#lambkind

The snow was light, at first.  Grillby watched the weather report and stared into his empty fridge until he made up his mind.  The snow was only going to get worse, and he needed food in his apartment in case he got trapped in.  

There was still an inch of snow left on the ground from the last storm, so Grillby got out his best winter boots and pulled them up over the legs of his pants, to keep himself from being constantly stung from melted snow wicking up and touching him.  He put on his black winter coat and carried his umbrella with him, just in case.  

A drifting snowflakes floated too near him, when he stepped outside.  They melted and evaporated before they reached him.  One of the human women who worked for the apartment complex was outside, spreading salt on the sidewalk.  

She waved at him, and he nodded back.  "You wouldn't catch me staying out in this a second longer than I had to," she said.

"It won't be bad until tomorrow," he said.  

She didn't hear him. She smiled and nodded like she had.  

".........groceries," he tried.

"Oh, well, you'd better stock up," she said.  "I bet it'll be pretty crowded.  Everyone'll have the same idea."  

He nodded.  

"Though if you change your mind and want to just stay here, I sure don't mind your company," she said.  She shivered, exaggerated.  

"............sorry," he said, amused.  

"Food first, I get it.  But don't be surprised if you find me frozen solid when you get back."  She sighed and went back to work.  

It was a bigger complex than the last place he lived, so he had been surprised by how much friendlier everyone was, compared to the small cozy place he had been in before.  He didn't plan on living at this place forever, but he would miss it when he left.  

Half of the windows had decorations lighting them, in whatever style the person living there liked.  His favorite decorations were the paper snowflakes clearly made by children.  He also spotted a lit up star of David next to a glittery menorah, surrounded by numerous windows covered in bright colorful blinking lights.  

Grillby could see his own Gyftmas decorations from where he stood on the ground: window stickers shaped like gifts, and a tiny fake candle that could be plugged in to make it look like a real one.  He hadn't planned on doing anything, generally too busy to spend much time at home, but his neighbors had inspired him.  He wished he had been more prepared. Well, next year.  

He could hear Christmas music blaring out of one of the buildings he walked past on the way to the grocery store.  Those songs were all still fairly new to him, five years after reaching the surface, so he stopped for a minute and tried to figure out which one he was hearing.  The humans who hurried past made sure to keep their distance from him.  

His phone buzzed, and he stopped to check his messages.  

Red Bird: Any chance the bar's opening on time tomorrow, Grillbz?

Grillby typed back: I'm not making a decision until I see how it is.  If it stopped early, they might clear the roads before he normally opened.  

Red Bird: Got it, boss

Grillby: If you can't get out, just let me know as soon as you can. She lived much further than he did from the bar.  Is it starting where you are?

Red Bird:  Yeah, sort of

Grillby: There are still a lot of humans out here.  So long as he could actually leave his apartment and get to the bar, he figured he would end up opening.

Red Bird:  You aren't out in this, right?

Grillby: I need to get something from the store.  And the cold never bothered me anyway.

Red Bird:  Who let you watch that movie?

Grillby: What movie?  He owned it.  

He hurried along.  Everyone was so sure he shouldn't be out, so he thought he should trust their judgment and get home as soon as he could.  

The store was crowded with humans and a few nervous monsters.  The checkout lines were long enough that humans actually got into line behind him.  They weren't so uncomfortable near him that they were willing to suffer a minor inconvenience to avoid him.  

Grillby watched the snow while he waited.  

"It sure is coming down out there," one of the humans said, ahead of him, to another person in line.

"Glad I didn't drive," she said.  

There was an uneasy energy in the air.  Grillby didn't dawdle too much paying for his things and getting outside.  Snow came down faster, some of it stinging at him until he put up his umbrella.  He made a small barrier of heat around himself, and it kept the rest of it away.  

A miniature deer monster came over to him, in the parking lot.  "Hey, man, you want a ride?  Doesn't look like your kind of weather."

He shook his head.  ".......thank you."  

He noticed the woman from ahead of him in the line.  "Jesus," she said, looking up at the sky.  Her coat looked waterproof, but thin, and she didn't have anything covering her head.  She shifted her groceries from one hip to the other as she pulled on her gloves.

Grillby thought he might just scare her off, but approached her anyway.  She watched him, wary.  His small barrier extended around her, and the snow that had melted on her coat hissed and evaporated.  

"Yeah?" She asked, uneasy.  

He set his own bag down, on the dry ground, and held out a hand.  A small flame, the size of a tennis ball, came to life over his palm. "...take this," he said. 

"What? Uh."  

"...it doesn't burn."  He wasn't sure she heard him.  

"Okay? Neat."  

"...it's cold out," he tried.  She was uneasy enough that he was about to give up.

She carefully poked at it.  "Huh."  She took it.  

He told her it would last for half an hour.  

"Thank you?  Oh!  Happy....Gyftmas?"  

He nodded.  

Neither of them felt like hanging around any longer.  Grillby hurried back towards his apartment, salt crunching under his feet as he walked along the sidewalk.  Past his small bubble of heat, the snow was starting to make it difficult to see.  He found his way home almost entirely by habit.  

The woman who had been working outside was gone, hopefully comfortably inside.  Grillby wasn't entirely alone, though.  A man was hovering with a cigarette, trying in vain to light it.  Grillby was pretty sure his lighter didn't have any fluid in it.  

He lit up when he saw Grillby come by.  

"Hey, my man," he said.  "A little help, here?"

It was going to be one of those days, but Grillby didn't really mind.  It was almost Gyftmas, and he did like being useful.  He touched the end of the cigarette and went inside.  That man lived down the hall from Grillby, and he'd passed by and heard a baby crying from inside his apartment.  He hoped the man didn't freeze to death because of his nicotine addiction.  He was not entirely sure how long it took humans to do that.  They were some kind of strangely encased water elemental, as far as he understood, but that told him very little.

He ignored the frequently broken elevator and climbed to the third floor.  It took some juggling to get out his keys and to keep himself from having to set his groceries down on the floor, but after a few minutes of struggle, he made it inside.  

Three cats launched themselves at his legs, meowing.  The smallest one tried to climb up his leg, tugging at the top of his boots.  

He struggled to walk over to the kitchen, dropping the grocery bag onto the counter.  He rummaged through it and one of his cats jumped up next to him, bashing his face against Grillby's hand.  The third stood back, a little, and meowed as loud as she could.  He had originally named her Cindy, after the common fire elemental name "Cinder," but ever since he discovered how loud she was capable of being, he thought of her as "little Papyrus."  

He pulled a small bag of cat treats out of his grocery bag, and the cacophony grew louder.  The part of him that had spent too much time around Sans thought of it as a "catcophony."  He pushed that thought away.  

The kitten dug her claws into his leg.  

He poured some treats into his hand and knelt down.  The cat on the counter jumped down and all three  took their treats.  He tossed a few kibbles away and used the minute of freedom that gave him to start putting away his groceries.

Half an hour later, he settled in on his couch.  One cat was curled up against his leg, another was in his lap, and the third was on the back of the couch, purring against his shoulder.  He turned the pages of his book very carefully, to not disturb them.  

Grillby heard his phone buzz with another message, probably just from Red Bird again, but the phone was too far out of reach for him to bother to get it.  

His normal view through his window was obscured by white.  

Little Papyrus was distracted by a noise in the walls, and jumped off Grillby's lap to investigate.  Grillby stretched and stood up.  The cat at his back jumped down and went to sulk.  Grillby checked his phone, and as he scrolled through his messages, the main light in the room went dark.  The power was out.  

For a few seconds, all Grillby noticed was an odd silence.  

He started to hear people going out into the hallway, talking.  He sat back down on the couch.  An outage wasn't going to bother him until he needed to charge his phone.  Some of the human food in the fridge might go bad, eventually.

After another half an hour, he set down his book and headed into the hallway.  It was quiet out there, again.  Had it been colder out there than normal, before he got there?  It was difficult for him to tell.  

He went back into his apartment and picked up his book.  After a little consideration, he found a towel and a bag of chips.  He walked downstairs and set the towel on the floor next to the wall of mailboxes and sat on it.  Heat rose, right?  He wasted less energy keeping the building warm from downstairs.  

Humans were mostly staying huddled in their rooms, so he spent some time alone.  Through the glass front door, he could see the occasional slow moving lights passing by as cars tried to navigate the road outside.  The lights lit up the snow.  

One of the doors directly down the hall from him opened, and a human with white hair walked over to the mailboxes.  She made her way slowly, using a cane.  She stopped walking when she spotted him.  He shrugged and looked back down at his book.  He didn't want to intimidate her.

"This isn't right," she said.  She turned and went back down the hall, to her room.  A few minutes later, he heard her door open again, and when he turned to look, he jumped immediately to his feet.  She was struggling out her door trying to carry a folding chair and her cane at the same time.  

"You shouldn't get your nice clothes all dirty sitting on the floor," she said.  

".......thank you," he said.  

"I was wondering why it was so warm, with the power still out."  

He set up the folding chair by the mailboxes and, at her insistence, took a seat. 

"It's something, out there."  She checked her mail and went back to her apartment.  

The man with the nicotine habit came down the stairs and looked startled, for a second, to see Grillby.  He went over to the door and stared out, forlorn.  After a minute, he zipped his coat up higher and started to open the front door.

"...are you really...?"  Grillby started to stand up, but the man shook his head.

"I won't freeze two inches from the building, but, thanks, man.  Keep doing, uh, whatever you're doing."  He must have found another lighter, because he didn't even ask Grillby for help with that before heading out.  

When he came back, he was covered in a layer of snow from just a few minutes outside.  He took two steps towards Grillby and it melted. He walked over and it evaporated.  He rubbed his hands together, near Grillby's arm.  "Man.  I gotta quit, one of these days. Thanks."  He went back upstairs.  

Grillby tried to get back into his book, but he heard someone coming down the steps, and it was the same man as before.  He was carrying a paper plate with cookies on it, covered in plastic.  "Happy, uh, Gyftmas," he said.  

"...thank you?"  Grillby took it.  He tried one when it looked like the human was waiting for him to do something.  It wasn't amazing, but he could tell it was homemade.  He nodded, not sure how to express his appreciation beyond a thank you.  Maybe he could bake a return gift.

Grillby was just getting back into his book when the power came back on.  He waited to see if it stayed on, and then brought the chair back to the human who lent it to him.  He went to his apartment and made himself dinner, still watching the snow coming down outside.  

The next morning, there was a card taped to his door.  It was a Christmas card, signed by the people on his floor.  They wrote "THANK YOU!" in block letters inside it.  Some of the signatures looked like they were from children.  

His face turned blue.  He brought the card inside and stuck it to his fridge.  

The ground outside was all white -- flat and unbroken.  Snow was still coming down, slower.  After a while, people started to tentatively step out.  He knew the second the first child came out, from the shouting, and it was only a short time before the courtyard was filled with little ones.  It sounded like school had been canceled.  

Grillby sent a few messages off, and went back into his bedroom.  

A cat was napping in the spot he had just gotten up from, but she didn't mind being moved a few inches.  The yelling and shrieking laughter of the children outside faded into background noise.  As he fell back asleep, and all three cats curled up against him, for a moment he was almost sure he was back in Snowdin.