Manhattan didn't look too great today. It was raining, heavily, hailing and snowing ever to slightly. If any tree had leaves left they sure didn't now. The Beagles and their agent were all cooped up in their apartment, Scotty stuck in until he could go back to his own building and Stringer and Tubby because they didn't really have anything better to do, their workplace was closed.

Tubby was curled up in a blanket, cuddled up asleep on Stringer, who was flicking through the TV for anything light-hearted that was on. Scotty, at the other end of the couch, quietly tapped on his phone, playing some color-by-numbers game.

It would've been a rather lousy afternoon, if not for the fact that whenever they all got the thought, the TV shut off to a "something has interfered with the satellite" message and the lights flickered to darkness. Scotty promptly lost service and shut his phone off, looking over at Stringer and Tubby.

"So… what now?" he muttered.

"...we've got some board games in the closet," Stringer said, standing. Tubby sleepily repositioned.

"There's a dreidel up there somewhere," he yawned, stretching. Stringer nodded, heading off to their bedroom.

"You could've stayed asleep," Scotty said.

"Yeah? Well, someone's gotta beat the both of you at Sorry."

Scotty blinked, feeling jokey competitiveness rise inside him, "Oh, you're on."

Stringer returned a few minutes later, arms full of boxes. He sat them on the floor and started setting Sorry up. Tubby and Scotty got on the floor once he finished.

Board games weren't much more fun than sitting in a dark room without cell service.

Soon enough, they went on to the next game. And sooner after that the next. Within the next hour-and-a-half they'd gone through them all. Stringer had gone off again to find Tubby's dreidel and some dominos he thought were up there.

"So… dreidel, huh?" Scotty muttered as Tubby folded up their game.

"You couldn't guess? I've spoken Hebrew in front of you and I've got the stereotypical accent!" He chuckled.

"I mean I-! I didn't want to assume anything, you know?"

Tubby just laughed, shaking his head.

"What's up?" Stringer asked, quietly, setting down a box of dominos, a dreidel and Monopoly. Tubby quickly grabbed the dominos and worked to pry the metal lid off, Stringer placing the others on the stack.

"I'm Jewish!" Tubby exclaimed.

"What! No way!" Stringer exclaimed, sarcastically, laughing.

"I'm what the kids call dumb!" Scotty exclaimed, pinching the bridge of his muzzle, laughing at himself.

"You are not," Tubby said, jumping as the lid came off in a loud noise, "I never told you and you didn't want to assume. It's considerate is what it is."

He dumped out the dominos, scooting them around a bit, before picking his hand, nine instead of seven, Stringer and Scotty following suit.

"Did you know when you first started dating?" Scotty asked, placing the double six between them.

"He lisped too hard for me to pick up an accent," Stringer answered.

"You had a lisp?"

"I had braces." Tubby corrected. Scotty groaned. Tubby shrugged, "They weren't that bad. I had braces for like, ten years at that point." Scotty groaned again, louder and more pain-filled.

Scotty chuckled a bit, then turned to Stringer, "How was your school life?"

"Terrible."

"Why's that?"

"Bad parents. Bad school. Bad classmates. Nothing like that New York school."

"You aren't from here?" Scotty looked at him, surprised.

Stringer shook his head. "Texas. I got bullied relentlessly and then a boy kissed me and the school saw and told my parents and…" his voice went down into mumbles, stopping for a moment before picking up again, "I got physically and emotionally attacked by everyone I knew because it was That Part of Texas so when I turned 16 I packed up all my stuff, bought a plane ticket to Manhattan and here I am." He shrugged to finish.

"...and you lived in Manhattan, the most expensive city in America and probably the world, when you were 16!?" Scotty's voice was a mixture of admiration and confusion.

"I mean… no," his voice went back down to just-understandable mumbles, "I was homeless and I stole cheap food and I'm not proud of myself at all but… I'm still alive, so."

Scotty shook his head, smiling, "Why did you come to Manhattan, of all places!"

"Because it's lots of states away and has a huge population," Stringer shrugged.

"Oh, Stringer," Scotty muttered, "That just sounds awful. I'm sorry you went through all that but, you're right, you're here now! And I couldn't be more proud of you!"

Stringer smiled, turning away from him and nodding at Tubby to pass his turn.

"How did you two meet, after school, during, what?"

Tubby laughed a bit. "Oh, we were together in our school's weird string-mishmash band section. I was first chair and he was second."

"And you absolutely hated me!" Stringer laughed, leaning back against the couch.

"...I can't imagine you two ever not getting along."

Tubby shrugged, smiling. "Well, how times change," he shot a loving glance at Stringer, "The teacher always tried to get him to play electric guitar and me to play electric bass."

"You don't even really need to learn anything different to play electric and standard guitar," Stringer chimed in.

"Sitting next to eachother so much we warmed up to eachother," Tubby went on.

"You did not, you threatened to murder me with a bow you stole from a violinist!"

Tubby and Scotty bust out laughing, and Stringer went on, forcing himself to keep his voice semi-understandable.

"I was pining for you since I realized you and I sat together."

"Aw, babe," Tubby said, softly, voice sweet.

"I mean I also fell in love with you deeper once I realized you would and could kill me?"

The three of them laughed again.

"And then the Bubblegum Project," Stringer said fondly.

"Oh, the Bubblegum Project…" Tubby repeated.

"The Bubblegum Project?" Scotty asked, "Do I want to know?"

"In social studies," Tubby said, "Which we also had together, we got paired on a project. Could be anything from the 60s, and because we're flaming homosexuals who wouldn't be able to do one on being gay without getting angry, and because Stringer's not Jewish, we chose music."

"And bubblegum was our favorite 60s style…" Stringer finished.

"Did you get a good grade?" Scotty asked, Stringer and Tubby shaking their heads, making him laugh again.

"Mr. Loverboy over here wouldn't stop flirting long enough for us to get any real research done." Tubby said, staring at his partner.

"Excuse me, you were flirting just as much!"

"Aww," Scotty muttered, smiling to himself.

Tubby let out a happy breath, "I flirted a few times and then I was nervous about my dad overhearing."

"Did he?" Scotty asked.

"Probably!" Tubby admitted, snickering, "Those walls are paper-thin and Stringer used his normal speaking voice."

"Your mom would've been all over us," Stringer chimed in.

"She sure would've." Tubby said, closing his eyes and fondly smiling.

"...would've?" Scotty repeated.

"Oh, Scotty, don't tell me I forgot to tell you about my dead mom!"

"Your mom's dead?!" Scotty exclaimed, "What! When!"

"When I was 13!"

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry."

Tubby shrugged, "It's alright. What about you, how's your lovelife?"

Scotty took in a deep breath, "My first serious girlfriend was a Hollywood actress when I was her agent and my most recent was five years ago and ended in divorce, which is always real fun."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Tubby said, softly.

Scotty shrugged, turning his attention back to the dominos game, which hadn't been touched in what seemed like ages. "We all stuck?"

Stringer nodded, grabbing all the dominos together to put them back in the box. "So… now what?"

"You guys wanna learn how to play dreidel?"