@mayihaveyournameplease replied to your post “Hello, haha, I'm cheesed to meet you. I've heard...”:
Oh haha, I see that was such a big misunderstanding. Normally I'm a very understanding guy. Very emotionally intelligent. So when that one guy online said "someone broke in cream cheese shoes" You know, that's paraphrasing. They call me the paraphraser. Well when he said that and I saw you respond "I know what you're thinking, it isn't me" I thought to myself 'Well there is someone who knows how to have fun.' I'm known for my cheese based pranks after all. You wouldn't believe how many cheese based pranks I've had. This is going to be such a funny story. Hey, I missed your name, can I have it? I would love to be able to tell all my coworkers at the DMV about this funny little cheese incident. They love my cheese jokes. Haha, Cheesed to meet you. It's their favorite. I say it sometimes you know.
I can assure you, I do not know how to have fun. I'm sorry to disappoint.
You missed my name because I didn't give it to y-- wait. I never stated my name. It's Dr. Kavanagh. And yourself? After all, if you're known for your, um, cheese-based pranks, I should probably be aware of exactly who you are. And possibly inform the police.
For someone known as the paraphraser, you're quite... verbose. Has anyone ever told you that?
👁🗨- Talk about someone/something you like, but pretend to dislike
Oh this one is gonna get some drama. But....I really like spinach. I pretend I don’t, cos I hate most vegetables and it’s just easier. But I really have found I enjoy spinach - both cooked and raw.
I totally do! I mean, there are totally spirits who get stuck here for one reason or another, ya know? Plus, i’ve been to New Orleans a million times - ya can’t go there and not believe in ghosts.
TIMING: Current
LOCATION: Regan’s “apartment”
PARTIES: Regan and Beau
SUMMARY: Beau has come to greet the love of his life and Regan finds a love of her own.
Beau was nothing if not an impressive, and thorough stalker. Looking up Dr. Kavernagh’s address had been as easy as putting in her address in the system. Beau had appeared earlier in the evening, but was deterred by another car and the sound of another man. Jealousy had been his first response, but he was nothing if not patient. Beau waited for the man to leave, his car pulling away into the night, before walking up the driveway. His typical smile pulled at his cheeks. In his hand he had a three inch bone he found and ordered off of eBay because he didn’t want to come empty handed, and he thought it would be very kind of him to tell a full truth instead of a half truth. “Hello?” Beau called. “I’m here to fall madly, deeply and passionately in love with you.”
Another Tuesday, another evening struggling through her interactions with Reilly. Regan was tired of this sham of an apartment, and this stupid winter coat, and trying to make conversation that didn’t involve death or the last six years of her life. But Siobhan had entered the scene like a whirling hurricane, and now Regan wasn’t sure she even had the option to put up with things much longer. She couldn’t betray any of this to her brother. Every second around him felt like lies upon lies. It was hard to bear, and she doubted being across the Atlantic from him again would make it easier. She didn’t want to think about it. So she’d shooed him out as quickly as possible, not sure when or if they would get an actual goodbye before she had to leave.
She watched Reilly’s car drive off, feeling a heavy weariness sink into her skeleton, but there was someone standing there, in the driveway. She opened the door and squinted at them. A man, holding something – a bone! – with an amorous look in his eyes. “That’s… forward of you.” Regan said slowly, trying to process what was happening here. There was something off. Well, beyond the obvious eccentric boldness. She could feel the bone. It beckoned and pulsed and she was even willing to approach him to get a better look at it. But there was something else, there, too. Something familiar. Some part of her recognized it, but her mind kept turning the possibility away. Regan crossed her arms and slowly descended down the stairs, turning her nose up at the man. “I don’t fall in love, and I don’t think you should pursue something that will always be unrequited.” Her eyes roved from his face to the bone in his hand. “But tell me more about that.”
The familiar touch of magic spun around Beau, informing him he was in the presence of a fae. Beau looked between Regan, and the bone that she seemed so interested in. “Unrequited?” Beau slapped a hand over his chest. Rejection always stung, no matter how much he pretended it didn’t. Had he been forward? Yes, but look at him! He was a catch. He was basically the number one eligible bachelor here, if not in the whole world. Surely she could see how lucky she was to even be around him. So why was she more interested in the bone than him? Fine. He could work with that.
“This is the bone of my love.” Beau held the bone up between two fingers, turning it back and forth. He didn’t think it was untrue to call it his bone of love, since he bought the bone specifically to find love. Any other detail about it, he didn’t know. He’d only looked for the criteria of three inches long. Because Beau wasn’t a liar. Mostly. When he didn’t feel like suffering the consequences. “It’s a mystery bone.” To me, he added silently. “I will give it to my one true love and they will know what it is.” He hoped. She liked bones, after all. “And that is how we will know.” He would have loved to add something like, we’re meant to be or we’re soul mates, but that would be a lie. He hoped she would fill in the blanks for herself.
Regan’s skin prickled as she neared the man, but that didn’t make any sense. It felt like he was fae. But once more, something inside of her turned away from what was surely a coincidence. He was not fae. It was impossible. That was something she knew in her bones rather than her skin. “Did you know I was here?” She asked, taken aback. Despite everything she knew about not getting murdered by strange men showing up at her home unannounced, it almost didn’t matter. Not when he had such a nice find between his fingers. Besides, she had nothing to fear from others. She stood taller and prouder than all of them… even if she scarcely felt she did.
“Mystery bone?” Regan tilted her head, giving the bone a long look. It was no mystery. “That is a raccoon baculum. A bit on the small side, actually.”
“Yes, of course I know where you live.” Beau gave out a chuckle, a laugh that said women are so silly for asking such dumb questions. “I came looking for you specifically, because from our few online conversations I just knew we had a spark.” Because Beau was a charming guy, and rom-coms have taught millions of people around the world that creepy and stalkerish behavior was okay, as long as it was in the name of romance. Not that Beau considered this creepy or stalkerish. Everything he was doing here was romantic. It was something they could laugh about to their kids, grandkids and great grandkids years from now.
“You, you know what it is?” Beau was putting on a show. Beau was acting surprised. Beau was clasping a hand over his mouth and staring wide-eyed back up at Regan. “According to the story, that means we’re destined to fall madly in love.” It wasn’t a lie, because it was according to a story. Not according to the truth. The story may have been a lie, but referencing it was a nice little work around. Beau ignored the fact that the bone was on the small side, it was how bones were used that mattered! Not their size. Beau threw himself to his knees, arms held stretched out, bone cupped lovingly in his hands. “Regan, the story was clear. We are destined to fall in love, get married and have children. Will you take my bone in marriage?”
Regan blinked at Beau, momentarily taken aback by the theatrics of his declaration. For a second, she considered whether this was some elaborate prank or performance art, but the sincerity in his eyes told her otherwise. “Online conversations?” She leafed through her recent online interactions in her head, and recalled the strange, cheese-fixated man who had attempted to ask her out. This was, undoubtedly, the same individual. Beau. That was his name. “Ah. You. There is no spark. What you’re experiencing is your brain flooding with oxytocin and vasopressin. The weaker-willed among us have a difficult time resisting such base urges.” Regan was better. She could turn away from her brother. She could hold her breath as she drowned.
As Beau got down on his knees, a shock of dread ran through her. Just what was he… Oh no. Regan’s eyes widened and her slow heart felt like it had just stopped altogether like a sputtering, failing engine. She was right, and sometimes she hated being right. She had never been in a sufficiently close relationship to ever consider engagement being on the table. And here was Beau, a stranger, who was doing exactly that, proposing. And knew how to, in the way Regan had been taught was proper and right, although there were a few pieces missing. Cliodhna sometimes spoke of the baculum Regan’s grandfather had gifted her, and despite her tone lacking in any and all warmth when he entered her thoughts, Regan had once uncovered what she suspected was the very same bone, securely preserved with all of Cliodhna’s precious heirlooms.
This baculum practically shined in the sunlight as Beau held it toward the heavens, an offering. Regan backed up, her palms out in a stop gesture. “I don’t know who filled your head with these stories, or how you know about… this. But this is insanity. Beau, right?” She looked down at him, this desperate, sweaty, cheese-loving man, and something like pity bubbled up inside her. She refused to entertain it. But she would attempt to not leave a scar. “Beau, I don’t know you. At all. And beyond that, I’m not – look, if you want all of those things, you would never receive them from me.” She stammered. “I reject your proposal, in case that’s unclear”. But… “That is a lovely baculum, though. And I think you should give it to me anyway.”
"Vasopressin?" Beau spluttered out the word, eyes blinking rapidly as offense took him fully. Who was she to tell him what he was experiencing? Beau was the master of his own emotions, names, cheese puns, and much more. So what? She had a doctorate and suddenly she thought she was better than everyone? Beau knew how fae worked, she probably wasn't even a real doctor. She probably paid to have her credentials faked because she was probably older than science itself. "Old hag," Beau mumbled under his breath. He let that moment of anger flair around him before swallowing it back, forcing it behind his characteristic smile. It burned the muscles of his cheek. "I assure you, I am not week." Because he wasn't a week. Ha. He was weak, but she didn't need to know that.
The moment of the proposal had everything a fairy tale-obsessed little lad might have wanted. The shock of the woman of his dreams, brought wordless by the beautiful moment. Good weather. Not enough names were being offered in a dowry, since no dowry had been offered at all, but really who was he to be picky about that at this moment? He could get her name and the name of her family members later! Why did she need a name anyway? She would be Mrs. Doctor Bueford afterward. That was surely enough names for her. Except, apparently it wasn't picture perfect. Because she rejected him.
What an uppity prude.
"Hahaha, it's not nice to call someone insane." Anger bubbled against the surface of his skin, ready to turn him into a lava nymph, erupting with anger all over the situation. His smile remained in place. Practiced. Pulled. Stretched skin, like the small part of him not yelling. Then she did the unthinkable. She asked for the bone anyway. "NO!" Beau shouted, falling from his kneeling position, face first into the driveway pavement. His arms and legs thrashed around. "NO! YOU DON'T GET TO BREAK MY HEART AND KEEP MY BONE" Beau whined, his voice going up an octave in a shrill cry. "YOU'RE RUDE AND MEAN YOU DON'T GET THIS BONE YOU'LL NEVER GET THIS BONE." Beau rolled over, facing up at the sky. He held the bone up in one hand, then the second. He struggled to break it.
He wasn't strong enough.
Most of Regan’s romantic relationships had been short-lived and dispassionate; she rarely had time to engage in anything other than studying or, later on, her work; then, finally, her training. As a result, she was fairly certain she had never broken a man’s heart before. If anything, she was often the slighted party. You don’t care about me. You reek of death. You look at me like you want to cut into my stomach. But that was what she thought she was seeing here: heartbreak. And not in the more interesting way, involving aortic dissection or another cardiac pathology. This was the emotional kind. And despite Beau’s protests, that certainly did make him weak.
At first, she thought Beau was about to do some kind of… performance. Why else would he be on the ground, dancing? But it wasn’t a dance, she realized quickly. He was flailing. His limbs thrashing against the pavement, his eyes pinched shut in agony. His scream couldn’t match hers in volume, but somehow, she thought it had to be more grating. Regan winced through the tantrum, torn between wanting to make sure he didn’t injure himself in this display, and wanting to back off, never seeing him again. “Stop yelling and get up. This isn’t – I mean, sure, I suppose I am mean. Or maybe just not nice. Your life is not over.” She hesitated. “Yet.” Regan crossed her arms, grateful that the puffy coat felt like a barrier between the two of them. “I have had child patients whose maturity exceeds your own.”
And then his hand moved. And her mind jolted with the realization of what he was about to do. Regan reached toward him, mouth open, fingers outstretched, wanting to stop what was going to happen. But she was too slow. The bone – it did not snap. Her hand flopped back down. Could she just walk up to him and pluck the bone out of his hands? It was tempting. But his flair for the dramatics made her wonder if this was part of the act, feigning weakness. She didn’t want him to go from disagreeable to apoplectic. “Beau?” She asked, since he seemed to have quieted. He was looking up at the sky like he had been failed by the universe. “We do not get everything we want in life.” She looked at the bone. She was not able to apply her own advice to it. “When you’re ready, give me the bone.”
Nothing ever went Beau’s way. All he did was try and try. He was a good guy! He deserved good things to happen to him! He deserved the rewards of a good life! He deserved for women and men to be falling over themselves to get a chance with him! And all he got was this! Scorn! Pain! Immense disappointment! The pavement of the driveway hurt where his flesh met it, leaving red scrapes where he’d thrashed too hard against the rough surface. The driveway didn’t care about what he wanted just as much as the woman standing before him. Was he not sexy when he was in his feelings? Did she not see that he was the total and complete package?
Beau did get up. “I’m not getting up because you told me to.” He needed to make the distinction clear. This floozy would hold no power over him. Beau was a man of his own choices and considerable maturity. “Yet.” Beau repeated the word, rolling it over his tongue. It tasted disgusting. “Are you threatening me?” He asked, vitriol lacing his words. He was no longer hiding behind his practiced smile. He would waste no more unwanted time or energy on this wench. “You’re a lost cause.” He was searching for words that would hurt, he wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt him. “Threaten me all you want. You’re going to die alone, completely unloved.” He paused; she would probably want that. Cold hearted as she was. “And your bones will rot.” He didn’t know if bones rotted.
“You’ll never get this bone. You’ll never get me. You had your chance, and you blew it. I hope you cry every night.” Beau made eye contact as he raised the bone to his lips. He was going to swallow the bone so that she would never get it. Beau shoved the three inches into his mouth and found himself choking on it before he could even get it down the hatch completely. He spluttered and spat. The bone landed on the driveway in front of him with a soft and wet thud. “Fine. Take that too. Just like you took…” He cast around for words, she hadn’t actually taken anything from him. There had never been anything there in the first place. “My happiness!”
A lost cause. Regan certainly was that, and she knew it. But as lost as she was, as much as the word failure burned in her brain more fiercely than iron, she was not, at least, a slave to her emotions. Not like Beau. Such a flagrant, dramatic display of unadulterated feelings was offensive. Regan shied away from it like it could be contagious. Sometimes emotions seemed like they were. Reilly’s tears made her skin crawl in a way that was difficult to bear, and whenever she turned away from them the effort only grew larger. Had Beau put on such a show at Saol Eile, they’d shred him apart on the spot, scream him to ribbons. “Death will take me however it wants, whenever it wants. Whether I die alone and unloved is of no consequence to me.” It clearly mattered to him, though.
She watched, equal parts disturbed and curious, as he lodged the bone into his mouth. Just what was he trying to accomplish? He couldn’t snap it in half with his teeth. There was no way. And as much as she didn’t like the thought of such a specimen being inserted into any one of Beau’s orifices, she was too thrown by the whole ordeal to cut in.
Whatever he was trying to do had failed.
Coated in Beau’s saliva, the raccoon’s penis bone shined even brighter. It called to her – that little, invisible line cast from it, straight into Regan’s center. She cherished it, every time. It sang against her skin. So when the thread tugged, she recognized the opportunity for what it was. The baculum could be hers. She reached past Beau, letting instinct draw her closer, letting death take the reins.
And then death attacked her. It became a violent, snapping thing, too big and heavy and present for her to hold. Her head filled with it. Regan’s knees buckled and her knuckles scraped against the pavement. She could feel dead earthworms and bugs and the smallest of scattered teeth and vertebrae. Nearby, a neighbor was slowly dying of atherosclerosis. Another down the street was going to be killed in a few weeks by an escaped hippo at the zoo. Cats, dogs, a dead bird baking on a rooftop, another in an oven. It was a mountain on her shoulders. Her ribs vibrated from the strain. A scream wanted out. Not because Beau was dying – this was something else, the torrent of her senses overwhelming her. She didn’t care for Beau – even held some disdain for this pathetic man, so far as she was allowed – but she wasn’t going to deafen him. Or worse. Regan dragged herself away from the bone, trying to create any amount of distance. It didn’t help at all. The world seemed to sink out from under her, but she did her best to claw her way up. Standing. She needed to get away from it all. As she ran, she could feel the dead grass beneath her feet, a field mouse decomposing, a hawk swooping down on a rabbit. “Keep it,” she tried to utter back, but it came out a harsh screech.
Regan sprinted back up to her apartment and slammed the door shut behind her, trying to keep out far more than just the decompensated man in her driveway. On the other side, that thin thread that had so lovingly and gently connected her to the bone was now a thick, creeping vine, trying to drag her out by the ankle. Regan swallowed with effort, closing her eyes against the death – all of the hundreds, and hundreds she could practically feel right beneath her fingers.
