Replanted Remastered

Home Away from Home

Alice sat quietly on the bed in Crazy Dave's guest room, reading a cheesy old superhero comic and thinking through the events of their day so far. Sweetpea lay quietly, staring at the ceiling above him. Their mind kept drifting from their comic, however, and back to the fact that they were.. alive. They were there, sitting in Crazy Dave's guest room. They set down their comic and took out their photo of Markus. They stared at his panicked expression, the shakiness of it all.. He'd risked his life just to give Alice a better chance of finding him, they thought. As they studied the image, worry clouded their mind further and further.

Markus was alone.

Their mind was brought away from the image when Pudding barged in. "Hey, Frosty! How you liking your new space?" she asked.

"Oh, hey Pudding. It's.. nice," Alice replied.

"Cool. Dave's gonna watch some The Chosen Bun tonight, if you wanna join him. You said you liked it, right?"

"Yeah, I like Chosen Bun. I'll think about it,"

"Awesome. Well, that means I served my purpose. See ya." Pudding left, shutting the door behind her. Alice glanced back at their photo, then put it back in their pocket. They needed to relax. Returning to their comic, they passed through page after page of awful dialogue and unintentionally hilarious dramatic beats, enjoying every panel of it.

"See, Sweetpea? This is the good kind of bad comic. Like, it's bad, but it's funny. -And it's not a complete series ruiner, unlike one comic I know," Alice said. Sweetpea rolled his eyes and turned over, facing away from them. Alice's smile dropped, and they closed their comic. They stood up from the bed and padded over to the window, looking out it at the sky. The clouds had started to part, just as the sun neared the horizon.

"I can't believe we're really here," said Alice. "Can you?" they turned back to Sweetpea. He didn't seem to respond in any way that they could see. "..I'm gonna take that as a no,"

Alice sat at the desk in front of the window, leaning their elbows against it and resting their head in their hands. They spun around in their chair, staring at the room around them. They'd already put their spare clothes in the drawer and stacked their comics in a pile on the floor next to the bed, but their art supplies still remained unpacked. They rummaged through their bag and placed their supplies on the desk, organizing them. -Then organizing them again. Once they were finished, they spun their chair again to look at Sweetpea.

"We really live here now, huh?" said Alice. Sweetpea looked up at them and shrugged. "It's so weird.. I hope Markus likes it here once we find him." Sweetpea averted his eyes, then laid back down. Alice assumed he was trying to sleep. They stared back out the window, watching the sunset.

Sundown was close enough to 'tonight', right?

Alice left the guest room and headed downstairs, wandering around the first floor to find Crazy Dave. The house was much larger than it appeared from the outside, and they were a tad paranoid that they'd get lost within the many rooms. Eventually, they stepped into a tiny room, spying Crazy Dave sitting on the floor in front of an old box tv. He had a bowl of popcorn on one side of him, and an unfamiliar plant at the other. The plant appeared to be a rainbow colored sunflower, dozing softly.

"..Hi, Crazy Dave," Alice said upon closing the door behind them. "Pudding told me you'd be watching some The Chosen Bun,"

Crazy Dave turned around and smiled once he saw them. "You like Chosen Bun? Oh boy, I haven' met another fan of it in ages! C'mere, sit down. I've got snacks!"

Alice cautiously approached him and sat down next to him. He was flipping through the old Dvd menu, looking at all the seasons available. The Dvd was clearly older, as it only had the first five of the fourteen seasons.

"I don' get why this show isn' as popular as it used t'a be. It's a masterpiece!" said Crazy Dave.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a masterpiece, but it's pretty good. Isn't this show like fourty years old?"

"Thirty-eight. Came out when I was around yer' age. I've loved it since I first saw it." he selected the first season and pressed play. He hummed along to the intro theme, punctuated by occasional munches of popcorn.

There was a bout of silence as the show's first episode played by. The two watched it with little commentary.

"-My niece loved watchin' this show with me when she was a youngin' like you," he said. "You might've heard of 'er. D'you recognize th' name Patrice Blazing?"

"Oh, yeah, I know who Patrice is,"

"She n' her friend used to come 'ere almost every day, 'til a few years back, when Zomboss gave up for a while. I still don' know why he did it, but after his schemin' stopped, those two stopped comin' over as often. Since both of 'em graduated, I haven't seen em in person in ages,"

"That's kinda sad."

There was a pause.

"..Why are you telling me this?" asked Alice.

"I'm jus' happy to have another young determined gardener here. It's been a long time, y'know. You remind me of 'em. Even if yer' only here for a lil' while, you remind me of when I wasn't so lonely." he sighed. "Puddin's been my only company for a long time. Plants 're nice, but they can't talk back. Well, 'cept for her,"

"I don't know how I'd manage if my only company was someone like Pudding," Alice said jokingly.

"Oh, Puddin's brash, but she's nicer once she warms up to ya'. 'Unless yer' Nate Timely. She never did like that kid,"

"Weird,"

They went back to watching the show. They cautiously took a handful of popcorn.

It was some nice popcorn.