How to tell when an RP might be a thinly-veiled cry for help (or, "I had to edit 500 words out of this to get it under the word count. This. A Steve L

She stalked between the rows, letting her fingertips graze the fresh linen with each step. After today, this room would never feel as young, would never be so pristine. There was an innocence to it, as yet unsullied by the gathering throngs of hungry people looking for their next meal, and nothing was so intoxicating to Dolores Merriweather Pepperidge-Pembroke as innocence.

That was what she found so intoxicating about Etienne, that despite his age the world was, by and large, new to him. He had made his decision to become a professional wrestler at a young age, he'd told her, and then spent every day since then trying to perfect his craft at the expense of everything else. He didn't drink. He didn't smoke. Even the legal drugs were anathema to sweet, sweet Etienne. Dolores wondered whether he was still a virgin.

What would that experience be like, she wondered.

Etienne Lemieux. The "Other Steve Lemieux." He would be a fitting snack until she could sink her teeth into the main course.

"Allo?" called the voice from behind her, and she turned to see Etienne making his way from the kitchen. To Dolores he looked lost, like the concept of this place was alien to him.

If he only knew.

"Stevie!" she beamed. Dolores held out her hands and wiggled her fingers as if tickling the air. "I was wondering when you were going to come back. You know, I was just thinking it's so weird to not have Steve here with me." She smiled. "I think I'm getting used to you."

His cheeks flushed, an expression that sent a subtle tingle along the back of her arms.

"Come," she said, moving to a table and pulling back two chairs. Dolores oozed into one and then patted the seat of the other. "Sit down and tell Auntie Dolores about your day. Was the session everything you hoped it would be? Are you good and ready for the big match this weekend?"

"For the wrestling I am always ready," he said, though it was obvious he was holding something back. She could read it on him, easy as if it were written in bold, blinking lights.

"Are you sure? It looks like something is bothering you."

"I am sure."

"Really? We're friends, Steve. You know you can tell me anything." She gestured him over. "Come on. Out with it. I promise you'll feel better afterwards."

He trudged closer and took a seat. His hair was still wet from the post-workout shower. Oh, Stevie, she thought, so eager to please that you didn't even make time to dry off.

"Ms. Dolores," he began, "I am telling you the truth. I am always ready to wrestle."

"I believe you," she said and put a comforting hand under his shoulder. His muscles felt like cables of interwoven steel. How long had it been since she felt something like that? The thought gave her pause.

"Ms. Dolores?"

"Yes? Oh, I'm sorry, Steve. Your arm felt so tense that I got concerned for a moment there." She drew her hand back, folding them together neatly in her lap. "I'm just worried about you, is all. Please continue."

"Well, like I said, I am always ready to wrestle. Always. But..."

"Yes?"

"I am getting nervous about our next stop. About meeting Ms. Troy. What if she doesn't recognize her mistake, and all of this was for nothing? What happens then? It has always been my dream to wrestle, and there is no better place on Earth to do it than PRIME."

"Stevie, you have nothing to worry about," she said. "I know that when we get there and I get the chance to explain to her in person what a dreadful mistake this has all been, well, I can't imagine a world where she doesn't clear it right up."

"I want to believe that, but-"

"Steve," she interrupted, "I need you to trust me. I know it all seems very daunting right now, but..." She paused, only now noticing the bandage under his chin. "Oh my god, did someone at that new gym hurt you?"

"Oh this? This is just from shaving."

Dolores nodded.

"I know this all must seem very scary, Steve, but you're doing everything right. And I've been working with Lindsay Troy's office for months now, I know what an honest and honrable person she is. I have no doubt that this whole mess will work itself out, don't you worry." She traced her hand along the line of his face. "And as for meeting her..."

Steve recoiled, a sharp pain blooming from his throat as Dolores drew her hand away.

"Better to just rip the Band-Aid off."

#

LeMoo's had been closed for an hour, and in the time since then Steve had been busy at the computer in his office. Before flying back to Oregon after the last ReVival, Ollie had made Steve promise that he would do some research before his next match.

"I know nobody will 'rehearse' with you," Ollie had said, "but if you're going to 'perform' with someone on the fly then it's probably a good idea to get a sense of their style. And Sage Pontiff? He's VERY method."

And so, this was how Steve Lemieux found himself spending his evening, clicking through article after article, photo after photo, and noticing that an awful lot of these performances involved an awful lot of blood.

"He must have his own props budget," Steve mused to himself.

"Steve Lemieux?" called a voice from behind him.

Steve leaped a solid foot into the air from the surprise, and then turned to see two figures standing just outside the door to his office.

The first man was tall, and looked like he probably played football in college. He had that 'man who was once muscular but is now old and could probably still kick your ass' look about him. He, like Steve, had a mustache, though his was far neater.

The other was slightly taller, much leaner, and carried himself with the confidence of a man who needed to wear a disguise at the gym, lest he drown in yoga mom pussy. He had dark skin, a neatly trimmed goatee, and a set of cornrows that had been braided into a zig-zag pattern.

They both wore black suits and sunglasses, despite the fact that it was close to midnight and they were indoors.

"Y-yes?" stammered Steve.

"I'm Agent Jeff Gordon," he said, and then gestured to the man next to him. "This is my partner, Dale Earnhardt, IV."

"Like the race car driver?" Steve said. "Are you related."

"No, but I can see how you might say that based on the uncanny resemblance." Agent Earnhardt deadpanned.

Agent Gordon reached into the breast pocket of his suit.

"We're from the RetCon Recon Squad," he said, flashing Steve a glance of the silver badge.

"I've never heard of you," Steve said.

"If you had, then we didn't do our jobs right," said Earnhardt.

"Am I in trouble?" Steve said, shrinking into himself.

"Nothing we can't spend a few minutes sorting out," said Gordon. "There are multiple organizations just like ours, Steve. Each of us tasked with making sure that things proceed in a proper order. Our job is to clean up mistakes along the way."

"M-m-m-m-mistakes? Oh no." Steve felt his bladder loosen. His uncle Albert had told him about men like this, the secret G-Men who came to make people disappear. The Men in Black, Albert had said, but they were nothing like the movies.

"Yo, Steve," Earnhardt said. "Relax, man. You're acting like we're here to kill you, but that's not the case."

"No," said Gordon. "We just need you forget a thing or do."

"What do you need me to forget?" Steve said. "If you tell me I promise I'll do it and I'll never speak of it again, honest."

"We're here as part of Operation: Girl Scout," said Earnhardt. Steve furrowed his brow in confusion. "You know, Girl Scouts? Make those little coconut-caramel cookies with the chocolate? Used to call 'em Samoas? Shit, man, I was real proud of that name, too."

"He's talking about Bolamba," said Gordon. "There are certain things that a lot of people would like to forget, and that's one of them. So we're here to make it happen."

Steve swallowed hard. "Will it hurt?"

"It's completely painless," said Gordon, though Steve wasn't convinced. "There's no equipment involved, at least not for this level. No rituals or procedures."

"So what do I do? It won't keep me from my performance with Sage Pontiff, will it?"

Agent Earnhardt held out his hand. In his palm was brownie that had been wrapped in wax paper.

"We just need you to eat this brownie," he said.

"That's all?" said Steve.

"That's all," said Gordon.

Steve thought for a moment as a lifetime of learnings warred in his head. His parents told him to never take anything from strangers, but that was when he was just a little kid. And Steve was a man now, and able to make his own decisions. Still, it seemed like good advice to not eat brownies from random G-Men when they showed up in your restaurant late at night. But they were G-Men, after all. Badges and everything. Man this was a hard decision.

Steve reached for the treat, then took a bite.

"This tastes funny," Steve said. "I don't mean to insult whoever made this, because I'm sure they're very nice, and I know that cooking is a form of expression, but..."

"But?"

Steve blushed. "Have you ever been to the farm in the summer? Like when it's really hot and everything is sweaty? It reminds me of the barn, only with chocolate and walnuts. What's in this?"

Gordon raised an index finger to adjust his sunglasses. "It's an all-natural confectionary sourced from organic ingredients and prepared in the finest kitchen our organization has access to. It's a brownie, albeit one that's been fortified with a healthy dose of Compound M."

"Compound M?" said Steve.

With a grin Earnhardt said, "That's just our way of saying there's a whole lot of psilocybin in there."

"What's that?" said Steve.

"Shrooms, man. Come on." He saw the vacant look of confusion on Steve's face. "You know, mushrooms? Mushies. Blue Meanies. Boomers. Little Smoke. Simple Simon. Silly Putty. Sponge Daddies."

"Super Marios," added Gordon.

"No, that's something else," said Earnhardt.

Steve blinked.

"It's drugs, Steve," Gordon said. "It's a shitload of drugs."

#

Aren't deserts supposed to be cold?

This was Steve's first thought as his eyes adjusted to the light. He ran his fingers along the sand, finding that it too felt out of place. While there was the occasional piece of grit, the surface was largely smooth, and with a linear groove every twelve inches or so. It didn't smell like sand, either. There was a faint odor of beef juice lingering in the air.

Oh, and also there was sitar music. Because you can't have a drug-induced hallucination without that. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules here.

It took a great amount of effort, but Steve was able to pull himself up onto his feet. Good thing this desert had shelves, otherwise he might have been stuck in the sand for a very long time.

He heard what sounded like the faint peal of thunder, then looked up in time to be hit in the face by a falling cabbage that knocked his glasses askew and mushed down on his mustache. He did what any normal person would do, and threw himself prostrate back down onto the smooth desert sand.

"I'm sorry, Vegetable God. Please don’t send me to Vegetable Heck."

He stayed there a while, hoping that Vegetable God would spare him another cabbage meteor smiting. He would never say it out loud, for to do so might incur further plagues, but as far as divine wrath was concerned, Steve thought bonking via vegetable was pretty weird.

He crawled around in the sand, letting his hands wander in search of another magic shelf. Did they install those in every desert, or just this one? Maybe it was a mirage, he thought. Then remembered that you're not supposed to be able to touch mirages. Wait, how would anyone actually know if you could touch a mirage? It seemed paradoxical, so he sat back down on the sand and let his brain spin up into overdrive on the nature of mirages and all things mirage-adjacent.

That's when the chanting started.

Steve rose to his feet with all the grace of a slightly overweight, unathletic sandwich maker with poor spatial awareness and a set of delayed reflexes. He shifted into a defensive stance, which seemed rather useless given his fighting pedigree to date. Even within this realm he was being punked out by vegetables hurled from on high.

He sniffed the air, and his scent caught on something vegetal, herbal. He wished he could have followed it through the air like a cartoon dog, but alas despite the clearly magical nature of this space Steve found himself unable to levitate. Instead, he threw his arms out straight behind his back and skipped towards the origin of the aroma in a bizarre Naruto frolic.

"Brothers and sisters-ah! Lean in close-ah! For the squaaaaaaaaaared circle, hallelujah! Is a garden of ah-glory!"

Steve tried to blink it away, unsure if he should believe what he was seeing. There was an entire congregation of greens - mostly herbs, from the looks of it - all standing in rapt attention as a bunch of parsley preached the good word.

Oh, and the parsley had a tiny pope hat. You know, the kind that makes you look like your head is stuck in a holy oven mitt when you wear it.

"The wrestlers, strong and tall like the mighty corn, they crash and sa-way-ah. Yet it is the humble parsley! The rosemary! The thyme! Ohhhhhhh, yes Lord. It is us who seasons the fight!"

He couldn't quite place it, but Steve felt like there was one missing there.

The Parsley Pope continued on, completely oblivious to the mustachioed goof busy sniffing his congregation.

"So clap your hands! Stomp-ah your feet! And say it with me nah... Say it with your whole heart..." The Parsley Pope shook the many, many stalk-hands. A bunch of leaves went a'flappin. "Show us the path to your righteousness, and let us be seasoned-ah with grace! Can I get a' amen?!"

Steve heard a tiny voice squeak out, "Amen," and he turned to see a small group of tubers blinking their eyes.

"Biblically accurate potatoes," he said in a reverent whisper.

Steve collapsed back down into the sand, and the impact made a wet slapping sound. Very unnatural for sand, Steve thought, but went no further. The smell was getting worse. The smell of beef juice had turned; gone rancid. His arm touched something warm, and thick, and wet.

"Steeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeen…"

The voice was light, like a song.

"Steven Lemiieeeeeeeeuuuuux."

He reached for the sun, wondering if Vegetable God would extend a hand to pull him up out of the muck that was now filling the space.

Instead of Vegetable God, Steve saw a dark-skinned figure in red facepaint. He was riding a motorcycle that was being pulled behind nine tiny jet planes. The lead jet plane had a red nose. If that wasn't weird enough, the motorcycle looked like a great big weiner, and Steve tried to shield his face because you should never look at someone else's private parts without their permission, even if their private parts are a sky motorcycle.

What was his name again?

The man revved the engine of his flying penis bike and a cloud of hundred-dollar bills farted from the penis tailpipe.

"Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeven..."

Steve blinked, only to be greeted with a new face. It rose from the muck, a pair of glistening black eyes rimmed by yellow-grey skin and oozing a thick, viscous ichor from the corners. He tried to scream, but found he had no voice. His hands reached for something to shield himself.

"...Le-sagna."

#

"So what do we do about this?"

Angela looked at the mess on the floor in front of her and sighed. She had already been on her way into work for her regular Saturday shift when a panicked call from Paul came through. Paul was the newest member of the team. He looked like he was fresh out of high school and hair the color and shape of roasted broccoli, which was the style at the time. That was the extent of his personality, or at least it was all Angela bothered to learn about him.

"Ang? Hey, Ang, you listening?"

It was the damnest thing she'd seen in all the years she'd worked at LeMoo's, whether for Steve's father, Leland, or for Steve himself.

"Ang, seriously I'm freaking out here. What do we do?"

Her boss was splayed out on the floor of the walk-in fridge. He was wearing nothing but his underwear, a pair of striped socks hiked up to the northern border of his calves, and the omnipresent pair of New Balance sneakers. His glasses were askew on his face. His mustache had staged a violent revolt against Steve's face, every hair reaching in a different direction in a desperate attempt to find a new upper lip to call home.

A pair of cabbages rested on either side of Steve's head, and Angela wondered whether Steve had tried to use them as a pillow. He was holding a pair of carrots, and it looked to her like Steve had moved them into the shape of a cross.

"Well, I know one thing," Angela said.

"Yeah? What's that?"

Angela waved her hand towards the spot on the floor where Steve was too busy sweating and snoring to notice anyone else was there.

"We're gonna have to wash all these real good before we put 'em in the cole slaw."

#

The evening had been a resounding success. By 3pm a line had started to form outside the door, and by the time the doors opened an hour later the front of house was forced to tell new customers that there would be an hour wait, so we'll take your name and as soon as a table is ready we'll let you know.

Dolores knew it would be a success; there was never a single doubt in her mind. Edmonton had been the same. Ann Arbor before that.

If you asked her how long she'd been doing this, Dolores would grin and say, "Longer than you might think." Then, if she was in a particularly pleasant mood, she might wink. But if you asked her about her secrets, how she could find success in city after city, then her mood might change. If you were very unlucky, she might actually tell you.

She stood on the roof of the brand new Columbus Sketti Bucket and looked out at the landfill across the street. Edmonton had been the same. Ann Arbor before that. It was the same for every city and town, even down to the corporate headquarters in Peoria, Illinois. Dolores chose her locations very carefully.

With every new opening the local news would always ask the same question: "Would it be better to open in a different location?"

Her answer was well-rehearsed. She would say that the cost of real estate in this part of town tends to be lower, which means that instead of spending money on location, Sketti Bucket could use what they'd saved to create a better product for the people who visited their restaurant. We use that money to source all our ingredients locally, she would say. While the recipe might be the same at each of our restaurants, we want our customers to get a taste of their local community. Then she would tell whoever was asking that Sketti Bucket uses a special air filtration system, so customers never need worry.

She closed her eyes and opened her hands as the air from inside the restaurant blew up around her. Dolores inhaled deep, drinking in the rot - the queen of a putrid empire looking down upon her huddled masses. If only her Sister could be here to join in the revelry, but Gertrude was too preoccupied with poor, sweet Fred.

Dolores reached a hand into her pocket and found the bandage she had put there earlier, the one torn fresh from Etienne’s face. The pad had discolored, having turned a shade of ruddy brown from the collection of fluids gathered there. Even here on the roof, surrounded by a miasma of Columbus' filth, she could smell the salt tang of his sweat and the bright copper scent of his blood.

Slowly, intimately, she drew the pad across her outstretched tongue, and let herself be consumed by the wave of ecstasy that followed.