Lord Heron crossed his arms and leaned back. "You want proof? You should know yourself what convinced me." "I honestly don't." "Please stop lying to my face. I already know." "I'm not lying to your face! Please stop making up things!" "Right. Proof. I'll start with this trip. You suspected I was following you, didn't you?" "Yeah. You were kind of obvious about it." "I won't insult your intelligence. You get it from me. What were you doing down that alley?" "Huh? Oh that—wait, you saw that?" "Yes." "Um, I was trying to ah, keep Steve from meeting an acquaintance that I wanted to avoid—" "I picked up on that part. But then you decided to stand in the alley discussing the weather for half an hour?" "No, Steve was comforting an urchin." Lord Heron looked at him in disbelief. "Really." "No, that was my reaction too. I swear, I couldn't make this up. Why, what did you think we were doing?" Lord Heron made vague gestures. "OK, if that's all you've got, I don't—" "It's not." Herobrine sighed loudly. Father and son both had a tendency to be overdramatic. "Pray continue with your tale of misanthropic misinterpretation." "You shower together." "What?! No we—oh wait, you mean that one time? That was last year! How long have you been spying on us?!" "It's what first made me suspicious." "OK. Listen. We were out in the woods, killing things." "I'm not interested in—" "This is actually what happened, OK? Hear me out." Lord Heron shook his head sadly. He was obviously making this all up. "We got back and we were both hot and tired and sweaty and covered in zombie juices. And we didn't want to argue over who got to shower first, especially since we were low on water and whoever went last was going to have a very short shower and have to scrub off the zombie bits with a towel. So we got in at the same time and helped clean each other's backs and didn't have any arguing. It made sense. Nothing weird happened, as you would know if you were sneaking on us for any amount of time. I shouldn't have to explain this!" "I wasn't, I'm sure you know that I left the moment I realized what you were doing." "Scrubbing bits of rotten flesh off my arms with a rock? Right. So seductive." he made a face. "No no no. Listen, you don't have to lie. I'm perfectly fine with this situation." "Well I'm not!" "Yes, Herobrine, you clearly are." "I. Am. Not. And neither are you. You're obviously struggling with the very idea." "No no, it's alright. Especially since Steve is clearly the woman in this relationship." "…..wat." "I'm still holding out hope for a few legitimate grandchildren to carry on the line. It doesn't have to be anytime soon." "Wait you've actually—you've been trying to figure out which of—I mean how long have—why—" he spluttered so much he finally wasn't able to say anything else. Lord Heron made calming motions with his hands. "Shh. Shh." he raised one eyebrow in sudden worry. "I'm not wrong, am I?" "NO! BECAUSE NEITHER OF US—" Herobrine facepalmed angrily and glanced over his shoulder at Steve, who was, miraculously, still fast asleep, breathing gently with his mouth half-open. "Please stop denying everything. I mean, even if that's the case—" "Nothing is the case! Get out of my room!" "It's his too. Hey Steve?" "Shhh!" Herobrine snarled at him. "What? Perhaps he won't be quite so defensive." oh that was all Herobrine needed now, to have a sleepy Steve confusedly agreeing with everything without having a clear idea of what was going on. That was exactly something that he would do. "No because he's Steve, but you'd have to explain everything to him first. Now get out." "You don't speak to your father like that." "You don't disturb your child's sleep to harass him with ridiculous insults!" "Now you know I don't mean it as an insult, and I'm perfectly willing to accept you both as" "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" at this point he didn't care if Steve woke up (and incidentally, he didn't. Steve sleeps like a rock. A rock buried from the dawn of time at the center of the earth surrounded by miles of insulating pitch.) Lord Heron, to his shock, found a sword flashing towards him. The flat struck him across the face. "GET OUT!" he drew his own sword and angrily fended off slaps from Herobrine. "YOU DON'T TREAT YOUR FATHER LIKE THAT!" "GET. OUT!"
They crashed downstairs, screaming at each other. They left the door open. Steve grumbled something to himself and snuggled deeper under the blankets, half-waking, but only for a moment.
A crowd of late drinkers on their way home saw something so unusual that if they hadn't all pointed at the same time they might have thought it was a hallucination. Heron, some sort of petty lord who came around occasionally, was screaming at a young man who chased him down the street whapping at him with the flat of his sword. The strange procession disappeared around a corner with a crashing of overturned crates. An alley cat trotted across the street, ears tucked back in disgust at having its sleep disturbed.
A/N: The chapter documents for this were saved as "Why Did I Write This" 1-5. I'm just going to finish updating and be done with this big pile of weirdness. No, I wasn't on a sugar high. But I was sick. And very stressed. And sleep deprived. Which gives kind of the same effect.
There will be one more chapter. It will be weird. But it will kind of tie things up. Kind of. Mostly in the author notes.
Also Convenient Alias says that I appeared to be implying that irl shippers do not have friends at one point. This was 100% not my goal. Lord Heron is a specific crazy person and is not meant to symbolize anyone, although I do kinda sorta use him to poke fun at shippers, slightly (but again, I was not intending anything hurtful.) He was more a gambit to help me get over being shipped by my mom, actually. It was incredibly annoying and incredibly not true. Kind of like in this story.
I am just rambling on and on because a) I feel like it and I can b) this story can't get much stupider anyway and c) the word count for this chapter was a little low because it was originally part of a long chapter that I ended up splitting so I was like "I'll just add some rambling author notes and that will make the technical word count closer to the rest of the chapters." Yes, I am a terrible person.
Reviews always appreciated on everything. Even this thing. I just hope it makes you laugh, because I'm laughing at myself.