Several hours later, after things had gotten quite out of control, Scott
is sulking in the holding cell at the local police station. He's trying
very hard to tune out the awkward idle conversation, and especially
the bragging and stupid threats from the supposedly tougher guys who
claimed to live life on the streets. Chances are, these kids were all
bored high school or college students who've never gotten into real
trouble before, and they were petrified at the idea of being put into
their place by a real, hardened criminal.
The door to Scott's cell opens. "Childers! Stand up, please!" an officer
says.
"My name isn't..." Scott initially says before catching himself.
"Whatever your name is, Scott, you've been bailed out. Follow me,
please."
A few minutes later, Scott is released into the custody of Ben McClellan,
who has agreed to bring Scott back home. Scott is amazed that an author
would take the time to bail him out of jail, but Ben simply replies that
it's only fair, considering all of the crap that he and the rest of the
authors had put him through over the past fifteen years.
"Ben, I gotta say, I don't know what happened earlier," Scott tells Ben as
they start walking from the police station back home. "I had other
plans. What the hell was I doing with that other woman, what was her
name?"
"Kittie, I think," Ben replies. "Not a common name for a chick these
days."
"Yeah, Kittie. Man, I don't even know a woman with that name!"
"I know a band with the same name. Kinda geeked out over them in 2000, as
if they were the next best thing. I've been wrong before, Scott, what can
I say?"
"Yeah, I know you've been wrong before."
"It is kind of odd that a girl with that same name would make her
way into our lives, isn't it? Not exactly coincidental."
As Ben and Scott walk, crossing streets and dodging traffic, they both
realize that the fourth wall is probably going to be broken on the way
home. There's no way around it, so they just have to roll with it:
"Ben, I still don't understand...why did I go up there? And why
did I burn her bra like that before anything happened? I didn't even know
this girl!"
"Weren't you going to see Krissy instead?"
"Yeah. We were supposed to, well..."
"Watch movies without actually watchin' them, right?"
"Yeah...although I don't think it was going to go that far. Krissy's
seeing a guy named Roger from what she's told me!"
"Do you really want to know the truth, Scott? I'm not talking explicitly
about Krissy here, just the weirdness that you went through tonight."
"Well, it would be nice to understand why my original plans got derailed
like they were! But, Ben, before you tell me anything, I just have to
ask..."
"Yes?"
"This didn't have anything to do with Josh blowing himself up with a
grenade earlier, did it?"
"Is that a joke?"
"Well...maybe, yeah. No! I don't know."
"I can assure you it had nothing to do with Josh. This was your
night, buddy."
After a short pause, Ben finally continues:
"All right, a long time ago, I wrote a couple of episodes starring you and
Krissy. You guys ended up having sex behind Roger's back, and then spent
a sleepless night wondering if this was a good or bad thing or not."
"Go on..." Scott says.
"Well, before anything else could happen, somebody, or perhaps a group of
somebodies, I've never been able to verify who exactly, got upset enough
at me, god knows why, that they continued your storyline with a bunch of
crap episodes that were mocking you guys, and spending more time insulting
me than actually advancing a plot."
"What does that have to do with earlier tonight?"
"Those joke episodes had a direct effect on your behavior tonight, Scott.
Instead of going to see Krissy, you went to see this woman named Kittie,
torched her bra, and went to jail. You can thank Lots for that; he tried
steering things back into a salvageable plotline, and you ended up going
to jail tonight."
"Remind me to send Lots a thank you card."
"Oh, come on, this is hardly the most embarrassing situation he ever put
you in!"
"Yeah, I know...you're right. So, about the thread vandalizing, why would
anybody do that?"
"I really don't know why, Scott. A couple of years later, someone else I
used to know told me that some people do get a little too uptight about
anything mentioning sexual encounters or adultery, regardless of who
writes it. Other people have said that, and this is a worn out cliché by
now, some people just have too much time on their hands. Personally, I
just think I must have done something right to get such a
response."
"How did you feel about it? I'm just curious 'cause this was my thread,
right?"
"Well, at first, I wasn't all that thrilled with it. Neither was JH, who
had to do some extra work deleting or editing some of the more obnoxious
crap off the site. I just never understood that out of thousands of
different addventure episodes, why these two in particular got ruined.
Believe me, I wrote more graphic and questionable material at Horsehockey,
which I'm sure you remember, and nothing of the sort ever happened.
Whatever, though. I don't really sweat it much now, since I didn't lose
any money or sleep over it. Hell, I didn't have any idea where to go with
you two guys after those initial two stories."
"Do you know who did it?"
"No. I mean, I do have an idea who did, but I'm not going to bother
pursuing it. This wasn't the end of the world, as you probably could
ascertain. Secondly, I can't prove that whoever did it, did it. Again, I
do wonder why they bothered, since no one's forcing them to read your
exploits, Scott. If I wrote something they didn't like, then, well, that
isn't my problem, is it?"
Thirty minutes later, Ben brings Scott back into the staircase room...
-
Scott, horribly tired, simply goes to bed.
-
The next morning, Scott wakes up in bed with Krissy. Yay, back on track!
-
"Before you do anything else, Scott, Kittie has said she's willing to drop the charges if you just go and apologize."
-
To no one's surprise, Josh Burbank has returned to life.
-
Ben and Scott are severely reprimanded for demolishing the fourth wall and breaking character.
-
Something else.
-
Scott is sent on his originally intended path.
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