InsaneJournal

Robin was in the mood to kill. Okay, who the fuck took his 3DS to even start with, and how the hell did this fucking person end up with it? “Found it my ass,” he snarled more to himself than to the freshman unfortunately drafted into being his buddy. He stomped into the gardens, everything about his body language just screaming for a fight. Jaw clenched, fists clenched, dragging/pushing his buddy (what the fuck was his name again? Something with a J, he wasn’t fucking listening), he looked around for a person he didn’t recognize so he could storm up and demand to know if they were this Chloe person.

Spotting the unfamiliar girl with dark green hair sitting on the lawn, Robin clomped his combat booted feet on over to her. He pointed to a different spot on a lawn, implying that his buddy should stay right there, then turned back to Chloe. “You,” he snapped, nostrils flaring, face turning a nice shade of pinkish red. “You the one’s got my fucking DS?”

Chloe was sitting in the grass with a big sketchbook in her lap. She had a myriad of art supplies scattered around her in such a way that at least a few of them were likely going to get lost. There were earbuds firmly stuck in both of her ears, so she didn’t notice Robin until his shadow fell over her. She hadn’t heard what he said, but she could tell by his posture that he was not exactly feeling friendly.

“Uh, hi there?” she greeted, not quite wanting to ask him to repeat himself for fear that he would yell at her.

“Yeah, hi,” he said, arching his eyebrows and waving in utter bewilderment at her. “Right here, you’re waitin’ for someone, ain’t you? Or is there some other green-haired chick hanging out here with my shit?”

She hunched further over her sketch pad, making herself smaller in front of this, uh, frightening person.

“Your…?” His shit? “Oh! This?” she reached inside her oversized olive military coat, apparently digging around an inside pocket, until she pulled out a Nintendo DS with crudely carved initials.

“Jesus shitting Christ, girl, how fucking hard was that?” He snatched his shiny red toy from her hands and flipped it open to check for scratches and dings and dents not put there by himself, then flipped it over to make sure his game was still in there. “The fuck you think you're doing trying to steal my shit?” He turned it on, just to make sure she hadn't overwritten his game or some shit. “You can't steal from me, I got eyes everywhere.”

“It-it wasn’t- I didn’t-!” she stammered, completely taken off guard by the onslaught. He was examining it like it was something precious, not just a DS, and like she may have taken it apart and booby trapped it. She’d only found it in her weird box of random items - she’d said so, hadn’t she? Then why was he being so mean to her?

“I didn’t steal it!” she finally said, voice cracking as she started to cry.

Um.

That was the only thought that entered Robin’s head as she started to cry. What, um. What was happening. Why was she--Coppertale girls didn’t cry like this, goddammit, what in the fuck was she playing at?

“No, uh-uh, don’t pull that shit with me,” he cut her off and slammed the lid to his 3DS back shut again. Everything seemed to be in order. So far. “I ain't fucking telling the teachers or anything, just next time you try’n take someone’s shit make sure it ain’t mine. Initials mean I’m fucking serious about it.” He brandished the Nintendo and it’s carved in RMY on the lid.

Robin pressed on with his accusations, and Chloe could feel the tension in her shoulders, like a giant was trying to crumple her into a ball. She shrunk further over her sketchbook like she was trying to ball herself up defensively, like an armadillo or a pill bug.

“I didn’t, I didn’t,” she said, her voice small. “I have my own and anyway I just got it in that weird box of stuff. Someone’s just trying to make fun of me for blowing the power, so they’re- they’re-” Trying to get her yelled at by this scary Coppertale guy “Trying to get me in trouble, and-”

She sniffed, wiping her tears, which were falling on her sketchbook and ruining her ink drawings.

“Sweet Christ, girl, I just said I ain’t tellin’ the teachers, what’re you moanin’ about?” Robin looked away from her tears because they were, like, making him uncomfortable and stuff, and shoved the prodigal 3DS in the side pocket of his scuffed blue TARDIS messenger bag. “And who the fuck still cares about the power? That shit shoulda made everyone realize all y’all’re best off keeping off the fucking grid.”

“I don’t want p-people thinking I’m a-a thief!” They probably already knew she was an awkward weirdo who lived on the internet, she didn’t need anything else. She screwed up her face, staring at him with a confused expression. Keeping off the what now? “I don’t even-” she started, but then she noticed her sketch book. “Dang it! Oh, no, it’s ruined.”

She quickly tried to wipe the moisture off of the page, but only smeared the ink worse. The round face with dots like a hockey mask, pointed antlers, and a slender body wasn’t completely unrecognizable, but the drawing was certainly ruined. She didn’t get angry, just sighed and slumped.

“Maybe don’t get caught stealing shit then,” Robin mumbled under his breath and checked the time, clearly ready to grab his buddy and bolt to the lodge at any moment. This was supposed to just be a quick trip to get his stupid game. But then--seriously? She was still moping and panicking about all of this shit?

“I—the fuck didn’t you just use magic to wipe that shit up? That’s what it’s here for.” Without asking or showing any indication he was here to help, Robin pulled his gnarled wand out of his pocket and tapped the drawing. Any residual moisture from her damn tears evaporated immediately. Then he noticed the drawing for the first time. He furrowed his brow and quirked his head slightly, the smallest smirk creeping up on his face. “What, that a drawin’ of Stoker? You got his antlers fuckin’ down.”

“I’unno,” she replied, voice still small. Because she was muggleborn and magic still wasn’t the first muscle-memory level instinct that kicked in when she panicked? But she didn’t say that, in case he’d make fun of her for it.

“No! No, not him,” she said, imagining his scary angry face, which was quickly replaced by Rosy’s scary angry face. “Well, I mean, it was inspired by his… prank.” If you could call it that. “And the other weird stuff that happens here.” Lots of weird stuff happened at Gooseberry. It provided plenty of inspiration.

“For my senior project, I’m going to try to make, uh, like a… magical video game.” She paused, gauging whether he was about to laugh at her. “Sort of like a choose your own adventure novel or, like, a point and click game.” He had a TARDIS bag and a DS, she assumed he was at least nerdy enough to be aware of the genre. “I’m going to use the journals, and draw illustrations that move.”

“Like a telltale game kinda shit?” Robin dropped to his knees in front of Chloe and, without her permission, twisted her sketchbook so he could see the art the right side up. The drawing was smeared, but Robin was internet-savvy enough to make out a slight Slenderman inspiration. He flipped back a page, delving into Chloe’s personal drawings like he’d never heard the words “invasion of privacy” before. Like he didn’t regularly accuse people of doing that exact same thing to him.

“So how’re folks gonna tell the game what to do? These things ain’t exactly got a touch screen—or you goin’ text-based, like Zork or some shit?”

“Yeah! Like that!” Despite the fact that she still had salty tear tracks still drying on her cheeks, Chloe was able to jump straight into enthusiasm because someone knew what she was talking about.

“Exactly! Oh, The Walking Dead made me cry,” she said, watching as he took her sketchbook and started flipping through it. People did that a lot when they saw you drawing, and she had long since given up trying to stop them. There was a fair amount of fanart - things like Mass Effect, Star Wars, and Bioshock - but some of it had that same creepy aesthetic the smudged picture had. And a lot of them looked familiar - scenes from Gooseberry, but grotesque and twisted.

“Yeah, yeah! The commands would be text based. Like an old school MUD or something,” she replied. “It’s going to be like a survival horror game, all the while you’re trying to solve the mystery of why all these strange happenings are going on at the school.”

“That Walking Dead was stupid,” Robin mumbled, but he continued to flip through the fanart. It was too cutesy goth for his taste (seriously, was that Mulan as a Jedi?), but between the ridiculous drawings were familiar scenes; was that the Sorting Cave? And that was definitely the Azurcrest cliff, but it was huge, and jagged, and the trail winding up the mountain looked like it was disappearing into a gaping, fanged mouth. Huh. He’d never looked at it that way before.

She let the comment about The Walking Dead go (it was not stupid!), and watching him flip through her sketchbook. He still looked, well, not friendly, with his eyebrows furrowed as he flipped through pages, but he at least seemed less angry. That was an improvement!

Robin set the notebook back down on the ground and leaned in close. “What about the Anonymous Writer bullshit?” he asked, quietly, conspiratorially. “It’s part o’ this damn school’s mystery, ain’t it?” Robin was not at all convinced the Anonymous Writer was human, despite everyone else’s insistence that it was a student or staff member. That would be the simplest explanation, and Robin Maverick Youngblood never believed the simplest explanation. “Could be good chapter breaks or however the fuck you plan on breakin’ this shit up.”

“Yes! It’s so weird!” she agreed. “Weird stuff happens here, but most people act like it’s not that weird!” She had to stop and think about his next statement though. “Kind of like… a narrative device?” She pondered it a moment more before saying, “Yeah! That would be cool! I’d only been focusing on like, forest monsters before. I was going to make them… aliens,” she said with trepidation.

Oh fuck. Did she just say aliens? Oh ho ho. A smile spread across his face, and Robin leaned back, ready to delve into the topic of aliens--what kind of aliens? Short Grays? Tall Grays? What was their mission?? Is that what she thought was going on at this school because he sure as hell did and--when an alarm went off in his pocket.

When a grin spread across his face, that was somehow more disconcerting than the scowl. Chloe was pretty sure that the wolf grinned that way before it ate Grandma, okay. His alarm going off and bringing back the scowl was a bit of a relief.

“Shit, dammit,” Robin swore instead, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and swiping away the alarm. “Goddammit, I got fucking class.” The scowl back on his face, Robin spun his head around to where he had parked his buddy. Who was… fucking gone??? “GODDAMMIT, where the hell’d my stupid BUDDY go?”

“Well, uh. I could walk you back?” Chloe offered, steeling herself against the possibility of a response in the family of “fuck off”. “My buddy kinda wandered off a little while ago too, seems like. On the way, I could tell you more about the story I’m thinking of using in the game, if you want? You could tell me what you think?”

“Oh shit yeah,” Robin said with an almost amiable air, checking yet again to make sure his 3DS was in his bag (where it should always be, where it almost ALWAYS WAS). With the precious cargo safely stowed, he stood up, towering over Chloe again, and offered her a hand up. “You also need to tell me you finished BioShock Infinite because I've got opinions on that fucking ending and someone needs to deal with them.”

She hurriedly shoved all her art supplies back inside her button-covered messenger bag, pens and colored pencils and markers grabbed up by haphazard handfuls. “Of course I did! What did you think?” she asked. With her supplies all cleaned up, Chloe looked up to see he’d extended his hand. She hesitated for only a split second before she accepted the offer.