"So it was... perfect?!" Kaykes' face was dismayed. "AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH! I knew throwing that brie in was a cheese too far!"
"No! It was a hit! I told you she likes brie. And the apples and honey."
"Ugh. I don't want to know. Now it's like I'm complicit." Kaykes held her face with both hands and struck her forehead against the granite of the counter top several times. "Ok. What happened next?"
Jimmy grinned. He was practically vibrating where he sat. Perfect. He'd had a real date, and it was perfect. He'd had a date with Vicky M! And it was perfect!
He opened his mouth. But Kaykes took one look at his face and held up her hand hurriedly.
"Wait. Wait. Oh no. We're not doing this. I can see you're going to give me an exact blow by blow. And I'm going to want to irrigate my ears from all the pro-Vicky sentiment. Just the highlights, dude.... And don't you dare use the name 'The Fletched One' because that's actually kind of cute and I don't want to think of Vicky in that light."
THE TIME WHERE VICKY ASKED THE GUY ABOUT HIS POWERS
----------------------------------------
"So, you are a Super right? The feds aren't just seeing Powers places?"
"Seeing Powers places?"
"You know..." Vicky took a moment to drizzle golden honey on her cracker, brie, and apple tower. She was back to brie again. She'd done the rounds and had faithfully recombined the assembled ingredients in increasingly creative ways.
Even cheddar.
----------------------------------------
Kaykes looked horrified.
----------------------------------------
"Everyone says, like, half the Super reports are actually just web nuts who want attention or just people jumping at shadows."
"But these are Feds!"
"Still people."
Jimmy digested this silently for a moment and to cover up his indecision, crunched his way through three crackers with nothing on them. "I —"
"Hey, Guy." Vic —The Fletched One eyed him with her green eyes behind the mask of gold and feathers, and jabbed the cheese knife at him. "You don't have to tell me. It won't change anything. I'm just curious. I've never actually met a Super before."
The Guy felt torn between vibrating where he sat and freezing in place. On one hand, he didn't think he had ever said the words 'I am a Super' to anyone except the mirror before and something about those words sent a giddy shiver down his spine.
It also sent a frisson of fear. There was a reason why he'd never said those words.
On the other hand... This was a date... and what was he supposed to do, if not talk about himself? Not ad-nauseam, of course, but... a little?
So The Guy shrugged, and bobbed his head. Slowly. And — he couldn't help himself — he grinned.
And The Fletched One did too. "Thats so cool. What can you do?"
'Well, the queues didn't get any better than that.' The Guy thought. He reached out a finger, and still trembling slightly, tapped The Fletched One's cracker-brie-apple-honey confection.
"HOLY F —" The Fletched One jumped! And scrambled back pulling off her mask.
"Sorry! Sorry!" The Guy held very still and held up both hands, one now holding a fresh card.
Very Stylish Snack
"W-What the hell?" Vicky was looking back and forth between The Guy, the card in his hand and her fingers. She was also breathing really heavily.
'In retrospect', The Guy thought, tense, 'maybe most people don't take the obvious use of Super Human powers with the same aplomb as Kaykes does.'
"I'm sorry." The Guy said again. He was. He hadn't meant to scare her. "I didn't mean to sc — ah — I just thought I'd show off a bit. You know? Ah —"
"No. It's..." Vicky was staring at her hand where she'd been holding her Stylish Snack and rubbing her fingers together. "Not even sticky..." she muttered. "It's... fine. Ah...." She stared hard at him. "What did you do?"
The Guy held up the card. It was pale, almost as white as the brie-rind, with golden flows which faded in and out along the card and some green star bursts that only seemed to appear when you looked at it just right.
"You should know that the universe believes that you made a Very Stylish Snack."
Vicky grinned suddenly, put her mask back on and plopped back down next to the basket. "It was kinda, wasn't it?" She bent over to look at the card, blinked, and looked even harder.
"That's beautiful." She whispered.
The Guy almost felt like he should be preening. It felt good to have his power admired. It was a cool power.
"And you just —" The Fletched One snapped her fingers. "Turned it into... something else? Like that?"
"Turned it into a card. Always a card."
"And then... you ah."
"Turn it back." And a second later, The Guy was holding the the cracker with a strip of brie across it, a thin slice of green apple and a zig-zagging drizzle of honey.
'Definitely stylish' he thought. And then he lifted his mask just enough to fit the cracker underneath and — with The Fletched One's squawk of outrage ringing in his ears — crunched down.
"My..." The Fletched One's mouth was open in dismay.
"Your loss was well received."
"... But... it was so... stylish...."
"It even tasted stylish."
The Fletched One glared at him. "You can't just steal girls' food like that! It makes us hangry!" She sliced more brie vehemently and tugged a cracker from the basket.
"I'm making another one! Twice as stylish. You stay away from it or I'll show you more dance moves." The Fletched One brandished the cheese knife at him again as The Guy laughed.
"What else can you card?" The Fletched One asked as she intently drizzled honey again. This time she was making a hatch-pattern and it looked like she was taking extra care to make sure the lines where as smooth as possible.
"Anything." The Guy said.
"Anything?"
"I caught Magic just this morning."
The Fletched One laughed. And then did a double take. "Wait... Are you serious?"
----------------------------------------
"Hold on." Kaykes held up a hand of such palpable judgement and displeasure that it was practically an aura. "That didn't sound like it was just a turn of phrase...."
Jimmy grinned and told Kaykes about the morning's sojourn of enlightenment.
"And you told fu—" Kaykes lowered her voice. "Fucking Vicks before your sister?!"
"... There was a lot going on this morning."
"Not. That much. Show!"
----------------------------------------
"M-magic?" The Fletched One asked weakly for the third time. She reached out a trembling hand to touch the card — for the eighth time — and it slipped past her index finger, just like it had all the others. "I-it's beautiful. Oh my god, it's bringing tears to my eyes."
Vicky looked away hurriedly and raised her mask to wipe at them. "What can it do?"
The Guy shrugged and grinned widely. "Not a clue," He said. "But it feels different than my other cards. Heavier."
----------------------------------------
"Sometimes, I honestly hate you, bro." Kaykes said, and tried to touch the card Jimmy was holding out to her for the eleventh time. She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.
"You showed this to Vicky, before you showed it your sister."
THE TIME WHERE VICKY TALKS ABOUT BUCKY
----------------------------------------
"Let me guess.... You asked her about her ex. Dude, you never ask about the girl's ex. That's like... dating 101!"
"Why?" And then he glared at Kaykes. "And what body of insight are you pulling all this judgement from?"
"... Mom."
Jimmy blinked at her.
"AND... All the conversations I've overheard on the topic." Kaykes was suddenly rather curious about a chip she'd found on the counter top. But she was Kaykes, so she was also resolute.
"I like to think that I've managed to isolate the good practices from the moronic ones, separate out the outliers, and then distill what's left into a coherent set of rules to follow."
"Uh-huh." Jimmy's mouth quirked with all the condescending weight that his single date experience provided him. "So, it wasn't like that, Kaykes. It all just kind of flowed. You just wanted the highlights."
Jimmy paused before continuing the story. "Wait a second.... Then how the tater-tots did you manage to put together more than just an Average Basket for an Average Date?!"
"Oh. That was all Mom." Kaykes grinned toothily. "I copied over one of her anniversary date recipes. Substituted out a Cabernet-zin blend for Endless Holiday Tea, and Havarti for brie. It's official. Mom is a cosmically acclaimed guru."
"Oh... fudge, Kaykes. You might have just set me up here." Jimmy ran a nervous hand through his hair. "You had me go with one of her anniversary recipes?! And it was perfect?! How am I going to beat that next time?!"
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
"Oh, I know." Kaykes cackled. "Now that you've had your good date, you're fully allowed to crash and burn. There is no way, I'm having Vicky for a sister in law."
----------------------------------------
The Fletched One was lying on her side now in the grass, one hand holding her head up, the other a small espresso cup of hot tea.
Kaykes had suggested the espresso mugs. 'Big mugs get cold and it's a waste of hot water. Small cups. Big thermos. And, they're cute.'
They were cute.
The Guy mirrored her. It had gotten a little cold, so The Guy had pulled off his duster jacket and thrown it over her.
----------------------------------------
Kaykes retched loudly.
----------------------------------------
So now The Guy was cold — but compensating by drinking far more tea than The Fletched One, and, since he'd worn short sleeves instead of long today because of all the sweating he'd expected to be doing, his arms were on full display and... so were the slowly fading bruises.
He saw The Fletched One notice them.
She looked a bit sick. "Did... Bucky do that?"
"I think his stairs did that."
"His stairs?!"
"He threw me down the stairs. One out of five stars. Don't recommend."
"Ooof. Guy..." The Fletched One shook her head. "He was always kind of like that, you know? Violent. I always thought it was because he was a football player, but...."
"To be fair, I had sort of invaded his house in the dead of night." The Guy pointed out with a plastic fork for emphasis. "I can think of other less productive reactions."
"To be fair," The Fletched One eyed him through the feathers with a deadpanned gaze. "He was blackmailing me for favors with... things."
"Also fair." For a moment The Guy wondered why in the world he was defending Buck.... Then shrugged. "But I also think that that's not quite the same thing. It's a bit Bayesian-ey." The Guy said. "The worlds in which I get thrown down the stairs are drastically more when I invade someone's house than when I don't. Doesn't really say much about Buck's inherent violence."
"O-ok. Guy. But have you ever... spoken to Bucky? Not that I'm digging behind the mask!" The Fletched One added quickly. "I'm respecting the mask."
The Guy laughed and shook his head.
"Right. So I can just tell you. He is." The Fletched One looked at him and tapped her lips thoughtfully. "I don't know, but I have a feeling that you're mostly in honors and AP classes?"
The Guy stopped himself at the last moment from first nodding, and then, pointing out that Vicky herself was in at least one honors class herself. Barely.
"So you probably don't ever run into Buck. He's not in any. He's about as cliche jock as you get, C averages and everything. But he didn't used to be like this. We started dating in ninth grade. I was a new freshy on the cheer team. He was a new freshy on the Football team.... That combo works out in real life almost as well as it does in the movies.
They both laughed, though for his part, The Guy didn't know whether The Fletched One was being self deprecating or not.
"End of last year, beginning of this one. He started getting moodier. Angrier, more territorial. You know Jamal Faruk?"
Jimmy shook his head.
"Well he broke the boy's hand for accidentally tripping him up in the hall, beginning Junior year."
"Broke his.... Why didn't the school —"
"Probably because it looked like a handshake."
"A handshake?" Jimmy asked weakly. But he also remembered the feeling of Buck's hands closed over his neck and how immovable they felt. "Fuddggge."
"There were other incidents. I talk to a guy. They show up with an odd bruise the next day. Someone cuts him off on the road, he flies into a rage." The Fletched One shrugged "So... we broke up."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." Vicky frowned. "Well... there was an incident. But I'd rather not talk about that." And she held her cup out for more tea.
----------------------------------------
"See?"
"... I'm going to put that down as one of the outliers." Kaykes rolled her eyes. "Ok. I'm getting the picture. It was all cutesy and nice and everything worked out. Somehow." She added darkly. "Skip to the end! How did it all leave off?"
Jimmy grinned
THE TIME WHERE THE GUY MONOLOGUED ABOUT BAYESIAN ANALYSIS
----------------------------------------
"Ok. Guy, I have to ask. This is the third time you've called something Bayesian. What... in the world wide web of AI and GPTs is Bayesian?"
The Guy colored.
----------------------------------------
Kaykes fell off her chair. Then she just lay there.
"You didn't!" She gasped.
Jimmy colored.
"You... you ended your first date by monologuing about BAYES?" Kaykes' voice grew shrill. "That's it. You're no longer a valid data set. I'm striking all —"
"Wait." Came a strangled voice from behind them.
Jimmy and Kaykes both turned around veeerrrryyyyy slowly.
Their mother loomed behind them. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her eyes... BLAZED? "Did you say... first date?!"
BAYES MONOLOGUE CANCELED
----------------------------------------
"Mom. Mom." Kaykes eyes were wide with terror and Jimmy heard her adopt her best 'reasonable' voice like her life depended on it. "Nothing happened. Jimmy just hung out —"
"One more word out of you young lady, and you are grounded for a week!"
Kaykes' mouth snapped shut, and then their mother grabbed another stool and dragged it over. "I heard DATE!" and her mouth stretched into a grin so wide it looked like it was in danger of splitting her face in two. "Speak quickly, my son. Tell me everything. From the beginning!"
Kaykes gagged. Then quickly adopted an innocent expression as their mother speared her with a glance.
The story that ensued afterwards was far, far longer than before. Probably because, whenever Jimmy looked like he was slowing down, their mother asked him if that was all that happened And when Jimmy answered no — for obvious reasons, she glared at him until he resumed.
Jimmy had to think quickly to dodge anything that came close to revealing anything too... power related. Or origin related.... Or identity related. Eventually, when Jimmy began discussing how Vicky's hair moved in the wind for the fifth time in a row, their mother was satisfied.
... And Kaykes had to endure every second of it.
Kaykes was right. His mother, it turned out, was really into dates.
"Alright, Babe." Their mother breathed a massive sigh and grinned as if she'd just consumed an entire meal of nothing but desert. "I am satisfied."
Kaykes tensed.
"Now tell me about the logistics..."
And it began again.
----------------------------------------
Their mother squealed. "And you set him up with the Anniversary Recipe?"
Kaykes nodded with dead eyes.
"Give it to me, Babe. What did you stock it with? Don't hold back anything!"
Kaykes listed it all out and their mother burst out in cackles. "Ah! Wonderful! A work of art!" Their mother raised a hand for a high-five which Kaykes grudgingly returned.
"HAHAHAHA YESSSS. Finally!"
"But Mom!" Jimmy cut in. He'd started pacing at some point'. "It was the anniversary basket! It was perfect! I'll never be able to beat that!"
"Sit back down, son! It is a master you're speaking to! Dates aren't linear! They come in surfaces! Peaks! Valleys! And waves. Ho ho ho!" His mother shook her fist at the ceiling, and Jimmy shared a concerned look with his sister.
"Finally! A Date! I have waited so long! Your father was always useless at planning dates. He once took me out for a 'nice' date to a movie theater with frosted sugar cookies."
Both Kaykes and his mother made the exact same disgusted face. It was surreal. "A real date has flavor, boy. Panache! Magic."
His mother smirked wickedly. "I say, for the next one, we go with The Starlit Night Recipe.
"NO Mom!" Kaykes squawked, reaching forward to shield their mother's mouth. "It's too powerful! She'll love him for sure!"
Their mother batted her away, her eyes burning.
"Listen closely, my son. Today you but debuted. The next will be bold. Romantic! It starts with...."
----------------------------------------
One other thing happened that day. It was important. Probably the most important.
Which is why, it felt rather sinful to be so giddy.
Jimmy walked, one hand in his pocket, the other texting on The Guy's Phone for Illicit Dealings.
[5:53 PM — TC] You almost here?
[]5:53 PM — TG] Should be. I'll see you soon!
Maybe it came came through the text. But it was hard! Their mother's enthusiasm was infectious, and if he was being honest, he was still riding the blissful high of THREE hours of laughing and talking and sharing with Vicky M.
They'd talked about Magic and Powers and Supers. And not the usual way people did! Like it was cool! And special.
They'd talked about mathematics, and even though Kaykes had made it sound like he'd crossed some invisible line into faux pas land, Vicky had been interested! She'd asked questions!
They'd talked about Vicky's dogs, and laughed about their names, Michelin and Wriggly.
They'd talked about how Vicky had gone from freshy to team captain of the cheer team! How she'd gotten into Krav Maga — NOT a dance.
They'd just talked... about inconsequential things. And it was wonderful.
Which is why it took him far longer than normal to notice... that on his way to the same park where he'd first met Vicky, he was being noticed.
That didn't faze Jimmy. People were always noticing and not noticing things, and as — he thought — Kaykes would say, 'There was nothing at all suspicious about a teenager texting with a dumb grin on his face'.
But... it didn't go away. He was still being noticed. Even when he took a sharp right turn away from the main street.
Then, the number of people noticing him doubled and Jimmy lost his dumb grin.
----------------------------------------
Jimmy walked passed the alley where he'd changed over for Vicky and now his heart was pounding.
He wasn't texing anymore even though Vicky had texted him back with a [smiley]. He just kept his head down and tried to make sure that his thumb was still moving across his screen as if he was texting.
His other hand was in his pocket. 'Nothing suspicious about that.' Jimmy thought desperately. 'Teenagers walk with hands in their pockets all the time. All. The....'
Stun Stick of Power! brushed his finger tips.
Three Sticks of Bludgeoning
Five Stones of Reckoning. Those had come from his power testing with Kaykes. They'd changed, he noticed distractedly. They used to just be Five Ordinary Stones.
'Slow breathing' He babbled to himself. 'Don't walk. Wander. Oh fudgesticks.'
'This is a trap'. And oddly enough, this was somehow the calmest thought he had.
Two noticers became three. Then one dropped away and another took its place.
'Trap. Trap. Traptraptrap. I need to get out of here.'
Kaykes voice rang in his head. She was always so calm. Rational. "Stay the course, bro." Mental Kaykes said. "Walk passed the park. Nothing at all suspicious of a boy wandering around and texting."
But where were they? How were they noticing him? Could they see him sweating?
He couldn't see anyone watching him. At least not through his peripherals. No pedestrians. No cars that moved slowly or stuck around.
His phone in his hand vibrated and he almost dropped it.
[6:01 PM — TC] Hey dude. Are you even coming?
'Wander. Don't walk. Wander.' Jimmy wandered desperately and his hand clenched in his pocket.
'Tim. It had to be Tim. It was a setup!'
"Stay the course."
'Hell Fire and Fudgesticks, Kaykes!'
'Or... or it could have been Vicky.' Jimmy went cold.
'Vicky could have told the agents where she'd first met The Guy. They could be watching the park. They WERE watching the park.'
Brick... For Brick Things
'Stay the course.'
Jimmy walked sloowwwly past the park, fake texting the entire way. He might have even real texted accidentally, but he didn't notice.
SLOOOOWWWWWWLLLLLLYYYYY. So very slowly, Jimmy walked around the perimeter of the park, and through his peripherals, Jimmy spied Tim, sitting at the table, right where Jimmy had told him he would meet him.
Except Tim wasn't Tim.
Because Tim was Buck Higly, and he looked murderous.
'Wander. Nothing at all to see here. Wander. And don't forget to text. Wander.'
Vicky texted him. She sent him a message that ended in 'HAHAHAHAHA!'.
'What had he sent her? Wander.'
Tim Cogburn texted him. He ignored it.
Jimmy's eyes were fixed on Buck through his peripherals. 'Don't change gait.'
And as Jimmy passed the table that Buck was sitting at, just meters away from him, a fourth person noticed Jimmy.
Jimmy almost bolted.
"Stay the course"
'Thank you Kaykes. Thank you. Thank you. Best little sister ever.'
"I know."
Passed Buck. Around the park. Away.
The fourth noticer dropped off.
Away. Left turn now. Away from the park.
Jimmy's breathing hitched. A third noticer dropped off. Then the second.
'Keep going.' Back now. Back to where he'd locked up his bike.
Kaykes words from power testing came back to him. People saw two kids ride in on bikes. Best they see us also suffering the consequences and lugging them around.
'Thank you, Kaykes. Thank you.'
The last noticer dropped and he gasped a breath. 'His bike. Get to the —'
It was missing. The bike chain dangled uselessly where his bike should have been.
That was... fine. Jimmy had several bikes. And the last noticer had dropped so...."
'... Suffer the consequences.'
Jimmy missed a step.
These FBI agents had come for a purpose. They'd come to find the Super that had broken into Buck Higly's house in the dead of night. Stolen his property and assaulted the family.
"Breaking and Entering. Assault and Battery. Assault with a Super Human Capability AND Assault with a Deadly Weapon... And the only reason there isn't more on that list is because they don't know a single damn thing about you."
But... What if they could imagine.... If....
They'd come with chips on their shoulders and in the backdrop of the Amaterasu massacre. And one more thing.
They weren't amateurs. They knew Supers.
'... Suffer the consequences.'
So Jimmy did so with all his might. Jimmy didn't do what he wanted to do. What The Guy would have done. He did not just produce another bike, secure in the knowledge that no one was watching.
He did the same thing any boy would have done if their bike was stolen.
"Mom." Jimmy said after infinite moments of ringing. His voice broke. "My bike's been stolen. Can you pick me up?"
"Of course, Babe. Let me finish some things and I'll be right there."
Jimmy waited where his bike used to be for thirty of the most grueling minutes of his life.
At some point someone noticed him again. Then they left. Then another one.
'This is fine.' He told himself. 'Normal. It's normal to notice a boy standing around where his bike was.'
They dropped away.
And finally his mother pulled up.
"Babe! Are you alright? Babe... you're white!"
Jimmy piled in and shut the door before his mother could say another word.
And then he breathed. And breathed and breathed.
And didn't speak another word until they got home.