AUTHOR'S NOTE
God. This is harder than I remember
Maybe a drink will help
Joyful Tree Friends
The next week was spent digging a basement in the hut to hide Buddy in. The next nine years were spent raising her. It wasn't easy for the three assholes to try and tend a kid after spending as long as they could remember hiding, drinking and fighting. They managed. They kept her hidden in the basement. They let her come out at night to look at the stars, but other than that she had to be content with living in the dirt and rock. Lumpy traded some mags for some paint. She thanked him by painting the walls of her little prison. And his face.
Sometimes she'd try to sneak out. Lumpy couldn't blame her, even though he'd stop her every time. Eventually he realized she couldn't be kept hidden all her life. He made her a crude mask so she could go out with him and see the little village where he'd trade for jerky and liquor. But only ever with him. Cuddles and Sniffles weren't allowed to take her out unless Lumpy was also there. He was always so protective of her.
It wasn't easy. The pills had to go. Lumpy found himself drinking more often, but it was better than the pills. He craved them. Constantly kept them with him. He tried to toss them off a cliff once, in an act of defiance against his broken will, but before the end of the week he found himself at the base of the cliff picking them out of the dirt. He couldn't bring himself to get rid of them and he couldn't bring himself to swallow them. He'd hide from Buddy sometimes and sit, just rolling the blue pills in his
It was on one of those days, high noon, that Lumpy heard someone scream for help. He normally wouldn't bother, but something in the back of his head shunted him towards a naive idea of helping whoever it was. He stuffed the pills into his pocket and darted to a cliff's edge where the scream was now being joined by barking.
Some scraggly looking asshole was stuck in a tree, clinging to it by the seat of his leopard-print pants
"Hello there! Could you help me out? Th-that ravenous beast is trying to make a meal out of me!"
Lumpy looked up at the tree. His eyes traced down to the beast that had him cornered: A small bulldog. He narrowed his eyes.
"Alright." Lumpy reached out to grab the dog and it snapped around to attack him. He was knocked to the ground, it pounced on him and tried to snap at his throat. His large, clumsy hands wrapped around its head and he squeezed it. The dog clawed and scratched, yelped and squealed. It drew bloody slits across Lumpy's arms and chest a dozen times over before he finally twisted its head in such a way to snap it. The dog went limp and he threw it aside. He wasn't really good at this.
The asshole jumped down out of the tree. His landing was surprisingly graceful. He bowed
"I thank you, squire! Just a joke, just a joke. You should expect such winning humor when you're in the presence of Toothy Hintz, the Hint master! Yes, tis I, the lord of the tutorial."
Lumpy turned away, "I don't have time for this shit."
"W-wait, hold on!" Toothy scrambled to catch up with Lumpy's long gait, "I still need help! I don't know if you noticed, but that dog had a collar on it. Someone is hunting me, and a hero like myself needs a party to stay safe. I'm sure I can reward you for your help..."
Lumpy stopped.
"If you're being hunted, you need to get the hell away from me."
"B-but... I uh." Toothy couldn't keep talking. His stomach turned and roared. Lumpy looked down at him. He could see how loose Toothy's shirt was. His cheekbones were poking out of the side of his
"Christ." He shook his head, "Okay. I can get you something to eat and a hard drink. You can spend a night. Then you get out..."
Toothy threw himself at Lumpy's legs, "Ahaha, thank you! Thank you! You won't regret this friend, I'll-"
Lumpy pushed some space between them
"Listen. You don't get to come inside my home. There's... a thing in there. I don't want people knowing about it. You'll sleep outside with a fire."
"Yeah... okay. That'll work."
They walked in silence. The sun was just setting. Lumpy knew there should be a fire outside his hut. There wasn't. Signs of a struggle littered around the hut at least five yards in either direction. Sniffles was there, slumped up against the entrance to the hut. Blood was splattered across his face and his stomach had a deep gash in it. In his hand he held a knife that was soaked from blade to handle in his own blood.
Lumpy crouched next to him. He was shaking inside, but his face was stony.
Sniffles gagged on something. Blood probably.
"Sorry Lumpy... I know how much you love her but." He spat up something that looked like blackened vomit, "I don't know who they were. They got her. I don't know what happened to Cuddles. ...I think I'm gonna die."
He closed his eyes.
"I uh..." Sniffles said, "I'm sorry. Shit I said that already. I'm just gonna... sleep a bit. You can get her back. I'll catch up..."
He started breathing slowly. He stopped breathing. Lumpy stood up. He looked inside the hut. It was torn up nearly as bad as Sniffles was. No sign of anyone. Empty bottles rattled at his feet. Toothy peeked in behind.
"You're still here?" Lumpy said.
Toothy swallowed hard, "You're... I can see in your face. You're going after whoever did this, r-right?"
Lumpy didn't respond.
"So... there's a few of them. It looks like, at least. You need help, don't you? Well I owe you my life after that incident with the pooch. Heck, who knows? Maybe these were the same guys who sicced that mutt on me! We can both take our revenge!"
"...Okay. Then let's get going."
"Right!" Toothy pumped his fist in the air, "The start of our adventure! Toothy and… uh."
"Lumpy."
""The best of friends!"
Somewhere near, a man was flicking a knife up in the air, alternating between catching it by the blade and catching it by the handle. He was watching. He was getting a little upset. He had been missing Lumpy. His closest friend in the world had just stopped showing up one day. It was downright crushing. And now? Now he's with some new goon? It was just plain rude.
He'd have to go see him.
