I'll Never Be Good, and That's Not Bad

Adella had just logged into her computer behind the receptionist’s desk and looked up - and up - to greet Ralph with her standard sunny smile but it was so, so very forced today. If she felt this terribly, how must Attina feel? It wasn’t fair. Thinking about it just made her want to cry, but life can’t stop on account of Attina, Panic, and Amelia. It goes on.

“Good morning, Ralph.” The greeting wasn’t followed by a dumb joke, or a ‘guess what?’ like usual. 

“How was your weekend?” Adella remembered to ask, because that’s normally what Adella would say on a Monday. The Swynlake gossip game meant that hopefully he wouldn’t ask her the same.

Oh yeah, something was majorly wrong. Usually at this point in the conversation, she had already made three bad puns and one innuendo, but no. Not this morning. There was just an awkward, pasted on grin and weird small talk.

Shit. He wasn’t equipped for this.

“It was... forty-eight hours of my life passing by, I guess,” Ralph said with a shrug. “Nothing exciting.” He almost asked “And you?” but his brain - for fucking once - did its damn job and stopped his foot before it got to his mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Ralph tapped a finger nervously on the lid of the cake box before pushing it towards her. “I uh... Didn’t get a chance to call on Saturday, but I know it was your birthday so... here.”

“AHHH!” Mei screamed when she heard a voice from behind her. She tightened her grip on the shovel and wielded it like a baseball bat at-

See, Mei was short. And when she didn’t immediately see a face her first thought was ‘headless horseman?’ but when she looked up, and up, and up- oh, just a man with a head attached.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to sneak up on people? I ‘ave a shovel!”

Ooooh yikes. Yeah this Small Child was not prepared to be out at Murderin’ Hours if all she was armed with was a shovel and a Can Do attitude. Ralph simply cocked an eyebrow at her.

Mei Kusakabe had a very, very good reason for being out after curfew. Right, so its a long story but it goes like this:

She was minding her own business trying to do her homework at Hatters a couple days ago when she made the mistake of making eye contact with a ghost. Mei was not afraid of ghosts, mind you, but her mother taught her to get good at pretending not to see them until you were ready to engage. Ghosts you already know won’t be fooled but new ghosts could sometimes be tricked into playing by your rules, into doing things on your terms.

Her mother made it look so simple and like it was as easy as walking and as automatic as breathing. One foot in front of the other, ignore the ghosts until you wanted to speak to them, inhale exhale. 

If only.

Mei was not fortunate enough to avoid the attention of one Dottie Leonard, dearly departed c. 18-oh-maybe-early-19-something. Dottie needed her help, see, and Mei was too kind to deny her help even to ghosts.

“Are you sure you buried it somewhere near the forest?” Mei whispered.

“Are you saying I would have forgotten where I buried my most valuable possession?”

“I mean, it’s been a while…it could have been found.”

“I’ve been guarding it.”

“…okay. And who am I giving it to?”

“My descendants! They’ve come upon hard times, they can sell it for a good amount of money.”

“Uh-huh.”

So, fast forward two hours and several holes in the dirt later, Mei had still not found “it” whatever valuable item “it” was. Dottie wouldn’t tell her.

She pulled the surgical mask down to her chin and whisper-snapped at Dottie “It must be somewhere else. It sure isn’t here!”

Actually no. He hadn’t been able to sleep and was trying to go for a walk in the wooded areas by his house to calm his restless mind. No one worried about the curfew this far out of town, though as he wandered closer to the border between the mundane woods and Enchantra, he made sure to keep an eye out.

His ears were perked as well, which is why he heard the whispers before he saw anything. Ralph’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. The voice was young. As in, way too young to be out past curfew. He was nearing thirty and thus old enough to decide to risk either his life or the annoyance of the SLPD, but a lone teen sure wasn’t.

He could probably just head home and ignore it... He didn’t want to have to play the role of Strict Asshole Adult. But then the voice snapped and Ralph remembered that girl from a few years back who’d been killed in the woods and sighed. Better safe than sorry.

Well O’Malley had thought he had seen almost everything when it came to Swynlake. A man carrying a tree through the town hadn’t been part of that list before.  And over all this was just a bad mistake waiting to happen. And O’Malley would enjoy watching that from the sidelines.

“Can you even seen over that? Or are you about to walk into someone? I’m trying to figure out if we need some air traffic singles out here.”

Oh, the peanut gallery had arrived. There was always one.

“See, the good thing is, even if I did the damage would be minimal,” Ralph said dryly, shifting the tree on his shoulder slightly so he could look at the man. “I might ruffle someones hair at worst.”

It was part of the reason the job fell to Ralph every year, after all. Towering over most of the town meant that even on his shoulder, the tree was mostly above head level. But of course, saying that out loud would be asking for the universe to prove him wrong.

Attina had signed up for the Halloween party, and, in doing so, was on track to complete her community service hours in record time! According to her parole officer. Which, you know, being on parole wasn’t exactly a competition, but Attina was glad she was better than all the other convicts out there!

Maybe, with good behavior and an even better lawyer, she could even get her conviction revoked in a year or so.

It really hadn’t been that bad in the end. Hardly a punishment. Not that Tina went around saying that to people. She did just like volunteering anyway. Her resume would prove that. She’d been volunteering since she was twelve. It was basically a part of her DNA at this point.

And Halloween was one of her favourite holidays! She loved dressing up. She loved candy. She loved, above all, horror movies. (A love shared with Andrina and Alana.)

Which meant, when Ralph squeaked like he was 5′4 and she was 7′6, Attina just giggled and beamed at him. She hadn’t tried to scare him, but that didn’t make it any less funny.

“Hi Ralph! I was wondering if you’d be able to help me in the storage room for a minute? I want to take stock of all the decorations we already have and, apparently, Simba and the rest of the Board decided decorations weren’t super duper important and put them on the top shelves!” She said this like it was some sort of scandal. 

“So, you up for it? I can pay you in quality time with your favourite Triton.” She bargained this as a tease. She knew very well she wasn’t his favourite Triton.

Ralph didn’t pout when Attina laughed at him, but he did frown rather epicly. So what if he spooked easy? He was a big guy constantly trying to be aware of his surroundings; when something unexpected came from those surroundings it was usually cause for more than a little worry.

But at her request, Ralph nodded. “Only using me for my body, I see how it is,” he said, joking in a deadpan that only faltered when Attina began to... tease him? Wait, was she teasing him? Shit, she was.

Adella leaned her head to the side so Ralph could look at her computer screen without her in the way, and once he gave her the little nod of ‘okay, read’ she sat back up and spun around to face him.

“Twenty quid she calls by office closing tomorrow to change something.”

Ralph leaned back against the counter, arms folded over his chest. “That is a sucker’s bet and shame on you for trying it,” he said with a small grin. “I expected better from you.”

Ashlee’s head snapped up as she looked at the person that approached her cautiously. What did they want? And what the hell was he? He towered over Ashlee and she didn’t like it.

“Of course I’m alright. If someone on a bike could ruin my day I would have had my year ruined a long time ago.” Ashlee stated simply moving to her next ankle.  The biker better be thankful she didn’t know who they were.

Oh jeeze, a teenager. Ralph couldn’t say he hated teenagers, but they certainly weren’t high on his List Of People I Don’t Mind Interacting With. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead just taking a deep breath.

@wreckkingitralph

Thank you, Ms. Kaufman, I’ll be sending you an email once your order is in the making. Uh-huh. Yes. Yessss. Yeah-huh. Great! Mm, I’ve noted that, and it looks like there won’t be an issue completing it in that time frame. Have a lovely day, Ms. Kaufman.

Adella finished typing up the information for the order into the company database with one hand as she hung up the phone with the other, eyes not moving off the screen.

“Oi, Ralph!” Adella called out. “Ms. Kaufman specifically requested you for this order, wanna take a look, or are you that super confident in your carpentry skills you’d rather be surprised?”

“If it was literally anyone else but Kaufman, I’d say surprise me,” he said as he walked into the office. Ms. Kaufman had a reputation for changing all the details on her projects last minute. “In this case, let me take a look.”

It was way too early to be up, the sun was barely just rising but honestly, Ashlee couldn’t sleep anymore. She had gotten into another fight with her Father last night and barely could sleep. At this rate he was going to pull her from dance.

And while Ashlee knew that wouldn’t stop her, the fact was until class started again she couldn’t do anything. She was stuck in a mundane routine where she didn’t have dance to break it up. Well, a structured dance class to break it up.

Instead, it left Ashlee going out on runs to avoid the silence of her house music blasting in her headphones as if it could drown out her thoughts.

She had barely gotten into her run when some stupid person on a stupid bike sideswiped her causing Ashlee to go down and them to keep going like an asshole. 

Now’n days, Ralph ran a few times a week. Something around the farmlands near his house, sometimes with Nala, and sometimes on the track by himself. It wasn’t often, mind you, that he ran solo on a public trail, but sometimes Ralph just wanted to look out on that lake and soak in the morning.

And sometimes, douchebag bicyclists nearly ran over everyone on the fucking path. Dick. Ralph nearly reached out to grab the wheel and just pop it in his fist out of spite, but resisted. Instead, he turned back forward - determined to finish his run - and found a young woman sprawled out on the ground, rolling her feet carefully. He immediately went to kneel in front of her, making sure to leave plenty of room between them. He didn’t want to scare any high schoolers before dawn.

Adella hummed and acted out looking around for one. She scrunched up her nose and squinted, and ultimately looked up at the stage all apologetic and sweet. “Regretfully, I don’t see one lying about. Can we reschedule your murder for a later date?”

“And anyway,” Adella said, pushing herself up onto the stage by her passable upper body strength. “I left my crime scene clean up kit in the boot.”

Well, at least she was laughing with him, right? Or at least, as much as she could when neither of them were literally laughing. He’d had worse.

Ralph automatically reached out to help her, although he was too far away to reach her with even his long limbs. “Beginner’s mistake, these shows always result in some form of felony,” he responded. It was his first time as an actor, but he was a long-time crew member, and knew first hand how wild production could get.

“Be careful,” he said as she approached the bridge. “I don’t know how stable it is.”

Greg had only had one earbud in when the sound of cracking reached him. Honestly for a moment he had jumped up in pure fear that he was the one that had somehow broke something while sitting perfectly still in his corner. The fear that Lou was going to literally kill him for destroying something like the no-good person he always seemed to think he was. 

But nothing was broken around him; the materials in his hands still whole and nothing to damage around him. Confusion pushed him to his feet and carried him out of his corner, peaking around the set until he found the source of the disturbance; One Ralph O'Reilly stuck halfway through a…rather important bit of the set. 

Yikes. 

Lips pressed into a sympathetic frown as he glanced over his shoulder, almost as if he was expecting a certain person to come running in already spitting insults and anger at the destruction that occurred. Thankfully….aside from the other man’s words, it was quiet. 

Perhaps Toulouse was out today. That was all he could hope. 

“Uhm… are you okay?” Gregory asked first and foremost, stepping up beside the bridge and trying to see if there was an easy way for the man to move without… well making matters worse for either himself or the set. “…is there any way I could uhm… maybe help you.. out of there?” 

“Physically? I’m fine. Otherwise? Absolutely mortified,” Ralph admitted. His only consolation was that most of the theatre was empty at the moment, most of the cast having the day off and only a few members of the crew running around. And the members of the crew that were nearby knew that laughing at Ralph meant no more asking Ralph for help, and that seemed to be enough to keep the laughter to a minimum.

Ber was looking for Simba. Because, yeah, he had lost Simba.

This was a pretty common occurrence. Simba had a way of disappearing at play practice, dragged off by a kid who needed him or otherwise getting occupied with a hundred other things. One second, Ber could have Simba in his sights– the next, he could check his texts, look up, and find Simba was gone. 

This was one of those times. 

So Ber went wandering and he stopped short when he came across Ralph O’Reilly, lookin’ like he’d lost a battle with the infamous Death Bridge. He was half-way consumed in it, like the bridge had opened its giant mouth and taken a chunk of Ralph’s leg. 

Ber’s first thought: Oh, Lou is not gonna like this.

His second thought: Right, he should definitely help out. 

“You alright there?’ said Ber, coming forward a couple more steps, brow furrowed. He glanced behind him, half-expecting Lou to sense the disturbance in the Bridge’s force and come sprinting out at any second. “Lou hasn’t seen you like that by any chance?”

Oh thank god, it was Ralph’s favorite Bonfamille. Not that that was saying much; he didn’t know them all too well as a whole. But he knew Ber the best just because he and Simba had grown up together and were, for all intents and purposes, still good friends. Ralph wasn’t gonna invite Ber out for a guy’s fishing trip anytime soon (mainly because nobody who wasn’t white and in their sixties did that anymore), but they were friendly.

“Not yet, and he never will if I’m lucky,” Ralph said with a sigh. He shifted on the bridge, trying to get a better angle to remove his foot. Unfortunately, the  wood had gripped onto his leg and the fabric of his jeans, and Ralph dropped his head forward with a groan.

Gaston had been in one of the back rooms, nailing a stand into a freshly painted piece of scenery when he’d heard a crash. At first, he’d imagined it had been one of his previous efforts falling to the ground. After all they’d had instruction on how to safely secure things but, like a real man, he’d decided not to listen and work it out himself. 

One of his attempts had already succumbed to gravity and, in an effort to not look like he’d used too many nails, he’d managed to put it back together with an artful combination of bluetack, sticky tape and sheer force, He was pleasantly surprised to discover when he’d entered the main stage that it wasn’t, in fact, one of his pieces that had failed, but the Prom King standing half way through the floor.

“How’s it hanging, Stretch Armstrong?” He laughed, pulling out his phone to take a quick photo to commemorate the moment. “Need a hand?”

You know, if he wasn’t currently stuck in a bridge, Ralph would have just ignored Gaston. After prom and seeing how mopey he had been about losing (to him!), Ralph was pretty sure nothing Gaston did would ever get to him again.

He still got a warm, fuzzy feeling in his stomach when he remembered how annoyed Gaston looked when Ralph, wearing his dumb crown, had spun Adella around the room. Ah, memories.

But Ralph was currently stuck in a bridge, and the urge to break off part of the hand rail and hope he could throw it just hard enough to put the man in a coma was a hard one to resist. He watched his phone rise up, and Ralph made sure that the smaller man caught his snarl and middle finger in the shot. “Please, if you’re going to mock me, at least get some new material,” Ralph said, looking at the ceiling and praying for patience. “You’ve been using that one since the second grade.”