Well, I thought the list was just a little too stagnant still, even
though there are some topic starters going. So, I thought I'd throw out
a couple pieces of a fic I've been working on for a while now. If you
couldn't guess by the title, this fic is dedicated to the one and only
LesliWeird, who was kind enough to lend me both her personality/written
persona and her stories for my own use. Thanks for the usage Lesli. So,
without further ado, here's the first part to my not completely but
hopefully almost finished, story.

Kisses,
Bryne

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters created by HB for their
show Jonny Quest or its follow up, The Real Adventures. I don't own any
of the situations created by one Ms. LesliWeird involving a bar and some
questionable activity, nor am I the sole Jonny basher to have 'come out
of the closet' so to speak. I don't own the song YMCA sung by the
Villiage People. Basically, I'm ripping a whole bunch of people off.
Date: 3/12/00
Catagories: In the tradition of LesliWeird herself; H, I, Fam, Yaoi,
X-over (non-eligible under Yaoi or X-Over)
Rating: PG, though slightly questionable PG (Jonny gets beat up a lot)
Permission to Archive: Granted to the Goddess and my little Ferret.
Author: Bryne aka Michelle
And now, onto . . .

                                Lesli

    Jonny slammed down the newspaper. “What is this?” he demanded
angrily.
    “What is what, Mr. Quest?” the attendant before him asked nervously,
licking her lips.
    “This,” he growled, motioning to the abused paper lying haphazardly
on the secretary’s desk before her. The attendant looked over at the
newspaper, craning her head to the side for a better look.
    “Well, it looks like today’s copy of the post,” she replied timidly.

    “I know that!” he bellowed. “Everyone knows that! The name’s printed
on the first page of the paper, for god’s sake.”
    “Jonathon Benton Quest!” shouted a voice. Jonny whirled around,
coming face to face with his father. “This is your secretary, not your
punching bag so shake hands and be nice.”  Jonny nodded slowly to him
and Benton turned to the secretary who was now cowering behind the
corner of the desk, her eyes wide in fear. “I’m sorry Miss,” Benton
looked down at her name plate, “Cruz,” he soothed. “It’s been a long day
for all of us.” The young woman nodded, but her attention was still on
the furious Jonny. Benton shot his son a look before returning to the
secretary. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
    “Al- all right, Doc, doctor,” she stuttered. “Thank you.” She picked
herself up and grabbed her purse and without cleaning up her desk or
closing down her utilities she ran out the office as fast as her heels
would let her.
    “Jonny, what’s gotten in to you?” his father demanded, now that they
were alone. The two Quests were on the top floor of the Quest Enterprise
New York executive diversion. A conference the day after tomorrow had
caught the elder Quest’s attention and, much to his son’s dismay, he had
decided it would be nice for the two of them to make guest appearances.
    “Did you see the Post this morning?” Jonny asked, his face agitated
as he motioned to the deserted desk and the paper on top of it.
    “No, but I can guess what’s in it.” Benton picked up the crumpled
edition and examined the cover.
Jonny turned away from his father. “Just like two weeks ago’s. And two
weeks before that and two before that.” He sighed and ran hand through
his blond hair. “I talked to our lawyers and they’re working on a
lawsuit, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything we can do. Someone’s
been telling the paper this stuff, someone from the inside.”
    “Well we can’t allow them to continue to print these things in the
paper. It’s ruining our reputations, not to mention what it’s doing to
the company. Stocks are plummeting and the Quest name is the laughing
stock of the country, not to mention the rest of the world.”
    “Tell me about it. When I visited Prague last week Irena hinted that
it might be better if I didn’t visit until this whole thing blows over.
She was afraid of what people might think if they saw us together, Irena
Koffka the famous composer and Jonathan Quest the laughing stock. After
everything we’ve done for her.” Jonny shook his head ruefully. “The
truth finally comes out.”
    Benton smiled sympathetically at his son and patted his shoulder. He
couldn’t see his face, but he knew what it looked like. “It’s better
this way, son. Imagine if you’d had to wait until after you’d proposed,
or worse yet, after you’d gotten married, to find out this is what she’s
really like.” Benton felt his son’s shoulder slump under his hand.
    “You’re right, dad,” he said, his voice kind of defeated and sighed.
“But it’s still upsetting. I mean, I’ve always thought people were
basically good and trust worthy. Seeing someone I know so well, or what
I thought of as well, and that I cared about do something so, so-” Jonny
turned his head to his father. “I don’t know.” He gave him a lopsided
smile. “You know, I should have listened to Jessie.” Benton smiled. He’d
noticed his son saying that a lot of late.
    “She mentioned something about Irena?”
    “Yeah. She’d said Irena’d turn on me the minute I needed her to be
there for me most. Boy, was she right.” He smiled again. “She was always
pretty good at judging people.” He grinned again and shook his head.
“Other women at least.”
    Benton smiled back at his son. “She was, wasn’t she?”
    “Yeah.” Jonny’s eyes got a far away look to them. “I wonder where
she is now; if she’s missing us the way we miss her.”
    “Undoubtedly son.” Benton squeezed his son’s shoulder gently.
“Undoubtedly.”
    “You two done chatting or are you going to have me stand here all
night while the two of you jabber?” a faintly southern drawl questioned.

    Jonny rolled his blue eyes so only his father could see. “Pushing
sixty and as obnoxious as ever. Some things never change, do they Race?”

    “Nope,” the handsome man leaning in the doorway replied. Standing
up, he stepped into the room. “You’ll find us relics have problems
changing. Something to do with being set in your ways, right Benton?”
    “You should talk mister, ‘if I don’t have my mocha cream in my 49ers
cup and my sports page I’m going to have to hurt somebody’.” Jonny
suppressed a snicker.
    “Excuse me,” Race said from his position in the doorway, “but I
don’t think I’m the only with personality quirks in this relationship.
You’re the one who still insists on rewashing the dishes after I’ve done
them,” he countered easily, totally unperturbed.
    “At least I’m not the one who’s been carrying around the same free
gas change coupon since 1993.”
    “No,” he conceded, “but I don’t obsess about my books being stacked
by the death date of the author with respect to the ‘copy write code
ordinance of 1313 written by Edward Gray the third’.”
    “You have books?”
    Jonny doubled over laughing. “You two sound like an old married
couple, you know that?” he asked, wiping tears from his eyes.
    Race and Benton sobered and exchanged serious looks. “Jonny,” Benton
began, still looking at Race, “I don’t think you know how right you
are.”
    “Excuse me?” Jonny said, nearly choking as he was stopped in
mid-chortle. “What do you mean?” “I think that you should maybe consider
sitting down for this son.”
    “Sit down?” Jonny repeated. “Why?” he asked suspiciously as gave
first his father and then mentor a hard look. Benton shifted
uncomfortably under his son’s hard blue eyes and Race avoided Jonny’s
gaze all together.
    “You see, Jonny, Race and I have something we’ve been meaning to
tell you, but neither of us have known quite how.” Jonny’s eyes widened
in apprehension, but he managed to control his voice.
    “Go on,” he said, his voice higher than it had been the last time he
had spoken and the two shifted again. Race nervously placed his hand on
the back of his head and scratched.
    “Well, Jonny,” Race began, taking over for the doctor, “your father
and I have known each other for quite some time now and, over this time,
we have developed feelings for each other, so to speak.” Race looked
over at Jonny to see if he understood, but Jonny only gave him a blank
stare.
    “Feelings?” he mimicked, disbelief in his voice.
    Race looked at Benton for help. Benton picked up for Race,
continuing, “Knowing that it would be just as wrong to let these
feelings die as to not act on them, we decided to do what any sensible
couple, now lacking the responsibility of caring for children, would
do.”  He gave Jonny a significant look. Jonny’s blue eyes widened in
mortification and he looked desperately between the two.
    “You decided to do what?” Jonny whispered hoarsely, his face having
drained of all color. Benton made a sound in the back of his throat and
covered his mouth as if he were coughing, looking at the ground. “Oh my
g-d,” he said, his voice trailing off as the full realization hit him.
He sank back against the wall. “Oh my g-d this can’t be happening.” He
brought his hands up and covered his face. “This can’t be happening.”
    “I don’t believe you, Jonny!” Race cried suddenly. Jonny uncovered
his face and blinked from his slumped position on the wall as looked at
the two in befuddlement. “After all this time you’ve lived with us, you
actually think that?” Race’s sentence broke off as he set into a peal of
laughter. Jonny blinked several times in succession, his blue eyes
unfocused as he looked wildly around the room.
    “So?” he began, unable to finish his question. His father’s
snickering confirmed they had only been teasing him. Jonny glared at the
both of them and stood up.
    “Very funny Race. And you,” he looked at his father accusingly, “my
own father.” He shook his head in disgust. “Not like we don’t have
enough problems with the paper, now the two of you feel the need to mess
with my head.”
    “Just trying to lighten the mood, Jon,” Race told him amiably, “just
trying to lighten the mood.”
    “Yeah, well, we’ve got more important things to be doing then this.”

    “As much fun as that was, Race, Jonny is right,” Benton said
seriously. “Though that was rather funny,” he said, unable to control a
smirk. Race snickered.
    “Moving on,” Jonny interjected, trying to move the conversation away
from where it was heading back to, “We’ve got to think of some way to
deal with this.” He motioned to the paper again. Race’s face took on a
sober look.
    “Mind if I see?” Jonny shook his head no and Benton handed his
friend the copy of the paper, still open to the article that was causing
all their problems. Taking it in hand he pulled out a pair of reading
glasses and looked it over.
    “ ‘If Wishes Were Horses, Maybe the Calvary Would Get Here on
Time’,” he read out loud. “That sounds interesting, but not like it has
anything to do with us.” He quirked an eyebrow at Jonny.
    “Just keep reading,” the blond said with weary resignation as he
leaned back against the wall again. Race returned to the story. It
wasn’t long before he found what had made the two Doctors so angry.
    “I can’t believe this,” he muttered, his eyes flying over the text.
“Where’d they get this?” he looked up at the room’s other two residents.

    “Now you understand why I was so upset,” Jonny replied, a hand
coming up to rub his forehead. Race nodded slowly as he finished the
article and handed it back to Jonny.
    “That’s some pretty confidential stuff in there,” Race began.
“There’s no way anyone outside the immediate team could have known
that.” His voice was almost hesitant now. “I didn’t even put any of that
in my I-1 write ups.” The three exchanged looks and there was a moment
of uneasy silence.
    “Well, the damage from this article and its predecessors has been
done,” Benton stated, breaking the deafening nothingness that had filled
the room.
    “You’re right dad. I think the best thing for us to do now is to
make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
    “Well,” Benton said thoughtfully, “we’ve got our lawyers working on
the Post-”
Jonny cut him off. “It’s not enough just to try and get the Post to stop
printing this garbage by slapping them with a law suit. What if we can’t
get a printing suspension until we get a court date? Or what if our
lawyers can’t get a court hearing for three months? Or a year? Or two
years? What are we going to do then? This stuff’ll keep coming out and
we’ll be in even deeper than we already are.”
    “What do you propose we do?” his father asked curiously.
    “I say we stop this at the source. It’s not enough to sue the paper,
there’s to many variables to be sure that’ll take care of the problem.”
Jonny shook the paper in his hand.  “What we need to do is get to the
writer and deal with them in such a way as to make sure they never say
anything to the Post, or any other paper for that matter, ever again.”
    “I hate to dampen your hopes, Jonny,” Race cut in, “but we have to
find the writer before we can take any action against them.” He motioned
toward the paper, “If I remember correctly all that was listed was the
author’s pseudonym, LesliWeird.” A small beeping sound went off.
    “I’m two steps ahead of you, Race,” Jonny informed his friend as he
made his way to the side of the room near the door. Moving toward a
piece of machinery, he hit a few buttons and a piece of paper rolled
out. Picking it up, he looked over it. “I had some people do a little
digging and from the looks of this readout they’ve managed to track down
our little fame minded friend. According to this, she’s a college
student in Texas. I’ve got her school’s name and address right here in
my hand.”
    “Jonny, don’t tell me you’re going to do what I think you’re going
to do,” Benton moaned.
    “There’s no other way dad. Someone’s got to show this girl exactly
what she’s dealing with. Nothing’s going to make the same impression as
a personal appearance from one of us.” Jonny grabbed his coat from the
nearby coat stand.
Race nodded his head in agreement. He understood what Jonny was doing.
“Do you want one of us to go with you?”
    “I’d love to, but you can’t. Dad’s got to finish the rounds for
Quest Enterprises and I’m counting on you to keep him out of trouble.”
Jonny grinned. “You are the babysitter.” Race smirked and Benton rolled
his eyes. “Don’t worry about me.” He shoved his arms into the sleeves of
a beige trench coat, perfect for the current New York weather. “I’ll
order a plane ticket on my way to the airport and I’ll be meeting you
for the Georgia conference in no time.”
    “I’m not so sure about this Jonny.”
    “Relax dad. This’ll just be quick trip, a couple of days, tops. You
know I can take care of myself.” Benton nodded.
    “Just be sure not to rush into anything.” Jonny nodded and gave his
father and old friend each a hug. “See you in a couple of days son.” And
with that, Jonny left.
***********************************************************************************************

    Jonny yawned and rubbed his head. He found himself doing a lot of
that lately. After everything that had happened at the airport earlier,
he felt he had more than every right though.
    It had taken him twenty-minutes to reach JFK national airport from
the office by taxi. Twenty minutes of death defying aerodynamics, loud
noises, and words he didn’t even want to pretend he’d heard. Being stuck
in a small taxi with a disgruntled cabby under normal circumstances was
taxing, but being locked in the little yellow cab in the middle of rush
hour while the driver was trying to coach his wife through labor was
something not even Surd should have to go through.
    Jonny had never been so scared in his life, not even that time when
he’d rolled out of the helicopter during that fist-fight three years ago
and was plummeting to earth with no parachute still attached to his
assailant. Or the time when the pack of werewolves had chased him
through the Polish countryside, trying to rip out his throat so they
could carry his limp body back to feed their young. Or even the time the
lost village of Amazon warriors from whatever-that-place was called tied
him to the stake and stuck him in the water at high tide so the sharks
would eat him.
    As the cab drove up to the pull through Jonny grabbed his suitcase,
flung some money at the driver and dive bombed out of the small yellow
vehicle. Rolling he managed to keep himself from bruising too badly as
his body smacked against the hard concrete of the sidewalk. Out of the
corner of his eye he could see the cab zooming off in the other
direction, the tires squealing as the driver made a sharp turn. Several
cars swerved to miss the runaway cab. Honks and obscenities flew through
the air at the abused, retreating yellow automobile.
    For a moment Jonny lay there, trying desperately to gather himself
and catch his breath. Finally under control Jonny picked himself up,
brushed off his suit, and, suitcase firmly in hand, walked to the
terminal.
    Hand outstretched, Jonny reached for the door to the inside. The
door got him first. Colliding with his face, the door slammed into his
nose. Reeling in backwards in pain and holding his nose, Jonny dropped
his suitcase.
    “Aaah! Mwy noth!” he cried incoherently, clutching the throbbing
appendage. “Mwy poah nwozz!” Growling, he turned and glared at the
retreating back of the woman who had slammed the door into his face.
“Thomb peeple are tho wude. THAME TO YOU WADY!” The pain having abated
somewhat, Jonny managed to pick up his brief case and, rubbing his sore
nose, continued in.
    Careless people zoomed and zipped around, knocking and bumping him
every which way. “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” he yelled as a man
with a cart knocked him over. “Sheesh.” The sharp end of luggage bag
smacked him in the back.     “Ouch! Be careful you insensitive twit!”
Jonny muttered something else, a bit less polite, under his breath, but
kept going. Staying in one spot too long was a death warrant in JFK.
    “AH!” screamed a man. Flying through the crowd, he rammed into
Jonny, throwing them both to the floor.
    “What is WITH you people?” he demanded. “Ow, my butt.”
    “The-the-thi-thig-thing,” the man stuttered.
    “Pardon?” Jonny asked in a rather un-amused tone.
    “THE THING! IT’S GOING TO KILL US ALL!” Jonny rolled his eyes
heavenward.
    “Thing huh?” Jonny asked, his face just holding back a smirk. He
away for a minute as he grabbed his brief case. “And what does this
thing look like per say?”
    “LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!!” the man screamed, pointing.
 Jonny’s head whipped around¼colliding with a fast moving green sack of
goop. The goop kept going, Jonny’s head, did not. Opening his eyes,
Jonny looked down at himself. A clear, greenish colored slime covered
his suit and body, clinging to and matting his once blond hair. A
perpetual cowlick stood up in back and his normally peach colored skin
was now a remarkable shade reviled only by Venus flytraps. Knowing he
looked like a giant lime icicle, Jonny response was a natural
neurological reaction.
    “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” No one even paused to look
as the man’s howl rang up through the airport. People on the second
floor did look down, but only for an instant to be sure it wasn’t the
fire alarm. Then, they went back to hurrying along. The man stopped
screaming, the female pitch in his voice falling to a more appropriate
octave for his gender until the wail finally died.
    Breathing hard he slumped and curled into a little ball. Jonny found
himself more shaken by the man’s female voice then the encounter with
the blob. The other’s shaky voice penetrated Jonny’s haze.
“Tha-that-thi-thing was not-hu-human.” Still working on inhaling and
exhaling Jonny nodded.
    “You got that right.” Jonny stood up, having recovered from the
initial shock, and grabbing his brief case to his chest, ran for the
nearest pay phone. Dialing, he waited for three rings before a familiar
male voice answered.
    “Hello?”
    “Dad?” Jonny asked, his voice understandably upset.
    “Jonny what’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay?”
    “I’m fi- well,” he reconsidered. “I’m alive.” Jonny looked
cautiously around, not panicked any more but still nervous. “Dad, I’ve
got a bad feeling about this trip.”
    “What?” his father’s voice was confused. “Why?” Jonny looked over
his shoulder at the crowd in the airport. A green blob was floating
around, randomly knocking into people and throwing their screaming
bodies to the floor.
    “Just call it a hunch.” Jonny could see his father frowning on the
other end of the line. “Look, do you think you could call and have Hadji
meet me in Texas? I can tell I’m going to need some help.”
    “Hadji’s a very busy man Jonny,” father replied. It never stopped
annoying him how his father always felt the need to remind him of that
fact. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten.
    “Please Dad. I really think he’s the one who can help me.”
    “All right.” His father’s reply was grudging. “But are you sure you
wouldn’t rather Race or I come?”
    “That’s all right Dad.” Jonny tugged at his suit, the slime had gone
through the fabric and was sticking to his skin. “I’ll call if there are
any problems.” *any more that is*
    “Be careful son.” Click.
    “I will pop,” Jonny whispered into the lifeless receiver. With a
sigh, he stepped out of the phone booth, checking both left and right
before he did. In the clear, he searched for visual confirmation of his
terminal. Spotting it, he sprinted through the crowd hoping luck was
still sleeping. A green blob rammed him from behind.
    “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!Okay. My disk is totally fried, but I was able to recover three pages of
what I had done. (not half by a long shot) I'm ticked but I want to send
this out before it gets eaten too. So, bear with me guys. Thanks to
everyone, Lesli especially for letting me borrow her.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the cast of  JQ:TRA and I'm not making
any money off of this fic. (especially considering I can't get the
computer to open the rest of my story. ::growls::)
Date: 4/25/00
Catagories: H, F, Fam, DBN HR
Author: Michelle aka Bryne (or vice versa)
Permission to Archive: Yeah.
Title:

                                            Lesli

                                     ~ 10 minutes later ~

     “Food court, food court, food court,” Jonny mumbled as he looked
around the school’s campus. He had left the dorm with only minor
difficulties and he hardly felt that the girl’s losing her towel had
been his fault, which made the trip almost entirely incident free. Of
course there had been that thing with the explosion in the bathroom, but
it was only some freshmen goofing off with a bottle of sodium they
‘borrowed’ from the chemistry department.
    “Now,” he mused, “if I were a food court, where would I be?” He
turned slowly in a circular motion; east to north to west to south. His
stomach grumbled. “What was that?” he asked his stomach, getting no
response. He made his turn again and as he pointed south, it made
another noise. “Right. South is the way to go.” Having no better idea of
which way to go and trusting his stomach’s ability to find food, Jonny
set off in that direction.
    Sure enough, not too much later he encountered a group of students
loafing around on the grassy (or weedy, grass doesn’t always do so well
in Texas) knoll. While there was no actual food court, his stomach had
not totally failed him. The students there were most certainly not
lacking food, though it was mostly in the form of picnic baskets, and
Jonny’s stomach had determined that these students would share. Jonny
didn’t know how to break it to his stomach that sharing was not always a
common practice, especially among growing teenagers.
    “Howdy!” called a friendly student from one of the small groups of
picnickers. He raised an arm holding a piece of corn on the cob in
greeting. His southern twang was noticeable, but definitely not Texan.
More likely closer to something found in Kentucky. Jonny waved to the
person.
    “Hello,” Jonny replied cheerfully, smiling and trying not to eye
their rather scrumptious looking meal.
    “You lookin’ for something mister?” a young woman next to the man
asked as she wiped a bit of barbecue sauce from her mouth. With a clean
hand she tossed a chunk of thick chestnut hair over her shoulder and out
of her face. “Maybe we can help point you in the right direction.”
    “Yeah, actually. Could anyone here point me in the direction of a
food court?” His stomach growled loudly in agreement. The students
laughed as they heard his misbehaving stomach and Jonny blushed a
little, his cheeks turning a light pink.
    “Why you wanna go to a place like that?” another woman asked,
knocking the chestnut woman with her elbow as she smiled and winked at
him. “Ain’t you heard the stories about cafeteria food?” Jonny made an
affirmative motion with his shoulders.
    “I fear I have no choice in the matter,” he said gravely and rubbed
his stomach to keep it from saying anything else that might embarrass
him.
    “Well shucks, mister,” a platinum blond with a Tennessee accent
said, crinkling her nose prettily, “why don’t you share with us?”
    Jonny shook his head and raised his hands. “I wouldn’t want to be a
bother-”
    “You wouldn’t!” a shortish looking woman declared, dirt brown hair
ruffling in the slight breeze. Her face was lined with freckles, made
worse by the dark tan she had acquired during her school stay that made
her look even younger than she was.
    “Not t’all,” the man who had said hello agreed, “and we’ve got
plenty to go around.” He motioned to the overflowing basket and filled
plates of food. Several voices piped up in agreement.
    “I don’t think so,” Jonny began, shaking his head. Freckles hopped
up from her spot and ran down the tiny hill to where he stood.
    “We insist,” she said with a laugh. Latching onto his arm, she
tugged him toward her friends. Short as she was, she was strong and gave
him no choice in the matter. Jonny nodded grudgingly and let himself be
pulled over to where they were. A man with coffee brown eyes and a buzz
cut scooted over to let Jonny sit next to him. The minute he hit the
ground, he was covered by delicate suntanned arms and legs and passed a
heaping plate of food. A pair of lips, apparently attached to one of the
pairs of arms, planted themselves on his neck.
    “Welcome to the party,” said the lips. The boy with no hair laughed
and gave him a friendly nudge.
    “What’s your name?” he asked, reaching for his plate and taking a
large bite out of a heavily slathered rib.
    “Friends call me Jonny,” he replied, picking up a gravy covered
biscuit.
    “Welcome to the group Jonny,” the first man said. His hair was short
as well. “Eat up. There’s plenty more where that came from.” Jonny
grinned, then turned to smile at the woman holding him. She smiled
warmly back, flashing her pearly whites. Not the worst place to end up.
Yes, he could definitely get used to this.
    “So,” a voice said, “what did I miss?” Jonny looked up to see the
new comer-

                                                            And froze.

    “Hey!” Lips cried happily. “What took you so long?”
    “Traffic,” she said as she rifled through a large canvas bag,
carelessly slung over one shoulder. She reached back and brushed a stray
lock of brown hair from her eyes and pushed both hands into her bag.
“You wouldn’t believe the traffic I ran into. It was nuts.” Jonny
checked her up and down, hoping his eyes were lying to him and this
wasn’t really the stewardess from beyond the gates of hell. Jonny gulped
in dread. Twenty-twenty vision does not lie. “So, what I miss?”
    “Not too much.” Jonny’s greeter said. “Just the meeting of a new
friend and an additional diner.”
She laughed. “How is anyone you eat with a friend, Kyle? You don’t even
know them.” She chuckled. “So, who’s this new guy? Any one I know?”
    “Doubt it,” Kyle returned, popping a cracker topped with humus in
his mouth. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
    “Nah.” The brown haired woman stamped her foot impatiently at her
friend’s avoidance of the question, even as she continued to rifle
through her possessions.
    “You are so annoying, Kyle Locket.”
    “That’s why you love me,” he replied easily with an over dramatic
twang in his words.
    “Whatever you say.” Sara made a huffing sound of disagreement in the
back of her throat. Finding whatever it was she had been searching for,
she looked up from her bag to greet the new comer-

                                                               And
froze.
*******************************************************************************************