How to Repair a Mechanical Heart - By J. C. Lillis Page 0,37

or something. To underscore the significance of this imaginary gesture, a_rose_knows has blown up that part of the picture and circled my pixelated ear in red. This has made all the other usernames dementedly happy.

doomerang: omg you guys. I CAN’T EVEN.

amity crashful: rosey you are a heroic stalker, please have my babies

retro robot: They are flawless. That is all.

sadparadise: MY BRAIN JUST LEGIT EXPLODED

whispering!sage: snickerdoodles. the official cookie of us.

thanks4caring: lol @ brandon’s “cupping hands.” like, “abel baby, back yo ass up into these”

sadparadise: can you blame him? DAT ASS.

lone detective: Question: Is Brandon, in fact, wearing Abel’s shirt?

a_rose_knows: Yes, it looks that way, but I can’t confirm 100%. all I can say is, the convo they were having? INTENSE. You could tell.

doomerang: Rosey what were they doing when they left??

a_rose_knows: They looked close. I mean, Abel held the door for him and kind of put his hand on his back a little. Abel totally smells like cinnamon. Also? Brandon at one point said “we’re just friends‌—‌RIGHT NOW.”

sadparadise: OMG “RIGHT NOW.”

retro robot: right now right now right now right nowwwwww <3

thanks4caring: mamacita? where is our fearless leader??

hey_mamacita: JESUS HORATIO CHRIST ON A MOTORBIKE WITH A DIME-STORE UKULELE AND A RASPBERRY BERET, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS UNBEARABLE WONDERFUL MADNESS???? ugh, rosey, you are queen of everything. miraculous pics of our boys; they look so effing precious I could eat them both like tiny perfect gingerbread men. BRB, writing fic all night! CURSE YOU.

“Click off.” My mouth is dry. “I can’t‌—‌”

“Let’s read the manifesto.”

Abel’s face is pink. I’ve never seen him blush. Through the fingers over his face, I think he might be smiling a little.

“What manifesto?”

“There was a link on the main page‌—‌here. Oh. God.”

There’s a manip. Of course there is. I’ve seen them all over the Cadsim fanjournal‌—‌horrible fakes of Cadmus and Sim kissing, holding hands, cradling adopted alien babies. This one is like, intergalactically worse. They’ve shopped my head onto Sim’s body and Abel’s head onto Cadmus’s, smushed our hands together, and stuck us on top of a wedding cake. ABANDON is scrawled on the side in blue icing.

“The hell is ‘abandon’?” I say.

Abel smirks. “Our portmanteau.”

I lay my head on the desk.

“Better than ‘Brabel,’ no?”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“It’s just getting good, though.”

THE MANIFESTO OF ABANDON

by hey_mamacita

“True Love is kinda like Xaarg’s Hell Bells‌—‌it comes when you least expect it, and it torments you until you give in!”‌—‌Abel McNaughton, from recap of Castaway Planet, Episode 4-16

once upon a time there were two boys with a vlog. the cute short one loved an android, and the cute tall one loved a space captain. the boys also loved each other in a completely repressed and thoroughly maddening kind of way, but instead of admitting it and having lots of blazing hot toe-curling bonobo monkey sex, they spent all their time bitching about Cadsim shippers and how the android and the space captain should never ever get together, like, JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH ON A UNICYCLE WITH X-RAY SPEX AND SARAN WRAP, could you boys be any more transparent??

anyway. the logical outcome of this delicious little story should be abundantly obvious to anyone with an internet connection and a basic knowledge of how romantic comedies work, but until abel smartens up and brandon gets over his tragic religious paranoia as detailed in his sister natalie’s awesome but defunct blog (screencaps here !), we at the abandon community are fully committed to‌—‌*ahem!*‌—‌lubing things up. we send good vibes. we catalog Hell Bells (i.e., indicators of true love). we conduct official events such as our BellFic Challenge (BFC), where NC-17 plots thicken biweekly. and we firmly believe that when the scales fall from their eyes and all obstacles are removed, these boys will GET MARRIED IN SOME WINDSWEPT MOUNTAINTOP PARADISE and roses and unicorns will spontaneously generate and glitter will rain from the clouds and God herself will smile a giant rainbow across the heavens and say “ohh, yeah, baby. It. Is. GOOD.”

Abel pushes his chair back. Ten seconds click by on the wall clock.

“Holy cow,” he says.

I can’t talk.

“I don’t even remember saying that Hell Bells line,” Abel says. “Did you know your sister had a blog?”

I shake my head.

“Go ahead,” I say. “Click the link.”

“Are you sure?”

My hands make a whatever gesture.

He hesitates, but he clicks the screencap link. This page pops up with a blog entry titled “Okay, so my little bro FINALLY came out‌…‌” I peek at it through my fingers. It’s Natalie, no question. Her username is Vashta and