squeeze her in a hug. She cleared her throat, and the fluffy craft realized his mistake. “Sorry… hehe.”

She sighed. “It’s fine, I know how much you love your hugs. Just… please sit on the bench now.”

Goob nodded and trotted over to the seat next to the wall. ”I can’t help it! I just gotta hug everyone I see! Even Shrimpo!”

Tisha gave a tired smile. His optimism was infectious, she had to admit. “Speaking of him, I bet you were happy that he’s accepting your hugs now.”

The toon nodded vigorously. “I was so happy Tisha!! Everyone loves my hugs now!!”

“We’ve always loved your hugs, Goob.”

“Never Shrimpo! But now he does!”

“Love is a strong word for someone like Shrimpo. I don’t think he has a loving bone in his body.”

“I think he does. It’s in there! …somewhere.”

“Never change, Goob.”

“Why would I change?””

Tisha smiled more warmly. “That’s the spirit.”

She cleaned in silence for a bit longer. She got so lost in her work that the elevator startled her when the buzzer went off. Goob immediately jumped up. “THAT’S GOTTA BE HER!!” He ran to the elevator and hopped in front of it, barely containing his excitement.

His face instantly dropped when the doors opened.

“…Tisha… TISHA!” he called out. The maid toon snapped her head up to see the problem.

It was Shrimpo, lying on the floor of the elevator, not moving.

“Oh- oh my gosh… Shrimpo?” she gasped. She ran over to him, giving him a little shake. He was breathing, and there weren’t any noticeable wounds on his body. The poor thing must have passed out from exhaustion.

“Goob, pick him up. Sprout should be in the kitchen. He should have something that might give Shrimpo the energy he needs.” The fluffy craft complied, wrapping his arms around the sea toon and running after Tisha.

“Holy crap, what’s going on?” Connie asked.

“We don’t know, we just found him like this in an elevator. He wasn’t on any scheduled runs and was alone,” Tisha answered.

“Why would he go down there?” the ghost wondered aloud. Gigi saw the tapes in his pockets and gulped, thinking she may know why.

“It… it might be my fault,” she bashfully admitted. Everyone turned to look at her. “Look, he wanted to get something for Connie as a thank you gift, and I told him she loves watching cheesy horror movies. I think he went down there to try and get some, which is why he has all those tapes.”

“W- why didn’t he wait until a group went down there??” Connie asked incredulously. Part of her felt guilty that he had gone down there for her, but the other part of her… she was flattered, honestly.

“I dunno, he seemed to want to get it done now,” the gachapon shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter why or when,” Sprout chimed in. “The guy’s exhausted and needs rest, as well as a special batch Cosmo and I made up. You’re lucky we had a lot of stamina candies on hand.”

The strawberry pulled out a tray of cupcakes, each dotted with green spheres of candies. He held one out to Tisha.

“Take this into his room. Goob, put him on his bed. He’ll eat it when he wakes up, if he doesn’t feel like whining about my cooking.”

“Not the time,” Tisha muttered as she took the treat and followed Goob to Shrimpo's room.

Sprout looked over to Connie. “You good?” he asked.

She shook her head, still processing the fact that SHRIMPO of all people had done this for her. “Yeah, just… a little surprised is all.” Gigi nodded in agreement.

“I didn’t think the guy would go down there alone,” she said.

“Kind of stupid of him to,” Sprout said.

“Yeah, so?” Connie asked, finding herself defending him on reaction. “I think it was really thoughtful of him.”

“What, getting himself killed?”

“No- Sprout- I mean, trying to find a stupid movie for me to watch as a thank you gift. I think it’s really sweet of him.” Gigi smirked, though the ghost toon wasn’t sure why.

“Whatever you say, Connie. I’m going to get back to baking now,” he said as he turned back to the counter. Connie just rolled her eyes.

“Cmon Gigi, let’s get back to the movie.”

“Whatever you say, girl,” she giggled.

Chapter Text

Shrimpo woke up with a groan. Every part of his body ached, especially his legs. He winced, remembering what had led to this. If he ever saw that flower again…

He looked over at the nightstand next to his bed. A lone cupcake had been placed there with the familiar balls of stamina candies dotting the frosting. Gosh he was hungry. He grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth, not caring for manners. He was alone, after all. Who cared?

He could feel some of the numbness and pain leaving him, but he was still pretty wiped. He didn’t want to get out of bed. If anyone were to dare drag him off to do something, he would probably kill them.

He propped himself up against the headrest, wincing from the soreness in his muscles. He would have regretted going down there if not for the purpose and toon he had done it for.

Wait. Speaking of the purpose… where were the tapes?

He frantically looked around the room. Ah. A pile of tapes on his desk. Shrimpo breathed a sigh of relief. He still had the tapes. Good.

He completely ignored his desire to stay in bed. He needed to know if his venture had been fruitful. The shrimp stumbled to his desk, sitting down heavily in the chair. Alright. Let’s see…

Episode S2E23… Blooper reel for S1E8… all of these were just episodes or show segments. His search quickened, hoping he had at least grabbed one that was something spooky. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He slammed the desk and screamed. His hand hurt. His entire body hurt. He had wasted his time. He had angered Dandy. All for nothing.

Shrimpo didn't even try to make it back to his bed. He just slumped his head down on his desk in defeat.

He had probably been sitting there unmoving for a good couple minutes when a voice startled him.

“You good, Shrimpson?” Shrimpo jumped, hissing at both the voice and the pain in his joints.

“Don’t do that Connie, and don’t call me Shrimpson!” he spat at the intruder.

“Sorry, bad time,” she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand. “I just heard the scream and wanted to make sure you didn’t fall out of bed or something.”

“I’m… I’m fine,” he grumbled, turning around to resume his sulking.

“Shrimpo, we found you collapsed in the elevator. Goob had to carry you to your room. Nothing about you is fine right now,” she pointed out. The shrimp said nothing. She sighed.

“I know why you went down there.”

He froze. She knew? How? Did Gigi tell her? Gigi probably told her. He’d have to shove her in the fridge later or something.

“Y-yeah? Why?” he challenged, hoping she was bluffing.

“You wanted to find me a bad horror movie as a thank you gift,” she stated matter-of-factly. Crap. She really did know.

“W-well too bad. I didn’t find any. None. Big waste of time,” he growled. His voice wavered, and he hoped Connie didn’t notice. He couldn’t be showing weakness right now.

“That’s ok. Honestly, it’s really sweet you even tried. Gigi would never,” she snickered. “Eh, she probably would to be honest. My point still stands though. It means a lot you’d even think about it.” She floated a little closer. “Shrimpo, you’ve come a long way in the past week. I’m impressed. Honestly, it’s like this has been hiding under there the whole time.”

And there it was. The horrible warm feeling. He hated it so, so much. Yet part of him screamed to just accept it. Accept the compliment. Your crush is PROUD of you, what is so wrong with you that you won’t accept some nice words from her? He turned his head in a desperate attempt to hide the growing warmth on his face.

Not to mention, she was right. Not in the way she thought. Something had been hiding under his hate for a while now, but it wasn’t exactly kindness. He had admired her for so long. Her pranks, her sass, it was all enamoring. He had never realized it thanks to his anger, but now that he was getting it under control, it was like several years worth of realizations were hitting him all at once.

This was the last thing he needed right now. He hated feeling so defenseless. Shrimpo was NOT defenseless. He would never be defenseless.

“Oh, um, there’s something else I came here for.”

Oh crap.

“I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere,” she winked. The shrimp just grumbled. Of course he wasn’t going anywhere.

Connie floated out through the door, leaving Shrimpo alone with his thoughts. It wasn’t pleasant. He was going to have to tell Connie how he felt eventually. And he would have to let his guard down for that. And he would probably be rejected. Yet this was sure to consume him until he did. Maybe he should just go punch more Twisteds when he feels better.

The ghost room couldn’t come back soon enough. She floated back through the door with something folded in her hands.

“Do you remember how the showrunners tried to take your character in some wierd “bad boy” direction a little before cancellation?” she asked.

Of course Shrimpo remembered. It was the worst point of his acting at Gardenview. That character was not him in any way, shape or form. ”Don’t get me started,” he growled. “Why are you bringing up that stupid jumped shark?”

“Well, I remember you hated the character you had to play… but you sure didn’t mind the outfit.”

“I hated all of it.”

“Yet it was the one time aside from the past week you shut up and didn’t harass us. And you fought hard to keep that wardrobe instead of going back to the red tank top.” Oh. She. She remembered that, huh.

“And?” he prodded, urging her to get on with it.

She responded by tossing him the fabric, with it landing on the desk. He looked at her skeptically and started to smooth the lump of cloth out. His eyes widened when he saw what it was. A dark brown hoodie with a white skull on it.

“Oh, and I found these two,” she added, tossing a couple spiked bracelets over to him.

“I… Connie…” he was stunned. She had not only picked up on the fact that he liked the outfit, she had remembered it for years, and then even went out of her way to go find it. “Where did you…”

“Storage,” she answered bluntly. “It was only a couple floors down. I got Gigi and Goob to help me out.”

The shrimp just stared at the outfit. He had no clue what to say. His angry scowl was completely gone, replaced with pure surprise and… an almost touched expression.

“Could you…” he waved his hand in a motion that made it clear he wanted her to leave. She nodded and phased out of the room. When she came back, Shrimpo was wearing the hoodie and slipping on the bracelets.

“Still like it?” she asked. The crustacean just nodded. “Good. One last thing.” She revealed the final thing she had brought along; a singular vhs tape.

“It’s ok that you didn’t find any bad horror movies on those tapes, I don’t mind watching ones I’ve already seen before. And since you’re not going anywhere, and I have nothing better to do… movie night with Gigi and I?”

And that was when he was sure his heart was going to explode.

He had practically been invited out on a date- no, Gigi was there. This was a friendly hang out, and he was sure the ghost had only meant it as such. But still… he shook his head, trying to maintain any sense of composure.

“I- uh- sounds good,” he sputtered.

“Niiiiice,” Connie smirked. “Be ready to hear me whine about all the ways this movie sucks,” she snickered. “Feel free to join in if you want.”

Shrimpo nodded, still reeling from the invitation as the ghost left him in his room.

Chapter Text

“So, is everything set?”

Connie looked around at the common room. Popcorn, a few sodas, pillows, and of course, the worst, most poorly made horror movie she could think of. “I’d say so,” she answered.

“Nice,” Gigi said, hopping down onto the couch. “Can you go tell Shrimpo things are ready? I don’t feel like getting up,” she dramatically sighed.

“Gigi you just sat down- fine,” she huffed, though the smile on her face said she didn’t mind being given the task. “Wait, why are you sitting on the side? Don’t you usually like sitting near the middle?”

“Oh- well, I’ve got a bottle of pop, and I need somewhere to set it,” she explained, gesturing to the end table. “You can make yours float, so you can sit in the middle, and Shrimpo can sit on the other side. That work?”

The ghost just looked at her friend. “Gigi, you don’t ever put your soda down.”

The gachapon stuttered. “Well- I, uh- just to be safe?” she weakly added. Connie just rolled her eyes. She didn’t really know what was up, and she didn’t care.

“Fine,” she agreed, not noticing the smug smile that spread across Gigi’s face.

“So, how do you think this is gonna go? With Shrimpo being here and all,” she questioned.

“Honestly, I don’t see it going that bad,” Connie answered. “He’s just gotten more and more chill. He’s even been kind of quiet after I asked him to join.”

“Hehe, yeah, wonder why,” Gigi snarked.

The ghost toon gave her a funny look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” she said as she waved her off. “Anyways, we’re ready. Go grab Shrimpo and we can start the torture.”

“…you’re being weird,” Connie observed, before floating off to tell the shrimp things were all set up.

Shrimpo stared at himself in the mirror. Did he look ok? Was he scowling too much? Was his face clean? And above all else, why did he care so much??? It wasn’t a date, he already knew that, but he was still putting more effort into his appearance than he should.

He growled and shuffled over to his punching bag, giving it a whack or two in order to try and focus on something that wasn’t himself for a while. He hated the way Connie made him feel, all self-conscious and focused on impressing her. Why couldn’t he just be himself around her?

He knew the reason.

The shrimp shook his head and went back to the mirror. Nothing had changed. He still looked fine. He fidgeted with the spiked cuffs on his wrists. He had worn the outfit since Connie had gifted it to him a couple days ago, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by either Astro nor Gigi.

“My, it would seem you’ve gotten quite attached to the new look,” Astro had remarked. “I wonder if it’s anything to do with who gave it to you?” Shrimpo just told him to shut it and stomped off.

Maybe he could still back out? He could say no, right? Put the walls back up, scream at her to get lost, and everything would be ok again. Yet his heart sank at the thought of being so mean to her. Gosh, he was sick. To him, this was practically being head over heels for someone.

“Shrimpson!” a voice called out, causing him to jump and shout.

“CONNIE! STOP- doing- that.” he huffed, turning away from her. “And don’t call me Shrimpson.”

She just rolled her eyes. “Whatever, man. The movie’a all set up, so we’re ready when you are.”

He gulped. Now or never. “I- I’m ready,” he said. It was probably the biggest lie he had ever told.

“Great,” Connie smirked. “We’re in the commons.”

“I know where the tv is,” he mumbled as he walked towards the door. The ghost simply disappeared and floated back to the couch.

“Yo, shrimpy!” Gigi called out, waving to him, her oversized sleeve flopping about.

“Don’t call me names,” he growled as the shrimp shuffled to the couch. He looked up to see where the open spot was. To his dismay, it was right next to Connie. He gulped. Crap.

“Whassamatter?” the gachapon teased. “Couch not to your exact liking?”

“N-no- shut up,” he snapped. Great. Gigi was going to tease him the entire time, wasn’t he? She knew. He really should have agreed to this…

He clenched his teeth and plopped down next to Connie. There. That wasn’t so hard. Stop being a wimp, Shrimpo. You’re not a wimp.

The remote floated to Connie’s hand. “Heads up Shrimpo, I will be pausing whenever I feel like it to complain about something terrible in the movie. Like I said, feel free to do the same,” she winked as she hit play. His eyes flicked away from her gaze. Why did everything she did get to him so much, intentionally or not??

The opening logos came to an end, and the movie started. It opened on a dark night with rain and thunder.

“And there’s our first issue,” Connie said. “Opening on a dark and stormy night like every other bad horror film.”

“It sets the mood,” Gigi defended.

“It could have been set any other way,” she restated. “Shrimpo, what do you think?”

“I- uh- um-“ he couldn't bring himself to say anything. Why was he malfunctioning now and not any other time Connie spoke to him?

“…you good?” the ghost inquired. Shrimpo shook his head, snapping out of it.

“YES,” he insisted, a little too forcefully. “I- I think it’s stupid,” he said. Truthfully, he didn’t think it was that bad. He just wanted to agree with Connie.

“See, he gets it,” the ghost said. The words of adfirmation kindled the warmth inside him again. Gosh, he was pathetic.

Connie took the tub of popcorn from Gigi, who had been holding onto it along with her soda, and offered some to Shrimpo. That singular action made his heart race a little. “I hate popcorn,” was all he could squeak out before he had to look away. He could feel his face burning. Why was he like this???

The poltergeist seemed to notice. “Shrimpo? You good?” she prodded.

“IM FINE,” he shouted. This was going… so, so terribly.

Connie recoiled a little bit. “Geez, alright man, don’t have to yell.” He was messing everything up. He couldn’t do this. He had to go. He quickly got up and rushed back to his room, slamming the door.

His breathing quickened as he slid down the wall until he was sitting. His eyes started to wet with tears. Why was he so bad at this? It wasn’t a date. It was just a hangout. He shouldn’t be so nervous. She surely hated him now for ruining things. As she should. He was a pathetic waste of time, air, and space. He curled up against the wall and began to cry.

“…what was that about?” Connie asked, dumbfounded.

“Beats me,” Gigi replied, but she knew exactly what had gone down. She had pretty much known he had a crush since he first asked for ways to impress Connie, but this confirmed it beyond all doubt. The question was, what were they going to do about it?

“I’ll get him,” Connie said, lifting herself off the couch. That was a terrible idea, but she didn’t know that.

“I’ll do it,” Gigi said. “You’ve put in a lot of effort for him lately, I’ll handle this one.”

“You sure?” Connie asked. The gachapon nodded. She sat back down as Gigi made her way to Shrimpo’s room.

She knocked on the door. “Shrimpo? You good?” she asked. Nothing from the other side. She just sighed. Of course this couldn’t be easy.

She tried the door handle. He had forgotten to lock it in the rush to get back here. Alright, that worked. Gigi opened the door slowly, not wanting to startle him. “Shrimpo?” she called again.

What she saw, she could have never been prepared for. Shrimpo was leaning against the wall, curled into a ball while tears streamed down his face. She had never seen the former bully so vulnerable in her life.

“Go away,” was all he could manage to mumble.

“I’m not going,” she insisted, sitting next to him. “What’a wrong man? I know it has to do with Connie.”

He stiffened. “I… none of your business,” he mumbled through the tears. Gigi just sighed.

“I know you like her. It’s painfully obvious. And honestly, she doesn’t seem to mind your company. Why else would she invite you to a movie night? She’s not going to hate you because you were a little small, alright?”

Shrimpo just stayed in the same poistion, not saying anything. After a minute, he looked towards the gachapon. “Why are you helping me?” he asked.

“Because you don’t really suck anymore,” she answered with a shrug. “Not much else to it.”

The shrimp just looked at her. “…you don’t think that. You still hate me.”

Gigi rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not gonna sit here and debate about that. I don’t hate you, end of story. Either you want to watch the movie with Connie and I, or you don’t. Now, which is it?”

The bluntness of her words seemed to have stuck something in Shrimpo. He wiped his eyes and slowly stood back up. “Just… give me a minute, will you?”

Gigi nodded. She could do that. “Take your time,” she said as she left his room.

“…so?” Connie asked as the gachapon approached and sat down. “Is he coming back out?”

“Yeh, just give him a minute, he needed space,” she explained. Sure enough, Shrimpo reappeared. His eyes were still a little red, but hopefully Connie wouldn’t notice.

The rest of the night went… surprisingly smooth. Shrimpo slowly started to get back into the movie, as well as being more comfortable around Connie. He started to worry less and less about impressing her and just started to have a good time with the two of them.

“That twist was… so STUPID!” he exclaimed after a particularly bad reveal.

“I know, right?” Connie replied. “It’s actual garbage. This movie is the worst,” she chuckled.

“Tell me about it,” Gigi grumbled. “I don’t know why I let you drag me into this stuff,” she complained, albeit with a smile.

“Because it’s fun to complain about this slop,” Connie answered.

“It’s so BAD,” Shrimpo reiterated, still in disbelief at the low quality.

“What was the worst part?” Connie asked.

He thought for a moment. “The plot twist was that there was no magic. Nothing makes sense. Nothing could have been POSSIBLE!” the shrimp growled. “They just gut their own movie for nothing more than SHOCK! I’m shocked at how they thought this was a GOOD IDEA!”

Connie laughed at his enthusiasm. “Yeaaaaah, let em have it!” She thought for a moment. “My least favorite part is honestly probably the Prince.”

“Not any of the horror stuff?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, the horror stuff is all still so, SO terrible,” she agreed. “But the idea that the main character falls for a guy whose been a jerk for 95% of his screentime? It’s so frustrating,” she huffed. “The horror mistakes are funny, this is just sad.” The ghost looked over at Shrimpo, waiting for a response.

“…you good, Shrimpo?”

The shrimp had gone silent, staring at his lap. He wasn’t responding. His breathing had started to shallow.

“Shrimpo?”

He quickly got up without saying a word, closing the door and locking it this time. Gigi gulped. She knew what was going on.

“Do you know what’s happening, Gigi? I’m so confused,” Connie mumbled.

“I do. And you’re not gonna want to hear it from me.”

“GIGI.”

“Ok, ok, fine,” she huffed. She thought for a moment on how to say it, before jsut going in with full bluntness.

“Connie?”

“Yeah?”

“The guy LIKES you. And you just basically said that you hated the idea of falling for someone who was mostly a jerk before he got better. I bet he doesn’t think he has a chance now.”

“…oh.”

Chapter Text

Connie sat on her bed, or rather, floated slightly above it. Her mind was going a mile a minute. She had no clue what to think about the new development. Shrimpo… had a crush on her???

Granted, it wasn’t really new. It had been 2-3 days since the movie night incident, but that didn’t make it any less shocking. She was still proccssing all of it.

She guessed that would explain some of his recent behavior. The nervousness around her, the want to get her something as thanks, how touched he had looked when she gave him the hoodie… looking back, she was a little silly to not see it. But hindsight is like that.

Still… Shrimpo?? The jerk? The bully? The one who hates everything? He liked her? First off, how in the world did he of all people end up with a crush? What did he see in her? Because it couldn’t have formed overnight, just like that. Could it have? She had no idea.

And then the matter of how she was supposed to react. Any other day, Connie would have absolutely denied it. But with this new Shrimpo who was trying his best to not be so rude? She couldn’t exactly say she was crushing on him back, but she would be lying if she didn’t appreciate the things he was doing and find it all really kind and even sweet at times.

Yet, the thought of being a couple… how good of a boyfriend could someone like Shrimpo even be? Despite the improvements, he was still rude, abrasive, and angry. But through all that, she could still see that he was trying. She could see the side of him that desperately wanted to be better. And she respected him for that.

Connie sighed and shifted her position, now floating upside down. Why did relationships have to be so hard? Would this really be a good idea? She had no clue.

She remembered feeling… honestly kind of touched when she learned he had tried to get the tapes for her. She wasn’t lying when she said that just about no one would go out of their way to do something like that for her, save for Gigi, and they were best friends.

That was why she found his hoodie. A repayment of sorts. Ignoring the fact that Shrimpo’s gift was a repayment to her help. She usually didn’t go out of her way to get gifts like that, and certainly not ones as sentimental as his old hoodie would be.

But that didn’t really mean anything. She didn’t really feel any sort of crush on him. Just that he had the potential to be nice and sweet buried in there.

Potential. The word had been bouncing about her brain for the past days. She didn’t deny it was possible, but it certainly wasn’t plausible. Did he really have what it took?

Well. She supposed there was only one way to find out. She had always been one to at least give things a shot.

Shrimpo, on the other hand, wasn’t doing nearly as well.

He hadn’t gone out of his room since the movie night incident. He had been so used to feeling anger and not much else that the dejection he felt crushed him harder than it would have otherwise. He never felt this empty, this hopeless, this… sad. He hadn’t even felt a single bit of rage since that night. This shouldn’t be affecting him this much.

He’d barely gotten out of bed, wrapping himself in sheets and silently pleading with himself for this to be over. He just wanted to go back to his rowdy, angry self, but he just didn’t have it in him.

He doubted anyone was worried about him. Who cared about him after all? A week or two of being slightly nicer than usual didn’t mean people cared. It just meant they hated you less. And there was a lot of hate for him.

Tisha had come into his room occasionally, either with food or a request to clean up. Shrimpo thanked her for the first and allowed the second. He didn’t have the motivation to get out of bed and kick her out, so he just buried himself under a blanket until she left.

He didn’t want to face Connie again. Not after she had basically said that he never had a shot with her. Not after who he had been for so long. The words screamed in his head. So much of his life had been dedicated to making others miserable. It would be so stupid for him to think she’d like him now. This was his punishment. This is what he deserved.

And why would she like him? Just because he tried to find some tapes for her doesn’t mean she likes him. Not even as a friend. She just tolerates him. Everyone just tolerates him. No one genuinely likes him.

His eyes glanced towards the calendar on his wall. He was on run duty. Well, they could survive without him. They had before. They didn’t need him.

A knock interrupted his train of thought. “Go away Tisha,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible.

“It’s Vee,” the voice responded. Even better. “You’re needed at the elevators. It’s your turn for a run. I don’t know nor care why you’ve been hiding, but you can’t shirk your responsibilities forever.”

“Go away,” he repeated, slightly louder this time.

“Shrimpo, don’t make me barge in there and drag you down there,” she threatened. Shrimpo didn’t respond. She wouldn’t dare.

He was proven wrong as she forced the door open. She opened her mouth to start going off on him, but stopped when she saw the state of his room. Even with Tisha’s periodic visits, it was in a terrible state, and the shrimp himself was no better. She had never seen him so despondent before.

She decided to take a slightly nicer approach. “Shrimpo, if you’re feeling bad, you can always take it out on the twisteds. I’m sure you’d like that.” No response. “Everyone would be thankful.” Still nothing. “Shrimpo, I WILL drag you down there.”

“Go ahead,” he mumbled, challenging her.

“I-“ she paused. Even if she dragged him out of bed with no repercussions, he probably wouldn’t be much help in this state. “Fine. You win. But you better break out of this funk eventually,” she added, before turning and closing the door behind her.

“Hey, Gigi?” The gachapon turned around upon hearing her name.

“Oh, Connie! What’s up girl?” she asked.

“Do you know where Shrimpo is? I need to talk to him.”

Gigi’s face fell. “Now… might not be the time.”

Connie tilted her head. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Weeellll… he’s sorta… locked himself in his room. He’s not coming out for anything. Tisha told us. She’s been bringing him food and stuff. I guess you were too preoccupied with all that happened, and honestly, valid, it’s a lot to think about.”

The news hurt Connie more than she thought it should. What, did she care about him now?

Honestly, yeah. Kind of. Maybe she had started to see him as an actual toon since he first asked for her help.

“Is it still because of the movie night?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, probably,” Gigi said. “No one else knows though. Only us two.”

The ghost nodded. Made sense, of course he wouldn’t want anyone knowing. “That’s what I’m going to talk to him about.”

Gigi frowned. “Girl, now is NOT the time,” she insisted.

“Gigi. He’s gonna want to hear what I have to say,” Connie replied. The gachapon lifted her hands in surrender.

“Aight. But whatever happens, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Connie ignored the warnings, floating off to his room. Soon enough, she was there. She gave the door a firm knock. Nothing. she knocked again.

“Go away Tisha,” a small voice groaned. This didn’t sound like Shrimpo at all. Now she was really worried. She floated through the wall and saw the shrimp huddled in bed, looking like he hadn’t left the entire time.

“Shrimpo?” she called out. He stiffened at the sound of her voice.

“…why are you here?” he demanded, turning away from her.

She sighed. “Shrimpo, we need to talk.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“I know you have a crush on me.”

The shrimp froze. She could hear his faint breaths begin to quicken. “W… what?” he asked.

“I know you have a crush on me,” she repeated. “That’s what I’m here to talk about. Did you… isolate because of what I said? About the whole movie thing? And the jerk prince?”

Shrimpo didn’t answer.

“Shrimpo, none of that was intended as some allegory towards you, dude,” she explained.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “Being nice doesn’t make up for a lifetime of being a jerk.“

“Shrimpo…” she sighed. He was being difficult as always. “I came here to say something. I want you to look at me when I say it. Please?”

Slowly, the toon shifted to face her. He looked horrible. “What?” he grumbled.

Connie took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what to think when I heard you had a crush on me. I thought about it for a while. For as long as you’ve been bedrotting, actually.”

That didn’t seem to be what Shrimpo thought she was going to say, if the surprise in his eyes hinted at anything.

“Shrimpo, I’ll be blunt. You’ve been rude, mean, and overall a bully. But I’ve been seeing less and less of that. You’ve been improving and trying. And I can see a better side of you. It’s buried, but it’s there. And honestly, risking your life just for a gift for me? Easy flattery,” she chuckled.

Shrimpo looked at her. He seemed so confused. “…Connie, why are you telling me this?” he questioned.

She sighed. “I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve always been someone to give things a shot at least once. I’m willing to give you a shot. I don’t make any promises, don’t get me wrong. But I see a side of you that I honestly kinda like, man,” she said with a smile.

Shrimpo looked utterly bewildered and shock. Was… was he hearing this right?? “I…” He couldn’t even say anything. He was feeling so much at once. He turned back away from Connie, not knowing what to think.

“So… I think you’ve bedrotted enough,” Connie interjected his thoughts. “What say we go do something stupid to cheer you up? Maybe we could scare Boxten,” she giggled.

The shrimp shifted. It was a long enough pause Connie wondered if she had said the wrong thing. But before she could ask, Shrimpo turned back around.

For the first time she could ever remember, he was genuinely smiling.

It was small. It wasn’t ecstatic. But it was genuine. No malice. No sadism.

Just vulnerable happiness.

“I’d like that.”