Sun God

Johnny came in in the passenger seat, seatbelt on, as Kasston was in the driver’s seat telling a story. Johnny looked down, and saw they were holding papers. Some kind of photocopy job, duplicates of something written in their own handwriting. The artsy comic-book-y lettering that maaainly Jillian used, although to be honest that talent seemed to be stored in the hand, not kept by any particular alter, but, Jillian was the only one who used it like always. Leafing through the pages, it looked like some kind of fill-in-the-blank forms? With some copies partially filled in already in different colored markers, and some not. Their eyes wandered to the top of a particular page, and only then did they notice that it said at the top of every page, with yellow highlighter behind it, “NO CHEATING! THIS PAPER IS FOR: ...” with a different name at the top of each set of papers.

Johnny paged through and found their own papers midway through the stack, and moved their pages up to the top, five single-sided sheets.

The first page was titled “Survey” and had a paragraph that read, Brief: Some of us want to better understand the others’ orientations. We know that some of these questions may sound stupid, but please answer them honestly, and then provide further relevant detail at your discretion. Err on the side of infodumping, liberally use the backs of the pages for more space, or extra loose leaf if needed. We trust in all of your judgment and honesty.

And then a little note saying that this was collaborated on by Jillian and Bun. Yeah that tracked.

Oh Kasston was still talking.

And they were driving somewhere, like, somewhere far, maybe? If they were on the highway.

Kasston was saying, “And it’s like, look, dude, you can watch Fox ‘Newwwwsssss’ all you want in your room, nobody is going to stop you, lots of people do that. Does it make me happy? No. But that’s fine, I’m at work, I’m here to do my job, not to pick up where your mom failed, that ship has already sailed, clearly, so I let that go. You can watch Fox ‘Newwwwsssss’ in the media center. You can watch Fox ‘Newwwwwwsssss’ on your phone outside, lots of people do that too, seems like a waste of outside to me but whatever, I’m out there to smoke, I’m wasting outside too. BUT. You know where you CAN’T watch Fox ‘Newwwsss’ Mandy?”

“Johnny,” Johnny corrected, with a strongly implied tone of, but please go on I love this.

Quickly, “Oh I’m so sorry.”

Quickly, “You’re fine, just happened,” keep cooking dude.

Kasston continued, “So, I don’t know if you heard, but this patient, one who tells me about ‘Buh, these DAMN immigrants,’ has been watching Fox ‘Newwwwwwwwwsssssssss’ on his laptop, in the hallway.”

“Oh my titty fucking christ.”

Kasston snort-laughed, and said, “Exactly! Um...” Kasston snapped his fingers as he tried to remember something.

What time of day was it? It was cloudy.

The sky was just grey all around. Johnny leaned forward over the dash turning to look upwards through the windshield, looking for the sun. Turned fully around to the back, turned to look out the side windows. No sun anywhere at all, what the fuck, weather.

Kasston didn’t have the time displayed on his car radio display cuz he was a fucking psycho apparently. Johnny wasn’t wearing a watch right now. They patted their pockets. Markers, hehe, a Zippo lighter, two condoms, a Swiss army knife, some loose change, probably a receipt and maybe some other crap, but no watch. Wallet in their ass pocket.

What the fuck time of day was it? It could literally be 5 AM or 7 PM or anything in between.

Kasston remembered. “Mandy!” he said. “Mandy said she was fronting before you just now.”

“Oh thank you,” Johnny said. They had already gathered that. But cool.

“When we left it was Jillian fronting and Bun as an observer, and then for about the last... hour? What time is it?”

Oh my fucking god.

Kasston poked his phone that was in the cupholder, and it lit up and showed, 19:13.

Thinking aloud, Kasston was like, “We stopped for gas 6:30, and Mandy showed up then, so for the last forty three minutes, it’s been Mandy. Until you, Johnny, now.”

With a charismatic laugh, Johnny went, “Yeah-hah, thanks.”

They didn’t really care as much about the minute-by-minute, but, they knew others, whose names rhymed with Shmillian and Shmun, would want to encourage this kind of datakeeping, getting an outside source to share exact deets on when switches happened.

“So anyways,” Kasston went on, “Johnny. You know where you’re not allowed to watch Fox ‘Newwwwwwwssssss’?”

“In the FUCKING hallway?”

“IN THE FUCKING HALLWAY!” Kasston affirmed.

“How— wh— like— Just on the floor?”

Kasston did huge nods. “YUUUP. He just SITS there, in the—okay are you ready for this?”

“What’s up?”

“He does not sit, I don’t know, against a wall. No he sits in the middle of the hallway, with his laptop, Fox ‘Newwss’ on, volume must be on max, and I mean, it’s a laptop, he’s not shaking the walls with all of the noise, but there is an echo in this place, yknow, it does carry a ways. AND ALSO HE’S IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY.”

“Fuck that bro what the fuck.”

“It’s. I remind myself. These people are not here because their entire wellbeings are perfect.”

“Right.”

“It’s just, yknow what it is, it’s fascinating. It’s like—no I shouldn’t say this. Johnny should I say this?”

“No.”

“Ohhhhh but I want to. Ohhhhhhhh but you’re going to take it the wrong—well—no I think actually you would agree—well—hm. Well now I want to know. Should I say this?”

“No,” Johnny maintained. “If it’s HIPAA I really don’t need to hear it it’s fine.”

“No it’s not HIPAA.”

“Oh then whatever.”

“It’s like I’m in a zoo,” Kasston said.

Johnny wheeze-laughed, tilting over.

Kasston went on, “Like, isn’t it? Not like I’m in a zooPHILE—fuckin em from behind doggy style to remind them of good times—right, like I KNOW, but that’s not what I mean, but a... zoo place?”

Johnny began, “A zoo, uh,” and then couldn’t actually think of it. “A zoonaseum?”

“Maybe.”

“Anyways, it’s like that,” Kasston went on. “It’s like I’m in a zoo location. And I’m just watching animals. And if I see them excrete, or make lots of noises, or stand in places that seem rude for the other animals, I can’t even really morally judge them, because they’re animals. They are living beings with basic living being needs, everyone poops, and, they are just, going to behave in whatever ways these specific kinds of animals behave. I probably should not have said that.”

Johnny shrugged, and said, “No I mean, I feel. I do not disagree. I think that’s a good metaphor.”

“Is it distasteful to zoophiles or to animals?”

“Nnnnno, not reallllly. You said it fine. If we were saying it we would maybe try to... re-emphasize or re-contextualize it to extra-extra highlight that these animals probably have their own standards of what’s polite or not, or that they don’t but that they don’t have to, rather than, like, it sounds like all of them are just blanketly gross and have undesirable characteristics, the way you kinda said it, or maybe you didn’t say that but that’s just the territory you were in, but I get what you mean.”

“That’s fair.”

Johnny asked, “Is there a Taco Bell near here?”

Kasston yanked the steering wheel to the right to make an exit. Someone behind them gave a bunch of angry honks, and Kasston held up a hand to wave for the other driver to see out the back window, saying, “Sorrrryyyyyyy! Had to do it!”

The other driver gave a long, still-angry honk.

Johnny was gripping the handle above the window. They said, “I take it you saw a sign for Taco Bell on this exit?”

Kasston said, “No, but, my aunt used to live here, and I happen to know that unless it closed, there is a Taco Bell in town here.”

“Oh a secret Taco Bell.”

“That’s right, the illuminati does not want you to know about this Taco Bell. Stick with me and you’ll learn some things.”

“Pff.”

The exit went up a hill, and soon Kasston and Johnny were driving through some woods, highway no longer visible behind them, really nothing other than pine trees, the road, and the red car behind them where the driver was still mad.

Kasston said, “Okay, up here there’s going to be a stop sign and we have to go left or right. Either way we can get into town, so, get a load of this plan, this high-level thinking. I am going to put on my left blinker, and then, if this gentleman also puts on his left blinker, I am gonna swiggy-diggy switchsies to my right blinker, so that we are not going to keep being in front of him, because he is angry at us, and haha I don’t want to be alone on the road with him.”

“Cunning. Genius,” Johnny said. “What if he follows you right still?”

“Hahaha then we’re gonna die.”

“Cool. Awesome,” Johnny said. “Where are we going?”

Kasston gasped, and said, “Oh I’m so sorry, that’s right, you don’t know. We are going to Ugly Jenny’s wedding.”

Johnny started wagging, or like, felt like they were wagging. They were wagging in their mind, but their mind was stuck forever in a human body that did not have a tail, unfortunately. They were sometimes surprised by how much other humans found being a human optimal. Like, what? You only want to lose weight or gain muscles or have softer skin or something, but your goals end there? You DON’T want to be an 8 foot tall robotic anthro wolf with a metal scorpion tail and four arms and all kinds of different visual sensor modes? A giant robotic anthro wolf who can FUCK like a MONSTER, and then wags their scorpion tail when they get headpats? Humans: weird fuckers for still wanting to be humans, and not giant robots, or dragons, or mermaids, or literally whatever else.

But Ugly Jenny’s wedding: hype as fluff.

Johnny asked, “So we got invited, or?”

“Yes,” Kasston said, “very last minute. I was on the phone with her this morning telling her congratulations, and she was super happy to hear from me and said she would love it if we can make it. It’s tomorrow, and I was like, yo, what if we book it to Vermont, say hi, maybe eat some cake, leave before your husband kicks both of our asses, and yeah, she said it isn’t like that at all with her husband, the dude genuinely sounds super nice and would have like no weird jealousy about it, well, understandable jealousy to be fair, but anyways the word ‘jealous’ is not in this man’s vocabulary, and I’m like, I ain’t doin anything this weekend, it sounds like a lot of the people we used to know are gonna be there who I would love to see, and I asked Jillian if she had any plans or wanted in on this too and she said fuck no she did not have plans and she went and got straight in the car and buckled in. I was like bring a bag girl, and she ROLLED HER EYES AT ME, and so I packed your bag for you while she sat there, I hope I thought of everything, if we need to stop into a CVS or something we can do that, let me know.”

Kasston and Johnny had both dated Ugly Jenny in high school.

Like, separately. Kasston in the summer before Freshman year and then into like... halfway through Freshman year? And Johnny for a month or maybe two in Junior year.

Ugly Jenny was a name that she called herself because in middle school in the bathroom somebody wrote in nail polish “UGLY JENNY” on the mirror and she thought it was the funniest shit, like she was in the bathroom scream-laughing and peeing, and then she started putting “UGLY Jenny Farley” on her own notebooks and papers and on the scoreboard when they went bowling and stuff.

After rounding a bend on the road, they came to about a quarter mile of straight road that had a bunch of stop signs at the end of it, and yellow-and-black signs with arrows indicating that you could go left or right.

Kasston said, “Allllright, here goes nothing. Left.” He turned the left blinker on.

Kasston and Johnny both looked into the mirrors to see what would happen.

As they neared the stop signs, the red car put on their right blinker.

Kasston exlcaimed, “Yeah!”

Kasston came to a full and complete stop at the stop signs, looked both ways—it was still just them and the red car as far as Johnny could see through the woods—and then Kasston accelerated and went to the left.

Looking back in the mirrors, the other car did indeed turn right instead, now heading away from them.

Johnny said, “Well that’s really cool, it sounds like her husband-to-be really shares her philosophy, good for them. Thanks for bringing us with.”

The name of Johnny and Jillian’s system was Ra, like after the Egyptian sun god; they weren’t literally the sun god or anything, but, the way they sometimes viewed the system as a solar system, with the sun at the center, the name just kind of fell out of that and seemed to really fit. “Ra” as the overall name, the sun at the center of it, the body whose gravity all of these personalities orbited around; Johnny they/them and Jillian she/her as the primary habitable planets, who typically spent the most time fronting; Some far-out dwarf planets, Mandy and Lilly and Rena; A couple of rogue entities like clandestine spaceships darting through the system on missions, Dagger and Cutlass and mmmmaybe more but, to be determined; And some moons around Jillian, three of them, called Bun, Lisa, and Kex.

And anyways, Ra spent a lot of time on the road. Sometimes Johnny would come in while driving at night on the highway and just continue going in silence, watching the headlights eat the passing road stripes, and then the next thing they knew they were in a hotel bed in Idaho or Ontario or freaking Texas.

So, far from feeling abducted by coming in as Kasston’s passenger, it was actually nice to learn they were on an adventure with their bestie.

One time Johnny came in in a snow fort and had last remembered it being 104 degrees out with sweat positively drenching their “SL*T MACHINE” tanktop.

One time Johnny came in in a camping tent where themself and like eight other dudes were having sex, and later they were like, that was probably a dream, and then they wrote it in the query book, and later when they were fronting again, they saw that Jillian had written “real” under it.

One time Johnny came in eating Dippin Dots at a water park, sharing a towel on the grass with a trans woman who was half spooning them, half rubbing sunscreen onto them, and Johnny was like “Do you wanna fuck in the family restroom” and she nodded and the two of them ran and did that, and Johnny during the whole time they were pumping inside of her good good booty was thinking, “Ha, killsteal.”

Jillian was a zoophile.

Right! Those papers!

Johnny looked down at the survey that they had been given by Jillian and Bun.

The first question, after the preliminary preamble, was:

Are you sexually attracted to humans?

Johnny pulled the blue marker from out of their pocket, uncapped it, and on the underlined blank provided, they wrote:

yes

They then looked up, and saw that they were driving in like a little commercial district of some place, and the tall Taco Bell sign was within sight on the road ahead.

“Oh shoot,” Johnny said, “pull into this lot here before we get there.”

Kasston yanked on the wheel, eliciting an angry honk from one of the cars nearby them.

Johnny, hanging onto the handle above the window for dear life, went on, “Yeah just park somewhere. Can I drive?”

Kasston asked, “Is your order that complicated? Do you want to order on the app?”

“No no no, for sure not,” Johnny said.

Kasston parked and he and Johnny got out and switched sides and Johnny and Kasston both buckled in again.

Johnny went on, “This isn’t a food thing.”

Baffled, Kasston asked, “Whyyyyyy are we going to get fast foooooood thennnnn...”

Johnny explained, “I need to chat up the manager.”

Kasston asked, “Okay but whyyyyy...”

Johnny backed out of the spot they were in, and put on the blinker to get back onto the road when there was an opening. They explained, “I just have the best charisma in the world, specifically as it relates to Taco Bell managers, and if we’re in a new place I need to get some information from them.”

“Johnny are you a fucking sleeper agent.”

Johnny smiled, and said, “Not exactly. Uh, you know the LinkFreakz game that’s been really popular lately?”

“OH MY GOD.”

Johnny cackled, and then pulled out onto the road, and then got on the other lane to be able to pull off again towards the Taco Bell drive thru. As they sat in the left turn lane with their blinker on, waiting for an opening, Johnny was like, “Okay so but like, you know the idea of it.”

Kasston said, “Yeah it’s pokemon basically, but a fan hack of it, on GBA cartridges with link cables and stuff, and you can trade your pokemon to breed stronger ones.”

Johnny waffled on agreeing with that description of it, being like, “Mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnaaaahhhhhh no. You are in the ballpark but that’s missing some.”

“Okay what is different from pokemon?”

“Firstly, and this is the best,” Johnny said, and then paused for a sec as there was a huge opening in traffic and they casually pulled forward to turn into the Taco Bell lot. “So, you’re not actually breeding them to make new creatures. You have your one guy, and fucking other people’s guys increases both of your powers permanently.”

“What! Okay that is amazing.”

Johnny went on, “And it’s kinda this whole ARG thing too, like, you have to send in to get back a cart in the mail, and they load it with data that’s related to your location but also some other stuff, and there’s a whole intricate system that preeeetty much stops people from gaming the system. I mean the datamining happens within an hour of each new drop, and people go DEEP into these things, it’s really fascinating to read the breakdowns. But. Like, hacking the ROMs doesn’t entirely get you too much more than you would’ve seen just from playing the game, there’s all kinds of encryption and validation and red herrings that have really fascinating in-universe implications, they really were ahead of this from the get-go.”

Johnny came to a stop. There was one car already ahead of them at the speaker where you order.

Kasston said, “So you’ve been playing this, and you want to fuck the manager’s pokemon.”

“Haha, no it’s dumber than that. I know... That the manager is going to know... Who else around here plays this. And so after this we’ll go to them, and make that happen, and then we can get back on the road again.”

“Okay so.” Kasston paused, holding up a finger in thought. He then went on, “So you’re not even getting your dick wet, or your booty drilled or whatever you’re more into. We are here at Taco Bell so that your gameboy game can find a hookup and smash before we leave town.”

“Yes exactly.”

“Fucking christ Johnny, this is why I bring you places, who the fuck else would I get to experience this with.”

The car ahead moved forward, and Johnny pulled them up to the speaker.

The speaker said, “Hi there, will you be using the mobile app today?”

Johnny, with a smile and annunciating clearly and projecting exactly correctly to the speaker, said, “Ah not today.”

The speaker said, friendly-ly if a little bit bored-ly, “Alright what can we get going for you today?”

Johnny gave a thumbs-up to Kasston, and then said, “Could I get a black bean Crunchwrap and a bean burrito?”

“Suuuure thing. What else can I getcha?”

Johnny turned to Kasston and mouthed, “Do you want anything?”

Kasston said under his breath, “Two taco supremes with a baja blast.”

“Sauces?”

“No.”

Johnny turned and said to the speaker, “And then for my passenger if he could get twwwo taco supremes and a large Mountain Dew Baja Blast, that’ll be everything for us. No drink for me, oh and some Mild sauce for us to share.”

The speaker said, “Alllllright, one moment... Does everything on your screen look correct?”

It did.

“Yes it does!”

“Do you want to round up to the nearest dollar for the help hunger fund?”

31 cents. “Yeah we can do that.” At any self-checkout, the same question would have gotten a fuck no I’m not going to help your company’s tax breaks, but, schmoozing, charisma, making connections, no brainer. Yeah you can have my change I have Freakz to fuck and burritos to eat.

“Alright, your total will be exactly twenty even at the next window.”

“Thank you!!”

“No problem, thank you.”

Johnny eased off the brake to ease them forward, and said, “That went really well.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. Firstly, manager, for sure. Secondly, loves me. Thirdly, when we get to the window, he’s gonna call me ‘man’ and you just need to let that happen, okay?”

“I will keep my lips sealed.”

They got up to the window.

The manager inside said, “Hey man. That’s gonna be twenty even.”

Johnny handed over their debit card, which had a picture of an alligator photoshopped to have anime-style blushing.

The manager held the card in both hands and looked at it beaming and wheeze-laughing. As he turned to run the card, he said, “That’s great. I love the card.”

“Haha, thank you. I tried to get it with Nicholas Cage blushing, but the bank said I can’t use humans without their permission.”

“Ha! That’s awesome man. Here is this back, we should have that out to you pretty soon. Any fun plans for today?”

“We are on our way to a wedding.”

“Really!” the manager said. Kinda pointing back and forth between Johnny and Kasston, with a tone that he expected the answer to be ‘no,’ he asked, “Either of you the groom?”

“No but we actually both separately, at different times, dated the bride in high school.”

The manager snort-laughed, and said, “Yeah, well. No I figured if you were getting married at the sunset you wouldn’t be getting Taco Bell in the evening.”

“Heh, well, it’s not until tomorrow, but yeah no. Hey, question for you.”

“What’s up?” the manager asked—game as fuck to humor Johnny. Good, good.

“If I tell you that I’m a pollinator bee, do you know anyone that would want to know I was coming through?”

The manager gasped and leapt for their phone that was over by the cash register, and said, “Monica is going to flip out.”

As the manager was typing on the phone, Johnny turned to Kasston and said, “You did bring my gameboy right?”

“Yes, it is in your bag, with the link cable.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Of course.”

Johnny turned back to the manager.

The manager said, “Okay I just sent her, ‘a pollinator bee is in the drive thru.’ She’s typing... she sent back all caps, ‘AAAAAAAA!’”

“Haha!”

“She wants to know if you want to meet at the blue park.”

“Oo, what is the ‘blue’ park?” Johnny asked.

“Oh! Right, not from here. It’s just a playground about a mile and a half or so from here, the slides at that one are blue.”

“Gotcha, gotcha,” Johnny said. Turning to Kasston, they asked, “Do you have time for this or are we in a hurry to be anywhere?”

Kasston was like, “I could not possibly get in the way of whatever the hell you and your new friends are doing.”

A bag of food was set down next to the manager. The manager started to grab it, and then was like, “OH my gosh your drinks. Mountain Dew Baja Blast, andddd right, just that one drink. Here’s that, and let me ask if Monica can meet you there right now. Oh hey, we’ve got an extra few tacos someone didn’t want, if I throw them in the bag would you be upset about that?”

In very short order, the manager confirmed Monica would meet them at the blue park ASAP, and then he told them the directions to get there, and also put the extra tacos in the bag and handed it out to them.

Johnny said, “Thank you so much!”

“No problem, enjoy the rest of your evening and have fun at that wedding.”

Johnny pulled forward. After they were well clear of the window they put the car in park and got out quick, so that Kasston could drive again.

Kasston was like, “How do you talk to strangers like that??”

“It only works with Taco Bell managers.”

“Does it?” Kasston asked. “Don’t you fuck like twenty people a week?”

Johnny snickered.

Kasston was like, “Ohhhhhh are they all Taco Bell managers?”

“Pff, no.”

Kasston guessed again, “Ohhhhh do you just like kidnap them?”

“Oh my god, no!!”

Kasston was like, “Hey I won’t judge!”

Johnny was like, “You should judge more than that amount!”

Kasston giggled, and then went “Oo food” and started getting into the food that was in the bag.

Johnny was like, “That’s Jillian and her posse that can flirt with people. I typically am not fucking anybody unless...” Johnny sighed. “I basically only get laid when it’s already something that’s been set in motion.”

“Huh.”

Johnny shrugged, and said, “There are worse ways to wake up.”

“Oh! Did you see the survey that Jillian gave you?”

“Oh riiiiight, yeah I should do that. Right after LinkFreakz business with Monica at the blue park. And then um. What was the plan for tonight again, where are we staying?”

“I booked us a hotel.”

“Gotcha, gotcha. Do I owe you, or?”

“I mean, I’m willing to cover most of it, buuuut if you wanted to chip in forty bucks my bank account would thank you.”

“Yeah of course.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah no proBLUE PARK!!”

Kasston pulled them into the little parking lot that adjoined a playground that had a really big blue slide, like, Kasston and Johnny were both like “yoooooo” it was legit taller than a house it seemed super unsafe and like the most rad thing. There were also swings and monkey bars and like a wavey plastic rock wall. And all of the plastic parts of the different stuff were blue.

Sitting on the foot of the slide was Monica probably. She waved to them and held up a gameboy over her head with the link cable also in her hand.

Johnny got out of the car, and sheepishly held up their gameboy too. They noticed Kasston was staying in the car. Coooool.

Monica stood up, and the two of them met at the edge of the parking lot, Monica standing on the curb, making herself taller-taller than Johnny, even though she definitely already would have been taller anyways.

She said, “Did you bring me any T Bell?”

“Oh uh, haha actually if you want, we have extra—”

Monica tapped Johnny on the top of the head. “I’m joking.”

“No I figured but we actually do have extra.” Holy fucking crap that tap had Johnny’s mind flashing through an avalanche of different times getting touched and feeling ways—good ways? Sometimes it was pretending that it was good just, to not interrupt the flow of like... just to go along with it. Like getting smacked had a time and a place where it actually did a lot for Johnny, but it did only work in those certain times and ways, like, someone telling them that they weren’t worth the effort of getting them off until they had gotten to hit them around enough? Yes. Somebody halfheartedly slapping them and seeming to then feel weird and bad about it? No. Multiple people debating among each other what they were going to do with this traitorous scum they captured? Yes. Hitting someone else and then they flip it around and start hitting back? Yes. Something that was supposed to be foreplay or afterplay or an interlude and has just completely become a fight? Yes. Something that—

*~%+` :3 LORE :3 MONTAGE :D *~%+`

8 years ago
Lore Severity: Core Foundational

One time Johnny was getting on a flight and they saw the cycling slideshow of pre-flight info that was playing on all the screens on all the seatbacks and they sat down and pulled part of the screen back and plugged in a thumbdrive to install linux on their screen for the flight and instantly every electronic connected to an airplane cabin in any plane on the entire national airline got nuked. All the screens blackscreened, cabin lights turned off, intercomms off, everything, 342 airplanes, regardless of on the ground or in the air.

And nobody probably would have ever found out it was Johnny except right away when it happened they yelled “Oh NO. It wasn’t supposed to do THAT.”

And Johnny got taken into custody and spent 8 months in custody looking at life in prison. A judge one day seemingly out of nowhere dismissed the case based on the argument that if some twerp dweeb could do this without meaning to, then this was more like an act of god than an act of terrorism, and they all tried to keep Johnny tied up in the court proceedings as the focus shifted to the network engineers and stuff who had allowed such an enormous flaw to be in their system that this could even happen, but a lot of that slid off and Johnny just wanted nothing to do with it anyways and had a lot of issues after that with questions from doctors like “Do you ever feel an inability to hope?” like, my government actively chewed me apart and failed to digest me but would have gladly killed me, I can just be some guy and then that happens and that’s how the world handles it, they try to lock you away forever, and they’re allowed to do that? And they used to have bright colorful vibrant mohawks at the time that happened, and ever since they always kept their hair short-medium and messy and as unassuming as possible because they did not like the idea of being recognized, contactless grocery delivery probably saved their life.

sporadic occurrences
Lore Severity: low, just weird

Sometimes Ra would go through periods where all of the members would keep coming in at Denali National Park in Alaska, with none of them fessing up to being the one who had brought them there. When trying to leave, they would go into amnesia and just come in again inside the park again. Usually they would be stuck there for about ten days, and then leaving would just actually work one time, and Ra could go elsewhere in the world again. They usually had really bad stomach cramps and diarrhea while they were there. Nonexistent libido across the whole system. The park was beautiful at least.

don’t remember when, doesn’t matter
Lore Severity: low

One time Johnny asked the query book “mile high club?” And got back “no but we did fuck one guy on his airplane bed” and Johnny since then started trying to imagine what that scene looked like every now and then as an idle thought.

—

Right now

Johnny didn’t tell Monica any of that.

They said, “What kind of world did they give you, what’s your personalization?”

like, in the game. Everyone’s cart had a different setting, sometimes with really minor differences from others, but some people got wildly unique ones.

“I’m at a beach,” Monica said. “It’s a really interesting aesthetic, it’s almost greyscale but there are little touches of blues and pinks that kind of just sneak up on your feels, you know?”

Johnny could probably make some kind of metaphor or joke or something about that if they and Monica were already best friends who knew each other really well, like, blue pink, trans, grey, depression?

—

Right now

Johnny came in while themself and Monica were swinging on the swings.

Monica said, “And it wasn’t based on anything, at least, I don’t thiiink. Just when I was alone playing, I always imagined that I was continuing my adventures being stranded on this beach, waaaaiting for the perrrrfect handsome guy to show up. I would stand there, gripping a tree or a pole on the playground, and wistfully lean away from it, staring off into the grass and imagining it was the sea and that sometimes there were passing ships far away, but some days there weren’t even that.”

Oh. She liked them now.

Pass.

Like, if it were another time, then sure, but Johnny probably was supposed to get back on the road with Kasston.

They looked to the parking lot to make sure Kasston was actually still there.

Kasston was in his car, on his phone, looking bored but then he scrolled and then started laughing. Cool.

So yeah, LinkFreakz, road, Taco Bell while on the road, hotelllll that Kasston already booked, Ugly Jenny’s wedding.

Johnny said to Monica while they were both on the swings, “Um, I’m so sorry, I don’t know if I already told you this, but I have really severe short term memory issues.”

“Oh! Okay,” Monica said.

“Did we already do LinkFreakz or not at all?”

“We did not link. If you HAVE to get going, we cannnn...”

“Please.”

Johnny and Monica both stopped swinging, got out their gameboys, and linked them together.

The process involved being shown questions on the screen, and the other person answering them, and you select what they answered.

Johnny asked, “Be ye a servant of the Corn Mage or the Queer Mage?”

Monica said, “Oh come on, that’s not even a question. I serve the Queer Mage, of course.”

Johnny selected QUEER MAGE.

Monica asked, “How many pillars stand watch outside the village temple?”

Johnny answered, “Five and a half.”

Monica was like, “I have whole integers only.”

Johnny closed their eyes in thought, and then was like, “Sixteen.” That was really neat to learn, actually, that five and a half was an invalid answer. Outside of the temple in the village in Johnny’s cart, there were five standing towers, and one half collapsed one, and eleven piles of rubble. They were probably going to find out that the half collapsed one and the fully collapsed ones were actually still standing in the ghostly ether, or something.

Johnny and Monica’s guys fucked, and they both got really good permanent stat boosts, and Johnny got a new move.

Johnny said, “Thank you so much.”

Monica said, “Oh of course. If any other pollinator bees are coming through, send them my way, I can hardly get anyone here to play this.”

“Haha, yeah, I will point them to the T Bell for sure if I catch wind of anything.” Johnny didn’t personally keep in touch with any other pollinator bees actually.

Johnny got up from the swings and walked quickly away back to the car, pretending to be deeply focused in looking at something on the gameboy on the way, but actually their game was just paused and they were flicking the menu selector up and down. When they got to the car they got in the passenger side, buckled up, and put the gameboy back in their bag.

Kasston asked, “Soooo, how was your pokemon fuck session?”

Johnny said, “Um, successful. Were we keeping you waiting for a long time?”

Kasston was like, “I dunno, when I saw this was going to take more than like one second, I just started looking at my phone.”

“Okay cool. Let’s get on the road again.”

As Kasston drove through the town towards the highway, Johnny ate the Taco Bell that was in the bag: the stuff that they had actually ordered, plus the extra tacos the manager had thrown in. Yummy. Tacos.

As they finished eating everything they crumpled up the wrappers and put them back into the paper bag, which sat by their feet on the passenger side.

When that was done, they burped really loud.

Kasston was like, “Six out of ten, love the effort, but the duration could’ve been better.”

Johnny was like, “Yeah yeah I’ll work on it. Uh. Do you want to talk through this survey with me? Like, I can read the questions and we can see what Jillian wants to know with this, and I think doing it with you would help me focus a little. So far, to give you a taste of what we’re working with, the first question is ‘Are you sexually attracted to humans?’ and I just put down ‘yes,’ and that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

Kasston was like, “I need to know your answer to question three, so let’s please do two immediately so that we can get there.”

Johnny was like, “Were you and Mandy working on hers?” Oh that was why they were holding it when they came in in the car, probably.

Kasston was like, “We kept getting a little off topic, admittedly, but yes, me and Mandy were working on hers.”

Johnny said, “Okay so, question two: ‘Have you had sex with animals before? Explain thoughts. Give examples.’ Oh wow, um.” No never, they weren’t a zoophile, so, no. Well. Wait. Well. Okay yes. Yeah okay that had bigtime happened more than once. Johnny asked Kasston, “You’re okay with knowing this?”

“It’s fine.”

Johnny pressed, “Even if the answer is yes?”

Kasston was like, “I am a nurse, Johnny, you’d have to try a lot harder to scare me.”

“Okay, so. I’m not a zoophile. But most of the rest of the system that isn’t asexual is zoo. Including Jillian, who, as you know, gets around. So like. Seeing someone walking a dog down the street, I don’t really see anything sexually desirable there. It’s like if a grandma was walking down the street.”

Kasston interrupted to be like, “No love for the older ladies, damn okay.”

Johnny explained, “Yeah my knees quiver at twunks, what can I say to GILFs except get away from me.”

“Tsk tsk.”

“Anyways, so, animals aren’t sexy to me. But they are to Jillian.”

“And sometimes you wake up where Jillian left off, which is nuts deep in Lassie.”

“LITERALLY.”

“Hey sometimes you gotta fuck a dog.”

“NO BUT LITERALLY THAT HAS HAPPENED. HER COLLAR SAID LASSIE AND I WAS T MINUS THREE SECONDS FROM NUTLAUNCH.”

Kasston vaporlocked himself with laughter, stuck frozen in place bent over the steering wheel, fighting to keep his attention on the road.

Johnny went on, “DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE WHERE IT HURTS TO STOP PEEING SUDDENLY? IT WAS THAT BUT BEING ABOUT TO CUM IN DOG PUSSY FOR THE FIRST TIME. NO TURNING BACK, MIGHT AS WELL MAKE IT GOOD, FULL SPEED AHEAD, CHOO CHOOOOOOOOOO.”

Kasston swerved them to a stop on the shoulder, put the car in park, and fell off of the steering wheel and shook with silent laughter against the window, tears falling down his face.

Johnny was like, “But yeah it’s basically stuff like that.”

Kasston started getting his breath back, getting in a little gasp at a time before laughing it back out. Eventually he was like, “AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA. HER COLLAR SAID LASSIE???”

“YEAH DUDE.”

Kasston, regaining more composer, was like, “Ohhh fuck, that’s banana sandwiches.”

“So yeah it’s pretty much stuff like that, when bestiality happens.”

“What are all of the kinds of animals you’ve had sex with?” Kasston asked, and then looked back on the (empty) highway, put the car in drive, and sped onto the road again.

“Ummmm... it was pigs twice—”

“Where did you find pigs!!”

“You think I know?? One time me and a twunk were licking a horse boner together.”

“Oh hey you like twunks.”

“I DO, yeah, that led to fun. Um. Okay so with these times. I usually just keep going if it’s already happening. Like, okay, I can just tune out and more or less it’s like a really hot masturbation sesh.”

“Right, right, a hot ‘masturbation sesh’ with other genitals you’re masturbating into, totally not sex.”

Johnny explained, “Okay no. Sorry that was unclear. I don’t mean hot as in sexy, I mean hot as in temperature.”

“Oh.”

“Dogs are warm.”

“Noted. Interesting.”

Johnny went on, “But yeah it’s like, okay, I’m not a zoophile, but animals deserve to be treated well, and I don’t want to leave them needy, and it’s not like it feels baaaad it’s just weeeird, but, I can stick my weenie in weird, I’m not above that. The um. The main time that stands out to me, as far as all of that, is when I came in and me and a yellow lab were walking through the woods. Like, she wasn’t on a leash, but we were definitely together, she kept circling back to me and was going with me. And showing me she was in heat. And I was like. Uh. Sure. Yknow what. I’m game. So one time I initiated the sex part.”

“Interesting. You do have to write all of this down on the survey you know.”

“Fuuuuuuuuck, yeah okay, give me like a million minutes.”

Johnny flipped over the paper and started writing down the response using the blank back side of the paper, not even bothering to try to use the smaller space provided under the question on the front. They wrote down all of the stuff they said to Kasston, more or less word for word to the best of their ability to remember.

When Johnny was done, Kasston was like, “Okay okay, now do question three.”

Johnny read, “Okay, question three: ‘What genitals would you like to have?’ Oh not even joking, I obviously want like a 2ft long chrome penis and buzzsaws where the nuts would go.”

“FUCK YEAH.”

“Right???”

“THAT’S SO METAL.”

“Yeah!!! I want that!!! For my dick!!!”

Johnny wrote down, like a 2ft long chrome penis and buzzsaws where the nuts would go (serious)

—

Right now

Johnny came in lying in a bed in a dark hotel, while Kasston was talking from the other bed. They weren’t fronting though. Which, it wasn’t a first for Johnny to be present and not fronting, but it was uncommon. Big sleepy hours?

Ra yawned.

Huge sleepy hours.

While Kasston was still talking, Bun said, Thank you for your answers. We got a lot of what we wanted from that.

Johnny was like, Oh, yeah, sure. Um. Did we do all of them—

We mainly wanted to know about the bestiality part.

Ah, Johnny said. The rest was just what, for fun?

Yeah pretty much, I mean, we already know a lot of it.

Cool, Johnny said. So you just wanted to know, what, how the hookup stories end, or?

Bun said, We just wanted to understand how you feel being coupled to zoos as a non zoo. We’ve been bouncing around the metaphor that this is like a romantic relationship where you’re a non-zoo partner, but you’re extremely supportive of us and our interests.

Oh, Johnny said. That sounds kinda like how it is, ish?

Bun shrugged, and said, Kinda. Doesn’t account for everything.

Johnny said, Well, yeah, obviously. But yeah, bestiality, like, have fun, don’t blueball yourself worrying what I think, I don’t mind what you do. It’s good. I want you to get to be yourselves, live your peak lives, I guess.

Nice. Thank you.

Ra yawned again.

Kasston was like, “Big sleepy hours?”

Bun was like, “Huge sleepy hours, sir.”

Kasston said, “Well, in that case, I wish you a good nighty night.”

“Nighty night.”

Nighty night.

“Johnny says nighty night.”

“Nighty night Johnny.”

Bun pulled the blankets closer around herself, getting maximum comfy.

Johnny said, Have a good time at the wedding tomorrow if it’s you, zoophile.

Bun said, Oh we meant to ask, does Jenny know?

Johnny said, Yes, Ugly Jenny knows. She’s cool.

Okay. Thanks.

Mhm.

Ra thought for a little while longer, and then fell asleep.