The History of a Runner/8

Chapter 8: Our Connections
"What's your freakin' problem?" played in Mike's mind as Jackie put her camera away. "So...what's going on?" he asked.

Matt just stared at him, picking up the rough draft of The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest. "When'd you start writing this?"

"...Yesterday? Never mind that &mdash; when'd you record that?"

"...Yesterday," Jackie told him. "Look, this is besides the point &mdash; did you see this...Homestar Runner guy?"

"Uh...yeah. Did &mdash;" Mike started, about to ask the same question, but he stopped himself. Of course they did; how else would they have gotten that footage? "...Nevermind."

"So...now what?"

Matt thought for a while. "I don't know...it's just...for some reason, I feel we're kinda tied in with their stories somehow. But...I don't know what we should do."

"What can you do?" a voice behind them asked. The three of them turned to the source with a source, to find...

"Craig!" Mike cried. "How...how long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know that you guys may like pausing a bit too much." Craig took a couple steps in their direction. "Seriously though, what are you gonna do? You guys saw this weird...Homestar guy by random chance, and now he's sort of disappeared out of your life.  You might never see him again &mdash; I know I never did.  So, what're you gonna do, Matt?"

About to make a comeback, Matt had nothing to say. What could he say? Craig had him beat. For a few moments, there was nothing but silence.

Then, to lighten up the mood, Matt said. "Oh guys, by the way, my friend Jamey invited us to go to the male swimming competition. You guys wanna come?  He said to meet at his place at seven thirty." The others, still in their somewhat-confused mood, mumbled their agreement. "Alrighty then." The four of them broke to continue their independent day.

****

Later that day, nobody was in a good mood. "I wanna go back!"

"It's cold at night!"

"There's nowhere good to stay!"

"AaAaA'm a taped-up microwave kitchen!"

"Calm DOWN, people!" Strong Bad cried. "Don't you realize what'll happen if we go back? They'll like...probe us with...sticks or somethin'!  It's unfair, I say.  UNFAIR!"

And yet, the whining continued.

"They've got a point, Strong Bad," Marzipan told him. "We can't stay at the park forever."

"Yeah," Strong Sad agreed. "I think we should relocate. We don't have to go back to those other guys.  We can find someplace else."

"You know, that's actually a pretty good idea," Strong Bad "admitted." "Let's just go to...wait...where can we go?" Marzipan rolled her eyes.

"How 'bout that guy and gihl's place?" Homestar suggested. "What wewe theiw names again? Mattie and Jack?"

The Cheat facepalmed. "Matt and Jackie," he corrected.

Strong Bad thought about it for a while. It actually was a pretty good idea. "Okay...I guess we could do that. Everybody!  Find out where some people named Matt and Jackie live!"

From then on, everybody was at work &mdash; looking at yellow pages, asking random strangers on the street (most of whom didn't react pleasantly to being asked by dumb animal characters about random peoples' address) &mdash; but eventually, they found a possible match at a nearby apartment complex. The group of 12 walked toward their location, hope in their hearts.

Fun Facts

 * Craig saying that they might like pausing too much is making fun of the fact that I overused the ellipses. Just saying "Long enough" is so cliché it's not even funny, so I decided to make it a bit more.
 * The Brothers Chaps often call the main characters "dumb animal characters."