Hai.

Bai.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The lone skeleton sighed, not liking the 'lone' part of his description. He wasn't accustomed to being alone. He was usually either with his brother, or some stranger unlucky enough to bump into him. But right now, he was tied to a chair in an axe-person-thingy's underground room thing that was apparently called a basement.

His head was ringing, and he was certain he could feel sticky gore covering the top of his skull, along with all those—in his opinion—kinky bows. The rather revealing boy tried to look down at his numb hands, his blood circulation cut off by the tight rope. He could barely make out his palms in the lighting.

He glanced up at the flickering lightbulb, and cringed in disgust once his eyes came in contact with the spiderwebs and dead bug corpses splattered around on the inside of the filthy glass. A few giant flies were messily circling the dark room, their buzzing adding to the ringing and unnerving the poor bean.

The unpainted walls were damp, and moss was starting to grow at the base of a few wood planks. He honestly didn't know how the slightly caved in ceiling hadn't completely collapsed yet. 

The disturbed boy glanced around, shivering at the freaky display of weapons and kinky restraints obviously used for BDSM. 

...

Okay, maybe, just maybe they were actually used for torture, with the theme of this place and all. But that's not what he first thought, and he was sticking with his instincts. 

To be honest, he was scared out of his mind. Anyone would be, even if you're a criminal. He just didn't want to show it to that creepy half-dead looking skeleton. Or maybe he was actually not scared and he was actually attracted to the other. He wouldn't know. He wasn't good with emotions. He'd usually have to say what he thought he was feeling out loud, before knowing for sure.

A chilly wind blew through, even though the smol was indoors. There were no openings to the outside, but the old splintered walls were so thin, it probably didn't do a thing to stop the weather from breaking in. Plus, he could have sworn he saw a little gray duck earlier, which meant there was a hole somewhere. He couldn't find the duck anymore though, it was most likely hiding in one of the dark corners he kept freaking out at every time he glanced there without studying what was there closely.

The tied skeleton was always afraid of the dark, which didn't really help with his little 'hobby'. This, 'hobby', required being done at night, or in some dark, secluded area. I know, right? Just sad. And guess what? Right now, the entire room around him was nearly pitch black, and the raw light's eerie glow just gave the room an even more haunted feeling. He had to hold back a squeak every time there was a slight power shortage, and the basement would be indulged in the murky dark. Which happened quite frequently, actually.

He'll admit it. He wanted the other skeleton to come back. Despite being probably insane and going to eat him soon, he was still a person, and it comforted him to know that there was someone else in this room. Wait, can monsters even count as 'people'? It sounds like a human thing. Oh well, that's not what mattered most at the moment.

Right now, what the shivering boy should be doing, was finding a way out. He remembered when he was younger, and his parents were still alive, he used to love escape rooms. He'd never actually been in one before, but the very concept sent tingles of excitement down his eight year old spine.

There was one his parents' car drove by every time they brought him to those stupid piano lessons he hated so much. It would be right out the window as they zoomed past, but apparently piano was more important. They had even parked next to it once. Enigma, the old, probably now broken down place was called.

It was built with stained bricks in some shady corner of a street of the more city-like part of Rocksville, a black sign sticking out above the light gray, metal door. The sign was lit up with a picture of a pretty abstract white lock in the middle, the word 'ENIGMA' in capital letters on top.

But now, now that he was actually in a room and trying to escape for his petty little life, he didn't really know if he wanted to be anymore. He was scared. Really scared. And he didn't want to be. Fear only leads to bad things, that's something he'll always be sure about.

Stupid 'other skeleton', or whatever his name is. So stupid. Why would he just leave him down here? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Perhaps if he kissed him he'd become an intelligent prince or something, and they'd live happily ever after in some fancy castle. 

Yeah no, in his dreams.

Who cares, he'll just do it anyways. Seducing can get you out of a lot of situations, including death. Though, his captor didn't really seem to be the type to have any sexual desire. But he did strike him as sadist, which might also work. After all, the bean sat on the chair rather unwillingly himself, was quite the masochist. 

After around ten long, suffocating minutes of being by himself nearly complete black, Horror finally came back, gliding down the spruce stairs. In his right hand, his sharp claw-like fingers curled around a pair of rusting metal cuffs. 

The skeleton, still shivering from the cold, immediately looked up at the sound of footsteps upon  an unstable surface—one that kept making noises sounding like what you'd hear if you pressed two bones together and rubbed them together harshly with a lot of force. He flinched at the sound ringing out every so often, uneven and sounding like whoever was making them was drunk and stumbling. Though the boy couldn't see who it was yet, since the top of the staircase was covered from his view by a wall, but the heavy steps definitely sounded like that other skeleton's.

He let out a whoop, excited that he finally wouldn't be alone anymore. Hearing the sound of joy, Horror raised a brow, staring at the other in slight confusion as he staggered over, proceeding to free the smaller from the thick ropes tied uncomfortably tight all over him.

"Why are you so happy to have me come down and most likely prepare to eat you?" he mumbled, puzzlement written all over his face. He had to speak lowly, and his words were usually slurred and drawn out. It hurt when he spoke. His throat lacked water and food, and was constantly raw. 

He had begun to start to untie the first few knots and bows, grunting as his mind raced as to how to slip the intricate patterns out without tightening them even more. How the heck had he even managed to tie them in the first place?! This was insane.

The fluffy bean was about to reply something along the lines of 'I have absolutely nu idea.', or ''Cause I may or may not be scared of being alone in the dark...?', but then, he realized this was a pretty good opportunity to say what he was unsure about out loud. It kind of made sense, right?

"Because, I think I've grown quite attached to you~"

"Wait whu-" Horror stared at the other in slight shock, before going even more confused. "But I kind of just kidna- that's sToCkHoLm SyNrOmE—?"

Hmmmm. That didn't sound right, but didn't sound wrong either. Huh. Weird. The captive wondered, just what was going on. Usually, it'd either just be yes, he felt this way, or no, he didn't. This hadn't ever happened before. Oh well, perhaps he just uh...I don't know, don't ask me! Uhh, maybe he didn't like him, but half? So yeah, he probably 'li'ed him.

"Never mind. I'm pretty sure I only 'li' you," he added, seeing as the other was mumbling incoherent nonsense to himself, as if determining the answer to the world's hardest math problem in his head. 

He was obviously going to start panicking soon, not understanding why everything was happening and what was happening. What the now slightly less restricted skeleton had said just seemed to confuse him even more. At this point, the smaller was pretty certain the other's skull was bound to explode any second now, he the expression he held was quite amusing, to say the least.

He was staring down at his hands with wide, calculating eyes, like in one of those strange, cliché character realization moments that almost always appear in animes. The slim skeleton could practically hear the dramatic music in the background, along with the pastel colored patterns and designs. That or the advanced math equations written with white chalk floating around everywhere, and disappearing only to be replaced with new ones, like in those crackhead memes.

"You know what, Sweetheart? Just don't think about it."

Horror instantly looked up from his poor palms, eyelights still wide and shook, and at the owner of the voice, blinking rapidly and shaking his head, trying to just forget it. He went back to freeing the bean, his hands fumbling even more now. It took longer than it would have typically taken for Horror to let all the rough ropes loose, but he eventually managed to do it.

He hummed as he slipped the dull, faded, once bright and silver handcuffs onto the other's worryingly thin wrists, clicked them together. The smaller tried to hold back the urge to blurt out what he was thinking as Horror reached out a hand for him to grab, but in the end, he gave in. He just couldn't help but say whatever was on his mind.

"That's kinky."

He gestured toward the cuffs, and spoke so casually about it, as if he was saying 'The sky's pretty clear today.' And maybe he was. Maybe they were from different alternate universes, where in Horror's, he said what had just been heard, but in the other's, he had been talking about the weather. Perhaps the smaller just swapped places with the other version of himself as the sentence was being delivered, and since it still took some time, even if just a nanosecond, for the sound vibrations to travel to where Horror's ears were supposed to be and for him to register the vibrations, turn it into a sound, search through his memories, and turn it into a message, he still heard what the skeleton that had supposedly previously been sat in front of him was saying, yet the two had already switched, and so the tone and expression was the swapped skeleton's, and so nonchalant. 

Darn, that was a long sentence.

Though that happening was highly unlikely, and probably just Horror thinking too much again. Buuuuuut maybe he should check, just in case.

"D-did you just say 'kinky'?" he questioned, only realizing that he'd stuttered after the other had already heard him and it was too late.

"No."

Wait, so that means the scenario he had just randomly thought of on the spot could seriously have happened.

"I said 'That's kinky,' not only 'kinky'."

Oh. Never mind.

He grabbed onto the smaller's hand once again, and pulled him up. Or not. The moment he stood, he collapsed right back down, landing in a heap on the gore covered floor with a thud. He yelped as he went down, and stayed like that, huffing as he flipped himself over so that he was laying on his back and facing the other skeleton peering down at him curiously. 

"You ok?"

"I think my legs fell asleep."

"You poor thing."

The boy on the dirty floor grinned, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. This alarmed the taller. Why the heck would someone be delighted because their legs practically died for a period of time? Horror inwardly growled at the thought of the skeleton laying by his feet rivaling his insanity.

"Welp, guess you'll just have to carry me~!"

"kgfkhgfukgfkuyfuyfuyfyukfutd."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was late and short. I guess this tells you something about me.

i'M fAbUlOuS—

To be fair, I had a lot to do this week. (Ahahahha I totally didn't keep pushing writing back to the next day, think 'Oh yeah, I still have a lot of time left, it's alright.' and then finally realize update day was yesterday just Thursday night or anything! What do you mean?)

HAPPY LATE BORTHDAY SENPAIIIII

—Grace