This is a story of the Becoming Monsters Universe by AiLoves, setting used with permission.
The idea for this story and these characters comes from Moonwing.
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Chapter 4: All In
It was a rather bemused Glass Slime who found himself in the middle of an apartment that had been significantly less cluttered a week ago. To be fair, that was a spectacularly low bar to clear, but still.
His sleeping bucket had been moved to one of the side rooms, the one that was supposed to be a bedroom. That room had acquired a bed of sorts, resembling a small pile of cushions on the ground with a slightly raised border. It also acquired a dresser, and the closet got some hangers. Those hangers, in turn, got a selection of clothes Gooey wouldn't be caught dead in, no matter how much he could appreciate Hush wearing them.
Not that he wore all that much normally, anyway, but his normal aprons and hats were now folded and stacked in one of the fifteen available drawers. It beat being piled in the corner, he figured, but still.
The bedroom wasn't where the chaos ended, either. Actual chairs had found their way into his main room, which was apparently supposed to be a living room and not a place to keep his TV and sleeping bucket. His kitchen (-ish) picked up extra dishes and pans, now that someone was here who had fully-functional taste buds. And, well, that was the other thing.
Curled up in a patch of sunlight in his living room was Hush in all her bright red catgirl glory. The Nekomata had shown up in a rented truck a couple of days after he had stammered out an uncertain agreement, and the Slime had found himself helping haul in a bewildering variety of boxes full of a bewildering variety of things. This ended up followed by her gradually sorting out and putting everything into a placement that seemed to make sense to her, and only loosely seemed to correlate to him. Clothing and accessories, food and seasonings, sheets and pillows, boxes that she insisted remained closed but pointed to specific placements.
At first, he'd tried to help with the arranging of things. That... ended badly, and Hush had decided to ensure he had specific directions for everything. There were only two exceptions. The first was things that wouldn't survive being in the same house as a Slime, which he piled up in boxes near the door. What she was going to do with them, he didn't know.
The second was when a desert mouse found its way into the apartment. The mighty catgirl monster hunter had yowled and climbed to the top of the highest pile of boxes in the place until Gooey gently picked it up and brought it outside.
He supposed that "cluttered" was a relative term. She insisted that they sleep in her cat bed together at night, but as the various things besides that got put where they apparently belonged he was finding that he had floor space again. Enough to spread out a bit when holding himself vertical got tiring. Enough to splat in front of the TV with a video game controller properly engulfed. Speaking of, that sounded like a good idea. The past few days had been a bit much, and he was tired. Hush wasn't the only one who could do a successful cat impression.
About two and a half rounds into his favorite fighting game, though, his bit of splat acquired some extra splat as Hush awoke and decided he looked cuddleable. "Hey, Heath! Is it just me or are the fridge and pantry empty?"
"Not just you. I only had supplies here for me. Did you bring any with all the stuff you've moved in?"
Sienna snuggled into him, a sensation much like a more active waterbed... one ruined by her stomach rumbling audibly. "Shoved it in the fridge day one! Then I ate it. Really, you just didn't have much of anything in here! Thought you said you worked at a grocery store?"
"I USED to work at Chow Kitty. Been a couple of weeks, I quit before we linked up."
The Nekomata frowned, an expression made infinitely cuter by one fang being visible outside her lip. She couldn't make it any cuter if she tried. And... she tried. "Well, can you go back and see if your employee discount still works? This kitty needs some chow! I still got some of the Coinage from our first date, if you need it."
Heath vigorously disagreed with the categorization of a Dungeon Delve in which they both almost died as a "date," but was wise enough to not voice this. "The store doesn't take Coinage. Bosses said it was more trouble than it's worth, and considering the last thing I did there was raise a shield against a lightning bomb I don't blame them. Got any cash?"
She shrugged. "Not much, but take it. Wallet's on the kitchen counter, just bring back something that once ate something else. I'm more than half carnivorous, too many veggies and grains and you don't want to smell the results."
"Worse than the hairball yesterday?"
"So, so much worse. Just trust me on that one, 'kay?"
It was unlike her to stop after so few words, so Gooey decided that listening to her this time was probably the course of wisdom. The wallet turned out to have over a hundred dollars in it in mixed bills, which should more than cover the carnivore's needs. He was thankful for it, his own cash was running low. Pulling on his apron and baseball cap (this pair without the store logo on them), along with a backpack for the groceries, he made his way back over to the store. A shame he couldn't ride a bicycle anymore, really, but he didn't have the coordination to do it right and getting protoplasm out of the spokes and chain was more trouble than it was worth.
Walking into the old workplace during off-peak hours, though, was a rush of memories. Mostly good ones, even. He always did like his coworkers, even most of the managers. The work could be frantic at times and underpaid, but it was familiar. Given the familiarity, including high fives and hearty hellos from those former coworkers, he got right to it with a cart and the knowledge of the most efficient route through the store. He passed through produce, walking around an odd pair there. One was an Orangutan Beastkin, picking up a banana with an "ook" and carrying a fantasy novel under his arm. His friend was some kind of horned beast, maybe a Gnu, and was wearing an old hacker convention shirt.
The Slime didn't pick up much there, but a couple of the root veggies had really good calorie returns per dollar. He didn't have MANY taste buds, but the number wasn't zero and he liked the textures as well. Which is how the bag of garlic found its way into the cart as well.
