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#kim pine's precious little knives
paunchsalazar · 5 months
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Scott Pilgrim and company
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johnydreamgirl · 5 months
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i dont think this counts as a spoiler? 😭 also ik scott and kim hardly interacted in the show but
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deadbird42o · 27 days
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Scott and NegaScott is trans now I guess
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They make me very happy 😁
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This is what the little ones are referencing i think this came from the comic
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erikeisenhardt · 3 months
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Scott Pilgrim
23 Years Old
Ranking Awesome
- Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley
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piningprecussionist · 3 months
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Template by @juni38
Im going to be completely frank with you all... and admit that I read these options and wasn't sure how to take this chart,,, so uh. Under the cut is Another Version. I'd apologize but I've given you the option to keep scrolling ¯\_(・・)_/¯
(If you notice characters missing on Kim's side, I probably figured she doesn't know who they are lol)
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For the record,,, if they *wanted* me to pull their hair-- *is shot several times before I can continue*
Uhh Matthew is here because I have been converted fully on he/him or enby lesbian Matthew I think. He lives in my brain rent free now, very gender. I'd pull his hair but also I think he mostly just deserves to have it played with nicely.
And Scott's here because 1) I enjoy trans Scott, 2) Kim Pine Brain Rot possibly, 3) idk he's like,, the exception. God damnit, I've fallen for the inexplicable Scott Pilgrim Effect. What the fuck--
I did think about doing this chart like everyone was actually applicable to my tastes, but even if they were I think the ones I didn't put up would have to fall on the caress side bc I just don't feel that way abt them lol.
Again, not to say that's the case for the gals over on that side,,, I just think I would want to be gentle w them shxkdjsdhbd with the exception for Lynette who probably deserves to have her hair pulled, but again I fear she would Hurt Me,,, but maybe in a fun way,,,
Anyway No One Look At Me....
(,, also,,, Ramona is so far over bc I think she would enjoy it,, otherwise she'd be closer to Kim in that section. Same thing w Roxie)
If anyone actually looks at this version, I'm not opposed to doing a version like this for Kim btw! Just ask for it so I feel like I'm not just Dropping This and scurrying away
#sp comic#meme#kim pine#id tag more people but i Do Not Have The Strength....#also i like Living and I think the idea of more people seeing the suggestively taken one makes me want to Die a little#(not to say you cant reblog this or whatever im just being dramatic shdjejsdhdhgdd I am generally a fairly Reserved person)#for the kim chart- i based my other scott placement on the interaction theyve had here! i think if they interacted for real or more often +#+ he'd end up definitively in the Pull Roughly suggestion with most people#ooc#he maybe if i finish edits for everyone i could try this w the au stuff. kit's thoughts might be different here...#hey*#also let me know if i forgot anyone??? i thought abt including the robots but. no hair. and gideon the cat has Fur so. on technicality-#but like barring parents and peter i think i got most people#i guess if lainey was here she'd go somewhere in the middle or right? w/out knowing what she'd be like#FUCK I DIDNT MEAN TO POST THIS. I MEAN IT'S HERE NOW SO IM NOT REMOVING IT BUT I AM S C R E A M I N G I WASNT READY#ah i forgot crash and the boys actually. thats why i wasnt supposed to post this yet#uhhhh Pull Roughly for like all of them. except trasha. trasha gets head pats and a juice box#except for on Kim's chart. on Kim's chart she's in the pull roughly section I can't lie to myself. she hates that kid 😭 also on that note +#+ knives should probably be in the middle section. like she wants to pull it for her having copped her style and being stupid abt scott.#but I didn't put her there bc I feel like even if she wants to she wouldn't ya know? knives is a Precious Angel after all
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obl1v10nn · 10 days
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scott pilgrim characters response to "would you still love me if i was a worm"
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ramona: scott shut up i am not a zoophile
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scott: ofc bbg 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 your mine forever ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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wallace: what
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knives: of course!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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stephen: what
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kim: i dont even love you now
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forkanna · 6 years
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[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]
NOTES: As Forkannukkah draws to a close, I give you incoming floof and a very tiny bit of almost-smut. Also for some reason, I was listening to a lot of Rilo Kiley while writing this part, as I normally seem to be; just fit.
And this is not the end! Well… it is, but there's also going to be a bonus smut chapter. But it's entirely optional, and I promise you will miss NONE of the plot if you don't read it; almost more like a PWP oneshot sequel. Anyway, thanks to everybody who liked this fic and read it, I appreciate all of you and hope you enjoyed yourself!
Jessex
We crashed hard that night. I mean, morning. By the time we woke up, it was night again; we slept the whole day away. My phone told me that it was after midnight, even. Guess we needed to recover, even though I had been literally still as a statue for most of the ordeal. Mental exhaustion is real.
I woke up first, finding her sweet body next to mine, and I wanted to ravage her with kisses. Which was a lot more forward than I was used to being. The part of me that still wanted to believe that the whole ordeal was a dream quickly gave up; it had never been this easy to be sweet to Knives. Even after we started dating. Again, it wasn't that different from before… just that I could let myself do the things I thought of, instead of angstily talking myself out of lovey-dovey shit.
But I didn't ravage her. Instead, I only kissed her cheek as gently as I could, watching her lips twitch into a sleepy smile before she rolled over and snuggled down into the pillow. Biting my lip to keep from laughing about how cute she was, I bounced out and into the bathroom.
Really bounced. Yes, me. Yes, Kim Pine bounced.
From there, into the kitchen. Made pancakes. I made coffee and pancakes for my girlfriend, and dumb as it was the whole situation made me blush. By myself! In the kitchen! What a complete difference allowing yourself to actually accept and enjoy things makes.
Even threw in some chocolate chips. Revolutionary.
It wasn't easy getting two plates, two cups, and a jug of maple syrup into the bedroom in one trip. But I got it. Set my own and the syrup on the nightstand on my side of the bed, then slid in next to her. She stirred again, and this time the smell must have gotten to her because she rolled over slightly, blinking up at me.
"Hnnh? Morning…"
"Hey," I breathed, heart pounding in my throat and eyes misting over at how cute she looked there. "You gonna sleep all night?"
"Whuh? All night?" She sat up a little quick, then her eyes crossed slightly. "Ooh… that was… a bad idea."
"Here, this might help," I chuckled as I handed her the coffee. She wrapped her hands around it and sipped.
"Mmm… Nesquik. You remembered."
For a few seconds, I just watched her, feeling like I'd never known a person I cared about enough to literally watch them drink coffee. Then I plopped the plate into her lap. "Breakfast."
"O-ooh," she shivered, squirming a little. "Warm plate."
"Yep. You okay?"
"Well…" Now it was her turn to blush, seemingly over nothing. Which was what I thought until she whispered, "You set it on top of my morning wood."
My eyes went a lot rounder before I hissed, "Shit, sorry! I didn't even notice, I'm- you need me to-"
"I got it," she laughed at my panic, nudging the plate slightly to a more comfortable position on top of one of her thighs.
"Okay." Then I turned to sit next to her, grabbing for my own plate and the syrup, offering that to her first. She took the bottle with an overly polite little dip of her head, and I grinned. Once her pancakes were covered, she held it over mine and began to drizzle, very, verrrry slowly.
"Say 'when'!"
Still giddy and smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, I went, "Okay… okay, wait… when." Then she tipped it back up, and I took the bottle and set it aside before digging in.
About a third of the way through, she swallowed and said, "Thanks for this. I don't care, pancakes are a food for every time of day."
"Even morning wood time?" I whispered. Her hand came up to cover her face for a second, but we were both laughing. "I dunno… just woke up and felt you there, and was thinking about how much you did for me…"
"You don't have to. Like, it's not that I expect you to 'pay me back'; I did what we needed to happen. You'd do the same thing if I ever got stuck in my own head or whatever, right?"
It was tempting to jokingly say "Nah, I'd leave you to rot." And I knew Knives would have laughed. But in that moment, I didn't want to use my usual biting humour. It was becoming easier to make other choices now. So instead what I said was, "In a hot second. You're everything in the world to me."
Her fork fell to the plate as she stared at me, mouth slightly open. I had to look away, because that gaze was so intense. Then she pulled me a little closer and pressed our two sets of syrup-coated lips into each other. It was delicious and sweet in more ways than one.
"Fuck," I breathed when she let me go.
"I love you," she said easily, cheeks bunched. "Cutie."
"I am n-not cute," I protested weakly as I blushed almost as red as my hair. Not making much of a case for myself, I know.
"All lies. Princess Pine is the cutest princess."
Sighing, I finally reached for my own mug. "We're not calling me that."
"What about the dress? You promised."
"I didn't 'promise', I just didn't shoot it down. But… okay, maybe later."
"Yay!" she giggled, and I rolled my eyes as I sipped. "But if 'Princess Pine' really bothers you, I can stop."
Unlike before, I actually considered instead of demanding she never speak those words again. Finally, I set my mug down and muttered, "Just not in front of other people. Please? I have a reputation as a badass drummer chick to maintain."
"Deal. And I mean it, if I slip up you can punish me."
"Punish you how? A spanking?" That seemed to shock her more than I intended, so I cleared my throat. "Or maybe I withhold Nintendo privileges?" There; totally saved it.
"Y-yeah, that seems more appropriate," she giggled, cheeks rosy now. For a few seconds, we sawed our way through hotcakes and drank coffee. Then she swallowed and asked, "Unless y-you have a thing."
"What?"
"A spanking thing."
Again, I said, "What?" But the tone was a little more scandalised now. "No, I- what the fuck? I don't want to hit you, that's not the kind of thing I want any part of."
"Not 'hit', just like… kinky paddling? Nevermind." Now she seemed embarrassed, and I couldn't stand for that.
"Hey, maybe we could try it if you want. But no, I don't really have a specific thing that I know about. I mean, aside from liking you in general, which it already feels 'kinky' enough just dating a girl for the first time."
The little smile appeared. The one that always popped up when I called her a girl. Sometimes I missed it, and a lot of that was because the smile was usually so tiny it was almost insignificant. But I got it. Even though I didn't smile about it, I always liked when people called me Kim. Not that I have tons of love for my name, but being called "the drummer chick" or "the redhead" annoys me. So it's a very slight relief if someone doesn't do that. Probably the same for her when people got her gender right instead of calling her a dude, or whatever name she had before "Knives."
Which I asked her. I knew it was probably rude, but this was different from some random friend or stranger asking. I just decided not to hit her in the face with it. "So where did the name 'Knives' come from? Like… it's pretty unusual, so I'm surprised I didn't already ask before."
"Oh, it's really dumb," she laughed as we ate. But when I didn't say anything else, she shrugged. "Okay. Um… so my name was Qiang Chau, or Chau Qiang really. But like, I both wanted a Western name and a girl's name, so when I came out my mom let me change it on my birth certificate. And, um… I was still in junior high and trying to be edgy." By that point, she was blushing hardcore.
"Nothing edgier than 'Knives'. But I kind of figured you would go for something a little… girlier? Like, to make it more obvious to people that you are who you are now, and not still who they thought you were."
For a few seconds, I just kept eating and sipping at my coffee. When I realised the room was still silent, I looked over to see her eyes all watery. At first I thought I fucked up somehow, but then she leaned up to kiss my cheek, holding there for a long moment.
"What?"
"You're so sweet, Kim. Like… I dunno, just really hit me then. You're not messing up and saying stuff like I 'chose' being a girl or whatever. And I wouldn't mind much if you did, but like, it's so great to hear you getting it now. Makes me feel loved and stuff."
Now understanding, I set down my coffee and reached over to cup her face. "Yeah. Feel like I'm finally past the 'let's figure this out' stage. Not that much to figure out, except how I'm supposed to be a good girlfriend."
"Breakfast in bed is doing good, for sure." Then she looked back down as she started cutting up her last few bites. "And yeah, Knives is really my first name. But um… my middle name is embarrassing and dumb."
"Then don't tell me," I said easily. "I don't want you to feel embarrassed."
"Whatever. Um… it's Mulan."
Putting down my coffee again, I turned to raise an eyebrow at her. "Mulan? Like the Disney movie?"
"Yeah," she groaned, definitely wanting to crawl under my bed and hide. "Like, it was my fave growing up because she was Chinese, she was really strong and badass even though she was a girl, and… I dunno, she did the whole cross-dressing thing, so somehow that kinda fit to me, y'know? But I didn't want it to be my first name or I'd just get a lot of teasing. Like Japanese girls who get called 'Hello Kitty' or whatever. At least with Knives, other kids in high school tried to laugh at it but then I could pull out a knife and they'd be like 'oh'."
"Knives Mulan Chau. I dunno, I like it." I finished off my pancakes and set the plate aside, then turned to snuggle into her side as she finished. "My name's so boring. Kimberly Annabel Pine. Mom usually just called me 'Kimberly Ann' when I was being good, and only the full middle name when I was an unholy terror."
"That's sweet. Even the yelling part, unless she would yell about nothing. My mom does that sometimes." To my surprise, she offered me one of the last bites, holding it up to my lips. Feeling a little self-conscious, I opened and let her feed me, and we both grinned. It was such a randomly cutesy moment that I almost couldn't handle it.
"Y-yeah," I finally said once I swallowed. "She's a good mom. You'll have to meet her if I head back north again."
"That'd be awesome! And you can meet my parents, too; just make sure you wear hockey pads." I laughed, and she grinned before taking a sip of her coffee. "Nah, they're actually pretty cool, just nosy and set in their ways. But like I said, they both accepted me, which is way better than it could be. Families can be kind of mean about transitioning without even like, doing it on purpose."
Didn't have much to say to that. She would know better than me. I watched as she finished the food and the coffee, then set the dishes aside and slid down to snuggle a little closer to me. We kissed, and she wrapped her arms tightly around me as if she never wanted to let go.
"Thank you."
"What? For what, breakfast? No big."
"For existing," she whispered, and I felt my heart skip over a beat. "Being everything I wanted. A rock star who can treat me sweet. Like… everything."
"I'm not a rock star," I grumbled, but she just kissed me again. We tangled limbs and enjoyed each other's mouths for a few minutes. I forgot the thread of the conversation, forgot everything except how much I loved this, loved being with her.
Even when I felt something poking me again, I ignored it. But she didn't; not this time. Her lips pulled off mine and she whispered, "Guess you can tell how much I… like rolling around with you."
"And you can't, so I'll tell you: a lot." She grinned against my mouth, and we kissed. "But I'm having fun just like this."
"Me, too. Hey…" Her hand rubbed up and down my side. "Um… I think I'm gonna get a shower. Sleeping for that long makes me feel gross. After that… you wanna spend the rest of the morning before work just hanging out?"
My lips quirked upward. "You gonna jerk off in the shower?"
"No, I promise," she giggled, waggling her hips back and forth. A little gasp of desire fell from my lips. "You gonna do it while I'm in there?"
"Maybe." She pouted, so I changed it to, "No. I can resist."
Nodding, she kissed me again and began to get out of bed. Turned away so I couldn't see the tenting in her cute little floral-patterned panties. Hesitated. I was reaching up to put my hand on the small of her back, just to ask her something like if she was okay or needed something, or forgot something. It just barely brushed there before she turned around, and I found myself touching her again.
"Oh, shit," I breathed, staring at my hand. At the firm form resting there. After a couple of seconds, I drew my hand away and looked up at her. "Sorry, Knives, I wasn't-"
"I know," she said in a nervous voice. She knelt on the edge of the mattress, and I had to fight to keep from glancing back down again. Holding her eyes. "Do you like it? For real."
"What?"
"My dick. I mean…" She hesitated for a second. "My plan was always to have bottom surgery after college. Y'know, because of recovery time. Some people have more trouble with it than others, and I don't wanna flunk out of classes. But like… if you like me how I am, and I do get surgery… that affects you, right?"
That was a pretty big question. And I didn't want to answer right away, afraid of fucking up my words or hurting her feelings on accident, but she needed an answer. So I let Princess Pine take over. I kissed her hip, far away from the actual bulge but close enough to show I wasn't remotely afraid.
"I want you… to be happy. Yeah, you're hot like this, but you would be hot like that, too. So just… do what you feel is right for Knives. I'm not going anywhere."
Tears were in her eyes. She couldn't seem to respond, and was still holding herself still and watching me, so I kissed a little closer to the middle. A fraction of an inch at a time; giving her plenty of time to pull the ripcord. When she never said anything, only smiled blearily down at me while I kissed, I pressed my lips against her semi-firmness.
"O-ohh…" I didn't do it again, so a moment later she opened her eyes to look at me again, licking her lips. "Kim… how can you be real? You just… you didn't even flinch."
"Not everybody is Young Neil, Knives."
"That wasn't exactly what I was thinking about… and it wasn't just him. But yeah, you're amazing. I can't believe…" When I knelt up, putting our faces level, she smiled a little wider. "Hi."
My lips ghosted over hers before I whispered, "Love you," then kissed her harder for a moment. Satisfied that she believed it now, I pulled back and swatted her butt. "Now go shower, you stinky ninja."
"AH! Kim!"
"Testing out that spanking thing a little." Giggling, Knives backed off the bed, holding her backside as she skipped away. I saw her little CN Tower was still partially erect, but for once she wasn't trying to hide it away, wasn't turning or crossing her legs. Just grinning at me while she floated out of the room to bathe and I moved to take care of our dishes.
Nope, I really didn't have any problem at all. And I don't just mean with that one issue; I mean at all. There are days when you look around and just realise how precious life is, and this was one of those. And I expected to have plenty more where that came from, thanks to the cute stalker who changed my life from the inside out. Healed my heart. Made me happy when I never thought I would be happy again.
Happily fucking ever after. In both senses.
                                           The End (kinda? But not quite!)
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popculturebuffet · 3 years
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Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life Review
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Happy Birthday To Me, as I continue my birthday celebration by taking a look at comics that have a personal connection to me.. And for our main feature, i’m taking a look at the first volume of a series that was vitally important to a teenage me, Scott Pilgrim. 
Scott Pilgrim is the brainchild of Brian Lee’O’Malley. O’Malley came up with the concept from a number of things. Being a fan of the band Plumtree, O’Malley was curious about the name of their song “Scott Pilgrim” and wondered who this Scott Pilgrim guy was. So over the years he slowly built the guy up in the back of his mind using bits of his life and what not. As for why he ends up fighting 7 evil exes, that came from a discussion with his then girlfriend, later wife and currently ex-wife Hope Larson, where he threw off the joke that her exes should form some kind of League. After finishing his first solo work Lost at Sea, O’Malley decided Scotty would be his next project and the rest is history. To date while O’Malley has written two works since, Seconds which is delightful and Snotgirl which didn’t grab me but I intend to try again, Scott remains his most popular work, in large part due to it’s SUBLIME video game and movie adaptations, the former of which is finally getting a rerelease next month. 
The series charm is in it’s style: A manga styled comic that combines two desperate kinds of story: Shonen Fight Manga and Slice of Life Indie Comics. The story shifts from Scott going through normal life stuff while trying to make his new relationship work and get his shit together and Scott getting into big bombastic fights with his new sweetie’s exes for the right to keep dating her and to you know, stay alive. The series effortlesly blends a video game like world with real grounded characters and is wonderful for it.  As for where I came in, one Free Comic Book day I found a little comic named Free Scott Pilgrim, which I genuinely loved and was instantly charmed by it’s humor and well done art. So I picked up the second and third volumes of the series proper and the first once I could find it and the rest ,as they say, is history. For my high school life, this was one of hte most important things in it and I wrote fanfiction, which I thankfully never put online and in general enjoyed the hell out of the series. Then I just kind of.. let it sit on my shelf for a while. It wasn’t BAD, I just never got back to it and as the franchise went dormant I just sorta slept on it and the movie and that part of me...
Cut to a few weeks ago, when Comixology did a massive sale for black friday that marked a ton of Graphic Novels down to just 1 buck each, and the color editions of Scott Pilgrim happened to be part of this, though only volume 1 was that cheap. But thanks to my best friend micheal and an early christmas/birthday present I got the rest and got to revisit the series as a whole, with me rethinking my previous thoughts of volume 1 and thus.. wanting to review it and share both why this series is so damn special and what’s good, and what’s not so good about it. I’ll also be covering the game, once i’ts re-released, and the movie once i’m finsihed with the comics so look out for that. And get ready to take a trip to the glorious land of canada... 
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As a heads up and as you can tell i’ll be using the color version as while I could get scans of the black and white, I prefer the color version. While the black and white was fine and always will be, I think the impressive coloring job really adds to thing and makes the already great fight scenes pop more, as well as making certain background elements stand out a bit. While it does negate the black and white gags, the tradeoff is more than worth it. That being said either version is fine so if you can get the black and white cheaper that’s fine and i’ve kept my original copies, with volumes 4 -6 having been picked up as they came out. 
So as our story starts we meet our hero: Scott Pilgrim Age 23, a charming but jobless and kind of sketchy possible college graduate whose really been adrift in his life since a breakup about a year ago. And when our story opens he’s taken a turn for a worse and decided to date sweet but naive and inexperinced Knives Chau, a 17 year old girl. And why yes the power dynamics there are messed up and why yes Scott is pretty damn sketchy in this moment in time, and while yes I am aware the age of consent in canada is 16, it dosen’t make this any less greasy and the story knows that.  And how it knows that MOST of his friends aren’t on board. The only ones who seems to is Stephen Stiles, leader of Sex Bomb-Omb, the band scott’s in with one of the best names ever and even then it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic or just a total douche. The other, Young Neil Nordgraf, Stephen’s roomate, is well 19 or 20 and kind of a dipshit so we just ignore him. I used to use him as kind of a projection, to put myself in the adventure when I was younger as Neil kind of lacks personality in the comics but in the comics.. he’s not hte best or most complex character. He is great in the movie though and Edgar Wright did an amazing job fleshing him out.  The rest of his circle are .. not so permissive. His best friend, roomate and king of all gays for all time Wallace Wells very much does not want to come with Scott to school to pick her up because every part of that sentence after hurt to type. Granted Scott gets him to come with him with promises of boys, but frankly knowing wallace he was probably just playing along/wants to protect this poor child. His ex and fellow bandmate Kim is clearly bothered by it and is flat out worried Scott is taking advantage of her. Kim and Wallace are easily my faviorites both for personality and because I have a massive crush on both. With Wallace it just didn’t manifest till the reread. Finally Scott’s kid sister Stacey chews him out over it before genuinely wondering if he’s gone insane or he’s actually happy. For my two cents: he’s not. He WANTS to be, but he dosen’t know how. And as someone whose both neurotypical, which given Scott’s troubles with empathy and relating to people like yours truly I strongly suggest he is, and has struggled with depression I can relate to that. He wants to move on but he just.. can’t, he just wants to get past the haze he’s been in since Envy dumped him.. but he dosen’t know how. So instead of doing someting constructive or finding a job or anything .. he just took the first and easiest way out of his depression he could. I’ve done that with video games and stuff. Scott did that by entering a relationship that’s really easy, requires only so much effort, and is with someone who utterly adores, looks up to him and will never expect better. Being with Knives makes him feel better.. but it dosen’t MAKE him a better person. As i’ve made clear dating someone just for a boost makes him actively worse and had fate not intervened, I shudder to think what Scott might have become. That being said his actoins are still creepy and since Scott has a habit of landing ass backwards into being an asshole here’s a counter to track that. That’s 2 for doing this overall, one for tleling her to be good, and 1 for trying to ply wallace with underage boys. 
Your the Scum of the Earth Scott Counter: 1
Thankfully fate does and Scott’s dreams, ones of him crawling through a desert alone, are interupted by a mysterious pink haired girl on skates. The next day he’s just sort of in a daze, kind of confused, and even more so when he sees her IN REAL LIFE, while at the library with Knives. He’s understandably frazzled but ends up finding out he’s not hallucinating when talking to MIcheal Cormeau. Micheal is a minor character and another artist and friend of o malley’s who represents that one guy in social circles who knows everybody. And indeed he knows the mystery girl, Ramona Flowers and that she’s there. Scott TRIES talking her up but just creeps her out, so Scott goes with plan b and decides to ask around about her. Enter Sandra and Monique, two college aquantinces of Scott, who just sorta show up at major events and aren’t that developed or intresting. They turn him to Julie who forbids him to date her. To which I say. 
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Naturually we’ll aslo be needing a counter for this. 
Shut Up Julie Counter: 1
Scott however did find out she’s a delivery girl for Amazon Canada, and thus orders some CD’s on Wallace’s Credit card to hopefully see her. And while his behavior IS obessive.. it’s understandable. I’d be weirdly obessed with finding someone too if they showed up in my dreams every day and were apparently a real person. I’d probably play it cooler but still i’ts kind of understandable. So after a day with knives in which he’s clearly checked out she kisses him, he freaks out and it’s very clear that while Scott’s good at attracting women he’s just.. not good with his emotions and has finally woken up to how messed up this is, but has no idea how to get out now he’s intrested in someone he actually has a future with maybe.  Speaking of Scott’s package and Ramona finally arrive. Scott’s move is to.. ask her out abrubtly but after he mentions her Dreams, Ramona finally puts two and two together and explains things: She’s been using Subspace, a seris of highways connected by the subconcious and apparently more common in america, though it’s later revealed she was taught this but being the first book with a lot of the lore and what not ironed out this is fine. Point is she was just using his dreams as transit and didn’t mean to get him obessed. Scott continues to try his schtick and eventually gets her to agree to hang out with him. Why she does I generally do not know, as SCott basically fell ass backwards over himself conversationally, but whatever. If he didn’t succeed we wouldn’t have a plot. 
That being said things pick up a bit with the date though. The scene is really good and simply just the two.. talking. Having plesant conversations getting to know one another. That good stuff. it’s just really nice to read and it’s hard to explain why. Highlights include Scott’s x-men patch, Ramona not wanting to talk about her last job and Scott admitting he hasn’t been obessed in a long time.. and it comes off sweet rather htan creepy like that sounds. It just means he hasn’t fell this head over heels felt like this. As I said Knives was easy.. but this is hard.. and this.. feels right. So as things Snow Ramona yanks scott through subspace to escape the blizzard. 
So we end up back at Ramona’s place and she offers some tea which leads to one of the best gags of the volume as she lists them off: 
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So Ramona goes to get Scott a blanket, Scott ends up following finds her changing, and she decides to warm him up another way.. by embracing him... cue.. the inevitible really. 
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It feels organic though: The two are clearly attracted to each other and while Scott came on as strong as freaking colossus, he still rebounded well once they hung out and he could relax a bit and show the scott underneath the lairs of dumbass. The two end up cuddling in bed and Scott seems..genuiley happy saying he needed this... awwwwwww. They part the next morning with him asking her to his band’s performance. 
So Scott finds Wallace  at home who says what Scott needs to hear “You need to break up with your fake highschool girlfriend scott’ Granted the entire first 40 pages could’ve been titled that but now he’s actively cheating. He’s also got a letter. 
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It’s a death threat Scott barely grazes through, just like an email earlier. 
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But scott’s more concerned with his emotional distress.. i.e. the consequences of his throughly shitty actions finally hitting him in the face. 
Scott heads to practice for his gig and can’t bring himself to break up with knives, but does find out about the opposition: Crash and the Boys, based on an NES game title because of course it is. Crash, their leader, Joel their baseplayer who scott hates because he hates all other baseplayers (”I don’t hate myself kim) and Trasha, an 8 year old progedy they found playing Drum Mania. Don’t ask me what that is, i’m not going to get every refrence. 
So at the show Scott runs into Stacey and her new boyfriend Jimmy  with Stacey being supportive. And then Knives shows up and then RAMONA SHOWS UP. Oh no scott’s cheating might be discovered! 
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So Scott books it while we’re introduced to Crash and the Boys. Wallace heckles them, to the band’s annoyance, until they eventually get fed up and we easly get the best gag of the volume. I was wrong this clearly tops the tea thing. 
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So Crash and The Boys continue to play their set, including a song that supposdely kills the audience but really knocks them out.. which of course bothers kim because they play next. Meanwhile Ramona and Stacey meet and the two really get along.. and come back to find the audience ko’d and Wallace Making out with Stacey’s boyfriend. Oh no! Which is a dick move, no question. But Stacey’s next move is questionable even for a 19 year old: She says “You won’t steel another guy from me and tells wallace to sit over there”. Okay Stacey even if he is bi, and this series has trouble with the concept of bisexuals we’ll get into that later trust me, he made out with someone else entirely while on a date with you. Wallace is still an asshole, it’s part of his charm.. but it dosen’t change the fact your date kissed someone else seconds after you were gone and has been eyballing him all night, as seen even above. He’s not into you as you thought, just accept it, move on, and kick Jimmy in the balls and then wallace like a proper lady. So Scott prepares to play and this happens
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And it’s here, at the very end of the comic the series main premise finally kicks in and the world takes it’s true shape. It’s a world where an indie comedy about a mess of a being putting his life together after finding his dream girl.. also has said mess being forced to get into fist fights with wizards, movie stars, vegans, half-ninjas, twin roboticists and a katana wielding douchenozzle record exec in order to continue to have the right to date his girlfriend. 
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It’s where the series charm comes from and really what made it a huge sucess so it’s no suprise this volume perks up immensley for the climax. I’ll get more into it’s pacing problem at the end. For now it’s fight time and as we find out in a hilarious and awesome turn.. Scott is the best fighter in toronto.. which just makes me REALLLY want a Scott Pilgrim version of letterkenny. I mean who wouldn’t want to see wayne fight some guy who can turn his hands into dragons or see Squireely Dan do E.Honda’s hand slap move from streetfighter or see the skids all fuse into one mega emo. It’s just.. the possiblities are as endless as they are wonderous and I want this now. 
But yeah as Patel is both the first boss and Scott’s first real opponent Scott.. handles him really easily. This was by design as O’Malley wanted a shonen progression to the fights.. and honestly it’s a great way to do things. Since the fights are styled after shonen and video games, and both have power based progression in bad guys and threats, it just made sense. Patel.. is just pathetic even with his magic powers, and his habit of sending letters and emails just pounds it in. Though he is right to be a bit pissed Scott didn’t read a letter he hand delivered in a snowstorm. That’s just a tad rude. 
Mid-Fight, Scott, now he knows the whole evil ex boyfriend thing, wonders what Matt and Ramona’s past is and while Matthew refuses to tell.. Ramona spills easily. It was midddle school, all the jocks wanted her for whatever reason, likely because from experince in high school, guys really like indie girls. Matthew was the only non-white non jock, so they teamed up and with her strength and his mystic powers they beat them.. but since his use had dried up, she flipped him off and left.  Matthew dosen’t take this well and summons demon hipster chicks to fight while Scott and co, minus ramona, fight back with a finger gun routine and block his fire balls before propelling Scott into matthew somehow, and landing the KO Evil Exes Left: 6 Matthew bursts into coins though fun fact, O’Malley says the Exes all respawned back at home afterwords and learned their lesson. With Pattel I genuinely don’t think he did... but clearly given his penchant for formality what with the letters and emails, he probably felt it’d break protocol to attack before the rest were done. He probably jsut formed a hipster emo band and found more sucess using his magic for that instead and just forgot about the whole thing. Could be wrong but that’s what i’m going with.  So Scott asks Ramona to go out with him then make out with him, both of which she says yes to. Nice one scotty boy. Ramona then explains the whole evil exes thing: He’ll have to defeat each one as they come after him, and while Scott wonders if they’ll come one at a time Ramona’s not sure. As time will bear out, Scott is MOSTLY correct as most exes take him one on one, with the exception of the twins. But since as I said earlier the twins are basically one person, and as we’ll find out by choice, so it’s an exception. Plus their the last step before the final boss, so by that token it’s a bit fairer to have the penultimate boss get an unfair advantage. Scott is fine with that, he and Ramona share another moment and a kiss.. but Scott makes the mistake of asking if gideon is one and Ramona’s head starts glowing with her dodging the subject, though still going out with SCott and him worried.. it just feels.. off. not a bad ending but the only one of the series three cliffhanger endings that just dosen’t work for me, especailly since it is a bit before the Gideon mystery really picks up steam again. But with that we close this chapter
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
Precious Little Life is a decent start to the story.  While Scott is loathsome at first, he’s still a compelling character and does get more likeable as things go, the humor when it is there shines and is one of the series best assets and while the fight is short and only at the end, it is oh so glorious especailly in cover with the impacts taking cues from the movie. It’s a good intro to Scott’s world and ther’es a reason the movie adapts this book the closest as it sets up the cast and premise well, with only Stephen Stiles feeling a bit off and ONLY for the first few chapters.  The volume is only really held back by it’s pacing, as before Scott runs into ramona in his dream the story feels a bit sluggish as we’re just watching some douche date a high school kid. While it is necessary to set up the world, it just dosen’t have the snappy pacing the series would be known for and that makes the rest of the series more charming. it’s nto BAD.. but it’s not FANTASTIC like the series would become. What keeps it from being bad is simple: These aren’t general badness signs but more just O’Malley coming into his owna nd getitng better and better as the book goes, to the point that by the next book the pacing is much better and by book 3 onwards he has it down pat.  Overall not a BAD volume but certaionly the weakest of the bunch.. which given it’s still really good says something about the ride we’re in for. I’ll be back sometime in the future, likely january. Yup i’m taking on YET ANOTHER PROJECT. but since this one, while clearly exausting and time consuimg, is much shorter in overall length, and i’m still proritizing the three I have running over this, I think i’ll be just fine. Until next time, have a happy holiday. 
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jovic-no-9 · 5 years
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Scott’s Exes in chronological order. For Scott Pilgrim’s 15th Anniversary. That’s the post (Idk what else to put).
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stitched-mouth · 3 years
Note
Can you do a Scott pilgrim cuddling head canon With
Wallace
Ramona
Kim
Knives
And Envy
Cuddling
Fandom: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
Featuring; Wallace Wells, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pines, Knives Chau and Envy Adams.
Requested by: Anonymous.
Warnings: Heaving kissing/ Making out and slightly suggestive themes (I mention sex a lot).
Notes: I’m so sorry this took months 😓...
Wallace Wells
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• Wallace loves cuddling with you.
• He is definitely a big spoon.
• It puts him at ease having you in his arms.
• But he won’t mind too much if you want to be the big spoon.
• It makes his heart beat faster if you’re the one who suggested it.
• But most of the time he’ll be the one to initiate it.
• He might tease you a little at first about it, but that’s just to hide how much that makes him feel.
• PDA is already a given with Wallace, so he’d definitely be willing to cuddle in public.
• Like at a friend’s house or something.
• He also might just wrap his arms around you from behind if you’re talking to someone.
• He doesn’t care who teases him, he loves cuddling you.
• But he can take a hint if you’re not comfortable with that.
• Even if you don’t say it out loud, he can tell.
Ramona Flowers
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• Despite her often cold exterior, Ramona actually loves to cuddle.
• But she will be unlikely to initiate it though.
• Don’t take it personally though!
• Ramona is just terrified of having her physical affection rejected.
• PDA is already something Ramona isn’t too into because of her fear of rejection.
• But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it.
• The more you two cuddle though, the more Ramona will become comfortable with initiating it.
• Late at night or early in the morning on the couch in front of the TV is Ramona’s favourite type of cuddle session.
• Cuddling with Ramona is a very special privilege though.
• And it often does end in sex.
• Also she’s usually the big spoon, but won’t mind letting you be the big spoon occasionally.
Kim Pines
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• Cuddling isn’t really Kim’s style.
• She just doesn’t enjoy that amount of physical affection.
• Secretly holding her hand in public is as far as it goes with Kim.
• But she isn’t completely against the idea.
• All Kim really wants to do is please you.
• And if you want to cuddle, she will give it to you.
• Kim loves you dearly, even if she has trouble expressing it.
• Which is the main reason why she cuddles you.
• To show you that she loves you, instead of saying it.
• Don’t expect to be cuddled too often though.
• It often remains a loving imitate act but still non-sexual.
• Well, not always.
• Kim is def a big spoon for sure.
Knives Chau
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• YES!
• KNIVES CHAU LOVES TO CUDDLE!
• Physical affection is her thing.
• She would never turn down an opportunity to cuddle you.
• Knives is the type of person to both show her love for you in her actions and just tell you out loud how much she loves you.
• Her only issue is that she can often freeze up or get cold feet.
• Knives is still only 17 years old, and this is one of her first relationship.
• And her first relationship was with a lazy pathetic selfish idiotic slacker who never showed her any actual attention or affection.
• Knives want to hold you all the time, and always wants you to hold her back.
• Please treat this precious baby right.
• Knives is the small spoon.
• And she will swoon if you initiate the cuddling.
Envy Adams
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• Envy doesn’t care much for cuddling.
• She will never be the one to initiate it, and if you do the chances of you being turned down are high.
• Envy will often claim she doesn’t have time to cuddle, when really she just doesn’t want to.
• Ice cold bitch.
• But if you are persistent though, she will think about it.
• On the inside, Envy does really want physical affection though.
• But her pride is always the main problem.
• She can’t admit to herself that she wants to be held, let alone admit it to you.
• Eventually you will convince her though.
• Envy is a small spoon, but occasionally is the big spoon.
• She will really enjoy the first time you two cuddle.
• The silence might be a little painful for you, but Envy is just taking it all in.
• And she is starting to remember just how much she has missed this: to actually feel loved.
• It might even bring her to tears.
• This is one of the rare moments where you can see Natalie again, not putting up a fake persona or trying to be something she’s not or letting go of her pride for just a second.
• She’s fragile, so be careful with her.
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forkanna · 6 years
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"Whew! Holy cats, I thought I'd never get through that Rubik's Cube…"
My hand came up to push into my face. Not that it really mattered; I could barely feel it. "At least I could kinda help with that one. The other two gates were… yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Kniv-"
"Enough," Knives panted as she wiped the sweat from her brow on her striped scarf. It was pretty weird that she was wearing it in the middle of summer, but I had a feeling it was kind of part of her 'battle outfit' or something. "Didn't I… tell you that I'm… doing this for both of us? Not just you?"
"But watching you stare into the mirror… man, I thought you were gonna turn into that other reflection of you with all the purple buffalo in the background…"
The sweet smile made my pulse race. Somewhere. Not in the body I was in within my body, but the body outside of my… body… this is really annoying to explain, as I have just realised while trying to do so. Point is, seeing her smile makes me smile, too. "Anything for you, Kim Pine. Serious and mysterious."
"Alright, alright. Just try not to get killed or then I'll be really hacked off."
The thing I still couldn't figure out was how I guessed all of this so accurately. Probably something subliminal about it; there's no way it was a coincidence. But everything, the three gates, the rhino and warthog, the high-walled chambers we had to fight our way through, came to pass exactly as I snarked in a would-be joking tone. If I made it a reality by saying it… man did I fuck myself royally.
At this point, Knives and I were at the top of a ledge that ran the entire circumference of a round room, closer to the ceiling. It was over a dozen meters to the ground, and another three or four up to the ceiling from where the walkway was positioned. Once she flipped down into that pit, it would be her against the sixteen-eyed monster that stood between us and the final chamber. Maybe we would luck out and it wouldn't really have a laser cannon in its chest, but after everything I'd seen, that felt like a pretty horrible bet to take.
"We don't even know that getting past this thing will be worth the effort," I whispered. "What are we going to find in the sub-chamber? How is it gonna help me at all?"
"Dunno. Just… okay, should I use the save point? Because the room already locked behind us, and if I need some kind of item that we didn't find on our way here…"
"Right, I know. Like, do we really wanna have to go through the gates all over again if we don't use it?"
"Yeah." Glancing back at the closed-and-shut door, then over at the spinning, glowing book that floated above a magic circle on the floor, she flashed me a huge shrug. "I think I can take him, but like, you're right; do we lock down how far we've come, or give ourselves a way to double back for power-ups?"
Facepalming, which didn't do much since I could see through my hand, I sighed, "Whatever. Just please be careful?"
"Okay. Here goes nothing…"
Knives walked over and touched the save point. Now we were committed. Once the glow faded from her skin, she gave me a thumb's up before leaping down to land in front of the beast.
Watching her at work is like watching Russian ballet, only with green blood spraying everywhere. Darting back and forth, hiding behind pillars to dodge the worst of its needle attacks, and then hopping out to slice it up as much as she could. It smacked her around a few times, but she was doing some pretty decent damage… until it got her with the laser cannon. Then she was fried to ash, and there as nothing I could do…
But wait for her to respawn at the save point. I was a ghost; I didn't affect anything, other than to talk to her and give her ideas.
"Whoa, did… that really happen just now?"
"Man, I'm glad that worked," I told her, feeling like years had been shaved off my afterlife. "I… oh Knives…"
That definitely didn't sound like me, and she noticed, turning back from where she had been approaching the edge of the catwalk. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah. Just… just not ready to see you get hurt. Even if you pop right back in, that was still…"
"But you saw me get beaten up by Gideon before, right? So what's the difference?"
I scoffed. "Didn't have much of a personal investment in you then. And that was scary, too."
"He wasn't a real threat."
"He seemed to beat up Scott pretty thoroughly!"
"Yeah." Her smile was pretty confident, yet somehow still adorable, like she was about to break out into the world's cutest maniacal laughter. "But he's got nothing on me. Be right back."
And she was. I could tell it was almost done for, but then it did a stomp move that knocked her onto her butt. The next stomp squished her flat. But she popped back in thanks to our handy checkpoint and jumped straight back down there again. And again. And again. Eventually, I had to stop watching the moment she bit it or I would have been screaming and sobbing, despite having no physical tears to shed. But each time, she got a little better.
"Dude, give it up. Maybe they can figure out a way to pull you out of here from this save point. Do you have a Wing Bottle, maybe?"
"No… way!" she panted, leaning back against the wall as she caught her breath. Apparently, even though the save point respawned her, it wasn't respawning her stamina entirely. She still needed a break before trying again. "I got this! And… I'm not giving up on you!"
"You should! I'm not worth this! God, I know you want to win, and I think you can, but watching you die over and over is… I hate it!"
Frowning, she pushed off and came over to hug me very briefly. By which I mean she put her arms around my ghostly form and kinda held them there, giving the impression of a hug, which was close enough. "Sorry. I'd hate watching you do that, too… but we gotta win this. And I will; I think I've about got his pattern down. I just have to remember not to tuck-and-roll at that moment when I think I need to again, and I'll be good."
"Did you notice what he does before he fires off the canon? The way his top two eyes blink?"
"What? No, I didn't! Okay, that'll really help, because like, I was just waiting to see the chest open and then it's almost too late to duck…" Nodding a couple off times, she then smiled over at me. "Yeah, I'll watch for it. Thanks!"
"What 'thanks'? I'm basically helping you help me. Go on."
The final attempt was a thing of beauty to watch. Knives had that chump on the ropes the whole time, snapping at his tentacles with her blades and ducking out of their reach, away from the needles that shot out of them, and then dodging the laser cannon because of me pointing out the blinking thing. She had a pretty good dodge ratio even before that, but seeing her get out of the way every time was a lot more satisfying. Then, once he did the duck-down halfway through the fight, getting ready to slam, she sliced his stupid wings off and he got pissed the way he does, firing the laser in an up-down pattern that she had to dodge by ducking and then jumping up to grab the ledge. Didn't take much of that for her to wear him down so she could dart in and poke out the last remaining eyes. Once he was blind, all she had to do was stab the crystal on his back and he was down for good.
"YES!" she cheered, falling to her knees. "I… I did it! I did it!"
We both shouted our celebrations for a few seconds as I drifted down, wishing I could hug her. After a few minutes of that I said, "Oh man… what a jerk! If my fist wasn't invisible I would punch him."
"Now?"
"Yeah, now! He messed with my girl!"
Knives's flush took on a different meaning. "Awww, you called me your girl. I'm gonna give you so many kisses when you have a face again!"
"I… just… o-okay," I managed to stammer, ignoring her giggle as she started walking. "Wait, shouldn't you go back to the save point?"
"Nah, it's too far up to get to it without timing wall jumps for hours. And anyway, now that I have the pattern down, I can blow through that boss pretty easy if I have to again. Muscle memory, right?"
So I followed her forward into the next chamber. The innermost one, where the "real me" was supposed to be, if this was all coming true as we went. Crazy, but it was hard to argue with the proof when it was right in front of us like that.
This chamber really did look like the inside of a heart. The walls were a dark red, slick and nasty, and in the center was a cage made of stone. We took a quick look around, hoping to spot any crazy vampires or fire-breathing lizard-turtles that would want to kill Knives — and by extension, my chances of being able to move ever again — and saw nothing. So instead, we rushed to see what was in the cage.
It was me. Or at least, it was some weird version of me that I could only describe as a princess. Her hair was about half a meter longer and done in some kind of gentle wavy curls that I could never pull off in a million hours of crimping, and she was wearing a white dress that showed off the rack that I don't really have. Her upper arms weren't nearly as jacked as mine are from drumming, but they were still toned. Basically, this was what I would look like if I dieted perfectly, had my own stylist and was also on my way to a debutante ball or whatever.
"Oh!" Princess Pine gasped when she spotted Knives. "You have come for me, Prince Chau!"
"Prince?" Knives muttered with a frown.
"Yes! You are the prince and I am the princess, waiting f-"
"She's not a dude!" I shouted in my best heckling voice. What the hell was this supposed to be? I was instantly offended by her very existence.
"I'll not hear a word from you, pretender!" she said, voice somewhere between angry and frightened. "The NegaKim must be vanquished!"
For a few seconds, we just blinked at her. It was me who asked, "The what?"
"NegaKim! 'Tis you who has been in charge of my body, stealing everything I could have done for night a decade of years! A shame and a disgrace to my face!"
"Wait," Knives put in, holding up a hand. The other one was still holding a dagger; she wanted to be at least semi-prepared for a sudden attack. "What are you talking about, 'NegaKim'?"
"She is NegaKim! I am the real Kim Pine, of course! Forced into this Gorgon Maiden by nefarious means, kept prisoner by the evil twin-spirit who took over my physical form! While my prince wasted her efforts on her, when I would have been much more appreciative!" She was still talking with all that righteous fire, but saying that last part I could see her blush a lot worse than I usually did. And it looked better on her. Goddamn it, I couldn't even be the hottest version of Kim Pine, which really rankled.
Knives had a different observation. "Well, at least she's getting the pronouns right…"
"Listen, you," I growled angrily. "Fuck the hell off. It's my body, I've had it for twenty-five years, and I'm not handing it over to some… frilly, froofy cunt!"
That gave her one of those affronted faces you only see in movies set in the 1800s. After she recovered, she hissed, "You'll regret this! I don't know how, but you will, I'll…" There were tears in her eyes. This was pretty legit for a fake-ass bitch trying to steal my spot in life. Her fists were trying to rattle the bars of her little cage as she shouted, "I'm going to get out of here, I swear it!"
"Okay, okay," Knives hissed, raising her hand again to encourage her to calm down. "What if we get you out, and you can go away somewhere else? Isn't that a good, like… compromise? OH! What if we got a robot-Kim, and you could go live in there?"
"My prince… can't you see that I am your intended?" she pleaded with her, leaning so far against the bars that her face was trying to push between them. "Not her, me! She will hurt you, but I would cradle your heart as if a baby bird! I… all I want is to make you happy!"
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds. I turned back to Knives and shrugged. "Well? She's the girl of your dreams. All the freckles, and none of the acid-tongue. Plus she's way cuter."
"Nah," Knives said without any hesitation. "I know who I love, and it's you. This is some other test and I'm gonna pass this one, too. And the next one, and the next, until I break you out and we can both go get sushi or something."
As I was grinning at her, beyond any level of love for her that I had previously thought possible, I dimly noticed Princess Pine collapsing on the floor in a flurry of sobs. Oh well, too bad. Better luck next time. As we were sharing that moment, someone came along to interrupt it…
"How dare you thwart my plans! I've been waiting for this to come to fruition for seven years!"
If my face could have paled any further than ghostly white, it would have.
"Simon Lee."
To Be Continued…
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forkanna · 6 years
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NOTE: NaNoWriMo is in full swing! I told you I would try my best to update while it's going on and I will, even though it's obviously not as frequent as other months. Enjoy!
Yeah, I have no idea what went on over at the Chau residence. They took a few pictures of me on their phones to at least have examples ready, but it would have been pretty annoying to stick me in the back of the car — and besides, Stephen made a really good point that I might shatter if they dropped me, so after that nobody much wanted to take responsibility for schlepping the stone girl around.
But I got the general synopsis of what I missed from listening to their chatter. And thank GOD I finally had some entertainment, because lying around in an empty house all by yourself when you can't move is just about the most boring fucking thing ever.
Knives had her mom translate for her, since she can't speak Chinese, and asked her father if he knew any way to undo a spell, or curse, or mutation, or whatever the fuck this was that made people turn into rock-people. At first he said something a teensy bit racist that nobody would repeat, and then he asked for how the symptoms started. When they explained that it started from a feeling, and showed him the pic of my stomach, he kind of figured out what she would need.
Apparently, the house was quiet for so long because they had to go back to that place where Scott got the Soft and head to "Giant World", whatever that means. When they came back, they had another potion that was supposed to do something else. All I got was its name, not what it was supposed to do.
"So once Knives takes the Micron, we'll all stand watch," Steph was saying. Being a little older than everybody but Wallace — when did he show up? — she had kind of elected herself in charge. Also, nobody else wanted to be in charge, anyway. "Take turns. Like, I'm not sure what we can do, but we have to be ready just in case…"
"How long do we think this is gonna take?" Wallace asked, glancing at his trendy chronometer. "I'm supposed to meet up with Mobile at the new club where the Rockit used to be. Supposed to be a lot more catered toward our particular tastes now."
Knives's bottom lip quivered. "You don't care what happens to Kim, do you?"
"In an overall sense? Sure I do… but you guys didn't even remember my birthday. Tit for tat, you know."
"Hopeless," Stephen sighed. "No wonder Joseph hates you."
His trim eyebrow went up very slightly. "That catty bitch hates everyone. Can we get down to business? Kim's life hangs in the balance, just like my punctuality. They're both pretty important. Besides, I'm the only one here who can feed Knives any chi once she's through the gates; you need me as an E Tank."
"Fine!" Huffing, Knives grabbed the potion and downed it in one gulp. There were a few gasps, and Steph said something about "but we weren't through planning!" but it was too late; she had taken the plunge. And I was kinda glad, because at least now I would get to find out what the hell they were talking about, since they were leaving out so many details due to not bothering to include me in their conversation.
Not that I could talk back, anyway. But I could hear.
At first, we thought nothing had happened. Then I could tell something was weird. Everybody in the room was getting taller! Wait, that wasn't it… Knives was getting shorter. And shorter… she was shrinking right in front of my eyes.
"Hurry!" Stephen hissed, and Steph picked her up and sat her on my stomach once she was about toddler-sized. She kept going, slipping down my stomach when she was about the size of a Lego figurine, and then I couldn't see her anymore on the other side of my boobs.
At first, I thought that was it; that she had disappeared, and I felt a panic that I couldn't properly express while held suspended in this pavemential state of being. What the fuck had they done to my girlfriend?! But then I saw Steph bend down and do something else, holding her hand against my stomach.
"Hurry up… oh God, I hope Wallace knows how to use that thing."
WHAT thing?
"Me, too," he sighed as he pulled on the red fingerless glove. "Seems simple enough."
Shit. That thing. And I couldn't even scream as he slapped me in the forehead.
                                                          ~ o ~
When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. I mean, I was definitely nowhere I had ever been before, and I kind of accepted that much… but still, why was the sky all pink? Why was the ground day-glow blue? Why was the path leading into the far distance so gold and shiny? Why was everything moving a little, like I was actually living inside a heat haze? Just freaking psycho crap.
And there she was.
"Knives!" At first she didn't turn around, but when I shouted again, she finally did — and took a huge leap backward.
"AAAAHHH! A GHOST!"
"A what?" Looking down, I saw that I was half-invisible, and my legs disappeared into a wispy thingy. Reminded me of an actual cartoon ghost, but the tops of my legs were still pretty distinct. "Oh. Well, that's annoying."
Her hand reached out, drew back again, and then reached forward to touch my legs… and she passed right through. She shivered as she whispered, "Whoa."
"Yeah, um, don't do that again."
"Okay. Oh, Kim! I'm so glad you're okay! Kind of!" She moved to hug me, then remembered and drew back again. "Oh, oops. Sorry."
"It's okay. God… I'm such a mess, I didn't mean to make everybody… well, anyway, it's too late now. What are we doing here?"
"Huh? Oh, right! You know, that whole thing you told me about? We have to fix that or we can't reverse this, since we didn't get to it in time. So I took the Micron because I'm the one with the most training, and my dad has this thing in Brazil he has to take care of so he can't."
"What? I mean… damn, how long do you think we might be in here?"
Looking apologetic, she whispered, "He said… maybe a couple years?"
"YEARS?!"
"Or not! It could only take a few hours, if we don't get hung up on the Rubik's Cube."
"Rubik's-" Only then did I catch on. My eyes narrowed in utter disbelief, waiting for her to yell "PSYCH" or something, but she didn't. "Wait. You're talking about all that bullshit I spewed at you when we first started hanging out again, aren't you?"
"Yeah! I mean, I'm ready for the rhino and the warthog, I'm pretty sure, but the rest I'll… have to… what is it, Kim?" she asked when she could tell I was even paler than a spirit already would be.
"It was all a lie. I mean… a joke, but I didn't expect you to actually believe me, and I never got the chance to tell you any differently because you ran off." Sighing, I turned away slightly, not wanting to look at her right then. "If this isn't some kind of crazy fever dream, or rock-dream or ghost-dream or whatever, and you're actually trying to fight your way through my body… then I think you're wasting your time. I have no idea what's about to happen to you in here."
"Well, that's okay," she said instantly. "We'll just figure out what the challenges are if they're different. I'm even stronger than I was before, you know; I kept up my training since all that happened at the Chaos Theater. Knives Chau is buff and knows her stuff!"
Gritting my ghostly teeth, I hissed, "Don't you get it? I want you to leave. Stop trying to help me, I'm obviously more trouble than I'm worth. Just… just go."
For a few seconds, everything was quiet. Then I saw her walking down the road into the distance. I was relieved for just a second; relieved and sad. At least Knives would be okay.
Then she called back to me, "You coming, or are you just gonna hang around here in the middle of your stomach?"
Once I caught up, trying not to let my pleased smile be seen by anyone, I asked her, "Stomach?"
"Sure. The portal is in your belly button; the only way in past the stone. Well, we could have tried your ears or nose, but the journey to your heart would have been a little longer, and we couldn't be sure of the path. This seems like a straight shot."
"Oh. Well… I mean, um… I don't really get this. Why are you trying so hard for me? I suck as a girlfriend, and I suck as a friend. All I did was kind of… hang around you and be grumpy all the time. Then statue-ified myself. "
That got her to stop walking and blink at me a few times. "You really think that's all you gave me, Kim?"
"Well… yeah."
"Don't be dumb. You were so sweet."
"ME?!"
"Yes, you," she giggled as she resumed, setting a swift pace. Not that I minded, since floating alongside her didn't seem to make me any more or less tired. "Sure, you tried to bury it under like, your whole 'cool' attitude, but I've… never had anybody make me dinner before besides my mom. And you were always there to talk to and you really listened to my babble, and we could always play games or watch TV, and you were so awesome about not rushing me with sex stuff… held my hand. Kissed my cheeks. Made me feel important to you, even though I could tell it was really hard for you to do that. Gosh, Kim, who wouldn't love you?"
For a few minutes, all I could do was float alongside her. Something about this inner-spirit state I was in prevented me from crying, but I definitely wanted to be. Was kind of frustrating, actually, needing that emotional release and being unable to have it. But I certainly had no words to follow up hers with.
When we got to the outer gates, it looked like a giant walled city, and the multiple colours of the doorframe reminded me of Fruit Stripe gum for some reason. Anyway, as I had been worrying about… there were the guards. Giant mutant animals that just barely weren't copies of villains from an old cartoon I loved when I was little.
"Oh wow, okay," she breathed, whipping out a couple of her huge daggers. "Do you know their weaknesses? Because like, if I can stand on that piece of wall and stab down with my weapon continually-"
"Did you say… you love me?"
"What? Oh, um… yeah, I think I did? Is that okay?"
My noncorporeal eyes nearly bugged out of their invisible sockets. She started to look even less sure of herself, glancing back and forth between me and the enemies. So I quickly said, "Yeah, yeah. It's great. I mean, uh… sorry. Just never had anyone… say that to me before. Damn."
"Hmmm. Didn't know a ghost could blush."
"What?!"
"Kidding," she giggled just as my hands went up toward my face. "Come on, let's get this done. I want to help you."
Humming to myself, I tilted my head up in their direction. "No idea. But I have this vague feeling that if we kick one of their asses, they'll both go down. Well, if you do. Not sure I'll be much help like this."
"Might as well try it!" Then she started sprinting for them. "HEY YOU GUYS!"
That… was not how I would have handled it.
                                                          To Be Continued…
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forkanna · 7 years
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It'd be nice if that wrapped everything up in a neat bow. But nah. We didn't get our Happily Ever After that easily.
Let's cut to the chase and do some more summary. For the next couple of days, things were more or less about where they were before. We would make out a little, and game, and she'd babble and I'd listen with varying levels of interest. The only real difference was, every now and then I'd ask some question about the whole trans thing and she'd try to answer as best she could. Most of the time she was patient, but once in awhile… yeah, it clearly got on her nerves. Still, it was Knives and she liked me, so she didn't yell at me as much as I thought she should.
Also… kissing was weirder. It was all me, worrying about how I was kissing a trans girl instead of a "normal" girl. My own ignorance making me anxious, I guess. She would notice sometimes and ask if I was okay, and I'd tell her everything was fine and try to get past it. Most of the time, I succeeded. Because I knew, I knew deep down that she was the same person, same bubble of sugary sweetness that I both found annoying and endearing. I was just being weird because…
Knives was the first person like that I'd ever met. It's not much of an excuse, I know. This just wasn't something I'd ever thought about before for more than five seconds. Don't judge me too badly, but most of what I'd thought about was drag queens. When she told me there were guys like that, too — y'know, men who were born women, I was like, what does that even mean?! I'd never even heard of that! But it made sense once it sank in. Just… all new information, crazy to me but old news to her. She was pretty quick to correct me when I said something that made it sound like she was still a guy, or the one time I said "tranny" without even meaning for it to be an insult. Literally had never stopped to think that it was basically a slur, since it almost always gets used to say some chick looks "too manly", or some guy is "too girly". Like… sure, it's easy to see how it could be harmful when you've thought about it, or when you see your girlfriend flinch as if she'd been stabbed, but I hadn't yet. I was in a totally new world and old rules didn't apply.
No sex. You were probably wondering about that, but literally the most we did was make out, maybe squeeze a buttcheek once or twice. If things started to get past that point, one of us would pull back. Just weren't there yet.
Although… we did have a hard conversation one night. We had been bingewatching some anime that Knives had on DVD, I didn't care much but I was starting to get into it toward the end. Bunch of ninjas or whatever. At some point, we got distracted from the TV by each other's faces. Sucking on them, to be exact…
                                                            ~ o ~
"Hey," I breathed pulling back with a slight smile, gazing into her eyes the moment the opened again. "There she is."
Swallowing hard, Knives glanced down between our bodies, then up again with a slight nervousness. It hurt to see that there, but it hurt because I was such a douchecanoe once upon a time to her. If I wasn't so dumb when I was drunk, maybe she could have been less uncomfortable.
"Sorry," I breathed, my smile gone like the wind. "Just… haven't felt that yet. While sober, I mean."
"Y-yeah," she whispered before clearing her throat. "I try not to let it… pop up, but… you just feel so good sometimes."
My hips shifted a little, and I felt the firm little presence grinding into my hip. She was basically straddling my thigh again, only we were seated on a couch this time. "Mmm, you don't have to hide that now. Let it pop up."
"But I'm still so weird about… you know…"
"Sex?" A small nod, and I kissed her chin. "Shhh. If you're ready, then you're ready. Why hold back?"
"But I'm not ready."
"Then why are you hard as a rock down there?" Right after that, she rolled away and sat down next to me. "What? Knives…"
"Just because I'm hard doesn't mean I want to do anything with it. You do get that, right? Like… I might kind of want to, but that's not the same as being ready for that."
A guilty thrill shot through me, and I pushed a hand into my mouth for a second. This was the same thing that happened when I was drunk, except I hadn't been listening then. "Sorry." That was all I could get out.
Her hand reached down and grasped mine. "I do want to, though. Like… just…"
"Yeah. Like you said, it's a weird thing for you because of… that word. Dis-something."
"Dysphoria."
"That's the one. Makes you feel funny about your body matching your brain."
Her voice really was apologetic as she went on, "I don't want to be the man, banging you like a woman. I'm in lesbians with you, and have no interest in trying to be your boyfriend. And… I don't know, it's stupid."
"Not stupid if it's how you feel. I'm just trying to get this. You have a raging boner that I'm very ready to help you out with. And… I know I fuck up my words sometimes, but I really don't think you're a guy. Promise. So just… what's the problem? Is it me? Because like, I know this is only the second time I've felt-"
"It's not you," she cut me off urgently. "Come on! You rock, Kim, you're so hot! Like, my issues have nothing to do with how attractive you are, okay?"
Going for broke, I whispered, "Let me go down on you. Or jerk you off, maybe. We can try it and see how it goes. And if I do or say something off the mark, you can tell me. Now or later. Feedback helps. And you don't have to do anything for me if you're not ready for it, either."
"What if I'm not ready for anything at all? Is that okay? Or do you really need to do something every time you feel my dick get hard?"
There was a slight accusation in that tone. I felt anger pulse behind my temples. "Excuse me?"
"Well, you did the same thing last time," she sighed, clearly annoyed. "I thought you would be different now that you aren't drunk."
"No, I'm asking, not just doing it and then asking you afterward," I shot back. "And I apologised for that; I still feel like shit, but hey, thanks for the reminder."
"You're kind of doing it again, though. I just… want to make out with you, and if I get hard for it not be an issue, because all it means is that I'm enjoying myself. Not that I'm ready to 'take it to the next level'. If you make out with a guy and your nipples get hard, does that mean you definitely want them to fuck you?"
Running my hands through my hair, I turned away from her. "Fine. Nevermind."
"Answer me."
"No."
"Okay. Sorry for not being ready when you are."
I didn't reply. What was there to say? We had been doing so well up until that point, I was blindsided that it suddenly blew up in my face. And I wanted to tell her that I was okay with this, but it also felt like an insult. My stupid brain was used to a guy getting hard, and right away wanting to have sex. And I know, I know, everybody's different, and she wasn't a guy… I just needed to adjust my thinking. In case you couldn't tell, it was going pretty slow.
"Kim, I'm not a dildo. Like… to be honest, I kind of wish I was. For you. But I don't feel ready, and I think if I push myself to do it before I'm ready, then… neither of us are going to be very happy with the result."
Still no reply. Now I was hurting her. Could I be any more of a fuckup?
"Kim? Oh no… oh God, don't turn to stone again!"
That snapped me out of my daze. She was right; I could feel my limbs and muscles freezing up, getting more solid. "Nhh? Hhh nhh!" My mouth was sealed shut, too.
"Crap… where's that bottle of Soft? What did you do with-"
"Wait… okay… I…" Somehow, little by little, I was able to move again. A few very pale flakes of weird material shattered from my joints, and off my eyelids when I blinked, but it wasn't an actual full layer of rock like the last time. "Ooh… shit, that was close."
Arms looped around me, and Knives pushed her damp eyes into my neck. "I'm so sorry, I- you can touch me, I don't care. I don't care! Just please don't turn to stone, I really can't handle that, okay?"
Every word was like a blade piercing my heart. This wasn't her responsibility. Sure, it made me happy that she cared so much, but it frightened me a little that she was willing to sacrifice her own comfort for me that easily. Since two seconds ago, she had been telling me how important it was that she have the time she needed to get comfortable with the idea of me poking around downstairs.
"Knives…" That was all I could say for now. My hands gripped at the back of her shirt as I hugged her. "I'm sorry…"
"No, really, y-you can go down on me! Do you want to now? I mean… I'm not hard anymore, but I think if you-"
"Please stop," I begged her, the tears in her voice about to make mine start up again. "Just shut up."
But she wasn't having it. Pushing me away to look into my face, which I hated because I didn't like people seeing me without my shields in place, she shouted, "I can't let you be a statue just because I'm…"
Neither of us spoke for a second. Trying to figure out this situation. I wanted to leave, I wanted to run out the door and away from this annoying intensity, because I didn't fucking sign up for it. I didn't even want her as a friend in the beginning, let alone this! But she was also really important to me now. Like, crucial even. Seeing her upset purely because I couldn't figure out my shit made me feel so broken…
"Don't ever do that again," I finally managed to sob. "Don't ever say that y-you'll… that you would force yourself to do something you're not ready for just b-because I'm… a weird gargoyle thing! GOD! Please don't!"
Her lip quivered, but she threw her arms around me again, whispering, "Okay! Okay, I won't, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Kim, I just don't want to lose you!"
My lips found her neck over and over, and she began to cry more now that the initial panic was gone. We both needed a release, so we let that happen for a little while until the sniffles were outnumbering the sobs. We pulled back and kissed, and then both of us started saying a bunch of sappy shit like "you're so good to me" and "I don't deserve you," blah blah blah.
Not blah blah to me, though. I was falling hard for Knives Chau. Just didn't know how to handle that yet.
                                                            ~ o ~
"That makes more sense," she said a while later as we snuggled in my bed. Mostly clothed, sharing a bottle of water. "But we still need to figure out what's causing you to turn."
Sighing, I pushed my face up against her shoulder. "Yeah. Probably because I'm a chickenshit."
"Don't say that. You are not, you're just… bad… at feelings? I hope that's not offensive."
"It's accurate. I don't like feelings. They suck."
"Yeah, you do. What you don't like is that they leave you open and vulnerable. But… I'm not going to hurt you, Kim. You know that!"
Nodding, I pet over her stomach as I smirked very slightly. "You're pretty badass, though. Helped take down Gideon. What if I turned into an evil ex? You'd have to defeat me, and I wouldn't stand a chance."
"You won't turn 'evil'. You're such a good, sweet, pure-"
"Lies."
"You ARE. Under all that grumpiness." That made me snort, and she grinned, leaning down to nuzzle my nose. "Didn't say you were a perfect ray of sunshine, just… such an awesome girl! I can see it, even if you can't."
"Should have your eyes checked," I deflected, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart. Like I said, cavity-inducing.
"Maybe. They only seem to see you."
How did she actually top herself that quickly? I already was reeling from how much affection she could show, and then she shows even more without giving me a chance to recover first. So again, I did the thing. I tried to rise to her level of flirting-ness, to not just be the useless lump in the relationship. Here's what I came up with:
"Fuck. I can't believe you like me. You're too cool to date such an asshole."
Points for effort?
"Aww," she cooed as if I had recited some touching sonnet. My cheeks were burning, I could tell when she kissed them and her lips were like ice against the skin. "I think we're both pretty cool."
"Sleep here?" I urged, needing it. Not wanting to show how much, but hoping she would spot it anyway. "Set an alarm, and just… use today's uniform again tomorrow?"
Nodding, she snuggled in close. "As long as you promise not to pounce on my morning wood. Just making sure," she rushed ahead when I winced. "And if you do, it's only gonna mean another talk. Not that I hate you or want to leave you. Right?"
"Right," I groaned, flopping onto my back. She only moved in closer. This time, I felt the warm squish of her soft junk against my thigh; it was kind of nice. I'd never felt that before with a dude, because I never had a relationship with one long enough to include much cuddling. "I promise."
"And we're not done trying to figure out why the statue-thing happens. I… I want you to be safe, and not have to worry that I'll come home and find…"
The ominousness of that idea hung over both of our heads for a moment. I whispered to her, "We will. I don't want it, and you don't want it; pretty unanimous. Not that I have any clue where to start."
"Tomorrow," she yawned as she nuzzled in, already drifting off.
"Knives?" A little hum was her only response. "I'm… glad you're back in my life. Fucking crazy as it's been. Just didn't want you to…"
By that point, I could feel her deeper breathing, and knew I was trying to talk to a snoozing woman. Shaking my head very gently, I settled in to drift off with her.
                                                           To Be Continued…
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forkanna · 7 years
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I actually didn't see much of her for the next week. First and foremost, because Comeau took a week off to go do something arty so his shifts fell in my lap, and secondly because…
Well, I don't know. She just wasn't around. It started to worry me after the first few days. Did I just act too surly and actually drive away the only ray of sunshine in my otherwise drab world? Listen to me wax fucking poetic. Been talking to Steph too much, maybe.
But when she popped back up again, it was where I was least expecting it.
I had gone into Tim Horton's to use the washrooms — that's all, I think they're just barely better than the swill at Starbucks and equally overpriced. While I was peeing, I heard from the next stall…
"KIM?!"
So this next thing isn't all that easy for me to tell you about. I let out a HUGE fart. I mean, she literally scared it out of me so I think I can be forgiven, but the entire washroom went pretty quiet right after that was pretty loud. Just about the most embarrassing moment of my short, sweet existence.
Clearing my throat, I tried to make my voice higher and reedier, like an old lady's voice. "Sorry, dear, I don't know who Kim is!"
"Come on, Kim, I know it's you! I can see that freckle on your toe!" My toes scrunched in on themselves, digging into the flip flops. "Too late!"
"Why would you even have noticed that?!" I demanded, hating that she caught me like this. Seriously, if the toilet flushed and sucked me down into an unknown subspace pocket, I'd have been grateful.
"Last week, while we were kicking back at your coffee table and listening to music?" Her running shoes scuffed nervously at the tile. "Noticed you have a freckle there since we weren't doing much of anything else. Dunno why, guess I just think it's cute."
"I have plenty of freckles. Why is this one cute?"
"Because it's in the middle of your middle toe? Not really sure…" Then I heard her flush. "So, whatcha up to?"
"Trying to pee. Which I did, a little prematurely. But at least I already had my pants down, so I guess it could have been way worse. Why, what about you?"
As I emerged from the stall, I expected her to be out there already. But she was going, "Hang on, just getting things situated…" There was a little rustling, and then she emerged with her arms spread wide, as if giving a glorious reveal…
Wearing a barista uniform. For the antichrist conglomerate slowly devouring Canada.
"You work here now?!" I exclaimed, glancing up and down the brown-and-black uniform, at the little visor perched atop her head. "Why? I thought you had a job at Second Cup."
"I had to quit when I went to uni," she said reasonably as she went to wash her hands, glancing down at her slacks and then back over at me when I joined her at the sink. "But um, I wanted to have a little more spending money when I get back for my second year, y'know? And Second Cup is fully staffed right now, and so is Delicious Cup — I already asked. And with Julie working there…"
"Nah, I get you." Seriously, somebody needed to smack some sense into Powers.
Towelling off her hands, she asked, "What are you doing here? I thought you hated Timmy."
"Well, 'hate' is a strong word…" An accurate one. Though I'll admit, I got some really shitty service in Montreal one year that kind of solidified it from disinterest to hate. "Just needed to use the can."
"Right. Well, we do have one of those!"
"Yeah. Um…" My voice was quavering a little, I felt stupid. "Sorry for… y'know, when I…"
"Didn't say 'pardon me'? It's cool," she laughed. A sigh of relief erupted from me; I really was grateful she didn't make me say it, or say it herself. "This is the place to do that, right?"
Nodding, I towelled off myself. It was weird. We were being weird, and I couldn't quite figure out why… until she put her finger on it for us.
"But yeah, starting the job has been pretty crazy. I meant to drop by sometime this week, but with work, and my mom's birthday, and stuff…"
"Oh, don't worry about it," I said with a smile of relief. She wasn't ditching me. That shouldn't have mattered as much as it did, but I was seriously soothed to know that. "Been quiet around No-Account." At the last second, I stopped myself from adding "without you" to the end of that.
"I'm really, really sorry. But I can make up for it! This week is less crazy. Wanna go to the zoo?"
For some reason, that made me chuckle. Something I almost never do lately, and her suggestion of going to the zoo was enough. "Really? But it's so far away, and so pricey…"
"I just got my first paycheck. My treat, to make up for being gone lately."
"Well…" Again, she did that weird thing where she enchanted me with her warmth and enthusiasm so much that I couldn't say 'no'. "What day? I'll probably be working."
"Then you pick. I get off at five today, so that's not enough time, but I'm off Saturday…"
"Me, too. Around noon?"
"Sure," she answered with that sweet, shy smile that made me want to flush her down the can. "Meet up there, or at your place first?"
"We can just meet there." I turned toward the washroom door, but something was holding me back. "Um…" I wanted to say something about how much I missed her, even though I didn't fully comprehend why. "Hey…" I wanted her to know that despite how shitty of an attitude I had sometimes, I really truly valued our fucked-up, almost-one-sided friendship.
And while I was stammering, trying to get past my hangups, she hugged me from behind. "Yeah." Then she released me and held the door open. "My break's probably way over by now."
"Right," I sighed. "Go back to slinging brown water. See you tomorrow."
"See ya!"
And she went back behind the counter, while I went down the street shaking my head so violently that it almost came loose and bounced across to the other side.
                                      ~ o ~
The zoo was fine. I'd visited it before, of course, but it had been years. More or less you can expect the animals to do the same things they did the last time, so it's not like a repeat visit will reveal anything new.
But the animals ranged from cute to interesting; giraffes and cheetahs and hyenas, oh my. Knives wanted to look at literally everything, and who was I to stop her? This was the reason we came, so it would be dumb for even me to act like that was strange of her. Meanwhile, I walked around with an iced capp I got from near Tundra Trek and mostly watched her reactions, skipping around in that white babydoll tee and jean shorts, eyes wide and mouth flapping about how much fun she was having, and how big this animal was or how small that one was. That was the real attraction for me.
Which began to worry me a little. Really, this whole thing with Knives already did. Not because I was developing some big gay crush; I didn't think that was it, and I'm no homophobe. But if I wasn't crushing on her, then what was I doing? This was such a weird friendship, and kind of the opposite of the casual relationship I normally enjoyed with my sparse acquaintances. Something about it was so… intense. But that was probably all Knives, and very little from my end. She was a force of nature.
Once we had seen and done most of everything there was to do without paying extra, like buying souvenirs that nobody would care about in two days, we headed back to catch the bus toward our respective homes. When she brought up dinner, I almost jumped on it.
"Let's do Sneaky Dee's. It sucks, but if we get there early enough, it might not be deafening and full of annoying college kids."
"Like me?"
"Yes, like you. One is enough."
"Hmm, I was gonna head back to my house, but…" Her cheeks bunched in a smile. "You think we could get Stephen or Julie to show up? Make it a real reunion."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess."
Her smile slipped a notch. "Do you not want them to come?"
"Nah, it's fine. Even if Julie is a cunt lately, especially to you."
"That's just Julie," she laughed it off. Not that I thought she should have; the way she acted toward Knives was totally unacceptable, and I still wanted to give her a piece of my mind about it. "Just Stephen then."
Shrugging, I stretched my arms overhead and crossed them behind my neck as we rode along. "What about Neil?"
"He probably wouldn't want to see me. Too many awkward memories." Then she cleared her throat to push past that detail. "Steph could come, though."
"Sure. She's been acting like she wants to hang outside of practices and shit lately. So… I'll invite her, maybe Stephen and Joseph. Julie can eat a bag of dicks."
That seemed to startle her slightly. At first, I thought maybe I had gone too far, but instead she whispered, "I've never heard that phrase before. It's hilarious! Because like, a whole bag of dicks!" She giggled, and I giggled with her. Sometimes I just couldn't help it around that doofus.
                                      ~ o ~
Not too much later, we were in Sneaky Dee's. It's kind of a grubby hole, but the food is pretty good, drinks are medium-cheap and sometimes they play decent music. Steph showed and so did Stephen, though Joseph stayed back because he was busy "mixing". Probably a lie, but who cares? Knives made a dumb joke about "Steph and Stephen", which made Steph laugh while Stephen and I just rolled our eyes at each other.
It was nice. We talked about the Sex Bob-omb days, and the Sonic and Knuckles days before that. Made noises about getting a band together ourselves, but with Dynamite Headdy doing as well as it was, Stephen had no real motivation to spin more plates.
Everything was going fine… until we started talking more in-depth about the end of Sex Bob-omb.
"Haven't heard from him since then," Stephen confirmed as we stared at the mostly-empty plates, patting our stomachs. In his case, scratching at his stubble. "Can you live in subspace? Like, I still don't really understand that whole thing very well."
"No, I don't think it's a place you get to stay," I went on. "Of course, I've only been there once or twice. Scott dragged me through a door so we could escape from a crazy samurai." I tried not to glance at Knives, and she didn't seem to notice, either.
"I think there are subspace pockets along with the highways," she said as she sipped at her lemonade. Guess she was serious about not drinking. "But there aren't buildings or restaurants or anything there. So they must be living somewhere in normal space, right?"
Steph shrugged, leaning against the table on her elbows. "Wouldn't know. Never had much experience with it myself. So Scott dragged you through, Kim?"
My body was already freezing up, a response to being needled about my past with Scott so much. "Yeah."
"He was always kind of self-centered, in that dopey, doesn't-realise-he-is way," she mused as she stared across the restaurant at the back of the neon sign in the window. "Even when you two were dating…"
"Oh yeah," Knives said as she turned to me. "You never talked about that much." And I didn't want to now. But she wasn't going to let it drop, was she?
"What is there to say? He was an idiot, I was an idiot for not seeing how much of one he was. He liked to pretend that he rescued me from Simon to make himself more 'heroic'. I'm better off without him."
"That's what you say about Jason, too," he laughed, and I felt myself growing even more earnest in my desire to be silent and not have to react to any of this. "And… that's probably true. Sometimes I worry about Hollie going through the same thing eventually."
"She deserves it. They both do."
Pointing her fork at me, Steph said, "You always do that. Blame everyone else for all your problems. Not saying they're all your fault, either, just… maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?"
"Always," Stephen sighed.
"Well, I think you guys are being too hard on Kim," Knives put in with a little pout, picking at the communal plate of nachos. "Scott dumped me, too, and he wasn't very smart about how he did it, but that's just Scott; he doesn't know how to handle serious stuff until he can't avoid it, I think. That's not her fault."
"Yeah, you and she both dated Scott," Steph said with a slightly suspicious smile. "Funny that you're hanging out together now, despite that."
"Why is it funny?" It was a genuine question, not an accusation. Of course it was. Knives was such a wide-eyed marshmallow.
"Uhhh, because normally you don't get along with your ex's exes?"
Shrugging, Stephen grumbled, "I get along with Julie better than most of you do."
"That's because you turned out to be gay."
"What does that have to do with it? We still broke up when I started dating Joseph."
"Have you ever noticed all our names start with an S, a K, or a J?" Knives observed out of nowhere.
"Yeah… well, except for Neil."
"Or those other guys," Steph said. "Like Lucas Lee, and the other people who Scott beat up?"
Stephen shook his head. "No, they don't count."
"Why not?"
"They aren't part of 'us', they're the bad guys," he went on reasonably, gesturing to the table with an open palm as if the gesture would help sell his argument. "But then they still do that supervillain thing." When both Steph and Knives kept staring at him in confusion, he sat up a little straighter in the hard wooden booth. "You know… Lucas Lee, Roxie Richter, Gideon Graves… Ken and Kyle Katayanagi. That thing."
"Alliteration," she breathed. "The highest form of evil."
"Ohhhhh," Knives said with a hand in front of her open mouth. "That's so weird how I never noticed! But what about Todd Ingram? I mean, I hearted The Clash At Demonhead, so I remember him better…"
"He's the outlier. I mean, not every villain has to adhere to the trope for it to be a trope."
"What's a trope?" Steph asked. But Stephen wasn't listening; he was staring at me, eyes squinting slightly. I tried to ask what he was staring at…
But I couldn't. My lips wouldn't move, and my eyes wouldn't blink. Nothing happened despite my best efforts.
"Oh shit," he whispered. "Kim turned to stone again."
                                       To Be Continued…
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forkanna · 7 years
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NOTICE: Scott Pilgrim and related characters are ©Bryan Lee O'Malley. Story/plot content is © me!
Based mostly off the graphic novels but some stuff from the movie and game. There are other Kim/Knives fics but I haven't read them; I wanted to come at this completely based on the source material. Any similarities to those fics is purely coincidental.
Rated M for adult topics (including one brief not-quite-explicit flashback with a 17-year-old), and some sexual content in later chapters. You know, the L word. No, not "lesbian" — the OTHER L word: lesbians.
"... It's something else" - flyafar
I know this one kind of comes from nowhere, but I've actually been wanting to do something in the Pilgrimverse for a long time. Ever since I first saw the movie in theaters. Then a couple of weeks back, I was playing through the game again out of boredom (trying to get some elusive achievements) and I just felt this strong impulse to give Kim and Knives the ending they deserved.
If you haven't read the comics but HAVE seen the movie, I wouldn't be surprised if you view this as a crackship. It still kind of is in the comics to be honest! But don't worry, you don't have to read them to enjoy this fic; I'll cover what happened in later chapters. Plus a lot of little surprises that make up my take on them.
Hope you like this one! It's about medium-length for me, definitely no oneshot but in total it's not even as long as "Bind Us" is so far. And it's only getting started!
Jessex
[AO3 LINK]
CHAPTER ONE
And so, as our band of ragtag heroes exited from the Chaos Theater, Scott Pilgrim was reunited with his great love - well, other than himself. He and Ramona Flowers, the random American rollerblading groupie, went prancing off into Subspace together. Happily fucking ever after.
Both "fucking happily" and "happily fucking", to be honest.
What did I get? The same thing as usual. Nothing. Bitterness and emptiness. Well, I guess that's not completely accurate: Scott said he was sorry. Too little, too late, but hey… at least he tried. A for Effort. He gets Ramona, Stephen gets my old roommate, Wallace gets just about every piece of hot gay ass in Toronto besides Joseph and Stephen. Knives and Young Neil get each other, sort of, kind of. I guess. Who cares? And I'm left with a big bag of nothing.
I'm not Scott, obviously. I'm Kim. I play drums. That's all the introduction you get.
Fine, I'll be nice. You came here for this story, so I'll tell you the rest of the history first. Kim Pine. Red hair and freckles, pointless existence. Born and raised in Ontario, though I've skipped from town to town. Scorpio. My turn-ons are death and destruction, and long walks on the beach.
If you don't know any of the history, then you're probably better off. It's a long, sad story full of sighs and facepalms. But some of you probably have that morbid curiosity you can't shake, so unless you already know this and can skip it, or just care even less than me, here we go: I used to play drums for Sex Bob-omb with Scott and Stephen. Also of importance is the fact that Scott left a string of broken hearts in his wake a kilometer and a half long, with mine thrown in there somewhere. Just because he and I patched it up enough to be civil didn't mean we were "all good", but I sure as fuck wasn't going to be the one to explain it to the manchild. Anyway, we all thought for sure that Knives and Ramona were just going to be his latest casualties, or one of them would Yoko him into quitting the band. And we were right about that last part; the band fell apart, but at least not in a literal sense like The Clash At Demonhead, when their bassist was headbutted into coins and the drummer lost her cybernetic arm before disappearing completely. Not too long after the big showdown with Gideon at the Chaos, Ramona and Scott poofed into the ether and haven't been heard from since.
There, happy?
Anyway, this takes place a year after all that went down.
                                                            ~ o ~
I don't even know why I was still in Toronto. After Sex Bob-omb exploded and Shatter Band shattered, there really wasn't much else for me to do. Boredom, maybe. At least Stephen was still around, making music with his boyfriend, but they didn't seem to need my drums anymore. Dynamite Headdy sounds better without me. Sure, there are days I still miss Sex Bob-omb. Not so much Shatter Band, which stank on ice. But the Bob-omb had potential, we just had Scott's lack of focus holding us back, and Stephen's too-much-focus sucking all the fun out of everything. So maybe, over the course of this paragraph, I talked myself out of missing either of those bands.
Anyway. Toronto, Delicious Cup.
Nobody wants to hear a drummer all by themselves. So I started doing this thing with Steph Nordegraf after she moved back to Toronto. Stephen introduced us; I'd met her through her brother Neil before though. It's… experimental and stupid, and I hate it. I'm on bongos while she sings and plays the zither. We sound like new age music being recorded by kindergartner, which is why we couldn't book any real coffee houses, like Second Cup or Aroma; only knockoffs like that one.
That's what we were doing in Delicious Cup the day my life stopped being pointless and colourless. So colourless that I didn't even fully realise it was summer until I saw Knives Chau walk in.
"What are you doing?" Steph hissed at me. Didn't even notice my bongos were on the floor until that point.
"What?"
"You went totally dead, like some kind of locust."
"Do locusts go dead? Is that their thing?"
"Just…" She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We'll take five."
Frowning up at her, I slipped my bongos into the backpack I normally kept them in. "Chill, Nordegraf. You're going to develop kidney stones."
Okay, so that wasn't really her fault; I was being my usual salty self to cover for the fact that I fucked up our set. Not that anyone in the coffee house was paying the slightest attention to the two weirdos who thought they were musicians; they were all chatting, drinking, and reading through magazines. When one of our ten-minute epics ended, one polite older woman clapped. That was it. We might as well have been ghosts for all the notice we got coming and going.
As I ditched her with the equipment and went up to the counter, slipping in behind Knives in line, I tried not to think too much. Sure, we had a thing once… it's barely worth mentioning. But yeah, it was oddly nice to see a familiar face. Especially with Scott and Ramona off in the ether somewhere.
She looked good. At least, I thought so; she stopped doing that thing where she dyed part of her hair, which I always thought was just a way to compete for Pilgrim's attention, anyway. And a year of college really seemed to have given her something… not that I could tell what it was, but something more. Her adorable face was turned mostly away from me, so I couldn't tell much else. Just that she was wearing clothes a little more grown up than when I last saw her, and that she didn't seem as nervously-excited. That's a good thing: I hate excitable people.
"Green milktea?" she asked when she got up to the counter.
"What… is that?" Julie asked her. "This is a coffee house, not a tea house." Typical Julie. Yeah, I knew the barista, but we don't really talk. She's even more unpleasant than I am.
"Oh… but you have green tea and chai tea on the menu. Right there."
Julie didn't even bother to look over her shoulder. "I think I would know the menu better than you would."
"But I'm serious, it's right-"
"Do you have a problem with the way this business operates? Are you blind or something?"
"No, I'm not blind," Knives said, slowly sounding a little less sure of herself. "My eyes work fine."
"Then why can't you read my lips? No. Milk. Tea."
This was going nowhere. Even though this wasn't how I wanted to reinitiate contact with either of them again, I strode up to the counter and stood next to Knives.
"If you have milk, and you have tea, you can make her fucking milktea. Besides, you know her, so stop being such a rotting tampon."
"What?" Knives breathed, taking an instinctive step away — probably just from my tone.
"Excuse me, carrot top?" Julie snapped. "You don't tell me how to-"
"And you don't own this café, Powers, even if you do seem to work in all of them. Just make the drink. I'll cover whatever extra you want to charge." Digging into my pocket for my meager amount of money that I own, I produced a couple of toonies. "Make it. Now."
"This isn't even enough for a normal cappuccino, or whatever a 'milktea' is supposed to be."
"She can pay for the actual tea herself; I'm just paying for your added mental energy, which you seem to be rationing very carefully due to a tremendous shortage."
By that point, Julie's glasses were literally steaming. Either from her face heating up with rage, or the coffee machines behind her. Knives had been shrinking away from the whole confrontation, but then she blinked a few times, leaning back toward us.
"Kim?"
My cheeks probably would have turned red at the way she breathed my name. What a dumb reaction. But I made myself focus on what I was doing, stepping forward to add another fiver atop the coins on the counter. "And this is for my espresso. Hurry it the fuck up or I'll do that ask-to-see-a-manager thing we all hate." My work done, I turned and went back over to Steph.
It only took her a minute or so to see that I was back without any drinks. "What happened to my soy latte?"
"Sorry…" All at once, I realised I forgot about that. Or about waiting around for my own drink, either. But she noticed I was out of sorts.
"What happened?"
"To what, your face? I've been wondering that for years."
"No, at the counter." She was used to my attitude by now, and could tell when I was deflecting. A skill I loathe in my friends, because it bypasses my defenses. "You look all shook up."
"Thanks, Elvis." Clearly, she wasn't going to let this go. "Okay… I ran into somebody. From the old days."
Her lip curled slightly. "From the Pilgrim Era, or like even earlier?" My face must have said it all because she winced. "Yikes…"
"I don't care," I told her flatly. "This doesn't matter. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up and go back to No-Account, punch the clock, and stare into space for six hours until Comeau gets in. Probably drink a bunch of Coke and feel myself contracting diabetes."
"Why don't you just drink Coke Zero?"
My scowl said enough. Still, for good measure, I snapped, "Never… mention Coke Zero… in front of me."
"Okay, Hagrid," she snorted as she finished packing up and we headed for the door. Again, she doesn't respect my grumpiness properly. "But I hope you know this isn't the end of thi-"
Before we could escape Delicious Cup, a pair of crossed blades were blocking our path. Behind their gleaming steel was a pair of dark eyes, blazing with intensity.
"I can't let you leave."
                                                  To Be Continued…
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forkanna · 7 years
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[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]
NOTE: This is where things are gonna start to shift a bit.
Another week or so passed. To be honest, you really missed nothing, other than Stephen giving me a plastic baggie with some of my stone-flakes in it because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. He also gave me one of the bottles of Soft to keep in my place, just in case it happened again. That did seem like a precaution I should have already thought of myself.
And a lot of Knives. A loooot of her hanging around, and finally weaseling my number out of me so she could text and ask if she could come over. I ignored a lot of her texts, but she still always managed to get me to agree to a time she could come bouncing through my door with one of her attack-hugs at the ready. We mostly just watched movies or played video games. Met up with Stephen and Joseph some other night at a sushi place. And the whole time, I didn't know what to do with myself.
Before you ask, there were a couple of close calls. Because we can all tell where this is going already, so I'm just putting it out there.
Three nights after we were watching the samurai movie, she came in for a hug. Slower than usual, and I mean like, at a snail's pace. Turned out, she just thought it would be funny if we bumped noses, but I was just slightly-drunk enough to think she was going in for something else. I blame the tequila shots, and therefore, on Steph who had ordered them. Dumb lush. But I managed to play it off that she was just too close to my face, and that was why I flinched.
Then there was the next day, when we split a Canadian from Pizza Pizza for dinner. We both went in for a slice at the same time and our hands touched; that old thing. I accused her of being a greedy bitch, but she was just biting her bottom lip and giggling before she flicked a mushroom at me. It made me either want to slap her, or… I don't know. For the life of me, I don't know what the fuck was going on in my head, but she let me brush it off and grab a different slice.
But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Which isn't exactly what happens here, but like, go with it, okay?
                                                            ~ o ~
"I don't understand," she was sighing as she swung upside-down from the monkey bars in Hillcrest Park, jeans-clad knees taking the brunt of her slight weight effortlessly. "My mom acts like she's so worldly, but then she doesn't want me to have a totally normal barista job because it'll distract me from meeting 'a nice man' or becoming a doctor, or whatever."
I sighed as I picked at some peeling paint on one of the bars. I was sitting on a 'step' for the kids to climb up to the slide, though my omnipresent black cloud of misanthropy had kept any actual children far away from us. "She's being a mom. That's what they do: pass judgment on their children's decisions. Mine are in the professional league."
"That sucks." Her eyes went up — and in this case that means they were pointed at the sky, not above her head, which would have been sand. "Don't my tits look great like this?"
"Sure," I snorted. "I m-mean, what makes you think I noticed?"
"Nothing, Kim," she giggled. "Just a thought I had. Oh, did you know TCAD is getting back together?"
I pursed my lips for a moment before answering, "Are they really?"
"Kind of. I mean, it's not the original lineup, though. That'd be huge news, since that jerk Todd was turned into coins!" She flipped up through the bars and began walking on top of them, arms out to the sides to help maintain her balance. "Think the new bassist is that girl from Smashing Turnips. They broke up, remember? Plus they're holding auditions for new drummers but I heard she doesn't want guys applying. Sounded like she was pretty sure of that."
"So now they're an all-girl band? Quaint."
"Envy said in a press release that she was thinking about staying solo, but I guess she had a change of heart. But she did start going by 'Natalie' again, 'cause the solo career didn't work out for her. She said 'I'm just not cut out to be a pop star, it's too high-maintenance'." Then she gasped and turned to look at me. "DUDE! You should so totally try out!"
My eyes widened. "What?! Knives, you-"
"Think about it! You're a drummer, and a girl, and they're super-"
"KNIVES!"
But I wasn't upset about her needling me into life decisions. She wasn't paying attention to what she was doing anymore, and had started to slowly fall off the monkey bars. A little yelp of surprise sounded as her running shoes slipped down and back off the metal, arms windmilling. The world slowed to a crawl. Heart in my throat, I dove, and just barely managed to catch her before falling into the sand around the playscape.
"Shit… are you okay?!" I demanded, my voice an octave too high.
But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were round, and she had her hands locked around the back of my neck. She looked stunned speechless, which was a new look for her. My hands flexed awkwardly in her armpit and under her knee as I held her slight weight, which was still a little heavy but I'm a drummer, so I have a decent amount of upper body strength. I could handle it.
"You saved me," she breathed.
"What? Well… y-yeah, I couldn't let you… fall."
"Um… I probably would have been fine. It's only like five feet, and there's sand everywhere." Her face was closer again. Probably going in for another hug, like last time. "But you caught me, Kim."
For some reason, I couldn't put her down yet. Swallowing down my panic, I whispered, "What if you broke your neck? I'd… I could never live with letting that happen to you."
"Why not?"
She was prying into my feelings and motivations too much. Gruffly, I snapped, "Who else would annoy the hell out of me every day? What a stupid ass question."
Even though that was intended to get her to laugh and call me a dork, or say I was funny, or just to tell me I could put her down, it didn't seem to work the way I hoped.
Because Knives kissed me. And I mean kissed me… and I kissed back. Really, we might have done it at the same time, like when you and a friend automatically go in for the fist bump when something really awesome happens because you're both on the same page. Something about the moment just needed it, even if I didn't fully understand why. Her lips were soft and sweet, and familiar; I knew we'd kissed when drunk, even though I couldn't remember most of it. And the gentle weight in my arms made it perfect.
Of course, once we broke apart a few seconds — minutes, hours, centuries — later, I went into pure panic mode. Or tried to. But the lip-on-lip contact had robbed me of actual power and ability to move. Not like the time I turned to stone, though; this wasn't that serious.
"O-oh," was all she said at first. Though the look in her eyes and the way her breathing was so rapid and shallow told me that the "oh" meant a lot more than that, so just this once, I didn't snap at her to explain.
"Holy balls," I managed to breathe.
"Where did that come from? I mean… it was…"
When her face started glowing, a small, private, sacred smile of pure joy blossoming, I had to drop her to the sand and stand back up, turning around to grip the monkey bars overhead to keep myself from falling over. Why was I so dizzy? Why was I overreacting? I mean, a little part of me had been able to tell that we were trending in this direction. Like magnets, or gentrification of old neighbourhoods; sometimes you just can't stop it. Yet I had kind of thought it might never happen. Or at the very least, it would take longer than a few weeks.
"Kim?" One of her hands came to rest in the small of my back.
"Whoa, whoa," I squeaked, spinning around so fast I almost fell myself. "J-just because we- I mean, you shouldn't- don't do that!"
"Sorry," she breathed as she lowered the hand, rubbing her fingers together as if trying to rid them of the memory. I know I could definitely still feel them on my back.
"No, don't…" Sighing, I pressed both my hands into my face. "AGH!" There was a high-pitched whistling sound. "What the hell is even happening anymore?!"
After a few seconds of silence, Knives cleared her throat. "You, um… does steam come out of your ears normally?"
"No! And it didn't just now, either!"
"But I saw-"
"Nevermind that! Just…" Running hands through my hair, and feeling that it did feel a little warmer and more moist than it should have been, I looked over at her. "Can we just rewind about five minutes and forget that ever happened? I… whatever that was, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it, Knives."
A little shrug of her shoulders as she stared down at her running shoes. "I haven't unlocked that power-up yet, Kim. Sorry."
"Stop apologising, too! Like… we didn't do anything wrong, it's just way past what I can handle right now. Okay? Please, just… I can't even believe we're having this conversation. And on a playground!"
Ugh. Do you have any idea how terrible I felt? Panicking and making her feel like it was all her fault. It was so hard for me to explain my own feelings that I wound up trampling all over hers. But I didn't know how else to react.
"Kim… it's okay," she said finally, cautiously putting her hands on my shoulders. I twitched, took a step backward, but she followed and kept them there. "It's okay. I don't really understand this, either; I mean, I didn't think I was a lesbian. But then again, I didn't at Julie's aunt's, either, and that still-"
"Let's not talk about that, either," I grunted, ashamed of myself. "Especially since you were still in high school."
"Barely," she made sure to remind me. "But… seriously, you made me feel loved that night, and you made me feel loved just now." My eyes must have bulged in panic, because she reassured me, "Like a friend! A good friend who, uh, doesn't mind… that sometimes? If that's cool…"
"Just how far did we go?" I had to ask.
"Made out for a little while. Some… other stuff, but nobody took off their swimsuit," she assured me nervously, and I sighed in some slight relief. "And it was great! But if you want to not do that again, I'm fine with that. Seriously!"
Temptation reared its ugly head. "Well…" Then I shook myself, gripping at my hair around her hands still on my shoulders. "GAH! Like, I'm kinda curious, but also have never… I mean, I've dated guys all my life, this is a pretty big curveball of a life choice, if it is one. And I didn't think you were anything more than just a friend before today, so isn't it crazy to change statuses all of a sudden like this?"
"Why does it have to be some big 'choice'?" she chuckled softly. It made me mad that she wasn't being serious. No… that isn't true. It made me jealous that she wasn't having as much trouble with it as I was. Yeah, that's way more accurate. "I mean, either you want to kiss me or you don't. Whatever, right?"
"Right. Just so easy. Is that why you've been hanging around me so much? Hoping to wear me down?"
"What? No, I wouldn't- that's not it at all!"
"Are you sure?" She squirmed, but didn't back down. "All that time hanging around, you just were hoping that it would happen again. Great. I thought I really had a friend, and you're just another Scott waiting to happen."
But that was a low blow and we both flinched, her hands falling away from me. Before I could apologise, Knives got to it first. "Kim, I'd never do that. It's hard to blame Scott for what he did, because I hearted him so much, but that's just… not the kind of thing I could ever do to a friend! S-so please, don't say that I would…"
"Knives… shit." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I said, "Okay. You're right, I'm… not being fair."
"You're freaking out is what you are."
"Definitely. Can we… I don't know. I want to run away and hide, but I also don't want you to leave."
"Wanna go to Delicious Cup?" she suggested, again touching my arm. This time, I didn't react, either positively or negatively. "We, um, can just talk there. PDA in the café would be a little gross so it'll make kissing less of a… does 'issue' make sense? Is that the best word?"
Nodding, I swallowed hard. "Yeah. It's a great word. Maybe even word of the day, because I clearly have issues."
"Kim, nooo," she half-whined, grasping my wrist and pulling me along. We only made the briefest of stops to snag our bags from the deserted swingset before heading off past the wading pool. "I mean… I kinda freaked out the next morning after the first time, too, so I totally get it! I just… already worked through all that, maybe? Not with a legit therapist, just did a lot of thinking, and talking to Tamara."
"You talked to Tamara about this?!"
"Not a lot! Just, like, sorting through my feelings! And she wouldn't tell anybody, she's my BFF!"
My body felt like it wanted to turn into stone again, but I forced myself to breathe, to stop acting like every weird moment of my life was the end of the world. "Okay… you're right. Back in those days, I probably would have tried to talk to Stephen about this if I could remember more about that night. But I just wrote it off as being drunk. I mean, I never tried to make out with Ramona, or Julie, or…"
"Actually, I kinda heard that you and Ramona had a slight moment," Knives laughed. When I turned round eyes on her, she protested, "From Lisa! Like, remember when we all got together before she moved away?"
"What moment did we have?" I demanded.
"Something about you and she and Scott being all in the same bed, and you telling them both that you loved them." When she looked back after a few seconds of silence and caught me blushing, she giggled. "You were talking, not doing anything else. At least, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about anything else."
"Oh, good. I mean, if I had a threesome with Scott and that hair-changing hipster, I'd blow my stack."
The bridge of her nose crinkled from the force of her smile as we made our way toward the bus stop. "Already did that once today. Seriously, can you teach me that trick with the steam?"
"GOD, SHUT YOUR HOLE!"
                                                             To Be Continued…
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