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New story by Sophie & Pudding! This one is a little weird, but I think it's a fun read. Similar to our older stuff. Also, the chapters are pretty short so I'll try to keep a good posting schedule. The complete story is up on our Patreon in PDF and ePUB formats. Please consider supporting us! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Piper Belle By: Sophie & Pudding 1.) "So... you're having a dream about a girl named Piper." Arry had been Isaac's best friend all through college, and even now as they were facing down the end of their degrees, the two were still as close as two guys could be. To be fair, they'd had drifting interests over the years, Arry (who's real name was Harrison but treated that fact as a closely guarded secret) was definitely the more social of the pair. Isaac preferring the company of a glass of wine and a good book - he fancied himself a writer and put that above just about everything else in his life, even social engagements. And he was always knee-deep in reading two books and constantly trying to find that one good idea - the spark, he called it - for his own magnum opus. Until then, he was a sometimes-tipsy, quiet and keep to himself kind of guy. Clean, neat and unassuming - the sort you'd imagine people to describe in ten years as an unexpected serial killer. Arry smiled at Isaac like maybe there was a joke to be had, but Isaac stayed stony-eyed. "So tell me about her - about Piper Belle. Is she cute?" "I don't know, man... I guess." I played with the corner of the book in my lap, but I was having trouble concentrating. I'd read the same paragraph four times already. "She's our age - maybe a little younger, actually. She lives on her own." I kind of admired that. Arry and I lived together, but only based on necessity - rent wasn't cheap. "She has friends, kind of distant..." It wouldn't have been a big deal, even with how vivid the dreams were, if they didn't keep happening... "Yeah, well, sounds like a rich girl name so that's not surprising." Not that Arry really expected dreams to make all that much sense, but it was nice when they obeyed basic logic nonetheless. "You know a lot about her from a dream, Isaac." He meant it as an off-handed comment with a little grin, but Isaac looked down at the paper with a flash of guilt in his eyes. "Oh, you've had more than one dream about her, huh? Well shit man. Maybe you just need to get out of here, all these books are messing you up..." "Maybe..." But that wasn't it. I didn't think so, anyway. Maybe I should see a therapist, but I couldn't be sure that would even help. They were just dreams anyway - what did it matter why I was having them? "You're right, you're right. I'm just in my head too much. How about we go out tonight, you and me." "That's the spirit! Rest up, alright? You look exhausted and I wanna have a good night - I'll bring pills and we'll go find you some juicy little pinger to drag you out of your head and into her bed." Arry grinned, piling a few things into his bag. "I gotta head out for a bit - Rita wants to talk about our relationship." The boy rolled his eyes - he and Rita had been on break for like four months now and he was done with her, but she had trouble letting go. "Get some rest." I didn't even finish the chapter of my book - that was a little unheard of. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn't concentrate. I pulled some pajama pants on in place of my jeans and let my head hit the pillow. Maybe it would be better this time - maybe the dreams were just dreams... "Piper! Pipeeeeeeeerrrr." Lucky had tried shaking the girl’s shoulders, tried calling her name and now had needed to resort to pulling the entire comforter off her body, leaving the petite little waif of a girl in her yellow pajamas to curl up and make a very disapproving noise. "It's eight fifteen! The mall opens in less than an hour, gosh, we only get two days of weekend a week and you want to just waste yours laying around in my bed all day!" Her words were playful and childish, the way they tended to be when it was just the two of them. Piper and Lucky (whose birth certificate actually read Lucy but whom didn't understand why Lucy and Lucky were pronounced differently and spent the first six years of her life introducing herself as Lucky) had been born in the same day, in the same hospital, and in-fact had been taken home by one-another’s families for a whole month before the mix-up was sorted out! To say they were best friends was a little bit of an understatement, and this wonderful sunny morning saw Piper staying the previous night at Lucky's in preparation for the weekend. I sat up in bed with a frown, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Lucky watched me with a smile and I felt my cheeks turn red. She'd been giving me weird looks like that all week, since Saturday. I had a secret, a secret I didn't tell anyone about, but Lucky was very good at finding out secrets and fifteen years had been a damn good streak of secret-keeping. She hadn't mentioned anything about it, not yet, but that look... "I hate waking up early..." "Maybe, but I bet you hate missing out on getting that babydoll dress you've been looking at all week because some other Courtney Love fan got there first." Lucky smiled playfully as she bundled her comforter up in her arms and tossed it back on the full size bed, making sure to throw it past the girl. Much to her mother’s chagrin, Piper idolized that look - the super-short babydoll dress in a solid color with black tights and a pair of Martens on her feet. She lacked the grunge credentials of her idol, but she still looked super-cute, owing mostly to her diminutive stature. "I.. I don't have the money anyway..." I bit my lip and looked at the ground. I was always most flustered when I first woke up - I hated that. Especially in a place that wasn't my own, somewhere unfamiliar, even as unfamiliar as even Lucky's place was. I climbed out of bed and stretched, my feet aching on the carpet. I hated getting out of bed... "Since I'm up, I guess we can go…” But the mall didn't open for another 45 minutes. "You want to go like that?" Lucky rolled her eyes with a smile - even for Piper, the childish yellow pajamas were not out-of-the-house wear. A little pastel night-gown, maybe, but that was in style. This wasn't. "Go shower, get changed, do your hair, and then we can go." Which all seemed logical, but lately it seemed as though Piper was struggling with the simple stuff. Showering was boring. I thought about the weird dreams, things I hadn't thought about in a couple days, and decided not to concern myself with things so trivial. It's not like they mean anything. My hair was dry before the rest of me - thank you blow dryers - and then I put myself in yesterday's clothes. I had forgotten to pack an overnight bag. "You said some boy’s name in your sleep last night.” Lucky didn't want to broach the topic too quickly, but it had come up a few times during the night and it wasn't the first time she'd heard Piper mumbling in her sleep. "Some boy named Harry, maybe? If you're crushing on a boy you know the rules, you have to tell me!" They were on the way to the mall as they spoke and Lucky was walking backwards as they talked - it was sort of her thing at the moment. Lucky had a lot of things. "Oh, no... not a boy..." Well, Arry was a boy, wasn't he? But I looked down at my feet. My eyes hurt - I'd stayed up too late playing Super Nintendo. "It's just that guy I keep dreaming about, Isaac or whatever. Arry is his friend, I think. Roommate. Something. I don't know. It's not important." "Arry is a dumb name. It's like he's got a cockney accent or something. Allo, my name is Arry, ave you eard about the orrid news?" With fifteen years of practice, Lucky deftly avoided tripping on the uneven part of the pavement as she walked backwards over it. "You know if you keep having dreams about a boy, people are going to start talking!" ”No one knows about my dreams except you!” I said assertively and the girl smirked. "And you aren't going to be a blabbermouth anyway!" My bossing Lucky around was a little cosmetic - it had very little purpose since she never listened anyway. But it was fun nonetheless. "I might! I could go up to Kassie Serene and I'd be like ‘Hi Kassie!’ and she'd be like ‘Hiya Lucky!’ and then I'd be like ‘Guess what I heard…’ and then she'd do the rest." Lucky would never actually do that, but the blush that crept across Piper's face was reward enough. The mall was predictably busy - the bike-racks were full, though the emptiness of the parking lot made it clear that it was mostly going to be girls around the age of Lucky and Piper who were loitering for a nice find. "See? Look at all the bikes, that's what happens when you oversleep!" "I don't have money anyway!" I said aggressively and Lucky stuck out her tongue. Since my mom didn't like how I dressed, I had significantly less allowance. She'd take some of it as "a fee for the movies last week" or "you didn't do all your chores". But we both knew what it really was. "Well it's someone's fifteenth next week and someone's best friend might want to get something cute for a certain someone." Lucky didn't have a lot of money herself, but she did have a part time job (very part time, really, she only worked one night a week at a cafe) and that meant she had some money of her own that she could do with as she pleased. "Oh don't waste that kind of money on me... that designer stuff is so overpriced." Though there really wasn't much else you could do in the way of buying clothes in that style. It was either overpriced or nothing... "Yeah but what price can you put on lookin' as cute as you do, Piper?" Lucky liked to drop semi-flirtatious comments like that and she winked as they walked through the doors to the mall. Lucky turned around to walk forward. "I saw this one dress that you're going to, like, totally freaking adore, but you gotta try it on first." Lookin' as good as Piper did have a price though - about 26 hours of work Lucky’s meager wage! - but this was important to her. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks for reading! Like & Comment!