{While the humans are away, the toons will play...}

Earlier that morning…

"Don't open the doors, especially to strangers, and don't answer the phone. The phone is only for emergencies, no prank calls, Bendy, and no ordering pizza or take out, Boris," Henry went through the list to the crowd of toons, some of which were at least pretending to pay attention to him.

"He's at it again," Alison sighed.

"If only Linda didn't decide to do some early morning shopping after dropping her off for school," Susie agreed. Linda had brought her and Henry's daughter to school already that morning so she could do some Christmas shopping for her. "I think she could have driven us, too."

"There's plenty of pre-made food in the fridge as well as sandwich supplies, please, don't cook, I know none of you can cook. Fir-" Henry was cut off before he could finish the word.

"First aid kit is in the hall bathroom closet, they know," Sammy interjected. "Listen, I don't want to go through with this but I'd rather not spend all day listening to your safety list either, can we go already?"

"Alright, hang on," Henry sighed in agreement. "One more thing, I'm trusting you toons to watch TV and YouTube and stay out of trouble! I mean it!"

"Yeah, yeah, we get it," Bendy piped up, turning from a distracted black cat to the little devil. "I promise we won't cause trouble," he said with a grin, his hand crossing his fingers behind his back.

Henry didn't believe him and could definitely tell he was lying but didn't argue, just gave him a knowing look and turned towards everyone else. "We'll probably be there all day so if anyone wants to catch up on their reading, it's a good time for it."

Grant merely smiled and showed a scientific book about numbers he'd been reading through, everyone else looked tired at the sight of it.

Meanwhile, Bertrum was reading about theme parks and their attractions, like Disney World or Land, Universal, and such. He insisted it was to catch up with what all he missed in the past decade, but everyone figured he just liked reading about the attractions.

"We're going now," Henry announced, turning back to the toons. "Be good," he added. "We'll see you later."

"See ya!" "Bye!" and other such words were called from the toons as the humans left.

Bendy grinned. Time to see what he could do without getting into too much trouble.

.~.~.~.

Allie was relaxing in the window, laying on her back letting the white fur on her stomach soak up the sunlight and the heat. She could hear some cartoon playing, one she knew wasn't their cartoon, and smiled. Though she was trying to sleep, she welcomed such noises.

"Lemme see that," Bendy said.

She did not welcome that sound.

She rolled over onto her legs again to watch as Bendy took the laptop from the Butcher Gang, annoyed complaints uttered from the three even though he ignored them.

"You'll like this," he insisted. "See, I heard that some of the humans ran their own channels, I thought I'd be fun to look them up!"

That didn't sound too bad, so Allie curled into a ball to attempt further rest.

With a push of a button, loud music started blaring from the computer.

Allie groaned and hopped down from her perch, going to the kitchen where she had just caught a whiff of food. Of course, when she arrived, Boris was there making a sandwich happily, Brutus just eating the pieces to make one individually.

Allie purred and meowed happily as she leaped onto a chair at the table, turning into her toon form. "Pass me some of that?" she asked.

Boris looked a little upset about sharing food but pushed the supplies her way nonetheless.

She made herself a sandwich, which both wolfs probably would have laughed at with how mini it was, and started back towards the living room. The sound was lowered and back to a cartoon, Bendy must have gotten bored… that wasn't actually that good a sign.

The sound of clanging ornaments caught her attention. She ran to the tree along with the other toons who were just as curious and concerned.

At the top of the tree was a white and black cat.

"Alice?" Allie asked. "What are you doing up there?"

"Where else would an angel be?" Alice replied.

Allie groaned, even if she was a little amused.

.~.~.~.

Alice purred happily. The house was her kingdom as far as she was concerned and she could see at least most of a room fairly well from her spot on the top of the tree.

The thrill of being so high up and surveying her surroundings, the colorful lights against her fur, what was there not to love about climbing the Christmas tree? She could and, if she had her way, would stay up there all day.

The sound of a can opening ever so softly from the kitchen alerted her, but she was not going to give in to the temptation that easily. Even if it smelled like a mixture of chicken and tuna…

She could swear she wasn't hungry a second ago…

She began her descent down the tree as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, scurrying to the kitchen and hiding herself against the wall to see what was going on.

Bendy had turned into his toon form to open a cat of cat food and was now a cat again as he ate from the can. His back was turned to her.

She pounced and landed on his back, causing him to jump. She wasted no time in getting to the food while he landed next to her, 'nomming' sounds happily escaping her throat.

"Two can play at that game," she heard Bendy laugh.

A single claw hooked the edge of the can and it was ripped from her view, Bendy happily eating again. The game was on.

She stretched and yawned, pretending not to care or notice the food. Gently as as elegantly as she could, she began to leave the room. Then, when she knew Bendy didn't expect her, she raced back and pulled the can closer to herself, immediately taking a bite of food.

Bendy's nose suddenly stopped hers from getting back into the can as he bit down on the rim, picked it up, and carried it out of the room.

Alice quickly began to follow him, attempting to snatch the can back every time she got close enough.

They ran passed a child-sized tea-table where the Butcher Gang were casually eating finger sandwiches and drinking milk, the gang watching them.

They passed the box that Allie was napping in, the other cat waking up and watching them before walking to the kitchen. If they paid enough attention to her, they would have heard another can opening as she got her own food, but they were too caught up in their game of chase.

The chase finally ended in the living room when Bendy ducked underneath the coffee table and began guarding the can.

Boris and Brutus were both watching a movie intently before this happened, but neither of them cared too much about fight over a can of cat food. Why would they? They had sandwiches and a movie.

"Humph," Alice huffed as she turned away from Bendy and began to trot back towards the tree. She'd gotten multiple mouth-fulls, she was ready for a nap.

.~.~.~.

It was evening by the time the humans returned, and it was noticeable that not all of them came back.

Boris was curled up on the couch, sleeping in dog form. Allie was snoozing in her box again. Brutus was laying amongst the remains of a chew-toy that said it was for strong chewers but obviously had lied on the packaging.

The Butcher Gang were hanging out in their little tent-house, watching the humans return. They didn't really talk, but they did still groan vague messages to each other to convey their concern over the missing humans.

"We're home," Henry called, the sleeping toons waking up and coming forward to greet everyone. "Were you guys good while we were gone?" he asked with a soft laugh when he was approached by two fairly big dogs and a cat.

A single cat…

"Where's Alice and Bendy?" he sighed.

The Butcher Gang had gathered outside their tent to see this go down.

Alice was in the tree again and had thrown ornaments at anyone who got too close, as well as pounced on Boris's tail while he was asleep. Boris would probably tell the humans that and the gang were just here to see it play out.

Sure enough, a minute later came a call from one of the humans who'd just gotten hit with an ornament. "What the- Alice!" Thomas yelled, ducking as another ornament flew at him from the tree.

"Alice!" both Susie and Alison scolded the 'angel'. "Alice Angel get down here!"

"Boris said Alice bit his tail," Lacie told the other girls. Boris had indeed told the humans.

"Alice!" the scolded again.

Henry seemed exhausted as he surveyed the ciaos. "Do I want to know where Bendy is?" he groaned.

Piper took pity on the man and tugged at his sleeve, urging him to follow him to the kitchen. Once there, he pointed up where Bendy was hanging out on the top of the cabinets.

"Bendy, we've been over this," Henry scolded him.

"Somebody shredded the paper towel roll again," Norman commented, walking up with the remainder of the roll.

"Bendy, did you shred all the paper goods again?" Henry asked with a groan.

"Not all of 'em," Bendy defended himself. "You told me not to and I didn't."

"Than how come we're out of toilet paper in all the bathrooms?" Linda asked, walking in and lifting an eyebrow at the little devil.

Bendy just grinned like the Cheshire cat but didn't say anything.

Henry turned to look at the toon next to him. "Piper?" he asked.

Piper attempted to convey what had occurred without words. He pointed at Bendy, took the paper towel roll and unrolled part of it, and made a motion like he was pressing a button or lever.

"You flushed all the toilet paper?!" Henry asked, turning back to Bendy.

"Can't even talk and he's still a tattle tale," Bendy muttered.

{It was brought to my attention that I hadn't used the toons in a while, which is a disgrace, they're in the title. I do wish I could have used more of them as main characters in this chapter, but like the humans, there were too many to work with at once.

I took a lot of inspiration from my pets for this: the cat climbing the tree, seemingly teleporting over when you open a can or deli-meat, and 'nomming' on the dog's tail (not violently, just play-nipping). The dog is cute as well, way less mischievous than the cat, but I wasn't able to figure something out to, hopefully Boris and Brutus will get more content soon ^-^ Both pets are helping me edit.

With that, this is the last chapter for 2019. Thanks for reading and have a happy New Year ^-^}