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Chapter Text

“Did you touch the sacred skull?” She snaps her whip and the largest chimera’s head pops clean off its rotten neck and clatters to the tomb floor in a heap of dusty bone and used-up enchantment. He doesn’t answer, either from embarrassment or because the concussion makes it kind of hard to talk. One of his horns is cracked down to the skull. Ow.

“Did I or did I not tell you, before we even entered the tomb, not to touch anything that looks like treasure?”

Sollux blinks away the dizziness long enough to fire a blast through the pit-orc’s head. He botches it, and a disturbingly tasty frying bacon sort of smell fills the tomb as the blinded orc goes stampeding around, smashing most of its smaller fellow monsters under its enormous goaty hooves.

“Sollux Captor,” Aradia cries, “I have been an explorer for five sweeps now, since you were navel-deep in your first baby hive, and the first thing you learn about ancient ruins is that you never—”

—Aradia pauses to concentrate, tightens her grip on Sollux’s slumped shoulders, and uses her psionics to launch a giant rolling knife-urchin back into the bellowing pit-orc—

“—NEVER—”

—The pit-orc crushes the dungeon boss against the spiked wall, impaling it through most of its vital organs. The remaining minions lose magyickal cohesion and dissolve into dust—

“—NEVER TOUCH A SACRED SKULL!”

“Thorry,” Sollux mutters, “I told you I would be uthelethh at thith. I’m the tech thupport, remember? Tech thupport of the apocalithp…apoc…” he goes down on one knee in a spectacular display of no balance at all.

Aradia makes a psi-ball and shines it over his face. “Oh my god, your head! Here, let me see what I’ve got in my sylladex that’s good for concussions.”

Her fingers are warm and rough and he doesn’t even bitch about the farty smell of the phlebotomic unguent, because damn if he isn’t nook-deep in at least two quadrants with Aradia Megido.

Chapter Text

“RABIES! OHMYGOD, RABIES! RABIES!”

Karkat hears the screams all the way out in the backyard, where he’s throwing himself around with his new double sickles. He only alchemized them to make Sollux jealous, and now he’s absolutely committed to mastering them because he would rather sweat himself to death looking like an idiot than admit he cares what any reedy little buttwad thinks of him.

The sound of John panicking tightens his hands on the sweaty handles of the blades, and he runs for the door like he plans to bodyslam himself through it like the human pornographic drink vessel in those awful, awful advertisements. He kicks it open instead, because John was the last person to go inside and he does not understand the concept of shutting doors all the way.

“Where? Where are the rabies?” Karkat finds John in the kitchen, smacking at his head like he only just now realized that his hairstyle is stupid and lame. A broom lies on the floor near his feet.”What are rabies?”

“IT FLEW INTO MY HAIR AND TRIED TO BITE ME!” John wails. “Look out, it’s on the ramen!” And he runs out of the room, making a sort of “Eee” noise through his nose like a confused woofbeast.

Karkat looks up, expecting to see at least an imp with a hatchet, or one of Gamzee’s epic shower clots. Instead, he can just make out a small brown furry thing has sort of attached itself to the side of the box where John keeps his self-hating human noodle collection. This thing chased the Hero of Breath out of his own food preparation block? But it’s so… tiny. And not particularly “Eee” inducing to look at, which makes him cautious. He has read all about the almost Alternian creatures of Earth Human Australia, which for all Karkat knows is only a few miles away from the Washington shoreline. Close enough for some kind of deceptively fuzzy hellspawn to fly over and start laying its eggs in Egbert’s stupid, wonderful pink brain?

Karkat takes a step closer so he can examine the rabie more closely.

It appears to have little skin wings instead of arms. The fangs and claws, if it has any, must be miniscule. Unless they telescope like the xenomorph’s interior jaw, but what are the chances of that? It doesn’t seem to have any high-velocity ovipositors on its visible parts, either, or spines, or poison vents. Just a lot of dark brown fur.

“KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT OH MY GOD!” John sticks his head back in the kitchen long enough to make Karkat jump several feet and ready his sickles to shred the rabie into a fine red mist.

“John, it’s just a small furry mouse with wings.”

“Oh God Karkat don’t touch it, haven’t you even seen Cujo?”

“No, but I’ve read the book, and this thing bears no resemblance to a face-flaying woofbeast. What does it do?”

“It flies into your hair and bites you and you have to get stabbed in the gut with a needle like a hundred times so you won’t foam at the mouth and die!”

“Oh,” Karkat considers. “Is that all?”

“‘Is that all?’” John repeats, frantic. “Karkat, they fly into your hair. You try to bite people and then you die! Rabies!”

“JOHN.” Karkat puts down his sickles on the food preparation counter and waves his arms for attention. The rabie does not fly away when he startles it. Instead, it appears to be huddling in fear. “Go get me an ablution drape or something soft.”

John makes a whimpery sound, but goes to find a towel. The one he brings back has little pink hearts all over it. Karkat is secretly mortally offended by this quadrant-mixing towel, and hopes the rabie will at least burn it with acid saliva or something on the way to the front door so he will have an excuse to throw it out for good.

Karkat swaddles the rabie in the towel. It’s small and frail, so he is careful not to squeeze it. “Here, see? It’s in the towel. Now go open the door so I can put it outside.”

Karkat places the rabie on the grass at the edge of the property. Maybe the tiny monster will be grateful for the mercy he’s shown it, and attack the shithead next door who keeps parking across the driveway instead.

More likely it will just fly back into the house the next time John leaves the FUCKING door open.

John hovers in the doorway, cringing like he expects the rabie to throw off the bonds of the towel and attack Karkat at any moment. “Is it gone?”

He probably won’t be needing two sickles on this planet, Karkat decides. “Yes, John, you incredible towering powder-puff. It’s gone.”

Chapter Text

“It’s Tallulah.” She tells the cute kid who might be a little slow. “Like the film star.”

“Lu…tah.” He tries. “No, that’s, fuck. Again?”

“Tallulah, rad boy. Ta. Lu. Lah.” She ticks off the syllables in the air with one finger, and he nods along studiously. He’s wearing a yellow sweater and black jeans, like he let his mother dress him, then forgot to comb his hair. She can barely see his eyes through that mess. Whatever’s hidden by the helmet is probably one big knot.

“Tal…la. No, I. Fuck my head, I’m restarted.” He smacks himself openhanded on the side of the helmet (thock!), and Tallulah winces. “One more time?”

“No rush. Slow it down: Ta-LOOO-lah.”

“La. Tula.” He groans. “Tattoolah with the red stakeboard and the nicest ass in the park.”

“Hey now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So what’s your name? Do you skate here or just come to compare the girls’ behinds?”

“I’m Mituna. And I was including guy asses in that.” Okay, so maybe he’s not slow, exactly, but…

“You flatter me. So, do you skate?”

“I used to grind, but mostly I just look at the pavemenk real close up every time I fall the fuck down now.” He points at a spot by the high side of the ramp, just under the coping. “That spot there, it’s reserved for my grill.”

“That bad?”

“Shit no, I’m the horizonkal master. I got bitches crawling all over this dick with handfuls of bang aids and pity. You would not believe it.” Mituna’s voice rises into a falsetto, which does his lisp no manliness favors whatsoever: “‘Ooooh, Tuna-boy, you split your face open, you retread! Your dad’s gonna wallop you!’” His grin is wide and daffy and she sees he’s missing a front tooth. “Who cares, though. I get the breast view of nurse cleanage right in the face on a daily basis, or would if they’d let me back up there with my board, which they fucking don’k. On account of I can’t. Skate. For shit!” He laughs in this high pitched deranged way that has Tallulah half charmed and half wanting to run for it.

“Mituna, did anyone ever tell you you’re kind of a goofball?”

“I’m sorry.” He looks down at his shoes, whose laces have come untied. “My mind got a mouth of its own. I mean my mouth has a mind. And it’s a pervert.”

“Kind of.” She can’t help smiling this time, but she wonders: is she laughing at him or with him? Is it even okay to think he’s funny? “Your inner horn-dog, huh?”

“Yeah. So, like. Can the rest of my mind take it back? On account of it likes you for other than the reason I said before, about your superb assets?”

“Water under the bridge. So what’s with the helmet?”

“My birth control hat, dude. Shit’s like a dicksclaimer on a movie, saying I am rated R so moms can change the channel before their kids are corroborated.” He shakes his head sadly. “Corrugated? Castrated?”

“Corrupted.”

“Yeah, that.” He smirks.“La..tula. Latula?” He looks up, hopefully, and his eyes behind his scraggly bangs are wide and brown and hopeful. She almost hates to shake her head at his attempt.

He mouths it a few more times, silently, and mutters to himself. “No, It’s not Latula, you fucking fucker, fix your shit already, she’s right there.”

“It’ll happen, no sweat. Call me whatever while you work on it.”

“Thanks. Sorry.”

“So, Mituna. You wanna maybe catch a movie sometime? With me?”

“Oh shit!” He bounces twice on his heels like a kid and then turns and bolts. Tallulah’s mouth drops open despite herself. Did she just get ditched, or…?

“Hey, um, where are you going?”

“I gotta go ask my dad if it’s ogay to stay out later!” Mituna yells. “Wait here!”

“I didn’t mean the movie had to be right now—” Nope, too late. He’s already beyond the park gate and jogging down the street with a weird jerky gait that looks like either a limp or just really bad coordination.

She’s half-tempted to sneak away before he gets back, as shitty as that would be, and hide under one of these peony bushes. What was she even thinking? Is this one of those baby bird scenarios, common sense overridden by maternal instinct? Is she just being nice to the guy because she feels sorry for him? That would be a shitty thing to do to someone.

She settles herself on the low concrete wall that separates the kiddie playground from the skate park, the sound of the other skaters talking shit and laughing at each other’s accidents a comforting buzz in the background, and she watches the late evening clouds turn gold.

No, she decides, it’s probably not a stupid baby bird crush.

He’s got a nice smile, that’s all.

Chapter Text

[First part is here.]

Whatsisname with the dumb greased hair like a fifties bad boy has been running his endless line of blond all-American bullshit for at least ten minutes straight, she thinks. Does he even own a skateboard or does he just roll through life on that smooth personality? He is good for exactly two things: leaning on the park fixtures with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and talking about himself. Two of his bros (they at least have the decency to actually skate) are waiting for a black girl with two long thin braid rat-tails to finish her turn on the quarter-pipe. Tallulah's been here for all of three days and she's already tired of listening to his endless bullshit, but her asshole radar pings just in time to make her tune in.

"--flirting with none other than Crash Captor." At least three people make that annoying childish "Ooh!" noise in response, and Tallulah grinds her teeth. See, she thinks, this is max levels of unfair. When girls do it, it's a bunch of bitchy gossip. When Whatsisname and his asshole friends do it, they're just shooting the shit.

"Her? Really? She looks kind of dykey to me." One of the bros affects a stage whisper. The other minion caws something that sounds like "Clam-diving." So charming!

Tallulah refuses to look back and see how many of the group are now watching her. They have to know she can hear them, right? No, of course they do. They want her to know they are making fun of her. Stellar, they play that game here, too! She picks at her sleeves and wonders if this is what bacteria feel like when it gets racked up on those little microscope slides.

School doesn't even start for six weeks and already she's already itching to punch someone. She wants to leave but if they laugh her out now, she'll never be able to come back to this park again, and that's stupid. And the idea of Captor coming back, finding her gone and with all these hyenas laughing at him? Yeah, no, that blows goats. She clenches her jaw and decides she's just going to have to tell off the ringleader.

"Yo Meenah, you lost your window. Rain Man's moved on to the new girl." More snickering. "Come cry on my shoulder, babe."

"What's your problem?" Someone (Meenah?) replies in a deep drawling voice. Tallulah looks up. It's the black girl with the hot pink skateboard who skates like she's surfing. "Y'all are so weak, over here gossiping about Captor. Like he ever did shit to you but be smarter and hotter by, like, a factor of ten."

"I'm just glad someone finally feels sorry enough for him to look past the drooling."

"Oh please, spare me. Someday it'll happen for you, too, sugar-baby." Meenah says. Tallulah watches her dip her board into a passionate embrace. She affects a falsetto parody of Cronus's weird accent. "It'd be like, oh! My vwwwery own Realdoll! Finally I can get some!"

"Yeah, real mature, Peixes--"

"Aungh!" Meenah pretends to make out with her board. One of the other kids whistles. "What? Whassa matter, baby? Why ain't you kissin' me back?" she asks the board, distraught.

"--I'll have you know I already have a girlfriend, for your information. She's overseas studying Japanese to become a manga artist, she's totally famous but you won't have heard of h--"

"What do you mean you got a headache?" Meenah erupts at her skateboard. Headache comes out sounding like haddock but Tallulah is sure she just misheard it. "Bitch, every freakin' night you got a headache! Take some Tylenol and get in there! What? Y'all are cheatin' on me? With my fleshlight?"

She lets the board clatter to the ground and stands over it, sobbing, in the grip of a master performance. Damn, she's kind of mean.

"Why they always gotta leave me, why I always gotta jerk it?" Meenah wails. "Whyyyy?"

"Latula?" The teasing is interrupted by a nasal voice from directly behind her, and she spins around to find herself face-to-face with the honest to god ghost of the late 1980s. Yikes. He's got different colored kicks, a mom's kitchen haircut, a dirty T-shirt and rumpled jeans that can't have been washed recently and are both way too big for his scrawny kid frame. He's wearing 3-D glasses, and his greasy fringe does nothing to hide the pimples on his forehead. He also has the most unfortunate overbite she has ever seen. His eyes are narrow and squinty through his joke glasses, or maybe he's just glaring up at her, but the brown-and-blue mismatch are definitely familiar. Tallulah looks around and, sure enough, there's Mituna, paying bizarre levels of attention to a sapling that's been planted between the walkway and the fence, like he doesn't dare come any closer or look up except in furtive little glances.

"Yo," she says. "Tallulah, actually."

"Kay. Figured it wath a weird name, but you thkaterth are weird people, tho... I'm Tholluxth."

"Nice to meet you."

"Whatever." The kid scowls. "Mituna over there, he'th my brother. My dadth aren't home tho I'm in charge."

"Aren't you like twelve?" She knows this is the wrong thing to say exactly one second too late to stop saying it.

"I'm thirteen and taking college courtheth over the thummer, but thankth very much for making athumptionth my level of rethponthibility, random thtranger."

"No shit, college?"

"Thome of uth have competitive corporate drone futureth to prepare for," he snaps, and then looks over at Mituna, who is poking at some kind of bug he's found on the sapling. Sollux sighs and he meets her gaze without the scowl. "I'm thorry, that wath really uncalled for."

"Kinda, yeah."

"I am a little thtrethhed out today, okay? I have a lot of work to do and Mituna came running in thaying he needed permission to take a girl on a date, and it abtholutely could not wait until after dinner."

"Yeah, about that…" Tallulah tries not to wince. "I didn't tell him it had to be right now. I think he jumped the gun a little bit. Kinda flattering, actually!"

"You think my brother is funny?"

"Well, sure," Tallulah shrugs, sensing the edge in his voice and trying to deflect it. "He seems cool."

"That'th not what I'm talking about. Don't play dumb." Sollux sits on the bench and they watch his big brother in silence for a moment. "My brother hath problemth. He hath, fuck, he hath a lot of problemth."

"Yeah, I got that impression," Tallulah says, "I mean, not that he's--"

"--And I don't fucking appreciate it when you people think it'th jutht THUCH a great laugh to methh with him and get him all worked up becauthe he'll believe anything you thay or forget it ten minuteth later, okay--"

"Whoa, no, you have the wrong idea, I wouldn't--"

"--Becauthe he doethn't alwayth forget, and do you know what'th thignificantly lethh funny than thtupid teenage bullying gameth? Having to be the one who exthplainth to an eighteen-year-old grown adult that he'th jutht a punch line to you athholeth and that you're not really hith friendth when you tell him to do thtupid shit for your depraved goddamn amuthement, which then altho inthidentlly leadth to lithtening to him flip hith shit for the nextht two hourth becauthe he thought you liked him." His long-fingered hands are two white fists in his lap, clenched tight. He's shaking a little.

"Wow," Tallulah says. "That's… really awful. I'm sorry."

"Don't be thorry, be thivilithed. That douche over there," Sollux gestures, and what a shocker, he's pointing at the turned back of Cronus. "I think he'th the one who thetth it up. Getth girlth to come over and," he inclines his head toward his brother. "You know, methh with my brother, tell him he'th cute and athk him out becauthe he fallth for it every time. Tho they can be entertained."

"Why do you even let him come here?" Tallulah asks. "They're here every day."

"Becauthe he'd rather hang out with a bunch of immature thwine that laugh at him than be alone or have to have me hold hith hand all the time. Look at him over there, trying tho hard to be like I'm not here talking to you. Do you think he wantth me here doing thith? Do you think he liketh having hith little brother check out people for him?"

Mituna sneaks a peek at them just as Sollux finishes speaking. His body visibly jerks at the sight of them looking directly back at him, like he's just been caught doing something bad. He moves off toward the children's area at an unsteady trot, sitting on a swing with his back to them.

The silence between them draws out. The skate park is awfully quiet, and she realizes that Cronus and his friends must have cleared out. No audience? One less thing to have to feel awkward about. The night is looking up!

"So you thought I was… doing that, and you came here to, what, bust my chops?"

"I athked them to thtop," he mutters, talking to his clenched hands.. "They never thtop. The black girl, she'th okay, but Ampora and the retht of them…"

"Yeah," she said. "I've already heard those guys talking about me and I only just got here. And I'm normal."

"They alwayth have to have thomething over you tho they can laugh," Sollux says, bitterly. "Alwayth. If you're not weird on your own they'll make shit up."

"I was hoping things would be different here," Tallulah says. "My last school…I didn't get picked on, exactly, not like your brother must have to deal with, but it… there were rumors. It… was bad." She trails off, unwilling to get into that particular memory with a near-stranger.

"Tho you were being nithe to my brother tho he won't feel bad," says Sollux. "That'th thomething, I guethh."

"Uh, no? Not really what was going on, bro."

"Well, that'th the other option left onthe we rule out fucking with Mituna for your own thick entertainment," says Sollux. "Look, you don't theem like a total jerk. I conthede that."

"Well thanks for deciding you know my entire emotional repertoire, random stranger!"

"I'm thorry, I didn't mean it like that. I wath out of line and I apologithe. Look, I'll jutht… I'll go tell him I dethided you aren't allowed go out. He'll get mad at me but I'm uthed to it. Okay?"

"Huh?"

"I'm letting you off the hook," he says more slowly, like she's stupid and not just aghast. "It'th cool you tried be nithe by going along with it, okay? I jutht wish people would…" he sighs. "Whatever. He'll deal."

"Oh my God, can you not?" Tallulah snaps. "I asked him out, you dingus!"

"What?" Sollux is utterly thrown by this. "You? Why?"

"I don't know!" she admits. "It was a bunch of things. He's funny and cute, and I like his smile. He seems sweet." And oh god is this ever not a conversation she wants to be having with this creepily mature little CEO of a seventh grader. How embarrassing.

"Thweet?" Sollux makes a hideous gagging sound and she restrains herself from hip-checking him off the bench and stepping on his face. "Showth what you know. How long have you even been talking to him?"

"Like an hour," she admits. "It was kind of an impulse, me asking him out."

"Chritht." The disgust in his voice makes her revise her plan. She really should drop-kick the little jerk off the highest ramp in the park. It would be therapeutic.

"Look, I didn't ask him to marry me, okay? One lousy movie. It doesn't have to be founded on a century of passionate courting! I just thought I'd like to, you know, go do pack bonding people things with someone who seems nice."

"And it had nothing to do with wanting to be nithe to the…" Sollux gulps. "You know. The retard."

"I never called him that!"

"Yeah, but were you thinking it?"

"Uh, no? Because I'm not a complete dick even if I did think he was stupid, which I don't."

"Ehehe. Okay." Sollux shrugs. "Jutht thayin', the Florenthe Nightingale shit doeth neither you or him any favorth."

"I know that," Tallulah says. "And I did think about this already, like, am I into this dude on his own merits or 'cause I like being seen bein' rad to the unfortunate. Is that about what you mean?"

"…yeah, okay." Sollux gives her a long look she can't interpret. "Kind of exthactly that."

"Well, I can't answer that, because I don't know him that well. That's kind of the thing about asking eyecandy out, you get to find out if there's more there! And screw you for making me say that out loud."

"Fair enough." Sollux raises his eyebrows and chews his lower lip. "Jutht a movie? And you won't be trying to thcore good perthon pointth for going with him?"

"Just a movie, just for fun. Engagement rings not included."

"And if you dont get along?"

She shrugs. "Then I'll break his heart like we're a couple of hormonal teenagers."

Sollux leans back on the bench for at least a minute, gnawing his lip and staring up at the sky with his two-tone eyes through those ghastly two-tone glasses. After a long silence, he nods. Just once, curtly. "All right," he says, "you have my provisional blethhing to take my brother to a movie."

"Cool," says Tallulah, and she realizes she means it. She genuinely likes this prickly little snot.

"Gimme your Fathebook tho I can add you," he says. "I have to thend you thome thtuff. He'th uthually perfectly fine on hith own during the day but there are thome medical thingth everyone who thpendth time with him hath to know about."

"Homework? For a date?" Tallulah groans. "You're killin' my buzz, kid."

"It ith what it ith, Latula."

"Tallulah."

"Think of it ath your latht chanthe to turn back." He shrugs. "Ath I thaid, my brother hath problemth. You can deal or you can fuck off, okay? You'd be in good company. All hith old friendth, they…" His brow furrows and he refuses to look at her, watching instead Mituna's back-and-forth movement on the swing. "They fucking bailed. They almotht alwayth bail, that'th what the counthelor thaid. It'th not perthonal but it thtill thuckth."

"And that's why the fatherly third degree." A buzzing noise: the park lights have come on. Wow, it's getting dark so early.

"Among a low-grade thunami of other, equally valid reathonth, including the fact that our actual fatherth are not in town to do the honorth? Yeth." He digs around in one grubby jeans pocket until he finds a prisitine iPhone with a blue-and-red case that appears to have been Beadazzled at some point. Kid fashion, she thinks. Kill me now.

"Okay. Call me tho I can add your number, and then I want your addrethh, workplathe, email addrethh and an emergenthy contact number for each of your legal guardianth."

"Do I have to pass a piss test too?"

"That'th only for third bathe and beyond, don't be a moron."

Tallulah finally cracks a grin as she takes out her old Sidekick LX (the sight of its crackd screen makes Sollux snicker in a very offensive way, but she chooses to rise above the slight) and dials the number he recites for her. His ringtone turns out to be fucking Nickelback. She wants to drown him and hug him at the same time.

"Got you, thankth. It'th dinner time, tho I'm going to go home and nuke uth thome delithiouthh home-cooked frothen pithha and catch up on my paperwork. Thankth for being an othtenthibly dethent human being. I'll be in touch." And that's it; she is dismissed. It feels like fudging her first summer job interview all over again. As he walks over to the playground, she wonders what the rest of the family must be like. From the sprog she'd guess at least one of the parents may be some kind of barely sentient supercomputer.

Sollux coaxes Mituna off the swing and they talk together for a minute. Sollux is at least a foot shorter than his brother but their body language says it all. She can just imagine him laying it out for Mituna, who shakes even standing still and nods like a bobblehead dog. Mituna looks positively radiant when Sollux finishes. He turns to look for Tallulah in the twilight. She waves at him and Mituna gives her an enthusiastic both-hands wave. "Bye, Latula! I hope you hag a nife talk with Tholluxth! Even though he's a total dweeb!" Sollux smacks him on the shoulder and Mituna laughs all the way out of the park.

Latula's not such a bad nickname, she muses. All things considered.

Chapter Text

cronus ampora won’t hurt you he will only stroke his fingers along your neck and squeeze them around your throat a little bit so you know he could really hurt you if he wanted to but he would never do that because he’s a nice guy except you’re pretty sure the hard thing bumping your ass isn’t his cell phone and you just want to go home but he isn’t done yet and anyway he said it was just a shoulder massage so it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong and you’re just being a retard like usual making him out to be bad when he’s the only one who would spend time like this petting you and saying how he sees you as fuckable even though you’re not so get it together fucking stop making this something it isn’t you need to swallow your shout for help because you don’t want him to feel bad and it’s your fault for making him think this was okay to do and why doesn’t he understand that you said to stop touching you and it’s only a shoulder massage and besides aren’t you f

aren’t you friends

aren’t you friends

aren’t you supposed to be fr

and he’s squeezing you so hard and what did you do to deserve this and when will you stop doing it because you do not like it when he does this but you probably had it coming

had it coming all this time

just like every time he comes you had it coming

“1M 50RRY.”

“i forgivwe you.”