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Entry tags:
- au,
- constants,
- fic,
- fob,
- frank/gerard,
- mcr,
- p!atd,
- patrick/pete,
- ryan ross,
- ryan/bob
PATD/MCR/FOB - Constants 4/8 - PG-13 - Ryan/Bob, Pete/Patrick
It has been a very stressful week for me, both in my personal life and business life. So have some Psychics before the holiday weekend!
Read part 1, part 2 & part 3 first.
Summary: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
TITLE: Constants
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Bob
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys and I’m pretty sure that this has never happened.
Constants 4/8
Bob thought that the Psychics, when they were choosing their Constant, chose someone who was their opposite.
Someone who gave them something that they couldn’t get from anyone else.
Patrick grounded Pete in the here and now, even as much as he professed to want to kill Pete at times Patrick would fight anyone that tried to touch him.
Frank made Gerard live outside his own head. Made him interact with the people living in the world around him.
Bob protected Ryan from harm. He thought that there might be more to it then that, thought that he might also make Ryan feel like he belonged somewhere, that he had people that he could call family and friends and that he had a place that was his home.
It wasn’t as easy to see why Ryan chose him as it was to see why the others had been chosen. But then maybe Bob was too close.
Bob couldn’t help but wonder what Mikey was looking for in his Constant that he hadn’t been able to find at his own Institute. What fates and stars had aligned to bring him to the Mid-West Institute.
And to put his Constant there at the same time.
******************************************************************************
The baby Psychics (as Pete called them and the rest of them followed suit just because) had just come out of seclusion when the Institute had been attacked.
Both had minor injuries and had been placed back in seclusion while the Institute scrambled to make things safe for its occupants once more.
Brendon had been tagged into Ian’s pool and he’d moved out of Bob and Ryan’s and into the dorms just two days prior to the attack.
With the baby Psychics being under wraps once more, those potential Constants that made up their pools had nothing to do and were instead relegated to waiting in the dorms or volunteering for clean up.
Bob found Brendon in his dorm; he was alone, lying on his stomach in his bed reading a magazine that was about three months old.
Bob really hoped that Ryan was right, that he wasn’t dragging Brendon to the infirmary for nothing.
Brendon had friends, he had Spencer and Ryan and he’d made some friends since being tagged into Ian’s pool. But he was still very much alone at the Mid-West Institute. The other potentials were not people that he’d been training all along with, weren’t people that he’d known since he’d been brought in.
Most of the other potentials probably thought it unfair that Brendon hadn’t been sent back to the Vegas Institute. Bob would probably have been one of them once upon a time.
Brendon noticed him standing there and rolled to a sitting position, looking up at Bob with worry in his eyes.
“Ryan’s fine,” Bob said, Brendon’s expression smoothed out so that only confusion remained.
“I need you to come with me,” he gestured towards the door. Brendon stared at him.
Bob arched a brow.
“You’re not going to kill me are you Bob Bryar? Because Ryan would be angry and Spencer would… well Spencer would probably be okay with it and help you hide the body, but…”
“Brendon,” Bob sighed. “I just need you to come with me,” he said, turning and walking out the door. Either Brendon would follow or Brendon wouldn’t.
And if he didn’t it would happen another way, if Ryan was right.
It didn’t matter, Brendon followed.
******************************************************************************
Bob pushed open the door the infirmary and walked inside. Pete was curled up in his bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
Patrick had his head resting beside Pete’s hand on the bed, he was asleep.
Mikey was sitting on Gerard’s bed, the two of them with their heads bent close together talking quietly. Frank was curled up in a ball in the chair, one hand holding Gerard’s, watching them with a small, fond smile on his face.
Ryan was on his side, watching Gerard and Mikey, his eyes were heavy and Bob knew that he was tired and wanted to be sleeping but that he was forcing himself to stay awake because he wanted to see this.
To see what it looked like when it wasn’t happening to him.
He couldn’t see him, but he knew that behind him Brendon was most likely still looking sort of confused as he followed.
He wasn’t asking inane questions anymore at least, he’d given up trying two hallways back when he’d realized that Bob wasn’t going to answer him.
When Brendon walked into the room Mikey seemed to almost snap to attention, his head turning and focusing on Brendon when just seconds before he’d been completely focused on Gerard.
Ryan’s lips curled slightly in satisfaction.
Brendon stopped dead in the center of the room, and the two of them stared at each other.
Gerard’s eyes widened and Pete was watching from his bed with the same interest that Bob remembered from when Patrick had brought him to the Infirmary and he’d been smacked in the face and the mind with Ryan.
Bob went and sat back down beside Ryan’s bed, Ryan squeezed his hand when he offered it.
“Hi, hi, hi,” Brendon sounded ecstatic. Like his birthday and Christmas and every holiday that he loved had come early, he was bouncing on his feet and his face was lit up with a happiness and joy that made Bob realize that Brendon was a pretty fucking fantastic actor… because if this was what he looked like happy he’d most definitely not been happy since he’d come to the Institute and found Ryan had chosen Bob.
Found that what he’d thought had been his one chance to be Chosen had been taken away from him. He’d probably been trying to come to grips with the same things that Bob had been trying to come to grips with before he’d met Ryan.
What to do now that the one thing that he’d been trained for his entire life was no longer an option.
Mikey was looking at him with a half smile that looked surprisingly like Gerard’s.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“I’m Brendon,” Brendon sounded like this was a high that he might never come down from.
Bob wondered if that was something that all of them did, introduce themselves when it wasn’t needed. When their Psychics had known everything about them from the minute their minds had opened to allow them in.
He wondered if Patrick had introduced himself to Pete like Bob had introduced himself to Ryan.
Maybe when he was pawning Brendon of on him to get rooms situated and uniforms in order he’d ask. Patrick was an old hand at it, he’d helped Bob, had helped Frank.
It was practically his job now, besides being Pete’s Constant.
“Mikey.”
The door opened and Brian came in, followed closely by Spencer who had a clipboard in his hands.
Brian stopped in his tracks and Spencer ran into his back. Bob leaned back in his chair as Brian rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling as if asking for guidance.
“Again? Can’t I leave you unsupervised for five fucking minutes?”
******************************************************************************
Patrick didn’t let Bob foist Brendon off on him. Had in fact, taken one look at Brendon bouncing even with Mikey’s arm wrapped tight around his shoulder and declared that it was someone else’s turn.
Bob did it because Ryan had turned wide eyes on him and bit his bottom lip and asked him ‘won’t you please help Brendon get things organized so that he can move out of the dorms and Mikey can move out of the temporary apartments and they can have someplace to be settled together.’
Bob said yes, because Ryan had looked like he expected Bob to say no. He said yes because he always said yes to the things that Ryan managed to find the words to ask him for.
******************************************************************************
William Beckett woke up three days after he and Mikey arrived at the Mid-West Institute.
He was groggy and confused and in pain, half the time he didn’t realize that his Constant was dead; the other half of the time he didn’t seem to know his own name.
Bob didn’t wonder what it would be like to lose the one person that was yours, that was closer then blood to you… he could vividly recall the black, empty space in his mind where Ryan should have been when he’d been trapped and unconscious and not with Bob.
He couldn’t imagine that black, empty space stretching on for all eternity because even though Ryan had been trapped and unconscious and not with Bob, Bob had still known that he was there, that he was alive.
That come hell or high water Bob would get him back beside him.
One of the Psychics stayed with William at all times because they could at least get far enough into his mind when he realized that his Constant was dead to calm him.
******************************************************************************
The Mid-West Institute was one of five that was still standing. That hadn’t been hit structurally as bad as some of the others.
The South-West Institute, the facility that Mikey and William had come to them from, was completely gone. There had been no survivors.
The Vegas Institute, where Ryan had come from, the one that Brendon and Spencer had come from, the one that hadn’t tried to reclaim any of them was also completely gone.
Bob tried not to be thankful that Ryan was with him, that Brendon and Spencer had come after him.
People were dead after all.
But it was hard not to feel relief that they were where they were and that they were all, in most cases, okay. If the Vegas Institute had pushed; if Ryan had gone back and Bob with him, there was no telling if they would still be alive.
If Brendon would even have been there for Mikey to choose.
Survivors were trickling in; most of them were Psychics and Constants that had been out in the field for one reason or another. There were seven Constants that had been on a field trip in New Jersey visiting the museum of Psychic Sciences that were enroute to them.
Half of the survivors were hurt, the other half were scared.
Director Herbitzer was still unconscious in his private rooms so Brian was working overtime trying to find rooms and spaces for all of them, all the private rooms were gone, the dorms were filling up fast.
The lower levels were still not completely stable and there had been talk of moving, though Bob wasn’t sure where the powers that be would find someplace that was just as big as the Mid-West Institute that also afforded them the security to protect themselves.
He wouldn’t put Ryan at risk; he knew that Patrick and Frank felt the same way.
Whoever had done this, had attacked them and almost killed them, they’d gotten inside the facilities that were hit.
That had been the hardest thing to accept.
That whoever had done this had been inside the facilities that were destroyed.
That the only reason that the Mid-West Institute was not among the piles of rubble that had once been proud, strong buildings, was because their attackers had not been able to gain access.
Had instead resorted to planting charges around the outside of the building, probably in the hopes that they would be able to knock out enough supporting walls to bring the building down.
No one had claimed responsibility for the attacks yet. There had been no arrests, nobody brought in for questioning. Bob half-wondered if the government was involved in some way.
Because there was no push to find out how the attacks had happened. How they had succeeded in most cases.
Bob couldn’t look at the lists of casualties. There were too many names and some of them he knew.
He kept Ryan close, Ryan kept Spencer close and he didn’t keep Brendon close but Bob thought that might be because Mikey was keeping Brendon close.
The Psychics were quiet and waiting and Bob didn’t ask what they were waiting for because he really didn’t want to know if they were waiting for another attack.
******************************************************************************
“We’re at capacity,” Brian said.
They were meeting every day to talk about how to handle the influx of survivors.
“The lower levels?” Pete asked, he was leaning forward, elbows planted on the table, fingers pressed into his temples rubbing in small circles. Patrick was sitting beside him with his hand touching his back.
Bob didn’t look at the chair to his right that was empty; Ryan was on William Beckett duty. Bob would fill him in when he went to sit with him until it was Gerard’s turn.
“The crews are working as fast as possible, but I don’t know if we want to put people down there when that was the worst hit during the first attack.”
Frank curled just the tiniest bit more into Gerard’s side, Patrick began rubbing Pete’s back, Bob clenched his hands into fists under the table and the Ryan in his mind smiled shyly at him and blew him a kiss.
******************************************************************************
The seven Constants that arrived looked three types of pathetic, wet and shivering and no one had mentioned that there was actually eight of them.
The eighth was a Normal and one of the Constants had probably never been chosen and stayed at his Institute in some other sort of capacity.
Jon Walker and Gabe Saporta herded their six Constants in waiting through the door and they cast wary glances behind them until the doors firmly shut.
Ryan was beside him, part of the official ‘welcome to the Mid-West Institute, we have no where to put you unless you feel like sharing a bed with five other people’ committee.
Brian ticked off names and beside him as well as inside his mind Bob could feel Ryan pushing at each one of the Constants, he didn’t like it, didn’t like Ryan gaining access to anyone’s mind but his.
Which he knew was stupid because Ryan and Pete and Gerard and to a lesser extent Mikey all lived in each other’s minds, each had free reign to come and go as they willed. If William Beckett ever regained his lucidity he’d probably join those ranks.
They did their jobs by linking with each other and sharing information and talents.
Ryan did this because whoever had attacked them had been inside their sister facilities. There was no telling if one of the survivors was actually someone who ultimately meant them harm.
Spencer and Worm led them off to get them settled in rooms and Brian and Bob both turned to Ryan.
Ryan looked disturbed, Bob waited, Brian tapped his pen against his clipboard.
“Walker and Saporta, as well as one of the kids are all shielding, they’re strong shields, I couldn’t push without them knowing I was there pushing.”
Bob and Brian shared a look; Bob glanced over his shoulder where Zack was straightening to his full height in the doorway, arms crossing over his chest.
Shielding meant there was something behind them being hidden.
Something like the fact that they might have just invited their attackers into their home.
******************************************************************************
Read part 1, part 2 & part 3 first.
Summary: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
TITLE: Constants
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Bob
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys and I’m pretty sure that this has never happened.
Constants 4/8
Bob thought that the Psychics, when they were choosing their Constant, chose someone who was their opposite.
Someone who gave them something that they couldn’t get from anyone else.
Patrick grounded Pete in the here and now, even as much as he professed to want to kill Pete at times Patrick would fight anyone that tried to touch him.
Frank made Gerard live outside his own head. Made him interact with the people living in the world around him.
Bob protected Ryan from harm. He thought that there might be more to it then that, thought that he might also make Ryan feel like he belonged somewhere, that he had people that he could call family and friends and that he had a place that was his home.
It wasn’t as easy to see why Ryan chose him as it was to see why the others had been chosen. But then maybe Bob was too close.
Bob couldn’t help but wonder what Mikey was looking for in his Constant that he hadn’t been able to find at his own Institute. What fates and stars had aligned to bring him to the Mid-West Institute.
And to put his Constant there at the same time.
The baby Psychics (as Pete called them and the rest of them followed suit just because) had just come out of seclusion when the Institute had been attacked.
Both had minor injuries and had been placed back in seclusion while the Institute scrambled to make things safe for its occupants once more.
Brendon had been tagged into Ian’s pool and he’d moved out of Bob and Ryan’s and into the dorms just two days prior to the attack.
With the baby Psychics being under wraps once more, those potential Constants that made up their pools had nothing to do and were instead relegated to waiting in the dorms or volunteering for clean up.
Bob found Brendon in his dorm; he was alone, lying on his stomach in his bed reading a magazine that was about three months old.
Bob really hoped that Ryan was right, that he wasn’t dragging Brendon to the infirmary for nothing.
Brendon had friends, he had Spencer and Ryan and he’d made some friends since being tagged into Ian’s pool. But he was still very much alone at the Mid-West Institute. The other potentials were not people that he’d been training all along with, weren’t people that he’d known since he’d been brought in.
Most of the other potentials probably thought it unfair that Brendon hadn’t been sent back to the Vegas Institute. Bob would probably have been one of them once upon a time.
Brendon noticed him standing there and rolled to a sitting position, looking up at Bob with worry in his eyes.
“Ryan’s fine,” Bob said, Brendon’s expression smoothed out so that only confusion remained.
“I need you to come with me,” he gestured towards the door. Brendon stared at him.
Bob arched a brow.
“You’re not going to kill me are you Bob Bryar? Because Ryan would be angry and Spencer would… well Spencer would probably be okay with it and help you hide the body, but…”
“Brendon,” Bob sighed. “I just need you to come with me,” he said, turning and walking out the door. Either Brendon would follow or Brendon wouldn’t.
And if he didn’t it would happen another way, if Ryan was right.
It didn’t matter, Brendon followed.
Bob pushed open the door the infirmary and walked inside. Pete was curled up in his bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
Patrick had his head resting beside Pete’s hand on the bed, he was asleep.
Mikey was sitting on Gerard’s bed, the two of them with their heads bent close together talking quietly. Frank was curled up in a ball in the chair, one hand holding Gerard’s, watching them with a small, fond smile on his face.
Ryan was on his side, watching Gerard and Mikey, his eyes were heavy and Bob knew that he was tired and wanted to be sleeping but that he was forcing himself to stay awake because he wanted to see this.
To see what it looked like when it wasn’t happening to him.
He couldn’t see him, but he knew that behind him Brendon was most likely still looking sort of confused as he followed.
He wasn’t asking inane questions anymore at least, he’d given up trying two hallways back when he’d realized that Bob wasn’t going to answer him.
When Brendon walked into the room Mikey seemed to almost snap to attention, his head turning and focusing on Brendon when just seconds before he’d been completely focused on Gerard.
Ryan’s lips curled slightly in satisfaction.
Brendon stopped dead in the center of the room, and the two of them stared at each other.
Gerard’s eyes widened and Pete was watching from his bed with the same interest that Bob remembered from when Patrick had brought him to the Infirmary and he’d been smacked in the face and the mind with Ryan.
Bob went and sat back down beside Ryan’s bed, Ryan squeezed his hand when he offered it.
“Hi, hi, hi,” Brendon sounded ecstatic. Like his birthday and Christmas and every holiday that he loved had come early, he was bouncing on his feet and his face was lit up with a happiness and joy that made Bob realize that Brendon was a pretty fucking fantastic actor… because if this was what he looked like happy he’d most definitely not been happy since he’d come to the Institute and found Ryan had chosen Bob.
Found that what he’d thought had been his one chance to be Chosen had been taken away from him. He’d probably been trying to come to grips with the same things that Bob had been trying to come to grips with before he’d met Ryan.
What to do now that the one thing that he’d been trained for his entire life was no longer an option.
Mikey was looking at him with a half smile that looked surprisingly like Gerard’s.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“I’m Brendon,” Brendon sounded like this was a high that he might never come down from.
Bob wondered if that was something that all of them did, introduce themselves when it wasn’t needed. When their Psychics had known everything about them from the minute their minds had opened to allow them in.
He wondered if Patrick had introduced himself to Pete like Bob had introduced himself to Ryan.
Maybe when he was pawning Brendon of on him to get rooms situated and uniforms in order he’d ask. Patrick was an old hand at it, he’d helped Bob, had helped Frank.
It was practically his job now, besides being Pete’s Constant.
“Mikey.”
The door opened and Brian came in, followed closely by Spencer who had a clipboard in his hands.
Brian stopped in his tracks and Spencer ran into his back. Bob leaned back in his chair as Brian rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling as if asking for guidance.
“Again? Can’t I leave you unsupervised for five fucking minutes?”
Patrick didn’t let Bob foist Brendon off on him. Had in fact, taken one look at Brendon bouncing even with Mikey’s arm wrapped tight around his shoulder and declared that it was someone else’s turn.
Bob did it because Ryan had turned wide eyes on him and bit his bottom lip and asked him ‘won’t you please help Brendon get things organized so that he can move out of the dorms and Mikey can move out of the temporary apartments and they can have someplace to be settled together.’
Bob said yes, because Ryan had looked like he expected Bob to say no. He said yes because he always said yes to the things that Ryan managed to find the words to ask him for.
William Beckett woke up three days after he and Mikey arrived at the Mid-West Institute.
He was groggy and confused and in pain, half the time he didn’t realize that his Constant was dead; the other half of the time he didn’t seem to know his own name.
Bob didn’t wonder what it would be like to lose the one person that was yours, that was closer then blood to you… he could vividly recall the black, empty space in his mind where Ryan should have been when he’d been trapped and unconscious and not with Bob.
He couldn’t imagine that black, empty space stretching on for all eternity because even though Ryan had been trapped and unconscious and not with Bob, Bob had still known that he was there, that he was alive.
That come hell or high water Bob would get him back beside him.
One of the Psychics stayed with William at all times because they could at least get far enough into his mind when he realized that his Constant was dead to calm him.
The Mid-West Institute was one of five that was still standing. That hadn’t been hit structurally as bad as some of the others.
The South-West Institute, the facility that Mikey and William had come to them from, was completely gone. There had been no survivors.
The Vegas Institute, where Ryan had come from, the one that Brendon and Spencer had come from, the one that hadn’t tried to reclaim any of them was also completely gone.
Bob tried not to be thankful that Ryan was with him, that Brendon and Spencer had come after him.
People were dead after all.
But it was hard not to feel relief that they were where they were and that they were all, in most cases, okay. If the Vegas Institute had pushed; if Ryan had gone back and Bob with him, there was no telling if they would still be alive.
If Brendon would even have been there for Mikey to choose.
Survivors were trickling in; most of them were Psychics and Constants that had been out in the field for one reason or another. There were seven Constants that had been on a field trip in New Jersey visiting the museum of Psychic Sciences that were enroute to them.
Half of the survivors were hurt, the other half were scared.
Director Herbitzer was still unconscious in his private rooms so Brian was working overtime trying to find rooms and spaces for all of them, all the private rooms were gone, the dorms were filling up fast.
The lower levels were still not completely stable and there had been talk of moving, though Bob wasn’t sure where the powers that be would find someplace that was just as big as the Mid-West Institute that also afforded them the security to protect themselves.
He wouldn’t put Ryan at risk; he knew that Patrick and Frank felt the same way.
Whoever had done this, had attacked them and almost killed them, they’d gotten inside the facilities that were hit.
That had been the hardest thing to accept.
That whoever had done this had been inside the facilities that were destroyed.
That the only reason that the Mid-West Institute was not among the piles of rubble that had once been proud, strong buildings, was because their attackers had not been able to gain access.
Had instead resorted to planting charges around the outside of the building, probably in the hopes that they would be able to knock out enough supporting walls to bring the building down.
No one had claimed responsibility for the attacks yet. There had been no arrests, nobody brought in for questioning. Bob half-wondered if the government was involved in some way.
Because there was no push to find out how the attacks had happened. How they had succeeded in most cases.
Bob couldn’t look at the lists of casualties. There were too many names and some of them he knew.
He kept Ryan close, Ryan kept Spencer close and he didn’t keep Brendon close but Bob thought that might be because Mikey was keeping Brendon close.
The Psychics were quiet and waiting and Bob didn’t ask what they were waiting for because he really didn’t want to know if they were waiting for another attack.
“We’re at capacity,” Brian said.
They were meeting every day to talk about how to handle the influx of survivors.
“The lower levels?” Pete asked, he was leaning forward, elbows planted on the table, fingers pressed into his temples rubbing in small circles. Patrick was sitting beside him with his hand touching his back.
Bob didn’t look at the chair to his right that was empty; Ryan was on William Beckett duty. Bob would fill him in when he went to sit with him until it was Gerard’s turn.
“The crews are working as fast as possible, but I don’t know if we want to put people down there when that was the worst hit during the first attack.”
Frank curled just the tiniest bit more into Gerard’s side, Patrick began rubbing Pete’s back, Bob clenched his hands into fists under the table and the Ryan in his mind smiled shyly at him and blew him a kiss.
The seven Constants that arrived looked three types of pathetic, wet and shivering and no one had mentioned that there was actually eight of them.
The eighth was a Normal and one of the Constants had probably never been chosen and stayed at his Institute in some other sort of capacity.
Jon Walker and Gabe Saporta herded their six Constants in waiting through the door and they cast wary glances behind them until the doors firmly shut.
Ryan was beside him, part of the official ‘welcome to the Mid-West Institute, we have no where to put you unless you feel like sharing a bed with five other people’ committee.
Brian ticked off names and beside him as well as inside his mind Bob could feel Ryan pushing at each one of the Constants, he didn’t like it, didn’t like Ryan gaining access to anyone’s mind but his.
Which he knew was stupid because Ryan and Pete and Gerard and to a lesser extent Mikey all lived in each other’s minds, each had free reign to come and go as they willed. If William Beckett ever regained his lucidity he’d probably join those ranks.
They did their jobs by linking with each other and sharing information and talents.
Ryan did this because whoever had attacked them had been inside their sister facilities. There was no telling if one of the survivors was actually someone who ultimately meant them harm.
Spencer and Worm led them off to get them settled in rooms and Brian and Bob both turned to Ryan.
Ryan looked disturbed, Bob waited, Brian tapped his pen against his clipboard.
“Walker and Saporta, as well as one of the kids are all shielding, they’re strong shields, I couldn’t push without them knowing I was there pushing.”
Bob and Brian shared a look; Bob glanced over his shoulder where Zack was straightening to his full height in the doorway, arms crossing over his chest.
Shielding meant there was something behind them being hidden.
Something like the fact that they might have just invited their attackers into their home.
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I love this series. I do I do I do!
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also, HELLO JON AND GABE!!!