Salad Fingers teetered on the dumpster's rim, greeting his little friend, "I-I, uh-I thought you were, o-out fighting in the Great War t-today!"

Carking loudly, the raven swayed the way all corvids do when balancing on a rim, showing that it wasn't interested in small pleasantries.

"I-I'm sorry, I, uh, couldn't, u-understand that. I've forgotten how to speak French. Not that I was ever very good at French." Salad Fingers then leveled his red-rimmed eyes with the funny little bird's, asking, "Wha-what is, what is wrong today?"

The raven's eyes, all twelve of them, stared unblinking into Salad Finger's, making him very uncomfortable before dropping something to the snow between them.

Landing in the snow, the black bird hopped, head bobbing, inviting Salad Fingers to leave his smelly dumpster and join it in the snow in a clatter of rusty spoons and shattered beer bottles hidden in the pockets of his coats.

The raven nudged the object, a toy horse towards him, a present.

Lidless eyes moist, Salad Fingers delicately picked it up, turning it over and over in what was left of his hands, "I-is this a present… for me?"

The raven squawked and did a little dance in the fresh white snow.

"Ohhhh, my very own Horace Horsecollar!" He carefully tapped it, "You have a… a very welcoming… texture… Horace. A pleasure for the TIPS!"

Oh, how it sounded. Oh, how it felt!

"What do you need? I'll do anything for a platoon mate!" on all fours, he hunched on his hands, the raven's beak just barely touching where his nose should have been.

The raven squawked.

"Where is she?" Salad Fingers asked for confirmation.

The raven grew a thirteenth eye, cocked its head, and hopped up and down, confirming what it wanted.

Salad Fingers thought for a few moments.

Then he said, "A nice little house full of nice people? A-and it's warm? Will there be tea? Clawd, I don't care if you're a werewolf, it's cold out there. It's called a hat. Wear it!"

"Oh my, excuse me!" Salad Fingers chuckled, apologizing for talking to someone else entirely, "Now, where were we?"

He sat back on his haunches, thinking, "You wanted a new, um, what was it called? Yes! A new snare. I'd be deli– Draculaura, I told you put your car in the garage! It's blocking the driveway!"

Salad Fingers shook his head, too many voices today. It seemed everyone was annoyed by the still-falling snow and happy to share that annoyance.

He didn't understand why.

Snow was cold, but it softened the torn earth and shellholes of his mind.

As for tea…

Salad Fingers licked his thin, ulcerated lips with a raw red tongue.

…well, tea was nice, but hot cocoa?

Hot cocoa was much, much nicer.

(If he made his snare pretty enough, the nice people in the little house might give him some.)

"Oh! Yes, let's um, see here…" Salad Fingers said, anticipating hot cocoa and nice people to drink it with, "Oh, I do get so lost sometimes, I reckon I'd lose my head down on the lane if it wasn't attached."

The raven crowed, impatient.

"All right, all right, don't wor- That'll be $19.99, next window, please-...ry your little head. She has plans of going to a lovely big country house in a big automobile with her sister and a few friends." Salad Fingers paused, smacking the side of his head to dislodge the intruders with little luck. "Should be a good riot if I do say so myself. I'll have to find some good bait." He said absently as the crow flew away into the gloom of early morning towards the neighborhood where the wealthier RADs lived, with Salad Fingers babbling right behind him.

Cradling steaming coffee in a brilliantly painted mug, Josie padded over to Fugo and sat down beside him where he sat cross-legged on the bare hardwood floor looking out the front picture window of the Stein's little guesthouse.

Outside, Mista, Giorno, and Narancia were having a snowball fight as large flakes drifted down. "'Sup?" She asked between sips, studying Narancia and Giorno's lopsided snowman.

It was lumpy and depressing to look at, but the two boys didn't seem to care. She adjusted Uncle Mike's big afghan around her shoulders, side-eyeing the strawberry blond.

Fugo grunted; being in a cop's house felt weird. Especially if that cop had been the one who dragged him out of the swimming pool room after he tossed Puck, that same cop's unpleasant niece, into the school swimming pool fully dressed.

Only Officer Schmidt didn't seem to care.

He'd thought Schmidt was gay when he first saw what turned out to be Schmidt's wife pull up into the driveway when he and the pack scoped out the Stein's and the Schmidt's yard. Then the wind shifted: not a man at all. Mrs. Schmidt was a tall, athletic woman with an indigo-blue undercut ballerina bun who flew helicopters for a living and rode a motorcycle to work.

Officer Schmidt didn't seem to care about that, either.

In fact, he seemed to dig it, asking her over pancakes about how her night had gone – quiet until she had to medivac an elderly man who'd had a heart attack while shoveling his sidewalk because the ambulance couldn't get to his house fast enough in all that snow. Routine, no big deal.

What really blew Fugo's mind was that the Schmidts' were both highly educated and decorated, with Mrs. Schmidt having graduated from Annapolis, and they didn't seem to care that they didn't own the house they were living in and drove vehicles held together by rust.

Except for twin Harley Davidsons.

Which were old but spotless- contradicting everything his former parents had beaten into Fugo since birth: happiness was wealth, power, and prestige.

These people didn't seem to care about that either.

Weird.

"Chilly?" Josie tossed part of the big khaki-colored afghan with its erratic zig zags and irregular width over his shoulders, startling him.

"Oh, um, thanks?"

"Aunt Raina made it for Uncle Mike's birthday – only she got mad and threw it away because it didn't look like the picture on the magazine cover. I had to fish it out of the trash and finish the last three feet an hour before the surprise party with a friend of mine!" Josie giggled, taking a sip, "If I hadn't, he wouldn't have got anything for his birthday, and that's not right! She told me how to do it and that I could take all the credit- she's too shy!"

"Yeah, right." Fugo studied his edge of the blanket, suddenly stiff from feeling her against him. He frowned, squinting. Was that a stain in the snow, a brownish green one, near the front sidewalk?

And what was that weird smell, like burnt garlic… "Your nose okay?" He asked absently, eyes narrowing. Yes, a stain, or maybe mud. Right there, and another one near the window. And, his nostrils flared, that smell. Why hadn't he noticed this before?

"Yeah, I'm good." Josie said, casually adding, "She didn't mean it this time."

"This time?" He asked, distracted from the stain by the sidewalk, which got churned under as Mista sent Narancia flying for no good reason other than today was a good day to send Narancia flying.

DRAT!

Salad Fingers' initial plan of setting a simple snare by the gate was foiled.

There were just too many people around. He'd be more likely to get the loud, skinny one that smelled like wet dog and old newspapers full of mold and God only knows what else. Smelly recognized stinky, and Salad Fingers knew the runty werewolf was stinky having met the boy a few summers ago, under a bridge. He hadn't enjoyed Stinky's company much, and eventually made sure he left.

The bridge, at least for that time, was Salad Fingers' summer cottage by the river, not his.

Salad Fingers sunk back into No Man's Land, away from the opening. It closed behind him, not a single snowflake out of place.

He'd have to find another opening…

"Want some?" She offered, passing the brilliant mug to him, scooting closer. "Aunt Raina is good at two things in the kitchen: pancakes and pierogis but only if they're the frozen ones from Costco. She's almost good at coffee." Fugo accepted it warily, wanting the heat more than the contents, and cautiously took a sip.

Surprisingly bitter, but good. Fugo raised his eyebrows at Josie: he expected her to have over-sweetened it. "Don't worry, I made it!" She added, "I make the best coffee in the family – I learned how to make coffee that taste good at Daisy's by the bucket. My coffee's so good, Officer Abbaccio wants me to work in his food truck this summer, me an' Maggie, making fry bread and coffee for music festivals on the weekends – but only if Uncle Mike and Aunt Raina say we can!"

She works. Everybody in this house… works.

Just like Mista's family. Giorno has side gigs all over the place and his own Etsy shop. Even Narancia works, if you can call cleaning toilets and mopping floors after school for burnt hot dogs and stale nachos at the bowling alley, work.

I don't.

I have no place.

I have no money of my own, no reason to exist… where the Hell is that stench coming from?

"Puck hits me sometimes." Josie said, abruptly, derailing Fugo's train of thought. "At least this time she wasn't aiming for my face."

"What?" Fugo turned and stared at Josie. He passed the mug, which looked like she'd made it in Advanced Art, back to her. "Your uncle's a cop. Tell him to arrest her!"

Grinding his yellow, rotting teeth, Salad Fingers crowned through the snow up to where his nose used to be, bloodshot eyes darting in search of his target. The soiled snow he'd left by the big window in front of the little house was quickly covered up by the feet of the children blocking his view of the target.

He sank back down, squeezing his eyes in order to blink, eyelids long since burned away.

Curled invisible beneath the closed snow, he pulled out the dogeared photo his raven friend had gifted him.

Dissolving in his long, gnarled hands, the photo, ripped from a newspaper detailing the incident back in September, was of a girl with dark skin and finely wound dreadlocks.

He wondered absently if her hair was anything like Jeremy Fisher's, then soon forgot all about it when he picked up a broadcast from a voice he didn't recognize.

"Babe'gurl, Puck, if you're gonna live with us, you're gonna do your share." Fell from his mouth in a heavy, Southern Drawl. "Your credit card bill ain't gonna pay itself, so get movin'!"

Newspaper clipping now dust, Salad Fingers slipped back into No Man's Land, planning, planning…

"It's no big deal. Anyway, he's got enough on his mind taking care of all of us." Josie sniffed, nose runny from the snowball Puck hurled at her on the way out the door with Uncle Mike for an emergency tree removal job on the other side of town, "At least Mom doesn't have custody anymore. It sucks being the scapegoat."

"…scapegoat?"

"Yeah, scapegoat. Puck was Mom's favorite; Maggie and I took turns taking the blame for anything that went wrong." Josie slurped some down and passed it back. Fugo felt the need for his Juul, but sadly, it was on his desk at home. "Or that's what Maggie tells me it was like. I was too little to remember at the time when CPS took us away and dumped us on Uncle Mike just after he and Aunt Raina got married – we were a big surprise – Aunt Raina came back from a six-month carrier deployment, and there we were, living on Spaghetti-Os and pop 'cause Uncle Mike didn't know how to feed us. Oh, the explosion when she found out he washed our clothes every night because it never occurred to him that little girls need more than a t-shirt, shorts, and undies – oh god, when she found where he'd tried to wash my Pampers in the sink because diapers need washing? Ka-Booooooooooooooom!" Josie giggled, covering her eyes with both hands before peeking out at him with one brilliant unnaturally blue-green eye from between her fingers.

Fugo stared at her – his parents NEVER disagreed in front of him, never EVER!

"Don't worry, Aunt Raina got mad because pop is bad for children and he was smoking around us, not like Mom didn't, and he'd bought us anything we wanted every time he took us to the BX for more Spaghetti-O's and pop. The apartment looked like a yard sale! So she took us all to Doublemeat Palace, took most of the toys back and traded them for clothes, and enrolled us in the Base pre-school with Uncle Mike all embarrassed because he didn't realize little girls need more than every Barbie doll ever made– that, and you can't always wear flip-flops! It's been that way ever since!" Josie finished with a shrug. She rummaged in the little bag, pulling out a few colorful plastic beads, "Aw, lit! Haven't seen these since kindergarten! I liked how they made my braids click – Aunt Raina took me to a braiding parlor and paid them to teach her how take care of my hair. Uncle Mike used his hairbrush on me before she got back from deployment. My hair looked like birds lived in it!"

She put the mixture of beads into her pocket, already anticipating her next art project.

Maybe a set of kidcore bracelets for her next decora kei-themed outfit?

Salad Fingers hovered in the white, dirty sky of No Man's Land, attempting to think even as that sky became cocooning deep snow.

What was her name again?

Tittering and frantic, Salad Fingers searched every fragment of his shattered brain for an answer.

What was it? What had the crow said?

He moaned, fingers skittering frantically even as he unconsciously returned to No Man's Land.

Not able to find an answer, Salad Fingers came up with his own, even as he found himself buried in snow.

Mary Mandolin.

It was a pretty name and fitting for his target, who's laugh sounded like music. Mary Mandolin…

Salad Fingers shook himself off, loose trench dirt falling from his many ragged coats, the rusty spoons in his pockets jingling. He froze, scared that he'd be heard and the people above him would be alerted to his presence.

Salad Fingers sighed, relaxing. Everyone was too busy to notice.

He resumed burrowing, dreams of hot cocoa and biscuits filling his head…

Fights and low income aside, Mike and Raina lived in a fairytale cottage compared to the concrete minimal compound that Fugo was stuck in.

"I don't remember any of that, though. All I remember is a landwhale with a big mouth and a red face. Smelly, too –then she was gone, and I was living in some place called Japan." Josie shrugged, "Good riddance, she hit everybody but Puck." She padded back to him with a shoebox and offered it to him, "We don't have many pictures from when we were little. Wanna see?"

Fragile stack of worn photographs balanced on his palm, Fugo studied his feet where he sat. They were almost normal now unless you knew what to look for.

His childhood had been one of the most documented childhoods on the planet – all because some day when he became president, he'd need a best-selling biography.

Or so his parents thought. They'd even set aside a fireproof room in the house for all the videos and albums for that big day.

Closer than before, Salad Fingers burrowed to the porch and waited, planning to set another snare by the steps.

He was stopped though, when a lanky blond who looked more like a cartoon princess than a teenage boy tramped through the snow to get inside, foiling his plans.

Drat!

Salad Fingers angrily wrestled his tangle of wire back into one of his many coats, only to freeze: Mary Mandolin and her beau were talking about something.

Salad Fingers couldn't help but stay still. Her voice felt familiar, like he'd heard it before.

Growing antsy, Salad Fingers burrowed deeper into the snow, hoping to get a better vantage point, silvery wire and rusty spoons once again in the forefront of his mind…

Fugo shuffled the stack: Officer Schmidt and his wife, both in fatigues, straddled Harley Davidsons, three little girls, one obviously black, perched in front of them, what might have been Big Sur in the background. Another at some beach. Next to a Japanese temple, a birthday party, Mrs. Schmidt helping a very small Josie aim a rifle – all water stained, all frayed, all faded and discolored.

There was something odd about them all.

Where were the ears? The tails? Were they like werewolves? Didn't show their RADness until puberty?

Ah, Fugo squinted, here was a more recent one, Mrs. Schmidt and all three girls two with obvious ears and tails, all older, perched on Officer Schmidt's back while he did pushups – this one looked… normal.

The others? He reshuffled them again; it was like somebody had taken a bunch of photographs out of the trash and Photoshopped children into…

"We lost most of our pictures in our last move." Josie said absently, watching Mista tip the anatomically correct snowman he and the others just finished making over onto Narancia and Giorno. Eyes fixed on the rolling, struggling mass of snow and adolescent werewolves, she passed him the mug. Something about the way she said it put Fugo on edge.

No, no, no, this wasn't right. This wasn't right at all!

Mary Mandolin didn't seem interested in moving, and the crow was getting impatient.

Salad Fingers nervously licked the remains of his lips, beginning to sweat.

The crow cawed, annoyance growing. Where was his bounty?

Salad Fingers gnawed at the remains of his ring finger and tried to make sure he could still feel his friends. The puppets were all sleeping in a breast pocket, lined up and cozy. He held onto the toy horse he'd been given, hoping that none of his beloved friends would be stolen again. The crow had done it as punishment before and he would do it again, laughing at Salad Fingers' tears.

In a burst of determination, Salad Fingers began tunneling further, sure to get Mary Mandolin, if not now, he would by the end of the day.

Good thing his master didn't actually want Mary Mandolin. What he really wanted was the entire family, even the dog, in perfect condition. They were, after all, a matched set.

Salad Fingers had been told that if he grabbed Mary Mandolin, the others would fall into line. Once his master got what he wanted, he'd let Salad Fingers have whatever he pleased, including Mary Mandolin, if she turned out to be as useless as her tall, mean mother.

Salad Fingers had once had a mother like that, and a brother too.

Salad Fingers didn't envy Mary Mandolin much because of that.

Nevertheless, a chance at getting a new friend while keeping his old ones was enough to get Salad Fingers excited.

If the family didn't cooperate, he'd be on the front lines, ready to pluck them all, one by one, like fruit from the branch.

He giggled, feeling giddy…

Fugo sucked down another bitter mouthful of coffee and passed the mug back. He looked down at the little stack of pictures, blurting out awkwardly, "Y'know, I can't even grow a mustache!"

Josie choked on her coffee, then laughed, "Say what now, boo?"

"Obsessed as my parents are, well, were about bloodlines, they're even crazier about keeping up appearances." Fugo added, "My first puberty moon got me waxed and lasered – ummmmmm…all over." He finished by turning bright red, wishing he hadn't brought it up.

Josie stared at him, digesting this unsolicited bit of highly personal information.

Face hot, Fugo mumbled looking down at his now fully human feet. "Lasering's a whole lot less painful than waxing. I always get myself with a razor… well, I used to."

"Didn't know that was where the conversation was gonna go, but go off dude." Josie said, watching Giorno yell at Mista for trampling his tiny snowman and that Mista should help him make a new one, Jeremy bounding around their feet yelling "Woof! Woof! Like WOOF, dude!"

"Your dog's weird." Fugo grunted, relieved at the distraction.

"You're weird." Josie retorted and shoulder bumped him before passing him the mug with a giggle.

Fugo leaned against Josie, feeling her dreads against his face. He'd secretly wanted to touch her hair for a while now, just to know what it felt like but being right here, right now, was good enough.

Salad Fingers watched Mary Mandolin from where he lay just below the surface of the snow. She appeared quite taken with the Strawberry Blond.

Not knowing the young man's name, the walking remnant of Tommy Anderson decided to call him, 'Roger', same as his radio.

If 'Roger' was good enough for a radio, it was good enough for Mary Mandolin's beaux.

A beautiful couple, really. Very pretty, like a chocolate box from Funtum Confectionaries, the deluxe sort with ribbons and a nice picture on top like the ones people sent Glassmother for Christmas when they remembered with NO marzipan whatsoever and many, many lime creams instead.

Or toffee, with a silvery little hammer to break it up with – the best kind, or a peppermint pig – he almost hated to break THEM up.

Still, orders is orders…

Howeverrrrrrrrr, should you FORGET about those orders… (Salad Fingers gave the Universe a sly, conspiratorial wink which Horace Horsecollar returned in spades – the walking incarnation of stank didn't exactly LIKE the master… who sometimes kicked him… sometimes a wee spot of rebellion did the soul good?) Well then. Well, then…

The wizened walking corpse conveniently forgot his orders while voicing a bitter complaint about burnt hot dogs which wafted in from a nearby convenience store and out of his mouth.

Had Salad Fingers any sanity left, he would've been jealous… which he was.

Quite, actually.

Salad Fingers was crazy, not stupid.

Josie set the mug on the floor and let him. He was almost terrified she'd tell him to fuck off. Instead, she put an arm around him. Fugo fell into the crook of her neck as she put her cheek against his.

"I just wanted him to stop." He whispered into her neck, "I didn't know what else to do."

He could feel her nod as she rested her cheek on his head.

He relaxed, seeing as she wasn't going to throw him off the porch or laugh him off the property.

"Maybe I deserved it?"

Josie sighed and ran her fingers through his hair, making him unreasonably ready to cry as Narancia and Maggie squabbled about if snowmen should be anatomically correct.

Raina sat in the kitchen paying the electric bill, watching the scene outside unfold through the window over the sink. Raised among six older brothers, and therefore unafraid of large teenaged boys, she figured eventually she'd break up the snowball fight, censor the snowman, and send them all home before dinner – she was not about to host a sleepover that involved teen boys and teen boy stank.

And appetites.

A giggle came from the living room.

Raina smiled remembering how it had been with her and Mike when they first met: better look in on Josie and Fugo. The Steins' had made sure to keep Josie PG until she was eighteen and old enough to be fully trusted.

But, that didn't mean Josie couldn't horse around a bit.

Disappointed at not being invited to the party, Salad Fingers retreated into No Man's Land, his liminal, to sulk.

The crow reined in its temper as its master watched unseen, hovering a foot above the snow, black suit and engulfing topcoat rippling in an unfelt wind.

Meddling took patience, and the man in the black suit was very, very patient.