User blog:SaenihpNnylf/Can Someone Lend Me a Hand? Chapter 6

Hey guys, we are really sorry for such a long delay on this chapter, and right after we said we wouldn't. Neverwhere Guard has been busy and unfortunately, this chapter is a bit shorter than the previous one's but we really needed/wanted to get this chapter out today because today is a very special day for the both of us and maybe some of you reading this:

'''It's Tiny But Mighty's birthday! For those who don't know, Tiny But Mighty is a group Neverwhere Guard and I founded of fans who believe Sniffles is an idiot and Lumpy is a genius. This chapter will portray both of these beliefs, especially the former, and also include a flashback many of you have likely been hoping for.'''

Happy Birthday Tiny But Mighty and we both hope you enjoy your present!

Mr. Pickels' surprise lasts for a second before trying to wriggle his way out of the other spree-killer's grasp. His size, shape, and sliminess allows him to succeed landing on the ground in a fighting stance. Though he previously only talks to Lammy, it's too late to bother to hide anything so he says, "Alright, Veteran, you want a fight? Let's fight then."

Fliqpy, rather than respond, simply draws his bowie knife and charges at the pickle, feral grin and gold eyes focused solely on the creature in front of him. Mr. Pickels slides between the bear's legs just in time as the bowie knife hits the ground where he was only a second ago. He looks around trying to find a weapon and still avoid the bear's attacks.

Lammy noticing her friend's problem glances over the counter she went and hid behind when Fliqpy woke up scanning the dinner for any weapons. Any utensils are currently back in the kitchen which he wouldn't be able to get to but it's Happy Tree Town and it's Mr. Pickels. Just now, she spots the salt shaker she gave Flippy. "La salière!" she shouts in French, hoping Fliqpy doesn't speak French. At Lammy's shout, Mr. Pickels' eyes go to where Flippy had been eating and he spots the glass container.

As Fliqpy makes another lunge, the smaller combatant agilely jumps up onto the bear's arm and vaults over his head, getting some small cuts as he smashes into the shaker but finds himself surrounded by pickle-sized weapons. He quickly picks up a shard of glass and a handful of salt, which, for him, isn't very much salt.

Mr. Pickels waits until the Fliqpy closes the gap, then throws the salt towards the bear's face and follows with a lunge, hoping to end the fight quickly. The more experienced fighter quickly covers his face with one arm and slashes, accurately judging the small adversary's trajectory, nicking the pickle's body, and forcing him to kick the bear's arm, bouncing him away from the backhanded slash.

Mr. Pickels manages to ignore the nick in his stomach getting back to his feet. He wonders how he's supposed defeat this bear but knows he has to. If he doesn't win, Fliqpy will go on to kill Lammy and ever since this cursed town brought him to life, he vowed to himself that he'd protect her, no matter what. So, he wasn't about to give up that easily. Maybe if he could somehow get behind the bear and go for his spine…

As Mr. Pickels tries to come up with a plan, he's slightly distracted and disturbed by Fliqpy lifting the tip of his knife and licking the red-green mixture, eyes never leaving the pickle and the smile never leaving his face. 'He's bigger, faster, and trained in combat... even if I could get behind him, I don't think I could land a lethal or paralyzing strike before he can react.' Mr. Pickels' eyes dart to Lammy's hiding place, trying to figure out a way that she could sneak out unnoticed. Fliqpy takes advantage of the lapse in attention and, rather than try to swoop down to use his knife, he punts the smaller creature.

Mr. Pickels is surprised to hit the front of the counter sliding down it from the strength of the punt. 'Not this close! Not this close!' he thinks actually starting to really panic for the first time, hoping the bear couldn't tell. Despite the pain he was experiencing, Mr. Pickels forced himself back up and remembered that skunk mentioning deliveries coming in the morning. As the veteran approached him, he shouted in rapid French. "Il faut que tu sort d'ici! Il devrait avoir une entrée en arrière!" which, in English, means 'You have to get out of here! There has to be a back entrance!'

Lammy cranes her neck, looking over at the door she had already found having looked around the place out of boredom. When she sees it though, she bites her lip and shakes her head despite being hidden now, refusing to get up from her spot. She can't just leave him here to die all alone.

Peaking over the counter, Lammy watches as the scuffle moves away again. She knows her friend won't be able to focus solely on the bear as long as she's there, while her mind races her eyes fall on the heavy pitcher of water she'd forgotten to put back in the fridge earlier. Lammy grabs the pitcher, trying to be as quiet as possible doing so.

Lammy, keeping an eye on the fight to make sure she's not seen, reaches over and grabs the pitcher. Knowing she's only got one shot, she waits until Fliqpy has his back to the counter and stands, throwing the pitcher as hard as she can at Fliqpy's head. A good throw, but Fliqpy bends and the pitcher sails over him, dousing him with the ice water. Lammy's frozen in place as Flippy turns towards her, coughing, and sputtering. Lammy falls back realizing she's been spotted and says in a feeble attempt, "Please don't kill me."

Flippy, having got over the ice water shock, sighs and takes his beret off, twisting it to force the water out. "I flipped again, didn't I?"

This question gives Lammy pause, and then she notices his eyes were back to the normal Pac-man pupils. "If that means you became that murder guy, yes."

Flippy rubs his face tiredly before looking around. "At least I didn't kill anyone, I think."

"You didn't. You were fighting with Mr. Pickels the whole time." At that, Flippy's eyes widen and a look of guilt crosses his face as he glances behind him, Lammy peers around him to see and has to stifle a sob. "Mr. Pickels!" she screams, rushing over.

Lammy practically slides on her knees over to her friend, nailed to the ground by Flippy's knife. As she gently removes it, Flippy speaks. "I don't know what the deal is, it's just a pickle." Lammy doesn't say anything, only started to cry. Flippy is just confused why she cares, then he notices. "Wait, why is there blood?"

"Y-you killed him!"

Flippy takes a step back looking at the inexplicably bloody pickle and hysteric girl trying to make sense of anything. Not knowing anything else to say, the first thought of any tree friend spilled out. "He'll be back tomorrow, right?"

"I don't know!" the young sheep wails. "He's never died before. I know everyone else does but he's so different," she wails, unable to stop crying.

"Oh, well." Flippy tries to find something to say to comfort her and comes up blank. "Umm, bye." Lammy doesn't respond, just continuing to bawl.

Flippy hesitates but left into the diner into the eerie late evening streets of Happy Tree Town though they usually serve him well with fewer chances to flip out and less tree friends for Fliqpy to kill if it does happen. He gets into his jeep, taking a last look into the diner. Lumpy talked about her almost obsessively but he always felt there was a lot missing from his side of the story. 'Now that makes much more sense.'

Lammy's still sitting there, next to her dead friend crying, as Lumpy comes in to close up twenty minutes later. He takes a look at the mess in the diner from Fliqpy and Mr. Pickels' battle, then at the crying sheep that has yet to notice his presence and shouts, clearly angry. "Criminal!"

Lammy doesn't react immediately, and when she does it's slowly. Not having the patience for that, Lumpy goes over and yanks her to her feet by the back of her sweater, snapping apathetically. "Quit your crying; you need to get this mess cleaned up."

Tears pouring down her face and unable to respond coherently, she goes about on autopilot and, ignoring Lumpy's complaints, doesn't pick up the pace until the moose goes to nudge Mr. Pickels' body with his foot. Lumpy just watches her get cleaning still robotically but fast enough. Obviously, she was still crying but he didn't care as much about that part as long as she gets her job done.

Lammy saves the hardest bit for last, gently wrapping Mr. Pickels' body in a napkin and tucking him in her pocket as Lumpy runs a keen eye across the store, making sure nothing's out of place.

He doesn't find anything of worry so he dismisses her. "Alright, Criminal, just give me your apron and you're free to go." He holds out his hand, which she put the apron in, still seeming robotic and was about to leave but Lumpy was surprised to notice the apron was weighted. He laughed a little and without having to even look in the pocket, tells her, "This isn't what I meant when I said to leave this in your apron." He turned the apron over; depositing Mr. Pickels' napkin wrapped body onto the floor and kicked it over to Lammy, the napkin preventing any physical mess from doing so. She picks up the napkin, tears falling on it, and makes her way out into the night.

She gets in the car solemnly, trying to dry her eyes enough to drive. She sets Mr. Pickels on the passenger seat and buckles him in before starting the vehicle and making the drive home, wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeves at stoplights and signs. It feels like forever until she reaches her house wondering if it would even be possible to get any sleep tonight.

Lammy wakes up to something pushing on her arm and pries her forehead off of the steering wheel and looks around groggily, eyes still red from the previous night's flow of tears. However, once she sees that the creature pushing on her arm was not an animal, her face immediately lights up. She sweeps the pickle up in a hug. "I'm glad you're alright, I was so worried."

"Of course, I'm alright, Lammy." Mr. Pickels hugs her back but looks up seeing her eyes and realizes what that must mean. "I take it you must have survived?"

Lammy nods. "Yeah, I threw that pitcher at Flippy, but missed and the water dumped on him. He snapped out of it, but..."

"But I was already dead. You survived though and that's all that matters to me."

Lammy taps her fingers together; a question in her mind she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to. "Did it hurt when Fliqpy... did it?"

"Not really, it was a pretty quick death," he says, though not exactly true, he didn't want to worry her any more than she is. "I guess it was bound to happen at least once anyways."

Lammy sighs with relief, glad he hadn't suffered trying to protect her. "And at least now I know a way to turn him back if this comes up again. I think."

Mr. Pickels nods, thinking about it. "You'd imagine with how this town is, someone would have found out about that before now."

"Maybe someone has. Not Handy or Petunia or I hope that they would have told me."

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Handy wakes up on the kitchen floor, immediately getting up on a mission. Though he hasn't decided if he should talk to Cuddles, he needs to at least find Flaky. That will be a bit hard since all he knows is that Cuddles and Giggles dragged her off somewhere where she undoubtedly died. In his rush, he almost forgets to wrap his nubs. He never did understand why they were always bare when he comes back to life.

He takes a moment of thoughtful labor, trying to figure out where Flaky might be, and how to bring up the issue with Flaky, knowing how fierce she can be when it came to her friends. "Where would those two find the most fun?" Handy thought out loud, knowing, like always, Flaky had no say in where they dragged her.

As he ponders the question, a note on the table catches his eye, the almost literal chicken scratches are definitely Mole's though with practice, he was able to make out the intended words, a short apology and a late message about a half finished job from Lumpy which immediately draws the beaver's mind to Cuddles and his daredevil attitude.

Given his line of work, Handy had known about the job but it hadn't come to mind until then. The demolition of a condemned tower across town. Cuddles would see it as the perfect playground but Flaky… Flaky. He immediately makes a sprint out the door for the tower.

Handy jumps in the truck and starts it before realizing it isn't even light out yet. While the roads would be mostly clear, the tower wasn't going to be easy to navigate handless.

Handy sighs, even if he can steal someone's hands, he can't attach them himself, that's Flaky's department. At least he has lots of experience navigating construction and demolition sites without hands because that's what he'll have to do.

As Handy takes off and navigates the roads, he notices a purple car going down the street, then suddenly swerve and smash into a certain laughing squirrel in front of the candy store.

After his conversation with Mole last night, Handy can tell that was no accident Mole was actually on the road correctly but then swerved just in time to splatter Nutty. There's plenty of ways to tell he was there, with all the giggles and smelling more like candy than the store he's in front of. He wonders how he never noticed that about Mole before. Handy laughs a little to himself, no matter how much he changes, there are some tree friends he won't feel sorry for and that addict is one of them.

Handy waits until Mole turns before continuing his route, not wanting to become a part of another 'accident' before he finds Flaky. The rest of the drive is uneventful, only passing one other vehicle; the kleptos' van.

He keeps an eye on the van for as long as he can with the other eye on the road but gets by with no issues, finally arriving at the tower. He slides under the barrier and scans the building he couldn't see Flaky but a flash of yellow near the top tells him this is definitely where they took her and Flaky would be too scared to get down on her own, she'd probably be closer to the middle where she could try to forget where she is.

Handy curses under his breath as his eyes scan the ground floor, looking for a way to get higher up. A scream and sound of banging metal tell him he needs to hurry; the building probably wouldn't stay in one piece too much longer.

He decides he didn't have any choice but to wing it as he goes along. It's a huge risk but anything is and leaving her there is a guarantee.

He makes it up near the top of the building where he finds Flaky at the center, curled up in the fetal position. He wonders briefly why the town let her resurrect up here, awfully in harm's way for a resurrection. Handy makes his way over to her, keeping an eye out for anything hazardous, but also for the rabbit and chipmunk he's sure are nearby. "Flaky?"

"H-Handy?" She carefully peels her head up, just barely enough to see him. You didn't have to know her to be able to tell that she was terrified.

"Are you alright? Where're Cuddles and Giggles?"

"I-I don't know. Just... GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!"

Handy goes to help her up and scowls at his lack of hands. "You're going to have to get up, Flaky, not a whole lot I can do." Flaky realizes how true that is and slowly gets to her feet, knees ready to buckle. "Grab onto my tail and I'll lead you down. It's my job. I know how to navigate these kinds of places the safest." Flaky carefully grabs his tail, whimpering as she tries not to look anywhere that shows the long way down if they fall.

Handy carefully makes his way down, trying to avoid weak spots for both him and where Flaky is and if both isn't an option, he prioritized her not wanting to think about what could happen if the floor started to break under her. At the same time, he tried to calculate how long they had until the building went down but wisely kept his mouth shut on the likelihood of that, which is honestly very high.

They make it to the bottom; alive but shaken due to the fact that parts of the ceiling had collapsed twice and a portion of the floor once just as Flaky had stepped off. Not long after they clear themselves, the whole building collapses. Flaky starts crying. "H-Handy, Cuddles and G-Giggles are..."

Handy looked around the area for yellow or pink hoping, for Flaky's sake, that one of them had escaped before the collapse but couldn't find anything. "Flaky, I'm so sorry but they couldn't have survived." Not sure what else to do and since she had let go of his tail, he hugs her as best as he can with his nubs, not having to worry about her quills because he can't reach that far.

"B-b-but..." Handy cuts in while she's trying to speak through her sobs.

"Flaky, they both knew no one was supposed to be here because it wasn't stable. They both knew the risks." Flaky sighs but nods still crying. She knows that's true, and that's why they went there. Handy backs up from her. "We should probably get you home, c'mon."

Flaky tries to wipe her eyes. "Yeah, probably should. Thank you for saving me."

Handy walks her to his truck, having to wait for her to open the door so he can get in, and drives her home. While he had planned on having the talk with Cuddles, a part of him was glad things had happened the way they had because he still wasn't sure if he should.

When they arrive at her house, he notices Flaky doesn't really seem any calmer but, remembering when they went to get the plastic for her windows, he couldn't have expected her to be. "Y-You alright, Handy? You haven't said a-anything since you started driving."

"I'm fine. Just thinking."

"A-Aright, see you later, Handy."

"Could I stay actually? You seem to need help."

Flaky nods, knowing it's probably for the best after the day she'd had yesterday, and what happened not too long ago. "Are you going to need more hands?" she asks quietly.

Handy pauses, it hadn't crossed his mind, but he'd been busy and since he'd been out and about it hadn't really been an option. "To be honest, I haven't thought about it, but..."

Flaky sighs but nods and says. "Just go find someone. I'll be here."

Just then though, Handy gets an idea to maybe settle some of the anger at Cuddles as well as getting some revenge on the one person he had hated more than Disco Bear until he found out about the kidnapping, though only Mole, not even Petunia, knows why. Sniffles.

Handy goes to head out the door, already planning on how to go about dismembering Sniffles, when a rogue thought causes him to turn. "Are you going to be alright until I get back?"

"Yes, I think I'll be okay." Handy nods, then heads back to his truck to track down the anteater. He figured that, at this time of day, the weird metal tree house was his best bet so he headed straight there, scowling the whole way as his least favorite flashback entered his mind.

Exactly two days before the start of the Happy Tree Curse, in the construction site of the tower that was just demolished, Handy finishes pouring cement in the hole and shuts the mixer down before climbing out and signaling to Sniffles to start the steamroller. As he does, Handy lifts his hard hat and wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

However, as he puts his hard hat back on, the wind caught it, blowing it into the edge of the cement he just laid. "Sniffles, hold up!" Handy calls out just as the steamroller roars to life and drowns out his words. He manages to catch the anteater's attention as he pulls forward and signals him to stop.

That time, Sniffles get the message and stops the steamroller so Handy bent down to get his hat only to find it was kind of stuck so he had to use both hands to get it out. Before he can get it out though, he was met with the worst pain his pre-curse mind could imagine.

Alerted by Handy's scream, Sniffles quickly shuts the roller down to avoid another lurch and climbs out to find Handy's hat, and both of his arms, pinned under the steamroller's wheel. "Are you okay, Handy?" Sniffles asks dumbly.

Handy, shock setting in, just stares at his arms as his brain brings up the obvious. "I can't feel my hands."

"Well, of course you can't. They aren't close enough to each other."

Handy tries futilely to pull his hands out for a few moments, still not feeling any kind of pain, before Sniffles figures he should try to help and goes to turn the vehicle back on, only to have the engine sputter and die. "I think it's out of gas..."

Handy growls looking around the area for anyone at least the slightest bit competent, the complete numbness scaring him much more than the original agony. Unfortunately, he can't find anyone else. "Just call an ambulance!"

Sniffles' eyes light up at that comment, having just started training as an emergency responder. He tries to remember what the book had said about this kind of situation. "We need to... we need to amputate your arms!" Before Handy can say anything, Sniffles rushes back to the work area to find something sharp.

'Even if that is what needs to be done, that idiot is not amputating my arms!' Handy shouted as loud as he can. "SNIFFLES GET BACK HERE!"

Sniffles, just barely catching his name, shouts back. "Just hold on Handy, I'm sure I can find something!"

"SNIFFLES! GET YOUR STUPID ASS BACK HERE!"

Nearby, Giggles has heard all the shouting and looks out her window to see what was going on and comes running with a medical kit. By the time she gets there though, Sniffles had already found a saw and preformed the amputation. Giggles gasps, seeing the bleeding stumps, and quickly grabs some cloth from her bag and tightly bandages Handy's arms. "Deep breaths, Handy, calm down. You're losing too much blood."

Handy gulps trying to listen and calm down as much as possible glad that now at least someone knows what they're doing. Giggles sighs as she gets the bandages on and the bleeding slows. "We need to get you to the hospital." Not wanting to leave him there, she points to Sniffles. "Go call an ambulance!"

As the anteater runs to the payphone, she realizes that Handy's speaking and puts her ear closer to hear. "My hat... what about my hat?"

"Alright, where is it, Handy?" Giggles asks gently.

"Under the roller with my hands."

Giggles ties tourniquets above both of his elbows to make doubly sure he isn't going to bleed out on the way. "We'll get it later." Thinking that they'll have to replace it, she puts what's left of his arm around her shoulders and helps him up, realizing his relative calmness is probably more the result of blood loss than anything else and gets him to his feet as Sniffles comes running back. "Is an ambulance on its way?" Giggles asks, looking over at him.

Sniffles nods as he tries to catch his breath. "Five... to ten... minutes."

Handy turns to Giggles hoping that Sniffles' stupidity hadn't killed him. "Will I be okay until then?"

Giggles nods. "Yeah, they'll have an IV and a blood bag ready when they get here; standard procedure." Giggles looks at his stumps and adds. "And the tourniquets have stunted the bleeding for now so you'll still be alive when they get here."

Pulling himself out of that unpleasant flashback, Handy pulls in front of Sniffles' metal tree and climbs out the window of his truck. He certainly had the fuel to do what he needed to do. If he had a pair of hands at the moment, they would have been balled into fists as he made his way up and kicked open the door since it was not only unlocked but wasn't completely closed.

Handy doesn't bother trying to be stealthy as he searches for the anteater, but after checking the house twice and not finding him: Handy turns to leave and check around town until he hears a welding torch from somewhere below him.

Handy smirks going to find the entrance to the basement which he found labeled as "Lad" but immediately does his trademark scowl when he comes across his real worst enemy… a closed door. Looking at the hinges, the door opens toward him as well.

While Handy is trying to get the door open, Sniffles comes up and doesn't notice Handy at the top of the stairs, accidently bumping into him. "Oh, hi, Handy, didn't realize you were coming over..."

"Well, I realized that I owe you something from a long time ago that I decided it was never too late to repay you for." Handy says in a malicious voice that was completely lost on Sniffles as Handy herded him back down the stairs.

"What do you mean Handy? If you owed me anything, it's long been repaid. What, with how much you help everyone."

"It has? Oh, that's right. It's actually the other way around." Handy states and before he can respond, he uses his leg to sweep Sniffles' feet out from underneath him, sending the failed anteater tumbling painfully down the stairs.

Handy heads down the stairs after him, hoping that his hands survived the fall and was pleased to find that they did where he came out with a broken leg and shoulder as well as losing three teeth and was littered with several bruises but Sniffles was still alive and conscious.

Handy kneels next to Sniffles. "I wish I had more time to pay you back for crushing my hands, especially since you and everyone else will never have lasting injuries like I have..." Handy places his foot on Sniffles' throat and slowly presses down, ignoring his wheezing attempts to apologize while he scans the room for something he can use to cut off his hands.

While he was looking, Handy let go of the weight from his foot some to prevent the suffering from ending too soon. When he did, he heard a weak. "What are you looking for?"

Handy looks back down at him and decides to be blunt with his answer. "Something to cut your hands off with."

As you can imagine, Sniffles was horrified by that answer. "But I need my hands!"

Handy had absolutely no patience for that kind of excuse. "So did I!"

Handy notices a circular saw at the same time Sniffles does, but as the former tries to figure out how to get the hands up there and cut them off without doing any damage to them, the latter struggles weakly: pushing against Handy's leg and trying to scoot away with his good arm and leg. "As much as I want you to suffer through this, I can't risk you fighting back." With that, Handy lifts his foot from Sniffles' neck and brings it down on his face. The hit, having been carefully calculated, knocked Sniffles unconscious.

Sniffles woke up the same way Disco Bear had, with both of his hands cut off, the wounds cauterized, and bound to a chair by his legs and what's left of his arms. As he struggles, he notices Handy off to the side a little way, with his foot resting on a makeshift breaker: another second look reveals that it's connected to a battery, and his chair. "Handy... please."

Handy just shakes his head with a malicious smirk. "I have to make up for all the suffering you've caused somehow since YOUR hands will be back tomorrow," he says, and flips the switch with his foot.

Handy stands and watches for a moment, he hadn't been sure the battery was strong enough to flat out electrocute him or not, but it looked like Sniffles would be there for a while, if it killed him at all. Handy isn't all too sure. Unlike last time, if he takes too much longer, Flaky will wonder what took him so long. He could just leave him to be electrocuted but if it doesn't kill him… 'If it doesn't kill him, he's sure as heck not going anywhere.' Handy realizes looking over the bindings. If the battery runs out before his heart does, that might be a better punishment anyways.

Handy makes his way back toward the stairs, accidentally knocking over a sealed flask, and he doesn't notice the smoke rolling out of it as he makes his way up and back to his truck where his toolbox, and Sniffles' hands, sit safely.

Handy smirks taking a seat in the driver's seat and starting his truck up. "Yeah, I really needed that," he says to himself and drives back to Flaky's house, hoping she's relatively okay and not just because he needs her to sew on the hands. As he drove, he wondered how they went from just being co-conspirators to… dare he say, friends.

After an uneventful drive; aside from running over Toothy, and having not been close enough to notice Sniffles' house start burning, Handy shuts his truck off in front of Flaky's house, picks his toolbox up in his mouth, and knocks on the door with his foot.

A few seconds later, Flaky answers the door, still trembling more than usual but she smiles once she sees him. "Handy! You're alive! You were gone so long, I thought something happened."

Handy shrugs as he walks in, putting the toolbox on the table so he can speak clearly. "Sorry, ran into Mole and we started talking." He pauses a moment, thinking again about their 'friendship' but decides against bringing it up. "But I found that Sniffles was already dead, so..." He gestures toward the toolbox with his head.

Not needing to be told what to do, Flaky opens the toolbox, taking out the two light blue hands with a sigh. "I didn't know Mole talked, I've never heard him make any noise. What did he say?" Flaky asks, getting the needle and thread.

Handy, having expected her to leave it at that, accidentally bites his tongue. "Well... he figured out that I've been... using peoples' hands."

He flinches as the needle bites a little too deep into his arm. "H-how did he, he's blind though..."

"He apparently pays more attention to all his other senses than we give him credit for. He's a lot smarter, too. Figured it out on his own all the way back on the day this started. After you died, he crashed into the house running me over. He said that when he got out, he could smell Shifty but not enough to think he was there." He hesitates before adding the confirmation but substituting the excuse he already gave her a bit ashamed to reveal his reckless blunder. "And he found Disco Bear's hands in our fridge that day I had to take them off to go do a job."

She nods as that sinks in and finishes in silence, using Handy's bandage to wipe the pinprick clean of blood before asking another question. "Does he... did he find out that I'm...?"

Handy notices the undertone in her voice. "Yeah, he figured that out, too. The fact that it happened in your house made that pretty obvious," Handy states but quickly covers up. "I wouldn't worry about Mole too much though, I can trust him not to tell anyone and he's not really in a position to judge either of us for doing it." Flaky gives a confused look. "Being blind isn't as big a handicap for him as we thought, he just goes with it. Apparently, most of his kills are intentional but we all just blame it on his blindness and he runs with it."

"Are you sure? Mole always seems so nice when he's out and about." Flaky asks thinking about her few interactions with the blind man and not really finding many bad things to say about him.

"Yes, I'm sure about it. He does it more to keep his spot in the top fifty percent than out of malice though," Handy says, even though he was almost certain that was a lie with the way Mole had talked about it, especially turning Cuddles into a chair.

Flaky sighs. "Everyone kills for some reason or another, and I end up as collateral. But it never seems like there's a way around it."

Handy just nods. "I know and that's the worst part. It not only kills us in horrific ways every day but it turned most of the friends into murders and no one wins but the town." Flaky just sits and broods while Handy flexes his fingers and tries to think of something to change the subject. Handy sighs, unable to think of anything. "I'm sorry, Flaky, I know this stuff bothers you more than most of us. I don't mean to burden you with it every time I'm here."

"It's okay, Handy. I know you don't mean to do it." Flaky says, but her voice lacks the conviction.

'''Not a cliffhanger. Shocking, I know. You know, this is really the first time I really wrote through Sniffles with all his stupid glory. Every previous time I wrote the guy, it was in such short signs that it didn't show as well. Anyways, we hope you liked you birthday present Tiny But Mighty and that anyone else reading it liked it as well. Please comment and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.'''