Inkstuck

Your name is Kanaya Maryam and you feel a little worried right now.

But who can blame you? You’re leaving your children behind as you and your wife go serial killer hunting.

It sounds very much like something an irresponsible parent would do.

“Now you two be careful alright? There’s food in the fridge because we probably won’t get back before dinner. Remember to set up your electric blankets—you’ll need them because it gets cold at night here.”

“Yeah mum.” Dave says sarcastically, rolling his eyes at you under his shades.

“Well I’m sorry for being concerned about your well-being. My mistake. I’ll try not to disturb you with the burden of me caring ever again.” You say, sniffing in mock sadness.

“Don’t worry mum, we’ll be fine. I’ll keep him out of trouble.” John chirps, taking Dave’s hand and giving you a cheery smile.

“Awwww! That’s so sweet.” You say happily. Not matter how sarcastically they said it, they still called you ‘mum’. “Goodbye babies, have fun.”

Ignoring their (Dave’s) protests, you sweep them into a huge bear hug.

You can feel Roses impatient aura because she’s right behind you. She grabs your hand and tugs you away a little bit.

“Come on Kanaya. We have to go.” She turns her attention to John and Dave, fixing them with a stern stare. “Like Kanaya said, you be good. Also keep out of my study.”

“Don’t worry, we will! Goodbye you guys!” John smiles and waves as you hug them one last time and head off to the car.

You get in the front seat, and Rose settles down on the passenger’s side, amongst hundreds of maps and blank sheets of paper. They seem to swallow her whole, what with the sheer amount of paper there is.

You honk your car horn in farewell as you drive down the street. You can see their retreating forms waving at you in the side-mirror.

“I really hope they don’t blow up our house.” Rose sighs, moving maps and paper to the back seat.

“They won’t blow up our house.”

Rose gives you a look.

“Rose, you’re overacting. When we come back, it won’t be destroyed. I’ll even bet ten bucks on it.”

“You’re that confident in their non-destructive tendencies? I saw Dave microwaving his sword yesterday—it’s a miracle the house didn’t explode. Never mind the fact that the sword was fine throughout the ordeal.”

“I swear that child is just like a toddler sometimes.”

“Don’t you mean all the time?” Rose laughs.

Outside, it starts to rain. The windshield wipers swish from side to side, flicking droplets of water off the car windshield and onto the road.

You turn down a main highway into a more rural, rocky road, smiling to yourself. This road is your first lead.

The two of you discuss the stupid antics of the two boys under your care as you travel down the first road. Hopefully, you’ll find out where Jack is pretty soon.

You’re just at the point of conversation where you’re discussing how exactly two boys can be so dense when you come across a dead end.

“Well I guess this isn’t the place, guess we have to turn around now.” Rose sighs, shifting the map on the car dashboard so she could get a better look. “Here we are. Let’s go back and search this road.” She points to a certain spot on the map.

‘This Road’ also turned out to be empty of any Jacks. Which was frustrating, but once again left you time for chatting. This time, you were having a detailed conversation about the joke that is the 2016 Presidential Race when you reached the dead end in the road.

“Third time lucky huh?” Rose jokes.

“Yeah well let’s hope so. It better not better not be on the fourth time. That will not be lucky.”

Luckily for everyone’s sake, third time is indeed lucky.

First, you began to notice strange men on the side of the road talking on their cell-phones, even though it’s raining. Then, you notice more obscure details. Like how every road-side creatures eyes seem to follow your car. Which is incredibly creepy and unsettling.

You’re certain Jack’s hideout is near here.

The two of you have to ditch the car so that you won’t be spotted any more than you already have.

The rain has let up by now, and everything drips glistening drops of water.

Eventually, after around half an hour of walking through the drenched forest, you come across a field.

Well it’s more vast empty plains than a clearing.

Empty except for one thing.

A large, foreboding castle on top of a large hill in the middle of the field.

The details are hard to make out in the evening light, but you can see patrolling figures around the base of the castle. It looks like a stereotypical villain hideout, complete with lit torches and everything. It’s European-style and pretty big, and you’re sure it’s a new addition to this vast, empty field.

But how was it erected so fast? It’s only been about two weeks.

“Magic.” Rose answers your unspoken question. “He used magic to make henchmen and this hide-out.”

“What, so it’s all sustained by his willpower or something?”

“No. His magic. It’s a thoughtless thing, integrated into his very being. It’s the same thing as raising an arm to you and I—it’s happening, and your brain is making it happen through a working of complex muscles and thought processes, but it’s an unconscious motion.”

“Oh…right. Well I guess we found his hide-out. Now we’ve got to regroup and activate plan Jack-Attack.”

Rose nods, pale hair bobbing along with the movement.

The only thing to do now is to regroup and begin your Jack-Attack.

Your name is John Egbert and you are ‘Home Alone’ with Dave.

Who is currently watching as the Lalonde-Maryams drive down the street and out of sight. As soon as their car disappears, he turns to you with a huge shit-eating grin on his face.

“Hey John, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I don’t know, what are you thinking Dave?”

“Well let’s say it together after three. Ready? One…Two…Three.”

“Blanket-fort with movie marathon!—“ You cry out excitedly at the same time Dave says “—Massive furry orgy!”

“Wait what?”

“What? Are you kink shaming me?” Dave looks so offended right there you can’t help but laugh at his stunned face.

“Yeah I’m totally kink shaming you.”

Dave gasps, putting his hand on his chest and opens his mouth in mock shock.

“But Egbert, I totally saw you fricking the frack with yourself to a kids cartoon.”

Now it’s your turn to gasp in mock shock.

“How dare you! Anime is the purest art form to grace this earth.”

Dave wrinkles up his nose in disgust. “Egbert no. Anime is sin and so are you.”

“Oh Dave, are you saying you’re tempted by my sinfulness?” You give him an awkward wink which promptly turns him beet-red.

“N-No! Not at all.” He splutters out, spraying you with salvia. “Come on, let’s just do your stupid movie marathon.”

He storms off back into the house. You hurry after him, wiping saliva off your cheek.

“Great! You find the blankets and I’ll set up the movies, ok?” You say.

Dave disappears off to presumably raid the linen closet. You head towards the TV, where you assumed the movie stack was. Because that’s where normal people put their movies.

Unfortunately for your entire days plans, the Lalonde-Maryams aren’t normal people.

Instead of stacks and stacks of glorious movies, there’s books.

You’re pretty sure the amount of books on these shelves could equal an entire libraries worth of books.

From what you can see, there’s books on nearly every subject. Mainly wizards, clothing and gardening.

You guess you can expect that from an author, but still.

Awkwardly, you lean back a bit from the couch.

What are you going to do now? The Lalonde-Maryams don’t have any video game consoles or movies. You guess you could explore the garden…

But when you look out a window, you notice dark storm clouds and hear the wind pick up through the trees. It begins raining-thick, fat droplets cascading from the sky and hitting the window pane.

Guess that’s a no then.

By now, Dave has returned, bearing pillows and blankets. You turn to look at him sullenly.

“Looks like our plans have been vanquished by the Lalonde-Maryams love of books over movies.” You gesture towards the movie-less shelves.

You hear the ‘thump’ of dumped down sheets and pillows.

“Well shit Egbert, way to ruin the fucking day.”

“Hey! How is this my fault?”

“You existed.”

“Oh, yeah that makes sense.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

You chuckle at him and get up.

“So we still doing the blanket fort?”

“Um? Hell yes? It’s stormy outside and there’s no better fucking time. We’re doing this bro.”

“We’re making this happen.” You finish his sentence for him. He gasps in mock shock, hand over his mouth.

You walk over to the pile of blankets Dave dumped on the floor, nudging a fluorescent yellow one with your foot.

“So how are we going to do this? Do you have a PhD in blanket-fort making like you do in everything else?” You ask, the compliment-flirt a little awkward coming from your lips.

“Oh hell yeah, I am the absolute best at making blanket forts. Watch me and be amazed as always.” He waves an invisible wand and walks over to the coffee table.

“Ok Egbert, first, help me move this table.” Obediently, you scurry over. Together, you grip the table and lift it to one side.

It is at this point that you realise that Whisker is in the room. Before, she was contentedly resting on the couch, curled up amongst the cushions.

However, she had been awoken from her slumber from your coffee-table movement. She turns blank, knowing eyes towards the two of you.

“Oh! Hey Whisker. We didn’t see you there, sorry for waking you up!” You walk over to Whisker and sit beside her. She purrs, long and loud as you reach your hand down and start stroking her soft, sensitive fur.

“We’re building a pillow fort, do you want to join us?”

“John, John please don’t ask the creepy psychic cat to join us.” Dave says, clutching a fluffy pink blanket.

“It’s too late Dave, the creepy psychic cat is already here.” Whisker, reading your mind (literally), uses her psychic abilities to make your eyes glow and you to hover off the couch a little.

Dave takes a step back and throws the blanket at you.

It successfully knocks you out of the air and you go down, howling with laughter as you hit the deck.

“Kill two birds with one stone huh?” Dave smirks at you.

“Blanket fight!” You cry out, throwing the blanket back at him.

“Oh you are so on Egbert. I’m bringing you down, girls sleepover style” He calls back, readying a pillow.

You ready one of your own, brandishing it in a way that you hope seems threatening.

The two of you begin your epic, girls-sleepover-style pillow fight.

You’ll leave it to the imagination, but there was a lot of screeching, laughing and yelling.

But then, much to your horror, your pillow flies out of your grasp. It hurtles towards the mantelpiece, where what you assume to be an urn is placed carefully. With a huge ‘bang’, the pillow knocks the urn off the mantle. Tie itself seems to slow down. You and Dave both let out silent screams of terror. The urn hurtles towards the floor…and then it doesn’t.

Whisker is using telekinesis to keep the urn hovering safe in the air.

Shakily, it begins to rise back to its original resting place.

It settles back down, and the three of you breathe out sighs of relief.

“Thanks Whisker, you really saved our asses.”

After that, you built the blanket fort pretty much disaster free.

Now, the two of you are lying side by side on the fluffy pink blanket. Whisker was lying beside you, purring.

Because you have nothing better to do, you’re telling stories to each other.

“So this guy like, wouldn’t stop following me, right? It’s like I was some fucking chump who was going to buy his shitty fucking lettuce. He even followed me into the Mount Moon volcanic crater—that’s how desperate he was for me to buy his fucking lettuce.”

“Well did you buy his lettuce? It would seem rude not to after he followed you all that way.”

“Yeah, just to get him to fuck off. But it was fucking enchanted—shit turned me into a fucking rabbit! Do you know how humiliating that was John? How fucking bad I looked?”

You’ve read this story before, many times. But hearing it come from Dave’s mouth himself made everything so much better.

“I can picture it now—a fluffy little white bunny with shades and a tiny sword and lettuce leaves sticking out of his mouth!” You turn your head to stare at his screwed-up face.

“Now I regret telling you about this shit. You gotta tell me one of yours.”

“Aw, but I’m enjoying your stories!”

“Too bad. No more Dave stories until Dave hears a John story.”

“I don’t have any stories to tell.”

“Just do it Egbert, I'm sure you'll think of something.”

You let out a loud sigh.

It’s true when you said you had no stories to tell. Well, none like Dave’s anyway. None that would interest someone as amazing as him.

But, maybe there would be one story he would listen to…

“Um…ten years ago, when I was six, my father died of cancer. As a parting gift, he gave me a present—a book called ‘Inkstuck’. He said to treasure it always, so I did. My mother was…a cruel woman. The only reason she didn't burn the book herself was because of its rarity--something to boast about and show off. She’d hit me and tell me I was fat and dumb and useless everyday. I'd rather not talk about her. 

But Inkstuck helped me, you see? I felt so much better reading about the brave tales of a rogue knight on an epic quest to avenge his brother. I managed to forget everything she told me. It gave me an escape—if only for a little while. So I…I want to thank you for that. For helping me through it all.”

You were so engrossed in telling your story, you didn’t even notice how close Dave was.

Your lips are practically pressed against each other, they’re that close.

“You’re welcome.” He whispers and leans forward, pressing our lips close together.

It’s a mess of inexperience teeth and hands and lips, but it’s absolutely perfect. His lips tastes of overly-sweet, watered-down apple juice, but to you, he tastes amazing. You’ve closed your eyes long before this point, but you can hear (and feel) your glasses-and-shades clinking together.

It wouldn’t be what one would consider the ‘perfect first kiss’, but you think it fulfils all the fantasies those teenage girls (and boys) possess.

You never want it to end.

Unfortunately for you, it does end, in the form of Dave pushing you away.

He’s staring down at you with thinly-veiled disgust and muttering things to himself. His palms are in front of his eyes, raised as if  to backhand someone. You can make out bare whispers of ‘no nO NO’ and ‘that is disgusting, how could you?’ You flinch away from those words, terrified he might hit you. He certainly looks like he’d do it.

Whisker jumps to your rescue, a low growl in her throat.

Dave backs away, and in a flash he’s gone.

All you can do is apologise over and over again after the empty he once occupied.

You curl up in the once-cosy blanket fort and sob and sob and sob. Whisker licks all the tears she can from your cheek, but they just keep coming.

Even when the rain stops you can’t stop. Even when the sun sets and the moon rises you can't stop either.

Dave hates you.

He must've just been lying when he said he liked you.

He called you disgusting and looked at you like you were the scum of the earth. He might've even hit you!

But...you guess after all that, you still can't hate him. He's the best (and only) friend you've ever had.

You still love him.

But your heart is still broken.