A Bet To Lose, Chapter 11 free porn video

"Well, there she goes," Zoe said as Heather left for work. She smiled at her brother. She'd been meaning to spend time with him, and as Susie's father was home and Caroline wasn't driving anyone anywhere that day, she figured it was the perfect chance. "So. How am I going to be dressing my little sissy up today?" "I don't feel like it," Richard replied morosely, intending to just spend the day in his T-shirt and boxers like a regular boy. Thinking about spending so much time without Susie didn't put him a good mood. Without her around, dressing up just felt like a big waste of time, like half the equation was missing, like he was going back to the lame part of a game after having enjoyed so much of the fun part. "Seriously?" Zoe asked, disappointed, and he nodded. Of course, she knew what his mood was about, but she didn't want to push him, and his spirits needed lightening. "You want to play a game, then? Do that Archon thing again, teach me some more? It beats sulking for a week." Richard let himself smile. His sister had a point. He couldn't spend the whole week moping; that really was a painful waste of time, and his princess would be angry with him if he did. "You know what, yeah, let's do that." They ran through a 1v1 against an Elite opponent together, talking through the open doors, Richard telling his sister what to do when and in what context, trying to get across the casual, easy familiarity that he had. He realized that just telling her what to do wasn't enough. He was learning how to teach. They were in the later part of the middlegame when there was a knock on the door, a sharp, fast, irregular knock that Richard did not like at all. They could have paused the game, but Richard said, "I'll get it, you can finish this yourself." Something was very wrong, and, without thinking through it, he intuitively decided that he did not want his sister talking to whoever was at the door. He silently crept downstairs and peered through the peephole. Nobody. "Hello?" he asked. "Who's there?" Nobody answered. He looked through the windows and saw nobody. He really didn't like this. Their front door had what their mother called the full monty: latch, deadbolt, chain. Heather had locked both latch and deadbolt on her way to work, and Richard was never happier for that fact. He didn't want to open that door at all unarmed. Getting a three-inch knife from the kitchen, he applied the chain to the door and unlocked it, then opened the door as far as the chain would go. He intended to yell again, but abruptly, an envelope fell from the inside of the door and hit the concrete. 'What the hell?' Looking carefully, listening for the sound of someone breathing, Richard reached his unarmed hand through the door and snatched the envelope in one quick motion, then he slammed the door shut and locked both latch and deadbolt. Abruptly, he dropped the envelope, suddenly certain that he shouldn't be touching it with his bare hands. He retrieved a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen, and used the knife to very carefully cut open the envelope, emptying the contents onto the living room table. He had almost expected what was in there. Pictures, of him skipping the neighborhood in his jingling dress, taken from various angles, one from an elevated position and one very uncomfortably close to his house. And a note, printed in Comic Sans, alongside a picture of a location he'd skipped past. --- You are so unbelievably cute!!! I really appreciate you sharing your cuteness with the whole world. I would like to see some more of you! Meet me at this spot at 11 tomorrow and I will $$$reward$$$ you just for showing up! Of course, if you don't share your cuteness with me, I will just have to share your cute little secret with the whole world, too! Don't worry, I really don't want to hurt you, so you have nothing to worry about when you do come! Looking forward to seeing you there, cutie! But come by yourself or you'll be in BIG TROUBLE! --- Other thirteen year olds would have been intimidated, deeply creeped out, and probably terrified. Richard was offended that whatever psychotic retard had left that there obviously had no idea who the hell he was dealing with. He was also angry with himself for not seeing photos being taken of him, and he was extraordinarily pissed off and frustrated at having to deal with shit like this yet again. First Leslie, then his cousin, and now the monsters of the world had finally come to literally knock on his door. He was just glad that this guy hadn't done this yesterday. If this had happened when he wasn't home, and then his mom had come home to see this stuffed in the door, things would have been very ugly indeed. "You're actually going to try to blackmail me," he quietly said to the empty room. "ME." He felt like he was playing Fallout 4, wearing modded dress-armor while a ghoul was rushing him from a hundred yards away, consulting his modded, bright pink Pip-Boy and deciding which overpowered weapon to kill it with. The first, of course, was to send it all straight to the police. He didn't doubt that they could and would find and arrest this dipshit in short order, and he vengefully wished for a very large, very sadistic cop with a very heavy knee. The problem there was that they might involve his mother, and that was an awkward conversation he really didn't want to have. The second was to pretend to agree and then get Caroline's PTSD veteran crew to ambush him. He was fairly sure that 'Wanna go kill a pedo?' was something that such people would actually be down for. The man might be armed, though, although Caroline's buddies would surely also be, but... no, bad idea, as were similar things such as burning his house down. It wasn't that he had any moral compunctions about doing such things - this monster had thought he was blackmailing an innocent child instead of the Sith apprentice he actually got, he deserved an excruciating death at the very least - but Richard didn't want to get himself or his friends in trouble. The third was the thing in the darkness, but he already knew what it would say: that he could handle this himself. This required merely apprentice-level Sithery for which he didn't need to call up his master. The fourth was the nuclear option of telling the entire Internet himself, taking pictures of all of it with his phone and posting the entirety somewhere like Tumblr. If he really wanted, he could do even worse: send it all to every single news organization and law enforcement agency he could possibly contact. This would basically guarantee the end result he wanted, but it wasn't good either. If he wanted to act indirectly, he had access to computer proxies; he didn't need to use meat ones. Besides, the asshole already had his home address - giving him any time to react was a bad move. The after-effects of being widely known as a sissy boy were less important, but this one was just sending it to the cops, only with extra, negative steps. The fifth was counter-blackmail, 'Surprise, you just sent me evidence on yourself', but that would have required this guy to suffer an outbreak of sanity and could lead to very bad outcomes. It was a dumb fantasy and Richard forced it out of his mind as stupid kiddie shit that he was too old to consider. The sixth was to break into the guy's wi-fi and sniff his packets. Richard discounted this idea as well. How could he anonymously tell the FBI the guy had child porn - which he probably did - and have them react as quickly as he'd need, even if he could pull it off? Richard realized that he was totally overthinking this. He really didn't need to get incriminating evidence to smash whoever this was. Few things were more self-incriminating than what he'd just left at Richard's house! Leaving physical evidence that he was attempting to blackmail a child?! That was basically handing Richard an axe and laying his own neck out on the chopping block. Best just to chop. Wait a minute - if this jackass had been following him, then he also probably knew where Susie lived! Who knew what about himself wasn't even remotely important - this guy had to be chopped, no mercy, no hesitation, as quickly as possible and at any cost! "You were right, I could finish that myself. So who was it?" his sister asked right after he made his decision. "Some asshole's trying to blackmail me," Richard replied casually. "Seriously?!" Adrenaline rushing, she rushed downstairs to look at the pictures and the note. "Yeah, wasn't sure how to handle it," Richard admitted. "I'm giving it to the cops." "Let's ask Leslie's parents what to do," she suggested instead, pulling out her phone. Richard facepalmed at his own stupidity. "Oh, right, cripes, I forgot!" Robert was a more experienced wielder of that particular axe. Zoe laughed, glad to have something to laugh at. "Yeah, Ricky, you forgot that the parents of your sister's girlfriend are experts in this kind of thing and you don't need to do everything yourself." She chuckled lightly and speed-dialed. "Oh, hey, Robert. Yeah, somebody took pictures of Ricky in one of his dresses and left them here with a really stupid blackmail note." Richard didn't hear the man's response, but it made Zoe laugh and he could guess what it was. "I know, right?! Can you or Willa help with this?" Another response. "Yeah, right now's perfect." Zoe smiled at the response. "Cool, thanks a lot." She hung up. "Get this, he actually goes to people's houses sometimes, and stuff like this counts as part of his job." "He's coming now?" "Yup, fifteen minutes. So, have you found out who's blackmailing you yet?" She was only half joking with the question. Her adrenaline was dwindling, as she knew that Robert had been right: the guy had definitely chosen the wrong kid to try that on. "I'm about to," Richard replied, pointing at the picture taken from a high angle. That one had to have been taken from someone's house, which was almost certainly the asshole's or the house of someone he knew. With Zoe's help and a bit of mapping and triangulation later - he determined exactly which house it was, and they were in the middle of looking him up with free resources when another knock came at the door, this one much more polite. Zoe peered through the peephole and opened the door. "Hey, Robert. We found out what house he took one of the pictures from, we're trying to find out who lives there." Robert stepped in the door, and Richard was once again surprised by just how much he looked like Gordon Freeman. 'Forget the axe, this asshole's getting smashed with a crowbar.' "That's good. Did you search the sex offender registry?" Robert asked. Richard perked up. "No, crap, I didn't even think about that." Lo and behold, searching found a sex offender with the same address that Richard and his sister had triangulated, and Richard laughed. "He really was dumb enough to take that from his own house! While on the sex offender list! Oh my God, what a dumbass!" A grotesque, out-of-shape dumbass who apparently liked to perform Gross Sexual Imposition on twelve-year-old girls and would have certainly done the same or worse to him, given the chance. "Smart people usually aren't in the business of blackmailing children," Robert replied, looking at all the pictures and the note, exhaling a bit. "Honestly, this is one-and-done, I don't need more than what's right here." The police could get other people's doorbell camera recordings, but they wouldn't even need those. "I know who this is. He's on parole, they let him out because of COVID. Hundred percent, he's going straight back to prison, and he's probably not getting out until you're well over 18. Unless something goes awry, your involvement is no longer necessary and we won't have to get your mother involved either. The investigation'll be on him, not you. I'm still glad you came to me." There was some victim-contact procedures that Robert could make not happen, making sure that neither Richard nor his mother would be automatically called. "Let's pack this all up and I'll give it to who needs to get it." "Be careful, fingerprints," Richard said, putting his gloves back on to handle the material. "I wouldn't worry about fingerprints at this point. By the way, I know you like going out like that, and I know, it's your right, it's a free country and a nice neighborhood, but don't do that alone." "I'm really obviously bait, and my phone is right there," Richard replied, pointing to his purse in the high-angle picture. "Yeah, well, as I'm sure you've noticed, some people take obvious bait, and when seconds count, the police are minutes away. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't do it by yourself, makes you much less of a target." Richard nodded in acquiescence. This was the guy's job, and he had a point. "Yeah, you're right. Hey, thanks a lot, Robert." "Pfft. After what you did last week? This isn't even a fraction of that." He got up, taking the envelope with him. "By the way, I don't think he has friends, but if you see anyone else creeping around here, you call the police, or me, somebody." "We will," Zoe promised him. "Also..." He sighed. "Your mother is going to find out about you sooner or later, especially if you're doing things like this. You can't keep this from her indefinitely, and it's really better if you tell her in a calm environment. If you want me to be there when you tell her, just ask." "I just want later and not sooner," Richard replied. Zoe wasn't in the mood to consider telling secrets, because she figured that once his was out, hers would be as well. "You've got a point, but... for now, just get rid of this guy, please?" Brother and sister had a unified attitude: they just wanted to be done with things like this. Robert nodded. "All right. You two be safe. I'm not going to try to tell teenagers to properly keep masks on outside, but try not to get within spitting or sneezing distance of anybody you don't know. For multiple reasons." He waved and left, his next stop being the police station, where he and the sex crimes unit's supervisor were on a first-name basis. [11:20 AM] Zoe: Well, that was fast lol [11:21 AM] Zoe: Some pedo tried to blackmail Ricky by leaving pictures of him in a dress and a crazy note. "Hey, Zoe?" Richard asked as he put the knife and gloves away. "Do you think there's any chance of that guy actually having friends to come here?" "If Robert says he doesn't think it'll happen, it really won't happen, he's super cautious," Zoe replied. She severely doubted that anyone who looked like that freak had very many friends at all, let alone anyone that would help blackmail teenagers. "He'd want Leslie always wearing a mask if she could breathe through it okay." "Then can we just pretend that didn't happen and go back to what we were doing? I want to see the replay." Zoe heard the deep frustration, the sick-of-it-all, in her brother's voice. She reached out to run her fingers through his long hair, and he did not pull away. "Sure thing, little bro." They went to her room and replayed the first part on regular speed to focus on early game micro, and Zoe briefly looked down at her phone long enough to type replies as his brother sat on her bed, occasionally pointing things out. [11:25 AM] Caroline: so what happened to the pedo [11:26 AM] Zoe: Leslie's dad came over and the guy's going to jail [11:28 AM] Caroline: the guy should thank his lucky stars tbh [11:28 AM] Zoe: IKR! lmfao Zoe actually did laugh and looked back at the screen. Richard explained some more stuff, about units and what the computer was probably doing and what a player would do, doing a very good job of acting like they hadn't just shut down a blackmail attempt. [11:31 AM] Zoe: Leslie's dad also said that Ricky shouldn't go out there by himself dressed like that. [11:33 AM] Leslie: Oh wow. Yeah that guy made a big mistake LOL [11:34 AM] Leslie: Dad's always cautious about stuff like that. It's good advice. [11:34 AM] Leslie: Even for you, Ricky! [11:35 AM] Richard: Yeah, he's probably right. I thought I was too obviously bait. Some people just take it anyway. Guess I'll just have to wear boy clothes to Susie's house :( They sped up the replay some. [11:41 AM] Susie: Or you just need someone to walk with you instead, sissy boy :heart: Hearing from Susie, even in text, was exactly what Richard needed just then, and he perked up immediately. [11:41 AM] Leslie: LOL yeah, or that [11:42 AM] Richard: Yes please :) Surprised you're on, you're out with your dad? [11:43 AM] Susie: At the grocery store. He's surprised half the people aren't wearing masks. [11:43 AM] Richard: Is he at risk? Susie didn't reply right away, and the replay ended shortly thereafter. Richard exhaled deeply, laying back on Zoe's bed, feeling a mix of emotions, the strongest being that he was missing out on something. "You know, actually... do you want to dress me up?" She got out of the chair and looked down at him, smiling. "Not just that. I want to treat you just like my sweet little sister," she said with a small, swift pointing motion. "Okay," Richard said without any hesitation. "All right, little sissy. Take off all your clothes, turn around, and close your eyes. I've got a surprise for you." He looked a little concerned, and she gently tapped his nose. "Your big sister isn't going to do anything bad to you." He exhaled again. Of course he trusted her, and he had to remind himself of that. He did as she told him, and as he was taking off his shirt and boxer shorts, she was rummaging in her closet. "Lift up your arms," he heard from behind him, an instruction that he completely expected, and once he did, he felt a shirt go over him. "Left leg, then right leg," she instructed him, and he felt her pull up what felt almost like ordinary boys' underwear on him. Then Zoe snapped something elastic, with a lot of fabric hanging from it, around his waist and ran a pair of straps over his shoulders. "Okay, you can look now," she said, and he heard the giggle in her voice. Richard looked down and saw a lot of yellow. He could read upside down fairly well, and he saw the brightly colored pink words "Little Miss Sunshine" with a picture of a smiling sun. His legs were covered by a full yellow skirt that reached to just above his knee. With Zoe giggling, he pushed up the full skirt and bent over, looking at what she had put under the skirt. "What the heck?" "Mom called them modesty panties," Zoe said. "More like granny panties!" "Yeah, pretty much. But perfect for you when you're not wearing diapers, means your dick won't fall out," she said with a giggle. "So, tell me the truth. Do you like the outfit?" "I really do like it," he replied. He'd tricked her into putting him in that first dress, gone out in public in all kinds of dresses afterwards, even been put in ribbon-tied baby bondage that one time. Somehow, just telling her that he really did like wearing this childish outfit felt like another step. "The only thing I don't like is the straps." They were digging into his shoulders, and he pushed them off to let them hang down. "Actually, it looks better that way, and they make convenient handles," Zoe determined. Richard blushed a bit, looking down, but he didn't argue. He could trust his sister, so he didn't mind her holding on to him. It wasn't a sexual thing, not with her. It was just comforting being led, letting his big sister make decisions for him, knowing that she really did have his well-being in mind. He just wanted to know one thing. "Where did you even get this?" "Mom bought it secondhand when I was eleven, it's been sitting in the back of my closet forever. I swear, I was so relieved when I showed her it didn't fit. She told me to hold onto it, I'd grow into it! She forgot about it first, I forgot about it for a while too. But it looks like its new owner can really appreciate being Little Miss Sunshine." She smiled. "I think I'm going to keep calling you that today. You don't mind, do you, Sunshine?" Smiling in return, he shook his head, and Zoe was abruptly reminded of a less pleasant experience. When he was nine and she was ten, she'd tried to give him a cutesy name, just for fun. He'd dripped half-melted ice cream onto himself, and she started calling him Sticky Ricky. He'd taken it very badly: he immediately went upstairs to wash himself off, then he retreated to his room, blocking the door, not even finishing the rest of the bowl. She'd kept calling him that through the door, and Heather had told her, very firmly (and hypocritically, in Zoe's opinion), to stop it before telling Richard to come downstairs and finish his ice cream before Zoe ate it. Instead, in total silence and pure spite, he had gone back down, washed out the bowl, flushing the ice cream down the sink in the process, then gone back upstairs. His mother, shocked at the waste and at his reaction, had told him that he wasn't getting any dessert or sweet snacks for a week, and he hadn't seemed to care. Richard hadn't said a single word to his sister (and not much to his mother) for that whole week and a good while thereafter, and she'd thought of him as an overreacting spoilsport who couldn't take a joke. Zoe, at fourteen, mentally thanked her mother for quickly putting an end to it and kicked herself for having been a stupid brat. If he'd had any inclinations towards showing her his softer side back then, she'd helped to force them down instead of bring them out. If she'd been nicer to him, she probably could have been doing this with him years ago, and she still intended to make up for lost time. The chat was still going: [11:50 AM] Susie: Actually he's had antibodies for a month. [11:52 AM] Susie: He wants to meet you all at the YMCA with Leslie on Friday. [11:55 AM] Caroline: oh shit ricky is that wedding bells or a funeral dirge i hear? [11:56 AM] Leslie: LMFAO [11:57 AM] Zoe: *searches ebay for pink coffins* [11:57 AM] Leslie: OMFG LMFAO [11:58 AM] Richard: Et tu, Zoe?! Zoe giggled when reading his reply, and he chuckled. At least he wouldn't actually have to go a whole week without Susie, even if sex wasn't part of the itinerary. "Well, that's definitely going to be fun. But for now, Sunshine, phone down. I know you've been trying, but today, you're going to get your hair braiding skills up. It just takes practice." They practiced for a while. She showed him different braiding styles, ways that hair could be intertwined even if she knew that he wasn't ready for them yet, but seeing them done made him a bit more aware of how basic an ordinary braid really was. His fingers were starting to get the knack of it within twenty minutes. Watching her little brother in a yellow shirt and skirt outfit, braiding his long, straight hair with increasing finesse, was far more interesting than anything else she might have been paying attention to. Richard started shaking his hands around at the wrists. "My fingers are starting to hurt, can we leave it like this?" he complained after getting his hair into some decently crafted pigtails. "Okay, we'll stop here. You're doing a much better job. Let's show everybody." She took a selfie with her brother, both of them smiling, and uploaded it to the chat with an explanation. Richard was worried that maybe Susie's dad was looking over her shoulder, but that hadn't happened, and the other girls daaaaawed over how cute he looked and complimented him on how good he'd become at braiding his own hair. "And now, I have a special little gift for my sweet little sis." She reached up into the upper part of her closet and pulled out a hefty, broad- spectrum pack of crayons along with a reasonably thick coloring book. As a first grader, Zoe hadn't colored in all the pages in order, with some pages being better done than others, and Richard started on the first untouched one, a panoramic beach view. "Perfect start for our little Sunshine," Zoe said, smiling, and she looked to see whether Richard was an outside-the-lines or inside-the-lines kid. He actually went a step further: he was an extra-lines kid. Most of the pages were generally simple, with lots of open spaces, and instead of just coloring them in or smearing the colors, Richard decided to add complexity when he felt like it, drawing a rudimentary dolphin and surfer after coloring in the sun a bright yellow. He couldn't recall ever having played with a coloring book before. He turned the page and there was the last picture that the younger Zoe had touched, a picture of a clown's face with a thick black X in crayon over it. "I remember that now," Zoe said before Richard could ask. "Oh my God, I remember. I was, like, six. Yeah, this was for my birthday, my sixth birthday, I think. There was this festival, you were off doing something else, but Mom wanted me to see the performing clown, and I was nervous, and it was doing balloon animals." Richard chuckled at the clown being called 'it' and wondered if he should finally watch the movie. After the things he'd seen, he figured that nothing that Hollywood could submit to the general public could possibly faze him. "And it saw that I wasn't having fun, so it made this.. terrifying face, and it did that coin trick from behind the ear thing." Zoe's expression got serious, as she remembered how she'd nearly caught lasting coulrophobia. "I didn't even see the coin, I thought it had actually pulled something off my head. I screamed. I screamed and ran. I think I made it all the way to the bathroom before Mom caught up with me. I couldn't even breathe, I was screaming so hard. We did not go back to that part, we went to... right, you were in the bouncy castle! And that's where Mom took me, and you were doing flips onto your butt and rolling around. I remember now." "I kinda remember doing flips, I don't remember the rest of that," Richard said. He had actually been on more than one bouncy castle, having enjoyed them a lot when he was younger. (He realized that he still did - he just didn't have the opportunity to get on one.) "You didn't see the rest of that, and Mom never told you. I remember now, she promised me that she wouldn't!" It wouldn't have mattered, she realized. She could never recall Richard ever making fun of anyone for anything, even when he was very little. He just never found it an enjoyable thing to do. "If it'd been me, I'd have freaked out the same way or worse," Richard told her matter-of-factly. Zoe nodded. "You totally would have. Speaking of which, they did a study in a children's hospital, it was in Britain or something, and guess what percent of the kids found clowns scary. Just guess, pick a number." "Eighty?" Richard ventured. "One hundred." Richard laughed. "I'm not kidding. Every. Single. One. Girls and boys. The older ones found them worse. So yeah, big ol' X over that clown, and if you find any more in there, you can cross them out too." He agreed with a smile. "Okay, Sunshine. We have milk, we have bananas that we need to use or get rid of, we have sugar, and we have a food processor that Mom never uses. I'm going to go see if my milkshakes are as good as Susie's. You be good, little sis." As soon as she left the room, he immediately started flipping through the pages looking for something important. Did it have one? Oh, there was a good one, and he knew exactly what to do. He immediately got to work, but she came back in the room, milkshakes in hand, before he was done, and he flipped the book upside down as soon as he heard her come in. Zoe chuckled as she handed him his milkshake. "Are you hiding something from me?" "Yeah, don't look at what I'm doing. I'll show you when I'm done. It's a surprise." Richard, having hated surprises, had never said those three words to his sister before. She gave him a smile. "All right, Sunshine. Let's see what kind of surprise you'll give me." Milkshake in hand, she turned to her computer, put on her headphones, and found music videos to watch. She had barely gotten through one before Richard said that he was done, the milkshake finished and the page colored. Zoe took one look at what he'd done and guffawed. The page he was showing her featured five clowns, and he had very much crossed them out, but not in the way she'd expected. The first had been shot with a big black hole in the head, and he'd drawn red lines to make it look like its brain had splattered out from behind. The second was turned into a rotting, green zombie, with a couple of limbs blacked out. The third had its hands in front of its stomach, and Richard had made it look like it was trying to hold its intestines in. Number four had a brown noose around its neck, hanging from an overhead rafter, and number five had a lot of red lines on its body as if someone had slashed it up with a knife. He'd crudely colored in the rest of the page. Zoe laughed more at the idea that her brother, all dressed up as Little Miss Sunshine, had been such an edgelord, and in a way, it was one of the most ordinary-boy things she'd ever seen him do. She giddily held the book to her chest. The idea was silly, but somehow, by doing that with her old coloring book, she felt like he'd reached back into her childhood and retroactively removed a bad experience from it. She wouldn't really remember that awful face, that trick that had disturbed her so much at the time, and her terrified screaming anymore; she would remember her dressed-up brother drawing dead clowns. "Ricky, thank you so much. You can color in the rest of the book, but I'm keeping this one. Wait, I'm really keeping this." She pulled out her phone and proceeded to upload a picture of the page to the Squad chat, where she started to explain how the image had come about and why she'd wanted it. Richard smiled at her from his seat on the floor, looking up at her in the chair. "I'm glad you like it." He'd thought maybe she'd be disgusted at him for it. "I absolutely love it. You are the best brother ever." She opened her arms for a hug, and Richard took it, with him on his knees and her still sitting in the chair, a position that made him feel much smaller, much more like a little girl. She kissed him on the top of the head. "And if you see any more like that in there, you do the same thing to them, okay, Sunshine?" He agreed happily and went back to his coloring, and Zoe decided to keep her playlist going in her ears, reading the Squad chat (the reactions to the photo were of amusement and complete understanding) while he laid on the floor like a little kid, his bare feet kicking back and forth in the air as he innocently colored in many other pictures, including an Easter one of little bunnies hopping around, with lots of added flowers (one with a rabbit bite mark on it) and a big smiling sun, and a Christmas one that he spent a lot of time on. It began as a picture of a fireplace and a tree, with chairs and a sofa facing the fireplace, and Richard began coloring it in before he went for the flesh tones and began creating human figures. Zoe watched him, the music playing in her ears, but said nothing. He drew a blonde head sticking out from the chair, a short, red-haired girl wearing pink and hanging up a stocking, a brown-haired girl in a blue dress opening a present, and a head with brown hair in pigtails next to a head with long, black hair on the sofa. "Leslie's hanging up the stockings by herself," Zoe said when he was done. "She should be able to by Christmas," Richard replied, and Zoe clutched the necklace that Susie had given her, one of the matching necklaces that she and her girlfriend nearly always wore. She couldn't resist the urge to hug him again. She paused the video, laid down on the floor with him, put her left arm around him in a solid embrace, and started helping him color the next page with her right. That was how they spent most of the afternoon together. There were a whole fifty pages that the six-year-old Zoe had left uncolored, and the teenagers took more time together than Richard would have alone, having happily childish discussions about what color should go where. Occasionally, they didn't agree, and swapped the decision-making, leading to a silly patchwork of coloring that looked just like a real kid had gone through it. Under normal circumstances, both of them would actually have been a bit snippy about that sort of thing, but it was just a kid's coloring book after all and their defenses towards one another were basically gone. Zoe's phone buzzed when they were mostly done. It was Robert, who had texted to inform the siblings that the blackmailing pedophile was in the process of being arrested. "Looks like it's safe to go out in the sunshine, Sunshine," Zoe said, smiling. "Want to get some ice cream?" "Sure!" Richard beamed happily. His pink socks didn't go with the yellow very well, and it was too warm out for tights, and they both realized that Richard needed more cute socks to go with his shoes. Zoe found a pair of stretchy, ruffled socks that she'd never worn and that could be made to fit around his feet, and he put on his Mary Janes. She gripped one of his hanging straps, as if to make sure that he wouldn't wander off, and he didn't mind at all. Their phones were in Zoe's pockets along with the money she'd been able to save up with her limited allowance. It was a sad joke, really, especially compared to Susie's seemingly limitless supply of unearned cash. It was basically symbolic, a few dollars here and there with the very occasional five thrown in, and over the course of a month, she only got enough to head to the convenience store a dozen blocks away and take her little sissy brother out for ice cream. Zoe was both jealous of Susie's limitless supply of unearned cash and grateful for the generosity that she had shown with it, and she wondered if Susie even had to ask for it or if her dad just handed her a fat suitcase full of twenties as soon as he got home. It was six blocks from their suburb to the main road. They were passed by a bicyclist on the sidewalk, who went to the grass to get out of their way, and he was the same guy who Richard had seen before and they knowingly smiled at one another. They were caticorner from the store, waiting for a walk signal to go one way or the other, when a police car pulled next to them. Almost on a lark, Richard looked to see who was in the back seat of the cop car and holy crap, it couldn't have been, but it was, it was actually him, it was actually the pedo. "Zoe!" Richard whispered quickly, pointing, and the siblings and the blackmailer stared at each other for a split second. Richard flipped him the double deuce, then, inspired, he clenched his left fist and used his right to point to the man. Then, he curled the fingers of his right hand and extended the middle finger of his left, pushing that finger into the hole made by the curled fingers, and his fingers were too tightly curled for it to go in, but that finger was being forced in anyway. Knowing exactly what that symbolized, the blackmailer looked Richard in the eyes, and, despite him wearing a shirt proclaiming him to be Little Miss Sunshine and his sister still holding on to him, there was no mercy whatsoever in those eyes. When he had been arrested, the man had thought that someone else must have intercepted the envelope, that the little skipping sweetheart he had seen had been oblivious to his attempt at building a relationship. Only then did he have some idea of who he had messed with, the enormity of the mistake he had made. He began to sob. The light turned green, and the cop car drove away, the siblings crossing the street at the same time. "That was a major coincidence," Richard said, a bit spooked once he thought about it. "Not really," Zoe replied, shrugging. "We left as soon as Robert said that fuckclown was getting arrested, it takes the cops time to do it, and we're going the same way." If they had kept going, they would have eventually made it to the local semi-downtown area and the police station on the other side of town. They crossed the larger street to get to the convenience store with the attached ice cream shop, and Richard's very first thoughts were 'Have we even been here before? Why don't we come here more often?' The answers were, of course, that a convenience store a dozen blocks away wasn't particularly convenient for kids who didn't bicycle, and their mother could buy a gallon of ice cream for what two scoops cost there. Richard's outfit attracted a bit of attention from the few people in the store, and the college-aged cashier gave the siblings a big, inviting smile as soon as she saw them. "So what will you be having today?" she asked in a friendly tone. "I'll have one scoop of dark chocolate and one of rocky road with a waffle cone," Zoe replied. The cashier turned to Richard with a big smile on her face. "And what would you like?" she asked in that happily condescending voice reserved for talking to small children. Richard had no idea what the girl thought or knew he really was and decided he didn't care. "A cone and a scoop of mint chocolate and a scoop of strawberry, please!" he chirped in the happiest, sweetest voice he could. "Mint chocolate and strawberry! Delicious. Would you like sprinkles?" the cashier asked, smiling. "Yes, please!" Richard chirped. "All right, lots of extra sprinkles, just for you." To keep up the act, Zoe was going to remind him to thank her, but he'd already chirped "Thank you!" once she handed him his cone. "You're very welcome." The cashier turned to his sister. "That'll be eleven-oh-five." Zoe fished exact change out of her pocket, then took Richard by the strap again to pull him to an outside bench far from anyone. She didn't know what the cashier thought about Richard, but she wanted to talk to him normally and it'd ruin the act if anyone else heard. Zoe chuckled. "Wow, she really went full on with that. I wonder how much she knew." The girl hadn't treated Richard like a ten-year-old; she treated him more like he was half that age. Richard nodded. "I kinda wish everyone would talk to me like that," he said quietly. What other boys would have found belittling and insulting, he felt care and comfort in. "I mean, it doesn't make sense all the time, but, just, as much as possible." "Oh? Well, then, I guess I can try," Zoe replied in the voice he'd asked for. "I'll treat Little Miss Sunshine just like the little sissy she loves to be." Richard smiled as he ate his ice cream - the sprinkles on the strawberry were very deliciously sweet - and, chuckling, Zoe shook her head. "That's actually pretty tough to keep up," she said in a normal voice. The two of them sat together for a while, enjoying their ice cream, and Zoe thought for a bit before deciding if she actually wanted to talk about what she'd been thinking about. She hoped she wouldn't ruin the mood just by bringing it up, and she looked around and decided to just go for it. "There's a reason why I picked ice cream," she said quietly, and Ricky turned to look at her. "You remember that time you'd got ice cream on yourself, and I started name calling, and you just went fuck this and went upstairs?" Richard had decided long ago that he'd never bring that up, and he'd gradually kind of forgotten about it, but she'd jogged his memory. "Oh, yeah, that. That was..." He shook his head. He didn't want to blame himself and he didn't want to blame her either, they'd both been a lot younger. "On the day that happened, there were there four kids picking on this other kid in school, the teacher was out for some stupid reason, so we're all just sitting around talking. I forget what they did to him, but they're just standing around his desk, I know they saying some nasty stuff to him, and what really got me was that he was just keeping on talking to them like nothing was wrong, like this was normal. I didn't understand, I still don't. If he would have just done something, or called for help, they might have stopped or someone else would have done something, maybe me, but they all just kept going. Then I promised myself that if somebody ever picked on me like that, I wouldn't keep talking to them like they were my friends." That made the whole thing make a lot more sense to Zoe. "And then I picked on you that same day." Richard nodded. "I was keeping a promise to myself, I felt like I'd be betraying myself if I ever talked to you again. Mom came up to me, I think it was like ten days or something, and she was... actually pretty scared. She just said it was over, that I shouldn't keep going with this, I think she threatened to take me to a counselor if I didn't start talking to you again." Zoe nodded. "The funny part is, all four kids had gotten suspended the day after they did that. Somebody must have said something or maybe they did something else. Somebody came from the office and told them to come with her, I didn't see them again for a while." He could recall the exact moment some of the kids in the class had gone 'You're in troooouble!' Zoe decided that an apology would have been worthless and made no comment on his reactive nature. Instead, she chose to say what had been kicking around in her head, and she lowered her voice. "I just keep thinking that if I'd been nicer to you, we could have been doing this for a long time." Richard shook his head. "No way, I would have been way too scared to ever tell you about it. I mean, I always kind of wanted to do it, but it would have been way too scary. Even, just like, in the house." Zoe nodded in understanding. It had taken a lot of incubation for Richard's soft side to hatch properly. Despite the fact that he was less passable as a little girl at 13 than 9, Zoe didn't even want to imagine what he might have become if someone had tried to hatch it before he was ready. Still, if she had been a better sister, she might have been able to help him incubate it. "I still just wish I'd had your trust a lot sooner," she lamented. Instead of replying, he scooted closer to her on the bench and ate every last bite of his waffle cone. Neither of them was sure if it was worth the money, but it had definitely been delicious. As they walked home together, Zoe still holding on to one of his straps, she remembered what she had told him when she was furious with him, that the little sissy in her Christmas dress was who he was and would always be. It had become a real truth. Even if he grew to be quite a bit taller than her and put on enough muscle to be twice her weight, which was very possible given what their father had looked like in his prime, it wouldn't matter. He very much had the same relationship with the rest of the Squad, particularly his girlfriend, and unless something truly awful happened, he would always and forever be their sweet little sissy. Zoe smiled at the thought of Richard lifting her with one hand and Susie with the other while wearing a pretty dress fitted just for him. When they were almost home, a small hissing sound came from Richard's backside. Zoe laughed loudly. "Milk and sugar!" Richard explained, and Zoe just laughed louder, and he frowned a bit. "People fart, Zoe." Seeing her sweet little brother frowning in his pigtails and pretty yellow outfit was one of the cutest things she had ever seen in her life, but she felt like she was picking on him and she really didn't want to pick on him, and it took very little effort to make herself poot out her own gas. She giggled. "Yup, people fart," she replied and kissed him on the nose. The two of them finished their coloring book together, with the occasional bathroom break, and then it was about time for Mom to get home and so Richard, very reluctantly, changed back into his boy clothes. He had loved being Little Miss Sunshine so much, loved being given a coloring book to play with, loved being looked after by his big sister, loved being treated like a five-year-old who needed someone to hold on to him so that he wouldn't get lost. When he was actually that age, part of him had enjoyed it but most of him had been mistrustful of anyone who treated him like that, as he'd felt bullied and humiliated, and he had been so circumspect and fearful of such situations that he didn't really want to interact with people at all, and his mother and sister had never understood why and he couldn't remember clearly. Now that he was in close relationships with people who loved him and anyone who tried to actually bully or humiliate him was in for at least one very unpleasant surprise, he was much more appreciative of being treated little. Their mother came home later than they'd expected, knocking on the door so that they could open it with her carrying two piles of heavy bags, and then she told them to put away the groceries. She'd had a long, tiring, and sweaty day. She still didn't quite understand what was going on with her children, who had been sitting on the couch watching anime together - had they ever done that before? - but at least they were willing to help her put food in the refrigerator and sort the mail. Sorting groceries was simpler than sorting laundry: frozen in the freezer, cold stuff and all fruits and veggies in the fridge, everything else in the pantry. Richard checked the mail, mostly junk, and his heart lurched, a lump in his throat. One of the letters was for him! A closer look at it relaxed his attitude. It was from the city, not the major downtown but the local area, and he blinked in confusion. He briefly entertained the idea that someone had faked it and that there was anthrax in there, but he saw nothing when trying to peer through the envelope. He decided to stop being paranoid and carefully ripped open the top. Inside was a check, made out to him, for two hundred and fifty dollars. His sister looked over at him. "What is it?" He looked at the ripped top. It had been postmarked Monday, and the local post office was good at getting local letters delivered. So, it obviously wasn't about anything that happened that day, what could... of course! He was being dumb, it wasn't about turning in the pedo, but it WAS about... "It's snitch money," Richard replied, laughing. He heard the shower running so he didn't yell upstairs to his mother. "Why is there no explanation?" Zoe asked, starting to giggle. Richard knew this one. "Because it's snitch money, if there was a guy who didn't want to be known as a snitch, if they put something in there, then everyone looking over his shoulder would go 'hey, this guy's a snitch.'" "Right, I get it," Zoe said, gradually laughing harder. "Leslie's going to just..." She pulled out her phone, and Richard did the same. [5:57 PM] Zoe: LMAO [5:57 PM] Zoe: check this spaghetti out [5:58 PM] Zoe: the city PAID RICKY $250, there's no note, it must have been for turning leslie's bio parents in [5:59 PM] Leslie: ROFLLLLLLL [5:59 PM] Zoe: this is the icing on the cake [6:00 PM] Leslie: my dad just came in and asked what i was laughing so hard at [6:01 PM] Leslie: now HE'S starting to laugh [6:01 PM] Zoe: I legit want to send your bio parents a picture of the check with ```This is how much your lives were really worth, fuckfaces!!``` [6:02 PM] Leslie: OMG you and your brother ARE related LMAOOO [6:02 PM] Zoe: Susie, before you say anything, it's not about how much, it's that THE GOVERNMENT PAID HIM FOR IT [6:03 PM] Leslie: Paid for mowing but it's not grass Richard and his sister both laughed. [6:03 PM] Zoe: BRUTAL HOW DID YOU GET SO BRUTAL [6:03 PM] Richard: Leslie's sounding like 4chan lmao [6:04 PM] Caroline: so they didn't give an excuse for the money? [6:04 PM] Leslie: I wonder where I could have picked it up from? [6:04 PM] Caroline: usually with stuff like this they make it look like a welfare check "Wow, she knows a lot about it," Zoe said. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised." Richard got his knowledge from the Internet. The people that Caroline worked with had more direct experiences with the underbelly of the world. [6:05 PM] Zoe: All they sent was the check, nothing else. [6:06 PM] Caroline: probably because hes 13 and it was mailed to suburbia [6:06 PM] Caroline: ghetto would have been way different [6:06 PM] Caroline: anyway sunshine what will you spend it on? Richard couldn't answer right away, because his mother was coming down the stairs. "Hey, Mom! I got snitch money!" "What?" He showed her the check. "The city paid me, there's no note or anything, it's got to be for me giving them that tip for that drug deal," Richard replied. She took a pen from a cup on the table. "Sign the back of it, I'll cash this at the bank tomorrow," she told him, and he scrawled out his name. "That's certainly a pleasant surprise. I'm glad they gave you something. Maybe you'll spend it on me?" He stared at her, and she smiled. "That was a joke. What isn't a joke is that I have a somewhat elaborate dinner in mind tonight, and I will need both of you to help me with it." She was glad that her children agreed. She still felt like there was something else going on, but at least she could come home and not have even more things to deal with. [6:08 PM] Richard: I have no idea lol. Making dinner. [6:09 PM] Leslie: Three potential housewives in one house. [6:09 PM] Caroline: omfg, better delete that before zoe reads it [6:09 PM] Leslie: Why? Even if the therapy works I still want her making me dinner :heart: [6:35 PM] Susie: I'm back. Was doing driving lessons with Dad. Reading chat. [6:37 PM] Susie: I think we found Ricky's new career lol! [6:38 PM] Susie: Rule 1 applies to MY money. [6:38 PM] Susie: btw Dad says I can have a credit card when I get married or turn 18 :/ [6:40 PM] Susie: So I need to make one of those potentials a reality :hearts: [6:41 PM] Caroline: so when do you and rickys mom tie the knot? [6:41 PM] Susie: I KNEW I WAS SETTING MYSELF UP WHEN I SAID IT ARGHHH [6:41 PM] Leslie: L M F A O [7:00 PM] Zoe: Sure, I'll make you dinner, Leslie. You can be the main course :heart: [7:01 PM] Leslie: I guess that makes you dessert :heart: [7:01 PM] Caroline: i kind of want to say something bitchy but youre actually lightening my mood, ty for that [7:02 PM] Susie: So what was your actual dinner? [7:03 PM] Richard: Something called jjigae (awesome scrabble word). Mostly spam fried rice. We were getting in each other's way making it, lol [7:03 PM] Zoe: Literally too many cooks, at least mom had specific jobs for us [7:04 PM] Susie: SPAM fried rice??? The actual spam product? [7:05 PM] Caroline: really not that rare here susie [7:05 PM] Zoe: We followed the recipe right off Hormel's website. [7:05 PM] Leslie: I've never had any spam (salt). [7:06 PM] Susie: OMFG I HAVE TO RESCUE YOU BOTH [7:06 PM] Caroline: have you even actually had it? [7:06 PM] Susie: I smelled it once and once was enough! [7:07 PM] Zoe: we've had it all our lives but I can totally see where Susie is coming from. [7:07 PM] Richard: | [7:08 PM] Caroline: car now has a third rule, no music, politics, or food arguments now "Never heard of that rule," Richard said aloud, catching his mother's attention. He and his sister had gone from the dining room to the couch, and their mother was watching them use their phones, shaking her head at the state of modern American teenagers. So constantly attached to their gadgets. Didn't anything interesting ever happen in their lives? Then again, she had her own screen she liked to look at, and she went to play her own games. "Never came up when you were around," Zoe replied. "I think it was the first time I was in Caroline's car, Susie told us her Rule 1, and Caroline said that she didn't play music because she didn't want anyone arguing over it, and she didn't want to deal with political stuff either. Funny because she was the one who started calling us the Squad." [7:09 PM] Zoe: Could have used that rule yesterday, miss eveything burger [7:10 PM] Caroline: youre the ones who missed everything [7:10 PM] Richard: Ooooof. [7:10 PM] Leslie: Sssss. [7:10 PM] Zoe: :snake: [7:12 PM] Susie: Okay, I don't mean to interrupt this fascinating discussion of your barbaric and uncultured culinary practices, but I have something to tell Ricky and the rest of you about my dad. [7:13 PM] Susie: Well, it's more like instructions. Everyone just follow my lead when it comes to him, even if it seems kinda weird or not what you'd expect. [7:14 PM] Susie: It's probably just for Ricky but you all should know [7:14 PM] Susie: also ***HE MUST NEVER KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RICKY'S DRESSING E V E R*** [7:15 PM] Caroline: copy that Richard nearly typed in 'Yes, Your Highness' before he remembered he was in a group chat. [7:15 PM] Richard: I understand. :smile: [7:15 PM] Leslie: I guess the unexpected part comes later lol [7:15 PM] Zoe: Yes, we could guess that one :laughing: [7:16 PM] Caroline: btw i cant drive you friday [7:16 PM] Caroline: my dad just said he got a massive rush order and ill be helping him as much as i can [7:17 PM] Caroline: even with me like this [7:17 PM] Leslie: Mom can take me. Thanks for saying so early :slight_smile [7:17 PM] Richard: I'll WALK if I have to. [7:17 PM] Zoe: I'll be walking with him. [7:18 PM] Caroline: isnt there heavy rain and wind forecast for friday? [7:18 PM] Richard: **I'll WALK if I have to.** [7:18 PM] Zoe: **I'll be walking with him.** [7:19 PM] Leslie: :heart: [7:19 PM] Susie: :heart: [7:19 PM] Leslie: Actually Mom can take you. [7:20 PM] Leslie: Maybe you'll tell her how you keep getting mixed up in bad stuff. [7:20 PM] Richard: I have no idea. I'm a monster magnet or something. [7:21 PM] Caroline: SPAAAAAACE LORD MOTHER MOTHER [7:21 PM] Caroline: none of you will ever get that ignore me The Y was about four miles away, and not for the first time in his life, Richard regretted never being into cycling, nor was he familiar with the local buses, and Zoe simply regretted not having more friends with cars. Discomfort, though, was something that didn't even concern him when it came to Susie, and Zoe apparently felt the same way about her girlfriend. The two of them continued watching their show together, and boy clothes or girl clothes, physically bigger or smaller, Richard knew that he would always be a good little sissy for his big sister.