Roleplays after Out of the Blue: Part 3

Dakota and Gaile: (F)all for You
Dakota moved merrily along through the streets of the city, gripping tightly at the straps of his backpack as he glanced down every alleyway and street just in case Gaile was just wondering about. However, it just seemed like he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in her room, or any of the places in the hotel that someone would hang out in. There was only one other place to check.

The teen made his way back to the spot Gaile had showed him—Their special spot.

“Gaile…?” He called out, peeking his head into the small room in hopes his friend would be there.

Gaile had discovered that after a tough elimination got her worked up that coming to her little clubhouse was the best thing to do to calm her down. She had been there, reclined in one of the lawn chairs for the last hour since they got out of elimination. This was the time where she did her thinking and plotting for the game, and tonight she had a bit of thinking to do about her team. Was she really a wild card? Was she really not a good team player? Her ears perked up when she heard a voice call out her name. She felt a smile spread across her face as she realized who it was.

“Hey Dakota!” she greeted the boy happily. She sat up a bit in her chair.

Dakota made his way into the clubhouse, taking a seat next to Gaile, smiling brightly at her. If he was bothered by the days events, or the events prior, it really wasn’t showing. Being with Gaile just made everything good.

“Hey!” He chimed, slipping his pack off his shoulders. “How are you feeling…~?”

Gaile tried not to let the fact that she had a lot on her mind show on her face. She just wanted to enjoy her time with Dakota. She tried to smile as normal but with all that she was thinking about having been said so recent, the wound was still relatively fresh.

“I’m….pretty ok. How about you? How’s it hangin’?” Gaile asked her friend in a friendly voice.

“I’m pretty good.” Dakota’s downfall was his complete obliviousness. Even if Gaile wasn’t hiding her feelings behind a mask, unless she downright told him, Dakota probably wouldn’t catch on.

“I got you something, I’ve been trying to find you all day!” He said, digging into his backpack and slipping a small necklace out. It looked similar to the bracelet he had made for Ry, being braided ribbon. However the colors were pink, purple and yellow and had a pendant with a small gemstone hanging off of it. “Here! For the scrunchie you gave me! For… You know, friendship!”

Gaile felt relieved as Dakota ignored the sadness in her voice, and decided she’d talk about it later, he looked so happy right now. Gaile loved it when he was happy, because he had a super cute smile. When Dakota said he had something for him, Gaile smiled widely and sat all the way up in her seat. Her heart beat in anticipation and Dakota dug through his backpack for the gift.

Gaile wondered what he could have possibly got her. Whatever it is, she was sure to love it, after all, it came from someone very special. When Dakota pulled out the colorful necklace Gaile smiled even more, it was beautiful, and just perfect. She carefully took the necklace and rolled in around in her hand to fully give it a look.

“Oh my gosh, Dakota! I love it! It’s totally my style! Oh my gosh, so pretty and colorful!” she gushed ecstatically. “Thank you so much!” She leaned across the space between their chairs and Dakota a big hug. She shot him a bright smile and reached back behind her hair to remove the blue wire choker from around her neck.

Dakota grinned enthusiastically. Finally, he’d done something right. For the past few days it seemed like he was making wrong move after wrong move, but seeing Gaile so happy gave him a certain peace. When she leaned in to hug him, his face flushed warmly and smile grew brighter. “I’m glad you like it!”

“It’s just so awesome! Did you make this?” Gaile asked and finally opened the clasps to her choker and took it off of her neck. She then tucked the choker carefully into the pocket of her shorts so she wouldn’t lose it. Admiring the necklace once again, Gaile reached up and under her hair to get the new necklace on, she was fiddling with the clasps but struggling a bit to get it closed and on her neck. She felt her face flash red from her inability to get her necklace on and she giggled nervously.

“Yeah I did.” Dakota said proudly, “I don’t know the first thing about making jewelry, honestly. So it might not hold very well, but it should keep for a while.” he informed, watching Gaile as she struggled to get it on her neck. Giggling, he stood up, moving behind her.

“Let me help. Here, hold your hair.” And as she lifted her blonde locks, Dakota fastened her necklace for her, blushing warmly because… well this is something he saw a lot in romantic movies. a man helping a woman to put on a necklace, it was like a scene like that. He couldn’t keep his little heart from pounding in his chest.

“There we go….” he mumbled, once finished.

Gaile laughed happily and held the necklace up to her chest.

“Well since you made it, I will treasure it always! I’ll just be especially careful with it.”  she said.

As Dakota put the new necklace around her neck she felt her cheeks light up with a warm pink blush. She felt the same floaty feeling return from when he had helped her clean up the hot chocolate mess only nights ago. Gaile couldn’t help but grin blissfully as she welcomed back the feeling with open arms. Just being around Dakota was enough to trigger this feeling. When Dakota pulled back and made eye contact with Gaile her smile kinda turned to one side as she felt her cheeks blush again.

“Y-Yeah. There we go…Thank you, Dakota.” she droned and wrapped her arms around Dakota in a hug.

“No prob–” When he was scooped up into a hug, a familiar warmness filled him. He smiled, closing his eyes and returning the hug. Being with Gaile was always so nice. She was warm, and it was comfortable. He was always at ease with her. Dakota just let the hug linger on and on, honestly he could just stay like that forever and would have no problem.

Eventually though, he did pull back, quite obvious that his face had a soft blush to it. The young boy leaned in, giving her a soft peck on the cheek followed by a sheepish smile. He thought back briefly about what happened with Ry and how he’d ran away. However, he didn’t fear the same outcome with Gaile. Something told him that things were just… okay. “Y..you’re uhm… very pretty.” he murmured, glancing down at his fidgeting hands. He didn’t quite no what to say in this moment, really, but figured that would suffice.

Gaile couldn’t help but feel safe in the warm embrace; like she was meant to be there. She was so content in that moment that she didn’t even notice that the hug was lasting longer than usual. She did notice when he pulled back a little bit and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes widened in surprise and a blissful smile spread across her face and his lips made contact with her cheek. She felt her body heat rise as she was fighting and failing to keep herself from blushing. When Dakota pulled back away, he looked nervous and was a bit fidgety. He said something, but it took Gaile a moment to understand what it was, she was still experiencing that floaty, happy feeling she got whenever she was with Dakota.

“Th-Thank you.” Gaile said happily, “You’re very handsome…and cute.” she finished quietly. She leaned in and kissed Dakota’s cheek in return. She felt the time was finally right.

“Y-You make me so happy, Dakota.” Gaile said, cheeks turning rosy.

“You make me happy too…!” He blurted out, grinning like an idiot. Grinning, he leaned back in just to hug her now, eyes closing as he rested his head on her chest. “Really… Really happy…”

Gaile smiled blissfully in Dakota’s embrace, elated that she had met such an incredible guy. She was 100% genuinely happy, even after all that had happened recently. She never wanted this to end.

“Hey Dakota? Do you mind if I ask why you always take so many pictures? I love that you do it, but I was just wondering.” she asked.

Dakota’s face flushed as Gaile’s question. He seemed a bit uneasy, but thought he should at least be honest with her.

“….. I…. Well they help me…. To remember….” He admitted sheepishly. “It don’t know why but…. I just….. I don’t. No, can’t remember most things unless I have a picture to look back on…”

Gaile blinked in shock at Dakota’s explanation. She asked why he took so many pictures, and now she had an answer; but it was one she never expected. Dakota had memory problems. When Gaile looked back up at Dakota, she saw that he was blushing. She looked down at the ground, upset with herself for embarrassing someone she cared so much for.

“I’m so sorry I asked. I can tell you don’t like to talk about it. I just am so sorry.” she babbled, blinking away the tears forming in her eyes. She tugged anxiously at the scrunchie around her wrist.

Gaile’s worst nightmare was upsetting someone she cared about, and that was just about everyone, but especially Dakota.

Dakota blinked, quickly shaking his head. “O-oh no! I’m fine!” He insisted, forcing a slight smile. “I just… Never know how to explain it, you know…? It doesn’t exsactly make much sense so….. So yeah…”

Gaile
It had been hours since Gaile returned from elimination ceremony. She didn’t have too much of an opinion on the events that took place during the ceremony, because she had never really gotten to meet Matt, but she was still sad he had to go. She wanted to try to get to know everyone there.

Bummed and bored out of her mind she decided to have some fun and play one of his favorite games. Roof fishing! This was a blast to play back at home in New York because so many interesting things got caught on her line. Once she caught a doggie bag full of italian food! Fashioning a make-do fishing line out of a stick, some floss, and a paper clip, Gaile excitedly headed up to the top floor and on the roof. It wasn’t too bright out anymore, but it wasn’t too dark either, which would prevent people from running into the paper clip and injuring themselves.

Excited to begin and collect some new treasures, Gaile wound the floss around the stick a bunch of times to secure it and bent a paper clip into an “S” shape. She then tied the end of the floss to the paper clip with a knot and bent the end of the clip to lock it in place. She was ready to begin! She excitedly dropped her fishing line down the side of the hotel and waited until she felt the hook catch.

Ry:
Ry needed the fresh air after that challenge, still feeling the effects of the disgusting cold, wet water against his back. Of all the challenges Chris chose, it had to be a water challenge… If there was one thing he couldn’t handle, it was water… It was just so dripping and slimy against his skin… His clothing didn’t help the feeling at all… If he wanted to be wet, then he would get wet, but he didn’t want to get wet. Worst of all, he’d lost his other quill pen before eliminations had gone down…

Reaching up glumly, he touched the bean where his slits had originally kept the only things that mattered in his attire. Stupid Dennis for burning his first pen and stupid water challenge for upsetting him enough to lose it…

Sighing in annoyance, he lowered his hand and continued on his stroll, not bothering to take his eyes off the concrete.

Suddenly, and without warning, he felt his hat suddenly tug, causing him to stop and reach up, not understanding what he’d just felt. Lowering his hands again, he suddenly felt his hat ripped off his head, causing him to yell in protest.

“STOP! Gidalyeo! Dansin-eun babo, naui mojaleul jwo!” He screamed, language shifting to Korean without him realizing it.

Gaile tugged up on the line and was starting to pull her new catch up to the roof when she heard someone screaming in what sounded like gibberish to her. She stopped tugging on the line and looked over the roof’s railings to see what the commotion was.

Gaile gulped as she saw what it was. Her friend Ry was standing on the sidewalk below her. He appeared to be fuming and he wasn’t wearing his hat. She made a horrifying realization that the object she had caught on her fishing line was Ry’s beloved hat. She had just pissed off one of the most short fused contestants on the show.

“OOPS! My bad, Ry!! I totally didn’t know you were down there! You can have your lid back!” Gaile cried and let the line down to Ry’s grasp.

Ry’s hands clasped the top of his head, still trying to get the globs of motor oil from his and Dennis’s adventure, when he heard Gaile call from above him. Turning his attention upward, he didn’t notice the line coming back down until his hat smacked him right in the face, causing him to let loose a soft scream from underneath it.

“Jangnan hae?!” His muffled cries echoed out from underneath the material, causing him to fall backward on to his ass, yelping in pain. Maybe he should get a bigger butt, so he didn’t feel the pavement so easily… Ugh…

Getting up, he snatched his hat, removing the paperclip from the fabric and quickly made his way up to the roof, slamming the door open. “First, Dennis throws motor oil down on to my head, then you nearly cause me to break my tailbone? God, don’t tell me you’re taking lessons from the cheeky bastard!” He muttered, making his way over to sit down next to Gaile, expression hard to read.

Reaching up into his hair, he scooped out a glob of motor oil and flicked it off the roof, sighing softly.

Gaile laughed nervously at Ry’s question, hoping he wasn’t actually too angry at her for trying to steal his hat.

“I’m mad sorry Ry! I really wasn’t trying to yoink your lid.”

“Nope. Actually, this idea was all mine. I was mad bored and decided to play a game. Window–Roof Fishing. It’s my favorite game back home. You find so many rad treasures in New York!” Gaile gushed nostalgically.

She then picked up the fishing line from the ground and offered it out to Ry.

“You wanna try?” she asked with an encouraging grin.

Ry paused at the word ‘yoink,’ actually finding it humorous to hear from Gaile. He knew it was an old timey cartoon thing, but he’d never heard anyone actually say it out loud before. “Well, I’m not exactly too attached to it… I mean, I think my hair is great, but I do like keeping it covered. The only reason I don’t wear it is…” He stopped, shaking his head.

“Well, it’s a long story, anyway.”

“All yours?” He’d never heard that term before–Window-roof fishing–and tilted his head. “You just do this all the time back at your place? Huh…You must live in a high up place to be able to do this kind of thing all the time.” He commented, reaching out to take the line.

“Well, I guess so… I wasn’t really doing anything except getting over this stupid headache.” Taking the line from her hands, he turned his attention to the road below, casting the ling back out.

The blonde nodded her head as she recalled her best fishing treasures back home.

“I do! My Aunt and Uncle have a pretty big apartment and we live on like the 5th floor. My room has a window that’s right above a pretty busily traveled street. I score there all the time! Once I caught a wicked walkman from someone’s backpack. The dude who owned it said I could keep it since he was getting an iPod for his birthday in a week.” Gaile stated proudly.

Gaile felt elated again as Ry cast the line down for a turn at Roof Fishing. She hoped he would find something good.

“That’s it. It may take a while, but something usually eventually catches.” Gaile said with a giggle.

“And while we now have some time, you can tell me about the only reason you don’t wear your hat. I’m intrigued and in suspense.” Gaile said.

“You caught 90’s memorabilia from a guy just randomly walking down the street?” Ry asked, turning his head to look at her, believing her story but finding it so lucky. If only luck was on his side like that… Well, he did get on this show with some luck. Had the bus to take him been late, he’d of been grabbed by his parents and dragged back inside. “Damn, that’s a lucky catch… I hope I catch something interesting…I mean, we’re in an abandoned city, so I don’t think we’ll find anything ‘treasure-like’.”

Swinging the line around calmly just for the hell of it, he turned to look at her, mouth tightening at the memory. “Well, I guess I can tell you… I mean, it’s not really that interesting, to be honest.” He shrugged, eyes going back to the line.

“Normally, I wear my hat just because it’s comfortable and feels right against my head, so it’s kind of a comfort thing? It’s weird, I know… I say all the time that I love my hair, and that its’ the only good thing about me, but I place a beanie on my head and hide most of it.”

He stopped, adjusting himself so he was more comfortable. “But… I was dumb enough to have Dennis send a sludge-filled balloon to crash down on my head, soaking my beanie with motor oil, forcing me to take it off,” shaking his head, he almost smiled.

Gaile giggled and shrugged.

“I guess the 90’s just find their way to me, no matter what! I’m sure you’ll find something interesting, and if not whatever you find is instantly interesting cause you got it from of the street!” she exclaimed.

Gaile smiled to herself when Ry started talking about something he originally didn’t want to. It meant that Ry was finally starting to trust her. It mean the world to her. She listened as Ry told his story about Dennis and his balloon of sludge. She laughed at the end of it.

“So that explains what you were pulling out of your hair when you got up here. Now why would you let Dennis drop a balloon on your head?” Gaile inquired.

“Hm… You are like a 90′s magnet,” he mumbled, swinging his feet calmly over the ledge like he’d done this so many times. Looking over, he noticed his satchel and handed Gaile the fishing line, wanting to draw more now that he thought about it. “Honestly, I think I’m more artist than…whatever you would call someone who fishes for a living… A sailor.”

He paused for a few seconds and shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t let him drop the balloon on me; he dropped the balloon on me like the sneaky bastard he is.” He told her, pulling his sketchbook from his bag and a small pencil. “But we went down to the abandoned amusement park where I let him convince me to climb up on the roller coaster to walk on it.”

Okay, that was his idea, but he wouldn’t mention that to her.

Gaile shrugged again and snickered. She knew it was true. It was almost like she was meant to live a 90’s lifestyle. It was meant to be. She took the fishing line from Ry and nodded when he said he’d rather draw.

“Whatever floats your boat, buddy.” She said and adjusted the floss around the stick one more time.

“Ohhh I should have known you wouldn’t let him do that to you willingly. Sometimes Dennis’ pranks are real messy. Like the syrup in Lavender’s hair. And the soap. Shnikies, Lavender gets the brunt of it all..” Gaile said with a giggle.

When Ry started to talk about how he and Dennis had gone down to the old amusement park, she was instantly interested. Old abandoned amusement parks would be a great place to write one of her scary stories!

“Oh my gosh! What happened next?” she asked turning to face her friend.

Ry calmly glanced up at the moon, opening his sketchbook to a blank page, and set to work, constructing a waxing gibbous moon right off the bat. “Yeah, one of his stupid pranks burnt my quill pen right off my head… I’m just glad I didn’t strangle him…” He muttered, fingers calmly smudging the moon to give it craters in the image.

“I actually don’t feel any sympathy for Lavender,” he confessed, tilting his head to gather more perception of the sky above him. “I just don’t trust her…and I still don’t know if she understands that I’m gay…”

He paused and thought about that. Did he ever tell anyone he was gay besides a select few?

“Hm? Oh, uh, we tried to climb it, but with my feet being so small, I was struggling like crazy just to keep from falling. I ended up having to walk on the middle of the railing just to not fall. Then we came to the first hill, so I took off my shoes and threw them at him for making some stupid remark; I can’t really remember what he said, but he said something that annoyed me. Of course, I aimed slightly off so my shoes missed and he didn’t end up dying, fortunate for him…”

He mumbled, shifting his pencil down so it began to draw the roller coaster. “After we climbed up and down the first ramp, stopping to talk about things every once in a while, we decided to jump off, rather than go to that loop and risk dying.” He snorted softly, looking back up. “I nearly passed out because he gave me a hell of a migraine from honking that air horn in my ear; I should have hit him twice as hard for that.”

While he etched out the roller coaster, he stared down at the street for a few moments, then looked over at Gaile. “Then I found out what cotton candy was.”

Gaile gasped when Ry said Dennis had burnt one of his quill pens. For some reason it shocked her that Dennis would actually use fire as an element to his pranks. That was so dangerous and risky. He could really hurt someone. But then again… he was way too thrilled to use the gasoline and flame thrower in the fire challenge.

Gaile didn’t stop him when he said he wondered if Lavender knew he was gay. She kinda figured he was gay all along, so this was no shock to her. She kinda had a pretty spot-on “Gay-dar”.

Gaile listened again with wide eyes as Ry continued to tell his story about the amusement park. She snickered when Ry said she threw his shoes as Dennis but not in a way so he’d go plummeting to his death. What a Ry-like thing to say.

“Air horn? When you’re standing on a roller coaster?” Gaile asked in disbelief. Maybe Dennis WOULD actually try to kill someone? She lowered the string as far as it would go hoping to catch onto things on the ground and not onto someone else.

“You had never had cotton candy before? Did you like it?” she asked him with a smile.

“Nah, he’d given me a migraine when we were still up here,” he corrected himself, knowing his story was a bit out of order. “I came up here to maybe kick his ass off the roof or something, but I didn’t think he’d hide. When I stopped and went to turn around, he came out of his hiding spot, blasted me in the face with the air horn, and then I got a bad migraine.” He left out the part where he begged him to stop and threw the can over the side.

“The cotton candy was actually too sweet for my taste… Well, I ate most of it, I mean. It wasn’t too bad, but I can’t say I would put it in the top ten favorite sweet things to eat…and I probably shouldn’t. I mean, Dennis apparently knows how to work one of those machines to make the cotton candy? Another thing that irks me…but he taught me how to use it, so I guess that was pretty fun. Then after he made the cotton candy, he introduced me to a Ferris wheel after I asked what it was.” He sighed softly, eyes returning to his sketch.

“I was actually pretty clueless about amusement parks. I’d gone to one in Canada, but they were pretty drab. They had a roller coaster, a few kiddie rides, and it was mostly games that they made nearly impossible to win.” Crossing his legs, he shook his head. “We made a bet about if we would die while we rode it, and I don’t remember who won that one… We made like five bets the whole time we hung out; I think…we did…

“I got really high off the sugar, though… You see, I’m not really supposed to have it since I can’t handle it well; I get really hyperactive and I just lose myself in the rush… I guess you could say I black out while I run around and say random things. It’s the equivalent of being drunk or something… I’m not entirely sure myself. Anyway, I had no idea that cotton candy was made almost entirely out of the stuff, so…the ride got cut short when I jumped over the edge, then I blacked out.”

“Oh thank goodness! I didn’t want to think that Dennis would do something that dangerous and stupid in such a bad place just for a laugh.” Gaile said in a serious tone.

Gaile was shocked to hear that Ry didn’t really know about the basics of amusement parks. Most amusement park have ferris wheels! It all made sense when he said that the park in Canada he’d been too was boring. She felt bad that he’d had to experience such a bad park. Amusement parks were great and everyone deserves to have fun at them!

When Ry talked about his sugar high, she laughed a bit. It was just hard for her to picture her chill friend on a high of any kind. She made a mental note to make sure she witnesses this before the game ends.

“Well it sounds like you had quite an adventure. I haven’t had much in the way of adventures since we got here. I mean I took Dakota to the clubhouse I found and we hung out for a while but-“  she started to share.

“Wait—hold the phone! You actually jumped out of a roller coaster? How did you not die?” Gaile asked.

“Oh, he would have done something dangerous like that if he wasn’t sounding like a scared dog,” Ry told her, then sighed and added, “But I was scared, too, so I can’t really say much, and I jumped off the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster. I mean, we both jumped off the roller coaster at its lowest point, but I jumped off the Ferris wheel when it was coming to its final rotation; so it really wasn’t impressive. The last thing I remember was Dennis saying…’What in the fucking fuck?’”

Turning his attention to what she said next, he avoided the sting he felt from the laugh, and raised an eyebrow. “You and Dakota have your own clubhouse?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest, balancing his sketchbook on his thighs calmly. “…You and Dakota hang out a lot, don’t you?” He decided it was time to put in his promise to Dakota, not one to break them unless under extreme circumstances.

“I guess it’s possible I could put out there that since you two hang out so much, you might….feel something for him? I could waft it around a bit in my head, and I think I could summarize that you have a…crush on him?” He tilted his beanieless head at her, hair falling slightly off his face, revealing his mismatched eyes.

“That’s so crazy!” Gaile exclaimed  at the end of Ry’s story. This reality show sure had a lot of interesting people who do interesting things. Gaile really could write a whole book based on her experiences with the people here alone. She was pulled back into reality when Ry asked her about Dakota.

“Wait what?” she asked before immediately realizing what had been said. She felt a faint blush start to form across her cheeks. They burned warm to the touch. When she started talking again, she was talking a mile a minute and pacing back and forth on the roof, and talking a lot with her hands.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. You know.. He’s a totally rad dude and he’s my teammate, and my friend. Just like you and Baroness, and Jillian, and maybe Dennis. But I don’t know, me and Dakota just seem to really have a special connection and I have no idea how to explain it. It’s just wonderful and happy and it makes my cheeks red and it makes my stomach drop into freefall.. And I never want some moments we’re hanging out to end. And I find a lot of the things he does pretty adorable and he is kinda cute, ok really cute.. and maybe, I guess, just maybe you could say I have a little bit of feelings for him but I don’t actually know. I don’t know if he has any feeling towards me besides maybe like friend or sister.. I just don’t know. Ya know?” she babbled and ended her monologue  by leaning forward, towards Ry.

Ry listened to Gaile talk about Dakota in detail, trying to zone in on any hints that she could have a crush on him. If he could just gather enough evidence, then he could tell Dakota about this and he’d of done this job. He really didn’t believe love was a force they should get their hopes up with, since all it had ever done to him was hurt him, but he knew he couldn’t just let Dakota get hurt like he had. If Gaile didn’t like him, then he could let him down gently by mentioning something like ‘she’s suffering from a rather large break up from before and would like you to remain friends for the time being.’ It’d be way easier than ripping a band-aid off his heart.

“…it makes my cheeks red and it makes my stomach drop into freefall..” He heard her say, strangling him from his thoughts. Well, he hadn’t expected it to be this easy to gain what he needed.

“Uh huh…” He mumbled in reply, closing his sketchbook and setting it beside him, then leaned back as she leaned forward. “I don’t really know, if I’m being honest with you… I don’t really have a crush on anyone anymore; it’s too painful for me to get my hopes up, you know? But…since you seem fond of Dakota and Dakota seems fond of you, I think you have a great chance of this working in your favor.” He tapped his fingers on top of the cover of his book, staring at her.

Dennis:
Dennis, still annoyed that Baroness got him out of the challenge, walked outside of the hotel. Oh, he’d get her back. And when he did, he wasn’t going to play. Not at all.

He stopped when he saw a… paper clip? He stood there for a moment before looking up to the roof. Was someone fishing or something…?

His lips spread into a wicked grin as he dug in his hoodie pocket. One, count em, one spider. Coming up. Placing it on the paper clip, he tugged on the line, waiting for whoever was on the other line to try and pull it up.

Gaile felt a pang of excitement when she sensed something catching onto her fishing line and began to hurriedly pull it back in. She was so excited to see what she had caught that it took  a moment for her brain to register what was attached to her line.

“YIPES!!” Gaile shrieked when she finally realized a spider was on the hook and in her hand. She jumped slightly and ended up dropping her whole fishing pole down to the ground.

“Aww shnikies.” she exclaimed and leaned over to take a peek at where it had landed. When she saw Dennis standing on the sidewalk, everything made sense.

“Yo Dennis! How’s it hangin’?” Gaile asked.

Dennis watched the rod drop, jumping backwards as it hit the ground. He looked up, moderately confused by what Gaile was even doing up there.

“Keheheheh, you didn’t like the bite your rod got?” he asked in amusement before crossing his arms and asking, “What the fuck are you doin’ anyway, Nostalgiette?!”

Gaile laughed at Dennis’ statement.

“I shoulda known it was you who was responsible for that.” she said with a shake of her head.

When Dennis asked her what she was doing, she grinned at the boy and leaned a little further over the railing.

“I’m playing a totally wicked game of Roof Fishing! You wanna try? Pick up that stick and come on up here!” she cried and pointed at the stick and floss on the ground.

Dennis opened and closed his mouth. Oh, right, it was Nostalgiette he was talking to here. He wondered if any prank would deter her chill personality like he had seen with several others.

“Roof fishin’?” he repeated, before looking down at the rod. Well, it beat nothing, he supposed. Picking up the rod, he walked back inside the hotel and climbed several flights to make it to the roof. He walked over to Gaile and held the rod out to her, “What the flying fuck is roof fishin’ anyways?”

Gaile happily took back her fishing rod and re-bent the paper clip after its fall.

“It’s a super fun game I used to play at home in New York! My Aunt and Uncle live in a mondo huge apartment complex and the window of my room is right above a busily traveled street.” Gaile explained.

“You just dangle a fishing rod out the window or off the roof and wait till something catches! It’s totally fun and you catch some interesting things.” she said with a smile. She then held out the rod to Dennis again.

“You wanna try?” she asked.

Dennis gave Gaile a bewildered look. Well, it was obviously something different, but he could barely stand regular fishing. Too much patience was involved for his liking.

Regardless, he took te rod and said, “Might as fuckin’ well. Don’t got much else to do in this trash heap, keheh.”

After trying to mess with the line for a minute he was fianlly able to cast it over the side of the buiding, before asking, “But that’s New York, right? This place is dang empty. Other than a spider, what have you actually caught today, Nostalgiette?”

Dakota and Ashley (Private RP)
Ashley lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, as she had been doing during most of her free time recently. It was a bit boring, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go out and talk to anyone on this show even if she could. She glanced towards the door, where she had her chain bolt attached, as well as a chair wedged under the doorknob. It was a simple idea. Lock the door from the inside, and there’s no way Ry or Dakota could break in again. Since she still wasn’t sure how to attach them for when she was outside of the room, she had to wait here.

The girl sighed. She glanced towards the nightstand that held her books, but for some reason, she didn’t feel like reading like usual. It was as if she had lost a bit of life, and it took a lot of energy even to just look around the room. She didn’t really feel like doing anything right now, so she lay there on her bed.

Ashley was hoping she would just nod off and spend a few hours that way when a knock on her door jolted her back to full consciousness. She considered just leaving the person outside until they gave up and left, but she eventually dragged herself out and over to the door. She would just see who it was, and unless it was Chris, she could just close the door on them. That would probably discourage them from ever coming by again.

Without releasing the chain lock, she pulled out the chair from under the knob and opened the door a few inches, all that the chain would allow, to see who was outside.

Dakota trudged through the hallway, clutching his camera as though it were a security blanket as he always did. He’d been feeling bad ever since what happened, when Ry and Dakota had broen into her room. He’d never seen Ashley look so upset, it was almost painful to think about.

The small boy stood outside of Ashley’s room, taking a deep breath before knocking. When she opened the door, she didn’t look happy to see him at all.

“Oh…uh…. hey Ashley….” he squeaked, fidgeting in place. any confidence he’ built up all came crashing down. he didn’t know what to do in moments of conflict. “How are you…?”

Ashley started to glare at the person outside of her door to try and make them leave before she realized it was Dakota. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes for a few seconds, and her glare slipped a little. She wanted him to just leave, but something kept her from closing the door. Maybe he was coming to apologize, maybe he had noticed her absence and genuinely wanted to spend time with her, maybe he-

Then she remembered why he was probably actually here, and her tiny bubble of hope popped, leaving her looking deflated.

“Oh, you’re here for your hoodie,” she said flatly, looking down at the boy. Without shutting the door, she headed back into her room and grabbed her hoodie from the floor, where it had stayed since she had thrown it away from her after her room had been broken into. She hadn’t wanted to touch it at all after that. She wasn’t even sure why she had taken it from him in the first place.

Ashley brought the hoodie back to the door. “Here,” she said, and pushed the hoodie out through the crack, where it fell on the floor.

Now that Dakota had gotten what he came here for, she could go back to the solitude of her room and wait until dinner, and Dakota could go knock on the doors of people he actually cared about.

“Bye, Dakota,” she said in the same deflated tone, and stared to close the door.

“Well thank you.” He said, offering a small smile to her as he pulled his hoodie up over his head and then turning his attention back to Ashley. He didn’t know why she kept the chain lock on her door, but didn’t say much of it.

“Though I actually came to say sorry. I invaded your space and uhh… I’m sorry.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, whatever.” He sure seemed in a hurry to get it back, so that was great for him.

His apology sounded so weak, it was clear he didn’t even want to be there. It sounded like he just wanted to push everything under the rug and forget all about it, and he expected her to just accept it and be all happy.

“Great, ‘I’m sorry’, that just makes everything better!” she said sarcastically. She sighed, that mini outburst having taken a lot out of her. “Why don’t you go take your fake apologies down to Ry. Maybe you can go find someone else to hurt today.”

“It’s not fake though…. I mean it…” He muttered, shifting in his place uncomfortably. Dakota could stumble upon a body and be fine, but put him in a conflict where he can feel the other persons anger, then he’s done for.

“I… I just wanted my hoodie back I… I didn’t know it would make you mad.” He couldn’t even look at Ashley knowing how upset she was. Dakota bit his lower lip, clutching at the bottom of his hoodie. He grew up in a family where privacy was hardly a thing, but a lot of what he grew up with wasn’t in the norm.

“I… I really am sorry.”

Ashley kept her hand tight around the doorknob. She couldn’t tell if Dakota was really being honest, or if he was just tying to gain her trust. Naturally, she assumed that the boy was faking it. He was probably here to tell stories abut her to Ry. Like they hasn’t seen enough when they broke in.

But still, Dakota looked unnaturally uncomfortable. In the very back of Ashley’s mind, she had to wonder if maybe Dakota was being honest. But then he continued talking, and the thought was instantly shut down.

“Oh, you just came for your hoodie? You didn’t even ask me for it first, did you? That didn’t even cross your mind! You just wanted to go poking around my room with Ry.” Dakota couldn’t even look at her. Maybe she could push him so far that he would leave her alone forever, though somewhere very deep inside of her, she knew she didn’t want that.

Dakota winced at Ashley’s words, this was worse and more painful then being scholded by his mother. It just seemed like everything he said made the situation worse.

“I… I…. I’m sorry Ashley.” It was really all he could say. Dakota wiped his tearful eyes on the sleeve of his hoodie. He had no idea what to do or how to defend himself to her. With a trembling hand he reached into his back pocket, pulling out a green and golden braided ribbon bracelet, similar to the one he gave to Ry to show their friendship. As he held it up to the door, sheepishly looking up at Ashley. “I think I ruined things… But I wanted to give you this to show that we are friends.. I made it.”

He was crying now. She’d made him cry, Ashley didn’t know if she should be glad about this, or if she should let the tiny knot of guilt deep inside her heart have more free reign. He couldn’t even explain himself, though. He probably didn’t really feel bad about it.

Ashley was just about to give up and shut her door, when Dakota pulled something out from his pocket. As he lifted it up, she could see that it was a little braided bracelet, like something kids gave one another in elementary school. It was such a childlike gift, that Ashley didn’t know what to think. Was Dakota playing her for a fool? Or was he really just so innocent that he hadn’t even gone through the friendship bracelet phase yet?

Should she take it? In a few seconds, it would be too late. Dakota’s arm would get tired, and the decision would be made for her.

Why had he even made her a bracelet? It was most likely something he had lying around, there was no excuse for him to make one just for her unless he was trying to guilt trip her or something.

Somewhere inside, Ashley knew that she wanted that bracelet. Even if it was just going to sit in her now empty drawer, she wanted to have it and know that Dakota had given it to her.

Dakota’s arm was starting to quiver. Ashley didn’t know if she should give in or not. Finally, just as Dakota’s strength started to give out, her arm snaked forward and snatched the bracelet up, retracting it into her room. She didn’t say thank you.

When Ashley accepted the bracelet a sense of relief washed over Dakota. He smiled softly, letting out a sigh of relief. He knew it wouldn’t fix things, but at least she didn’t hate him. That was a step in the right direction.

Ashley sighed too, though it wasn’t a sigh of relief. Dakota looked so much happier all of a sudden. That was great for him. She couldn’t understand how giving someone else something made him look so much more joyful, and something so small as a bracelet. Well, now that he was all cheered up, she could get him to leave. “Okay, Dakota. You got your hoodie, you got to say sorry for invading my privacy, and you gave me the bracelet. So now you can go talk to one of your friends, right?” She prompted, giving another half-hearted attempt to make Dakota go away. She looped the bracelet around and around in her fingers, not willing to look at it until Dakota was gone.

“But I am talking to my friend.” Dakota murmured, going back to his fidgeting posture as he looked to Ashley. Now concerned that she meant they weren’t really friends. Though if that was the case, why did she accept his bracelet?

Now she was going to make him cry again. Ashley looked at the boy, exasperated. He had to know they weren’t really friends, right? She wished she could tell him something else, just to ease his mind, but she didn’t want to give him encouragement for later.

“Dakota, you know we aren’t really friends, right?” She asked gently. “You’re friends with Ry, and he hates me. Hasn’t he told you things about me, probably something along the lines of what a b**** I am? I mean, you broke into my room with him, did you think that was right somehow?” She laughed a little, though the wound of that was still very painful. Her face suddenly fell as she thought more about Dakota and Ry. Them breaking into her room, finding out everything, Ry telling Dakota terrible things about her and Dakota being so trusting that he believed them… “I don’t know why you’d even want to be friends with me.” She finished, looking down. Her heart twisted, and she couldn’t even look at Dakota. A few tears welled up as she thought of Dakota probably hating her, but she blinked them away.

“…… I….. I don’t see why….. We can’t be friends….” Dakota said in a small voice, his heart squeezing in his chest. “I think you… You’re a swell person…. And that’s what I told Ry when he said I shouldn’t be friends with you. You… You mean something to me and I care about you….” Tugging at the bottom of his hoodie, Dakota stares at the floor.

“And I’m sorry I came into your room…. I really…. I just wasn’t thinking about it. W-with so many brothers privacy is hardly a thing… All I was thinking about was getting my hoodie back…. I’m sorry. That’s really selfish of me.”

Ashley sighed, looking at the boy before her. From the way things were going right now, he would probably never understand. “Look, Dakota, you-” Ashley cut off when what Dakota said finally registered. He had defended her from Ry? She was touched for a moment as she looked at him. That was a very brave thing to do. When he said he cared about her, tears welled into her eyes again for a moment. But she knew it couldn’t be real, after what he did, after all that she’d done… “Well, it’d be nice if I thought that was true,” she said flatly, but she flicked her eyes down to the floor, because, somewhere deep inside of her, she wanted to believe him.

“Yeah, it was selfish,” she agreed with him softly. She flicked her eyes briefly up again. He just looked so despondent, and he’d apologized so many times already. Maybe it would be better to just try and forget about it for now, at least to give him some peace of mind. “I accept your apology, Dakota,” she said quietly. She wanted to pull him close to her for a moment and wrap her arms around him so they could be sad together at least, but the door was chain locked shut, just giving her those few inches. So, instead, she just clutched the doorknob, her other hand lifting up to touch her locket for a moment. She felt like crying again.

Dakota stared up at Ashley, there was a tightness in his chest that he just couldn’t put his finger on. While she said she forgave him, he could feel the awful tension between the two of them. Before he even realized it, tears began to well up in his brown eyes. “A…Ashley I…..” he stuttered out, speaking only felt like there was someone stepping on his stomach. “Wh-Why…. do you…. no… I mean…. do you hate me now? F-for being selfish and awful to you….” He whispered, looking so terribly broken.

“No, it’s just, you, and Ry, and I-” Ashley couldn’t think of a single way to explain it in a way the boy would understand. “It’s not even about Ry, it’s-” He looked  so  sad, and Ashley felt responsible in a way that she normally didn’t. But this was a game, and Dakota had already shown he was friends with Ry, and besides, Ashley was sure that no one liked her or cared if she hated them, both in this show and out of it. She steeled herself to say what she had to tell Dakota.

“Look, Dakota, you say things like that, and you  look  sad, but there’s no way for me to know if you aren’t lying. This is game, and I don’t know if you mean it or if you’re just playing pity cards to try and make me trust you so you can betray me later. Do you see? You can’t prove it.” Ashley clutched the doorknob so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “And if you’ve been hanging out with people like Ry, I have a lot more evidence for you trying to play me than you being sincere. I already can’t leave my room because of you and Ry breaking into it, because you or someone else could do it again. And even if you say you won’t, how can I believe you?” She looked desperately at the boy.

Dakota’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest. Ashley has a good point, a point he though about himself for reasons to not trust people. He chose to anyway, he gave Ashley and Ry and Gaile all the benefit of the doubt. He’s made himself vulnerable to them but it seemed like everyone was so guarded. Did he really have friends. It was moments like this when he ached to be home, where he knew everything was okay.

With tears streaming down his face, Dakota’s gaze dropped to the floor. He couldn’t speak, only make a pathetic whimpering sound. When he was able to form words again the only thing that would come out of him was a softly whispered ‘I’m sorry….“

Why was he still crying? Why hadn’t he just left her like he was supposed to, just let her words hurt him and run away? And he was still apologizing. “Dakota… I…” Why was this so difficult for her? She didn’t have a reason to feel responsible for his tears, not after what he did to her. She had never felt this way before, and it simultaneously frustrated her and made her want to cry just like the boy in front of her. She had to get him to stop, or they’d keep going like this forever, and it would just keep getting worse. And then she’d start crying too and Dakota would go and tell Ry about it later. She couldn’t cry. Not now, not ever. “Dakota, do you want something? Something other than the hoodie?” Ashley slid backwards into her room, one fist still tightly clenching the friendship bracelet. Rummaging in her fridge, Ashley pulled out a sad looking pastry from breakfast that morning. She was never the type to give anything away, but desprate times called for desprate measures, and she felt more like throwing up than eating right now. “Here.” Ashley walked back and pushed the food out at Dakota. “I’m know you and Ry already ate stuff of mine, but just take it.” At least when he was done crying they could have an actual conversation, with any luck, and he would stop mindlessly apologizing when he probably didn’t know what he was saying.

Dakota stared at the pastry and then up at Ashley, the tears filling his brown eyes stopping momentarily, mostly out of confusion. He was hesitant to reach for it, and just kept his hands on his precious camera.

“Are you sure…? I…. I don’t want to be more of a nuicence th-then I already am…” He mumbled softly.

Happy Birthday to Me (Open RP w/ Dennis)
April Fools. For most, people would assume it to be a day that Dennis loved.

Well, he did, but to him, it was much more bittersweet. Today was Dennis Cruz’s nineteenth birthday.

Taking his mind off of his birthday and sitting on the roof of the hotel, he grinned. A water balloon filled with motor oil. And this was just the beginning. If he was correct, whoever he hit would probably be after him to kick his ass. He had a whole smorgasboard of stuff planned for today.

It kept his mind off of everything at least.

He noticed someone walking outside of the hotel and his manic grin widened. It was then that he dropped the balloon….

Ry:
Ry moved his hair out of his face and made his way down the street back toward the hotel, begrudgingly tired from his morning run. It was probably the only way he’d been able to clear his head after the elimination the night prior, and it was also the only way he’d take his mind off the annoying rubber bracelets that were pinching his skin.

Stretching himself up as he made his way down the sidewalk, hands raised above his head blissfully, he didn’t know there was a pest waiting up above him, until he felt something smack him on the head and the liquid rolling down his body.

“Ugh…what the fuck? Did a bird jus–?” Shaking his head quickly and opening his eyes, he noticed the dark liquid dripping off him and the scent revealed to be the opposite of what he’d suspected.

With a deep frown, his head snapped up immediately. “DENNIS! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

Dennis looked down at his target and burst into laughter, “KEHEHEHEHEHEH! Did ‘ya not expect some shit like this?! It’s April Fool’s day, Ry Ry!”

His amused self from the roof sat on the edge of it, kicking his feet, “Besides, a little oil for your dry skin is good for ‘ya, don’t’cha know~!”

Ry was busy wiping his face off when he heard mention of the date. It was April Fools’ Day already? “Oh, great!” He shouted back at Dennis, a glare present on his face. “The Fool the day was named after decided to throw a little surprise! When’s Fools’ Ass Beating Day?! I’d really enjoy getting behind that one and give you a fun surprise!” Honestly, Ry had never celebrated April Fools’ Day since he was normally forgetting it existed. The only time he celebrated it was when he got his head shoved into his food and decided to give back to the guys who’d done it.

“Dry skin!? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Hang on, I’ll be up there in a second to give you a knife surprise!” He called up, marching into the building moments after. He was sure that Dennis probably didn’t find him intimidating after their little adventure with Nuts and Bolts, but he figured a little Fear Factor would do him some good. Yanking his beanie off, he stared at the soaked material and threw it into his bathtub first, making sure to get a fresh pair of clothing on before seeing Dennis up on the roof, granted he stayed that long up there, but Ry never took him for the one to make a hasty escape from him of all people.

Throwing his hoodie into the tub as well, he removed his Mary Poppins’s stash of items and threw them on the bed, slipping his switchblade into his pocket. After that he quickly rushed out of his room and ascended the steps to the roof. “Fucking going to kill him… Robots can’t take the fun out of this one,” he muttered, though he was more bark than bite.

Dennis just stared down at Ry, amused at just how close Ry was about the Fool the day was named after.

“Y’know, dry skin; oil deposits, that kinda shit!” As usual, Dennis was bullshitting his way through the conversation. However, when Ry went inside, he decided to continue and see how far he could go with this.

Moving ver to the door leading to the steps, he placed two rollerskates on the top step, before quickly shutting the door when he heard some muttering coming from below. He moved to the side the door would eventually open to, hoping that would keep him covered and hidden for a few seconds at least.

Pausing at the second to last step, he stared down at the roller blades and mentally sighed at the fact Dennis was trying to send him falling down the steps. Bending down he scooped up the skates, staring down at them in confusion about how he’d managed to fit all this kind of stuff in his luggage to come on the show.

Tossing the roller skates over his shoulder, refusing to fall for that easy of a prank. He’d gone through too much of Dennis’s other pranks that were more or less clever compared to this, even though he had fallen for the simpler trip wire and skateboard prank. Hearing the skates clunk and slam into the flooring below, he winced at the noise it caused.

Unaware that Dennis of Dennis’s location, he quickly slammed open the door and stepped out on the roof. “I’m a fucking skateboarder, Dennis.” He called out, pausing when he didn’t see the other in front of him. Did he manage to escape when Ry was in his room?

“Oh, fuck me…” He muttered, drooping his shoulders and turning to leave the roof.

Dennis’s grin broadened, as at least for now, he wasn’t noticed by his teammate. Reaching his hands in his pockets, he pulled out an airhorn.

Three… Two… One…

He suddenly pulled the trigger of the airhorn, still standing on the other side of the door, plugging one ear with a finger to deafen the noise somewhat to himself.

As soon as Ry turned around to leave, he caught sight of the straw hat bastard, waiting for him with…

His eyes widened in complete horror and before he could cover his ears, he was assaulted by the obnoxious and ear - piercing sound of the air horn. Instead of simply yelling at Dennis or covering his ears, he let out a shriek and grabbed on to the air horn, desperately yanking on it to stop the noise.

“STOP!” He pleaded, continuing to yank on the object that was assaulting his eardrums. At this point, he had no rocks to shove into someone’s mouth or way to stop the noise other than to try to snatch it from the other.

That… wasn’t the response he meant to get. Annoyance? Sure. Hatred? Oh you bet’cha. Actually causing someone to ''plead? ''Not really on his agenda. He quickly dropped the airhorn, before turning to look at Ry, eyes wide.

“What the fuckin’ shit just happened?” he asked, not having one clue if Ry was just sensitive to loud noises or what.

It took Ry a moment to register that the noise that had assaulted him moments before was now silenced. When the realization struck him, so did the ear ringing, making him cover his ears in distress, groaning as he felt an onslaught of a migraine start to rise in his forehead.

“Son…of…” He muttered in pain, looking down at the air horn on the concrete, he quickly snatched it up and chucked it off the roof, not caring if it’d costed a fortune or not.

Remembering that Dennis had asked him a question, he squinted at him, not expecting the moose caught in headlights reaction he saw. “…”

Quickly searching his mind, he found a more…decisive response to this, not wanting or enjoying this unfamiliar look. “I…I’m already blind in one fucking eye, so why the fucking HELL WOULD YOU TRY TO MAKE ME DEAF?!”

Dennis’s brown eyes followed the air horn being thrown off the roof. He shrugged. He still had quite a lot of memorabilia in his room he could use instead of an air horn.

Dennis held his hands up defensively at Ry, “Woah, woah, tiger. Hell if I knew that was a good idea or not! I just– Keh. Didn’t think, I guess.” He wasn’t really sure what to say here. Both of their reactions were obviously not the garnered reaction the other expected.

Ry’s lips tightened into a thin line as he saw and hear the soft honk of the horn as it hit the bottom of the drop. Staring Dennis down, he had a ton of vocabulary he wanted to use with him at this moment, but he also held back on it just because he didn’t want strain his mind right now.

Letting out a rough and forced sigh, he quickly began to massage his temples, trying to move the pain away from his head. “Son of a fucking bitch…. Do you EVER think? When was the last time a cognitive function crossed your mind?” Groaning once more, he turned and made his way away from the other, then stopped.

“Why the fuck do you celebrate April Fools’ Day anyway?” He asked, turning back around to face him. “I’d expect you to consider this too obvious for pranks or something. Not exactly an unexpected day to get pranked… it’s like me cutting off someone’s head on Valentines’ Day; it’s just too obvious.”

Dennis simply shrugged, “Might as well keep a blank slate to keep the spirits up, keheheheheheh~” This wasn’t an absolute lie. He did think, but rather, didn’t want anyone to know that he did think from time to time. The issue with the air horn wasn’t one of those times, however.

“Because ain’t it my holiday?” Dennis asked, moving his arms behind his neck casually, “I don’t really give a shit about how obvious somethin’ is as long as the prank works.” He obviously was leaving an important factor in the equation out, however.

Ry sighed and rubbed his forehead head, the migraine creeping at higher intervals, making his world more vivid in color and pain. Blinking his multi-colored eyes, he stared Dennis down, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “To be honest, you can never not have a thought, because thinking has kept you alive long enough with how many people you’ve probably had to hide from you’ve pissed off, hasn’t it? But you’re an idiot beyond belief, so…there’s that factor that plays into it.”

Ry’s eyebrows suddenly raised at Dennis’s statement, making his head tilt ever so slightly. “The only holiday that belongs to you or anyone is: your birthday.” He told him, running a hand through his oil covered hair and sent a huge glob of it at Dennis in protest to the prank he’d done to him. “If I got deaf, then I’m forcing you to be my personal…” He stopped, realizing that Dennis being his translator would be an awful idea. “…footstool,” he concluded, nodding in satisfaction.”

Without hesitation, he added, “Something you not telling me, though?” All his years of being the emo under the willow worked in his favor for observations.

“Exactly,” Surprisingly, Dennis agreed, “At the end of the day, I’m just lovable, dumb ole Black Cupid, Dennis!” He knocked his own forehead and gave a short laugh.

Dennis rubbed the oil now on his cheek, but his visage didn’t seem to change much, “Well, you can hear me, right? Barely saved my ass outta that one, keheheheheheh!”

He turned away from Ry, his arms back up behind his neck once again, as he took a couple steps forward, “C’mon, shortstack, I thought you were the smart one here! You already guessed it, anyway.” As he had his back turned to Ry, his grin faltered. Nineteen years old. And he’d be graduating this year, too. He usually tried to ignore his birthdays, but this was an official notice that he would be twenty in a year from this day.

“Disgusting,” he muttered.

“Hm,” Ry made no more of a comment on Dennis’s remark about being ‘dumb ol’ Dennis’ at the end of the day. It was starting to rub him the wrong way that it was coming off. Was it guilt that he was calling something that probably was something bullies called him? Was it the idea that maybe he was being deceived? Was it the fact that Dennis was still untrustworthy to him? He couldn’t tell himself, making him wince and clutch his head in the pain that came from critical thinking.

Ry recovered from his quick burst of pain a few seconds later and retorted with. “Why? Would being my servant really be that bad? I could use a personal masseuse and footrest after I go about my four mile run, you know? Make me go deaf, completely blind, or anything worse than that and you’ll lose every ounce of freedom you have.” Honestly, that was more of his own personal fear than anything else, but he wouldn’t mention it.

Watching Dennis turn to walk away from him, he scowled from the short comment AGAIN. He wasn’t he shortest member by far, but Dennis dwarfed everyone else like the Jupiter of the team, which was fitting for him, in Ry’s opinion, since he was a giant airhead. “…It’s your birthday? You’re joking, right? How are you born on April Fools’ Day?” Pausing, he suddenly looked away, feeling something tug at his thoughts. It was speculation and theory but he couldn’t shake this…feeling from the pit of his stomach.

Clearing his throat to gather his thoughts once more, he huffed loudly, expecting Dennis to hear it. “Well, congrats on sticking one more foot into your grave. If the robot doesn’t kill you, then age will, old man.” He wasn’t sure how old Dennis was, honestly. Looks were so deceiving that Dennis would be the youngest of the contestants and Ry would never know.

When he heard Dennis mutter disgusting, he felt taken aback, not expecting something like that to be uttered by someone like him. “A little odd diction for you.” He commented, raising an eyebrow. “A little too dark and rogue; I’d expect something like…’gross’ over ‘disgusting.’”

“Kehu,” Dennis’s grin returned as he turned on his heels to face Ry again, “Uh, duh? I gots me way too many adventures to experience! I can’t reall experience ‘em if I’m pawin’ at your dirty ass feet all day, now would I?” In all honesty, the dirty remark was both from the fact that Ry got hit by oil and half just to get a foothold back onto his usual asshole tendencies.

Dennis shrugged, “World works in fucked up ways, don’t it?” More like, Dennis made his mind up to fit something ironically, but he decided to keep that expertly to himself.

“I’m gonna think of that as a happy birthday wish, Ry Ry~” he snickered childishly, part of the sentence coming off venomously due to his ire for his birthday. “But next year when I turn twenty, do a bit better, y’hear?”

He froze for a second, not thinking Ry heard that. “Man, you sure you’d ever be close to gettin’ death? Y’can hear too damn well, kehehehehhehehe~!”

Ry shut his eyes and turned his head to face away from Dennis when he remarked about his feet. Like Dennis’s usual grin, Ry’s face had turned back to its annoyed one, fitting them both back into their usual standing when near each other. “My dirty ass feet? Says the one who wears sandals everywhere he goes. Eventually you’re going to have to stick some teabags in there to avoid giving us all an odor that we’ll die from,” he remarked, turning his head to look back at Dennis. The comment about teabags was because it’s supposed to eliminate odors from shoes that start to reek.

“Of fucking course you’re born on the day of the fool and I’m born on the day that celebrates fish stew from the Mediterranean,” Ry muttered bitterly, looking off into the distance in pointed annoyance as if cursing a god. “You get the day that you either made about yourself or descries you perfectly, and I get fish stew.” Before Dennis could make a compliment, he added, “You say ONE thing and I’ll shove you off the roof.”

Catching on to Dennis’s comment, he raised an eyebrow. “You want me around for when you turn twenty? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were actually enjoying my company genuinely.” He shot back, not hesitating to shove it in his face that he should word it better. “Of course, I don’t think I’d want to visit the redneck nation…with your high class broads,who say ‘hey ya’ll’ and ‘yee haw.’”

Ry raised a tiny eyebrow at Dennis and shrugged. “It’s not hard to hear you when you don’t know how to whisper,” he stated, crossing his arms. “So…what’s disgusting? If it’s me, then you better have an escape route; if it’s not me, then what?”

“Hey, I like my sandals!” Dennis defensively shot back, picking up one foot to stand on one leg, “These things are fuckin’ Grade A fashion, emo kid!”

At Ry’s comment of fish stew and backwards compliments, he opened his mouth to say something but shut it when Ry said he’d push him off the roof.

“Oh, I’m plannin’ on fuckin’ bein’ in the long-haul for all you guys,” a devious smile that made it unsure if Dennis was lying or telling the truth, “Y’guys can’t get rid of ole Den that easily, sorry ‘ta tell ‘ya~!”

Dennis furrowed his brow. Was he really that naturally loud? He did prefer being this naturally loud, to the alternative.

“Birthdays,” he replied, “Fuck birthdays.”

“Top of their line back in the sixties,” Ry shot right back at Dennis. “I swear Nicki Minaj was wearing those sandals in a nightmare she had.” When he was called an ‘emo kid,’ he let out a loud groan and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Okay, you want me to call your sandals anything other than 2000-late, then you better stop calling me ‘emo kid;’ I’m a skagemo, which is different.” It really had emo in it, but Ry really hated being called ‘emo’ when he was something more than that.

“Anyway…you’re telling me that you’re going to follow me back up to Toronto and sneak on to a military base just to stick with me? Yeah, when pigs fucking fly you’ll go through all that effort.” When he saw the devious look on his face and listened carefully to that last part, he shook his head. “Yeah, but you’re not getting any of my contact information, Den; glad you stuck with my nickname, too. Guess you do want me around more than you let on,” he was joking about it, of course, not really thinking that it was possible someone could stand him longer than this show could last.

Suddenly it all came together, making Ry’s face scrunch up and his nose wrinkle. Honestly, he’d never actually celebrated a television screen birthday like everyone else; he’d never had friends, the family, or the money to do it for himself anyway, so he just accepted the mediocre gifts that were on set on his table every year and went with it in a way. “Hm… Birthdays, huh? Is it because you hate getting older or because you never celebrated it like on the television screen? I personally had the second one.” He admitted nonchalantly. “When you have no friends and your parents would rather be anywhere but near you, you kind of don’t get that typical birthday. Or do you have some other thing going on?”

What was he asking Dennis this for? Then again, he felt a little bit…less annoyed with him after he didn’t leave him to die.

“…Note to self, if you ever see Nicki Minaj, wear tennis shoes,” Dennis muttered, this time purposefully to be heard. He then added, after a few moments silence, “What the actual FUCK is a skagemo?! Sounds like Avril Lavinge’s newest ‘hit’ or some shit, kehahaha!”

Dennis shrugged, “Bruh, you’re the only one who actually goes with my lovable quirks. Or at least one of the few to actually take a joke, keheh.” He then added, “’Sides, who’s to say I wouldn’t just show up with or without contact info, bruh?”

He then frowned for a minute. Honestly, Ry hit it on the head for the most part. But for Dennis, it went a little deeper than that.

“Eh, you could say that,” he shrugged, “Other than an apprentice back home, I’m a lone wolf. Awoo.” Instead of something silly and zany with the howling noise, he instead deadpanned it. Man, this conversation was awkward to him.

Ry had no opinion on that, honestly, since keeping up with celebrities was hard enough as it was, he didn’t care whether she wore sandals or went barefoot. If she was in Die Hard, though he’d recommend she kept her shoes on. Shaking his head quickly to break free from his thoughts, he looked at Dennis. “You in tennis shoes? That’d be a sight to see…”

Ry took a menacing step forward, “Don’t you compare my lifestyle to a fucking germaphobic vampire! A skagemo is simple, dumbass… It’s a skater, gamer, and an emo all put into one person. Much like you’re the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow all put into one being.” The comment was more out of feeling a little struck that he’d compare him to an artist that Lavender probably liked.

Once more Ry raised his eyebrow, wondering if he really did take a joke or if he was just too conservative with his energy to actually throw Dennis off the top of the building; he’d stopped being able to tell when he didn’t stab him for nearly sending him down the stairs…or perhaps he’d given up when Dennis acted like his outburst hadn’t even phased him. “If I can’t say ‘bruh,’ then you can’t either. Anyway, Canada is not a place you want to go up into without knowing where to go. You get lost during the winter and your redneck ass will become a Dencicle, but I’m honored you’d risk your life just to see where I live.” The sarcasm that flew off his tongue was enough to stab a full grown man clean through the abdomen.

Taking a few moments to consider what Dennis said, he raised his mental state, even though the migraine was threatening him. “Huh…I’ve never met someone who hasn’t celebrated a real birthday like me.” He mumbled, tightening his arms as he stood there.

“Hm…” He stared down at the concrete in thought and a nauseating thought crept up on his mind. “Hey, Dennis…”

“I know, right?” Dennis snickered in amusement at the thought, “It’s so hot down in Florida that I’d never do it, man. Although, you live in snow province central so like…” He then shrugged.

The Black Cupid blinked at Ry for a moment at his analogy before saying, “…Huh. Never been called that before.” He then added, “So basically it’s like some gobbledygook of a buncha titles tied together, huh? Keheheh. Fits you Ry Ry, since I dunno where the fuck ‘ta place ‘ya!” Then again, Dennis didn’t know where to place anyone on the Plaid Pandas.

“Uh, I’m like the perfect person to use bruh, bruh,” he said, shifting his straw hat on his head with his hand, “Besides! I’d go in the summer, duh! …It’s not fuckin’ freezin’ in the summer, right?”

He furrowed his brows at Ry’s mutter. He wasn’t sure where he was going with that. Although, he did wonder if Ry at least wanted a birthday celebration unlike Dennis.

“That’s the name, don’t wear it out!” he chimed back, not necessarily asking what Ry wanted, but at least showing that he was listening.

Ry stared at Dennis while he explained Florida, wondering if it were anything like Hawaii. The place was so unbearably hot and humid when he’d lived there that he welcomed the news that he was moving back to Toronto, among other reasons. “Well, I wear shorts during the winter, so…” He mockingly returned the shrug, enjoying the feeling of taking a jab at Dennis’s inability to face the weather in America; if he were more patriotic, he’d make a joke about Americans being weaker and that natural selection were coming for them while the Canadians were only gaining more power; but he felt that were a bit…wordy and much. “Besides, how hot can Florida really be? Hotter than Hawaii?”

“Most people forget the Wizard of Oz is a movie that describes politicians, people like you, and lawyers all in one sitting,” he shot back, moving backward and leaning against a ventilation unit. When Dennis began to old man slang him, he felt a little amused. “Don’t break a hip, old man,” he muttered, crossing his arms. “I don’t know if I fit anywhere in life,” he admitted, not showing a sign of remorse about that statement. Why bother getting upset at the truth?

“Uh… It’s always freezing up in Canada,” Ry lied, looking up as he did so. It wasn’t like he expected Dennis to believe him or to actually show up at his house randomly. Nobody actually would go through all that effort just to see him.

Rolling his eyes at Dennis once again using the nineties phrase, which was becoming his least favorite thing. Hopefully he didn’t snap at Gaile if she used it. Then he remembered that he’d had a thought and quickly shoved it away, finding it too embarrassing to say out loud. “You know…that you’re still owing me favors, right? So you’re technically already my servant,” he said instead. “So I was thinking that since you fucking ruined my hair today, you should entertain me.”

“Dunno,” for once Dennis’s tone was truthful, “Don’t got no idea which is hotter. Only thing I do know ‘tween the two is we deal with gators. That’s ‘bout it.” He then shrugged.

Dennis furrowed his brow. Not at the Wizard of Oz diss or at being called old, but at Ry saying he didn’t fit in anywhere.

“If you don’t leave your mark, you’ll disappear, right?” he asked. He had used this term with Ry before when he began to explain his want to conduct the ultimate prank. Only this time, instead of being vaguely used on himself, he directed it towards Ry instead.

“Man, you must really not want me there, kehahahaha,” Dennis snickered, “Not that I blame you, Ry Ry~ O’course, this makes me wanna show up more. Ruffle ‘yer quill feathers in annoyance so to speak, kehu.”

The Afro-Puerto Rican teen groaned in annoyance at this whole favor thing Ry was upholding. Regardless, he said, “How the fuck could I entertain you? I’d go fuckin’ prank Ashley but I’m savin’ her and McLean for the ultimate prank, duh.”

“’Gators’? You mean like alligators..? That’s not just some fact that America likes to put up on their website to make it seem more threatening, big, or enticing?” Ry asked, looking curious about something so strange. Yeah, Canada had ‘Moose-exing’ signs strewn up around it near the forest areas, but alligators? What kind of hell—Wait, this was Dennis, though, but Dakota lived in Florida, too… “Mm…” The idea of one lying to him was evident in his mind, making him wonder if he should really take Dennis’s word for anything.

Watching him furrow his brow, Ry raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he was getting at. When asked if he’d disappear, Ry simply shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll disappear or not… Honestly, I don’t know what will happen when I return home. For all you know, you could come back to a house that’s completely deserted and a news caster that’s telling you I’ve been gone for three months. Who knows? Who cares?” Dark? Yes, but that was factual for Ry to say. “Even if I do disappear, it wouldn’t matter much to anyone anyway.”

Ry’s eyebrows scrunched and he reached toward his head, remembering he didn’t have his beanie anymore. “Yeah, the quill pens that have been now LOST thanks to you and that stupid water challenge…” He took that moment to bounce up and take a seat on the ventilation unit and stared at him. “You’re damn right I don’t want you near my house, though,” he spat out, leaning back on the metal. “I really don’t want to clean up toilet paper, motor oil, or anything else you could throw at my house before my parents get home…much less have to explain why a guy is at my house.”

Not bothering to lift himself up, he waved his hand at Dennis. “You fucking figure that out. I should be holding you for another favor since you gave me a migraine and all…” He muttered, pulling his legs up so that his feet didn’t dangle off the side. “Just think of something to do and I’ll judge if you’re entertaining enough. It’s either that or I break one of your bones instead.”

“KEHEHEHEHEH,” Dennis cackled, “No way! We got loads of ‘em back home, bruh. Once there was one in our backyard for a few days.” He conveniently left out that he didn’t go outside those few days.

Dennis’s brow furrowed further. ''Who knows? Who cares? ''Well, Ry wasn’t lying; that was a fine way of putting that. Dennis had a fleeting thought of what it would be like if he didn’t come back home, but regardless, dropped the subject.

“Aw, you’re no fun!” he whined, “Where’s your sense of YOLO, Ry Ry?”

He tapped his lip for a moment, “…I’m a little double jointed in my wrists. Wanna see that?” To be honest, it was just the first thing that crossed his mind.

“In your own backyard, huh? What happened? Did you wrestle it to the ground like Wayne Gretzky would?” He asked, not caring if Dennis didn’t understand his Canadian celebrity trivia. “Or…did you run away, screaming in terror and never looking back?”  Whether he was actually interested in the story or whether he just wanted to catch Dennis in his lies was impossible to tell, but with Ry, it was always safer to bet on the negatives.

Instead of acknowledging the look on Dennis’s face after his spiel about his past and present with a side of his ‘inevitable’ future, he turned to look back toward the ledge while Dennis mocked him for not wanting to clean up the mess he’d bring and explaining to his parents about the mystery guy on their front lawn, adorning a serial killer’s grin. “My sense of YOLO died when I remembered how much trouble you’d get me in if you ever did something like that! Honestly, I’ve never had a visitor over, so they’d think I was finally hooked up with someone or had a fuck buddy, and I know that you don’t want them to assume that, right?” Actually, that was all a fabricated lie; his parents would either be so angry at Ry, he’d receive a tongue lashing in both Korean and Japanese—with a little bit of French—or Dennis would be chased off the property by his gun wielding dad. Ry doubted Dennis would care if he was screamed out and he thought Dennis would find it hilarious to be chased, so he added the little spin for the sheer sake of seeing him respond.

Ry sat up and stared at Dennis with a look that could best be described as ‘really?’, then laid back down. “If you want to spin your wrists around, then do it but I’m slowly starting to think about the sounds of snapping appendages.” He stated darkly, staring up at the contradicting sky. “If I wanted you to show me an trick like Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender, I would have said ‘show me something trivial.’”

“Wayne Gr– oh, fuck it, prob’ly some Canadian dude or somethin’,” Dennis waved that off, before saying, “Oh, yeah, totally, if you forget I have noodle arms ‘n legs ‘n shit. I thought you were the smart one here, Ry Ry. Dayum.”

“So, strict ‘rents, huh?” Dennis snickered, “Man. Sucks to be you. My folks let me do whatever I want, so I can’t relate there, yo, kehu.” He then added, his devious grin growing wider, “I dunno, how annoyed would you be if you said yes?” It was decisively not flirty and decisively in a tone of pestering childishness.

His grin dropped when he said that. “Pranks and that is all I got, kid,” he replied, crossing his arms, “Take it or leave it. I ain’t got nothin’ else goin’ for me, keheheheh.” While the revelation with most people would have caused them depression, Dennis’s wide grin soldiered on.

“A famous Canadian hockey player that would give you a dentist appointment if you pissed him off,” Ry stated matter-of-factly but lacking any sort of interest in his voice. Celebrities weren’t really his type of thing but he heard the name enough to know what he did for a living. “Mm…so you did the latter.” He mumbled, lifting a leg up to stretch, then sat himself up, letting his legs dangle over the edge once more. “I was expecting some kind of story to go along with it or some whimsical tale of how you made the alligator your pet.” Do people in Florida have alligators as pets? That was something he’d have to look up on the computer later.

“They’re never around when I need them to be there, but they’re there…” Ry muttered, leaning against the tube leading out of the ground. “Sounds like you’re lucky enough to have them let you do what you want… They weren’t even going to let me be on this show, but I managed to convince them by walking out the front door and leaving.” He shrugged his shoulders and stared at him. “I wouldn’t say ‘yes’ to something like that,” he hissed, hands clenching the sides of the metal contraption. “They’d bury me alive and dance on my grave for my poor choice in men, though if I were drunk, high, or lost enough brain cells to say ‘yes’ to them!”

Several mocking phrases crossed Ry’s mind at that point, then he jumped off the ventilation unit and walked toward Dennis. “Leave it to the dark kid to come up with something interesting to do in this boring ass place every time I find you doing something annoying.” He shot at him, slipping past him to go on the stairs. Stopping at the top of the stairs, he looked back at him. “…and since…” He started, grabbing on to the back of Dennis’s hood, “you owe me at least five favors, you’re going to start owning up to them before you get kicked off this show.” With that he began to pull him down the stairs behind him, not giving any clues as to where they could be going.

“Who the fuck’d have a gator as a pet?” Dennis asked, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pockets, “That Wayne hockey dude? Not nobody I know, yo.”

Dennis shrugged. Well, Ry wasn’t wrong at least. “So, hardasses. Man. You really did get the shitty end of the lottery with your folks, huh, skater boy?”

He was about to say something smartassed along the lines of “Madam, you wound me,” but being pulled away by Ry kept him from doing so. “Uh… Where the fuck are ‘ya taking me, yo?”

“I don’t know how America works anymore, Dennis,” Ry admitted, keeping a level head as he descended the stairs, unsure exactly what he was planning to do. “You could all be wearing strange hats made of cheese or be eating double fried burgers for all I know.” It was all possible in his mind that they could be doing something so ridiculous as that, then again…some places in Canada weren’t exactly free of the strange. “Though…until I see it, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, I suppose.”

That’s one way Dennis could have summarized Ry’s parents, but Ry found it too vague for his liking, though didn’t correct him anyway. Tell the guy you can’t even trust that you have more family issues than them being obnoxiously strict? What was Ry, an idiot? “Yep, they’re a bunch of hardasses, and I swear to god, stop comparing me to Avril Lavigne or I’ll start comparing you to…” He paused, glancing back at him. Obviously comparing him to Monkey D. Luffy would be ineffective. “A meminist.”

Instead of answering him right away, he waited until they were inside the hotel at the bottom of the stairs and pointed out the window. “We’re going that way. If you picked up a city map, then you’d know there’s an abandoned amusement park at least two miles from here. Do you have any other modes of transportation other than your feet?” Remembering Dennis had a skateboard but didn’t know how to ride it and some skates that were obviously used for a banana peel effect gave him high doubts.

“Kehu,” Dennis said amusedly, his gangly legs trying to keep up as they traversed the stairwell, “So, if I told ‘ya we had the ability to breathe fire, you’d prob’ly believe it, huh?” It was just a figure of speech, but then again, it wasDennis.

For once, Dennis looked horrified, “Hey, man, I’m wearin’ a ''straw hat'', not no frumpy ass fedora! Who the hell do you think I am?!” Besides, as he conveniently left off, his personal hero was decidedly female and one of the strongest women he knew, even if they were no longer close.

A city map? Oh, right. Dennis had scribbled notes all over his. What the hell were they going to do at an amusement park though.

“Does a moped count?” he asked. While, as usual, it was hard to tell, but he was actually serious on that count.

“I didn’t know Americans could breathe fire, too,” Ry half-joked, keeping up his relatively fast pace down the hallway, not letting go of Dennis’s hood; he didn’t leave him when a robot was attacking but that didn’t leave Ry trusting him to follow behind. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I saw it in Hawaii, but I’ve done it myself with a little vodka and my lighter.”

“Then leave your Lavigne references at the door, Sir Fedora. Plus, I don’t know shit about you,” turning around he wiggled his hand, shaping it like a phone. “It’s the truth calling…” He gently raised it to his ear, leaning his head against his hand. “It wants to know when you’ll actually answer.” Turning back around and dropping his hand, he continued onward. “It’s up to you to start telling me about yourself, but you can’t blame me if I take everything like a grain of rice.”

Pausing at the entrance of the hotel, he removed the map from his pocket and flipped it open, revealing creases almost completely covering it and red marker circling several areas. One place had an X on it with “no show” written in bold. “Well, we have options here.” He informed him, pointing at each location on the map. “I’ve gone to the hospital that was supposed to be haunted only to sit there in silence with Mika and an Ouija board for an hour with nothing interesting happening.”

Looking up from the map and registering what Dennis said, he raised an eyebrow, wondering if Chris actually let him take a moped on to the show. “Do you have it with you or am I taking your word for it?”

“Actually, a pretty good combination is a candle and some hairspray, as… you saw before, keheheheh,” Dennis snickered, but raised a long, bony finger before Ry could say anything, “Yeah, yeah, owe you quills. Heard the entire conjecture before. Once I’m out of nowheresland, here, I’ll just give you the shit in the mail. Unless I go pluck some pigeon feathers or some shit.”

Dennis was quiet for a moment before saying, “I’m Dennis Cruz. I’m nineteen and a senior, and an only kid. I like long walks on the beaches, terrorizing civilians, and ping pong.” While none of that was a lie, it was all stuff Ry already knew for the most part.

Dennis, being more than a little superstitious, said nothing at that. He preferred not to think if a ghost really did exist.

“Fuck like he’d let me loose with a moped; however…” the Black Cupid dug in his hoodie pocket and pulled out a pair of keys, “Hell if I’m leavin’ this shit at home. All the proof I can give ‘ya for now.”

“Yeah, but you said to breathe fire, unless your innards are made of hairspray, which I advise you to stop talking because you’re ripping a hole in the Ozone Layer.” Pausing he reached up, forgetting he didn’t have his hoodie on, and touched his hair, sighing in annoyance as he felt the goopy motor oil and no quill pens. Admittedly Ry was going to drop that concept since he bet Dennis would pluck a chicken and call it a quill.

“Don’t send me a pigeon feather…unless you get attacked by the pigeon in the process and can send me a picture. If not, then find something better at least. Send me a bald eagle feather since they’re so abundant in your country,” he added sarcastically. “And how are you going to send it through the mail if you don’t even know where I live? You can’t just write “to the Canadian Skagemo” and expect them to find me. You know, though, I wasdropping it because you’d done that task to get the gun, but if you feel that bad, then go ahead and replace the feather.”

A thought crossed his mind and he took a quick glance at his hat, wondering if he’d managed to get it fixed somehow. “I’m surprised you’re letting me drag you out to do something again after you nearly got ‘zapped.’” His hands would have raised to give some air quotes, but he couldn’t drop the map.

“Anyway… There’s no beaches here, I’m not in the mood to watch you terrorize the other contestants right now, and if you even pull out that ping pong paddle…” He left off the threat this time since he’d exceeded his threat limit for the minute. “Hm… I’m content with the idea of the amusement park. I can’t stand roller coasters, but to walk on one has been a personal dream of mine; you have to mark things off your bucket list, right?” Reaching into his pocket again, he pulled out a small bear pen, bit the cap off, and quickly marked an X over the amusement park on the map.

When he’d recapped the pen, he looked at Dennis’s keys and tightened his mouth into a thin line. Trust or don’t trust?

“Actually, if you hold the hairspray in your mouth, it works, keh,” Dennis corrected. Sure, it burned, but there was less of a risk of him getting arrested than people knowing he had booze.

“Hell nah, bruh; they just got off the endangered list,” the taller teen argued, “And like I said. Don’t you know that the chaos inducer himself has his ways? Keheheheheheh.”

Dennis shrugged, his hat still bearing the bullet impact from their encounter with the robot. “Honestly, I don’t wanna go with you. I just don’t got nothin’ better to do.” For once, it was blunt and without his usual cackling. Dennis’s safety came first to him, after all.

Dennis returned his keys into his pocket and shrugged, “It’s a lot fuckin’ better than dealin’ with some bozo robo at least.”

“Urgh… You’ve done that before…?” Ry inquired, looking almost disgusted by that bit of information, eyebrows scrunched together and eyes wide. He knew that some people were against drinking, but wasn’t doing something like that fatal? “You’re going to be the Tinman’s actor if you keep doing shit like that, Dennis. I guess my analogy works great for you, then…” He stuck out his tongue and shuddered at the thought of the taste. He’d drunk nearly every kind of alcohol, but he would never do something like that.

“Really? You guys suck at taking care of your wildlife,” Ry muttered, folding the map up slowly and sticking it back into his pocket. “At least they aren’t all gone yet…like you almost did with the buffalo. I actually like the pictures of the piles of skulls in the Midwest, though. I mean, I heard that some of them were sky high if you stood at the bottom. What a sight.” He morbidly added into the conversation, his expression unwavering.

It took all of what Ry had to bite back the boiling comments he could unleash and quickly turned around to start head down the street. “Come or don’t, then.” His voice almost sounded bitter.

“You can’t be the Meister of Madness if you don’t, bruh,” Dennis snickered. He made no comment on the tin man analogy. Death came for everyone, right?

“I really don’t know what you think you’re gettin’ to, sour grape,” Dennis’s grin broadened then shortened, “You’re tellin’ the wrong guy what to do about wildlife.” However, he did furrow his brows at the thought of the dead buffalo.

He thought about turning back. But then again, he hated this day. Anything to get in his mind off of his life and his mind off of home. Keeping some distance between the two, he raised his arms behind his head and trailed after Ry.

Ry reached into his pocket and yanked out his knife, fiddling with it by opening and closing it, in thought. He’d never actually experienced a ‘real kid’ birthday before, so today felt odd to not hear about another person bragging about how their parents gave them gifts, they were throwing a party, their friends made an announcement for them, or someone squealing about it near him.

The thing that irked him, though, was that someone else was facing the same thing he was but didn’t feel nearly as…livid that they weren’t gettingsomething other than ‘shush’ gifts. His eyebrow twitched as he thought about it, his head lowered, and he let out a long, strained breath. Then again…he wouldn’t like a normal birthday anyway. People would come into his house, never leave, throw things at him, pop balloons, and just…act like a bunch of asses.

Taking a well-needed breath, he looked back at Dennis. There was so little he knew about the asshat. Why the fuck was he following Ry around if this was ‘his day made especially for him’? He didn’t bother asking him about himself again since he thought he’d just get the basics and flipped his knife open instead. Given the circumstances, he actually was curious about why Dennis found birthdays so detestable.

Stopping outside the gates to the amusement park, which looked like something out of a horror movie, he turned around. He decided it was time to get some answers, throwing up his inner gates to any emotional standpoints as he stepped back and kicked the locks on the ones leading inside the amusement park. “So…what the fuck is with you and birthdays?” He walked into the amusement park slowly, looking back calmly, emotion lacking in his features.

Dennis’s expression, ever unreadable (except in situations where he was in danger, if the robot and encounters with The Baroness were telltale signs) didn’t change as he walked inside the amusement park with Ry.

He didn’t want to say much, but he also knew Ry was adamant about Dennis’s charade getting old. So, sure. He’d humor him. Not enough to completely explain things, but hopefully enough to sate him.

“Think about it, Saskatchewan,” he prodded with his intentional substitution for skagemo, “Think about who you’re talking to, kehu.”

“Nobody remembers it anyway,” he conceded, but said nothing further.

He turned to face Ry and asked, “So, we’re walkin’ the rails? Odd bucket list, Ry Ry, keheheheheh.”

The gate lurching open gave Ry some satisfaction when the rusted lock fell to the concrete below. Instantly he knew this would either be one of those moments where he found the place to be hauntingly beautiful, leaving him with more inspiration than he could manage, or the area would lack in any antiquity and he’d be left trying to make Dennis do something entertaining to keep his mind off of it.

Gripping one of the iron bars on the inside of the gate, he turned around and stared at Dennis. “Nobody really remembers ‘The Alamo,’ but you never hear people shutting up about that, do you? Honestly, I think I know more about that historical event than historians do and they claim it a ‘very inspirational segment depicting men fighting for what they believe in.’ Does it make it a less valuable event just because others don’t remember it? No. You hating birthdays is out of the norm—coming from a freak, I should know—and such were the events of many revolutionized ideas.”

Rant aside, Ry figured that if that tidbit of information didn’t work, then Dennis probably shoved that memory down so far, he couldn’t reach it even if he truly tried. “Do or don’t tell, but I’m just telling you that it’s not insignificant if you remember it at least.” Leaning back on his heels, he conducted a 180 movement and began to make his way into the park, casting glances every which way.

“Odd, huh? I know I have the largest indoor amusement park back home, but…” He paused, tugging at one of his pointed red hairs calmly. “Alberta’s a far walk and I’ve only been to a park once, so I guess I romanticize the idea of going to one when no one is around.” He shrugged, stopping as he caught sight of a few of the attractions. “I mean…I kind of hoped my first time would end with some ride crashing, but it was pretty mundane, so this is more exciting. I would never ride one, but if I walk it…maybe I’ll get inspired. Probably would be a good way to kill someone in a picture…”

Dennis looked around the abandoned old park as they walked. He had to admit, it was something he never thought he’d see. Well, at least not in pictures. It could have been considered creepy to a lot of others, but Dennis just found it… he couldn’t really think of what he could call it. Unique? Kinda?

Dennis just glanced over at Ry for a moment before saying, “I’m the only one who remembers. Ever since I can remember, anyway.” It wasn’t insignificant? Yeah, he heard that one before. His voice was solemn for a moment, but he soon returned to his usual devious-neutral expression.

“You’d never ride one?!” Dennis asked, his shock coming more feigned than anything, “Man, thanks Mr. Boresville for that downer!” He then added, in a more steady tone, “Ah. So that drawin’ stuff you do, mm?”

Ry’s fingers itched to have his pencil and notepad, but he’d dropped it all on his bed so he only clasped knife and a marker. Glancing around the park, he tried to think of what they should attempt first. The area was rather small compared to the amusement park he’d been to before, but it still had potential. With this migraine still bugging him, though, he didn’t know how long he could go before he was wanting to go back to his room and just close himself off from the world.

Though as they entered the park, the lighting of the world just seemed to die away behind clouds, giving him nearly two hours before he needed something for this pain. Closing his eyes tightly and reopening them, he took another look around and took a sharp turn toward the Ferris wheel, not exactly wanting to ride it…inside the carts; however he paused when he saw nearly half the carts were grounded by either rust or having been stripped down for spare parts, creating a sense of defeat inside of him.

Thinking this through would take a lot of cognitive functioning that he knew he would fail to conduct right now with his mind being blanketed over with pain. He turned back to Dennis and stared at him as he made his comments. “Ever since your first memory, you have no one who can remember other than yourself?” Admittedly, that made Ry kind of feel remorseful, but he shoved that feeling aside. “Don’t you even have one person with you?”

“So is that your new newer newest nickname for me or something? I swear your nicknames get worse every day. By the end of the season you’ll be calling me ‘one eye’ or something.” Though he’d prefer not sounding like a stereotypical villain from a James Bond Movie. “Anyway, since I told you it’s your job to be entertaining…” He gestured around them, leaning back against a beam of the Ferris wheel. “You decide what we’ll do here; I won’t argue with it.”

Dennis mused over what they could do. He glanced over at a rollercoaster nearby, focusing on a certain loop on it. He then turned back to Ry and shook his head with a shrug, “Nah. Then again, I don’t tell many people when my birthday is, kehu.” Even his apprentice didn’t know when his birthday was. He usually tried to play it off, but what annoyed him more than anything was the fact that it actually hurt to think about.

He waved off Ry’s mention that he was terrible at nicknames before pointing at the rollercoaster he just spotted, “Just said you wanted to walk one of those puppies, right? How good is your upper arm strength for the loops?”

Ry looked at Dennis with a raised brow and kept to his thoughts for a few moments before speaking. “Barely anybody knows the date of birth of Dennis Cruz? Shocking.” It was and wasn’t shocking to him that people didn’t know something about Dennis but his birthday? Yeah, that was a shocker. “Why did you tell me, then?” He asked in slight curiosity. “I mean, you could just kept saying that it was ‘your day’ and I would have Axtually believed you meant it.” The didn’t feel too special for a possible slip up on Dennis’s part, but it still surprised him that he heard a secret not many knew.

Wait, what? Looking up at the roller coaster Dennis’s long finger was gesturing at, he felt his eyes widen. Riding that think would be a living nightmare for Ry; climbing that thing would be fun….but the loop…? “Uh…” He started, face showing a bit of fear. “Yeah, I like living…in concept. Plus,” He gestured at his stomach. “Remember?”

Dennis shrugged, “After that robot fiasco, I hadda break the ice some way, keh.” He craned his neck, trying to get it to pop. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure why he told him. Mostly because he knew Ry wouldn’t care enough and would keep that “secret” in confidence. Made sense to Dennis at least.

“I thought you wanted entertainment,” Dennis shrugged, as usual looking a bit hyped from the thought of fear, “I guess I’ll go it alone then, keheheheheh.” Without another word, the prankster began to make his way towards the rollercoaster.

Ry’s lips thinned into a line as Dennis explained his reasoning. Honestly, what had he expected, Dennis to be part of the illuminati? He knew some Internet memes could ‘prove’ that, but he was still a little deflated all and all. “Yeah, well, you’d think I’d be telling you a secret since you saved my life, but I doubt any of that actually would be interesting to you.” He stated plainly, being completely honest about it. He found nothing about himself interesting and normally he could just observe people and get a tight grip on who they were; however, he struggled immensely with pinning Alice, after the Matt incident, and Dennis. This irked him to no extent since he was usually able to tell an entire story in one sitting with a person just by staring…

“I do want entertainment, but I don’t want to scream in pain from stretching my body again…” when he looked up and realized Dennis had already run off toward the roller coaster, he almost groaned. Stretching his body, not caring that his excuse was a lie to get out of doing this, he took off after him, catching up in a matter of moments. “You’re honestly going to climb that…?” He asked, slowing down but being forced to walk double time because of his short legs.

Dennis shrugged at Ry’s comment. “Like you said, you probably wouldn’t anyway, Ry Ry. So why waste my favorite holiday gettin’ answers from someone who don’t wanna tell me nothin’?” He shrugged again.

He repeated, “You siad you wanted entertainment, right? Well, this is the best you got. Deal with it, bruh.” He stopped as they arrived at the rollercoaster and stepped onto the rails. He began to walk on each horizontal bar, his big feet almost not fitting. He knew once he got to the actual rollercoaster part, he’d have to use his hands. It’d  be an interesting test to see how bad his durability had drained recently, he prodded himself mentally.

Ry said nothing more on what Dennis said about it, leaving it to just sit in the air. Instead he watched him climb up on the roller coaster and snorted softly. “You’re a fucking dart,” he told him. Should he just watch Dennis get stuck on it or join him up on it? The decision was kind of hard for him since he knew that loop would kill either of them. Dennis couldn’t even handle carrying Ry for a short distance the other night, so that loop might make him lose both his arms under the strain.

Sighing in exasperation, he climbed up after Dennis and tried to balance himself on the bars, finding it difficult. Stepping one foot back, he managed to balance himself on the rails between his two feet. “Looks like I am, too….” He mumbled, taking another step forward, nearly falling between the bars. Ry’s feet, compared to Dennis’s, were rather small, only being a size 8 in mens’. Looking up as he watched the other make his way down the tracked, he set his jaw and picked up the pace, jumping on the bars to avoid falling much behind.

Dennis didn’t turn back, but snickered when he heard someone jumping on the bars behind him. “Thought you said you wouldn’t come along, shortstack, kehu?” He took another step forward, balancing himself. Now the uphill slant would be beginning.

Grabbing onto one of the bars and beginning to climb up them, he called back, “’Sides. This on your bucket list, right? Builds character, keheheheheh!”

Ry’s response sounded more like him struggling to keep on the bars and cursing in a fury of Korean and Japanese. Falling on to the bars the third time, using his hands to avoid slamming his face into the metal, he looked up at Dennis and scowled. “Things change when you remember ‘momento mori,’” he called after Dennis, pushing himself up and attempted to balance himself in the center on the chain instead, finding it easier and more like a skateboard. “Fucking hell…” He muttered bitterly, regretting putting this on his bucket list.

Reaching up, he grabbed on to a bar and pulled himself up on to the ascent toward the top. “This will kill me before I complete it,” his eyes wandered to look around the coaster, noticing the loop once more, grimacing at the thought of trying to traverse that. “Fuck building character outside of a video game!” He called up to him, gripping on to the bar.

“KEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” while it still had his signature keh at the beginning of it, Dennis burst into laughter at Ry cursing, “Well, you didn’t hafta follow me, now did ya?”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was getting a little nervous himself. Breathing in, he soon found himself at the top of the first lift.

“…Is it too late to go back?” he asked, turning towards Ry, beginning to get a little worried.

“If I didn’t follow you, you would have made fun of me while you were going up the roller coaster anyway!” Ry shot back, crossing his arms and nearly falling once more, causing him to let out another string of curses. Pushing himself up, he noticed how tall the roller coaster was about to become and glanced back down at the ground. He had no fear of heights, but he’d prefer to not trip and fall to an accidental death.

Looking back up at Dennis, he tilted his head and wondered why he was asking him if it was too late to go back. This was his plan of action and he’d chosen the roller coaster with the loop. He was surprised that he wasn’t tricked into a cart and forced to ride it. Two people would go on this ride and only one would make it out alive; whether that one person was Ry or Dennis, he couldn’t say.

“Hell if I know,” He yelled at him, feeling his converse sliding on his railing. Were these shoes even permitted to climb up railings like this? “Uh, though, how do you plan to go about this without making us become Franz Reichelt?!”

“Keheheheheh, you’re pretty good at deduction, ain’t ya?” Dennis asked, his grin widening despite their situation.

He mused for a moment at Ry’s question. That was a good and fair question, honestly. He probably should have decided to have done something else.

Regardless, he moved his body in a position that he could begin climbing down the other side of the hill. “Once we get to a certain low point, we can get off! No sweat, keheh!” He just hated to figure out if they’d get to the loop first.

“Other than your obvious avoidance of my questions about you, you’re easier to figure out than my necessary need to get high.” Ry pointed out, looking down at his slipping shoes and graining. There was no way he would let himself fall from this contraption.

Gripping the bar as tightly as he could muster, he reached down and quickly unlaced his converse. Yanking them off his feet, he threw the first shoe down to the pavement below, then undid the other one. He was tempted to throw it at Dennis but went for throwing it over his head. The shoe expertly flew past his head, missing it by a few inches and bounced off a railing and landed on the ground a few feet from the other shoe. “Better than last time…nearly a meter distance…”

Slipping his socks off, he wriggled his feet and sighed, feeling his feet sticking to the bars more durably. “Get off at the…?” Peering around the edge, he felt the same fear as Dennis. This would either end horrible or they’d have a story to tell later. “Don’t fuck up! I’m not having you in my afterlife, so only one can die if anyone does!” He shouted, climbing up and turning to climb down after Dennis.

“Okay,” Dennis finally whipped his head to face Ry once more, “Why do you even give a fuck if I’m gonna avoid your questions? It’s my business, bruh!”

He watched the shoe go flying past his head. In a way, that made sense. He had another pair of flip flops back in his room, after all. So using one of the bars, he pried his shoes off, sending them flying downwards towards the ground. Now with two extra appendages to grip with, he continued his climb down.

“Oh, pipe it, keheheh, like I’d fall–” It was then that Dennis slipped down the hill a bit, before grabbing onto one of the bars and saving himself.

“…Shit, bruh, kehu,” he finally said, trying to balance himself once more.

Ry stared Dennis down for a few moments, not looking like that caught him off guard. “I’m stating a fact,” He muttered, keeping a firm grip on the bars. “You are an enigma compared to the others here, so you’re harder to figure out, thus why I can’t trust you STILL. I guess it’s a thing when even the freak who can figure people out just by watching them can’t figure someone else out. I can’t pinpoint you or Alice; it’s frustrating…” He scrunched his eyebrows and tried to refocus on the events at hand.

Sighing softly, he felt the urge to cross his arms but resisted it out of sheer idiocy that would be his fall. Glancing once more at his shoes, he continued onward and ignored any looks he could get.

When Dennis went sliding down, he felt his heart skip a beat and nearly sent him into euphoria of sadism, yet he called out in surprise. “Fucking hell, Dennis!” Reaching into his pocket he threw something else in his direction out of complete fristrstion. “You trying to die or something?! I didn’t get a nasty bruise imprint on my stomach for you to die here!”

“Then lemme be an enig–” Dennis turned back and asked, “Alice? Blue haired chica?” He didn’t know much about Alice either, honestly. Other than her being musical? That was about it?

He grunted, trying to keep his balance, “Keheheheh. Wouldn’t that be a way to go out? DIed on his birthday fallin’ off of a rollercoaster?” Oddly enough, he seemed fascinated by that thought.

“Yeah, the blue haired girl that talks to Arizona constantly,” Ry confirmed, keeping his hands tightly latched on to the bars. “I can’t place her on any sort of area… I feel like she’s not a threat, but something about the Polar Bears feels off. I can’t say that I’m completely able to in—Oh, fuck it. You don’t care.” He assumed, taking another step down and sighing. He was so frustrated that he couldn’t figure the Polar Bears in general. Who was the mole that Matt spoke of? Was he just throwing doubt to gain a vote from the audience so he could be brought back by popular vote, granted they had one. If anything, he suspected someone but he wasn’t sure if he could make a judgement until he knew Alice more.

“Headline: Dennis Cruz Still Alive Right now. April Fools’ He Dead; I’d keep that newspaper clipping.” Ry almost said with an almost playful tone. Keeping he balance now that he didn’t have his slippery shoes, he decided to take a seat by sliding himself on to a bar to sit down for a quick rest. “If I die by falling, then I better fall into a chasm…” He glanced down, noting there was nothing below but concrete and empty bags of popcorn. “It’d be the only death that wasn’t by me that I’d accept. My last words should be nothing more than a sarcastic quip about falling into a ‘sarchasm.’ If I don’t, then I won’t rest in moderate peace.”

Seeing Ry stopping and taking a rest, Dennis turned and sat down on the bar he was on. They still were a bit further from a place they could get down at, but a break sounded fine.

He wrinkled his nose at Arizona. Honestly, she was the only person he wouldn’t prank or hurt. At least, he felt she was the least deserving of his antics.

“Eh, how is that our business yet, kehu?” he asked with a shrug, “They can sabotage themselves and have moles a-plenty. Less competish, amirite? Keheheheheheheh!”

His eyes widened, as he turned to face Ry, “Shit, you mean it?! Man! I’m almost tempted!” While he was mostly joking, the thought of someone keeping the newspaper clipping meant he’d live on in a way.

“So, you’d come back as a ghost makin’ chasm jokes?” Dennis asked, tilting his head slightly, his straw hat shifting on his head.

Ry leaned forward, hands gripping the bars for support as he stared down at Dennis. “That’s the problem you’re not understanding.” He stated bluntly, crossing his legs at the knees. “If we don’t’ figure out the mole for ourselves, then we’ll be a load of shit when the time comes for the merge. If we merge with the Polar Bears….I’ll be fucking damned if I’m going to let myself into the wrong group. If you want to play with a mole and get ‘elim-in-nated,’ then go ahead, but I’m looking at the infinite supply of paint and my dream theater, gorby.”

The break gave him a clear view of the park, causing him to let his eye wander through the various rides, scenes, and vision of this place on a full day; it was a grotesque scene in his mind with lines, crying brats, and horrifying crowds but he shoved that thought aside, admiring the obvious decay going on in the rides around. The only time he lingered on something was when he spotted the areas that gave out giant stuffed animals.

Snapping his attention back to Dennis, he raised his eyebrow at him, slightly taken aback by just how excited he looked that Ry would keep a newspaper clipping. “Yeah, but…if you do it on purpose, then it’ll be less of a surprise. Plus, if you die on this show, who is really going to put a newspaper about it except with the word ‘CHRIS MCLEAN’ plastered all over it. It’ll make your news less significant.”

Ry snorted at how Dennis looked slightly like a child with his head tilted like that. Rather amusing to see since he’d made a sexual joke not too long ago. Looking up slightly, he gave a quick nod. “More like I’d be Casper the Sarcastic Ghost.”

Dennis furrowed his brow. That… made sense. “Uhn…. Kehu. Well, I know for sure it ain’t Arizona! Not sure the chick’d be able to!: He then added, “So… Alice, Mika, or Mallory, huh? Don’t sound like Mika’s schtick but I don’t know shittin’ all about Mallory– gordby?” he gave an odd look at the sudden name. “A theater named gorby?” Although, it might have been another Canadian insult for all he knew.

“Eh, you’re right,” he shrugged and stuffed his hands in his hoodie pockets, “”It’d hafta be a surprise, huh?” He then snickered, “Can’t picture ‘ya bald, Red Bangs. So I’d pick another roastin’ ghost, broast.”

Ry gave Dennis a raised brow that he’d just throw Arizona out of the equation but didn’t speak on it. “Or Matt… It’s possible that he wants a sympathy vote in order to get back on to the show. Honestly, I wouldn’t say it’s him off the bat, but I can’t pin it. Mallory is a clumsy doof who doesn’t understand personal space, Mika will probably break out into anarchy at any given point, and Alice is an enigma.” He stared off into the distance again and sighed softly, running a hand through his hair, causing some of the motor oil to coat a bar near him. Removing his hand from his hair, he gently shook it over the edge and looked back at Dennis. “Finding out about her is a priority of mine, but I can never find her…so it’s impossible to know. The most likely suspect is Mika in my eyes, but I don’t know… She seems more focused on breaking down doors and exploring for ghosts.” Letting out a soft sigh, he leaned back on the bars.

“Like I said, Mika certainly is a liable suspect in this case since she is the most rebellious against authority. If I peg her right, then she’d be most likely to shout out ‘ANARCHY’ at any given chance…but I can’t say that I expect her to be a traitor to her crew. Sure, she doesn’t like authority, but it doesn’t look like any of them are shoving their views down her throat…

“Mallory, on the other hand, is kind of an airhead, yet I feel like that could be a guise if she wants it to be. A lot of contestants put on an innocent, stupid, or sad face in order to get far in this game…” He eyed Dennis for a few moments, then continued on.

“The last suspect—excluding Matt—is Alice. I know only three things: I don’t know her personally, she’s always near Arizona, and she sings. The first and last points are pretty irrelevant…but the second point is pretty good to go off of…”

Taking a breath, he kept his eyes fixed on the distance. “Gorby means a dumb tourist,” Ry informed him, crossing his wrists and clasping his hands. “I meant that I want to build my own theater with my own home built on top of it, so that every night I can hear the sounds of music before I go to bed instead of my dad stumbling around.” He shrugged softly.

Ry scrunched his eyebrows together and threw a bit of motor oil at Dennis. It wasn’t like he actually cared or anything, right? “How about you don’t try to surprise me like that? Your pranks are bad enough, you know?” At the mentioning of his hair, Ry’s hand touched the red hair that pointed to his sternum, looking dead serious. “Going bald…would be the worst thing that could happen to me, and I’ve been through some shit…but if I lose my hair, that neutral sarcasm would go malevolent…”

Dennis listened to Ry name off everyone he assumed with their reasons. Well, he made some good points at least. He gave a wider grin when he got a pointed look on the “stupid face to get farther in the game.” Close, but no dice.

“Wow, Sherlock,” he continued, “Never woulda thought about it that way. Might keep it in mind. Might not.” But he decided he wanted to. Everyone on that team but Arizona were confirmed on lockdown.

“KEHEHEHEHEHEHEH,” Dennis replied when he was splashed by motor oil, “Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s gonna be a surprise to moi if it ever happens anyway.”

He mused for a moment, “So, if I don’t shave you bald, I guess I’ll keep my legs in tact, kehu.”

Ry shrugged his shoulders at Dennis’s comment. “As long as we’re still teammates, I figure I should educate you on something,” he leaned back now, letting the back of his knees hold him on the bar as he did so. “I just don’t want to see someone poking around near our team next challenge without furthering the knowledge of who could be a threat.” He leaned back on and rested on the bars, letting his hair fall off his face to get rid of some of that motor oil.

Staring at Dennis now, he shook his head and crossed his arms. “Just make sure you go out in a way I can say, ‘I knew that nuisance once’ when I point at the newspaper clipping.” Though he doubted that Canada would throw a newspaper on his lawn about an American kid, he could at least print it out. He’d do it for every death of someone he knew. He still had the clipping from his school counselor’s tsunami fiasco. At this thought a cruel smirk crept onto his face.

It quickly dropped, however, when he mentioned shaving. “Look, if you don’t touch me in general, then you’ll keep your important appendages.”

Dennis shrugged, “Whatever, bruh. T-Hoodie aside, don’t’cha think we’d be keepin’ our eyes out? I mean, Kiki ‘n Lava-ender, at least, keh.”

“Why thank you!” Dennis took that as a compliment, “Lemme say, my plans for goin’ out ‘wit a bang are gonna be huge!” He had picked up a few more ideas on how to ruin Ashley and Chris at the end of the season and was getting pretty hyped over that.

“…If we weren’t sitting on rollercoaster rails, I’d probably push you after you said that, KEHEH.”

“Outside of the obviously too innocent to lift a finger to us, there’s, yeah, Kiki and Lavender; however, I’ve talked to both of them.” Ry replied, looking at the world upside down calmly. “With Kiki, she’s just fed up with you andLavender by now. She’s just glad I’ve been separating you two as a buffer link.” Removing one leg from the bar, he crossed it over the other leg like a chair.

“As for Lavender, she’s a threat… She’s a…minor threat, but she’s a threat nonetheless. If she gains the right alliance, then she could become a major threat, but I don’t see her as being anything we need to worry about, until she can use her charm to her advantage against us. If and when we’re up for elimination, she could easily sway Kiki to go for voting for one of us.” Wagging a finger in almost a playful manner, he closed his eyes. “Though I have my eyes—er eye set on who is most likely to go for her vote, which is obviously you. Honestly, she could charm T to vote with her in our elimination, which is why it’s vital that you don’t act like an incompetent ass during challenges.

“If T sees no reason to vote against you, then they will vote for someone who caused the most conflict within the team. That’s why it’s important that we let those three stay together during challenges,” he opened his eyes once more and tilted his head. “Unless you have plans to go home soon?” That’s probably the main reason Ry didn’t really cause inner team conflict since he could tell T was so far against it and Kiki would scalp him. “Honestly, our mole is Lavender…or you. You may have saved my life, but I’m not sure if you’ll have my back if we lose a challenge unless you can really prove it.”

Ry paused and raised an eyebrow. “You’re planning your big going out, huh? Like what? You going to Mount Fuji erupt? Prank the prime mi—president? Figure out a government conspiracy?” Actually all of these were pretty much things he’d want to do, sans the pranking. “If you’re going to prank the president, wear a bulletproof vest or something. I heard you guys in ‘Merica are pretty trigger happy.”

Ry looked around his area and raised an eyebrow. “You’d risk touching me? You’re really risk invading my personal space in order to try to be funny and lose a body part?”

Dennis stared at Ry, wondering if he really listened to what he just said. He meant that if a mole came snooping around their team, most of their team would probably start getting cautious.

He kept his usual grinning mask up and shrugged, “Whatever helps ‘ya sleep at night, Paranoid Pete!”

“Prank Obama?” Dennis pondered over that for a moment, “Nah, you see how the dude takes Thanks, Obama with a grain of salt? Dude’d probably laugh it off! Why would I want that?!” He shrugged.

“Hey, bruh, keheheheh,” he snickered, “No pain, no gain, ‘ya feel me?” He looked at the track turning back to a position to move again, beginning his trek once more to get off of the rollercoaster tracks.

When Ry noticed Dennis’s stare, he looked away and almost looked deflated and embarrassed to have talked so much. Grabbing on to the bar next to him, he pulled himself back up to a sitting position and stared back forward once more. He couldn’t help but feel that way since all these theories had been piling up in his subconscious for a while now that telling someone had been relieving, even if it was just Dennis. Like he figured—or assumed—Dennis didn’t really care what he had to say and was probably hoping he’d just shut up.

“It keeps me up at night,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes as best he could with the contacts being in. “But it was kind of nice to get it off my mind and share it, even if it’s with an idiot.” He muttered bitterly, looking back at Dennis.

“He takes his…?” His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion, not exactly being up to date on presidential campaigns in America. “Never mind, but I assume it’s some kind of meme online or something; you look like the type to meme.” Gripping the bars tightly, he pulled his legs back through and began to follow after Dennis, not exactly thrilled to be moving again.

“Well, bruh, you really want to gain a medical elimination for cutting my hair off?” He asked, not wanting to admit how much he wanted to kick him off the roller coaster tracks and how nervous it made him that it could happen in the near future.

“Keeps you up at night?” Dennis asked, turning back for a moment, “Keheheheheh. You got reality show fever this early?! Might as well gimme the million bucks now, kehu.”

He continued to walk and said, “Uh, duh. And you’re not the type to meme? You’re a teenager; have some fun for once, shortstuff!”

Dennis shrugged at Ry. He really didn’t care if he was medi-vac’d from the competition or not. “Bruh, you got way too much ‘faith’ in me. If I did that to anyone, it’d be Lavender. Duh, bruh.” Actually, that didn’t sound too bad.

Ry raised an eyebrow, stopping in his tracks…on the tracks to look up at Dennis. “Ha, that’s so funny I almost actually laughed.” He stated sarcastically, the joke actually not tickling his fancy. “If you want the million, then you’ll pry it from my cold, dead hands. Either way, I get the million or I die trying…” Balancing himself on the rails, he gripped the bars behind him and looked toward the ground below.

Snapping his attention back up, he glared at Dennis. “I have fun.” He muttered, feeling a bit annoyed by that statement. “What makes you think I don’t know how to or don’t have fun?” He asked, tempted to cross his arms but he really wasn’t in the mood to fall.

“Lavender…?” He stopped, seething annoyance draining from his face. The swift image of Lavender with shaved head crossed his mind. For once his mouth began to twitch in amusement at the sight of the most ignorant human being forced to live without her hair. It actually brightened his mood substantially and caused him to burst into a soft amount of laughter, which he quickly tried to stop by putting one hand over his mouth; however the sheer sadistic qualities inside him forced the amused, albeit quiet, laughter to continue.

“So you do have reality shw fever; I knew it!” Dennis exclaimed before nodding to himself. Of course, reality shows brought this out in almost anyone. He assumed the only one this season who wouldn’t become a part of it would be T or Arizona or Jillian.

“You’re always so grumpy assed, y’know–” he then stopped and turned back at the now laughing Ry. Ry could laugh?! Before long, Dennis joined in the laughter; not with his usual “KEHEHEHEHEHs” but a “normal” laugh at the shared thought of Lavender’s turmoil.

Ry rolled his eyes at Dennis and crossed his arms, not educated on the term actually; but he wouldn’t let Dennis know that. “Fine, whatever you say…but I’ll bury you alive for the money. I NEED the money…and the paint, but the money is more important right now.” He just needed it to get his own apartment. Ever since he turned 18 on this show, his goals had shifted. He could finally move out of his house, leave behind his parents, and graduate on peace. His ultimate goal was the same, but he just had so much on his list. Unless his dad up and died somehow, he would focus on an apartment.

Now that he was laughing, he couldn’t stop and it caused his migraine to spike out and he lurched forward, grabbing on to his head in the moment. Glancing up at Dennis, he stared at him in complete shock that Dennis had a human sounding laugh. Leaning back, he gasped and tried to stop his laughter. “Y-You sound human…!”

“Puh,”” Dennis replied to Ry’s resolve, before whispering under his breath, “You’re not the only one.” He then, rather loudly, followed up with, “Paint?!! Man, what is it with you and paint?! Keheheheh!”

The Black Cupid silenced himself for a moment before slipping back into his facade, “Yeah, bruh, and you actually laughed period! Who’da thunk?! Kehu!”

Ry bit his lip and leaned back on the railing, then continued down a few more bars so he could make it to a flatter area. The temptation to sit down was horrible, but he resisted it to maintain a calm expression. “I don’t know about you, but I want to become an artist musically and by the brush. The thing about art is: you can tell your story for centuries to come. People will understand…what they never saw from the inside.” He shrugged softly and stared forward. “Also, you can’t go wrong with painting whatever the fuck you want.”

Ry, now close enough to Dennis, punched his arm and glared up at him. “Don’t get used to it, Den. I don’t laugh often, because I hate it and it… Well, why bother when it’s only a temporary anyway? But ‘who'da thunk’ you had a normal laugh in your system? I thought you were fresh out of the looney bin.”

“…Musically?” Dennis repeated, before snickering, “I never pegged you for the Beethoven type, Ry Ry, Kehu!” He then shook his head, “I ‘dun know much ‘bout paintin’. But hey. If it’s your thing, it’s your thing, chicken wing.” In a way, he agreed with Ry: telling your story for generations to come. That’d be a good way to leave your mark on the world.

“Unsurprisin’, keh!” Dennis replied, having to steady himself after he was punched in the arm. He then curiously added, “For all ‘ya know that is where I came from! Where did I come from, where did I go? Where did I come from, Cotton Eye Joe? Keheheheheheh!”

He then stopped and said, “Ry Ry. We got three choices here. Take a break, climb down this next slope, or go for the loop de loop. Votes? Kehu.”

“You didn’t know I was into playing the piano? I play the damn one in the lobby every single night,” He informed him, tilting his head. “You never hear me? I always assume my playing volume is loud enough to raise the dead. And….I’d prefer Mozart, if you don’t mind, dart. I started playing when I was six years old, but I only showed significant improvement at seven….but I still prefer died young than deaf and Ode to Joy. Honestly, I would prefer being compared to King Frederick the Great, whose musical genius dated to his emotional views, but he was more flute than anything since it was a free range instrument; however Chopin was also a bit like Frederick in his musical composition of emotion….” He stopped and sighed, realizing he’d just gone off into his speeches again, but music and art really set him off. “Although Frederick is rumored to have been gay, so I find that aspect appealing since it kind of relates to me.” He shrugged that one off and kept a hand on the bar behind him.

“I guess a lot of me is unsurprising, but if you did know more about me, then you’d eat your own wor–What….the fuck…?” He paused in complete confusion and smacked his own forehead at Dennis quoting one of the most annoying songs on the planet. Peering up from his hands, he stared at him and waited for the laughter to cease. Removing his hand from his face, he took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “Honestly, I think you’re not an STD…”

At the options, Ry planted himself down on the railing and leaned back so his head was hanging off the side of the roller coaster. “I choose break.”

Dennis blinked at this. He heard the piano occasionally at night, if he was still awake, but didn’t know who played it. Huh. Learn something new everyday.

“Eine Kleine then,” he replied with a shrug, “And I didn’t even know there wassome royal fucker who was a musician. Then again, that’s somethin’ only eggheads like you’d know I guess. Keheheheheh!”

His cackling rose in volume as he planted himself once more on the rails to rest, “KEHEHEHEHEHEH! Honestly, I never got to use that joke before and it was annoying! Win-win, bruh!”

Ry turned his head and stared at Dennis, sighing and looking back up at the sky after half a moment of thought. “Eine Kleine?” That was another term that escaped his knowledgeable grasp. Kleine? Didn’t it mean little? He couldn’t say for sure since he never learned German. Really, all he knew was shit, but that wasn’t really a surprise. “It doesn’t take a brainiac to know about King Frederick the Great.”

Ignoring the pain for a brief few moments, he mumbled, “saying the world ‘bruh’ near you was a huge mistake on my part…even more of a mistake than letting you burn my quill pen…” After groaning and rubbing his temples at the volume of Dennis’s, he swung his arm out in an attempt to hit Dennis in the arm but managed to accidentally hit him in the face instead. “You need to stop being so damn loud! Fuck…” He moved his hands back up to his temples and rubbed them once more, unaware of what he’d done.

Dennis seemed a little surprised that Ry didn’t know that. After all, it was a Mozart song. However, he didn’t want to push it and chance breaking his facade. “More like King Frederick the Late, amiright?” he replied with a chuckle.

When he was smacked in the face, he had to grab onto Ry’s sleeve to keep himself from falling off the track. He rubbed his nose and grunted in pain, but said nothing more, slipping the had he had steadied himself with back in his hoodie pocket. No pain, no game, he reminded himself.

Ry shut his eyes and sighed softly, trying to blissfully ignore the words that escaped Dennis’s mouth. It wasn’t like he cared if he made jokes regarding the talented artists that he admired but he sighed and tilted his head. “Well, I can’t argue with that point…” He mumbled, rubbing his temples once more, hating the pain that still grew in his head.

Sitting up in surprise at the feeling of his sleeve being grabbed, he nearly toppled off the edge with Dennis. Quickly snatching his arm back with a glare, he rubbed his sleeve and tried to raise up from the tracks. He decided not to mention Dennis not touching him since he knew it was technically his fault it happened. Instead, he thought about changing the subject. The subject that did come to mind, made him groan mentally.

Now standing up, he balanced himself in the middle of the tracks and stared down at him. Even though he was a nuisance all the time, Ry couldn’t say he hadn’t had some interesting times with him recently. Weirdly enough, Ry had hung out with him almost as much as he did Dakota, which was all in all odd. He thought it was mainly the servant part of the deal, but…he’d actually had some genuinely good times. Robot nearly killing them aside, he almost considered it a thing friends would do, right?

Scrunching his eyebrows together, he continued that thought. He really didn’t know what friends actually did together since he and Dakota hadpoked a dead body for fun together. Well, he couldn’t say that it wasn’t a friend action since the kids in Stand by Me did it.

To be honest, Ry was actually really grateful to the bastard for saving his life, even if he hid it by giving a half-assed thank you. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a small stone and stared down at it in thought, then held it out to Dennis.

“I know this is going to sound strange, but…” He stopped, memories flooding his mind but shook them away, pressing forward. “Do you consider me a friend?”

It may have been because of Ry’s sudden and rare talkativeness that when Ry silenced himself again, Dennis felt a jarring tension in the air. Regardless, he went back to looking down at the amusement park around them. There was an odd feeling to the place. Melancholy and ethereal, but still adventurous and curious. It was a strange place to go on his birthday, but it was better than not being on the show and at home, doing nothing.

Noticing Ry standing up again, he looked back over at the other teen. He noticed a stone in Ry’s hand and got a weird look on his face. Was he going to throw the rock at him? Stuff it in his mouth? Give it to him? He was confused, to say the least.

Even more confused when Ry asked the question.

“I’unno,” Dennis replied honestly, “Don’t really know much about friendship. Too much time bein’ the Black Cupid.” Not the complete truth; Dennis had Akinari in a way, but he saw that as a teacher-student deal. He did have another friendship when he was younger, but it was gone for the most part.

“I’ll put it this way, keh,” he explained, “Out of all the narcs here, you’re the least narc-ish, kehu.” He shrugged.

Ry, taking notice of Dennis’s confused expression, sighed and shoved the slightly cracked and green stone into his hands, not wanting to wait any longer. He sat next to him once more, seating himself on the middle of the track and propping his feet on the other side to balance himself, then leaned forward to lay his arms on his knees and stared forward at the park, noticing nothing more than he had upon arrival. In his mind, however, he noticed dancing shadows and crashed carts for his next drawing piece, of course he wouldn’t be able to draw the shadow people… Frowning deeply, he shook his head and looked over at Dennis.

The explanation was hard for him to peg a reaction on. Should he be disappointed or neutral? Should he feel insulted or complimented? It was like Dennis had backhand complimented him, and it wasn’t like he could say he wasn’t used to it by now with how teachers would do it at his high school.

“Honestly…I don’t know much either. I made my first friends on this show and I’m not even sure if they really are being honest about wanting to be my friends.” He shrugged, squinting his eyes at the rides in the distance. “What the fuck does being a black cupid mean? It sounds like you’re just the anti-Christ version of Cupid or something…” He had never actually heard something like that before, so he supposed they both were kind of…confused on what exactly made them who they were. Ironic.

Looking over at him, he raised an eyebrow still not sure how to take being called a ‘narc’. Wasn’t that a term for snitch? It probably was since Ry could see Dennis’s face being plastered on posters for obstructing the peace. “Well…” He paused, looking up at the sky then back at Dennis. “Do you want to be friends?”

Dennis stared at the green stone for a moment, turning it over. “Okay, bruh, I’m way confused. Why you showing me this?” He had to admit, it was interesting looking at least. Most of what was where he lived was just sand and shells. Little else.

He didn’t disagree about people pretending to be friends. He knew personally that existed. “And how do ‘ya know I won’t fake it too?” he asked, turning back to Ry, “I’m a scummy soul, y’know.”

“Keheheheheh,” he then added, “Actually, you’re exactly right! I’m basically the anti-thesis to anything happy or lovey-dovey, keh!”

The Black Cupid looked a little taken aback by Ry downright asking them to be friends. How did Dennis not know that this wasn’t some trick? Something to humiliate him? Or what if they did become friends and then he got left behind? Again?

“…Do you think we’d make good friends?” he asked, for once sounding deadly serious.

Ry didn’t answer Dennis on the stone, feeling a little embarrassed to have given him the stone in the first place and just turned his attention forward. Most of the stones he found reminded him of people on this show. He’d found a purple one for Dakota, a gray one for Baroness, and a light green one to Gaile. They’d all marked the beginnings to his friendships with them, but he’d given it to them when they’d admitted they were…so why did it give this one to Dennis first? Maybe this was his time to try putting himself on the line again? He couldn’t tell…he couldn’t tell…

“It’s a weird…feeling, but you’re not quite like the people I knew when I was fooled. You haven’t pretended to be my friend just because I hung out with someone ‘popular.’” He sighed softly, trying to shake off his sinking feeling. “You’re nothing like Joey or Mikayla or Reginald or Jasmine…” Lowering his eyes, he waited for a few moments before continuing. “I make an enemy out of the ‘popular’ kids and you don’t just turn your back on me…or I guess that’s how I see it.”

Turning to Dennis, he raised an eyebrow and tried to understand the term. If he was the opposite to anything ‘lovey dovey and happy,’ then… He shook the thought out of his head and shoved it aside for later.

“Well…” He started, eyes going back toward the park and thinking about that. He barely knew what the term ‘friends’ even meant himself. He was friends with five people so far: a chipper boy, a serious pirate, a happy-go-lucky girl, an independent girl, and an internet dependent guy… “We faced death together and we saved each other’s asses, and I’m pretty sure that’s what friends do…” He mused, gaze not shifting.

He had to think about the question, though, because they’d been through a lot together even though they acted like they didn’t. They’d both saved each other, hung out together, faced a deadly situation, and basically had—for lack of better words—slept in the same room together. Wasn’t that what friends did?

His attention returned to Dennis, face darkening into a serious expression to match Dennis’s tone. “Yeah, I really do, Dennis.”

When Ry turned away on the stone situation, Dennis assumed this was tied to the whole friendship debate. He turned the stone over and over with his fingers once again but still didn’t pocket it.

When Ry named off his list of nnames, Dennis’s brows furrowed. His joke of them being opposites, yet similar wasn’t a joke after all, he found out. He honestly wondered himself after their last few adventures why he didn’t abandon Ry. But then again, the feelings of being abandoned was one thing he hated. In a way, it made sense.

He didn’t speak for a moment. By all logic, he didn’t seem to think Ry was lying to him. But then again, so were all the others in his mind. But one answer stood out; he just hoped it wasn’t the wrong one.

“Keh, whatever then,” he finally said, his cheery disposition returning, “I guess we’re buds, Ry Ry!”

The long pause that followed the question left Ry feeling ragged and torn between shoving Dennis off the roller coaster or getting up and running off like normal. Admittedly, he thought about both in harsh concentration, feeling like he was on the verge of mental collapse. Fight or flight hadn’t been this high in a while for him.

Glancing over at the stone, he felt regret, annoyance, and slight disgust at himself for handing out something so soon and not considering his actions worth consequence. Taking the situation into consideration, he took a breath, looked up, and stayed steely, allowing his emotions to become hard to read.

When Dennis answered, it bothered him, not because he used the term ‘whatever,’ but because he used the term ‘guess.’ Turning his attention to the park for a brief moment, he wondered if this was a mistake that would bite him in the ass later, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bit of accomplishment even still.

“You guess or you know?” Ry finally asked, resting his chin on his arms. “Diction’s important here.” His gaze shifted back to Dennis after asking, occasionally glancing at the stone.

Dennis turned back to Ry, after turning the stone over and over once more. He figured Ry really did have some problems with friends if he was this big on pushing Dennis into saying yes or no. He kinda understood that; not specifically, but on a similar level. He turned back to the stone.

And put it in his hoodie pocket.

“I’ll have you know, you just gave me a birthday present, kehu,” he chortled, “Lemme think. We worked together to defeat some fuckin’ tin can, hang out almost every challenge, I’m working on findin’ some quill for you, and you gave me a rock.”

“So we’re buds,” he finally said. It came out as almost a question, as friends… usually wasn’t Dennis’s cup of tea. But he decided that people he considered friends in the past wouldn’t have saved him or vice versa. So he’d ride it out and see if their friendship would gel. If not, he’d just pull some “that’s so Dennis” maneuver and purposefully destroy the friendship.

But for now, why not?

The stone being pocketed sent Ry into a feeling of relief, having expected Dennis to toss it or just treat it like a joke. Then again, what could he really expect from Dennis since he was still hard to peg?

Ry raised an eyebrow at Dennis’s statement, wondering if this was something he wasn’t supposed to do or if he was the first one to do this. “Am I the first person to give you a present?” It was a lousy gift for someone’s first birthday present, honestly, but he’d never been to a party to know how to give out gifts. The only gifts he ever received were from his parents to keep him at bay, and he didn’t exactly think Dennis would accept a stuffed animal from Japan.

Even when Joey kept him around, he never invited him to any parties he threw, which should have been a message to Ry about his actual feelings….but what can a preteen do when they have a crush? “I mean, next birthday, I’ll give you something different, but I didn’t plan to make friends with people here. I expected head butting and malicious cackling…by me.”

Glancing down at the ground below them once more, watching the garbage fly around. “Just a giant tin can, not a murderous robot created by McLean to save him money.”  He joked, looking back up at Dennis, leaning his head back. “I can’t believe you’re still going to find me a quill pen…” Reaching up, he touched his head, forgetting his beanie was currently in his bathtub, then wiped some more of the sludge from his hair.

“I found the stone after I was eliminated in the last challenge,” he told him, sitting his head up. “It was tucked under the elastic waste of a balloon. It’s not as great as the stone I found on the beach in Hawaii or the one that I found after I nearly got crushed by the Parrots’ falling building, but…” He shrugged his slender shoulders.

The answer to the question cased another relieved sigh to escape from his mouth. “For a moment I thought I’d have to shove you off the roller coaster,” he tried to relay another joke but this one sounded more serious with him. “So… what’s on the schedule?”

Dennis frowned, but quickly returned to grinning. “Of course not! Just the first in a while, keheheheh! But of course, the greatest gift of all is the screaming in terror of the popular crowd, KEHEHEHEH!” Surprisingly, there was a lot of truth in his statement but he played it off as a joke.

He furrowed his brow for a second at the “next birthday” statement. It was weird for someone to put up with Dennis that long, after all. So he ignored that and cackled at the tin can joke.

“A fifteen foot tin can; someone find the can opener, keheheheheh,” he snickered, before shrugging, “Bruh, how hard could it be? ‘Sides, I hate owin’ people shit. Get me?”

He mused for a second. So, finding stones was something Ry enjoyed? It made sense, but by that logic, he assumed Ry wanted to be a geologist, not an artist.

“We could explore the rest of this place,” he explained with a shrug, before saying, “…If we can ever get down from here, kehu.” It… wasn’t a brilliant idea in hindsight.

Ry leaned forward, staring down at the drop below them, wondering how many bones he’d break if he fell from this distance. Weirdly enough, it wasn’t because of Dennis being up to his usual acts again, but he was just legitimately curious about something like that. Too bad he couldn’t figure it out without falling off or pushing someone else off. Maybe he could bring Lavender or Ashely here one day fight them…succeeding in sending one over the edge. A cruel smirk slithered on to his face, then he turned to look at Dennis. “I prefer the gift of my enemies screaming in agony, though… Have you ever tear gassed a large group of people? I mean, I haven’t gotten the chance, but I would do it…at least to the people in my high school.”

Fifteen feet? Was it really that tall? Ry wondered, trying to remember just how tall it was. Shaking that question out of his mind, he stared at Dennis and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you could make one yourself, search the abandoned stores, or maybe find one on the ground. I’ve done all three, except the stores weren’t abandoned.” Stretching his body, he turned and tried to stand up.

“This place probably has some power in it, huh? We could find the main power source and turn it on, then actually get some shit done.” He suggested, nearly slipping on the bars. “We just have to get to the next low point and jump, right?” Pausing for a few moments, he added, “Don’t die.” Before he began to move forward again, carefully moving past Dennis and grabbing the bars to balance himself.

Dennis began to move, shaking his head, “With my luck, would I be able to tear gas a buncha folks? Nah. However!” He took another movement, before turning back and saying, “If you mix together enough expired foodstuffs, which I bet Cheffy-man has, you could make somethin’ damn close. Damn close.”

“Do I look artistic, bruh?” he asked as he moved on, “Although, I might be able ‘ta find one in the abandoned stores. Or pluck a hair out of Chris’s head and call it a feather, keheheheheheh.”

He stopped when they reached a drop off point. Jump? That’s what they had to do? Lovely.

He began to slide down the hill, before exclaiming, “Geronimo!” He rolled into a tumble, which scraped his knees, but overall? Hey! Not dead!

Ry looked back at Dennis, leaning down on the bars and shook his head back at Dennis. “I mean, I could figure out how to make one, though a food bomb…? Hm… Well, that shit getting in your hair, mouth, and up your nose would be nearly as bad, especially since it could induce vomiting and who knows what is living in the food itself? Do you think Chef only became one because he wanted to torture people? I know he claims to have fought in a war, but I think he just wants to torture people.”

Pausing, he stared at Dennis with a raised eyebrow. “Do I look like I know what a real artist looks like? Besides, it deals with cutting things, sharpening things, and baking involved when making a quill pen.” He reached toward his necklace and gently clasped it in his hand. “Google is a great way to learn shit.” It was then that he remembered that song about Yankee Doodle and opened his mouth to ask about it, stopping when he heard Dennis cry out “Geronimo” and blinked in surprise.

“This is fucking crazy,” he mumbled, turning it into a soft chant as he moved back and then rushed forward, leaping off the roller coaster. He managed to tuck and roll his body, rolling on to his back next to Dennis, dizziness encasing his features.

“Exactly!” Dennis had nodded before he jumped, “It wouldn’t shock me if he did! Torture’s pretty damn fun!” Of course, time stuck with Dennis was torture on its own, according to his reputation. For some reason, seeing people in agony was uplifting to him.

Google? Dennis thought as he jumped off. He didn’t think about that. Next thing he knew, Ry had jumped off as well.

“Fuckin’ right, we’re not dead!” he cheered, ever the Captain Obvious.

Landing on the concrete was actually more painful than Ry anticipated, his dizziness causing him to momentarily black out. Slowly coming to when he heard Dennis cheer next to him. With a groan, he placed his hand on his forehead, migraine increasing in pain and strength. He didn’t want to leave the park yet, so he pretended it was just some momentary bump on the head.

“How do we know we’re not actually dead right now?” Ry asked rhetorically, keeping himself splayed out on the concrete, staring up at the sky, blinking as he watched the clouds pass and continue to cover the sun, much to his pleasure. “We could have died with that robot and be living in a life parallel to our own…” He muttered, rubbing his head in the process.

Finally, he sat up and looked forward at all the rides and attractions near them, wondering if Dennis would choose something that wouldn’t nearly kill them. He doubted it since he had a tendency to go for dangerous situations like flies to honey…even though the last two times were technically Ry’s ideas. “So we going to search for the power source or are we going to try to win some unsupervised games?”

In all the excitement, Dennis didn’t notice that Ry temporarily had blacked out. When Ry spoke again, he turned over to him and asked, “Like Twilight Zone, shit? I mean hell, after we got chased by a fuckin’ robot,we sure that wasn’t the parallel life? Kehu.”

He stood back up and scanned the area, hand resting under his chin. “Let’s steal shit– I mean, win games,” he corrected himself, “If we’re lucky, we’ll come across the on button– switch– What the fuck ever.” He shrugged.

Removing his hand from his aching head, Ry gave a curt nod to Dennis’s question. “Yeah, I haven’t seen much of Twilight Zone, to be honest. I saw one about a man whose fortune cookie told his actual fate, another where a girl turned into a greedy pig, one about if America were Communist, and another about a woman who stop time.” Pressing his hands on to the concrete, he pushed himself up and managed to wobbly stand himself up.

“I always wondered if a near death experience was actually a death experience in one life, like you died before I could blow up the oxygen tank…or I blew off your head instead. Or what if I died because you ditched me instead of staying to try to stop the robot from giving me an Old American Western Death Sentence.” Moving his hand up to his throat, he could feel the heated and slightly sore area of skin that’d nearly been rubbed raw by his hoodie.

“You mean we aren’t stealing shit from Chris since this is technically his property?” He asked, moving down the street, moving his hand to his forehead again. “Come on. I heard there’s some shit hidden in the back of those games that they never give out unless someone demands a manager for the game being rigged.”

“Yeah, man, or that one episode with the last guy on earth–” Dennis stopped and blankly (well, aside from his consistent grin) stared at Ry, “Bruh, you gonna pass out or some shit?” It was subtle, but he almost said that they probably should go back to the hotel.

“Keheheheheh, how gruesome,” Dennis snickered at the thought, “Or like we actually stopped that motherfuckin’ thing but it springs back to life and kills us both right there! What a fuckin’ world, huh?”

He nodded, moving after Ry, “Now you’re talkin, Ry Ry! Kehaa!”

Ry could only respond with a shrug at Dennis’s question, keeping himself standing and holding his head. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, wondering if it was a lie or not on his part. He normally isolated himself from people when he had a migraine but he figured that he could just march on through it; it wasn’t the worst thing he’d suffered through before, so he shouldn’t let it bog him down. “I just got a little dizzy from when I jumped off the roller coaster is all,” he lied now, turning his back to Dennis to rub his temples.

“Hm…or what if I didn’t kick the gun soon enough? Then you’d of been shot in the face…or chest?” He wasn’t sure since he’d been going through tunnel vision at the time. “OR…” He turned around and crossed his arms. “What if when we fell asleep, it came back to life and smashed our skulls in like pumpkins?” Being that was probably the best and worst mental image he could give another, he felt certain pride stemming from that theory. Then again…he’d welcome the pumpkin smashing of his head if he could get rid of this Zeus ego sized migraine.

Turning back around, he continued down the path, approaching the game central area, showcasing the classic and cliché games that every child, at least those who watched television or went themselves, knew about. Displayed in front of them were the most fun and rigged games a child could remember: ring toss, magnetic fishing, test your strength, dart tossing, ball tossing, and even some skee ball tables.

In the racks, hanging up, and set in small displays were the nearly impossible prizes that one always would yearn for when coming to any sort of games likes these.

Although the place was riddled with games there were also areas of hot dog machines and cotton candy makers around as well.

“So…” Ry started, holding his head in his hand. “Where should we begin?”

“Good, ‘cuz I ain’t sure how you expect me to drag you all the way back to the hotel,” Dennis replied, ever the noodle arms. Although, Ry was stubborn enough to try to keep moving when he was knocked into the popcorn stand the night before.

“I’m pretty sure it woulda been a headshot,” if Dennis recalled, before turning to Ry, his devious grin broadening, “You know, that pumpkin comment gave me an idea for the prank! Thanks, shortstop!”

Passing by the Test Your Strength tower, Dennis peered inside the skee ball booth.

“Bruh, you think the games still work or does the power power everythin’?” he asked, turning back in response to Ry’s question.

“From your performance back in the movie theater, I don’t see how you could manage it.” Ry replied, crossing his arms and blinked his eyes to alleviate some pressure, though it really didn’t work like he hoped. “Remind me never to get my legs chopped off near you,” he continued, keeping his head up, though he felt like he’d be better off slipping into the slot hole of the guillotine.

“Twenty points,” Ry sarcastically added to Dennis’s comment on headshots. “Send that in for your portfolio picture.” He stopped dead when Dennis called him shortstop, causing his eye start to twitch in annoyance. He wasn’tthat much taller than Ry, so he could just shove off. “I hope it backfires, then. You could become the new headless horseman… Hm.” His ‘hm’ sounded more genuinely thought out than his sarcastic quip.

Pausing, he shrugged his slender shoulders and picked up a weighted ball. “Well, thinking about some of these games are actually manually set up by the person behind the counter, then I’d assume not.” Tossing the ball calmly, he knocked the perfectly stacked bottles down. “But if you want to play skee ball, then power might be something worth searching for.”

Glancing around the park, he pondered where they could find the power source in order to start up this damn park back up. Where would they post a power station…?

Dennis shrugged, surprisingly taking no offense. Unless Dennis could find something like a wench or a forklift, he wouldn’t be able to lift anyone.

“…So I’m guessing me chopping off your legs is out of the question then, kehu?”

“Hm,” Dennis replied, mockingly at Ry’s addition, “And if I go out, I hope I go out with my head in piece! Geez, Ry Ry, how could they ID me?! Keheheheheh!”

The power station, huh? If Dennis were a power station, he thought to himself, where would he be?

“See anythin’ at the entrance?” he asked, before adding, “We could always check the center of the park. Y’know. We might find an amusement center or the power station or some shit.” It was an imbalanced joke, but held some weight of seriousness.

“You want one of the fastest teammates to suddenly be the slowest?” Ry asked, turning to look at Dennis calmly, picking up another weighted ball from the stack. “On the upside, I could run you over with a wheelchair…” He tossed the ball over his shoulder, causing another stack of bottles to fly off the shelf. “Or I could tear your arms off…” He mused, tapping his foot on the ground. “We could be opposites: you run where I need; I grab what you need…or I could throw salt in your face.”

Imagining Dennis with no head was surprisingly therapeutic to him, so he relaxed his shoulders and shrugged. “Well, if you have a pumpkin for a head, then I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t need an ID. Unless you mean identify your body when you…lose your head over that prank.” Was that a pun? Did he pun? No. He shook his head and smirked in thought about a head flying off or getting caught in a tree.

When he was asked about the entrance, Ry paused, reaching into his pocket to touch his knife. “I didn’t actually pay attention when we entered,” he informed him, placing his other hand into his other pocket for that extra security. “…Center…or entrance. I would consider the power station to be near the front of the park, right? It should be off to the side…or maybe each sight is individually powered? Hell if I know how a park works…” He glanced over at the skee ball table, pressing on one of the coin return slots.

“…On second thought, you can keep your legs, kid, kehu,” Dennis replied, as he continued to walk forward, “’Sides. Don’t got me a bone saw.”

He snickered for a moment before looking at Ry confusedly. He just punned. He just had some semblance of humor. What the hell? Turning back to the task at hand, he decided to continue forward.

Looking around the booth, Dennis tried to find a power switch. No luck.

“To the entrance!” he exclaimed, before running off for the entrance, his run even slower than with the incident with the robot.

“Call me ‘kid’ again and I’ll introduce you to a life without lips,” Ry warned, finding that nickname distasteful after he thought about it. He was almost an adult, and he’d be damned if he kept hearing something like that. “Though…what made you change your mind about chopping off my legs?” He asked, voice devoid of any curiosity. He didn’t exactly care but it was worth asking anyway.

“Was it the salt comment? I have great aim, so I wouldn’t miss. And why use a bone saw?” He looked at him seriously. “There are other ways to remove legs with the same amount of pain, you know? Even if you did it quickly and created a clean cut, rubbing sand paper, gravel, or really anything into an open wound would cause a horrific amount of pain equal to that of a bone saw.”

For a moment Ry looked taken aback by the confused look then quickly shrugged it off, as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Don’t give me that fucking look.” He muttered, crossing his arms.

Turning his attention to the ‘Test Your Strength’ machine, he wondered if he could kick the strange mechanism and ring the bell. It was then that he barely caught on to Dennis yelled, “To the entrance!” and turned abruptly to see the other…jogging? No, that wasn’t exactly the right word for it, though power walking would be something entirely too gross to his mind. Taking a deep breath, he let loose a typical Ry sigh and took off after him, catching up in a few seconds.

Dennis shrugged at Ry’s question, “Choppin’ my arms off, prob’ly.” But then again, he sometimes wondered if that would be an improvement. He could have a hook hand at least.

He blinked at Ry for a minute before saying, “Bruh, you sure you ain’t as sociopathic as I am? Keheheheheheheh!” Then again, he didn’t know why Ry had so many issues with society. Maybe it came with the skagemo territory.

Once Ry caught up, the black cupid asked, “Ya think Chris’ll even use this fuckin’ place for a challenge?”

Ry’s eyebrows rose at Dennis’s question, wondering if there’d ever been doubt about his ways of thinking. “Well, I mean…I did blow up the Penguins’ building without knowing if they were in there or not.” Ry admitted, staring straight forward without hesitation. “If you knew half the things about me and my life, then I doubt even you’d still want to be anywhere near me…” He informed him, eyes never leaving his frontward path. “Then again, I’m used to people regretting their decisions regarding me…whether it positive or negative.” A slow and cruel smirk slowly crept up on his face. “I’ll be lending Ashley a punch bowl full of poison with her decision on how she treats me.”

Stopping for a brief moment to glance around, he nodded his head at Dennis. “Yeah, if there’s danger written on it, then, Chris will use it to kill us.” He wasn’t sure what color this challenge would even be if they used the amusement park, but he knew that it could be potential part of the challenge. “We probably ruined a challenge for the movie theater…cuz Chris’s robot is fried as fuck.”

Turning his attention back forward, he noted that near the gates there was a small shack with “DANGER” written on one of the signs.

Dennis made a noise similar to a scoff when Ry said he’d probably not want to hang around him. “Dude, you really have no idea how fucked up I am, do you, keh?” was his reply. However, his keh ended up drawn out into a “Keheheheheheh,” when Ry said he’d poison Ashley. “Make it rat poison. That’ll teach her,” he “encouraged.”

Dennis looked over at the shack with the danger sign on it before turning back to Ry, “Not like I care. I’d rather not see another robot thanks to the old man.” And that was very much the truth.

His eyes lingering back on the danger sign, he asked, “We gonna be obvious and check it out?”

“If I did, then I’d be a stalker…or your next door neighbor,” Ry told him, glancing around the park at the amusement settings, not finding any of them particularly interesting to his eye. “But since I don’t have time to stalk those who aren’t prey and will never have—and have never—lived in Florida, then I know nothing about you.” Rubbing his wrists calmly, he continued forward. “Plus, all I know is that you like long walks on the beach.” He informed him, waving him off. “Like I said before, ‘you’re an enigma.’” When Dennis suggested rat poison, Ry crinkled his nose and shook his head. “Why rat poison? I heard there’s this plant called ‘doll eyes’ that tastes sweet and looks edible and creepy enough to eat. She’ll think it’s candy and then I’ll watch her slowly feel her insides melt. A much better scenario in my mind than just her grabbing her throat like it’s Lucius and keeling over to die.”

Ry rolled his eyes and moved forward, not sure if Dennis was actually joking or not. Honestly, that robot had been a pain in his ass for so long that Ry almost missed it. Almost. “I doubt there’s a robot in there, Denwit.”

Without another word, Ry walked forward and put his hands on his face. “Oh, Johnny, I heard this joint has been abandoned for years! Nobody’s seen or heard from the guy who died in there! Some say his body was never found and he still haunts this place!” He turned around, dropping his arms and raising an eyebrow. “Do you think this is some kind of movie from the eighties? It’s obviously the powerhouse of this park.”

Dennis shrugged. It was better than what he could have been called, he figured. When Ry mentioned the poisonous plant he gave a low hum before saying, “You think she’d be dense enough to think it’s a plant?” Dennis’s almost snickering grin gave away his own opinion on the matter.

“Bruh, after the shit Chris has done, I wouldn’t be surprised, kehu.” Regardless, he began to step forward towards the powerhouse shack. It’d be worth a try at the very least, he figured.

“If she were smart, she would know it was a planet and use critical thinking about it.” Ry corrected, stopping in front of the door leading inside the shack. “Though I don’t think they are in America or Canada, so it’d be nearly impossible to gather some.” Reaching forward, he gently lifted the locked doorknob and wiggled it in annoyance. “Though if I had some, I’d just feed them all to you guys and claim the prize money, you know? Well, except you… Since you know the plan, I guess you’ll be the only one to die by unconventional means.”

Ry hummed softly about Dennis’s point and nodded in agreement. “Let’s see how many potential challenges we can ruin for him.” Ry muttered, squeezing the lock momentarily before dropping it. “Do you have a tension wrench?” He’d either need a tension wrench or a swift kick to the door a few times.

“So what, it’s some kinda amazon crap?” Dennis asked, before snickering, “Keheheheheheh, hey. It’s a win-win, ain’t it? You get the money, I get to go out in a way different from the rest. Not bad odds if I do say so myself, keheh~!”

He fiddled in his hoodie pocket for a minute. Didn’t he bring a wrench? Did he bring it with him then? To his surprise, out came a monkey wrench, as he extended it out to Ry, “This close enough, Ry Ry?”

“Hell if I know where the fucking originate from. I just know that I didn’t see them when I lived in Hawaii and I don’t see them in Toronto.” Thinking about it, he wondered if he needed to order some online. Was that even possible? Wouldn’t they be dead by the time they arrived at his house? Maybe he’d look this up later. “If you pay me a thousand dollars, I’ll string your entrails up like Christmas lights, too.”

Ry turned his attention on the doorknob while Dennis roamed his pocket. He’d need a tension wrench and a bobby pin, though he already had one. Reaching into his hair, he pulled a random bobby pin out and gently stuck it into the lock’s keyhole. When Dennis asked if whatever he was holding was good enough, Ry didn’t bother looking back before taking the monkey wrench and trying to stick it into the keyhole.

“What…the…” Ry asked, eyebrows raising. Turning around, he waved the monkey wrench at Dennis. “How the fucking hell is this anywhere close to a tension wrench?!”

“You thought this through but you don’t even know where to get it?!” Dennis asked, before adding, “Weeeeak. And money don’t grow on trees! I need that for my prankin’ shiznit!”

He watched Ry try to stick the wrench in the keyhole and immediately noticed his mistake, bursting into laughter, “Bahahahahaha! Shit, that’s… keh, all I had on me though! You mean those tiny ass wrenches?!”

“Oh, I just thought of it now, Dennis.” Ry told him, turning his head to stare at him, eyebrow raised. “Besides, I could kill you guys in any way I want. I mean, from where I’ve come from and been, I’ve always been the easily forgotten kid in the corner…who watches your every move, you know? It’s how I come up with theories and am able to piece things together with the limited resources I have available to me. Plus, it helps to know where you normally show up…gives me an easier way to target… Well, if I do need to kill you.” Turning his attention back to the door, he barely could register Dennis’s next move.

The sudden mocking laughter that Dennis burst out with caused Ry’s face to turn slightly red. “Shut the fuck up! You’re the one who thinks that people pick locks with monkey wrenches!” He shouted, slapping Dennis in the arm with the wrench. “And yeah, a tension wrench is a fucking tiny wrench you use to–!”

Instead of completing his sentence, he slapped his forehead and turned around, striking the door with the wrench to avoid bashing Dennis’s skull in. After a few moments of striking the door, he turned back around, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes. “Do you know about tools? I feel like you don’t know about tools if you thought a monkey wrench was anything like a tension wrench. Next thing you’ll say is a Phillip Head is anything like a Frearson.”

Dennis shrugged. He honestly couldn’t tell if Ry was all bark and no bite, or if he had actual weight behind his threats. Then again, the only three he knew of in the competition that could actually back up their threats were Ashley, The Baroness, and Kiki.

“Yeow!” Dennis fake-pouted at being hit on the arm, but regardless, continued, “Oh. Well, shit, I don’t have a tension wrench then. Keheheheh.”

When Ry asked him about tools, Dennis fell silent. After a few moments of silence, the prankster finally asked, “Okay. What the FUCK is a Frearson?!”

Ry flipped the monkey wrench into the air and snatched it mid-flip so it was on the other side. He couldn’t tell if he should be annoyed or feel bad that Dennis obviously didn’t know about tools. Sighing softly, he hit Dennis with the other side of the wrench. “You. Seriously. Are. Ig. Nor. Ant.” He muttered, turning back around to stare at the doorknob, he slipped the bobby pin back into his hair.

“I see any tears or hear any whining and I’ll do it a third time,” he threatened, waving the wrench around before dropping it on the ground with a clatter to rub his aching temples. This migraine was going to get the best of him soon enough. “Fuck…” He seethed, standing back up straight and turned back to Dennis. “A Frearson is screwdriver that screws screws with perpendicular head.” He replied, raising a tiny eyebrow at him.

Turning back to the door, he took a deep breath and lifted his leg up. “Well, let’s see if I…remember how to do this…” He muttered, swinging his leg back, nearly kicking Dennis in the process, before sending it back forward to slam right next to the doorknob, paralleling the object, sending it slamming back into the wall on the inside.

Spinning around on his heels, he tilted his head at Dennis. “You have anymore tool-based questions?”

“Yes. I. Know. This.” Dennis replied back to Ry’s declaration, “I know pranks. And ruinin’ people’s lives. And that’s it. Kehu.” Not a total lie. What he did know was constantly used in his pranks.

“…So the flat-head one…?” he asked, rubbing the back of his head. That at least made some sense. He then watched as Ry kick the door in and his grin returned. Well, there’s two ways to skin a cat.

“None!” Dennis replied in exclamation, “Well, now, anyways. Keheheheh.”

“Mocking me will result in overall pain,” Ry muttered, almost tempted to pick the monkey wrench back up to reiterate his point. Well, he was more than tempted and obliged to doing so, sending a slightly more painful hit to Dennis’s arm. “Ever since the day I was born, I’ve been ruining lives,” Ry admitted, tone darkening and full of complete seriousness. In fact, it was kind of true to him, seeing as his grandparents died to come see him at his birth and his parents began fighting and hating each other not long after. “So I guess I have to teach you about life. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to teach you about sex.”

Ry gave a stark nod and wiggled his toes from kicking the door. Admittedly, that was a complete and total thrill ride for him. He’d do it again if he could, but he figured kicking down doors all day would wear him out and become rather annoying after a while. Instead of commenting on Dennis’s exclamation, he entered into the room, pausing at the power switch.

“Oh, wow, this is just like that movie from the eighties,” Ry mocked, reaching out and touching the switch with his hand. “Right now I’d have the murderer coming from behind me while you would be stuttering and trying to grab my attention.” Turning around, he stared at Dennis. “Then you’d visibly pale as he raised the knife…or axe…or chainsaw, somehow unheard by my eardrums, and then you’d witness a murder most gruesome. Hell, you’d even get a free shower in the process, wearing my type O- blood all over your petrified expression.”

“Yeowch, bruh!” Dennis frowned at Ry, before settling into a neutral look. The seriousness in Ry’s voice was… depressing. This wasn’t like others who put on a mask or pretended to be happy over something like that. He legitimately seemed like he meant it. He thought about pushing him further, but maybe not while Ry had the wrench in his hand.

“Keh,” he crossed his arms, his grin returning, “I know about life. I just don’t know all that stuff that parents are supposed to teach ‘ya, I guess. I mean hell, I didn’t know what sex even was until like sixth grade.”

Dennis mused for a moment, “In a way, wouldn’t it make sense for the fuckin’ protags to just team up on some masked slasher? I mean, shit man. A few against one would be– Hey, rude!” It was as if he just caught onto Ry’s mocking, causing Dennis to stick his tongue out immaturely at the slightly yougner teen.

Ry’s eyebrow twitched as Dennis used the word he’d basically banned himfrom using. For once Ry felt it unfair that he was left without the freedom to use it, but he knew that using it would be pretty…strange anyway. He just liked the option of using it rather than the actually usage. “I warned you,” he told him, swinging the monkey wrench around as if he’d discovered a new weapon. Actually, he might just keep this and use it whenever he felt Dennis stepped too far out of line…or far off from what Ry could handle at least since he bet the line that Dennis drew as just a squiggle.

Ignoring the frown and neutral expression Dennis took on, he turned and kept his vision forward. “…You…realize that you shouldn’t know about sex when you’re eleven, right..? I mean…sixth grade sounds normal to me; it’s at the stage in life where you start thinking that you need yank it to every last damn thing you see. Of course, I don’t really do that.” Actually, it wasn’t a lie; Ry just never found interest in it. “So that part I should say is normal sounding, but the rest is concerning. Your parents never make you learn anything…?” Ry almost found that entirely too lucky. His parents, on their days off, normally forced him to learn something new, punishing him if he couldn’t grasp the concept on the first try.

“Keep that tongue sticking out and I’ll make a necklace out of it when I rip it from your mouth.” Leaning back against the wall, he quickly flipped the switch with an eyebrow raised at Dennis. “You should really take note of when I’m making fun of you and when I’m being serious. I mean, damn, my voice isn’t monotone, you know?” Although…he found Dennis’s reaction amusing, nonetheless. “BUT…if I went by scary movie logic, you’d die relatively soon after me…or would I survive and you die? Mn… Or I could kill you since the intelligent ones often do kill the comic relief—don’t get a big head with that comment; you’re as funny as the movie would get in this case.”

Dennis bent backwards, barely dodging the wrench. “Bruh, what the fuck’s wrong with the word bruh, bruh?” Although, at this point, Dennis was most likely taking Ry’s annoyance with the word due to what Dennis said and running with it.

“Maaaan, you’re missing out!” Dennis replied with a snicker, “But then again, when you don’t have a sexual thought, that makes sense, doesn’t it, keheheheheheheh!”

He quickly returned his tongue inside his mouth and shrugged, “Hey! A backhanded compliment on my comedy stylin’s is better than nothin’!”

He then added, as he looked around at the now powered park, “Man, I just can’t read that sarcasm shit you got goin’ on, though! Like at all!”

Ry had to admit that he was impressed with how quickly Dennis caught on to his random acts of violence. Instead of taking another swing at him, though, he let his wrench arm drop at his side. “The word ‘bruh’ is fucking idiotic…if I can’t say it, then you can’t say it.” He bitterly told him, gently waving the wrench at him as if taunting him.

Suddenly Ry’s face turned horrified that Dennis just openly started talking about wanking. “Okay, I didn’t need…I need to bleach my eyes.” He muttered, almost rubbing his mismatched eyes in detest at the mental image that flashed in his head. Then he looked at him with confusion on his face. “What? What’s that supposed to mean? I have sexual thoughts and fantasies and kinks, I just don’t need to—I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS WITH YOU.” He yelled, waving his hands in disgust. “Fucking hell!”

The noise Ry made in the back of his throat at Dennis’s reaction obviously resembled his constant annoyance. “Yeah, it was…backhanded…I kind of thought it was a straight up insult, but I guess whatever helps you play with your ping pong paddle at night…” He said, implying heavy innuendo in that statement without actually meaning to.

“Okay, but…I’m eighty percent sarcasm, dart.” He told him, making his way out of the shack and shoving past him. “I’ve basically been throwing sarcastic remarks at you since Day One of this stupid ass show, but you never knew..?” He shook his head and watched the park spring to life, even things that didn’t look like they would be connected to electricity powered on.

Much to Ry’s surprise, he really didn’t know a whole lot about places like this. Sure, he knew about the games being rigged, giant prizes, and roller coasters…but he didn’t know so much that it almost felt overwhelming to him. Turning his attention to a cotton candy stand, he brought his wrench hand up and pointed at it. “What’s that shit?”

Dennis scoffed and rolled his eyes, “Fine, fine, brah.” Technically, it wasn’t bruh. Technically.

The Black Cupid began to broaden his grin and burst out into a new flurry of “KEKEKEKEKEKE”s at Ry’s reaction. Gold. Priceless. “Man, I could tell you what I do with my ping pong paddle,” of course, it was nothing, but Ry didn’t have to know that, he figured.

“At least I finally know what the fuck dart means,” the lanky teen shrugged, “Sarcasm just goes…” He made a whistling noise as his hand went over his straw hat.

…Which then changed in confusion when Ry seemed… confused about something?

“Okay, hold up, Ry Ry,” he stopped him, “That’s a cotton candy machine-a-bobber. You don’t know what the fuck it is?” He seemed a little surprised.

Ry frowned at Dennis’s vowel change, tempting him to call him a smartass, though he knew that’s what he would want to hear from Ry, so he just tilted his head and said, “Okay, but what cup size?”

Ry at first just looked complete annoyed at Dennis’s reaction. He couldn’t understand the necessity behind laughing at him over not wanting to talk tohim about sexual things. Could ANYONE blame him for not wantin—Wait, what?! His eyes suddenly grew wide and his mouth completely turned down into a disgusted gape.

The next moment he put his head into his hands to cover his face, then moved them away in disgust. “I TOUCHED THAT THING!” He quickly shuddered and waved his hands, then tried to resist hitting Dennis with the wrench, then dropped the wrench at the thought of what he could have done to that, too. “FUCK!”

After completely trying to not pick up the wrench to smack Dennis with it, he finally picked it back up to stare at the cotton candy machine, nerves still frayed from that realization. “Er…” He started, crossing his arms and staring forward. “No… I’ve never seen or heard of one of those.”

“Eh, C’s are a good middle road,” Dennis replied with a shrug. When it came to things of little consequence, he was actually quite blunt, “’Sides, Ry Ry, don’t’cha know it’s all about booty? Nicki Minaj don’t lie, ‘ya know? Keh.”

His grin broadened further and he doubled over in laughter, his “real” laugh escaping for a few moments. His straw hat fell off his head, causing him to have to pick it up, “YOUR– PFFFT– FACE! HAH!”

It took him a few seconds to settle back down from that, as he gave an amused “Whooo.” He then widened his eyes for a moment, “Dude! We’re gettin’ this shit runnin’ then! You’re missing out!”

Running over to the machine, Dennis began to dig around for sticks, “It’s cotton candy, man! And we get it free! Melt in your mouth goodness, br– dude!”

Ry shuddered and shook his head at Dennis’s explanation of breasts. He really didn’t want to have an elaboration on it, nor did he want to know what he preferred. Breasts were just something he couldn’t handle, then again…what could he really handle anymore. “Ass? Well…I can’t really argue there, though I don’t look for a girl’s ass as much as a guy’s. The guys here have some impressive asses, huh?” He almost included that he didn’t think Dennis’s was impressive, but he knew exactly where that would lead.

‘Kekekeke! You looking at my ass!?’ Ironically, he knew some things too well, so he opted to not include it. “But…plea—Don’t sing Anaconda. You even START singing that and I will make you a shallow grave.”

Watching Dennis double over, Ry felt his face heat up in embarrassment and he couldn’t help but turn away to avoid showing his reddened face. When Dennis’s hat fell off, Ry almost wanted to stomp it, but he knew he’d given that thing enough grief in the past; too bad it was also linked to the murder of his quill pens. “Sh-Shut the fuck up! I don’t know when you’re being serious or not!” He shouted, swinging the monkey wrench at him, missing him by a few inches on purpose.

“Missing out?” Ry asked when Dennis had calmed down and rushed over to the machine. Making his way over to him, he stopped next to it, evaluating the way it looked. “Melt in your mouth?” His eyebrows scrunched together, then he made an “oh” noise and looked up. “Like rice paper?”

Then he stopped and looked at Dennis with a raised eyebrow. “Did you just censor yourself?”

“Kehu!” Dennis snickered, “Yeah, a couple of the guys have firm–” He then paused for a second, “Woah, woah, woah, Ryberry Shortcake. You actuallylook at asses?!”

He crossed his arms and grinned, “I know! Isn’t it just the most charming character trait?!” Of course it wasn’t, but Dennis knew that.

“Yeah, man!” Dennis began to fiddle with the machine, and after finally finding the cotton candy to be mixed inside, he said, “It’s the bomb! Sweet, sticky, all that good shit!” He watched the machine begin to stir before looking back over at Ry when he asked if it was like rice paper, “…Sure! Yeah! Let’s go with that!”

He opened and closed his mouth, “I plead the fifth in all fuckin’ honesty.”

“Yeah? Just because I think having a crush on someone is stupid and all around sca—screwing up this world, doesn’t mean I can’t window shop for an ass or two.” Ry told him, raising an eyebrow, then stopped, punching his arm. “Fucking hell! Do not call me that! Plus, why the fuck is it so surprising that I look at asses?”

Temptation lurked in him again to once more send a punch to his arm, but he resisted the temptation and hid the monkey wrench behind his back. “As charming as the backside of Todd, I assume…” He muttered, remembering how flat Todd’s ass was, though he couldn’t compare since his ass wasn’t much bigger. “Mmhm, but if I get Ashley kicked off before, then I get to wax his crotch, so I guess I get to explore more than one store.” He calmly told him as if this was normal to talk about. Masturbation was one topic, but he could handle talking about this.

As Dennis set to work, Ry completely forgot about his sugar intolerance and watched the machine whir to life, titling his head once again in confusion. What exactly was this thing going to make with how it was swirling? Although he normally wore his emotionless or sadistic expressions, right now he looked completely mystified at the sight of the machine. For some reason, he just felt so calm watching it swirl.

Glancing up, he noted the sticks on the side of the machine and reached over, picking one up and staring down at it, then at the monkey wrench. Setting the monkey wrench down, he stared at the stick and looked at Dennis. “What’re these for exactly?”

He snorted at his next comment and softly muttered, “Say what you want, but you still did it.”

Dennis snorted when Ry hit his arm, more amused that the nickname annoyed the other teen than anything. “Kehah! It’s so surprisin’ because you actually feel sexual shit at all?! I just thought you were fuckin’ asexual like T.” He left off that he felt this threw him for a loop.

The prankster flinched at the thought of pubic hair being waxed off, “Dude. DUDE. WHAT KINDA DEAL DID YOU TWO MAKE?!”

The ingredients began to make a swirling machine of cotton candy, causing Dennis to lick his lips in expectation. When Ry asked about the sticks, Dennis grabbed one of them and exclaimed, “Watch ‘n learn, Ry Ry!”

Dipping the stick in the machine, Dennis began to twirl and turn it, as the sweet confectionary good inside began to cohese itself to his stick. After a good thirty seconds, he pulled out a large piece of cotton candy on the stick. In all honesty, his apprentice back home worked a cotton candy machine at a festival so Dennis actually had a clue on making it work.

“DA DA DA DAAAAA,” Dennis fanfared at his creation, “Hey hey! Now you try, keh!”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but I told you in the beginning that I didn’t do crushes. I mean, I could understand the assumption of being aro but ace? What ever gave you the–You know what?” He suddenly stopped and shook his head at this being the second teammate to assume his sexuality. “You and Lavender have something in common: not knowing my sexuality. I just hope when I tell you, you retain this information. I am gay. I like men; men are my aesthetic.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head. “Not anything else but gay.”

Then his face broke into a small grin at Dennis’s

flinching, then it turned into a cruel and sadistic smirk at his horrified question. “There’s something you should know about me: making a bargain, bet, or owing me a favor is a dangerous game. At any given time, I could easily let my sadism lead me to cashing in one of your favors like Todd’s, but…using the same shtick over and over again would get boring.” He shrugged, keeping the smirk on his face for a few moments longer before it fell to his neutral expressiom once more. Watching Dennis swirl concoction into a giant cloud of pink fluff caused his expression change to one of confusion. “What the fuck? Is that…even edible?” He asked, eyebrows rising up. At Dennis’s sudden exclamation and fanfare, Ry’s face became mildly amused and more genuine in features. Honestly, this was a strange experience in general; however, it quickly fell to a less enthused one when Dennis turned it over to him. “My…turn?” He asked, eyes raising up to meet his. Suddenly he shook his head and lowered it to the swirling machine. Reaching up, he touched his face as a familiar memory and sting erupted through it. “You just… You have to promise…” He stopped and shook his head. “Never mind…” He quickly turned his stick and dipped it into the machine, keeping his gaze lowered and hand on his face. He couldn’t mess up…

While Dennis grimaced at the thought of being compared to Lavender, he shrugged and said, “Gay it is!” Sexuality didn’t ever really matter much to Dennis. In fact, he saw himself as bi. Either way, he hated humanity so that wasn’t ever a problem to him.

“Just don’t tell me when ya fuck a dude, okeheheh?” Dennis turned back to Ry amusedly, his okay drawling out into his laugh, “And not give me a pube waxin’. That kinda pain ain’t my shit.”

He watched Ry dip it into the machine and said, “Of course it’s edible!” He picked a piece off of his own cotton candy and popped it his mouth. However, he did hear Ry say something about promising. He swallowed the melt in your mouth treat and just watched Ry make his cotton candy, a little confused by what he was saying when he said nevermind to it.

“Just don’t forget it… I’m tired of explaining myself to Lavender…and tired of her hitting on me…” Ry told him, rubbing his temples having almost forgotten about the pain in his head. If he had to explain he was gay ONE more time to her, he would lose his mind and throw her from the roof. “At least I don’t have to worry about the latter from you,” he muttered, lowering his hands and sighing.

Stopping, he opened and closed his mouth then shook his head in disdain. “Why would I even share that information with you? Just because we’re friends, doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you about my sex life.” He silently hoped Dennis forgot about what he’d told him the other night and would just leave it at that. “Who said I was doing it for you? I’m doing it to you for me, so deal with it; you signed the contract to be my personal favor boy and that’s how it rolls out. I doubt it’ll come to that, but if you want to press it, I can swallow disgust and give you a Brazilian.”

Keeping his eyes lowered, he tried to imitate what Dennis had done before, slowly twirling the stick in the machine. As Ry did this, however, his mind began to race in thought, sending him everywhere he didn’t want to be: his first time baking, his first time solving the quadratic formula, his first time naming the presidents, his first time using his new phone, his first time taking steps… As these raced through his mind, he forgot what he was doing and ended up letting go of the stick inside the machine, causing him to snap back into reality and stare in shock at his empty hand. At the sight of his empty hand, he felt his chest tighten and his eyes widen. Without warning, he put his hands over his face and didn’t move.

“What if she’s in denial, keho?” Dennis asked, amusedly, “Think of it now! Shortstop Abducted by Boobie Monster for Shotgun Wedding!” He snickered in amusement at his joke.

“Okay, okay, I won’t push it!” Dennis said widening his eyes and waving his hands, “Pubic wax? WHAT pubic wax?”

He watched Ry continue to fish out his cotton candy before watching him drop it in. “Booooo!” Dennis childishly jeered before watching Ry’s hands go up to his face.

Was he… really upset? It was strange to see at the very least. “Uh, dude,” he said, clearing his throat, “It’s alright. Accidents and shit happen, right?”

Ry raised an eyebrow at the joke and almost smacked Dennis for the stupidity of it, but he decided against it. “Right…That sounds like a horrible fanfiction more than anything… Actually, it sounds like something you would write. Now I’m starting to think I’ve found the true author of My Immortal.” Ry jabbed at Dennis, hoping he didn’t think of the song instead. The song was fantastic but the fanfiction was like stabbing two forks into your hands.

Scoffing at him, Ry shook his head and put the idea on the back burner for later. Hey, he could get impatient or…he could always lose the bet with Todd and be forced to have his side of the agreement void. Of course, there were other ways to wax Todd…but he could always use Dennis as a Plan B. “You’re not doing yourself justice by asking about it,” he joked, though who knows what could happen with those extra favors Dennis owed him?

After successfully failing to make his cotton candy concoction, Ry sat there in complete despair. The horrific memories came flooding back into his mind, pain etched itself way onto his face, causing him to momentarily lose himself in his thoughts, before he finally heard Dennis once again, snapping him back to reality.

Lowering his hands, he glanced up at Dennis and slowly shook his head, fear subsiding for the most part. “Accidents don’t happen in my house,” he told him, grabbing another stick to slowly stick back in. “They just don’t happen…not without consequence at least. Unacceptable mistakes mean unavoidable punishment.” He shrugged, pretending it didn’t bother him and that his whole ordeal was just something minor inconvenience. After stirring around his stick once again, he finally pulled out a slightly smaller cloud of fluff.

“That would make me be Ebony’s self insert author, right?” Surprisingly, Dennis had heard of My Immortal, but being someone who knew about memes and internet jargon slightly well it wasn’t too much of a surprise, “Ebony…? Enoby…? Ivory…? I don’t fuckin’ know.”

Dennis furrowed his eyebrows at what Ry said before saying, “But… you’re here. Not at your house. Fuck some bullshit rules and have some fun, dude! You can’t get in trouble if you’re not even there!” He crossed his arms and then grinned at Ry’s piece of cotton candy, “See?! Good as new, kehu!”

“….Uh,” Ry stopped and opened his mouth in slight shock that Dennis knew more things than just pranking. Closing his mouth and tightening his jaw, he held down a laugh that threatened to escape his mouth. “I didn’t actually expect you to know about it there…” He admitted, an amused smirk befalling his face. “It’s Ebony…or Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.” He told him, pushing the ends of his mouth down into a neutral expression once more. “Yes, you’d be her self insert author…and somehow make it so bad that you became famous…or well, the joke of the world.”

Ry kept his eyes lowered as Dennis spoke, trying to keep his concentration on the cotton candy. It was true that he couldn’t get in trouble or be hurt or be pinched or be verbally insulted while he was here, yet…the foreboding of the end of the show if he lost clung to his mind. “Yeah… Not while I’m here, but when I return…” He muttered, lifting the stick up and examining it thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I could have some fun.” He finally looked back up at Dennis and took a large bite from his mound of fluffy delights, eye twitching at the flavor that he’d never experienced before.

“Ugh, it’s so sweet,” he snorted before taking another bite. Glancing over now, he pointed at the Ferris wheel and looked at Dennis. “What’s that?”

“Ebony Dark’ness–” Dennis began to repeat, before looking at Ry when he said famous, “Wait, shit, I coulda wrote that shlock and been famous?! SERIOUSLY?!” Surprisingly, or not due to his strange mannerisms, being considered a joke didn’t seem to bother him much.

Dennis… didn’t think about that. What kind of family life did Ry have anyway? It seemed almost like the exact opposite of Dennis’s family. When Ry finally took a bite of the treat, he snickered, “Keh. Duh! It’s cotton candy!”

For once, Dennis arched an eyebrow, “Bruh, you brought me to an amusement park but do you know shit bout amusement parks? It’s a Ferris Wheel, man! Y’know! Eye in the sky?”

“Yeah, she got famous by writing a piece of garbage and posting it on the internet. Without knowing jack shit about the world she lived in, she managed to make even the smartest people dumb enough to like it. I’m surprised she has so much fanart and spinoffs of her stupid fanfiction…or if I can even call it that.” Ry mumbled, not taking into consideration Dennis’s seriousness about becoming famous.

Ry scrunched up his features at the sweetness but took another bite, turning to look at Dennis. “The name cotton would be misleading to children and parents who’ve never heard of it, considering cotton is easy to choke on.” He wasn’t speaking from experience, but he assumed it anyway. “I wonder how many people have died from choking on cotton…”

Once again looking away, Ry shrugged and turned to walk toward it, not exactly being fond of his own ignorance. “I’ve seen a large amount of shit online but I never thought about amusement parks.” He stopped and turned around, raising an eyebrow. “The eye in the sky? What kind of joke is that? What kind of nickname is that?” Looking back at the Ferris wheel, he pointed at the carts. “They don’t look sturdy either.”

Dennis mused for a moment, before saying, “Yo. Imagine if she published it! Gettin’ rich offa shit! Buuuuut, then again, Total Drama’s shit and it has like. Ten seasons. Keheheh.” He shrugged.

“Well, they deserved it!” Dennis shrugged, “Cotton doesn’t taste like cotton candy so if they really couldn’t discern iiiiiit..” A sadistic grin crossed the nineteen year old’s face.

“KEHEHEHEHEH,” The Black Cupid burst into laughter at Ry’s questions, “We just walked a rollercoaster track, Ry Ry! And you’re gonna worry about sturdiness?! C'mon, it’ll be fun!” Dennis either didn’t notice or care about how unsturdy the carts looked.

Ry snorted and shook his head at Dennis’s comment on Total Drama. It really is a shitty show and he was surprised that it received so much credit. Then again…the idea of a million dollars in his pocket along with the lifetime supply of paint really just rolled off his mind quite nicely, albeit the only thought that wasn’t death, destruction, and Julius Caesar’s last words—excluding the screams. “Yeah, but a bunch of old guys get a boner off this show and a bunch of young people really look for ‘heroes’ on this show. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of little kids who shouldn’t be watching this show are already doing your laugh and carrying around a camera everywhere they go.” He causally said, leaving out anything that a kid could do for him; he just didn’t see anyone finding him appealing enough to mimic an aspect of him. Besides, what did he even have?

“Hm…” Ry stopped walking, swaying his cotton candy in the air for a few seconds, examining it, an idea forming in his mind for later. “You think I could paint a huge thing of cotton pink and get Ashley to eat it?” He asked, not caring how it came off. “What if…I dumped rat poison on it? Yeah, I could do that… She’d have a nice trip off this show…in a fucking body bag.” Not caring how that came off, he continued waking once again. “But I’m pretty sure a bunch of kids died eating cotton. It was probably a hilarious sight, granted they survived to tell you why they did it in the first place. Good thing I never want kids because I would make them save themselves.”

Taking a bite of his cotton candy, he shrugged and glared at Dennis. “You should know that it looks sturdier than those do!” He shot back, pointing at the softly swaying carts. “Besides, I…” He stopped, looking down at his bare feet and groaning, having forgotten he’d taken off his shoes and socks in the first place. Instead of heading off to grab his shoes, though, he started to make his way toward the Ferris wheel. “If we die, then you have your side of hell and I’ll have mine.”

“Heroes?” Dennis snorted at the thought, “Imagine if someone right now is saying, ‘Ooh! I wanna be a skagemo just like Ry Ry!’ Or hell, someone lookin’ up to Ashley for… who the fuck knows?” He shrugged.

The teen turned to the shorter teen and said, “Ooooor, you could do somethin’ not obvious and put acid in her nail polish! KEHEHEHEHEHEH!” Whether Dennis was serious or not, however, was up in the air.

Dennis took another bite of his own cotton candy and said, “Yet you still walk towards it, huh, Ry Ry? Kehu!” Regardless, he followed after.

‘Ooh! I wanna be a skagemo just like Ry Ry!’ For a moment Ry’s mouth formed an almost sad smile at the thought of someone actually thinking he was good enough to be a hero. In his life of being told he was an accident, a mistake, or something of the sort, it felt…almost nice to have something like that being said about him, even if he couldn’t hear it for himself; a sad, delusional dream… That’s all his dreams really were to him anyway. “Yeah…” He finally said, stopping to stare forward, mouth falling. “Could you imagine me being worth someone’s attention?” Without another thought on that, he continued.

“What’s so obvious about that…? She could just spit it out and think it was all some stupid paint taste by you and I could get off the hook while she’s taken into the morgue.” Ry replied, looking over at him. “Besides, wouldn’t acid corrode the bottle of nail polish and be ultimately worthless in the end? I’d be melting off my own fingers before I even set the stupid thing down. I mean, unless she had glass, then that would work out… Nothing like Ashley and Lavender, the princesses of Total Drama Colors, to have cheap plastic nail polish containers…” He tsked in thought, wondering how he could even find acid. “Of course, I could always just…make her sick by giving her food poisoning. I’m a decent chef after all… I could just undercook a few pieces of meat and BAM!” Without warning, he kicked the nearest object, which happened to be a trashcan, sending it flying for about five feet. “She gets food poisoning and is forced to be taken care of by Chef Has-been. It’s not a death, but he’s so inexperienced, she’d wish for it.”

Ry looked back at Dennis, keeping his pace up to its normal speed. “Well, if I’m going to die, then why not die in some way or another? It’d be way better than being beaten to death or slowly bleeding out, you know? I could just break all my bones in my body and die instantly this way. Maybe get crushed by a cart…” Stopping right by the control panel, he gestured for Dennis to take it from there, not really sure how to operate something like this. “Go on, Black Cupid, you never run from a challenge, so this shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

Dennis stopped in place when Ry said that. While he didn’t understand, he… understood. Almost too well. Shaking those thoughts off, he popped another piece of cotton candy in his mouth and rushed after the other boy.

His eyes widened in joy at this new idea, “DUDE. YOU CAN FOOD POISON HER, CHEF CAN MAKE THINGS WORSE, THEN WHEN SHE THINKS THINGS CANT GET MORE SUCKY? BAM. THE GREATEST PRANK. THREE HIT KO! KAAAAHEH!” His expression beamed in excitement at the thought.

Dennis stopped at the machine, thinking about all the ways they could die. He looked over at Ry before back at the control panel. This couldn’t be too hard right?

After fiddling with it, it began to turn. Sometimes it would stop automatically to let new riders on and old riders off.

“I have no idea how I did that,” he admitted to Ry truthfully.

Ry couldn’t help but delve deeper into that thought. What would that person even like about him anyway? Would they like something…positive about him…? What even is positive about Ry Faye? With a sigh, he lowered his head and rubbed his aching forehead. What a day this was… Lifting the fluffy stick to his mouth, he took another large bite and lifted his head back, deciding to toss that thought aside. It was a waste of his time to even think of being worthy enough for hero status. If anything, he’d be a villain, but weren’t all victims of society just proven as such?

At Dennis’s voice being raised, Ry sidestepped away from him, avoiding the idea of decking him in the jaw for being so loud. Weirdly enough, it was nice to see Dennis taking an idea of his and actually putting something behind it instead of making him feel like he was a braindead moose in the wilderness. Fuck, not now, Canada. Shaking his head quickly, he looked back at Dennis. “You really want to go through with that? I mean, seeing Bitchley suffer is a prime example of getting on my good side after she slammed me into the wall and dug my knuckles into the pavement.” He’d actually not told anyone else on the show about what happened after he’d stomped her foot, so it felt relieving to get that off his chest. Or…had he said it?

“Hm….alright, I’ll take that offer up in arms. So long as you keep your end of the bargain. If not…then… I’m not going to finish that sentence; you can add in the rest yourself.” He half-joked about his repetitive threats to his teammate.

Watching Dennis work, Ry marveled at the fact he could make so many mistakes with this and yet keep going. If Ry had even screwed up once, he’d of dropped the idea and just sat there for an hour, reevaluating his choice of trying something. When Dennis had successfully completed his task, Ry’s eyes momentarily lit up in surprise and delight, “You did it!—I mean, great job.” Ry quickly caught himself, not wanting to give Dennis any praise.

When Dennis admitted he’d had no idea how he managed it, Ry snorted and grabbed him by the arm, walking toward the contraption he was sure would kill them. “Let’s see if we can make it to the top before we die, hm?”

Dennis watched Ry sidestep away at first, but was surprised that Ry actually took up the offer. His grin broadened as he waved Ry off, saying, “Yeah, yeah, enter some kinda bodily harm here! I hear ya!”

His surprise broadened more when Ry actually said he did a great job? Nor really say anything about him not knowing what he was doing? He actually wondered if the apocalypse was on its way.

“Sounds like a plan stan, keheheh!” Dennis replied as he was being dragged off towards the ferris wheel.

Pausing at the entrance of the Ferris wheel’s newest cart, Ry had a moment of doubt about getting on this thing. Honestly, he wasn’t scared to die, but he didn’t want to be trapped on something with Dennis after all. He could just see this thing jamming up at the top and Ry being stuck with a loud laughing dunce like Dennis. How long would it take before he threw Dennis off the ride?

“It’s Ry,” he half-joked, though no smile found its way on to his lips as he stated this. Clearing his throat, he turned his eyes to the cart, examining the confines they’d soon find themselves in. It looked…sturdy enough…

Turning his attention to the cotton candy, he took another large bite and looked back at Dennis, releasing his hood from his grasp. “Better go take a piss before we get on this thing, because if it breaks down, you’re not doing it off the side.” He warned him, not exactly fond of what could happen, though the thought of Ashley or La—No, he wouldn’t think that, even he found that disgusting.

Taking a step forward, he managed to clamber into the cart and securely seat himself, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back, not sure how to feel. “So what’s the purpose of this ride anyway? Fear? Adrenaline? Thrill?” He asked, glancing down at a few pebbles in the bottom of the cart, which he’d play around with later.

Dennis crossed his arms as they stared at the ferris wheel, musing for a second, “Y’know, imagine if it stopped at the very tip top and then we fell off?” Ry, however, didn’t seem quite as amused about the idea of it stopping for obvious reasons.

“Nah, I can hold my urine,” he responded as he walked after Ry, getting inside the cart. When Ry asked what the point of the ride is, Dennis snickered before waving his hand as if it was a dolphin, “It’s made for chillll. Like how the fuck could you be afraid of a ferris wheel?! OH NO! IT’S GOING IN A CIRCLE! KEHEHEHEHEHEH!”

Ry grunted in annoyance and punched Dennis in the arm once more, not wanting to have that irony actually happen. If he died, then there was no way for sure he could get away from Dennis. They’d probably be trapped as the ghosts of this park. Dennis might get a thrill of that, but Ry was not going to spend his time wandering around as Dennis pranked random teenagers and construction workers. “Yeah, the cruel irony of this would be that, wouldn’t it?”

Ry’s eyebrows scrunched together as he watched Dennis’s hand wave in front of his face. What was he trying to imply here? That it was a really rickety and rocky ride and might sway really badly on the way up? Then he listened to what Dennis said, groaning about the word ‘chill.’ “I wish I’d brought some of my Mary Jane up here… I’d be great to get rid of this fucking migraine,” he muttered, biting another piece off his cotton candy. “Then again, the cotton candy is…weirdly helping.” He added, pulling another piece off and popping it into his mouth.

“And I don’t know… Maybe people fear the roundness of it, so if it popped off the middle joints, it could go rolling, killing everyone on the ride and the people it crushes? Or maybe the ride is fearful because of people with the fear of heights? Or someone being scared to actually fall out of the cart? Or…some people could fear being murdered in a cart like this. Either way, I could see irrational fears of rides like this.” He responded, leaning himself back in his seat and propping his feet up on the railing.

“So…anything you want to talk about?” He asked after a few moments of silence.

Dennis rubbed his arm and shrugged, “All I’m sayin’ is it’s somethin’ of McLean’s, get me? Ergo, it’s probably shit, kehee.”

He popped another piece of his own cotton candy and said, “Cotton candy’s probs one of the few wonders of the worl, y’know? It could be considered it in my books any damn way!”

As Ry talked about all the ways the ferris wheel could be horrifying, Dennis stopped him on the last one, “How the hell could you get away with murder on this ride if it wasn’t abandoned, though? I doubt someone could walk away ALL that easily, keheheheheh!”

When Ry asked if Dennis had anything to talk about, the prankster rubbed his neck. He didn’t say something for a minute but finally admitted, “My birthday hasn’t been completely shitty, dude.”

Ry sat there and nodded his head, straightening his mouth out into an approving line. “Well, you have a point about that… From the junkyard, to the burning buildings, to the balloons he let Mallory fill with metal, to the robot that nearly slaughtered us… I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a dead body in one of these carts or one out of…however-many-there-are could fall off at any moment with loose screws.” He paused for a moment, leaning over and tapping on one of the screws. “Let’s just hope it’s not this one.”

Leaning back against the seat again, he looked over at Dennis and raised an eyebrow. “You think so…? What else do you consider the wonders of this world? Apple pie?” He asked, cracking another joke about Americans and their obsession with strange things.

When Dennis asked Ry about the murder, Ry snorted and looked forward, stretching his legs out. “Well, honestly… Some people like to playfully shove each other if they’re friends or a couple, claiming the other just pushed too hard is a common story. Then…there’s claiming the other was attacking you…finding ways to fake arguments over financial endeavors is also common.” He paused, and pointed toward the front of the cart. “One false lean over and splat.” He didn’t bother putting emphasis into the sound effect. “Then, of course, there’s just the other being a plain old idiot and leaning over it while and then they fall, but that one is too obvious.”

Pausing, he waited on the usual ‘nope’ or ‘I don’t give a shit what we talk about /insert laugh here/’ but was surprised when Dennis admitted his birthday wasn’t too bad. “…You mean,” he waved his hand and leaned his head back to stare up at the sky. “You mean, today or in general?”

Dennis looked at the screw in their cart for a moment before looking back over at Ry, “I’ll put twenty bucks on a dead body, honestly, keheheheh!”

When Ry asked if Dennis saw apple pie as one of the seven wonders of the world, he honestly said, “Yep! Although, blueberry pie’s damn good too~!”

Dennis crossed his arms and tilted his head to muse over that, “Huh…. Shit. Good point. Makes ya wonder how many people were offed that way? Probably a damn bunch. Keheheheheh!~” His lips spread into a new grin, which faded when Ry asked if it was today or in general.

“I still fuckin’ hate my birthday,” he explained, “But…. Today was decent. Fun even. So.” He muttered under his breath, “Thanks.”

“Mm… I’ll take you up on that bet,” Ry told him, rubbing his temples, tilting the cotton candy to avoid getting any of the dried goop into it. “I bet one of these carts is rigged to explode on someone in the next challenge.” He almost sounded like he was joking, yet looked serious. Who knew anymore about what could be on Ry’s mind. “But if you win, then I’ll fork up some of that blow you gave me for equal value.”

Ry looked taken aback by Dennis’s sudden admittance to liking apple and blueberry pie. He’d expected him to deny it and say that it was weird that so many people liked it for it being disgusting, though…Ry had never had either of those pies. “Well…I’ve never had either, so I can’t comment on that one. Is it really good or what…?”

Letting his mind wander about what the possibility of someone dying on this could be…and how often it happened. “I’ll have to look that up,” he told him, crossing his legs now and taking another bite of his cotton candy. “I bet it’s over one-hundred dead from this stupid mistake over the course of Ferris wheel history.”

A soft smile spread on Ry’s face as Dennis admitted how fun today had been. “To be honest, I’ve had fun with you, too, today. I was expecting to want to murder you more than three times, but I haven’t gone over two.” Adding dark humor to it, he kept from feeling embarrassed about enjoying a day with…Dennis of all people. “Anyway…you’re welcome,” he replied, voice sounding genuine for once.

“….I’ve never actually been to a birthday party, not even my parents wanted me to go out to their birthday dinners.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of fun to…actually experience a birthday, albeit a nontraditional one.”

Dennis grinned and clapped his hands together, “Some dope for proof of a dead body? Ry Ry, you got yourself a deal!”

He then blankly stared at Ry. Well, blankly as in he stared with his usual grin. “Bruh. I thought I knew nothin’ bout the world!”

“Only two times? Awww,” Dennis teased as he relaxed his hands behind his head. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was actually glad that Ry sounded halfway genune for once.

He turned back towards Ry and said, “Then I’ll make it up to ya on your birthday. If we’re still around each other that is, keheheheheheh!”

Ry snorted and looked over at Dennis, not believing he’d actually take up such a shot-in-the-dark bet as this. Granted, if there was a dead body, Ry would be giving up some of his possible sales, but he doubted he’d actually discover a dead body with Dennis next to him. “Dakota and I found a dead body; well, Dakota found it, and I stabbed it with a cane.” He told him, turning his gaze back to the front. “Though…you’re about to lose twenty bucks on your side,” he confidently shot back. There was no way there’d be a dead body on one of these carts.

“Fuck off! Not everyone is going to eat sugar-filled sweets like pie! I can’t have sugar, you know? It messes with my body and causes me to a lot of pain.” He shrugged, tearing off a piece of his cotton candy and popping it into his mouth. “And I know that Americans love to dump sugar into their desserts… It’s almost gross.”

Ry once more snorted and shoved Dennis, albeit gently. “Don’t you dare use ‘aw’ in my presence; it implies that something is cute, and if you ever call me cute, I will…you know what? I’ll just…” Shit…he was running out of original threats. He made a noise similar to a raspberry and dropped the idea, not sure how to finish his thought anyway.

“Mm? That laugh makes me think that you’ll dump glue on me or something at my birthday. Besides, you won’t remember me by the time it’s my birthday; I highly doubt anyone will remember me by that time…” He casually shrugged his shoulders, reaching out to grab another piece of cotton candy. “If you do, then I’ll do a jig.”

Dennis arched an eyebrow at that, ‘You guys found a dead body?! Like… How dead?”

Dennis’s amusement grew when Ry complained that he can’t eat sugar but continued to eat his cotton candy, “Bruh, what do you think cotton candy is made out of? Salt? Kehu.”

“That was a disappointed aw, shortstuff!” the prankster rolled his eyes. He did find it amusing at least that Ry had no creative way to argue with him, so he left it at that.

“I have an elephant’s memory,” Dennis spoke with absolute seriousness for a moment before his usual strange tone returned, “So, you don’t hafta worry about that, huh?”

“You wanna know all the nitty gritty details?” Ry asked, looking over at him with a concerned look. “Well, it was kind of oozing in some places, a little decomposed, jaw-dropped in rigor mortis….” He tapped his chin, thinking about the details. “Oh, and the hair was easily picked off the head. It was pretty cool of a find. I even got Dakota to whack the body a few times.”

It was then that Ry stopped, eyes widened in slight fear as he stared down at the almost gone piece of candy in his hands. “….I didn’t think…” He admitted, dropping it off the side and putting his head in his hands. “FUCK.”

Ry’s eyebrows slightly rose at Dennis’s seriousness and then he crossed his arms at him. “…Elephant’s memory? Hang on.” He put his hand up, slightly shaking now from the sugar starting to run its course, “You can’t just stop there. What’s with you and memory? Not forgetting? Do you just remember everything you come across for later or for a reason?”

Dennis listened to Ry explain about his and Dakota’s find, nodding every once in a while. “Really?” he asked again before giving a hum, “Think it was an intern or some shit like that? Or before Chris ever got here?”

He burst into laughter from what Ry said, “KEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH. IT’S SWEET, YOU KNOW? WHAT COULD IT BE MADE OUT OF, KEHU?”

Dennis tried to play everything off as a joke saying, while it was still the truth, “I remember it so you– and everyone else– don’t have to!”

Ry frowned slightly at the question, then nodded his head, remembering the vivid details of the body. “They were wearing that gaudy plaid button up shirt, so it was an intern, no doubt; however…judging by the smell, I don’t think they’d been dead too long. The skin was mostly intact, though the room was humid, so the decomposition was advanced in its progress. Otherwise, it would have just been that unpleasant odor with limited decomposition.” He trained his vision on the skyline calmly, then looked at Dennis. “So we’ve been here for a while, so I think it’s safe to say, this one died around the end of the first challenge.”

Resisting the urge to deliver a side kick to Dennis, he let out a hiss and then a huff of annoyance, grabbing Dennis by the arm and yanking him closer. Turning his head at an alarming speed, he stared at him dead in the eyes and muttered. “You’d better be prepared to face the consequences then.” Letting go of him, he pushed him back to his original position and shakily hugged himself to try to calm his nerves. Nothing that he had going on could actually hurt Dennis or force him to face the consequences….in fact, Ry was positive he’d get a kick out of this later, but he felt like warning him would at least give him a slight advantage…for now.

''“I remember it so you– and everyone else– don’t have to!” ''Those words caused Ry to momentarily stop shaking, only to resume moments later. Lifting himself back up straight, though still gripping his arms, he returned his attention to the horizon and sighed softly. “If I could give you all of my memories from when I was two years old to now, I would… I would give you every last memory so I wouldn’t have to remember anything. Why am I blind in this eye? Hell if I would know. I’d be content, though… I’d even give you my parents’ memories, too, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them remembering me, the mistake.” Slowly, he let his eyes close and softly let out his usual sigh. “If only life worked like that, huh?”

Dennis crossed his arms and gave a nod from that explanation. That sounded like an intern alright. At least, he doubted it was Alexandria. “Nice find then, kiddos! Keheh!” He gave a thumbs up in amusement at the thought of them finding the corpse.

As usual, Dennis didn’t seem al that afraid when Ry grabbed him. At this rate, he was starting to figure out that his bark was about fifty times worse than his bite. He shrugged when he was let go, “Well, what the fuck does sugar even do to you?”

He turned to face Ry once more before musing, “Wouldn’t it be nice, huh?” He had always wondered about Ry’s one eye, but never really thought about asking him. “So, you’re sayin’ it happened before you were two?”

Ry had to pretend Dennis said “kudos” instead of “kiddos” just to avoid sending a kick his way. “I didn’t exactly expect to find the remains of anyonehere, though. I was thinking Dakota would force me to create a Facebook to send me dead pictures or something. Maybe he’d go to the executions of those sentenced to death and send me some pics from there. Hm…” He looked over at Dennis. “Are you even allowed to take pictures of people being executed? I mean, Canada doesn’t do the execution crap that you guys find necessary. I mean, what’s the point? Are you even going to use the body for something or is it just another waste of time? Besides, why bother killing some of them? Death is just a way to avoid the knowledge you lost everything, and I think having to do that crappy jail work, being shanked, and the other crap is harsher than being shocked or injected. Can you believe someone wanted to reestablish the death penalty in Canada? I bet that person was a fucking dart…” He muttered solemnly, leaning his shaking body back.

Sitting back up and moving his hands to his pockets, he shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to answer that question. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He rhetorically asked, turning his attention to the roller coaster again, feeling a sudden urge to go there. He resisted the urge, however, and just continued to stare.

“No,” Ry stated bluntly, lifting his hand up to rub the right side of his face. “It didn’t happen before I was two… It happened when I was two.” Sliding back on the seat, he moved his legs up and crossed them in the seat, finding no problems in doing so. “The power of rumors can lead a man to drastic measures, which is why I hate them, I guess.” Sighing, he tapped his fingers on the seat beside him. Why bother telling people who will remember? He was positive this would go in one ear and out the other for Dennis, so he decided to continue. “When I was two, there were a lot of controversies regarding my parents. My mom, being successful in her career, received stigma from coworkers, who told my dad she was sleeping with the boss to gain bonuses and her high position.”

Lowering his eyes, he paused for a moment, thinking about the events. “Well, my dad liked to stay out late anyway to drink…so when he went past the time he told my babysitter he’d come back to, she just left the house. So, me being two, was an obnoxious shit, crying and making those stupid babbling noises since I was hungry or something and still not asleep. When my dad came in, he was drunkenly furious about what he’d been told, and if you don’t know anything about being drunk… Well, you’ll know that you make stupid ass mistakes… When he saw his two year old mistake still awake, it infuriated him…and since he didn’t see anything else to hit, he went for the nearest human: me.

“I didn’t go blind right off the bat from what happened, but it kind of went on for years… My parents took me to the doctor for a routine check-up, they spotted the scratch, they gave me meds, the irresponsible babysitter didn’t give me the meds, I was a little shit who didn’t want to take meds, and my parents didn’t give a shit…so when I turned eight years old,” he gestured at his face. “The pupil going missing is something I haven’t cared to figure out.” He shrugged, resting his elbows on his knees now. “Who the fuck cares why it’s gone when I’m permanently blind in the eye anyway?”

Turning his head to face Dennis, he smirked painfully and asked, “How fucked up is it that the beating is my first memory, though?”

“Do I look like an encyclopedia of the judicial system, kehu?” Dennis asked with a shrug, “I doubt we could take a picture of some executed guy. But then again, that’s not the only way this place executes. I dunno if it’s always all chill up north for you, but this is the land of the ‘free’ and the ‘brave.’ Neither exists, of course, keh!”

He listened to Ry explain the reasoning behind his blind eye. As usual, Dennis’s expression was unreadable, as he refused to show sympathy. But he did listen. Ry was abused. Something he could tell before he went too far into his explanation. The fact that it went on for years didn’t seem to make matters any better; of course it wouldn’t.

“Mystery of the missing pupil,” Dennis snickered in reply. For a minute, it seemed like Dennis was making light of it. And in a way, he was; to break the levity of the situation.

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” he mused, ‘First memory or not, that’s the law of karma, y’know? But I never thought it’d be literal, kehu.” He said no more, but it was obvious he was implying that Ry’s dad would officially get his in the future in return for making Ry blind in one eye.

“From the way you act, I’d assume you’d know a thing or two about laws since you have to know how to get out of certain situations if you’re caught…or if you can get away with finding loopholes. There’s more ways than electric chair and injection? I mean, legally,” he elaborated, hands gripping the edge of the seat. “Mm…” Ry paused, looking over at Dennis at his comment about Canada being chill.

“We’re more than our stereotypical niceness, you know? We have people who still commit unspeakable actions and indigenous people go missing every single day. Sometimes, people think I’m indigenous and the comments are so brutal.” He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “There’s even a whole town that’s being charged over one-hundred dollars just to buy a simple bag of milk for their children.” He explained, then reached up and tugged on his red hair for a moment, wincing slightly. “Anyway, I know about the horrors of America, BUT I want to know about taking pictures of dead things, not the book of American pow pow laws.”

Ry closed his eyes and sighed softly at Dennis’s joke. He wanted to think he’d get a serious response for once, but he knew deep down that it would be better in the long run that Dennis didn’t retain any of this. If he did, then Ry would shove him out of this cart and be done with it. “Exactly what I meant,” he bitterly responded nonetheless.

Reopening his eyes, he looked up at the sky and stared at it for a while, not moving or responding. It wasn’t until the next rotation that he looked at Dennis and continued, “If you think he’ll find bad karma after sixteen years, then you’re delusional…and have high hopes that I’ll actually make it until my next birthday. I bet he’s sitting on the couch right now, squeezing the cushion and glaring at the screen, realizing that I actually ran away to be on this circus of a show. Once I go home…who knows? If I win, I may never go back and go into hiding…or I may have to go home.”

He once again shrugged like it didn’t bother him, then turned to look at Dennis. “A tooth for a tooth? You going to talk about how you actually have a fabricated gold tooth or something?”

“Loopholes is like my entire life!” Dennis explained, “I’m not one to do all this fuckin’ rule shit, so I just improvise, keheheheh!” This was a half-truth. Dennis’s misadventures actually were less improvised and more planned, but when shit went wrong, he would usually bullshit himself out of situations.

Dennis furrowed his brow in disgust about indigenous people’s issues in Canada. “Fuck all this race shit. And fuck Canada too.” He then added, “I think you could take a picture of dead shit? Like. Freedom of Press or some shit like that.”

“Yeah, fuck his shit,” Dennis shook his head, his straw hat jostling slightly as he turned back to face Ry, “You’re like eighteen, right? You don’t fuckin’ have to go home. Or like. Burn his house down, I dunno.” He shrugged again.

The prankster rolled his eyes before saying, “Man I wish I had a gold tooth. Or a grill. Whichever comes first, kehu.” He then added, “It ain’t a surprise, but. You’re like way melancholic on good shit actually happening for once, you know that?”

Ry decided not to burst his bubble by saying that his pranks had to have some rules to be successful, but he instead just nodded along with him. “I’m more plan based. If one plans fails, then I have a backup plan, if the backup plan fails, then I have a backup, backup plan and so on.” He normally had tons of plans on his mind, since his mind was always creating and un-creating ideas. If he didn’t have a plan for something, then he chose either fight or flight…and it was always flight.

“Fuck the world,” Ry added. Then started to think about all the grotesque images that Dakota could send him. “I hope so… I hope he can, even though I won’t create a Facebook for that.” Shaking his head at the thought of a Facebook account, he turned his attention toward the ground, noticing that they’d gone almost to the top. Turning around, he stared at how much longer they’d have to be on the ride, causing him to grow impatient and shakier.

“If I win this dumb ass show, then I won’t be going home. I’ll graduate high school from my apartment, then go off and open up my theater. A million will get me somewhat there, but I still need to gather more supplies….but I can sell paint and art pieces until I earn enough. Anyway, if I lose this stupid show, then I’m not really going to have a choice… I dug my own grave, I guess.”

Stopping, he tried to shove the mental image of Dennis with a grill out of his head. Shaking his head, he quickly changed the subject to what he said next, yet he was at a loss for what to say. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, swinging his feet slowly since he couldn’t sit still anymore.

“But where’s the spontaneity in that?” Dennis almost whined, “It’s waaaaay too in prim and proper order for my tastes, Ry Ry!” It did make sense to him, however.

He gave a nod and a shrug at the world being awful., before watching Ry turn his head towards the ground. Thankfuly, the wheel was slowing to a stop so they could get off soon.

He waved his hand, “REWIND, BRUH. Theater?” He coulda sworn Ry had mentioned this before, but he wasn’t sure if it was just off-handedly or what.

“KEH,” he exclaimed in amusement at the question, “Well, Ry Ry, if I looked melancholy up in a dictionary, you’d be the picture! That make sense for ya?”

“Well, I can’t say there is any in that, except for outside sources ruining all your plans, like I’m pretty sure you are for many people. How many times have you stepped in a family’s potato salad that took three days to make?” Ry joked, tone shifting from calm to slightly more chipper.

Watching the ground grow closer to him, he gripped the bars of the cart and stared calmly at it, eyes retracting in dilation. “Mmhm… Theater. I mentioned that less than twenty minutes ago, you know? The one that I’m going to open up if I win the million and paint with the lifetime supply of paint? The one that will include almost all forms of indoor entertainment: bands, orchestras, choirs, comedy shows, plays, magic shows, the works… All of it, there. At my theater, live….” His voice had suddenly taken a shifting turn toward speed and height, dropping almost all dullness that had once hoarded it inside himself.

Yanking his bare feet down from the bar in front of them, he stood up and stared down at Dennis for once, eyes almost looking like they’d lost all darkness. “Well, if I looked idiot up in the dictionary, you’d be there with references to all synonyms!” He retorted, saluting him and, using his leg strength, jumped over Dennis to land on the ground below them, only about six feet from the ground, but it was still something you wouldn’t expect Ry to do nonetheless.

“Three,” as per usual, it was hard to tell if Dennis was joking or serious. Probably the former. He looked at Ry in confusion at him being chipper however.

Dennis furrowed his brows. Wait, he did, didn’t he? He blamed it on not having his “candy”, giving him a slight memory lapse. He’d have to take care of that when he got to the hotel.

“Just testin’ ya!” he lied with a snicker, “How fuckin’ frou frou.” However, the idea of doing a comedy routine there did interest him a bit.

He almost shot back an asshole remark at being called an idiot, but instead watched Ry bail from the ferris wheel. Dennis waited until the ferris wheel to reach a certain height from the ground before climbing out.

“Uh,” he turned to Ry, “What in the fucking fuck?”

“Probably more than that,” Ry muttered, crossing his shaking arms at the bottom of the Ferris wheel, having decided to wait on commenting on any of Dennis’s comments, his feet were unable to stand still at this point.

At this point, he was just so amped to run… Where? He didn’t know. Everything in the world was just too slow at the moment. The Ferris wheel was entirely too slow of a ride for even his senses. “You’ve gotta admit that it’ll be a fun place to go to. I’ll have so many ideas for it. Comedy routines better be good because I will install an entire stage trapdoor! All their props, beer, and stools will go down with them! What the fuck does frou frou even mean?!”

The landing on the ground actually was part of the reason Ry couldn’t stay still; his feet were on fire from landing on the asphalt so roughly. When Dennis reached the bottom, he’d already turned around to start heading off down the street.

“Hurry up! I’mtoofreakingstoked!” He yelled, voice raised to a new volume for even him. “COMEON! I want to do something! You have no idea how much I WANT to do!” Ry spoke up, turning around at unnatural speeds to grab on to Dennis’s arm once more.

“Come on! Do you think there’s a ride that can chase us!? Let’s do that!”

Dennis stared at his teammate for a minute, confusedly. Wait a second. Was this why he couldn’t have sugar? This could be something that could be an ace in the hole later. Noting it, the next thing he knew he was pulled forward by Ry.

“It’s an amusement park, bruh, it won’t go nowhere, keheheheheh!” Dennis happened to start snickering, “But fine, fine! We’ll do somethin’ then!”

He mused for a second. A ride that would chase them? He mused for a moment on something death defying enough, looking around the area as they ran past attractions.

“How do you know what Chris has planned for this shit hole??” Ry asked, turning around and abruptly stopping, nearly sending them both to the floor. “To save money, he could sell the rights to this amusement park to some big time execs and then what?! You want to fucking tell me what would happen then?!”

Continuing his pace down the sidewalk, he shakily twitched every once in a while, revealed just how badly the sugar was affecting him. “Aride…Aride…Weneedtofindaride…” He muttered to himself, not bothering to glance around even once to try to find the ride he was looking for.

Quickly turning around, he continued down the path, heading back the way they had just gone. “Fucking hell! This place sucks!” He yelled, swinging his arms up. Stopping once again without warning, letting go of Dennis,he spotted something nearby and smiled similarly to one Dennis wore. “New idea!” He shouted, racing off into a building without waiting to tell Dennis what exactly the grand idea was, though the outside of the building revealed it was a fun house.

“Yeeeeaaaaah,” Dennis couldn’t really find any disagreements there, “Awright, awright! We’ll find you a ride! Chillax, bro!”

However, that ended up being harder than he thought. While Ry barely looked, Dennis had his eyes peeled. Not much luck from what he could tell.

“It’s a McLean deal, dude, of course it sucks, kehu!” Dennis amusedly replied, before watching Ry run into the fun house. He sighed for a second, since he was alone, breaking his grin for a few seconds, “More running. Yaaaaay.” He quickly slipped back to normal and ran inside the house after the other boy.

Ry, who had stopped at the entrance of it, seemed almost in a loopy state of calmly, a smile planted on his face, but it didn’t read sweet or genuine; it just read sinister and full of ideas. Instead of turning around to wait for Dennis, he bent down and yanked a mask off a fallen mannuiquin calmly. “You’d be surprised how fun a place like this could be…” He mumbled to himself, placing the mask on his face.

Slipping into the shadows, he waited for Dennis to come running in. Jumping out and shrieking, he waved his hands in front of him, head twitching from the sugar. He didn’t even want to scare him per se, knowing fully–or assuming–he was too smart to fall for something like a jump scare.

Yanking off the mask, he stared up at Dennis. “I propose…a wager.” He stated, bouncing calmly on front of him, eye twitching. “just…to spice things up! I wager all of my cocaine and…the rights to the keys to Chris’s private trailer for…” He stopped, not sure what Dennis had to offer. He waved his hand quickly at him, not bothering to state the plan he had in mind.

Dennis entered the fun house and looked around for a minute. However, he was suddenly met by Ry jumping out and screaming, causing Dennis to give a sight yelp in return.

He quickly composed himself however at the word wager, “Huh. Wager…?”

“Keh, of course!” Dennis remembered that he mentioned a way of income earlier in the season and said, ‘Would ‘ya take…” He slipped into a gameshow voice, “250 dollars and a new car?! Well, not that last one. 250 bucks and some of my weed stash.”

Ry, finding the fact he’d given Dennis a startle actually hilarious, broke out into a fit of laughter, holding his sides. “I can’t believe I actually SCARED you! Withhowmanytimesyouscaredme!” His words running together as he continued to laugh. If he’d had a camera… “Oh, I hope I find the camera room! Instant replay!” However, by the time the sugar ran dry, he’d be on the floor, groaning, and wondering where the hell he’d been. “INSTANT. REPLAY!”

Throwing the mask to the side and nodding his head at Dennis, he let the smirk return. “Course! What’s a game without a WAGER?!” He asked, still speaking faster than normal.

Ry’s eyes almost looked like they’d spark into little money signs, but he refrained, clearing his throat and letting the smirk return to his features. “Deal! I don’t need a new car anyway! I have my dad’s motorcycle! He won’t miss it! Though I’ll take the other two options! Unless you find a new car! Then I’d take that!”

Pulling the mask over his face, he slowly began to move back. “The game…” He started, reaching his hands out to the sides. “Is…” swinging his arms down, he knocked buttons, causing the fog machines on each corresponding side to erupt into a thick fog. “Man hunt!” With a final word before turning around and rushing deeper into the funhouse, he said, “Go!”

Dennis crossed his arms for a moment, before shrugging and saying, “Yeah, yeah, for once! Don’t get used to it, kid!”

He then grinned, ‘Oh, man, this could be choice! And hey! You steal your dad’s motorbike, I take my moped and we can hit the road and cause some chaos, keheheheheheheh!”

Manhunt? Dennis barely caught wind of it before seeing Ry head in. A determined look crossing his face, he followed after Ry, snickering as he ran. In a way, this was the most fun he’d had since he was young.

Ry paused at being called a kid and flipped his knife out of his pocket calmly, though still shaking and twitching. “Call me kid again and I’ll make you experience things from my point-of-view, Denny’s.” He clicked his tongue, slipping the knife shut and staring up at him. “Hmhmhm… I’ll get used to this feeling.”

Pausing he wondered what kind of life that would be. Chaos. “Ha, when pigs fly, dart!” He jabbed back, snorting. “Dumping buckets on heads full of water versus concrete mix! That’s the kind of life you wouldn’t get used to with me. I’m too dangerous…” He waved his hands, turning around immediately.

Rushing into the first sector of the funhouse, he stopped at the entrance, kicked the switch, and rushed inside. The area was the swirling tunnel of colors, creating the immersion optical illusions that would make most people either sick or dizzy. Stopping in the middle of the railing, he peered over the edge and then continued onward down the railing, keeping his head lowered to avoid watching the spinning display around him.

“You’re going to have to work for the keys~!” He shouted back, stopping at the ending, waiting on Dennis to at least make it halfway before rushing off into the next room, which had the lovely symbol of the mirror plastered cheaply above it.

Dennis, just to continue to be annoying, said, “Hey! Welcome to Denny’s!” But at the same time, kept his usual grin.

“You’re too dangerous yet you’re actin’ like a kid in a candy store, keheheheheh!” at the very least it was an amusing diversion. As Ry ran off further into the fun house, the prankster followed suit only to be met with a barrage of colors.

Almost falling for that trap, Dennis took his straw hat off his head and held it in front of his face, ducking low and heading forward.

“You asked for it, Ry Ry! Let’s see what you got!”

“You better have good customer service, because you’re about to lose over two hundred bucks, a bag o’ weed, and a fucking new car!” Ry shot back, keeping his distance from, almost looking like he was enjoying this too much. He might actually think of something with his mind moving ten times faster than normal.

Shivering loudly, he stopped in the entrance to the mirror room, letting a malicious chuckle fall back to Dennis. “You’re wrong! I’m the candy story from fucking hell, Denarius!” Okay, bad nickname since it was just calling Dennis money, but he was running out of things he call him that began with the first three letters of his name.

Watching Dennis skillfully manage to block out the colors, he glanced around the area, looking for something to throw back at him. Only seeing a pebble on the ground, he sighed and picked it up, pocketing it and rushing inside the room, slamming the door behind him.

Once inside the house of mirrors, he nearly reeled back in disgust at his own reflection, hating the sight of his tired and slightly morphed face. “Tch… See what I got… Let’s see what you got…” He muttered, rushing through the mirrors, managing to gain an advantage by slipping between two mirrors that were slightly more wedged apart.

Glancing around the room, he wondered how he could possibly fool the prankster here. Bouncing from one foot to the other, he bit his lip and bent down to tie a piece of string that was laying around from one mirror to another, not expecting this to work at all and continued on his way, glancing back and forth through the maze of mirrors.

Then it occurred to him: lights. Turning around immediately, he threw the newly found pebble up above, causing it to hit the only dangling bulb in the room, forcing the room into an eerie darkness.

“Hey, I never promised the car, you fuckass!” Dennis called out. He grinned and tried to speed up some, stopping when he finally made it to the mirror room, lowering his hat when he did so.

Slipping inside, he was shocked by the lights going out. A plan, was it? Well, he forgot one thing.

Dennis’s lighter.

Making a small light so he could see, he began to feel around the mirrors, hand on the left side, using that old trick to his advantage.

Then suddenly he tripped, the lighter closing and sending him in complete darkness again.

“No fair, bruh!” he called in annoyance, standing himself back up. Of course, his lighter was now missing. Holding his hand on the left hand of the room once more, he began to traverse the maze of mirrors again. In a way, he couldn’t say shit about it being fair. It was similar to the shit he did after all.

True he was never promised the car, but Ry would still dangle the idea over his head to gain either an advantage or a new car, either one right now. “You presented the option!” Ry’s voice echoed through the room, creating slight confusion on exactly where he could be.

When Ry saw the faint glow of fire, he nearly grimaced and turned to run straight out of this room, knowing full well his plan was a failure. Any source of light was bound to give him away at any moment. If this kept up, then Ry would be the prey the entire damn time they were playing this game.

Then he heard the marvelous sound of feet tripping and something clunking heavily and sliding across the floor.

“HAH! It doesn’t feel so good when you’re the one tripping over something you can’t see, is it?” Ry asked, enjoying the fact this had actually worked. Even though he probably wouldn’t remember this when he woke up and his body was starting to ache, he let himself fall into a state of laughter for at least a few seconds.

“All’s fair in Manhunt, Den! ALL’S FAIR IN MANHUNT!” He called out, turning and running into a mirror the next instant, realizing his fatal mistake now. Slapping his face in annoyance, he quickly jumped back to his feet and ran in place, unsure of what to do in this moment.

“I TAKE BACK THE OPTION; ESPECIALLY SINCE I WAS TRIPPED KEHU!” Dennis called back, a little annoyed by the resounding sounds. He looked around for a moment as he continued to feel through mirror maze.

He stopped momentarily when he heard Ry call out and then hearing him pace. Wait. What the fuck was he DOING? The sound seemed to have been coming from the same place.

Regardless, he didn’t let that change anything, heading towards the noise saying, “RIGHT. ALL’S FAIR IN MAN-HUNT ISN’T IT?” He dug in his hoodie for a new pranking item. If Ry didn’t do something, he’d be cornered by the black cupid.

“You really are an American if you go back on your word…or German! Either one works in this scenario! But in my culture, or what I just made up now, you can’t take back what you already dealt! So suck up your scraped knee, or go cry to the nurse!” The lapse in judgement had cost Ry nearly a minute of time just trying to think of what to do.

Climbing was an option, but these mirrors couldn’t support him, even if he was almost as light as a feather. Besides, he had no foot holds to keep him steady if he tried! He’d just be slipping and sliding down the mirror. “Damn it…Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnit…” He let out a quick sigh, stopped pacing and remembered he was barefooted, then he remembered Dennis was also barefooted.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing mind and heart down to think. If he kicked the mirror, then he’d send glass shards everywhere. The chances of him getting glass in his feet was also evident there. Then again…should he take this far enough to actually do that?

Turning on his heels, he quickly began to pick up the pace, heading further into the maze, keeping his hands outstretched toward the mirrors, mind formulating a plan. Reaching a turn, he stopped, stared at a mirror, made a quick face in it, then continued on, deciding against smashing a mirror.

He’d just possibly made an ally; no reason to squander it, even if he wasn’t thinking right; however, when he tried to turn again, he slammed back into another set of mirrors, groaning softly at his own ignorance of how mazes worked.

Dennis shot back,”I’m not even fully American, you pendejo!” He continued to grow closer, continuing to use his left hand to keep him from getting lost in the maze.

He finally ended up hearing a groan. Was that Ry? He assumed no one else would.

“KEHEHEHEHEHEH, I’D RUN KI– OW.” In his stubbornness, he then bumped into a mirror s well.

“Eheh, you didn’t hear that,” he called out before focusing once more on catching the other teen.

“What the fuck do I know about you? You could be a figment of my imag—No, wait, I wouldn’t make someone who’d annoy me this much!” Ry voice quavered in the darkness, showing he was really unable to control over his tone or how fast he talked. “So then I don’t know you! What if you’re actually Santa Claus? Wait, then why would you be on this show?”

Was he stalling because he didn’t have a plan yet? Probably.

When he realized how close Dennis was to him, he paused, pushing back with his feet to avoid being tripped on by him. Then again….they were both hunters here, so if Ry caught him in a leg trap, he’d be the victor.

Pausing, he spread his legs out in the darkness and leaned forward like he planned to reach for his toes. The plan was to pretend his upper body was further forward than it was. “The one who should run…is you…” Pausing, he added, “Of course…I didn’t hear you do what you do everyday—heheheh. I didn’t hear you make an ass of yourself.” He quickly moved back, careful to avoid moving his legs in the process.

Dennis stopped and paused at that. Okay, even to Dennis he could tell Ry was getting delirious. But of course, he played along, going, “HOHOHO. I KNOW YOU’VE BEEN NAUGHTY AND YOU’RE GETTING NOTHING BUT COAL.”

Dennis almost moved again, but when Ry said they should run, he stayed still. How close was Ry? How far was he? If only he still had his lighter right about now.

He could spray Lavender’s hairspray, but that’d probably end up with him getting another knuckle sandwich similar to Baroness’s dislike of his methods.

His slingshot? His slingshot! It was either do or die. Pulling the small make-shift slingshot out of his pocket and placed a ping pong ball in it. But where would he aim? He was still barefooted after all.

So, he aimed up at the ceiling of the mirror maze, hoping to make Ry thing he let something worse than a ping pong ball fly.

Even in his state, that statement filled Ry with instant regret. Why did he ever call anyone Santa? That only always resulted in the most disturbing responses known to human kind alike. “How about you don’t come near me???” He shouted back, face becoming horrified to have ever heard his teammate say that. It’s probably a good thing Ry wouldn’t remember this…or if he did, he could just pretend it was something someone he didn’t hang around with had said.

The sounds of Dennis stopping and not moving made Ry mentally curse that his plan had failed. Then again, he just had to stay as still as possible; enough nights hiding in his closet had proven useful for this time.

It was then that Ry heard the elastic band of Dennis’s slingshot and then the familiar snap of it letting loose. What did he send flying in the dark? Did he want to break a mirror?! Oh, now Ry regretted not breaking a mirror back there…

Closing his eyes, he prepared his face for something smacking him, yet felt nothing. He had no idea what he’d done, but he knew how close Dennis was now. Taking a deep breath, he jumped to his feet and took off down the way, right hand touching the mirrors around him.

His one fatal flaw in the plan was: yelping when the small ball hit his head on the way down. Well, that just gave his position away.

“KEH,” Dennis exclaimed in reply. Well, Ry started it. If he couldn’t deal with weird responses, he shouldn’t have asked a weird question. Although, Dennis usually gave weird responses anyway.

Did he hear Ry move again? So his fake out worked. What he didn’t see coming was the ping pong ball to hit Ry, giving away his position. If anyone asked, however, yes; he prepared for that.

He headed off behind Ry once more, hand touching the mirrors. Ry was faster than him, that was for sure. But Dennis for once was the more calm of the two. If he kept his mind together, this would be fine, unless they ran into a new, different room.

Ry wouldn’t comment back on that, finding it disturbing enough that he’d heard it in the first place. Well, he’d let Dennis have the last laugh…for now… There was no point in revealing more of his position than he already did in the first place by arguing over this kind of stuff. He should have called him a pervert… That would have at least stopped him…maybe?

Shakily making his way through the darkness of the mirrors, he wondered who made this place. Did they actually intend for it become a maze of mirrors or did they just not stop building on to it? Skidding to a stop, he slammed into something, softly groaning in the process, but what it was made a sadistic grin come across his face: a door.

Reaching around, he felt for the doorknob. He knew he had to be quicker than this to get out of Dennis finding him. The footsteps behind him were getting louder, causing Ry to momentarily lose himself in a panic, feeling a little corner, until he yanked the door open and managed to slip inside the room, slamming it behind him.

Turning around with his back to the door, he stared forward, noticing a platform raised slightly above a ball pit. Rushing across the platform, he made it to the other side of the room and stopped, turning around to face where Dennis would come in. If Dennis came rushing across the platform… He reached up, grabbing on to a switch, and waited for Dennis to come barreling into the room.

“I GOT….”

As Dennis opened the door, the floor underneath his feet seemed to disappear.

“…YOU?”

Before he knew it, he fell into a ballpit. A ballpit?! Really?! A little dazed from the sudden descent, he began to try to get out. Who knew where Ry was at the moment.

He did, however, grab a couple of balls from the ballpit with him. Why not? Some ammo never hurt anybody.

At the sight of Dennis running in air for a moment, Ry’s state of mind depleted into hysterical laughter and doubling over, resulting in soft snorts to be heard from him. Covering his mouth, realizing his embarrassing mistake, Ry backed up against the wall and tried to control the hysterical giggles.

When he’d managed to compose himself, he leaned over the edge and smirked down at Dennis. “Oh, hey! Guess who just earned another hour in the ball pit?!” He joked, crossing his arms and revealing a sadistic grin.

Sitting down on the ledge, he dangled his feet over the ledge and swung them, tempting Dennis to try anything.

Dennis stared up at the laughing boy for a moment, tilting his head. “Did you just snort–” But this was cut off by Ry using a meme, which caused Dennis to grimace, “DID YOU JUST FUCKING MEME AT ME, WHAT?”

Picking up one of the balls, he threw it up at Ry and crossed his arms. Yet for some reason, he was still having fun despite everything. Maybe it was because he was actually doing something on his birthday for once.

Regardless, he scanned this new room. A room with a ballpit? Where did they go from mirrors to ballpit anyway?

Ry was momentarily embarrassed when Dennis asked him about the snorting, hating his laugh even more than before. It’d always been a sore spot for him ever since he was called a laughing pig in elementary school. Wait, now wasn’t the time to think back into the past!

Bending forward, his smirk widened, causing him to enjoy another quote he’d heard from online. “Hm…perhaps not…or perhaps my level of meme is over 9000!” Though he didn’t normally enjoy memes, he did enjoy hearing the other’s exasperated tone about him doing things he wouldn’t expect.

Ducking backward, he barely managed to dodge Dennis’s ball, listening to it softly bounce behind him. “Oh ho! Giving me ammo, hm?” He asked, gently picking the ball up beside him. “How does it feel to be the one below me now?!” He asked, throwing the ball at Dennis. It was an easy dodge, but it proved that Ry had accurate aim. His legs continued to swing, unable to sit still from his sugarcoated mind.

Dennis barely seemed affected by Ry snorting when he laughed; but then again when you had a “laugh” like Dennis’s, he guessed there was little worse you could go with.

No, he was more annoyed by Ry bringing up expired memes than anything.

“Okay, okay!” he called out, “If I say you can use bruh, can you stop with the memes?!” A ball bounced off of his straw hat, causing him to look back up at Ry again.

“….Yeah, I ain’t even gonna make the dirty joke I could make there since it’s way too easy, kehu.” Well, he would. But whatever.

Ry paused, pulling his legs up and turning himself over so that his head hung over the ledge, turning everything upside down. He’d no reason for really doing this, other than the fact he had no idea what he was doing anymore and just did what felt right in his state of mind. Bringing his legs up, he swayed them to and fro.

“No, there’s no ring on my finger that ever said you could or can or ever will control what I say,” Ry interjected quickly, sticking his tongue out. “So shove ‘bruh’ up your candy ass and let me enjoy my fucking memes, bruh.”

The mention of a dirty joke, caused Ry’s eyebrows to knit together, until he stopped and made an elongated ‘oh’ slip from his mouth. “Like you would be the one above me in that case, Den!” He mumbled, swishing his head so that all his hair moved out of his face. “Would you like me to help you outta the pit?” He asked, smirking at him calmly.

It was a strange sight for the two frenemies to have swapped roles in the situation. Instead of Dennis annoying Ry, it was the sugar-high Ry annoying Dennis. Thankfully, Dennis was glad no one else was around.

“You either get memes or bruh, not both, bruh!” Dennis shot back, crossing his arms.

He then furrowed his brow, before saying, “I dunno, kid, you seem like a power bottom over a top, KEHEHEEHEHEH.”

Remembering their deal, he shook his head, “Hell, no! You’ll use it to get me to lose! I ain’t fallin’ for that!”

Ry snorted and slammed his feet down on the floor, shaking his platform slightly, and turned over to stare down at him, hands on his cheeks now. Blowing a raspberry down at him, he softly laughed, arms still shaking from the sugar inside him swirling through his veins.

“Why not both? Hm? Last I checked, I was the one who could control my vocals! If you wanted to stop me, you’d have to put a ring on it and I wouldn’t accept it anyway, so I guess we’re at a point where I can say what I want, because you. Can’t. Touch. Me.” Ry shot back, smirking cockily at him, loving the fruits of having the upper hand.

Well, Dennis was right about Ry’s position, but he didn’t really wanna discuss that with Dennis of all people. Then again, he had no idea what he was doing or what he was saying, so he rolled with it. “You still wouldn’t be on top of me!” He called down to him, swinging his legs behind him childishly.

“Hoo hoo! You’re smart for once! It’s brilliant that you can use your deductive skills in this case, but you’re still missing one important factor: how are you going to possibly beat me now?”

Dennis mused for a moment, a grin crossing his features. Okay, then. If he really wanted to play this game, oho. Dennis Carlos Cruz would oblige.

He dropped his head slightly and opened his palms, reaching them up towards Ry. “Ah… You’re right. You got me, didn’t you, kehu? Guess I’ll hafta get you my end of the dealio, huh?” His grin didn’t budge however. If Ry tried to pull him up, he was going to try to pull Ry down with him into the ballpit. A cheap tactic, but the best he could do on short notice.

Ry sat there for a few moments, watching Dennis ‘give up’ and wondered if he was trying to trick him or not. If he weren’t sugar-high and shaking worse than a dog when its owner came back from the store, he’d of suspected trickery and just forced Dennis to give up, but he wasn’t in the right state of mind; so it went a little something like this:

Ry took this opportunity and sat up, crossing his legs and smirking down at Dennis. “Giving up?? But I thought we had so much more to discuss! Like, the new car! I was thinking…something good. A Ferrari is idiotic, but I could always use a new motorcycle,” reaching down toward Dennis, he paused and pulled himself back up, milking the moment.

“Then again…you could always get me a used car. You mentioned your moped, right? I could use a moped,” reaching down again, he once more stopped and pulled his hands back up. “OR you could get me a new skateboard! Noona broke so long again, Zeus was such a cheap piece of shit, Fritz was a boring design, and Cracker broke the first day! I could use a spare one for my skateboard, Noose!”

Reaching his hands down the final time, he actually grabbed Dennis’s hands and yanked him up the best he could with his limited upper body strength. “Oh, Buddha’s stomach!”

It took all of Dennis’s strength to stay quiet with everything Ry was saying. Oh, but it would be worth it. If he could just keep quiet enough for Ry to actually pick him up.

Bingo.

“You might wanna ask Buddha for some extra strength, Ry Ry,” he looked up when Ry grabbed his hands, his wicked grin returned. He began to swing and dangle backwards in an attempt to pull them both off into the ballpit below.

Ry knew deep down that it would be a calculated error to even give Dennis the benefit of the doubt that he’d be willing to give up, but he was just so excited to have caught Dennis in a stalemate; or so he thought he had.

Gripping his hands, he stopped and stared down at Dennis with shock on his face at first, realizing his mistake. “Holy fuck!” He started at first, then it quickly turned into a pained scream, feeling like his arms were being torn off at the extra weight being put on his arms. “You fucking castrated dick!”

Quickly moving back, he moved his feet to prop himself up and actually slipped himself into the ball pit to stop the pain in his arms, slamming into the bottom with a thud, causing a few balls to fling this way and that.

A loud bout of laughter left Dennis’s mouth as the two boys fell back into the ballpit. His hat falling onto one corner of the ballpit, Dennis landed on his back into the sea of balls.

“I’m disappointed,” he mused, not moving from his place, “You actually fell for that, shortstuff?! KEH. All’s fair in manhunt ‘n war, don’t’cha think?”

“….Fuck off,” He muttered, ignoring the fact he’d fallen for something so obvious. It wasn’t often he’d do something like that, but his mind was currently a sugar-coated nightmare.

Now how was he going to get out of this one? For a few moments Ry was silent, thinking of a way to make this go to his advantage, then it hit him, not counting the balls that had smacked his face.

Sitting up quickly, he moved and sat down on top of Dennis. “All’s fair!” He shouted, eyes widened in delight as he crossed his legs and stayed seated on top of Dennis’s stomach. “Submit!”

Dennis’s grin broadened. Oh, he had won this battle, right? He had to have won–

And now he was being sat on, sinking him lower into the balls.

“Guh!” he groaned, before saying in loud exclamation, “NEVER!” Of course, his exhaustion and lack of “candy” was beginning to get to him, so there was little he could do right then.

“Do you not understand your situation here?” Ry asked, leaning forward to peer into his eyes, wicked mischievousness flashing in his own. “I’d make a joke about you giving up or drowning in balls, but that’s low hanging fruit!” He snorted, crossing his arms with a sadistic smirk crossing his face.

“Submit or you perish like my other victims!” He shouted down to him, notexactly equipped with anything himself, but he was sure Dennis would have something in his pockets he could use against him. The irony of taking down the King of Pranks with his own tools was too exciting to turn away from.

“I give you thirty seconds to give up, before I resort to drastic measures!”

Dennis thought for a second. Would 250 dollars really be worth this? Not really. But at the same time, if he gave up, he’d simply turn the heat of his pranks towards Ry even hotter.

Fine then.

“I surrender, ‘swearsies’,” he gave in, before saying, “Now get your flat ass off me!” As soon as Ry would move however, even if Dennis lost this round, he’d attempt to get his revenge. Drugs and money wasn’t worth a day of feeling like shit tomorrow but Dennis was still one who hated to lose.

Ry’s sadistic smirk turned downward in slight disappointment that Dennis gave in so easily. He was hoping for a bit of torture to subdue his day, but he knew it was for the best. “It’s not flat!” He shot back, resisting the urge to give him a good smack for saying that to him. “But since you surrender, I guess that means I win, right?”

Uncrossing his legs, he pushed himself up off the prankster and stretched his arms up, glancing up toward the ledge above them, not entirely sure how they’d get out now that they were down here. Stepping over Dennis, he swept down, picking up the straw hat to place it on his head.

“What now?” He asked, body still bouncing from the sugar.

Still laying on his back, Dennis waved Ry off, “Yeah, yeah. A deal’s a deal.” He didn’t have much energy to really argue with him, but ultimately, it wasn’t that big of a loss, especially when Dennis won the money, he figured.

He finally sat up, ignoring Ry’s question and instead asking, “Okay. You do know you’re bouncin’ like a Mexican jellybean, right? The fuck’s with you and sugar anyway, keh?”

“Hm?” Ry turned around to examine where they were standing, trying to find a loophole in an escape from the ball pit prison. He didn’t exactly have a clue why his body reacted this way to sugar or where the sugar went or where sugar came from. Instead of giving him a reasonable answer, he turned back to him and shrugged his shoulders.

“Where does sugar come from? Where does sugar go? Where did it come from, Cotton Eye Joe?” He quickly turned back around, body still bouncing but now he was moving from one foot to the other to keep himself entertained. “We gotta get outta here… We have to get out… Get out… Have to find the exit. Where’s the exit? Who designed the ball pit?!”

Bending down, he picked up a ball and turned toward Dennis. “This is your fault.” He muttered, staring up at the lever he’d pulled to send Dennis down here in the first place. “Hey, you ever write your obituary cuz we’re going to die down here.”

At Ry’s Cotton Eye Joe crack, Dennis couldn’t help but laugh a non-keh laugh at the irony. “Well, shit. That was somethin’ I never thought I’d hear from you.”

He groaned as he got to his feet and began to look round, “There’s gotta be some way out… Because if there ain’t? We gonna have to work in tandem. Keheheheh.”

“…Yeah, we’re screwed,” he admitted after thinking that over, “Here lies Dennis Carlos Cruz! Died in a ballpit of starvation alongside a sugar high skagemo! Rest in fucking pieces!”

Ry listened to Dennis let out a laugh and joined him, though his laugh sounded strained and tired at this point, showing the sugar was starting to die down. “Never again… Never again…” Ry mumbled, moving around the ball pit, tilting his head this way and that in thought. “Cotton Eye Joe being an STD, you will never hear me utter that again… Never again… Heh, it would be funny to think I would get one. Never again…” He paused under the platform, jumping up to try to give it, groaning loudly when he’d failed.

At this point, Ry was scratching his arms and walking around the ball pit like he couldn’t handle being stuck standing still for too long. “Work in tandem, like the bike… Together. With you? That wouldn’t work.” He muttered softly, stopping next to him. “You’re not strong enough. You can barely handle me sitting on you, so if I were to stand on your shoulders, you wouldn’t be able to handle my weight. If you stood on me, you’d just trick me and run off, either leaving me here or demanded I submit my side of the bet back to you, cuz who wouldn’t want the keys to Chris’s trailer?”

Stopping at the bottom of the platform above them again, he turned back around to Dennis, taking off the straw hat, “BUT…you’re not in pieces, are you suggesting you want me to cut you into pieces? I could do that, you know?” He replied, pulling his knife out and flipping it open. “I could…but by the time I would be done, you wouldn’t be dead next to a sugar high skagemo, nope. You’d be dead next to a hung over and wishing to die quicker skagemo.”

“Never again?” Dennis repeated, teasingly. So Ry was exhausted too. Great. They were both tired as hell and trapped in a ballpit. Well, they got out of worse, right

He then looked legitimately frustrated for a moment at what Ry said. Not about him not trusting him, he understood that. Not about him saying he’d cut him to pieces, he had figured out Ry’s all bark, no bite for now.

No, it was even though Ry was right about his physical strength, it bothered him.

“Well, do you have any decent ideas, shortstuff?” he asked, turning away from Ry. He decided to take inventory of what he had on him. A lot of the stuff wouldn’t be able to help any and he cursed under his breath. Great.

“Nope. Nope.” Ry stopped and turned around, his head shaking at Dennis’s remark, body still continuing its bouncing, actually helping him think about what they could accomplish here. If he just had a chair here, they could use that to get out, but what could they use as a chair?

Neither of them were strong enough to lift the other up, nor give a boost with their hands…

Once more, he paused underneath the platform, jumping up in an attempt to touch it, then it hit him…and it didn’t sit well with him. “I have an idea, yes… Yes, I do, but I don’t like it… But you will like it, but I will not. Nope, I will not like it one bit.” Bending himself down, he pointed at his back.

“Springboard. You can use me like a springboard. Since my legs are super strong compared to my arms, you can jump on me and I can send you up high enough to get on the platform, but…” He bent back up, staring at him. “Then you may leave me here and I will starve to death. Better than going home… Better than going home…” He turned around and stared up, then turned back to Dennis, tossing him his straw hat.

“That is my only plan, if it fails, then we will eat balls for dinner.”

Dennis stared up at the length up. Too weak. He was too weak to climb up by himself. Or to balance Ry’s weight. Even worse, he could easily break a bone, couldn’t he?

He heard Ry speak and grabbed his straw hat when he threw it. Placing it atop his bowl haircut, he looked up once more. No, there was a way he could get them both up, but it’d be murder on his body later.

But unfortunately, that was friendship was, right? If this really was friendship.

“Then get ready to springboard me,” he grinned towards Ry, “Although it’ll suck to be you. Probably.” He hated what he was about to do. But it was do or die.

Ry sat there for a few moments, turning himself this way and that. It looked random, but he was actually figuring out the approximate angle that would optimize Dennis’s jump up. If he did it just right, then it would be a perfect leap, maybe…a few bruises, but it would be way better than a stomach slam.

Facing Dennis now, back to the platform, he quickly bent down, leaning his head down for Dennis. “In between the shoulder blades. That is how you will find a good footing. Yep, a good footing…good footing…”

It’d hurt like hell, but Ry would be able to propel him far enough to get him up there. “Hurry up before I change my mind and decide that plastic sounds more delicious. If you go out, you can find a chair and come back to get me. Yes, do that…just don’t leave me here to die.”

Dennis moved over towards Dennis, giving an amused laugh, “Leave you here to die? Gotcha.” He looked up at the area. A chair in a fun house? Right. Like that’d work. He flinched a minute, before turning back to Ry.

Placing his foot down on Ry’s shoulder blades, he let himself be propelled upwards, his height accomodating for the distance, and reaching the top. His arms and legs were scraped on the way up and he knew he’d have a bruise or two, but…

He wasn’t done, however. Turning back onto his stomach, he crawled forward on the plank, stopping when his knees reached near the edge. Letting his body hang limp, something easy for the amount of exhaustion he had, his lanky body hung like a ladder.

“Get off your fuckin’ ass, you limp dick!” he called out to Ry. If he couldn’t pull Ry up, he’d have to hope Ry was a decent climber.

Ry closed his eyes, waiting on Dennis to use him, body shivering and shaking from his energy going down. It wouldn’t be long before he needed to either eat more sugar or crash, but he’d at least find someway to get out of this stupid pit of dirty jokes waiting to happen.

Before he could respond to Dennis, he felt his body pressed down by weight. With a pained yelp, he used all his leg strength to send Dennis up the best he could, falling back down into the ball pit once he felt the weight shove him down.

“My spine!” He called back up to Dennis. “I wonder if you can see it!” He pressed his palms to the floor to push himself back up, turning around to look up at Dennis. “You sure you want that…?” He asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. Something like that could literally pull Dennis apart, but that was probably just because Ry was so hyper everything was more exaggerated.

“Limp dick, my ass…!” He stopped, realizing how that sounded. Quickly grabbing on to Dennis, he managed to pull before yelping in pain from his stomach injury. “Holy fucking hell!” He cried, though he continued to move up, managing to use Dennis like a ladder to climb up, legs doing most of the work.

When he finally managed to pull himself up, he collapsed down on the only area of land and reached back toward Dennis. Gripping on to him, he pulled him back up to avoid him falling down into the pit again.

Dennis glared down at Ry when he asked if he wanted that, “Did I look like I say I wanted it?! Climb up before I change my fuckin’ mind!” And that Ry did. He grunted in pain, having to grit his teeth to ignore the pain. Before he knew it, Ry was up, Dennis was exhausted, and Ry had pulled him the rest of the way up.

“Well,” he finally spoke after a long, exhausted silence, “Keh. I guess we got our adventure for the day. Again.” Thankfully, he mentally noted, it was easier than facing a McLean bot at least.

Ry sat there, enjoying the silence for the time being, seeing as he could barely keep his eyes open. When Dennis finally spoke, he didn’t seem to register at first, body leaned back against the wall. The sugar was finally starting to dial down to a low point, caramelizing his organs, almost like it was trying to stop him dead.

“How many more will we have of these adventures…?” He asked, glancing over at him. “They’re kinda fun… At least this time, we didn’t nearly die, right?” Sure, he wouldn’t normally say that out loud, but it wasn’t like Dennis would take him serious with the sugar rush he’d just had.

“Wait, wait, wait…” He mumbled, standing up, remembering one last thing in his hyper mind. “Before it’s over, we have to do one more thing… One more thing…”

Dennis gave a shrug as he continued to lie on his back. “Hell if I know. Probably some more until one of us gets eliminated. Or unless the show gets cancelled or some shit, kehu.”

He sat up when Ry mentioned one more thing, arching an eyebrow, “Okay, then, Von Schweetz, keh. What the fuck is it?”

“Elim-in-nated, you mean?” Ry’s voice mocked his as he turned around and headed to the door, peeking inside, relief spread over his features that it was a smaller funhouse than many he’d seen on the internet. “Chris won’t cancel again,” he mumbled, head twitching slightly. “If he does, then that’s that and nobody will hire him again; it’s bad business. BAD business, and what would he do next? Cook again? He sucked at that… SUCKED at it. I saw the only episode aired. It was disgusting and the roast beef looked like something Chef would make.”

Turning around, he grabbed Dennis’s arm and dragged him through the door, “Can’t tell you yet… It’s a surprise. Plus, you won’t do it unless I don’t tell you.” He chose to ignore the nickname for the sake of not sending a sugar-filled slap to the back of his head. He guessed he owed him for not leaving him in the pit or something.

“You say tomato, I say ketchup,” Dennis waved Ry off. When Ry asked what Chris could go back to, he said, “He could do that skatin’ show. But then again, the dude’s fucked up enough that they’d probably never let him back on, keheheheh.” And in a way, Dennis couldn’t blame them too much.

Once again, Dennis was being dragged off, which made him say, “Okay, shorty, I ain’t your draggedy-andy doll! I have feet, remember?” He then remembered his exhaustion and instead added, “On second hand, I hafta to do less work if you drag me. So, whatevs, keheh.”

“Ironic,” Ry mumbled, stopping his dragging to wave his wrists for a few moments. “I’m gut-foundered for some ketchup chips now…” He mumbled, grabbing Dennis again to drag him across the ground, groaning softly as he did so. “What the fuck…skating show are you talking about?” He asked, trying to distract himself from his exhaustion, stopping after ten feet to pant softly.

“I had…one of those Andy dolls once, you know? I stabbed out the eye and named him ‘one eye Andy,’ so don’t joke about…Andy…” He warned, once again taking hold of his sleeve to drag him. “Ugh….”

After what seemed like forever, he finally collapsed against a machine, holding his chest and gasping for air. “Fuck…Fuck… I need…to…run…” He mumbled, letting go of his sleeve. “If I don’t get better, he’s going to…kill me. Fuck.” Pointing at the machine, he muttered, “Get the fuck in there…”

“Ketchup chips?” Dennis repeated, arching an eyebrow. He thought he had some odd taste in food and did, but ketchup chips sounded definitely different.

As Ry began to drone on about a raggedy andy doll and then going on to gasp for air, Dennis turned towards him and crossed his arms, ignoring his command.

“Okay, if you die in a minute, I ain’t gonna get arrested for somethin’ I didn’t do; didn’t I fuckin’ say take it easy?!” the way he spoke here was odd to even himself. It reminded him both of himself now and himself in the past. Shaking that off, he waited to see if Ry would change his mind.

“I’m noy about to die. Nobody is going to blame you fo–!” Ry was cut off by the tone Dennis took with him, eyes suddenly widening. What kind of attitude was this…? “Wh…?” He took a few moments to catch his breath before sliding down the machine to sit next to him, face still surprised.

He couldn’t think of anything to respond with, unable to process the fact someone had ordered him around; well, it wasn’t the fact that someone had ordered him around as much as it was coming from someone who took joking to the next level and then sprinkled annoying on top.

For once, Ry was speechless, so he sat there eyes still wide and not leaving Dennis.

Dennis said nothing, trying to replace his “mask” of sorts. He breathed in and out, but didn’t say a word. He wasn’t sure what eve to say after his outburst. Rubbing the back of his neck, he stepped inside the room with the machine. The old Dennis that crept out  disappeared as quickly as he appeared, the Black Cupid effectively back in place.

“Well?” he asked, as he entered the machine, “Time is money, Ry Ry!”

Ry sat there in silence, unable to comprehend the situation he’d just seen. Did he really upset him that much over tiring out? It wasn’t like he cared when he nearly sent him down the stairs or when he nearly set his head on fire, but now he was tell him to take it easy.

Biting his lip, he finally decided to say something, “You’ve never said to ‘take it easy,’ Dennis…at least not to me.” Watching Dennis rise, he knew he woudln’t get anything past what he said there and stored this moment in his memory bank, even if he was likely to only think he’d dreamed it later.

Grabbing on to the side of the machine, he yanked himself up to stand again. “Time is only money when it’s challenge time.” He told him. Making his way into the machine, he took a well-needed seat and held his hand out. “Come on, fork over the fake quarter tied to a string.”

Dennis heard Ry’s words but said nothing. If anything, he knew when people needed to take it easy better than anyone else when it came down to it. But that wasn’t the Black Cupid. So of course people would be surprised.

He turned to Ry and arched an eyebrow, “You expectin’ me to have somethin’ as fuckin’ basic as that?!” Of course, when he reached into his pocket, he pulled out just that. A quarter with a string tied to it, holding it out to Ry.

Staring down at the coin, he smirked. “If the shoe fits, then it is worn,” Ry told him, snagging the quarter out of his hand, tying it around his finger. “Besides, you said it yourself, ‘I don’t care how obvious it is.’” Letting the quarter dangle from his hand calmly, trying to shake the feeling from his gut about the events from a few moments ago.

“It’s strange seeing machines take these George Washington coins, though,” he mumbled, tugging the coin against his hand softly, then stuck it into the coin slot. When he heard the familiar click, he tugged it out, slinging it into the palm of his hand like he’d done this several times before.

The screen immediately lit up in a barrage of almost painful colors, causing Ry to shut both his eyes in the process, blinking the lights away. Rubbing away the lights, he reached up and pressed the start button. “Well, from shows I’ve seen, friends do this stupid thing where they take photos to remember things. “ He explained, turning to look at him while spinning the coin calmly on his finger.

“Long story short, you’re in a photo booth. I guess, I got the idea from Dakota since he takes pictures every time we hang out, too. He kind of confirmed it, but I don’t own a real camera so this will do.”

Dennis shrugged before asking, “What the fuck’s on Canadian coins anyways? Hell, if you guys don’t have a president, is it the prime minister or what?” In all honesty, Dennis knew very little about Canada, and anything to push the conversation away from the past few moments seemed okay.

He flinched at the bright lights for a moment, before turning to Ry confusedly. To remember things? He then scowled. What kind of show was this? Just because Dennis mentioned remembering things.

He quickly moved back to his usual visage and shrugged, “Yeah, sure. Why not? It’s at least not somethin’ that could get us killed, keheheh.”

“Basically, instead of dimes, quarters, nickels, and pennies, we have the one cent coin, five cent coin, ten cent coin, twenty-five cent coin, fifty cent coin, a loonie, and a toonie. The last two are pretty much one dollar and two dollar coins, making paper money less needed. Plus, our paper money is laminated so we don’t have to worry about it ever getting ruined.” He stopped and leaned back, head starting to pound again. “And it’s a prime minister… Steven Harper.”

Ry glanced at Dennis, noticing the scowl, and turned back to the screen to select the options. He decided not to ask about it, instead he made a joke about it. “You making that face because you think the screen will break when it sees you? Or are you thinking it’s going to be because of me? I don’t think it’s really my fault since you…” He reached into his hair and let his hand come back coated black.

“Who knows what could happen? If it comes alive and tries to eat us, then you’re on the inside, so you’ll distract it while I go eat dinner.” Leaning back, he gestured at the options for Dennis. “Go ahead and pick something, but don’t make me regret giving you the chance.”

Dennis opened and closed his mouth, “Okay, a ‘loonie’ and a ‘toonie’? If ‘ya didn’t wanna tell me what they were called, ‘ya just coulda said so, Ry Ry!” He snickered slightly. At the very least, the rest of it made sense to him.

“Probably both,” he shrugged, “I mean, duh.” He acted as if that was obvious.

He mused, peering forward at the options. Strangely enough, he clicked the black and white, vintage option. “This fuckin’ work? Keheh.”

Ry nearly rolled his eyes and leaned back, shaking his head. “Oh, forgive me for not having Sacagawea Coins where I’m from!” He sarcastically stated, lifting his hand up. “A loonie is a dollar coin while a toonie is a two dollar coin,” he explained, fishing out the two mentioned coins from his pocket and holding them out. “If you don’t believe me, then go visit Canada and say you don’t believe they’re real.”

He made a soft noise with his lips and adjusted his hair. “If it sees my hair, it’ll be fine, but our faces are what they make for Halloween masks, like…” He reached out of the machine and brought in the mask he’d used to scare Dennis before. “This little guy here.”

Seeing black and white vintage being selected, he nodded in slight surprise. “It’s one of my favorite options to draw in,” he admitted, crossing one leg over the other. “I mean, charcoal is fun to draw with in general.”

“…They literally named their coins after the Looney Toons?” Dennis finally asked in surprise, “Well, probably the fuck not, but still! Not bad!” He then added, “I thought you said you didn’t want me in your country, kehu?”

“True that,” he agreed about their faces making good Halloween masks, before turning to the mask Ry pulled out, “I’d ask why the hell you’re carrying that around, but I can’t say a damn word, huh?”

He turned back to the camera and shrugged, “It looks good. At the very least, coming from someone who didn’t know that you could draw with charcoal before now.”

“Uh, fuck no. The loonie was named after the design of the coin, or a loon…” He stopped and figured that keeping it at loon would prompt some other mental image. “A type of duck in the water, so it was nicknamed the ‘loonie’ and the toonie was named after the loonie. It was a combination of two and loonie, making the name ‘toonie’ out of the combination.” He raised an eyebrow at Dennis and shook his head. “Well, just avoid where I lived, and you can come across the border.”

Ry shook his head and raised the mask up to his face, tilting his head with it. “Not when you carry round a fucking air horn and give people migraines like it’s a practical joke! Plus, I wasn’t carrying it around, I just put it by the machine after I hit the fog machines and announced the bet.”

“You didn’t know you could…?” He asked, blinking his eyes and lowering the mask. “Well, it’s messy as hell, but it’s satisfying when the image comes out looking like the ones going to be printed.”

“…Yeah, I’m gonna pretend they named their coins after the Looney Tunes, keheheheh,” Dennis amusedly snickered, before shrugging and saying, “I make no promises, yo!”

He shrugged. Ry did have a good point. Not that it necessarily stopped Dennis for doing… Dennis things, of course.

He rubbed the back of his neck, “I have the art skills of a painter with reversed fingers, bruh. Hell, I didn’t know like half of the things used for paint could have been used until I looked it up. But like… Is it hard to use charcoal or…? Outside of being messy as fuck.” For once, he seemed a little curious. He did enjoy the old looking look of vintage photographs anyway.

“Just don’t say it in front of a Canadian wearing a hockey uniform; you hear rumors about us being nice and good-natured with a funny accent…but our hockey players will put their good-natured ice skates up your ass,” he waved his hand calmly. “If you piss them off, then don’t come running to my house; I may keep you from dying by them, but I will kill you at least.” It almost seemed like his sugar high was crashing down on him and returning him to his usual state of mind…except he could feel his head pounding.

At that comment, Ry lifted up his hands and stared down at them, wondering how one with reversed fingers would even look like. He reaching out and grabbed one of his pinkies, bending it back and staring at it before turning to Dennis, face taking on a surprised expression. He was actuallyasking him about his art instead of eating the pictures of fruit? Well, that was a surprise…and not one Ry expected from Dennis.

Turning his eyes to the screen, he gave a swift nod. “Well, with charcoal, it gets everywhere. It gets on your fingers, under your nails, in the palms of your hand, on you face…and sometimes in your mouth if you yawn and put your fist against your mouth like I do.” He paused, sucking in his lips and shuddering. “Not something I really recommend doing; I mean, it tastes like you might die.”

“If you get the pencil crayons, then you’re in serious luck, because those only get on your fingertips–unless you…do what I do–which is great for when you want to shade…but most of the time, my parents would throw me a box of just plain charcoal, so I worked with what I had. I could show you some of my work sometime, if you want.” Stopping for a moment, he couldn’t believe the words he just said. It was bad enough that Dennis had called his art ‘starving artist’ material.

“Oh, pshaw,” Dennis waved Ry off, “If I can outwit a bunch of football players, I can outwit a bunch of ice football players. Probably.” He shrugged. He noticed Ry was coming back to his own, which was relieving, since Dennis was unsure how much longer he could play the straight man there.

Dennis looked surprised at the fact that charcoal was even used with pencil crayons. But his bigger shock came from Ry actually ffering to show him some art.

“Keh,” he replied with a shrug, “Wouldn’t mind it. It’d give me somethin’ different to look at, at least.”

He turned towards Ry and extended his index finger towards the button, “Want me to hit it?”

“Well, it’s not that easy, but if you’re so confident that you could outrun a bunch of ‘ice football players…’ Unless they trap you in a coffee shop of some sort, then you’ll have to use more than flight to get out of that one.” Rubbing his forehead, he groaned and crossed one leg over the other. “Do you outwit them by running down a street or do you put hot sauce in their jockstraps? I prefer the second one.”

Turning his head to look at him seriously, he muttered, “Nobody touches my sketchbooks and rips a page.” That experience to him had been one of his near blind rage moments, but he knew how to get that one football player back. Well, the whole team got his wrath, at least.

“You really want to look at my art?” He asked, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. When an artist asks someone to look at their art, they’re either an idiot waiting to be criticized or they trust the person enough not to do it; he wasn’t sure which one he was. Well, he definitely wouldn’t show the anatomy drawings, so it wasn’t like he’d be too embarrassed. “Most people turn down the offer or…touch my stuff without permission. The rarer ones are the ones that look at my rejected drawings on my floor, but all of those are so rare that they don’t even exist to me.”

Ry paused and looked at the screen. Was it too late to turn around and flee from this poor choice of decisions? “Well, what the hell? Hit it, Den.” He lifted up the mask and wiggled it in front of his face. “I’m keeping this.”

“Neither!” Dennis replied, confidently, “Although, runnin’ makes sense nd getting payback makes sense, there isn’t somethin’ more exhilaratin’ than running while consistently makin’ someone’s life hell! Heheh! On the fly ‘comedy’ is what I mean.” In a way, however, he did understand the protective nature over hobbies. Once someone had broke his ping pong paddle, and that was a wild mess for everyone involved.

He shrugged, “Uh, why the fuck not? Like I said, I’m always lookin’ for somethin’ new to do.” Was the rejected drawings what he saw when he went in his room a while back? Probably. Interesting.

He blinked at Ry raising the mask and shrugged, “Whatever floats your boat, kid!” With that, he pressed the button and raised up two fingers on each hand, flashing peace signs at the camera, “Cheese pizza, bruh!”

Ry raised an eyebrow at that description, unsure of quite what it meant. Did he mean that he opened a grease trap behind him while running away from them, or did he mean that he always had a running plan for after he did something shitty? Either way, he shook his head and crossed his arms. “Wait,” he lowered his arms and looked at him. “Isn’t that the name of an improve group?” Taking a sharp breath, he mentally slapped his forehead. Why wasn’t it obvious before to him? Or, well, it seemed obvious now that he put it into that context.

“Then it’s a thing you’ll do with me later,” Ry mumbled, the pit of his stomach dropping off at the thought of sharing art with someone that probably had great lung capacity from laughing so much. “Maybe you can show me just how reversed your fingers are? I mean, being a dick, ping pong, and pranks can’t be the only things you do in your life. If a guy could draw three lines and somehow,” the word somehow was obviously strained and full of vicious annoyance, “get into a museum of art for ten million dollars, then anyone can be an artist.”

A soft pause happened before he added, “You could paint with your blood if you annoy me, so that’s a plus. Wait, no, I would paint with your blood.”

In response to Dennis’s peace signs, without meaning to, he ended up smacking his own forehead in a facepalm. As soon as the flash happened, he looked up and stared at the screen. “Oh, fucking hell.”

Dennis didn’t say a word, but his usual annoying grin broadened when Ry caught onto the reference. “Mayhaps,” is all he said in reply.

“Will do,” he shrugged, before pausing for a moment. They can’t be the only things he did in his life? For some reason, that was both true and untrue, which felt annoying to even dennis.

“Yeah, yeah, paint with my blood, whatever,” he waved him off.

He turned towards Ry and said, “…At the very least, it fits, don’t it? Keheh.”

“With that grin, you mean yes,” Ry mumbled, quietly forming an opinion on this. “I wonder if you’ll ever do clean comedy…” It was actually both literal and metaphorical in his case, seeing as his hair was completely coated in disgusting aftermath.

Ry blew off the thought, not taking Dennis seriously on his ‘yes.’ Seriously, he doubted that he’d come into his room and ask to see his art; who in their right mind visits an art museum anymore? Ry did, but the first part of that saying probably applied to him anyway.

Ry lowered his hand from his face and turned to Dennis as well. “Well,” he winced as the second picture was taken; more so from the fact that his head pounded against the flashing light. “I just didn’t expect such a…Deviantart pose from you.” He admitted, rubbing his temples calmly, the migraine screaming at him for this idea.

“Clean comedy?” Dennis asked, turning back to Ry, “Like… Disney and old ‘80s sitcoms or somethin’? I mean, I suppose I could do that, but where’s the fun in that?”

He turned back to the camera, not ready for the picture and said, “Hey, you fuckin’ bucket o’ bolts! We weren’t ready!”

He turned back to Ry and said, “And you’re hidin’ behind a mask. At least I’m lettin’ the camera see my ugly mug.”

“No, I mean like comedy that doesn’t get mud on people, water on people, shampoo in someone’s hair, burn their handmade quill pens off their head, get motor oil plunged on their scalp, and/or nearly sent tumbling down a set of stairs into the basement.” Ry corrected him, leaning back. “The only good clean comedy I’d ever accept from ye olden times of 90 kids back then would be Studio Ghibli.”

He snorted when Dennis began to fight with the machine and shook his head. “Leave the machine alone; it’s just doing its job. Besides, I wouldn’t fight with a machine after the last one ballistic when you insulted it.” He knew that it wasn’t true, but it was actually kind of funny to see Dennis arguing with the machine like it’d actually apologize.

The mask in his hand itched slightly when Dennis mentioned it and Ry huffed, yanking it off. “I don’t see what that has to do with you being a Mister…” He paused, posing with both his hands raised up in peace signs, “Kawaii desu desu.” It was then the camera flashed and Ry mentally screamed.

“Heheheheh, but why would I stop that either?” Dennis asked in amusement, “Think about it. It’d be more likely that a cat bus from your precious Ghibli would come rolling in before I ever stopped how I show my love, bruh.”

He stopped and stared at the machine before saying, “…Yeah, no, sorry about that, robot overlords, kehu.”

“A mister what the fuck–” he turned back to the camera once again and deadpanned. At this point, even Dennis was getting annoyed with its ability to go off at any time without warning.

Ry raised up his hands and teeter tottered back and forth. “A life without change is a life boring to most,” he said before he stopped and raised his eyebrow. “Wait, you’ve actually watched Hayao Miyazaki’s work?” With a tilt of his head, he tried to imagine that actually being a thing. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you’ll know One Summer’s Day from Spirited Away or that you love Disney so much, that you have a Lilo and Stitch doll hidden in your hotel room.”

With a roll of his eyes, he moved forward and stared at the screen. “Robot overlords… If there are robot overlords, then Chris would have long sense been dead from how much he tampered with them.”

Ry stayed staring at the screen and glanced briefly at Dennis, “You may wanna pose in case it goes off again, you know? This is the last shot, after all…and I doubt you want to have a picture like that.”

“Saw Totoro on TV once–” Dennis then paused, when Ry mentioned Disney, but didn’t say anything. That was… mostly true, minus the stitch doll part of it.

“Huh, good point,” he shrugged, simply, “Kinda makes me wish there was robot overlords, to be honest, keheheheh.”

He frowned when apparently this was the last shot. Leaning his elbow on Ry’s shoulder and raising a thumbs up with his other hand, he grinned int the camera.

Ry scoffed at Dennis when he mentioned watching Totoro once. Who could ever just watch a Studio Ghibli masterpiece just once? He then stopped and stared at Dennis. “Oh, damn, you really do love Disney? I expected you to watch something like…” He paused, waving his hand slowly. “I don’t know… Failed internet videos? Granted, those are funny; especially the one about the cheerleader who died when she got trampled by all those football players.” For a moment he sat there, then added, “Well, of embarrassment.”

Stopping mid-nod, he shook his head. “As sadistic as I am, I still need the million dollars and the lifetime supply of paint, so Chris McLame can live another season, until I gather my supplies and go.”

He noted the frown but chose to not comment on it. What had he expected? These things only shot four shots….unless he was wrong? He was pretty sure they did from the mall ones he’d seen of couples. Then Ry sighed in relief when Dennis didn’t do what he’d expected him to do. As annoying and unnerving as it was that he was touching him, he was still more content than what he’d thought he’d do.

Although he was relieved, he still found the touch and the discomfort rather annoying. So he crossed his arms and gave the camera a death threat glare, until it finally flashed brightly and caused him to flinch.

“It’s somethin’ special,” he grumbled on the subject of Disney, “Like the only fuckin’ thing on this planet that’s pretty damn pure.”

He gave a nod and shrug, “Ehhhh, good point, keheheh. THEN all shit can break lose for McLawn Chair.”

When the final picture took, Dennis watched as it began to print. Was this what friends did with each other? He thought back to his “apprentice” back in Florida for a moment before shrugging to himself and shaking his head.

Ry’s mouth went neutral on that regard. Could that statement even be remotely true? Instead of making a comment on how it was weird that he actually liked it again or anything degrading, he simply asked, “What’s your favorite movie from Disney, then?”

He smirked and stared forward, enjoying the slight miscalculation of what Dennis said. “I’m glad you agree that I’m taking the prize money and paint home. That’ll make it much easier on me. Now I just have to get rid of Ashley…” The smirk faded as he thought about that. He did have a plan to get rid of her, but he’d never tell.

Lifting his hands up, he furiously rubbed at his eyes, relieved he didn’t put in his contacts before he went to take a jog. The added pressure on his eyes caused the migraine to ease slightly but it just rushed back just as furious once he let go.

Blinking the flashing lights out of his eyes, he caught Dennis shrugging and shaking his head. Deciding not to question it, he retrieved the photos from the slot when they’d finished printing. He frowned, though, staring at his own face. “Disgusting.” The upside was that the first two photos had him in a mask so he only had to bear his face twice. He slid that one behind the other and noted that it had slight damage to the side and held out the other to Dennis.

Dennis blinked for a moment, before saying, “You can’t just say you like Ghibli and give me the question without answerin’ it yourself, shortstop.” He crossed his arms before muttering, “Lilo and Stitch.”

He blankly turned to Ry and said, “Bruh, did you forget that I don’t give a shit who wins this shit? I’m only fuckin’ here for the thrill. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose.” While it wasn’t as simple as that, that’s what Dennis was willing to lie abut at least.

“The thing is, chicks like her get the show slanted in her favor for drama,” he mused, “Heather, Courtney, Alejandro, Scott, Mike, Sugar, Middy, Adelia… The list goes on. Of course, that’s just a guess in my fuckin’ mind. If you can stop that, then you might could get rid o’ her.” He shrugged again.

Dennis took the other photo and stared at it for a moment before snickering and handing it back to Ry, not necessarily wanting to keep it. “Bruh, I have the elephant memory, remember? Don’t hand that shit to me.”

Ry snorted and stared at Dennis, wondering if he really cared or didn’t want to admit something by himself. “Fair enough,” he responded, going into thought. He honestly didn’t have a favorite from today, since he’d spent so much time enjoying all the films by himself. He paused and turned to him once more. “When I was younger, it used to be Spirited Away, because I admired Chihiro…but today if I had to say, it’s Grave of the Fireflies.”

Crossing his arms, he stared at him. “Lilo and Stitch, huh? Then I guess I pegged you right there. Now…why?”

Ry had honestly forgotten that Dennis didn’t care to win, because he assumed everyone came here for the money…except no one but him seemed to admire the paint prize. He knew that if Ashley found out about the paint and his need for it, she’d strive harder to win just to rub it in his face. “Fine, but don’t expect me to believe that it puts me in the clear from something you do.”

Ry hummed loudly, which sounded more frustrated than anything. “I guess murder isn’t an option… Maiming? Setting on fire, but Chris is probably played out with fire from previous seasons… Freezing her in a block of ice? No, colds don’t work… I do have a plan, but that’s for later. As for now, I think I know how to stall her.” It was mainly from the fact he’d broken into her room with Dakota. He’d expected her shrill and annoying voice to follow him down the stairs, but instead of that he managed to make it to the nearby park to hide. “Though…if you want, you could… No, it’s too complicated foryou.”

Ry stared down at both prints in his hands again and then back to Dennis. “I guess…I can just burn one later or something…” He mumbled, shoving them both into his skinny jeans.

“Grave of the Fireflies?” Dennis repeated, tilting his head slightly, “Ain’t that about two kids who die in the end? Or somethin’ like that.” While he hadn’t seen it, he had heard the gist.

He gave a hollow chuckle unlike his usual eh nonsense and said, “When you don’t have an ‘ohana’ that cares, it’s damn nice to see one, y’now?”

“Chaos stops for no one, Ry Ry!” his chipper tone soon returned.

He rolled his eyes when Ry said it was too complicated for him and reminded him, “This coming from the dude that fell for my pranks twice?”

“Well, they’re dead in the beginning of the movie, giving dramatic irony to the viewing audience, but yeah…” Ry responded, wringing his wrists in thought. “The real premise of the movie is more about the innocent people affected by the war that most tend to forget about. Then again, I just like the cinematic portrayal of people you thought you could trust turning their backs on you.”

The air grew silent after Dennis explained himself, only giving a stiff nod. “Doesn’t care?” He finally asked, in turn tilting his head. There were two things about families Ry didn’t know: a full-length ‘love you so much’ family and a ‘you’re not there’ family; he’d experienced neither of them, considering his family is broken without the divorce. “…So you experience negligence from them?”

He blew out a steady stream of air and glared at him. “You’re going to leave this show in a body casket, I swear to fucking Buddha; whether or not you’re dead when you leave is irrelevant, though.”

A frustrated sigh escaped his lips and his face tinted slightly red in embarrassment when Dennis reminded him of the failed attempts to get away from his pranks. “I don’t count the fire one since you got me in my blind spot,” Ry lied, knowing he could have avoided that one. “The motor oil one was a low blow, too, so I don’t count that either!” He denied, crossing his arms and turned his head away. “So really you can only say I fell for one prank, since I gave you a splash the first day.”

“I’ll ignore the fact that you spoiled that for me,” Dennis gave a short ‘Keh’ before musing, “Still. War and betrayal in some animated feature or somethin’? Fuck, that’s not cmmon. I’ll give it this; they don’t play if they go that far.”

He shrugged what Ry said off, playing it off as a joke, deciding to not even look at the other boy, “They just don’t ever act like I’m around is all. Hell, it doesn’t even matter how much hell I raise at school, they rarely ever act like I did anything. Kinda plus side, ain’t it?”

He snickered for a moment, “Well, duh. I piss a majority of the people here off. Of course I’ll leave here in a casket or some shit. Ooh, maybe they’ll mummify me if so.”

He arched an eyebrow at Ry and his snickering continued, “Keheheheh, yeah, sure, sure! We’ll only count that one then. But the competition’s still young, y’know? So keep your senses on alert, would ya?”

“That’s like telling me I spoiled Romeo and Juliet when it ''very clearly stated that they die in the beginning!” ''Ry muttered, eyes narrowing briefly. “It’s like telling me that I spoiled Anne Frank, too…” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Studio Ghibli never messes around. There’s so many hidden messages in each film that you have to really pay attention to understand and grasp it all… I’m still waiting on an animated feature about someone like me.” He puffed out his cheeks and leaned his head back to stare upward. “What a boring film that would be.”

Ry sat in complete silence for a while, not moving from the position he’d set himself in. That wasn’t a shock that Dennis wanted attention from all his pranks and shenanigans, but…the story was surprising, to say the least. He bit back a comment about wanting to trade lives and sat himself up, knowing that something like that would just make their situations more trivial. “So your parents don’t notice you and mine seem to teeter totter on what they see? It feels like we’re almost opposite here…” He turned to look at him, tilting his head. “Well, you’ve certainly done enough here to get noticed and mentally scar yourself into my brain, so are you…fighting for their attention or is it just in general?”

With a roll of his eyes, he punched his arm. “It’ll be me or Lavender, you know? But I guess if it’s her, then I can kill her after she kills you; it’d be two birds with one stone. Why the fucking hell do you want someone to stick a hook up your nose and yank your brain out?”

He tightened his mouth at that comment and nodded his head slightly. He could just deny another prank later if he needed to, then…since this weirdly enough worked. He reached out and grabbed the mask, holding it up again, and tilted it side to side while speaking. “You just don’t cheap shot me, Dennis-chan.”

“Ah, subliminal whatever-the-fuck,” Dennis mused with a nod before looking over at Ry, “Boring, but I bet it’d fit all the subliminal shit you like so well.”

“Either way, both sets of folks fuckin’ suck; at least from where I see it,” he admitted before falling silent at what Ry asked him, instead deciding to follow up on the whole killing and mummifying thing.

Deciding to lightly punch Ry’s arm back, he asked, “Do you want me to haunt you the rest of your days, kid? Keh. Although, I bet me haunting Lavender for the rest of her days would be annoying to both me and her if you kill her after she kills me.” He shrugged.

“…Chan?” he asked, before furrowing his brows, “What the fuck is a chan?” He had heard Aki’s parents use it before but that was it.

“Subliminal messages,” Ry corrected him. “I prefer to say metaphors, but I suppose it’s all the same thing when you really think about it.” He turned his head and stared at the flashing screen in front of them, a blank expression displayed on his face. “It’d have more metaphors, subliminal messages, and fucked up analogies than anyone would be able to stomach.”

“If they didn’t want to carry the burden of children, then they shouldn’t have had us in the first place. At least, I know my parents regret ever wanting me in the first place, yet they still want me to be something they can be proud to talk about. Isn’t it ironic? I’m a gimmick.” He raised an eyebrow and hummed softly when Dennis moved on to the other subject.

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost…” He muttered, then stopped with his eyes widening. “Wait, wait, wait…so you’d haunt me, even if she offed you? If that’s the case, then you can’t die and she can’t either, because if you both die and you haunt her, then she’ll haunt me! And all I’ll hear is: ‘Wah, Dennis is being mean to me! Why doesn’t he fall for me and why are you not falling for me?! Why does Kiki have the hots for me only?! WAH! He put gum in my hair! Ryyyy! Why did you kill me?! I’m the hot one!’ I’d have to hire an exorcist or something to get rid of her. You and your pranks I can handle, but her whining is something of a Category Ten annoyance.”

The fact that Dennis didn’t know what ‘chan’ meant surprised Ry, then again… Totoro was probably dubbed when he saw it. Something inside Ry compelled him to lie and see how far he could take it, though, yet he resisted it, knowing he’d laugh crack in the process of lying. “Erm… Chan, if you must know, is something a superior calls someone they view as smaller than them.” It wasn’t the full truth, but he basically was using it that way.

Dennis exhaled in amusement at that, before shrugging, “Good to know that’s exactly the direction a film about you would go, Ry Ry.”

“What exactly does your folks even expect from that?” he leaned back in the booth and put his hands behind his head casually, “This perfect robot of a kid that they can put coins into and the perfectchild is made? Sounds like they got a personal problem to me.”

He then burst into laughter at the thought of that, “Exactly, kehahahahaha! That’s exactly the point, bro! Either way, it’s a win-win for me!”

He glared at Ry when he “explained” what chan meant, “How the fuck do you see me smaller then you wen I’m like. Eight inches taller than you?!”

“Honestly, were you expecting me to have any sort of rainbows in there without a dead… leprechaun at the end?” He asked, raising a tiny eyebrow his way. “If you ever expect something happy, then don’t look at me; I haven’t had a real happy thought in a long time. I think…six years ago was the last one.”

Ry scoffed and shook his head quickly, more from amusement than anything else. “If they could stick a coin in me to turn me perfect, they would. I think they don’t have the right tool for that, so they’re trying to bang my many dents out with a hammer. I wish it were just their problem, but it always comes back to me not becoming what they wanted.”

Instead of taking the laughter, Ry punched Dennis’s arm three times in a row. “You and her are going to make me need therapy! I’m going to die one day and still hear you two’s voices bouncing inside my mind! UGH! If reincarnation exists, you’ll haunt me there, too, won’t you?!” He threw his hands up then brought them down over his chest.

“Hm…? You’re…taller than me? How so? I don’t see a height difference here.” He jokingly stated, moving his hand from his forehead to Dennis’s by slanting it upward. “See? Same height. You’re just smaller than me, because I am clearly the superior. I mean, who owes who favors?”

“Then what the fuck was so happy about it that it gave you won” Dennis asked, masking his curiosity with his usual rough tone.

“Yikes, chillax, Ry Ry!” his snickering just got louder from that, “Besides, if I reincarnate I’ll turn into a fucking bug or somethin’, so how could I– Ooh, a wasp would be annoying enough!”

He rolled his eyes and grunted, “Ugh, if I wasn’t a man of my word… Sometimes. Kinda. Ish.”

Ry lowered his eyes and shrugged his shoulders glumly, a hard to read expression masking how the thought really made him feel when he thought back on it. “Well, if you must know, it was the last time I ever had a crush on someone, I guess. That thought wasn’t really a full one either when the guy was a homophobe and didn’t appreciate me admitting feelings. Ah, but Joey was really just confused and scared, right? At least that’s what my counselor told me before I was suspended for ‘provoking a fight’.” His shoulders once more shrugged though this time more nonchalantly. “So that’s the last time I gave myself a happy thought.” He paused, staring at the other. Feeling like it’d just make things awkward or he’d get called melancholy, he added, “But I guess going to a Fall Out Boy concert was a close second to that one, though.”

Lifting his feet up, he propped them up on the screen in front of them. “Chill? You’re telling the one who is probably stuck with you for the rest of my eternity. Hum,” he paused when he talked about being reincarnated. “Well, at least in my next life, I might not be allergic to bees…so you can’t kill me, then.”

With his back pressed comfortably behind him, he smirked evilly and shut his eyes. “Yeah, who knows what I’ll force you to do. I might actually cash in one of your favors to keep Lavender off my back for an hour, call Kiki a ‘kiwi’ until she punches you for it, or…or explore the most ‘haunted house in this city!’ or so the flyer said. I’m actually considering the last one… The hospital was a bust and nothing happened with the Ouija board…”

Dennis opened and closed his mouth, not expecting such a serious admittance. He quickly backpedaled and said, “Then fuck ‘im, right? If he wants to be a piece of shit, even by either of our standards, I bet, then what the fuck ever.” He waved it off, but it was obvious that homophobia was seen as low even for Dennis; but part of that was from the fact he was bi himself. “But seems like you already feel that way about him, kehuh?” he combined his trademark laugh with “huh?”

Dennis snickered for a moment before saying, “What if I constantly buzz in your face when you’re at a cliff side or somethin’?”

As usual he didn’t seem really phased by the first two things. Hell, he already did both of those things anyway. “…A haunted house?” however, caused him to look vaguely worried as he turned to Ry.

A momentary pang struck Ry in the chest and he leaned forward to try to settle the metaphorically physical pain. ‘Fuck him.’ He probably thought those words a thousand times since the event unfurled for him, but he didn’t know what it even meant anymore. Over and over again, he’d told himself that he was over the events of the past and they didn’t define him…yet here he was, talking about it again. If he was so angry toward Joey and resentful of the situation and over it, then why did he go back to it and feel this sting? His eyes shut and for a moment he looked like he might cry, but he reopened them and turned to Dennis. He momentarily gritted his teeth and set his jaw to think of a response; however, he soon muttered a bitter, “I guess I do,” though he didn’t know how he felt about what had changed him. “Yet I still want to see his decomposing face for myself.”

Once more, he paused at the idea of being near a cliff. Why would he be there in his next life? His tiny eyebrows scrunched together and he shook off the thought and lifted his hand almost like he would slap Dennis upside the head. “You’d have a lot of nerve buzzing near me, then,” he responded, swatting his hat right off his head. “If I’m not allergic in my next life, I’ll just swat you. Hopefully, I still am smart enough not to fall off a cliff over a bee… Maybe I’ll have friends who will come to my funeral in that life, too,” he morbidly added to that.

“Mm?” Ry hummed, one eye opening to peer over at his teammate. The vague sense of worry rang out, giving Ry his first actual reading of Dennis since he’d arrived at this place. “Oh?” His face composed itself but his eyes flickered in amusement. “You’ve never heard of a haunted house? A place where the dead never rested, demons crawl from the depths of hell, and some people can get strangled if they venture too far up in a malevolent spirit’s home? Sometimes, if you’re not careful, poltergeists throw bricks at you and crack them over your head! I’ve heard stories of people actually needing to go to a hospital because of it; but…that shouldn’t be a problem for the ‘Chaos Master’, right?”

“I’ve got so many faces that I want to see dead and buried in the ground, that the possibility of seeing theirs dead before mine is highly unlikely. When I think about it, my bucket list is kind of unreasonable for me.” Grabbing on to his head, he twisted it so that it popped. “It actually would be hard to arrange since he lives in Hawaii and I’d rather not step foot on that island again.” He suddenly grew silent and his eyes widened when a thought occurred to him. “Well, okay… Perhaps I could go there to kill him if I get to spit on my counselor’s grave, too. That stupid fucking bitch suspended me for ‘provoking a fight.’ Well, you provoked that tsunami that killed you, didn’t you?”

His next job would be a painter in his next life? “Well, you’re highly optimistic about me being an actual painter in my next life, but I still think I’d have the brains to kill you before you kill me.” He reached over to the curtain next to him and grabbed on to it. “I could just close this and stab you to death right now, too…”

He released the curtain when he noticed the slight paling and tilted his head. “So Dennis Cruz– the most annoying idiot to walk across the beaches of Florida and constantly causes other people to wish they could crawl back into their womb temperature home—is scared of a little…paranormal activity?” He shook his head in disbelief and waved his hands in front of him slowly. “But didn’t you know that I casted a spell on you already? So you’re technically into witchcraft now,” he joked.

“If you think it doesn’t exist, then why do you look like a kitten in a corner?” He snorted and shook his head. “Oh, I should tell Lavender about this? Maybe I could trade her a secret like this for safety from elimination one day?”

Moving on from that, he nudged him in the arm. “If you think it’s not real, then you shouldn’t have a problem going into the haunted house, hm, Den?”

Baroness:
The Baroness was on her way back to the hotel from yet another day of plundering a couple of nearby abandoned buildings. She didn’t find anything good, however, no. All she managed to find was a somewhat clean Tie-dyed t-shirt and a couple pieces of silverware. Not a bad haul, but no where near what she expected.

It was then that she felt the balloon hit her; She didn’t look up nor did she expect what was in it. Her entire upper torso was completely covered in slick, greasy motor oil. The Baroness was now beyond pissed; of course, wouldn’t you if you had motor oil poured onto you? She knew exactly who was the one to do it too.

She looked up and screamed furiously at her hunch being right. “DENNIS, YE BE A FOOKIN’ DEAD MAN WALKIN!”

Dennis froze from his spot on the roof. He was both horrified, yet thrilled that he hit his mark. Trying to muster as much courage into his usual facade as possible, he turned around and stuck his butt out, patting it twice.

“It’s April Fools, Captain TwoLeg!” he taunted from the roof, “Do I look like I care?! KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEH!”

Moving further up the roof, he opened the door to the staircase. Placing two rollerskates at the top of the staircase, he closed it again, before moving back to the edge to yell down at Baroness.

“You seem upset!” he called down again, “But hey! Oil is considered a type of gold! Enjoy your booty, y’scurvy wench!” He gave an off-kilter salute and burst into another wave of “KEHEHEHEHEH”s.

“I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT BLOODY DAY IT IS, YE BILGE SUCKIN’, LAND LUBBIN’ ARSE!” The Pirate shouted up to the boy’s cheeky rear. He quickly vanished from part of the roof The Pirate could see from all the way down there for a brief moment in time. “AND YE BE A FOOKIN’ COWARD; HOW ‘BOUT YE COME DOWN HERE AND TAKE YER BEATIN’ LIKE MAN, ‘LESS YE BE A COWARDLY SEA LION!” She continued to rant.

Dennis just as soon appeared once more in order to taunt her, which sent The Baroness into a rage. “OH, YE WANT TO FIGHT A BATTLE YE CAN’T WIN? YOU’LL BE DANCIN’ WITH JACK KETCH SOON YE BLAGGARD!” She roared as she stormed into the hotel, dripping oil all over the floor of the hotel. She made her way to the stairs, knowing they connected to the roof, and stormed her way up to the roof. However; she stopped herself just short of the top of the stairs. Why? Because she saw the two roller skates at the top of them.

The Baroness, picking up the two roller skates, angrily tossed the two skates further down the stair well, which caused a loud racket and they bounced off each individual stair, loosing bits and pieces from the constant barrage of impacts. She then slammed the door to the roof wide open.

Dennis stood on the roof, confusedly. He looked around for a second, before yelling down, “Uh! I can’t understand a single fucking thing you just said! It sounded angry, I get that, but it made no sense, keh!”

He watched her go back inside and ended up pondering his options as he moved back to the middle of the roof. Tapping his nose to think what to do, he heard the skates get tossed further down the stairs. He grabbed another three sets of water balloons, these filled with regular water, and hid them behind his back.

When The Baroness slung the door wide open, Dennis grinned and feigned innocence, “Keheheh, sup, Jolly Roger?” He kept his eye on the door, hoping to use the water balloons as a diversion to escape.

The Baroness glared at Dennis with fury and discontent when he asked her what was up. “Oh nothin’ much, the sky be blue, the clouds be white, and if ye be usin’ yer deadlights, ye can be seein’ that yer piss poor ‘tempt at a prank’s COVERED ME IN BLOODY BLACK GOLD!” She bitterly spat back at him as she blocked the door with her body. “Now, ye be givin’ me one reason t’ not be punchin’ the daylights outta ye befer I make ye dance with Jack Ketch!”

Dennis looked back and forth for a moment, before trying to process what that meant. “Yeah, yeah, but what the fuck’s a deadlight? And piss poor?! Keheheheheheh! Talk about a sore loser!”

He cleared his throat, keeping the balloons behind him, “Iiiiit’s April Fools? The day of pranks? The one holiday I was made for? Uh. I don’t get it, Captain Jill Sparrow. What’d you expect? Kehehe.”

The Baroness’ continued to scowl at Dennis, him edging her on evidently working. “Yer eyes ye addlepat, yer eyes!” She snarled at him as she took another step forward, enough to give off a threatening presence but not enough to move her away from the door. “And ye be callin’ me a sore loser when It ain’t a competition; just you bein’ a bilge rat!”

The Baroness stared at Dennis, confused as to why she should expect to be pranked with him around. For all she knew he could break into her room in the middle of the night on her birthday and cover her in whip cream as a prank.

“How should I be expectin’ somethinin’ stupid from ye when ye be more of a wildcard than the wind?” She spat at the boy, crossing her arms and shooting him a death glare as oil continued dripping down from her.

Dennis ignored the pirate’s berating comments and slid, but to his chagrin, he got caught and was now pinned to the roof thanks to Baroness’s foot. Despite it not hurting, he squirmed and wiggled to no avail underneath her boot.

“Fuck, why does your thighs have to be fuckin’ Hulk sized?” he grunted in annoyance, before finally stopping his wiggling.

“Come onnnn, cut a Black Cupid some slack!” he exclaimed, hating to add this, “Can’t ya look past this just ‘cause it’s my birthday?” In all honesty, Dennis loathed his birthday, which is why he celebrating April Fool’s instead. But regardless, he was pretty sure that wouldn’t change much. If anything, he hoped the paradox of the situation would cause the pressure she was exerting to be a little less.

“And why do ye be havin’ a mouth that don’t know when t’ get stitched?” The Baroness snapped back at him, Insulted that he thought insulting her would get him free. In response, she pushed slightly harder onto his back, causing a slight amount of discomfort yet no real injuries.

When Dennis said for her to let it go because it was also his birthday today, she paused for a moment, still keeping her grip on Dennis’ back. It was entirely possible that she would just let him go free. The girl shook her head when she snapped back into reality. “No.” She bitterly told him, keeping her grip firm. “I ain’t be lettin’ ye go cause ye ain’t learn nothin’!” She continued to speak.

“Guh,” Dennis grunted, as she excelled more force on his back, flattening him out on the roof. Thankfully a lot of his personal pains came from his limbs, so it came across as more annoying and uncomfortable than anything. “Can’t take the truth, Nobeard? Kehu.”

“Maaaan, you’re almost as sociopathic as I am,” he drawled at her bitter decline, “Watch out, you’ll end up topplin’ over the point of no return with that cold ass shit~ Kehehe.” At the very least, he was extremely aware of how much of a shit he was. Whether he cared or not seemed to be a completely different story.

At this point, the Baroness became completely tired of Dennis’ antics…not that she wasn’t tired of him before. In fact, she was beyond tired of his antics; she needed to at the very least do something to teach the boy a lesson.

“Ye just be blind n’ be needin’ t’ belay that bilge talk!” She growled at the boy she was standing on, slightly tightening her grip on his back. By now it was likely causing more discomfort; without actually breaking any bones of his. Hopefully this worked; otherwise she’d need to be resorting to plan be.