“Is this ‘bout the color of my skin?” The elderly black man growled, shaking his head and glaring up from his wheelchair. “‘Cause if this Jim fella’s some kinda racist, you just go on and put me in a room with him and I’ll sort his sorry behind out my own self.”

“Charles, no,” Rebecca protested weakly, looking distressed. She wore a simple set of navy blue scrubs patterned with light blue pawprints, and her disorderly auburn hair had been tied up into a braid for her shift. “Jim has… well he’s a little racist, but that’s not why—”

“Only my momma call me Charles, an’ she been up in heaven forty years now,” the man interrupted. “You call me Charlie jus’ like everybody else, and you don’t be ‘fraid to set me up in a room with some racist Jim, Charlie can handle hisself just fine, li’l miss.” The old man’s dark skin was deeply furrowed by a lifetime of wrinkles, but Rebecca found his stubborn, provoking smile quite charming.

She was leisurely pushing his wheelchair along one of the bright, sterile-looking walkways of Shady Oaks Assisted Living Center. Being a nurse’s aide wasn’t particularly rewarding work, but taking care of people had always been intuitive for Rebecca. She was a dependable worker, and oddly cheerful, in her own quiet and reserved little way.

“Uh, well, I’m sure you can, Charles! Buuut, we can’t assign you a room if there’s going to be any, ah, issues that—”

“Hah! You call me Charlie now, ya hear?”

“Rebecca?” Another aide, Trisha, trotted towards her down the community hallway at a brisk pace. “Rebecca, there was a call for you, some kind of emergency? You’re supposed to call an Emily Rivera back, as soon as you can.”

An emergency, huh? Rebecca feigned a cute frown, as if considering what could have possibly happened. There was, of course, nothing Emily would consider such an emergency that she would call her at work for. “Thanks, Trish. I’ll stop by the office in a sec, okay?”

Something must have happened with Brian, She deduced. Maybe Chloe finally called him and really chewed him out? While Rebecca liked to seem only half-aware of her surroundings and generally oblivious, what was going on between Emily and Brian was obvious to her. Emily never openly admitted to it, and would likely fervently deny it, but Rebecca could tell. She could always tell.

“Everythin’ gon be all right, li’l miss?” Charlie asked.

“…I’ll make sure it’s fine,” Rebecca answered calmly. “But, I may have to leave you shortly.”

“Oh you go on then, I’ll be jus’ fine wit Jim,” he laughed. “Knock his ass out if I have to.”

“Listen, Charles. You seem really nice, so—”

“Charlie,” the old man corrected.

“—You seem really nice, and this is your first day here, so I’m going to warn you.” Rebecca stepped around and crouched in front of his wheelchair, placing her hands firmly atop his own dark, weathered hands. “Do you see what Linda’s doing, how she’s greeting the residents?”

Opposite the hall from them, another attendant in scrubs was doing her rounds checking on the rooms, and they could hear her jovial voice calling out to the occupants inside.

“We call on each and every one of our residents by their first names,” Rebecca explained. “Because you’re not just… patients, or wards, here at Shady Oaks, you’re part of our community. Our family.”

“That so?” he grunted, not buying into her sales pitch at all.

“It is. Now the man you’d be rooming with, Jim, he is a racist, kinda, but not at all in the way you’d think, not towards people of your… color.” Her voice drifting further away from the soft-spoken, somewhat sleepy tone she was used to using at work, and a bit of Mara’s no-nonsense tone beginning to creep in. “Jim only has problems with Charlie.”

“Say what now?”

“I want you to know that the problem isn’t with the color of your skin—it’s the name Charlie that would be a problem. There’s demons that Jim has to deal with, demons named Victor Charlie. After what happened in Vietnam, Jim had some… recurring episodes, and his family felt it was better for him to stay someplace quiet, where he could feel safe all the time.”

“Victor Charlie,” Charlie repeated back to her in disbelief. “Victor Charlie as in, Viet Cong?”

“Not everyone here in assisted living is here just because they’re a miserable old cuss,” Rebecca chuckled, dropping completely out of her normal sweet and serene, sing-song voice entirely. The Mara audible now in her manner of speech was blunt and direct. “Now, imagine you’re sharing Jim’s room and one of the girls has to come in and check on you, for any reason. What trigger words are going to jolt him awake? How is Charlie this morning? Is Charlie awake and alert? There’s going to be hamloaf in the dining hall today, but you’ll have to skidaddle, because Victor Charlie is moving in, and you won’t have any support?”

The balding old black man in the wheelchair paused for a long moment as he considered the implications. “Bull—shit. You think some l’il thing like someone sayin’ Charlie gon’ set him off?”

“…Little things setting him off is the reason he’s with us in assisted living, yes,” Rebecca nodded. “He has good days… and he has bad days. Now, I’m not saying a flip will switch and he’ll turn into some crazed maniac—”

“A switch will flip,” Charles corrected absentmindedly.

“Yes, that’s what I said? He won’t turn into some crazed maniac, and it isn’t dangerous for you, but it’s very distressing for him. It takes a toll on him, he’ll shake, have fits. You can see him shut everything and everyone out, he’s off far away somewhere in the past, I suppose.

“He’s vulnerable to these… certain kinds of stimuli, certain reminders we try to help him avoid. Otherwise, he’d be enjoying a normal life with his niece and her children. So, if you’re comfortable with it, before I leave for the weekend, I’d like to make sure they assign you a different room… Charlie.”

“Well, hell…” he mused with a dry, earnest chuckle. “Call me Charles. You’ve gone and said all that, now I’ve gotta meet him my own self. C’mon, now.”

As it turned out, Jim was napping when they arrived, but Charlie—or rather, Charles insisted not to wake him and promised with a rasping laugh to be on his best behavior when his roommate awoke. Rebecca helped him get settled and situated, quietly explained the room’s amenities, and then took her leave, promising that someone would whisk him away to their lavish dining hall later on.

“Glenda, I need to take the rest of the day off, if that’s possible,” Rebecca said, stepping over to the administrative office. “Am I able to use one of my personal days?”

“I’m sure that’s fine,” Glenda mumbled. “How many do you have left for the year?”

“All of them? I’ve never used one.”

“Hmm,” Glenda frowned, swiveling in her chair to dig through the folder of leave slips. It was packed full—the staff was notorious for call-offs and sudden absences. The grouchy older woman was genuinely surprised to find Rebecca was telling the truth about her impeccable attendance. “Looks like this is a first for you, I guess. Everything all right?”

“Something the matter?” Carla, one of the middle-aged busybodies among the staff, chimed in, leaning over the office counter. “Trish said there was an emergency. Is your grandpa alright, Rebecca?”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca replied in her sleepy, subdued voice with a helpless shrug. “I only heard that someone called—and that there was an emergency.”

“Hold on,” Glenda sighed. “Let me see the schedule.”

“Rebecca spends all day here taking care of folk, then she gets home and takes care of her grandparents, too. Her grandpa just had hip surgery, I sure hope nothin’ happened,” Carla sighed. “You tell your grandpa to send me a line sometime, okay, honey?”

“Yes, I will,” Rebecca nodded obediently.

“Alright, fine,” Glenda grumbled, reluctantly passing Rebecca a paper. “Fill yourself out a slip, and make sure you tell Trish wherever you left off on your checklist.”

A few minutes later, Rebecca’d retrieved her phone from her locker and was dialing Emily.

“Emily… what’s going on?” Rebecca asked immediately. “Are you alright?”

“I’m, um—” Emily choked back her own words. “Uh, well, is there any chance at all that you can get out of your shift early? Something big’s about to happen. Unless we can stop it. Maybe.”

“Is Brian not answering his phone?” Rebecca wondered out loud.

“Brian? How’d you—um. That’s not, um, well, that’s a little complicated,” Emily managed. “Is there any way you can call off? I can explain everything.”

“I’m already off,” Rebecca assured her quickly, before a slight pause. “Is there an emergency?”

“Um…” Emily swallowed nervously. “Yes. Kinda. It’s not like a… well, uh, it is a bit of a crisis. So, yes?”

“Okay,” Rebecca simply said. “I need to change, and then I’ll be on my way over. Forty-five minutes? You’ll be ready to go?”

“Yes! Yes. Thank you so much, Rebecca. I mean it.”

“See you soon, then.”

“Thank you again! Muah!” Emily made a kissing noise just before the call ended.

Crisis, huh? Rebecca shook her head with a wry smile.

Unlike Emily, Rebecca’d never had much of an interest in video games or anime series, and never bothered keeping up with modern geek culture. Rebecca wasn’t cute, and she didn’t have Emily’s sharp wit. They were unusual friends, with very little in common, yet never seemed awkward or uncomfortable around each other. But, there were times like now, where Emily completely lost herself in her friends’ problems, a fiercely loyal side to her little friend that Rebecca always found moving.

After all, this isn’t the first time Emily’s gotten herself involved in a BRIAN crisis…

----------------------------------------

The small, tastefully-appointed cafe was just as Brian remembered it from yesterday, although rather than empty, today a small group of overly-excited young girls cross-dressing as noble princes from Blood Butler had appropriated the far side of the eatery for a posh photo-shoot. Foxy led the way, followed closely by Mary, and then Brian entered while still trapped between Stephanie and Kelly.

“Shall we? If you’d like, I can buy you two lovely ladies’ meals as well. It’d be my pleasure,” Foxy offered, waving casually at the exorbitant prices brazenly displayed across the cafe’s menu board. “Can’t speak for Brian, but these numbers mean nothing to me.”

“No, thank you,” Stephanie politely declined.

“No thanks,” Kelly agreed. “We’re fine.”

“Are you sure?” Foxy leaned forward to send a frown towards Brian. “You girls don’t have to be polite—even if this guy won’t buy your lunch, it’s really no problem for me.”

“No thanks,” Kelly repeated, snorting.

“W-we really just ate not too long ago,” Stephanie explained. “Brian woke up early and went out to buy us breakfast, an-and brought it all back to the room for us.”

“Oh... I see,” Foxy said, disappointed.

“I think I even ate too much, I still feel full,” Kelly yawned, and she stretched out luxuriously with a satisfied smile.

“Th-that’s because you stole my pancakes,” Stephanie griped, grinning from where she still clung to Brian’s arm.

“True—but you’re not exactly innocent, either. At some point before we left, didn’t I happen to see my syrup on your fingertips?” Kelly asked, grinning wickedly and winking.

“Y-your…? N-no, I didn’t, I mean, I-I’d, I n-never—”

“Wow, look at how smart and thrifty you folk are,” Mary said with sarcasm. “It’s okay if you’re too cheap to eat here—you didn’t have to go and make excuses. It’s actually kind of embarrassing then, isn’t it?”

“Oh, totally. Definitely not like Steph and I ate here together just yesterday, or anything,” Brian mentioned, rolling his eyes.

“You ate here without me?” Kelly pouted playfully. “Tsk, tsk.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“That was right before we first bumped into you, actually,” Brian said.

“I-I only had one of their salads,” Stephanie chimed in a chipper voice, so caught up in the memory of that intimate meeting in the cafe yesterday that she was oblivious to Mary’s verbal jab. That kiss! “It was pretty great, though, I think. Th-the salad, I mean.”

True to his word, Foxy bought a lavish meal for Mary and an expensive coffee for himself, and the group sat together at a large corner booth.

“What’re you gonna do ‘bout your boots? Are they too uncomfortable to wear?” Brian asked, stealing another glance up Stephanie’s lovely legs while struggling to keep his thoughts from spiraling into sin. Those legs, last night... were wrapped around my head.

“She’ll be fine—we were just in a rush to get here. A half-hour goes by without you and already she’s missing you,” Kelly answered in her charming voice. “Although, you know, maybe one of your magic massages would have her feet feeling all better?”

“O-of course not,” Stephanie blushed, but made no motion to put her thigh-high boots back on yet. “I mean, um, unless you want to…”

“Ew, gross. Please, not while I’m eating,” Mary scolded with a disgusted look.

“Ah, I was—I was actually wondering,” Stephanie spoke up, taking a nervous glance at Brian. “Would it be alright if you… added me into your chat group? The one you showed us before? I know we can text each other, but I, um, I thought that it would be a cool thing to be a part of. If-if that’s okay.”

“Sure, no problem,” Brian chuckled. “I’ll send you an invite now.”

Foxy frowned. Despite now being in the presence of three gorgeous girls rather than only one, he wasn’t feeling like he’d really gained anything. Stephanie and Kelly were clearly long-time companions of Brian’s—maybe they’d even known each other for years—and there was no easy way to wrest firm control of the conversations from them.

“Ah,” Stephanie said after a few short moments. “Got it. Oh, b-but—what should I use for my display name?” She turned her phone towards him, where the cursor was blinking beside her default name.

Stephanie Brandt

“Your last name’s Brandt?” Brian asked, curious.

“Ah, uh, yes,” Stephanie felt her cheeks warming as she realized she’d just met Brian almost exactly a day ago—of course he never would have known her full name all this time.

“Cool. Mine’s Douglas,” Brian revealed. “Can I try setting a name for you?”

“Of—of course!” Stephanie breathed. Brian Douglas? I… really like that. It’s so much more… complete.

“And I’m Kelly Killy,” Kelly joined in with a smirk, watching Stephanie surrender her cell phone to Brian.

“And I’m Fawkes, Fawkes Loxly,” Foxy revealed, setting his coffee down in a hesitant manner. They’re telling each other their last names? Maybe they aren’t as close as I thought. Maybe they just see each other every year at the convention?

“Fawkes? Cool name,” Brian nodded.

“Fwwu—” Mary attempted around a mouthful of food. “Fwucking.”

“Ah, right,” Foxy laughed. “Fawkes of fucking Loxly, then. But you can call me Foxy.”

“And the young creature still learning how to chew would be Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” Brian chuckled, tapping a sequence across the screen of Stephanie’s phone and then sliding it back to her. “Here, how ‘bout this?”

“I’m nineteen,” Mary growled, as if that point made a difference to anyone.

“Perfect-in-Pink?” Stephanie read aloud, blushing fiercely. “I-I can’t use that. I’m not the least bit—”

“I think she should go with ‘Fanny,’” Kelly suggested. “Fanny as in, short for Stephanie, and also, you know—because of this amazing ass she’s got going on. Fanny. It works.”

“I’m—I’m not going by the name ’Fanny,’” Stephanie blustered out a denial, shaking her head quickly.

“Here, let me try one,” Foxy offered, gesturing for the phone. After a moment’s pause, Stephanie passed it towards their uncertain new friend across the table.

“Nineteen. That’s not little,” Mary insisted again, increasingly annoyed that no one was paying due attention to her anymore—not even Foxy.

“Righteous-Pink?” Stephanie read the name Foxy had inputted with a dubious expression.

“Never heard of her? She’s from Sentai Senkai, Foxy explained. “It’s what they called the pink Iro-ranger. Great show, you’ve gotta check it out sometime.”

“Alright, my turn,” Kelly snatched the phone from them and began altering the inputted name once again. “You accepted the invite? I’m gonna go ahead and say hello to everyone for you in Brian’s chat.”

“...Please tell me you didn’t change my name to Fanny, first,” Stephanie pleaded.

“Of course I didn’t, Stephanie,” Kelly blinked innocently as she submitted the message. “I’m hurt. Joking aside, do you really think I’d have you going by the moniker Fanny in front of Brian’s friends?”

Quickly pulling up the chat window on his own phone, Brian immediately saw the newcomer who’d entered their message queue.

Right-in-the-Pink: sup everyone

“Th-that’s not, wh-why would you—I can’t believe that you just did that,” Stephanie cried out, looking completely mortified. She stared balefully down at the screen as she seized the phone back from Kelly, looking absolutely betrayed. “That wasn’t nice at all!”

“Yeah, Kelly, that was kinda…” Brian shook his head in disapproval, though a faint smile was stubbornly tugging at the corner of his lip.

“What?” Kelly huffed. “It’s referring to her hair color... obviously. Isn’t that the cool little personal connection you two’ve got going on? Perfect handle for her! Even better than Fanny.”

“Uh, yeah. Hair color, definitely what comes to mind,” Foxy smirked, raised his eyebrows and hoisting his coffee up in the air as if announcing a toast. “Right in the pink!”

“Right in the pink!” Kelly agreed, pumping her fist.

“Right in the what?” Mary looked around at each of them and made a disgusted face. “You guys are all nasty.”

“Can I still change it? It’s-it’s not set like that for good now, is it?” Stephanie fretted, flipping back through her message settings.

Mick95: who dat?

Oberon: Friend I met at convention.

coffee-vein: ah

coffee-vein: lol

Mick95: asl?

Tanya_Mykha: @Mick95 dont fucking asl ppl

coffee-vein: oh shit

Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha lol god damn

Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha was just asking

Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha chill

Tanya_Mykha: @Mick95 dont fucking asl ppl

Stephanie_Brandt: I’m so sorry about that. I received the invite to the chat, but then a friend had my phone. I’m so sorry.

Stephanie exhaled a slow sigh of relief at seeing she’d successfully reverted her username to its default, then furrowed her cute brow in concentration as she caught up on that message log.

“Um, A-S-L?”

“Age, sex, location,” Foxy reported. He couldn’t see the chat’s messages anymore from where he sat, but was familiar enough with internet slang to understand her confusion. “Asking for basic information people can associate with your name, so they have some perspective on your identity. Not that you should ever trust anyone’s ASLs on the internet, mind you.”

“That was Mike asking that,” Brian laughed, watching as a mess unfolded in the group chat on his phone. “And then his girlfriend Tanya jumping down his throat, ‘cause she doesn’t want him flirting with anyone.”

“Mike’s an asshole,” Mary commented, balling up her napkin and discarding it onto the tray she’d just finished clearing.

“Oh, so you remember Mike?” Brian asked, shaking his head.

“Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Mary challenged, making a face at him as she rose up out of her seat. “I want to go shopping now.”

“Cool, want me to show you around?” Foxy immediately offered, rising out of his seat as well. “There’s a lot of awesome stuff in the vendors room this year... if you know where to look.”

He’d originally planned to get to know the attractive young Chinese girl better over the course of the brief meal—or at the very least stimulate her interest in some subtle way, but instead he’d been forced to discreetly re-establish himself within the group hierarchy. Contrasting himself only with this guy Mary already seemed to dislike had honestly seemed too easy, but Brian’s ‘friends’ unexpectedly consisting of these jaw-dropping babes was another social paradigm altogether.

Nothing to worry about, though, Foxy smirked, crushing his empty coffee cup into a crumpled ball in his fist, and then casually tossing it over his shoulder. He heard the wadded-up cup clipping the edge of the waste receptacle’s stainless-steel funnel on the opposite side of the cafe, followed by the distinctive swish of it dropping down into the trash.

Mary noticed, catching his eye and breaking out into a smile. Good.

The others didn’t notice at all—the Kelly girl was bantering playfully with Brian as they all collected themselves and rose out of the corner booth, while Stephanie seemed completely unable to tear her eyes away from Brian, period.

Good, Foxy thought again, returning Mary’s smile, but saying nothing. Our little secret.

Besides practice, the only real secret to his little trick was squashing the cup into a ball first—he’d always score a shot at anything that was at a certain angles directly behind him. He didn’t have to try to capitalize on every single little gimmick he knew, though—he was wealthy in more ways than one, and there was still more than enough time to win Mary over. And perhaps one of the other two, as well.

“I don’t get why you hang around with this guy,” Mary stated, snorting at the scene across from her. Brian was kneeling down beside Stephanie at the edge of the booth’s bench and fussing with her boots, carefully pulling them back up her smooth legs, which she extended out one at a time. Look at her, blushing like an idiot. And for what? Him putting on this cringe-worthy chivalrous-guy act? I’d have kicked him right in the face.

“I was just pondering on why I stick around them myself, early this morning,” Kelly confided to her in a low voice, “counting off the reasons with my fingers, in a way. Don’t know how far I got in the end, but it sure was a lot of fun.”

This dark-haired girl, or rather, mostly dark-haired girl—she now noticed there were a few errant streaks of brilliant red—was watching for her reaction with a satisfied smile. It was as though Kelly was daring Mary to call her out on her double entendre, to turn unspoken tension into outright confrontation.

“Really.” Mary composed her face into an expressionless mask once again. “Somehow… I doubt that.”

“I thought you would,” Kelly’s dazzling eyes flashed, and she stepped over to Stephanie. “Steph, can I see your phone? I want to show Mary that picture you took last night.”

Snapping out of her dazed reverie, Stephanie this time actually looked hesitant to lend the girl in the gothic dress her phone again. But after a brief moment and a nervous smile, she relented and passed it into the waiting hand.

Kelly then swiped through menus on the phone with practiced flicks of her fingertip for a few seconds, and turned the screen to face Mary.

It was a picture taken in dim lighting, of a man seated upon an ordinary hotel bed. He was half-naked, wearing nothing but a pair of pants and some straps that may have been suspenders—it was difficult to tell. His figure lit only by the nearby table lamp, and the curving contour of every muscle in his chest was beautifully defined in warm, fleshy tones. His shoulders were broad, and although not buff, per se, Mary would absolutely define him as a rather scrumptious specimen. With one knee up upon the bedspread and the other leg draping down out of sight, a hand partially upraised as if to ask are you seriously taking my picture, he looked as perfect and iconic as that famous chapel ceiling painting in France. Or was it Italy?

“Very nice,” Mary said approvingly, before twisting her face in a smirk. “But, well—it looks pretty fake to me.” Can’t believe they actually took the time to shop Brian’s face onto the picture of some male model, and expected me to fall for it. Do I look that fucking stupid? What do they get out of pretending for this guy like this?

Curiosity having gotten the better of him, Foxy took a peek and had to agree—the guy in that picture definitely wasn’t Brian. When a dude works out to get a body like that, he then shows it off with the right kind of cosplay. He wouldn’t hide it under some goofy-looking skeleton minion getup. I don’t need to squint for mismatched pixels to tell this is a fake. It just takes common sense.

Hah. Mary glanced indifferently over to Brian, who was gingerly fastening up Stephanie’s boot, afraid to pinch the soft swell of her thigh between the teeth of the zipper. As if there’s even a comparison to be made in the first place. I bet under that dorky costume Brian’s just as pale, flabby, and gross as my brother. Fucking disgusting.

“Pffft! Fake, huh?” Kelly sputtered with laughter in the face of Mary’s apparent skepticism, stepping back over towards her friends just as Brian rose from his crouch and helped pull Stephanie up onto her feet.

“Aw, Brian—you can’t squat down like that, it gets your belt all twisted out of place on your outfit,” Kelly pointed out. “See? It’s all messed up.”

“It is?”

Before he had the chance to catch her blatant lie, she’d untucked the top of his costume bodysuit from his belt, peeling back the black fabric with the cartoony skeleton bones stencilled on.

Jesus, fuck, Mary’s eyes went wide at the sight. Splendidly sculptured muscle was revealed, the neat lines of a six-pack drawing her gaze down into the most delicious abdominal V she’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing in person. Okay, maybe he isn’t the guy in that picture... and maybe he is. Seriously, though… what the fuck? Since when does my brother have any fit friends?

Foxy, of course, didn’t stare hungrily like Mary did, but the glimpse he’d caught startled him. At least that explains why I haven’t been making any real headway—I haven’t been taking this guy seriously. Guess he’s like me, the kinda guy who hides his fangs until he’s ready to bite. Interesting. Been a while since I’ve even seen anyone who’s any kind of threat to me.

“Hey, it’s okay—I’ve got it,” Brian said, trying to brush Kelly’s hands away, but instead she lingered, as if slowly savoring each tug and pull as she finished righting his fabric to its proper position.

“There. All set,” Kelly announced, pulling away from him with a final friendly pat that landed square on the bulge of his cup-piece. “Are we all ready to go? I want to take a closer look around the vendor’s room, too. Wouldn’t want to miss anything, would we?”