I was originally planning on only doing something if Goth won the Twitter poll, but this idea came to me partway through the voting process and I felt like you guys deserved something nice after being so patient with me.

***

Trumpets heralded the end of the competition as confetti began raining down from the ceiling. Goth pulled his eye light away from the overhead display showing the poll results as a golden crown appeared on PJ's skull, tilting sideways into the hole toward the back, and a sash labeled '#1 Cutest' materialized across their chest. Ink ran up to the dark-boned skelinkton, shouting that he knew 'Pencilcase' could do it. Gradient and another dark-boned skelinkton in a blue and fuchsia hoodie holding a child wearing a red and orange striped headpiece walked up at a more casual pace, smiling and giving their adulation. Error stood a fair distance away staring at the congregation with their usual broody disdain, though the monster also looked kind of proud; he wasn't aware such a thing was possible.

As for Goth himself, he wasn't sure how he felt at that moment. He wouldn't really call what he was feeling jealousy; Raven already had that covered from their loss in the first round. No, if he had to put a name to it, he would probably call it... disappointment? That sounded pretty accurate. He had always been called cute by everyone he met for as long as he could remember, so he pegged himself as a shoo-in for a 'cutest fanchild' competition; maybe he wasn't as cute as everyone made him out to be...

"You were sooo close!" he was swept off of the ground by his best friend and crush Palette; their voice held as much exuberance as their dad displayed moments ago, "but still, you did really good!"

 More or less used to the spontaneous hugs, the smaller skeleton let himself dangle in their arms like a ragdoll and snorted, "Thanks, you didn't do too bad yourself." Leave it to Palette to bring out the best in any situation; it was especially admirable considering he had lost the previous round to Goth and had to share third place with three other participants, whereas he didn't have to share second with anyone.

"Nice job, kiddo," Goth heard his dad to his left; his mom and Raven were with him, "Ya both did us proud."

"I lost in the first round, though," Raven pointed out, trying to seem indifferent but obviously bummed out.

"So did I," Reaper countered with a shrug, "But ya made it onto the ballot. There's lotsa kids who didn't even make the cut; that's worth something."

"They should have placed higher," Geno grumbled, wrapping his arms around his younger son's shoulders, "and Goth definitely should have won."

"Yeah," Palette nodded eagerly, setting Goth down as his face scrunched up, "PJ's always so grumpy and hates everything; Goth's way, way cuter than him."

Goth felt a bit flustered by the commentary, but hummed non-committally; a mom would always be biased toward their kids and Palette just didn't like PJ because they called him a reject a couple of years ago and spurned his attempts at any type of stepsibling relationship... but watching said monster interacting with his younger brother and what looked to be his spouse and kid, he actually looked pretty calm and happy. There really wasn't any helping it if people liked him more...

"Oh, I know!" The exclamation brought him back to the conversation, and he turned just in time to see Palette starting to unravel their paint-stained scarf. Watching silently, he was even more puzzled when they took it off, only to drape one side over Goth's right shoulder and crouched to tie the ends off at his left hip.

As Palette rocked back into a standing position and the loose tails flopped onto the floor, Goth voiced his confusion, "Umm... why am I wearing your scarf?"

Palette grinned, pulling him into another hug, "It's your winner's sash, silly. I don't have anything for a crown, but I bet I have something I can use to make one at home."

"... Buuut I didn't win," Goth stared up at him quizzically.

Palette replied, "Maybe you didn't officially win, but you're still the cutest to me; that means you get your own stuff."

"I like the sound of that," Geno began undoing his own scarf and mimicked Palette's earlier action by affixing it over Raven's right shoulder, "you two will always be number one in our book, no matter what some dumb poll says."

"Couldn't've said it better myself," Reaper chuckled, reaching out to rub Raven's skull affectionately.

"T-Thank mom; dad...," Raven mumbled with a blush; he looked a little embarrassed, but also pretty happy. Goth could relate, and his mom's words made him realize it was just a dumb poll; the opinions of the people he cared about mattered more than those of some random strangers. He hugged one of the arms wrapped around him, feeling much better about the results now.

"By the way," Palette tilted his skull, looking at Goth in askance, "I saw people calling you things like 'the skrunkle', 'blerbo', and 'my little meow meow'... what do they m-"

"We should go get nice cream!" Goth blurted out, uncaring of how purple his face was or the voice crack that caused Raven to burst out laughing while Reaper at least tried to hide his amusement by turning away.

There was a gasp, followed by, "That's a great idea!" Before Goth could feel relief that his crush fell for the distraction, Raven fell to the floor clutching his sides and cackling as tears began welling up at the corners of his sockets; Reaper coughed to stifle a laugh, hunching over a little more. The smaller skeleton glared at his brother as Palette finally set him back down, "What's so funny?"

"Don't mind them, they think everything is hilarious," Geno huffed, glancing up at the screen holding the poll result that also featured a clock in the bottom right corner, "If we're going for nice cream, I know a place nearby, but we should head out now since it gets pretty busy around this time." 

Raven picked himself up off of the floor and the parent ushered his husband and younger son to the door, but not before shooting Goth a knowing look along with a furtive smile that had him returning the gesture. Once again, mom saved the day; he supposed moms were good at things like that, and his mom had a lot of experience. 

"Come on, we should hurry before the line gets too long," Palette grabbed Goth's hand, tugging him along as he put the competition out of his mind in favor of deciding what flavor he wanted to celebrate with.

***

Hope you guys enjoyed the story; it's been weird not posting every month after doing so for so long, but it was fun to do something short and sweet. I'm still working on the longer story I've been teasing, it's just that the proverbial snowball keeps rolling down the hill and giving me character interaction ideas that require yet another chapter to really tackle sufficiently. What started as a ten-chapter blurb has grown into a twenty-four-chapter behemoth (so far), but I'm determined to at least get it out before the end of the year. Pray for me.

Word Count: 1,098