relentless

“Mhmm.”

“Wait, really? Wait, please.”

“Right, okay, so— if you’re guessing your match to be a girl, we have, for you, Cheri, Opal, Presley, Steph, and Summer. Summer’s a little less likely, in my eyes, because I’m speculating that her and Jake might be a match. Then, I know you picked Cheri last beam ceremony. I have my own theories about who the four beams were, and I didn’t consider the two of you to be one of them, but you can fight me on that if you want. Same goes for Opal, again, not set in stone, but probable, so—” Rory looked up from his notebook, “I think your best bets are with Presley or Steph.” He grinned. “I’d envy you for either of them.”

“’Course not. Put us a lot closer to getting it right.”

“That’s what I figured, too.”

“At this point, I feel like the world is my oyster–so, thank you–but, uh…god, there’s like…it’s weird because I’m like, ‘Damn, I wanna be with all these girls, but damn, that’s not very narrowed down,’ you know?”

“I could help.”

“Yeah, good job.”

“...That sounds insincere.”

“I mean, you should be proud. I don’t think anyone on this show has ever done anything like that, and if your brothers threaten to hate-crime you, we can, like, run away or something, us and our matches.”

“They haven’t. I’ve watched it all.”

“Dude! Our hero!” Virginia held up a hand for Rory to high-five.

“I feel an irrational amount of pride for someone who is probably going to get hate-crimed by his brothers.”

Caige shrugged. “It’s not ideal, sure, but it could have been worse. Besides, there’s only one confirmed gay man in the house. There’s bound to be more misses than hits. Doesn’t sink my battleship, ya know?”

“That’s-- that’s good,” he nodded, Resting his chin on his hands, Rory just stared at Caige for a few seconds. He had a nice face. “We could probably be a match, to be honest,” he shrugged. “Even though I promised my brothers I’m straight.”

“I should have signed up for the Bachelor. Too many children.”

Wanna be fruity tonight?

“...Yeah, but don’t tell Chad, he’ll hang me from a flagpole.”

“Ugh, sorry about that.”

“I’ve gotten a few glares, but I’ve tried to ignore him. Has he been alright with you?”

“Uh, he... well, he was fine at first, but then I jokingly called him a dick and it just... cascaded downward, into really vague and angry political talk, and... I mentioned Trump at one point, because I’m... an idiot, and it just-- it was bad.”

“Truth be told, y’always look a lil down. That just tells me y’need some more happy in your life. Wanna go dance?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

“Donald Trump is a politician who finally has this country’s best interest in mind. He’s not going to go around sucking the dick of every person who wants to hold hands and pretend everyone in the world is on equal footing and should be able to waltz into each others houses at free will and borrow whatever they want. He knows the other side is going to play to the weaklings in the country and is sick of seeing what was once the greatest place on Earth falling into the ruin of hippie yuppies and their rainbow ideals!”

What’s your favorite, Rory boy?

“Uh... I dunno, it all tastes different shades of overwhelming. Surprise me.”