Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was a typical morning at the Smiling Friends HQ, Charlie scrolled on his phone, Glep was getting his morning coffee before starting yet-another fun-filled day of rotting his brain on his tablet and Alan was meticulously organizing his paper clips…and bizarrely enough, a very crucial member of the crew was uncharacteristically late. “Hey guys, y’seen Pim yet? He’s usually here earlier than the rest of us.” Alan sighed, “He probably got caught in traffic, or worse: probably stepped on a bug on the way and is probably ugly-crying again!” …and speak of the devil, Pim waltzed in with quite the surprise. Apparently, he got sick of wearing those cute blue shorts and little black shoes and wanted to shake it up a bit, and while Pim occasionally wore cutesy/girly things like cat hoodies and dressing as characters like Rose Quartz or Sailor Moon on Halloween to equally balance out his more masculine wear, this was definitely the first time his co-workers saw him wear such a scandalous hot-pink skirt that showed his curvy figure (and a little “under the hood” action if you catch my drift!)…. and if that wasn’t proactive enough, the skirt was paired with red high-heels, a chunky bracelet with various semi-precious gemstones with the colors of the genderfluid and gender-non conforming pride flags, his iconic white shirt was tied in a knot and buttoned down to show a little more skin than usual and for the flame on-top of the crème brûlée, he wore a gold chain necklace around his chest adorned with a Swarovski-encrusted “iced out” Mickey Mouse-style glove hand shamelessly flipping the bird at all who saw it. Pim certainly caused quite the commotion at work that morning with Charlie trying to distract himself with his phone and Glep’s inner lesbian appreciating this newly-found style. Alan was not pleased, however. “What the fuck, Pim?! This is a professional office building and you’re running around like a hook-er in an alley-way! You of all people shouldn’t be breaking the dress-code in this app-awl-ing display-uh!” Alan harshly scolded Pim like a strict parent would after their teenage child was caught vaping at school. Now usually, Pim was expected to get his feelings hurt and timidly go back home to change, but much to everyone’s shock, he was casually filing his nails and rolling his eyes while delivering an brassy response: “What dress code? You and Glep run around ass-naked every friggin’ day! Oh, and do not get me started with Mr. Boss and his slut-tacular wardrobe over the years.” Pim snarled sardonically as Alan’s eyes and mouth snapped in shock at the surprise case of smart-mouth coming from the golden boy of the Smiling Friends. “If you can’t handle my thunder-thighs and my perfect peach in all their extra thicc glory,” he suddenly started talking in the same accent Alan spoke in, with his tongue sticking out and using his hand as a “puppet”-esque gesture: “Gya-oh down to the church and pray with the nuns, Guh-ra-nee!” and with that, Pim snapped his perfectly-filed fingers and strutted down past the appalled Alan and over onto Charlie and Glep whose jaws where dropped to the floor, with a gossipy quip: “Can y’all believe I just got slut-shamed by a hot dog with no buns?” Cue an uproar of uncontrollable laughter from both as Alan felt as if he was forced to eat nails for breakfast without any milk. Getting back-sassed by Pim of all people was one thing, specifically getting called an old flat-ass felt like a cruel blow to his ego. Finally, when Pim and Charlie left the breakroom that morning, Alan shook his fist and muttered “When I get you, you little pink asshole-“

Charlie and Pim’s day on the job was also quite the ruckus, as they were helping a working middle-aged mother whose bozo husband had been cheating on her with a younger rich woman. First off Pim’s natural instinct was to comfort her and fix her makeup. Charlie suggested ambushing the adulterant duo in a comedic fashion, Pim’s suggestion on how to deal with it however somehow felt more cruel. They ambushed the husband and mistress alright, Pim convinced the woman to hide in a closet and text her husband that she’s out shopping for the evening, giving him leeway to invite his special friend. Cue the grandiose reveal of the wife live-streaming the affair for all to see on Facebook and busting out of the closet to reveal to her husband and his mistress that she had been putting her husband on blast from the shadows with a live audience providing angry comments with the fire further stoked once the furious and disgusted 22-year old revealed the husband lied about being single while kicking him in the nads as the comments cheered for both women to take the bastard down. Needless to say that Charlie and Pim where cutting up in chuckles while leaving the joint. “I’ve gotta say Pim, you’ve been pretty damn bold lately, maybe my influence is rubbing off of you.” Charlie playfully complimented while barely resisting the urge to credit himself for Pim’s edgy behavior recently. “Sister, please: I was chunky before meeting you.” Pim flashed his wrist and proudly laughed like a noblewoman in a Shoujo anime and added in a campy, faux-shameful tone: “I’m bad, I’m bad, I know!” After work, Charlie suggested hanging out at Salty’s for dinner, while Pim grinned and suggested a night at Spaghetti Disco to let loose. Charlie was always up for a good party unless his hangover was a persistent fucking bitch so he casually agreed. 



…

Charlie sat on his barstool sipping his Whiskey Sour as he watched Pim dance to the thumping club music like he did when they where abducted by those party bro aliens, he never saw Pim with this exact amount of confidence before, as if he’s blossomed into his authentic self and he couldn’t be more delighted to see Pim this carefree and wild, as if nothing could dull his sparkle, let alone outshine him. Next to Charlie was a blue duck-like critter in a rainbow tank top and next to him was his boyfriend, a large chubby alligator with a Hawaiian shirt. “That little pink diva is absolutely killing it on the dance floor over there, I wonder what brand of stilettos they wear?” His boyfriend concurred: “They’re the life of the party, just like Paris Hilton!” One two friends in the back, a polar bear in biker gear, just had to quip: “…but with way more personality!” while chuckling to himself much to the annoyance of the cat in the mauve robes trying to sip his cosmopolitan in peace, muttering in a rich, British-flavored voice: “You and your quips, Fozzie.” Charlie smirked at the attention Pim brought to himself, as if he was the disco ball at the center of the room proving the pretty lights as he shimmered for all to see. Eventually the music and Pim’s infectious radiance synching to the rhythm and beats drawn Charlie to the dance floor as if he was sailor bewitched by a mermaid’s siren song, while he danced with Pim, he reminded himself he was in a relationship with Zoey and that he couldn’t come off as flirtatious so he couldn’t exactly take Pim’s hand and twirl him around the floor…and dammit, he wanted to for some reason! Maybe it’s just the music getting to him.

Obviously the two where drunk as hell by the end of the night so they called up good ol’ Mr. Boss to pick them up from the club, befittingly from a old rich man serving as a designated driver, he showed up in the parking lot in a limozeen and because he preferred operating behind the wheel over paying some chump in a uniform have all the fun. “I can tell you boys had fun tonight! *chuckle* Takes me back to my clubbin’ days at Studio 54!” As the boys were seated, there was excited chatter recapping the night as the city lights flashed them by as if they were light-folding on a spacecraft and watching the shooting stars go by. “Now Pim, I know you’ve been one of our model employees doing and you’ve done good job at making people smile and getting along, but I also hear you’ve gotten into a scuffle with Alan this morning….” Pim rolled his eyes and hissed under his breath: “Oh great, that cheese-nibbling pencil pusher squealed on me.” as Mr. Boss continued: “Now I’m all for you wearing whatever makes you comfortable, our business headquarters are a safe space, but neither of you should be shaming the other for their looks! While Alan slut-shaming you wasn’t very gentlemanly but neither was you body-shaming him either. As a unit, us Smiling Friends should all accept our differences and embrace each other’s beautiful bodies….ooh that came out wrong, whoops!” Mr. Boss chuckled, and this was the part of the story where neither him or Charlie was quite expecting what else came out of Pim’s mouth. He giggled, quipping: “Oh wooooow, you must be that desperate for some action for once in your life, Gramps!”. You’d be forgiven if you read Mr. Boss and Charlie’s faces as if they where both just-now being pushed off a plane with bungees instead of parachutes. Yes, Pim was stinkin’ drunk and probably off his gourd but the very idea made whatever brunette hairs where left on Mr. Boss’ head immediately turn white with shock. Eventually, Mr. Boss would snap out of his mortification when he noticed a particularly rude driver was following the limozeen, impatiently honking and yelling many profanities, one of which Pim caught while he was filing his nails with his legs crossed. Just as Pim finished with his nails, he dramatically flicked his wrist and rather abruptly, the rude driver behind them swerved out of control and into the lake where the car exploded. Mr. Boss and Charlie where once-again in shock, asking themselves internally how the night could possibly get any weirder…then Pim adorably giggled in a tone that sounded like his usual self, before once-again quipping: “That’s what he gets for riding our asses, the bloody stupid cunt!” before cackling like a wicked witch. After 3 minutes of awkward silence drenched in disturbance and not knowing how else to respond to Pim’s uncontrollable mouth, Mr. Boss and Charlie loudly laughed with the uncharacteristically crass pink critter, partially out of how spontaneous he was being, partially out of justified nervousness.

…

“Tonight was a blast, Pim! We should go clubbing more often, see ya!”
“There you go, Pim, you rascal-you! Hope you feel a little more like yourself tomorrow~ goodnight!”

~

Pim sobered up after slipping into long, relaxing bath and lying there for 15 minutes….and when everything that happened came crashing down like an anvil to an old cartoon character, Pim had an anxiety attack where his heart raced as he internally asked himself in his own head quite a few heavy-hitting questions: “…How many drinks did I have?…Why did I say all those nasty things?!…..Did I really kill that guy?!” Pim curled up in fetal-position in his bathtub with his mouth underwater, screamed bloody murder for what felt like longer than a minute, until…. “Hey now, get a hold of yourself! This isn’t very positive now is it?” A familiar, chirpy voice tinkled like a bell in Pim’s mind. It felt so vivid that Pim assumed that someone was legit talking to him in the room, hopefully not. Pim yelped with an even more noticable blush on his cheeks and started sheepishly peering around his bathroom while mostly concealed in the endless clouds of soapy iridescent bubbles. “W-who is this?” “No way, you forgot? Remember that beautiful afternoon where I walked down the aisle and married the man of my dreams? It was so beautiful, too bad it didn’t last long…” Pim’s eyes widened in horror, before sternly demanding with a brave face: “Alright, where are you hiding, In my laundry hamper? Outside my window? Are you somehow cramped up in my medicine cabinet?” The voice innocently giggled before clarifying, “Remember when you mean boys tried to kill me? Well, it was kinda difficult for me to possess two bodies at once so I chose the cutest one!” To hammer on home Pim’s predicament, the lights began to flicker as that voice continued giggling in a girlish tone, leaving Pim paralyzed in terror as the bathroom lights began to flicker as a red flag indicating that quite the storm was brewing. “Oh, fudge….”

After whatever-the-hell-just-happened, Pim had slipped on a fluffy, slightly-oversized bathrobe and lied on the sofa with a crystal goblet of of bubbly rosé and a bag of cheesy pretzel-kins on his coffee table while watching an episode of that cheesy English dub of the Gwimbly anime of which he grew up on as a means of escapism from the strange turn his life had taken, of course his new roommate had to provide the commentary. “Oh my Gosh, wow, I grew up on Gwimbly! Even my daddy sat down to play the games with me~ Oh and good call buying this brand of wine!” Pim rolled his eyes in annoyance at being reminded of his possessed state. “Very heartwarming but Shh! This is a good one, this is where Gwimbly and Mr. Millipede finally uncover the legendary crystal cream corn.” Brittany pouted, “Aww, okay~ But maybe we can talk about our mutual love for this show during the commercials?” Pim low-key snapped in a sassy tone while wagging his finger to an imaginary figure: “This is Crunchyroll Premium, honey, there isn’t any commercial break! So you’re gonna hush up until the episode is over or I’m calling an exorcist!” “Okie-dokie, I’ll be quiet until the credits…then I’ll resume to blab your little ear-holes off.” Pim groaned under his breath: “Gawd, please tell me this isn’t how I sound like to everyone else…”

…

“Lemme get this straight, you where definitely the one who talked me into going through with that ensemble?” “Eeyup, sure did! Buying the stilletos and the skirt where kinda your-idea, I encouraged you to go through with it while I added the finishing touches!” “I’m kinda glad you did, although the heels where an absolute pain to walk in, what was I thinking?” said Pim, who was so dog-tired that didn’t even bother changing into pajamas and tucked himself in bed with that fluffy bathrobe of his. Brittany chirpily responded: “Charlie was glad too, not that he’d admit it!” Pim blushed and indignantly defended: “Hey now, Charlie has a girlfriend, what kind of homewrecker do you take me for?!” Brittany giggled at Pim’s expense: “You say that like it’s a bad thing!” “Oh for the love of- Brittany are you seriously shipping me with Charlie? Look, I can’t deny that I like him but-“ “You mean like-like him? Like he liked you in that skirt and how you strutted by him that morning after roasting Alan like that?” “Brittany, please stop-“ Brittany decided to be an asshole and put on a scarily-good impression of Charlie to get Pim’s goat. “Holy shit Pim, you’re a savage, a real baddie!~” “Stop that right now!” “I wish I could ditch that basic-ass broad and go out with you, I’d watch you flip your wrist and brutally kill assholes on the road all night long, my naughty princess~” Pim, whose face was glowing beet-red at this point, was shrieking at Brittany to shut up to no avail. “Awwww, you like being called that don’t you, my blood-thirsty killer sweet babe!“ Pim groaned as immediately whipped out his phone, opened his browser and typed in a tutorial for diy holy water for drinking, prompting Brittany to beg in her normal voice: “Alright, I’ll stop! Geez, you’re way more fun when I call the shots.” Pim was so sick of this audacious hoe that he could feel the bags under his eyes as he finally dozed off. “…oh and by the way, I didn’t make you flirt with my ex, you really where that drunk!” “Goodnight, Brittany.”

~

Pim had the peculiar and haunting dream where he was lying on an altar in a dark room lit with tall candles with a church organ playing, he was donning a red tunic and a crown made of rose vines and bones, obviously he got scared as hell and nervously cried for help. “Hello! Anyone here? Charlie!….anybody?” Pim’s questions were answered with the sound of a woman screaming bloody murder, prompting Pim to nervously curl up on the altar and took deep breaths in a desperate attempt to keep his composure. Just then, a looming figure obscured in a dark cloak arrived, hovering over Pim as if he was inspecting him. The cloak unveiled to reveal *gasp* none other than the ol’ Devil himself in all of his baritone, stop-motion glory. Pim tried to flee but was paralyzed in terror as Satan loomed over the pink critter, while Pim expected him to harm him in revenge for his daughter’s death…but instead of any of that, he smiled and laughed, further confusing the already-bepuzzled Pim. “Ah yes, the sacrifice was a success! Welcome to your new kingdom, Brittany.” Saved by the loud clock alarm, Pim’s eyes snapped open as he awakened to the early morning where he was right back in his room, except of course the possessed critter also found he was floating mid-air and figured he was unsurprisingly sleeping like that the whole time. “Haha, very funny now knock it off, I need to use the bathroom!” “Okay geez, Mr. Grumpy!” And with that, Pim thudded back onto his bed with a sharp “Oof!”. Pim got off the bed and immediately scurried into the bathroom to relieve himself. “Damn it, I’m trying to get my period aren’t I? My menstrual cycle is never consistent! Just when I get to skip it for a month or two it comes back with a horrible vengeance!” Pim complained to himself. “Aw sweetie, I’m sorry to hear about that.” Brittany emphasized, “My periods where rough too, PCOS.” “No way, me too! My hormone imbalance only makes things even wonkier during this time of the month but oh well, what can I do?” “Fuck periods!” Pim snorted at Brittany’s relatable exclamation while washing his hands, responding in a rough voice with a thickened version of his Aussie accent: “Oy-yeh, FUCK menstruation, awl my homies bloody HATE menstruation!! BAH!” Brittany and Pim laughed as the demon and her host kicked off the usual morning routine of preparing breakfast, but at the moment, there wasn’t really anything to make breakfast with. “Oh poo, I was gonna go grocery shopping after work! Until a certain somebody thought it was a grandiose idea to blow my paycheck on getting hammered at Spaghetti Disco.” Brittany sheepishly stuttered: “Oh, yeah…b-but wasn’t it worth letting your nerve ending down?” Pim sighed, “But I don’t have anything for breakfast.” After some thinking, Brittany came up with a quick solution. Out of thin air was a flame that transformed into a small black rectangular box topped with a red ribbon that fell into Pim’s hand. Pim opened the gift box and marveled in curiosity at what appeared to be a golden gift card with am infinity symbol on it. “This is mine from when I was alive, it was given to me by Daddy as a birthday present, thousands of billionaire tycoons who owed their debit to him where tortured into making this card a reality…as a non-corporeal spirit I have no use for it anymore, so I’m bequeathing it to you, P! Now you’ll never worry about paying expenses ever again!” Pim’s eyes widened as he clutched the card like a cat to a ball of yard. “Thank you, Brit, I can finally expand my Labubu collection!”

…

Pim arrived at work in a frilly white blouse, a red ascot, black blazer jacket with a red rose pinned on the breast pocket, matching shorts with the seat branded with flaming logo bearing “Hot 2 Go” in a chunky red font, leather knee-high platform boots with flaming red hearts, ombre’d black and red heart-shaped sunglasses, a black beret hat, a handbag with a long chain resembling a black cat’s head and a necklace with a 24k platinum skull around his neck. In one hand was a large bag sweetly scented of Neapolitan flavors and the other was holding a brightly-colored strawberry-matcha frappé with bursting boba at the bottom. “Sorry I’m fashionably late, darlings, I had to get brekkie and I figured I’d spoil y’all rotten with goodies from the café!” said Pim in a suavé tone, putting down his drink and the bag to take out the rest of the contents: a styrofoam cup-holder containing four elaborate and distinct frappes and a giant cardboard box filled with an assortment of pastries. “Holy smokes Pim, you shouldn’t have.” Charlie tried to smile in spite of the killer hangover he was dealing with. “We’ll blow me down, son that’s quite the haul you brought there! Thanks!!” Mr. Boss was especially appreciative of the gesture. “Is this your cheap cop-out way of schmoozing me into lending my forgiveness to your rotten little ass after calling me an old flat-ass yesterday? I ain’t buying it.” Alan scoffed as he opened up a granola bar and sipped from his coffee mug about of spite. “My Alan, holding a grudge isn’t very Smiling Friendly of you~” Pim snarked, “Besides, why let your portion of the bounty go to waste?” “I can’t let it go to my waist because I’m on a diet, jackass.” “….Oh.” Charlie couldn’t stifle his snickering if he tried as it was still somewhat-jarring to see Pim having this wild streak, Alan definitely had it coming. “I can hear that!” Alan snapped. Just then Charlie’s phone rang, picking up the phone and excusing himself from the table to answer the other person. “Zoey! How are things with you, babe?” as Charlie tapped out, the rest of the group sans one salty hot dog indulged on the frappés and pastries. “How’d y’now this was my favorite flavor?” Asked Mr. Boss, sipping on his dark-chocolate cherry mocha frappé, Pim cheekily put his finger on his chin with an innocent look: “I just had a hunch.” The slightly-tempted Alan watched as Glep repetitively bit into his chocolate cornet while licking at the leaking filling at the bottom, which only worsened his thinning commitment to his diet. Finally Charlie came back with an announcement: “Hey guys, Zoey’s gonna invite me to dinner with her family this weekend! It’s a long hike I might not be back until Monday or Tuesday.” Mr. Boss replied after gnoshing on his cherry danish: “No worries lad, have a fun time! I’ll pair Pim up with Alan or Glep in the meantime!” Pim was sweating bullets, not because he dreaded being paired up with Alan who was still mad at him, but because of barely-repressed strong feelings he refused to elaborate upon. In the heat of the moment, Pim wolfed down another eclair and polished off his boba-frappé. As Alan finally couldn’t take it anymore and was ready to grab that lonesome frappé that Pim initially bought for him, the anxious Pim immediately grabbed it and slugged half of it down before he noticed Alan’s face wilt. “Oh, sorry- did you change your mind? You can have the rest-“ Alan facepalmed before answering: “Fuck it, gimme.”

That day, Charlie and Pim helped a crying little girl get her cat out of a tree, to which Pim picked up and soothed as he stood on top of Charlie to reach, then they helped motivate a pot-smoking 30-something-year old rocker who was bumming around her grandparent’s basement get back together with her successful CEO girlfriend (who kicked her out for forgetting their anniversary AND bogarting all the booze) with a DIY romantic ballad at the Flying Meep Restaurant, and while it didn’t quite work out she did win over the waitress’ affections. Finally, they where called by the terrified assistant-manager at the local Bullseye Superstore to make a raging customer calm down and quit throwing a hissy-fit over their fairly performative and bare-bones acknowledgement of an obscure holiday celebrating the importance of DEI in the workplace (not to mention hypocritical because they scaled back on their own DEI policy earlier this year). When the boys stepped into that Bullseye store, Charlie felt as if he stepped into hell all over again! The middle-aged blonde woman in the bedazzled shirt that read: “Live, Laugh and Love” had still been violently trashing the joint, threatening its employees with ending their lives and greatly terrifying the customers while screeching about how it was the end times. “Excuse me, M’am?” Charlie piped up as he put on a stoic front masking his anxiety, “What seems to be upsetting you so badly?” Pim timidly asked. “Well, isn’t it obvious?!” The blonde snarled as she held up an extremely corny t-shirt in a cutesy font that read: “DEI Love My Safe Space!” before she violently threw it on the ground and stomped on it while giving the uncomfortable boys an over-dramatic speech ripped straight from an X account: “WE’RE IN THE END TIMES!! BULLSEYE IS SPITTING IN THE FACE OF TRADITIONAL VALUES AND GROOMING THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WITH THE WOKE MIND VIRUS!!” Much to the lady’s surprise, she was lifted from the ground and suspended 7 ft. in the air by Pim who reached his hand outwards at her, whom Charlie noticed had glowing yellow eyes and red pupils: “I don’t think you know what that word means, and I really don’t appreciate your ilk treating that word like one of your little trendy rage-bait buzzwords.” Pim turned his wrist and started rapidly spinning her around at a dizzying speed. “Now I better never see you in this store again or I’m gonna send you to meet your maker, then again, a Bible-thumping braindead Karen like you would probably love to meet the celebrity you stan the most!~” Pim giggled until he shot a nasty glare at her with a toothy grin that would make the Joker proud: “Isn’t that right, you wretched old hag?” before he dropped her to the ground. Scared-shitless, the blonde threw up on the ground and sprinted out of the building. “Dude…” the amazed and horrified Charlie tried to utter a response, but couldn’t mind the words to describe how he felt, the employees and customers-alike cheered for Pim into scaring the unpleasant woman out of the shop. The manager walked up to Pim with a grateful handshake. “Thank you for saving our bacon there! How can we possibly repay you?” Pim cutely put his finger on his chin as he pondered, then answered: “You could get in touch with the company CEO to restore your old DEI policy, which includes giving your employees permission to boot out weirdos like her!” “Well, after this incident, he may very well consider that.” Pim giggled, thanking the manager.

…

Charlie didn’t have enough time to hang out with Pim after work this time, as he had to pack his bags for the trip to Zoey’s parent’s place tomorrow, after all, Pim was in dire need to get some grocery shopping done! Pim hit the little family-owned OneyMart convenience store and grabbed his essentials before heading home for the night. After a quick shower, Pim slipped on an oversized band T-shirt and lounge shorts and slapped some spring rolls in the microwave and played UnderDelta on his Nintendo Switch while waiting for his dinner to be ready. “Go on, admit it~” teased Brittany, “You’re jealous.” Pim furrowed his eyebrows and growled: “hey! I let you pick out the ice cream, Brit, so quit picking on me!” Brittany giggled mischievously, resuming: “I’m not asking you to shout it from the rooftops, that would be silly! I figured since we share a body now, I’m giving you permission to be vulnerable to your new roomie.” Pim raised an eyebrow in skepticism, “Oh really now? You’re not gonna tell anyone, right?” “I can’t exactly leave you body anyways, unless you purge me….but even if you purged me I wouldn’t tell another soul!” “Promise?” “Pinky-promise!! Oh wait-“ The humored Pim finally caved in: “Alright, I confess: I do have a crush on Charlie, I’ve had since the day I first met him…and I never really got around to confessing, and on the day I planned to reveal my concealed feelings for him, he announced that he started Zoey. Oh Zoey, that goodie-goodie girl next door who she stole my crush’s heart! No matter how sweet and nice I am to her, I still secretly hold an ugly grudge toward her…” Pim sighed, “Maybe it’s my fault that I couldn’t spit it out and I’m projecting my anger at myself onto her…I’m such an asshole.” Brittany was moved, sympathizing in Pim’s plight. “Well, at least you’re not acting out your anger onto her, and you’re letting those two be a happy couple, right?” Pim started to tear up, “They are cute together…” “Let it all out, Pim, sadness is a healthy emotion to express!” Pim sniffled and choked up, muffling himself with a pillow and sobbing into it as Brittany cooed “There-there, Pim, it’s okay~” like an honorary mom friend. After the crying session, Pim ate his sorrows away by wolfing down the spring rolls and not bothering to save any for later, followed by indulging in a tub of red velvet ice cream, then he hit the sack feeling like a weight was lifted from his chest as he was about to drift off into sleep mode, until Brittany whined playfully: “Hey Pim~ can I ask a question pretty pleaaase?” “Alright, what’s there to ask about?” Pim yawned in a tired-yet-relaxed voice. “So I’m curious, like genuinely curious? What’s preventing you from ignoring my pleas and just purging me completely? I mean I did kinda make you kill that guy and put a damper on your innocent “silly little guy” rep, wouldn’t you wanna go back to a more simple day-to-day life?” The humored Pim chuckled, and slyly grinned: “Because to be completely honest….my life is a little more fun with you around, you’re like the older sister I never really had, don’t you think?” “Aww, that’s so sweet! You are like my honorary adorkable little brother.” Pim chuckled and dozed off, closing off with a gentle: “Sweet dreams, Brit.” “Right back at you, P.”

Chapter Text

Pim slept in that Saturday morning until about 8am, finally he rolled out of bed with a tinge of fatigue from letting all his feelings out to Britanny. Speaking of which…”Good mornin’ P! Ready to have a fun weekend?” Pim sleepily replied with a yawn: “But first, brekkie.” During breakfast, consisting of mixed-grain toast and vegemite with a side of DIY matcha latte topped with whipped cream, Pim scrolled away on his phone, viewing his social media feed, coming across a post from the official Spaghetti Disco account notifying it’s followers about a single’s mixer…and wouldn’t you know it, it was tonight! “Say Pim, maybe this could be an opportunity to uh, y’know…” Brittany suggested while lightly treading: “Find someone special?” Pim pondered on that opportunity, while he was no stranger to the wild world of dating, it had been a while since Pim asked anyone out since that funny little incident with “Shrimpina”, otherwise known as Jennifer, who would end up becoming one of his closest friends outside work. “I could try casual dating and feel ‘em out first.” “So it’s a yes?!” “Why not? Let’s get back on the saddle! But first, I need to pick up some things at the mall.”

After breakfast, Pim decided to throwback to his iconic workplace uniform he was best known for, a white button-up, blue horns and black shoes but with the stylish additions such as a black tank-top and a rose quartz crystal bullet necklace. He also wore his beaded bracelets whose colors matched the transmascfemme, non-binary, genderfluid, gaybian and enbian flags in a stack on one wrist and wore a very subtle star-shaped intersex pride button on his shirt. For the finishing touch, Pim put on some rainbow sunglasses and a custom baseball cap that read “Midwest *Princen” (*Princen is one of the many gender-neutral terms used as an alternative to “Princess” or “Prince”). Pim grabbed his Gwimbly-themed ita bag and hit the mall, where he tested out his new credit card by purchasing a crap ton of new clothes and accessories to match his evolving “chic” style of his gender expression while also failing to resist his urge to buy geeky merch such as the Gwimbly shirt that he just had to snag from Hot Topic! Perhaps two particular items that evenly strung high between “chic” and “geek” was the Sailor Moon compact mirror and the Jimmy Choos collab he never thought that he’d get his hands on until now! And the less said about the little brown bag from Meepina’s Secret, the better. One outfit in particular that caught Pim’s interest was a turquoise party dress of which generously shown off a perfect portion of skin by being two sheets of cloth whose corners where framed with ribbon and the top and bottom embroidered with frilly lace, connected with strands of pearls to boldly bare one’s hips. Now on one hand Pim always loved suits for their comfortability, how they hid his curves if he felt extra dysphoric about his body on that particular day and used every opportunity and excuse to wear one to make up for how his parents forbade him from “confusing the two sexes, unless (he) wanted to make everyone uncomfortable.” On the other hand, sometimes Pim didn’t mind his curves or to be seen as femme in a non-binary or non-conforming way, just as long as he wasn’t getting misgendered over and over. Pim figured he’d buy the dress and figure out an elaborate way of displaying his pronouns later.

…

That evening, Spaghetti Disco had been thriving with dolled-up singles who where all more than ready to mingle whose blissful chattering echoes throughout the glitzy complex, harmonizing with the DJ’s playlist of cheesy love songs and the aroma of the liquor and freshly-prepared entrees the staff served to guests conjuring up a dreamy atmosphere straight out of a classic romcom. Of course, when a certain someone stepped into the picture, the vibrant and active scene was put on pause. Jaws where dropping, heads where turning and and all eyes where on the pink critter in the elegant-yet-sleek turquoise party dress, his cute little nerve ending styled in a heart-shaped “bun” with a baby curl and a lovely strand of pearls around his neck while shamelessly baring their chubby, rosy hips for all to see …and for the icing on the cake, he sports a custom fan adorned with matching accents to faer dress and displaying “Girl’nt” in a pink, glittery cursive font and on the other side displaying pronouns “He/They/Fae” in a chunkier font. While everyone was done-up in their finest, Pim hands-down SLAYED the competition for “Best-Dressed of the Evening” and it shows! Cementing his achievement in elegance was a proud Ojou laugh he belts out while fanning himself in a graceful display of dominance, establishing faerself as the Baddie of the Ball. Pim sat down at a table occupied by none-other than a nervous-looking orange critter with minimal facial hair whose forehead was embellished with a fiery red gemstone with a purple leisure suit, a polka-dot bow tie and a silly party hat upon his head with a half-drunken bottle of root beer in his hand, looking like he could sure use a friend right now. Pim greeted the critter with a friendly “hello” with a gentle wave, with the critter grinning in response with a quick, frantic wave back. “Hello there, my name is Peleeken and I’ve been kinda just vibing on this table all night, y’know? Ha! What’s your name?” Pim gasped, his scribbly pupils sparkling like in a shoujo anime, his voice pitched up as he cheered: “Oh my gosh, Peleeken! I haven’t seen you since forever!” Pim eventually caught himself stimming and sheepishly rebuilt his cool composure that he carefully constructed earlier. “Pimberly, is that really you?” Peleeken at marveled at his grown-up childhood friend, it felt like yesterday his short pink buddy had short, scruffy red hair, slightly-scuffed glasses, a Gwimbly shirt and dusty overalls with a black cat patch on the knee. “Oh, I mainly go by Pim now, sometimes I go by Pimberly when I’m feeling more on the femme side, genderfluidity can be fickle like that.” Peleeken nodded and took-note. “I have two very special friends of mine who are trans, and they’re so pretty too! You’re safe with me, Pim.” Pim cooed with a warm smile: “Thank you, Peleeken.” Just then, a throng of overtly-amorous singles cropped up at the table all with one very goal in mind. “Awww, hey there cutie, got room for one more?” A curvy human lady with minty-green hair and a fancy suit-dress cheerfully asked Pim in particular, while a short brunette with squiggly eyes and rounded teeth in a button up-shirt, vest and slacks attested: “I do believe there is plenty of room for at least two more.” and finally one hunky purple critter huffed: “Leave some elbow room for me, will y’a?” Since the nervous Pim had no idea just how well he bewitched the other attendants until now, he had to come up with a quick solution to the maximum capacity situation. Pim finally spoke up: “Say uh, anyone up for a game of spin the bottle? We’re all singles here and I know exactly what y’all have come here for~” he spoke in a flirtatious tone while wiggling his butt before adopting a more serious tone: “But only if y’all are sober! Anyone who’s even the tiniest-bit tipsy has to pack up! You gotta be alert-enough to remember the best twenty minutes in heaven of your life!” he winked while shimming his bare shoulders while putting his hands on his hips, before whispering to Peleeken: “Hustle up and slug that soda down, darling, you might be in for a treat… if you’re up for it, anyways!” Peleeken grinned ear-to-ear and obeyed the curvy femboy, he lifted the bottle and proclaimed: “Let’s get this party started!” to the cheers of the crowd.

Pim found himself in a blissful state of mind, finding himself sharing kisses, cuddles and secret-third-options with countless lovestruck suckers for what felt like hours. At this very moment, he felt like a revered love-goddess like Aphrodite, a lightning rod for those who seek to bask in the Diamond-like radiance of his loving and passionate embrace. Pim felt himself come down back to earth once his lips pulled away from the tall, yellowish-gold critter who reminded him of a certain someone. “Damn, I never met anyone who kissed as good as you before.” Pim gave a girlish giggle, “I’ve had quite the practice.” Pim gently slid off the yellow critter’s embrace and proudly announced like a Monarch calling to their people on a high balcony, “Thanks for playing, my darlings~” Pim flirted while swaying his hips and winking at the other singles, then spotting the two waitresses from a far delivering the freshly-prepared, aromatic goods. “Oh! The food’s about to be served, and don’t worry about paying a dime because it’s all on me!” Prompting more cheers from the group. “Aw gee whiz, Pim, that game of Spin the Bottle was a blast! I never knew I had it in me…” the bashful Peleeken sheepishly approached Pim while holding his hand. “Thank you for helping me come out of my shell.” “That’s what friends with benefits are for, Pookie!” As everyone was served their meals, Peleeken accidentally spilled his drink on Pim’s dress to which the orange critter nervously panicked and apologized, with Pim gently reassuring him it was gonna be okay and that: “…It’s thankfully not as persistent as red wine, know THAT’s a bitch to get rid of!”. Just as Pim got up from his seat to wash the stain off his dress, he bumped into a particularly unfortunate encounter….

“Hey girlie, you could use a seat~” Oh lord, it couldn’t have been- “Hot DAMN, you’re cute!!” Ranted-and-raved a tall, balding critter with bushy eyebrows clad in a leather jacket and pants with a simplistic shirt that read: Party Bro stood shakily and red-faced before the disturbed Pim, all-too-familiar to the pink critter as being the rude frat boy who teased him for the oh-so-heinous-crime of being in his 30s and still having whimsy and the skin-crawlingly creepy drunken cat-calls did not help his case. “Tell ya what, Princess, come over to my table so you can park that fat ass on daddy’s lap!” The nervous critter’s heart was ticking like a time bomb, but he rescues himself by taking a deep breath to calm himself down and think of a classy response as instructed by Brittany’s voice echoing in his head. “Look, buddy, I’m 34 years old and you look like you’re old enough to be my dad! Plus I can tell you’ve had waaaay too much booze for the night! So go home, Pops, you’re drunk as fuck!” Pim dramatically turns while waving his fan again with a defiant “Hmph! Creep.” as everybody in the room roars in infectious and boisterous laughter at Party Bro’s expense, who tries to defend himself with his voice barely a whisper: “I’m not that old.” as he saw that gorgeous critter strut away from him to wash up, the once-cocky frat boy felt his own ego completely shatter into pieces as he drowns in a tidal wave of his own just desserts…and if that wasn’t bad enough, the cocktail in his hand he had been drinking from somehow morphed into murky swamp water infested with worms, prompting him to freak out and throw it over his shoulder. Suddenly, Party Bro finds himself getting grabbed by the collar of his jacket and meets face-to-face with one particularly angry and silly serious critter. “AYO WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR, YOU SUNNOVABITCH?! THAT BROKEN GLASS YOU THREW AT ME NEARLY GOT CAUGHT IN MY HOLES! I BREATHE OUT OF THOSE YOU KNOW-“ the undignified Party Bro was crying for his mother as he was beaten to a pulp by the elaborately-designed critter brutally bashing upon him with his claw and the bird on his cuckoo-clock head as Pim arrived back from one of the washrooms just-in-time to have quite the “Kiki” with the rest of the guests over the hot mess from afar.

…

The rest of the night was a bit-of-a-blur to Pim, last thing he remembered before the Bellinis hijacked his brain was dancing on the table-top and taking a few alluring selfies for kicks. The upbeat laughter and music echoes in his mind like spirits in a haunted house, and when his eyes opened up he found himself being led out by Peleeken holding his hand and leading him out of a car back to the former’s home. “Wowzers, haha! Pim, you sure are something else. You’re magical…” Pelekeen warmly cooed as he put his hand on Pim’s cheek. “You better get cleaned up and hit the sack, I’ll call you back tomorrow-“ Pim immediately glommed at the taller Orange critter, with his voice muffled on the latter’s chest, “Stay with me, I feel so safe and happy when I’m with you….Oh Peleeken-darling, please don’t leave me alone!” Peleeken gently pulled Pim away to find the pudgy pink critter’s big gorgeous eyes sparkling with streaming tears. “What am I, chopped liver?” Brittany echoed half-jokingly and half-dejected, to which Pim could only hear for himself but he wasn’t exactly sober enough to tell her where to stick that quip. Pim immediately hugged Peleeken close to him once again to sop into his chest, to which the latter clearly got the memo that his company was greatly needed by his vulnerable friend. “There there, I’ll get you inside, it’s okay….I’m here and I won’t leave you.”

…

Pim woke up on his bed at 2:00 AM on the couch with a blanket over him, and Peleeken sitting right beside him with that friendly smile of his. “Good morning, Pim! I mean, I guess it kinda counts as morning but it’s still night…*gasp* Night Morning?!” The hazy Pim rolled his eyes as he wanted to slap hits ditzy friend for spouting what he deemed cringe, but because he was so sweet to beckon his drunken-sobbing call, he just couldn’t! That and he just wanted to kiss that adorable face more than anything. “Oh, fudge!” Pim muttered to himself, suddenly feeling conflicted between his feelings for this naive-yet- sweet and loyal childhood friend and his edgy, snarky, lovable greaseball of a co-worker. “Oh what can I get ya, buddy? A glass of water, your fuzzy slippers?” Peleeken stood to attention ready to do whatever he could to help. Touched by his kind and wholesome gestures, Pim chuckled. “I’m fine, I think…Did you remember anything that happened last night?” Pelekeen’s face went from a naive goober’s mug to a more nervous look with a side of *gulp* because unlike Pim, he definitely remembered the chaotic hell that Pim raised while drunk, and was surprised nobody was dumb enough to get nabbed by the fuzz! Pim could tell by Peleeken’s body language that SOMETHING went down. At that moment, Pim’s phone kept blowing up with notification-after-notification, and with his heart once-again racing and feeling goosebumps all-over, Pim gathered the courage to check his phone. His jaw dropped in shock at how those selfies he posted not only have been going viral, he just-so happen to be one of the MODs for the Smiling Friends social media accounts and for better-or-worse, this whole fiasco was gonna serve as quite the word-of-mouth advertisement. Pim promptly threw up right on the floor as Peleeken rushed back and forth with some cleaning supplies.

Chapter Text

Pim prayed that his eyes where tricking him when he laid his eyes upon his phone that was still blowing up with reposts and likes on those scandalous selfies of faer drunken antics at the Spaghetti Disco such as: doing a cat-walk on the bar counter, one where he was on said-bar counter where he was kicking his legs like a can-can dancer (and apparently losing a shoe!), bending down like he dropped something while balancing a champagne bottle on his behind while filling up the cups and mugs surrounding him, chugging from a beer tank while being held up by random folks, swimming in a fountain, and even having a flirtatious session with an equally-drunken fella donning frizzy green hair, a blue suit, yellow shirt and a black tie as the two where sharing a smoke and making goo-goo eyes at each other and even one where he recreated the infamous Jack-O-Pose! It was obviously too late to take them down as it was already trending and everyone saw ‘em all…..and on the official Smiling Friends account on *Twitter no less! Pim felt sick to his stomach, he knew very well that he was gonna get in trouble for misrepresenting his wholesome little workplace in this racy and tasteless display. “I am so fired…” Pelekeen put his hand on Pim’s shoulder and reassured: “These aren’t THAT appalling, you do look rather pretty and it’s not like they’re super revealing! Besides, there’s way more positive comments than negative, take a look!” Pim scrolled through the comments, all of which where praising the ever-gorgeous model and their *ahem* gusto. Aside from the commenters that where none-the-wiser and innocently mistaking him for a woman with she/her pronouns, Pim felt a lot better about the debacle. “I guess I do look pretty sexy~” Pim chuckled with a husky tone. “Thank you once again, Peleeken, you’re a sweetie.” Peleeken blushed and studdered a “You’re welcome, Pim!” Pim put his hands on his hips in a sassy tone: “I’m gonna wash up, if you’re still staying overnight, I’ll make you a special brekkie tomorrow!” Peleeken grinned like a doofus and immediately took up the offer.

…

Pim had another strange dream that night, one where he was 16 years old and in his bedroom at this parent’s house just before a school dance. Being one of those dreams where it was a flashback, Pim wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about it because of course this was long before he was able to put his gender dysphoria into words, not to mention his parents controlled what he wore to school (at least until they stopped pretending to give a shit and Pim started going in-and-out of the house as he pleased). Preparing to brace open up a wardrobe full of unwanted memories, Pim was surprised to find the wardrobe was full of luxurious, gothic-looking clothes in black, red, orange and/or purple as if they belonged to demonic royalty. Pim giggled and tried on a white blouse and skirt under mauve pants, red jacket, a black bow tie and to wrap it all up in a neat bow he placed a black metallic crown on his head. He twirled in the mirror at his preferred look and cackled like a cartoony villain out-loud: “I am the Princess of Hell!!” Just then he opened the door to find a ballroom hosting an elaborate party of sorts, a bunch of skrunkly critters-like demons dressed up all fancy and chattering away. In the center of the room was a large three-tier cake in black frosting, topped with a 15 little skinny candles and topped with a big, glittery, red one that resembled the number sixteen. “Hey asshats, the guest of honor is here!” A pudgy demon with tiny wings and scribbly pupils called out to the crowd, of which all turned to Pim and cheered: “Happy Birthday, Your Highness!” Pim was given a knife by a tall, slender demon chef as he was lead to cut the cake. As he carefully cut a slice from the bottom, the inside of the cake started rapidly bleeding what appeared to be blood all over the display and dropped onto the floor. The chef sheepishly admitted: “Shucks, too much cherry filling.” And as another surprise, a super skrunkly demon popped out from the top-tier of the cake shouting gibberish in a squeaky voice and wriggling its arms at Pim from below. “Dammit to here, Jeremy, you’re late!” The pudgy winged demon once again scolded.

…

Pim woke up at 8:37am that morning, a bit hazy from last night’s shenanigans. Getting out of bed in his Mother Mother shirt and cutesy blueberry-print panties, Pim slipped his fluffy robe and waltzed out to check up on ol’ Peleeken, still passed out on the sofa. Pim quietly tip-toed to the kitchen to prepare that promised special breakfast. “Oooh, can we have chocolate chip pancakes? Those are my favorite!” “Actually, I’m in more of a waffle mood myself…but we can compromise~ how about chocolate chip waffles?” Brittany squealed with delight: “YAAAS, QUEEN!!” Pim smiled, while putting on some water to boil for tea. “And we can have chocolate syrup and *yawn* whipped cream with strawberries….” Brittany immediately controlled the drowsy Pim’s body like a puppet on a string and under her influence, Pim gathered ingredients, a mixing bowl and a rubber spatula and got to work in the kitchen as the music app on his phone spontaneously played music by Camille Dalmais throughout the process. Eventually, Pim was graced with the presence of two golden and fluffy stacks of chocolate chip waffles that he proceeded to dress each of them in a generous dollop of whipped cream, evenly-drizzled chocolate and maple syrups, and for his own specifically…popcorn?! Oh yeah that was definitely the “weird food craving” symptom of PMS kicking in. Pim was about to place a strawberry on top of his before Brittany took control and was trying to figure out where exactly would be the most even spot. “Brittany!” “Sorry, just trying to help.” …Finally, Pelekeen woke up to the cozy and nostalgic scent of chocolate-chip wallets luring him to the kitchen, where he was greeted by Pim holding two plates of warm, scrumptious, steamy goodness both topped with a perfectly plump strawberry. “Good Morning, Peleeken!” Peleeken clapped his hands and cheered: “Yaaay, brekkie!! Say, can I have popcorn on mine too?” “Plain, white cheddar or caramel?” “All three!” Just as Pim and Peleeken sat at the table, Pim’s ringtone went off. Peleeken couldn’t help but geek out: “Aw sweet, I always loved the Gwimbly theme!“ When Pim dared to see who was calling, he looked as if he was dared to hold a live scorpion. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back, my boss is facetiming me.”

Pim sighed as he walked outside the kitchen and accepted the FaceTime call…never before had Pim ever seen the usually-warm and friendly Mr. Boss with such a stern look on his face indicating how badly Pim effed up. “Pim Scrimbly Pimling, let me get this straight….” Mr. Boss piped up with a dead-serious tone gulped nervously as he continued to listen with dread: “…so you went clubbing last night, took all those naughty selfies, posted them on the Twitter account to my own company that I trusted you do maintain as a MOD…” Pim could feel the color drain from his face as he was sweating bullets, steeling himself for what else his superior with furrowed eyebrows was about to say next. …”and you didn’t even take the time to consider using a good filter to bring out the vibrant aesthetic!” Pim was considerably confused for a moment, asking himself if this was some sort of elaborate joke. Then, Mr. Boss pulled up one of those notorious photos recapping last night: “I mean, look at how blurry this one is!” He complained with his face scrunched up as if he was holding a cheap toupeé, “You take a picture of yourself having a smoke with legendary bounty hunter Spike Spiegel and yet it looks like you took this one with the freaking potato cam!! What the hell, little dude? I thought you earned a degree in amateur photography!” Pim tried to utter in defense: “I mean, I-“ Mr. Boss sighed, then gave Pim that classic warm smile of his: “I shouldn’t be too mad, you did get us trending worldwide!” he laughed. Pim suddenly had an outburst: “WORLDWIDE?!” “Eeyup! I think it’s high-time branch out my charity outside the states~ Thanks Pim, you’re a doll! I owe you one.” “Um, thanks Mr. Boss, y-you’re too kind- I love you.” Mr. Boss giggled at Pim’s on-brand affection, responding: “Love ya too, see ya tomorrow! And don’t forget: edit before you post! Okay byyye~!!” And with that, the call ended without much fanfare, yet Pim felt a wash of relief tide him over. Brittany sheepishly admitted: “Sorry I took the wheel there, just missed my boo.” Pim sighed peacefully, “No worries Brit, you’re good.”

~

As you can imagine, Pim’s coworkers saw his glorious kerfuffle on Twitter. Alan sat there in his living room with an espresso in a glass mug with a cheesy omelette, facepalming in exasperation. “At least when I’m being a promiscuous hoe, I keep it out of my job.” Glep was grinning at his iPad with the dumbest look on his face, ogling at his busty co-worker done-up in all his finery, then immediately closed the Twitter app out when he saw his beautiful wife Marge Simpson enter the room, asking while trying to be covert in her attraction to the pictures: “Glep, have you seen your friend post these pics? They’re drop-dead gorgeous!” to which Glep responded with a cheeky side glance. Finally there was Charlie who was having breakfast with Zoey at her parent’s house, it was a zesty basil-tomato quiché with a three cheese blend, and he was scrolling on his Twitter as Zoey and her parents where happily chattering about some old happy family memories….and wouldn’t you know it, he saw the now-(in)famous selfies of his dolled-up coworker behaving badly…and on the official Smiling Friends twitter no less! Charlie’s face turned beet red as he immediately closed out the app and turned off his phone, shifting his attention to his half-eaten slice of quiché and pretending he was listening to the conversation. “Yeah, go birds!” Charlie hastily spat. Zoey’s father raised an eyebrow, clarifying: “I’m more of a Minnesota Vikings guy myself.”

…

After exchanging goodbyes, Zoey and Charlie left the former’s childhood home and hit the road. Charlie watched the houses, trees and fields go by from his co-pilot seat as Zoey steered the wheel. “Hey Charlie, when are you gonna get your license renewed anyways?” Zoey innocently asked her boyfriend. Charlie sheepishly answered back with: “Well you see, I just keep forgetting about that! My job is pretty crazy, y’know! All that wacky wild crazy cartoon shit me and Pim-“ he could hear Zoey audibly groan at Pim’s name. “You mean Pimberly, right?” Charlie furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance, correcting his girlfriend: “Zoey, we’ve been over this, Pim goes by he/they/fae.” Zoey softened her tone, defending her stance: “I get it, she was probably shamed for being a gender-nonconforming female more than once in her life, and her being intersex and not given enough of she needed to feel like a normal woman probably messed up her hormones and in turn, confuses her even more, and sets the fight for women’s rights 50 years back.” Charlie fought the urge to to roll his eyes and groan as she continued, “…but she doesn’t know better, she’s a lamb headed for the slaughterhouse! She needs to embrace her womanhood and l realize that just slapping a he/they/whatever pin on herself while acting effeminate isn’t exactly saving her from the patriarchy.” Charlie sighed in exasperation, defending Pim: “Okay so you don’t have a problem with those Free The Nipple parades when it’s literally throngs of shirtless women in public? And what about that sexy rat costume you wore on that Halloween party?” Zoey replied, with a smile: “Well for starters, that was my satire of those trashy sexy-whatever-costumes they put out on Halloween, and second of all: those brave and fearless females don’t do it to please dudes, and I’m certain what they’re doing will help normalize mothers breastfeeding in public when they don’t have space for privacy!” then her tone got a little more critical when she continued, “Pimberly, on the other hand, is doing a very selfish thing by promoting herself as a male when she’s anything but by gussying up like a tramp and acting like a platter to be served to creeps and weirdos…and shame on her for appropriating real femboys and trans women who are too afraid to come out!“ Charlie low-key snapped: “If you can respect my pronouns and the name I chose, why can’t you do the same for Pim?!”, Zoey defensively responded: “Unlike that trans-trender, you ACT like a real guy and you don’t shove it in everyone’s faces!” Charlie cringed at Zoey for her flagrant ignorance, trying reminding himself that in spite of the awful things she was spouting, Zoey wasn’t completely suckered into the whole radfem thing. After all, Zoey did immensely support trans women and openly opined that a certain author of a once-popular children’s book series came off as a terminally-online creep. Zoey wants to do actual good for her fellow ladies based on her previous experiences with a shitty ex-boyfriend or two, but Charlie didn’t exactly approve of how she was throwing anyone who didn’t identify as a woman under the bus, and all he could do was agree to disagree while openly supporting his fellow transmascs. Having enough of his girlfriend’s transandrophobic ramblings, Charlie conveniently switched the topic by asking what Zoey would like to have for lunch on the way back to town. “Anything but Salty’s, I can’t support them after that trashy campaign with Mustard.” Charlie nodded, “Fair enough, ever since they ditched the Salty Delight and put out all that healthy food shit, I’ve been becoming more of a Flying Meep fan…besides, that’s freshly prepared!” Charlie chuckled at his own joke as Zoey visibly recoiled: “You’re kidding me, right? I don’t have the heart to eat one of those cute little Meeps.” Unlike everything else she said during this whole conversation, Charlie immediately understood her disgust.

~

Pim and Peleeken hung out in their usual outfits and hung out all day, with the first stop at the arcade downtown for an hour or two, then they visited a trash art museum where they took goofy selfies, and then a petting zoo where they cuddled with the precious baby animals and took even more goofy pics, finally they decided to get lunch at the little café on 153 Meep Boulevard. Jennifer, the friendly waitress who happens to be Pim’s crush-turn-bestie outside work, gave the two a friendly greeting: “Well, if it isn’t my number one customer, the pink cupid who helped me find my current boyfriend!” “Hey, Jenny! I’d like to introduce you to my childhood buddy, Peleeken Mischief Maker! We crossed paths at the club last night~” Jennifer chuckled, “Oh, I heard! So lemme guess: you’re the chaotic diva who broke the internet last night?” Pim blushed and covered his face, making the amused waitress giggle. “I love this bold new attitude of yours, Pim.” “Aw, thank you!” “So, y’all decided what to order?” “I’ll have the taro bubble tea frappé with the matcha cloud and an everything bagel sandwich with the lox, egg and salmon~” Peleeken spaced out a bit while deciding what to order on the menu before Pim gently nudged him, to which Peleeken responsed: “I’ll have the caramel-mocha frappé and the hero sandwhich!” Jennifer wrote the orders down on her notepad, “Alright, noted! Y’all may be seated now.”

Pim and Peleeken took their seats, people around the, where definitely whispering about how “the pink one” greatly resembled a certain, glamorous troublemaker they saw on Twitter. The bashful Pim blushed and sunk in his seat, hiding his face as he was within an earshot of the random folks gushing about how “sexy” he was and how they either wanted to date him or cosplay as him for Halloween. Peleeken looked sympathetic to Pim’s plight and reached his hand out to his friend’s as Brittany tried to look on the bright side with her voice echoing: “Aw c'mon, Mr. Popular, take a compliment!” Pim thunk out-loud: “I don’t have time for your quips, Brit! All this attention is making me nervous…” Then Pim took a gander around the area to find his sister, Amy, seated with her sweet boyfriend as the former wore bedazzled cat-eye sunglasses with a scrunched-up look on her face, complaining to her husband about how some “nasty-ass bitch” gave her a black eye last night, her boyfriend asking how it happened and before suddenly freezing up, claimed it was on the way home while she was fueling up her car at a gas station after she had hung out with her lady-friends. “If I find out whoever pulled that shit, I’m gonna beat her ass.” Pim nervously sunk even deeper in his seat, and such-his-hit-or-miss-luck, Dj Spitz walked over to take his seat and immediately recognized him. Wiggling his eyebrows at Pim, Dj Spitz flirted: “Hey there, femboy-mama! You’re that killer sweet babe who invited me over to that game of Spin The Bottle last night at Spaghetti Disco! Man, you’re kisses where like milk and honey!” Pim nervously replied with a shit-eating grin: “Ah yeah, good times, you’re not so bad yourself either, pookie.” “What was really hot, however, was when you got into that drunken brawl with that one chick and gave her a black eye! Are you two related by any chance?” Amy overheard the dialogue and immediately rose from her seat, staring daggers at the terrified pink critter, screeching: “PIM!!!”

Pim felt as if he was about to shit a brick as his nasty older sister stomped over to the table-of-three and pointed her perfectly-manicured finger at Pim, accusingly: “SO IT WAS YOU, BITCH! YOU MADE AN ASS OUT OF ME LAST NIGHT!! You’re supposed to me SHORTER and FATTER and WEAKER than me! I used to kick your ass all the time when we where kids! HOW DARE-” Pim immediately went from fearing for his life to feeling suspicious. “Amy, what where you doing at the Spaghetti Disco on the Singles’ Mixer night anyways?” Pim asked out loud enough so everyone could hear. Amy was sweating bullets as all eyes where on her, including her boyfriend whose face distorted in a panic. Dj Spitz made a mischevious grin, “Oh hey I remember! You too, you where all over me last night! Good times, good times…” Amy’s boyfriend looked as if he was about to break down. “Amy, you promised you wouldn’t do this to me again.” Amy tried to save face as the looks thrown at her got even more judgmental. “Tom, wait! I can explain-” Tom stood up, manly tears streaming down his face as he revealed a little box he opened for all to see: a super-expensive heart-shaped Painite engagement ring surrounded by 24k pink diamonds in solid gold. “My mother gave me a check so that I could have gotten that cancerous tumor removal this whole time but I used it to buy this ring instead… am I just not good enough for you?” Amy froze in silence, before spitting out a pathetic: “Babe, it’s not like that at all! I think you’re cute on the inside almost as much as the outside, it’s just that thing on your chest is so distracting!” but it was too late, Tom regained his composure and wiped his tears, “I’m sorry, but this relationship is over.” before calmly leaving a cash-tip and signing off in defeat. Seeing as how everyone was staring daggers at her, Amy snarled: “You fuck-ass little theyfab! You gave me a black-eye AND you ruined my social life!” No-longer scared of his relative childhood bully, Pim proudly owned up to his actions, getting up out of his seat to make a twirl-and-pose like he was an idol performing on stage before putting one hand on his hip and limp-wristing with the other at Jennifer with his best Ariana Grande impression: “Yes, and? I reclaimed that slur eons ago, cissy, and you’re a two-bit lying shallow cheater who threw away the chance to own one of the most rarest gemstones in the world just to get in the pants of other men! Oh! …and you need to do yourself a favor immediately and go book a salon appointment for that hair AND complexation because even ex-President Jimble’s got his skincare game on-point, guuurl!” Pim finished his roast with a dramatic flipping-the-bird at his sister, whose hair immediately flew off her head, turning out to be a wig. Having enough humiliation for one day, Amy cowardly scampered out of the café, and Pim was met with a round of applause. “Way to go, Pim, glad you finally stood up to her!“ chirped a supportive Jennifer who arrived with everyone’s orders, Pim cracked a smile and humbly responded: "If I had a nickel for every time I made everyone in the room laugh this weekend, I’d have two cents! Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.” Jennifer giggled, “Oh Pim, you’re a riot!” Pim warmly smiled back at Jennifer and at Peleeken and Dj Spitz as well, both of which where dying of laughter from Pim’s epic roast. Pim enjoyed the moment even when he was dealing with his abdomen suddenly cramping up on him, figuring it was almost time for his moon-man-cycle to come into tuition (and hopefully with consistency this time!)

…

Pim and Peleeken where back at the former’s house, having a quick dinner of instant ramen with shrimp in his living room while watching the subtitled version of Spy x Hunter x Hunter x Family feat. Dante from Devil May Cry…and of course, Peleeken was still gushing about how brave his little pink friend was out there today! “Pim, you really are so brave and cool…” One of the most badass people I know!“ Pim, once-again trying to take a compliment, "You really think I’m…badass?” Peleeken replied: “No duh, everyone does!” Pim immediately felt that comment, as someone who was always perceived as merely a cute, harmless and squishy “smol bean” for so long, and as a result not taken very seriously as a mature adult, Pim went from feeling embarrassed over his erratic behavior to feeling much more confident. “That’s right!” Pim proudly got up from his seat, making a superhero pose and pointing toward the sky, “No more meek little pee-wee Pim! Now I’m a bad bitch, y'here!?” He proudly strut beside Peleeken as if he was on a cat-walk and shimmied his hips, continuing his boasting: “The baddest bitch in this whole-ass town!” he opened the window and roared out-loud: “GO AHEAD, WORLD, I DARE YOU TO NAME A BITCH BADDER THAN PIM PIMLING!!” he turned back to Peleeken with another Ojou-style laugh, complete with body language straight out of a classic shoujo anime. Pim immediately snapped out of it and internally chided Brittany once-again: “Brit, knock that off, I’m not against you making me stick up for myself but I’m not your doll!!”. After dinner, Peleeken thanked Pim for the good time and split, while Pim finished the evening off on an extravagant note: he took a long, luxurious bath with the fizzy bomb, candles, meditation music on his Bluetooth speakers, and even a little dessert: bubbly rosé and a box of assorted chocolates! “Damn, we really roasted that wiener!” Pim snarked while popping a chocolate-cherry truffle in his mouth. “About time you put your foot down, you weren’t kidding about that Amy girl being a real meanie!” Brittany concurred, continuing: “Nice job snatching her wig, talk about a grand finale!” Pim laughed as he recalled the highlight of his Sunday afternoon, “Cishet people, amirite?” Brittany chided: “Hey now, don’t lump all of them with the hateful fruitcakes! After all, Sabrina Carpenter is cishet and she’s an ally!” While Pim did take her words into consideration, he couldn’t help but smirk and make a quip: “her chemistry with Chappell Roan would probably say otherwise!” Brittany couldn’t help but giggle, before Pim clarified: “I know not all people who identify as cishet are bad, lol, just doing that reverse-persecution thing! Y’know, being ironic! Like how being straight, allosexual, perisex and cis-gender is treated like it’s the default standard and everything else is unnatural, I joke about my fellow queers being superior to even things out~” Brittany warned in a sincere tone: “I can tell you that it’s your trust issues talking, but I mean it when I tell you that not all non-queer people are just closet queens or hateful monsters, please think about that.” Pim raised an eyebrow: “I get you’re trying to get me to grow up but please quit reading my mental diary, that’s rude as fuck.” Brittany giggled playfully and admitted in sing-song: “All just good intentions! Ooh, pick the coconut cream, pick the coconut cream!” “You read my mind, Brit!”

~

For once, Pim’s dream that night wasn’t a flashback from either his or Brittany’s point of view, but rather more like a fairytale scenario. Pim was wearing a unitard made of a thin sheet of ice crystals and a cloak of periwinkle sheer cloth with a crown made of the same crystals upon his head, only in the form of shards, all while riding a white horse through a snowy forest. The horse in question just-so-happened to have Alan’s face. Glep was there, too, as a ghostly-looking fairy with wings that resembled snowflakes that accompanied him. Pim shivered a bit as he was met with cold air clashing against him, then the horse immediately stopped to gaze upon a beam of light appearing before the party, turning out to be an angelic Peleeken, clothed in a silky shroud around his waist and a golden, Sun-esque halo, who held his hand out to Pim. “Peleeken, is that you?” “Come, my sweet winter Prince, I can take you with me to the heavens where we’ll bask in the sun for eternity~” Pim blushed as their hands touched, thinking over Peleeken’s offer, until a blaze of blue fire emerged beside them, revealing a Krampus-esque Charlie in a black fur cape, black-iron armor, two large crescent moon-style horns with a crown made out of some decaying animal skull. “C’mon, babe, you can do better than THAT goody-goody…” he walked up to take Pim’s other hand and kiss it. “Marry me, and I’ll be sure to give you one hell of a time.” “Stay away, you sinful beast! Pim deserves better than some hedonistic slime!” “Oh trust me pal, he’s gonna get real bored of you and your perfectly-perfect vanilla candy ass!” Pim didn’t know what to say regarding the two men fighting over him. Suddenly, Pim felt an arrow go through his abdomen, and fell on the ground while moaning in pain, before looking up at a feminine figure with flowing hair in a reddish hue donning the garb of a queenly warrior shooting a judgmental glare at him in the distance….

And just like that, Pim received an overnight visit from his ol’ Uncle Flo and awakened to feeling like absolute crap! Pim whined as he clutched his hips, “Brittany….” Brittany echoed: “Oh, poo! Hang on-“ One of Pim’s hands where raised, making a “C’mere” gesture, summoning a bottle of PMS relief and a tin can of sparkling water. Pim’s face went from hopeful relief to shock as he found Tic-Tacs fall out into his hand instead, to which that shock immediately turned into anger, cursing under his breath: “Goddamn you, Glep.” Brittany immediately got a devilish tone in her voice: “Oh, I got the perfect spell for you!” as Pim listened to what the demon bobbing around in his head told him, it prompted the little pink critter to make quite the nasty grin…

Chapter Text

Pim got to work braving out his moon-man-cycle with a poker face, arriving with a pastel green varsity jacket with his intersex, genderfluid and gaybian pride flag pins, a woven floral button-up shirt in a pale salmon shade, olive green cargo shorts, floral Doc Martin boots, a silvery ring with an enamel rose-crest focal point, a rainbow pride bracelet with precious stones, a necklace with a silver chain, a pendant with a flower agate crystal in the shape of a bullet-point, silver-rimmed glasses bedazzled with crystals, subtle makeup such as lip balm and guyliner, long green-and-pink ombré fake nails with flower and crystal stickers that glittered in the light and his nerve ending done-up in a bun similar to that one fateful night. He was met with Charlie scrolling on his phone and Alan washing dishes as per usual, the only one of Pim’s co-workers who where acting strangely different was Glep, who had been curled up on his beanbag chair while moaning in pain. Pim smirked as he kept on projecting his period cramps onto the little green fucker who somehow got into his purse the other day and replaced his Pamprin with Tic-Tacs.

“Fashionably late as-per recent trend, Pimling?” Alan asked in a deadpan tone, “You’re tardy as fuck and considering all your drunken-slut antics lately, I’m surprised you haven’t been fired yet.”
Pim clapping back while clacking his nails: “Sister, you must be more out-of-touch than a Kardashian because if you haven’t noticed: every-frickin’-body worships me like I’m Venus as a Boy now….besides, you wish you could slay as hard as me!” Gimme a break, I just KNOW you bought that 2010s tumblr hipster shit at a thrift store.” “Well, judging by you’re wardrobe so far, at least I don’t buy all my clothes from Lululemon and Wish.com!” Pim snarled as he stuck his nose (well, if he did had one) up in the air at Alan as he sashayed to the table, leaving Alan once-again gritting his teeth in annoyance. Alan yelled from across the room: “Well, at least I HAVE a nose to stick up in the air…” just then, Alan started getting choked-up all of a sudden, then started monotonously weeping as Pim smirked while projecting his hormonal mood swings onto his co-worker. “Music to my ears~” quipped Pim.

In an unexpected double-guest appearance, Zoey stormed into the breakroom with a sobbing Amy. Charlie gulped when he saw the fury in his girlfriend’s face. “Zoey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave the toilet seat up again!” Zoey took a deep breath and reassured her boyfriend with a gentle: “No, not you.” before she stomped over to Pim and pointed at him: “Shame on you, Pimberly!” Pim raised an eyebrow while pretending to de-fog his specs, “Do I know you? Ooh right, you’re Charlie’s partner, Zoeseph!” he sarcastically replied. Zoey regained her composure before sternly sending him a death glare. “I ran into your sister, Amy, and she told me that when she tried to tell you about her boyfriend spontaneously dumping her, you mocked her until she broke down and then punched her in the eye for crying about it!” Pim raised an eyebrow at the fictitious factoid, responding: “Evidence?” Zoey gritted her teeth in frustration, “Well, don’t you see the black eye on her face! Are you really that dumb?!” Pim wanted to scoff but had to own up to the fact that, “Yeah, I did do that…” Zoey was absolutely fuming at this point, raising her hand, “You cold-hearted, stuck-up, Ice Queen BITCH!” and slapped those fancy crystal-rimmed specs right off of Pim, landing on the ground yet miraculously surviving the fall without a scratch. Pim stood there quietly, yet unfazed…until he immediately burst into laughter. “Why are you laughing?!” the dumbfounded Zoey cried out. “First off, Zoetrope, I not only proudly call myself a bad bitch on the daily, I wear that label on my sleeve alongside all the bazillion others that I collect like effin’ Pokémon! Second, I actually left her with that black eye on Sunday-“ Zoey was about to slap him again, only to freeze in place. “What the-?!” Pim shushed the willful girl with the strong-yet-misguided sense of Justice by cheekily placing his finger on her lips, “BUT, I didn’t punch her.” Zoey furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “…the fuck?” Pim explained: “You see, I was so stinkin’ drunk at that night, I was doing a can-can dance on the bartender’s spot, and one of my shoes flew off and hit my delightful older sister in the face!” he gave an innocent laugh before continuing: “And the next day when she confronted me about my little oopsie last night, her boyfriend found out about her cheating on him once again and he broke up with her…don’t believe me? Just check out all the insane selfies that I posted onto Twitter! Hell, if you look around on that site, there’s a video someone filmed of the shoe hitting Amy in the face! Just type in “#spaghettidisco” and “#epicfail” in the search and it will pop up in the most relevant~”

As Zoey unfroze, she whipped her phone out and did exactly that. “Well, you where right about the black eye…” Pim sat up on the table, crossed his legs and folded his arms with an “I told you so!” look on his face. “…but it’s wrong that you didn’t apologize, and you mocked Amy for getting dumped.” Pim wanted to face palm at this point. “Oh for the love of Michael-!” Pim defended: “Amy cheated on her sweet boyfriend because he had a tumor!” Amy cranked up the water works again, “BUT HE CHEATED ONE FIIIIRST!!” Having her own trauma weaponized, Zoey hugged Amy and shot a nasty glare at Pim. “For someone who pretends to be all sweet and nice, you’re truly a bad little sister to Amy.” Pim scoffed with a hearty guffaw, “If you think I’m the bad one, just ask my friends on what they’ve seen for themselves!” Zoey turned to attention to Charlie, Alan and Glep. “It’s true, Zoey, Amy isn’t the angel she’s pretending to be for you.” Charlie admitted in Zoey’s defense, “Pim told us a lot of horror stories about her.” Allan piped up: “Pim may be a lot of things, especially recently with his wannabe edgy bitch boy era, but he speaks the truth when-“ Zoey scoffed, glaring back at Pim again. “Apparently, she was right about you making up lies about her too! Why you hate your fellow women so badly you pretend to be an effeminate man and cozy up with real men while throwing women under the bus! You cozy up and prance around in front of your clients like you’re some cutesy cartoon character, but you’re not pulling the wool over MY eyes!!” Pim was scrolling on his phone, tuning her out. “Oh hey guys, check out this Gwimbly and Mr. Millipede fanart someone did of them rocking my iconic Spaghetti Disco formal…and Gwimbly retweeted it, too!” Charlie, Alan and Glep gathered and mused at Pim’s phone. Zoey ignored them and keep comforting Amy. “She always did this to me, because she was the cute youngest one.” “There there, let’s just leave the wicked witch to her fan club of flying monkeys.” Charlie felt a bit hurt as he heard Zoey apply that remark to him at while leaving with Amy, as he now felt even more divided between his manipulated girlfriend and his little buddy.

It was another wacky day on the job for the dynamic duo. Charlie and Pim’s first client of the day was a skrunkly teenage daughter named Vewn who was getting badly bullied by the popular kids for her scribbled-out “baby’s first anime fanart” looks. Charlie initially suggested to take up martial arts, but Spiffany reminded him that she was literally a walking paper doll and if you knew one thing about rock paper scissors… getting in-touch with his old self, Pim immediately took some loose leaf copy paper, glittery gel pens, erasable colored pencils (for makeup) and scissors, then asked Spiffany which fashion brand she always wanted to buy. After what felt like hours, Pim gave Spiffany a fabulous Y2K-flavored glow up that made her feel more like a polished drawing one could find on their social media feed algorithm. She showed up to school full of fresh confidence and everyone was complimenting her looks, and following the advice Pim sneakily gave her, she ignored the popular kids who all of a sudden where desperate to hang out with her.

Next task, they helped a slender, pink critter with bushy hair and freckles named Angel who was just moving on from his previous and extremely toxic relationship with properly asking out his crush without coming off too strong. Charlie suggested asking him out for drinks, but the thing was: his crush was a bartender! “…so ask him out for coffee?” Pim brainstormed: “give him a secret admirer-style invitation, rose and all!” Angel took their idea into consideration and after a dozen clumsily-written rejected drafts (with Pim helping Angel on perfecting that poetic romance novel-esque prose), the boys left the letter at the bar and grill where the bartender worked a brunch shift. Angel smiled at finally letting that pent-up feeling out and when he thanked the boys, he would let them know if he accepted the coffee date. He was also pretty hyped upon realizing that he not only met THE Spaghetti Disco Diva himself, but also the fact that fae saved his day. “Yo, don’t forget about me, Charlie.” “…hey, you’re that dude who tweaked out in the middle of the intersection! I saw you when trying to get to work the other day and saw that, what drugs where you takin’ and where do I get ‘em anyway?” Charlie groaned while pinching the bridge of his nose: “It was frickin’ food poisoning, dawg!”

Finally, the most riveting, spine-tingling job of the day was….helping a car packed with bickering parents and screaming kids in the middle of the desert….and the solution was simple, really, all Pim had to do was scare the living bejeebus out of everyone into settling down by letting Brittany contort his face into the most terrifyingly ghoulish face befitting a demon out of hell and threatening to drag everyone to hell if they didn’t knock their respective shit off…and by golly, it worked like a charm and everyone apologized to each other and decided to make their traffic situation into a silly little game of bingo until the tow truck came, Pim and Charlie even played along with them!

“Well uh, today was surely eventful.” Charlie uttered, itching the back of his head. “Trust me, love, today was a cake walk compared to the Pandora’s Box I opened this weekend~” Pim suavely replied to his friend while taking a selfie. “So, I guess you’re like, an influencer now?” “Well, I haven’t thought of it that way…guess old, crusty-millennial me was thinking of the word socialite.” Charlie smirked, “Dude, relax you’re only 34 years old, and you don’t look a day past your twenties! Why else would virtually everyone across the globe wants to either ask you out or be in your shoes?” Pim giggled, slyly responding, “Easy on the Rizz, darling.” Charlie’s face flushed a warm, peachy orange in embarrassment upon realizing his reassurance to his co-worker came across as unintentional flirting… and it was made extra awkward considering his own girlfriend was beefing with his best friend. Charlie teased, trying to make a joke out of it to save the awkwardness of the situation while wagging his finger: “Ooh, you’re not getting to me, Pim Pimling!” Pim laughed, “Chill out, Charles~ I’m just fuckin’ with ya!” Charlie couldn’t help but smirk at his friend quoting Mr. Boss, even if that particular moment where he said it was when one of his pranks went too far for their tastes. “Zoey is extremely lucky to have you as her boo~” Charlie raised an eyebrow, “Boo, like a ghost?” “It’s an affectionate term for your significant other. I like the term bae myself, although I dunno if anyone still says that though!” “Bae? Boo? This stuff is newfangled jargon to me! You’re more up-to-date on this modern shit than me and I’m like, four years younger than you!” “No shame in growing old, Charlie, it’s a natural part of life.” Pim warmly reassured Charlie, giving him his own words of wisdom from eons ago. “Thanks Pim, you’re awesome, dude. What would I do without you?” “You’d have to be paired up with dollar store bargain-bin Benson and not have NEARLY as much of a great time.” The two little critters just about died of laughter, lost in their own quips, as even the perfect sunset curiously stopped for them and this moment. They savored every last minute until it was time to go back to the breakroom and clock in.

…

Pim lay blissfully on his pillowy-soft bed while reviewing the various comments he received from today’s selfies, comments ranging from parasocial simps virtually fist-fighting for his hand in marriage (or otherwise 😉) to compliments on his taste in fashion…of course as with all comments sections, there was at least one Debbie Downer stinking it up like a turd in a litterbox. “It’s supposed to be Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! Think of the children! #twosexes #makeamericastraightagain 🙏✝️🦅🇺🇸🍔” Pim rolled his eyes, muttering: “It’s like your just asking to get roasted…” Pim’s eyes widened with a devilishly toothy grin as Brittany fed his brain with ideas…..and all of a sudden that insignificant little comment was not only given a little heart by the author, it was straight-up pinned to the top of the comments and finished off with a tasteful and classy clapback worthy of a gentleman: “Bless you heart 🕊️🌈💖💞🫶”. As Pim continued scrolling, the notifications on his phone once-again blew up sky-high! Pim’s eyes widened in surprise how immediately the feisty and unpredictable calvary that was his followers immediately thrashing this rando. Now most of the replies where wisecracks but quite a few where particularly rage-filled, threatening to do the heinous act of finding where this person lived and stringing toilet paper all over their house and leaving a bag of burning dog shit on their step. Pim froze in shock at the sight of the perfectly-brewed brew-ha-ha that he and Brittany collaborated on….then he got up from his bed and walked into the kitchen to grab himself a raspberry rose Poppi and some cheesy poofs to snack on as he watched the fireworks on his phone go off. “This is better than The Mr. Frog Show!” Pim thought to himself as he cracked open his soda. “Pfft, that problematic hazbin had that bad pierce job coming.” Brittany quipped, making the fruity soft drink squirt out of Pim’s nose as he couldn’t stop cackling. “OH MY GOD, BRIT! YOU’RE KILLIN’ ME!!!!“

~

Charlie prepared to go to bed as he closed his gaming PC, he finally finished a whole bucket of Kentucky Fried Meeps and it was waaaay past his bedtime. Charlie polished off his Gatorade as he got out of his chair, stretching and yawning. “Man, those micro-transactions are getting ridiculous.” He lied down on his mattress and began the ever-unproductive bedtime routine of scrolling through on phone until he’d eventually pass out. Of course usually he’d bum around on Reddit and it’s channels for analog horror, lost media, Mr. Frog and political history…. but he was in the mood for Instagram at the moment, since he was anticipating for his girlfriend Zoey to announce another new episode of her podcast on how women where portrayed in media. While Charlie considered himself a “down the middle” kinda-guy, someone who would advocate for common-sense gun laws and complain about old media getting censored while sharing genuine “Protect Trans Kids” and “Black Lives Matter” posts on his insta stories (much to the ire of his conservative family members and friends who often lambasted him as woke), he did support his girlfriend Zoey’s podcast even if he disagreed with some of her points and was more than happy to signal boost the latest episode….but as he opened his feed, he had been immediately greeted to Pim’s latest selfie, and of course he’d see the chaos in the comments section. While all the replies had him chuckling to himself, his favorite comment and the only one he had the energy to give a little heart to was, of course, the first reply that kicked off the raging shit storm. “Atta boy, Pim.” When he finally remembered to check out Zoey’s page, the most recent post made him smile. It was an old pic of when her and Charlie hung out back in high-school. The then-16 year old Zoey in bobble-tie pigtails, a bedazzled Britney Spears crop-top shirt, a necklace with a sun-shaped pendant and skinny jeans long before she started wearing glasses regularly giving a big hug to her buddy-turn-boyfriend: an acne-ridden, braces-bearing Charlie donning a Mr. Frog t-shirt, baggy shorts a bandage on his nose and his hair a mess. Growing up for Charlie wasn’t exactly easy or fun, getting endlessly bullied for his appearance and getting into fights with other kids his age with the few friends he did have would move away one-by-one over the years…but Zoey, the school’s head cheerleader, was his one true friend who stuck by him at his lowest moments, especially when he was merely brushed off as the weird ugly tomboy who couldn’t get any guy to go with “her” to the dance even if “she” paid him, but Zoey still saw him as the funny, badass, smart and spirited soul with a hidden soft side she always brought out in him. Charlie was immediately nostalgia-struck, remembering the times they’d hang out after school and goof off at his place as he played his uncle’s instruments for her (some better than others) or when he would let her tend to the latest scar or bruise he got from yet-another fight. Every hour they spent playing on the SNES, every late-night vent session, everytime they’ve snuck into each other’s houses at night….it was all coming back to Charlie, drowning out the worse moments of his life that replayed in his head over and over everyday. Touched by the post, the teary-eyed and emotional Charlie liked the post and commented: “Who left this bowl of onions here?”

…

For the first time in about a week, Charlie hastily got to work that morning and found that Pim had already beat him to the punch it like he normally would have before he started copping a rebellious “baddie” attitude…only here, he obviously kept the latter. Pim had arrived to work with a sheer, periwinkle “casual-style” kimono jacket printed with silvery-foil stars and moons over a lacy black tank top with iridescent blue rhinestones and long velvety fingerless gloves topped with a silver-chain bracelet with blue stones and showing off dark blue nails with a teal shimmer with silver stars stickers, silky royal blue dress pants, a wide-brimmed black sun hat adorned with blue roses and a monarch butterfly, a long strand of cultured blue pearls mixed with apatite points paired with an crescent-shaped moonstone pendant on a silver chain. a Victorian-style silver monocle covering his smaller eye and finally completing the look with chunky black creepers decorated with silver chains with star and moon charms…..but that wasn’t all he brought with him to the breakroom today! “Charlie darling, you’re right on time! How very~” Pim called out while greeting his co-worker with a wave and a limp wrist as Charlie furrowed his eyebrows, “Very?” Either that was a movie reference or he really was way behind on modern slang! Pim clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention and to get to the point: “I have a fetch announcement to maaaake~” he sang in sing-song as he revealed a pink envelope with a golden wax seal which was already removed from the bottom half of the envelope, keeping the formal letter he just received in pristine condition to show off to the rest. “Me and Charlie have been cordially invited to a royal ball by the Princess of the Enchanted Forest! But that’s not all~ each one of us gets to take a plus-one! So….who would like to come with us on a night to remember?!” Alan raised an eyebrow, before responding: “Are you gonna embarrass the hell out of everyone with tacky slop like THAT?” before slapping his knee and laughing. “I was gonna consider taking you because a ritzy, glitzy, rich-bitchy royal ball full of gussied-up hotties would definitely gonna be right up your alley, but apparently you decided to take the role of the ditz and forget who you where talking to? Congrats on potentially blowing your one chance to actually dress with as much effort as you did for the anime convention….that one time.” Alan cringed as he felt that sick burn. “Well played, Pim, we’ll played.” Mr. Boss spoke up: “Well, I’d love to go spend a night in a fairytale castle and get drunk off my rocker, BUT I got some *ahem* nice gentlemen to pay back for helping advance my charity…otherwise I lose a finger! And I mean that figuratively of course- Haha! But I hope you, Charlie and whoever else tags along aaaaall have a helluva time!” “Eskawazejewaseshawaboyo?” “Oh Glep, you’re so small that I could sneak you inside my purse and you wouldn’t get busted!” Glep mischievously grinned. “I guess I could invite Alan…or maybe that suavé gentleman who took me home and cared for me after we met at Spaghetti Disco!” Alan was gonna make a wisecrack speculating if Pim was making that last part up, but he held his tongue. “Who are you gonna invite, Charlie?” Of course the answer was obvious. “If it’s okay, could we invite Zoey? I know she can be fickle with you and her misgendering you pisses me off too….but she’s a huge fantasy fan, it would mean a lot to her.” As Pim considered the idea, of course he could also hear his demonic bestie Brittany echo in his head: “Perhaps we could get that small-minded frumpy girl to finally respect you, like a bribe?” It did sound like a win-win for everyone involved, on the other hand, Pim immediately felt for Zoey here as he himself had to wait to visit the Enchanted Forest until he was a grown man. “Who am I to deny a happy couple some enchanted evening? Zoey can come as long as she gets my pronouns right for now on!” Charlie chuckled, shaking Pim’s hand. “Thanks, man, it’s a deal!”

Chapter Text

After coming home from work, Charlie immediately called up Zoey and notified her about the invitations he and Pim had received to the Princess of the Enchanted Forest’s Royal Ball and that they would happily add her as a plus-one…but only IF she would respect Pim’s pronouns and gender identity for now on, but of course, he had to add that if she didn’t wanna go, he wouldn’t go either. Of course, Zoey didn’t want to pass-up on an opportunity to live out her DnD/High Fantasy dreams for one night, so she peacefully obliged…..only there was a catch.  “Whaddya MEAN she wants me to take Amy as my plus-one?! PLEASE tell me you’re just rage-baiting again!” The outraged Pim spat over the phone in speaker-mode while filing faer nails on the couch, fuming over how his plans of inviting Peleeken had apparently been dashed. “Woah dude, don’t kill the messenger! I’m not the one who’s blindly wrapped around your sister’s finger and falling for her crocodile tears! Zoey agreed she’d refrain from referring to you as she/her if you took your sister Amy and…*sigh* she said you’d have to earn that respect by proving to her you can get along with Amy….look, I didn’t want her to get mad at both of us, so I had to agree! If I had things my way, I’d give it to her straight that she has zero business being around her and that you’re both victims in all of this! I know you’re not the bad sibling and that Amy’s a cruel, lying snake but….lol, when someone tells Zoey what she wants to hear, she can get pretty pushy and stubborn and-and….I don’t have the heart to say no to her, okay!?” Charlie defended himself while exasperated. Pim put aside faer fury and put himself in Charlie’s shoes: he has a girlfriend he adores in spite of her problematic tendencies, and for many a good reason. “Alright, fair deal, at least if I showed the bratzilla some brotherly love in spite of her outermost bitchery, it will get her new bestie off my case.” “Thanks, Pim, I owe you one! Man, Zoey’s gonna have the time of her life…” after the call ended and his nails where done, Pim rolled over on his stomach, face-in-pillow and threw an overdramatic hissy-fit over the lost chance of bringing a date. “It’s not fair!” Pim angrily squeaked into their pillow while kicking his legs in frustration, “Now my friends are gonna think I’m always gonna be the only single one! This is worse than when I sacrificed by date to Jennifer for that LOSER Shrimp!!” He growled while aggressively punching down his pillow. “Awww, Pimmy-Poo, don’t put yourself down like that!” Brittany cooed, her voice echoing like a tinkling bell in Pim’s head, “You may be single, sure, but there’s so many people offline-and-online who’d LOVE to get to know you! Oh heck, you’re probably gonna built a whole harem just by being there?” Pim whined, “But it’s not the same! Peleeken…I…I really like him and I kinda think that he likes me back…” they sheepishly admitted. That’s when Brittany decided to once-again play the little devil on whispering on Pim’s shoulder. “Pim, sweetie, do you remember that scene in Heathers?” Pim curiously asked: “W-which one?” “Oh, you-know, where Veronica is all like, Oh my god I killed my best friend! and then JD decided to frame it like a suicide?” Pim knew immediately where this was going and while he was a bit hesitant at the idea of potentially getting in trouble with an entire kingdom, he grinned at the potential of slow-dancing with Peleeken in that beautiful castle all night. “Okay, but we gotta make it as convincing as possible.” “Oh, that’ll be super easy! After all, we share the same demonic magic…” Pim’s eyes sparkled with a flair of mischief while being reminded of that fact. “I’m listening~”

Brittany had instructed Pim a performing an interesting ritual where she instructed him to draw a pentagram on the ground with a glittery marker, and lighting a purplish-black candle whose melted wax gave a sweet and exotic guava-lavender-vanilla scent, then laying down his and Charlie’s invitation beside three sheets of copy paper, three plain envelopes, a chunk of beeswax and a sprinkle of metallic gold glitter. As instructed by Brittany, Pim chants: “Effingo crustulum, effingo crustulum, effingo crustulum~ Ice-Threy’s the Arm-Chay!” …and presto: three blank replicas of the Princess’ invitations! All Pim needed to do now was copy the Princess’ handwriting, in which Brittany happily helped with by speeding up the process. After sealing the bootleg invitation, Pim snickered: “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this!” Brittany began to tease: “Oh Pim, you scamp! You absolutely MUSN’T get busted for passing these out…” Pim raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I? I mean, we made them, didn’t we? Besides, if I pass out these invites AND they bring their plus-ones: I sweep Peleeken off his feet, Alan will get over himself AND we’re all gonna have a night to remember!” Pim boasted while twirling in a waltz glowing with an aura of confidence. “…do you really wanna have your squad unintentionally squealing on you for forgery and potentially have you get in hot water with an entire kingdom?” Pim squealed in terror upon the idea of reliving his near-death experience in Spamtopia. “So what do I do with these anyway?! Augh, WHY did you have me make these anyways, you damn succubus!” Brittany chuckled at the petite curvy femboy’s theatrics, “Simple: you just slip it in their mailboxes, so none-the-wiser suspects…” suddenly Pim saw himself turn invisible, except for his robes. The humbled Pim sighed: “I know where this is going.” as he shed his robes and whatever-else, the invisible Pim clung onto the invitations as he slipped out of his cozy house and into the night. First he stopped at Alan’s apartment complex to leave the envelope by his door, then Peleeken’s house to slip his invite in the mailbox, and finally at Glep and Marge’s sprawling mansion to slip into their’s. Pim blushed upon his unique predicament: running around at night, invisible-yet-completely nude, all while delivering phony invitations to a high-profile event. Brittany teased once more: “Oh Pim, you naughty boy, look at you: running around butt-naked and foraging notes! Tsk-tsk.” Pim couldn’t help but nervously giggle, then striking a model-esque pose: “Aren’t I just the most scandalocious fish in the sea?” “Yes, darling, yes you are…oh and you have approximately twenty-seven minutes before this spell wears off so hurry before someone’s lucky enough to see you!” Pim shrieked as he dashed onto the way back to his own home.

…

The next day, Pim would come to find he kind-of overslepped that morning! Staring at his alarm clock in horror as he slipped through his usual 6:00am alarm, the clock itself indicated that it was 6:57am. In a lightening-like rush, Pim immediately beelined for the bathroom to brush his teeth, style his nerve-ending and spritz some floral-fruity body mist all over himself, slipped into a pale pastel-pink gingham shirt embroidered with roses and a pair of warm salmon-pink jorts with glittery pink jelly sandals while accessorizing with a rose quartz bracelet, a silver chain with an carved mother-of-pearl focal pendant in the shape of a rose with a iridescent pearl in the middle and a Pokemon purse from Loungefly themed after the fairy-type Sylveon, then finally he grabbed a bottled chai-latte drink, overnight oats with blueberries and a single-serve package of diced cheese and chopped pork jerky to put in his lunchbox before hitting the road as fast as he could. Once he got there, he arrived just in time to see Alan and Glep jubilantly celebrate their respective surprises that they found in the mail that morning. “Oh my god, Glep, I’m finally gonna make an impression with ra-oil-tea.” Alan gushed while keeping his monotone dialect, fanning himself with his invitation at himself.  Glep was bouncing on his beanbag chair like a trampoline while showing off the invite in his and his wife’s names as if he was waving around a crisp dollar bill. Pim knew he couldn’t say much, so he smiled and gestured to his co-workers: “Congratulations, Alan and Glep, I’m so happy for you two! Now we can all go together.” Charlie, who had been scrolling through Reddit on his phone, had to add his two-cents: “Hold the phone, the Princess only personally invites people she knows about! How the hell did you two get invited anyways?” Pim’s subtly-proud smile turned into one of his “awkward” shit-eating grins, those exact awkward grins that had many who have seen it had to jokingly comparing Pim to a tiny pink piranha. “Well, maybe the Princess invited Mr. Boss prior but he could have declined and requested for Alan, Glep and Marge to go in his place?” The still-suspicious Charlie processes this answer carefully, then his stern expression melts into a relaxed smile as he shrugs in agreement. “Yeah, that checks out.” Speaking of which, the phone rang and Mr. Boss immediately sprinted to pick it up and answer. After putting it down, he announces: “Boys, I got a call from a super-distressed fashionista who’s having a touch time picking out her ensemble for a very important and super-spicy hot date!” Pim proudly posted while presenting himself: “Well, she’s come to the right place~” Alan squinted at Pim’s more simple outfit, being more accustomed to his more outrageous looks by now. “With a downgrade like that?” Pim fired back: “Says Mr. No Shirt-No Shoes-No Service!” Mr. Boss immediately whipped out an flashy folding-fan fit for a drag queen and waved it at himself, awing: “Ooooh SNAP!” Alan groaned while pinching the bridge of his nose, accepting defeat once-again: “Well played, Pimling, well played.” Charlie snorted, adding his two-cents: “Call Alan: Thanksgiving, because we’re all having turkey for dinner!” Unfortunately for Charlie, the joke didn’t land as well at it should have, being met with confusion more than laughs. “Thanksgiving was four months ago.” Alan snarked, as Pim cheekily added: “Yeah, I would have gone with something more befitting for this season: the Alan Red Lobster Roast!” cue the entire room cracking up HARD, to the point where even Alan had to agree and laugh alongside his co-workers and at himself. “Okay, that was a good one!” Alan wiped a tear from his eye from how hard he laughed. While Charlie laughed alongside his co-workers at the riff, deep down he was starting to feel self-concious, as if he was losing his touch somehow.

…

Pim and Charlie raced down to the formal boutique at the mall whose exteriors windows where displayed in a gorgeously-put together evening gown fit for an eleganza walk, the shop in-which where their client had been located. Stepping inside with his friend, our little pink fashionista was day-dreamingly reminiscent of when he first stepped inside this charming little dress salon and had obtained a certain turquoise dress that put him on the map….too bad the moment was killed when he and Charlie began overhearing the commotion from within the building. “You call this fit for a Princess?! It’s like I’m draped in a cheap costume! I’d get something more tasteful at Spirit!” “Well, my sincerest apologies, your highness, but you specifically ASKED for this outfit, I was just following orders.” When Charlie and Pim would first witness the thematic drama unfolding before their eyes, they took a gander at the client of the day and knew from the get-go it was gonna be an absolute bitch of a job! There was Amy Pimling, in an otherwise lovely mermaid-style dress that was themed after a mermaid with blue and green sequins for scales, embroidered with strands of pearls and two clamshell decorations on the upper bodice, throwing a childish tantrum at the tall, curvaceous, purple seamstress critter with short periwinkle hair and done-up makeup donning a black sweater, gold hoop earrings, a gold necklace with a golden starfish necklace, dark navy jeans and specs who was already having enough of her nonsense for one day. Pim, who was well-acquainted and grateful toward the seamstress, stepped up go put Amy in her place with a stern and matter-of-fact tone. “Amelia Sarah Pimling, you better start showing THE Pat DeVine some respect!” Amy jumped at the voice and snapped her head to find her little brother with his hands on his hips and stamping his foot like a rabbit, prompting the seamstress to cackle. “Pimothy, sweetheart!” Pat greeted while holding her hand open gesturing toward a handshake to which Pim happily accepted, as she continued: “I saw you tagged me on your socials when crediting me for that dress, business has been going much faster these days and I’ve even been given the opportunity to help put-together the ensemble for The Princess of the Enchanted Forest!” Pim responds curtly: “Well, I felt bad not acknowledging you after I got drunk and took those selfies without a single thought, in fact my boss saw those pics called me out for not taking cleaner photos to give the dress proper justice!” Pat chuckled, “Oh Pimmy-Poo, trust me, you’ve brought that dress justice from the moment you first tried it on!” Pim blushed, recalling how much skin they shown off in that outfit alone. “Yeah, guess you weren’t joking when you said I had the perfect silhouette for that one! I gotta wear that again sometime, perhaps for New Year’s.”

As much as Charlie was happy to see Pim and Pat’s jovial interactions, he had to remind his little pink sidekick why they had arrived in the first place: “Maybe you two can work your magic on our fickle client here?”, pointing toward the steamed Amy with her arms folded and on the verge of another hissy fit. “Oh, right.” Pat mumbled in annoyance. Pim looked up at Amy with a comforting tone: “Now Amy, my dear sister, I think this dress looks quite ravishing on you! It fits your frame and the colors are perfectly arranged, oh and it definitely fits the high-fantasy theme of the event!” Amy gritted her teeth in discomfort: “Yeah but it feels like I’m wearing shrink wrap! I can barely move inside this thing!” Charlie couldn’t help but sneak in a quip: “Oh yeah? Maybe you shed some pounds, then it’ll fit perfectly!” as Amy hurled back: “You’re like, the last person in earth who should be telling anyone that!” Charlie flushed in embarrassment at how yet-another joke didn’t land as it should have. “Maybe you just need a different dress? Something flowing and poofy so that you can move around in?” Pat suggested, Pim with contributing to the idea: “And it will absolutely fit your frame!” Amy rolled her eyes, whining, “What’s with all the fat people acting like I need to lose weight today?”… After an hour or three of browsing, adjusting, accessorizing and overall collaborating, Pim and Pat proudly presented Amy to her reflection in the mirror, and thankfully, she loved it. Amy stood there mesmerized by her regal attire, a navy blue sequin corset and a purplish-blue bodice showing off her bust with a generous window with a gold collar on the back to support the flowing dark blue-to-purple-to red cape in the back, red puffy sleeves with gold fabric slits, a puffy red overskirt draping a layered gold-fabric chiffon to match the sleeves and the outfit overall generously decorated in red ribbons, frills and plated-gold bead strands. “Well will you look at that, Snow White’s all grown up!” Pat complimented. “All she needs is a crown!” Pim suggested as Amy was enchanted by her own appearance. “It’s fucking perfect. Pim, you did something right for once.” “Bless your heart, dearest sister.” Pat and Charlie shared a good laugh with Pim as Amy masked her frustration with a smile plus her genuine gratitude at how well the dress turned out. Now if only she could put Pim down and show him whisk boss…but she just couldn’t as of late, the shamelessly-stubborn confidence Pim was putting up prevented Amy from making him lose his patience and look like the bigger asshole to make herself look like the better sibling to save some face, but Pim’s confidence and cool demeanor was a clear indicator of how he was getting wiser to her traps. Amy had to think outside the box to make an ass out of Pim.

….

After clocking out of work for the day, Pim came back home, took a quick shower, slipped on a Mother Mother t-shirt and his Gwimbly lounge pants, made himself a tall sandwich with odd fixings that would make his best friend Charlie proud, gathered two bag of chips and a liter of Baja Blast and booted up his TV to watch the newest episode of Drag Race. Just then his cell phone rang, prompting Pim to look at the ID and get a huge smile on his face. “Peleeken! How are you, buddy?” “Woo Hoo! Pim, you’re not gonna believe this but I got invited to the Princess of the Enchanted Forest’s royal ball! I’m thinking of bringing you as a plus-one!” “Oh, actually I got an invite too, I was gonna bring you as a plus-one until you told me you got an invite too.” “Ahahaha, how magical!” Pim’s heart melted at that adorable laugh, he just wanted to kiss Peleeken’s face right now. “Thought about who you’re bringing as a plus-one? I’m bringing my sister because, we’ll, she’s a real princess.” “Oh, I’ve thought about it myself! I have two people in mind but I can only add one, bummer.” “I know exactly how you feel.” As the conversation carried on, Pim heard his doorbell ring. “Excuse me a second-“ Pim put down the phone and opened the door, there on his stoop was a lovely bouquet of flowers with a hand-written note attached:

Thank you for making my dreams come true, see you this Friday- xoxoxoxox Amy

Considering this had been the first time his own sister had made such a loving gesture, sweet tears of joy perked in Pim’s bulbous eyes. He brought the bouquet in and placed it on his table and picked the phone back up, failing to hold back sobs and stimming by fanning himself with his free hand. “Oh my God, Peleeken, it finally happened!! Amy send me flowers!! She’s actually grateful that I helped her for once!! My heart-“ realizing how Pim was definitely in need of it, Peleeken greatly encouraged his friend to let it all out and not to hold back.

~

Charlie had been having a particularly uneventful night, moreso than usual. Since all the group chats that he and his friends where on haven’t been particularly active for a while and for once he felt particularly burnt out on playing video games, Charlie instead had been binge-watching various YouTube videos on internet rabbit holes, lost media and lolcow commentaries with a side of (parasite-free!) kabobs and various cans of Monster. Charlie cracked up at the antics of the middle-aged man who threw outrageous temper-tantrums when confronted about faking his autism for…let’s say: hedonistic reasons. “Oh, that Andy! Always playin’ the victim.” Of course after another two hours of mindlessly rotting his brain with his interests, Charlie was drowsily trying to stay awake….of course today’s job was draining on him! All that girly fashion nonsense was absolutely cramping on his wannabe macho alpha male self! Charlie groaned and shut his laptop off, closing it, shoved the remains of his kabobs in the fridge and slumped into bed, murmuring to him brain to quit pushing back up the thoughts and feelings he desperately shoved back down everytime it bubbled up.

….

With a hazy vision, Charlie stumbled into work and boy howdy was he tardy because everyone already beat him to the punch. Pim was dressed in all-rose gold tones, donning a Swarovski-crystal bikini and matching platform thigh-high boots with fur-trim cape draped over his shoulder and an orient tiara perched on top of his head, all while showing off his sensual and flashy attire to an impressed Alan, Glep and Mr. Boss….and for some reason, Glep’s beautiful wife Marge was there. Everyone was glazing Pim with praise and admiration to which Pim curtsied in response. “You’re all too kind.” “Say Pim, y’wanna hang out and get pizza after work?” Charlie casually asked, only for Pim to act as if he didn’t hear a thing and continued chattering with the rest of the group. “I know, everyone: let’s go out after work and I’ll pay for a big pepperoni pizza for all of us to split!” Everyone resumed heaping praise onto Pim, with Charlie trying to speak up and claim it was his idea, only to be progressively ignored. “Oh and Pim, congratulations on you and the yellow one’s hard work since this year started: you guys started off strong!” Pim giggled, with a limp-wrist gesture as if he was badly-pretending to be modest: “Of course it was mainly my doing~ I am the life of the party!” Charlie felt progressively smaller and fading more into the background as everyone else were having an ice time. “…oh and Charles?” Pim called while walking up to Charlie, who had started to perk up at being noticed, “Yeah buddy, what’s up?” “I was wondering if you could like, not take up so much space when we’re out today? You’re always blocking my radiance.” Pim threw his cloak at Charlie and strutted back to the cheering group. “Oh my gosh, remember when Chuck or whatever his name is got drunk and had grease all over his face at Christmas Dinner? How embarrassing! How can Zoey stand it?” “It’s like that time he got drunk at my wedding and the brute threatened Pim with a cheap plastic dagger! That gullible oaf actually thought Jombo wanted to be his friend!” “It’s like he didn’t tell Pim about that one group chat because nobody else wants to be his friend so he has to shun the popular one as some lame way of coping with his jealousy!” “Yeah, what a loser.” “Oh come now guys, I think we’re all being too harsh….Charlie’s just a greasy little nobody but he isn’t a complete failure!” As everyone’s gossip started sounding nastier, the usually cheery imagery and folks at the break room started getting more distorted and warped. Alan and Glep started resembling a snake and a gecko respectively, Mr. Boss had big sharp teeth, sunken-in-eyes and scraggly hair while cackling like Victor Frankenstein, Marge looked less like a preppy blonde and more like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark as she took an apple and drank all the red from it and Pim…my god Pim, his eyes glowed gold and his pupils blood red, he was flying around the room with gargoyle wings and two crescent-esque horns on his head and his rose gold attire had been replaced with a gothic, princely ensemble…even the tiara upon his head was replaced with a crown made of bones. Charlie tried to escape, only for the demonic Pim to swoop at Charlie with a dagger and-

…

Charlie immediately woke up screaming bloody murder, snapping his eyes open and looking around to find himself back in his crappy apartment complex with the sun’s rays peaking out of his blinds and thus, prompting Charlie to get on his knees and pray thanks to the Lord. Later that morning Charlie freshened up, put on his usual clothes and arrived just barely on-time for work, expecting to see Pim. “So, has Pim showed up yet or is he fashionably late again?” Alan, who was washing dishes, craned his neck toward Charlie: “Oh, haven’t you heard? Pim called in from work, says he got this horrible allergic reaction from a bouquet of flowers that his sister sent.” Charlie’s face drooped as he groaned. “Damn it, it just figures, she probably did that on purpose for all we know!” Mr. Boss stepped in the room and attempted lighten Charlie’s mood. “Aw, cheer up, Charlie! You don’t have to worry about winging it solo because I have a special back-up partner to assign you with!” And with that, Mr. Boss pulled a whistle out of his pocket and blew it loudly as possible. “Ah! My ears-“ Charlie cringed as he plugged his ears with his fingers. Suddenly, a certain spherical figure entered the scene to loudly and obnoxiously greet the rest. “WHAZZUUUUUP?!” Charlie stared at his energetic, babbling, odd-ball substitute in horror and turned his eyes to Mr. Boss as if he was silently pleading for his superior not to subject him to the toothy, yellow abomination. “I’m sure you and Squim will hit it off perfectly!” 

~

“I’m hideous, aren’t I?” Pim was curled up in a ball and sobbing uncontrollably. “Oh Pimmy-Poo, it doesn’t look that bad, I mean I see green people running around all over this town!” Pim sniffled, “It’s not about that…” he got up out of his bed and looked at himself in his body-length mirror, staring in horror at how the left-half of his body had turned a pale seafoam green, his hand and leg on that side had turned rough and scale-like and his eye on that side yellow with his pupil turned red, promoting him to wail in anguish, “I’M AN ABOMINATIOOOON!!!” Pim jumped into bed and loudly sobbed unintelligible blubbering how he was going to be endlessly ridiculed and no-longer considered America’s “Pretty-Pink” Sweetheart. “Oh Pim…relax, it will only last for a week!” Brittany reassured, until she took a closer listen to Pim’s muffled cries, asking: “Wait, whaddya mean the ball is the night after tomorrow?!” As Brittany continued letting Pim cry it out, until she had a brilliant idea. “Hey uh, Pim, y’know that funky hat you bought at the mall during your big shopping spree? I’d like for you to try that on, trust me.” Pim sniffled, “Okay, I guess.” as he slid out of bed and dug through his closet, rustling up a glittery wide-brimmed hat that was black on one-side and pink on the other. As Pim looked in the mirror, suddenly the inspiration struck him like lightning, as he grabbed a grey hoodie, sweats, a face-mask and glasses so nobody could tell it was him. “Britt, we have to go down to Pat’s Boutique, toot-sweet.”

Chapter Text

After a week of much anticipation, preparation and hi-jinx, the day that was marked on everyone’s calendars, physical and mental, had finally arrived: where many a lucky guest would be in for a night of dancing, eating, drinking, gossip and merriment….and in an exotic and whimsical Enchanted Forest, no less! “Thank you for inviting me, Charlie, you rock!” A very grateful Zoey told her boyfriend of whom she had been lovingly-clinging to all while she was done-up in a warm salmon-pink flowered tulle ballgown with poofy sleeves and the fabric of which was sparkling with a mix of glitter and pink, orange and champagne crystals with silver accents. Her hair was done-up in a bun with a silver magic wand-like hair stick topped with a sunburst adorned with a high-quality sunstone in the center to go with her a combo of silver hoops and ear-cuffs graced with pink pearls (giving the illusion of pointy elf ears), and the heart-shaped silver bezel ornament holding a champagne-tone zirconia cluster sewn on her glittery peach choker of which accompanied the strand of pink pearls around her neckline. Her boyfriend in question, Charlie, who wore a simple black jacket and pants with a pale green shirt underneath with a dark green tie, responded: “Anything for my Elven Princess!” Zoey smirked and raised an eyebrow, asking: “So, you promise to go easy on the liquor this time? We really wanna make a good impression here.” Charlie’s face burnt a vivid orange, sheepishly agreeing: “O-of course! After all, you’re gonna respect my little buddy’s pronouns, right?” Zoey gracefully nodded, even if Pim’s vivid gender identity was confusing for Zoey, she wanted to show her appreciation for this opportunity she had waited for since she was a little girl. Amongst the flocking crowd was Marge, in a sleek periwinkle gown with trumpet sleeves showing-off her figure and bust, layered with a transparent iridescent cloth, paired with her platinum star-shaped sapphire earrings and a matching necklace with star-shaped chains holding a small, moon-shaped pendant carved from blue chalcedony. Casually riding in the front pocket of her holographic star-shaped handbag was Glep (dressed in an elaborate purple wizard costume and a fake beard) popping out of the front pocket to wave to two of his friends. “Hey guys, you made it!” Charlie called to the fellow-couple, with Zoey and Marge embracing in a sisterly-like hug. “I’m so glad you can make it!” “Oh Zoey, pookie, you look simply ravishing tonight.” Marge cooed in a motherly tone as she hugged Zoey back. “Hey Glep, nice upgrade from your usual ‘fit.” Charlie jokingly complimented at the little green critter poking out of his wife’s handbag. Joining the group was Alan, draped in a flowing white gown with a slit to reveal golden sandal-pumps, with the left side covered in gold-plated armor that went down to his arm and a matching headpiece resembling golden snakes squiggling on-top of his head. “Make way for the love child of Midas and Meh-du-saaaaah~” hissed Alan while popping out a shiny golden fan to show off his gilded aesthetic. “Oh, Alan, you look lovely!” Zoey complimented, Marge joining in: “Like a true Greek Goddess!”.

As the five progressed further into the ballroom, Miss “Snow White All-Grown-Up” was spotted mingling with a group of Renaissance Men who where enraptured by her appearance, and sharing them a story of how she pranked “some jealous nobody” with a bouquet of flowers they where allergic to, before abruptly stopping as her eyes met Zoey’s, replacing her snarky tone with a sweeter one: “Oh Zoey, I’m so glad you talked my wicked, nasty little sister into letting me come! She never invites me to parties like this.” “I’m glad Pim is finally coming around, too.” Zoey comforted her while gesturing an offer for a hug, of which Amy immediately took while pretending to get emotional, to which the rest of the Smilers plus Marge could only roll their eyes with the knowledge that Pim had tried to invite Amy over for many events, only to be greeted with a no-show. “Where is he, anyway?” Alan asked. “I dunno, he’s been out of work for two days, I wonder if he got cold feet and bailed.” Charlie answered with a sympathetic tone, of course, Amy just had to interject: “Well, it serves her right for calling me an embarrassment to the family after I politely requested the seamstress to fix my dress.” Zoey gasped, outraged: “That is so cruel!” Charlie growled in frustration: “I was there when it happened, except for the fact that Pim did NOT call you any names whatsoever! He told you to quit throwing a tantrum like a spoiled-“ but before Charlie could finish his tangent, a group of fairies blew their trumpets as one of them announced the arrival of The Princess of the Enchanted Forest. On the upper deck of the grand staircase, her majesty arrived into the scene wearing a red, layered “petal” organza with thousands of roses of the same tone sewn on the bottom layer, she also wore a silver, pointed crown adorned with rubies and a rose garland at the bottom. The dress shimmered with genuine fairy dust in the light. “Thank you one and all for coming here tonight for a very important occasion! On this day just a couple years ago, a very brave little critter killed my infamous stalker and saved my life!” Unveiled behind the Princess was an elaborately-painted and heavily-romanticized portrait of The Princess in her outfit from that very day holding hands with an angelicesque Pim bearing wings and a halo…and in lieu of those ghastly Gollum-esque rags was a white Regency-era pedestal dress for the sake of artistic liberties. The reveal of the grand portrait was met with a roaring applause. “Wait a minute, where is he anyway?” asked the curious Princess, keeping an eye out for the guest of honor in a crowd of excited guests. “I could have sworn I sent him an invite-“ suddenly right under the deck and between where the two wings of stairs ended, an explosion of pink and green fog peppered with “star and moon” confetti was set off with a bombastic tone of a familiar Aussie accented-voice proudly proclaiming: “IT’S MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” The fog unveiled to reveal Pim in perhaps his most elaborate look yet, an ensemble consisting of a witch hat with a garland of roses, tulips and poppies, a Swarovski-beaded robe with a long, layered “showgirl” skirt in a similar flowered tulle-style to Zoey’s ballgown that was layered like the one the Princess had been wearing, the robes showing off a large window for his bare chest and under the skirt he wore “Harley-Quinn” split-color short-shorts that had been entirely beaded with Swarovski like sequins. The whole ensemble’s color scheme and aesthetics had been split in half and perfectly-coordinated with the side of his body that indicated his lingering allergic reaction: the left/“green” half of his body was a shimmery black with purple glitter and iridescent green beads and the right side of his body that was still pink was a holographic white with a blue tint with pink glitter and iridescent pink beads. The last two finishing touches to Pim’s unconventional evening look was enchanted by a mis-matched pair of iced-out heeled silver slippers (the left slipper being a deep emerald green and the latter was the same tone as a pink tourmaline) and a split-color (black on the left, white with the pale blue tint on the right, matching colors and fabrics with his witch hat) lacy-textured cape that doubled as train following Pim from behind. Even his long, press-on nails decorated in rhinestones and makeup peppered with stick-on body jewels reflected his bewitching aesthetic. “LOOK, IT’S PIM!!!!” A small blue critter wearing a gold tulle gown and tiara cried within the crowd. Needless to say, the already-excited crowd went absolutely bonkers, a sea of cheers echoed throughout the ballroom, all chanting Pim’s name. Grinning ear-to-ear, Pim waved and blew kisses to the rowdy guests as he walked up the stairs to greet the Princess with a curtsy. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, your majesty.” “It’s a pleasure seeing you too…in fact I’ve been seeing you a lot lately, on my Twitter feed.” The two shared a hearty laugh and hugged. “I’m gonna go get some grub, Zoey, you want anything?” asked Charlie, to which Zoey replied: “Just a glass of punch, please.” Charlie nodded and made a beeline to the banquet table laid out with endless goodies, recognizing some Enchanted Forest natives he rescued all those years ago during his “hero” stint. A green goblin ferociously chomping on a comically-large leg of mutton, a couple of fairies in dresses made of leaves and flowers and a mermaid who appeared to have been temporarily granted legs for one night donning a shimmery teal dress-suit. “Yo, it’s me, guys!” Charlie called out with a peace sign, but he was met with confused looks and silence. “Who are you?” The goblin asked before taking another large bite of his mutton leg. “It’s me, Charlie, the hero! Remember all that cool stuff I did years ago?” Still didn’t ring a bell. “I mean I was there slaying all those monsters and saving people and- and my sidekick at the time, Mip even came up with this epic theme song and everything!” The guests went from baffled to offended at the mere mention of Mip. “So you’re that guy who willingly hung out with the creep who sent that bomb to our Princess?” The mermaid asked while wincing in a disgusted tone as the fairies turned their noses up at Charlie and flew away. “-not to mention you ditched Pim, freakin’ Pim! America’s Sweetheart!” The goblin scolded while pointing at Charlie in accusation before he and the disturbed Mermaid left Charlie behind at the table. Feeling a ping of dejection and guilt upon how he drove Pim to temporary madness that day, Charlie sighed, “So, that’s how I made Pim feel?”, prompting him to grab a glass, filling it with punch and slugging it down to ease the pain….and then hastily slugging down the second drink before filling it up a third time and grabbing another glass to fill for his girlfriend, finally he rummaged through his pocket to pull out a rolled-up zip log bag he stashed with snacks until taking off. As Charlie walked away from the table and finding his way back to Zoey, he noticed some more figures completely ignoring him or awkwardly turning away from him. Unable to bear his heavy feelings cropping up again, Charlie muttered to himself: “Dear God, give a fat yellow jerk a break!”

As much fun Pim was having dancing, chatting it up with various folks and showing off, he was trying his best to bottle up an anxious worry of his of his that kept increasing as the night progressed, and that was wondering where the hell Peleeken was. As Pim kept acting like everything was simply peaches and cream, he felt as if many an stressful scenario theorizing Peleeken’s absence. “What if he got sick and couldn’t come? What if he felt ashamed of hanging out with me? What if he got into an accident?!” As Brittany’s voice ringing inside of Pim’s head failed to internally calm him down, she took the wheel and had Pim immediately excuse himself to the bathroom stalls, which where surprisingly modern to the rest of the archaic medieval castle, to calm down with a box-breathing technique. “Keep breathing….sloooow and deep. Better now?” Pim weakly responded with a half-hearted “I guess.” Pim walked out of the stalls out of his own free will. Much to his luck, he saw from a far was his beloved Peleeken decked-out in tones of purple, pink, lavender and periwinkle somewhat-akin to a cross between a Magical Girl and a character from a Shakespearian play: a frilly blouse with a sequin vest, poofy sleeves adorned with silk flowers and glittery butterflies, poofy shorts, silky white gloves, a sheer organza showgirl skirt in layers with iridescent glitter and sheen decorated like his sleeves, a veil of matching fabric as the skirt attached to two bouquet clusters on each side of his head of which where both crafted from petunias, violets, pansies, violets and roses and faceted crystalline slippers in an periwinkle hue eached topped with silver butterfly ornament...perhaps Pim may have inspired Peleeken to show off more of his feminine side. “Peleeken!” Pim squeaked out-loud as he ran up to Peleeken with his arms wide open with the train from his cape following him from behind, feeling like the protagonist of a dramatic romance novel. “Pim!” Peleeken cried back, accepting the hug. “I was very worried about you, because of your allergy and stuff.” said Peleeken while he and Pim held each other close. “I was initially too afraid to come because I was scared of people thinking I looked weird…and even then I definitely had balls coming here like this! Hopefully me going for an avant-garde display had everyone thinking I just did my makeup!” Pim admitted with a nervous giggle, as Peleeken longingly looked at Pim with a reassuring smile. “Oh Pim, look at you, you’re beautiful…allergy-or-not.” Of course Pim was just-now getting used to everybody nominating him as a contender for “Sexiest Person of 2026” after going viral, but those words felt more meaningful coming out of somebody he’s known since childhood. “You know, Peleeken, you’re rather beautiful yourself.” Pim’s soft-spoken flirting immediately made Peleeken blush. When the DJ announced he was playing a tune called “I Might Be In Love With You”, the two where immediately thinking the same thing. “May…I have this dance?” Pim sheepishly asked, not expecting Peleeken to immediately grab Pim’s hand and take him to the dance floor. “Yaaaay!! I love slow-dancing to love songs!” Peleeken squealed as Pim’s face lit up in a rosy red as the taller orange critter started twirling him around. This wasn’t exactly the first time Pim had danced like this, after all there was that time where he was a goofy, awkward egg of an adolescent deep into his baby weeb phase where he and one of his old flames from his school days have made spectacles out of themselves at a memorable school dance before his parents furiously chewed “her” out for “creepily dating other girls”, accusing him of acting out for attention and the girl’s parents weren’t exactly accepting either, forcing their own daughter to transfer out of that school to a Christian private school. The next person he dated and inevitably danced with was considered to be the most handsome critter by the rest of his class, and he and Pim performed a much more elegant waltz at Prom… but he was also quite the shallow jerk who started gaslighting Pim into thinking he wasn’t actually trans or genderfluid and was just a confused tomboy, using the fact that he wasn’t “out-out” yet as a lame excuse. While Pim had shared more dances with previous dates in his lifetime, hilariously the last person he danced with like this was none other than legendary bounty hunter Spike Spiegel…not that either of the would exactly remember that anyways! This particular occasion felt special to Pim, this dream-like waltz he shared with Peleeken felt like they where floating upon clouds, like Pim had died with Peleeken and the two had finally ascended to heaven. Peleeken rested his head upon Pim’s shoulder as Pim held him even closer, the two feeling a warm aura around themselves as if the Goddess of Love blessed them in a ritualistic marriage of the spirits. Pim may have been disregarded by Zoey to have been a haughty and spiteful witch out to get “Snow White”, but Peleeken made him feel like he was Cinderella who captured Prince Charming’s heart. While Pim still carried on slow-dancing with the blissful Peleeken, the pink-and-green critter’s eyes caught Charlie, stumbling like a deer learning how to walk accompanied by a bespectacled red-headed woman in a pink gown whom the intoxicated critter had greatly mistaken for Zoey. The tipsy elf chuckled, not minding the attention one bit: “My, a gentleman you be!” she spoke in a British accent, while a short, stout dwarf in a suit was hot on their tail, and boy she was pissed! Knowing exactly where this was heading, Pim politely asked Peleeken to breakaway for a bit to intervene. Peleeken, being as loyal as a golden retriever, followed Pim in case things got messier. “Charlie! That’s not Zoey! Neither of you are sober either!” Pim cried out as the dwarf cried out while getting between them, prompting Charlie, who certainly wasn’t in his right mind, to sloppily threaten: “Back off my girlfriend, *burp* you sawed-off squirt!” while shoving Pim away. Pim’s PTSD was kicking in, remembering how Charlie was drunk at the Boss’ wedding when he threatened him with the fake dagger, combined with the lingering dejection he felt when Charlie was hanging out with Mip. Pim got up, dusted himself off and charged at his inebriated friend who was already putting up his dukes. “CHARLIE, GO HOME, YOU’RE DRUNK!” Pim ferociously roared as he tackled Charlie and thus, the two critters began to brawl. The dwarf reunited with her elf wife, greatly benefiting the distraction as she cried out: “Thanks, little pink laddy, I owe y’one!” before she escaped the guests surrounding the dramatic scene and chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in excitement, crowding Peleeken crying out for Pim. As the Princess herself watched the drama unfold, the fairies surrounding her asked if it would do any good to summon the guards to escort Pim and Charlie out of the ballroom, but to their surprise, the Princess had casually answered: “Oh, what’s the use? Every freakin’ time I throw a party, there’s always a brawl between a handful of boozy chuckleheads…it’s a tradition at this point!” Back at the unfolding chaos ion the ballroom floor, Zoey, who had just witnessed Charlie with the other woman, had been following him with a stern look on her face and unfortunately lost track thanks to the growing crowd taking delight in the drama. Once Zoey wriggled her way through the rowdy audience to scold at Charlie for breaking his promise, she gasped in horror at Pim, straddled on top of the drunk Charlie, punching him square in the jaw as a tooth flew out of the latter’s mouth. As infuriated as she was at Charlie, she was even angrier at Pim for laying a hand on her man. “GET OFF MY BOYFRIEND, GREENIE!” She screamed as she ripped Pim away from Charlie and threw him down on the ground, kicking the sherbet-colored critter right in the ass. “I don’t care what your pronouns or identity is, keep your hands to yourself!” Then she turned to Charlie, scolding, “…and as for YOU, mister! You’ve embarrassed me enough for one night! I’m taking you home before they throw you in the drunk tank!” The disappointed crowd dissipated like steam from a cooling kettle after being taken off the stove, leaving Pim to his knees on the floor feeling a mix of emotions, sympathy for Zoey upon the night she dreamed of for a long time being unceremoniously ruined, and horror at himself for his outburst….then Zoey herself sharply glared at Pim, while carrying a drunken, snickering Charlie trapped in La-La Land. “Amy was a hundred-percent right about you, you are just a nasty rotten thing, and you just better stay the FUCK away from my boyfriend, you stupid evil skank!” No matter how Brittany could calm him down, Pim couldn’t take being in the ballroom anymore. As Peleeken tried to get to Pim, his date ran past him in tears, leaving behind an emerald slipper in his path. “Pim?! Wait!” From far away, Amy smirked as she uploaded the footage of the uncensored drama onto her Twitter, using her brother’s new-found fame as the explosive diva to win her followers back, even if just for his shenanigans and her relation to him.

…

While following Pim and holding onto the abandoned slipper, Peleeken found himself in the sprawling garden of the castle at night, bursting with exotic flora and fauna with opulently decorated marble statues and ponds, all lit up in the moonlight. “P-pim?” The orange critter stuttered, not seeing his date anywhere, until he heard faint, muffled cries from afar. Following the distressing sound with increasing worry, Peleeken finally found Pim under a willow tree, collapsed into his knees and crying onto a bench into his hat. “Pim?” Peleeken softly called, not out-loud but audible enough so that Pim could hear. “Please leave me be, before I somehow ruin your good time, too!” Pim wheezed, but Peleeken did not heed his refusal, instead Peleeken sat on the bench and held Pim’s hands in his, cooing with words of attempted comfort, “Pim, you did the right thing, Charlie was making an ass out of himself and it could have lead to a real big disaster! You where being a good friend.” Pim looked up, his face full of gushing tears as he let out a distressed wail: “NO, I’m NOT a good friend! I’m not a good friend at all! I’m a piece of shit who ruined everything!!!” Pim uncontrollably sobbed as Peleeken was trying to think of what to do next. Peleeken took one of Pim’s hands and raised it a bit, turning his eyes to Pim longingly, with more comforting words: “Pim, please don’t let Zoey and Amy make you think otherwise, you’re so kind and brave and handsome and pretty…and-and Zoey and Amy are nasty and mean because they’re a-always harsh in’ your mellow and stuff! If they could only see what a beautiful soul you are, like I have for so long…” his head craned closer to Pim’s green hand, “…you have no idea how long I’ve waited to dance with you like that.” concluding his speech with a loving peck on Pim’s hand. After a few minutes of taking all his vibrant, tangled emotions in, Pim immediately jumped up in Peleeken’s arms to reciprocate his affection. “Peleeken, you’re the beautiful soul!!” Pim cried as he kissed Peleeken on the cheek. The two started making out passionately on the bench under the willow tree. In Peleeken’s mind, staying with Pim alone by themselves in the garden made him feel much more comfortable than surrounded by all those raucous party-goers in the ballroom and was more than happy to linger as long as he and his love wanted. As for Pim, he couldn’t help but feel hot and bothered by making out with Peleeken AND the fact that he felt even more attraction to Charlie when the two where in physical combat, recalling how retroactively good it felt he was on top of Charlie like that. Pim couldn’t help but imagine making out with both Peleeken and Charlie. “Tsk-tsk.” Brittany taunted, with Pim mentally screaming at Brittany to mind her own business.

~

In a large, spacious room cloaked in shadows like an abyss of the unknown, an elderly man in a slick business suit traced a large sigil on the floor in Sharpie marker beside a lit-up black candle as a little yellow critter quickly ran to his side carrying a bucket. “Oy, the butcher from the Deli downtown said they where fresh out of the real-deal, BUT I did find a whole bunch of red stuff in the fridge!” The high-pitched, raspy voice of the critter confessed, but the man understood and gave his sidekick an affectionate ruffle on the head, reassuring: “Eh, close enough.” Thee yellow critter tossed the bucket onto the sigil as it started glowing like molten metal before erupting into a flame, revealing itself to be a portal of sort. The elderly man picked up the critter as if the latter was a child or a pet before stepping into the portal. The two found themselves in hell, greeted by the Big Red King of the Assholes himself. “You’re late.” Satan grumbled with his arms folded and his foot vigorously tapping on the ground. “Sheesh, dude, don’t get your triple-x panties in a twist! My lil’ buddy over over here couldn’t find any pig’s blood so we had to improvise with cranberry juice!” “How clever, smart-ass.” As Satan laid out the card deck on the table, as he was about to hand the deck over to the old wise acre reminded him the rules of the game while wagging his finger: “Remember, now: you lost last time so you get to shuffle the cards! Haha!” His infernal majesty gritted his teeth in annoyance. “If I win, you gotta spend the whole weekend down here cleaning my crash pad!”  “…and if I win, I get three hundred big boys to pay all those mobsters I owe.” “It’s a deal- and can you get your little dumbass over there to quit singing that gibberish?! I can barely hear myself think! God, I could kick you right in your wrinkly ballsack for suggesting your end of last week’s bet was to revive your first employee!” “…the ballsack that I won fair-and-square in that past game we had! Boy, that was a memorable one…”

~

In the early glowing dawn over the palace of the Enchanted Forest, the Princess was reported by her loyal posse of fairies about the whereabouts of Pim and his plus-one….and when she put two-and-two together, she couldn’t help but chuckle about it combined with the chaos that broke out last night. The Princess requested the fairies to carry out her invite for breakfast in the dining room. Later that morning, the Princess was accompanied by Pim and Peleeken on the banquet table, the latter two where draped in donated silk robes while everybody had a good laugh about last night’s escapades. “You sure know how to party, Mr. Pimling.” The Princess lightheartedly quipped while sipping the tea out of her cup. “Heh, yeah, to be honest I did have a lot fun last night!” Pim freely admitted while flipping his wrist, “…even if Charlie and Zoey didn’t” he snorted while scrolling through his phone at the messages from his friends expressing concern and/or relief. Two particular texts included one from Alan asking if Pim was doing alright and criticizing Charlie for his irresponsible behavior, and a long string of text from Charlie in hasty all-caps with a messily apologetic tone. “So lemme get this straight: your sister sent you flowers that she knew you where allergic to…and then you somehow got the idea for that kooky costume idea?” amused the Princess. “Being a long-time fan of a certain Wizard of Oz fanfic definitely inspired the look that I was going for!” Pim giggled while biting into his toasted crumpet smothered with whipped raspberry honey-butter on the top. “Oooh so that’s why everybody on my socials are calling you Gelphie!” joked Peleeken. Pim, who definitely shipped the couple (and has definitely drawn himself as Glinda and Charlie as Elphaba in his diary more than once), grinned and stimmed his hands in his seat in excitement. “Yay!! I love Gelphie!!” Suddenly, Pim’s phone rang, it was his Boss calling him up once more. “May I be excused for a sec?” past the Princess and Peleeken nodded in agreement, Pim scooted off his seat and walked away to a more secluded space to converse. With his robe sliding down to reveal his bare shoulders, Pim pushed it back up and pressed the button to accept Mr. Boss’ phone call. “Hello?” Pim responded, with Brittany quipping how he was gonna be thanked for using a decent filter for his selfies this time… turns out the call was much more serious than expected. Pim returned to the dining room after the call, announcing: “Thank you for letting me and my…pookie, stay for breakfast, but I really gotta get going afterwords…” “Understood.” “Say uh, Pimmy?” Peleeken sheepishly asked with cheeks flushing red, “Can we uh, hang out after you get out of work?” Pim smirked, knowing exactly what his bashful lover meant. “Absolutely, my sweet.”

~

Meanwhile, somewhere in Pennsylvania, poor Charlie was pent up in his crappy studio apartment-complex vividly remembering the whole ordeal that went down last night and how he was now suffering the consequences of his actions yet-again. That morning where he sobered up and had to wake up to his girlfriend calling him up, tearfully chewing him out for… well, EVERY-FUCKIN’-THING, and then going through that flaming loop again when Alan called him up bitching up a storm and trashing whatever was left of his carefully-constructed ego, tearing him a new asshole for being a terrible friend to Pim and an even worse boyfriend to Zoey, and that he needed to quit acting like he was going to be twenty-one forever and urging him to just “…grow the fuck up already!” Charlie was so tweaked out he had to take a blunt and toke it, smoking up the whole room and putting him in a blissful trance, just-now forgetting what he was even upset about. His phone rang-up once more, but at the moment, the stones Charlie didn’t care who was calling him or why and just laid there, ignoring reality as he internally floated in space. On the other end of the line, in the HQ of Smiling Friends, a very nervous Mr. Boss was panicking like nobody’s business as he swore under his breath: “Charlie, you dumb-fuck! Pick up the damn phone already-“ As three loud knocks where made on his door, he vaguely heard a baritone voice with an Italian accent threaten to barge in by force if he didn’t answer right away, Mr. Boss squeaked like a nervous little girl and dropped his phone in the heat of the moment, he immediately pulled out a gun from his drawer and load it up with silver bullets, responding to the intimidating visitor in a shaky, high-toned voice: “Juuuust a minute!” 

Chapter Text

What would have been a relaxing Saturday morning to rest up from that wild and chaotic night at the Ball wound up being interrupted by an emergency meeting at the Smiling Friends HQ.. All four of Mr. Boss’ critters arrived at the big, round smiley-face building that afternoon….and you could just tell that these muppets friggin’ rushed their skittle-colored asses over ASAP! Alan wore a pink fuzzy bathrobe, plush cheese-wedge slippers and a seafoam-green towel wrapped over his head to go with the mud mask and one cucumber slice over his eye and another slipping onto his cheek…and with a margarita garnished with a key lime slice in a salt-rimmed martini glass that was somehow still-chilled to perfection in his hand, Glep and Charlie where still in their pajamas and Pim didn’t even bother changing out of his silk robes, let alone pushing up the sleeves so that he wasn’t shamelessly flaunting his bare shoulder. “Oh wow-uh, you have cer-tain-ley out-hoe’d yourself this time-uh.” Alan sneered as he took a sip of his margarita. “Oh yeah?” Pim lowered the robe even more out of spite, showing off some more bare skin- “-At least I’m regarded as a passionate lover who isn’t out here serving pure clownery in the wild with that cheap-as-free bathrobe… and those goofy-ass slippers! *Gag* Since when where you a Packers fan, anyways?!….Oh well, at least switching from Temu’s clearance section to the Dollar Tree bargain bin is a considerable upgrade!” The pink diva quipped as he shimmied his shoulders, casually letting the robe slip down down to a bit below-the-waist and revealing the numerous *ahem* “love marks” that Peleeken happily decorated the pink critter’s chubby, bosomy body with last night as Charlie was looking away and internally screaming at himself to not to ogle at his basically-naked best friend and co-worker as Glep slapped his knee and howled in laughter at Alan’s expense. More steamed than a Chicago-style chili dog on a summer’s day, Alan barked back: “You must have paid off your one-night stand pretty well with your stuck-up rich bitch money! Because why the fuck would anyone wanna plow over a novelty stress ball from Archie McPhee!” “*pfft* Oh, gimme a fuckin’ break, you walking blood-plug! I’ve been on the dating scene waaaay longer than you’ve graduated from Technical Clown College, let alone finished the second semester!” “That was Technical MIME-uh Collage, you uncultured foul-mouthed ta-art-uh!“ attempt to cool the boiling-hot tea being spilled all over the place, Charlie puffed his chest and spoke in the most dignified voice he could muster: “Now, you petty little chuckleheads better knock your shit off, now is NOT the time for screwing around…Mr. Boss needs us and we gotta act professional here!” Well, the room got quiet alright, but only because everyone was thinking to themselves how Charlie came across as a massive hypocrite, considering recent developments. With last night fresh in his memory, Pim scoffed with his arms folded: “Oh, great! So now the pickled banana is gonna preach to us!” That one line alone immediately had Alan and Glep laughing as loudly as possible to the point where they could swear that their sides where splitting. Charlie’s face flushed as he saw his curvaceous friend once-again serving him a warm slice of humble pie with a side of truth serum. Charlie wished he’d taken his iconic hoodie to work that day so he could hide his face in shame. The tea party was cut short by Squim running into the room to announce: “The Boss will see you all, now!” Pim pushed up his robe as everybody was herded into Mr. Boss’ office, finding their elderly leader with his head lowered and his hands folded as he tried to keep his poker face. “Good afternoon, boys…I have an important announcement to make.” He sat-up straight and sighed: “The mafia is onto me and I gotta lay low for a while, in the meantime we don’t exactly have the money to pay for rent so perhaps you nice boys could pitch in ideas for a fundraising drive to keep us afloat? We only need three-hundred billion dollars raised.” Alan raised an eyebrow in confusion, asking: “I thought this company made buttload of billions every freakin’ year?” Mr. Boss nervously laughed, “Y’now how rent in this economy is outrageous these days with President Shrimp and his tariffs, Alan! Haha!” Charlie, once-again trying to crack a joke that’ll make everyone laugh, suggested: “Pim-aris Hilton over here is quite the sex symbol nowadays, we should have him dance for tips at the Cat Club!” But alas, the joke did NOT land whatsoever, with only Alan finding the joke funny and an insulted Pim kicking Charlie in the shin. “How dare you compare me to that Capitalist Republican Twat.” and Mr. Boss shaking his head. “That was sexual harassment, Charlie, and can’t keep hanging onto you and your baggage if you’re gonna keep getting in trouble like this, last night was bad enough.” Charlie’s eyes widened in horror while holding his pained shin. “Wait, how do you know about-?!” “Because it all got recorded and posted all over the internet…yes, including the footage of Pim walloping your stinkin’ drunk ass in front of millions.” As Charlie felt his heart race and sensed his pacemaker bitching about its job getting progressively rougher everyday, Pim couldn’t help but feel conflicted as he scrolled through his phone to see everyone’s reactions to his latest scandal. Reactions ranging from dunking on “that boozed-up sleazy lout” to having a Kiki over Pim’s performance, to the point where many had been comparing him to Mr. Frog’s infamous altercation with Tom Hanks at the Oscar’s where he too was on top of the actor and punched him square in the jaw. Fractions flashed through Pim’s mind as he couldn’t decide wether or not to feel proud of himself or horrified at being regarded by Them.us of all news sources as “…this generation’s Mr. Frog.”… Glep spoke up and opined a plan to raise money, in his native gibberish, he suggested a rummage sale of sorts, perhaps an auction. After all, Mr. Boss had quite a lot of unnecessary clutter to haul out of the building. “That’s a great idea, Glep, let’s have a charity auction night where we invite online influencers and celebrities to buy our crap….and you bet we’re all gonna dress in our finest and be on our best behavior!…right, Charlie?” As Pim and Glep gave funny, untrusting looks at the nervous Charlie, Alan pinched the bridge of his nose in agony and moaned: “Here we go again.”

~

After the emergency meeting ended, Charlie spent the remainder of his weekend-free time coming up with a proper apology for Zoey on his phone notes, feeling like a troubled author with artist’s block on his typewriter trying to come up with an elaborate, heartfelt story to captivate his readers. On weekends like this, Charlie would be playing video games all day or hanging out with his friends irl, but today was a special case: he made so much of an unruly ass of himself lately that none of his friends where in the mood to deal with his antics and his girlfriend Zoey was especially not having it, her feelings hurt over Charlie breaking his promise, drinking to deal with his problems and accidentally cheating on her with a woman he assumed was his girlfriend. Charlie went through three different drafts before he tossed his phone onto the bed in frustration. Slumped over his chair, Charlie sighed in exasperation how badly he fucked up. “I hurt my girlfriend’s feelings, my friends are pissed at me…” Charlie decided to take his mind off things by opening up his gaming laptop to hang with his steam buddies, but alas, when turned on his Bluetooth headphones for the VC, his small circle of long-distance gaming buddies where all cracking jokes at that video….that goddamn video displaying Charlie at his most pathetic. Having enough of the endless dragging coupled with the overbearing guilt and shame over his actions and their consequences that he simply couldn’t deny, his emotions bubbled over him like a cheap can of beer being shaken up by a paint mixer. Charlie roared loudly into his mic at the cackling gamers: “YE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE, YOU TERMINALLY-ONLINE, SLACK-JAWED CHUCKLEFUCKS!!!” An awkward silence had suddenly fallen upon his group as Charlie slammed his laptop shut and threw his headphones on the ground, pounding his fists onto his desk and loudly swearing so badly that would make a 4Channer blush and ask: “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” All Charlie could really do for the time being was reel in how badly he fucked up to the point of no return and that not even the most potent drugs or alcohol could ever satiate his pain at the moment. For the first time in a very long time, the vulnerable, messy, wannabe-alpha male Charlie just wanted to curl up on his bed and sob everything out of his system. Twelve minutes later, he heard a notification on his phone. Mustering up the courage to dare look at his phone, he felt a wash-over of relief and comfort at seeing a short, simple text from an old friend.

Everything okay, dude? I’m here if you wanna talk. -Tyler

Charlie didn’t feel up to talking via call, as his uncontrollable blubbering would have made him sound incoherent, so he poured his soul and sins out via text. It took a while for Tyler to read the daunting wall of text that invaded the chat between him and Charlie, and while he sighed in exasperation how his buddy once-again proved that he just couldn’t hold his liquor, he responded with a compassionate tone how at the very least for once, Charlie had admitted that yes, he indeed has a drinking problem and that he shouldn’t use the “big badass alpha male who can help himself” card to push any help away. Tyler text back to Charlie that he’s surprised upon Charlie admitting how vulnerable and flawed he really was, considering the yellow critter’s history of boasting quite the inflated ego.

Dude, I know you can do it, you have the gumption to go out there and deal with dangerous situations more often than not yet still want to go back to that job every day…then I believe you are genuinely sorry for for actions and are willing to clean up your act. You are more of a real man than most I’ve met, Charlie. Don’t forget that. -Tyler

Thanks man, I needed this. -Charlie

~

On the way back from the Smiling Friends HQ, Pim picked up some date night essentials from MeepMart before returning home. Pim opened the door and made a beeline to the kitchen to put away his groceries. as Pim put away the red velvet ice cream and slapped the meat lover’s lasagna in the microwave, Brittany’s voice gently rang in Pim’s head as she told him to look down at his feet, where he was immediately greeted by a trail of red rose petals on the floor. Pim grabbed some unmentionables from the bag and stashed them in his robe pockets before following the trail of rose petals to his bathroom, where he opened the door and was greeted to the strong, aromatic scent of geraniums, gardenia, yang-clang and rose slithering its way out of his bedroom to permeate the rest of the premises. As Pim walked closer he was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Peleeken with a (hopefully thornless!) rose in his mouth lying on his side with a seductive aura, waiting for Pim to join him on top of the latter’s bed as three scented candles where melting away on the bed-stand. “Bonjour, Mon-Cherié!” Peleeken attempted to pronounce in a suave tone in the second-worst French accent ever spoken in by an Australian. Pim grinned ear-to-ear, not giving two shits about how bad Peleeken’s French accent was, as he immediately jumped into bed and prepared to embrace Peleeken. “Oh Peleeken, I love you….” Pim blissfully sighed as he wriggled his way into Peleeken’s arms, looking at him longingly. “Oh, I love you too, Pim…” Peleeken cooed as his hand cupped Pim’s cheek. Finally, a passionate kiss blossomed between the two for what felt like longer than two minutes before Pim grabbed the unmentionables from the pockets of his robe he would slip out of, kicking off a long, relaxing and romantic Saturday evening with just the two of them alone. 

~

Last night was meant to be the night Zoey dreamed of, she spent all that time and money getting dolled up and counted the days like a kid waiting for Christmas morning….however, instead of having the night end on a happily ever after like she hoped, her own boyfriend broke his promise to not make himself a drunken fool, almost cheat on her and had unfortunately witnessed the whole ordeal go viral. She loved Charlie more than anything but it was hard to continue loving him when no matter how hard she’d try to help him with his alcoholism he’d just go back to his old habits. It would also make her feel insecure whenever he would immediately get chummy with whichever new person who’d come into his life and praise them up the wazoo. Pim was one thing, they’re close co-workers, but it made her stomach churn upon hearing all the chatter from the guests at the ball over how he almost got into a relationship with an apparent stalker. Zoey cringed as she remembered Charlie’s antics at the Christmas dinner where he drank too much wine and didn’t even seem to remember her. “You’d push me away and tell me to never touch you, yet you’d immediately cheat on me with some deranged hobbit.“ Clutching the Spyro plushie her boyfriend gave her as a Christmas present with tears welling in her eyes, Zoey wondered if Charlie ever genuinely loved and appreciated her…she was also feeling conflicted regret over fending Pim off from Charlie… after all, Charlie could get rowdy when drunk, like how he would brag about all the bar fights he’d start since he was sneaking into bars at 17 with a counterfeit ID (that he’d eventually would get arrested for, luckily his uncle was able to bail him out) or getting into scraps at parties (some of which he’d also get arrested for). She pondered if Charlie really did throw hands at Pim, whom she potentially yelled at for fighting back. Since Zoey naively perceived Pim as a very confused woman and if she yelled at whom she considered a fellow woman, did that make her a victim-blamer who yelled at a woman for self-defense? Sure she bought Amy’s claims of Pim attacking her for “lighthearted jokes” hook-line-and-sinker,  “What kind of feminist would that make me then?” Zoey pondered. She couldn’t bear to look at her socials to be treated to everybody memetic treatment of the video recording that incident, so she called up Marge for comfort.

…

After an hour of Zoey sobbing to Marge as she patiently listened to her venting, Marge comforted the heartbroken girl and assured her that…yes, Charlie is a bit of a stubborn butt-munch in general, but deep down even when drunk he’d never hurt the ones he’d love, as she reminded Zoey of one silver lining at the Christmas dinner where while Charlie was incoherently babbling about some Lord of the Rings lore while stuttering and burping, she tripped and nearly fell on the skirt of her dress until Charlie immediately caught her, warning: “Now listen here miss, this here is my land mine and nobody’s gonna sneak past my explosives! *burp*” he placed her back on her feet and ruffled her hair, “Now *hic* go play outside with the other cats, Ms. Mittens!” As silly as his dialogue was, and how he was so intoxicated that he didn’t recognize her (hence why he was rudely dejecting her earlier at the table when she tried to wipe his face), there was some sub-consciousness in Charlie that reminded him of the people he cared about. Now in regards to Pim, Marge didn’t approve of how Zoey misgendered Pim or her husband Glep and politely tried to remind her to respect both their pronouns and while she didn’t show it it would piss her off (her siding with Amy all people sure didn’t help), but nevertheless she saw Zoey like a little sister and knew about her prior boyfriend troubles, feeling a sense of protectiveness to the younger woman. She thought it was funny how Pim went viral once-again, and this time it was for whooping Charlie’s ass, but also found it romantic how Zoey was willing to defend her bumbling doofus of a man. “According to my dear Gleppy, there’s going to be a charity auction party at the Smiling Friends HQ on Monday night, that would be the perfect opportunity for everyone to properly clear the air and make amends.” Marge assured in her thick Eastern-European accent. “That’ll give me plenty of time to construct an apology to Pim.” “…and I assure you, from what Tyler just told me, Charlie himself is remorseful over his actions over last night and he is already making efforts working on improving himself.” Zoey sighed in relief but not without some skepticism, “Thank God, it’s about time.” Some minutes passed and the phone call finally ended. Zoey went back to her texts and finally muster the courage to witness the mile-long string of texts that Charlie hastily sent earlier. Zoey felt as if she was reading the back of a package of Lofthouse Cookies! Not to mention she felt so overwhelmed yet also tired from the stress she endured from last night combined with editing the latest episode of her podcast (of which was a particularly long-one that covered the history of Katherine Goble, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, three women who have historically worked for NASA in the mid-20th century) that she didn’t exactly find a proper response. Zoey figured she’d shut her phone off and disconnect from all technology and focus on checking in on herself.

~

After freshening up with a shower, Pim (who was fully-dressed for the first time since that Friday night) and Peleeken (who never really wore clothes to begin with but opted for a borrowed Mother Mother shirt that Pim loaned him) sat down at the table for a candle-lit dinner for two, consisting of the lasagna Pim slapped in the microwave and chilled Zinfandel. Finally the two cuddled up on the couch with blankets and bowls of red velvet ice cream while watching the ever-iconic A24 flick: The Mid-90s Moonlight Midsommar Farewell at the Lighthouse All At Once. “Wow, that movie was….such a vibe.” Pim mused, “How the old sailor, the little boy and Michele Yeoh’s character all ‘verse-jumped and casually stepped into the Swedish commune cult and how it made the film go from black-and-white to full-color gave me Judy in Oz vibes!” Peleeken opined with mutual love for the film they’ve just watched: “Yeah, can’t wait for the sequel that features the bad boyfriend booking the stay at the Hazbin Hotel!” “…while absolutely killing it in that genuine bear-hide fursuit!” Pim quipped. The couple had a good laugh before picking up the dirty dishes and getting ready for bed. Had the buxom femboy not been accompanied by his adorkable partner holding him in his sleep, Pim would have been bored enough to scroll on his phone and seeing people reacting to his latest scandal, and being compared to the overpowered green menace who sent him to the hospital definitely didn’t help. Pim smirked with his arms around his man with a snarky tone in his head, “…with a boyfriend like this, who needs social media?” Brittney sighed, lamenting the short-lived relationship she had with her own lover, “Oh Pimmy-Poo, you lucky duck you….make sure you take good care of that man of yours, because you’ll never know when he’ll just slip outta your fingers...”

BONUS!

Here is some illustrations from the Tumblr run of “NAME A BITCH BADDER THAN PIM PIMLING”:

Chapter Text

Charlie woke up at an unusually early hour than to his usual liking, took a long shower, changed from his sweated-up pajamas and into a fresh t-shirt, boxers printed with classic “polka-dots” and fuzzy grey slippers, and walked into the kitchen to make himself a decent breakfast. Usually he’d slap some Hot Pockets or somethin’ in the microwave and call it a meal but since he was still suffering from lingering stress over dealing with yesterday’s umbrage and needed to find other ways to cope with stress that didn’t have to do with drinking liquor, Charlie wanted to keep himself productive to take his mind off of things…and keeping himself busy in the kitchen would definitely do the trick! Charlie took two slices of crusty Italian bread to pop into the toaster, then he’d take a frying pan to place on his portable cooktop on the counter where he would apply a pad of butter to melt over the hot metal (and using a fork to maneuver the butter across the pan) before placing four slices of Canadian bacon and messily cracking a couple eggs and leaving a piece or two of eggshells and breaking one of the yolks. Charlie was reminded of the time he was about 15 years old, surprising his uncle with a Father’s Day breakfast with a Denver-style omelet with help from his late grandmother, but when the dish turned out to be a bit messy to say the least, his uncle still dug in with joy, reassuring his (pre-transition) nephew that eggshells in food was “…an extra dose of calcium…” and that any grown-man who complained about it was “…just a candy-ass milksop!”. Charlie then took a wedge of pepper jack cheese to a grater and sprinkled the pile of shavings to melt on top of the Canadian bacon as he breathed in-breathed out, manifesting getting rid of his bad thoughts by breathing them out of his nose while being tantalized by the diner-esque aroma that began to permeate from his kitchen, bringing him back to all the times his uncle took him to Salty’s as a little homunculi. The tasty harmony of scents and smells where even more pronounced when the crispy slices popped up from the toaster and the eggs where just dippy-enough to be considered finished. Charlie took a paper plate and applied the toast upon it, slicing some butter to grease the toast, then grabbed spatula and slid the proteins onto one side of the toast, and for the finishing touches he placed butter-and-bread pickle slices on the proteins and dressed the piled side with ketchup, mayonnaise and siracha sauce before folding into a mighty-fine breakfast sandwich and pairing with a bottle of cold brew coffee before he sat down on the couch and turned the TV on for a Mr. Frog marathon on MTV (…abbreviation for Meep Television, that is!) Charlie took a bite out of his sandwich and hummed to himself in satisfaction over the cheesy, meaty and savory Unami with a side of sweet-and-sour tang from the pickles. It wasn’t exactly the ritziest breakfast but it was plenty great enough for Charlie, absolutely nothing could ruin this simple and satisfying moment, and it couldn’t be any better than this.

~

Pim was busy in the kitchen, whipping heavy cream in a bowl with an immersion blender while he smelt something toasty coming from his skillet. “Oh, damn-“ Pim whispered to himself as he pointed at the slightly-toasted crepé and snap his fingers, thus prompting the flaky, delicate disc to flip over on-queue and thinking to himself: “Brit’s right, this is more satisfying than using a spatula!” Peleeken had been conveniently too busy to notice the magic trick as he was chopping up strawberries, a whole pineapple, two mangoes, four kiwis and one honeydew melon. While Pim was a perfectionist when it came to homemade dishes to the point of not trusting certain folks with less experience to lend a hand in the kitchen, he preferred company not just to help out and get the dish done quicker while still putting in as much effort but it also made the overall-energy in room feel cheerier. “Peleeken darling, mind pressing the coffee for me?” Pim sweetly asked, Peleeken nodded and replied: “Sure thing, honey!” as he got up from one of the wooden chairs facing the table and walked over to the counter to push down the plunger of the glass coffee press, where an aromatic steam of finely-ground arabica beans with a hint of hazelnut escaped from the spout and harmonized with the warm and buttery scent of the crepés cooking in the skillet on the stovetop one-by-one as the bossanova played on the “easy-listening” station on the little red shortwave radio that was perched on the table. The ambience in the room was giving: “Breizh Café at Home”, as Brittany would probably say. When everything was said-and-done, Pim and Peleeken enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Pim poured himself and Peleeken each a cup of the hazelnut-vanilla coffee into two delicate glass mugs with two saucers (one featured the three Totoro’s marching in the woods and the other had the soot sprites dancing while holding candy stars), filled the quarter of the cups with a mix of evaporated milk and half-and-half, whipped them up with his battery-operated milk frothing wand and finished them off with two elegant whipped cream roses from his piping bag to place on the table to pair with the two plates full of soft, thin crepes delicately rolled up with thick, sweet, vanilla bean-infused whipped cream and chopped fruit. “We should cook together more often, Pim.” Peleeken mused as he took a knife-and-fork to his crepe and popped it in his mouth. “Here, here.” Pim sipped their cappuccino, savoring the harmony of tastes dancing on his tongue. “I would have made this for dessert yesterday, ahead of supper time, if it weren’t for the time restraints.” “Oh trust me, Pim, all that time killed was absolutely worth it!” said Peleeken, winking. Pim chuckled, flirting right back: “Well, there’s more where that came from, love!” Little did Peleeken know, Pim had an extra surprise waiting for him…get your mind out of the gutter, you damn gooners!

~

Zoey practically pulled an-all-nighter the previous night, diligently editing the latest episode of her popular “Making Herstory” podcast, reviewing it, and finally uploading it onto her YouTube, her Spotify and her own website. She was so bushwhacked from her hard work that night that she simply slept in that morning until 9:30am, putting off promoting the newest episode until after breakfast. Zoey woke up, slipped a white robe over her cozy two-piece cotton pajamas consisting a salmon tank top and magenta pinstripe lounge pants and placed her feet in her sandal-slippers and immediately made a beeline for the kitchen to boil some water on the kettle on top of her stovetop, then grabbing a mug to slide in a caffeinated black tea bag before carefully pouring the boiling water and leaving enough room for cream and sugar. Zoey then opened the fridge and pulled out her chocolate chip-coconut overnight oats to drizzle maple syrup over the top and ignoring the nagging voice in her own head to share the link the new episode on her socials already as she looked out her window to admire the crystal-clear sky of blue and the chirping birds soaring in mid-air. Zoey finished the last three bites of her overnight oats, then she changed out of her pajamas, took a luxurious aromatherapy bath an pad an hour later, got dressed in a raspberry blouse, beige pants and once-again slipped her feet into her slippers before she’d spend another 20 minutes on her laptop to spread awareness to her numerous followers on each of her socials about her newest entry of “Making Herstory”. Sick and tired of editing digital media and looking at a screen, Zoey shut her laptop off to swap her slippers out with black heels, layering up with a scarf knit from angora fur with an indigo dye-job, a crisp street jacket matching her pants, a black beret and Pearl earrings before taking her Louis Vuitton handbag and on her way out, picking up the steamy romance-fantasy novel Delectable in Dungeon off of her shelf and into her bag before finally heading out for a day at the park to turn off her brain and enjoy the breezy, sunshine-y outdoor atmosphere….just halfway through her trip, she’d received a notification on her phone, it was a flowery, heart-and-sparkle-emoji-ridden text from Amy of which had invited both her and Pim to dinner at acclaimed French restaurant, Lé Fingered Frog, usually abbreviated by the upper-crust as LFF….the issue was that the dinner date at LFF had been coincidentally set for the exact same time as the highly-anticipated charity auction at the Smiling Friends HQ! While figuring out a response, Zoey had felt as if her strong sense of morality had made her feel conflicted between showing up for her boyfriend Charlie and her sister-figure Marge or to support her new, vulnerable, “nice” friend Amy. Zoey sat on how to delicately deal with her difficult decision as she continued to find her way to the park.

~

Peleeken sat on Pim’s bed with his eyes temporarily blinded by a teal sleep mask embroidered with gold frills and gold tassels for eyelashes over two “topaz”-toned gemstones for the bedroom eyes. Once he heard his boyfriend’s cue, “You can take it off now!”, Pelekeen immediately dropped the mask and found Pim smiling and standing before him with a makeup bag adorned with those funny little cartoon trolls from Finland. “I cannot stress enough how much I loved your outfit at the ball this-last Friday night…buuuut I felt like something was missing.” said Pim, rummaging around the bag and pulling out various lipsticks and glosses, two eyeshadow pallets, two mascara wands and three sets of blush. “Now, my sweet, pick which ones you want me to use for your makeover.” While Peleeken was always interested in frilly dresses, he was never very much into makeup…not that it could stop his curiosity being enticed. Peleeken picked up the Coral Blue No. 2, lifted it from its cap and swatched it on his wrist, admiring the periwinkle-violet tone and shimmery finish that glistened upon his wrist. “I-I think I’ll swatch everything and see what I like best.” “Excellent choice.”…Hours had passed since this little experiment started, and girl, did it pay off! Pim stepped back to admire his handiwork before grabbing a hand mirror and giving it to the dolled-up Peleeken. Peleeken’s eyes widened in wonder at the sherbet-like gradients lovingly decorated upon his face: with his lips bloomed in a glossy blend of dark red with hot pink in the middle, his cheeks flushed in warm pinky-orange, his eyeshadow was pink flushing with a dash purple. “Wow-wee, I look like the sherbet ice cream at Baskin-Robbins!” Pim chuckled at the parallel, “I was sub-consciously inspired by the lesbian flag.” Peleeken continued to admire his feminized appearance, before sheepishly asking Pim: “Can I borrow some of your clothes?” Pim grinned mischievously as he responded: “I thought you’d never ask!” as he gently guided Peleeken off of the bed and walked over to open up his closet for his lover. “Pick out whatever you want, boo, who’s gonna stop you?” Peleeken let out a gleeful “Yippee!!” as be browsed the walk-in closet for an outfit to complement his makeup job. Moments later, Peleeken stepped out in an ombre party dress starting out with a deep purple sequined bodice and a layered organza skirt that went from magenta-to-taffy-pink with a dusting of glitter, overall resembling a costume that a ballerina would wear while performing at the Opera, accompanied by the dress was Pim’s red high-heels, and a pastel yellow feather boa. Pim felt his heart racing as his jaw dropped in shock before falling to his knees. Peleeken got nervous as he misinterpreted Pim’s shock and awe as a horrified reaction. “H-how do I look?” “A-absolutely divine…the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” Pim uttered. Was Pim being overdramatic? Hell yeah, but it’s not like Peleeken didn’t earn the glowing review. Peleeken smiled as tears of joy welled in his eyes, feeling as if he’d just gained full-access to his authentic self….not that he saw himself as a woman, but definitely wondered if he genuinely felt like a guy or not. “Pim…if I like wearing girly things and liking feminine things, despite being, a guy….” “I dress like a girl and identify as a guy for the most part.” “That’s the thing though,” said Peleeken when navigating his feelings to properly word them. “I’m…not quite sure if I’m a guy or something else…I wouldn’t call myself trans, I like being a guy…well, maybe more of a guy who likes feeling like a feminine person who isn’t a woman…and to be completely honest, that’s how I’ve always felt.” Pim got himself up and gently held Peleeken’s hand in a loving and supportive embrace: “Peleeken, I’m so happy for you….and it means a lot that you came out to me after all this time! No matter how you identify or dress, I’d be more than happy for the true-you and I to co-exist….” Pim cooed as gave Peleeken’s hand a kiss, “…After all, Queens who stay together, slay together! And you can keep some of my clothes if you want, I’m happy to donate some goods to a cutie in need!” The emotional Peleeken embraced Pim with gratitude and heightened confidence: “Thank you, Pim, what would I do without you?” “Remember, Peleeken: labels and pronouns aren’t permanent. If she/her or they/them are more comfortable to you than he/him but you wanna still be a guy or otherwise, that’s totally valid! There’s a lot of she/her and they/them fellas who identify as masc….but don’t die wondering, keep exploring yourself! Who knows? Maybe you’re just getting started finding your true identity.” “Okay then, I’ll keep an open mind!”

~

The weekend had ended and Monday had dawned upon this quirky little unnamed Pennsylvania town. Peleeken went back home from Pim’s with bags of new clothes from his boyfriend, Charlie laid off the alcohol and weed to stay sober and focus on improv his character, Zoey finally had a plan to solve the dilemma upon her split decision, Mr. Boss returned to his office with his back aching from all the unpaid housework he had to do in hell upon losing his latest bet with you-know-who and…. Alan and Glep just did their usual thing. Pim arrived at the breakroom in his usual white shirt and blue pants with some stylish additions like a pink “Juicy” tank top underneath the shirt, black ankle boots, his pride pins, black “cat’s eye” sunglasses and a silver-chain necklace depicting a enamel black cat pendant with rhinestone eyes. Alan sipped his coffee with judging eyes upon Pim clocking in: “You don’t even both-er taking the time to actually get dressed for this job, yet you’re still late-uh.” “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw, if it isn’t bootlegged Heather Chandler!” At least I’m not Ree-gee-nya George’s evil knock-off from that crappy Mean Girls sequel.” “Sequel, what sequel?” Either Pim genuinely never knew about Mean Girls 2 or he did indeed see it and had willful ignorance regarding its existence, either way the counter-roast rolled off of him like water off of a duck’s back. Charlie tuned out his co-workers’ banter in favor of swapping his daily doom-scrolling to fidgeting with a Rubix cube he borrowed from Glep, in addition to thinking of other mindful habits to adopt. Just then, walking right into the room in a casual button-up dress in a creamy eggshell tone with an orange and navy gingham pattern, blue and white-polka dot tights, peach-tone crocks with cutesy floral and Paris-themed charms, her Louis-Vutton hand back and with her hair in a messy chopstick bun was Zoey. Charlie felt a mix of relief and anxiety upon seeing his girlfriend for the first time since…well, yeah that thing, while Pim fought the urge to roll his eyes and groan in exasperation. “Charlie? I’m sorry, but…” Zoey calmly talked to her boyfriend, who started anticipating a dreaded announcement of a break-up. “…I can’t go to the auction tonight!” she proclaimed as the surprised Charlie asked: “How come?” “…and neither can Pim!” Pim quietly groaned: “Oh, boy howdy, here we go…” “Amy invited both of us to the LFF tonight! She’s been missing her boyfriend and she’s been into it with all her friends so she’s clearly still going though it so we have to show up for her!” She turned to Pim with slight judgement: “…right, Pim?” Three words that popped up in Pim’s head: “Oh, HELL no!” Avoiding the urge to have an angry outburst, Pim took a deep breath and vented out his annoyance. “Pardon me, Zoe D’Ack, but didn’t I just recall the same Amy Pimling gossiping to other strangers about my own embarrassing childhood and teenhood stories without my consent? Or how about when she mocked me and Peleeken while we where on the dancefloor? Oh and did I really ask her to get into my personal space by filming me and Charlie?! How come she’s allowed to be a jag-off towards me?!” said Pim with his eyes furrowed, to which Zoey only responded with a hearty laugh. “Oh, that’s just hilarious coming out of your mouth! Maybe because you where such a nasty little scumbag to her? And since when did This Generation’s Mr. Frog all of a sudden have an issue with people whipping out their phones on you whenever you throw your diva fits!?” Pim stamped his foot, trying not to raise his voice. “Look, I invited her to the ball, I even paid for her ballgown and the limousine-“ “You can’t buy people’s love, it’s love that begets love and respect that begets respect!” “Well, if respect begets respect…you’re clearly less interested in convincing me to come and more invested in putting me down when I’m trying my best.” “That’s the thing, I don’t respect you for your lies and deception, and I definitely don’t respect you laying a hand on my man! If proving to me that Amy is right with you violence, unwilling to come support her at her time of need and that dank attitude of yours-“ “If I’m such a lousy sister, why the hell does she even bother?!” Pim raised his voice in agitation, prompting Zoey to grin ear-to-ear: “Oh, so you admit you’re only pretending to be a boy at the expense of real femboys and trans men?” Pim was ready to push his sleeves up as Brittany chanted: “Aw hell yeah, Pop her in the mouth! Pop her in the mouth!” Charlie’s stomach churned at his girlfriend’s comment, making a disgusted face while looking away. “How do you think that makes Charlie feel?” Zoey spoke with a misguided compassionate tone, thinking she was going to “cure” Pim who clearly wasn’t having any of it. Glep immediately knew what kind of shit-storm was about to go down, so he ran up between the two feeling as if he was about to diffuse a bomb about to go off, hastily announcing in his native gibberish that it was possible for everyone to swing both, as he would offer free dinner at LFF on him to anyone who attended the auction. Suddenly the heavy tension vaporized and lifted like steam accenting upon the ocean to become clouds. “Why didn’t I think of that?” Pim and Zoey uttered in unison, awkwardly looking at each other and walking away. Zoey caught a glimpse of Charlie getting out of his seat and avoiding any eye contact with her while claiming: “I need a smoke break.” Zoey watched Charlie go out the door with great remorse over her comment, not that she realized she was being horribly transphobic but because she knew that Charlie was close friends with Pim, even if the latter and Zoey weren’t exactly on great terms. She got her cake and ate it too, but at what cost? Pim waited until a speechless Zoey left the HQ with a heavy heart to smirk to himself like a devious imp as he and Brittney internally conversed: “Uh-oh, looks like ZoeZoe hit a new Low-Low!” “No joke, bitch’s seriously playing limbo here!” “My money’s on those two breaking up!” Now Pim didn’t exactly like Zoey, and even still fantasized of seducing Charlie away from her (although nowadays he added the element of Peleeken joining in) but he knew that if that messy, disagreeable, complicated-yet genuinely happy and loving couple broke up, it would absolutely devastate Charlie to no end.

Meanwhile, outside, Charlie just felt like total crap. The appalling words that rang in his ear, “…real femboys and trans men…” as if Zoey was differentiating people like him and Pim from cisgender men. Charlie knew his sister didn’t take kindly to “transtrenders”, or cisn’t people who didn’t fit in the binary concept of men and women, with believing they where a threat to feminism. Charlie dearly loved Zoey and saw genuine goodness in her, even if her strong sense of justice was erroneous…but he started to wonder if his girlfriend genuinely saw him as a man. After all, when he initially came out to Zoey, she initially didn’t believe he was actually trans and attempted to get him to embrace being a tomboy in the spirit of her more outdated beliefs at the time until she genuinely yearned to better-understand him by doing research on gender dysphoria, yet couldn’t wrap her head around the complex spectrum of gender in general. “…not that I deserve to be seen as a real man.” Charlie muttered to himself, remembering his shameful behavior whenever he’d get drunk and wonder why Zoey stayed with him. “…respect that begets respect.” Charlie started to have second thoughts on even showing up to either the auction or dinner tonight, even thinking about hiding away from everybody in his apartment without a word, believing nobody would care whether or not he was even around…just then, the door opened up, Charlie was expecting Zoey to come out and apologize for being so uncharacteristically nasty out there…while he was somewhat disappointed it wasn’t her (yet was dually glad she wasn’t going to excuse her misguided beliefs with more misguided beliefs yet-again), he was rather glad to see Pim reach out to him after what felt like ages. “Hey Charlie…” Pim gently called to his friend. Charlie found a little amusement in this situation: usually when Pim got his feelings hurt, Charlie would be there to comfort him…in this particular case, the script was flipped and the roles where reversed. “I’m sorry for getting into it with Zoey, I was being unreasonable-“ “No,” Charlie interrupted, “You’re just fine…she was being a real piece of work out there.” Pim’s eyes widened in surprise hearing Charlie talk about Zoey like that. Usually Zoey would complain about Charlie acting like he was too cool for school and/or for making a fool out of himself. “I feel like ever since Amy wormed her way into Zoey’s life, she’s been acting like a gullible, mean, wound-up killjoy…which isn’t even anything remotely like the Zoey that I know at all! She’s supposed to be the smart one calling me out for doing dumb shit all the time!” “Oh…this is my fault, isn’t it?” Pim lamented as he sat next to Charlie. “Whaddya mean?” “If I wasn’t acting like such a stupid ditzy bimbo at the Spaghetti Disco and kept my head on my neck, Amy wouldn’t have used my own idiocy to use Zoey as the Jessica Hunter to her Mackenzie Hollister!” Charlie blinked in confusion as the reference flew over his head. “Y’know, the Gretchen to her Regina?” still didn’t register. “…the Tiff to her Brit?” Charlie immediately chuckled at the comparison. “…dude, that must make you Jenny Wakeman!” Pim blushed and smiled, responding “…then that makes you my Brad.” “Hmm, I see myself as more like Smytus, Y’know, all big and tough with a manly baritone and stuff- dude, remember Ed, Edd n Eddy? That was my shit!” “I certainly do! I was more of a Powerpuff kid but I did watch that one a lot as well~ Double D’s my favorite.” “I found Ed and Eddy pretty damn relatable…say, Amy’s a lot like Sarah, ain’t she? In fact, she’s Sarah mixed with all three of the Kankers!” “…with a heaping dash of Princess Morebucks!” The two had a good laugh as they got up and walked back into the breakroom. “Charlie, do you remember Megas XLR?” “Aw hell yeah! They did that one so damn dirty that I’m still salty about it…and right after the creators got their previous show screwed over by MTV!” “At least they have their own studio now! Hey did you know Chris Prynoski also worked on Daria and Beavis and Butthead?” “Aww shit, no way!”

~

Zoey applied the subtle-yet stunning rosy-tinted lip gloss upon her lips, placing a gold clip on the back of a more formal-take on her ponytail and placed the velvet, dark magenta choker with the heart-shaped petalite ornament on the front around her neck to compliment her gold-toned pink amethyst earrings before checking the time on her phone. “Right on time.” Zoey layered herself a merlot jacket over a puce-toned peplum dress with a subtle-yet elegant floral pattern to pair with her pale pink tights and her dusty-pink ballet flats her before snatching a mauve clutch purse and went out to meet up with Amy, who had been waiting outside her door all dolled-up in an obnoxiously-bright chartreuse lace-up mini dress with a cyan “cow-print” pattern showing off a boobalicious cleavage window above her turtle-neck collar adorned with a gold peridot brooch in the shape of a four-point diamond, teal and lime-green gogo boots, a strand of turquoise beads (which was obviously dyed magnesite) and a large, bright-cyan bow adorned with large, yellowish-green feathers on top of her ironed-out bob cut…and for the tart cherry on top of this bold sundae what appeared to be a layered-in-stripes handbag that looked as if it was crafted from bright green and cyan fun-fur that you’d buy at a craft store for less than five bucks. “Oh wow, Amy! You’re giving “70’s Disco-meets-Flapper Girl” energy!” Zoey complimented, albeit winced at how garishly bright the colors on her where. “Thanks, babe! I got all this on sale off of H&M!” The two scurried into the limo before it took off. While Amy opened the booze cabinet and marveled at the bottle of raspberry sangria, Zoey could only watch the scenery go by in her window with a mournful sigh. “Girl, why the long face?” “…I hurt Charlie’s feelings earlier, he was so upset after the dumb shit that I’ve said that he walked out on me…during all our time together, something like that’s never even happened before!” “Oh, please, that same whiny sad-sack who like, totally ruins everyone’s good time? Like when he gets drunk and totally embarrasses you or refusing to do super-cute couples costumes with you every Halloween? I’m surprised you even date that crusty thing!” Zoey can agree that Charlie was a bonafide horses’ ass at his worst, but was taken aback by that last part. “Charlie’s not crusty! He can be very good-natured and protective-“ “He certainly wasn’t watching out for you at the ball! You had to swoop in and save the day.” Zoey blushed in embarrassment upon recalling having to pull Pim and Charlie away from eachother that night. “…true.” “Besides, if that man truly loved you, why is so so damn chummy with his co-workers and like, every stranger he meets? And considering what I’ve heard about Mip, I think he also might be a closeted homosexual who’s been using you as his beard!” Zoey shook her head in outrage. “Amy, please…just stop!” Amy was taken aback by her seemingly-submissive “yes”-girl suddenly raising her voice at her like that. Zoey lowered her voice to explain: “Sure as shit, I know Charlie isn’t perfect by any stretch of the word, but deep down he’s at least trying to change. I can bet he’s gonna continue bettering himself….just have a little faith in him, okay?” Amy could only pretend to agree. “At least he wants to change, unlike Pimberly!” That part made Zoey chuckle. “Yeah, to think the grouchy one has a good heart and the seemingly-sweet cheerful one is a shallow, selfish viper!” The two continued to gossip as the chauffeur was tuning them out with some smooth jazz playing on the radio as she eyed her destination on the GPS before returning her pupils onto the road.

…

Once they’ve finally reached their destination, Zoey and Amy hopped out of the limo to find quite the packed crowd surrounding the entrance to the iconic Smiling Friends HQ, where the entrance was intricately decorated with fairy-lights and a red carpet leading to the door, giving off the vibe of a movie premiere. The two took a closer look to find none other than “It Critter” himself holding hands with who appeared to be his new partner-in-crime. Pim wore a luminescent periwinkle-and-glacier-toned ensemble that included a ombre-colored hooded kimono-like robe with a “frost” pattern that integrated an intricate sequin snowflake pattern and what appeared to be a small, pointed-crown made of long, sharp icicles perched over his head with glacier-toned silk fingerless gloves topped with long “press-on” nails resembling the icicles that made up his crown, also decorated in tiny snowflakes. Lastly, he wore chunky, translucent glacier-tone platform heels that greatly recanted the vibe of his crystal slippers that he wore at the ball. His right hand had been passionately holding Peleeken’s, who in-contrast to Pim’s wintery-aesthetic, wore the same outfit he donned when Pim gave him that fateful makeover, albeit with the additions of a flower crown of pink peonies, red roses and petunias, long ombre gloves that started with a pale powdery pink that gradually faded into a gradient that ended in persian green, the yellow feather boa swapped with one in the tone of emeralds of which was adorned with colorful silk flowers and Ancient Greece-style sandals that matched the style as the feather boa, resembling a vine of flowers wrapped around his calves. Pim got a cheeky grin as he whirled Peleeken across the red carpet and dipped his lover, prompting the two to passionately kiss…and by God, did the crowd go wild. Amy could only roll her eyes at the spotlight stealing squad as Zoey was frantically browsing the crowd for Charlie’s presence. “Look out, amateeeeurs! Let a professional diva show you how to make a true grand entrance!” Amy bellows as she immediately appeared on the scene sashay-ing across the scene with a can-can girl’s kick. As much as Pim simply hated her outfit, he admired the fierce confidence. “Category is: WTF?” He thought to himself as Brittney’s laugh echoed in his head. “Good one, P!”

That yellow, goofy smiley-face building was jam-packed with sharply-dressed folks making their way to the rarely-used dinner room which had been temporarily-converted as an auditorium for the night, with only the table remaining to serve small hors d’oeuvres and a small wine selection to tide everyone over until dinner. Zoey was still frantically looking for Charlie to no avail as Amy was on the look for “suckers” to later-seduce into her bed. Of course fate was a smart-ass so the two wound up bumping into gay winter and spring instead. “Well look who decided to come zap all the life out of tonight: the Wicked Witch of the North!” Amy sneered while looking down upon the unfazed Pim. “Uh oh, looks like the Ice Queen kidnapped Persephone over here….run while you still can.” Zoey snarked as she and Amy hi-dived each other. “Well if it isn’t everyone’s favorite comedy duo: Drabs and Gaudy!” Peleeken whipped out a pink folding-fan, waving it at himself while gasping: “Oh, snap!” Amy  “Oh yeah? I never thought I’d see the day you’d finally go steady, with that loose taco of yours!” “…and that ugly personality.” Zoey added. “…not as hideous as you two! Jesus CHRIST, talk about an absolute wardrobe malfunction! Y’all have serious balls showing up making everybody nauseous with those rags! Now run along, Plain-Jane and Eye-Strain, you’re tainting our flawless aura with your unbearable suck!” Pim swished his robe and cloaked the giggling Peleeken with one side as they sashayed away, leaving an unfazed Zoey to quip: “The media sure was spot-on about her serving pure cunt.” Amy bemoaned: Dammit, why didn’t I think of that one?” Right behind them was Charlie who had just dropped in and only hearing the tail end of the roast. “Charlie, you came!” Zoey cheered as she hugged Charlie, feeling extremely awkward and conflicted, but since he and Zoey mutually loved each other despite their problematic flaws, he hugged her back before letting her go and taking a serious tone: “Zoey, we need to talk.” Charlie uttered, cue the guilt once-again crushing Zoey. “Yeah?” “It’s making me seriously uncomfortable how you always narrow down trans guys people down to…well, y’know….and I’m especially put-off by the way you treat Pim.” “Oh, brother…“ Amy quipped as Zoey shushed her. “No matter wether you like it or not, Pim identifies as a dude…well, a genderfluid dude anyways, I’m a bit confused by his collection of labels because I’m a crusty-ass millennial who isn’t familiar with all the new vocabulary they have nowadays…” “Then why do you put up with Pim’s entitled ass then?” Charlie fought the urge to glare at his girlfriend who was starting to seriously piss him off. “…because supporting someone even if you don’t completely understand their identity is what real friends do. After all, it took you a while to get my pronouns right and to stop talking me into staying in the closet. If you can learn to respect my gender identity, you can respect Pim’s. You said it yourself this morning, it’s respect that begets respect.” “I suppose it’s fair enough…but are you gonna start practicing what you’re preaching or are you gonna turn back into a vodka-soaked Peep tonight?” Amy cackled as loudly as possible at Zoey’s clapback, with an indignant Charlie’s face flushing a peachy orange as he facepalmed, “Okay, I deserved that one.” as he walked away humiliated. Even Zoey had stunned herself with how she totally roasted her own boyfriend like that…then again, considering all the times he’s made an ass out of himself and embarrassed her, Zoey felt a bit of catharsis.

The remainder of the evening consisted of the ever-energetic Squim, donning a red top-hat, a matching bow-tie swapping out his usual blue one, and gloves bedazzled in Ruby rhinestones, rattling off about the history of- plus the minimum price of- each item that the Smiling Friends brought out onto the stage, with the latest item in the line-up at this very moment being revealed by Alan, donning a sparkling silver cocktail dress and heels while decorated in silver chain jewelry and rings on each finger, rolling it out on a dollie before dramatically presenting to the audience as if he was revealing a prize on Jeopardy. “I’ll take that ominous box of illegal evil crap for approximately sixty-nine dollars!” Mr. Man shouted, until Mr. Peanut raised his hand in the air with a fat stack of cash in his claw, shouting, “I’ll throw in four-hundred and twenty dollars!” Finally, a self-proclaimed sexy witch spontaneously pulled a large suitcase out of her cloak and cried out: “I’ll take all that illegal evil crap for over nine-thousand!” “Oh will you look at that, everybody! Time’s up, because the Green Halloween Witch wins!!” Squim announced as Alan was snickering to himself about a certain number. “Pfft, pretty privilege.” Mr. Man muttered. “Rats!”, Mr. Peanut dramatically cursed out, “Now I’ll never get even with all the individual bastards who sued me out of business!” The witch gave Squim the suitcase as he himself passed it over to Mr. Boss as the latter cracked open the suitcase and hastily shoved all nine thousand and one dollars into a large pickle jar with Alan’s assistance, with Glep using a jumbo sharpie to cross out one of the many old numbers that was scribbled onto the jar and began to write: “1,102,204,122,6”. “Aaaaand coming up on our Smiling Friends Co. Charity Auction Night is….a collection of antique and totally-NOT cursed jewelry presented by a fine fella who needs no introduction!” Squim introduced Pim, walking up on stage as the crowd immediately cheered and clapped in applause the moment he arrived, twirled and unveiled his robes to reveal his entire body decorated in various jewelry pieces underneath a glacier-toned two-piece bikini. Pim placed his hands on his curves as he slowly bent down, his voice taking on a husky and seductive tone: “Good evening, my lamingtons~ Just ask, and I’ll serve.” He stood back up and shook his hips with a cheeky wink as Squim’s pulpit was cartoonishly converted into a DJ’s turntable with an impressive stereo set, taking off his top hat and putting on a pair of headphones that matched his outfit, then putting the hat back on, as he started playing a steamy tune from the speakers, all while Pim started to sing out the lyrics without the need of lip syncing while seductively dancing as everyone was deciding what pieces they wanted, distracted by the sexy, be damned. “A lucky, lucky girl~ She got married to a boy like you, She'd kick you out if she ever, ever kneeeew~” As Pim continued singing, he gently landed his knees onto the floor and flaunted his torso as he navigated his long nails on his buxom body, while singing soulfully: “Dirty, dirty boy~ You know everyone is talking on the sceeeene~ I hear them whispering 'bout the places that you've been..and how you don't know how to keep your business cleeeean!” and during the breakdown chorus, a number shouting out on the jewelry pieces they wanted. “The cultured pearl necklace! Gimme the cultured pearl necklace!” “Take off the bronze brooch with the lock of hair! It’ll be super useful for my cloning experiment!” “Hey Pim, slip out of that star-shaped belly chain, my wife is gonna LOVE that…because I’m kinda nervous she’s gonna leave me for you at this point!” Pim indeed delivered: taking off jewelry pieces with price tags one-by-one as the money was thrown all over the stage. During the Kim Petra’s verse that Pim absolutely nailed in his adorable impression of her, Pim did a death drop and a twerk for the audience, where he cheekily allowed Peleeken to slip a crisp eighty bucks onto the back of his bikini bottoms in exchange for a heart-shaped Opal brooch pinned onto his bra. As Pim continued his even moreso sexually-charged cover of Sam Smith’s Unholy, all the more jewelry he’d slip off as the money kept piling up around him until there was no-more jewelry to give. “The top! Take of the top!…if you want to anyway, no pressure!” Dj Spitz could barely contain his horniness at this point. “Erm, that’s not for sale….it’s for free, honey!” Pim replied while giving his full-consent to the advance, as took off the top and immediately slung it at Dj Spitz where it hit him in the eye. “*gasp* Oh my God I am so sorry!” Pim hastily apologized, showing genuine remorse. “Eh, don’t sweat it, baby! The black-eye is totally worth it!” After the performance ended with a buzzed-up and ravenous customers practically screaming for Pim, who was busy blowing kisses to his adoring fans, as Charlie swept up the rest of the dollar bills. “Thank you, oh, thank you!“ Pim moaned proactively, “You’ve all been such a wonderful audience tonight! To give credit where it’s due here, I was inspired by a wise-aleck comment that my best friend Charlie over here made during a board meet-up, none of this would have been possible without him!” The bashful Charlie blushed as the crowd cheered for both of them, someone even shouting: “You rock, Charlie!” as Pim skipped away to slip the charity money in the jar to let Charlie have his time to shine. As Charlie finished sweeping up, he couldn’t help but notice within the sea of the crowd once-again cheering for Pim, he spotted a stern-looking Zoey with her phone up, then lowering it and started clicking away at the touchscreen as Amy looked over and grinned devilishly, prompting her to go through with…. something, and Charlie knew whatever that something was wasn’t going to be good. “…and will you look at that, folks! we’ve already reached exactly three hundred billion dollars!” Prompting Squim to jump for joy as his bow-tie spun and the top of his hat popped off to spout confetti and balloons, chanting: “YAAAY, Smiling Friends is saved! HURRAY!” as Mr. Boss thanked everyone for their participation.

…

That night, LFF experienced quite the full house and had to close for the night, only open to the crowd lucky enough to participate. Charlie was seated with Zoey sandwiched between him and Zoey as the rest of the Smiling Friends gang have been waiting for the waitress to arrive with the menus. Just then, all of the Smiling Friends (sans Squim) and Mr. Boss have all been getting a string of strange new messages on their respective social media DMs from people none of them knew, calling the company they’ve worked worked for as “gross” and “full of perverted men”, some of the nastier messages would go onto completely disregard Pim’s gender identity and intrusively speculate on his anatomy, condescendingly painting him as a confused woman fetishizing actual flamboyant gay men to the point of packing her bottoms to simulate “male genitalia“ while being used as a puppet by an evil “woke” cult. “Dudes, just what in the hell is going on with all these angry messages?” Charlie asked out-loud in confusion. “I’ve never gotten this much hate mail since I had that Twitter meltdown over Mr. Frog getting elected!” Mr. Boss quipped. “Oy, I haven’t gotten social media because it’s simply not positive for my liking!” Squim proclaimed. Zoey, oblivious to the situation (and quite-possibly selectively so), gently nudged Charlie to congratulate him for staying on is best behavior so far, completely staying away from alcohol. “Wow, Charlie, you really are committed to this whole self-improvement thing! I knew you could do it.” Charlie, still having a lingering worry on his mind, smiled and winked: “Yeah, that’s the alpha male way of doing things…” as Charlie opened up his inbox, he received quite the gruesome hate message, immediately reporting and blocking the user as the confident Pim was bottling up any-and-all concern for his own mental-well-being by snickering to himself while responding to the hateful DMs in his own inbox with snappy remarks, all of which playing off the uneducated naivety of his opposers. An astonished Peleeken could only closely observe Pim’s unshakable confidence in the face of such intimidating scrutiny, resulting in Peleeken totally admiring Pim all the more than he already have. Finally, when Marge opened her phone to check her own notifications, she unexpectedly lost her cool and screamed bloody murder, causing quite the panic at that table. The worried Glep immediately went to comfort his wife, asking what exactly did she see. Marge started choking up, telling Glep about receiving a gruesome death threat, complete with graphic images. “I received that exact message too.” Alan spoke up. Charlie, sensing a pattern and connecting the dots together, immediately searched up Zoey’s profile on Twitter to find what he suspected before was indeed confirmed…and boy, he was pissed. Zoey saw Charlie raise his phone up and she knew exactly what he was about to show everyone, wiping that look of confidence right off her face as Amy conveniently fled the scene. “Zoey…you filmed my performance and framed it like a hit piece on our workplace?” The stunned Pim asked as all eyes where on the bespectacled redhead, before taking on a jokingly-flattering tone, “…why, thank you! I appreciate the free advertise-“ suddenly he felt an elbow harshly bumping into his arm, prompting Pim to look around and see if that was Peleeken, only to see him alongside Glep, Mr. Boss, Alan and even Squim (who was so shaken by the situation that both he and Alan where shooting death glares at Zoey) all solemnly-comforting the sobbing Marge hear Brittney’s voice: “Stop screwing around and read the room!”. Pim came to his senses and immediately went up from his seat join in the rest for comforting her, using the robes on his sleeves to dry her eyes before Marge warned Pim not to ruin his outfit for her sake before she started begging for a doggy bag, citing nausea from the contents of that vile message. As everyone else had their attention pre-occupied to helping out Marge, leaving only for a nervous Zoey to be face-to-face with an very enraged Charlie. “Zoey….just what the hell has gotten you?!” “Charlie, it was for a good cause-“ Charlie got up from his seat and stood back, raising his voice so that he didn’t deafen his girlfriend. “Enough of that deflection shit already! I know you’re used to my screw ups and shit but as you’ve seen for yourself recently, I’m been putting my whole T-dick into being a better boyfriend and a better person for your sake and mine while you’ve been turning into just a Grade-A Asshat! That’s not exactly what I call gender equality, now is it?! OH WAIT! You just stereotypically see trans men as butch women with he/him pronouns, why else would you snarl at my best friend while distinguishing him from quite-on-quite: REAL femboys and trans men in the same breath as not even seeing ANY of us as men at all!” “Charlie, of course you’re a real man, and I’m so sorry about how I worded that this morning-“ “DEADASS! Your dehumanizing, dog-shit treatment of Pim and selectively siding with his sister all the damn time even after I’ve been TRYING to warn you about her gaslighting you about who’s the abusive sibling just shows what you really THINK ABOUT OF ALL OF US!! WHY ELSE WOULD YOU SLANDER MR. BOSS AND GLEP, A DUO CONSISTING OF A TRANSGENDER MAN AND AN ENBAN, AND THEIR FAMILY-RUN BUSINESS!? SURE AS SHIT, YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT HAD SMILING FRIENDS BEEN CO-FOUNDED AND RUN BY MRS. SIMPSON AND MRS. BOSS!” Zoey, knowing she screwed up big-time, started tearing up at the sight of Marge being led-out of the restaurant, no longer feeling right about putting all of the blame on the more rabid-side of her fanbase, such a fanbase she had clearly underestimated in size until now. “Charlie…I’m sorry. I didn’t know that this was going to happen.” “Welcome to the age of the internet, do YOU know exactly which century we’re all living in?” Charlie snarked in a dry, humorless tone. “Charlie…I’m sorry…” “If you really are, you’d retract from that BULLSHIT post of yours gaslighting all your vapid, heartless, dumbass fanbase that Pim didn’t just give his open consent to a skit that was basically HIS IDEA IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE! DID YOU STOP FILMING WHEN HE MENTIONED THAT OR DID YOU DELIBERATELY CUT OUT THAT PART OUT BECAUSE YOU KNOW EXACTLY JUST WHAT KIND OF A MANIPULATIVE BULLYING GRIFTER YOU’VE BECOME?! AND AT WHAT COST, ZOEY?! EXACTLY. WHAT. FUCKING. COST?! INSTEAD OF USING YOUR PLATFORM TO HELP ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO REALLY DO GET GROOMED AND SEXUALLY ABUSED, YOU USE IT TO ONE-UP SOMEONE YOU HATE AND DEMONIZE SO MUCH THAT YOU’RE WILLING TO PUT OUT A TWEET FULL OF GODDAMN LIES THAT JUST PUT EVERYONE IN LEGITIMATE DANGER!! Wanna know what’s ironic? Accusing WHO YOU DAMN-WELL-KNOW is an out-and-proud intersex person of fetishizing feminine cis-gender men by bringing negative attention on their own anatomy that he was born with IS OUTRIGHT SEXUAL HARASSMENT! YOU KNOW WELL-ENOUGH ABOUT THAT SUBJECT TO HAVE NO EXCUSE TO BE SO GODDAMN DENSE! AND NOT ONLY THAT, IT ONLY FURTHER STIGMATIZES ANOTHER VULNERABLE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT YOU DAMN-WELL KNOW THAT I’M ALSO A PART OF?! I’M AN INTERSEX TRANS MAN TOO, ZOEY! WETHER YOU WANNA ACKNOWLEDGE THAT OR NOT, HAVE YOU EVEN CONSIDERED HOW THIS WHOLE-ASS ORDEAL MAKES ME FUCKING FEEL?!” All the weight carried over Zoey prompted her to collapse onto her side of the table, crying, wondering just what entity could have possessed her to betray her own friends and loved ones like this, desperately pleading for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, I really am! I was being petty and selfish!! I promise I’ll never do something that harmful ever again!” “NO SHIT, SHIRLOCK! SO, YOU REALLY DO WANNA MAKE IT UP TO ALL OF US, ESPECIALLY MARGE?! THE SAME MARGE WHO WASTED HER WEEKEND CODDLING YOUR SPOILED, UNGRATEFUL BRATTY ASS OVER THE WEEKEND, ONLY TO REPAY HER WITH THE ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING AND DANGEROUS SHIT YOU JUST PULLED?! YOU’D BE LUCKY IF SHE EVER SAID A SINGLE WORD TO YOU AFTER THIS! HELL, YOU’RE LUCKY THAT I STILL WANT TO BE YOUR BOYFRIEND! IF I WANTED TO BE AN EVEN BIGGER DOUCHE, I’D CALL IT QUITS, BUT DAMMIT ZOEY, I STILL GENUINELY LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO NOT JUST FOLD MY CARDS AND GIVE UP ON YOU LIKE THAT WHEN YOU’VE BEEN WILLING ENOUGH TO DO THE SAME FOR ME, IF YOU AND I CAN BELIEVE IT, ME AND ALL THE UTTER BUTT-FUCKERY THAT I’VE DONE! I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN FOR YOU TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND SHOW THAT GENUINE LOVE THAT I KNOW YOU HAVE FOR ME AND MARGE BY IMMEDIATELY RETRACTING THAT STUPID FUCKING POST ASAP AND TO TAKE THE SWEET FUCKING TIME TO WRITE A PROPER APOLOGY TO EVERYBODY YOU’VE HURT TONIGHT!!” After roaring fiercely and passionately like a ferocious lion at his girlfriend and full of legitimate anger contrasting his genuine forgiveness and desire for the girl he simply adores in spite of everything, Charlie loudly gasped for air as he clutched his heart, thanking God in his head for his pace-maker keeping him from having a straight-up heart attack at this rate, hammering it on home to Zoey just how severe the damage she’d done really was. Before Zoey could say another word, Charlie vanished right before her eyes as everyone else who was previously seated where busy carrying on with their night without a second thought. Everyone had left the barren table, leaving Zoey all alone with the consequences, her conscience bitching at her and a fresh batch of tears ready to come raining down from her eyes as she had to de-fog her lenses. Finally, the waitress arrived with the menu and completely oblivious to the major drama bomb that went off prior. “Hey, where did everybody go?” Zoey sighed, wiping her tears and regaining her composure. “Long-story short, I’m at least waiting for one more person to come back here.” Zoey tried to stoically reply, albeit her voice coming out of her mouth with a shaky and unsure cadence, as she immediately shot Amy a text asking where she’d went. 

…

Two hours passed, and the utterly-broken Zoey has been essentially stress-eating her sorrows away, not even giving a care about wether or not Amy was coming back at this point, assuming she-too now hated her guts. Just then, to her surprise and relief, Amy came back to the table, reapplying her lipstick and casually ignoring the obvious elephant in the room. “Back, had a major wardrobe malfunction there!” Zoey immediately started crying again. “Amy, I fucked up….” “Why? Because you posted that video of Pim? Lemme guess, everyone was being overdramatic babies about you not getting Pim’s gender right or whatever? Don’t try and tell me that those woke snowflakes pressured you into delete it! You where like, speaking your mind or something.” Zoey tried to answer coherently, but all that came out was pained sob of remorse and agony. Amy then reached out to hug the slightly-disheveled redhead and let her cry on shoulder…but not without some ulterior intent. “If Charlie breaks up you over this, that would be a Godsend in disguise, trust me. Not even a good kisser as far as I can tell with that honker of his!” Zoey weakly responded, “Amy, please don’t trash my man like that, he’s right. I posted that in the heat of the moment not even thinking about the context and everybody was coming after all of them…Marge…I deleted that post for a good reason.” “Oh, Zoey~ Don’t excuse them, they’re all adults that can handle a little flack once and a while! Pim was freaking laughing at all the hate mail she got, she’s a apathetic troll who takes all attention as good! She said it herself. If the special snowflake is grown-up enough to handle it with that ugly-gremlin-grin of her’s, everyone else can too! Gawd, this generation is so sensitive.” Zoey figured that maybe Amy had some kind of point, but her guilty conscience reminded her of how Marge- her beloved sister-figure who just comforted her for hours on the phone just the other day- had looked so betrayed and horrified at her actions that she couldn’t bare to look at her in the eye as she was led off her seat and outside. “I’ll tell you what, how about we hang out at my place for a girl’s night in? Would that take your mind off things? I gotta repay you somehow.” Zoey sniffled, giving an exasperated “Thanks.” Before the ladies left, Amy sneakily snatched the tip Zoey left for the waitress, who caught the blonde pink critter in the act and scowled, pulling up her own phone to snatch a pic as evidence.

~

It was 1:30am when Pim returned home, instead of fondly remembering what started out as a night where he felt at his proudest, it was instead likened to an immaculately-crafted stained glass window that was taken a rusty monkey-wrench to it. Pim slipped out of the robes, not even bothering to hang it up, instead throwing it on the sofa as he laid down to dramatically wilt from exhaustion. “…so much for killing two birds with one stone.” He didn’t even bother grabbing a bite on the way home as he masochistically combed through his phone, dually for any reply from Charlie regarding his whereabouts and for any more obnoxious DMs on Zoey’s behalf sent his way on an empty stomach. “Pim?” Brittany called, “I think it would be a healthier option to grab something to eat, take a quick shower and go to bed.” Pim dryly rubbed his bigger eye and put the phone down. “Yeah, you’re right. I think I’ve had enough drama for one day….let alone for about half a week.” Pim got up, walked to the kitchen and made himself a quick cup of instant ramen while opening a box of strawberry-crème water cookies while waiting for his noodles to be ready, since apparently there was nothing better than to cap off a stressful, havoc-ridden night than to pig out with a backwards meal of starting with dessert and ending it on dinner. “Okay you know what? Fuck it, I’m taking a long-ass bubble bath and I don’t give a damn if I fall asleep in the tub! I can breathe underwater anyways.” Pim said to himself with an air of bluntness mixed with apathy. “You might wake up to cold water though-“ Brittany warned her host like a mother. “I can just use the demon magic to heat up the water, can’t I?” “Uh…not a good idea, you might overheat the water and boil yourself.” “Well alright then, wake me up when the bath water gets cold then?” “I could do you one better and lift you from the tub and tuck you in bed!” “Pfft,” Pim started to crack up, internally agreeing, “Deal.” Pim hastily gobbled up the contents of his ramen cup and slurped the broth for dear life before slamming it back down with a gasp for air and a satisfied “Aaaaaah~”, feeling less like a drained zombie who had been limping around from the excess drama as of late. Pim immediately lef the kitchen to take his well-earned bubble bath, where his worn-ragged ass would indeed fall asleep in the tub.

…

Morning came, where Pim awakens to his alarm clock and found himself not wanting to leave his nice warm bed, not helping that he was still extremely low on spoons from, well…everything, Pim mustered whatever energy he had left to get his caffeine-deprived ass out of bed to face the fallout of you-know-who’s horrendous blunder that was definitely going to be lingering around the breakroom worse than Alan’s precious piece of cheese stinking up the fridge. Pim took the time to carefully concoct an ungodly cocktail of two kinds of matcha powder (one containing the addition of various functional mushrooms), concentrated coffee, and a can of Alani with a side of half-and-half and heavy whipping cream in a beer mug. Pim slugged that long, tall fucker down with great gusto, waiting for it to kick in as he went to his walk-in closet to change out of his luxurious peacock-blue two-piece button-front silk pajamas to ensemble-an-ensemble with great consideration, pairing together a violet long-sleeve shirt with a black bow-tie, indigo slacks, his black shoes, a purple-tweed sweater-vest with a blue silk rose pinned on the right breast and a black fedora before grabbing his lunchbox from the fridge and hustling to work and putting on his brave face to soldier through the day, whatever it may bring, even if he was dreading it like the plague.

Chapter Text

Seconds out the door, Pim was already going through it and he had no patience for anyone’s shit. While rushing to work, Pim had been “greeted” by a scrawny, sleazy critter dressed in slightly-wrinkled, outdated street clothes smoking a cigar by pinching him on the butt and asking why he was so overdressed. Pim shot a glare at the man, prompting the lit cigar to fall on  his lap, prompting his apparently-flammable pants to light on fire and leaving the sleaze to scream bloody murder. Next unpleasant encounter Pim received was when a man in a red hat elbowed the former right in the shoulder, muttering some homophobic slurs, thus, egging-on Pim to snap his fingers and transform the man’s rugged trucker garb into a bright red beehive wig, an apple-green tube dress, a leather crop-jacket and Jimmy Choos, copper hoop earrings, and a face full of lime-green eyeshadow, orangey-red blush and ruby lips that went swimmingly well with the get-up. “*gasp* Oh. Ginger Minj, is that you?!” Pim pretended to geek out as the chud-turn-Drag Queen screamed in horror and ran away. Lastly, Pim was yelled at by a woman with a dutch bobcut, a suffrage badge on her olive-green PU jacket, a red-orange t-shirt with a plastic-y and generic design of a woman holding a Venus sign (and for some reason her right hand had six fingers while the other only had four) that said: “BIOLOGICAL HOMOSAPIEN FEMALEHOOD”, a deep red-and-mustard yellow scarf and a polyester maroon skirt to “stay away” from her absente-children. Running out of ideas to utilize the demon magic via Brittney’s possession, Pim shouted right back at her: “Oh yeah, like ANYONE would wanna procreate with a face like THAT?! …let alone remotely be interested in dating a fan of those stupid wizard boy books?! That’s just-plain cringe!”, prompting the woman to dramatically collapse and cry for help, claiming to be a victim of misogyny. Pim sighed in exasperation as he witnessed the garish hot-pink graffiti that read in a crude free form-font: “WHOREHOUSE” and “SAVE THE ADULT HUMAN FEMAILS (sic)”. Pim couldn’t help but snicker at the glaring typo, stepping back and snapping a picture on his phone to snark about on his socials later.

Ironically for a goofy-looking Smiley Face building in the middle of the strip, the interior was anything-but. Alan, Glep and even Squim all complained to Charlie about the rippling effect that Zoey’s now-infamous post had upon them. Alan had a noticeable bruise on his neck, explaining how he was tripped over on the way to work by a TERF wearing the world’s tacky scarf (Pim may have figured out exactly which one it was), Glep angrily spouted how he was nearly stomped-on twice and even had RAID sprayed in his face, lastly Squim complained about how unhappy everybody was because of Zoey’s faux-pas ruining the celebration last night…that and he got kicked-around like a beach ball, but he clarified that he’s often mistaken for one. “Look guys, I chewed Zoey out for posting that last night and she’s sworn to delete that stupid post and to put out a proper statement so that these anti-elgebeeteeqeue whackos leave us all alone! She was genuinely sorry about causing all that racket! She believed in me and stuck by my side all the stupid shit I’ve done over the years, it would be hypocritical for me to just ditch her like that…Besides, Mr. Boss gave Squim a second, nay, third chance!” “Charlie, how can you have so little-self respect to stay with a person who viciously slandered you, your friends and your workplace to the point where here crazier fans and grifters pretending to stan her have-“ Alan counted the number of offenses while still giving him the what-for: “-having your apartment door vandalized with slurs, ganged-up on on your way to work and refused to be served at a bar to avoid the controversy?!” “…actually, that was because they heard about what went down on Friday, and honestly I don’t blame ‘em.” As Pim listened-well to the “everybody’s bitching Charlie out yet-again” session, he crossed his fingers hoping Charlie would break-up with Zoey not just because he was hoping for a three-way between both of them and Peleeken, but because he would savor the irony of Zoey getting dumped after willingly-staying with her chaotic mess of a boyfriend. Pim blushed as he recanted one of the many-intimate fantasies he would have of Charlie slipping in from Pim’s window to declare that he and Zoey broke up, and that he always loved Pim more…followed by a mirage of smut we won’t get into here. Pim snapped out of his steamy daydream as the other three had started calling out Charlie for willingly staying with Zoey at their expense, claiming he was either “insecure and desperate” or just plain Charlie gritted his teeth and put up his dukes, attempting to initiate a fight: “Oh yeah? How about we settle this like real men instead of screeching little brats?! If I can take on all three of you needle-dicks, I get to decide wether or not I stay with Zoey and nobody says anything about it!” “Fuck” Pim thought to himself as his face flushed while he ogled at Charlie. “Woo-hoo! Go, Charlie!” Pim yelled as he pumped his fist in the air, prompting everyone to give Pim confused looks. “I thought you and Zoey didn’t get along?” Alan awkwardly grumbled. Pim couldn’t just blurt that he got off on Charlie getting physical, so with a face flushed in the same shade of pink as the graffiti on the facade of their workplace, he stuttered his way out of a real explanation: “Because Charlie’s my best friend in the whole world, and he loves Zoey with all his heart-“ he really wanted to pretend to cough while sneaking in a: “-despite being the personification of watching paint the shade of Pantone’s blandest color dry”, but didn’t want to upset Charlie, so he mustered a sympathetic voice full of understanding much like his old-self: “…and he’s right: a real man would fist-fight for his lover!” Whatever tension in the room was briefly dropped as everyone started laughing at Pim’s theatric camp. “I think you’re watching too much anime.” Alan quipped as night next to him, Squim had been laughing so hard that fell out of his seat while kicking his feet in mid-air. “Wow, Pim, even in absolute shit times like this, you somehow find you way of making us smile.” Charlie complimented Pim while playfully giving Pim a firm pat on the back. “Because that’s what Smiling Friends are for!” Just then Charlie got a notification on his phone, notifying him about a recent post on Twitter. “Ha! You see that, Alan? Zoey posted the apology! I don’t have to break up with her!!” “Oooooh, will the apology just magically do away all this hate and harassment we’ve all been getting?” Alan sardonically sniped at Charlie. The confident and hopeful Charlie held his phone in a position as his friends huddled around him to read the retraction themselves.

@ZoeysMakingHerstory

I fucked up, I got in-over-my-head and mistook what was meant to be a private and consensual performance for something far more sinister and exploitative than it actually was. Please do not send any hate towards the Smiling Friends Inc., they did nothing wrong…with that being said, Me and @Bl0ndeBomb$hell have plenty of choice words to describe a certain troublemaker who’s been going viral with her selling her body like cheap candy and appropriating the struggles of a vulnerable  group being appropriated by trend-seekers… but my boyfriend somehow has a soft-spot for this utter mess of a person and he’s the strong-yet-sensitive type so he would probably take my opinions the wrong way. You-know-who, if you’re reading this: I have no true grudge against you, and I wish you good luck on getting the exact treatments you desperately need.

What started out as a genuine apology wound-up devolving into a rant about Pim, and Charlie could only groan in agony as he witnessed the self-sabotaged statement as everybody else sans-Pim was giving him the death glare. “OH, FOR THE LOVE OF ZACH!” Charlie wailed in exasperation like a character in a Peanuts special. “You care more about getting the good stuff in bed more than you give a flying fuck about any of us, app-are-ent-ly. As long as you’re still dating that funny-smelling back-stab-booor, we’re not fun-rends for the time be-ing.” Alan firmly stated while moving his heck and nose in a pecking bird-like movement as he sashayed away to get some more coffee. Glep angrily spat at Charlie’s hoodie before hopping off the table and Squim put his hands on his hips, delivering his own two-cents at Charlie as he pointed toward a brooding Pim who was staring at the screen rather than at Charlie like everyone else. “Oye! You gab all about Zoey so much and yet, do you even care about Pim over here? He always calls you his best friend and all that jazz! Why can’t you do the same for him for once?! You STINK, Charlie!” Squim bellowed as he stomped his foot like a rabbit on a warm spring day, “YOU STINK! STANK! STUNK!” before joining the other two in their mutual outrage against the big yellow critter. All there was left was Charlie himself and the only critter in the room who wasn’t shunning him. Charlie rubbed his temple and put a hand on Pim’s shoulder as the short pink critter was still steamed over Zoey’s latest post. “Pim…I’m so sorry man, I really am….Zoey just don’t get it! If you want, for your sake, I can just call this whole relationship off if it’ll get her to leave you alone. Everyone’s right, It’s not okay to let any of this shit slide….” Pim’s eyes widened at hearing upon his friend’s statement, smiling at the idea of him and Peleeken seducing Charlie away from Zoey like a pair of irresistible sirens, but Pim turned to Charlie and hugged him. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m not one to dictate who you gets to be your life partner….” “Are you sure about that, dude?” “Charlie, I can tell you really love Zoey…and who doesn’t?! She’s one of the most popular podcasters on the ‘net for a reason…and we all sure do love Zoey here, too, right guys?!” The subtly-sarcastic Pim chirped as everyone else couldn’t muster an answer, before turning back to Charlie, who was genuinely concerned with his little buddy at this point: “Pim, are you sure that you’re okay?” Pim’s grin just widened: “Of course I’m okay…because I have many ways of fighting my own battles.” Pim responded with a wink before he turned away to lather his hands together and smirk deviously as Charlie immediately caught that last part. He knew Pim’s level of confidence had always been impressive, he was starting to get worried about what was about to come next…

~

Zoey had been feeling satisfied enough with the apology she posted, as if a weight was off her chest, not even caring if certain folks where offended by her brazen (if not ignorant and bigoted AF) words, and went to work on writing the script for the next episode of her Making Herstory podcast, comparing the classic movie A League Of Their Own and the real-life historical events that the film had been based upon. This had so-far been a fun episode to make since Zoey fondly remembered watching the movie rerun on TV when she was younger, helping inspire her to get into sports such as baseball and cheerleading… and upon revisiting the flick, brewing her interest and curiosity in women’s history. She also fondly remembered a particular viewing of the movie with Charlie when they where in their teens. Charlie wasn’t exactly the most athletic, preferring video/board/card games,  but nevertheless would spend hours watching his long-time friend and crush from the bleachers to cheer her on alongside everybody else. Just then she faintly heard her phone incessantly vibrating with the notification sound on loop, muffled and far away. Zoey immediately got her phone out of her purse and checked on her Twitter. Much to her great annoyance, people had been harshly criticizing her and even calling for a boycott of her podcast even after she had put out her retraction. “Seriously?” She groaned as she endlessly scrolled through more replies, only to stop at one with a handle she recalled: it was a singer she always loved listening to ever since she was a child and longed to meet live-in-person one day and even interacted with a few times on this very app….now all-of-a-sudden condemning her as a spiteful hypocrite with cruelty and hatred in her heart who doesn’t deserve her platform, and ultimately regretting ever interacting with her. Zoey felt as if her heart shattered in-two, not feeling quite as bad as witnessing Marge’s breakdown but it was pretty darn close….she immediately noticed a reply praising a certain divalicious shortstack for having the courage to call out his bullies. Since she didn’t outright name-drop Pim, Zoey immediately picked up on that and scrolled down the replies to find the smoking gun. Zoey opened the thread and felt an entire hurricane of emotions. Pim had taken pics of the vandalism of the Smiling Friends building, the bruises he and his friends received from getting assaulted at work, and a whole paragraph exposing Amy and Zoey’s overall transandrophobic, exorsexist, intersexist and overall aggressively binariest treatment of the pink enban, right down to hurling slurs at him (somehow, he caught the “serving cunt” comment she made the other night) and pointing out that her bias-charged hit piece toward his performance of “Unholy” had fueled the harassment campaign from her riled-up supporters. While Zoey’s heart raced in anguish at seeing the photos of Charlie and the rest of the gang falling victim to people who supposedly looked up to her, it didn’t slow down her fury toward Pim one-bit…thus, Zoey immediately started typing away at a response that could swing back favor toward her.

~

After wrapping up today’s first mission, where a young girl was simply upset about her cat being stuck in a tree and the boys got it down for her and cheered her up, Charlie and Pim went to the café at 153 Meep Boulevard for a bite. Charlie drank from his Baja-Blast dirty soda to wash down his spicy pulled-pork grilled cheese with horseradish gouda, tomatoes, pickles, onions and pepper rings. “Damn, this place is kinda like how Salty’s was when I was a homunculus! Except a helluva lot more spick and span.” “Yeah, y’know I’m honestly glad I got the addresses mixed-up that day.” replied Pim, who punched the straw into the plastic wrap covering the top of his strawberry boba tea cup and sipped the sweet and fruity milk-based goodness. “If it weren’t for you, Shrimp and Jennifer wouldn’t have started dating, and-“ he sighed wistfully, “-they seem really happy together.” Usually it would have been Pim feeling bittersweet over giving his crush away to Shrimp, but since he had started a happy relationship with Peleeken, it was Charlie who longed for less drama and chaos in his own relationship Zoey….and speak of the devil, Pim had just opened his phone to check the time, viewing a silent notification that Zoey had tagged him to a post….and boy what a post it was! Zoey had posted a counter-callout toward Pim for “taking things out-of-context” and blaming her for the actions of individuals she didn’t associate with, and that he was proving Amy’s word of him being an over-sensitive, petty, vengeful liar out to get whoever rivaled him in terms of ‘net fame. Pim rolled his eyes as he took a bite of his feta cheese and beef gyro with shredded lettuce, diced tomato, ring-style onions, and a generous dose of tzatziki sauce, then started typing away his next move against Zoey.

~

Zoey had been at her part-time job at a library where she organized and dusted off books on the shelf, she had also made quite a few friends at this library she worked at, including those who shared her and Charlie’s mutual interest in J.R.R Tolkien (alongside her guilty pleasure of steamy fantasy novels). During lunch-break, she would nourish herself while and crack open a book to read. Zoey took her seat, got out a dark chocolate-almond-sea salt granola bar and a fruit cup from her lunchbox and found the chapter of where she’d left-off at Delectable In Dungeon. Just then, her phone vibrated, indicating that she received a message. It was from Amy, sharing a link to a Twitter post with the text: “Can you believe this BS?”. The post in-question was Pim’s smart-assed reply to Zoey’s rebuttal of his exposé.

@🌸🌟💖Pim💫💕🌸 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Bold of you to attempt to gaslight everybody that you didn’t just come after me right after filming me on stage just to judge me wether-or-not I’m “trans-enough” for you based on my genitalia!

Not only did she get ratio’d again, this time even the people siding with Zoey had been calling her out for trying to put smoke in their heads that she didn’t just attempt to drag Pim in particular when she was clearly doing so. What burned Zoey’s ass even even moreso was the fact that @yellowman95 had indeed liked Pim’s reply. She groaned as she furiously texted back to Amy how Pim was driving her crazy and that she needed a stroke of inspiration to fire back at her rival, to which Amy was more-than-happy to provide such ideas for her new bestie, especially if it meant potentially nuking Pim’s reputation.

~

For the longest time up until now, Pim and Zoey mainly kept their lack-of-harmony to brief irl encounters… but since Zoey accidentally burned the bridges between her and most of the staff at Smiling Friends, the feud had messily bled into their social media across all platforms, and that feud blossomed into the internet’s favorite sport: flame wars. It seemed as the hours passed, Zoey would try her best to drag Pim by pointing out his-apparent “cryptic” problematicness as Pim would fire back with clever and witty comebacks, playing off of how she was truly uneducated on the Gay and Trans communities of whom she claimed to be allied with, then Zoey would claim Pim took her comments the wrong way then Pim would zing her right back with pointing out that yes, indeed she meant for it to be that way. It was a vicious cycle of what the old-school Ballroom Queens would call “throwing shade”, almost as if Pim and Zoey where playing a daunting game of chess, with the replies they texted out to eachother serving as pieces they moved on the board…just when Zoey would use her Queen piece to snatch one of Pim’s pawns, Pim would use his bishop to snatch it. Being a popular podcaster who had a healthy a social circle irl, Zoey wasn’t without her supporters, especially Amy who was her main cheerleader, whereas on Pim’s terf, the gang at the Smiling Friends HQ at had all been rooting for Pim to roast Zoey after the damage her actions dealt at them and Pim’s friends outside of work plus his fanbase had stood firmly by his side…hell, even their respective fanbases had been viciously attacking each other limb-from-limb on behalf of their respective idol on the virtual battlefield. If there was ever an iconic and hectic rivalry that could be crowned as the most juicy and explosive tea-spilling fest since the beef between Kim and Taylor over Kanye (…ew, @ three of them honestly): it was the heated rivalry between the well-established feminist activist, podcaster and occasional Twitch streamer Zoey Franco and rising-mega star with legions of adoring fans and gooners, Pim Pimling. Some folks even drew an interesting parallel to when Mr. Frog had briefly beefed with Wendy and William Worm after being elected! Charlie of course, felt like the most awkward sunnovabitch in the whole world, hearing his girlfriend chew him out on the phone for not backing him up on any of their socials yet liking one of Pim’s replies just right after Pim initiates a “hi-five” between the two of them in celebration of his original callout post toward Zoey reaching five million likes and re-shares. Loving them both yet-getting sick of being the monkey in the middle, he tried to talk the two out of obsessively dragging one-and-other online, but to no avail. Zoey’s stubborn and misguided sense of justice combined with her willful ignorance of the LGBTQ+ community had a particularly explosive and noxious chemical reaction when put-together with Pim having a little too much fun being the “Bad Bitch of Pennsylvania” and riling up the more straight-laced public figure at every opportunity presented to him, regardless of wether or not Zoey even started it in the first place. One particularly messy case was when Zoey was announced as a guest of honor at StreamCon, a IndieGoGo-funded convention for YouTubers, podcasters and streamers of which it’s standard tickets promised a five-star hotel plus free dinner nearby a marvelous view of Lake Erie….alas, when Zoey and Amy attended this fabled convention, both had been was met with a bustling, disgruntled crowd of guests who had just found-out that the hotel they where promised had been packed full of tourists, so they had to make due for cheap pop-up tents by the beachside as the stars of the convention awkwardly holding improv Q&A sessions and meet-ups with their fans….and with many condolences to those who had still expected a decent dinner out of this whole mess, everyone was graced with styrofoam containers of plain cheese sandwiches. As Zoey and Amy essentially captured every detail of this wonky experience, that little pink wisenheimer just had to dunk-on the duo and their live coverage of the now-infamous StreamCon.

@🌸🌟💖Pim💫💕🌸 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Once, I went to Brazil with some friends but the whole time we were stuck in the airport because all the hotels were booked for Mardi Grás! And yet, still a more enjoyable vacation than whatever the hell THAT smoldering dumpster fire was! 😂

@ZoeysMakingHerstory

…at least I remembered to book for the hotel and the flight. 😏

@Bl0ndeBomb$hell

Unlike some poor suckers! 😂 

Immediately right-after, Pim inexplicably responded to those last-two replies by posting a barrage of selfies consisting of himself sprawled out on the beach of Baía do Sancho of all places, himself clad in a short, curly red wig in a messy boyish style with what appeared to be a seashell bikini consisting of oyster pasties and a clamshell strung-together with strands of genuine cultured pearls and for the cherry on top, using a unique mashup between the intersex and genderfluid pride flags as a beach towel/coverup, all while the rest of the SF gang (plus Peleeken and Marge!) where hanging out in the background enjoying themselves. The last selfie just-so happened to be Pim and Pelekeen sharing a high-stacked Dagwood-style sandwich complete with the tooth-picked olives! The response was wrapped up in a neat-little-bow with the caption: “I did.” And just like that, the whole darn thread went viral as not only did Pim’s insane fandom had a field day geeking out about the latest batch of selfies, the thread had served as yet-another example of how horribly wrong StreamCon went, much to Zoey and Amy’s unbridled scorn. Of course, like with all popular internet people, Pim did receive some backlash for his flex from folks who actually did attend the ill-fated StreamCon who wished they’d spend their seventy bucks on something more worthwhile and didn’t need Instagram’s darling rubbing it in their faces.

Rub it in why don’t ya?!

That’s just what I needed after getting scammed out of my money with that glorified shitty camping trip: the Bad Bitch himself showing off how well his vacation went!

I open up my feed for the first time since that crappy convention, was refused a refund and now I’m greeted with this bougie crap stinking up my feed! What a week.

Great, even faer laughing at us now!

Posting these right after me and my wife made the mistake of attending StreamCon is diabolical.

Not Pim coming here @ all of us!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

OH FUCK OFF

Of course Zoey and Amy would utilize this pushback to their advantage, pointing out how much Pim lived up to his “Bitch” moniker, not helping was how even Pim’s supporters had deemed his satire of StreamCon to have already aged like milk when reports cropped up of people having their belongings stolen during the trip plus the news that the organizers flees the country to whereabouts unknown just when they where about to get the pants sued outta them! Of course, Pim would find a golden opportunity to pull quite the epic UNO-reversal card to win back lost favor by putting out a statement that he would happily offering all the disgruntled StreamCon goers their money back and a bonus $100 gift card to replace the stolen items as an apology for how his post came off in poor taste…and call it plot armor, but this gambit worked like a charm! 

OK we forgive you now.

I knew Pim was goated!

Based Bad Bitch 😎

I wasn’t a big fan of Pim until this happened, now I know why so many people love him!

NOW THAT’S THE BAD BITCH WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE! 🔥🔥🔥💯

The baddest bitch who ever bad bitched.

Pim is a national treasure who must be protected at all costs 💖💞💗

Who knew the Bad Bitch was such a sweetheart?

No longer regretting going to StreamCon now, thanks Pim! You’re a doll! 💞✨🌸

I’m a Zoey supporter and even I could kiss Pim rn!

Amy was kicking herself at how she didn’t think of bribing favor toward the angered StreamCon-goers as she begrudgingly accepted Pim’s offer, while Zoey was so flustered that she went on a lengthy rant on her own show to accuse Pim of throwing money at his critics to shut them up and weasel his way out of the negative attention, and that he would have actively pursued the scammers if he truly wanted to make amends…a day after uploading, Zoey had checked on the video’s performance, while she was initially impressed with the doubled-views it amassed in 24 hours…but her pride soured when she discovered just how wildly-negative the overall response to the upload had been. Not only had the episode become the most downvoted video that she ever made, most if not all of the comments had been from her own fans turned off by how her dislike of Pim had now been bleeding into her work and became too unbearable to ignore.

WTF does Pim and StreamCon have to do with the history of women’s baseball anyway?

I thought I accidentally clicked on another video but nope! I am so confused. 😥

If you wanted to complain about Pim again, why not just make a separate video?

Dude just offered you 150 bucks and you’re still coming after him, the salt is unreal here.

You’re definitely not beating the transphobe allegations. 💀 🥀 

Girlie is so obsessed that it’s cringe at this point. 🤦‍♀️ 

…you realize that those scammers vanished off the face of the earth, right?

Get on with the damn episode already! 

What a bummer that the importance of Title IX (and not just for cisgender women!) has been hijacked by hateful grifters! Real feminists stand with the entire trans+ community, not just mooching off of the binary dolls while shitting on everyone else. Smh rn.

Remember when Making Herstory wasn’t weaponized to bully transmascs?

Ever since she entered that beef with Bad Bitch Pim, this podcast hasn’t been nearly as enjoyable.

Quit showing your ass and start the actual episode already!

When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?

Guess she’s still salty about StreamCon 😂

I’m a Zoey stan and even I’m getting sick of the beef!

I missed my father’s funeral for this.

GET ON WITH IT

Of course, it was bad enough that her own fans where heckling her at this point, but it truly was the top comment that drove Zoey over the edge:

@PimPimlingVEVO: Hey loves!! 💕 It’s your favorite ✨ Bad Bitch ✨ here to once-again put this bargin-bin basic brat in her place by dropping off a timeskip to the actual episode at 33:45 for those willing to put up with Zoey’s whiny, annoying voice just so you can hear her actually talk about something intelligent for once! (Seriously I’d cheat on someone that dull and insufferable too 🙊) 💕 💋 Yw hunnies 💅 ✨ 

~

An exasperated Pim finally came home after clocking-out another hectic day at work, where on the way back from helping a client, both he and Charlie got swept up in a storm that could have been christened with the name: Hurricane Paparazzi. Pim had found himself subjected to a sea of phones all flashing at him with a round of fifty questions hurled at his way with topics ranging from wether or not he was already pregnant (and if so, was the baby even Peleeken’s), to his intense rivalry with Zoey Franco. Pim was so overwhelmed that he collapsed onto the concrete and curled up in a protective fetal-position, experiencing a panic attack. Having enough of everybody’s shit at this point, Charlie roared in vengeance to leave his friend alone and even started throwing punches to keep the blood-thirsty paparazzi at bay. Luckily the two would run for it before the cops arrived to lay the law down. “Pim, is everything okay with you?” Brittany called inside Pim’s mind in her sisterly tone. “Yeah, everything is all yummy and good with me.” Pim sneered out-loud as he took his shoes off and flopped onto his bed with as much grace as when Arrietty’s sign-off on S17. Out of masochistic boredom, Pim opened his Instagram to check on the comments section on his latest post, of which was a cute selfie of himself in his outfit for the day: a pop-punk look of a purple flannel, a white tank-top, a black tie, black lace-up shorts over lemon yellow tights of which had been deliberately torn at the knees and black platform high-top sneakers that went up to his knee all topped with a black spiky wig with purple-and-yellow highlights and served with a side of guyliner. But it seemed that the outfit wasn’t the only thing people where talking about…

It’s giving the Non-Binary flag 💛🤍💜🖤 PS I saw you in the comments section of that Making Herstory episode, that was hella SAVAGE /pos 😈 🔥 🔥 🔥 💯 

Outfit’s as elaborate as your trolling on HER. 😂 

That bit where u dunk on her and her boyfriend cheating on her while drunk was the unhinged af 😂🤣😭

Serving punk pop/scenecore/club kid energy while being the most chaotic and feral MF since Mr. Frog retired from showbiz and I’m LIVING for iiit!! 👏👏👏👏

You slayed here just like you slayed Zoey on her own YouTube channel today, keep up the good work. 🗡️ ✨

So you have a YouTube account and you log into it…but solely for the purpose of dunking on Zoetrope Funkopop yet-again, but not upload that fire performance of Unholy? Make it make sense!

Does my heart good to see you trolling that transphobic grifter while being fabulous as usual. 💅✨

God you’re such a smug little twat, leave Zoey alone. 😤😡

You might have gotten the last laugh but at least Zoey dresses more tastefully than your 90s Barbie-reject ass you wannabe!

Don’t listen to all those crybaby Zoey stans, Pim, she attacked first so keep fighting back! 💫 💕

…and one particularly explosive comment that took-space on the top of the comments, from a certain podcaster who really didn’t find that one now-iconic comment all that funny:

YOU THINK YOU’RE SO FUCKING FUNNY PULLING THAT SHIT!! Stick to what you do best, you greasy pink slime nugget: roleplaying as the worst gay male stereotypes you can think of AND GO GET FUCKED IN A SALTY’S BATHROOM SO HARD THAT QUADRUPLETS COME FLYING OUT OF THAT INSATIABLE BLACK HOLE OF YOURS, YOU CRUSTY USED-UP CUM DUMPSTER!!

While he was unfazed by the nature comment and the mega-ton of discourse surrounding it’s very existence in the replies, exactly one thought had popped up in Pim’s mind while reading the latest batch of comments: “…but I haven’t touched that cheesy, dated old channel in years!” Prior to becoming the audacious primadonna he’s well-known as today, Pim had been a niché yet-fondly remembered YouTuber known as xShoujoRosePrincex who played on a ukelele and made his own music as well as singing covers of pop punk songs and anime OPs + EDs. He took on a more emo/pastel goth aesthetic and more melancholy tone, oft singing songs about romance and tragedy, many of which accompanied by animatics that Pim himself had crafted since he was shy about filming himself on camera and posting it publicly. XShoujoRosePrincex was mainly active between the late noughties-mid 2010s before he put the channel on-hold after he was hired as a Smiling Friend; Even after the channel had been long-abandoned, it had still gotten some views now and then, wether it be nostalgic viewers who had grown up alongside Pim from that era or newcomers…and since Pim never gave his real name or face on that little channel, nobody had a clue what xShoujoRosePrincex had been up to as of late…and lemme tell ya, everybody was about to be treated to a real juicy plot twist…

~

Oh, woe is Zoey Franco! What a time it’s been for this busy, worm-out woman. Just to recap: Her boyfriend had ruined what would have been the best night of her life, her latest post resulted in everybody involved with Smiling Friends INC. getting bullied to no-end and resulting in everybody who got attacked (sans Charlie) completely kicking her to the curb banning her from the premises, StreamCon was a complete disaster, her newest episode of Making Herstory completely bombed, Pim has been running rings around her and had seemingly stooped to such a low that he had to slip-in that joke. That one joke about how if Pim was her partner, he would happily cheat on her. Charlie with his “slip-ups” regarding Mip and that elf he mistaken for Zoey while not in his right mind was bad enough, but he knew Charlie was genuinely sorry and dearly loved his girlfriend -unlike her previous, seemingly-perfect partner she had dated before her relationship with Charlie had upgraded from romance to friendship- which is why the plot twist that unraveled before her eyes on her PC monitor intensified her remorse how she had recently carried herself with the latest installment of her beef with Pim. The more Zoey looked at the bombshell post where Pim had appeared to expose his imposter by logging onto his actual YouTube and clearing up the whole dang mess, the more anxiety, shame and guilt swelled within her. Zoey didn’t exactly know what hurt more: the fact that the public’s opinion of her had shifted from the wholesome feminist activist with a witty sense of humor to a messy, unprofessional and vicious mean girl, or the fact that she in spite of her own behavior she hadn’t realized how Charlie had potentially felt about her behavior as of late, especially since Charlie himself had been trying his hardest to keep himself from falling back into old habits. Not helping was the recent crop of comments calling Zoey out for the vulgar comment she had left on Pim’s latest selfie post, and much-like a burning paper bag full of dog shit on some old lady’s fancy porch in the ‘burbs, it had exploded into a messy aftermath with a lingering stench too pungent to ignore. 

You can’t pride yourself in being a feminist for LGBTQ+ rights and-yet leave that disgusting comment on an out-and-proud queer person’s post, how could you stoop to such a low?

….so about deleting that one really disgusting comment you left on Pim’s page?

If you’re so pro-trans+, delete that vomit you spewed and quit attacking Pim, it’s just gotten vile at this point. 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

Even if Pim did post that hella-inappropriate comment on here, you really shouldn’t have stooped to that kind of low.

As a trans woman who has been a fan of your show for years, the way you’ve been acting toward the people closest to your own transgender boyfriend and how very little you’ve been trying to curb the people harassing them on your behalf…it’s just repulsive. I don’t feel comfortable watching your content or supporting you anymore.

DO. BETTER.

I feel so fucking sorry for your boyfriend rn. 💀

The exhausted and overwhelmed Zoey could only sigh at how her reputation had appeared to be tarnished. She knew she shouldn’t have even bothered reacting to the ragebait comment from the Pim-poster or ever have mentioned Pim on her podcast, but even taking full-responsibility for own actions couldn’t stop how awful she had felt over the whole ordeal. Clamoring to vent to somebody but not wanting to drag Charlie into her internet drama yet-again, Zoey figured it would be a good idea to text a friend for advice what to do.

~

“SHIT!” Amy cursed out when she saw for herself on her rose gold MacBook, logging into a throwaway account she had made to…fuel the fire, so-to-speak, only to find out that people somehow had caught onto the ruse. Just then her phone rang, it was Zoey. She had picked it up and had been greeted to a tearful voice explaining how basically everything went wrong and left her feeling at her lowest thus far. Using this as an opportunity to make a power-move or two, Amy answered her questions: First off, she suggested that the whole “@PimPimlingVEVO” stint was deliberately organized by Pim himself to make her look like a worse person than she already was. Second: She convinced her that the “woke” side of her fanbase that have been the most vocal in critiquing her less-mature actions were too fickle and self-righteous, clinging onto the worst aspects of “cancel culture”. Third: She reassured her that she doesn’t have to feel bad for Charlie whatsoever, citing the many times he’s embarrassed her….and if he ever does anything to genuinely upset her again, she’d have every right to call off the relationship. Finally, fourth of all: Amy’s collaborations with Zoey had been her most popular posts as of late (especially with each other’s stans, the grifters and the more-clueless fans not-in-the-know about the controversies) and was rather annoyed with how so little time they had to do collabs, so she claimed that part of her problem was the time and energy she spent on her podcast that she has more fun making fashion and food-related content with her. Having an influenced epiphany and feeling empowered, Zoey thanked Amy for inspiring her as Amy resumed ruthlessly scheming away on the drawing board in her head, cooking up many ways to use Zoey as her ultimate weapon against Pim. “Anytime, bestie~ Just stick with me and together: we’ll utterly destroy that audacious whore!”

Chapter Text

Pim revived his old YouTube channel, rebranding it from @xShoujoRosePrincex to @TheRealRawPimVEVO and updating the icon of Roxas from Kingdom Hearts to a selfie of Pim left-over from the iconic and crazy night at the Spaghetti Disco of which would serve as his claim-to-fame. He also updated the description to a nod to the @PimPimlingVEVO controversy, a brief blurb that read: “Accepting no substitutes, so GTFO wannabes! 💖” The first upload on that dusty old channel since the long-ass hiatus had been a spooky music video for his cover of “Unholy”, depicting Pim seductively dancing in an old abandoned church donning Vanjie’s costume from her role in Rosemarie’s Baby Shower: the Rusical. The upload brought in millions of views within mere hours, and his subscriber count rabidly grew in droves. Pim had been so inspired by the overwhelmingly positive response to the comeback that he felt as if he waltzed into his worn-down childhood treehouse and somehow fixed it up into a luxurious gazebo of sort, and the result felt incredibly satisfying…and with that, Pim immediately got to work on writing new music to post, reflecting his evolution from that shy emo kid who posted DIY melodramatic (to the point of being lowkey cheesy) tunes paired with roughly-drawn manga-esque animatics to a bombastic and electrifying pop-enby diva ready to take on the world.

Zoey put out a statement announcing she had officially retired from Making Herstory, citing burnout and a desire to collaborate with Amy on her Instagram page, and closing out the message thanking her fans while apologizing to them for the disaster that was the last episode as well as her unprofessional behavior toward the end. While she didn’t bring up Pim or the now-deleted imposter account pretending to be him (not wanting to draw more negative attention from his fanbase, that and she believed Amy’s theory that Pim came up with the imposter account ruse) she had indeed deleted her infamous blow-up comment at Pim. Since then, Zoey indeed have had more fun with Amy with their photoshoots, alongside making new content together such as mukbangs, make-up tutorials and shopping hauls. No longer having to spend many a sleepless night editing away on hour-long videos and spending more time with her new best friend, Zoey hadn’t felt this happy since she and Marge used to hang out and talk on the phone. While she and Pim occasionally butt heads IRL and online, it wasn’t as pronounced since the two had been focusing on broadening their careers.

Charlie…he’s surviving. There’s a lot going on in his mind and he’s hesitant to speak on it until he felt the time was right. While it seemed that rivalry between his girlfriend and his co-worker had cooled down considerably since the two had been busy switching their respective gears, the turbulence of the riff between Zoey and the rest of his limited-yet-cozy social circle combined with…well, everything else, had heaped even more stress upon the yellow critter. Too bad he was so afraid of rocking the boat to where if it seemed he had taken one side, he knew that he’d either lose his girlfriend or his friends. It was bad enough that he came close to losing everyone after his stunt at the Princess of the Enchanted Forest’s ball. While Charlie didn’t solve all problems with alcohol anymore, and had been trying various coping mechanisms how to deal with it such as mantras and distracting himself, recently since after the uproar at LFF, Charlie would wake up in the middle of the night and would have such horrible intrusive thoughts that he’d chug from his flask just enough to make him pass out until it was time to wake up and greet the day.

~

Every first Monday in the month May had always held the honor of being designated as the date for a highly-anticipated event for anyone who gave a damn about fashion, this legendary fashion-based soirée is widely-known by every terminally-online girlie, gay and they as the MEEP Gala, annually held at the Meeptrepolitan Museum for Elaborate Eleganza and Panache in New York City, New York (it’s a helluva town!) where dozens of big names from Hollywoo to the ‘net all show up in their most upscale formal couture to clog up the joint like ants in a jar of sugar cubes for a night of everybody present catching a widespread viral case of the Kiki’s, the “Ha-Has” and the “Dear GAWD, what was [insert whichever Kardashian/Jenner girl here seriously there’s like a gazillion of ‘em!] thinking showing up like THAT?!” and honey, you can sure bet-yer-Berkin that this year wasn’t gonna be an exception, since three of the internet’s most chaotic divas had all been invited this year! Needless to say, they were as hyped than the Vocaloid fandom during Coachella ‘24!  Pim was sprawled out on his bed that evening, wearing a plush aubergine bathrobe to correspond his lime-green and amethyst-purple tiger-striped briefs that he slapped on after hustling out of the shower, while admiring his appearance in his heart-shaped hand mirror with an uptick in gender euphoria from the semi-noticeable chest hair between his small-yet-perky breasts. “Rawr~” Pim vainly complimented himself in a deep, sultry tone:  “I should just attend the MEEP Gala like this, bet I’d look miles-better than that garish abomination that Amy wore at the auction…” Pim chuckled to himself before Brittany zinged: “Yeah, and those soggy, faded-out dishrags that Zoey rustled up from her kitchen at the last minute!” Pim immediately pitched a giggling fit, kicking hug legs up in the air then rolling over to pound his fists on his bed at Brittany’s reading. “Oh my daddy, you’re simply precious! I’m surprised that Peleeken agreed to having an open-relationship with anyone else besides you!” “Aw, thanks Brit~ Even if both of us have looser bussies than a merger-happy movie mogul, we’re still gonna be each other’s ride-or-die-“ Pim stood up on his best with his chest puffed out, legs apart and shamelessly thrusting his hips, “…‘Till death do us part, biatches!” “Wow, that is true love.” Brittany mused, Pim immediately grabbing his phone: “Crap, that reminds me…I gotta ask Peleeken to see if he’d gotten his invitation to the MEEP Gala~” Pim laid flat on his stomach and swished his legs while dialing up his cute boyfriend. When his call was picked up, Pim was surprised to hear Peleeken on the other end, sniffling and struggling to speak without choking up. “PeleeKween… are you okay, baby?” “Oh, Pim! I am so sorry b-but- I can’t attend the MEEP Gala…” Pim’s eyes widened anxiously, wondering what exactly could have come up. “What’s holding you back, angel?” “Haven’t you heard? They invited Mr. Blingo of all people!” Pim immediately recognized the name, belonging to an infamous figure who once crossed paths with ex-President Jimble…thus, his expression of concern and worry blazing into one of barely-restrained fury. “…what kind of tasteless bit are they pulling on us, anyway??” The outraged Pim asked as Peleeken sobbed even harder -begging forgiveness for declining- as Pim didn’t even consider the event to be worth going anymore. “Screw the MEEP Gala,” Pim harrumphed, “I can just spend the whole night with you and have a much better time.” Peleeken wheezed: “Oh Pimmy-Poo, don’t miss out because of me, you deserve to have your big moment, if you still want to at this point.” “Well, I have plenty of time before then…who knows? maybe if I do decide to go, I’ll be able to smash a banana cream pie in his face!” That last part made Peleeken chuckle. “Now that would be legendary.” “Alrighty then, just for your sake, I’ll go and humiliate that disgraceful pile of expired dog chow with that botched Botox job in your honor!” Peleeken squealed in delight at the cathartic thought of his adorable and deliciously-savage boyfriend making a complete buffoon of the horrendous tyrant who had the nerve to present himself as the leader of a “utopian” empire in spite of laundry list the atrocities he committed, one of which had greatly affected him. “Oh Pim, May I have a suggestion?” Peleeken meekly asked. “Ask away, angel, I love it when people inspire me.” Peleeken asked Pim if he could somehow include the flag of his heritage: an island very close to Australia where he and his kind of gemstone-bearing critters originated from….before Mr. Blingo and his army occupied it so that he could build his vacation home, the island that none-the-wiser knew was once known as Silica, whose flag was a pale-lavender tone, boasting it’s emblem in the form of eight diamond-gemstones in the colors of pink, red, orange, yellow, white, green, cyan, indigo, purple and magenta centering around a waratah flower. Knowing exactly how meaningful it would be to his lover, Pim immediately accepted the idea. 

Pim was no stranger to political history, and in turn, all the deepest and darkest dirt surrounding all of it, and he was definitely doing his research on the controversial Mr. Blingo so that his outfit could be bold enough and loaded with historical references to his crimes to bring more awareness to the public. Sure, Mr. Blingo may have done “good” as his lapdogs and those not-quite-in-the-know would boast, such as supposedly letting women fight for their country, acknowledge gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights (yet bafflingly enough, he hadn’t bothered to legalize their rights or establish protections for them) and ordered his men to grow lush forests on (suspiciously) barren land…of course, all of that was merely femmewashing, pinkwashing, greenwashing and all-around manipulating the narrative to deflect from the dozens of countries he’d colonize, enslave and/or outright wipe out. Over in Silica (or better-known by the unaware masses nowadays as “Mr. Blingo’s Third Sprawling Summer Home and Country Club”), Peleeken still had family members whom had all still been waiting on Mr. Blingo hand-and-foot. Even putting aside his nature as a cruel dictator, Mr. Blingo was also a terrible excuse for a lover who went through women like water! Countless exes of of his had come out with interviews and tell-all books on just how rotten the experience of being Mrs. Blingo had been! The worst story of them all, had to be the story of a Silica lady known by historians as “Sundrop”, or by her real name given by her people as Carnellia, after the gorgeous red gem embedded in her forehead that shimmered in the sun, giving a glowing affect that reflected on her cheery personality.. While Mr. Blingo was planning a war with the Silicans for the ownership of their land, he had slyly charmed the Chief Elder’s daughter by secretly invited Carnellia to his campsite, showering her with gifts (such as a strand of genuine pearls) and convinced her that had they married, her island would prosper. Unfortunately, the then-15 year old Carnellia hadn’t realized she was being groomed and practically held for ransom. Mr. Blingo offered the girl back if the Chief had handed over his and his people’s land, to which they were NOT falling for and where all eager to take her back and chase the intrusive colonizers out of their island…tragically, it ended in bloodshed. Carnelia watched in horror through the windows of her chamber in the mansion as her people had either fled their own island or had been slaughtered trying to rescue her….and on the day she was to be wed to Mr. Blingo. Pim’s stomach churned at the gruesome details of the overall toxic, abusive and repulsive horror show that Mr. Blingo put poor Carnelia through that would drive her to an abrupt end in order to escape the gilded house of horrors….and after her tragic death, Mr. Blingo had the nerve to not only replace her with a pink, frog-like critter from an underwater civilization known as the Waterborne (we’ll put a pin on this for later!) that -of course!- he’d colonized and pillaged, even going as far as to glue a red gemstone in her forehead. Going the extra mile to cover up the real tragedy of Carnelia, Mr. Blingo payed a certain iconic animated movie studio to produce a glorified propaganda piece to paint himself and his married life in a much more…family-friendly musical sort of way. And when that movie released in theaters, he brought his extremely-uncomfortable imposter wife overseas to the US to show her off as if he was his property, and that this movie was their biography. Of course, “Sundrop 2” eventually had enough with putting up with Mr. Blingo’s warped fantasy, ran away from the island and wrote a biography about her experiences before going into hiding. Once upon a time, both Pim and Peleeken used to love the 1995 Dismey Bros. feature Sundrop, a movie that they once-considered to be a beautiful love story about two starcrossed lovers who brought peace to their feuding kingdoms- and for little Peleeken who was homesick for his homeland, much-needed representation with a role model he looked up to. Pim used his knowledge of this tragedy as his inspiration for the look he started crafting in his leather-bound sketchbook that night, sketching an outfit heavily-inspired by that iconic pedestal-inspired wedding dress that Carnelia and her imposter had worn, with some sketches borrowing from the Dismey Bros. version of the dress, all-while figuring out the exact levels of forwardness that his message against Mr. Blingo and his decades of tyranny should be conveyed.

At the breakroom that afternoon, while waiting for a call, Pim (in a hot-pink Juicy Couture tracksuit, a turquoise spaghetti-strapped tank-top, white-and-deep ocean blue running shoes with peek-a-boo thong straps in neon-cyan) grabbed his sketchbook out of his leather canteen-shaped teal crossbody bag (with a yellow-and-pink Labubu clipped onto the strap) and resumed work on his conceptual design for his MEEP Gala look. “So, you’re still going-through with the whole MEEP Gala thing?” Charlie asked out of part-curiosity and part-concern, wondering if Pim was still comfortable about spending time in the same vicinity as someone as infamous as Mr. Blingo. “Yes…. albeit my presence will be purely out of spite.” Charlie looked over at Pim’s sketchbook, a sketched rendition of the iconic Sundrop wedding dress with elements of the animated film’s take on it, with the short and chubby dummy-like model holding a sign over it’s bearing bold all-caps: “FUCK BLINGO”. Alan, catching wind of the conversation, took a swipe at Pim’s dodgy decision: “Serving performative activism, are we? classic influencer trope.” Pim rolled his eyes, clapping back while revealing his sketchbook drafts to his #3 hater: “Seems our sausagesque critic lacks media literacy!” Alan took one look at the pages, eyes-widened in shock at the particular draft of the faceless model parading around the (fake!) decapitated head of Mr. Blingo with the right hand and waving a double-sided flag with the left: one was the Silica flag and the other represented the Waterborne Nation of Oceana, while wearing a flower crown of waratahs accompanied by lavender and lilac flowers with gemstones in the exact colors as the Silican flag. Another cool idea he cooked up was holding a double-sided flag that represented Silica…and the Waterborne Nation, whose turquoise-toned flag’s emblem depicted the center of an anenome bearing a demonstration of the life-cycle of a waterborne from tadpole to adult, circling around a large purple clamshell. “Hot-day-um! …and here I stand hum-belled.” Alan had also took note of the strand of pearls around the model’s neck that corresponded to the Waterborne flag. “…and you’re gonna use genuine Iris pearls too?” “Oh, Al-Honey! Whenever I wear pearls, I make damn sure it’s the genuine article!” For context: The clam in question being depicted in this flag a rare, nigh-extinct breed known as Iris Clams, of which the Waterborne Nation worshipped as the ultimate symbol of life, death and rebirth. All their lives, the clams would each produce some of the most lustrous and iridescent pearls ever brought into this world, and you could tell if it was from an Iris clam if it had a mica-esque glitter finish on the pearls themselves… all of which would be carefully-gently taken out of the mollusks and given as maternity gifts to expectant parents to bring joy and prosperity to the new families, and sometimes pearls would be left on the graves of loved-ones as a way of wishing them well in the afterlife. Once Mr. Blingo discovered how valuable these Iris Clams where, he would hire poaches to harvest them from the Waterborne Nation- and believe me, they where NOT gonna tolerate no clam rustlin’ sunsabitches! Unfortunately like the Silicans prior, the denizens of the Waterborne Nation had either escaped or been blown up- if not brutally tortured to death- for daring to cross Mr. Blingo. As for the Iris Clams, billions where unfortunately slaughtered in the “quick and efficient” process of producing bigger batches of the pearls they where best known for, with the primary country Mr. Blingo resided in with an iron fist greatly benefiting from the jewelry market boom they’ve experienced from the poaching of countless Iris Clams. While there had been pushback from many who’d unfortunately learn about how the Iris Clams have been cruelly mistreated for decades, especially by marine biologists and folks of waterborne descent, thus resulting in efforts from ethical parties to humanely harvest the pearls, from the modern generation of Iris Clams whose descendants have been bred in captivity (as opposed to hunting the wild ones minding their own business under the sea) to the underground reservation tribes of surviving Waterborne and their families, both sources of which had practiced the old-fashioned, humane way of removing the pearls from the Iris Clams as opposed to the “big business” way of doing things. Nowadays there’s a bit of a debate online on wether-or-not it was cultural appropriation (and overall extremely tasteless, given the context) to even own a pearl from an Iris Clam if you weren’t even a Waterborne native or descendant. Pim could remember as far back being given waterborne pearls as gifts from family members on his maternal side, as his mother Beatrice was proud of her Waterborne heritage….Steven, on the other hand, was greatly embarrassed and ashamed of this side of his wife’s heritage and pressured his children into acting as “normally” Australian as possible, lest be accused of pretending to be indigenous for attention. While Pim only told his closest friends told his heritage, that didn’t stop him from inheriting his mother’s sense of pride in his relation to the Waterborne Nation, and happily wore the authentic Iris Clam pearls around his neck now-and-then…yet-another reason why a certain dress he wore was even more meaningful to him.

Long-after clocking out and visiting Peleeken at his apartment that evening, Peleeken himself wearing a ballerina pink button-up underneath a periwinkle sweater embroidered with little pink-and-blue flowers, denim shorts, sandy brown Ugg boots with his hair done-up in a bun tied-together with a pink ribbon. His facial-hair had also been shaved off once-again and replaced with subtle makeup with body-glitter and pink-tinted lip gloss with a glossy finish. Pim laid out all the open-faced sketchbook for Peleeken to see on the latter’s cherrywood coffee table, asking his lover of which design he’d found to have been the best in his opinion. Peleeken picked up the sketchbook and took a long-look at each sketched-prototype as Pim nervously hoped that Peleeken wouldn’t take offense to any of them, as he heard his father Steven’s voice angrily bellowing at him to quit “pretending” to be Waterborne for “social brownie points“, all while Brittany defied the negative voice in his head by reassuring Pim. Pim’s heart raced in panic as he heard Peleeken sniffle. “Oh God, I am so sorry-“ “No, you’re good.” Peleeken smiled while wiping his eye, admitting to his boyfriend: “Your sketches over here, they spoke to me…ever since I was little I wanted to dress up like the animated Sundrop for Halloween, but never got the chance to…until now.” Pim gasped with a big smile forming on his face, eagerly-asking: “So….you’re coming to the MEEP Gala after all?” Peleeken made a determined look as he gave Pim the thumbs up: “Indubitably! I’m gonna go out there side-by-side with you as the REAL Carnelia, traditional garb and all, and happily assist you in knocking that nasty rotten Mr. Blingo off his high-horse!” “Now we’re talkin’.” Pim smirked as he clasped his hands and could only imagine this perfect vision being brought to life after some delicate, careful and intricate planning with a shit ton-of-more research to shape-up these looks as the impending highlight of the MEEP Gala. Pim immediately took the pen from his pocket of his Juicy trackwear sweats, and tried to figure out a look for Peleeken that could serve as another powerful message to be delivered at the gala. “Damn…” Pim was internally begging his brain to not give-in on an artist’s second-worst nightmare in-between generative AI and what the tropers on an unapologetically-nerdy wiki dubbed “executive meddling”: the dreaded burnout. Peleeken definitely took notice and reassured in a soothing voice: “Oh, do take a break from the drawing board, darling, the evening isn’t not gonna last for long…and if you feel like it, we could pass the time to uh- have a little fun- until dinner’s ready.” he patted his thigh, slyly gesturing Pim to a make-out session. “Fuck it.” Pim bluntly spat as he hastily put down the sketchbook-and-pen and immediately jumped onto Peleeken’s lap, straddling his lover’s thighs and pinning his arms to the couch, successfully entrapping Peleeken in his clutches…not that Peleeken seemed to mind playing the roll of the damsel. “I have you now, my sweet, and I can tell right-away that I already have you under my spell…” Pim seductively growled like a seductive witch to a princess who felt more rescued-than-captured, as he untied Peleeken’s ribbon and let his hair down, ruffling it up while the very bashful Peleeken already felt as if he just floated upward and landed on Cloud 9…then he playfully pulled the hood on his lover’s tracksuit top over his head and blew a playful raspberry at him. “…and now you’ve fallen under my spell!” Pim, in faux-rage, growled: “Why you-!!” before lovingly-tackling Peleeken, passionately kissing the latter’s neck and making his happy lover laughed out-loud, but before the saucy twosome could resume their improv-foreplay, the oven dinged from all the way in the kitchen to indicate that dinner was done. “Fuck- just when we where getting started.” As Pim got up from the couch, his face turned to Peleeken, who had started holding his hand with pleading eyes, “Oh but Pim- the chicken parmigiana still needs enough-time to properly cool off before we dig-in.” Pim looked right back at Peleeken longingly, then smirked. “You’re right, and besides, I’d rather treat you to an appetizer than just make you wait for the main course.” Peleeken pulled Pim closer, to which he happily let himself fall back on top of his lover with a pleased: “Ah!”, as Peleeken cupped Pim’s face with adoration, the lovers meeting eye-eye: “Darling, you’re my main course.” The two continued passionately kissing, Pim once-more affectionately giving Peleeken some vigorous kisses on his neck, spicing it up by pretending to bite him. Peleeken whimpered and squealed with delight, but not without a trick up his sleeve to seize the role of the top. Pim gave an high-pitched yelp as Peleeken firmly slapped his plump bottom, jokingly-decrying: “You sexy devil, you!” From an obscuring point-of-view behind the couch, two passionate voices playfully argued wether who loved the other more, before an array of assorted garments would get tossed up in the air as the lovers continued to audibly quench their tandem-thirst.

~

One fine weekend afternoon, Zoey (in a sleeveless red chiffon top, orange shorts, red-and-white checkered sneakers, acrylic heart-shaped stud earrings and a white cherry-print scrunchie securely holding her high-ponytail), and Amy (in a three-piece gold-toned “office siren”-style look with a jacket, blouse and pencil skirt accessorized with a black tie and Pradas) met up and headed to the mall in-search of the now-famous Pat DeVine’s B-U’tique, the exact same store Pim walked into and eventually made history, to get their dresses made in-advance to the big night…but they reached the storefront, they also saw the approximately mile-long line of customers that one would expect to show-up for a rollercoaster at a theme park. “Last time I was here, I was the only customer….” Amy boasted, “-in fact, I think this place got more active after I wore the dress that Pat designed for me to wear at the ball!” “Actually…yeah, you’re right, Pim made the name well-known but everybody wanted to come here because of you.” “Oh Zoey, you’re too kind.” “So, you wanna go get some snacks while we wait for the line to shorten?” “Oh hell naw, giiiirl, the food court here sucks ass compared to the cafe at 158 Meep Boulevard!” “Sure, let’s go there.” As the two walked out of the scene, out came Pim and Peleeken, with large shopping bags and matching grins plastered onto their faces befitting a low-income married couple that just won the lottery. “Lemme tell ya, PeleKween, we’ll dominate the night with these looks!” “Yeah, I can’t wait to see the look on Mr. Blingo’s face when he sees us!” “We’re gonna bring that orange dictator to his knees!!” “We’re gonna slay his ass!!” The two chit-chattered like a couple of song birds in a lush garden on a perfect spring morning. 

On the last day that Pim (who wore a silver, black and minty-blue Y2K-inspired outfit consisting of a raglan-sleeved babydoll top, rave pants, mis-matched fingerless gauntlets with one striped and the other in star-shaped polka-dots, shimmery nails, a silver-tone faux-belly button ring in the shape of an aquamarine cut in the form of a star, a half-moon purse decked out in various bag charms, a cat-eared hat with tassels with a transmascfemneu pride button pinned on) had showed up for work before he and Peleeken would take their flight for NYC, his shift ended with him and Charlie coming back to the breakroom to clock-out for the evening, they where with a surprise “Happy Trails” party on Pim’s behalf courtesy of Mr. Boss with Alan, Squim and Glep setting up the decorations before they returned. Marge had even dropped by deliver a customized layered-sheet cake that had elegantly frosted with the classic “I ❤️ NYC” graphic surrounded by a sea of white chocolate curls. “Aww, you guys…” the touched Pim cooed, “Thank you!” “Oh, Pim!” Marge laid the cake on the table and immediately made a beeline to Pim, lassoing them into a supportive hug, “I am so sorry for how those awful people been mistreating you! Please stay safe while attending the MEEP Gala...” Pim hugged Marge back, reassuring: “Don’t fret, love~ I’m badder than the average bitch, I’ll bite back!” Charlie sighed mournfully when he realized exactly who Marge may have been partially-alluding to. “I knew you were a slut for red velvet cheesecake, too, so I told a Ma-arge exactly where to obtain the highest reviewed one in town-uh.” Alan freely boasted, prompting Pim to hug him too. “Oh Alan, you ol’ sunnovabitch!” “Aw sweet, say Mr. Boss would it be okay if I brought a slice or two home? Zoey’s a big fan of red velvet cheesecake.” Charlie asked, only for his co-workers and his boss to audibly groan in frustration as Marge could only silently make a sorrowful face stinging with the pain of betrayal. It was quite obvious to the humbled Charlie that, quite reasonably so, nobody was exactly over the conundrum at LFF, not helping that Zoey and her more toxic fans had been repeatedly coming after Pim afterwords had all but burned-off any remaining goodwill that the bespectacled redhead had with everyone else. “Oye, I say we shan’t let the vibe ruined now!” Squim piped up as he awkwardly performed his iconic “Squim Dance” much to the uncomfortable silence around him, with Charlie only wishing he could hit the “undo” key on his faux-pas. Later that evening, after the party wrapped up and everyone clocked out and prepared to go home, Charlie walked out of the building, with a doggy bag containing a slice of cake for Zoey in his hand, and was about to get inside his car when he stumbled upon a misplaced item lying vulnerable to the elements on the concrete parking lot: a robin’s egg blue platform jelly sandal that sparkled in the moonlight, he knew exactly who it belonged to! Too bad Pim had already taken off before he noticing he had left it behind. Not wanting to slow him down by ringing him up just to come back here when he was in a rush to get home and pack everything prior to tomorrow, Charlie mustered the stamina to follow Pim’s tracks and bring the sandal back to his good friend. As Charlie started up the car, he’d come to find he was starting run run-low on gas. “Shit!” Charlie cursed, browsing through his dashboard window, hoping and praying he didn’t just pass by a handy gas station.

Pim had immediate come straight-home, cursing under his breath over how stupid he felt losing one-half of his favorite pair of shoes, and immediately fled to his room to pack up all his essentials and what-not for his flight to NYC tomorrow afternoon. First-thing’s-first: the dress that he commissioned Pat DeVine at her boutique, if he would forget to take it with, his presence at the MEEP Gala would have been completely pointless. Pim had also picked out some more outfits and accessories that he had deemed perfect for the NYC scene, of which included a little black dress that would make Audrey Hepburn proud. “Excellent choices as per usual, P!” Brittany complimented as Pim resumed raiding his own wardrobe, to which he replied: “All my choices are excellent choices, hun~” “…you sure about that, Mr. Bellini?” Brittany chuckled, once-again reminding the now-humbled Pim about that wild night that put him on the map. Just then, Pim heard a knock on his door. Running out of his room and opening the door to be greeted by none-other than his best friend this-side of Brittany. “I f-found this on my way *huff* o-out.” Charlie wheezed, panting as he presented the missing sandal to Pim. “Gee, thanks Charlie~ You’re a guardian angel!” said the relieved Pim, sticking out his bare foot, gesturing Charlie to slip it back on. The bashful Charlie’s face flushed in a peachy tone as he slipped the shoe back onto Pim’s webbed foot, as the pink fashionista mused: “What would I do without you?” Those six words-alone felt like a generous dollop of aloe-vera to a wound to Charlie, who had been in dire need of hearing those words. “I could say the same.” “Oh! Since you’re here, I can fix you up a snack or maybe some tea or coffee, it’s the least I can do.” “Nah, I’m good…” Charlie was about to head home before he heard his stomach growl and immediately regret not grabbing a decent dinner when he could have when he stopped at Wawa for gas.” “Oh, what the heck? I’ll have some of that Jade Leaf matcha you got and a quick-bite before I head back home.” “Alright then, feel free to make yourself at home.” As Pim made a beeline for the kitchen, Charlie looked around his friend’s home and definitely noticed the renovations since the last time he visited. Pim’s house had always been a cozy, inviting place to be in and he always looked forward to visiting them, and while it was still a lovely little place, the aesthetic had drastically shifted from “Here lives a shy, nerdy little cottagecore cinnamon roll” to “the Werk Room if Drag Race aired in the late 1990s-early 2000s”, right down to a red landline telephone in the shape of wax lips and a rug in the shape of Hello Kitty’s face. Charlie awkwardly sat down on the reddish-pink sofa with the quilted texture, near a heart-shaped glass coffee table garnished with a lotus flower placed within a crystal vase next to a Swarovski swan statue and the latest issue of Vogue laid out. Charlie had been alone with his thoughts for a hot minute, his inner voice telling him about an opportunity being right in front of him, especially since he didn’t have much time to seize it. “I have regular matcha, ceremonial blend, strawberry matcha and vanilla matcha…and y’want it hot or cold?!” Pim’s energetic and cheery Aussie-accented voice echoed from the kitchen as it reached to the living room. “I’ll uh- I’ll take the ceremonial blend and I’ll have it iced!” Charlie called back, his heart racing as he further-argued with that part of his brain that was urging the whole of himself to just say it before it was too late, fearing that Pim had enough on his mind already. When Pim waltzed in, humming the melody of an old sitcom’s theme, holding a tray containing a ham, egg and cheese quesadilla hot from the skillet with a side of mesquite BBQ chips and a frothy iced matcha frappé topped with whipping cream.  “Dig in-“ said Pim, as he laid the tray on the coffee table, moving the latest issue of Vogue in order to scoot the tray closer to his guest, of whom Pim would notice something wasn’t quite right. As much as he tried to bottle it up, Charlie’s body-language and aura was in fight-or-flight mode, as if he was channeling Gabreski in the cockpit. “…Charlie?” Pim asked, Charlie’s persistent inner voice insisting that now was his chance. “…are you okay?” Charlie immediately took a deep breath while closing his eyes, hunching over and folding his hands in a prayer-like pose, fighting back any sign of vulnerability as he uttered: “I’m fine.” Pim didn’t buy it, obviously. “I can tell that something has been seriously bothering you for a while now, you can tell me- “Look, dude…I don’t want you to carry another burden, you’re already dealing with enough bullshit already!” Charlie’s voice cracked, fighting back against a tear streaming down his face, only for more tears to come falling down when Pim sympathetically laid his stubby little frog hand on Charlie’s, looking up at him with sympathetic eyes. “It would only bother me more if I left you bottling up whatever’s eating you up, if you have something urgent to tell me…just tell me…tell me everything that you want to get out right now!” Charlie took a deep and mournful sigh as he conjured up the strength to unload his vent onto Pim, eagerly awaiting for him to get everything off his chest. “Please don’t tell anyone. Not even Zoey….especially not Zoey.” “Of course, I won’t tell a soul…you are safe here.” Not without reluctance, fear and guilt, Charlie finally began telling Pim what had been plaguing him for over a month. “…so, remember back in April…” Charlie choked back a sob when he continued, “…when we where all at Lé Fingered Frog?” Pim nodded, closely listening to the rest of his story. “I was so stressed out from yelling at Zoey for that stupid post that got everybody all that hate and harassment, and having to watch Marge have such a bad panic attack that she threw up…I felt like I was about to go into cardiac arrest….so I went outside to smoke some weed and mellow out, since I promised Zoey that I wouldn’t self-medicate with alcohol anymore…and I got so high that…” Charlie’s voice further shook, tears freely streaming down his face as he was about to get further into-detail. “…I got so high that I wasn’t in my right mind, I was just lying there like a vegetable tripping out…and then she just had to show up.” Charlie growled, his voice going from terrified to unbridled fury worthy of the very element of fire scorching his cadence as he banged his fist onto the coffee table like a judge and his grovel. “…that motherfucking goddamned CUNT!” Pim flinched, wondering just who could Charlie have been talking about. Once Charlie immediately name-dropped the anonymous offender, Pim simultaneously immediately felt all the vibrant color draining from his face, his blood drop below-zero celsius and his heart completely shatter. The next half hour or-so after the d harrowing reveal consisted of the two critters embracing each other in a hug and mutually bawling their eyes out. Charlie howled in pain, harshly blaming himself for the incident happening in the first place and wishing he’d never gone out to dinner that night, while Pim was trying to reassure him that absolutely none of it was his own fault and that he had nothing but sympathy and heartache for his friend. Deep down, Pim shared Charlie’s intense feelings regarding the tragic circumstances: he’d been deeply devastated as he was out-right furious at the perpetrator of the vile sin that had been committed. “I’m so fucking sorry, Charlie…I wish I had been there for you…” Pim sniffled, still clutching onto Charlie. “I can just cancel the trip to NYC, I’ll stay with you at your place, you need someone to talk to anyways…I’d rather be here for you than attend a some glorified costume party promoting a dictator-“ “Dammit, Pim! Don’t you DARE blame yourself for any of this shit!!” snapped Charlie, before sighing, “I’m sorry, dude…I just don’t want you to feel like you’re responsible for me. I’m a grown man who can get through this,” Charlie looked down at Pim while gently cupping his cheek with one hand and holding him close with the other, “If you really wanna make this whole situation any easier for me to weather through, then you better go to New York City, enjoy MEEP Gala to it’s fullest and be sure to make Mr. Blingo cry, shit his pants and fly back to Blingopolis.” Charlie nuzzled Pim affectionately, continuing: “Nothing would make me happier than to see you killing it out there by thriving as your funny, adorable, badass and awesome authentic self, wether some people like it or not.” Pim smiled as he hugged Charlie tighter. “Thanks for the support, Charlie.” “No, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me tonight….and honestly I love Zoey with every fiber of my being but she really just needs to grow the fuck up and leave you alone, it’s getting embarrassing being around her in public at this rate….Bah! Is this how she felt about me at Christmas?!” Charlie griped as Pim couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’d rather hang around you on your grouchiest, sloppiest off-days than be around her misgendering me for five minutes!” Charlie mustered a chuckle as he gave Pim a grateful pat on the back. “Thank you again for hearing me out, dude, just what would I do without you?”

…

The next afternoon, Mr. Boss gave Charlie the blessing of driving down to the airport to bid the quartet of lucky ducks not-so-much of a farewell but a supportive and light-hearted “see ya ‘round!” to his girlfriend Zoey, his buddy Pim and his lover Peleeken with Alan and Glep covering for him and his co-worker on the job. He had only begrudgingly included Amy in his temporary adiéu since she was there and didn’t want to rile-up Zoey any more than she has been about her short pink rival. “Promise to look out for my place while I’m gone?” Zoey lovingly requested, Charlie answered with a hug, reassuring: “Anything for you, my Elven Princess.” As the two kissed each other on the cheek and then on the lips. Peleeken couldn’t help but feel his heart melt as Pim restrained the urge to vomit, instead opting to gesture for a hug when Charlie greeted him next, accepting the offer. “Dude, I’m really fucking proud of how far you’ve come….just yesterday you were this timid little fella who couldn’t even say a simple “no”…and now look at you! You’re so badass and stuff! I should definitely take notes from you.” “Awwww hunny, you’re buttering me up! But seriously, I’m proud of you and all the wonderful progress you’ve been making, too…. In fact, everyone is! Keep up the good work!”, Charlie smiled back at Pim, giving him the ol’ bisexual finger guns before he walked up to Peleeken, in which the two started shaking hands. “I can tell you two are having a real blast together.” “Oh, absolutely! Pim’s the love of my life!!” Peleeken responded, then gushing in lengthy detail how madly in love with each other they are. “Oh, look! Our plane is almost ready to take flight, we gotta run fast!” Zoey uttered while looking at her watch. “Have fun in New York City, stay safe, I love you guys.” Pim blushed deeply as his secret crush had held him close ‘n tight, only wishing Zoey had been swapped-out with Peleeken. “We love you, too.” Zoey replied, Pim adding: “We love you to the moon and back.” as the four took off and bud their goodbyes to Charlie, who couldn’t help but feel a creeping feeling of bittersweet whist while looking up at the plane finally taking off, going out and leaving behind a trail in the sky reminiscent of a Powerpuff Girl soaring across Townsville. Figuring it wasn’t too productive to putter around the airport, Charlie ditched the joint, went back in his car…before he would start up the car, he took a long, deep breath and whipped out his phone, hastily opening his contacts and immediately shot a text to one of his closest and upmost-trusted friends: Tyler.

You up to hanging out this weekend?

Chapter Text

At first, Pelekeen had been understandably hesitant on accepting his invitation to the fashion world’s equivalent to Super Smash Bros. -mainly because of the big rotten orange that would be stinkin’ up the joint- but he was also rather intimidated by the social presence he’d end up sharing with his childhood friend-turn-lover. It seemed ever since everything that had gone down, everyone had now recognized Peleeken as that cute twink who’d get dressed up and carried around by you-know-who as if he was his favorite Barbie/Ken doll. Not that he didn’t mind being in a relationship with Pim, as he knew right-off-the-bat that Pim genuinely loved him back, he just wishes that the eyes of the prying public would give him and his fierce enby-boyfriend some more personal space. Once Pim and his socially-charged concept art had inspired him to join in the cause and humiliate Mr. Blingo by bringing his heinous crimes to light, Peleeken immediately changed his mind to partake in basking in the warm glow of a cathartic moment in the spotlight while living out his childhood dream of becoming the animated heroine he idolized as a child and even in-spite of the highly-problematic history behind the movie she starred in, at least he kept a special place in his heart for the Sundrop he grew up with as he was damned-determined to make the real Carnellia proud at the MEEP Gala. Peleeken lied down on his hotel bed, closing his eyes with a big smile on his face -as if he was lying on top of a warm, sunlit cloud- as Pim prattled on: “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to go see New York City ever since I was a little tadpole! Good thing I saved up so many vacation days, we can do while we’re here…and I even bought us tickets to see a show!” Peleeken sprung right up and stimmed his hands, asking: “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz at the Gershwin Theater?!?” Pim nodded sweetly, “I figured since you watched both the movies with me while staying at my place, I figured I’d treat you to the original musical tonight…” Pim pulled out two 3-inch customized pinback-buttons and holding them up for Peleeken to see. “…I even got us these!” Peleeken immediately picked the pink heart-shaped button bearing the hot-pink text: “I’m his/their/faer Glinda!” and surrounded with motifs in the form of bubble, butterflies and of course the iconic crown and wand. “That’s my Barbiecore pookie.” Pim held the black star-shaped button donning moon and stars, the sigils from the Grimmorie, and that iconic hat and broom with lime-green text: “I’m his Elphaba!”, while looking at his reflection in the elongated mirror on the wall. “Oh, I almost forgot! Did you know that the legendary and infamously-expensive jewelry store, NikkiNacks and Co., is having a rare blowout sale to celebrate the MEEP Gala?” Peleeken asked his lover, prompting Pim to turn around and grin, asking: “You don’t say? Well then, guess I’m also gonna be treating you to a little jewelry haul too!” “Oh, Pim-” said Peleeken, his cheeks turning pink, “You’re spoiling me an awful lot, you can at least let me pay for lunch! I wanna be a good boyfriend, too, Y’know?” Pim chuckled, “You are a good boyfriend, my dear PeleeKween, you shower me with affection and praise on the daily! Aaaand you’re such excellent help in the kitchen, too~ Pray, do tell, why I shouldn’t give you your well-earned flowers?”  “Thanks, Pim~ I’ll return the favor wether you like it or not!” “Gawd, I love it when you’re sassy like that! Keep at it, you adorable diva you.” “Right back at ya!”

…

It’s perfect day for anybody to be in New York City, with the sun beaming brightly through the luminously-lit clouds hanging in that perfect blue sky like charms on a Pandora bracelet, an assorted array of birds singing in somewhat-harmonious choir lines and the blooming flowers’ aroma from the various gardens and parks had been caught by the crisp breeze and carried the sweet smell everywhere it went. Zoey and Amy had been strutting side-by-side throughout the Big Apple in outfits that complimented their aesthetics rather nicely: Zoey wore a pale dogwood-colored blouse with a Victorian-style collar and a caramel silk scarf with a golden heart brooch pinned onto it, sardonyx-drop earrings, a maroon pleaded skirt embroidered with black-lace frills on the bottom, suede Oxford pumps with gold buckles, gold-rimmed glasses with her hair down and tucked on the crown of her hair was a chocolate-toned headband, her outfit matching the pattern of her Louis Vuitton purse quite nicely. Amy donned an apricot button-up with a golden yellow diamond pattern over an apple green spaghetti strap-top, orange tube skirt, spring-green t-strap heels, a beaded jade bracelet and a rose-gold bangle on her left wrist and a peach and yellow green-striped tote bag. The girlies had planned to head down to a legendary jewelry store in their area for a rare once-in-a-blue-moon flash sale. “Wow, I can’t believe NikkiNacks and Co. is finally having another 75% off sale! Their jewelry is always so crazy expensive, too….last blowout sale they had was back in 1997!” “Yah, I know, right?! Like, I’ve been dying to buy something from here since I saw that one movie…” As the two made their way to the strip where NikkiNacks and Co. proudly stood in all its upscale glory, there watching from the iconic window display of the precious materials where Pim and Peleeken having lunch while window-shopping, with their respective buttons pinned onto their street jackets. Pim wore a leather jacket over his sleek, ground-length little black dress that hugged his short curvy body, his black cat purse that hung on his shoulder (with a mint-green Labubu), translucent dark purple cats-eye glasses with black lenses crowned on the edges with rhinestones, a necklace made of pearl strands with a big, beautiful cluster of pave crystals then definitely as the focal point to go with the crystal tiara on top of his head as he was holding an eggshell-white paper bag with black velvety fingerless gloves covering his stubby pink hands while exposing his long, bedazzled nails whose rhinestones in-assorted shapes individually-sparkling in the sun like tiny prisms forming rainbows around Pim, befitting for someone who was unapologetically out of the closet (good for him!). Pim opened the bag and reached inside for a hazelnut french roast latte with extra cream in a lidded paper cup and a apricot jam-stuffed croissant wrapped in a paper napkin to hand-over as Peleeken, who had been clad in an-all pink ensemble with a street coat layered over a glittery Givenchy dress with a pink ribbon and bow on the waist, kitten heels, a heart-shaped Juicy Couture bag (clipped with a pink Labubu) and a crystal tiara perched on his head to match his partner’s, accepting his coffee-and-croissant as Pim pulled out the double order for himself. The gussied-up femboys savored the sweet moment they shared together as they felt inspired by the various styles of jewelry laid out in front of them through the glass window. Of course, Amy and Zoey just had to apply their two-cents. “Who the hell wears pitch black when pastels are all the rage, anyway?” Amy snickered as Zoey giggled, contributing to the heckling: “I just know that poor creature is gonna trip on their heels right out of the gate.” Amy cringed at the third notion of Zoey respecting her rival’s pronouns. “Ugh! You’re using those wonky pronouns again? Don’t tell me you’re going all woke on me.” “Relax, I know Pim’s waaay too high fem for he/him, but it’s the least I can do to prevent the internet from canceling my ass into oblivion!” Amy shuddered, in a faux-horrified tone: “I feel so sorry for that Pelekeen guy, how can he stand it!? You just know that Pim is mean to him behind the scenes like he’s been with me!” “Probably got payed to be his boyfriend, why else would anyone stick to that nasty little toad?” The couple couldn’t help but overhear the ladies and their gossip. Pim kept an inconspicuous poker face while hiding his outrage at how his two rivals’ scuttlebutting made Peleeken feel uncomfortable, ruining their blissful vibe…but Pim had better things to do than make a scene arguing with a viper and her sheep, preferring to channel his rage into something more productive. “…and I’m absolutely not referring to them as fae/faer either, that’s just stupid.” “Smart girl.” As the ladies where about to waltz through the iconic doors of NikkiNacks, Pim tucked his rage like squirrels and their nuts, channeling his negative energy into something quite serpentine. Moments after, the doors flung back open with Zoey and Amy (minus the latter’s tote) scrambling out of the shop and loudly shrieking as something long, green and wrapped in scales had been following them from outside the shop and fiercely hissing at them. “H-how long where you carrying that python in your tote bag anyway?!” “I didn’t even KNOW that thing was in there, let alone HOW!” As the two continued to be chased by the python, Pim and Peleeken had a good laugh while finishing their breakfast before waltzing into the building in lighter spirits. 

…

After securing their haul at NikkiNacks’, the glitzy femboys spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying themselves while taking gorgeous selfies. They went on a NYC trolley tour and took a gander at some historic monuments, visited the botanical garden in Bronyx where they waltzed around and playfully chased each other in the garden…not to mention they where absolutely star-struck upon getting to meet the mutated Venus Fly Trap that played Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, who also was kind enough to give the two each his autograph. Then they paid a visit to good ol’ Chinatown for their 80s-inspired arcade, to try some of the best Dim-Sum either of them have ever eaten thus far and to hang out out at the scenic Columbus Park, and finally they ended their first day in NYC on two balcony seats to see the original Wicked musical, where during “As Long As Your Mine”, they mutually-initiated holding hands, but it wasn’t until “For Good” that their emotions got the better of them and they tearfully whispered sweet-nothings to each other, even sharing a passionate kiss. After the play had ended and finished it’s curtain call, the happy couple walked out of the theater, holding hands and cheered simultaneously: “Aww, that musical was epic!!!”, prompting the two into discussing in-detail about the differences between the OG musical and the movies, while both agreed that the movies improved upon Act II, of which they felt was rushed and messy, Peleeken expressed disappointment in the “Limes, Oranges and Pears” gag getting cut from the first movie as Pim felt robbed that how the leading ladies didn’t cry out their shared-love interest’s name in the movie version of “No Good Deed”, opining that it would have hammered on home the intensity of the movie version of the number. The two blissfully held hands while the crisp, sweet spring wind blew around the bustling overnight city atmosphere. Even at around 11pm, NYC was still elaborately lit-up in all it’s chic modernity, go figure that it was considered the city that never sleeps. “I think TsuruTonTon is still open…” Pim suggested while clamoring for Asian Cuisine at the moment, “…and they’re not too far away from the theater, either!” “If it’s okay with you, I’m in the mood for Tacos, Los Tacos up that is.” Peleeken cheekily piped up. “You’re lucky I’m your boyfriend, because wherever you’re going, I’m going too….and you bet your cute ass that it’s all on me!” Pim flirtatiously hissed, tempted to wip out Brittany’s credit card to show it off to the world. “Oh Pim, you bad demiboy you!” Peleeken bashfully giggled as the two locked arms and headed over to Los Tacos, only to stop in their tracks when they heard quite the commotion from nearby, jolting in shock once they heard a chilling voice matching the same energy as a strict, no-nonsense gym teacher blowing his whistle with goose-steps equivalent to tremors. “PIM!!!” Zoey scolded with the fury of a thousand suns boiling in her cadence. Pim rolled his eyes while he held the terrified Peleeken shaking in his arms, muttering: “Christ, what could it be this time?” The statuesque fiery redhead charged up to the two, standing tall and folding her arms while staring daggers at Pim in particular in particular. As much as Peleeken admired how authoritarian and dominant Zoey looked when pissed and demanding answers, he was scared out of his wits and imagining Zoey swapped out with Pim to cope. “We’ll look who it is: It’s my overly-indulged sister’s personal attack dog!” Pim sarcastically blurted, with Brittany begging him from within to put in an impression of Amy’s voice telling her to fetch the stick. “I could take you under my heel and crush you like the pest you are, you puny crab-louse.” “Tell me something I don’t know!” “Don’t play dumb with me, I know what you did!” Pim sweat bullets, as Brittany was trying to rationalize that nobody could have possibly witnessed him using the latter’s demon powers. “So apparently you proved yet-another one of Amy’s accusations against you, YOU LYING THIEF!” “Thief, you say? Like if you’re referring to how I nabbed your ex-fans once they learned what a dangerous idiot you can be with a large and unwarranted platform…” Pim prattled on with jazz hands and a sardonic grin: “Then call me guilty as charged!” Zoey facepalmed, feeling as if she was getting nowhere with her confrontation. “Can you just kill the bad stand-up comedy for a minute and fork it over already?!” “Fork over exactly what now?” Pim sounded genuinely puzzled, to which Zoey growled in frustration: “UGH! I know damn well when we ran out of NikkiNacks, Amy left her tote bag at the store and you walked in and rummaged through the pockets and snagged her wallet-“ Zoey accused, dramatically pointing her finger as if she was a prosecutor in court, “-which she told me you’ve ALWAYS done since you two where young! Shame on you!” Pim thought to himself: “Uh oh-“ upon realizing that the snake he summoned earlier might have helped himself to a hefty snack before exiting Amy’s tote bag, so he immediately had to come up with an explanation without outing himself as a witch possessed by a demon, but before Pim could come up with a good answer, Peleeken immediately handed over the hot-pink Gucci wallet, confessing: “Here! I found this on the ground earlier- I had a hunch that it was one of you who lost it while getting chased by that vicious viper!” Zoey blinked in confusion as she slowly took the wallet from Peleeken’s hand, examining it and indeed realizing it was the genuine article. “So…you didn’t steal this wallet?” asked Zoey, prompting Pim to facepalm in exasperation. “Good gawd, how many of these Swap AU stories did she cram inside your brain, anyways?” Pim rolled his eyes, sashaying over closer to Zoey with a theatrical sway of his wide hips and making sure his heels clacked on the concrete pavement as loudly as possible to emphasize his confidence, even giving Brittany some consent on taking the wheel. “…pray, do tell, why the hell are you so damn eager to lap up every single drop of diarrhea that that greasy, malnourished hog with that unbrushed mop of split-ends sloppily craps out of her ass? I thought intellectuals where supposed to have critical thinking skills? Oh wait, NO YOU AIN’T, GIRL! Wanna take a hint why? Because your genuine fans who actually fell for your wannabe-nerdy-girl facade eventually saw right through you and what an impulsive, gullible moron you truly are and immediately flocked over to a REAL activist who actually does their damned research and not biased think-pieces you personally agree with!” Pim’s agitated expression and tone twisted into a smug smirk with a vicious mockery dripping with poison as he continued, “What’s the matter, Zoe-Smo, are you shamelessly brown-nosing that talentless skank because you’re just so desperate for some validation for once? Hoping for a kiss on top of the forehead and a gold star to make up for being the most low-grade, paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter basic bitch-ass saltine cracker to ever bland it up so badly that you bore people to sleep just by them looking at you for one second? Honey, why don’t you just embrace your natural habitat as a wallflower in the background with very little dialogue instead of taking out your sexual frustration on all the more attractive people because you’re dull-as-fuck butterface don’t get enough snogging for your liking? I mean I’d rather take not having much bang in your bed over making everyone else feel like they’d rather be anywhere else other than within even twenty-five feet away from you… Well, except for anyone looking for a useful one-note twat with as much depth and sex appeal as a sheet of sandpaper! Now go run along and plead on your knees like the desperate slut you are for the Queen of Scum-Sucking Leeches to drain any semblance of sentience lingering inside that empty skull of yours!” Zoey was left scraping her jaw up from the floor, her lips quivering as tears started to pour from her eyes from under her fogging glasses. Apparently Pim’s blunt reading of her hit a little too close to home. Feeling the burn, Zoey fled the scene sobbing her eyes out as if she where a teenager who saw Titanic for the first time. Pim himself was taken aback by exactly just how brazen he had gotten. Yes, he was sick and tired of Zoey and Amy’s constant gossip and harassment toward him, but what could have been another case of getting even wound up feeling more like a case where he was…too hard on her, to but it lightly. Pim turned to his shaken-and-stirred lover for some contructive criticism, without a care of how blunt any of it would potentially be. “Peleeken… be honest, did I go too far back there?” Peleeken looked at Pim with a decisive look, recanting the heated conversation. “Well…I understand why you went there. After all, that Zoey girl has said so many mean and awful things to-and-about you…like that one really nasty Instagram comment.” Peleeken shuttered upon that infamous outburst that Zoey had unleashed following the disastrous final episode of her podcast. Pim cackled upon remembering that little hubbub, “Oh, that was delicious! I was more confused about the scam account pretending to me me more than anything else.” Peleeken hugged Pim, further showing love and support for his boyfriend. “Just reserve that volume of reading for when she’s being super nasty next time.” “Thanks, PeleKween…and you’re right. If she can dish out all that gunk at me all the time, she can handle getting roasted like prawns on the barbie.” Peleeken let out a uproarious “HAW-HAW!” in response to that last quip. “Your laugh is adorable, Peleeken.” “You’re face is adorable!” “Not nearly as adorable as yours, Pookie.” “Oh, stop!”

…

Ever since she got back to her and Amy’s shared-hotel room from getting caught in the flames of the fire breathing dragon, Zoey had been sobbing into her pillow. She had been used to being referred to as “unremarkable” and “plain” by the occasional mean girl on her cheerleading team…and even then the vulgar cruft that had been had spewed at her was perhaps the nastiest things anybody had ever told her. Of course Amy couldn’t have been bothered to genuinely give some genuine comfort to her supposed “new bestie”, as she deemed primping herself in the mirror as part of her skincare routine to have been a much bigger issue to tend to. “I’m desensitized by whatever that vile little blemish says at this point.” said Amy, puckering her lips while applying her lip mask and finishing with an audible pop, “…besides, everyone and their grandma can just tell by that wad of gum’s body language that wishes she was banging that Carl guy.” Zoey lifted her head, still leaking with tears, to politely correct Amy: “Y-you mean Charlie-“ then it hit her like a sack for bricks. “…wait, what do you mean?” Amy prattled on while carefully plucking her eyebrows. “I remember when that sawed-off little PMS stain called up drunk and confessed to having the hots for that Charlie guy and how you swooped in and stole her man! Oh and the names that she called you behind your back, if you think what that dart toad is willing to say to your face is bad…” Zoey gritted her teeth as her heartache turned to rage. “Come to think of it, she probably started using your…gender critical opinions, as a weapon to steer Charlie away from you.” “Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me at this rate, why else would she play the victim card with her silly little pronouns and stuff? Hell, she’s always going on about how you’re the bad guy and making up how she’s been so mean to you…she is an evil bitch.” Amy smirked, her brain stirring with ideas. “I’ll tell you what, Zoe, the MEEP Gala would be the perfect time to get back at that wicked ol’ witch and her little flying monkey too…We could seriously turn them into laughingstocks that nobody could ever take seriously again….and you have soooo many fans, so many who would show up to defend your honor, too! Think of it for a hot minute, Zoey.” While Zoey had always played the role of the good girl -even times where she would get her hands dirty by at least trying to point out how she personally deemed Pim to be problematic- Zoey hadn’t thought about outright humiliating Pim out of the blue. The more she thought about it, and how that audacious polliwog seemed to have it out for her and apparently wanted to snatch her own man, Zoey hesitated less and less. “Amy…count me in, I wanna show that twat who’s who while the cameras are rolling.” obliged Zoey with determination to bring her rival down once and for all. Proud of the handiwork she had in corrupting the feminist good girl, Amy put her hand on Zoey’s shoulder and congratulated: “Now we’re on the right track.”

~

Meanwhile, back in Meep County, Pennsylvania, Charlie had hung out at Tyler’s place to blow some steam….and after a particularly long vent recapping the whole of his experience the past three months, Tyler had nothing but empathy and woe for his friend and the rest of his former coworkers…not to mention he was simply crossed, and for many, many reasons….and honey, you know you’ve absolutely fucked up to the ninth degree when you’ve pissed off someone as chill and mild-mannered as freakin’ Tyler. “Look Charlie, I know you and Zoey have been together for a long…” said Tyler, failing to keep his cool as he slugged his beer down and slammed it on his table, emphasizing exactly what was on his mind regarding the subject matter: “..but honestly, Alan’s right! After having the nerve to pull all that vile shit she did on Twitter, she IS a lost cause!!” “But she apologized, a-and she’s been working on getting Pim’s pronouns right.” “Yeah but she’s always bullying him in public and on social media, not to mention hanging out with that horrid sow and blindly believing all the utter bullshit that flies out of her mouth, even over you and your own words! None of this is okay!!” Tyler shook his head in disgust and anger, before Charlie pleaded: “I think maybe…maybe if I just break it to her just exactly how bad things have gotten, she’ll finally kick Amy to the curb and completely go back to her old self.” Tyler understood the attachment complex, but still advocated for his friend’s safety, thus, he sighed and changing his tone from bitter to sympathetic. “She’s obviously made up her mind…Charlie, please…before anybody gets hurt again, just cut your losses and get the fuck out of that relationship.” Charlie’s face read as if he had to choose between willingly getting stung by a scorpion or skinny dipping in the North Pole. “…she’s stayed loyal to me, even after all the times I disappointed her. I feel like I owe it to her to stay and help her get back on the right path…and…” Charlie mournful sighed, his voice heavy, “If lose her, only time will tell when I lose you and Pim..” Tyler raised an eyebrow, asking: “Whaddya mean?” Charlie mustered the strength to explain while combating his own tears. “…I was honestly surprised by both Pim and Zoey telling me that I was doing great with this whole coping skills thing, considering how it seemed like everybody hated my guts after ruining the Enchanted Forest ball…the shame I felt, the way Zoey burst into tears and chewed my dumbass out over the phone, the way everyone else at work is already getting fed up with me still being with that same girl that I grew up with…” Charlie sniffled, wiping away the snot dripping from his nose with his sleeve before continuing. “…It’s complicated as hell, okay?” At this point, just looking at Charlie in this state made Tyler wanna cry too. “Charlie, listen to me.” Charlie looked up at Tyler, tears swelling from his beady eyes. “…None of us hate you. Not at all…but we’re all extremely worried about you staying with Zoey because she just isn’t the same person as she used to be...and with that heinous frickin’ witch from Hell has been egging her on and bringing out the absolute worst in her, she’s just gonna spiral farther and farther until she ultimately drags you and Pim down with her…and if she’s not above going after the whole crew, let alone Pim on a daily basis, God knows all the stalking and harassment everyone’s been through since she posted that petty hit piece…and her doubling-down by being even more unwanted negative attention to Pim is only adding even more kindling onto this whole-ass dumpster fire! There’s a fine-line between staying loyal to someone despite their baggage…and then there’s forcing yourself to be saddled with a progressively dangerous and toxic person like Zoey’s become, not even out of genuine romance, but out of now what’s essentially become this self-blackmail where you’re guilt tripping yourself into staying on a sinking ship! You gotta stop this before it gets worse.” Charlie slumped over the table with his elbows covering his face with great humility. If he didn’t break up with Zoey, Pim and everyone else he cared about where going to continue getting brutalized out in public by randos on the street. If he did, he’d be even lonelier than he already was. From his own POV, Tyler and Pim would have at least wanted to spend more time keeping him company had they not been super-busy with their careers, and it seemed at this rate that Alan and Glep would still give him the spiteful cold shoulder since they made it clear by their body language that they where done with him and his cascading antics, even if Mr. Boss claimed they kept their distance solely for their own safety considering who he was still dating. Squim is annoying as fuck to Charlie so he didn’t care about bonding with him as Squim looked down upon Charlie for “bumming everyone out”. Charlie knew he had to make a tough choice, mental health be damned. Tyler laid a shoulder on Charlie, reassuring with brotherly love: “Dude, I got your back and so does Pim, we love you, and we’re both gonna be here for you no matter what…okay?” Charlie took another swig of his beer, uttering: “…say, Tyler?” “Yeah?” “Y’think, if we set up an intervention for Zoey to talk some sense into her, without anyone getting riled up of course, just…me telling Zoey exactly every reason why she should kick Amy out of her life with everyone gently  backing me up with evidence as to why this whole thing she has been doing is causing serious damage…and she really does come to her senses, then…?” “I doubt she’ll change overnight- nobody does- but then again, if Pim can all-of-a-sudden go from the resident cinnamon roll to Miley Cyrus in her Bangerz era, who knows? It’s worth a shot.” “Thanks, brother, you’re a real one.” said Charlie, taking another swig at the glass beer mug with a sense of validation as Tyler beamed at him with a smile, responding: “Anytime, man.”

~

Peleeken had one of those recurring dreams in the form of an amalgamation of his flashbacks. It would start out with the silican shielding himself in fetal-position, petrified in place within the corner of a dark room by looming shadows dangling over him like tarantulas hunting for prey while taking shape in the forms of various figures of which terrified him, wether it have been that small-yet-vicious group of older kids who’d taunt him for being “a sissy”, the persistent crowd of gawkers and paparazzi pressing him for invasive questions regarding his beloved Pim, or the charging stampede of soldiers in regalia reeking of blood and smoke, menacingly holding up guns to point at anyone who dared to interfere with their commander of whom they pledged allegiance to…until all of a sudden he found himself regressed to a small child, crying underneath a blooming eucalyptus tree, how he wished to return to the home he’d felt safe and happy in prior…until he heard a little voice asking why he was all by his lonesome. Little Peleeken looked up and was greeted by a spunky little tadpole with swim goggles strapped on his face, boyish red hair considerably dampened, and a one-piece swimsuit printed with sea creatures in the ocean with a hole in the back where their large frilly pollywog tail wagged freely behind them as they lended out a webbed hand to the terrified Peleeken. He accepted, being pulled back up on his feet while being introduced to this bright, eccentric little critter. “My name is Pimberly -or just Pim for short- Nice to meet you, new kid! I like making new friends…and you’re name iiiis….?” “Jasper Peleeken, or just Peleeken is fine.” “Hello, Peleeken!” Fae excitedly waved their hand and giggled, tickled upon their latest encounter, just then fae took notice at the gemstone imbedded on his forehead, immediately enchanted. “Oooh, I like your gem! You look so pretty wearing it, just like Sundrop!” Peleeken’s cheeks burned in a warm ruby tone, smiling at the comparison that had been made. “T-thank you, Pim, and oh I do really like Sundrop a lot~ She’s so cool and pretty and nice! I wish I could be just like her someday.” “Well, why wait until you’re all grown up when you can dress up? Like, when you put on a costume…you can be anything!!” Peleeken somberly admitted: “Ah, I wish I could, but the kids around here told me that dressing up, especially like a princess, is strictly for girls.” Pim shook their head, and spat: “Oh, that’s just a bunch of rubbish, because boys can be princesses too!! Bah! I bet it’s the same bunch of bush-poos who are always picking on me and calling me an anchovy, too.” He stamped her foot as a way to calm their stimulated self down. “Nah, you’re not an anchovy, you look more like a beautiful, elegant mermaid.” “Aw gee, thank you-“ the bashful Pim darted his eyes away and rubbed the back of his neck as he wasn’t used to getting compliments like that (yet), oft described by everyone in the neighborhood as a scruffy, scrappy little ragamuffin with big crazy-looking eyes who was every bit as as untamed and wild as they looked. Some folks even jokingly compared Pim to a lemur, being a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rascal. “So…wanna let me take you on a tour of my swimmin’ grounds?” “Oh, I am not very good at swimming tho, I don’t even think I have swimming goggles or even floaties lf my own…” “Oh, I can just teach ya how to swim, It’s no different than taking a dip in the bathtub once you get used to it! Whaddya say?” “Okay, I don’t see why not? Lead the way, please!”…as his dream ended with echoing giggles and fading to black as he opened his eyes, Peleeken woke up to find himself and the still-slumbering Pim in each other’s arms, cozied up in their comfy pajamas under the bedsheets as the sun barely rose outside their window. Peleeken found great solace in this little, subdued moment of peace, further snuggling up to his lover as he counted his blessings. Not only did he take a moment to reflect how far he came from that terrified little boy who barely escaped a war zone and had occasionally gotten bullied by some kids for being more sensitive and girlish compared to other boys (only for the bullying to immediately cease once little Pim intervened) to a happy, fulfilled femboy dressing in however he pleased with his childhood friend-turn-even more badass and awesome boyfriend…and in the fabulous big apple no less! Oh if only the bullies from his past could see him and Pim now, they’d be beside themselves…then again, who gave a crap what they thunk? Peleeken was also glad that neither Zoey or Amy where harassing them, nor was the intrepid tabloid press was stalking him or his boyfriend for gossip fodder in their spacious hotel suite. It was just himself and his dearly beloved Pim, safe and sound in their own little protective bubble away from the chaotic real world and the prying eye of the media. Immediately darting an eye at the alarm clock on the bed stand, reading 5:04am, Peleeken shut his eyes back up and dozed back to sleep, still holding Pim securely as Pim himself did the same with Peleeken. Even if everything else has rapidly changed since they where little, one thing remained the same: Peleeken always felt safe and comfortable with Pim around, and he couldn’t think of anything that could ruin that sense of trust and security for him…

Chapter Text

It wouldn’t be long until the first Monday of May would come ‘round, when the Meeptrepolitan Museum for Elaborate Eleganza and Panache would roll out the red carpet Oscars-style for the arrival of all the gussied-up guests. Outside of NYC, the many who either could only daydream of being there or at least those who wanted to gawk at whoever dressed the most ridiculously would tune-in to the live coverage of the red carpet acting as a hubblescope giving the masses a generous view of the galaxy of stars shining in their upmost brilliance that night. Back in that quaint lil’ town chock full of colorful lil’ weirdos located somewhere insignificant in Pennsylvania, Mr. Boss had been hosting a watch party for the MEEP Gala red carpet walk in his sprawling mansion, as his boys plus super-special-guest stars like Marge, Tyler and even Duncan and Filmore had all been seated in his lavish living room on his expensive-as-hell antique furniture to witness Pim and Peleeken shine like the moon and the sun at their finest hour. Alan sighed, admitting his own benign envy: “Oh, if only I hadn’t given the silly little pink one so much fuh-lack-uh, maybe I would have been invited as a plus-one.” “Lighten up, dude~” said Charlie, “We get to chill at the Boss’ place for the night! He even baked his iconic chocolate chip cookies.” Alan’s long face immediately perked up into a smirk as he began to lay back while fondly recanting that one vacation spent at his superior’s cabin in the woods. “Ah, Mas-tor’s cookies…good times, gooood times…” Glep shushed the two and pointed toward the TV, babbling in his native gibberish that the event was starting. There was the night’s host: RuPaul Charles, in one of her iconic blonde wigs and donning an elaborate drag design of a regal flavor, popping in living color: a rainbow-sequin blouse and a wide-layered iridescent organza skirt, greeting the viewers at home while skimming over the here-and-now of how the event was going so-far and for those who had just joined the live coverage, a reminder of this year’s theme. “Category is: Fashion is a Beautiful Helluva Mess!” Amongst the stars arriving onto the red carpet and on-screen:

First up: Lady Gaga bursted into the scene wearing a re-creation of Björk’s infamous swan dress, with some key-visual differences catering to her own unique touch: for starters the skirt was longer and even poofier, and the swan itself had looked disturbingly-realistic, nigh-taxidermy even, had it not been for the cartoonish exes-in-place-of-eyes and the tongue sticking out as if to mock the audience who’d wince in disturbance of its avant-guard realness.

Mr. Bug, donning a silk-blazer with great emphasis on the shoulder pads and brown dress-pants, paying homage to his legendary and controversial co-star who had peacefully retired to his natural habitat just a few months ago.

The Princess of the Enchanted Forest followed up with a gold-toned gorgeous medieval-inspired mis-match, dressed in a glittering silk skirt that shown off her figure while wearing metal chest armor encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires of various colors and a helmet befitting of a royal guard topped with a mohawk made of flamingo feathers, and holding what appeared to be a cross-between a Queen’s staff and a mace, of which had been topped with a spiky crystal star carved from the highest-grade of magical Diamond.

Coming up next was everybody’s favorite old-school platformer star, Gwimbly, showing off his freshly-upscaled-and-remastered design while wearing a tongue-in-cheek satire of the most over-the-top fashion sense of his era: a three-piece in GameCube-purple with a pink, yellow and cyan “Memphis Bell” pattern consisting of a puffy jacket, parachute pants, chunky sneakers and a hip-hop-fashioned baseball cap embroidered with a “cool S”, serving the look with bedazzled gloves a large medallion engraved in the shape of an iced-out can of creamed corn. 

Speaking of the most out-there characters of the 1990s, here comes Björk in an elaborate dress inspired by Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress: a backless bodice resembling a large stake, layers of thin strips of deli-style ham, turkey and salami, a necklace of sausage links around her neck and a pepperoni cluster in the form of a rosette in her hair. She caught-up to Lady Gaga as the two icons casually hi-fives each other.

Amy Pimling and Zoey Franco arrived paired side-by-side, with the former wearing a vivid, hot-pink mini dress made from layers of what appeared to be dyed fur (genuine or fake, who knows?) with a matching feather boa draped over her shoulders, fur-trim ankle boots with the stiletto-style heels and flamingo feathers perched on her hair and peppered with chunky pink beads on her wrists and around her neck. The latter wore her hair swept high-up in a beehive topped with a small bowler hat with flowers, clothed with a pure-white ballgown printed with a Jackson Pollock pattern and long, sheer sleeves seasoned with confetti glitter and golden kitten heels to match her tassled-earrings and the charming 18k gold necklace whose focal-point served in the form of a pendant depicting a chibi cat holding onto a color pallet an artist would use, displaying a row of paw-prints in seven bright colors. Charlie watched Zoey wave to the cameras with a smile on his face,  but couldn’t ignore how his joy contrasted with the more somber, pained looks on everyone else. Alan said dryly with as much enthusiasm as someone who worked at Sephora and had to deal with its infamous Periphery Demographic of children: “Anyone else sick of seeing that damned ginger everywhere, raise your hand-uh.” Mr. Boss, Glep, Squim, Tyler Duncan and Filmore all collectively replying: “Aye!” as Marge sighed mournfully, fighting the urge to cry: “I still can’t believe she did that to all of us…and when we where all together to celebrate saving the charity from getting taken over by the mob…I thought we where friends.” Filmore complained: “Not to mention how many times we had to change our email and socials because of her and her hate campaign against our goat Pim! Right, Duncan?” Duncan nodded in agreement, further-hammering it on home his disgust: “…and the nerve of her to buddy-up to Amy and believe all her lies, we all know just how horrible she was to Pim, we’ve seen and heard it ourselves.” The whole room erupted in angry complaints regarding Zoey’s actions and how the fallout still lingered from that point-forward. Charlie stayed quiet, wishing he had declined the invite and had watched it from home. “Oye now fellas, Let’s not get carried away with all this negativity! It’s Fashion’s biggest night out and Pim and Peleeken are gonna show up any minute! We wouldn’t wanna miss that now, do we?!” Squim’s raspy voice immediately cut-through the collective rants. Charlie didn’t think he’d find himself thankful that for Squim opening his mouth but here he is! “Squim’s right, we should stay focused on the big picture here…Y’know, just leave all those bad vibes behind and all and enjoy the show.” Everyone in the room had been astonished at what Charlie of all people just said. “Wow Charlie, you really have come so far.” Mr. Boss mused. “Look, everybody, it’s Pim and his boyfriend!” Filmore eagerly pointed both his arms and fingers at the screen as everyone once-again turned their attention to the live coverage.

Finally, Pim and Peleeken came out, unveiling the flags that obscured their eleganza as they finally revealed their most exciting outfits yet…