#he’s gonna come to 4 brunette kids
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devastatinglygreen · 7 months ago
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weird how we’re not seeing samadani shooters telling everyone how he’s better than john
weird how no one wants francesca to settle for the guy who won’t make her happy in the end
weird how everyone knows she would be unhappy with anything less than love
wonder why it’s suddenly different for penelope 🤔
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elizabebabe · 4 months ago
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𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐠𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ꕤ 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨
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𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡: yoga teacher y/n’s student has her thinking unprofessional thoughts.
minors dni!
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| “you got so wet so quickly…been a while since someone touched you baby?”
| “damn — spread open for me, on your mat?”
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: use of y/n, pet name, smut with little plot, fingering, f!masturbation, fantasies, horny!y/n, lowk lonely!y/n.
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.1k!
𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: kicking off the remodel with a one-shot !! zabe loves yoga, zabe loves chris, mix em together?
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“today we’ll be doing a few more advanced stretches, stretching out your backs, calves and any other tight muscles.” your voice echoed through the studio, your students crisscrossed on their mats awaiting instruction.
you had early morning classes every day of the week but wednesday was particularly your favorite since you got to see a certain student, his name was chris and yes he was handsome but he also cared about your profession or…maybe less about your profession and more about yoga itself.
he wanted you to help him fix his bad back, asking questions, asking for advice, you needed to be professional which is why all your attempts of asking for his number ended in failure.
you turned on your speakers, the usual calm, lyricless music waving through the room, also not forgetting to turn off the lights to give a more relaxed feel you always wanted to share with your students.
“we’re gonna start how we always start, savasana.” you scrambled around the room, stepping between bodies laying atop their personal mats ensuring everyone knew what they were doing.
you took 3-4 minutes to correct anyone making mistakes and marking who could use a bit of help, some days of the week you had kids joining in with their guardian, on wednesdays you have a pretty mixed group of ages so it can be hard to “grade”.
“alright, that’s savasana.” 
“come up to ‘mountain’ pose.” you continue, stepping on your mat to follow along to your own instructions, trying to ignore your eyes telling you to gaze at the brunette man in the front row.
⋆˚。⋆୨୧˚
after an hour of tough stretches, your class huffed and puffed on their way out but one man stayed behind.
“hey.” he nudged at your turned back.
“oh! hi.” the interaction taking you by surprise as you never really interacted, “what can i do for you.” you smiled awkwardly.
“well, with the ‘cobra’ pose.” he hiked his yoga mats strap over his shoulder, “i’m struggling with getting my back that low, it kinda hurts.” he says with a cute, loose smile maybe embarrassed by what he’s saying.
“oh no! if it hurts, find a way to make it more comfortable for you.” you gestured with your hands.
“it shouldn’t hurt, maybe uncomfortable but it shouldn’t hurt—“ the rambling of yours continued.
he snickered which interrupted your words, “thanks.” he gently patted your shoulder before turning towards and out the glass door.
the embarrassment he felt now flipped on you as you wanted to crawl into a hole from the exchange.
⋆˚。⋆୨୧˚
your drive home was silent as you sat overthinking about what played on your mind, ‘he just wanted advice, he doesn’t like you.’
‘why did he touch you then?’
‘it was a pat on the damn shoulder, did you see how fast he got out of there?’
you felt crazy as voices in your head fought over something so small, your key turned into the knob of your apartment door, remembering the exam you promised yourself to study for.
you were in community college, typically only having one class a day left lots of time to work on your yoga studio your parents helped pay for.
you threw your tote and mat to the ground, ignoring the thought to change into some of your loose pajamas and sitting at your small dining table for one.
the first few minutes of studying were fine, even taking off your fitted white jacket as you got in the zone. you were able to focus and concentrate on the work ahead of you but that didn’t stop the little voice in your head nagging about him.
you knew his name was chris or at least that’s what he filled out on the forms you had tucked in a random cabinet—
‘this is crazy.’ you huffed before averting your attention back to your notebook.
you scrolled through your phone immediately contradicting yourself by looking for different chris’s throughout social media — ‘doesn't he follow the studio's instagram?’
you scrolled through the following list before finding him, his handsome face adorning his profile picture and only a few photos on his feed, but you loved every second of scrolling through them..
adjusting yourself in your chair every so often at the sight of his beautifully crafted face, you couldn't help your fingers sliding past the waistband of your tight leggings that matched that thrown fitted jacket and quickly underneath your light blue panties that you could only hope chris would see one day.
your fingers quickly found your wet folds slipping through the slick and imagining it was the man from your front row, “you got so wet so quickly…been a while since someone touched you baby?” his voice echoed through your head.
the guilt you felt from thinking about him almost warranted you to stop but when your finger accidentally grazed over your clit you couldn’t stop yourself.
the actions continued, one of your fingers dipping into your soppy hole, another leaving airy touches on your clit.
it wasn’t enough, even with his face and his veiny hands you remember pressing firmly into the mat beneath him you couldn’t hit the right spots you knew those long fingers of his could.
but it didn’t stop you from trying, you pushed deeper into yourself once you slid down the wooden chair you uncomfortably sat in the position of your hips reminding you of when you instructed him through a certain pose even showing him a private demonstration, your fingers curling and grazing that spongy spot you aimed for, you remember that day, silently begging him to make a move, touch you in a any way but he never did.
trying to focus on your fantasy as you pumped into yourself made you wetter, “damn — spread open for me, on your mat?” you imagined him laying you down, taking his time while he undressed you, your drippy hole dripping onto the mat beneath you both.
“you’re gonna have to clean this later.” he says, scissoring his fingers inside you, eliciting a moan from your throat.
“gonna think about me when you do it?” 
“how wet i get you?” he continued.
“chris..” you grunted as your body buzzed and legs shook, you were close and all because you “stumbled” upon his instagram, your fingers picked up speed, vigorous motion ensued on your sensitive bud.
the rope snapping in your stomach halting your movements, your mouth agape and sweat dotting your skin.
a certain ’ding’ brought your attention back to your phone.
an instagram dm, a unexpected “can we talk?” from the man you finished all over your fingers for.
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second smut baby !! and it’s about my man..
i hate this :( that’s why it took me so long to post bc i was debating whether it was too lackluster but i wanted to post something while i work on longer things, again thank you for the support on ‘southern belle’ and i love you. ��️
🏷️ @fratbrochrisgf @3lizaluvs @lily-strnlo @i-love-ptv @venusjaynie @jetaimevous @lizzysmith110 @firexovni @bagsbyclair0
i hope you’re satisfied with your purchase!
© elizabebabe
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peachhcs · 7 months ago
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his eyes bounced down to a reply in the thread that linked the video footage of the hit. the blonde clicked into the 20 second video where he watched the girl from the other team plow into samy sending her straight to the ground. he watched her lay there without getting up until her teammates began crowding her.
Considering it's an away game, a concerning amount of the umich hockey team are in the stands, loosing it
There are also three very concerned hughes brothers scattered across the country watching
part 3!
part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7
"what the fuck!" ethan yelled as soon as samy hit the ground. the others around him began mumbling in disbelief, waiting for the ref to throw up a red card.
"that was illegal!" mark yelled right alongside the brunette. the two stood there in disbelief and worry that samy hadn't gotten up yet.
"shit, is she okay?" gavin wondered while almost the entire team's gaze never left the girl down on the field.
"she's not getting up," gabe mumbled from beside the older boys.
"shit, come on samy. get up, get up," ethan mumbled under his breath.
by that time, the coach and athletic trainers were on the field with her. no one could see the brunette because of everyone's bodies hiding her from the stands and the other players. there was still nothing from the refs either.
"that was a fucking card! where's the card!" ryan yelled which got boston's side going because they didn't get why a bc kid was cheering for a umich kid.
"why the fuck are you cheering for the other team?" some stranger yelled over at the boys' section.
"fuck off! she just got hurt!" mark yelled back which shut that other person up fairly quickly.
meanwhile, jack and luke watched the live stream from the comfort of their couch, mouths wide open waiting for their baby sister to get back up.
"why isn't she getting up?" jack muttered.
"the other team hit right into her. they haven't even given a card yet!" luke exclaimed and quickly went to his phone to get any updates from their parents that were there.
ellen picked up on the third ring.
"mom, what the hell's happening? is she okay?" luke put the call on speaker so jack could listen in.
"they're still looking at her on the field right now. the guys aren't too happy about it," the older woman explained.
"why haven't they given that other girl a red card? that was an illegal hit. she did that on purpose," luke continued in frustration.
"the refs are ignoring the stands as they watch the replay," ellen said.
"watch the replay? did they not see that girl hit samy purposefully??" jack rolled his eyes.
"hold on, quinn's calling now too. i'm adding him to this call," a second later, quinn joined.
"you're on the call with luke and jack, too," ellen said to her sons.
"what's going on with this play? the live stream stopped showing what's happening?" quinn urged for some answers.
"they're still looking at her. she took a really hard hit. it looks like her shoulder."
"shit. if it's her shoulder, she's not gonna be able to play or they won't want her to," jack hummed and he knew that would piss samy off because she hated being out of the game.
"wait, she's getting up. your father and i are gonna go down and meet her. we'll call you guys back," ellen hurried out before hanging up.
people in the stands began clapping once samy was up, glad she was okay enough to walk. ethan and mark exchanged a glance watching samy walk back through the tunnel with the trainers. they had a huge ice pack wrapped around her right shoulder.
"fuck, that doesn't look good," gavin muttered.
"wait, the refs are coming back out," ethan nudged the guys' arms as they anxiously awaited what the card would be.
the ref held out a yellow card—a warning.
"what the fuck! that was red card!" ethan immediately yelled, not caring if he got kicked out of the game.
"no fucking way. they're blind!" ryan exclaimed as well.
the refs didn't say anything else and the game continued on without samy while the twitter headlines started breaking about the hit.
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nebulablakemurphy · 2 years ago
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Moves & Countermoves (Part 4)
Summary: No one ever wins the games, even fourteen years later, Y/N is still playing.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
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Caesar’s audience goes wild over Katniss. The volunteering, the dry humor and the dress to top it off. It’s more than her mentors hoped for; huddled at the viewing screen, on the twelfth floor. The people will remember her.
“How’d I do?” Katniss asks, immediately upon return.
“You were wonderful,” Effie rejoices.
The brunette looks to Y/N, tucked up under Haymitch’s arm. “Better than anything Haymitch could have scripted for you.”
He wrestles Y/N closer in retaliation. “Nice work, sweetheart.”
Katniss hasn’t known them for a particularly long time, but it is odd to find them so entangled without cause. Is something wrong? She has no more than a moment to ponder; now Peeta is in the hot seat.
“So Peeta, tell me, is there a special girl back home?” The master of ceremonies grins.
“There is this one girl who I’ve had a crush on forever.” He admits with the crowd now wrapped around his finger.
“Well, surely if you win she’ll have to go out with you.” Caesar laughs.
“No, I don’t think winning’s gonna help me at all.” His easy smile is lost, now solemn in this confession.
“And why is that?”
“Because she came here with me.”
Haymitch huffs a laugh, “kid’s got a knack for this.”
“Well that’s bad luck, isn’t it?” Caesar laments.
“Yeah, it is.” Peeta lowers his gaze. Earning him a few sympathetic sighs.
“And I wish you all the best of luck. Peeta Mellark!”
The audience cheers him off stage. Sending an unsuspecting baker’s boy into the elevator to meet the fuming girl on fire.
“She’s gonna kill him.” Y/N warns Haymitch, in a whisper.
“Relax, he’s helping her.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.” Y/N knows Katniss well enough by now.
Her fears are confirmed when Katniss clamps her hand around Peeta’s shoulder and shoves him up against the wall. “What the hell was that?”
“Ahhh!” Effie squeals at the sight. These people are savages.
“You don’t talk to me, then you say you have a crush on me? You say you wanna train alone? Is that how you wanna play? Huh?” Katniss seethes, keeping her partner pinned there.
Peeta does not fight, makes no move to free himself.
“Stop it,” Haymitch shouts. Watching Y/N peel Katniss off of Peeta.
“Let’s start right now!”
“Stop it!” Haymitch repeats. Taking Katniss by the arm so Y/N can check on Peeta.
“You ok?” She gives the boy a once over.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, still in shock.
“He did you a favor,” Haymitch explains. Strategically speaking, she should be thanking him.
“He made me look weak.”
“He made you look desirable. Which in your case, can’t hurt, sweetheart.”
“He’s right, Katniss,” Cinna steps in.
“Of course I’m right.” Only been doing this twenty-four damn years. “Now, we can sell the star crossed lovers from district twelve.” Haymitch reasons.
“We are not star crossed lovers!” Katniss lunges for Peeta again.
“It’s a television show!” Haymitch snaps. Feeling Y/N’s hand on his back, steadying him. “Being in love with that boy might just get you sponsors; which could save your damn life.”
“Let’s get to bed, hmm?” Y/N pats Peeta gently on the cheek. “Tomorrow is a big day.” She steps around her husband to give Katniss the same treatment.
“Good idea,” Haymitch decides. These kids will be the death of him. “Maybe we can deliver you both in one piece.”
————————————————————————
“You stay away from the cornucopia, it’s a bloodbath. Look for allies, water and high ground; remember what I taught you. They’ll show the fallen tributes in the sky each night, incase you lose count of the cannon.”
Peeta nods, hands clasped in Y/N’s as they approach ground level. Katniss is with Haymitch, in the adjacent elevator, receiving similar wisdom.
“If there’s no water, that’s where sponsors come in. We’ll send it as soon as we can.” Y/N tells him. Cover all your bases, this is your last chance.
“What about Katniss?”
“Same goes for Katniss, whatever you need, I’ll do my best to get.”
“I asked Haymitch to throw my sponsor’s money to Katniss.” Peeta tells his mentor. “Save her, for her sister.”
“You have people rooting for you too,” she says pointedly. “Never forget that. If you change your mind about the sponsors just say so.”
The doors open into the scorching sun near the launch pad.
Peeta steps out, still hanging loosely from one of Y/N’s hands. “I guess this is goodbye.”
“Bring it in,” her arms open wide.
“Thank you, for everything.” Peeta hugs her, in parting.
“You’re welcome.” Y/N returns the embrace, just as tightly.
“I’m gonna make you proud.”
————————————————————————
“And that Claudius, is the familiar sound of cannon, symbolizing the end of another fallen tribute.” Caesar narrates.
Eight down in the blood bath.
Haymitch takes a steadying breath, the children beside them in the viewing room run about. Brother chasing sister with a toy sword while the parents look on and laugh.
Y/N is deep in conversation with Cashmere, paying them no mind. Pointing to the screen on occasion as they whisper amongst themselves.
The boy trips over his little sister, falling sword first against Cashmere’s back.
The blonde smiles, turning the plastic blade away, “you got me.”
The kids giggle and run off, leaving the parents to apologize. “We are so terribly sorry.”
“No worries.” The blonde is not here to mentor and doesn’t want to draw anymore attention. Excusing herself after a moment.
“Everything ok?” Haymitch asks.
Y/N nods, eyes trained on the monitor.
Haymitch knows better than to push for information she isn’t ready to give. Instead he focuses on the positive, Katniss and Peeta are still alive.
The boy forming an alliance with the careers. Stupid…smart if it doesn’t get him killed. The girl forging a path away from the excitement, she wants to go it alone. Stupid of a different variety.
In the games you pick your poison.
Part 5
Series Taglist: @praline357 @flowercrowns-goodvibes @justheretoparty420 @avocadotoastwithegg @officialjellydoughnut @whoreforfictionalpeople @treehouse-mouse @emo-markie @spilled-mi1k
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eternalsams · 2 years ago
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The Piano Lesson ⇴ B.Bradshaw
pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x single mom!reader
warnings: none. just pure fluff. No mention of Y/n.
summary: Rooster is so good with your kid, you might fall head over heels sooner than expected.
words count: 1 525 words.
notes: English isn't my first language, please take that into consideration
masterlist
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You met Rooster two weeks ago when you had your weekly free evening. Your parents would take Aaron once a week to spend two days at their house and let you have an evening alone to relax. Not that you didn't like him, you absolutely loved the little brat but raising a child by yourself was exhausting. And that night you decided to go out with a friend and then you met him. You knew from the first word he said to you he was gonna be trouble. His upper lip twitching as he told you some cheesy pick-up line to make you laugh. And he did make you laugh.
Your friend eventually abandoned you for a tall brunette and left you alone with this handsome stranger that seemed way too friendly for your own good. You talked with him, you laughed, drank and danced with him until he asked for your number. You then paused and he noticed your hesitation. He took a step back to give you a bit of space and told you you didn't have to if you didn't want to. You quickly stopped him and told him about your son. A smile formed on his face and he chuckled, telling you he loved kids and that wasn't a problem for him. You were surprised a guy like Rooster didn't run away at the mention of a kid but you sure wouldn't complain. You then gave him your number and here you were, wrapping Aaron in his coat before joining Rooster.
That would not be the first time the two boys would meet. The nights when your parents could look after Aaron, you would spent the evening with Rooster walking on the beach or at a nice restaurant. And when they couldn't, you'd spend the afternoon at the park sat on a bench while watching your son at the playground. Aaron had been quite shy the first time he met Rooster but got super excited once he discovered his job was to fly jets. Days went by and the aviator asked you out tonight because he was working all day.
You first told him you couldn't meet him tonight because your parents were busy and you couldn't find a babysitter last minute but he told you he'd like to meet the boy and that he knew a place where you both would be comfortable. When he sent you the address of a bar, you almost canceled the date and blamed yourself for how blind you've been about the man. As if he felt your discomfort, Rooster's name popped up on your screen as he called you. "Hey." He greeted and you could hear his smile. "Hi, look I'm not sure that's a good idea I bring Aaron to a bar. He's only 4 and I really don't think it'll be safe for him." You paced in your living room while watching your boy play with his toys. "I know it doesn't sound great but I can assure you, there's no place where Aaron would be safer. All my friends will be there and the owner of the place is adorable, I'd even ask her to arrange a room if Aaron gets tired."
"I don't know, Bradley..." You sighed as you sat down on your couch. "I'd really like for you to meet the Squad. Please think about it, if you really don't want to come to the Hard Deck, I'll come over and we'll watch a movie." He said and you could hear men talking and lockers slamming, indicating he was still on base. "You don't even know where I live, Rooster." You smiled and you could hear him chuckle. "Then it'll be a nice opportunity for you to make me discover that sweet little house you described to me the other day." His voice grew more distant as he put down the phone and you sighed. "I'll think about it and let you know what we're doing, okay?" You heard him shuffling and close his locker because he answered you. "Perfect. See you tonight, Sweetheart." You felt your cheeks warm up and said goodbye before hanging up and leaning back against the couch as you closed your eyes.
"We're seeing Rooster today?" Aaron's voice called to you. You opened your eyes and went to sit down on the floor next to him to play with him. "Yeah, baby. We're seeing Rooster today. Do you want to meet his pilot friends too?" You watched your son's eyes widen in excitement.
After sending a quick text to Bradley to tell him you would meet him at the bar, you leave your house with anxiety running in your veins. You park your car in the sandy parking lot and help your son getting out of his seat. You take his hand and a smile creeps on your face when you see Rooster at the door. He waves at you and trots to you before taking Aaron in his arms and spinning him in the air, earning giggles from the boy. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think you'd rather spend the evening with Aaron than with me." You cross your arms on your chest with a faux frown. Bradley's eyes land on you and a soft smile stretches his lips before he approaches you and pecks your cheek to greet you. "Don't worry, Sweetheart. You'll always be my favorite." He whispers in your ear not to upset the little boy in his arms. "Now, come on. I want you to meet the Squad." He grabs your hand and intertwines your fingers before leading you to the bar. "Your pilot friends?" Aaron asks him as he steals Rooster's sunglasses to put them on his nose. "That's right, buddy. They're the best pilots in the world, but I'm better than them." He slightly pokes the boy's nose, making him giggle. "You're the bestest!" Aaron exclaims, earning a laugh from Rooster. "Yeah, I'm the bestest."
Just like Bradley promised, you've never felt safer in your life than tonight surrounded by all these naval aviators. They're all very welcoming and nice to you and Aaron, you couldn't have dreamed of any better evening. Luckily for you, the bar wasn't crowded tonight so you can leave Aaron play around without worrying about him every second. He was passing from an aviator's lap to another and played with every single one of them, but you knew his favorite would still be Rooster at the end of the day. You're talking with Bob when you notice Aaron isn't with you anymore. Panic slaps you in the face as you stand up and look around to find your son, calling his name. "He's with Rooster at the piano." The blonde one, Hangman you think, tells you, pointing at something behind you. You turn around and catch a sight you would not forget anytime soon. Bradley is sat in front of the piano with Aaron on his lap and the two of them are playing with the keys.
You sigh in relief and thank Hangman before heading towards the two boys that held your heart in their hands. "I just realized you could've taken my kid without me even noticing." You joke as you grab a chair and sit down next to them. "I'm sorry we scared you, the little guy wanted to see the piano." Bradley looks up at you as you smile. "It's okay, don't worry." You exchange soft smiles before his attention goes back to your son on his lap. "You want me to play something, buddy?" He asks Aaron and laughs when the boy nods frantically his head. "Okay, okay. What song do you like?" You watch the boy think for a minute as he fiddle with the white keys. "Mika!" Aaron looks up at Rooster with a grin on his face. "Mika? Okay, let's see." Bradley grabs his tiny hands to put them away and slips his fingers on the keys, looking for the right notes. Just as you think he's gonna start slow, he suddenly hits the first keys and you immediately recognize Grace Kelly.
Some people in the bar go quiet when they hear the music and you can see some of them gather around the piano. You feel blood rushing to your neck and warming up your face from the attention you receive but that doesn't stop Bradley. He then starts singing and you find yourself laughing as he makes Aaron bounce on his thigh. The first verse ends and when Rooster tries to hit the high notes of the chorus, the little boy on his lap bursts out laughing at how out-of-tune Bradley sounds. You can hear Rooster laugh a little between two lines and you can almost feel your heart grow bigger. You can't turn your gaze from the man in front of you, being so good with your son. You're a bit scared of what will happen between the two of you but you know you'll do anything to keep him in your and Aaron's life just to see your little boy smile and hear him laugh all day long.
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atopvisenyashill · 2 months ago
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To not clogging the thread: Vaemond Velayron deserved to be feed to a dragon and his Slient Five got off lightly just losing their tongues.
1) Apparently they only 'notice' the bastardy of the three boys after Laenor died.
2) After Harwin died.
3)And Laena died, but apparently her twins are unworthy of Driftmark do to lack of the dick but not of birth.
4)This feeds directly into treason against the king and into the political schemes of the Greens.
5)The toddler betrothals basically made the issue mute because /Laenor and Laena/ made them.
6) Also book!Rhaenys was a brunette and show!Rhaenys white, unless someone wants to colorcode every other family by paternity and paint color I will die on this hill.
I mean look at Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) and Mel B (Spicegirls) who are both biracial.
Also the entire mystery of the main series was a brunette man can't have light hair colored children. Ever. No one looks like grandma.
*Pulls out four of the five Stark kids have red hair and blue eyes. Rhaenys the Queen that Never Was had a Baratheon mother. Jon and Rhaenys both look like their mothers. Woah.)
i didn’t wanna be like “AND MAYBE IF THE SILENT FIVE WERENT DUMB BITCHES THEY WOULDNT HAVE DIED” bc yeah it was getting long but lmaooooo EXACTLY.
like, beyond the fact that i just have a very hard time taking any sort of "but they're bastards" argument seriously (that goes for ned too, and i've whacked him for it but WHY exactly does joffrey's behavior become worse knowing he's a bastard? hmmmmmm???) but it's like. so you've had an issue with this for years, and either brought it up to corlys/laenor who told you to suck shit, or never brought it up to the head of your house OR his heir and decided to kick it STRAIGHT up to the king. the king whose daughter you are accusing of treason. why do you think this is gonna end well? the fact that viserys didn't straight up execute them is crazy.
"oh well she's stealing-" no, she's actually not because as you say, laenor & laena engage their kids and baela and rhaena come before vaemond's line. if they had like an actual problem they would have gone to corlys before he was dying not after. they would have said something right after laenor dies. they wait years. yeah yeah torture is bad and murder is bad but they're no different than renly, vainly grasping at power when they think they see an opening. and just like renly, they play the game of thrones, and they lose. if you don't want to lose, maybe be smarter about it!
and yeah these are my go to "mixed but they look white as hell"
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First is Cameron Boyce, he had a black dad and a jewish mom, those are his parents and sister. People love to pretend like they don't know he's black and "oh well he looks white so" he did an entire bit on disney channel explaining who the clinton 12 were because his grandma is jo ann boyce. if you're trying to make the argument that the beloved grandson of one of the first schools to desegregate aftr brown v board isn't black just bc he's pasty, like, what are you even fucking doing lol. the other two are kj apa. he's another actor people love to pretend is white but like. first of all look at his sister - they clearly look alike while she also "looks samoan" and his dad is the same as his sister. his dad is a tribal chief. the tattoos he has are sacred. just because people are insane about blood quantum in the usa doesn't mean that race and ethnicity isn't more complicated than that and calling the son of a matai a white boy simply because they made him dye his hair red and covered up his tattoos for a few roles doesn't actually make him suddenly non samoan.
people kinda do this with the dragon twins too like "oh well they shouldn't look so visibly black they only have one one black grandparent" BEHOLD ANOTHER ACTRESS WITH ONLY ONE BLACK GRANDPARENT
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like can we be serious lol. can we please be serious.
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autistic-crypt1d · 4 months ago
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Delicious in Dungeon Live Blogging:
Season 1
Ok so I'm not really an anime person but I kept seeing stuff about it on my dash and I'm gonna give it a shot!
Updates:
- intro was baller ok ok
- interesting...
- ok this is kinda funny
- the fact that there's no mouth movement from this guy is freaking me out
- I like this dude
- ok, Senshi, Laios, Marcille, and Chilchuck got it
- Senshi is joining yay!!!
- alright episode 1 pretty good!
- Episode 2
- PFFFFFFT
- I love Senshi so much
- she's trying so hard to be helpful 😭
- girl, wtf
- ok Senshi you're being an ass rn
- poor Chilchuck
- nooooo Laios!
- awwww bonding!!!!!
- wait ok I like this show
- Episode 3
- I'm intriglued by the character in the intro with the short white hair, we never see their face but they're relatively prominent
- awwww they were babiessssss
- he reminds me of that guy from a kids show, what was it called....
- OH
- OOP
- I went googling and I have no idea what the show is called but it had a blonde biy and a brunette boy as the main characters and it was an animated kids show. He reminds me of the blonde boy
- woooooo!! Let's go Senshi and Laios!!
- ah crap
- pfffft Senshi just polishing a pot
- oh wow that's a cool armour set
- is it the fact he stole the sword that they're being aggressive?
- oh nvm, a cocoon
- so the creatures got be in the helmet right?
- damn I was wrong
- oh I was right sorta
- awe it's sad when it's all floppy and helpless like that
- "oh no, it drowned" PFFFFT
- "we leave his corpse if he dies ok?" "Ok" BRUH
- can we all agree Laios is autistic af (I love him)
- KEEPS ONE
- oh I just realized it's the sword from the intro!!
- Episode 4
- oh she changed her hair!
- awwww his little farming hat
- this show is so wholesome I love it
- awww Senshi 😭
- why doesn't he pickle the extra veggies?
- OOP
- "BREAD. BREAD. BREAD. BREAD. BREAD." HELP XD
- why is everyone so mean to Chilchuck 😭
- PFFFT Senshi catching the baby before it touches the hot pan XD
- FRIENDSHIPPPPPP
- Episode 5!
- oooo new people
- I'm suspicious of the pony tail man
- oh my god the dog guy looks like my dog 😭
- as man, they were so nice
- OH CRAP
- same girl, I would've done the same, bugs FREAK ME OUT
- "Yum" "NO!!!"
- "dear lord they're creamy. I'm never gonna wear necklaces again" PFFFFT
- I love him and his lil sword friend
- I'm so obsessed
- PFFFFFT SENSHI
- so what I'm getting from this is that you can be resurrected as long as your body is recovered?
- "gentle explosions" she's so violent I love it
- way to go Senshiiiii
- EXORCISM SORBET
- he's so autistic I love him
- EW PAINTING EYEBALLS
- hey wait, it's that red elf with white hair from the intro, they were in the last painting too!
- oh wow she's scary looking
- poor baby 😭
- you forgot your water Chilchuck
- I love Marcille and Chilchuck's dynamic so much
- oh shit they're alive!!!
- as man they probably think they stole their shit
- awww her with her hair pulled back is so cuuuuute
- oooooo 4th floor is so pretty!!!!
- good lord Senshi
- ok the kelpie is sick af but the shadow was HORRIFYING
- he tried to warn youuuuu
- poor Senshi :(
- ah man they died again!!!
- OH SHOOT SIREN
- PFFFT did he just irritate the siren away???
- Laios, you're ridiculous, I love it
- those people are so gonna try and fight them aren't they
- I love these characters so much
- AWHDGSHDJ SENSHI AND MARCILLE BONDINGGGGG
- OH GOD, NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
- RUN MF RUN
- I love the way Marcille talks so much
- "WHAT HAVE I DONE!" XD
- Laios did you just eat raw parasite
- YOU DID
- this conciquences my friend
- they're all so silly I love them
- awww that's his sister isn't it?
- omg Falin and Marcille lore
- Falin taught her to be adventurous 😭
- this is so cute help
- "mind your business" PFFFT
- oh my god he didn't know about them in school I'm gonna cry
- I knew I hated pony tail guy for a reason!! He ditched them!!!
- oh shit oh shit oh shit
- OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT
- LET'S GO TEAM COME ON YOU GOT THIS
- what was that????
- oop they got revived again
- now that I know axe lady is also part of the old party, I wonder what their meeting will be like, and why didn't they react to seeing her dead?
- WILD KRATTS THAT'S THE SHOW, he looks like Martin Kratt
- they're meeting oh boy
- wait, I thought the axe lady was in the other group, they have a different one?
- OH GOD SHE GOT SNIPED IN THE BRAIN
- what an ass!!!!
- oh funky dungeon lore
- Senshi without his helmet?!?!?!
- DANGER NOODLES, Laios you're adorable
- way to go axe lady!!!
- Namari! I couldn't remember she name
- yessss our girl is back in action
- LET'S GO NAMARI
- damn Chilchuck...
- ponytail man (Shuro as I now know), wanted to propose to Falin??? Were they dating?? How could he ditch them?????
- ok so Namari said it's not about money, she wants to join that other party, but saving Falin wasn't enough???
- good lord this show is so weird and I love it
- not them complimenting her into wearing it XD
- SENSHI IN THE SUIT
- ah lovely, fantasy racism
- did she just call Laios and Falin's hair brown???
- those 2 are blonde af
- awww Marcille 😭
- I'm nervous, they're at the stage of fighting the dragon, but we're only halfway through the season
- awww Laios
- Chilchuck don't call the precious boy cringe how dare you
- DRAGON
- AHHHHH
- EPISODE 11 HERE WE GO
- KENSUKE HOW COULD YOU
- NOT THE AXE
- SENSHI
- LET'S GO CHILCHUCK
- OH SHIT
- HOLY SHIT LAIOS
- did Falin just bonk the ghost out of Laios XD
- daaaaamn nice job Marcille!!!
- awww she looks so pretty with her hair done up like that!
- oh no
- GOOD GOD
- EPISODE 12
- holy crap Marcille
- Falin!!!
- y'all I'm gonna cry
- gay?????
- I really appreciate the fact that even though they're naked, it's not being sexualized like most animes I've seen. They're just existing.
- you tell him Marcille!!!
- good god Senshi
- sooooo Falin came back different
- omg Chilchuck in a turtle neck
- YES THE SIBLINGS ARE BOTH WEIRD
- I was scared Falin was gonna be a one dimensional character but she's awesome I'm happy
- pfffft Marcille's reaction
- MYSETRIOUS PAINTING ELF LADY
- Episode 13
- woah I do not like the big eye thing she just did
- ruhroh
- uhhhh what the hell
- bro something is in Falin
- ok whoops that's a guy, but THAT'S THE MAD MAGE???
- oh fug
- BEAT HIS ASS MARCILLE
- PFFFFT Senshi holding 2 mini dragons XD
- Marcille are you really trying to get advice on making dungeons right now
- OH HELL
- this got a lot less wholesome y'all
- I still love it though
- are the ghosts helping them now cuz of Falin?
- oh shit I thought I was wrong for a sec but they really are being chill
- OOP
- OH GOD
- oh the ghosts here are just always friendly
- awww little puppy yawn
- I can't tell if Chilchuck cares about them or not. He does right? I'm bad at reading stuff sometimes
- I'm going with yes he does
- yeah, yes he does
- Episode 14
- oooo new intro sequence
- it's weird that Falin isn't shown at all in the intro, and neither are all the others in the last one
- ah ok NOW they've been revived
- these guys really aren't great at staying alive
- man are they gonna die AGAIN?
- TACTICAL SMOOCH
- the lead guy from the corpse retrieval office sounds so familiar
- Kabru is a little creepy rn
- ok make that a lot creepy
- DUDE HE JUST PERMAKILLED THOSE GUYS
- permakills them but doesn't take their shit, weird set of morals you got there buddy
- dang, guess he figured out who it was and why
- I love that they added the detail of Rin twirling her hair when she's thinking and stuff
- Kabru is freaking me out y'all
- ok so he's pissed at them for being duped??
- these people are very devoted to this guy, "you're the only one who could possibly lead"???
- oooo pretty snake
- who's that???
- oh shit ponytail guy
- ew why are they doting on him like that
- I don't like this
- yeesh, our party is noooot doing well at the moment
- Episode 15
- THEIR EYES AHHHHH
- awww, he seemed to relate to the protector dryad :( he loves the party so much
- Marcille is coocoo bananas and I love it
- SENSHI NO
- awww poor awkward Laios
- omfg her single set of eyelashes XD
- Episode 16
- you leave Laios alone, he's trying his best ok
- bro what is Kabru's deal, he is freaking me out
- OH HELL
- I agree with Marcille's reaction of "woah hey"
- see, why did they have to just barely cover her chest with feathers, that's ridiculous
- listen here Shuro, Marcille did her best
- Laios has never taken anything more seriously than this how dare you insinuate otherwise just because you don't understand!!!!
- HE'S AUTISTIC YOU FUCK. NO ONE CAN KNOW HOW YOU'RE FEELING IF YOU DON'T TELL THEM.
- god I hate Shuro so much, I knew he was bad news from the first moment I saw him
- I swear to god if y'all don't stop hating on Marcille for doing her best here I'm gonna lose ittttt
- ugh maybe Laios finally beat some sense into that idiot
- alright the bell thing and offer to help them flee makes me like him a bit. He just needed a good knock in the head.
- Episode 18
- ooooooo snow
- PFFFT everyone using Laios as a wind shield
- UMMM WHO'S HOLDING ON TO MARCILLE RN
- HUH????
- bro HOW can he not tell the Senshis apart at the very least, his whole face is different!!!
- WRONG, Marcille will always complain
- BRUH
- I'm so frustrated right now
- oh hey he did it right!
- Laios is such a weirdo I love him so much
- thank you for saving the goof Marcille
- PFFFT Senshi picking up the rice trail XD
- GET YOUR MF CLAWS OF MARCILLE RN
- Episode 19
- I think it's cute Senshi has conceded to at least use magic circles instead of insisting on making a fire
- aww cat kid is adorable
- oh my god cat kid is joining!!!!
- Izutsumi, got it
- ooooo, Marcille lore??
- awww she has a Falin doll 😭
- oh shit the doll IS Falin
- oh Laios, this is not going well
- oh man she's scared of everyone dying around her because she lives so long isn't it
- yeah 😭
- LET'S GOOOOOO
- Episode 20
- Izutsumi is in the intro now!!!
- PFFFT of course Senshi accidentally made an ice golem
- Laios you sweetie pie 😭
- let's go cat girl!!!!
- see they fully covered Izutsumi's chest, why couldn't they do that for Falin
- it's still so weird to see Senshi without his helmet
- I appreciate they didn't sexualize them all being in the makeshift sauna together
- they're so cute in their winter outfits!!!
- wait, where'd Marcille's staff go?????
- ok Izutsumi you're being a lil mean rn
- you're lucky she came back for your ass!!
- god I adore Laios and his dumbassery
- would a Barometz technically be vegan since the "sheep" it grows isn't really an animal? I grew up vegan but even I don't know. I feel like yes?
- I do miss the original 4, but Izutsumi is fun
- Episode 21
- oh hey it's the elf with short white hair from the first intro
- bruh finally we get Laios acknowledging the "hallucinations"
- here we go!
- ew Soushi
- why is that unicorn's horn on its nose
- oh?????
- this village is Soushi and Laios's dream
- awww Marcille looks so pretty!!! As always ofc
- Marcille and Izutsumi being like mom and daughter is so cute omfg
- Yaad, I'm so suspicious of you
- oh shit that's where the ghosts came from
- poor Laios, that's a lot of pressure
- Episode 22
- PFFFFFFT, the girls are crammed in with Chilchuck XD
- THISTLE, WE HAVE A NAME FOR THE MAD MAGE
- ah man, this is sad
- so I'm beginning to understand how this dungeon was made, but what about all the others in the world. I'm assuming this one is special because of thistle?
- uh oh, why is Senshi nervous
- GRIFFIN, SIIIIICK
- we've never seen Senshi afraid of something before (he hates magic but that's more of like hating it than being scared)
- oh shit she just snipped off a big ol chunk of hair no hesitation
- bro I didn't think of any of that until Chilchuck mentioned it. I was so swept up in his awesomeness
- it's gonna be goofy isn't it
- oh yeah
- let's go team!!!!
- ok Senshi time to fess up
- awww Marcille's sky fish 😭
- Chilchuck lore???
- WIFE AND KIDS??????
- Episode 23
- oh shit dude this is dark
- dude...
- DUDE
- DUUUUUUDE
- y'all I'm so sad right now
- oh Laios
- 😭😭😭
- I'm gonna cry
- I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING
- OH MY GOD
- SENSHI IS KILLING ME OMFG
- IZUTSUMI
- all of them switching clothes and responsibilities is so funny
- please do not make them have to progress like this
- oh my god the ducking mollusk is the reason they can pass when no one else can?!?!?!?!
- I want them normal again :(
- one more epiaode???? Oh boy
- Episode 24
- Izutsumi gives me heavy Catra vibes
- bro really just headbutted a rock creature
- aww Chilchuck saving Marcille is so god damn cute
- wait so can't they just do 2 person rings and change each other back?
- oh geez poor Marcille
- oooooh ok nvm
- headcanon: Izutsumi has ARFID
- they're back!!!!
- ooooo Laios and Falin lore???
- Falin 1000% saw her brother wasn't doing great and that's why she followed him
- AWBJXJEKS IZUTSUMI TRYING TO COMFORT MARCILLE
- wait so they're gonna cut Falin's upper body off the main body and then eat the main body??????
- good god they're gonna get everyone to eat it, I swear if that's the finale I'm gonna lose it
- oh shit they're leading the elves in
- PFFFT FALIN GETTING SCARED BY THISTLE
- WOW. Ok I really love this show I'm really glad I watched it and I'm so excited for Season 2!!! I'll link that below once it comes out and I watch it!
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purpleghoul87 · 1 year ago
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fnaf movie baseless speculation
I am an ardent Mike Schmidt = Mike Afton defender, and so these are my current thoughts after watching the new security video from the troll game.
First of all, link to the video for the uninitiated:
youtube
Onto my initial thoughts!
The emphasis on the forest, alongside the bottle of pills on the desk, that at one point gets grabbed by someone, makes me seriously think about FNAF 4 and how dreams were mixed with reality.
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It has bugged a lot of people, including myself, as to WHY there is a Freddy "saw trap" that we see Mike trapped in from multiple trailers. Well, in my totally biased opinion that is because we are witnessing a dream, or more specifically, a nightmare.
It is common for people to bury their traumatic memories, especially if that trauma occurred as a child. It would make sense that Mike wouldn't want to recall what happens.
And are we REALLY acting like nightmares are a STRETCH in this series? We have been over this time and time again.
I just think that its funny that we keep getting little glimpses of William---er i mean---Steve Raglan---only in that office scene. It's bizarre, for such an 'unimportant' character to receive so much screen-time in all the trailers and such. But of course we know that he is William Afton. We have known this since the casting was announced. So why then? Why do we only see such a small fragment of footage of him? (of course, outside of the spring-bonnie suit I mean).
Well, to delve further into the land of speculation, I believe that is because other scenes he is in give away too much of the plot they are keeping under wraps.
I made a joke about it, but it is odd.. that they choose to refer to Mike Schmidt (again, something that we have known since the cast announcement) as just Mike.
So! Back to the new footage.
"Garrett!"
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At approximately 2:05 of the video one of the bottom cameras cuts to a someone screaming the name Garrett. Now, to me this is young Mike. In the background I see the same trees from the forest we keep cutting back to. Which one? oh yeah, the ones where we see a discombobulated Mike, seeing dead kids!
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Now... wait a second... what do we have here?
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From the new footage. A brunette boy, wearing a long sleeved green shirt and blue jeans, running in a patch of dry grass....
I don't know about you. But the sky colored background, with the long narrow lines, can only mean one thing. Trees. And a sky.
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Speaking of the pills. RIGHT AFTER we see the saw trap on the monitors, and it goes to the next footage... we see a hand come on screen to take away the pills.
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Saw trap (nightmare) + Pills on desk still
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No more pills.
(Yes. they come back later in the video. But the point being SOMEBODY GRABBED THEM after seeing the saw trap footage).
Oh yeah. speaking of the Freddy "saw trap"... where does this attack you? Oh yeah. On the head.
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That couldn't possibly be someone's repressed memories about an extremely traumatic event about a certain head injury coming to light in visions or nightmares. Could it?
ONE MORE!
Saw trap appears again.
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Pills -- no pills -- they've disappeared again. Interesting. (They actually fade in and fade out of existence in this segment-- but I think I'm gonna hit the image limit soon so... see it for yourself.)
Thanks for reading my rambles. <3 If I find more I'll make a sequel to this post and I'll link it in the reblogs.
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db-gochifan · 1 year ago
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GoChi Week 2023 - Day 2: Letters/Flowers
Days: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Title: The Secret Admirer Pairing: Goku/Chi-Chi; minor Bulma/Yamcha Characters: Son Goku, Chi-Chi, Bulma Briefs, Yamcha and Ox King Summary: A letter brings up the romantic side of Goku. Do not copy, repost, use it in any form or claim this work to be your own. Cross-posted on AO3
It was a typical winter day on West City. Valentine’s Day was just around the corner, which meant the halls from Orange Star High School were filled with pink and red hearts and other Valentine’s decorations. Goku sighed deeply when he got closer to his locker and saw the amount of boxes around it.
“I don’t get why you’re so annoyed with that.” Yamcha stated with a confused tone, as he tried to get near his own locker. “Most guys would love to be on your shoes right now.”
“I would gladly trade places, without even questioning it.” He opened his locker and a bunch of letters slipped down to the floor. “How the hell did these girls managed to push all these letters through my locker?!”
“You should never underestimate them. They are capable of anything.”
“Tell me about it.” Goku growled when he accidentally kicked one of the many boxes near his feet. He bent down and grabbed one that has a full-page picture of a brunette attached to it.
“So what are you going to do with all these presents?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.” He glanced at Yamcha and couldn’t help but laugh when he noticed he was nearly drooling at the photo. “Could you be less obvious?”
“What?” The long-haired man blinked a few times and shook his head.
“We were close to getting drowned here.” He teased and then handed the box to his friend. “Do you want to keep this one? Maybe you can get lucky.”
“You don’t want it?”
Just as Goku was about to answer, his eyes fell on a brunette girl walking down the hall. She was so distracted talking to Bulma that she wasn’t paying attention to anything or anyone else. His neck could have easily been broken due to how much it followed her around.
“Earth to Goku.” Yamcha waved his hand in front of his friend’s eyes, to get his attention.
“What?” The spiky haired man shook his head slightly. “Do you really want it? I mean…”
He glanced at the direction the two girls had gone and Yamcha followed him suit.
“Yeah, it’s better not to. Last thing I want is to piss Bulma off. It can often get pretty bad.”
“That’s true.”
****
“I can’t believe you’re not gonna give to him.” Bulma stated with astonishment as she and Chi-Chi headed to their class.
“Believe it or not, I’m not.”
“I don’t get it, you wrote it for nothing?”
“Did you see how many things there were in front of his locker? I don’t stand a chance.”
“Are you kidding me?” She shouted. “I guarantee the other girls don’t come anywhere near you.”
“I feel flattered, but I still don’t believe it.”
“Well, you should. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re distracted.”
“It doesn’t matter, I’m still not giving it to him.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“It is.” Chi-Chi ended the conversation and the two girls headed to their seats in silence. ****
Bulma waited hidden for Chi-Chi to leave the dressing room after changing into her fighting outfit later that day. She sneaked in very slowly and went through her friend’s stuff to get the letter.
“I’m sorry, Chi-Chi. But you’ll thank me later.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Yamcha asked for what seemed to be the millionth time.
“Yes, I ‘m sure.” She replied firmly and with some annoyance. “If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine. But I can’t just stand here and do nothing to help my friend.”
“What happens when she finds out? She’s gonna be really pissed.”
“I can deal with it when the time comes. For now, let’s just put our plan into action.”
“Fine.”
“I knew you’d be part of this plan!” The bluenette exclaimed with excitement and threw her hands around his neck. “Before we know it, Goku and Chi-Chi will be in each other’s arms.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Honey, I always am.” She said, full of confidence.
****
Chi-Chi was feeling rather uncomfortable with so many guys looking at her during martial arts class. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Much to her surprise, someone else seemed to have noticed her discomfort too.
“Hey, is everything okay?”
“Huh?” She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. I just don’t like being the center of the attention like this. For some reason, guys look down on women being fighters. Or they think it’s sexy, which is kinda disgusting in my opinion.”
“Hey, leave me out of this.”
“So you don’t think it’s sexy?”
Goku couldn’t help but think her tone almost sounded a little disappointed. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course I think it’s… anyway, guys may look down on women who fight, but not me. I actually think it’s great.”
“Do you really?” Her face beamed in happiness after hearing what he said.
He couldn’t help but think she looked cute when she smiled like that. He automatically smiled back at her.
“Yes, I really do. Would you feel better if I told these guys to stop looking at you? Or I can just beat them up if you want.”
“It’s not necessary to beat them up.” She put her hands up between them, almost close to his chest. “Just telling them will be enough.”
“Alright.” He was slightly disappointed with her request, but tried his very best to hide it.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
****
Goku and Yamcha made their way to the changing rooms after taking shower when martial arts classes were over for the day. The latter was feeling a little nervous about the letter his friend was about to find. He still didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“Some nice training today, huh?” The spiky-haired brunette asked while he dried his hair with a white towel.
“It surely was.” The other brunette tried to push his worries away and replied in the coolest tone possible. “Once again you couldn’t stay away from Chi-Chi.”
Goku couldn’t help but grin when he was nudged on the ribs by his friend. “You know me.”
“I sure do.” Yamcha very discreetly looked over his shoulder to see what his fellow martial arts friend was doing. He put on his best fake surprised face. “What’s this?”
“It’s a letter.” Goku flipped it around, looking for any signs that could tell him who it was from, but he couldn’t find anything.
“You don’t know who sent it?”
“No, there’s nothing in the envelope.” He didn’t bother hiding his frustration, though he was also full of hope it would be from Chi-Chi.
“So you got yourself a secret admirer, huh?”
“That seems like it.” With a sigh, he put the letter in his bag, flinging it on his shoulders right after. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Yamcha quickly followed him out of the changing rooms. “I’m surprised you didn’t open the letter right away. It almost seemed like you weren’t too thrilled about it.”
“It’s probably from one of these girls who are desperately to have a boyfriend.” Goku shook his head and shrugged, keeping a very cool tone as he spoke. “I will open it when I get home.”
“I see.” He pressed his lips together. “Either way, I’m curious to know what you will think about it.”
“Really?” He spiky-haired boy looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “Why is that?”
“For no reason.” Yamcha began to panic and his eyes widened when he realized he almost gave himself and Bulma away. “I just want to know what’s in the letter.”
“Alright, I guess.”
****
Goku was lying on his bed chilling and staring at the ceiling when he remembered the letter was still in his bag. He jumped out of his bed and ran to it, returning to his previous position as soon as he grabbed the envelope. He carefully tore it open, so he wouldn’t accidentally rip the paper inside. Then he unfolded the paper and began to read its content. He didn’t remember seeing that handwriting anywhere before, but his heart still started beating faster on his chest. He couldn’t tell whether it was his wishful thinking or something else, but he was sure that handwriting belonged to the girl he had been crushing – sometimes not so subtly – for quite a while.
Hi, Goku!
I hope you forgive me for writing this letter, but I couldn’t find any other way to say what I wanted. In person would be an option, but I’m just not brave enough to do it. Anyway, maybe I should go straight to the point. Okay, so… I’ve been observing you these past few days… maybe admiring would be a more suitable word. Honestly, I don’t know what I intended to do with this letter… maybe just let you know I admire you? Well, either way, I hope you don’t feel embarrassed with it and my confused thoughts. I surely do, now that I’m reading it.
I guess I’ll see you around.
Your secret admirer.
Goku had a huge grin on his face by the time he finished reading the small confessional letter. But he didn’t find it embarrassing in the slightest. It was the opposite actually. He found it sweet. He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. When he was about to put it away in a drawer, the scent of lilies invaded his nostrils and he shivered slightly. If there was any doubt Chi-Chi had written that letter, it was just gone. For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, Goku jumped out of his bed. This time, however, he rushed out of his house.
****
Chi-Chi was about to leave for school that morning. She yelled bye to her father and opened the front door of her house. Her eyes immediately fell on a single flower lying right in front of it. She bent down and picked it up, silently looking to her right and to her left for someone or something that could tell her who had put it there. But there was nothing.
“Chi-Chi?” The Ox King, her father, walked into the kitchen and saw her frozen on her spot. “Is something wrong?”
“Someone left a lily here.” She walked in again, grabbing a glass and filling it with water for the flower.
“A flower?” He asked while she turned around and put the glass in the center of their table. “It was just there?”
“That’s right.” Chi-Chi nodded and looked at the flower for a few more seconds before shaking her head and smiling. “Well, I should go to school or I’ll be late.”
“Alright. Have a good day, darling.”
“You too, dad.”
****
Chi-Chi was taken aback when she stopped in front of her locker and found another lily attached to its lock. She had just grabbed it when Bulma stopped beside her.
“Well, well, looks like someone’s got a secret admirer.”
“I’m sure that was an accident. Someone must have confused someone else’s locker with mine.”
“Do you really think so low of yourself? Why is it so hard for you to accept someone may have a crush on you?”
“That’s not…” She pressed her lips together, deciding not to argue with her friend. She may have a point. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am.” Bulma bragged with a grin. “And looks like this person actually knows some of your tastes. Not everyone has lilies as their favorite flower.”
“It looks like it.” The brunette bit her lower lip as she placed the flower on her locker. She could only hope it wouldn’t die before she went home.
“Don’t you wanna know who sent it?”
“Of course I do, but apparently they don’t share the same thought.”
There was a bitter tone in Chi-Chi’s voice; almost like she was disappointed for some reason, but she couldn’t understand why. Or maybe she just didn’t want to admit it.
“It’s possible, but I think we both know who put it here.”
“And also who had left another one at my door earlier.”
“What?” Bulma asked, visibly surprised.
“I came across another lily when I left for school this morning. Whoever left it must know where I live.”
“That’s so sweet!”
“More like creepy.”
“Why must you ruin everything?”
“Come on, you have to admit it was a little creepy.”
“Well…” The blue haired girl had to agree with her friend. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.” Chi-Chi looked at her. “Wait and see if this boy will reveal himself eventually, I guess.”
****
“Why are there so many petals near your locker?” Yamcha couldn’t take his eyes off the floor while he and Goku went to grab their things to go home after class.
Goku didn’t say anything, he simply opened his own locker and showed him the bouquet of lilies inside it.
“What the…? Did you receive them from a girl?”
“Nope, I’m actually sending them to one.”
“Chi-Chi…” He said after he fully understood the situation. “What did she say about it?”
“Nothing yet. I didn’t tell her they were from mine, so she doesn’t know. At least I don’t think she does.”
“Chi-Chi is smart, she will figure out. If she hadn’t already.”
“That’s true.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Now it’s time to put the final part of my plan into action.”
****
Goku felt his heart pounding hard on his chest and began to get nervous with everyone glancing at the bouquet of flowers in his hand. He noticed a group of girls standing not far from her, undoubtedly wanting to know who was the lucky girl that would get the lilies. He prayed Chi-Chi didn’t take too long to walk out of school or that she was still inside. Otherwise he would make a fool out of himself.
The single lily swung smoothly under Chi-Chi’s grasp as she and Bulma left the school building and headed towards the exit. Her heart skipped a beat when she found another one in their path and she knelt down to pick it up.
“Whoever this guy is, he’s really good.” Bulma commented when her friend returned to her previous position.
“Maybe.” She couldn’t help but smell it. “I’m surprised no one took it, to be honest.”
“I guess not everyone likes lilies.”
“Yeah, that may be it.”
For some reason, Chi-Chi felt her heart racing as they got near the gate. She noticed there were more people around than usual that day, clearly waiting to see how things would unfold. As soon as she crossed the gate, she saw Goku from the corner of her eyes, standing on her left.
“Goku.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she watched him get near her. “So it was you all along.”
“That’s right.” He gave her one of his signature smiles and handed her the bouquet. “I heard lily is your favorite flower.”
“It is.” She smiled kindly and was surprised to see he had offered her his arm.
“May I take a beautiful girl home today?”
Chi-Chi felt her cheeks blush slightly, but still linked her free arm with his.
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criminalmindswhore · 1 year ago
Text
What just happened?
Jemily!
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Emily and JJ had been undercover at a club in LA for almost an hour and nothing seemed to stick out. The rest of the team were watching through the security cameras as a man approached the two of you who were dancing but also profiling. "Hi, ladies!" The two stopped dancing and JJ almost vomited at the scent he gave off. "Which of you lucky ladies wanna come home with me tonight." He leaned against a nearby table and smiled proudly. "Look at their faces, something's off." Morgan pointed out how the female agents were trying to contain their facial expressions. Emily was trying to figure out this guy and JJ immediately recognized the scent, death. "I'm sorry my man but we're both taken." He stood straight up and got angry fast, "So two hot girls, come to the club, not looking for a hookup? That's bullshit, you're lying to me." Emily laughed, "Women are allowed to go out just to dance and have fun together." He shook his head and started talking with his hands rambling on about how the two were sluts for that. JJ eventually stepped in, "You don't ever, call my girlfriend," she grabbed Emily's hand, "a slut. Got it?" The man stopped moving and sighed, "Oh so you're dykes?" The two nodded and an "duh" kind of way. "Even better." He grabbed JJ's wrist and tried to pull her into him. He didn't succeed as Emily punched his wrist to make him let go. "Hotch move in, it's him." Emily spoke. "What the hell? You're cops?" JJ pulled out a pair of handcuffs from her purse, "Actually," she passed them to Emily who now had him face down on the table, "we're FBI."
As the handcuffs clinked shut the rest of the team walked to them and Morgan grabbed the guy, at this point everyone in the club was watching them, some even recording. "Joshua Livingston you are under arrest for the murders of 8 women." As Morgan started the Miranda Rights and walked him out of there, Emily spoke to Hotch, "I'm gonna go take a second in the bathroom before we leave." The team knew she was gay so it was understandable, he called them dykes. Emily was attacked in high school by some kids in Germany. They carved the word dyke into her back. It was small but painful. So she got her first of 4 tattoos. JJ followed her and pushed the door open before Emily could lock it. JJ locked it behind her as Emily laid her head against the wall steaming with anger. "A dyke? Is dyke the worst he could've done? Not a sinner or disgusting, anything would hurt less." JJ was the only one who knew what happened in Germany. Emily started pacing, "Those kids in Germany ruined my life for me. They outed me to my mother and made me develop an eating disorder for pretty much all of college until I got my tattoo." The team stopped in their tracks realizing Emily and JJ left their mics on and they could hear everything. They didn't know what to do, so no one moved. "Emily, I know it's a painful word, but it's just a stupid word. You shouldn't let it affect you this much. Fuck the word."  Emily snickered, "You can't fuck a word Jay." She received a slap on the arm for that. "But seriously thank you JJ."
The two hugged and as they started to pull away, it felt as though someone was pushing them closer together. JJ swallowed as Emily pulled her against her by her waist and started to lean in. JJ met her in the middle and their lips collided. Emily's hands rested on JJ's waist as JJ pulled her hands up to cup the brunette's face and eventually tangled in her hair as the two kissed for what seemed like ages. "What just happened?" Rossi asked as he pulled the earpiece out. "I guess we'll find out soon enough," Spencer said with a smirk and took his out too. The two kissing agents eventually pulled away with swollen lips and breathless. Realization hit Emily a little too late when her eyes landed on the mic pinned to the blonde's dress. "Shit. JJ, our mics." JJ stepped back and picked the mic up to her mouth, Morgan was still standing listening and laughing at the twos realizing the mics were on. "Derek Morgan you're a perv." JJ's voice very loudly came through the earpiece and Morgan winced in pain before ripping it out. The females laughed and walked outside. "You're a jerk." Morgan bluntly stated as they exited the doors. "And you're a perv. Let's go home." They all laughed and flooded into the SUVs no one wanting to talk about the kiss.
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harryssyndrome · 1 year ago
Text
The Enemy: 1 | Castaway
A/N: It's nice to be back along a idea with my love life. Hopefully my spark will stay alive to finish this short story. Thank you for your support in all of my stories. Guess what's gonna happen next and let me know in the comments. And I'm sorry in advance for any historical errors if any in the future chapters. More to come soon!
Pairing: Harry Styles x OC
Word Count: 1.2k
Series Master-Post | MASTERLIST
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Home - July 22nd, 1944 - 4:38 PM - Syracuse, Italy
The sun was slowly heading toward the horizon and air felt soft, bunch of seagull were playing in the open sky. Kate was sitting on a chair in a comfortable silence by the coastline. She was reading a new thriller novel when a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders, alarmed, she gasped, making her roommate laugh. Rave was her soul sister more than a friend or roomie.
"Oh I'm gonna get you" Kate says, throwing her book on her seat as she ran after Rave, both laughing like little kids. Running into the beach, time waiting for either of the girl to slow down and eventually the girls stopped, catching their breath.
Rave walked up to Kate and sat down pulling her as well, the waves were touching their feet. "Girl with your face and fantasies mostly read romance novels but you are just the opposite, what is it with you? Bad taste in boys or you're hiding a secret I don't know." Rave asked with mischievous voice.
"You know everything there is missy! I never dated a boy so can't comment about a taste and you know it besides, thriller is something my life is missing out right now." Kate says playfully.
"Point to be taken my lady. Who knows a thrill ride finds its way to you by just a boy!" Rave smiles while Kate playfully rolls her eyes and mimics talking with her hand like 'blah blah'.
"I'm serious Katie! Life gets exciting babe"
"Maybe... but right now? I wanna enjoy this moment with my girl." Kates smirks and then splashes salty water into her face. Rave softly moans and starts splashing the water back at Kate.
The clouds were slowly rising from the ocean and mist was hid the outline of the coast. The girls were giggling and smiling through their wet faces, when Rave's eyes befell on something black and she stopped playing, making Kate confused. "What is that thing?" Grabbing Kate's attention, Rave nudged her to move on and check it out, while she would stay behind her. "Why?"
"Because you read more thriller books than I do."
Taking steady steps toward the thing Kate's heart hammered into her chest, approaching further they began to realize it's a man. He was flung up out of the ocean. Arms above his head, feet by the beaker; girls stood in front of the unconscious man wondering how he managed to come through the dangerous spiked rocks. Well he did somehow - he must've been badly torn. They inspected him to find indeed he was so. The sand on one side of him slowly became stained of red soaking through.
Kate squatted down to take a look at the condition of his face, upon his young and tortured face was a cut, his brunette hair, wet. Blood flowed freshly at her touch. On the right side of his lower back Kate saw that a gun wound had been reopened. The flesh was blackened with charge of powder. Sometime, not many days ago, the man had been shot and had not been tended. It was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound.
"Help me get him inside" She said in hurry, as Rave helped her to lift him. The girls swing his arms around their neck when Rave exclaims "He's a British soldier!" As she stops, "I know" Kate voice sounds small, eyes still looking at the unconscious man.
"And you're helping him? Still?! Do you even realize the consequences of this?!" She spat back.
"I know... but we can't leave him here to die now that we've found him. I know he's the enemy, but it's not his fault that the world is standing on a battlefield, he was doing his part and anyways we as a doctor take a oath. We're bounded by it. And if we not even consider that, then we really shouldn't be doctors and most importantly, I'm doing this for humanity. I'm ready to be a traitor and at least for now I'm not regretting it."
"Well... I can digest this by simply saying this again 'thrill ride found its way to you by just a boy' yeah?"
"Yeah" girls passed a small smile to each other.
They carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This door opened into a passage, and down the passage they carried the man towards an empty bedroom. Kate bent down and started to peel off his clothes so that she could later wash off the sand and dirt while she had Rave get a bucket of water and a small towel to wipe him.
Rave rushed back into the room with the bucket and handed over the wet towel to Kate as she asked her to prepare the tools for operation, she headed out with a nod. When she came back, she gave the man an injection of anesthesia, Kate located the area where the blood flowing like a river, she felt the tip of his instrument strike against something hard, dangerously near the kidney, then quickly, with the cleanest and most precise of incisions, the bullet was out.
The man quivered but he was still unconscious. "He won't need more anesthesia I guess" Rave says calmly while Kate turned as swiftly as though she had never paused and from her medicines she chose a small vial and from it filled a hypodermic and thrust it into the patient's left arm. Then putting down the needle, she took the man's wrist again. The pulse under her fingers fluttered once or twice and then grew stronger.
"He will surely survive." Kate says with a tearful grin, hugging her best friend. It was her first ever operation without any assistance and she pulled it off with ease moreover she was happier about the fact that this man who seems not more than 25 years old will live.
She checks her wristwatch it was almost 8 pm so they decided to let him have rest and have some rest themselves after having an 'exciting day. Kate lied down on the couch, closing her eyes and taking deep breath while Rave brought two glasses of cold coffee in her hand, she softly whispered "Katie" as she sat in semi-sitting position and took the glass from Rave's hand and says "thank you". The girls sipped in silence until Rave broke it, "what are we gonna do next?" Kate just shrugged.
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Thank you so much for taking time to read this chapter! Reblog and likes are appreciated!💗 Dm me or comment to be added on the tag list!
Chapters earlier available on Wattpad
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sk8termikey · 7 months ago
Text
Chapter 7 of 21 Questions
better interface on wattpad
"Your boyfriend texted!" Alex called for her best friend who was in the kitchen, as the phone lit up from a message from Matt🍂.
"My hands are full of batter girl, just tell me what he says and maybe reply for me if it looks important", Lily replied as she was cooking. "And drop the boy in front of friend, unless you put a fucking space between the words.
As she used her fingerprint to unlock Lily's phone, Alex looked at the notification – she didn't want to actually open the message in case it could wait, fearing that she might leave the boy on read. She had been joking for the past month about Lily and her new friend's relationship since she discovered that he went out of his way to send a picture to Lily. This had been enough proof for Alex to start teasing her best friend about a possible romance – pretty pictures of the sky were in fact Lily's love language. Both girls did know it was just for fun, the same way they would qualify famous people as theirs when it was their ultimate celebrity crush.
Furrowing her brows at the phone in front of her, Alex didn't know whether to qualify the text as important or not.
Matt🍂
If I asked you to hide a body for me, would you?
Alex went to the kitchen where Lily was and read her the text, which led to the brunette letting out a laugh.
"Oh my god this kid I swear to god". Lily couldn’t stop laughing as she thought about an answer. "This sounds semi important lol but just tell him that of course I am always down to hide a body, I know a few tricks."
Alex laughed as well – more to her friend's reply than the actual subject – and wrote back a message, trying to imitate Lily's writing style. The two girls influenced each other a lot regarding their texting habits and the way they spoke, thus making it easy for Alex to fake it. Before sending it, she thought it could be funny to actually hold a conversation with the mystery guy as she had only heard about him and still needed to check if he was a good person for Lily.
Matt🍂
If I asked you to hide a body for me, would you?
Heya, your girl's bestie here
Obviously she would
Dw ab it
Oh
Hi
Thanks for the reassurance haha
You're the famous Alex?
I am, yes💃🏻
Glad to know I'm known even in whatever state you're in
I'm here to check if you're legit bro
Check all you want
I like to think I'm a good person
Well
You did ask help to bury a body
This doesn't help your case
Well
According to you, your "bestie" would help my case
Nice one
Ig talking for a couple of months led to you guys knowing each other
Yeah, it's fun getting to know Lily
She's really kind and we get along well :)
Friendship test then
You ready for it?
Go ahead
Simple questions to see if you deserve the honour of taking her time
Her favourite colour?
I know this one
It's purple
But she told me she actually doesn't have lots of purple things in her life, mostly blue
Wow bonus points
Yes!
I'm sure I can manage the rest
We'll see, pokemon boy
Her favourite food?
One of the first things we talked about 
I remember bc I don't like sushi
So it's this and pizza i think 
I-
I'm gonna ignore you not liking sushi and give you the point
Hmm next question 
Do you know where we work?
Like our job
Yeah, a café right?
With books
She loves talking about it
She just loves talking about you in general because you're related to her passions 
And also being the closest person to her
Damn this girl is absolutely getting the best birthday ever
She deserves the world
Ig you pass the test matty boy
Ok what
Unsent
The fuck is this nickname coming from
Unsent
We're just chilling, no need to panic
Unsent
Cool cool cool
Wait i kinda need a retake tho
What
Why
Idk her birthday??
I don't think we ever talked about it
Oh
That just means you'll never steal my best friend title
But yeah it's next week actually
Well in less than a week technically like in 4 days
Thanks, I'll wish it to her then
You better
I'm gonna delete the last texts so that she gets your text as a surprise
Counting on you bro
Of course, I won't let you or her down
As she deleted the last dozens of messages between her and Matt, Alex then put down the phone and looked up to see Lily smiling at her.
"You were having fun?" Lily asked her best friend. "I couldn't hear you for ten minutes and you looked like you were having fun."
"Oh". Alex was almost embarrassed to be caught enjoying a conversation with her friend's new friend. She shrugged it off and slided the phone back to its owner. "Just checking if the kid deserves your friendship."
"And? What's the verdict, judge Alex?" Lily playfully teased.
"Well, I guess he's not that bad. I trust you and you would have dropped him if he wasn't someone you liked talking to."
Lily's smile grew bigger at Alex's replies and took her arm to lead her to the couch as they would watch TV while waiting for Lily's desserts to cook.
~~~
A few days later and on the eve of Lily's birthday, Alex had everything planned: she was prepared to give her best friend a wonderful twentieth birthday, starting the day before with their out-of-work-coming-back-to-home ritual. As always for the last months, Wednesday meant a new video from the Sturniolo Triplets and Alex had prepared a comfortable scenery for Lily. The couch had been specially opened as a bed, with several blankets carefully folded on it. Snacks were ready and dinner was on its way as Alex had ordered some of Lily's favourites, which were pizza and sushi – damn Matt did get it right, Alex thought back to her conversation with him a few days prior. She hoped he could be part of Lily's happiness tomorrow, and maybe for a while after. Lily had always wished for simple birthdays. The sheer fact of knowing the people she loved took the time to think of her on this day was enough to her. Lily only needed her favourite people around her; just a day spent with her loved ones was the only gift she wished for and this is what Alex tried to stay faithful to, although a couple of surprises felt deserved for the special occasion.
As usual, Lily was coming home almost an hour after the video came out and Alex wasted no time to welcome her friend at the door. She took Lily's bag to put it down and closed the door behind them.
"Now now, just do whatever I say and don't ask questions", Alex ordered Lily who could only comply. 
The blonde led her best friend to the bathroom and to Lily's surprise, a bath had been drawn along with a few candles. Pink bubbles could be seen floating on top of the bath and Lily couldn't help but smile. It had been a long day at work – one of those rude customers who were unable to accept that their order was not ready within two seconds after having asked for it – so the girl had been exhausted and her mood started to lift up due to this pleasant surprise.
"I don't want to see you for at least the next half hour", Alex warned her friend. "Enjoy this and stay in it until your skin gets fucking wrinkles, okay?"
Lily nodded with a quiet laugh and got ready to enter the bath as Alex left the room, not without putting on a bit of music to help Lily relax.
Exactly thirty-one minutes later did Lily go back downstairs to see Alex setting up the freshly arrived food on the table in the living room. Lily definitely appreciated the bath and the calm music, but she had felt lonely and only wanted to come back to her friend so that they could do their weekly tradition in honour of a new vlog or challenge from their favourite triplets.
Lily saw the TV already set up to play this day's video which was entitled Chris forced us all to do COLD PLUNGES – it sounded even more chaotic than the previous videos and Lily knew it was possible for them to achieve that.
The two girls sat on the couch and put the food between them as the video started. What was a given from the title is that the triplets were going to bathe in ice cold water and so they had to go to the supermarket to buy ice. As they didn’t find enough – well in Chris’s opinion, the youngest triplet decided to ask if they had more in the back when they were paying. Luckily for them, the cashier managed to bring them more ice, which Chris thanked him for as he put them all in his arms.
“Damn, I feel cold just watching him with all this ice,” Lily said as she shivered. She had always been prone to being cold and getting sick easily so she knew the whole video was going to make her feel uncomfortable even though she wasn’t the one doing the activity with them.
Alex laughed at her friend’s comment and they started laughing even more when Chris wished for more ice, thus getting his brothers to go to another store and ending with a cart full of ice per Chris’s request.
“Okay, this is definitely too much ice like I gotta agree with Nick on this one”, Alex said as she was matching Nick’s apprehensive expression.
“Yeah for real”, Lily approved. “Chris is gonna regret saying that it’s never too much.”
After the bathtub was filled with ice and ice cold water, the triplets were finally ready to do their “cold plunges” as Chris tried to motivate himself by having to pretend to be a can of pepsi. Funnily enough, there had actually been a can of pepsi right before this. Therefore, Chris was the first to go in and he did regret it as he was barely able to put his feet in the bathtub. Followed Nick who imitated Chris with a spider-like position above the bathtub but did not end up fully in – unlike Matt who absolutely did not care and managed to get most of his body in the water.
“I. Am. amazed right now”, Lily commented as she was curled like a ball with a blanket around her. “I don’t know how he accepted the idea and succeeded in doing that. I would surely want to kill my brothers for this crazy situation.”
Alex hummed in agreement with her best friend and they both gasped when a couple of minutes later, Nick also fully went into the bathtub. The two girls then started laughing along with Matt and Chris as Nick ran into the shower while being shocked from what he had just done. After the middle and youngest decided to give it one last try, Lily couldn’t help but comment:
“Wait, I just noticed, is Chris the only one without tattoos?”
“Yeah, Nick and Matt both have an almost full sleeve but Chris doesn’t have any for now”, Alex explained. “I don’t know if he’ll ever get one but he would look great with a couple honestly.”
“I totally agree. And I absolutely love Nick’s and Matt’s tattoos, I might have to look at them more clearly to get a few inspirations for if I ever decide to get tattooed.” Lily was in awe of the triplets at the moment: since she started to follow them, Lily had to admit that they were all good-looking and tattoos really added something to their charm. “Also if I can say, Matt is slaying with the beard.”
“Right?” Alex exclaimed. “That was such a good move from him and I hope he’s gonna keep it for a while.”
As the girls kept talking after watching the video, Lily was feeling so much better. The simple things like spending time with her favourite person and eating her favourite foods were all Lily could ask for to enjoy life.
The night being still young, the two girls decided to watch some of their favourite Disney movies, such as Cars or Inside Out. They had a passion for animated movies that quickly brought them together when their friendship had started and everytime a new movie would come out, they would go see it together at the cinema. Lily and Alex had had this routine for a few years and none of them would ever trade the way they lived.
It was finally the actual date of Lily's birthday. As she had already spent a really nice evening the day before with Alex, she wasn't expecting much when she woke up. Obviously, everyone at the café had been giving a day off as the four coworkers were planning to maybe hang out to celebrate Lily's twentieth birthday. 
As it had happened last year as well – since the two girls started living together, both Lily's and Alex's parents called her to wish her a good day and catch up on what was new. The two families had been close since the two became best friends and would often have get-together, even as Lily and Alex moved out from their family houses.
After an hour spent talking to her parents and "second" parents, Lily received a message from the group chat with her friends.
gc: Caffeine addicts💃🏻💃🏻
Alexxx🫶🏻
Okayy guys
Everyone meet at noon at our house
We're going out :))
Luke🌈
Will I drive the whole way or be able to leave my car at yours?
Bc if i do, i need gas💀
Alexxx🫶🏻
Well-
That'd be great bc I'm not making my bestie drive on her bday
I'll pay for it even
Or you drive our car idk
Luke🌈
Kk, I'll go now
And no need dw<3
I'll regret not having gas and forgetting in a few days i know myself
Jade🌱
I'll be there, see you soon!!
Why am I only learning ab it now??
Where are we even going like
What's the dress code??
Jade🌱
Wear smth normal
It's gonna be chill, don't overthink
Okay😭
@Alexxx🫶🏻 where are you btw?
Alexxx🫶🏻
Just went to give back a plate to the neighbour 
Yk she cooked us the muffins last week
Oooh ye i remember
Ig I'll get ready then
What Lily didn't know is that Alex was absolutely not at their neighbour's. The plate had been given back a few days ago already but Alex took the opportunity of Lily forgetting to use that excuse. In reality, the blonde was at the bakery to get the birthday cake she had ordered: Lily's favourite, which was a triple chocolate cake with some fresh fruits on the top.
~~~
When she came home, Alex was right on time as Lily was descending the stairs. Alex went up to her best friend to wish her happy birthday for the tenth time – she had already said it the day before as a pre-birthday celebration, then at midnight, then she had sent a couple of texts to Lily during the night. The two girls hugged for a few minutes then let go as it was almost time for their friends to arrive. The four of them were all used to being punctual so it wasn't a surprise when at five to twelve, the doorbell rang. Lucas had picked Jade up as they were living near each other. Lily being ready and Alex having prepared what she needed earlier in the morning, they all decided to go. As agreed, Lucas drove his three friends to the secret place – secret only to Lily obviously – and for the whole ride, he had let the birthday girl choose the music, which was a once in a blue moon occasion for Lucas was very picky with what type of music was played in his car. Well, today was a special day and Lily took advantage of it.
After a ride full of pop music, the four friends arrived at the Weeki Wachee Spring State Park. It was not just a simple park, but it was filled with attractions and animals, appealing to both children and adults. Alex had purchased tickets knowing how much Lily loved nature and just walking around while admiring the beauty of the world they had the chance to live in. Speaking of the devil, Lilt was ecstatic when she realised where they were. She had been wanting to go there for a while but never had the chance so she was really excited to finally visit it. The weather was perfect for a day out and Alex knew it was because her friend brought happiness and warmth everywhere she went, just like the sun would.
After checking in, the group let Jade guide them as she had been to the place a couple of times and knew exactly where to bring Lily to make her have the best day ever. Lucas had brought some food and so once in a while they would just sit on a bench to eat as they appreciated what Mother Nature gave them. For the whole afternoon, they simply walked around and as Lily was smiling at every turn, her three friends could only be happy as well that she was having an amazing day.
As they were leaving the park due to it closing and coming back to Lucas's car, Jade suddenly gasped.
"Oh my god fuck–"
"What's wrong?" Lily immediately asked, afraid that her friend was in trouble.
"Oh sorry, I was just looking for my cardigan in my bag. I was so sure I packed it," Jade explained.
"Wait, do you mean the one you had on yesterday?" Lucas tried to confirm. "The brown one?"
"How did you know?"
"I'm pretty sure I saw it on the couch in the break room", Lucas replied.
Jade faced her friend as if he had revealed the world's biggest secret to her. The sad expression on her face was enough for Lily to react.
"Well, tomorrow is your day off so that would mean you won't get it back till Saturday. We can get it before coming home if you want, it's on the way." Lily suggested as she didn't want one of her friends to experience an issue.
Jade quickly thanked Lily for offering and so they all decided to make a quick stop by their workplace. Little did Lily know, she was so predictable that this whole conversation had been rehearsed and planned by her friends. Indeed, they knew the brunette would never let Jade go home without her beloved cardigan – which was actually at the café, but Jade didn't give a fuck about it as she could literally come get it the next day even if she didn't have a shift. It was usual for one of them to just come to the café and act as a customer who was absolutely not working there.
When they arrived at the café, Lily was the first to leave the car and take her keys to open the door. She was fully expecting it to take five minutes maximum as she just needed to go into the break room, take the cardigan and come back outside so that her friends didn't have anything to do – which was still according to their plan. As a matter of fact, when Lily entered the main room where most of the chairs and tables were, she actually stopped in her tracks and wondered why some of the chairs were down. Had she forgotten to put them all on the tables when she closed yesterday? To be sure of what she thought she was seeing, Lily turned the light on and was faced with a surprise. Nothing could have prepared her for the huge sign that was reading HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY and the heart balloons over the counter.
Turning back to the door through which she entered, Lily was met with her friends all smiling and singing to her. How had she not seen it coming? Lily had just expected the afternoon at the park to be the only thing they had planned, along with a small diner back at her house. She was still harbouring a shocked expression when Alex quickly slipped behind her to go open the fridge and took out the cake she had bought this morning. As she lit up twenty candles on the cake, Alex, Jade and Lucas started again to sing to Lily. When the cake was put down on the only table without any chair on it, they all sat down and told Lily to make a wish, which she did while blowing out her candles. Following some laughter during the explanations of how Alex had lied this morning as well as how Lucas and Jade had come in early to decorate the café, the four friends enjoyed the cake and discussed some memories of previous birthdays they had experienced together. Although Jade and Lucas had only been working with Lily and Alex for less than two years, it was enough for the four of them to develop a close bond.
After they finished eating, Jade, Lucas and Alex went to the break room to retrieve the gifts they had for Lily – plus the brown cardigan that Jade remembered. They all gave their presents to Lily, who started crying when opening them – emotions are really overwhelming sometimes. Lucas had bought her new headphones as her old ones stopped working a few weeks ago. They were decorated with heart and flower stickers which Lily found adorable. Jade, as a fan of crafts, had made her a set composed of a mug, a plate and a bowl that were all painted with Lily's favourite colour. Finally, Alex had bought her a Care Bear – the "Tenderheart" one, which was perfect to symbolise the girls' relationship. Lily thanked them all for their friendship and told them how glad she was to have them in her life as she hugged them first individually then decided she wanted a group hug.
Lily would never trade her friends for anything else and as she came home with Alex after bidding goodbye to Jade and Lucas who had dropped them off, she realised that another friend of hers was starting to be also important to her. Indeed, as she hadn't checked her phone since they left the park, Lily saw that she had actually received a birthday message a few hours ago from her new friend Matt, which brought a smile onto her face.
Matt🍂
Hi, I hope you had/have a good day
Just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, enjoy your twenties :)
Thank you so much omgg<3
How do you even know?
I don't remember ever mentioning it
Or i just have a bad memory-
It was actually your friend alex who told me
When she replied to me a few days ago?
Ooooh
Makes sense
So, did you enjoy your day?
Yess it was so fun!!
My friends organised me a great day, i love them sm
Good to know
While we're at it, I need to know your birthday now
It's only fair🤷🏻‍♀️
Here we go
Unsent
Hmm ok ok a random date far enough from now
Unsent
Oh yes of course 
It's november 6
Not very soon
I'll remember it :))
It's a bit late for me rn so I won't stay up long but thanks again
It was nice to know you thought of me
No problem
You're kinda in my thoughts lately tbh
Oh
I've been binge watching gravity falls so yeah haha
Oh haha
A man of taste
You know me!
Well i won't keep you awake so have a good night
Thaanks, you too
Talk to you soon
Thank you for reading. Votes and comments are always appreciated if you like this story :) The story is co-written w @/little_grapejuice on wattpad
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piperslovebot · 11 months ago
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https://www.tumblr.com/hydesjackiespuddinpop/738415452877963264?source=share
Hiya, Poorni ❤️! Prompt 2 for E/J?
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Hiya Sunshine! I hope you like this!
PS: Allison is @chdmeeksmartins' kid oc for J/E
April 4, 1987; 1:35 PM
"I'm a terrible mother." Jackie sniffed, shoving a pop tart into her mouth. Eric, who was rocking Allison in his arms, looked at her. "Jackie, you dropped Allison once and she's fine. Look, she's giggling right now."
Jackie scoffed, "She's probably faking it or maybe she's coming up with a plan. I remember when my mom told me she was ‘going to the bookstore’. That was the last day I consistently saw her. Then she became a floosy who preferred traveling with men she barely knew over raising her own daughter. Oh my god, what if I end up with Donna's dad?" She exclaimed in that last part.
"Okay. Easy there yoko." Eric gently set the baby in her seat before putting his arms on Jackie's shoulders. "You are not your mother. For starters, you're way hotter than Pam." Jackie cracked a smile, giggling at that. Eric stroked her cheeks, "And most of all, you love Alli. You feed her, you take care of her, you read to her. If anything, you're everything Pam wasn’t as a mother." Jackie nodded.
"I'm not gonna tell you to put the past to rest, because it's not as easy as it sounds. I mean, I still have nightmares of when I caught my parents doing it in '76." Jackie chuckled, her face glowing. She never thought she'd love Eric as much as she did now. "But you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. As long as you're there for Alli, things will be fine. And you're not alone. You have me by your side."
Jackie pulled Eric in for a kiss, letting their foreheads touch. "Thank you Eric. You're really smart, you know that?" Eric raised an eyebrow, "Really? On most authorities, I'm usually called a 'dumbass'." He smiled. The petite brunette giggled, pulling her husband in for another kiss.
"Mada…" Jackie and Eric separated, looking at one another in shock. "Did she just say mother or combine 'ma' and 'da'?" They looked back at their daughter who was sitting on the high chair.
Allison pointed to Jackie, "Ma…" She then moved to Eric, "Da…" Jackie and Eric looked at one another, trying not to cry. "Our little girl just said her first word!" Jackie tearfully exclaimed before hugging her husband. Eric let go to lift their daughter in his arms. "You said your first word! Yes you did!" Jackie whispered in a baby voice, making Allison giggle. Eric smiled as he watched both girls. They all truly were a happy family.
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ace-for-eddie · 2 years ago
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Part 2
July 5, 1986
Overall the week had been going well, Eddie was feeling a bit better, starting to feel more like himself each day. It took time to recover from the blood loss and multiple surgeries it had required to patch him back together from the attack in the UpsideDown. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you asked, Eddie had given up smoking after being in the hospital so long and literally needing surgery to repair his injured and collapsed lung. Demobats be damned.
But it was early on a July morning and Eddie was happy to have a new place, government issued for him and Wayne to live. It was certainly cleaner than the trailer had been. 
So when he received a knock on the front door early on a holiday weekend, he was a bit perplexed, but figured it was probably one of the kids coming to ask for a ride or something. 
He did not expect to see a young woman around his age on his porch. A burgundy 4 door vehicle sat still running in the driveway. He recognized her of course, but hadn’t seen her in a good 3 years. 
“Uh, hey.”
“Eddie.” The young woman scowled, smacking her chewing gum. She had lost weight. She looked unhealthy, her soft light brunette hair was frizzy, and unkempt. Her skin was an unnaturally tan color. While this was concerning enough, Eddie noticed that on her twig of a frame she held something, no someone on her hip. The girl who could be no more than 2 or 3 hung to her mother’s shoulder. 
The toddler sported a curly mop of dark auburn hair pulled back into two ponytails on either side of her head. Her huge brown eyes looked to Eddie then back into her mother’s shoulder. She looked shy and possibly frightened. 
“Uh, H…hey, what are you doing back here?” Eddie asked. 
“You grew it out more.” She said still staring at Eddie like he’d just thrown an insult rather than asking a simple enough question. “What?” Eddie’s faux smile faded. “Your hair.” She huffed. “Are you gonna let us in or not?” she sassed.
“Uh… okay, sure. Come on in.” Eddie shook himself again. “Wayne here?” she asked, dropping a duffle bag on the couch. The little girl started coughing, and whined softly.  She looked tired, they both did. “No… he’s at work.” Eddie closed the door. “Can I get you something to drink?” “Beer if you have it.” She stated like she’d been here a thousand times, and was just a typical part of the scenery. The girl sniffled then coughed again, tucking her head into her mother’s shoulder. 
That doesn’t sound good. Eddie thought. Poor kid.
“What’s her name?” he asked, turning to the fridge to grab two beers. 
“Evelyn Brooke.” “That’s pretty.” Eddie handed her the beer and sipped his own as he sat on the chair beside them.
“What are you doing in Hawkins? Thought you flew this coop right before Senior year.” 
“I didn’t have a choice. Got pregnant didn’t I?” She glared at him with intensity. “Oh yeah, I heard you’d gone to live with your Aunt.” “Yeah, ‘cause I was pregnant Eddie!” She snapped. “My parents kicked me out.” 
The little girl startled and huddled behind her mother. 
“Okay, wow, I’m sorry. That sucks.” Eddie was confused at this chick’s anger, he took another long swig of beer. “She’s your’s, dumbass.” Eddie choked on the beer, which he turned his head to avoid coughing it out onto the couch and guests. He coughed for a solid minute before he recovered still in shock.
“Excuse me?” “Evelyn Brookie, this is your Daddy.” Her voice was sugary sweet while simultaneously having a bitter tone to it. 
Evelyn peeked out from her mothers side, looking through a curtain of curly hair, still quite uncertain of the situation.
“How old is she? And what do you mean, mine?” He crossed his arms across his chest and examined her expression closely.
“She just turned 2 in February. February 14th actually. That party 4th of July weekend in ‘83. Remember that?” She sighed. “Oh my god, you don’t even remember.”  
“Uh…okay, when were you going to tell me? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” “Well, I was busy trying to figure out where I was going to live.” “I would have helped.” Eddie insisted. 
“Well, I didn’t really think you’d be up for it. I didn’t get a choice. It wasn’t like I could just call you up. Long distance calls are expensive?” 
“Okay, so why now?” Eddie really looked at the girl. He couldn’t deny that her hair and eyes matched his own much more than her mother’s. He swallowed hard.
“Well…” She took an exasperated breath, “Because I’ve got some other things to go take care of right now Eddie, and I just thought that you could maybe step up and learn about being a father.” “Step up? I literally found out 2 minutes ago. I would have helped if you’d told me.” “Sure whatever. But I didn’t. You weren’t. And here we are.” She said, smacking her hands on her knees, and moving to stand. “Well, Kyle’s waiting on me in the car. All her stuff is in the bag. Birth Certificate is in the pocket.  There’s some cough syrup in there that puts her right to sleep. Good luck.” She kissed Evelyn on the head. 
“Mommy’s going out for a little while. But you’re gonna stay with your Daddy.” “What?!? Where are you going?” Eddie couldn’t process all of this, his breathing picked up. Is she serious?!?
Evelyn looked confused from her mother to Eddie. She had tears running down her face, but she only whimpered quietly as the tone in the room had shifted and her mother took a step away. 
“It’s your turn. I’ve got a life to live, Eddie. New opportunities.” “Wait. I’ll be here for her, but you’re not just leaving. Are you? When are you coming back?” He stuttered out then followed her to the kitchen.
“I said it’s your turn. You’re her daddy and you get to take care of her now.” She made for the door. 
“Are you…are you high or something?” He stood and tried to block the doorway. “That’s none of your damn business.” She was fast and surprisingly strong, throwing an elbow to his ribs and into a tender spot where he’d been bitten, knocking the wind out of him. 
“Wait… we can…” he wheezed out, struggling to get air back into his lungs from the blow. 
She jumped into the car with who he guessed was Kyle and they drove off.  
Catching his breath, Eddie watched the car turn out onto the main road. What the hell just happened? 
He turned to see the small child sitting on the couch. He considered chasing after the car, but couldn’t just leave a baby in his living room. What if something happened? 
The girl sat quietly sniffling and hiccuping, as tears still dripped from her dark long eyelashes.
“Uh…hey… Evelyn…ummm… it’s okay.” Eddie took a step toward the couch and reached out for her. She didn’t flinch and let him pick her up but she held her tiny body stiffly in his arms and continued to pant through tears. He instinctively rocked them both gently. “It’s okay little one.” He swallowed hard. “You’re okay. We’re gonna figure this out.” 
As he ran a hand up and down her tiny back she began to melt into him, curling up still hiccuping and coughing occasionally. 
“Okay Munson, Get it together. What the hell do I do with a baby?” Then an idea popped in his head and he walked over to the phone, dialing the number listed on the sheet on the fridge. 
After two rings a cheerful voice answered.
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connar-rose-kaiba · 1 month ago
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Spirit Caller
((Chapter 2--Part 4--))
Chapter 1/ 2 Part 1/Part 2/Part 3/Part 4/NEXT
Also Available On:
A03 (XxAkarii_RosexX)
Fanfiction.net (XAkariiRoseX)
"Hey!" Connar called out,"Dang it Jaden, Why you cheatin'!?" It didn't take her too long to sprint off after him, leaving Mokuba behind as he waved farewell with an awkward chuckle. So she made a new friend already huh? He thought to himself. ...And...it's a boy too...Seto's not gonna like that too much... As though being summoned once again...A Heavy stepping shadow soon lingered behind him. "...Ya know Seto, you coulda just come out and said good bye to your daughtern yourself." he snickered," Hugging his kid as she ships away to live far away for a while is a totally normal thing for a father to do." "Hmph." Was all the tall brunette scoffed out as he gazed upon his flighty daughter's run with the wind. Her long pink hair flying behind her and her bright blue eyes smiling. Mokuba sighed and shrugged. " I don't think you'll need to worry too much about her, Seto." Mokuba said softly,"She's ours...so you know she will be just fine."
XXXXX Connar heaved heavy breaths as he flopped half her body over the guard rail of the ship. "I call that a lucky win!" Jaden teased. "I dunno about that, Jay." said Syrus,"I mean she started way behind and still totally beat you here!" "Yeah! I let her win!" he laughed,"What sort of victory is it if I won by cheating." "So you admit you cheated!" she snapped. The three new found friends exchanged glances and shared laughter as the ship set sail. She turned her head toward the harbor for her last voyage, and jolted at the sight of a familliar, tall male who stood at the docks next to her uncle. "Dad..." She whispered softly. "Huh? Did you say something, Connie?" "Huh? O-Oh no...it was nothing Jaden, don't worry." she exchanged with him a smile to draw his mind off of any concern before she took one final glance back at the two men who stood watch at the dock that slowly grew further away. Just watch me, dad. She thought to herself. I vow to make you proud...and I'll do it in my own way.
Seto Kaiba stood watch at the docks next to his younger brother until the ship disappeared into the setting son. The wind blowing his tailcoats as he gave a smile to the shimmering sea, turning on his heel to leave, keeping thoughts of his daughter in mind. "Until we meet again...Connar."
To Be Continued...
Chapter 3
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cherrygorilla · 6 months ago
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The Mixtape Mysteries: Chapter 1 (Part 3)
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Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon - 4:54
The first 20 pages or so of this part have been sat, untouched in my Google Docs for literal months - so I felt like getting it finished would be a good way to help me get back into the swing of writing again. And I guess it kind of did if the fact that it's 71 pages long is anything to go by lol. It's definitely not perfect, and I'm still rather rusty, but at least it's something! There's still a bit more of this first day/chapter to go, but I felt like it'd be insane to make it go on even longer in this part, so we'll just have to wait for next time. And hopefully, now that I'm not tied to a hideous uni schedule anymore, that shouldn't be as long of a wait as it was to get this one out. Listen along with the gang here. Enjoy!
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A myriad of fluorescent lights shone overhead, and pop music of every genre shook the old building's walls. But it was the gentle thudding of approaching sneakers that drew an admittedly grumpy brunette away from the mundane task of cleaning off the nozzle of her soda gun. "Zack, I already told you your guys' pizza was gonna be another ten minutes at least."
"First of all, I ordered a turkey melt," a voice matter-of-factly corrected. "And second of all, the fact that you thought I was an eleven-year-old boy is so not ok."
Glancing up from her now slightly sticky rag, Mick's eyes first met gaudy carpet and well-loved Converse, before sliding up to meet the mossy gaze and playful smirk of a favourite patron of hers. "In my defence, I wasn't actually looking at you," Mick replied, managing a smile and a soft chuckle as Vivien leant on the edge of the counter. 
"So you mean to tell me that you don't know what my footsteps sound like by now?" Vivien accused with a horrified quirk of her eyebrow. 
Rolling her eyes, Mick laughed. "I'll commit the sound to memory for next time, don't worry." As she set her trusty soda gun back in its slot though, she found that the brunette's mischievous grin was still reflecting in the scuffed silver of All Skate's food bar. Looking back up curiously, Mick continued. "Well if you're not coming over here to bug me about when your food's gonna be done then what do you want?"
"What? Can I not just come and talk to my pseudo big sister for fun?" she playfully scoffed.
"Not with that face," Mick chuckled with a nod at the younger girl's roguish smirk and incessant fidgeting. "What do you want?"
It took roughly two seconds for Vivien to cave under Mick's knowing gaze, collapsing onto the counter with a dramatic sigh. "Where's Miles?" she asked, referring to the currently empty spot beside Mick, where her faithful co-worker almost always resided. 
"Ugh, don't ask," Mick groaned, tipping her head back as she let her eyes roll to the ceiling and back again. But Vivien's puzzled expression did all the probing for her, without having to utter a word. "I've banished him over there," she started, tilting her head in the direction of the archway that opened into the skate rentals booth. "He's sentenced to an hour of skate cleaning duty." 
"Why?" Vivien asked with an amused snort.
"'Cause he was pissing me off," Mick bluntly put with a snort of her own. 
Vivien's laughter wasn't so suppressed after that comment. "Why? What did he do?" she asked, chest rumbling with mirth at the prospect of her two older-sibling-like friends bickering. 
"He wouldn't shut up about you know who," Mick sighed with a nettled glance in the brunet's direction. 
"I thought you said he was getting over her," Vivien said. Keeping up with the high school kids' drama was a real guilty pleasure of hers, and gathering information from her venting sessions with Mick often felt like piecing a big jigsaw puzzle together - picking up names here, and backstories there. It was a rarity that the drama actually involved people she knew though, especially people she was so close with -  so she was particularly invested this time. And even if she wasn't, she just enjoyed Mick's company so much she'd listen to her talk about anything. 
"I thought he was," Mick admitted with a disappointed sigh. "But then Ethan started encouraging- you know what? I'm not even gonna get into it. It's not worth it."
Watching Mick catch her quickly tensing shoulders before her swelling anger could erupt, Vivien felt herself let out a deflated sigh along with her - heart aching to see the girl so emotionally invested in a battle she had fought so valiantly in, and yet still seemed to be losing. "You want me to try to talk to him about it?" Vivien gently offered. 
Sighing again, this time in appreciation, Mick softened at the sight of the girl's optimistic smile. "It's alright, Viv," she reassured her. "I'll be fine once I've had a couple of minutes to cool off."
But as Vivien watched Mick catch sight of Miles grinning and mouthing something across the room to the bodacious blonde behind the music booth, she saw the brunette's jaw clench, which told a very different story. "You sure about that?" she asked with a knowingly dubious quirk of her eyebrow. 
Now taking her turn to crumble over her almost-sister's knowing gaze, Mick huffed and relished the chance to vent to someone who actually understood her stance on the matter. "Do you know he almost got into a fight with her boyfriend at school today?" 
Vivien's eyes almost shot straight out of her head. "Seriously?! Over what?"
"I don't know," Mick mumbled, trying to let her mind wander back to the events of the tail end of the school day. "He said it was nothing - and granted, all I saw besides them talking was Eric shoving him - but still." Letting out a sigh that pulled her shoulders, and the corners of her mouth, down to the floor, she divulged, "I just… I don't want him to get hurt."
"He'll be fine. Miles is a sensible guy, when he wants to be," Vivien chuckled with an upbeat outlook that Mick could only have dreamed of. After noting the girl's reluctance to accept her point though, she tried a softer approach. "He's not gonna do anything stupid, Mick; he knows he's got all of us relying on him to stick around." 
"I guess," Mick said with a somewhat reluctant smile, which only grew as Vivien's words sunk in. As painful as it was to admit that a thirteen-year-old had a better perspective of the situation than she did, Mick couldn't help but give Vivien the win. After all, the carbon fibre-like bond Miles had with his little brothers, and their little extended family was far stronger than any phoney fling this bizarre infatuation with their ditzy co-worker could ever bring about. Miles' family was everything to him, he'd never do anything to jeopardise that. She just needed to get better at trusting him. "I just get like, weirdly protective over him, you know?" she went on to confess, chuckling at her sisterly possessiveness. 
"Mhm, if that Eric guy lays a finger again I'll take his stupid long arms and wrap him up like a pretzel," Vivien steadfastly agreed, her resoluteness setting Mick's shoulders off shaking with laughter. "And if Carrie breaks his heart I'll personally drag her through the forest out back by her dumb little ponytail," she added, jerking her head in the direction of the girl behind her, whose half-up hairdo was idly bobbing along to the latest song she'd selected to play. 
"I don't doubt that for a second," Mick grinned once her laughter had finally subsided. "Especially after I saw you two teaming up on air hockey last week," she added, prompting Vivien to join in with fondly recalling the instance where Miles had jumped to the thirteen-year-old's rescue after she had been unfairly condemned to face a game against his two younger brothers alone. After dutifullying ragging on Royce and Bentley for suggesting such a thing in the first place, Miles swooped in to grab the fourth, previously abandoned, pusher. And, through many laughter-filled rounds, complete with enough boisterous chanting to fill a small sports stadium, the hastily put-together duo came out victorious, celebrating with high-fives until their hands were raw and Miles hoisting Vivien over his head like a trophy until her giggles left her gasping for breath. 
As a contented silence fell over the pair, with Vivien looking, almost longingly, across at the brunet, Mick remembered the reason the girl was over there in the first place, and smiled as she decided to ask, "What was it you wanted him for anyway?"
"I just wanted to ask him something," Vivien replied, being knowingly vague if the skittish bouncing on her heels and avoidance of Mick's gaze was anything to go by. 
"And it's not something I can help with?" Mick tested, raising an eyebrow. 
"Not this time," Vivien confirmed with a firm shake of her head.
"Hmm," Mick murmured, nodding back, at first in earnest understanding, before a teasing smirk began to blossom on her face. "...And does this 'something' happen to involve a certain someone's little brother?"
Vivien's gaze snapped to Mick's with a disapproving frown. "...Maybe," she mumbled, having to shove the word out with her tongue because it was so reluctant to be spoken into existence. 
Smiling fondly as the younger girl's cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment, which was only enhanced by the flashing of the skating rink's colourful, neon lights overhead, Mick chuckled. "Knock yourself out. He's only over there re-organising skates, he could probably use the company."
"Thanks, Mick!" Vivien grinned, breathing a sigh of relief as she followed the direction of the brunette's nod and bounded down the entire length of the serving counter to the partially walled off skate rentals section. Once there though, she slowed down her pace just in time to witness an interaction that quite literally left her speechless.  
After several, painful attempts to mouth and mime the name 'Rick Springfield', Carrie finally signalled her understanding with an exaggerated nod and thumbs up, before scribbling something down and starting to flip through her cases of cassettes, leaving Miles shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he grabbed the recently abandoned shoe deodoriser spray again. Giving the aerosol can a masterful spin, he unloaded a cloud of pine-scented chemicals into the sweaty opening of a roller skate, jerking his head away just in time to miss the brunt of the backsplash. With his nose now a safe distance from the stomach-turning scent combination, he took in a deep, anticipatory breath before turning his head to see if Carrie had caught his can wrangling finesse. To his disappointment, her eyes hadn't left her collection of tapes once, meaning his attempt to impress her had gone entirely unnoticed. Letting that breath out with a self-loathing huff, mind swarmed with questions of 'what the hell was that?' and 'what did you even want to happen anyway?', Miles moved to set the aerosol spray back down on the counter. He set his other hand down to help steady himself as he did so, but what he failed to remember was that there was a roller skate in that other hand. And roller skates had wheels. It wasn't until those wheels met the burnished metal surface that he remembered that though - and by then it was too late. The wheels spun on impact and the roller skate took off, dragging Miles' arm along with it. Too shocked to realise what had happened right away, Miles didn't stand a chance at bracing himself, and before he knew it, his nose was the next thing to make contact with the serving counter, followed by the rest of his face as it smacked against the surface with a dull thud. 
Vivien's hand flew to her mouth upon the impact - partly out of disbelief, partly to muffle her laughter. Although her incredulity soon turned to fond amusement as she hung back and watched Miles peel his face away from the sticky steel, and drag himself back to his full height. 
He winced and cursed under his breath as he slung the wretched skate back into its assigned cubby, before muttering more obscenities about his own stupidity and gingerly pinching along the bridge of his nose to check that it felt normal. Even he had to admit that he'd gone down with quite a remarkable bang - he wouldn't be surprised if it had left lasting damage. To his relief, all felt well. And after a dreaded glance in Carrie's direction, he let out a further sigh of relief upon finding that her attention was still anywhere other than him. At least his insignificance to her had actually come in use for once. 
"Thank God no one saw that," he grumbled, once again shaking his head at his own idiocy as he turned to select a new pair of skates to freshen up. But, to his dismay, a familiar voice behind him jumped in to remind him that he could never be so lucky.
"Holy shit, I knew you could be an idiot sometimes, but I didn't realise it was this bad."
Mouth agape in horror, and skin somehow prickling with even further embarrassment than it already was, Miles turned to find a pint-sized brunette laughing like a hyena at his misfortune. 
"Please don't tell me you just saw all that," Miles groaned in despair. 
"Afraid so, big guy," she chuckled, lazily crossing her arms across the serving counter separating them. "And you had the perfect soundtrack to it too," she noted, nodding to the overhead speakers blaring out Sade before adding, "That trick with the spray can was pretty cool though, I'll give you that."
"Yeah, before I hit the deck," Miles snorted, finding it much easier to laugh at his own misfortune after seeing how much it entertained his honorary little sister. 
"It was actually kind of impressive how hard you went down," she acknowledged.
"I know," Miles agreed with a chuckle. "I was scared for a second there that I'd messed up my nose; it hurts like a bitch," he added, grimacing again as he warily prodded the bridge. "It's not bleeding is it?"
"No, you're good," Vivien reassured. "You just made yourself look like a total moron instead."
Rolling his eyes at the thirteen-year-old's smirk, Miles continued. "I think I do most days, Viv. We're not exactly making groundbreaking discoveries here."
Vivien's smirk only broadened as she pushed the boundaries of sibling-like teasing a touch further. "It's too bad Carrie wasn't watching; you could have pretended to have been knocked out and she might have volunteered to give you mouth-to-mouth."
The amused smile pestering Miles' face was dropped like a lead balloon, replaced with a look of weary cynicism. "Did Mick put you up to this?" he sighed, one eyebrow raised in interest, the other furrowed in frustration. 
"No, I'm just being a nosy little shit," Vivien grinned mischievously, which soon dragged Miles' smile back into position. 
"Aren't you always?" he questioned.
"Pretty much," she confirmed. "What's going on with you and her then? I thought you were 'happy just being friends', but Mick said that you almost got into a fight with-"
"Oh my god, it was not a fight," Miles cut in with an exasperated scoff, shooting Mick a quick look of annoyance as a result of her protectiveness before going on to hastily explain. "He was just being an asshole - and so was Carrie, actually. It kind of pissed me off."
Green eyes glittering with intrigue as Miles' steadily flickered with anger, Vivien asked, "Why? What happened?"
Miles knew that he shouldn't be unloading his problems on his thirteen-year-old brother's best friend; it wasn't her place to act as his therapist. But her look of genuine interest, paired with the fact that Mick had quite literally walked away so that she didn't have to listen to them anymore, made his tongue start moving before his brain even told it to. "I was just trying to talk to her in study hall to…I don't know, prove to myself that she cared about me outside of work, I guess. I still don't really know what I was thinking, to be honest. But when I was talking to her it was like she was just trying to get rid of me. Everything I said, she shot down. I'm pretty sure I was one question away from her straight up telling me to fuck off," he recalled, practically spitting the words out by the end because of how bitter they tasted. 
"Damn, what a ball of sunshine," Vivien noted, voice dripping with sarcasm as she spared the blonde behind her a withering glare. Now she understood why Mick was so protective. Turning back to Miles, she pressed on. "Well if she was being such an asshole to you earlier then why are you standing here doing fancy spray can flips to try to impress her?"
"I wasn't- …" Miles' first explanation came to him so quickly, and yet this time it felt like there was nothing to say. Nothing that he could rationally explain to a recent pre-teen graduate anyway. Sighing as his gaze wandered to that all too familiar head of golden curls, bringing the accompanying, longing ache in his chest with it, he slowly admitted, "We had a… a run-in in the break room."
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Screwdriver handle clamped between his teeth, Miles squinted at the bulb fixing of the faulty break room light. Nothing looked glaringly wrong with any of the wires that poked out into the opening in the ceiling, but then again they all just looked the same to him anyway. He contemplated going back to his boss to suggest calling an actual handyman again, but since he'd already seemingly been deemed expendable enough to risk electrocution by the balding cheapskate, he decided to just keep trying his luck. Something had to work eventually, right? As he stuck his finger into the hole again, brushing away what he hoped was just a clump of dust, to bring down another wire to start experimenting with though, a voice cut through the jumble of thoughts filling his head. 
"Well, this is embarrassing."
The voice startled Miles so much he almost forgot he was balanced atop a set of stepladders. If anything though, glancing down to put a face to the voice, set his heart racing even faster than the prospect of falling and twisting his ankle did. 
Resentment still bubbling away in his stomach, he quickly averted his gaze back to the plastic-encased copper between his fingertips. "What is?" he asked, dispassionate despite the frantic thudding of his chest. 
"The fact that we both have the same taste in work attire."
The first thing Miles noticed when he looked back over at Carrie was the amused grin settled comfortably on her face - evidently she was unphased by their interaction earlier. But the next was her outfit, or more specifically, the t-shirt that her comment had drawn his gaze to. Atop the headache-inducing leotard, covered in glittering swirls of hot pink, neon yellow and electric blue (complete with matching pink leggings and yellow leg warmers), was a bright, cobalt blue t-shirt, emblazoned with All-Skate's logo. The very same shirt Miles had selected for his own shift that evening. 
A feeble breath of laughter escaped around the screwdriver still wedged in his mouth. "Oh yeah," he acknowledged, quickly returning his attention to the wiring in hope that the interaction would end there, and that he wouldn't have to live through yet another conversation that he'd then spend the next hour obsessively analysing. 
Alas, Carrie's chatterbox tendencies soon trampled that idea into the grimy, ash-stained carpet. "I'm kind of surprised this hasn't happened sooner actually; there's only so many shirt colours back there to pick from," she airily chuckled as she leant against the doorframe to the stockroom. "And I'm even more surprised Ethan hasn't straight up suggested it for you two." 
The laugh that she drew from him was a real one that time, and Miles mentally kicked himself as soon as he felt it slip out. "Don't give him any ideas," he warned as he started messing with the screwdriver again. "We'd be matching every shift if he got his way." 
"We'll have to set up a 'who wore it best?' wall. You know? Like those spreads in magazines," Carrie went on to gleefully babble, eyes glittering with amiable mischief. "And then get everyone to vote on the outfits as they come in."
"...Yeah, no one's gonna care enough to participate in that," Miles countered, popping the girl's idea with one, sharp snort of amusement. 
"I can dream, can't I?" Carrie shot back, sending the boy a withering stare atop a grin that took away any of its credibility. "And besides, we won't know until we try."
"You want me to go and get Mick to grab her camera then?" Miles smirked as he pinned a loose wire into place. 
"Woah, woah, woah, I never said anything about starting tonight."
"Why not?" Miles asked, eyebrow quirked as incredulous laughter rattled his chest. "You were all about it ten seconds ago."
"Listen, I've got a fragile ego. I don't think it would survive if we started tonight," Carrie jokily admitted. "I'll need to plan out a killer outfit to secure a win before we even think about breaking out the camera."
"Yeah right," Miles scoffed, playfully rolling his eyes. "Like you wouldn't win every time." 
"I don't think I would tonight," Carrie said with that same, readily confident grin. "You'd give me a run for my money anyway."
Miles scoffed again, so hard that it dislodged the weight responsible for keeping his true laughter at bay. "Fuck off," he chuckled, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the notion.
"I'm serious; you look great," she defended. 
And to Miles' surprise, and somewhat terror, when he finally dared to search for that glimmer of teasing in her eyes, he found nothing but sincerity. 
“Blue's your colour," Carrie went on to warmly explain as she approached Miles' set of step ladders. "It brings out your eyes." And as her lips curled into a mischievous grin, she added, "Plus, those jeans make your ass look fantastic."
It was a miracle Miles got any words out at all after that last comment - the very words making his brain short circuit. "In case you forgot," he said, as reluctant to accept the flattery as he was to believe that Carrie was actually being genuine. "You also have blue eyes," he finished, finally daring to rip his gaze away from the wire spaghetti to fire a teasing smirk at her. 
"Hmm, not the right shade - not for this shirt anyway," she went on to muse, eyebrows furrowed, at first in deliberation, but then in confusion. "And what's with all the deflection? Would you just take the compliment for once?"
"No, because I think you're full of shit," Miles bluntly retorted with another hearty laugh. "As if anyone in their right mind would vote for my washed out jeans, and $10 sneakers over your…get-up. You look like you've just walked out of Barbie's Dreamhouse… Or a glow-in-the-dark sticker book."
Now it was Carrie's turn to snort in incredulity. "'Get-up'? Ok, Grandpa. I think it's time for your nap," she teased, flashing that infectious grin of hers that Miles fell victim to every damn time. 
"I'm gonna fucking need one at this rate," he laughed, after trying to reseat the lightbulb in its casing, only for it to pop right back out yet again.
"What are you even doing up there?" Carrie asked, peering up at the electrical work with about as much understanding as she did with her last geography exam. 
"Trying to fix this light that won't stop flickering," Miles wearily explained as he went back to tinkering. "Ralph thinks the wiring's gone, but I don't understand how because everything still seems to be connected normally up here."
“You actually know what you’re looking for?” 
“…Sort of,” he sheepishly admitted with a bright, lopsided smile, trying his best to muster some conviction that would convince not only himself, but Carrie and her dubious frown too. 
Apparently, the ditzy blonde didn’t need much persuading. “Hmm, alright,” she hummed, nodding earnestly despite the hint of an amused grin curling the corners of her lips. “You need me to hand you anything?” she then continued, scanning the table beside her, where Miles had spread out the contents of the roller rink’s hastily thrown together tool kit. 
“I don’t think so,” Miles said, as he hooked a different wire into position and checked over the light bulb casing one more time. “Just let me try”- 
As he popped the light fixture into position once again, to his amazement, it held in place. Trying not to let his excitement show too much, he gestured for Carrie to try the light switch by the door. And to their collective astonishment, as she flicked it, the bulb lit up with the rest of the fleet, shining brightly, and consistently, without so much as a stutter in sight. 
“Let there be light,” Miles said, glancing down at Carrie with a rightfully smug, cheesy grin. 
 “Damn, I’m impressed,” she chuckled. “Looks like we really didn’t need that handyman after all.” 
“Yeah, well,” Miles snickered as he climbed down the step ladders. “Not just a pretty face, am I?” 
“I could have told you that,” Carrie replied with a teasing eye roll. “You do way too much for this place - way more than you get paid for anyway.”
“Hmm,” Miles acknowledged with a self-deprecating huff. “I’ve been told it’s because I'm a 'people-pleaser', but I think a more appropriate term is 'dumbass'.” 
Carrie’s laughter bubbled up from beneath her bright blue t-shirt like a fountain, sprinkling Miles’ cheeks with further, infectious amusement that spread them into a smile he couldn’t have wiped from his face if he wanted to. And he definitely didn’t want to. 
“Speaking of 'people-pleasing',” Carrie eventually sighed once she’d caught her breath again. “I'd better get out there before Mick starts giving me the stink eye. I still don't think I've managed to get back in her good books after skipping out on cleaning the big freezer last week.” 
“It's fine, she won't hold a grudge forever.”
“Easy for you to say, she likes you,” Carrie snorted as she started making tracks for the door that led them out to the rink. Beckoning for Miles to follow her, she added, “Come on, you need to tell everyone about your mad handyman skills. Or am I gonna have to sing your praises for you, as usual?” 
“Sounds good to me,” Miles laughed, eyes twinkling with mischief. “You need me to give you a beat or…?”
Stopping in her tracks, Carrie wearily shook her head with a withering gaze. "Come to think of it, 'dumbass' sounds like it'd be a pretty good name after all."
But Carrie's groaned complaints, a stark contrast to her amused smirk, only egged Miles on. "Oh come on, you teed that one up for me," he chuckled, bumping her arm with a roguish grin.
Carrie wasn't about to get caught admitting to such a heinous crime though. "Get to work, pretty boy," she retorted, jerking her head in the direction of the skate rental hatch as they finally emerged from the break room - fighting off the growing urge to laugh along with him by firing off a teasing quip of her own. "And work that blue shirt for some tips."
"You're delusional," Miles snorted in response to Carrie's wiggling eyebrows. 
"I'm telling you," she pressed, giggling despite her sincerity. "One wink from you, in that shirt, with that hair, and the juniors will be weak at the knees. I know I am."
Thankfully, Miles' innate ease around Carrie allowed his mouth to run on autopilot - because if his brain had actually been allowed to process what she'd said, it wouldn't have been able to function for the rest of the night. Then again, perhaps it was so sure she was lying it had no trouble deflecting the comment with a sing-songed, reiterated: "Delusional.”
“Try me!”
For a moment Miles considered it, swept up in the challenging current of her glittering, oceanic eyes. But thankfully his feet found purchase on solid ground before he could totally lose his mind, and the rest of his dignity. “Yeah fucking right,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes and absent-mindededly running a hand through his hair - a recent habit of his due to its unseasonable length. 
Without so much as a second thought about the action, Miles continued walking. It wasn’t until he heard a metal chair leg clashing against the wall that he realised what he’d just done though - turning his head just in time to watch Carrie dramatically collapsing against the painted brickwork, feigning a faint and almost taking out an entire table in the process. Sprawled out, with one hand bracing against the wall and the other pressed theatrically to her forehead, she momentarily broke out of character to check Miles’ reaction with a cheeky grin. 
But Miles just watched her in open-mouthed disbelief, trying with everything in him to bite back the laugh that was just dying to escape. “You’re so stupid,” he eventually chucked, once more shaking his head at her as she peeled herself away from the wall. 
“Ok, I was wrong, forget the wink - just go with the hair,” Carrie instructed, dramatically fanning herself as she jogged the few paces separating them - falling back into stride with the floppy-haired brunet with that same cheeky grin still plastered across her face. "And the shirt," she added earnestly. "Don't forget about the shirt."
"How can I when I'll be reminded every time I look at you?" Miles playfully retorted. If only she realised just how many times that would be though. 
"Oh well," Carrie continued, breezing on through the rest of the conversation without giving Miles' comment so much as a second thought. "If you're not gonna celebrate your new role as resident electrician then I guess I'll just have to do it for you. You got any song requests?" she asked, turning to him, as they reached his work station for the evening, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I think I can put in a good word with the DJ for you."
Warmth bubbling away in his stomach, Miles leant back against the doorframe of the skate rentals booth. "Fine, I'll have a think," he conceded with a shy chuckle. There was no way he'd have been able to give her any song names on the spot; his brain was far too preoccupied trying to pilot his body through the rest of the interaction without self-destructing.
To his immense relief, Carrie didn't press him for an answer. Instead, she just dazzled him with that infamous smile of hers and started a few tentative steps over to her music booth, gently pulling the weight of nervous dread that had settled on Miles' chest with her as she went. "Alright, well, you know where to find me."
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And he absolutely did, because for every moment that his mind wasn't occupied with another thought, his eyes seemed to default to the human glow stick and the silly little way she bopped her head to the music from behind her kiosk. God, he hated how endearing he found it. 
After stumbling his way through a hastily abridged version of events, Miles dared to bring his gaze back to the thirteen year old opposite him, feigning nonchalance as he leant back and awaited her take on the interaction. 
“...So what I’m hearing is: she was nice to you once and now you’re suddenly all over her again?” Vivien asked, eyebrow quirked judgmentally and intonation teasing.
Miles crossed his arms as he scoffed out a defence. “I am not, and never was, ‘all over her’.” 
“I’m paraphrasing,” Vivien dryly retorted. 
“How do you even know what that means?” Miles asked in disgruntled incredulity, about to launch into a no-doubt heated debate with the smug brunette until his better judgement stepped in. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this does. Nothing’s changed with Carrie, and it’s not going to. Mick’s just overreacting.” 
Despite listening attentively to the boy’s crabby rationalisation, Vivien’s smirk didn’t budge. And neither did her opinion on the matter. “…If you say so, buddy,” she eventually offered.
Knowing he wouldn’t get anything better than that, Miles merely rolled his eyes and decided to cut his losses - opting to change the topic instead of trying to fight his corner any longer. “What are you even doing over here anyway? What do you want?”
“Damn, and there I was thinking you were enjoying my company,” Vivien laughed through her incredulous horror. 
“I was. I am,” Miles corrected with a laugh of his own. “I just want to change the subject - and fast; you’ve already been distracting me too long.”
“Yeah ‘cause you’ve got some real important work to do,” Vivien sarcastically drawled.
“Would you want to wear skates that smell like a hot, sweaty asshole?” Miles challenged, arming himself with a fresh pair of skates and his trusty aerosol can. Finally, Vivien had no witty comeback, and he could unload a generous spritz of forest-y freshness into the boot with a smirk of his own playing at his lips. “Yeah, didn’t think so,” he chuckled. “Now what did you want?”
“I need you to do me a favour,” she admitted.
Her earnest authority, paired with Miles’ borderline familial love for the girl, almost had him agreeing out of pure instinct alone. But after taking a second to actually process the request, the responsible side of his brain kicked into gear; swarmed with suspicion that ground his train of thought to an abrupt halt. “…What kind of favour?” 
Inwardly grumbling about Miles’ wariness, Vivien explained. “In the next,” she began, pausing to glance at the big clock on the wall to give herself a realistic time frame. Or rather, a realistic ultimatum. “…thirty minutes or so, Royce is going to come over here to ask you a question. I need you to say ‘yes’.” 
“What kind of question?” Miles cagily probed. 
With how big of a breath the girl took in, Miles braced himself for an onslaught of apology-laced begging. But as soon as the reality of having to divulge her plan to Miles hit her, her brain scrambled that breath away and hid it with the rest of her hormone-driven itinerary. 
“…I can’t tell you.”
Miles’ demeanour changed in an instant. “Yeah, no, deal’s off,” he said flatly, crossing his arms across his chest again. If he’d been nudging the gate into position before, now he’d slammed it shut. And padlocked it for good measure. 
"What the hell? Why?" Vivien squeaked in indignation - forest green irises ablaze with frustration.   
"I'm not signing off on something without knowing what it is."
"Oh come on, Miles. Don't be a buzzkill," she groaned. "It's not even a big deal."
"Then why can't you tell me what it is?" he challenged. 
"...Because."
The girl's reluctance to answer on her own accord, paired with her neurotic fidgeting, was not filling Miles with much confidence. Vivien had been known to sneak out without her parents' permission before - the last thing he needed was Royce to start doing the same. So, regardless of the likely outcome, he wanted to get as much information from the girl as he could before he dismissed her. Plus, there had to be a reason for her over-the-top secrecy; she'd revealed secret plans to him before. Why was this time so different? "Is it something illegal?"
"Seriously?" Vivien huffed with a further incredulous, yet somehow still playful, frown. "Is that all you think of me?"
"You're the one who keeps breaking into abandoned buildings," Miles teasingly chuckled. "You forged that opinion all on your own."
"We don't 'break in', we walk in - there's a difference," Vivien clarified. "And no, everything's perfectly legal. You can take Deputy Butt Chin off speed dial."
Miles couldn't help but laugh at the line. "Deputy Butt Chin, that's great," he chortled, glancing across at Mick as he grabbed another pair of skates, making a mental note to inform her of her boyfriend's new nickname as soon as he'd wormed his way out of de-stinking duty. "Well if you're not planning on sneaking off to commit arson or something then what's with all the secrecy?" he went on to ask Vivien, turning back to her with an amused smirk that was a welcome change to his wary frown. "What are you two up to?"
"Nothing!" Vivien insisted. But she could already feel the cracks in her resolve starting to splinter under Miles' gaze. She couldn't hold out much longer, not with those sky blue eyes boring holes into her skull. "It's just… Ugh, look, I'm just gonna ask him if he wants to go to the movies, ok?" she finally confessed, blurting the words out like they'd been fired from a gun. "But he's gonna need your permission first, so I need you to say 'yes'."
Miles' smirk unfurled like a sunflower in midday, sitting proudly beneath a pair of irises that glittered with mischief. "The movies, huh?" he checked, biting back a chuckle. "...And it's only Royce you're asking?"
Cheeks the colour of a Coke can, and with enough embarrassment bubbling beneath to rival the carbonation of its contents, Vivien grumbled out her answer. "...Yes."
"What's wrong with your other friends? They all busy or something?" Miles asked, relishing the opportunity to tease the usually overbearing brunette to death. 
"Don't push it," Vivien warned through gritted teeth. But a heavy sigh was able to disperse some of her mortification, enough to bring the nervous desperation back to the surface anyway. "Look, are you gonna say 'yes' or not? I've not lost hours of sleep over this for you to dick around and ruin it at the last minute."
"As long as you've got a chaperone and an age-appropriate movie lined up, I'm but your humble servant," Miles replied with an entertained grin that told Vivien he was enjoying this far more than he was letting on - and even then it was as obvious as the nose on his face.
"My dad's dropping us off, and it's The NeverEnding Story."
A bark of laughter escaped Miles' lips before he was able to stop the rest from tumbling out. "Holy shit, that's so good," he murmured. He couldn't have come up with a more endearing outcome had he tried - or a more amusing one, come to think of it. This would be keeping him entertained for weeks. 
Deciding that he'd put the poor girl through enough discomfort for one night though, Miles finally took her proposal seriously, and offered her a genuine smile. "Sure, knock yourself out, kiddo," he said, partly just relieved that the request hadn't been anything that would have landed him in a courtroom. 
"Thank you," Vivien breathed, letting out a sigh so deep she felt herself starting to get light-headed. Gently shaking away the hazy relief, and trying desperately to subdue the giddy grin threatening to take over her face, Vivien finally felt herself starting to relax again. "That took a lot less blackmailing than I thought," she admitted with a mischievous chuckle. "Which is a shame, because I have such good material-"
"Alright, alright, you've made your point, you've got your 'yes' man, now get out of here. I've got like thirty more skates to de-stink," Miles cut in, fondly rolling his eyes and attempting to shoo the girl away before she could share any of the aforementioned material. After all, he'd felt enough embarrassment today to last him a lifetime. He didn't need Vivien to start contributing. 
"Guess I'll just have to save them for a rainy day," she teasingly compromised as she wound down their conversation and started heading back over to her friends' table. Right before she could leave though, she tacked on a wicked: "And just so you know, that face plant incident is so making the list for next time."
"Yeah?" Miles challenged with a scoffed laugh to combat her cheeky grin. "Well, just so you know, I'm never letting Royce live down the fact that you had to make the first move," he smirked. "Vivien O'Brian: Balls of Steel."
Rather than accepting Miles' teasing congratulations for her bravery, or dwelling on what he'd said and what it implied about Royce's feelings (knowing that if she did, and the curly haired brunet turned her down, she'd have his older brother's head on a stick for getting her hopes up), Vivien decided to fire back a ribbing retort of her own. Because if he was allowed to poke fun at her love life, then what was to stop her from doing the same? "If you need to borrow them sometime then I might be able to get something arranged," she called out, backing away from the counter as she shot the blonde at the DJ booth a knowing look that soon found its way back to Miles. And that's how she left him, shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and fond amusement, that was soon clouded by the heady aroma of more pine-scented deodoriser spray as he buried his feelings in more, mindless work. 
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Eraser rubbings, and pencil shavings decorated an already busy table top, where notepads dodged rings of condensation from steadily melting slushes, and plastic die roamed the crowded landscape like dragons seeking out a knight. And speaking of dragons…
"Thanks to Argus' stroke of genius, and Skylar's clever navigation, our band of unlikely heroes made it out of The Tinder Grove unscathed, save for some singed hair and minor burns-"
"Uh, I never agreed to being called 'Argus'," Royce piped up indignantly.
"Dude, stop interrupting the story!" Zack clamoured with an exasperated thump of his fist on their booth table. 
"Why does it even matter what your guy's called anyway?" Kona asked with a weary roll of her eyes. Propped up on an elbow, and rocking a pencil back and forth between her fingers - she wasn't exactly a picture of great focus. But the constant stopping-and-starting of the campaign due to bathroom breaks, rule reiterations, and petty whining was certainly not stopping the rapid waning of her concentration.
"Well excuse me for wanting to actually have a say in my character design," Royce retorted with a huff.
"You picked out everything else!" Zack argued. 
"Yeah and you took a fucking eternity - I thought we were gonna have graduated before you settled on your stat points," Kona groaned, taking to lazily doodling a flower on the corner of her paper. 
"You guys were the ones saying to think carefully about it," Royce insisted with a disgruntled scowl.
"Yeah, it's important to get it right before you start, guys," August chimed in, offering the older boy a small, somewhat supportive smile.
"I didn't think we were gonna start at that point." Kona lazily fired back, shooting the pair another pointed look.
Then Bentley decided to give his two cents - partly gargled through a mouthful of green apple slushy. "I thought Argus was cool - didn't it mean like "guardian" or something?" 
"Yeah, but it sounds like a gas company," Zack snickered, quickly earning himself a defeated glare from Royce.
"See? It sounds lame!" the thirteen-year-old exclaimed over his younger brother's raucous laughter, which only got louder as Zack backed his comment up by making fart noises with his hands. Kona, on the other hand, just looked at the boy beside her with a resigned disgust that could only have come from years of putting up with his shenanigans. 
"You already are lame! What does it matter?" came Zack's next playful jab, punctuated with a hearty laugh of his own.
Before Royce could muster a further retaliation though, an unruly, chestnut ponytail plopped down into the booth beside him, eyeing the group with an amused, yet wary smile. 
"What's going on?" Vivien asked, biting back a chuckle as Bentley tried his hardest to make his own hand-farts, although with significantly less successful results.
"Royce is whining about his character name again," Kona explained with another spiritless eye roll.
"I am not whining," he insisted.
Kona just snorted out a laugh of her own. "Could have fooled me."
Sensing the rising tensions amongst the ragtag group of friends, August attempted to placate them all with a timidly hopeful offer. "If you guys wanted, we could always revisit the characters and change them a bit after playing through the first campaign-"
"Yeah, go waste an hour of your own time," Zack told Royce. "My mom's pot roast is gonna be burnt as hell by the time I get home at this rate."
"You're having dinner at home?" Bentley asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"Yeah."
"...Then why the hell did we order pizza here?" August asked as incredulous laughter already began tumbling from Bentley's lips.
"'Cause I'm hungry, man!" Zack insisted. "Two fish sticks for lunch is torture. I've gotta eat!"
As Zack and his friends found themselves caught up in another animated debate, this time about his appetite that could rival (as he told them) an American Pygmy Shrew, Vivien turned to the disgruntled boy at her side, immediately snatching his attention. "You could always go back to Royce the Robust," she offered with a teasing smile.
"Yeah!" Bentley agreed, already starting to giggle again about the stir the name had caused when it was first suggested.
"Absolutely not," Royce said flatly, shooting the idea down in an instant - hating it just as much the second time around.
"Just stick with Argus, man. It's not that deep," Zack borderline pleaded.
"Yeah, I like Argus," Vivien agreed, this time wearing a smile showing nothing but innocent sincerity.
Royce paused and blinked, thinking he must have misheard her. "You do?"
"Yeah, it's cool," she confirmed. "And it means 'watchful guardian', right? That's perfect for you; you're always watching out for us."
The genuine warmth in Vivien's words, and that infectious smile of hers, had Royce's heart hammering in his chest so hard he was scared it would splinter a rib. Averting his gaze before his face could turn the colour of his cherry slushy though, he coughed and prayed his voice would stay steady as his heart skipped a beat and changed direction all together. "...Ok, uh, yeah, I'll stick with Argus."
"Thank you," Zack huffed, collapsing backwards in his seat with a dramatic eye roll.
"Sappy idiots," Kona scoffed, smirking and shaking her head at the pair of thirteen-year-olds, who were ferociously avoiding eye contact for fear of their cheeks growing hot enough to set their paper straws alight. 
"Ok, ok, Royce is sticking with his name, Viv's back at the table, Zack's about to be fed - let's get back to the story!" Bentley demanded with an eager grin that August gladly replicated once the blond's eyes landed on him.
As the rest of the group mumbled their agreements, with varying levels of enthusiasm, and settled back into their seats, August lifted his binder back into his eyeline and continued to read his scrawled handwriting aloud, setting the players up for the next stage in their journey…
"Leading the charge, brandishing one of the Northern Gravelback's mighty fangs around his neck, like the medal it was, Omar Scale Crusher is the first of the group to stumble upon a towering structure of crumbling brick, overgrown with a century's worth of ivy. Although the oak door is chained shut, he notices the ivy has grown over a long-shattered window, already overrun with moss. Omar, what do you do next?" he finished, lifting his gaze to send his friend an inquisitive grin.
Zack's eyes glittered with intrigue beneath a set of furrowed brows. "This has to be the cursed wizard's old hideout, right?" he thought aloud. And although he scanned the table's occupants for confirmation of his suspicions, he decided on his next move before they could utter a sound, fuelled by pure adrenaline and a hero's instinct. "I'm breaking through the chain and heading insi-"
"Woah, woah, woah, slow down," Royce cut in with an outraged frown. "What happened to consulting the group first?"
"Yeah," Kona piped up. "You've gotta check for booby traps first, idiot - or do you want to get us all killed before we even get out of the forest?" 
"They're cursed - they fled the night the curse was placed on them - there's no way they had time to set booby traps," Zack attempted to dismiss.
"Who's to say they didn't set them before they were cursed?" Vivien theorised. But when four pairs of curious eyes fell on her, each looking as lost as the next, she went on to explain. "I mean, if they've got a bunch of rare ingredients and magical artefacts in there, they'd have wanted some sort of security system in place to keep them safe, right? Otherwise thieves would have gutted this place years ago."
"Well the window's broken, maybe they already have?" Bentley suggested.
"And another one's about to," Kona added with a smug grin and a quick glance down at her character sheet.
Choosing to just focus on Bentley's question, Vivien continued. "We had to carve a doorway through that giant silverwood tree to get in - there was no other way into the glade - if anyone else had been here before us, that tree wouldn't have been in one piece. So the broken window has to be a red herring - something to ward off any thieves that did ever make it this far by tricking them into thinking someone had already beaten them to it. I don't think either route is completely safe, but I'd take our chances checking the window first over the main door. That way we at least get a look inside before we try entering."
As satisfying as Zack, Kona and Bentley's stupefied expressions, and Royce's awestruck grin were, it was the proud twinkle in August's muddy, olive eyes that finally drew a smile to her lips.
"Omar," August continued, biting back a smirk as his gaze returned to Zack. "Your next move?"
Shrinking under the warning eyes of his friends, Zack sheepishly mumbled his reply. "I'll go and look through the window to check for any signs of danger," he said, reciting the words in a monotone voice as though they'd been fed to him by cue cards. 
As his smirk broke free, August turned back to his binder. "Omar approaches the cracked pane of glass and peers through the cobwebs adorning the gap. He casts a 'detect magic' spell and finds the cobblestone floor and door handle have both been charmed, whilst the padlock's mechanism has been laced with combustionite - a material designed to explode at first contact with any living lifeform."
Kona snorted and elbowed the boy beside her. "Still think breaking the door down was a good idea?" she teased, earning herself a disgruntled huff from the boy.
"Alright, alright, I get it."
"What charms are they?" Royce went on to ask, quietly hoping to impress Vivien as much as her inquisitive nature had impressed him. "Maybe if we can find out what they do we'll have something to counteract them."
"It's called 'Membrat Torpestus', it's a charm that, again, only affects living life forms. But unlike the magic used on the lock that makes whatever it touches explode, this charm works on the atoms in your skeleton, essentially disintegrating them," August began to explain.
"What the hell?" Vivien muttered, eyebrows pulled together in a mix of horror and concentration.
"It's like when you get 'jelly legs' after sitting in a weird position for too long - but with this your legs would actually start turning to jelly," August finished, eyes glittering with morbid glee upon watching his friends' reactions to his story. But before any of them could question him further, a new voice entered the debate.
"Do I want to know the context?" Mick asked with a wary, lopsided grin, hearing the tail end of the conversation as she approached the table with a steaming tray of food lofted over her shoulder. 
"Yes!" Bentley and Zack cried in unison - but Bentley's enthusiasm for the game was only matched by Zack's enthusiasm for the slab of greasy cheese and marinara the brunette was setting down on their table.
Chuckling at the pair as they shot one another incredulous looks, Mick said, "Alright, well let me set this food down before it gets cold, then knock yourselves out. I've got a large pizza - half pepperoni, half veggie; a basket of waffle fries; two portions of chicken tenders; and one turkey melt." After placing the food in its designated place, amongst the scattered array of papers, and ravenous youths, Mick stepped back and addressed the group again. "Is that everything or can I get you guys anythi-?"
"Could you please get me a-?"
Before Kona could even finish her question, Mick whipped a little tub of ranch sauce out of her apron pocket and tossed it to the blonde. 
"Aww, you remembered," Kona giggled with a grateful grin. "Thanks, Mick!"
"No problem," Mick smiled, sending the girl a quick, knowing wink when she next caught her eye. "Anyone else need anything?" she tried again. But since the caddy on the table already had a plethora of other condiments for the group to choose from, and Zack had already inhaled one of his pizza slices in a matter of seconds, they all seemed to be satisfied. "Awesome, fire away then. I've been dying to know what you guys have been doing over here all this time. You've been so quiet Miles and I thought you were plotting some kind of middle school coup," she snorted, tucking her serving tray under her arm.
"We're playing Dungeons and Dragons," Bentley exclaimed, spraying crumbs all over his character sheet in his excitement. 
"...Which is?"
"It's like a fantasy role-playing game," Vivien explained a little more coherently. "You get to design your own character and work your way through each level as a group, and each decision you make helps determine where the story ends up going - like a choose-your-own adventure book."
"Right…" Mick slowly trailed off. Behind the bemused smile and vacant nodding though, there was a glimmer of understanding in those dark brown irises. "So how exactly do the jello bones come into it?" she went on to ask, fighting the urge to burst out laughing through the energetic responses the table of kids immediately started firing back at her.
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"Miles!"
A smirk curled at the brunet's lips. "I thought you weren't talking to me," he called back, not even bothering to turn around to address the owner of the voice. But when his can of air freshener was snatched from his grasp, he had no choice but to end up face-to-face with the skate rentals booth intruder. 
"Have you learned your lesson?" Mick challenged with a smirk of her own.
"Yes," Miles insisted, voice laced with desperation.
"Good," she replied with a teasing grin, before setting the aerosol can neatly on the back counter. "Then your time out's done."
"Finally," he laughed through a heavy sigh of relief, slinging the sweaty roller skate he was working on into the nearest cubby. "What's got you in such a good mood? I didn't think you'd be showing me any mercy until at least 7:30."
"You won't believe what your army of children are doing over there," Mick gushed, eyes sparkling with amusement.
"Planning a heist of Family Video?" Miles suggested with a jovial, yet weary huff. "Or something else that will land them all in juvie."
"You wish those little dorks were that exciting," Mick snorted. "They're all sat around making up a big fairy story. August basically has a whole book written already but they were saying something about playing it out and choosing what happens themselves - I don't know, I still don't think I fully get it. But whatever it is, your brothers are hooked. I haven't seen Bentley that invested in something since his ET phase last year."
Recalling the memory with a fond grin, Miles asked. "So what? They've started a writing club or something?"
"No, they said it's like a game - I think," Mick tried to explain. Although it was clear that she'd been so entertained by the sheer concept alone that the details of the matter had been lost on her. "They've all made up their own characters though. Viv's has this cool purple sword, and Bentley's got a magic paintbrush, and I think Royce said he was like a priest or something-"
"What the fuck? Seriously?" Miles chuckled.
"Yeah, I know," Mick laughed back, glad that she wasn't the only one who found the idea so comical. "I would have stayed longer but I was told they had to get back to their 'quest'."
"They have their own quests?"
"Mhm, something about a cursed ogre, I think," she mused, before being cut off by a hearty laugh from one of her best friends. 
"Holy shit," Miles finally sighed once his laughter had started to subside. "I don't think I'm gonna have to worry about them sneaking off to wild house parties any time soon, huh?"
"Don't worry, you can just stress about them getting paper cuts or carpal tunnel instead," Mick shot back with a matching, teasing grin. "Please tell me you're gonna go over there and ask them about it yourself," she then went on to plead.
"Why would I need to when you've explained it so articulately yourself?" he sarcastically retorted.
"Oh come on, it's the cutest thing - you love seeing them get excited over stuff," Mick tried, hoping she was pressing on his weak spot. "Especially when it's dorky stuff. And what's dorkier than a magic paintbrush and an ogre?" When Miles didn't make any attempt to move though, besides a twitching, curious smile, Mick decided to lay it on just a touch thicker. "You know, apparently Royce, Bentley, and Viv have matching weapons satchels." And a touch thicker still. "And Royce was so distracted by a certain someone he couldn't settle on a name until she picked one out for him." Until…"And I even think I heard Bentley saying that if he managed to befriend the magic goat he'd found he was going to name it after a certain big brother of his…" 
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"What's this I hear about you plotting to take down an ogre?"
Attention immediately snatched from August's maniacal laughter as he taunted Zack with a mushroom from his pizza, Bentley whirled around in his booth seat and threw his arms around his brother's neck. "Miley!"
"Why are you acting like you didn't just talk to me forty minutes ago?" Miles snorted. Although he accepted the hug all the same.
"Come check out our game!" Bentley enthused, beckoning Miles to lean in closer over the back of the booth so that he could see more of their game sheets.
As his eyes scanned the table though, they widened with each new page he found, and just how much detail they contained. "Wow, you guys have been real busy, huh?"
"Well, for the best part of this afternoon, yeah," Vivien grinned, before warily asking. "Mick didn't send you over here to tell us to stop playing, did she?"
"No, knock yourselves out," Miles laughed. "I'm just here to find out what on earth you guys are doing - I've never known you guys be so quiet."
"We're playing Dungeons and Dragons," Royce explained. "It's this fantasy roleplaying ga-"
A lightbulb flickered on in the back of Miles' mind - accompanied with a hazy newscast featuring a crotchety old woman in a salmon blazer - and the colour started to drain from his face. "Wait, Dungeons and Dragons? Isn't that like demon worshipping stuff? Where did you find-?"
"It's not demon worshipping," Vivien groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. "Didn't you listen to your brother? It's a fantasy game. It's all made up."
"And we're only on Level 1 anyway - so even if we did summon a demon, it'd be a tiny one," Zack mumbled, peeling all the pepperoni slices off his latest slice of pizza and stacking them atop one another.
When it looked as though Miles was still feeling a little nervy though, August decided to step in to offer his own reassurances. "It's all totally fictional, Miles. I promise - my mom wouldn't have let me go anywhere near it if she thought it was gonna be a bad influence. The evangelical psychos on the news just wanted a new target to blame the state of the world on," he finished with a small, cheeky smile.
"Yeah, basement-dwelling dweebs," Kona tacked on.
Unable to stop himself from smiling back at the pair, Miles soon let go of any further qualms and returned to his teasing ways. "I take it that's what you guys are now considered then?" 
Clearly unhappy with their new nickname, Zack frowned. "Not cool, man."
"Yeah, does this look like a basement to you?" Vivien added with a knowing smirk that Miles soon found himself laughing at.
"Oh, so that's what you took issue with - noted," he grinned, before lazily crossing his arms over the back of the booth seat and pressing on with his inquiries. "So if we're not summoning evil spirits, what are we doing?"
"We're searching for a wizard who's gonna help us join the Guild of Astral Explorers, but he's been cursed by an ogre and driven into exile - so we need to kill the ogre and figure out a cure," Bentley babbled, the words practically running into one another with how eager they were to be uttered. "Which is proving to be a lot easier said than done."
"You're just gonna let them kill you like that, Kona?"
"What are you talking about?" she asked, looking up at the older brunet in utter confusion.
"What? There's an ogre in the story and it's not you?" he teased, feigning stupefaction at such a revelation. 
Over her friends' raucous laughter, Kona just shot Miles a withering glare, and sucked up a chunk of ice with her straw, that she then aimed and fired at his forehead. 
Wiping the splattered trails of coloured syrup from his cheeks with a chuckle of his own, Miles then admitted, "I deserved that." 
To which Kona offered a satisfied smile - served atop a neatly prepared middle finger, naturally. Miles had always had a little-sister-esque fondness for the unruly blonde, and the older-sibling-less girl gladly accepted the challenge of wit his teasing always promised.
"Can you guys even play as the ogres? How does the game actually work?" Miles went on to ask. And from there the group of friends began rhapsodising about the game mechanics all over again. The premise, the stats system, the way the dice came into play - he was schooled on it all. And once the basics were laid down, then came the vivid descriptions of each party member - and the convoluted backstories that accompanied them. He sat through the tall tale of how Pablo Leonardo Atwood (named after two painters, since Bentley couldn't settle on just one) carved his paintbrush from an ancient, magical redwood tree; how Cyrus Fletcher fled the king's army with nothing but the arrows on his back and a guilty conscious, ready to start a new life far from the corrupt nobility (or so August said); how Skylar Renee Sanderson earned the amethyst crystals encrusting the hilt of her sword; and, of course, how Omar Scale Crusher slayed the fiery beast that gave him his name. If his innate nerdiness didn't already have him hooked, the kids' passion certainly would have done the trick by the end of their ramblings.
"Damn, you guys really have been busy," he mused with a fond grin. Although it didn't take long for his sensible suspicions to creep back into the forefront of his mind. "You did all this and your homework?"
Miles should have known it was too good to be true, and yet Bentley's sheepish laughter soon struck him back to reality with a disapproving frown.
"Oh come on, Miles. We were on top of everything yesterday, and nothing we were set today is due for tomorrow. Can't we push it back a day just this one time?" Royce begged.
"Yeah, come on, you wouldn't want to be the killjoy that ruined all our fun, would you?" Vivien added, with a challenging smirk that, paired with Bentley's killer puppy dog eyes, had Miles caving within seconds.
"Alright, fine. But just this once," he gently warned. "I don't want you guys to make a habit out of slacking off work. Even if the reasons are totally awesome," he added with a chuckle.
"You're one to talk," Vivien fired back through a snort. "You've been talking to us for the last twenty minutes instead of working."
"Has it really been twenty minutes?" Miles squeaked in surprise, quickly peeling himself off the sticky, painted wooden frame of the booth seat and standing to attention. But as he straightened out his shirt and ran a hand through his admittedly unkempt hair, he soon drew up an excuse. "It's fine, it's not like we're busy anyway."
"Oh yeah?" Kona challenged with a smirk. "Then what's that big line over there for?"
Following the direction Kona had jerked her head in, Miles' eyes grew to the size of plates as he saw a haphazard queue of teens had gathered around the vacant skate rentals booth, visibly grumbling to one another. And without a worker in sight, he could see why. "Oh what? Why didn't you say sooner?" he cried. But before he could scramble back over to his abandoned post, a rough hand slammed down on his shoulder, and a head of shaggy hair appeared beside him.
"Yo, what's the crowd for? Are we offering refunds or something?" Ethan guffawed, the chill from the October evening air still clinging to his reddened, acne-smattered cheeks. 
"Goddammit," Miles huffed in frustrated despair. "Mick said she'd cover for me. Who the hell is she making food for now? No one ever eats here! The food sucks."
"Sucks enough for us to eat it though, right?" Bentley teased, waving his chicken tender at his older brother before happily taking a bite. Sure, the preservatives were off the charts, and the salt content could de-ice a highway in Alaska, but the taste was kind of comforting in a weird, overly greasy sort of way. And besides, it's not like the TV dinners stacked in their fridge back at home had significantly better nutritional value. 
Stepping in before Miles could start lecturing his brothers on their eating habits though, Ethan grabbed his attention with another snorted laugh. "I don't know, man, but it's not for a delivery." Miles' brows started to draw together in confusion, but Ethan explained himself through a smirk before he could even open his mouth. "I took the phone off the hook before I left."
Rolling his eyes and laughing at his coworker's antics, he went on to ask, bumping his shoulder with his. "Oh yeah, and how long's it gonna stay like that for?"
"Rest of the night if I get my way," Ethan grinned, eyes already blissfully glazing over at the prospect of a few hours of peace.
Unable to share that luxury, Miles grabbed his shoulder and started steering him away from the booth of middle schoolers. "Yeah, well not until you've helped me with these customers," he said with a smirk of his own. Stopping before he completely left though, he turned back to his brothers and their friends with a warm, yet wistful smile. "As much as I'd love to stay and hear about more of your adventures, you'll have to give me a rundown later on. Have fun tracking down that ogre though, kiddos." Reaching over the back of the booth to fondly ruffle Royce and Bentley's mops of curly hair, he added a gentle: "You guys know where to find me if you need anything."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Royce sighed over Bentley's giggles.
"That goes for all of you, by the way," he added, extending his fond smile to the whole table. After all, he'd known his brothers' friends so long by now that he practically considered them family anyway.
"Yeah, we know," Vivien chuckled. "Now go before they start throwing their skates at you."
Cringing in agreement, Miles gave the girl a quick nod before turning and calling out to the teenagers across the room. "I'll be there in a second!" Hoping that a timeframe, and an apologetic smile, would help placate them a little.
But before he could set off into a jog, Ethan's head popped up in front of his with a particularly wicked grin. "Not if I get there first!" he said with a childlike glee that Miles always found to be incredibly contagious. 
The scrawny brunet dashed towards the other side of the room at an alarming speed, his Nikes hammering against the garish carpet with practised ease and the rhythmic thudding drowning out Miles' cries of protest, until he felt the toe of a tattered Converse knock-off hit the sweet spot behind his knee. With a yelp he crumpled to the floor, knee buckling reflexively on impact. A victorious laugh flew from Miles' lips as he took his chance Ethan's head-start snatched from him, and strode the few paces needed to take the lead. But his triumph was short-lived, because Ethan quickly retaliated by swinging out his fist and making impeccable contact with Miles' groin just as he started to pass him. Miles crashed to the floor in an instant, groaning out a string of complaints to his cackling assailant, who just laid down beside him in shared, silent surrender - the line of customers long-forgotten between their raucous laughter and boyish rough-housing. 
Watching the idiotic play-fighting continue between the older teens as they started hurling jokey insults back-and-forth, and started helping one another to their feet, Vivien fondly shook her head at the pair and turned back to the table with an eye roll. "And he calls us 'children'."
"I wish he could get more of a break," Bentley mused with a sigh, dejectedly pushing ketchup around on the wax paper lining his basket-bowl with a limp french fry. "I hate that he has to work all the time. I wanted him to stay and watch us play for a bit."
"Maybe he can sit and watch a whole game another time if we play at your house?" August suggested with a small, hopeful smile. "On one of his days off?"
"He probably could have gotten away with staying longer if his coworkers actually pitched in and pulled their weight," Royce grumbled.
Frowning at his grumpiness, Vivien swiftly jumped to her friend's defence. "Well Mick usually does but she must be busy in the…" As she followed Royce's gaze though, and settled on a head of bushy, golden curls, shoved into an All Skate staff t-shirt, yet gliding around the rink with the rest of the customers, seemingly without a care in the world, the meaning behind Royce's statement started to dawn on her. "Oh…yeah."
Letting out a disgusted huff as Carrie began giggling with the two friends she was skating with, throwing her head back and applauding as one of them started twirling along to the song she'd set to play, Royce muttered, "She's so selfish she wouldn't even help if he asked anyway."
Remembering Miles’ deep-seated affection for the blonde, and hating to see Royce so frustrated by her very existence, Vivien attempted to coax him into giving her the benefit of the doubt. "You don't know that," she gently tried. "She probably just didn't realise how swamped the rental counter was."
"Yeah," Royce scoffed. "'Cause her head's stuck so far up her own ass she could be considered legally blind."
Zack's bark of laughter was quickly silenced by Kona disapprovingly nudging his arm though. "Oh please, what's she ever done to you?" 
"Uh, blasted out my ear drums with her god awful music taste every time we've set foot in here?" he retorted. Royce's vendetta may have been personal, but Zack's was just as valid in his eyes.
"I swear it gets louder every time we come," Royce complained, scowling at the twirling blonde beneath the flashing neon lights. "I can barely hear myself think."
Although he usually assumed the role of the pacifist amongst the group, even August dared a somewhat reluctant: "It is kind of making it hard to concentrate."
The prospect of delaying their campaign even further, paired with the way August was hesitantly toying with his binder of notes, and his older brother was prickling with frustration, had Bentley jumping to action without a second thought. After all, with his inherent, yet naive, optimism, the solution felt obvious. "Then let's just go ask her to turn it down."
Bentley was rising from his seat and shifting onto his knees within seconds, but Royce, horrified at the very idea of communicating with the she-devil, yanked him back down with frantic urgency. "What?! No, Benny, come on," he hissed, eyes wide and desperate. "She's not worth it. She won't listen."
But to Royce's immense surprise, Bentley's hopeful smile remained. "Oh please, she can't be that bad if Miles likes her so much," he said, rolling his eyes at his brother's caginess and pushing himself up on his knees to get a clear view of the blonde. Stretching to the fullest height he could, and cupping his hands around his mouth he called out a friendly: "Carrie!"
Utterly oblivious, the girl continued spinning at break-neck speeds and laughing along with her friends - any attempts at grabbing her attention drowned out by the Dead or Alive song blaring from the speakers encircling the rink. 
Royce rolled his eyes yet again, and Vivien even tried a cautious: "It's fine, Benny, I'm sure we can manage."
But the blonde was nothing if not persistent. "Carrie!"
Even though the second yell of her name went completely unnoticed by the girl, her bucket-hatted skating buddy caught Bentley's eye and, just as she was slowing her latest spin to a stop, directed her attention over to the group of middle schoolers. Giggles freely tumbling from her lips, and a slightly puzzled expression clouding her eyes, Carrie rolled over to the side of the rink closest to their booth. Sliding to a gentle stop, she called out an indifferent: "You guys okay?"
"Can you turn down the music? We're trying to play a game over here," Bentley hollered back.
Regardless of the programmed light sequence illuminating the rink, Royce's vision flashed red at the scornful laugh that fell from her mouth.
"Yeah, and I'm trying to entertain our customers," she retorted with a sickeningly blasé chuckle. "So no, sorry, squirt."
"We're not saying 'turn it off', just turn it down a bit," Bentley tried again, catching her before she could turn her back. "Please," he added with a hopeful, lopsided grin.
"Look, I'm paid to provide a good atmosphere for the skaters, our paying customers," she emphasised, souring the entire group's mood with a few, short words. "It's a roller rink, not a library."
"Come on, just this one time. We won't be here all night," Vivien said, jumping to Bentley's defence and hoping to give the blonde the opportunity to redeem herself.
But Carrie wouldn't budge on the matter, still as baffled by the suggestion as when it was first proposed. "No, I'm not here to babysit, I'm here to play music. If you want somewhere quiet to play your…'board game', go look somewhere else."
Temper running at an all-time high, Royce protectively placed his arm in front of Vivien before she could respond, and took on the challenge himself - facing the volatile blonde with a deep-seated distaste that bore deeper and deeper with every passing second. "They're not asking for much, you don't have to be so difficult. Just turn the music down," he barked, each word sharp enough to slash Carrie's gaudy leotard to shreds. "It's ruining our game; we can barely hear ourselves think."
Part of Royce wanted to be proven wrong - wanted Miles' judgement to remain untarnished. If only Carrie's face would fall, eyebrows pinched in dismay, and profuse apologies would start to spill from her lip gloss-lacquered lips. At least then this bizarre infatuation of his brother's would start to make a little more sense. But when Carrie's gaze stayed as vacant as ever, the burning hatred in the pit of his stomach roared to an inferno. 
"Ok?" she snorted with an unbothered stare, already starting to roll back over to her friends as she delivered her final, oblivious piece of advice: "Go find someone who cares."
Besides, since when did middle schoolers' problems have to be any of her concern? 
If Royce possessed the same magical abilities as his cleric counterpart, Carrie would have burst into flames before the wheels of her skates had made a full rotation. Sitting back in his seat, unable to bear the sight of the girl any longer, he let out a heavy, defeated sigh, as Kona spoke the entire table's mind. 
"Damn, what a bitch."
"I fucking hate her," Royce muttered, heart hammering with pent-up frustration, and then utter hormonal panic as Vivien laid a comforting hand over the back of his own. 
"Ok, well, that didn't exactly go to plan," Bentley noted with an awkward laugh, and cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. 
"I can't believe she was so rude. Miles said she'd been a bit weird at school, but she was super nice to him earlier," Vivien said, thinking back to their prior conversation. 
"Yeah, well, Miles needs a lobotomy if he thinks she's a nice person," Royce spat, daring a glance in the blonde's direction - only to immediately regret it once he saw she'd returned to dancing about with her friends without a care in the world. 
"Well, if that was my first and last time ever talking to her, I don't think I'd have any complaints," Vivien said with a jovial smirk that, with a little coaxing, at least got the corner of Royce's mouth twitching into a smirk of his own. 
"Look, can we forget about the fucking dancing poodle lady?" Zack demanded with a weary groan. "I don't care how much of a bitch she is, or how stupid her hair looks - that's old news as far as I'm concerned. But I do care about finishing this damn game!" 
Laughter burbled throughout the group, thankfully raising their spirits once more as they confirmed their agreements and settled back into the story - greasy pizza and stuck-up DJs long-forgotten. The rest of the evening flew by as the wannabe adventurers traversed the sprawling Maldonado Grove. Whilst Cyrus kept their precious dryad bark and serpent oil safe: Skylar and Andromeda outsmarted a rival royal spy (and stole all their supplies), Argus and Pablo thwarted a giant centipede, and Omar single handedly took down a rather pesky, rabid badger. 
With the ogre's hillside hideout so close, each move the party made was crucial. So when they stumbled across an overgrown swampland, inhabited by a rather unfriendly giant toad, Bentley's excitable franticness led to some rash decisions being made. And so tensions began to rise…
"What are you doing?!" an alarmed Zack cried, trying, and failing, to snatch up the die before the blond. "Those things have 18 hitpoints - and you've only done 11 damage!"
"So they've got…7 left?" Bentley said, silently confirming his calculations with the others around the table as he happily rolled the plastic, diamond-shaped die around in the palm of his hand. "That's nothing! It's an 8-sided die, I could do that with one roll."
"You've only got one roll, Ben," Kona somewhat painfully reminded him.
His cool blue eyes widened. "Oh wait, what?" he squeaked in dismay, his train of thought screeching to a halt as he tried to process what the girl had said. 
"Giant frogs have 18 hit points, but it's limited to 4 rolls of an 8 die," August gently explained to him. "You've already used up 3 of them to get to 11."
"Oh…" Bentley trailed off, with a disheartened frown as the reality of his predicament dawned on him. It was quickly swapped for a look of optimistic determination though. "That's fine. It's still possible, right?"
"Well yeah, but the odds aren't exactly in your favour," Kona began.
Royce, never one to stand idle when he saw his younger brother struggling, soon interrupted her though. "It's ok, Benny. We can all pitch in and kill them together."
But as the brunet started offering what he thought were helpful strategies for making this mutant amphibian easier to destroy, Bentley just let out a frustrated huff. He loved his brothers more than anything (yes, even more than Super Pretzels), and he knew they wanted the best for him - but sometimes the way they jumped to his aid at the first sign of trouble made him feel utterly useless. Sure, he understood that he was the baby of the family, and that they were just looking out for him, but that didn't change how inadequate it made him feel. For once he wanted to prove to Royce that he could do something on his own - that he didn't need to rely on his brothers to get him out of trouble. He could handle this himself. 
"No, come on, we're almost at the end. Let's not waste any more time," he insisted as a baffled Royce watched him start to roll the die around in his cupped fists. And above the shocked arguments and attempts to reason with him, Bentley silenced his friends with an assured: "I can do this." 
At the mercy of Bentley's ink-stained fingers, the dice soared through the air, captivating the whole party with a collective gasp, before bouncing onto the sticky, varnished tabletop. It skittered across the playing field, scattering nearby crumbs like fleeing soldiers, until it rolled to a stop under August's nose.
No one dared to breathe; their eyes were all glued to the hunk of plastic like jocks to the SuperBowl. But as the die sealed Bentley's fate, the players' gazes slowly lifted from the number to meet his own - each one wearing the same, awkwardly apologetic expression.
1.
Bentley almost couldn't believe it at first. He couldn't have been that unlucky with his rolls 3 times in a row, right? Maybe it was actually a 7 and he just couldn't read it properly. But when, for the first time that evening after a monster battle, nobody cheered, something clenched in the pit of his stomach. "Oh…" he murmured, heart sinking to his feet. "Damn."
Lifting his gaze to the nearest face for some sort of comfort, Bentley found the panic-stricken stare of August, masked with a layer of what seemed to be genuine sorrow at his friend's misfortune.
"Benny, we told you!" Kona cried, throwing down her pencil in frustration.
But Royce just looked concerned, rather than annoyed. "Why didn't you wait for the rest of us?" he asked, almost appearing hurt that his help had been so vehemently dismissed. 
Avoiding his older brother's gaze, for fear of it making that faint, sick feeling in his belly even worse, Bentley pushed his fervent sense of remorse aside and clung to that faithful, yet naive optimism of his. "It's fine," he hurriedly insisted, fixing a lopsided, almost desperate smile to his face as he looked back up at August. "What happens now then if I didn't kill it? Does it just hop away and I don't get any XP?"
"No, doofus, it swallows you whole," Zack retorted.
"What?! How? It's a frog!" 
"Yeah, a giant one," Kona reminded him.
Bewildered dismay streaking across his face as his gaze flew between his classmates, Bentley asked, "Is that bad then? How much damage does it do?"
"Once you're swallowed the acid attacks give 5 damage points," August slowly explained, hating every second of dismantling the boy's inherent, infectious optimism. "And I think you only have…"
Bentley's gaze fell to his character sheet, where the freshest pencil scratching marked a '3' where his current health allowance resided. Stunned into near silence, Bentley stared at his shoddy handwriting until he came to terms with the fact that it wasn't going to change. But even then, he could barely comprehend what that meant. "Hold on," he started, meeting August's olive, pitying eyes with utter stupefaction. "Does that mean I'm 'out'?"
The dungeon master's nod was reluctant, but there all the same.
"Are you serious? I lost the game because I got swallowed by a big frog?" he exclaimed in utter disbelief, as his party members just looked on helplessly.
"I did try to say we should have all healed up after fighting those mud mephits," Kona started, but after a swift kick to the shin under the table from August, she soon went quiet. 
"So what? Am I really just dead now?" Bentley asked, still reeling from the whiplash his plummeting enjoyment of the game delivered him.
"Well, for the rest of this campaign…yeah," August awkwardly admitted. But as soon as he saw the distress clouding the boy's blue eyes, he scrambled to try to raise his spirit (in more ways than one) once more. "But I can work something into our next one where we avenge your death and resurrect you!"
"Yeah, we'll come back and cut you out of its big slimy stomach," Zack agreed with a guffaw. "And then we'll cook it over a big fire and eat its legs like they do in France."
"Do you only think about food?" a disgruntled Kona muttered.
"Or you could make a new character if you wanted," August added, hoping that his suggestions could bring the boy a little peace of mind. "It's up to you, really."
But Bentley's mind couldn't quite cope with thinking that far ahead yet. "What am I supposed to do for the rest of this campaign though? Just sit and watch you guys play?"
That dejected frown of Bentley's was almost too much for August to bear, especially after putting so much time and effort into creating a storyline he thought his friends would enjoy, which made his next proposal all too easy. "You can play as Cyrus for me if you want? It's kinda hard trying to play and be DM at the same time," he said with a shy smile, before tentatively offering, "Or you could come and help me DM?"
It may not have been the victorious end to the adventure he'd hoped for, but getting to help lead the mayhem as the campaign reached its climax was a pretty sweet consolation prize. And if his gasp of intrigue and excitable grin weren't clear enough responses on their own, his enthusiastic nodding definitely sealed the deal. "Ok, yeah!" 
As the pre-teens all swapped places, laughing and teasing one another about the recent turn of events, Bentley’s jovial attitude quickly returned. And as August eagerly began pointing out the various sections of his DM binder, and brainstorming ideas for how to make Pablo's death far more heroic and spectacular than it actually was, some semblance of peace fell over the group of friends again. 
Although Royce had remained quiet throughout the resolution of the frog debacle, a pensive stare masking the churning sea of bewildered concern flooding his mind, Vivien's silence could only be blamed on a head of auburn hair. 
The faint call of "Pip!" as the die first bounced to the tabletop made her ears prick up, and as the roll descended to chaos, her mossy green eyes found its source in an instant. After all, that stupid, wannabe rockstar, spiky hairstyle of his made him stick out like a sore thumb.
At first she was just confused; Riven never came to All Skate. But when he started waving enthusiastically at her from the arcade section, and was briefly joined by his two classmates: one with the ends of her hair haphazardly streaked with blue raspberry Kool-Aid, and the other swinging a pair of rental skates by their laces - it all began to make sense. Erica did seem to have a mild obsession with Q*Bert if her pact to get a tattoo of the little orange guy for her 18th birthday was anything to go by. 
Returning the wave with an inconspicuous one of her own - not wanting to draw the table's attention at such a high-stakes moment - she half-expected the interaction to end there. But when Riven started attempting to mouth things to her across the vast room, any understanding of the campaign crisis unfolding before her was completely lost.
"Have you kissed him yet?" came Riven's first question, paired with a mischievous grin. 
With the flashing coloured lights and general low light levels though, it took several attempts and some incredibly cringeworthy miming for Vivien to finally understand what he'd asked. But when she caught on, a look of horror jumped to her face as she furiously started shaking her head. 
Riven just tossed his head back and laughed at her response, and steadily reddening cheeks. "Have you at least asked him out?" he tried.
Squinting through the darkness, Vivien still struggled to make out what he was saying, even with his comically exaggerated lip movements. But when she did, she dared a quick glance at the brunet beside her before sheepishly shaking her head once more.
Riven's eye roll was so dramatic he practically did it with his whole body. "Come on!" he mouthed with an amused smirk, thoroughly entertained by her embarrassment. "Grow some balls!"
Vivien had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing out loud at the comical hand actions that accompanied Riven's latest comment. And so, for a third time, she ended up shaking her head at him - this time in a sort of fond, ribbing way though. "I'm working on it!" she dared to mouth back once she was sure the rest of the table's occupants were too enthralled in their own discussion to notice.
Glancing between the big clock on the wall and the bespectacled brunette, he raised his arm and gave a theatrical tap of his clunky, digital watch, that Vivien always teased he'd pulled out of a children's spy kit. "Tick tock!" he playfully taunted. "Or am I gonna have to come over there and ask him for you?"
Once more, Vivien shook her head, this time a little more desperately, as mortifying images of Riven having to speak to Royce on her behalf flooded her mind. "I've got it under control," she promised, daring another sideways glance at Royce to confirm it to both parties. But if the way her stomach lurched at the very sight of him told her anything, it was that she was a barefaced liar. Still, the red-haired asshole and his smug little smirk were not making the process of keeping her anxiety at bay any easier. So just as he started miming even more kissy faces at her, she sent him a flustered glare with a definite message: "Go away!" 
Thoroughly satisfied with the teasing he'd subjected his makeshift little sister to for the moment, Riven obeyed with a final chortle and a silent: "Love you!" 
Even though she wanted nothing more than to see the back of the sophomore's stupid head, the sentiment had her grinning like a fool all the same. She desperately needed to get this blistering blush under control before she attempted any sort of contact with Royce though; this situation was already going to be painfully embarrassing enough - she didn't need to be starting it out already on the back foot. But as she shot the clock a quick glance of her own, she realised she really was on a time crunch; her dad would be arriving to pick them up soon. And Royce still didn't even know about it.
Casually trying to splash some of the icy condensation from her slushy across her burning cheeks, Vivien took some long, steady breaths to calm the raging battlefield that her mind had become. And before she could talk herself into backing out again, she cleared her throat and croaked out a timid: "Uh, Royce?"
Broken out of his pensive stupor, Royce's umber eyes found hers - blinking a few times to rid the cloud of brotherly anxiety from his brain so that fresh, hormonal curiosity could replace it. "Yeah?"
"I, uh," Vivien shakily began, rubbing her sweaty hands along her jeans and immediately dropping her gaze. Dammit. How did she always crumble so quickly? She didn't have time for this. She couldn't afford to waste any more time worrying about the heat prickling her cheeks, or the way her stomach was twisting itself into knots. She just had to rip the band-aid off. And besides, if it all went horribly wrong, at least she had Riven nearby to pummel to a pulp and wipe her tears and snotty nose on for telling herself it would be ok. "I don't think I ever finished asking you about The NeverEnding Story earlier."
"...Ok, what about it?"
The blank, somewhat confused look Royce shot her made Vivien's throat feel drier than the croutons sat atop her untouched side salad. But she ploughed on anyway. "Well, you know how you missed out on going to see it over the summer?"
"Yeah…" Royce slowly replied, still completely oblivious, and a little wary, as to where Vivien was going with this.
"Well the theatre downtown is replaying some of the big movies of the summer, and there's a showing of it later tonight…" This was it. She couldn't back down now. And so, steeling her nerve and meeting Royce's gaze with a tentative smile, she took in a big breath and made her offer. "So I wondered if you'd maybe want to…go and see it together?"
Something caught between bewildered surprise and utter disbelief flashed in Royce's irises, and for a second Vivien wanted to bolt out the rink's door and keep running until she crossed the state line. And whilst the shock didn't quite dissipate, a smile managed to break through the endorphin-induced chaos. "Yeah! I- uh, yeah," he said, scrambling to downplay his borderline cringey eagerness. "That, uh, that sounds great."
"Really?" Vivien breathed through a Cheshire Cat smile of her own. It almost felt too good to be true, but when Royce confirmed her hopes with a nod, the sigh of relief that left her brought out all the remnants of her nervous ramblings along with it. "Awesome! You're gonna love it! I've been holding back on talking about it for months. I can't believe I can finally ask you about all the characters and everything. It starts at 8:30 but that's just the ads and trailers, so it doesn't matter if we're not there exactly on time. But my dad's coming to pick us up at 8:15 anyway and it's only like an 8 minute drive, so that'll give us plenty of time, but I guess it just depends on if we want to get any snacks or not-" And then her spiel ground to a halt as she realised she'd left out one crucial detail. "My dad's gonna have the twins in the car too though, so there's only enough space for us two… Is that ok?"
Although Royce felt a little strange leaving his brother out when the three of them were so used to doing everything together, he was pretty sure his heart would have stopped beating in protest if he'd turned down the opportunity to spend some time alone with Vivien. "Yeah, yeah, that's ok," he said, sparing Bentley a glance to find him completely enraptured with the fantastical, gruesome details of his DnD character's impromptu death. "Looks like Benny's got the rest of his night sorted anyway."
Ignoring the wistful edge to Royce's smile, Vivien pressed on with a further, relieved sigh. "Perfect. My dad's gonna drop them off at home first, but that shouldn't take long."
"So it's just gonna be the two of us at the movie theatre?" Royce checked.
Vivien's smile faltered a little at the question, worried that he may have suddenly changed his mind. "Yeah… Is that alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, no, that's perfect," Royce hurried to reassure her with a breathy chuckle. "It'll be great."
"Yeah, it will," Vivien agreed as a contented grin split her pink cheeks and a proud warmth spread out from her chest. Looks like Riven had been right: she'd had nothing to worry about after all. Well, that or the many hours of rehearsals with her Big Bird plush had been worthwhile. 
Caught red-handed, and red-cheeked, the giddy grins and incredulous giggles of the thirteen year-olds were dropped in an instant as their blissful bubble of puppy love was popped by an impatient dinosaur enthusiast though.
"Hey, lovebirds, are you guys ready to finish this thing or not?" Zack barked across the table - pencil at the ready now that the rest of his friends had finally settled down enough to resume the campaign.
Stealing one last, shyly longing look at one another, elated grins fighting to remain under control, the pair conceded and returned their attention to the game - even if the only thing their brains could focus on was one another.
Besides, in around an hour they wouldn't have to think about anything else anyway…
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Once the customer build-up had been dealt with, the rest of the evening was as pedestrian as every other Monday shift at All Skate, which meant plenty of downtime. And downtime for the trio behind the serving counter meant resorting to the most asinine tasks they could find in order to stay awake. Miles had (shockingly) volunteered himself to finish freshening up the skates, Ethan had taken to organising (in the loosest sense of the word) the bin of single-serving sauces, and Mick had started polishing the silverware…because the zit-faced teenagers that graced their establishment deeply cared about the quality of their hospitality. 
After a good five minutes of begging, Ethan had finally managed to convince Mick to make him some nachos - feeling victorious even if she had only agreed so that she could get five minutes of peace from his whining as she left to heat them up. And so, as Miles leant against the archway into the skate rentals booth, wearing an amused grin, and Mick trudged through the silver swing doors, Ethan chuckled to himself and reached into the bucket at his knees to grab a new handful of sauce tubs. Hunched over on the stool he'd pulled up to the counter, he selected his latest victim (a pot of honey mustard) and delicately placed it onto the third layer of the 'condiment pyramid' he was constructing on the counter behind the bar. 
"How many layers are we aiming for?" Miles asked, tossing the last skate he'd been working on back into its cubby before grabbing a sauce pot of his own from the pile to add to the stoner's masterpiece. 
"As many as we can get," came Ethan's snorted reply. "We might need to extend the base though; I don't think this is gonna be wide enough if we wanna use them all."
Laughing at the very thought (since there were easily over 200 sauces in that bin) as he retreated to collect a fresh batch of size 8s, Miles spared the booth his younger brothers were sitting around a quick glance, checking to make sure that they were still ok. Finding them whooping and hollering with their friends, a contented grin settled on his face. He knew deep down that he had nothing to worry about, but he still felt the need to hover over them like a damn dragonfly at every opportunity possible…just to make sure.
When he returned to observe the rest of the savoury statue construction, he was rewarded with the sound of Ethan's dulcet, raspy tones singing along to the REO Speedwagon song Carrie was blasting through the rink's sound system. And when he swapped a pot of barbecue sauce for two, freshly cracked glow sticks from the arcade prize bucket, which he proceeded to use as drumsticks for his imaginary drum kit, Miles' amused grin just widened.
"And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might," Ethan wailed along with Kevin Cronin, bashing out the beats to the song's chorus with his neon green drumsticks, and the same passion as the rockstar himself. His dedication to the authenticity of the performance plummeted when he decided to take some creative liberties with the second half of the chorus though. "'Cause Miles can't fight his feelings anymore."
Although mildly annoyed that he was about to be subjected to even further ribbing, Miles found himself biting back an entertained smirk all the same. 
"He's forgotten Mick's advice so he'll ignore," Ethan continued, tucking one of the glow sticks behind his ear so that he could turn the other into a microphone. Shooting his best friend a mischievous grin, he carried on singing. "Every time Carrie walks on through that door, his dick won't face the floor-"
Springing into action, Miles attempted to silence him with a flustered: "Ok, ok, we get it."
But as Mick returned from placing the nachos in the oven, the thoroughly amused brunet turned to her to finish his rendition of the chorus. "Mickey, Miles can't fight his feelings anymore."
Rolling her eyes with an unimpressed frown after having heard the tail-end of the reimagined chorus on her way out of the kitchen, she huffed, "You guys are disgusting."
"What did I do?!" Miles asked with an incredulous laugh.
But Ethan just brushed her revulsion off with a baffled, yet blasé: "Really, Mick? Can a man not talk about his best friend's boners anymore?"
"No, no he cannot. Especially when they're triggered by…her," she affirmed, momentarily switching up her scolding to send the blonde a sharp, overly protective glare. And to punctuate her annoyance, both at the DJ and the stoner for bringing her up all over again, she sealed her disapproval with a swift flick of the latest sauce pot Ethan had balanced on his pyramid, sending it, and the row beneath it, tumbling to the countertop. 
Deeply affronted by the destructive act, Ethan turned to her, mouth hanging open in stupefaction. "I know you didn't just do that on purpose."
"Of course not," Mick teasingly simpered. "I wouldn't dream of it."
Narrowing his eyes at the brunette, over Miles background chortles, Ethan returned his warning glare and the remainder of his concentration to rebuilding his masterpiece. Not letting his frenemy's prior comments go so easily though, he continued to rhapsodise about the most contentious topic of the night, much to his co-workers' dismay. "You can harp on about it all you want, Mick, but you can't get in the way of nature. Something's gonna happen sooner or later; he hasn't stopped looking at her all night."
The second Mick's challenging stare, and that spine-chilling quirked eyebrow of hers, settled on him, Miles snapped back into defence mode. "I've been stuck here cleaning skates with you all night, you idiot," he said, spraying the air from his now-empty can of air freshener right beside the stoner's ear as punishment. Continuing, despite Ethan flinching so hard he nearly knocked the rest of his elaborate tower over, Miles added, "Or did you conveniently forget that part?"
"No," Ethan retorted with a smirk. "How else do you think I know you've been staring at her every other thirty seconds?" And although Miles had tried to prepare a rebuttal that would maintain some shred of his dignity, Ethan's smug observations dug his grave. "He wipes the wheels, checks the toe-stops, sprays the inside, stops to look at her boobs, then swaps them for a new pair - like clockwork."
The judgemental frown that had settled on Mick's face was swapped for a dopey caricature of her long-time friend, complete with an exaggerated impression of his prior statements that evening. "'Mick, I don't know what I was thinking. You were right - everything about her spells bad news. I'm over it, trust me'," She rattled off before that judgemental frown and raised eyebrow came crashing back to the foreground. "Ring any bells?"
And although it evidently did, he did not appear impressed by her impersonation. "I don't sound like that."
"Sure you don't," Mick smirked sarcastically with an exaggerated, teasing eye roll. 
"Sounded pretty good to me," Ethan piped up, earning himself a rare, genuinely appreciative grin from Mick that went unnoticed thanks to his preoccupation with the placement of another tub of honey mustard.
Rolling his eyes and volleying the empty aerosol can into the trash can with a defeated huff, Miles admitted defeat. "I don't know, guys. I don't know what I'm doing. It's like I know it's wrong, and that I shouldn't be thinking about her like that, but my brain just won't stop going back to her - it's like it's stuck on a loop or something. I feel like I'm going insane," he said before grabbing a new air freshener and popping the cap off. "That or the fumes from these cans are finally getting to my head."
Glad to see that he wasn't a total lost cause, Mick conceded with another teasing smirk. "Well, at least you're self-aware."
"I still don't see what's wrong with it," Ethan mused as he gently placed down two tubs of ranch. "It's just a little crush-"
"Little?" Mick snorted, sharing a playfully taunting grin with Miles over the stoner's head. "Really?"
"Well, little or not," Ethan revised, leaning back to speak more directly with his best friend. "You've said yourself that you're never gonna act on it. So what's so bad about just thinking she's hot from afar? It's super normal to have crushes like that. And besides, it's not like you're ever gonna tell her about it. She doesn't need to know you've got the number of freckles on her face committed to memory. Just crank a few out to her every night and move on with your life. It'll blow over eventually."
Stunned into spluttering silence by Ethan's latest pearls of wisdom, Miles couldn't even try to dispute the claims the guy had made - swiftly preoccupied with requesting: "Can we stop talking about my dick for like five minutes?"
"I second that," Mick said, raising her hand as further confirmation on her way to shut off the timer that had just started blaring from the kitchen.
"Whatever you say, baby,” Ethan purred with a teasing grin, turning her raised hand into an opportunity to high five her as she passed.
Although Mick slumped in annoyance at first, her instincts soon kicked in as she moved that hand to swat the back of his head in retaliation before disappearing through the kitchen doors once more.
By the time Miles' guffaws had died down to gentle chuckles, and a sulking Ethan had added four more barbecue pots to his pyramid, Mick returned with his food. "There, maybe that will shut you up," she said flatly, sliding the steaming dish in front of her personal nuisance, not having even bothered to decant the nachos from their plastic packaging. "Or do I need to make you a ball gag?"
"Woah, woah, woah, slow your roll, Mickey," Ethan spluttered as Miles' belly-rumbling laughter started up again behind them. "Does Officer Funbags know you're into kinky shit like that?" he continued, quickly turning Mick's slick jab back on her, much to her rising frustration.
"I don't know, let's ask him," Miles tagged on to the teasing, resulting in Mick smacking his arm with the end of the tea towel she was just about to tuck back into her apron belt as he turned to dump his latest set of clean skates back down.
When she saw a figure approaching the food counter out of the corner of her eye though, she realised Miles' ragging hadn't just been to push her buttons after all. And suddenly, as a head of hastily coiffed brown hair dropped onto the closest stool opposite her, the prospect of being subject to hours more of her co-workers' stupidity felt a lot more manageable.
"Evening," an exhausted Butchy huffed to the trio. 
"You look chipper," Miles teasingly noted as he picked up a pot of mustard and balanced it atop one of barbecue. 
"Oh I'm feeling chipper," the boy's older brother figure sarcastically fired back, with the expected level of conviction from someone who'd just worked a soul-destroying 9-5, and had then had to go on a solo grocery run.
"Rock on, sheriff," Ethan mumbled with a chuckle, more so to entertain himself than anything considering the fact that Butchy didn't acknowledge it in the slightest.
Crossing his arms on the silver bartop, Butchy's head was mere seconds from hitting the deck until an ice cold bottle of Coke was gently slid in front of him - right on time. Looking up, he was met with the gentle, loving smile of his girlfriend, with a mildly concerned glint in those addictive, syrupy irises of hers. 
"You ok?" she murmured.
He nudged the bottle aside and reached across the counter, closing the gap between them as he took her hand in his with a tired smile. "I am now that I'm with you," he promised, lovingly squeezing her fingers.
"Rough shift?" she guessed as he started lazily rubbing circles into the back of her hand. 
"Yeah, how was work?" Miles tacked on, as enthralled with the pyramid building as his best friend judging by the fact he had yet to lift his eyes from it since Butchy had arrived.
"Same as ever: bullshit," he wearily sighed. But he managed a hopeful, lopsided smile to Mick all the same, "How about you? Are they behaving?"
Chuckling as she and Butchy spared the pair of newly-qualified construction workers a glance, she retorted with a playfully coy: "They're keeping me entertained." But she soon switched her attention back to her boyfriend; her concern for him and his profession taking priority. "Was it really that bad?"
Not wanting to worry her, but not wanting to lie either, he softened and decided on, "It was just a bunch of mindless paperwork again. I feel like I'm losing brain cells by the hour being cooped up in that crappy office." 
Pouting and leaning over the bar to press a tender kiss to his forehead, Mick quietly promised: "It'll be worth it one day, I promise." 
"It had better be," Butchy chuckled.
Once Mick's sneakers met the tacky linoleum again, she was faced with a grateful, if not exhausted, smile that made her heart swell. After all, it was a definite improvement from when he'd first walked in. "What about your CPR training? Wasn't that today? How did that go?"
"Why? You volunteering to help me demonstrate?" he flirtily retorted, sending Mick's heart rate through the roof.
But the brunette never got the chance to respond, because an all too familiar voice trilled over the latest pop song she'd chosen to play, prompting the couple to sport matching grimaces. 
"Buongiorno!"
"Jesus Christ," Butchy groaned, closing his eyes in despair at the pointed, yet botched, Italian accent. "Like I needed my day to get any worse."
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my least favourite police officer in town," Carrie greeted, rolling to a stop beside said police officer with an impish smirk. 
He took one look over the girl and just scoffed. "Do you own any normal clothes or are you so desperate for attention you have to make a spectacle of yourself everywhere you go?" 
The firm frown her frigid reception prompted didn't stick around for long though. And instead of attempting to defend her bold fashion choices, she stuck with her tried-and-true excessively sweet teasing. "Don't pretend you're not pleased to see me."
"I'm surprised," Butchy offered, having to avert his eyes from her headache-inducing leotard before his skull split in two. "Still not been fired yet?"
"Oh don't you worry, I'm not going anywhere," she promised. 
"You’re really tellin’ me Ralph’s happy forking out the cash to cover a glorified Barbie doll pressing buttons every night?" Butchy challenged with a menacing scoff, as irritated as ever by the blonde's inane job.
"Yes, actually," Carrie said, prickling with anger at the (unknowingly) touchy diss.
"I've got no fucking clue why," Butchy deadpanned. "Might as well replace you with a monkey - which would probably have more employable skills anyway - or even a digital radio; it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper."
Although she couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes at his dismissal of her 'talents', she stuck it out to fight her corner regardless. "You do realise I'm here to do more than just play the music."
"Well you barely do that and I've yet to see you do anything else…" Butchy cheekily retaliated, leaving his statement there so that Carrie could fill the rest in herself.
Instead she fixed the smuggest grin she could muster to her face and embraced the claims. "And I can afford to do all that because I'm a 'personality hire'."
"A what?" Butchy almost choked on the word, disgusted by the very notion. 
"You know, someone fun the boss hires to boost morale for the rest of the employees, make shifts less miserable…bring in more customers," she explained through a smirk, inflating her ego further with each addition to her list. 
"You really think any of that's true?" Butchy scoffed incredulously, cutting her off before she could do any further damage.
"Of course it is," Carrie insisted. "I can understand how you wouldn't have ever heard of it though, you know, considering that you don't have a personality."
Butchy rolled his eyes so hard he almost triggered a migraine. He may not have had a personality, but he'd have rather that than have one as insufferable as her's. Finally turning back to Carrie with a look of resentful despair, aiming to make her leave as soon as possible, he asked, "Is there a reason as to why you're over here?"
"You're not enjoying this?" she questioned with a smirk.
"Not in the slightest," the police recruit fired back without skipping a beat.
Instead of retaliating, she bandaged her wounded exterior with a hopeful smile and turned to her co-worker behind the counter, holding out an empty, teal, metal water bottle. "Mick, could you please-?"
Also trying to end the interaction as quickly as possible, Mick took the bottle from the girl before she could even finish her question. "Sure," she tightly replied, turning to get her the refill before she could strike up another conversation.
But Carrie's talkative tendencies made that nigh on impossible. 
"Your sister beat you here tonight," she pointed out to Butchy, much to the couple's shared dismay. Although they did have to admit that the smile she offered alongside the observation seemed innocent enough. 
"Mhm," Butchy mumbled, praying that the girl would get the hint and stop trying to force an interaction. 
"She's awesome, I can't believe you two are related," Carrie chuckled, this time with a touch more spite, yet a real, genuine fondness for the raven-haired sophomore. "We've been getting along great - she's like the little sister I never got but always wanted," she rambled on, as Butchy fought the urge to acknowledge the conversation and/or turn around to check on his little sister himself. "I took her shopping at the weekend and we were out for hours - it was a blast! Things seem to be going really well with her and Tanner too; it feels like she's over at our house more than yours lately. She's good for him though, they seem really happy." As frightening as it was for him to ponder the influence Carrie could be having over his perfect little sister, the topic of her new relationship struck an entirely different nerve with Butchy. And the second Carrie clocked his change in demeanour, she began plucking that nerve like a banjo string. "If he's brought her here after their little dinner date though then I give it like…ten more minutes until he slips me a 20 and gets me to play Careless Whisper."
He immediately kicked himself for taking the bait, but his protective instinct kicked into action to ask before he could stop it. "Why? What does Careless Whisper have to do with anything?"
"It's number one on his 'hookup' playlist," Carrie snorted, making Butchy's stomach lurch. "From my extensive experience as 'wingwoman'-" 
Extensive: the very word made Butchy's hairs stand on end.
"-once he knows he likes a girl, he'll take her out for a nice dinner, bring her back here for a bit of fun, and then when he feels like the moment's right: I get the signal, George Michael comes on, he makes his move, and next thing you know, they're out through the doors before the song's even over, with a one-way ticket to pound town."
The giggles spilling from Carrie's lips were a stark contrast to the tense horror gripping Butchy's lungs, stopping him from taking in enough air to keep the room from spinning. 
In a rare moment of mercy, Carrie saw the protective, panic-stricken look on his face and gently swatted his shoulder. "Oh please, at ease, sergeant," she teased. "It's not that serious. It's not like they're running off to elope." But when she saw that made no difference, she added, "Even if he does get me to play it, I wouldn't worry if I were you; he's said he wants to take it slow this time."
"Which means?" Butchy cagily questioned.
"I don't know," Carrie snorted, but attempted an answer for him all the same. "He just said that it feels different for him this time around - like he doesn't want to rush anything, he wants to make sure it's special and meaningful for her - and that she feels ready before they-"
"Don't say it," Butchy jumped in to cut her off; the very idea of his sister's name and that word being in the same sentence made his stomach turn.
"I don't have to; you get the picture," Carrie chuckled, as Mick loudly placed the girl's metal water bottle back on the counter after several attempts to hold it back out to her had gone completely unnoticed.
Despite thanking the girl and collecting her refilled bottle, Carrie didn't get the hint to leave, and turned back to Butchy with the entertained grin of a child tormenting their sleep-deprived parent. "You're being awfully chatty tonight."
"Believe me, it's not by choice," he shot back without even bothering to look at her, sharing his girlfriend's desperation for her to leave them in peace. 
Blatantly ignoring their cues, Carrie broached a new topic entirely. "How's it going at work then, sheriff?" she asked, using the same, grating nickname as Ethan, that the pair found thoroughly entertaining. "You arrested anyone yet?"
"Oh my god, are we not done yet?" Butchy exclaimed with a dramatic huff that just fired Carrie's desire to continue.
Hitting him with a total deadpan, unphased expression, she paused a beat before trying again. "...Have you?"
"No," he grumbled. "Now can you please-?"
"Seriously? What the fuck? That's so bogus," Carrie scoffed, half-genuinely disappointed, and half-incredibly satisfied by the revelation. "What do you do all day? Answer phone calls? Sharpen pencils?"
"Nah, he's on that paperwork grind," Ethan piped up to the trio's surprise - the three of them almost having forgotten that he and Miles were even there, let alone listening in to the bickering. 
Butchy understood Mick's frustration with the guy more with every minute he spent in his company; that moment in particular brought on a strong urge to reach across the bar and throttle him, especially when he clocked the smirk caked in Carrie's borderline clown-like makeup.
"They really haven't let you arrest anyone yet?" she went on to ask - eyes already sparkling with mischief. 
Butchy didn't even have to move; she knew his answer already - and the way he was glaring at her made her next offer all the more entertaining to deliver. "That's so unfair… Tell you what: I'll go move my car out front so it's parked illegally just so you can practise. I'll let you bend me over the hood and everything - and you can put 'em on extra tight."
Carrie's devilish smirk was opposed by an unimpressed scowl that just soured once she started acting out the interaction herself.
As hard to miss as her fluorescent buttcheeks were, especially when she was practically waving them under his nose, Butchy had no trouble forcing them into his periphery as he looked her in the eye. "I'd rather sit here and scoop my eyes out of my skull with a plastic fork," he promised, almost retching at the thought…of the mock arrest, that is. And even if his mind was swimming with all the road traffic offences he'd read through that day, and all the potential charges her claim could receive, he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of playing along. 
Stung by the vehement rejection of her advances, even if they had been totally provocational, Carrie just stood back to her full height and found that Butchy had swapped his glower with her sickly sweet smirk.
Taking advantage of the fact that the girl was on the backfoot in the conversation again, Mick dared to chime in with a dig of her own. "If you want to practise arresting people," she began, glancing between Butchy and her two most incompetent co-workers. "Just hang around here until you catch these two hotboxing the break room again."
Although Carrie appeared unphased by Mick's comment, maybe even a little impressed by the remark, Ethan had nothing but earnest defences to offer, momentarily leaving Miles (who was proving to be as good a listener as he was a builder) in charge of the pyramid construction so that he could inform his peers that: "Hey, listening to Tiny Dancer with a buzz is a spiritual experience."
"He's not wrong," Carrie noted with an amused scoff, both at the way the point had been phrased, and the memory tied along with it.
"So was the moment Mick and I found you," Miles finally piped up with a chuckle of his own, far more willing to joke along with the stoners than Butchy would have liked him to be. "I don't think I've ever seen you so high - it was hilarious," he added with a teasing glance at Ethan. 
"No it wasn't, it was horrible," Mick argued, frowning at Miles' treachery. "You almost passed out when you opened that door. And the couch cushions still stink of weed now."
"Aww yeah, it was baby's first proper contact high," Ethan said, jokingly turning and squeezing a guffawing Miles' cheeks like he was a chubby toddler. Once Miles had finally managed to swat his best friend's hands away though, Ethan continued gushing about the momentous day he had succeeded in convincing one of the most popular girls in school to split a joint (or two) with him, finishing with: "That was so fun - we totally need to do it again."
"I'm down," Carrie chuckled, completely disregarding Mick's annoyance with the topic. 
"Mmm, yeah, sounds interesting," Butchy piped up with a mockingly casual tone and a sensible smirk. "Just tell me when and where and I'll get something extra special arranged."
"Don't worry, sheriff; it's just a joke," Ethan tried, raising his arms in mock surrender with a poorly-executed, nonchalant laugh. 
"Oh yeah, totally a joke," Carrie confirmed with an exaggerated nod. Although she made no effort to cover up her wicked smirk. "Unless you want to whip out those handcuffs after all?" she cheekily added, holding out her wrists to him once more with a wink. 
Emboldened by Carrie's continued teasing, Ethan brought back an idea from a now-defunct smoke session that had Carrie and Miles laughing their heads off within seconds. "Yo, if actually you want to do a fake drugs bust I could totally try turning one of the old skates in the back into a bong."
As the three co-workers joked around, passing their three collective brain cells back and forth like a game of 'hot potato', Mick's frustration began to rise to a boiling point. Her protectiveness of her own moral integrity, and even moreso, her boyfriend and his career (which she was still immensely proud of), made her anger swell. And before Miles could finish quizzing Ethan on the logistics of the bong's construction, Mick found herself jumping in with an exasperated huff.
"Oh my god, can you give it a rest? This isn't something to joke about - you genuinely could get arrested."
Surprised by the girl's sudden outburst, Miles folded in an instant and tried to set her at ease. "They're not being serious, Mick. We were just messing around."
"Yeah, well, I don't find it funny," she mumbled, skin still burning with defensive aggression. 
"...I kinda still do," Ethan reluctantly admitted, before sharing a quick glance with Carrie that immediately set them both off spluttering with laughter again.
Although Miles had settled her with an apologetic smile, Mick's glower was completely ignored by the dense dopeheads. Carrie finally managed to catch her breath enough to speak with her directly though. "Oh come on, Mick, lighten up a little," she taunted with a lax grin and playful eye roll. "You don't have to take everything so seriously all the time."
"Well if I don't, it doesn't look like any of you three would," she snapped back - the sentiment completely lost on Ethan and Carrie, yet filling Miles to the brim with guilt. 
"Well maybe if you took that five-foot stick out your ass you might be able to loosen up enough to have some fun of your own for once," Carrie suggested, the sweetness of her tone a stark contrast to the sharpness of her words. "Makes a change to bitching about the rules all the time… You should try it!" she finished with an over-the-top, bright smile that had Mick fighting the urge to slap her. At last, she finally took the hint and decided to leave though, swiping her water bottle and rolling away from the serving counter - but not before she uttered a final warning to her favourite police-plaything: "Watch out for George Michael!"
By the time Butchy turned to retaliate, the girl, and her poisonous smirk had disappeared back onto the dancefloor, leaving a seething brunette in her wake. 
"Fucking hell, that could be a military torture device," Butchy muttered, wearily turning his attention back to Mick and rubbing the frustrated exhaustion from his eyes.
Dropping her wounded gaze to the countertop before he could catch it, and blinking back hot, angry tears, she mumbled, "I thought she was never gonna leave." She didn't want anyone finding out how deeply the blonde's words had cut into her; she didn't want her friends to worry, and she didn't want to give Carrie the satisfaction.
Sensing her bristled silence anyway, Butchy leaned across the counter to take her hand again, lifting her gaze to his just in time to send her another, comforting smile. "You really have to put up with her every shift?" he asked with a playfully incredulous tone.
A gentle snort of laughter escaped before she could stop it. "And those two bozos," Mick confirmed with a nod in Miles and Ethan's direction - the pair having returned to their condiment stacking within seconds. 
"Damn, maybe I do have the easier job after all," Butchy said with a sympathetic grin that drew a smile to Mick's face as effortlessly as her taking a breath. 
The way Butchy could piece Mick's world back together never failed to amaze her - and neither did Carrie's ability to smash it to pieces again.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna liven things up a little bit with this next song," the wannabe 'Popstar Barbie' announced over the speaker system, snatching Mick's attention in an instant. And as the blonde's neon-illuminated smirk broadened with each word she purred into the microphone, Mick's stomach sunk closer and closer to her Nike Air Forces. "'Cause, believe it or not, it's good to let your hair down and have some fun every once in a while. If not, you too could end up frigid as a nun and dating a literal pig. So change it up! …Sound familiar? This one's for you."
Although Carrie had given her the grace of leaving out her name, Mick's face burned with embarrassment regardless. No one on the dance floor batted an eyelid at the intro to the song, but as the opening notes of Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' blared across the rink, Ethan and Miles' wide eyes were pulled from their tubs of sauce to her scarlet cheeks. Wanting the ground to swallow her whole, Mick's defeated glare tracked Carrie's every, smug move: the little giggle to herself as she shut off her microphone, the hop over the lip of the rink from the carpet, the stupid, effortless twirl she did as she skated up to her brother and his date to encourage them to dance with her - loathing every cell in her body. Why did she get away with everything? How could she be so cruel and still get people laughing? How could she be so irresponsible and still get paid the same as her? How could she spit in Mick's face like that and still have Miles drooling over her like a moron, and Lela ditching their weekend plans to go and fritter her savings away on tight skirts and gaudy hair accessories? And how could she still dislike Mick after all these months of working together when she'd managed to 'befriend' everyone else?
Mick tore her envious gaze from the blonde, dancing and miming along to the lyrics as though she was aiming them directly at her, as Butchy's firmly protective gaze found hers again. "Just ignore her," he insisted. "She doesn't know what she's talking about."
"She sure makes out that she does," Mick replied with a poorly disguised, defeated chuckle.
"Yeah, 'cause she's delusional," Butchy said. "And she's gonna have one hell of a reality check when she realises the whole world doesn't revolve around her and her huge, fucking bejewelled ego."
As Butchy's comment succeeded in finally pulling a genuine smile back to Mick's face, the night fell back into its usual rhythm. Mick left to go and whip up the most palatable dinner option she could find for her boyfriend, the skaters filtered on and off the rink as their call times came and went, and Miles even had the rare pleasure of exchanging 50 prize tokens from the arcade for a green, palm-sized polyester Care Bear for a blue-haired sophomore, which was swiftly handed off to her friend. The evening drew on, minutes dragging by at a snail's pace - the only indicator for time (besides the giant clock on the wall) being the systematic filling of soda cups each time a group of teens were cycled off the rink, how many different items Ethan had experimented with to help give his (actually quite impressive) condiment pyramid some stability, and how many conversation topics the quartet had managed to burn through. But just as Ethan was switching out the basically empty tip jar for a two-litre soda bottle, and Mick was finishing up teasing Miles (who had spent an obscenely long time checking she was ok after the run-in with Carrie) about the state of his hair, Butchy's night took a turn for the worst. 
"Who are you trying to look like, Steve 'The Hair' Harrington?" Mick snorted as she stole one of her boyfriend's now stone-cold fries. 
"Oh my god, no, for the fifth time, I just haven't had it cut for like two months," Miles retaliated with an exasperated groan, attempting to tame the bird's nest by combing his hand through it. 
"Why's he gotta be influenced by that wannabe jock?" Ethan cut in with a frown. "Why can't he be inspired by an equally handsome, but even cooler trendsetter with awesome hair?"
Just ignoring and rolling her eyes at Ethan's not so subtle prompting, she laughed through the question she aimed back at Miles. "Why don't you just get it cut then? Gonna miss playing with it every thirty seconds?"
"When I can afford a haircut, Mick, I'll get a haircut," Miles replied. "But until then, we're stuck with this. And with the way things are going, I'll be looking like a member of Whitesnake by the time I graduate."
The sound of Mick's giggles, and Ethan's praises for such a niche rock music reference, were rivalled by the fade-out of The Safety Dance though, which steadily morphed into the opening synth notes of the next song. At first it went completely unnoticed - as irrelevant as most of the tunes Carrie selected for the skaters, even with Ethan's brainless singing overlying the vocals to the first verse. But when the beat kicked in and he threw in some admittedly very comical body rolls to match it, the other three started to take some more notice - Miles even attempted a few of his own, to Mick's thorough entertainment. The moment that famous saxophone solo kicked in though, Butchy's face dropped like a lead balloon.
Mick's eyes found his, mildly worried about how he would react, but the brunet was frozen, partly out of fear, and partly out of disbelief. It was like the instinctual part of his brain knew he had to react, to rip the input cables out of the speakers, drag his little sister into his station wagon, and drive her home, never to let her out of the house again. But the logical side of his brain knew he couldn't do anything; he just had to sit there and let it happen - if he wanted Lela to ever speak to him again anyway. Stiffly turning to the rink, he found the couple locked in a slow-dance embrace, lovestruck grins playing at their lips as they swayed along to the music and giggled about god-knows-what. As protectively concerned as he was for his little sister, a much more visceral reaction was triggered by a flash of neon pink in the corner of his eye; the sight of Carrie smirking and proudly displaying to him the twenty dollar bill she'd taken as a bribe made his blood boil - and the comically exaggerated, racy dance moves she progressed to, paired with her own miming of the lyrics turned his stomach so violently he had to avert his eyes before he barfed all over the carpet. The swinging hips and kissy faces he could potentially put up with, but the lewd hand gestures just infuriated him. 
Saying that, when he turned back to the other trio, and found that Ethan had managed to get Miles to fully commit to swaying and clicking in time to the music as they flanked and serenaded a very amused Mick, he did have to admit that the act was rather comical. Although she was very reluctant at first, Miles finally managed to coax her into at least somewhat dancing along with them - stepping and snapping along to the beat, and occasionally being twirled by him. But as the final chorus approached, Ethan's passion overcame him, and his (now almost entirely glow-less) glow stick was snatched up from the countertop to act as his microphone once more - accompanying his grinding dance moves up against Mick and Miles that had Miles laughing so hard he couldn't breathe, and Mick shoving him away from her, almost sending him flying into his condiment masterpiece - which just contributed to Miles' state of hysteria. 
The antics as the song wound to a close were lost on Butchy though, who had finally dared another, cautious look towards the roller rink, only to find an empty space where his sister and her date had been. Searching again, he saw her head of raven hair disappearing out the smudged glass doors, her roller skates swinging from Tanner's hand as he wrapped his free one around her shoulders. A lump formed in his throat that he desperately tried to push away. Reminding himself that he couldn't bubble-wrap the girl forever, he swallowed every protective instinct he had with one deep breath - praying that would be enough to keep his mind at ease. He spotted Carrie giving the retreating couple an exaggerated wave in his periphery, but he refused to make eye contact with her; he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction. So instead, he turned back around to find Miles relinquishing Mick's hand as the song came to an end, so that they could both applaud Ethan's performance - Mick's claps were significantly more reluctant, but her entertained grin was undeniable.
"Holy fuck, I love a saxophone solo," Ethan breathed, slinging his pretend microphone onto the back counter and shaking his head to regain some semblance of control over his unruly, ratty locks. 
"I can tell," Miles chuckled.
"Hmm, I think that's enough excitement for one night," Mick said, immediately preoccupied by her boyfriend's change in demeanour.
Before she could question it though, Ethan gasped, blurting out a query of his own. "Oh my god, do you think she's got Baker Street?"
"I don't know, maybe," was all Miles could offer in response, smirking at the guy's dopey, childlike enthusiasm. "Go ask."
He needed no persuasion; scrambling out from behind the serving counter and dashing over to the DJ booth with all the grace of a spider on a freshly mopped floor.
"What's Baker Street?" Mick asked Miles, momentarily distracted by her confusion at the stoner's actions. 
"Another song with a sax solo," he explained, but when she showed no sign of recollection, he added, "You'll know it once it starts, trust me."
Despite her scepticism, Mick took his word for it and returned her attention to checking her boyfriend was alright. Although she'd gotten the gist of the issue, she had no time for probing further by the time Carrie threw her head back in laughter at the stoner's request and happily flipped through her collection of cassettes until she found the right song to switch to. At first, Mick was none the wiser as to what the song was, completely perplexed by the dreamy flute notes and why on earth Ethan would request such a thing. But as soon as the infamous saxophone motif kicked in, and Ethan, despite being on the other side of the room from Mick and Miles, whipped around to face them, sporting a pair of novelty sunglasses he'd swiped from the prize bin, and with the fire extinguisher off the wall grasped like a mock-saxophone, she realised exactly what she was about to be subjected to. 
The guffaws flying from Miles' lips were instant as his friend put his all into miming along to the saxophone line on his journey back over to them. And although Mick just shook her head at him, she couldn't clamp her lips together hard enough to stop her own giggles from spilling out, much to Ethan's delight - in fact, it just spurred him on to dance even more enthusiastically. He made sure to keep his miming of the lyrics much more subdued and serious though, providing an even starker contrast to the over-the-top gyrating and parading of the fire-extinguisher-turned-instrument.
"I didn't know this even had lyrics," Miles admitted to the brunet, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. 
"Well consider yourself educated, my friend," Ethan retorted, before tucking the fire extinguisher under his arm and lifting an invisible guitar from its invisible stand beside him. Thrusting it under an incredulous Miles' nose, he added, "Now come on, I'm on the sax so you've gotta take the guitar solo."
Playing along and taking the air guitar, despite laughing so hard he could barely stand upright, Miles did eventually regain enough composure to mime along with the solo. Even Carrie, stuck over in her little DJ booth, had slid her own giant sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose, and was using her water bottle to mime along to the chorus' saxophone line (although whether her hand and mouth gestures were imitating a brass instrument, or the lewd activities she'd implied her brother and his date had gone off to partake in, was still up for debate, much to Butchy's disgust). 
Leaving her co-workers to their antics, Mick returned her attention to her boyfriend and cheered him up in their own way - far from the boisterous teasing and idiotic dancing surrounding them. Between the jokes about his own shitty coworkers, and the promises of future date plans, Butchy slowly felt the air being breathed into his lungs again. In fact, they had almost completely forgotten where they even were until a fourteen year-old waltzed up to the counter and demanded a chocolate milkshake. 
By the time Mick had returned, and had gladly exchanged the shake for the cash she methodically counted into the register, the latest of Carrie's music selections was starting to play. And since Mick and Ethan had had songs dedicated to them in their own ways throughout the night, now it was Miles' turn. 
He'd almost completely forgotten about his interaction with the blonde at the start of their shift, to his great surprise, but when Rick Springfield began telling him about his good friend, Jessie, over a familiar, plucked guitar riff, his ears pricked up. Knowing that he'd have hated the extra attention any sort of preamble she could have given for the request, Carrie had left it to drift in from the end of Don't You Want Me without uttering a word, only offering a hopeful smile and a questioning thumbs up once he caught her eye, to prompt him to show his reaction. Chuckling to himself, he gave her a thumbs up back, indicating the song had been a good choice. Trying to stop the interaction from progressing any further - his conscience still bruised by how the girl had acted around his friends earlier - Miles dropped his eyes back to the new box of barbecue sauce tubs he was unpacking, since he and Ethan had already burned through their existing supply (to their amazement). It was roughly thirty seconds before his instinctual curiosity got the better of him though, and his denim blue eyes were drawn straight back to his t-shirt twin with a reluctant smile - only for him to tear them away again a moment later, frustrated that his resolve was so weak. That game of chicken lasted for the majority of the song, but as the bridge, and its guitar riff, took centre stage, Carrie managed to grab his attention well and truly with her own attempt at an air-guitar solo, inspired by his prior work on Baker Street. At first, the plucking and miming was just for her own entertainment, but when she caught him watching her (much to Miles' horror), she turned up the energy for a full performance. Once his initial panic at being exposed for staring at her had passed, his dopey, longing stare was soon replaced by an amused smirk that, despite trying to hide behind his hand, Carrie soon clocked and demanded to know the reason for. As had become the norm for them recently, Miles started mouthing his reply across the room - explaining that her technique was terrible. Feigning horror, Carrie gasped and demanded that he show her how it was done then - and although he was reluctant at first, he did end up doing a much more reserved air-guitar riff of his own for a very impressed Carrie. After taking a moment to express how she'd forgotten how much she loved this song, she tried her best to replicate it, but soon gave up in favour of returning to her comically exaggerated playing and jumping around in a bid to keep the brunet laughing. And laugh he did, so enraptured by the silly performance and the warmth it filled him with that he completely forgot about all of the questionable things she'd done that day. He even forgot about anyone else watching, so caught up in the moment they shared that he was about to pick up his imaginary guitar to join in again, this time of his own accord, without any regard for what his friends would think, or if they would even see him. But as the final chorus started up, a head of tawny blonde hair lumbered into view, and the moment the hunk's arms were thrown around Carrie's shoulders from behind, their exchange was abandoned - seemingly as meaningless to Carrie as the rest of her interactions that evening, considering that her conscience had not taken part in a single one of them. 
Having watched the entire interaction, from the coy smiles all the way up to the fake guitar lessons, the way Miles' shoulders slumped so quickly prompted a smirked question from Ethan: "Yo, when did Eric change his name to Jessie?" he teasingly asked, obviously referencing the song's lyrics and their meaning, as Miles just frowned in disapproval, and gently whacked him on the back of his head as he went back into the store room to find more boxes of condiments. After all, the longer he stayed out of the room, the less PDA he'd have to subject himself to.
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"Guess who?"
The husky voice purring into Carrie's ear, paired with the weight of the arms that had been draped over her shoulders, made her legs go weak at the knees. And with wide, excitable eyes, she whipped around to face her boyfriend with a grin so brilliant it could have blinded him. "Oh my god, you scared me!" she laughed through her surprise, before throwing herself into an eager embrace, immediately basking in the familiar comfort of his Herculean grasp. "What are you doing here?"
"What, I've gotta have a reason to come see you now?" he asked with a teasing smirk as Carrie set her skates back fully on the ground and his arms snaked around her waist. 
"I thought you said you had an extra practice tonight," Carrie said, idly raking her nails through the hair at the base of his head.
Although confusion appeared to cloud his eyes for a moment, that classic, glazed confidence quickly returned. "Oh, uh - it got cancelled," he explained, brushing off the slight falter in his voice with a gruff laugh. "Rescheduled again: back to normal time tomorrow now. And since I was giving someone special a ride, and Mom told me to pick up the little bro, I thought I'd come see you too."
"Who'd you bring?" Carrie snorted, before her eyes flew wide with delight. "Wait, is Julie here with you?"
Taken aback by the sudden spike in enthusiasm, and how it had increased tenfold compared to when he'd arrived, the jock's confusion returned. "What? No. Ed was meeting a girl here." 
Carrie's excitement evaporated in the blink of an eye, her disappointment so great she couldn't even begin to mask it.
Shocked that his girlfriend's reaction was so drastic, and that her enthusiasm for his presence had also been significantly dulled, he continued. "Oh my god, what's that face for? You'd think she was the one you were dating."
Eyes darting up to meet his with a mildly scolding frown at his obviously mocking tone, Carrie rolled her shoulders back and pushed her grievances to the back of her mind. Hoping to distract him rather than try to explain herself, she fixed a loving smile to her face and leant in close. "Then who'd kiss your lucky socks before every game?" 
"I don't know," he dopily chuckled as her minty breath tickled his cheek. 
"Well let's hope we never have to find out," she mumbled against his lips before locking them between hers, and being further silenced by his tongue working its way down her throat - evidently his own way of showing his agreement.
Although their makeout session was as long, and sloppy, as ever, it was Eric that was the first to surface for air, mumbling an autopilot: "How's work?" as he did.
"Same as usual," Carrie sighed, once more toying with the hair at the back of his head. "I've played some good songs, messed with the others over there a bit…nothing that exciting."
"Oh yeah? Looked like you were having fun when I came in," Eric noted, a slight, tense pressure creeping into his tone. Sparing the counter where the brunet resided a glance, he added a warning, "How's Miles been?"
"Like I said: same as usual," Carrie slowly replied, with a slight frown of disapproval. "Just as quiet as ever - I was only playing him a request 'cause he fixed a light in the break room for us. That's about as interesting as it gets 'round here." Drawing Eric's decadent, chocolate eyes back to her with a gentle tilt of his chin, she let her lips melt into a smile, uttering a flirtatious, "My night just got a hell of a lot better though." As Eric's face split into a grin, revealing the dimple she adored on his right cheek, Carrie rocked back onto her toe-stops to reach up and kiss it - so head-over-heels for the guy she could hardly keep her hands off him. Letting her hand slide down the back of his head again as she pulled away though, something by her wrist caught her eye, and for a moment, her smile faltered.
"What?" Eric chuckled, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
Carrie plucked at the neckline of his football jersey, leaning in closer to inspect it herself before trying to hold up the fabric for him to see, despite the flashing coloured lights. "What's this?" she asked quietly, her eyes not once leaving the smudge of baby pink streaking across the white nylon, her mind already swirling with suspicions that made her feel nauseous.
Eric scoffed. "You tell me, you're the one who reapplies her lip gloss every five minutes."
The confidence in his voice, the speed of the reply, that dopey smile she fell in love with all over again every time she saw it… How could she have ever thought he'd stoop to-? No, she didn't even want to say the words. Pushing the doubts to the back of her mind, she conceded and giggled her way into a further kiss - relishing the assuredness of his hand on her hip, and the way he slipped his hand under her hair to cup the back of her head.
She may not have immediately recognised the shade, but she had to admit that she'd bought a lot of lipsticks over the years… And, she wasn't known for being the…neatest when things got heated. Maybe her hot pink lip gloss had just smudged a lighter shade…right?
Yet again, Eric was the first to pull away from the kiss. This time though, he straightened fully and stepped back a little, creating more of a gap between them as he cleared his throat to ask: "You taken your break yet?"
Sharking her head as that mildly disapproving frown crept back onto her face, Carrie replied, "No, not yet." And although she knew exactly where Eric was going with this, she still asked, "Why?"
"You wanna take it now?" he offered with a suggestive smirk. "...We could move this outside-"
Carrie let out an exasperated sigh. "I can't, I need to use it to grab some food; I've not eaten yet tonight." 
"Oh my god, skip the food," Eric replied with a cocky chuckle. "Come on, what's gonna taste better?"
"I don't care about the taste," she said with a playful eye roll and a gentle swat of his chest. "I'm hungry - last time I ate was like 12:30."
"It's fine, you'll live. You've probably got a week of dinners sitting right here," he snorted, reaching around to slap her thigh and jiggle it around with his hand.
Mortified, Carrie's breath stilled in her throat. She wanted to slap that sweaty paw of his away, but she couldn't move; rooted to the spot as he poked at her like she was a piece of meat. 
"Oh come on, Carrie. You know I'm only saying it 'cause I care about you," he tried, sensing her stiffen under his fingertips. But his cocksure smile and offhand tone showed no remorse. "We both know this place serves garbage, and if you keep eating it the pounds are gonna keep piling on. You even said yourself that your cheer skirt was starting to feel a little tight-"
"Alright, you don't have to keep bringing it up," Carrie defensively huffed, turning back to her table of cassette tapes so that she didn't have to look at his judgemental smirk any longer. Not one for taking hints, Eric soon snaked his arms around her waist again though - but whether or not he noticed her sucking in a breath to help flatten out her stomach, was still up for debate. 
"Aww, come on, baby. Don't go all schizo on me now. I don't care what you eat," he promised. And for a moment, Carrie dared to believe that the sentiment was genuine. "As long as you look good." Yep, there it was. Nevermind. 
Deciding it wasn't worth the fight her mind was rearing up for, Carrie compromised with a sigh, "It's fine, I'll just grab something when I get home."
"That's my girl," Eric smiled, pressing a kiss to her forehead as Carrie's eyelids slid closed in a silent acceptance. Using her surrender to his advantage, Eric produced a pack of Marlboros from his back pocket and brought it in front of them both. "Now, about that break," he said, plucking out a new cigarette and tucking it behind his ear before returning the box to his jeans. "I'll let you split one with me if you come out now."
Carrie could hear the smirk in his voice, but his confidence was entirely misplaced. "You know I don't like them," she grumbled.
"You don't have to smoke the whole thing."
"I don't want to smoke any of it; I've got a singing lesson tomorrow and I've told you before, they mess with my throat," she explained, a little more tersely than she'd intended, but when her frustration began to rise, her control over it started to slip away. After all, Eric definitely did know all of this information already, he was just weaponising his masculine incompetence.
"Like that matters," he scoffed, hiding his eye roll behind Carrie's turned back. Convincing her to ditch the acting stuff after she booked a gum commercial at the start of their relationship was one of the best things he could have done for her; being in community theatre would have totally tanked her social life. "You're never gonna do anything with them - it's not like you're gonna sing the national anthem at a Red Sox game." Laughing over any attempts Carrie could have made to try to defend herself, and no doubt rub her bruised ego, Eric pressed on with his latest attempt to sell her on the idea. "Plus, I heard 'em say on the news that they can suppress your appetite," he proudly smirked, taking the cigarette back down from its perch to wave it in front of the blonde's cold, blue eyes. "So who knows? A couple of puffs on this and you might not even want dinner later."
"Gee, how nutritious," Carrie flatly shot back, self-consciously hugging her arms around herself as the jabs at her weight started to take their toll. 
Oblivious to her discomfort with the topic, he continued, "They increase your metabolism too, you know. If you cut out the junk food and work through a couple of these bad boys a day, by the time it's prom you could look like the girls on the cover of Playboy."
"Oh yeah? And how'd you know what they look like?" Carrie challenged, but if Eric's dopey chuckle was anything to go by, he wasn't phased in the slightest. 
"Lucky guess?" he offered with a snort of laughter that showed he'd clearly amused himself. But Carrie's flat stare told him she was harder to impress. Sighing, he finally dropped the frat-boy-esque behaviour and wrapped his arms around her in a hug again, as he promised a quiet, "I'm sorry, baby. I'm just messing around. I'm not gonna make you have any if you don't want to." 
Finally, a genuine smile started to creep back onto Carrie's face as she melted into the embrace - relieved that the part of the jock she'd fallen in love with was still in there somewhere.
Alas, his moronic social blindness was never far behind. "I left my lighter in my gym locker though, so you're still gonna have to come out with me so I can borrow yours."
Rolling her eyes, both at his forgetfulness, and how insecure his masculinity was, Carrie just let out a heavy sigh that had Eric scrambling together any last minute persuasions he could think of.
"Come on, I'm gonna need company out there," he tried, scattering kisses across her temple with a knowing grin. "You can't let me be lonely."
"Says who?" she challenged with a teasing chuckle of her own, starting to feel as though she was able to muster at least a little bit of her usual mojo. 
"The best boyfriend in the world," Eric offered, once again just prompting Carrie to roll her eyes. 
"And people say I'm the one with the big ego," she grumbled, managing a reluctant smile as she swiped up the plastic pink lighter from her desk in the DJ booth, checked the current cassette would last the next fifteen minutes or so, and then let herself be dragged towards the glass doors by the victorious quarterback. She wasn't entirely convinced by Eric's prior statement after how rocky the majority of their recent interactions had been, but she didn't have a great deal to compare it to. Nothing long-term anyway. And every couple had their disagreements, right? It was totally normal. Not perfect, but normal - she could cope with normal. 
She could love normal.
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"Thank fucking god. At least they're moving the tonsil hockey outside," Butchy grumbled, returning his attention to tinkering with the clunky old radio from the break room, hoping to be able to fix it up for the two staff members he actually cared about.
"Oh my god, would you stop looking at them?" Mick asked with a fondly exasperated huff as she too watched Carrie and Eric disappear through the rink's exit - mentally clocking the time to make sure that the blonde's break time was actually adhered to, which, given her track record, was a rarity. "They won't bother you at all if you don't see them," she added, breezing past her boyfriend and Miles with a tray of empty plates and glasses on her way to the sink in the back.
"And I'm the one that gets ragged on for staring at her," Miles sarcastically teased, scooting around Ethan (slumped forwards on the staff counter, beside his now-complete condiment masterpiece, drooling into his elbow) to take up Mick's role of keeping the older boy company. 
"I'm plotting her demise, you're planning how you're gonna propose," Butchy shot back with a monotone tone and a judgemental quirk of his eyebrow. 
Miles just rolled his eyes, losing all motivation for the playful jabs. "When is everyone gonna let this go? Nothing's gonna happen," he wearily insisted.
"When are you gonna let it go? You're the one that keeps crawling back every time you say you're 'done' with her," Butchy replied with a pointed scoff. 
"...She is nice if you get to know her," he weakly tried, but one look at Butchy's sceptical frown and his resolve came crashing down. 
"No she's not, Miles," he deadpanned. "She's just using you to get out of doing any real work around here. When was the last time you saw her wiping down a table? Or unpacking a case of napkins?"
"She helps with the cleaning when we're closing down every night," he offered, but Butchy wasn't having any of it. 
"Oh, she does the bare minimum? Well damn, let me give her a participation ribbon," he sarcastically scoffed, using a screwdriver to free a trapped wire inside the radio. Before a defeated Miles could try to come up with any sort of counter-argument though, he continued with his lecture. "Just face the facts, Miles: she doesn't pull her weight. She barely does half the shit you and Mickie do, and then she rides on your coattails to get away with it. And that's all she's ever going to do - Eric too. They're both as hopeless as each other: too fucking dense to amount to anything themselves. Eric'll get his dad to hand him a real estate job on a platter, Carrie will sit around at home, sponging off his bank account in exchange for him parading her around like a glorified sex doll to his meathead friends, and they'll be stuck in Hawkins forever - becoming the same stupid carbon-copies of their 'suburban dream' parents they always insisted were so lame. They're not worth getting involved with, trust me."
Although Miles could picture the pair's proposed future as clear as day, he wasn't ready to admit the truth he was faced with just yet. "Carrie's not gonna stay in Hawkins," he insisted, with a quiet, yet completely misplaced confidence that had Butchy's eyebrow twitching again. 
"How would you know?" he asked.
"She told me," Miles simply replied, harkening back to one of the many conversations they had shared over a soapy mop bucket. "She's got dreams. She wants to move to California after school to become an actress, or something."
"...And you really think any of that's gonna happen?"
The almost painful disbelief streaked across Butchy's face wasn't enough to completely crush Miles' confidence though. "I don't know, maybe? Crazier things have happened around here."
"One news scandal a year ago does not count," Butchy deadpanned. "It's never gonna happen, Miles. She's gonna be stuck here, working her way through every colour at Stacy's nail salon, and bitching about the other moms at her pilates class, until she finally wakes up one day and realises she's wasted her entire life in a dead-end town, surrounded by people she just pretends to care about. And even if, by some insane miracle, she actually did break up with that braindead oaf and move to California… What then? Are you gonna go after her?"
Trodden into submission, Miles relinquished his optimistic defiance with a small shake of his head. Of course he wouldn't follow her; he was just as stuck in this town as her and Eric were. If he earned enough money to own his own house one day that'd be a goddamn miracle - and their town was in the middle of nowhere, it's not like the housing market was competitive. He'd never have the funds to move. He couldn't follow her even if he wanted to. And then he had his brothers to consider; they'd never up sticks and move without a damn good reason - and Carrie was definitely not a good reason. 
"No, of course you're not. Your whole life is here, Miles. You wouldn't give that up for her, I know you wouldn't. So stop chasing after her, tricking yourself into thinking you would. You're just setting yourself up to get your heartbroken," Butchy said, combining his protective urgency with an almost apologetic smile that Miles had to admit did soften the blow a touch. "You're better off focusing on what really matters: your family," he added with a gentle emphasis that Miles was much happier to agree with. 
The older brunet was right; his brothers were his whole world. Everything he'd done for as long as he could remember was for them, to give them the best life he could. Anything else was just a distraction - especially if they were clad in head-to-toe neon. Whilst part of him didn't understand why he had to pick between a girl and his family, since self-proclaimed family man, Butchy himself, was somehow allowed to have both, the rest knew that even if given both options, his brothers would take priority anyway. They had to; they were all he had. 
"I know, I know," Miles sighed, handing his friend a different screwdriver from the junkpile of a toolbox the rink owned, and offering him a small smile of acknowledgement. "She's a friend, nothing more. No more distractions."
"Miles!" 
The call of his name made him start, jumping to attention, but when he realised that the voice didn't belong to a glittery dress-up doll, and had in fact come from one of the very boys he'd just been thinking about, his grin widened.
"Speaking of family," Butchy chuckled, following Miles' gaze to find Royce scurrying over to the serving counter. 
"Or distractions," Miles smirked, before turning his full attention to his brother. "You ok? What do you want?"
"Vivien's asked me to go see a movie with her tonight. I can go right?" he checked, breathless with anticipation and eyes glittering with excitement. 
Suddenly Miles' conversation with his self-appointed little sister from earlier on in the night came flooding back to him, and he had to fight the urge to burst out laughing. "Oh, she did, did she?" he probed with an almost mocking eyebrow raise.
"Please, Miles, I already missed out on the movie once back in the summer," Royce started to plead.
"What's the movie?" Butchy asked, an amused fondness tugging his lips into a smirk to match Miles'.
"The NeverEnding Story," Royce hurriedly explained before turning back to his big brother, just missing the snort of laughter Butchy had to hide behind his fist and a forced cough. "I can go, right?"
Letting out a sigh, the mirth slipped from Miles' face. "I don't know, RJ," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as his eyebrows furrowed in an almost pained expression. "I want you to go, trust me. But I also need you to make sure Benny gets home safe since I can't clock out until 10."
"Oh come on, Miley, please. Benny will be fine, we're always fine - he's even got his own key now!"
"The same key he lost within fifteen minutes of me giving it to him?" Miles questioned, having to suppress the smile the memory instantly triggered. 
"Yeah, but we found it like three minutes later - and he's got it on that strap inside his backpack now so he's not gonna lose it again," Royce defended, before leaning heavily on the serving counter and going straight back to his begging. "Please, Miley. I'll do all the dishes for a week."
"A week? That's your best offer?" Miles snorted, leaning down to his little brother's eye level. 
"You really wanna go see this movie, huh?" Butchy noted with a knowing smile. "You heard good things or something?"
"Viv said it was good," Royce shyly mumbled. "That's why she wanted us both to go see it."
"You 'both'? So it's just the two of you?" Butchy chuckled, that knowing smile of his just broadening. 
"Yeah…" Royce slowly admitted, failing to see what the two older boys were finding so amusing.
"What? So you're going to a movie alone with a girl and I'm just finding this out now?" Miles asked, feigning surprise and playing up his protectiveness. "Who's the chaperone? What's the rating? How do I know you're not just gonna sneak off somewhere else instead?"
"I'm off-the-clock for the night, I don't mind chaperoning," Butchy offered with a smirk, deciding to join in with the ragging, much to Royce's dismay. 
"Oh my god, we don't need a chaperone!" he insisted with an exasperated groan. "It's not a date we're just…"
As his brother trailed off, Miles propped his chin up with his elbow and teasingly probed further. "Just what?"
Embarrassed frustration spilling over, Royce finally found the courage to reply. "Just friends!"
Butchy and Miles shared another knowing grin, this one making Royce want to dissolve into a puddle at their feet. "Friends, huh?" Butchy went on to question, swapping his screwdriver for a pair of pliers.
At first Royce thought that they were going to let him get away with it, but he should have known Miles would never have let him off that easily whenever Vivien was concerned.
"So where exactly does the 'giant crush' part come into this 'just friends' thing then?"
Butchy's laughter was quickly drowned out by another exasperated groan from Royce though. "Oh my god, shut up, her dad's gonna be here any minute," he huffed in despair. In a final bid to bargain with his big brother, he straightened up, trying to come level with him once more, and rattled through the reasons to support his final plea. "He's dropping us off and picking us up as soon as the movie's done, so there's no chance of us sneaking off anywhere; I don't know the rating, but I'm pretty sure it's aimed at kids, so it's not like I'm gonna be scarred for life; and you don't need to worry about us doing anything, or telling me about the birds and the bees before I go, because we both know I'm way too lame to even think about doing anything close to 'making a move' on her… Happy now?"
Miles went quiet, mulling over the proposal with an expression that gave nothing away, and making Royce even more agitated until he finally went with: "...But you do want to 'make a move' on her?"
"Miley!" Royce exclaimed, cheek burning with embarrassment as he sent his brother a frustrated glare. 
"Alright, alright," Miles laughed, deciding that he'd given the boy enough grief for one night as he affectionately bumped him on the arm. "I'm just messing with you, of course you can go." 
Although still a little bristled by all the teasing, the relief on Royce's face was clear as day. "Thank you! I won't be back late, I promise," he grinned through an elated laugh. He wanted to run straight back over to Vivien to tell her the good news, but before he could, another matter jumped to the forefront of his mind. "Wait, have you got any money I can borrow for my ticket?"
Fondly rolling his eyes at Royce's nervously pleading smile, Miles chuckled, "Why did I know there'd be a catch?" But he straightened up and reached for his wallet anyway, even if it was light as a feather. "Let me see what change I can pull together-"
"Don't worry, little man," Butchy cut in, gently bumping Royce's arm and whipping out his own wallet, sparing Miles a reassuring smile as he did so. "Ticket's on me, tonight," he said, producing a crisp ten dollar bill and handing it over to the boy. "Treat yourselves to some snacks too."
"Really?" Royce gasped, eyes wide with gratitude. "Thanks, Butchy! I'll pay you back, I swear."
"It's fine, really," Butchy chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Just get me a mention in your guys' wedding speech and we'll call it even," he added, teasingly ruffling the boy's curls as he and Miles shared a laugh. 
"Gross," Royce grumbled, but he took the time to fix his hair in the reflection of the serving counter before going back to face the girl anyway. 
"You won't be saying that for long, trust me," Butchy snorted.
"Make sure you say 'thanks' to Vivi's dad for the ride," Miles started to lecture, but Royce was quick to cut him off. 
"I will, Miley, I'm not an asshole."
"I never said you were," Miles chuckled. "I'm just giving you some pointers."
"Don't listen to a word he says, Royce. He's a lost cause when it comes to girls," Butchy said with a teasing grin that the thirteen-year-old happily replicated.
Miles just chuckled and nodded along. "He's not wrong." With his younger brother back smiling, and now adequately funded, he was satisfied to send him away. "Alright, come on, don't keep her waiting, Romeo. Go have fun."
"Yeah, have a good time," Butchy added with an equally fond smile. 
"Thanks, guys. See you later, Miles!" Royce called out as he started making his way back over to his booth of friends, who were still finishing their drinks and starting to pack up their bags for the night.
"See you, kiddo," Miles called back, so pleased for his little brother his heart could have burst if he let himself dwell on it for too long. But the more he thought about it, something kept nagging away at the back of his mind. And with one look at his friend, Miles knew he shared the same sentiment. "We totally could have given him a harder time about that, huh?"
"Oh absolutely," Butchy laughed.
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On one hand, Vivien was pleased that Bentley and his friends had enjoyed their game so much that they hadn't stopped talking about it all night. But since she had been watching the clock like a hawk, even more so after Royce had cemented their plans, how slow they were at packing away their stuff was making her want to scream.
She'd already been waiting by the door for them for several minutes, staring out into the inky black, starless sky, and the smattering of hand-me-down cars in the parking lot, waiting for a new set of headlights to roll into view. But as one song drifted into the next, and August dug his handbook out of his backpack again to point something else out to his friends, delaying their exit further despite the clock hands ploughing forward on their course, the nervous tightness in Vivien's chest reached an all time high. Desperate for some sort of respite, she spared her friends one last glance before pushing through the grimy glass doors. The night drenched her face in chilled, autumn air, and although an even colder wind whipped around her seconds later, forcing her to pull her violet fleece closer to her chest, the stark difference to the stuffy sauna of a roller rink was a welcome one. 
At first she just enjoyed the stillness of the evening, save for the quiet rumbling of engines on the main road, and the muffled thumping of music from inside - relishing in the peace as she steadied her breathing and started to regain some control over the racing thoughts in her mind. But not before long, she heard some voices just out of sight - familiar voices at that - and her curiosity got the better of her. 
Peering around the protruding entrance to the building, she spotted a mane of overly-hairsprayed curls that she recognised in an instant, huddled up beside a giant oaf that must have been her boyfriend. Although, from Vivien's perspective, he couldn't look any more disinterested in her if he tried. And as she sank back just out of view, from the sounds of their conversation, she found that her suspicions might have had some credibility.
"Can we not just talk about it?"
"Oh my god, Carrie, no. Can you give it a fucking rest?" The angry bark of Eric's voice made Vivien flinch. Her parents had had their fair share of arguments (and were steadily growing in frequency), but hearing that kind of tone out in public, from a couple that presented so overly loved-up just felt…wrong. "How many times do I have to say it before you get it through your head? We’re not doing a couples costume, especially not Barbie." 
"But why not?" Carrie pressed, remaining defiant despite the push-back. "You picked my costume last year. Why can't I pick this year?"
"Because they’re lame as shit, Carrie. They’re dolls for little kids," he snapped, only pausing to take a drag on his cigarette. "I don’t care how much you like the costumes, I’m not dressing up like a fag and becoming the laughing stock of the school."
"Eric, I told you to stop using that-" 
"I don’t give a fuck, Carrie. I’ll say what I want; it’s a free country, isn't it?" he said, silencing Carrie's scolding and blowing out his mouthful of smoke in one breath.
"Doesn’t always feel like it," Carrie muttered, dejectedly nudging a stray stone with the edge of her roller skate's toe stop.
"What was that?" Eric asked with a tight, warning tone.
Although she refused to meet his gaze, she also denied him the satisfaction of answering. Hugging her arms tighter around herself, trying to hide away from the whipping wind instead.
"That's what I thought," he continued, a hint of a smirk tickling his lips before he pursed them and took another drag on his cigarette. 
As he let the smoke seep out the corner of his mouth, Eric held the glowing tube of tobacco out to Carrie - more of an order than an offer, but she refused it anyway, keeping her arms wrapped around herself and levelling him with a frown. "So what? I have to go as a sexy nurse and you get to go as whatever you want, yet again?"
"What are you talking about?" Eric asked with a frustrated sigh, barely even listening to her now. 
"I'm talking about how I never get a say in what we do anymore."
"Oh my god, are you seriously gonna die on this hill over a fucking costume?"
"It's not just about the costume-" Carrie tried, but Eric cut her off before she could give her case any sort of credibility. 
"Argue all you want, Carrie, but I'm not going in anything with you. It's bad enough the guys all think my brother's gonna turn out to be a big pansy - if I showed up in a pink shirt I'd never hear the end of it."
The dig at the quiet, sensitive eleven-year-old she'd just spent the better part of her evening with had Vivien seeing red. But, to her surprise, before she had even finished processing what the bigot had said about his own flesh and blood, Carrie jumped to the boy's defence, earning herself a shred of respect from the hidden, bespectacled observer.
"Stop saying that-"
"Then quit pushing my buttons" Ethan barked back, placing so much force behind his words it rooted Vivien to the spot in shock.
Despite the warning glare, Carrie stood her ground. "You're really so insecure you think a shirt colour's gonna make everyone-?"
But Carrie never got to finish her question, and Vivien never got to finish her breath; the explosive outburst from the jock stole it away.
"Carrie!" he yelled, burning brown burning brown irises leaving the blonde cowering beneath her stony exterior. Flecks of his spit decorated her cheeks and his venomous breath made her throat feel as though it was closing, yet she stood as stoic as ever. "Shut your fucking mouth before I make you-"
Acting before she really let herself think about it, driven by the sheer panic that she was about to witness the 'lovers spat' taking a nasty turn, Vivien stepped back closer to All Skate's entrance and took a deep breath. Even if she couldn't care less about either party, she couldn't have just stood by whilst things turned ugly. "Come on, guys, hurry up" she started, praying her voice wasn't trembling as much as it felt like it was as she called back to her friends inside - but hoping that it was loud enough for the older teens to hear. And given the fact that they both fell silent, it was. "My dad's gonna be here any minute now."
Luckily, the group of newly appointed party members finally got her message, and moved their animated discussion outside. As they did, Vivien stepped further back into the parking lot to give them some room to gather their bikes from the racks. But as she did, she also emerged from her hiding spot - exposing herself to the couple as the disturbance of their peace (if you could call it that). Whilst Eric didn't even bother to look at her, too preoccupied with the passing traffic and tapping the ash from the end of his cigarette, Carrie found the girl's gaze almost instantly. Arms still hugged around herself, huddling away from the cold in her magenta, violet and sapphire windbreaker, the once loud and proud girl couldn't have looked more unassuming had she tried. She offered Vivien a shy, yet grateful smile - so small the brunette almost didn't see it at first, or perhaps she just didn't believe it. But instinctively, Vivien found herself smiling back. Again, it was a little shy, almost cautious, but the sentiment remained unchanged. And for a moment, Vivien felt a connection to the girl. Before she could dwell on the moment any longer though, Bentley's enthusiastic chortles washed away any lingering discomfort hanging in the air.
"Seriously, Gus, it was awesome! I've never seen anything like it - how'd you come up with that final battle?" he gushed, excitedly clapping his friend on the back and then hanging from his arm as he delivered the rave review, his face alight like a firework show. 
"Yeah, it was way better than any book I've read this year," Zack agreed.
"That's not hard; all you do is watch TV," Kona snorted, earning herself a swift punch to the arm from the subject in question. 
Over their squabbling, and Kona's furious rubbing of the impact spot, Royce cut in with an appreciative, and genuine: "Well I do read a lot of books, and I must admit, it was really impressive. You've got a real talent, August." And with a fond bump of the younger boy's arm, he added. "I can't wait for the next one."
"Thanks," August said with a bashful smile, unused to such flattery, but relishing it all the same. Eager to continue pleasing his friends though, he went on to suggest, "If you guys are that excited I can start working on the next campaign tonight. I've got all our ideas written down already so I'll just have to see what I can-"
"August!"
The joy drained from the boy's face at the sound of his older brother's voice, as did any lingering excitement; replaced instead with a weary dread. "Yeah?" he called back, drowning out Eric's muttered apologies to his girlfriend as he turned to face him.
"You heading home?"
"Yeah?" August tentatively repeated, hating the added attention that having to project his voice across the parking lot like this brought. 
"Not on your bike you're not, get in the car," Eric said, nodding his head in the direction of his red Audi Quattro. 
"Why? It's not far," August tried, once tense shoulders slumping in dismay at the thought of being singled out from the rest of his friends, who all had their bikes at the ready, and were no doubt exchanging uncomfortable glances behind his back.
"I don't care, Mom said I had to pick you up if I saw you. You know how freaked she gets after the shit with the Byers last year. She's gonna be all up in my ass if she finds out I left you here," Eric grumbled through a mouthful of smoke. 
"So don't tell her," August attempted to argue, grabbing his helmet from its spot hanging from his handlebars.
But Eric, still not one to accept any backtalk, just scoffed. "And risk taking the fall for you again? No chance." Using the remainder of his cigarette to point towards the Quattro again, he added, "Put your bike on the backseat and get in, we're leaving."
Rolling his eyes and letting out a despondent huff, August turned back to his friends. "Guess I'll see you guys tomorrow then."
"Hey, at least you get out of the cold quicker," Kona offered with a hopefully optimistic grin, which she promptly buried beneath the neckline of her coat, pulled up as close to her chin as she could physically manage.
"And it's better than getting grounded," Zack added, to which August managed a small, thankfully more cheerful smile. "Plus I'd have totally beat you home anyway."
"In your dreams," August chuckled with a playful shove before starting to walk his bike over to his older brother's car.
"See you, Gus!" Bentley called out, offering one last farewell to the boy, along with a cheesy grin that stopped the boy in his tracks.
Breath catching in his throat before he could reply, August shot the group a final smile with a sigh of acceptance. "Bye guys."
"Fucking buzzkill," Zack grumbled over Eric's gruff greeting to his younger brother before sliding into the driver's seat and slamming his door.
"One day I'm gonna give that guy a piece of my mind," Kona said, glaring at the spot where the six-foot-something quarterback had once stood, eyes filled with the same hatred for the unnecessarily callous attitude the guy had for their friend as the two boys beside her. "Sooner rather than later if he keeps talking to him like that."
"You could right now if you didn't have such spindly legs and noodle arms," Bentley chuckled, for once pipping (a thoroughly amused) Zack to the punch when it came to teasing the blonde. 
"Oh yeah? Well let's see how you like it when these spindly legs beat you to the end of Hawthorne," Kona shot back with a challenging grin, readying her sneaker on the pedal for their traditional bike race home. 
"You're so on," Bentley laughed, before turning and throwing a final glance over his shoulder at the pair of thirteen-year-olds hanging around at the entrance, waiting to load their own bikes into Vivien's dad's car whenever it arrived. "Have fun you two."
"Not too much fun!" Zack hollered mischievously, as he rode his bike in a preparatory circle. 
"See you later, RJ!" Bentley added as he kicked off from the asphalt and started pedalling up to the unofficial starting line, leaving the duo huddled on the sidewalk with their breath fogging in front of them and the porch light above them attracting a swarm of tiny flies, obviously as desperate for warmth as they were. He watched it for a second as it flickered, inexplicably unable to tear his eyes away. But the pull was released the moment the bulb returned to casting the paving slabs beneath in a steady, butter yellow glow, taking the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding with it.
"See you, Benny!" Royce called back, gladly returning the boy's fond grin and tacking on a wave as the trio disappeared into the horizon.
Although Vivien offered up a smile and wave of her own, her attention was still rather preoccupied with the aftermath of the almost-altercation she'd broken up. She hadn't been able to make out most of the muttered apology Eric had provided, but Carrie's minute, resigned smile was hard to miss. 
Once it had been decided he'd be driving his younger brother home, he simply handed the rest of his cigarette off to his girlfriend (instructing her to finish it) and mumbled a half-hearted: "See you tomorrow, baby," on his way over to his car.
Catching his arm before he could leave, Carrie gently pulled him back, her unnerved concern evident as she made him stop so she could properly look at him. After an initial pause, perhaps for her to decide what she actually wanted to do, Carrie rocked up on her toe stops and pressed a tender kiss to his cheek. Her face softened into an almost apologetic smile as she shared her own reply, "Bye, baby."
But her efforts just pinged off the jock's hardened exterior. He may have attempted a smile back, but it was as false as the 'prize every time' claim on the claw machine inside. And as a result, when he turned his back, any traces of Carrie's own slipped to the ground, beside the cigarette stub she dropped to the asphalt and promptly stubbed out with her toe stop the moment his Audi rumbled into the distance, muttering under her breath and rolling her eyes the entire time.
"Your dad definitely said he'd be here at 8:15, right?" Royce checked, interrupting Vivien's thoughts with a playfully doubtful grin after taking a glance at his old, scratched, plastic digital watch.
"Yeah, he'd better not be any later," Vivien chuckled, relieved to have her attention returned to something she actually cared about. "He's normally good with being on time, but I bet Ollie's held him up at his hockey practice," she added with a loving eye roll at her brother's expense. "He shouldn't be much longer."
"Good," Royce said with a small chuckle of his own as he crossed his arms and buried his red, raw hands under his armpits. "It's freezing out here."
Just as Vivien was hurriedly swallowing the urge to suggest huddling together to share their body heat reserves, a voice from behind them interrupted their assumed privacy, accompanied by the scraping of plastic wheels over crumbling concrete. 
"You guys ok? You waiting for a ride or something?"
Both Vivien and Royce turned to look at Carrie as though she'd been dropped off by a spaceship, utterly baffled as to why she had chosen to talk to them after giving the impression that she'd rather do anything but that earlier on in the evening. And whilst Royce's chosen tactic was to just ignore the sparkly senior, Vivien tentatively replied - her recent interaction with the girl having thrown her opinion of her into disarray. "Uh, my dad's picking us up," she explained, quickly averting her eyes but feeling Royce staring horrified daggers into the side of her temple anyway.
"He couldn't give you all a ride?" Carrie questioned, seemingly genuinely confused as she gestured towards the direction the three eleven-year-olds had left in.
"We're going to the movie theatre," Vivien clarified. Whether the blonde's bewilderment was due to the group's lack of synergy, or due to the fact that she couldn't comprehend the simple self-sufficiency of having a bike being one's only mode of transport though was still up for debate. And if the angry steam Vivien could feel rising from the top of her best friend's head was anything to go by, it was a debate he wanted no part in. 
"Stop talking to her," he hissed through the corner of his frown, still partly in disbelief that the girl had acknowledged Carrie's existence at all, let alone was engaging in a proper conversation with her. And although Vivien shot him an awkwardly apologetic, lopsided smile, she didn't get the chance to reply properly before Carrie cut in with a response of her own.
"Oh nice," she noted, appearing to hold back a chuckle of amusement before offering her next question. "You want me to stay out here with you until he gets here or-?"
"No," Royce asserted, not even giving her the chance to finish her proposal before making his stance abundantly clear. 
Although Royce was furiously avoiding eye contact with the older girl, keeping his irritated glower aimed firmly on the horizon, Vivien turned back to her with a slightly more polite, but still strained confirmation. "We're fine, he shouldn't be long."
"So leave us alone," Royce barked, taking both Vivien and the desired target by surprise.
"Damn, ok. Whatever," Carrie mumbled with a bewildered, but vaguely affronted scoff. Matching Royce's defensive stance, she crossed her arms across her chest, doubling as protection from any further wounding the pair's caustic remarks may cause. Quickly returning to her 'couldn't care less' attitude, her attempt at a friendly smile vanished. And with an almost bored sigh, she uttered a resigned farewell before rolling back through the double doors. "I'll leave you to it."
Part of Vivien's mind had still latched onto the mystery surrounding Carrie though - how she could be so heartless one second, and then so amiable the next; how she could present so confidently, and yet let herself be pushed around like a microfibre mop; how she could have people falling at her feet at the same time as having people cursing the very ground she walked. And although her opinion still hung in the balance, the glimpse of humanity she'd caught had drawn her intrigue. So, although she was certain it went unnoticed, Vivien still gave the older blonde a cautiously gracious smile as she left the younger teens in peace. 
Maybe Miles' hadn't overshot his estimations of her so drastically after all.
Although, Royce didn't appear quite as impressed. "Why did you talk to her again?" he asked, still as shell-shocked by the event as when it first happened.
Having to bite her lip to stop herself from giggling at the comically horrified look in the curly-haired boy's eyes, Vivien just shrugged, unable to fully understand it herself. "I don't know, she just seemed like she was being nice. I wanted to give her a chance."
Royce rolled his eyes, sensing the same optimism in Vivien that Miles had displayed when he'd first started working with the blonde, and was still desperately clinging onto to this day. "Don't tell me I'm losing you to the dark side too," he sighed, with a fond, but wary frown. 
Her giggle wasn't so easily concealed this time. "Strong is the pull of the Force, Master Royce," Vivien chortled, doing her best to deliver the worst Yoda impression she could muster. 
Royce's sceptical resolve came crashing down in an instant, totally at ease in the brunette's presence once more.  But Vivien wasn't done yet; after glancing towards the roller rink's entrance she caught his gaze again and fixed a smirk to her face. "But not that strong."
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"No fair! You guys got a head start!" Zack cried in retaliation to a victorious Bentley's whoops and Kona's airy laughter as the pair passed their invisible finish line, crossing the threshold onto the street just before the turn-off for his street. 
"Sure we did," Kona laughed, slowing her pedalling so that Zack could close the gap between them.
"Whatever's gonna help you sleep tonight," Bentley added with a chuckle of his own once he clocked his friend's disgruntled expression.
"I can't believe you won again, Benny," Zack huffed, half-frustrated, half-impressed by the boy's biking prowess.
"I've just had extra practice lately with Miles' car waiting to go into the garage," he explained, graciously taking the victory in his stride as the trio leisurely rolled down the rest of the residential street, waiting for their rapid breaths to even out again. 
"Yeah, well, it's only a matter of time before I smoke you again," Zack teased with a misplaced, but very entertaining confidence. "I've just been going easy on you both."
"Ok, bozo, if you say so," Kona snorted, rolling her eyes as they approached the boy's turn-off. And as he took his turning, she called out her latest farewell. "See you tomorrow."
"Bye guys," Zack hollered over his shoulder, maintaining a steady course down the cul-de-sac despite raising one of his arms to wave at the pair. 
"Bye!" Bentley called back, before adding with a mischievous grin, "Don't forget you owe me a candy bar!"
"Whaddya want?" Zack shouted back.
"A Sky Bar," Bentley replied, just about catching Zack's thumbs up before he disappeared from view and their exclamations were swallowed up by the heavy silence of the frigid, night air. 
"You freak," Kona had chuckled as she lazily cycled beside the boy, shaking her head at his pick. 
"What? They're good," Bentley defended with a grin. "What other candy gives you that many different flavours?"
"Lifesavers," Kona offered, lifting her eyebrow before tagging her opinion on the end. "But that doesn't mean they're any good."
After continuing their playful bickering over various confectionary items for the next few blocks, Kona reached her stop and conceded her role in the debate. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ben," she finished with, so used to waiting to bid his older brother a farewell too (once his slower pace on their evening commutes allowed him to catch up with them) that she still found herself looking for him along the inky skyline over her shoulder. But, obviously, she came up short. "Try not to get lost on your way back," she added with a cheeky jab at the boy's reliance on his older brother. 
"Yeah, 'cause I really don't know my way home by now," Bentley sarcastically shot back, prompting the pair to share a laugh before they went their separate ways. "Bye, Kona!" he hollered with an enthusiastic wave at the girl's retreating form, waiting until her blonde pigtails disappeared into her family house's garage before kicking off and resuming his journey.
The route back to the Murphy residence was relatively simple, but tedious if you stuck to the main roads. However, there was a well-known shortcut down a sidestreet that branched off just after Kona's house that cut out a good chunk of the richer neighbourhoods. With a dense patch of woodland flanking one side, and sporadic driveways lining the other, it made for a pretty idyllic journey. Sometimes, if the weather was nice enough, he and Royce had been known to stop and stargaze on one of the patches of grass at the curbside. But with the consistently dropping temperature, and his solidarity becoming more painfully obvious with each muffled dog bark, or owl hoot, all Bentley cared about was getting home. 
A few minutes passed and the breeze started to die down, the wind no longer gauging lines out of his cheeks, and the pothole-ridden road evened out onto a recently relaid stretch of tarmac. For a moment, Bentley felt himself relax and started to fully enjoy the novelty of the solo ride. But the sentiment was lost in an instant when the headlamp at the front of his handlebars started to flicker, just like the bulb back at All Skate had done. Confused at first, he reached down and tried to adjust it - tapping it a few times as he tried to figure out where on earth the bike could have been hiding its battery supply, as that obviously had to be the reason for the display. Coming up short, he tried to push the steadily nagging sense of dread to the back of his mind, chalking it up to nerves as the light sputtered back to life and he continued on its way.
He only managed a few more feet before the flickering returned though, bringing a fresh wave of unease that crested as the bulb gave up all together, plunging the patch of road ahead of him into darkness, thanks to the distinct lack of street lamps on the rural stretch of street. Bentley froze, coming to an abrupt stop as he tried to settle the thudding in his chest and figure out what he should do next. He slowly dismounted from the bike and peered at the bulb, at a total loss as to why it had started acting up so suddenly, and why it felt so coincidentally linked to the faulty light back at the rink, when all of a sudden…
A twig snapped. 
Bentley's heart stopped, and his breath caught in his throat. He told himself he'd just watched too many scary movies, that it was probably just a stray cat, or a rabbit or something. But still, the noise struck a fear in him that rooted him to the spot - eyes wide in the darkness that felt more consuming with every passing second.
Several moments crawled by in total silence. Only to be broken by the rustling of the dead leaves blanketing the forest floor. 
This time Bentley's heart leapt into his throat, and before he could dwell on it a moment longer, he started pushing his bike in the opposite direction, back towards the main road. Sure, it would take him significantly longer to get home now, especially since he was already a decent way down this side street, but at least the main road was properly lit, and wouldn't let his imagination run rampant with the sounds of native wildlife. Once again, he tried to steady his breathing, his feet pounding the asphalt with the same urgency as his heart pounding against his ribcage. His mind was overrun with manic thoughts of every level of concern - total blasé apathy to anxiety-riddled terror - and all he could do was pray that at least one with some sort of logical solution would present itself. But instead he was left with a rising sense of dread and the inability to think straight. 
Knowing his mind was just playing tricks on him, a product of the overblown anxiety spike, Bentley thought for a second that he heard footsteps behind him. But considering that the entire time he, Royce and Miles had travelled that route, they'd only stumbled across another person a handful of times, and not once after sunset, he knew that couldn't be the case. Part of him wanted to just keep walking, albeit slightly quicker just in case, but the other part just wanted to check… Just to make sure. 
Hoping that it would help to set his mind at ease, Bentley dared a glance over his shoulder, eyes struggling to adjust in the twilight. At first he saw nothing, just the same beat-up cars and overgrown sidewalks as before. But then a shadow emerging from the treeline made his blood run cold.
The figure, nothing but a black blob at first, stalked further out from the thick foliage. And as it was backlit by more of the minimal light from the sky, it became the distinct shape of a man - a tall man at that. 
Bentley's head whipped back around and, acting on pure instinct alone, too afraid to do anything else, he started to run. His aim was to gain as much distance from the man as he could - after all, maybe he hadn't even noticed Bentley was there. He could just be getting himself scared over nothing. But when he heard the footsteps quicken in reaction, over the frantic panting of his own breath, his heart rate doubled. 
Bentley's mind raced at a million miles a minute, trying to understand what the man could possibly want with him, what he could have possibly done wrong, and, most importantly, how on earth he could get out of this living nightmare. But the more he thought, the less control of his thoughts he had. His adrenaline was running too high to think properly. And even if it was, he had no idea what to do in a crisis; he usually just ran to his older brothers for help. And whilst he was definitely running, his brothers were nowhere to be found this time. 
Sensing the footsteps growing louder, ergo closer, Bentley's fight-or-flight instinct kicked into full gear. As much as he loved his bike, it was dead weight as far as this pursuit was concerned. So he dropped the handlebars and broke out into a sprint, listening to the framework topple to the ground and skitter down the road until it scraped to a stop. He didn't dare look over his shoulder to see where it had landed, but he knew he'd just have to come back and collect it the following day. After all, he'd sooner sacrifice his bike than himself, and he was sure Miles would agree once he explained the predicament to him later. 
Whilst part of him had envisioned the bike hitting the assailant on its way back down the slight hill, the footsteps just picked up their pace to match his once more, filling him with an even deeper sense of dread. His chest grew tight, making it harder and harder to gasp in the breaths required to sustain his stamina. His calves started to smart with the force of his strides - his legs moving so wildly they almost didn't even feel like his anymore. Hot, terrified tears burned his eyes - blurring what limited vision he had in this suffocating darkness.
Something snagged his backpack and Bentley's heart rate hit an all time high.
He furiously wrenched himself free from the straps and threw himself back into a sprint, running faster than he ever had before. Fleeting thoughts of anything in that backpack were thrown out the window: his homework, his sketchbook, his house keys - no matter their importance, they paled in comparison to getting to safety. But with the shadowed stalker hot on his heels, even though the main road was getting closer by the second, that was starting to feel more and more hopeless. He thought about screaming for help, but none of the houses that were actually inhabited were close enough for anyone to hear him - plus, his throat was so dry he didn't even know if he'd be able to make a sound anyway. He just kept on running. Pound after pound after pound, attempting to plan out which house he could beg for sanctuary at once he broke out onto the main street. Thud after thud after thud, desperately trying to remember the countless lectures Miles had bored him with about what to do if he was ever in trouble, and yet every piece of advice alluding him. Sob after sob after sob, frantic tears streaking down his cheeks as he clung to whatever thoughts of his brothers he could muster to drive away the all-consuming terror that came from-
A cold hand clamped down on Bentley's shoulder and he felt his entire body turn to ice. His breath was stolen away as the nightmare swelled to its climax and the pounding blood in his skull grew so deafening he lost his sense of hearing too. The ringing of alarm bells filled his ears and his brain was replaced with cotton wool as every coherent thought besides 'oh my god, somebody help me' fell out of his head, along with the last shred of his sanity. Although he was petrified of what he'd find, Bentley found himself turning to face the shadow man - perhaps in a final attempt to try to shake him off, or wriggle out of his grasp. But as a bolt of fear surged through his body, crushing his organs with a pressure too great for him to even begin to comprehend - the attacker reached out a gnarled, pale hand.
Bentley's vision flashed white. And then there was darkness.
Nothing but darkness.
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