LCU, just one key (part 2)

LCU, fall semester, 2082 (part 2 of 2). *optional soundtrack, "Get Together, by the Youngbloods*

*** I had a blast playing these three, so this is MEGA-LONG! I couldn't find a logical place to break it though, and it's mostly picture/dialogue-heavy, so it shouldn't feel too bad ;) ***

It's a lovely night in October, the air is crisp, but not very cold yet. The soccer field smells like cut grass and young men sweating. They're watching Tyler's soccer practice, or not exactly watching, but discussing the wonders of life. Which brings April Hutchins to a very important question.

She turns to her best friend, Beau, and says, "So I'm not saying I'm going to try or anything, but I just want to know, would you hate me forever if I hooked up with Summer?"

"You?"

"Yeah," she says.

"No chance," he says. "That girl is straight as an arrow."

"Everybody tries it once in college, especially if there's a keg involved."

"Have you?"

"Sure."

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure... well, once. Nobody you know. So would you?"

Beau thinks about this. "What makes you think it'd be you?"

"Well it wouldn't be you," April says.

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it. She said it would be an 'impossible alternate reality.'"

"What does that mean?"

"When we were talking about the Beau Jackson sandwich," she says.

He chokes on his own saliva. "What?"

"Yeah, the Beau Jackson sandwich. She said an 'impossible alternate reality where Tyler doesn't exist.' Well, he exists, so no chance buddy... But she didn't say anything about the girl part."

Beau thinks about this some more, vivid details entering his mind, lingerie being tugged, lipstick being smeared. He says, "Can I watch?"

In reality though, he's actually about 23% mad at Summer, on his brother's behalf. And speak of the devil, and here comes Summer strolling toward the bleachers where they're sitting. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," April says. "I invited her."

"Why would you do that?"

"She's our friend! It's not our fault they can't get along, and besides, she asked. She wanted to see him practice. She said she promised him, or something."

Beau reminds himself that he's mad at her - the despicable woman she is! - until she smiles at them, the way she smiles at everyone, sly with a flicker of her eyelashes. It's not a wonder the whole world is in love with her.

She hugs April, or maybe April moved to hug her first. She plops down in between them and says, "Hi, Beau." Again, Beau reminds himself that he's mad at her.

Half-way across the stadium, Tyler can see her, but in truth, it was her voice he heard first. In further truth, he imagines he might have smelled her perfume. Tyler never even smelled lavender until he smelled it on her skin. She sees him too, their eyes locked as Beau and April carry on about some thing or another.

Tyler has forgotten where he is, not just at practice, but on the field in the middle of practice.

"Hey, Jackson," someone calls. A spinning ball hurtles a few dozen miles an hour toward his head.

Too fast to dodge.

They rush onto the field as he lifts his head from the ground. Coach Collins is talking something about distractions and focus. Tyler looks straight ahead of him, her foggy shape coming into clarity in the stadium lights.

Summer mouths the words, "I'm sorry."

Tyler wonders, for which part?

Tyler gets up and starts to walk.

"I shouldn't have come," Summer says.

"Well that was a no-brainer," Beau says.

April only starts to sing, "Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another, right now..."

They just stand there as Tyler walks off, away, all the way home.

***

The very first thing Beau said when he set foot in his new dorm room is, "Now how are we going to get that bubble blower in here?" And April said, "Oh, we can get it in here!" Because when it comes to bubble blowers, extreme measures must be taken. He crams his bed up against the wall, he'll steal his brother's boxers and April's sweatshirts and make do without his own dresser. Maybe they'll never leave this room. They'll hang up a sign and call it Beau's Den of Love, Peace, and Harmony. And it will be bliss.

April says, "Did you read that book for class?"

He says, "What book?"

"I don't know," she says, laughing. "The one with words in it."

Tyler finds them, and Beau says, "Take a puff, man, it's good for the soul!"

So Tyler does, and it is surprisingly good for the soul.

April has sort of taken Tyler under her wing this semester. She'd take them all under her wing if she could. April has no problem with the fuzzy line between her wanting to guide his soul through life, and wanting to squeeze that fine ass, but Tyler is a little squeamish about it.

She's been known to creep into the bathroom, claiming she has to pee and just can't hold it, to steal a peek at that ass through the shower curtain. Can you blame her? He's grown up smoking hot! Everybody thinks so! He's an athlete and his body is an exquisite example of male form at its peak. Really, she loves Beau with all her heart, and Beau is truly adorable in his own clueless way, but Tyler is definitely the more built of the two.

He says, "Who's out there?"

"Nobody," she says.

"April, is that you? What the hell! Get out of here!"

April is harmless though. April has a crush on everybody. She just wants to give Tyler a pep-talk. "You should kiss another girl," she says. "It's a good simple start. Do you want to practice on me?"

"Um, no," he says. "You screw my brother. That's gross." He doesn't really know how to define what Beau and April are doing with each other, but he knows he isn't hard up for any sloppy seconds.

Tyler is perfectly capable of fending for himself. So he gives it a shot, an actual conversation in the kitchen over cereal. "Hi, I'm Tyler," he says.

"Iris," she says.

"So I have a soccer game later this week, if you wanted to..."

"I have a boyfriend," she says.

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, that's what I meant, bring your boyfriend, it'll be a blast..."

April suggests he might undertake some calming activities, in addition to a couple daily doses of the bubble blower. He tries catching butterflies, but it's just not working out for him. His anger is through the roof these days - he feels like he could squeeze the life out of these damn butterflies!

But he won't have to harm any butterflies, because this cow mascot just picked on the wrong dude!

And then he picked on the wrong dude's brother - Beau is a sensitive soul, even if he won't admit it.

So, having to defend his brother's honor, Tyler finds the perfect way to unload some aggression. He appreciates April's efforts with her calming rituals, but Tyler has always been more inclined to just let it all out.

This is SO much better than a punching bag!

Other than picking fights and getting picked on, the boys are quite studious in their first semester of college. Maybe everybody is. You could probably sleep through Freshman Comp and still get an A. They manage to function, and Tyler doesn't seem to notice that his butterflies have died without his help after all.

***

Frosh Hall is undergoing renovations this year as the school's fiscal budget is halfway to being renewed. The boys enjoy the huge flat-screen TV and new couches.

The girls get a bigger bathroom with a tub.

The kitchen is redone as well, but April can't believe she actually has to take a turn cleaning it. She says, "Who, me? Really?"

They have to cook their own meals as well. It's part of teaching them to be self-sustaining grown-ups.

And in their brand new, shiny clean kitchen, April is trying to convince Tyler to come out for the night. Tyler says, "Fuck dating! I don't need any damn dates! I already know what I want."

April says, "The point of being on a break is to enjoy the company of assorted ladies so that you might come to a more knowledgeable decision on the relationship."

"What?" Tyler says.

"Come on, ask me," she says. "It'll be a practice date, a non-date, not a date at all."

Beau actually has a date with Yvette, who he's been keeping in touch with since graduation, and he doesn't know about these guys, but he's already half out the door.

"Fine," April says. "I won't even try to grab your butt! I won't even look at your butt!"

"You won't even think about it," he says.

"I can't promise that," she says.

Tyler practices asking her out, and Beau looks on ominously. That's enough practice, he thinks.

They just walk across the street to the campus pub. Beau and Evie light up the karaoke machine. Evie isn't sure, but she thinks Beau just might be the corniest young man alive!

April is trying to convince Tyler to ask out that hot little thing with the long legs and short skirt. She says, "Man, she's on fire! If you don't do it, I will. I'm dead serious."

Tyler isn't interested in that one, and says, "Go on then, knock yourself out!"

So April finds him another, but she doesn't know why she bothers because this chip on his shoulder is going to scare them all away.

She says, "Geez, I'm cutting you loose, dude! You're bringing my aura down with your ugliness!"

So April moves on to score her a piece of this scruffy hippie dude, and this other girl is somehow not scared off by Tyler's seething anger.

Beau, on the other hand, has a lovely night with Evie. He hopes it isn't presuming too much, but he wonders if she'd like to stroll across the street back to his dorm with him. Beau's Den of Love, Peace, and Harmony, and he's emphasizing the love.

And then it dawns on him that maybe he is, in fact, the corniest young man alive!

Tyler's date is Caroline, and once he stops scowling at her, they actually have a pretty nice chat. He tells her about his promising soccer career.

They flirt a little. And hey, look, she even made Tyler laugh!

So having nearly hit it off, he invites her back with them to tell her about the love of his life.

Every pretty smile just brings him back to Summer. He's trying to enjoy the company of beautiful young women, but he's just unsettled about it. It just doesn't feel right - he'd rather be working out, or actually working on his term paper. If he can't love Summer, then he just doesn't want to love.

He's come to terms that she wants space. He's fine with that. Maybe it is healthy for them after all at this point in their lives. But it's the disconnect that's killing him. It's that she cut him off cold.

Unfortunately for Caroline, as ridiculously hot as he may be, he just looks like a load of baggage at this point. She says, "Um, I'm going. Thanks for, uh... the lovely evening?"

Meanwhile, Beau does manage to get Evie into his dorm room, which somehow feels like a bigger deal than maybe it should. After all, she's been in his bedroom plenty of times before, messing around together in the 9th and 10th grades. He loved her then, in the way a fifteen year-old boy loves. Maybe that means he still loves her now. The difference is that they're older, and the weight of things has changed.

"Wait," she says, before they even get very far at all. "Are we serious then?"

He says, "Is that what you want?"

She's a little embarrassed to tell him, so she doesn't - this would actually her first time. "Well, I don't just do that with anybody, you know?"

"I'm not just anybody," he says.

"Okay then," she says.

He means what he says, he really does care about her a lot. He might even love her, since he loved her before, and he figures love probably carries forward, like budget surpluses or something...

He had no idea he'd be jumping into a steady relationship when the night started, but he won't be thinking about that until tomorrow. Right now, all he's thinking about is that he's wanted Yvette Bachman ever since he was fifteen years-old, and he's about to get very lucky.

***

The bubble blower was a fun idea and all, but it's starting to lose its appeal lately. There are people using it already in the morning when he wakes up. They just invite themselves into his room and sit down, this blonde girl especially. It's not supposed to be addictive, but she sure does seem to like it a lot!

In the middle of the day, when Beau is away at classes, his Den of Love, Peace, and Harmony is alive and well. April and Blondie invite random strangers to puff away at the thing all day long.

And Blondie is even there all the way through the evening. What guy is going to complain that he has a bunch of totally cute girls in his room, flying high as kites? But this guy apparently has a girlfriend now, so all these beautiful young ladies are kind of pointless.

And a dude's got to sleep!

So he leaves the Den of Love, Peace, and Harmony behind, and crawls into April's bed. "Can I bunk here?" he asks, already climbing under the covers.

"I don't care," she says, half sleeping still.

"There's a bunch of hot girls in my room if you're interested," he says.

"They're all straight," she says. "I already checked." He curls up around her. "I can feel your hard-on," she says.

"You like it," he says.

"I bet Evie likes it," she says, teasing him, saying her lyrical pet-name with a sing-songy lilt.

He laughs. "Oh, I guess we're kind of a couple now."

It takes a moment for that fact to settle in. They had a good thing going, but it looks like cuddles might be the most she gets from him from now on. Her tone is flat when she whispers, "Ball and chain, baby."

Tyler spends that night at home. He misses his parents. Talking to his father has never exactly been a fountain of wisdom, but his father does know one thing, that we all just get older and nobody ever really figures it out.

Tyler misses his dog. He walks Mary Jane that morning. He walks her twice actually, but then she goes to sleep and he's the one who still needs walking.

It's not a coincidence what street he walks down, on each of these walks. The third time, Summer comes outside. It's seven-thirty and she's in pajamas.

She says, "You've been by three times this morning."

"I'm walking the dog," he says.

"Where's Mary Jane?"

He says, "What?"

"The dog," she says. "Where is she?" He doesn't answer, but just mumbles something to himself and starts to move away. "Do you want to talk?" she asks.

He thinks about it a long time, then he says, "No, I don't want to talk." He starts to walk away, but then stops, turns around and he says, "Wait, do you want to not talk?"

"Okay?" she says. She takes him up to her room. Her dad is on the computer in the living room, her sister is in the shower. Nobody notices a thing and she locks the door behind them.

He is quiet and brooding, running through all the things he has to say to her, but likely won't, until he looks up to realize that she's cut her hair differently, again, and he thinks it's cute. He starts to smile, and says, "I like your hair."

She was an awkward-looking girl when they first got together, but she gets more beautiful every single day. He's seen so many incarnations of her in their years, and each one more beautiful than the last.

Where did he go wrong, he wonders? How did he mess this up so badly? But what he says is, "How do you like not having a boyfriend?"

"Don't be spiteful," she says.

It's all he needs, not the calming rituals, and not the punching bags, but just Summer Phoenix to tell him, don't be spiteful, and he won't be.

"Can I hug you?" he asks.

"You don't have to ask," she says.

He reaches out to her the way he did when they were in junior high, timid and careful, poised for rejection. She smiles at him the way she used to, which says that he's always welcome. He gathers her in his hands and pulls her to him. It feels new, like their first kiss, but five-years-loaded.

He tries to kiss her, which would be what he meant by not talking. But first, she wants to talk. She doesn't know what to say though, since every time she tries, she just ends up getting it wrong.

"I think you were right about something," she says. "I still don't want a boyfriend, but it doesn't mean we can't still see each other. I don't even know what to tell you, except that I love you, and can we please keep things simple? I want you to be my best friend again. Please don't hate me."

"I don't hate you," he says. They hug, and then he says, "So, can we still have sex?"

She laughs. And she lets him kiss her.

He pulls her over to the bed and they lay down. It's only been three months and they haven't lost any of their familiarity. Together they're perfect, and it's even resolving. She lifts the anger from him and brings him peace.

Then when they're finished, she bounces out of bed with a boisterous laugh, and says, "Thanks for the lay, hot stuff! You can go now."

He doesn't laugh.

"Oh come on," she says. "It was funny! I was just kidding. You wanna hang out or something?"

She wants to have it both ways, and doesn't have the slightest how to wrap his head around that. He can love her, but not be with her? He can be with her sometimes, but not forever? Or maybe forever, some day, but not right now? It can be very simple, she says. He isn't sure if this makes things simple, or only more complicated.


Report Cards for 2082, Fall

Beau, freshman, undecided: A+
Tyler, freshman, undecided: A+
April, freshman, art: A+

*****

notes: Well, the hook-up was entirely their idea, lol! Are these two making you pull your hair out yet? :)

He walked by her house three times, and the last time, he didn't even want to kick over the trash can, so I figured she should talk to him. He didn't want to talk, he actually walked off the lot, and then (OMG, seriously!) reappeared, and they both went straight to bed.

They both feared becoming each other's enemy though, so they're happy to be friends again.

I've always liked the 20 first dates LTW - I find it romantic, in a way. In real life terms, I could only imagine that all those first dates mean that someone wanted to search the world for just that perfect person to share their life with. Why else go on first dates? First dates suck, lol! Then after meeting all those people, they would be fulfilled (= perma-plat) and ready to settle down with just that perfect match.

So then I reveal the second part of this tragic tale - a while back, Tyler rerolled his LTW, like what happens sometimes when installing a new mod or whatever. I usually just put it back to whatever it was supposed to be, but in this case he rolled the same want, but instead of 20 first dates, he rolled 10. (I have the reduced and expanded mod). On top of that, I had his voice in my head, clear as day - fellow writers will understand this, the rest of you might think I'm crazy ;) - and he says, "Fuck dating. I don't need any damn dates. I already know what I want."

Have you ever had a Sim tell you to fuck their LTW? LOL! Well that's our Tyler, bleeding-heart romantic that he is. He only needs 4 more dates though, and then it's perma-plat for life. Maybe I should make him go on the dates anyway? Or should I let him fuck his own LTW? I mean, it is his life, after all.

LOL, Sims! How does anyone get bored of this stuff?

April, like most of the other women in Lakeside Heights, has a huge crush on Tyler! She even rolled a want to fall in love with him on their date, and Tyler *did* want to kiss her, by the way, besides the ick-factor of it. But they barely have three bolts, and she likes Beau much better, so they're not going there. LOL, she actually likes their dad better than both of them! She such a tart, lol!

I've never really played those multiple love wants before, because I generally don't believe in that on a moralistic principal. I mean, it happens by accident all the time, but I don't think many people actually go out into the world seeking to fall in love with a bunch of people at the same time - I wish they'd written that want differently. I wish it was to fall in love x-number of times, but not necessarily simultaneous. I know there are plenty of people who are kind of flighty with love, and always want something new, and I wish the want reflected that instead. Maybe we can pretend that it does.

Anyway, I can see this with April. Not necessarily seeking the sex, but she seems like the kind of girl who could genuinely love the whole world at the same time. So maybe we'll see where that goes...

Which leads us to this situation, which I suspected might happen... I haven't seen it roll back again though, so maybe it's just a passing thought? Good thing he'd never actually ask!

Everybody's all hot for Lucy to come to college, btw, and nobody really cares if Summer ever comes to college or not, lol! Lucy has three more years of high school! That's really annoying because now their want panels are all clogged up with it. Can't they wait until she's older?