#billjoe

Bill Guarnere - not so secret cheese hipster.

Their first real fight is because Bill found out that Joe bought pre-sliced processed american cheese for his sandwiches. “Yeah, and? It’s convenient.”

“It’s unnatural is what it is. And it doesn’t even taste like cheese.”

“You know there’s more than one way for cheese to taste, right?”

“Yeah. And it’s not. like. that.”

Bill gets his parmesan from a place that imports the real stuff, and he doesn’t hold with these knock-off cheeses from other places calling themselves parmesan - that’s illegal in italy for a reason, don’tcha know. All Joe wanted was a bit of extra flavour he could put in his sandwiches without it taking extra time to make ‘em not a whole debate about how he's somehow personally insulted Bill's entire family, but if Bill cares so much about what he puts in his sandwiches then Bill can fucking make 'em from now on.

"If it'll keep that shit outta my goddamn refrigerator you bet I will," Bill says.

·        who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

bill is the werewolfwho is top dog of the philly pack and likes to sneak out of the city to runwild on the full moons. Joe is a hunter who is about to take down a stag whensuddenly this enormous wolf comes out of nowhere and takes it down before hecan get off a shot. For the rest of the hunt the wolf beats him to every killhe gets, until the sun comes up right as he’s about to take down the last oneand suddenly there’s no wolf just a naked guy laughing at him but also offeringto help clean up the kills.

After that Billmakes a semi-regular nuisance of himself and Joe complains that he doesn’t knowif the giant kill stealing wolf is more annoying or the philly guy who doesn’tseem to understand the concept of ‘going to be arrested for public indecency’.He starts to bring some of his clothes for bill to wear, but that honestly mightbe worse

·        who’s the mermaid and who’s the fishermanon a boat

bill is on the boatand very, very drunk because theyrented the boat as part of his brothers bachelor party and so when he goes fromleaning over the back of the boat groaning drunkenly to leaning over the backof the boat babbling to ‘a merman you guys! an actual fuckin’ merman what thefuck’ the others all just laugh and ignore him, and honestly when Bill wakes upthe next day and remembers it he also laughs and thinks, what the fuck was inthose last few drinks. Except his family has a beach house on that stretch ofcoast that’s shared between the many relatives and every time he goes backthere for a party or a bbq he keeps catching the merman watching him from thewater even when he’s not drunk at all, so one day he decides to go and spend aweek alone at the beach house and try and get proof.

(he gets photos buthe also destroys them because in the process he gets to talking frankly withJoe who is pretty vocal about how he will find a way out of the water to fuckbill’s shit up if Bill exposes him and bill kinda likes his attitude.)

·        who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Bill is the witch,in your face and never afraid to flash his power about and Joe is the familiar thatalways lurks by his side as a quiet threat to back up Bill’s brash words.

·        who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Joe is the baristaand Bill is the asshole who thinks it really funny to always come in and orderoff menu the most ridiculous combinations until what he has is basically ahighly caffeinated mix of whipped cream and syrup. He likes to mention thesecret menu and wink dramatically despite the fact that Joe’s pointed out atleast a dozen times that they aren’t in a starbucks and even if they were that’snot a real thing.

·        who’s the professor and who’s the TA

aaahhh this was a particularly tricky one, neither of them really give off a professor vibe to me, but I didthink of them both being exasperated TA’s to the very very incompetentprofessor Dike and basically hijacking his lessons because half the time he’stalking rubbish and the other half he’s leaving the room to take a phonecall orget a coffee in the middle of the class, so Bill ends up taking the stage whenhe leaves the room and doing a crash course that will get them through the examand Joe is like, “Don’t go to Dike’s office hours. Dike doesn’t go to Dike’soffice hours. Just email us”, and them commiserating together about Dike’sawfulness and how one day they’re going to see him sacked

·        who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Joe is the princeand Bill is the knight who never went easy on him or hesitated to knock him onthe ass when Joe trains with the knights while all the others were letting himwin. Bill immediately became Joe’s personal sparring partner and soon afterthat friends - they have been attached at the hip ever since and while Joe’sparents plan suitable matches for his sisters, partners that will make themhappy but also strengthen the kingdom’s wealth and key political ties, theynever even talked about Joe because it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that there’sonly one person their future king is interested in spending the rest of hislife with.

·        who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Joe is the teacherand Bill is the parent who encourages free-range children and independence andhas taught his little girl to hit bullies not make nice with them which has gother in trouble more than once so when he gets called up two weeks after shestarts a new school about her getting in a fight with some boy he’s ready tomake the usual arguments. But when he gets there instead of a teacher givinghim a pitying look and speaking in a soft voice about how Hattie needs topractise being a good little girl and controlling her temper, he finds himselffacing vice-principal Toye who looks as pissed off as he feels and tells himthat disciplinary measures in line with the school bullying policy have alreadybeen agreed upon and Bill is just starting to bristle when he turns to Hattieand tells her well done for standing up for herself, and damn, Bill thinks they’vefinally found the right place after all

·        who’s the writer and who’s the editor