1.08 Loki's Aside -A- Lessons

Loki arrives in Twinbrook in the heat of summer, but it's humid and the air is still cold from the icy spring. He's not excited and doesn't have any amazing plans, he just wants to be left alone for a while.

Being a family man like he is this is difficult; everyone he cares about is far away and he'll be lonelier than he'd like to admit, but that's also the point. He's going to find out what he's capable of on his own.

He uses his college fund to buy a little place deep in the marsh, where he intends to work in solace and reflection. The neighbors are half a mile away on all sides, and he never needs to mow the lawn because nobody will be looking at it. That, and it's halfway underwater.

Growing up he'd always wanted a large family, and he had fallen for Andrea completely. It was easy to imagine the future with her in it, especially when he didn't realize that people like her existed. His life had been orderly and easy to understand until she upended it and he'd found himself charmed and constantly surprised by her. 

To find out that he was naive and she just hadn't known how to reject him because they were somehow 'such good friends' hurt. A lot. It was going to take time to heal.

He spends weeks in the beginning just getting to know the town but avoiding its people. There are also lots of hot dogs to consume on his scant budget.

Twinbrook has all the charm of an old story with brittle, unthreading pages and he quickly finds that he does not miss the manic bustle of university or the charged tension that surrounded him in his quaint hometown, castled in by mountains on all sides as he had been.

Here there is activity; green, vibrant, and heavy on the air. Everything around him is inescapably alive instead of open and cold. It's the kind of place where a man can become overtaken by the forest and the land without ever seeing another one of his kind.

Just what Loki needs right now.

He did keep his communications equipment and tunes it regularly, providing the occasional show to the locals without really advertising. He's trying to see if he wants to continue with radio, or focus solely on new projects.

He bought a workdesk with the last of his savings to see if he could do more with his life as an inventor. It was the question he had wanted to answer all along, it just had taken him a bit of travel and self-reflection to find out. Who invented the radio...?

(By the way ad revenue is a thing with this item is that a possible job in this challenge? I completely failed at it so maybe it's a moot point)

True bachelor living.

One evening he was out late collecting scrap and happily alone in the quiet when Beverly Castor, one of the locals, served herself a cup of hot cocoa and sat down nearby.

“What's a handsome young man like you doing out at the scrapyard on a Friday night? Don't you have a nice girl to get home to?”

Loki narrows his eyes and sullenly takes a sip of his coffee. “There's no one.” He finally says.

“A bad breakup?” She asks and laughs lightly, it's a musical sound. When Loki doesn't respond immediately she shrugs. "Not to be nosy, but it seems obvious by your reaction. Not that you need to be concerned about me dear, I'm happily tied down already and you will not be able to sway me in your direction!"

“And I'm not going to get all flustered like I'm sure all the girls your age do, not matter how good-looking you are.”

Loki is amused despite himself. For an older woman she was kind of adorable. What was she doing out at the scrapyard, in her homey housewife apron and dress?

She notices that he's staring now. “So, you seem to be out here working on a project. And it's late, which makes you ambitious. What are you doing wasting his time in a little sleepy town like Twinbrook? I hope you're not just running away from something.”

He frowns. “Maybe I am."

"From your girl?" She guesses in a knowing tone.

He huffs out a short breath. "I think I'm done with women for a while.” It's not a difficult thing to admit; he'd spent hours on the road and months traveling, thinking about it, followed by more time living here, mulling it over as he worked.

“Well not all women are the same, dear.” She says with a coy smile. “You're young, if the lady you're having trouble with is young too it's probably just a matter of experience.”

Loki scoffs into his coffee. “Yes, the experience of realizing I meant nothing to her.” He leaves the rest of his thoughts unsaid. He didn't want to talk about this.

“Then it sounds like she was either blind or a complete idiot.” The blond, slightly graying woman comments. “If I wasn't so much older than you, and married, I'd chase you all over this town until you couldn't refuse me anymore.”

There was a hint of indifference in her voice that made Loki laugh in spite of himself. Something about this situation was quickly becoming amusing. “So you're husband doesn't mind that you run all over town doing whatever you want at any time of night? Uh... Mrs-”

“Castor. Call me Beverly.”

“Beverly. I'm Loki Beaker.” He replied.

“Loki. That's a very dangerous sounding name.”

He shrugged. “I'm named after some great uncle on my father's side who died without having any children. I'm pretty sure my name was a bid for his inheritance which is ironic as my family received none of it.”

“Name of the trickster god.” She shook her head and chided, jokingly. “Already trouble from the minute you were born.”

“I guess I was.” He gave in good-naturedly. “So what brings you out here Beverly? Other than hunting for impressionable young men to make your husband jealous with?”

She waived her hand dismissively at the veiled accusation. “Please. He's a complete coward and he trusts me implicitly. If there was anyone I wanted more than him he wouldn't stand in my way.”

Loki looked away for a second, put off by her comments. Were all women this casual in their relationships?

“You don't have to look so disgusted when it's all true.” She continues. “But don't worry I'd never cheat on him, that would be like saying that I wanted to waste the last twenty five years we've had together, building our life here. And that's a part of having a strong relationship: we accept each other's faults. He knows that I have a sharp tongue sometimes and I know that he has no balls. That just means that I have to work a little bit more to make sure I don't upset him. If I love him I owe him that.”

Loki watched her sip her cocoa for a few moments, intrigued. “You know something Beverly? I think I'm glad we met. I wouldn't mind talking with you again sometime.”

She nodded. “In a strictly platonic way. You heart-breaker.”

“I'm not a-”

“All men are.” She interrupted him. “And if you like chess I could use someone to play with sometime.”

“Sure.” He agreed with a small smile. Twinbrook wasn't a bad place at all so far.

So Loki is able to settle in without too much difficulty. He works late into the evenings and sometimes all night and calls his family to keep up during the daytime.

He does make small inventions and sell them at the local consignment shop and has taken up a hobby in photography.

DeAndre Wolfe, local musician, is well known around here. Even Loki has heard of him.

So he gets an interview in while they're both at the store.

Beverly occasionally meets him at the park and they talk about people in town, local gossip and she generally makes him feel as if he's not a total recluse.

They meet for chess once or twice a month, and Loki learns a lot from her.

“Do you think she likes him?” She asks of Dudley Racket and Sophia Carlton, who were flirting behind them. The day was supposed to be a game of chess but became a lesson.

Loki shrugs. “Hard to say. She's acting like she does.”

“Good choice of words. Acting. There's a few things most men don't take into account when a woman is openly flirtatious. What is it that you think she finds attractive about him?”

“His... persistence.” He decides.

“Hmm, possibly. But more likely than that is that she likes the way he makes her feel, which may not mean she'll want to be with him seriously.”

“So you mean there could also be a self-esteem issue.”

Beverly nods. “You catch on quick. People are complicated, and usually when they meet someone and are solely flirtatious without getting to know each other there is something they need from the interaction. They aren't looking to give anything. Do you get my meaning?”

He nearly did. “I feel like I'm starting to. You mean it's not genuine?”

“It might not be. I'm merely saying that after that excitement wears off in the beginning, what will these two have left?”

Loki looks over her shoulder, trying not to be too obvious about it. “A questionable taste in tattoos and and an obnoxious broom of a mustache?”

The woman across from him smiles. “Something like that. If they have things in common that will help them stay together, but if they only got together because there was something they needed and they don't really enjoy each other's company...”

“Then it's doomed to fail.” Loki sighs, this conversation is starting to hit close to home. “If they never really got to know each other...” But it wasn't the same. He and Andrea got along well together, they both worked hard and she was quirky and fun when he was too serious, but he'd always taken those things to be complimentary. He'd liked her personality, so what went wrong?

The couple continue on their date, and Loki mulls over the problem foremost on his mind. “Do you think, between my ex and I, that I just didn't know enough about her? Everything seemed so perfect.”

Beverly shakes her head. “I'm not sure, it could have been anything. Like I said you're young and for all you know she regrets her mistakes too.”

That was as far as Loki was able to understand things for today, so he thanked Bev for the game and said he was going to head back home to work. He had understood Andrea, so what was the point of all this?

Just before their game ended though Jeni Jones-Brown stumbled over, apparently drunk. “D'you guise have th' time, mm totally los' my watch?” She slurrs.

Seeing that they were engrossed in their game she peered over at them, and released a hot, alcoholic breath into Loki's face. “Why're you put'n the rook there, make him go sideways over...” And she pushed her finger into one of Loki's chess pieces.

“Can you watch what you're doing?” He snapped and she swayed backwards in offense.

“Don't hav t'be mean abou' it...”

He sighs again as Beverly smirks. “Checkmate. You shouldn't have let yourself get distracted.”

Loki gives her a little bow and his phone rings while Jeni stumbles away murmuring to herself.

DeAndre and he get along well, so it's starting to feel like he's making friends in this town. Loki wonders how long he's going to be in Twinbrook but for now he's not going to overthink anything.

He gets off the phone and turns on his heel to go back home and nearly walks into a bouquet of flowers.

Jeni Jones-brown, tottering towards him. “Less hang out,” She says with careful enunciation as if she knows how inebriated she is right now. “I'm sorry about the ga-game.”

Beverly left a little while ago or she would be laughing about this, he's sure of it.

“No, thank you.” He says tersely.

“I juss wanna cuddle.” She pouts.

He backs up a step, she looks like she's getting way too close to simply jumping on him. “I don't want to be someone's regretful hookup.” He tells her. “So no offense, but no thanks.”

“I'm not drunkh, I'm tryn'a get laid.” She says slurringly.

Loki remembers his last night at Uni nearly half a year ago now with Mika and shakes his head. He had been hungover and out of his mind and he'd made a mistake. “I'm not even flattered because you won't remember this in the morning.” He tells Jeni softly, almost to himself. “And... I don't want to help you cheat on your boyfriend, or whatever.”

So she does the most logical drunken thing and leans in to kiss him.

“Leave me alone you batshit crazy girl!” He finally yells. Why were all the women his age so infuriating?

“Juss make a blond baby wi' me!” She yells after him as he makes his retreat home.

Things are rocky in the beginning as they would be anywhere, but after the incident Loki goes to the park less and less. He calls friends from home, works on his inventions, and largely just keep to himself.

Eventually he gets up the courage and invites over someone he both cares a lot about, and is terrified of disappointing. His mother, Gundrund.

It's been a long time, and her few gray hairs have become many. As expected, she quizzes him on academics immediately. He gets his ambition from her so it's no surprise when she opens with “I just don't want you to settle in here,” even though he clearly has. “When are you going back to finish your degree?”

“I- I'm doing well as an inventor, it's something I can excel at. I'm still maintaining the radio station I started back in college, I have a license for it and everything.”

She frowns, unimpressed.

“Where's your girlfriend? What happened to Andrea? You don't talk about her anymore.” Her eyes are narrowed, expectantly.

Wistfully he looks away. He has no idea how to answer that without betraying the depth of his emotion to her, but Gundrund is a very shrewd woman and she knows her son well. His silence says everything.

“I was... overconfident.” He says after a minute.

She nods, eyebrows raised. “And if I told you she ran off to Starlight Shores and is living with her cousin?”

He turns his head back to look at her blankly.

“So you did know,” she says approvingly. “Well my son is not a weakling, nor a failure. Spend some time out here earning an income, making a name for yourself and then go get her.” She advised. “Women love a man who is persistent.”

His mind goes back to Jeni from the other night. He's not so sure. “It won't be that easy,” He admits with some difficulty. “She just didn't feel the same way as I do. Did.” He amended.

She folds her arms across her chest, smiling softly. “Then make a pile of money and shove it in her face so she knows what kind of mistake she made in letting you get away.”

Loki laughs a bit. “Thanks. I think I needed to hear that.” He says it mostly for her benefit though, he knows her health hasn't been great lately and he wants her to feel like she's helping him. In truth he can't think about anything like seeing Andrea without feeling empty.

His father recently passed away at a young age and it's taken a toll on his mother especially. He wants her to remember him as strong, unfazed, no matter what the truth is.

“Now I want to see all this crap you've been making instead of earning your degree.”

He already has a rotational pull all wrapped up and ready to give her.

“It's an educational toy.” He says uncertainly.

“It's lovely.” She says without opening it, then her voice becomes stern. “And I'm still expecting grand kids, whether Andrea comes back or not. Now, what have you got around here to drink?”

He cracks open a bottle of blended Cherimola Blan & Cranerlet Nuala he'd bought the day before at the consignment shop. “One of the local nectaries makes this, it's called First Crush, it's seasonal-”

“Whatever it's called it's not showing up fast enough.” She quips curtly, heading outside to sit down. It had been a long flight and she was not about to pay the asking price for a two ounce bottle at 10,000 feet in the air where there were plenty of spirits to be imbibed on the ground.

“Sure, ma.” He says, setting the glasses outside and sitting with her.

She spent some time reading the novel she'd brought with her and wasn't up for too much in the way of conversation, but there was something much more precious and intangible she'd injected into his little shack with her visit: the feeling of belonging again.

He doesn't normally have anything to drink, losing control of himself in college once was enough, but today feels like a special occasion.

Gundrund stays for the weekend, they make the most of their time together and catch up on family and town gossip from Aurora Skies (Loki doesn't care for the gossip all that much but he can play along for his mom's sake)

She even gets him a makeover (but he refuses to cut his hair).

She gets one too. Is this really the current style? The stylist insists: bricks are in.

They head out to the summer festival on the last night.

“I'm very glad you came to visit.” He says before they have to head back to the airport.

“That's right you are,” she responds easily. “Can't even visit his own mother....”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry, pick up the pieces. I know you think you have a good thing going here, but you had a good thing with Andrea.” She reminds him yet again. “So like I told you when I first got here, once you are able to save more money-”

“I'm not planning on making her get back together with me.” Loki interrupts briskly.

“I just don't want you to end up alone, like I am now.” She says in a quiet, somewhat fragile voice.

It breaks his heart a little, but Loki smiles thankfully at his mother. “I'm glad you came, and thank you for encouraging me. If it will make you feel better, I'll go visit them sometime, will that be alright?”

Gundrund smiles and gives him an uncharacteristically casual thumbs-up.

She flies home that evening and it turns out to be the last time they ever speak in person. But for now, it's a comforting memory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah yes, the story of unsolicited advice. You ever notice IRL how many people come straight out of the WOODWORK to 'help' you when you're going through something that their advice might have helped you prevent earlier? The only advice I've ever gotten is that 'hindsight is 20/20 bullcrap and I'm plenty capable of beating myself up for mistakes on my own LOL. Poor Loki (I'ma say that a lot)

So this Twinbrook is NOT the one Andrea/ Meghan grew up in, strictly because I didn't realize that she was from Riverview all along! The marshy place her dad had is actually in Riverview, which I discovered when I tried to see it as Loki lives here now. I'll probably keep the old posts the way they are written, even if Twinbrook is technically wrong for her.

Also when characters say things like 'All men are heartbreakers' and make generalizations, or when Loki 'accused' Dustin of being gay, I'm not saying I as the creator feel any particular way about those subjects. I want to make my characters as believable as possible and I can't go around having everyone with the same opinions etc, because it would be ignoring things people sometimes say in real life and possibly become a more boring story. Just in case it's helpful for anyone to know that. :3 So if, in some future post some sim is on drugs or hates their kids, or has a generally bad attitude, well that might be there so all the good attitudes stand out a little bit better. Nobody's complained or anything, it's just in case.

Thanks for reading!

-The Frog

1.07 Back and Forth

One last hour of stargazing before they have to leave that morning. It's not going too well, the sun rises behind a cover of clouds that is lovely, but useless for her purposes. Then again, she's not overcome by it's alluring sway at the moment and that's a very good thing: science can happen more clearly instead.

...Did that bench just move? No, she's just being paranoid? Well maybe today's a good day to move after all, when she feels a little more like herself. Weird that she's glad to have a pointless worry for once.

Often now she wonders, could anyone tell how far she was from her usual self?

Edvin's girlfriend Candace Ubers them out of town on the way to the airport. The look she gives them both says she doesn't understand why anyone would ever move away from Aurora Skies, but who is she to judge when they're paying for her to drive them?

“Have a good trip.” She says in her best, most professionally robotic voice.

The leaves haven't even turned yet even though it's cold out. A great time to move to somewhere semi-tropical!

(nice zoomed out view)

I give them a starting fund and add what they made traveling to it (I think I gave them 17,500 plus what they had earned abroad, which was 1569 so they have 19069 to start). Not bad, let's see what I can do with this...

Hmm...

I don't have a bank of great empty houses and didn't want one from the town so I picked a nice 40x40 lot and started building roughshod all over the place. Getting the feel of the tools, the shapes, the vacant backyard and completely unnecessary deck underneath it all.

The roof is custom, you can't get this sort of cutting edge design just anywhere, and they are VERY HAPPY to have it. So happy that it doesn't matter that they can't afford a garage door and all the windows were 5 simoleons at the auctioning of a greenhouse. And some face in the wrong direction. Dustin is handy, so he figures, why not?

Ground paint is free, but they don't have the time to go pick it up at city hall. I mean, the home and garden store. What/where ever.

What a great view this is! Do we have any money for appliances left over? Maybe if we sell the interior walls...

Mmmm, sort of. Looks like it's bedrolls for the first several months!

They head out to meet the neighbors first thing. They seem REALLY nice.

Is Wylie Luck trying to flirt with her right now? Maybe he just does this for every pretty face. He's showing her that he too has an inner plant (sim).

“I don't eat the dirt, I AM the dirt!” He screams in a heavy metal voice from his punk rock facade.

Usually Meghan is the weirdest person in the room. She has no idea what to do with this. She awkwardly slaps him on the back. “Great ...job?”

“So you've seen someone like me before?” She finally manages to ask him.

He nods, calming down slightly. “Oh yeah, one of my best friends growing up was one of those. I think the 'cure' or whatever is pretty effective, she managed to get treatment and has a family now and everything.”

“A...family?” She questions.

He seems surprised until a flicker of awareness dawns over his face. “Is this a new thing for you? Did it recently happen?”

“Uhh... sort of. But some days are really good...” She's not sure where he's going with this.

“You know you won't be able to have kids with your boyfriend if you don't fix it. Unless you want to basically clone yourself.”

“I know that!” She snaps at him, surprised. She didn't know that at all. But why was she getting so worked up about it? She didn't want kids anyways!

Wylie's dad is a local composer (not an orator if you can tell by the looks on their faces) they live a bit up the hill from Dustin & Meghan.

He's explaining the song he once wrote for a horror movie about children living in disheveled groups in cornfields. Most of the music sounded like an ape was given only the far right side of a piano to play and cookies whenever it slammed the ivories in anger. But who were they to judge? They weren't 'industry professionals'.

Meghan decides to introduce herself as Meghan now, much to Dustin's surprise. It does not escape his notice that this means she'll be using the name he so badly wanted to give her, before he actually did give it to her. He has mixed feelings about that but doesn't want to bring it up right away so he keeps his mouth shut.

She tells him later that she'll use Andrea's name for publishing her research, which will also protect her lab and allow her to control access to anything she discovers without having to reveal her real identity. He decides to go along with it for now while they settle in. He doesn't want any more drama for a while, seriously. But something about it give him a cautious hope, laced with a stirring anger. It wasn't right.

These flowers were a gift from the new neighbors and Meghan puts them on the only viable surface in the house. She also takes the first few days to go back over old course material and see what else she can glean about working freelance.

Not surprisingly, the articles aren't too helpful.

After the end of the first year they've still put nearly nothing into furnishings, as Dustin insists that she needs equipment for her studies to get her research going as soon as possible.

They're feeling hopeful about things, even though there was some terror about bills at the end of each week in the beginning.

They even find a mirror at the local dump, it'll have to do for now.

Ceiling glitches... x/ (I figured it out later but we might see this mess from time to time first)

Meghan wears outfits made out of leaves nearly every day now, and Dustin senses that she's getting mentally further away from herself. But she's happier and worries about things less, so he's not sure what to do about it. He loves it when she smiles like this, but there's a flame of intelligence that usually burns below the surface of her eyes and some days now she seems... simpler, almost empty, even though there's a feeling of calm associated with it.

He thinks it's almost as if she managed to pass her worry onto him. One day she tells him “You know something Dustin? Your voice is louder than the others.” and he feigns a smile.

But she elaborates.

She tells him the last few months have been especially amazing, even if they don't have a lot. He goes out every day in any weather and works, she's making contacts at the local research center and making a name for herself researching and connecting with other scientists online. She still has good and bad days as a plantsim, but makes up for the sun's hold on her by focusing working hours in the evenings.

There are still plenty of things she's not willing to tell Dustin, like the fact that she can actually photosynthesize. She wonders if there will be a day when she is able to say anything she wants to him, but she doubts it. He would think she was insane.

He saved up for something else again too. Even though she was wary about it before and it wasn't about the type of ring, she had recently discovered that her name meant Pearl in Sanskrit and he had found a beautiful blush pink one and had it set. It was meant for her.

He knows she might reject him again, and that they still don't even have proper furniture, but the moment feels right and he needs her to know he's still committed to their future.

He's sure this time he'll be accepted. Everything is and will be perfect.

But it's not. It's not right again.

A wave of cold anger washes over him for a second as her slender fingertips close the box, still heavy on his palm.

His hand replaces hers and he pulls it closer to him as if he could take back the offer. There are no words for what he is feeling now.

And to makes things worse for him, she laughs this time. “It has nothing to do with the kind of ring!”

He doesn't hear anything else she says after that. His heartbeat thunders in his ears and he's taken back to a moment so long ago when she had told him she asked Loki out on a whim. Do I mean anything to her at all? He thinks in maddening honesty, before taking a few deep breaths to calm down.

“Even If I had something big and blinding I'd never be able to work around it once my lab is built- that one's really cute but I'm sorry you thought you could buy me off so easily!”

He groans audibly and gets up from his kneeling position. He'd like to see her do this just once. She has no idea how it impacts his self esteem. Maybe she's never been able to put herself into other people's shoes in the first place. Maybe she does have a disorder. Maybe he should get out while he still can.

Before he can even process what sort of feeling it was, the anger is gone.

It's impossible to know what's going on inside her head at any given time. Still he can't be overly surprised: it's not as if he had no warning. “Do I make you unhappy?” He asks in a quiet voice. He's not about to let her laugh it off this time, trying to distract him.

“No...” She seems surprised that he would ask.

“Then why? What are you waiting for? Are you scared that if you say yes something is going to change for the worse?”

She blinks. He knows her so well. Her mind takes her back to things she'd rather not think about again, let alone tell to anyone else. When she stops being able to count the things she tunes them out. It's just the past. It doesn't have to be anything more than that.

“There are some things I'd rather not talk about.” She reminds him.

“I know that, but if this is in some way about trust, tell me what I've done, give me a chance to fix it. And... you can share your worries with me, I won't think anything less of you.”

She swallows back her argument: once again he gets it, she must be becoming easier for him to read. She feels her throat convulse a bit, as if it's physically impossible for her to go into detail about it. “This isn't... it's not about you Dustin, it's about me.” She lies.

He frowns, knowingly. “Okay, then give me a chance to fix you.” He says with a slightly sour smile in his eyes. “Seriously, if it's about something I can't help with, let's go to couples therapy, or do something. Find out why our goals are so different. You still don't hate the idea of marriage- right?”

“No, I don't hate it-” She sighs, giving up that one truth. “But before it's too late, let's just go get some work done.”

“Smooth transition.” He grumbles before walking away to change and head out. The door slams after him.

Once Dustin is gone she starts her evening's research at the lab station they'd been able to buy. Within minutes the sickly feeling of regret fades and she is once again able to focus. She was so close to telling him everything, but narrowly escaped having to do it. She knew things wouldn't be the same with him, she knew she could trust him, so it was all irrational fear.

The evenings are so much better than the mornings for this work! There is a small garden outside now and she consistently uses the fruits and veggies for sampling with some mixed results. Maybe she can isolate a useful gene or promote the growth of one of the healthier seeds. If she finds something useful, the scientific center in town has agreed to pay for first crack at her results.

Dustin works himself to exhaustion tonight at the cafe, one of his busiest locations in the right weather. After a lot of practice he still manages to fail one out of every three tricks, so the proprietor here is nowhere near giving the go-ahead for him to perform a live show. But he'll crack into the industry eventually, he has no doubt about that.

He's off today, he's upset, but he tells himself sternly to work through it.

Eventually even the proprietor heads home for the night and he's left doing tricks for no one. What is the point of this?

He collects his cup with a heavy sigh and trudges to another location. He should go home tonight, he really should.

But he's not ready yet.

He makes it home eventually, hours later with only seventeen simoleans in his pocket. He tries to hide the heaviness he feels from her, but he can't look her in the face. He had hoped by some miracle she would already be asleep. “Not a lot of people out today,” he mumbles, even though in his heart he is seething.

Meghan doesn't know what to say. It's in these moments of clarity that she's able to see what's actually going on. The voices plague her in the evening more loudly, the sharpness of her intelligence returns, she can see what her mid day self could not.

She was being stupid. She needs help, therapy, something. There was a lot to worry about and she had been so happy not to think about things that she was ostracizing the one person who had always stood by her, thick and thin.

She has nothing positive to say and so mumbles, “We'll try again tomorrow.”

But inwardly she makes a promise; I am never going to have to see you like this again.

Even though she's been so happy lately, it's not good enough for only her to feel it. It was time for a drastic change.

Dustin sleeps outside that night. There are no walls inside their house still, he doesn't want to be around Meghan. It would be great if he could sleep for a week.

Starting the next day Meghan begins making a subtle effort to get his attention, but her normal behavior is so erratic that it all fails to provoke a response. Dustin is polite, but otherwise ignores her.

He'd better not be peeping at the neighbors right now when she actually wore something revealing on purpose!

But the neighbors are amusing and she can't really blame him if he is. She makes a mental note to change the location of the telescope.

Many days pass.

They probably shouldn't have packed this table from their rental dorm in college but it's a nice way to pretend they aren't at odds with each other lately and blow off some steam.

If Dustin notices that she's been making more of an effort to spend time with him lately he doesn't make an issue of it. He too is glad to pretend that his second proposal never happened.

So they grind, and more time passes.

Nobody is perfect: they both make mistakes.

Dustin begins to perfect his low level tricks, and starts earning more steady simoleans from tips. It's already spring. The dull ache of the rejection gnaws, growing more intense the more he tries to ignore it. He needs to know why.

Meghan continues to work by night, her research hasn't earned anything near what she made as a teenager finding stars, but it's so much more satisfying to get something right. She has a plan and she's hoping to save up for it. But when will the big discovery come?

Meghan is careful not to say anything much to Dustin during the day now because she has no idea what's going to come out of her mouth. In the evenings they share stories of how their day went, but they barely touch each other.

At least there's money for bills.

And Meghan doesn't eat a lot, so it's not expensive for her to live making sinnies (tiny simoleans) for samples.

Dustin still doesn't know she can do this, and a part of her desperately hopes he's going to find out. She begins being more obvious about her new ability, hoping he knows how changed she is. She wants to talk about it, but she doesn't trust herself to say too much.

Dustin is doing better, occasionally being recognized around town and making friends. Some people bring their children by during the day when they know he's out. Kids love magicians and he finds kids to be adorable, so it's a win-win situation to see them smile or clap enthusiastically after a simple trick.

He's still not good enough to get a show at the coffee shop.

There are still occasional failures...

But he follows up now with a joke and acts as if he failed on purpose. He has become much better at hiding his embarrassment.

He works at the festival sometimes, Meghan never goes out with him. He tries to pretend he doesn't miss her lately.

One day during research Meghan stumbles upon a back door key to an important social networking site. It's interesting how nobody knows where all that ad revenue goes. Well some of it is hers, now!

Research is awesome as always, but she's behind on her plans and needs quick cash. She and Dustin have grown further apart in the time they've lived out here, not closer. She needs to take care of her biggest problem and that will require a fast influx of capitol.

There's a sort of agreement between them not to bother each other during the day, but they don't really go on dates or do anything special even in the evenings. Dustin does what he always does when he's feeling acutely lonely, and fixes things that he can understand.

One day he just decides that nothing matters and marches around completely natural as he does the chores. One with nature or whatever Meghan's always going on about. She's outside gardening, half naked herself. Well, two can play at that game!

It'll be hilarious when she comes inside and notices.

Annny minute now...

Better make sure this will actually self clean! Or did he make it unbreakable? Who cares, it's all for show anyways. Until it breaks or becomes dirty. He should have known she wouldn't care. Does she really run around half naked for fun, it wasn't to impress him or anything?

Meghan has no idea what's going on. Yeah she walked around the house for weeks trying to get his attention but it never worked and she quickly gave up on doing that. She wanted to be with him, but he wanted to wait. She couldn't afford to get married right now, emotionally, or otherwise... not that it was impossible. She tries to focus on this complicated logical problem instead of looking behind her.

And she gives up.

He says he just wanted to tell her a joke about ancient technology.

Seriously?!

At least she finds it amusing.

He has to leave for work anyways, but the experiment of 'act like Meghan for a day' had some merit. She really doesn't find her behavior to be unusual at all, she acted like what he was doing was par for the course.

That means she must not want anything more, doesn't it?

Then again it's an important day. First show ever! He has to use the local venue setup because they're saving money right now. But someday soon he'll have shining lights and everything!

The one attendee heckles him.

But he draws a crowd and begins to win them over. They laugh at his jokes, and just at the right time he pulls off his most well-rehearsed tricks. It can be cautiously called a success.

Meghan didn't make it to the show because she was up late hacking, and had a bit of money set aside to buy a new scanner that can analyze rocks. She'd found this small meteor when it hit the ground by the beach and brought it home. Finally she collapses in bed, exhausted after a long 16 hour day of research and running around town.

Dustin does little things to show her that he still very much cares. When he comes home from his show and finds her sleeping like a baby on the new bed they were able to buy this year he smiles a little. She gets so engrossed in her work, and he loves how passionate she is about it. He upgrades her research station without telling her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems she is gaining some self awareness, but whether or not he'll just get tired of all the back and forth one day remains something of a mystery. He rolled a wish to buy a kiss after Meghan rejected his proposal. And then he decided to sleep outside on his own! They didn't sleep in the house together for a few days after that actually.

Meghan runs around the house half naked as she pleases and whenever Dustin “takes a shower with flair” he walks around the house naked afterwards (this is the first time he did that). I'm pretty sure it's tied into the 'star quality' trait, but he just looks like a creeper haha. The timing was too perfect, she runs around half naked after telling him no again, he one ups her by going full frontal. These two are perfect for each other, even when they're not getting along. And nobody cared about what the other was doing.

Dustin also has a glitch where shows don't pay him, but he ends up taking all the props home for free afterwards so I have no idea what to do about that... :/

((Oh yeah and I play online sometimes so if you people want gifties I send them [I'm Frogsnack in the Sims community online too] just let me know you're from the random legacy thread at MTS and I'll pay you special attention :> ))