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1x1x1x1 was at the present moment running a talon across the rim of a glass, staring silently at a clock as she sat at the kitchen table.
Today was…something. She couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but she knew it was important, in some way. Not in a good way, either. It was the anniversary of something, and she couldn’t remember what.
Yet again, The Spectre had graced the group with a free day. 1x was firmly stuck on how to feel about that. Was xe mad that there was no way to get xir anger out? Relieved that others who were less inclined to violence in the cabin could have their break?
They settled with a sigh that they just wished that The Spectre would keep going with rounds so it would burn itself out. Then, they’d all just get to leave.
She was shaken out of her thoughts at the noise of little claws scraping against wood, and she turned to see C00lkidd clambering into a chair next to her. She blinked at him a minute, raising an eyebrow at his expression.
“What’s eating you?” she mumbled, “Usually you’re not this downtrodden on a normal day.”
Kidd blinked back for a moment, shuffling to click his thumb-claws together as he looked away, “I…um…it’s been…well, today marks…”
…Oh. August 17th. It was that day. 1x knew that Kidd didn’t realize the whole story, that it was the anniversary of his death. She knew he thought it was simply…the day he disappeared and showed up here, back when the killers’ side was a camp, not a cabin. Back when he simply got dropped into the care of Slasher, John, and 1x, back before even Sonnellino showed up.
“I just…” Kidd sniffled, wiping at his face, “I really miss my home, and I miss seeing my dad every day, and I…”
With a grumble, 1x reached out a wing, using it to scoot the chair Kidd was in closer. He paused for a minute before he buried his face in her side, and she set a talon-hand on his head. Ugh, here she was again, comforting a small child like she was something soft. Annoying, but the idea of him being upset was more annoying.
“Alright,” she sighed, “How about…you head to your room, and I’ll figure something out to cheer you up, hm?”
“Really?” he sniffled.
“Really,” they groaned.
It was about an hour later when 1x had managed to gather the rest of the cabin together, with Kidd having been sent to hang out in his room. They were all standing outside in a…frankly disorganized cluster. Sixer was splayed out like a particularly large dog, with John seemingly trying to compete for the title of being splayed out the best. Slasher was perched on John’s shoulders, casually sitting down. Sonnellino was standing at attention, with iTrapped notably leaned against him to support the fact that Azure was leaned up against him with their head on his shoulder, despite the fact that Trap very much so could not support holding up Azure on his own. Despite originally being in the main group’s cluster, Noli had inched closer and closer to 1x until he stood next to her.
This certainly was a group. A very, very disorganized one, but a group.
“Okay,” 1x started, “So to put it lightly, Kidd’s upset. It’s the anniversary of…y’know.”
There was a collective noise of quiet distress from the group. For a moment, 1x had to hold back a little bit of laughter. Of course she knew the group was fond of the child and that the subject matter was of course extremely serious, but that was a bit silly to hear all at once.
“Now…I’ve got a plan,” xe cleared xir throat, “In the very annoying experience I’ve had here, I’ve realized it is…unfortunately very hard to be upset when you’re eating good food.”
There was a pause, then a seeming string of understanding. Sixer stood up and stretched, making a huffing noise at John and Slasher and then nodding their head towards the forest, glancing at 1x to see if she got what they were aiming for. Hopefully correctly assuming it was hunting, 1x nodded back, receiving a trill. Sixer soon disappeared into the forest around the cabin, quickly trailed by John still carrying Slasher.
“I’ll look through the garden,” Azure waved, taking a few steps before he wrapped a tendril around Trap’s wrist, dragging him along. Much to 1x’s amusement, Sonne followed after the two like some sort of lost dog.
Noli made a sort of half-held-in laugh at the sight as well, the noise coming out as a sort of snort.
“4nd I 5upp053 7h47 pu75 u5 0n b4by5i77ing du7y?” he chirped, looking up to face 1x.
“I guess it does,” she hummed, heading to step back inside, “Y’know, I’m not as upset about being put on that duty as much as I once was. Strange, isn’t it?”
“50f7i3,” Noli teased, laughing when 1x huffed at him and bumped him with her wing, both of them quickly heading up the steps of the porch to step into the cabin.
Trap didn’t protest much as he was dragged along to Azure’s garden, though he did take a curious note of the fact that out of all people, Sonne had trailed after them. Odd. Just why was the mafia man seemingly so determined to be wherever Trap was?
Azure hummed as he stopped at one end of the garden, observing something.
“Foxglove,” he called out, turning to blink at Sonnellino, “There’s berries on the other side of the garden and baskets about halfway to there. You think you could grab some?”
“On it,” Sonne simply nodded, walking off.
Trap was a bit puzzled at the fact that Azure just…watched Sonne leave. Like they were waiting until he was out of earshot. Trap nearly opened his mouth to ask if he should also get something from some other place, only for Azure to speak first.
“He likes you, y’know,” Azure stared at Trap, eyebrows raised like he was slightly annoyed.
“What?” Trap coughed, breath momentarily choked in his throat out of pure surprise, “No, you have to be grossly misinterpreting something. You’re telling me that Donovan Sonnellino, the head of a ruthless mafia family, ‘likes’ me like some sort of…childhood playground crush?”
“Trap,” Azure sighed, clearly annoyed, “How in the world are you this oblivious? You complain about it being annoying to go through the whole process of making iced coffee, and then suddenly the next day he has it ready for you when you wake up. You talk about wanting a specific pastry, and before even I can get around to making it he’s already in the kitchen.”
Trap stared blankly for a few moments, unblinkingly looking at where Sonne was far across the large garden carefully sorting through berries.
“...Oh gods,” he breathed out.
“You took care of Chance’s rabbit after…y’know, right?” Azure tilted his head, “I want you to think about the specific noises Spade made when he was content. Noises that reasonably, a rabbit hybrid would make as well.”
“...Oh gods,” Trap repeated, then frantically shook his head, “No, no you’ve got to be looking into something wrong.”
“Trap, literally just this morning he practically honked at you like a docile pet bunny!”
“That’s what that weird huffing noise is called?!”
“The point is,” Azure sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I think you’ve got two options here.”
“And that would be…?” Trap realized he had gone back to staring at Sonne, leaving him to frantically shake his head again and focus back on Azure.
“Well I suppose the first step is figuring out if you like him too and want this to go somewhere,” Azure shrugged, “if you do, then I guess you tell him. If you don’t, at least let the man down gently. We don’t want a fallout in the middle of the cabin.”
“Please,” Trap scoffed, “If anyone’s going to have a fallout, it’s gonna be Miss ‘I hate everyone’ and Mister ‘I love you so much it’s pathetic’”
“Oh absolutely,” Azure laughed, adjusting his hat, “If they’re still going strong, I’ve certainly got faith for whatever Void-Damned thing is gonna go on here.”
“What am I,” Trap raised an eyebrow, “Your personal entertainment?”
“If you don’t wanna be, stop being so entertaining!”
Trap scoffed again, grabbing at the brim of Azure’s hat to yank it down, covering the gardener’s eyes much to their surprise. With a snarl that didn’t have much of a bite to it, Azure grabbed both of Trap’s wrists with a tendril, lifting him clean off his feet as they put their hat back into place.
“You are a wretched awful little twink,” Azure huffed.
Trap immediately sputtered, “How do you even know that word?! You were raised in a cult!”
“Overheard Chance call you it,” Azure grinned, laughing.
“You suck sometimes, y’know?” Trap wriggled until Azure set him down, leaving him rubbing at his wrists, “But…I’ll think it over.”
Azure made a satisfied hum, nodding and turning to pick through the garden.
After a moment of quiet, Trap hummed, staring at a cluster of flowers planted close together, thinking slowly over things. He narrowed his gaze, trying to figure out if he could identify the flowers correctly.
“...Hey, Azure?” he turned to face the gardener, who didn’t look up from picking plants a bit away, “You call Chance ‘Oleander’, right?”
“Yes?” Azure nodded, tone clearly wondering why that was brought up now.
“So you planted oleanders next to nightshades,” Trap motioned a hand to the plants in front of him.
Azure visibly paused before making a drawn out little ‘mhm’ sort of noise.
“...Azure,” Trap sighed, rapidly realizing the only thing the plant placement and Azure’s reaction to it being pointed out could have meant, “Azure, go for it.”
“I’m not gonna go for it!” Azure suddenly stood up straight, looking incredulously at Trap, “That’s not my place to go for it! Especially not in this pit of a realm!”
“Okay,” Trap nodded, “If you don’t go for it, then you don’t get to make any sort of comment on Sonne and I, yeah?”
Azure let out a loud groan, “You’re insufferable.”
“So I am,” Trap grinned, “Anyways, we should get back to picking out stuff for dinner before 1x gets pissed at us for taking too long.”
Sixer was stalking through the woods. She knew she didn’t exactly need to stalk, any animals wouldn’t run from her, but there was still something so…enriching about it. Something so fun about pretending to be an animal on the prowl for its next meal.
If hunting in these woods did require silence, then…well, Sixer wasn’t going to achieve that. They might have been nearly silent, but the heavy thudding of John’s footsteps behind them would have scared off anything in a mile radius. Sixer couldn’t exactly blame him, he wasn’t exactly ever focused on stealth. Considering how he acted when lucid, Sixer was pretty sure he was pretty much constantly in pain, even if he was pretty good at hiding it. Animals usually were good at hiding their pain.
A hiss caught Sixer’s ear, and it turned to see Slasher pointing firmly in a direction with his machete from where he sat on John’s shoulders. It followed the motion to see Slasher had been pointing at a deer, staring at the three with wide, innocent doe eyes. For a moment, Sixer felt so, so bad for the poor thing, but…it wasn’t like it was actually an animal. None of the animals here were proper animals. Soulless little things.
Didn’t stop Sixer from cringing when Slasher whistled and rolled off John’s shoulders onto the ground just as John lunged, catching the deer so fast that if it had had the mentality to run, it wouldn’t have even had the time to think to do so. The deer’s life was ended in a matter of seconds, and before Sixer could call out to John to remind him that the deer was for the cabin, he was already tearing into it like the ravenous animal he had been reduced to. She looked away from the grisly sight, telling herself with a sigh that John probably did need a meal all to himself, like she probably did as well.
Way back when Azure had shown up to the realm, he had given a quiet request that the group…cease eating rabbits. He said he was fond of the creatures, and the thought of eating them made him a little sick to his stomach. Sixer…wasn’t proud to admit that sometimes when out in the woods he’d still grab one for a snack.
Which is why when he spotted an oddly off-colored rabbit, ginger-and-white, he slowly started stalking towards it.
The rabbit snapped to face him, hopping up into a strange sort of stance that was more befitting of a hare than a rabbit, staring at him with eyes that looked…off.
Sixer took a step back, blinking in surprise, something deeply unsettled in their gut. The rabbit made an off-kilter noise, like the little thing was trying to threaten or…or beg. It was wrong, something about that thing was wrong. Maybe it was…maybe it was sick? Diseased in some way? Maybe they should kill it before John got to it.
But when she took another step, it shrieked and ran.
…
Sixer shook itself out, grimacing. Strange. It should probably talk to 1x about that.
Appetite thoroughly ruined, Sixer turned back to meet back up with Slasher and John to get back to hunting.
Hours later, 1x had finally managed to pull together a dinner.
It…wasn’t perfect, but it was cozy, she’d say. Good comfort food. Good food to comfort the poor little kid who…didn’t deserve to be here.
Ugh, a lot of people didn’t deserve to be here. Good, honest people who were just dealt the worst hand possible in life. Mostly people on the survivor side of things.
Gods, maybe even Shedl–
1x stopped that thought in its tracks. What?
…Extremely out of place thought aside, 1x stared around at the group. Everyone was huddled at the table, talking to each other and enjoying the company of everyone else. Even CK’s previous upset had seemingly been completely and utterly forgotten.
Good. Anything to keep him happy and as unaware as possible. Anything.