Heyyyy so I haven’t given up on my project of drawing one character for every episode of Amnesty, I’ve just had a lot going on lately and other creative projects to focus on. So here’s Keith, Hollis’ lieutenant and general rude dude
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
This is for @ame-at-your-service for the 2022 @thecandlenightszone Candlenights Gift Exchange! Happy Candlenights! :D
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jake Coolice & Hollis, Jake Coolice & Keith, Jake Coolice & Hollis & Keith
Characters: Jake Coolice, Hollis (The Adventure Zone), Keith (The Adventure Zone)
Additional Tags: Campaign: Amnesty (The Adventure Zone), Post-Canon, TAZ Candlenights Exchange 2022, TAZ Candlenights Exchange, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Summary:
It's the summer directly after the events that lead to Sylvain returning to her home and rejuvenating the planet and the destruction of the gate connecting both Sylvain and Earth. The Hornets are in the process of really getting their extreme sports facility underway, and newly rejoined member Jake Coolice takes a break from the hard work along with Hollis and Keith. They reflect on a certain past choice that was made and Jake's life as a former citizen of his home world.
84. I’m not entirely sure who you are but we’ve been in a massive prank war ever since your first prank on your friend went awry and I was covered in paint
For JakeHollis, please? Sfw or nsfw! This screams them to me!
JakeHollis, SFW, very light angst, some absolutely weird vibes! QueerElfClub's Hollis cosplay is my headcanon for them always and forever
All told, Jake’s first day at Kepler High hadn’t been too bad. Barclay and Dani had told him roughly what to expect, including a rapid rundown of the Earth history he’d be looked at strangely for not knowing. So far, math was his favorite class, because it was the same as on Silvain. Mama had gotten him into something called AP BC Calculus, which seemed like far too many acronyms for a class about shapes. His next most favorite class was PE.
Now it was almost three, and the final bell had rung. Packing up his backpack had taken so much time that the hallways were mostly empty, and he wandered idly, looking for the exit. Barclay was supposed to be picking him up somewhere called the “kiss and ride,” though Jake had been assured kissing was not mandatory. No signs pointed the way, and Jake knew better than to ask someone for directions. Teenagers were the same everywhere.
He found himself in a wing of the school none of his classes had been in, passing rooms labeled ORCHESTRA and BAND and COLOR GUARD EQUIPMENT STORAGE. The sound of music came through the walls.
Finally, though - miracle of miracles! - he saw the light of day, and hurried towards the door it was coming from. The door was even cracked open, and Jake pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Something hit his head.
Something that made a klang noise against his skull, and he thought for a moment his head had cracked - he didn’t know how fragile these disguises were - but no, there was something else dripping through his hair and down his face and down all over his new colorful jacket. He looked down. It was white and foul-smelling, and when he blinked his eyelashes clumped and stuck together.
Jake was fairly certain neither Dani nor Barclay had mentioned this. He could barely see, just the edges of a person saying oh fuck, I’m so sorry, I thought you were Keith, and tugging him back into the school, which was not at all where he wanted to go.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” the voice said, and Jake found himself in a restroom, without even the time to make sure it was the correct one - he needed to be in one called BOYS or MEN, or the one with a little outline of a person without a skirt. or GENTLEMEN. (Barclay knew a long list of things he’d seen printed on bathroom doors.)
But here he was, and he bent to the sink to wash his face and came up dripping. Then he repeated the introduction he’d given so many times already today.
“I’m Jake,” he said. “Dani’s brother.” (People knew Dani; she’d graduated only two years earlier. He told teachers he was Barclay’s brother. Barclay was a little older, but a better student than Dani had been.)
“Oh,” said the person. “I think I had an art class with her. I’m Hollis.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Hollis had curly black hair and brown skin, and the sleeves of their shirt were tattered like they’d been cut off and not hemmed afterwards. When they rubbed at the stuff on Jake’s sleeve with a wet paper towel he could see the fine line of muscle beneath the skin in their arm.
Jake took a deep breath. “Do you think you could point me towards the kiss and ride?”
By the time Jake climbed into Barclay’s truck, he was as clean as one could get with hand soap and paper towels.
“How was your first day?” said Barclay, tactfully not saying anything about the paint.
“Fine. I’m really glad you and Dani told me so much about what to expect. But when I was trying to find my way out at the end of the day a bucket of paint fell on my head.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Someone helped me clean up, though. Their name’s Hollis. I think we’re friends now?”
“Well, that’s nice.”
“One girl in my homeroom brought in brownies to share with everybody because it was her birthday. Are you allowed to do that even if it’s not your birthday?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Can I bring in cupcakes tomorrow? The ones you make are really good and I think people would like me if I gave them some.”
Barclay looked over at him, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll make you some cupcakes.”
--
The cupcakes were gorgeous. Each was as the platonic ideal of what a cupcake should be, the cupcake held before the fire to cast a shadow in Plato’s confectionary cave. The cake part was delicate and moist and yellow, and the frosting was pink, dusted with rainbow sprinkles.
“Oh,” said Jake’s homeroom teacher when she saw him come in carrying the lovingly packed tray. Barclay had put crumpled saran wrap between each cupcake so they wouldn’t knock into each other. “Is it your birthday, Jake?”
“Nope! But I brought cupcakes for everyone.”
“Alright,” said the teacher. “You can start passing them out now, if you’d like.”
Jake held out the tray to each person in the first few rows in turn, receiving varyingly sincere ‘thank you’s in return. But sitting in the back corner by the window was Hollis, and when Jake got to them, he didn’t hold out the tray. No, he selected the most perfect cupcake there was, cupped its soft bottom, and shoved the perfect pink frosting into Hollis’ perfect face.
“Oops,” Jake said sweetly.
“Jake!” said the teacher. “What do you think you’re doing!?”
But Hollis was already laughing, wiping pink frosting off their face and licking it off their fingers. “It’s fine, Ms. B., we’re in a prank war.”
“Well, please refrain from waging it in my classroom!”
“I’m sorry,” said Jake. He’d never heard the phrase prank war before, but the word war he didn’t like at all. War was the slowly narrowing boundaries of habitable land, war was an enemy that was somehow both inuman and implacably angry.
The boy sitting to Hollis’ left was looking up at Jake with something like shock and anger in his face. Looking away, Jake held out the plate of cupcakes to him so he could select his own.
--
Jake still had trouble finding the cafeteria, and so most of the students were seated when he arrived. He was scanning looking for a seat where he wouldn’t be intruding on someone else’s friend group when Hollis’ waving hand caught his attention. “Yo, Jake! Come sit with us?”
Jake hurried over. Before he reached the table Hollis elbowed the boy who was sitting next to them, the same one who’d been next to them in homeroom, and he scooted hurriedly over into the next seat so Jake could sit next to Hollis.
“Hello,” Jake said, nodding at each person at the table.
“This is Jake,” said Hollis. “He got me good in homeroom with a cupcake to the face.”
The others at the table laughed.
“Jake, this is Keith, Madison, and Ty,” Hollis continued, indicating the boy who’d been displaced, a girl with purple streaks in her long brown hair, and a boy with a mullet.
“Nice to meet you,” said Jake. He listened to them talk as he unpacked the lunch Barclay had packed him. A sandwich on part of a baguette, a chocolate-chip cookie, a honeycrisp apple (Jake had just been on earth long enough to have opinions about the different varieties of apples), and a note reminding him that Barclay loved him and wanted him to have a good day.
His tablemates were discussing what they were going to do over the weekend. Ty suggested going to Walmart, which was shot down on the grounds that they’d done that last weekend. No one’s parents were out of town, which eliminated the possibility of a house party.
“There’s nothing to do,” Madison whined.
“Can you drive places?” Jake asked.
Everyone went quiet. “Yep,” said Hollis. “When Madison’s parents let her use the car.”
It was Jake’s first autumn on earth, and from his bedroom window on the second floor of Amnesty Lodge he could see the leaves changing colors, red and orange and yellow between the bristles of the evergreens. “You could drive around and look at leaves. I’d like to come along, if that’s alright.”
Everyone was silent, deciding whether that was the lamest thing they’d ever heard or so lame it went straight through the other side into being kind of a good idea again.
“Fuck it,” said Hollis finally. “Let’s do it. And of course you’re invited, Jake, let me add you to the group chat.”
--
That Saturday, a silver Honda pulled up in front of Amnesty Lodge. Madison was at the wheel, Ty in the front passenger seat, and Keith sulking in the back. Behind it was a sleek motorcycle, and the rider’s helmet reflected the autumn leaves above.
Hollis pulled off their helmet. Their hair was disheveled and gorgeous. “If it was five of us in the car someone would have had to sit in the middle back, and that sucks,” they said. “Hop on, Jake.” They were holding out a second helmet.
“Um,” said Jake, offering them a bottle of sparkling cider with gold foil around the neck. “I brought something for us to drink?” The agreement had been that they would drive to one of the pull-off spots along the highway and have drinks there.
“Sweet,” said Hollis. “Put it in the back of the car?”
When Jake opened the back door of the car he saw a case of white claw on the seat next to Keith. “Was I supposed to bring alcohol?” Jake said. “I could have.” There was wine at the lodge; sometimes on the weekends Mama and Barclay went wine-tasting together, because Dani’s ID said she wasn’t old enough.
“No, Jake, you’re fine,” Hollis said. “Climb on.”
Jake fit the helmet over his head and climbed onto the smooth leather seat of the motorcycle behind Hollis. “Hold on tight,” said Hollis.
The motorcycle roared to life like one of Silvain’s larger beasts. Then it leaped forward, swerving hard to veer around Madison’s parents’ car. Jake swallowed a shriek and held on tighter. He could no longer feel the soft fabric of Hollis’s shirt, only the beast beneath them and the wind tearing at their jackets and the red, orange, and yellow leaves racing by above.
By the time they reached the appointed meeting place the others weren’t even in sight.
“So,” said Hollis when they pulled their helmet off. “What brings you to Kepler?”
Jake knew how to lie, when presented with questions like this. But with Hollis they found they didn’t want to. “I got kicked out of my old school.”
Hollis’s eyebrows went up.
“For… stealing.” Stealing food, because his family’s traditional hunting grounds had been corrupted by the Quell, and everyone else had barely enough for themselves. The huge mounds of apples in the grocery store in Kepler were the first thing to convince him he’d been exiled to paradise.
“Damn, Jake. And here I thought you were so wholesome.”
Jake threw up a hang-ten. “Nah, I’m a real bad boy.”
“Are you… with anyone? From your old school?”
“Nope. Are you?”
“Nah.” Hollis took a deep breath. It was the first time Jake had noticed them breathing. Human beings had to breathe so frequently, he’d found, and he sometimes forgot to until his lungs reminded him. His old body had been able to hold its breath for over an hour, collapsing his lungs so he was sleekness against the water inside and out. Incompressible.
“Wanna make out?” said Hollis.
“Yeah,” said Jake.
Hollis leaned in and kissed him. The best part was how warm their lips were, how warm their face was, right up close to his. No, scratch that. The best part was how they smelled, a smell Jake hadn’t encountered on earth up to that point but knew now he could never get enough of. No, the best part was -
Tires on gravel. Jake startled, but Hollis didn’t stop kissing him, even as Madison honked the horn on her parents’ car.
To Jake, that was the most surprising thing, that Hollis would want to kiss him in front of their friends. Teenagers were the same everywhere.
Listen sometimes family is an asthmatic chosen one, his space alien girlfriend, a god, a cabin full of monsters, a mom, a non-binary stunt gang leader, two game hunting rich people, one dope ass forest ranger, a plant nerd who got in a little too deep, mothman, Ryan Gosling, an anthropomorphic bunny rabbit with a PhD, the minister of magic, an FBI agent, and the best damn conman there ever was.
