I'm always ecstatic whenever you awesome readers review this story. Truth be told, I have had this thing brewing in my noggin for several years. I'm not the most consistent when it comes to updates, but I promise you that no matter how long the hiatuses are between chapters, this thing WILL continue. Thank you all so much, again :)
*****
It's basically common knowledge that things in the Middle East have tended to be on the complicated side. The same can be said throughout everywhere in the world, really. It just depended on where you happened to be at the time and what unfortunate, appalling side of the human race you happened to witness. As a father, Jeremiah Toulon worked hard to make sure that Rajiya was protected, not sheltered. He sent her to self-defense classes and provided her with mace and a tazer even though the family puppets were with her most of the time. This was to ensure that she had the best options for keeping herself safe at all times.
Biological or not, she was his daughter. And parental instincts do not waver simply because you're thousands of miles away from your offspring.
After calling Rajiya on the morning of her birthday, Jeremiah closed his laptop and sighed heavily as he got to his feet and stretched. She was now 21 years old and now able to go to bars and nightclubs legally. When Rajiya was a junior in high school, Jeremiah found a fake ID on the floor of the loft that had fallen out of her school bag. When confronted, she did not bother denying that it was for purchasing alcohol for herself so she didn't have to take any from his liquor cabinet. Their level of honesty with one another was so high that she even showed him the handle of whisky she had stashed in her bedroom closet. After assuring him that she and Jake would only drink it on weekend evenings at the house, Jeremiah made Rajiya swear that she would never purchase nor consume alcohol again until she was 21 years old. She, unlike most teenagers, kept her word.
Now, she could quite literally do whatever the hell she wanted and Jeremiah would be none the wiser. After the incident with the fake ID, they had only grown closer. He had no reason so suspect that Rajiya was doing anything else behind his back. She graduated high school at the top of her class and has grown into a responsible yet fun-loving adult.
Jeremiah trusted Rajiya, there was no doubt about that. But how could he help but worry while he was literally on the other side of the world?
Thank goodness for the puppets, truly.
*****
"I'm going to say once again, extra loud so you can hear me no matter how loud you turn up The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me in an attempt to drown me out, that you should tell Dad what you've been up to," Jake said in a near shouting tone as he sat on the foot of the bed. Rajiya was at her vanity, removing Velcro rollers from her hair and turning over the vinyl in the record player.
"You have something against Brand New now?" she asked sarcastically as she placed the needle back onto the record
"As if, bitch! You took that wax from MY collection," Jake shot back as he threw a decorative pillow at his best friend, hitting her between the shoulder blades and earning a scowl. "Stop deflecting."
"It's not a big deal, damn!" Rajiya sighed, wincing as she yanked a roller too hard from her hair in all her annoyance. "Last weekend we went to coffee, tonight it's dinner. Big freaking whoop. Between you and the puppets I think I'm catching enough shit without getting Dad involved."
"I think they beg to differ," Jake said and laid himself back so that he was resting on his elbows. Blade, Jester, Pinhead and Six Shooter were seated on the headboard of the bed, pouting after being caught trying to hide Rajiya's phone earlier that evening.
"DEMAND to differ is more like it," Blade hissed, having half the mind to slice open the black and white floral damask fabric of the upholstered headboard with his knife. He hated not having his more imposing human form sometimes. It'd be so much easier to keep Rajiya from leaving to meet this jerk Marcus that way.
"I'll be honest, I get a really bad feeling about that guy," Pinhead said, slouched over in disappointment. "I didn't get antsy like this about her other boyfriends."
"That's because they were immature little twerps she wasn't going to be with for very long anyways. Not conniving men that are a decade and a half older than her that she's seeing without telling her father," Six Shooter put in. "She tells him about everything. But not this. Why?"
"I hate him," Jester added, so quietly that only the other puppets heard him. Jake and Rajiya were too busy bickering at each other now to notice the exchange between the wooden figures in the room with them. Jester's expression was a sad one. He was always the one making excuses for Rajiya no matter what. But this time was different. With their multiple decades of experience, it was safe to say that the puppets' intuition was more fine-tuned than that of a girl in her very early twenties.
And usually she listened to whatever they had to say and trusted their judgments, along with Jake's. Indeed her peculiarly indignant approach to this situation not only frustrated the puppets and her best friend, but it also hurt their feelings to an extent.
"Maybe this is what we get since she was a rather tame teenager," Jester continued. "She's definitely my favorite mistress but girls are pretty complicated."
"That's something they never grow out of, Little One," Six Shooter chuckled and earned a laugh from his comrades which was cut off abruptly by the increased volume of the record player. When the puppets looked over they saw that Jake had left the room by then in what appeared to be a huff and Rajiya rolled her eyes and muttered a swear before yanking open her makeup case. This was the standard signal that whatever conversation was taking place was now over.
"I'm going to go see what Jake is up to," Blade stated as he hopped off of the headboard and landed on the bed with a slight bounce. "He didn't slam his bedroom door so I assume that visitors are welcome."
The other puppets followed suit. Rajiya's stiff back and narrowed eyes in the reflection of her vanity mirror told them that their absence would not be noticed.
*****
The puppets found Jake seated at his workspace in his bedroom with his lanky legs thrown up onto the desk with his laptop on his stomach as he leaned back in the wheeled office chair. His thick rimmed black glasses were slightly crooked, making him look even more like Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby. Blade fought the urge to right the spectacles as he and the other puppets climbed onto the desk to peer over the young man's shoulder and shamelessly look at what was on the computer screen. They had a pretty good idea of what he was doing before they even finished the journey down the hallway to enter the room to begin with.
"I had a feeling he was going to do this," Pinhead remarked fondly with a hint of satisfaction. Jake nodded in understanding.
"If she thought I wasn't gonna Google this douchebag, she's terribly mistaken," he said with a smirk. Several internet tabs were opened, containing a Facebook (that was private), an Instagram (also private although he'd started following Rajiya and vice versa), and a LinkedIn profile for Marcus Freeman. Jake turned the laptop slightly so that his roommates could see the screen better. "From what I can tell he's just another filthy rich Silicon Valley banker. He also owns a Lambo. In other words, I think he's an ASSHOLE."
"Filthy rich is right," Blade hissed and pointed at the picture of Marcus on the LinkedIn profile. "The amount of money he paid for that suit could feed a needy family for a year or more."
"Which leads me to believe that he could pay to have anything incriminating about him removed from the internet," Jake continued, scrolling through the Google results. "Guys like this are never fucking perfect. I bet he's like, an underground drug lord or some sketchy shit like that."
"Don't say that!" Jester exclaimed and batted Jake's shoulder with his small hands. "I don't even want to think of that being a possibility."
"There is still something off about him," Six Shooter said as he leaned closer. "Can't quite put my finger on it..."
"You have thirty and you can't put even one on it?" Jester said playfully in an attempt to lighten up the situation. The small hat was whapped off of his head and landed on the laptop with a soft jingling *clank*. Jake picked it up and began twirling it on the end of his index finger as he thought.
"I seriously want to tell Dad," he said under his breath in a sigh. Then, footsteps were heard in the hallway and a rush of Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume filled the room. Jake barely slammed the laptop shut in time.
"Stop trying to lurk Marcus online or else I'll cut the ass pockets out of every pair of Diesel jeans you own," Rajiya said as she leaned against the door frame for leverage to put her shoes on. Jake and the puppets turned to her, all mocking offense.
"I resent such an accusation."
"Rude," Blade remarked and he pointed his hook at his mistress and her seasonally inappropriate bandage-style dress. "And precisely how insane are you to go out on an autumn evening like that? You better be taking a coat, young lady!"
"I was going to take my capelet, Blade," Rajiya said in response. "It's clear outside, for crying out loud."
"No, you're taking your trench coat," Pinhead said with finality and jumped down off of the desk. Within seconds he disappeared down the hallway to fetch the garment and force it into his mistress' hand, or her bag if she tried to resist. Rajiya considered stopping the burly puppet as he strode by her but decided against it. She knew she was lucky they weren't giving her a harder time about this.
"So is your charming gentleman caller going to be picking you up and dropping you back off, or do you need a ride?" Jake asked in a manner that portrayed how much he didn't want to provide her with the offered ride. The room felt very tense.
"He'll be here any minute, thanks anyways."
"Okay then." A painful silence drug out before Rajiya let out an annoyed sigh.
"Seriously with this shit?" she said in a clipped tone. "None of you are being very fair."
"I think it's not a matter of fairness, but more along the lines of honesty," Jake answered as he got to his feet and took off his glasses. "We don't like this and we're not going to bullshit you about that. Regardless, have fun and come home tonight please." Rajiya eyed him suspiciously as he approached her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "Honestly. Just be safe. I'll make hot toddies for when you get back."
"Oh, who can stay mad at you?" Rajiya said and hugged her best friend in return. "I'll be home before 2. Just going to dinner then coming back. Pinky swear." A car horn was heard out front just as Pinhead was handing the trench coat to her. "That's him, gotta go. Love you guys!" She slung the coat over her shoulder and picked up her large handbag from the floor at her feet where she'd set it earlier. Jake watched her go before fetching his cell phone from his desk and putting on a pair of house slippers.
"Guess it's just us guys stuck at the damn house again," he said to Pinhead and Six Shooter. "Get the light on the way out and we'll find something on Netflix to watch." He made it halfway down the stairs with the puppets before noticing that something was amiss. "Hooooooold on a second. Where the hell are Blade and Jester?"
Pinhead and Six Shooter bumped into Jake's legs when he came to a sudden stop to ask them that. They looked up at the tall human and shrugged in an exaggerated manner.
"Gee, I don't know," Pinhead said nonchalantly. "I think I'm in the mood for a suspense film tonight, what about you Six?"
"That sounds perfect, I'm tired of trying to read the subtitles on those foreign dramas Raj keeps binge-watching."
"Don't ignore me, what is going on?" Jake demanded, then smiled when the puppets pushed on his calves to get him moving again. Suddenly it dawned on him exactly what was going on. When he and the wooden figurines were seated on the couch he faced them. Six Shooter couldn't help it and let out a slow chuckle.
"We can't hide anything from this one," he said to Pinhead, who nodded in agreement.
"They're totally stowed away in her bag right now, aren't they,?" Jake questioned and began laughing when Six Shooter and Pinhead confirmed it with more nodding. "Oh my god! She's going to shit a brick when she finds them in there! Serves her right for carrying around a big-assed purse like that, Jesus Christ that thing is so impractical."
"I think in this case its crossed over in the practical category," Pinhead said as he and Six Shooter joined Jake under the cashmere throw blanket and began watching television.
The level of smug in the air was nearly palpable.
"This was probably one of the best decisions we ever made," Jester whispered excitedly to Blade since they were literally face-to-face inside the bag. When Marcus picked up Rajiya she put both the purse and her coat into the backseat of the Jaguar without even looking into it. The two puppets were grateful for her hastiness because if she'd discovered them before having departed from the loft, she surely would have found some excuse to go take them back inside (subtly) and scold them. But now they were a few miles away from home and their plan to chaperone whether she wanted them to or not was going great. So far.
"I agree, but Raj is going to be pretty surprised to see us," Blade began when the car abruptly jerked to a stop and the bag fell onto its side. From up front they could hear Marcus apologize to Rajiya for almost missing the traffic signal they were stopped at now. She laughed and patted his hand and said it was fine. Ugh. Blade wished he had eyeballs so he could roll them at her uncharacteristically girly response. "BUT, I don't care, do you?" he finished, looking back at the smaller puppet, who was currently wearing his mischievous expression.
"Nope. Hopefully we can surprise Marcus too and it will result in us never having to see him again."
Then suddenly a shadow was cast over them as Rajiya leaned over the center console of the car to reach back into her bag. Her original intention was to fetch her phone charger when her fingers enclosed over Jester's midsection. A couple more blind grabs of the familiar velvet material caused her to take her cell phone and use the illuminated screen to see what she didn't want to believe was there.
"Why, fancy seeing you here," Blade hissed sarcastically at his mistress' shocked face. Her grey eyes were so wide he wondered if they might pop right out of her skull. He shot his bullets out and opened his mouth to mock her expression. Jester giggled beside him.
"Are you kidding me?" Rajiya mouthed silently, genuinely stunned. These puppets could be so damn sneaky, it was ridiculous. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she repeated but her irritation made it come out the second time as a harsh whisper, which caught the attention of Marcus.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Y-yes," Rajiya replied and cleared her throat. She was now glaring at the puppets. "I just seem to have forgotten my charger is all. Brought everything else but my charger, apparently."
"Oh that's fine, it happens," Marcus said and leaned across her to open the glove compartment. "I might have an extra one in here."
"Do NOT come out of there, do you understand me?" Rajiya mouthed at Blade and Jester, who were enjoying this immensely, before sitting upright and facing forward again.
"I'm just going to pretend I can't read lips and didn't quite catch what she said if he tries to get fresh with her," Jester said, feeling rather pleased with himself and his leader.
"I second that," Blade responded and elbowed her bottle of perfume and her wallet aside to get more comfortable, knowing full well that Jeremiah would be quite proud of them at this moment.