A/N: I HAVE WRITTEN A THING.

Yeah, part two. :p Isn't it marvelous? No? I know. ._. But I'm glad to be moving this along anyway. XD A lot of juiciness is on the horizon, mein freunds. I'm pretty sure it's Snapple. :D The cover has changed in accordance with it's current focus as well. The picture in the cover was drawn by FnFiNdOART. All credit goes to her... Hope she don't mind I'm jacking her art. XD

No song for this chap. I couldn't figure out what to put. D: Sorry to anyone who gives a crap. I actually did have one in mind for this, but listening to it and thinking about this, it just seemed a bit too cheesy. XD And I really don't want to go there just yet, LOL.

NOW THEN

~Y U SO AWESOME People~

metalheadrailfan

Conor Dachisen

Jamesbondfan2016

acosta perez jose ramiro

Anonymous Latina

ThisLoveThisHate14

Thanks for the support, guys! Especially you, Latina. I know you're not on this chapter yet (and I'm still kinda doubting you'll make it this far before you stop LOL), but just in case you do: HIIIIIII :D CONGRATULATIONS. YOU JUST READ A LOAD OF CRAP. XD Here's your prize! *Hands you a pony that fits in your palm* Enjoy! But be careful. He's really easily crushed. *Coughs*

Conor Dachisen, as well! Thanks for the fresh support. It's great to get new readers in here. :) Welcome aboard! The snack bar is to your right and the bathroom to your left. As for the exit—there isn't one! :D Enjoy the ride, me hearty.

Now let's get this show rolling already. I'm starving to death over here. XD

EDIT: Reposted 'cause I added more. XD *Slaps forehead* I am weak, I know, LOL. But honestly, it felt like it was missing something and I realized what that thing was a day or two ago and was slapping my forehead over it. You don't have to review again if you already did, haha. I'm just making myself feel better. If you want to follow the storyline, be sure to catch the added bit. I ALSO FIGURED OUT A SONG :D WHOOOOO, it's by All Time Low, though. XD ALL. TIME. LOW. LOL. How appropriate. Okay, moving on. u_u

Disclaimer: By this point you should already know, but just in case: I OWN ALLLL THIS SHIZ. Except the parts I don't. ._. Pam belongs just as much to Panfla as she does to me. And Taro Johanssen belongs to metalheadrailfan. The insult "Carpet Forehead" came from an old convo with Panfla, and "Midgie" was Isabella Pataki's amazing idea, so credit goes where credit is due! XD And that is all. For now.

Dedication: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT THIS LAST CHAP. Omg. Very, very important: this entire chapter is dedicated to writergirl97, since she is (or used to be?) in love with Phil. She was one of the first people to tell me she loved my characters, has written quite a few awesome fics for these guys, drawn a ton of pictures, and was one of the evil masterminds behind giving this fic it's own group on dA. She is truly one of my favorite people on the internet, so whether she reads this or not, I want it to be known that this is for her. End transmission.

Breathing Slowly

Part 2

"I wanna be good good good to you

But that's not not not your type

So I'm gonna be bad

For you."

— 'Bad Enough For You' by All Time Low

Two years later, a week from present

Zack was having a lovely dream. Sophie was there, as she often was, and the pungently sweet smell of cherries wafted in the breeze. Through the hazy blur of his subconscious, he saw flashes of blue and white that he assumed must be the sky. There were violets all around, a red airplane flew overhead. And oddly, his dad with a butterfly net and a particularly wide-brimmed explorer hat—but he wasn't going to analyze that too closely.

It was peaceful, and calm, and though he wouldn't remember a lick of it upon waking, the pleasant feeling would stick with him for the better part of the day.

The split-second conclusion of his dream would be blissfully forgotten in light of the peace. The violets shriveling up would be banished from his mind. The plane crashing would be nothing but a foggy recollection that he would attribute to too much TV. and the blue and white flashing to a vivid, haunting red would never be his to recall. The cherries would stay, though. And the grass would remain a light, emerald green. And he would still be nothing but a drooling mess crouched over his desk in the middle of English class who was startled awake by the sound of a gunshot that came directly in front of his face.

Ms. Idleberry continued calmly down the line of desks, as if she hadn't just slammed her ruler down on his desk, and he hadn't just flown up from his desk and coughed out a splutter of nonsensical exclamations. He cringed deeply and shuddered, trying to take reign of his hazed mind and banish the dark fog surrounding his eyes. Everyone in the room burst into a round of snickers, particularly the girl seated behind him, and he shot a look at them all that they knew not to take serious.

Ms. Idleberry didn't once pause in her speech, "It's important as young adults for you to learn responsibility, to take charge, and to be able to adapt to new situations that may not always be ideal. You should know how to compromise and come to important decisions within a partnership." Turning sharply around to continue down the next row and eying a couple teenagers that were still shaking with silent laughter, she continued, barely veiled censure under her tone, "That's why I'm assigning you all partners for this assignment. You'll be hypothetically 'married' to this person for the next week, and I'll be expecting a full project and written paper on your experience and what you learned."

Everyone groaned in unison and Ms. Idleberry raised her ruler high, waving it back and forth. "Now, now, none of that!"

"I can already tell you what I'll learn," Billy Green, better known as Booger Boy, stated slyly, leaning lazily back in his chair. "That no woman can handle this." He did a small dance in his seat, before stopping abruptly to look seriously, too seriously, at Ms. Berry. "And love is actually just overactive hormones sending, like, endorphins and stuff to different parts of your body and making them act funny. Chocolate has some of those in it, actually, so when you eat it, you're actually eating love." He swept his scraggly black hair back, sniffing as his brown eyes became glassy a moment.

"How interesting," Reuben muttered wryly, sitting to his left.

Billy gave him a bright red-eyed look, tapping his hands against his desk. "Thanks. I learned it in Science class."

Ms. Idleberry looked down on him patiently, her expression that of one who had a long history of dealing with teenagers. "Thank you for sharing, Mr. Green."

Billy sneezed in response.

Riley Gammelthorpe raised her hand gracefully in the air suddenly, keeping it straight up in the air like a lightning rod. "Ms. Berry, ma'am," she called in a crystalline, singsong voice. At Ms. Idleberry's nod, she let her hand fall to her desk and asked demurely, "Does our partner have to be in this class specifically, or can we pick someone outside of it?"

Ms. Idleberry smiled thinly. "I'll be assigning them myself. You don't get to choose."

Riley gave her a blank look and blinked a couple times, incapable of processing this. Reuben coughed and asked directly after, looking at the teacher disapprovingly, "And why exactly can't we? What would be the harm?"

Ms. Idleberry paused at this, and stopped midstep from where she'd begun walking back down the rows again. Looking over to Reuben, she replied without missing a beat, "The entire point of the project is to throw you into a situation you would not expect to find yourself, and learn to adapt and make the best of it—if you chose your own partners, it would defeat the purpose."

Reuben's eternally straight and regal posture sagged slightly under this reasoning, clearly disappointed he couldn't argue further on the subject.

"So essentially," Zack yawned, stretching lazily back into his seat with a slight twitch of his lips, "we all got drunk in Vegas and woke up with wedding bands tattooed to our fingers."

Ms. Idleberry grinned, as well as several other snickering students. "Precisely."

"I don't see the point of this assignment," Zack went on almost absentmindedly, his eyes drifting over to focus on a wall. "Or what exactly it has to do with English."

Ms. Idleberry's delighted face fell into a very rueful expression, and she started walking again at a much slower pace, weighed down by the private irony of her thoughts. "Oh, trust me, this is a lesson you're going to want to learn early on. If you ask me, learning how to navigate a marriage should be a class in and of itself." Pam buried her face in her hands to hide her reddening face, mentally groaning.

"I would never go to Vegas," a brown-haired girl quibbled to her left, her chin resting on her desk in a very forlorn manner. Pam snorted out of her embarrassed stupor and nodded her agreement.

Ms. Idleberry, having made it back to her typical position at the front of the room, sifted through a few papers on her desk as she spoke, with a quick glance towards the clock, "We have exactly ten minutes before I have to release you to lunch, so I'll just assign you all now and you can get started right away. Remember to be with your partner as much as possible. You're to spend every day with them for the next week." Extracting a yellow slip of paper out from under several others, she held it up and paused for a long moment, before announcing, "Leon Eardley will be working with Riley Gammelthorpe-Wellington-Lloyd." The freckled dirt blond teen sent a large, crooked grin over to Riley, one of which she did not return and Reuben glared very hard at him for. He sent a silent warning to the boy with his eyes, making an 'I'm watching you' hand gesture. Leon sent him a slightly confused expression.

Ms. Idleberry went on unaware of this exchange, and caught Reuben's unwilling ear, "Reuben Gammelthorpe-Wellington-Lloyd will be working with Harmony Goldstone."

A hand was instantly in the air. Harmony, a pristinely made up blonde in navy blue uniform, did not wait to be called on before she spoke, "Excuse me, Miss, but it's Godstone, not Goldstone."

Ms. Idleberry pursed her lips at this and looked closer to her paper. "Ah… so it is. There was a smudge there. I'm sorry, Harmony."

"No harm done, I suppose," she replied breezily, shooting her eyes over to Reuben, who was currently doing his best to hide his discomposure, and the sudden overwhelming urge he had to bribe his teacher with a hundred dollar reward if she assigned him a different partner.

It went on in this manner for the next couple minutes, only to be interrupted every once in a while with a groan or the banging of foreheads on desks, before she made it to Zack and spoke a little louder, caressing his name like the treasure she knew it to be, "Zachary Shortman will be working with…" there was an awkward pause, "Pamella." She coughed and hid her face behind the paper, speaking quietly, "I'm sorry, I can't seem to read my own handwriting here."

"Mo—" Pam started to yell, but then caught herself. "Ms. Idleberry, could I maybe get a different partner? Please?"

"Nonsense," she dismissed, waving a hand at her without even glancing in her direction. "You two are neighbors aren't you? It's an ideal match."

"Easy for you to say," Pam grumbled, sinking back in her seat. Fake friends or not, she hadn't signed up for this—she knew her mom was well aware of her dislike for Zack… as well as her brief admiration of him after reading his work, but that hadn't lasted long and she knew that. This reeked of Meddlesome Mom.

Zack didn't appear at all fazed, however. He just cast a smug look over his shoulder at her, and she felt her ears go red. He'd caught that too. Great. Just what she needed, to pretend to be married to an overtly domineering, power-crazed egomaniac. Pam closed her eyes and counted to ten.

Ms. Idleberry folded her paper up and tucked it into a drawer. "It seems we have an unequal amount of boys and girls, so Mr. Green and Mr. Fuller will have to make do together."

"Oh, come on," Billy whined, shooting up from his desk.

Ms. Idleberry looked at him innocently. "What's the matter, Mr. Green? You said yourself no woman could handle you. Maybe Radcliff can."

Billy looked at her with mouth agape, dumbfounded, and slowly turned his head to look at Radcliff Fuller, AKA the simultaneously smartest and dumbest kid in the entire school. He received excellent marks on his report card, but when it came to social skills and common sense, he was impossible. In Billy's eyes, he equaled a failing grade and endless days of frustration. He also wasn't a perky brunette in a mini skirt. Radcliff stared at him with a spooked mien, and Billy fell back into his chair with a groan, "Suicide."

"So eat some chocolate," Zack quipped with a grin. Everyone tittered their approval of this plan, but Billy just sniffed and blew his nose into a page of his text book, his eyes shot through.

After a minute's worth of snickering and whispered jokes, Ms. Idleberry had finally had enough and raised her hands up to quiet them. "Yes, yes, it's very funny. Laugh about it on your own time, at lunch. Which would be…" she glanced down at her watch, just in time for the bell to scream that it was time to leave. Zack was the first one up and grabbing for his bag to depart, but Pam reached over to grab him by the arm before he could escape.

"Not so fast, Sassy. I'm done with chasing your ass down. You're coming with me." Throwing her backpack over her shoulder, she stood up and pulled his smirking self out into the hallway. There was already a crowd of kids jogging this way and that, but Pam didn't hesitate to drag him right into the heart of the storm and out the other end. Zack, for his part, didn't protest. Pam knew she should probably be a little suspicious of his lack of reluctance, but was too determined to get as far away from her mother as she could to care for the moment.

Finally feeling satisfied with their distance, she let go of him and leaned her forehead against the wall. Breathing heavily, she nearly missed the muffled laughter coming from behind her. Just as she was steeling herself for the worst, the laughter spiked and next thing she knew Zack was leaning against the wall to her left shaking with laughter.

Affronted, she pushed away from the wall and yelled, "How can you laugh at this?"

"Easy," he chortled, turning around to face her, his back still leaned against the wall. His eyes were sparkling, a huge grin was plastered across his face, and somehow his hair looked even wilder than usual. Pam felt herself instinctively lean away. "I'm so sexy even your mom's trying to set us up." He cackled, losing it all over again. "Oh, criminy, it's too good!"

Pam's eyes narrowed. She watched him laugh obnoxiously for a few more seconds, waiting for him to get it out of his system, but when he didn't do it fast enough for her taste, she rolled her eyes and yelled, "Oh, get a room!"

"Oh, come on," he wiped his eyes of the tears that had gathered, still grinning. "How can you not find this hilariously ironic?"

Pam crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes still narrowed. "Why would you just assume she's trying to set us up? Maybe she just wants us to get along better. She's seen us fighting how many times in the last month? Besides, you have a girlfriend, remember? For two years? She must be aware."

Zack gave her a tight, close-mouthed smile, eyes sparkling with restrained mirth. He took a quick, shallow breath and straightened himself, trying to gather his wits, then exhaled a swift, speedy, "Sophie and I have never had the same English class, and your mom always eats lunch in her room, so she's probably never seen us together."

Pam raised an eyebrow. When he didn't continue, she chirped impatiently, "Well?"

He looked at her blankly. "Well what?"

Pam stared at him. Slowly, she let her arms drop out of their crossed state and clasped her hands together instead, her fingers turning a very unhealthy looking yellowy white. She said quietly, deliberately, "Why would you assume she's trying to set us up?"

Zack raised half his eyebrow and fell back against the wall again, taking on a very lazy posture. "Isn't it obvious? She's under the same impression you were when you read my poem—she thinks I'm a literary genius, and a," he put on a mockingly soft, kind expression, placing a hand over his heart, "deep, thoughtful guy." Breaking character to let loose a quick cackle that had Pam itching to slap her forehead, he finished normally, "Plus I'm popular, charming, make decent grades, and need I mention these devilish good looks I am so cursed with? What mom wouldn't be doing everything in their power to set me up with their daughter?" He grinned, all teeth in full view.

Pam stared at him for a long moment. Then, she dropped her head into her hand and shut her eyes, trying to teleport to any place but here.

Zack, seeing that she was struggling with herself, finally had mercy and dropped the grin with a light chuckle, hands coming up in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it. I'll just have a mad make out session with Sophie in front of her at our earliest convenience and set her straight. Problem solved."

Pam, having raised her head at the beginning of his speech, had to resist rolling her eyes again. "Good luck with that."

Grabbing his backpack up from where it'd fallen on the floor, he slipped it on and flashed her a brilliant smile. With a flourish, he offered his arm out to her. "In the meantime, how about a spot of lunch, my dear?"

Seeing that they were returning to their safe zone of jokes and grandeur, Pam smirked and laced her arm through his, making her posture straight and regal. "Why, that sounds lovely, hubby wubby."

He wrinkled his nose and she laughed, jerking her arm back. "Too much?"

He squinted his eyes and held his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. "Just a bit." Letting his hand drop and his face ease, he started off in the direction of the cafeteria. She followed suit, taking care of her bag. While they walked, he casually informed her, "We'll have to talk more about the assignment later—my mom's picking me up right after lunch 'cause my Aunt Olga's coming down for a visit." Pausing a moment, he seemed to consider something before stating, "We might want to seriously consider doing the project at Slausens or something."

Pam looked at him with a confused expression. "Why?"

Zack rolled his shoulders in a shrug and flicked his eyes to the ceiling in thought, trying to figure out the best way to word his response. "Well, it's just that my aunt's gonna be around a lot while she's here, and she's a little… eccentric."

Pam scoffed. "Who in your family isn't?"

A smirk situated itself comfortably on Zack's face. "You sound like Josh."

Unwittingly, a smile touched Pam's face upon hearing this, but before anything more could be said, someone leaped in front of them and yelled, "Guys!"

Both Zack and Pam jumped back with a scream. Zack gained his sense back first, and laughed out, "Damn it, every time!"

"Don't laugh at me, dude, this is serious!" It was then Zack noticed the grave look on his best friend's face, and the way his legs and arms were spread, as if prepared to tackle someone at a moment's notice. Zack immediately felt a spike of dread just before Jaron confirmed one of his darkest nightmares and blurted out, "Taco Tuesdays are no more!"

Zack's eyebrow shot up in disbelief. "What?"

"You heard me, man!" Jaron's face was agonized. Quick as lightning, he grabbed Zack by his collar and pulled him down to his level, whispering like he was divulging a government conspiracy, "Someone filed a complaint. Something about the meat being 'questionable,'" he spat the word out, his face twisting in disgust. His face fell again the next moment, and his entire body sagged. "They replaced them for tofu—dude, tofu. Tofu Tuesday. Do you understand what this means?"

Zack gulped, a sweat breaking out over his forehead. "Your mom—"

"It's just as I feared," Jaron despaired, nodding his head like a broken bobble head. "She figured out I haven't been eating the lunches she gave me so she… I can't even say it." He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, focusing his eyes somewhere on the ceiling to keep the wetness suddenly coating the inside of his contacts at bay. "Dad tried to stop her, you know he did, but he couldn't do it. He just couldn't do it." He shook his head, taking measured breaths in and out of his mouth. Zack's bottom lip trembled.

Pam, who had been turning her head back and forth between the two during their exchange, finally spoke up. She tried to keep the incredulity from her voice and failed, "All this over overripe tomatoes on a stale tortilla?"

Jaron snapped his hazed eyes on her and shook his head, his brow still furrowed in pain. Zack shot her a disapproving look and tried to offer what comfort he could by patting his arms, which were still clutching his collar, but it did little. Jaron was in his own world for a moment, before he gained back his ability to speak and managed to reply, "Those tacos were my livelihood. My final act of rebellion. The only thing I could get away with right under my mom's nose… Without them, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to… to…"

Pam raised an eyebrow. "Eat healthy?"

"No," Jaron cried out in raw anguish and sunk to his knees, throwing his head back with his hands clutching at his forehead.

Pam watched as he struggled with himself and made a spectacle out of trying not to cry, before turning her eyes and awkward countenance onto Zack's frozen stiff one. "I don't… get it? The tacos weren't even that good."

Zack seemed to snap out of his stupor at this statement, and turned a sharp look on her that quickly melted away to a carefully blank one. "Okay, first of all, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. Secondly, Mrs. Johanssen and Taro have been trying to force Jaron to eat healthy for years. But he hates it. Something about his digestive tract just doesn't agree with health food—"

"It's a genetic defect," Jaron regained his sanity long enough to pop in. "My Uncle Jamie-O and Aunt Tim have the same thing."

Pam, once again, found herself caught in a rut of snapping skeptical looks between the two. "That's not a real thing!"

Jaron scoffed, allowing Zack to help him back off of the floor. "That's what my mom and Taro and all the health books I've ever read say, too, but try telling that to my—"

"Okay, okay," Pam held her hands up and grimaced. "I get it. Whatever. Can we just get lunch? I'm sure you can get something from the vending machine."

As they all filed into the cafeteria together, Jaron let out a wistful sigh. "If only. They're packed full of rice cakes and apples."

Zack cringed and reached over to pat Jaron on the back, offering him a hopeful smile. "Don't worry, buddy. I'll sneak you a Mr. Fudgie from my locker later and stock up on Twinkies the next chance I get."

Pam snorted, grabbing her backpack off so she could throw it down on their usual table. "You can't. Hostess closed down months ago. You'll be lucky to get a cosmic sprinkle with how people have been packing them away."

Jaron threw his head back and wailed in another burst of agony. Zack gawked at him before swerving around to glare at Pam, yelling, "Are you trying to kill him?"

Pam, her jaw having dropped at Jaron's second outburst in the last five minutes, became very indignant at the added assault and yelled back, "Well what did you want me to do? Lie?"

"Yes!"

"Well, sorry, Carpet Forehead, but I'm not you!"

Zack blinked at this, shocked, before something dark crossed his face and he looked down on her with a very sour look. The two glared furiously for the next five seconds straight, each one trying to out-glower the other and only succeeding in making the other all the more livid. In the end, Zack was the one to finally relent and pull back, resisting the urge to roll his eyes and kick her out of the cafeteria, the school, his life. Instead he took a deep breath to calm himself and cleared his face of all animosity, looking at her with a decidedly gentler expression. "All right, we lost our cool for a second. No biggie. Let's just move on." He turned away from her.

Before Pam could make a snippy comeback about him being a delusional nutcase, Jaron grabbed a chair loudly out from the table, letting it screech painfully against the floor before he fell into it unceremoniously. His head flopped down into his hands as he muttered desolately, "Easy for you to say. My life is ruined."

"Aw, Jarry." Zack grabbed the chair next to him and sank into it, reaching a hand over to grab him by the shoulder and give him a shake. When he looked over at him, Zack smiled buoyantly. "Look on the bright side—"

Feeling considerably short this afternoon, Jaron did something a little out of character for himself. He lost his patience, with Zack. He blamed Pam for that – and the lack of funky meat and expired cheese running through his system, but mostly her – she was starting to seriously rub off on him, and not in the way that he wanted. "Darn it, you and your bright sides," he groaned, giving him a tart look. "If this isn't a really good one, I'm gonna be giving you a bright side in just a second, honey."

Surprised, Zack lifted his hand from Jaron's shoulder and let it flop gracelessly to his side. He looked a little lost all of a sudden, and if Pam didn't hate him so much, she might have felt sorry for him. In any case, the look was cleared away quickly enough by a smirk, and he responded brightly, with an undertone of mocking, "Well I can't guarantee complete satisfaction, but here it goes: My Aunt Olga's coming down for a visit. You know, the one Phil was so tight with? So Phil should be off our back for a couple of weeks." He grinned convincingly, as if he were selling him a car.

Jaron stared at him for three seconds that felt more like three years, before his head clunked down onto the table and he stated, slightly muffled, "I don't care."

Zack pouted, still mocking. "And here I thought you'd be happy for me!" He sighed contently, clasping his hands together in front of himself with a giddy air. "Two whole weeks of not having to deal with," he forced his face into a dry-eyed expression, his voice turning into an obnoxiously listless tone, "'You're an idiot. You don't know anything about anything. Your taste is atrocious. Sophie's a soul-sucking leech. Get that strawberry away from me. Bla, bla, bla, yada, yada.'" His head twitched violently to the left, one particularly irritating phrase he'd heard from Phil recently being conveniently left out, even though it was the principal annoyance that fueled his need to make fun of him lately.

Despite himself, Jaron couldn't help but laugh at the impression, but then promptly choked the sound down. Coughing a bit, he clasped his hands together under the table and muttered, "I shouldn't laugh. I like Phil. He's funny."

Zack snorted one of his startling snorts and shot back, "You only think that because you don't have to deal with him every day! Day and night, night and day, at dinner, going to the bathroom, trying to eat a bagel—everything's a fight. Every chance he has to criticize me or complain, he takes, and with zeal. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the little lunatic to death, but he never shuts up. It grows tiresome after a while." He sighed, his shoulders drooping forward. "It'll be good to get a break from all his ranting."

Pam sank into the seat between Jaron and him, asking before she could stop herself, "Yeah, why is he so sour anyway?" Seeing Zack look over at her with half of his eyebrow raised, she faltered. "I just mean, there's gotta be a reason. No one's that angry without a reason." She looked away.

Zack was shaking his head before she'd even finished her thought. "Nah, he's always been like that, it's just who he is. Even when we were kids, and I mean kid kids and he was a toddler, he yelled at us all the time. He never let us have any fun. Food fight? No. Playing in the rain? No. Epic mud battle of doom? No, no, no. Because that would be unethical." He frowned deeply, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting his eyes down to stare at the floor, brooding on all the missed opportunities. He grumbled to himself, "Little party pooper."

Pam's brow creased, unsatisfied. "Oh, come on, he couldn't have always been as weird as he is. He doesn't even let anyone hug him without making a fuss."

Zack looked up with his eyebrow furrowed in thought, thinking that over a moment, before he looked back at her impassively and shrugged. "Well, he didn't always hate hugs. I mean, he's always had this weird 'personal space' rule but when he was a little kid, he used to always need something to cling to. It's hard to find any old family photos without him attached to somebody's arm." His mouth flattened out as he thought about that, his eyes going hazy a moment. He spoke almost absentmindedly, "I don't really know what happened there. I guess he just grew out of it." Shrugging, he fiddled with the cuff of his shirt as he added more casually, "Other than that, though, he's always been the same."

"Didn't he used to want to run Big Bob's Beepers?" Jaron asked, something quizzical touching his face. He had a vague memory of a visit from the Shortmans where Phil was going on about all the stuff he was learning about the business.

Zack reflexively barked out a laugh. "Oh, criminy, that." He leaned over to rest his head on his fist on the table, a knowing smirk sliding onto his already insouciant countenance as he looked at his best friend. "That was just a phase."

Pam looked between the two, a lost look fogged over her profile. "What are you talking about?"

Zack shot her a look of pure amusement. "Big Bob's Beepers is the family business. Our grandpa started it, and he's always had his heart set on having Phil take over for him when he croaks, but Phil doesn't want to."

"But he used to," Jaron pointed out again.

Zack rolled his eyes. "Yeah. When he was a little kid and didn't know any better. Then Aunt Olga happened." Seeing the dense look still on Pam's face, his smirk became more prominent. "Aunt Olga's an actress," he explained, with no little amount of enjoyment in the statement. "Broadway. And Uncle Charlie's a playwright. Once Phil got a load of them, Grandpa Bob was cast aside in favor of pursuing an acting career. Bob insists it's just a phase, though, and I think he's got Grandpa Phil convinced too 'cause they still fight over what he's going to grow up to do. Grandpa Phil wants him to run the boarding house, Grandpa Bob's adamantly against that, and they both refuse to compromise." He laughed, looking like a little boy who'd just been handed a triple scoop cone of his favorite ice cream. "It's fun to watch the two of them go at it."

"I'm still not entirely convinced it's not a phase myself," Jaron stated, his eyebrows springing up.

Zack looked at him strangely, so he went on, "Think about it. He was all for running Big Bob's Beepers and the boarding house for six years straight, made people believe he didn't have a doubt in his mind, and then out of the blue he decided, 'Never mind, I'm gonna be an actor instead.' If it was something gradual I could believe it, but it was totally random. One day he's happy, the next he's intransigently against it. And he's sporadic about it, no less—one minute he's an actor, the next a writer, then director, then actor again, then he wants to be all of them. I don't think he has any idea what he's doing. You can't exactly blame Mr. Pataki or Phil for not really trusting it."

Zack smirked at him, his brow scrunching. "Jaron, please. Insubordination is a right of passage. Embrace the rebellion, don't cast it aside as a silly whim of childhood past. Without people going against what they were told, we wouldn't be sitting here now, in America, being forced to eat a tofu-taco substitute in the middle of going to a school we are legally bound to attend. No, we might be doing the exact same thing in England, at the mercy of the monarch, but with much fancier accents. Think of what we may have lost!" Zack fixed him with a serious, steady-eyed gaze. Jaron frowned, unsure of where to even begin with responding to that.

"Um, yeah, excuse me," Pam cut in a bit sheepishly, in the process of repressing everything Zack just said, her eyes focused on Jaron. "What does intransigent mean?"

Jaron's eyes widened, and his cheeks darkened. "Oh… sorry. It just, uh, he refuses to change his opinion." Scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, he gave a choked little laugh and averted his eyes. "I've lost count of how many times I've seen Phil explode on Mr. Pataki. He's usually a little more patient with Old Phil, but, I guess, like Zack said, if there's one thing Phil knows how to do anymore, it's how to go against people's expectations and wishes."

Zack beamed, flushed with pride. "That's my baby brother."

Pam rolled her eyes at Zack, making a point of keeping her flattening eyes on Jaron. He felt a level of unnerve at having such a dry, intense stare directed at himself, but Pam was hardly in a state to notice. "Well, there you go. You said it yourself," she said determinedly. "The decision to change was made randomly. Something significant must have happened that made him hard pressed to turn things around. And who's to say that thing didn't also put him in a foul mood?"

Zack raised half of his eyebrow at her, bemused at her blatant refusal to look at him. "Why are you pressing this?"

She shrugged, turning her eyes down to look at her lap, much to Jaron's relief. "I don't know, I guess I just hate to see so much cute go to waste on such a dour personality…" She flicked her eyes to the left, taking mild note of the laughing teenagers across the room, and ran her tongue over the front of her teeth in slight agitation. There was more to it, of course. She wasn't dumb enough to ever tell Zack this, but she suspected he probably wasn't a very good older brother. How could he be? With his dominating, peremptory nature and the way he stared straight through people with that dopey grin on his face, who knew what kind of horrors he'd inflicted? She still remembered Jaron and that whole 'locked in a closet' incident, which was quickly, and much too easily (in her opinion) forgotten, which told her things like that weren't exactly unusual around here. How many times had Zack locked his "lunatic" little brother in a closet and forgotten about him? How many times had Phil "ranted" to him, trying to get something through to him, and he wouldn't even listen?

She felt somewhat responsibility for Phil in that sense, seeing him as someone who probably needed a little understanding. Despite all the horror stories she'd heard from Zack about his abhorrence of all things good in the world, he hadn't treated her in any special fashion in all the time she'd known him, which made her come to the conclusion that Zack was, once again, full of shit. But then again, Zack didn't seem like a particularly private person. Maybe he'd told his family about how supposedly "evil" she was, and Phil's ears had perked up, his mouth dampened, his pupils got all wide—and now he was slowly inching his way towards asking her to join the top secret evil organization he'd started that met up every Thursday and Saturday in the woods to discuss how much they hated everything and work on the blueprints of their Puppy Obliterator Ray. Wouldn't that just figure?

But no, she couldn't believe that of him. He was too short, and too cute, and too hard to figure out for her to think something that horrid of him this soon into the acquaintance. Besides, she was done assuming. Her first impression of him was that he was an anti-social, eternally angry little boy who wasn't right in the head, and the only thought she'd had of him was that it was probably a good idea if she kept her distance. But after all the stories and insults she'd heard from Zack and the many times she'd had opportunity to observe him over the past month, she'd gotten more curious than before. And concerned.

To put it simply, despite what Zack probably thought of her, she didn't bask in people's misery, and that seemed to be all Phil was. He walked around like he had a perpetual storm cloud over him 24/7, and you couldn't get close to him without getting zapped. Not to mention that whole "I hate goodness and cheer" mindset he had going on—if he wasn't evil and secretly plotting ways to destroy the world (as Zack liked to joke about), then there had to be some serious psychological issue going on there. There could be no other explanation.

In a weird kind of way, he reminded her of a much smaller, younger version of her own brother, and she couldn't look at him, with his bleak face and stiff, drooping posture, without wanting to give him a hug. It was probably a little silly to feel such a strong need to protect someone she barely even knew – not to mention was the little brother of her arch-frenemy and next-door neighbor – but it was what it was. Almost absentmindedly, she muttered, "I've been around a lot of people with attitudes similar to his, and it makes me wonder…" As she looked up and saw the mutual stares coming from both Jaron and Zack, she hesitated, biting her lip, before abruptly straightening her posture and stating, almost defensively, "I'm just saying he seems kind of depressed."

Both Jaron and Zack's eyes went very wide, very suddenly… before they both broke out in peals of laughter. Jaron slid all the way down in his chair and slapped a hand over his eyes, while Zack opted towards slapping his knee and banging his fist on the table. Pam was, understandably, offended and very confused.

Finally, Zack managed to croak out amidst their laughter, "Phil's not depressed!"

Pam's eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms across her chest sulkily. "I don't understand the reaction," she managed to strain out relatively calmly.

Zack sensed her flaring temper and bit his tongue, squeezing his eyes shut to keep from laughing anymore. He took in a deep breath then and exhaled unsteadily, before opening his eyes to grin at her, his eyes still twinkling with laughter. Grabbing his chair by the base, he hopped his way over to sit directly beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, his other hand coming up to pat the shoulder nearest to him. She stiffened in clear discomfort, but it didn't deter him. Rather, he sighed very audibly and quietly murmured, "Oh, Pam, Pam, Pam… Poor, naïve, ignorant Pam. You, my friend, are a victim of the great Philliam Fancy-Pants veneer."

Pam stared at him. "The what? What does this have to do with wood?" She shifted in his tight hold, feeling her skin crawl at the contact.

Zack merely rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Pamella, you've fallen straight into his trap. Can't you see?" Seeing the impatiently uncomprehending look on her face, he chuckled and scratched his head. "Okay, let me see if I can explain this to you…" He looked up, his mouth quirked as he thought it over. Finally, he said, slowly, as if he were teaching a class of second graders, "You see, Phil will try to make you think otherwise, but he's actually a very happy, but very strange kid."

Jaron nodded his head, smiling at her sympathetically. "Very strange."

Zack nodded as well, smiling down at her. She looked up at him like every brain cell he'd ever had had just shot out his ear and flown off into the sunset. All two of them. Yet still, he went on, "He has no reason to be depressed." Looking over to Jaron, he nodded his head and Jaron obligingly began counting on his fingers as he spoke, "He's a kid, he's a straight A student, he's got a huge family who all adore him, and he has both the boarding house and the Beeper store to fall back on if acting doesn't work out so he's pretty much set for life. Not to mention he's cute as a button, even when he's looking at you like he wants to rip your throat out." He chuckled fondly, leaning back in his chair and effectively pulling Pam's stiff, unhappy form with him as he shook his head. "Phil just makes it his business to be displeased with everything because he wants people to believe he's a tortured artist, even though everything's great and he knows it." He flittered a hand in the air. "It's just, his temper, stubbornness, and that damn drama he's so in love with. It makes him act like a lunatic."

Squeezing her shoulders and eliciting a distressed squeak, he concluded with a speedy, "And this 'depression' he's convinced you of, is just an extension of his melodrama. It's an embellishment on his typically unimpressed persona. It's like when he tells me he hates my guts—he says that, but I know he really adores me and wishes he was me." He smirked. "So don't you worry your little cherry berry head anymore on the matter, Shortcake, all is well." He patted her on the head with a wide smile, meaning to reassure her, and also make sure she didn't do something stupid, like try to talk to Phil about his supposed "depression" (which could only end horribly). Jaron nodded his agreement with the same tiny smile he'd had on throughout the entirety of his speech, wiggling the fingers he'd counted on at her to help emphasize Zack's point.

Pam, practically in a headlock by this point and totally fed up, growled and pulled herself roughly away, causing his arm to jolt back. Snapping a glare on him, she was disgusted to see that he actually looked bewildered. As if anyone would ever not want him to touch them. Clenching her teeth, she grabbed a chunk of her ponytail and began hastily running her fingers through it to calm herself. Once she felt she could open her mouth without yelling something totally inappropriate, she asked, an edge to her words she couldn't help, "And how do you know that for sure?"

Zack smirked at her, relaxing back into his chair. "Just trust me. I've been Phil's big brother for eleven years. If there was something seriously wrong with him, I'd know." Silently, he added in his head, 'And if there's anything I've missed, I'll find it soon enough.' Though unvoiced, the thought made a devious spark appear in his eye, one of which Pam caught and stiffened at the sight of for a split-second before forcing herself to relax.

Before another thought could be had on the matter, Zack grinned and whipped out Jaron's lunchbox from where it had been discarded haphazardly under the table. Flipping the lid back, he cheerfully proffered the contents to the other two. "Now who wants sushi and celery?"

Jaron threw his head back and groaned.

Just as Zack was about to laugh, his pocket started vibrating. Zack stopped, and put the lunchbox down so he could extract his cell phone. Expecting it to be his mom telling him she'd arrived early and to 'get his scrawny ass outside,' his eyes bulged when they came to rest on none other than Sophie's smiling, crystal-eyed face.

Zack screamed and threw the phone down on the table as if it had burned him.

Both Pam and Jaron's jaws dropped, and in a flash Jaron was out of his seat and looking Zack up and down, as if expecting him to burst into flames any second. "Dude, what is it?"

Zack looked like he'd seen a ghost, but upon turning his eyes up to see the stricken look of concerned horror on Jaron's face, and the dinner-plate-eyed shock on Pam's, he shook himself. Taking a breath, he turned his eyes back to the phone, his face carefully blank. Just as quickly the face broke, though, and before anyone could blink he was scooping the phone back up and flying up from his seat. "Nothing, I've just got to take this."

Before he could leave, Jaron grabbed him by his sleeve and gave him a meaningful look. Zack avoided his eye. "Dude…" he said slowly, giving him a stiff, wary, almost parental look, "who is it?"

Zack gulped and looked back down at his phone, which was still vibrating. He panicked and tried to leave again, but Jaron's hand wouldn't give out. Zack groaned, "Jaron, please, I'm gonna miss her."

"Who's 'her'?" When Zack started avoiding his eye again, Jaron's resolve became stronger than the sun and he grabbed fistfuls of the back of his shirt and yanked him back with all his might. Zack stumbled back with a yelp and flailed his arms forward, nearly falling back on Jaron. Jaron, anticipating this, pulled his chair out fast and then ran around him so he could push him in the chest and watch him fall flat on his butt back into his chair. Jaron put his hands on his hips and stood over him, his eyes hard. "You know what we talked about, Zack. If she's calling you then it must be working. Don't screw it all up now."

Zack looked pained. "But—"

Jaron gave him a look.

Zack stared at him for a long moment, then shifted his gaze down onto his phone again and stared for even longer. Finally, the buzzing ceased, and Zack ground his teeth.

Pam caught herself once again in a game of shooting her eyes back-and-forth between the two. "Okay, what the hell is going on?"

Jaron answered blandly, as if she'd just asked him what two plus two was, "Sophie."

Pam's eyebrows scrunched. "And… this is strange? That she'd call?"

Zack snapped his eyes on her and blinked. His eyes were very wide, wide in that foggy unseeing way he had sometimes, and his tongue darted out a second to wet his lips. He seemed to gain back some semblance of control over himself the next second as he looked back down at his phone, and murmured, "No, no that's normal." Standing up, this time in a more dignified manner, he smiled at Jaron and reached down to pat his shoulder, almost apologetically. "Sorry, Jar,' the mistress beckons. Ten seconds is plenty long enough." He shrugged jokingly, as if it simply couldn't be helped, and walked away to call her back.

Jaron stared after him a moment, before huffing out a harsh breath and falling back into his own chair. "Damn it, he was so close."

Pam frowned and leaned over the table towards him, looking almost ravenous with curiosity. "What? What was he close to? What's going on? C'mon, man, hook me up."

Jaron snapped his eyes on her and blinked, surprised. He looked uncomfortable then, as they were alone and that just seemed to be how he was. The moment Zack was out of the picture, Jaron became an awkward, shell-clinging little nerd, and Pam almost felt bad for grilling him. Almost.

They were friends now, after all. He should know she wasn't going to judge him. And even if she did, next to Zack, he practically glowed. Jaron was sweet and awkward. Zack was overbearing and pompous. Sometimes Pam wondered how they could be such good friends. They really didn't seem to fit each other, but they did. She was still trying to figure that one out.

His clearing his throat brought her attention back to him. He was looking at her. "Zack's just ignoring my advice and screwing himself over, as usual." At her wide-eyed stare, he broke down and elaborated, "Sophie never calls him. He calls her. It's just how their relationship works."

Pam blinked, disappointed. "Oh. That's all?"

Jaron looked relieved, and nodded readily. "Yes, that's all."

Pam caught his tone, and – slow and steady – a smirk slid onto her face. Once it was in place, she pointed a finger at him with a clever lift of her chin. "Ah, ah, ah. No hiding information from me, JJ. What was the advice?"

Jaron stared at her, stiff-lipped, before he scooted his chair a little further back and snapped his eyes across the room, in the direction of the lunch line. "My mom'll know if I don't eat it, I should probably at least get a plate, for appearances—"

"Oh no you don't!" Pam practically teleported her chair directly beside him, and he jumped at the suddenly close proximity. She leaned over, even closer to him, and his eyes shot wide. This close, she could see the glassiness of his contacts, and wondered how he could stand them if they were thick enough to be noticeable. The thought was short-lived, however, as the next moment she was batting her eyelashes at him and twirling a lock of deep red hair around her finger. "Come on, Jarry, I thought we were friends." She pouted cutely.

He stared at her, his eyebrows furrowed, as if he were struggling to comprehend something. "Are… Are you trying to seduce me into giving you personal information regarding my best friend in the entire world?"

Pam didn't falter. "Yes."

He stared at her a little longer, before he nodded rapidly and said, "It's working. Keep going." Yet, as she was about to do just that, she caught the illusory gleam in his eye.

She rolled her eyes and leaned away, amused by the large breath he released when she did so. "You're bluffing. You're not going to tell me anything." Crossing her arms over her chest, she eyed him speculatively. She knew him too well by this point. He was loyal as a pet rock. The day she got any information out of him regarding Zack that he didn't want to give was the day man invented a way to read minds. Nevertheless, she wanted to know—"Jaron, it can't possibly be that big of a deal. The longer you avoid the subject, the more determined to find out I'm going to become, and if in a few days you find yourself handcuffed to a streetlamp in the middle of the shopping mall parking lot at 3 AM with a shadowy voice whispering instructions to you over a walky-talky glued to your ear, I can't be held responsible for what might occur." She raised a sharp eyebrow. "It's in your best interests if you just tell me now and save us both the trouble."

Jaron gawked at her. Spluttering, he managed, "I didn't want to believe it, but geez, you are evil."

Pam looked at him skeptically, a bit soured by the idea after her earlier thoughts. Puppy Obliterator Ray, her ass. "I'm not evil, Jaron. Just curious." She leaned into his personal space again, trying to be a little less threatening in the action, and a little more disarming. She really did like Jaron, she didn't want to scare him; she just wanted to know what the big deal was. Her face went a touch dry then as a thought occurred to her, and she muttered sarcastically, "I think I have a right to know about my husband's dealings with other women."

The second her statement made contact with his ears, he grimaced. "Oooh, you two got each other for that assignment?"

"Yep," she popped the 'p.'

Jaron's face twisted, as if he'd smelled something rancid. "That's not going to end well at all is it?"

"Nope," she popped the 'p' again, before she smiled hopefully, her olive eyes shining as she hunched over to look up at him, her head supported on her hands. "So will you tell me?"

Jaron sighed heavily and gave her the Bitch Eye. He couldn't hold the look for long with her staring up at him so innocently, though, and he eventually relented with another, slightly lighter sigh. "Fine. It's not like it's really a secret anyway, I just didn't think Zack would approve of you being this curious. He's really cautious of you, you know."

Pam beamed. "I know." Catching the almost wounded look in his eye, she swiftly added, "But I'm not going to do anything bad, Jaron, I promise. I told you, I'm just curious. Zack and Sophie's relationship kind of fascinates me. I don't really understand how he's still with her."

Jaron did a double take of her, his mouth falling open. Pam found herself mildly amused with the strong reaction, before he spoke, loudly, with great animation, "Have you seen Sophie, Pam?" Before she could ask what the hell that meant, he went on, "Face of an angel, body of a goddess, hair like silk? Like eighty-three percent of the student body want her, and I'm including girls in that estimate. Why would he ever break up with her? If Zack wasn't with her, I would tear that up—"

"Ohhh-kay," Pam yelled, one eye clenched shut in revulsion as she bolted away from him, her tongue stuck between her teeth. "Save me the—the—all of that, spare me. When I said that, I meant that I didn't understand why Sophie was still with him."

Jaron's eyebrows flew up, smacked into silence. After a long, awkward moment where Pam was working her damndest to banish the idea of Jaron 'tearing' anything up and Jaron wasn't sure how to word what he wanted to say, he finally reached a decision and reached up to rub the back of his neck. "Well, I mean," he started slowly, looking almost sad, "I know you probably won't agree, but Zack's a really great guy. He's cool and confident, and one of the most popular guys in school, so—"

"So build him a monument, I'm sure he'd love it," she huffed. She'd had just about enough of Zack's reputation.

"I'm just saying him and Sophie are both in a position that you'd almost expect them to be together. It's not weird," Jaron sighed. Pam rolled her eyes. Of course, Prince Ass-Hat and his future queen, front and center. Maybe that was why Sophie was with him. It was just one of those social standing things that seemed appropriate, and she felt powerless to go against it. The thought made her angry, and Jaron noticed. Frowning, he said, "I don't understand why you hate him so much. I thought you guys were getting along now."

Pam cut her eyes at Jaron, unwilling to discuss that. "I feel we've drifted from the main topic here. Advice?"

"Brush two times a day and don't forget to floss—"

"Jaron."

He huffed, his shoulders falling as he gave up. "Okay, okay, fine." He checked to make sure Zack wasn't standing somewhere listening in, and there weren't any hidden cameras in the sushi, before he hitched the back of his sweater up and pulled it over his head, laying his head on the table in shame. He clenched his eyes shut as he confessed in a rush, "Zack can be a little too eager when it comes to Sophie, and he's afraid that it's pushed her away somehow and that's why he hardly ever sees her anymore, so I told him he should start ignoring her. You know, stop calling her, take longer to reply to her texts, 'forget' to meet her before lunch—act like he's losing interest so she'll have to be the one to put in the work for once."

Pam gawked at him, taken aback, his words repeating themselves over and over in her head. Zack can be a little too eager. It's pushed her away. So, that meant… Zack was essentially Sophie's bitch? She never would have expected that. The very idea made a grin spread steadily across her face, thinking it rather appropriate of the universe to place him in such a predicament. She'd only been coming to the school a month, but Zack's reputation was hard to avoid when you hung around him perpetually, and in her "curiosity," she'd already heard a fair amount of stories about his many past 'conquests.' As it would turn out, he was quite the rake. Color her surprised.

It would seem sweetly tragic, almost, if it were a book or something—the womanizing jackass falls in love with the charity-working sweetheart of H.S. 117, only to become too invested and drive her away, thus getting a taste of his own medicine and doomed to scream like a girl every time she called him. If Phil truly wanted to become a writer of some sort like Jaron said, then he should write that. That was funny as hell.

The full meaning of the rest of his speech hit her full force then, and the grin was replaced with a deep frown. "Wait a minute, you told him to ignore her?"

He still wouldn't look at her, but she caught his nod.

"Why the hell would you do that?" She could hardly support any means of deception in romance. It was complicated enough as is. Besides, Sophie was busy. If he truly cared about her, he'd respect that, not be coming up with convoluted schemes to make her worry about his commitment.

Jaron still refused to look at her, so lost was he in his shame at revealing so much against his best friend, and yet found himself replying quietly, "Appearing too eager can push people away sometimes. Especially with girls like Sophie."

Pam blinked, staring at him. "Girls like Sophie?"

"Yeah, girls who like... like…" His shoulders tensing, he pushed his sweater back and attempted to stand. "I've said too much—"

She grabbed him by his arm before he could retreat and looked up at him imploringly, though there was a glint of something disapproving in her eyes. It did not seem directed at him, however, but that thought did not offer any comfort, knowing who was most likely on her mind. He turned his eyes away, wishing he could just walk away. She did not appear concerned. "Come on, Jaron, it's not a big deal. You don't need Zack's permission to talk to me. We're friends. Real friends." The disapproval seemed to become more prominent. "You're a human being, not Zack's dog."

That statement seemed to snap him back to the present, but rather than calming down or even becoming defensive, as rousing him out of his troubled state was her intent, he only looked more tortured. He looked down at her with a strikingly guilty expression, brushing her hand off. "I owe Zack a lot, Pam. I can't speak against him." He shook his head down at her. "Look, I know how he seems, but please don't let appearances fool you. I made that mistake once and I've paid for it ever since. Just try to be patient."

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, Zack materialized in front of them, looking every bit as unflappably giddy as he could be as he slammed his hands down onto the table, demanding their attention. "What are we talking about?" He looked happily between the two, though his overly joyous behavior seemed to have an underlying mocking to it, if the smirk that was pulling at his lips was any indication.

Jaron stared at him for all of five seconds, shaking, before his nerves won out and, with a guilty squeak of distress, he rushed off to secure a spot in the lunch line.

Zack stared after him in surprise, before looking over at Pam with an inquiring raise of his eyebrow. "What did you do to him?"

Pam looked at him innocently. "Oh, nothing worth mentioning. Don't worry about it." She faked a smile. "What did Sophie want that kept you away so long?"

As he sank down into his chair, he regarded her with a blank, though content, expression. "Oh, nothing worth mentioning."

Two years in the past

The ride to school was as it always was. Zack was dropped off at the middle school not far back, leaving Josh and Phil alone in the car with Arnold at half past six in the morning. Another perk about staying at the boarding house for the month was that they got to sleep a little longer since the school was so much closer, something Josh took full advantage of, but Phil wasn't one for sleeping in. He'd been up and about for well over an hour now, and couldn't help rolling his eyes at Josh dozing off beside him. Zack had been much livelier conversation.

Feeling restless, Phil unbuckled himself and shot up, poking the top half of his body in between the front seats to get a better look at the roads. Arnold gasped and snapped his head around to give him the sternest look he could muster. Phil didn't notice the look at first, distracted as he was by the sun still lazily making it's way into the sky, but when he realized his dad was trying to drill his eyeballs into the side of his head, he slowly turned his head around to meet his eyes. His look was cautious at first, but the hard expression he found on his dad's face made his eyes widen.

Arnold raised a sharp eyebrow at him, and Phil jolted back into his seat, hastily buckling his seatbelt again before folding his hands in his lap. Despite his ready show of obedience, he couldn't quite help the sarcasm on his face as he did so, his chin high and look almost challenging. When Arnold only smiled at him and turned back around, he huffed and pouted at his hands, his thumbs dancing back and forth of their own accord.

Arnold finally decided to have mercy on him and asked, "Something wrong, Phil?"

Almost the instant the last letter of his name left his dad's lips, Phil was blurting out, "I'm bored!"

Arnold snorted, his shoulders jolting a moment from the violence of the action, before he ran a quick hand over his face to calm himself and replied, "I'm sorry to hear that, Phil. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Phil frowned, his wide eyes focused on squinting out through the morning frost of his window. As he quickly got sick of this, he took a deep breath and released it to spread out across the window, watching as the warm air progressively ate through the cold. Then, using the end of his sleeve, he reached up and wiped away the last of the fog, just in time to get a very good view of—fast passing buildings that were completely, unexcitingly identical. Huffing, he turned his sights back to his father's neatly combed head and asked anxiously, "Can I sit up front?"

"No."

"But Josh's drooling," he complained, casting a weary, mildly disgusted look over to where Josh's head was leaning against the window, a small line of drool bouncing steadily at the corner of his mouth.

Arnold paused at this, before reaching over to grab something out of the glove box. Before Phil could process what was happening, there was a pile of napkins in his lap and he could hear the glove box clicking shut. Phil stared down at the pile with his jaw slack for several moments, before gathering enough of his brain back to ask, "What's all this for?"

"Your brother."

Phil stared at the back of his head, willing it to turn so he could see for himself how utterly horrified he was. Finally, upon realizing this was not going to happen, he skeptically exclaimed, "I'm not touching him!"

Arnold didn't miss a beat. "Why not? You said you were bored and Josh was bothering you, so now you can kill two birds with one stone."

"Yeah, I am bored and Josh is gross, but that doesn't mean I want to clean up after him!"

Arnold waved a flippant hand back at him, hiding a small smirk. "Well, fine, don't then. Leave Josh to his early morning nap. I'm sure waking up in a puddle of his own saliva will be fun for him."

"It'd definitely be more entertaining for me…" Phil murmured, eyeing his brother uncertainly, before looking down at the napkins still piled in his lap. Grabbing them up quick, he shut his eyes and threw them at Josh all at once, his entire body going tense. He heard a faint murmur come from the other end of the seat, but then nothing. Prying his eyes open, he looked over to see Josh still sound asleep, only now with napkins all over his person—on his head, hanging off his nose, draped over his shoulder, but mostly strewn about his lap and the floor. And the dreadful little droplet of drool that had yet to break from it's long, silvery string connected to his mouth, remained untouched. Phil gawked, before crossing his arms over his chest and averting his eyes from the painful sight.

After a few moments of relative silence, filled with only the sound of tires running on asphalt and the occasional bump, Phil lost his patience again and asked, "How much longer until we're there?"

Arnold chuckled. "Eager to learn, are we?"

Phil frowned, as if the very idea troubled him. "No."

Arnold hummed, taking this as a game. Rubbing his chin as he pondered for a couple long seconds, he took a leery guess, turning his head in his direction, as if to look at him even though his eyes remained steadfastly on the road, "It wouldn't have anything to do with those three nice little girls, would it?" His voice was a little low, a sense of foreboding sprinkled across the words.

Phil's eyebrows flew up, but just as quickly the surprise was cleared away in favor of a small smirk. "Well, not in the way you're thinking, Dad."

Arnold flicked his eyes over his shoulder at him before looking back to the road. Quietly, with lightness forced into his tone, he asked, "In what way, then?" Of course, he knew what way already. He could remember third grade with his son very well—he'd spent the entirety of the year listening attentively and being an all around angel in class, before making all the girls scream the moment he stepped out of the room. He'd tried to investigate what the situation there was only once, and the sight of little Mercy Laporte, Georgia Beck and Adalynn Purdy covered from head-to-toe in foul-smelling green mop water, with the janitor sitting shocked on the floor and Phil grinning a mile wide a few feet away, was quickly suppressed.

He knew very well his son's relationship with the three—he tortured them, at every turn. He put worms in their lockers, stuffed their shoes full of sand, slathered their pens and the handles of their backpacks in grape jelly, and on one occasion even locked them in the boy's bathroom for an hour. He'd had to lecture Phil on the "proper way to treat a lady" so many times he'd lost count, but it had yet to stick. Phil always agreed to be better – just as he had a week ago when he broached the subject again – but he was wise enough at this point to know his son wasn't the best when it came to keeping his word regarding girls. He just couldn't seem to help himself.

This was particularly vexing for Arnold, because he'd never expected this kind of behavior from Phil. He was always the one to go around preaching morals and responsibility, and though he could never quite call Phil "well-behaved," he at least had good intentions and attempted to stay out of trouble. Not to mention he actually listened, something Arnold had gained a great appreciation for since Zack… was Zack.

When he believed he was right on something, though, he stood by his opinion with feet practically bolted to the floor, and much to Arnold's concern, he always seemed to want to stand by opinions that weren't necessarily very… good. Of course, he and Helga had always encouraged their kids to be freethinkers, but this wasn't exactly what they'd had in mind.

At five, he'd been convinced light bulbs – all light bulbs – were the cause for global warming, and everyone should revert back to the way they lived in the 18th century to stop it in it's tracks. And based on the fact he kept his curtains wide open in the morning and slept by candlelight at night, he still believed that to some extent, even if he never lectured anyone about it anymore. They were a strictly compact fluorescent family, always had been and always would be, thank you very much.

At six, he came to the conclusion owls were actually aliens from outer space sent to spy on unsuspecting civilians so they could figure out who and who not to abduct. The idea had come from some movie apparently, but they hadn't found that out until later. As a result, the family camping trip they'd had planned for months had ended up with Phil refusing to come out of the tent, and no one had been able to dissuade him. Rather, he convinced everyone else to come in, and that was where they'd remained for a good chunk of the trip. Arnold still had no idea how he'd done that.

But worse than all that was when they went up for a routine visit to check on the Green Eyes and he'd looked at them, looked at himself, and then "realized" he was one of them. He hadn't wanted to leave then, and Helga had had to drag him kicking and screaming back to the airport. There'd been a very teary, awkward conversation on the plane back home then where he confessed he wished he were blond too. Arnold still wasn't sure what to make of that experience, but luckily Phil was long over that. Helga was a miracle worker when it came to Phil.

His most recent and longstanding dislike, though, had centered on girls sometime around the first grade. That was when the first complaint had been lodged, though it had been brief. Second grade had only made to strengthen his aversion of the opposite sex, and by third grade he was already causing mischief and picking fights. At this point, Arnold was ready to call him obsessed, and suspected his son might have a crush on one of the three girls, if not all of them. As much as Arnold saw himself in his son, he couldn't deny that he was just as much Helga's as his, and the idea that he might use torture as a tool to demonstrate his affections wasn't far-fetched by any means.

Of course, Phil being the inquisitive little thing that he was, he'd realized his father's thoughts early on. Still smirking lightly, Phil replied, rolling his eyes, "I'm not going to do anything, relax… Or at least, nothing too terrible." He looked outside.

Arnold stiffened in his seat. "Phil!"

"What?" Phil yelled back, defensive, his head flying back around.

Arnold sighed. "I thought we had an understanding. You can't keep behaving like this. I can hardly believe they haven't complained to the principal already."

"Well, of course they haven't. They take things too personally to just rat me out and be done with it. Besides, if they start snitching, then I will too. They're the ones who started everything, after all." Phil scowled slightly, leaning back in his seat with his arms tightening against his chest.

"Phil," Arnold said, trying a gentler approach, "whether they started things or not, it's up to you as a respectable young man to take it in stride and not provoke them further. What you've been doing can only make things worse. Girls are confusing, I know, but you can't—"

"You can't this, you can't that, you can't up, you can't down," Phil complained, uncrossing his arms so he could gesture accordingly with his words. His scowl having deepened during his small outburst, he let his hands drop to the seat at his sides and went on indignantly, "Why not, Dad? Because they're girls they can just get away with anything? If this were boys, would it matter so much if we were fighting? Just because I'm a boy and they're girls doesn't mean I'm just going to sit around and take their crap—"

"Phillip Shortman!" Arnold gasped, his tone strictly reprimanding.

"Well, I'm not!" Phil threw his hands up. "I've done everything that you've told me to ever since kindergarten. When they ruined my macaroni sculpture, I asked for more macaroni and started over. In first grade when they replaced my glue with marshmallow fluff, I said, 'Thanks for lunch.' In second grade, when they started calling me Midgie the Midget King and tied my shoelaces together, I didn't do anything. But their reign of terror had to end someday. I am only a man!"

Arnold stifled a chuckle, and choked out before he could help himself, "You're eight."

Phil scoffed. "I'm practically nine, Dad. You can't baby me forever." Clicking his seatbelt off, he shifted over into the middle of the seat, careful not to touch Josh, and popped his head out between the seats to look his dad in the eye. Arnold snapped his head around to look at him in surprise, but he just squinted his eyes at him and continued, "I refuse to give them special treatment just because they bathe themselves in body spray." Crinkling his nose, he concluded his speech with a tone of vague irritation, "There's only so much I can take before I have to snap and retaliate, Dad. You can't seriously expect me to just endure it forever and not stick up for myself. I'd have to be out of my mind."

A violent tango flashed before Arnold's eyes, ending with a sudden splash that still reverberated loudly through his skull, and he found himself perfectly understanding his son for a moment. He could remember very well what it was like to be at your wit's end with the female populace—with their pretty clothes and fair skin and shiny hair, Arnold had often found their difficult nature easily pardoned, but even he could only take so much before the idea of "being a gentleman" seemed wholly overrated. Ceaseless rejection, mixed signals, insults, pranks, and a lifetime's worth of hate could really catch up to you, and he understood very well that finally gaining the upper hand over a situation that had always felt impossible was very addicting. Arnold, for all his "saintly goodness," could not say he had never had guilty pleasures that may have run along the lines of sadistic. He could not deny some people needed to be put in their place sometimes. If anything, with how passionately blunt Phil was, he was impressed he'd lasted as long as he had.

But even still, at thirty-seven years old now and with sixteen years worth of marriage under his belt, these were old emotions and thoughts he could no longer pay any heed to, or moreover, find any sense in. Throwing gasoline over a fire did nothing to dissuade it from trying to eat you alive—quite the opposite, really. He wished he could find some way to get through to Phil and make him see that. But even if he were able to, if his assumptions were correct and they were waging war out of some misguided sense of attraction, would it really matter? As far as he knew, Phil had never had a crush before, so who was he to deny him the pleasure? Even if the feelings involved were more that of pain and annoyance than any kind of actual enjoyment?

The answer was simple, of course. He didn't want his son to get in trouble with Principal Deon. Arnold didn't want to have to deal with that man anymore than was strictly necessary, and he especially didn't want him anywhere near his son.

Shaking himself, Arnold noticed they had reached their destination, and drove around back to park his car in his usual spot. Josh had yet to rouse, and Phil was still staring at him in willful disobedience, practically daring him to speak against him, and once the car was turned off and the break in place, he did just that.

Turning in his seat to look at Phil with a look of deep understanding and remorse, he said, "Phil, I understand that they make you angry, but when I say you should grin and bear it, I'm not saying it because they're girls. If they were boys, it would be no different. You want them to leave you alone, don't you?" Though he still looked a bit wary, Phil nodded his head. Arnold smiled patiently. "Then pranking and making fun of them back can only make things worse. You're only lowering yourself to their level. For whatever reason, they seem to dislike you—have you ever thought maybe you did something—"

"I didn't do anything," Phil interrupted him defensively with a compulsive frown.

"Girls are mysterious creatures, Phil. Just because you don't think you did anything, doesn't mean you didn't." Despite himself, Arnold rolled his eyes, his face going a touch dry. Oh, to be young and naïve. He was glad he didn't have to learn that lesson again. Coughing on a small chuckle, he asked, "Have you ever tried just asking them? Talking things out?"

Phil's frown deepened. It was all the answer he needed, and he went on, quietly and heavy with meaning.

"I have always been very proud of your resolve, Phil. When you believe in something, you stick by it. But sometimes I think you let your emotions cloud your judgment. Don't let your anger get in the way of doing what you know is right. And especially not over some silly girls." Flashing a sudden smirk, he reached up with ninja-like speed and ruffled Phil's hair. Phil yelped and flapped his hands above his head to make him stop. Snickering, Arnold let his hand fall away and warmly finished, "You think you can do that, Midge?"

"Dad," he whined, reaching up in a vain attempt at straightening out his hair again. "I just combed that this morning!" Shaking his head, he couldn't seem to look him in the eye, and Arnold knew his words had hit home. After a long moment, Phil finally met his eye and the chastened look he found there made Arnold's smile widen. He reached over to give him a light embrace, feeling Phil stiffen for a second before relaxing and returning it. Arnold tightened his grip briefly, with the words, "I love you, Phil. I hope you have a good day today," before releasing him.

Phil stared at him a moment, his green eyes curiously bright, before he grinned. "Thanks, Dad. I… yeah. You know." He awkwardly patted his shoulder, a slightly embarrassed look setting color to his face, before he looked back at Josh still asleep and smirked. Before Arnold could process the evil glint in his eye, Phil was already spinning around and launching straight into Josh's face, shouting, "Wake up, time for school!"

Josh shot awake with a scream. Before he could strike out and punch Phil, Arnold panicked and pushed Phil out of the way, causing him to fall back into his seat on his back. As a result, Josh struck out and punched the back of Arnold's seat so hard he propelled forward and hit his chest against the steering wheel with a painful, "Umph," making the car horn go off and wail across the parking lot. Phil promptly burst out into laughter upon witnessing all this, and threw his head back against the seat in the thick of hysterics.

Josh looked around blearily, before going cross-eyed a moment at the napkin on his nose. He brushed it off and coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What did I miss?"

Arnold stared bleakly forward, his face utterly flat as Phil's raspy laughing filled his ears. "Oh, nothing important."

Yes, Phil certainly wanted to be good.

Sometimes Arnold wondered if that was just going against nature, though.

A/N: OKAY SO NOW THAT THAT'S OUT OF THE WAY GUESS WHAT

I HAVE A PLAY IN MEXICO.

:D

ALSO FIGURINES

:D

I'M COMPLETELY SERIOUS RIGHT NOW, NO JOKE

Winis-DiCaprio on dA suggested to her high school class that they do LwtS as a play. AND THEY ACCEPTED. AND DID IT. I HAD PEOPLE IN MEXICO DRESSING UP AS MY CHARACTERS AND ACTING OUT PARTS OF MY FIC.

NGJKS BGLKS NGLKSLKG NS *Bawls*

Okay, okay, calming down now. I promised myself I wouldn't spazz out, LOL. If you don't believe me, Koizumi-Marichan (who also drew a picture of Zack and Helga together, btw, which is, like, just another reason she's fabulous) posted pictures from Winis on dA. :D OMG, you guys. I nearly died. XD Not only that, but Winis ordered a figurine of a family pic I drew on dA of these guys, which is also posted on dA. You guys... I can't even right now. I can't even. I just can't. xD It came out of freaking nowhere. Like the effing Koolaid Guy or something. No words. No air. Just rainbows.

Winis, just the knowledge that you exist is going to keep me going with this silly fic for a long time. XD Thank you.

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