100 Fanfics/Writer's Choice 1
From Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki
It felt weird, pulling a caper alone. Sort of empty, without Strong Mad to do the heavy lifting and Strong Bad to blame everyone but himself when things fell apart. But The Cheat still preferred his solo caper to spending another minute in that apartment.
Things had been so weird lately. They were holidaying in Atlanta, having recently become humans, and having legs and being taller than one foot was weird enough. Then people from a universe that was a mirror image of their own had shown up, and that was pretty weird too. But Strong Bad had fallen in love with Homestar Runner, and that was weirdest. The Cheat knew from TV that love changed people, but until now he hadn't realised how much. He felt like he had to do something normal before he exploded or something.
He'd picked Homeschool Winner's apartment to loot, partly because he thought he knew Homeschool's schedule fairly well, but mostly because he blamed him for all his current problems. If it wasn't for Homeschool and his world jumping technology, The Cheat would still be at home, stealing all the crosswords from the newspapers... Or whatever it was they used to do on capers. The longer The Cheat stayed in the real world, the hazier his memory got. This was one of the things that had convinced him that he needed to do something fun for once.
The Cheat entered a room that he assumed was Homeschool's office and opened the desk drawer. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, and he didn't find it. The only thing in there was a notebook, with "Observations" written neatly on the cover. The Cheat picked it up and flicked through it. He thought it was probably one of those sciency things that nerdy types always seemed to have, but there was a chance that it was Homeschool's secret diary and he could use it to blackmail him, or something. He caught sight of his name and began to read more carefully. Then he flipped back to the start and read from there.
He was so engrossed that he almost didn't hear the footsteps. The Cheat quickly put the book back in its drawer and looked for something else he could get caught stealing. Something safe. He grabbed a paperweight off the desk just as the door opened and Homeschool walked in, looking distracted. He noticed The Cheat and jumped.
"Oh, The Cheat," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Do you know how boring it is sitting around watching Strong Bad making eyes at Homestar all day?" said The Cheat, hiding the paperweight behind his back.
"Boring enough that you feel the need to steal my favourite coprolite?" said Homeschool, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes!" The Cheat had no idea what a coprolite was, but at the moment, he didn't really care. "What are you even doing here? I thought you still in our world!"
"I came back to keep an eye on you and your friends," said Homeschool. "Now, please leave."
He held out his hand for the paperweight.
I bet you did, thought The Cheat, giving him the stone and making his escape.
"Strong Bad!"
The Cheat looked around Alex's apartment.
"Strong Bad!" he said again. "Where's Strong Bad?"
"He went for a walk," said Homestar, who was staring at the clock intently. "I hope something bad hasn't happened to him."
"Great!" said The Cheat, sitting down on the couch and burying his head in his hands. "He probably got himself kidnapped again!"
"Why do you want to talk to him so much?" asked Alex.
"None of your business!" snapped The Cheat.
He turned the TV on and started flipping through the channels.
"Everyone's in a bad mood today," observed Homestar. "There must be something going around."
The Cheat lit a cigarette and jiggled his leg impatiently. He really needed to tell Strong Bad what he'd read in Homeschool's notebook. He'd picked a great time to go for a walk. He was glad that he hadn't found this out during any of Strong Bad's time travel induced absences, but still...
"I think..." said Strong Sad, but trailed off when Strong Bad opened the door and hurried inside.
Homestar and The Cheat jumped up at the same time.
"Oh!" said Homestar. "Y-you're back already."
"I need to talk to you," said The Cheat simultaneously. "In private."
"Huh?" said Strong Bad, looking confused as well as small and frightened.
"It's only been like... twenty-three minutes," said Homestar.
"I need to..." began The Cheat.
"Were you... keeping track of every minute I was gone?" interrupted Strong Bad, staring at Homestar.
The Cheat ground his teeth.
"I... I was worried about you," said Homestar. "Every other time you went off by yourself something bad happened."
"Strong Bad!" said The Cheat. "Hey, Strong Bad, listen to me!"
He waved his hand in front of Strong Bad's face. Strong Bad brushed it away impatiently.
"N-nothing bad happened this time," he told Homestar, laughing nervously.
"Freaking listen to me!" The Cheat exploded. "This is more important than your stupid boy—"
"Why don't you go someplace else?" snapped Strong Bad, turning to glare at The Cheat. "I'm busy."
The Cheat clenched his fists and opened his mouth to give a snappy reply.
"The Cheat, why don't you come help me do the dishes?" said Strong Sad, grabbing The Cheat by the arm.
He pulled The Cheat into the kitchen, and Homestar and Strong Bad resumed their conversation. The Cheat could still hear them faintly through the wall.
"What did you do that for?" said The Cheat. "I was just about to tell him—"
"I thought Strong Bad was your best friend," said Strong Sad.
"That was the old Strong Bad," said The Cheat. "I don't know who this new guy is, but I hate him!"
Strong Bad had never been a great listener, but The Cheat was sure that he'd never used to ignore him so that he could exchange stupid words with Homestar.
"Yes, I miss him too," said Strong Sad quietly.
"What are you, a masochist?" said The Cheat. The old Strong Bad would've tormented Strong Sad in five different ways before lunch, he was sure.
Strong Sad just shook his head and handed The Cheat a dish towel.
They washed in silence for a while. The Cheat was still fuming. He'd made peace with the new Strong Bad once before, after Strong Bad and Homestar had... done some stuff together that he preferred not to think about. But Strong Bad had kept doing stupid, annoying stuff that he would never have done before... And they had to live in a tiny apartment full of rats... He wanted his grill back! And Marzipan! She'd started swearing! It was like she...
The Cheat's train of thought derailed as he realised that he'd started swearing more often too. He didn't mind swearing, but it made him even angrier than he already was.
"It's all Homeschool's fault!" The Cheat burst out. "Him and his freaking TranSpheres. First he turns Strong Bad into a whiney little pretty boy, now he's messing with our vocabularies!"
He kicked the wall. Then he kicked it again.
"How can you be so sure?" said Strong Sad. "He seems nice."
The Cheat snorted. "Nice doesn't mean a thing. I found his diary today, and he said the TranSphere changed and... some other word I can't remember... They did that to everyone's personality. He made the TranSpheres and he let us use them so he could see what happened when we got messed up by them."
Strong Sad had stopped scrubbing the dish he was holding.
"Are you sure?" he said after a while.
The Cheat considered for few seconds. Then he got bored with considering, and decided to just tell him. He had to tell someone. It was his fear of exploding again.
"You've changed, have you noticed?" began The Cheat.
Strong Sad nodded.
"That's Homeschool's fault!"
"It does make sense," said Strong Sad thoughtfully. "Homeschool warped our personalities..."
"I just have to tell Strong Bad, and he'll put it right," said The Cheat, though he was becoming less and less confident in Strong Bad's putting-it-right skills.
"I don't think so," said Strong Sad. "I think he likes being this way."
The Cheat stared at him.
"How can he like dressing up like a girl and having crazy stalkers and psychos after him all the time?" he said. "He doesn't even say funny stuff anymore!"
Strong Sad shrugged.
"I don't like prank calling people, or stealing things, like Strong Bad used to."
"Yeah?" said The Cheat. "Well, Strong Bad was cool. Unlike you."
Strong Sad shrugged. The Cheat waited for him to do something more interesting, like try to defend himself, but he didn't.
"Didn't you used to say stuff when we made fun of you?" he prodded.
Strong Sad inspected the floor.
"Yeah," he said. "I did."
Strong Sad spent the rest of the evening rereading his old blog. Everything from the content to the writing style felt like it'd been written by somebody else. Somebody he'd once known, but... Not him. Not even close. There was one entry that expressed his frustration that he hadn't written a poem four hours into the day, and now he didn't write poetry at all. He couldn't see the point anymore. He couldn't feel more than a flash of frustration, either.
And there were other things, too. He'd tried to make a few jokes at his brothers' expense the way he used to, but it was so hard that he'd given up trying. He could no longer feel pleasure in perfectly constructed prose, and while the realisation that he couldn't feel strong emotions anymore mildly depressed him, Strong Sad knew about real depression. This wasn't real depression.
Strong Sad went to homestarrunner.com and watched a couple of cartoons that he was in. Alex told him they were funny, but he wasn't laughing. Though he doubted that he'd ever find the time that Strong Bad had jumped up and down on him funny, there were some legitimately amusing things that he couldn't connect to.
So Strong Sad felt very calm about the idea that Homeschool was experimenting on them. He believed The Cheat. The Cheat couldn't simulate emotion any more than Strong Sad could feel it, and he'd been quite agitated. There had a good reason for the way they were all acting, and why not that one?
Strong Sad got up from the computer chair and wandered around the apartment, wondering if he should just go home. But home wouldn't be the same without Homestar, Strong Bad, The Cheat, Marzipan and Coach Z. It'd be a lot quieter and less painful, of course, but it still wouldn't be home, and it probably wouldn't fix his emoting problem. No, running away wouldn't help. The best thing would be to look at the book The Cheat had mentioned. Maybe Homeschool had recorded how to reverse the personality warping.
"The Cheat," he said.
The Cheat looked up from where he was sitting on the couch, glowering at the TV.
"What?" he said.
"I need to see Homeschool's book," said Strong Sad. "Could you take me tomorrow?"
"Whatever," said The Cheat, turning his attention back to the TV. "After I tell Strong Bad."
"Tell him what?" said Marzipan, who was sitting nearby.
"About Homeschool performing some kinda sick experiment on us," said The Cheat casually.
Marzipan frowned.
"I don't want to hear you talking about Homeschool that way," she said. "He helped save us from Scott."
"So he could experiment on us!" said The Cheat. "Face it, Homeschool is evil."
Marzipan frowned. Strong Sad could see a big, ugly and pointless fight happening in the near future, so he said, "The Cheat's just kidding around, Marzipan."
He wasn't sure if Marzipan would believe him, but she just said, "Oh," and went back to the book she was reading. The Cheat mumbled something under his breath.
Strong Sad decided to go check on Strong Bad, who'd gone to bed early. Although he was glad that Strong Bad had found love and stopped picking on him, he was still as worried as he could be about him. Especially after his suicide attempt a couple of weeks ago. He entered Alex's room, where Strong Bad was sleeping tonight, and looked at the bed. Good. He was still there, and he seemed to be asleep. Strong Sad heard him whimper slightly and sighed. Why didn't he ever take his nightmare medication?
He closed the door and yawned. He should probably be getting to bed too. Or, more accurately, getting to floor. He kind of missed his bed.
(Part 2)
| 100 Fanfics |
|---|
Beginnings | Ends | Outsides | Days | Years | Blue | White | Friends | Enemies | Death | Sunrise | Taste (PG-13) | Shapes | Star | Air | Breakfast | Lunch | Spring | Passing | Rain | Broken | He | Choices | School | Home | Christmas | Writer's Choice 1 |
