The Two of Us

A Jar of Hotdogs and Some Nightmares

"Is that why you were texting me weird-ass shit and asking me what I thought about it?"

It was a Thursday. Me, Blair, Freddy, Bon-Bon, Leslie, and Fallon were sitting at a booth in the back of the lunchroom, and Leslie was trying to tell us about some of the shirts she started making.

Y'know, to sell alongside her weird-ass stickers.

She actually gave me one of her prototypes a while ago, which I was wearing because I didn't look at what shirt I grabbed in the morning. It said, 'ask me about rutabaga' and had a bad MS Paint drawing of a radish on it.

"Yeah, man! I needed feedback from people other than Fallon, my older brothers, and one of my dads. So of course, I bothered you about the text on them and I bothered Blair about the artwork."

"I thought you were just spamming me with cursed images at first," Blair said. 

"I don't blame you, my guy. And your confusion only helped further improve the shirts, so don't worry." Leslie reached into her bag and pulled out one of them. "Check this shit out."

The shirt had another MS Paint drawing on it, but it was of a jar of hotdogs instead of a radish and it said, 'sometimes I have nightmares about getting slowly enveloped in 80 lbs of pasta noodles'.

"I'm gonna have this one and a few others up on my website by the end of the week." She grinned. "I've also got like five more of these in my bag that I'll probably try to sell to people after school."

"No need to wait. I'll buy one of those off you right now."

She raised an eyebrow. "Deadass?"

"Yeah. Have you got one of those in large?" I pulled my wallet out, already knowing the price because she mentioned it earlier. "Eddie would love that stupid ass pasta shirt."

"Hell yeah, dude."

Leslie passed me the shirt and I passed her the cash.

She handed me a few bucks back.

"I'll give you a discount 'cause I like you."

"OH, I W-WANT ONE TOO!" Freddy shouted. He threw Bon-Bon down onto the table so that he could find his wallet, causing the puppet to let out a long string of complaints.

"I'll give you a discount too, my guy."

"YAY!"

He put the shirt on over his plain white t-shirt and his purplish-pink sweater vest.

We all then proceeded to talk about completely pointless and nonsensical garbage. Blair tapped out and started reading when we started acting a bit too much like six-year-olds.

It didn't come to an end until Freddy passively mentioned Dungeons & Dragons.

Leslie slammed her hands onto the table. "You missed out on our last session, man. You missed out 'cause you had work," she said to me. "You don't have to work again on Saturday, do ya?"

I guess they all used to play Dungeons & Dragons freshman year, but they stopped at some point and only picked it up again earlier in December. 

They wanted to get me to play with them since I had become a part of the friend group, but I couldn't make it to their prior sessions.

"No." 

She tried to put on a serious face but wasn't really succeeding. "Then you must join us."

"Okay. I don't know jack shit about Dungeons & Dragons, though."

"We'll teach you," Fallon said.

"Yeah, we're really good at teaching satanic activities to people, Pigtails."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so it's satanic, huh?"

"Well, Fredward's grandma thinks it satanic, anyway." The puppet shrugged. Somehow.

"Yeah, well, Freddy's grandma also said that Blair looks like a thug, so..." Fallon trailed off.

I spared a look at Blair, who was still quietly reading her book with an adorable smile on her face.

There were very few words I could think of that were a less accurate description of her than thug was.

"Why exactly?" I asked.

"Because I have my ears pierced and was wearing 'hooker clothes'," she explained without looking up, sounding almost unfazed. 

"Don't forget she also called your eyeliner slutty," Bon-Bon piped up again.

"Oh yeah, she said that too."

Honestly, that legitimately just sounded like stuff my mother would say about random students that were outside when she dropped me off at school.

"Yeesh. That's just not accurate at all. Is that why we never go over to Freddy's house?" 

"Pretty much, dude. Fred's grandparents kinda don't like any of us and they're home like, 90% of the time."

"BUT IT'S OKAY! BECAUSE I CAN HANG OUT WITH Y-Y-YOU GUYS AT OTHER PLACES WHERE TH-THEY CAN'T SAY MEAN TH-THINGS!"

"Speaking of which, where the hell are we gonna meet up?"

"W-WELL, WE DID IT AT BLAIR'S HOUSE LAST TIME."

"You guys can come over to my place if you want. I don't think my dad or brother will be home."

"Sounds good, my guy."

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.