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“Where’s my D20? We kinda need that if we wanna play D&D.”
“Don’t you have other ones?”
“Uh…”
“Robert. Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who only uses their ‘special’ object instead of using any other one.”
“My mom gave that to me, Roy! What else am I to do, throw it to some dogs or something!?”
“I’ll help you look for it, but don’t expect me to be happy about it.”
“Appreciate the thought.”
—————————————————————
“Lila, please. You never liked the cult. Why have a reminder of it in the first place?”
“Pico, you stole one of Nene’s hair scrunchies in case she killed herself, so you’d have something to remember her by. I have my methods, you have yours.”
“It’s just in case! It’s a serious thing.”
“And so is the cult. If only I knew where the necklace was… or the cloak, for that matter.”
—————————————————————
“Hey, Pump?”
“Wassit, Skid?” Pump blinked himself awake and saw Skid standing in the doorway to their room.
“Do you know where my, uh, old angel costume went? It was hanging up in the closet, but it’s just… gone.”
“Can’t say I’ve touched it. Check the laundry, maybe?” Pump stretched himself out as he spoke, looking more like a cat than a person of dignity.
“Thanks for your help, bud.”
As Skid left, Pump got up and closed the door, checking beforehand to see if anyone was around. He ran back to the bed, leapt onto it, and started rolling around on the bed, giggling almost maniacally for seemingly no reason.
Stopping himself from his giggle spree, Pump looked under the bed at his treasure trove of scattered goodies he’d collected over the past few weeks. A halo was tucked away in the pile.
“He didn’t check under the bed…” Pump sighed and looked back up. No one was around still, so he spun around dog-esque before lying back down and resuming his nap.
—————————————————————
“PUUUUUU-UUUUMP!”
“GAH!” Pump fell off his bed and directly onto the floor. Looking up, he saw that Susie, his sister from House 13, had apparently made her way to the Parker household just to yell at him.
“Do you, by any chance, know where my mom’s jewelry is?”
“No! I don’t even live with you anymore! Why would I want anything from a house I don’t live in anymore!?”
“I. Know. You. You take every little object that catches your eye and stash it away somewhere that no one but you know about. I put up with your little antics for 3 months, I should know.”
“You want it back, just ask.” Pump crawled under the bed and retrieved a pair of citrine earrings from his pile of miscellany. Susie swiped them and left, albeit while doing a “I’m watching you” motion to Pump.
Pump growled and bluffed a jump at her, prompting her speedy departure. Pump sniggered and leapt back onto the bed, curling up for a nap after spinning a few circles.
—————————————————————
“Robert.”
“Y-yes?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST ALL YOUR D20S!?”
“It means I lost all my d20s! I could’ve swore they were all in this drawer. Every. Single. One.”
“That’s what you said about your special one.”
“Roy, you’re not helping.”
—————————————————————
“Hey Pump.” Skid opened the door and was greeted with the pleasant sight of an eagerly waiting Pump sitting on the bed, wagging his entwined vine tail excitedly.
“Heya Skid!”
“You know how things have been disappearing from all over town?”
“Give me an example.”
“Like how Candy Dealer lost his hat?”
“...”
“Or how Robert lost all his d20s?”
“Ummm…”
“ Or how my mom lost her cult necklace and her cloak?”
“That rings a bell.”
“...How would that, of all things, ring a bell?”
“Do not question your friend.”
“Are you trying to get me to leave?” Skid crossed his arms and glared as he spoke.
“No no no no! Of course not! Why would I, er, want my best spooky friend to leave me alone?”
“...You’re hiding something.”
“Nuh uh!”
“Yuh huh!”
Pump growled a bit before speaking again, “Okay, fine! I’m responsible. I’ve been taking stuff from people. Don’t tell anyone, please…--” Pump’s tone dropped suddenly “-- Don’t tell mom. I’d rather tell her myself when others start getting suspicious of me…”
Skid nodded. Sure, it might’ve not been the right thing, but it was something, right?
Pump resumed his nap, and Skid shut the door. So much for a midnight meandering amidst the town tonight.
—————————————————————
Midnights. The perfect time of day to snatch some little knickknacks from the others in the household. To be honest, Pump didn’t know why he was so intent on doing this, but he’d suspected something to do with that lemon guy.
First stop was Lila’s room. He quietly searched through the jewelry drawers before setting his sights on a jeweled choker. He snagged the prized possession and ran off.
Next up was Ross’s room. There wasn’t usually much in here, but hey, you never know when something will turn up. Pump dug around before finding a shiny rock in the former bully’s rock collection.
Roy’s room wasn’t the cleanest, but the saying goes, ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’. Pump found scraps of blue, pink, and white ribbons; beads of all sizes, shapes, and colors; and even fake gems. All real keepers to him.
The last room was Robert’s. Pump quietly and carefully opened the door. Searching around, he found hundreds of D&D miniature figurines. Snatching them all, he started making his way back when he heard Robert get up.
“Getting a glass of water~. I have no idea why I sang that but I’ll go with it.”
Robert left the room, leaving a very terrified pumpkin boy in an internal panic behind him.
I could’ve been seen! Then everyone would know! I have to! Get! Out! Of! Here!!!!!!
Pump dashed down the stairs as fast as his four limbs could carry him. Running into his own room, he quietly shut the door and braced himself up against, huffing from sprinting far too quickly for his own good.
“Pump!?” Skid had been forcefully awakened by the noise – which sounded more like a stampede – from the stairs. He looked over at Pump, still blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“I have made a mistake.”
“Yeah. You have. Now deposit your spoils and go to bed, ya’ dink.” The term was meant lightly, but Pump was agitated by it nonetheless.
“Alright, fine. But mark my words, I will steal your shoes.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Pump rolled his glow-in-the-dark cyan eyes and leapt beside the bed to add the stolen goods to the essentially ever-growing pile under his bed, before springing straight up and onto his sleeping spot, doing his twirls mid-air rather than on the ground.
“G’night, Ski-Dork.”
“Night, Plumpkin.”
—————————————————————
Evening the next day, Skid walked into his room, greeted with the begrudgingly familiar sight of Pump, snoozing away on his bed; or perhaps, guarding his golden treasures as if he were a dragon…
“Zzzzzz.”
Skid looked at Pump again. It didn’t look like he was going to wake up anytime soon, and he still needed that angel costume. Maybe one little snag won’t hurt, right?
“Zzzzzz…”
Skid crouched down and reached for the hal-
“HGRRRRRRR…” Skid retracted his hand as quickly as possible, but it was too late. Pump, somehow sensing his pile being disturbed, had awoken, and was now glaring down at Skid. Something was wrong with Pump.
A black tar-y substance was covering up his body, leaving some parts a bright magenta, and making Skid even more scared; not for his appearance, but the revelation it brought with it.
Pump isn’t stealing the items. His corruption is!
Pump bluffed a lunge at Skid, who expected the fake out and tackled him in response. Pump snarling, tried to swipe the persistent skele- kid away from him.
“GET AWAY! YOU’LL HURT YOURSELF AND YOU KNOW IT!”
“Guess what, wisecrack!? It’s wort h it to save MY FRIEND!” Sk id himself, from sheer aggravation, was starting to corrupt too. Skid was better at controlling it than Pump was. Pump , however, was better at harnessing the strength and power given by it.
Between the two, it was, quite literally, mind over matter.
“YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY STASH AND MAYBE I’LL STOP STEALING!”
“I KNOW YOU WON'T, BECAUSE THAT'S JUST HOW YOU ARE! YOU STEAL, YOU GET CAUGHT, YOU PANIC, AND THEN YOU STEAL MORE STUFF TO CALM YOURSELF DOWN.”
“WOULD YOU RATHER ME JUMP OFF A CLIFF OR SOMETHING!? I THINK STEALING IS A BIT BETTER THAN DEATH.”
(All skid)
“I--” Skid tore a nasty gash through P ump’s tuxedo.
“-- JUST--” Another through his left sleeve.
“-- WANT--” Down the side of his pumpkin head.
“-- MY--” Across his left eye.
“-- FRIEND--” He leapt straight up in the air…
“-- BACK!!!!” He landed on Pump’s chest, hands first, snagging him by the shirt collar and holding him up so that Skid could be face-to-face with the orange pumpkin.
Wait…
“P-pump?”
Pump only looked up at Skid with a terrified expression and stars – and tears – in his eyes.
“Pump! Are y-you… ARE YOU IN THERE!?” Skid gently but worriedly shook Pump to try to bring him back to his senses. Pump blinked a few times, before feeling the gash in his pumpkin head.
“S-Skid?”
“W-what? W-what could you p-pos-possibly wa-want with a m… mo… a monster like me!?” Skid was crying magenta tears, and his bone tail was tucked between his legs.
“I… I should’ve told you sooner... about the stealing I’ve been doing. Then maybe we wouldn’t’ve ended up like this. T-two… two c-cr-cry-ing ba-babi-es…” Pump was sniffling a little as he spoke. Skid released him from his impromptu snatching, before pulling him into a hug.
“I…”
“You got carried away. You were trying to knock sense into me. It worked. You’re in the right and wrong all at once.” Pump was silent for a moment before giggling.
“Hey, what’s so funny!?”
“Right and wrong! Aren’t they, like, opposites?”
Skid rolled his X-ed-out eyes, but also couldn’t help but stifle a giggle. He crouched down again and tried to grab the angel costume. He grasped the halo, and began to pull it out.
“ N o . ” A defiant clawed hand grabbed Skid’s own. P u m p was giving his best friend of nearly 3 years an absolute death glare dripping with pure malice. Skid released the halo, frowning.
“What’s the point of defending something you’ve already admitted to stealing?”
“Well… n ot hing, hu h?”
“‘Xactly. Lemme have it.”
“No.”
“I am exhausted. I just want to go to sleep and forget this ever happened. Et tu?”
“Yeah. Wait, what’s ‘e to’ or whatever?”
“Basically like, ‘how about you?’”
“Yeah, I could go for a nap.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“Wanna help me guard my treasure hoard one last time?”
“You had me at ‘guard my treasure’.”
—————————————————————
Skid rolled over as he awoke, arms and legs up in the air. He sat up, stretched himself out, looked over at Pump , who was still corrupted. This was a normal occurrence in the household, and it didn’t actually bother Skid that much.
He patted his friend on the head, causing him to swish his vine – one could call it a ‘lazy excuse for a neck’ – around. Pump stood up and stretched himself out like a cat before turning to look at Skid.
“Morn’ Skid.”
“Morning gentle giant.”
Pump glared, but otherwise didn’t respond to him. They both got up and went to the door.
When they opened it, it was apparent that their fight didn’t go unnoticed. Lila, the Hatzgang, and even Pico were glaring at the two. Lila spoke up first.
“We need to have a talk.”
The two didn’t like the sound of that.