Nothing But Bones

16: Gay Marriage

Nodding just like the skeleton, Elton gets to his feet and wraps his arms around an already-dog-again Dingus. "Good boy!"

Dingus seems very pleased at the compliment. He always is.

Bones rattle as the skeleton moves out from the other side of the room and stands next to Elton and Dingus like some socially-awkward harbinger of necromantic doom. They gesture to the boy wrapped around the dog. "Can he hear me like you can?"

Elton flinches, but only a little. He doesn't want to be rude.

Foot still in the dead man mess, Tiff shrugs. "Probably not. Hey, Elton, can you hear the skeleton talking?"

He looks up to Tiff, then back to the skeleton. "No."

The skeleton nods its big skull and shrugs. "It's as I expected."

"I mean, it's not like I gave him dubious chemicals. It tracks."

"A chemist magician? How new and exciting!"

"Is it?" Maybe it is. Tiff wouldn't know. Those classically trained magician cucks don't share what they do and don't know with her willingly.

The skeleton continues, "Alchemy and the like must have come a long way since my day! I could never quite figure out potions and such nonsense. That was usually women's work."

She cringes. A thousand thoughts about Kathleen Hanna rush to her head. "Oh god. You really did die in 1954."

Kepler comes over to her, pauses at her feet, and holds something up to her. She takes it; it's part of a finger. Without saying anything, Tiff shoves it into her pocket.

"So." She turns back around to face Elton and the skeleton, clapping her hands like an arrow to the topic. The viscera under her feet makes it a little too slick, but she manages to keep her balance. "Two questions. One: what's your name? And two: if Boris Covington isn't here, then where is he?"

There's a secret third question (Why is your skull so big?) but she decides not to ask it.

The skeleton bows deeply, bones clacking as he does so. "The name, my dear lady, is Frederick Gerald Winter. Fred to my friends. Who, I suspect, are all very much dead. Then again, I have no idea what year this is. Now that I have given my name, may I ask the same of you two?"

Tiff looks at Elton and only Elton. "His name is Frederick."

Elton looks up to Frederick and grins widely, despite everything that just transpired. "Hello, Fred! I'm Elton. This pooch right here is Dingus."

"I'm—" Fuck. She would lie, but she's pretty sure Elton called her Tiff earlier. "I'm Tiff— Please don't call me your dear lady. I don't have a reason."

Frederick studies her for a moment. His lack of eyes doesn't make the confused-curious scrutiny any less obvious. "Ah, of course. Tiff."

"Tiffany May. If you have to." She cringes at how stilted the words come out of her.

"Lovely. I shall not call you dear lady. I shall call you Tiff. And so lovely to meet you Elton!"

He extends his bone hand to Elton and looks at the Canadian teen expectantly.

Elton looks up at it, with zero context with regards to what's going on, but grasps the hand and shakes it anyway.

"So glad we're all acquainted." An aura of beaming comes from his perpetually-exposed teeth. "So what year do I have the pleasure of being a skeleton in?"

"It's fully 2023." Tiff looks to the door and the hall beyond it. She commands herself to pull it together. "Sorry for being short— I really am looking for Boris Covington. Do you know where he went, or are we going to have to wait for him?"