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Ro was running out of hoodies.
They rifled through their closet one last time, checking for sure.
Nope. Nothing. All either stolen or in the washing. Or just not comfortable, which was almost worse than just not having them!
Which was a problem.
Why? Well hoodies were only like- the comfiest things in existence? And also hoodies were what their character wore most of the time, and the studio’s hoodies were not as comfortable as the ones at home since like, then the others just kept on stealing them.
Ro knew this personally, they’d actually done this a few times!
(in their defense, they were really nice hoodies…)
There was really only one solution to this problem. Get more hoodies.
Which Ro would normally do- but they’d have to leave for production of the newest episode soon and. Time was not on their side.
So, a temporary solution would have to do. Thievery!
Now, Ro normally frowned upon thievery. It was bad! People worked hard for their stuff and shit, and also rude? They’d been stolen from so many times… it was really quite sad.
But all of the above did not apply to Mapicc, he totally deserved to be stolen from. No question in that. Zam also deserved to be stolen from but that was for dresses, which Ro didn’t quite feel like wearing right now. So stealing from Mapicc it was!
It was really convenient that they lived together.
Zam had already left, Mapicc was probably waiting downstairs for them. Which gave them enough time to commit a crime!
Walking over to the other side of the room, there was Mapicc and Zam’s closet. Which was irrelevant.
“RO, WE HAVE TO GO SOON.” Mapicc called out from presumably downstairs.
Hm. Ok.
“YEAH, COMING DUDE. COMING ON YOU- I MEAN WHAT.” There! That would distract Mapicc…
“FUCK YOU BRO.” RIGHT hoodies.
They rifled through Mapicc’s closet, looking for the perfect one.
Too soft, not soft enough, weird, not colourful, too colourful, boring, boring, more boring- THERE.
Hanging near the end, a purple and red hoodie that clashed horribly but awesomely! Perfect.
Pulling it on, they beelined to the stairs and grabbed their fanny pack from where it was resting, also putting it on.
Everything was ready! Now for shoes…
High heels, running shoes, boots, or that random pair of sandals? Mapicc was standing outside, waiting, but this was important.
Very important.
Hm…
“Bro, Ro. Just pick the high heels or boths, we both know you want one of those, or else you’d have put the running shoes on already.” Well fuck Mapicc for knowing them that well.
“Well what if I didn’t want to wear them, May-Pick.” They stuck their tongue out at him, putting the boots on since acting would probably not be as great in heels. Whoa, Ro was taller. By like half a centimeter but taller was taller!
“You’re literally putting them on right now. Also- oh my god that’s my hoodie isn’t it.” they could hear the sigh in Mapicc’s voice.
“... noooooooo…” Walking towards Mapicc, they grabbed their keys from the wall and shoved them into their fanny pack, stepping outside into the bright sunlight.
Ow.
Light.
“Bro we’re getting late, hurry up!” Ro laughed as Mapicc dragged them down the path towards the studio, blinking rapidly and trying to keep pace.
“It’s fineee, not like they’ll do anything about it! Besides, this was necessary!” Mapicc just gave them a deadpan look. “What! It’s true. You just don’t understand the true vision.”
“Bro we’re doing our makeup and shit anyways there, you just take a while for no reason dumbass.” Ro shoved Mapicc in response, to which Mapicc shoved them back. Which was mean! And rude! And Ro made sure that Mapicc knew that as they reached LS Studios.
When they walked in, Mapicc was immediately jumped! Which was really funny!
Jumped as in jumped by a cat, thankfully no actual muggings going on. Ro really didn’t want to have to fight or something, sure they knew like basic self-defense but.
Not really on their bucket list currently.
Ignoring Mapicc spitting and cursing (he was fine. It was a cat!), they instead cheered Admin on!
Yes, the cat was named Admin. He basically ran the place anyways, so it fit.
After like a minute, Admin finally retreated from where he was pranced on top of Mapicc, looking down at him. And then proceeded to walk up to Ro and rub his head against their leg.
“Well fuck you too I guess.” Ro picked Admin up, laughing as Mapicc made his way off the floor.
“I mean, looks like Admin knows who’s better!” They spun around and walked into the elevator, holding the door open. Mapicc followed soon after, still brushing off dust from his clothes and grumbling slightly.
(He still pet Admin though, scratching him behind his ears.)
Second floor, first they needed to narrow down what they wanted to film! The meeting was probably already happening, but that was fine!
The elevator dinged and opened, Mapicc walking out first.
“Nice of you to finally show up.” Zam deadpanned. Ro distinctly heard Minute ‘whisper’ (bro was not slick.) “duality duo” to Jumper, who laughed.
Rolling their eyes and punching Mapicc, they quickly speedwalked to a chair before Mapicc would retaliate, using Zam as a cover.
Rolling her eyes, Zam continued talking.
“So, as I was saying, I think there should be a betrayal. It’ll make things interesting, and fun! It should be a long-standing team, one that the audience already loves but we want to tear apart. Wormhole’s the end goal right? Spoke, who do you want for your team?” Spoke leaned back, considering.
Betrayal could be really interesting actually. Zam wouldn’t work cause she already had a lot of plans, who else could work? Subz and Vitalasy betraying each other wouldn’t be very believable, same for 3ht. They leaned against Zam a bit (who’d sat back down), thinking. Admin purred slightly.
They ignored the amused looks on everyone else’s faces. They should just shut up.
“Well, Vitalasy, Subz and Ash are already pseudo-working with me. I’m going to betray Parrot most likely, Three Heart Trio would have no reason to join me, and currently Zam is very anti-exploit right?” At Zam’s nod, Spoke continued. “Well then, maybe later depending on your plans you could join. Right now, I feel like Mapicc would work, he would be believable right? It’s only a matter of having him betray Ro? Which I feel like is the best betrayal we could do right now right? Three Heart Trio wouldn’t make sense, Vi and Subz wouldn’t make sense, but having a Duality betrayal could work really well I think.” It sat back down.
That could be. Really good actually.
The public was already fairly attached to them, they’d seen a lot of people saying that Ro and Mapicc (named ‘Duality Duo’ by the general public) were their favourite duo, and etc. A betrayal could be interesting…
“Would that be too out of the nowhere though? I know me and Ro have been trying to slowly drift slightly apart, what with them more telling me to do shit than me actually being as much a part of the ‘team’, but should we play on that a bit more before doing something about that?” Mapicc asked. Good point, but…
Lifting their head, they answered. “I feel like it wouldn’t be though, if we do it properly. Like, Spoke is supposed to be one of the huge masterminds of like half the shit this season, no? He can talk to Mapicc. We’ve already planted the seeds of this betrayal, but Spoke can widen it no? We have like a few episodes, Spoke can slowly turn Mapicc against me, and it could end in him trapping me in the End? We’re still working on that right, what if we complete it, trap a few people, and then Mapicc traps me? We could foreshadow it just enough so that the audience can guess what might happen, but also make it seem like maybe there’s a chance up until the very end, when we surprise them? It could be an exploration of what power turns people into, how it drives away everyone around you? Spoke’s right, none of the other teams breaking up currently would make sense apart from Zam, and I think Zam betrayals should be separate from other people betrayals. Right? Does that make sense?” They looked around.
“Yeah ok, yeah. That works I think. So a few episodes of Spoke splitting Duality up, and then I think midway through those I would start splitting up with Eclipse Fed and somewhat be more with Three Heart Trio. Then, I’m not entirely sure, but we can probably find a way to make Zam want to just give up and restart the entire season, joining Spoke and Wormhole to do that? And then, an episode or two after I betray Eclipse Fed, I think Spoke could betray Parrot and reveal everything? That’s what I’m thinking of the general timeline for the finale of this season! Anyone have anything specific they want to do?” She sat back down, and Ro leaned on her again. Admin purred again. They both had priorities!
Parrot spoke up next. “I think- for Wormhole, unless anyone else particularly wants to be, me and three heart trio are probably going to be the main opponents of Spoke and its wormhole team right? Is there anyone else who wants to do shit?”
Clown raised his hand “I think the rest of us should probably be watching on the sidelines, or finishing up our own character arcs? What I’m thinking is we can do an episode from you guys’ POV, an episode from Spoke and Wormhole team POV, and an episode from everyone else’s? I don’t really know whether there’s really much else for anyone to do.” They nodded, filing away that information. Speaking of which-
“If I’m trapped in the End actually, are you going to use Wormhole in the End too? What would I do? Like would you just want to kill me or something?” Spoke nodded, grinning.
“Yeah, I don’t think Spoke would really want you on Wormhole team, and I’m sure that the anti-Wormholers wouldn’t like you at all. I think we’d leave you trapped in the End until close to the literal End, and then we’d kill you! That sound good?”
“Yeah!” They grinned.
This was going to be really really fun.
Admin purred in their arms, appreciating the pure awesomeness that was being discussed currently.
They scratched behind his ears, absorbing the fluffy warmness as they slowly leant more into Zam.
This was great.
Oh right they were supposed to be paying attention-
Ro flopped on the floor, exhausted.
Acting was hard. They’d run through the foundations for the great betrayal, working more on the ‘plan to trap people in the End’, moving locations quite a bit and reshooting multiple scenes trying to find those perfect shots.
Fun, worth it definitely, but exhausting.
Zam nudged them slightly with her foot probably, Admin’s face appearing in their vision. Adorable guy. They and Spoke were basically co-parents, with Mapicc being the cool uncle, Zam the tired friend, and the other Lifestealers the relatives. They were very proud co-parents. Ro would wipe a tear from their eye if they wanted to move, but they didn’t want to so.
“You dead?” Ro rolled their eyes, knowing full well that no one couldn’t see it except for Admin, and he wouldn’t sell them out!
Mapicc sighed, grabbing Ro’s shoulders and pulling them up.
Well, rude but ok…
“We can relax in the Lounge, not in the middle of the lobby dumbass.” Ro begrudgingly followed him, with Admin sauntering in front of them. They were going to his favourite place after all.
“You’re feeding Admin today.” They told Mapicc, who just rolled his eyes and grumbled something.
Ro then proceeded to collapse onto the couch, with Admin settling on their chest.
Admin was the best son ever.
Mapicc then proceeded to tempt Admin with a treat, which caused him to get up (digging his claws into Ro’s chest) and saunter to Mapicc (traitor), with the other giving him a smug look.
Rude.
Sitting up slightly, they made space on the couch if anyone else (Mapicc or Zam) wanted to join.
Ro’s hair, previously in a loose bun, had come (as the name somewhat implied) looser than before. So reaching up, they undid it and spread their hair, pulling out their comb. A braid was probably the best way to go honestly.
Zam walked in, and immediately joined Ro on the couch.
Win.
From the way Zam was observing them, she obviously wanted to braid Ro’s hair. So without a word, they gave Zam the hair tie and comb, climbing down onto the floor by Zam’s feet.
Gently, she started moving the comb through Ro’s hair, sorting out the few knots that had inevitably gathered. Ro watched Mapicc and Admin play around with each other, and secretly pulled out their phone.
Perfect blackmail material.
Slowly leaning more and more against Zam, they felt their eyes start to droop slightly. Messing with their hair did seem to make them more tired, and Zam obviously picked up on it.
Zam finished the braid, and Ro climbed back onto the sofa, draping themselves across Zam. Mapicc and Admin joined them soon enough, both of them fitting into their little pile like puzzle pieces.
They’d have to get up eventually, but for now?
This was nice.
“... hey Ro, is that Mapicc’s hoodie?”
“WAIT, that IS my hoodie! I forgot about that.”
“My hoodie now!”
“Fuck you.”
“Gladly- I mean whaaaat who said that- ow.”
“Deserved.”
“You’re so mean to me. Admin, Mapicc’s being mean to me.”
A meow, sounding suspiciously chastising, rang out.
“I hate you.”
“You love us!”
“...”