[video]

[sharpes]

[Brandon looks, for all intents and purposes, bored as hell.]

You know what this place really needs?

[Bit of a pause. Purely for dramatic effect, you understand. He is an actor.]

Twitter.

And if you have to ask me what that is, you're seriously dead to me. Like. Don't even try.

Comments

[sharpes]

Some I didn't even know I had!

[gasp, shock!

Brandon follows her into the kitchen and sort of lounges against the expansive island centerpiece, watching her.]

Heathens.

[controlledvariable]

Just don't tell anyone, I'll have to put a curse on you, which'd just be sad for both of us.

[One bowl of icecream + spoon, is getting offered to Brandon, while Steph holds onto her own as she stands next to him. She eats a spoonful before saying anything more.]

I know, right? I can still remember the first time I had it. [what a good day.]

[sharpes]

[He mimes the classic gesture of zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key. That same hand then snags onto that bowl of ice cream.]

Huh, really? I can't.

[controlledvariable]

I think I was like - six? Maybe? I probably got a late start, but I still have an alarming fondness for those terrible chocolate puddings that come with school lunches.

[sharpes]

Ugh. Those things were gross. I know exactly what you're talking about, too. And I went to private school.

[controlledvariable]

See, I know logically that they're revolting, but I still get tempted to sneak into schools just to steal some.

[It doesn't make sense! She's just going to eat her ice cream instead]

[sharpes]

They arrest people for that sort of thing, you know.

[just saying.]

[controlledvariable]

Only if I get caught. Wouldn't be the first time I've broken into a school.

[sharpes]

Yikes. You live life on the wild side, huh?

[mmhmm he's just gonna eat his ice cream kind of provocatively don't mind him.]

[controlledvariable]

You have no idea. [he really doesn't] But seriously, empty schools are the best places to have water fights.

[god

dammit

Brandon.]

[sharpes]

[eyebrow raise.

no, no context. for anything.]

[controlledvariable]

What? [What is that eyebrow raise for young man?]

[sharpes]

[slight leer.]

You're staring.

[controlledvariable]

You--! [No she wasn't! (Yes she was)] You're the... [vague gesture at him and the ice cream] Doing that.

[help]

[sharpes]

[grin.]

Like what you see?

[NO SHAME. NONE.]

[controlledvariable]

No. [yes]

Maybe.

How do you even do that?

[No one should be allowed to make eating ice cream look sexy]

[sharpes]

Good genetics?

[... his grin probably isn't as innocent as it should be when he says that, whoops. This is what happens when your mom was a playboy centrefold.]

[controlledvariable]

I'm pretty sure the ability to eat ice cream obscenely isn't an inherited trait.

[So rude, Brandon. Steph is just going to eat her own ice cream and try not to stare]

[sharpes]

See, this pretty much just comes back to the 'everything would make sense if you met my mom' thing.

[He'll be nice this time and not do obscene things to that spoon with his tongue okay.]

[controlledvariable]

That's some mom you've got. [Her tone is light, gentle, because she knows that for all people will make fun of their own mothers, it's an entirely different thing when someone else does it.]

D'you think she'd like me?

[sharpes]

Probably not.

[... wait that's-- he grimaces and licks the back of his spoon.]

It's nothing personal. You're young and hot, she -- pretends she is. I don't think there's a plastic surgery procedure she hasn't had done. Mom's all... business, business, make something of yourself, you're nothing unless you're somebody, you know? She's pretty much hated all the girls I've dated.

[controlledvariable]

It's okay. That's honestly not the worst reasons someone's parent wouldn't like me.

[Tim's dad was a classist asshole: news at 11]

She really is a stage mom, though, isn't she?

[sharpes]

Oh yeah. She lost her fifteen minutes when she got knocked up, but then she was already kind of over the Hollywood Hill. She figured she could nail some rich dude for child support. I don't even know who my dad is.

[He shrugs. This is all presented as NBD to him, even though it. Bothers him a lot more than he'd let on.]

I got into acting when I was a toddler. And it was... fine, I guess. Whatever, right? But nothing was ever good enough for Mom. She's-- you know, she's got a lot of ambition.

[controlledvariable]

I'm sorry. [About the dad thing. For all that she hates hers, at least she knows who he is.

She hopes her daughter never feels like she's missing something by not knowing who she is. That's not something she wants to think about.

She'll just focus on the fact that Brandon's mom sounds awful]

Is it okay if I say I don't think I'd like her, either?

[Not even gonna lie, she'd probably yell at her for being a shit mom]

[sharpes]

Naw, don't be.

[His expression is a little dry.]

She's... sort of an acquired taste.