There aren't enough Ruby Gloom fics out there, especially ones that give Frank and Len their fair share of focus, so I figured I had to write my own. ^^

It was dark out when Frank woke up, which meant it was time for a midnight snack. He sat up, couch springs squeaking, and stretched, curled his fingers and toes. Len was still asleep - that was the only time Frank had full control over his left limbs.

"Hey, Len, wake up-" He reached over to smack Len round the head, but his fingers connected with nothing but air.

His stomach dropped down to all ten of his toes.

Someone had decapitated Len.

Frank burst to his feet, clutching at his hair.

"Oh God, we're bleeding! We're dying! Someone killed Len!"

"Who killed Len?"

Frank spun around to see Len sitting up in bed, rubbing at his sleepy eyes.

"Someone chopped your head off!" Frank shrieked.

"What?" Len leapt to his feet as well, eyes wide with panic.

Frank froze.

If Len was standing there…

Gingerly, Frank felt along his left shoulder. No bloody stump of Len's neck…

"It worked! Guys, it really worked!"

The garage doors burst open. A boy Frank had never seen before, dark-skinned and green-eyed, black curls falling across his forehead, bounded into the room.

"Finally! Now that I have skin - now that I know what I look like - I can finally find out who I am!"

Those clothes were so familiar. And that voice… It could only mean-

"You ate Skull Boy!" Len shouted, pointing an accusing finger (his right hand, that was supposed to be Frank's hand) at the dark-skinned boy.

"No, Len," Frank said, putting a hand on Len's shoulder - and he was standing on his brother's left side, that had never, ever happened before. "That is Skull Boy."

Skull Boy's jaw dropped (not literally, now) as he took in the brothers. Frank looked down at his own hand and, in the moonlight streaming past Skull Boy, realized his skin had lost its bluish tone. It was pink now, beigey-pink, and a shade or two lighter than Len's new pink skin.

"What happened to you guys?"

"What happened to you, Skull Boy?" Len said, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

Skull Boy started to pace in the doorway, chewing on his lip. He had actual lips now, and a broad nose and ears that stuck out a little.

"When I activated the machine, it must have affected you guys, too," he muttered.

"Uh, Skull Boy-"

"I have to go tell Ruby about this!" Skull Boy called, already dashing towards the house. Over his shoulder, he added, "You guys are naked, by the way!"

"I guess our clothes ripped when we split," Frank said, pulling a shirt over his head. The extra neck hole left his shoulder bare and cold.

Len froze halfway through pulling on a pair of pants.

"Oh my God, Frank, we split!"

"Yes, Len, we did."

"Like, we're not sharing a body anymore!"

"I know, Len."

Len looked down at his hands. "Awesome! That means I get to paint all of my nails!"

Frank groaned.

It was nice to be able to face-palm with two hands.

Skull Boy dashed up the stairs. His body felt strangely slow and heavy, weighed down by skin and muscle and organs.

He was too busy watching his feet (they felt so clumsy and heavy and wide) to notice Misery making her way down the hall towards him until he'd run right into her.

"Ow."

"Sorry, Misery." He got to his feet - without having to stick his bones back together! - and offered her his hand.

"You look… different," Misery observed.

"Oh, yeah, uh…" He watched Misery wander away down the hall, muttering to herself. "Uh, you don't!"

And she didn't. She had the same sickly purple-grey tone to her skin, the same sleek black hair the trailed behind her on the floor…

He winced as a resounding crash echoed through the hall. (Was it just his imagination, or did things sound sharper, clearer, to his new ears?)

"Ow."

She had the same bad luck, too.

He'd changed. Frank and Len had changed. But Misery hadn't?

His urge to ask Ruby about the matter intensified, and he loped off down the hall again.

Because that was what everyone did at Gloomsville Manor. Ask Ruby. She had an answer for everything, and it made Skull Boy's heart swell with affection. (And now he actually had a heart, which sent a thrill down his spine.)

"Ruby!" His (now skin-covered) knuckles rapped against her bedroom door. "Ruby?"

It finally occurred to him that it was the middle of the night, and that Ruby was probably asleep… He didn't have time to feel properly guilty, though, because Ruby's bedroom door swung open.

"What's wrong, Skull…"

Her voice trailed off and her jaw went slack.

Same porcelain-white skin, same stitching around her eyes. Ruby hadn't changed at all either.

"Skull Boy?"

He grinned, spread his arms wide.

"It's me. The new-and-improved Skull Boy!"

She swallowed, almost frowned, and for a moment it looked like Ruby's infallible good humour had failed her - Skull Boy's now very real heart clenched painfully in his chest…

Then Ruby laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. (A hug! A hug, and he could feel it on every inch of his new skin, soft and electric.)

"You look great!" she said, pulling away. "How did this happen?"

"Well, it was one of my latest inventions. I'm pretty sure I'm related to a long line of mad scientists, Ruby! And now that I know what I look like…"

Why had she hugged him? Where had that impulse come from? Ruby chewed on her lip and tried to smile as he explained his latest invention in detail.

Stranger things than this had happened before in Gloomsville, but it was still hard to believe that this was Skull Boy. (And it occurred to Ruby that the name was somewhat less… accurate now.) Skin like chocolate instead of the pure whiteness of bone, a body with muscle and weight instead of the stick-thinness of a skeleton, and so much expression in his mouth and his eyes.

He was attractive (he'd always been attractive, and the thought made Ruby blush enough to turn away from Skull Boy's gaze) but this was… unsettling.

"Ruby? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Really." She smiled up at him. "What were you saying about Frank and Len?"

"For some reason, activating my machine affected them, too! But you and Misery look exactly the same…"

Her eyes widened.

"What did it do to Frank and Len?"

"Well-" Skull Boy's answer was interrupted by two figures bursting into the room.

It took Ruby a second to realize who the two figures were.

"Frank? …Len?"

Len, with skin that wasn't green and a body that wasn't attached to Frank's, leaned in towards Ruby and whispered, "So. Has he confessed to being an impostor yet?"

Frank rolled his eyes and groaned. "You still aren't getting it, Len."

Well, that was comfortingly familiar, even if everything else was becoming almost too strange even for Ruby.

"What exactly did your machine do, Skull Boy?" she asked.

Skull Boy's cheeks flushed, actually filled with colour barely visible behind the darkness of his skin but still very much there in a way it never could have been when he'd been nothing but bone.

"Uh… I'm not exactly sure," he admitted, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. "I figured that if I knew what I looked like - with skin, I mean, not just bones - then maybe it would be easier to find my family! So when I saw a diagram in an old book for a machine that could turn a skeleton into a human - at least I'm pretty sure that's what the machine was for, I couldn't actually read the language it was written in - I figured I'd give it a shot?"

"But we were never skeletons," Len said, crossing his arms. He glanced over at Frank suspiciously. "Were we?"

"Technically-"

"Was it… this book?" Misery poked her head into the room, holding a dog-eared book open to a page full of strange illustrations.

"Uh, yeah," Skull Boy answered. His voice was somewhat drowned out by the crack of thunder accompanying a bolt of lightning that caused the book to burst into flames in Misery's hands.

Misery's eyes widened as ashes floated to her feet.

"You just created a machine," she said slowly, "That brings the undead back to life."