Expo Spork & Mari - Vignettes



“Not until you pay my dowry.” Mari fired back in a heartbeat. She was perched upon one of the shitty stools at their abandoned-by-god dining table. Spork was already plowing through their breakfast while Mari was just getting to take the first bite of her sandwich. Well, her first bite. There had already been one taken out of it when she’d gotten to it.

This part she hadn’t been expecting, although she absolutely should have. Spork joked with Mari about their hookups on the regular, why should she have expected theirs to go any differently? The best laid plans, and all that. At least she had the satisfaction of proving a certain theory correct to herself. It seemed that, in the right circumstances, Spork’s loud and brash personality quite enjoyed being subdued. She had filed that information away, just in case it could be useful. No other reason.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows this morning, though. Apart from the hangover, which Spork had ensured her wasn’t nearly as nasty as it could have been thanks to their oversight, she had also woken with a pit of worry in her stomach. Something had shifted in their relationship, and Mari wasn’t sure how Spork would react to it.

That part had relaxed when Spork had rolled over, groaning, to inform Mari of two things: she stank, and they wanted McDonald’s for breakfast. And now they sat at the counter, joking like nothing had changed in the past twenty-four hours. Mari took a sip of her smoothie, no caffeine for a while to recover from finals, and rested her chin on her hand.

“One, I couldn’t make you honest anything even if you had a gun to my head. Two, what happened to ‘no strings attached’, hm?” Another sip, this one louder, more pointed as Mari raised an eyebrow at Spork dramatically.

“Are you suggesting you want to be domestic? Spork ‘Trail of Broken Hearts’ Fuchs?” Mari laughed, short and sharp with a touch of something that even she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“We can get hitched whenever you want, Spartacus.” Mari said, smirking. She knew they loved a challenge. “But you’ll have to court me first.”

 


Spork was beginning to regret committing to this bit. It had been a long fucking month since they’d taken Mari’s joking suggestion as a challenge, and now they were suffering the consequences of their actions.

No, actually, they’d been suffering the consequences the entire time, but now they were running out of cliche, over-the-top romantic gestures to throw at their friend, and all that was left was the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel dregs. Things that not even they could justify, like buying surprise kittens or (gag) actually trying to be a legitimately good boyfriend. As if. They still had their pride, even if they were googling things that no sane person should ever have to google. They had made a list. They had checked it twice. They had determined that both of them were naughty and would never be nice. (They were losing their mind.)

See, the thing was, they had tried, really, genuinely, (only partially ironically, some of the time (most of the time) (all of the time)), to do the whole ‘dating’ thing. But the problem was twofold; the first was that Spork Fuchs did not have a single romantic bone in their body, and the second was that neither did Mariko Ito.

It was doomed from the start. Spork was beginning to think they might have to pull a Shakespeare and fake their own death, flee the country, and become Switzerland’s most attractive cryptid. Or whatever happened in those plays. They didn’t pay that much attention in English class.

It was either that or really put their money where their mouth was and propose, get married, and then divorce their best friend in a spectacularly messy fashion. But that sounded like so much wooork, and Spork didn’t want to deal with the shit tsunami that would hit the East Coast if their parents found out they’d gotten married without telling them. No, they couldn’t marry this bit. They had to find a way out before they were jailed for setting fire to the rainforest in the world’s shittiest, most environmentally unfriendly gender reveal of all time. They weren’t ready to be a father, dammit.

“I give up!” The force of their arrival sent the door to Mari’s office swinging with such force that it rebounded off the doorstop and nearly clocked them in the face, but Spork caught it with their forearm and slammed it open again, making sure that it stayed at the wall this time. They were sure they looked more than a little wild, with their hair a mess and a frenetic, harried light in their eyes, but Mari had definitely seen them in worse states. “I can’t do it anymore! You win!”

They stormed forward only to dramatically drop to the floor at her feet, their shins protesting at the scratchy rub of the carpet against their skin. But the pain was fleeting, and of no consequence. They had been defeated. It was the end for them.

“Release meeee,” they cried, flopping forward into Mari’s lap. One of the armrests dug into their side, and they squirmed around in an effort to escape it for a few moments before giving up. “I’m not built for monogamy. Do you know how many ladies have been lining up for the Fuchs express only to be left out in cardboard boxes in the rain? They’re freezing out there, Mari.”

They turned their face up towards her, a genuine dismay lurking behind their dramatics even as they smiled, suddenly, sunny and fakey fake all the way through. “Also, you totally deserve better. Like, for real, you could be pulling half those cardboard-box ladies if you wanted to. Or, uh, better… ones. With… pedigrees? Damn, this metaphor kind of sucks.”

“Point is, you deserve a not-loser boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Also, I’m sorry about the flashmob.” A pause. “Again. Really sorry.”

 


Mari wasn’t sure what she had expected when she’d given Spork the challenge of courting her. She knew that they would take her up on the challenge, simply because they loved proving people wrong, almost as much as they loved being an annoying ass (when they were doing it on purpose, at least).

A week was the longest she’d thought they’d last, with their attempts at courting starting and ending with wining and dining. She had not expected Spork to last almost a month, carrying out increasingly elaborate and frighteningly complex plans to win her affection and prove theirs. She really should have known better. If there was one code that Spork Fuchs lived by, it was commitment to the bit.

It wasn’t bad getting the attention. It had started small, with a bouquet of flowers and them treating her to a fancy dinner. The fancy dinner was Texas Roadhouse, and Spork had three baskets of rolls and ate so much steak they got the meat sweats and had to lie down as soon as they got home, but the thought was there.

That was the common thread through all of these grand displays of affection. Whether ironic or not, Spork genuinely had been putting in thought, even if the effort wasn’t always there. Sure they’d held their phone over their head playing some shitty song from the 80s while also dousing themselves with a garden hose, but Mari sort of knew what they were going for. Kind of. They’d sprayed her with the hose when she’d laughed and said they looked like a drowned rat, sure, but that was just how Spork was.

Then there was the flash mob. The opposite end of the effort scale, and a total mortification for her. That was the point at which Mari thought Spork may have been taking things a bit too far, that she may have been in a bit over her head. It had been a few days since their last display, and Mari was in her office, working with slight trepidation at what they may decide was the next “big step”.

“Jesus fuck!” Mari shouted, nearly jumping out of her skin as Spork somehow managed to slam her door open twice when they barged in. They looked wild, like someone driven to the end of their rope, throwing themselves at Mari’s feet like a penitent. Mari couldn’t help but snicker at the sight of her best friend being predictably overdramatic as they confessed at her altar.

“No please, go on. I’m intrigued in this hypothetical world of cat and/or dog-girls in cardboard boxes that you want to fuck, Spork.” Mari wouldn’t have hidden her smirk even if they could see it. She was fairly certain they could hear her facial expressions by this point.

“You know, I never said you couldn’t sleep with other girls, Spork. You made that assumption all on your own, dumbass.” She chuckled, ruffling their hair as she did so. “Also I thought you would’ve figured out by now that I’m not the boyfriend-having type.”

“And who needs pedigrees? I’ve got a perfectly good mutt right here. And you’re fine, as long as you never mention the flash mob again.”

 


She was laughing at them. Here they were, opening their heart to the whims of her ungentle mercies, and she was laughing! Spork tried their best to act wounded, pressing a hand to their heart and flopping in a different direction as though twitching in their death throes, but they couldn’t quite keep the smile from their face. “Well now I’m not going to. Metaphor over.”

(They would. It’d just be when she least expected it. She should know better than to blaspheme against doggirls.)

The pout that they directed up at her when she ruffled their hair had enough force to level a city, but behind it their eyes were thoughtful, considering. They could’ve sworn there was some agreement along those lines. That was what people did when they dated, right? They were “exclusive” and tied down and, in other words, boring. Spork had only ever paid attention to the rules in order to flout them, but they were pretty sure that was a big one. It’d gotten them in trouble more than once in high school when they’d forget to break up with their latest girlfriend of the week before starting to see someone else.

They were pretty sure they remembered talking to Mari about it. Or, wait, were they just remembering something from the shitty rom-coms they’d forced the both of them to watch as part of their research extravaganza? … Damn, it was definitely the rom-coms.

They could still salvage this.

“Aww,” they cooed, dropping into a smirk as they continued, “it’s cute that you think I don’t have a pedigree.”

Deciding that they had gotten their point across well enough to drop the dramatics, they sat up and arranged themself into a more comfortable position, slouching against the leg of Mari’s desk instead of the legs of Mari herself, one foot kicked out to tap against hers. “But no, I’m serious, you really can do better. Or, uh, I can’t? Do better for you? Like, I’m just not cut out for this shit. It was fun for a while, but it just-” doesn’t feel right. Feels like lying to myself? No, I can’t say that.

They turned their face away, then, hiding behind their hair as they tried to find a nicer way to say it. Some way that didn’t sound so ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. Even though it was them, and they kind of knew going in that it would end like this but they still did it anyway. Because it seemed like fun, and because it was Mari, and they’d do anything for her. But the one thing they couldn’t do was change who they were. Spork “Trail of Broken Hearts” Fuchs had struck again.

“Iunno. I don’t know how you wanted this to work, but I don’t think it’s working.”

 


Mari rolled her eyes as Spork petulantly refused to elaborate on their metaphor. That was fine. They’d either bring it up again later or completely forget it and she could confuse them by mentioning it a few weeks later. It was hard to say what made it into the Fuchs vault and what was left out to dry. A lesser man would have been obliterated from the force of the pout they leveled at her, but Mari had years of experience weathering such weapons of mass destruction.

She frowned as Spork shifted away, rambling their way through a confession before they went quiet. Mari could tell what this was, even if she didn’t have a ton of relationship experience. This was the breakup talk. Worse, it was the breakup talk where Spork was placing all the blame on themself. It would’ve made sense if this had been literally any other situation, Spork had a habit of loving and leaving as soon as they got bored, but this was different. They were different.

“Hey,” Mari said, her voice surprisingly soft, even to her ears. “I just said I don’t want a boyfriend, Spork. I don’t think I’m cut out for dating in general.” Mari let out a laugh, gesturing vaguely in a random direction.

“I didn’t do anything either. Hell, I haven’t even dated anyone since Jason for fuck’s sake.” She slipped out of her chair and slid to the floor instead, moving so she was next to Spork instead of across from them.

“I knew this wasn’t going to work. It was a joke just to see how far things would go. I’m not a romantic person, Spork. I don’t want to be in a relationship. I don’t want to do better. Honestly having anyone else around would feel weird.” Mari hadn’t expected Spork to keep the act up for so long, hadn’t expected them to actually try to date her. She felt bad, a greasy, guilty feeling hanging in her chest. She couldn’t dislodge it, but she’d deal with it later, when she made it up to them. Mari instead let her head fall on Spork’s shoulder, shuffling so she was comfortably resting against them.

“I just want you around. That’s it. That’s enough.”

 


The dull roar of thousands of students and parents had quieted as they splintered into various groups, spreading out from the quad like a massive river splitting into an unknown amount of distributaries that sent streams of black running all over campus.

Mari, Spork, and her mom had split off the earliest, Mari’s knowledge of the quietest spots on campus coming in handy as she guided the three of them away from the roar of other people. Her mom had been especially grateful for that. Mari’s social battery may have been quite small, but it was nothing compared to her mother’s, which was functionally nonexistent. After over a dozen hugs and at least twice as many pictures, her mom had excused herself to go lie down back at the hotel. They promised to meet up for dinner and departed with one last hug, her mom whispering how proud she was.

They now sat in one of the school’s green spaces, a little courtyard with some plants scattered around and ivy crawling up a trellis. It was one of Mari’s favorite places to come and think, and somehow most of the students either didn’t know it existed or didn’t want to go there. Mari was perched on a hanging bench, gently rocking in the warm summer breeze, Spork naturally flanking her. Her cap had started to annoy her shortly after she put it on, so the second she could take it off she’d placed it haphazardly on top of their head.

“Thank fuck that’s over with.” Mari took a sip of her coffee, won with great struggle from one of the several campus coffee shops that had been overwhelmed once the ceremony was over. Or at least, it would have been if Mari had been the one to get it. She had offered, but Spork insisted on using their "blind person privilege" to muscle their way through the crowd to get them a pair of drinks. She'd offered to pay for it, but Spork said something about how it wasn't their money anyways. Mari knew their parents gave them an allowance, but sometimes forgot just how much they probably gave Spork. The Fuchs seemed to enjoy throwing money around, if her graduation gift was any indication. They’d wanted to come today too, but Mari spared Spork that fate. All it took was a quick lie about only two guests being allowed and a couple of custom web pages and they’d bought the whole thing.

Graduation probably wasn’t much of Spork’s thing either, sitting and listening to names being called for a few hours. But they’d been the loudest in the crowd when she’d walked the stage, and for that she was grateful.

“No more tests, no more homework, no more fucking school!” Mari cheered, looking forward to the many hours of missed sleep she told herself she was going to catch up on now that school wasn’t dictating her life. She almost believed herself too.

But even as she celebrated being done, there was something else bugging her. The whole ‘one door closes, another opens’ type deal. A couple weeks before graduation Mari had gotten a job offer letter from a prestigious company, offering her an insanely good job right out of college. The only catch? She’d have to move for the job, which was located in Pittsburgh.

She’d have to leave Spork behind.

“So,” Mari let out a sigh, taking another sip to hopefully steady her nerves. “I got a job offer. Good pay, great work. The only problem is that it’s out in Pennsylvania. They want me to move out to Pittsburgh in the next few months.” She let that sit between them, hoping this blow wouldn’t cause another fracture that would shatter them. She blinked away tears that she hadn’t realized were forming. She couldn’t leave them, didn’t want to leave them.

But she couldn’t ask Spork to come with her. That would be asking too much.

 
Last edited:


“Woo!” Spork echoed, raising their own coffee in a tiny toast to the end of Mari’s school days. They were trying not to be too loud, both because they’d already wrecked their voice cheering for her when she crossed the stage and because they had their head on her shoulder, right next to her ear. The graduation cap, while hilariously ironic for them to wear, was set in their lap for the moment, where they could spin the tassel around in idle circles.

It had been a very long, mostly very dull day. The seat they’d been crammed into for most of the afternoon had been dreadful, all hard plastic and unforgiving metal that squeaked whenever they so much as breathed wrong, and even with whatever shade the organizers had put up it had been hotter than hell. Being next to Ms. Ito was the only nice part of the situation, but even she couldn’t save them from the enforced polite quiet during the ceremony, and so Spork had been bored out of their skull for the better part of what felt like eternity.

But, hey, Mari was happy, so they weren’t complaining. They were enjoying their iced mocha and the cool breeze that ruffled their hair as the swing rocked, and looking forward to whatever restaurant they’d be wrecking come dinnertime.

They’d even gotten dressed up for the occasion, for once, and though they were seriously regretting choosing slacks over shorts they had to admit they’d knocked it out of the park with their snazzy vest and sleeveless dress shirt. Win for the gunshow and not dying of heatstroke. They were so multitalented. Their tie had been an unfortunate casualty of the weather, sacrificed in the name of unbuttoning as many buttons of their shirt as they could when there were children present, but they were sure they still looked hot enough to be Mari’s sexy secret lab assistant, which was the only impression they were trying to give.

It took them a moment to draw their thoughts out of the sticky-slow molasses crawl that they’d fallen into, when Mari spoke up again. It was weird, though - she almost sounded nervous. They shifted slightly, pressing their arm against hers in silent reassurance. “Eh, that’s not too far. Right?”

Pennsylvania. That was… what, one state away? Two? It was definitely East Coast, so it couldn’t be that far. They took a sip of their mocha, trying to remember their geography, but they’d never been very good with maps. Too visual.

Well, they’d find out soon enough. “When are we leaving?”

The question was so simple that it hardly needed thinking about. Of course they’d be going with her. Where else would they be, if not at her side? Mari needed someone to remind her that science wasn’t sustenance, that the sun was more than something to block out behind curtains, that there was more to life than scrap metal and circuit boards. And Spork needed her.

They weren’t sure if she’d realized that all the way yet. They weren’t sure when they’d realized it, themself. But they knew that they would follow her anywhere, if only so they didn’t have to go back to the hell that was existing without her.

 
Last edited:


Mari’s heart sank. Of course. Yeah. Pennsylvania wasn’t too far. It was just six hours away by car, three if she flew into New York first. She certainly wouldn’t be making any day trips to visit, but she could definitely crash on the couch for a night. Getting Spork out there for a visit would be harder, but they could probably get a taxi or something to the airport. They’d done it before to show up on her doorstep, what felt like a lifetime ago. They could do it again.

She was so deep in her own ruminations that Mari almost missed Spork’s follow-up comment. She blinked in confusion, not quite understanding what they were saying. It was over three hundred miles, it was a whole state away. Spork would have to tear up the roots they’d put down over the past few years in order to follow her to some new and unknown place.

They would do that. Spork would do that for her. And the casual way they said it, as though them coming with her was a foregone conclusion, that the thought of them staying behind should never have occurred to her, it made something in Mari’s chest tighten.

Spork would do a lot for her. Mari wasn’t sure where the limit was, if there truly was one, and didn’t want to test it. Time and again she’d pushed the boundary of their friendship, and every single time Spork had shifted right along with it. Now here they were ready to move with her at the drop of a hat.

Mari let out a shaky breath, the tears that had been gathering finally spilling over. She let them fall freely, quietly. She hadn’t realized how much that had truly been weighing on her, how deep the knife of leaving Spork behind had stabbed into her heart until it had been ripped out and the wound had been able to seal over.

“Um, in a month or so, probably.” Mari said, unsure. She probably took too long to respond to their question, and they definitely knew something was up. “Still looking at apartments, have to find the right one, y’know?” She made a mental note to cancel the virtual tour she had later in the week. She’d only been looking at apartments with enough space for her, and accommodating Spork would require at least double the living space. They liked to spread out. She liked to nestle into the nooks and crannies.

The dread that had been the coming move now turned into excitement, anticipation. Where Spork had been slotted into her existing apartment, a round peg in a square hole, here was the chance for something new, for a place that they could create together and make their own. Despite all odds, there was something exciting in the vaguely domestic future that they were moving towards. And while Mari knew that Spork would make some joke about being her househusband if she mentioned it, she couldn’t wait to see how it turned out.

 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top