The laughter died down slow. It curled away like smoke, leaving the circle buzzing soft and curious. All eyes slid to Grin.
He sat rigid, cloak draped around his bones like a funeral shroud. His jaw clicked once. Twice. His hand shifted against his knee as though gripping something that wasn't there.
The ogre—Bartholomew—nudged him with an elbow so gentle it could've still flattened a tree. "You've been quiet tonight, friend. Want to share?"
Grin's skull tilted. The shadows in his sockets didn't move, but I could feel them. Staring. Daring anyone to press him again.
"Pass," he rasped.
"No passes," Pip chirped, zipping a loop in the air above him. "Circle rule! If you pass, you have to at least—hmm—oh! Recite a death poem!"
Vlad perked up dramatically. "Finally. A rule worth enforcing."
Grin exhaled. It wasn't breath, but it sounded like one—an empty hiss sliding between cracked teeth.
Antic grinned wide, nudging me with his elbow. "Watch this. He's about to get peer pressured by knitting monsters."
Dolly smirked. "Serves him right for sneaking out like a cheating boyfriend."
Grin's skull snapped toward her with such slow menace that for a moment I thought the ground might split open. Dolly only widened her smirk.
Bartholomew leaned in again, voice soft. "No one here's going to laugh at you. Not for being honest."
That seemed to do it.
Grin's head lowered. His shoulders hunched forward, cloak sliding down the angles of bone. His voice came quiet, grating, like stone dragged across stone.
"…I wanted to see what it was like," he said.
The circle stilled.
"What what was like?" Pip asked, hanging upside down now, glitter snowing off her wings.
Grin didn't lift his head. "Not… being what I am."
The words clung to the grotto walls. Heavy. Sharp. I felt them slice right through me, though they weren't mine to feel.
"I reap," he went on. "I take. I watch people break apart at the end of their stories. I tell myself I'm only a guide. But I've wanted…" His hand twitched against his knee. "I've wanted to sit. To… stay. To not have them leave."
The gorgon's snakes hissed softer. Even Vlad lowered his glass.
Grin's jaw worked. "When I saw the flyer… I thought it was a trick. Or a punishment. Or both. But I came."
He finally lifted his head. His empty eyes met mine. And though there was no light inside them, I swore I felt it anyway.
"I came," he repeated, quieter now, "because I wanted to belong. Just once."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was thick. Warm. Like moss growing over stone.
Antic, naturally, ruined it.
"Wow," he said, slow clap starting. "That was beautiful, Grin. Truly. Do you guys do interpretive dance here too, or is this just death-poetry night?"
Pip giggled. Vlad scowled. Bartholomew tried to hide his smile.
But me?
I couldn't laugh.
Because for the first time, I saw Grin not as sharp edges and shadows—but as someone cracked. And lonely. And—like me—searching for a place where the silence didn't hurt.
The silence held. Heavy. Careful.
Then Bartholomew—the ogre, sweater stretching across broad shoulders stitched with patience—spoke first.
"Wanting to belong isn't weakness," he said. His voice rumbled like stones rolling in a river. "It's the most monster thing of all."
The gorgon nodded, slow. Her snakes curled inward, protective instead of striking. "You're already one of us," she said, like it was obvious.
Vlad raised his glass in mock salute. "To belonging," he declared. Then ruined the gravitas entirely: "And to not crying into your tomato juice alone."
Pip zipped a dizzy figure-eight, scattering glitter. "Yes! Yes! You can totally belong! We can make you a badge! Or a hat! No, no—bracelets. Matching death-friendship bracelets!"
Grin didn't move. Didn't answer. His bones stayed still as tombstone marble.
But something in the air shifted.
Like the tightness around him loosened.
Bartholomew reached out. Massive hand. Gentle fingers. Placed them on Grin's shoulder like he was steadying the world.
Grin didn't pull away.
Not this time.
And for some reason, that felt bigger than all the words he'd just rasped out.
Dolly broke the quiet first, muttering loud enough for only Antic and me to hear: "Great. Now our skeleton's emotionally domesticated. I liked him better broody."
Antic grinned, whispering back, "Nah. I'm into the soft-boy phase. Gives me hope she'll finally admit she likes me too."
He winked. At me.
I turned my head away, hiding the heat crawling up my throat.
But I kept listening.
Grin's voice came again, softer. "I don't know how to… stay. But I'll try."
And the group—monsters, misfits, outcasts—all nodded like that was enough.
Like that was everything.
"Stay?" Pip squealed, wings scattering dust like sugar. "You can't just say stay! There's protocol! There's initiation!"
Grin's skull tilted. "…Initiation?"
Bartholomew (the ogre) brightened, already hauling a box the size of a coffin into the middle of the circle. "We don't bite."
Vlad muttered into his glass: "I bite."
"—socially," Bartholomew amended quickly. "This is symbolic. It's… community."
The box creaked open.
Inside: yarn.
Glowing yarn. Shimmering skeins in black, silver, and faint violet, humming like captured moonlight.
"We weave you in," the gorgon said. Her voice carried the same weight as stone. "Every thread is a promise. Every knot is a memory."
The sprite Pip immediately ruined the gravitas: "Also bracelets! But really cool tragic ones! Like—'deathcore friendship!'"
Grin didn't move. Didn't answer. Just stared at the yarn like it might combust.
Then, slowly, stiffly—he sat.
The group gathered close. Bartholomew's hands were clumsy but gentle as he looped yarn around Grin's wrist. Vlad insisted on adding a bead ("It's on brand"). The gorgon tied the knot with deliberate grace, her snakes still, respectful.
And suddenly Grin—grim, skeletal, terrifying Grin—sat in the circle of monsters with a glowing bracelet on his wrist.
"…This feels ridiculous," he rasped.
"That's the point," Bartholomew said. "If you can be ridiculous with us, you can be real with us."
The ghost sighed happily. "He belongs."
Everyone murmured agreement.
And for the first time, I realized:
Grin wasn't haunting the group.
He was home.
Dolly leaned closer to me, stage-whispering with venomous sweetness: "Our brooding reaper's officially domesticated. Next thing you know, he'll be writing poetry about sunsets and hand-holding."
Antic smirked. "Don't give him ideas."
But I caught the way his eyes flicked toward me, quick, unsteady, like maybe he already had the idea himself.
_________
Grins Pov:
The yarn scratched faintly against my wrist.
Not unpleasant. Just… foreign.
The kind of foreign that made me feel the echo of something I thought was gone. Warmth. Connection. The sharp ache of not being alone.
I should've hated it.
But when Pip giggled and tangled herself in her own thread—when Vlad recited an overwrought stanza about eternal longing only to knock over his tomato juice and curse like a street rat—when Bartholomew clapped me on the back so hard I nearly rattled apart—
…I didn't hate it.
I breathed. Not real breath, not lungs and air. Just a motion. A performance. Something inside my bones cracked anyway.
The gorgon met my gaze. Her voice was quiet. "You don't have to keep carrying it alone, you know."
Her snakes swayed. Not threatening—gentle. Almost like hair in the wind.
For one terrifying, merciful moment, I thought I might answer. Tell her. The whole of it. My past. My failure. The weight I wore like shackles.
But I didn't.
Couldn't.
I tightened my grip on the bracelet instead. My knuckles creaked like old wood.
Bartholomew broke the silence. "Next week, we're sharing our art. A song, a poem, whatever keeps you alive."
Everyone murmured, excited. Pip actually spun in midair until she smacked into the grotto wall.
I just sat there.
Silent.
But I knew I'd already decided—I'd bring something.
Not because I owed them.
Because I wanted to.
The meeting ended in its usual tangle of half-goodbyes and reluctant laughter. Pip glittered herself into a coughing fit. Vlad argued with the ghost over whether tea should ever be lukewarm ("lukewarm is spiritual death!"). Bartholomew pressed another shroud-sized mitten into my hands, insisting it "looked good with my scythe."
I stood at the threshold, one skeletal hand resting against the stone arch. The Whispering Grotto glowed behind me, soft as breath. For a moment—just one—my bones felt lighter. Less… condemned.
The flyer still rested inside my coat. A reminder. Proof that belonging didn't have to be earned in blood.
I stepped into the night.
The forest air clung damp to my cloak. Leaves whispered. My boots sank into moss that pulsed faintly blue, as if the ground itself had a heartbeat.
For once, I didn't mind.
For once, I almost felt—
"...So this is where you've been sneaking off to."
The voice cut like a blade.
I froze. Turned.
Two silhouettes stood at the edge of the grove's light.
Antic, leaning on a tree with his arms folded, wearing the kind of grin that begged to be punched. Pecola beside him, shawl draped around her shoulders, head tilted like she could see straight through me even without eyes.
My stomach—or what passed for it—dropped.
My first thought was to melt into the shadows and vanish. Pretend the forest swallowed me whole. But Antic's voice carried too sharp, too smug—like he'd been waiting to catch me red-handed.
He stepped closer, hands shoved into his pockets, dark hair falling over his eyes. "So, Grin," he drawled. "What's it this time? A broody midnight stroll? Secret cult initiation? Don't tell me you finally joined a knitting circle—because if you did, I demand socks."
Pecola tilted her head, her shawl sliding off one pale shoulder. She didn't speak, but her silence was heavy. Questioning.
I swallowed—or tried to. "I was… walking."
Antic barked a laugh. "Walking? You, with your perfect straight spine and scythe-shoulder aesthetic, just… wandering into glowing caves at midnight?" He gestured toward the Grotto behind me, where faint laughter still echoed. "Sure. Totally believable."
I clenched my jaw. Words weren't my strong suit. Death didn't usually require explanations.
Pecola's soft voice broke the air. "Why didn't you tell us?"
Simple. Quiet. Like she wasn't asking for an excuse—just the truth.
I looked at her. Her blind gaze pinned me harder than Antic's smirk ever could.
"…Because," I said, voice low, "it was mine. And I didn't want it… ruined."
The words hung there, sharper than I intended.
Antic's grin faltered. For a flicker of a second, he looked almost guilty. Then he shrugged it off with a whistle. "Well, damn. The skeleton's got secrets. Fine. I'll allow it. But next time you sneak away, at least leave a note. Something like: 'Gone to whisper with vampires, back by dawn.'"
Pecola's shawl shifted as she stepped forward. Closer to me. Her hand brushed the air like she wanted to touch my sleeve, but stopped short. "We worry," she said softly.
That silenced even Antic.
For the first time in centuries, I felt the weight of people waiting for me. And the ache of realizing I didn't hate it.
Their eyes — well, Antic's eyes and Pecola's blank-but-not-really blank gaze — stayed fixed on me. I hated it. I hated how much it mattered.
Antic shifted first, dragging a hand through his hair like he couldn't decide if he was annoyed or impressed. "Y'know, Grin, for a guy who can barely string three words together without sounding like a funeral dirge, you really know how to hit the heart. 'Didn't want it ruined,'" he mimicked, deepening his voice like mine. "Tragic. Sexy. I almost cried."
I scowled. "…Mock me again and I'll bury you in your own socks."
He grinned wider. "See? That's the Grin I know."
But Pecola didn't laugh. She stepped closer, so close the hem of her shawl brushed against my cloak. "You don't have to hide," she whispered. "Not from us."
It wasn't a demand. It wasn't even pity. Just… gentle.
And it cut deeper than a scythe.
My hands twitched at my sides, aching to hold something, anything. The urge to tell her about the flyer, about Bart, Vlad, Pip, the ghost in the teapot — it gnawed at me like an old hunger.
But I stayed silent.
Because if I said it out loud, it would be real.
And real things break.
The three of us stood in a strange quiet. Antic's smirk had softened into something else, something that looked suspiciously like respect. Pecola's head tilted, listening for a truth I didn't have the strength to give.
I almost spoke—
And then—
"WELL, WELL, WELL!" Dolly's voice cracked through the trees like a crow wielding a megaphone.
The three of us flinched as she came stomping out of the underbrush, dragging a book twice her size across the dirt.
"Look at you three," she jeered. "Standing around like a melodramatic boyband. Meanwhile, I found the damn Legendarium!"
She smacked the tome onto a rock, dust exploding like a battlefield. "So unless you'd all like to keep emoting in the moonlight, maybe get your asses over here. We've got maps. We've got secrets. And we've got ME, doing all the actual work."
Antic groaned. "Why does she always show up right when I'm about to have an emotional breakthrough?"
I muttered, "…Because she's cursed."
Pecola said nothing. But the faintest tug at her lips told me she agreed.
_________
Pecola's Pov
The dust from Dolly's dramatic book-drop still clung to the air, bitter on my tongue. She was already ranting at the pages like they owed her rent.
Antic nudged my arm with his elbow. "C'mon, No Eyes. If we don't go over there, she's gonna start a one-woman musical about how unappreciated she is."
I tilted my head. "…She already sings."
"Yeah, but this'll come with choreography." He shuddered. "Trust me, we don't want to see that."
I didn't move at first. My feet had rooted to the moss, unwilling to step away from the quiet we'd carved between us. Grin stayed behind, his shadow heavy, watching without comment.
Then Antic did something dangerous.
He reached out.
Not to grab. Just to offer. His hand hovered between us, palm up. Casual on the surface — but I felt the heat of it, the weight of the choice he was giving me.
I took it.
His grin faltered into something softer. He didn't make a joke. He just let my fingers slide against his, our hands folding together like they'd done it before.
We walked toward Dolly like that. Side by side. Connected.
She didn't notice. Or pretended not to. She was too busy flipping through the tome, muttering to herself like a priest possessed by seventeen different demons.
But I noticed. Every step. Every tremor in his grip. Every shift of my heartbeat, louder than the turning of her pages.
And for the first time, I lied to myself.
I told myself I held his hand because I didn't want to trip over roots. Because my coordination still failed me. Because I couldn't trust my body to know where to go.
Not because I wanted to.
Not because I needed to.
I lied. And I think he knew.