It's entirely inappropriate. Though not so entirely unexpected.

Barbie- Barbara, supposes she's entirely too used to things being resolved by the end. Girl gets boy, bespoke song, credits roll and it's fine. No ' after'.

So she finds herself entirely too surprised when she opens the door to Gloria's apartment and finds Ken, fully dressed in an outfit the Real World only deems appropriate for gay strip clubs and entirely unfortunate nights out. Leaning against the doorframe so she sees his abs flex, deliberately visible with a pale pink crop-top, and questions every decision she's made up until this point.

"Yes?" she ends up saying, a little dumbfounded and awful at hiding it.

He makes a face, "It's Ken!"

Barbie doesn't have dementia. His shirt says 'Ken' on it.

"I see that," she doesn't smile because she doesn't have to, "Why aren't you in Barbieland?"

He looks sheepish. Smile falling. Ken looks down at his silver cowboy boots and says nothing. Barbie realises she's asking a rather redundant question. Knows the answer.

"Missed you."

Barbie realises two things, in that moment: they're still standing in the doorway and she feels the entirely human desire to sigh.

So, she steps away and lets him in. Signing again as his demeanour changes... like a Labrador.

He places his jacket on the coat rack and Those Boots by the door and then does a weird hop spin manoeuvre as he finds his way onto the couch. No reason. Just Ken.

And Barbie loves Ken. Truly, deeply. Maybe not in the way he wanted to but in a way nonetheless. Loves him enough to hate the way he insists on trying to find a solution to a problem she herself needs to navigate. They're both trying to find themselves. She can't answer 'who he is' for him. No matter how much he would delight in her doing so. He was shamelessly built to be a boyfriend. Faithfully following her, by design, since some day in the 60s when they decided she needed him. When they decided he would sell. When some man in a suit said 'you know what these good, American girls need? Kenneth.'

Hm.

Barbie blinks the thoughts away because she hasn't quite learned how to deal with them yet. Moves and sits opposite Ken. Smiles at him, kindly. Mistakes were made by all and her resentment would do no good directed at him, of all people. He's just-

Ken.

He perks up when he notices her smiling, flicks his hair out of his eyes and shakes his hands, one, two, in an excitement too much to contain.

"I missed you, too," she says. Missed him like she missed every aspect of Barbieland. It's a complicated, twisty sort of feeling. "But, Ken, I can't answer your questions-"

"I know, Barbie. I just wanted to see you."

Which is a surprisingly sincere statement from a grown man sitting casually on her couch in Daisy Dukes. But she's trying to bring less judgement into the world.

Which is not to say she's not entirely convinced he's not here for make up sex.

She appreciates the start nonetheless.

"I- honesty," he does a half sort of laugh, "I don't know what I'm here for."

"We talked about this, it doesn't have to be 'Barbie and Ken.'"

"Well that's easy to say but when you're uplifting everything you've known it's scary, Bar-bie , I'm scared. There, I admitted it."

He sort of snaps it. And Barbie would raise her eyebrows at the tone if it wasn't so human of him. So real and profound and honest. From Ken-

"I sounded so smart there, woah. Pump the brakes. 1998 called, they want Doctor Ken back-"

Never mind.

Barbie notices that she's irritated. It takes her by surprise. Tight in her chest and about to explode. Tighter, tighter, tighter.

"You're annoying me."

Three words. Clean. She's a human and she speaks. Thinks thoughts, feels feelings. She puts her hand up and he stops speaking. This isn't a perfect conversation. It's an ugly, uncomfortable one and she hates it.

"You're not the only one adjusting to changes, Ken."

He nods. He knows.

"I did, truly, just want to see you. I get all caught up. I wake up and expect you to be there but you're not."

She gets it. She does.

"You're just going to have to suck it up, Ken." A human, ugly phrase and it's everything that needed to be said.

"I know that. I know that, Barbie."

"You need to learn to live without me telling you to."

"I know."

She thinks for a moment. Really thinks. He's her friend, and it's not her job to make him better but she realises that, right now, she has the opportunity and wants to. Want.

"I heard Gloria tell Sasha: 'If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?'"

Ken laughs and then abruptly stops. "I don't get it."

Barbie gets up. "If your friend told you to do something unfeasible, ridiculous. Would you? Even if you knew it was those things."

Ken stays quiet. Sensing his instinctual answer is the wrong one.

"If I tell you to do something, Ken. I want it to be you. I like you. Not some unfeasible expectation of a man from the 60s."

"What if I'm nothing more than that? An unfeasible expectation of a man."

"You're not."

"Because you tell me I'm not?"

"You tell yourself."

He takes the statement in both hands and holds it. Squeezes it in his hands. Shakes bleached blonde roots as if he's forcing the very idea out. "I'm not."

" You're not?"

"I'm not ."

"Get on your knees."

"No."

Oh . The disobedience. New and different and him.

She walks toward him, stands between his open legs. Puts one hand in this hair but doesn't tug.

Look.

"Get on your knees." Said in a way that, she knows, warrants a hair pull should he not obey.

"No," he says but it's softer, weaker, wanting.

She pulls his hair.

It's a strong grip, close to the scalp, bundled up in her fist and pulled until his back arches with a cry. And he's dropping, dropping, knees hard and heavy against the ground.

Suddenly he wants to be enveloped in her. Wants to drown in her attention. Wants and wants and wants but doesn't need.

Barbie bends down and kisses him. Deepens it with a hand behind his head, pushing him further into her. Her lips are dry and he can feel it. Her hair is frizzy at the ends when it touches his face. Their teeth clack together. Ended swiftly when she pulls his hair again and stands straight, pressing his face into her crotch.

She doesn't need to tell him now, me mouths at her, paws at her. Both hands resting on her hips as he presses his face into her through her jeans. Barbie tilts her head back and sighs.

Up the stairs. Ken hates the way he can't just hover.

On the bed. She pushes him, a hand on his chest.

Unzip. He left his shorts on the stairs. She can only let him revel in the humiliation of being the only one naked for so long.

Stay. She pushes his hands above his head and he wants to keep them there.

It's a sort of baseless, human need. One she almost feels embarrassed or confused about. The desire to ride him. But she can't yet. Not now. Not while he's still here. She wants him to willingly give himself in. Into the want. Into her.

Barbie runs her hand up his abdomen. Taunt, perfect, unscarred, unblemished, wholly incapable of being even remotely scratched. Watches his muscles flex, this time uncontrollably, as she tweaks his nipple under his shirt.

"Be good," she says, and he is. He is good.

He whimpers a little, low in his throat, and then goes quiet. Doesn't allow his voice to come through, the need to say, to comment, to sidekick his way into a familiar situation. He wants to comply and so does. The matter of her telling him to is irrelevant. He tells himself this over and over until it is something he can believe.

He's not even sweating. He can't.

Slowly pushing his top up his chest, she pushes until he's forced to hold it between those perfect teeth.

Barbie sucks the other nipple into her mouth and Ken's breath catches, body shuddering to a pause halfway between arching off the bed. He lays still and gasps for it. Muffled through fabric, "please."

He wants her to break him.

She doesn't speak, just lets the silence of the room fill his head as he closes his eyes, focusing on alternating between soft bites and sucks against his chest. Ken doesn't drop the shirt from between his teeth. Pants through it, instead. Soaking the link fabric with spit around the edges. Please.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Barbie feels his breathing even out and she knows she has him, looks into his eyes and knows he's truly, willingly, given her himself, whole and open and wanting. He's drooling openly into the pillow case now, his lips shiny like plastic. And, only then, does Barbie rise up on her knees and lower herself down onto his aching cock.

It's human, the hunger, because once she's there she can't stop. Aching and feeling. Full and whole in her chest. Bigger and bigger. She rides him, grinds her pussy down on him while he takes it. Rolling her hips, the pleasure comes in waves, fast. They stutter and lose control, knowing what to do but the powerful feeling is entirely unpracticed.

Ken murmurs off and on. Shifts on the bed. Moves his hands to cup her hips, a slow, single jerk of his hips and nothing more. He's crying. Unabashedly. Slicking the pillow with drool and tears. Wanting.

The emotional reaction moves her more, she pushes down harder. Leaning over him and kissing his neck. He moans.

Barbie comes, hard. Gripping his shoulders and throwing her head back and riding him and he spills into her with a cry.

She'll tell him how good he was, after this. How honest he was, how honest she was. She'll slowly bring him back with kisses and send him on his merry way until they next need to be reminded of things they already know. Needing and wanting.