Chapter 10

Being a gang, Ginny was learning, had a lot less to do with rolling convenience stores and acting macho in front of your fellow man, and a lot more with having excuses to do activities with a giant group of people. At least, that's how it came off when she and seven others sauntered into the bowl-a-rama downtown that weekend.

Bowling had never been Ginny's favorite game to play. The rented shoes were always too big or too small, and she always managed to hurt her thumb afterwards when she struggled to figure out the proper technique for release. The people were the only thing that made an attempt worth it, even if she was still unaccustomed to the volume.

Steve wasn't afraid to let out a huge hoot that got the attention of their lane neighbors every time he knocked down all the pins. On his third strike in a row, he threw himself into a backflip off the ball return, right there with no regard for the polished floor. How he didn't crack his head on one of the 13 pounders was a miracle. Steve wasn't afraid to celebrate his coming victory, just as Darry wasn't afraid to threaten to knock some heads if he got another split. He could throw the ball a hundred miles an hour down the lane but apparently couldn't aim to save his life.

Ginny watched every one of the boys in awe. She was lucky if her ball didn't putt putt putt right into the gutter every time. Not to be a sore loser, but she'd probably sit out with Johnny next time.

After ending the round a few points behind Darry, she did just that, sitting in the back with the score sheet and twirling a pencil between her fingers. Until someone shouted what numbers to write down, she divided her attention between watching Two-Bit discreetly tying Sodapop's laces together and seeing if anyone she knew was in the other ten lanes. Evie got a spare, Ponyboy knocked five, Soda couldn't even get out of his chair…

"Hey." A voice suddenly so close to Ginny's ear made her jump, and so did Johnny beside her. It wasn't loud, so much as unexpected. It took her a second to process who the husky, East Coast accent belonged to, but then it was obvious. "Just me, man," and a pair of hands clapped down around Johnny's shoulders.

"Hey Dal," Johnny had recovered and leaned his head back to look up at him. He smiled, too, not one of his usual faintly amused one, but one that showed off his pearly whites. She'd always gathered that Ponyboy was his favorite of the group, but maybe she'd been wrong.

"How ya doin' Killer?" Another voice had spoken up, one that ran cold and deep. Ginny tried to make it subtle that she was turning in her seat to get a look.

Revealed was a young man, a bit older and miles tall, with narrow eyes and a crooked nose. His black hair was disheveled, and he had a long, deep scar running down his face. If every greaser aimed to look tough, this was surely what they were going for.

"I'm okay, Tim," said Johnny plainly. He probably would have said that whether he was fine or not.

Ah, now she'd connected the dots. This was the fabled Tim Shepard.

"Who's your friend?" he went on to ask, no emotions behind the words.

When he'd been compared to a raging bull, this wasn't what Ginny had expected. This Tim Shepard was tall, dark, and scary. He was icy cool, not wild and fiery like she figured. But then again, Dallas Winston could be either at the flick of a switch, so who's to tell what could come of Tim? God just had a knack for making boys like that end up in Tulsa.

"This here's, uh," Dallas looked her top to bottom, something she was fairly certain he'd done each time they'd interacted, "Two-Bit's new chew toy."

Ginny scrunched her nose at that descriptor while Tim just nodded in response. Nothing else was exchanged between the two of them, Ginny gathering he wasn't much one for talking.

"Back in the land of the living?" She hadn't expected Dallas to care enough to ask.

"Yeah," she told him, and then added a, "thank you" for good measure. He'd been a witness and her stand-in ambulance ride, after all.

He ignored the thanks and went back to pestering Johnny.

"You want a hotdog or something? I got paid today." Dallas kept looking over his shoulder as he spoke. Before Johnny could answer, Tim cut in.

"Curly's gettin' 'em. Tell him to grab another." Dallas did as told, cupping his hands over his mouth to be heard all the way back at the concession stand. He went right back to looking around suspiciously when he was done.

"What?" Johnny had picked up on it and tried to follow his gaze to no avail.

"Give me a minute," Dallas waved him off and went on his way, sauntering to the other end of the building, but not before calling back to Ginny. "You owe me a new shirt!"

Whatever that meant wasn't that important. What was, it seemed, was the redhead standing in one of the first couple of lanes. Johnny rolled his eyes when he caught on.

Without Dallas keeping him company, Tim moved along to visit with the rest of the gang. It looked more like a business meeting than the way friends would greet friends. There was a lot of handshaking and nodding, save for a polite kiss on the top of Evie's head when she was the only one sitting. They must have really respected him, or this was some other form of protocol Ginny wasn't privy to.

The game, which had been lingering on the seventh frame while Tim made his rounds, picked up again but only for a moment. Before they could even get to everyone down the line, someone was bringing over a tray stacked with hotdogs and burgers. He surely wasn't a waiter on account of what a spitting image of Tim he was, only smaller in stature and with uneven hair cropped close to his head. Curly, she supposed, was passing out food randomly around the table and started pestering a dazed Ponyboy as soon as he had finished.

Ginny followed Johnny over to the group in time to see Pony shake himself out of a glare. Or maybe he wasn't glaring, but his face was twisted up and narrowed in on the sight across the lanes like he couldn't escape a sour taste in his mouth; the sour taste of Dallas Winston chatting up Cherry Valance and her not giving him the time of day.

"Thanks, kid," Two-Bit spoke up, already chowing down on one of the free-for-all burgers.

"Yeah, thank you," Ginny added, grabbing one for herself after most everyone else already had.

"Don't thank me," said Curly, cooly, "thank Dally."

She had expected him to pay for Johnny, not for her in a million years.

"Thanks, Dally," she thanked him for the second time that day when he came back to them, hands in his pockets and a crummy look on his face. He plopped down in the seat across from her.

"Don't mention it," he shrugged off.

There was no denying Steve was going to be the bowling champion for the evening, but that didn't stop some of the boys from demanding one last round to try their hands at redemption. Two-Bit also insisted Ginny keep him company and good luck by sitting on his lap while he waited for his turn to come up. Sharing a seat was highly inconvenient when one of you was getting up every few minutes, and when it felt like half the people around you kept sneaking glances down the row. She was trying to look past that in favor of enjoying the moment.

Ginny couldn't help but blush every time Two-Bit hoisted her up and pulled her back down with hands holding onto her waist. It was comforting, being that close to someone else, like when he would rest his chin on her shoulder or clap for strikes with one of his hands against her hip.

It turned out, once he was formally and publicly allowed to be, Two-Bit was touchy-feely as all get-out. Which came as a surprise, seeing how permission never held him back much in most other situations.

After the sixth time it happened (not that Ginny'd been keeping count), Evie leaned on her elbows across the table to say something.

"Hey," she grabbed her attention, "if you want him to find his own seat, just tell him that."

"I don't mind," Ginny replied, "unless it's gettin' on y'all's nerves." She and Two-Bit were sitting next to Darry's spot, but he hadn't said anything about it, with how he was getting up and down just as often as the rest of them. In response, he half-lifted a hand off his crossed arms to put a stop to any worries on his end.

Ginny half expected Steve to be hanging onto Evie in the same kind of way. He hovered close behind her seat and would lean down to talk every once in a while. He was too full of energy to sit. It was turning out to be the reverse of that time at the diner. Except, one person was missing.

"Sandy busy tonight?" Ginny asked, going through the same routine as Two-Bit returned and Ponyboy left to take his turn. She expected Soda, diagonal from her, to answer. On the contrary, this may have been the first time he'd lost all traces of a smile.

"Yeah," Evie answered instead, "something with her mom."

Ginny nodded and snuck a peak to see if that got any further reaction out of Sodapop. It hadn't. His eyes, instead, watched his younger brother face down the lane with a lime green ball.

"But speaking of," Evie carried on, leaning even further forward, "we were gonna ask if you wanna come out with us and some of our girlfriends tomorrow night? Cruise down the strip, as promised."

For some reason, Ginny's gut reaction was to turn to Two-Bit for confirmation. She wasn't sure if it was for permission or assurance, or some other reason.

"Don't bother me none," he shrugged. "Little offended that I'm not invited, though."

Evie rolled her eyes in response, which seemed to sum up their whole relationship.

So that answer settled that.

"Sure," agreed Ginny. This was something she could handle, and, the more it stirred in her head, was something she was looking forward to, what with the death of a steady female friend group still fairly fresh in her past. Evie and Sandy were already pleasant enough. It'd be nice to get to know them outside of the realm of "our boyfriends hang around together."

Evie's Oldsmobile was shiny. She must have had it freshly washed for that night, if she didn't keep it in tip-top shape like that already. It reflected the streetlamps and hues of the sunset, making its usual red even warmer.

As expected, a Friday evening on Brookside was beyond busy, and it wasn't even completely dark yet. Evie was driving in the direction of Pennington's, which was the focus of the heated debate that greeted Ginny when she got picked up. The original plans for Boot's drive-in had apparently been dashed when LaMerle insisted she knew which restaurant was better. Sandy lamented how long it would take to get food from the most popular spot in town, but the girl Ginny had never met before was willing to fight for what she wanted. She listed off multiple stories, whether about how she thought she'd actually died and gone to Heaven when she first had the Black Bottom Pie or how her dad saw Leon Russell there a few years ago.

LaMerle never gave a proper introduction amid her rambling; she didn't really acknowledge Ginny at all when she first slid into the back seat. Sandy informed that she was one of Evie's friends and that she was alright, just loud. Ginny could tell that much, and that LaMerle looked like a real greaser girl. She caught glances in the passenger's seat of short, bleached hair that framed her face, peachy skin, and raccoon eyes. On the ride up, she also detailed how she was going to beat the shit out of a different girl named Linda if she "wasn't careful." Evie told her to shut up.

Once they all hit the Ribbon, traffic inched to ten miles an hour at most. Both lanes started to stack up with cars new and old, slowing even more when someone was turning into a store or pulling a U-turn in the middle of the road. They even passed two patrol cars, but the officers were talking to a group of kids out on the sidewalk, not paying any attention to the road much the same as the drivers.

It was easy to spot their dinner destination as the big P of Pennington's shone brightly in the distance and already had a sea of blinkers ready to turn in. Evie followed the other cars into the packed lot and was lucky enough to find someone backing out of a spot up front to take the place of. With windows rolled down, it was as easy as a press of a button to call over the carhop. Open windows also lead to listening to all manner of conversations, ranging from reviewing football game scores to kids getting yelled at for switching cars. Switching cars was apparently a very popular thing to do, as LaMerle was waving for someone four spaces down to come join. They turned her down but said they would see her on the road.

When it came time to order, the girls demanded Ginny get a shrimp basket for her first time and once again guffawed at the fact she had never eaten there before. She could only defend with the fact that her father would never drive this far out just for food. They called her sheltered and she couldn't help but agree.

She felt a bit like the new kid at school, surrounded by people she had only just met and trying her best to make a good impression on the student council members that had been tasked with showing her to her classes. They all seemed likable though, and genuine. She tried to keep herself social, adding to conversations when she could instead of curling up in a little ball in the corner.

It was crazy, all this commotion less than half an hour from where she'd lived her whole life. What an overwhelming experience that Ginny was trying to enjoy all of. The crispy onion rings were tantalizing and the things she could hear people yelling in the distance had her laughing at how vulgar kids could be at that volume. She wasn't like that at their age, surely not. Sandy nudged her to point over at the Corvette that, despite not being in "Soc Row," still pulled up beside them filled to the brim with boys. At least two of them whistled.

Sandy called over, "Not interested," with a smile while LaMerle leaned full over Evie's lap and out her window to flip them off. Of course, this only made the boys hoot and holler more.

They had about finished eating then anyway, so Evie called for the carhop, and they were soon peeling out amid calls of protest.

"So, let me get this straight. We go to the Ribbon to look at boys, but then as soon as boys talk to us, we blow them off." Ginny questioned the methods of it all. "All this in spite of the fact we have boyfriends."

"And?" Evie was waiting for the point.

"Nothin'," said Ginny, amused, "just taking notes."

"It's nothin' serious," Sandy assured. "It's just nice thinking about how someone wants you."

LaMerle rolled her eyes. "Boys like that want anything that breathes."

"You know what I mean," Sandy tried to laugh off, though, her heart didn't sound in it.

The next stop was one of those new teen dance clubs. They had to circle the block a few times until Evie found parking around the back. Even if The Spades was hidden on some side street behind a laundromat, they couldn't lose it. Its sign flashed in neon pink and reflected against all the windows across the corner. People stood outside talking and smoking. The girls had to practically make a single file line to wedge their way into the front door, following the sounds of singing and chattering inside.

Much like her own boyfriend had done before, Sandy wasted no time pulling Ginny with her onto the dance floor. This time, though, country music was replaced with covers of British Invasion songs and the majority of the building was a smooth, shined floor instead of one room off to the side. They swayed and jumped in time to the tunes, Ginny desperately grateful that she wore pants and her Chucks that day. The other girls joined as well, ignoring the attention of Edison letterman jackets and those who didn't care they were too old for the establishment.

The girls sang along and ragged on the song choices all the same. They danced together until Ginny was chiding herself over how unathletic she was. She had worked up a sweat and excused herself to find a seat just as Evie was laughing in the face of some boy who had come up to them. The others ended up following her to a booth nearby.

"Don't stop on my account," said Ginny, waving them to go back and continue the fun.

Sandy waved her hand as well, like it was no big deal.

"We're allowed to sit, too," she said, sliding in beside the girl and getting a good view of the band.

Ginny held her hands up in defeat. "You're right."

"Now," LaMerle started, folding her hands and leaning over the table, "Twenty-Questions."

Ginny mimicked the gesture and couldn't help but deadpan after a moment, "Is it larger than a breadbox?" which received an audible eye roll. That was either a win for making herself more comfortable around them or one step closer to getting on their nerves. Hopefully it wasn't the latter, despite their reactions.

"Guess who she's going with," Evie murmured to LaMerle, as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Who?"

"Mathews."

"No way!" She laughed ten times harder at that fact than she had the joke. "Now that's a good place to start. How'd that happen?"

If someone was genuinely curious, Ginny didn't mind answering. She thought about how the long-story-short of it actually made a pretty good ice breaker.

"He was stealing from my dad's store," she relayed, "repeatedly. While I was working."

The other girl snorted at the answer, like it sounded right on the nose.

"And it's working out?" LaMerle continued to parse out.

"I'd like to think so," shrugged Ginny. She couldn't come up with any complaints since they had become official. Not much time had passed to be fair, but currently all was quiet on the Western Front. "We go to movies and drive around; nothing dramatic to report."

"Driving around," LaMerle repeated, eyebrows raised suggestively, "but not parking."

"Oh my God," rushed out of Ginny's mouth, all one word, before she could stop it. Well, the car has to be parked at the drive in, she almost played stupid but there was no point. They all knew what that meant, even if Ginny was, most likely, the only one who hadn't participated. She tiptoed around a direct answer with, "It's only been a week."

"You'd be surprised at some folks' records," said LaMerle with a shrug. She was fishing another cigarette out of her purse. "Let me know if you need any tips," she added with a wink.

"A Cosmo is going to do you worlds better than Merle ever could," Evie laid out matter-of-factly.

Ginny snuck a glance at Sandy for confirmation. She, in turn, offered a shrug and a half smile that read like "well, she's not wrong."

Girls at school snuck Cosmopolitans into the restrooms all the time. They were passed around while washing hands and touching up hair, but Ginny didn't know how the five minutes between periods were long enough to read into any of the articles. Connie had a couple different copies stashed on her bookshelf at home. She had insisted she only owned them for the fashion tips, but with things on the covers like "A Girl's Guide to Men: What they Find Sexy," "How Girls Really Get Husbands," and "The Demon Lover: A Complete Mystery Novel" there had to be an ulterior motive.

The adults were right: sex really was everywhere.

"Which school do you go to?" abruptly asked Ginny, too embarrassed to talk about that with them. The excuse she made to herself was that she was just as much here to get to know them as they were to get to know her.

"No school," LaMerle responded, now digging for her lighter.

"LaMerle's an artist," Sandy added. She had said it like LaMerle put a lot more value in that word than Sandy ever could have. It had piqued Ginny's interest, though. That wasn't something you heard of everyday. At least, not as something that could keep you afloat.

Before Ginny could inquire any further, LaMerle threw a "Fuck off," and blew out her smoke, then was happy to correct them.

"I do photography and design. We go around to shitholes like this and see if bands are popping up or go looking for new trends. One girl does interviews and columns; one guy gets them printed."

"Ask her how much it pays," Evie interjected, bumming a drag.

"Doesn't have to when Mr. Pearson gives me more than enough," said LaMerle, hinting at another job entirely. "Ask Evie how much she gets for babysitting."

"I told you already, when Steve gets the shop-"

"-Y'all have been talking about this shop for how long now?"

They continued to bite back and forth at each other. If Ginny had been some passerby, she would have thought a regular cat fight was about to break out. But here, she could see how the bitter words never reached the girls' eyes and how they shared a smirk at the end of each sentence.

Still, Ginny took it upon herself to divert the subject to something she had been curious about.

"How'd you and Steve meet, anyway?" she put in, casually nosy.

"Oh," Evie puffed out air between her lips, recalling, "long game of telephone… Steve knew Soda, and Soda is Darrel's brother. Darrel," she paused to make sure she was getting it right, "was buddies with a guy my older sister was going with. We were both playing tag-along at a football game and got to talking. We've been on and off ever since."

"Just 'on' is more like it," Sandy added, slyly smiling, "the way he hangs on you."

That seemed like the correct assessment. While Ginny hardly knew Steve, he seemed rough around every edge except for the one he kept soft for Evie.

"It was a little rocky at the beginning, but he wouldn't dream of leaving me now," she bragged, then added a threat for good measure, "or else there won't be much left of the next girl he's with to look at."

"You'll marry him before that happens," teased Sandy.

This brought the mood down instantly and unintentionally.

"When it's legal," muttered Evie, folding her arms across her chest.

That was a horrible reality. Evie and Steve couldn't get married.

There were hopes for laws to get appealed, but no sight of a guarantee on the horizon. Had it even been a few years earlier, they could have gotten in serious legal trouble for going together at all. Though, Ginny could only assume, there was no way they hadn't already been given heaps of trouble socially. Maybe that, among a dozen other reasons, was why they seemed so closed off to others when they were in public together. They had to take all the shit and couldn't even have something to show for it in the end.

Part of Ginny feared for her own future but, no-this wasn't the same. She couldn't truly imagine how Evie felt in 100 years.

"I'm sorry," panicked Sandy, "I wasn't thinking. I-"

"So, when are you marrying Curtis?" LaMerle was changing the subject this time. She pursed her lips in the other girl's direction and let Evie have the last drag.

Sandy froze, now even more uncomfortable and once again mirroring something Soda had done without her present.

"Oh no," she let out, "we're not talking about me."

"It's either break it off or get married at this point," the older girl egged on. "Or are you gonna run off again?"

Run off? Aside from the recent suspicious interactions, the ones maybe Ginny was too perceptive for her own good to notice, she was under the impression that Sandy and Sodapop were the real deal. Two-Bit had told her how long they had been together and how whipped Soda was. She had thought they were just waiting until they were eighteen to make it official.

"What, did he stop putting out or something?" LaMerle continued, crass as ever. There she was, bringing up that topic again.

"No, no, nothing like that," Sandy shook off, voice quiet.

"Well, Mr. Perfect must have done something wrong."

"'Merle, please, I really don't want to talk about this."

Ginny wished she could have saved her, but the onslaught didn't leave room for interruption.

"His little heart's gonna break," added Evie, shaking her head, "again."

"I'm not doing anything," said Sandy in finality. She let out a shaky breath, almost like if she wasn't determined to not to, she would start crying.

"Sandy-" Ginny tried to offer comfort with a delicate hand on top of the other girl's in their shared booth, but it went unwanted. Sandy was lifting herself out of the seat before she could make contact.

"I'll be right back." She excused herself to get a drink and walked off into the crowd. An awkward silence stewed in her wake.

Every group of friends was going to have its issues, it seemed. Ginny must have been the Sandy of her old group; the odd one out.

"Not to ruin your night…" Evie offered sarcastically, rolling her eyes at what had transpired. Ginny didn't feel like Evie was being fair at all.

"Are her and Soda really that bad that you need to egg her on like that?" she asked, looking for a good reason and trying to keep her voice neutral.

"She won't say nothin' so I shouldn't either," Evie led with, then paused. "But some odd months ago Sandy broke it off, and then a month after that she asked him back and he came running. It's not my place to say anything but he lets her walk all over him, whether she means to or not."

"Oh…" was all Ginny could let out, not knowing what to say at this new perspective. She had only seen the couple out together once, and the lovey-dovey-ness they exuded seemed mutual. It wasn't her place to say something, like Evie mentioned (even if she didn't take her own advice), but it still took her by surprise.

"She thinks nobody'll ever love her again after Soda, so she won't dump him. He won't dump her because he worships the ground she walks on and can't bear losing her again. Ya know, Steve told me that month she was gone, all Soda did was mope around and talk about her like she died. And now, she won't even say 'I love you' back to him half the time. He notices, says Steve, but he won't do anything about it." Evie didn't stop spilling the intimate details of why she thought Sandy and Sodapop should break up. "She's one of my best friends, but if she wants to be miserable, that's her business."

Ginny thanked God for Two-Bit and thanked him again that their brief stint at drama was behind them. For all her doubts and lapses in the confidence department, she wouldn't let herself turn into that. She felt too self-assured to let a mess like that run her life.

Despite all of this, she still felt bad for Sandy. And for Soda. It wasn't an easy situation. No matter how or when it went down, Sandy was going to break his heart, again, and have to live with the guilt of it. People just fall out of love sometimes, it happens, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Ginny made a mental note of everything she learned that night and filed it away. She'd keep an eye out with this newfound information. Maybe she hadn't noticed any issues between the couple before, but they'd stand out like a sore thumb now. She could judge for herself if Evie was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"As long as they're havin' sex, nobody's breaking up with nobody," LaMerle added as a final note. This time, it got a snort out of Ginny. "Come on, let's get her and get outta here."

The group got up and checked around the beverage counter and the restrooms for Sandy to no avail. Between the crowds that were thinning out they found her, sat at a table near the door, leaned forward and rubbing the back of another girl. This new girl couldn't have been older than fourteen. She had thick black hair that hung in front of her face as she rubbed her eyes and forehead over and over again. Her mouth was moving a mile a minute even if they couldn't hear her over the music.

"Oh boy," LaMerle was audibly rolling her eyes again before they got close enough. "You know what? I don't think I can bring myself to deal with Angela Shepard tonight."

"I'll go ahead and assume that Shepard," Ginny leaned in to confirm the relation. Tim Shepard had a finger in every pie around here.

"Yup," she popped the P. "That family has more issues than McCall's."

The three kept their distance for the time being, letting whatever was happening play out. Sandy was leaning in with reassuring words. She let Angela cry it out, makeup clouding around her eyes and cheeks rosy. Every once and a while, she'd wring her fingers through her hair and shout something and Sandy would let her. Eventually, she must have run out of things to be upset over and gave in to the comfort.

At this point, Evie reunited them.

"Eve, you mind if we drop her off?" asked Sandy gently.

"Yeah," Evie answered, though it sounded like she wanted to say the opposite, "let's get goin'."

With that call, the night was over. The five made it back to the car with little effort, Sandy guiding Angela most of the way and putting her in the backseat with Ginny and herself. The Shepard girl seemed to have tired herself out, whether from the hysterics Ginny missed or possibly alcohol in her system. She leaned into Sandy's shoulder, sniffling occasionally until she was finally and completely silent.

"Surprised she's not flailing her arms and screaming," LaMerle noted, quiet compared to her usual tone. "When I'd hang around one of the guys in Tim's outfit, they'd have to drag her tooth and nail back to his place weekly."

Angela didn't stir as Sandy ran a hand comfortingly through her hair.

"It's hard being a girl," she whispered to no one in particular.

Evie headed east a number of blocks until they were surrounded by rundown stores and red brick apartment buildings. The streets were hardly busy here, so she was able to slow down and idle in the middle of the road while Sandy woke Angela and helped her out of the car. She guided the girl down a set of stairs to a bottom floor apartment, lingered out of sight for a few moments, and then returned empty handed.

Sandy heaved a sigh when she got back in. It looked like the night had taken everything out of her, and Ginny felt guilty that what started as a fun outing had ended with more stress on her shoulders. She found herself reaching over once again, attempting to offer some comfort both physically and verbally.

"I'm sure she appreciates it, Sandy," she said, and then went on to lightheartedly tease, "You'll make a great mom one day."

Ginny didn't realize that that was the worst thing she could have possibly said until it was already too late.

Do I introduce too many characters? Perhaps. I love the idea of this whole little world where everyone knows each other being right under Ginny's nose and her getting to explore it, along with the balancing act of small-town-feel and big city Tulsa. It's also a cheeky way to subject you all to my headcanons haha

Thanks everyone for patiently waiting between updates! I've said it before and I'll say it again: story middles aren't my strong suit, but the ball IS rolling.