The Two of Us

His Name was Probably Marvin

We ended up having our first snow day not too long after that sleepover.

I was planning on using the opportunity to sleep in far longer than I should've been allowed to, but of course, that didn't end up happening.

Eddie came in and started poking at me with one of his lacrosse sticks, and then my dad popped in with his fucking didgeridoo and started playing it. It was audible even with my hearing aids out.

Why did my father play the didgeridoo of all instruments, I hear you ask?

Well, it apparently helps with sleep apnea, which he had.

It sounds like I'm making that up but I'm not.

Anyway, they tore me away from my slumber because they wanted me to play Pogs with them.

"What are we in? The mid-1990s?"

"Come on! It'll be fun!" Eddie begged. "And we haven't done it in forever!"

"Fine. But give me another five minutes to wake up first."

"Will do."

The two of them high fived before leaving the room.

Back when I was still living with my mom and only visited my dad and brother like once or twice a year, they would make me play Pogs with them everything I was over.

Honestly, I thought Pogs were fucking stupid. But I always played it because they liked it and when I was younger I was always desperate to spend more time with them.

And I guess it was also kinda fun to watch them get way too into a game only to have one of the cats come and knock everything over halfway through.

I eventually made it downstairs after spending three of my five minutes trying to find enough willpower to get up.

"There you are!" Eddie passed me the slammer, which is the metal disc you use to rain hell upon the stack of Pogs. "I know we're supposed to flip to see who goes first, but you can go because it's been so long and you're probably itching to participate!"

"Definitely," I said. "You didn't give this a good luck lick before you handed it to me, did you?"

"I might've."

"Okay."

The first round was interrupted by Bidy and Babs knocking everything all across the living room, but the other fourteen rounds went fine.

Dad ended up winning more than me and Eddie, so he spent a good six minutes parading around the living room and rubbing it in our faces.

He probably would've kept going if he didn't have to get ready for work.

Once he was off, Eddie started to vacuum all of the Pogs up so that he could...clean them up faster, I guess?

I don't know, and I didn't end up asking because Eddie started using the vacuum hose on my face when I tried to.

Around 2:30, somebody rang the doorbell and I went downstairs to get it.

I was greeted with Fallon, their hands stuffed into the pockets of their corduroy jacket and their long hair extremely windblown.

This wasn't unexpected because they had texted me an hour earlier and asked me if I wanted to go on a walk with them.

I said sure because I didn't really hang out with them as much as I hung out with Blair and Leslie. Plus, the sidewalks were all cleared and it wasn't as cold out.

Just windy.

"Hey," they greeted.

"Hey. Come in for a second, I'm not entirely finished getting ready." I stepped aside to let Fallon in.

Eddie snuck up behind me and started to vacuum my hair. "Got your hair in there."

"Yes, I can feel that. Thank you." I half-heartedly tried to swat him away. "I have to grab my jacket and my shoes real quick."

Before I disappeared upstairs, I could hear Eddie instead start to vacuum Fallon's hair, making a comment about how it was more fun to do it to them instead of me because their hair was way longer.

I threw a green cargo jacket over my sweatshirt and put my boots on as fast as possible so Fallon didn't have to suffer for very long.

Once we both got out the door, we walked downtown.

We spent most of the trip talking outside instead of actually going into any of the stores.

Though we did go into the bookstore because Fallon wanted to pick something up for one of their sister's birthdays, and we stopped by the music store because of me. 

"Oh, hey, can we stop by that music store? I need to pick up guitar strings."

The other day, I realized that I hadn't practiced my six-string in a while. When I went to do it, my stupid high E string broke. 

I tried searching around my junk drawer for spares, but guess what? I didn't have any.

"Sure, Leslie is working right now so we can torture her for a minute or two while we're there."

"Oh, that's where she works?"

When we went inside, we found Leslie looking half dead behind the counter and wearing a blood-red polo shirt that matched the walls.

I'm almost positive that was the first time I had seen her wearing a shirt that wasn't black or gray.

"Hey, punk."

Her face broke out into a grin. "Hey, dudes! I didn't know you guys were coming here. I'm so damn bored. There's only been one customer in the past two hours, and the guy I'm working with locked himself in the bathroom so he could nap."

"That sounds like something you aren't supposed to do," I commented.

"Yeah, but that never stops him," she said. "Anyway, did you two come here specifically to bother me or what?"

"No, I need guitar strings. But we're also gonna bother you."

"Of course you're gonna."

Fallon did most of the talking while I located the pack I needed and paid for it.

Somebody else entered the store while that was all going on, but I didn't really pay all that much attention to whoever it was.

"You want a bag for this?"

"No thanks, I'll just shove it one of my pockets like a shoplifter."

"Alright."

Fallon poked me in the arm and said in a relatively quiet voice, "Hey, I think that guy over there is checking you out." 

I spared a glance over my shoulder and found a short guy with rust-colored hair and a black baseball cap in his hands. He was staring in my general direction.

But I was fairly certain that he was looking at something near me and not directly at me. "Psh, doubt it. People don't check me out."

Leslie muttered something like, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"What was that?"

Honestly, I could have heard her wrong because let's face it, my hearing was not great.

"I didn't say anything."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I heard somebody say something."

"Maybe you just heard Fallon talking about how much of a nerd they are."

Fallon scoffed, "I'm not a nerd. If anybody here is a nerd, it's you. You do math for fun."

"Yeah, and you have a stamp collection, which is way nerdier, ya nerd."

The two of them then proceeded to argue about who was the bigger nerd for four minutes straight before I dragged Fallon out of the store. 

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Uhhhh sorry for the lack of actual babora content in this chapter, I guess.

And if you can somehow guess which FNaF character rust-haired guy was supposed to be, you won't win anything, but I will be impressed.