Warmed

Once that's all happened, Scream and The Gardener are both happily walking upstairs giggling together, like they were still teenagers. Which is actually adorable to see.

On my front, Kara and the Amours are inside, and the Amours retreat to the ballroom they co-opted when they first got here, and then Personal drags me upstairs, waiting impatiently at the top for me to get to the top after I wave away their help. Once finally there, they keep having me along before they stop in front of a door which, if memory serves, is one of the informal living rooms. Inside, there is a fire going which explains the smoke from the chimney, and everybody else is already in there except Kara and the Amours, Kara having been following me upstairs and now stands in the doorway behind me, looking over my shoulder. On the lintel is a TV, which has been hooked up to a Nintendo Switch, and on the screen it displays Mario Kart. I grin happily, because although I'm terrible at Mario Kart, I like hanging out with my friends and playing stuff like this. Half the room has a controller in hand, and the other half seems to be waiting for their turn, given that only four people can play at once. I awkwardly settle down into an open armchair, which everyone seems to have been leaving for me given The Gardener, Personal and Bodies are all perched on the arms of chairs across the room, and Rectified is laying on the floor in front of the fire, where Lolita is sitting quite happily. Given she's set in front of the fire with Rectified patting her, I reckon my girl is pretty happy with her lot in life. Although you can never really tell with a cat.

Everybody is playing and smiling, and I'm having a really great time. Slowly, the fire starts to die out, which makes everybody check their phones and watches, having completely lost track of time. Soon we realise that it's like midnight, which nobody particularly cares about the lateness of except for the fact that there are so many cool things to do at midnight, and we have been playing Mario Kart for like three hours or something, if not longer. Which soon leads to a raucous game of Cards Against Humanity. At the end of the night, there's no clear winner as to Mario Kart, although Explosive still claims he won, and Personal wins Cards Against Humanity by a weird amount, due to their zero qualms about playing the worst possible combinations.

I could walk back to my room, but everything is warm and cosy here, and it's late, and I fall asleep to the crackling of the fire and the murmurings of my friends.