Western Philosophy

Bonnie & Clyde were stressed out hard. Bonnie was mentally and physically tested down by Allison, she felt strong but her pride was wounded all the same. Clyde had been struck emotionally and had struggled stay in better spirits. In summary, Allison was a test that wore both Twins down. They told eachother they'd never surrender to Allison and Jocelyn. But it didn't mean it was easy.

But for Bonnie Gastin, fresh from her last fight, she found herself dealing with another problem that she thought and hoped wouldn't grow but it did and she felt she had let herself and her new found friend down, she needed consolation, and would seek out that friend. Friction Champion, Taylor Parker.

After a two hour train drive, The Gastin Twins arrived at Taylor and Johnny Higurashi's happy little humble abode. Clyde had yet to see it and was pretty ecstatic to actually see Taylor again, he liked her, and despite their rocky start, was glad they had a more pleasant relationship.

Reaching the door, The Twins stood beside eachother and grinned as much as they could before knocking on the door. Bonnie wearing a white tank and skinny jeans and white high top sneakers, Clyde in an open red and gold flannel shirt, jeans and a tan work boots.

Taylor opened the door wearing Dixie Clemet's cowboy hat. She looked from Bonnie to Clyde, and without a word, she tipped the brim of her hat to them and walked back inside with the door open for them.

"I've never spent time with two Gastins before. I didn't want to be the only one without a hat."

Her golden hair was tied in a single braid that ran to her upper back. Her athletic body was covered with a bright orange tank top and tight black workout pants to mid-calf, and green-and-yellow sneakers. She walked back to the kitchen and picked up a towel from the back of her chair and slung it around her shoulders.

"So how's it going, guys? Still chasing Moby Dick and shit?"

Taylor opened the door and Bonnie and Clyde's eyes went wide instantly as Taylor tipped her black and white hat to them both. A hat that they instantly knew HAD to be Dixie's since she and Taylor had that match. The Twins were mad jealous and looked at eachother with mouths agape for a moment before stepping inside. The Twins was glad was he didn't have to kick off their shoes like they would in a typical home.

It was hard for Twins to not oogle Taylor in the workout pants after she walked away, the younger twin noting that Higurashi was one lucky sonovabitch.

"It's goin'..." Bonnie said, thinking back to how she had the big catch in her grasp in her grasp before it got away.

"Moby's still a dick." Clyde added.

"But now we got like two more dicks... And uh... Emily again." Bonnie muttered like a kid in trouble, Clyde fell quiet and let Bonnie talk. "She came in crying and offered her a hug. She hugged me back, said she was scared, then tased me. Ain't sure how ta' handle this." She said.

"Damn," Taylor said. "These kids and their tasers. Emily's the kid, right?"

She shook her head. It was just awful to have someone that young mixed up in this sort of shit. She didn't know the girl at all, but she felt like she could empathize with her more than she could with someone like Bonnie.

She sat down at the kitchen table and automatically propped her legs up on it, crossing one over the other and resting her calves on the corner so that her feet were off the edge. On the table in front of her was a stack of elementary school-like art supplies. Big sheets of heavy art paper, bits of colored construction paper, scissors, glue, and lots and lots of crayons. Several large boxes of many-colored Crayolas scattered all around.

"Dude, wanna see what I work on these days?" She asked with a lopsided smile and lively eyebrows. She was in no real hurry to talk about Emily, since it would probably result in someone getting punched.

She spread out a pile of paper and showed at least a dozen crayon drawings of a figure that was identifiably Johnny, in different dramatic and silly and cute poses. Each drawing was imperfect, but more detailed than its simple cartoon style would seem to allow. Johnny's spiky silver hair was almost the same in each one. His eyes were black dots, or sometimes horizontal lines, sometimes with expressive eyebrows and sometimes missing entirely. His stubby limbs were clad in his wrestling shorts and boots, and he wore a simple white t-shirt.

"It's like, a work in progress or something," she explained, with slight trepidation at showing the drawings to someone that was tempered by her excitement about it. "Like I probably look pretty crazy right now, right? What do you think?" She laughed. How uncomfortable must Bonnie and Clyde have been?

"Yeah..." Bonnie muttered with shame, but hoping Taylor could help her on what she could do to right her mistake.

However what followed was Taylor sitting by a kitchen with all these art supplies scattered about on the table. Clyde was eager, seeing as he had that small history with Taylor's art. Bonnie looked on and blinked in confusion before leaning over the table to peek at the drawings, discovering a cute little cartoon drawing of what appeared to be Johnny. It was adorable and made Bonnie grin but still she was confused and honestly didn't expect this sort of quirky childishness from Taylor.

"It's cute!" Bonnie declared while Clyde laughed at the little Johnny, not mockingly, but it was quite amusing.

Taylor let out a giddy, effervescent string of giggles and stuck out her tongue. "This one's my favorite." She held up a drawing of a lazy-eyed Johnny on a couch, slouched so far that only his neck was propped up, with his feet up and a remote in his hand. "I like lazy Johnny as much as I like superhero Johnny."

She gathered the stack together again in a very official way, as if they weren't crayon cartoon drawings but very serious business. "Anyway, right now I'm working on making like a comic strip for Johnny's birthday. Dr. St. Cassie Bear-Pantsington gave me the idea of drawing them bigger, and then shrinking them down on the computer. She'd have to do that part, because like... You know." Because computers.

"Well, a'right, so lemme get you guys something to drink and stuff, and you can fill me in on all the current events with this thing. I've got to eat before afternoon training, too, or else I'll fade. Are you guys hungry? I've got like... salad and sweet potatoes and hard boiled eggs and beef." She got up and went to root through the fridge, while bouncing in place and wiggling her hips.

The Twins blinked as Tayor giggled, they hadn't seen her so giddy before. It was weird yet amusing, almost as much as the drawning of lazy Johnny.

"He looks high." said the Twins in Unison with a little snicker at the drawing and the mention of Dr. St. Cassie Bear-Pantsington. It seemed like Taylor had flipped her lid!

But good ol Taylor, hospitable as she was, was now offering food for the Twins.

"BEEF." Cried the Twins as they high fived. Thoguh Clyde would pause to check out Taylor's bouncing ass in the fridge, Bonnie did too but Clyde was being obvious about it, so she punched his arm.

"Ow!" He grunted.

"Anything's fine, Taylor!" Bonnie said with a polite smile, though honestly impressed that Taylor had already been training and was going to do it some more. Still, Bonnie was nervous about sharing everything with Taylor. But it was why she was here.

"Kay."

Taylor pulled out an armload of containers and spread them all out on the counter, and rapidly popped them all open. She grabbed a hard boiled egg out of one and bit off half of it.

"Knock yourself out, guys. A lot of the time I just eat my food like, plain and cold, which I know isn't for everybody. It's just easier, because I eat so many times in a day, and it's so much food that getting fancy would be too much work." She pushed the container of sliced, teriyaki marinated beef toward the twins.

"So c'mon, out with it. Eat up and tell me what brings you to Hamamatsu this fine day."

The Twins peered over and eyed the containers that Taylor pulled out. Cold. Clyde didn't care.

"Thanks!" He beamed, opening the container to eagerly dine on the teriyaki marinated beef after nabbing a nearby fork.

Bonnie however, after listening to Taylor, while impressed, was a bit curious. "Ain't eatin stuff cold, unhealthy?" Bonnie remarked while Clyde flexed a brow towards his sister as he hate his food.

Either way, Bonnie wanted to eat but she wasn't feeling too hot right now and she lowered her head a bit with a deep frown while Clyde looked on, hating to see Bonnie in so much pain. He knew it wasn't easy to bear, he was carrying some heavy guilt too.

"I wanna try and reach out ta' Emily Clarkson. I dunno If I can or should..." Bonnie said, her voice reeking with guilt, knowing from a bit of experience that people had a tendency to express their true feelings while intoxicated. Taylor was no different, but she was the only one who seemed to care about this matter and how torn up the Twins were.

"Unhealthy?" Taylor looked at the containers of food and shrugged. Maybe if it was old food, but nothing lasted longer than a day anyway in their house.

"Oh, dude..." She said when Bonnie finally came out with it. She finished chewing the rest of her hard boiled egg and washed it down with a sip of water. She leaned against the counter on her elbow and let her hips tilt out to the side.

"Okay, so, did you guys ever see the match with me and Kashi against Heather and Cecelia, whatever their dumbass tag team name was..." She waved a hand dismissively and moved on. "We beat Heather's ass in that match. The plan was kinda to pick her apart and Cecelia was too fuckin' lazy and self absorbed to care. We beat Heather half to death, and went for our grand finale..."

She motioned in the air with her finger, tracing the huge, vertigo-inducing arc from the turnbuckle and Akashi's help, up into the air, around in a backflip, and then smacked against her other palm. "She moved. Who the fuck knows how. I broke ribs when I landed. I couldn't move. I don't know if you've ever done that, but you know how your body just shuts down... Then she broke my face and pinned me, and... baaaaaaad shit.

"I literally couldn't show my face in public for over a week. I was purple alllll over this side." She gestured all around the side of her face. "It hurt to breathe. I couldn't train. I just sat around my apartment in my pajamas and cried for a long time. I barely ate. I... just bad stuff. I used to go to this one park kinda by Friction and sit on this one bench just to get air and get away from stuff, and I went there, like, hood up and stuff, and Heather found me.

"She was all, 'oh, you poor thing, let me help you'." Taylor paused, and looked between the two Gastins. "That match ruined my life. Kashi and I... got into a fight. A bad one... I lost everything because of Heather. Now, who do you think the last person on the planet I wanted to see was?"

She sighed, and scowled out the window. "She just wanted to feel like a good girl. She wanted to be the sweet little angel, saving the white trash from... whatever. I told her to go fuck herself, and she got all huffy. I understand that you feel bad about what happened and you want to do something to help, but have you thought that maybe for you helping means staying the fuck away?"