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"You don't think Eggabell is good enough for me?"
"She's a phenomenal specimen in every way a grumpus can be, but there are some things about you that she'll never understand. You can bring her along if you feel so inclined to hold on," Kelchup sips at their coffee, like they didn’t say something insulting right in front of the insulted party.
"Excuse me? Bring her along? "
"We let Filbo tag along years ago, this isn't any different"
Filbo grimaces at that, sending Liz into a blind rage.
"I'm not better than anyone here and neither are you! I'm not flattered when you think I am!"
"Why else would you involve yourself with such ridiculous stories if you didn't want to be exceptional! Liz, you love these grumps, but you know you'll move on when they realize what you are. Better."
"And go back to you? You have no idea what you missed, Kel. I don't care about our little group right now, no matter how exclusive it is!"
"Liz, you don’t understand how-"
"I don't want to speak to you until you figure out exactly how much other grumpuses mean to me. I can love another grumpus even more than I loved you !"
" I don't want to lose you again!" Kel blinks back tears, their voice cracking.
"Then change! Or fuck off! I'm not playing your games."
Kel sniffles and straightens their goofy little crown, "Very well, then. I will 'fuck off' and take everyone with me. Goodbye." They stand up to leave the party, "I still love you"
Which is met by a growl.
They grab their bag and awkwardly speed walk out of the house, leaving Liz trembling in the middle of the room.
"Yeesh. Exes, am I right?" Filbo laughs, his joke whizzes right past the landing zone and crashes into a mountain.
He had thrown this party to try and introduce Kelchup to a little of the Snaxburg crew, since they had reconnected with Lizbert recently. They were even getting along like they used to up until this point.
Kel was once Lizbert's middle school and high school sweetheart, and Filbo thought for sure they would get married… until they broke up. She never told him why, but now he sees exactly what the reason is. So does Eggabell, Beffica, Triffany and Snorpy. She trusts them all deeply, but it's still embarrassing.
Liz giggles weakly, desperately trying and failing to stifle tears. "Yeah Filbo. You got it."
She mutters a quick apology before escaping to her bedroom for the night. Eggabell sends them all home with the leftovers, including Filbo.
…
Almost a year has passed since the last time Liz heard anything from Kelchup. Long enough that it's been months since she last thought about them. She wasn't worried, of course. It was nearly a decade between their breakup and their previous meeting. She assumed they went back to their life.
Until she wakes up to a knock on the door in the middle of the night. She thinks she's imagining it, when it happens again.
"Mmm? What's that?" Eggabell mumbles,
"Someone's at the door. I'm checking it out." Liz says, picking up a metal baseball bat.
That wakes Eggabell up fast.
The two of them have made their way to the front door with weapons in tow when the door knocks for the third time. Liz looks through the peephole to see a cloaked figure, almost entirely obscured, save for her porch light catching the shine of a goofy plastic crown sitting crooked on top of the cloak.
She drops her bat and unlocks the door, "It's Kelchup, something's wrong."
They stumble into the living room, leaving a trail of water behind them. Eggabell turns on the light, finding that under the cloak, Kel is not only injured, exhausted, and trembling, but they're snakified head to toe as well. Eggabell grabs them by the shoulders and guides them to the couch.
“Oh my grump, what happened to you?”
“Take a wild…” Deep breath, “guess, Liz.”
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Liz leaves and comes back with a glass of water. That should help, right? It helped her.
Eggabell has what could easily be mistaken for a large veggie wrap in her paw, the limb too snakified for fingers “The snakifications are too advanced for me to find a pulse”
Kel laughs at that. Well, they enunciate the word “ha” a few times.
“Keep it together, buddy. You’re gonna be okay. You can stay here until you desnakify, we can help you,”
They seem to laugh harder. They may be weak, but at least their breathing is steady.
“I’m going ba-” Breathe in, “Back, obviously.”
“What?”
“I had to find you… To ask if you want to come with… me”
Liz is too stunned to respond. She steps away.
“You have… no idea how much… I miss you… Snaktooth misses you,”
“Kel, get a hold of yourself!”
“Come back with me. We have everything. Everything you could ever want.”
“I can’t, I have. I have other people to take care of-”
“They’re invited! We… We want them too... Everyone is welcome!” Kel stands up, coming closer to Liz. “I brought… I brought enough snax to get you home,”
“Kel…”
“You want friends? We have new ones… Old ones. Reeeeeaaallly old ones. You wanted kids, didn’t you? There's some of those in there too. Your town can come. Everyone.”
She doesn’t move, a different feeling taking over her entirely. “Kelchup, did you bring anyone with you to the island?”
“Liz, your stories. Snaktooth… loved your stories- we..”
“Answer the question. Come on.” She basically sings, trying to keep a calm facade.
“Yes… I brought our… our mutual friends. Bringing the old gang… back together. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Alright, how did you get there?”
“I had that boat. The one you showed me how to use.” Kel goes right back to dreaming about the past.
“It crashed?”
“It crashed. I swam. They did too.”
Kel’s arm falls off, slithering towards the door. Eggabell pounces, taking the Inchrap to find some sort of containment.
She grabs them by both shoulders, feeling them writhe under her palms. “How did you find out about Snaktooth? I lied to your face about it.”
“Filbo told me aaaaaallll about it.” Kel says, dark eyes falling shut. “Isn’t he great?”
A deep chill runs down Liz’s spine, all the way through her tail. She doesn’t let go of Kel. “Wait, wait wait, stay with me. Don’t fall apart. Kel. Kelchup!”
She shouts every name Kel went through when she knew them, every name they came up with together as kids, until she’s holding a Rainbow Sweetiefly in one paw and a BBQ Bunger in the other.
Eggabell shoves the scattered snax on the floor into the garbage bag she picked up for the inchwrap.
Five sweeps of every nook and cranny of the house, some duct tape and a repurposed luggage trunk later, all 32 snax are in one place. The thick leather muffling the discordant cries of probably the only things Kel ate for the past six months.
Liz kneels nearby, turning the gold-colored plastic over in her paws. Even with paws oozing ranch and potato grease, they kept it clean.
“Let’s go back to bed, we can clean up the house in the morning.” Eggabell suggests.
Liz stands up. “You can go without me. I need to drop these off with the journalist.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I’ll see Filbo while I’m there.”
Eggabell smiles at that, clueless.
…
…
The journalist was already awake when Liz let herself in. She hands them a roll of duct tape, instructing them to seal the windows and any room they don’t want ransacked.
They nearly question it, but the wiggling trunk and the venom radiating off of Liz dissuades them.
The trunk is set in the middle of the room, Liz sitting on top. FInally, Filbo emerges from the bedroom.
“Mmm, Buddy?” Filbo yawns, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “Oh, Liz? What are you doing he-”
“Filbo."
Filbo shrinks back, worried in ten different ways. The journalist rushes past him back to their bedroom to escape this situation.
"H...hey Liz. What's with the chest?"
The buzzing of wings from within grows slightly louder.
"Ask a different question about the trunk."
"What's… in the trunk?" He guesses. The buzzing quiets for a moment.
"Getting warmer. One more time."
For every second of silence, another set of wings beats against the inside of the container. Another set of legs kicks to escape.
" Who's in the trunk?"
"Yes! That's right! You get a shiny quarter if you can answer that question yourself!" A nervous, strained smile threatens to tear her face in two.
The buzzing stays the same.
"I'll even give you a hint, Filbo! You'll get it, you always figure it out!" She says, standing up. She walks around to behind the chest, placing the plastic crown where she previously sat. She gestures like he wouldn't see it.
"Oh grump." Filbo covers his mouth, "Is that Kelchup?"
"Ding ding ding!" She actually tosses a quarter to him, it clattering on the floor when he doesn’t catch it, "Filbo, I have one more question for you."
The horrible sinking feeling he had the second she got here could bring him to the bottom of the ocean, where he feels like he belongs right now.
"Yes, Liz?" He tentatively asks.
"How did Kel come to know that Snaktooth was unique? That it was something they would love to explore and discover, and not just another hunk of volcanic rock out on the water?"
The buzzing of Snax turns into a hum, the thrumming of legs a disjointed beat to the song of Lizbert's rage.
The pitch rises, beating turns faster.
" Answer me! " She shouts.
Filbo flinches back, holding his hands in front of him like she was about to lunge. She remains still, until he's recovered and is ready to answer.
"I. After the party, they were still waiting at the bus stop. We ended up chatting and… they asked about 'your final big adventure spot'. I just said it was dangero-"
"Filbo. Don't lie. Tell me exactly what you said."
"I... Told them about the articles. They asked directly if bugsnax were real. They wanted to believe you. I was so mad I…"
"What did you say?"
"I… said… yes."
Liz doesn’t respond.
“I didn’t just say yes, I- I said they were delicious! And dangerous!”
Liz nods, taking a deep breath. She stands up straight walking around to the side of the trunk.
“Filbo. You’re not an idiot. If you were, I wouldn’t be angry with you. I’d be sad that you think I need your protection, or your retribution. But you know better, you are better. You knew what would happen.”
She unlatches one of the three latches on the trunk.
“Kel was an asshole, but they were well liked. They brought others with them. Your actions cost the lives of four grumpuses. That’s how dangerous Snaktooth is. You let it slip to one grumpus, and killed four.”
Filbo nods.
“I’m going to forgive you. This was a grump who would’ve gone to Snaktooth no matter how they found out, their fate was sealed as soon as we got back. But I’m still angry with you.”
Filbo closes his eyes and nods. Liz flicks open the second latch.
“This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to release all 32 bugsnax, right here. It’s your job to catch every last one and get them back inside the trunk. The journalist is not allowed to help you. When you are done, the journalist and I are going to drop it off by Snaktooth to prevent a disaster. Understand?”
“But Liz, I.. I can’t catch bugsnax!”
“You’ll figure it out. You’re smart enough to make more, right?”
She undoes the last latch, holding the lid closed herself.
“I’ll be here until you’re done.”
Liz throws the lid open, a wave of Sweetieflies scattering, Snaquiris smacking into the ceiling, Inchwraps attempting to burrow into the floor, Razzbys being smacked out of the way by the Bungers jumping and lunging for Filbo. Chairs tip over, the couch tears, the potted plants crashing to the floor. Filbo doesn’t dare open his mouth to scream, a strangled whimper escaping him instead.
Liz takes a seat on the recliner, watching the carnage, her glare slowly fading into a satisfied smile.