(no subject)
After writing hobbits yesterday... I had to. Ohhh, I had to. Me and Pan started discussing how it's been too long since I posted any Freke!fic, and how this needed to be rectified. I haven't been able tog get back into the swing of the original plot line (whatever plot there IS, really), but an 'extra' seemed to be in order. And if there's one thing I like, it's introducing hobbits to a modern, meta-world with their Herrington companions.
Title: Social Networking (1/2)
Pairing(s): F/S, F/Z, C/Z
Rating: PG-13 to light R for swearing and some smexualness
Genre: Extreme AU, der hey, crossover (Freke!, basically)
Author's Note: I hope you get this, even if you don't use facebook and/or play Farmville/Resturant City/etc....
Author's Note the Second: A HUGE thanks to panmodal, for the extreme amount of awesome ideas. Omg, the ideas...
Disclaimer: Don't own ANYTHING!
Synopsis: Hobbits + The Internet = WTF
WATER FIGHT!
Tom Cotton has hit you BACK using a Super-Soaker 3000! Get him back within six hours and see if you win!
Frodo chuckled and pressed the ‘FIGHT BACK!’ button, ready to continue this silly online water-war. He, Tom, and many others had used this Facebook application for over a week now… or rather, over-used it, really. It couldn’t be helped, as it was all too fun. Perhaps a real water-fight would’ve been better, but…
The idea that all of Hobbiton had been wary, even critical of this ‘brand new world’ at first made Frodo grin like a hungry orc. It’d barely been a month since the Comcast vans had driven out to Bag End to install a wireless tower, cable lines and Frodo’s own personal computer, when all of a sudden everyone in town wanted in on the deal. Even Lobelia, who’d come by every day while construction was going on to shake her umbrella at the big folk installing the things, cursing and yelling, “This will bring no good to our poor little village!” was now addicted to myspace. Frodo would visit her profile from time-to-time, all to have a giggle over her lack of photoshop skills. Her crooked, ugly nose looked MUCH better than the off-colored blob of ‘paint’ she’d tried applying to it. If Otho knew how many hobbit lads (and, surprisingly, big folk) she had in her friend’s listing, he’d axe every wireless tower in town… of which there were many, all to meet the demands of the people who were too intrigued and fascinated by Herrington, Ohio’s ways of living.
And it’d been Frodo--’that Mad Baggins’--who’d shown them the way. It was odd how he’d gained more friends in sitting in the study at his computer, rather than going to the pub or milling about town. And the family! People he’d missed over the years, unable to visit because of great distances--all of them there for him to see at any time, with just the click of a button! It was as if Eru himself had climbed down from the heavens to create Facebook… there had to be at least a few hundred people in the world that enjoyed it daily. To bring that many people together in one, small space was amazing.
“’Scuse me, Mr. Frodo?”
Once sure that he’d bombarded Tom and forty-three other competitors with a firehose, Frodo clicked the application window from the screen and turned to Sam with a smile. “Yes, sweet Sam?”
“I jes’ finished up the gardens. They’re lookin’ right fine.” Sam wore a sheepish smile as he nodded to the computer. “Would ye mind if I… I mean, if ye ain’t busy…”
“No, go on ahead! I’ve been on for a few hours, anyway.”
Sam beamed and walked over to the now-empty desk chair, signed Frodo out of his account then logged into his own. Frodo pulled the other small stool over to perch upon and watch Sam go about his online-business. “Merry posted on my wall today. Did you see?” Frodo asked. He then laughed and shook his head. “Apparently, he’s gotten hold of a digital camera. He made his armpit look like a… well, you know.”
“Knowin’ that scamp, I’d’ve expected him to go on an’ do the deed outright,” Sam said. “But I spos’ after the warnin’ he got from the site after the LAST time…”
Frodo continued giggling like a schoolgirl and leaned on Sam’s strong shoulder. As usual, Sam’s first e-task had to do with Farmville. Frodo’s eyes widened when he looked at the top of the screen. “Level forty-three? Weren’t you all the way down at ten yesterday?”
“Aye.”
“How did you DO that?”
Sam shrugged, obviously fighting to keep his smile from going smug as he clicked on his many chickens to harvest their eggs. “Jes’ good at farmin’, what can I say?” he said. “Plus, that Zeke o’ yers. He was kind ‘nuff to get me some Farmin’ville cash.”
“Oh?”
“Mmm, aye. Me Da’s still waitin’ on that credit-card to come in the mail, but I asked if he’d trade a transaction for some of my…” Sam paused to bite his lip and look at Frodo. “…Ye’d find me silly, knowin’ that I’m spendin’ some of my hard work on this folly, wouldn’t ye?”
“Oh, Sam,” Frodo said, sighing as he looped his arms around the young hobbit’s waist. “Don’t be silly. After all, in getting to use Bilbo's credit card, I spent how much to get my account in Restaurant City going?”
Sam chuckled. “Now YOU levelin’ that fast in that game… that, was amazin’.”
“You’re good at farming, I’m good at cooking.”
“Oi! I found a stallion!” Sam exclaimed, straightening as he clicked to post the ‘adoption’ notice on his Facebook’s wall. “Master Casey’s been lamentin’ over not gettin’ a one since they came out with ‘em!”
“Ooh! Sam, I want it! I haven’t gotten one, either!” Frodo pouted.
“But… I’d told him that I’d mail him to let him know that…” Sam said. “…And there’s only one, and…”
Using every seduction technique Frodo had ever learned, he slipped his hand to Sam’s round tummy and stroked it gently, all while nuzzling his nose against his ear. “I think it’s wonderful, how close you’ve gotten with my Herrington friends. How well you share me with Ezekiel. But… I’d think that I was ‘top priority’, my dear Sam.”
Sam swallowed and fluttered his lashes, something he always did when Frodo dipped his fingers past the waist of his breeches to the start of his backside. “Ah… a’right, Mr. Frodo. Ye win… jes’ don’t you say none to poor Master Casey about this,” he said. It took all Frodo had to not coo and clap as Sam clicked ‘home’, then logged out. As the two of them shared their passwords (for this very specific purpose), Sam logged back in under Frodo’s account, clicked to move down and… “Oh, drat,” he said.
“What?” Frodo asked. He peered at the screen. “Someone’s already claimed it?”
“Aye. I’ve many friends on here, me stuff goes fast.”
Sighing sadly, Frodo was about to look away when he caught sight of who exactly had taken HIS stallion. “Wait…Ezekiel?”
“Aye, s’him, a’right. Always hoggin’ Farmin’ville special stuffs--”
“But he doesn’t PLAY Farmville. He told me so,” Frodo said. He gave a hard look to Sam, who went stiff and blank-faced. “Sam?”
“’E… ‘e didn’t tell ye?” Sam asked. When it was clear that no, Ezekiel had NOT told Frodo a dang-blasted thing, Sam cleared his throat and shrugged. “Well, ‘e jes’ started, methinks. I asked ‘im if he played, cos’ I needed more neighbors fer the neighbor blue ribbon--an’--well, he said that he wasn’t ‘tendin’ on gettin’ a farm, cos’ he didn’t LIKE it, but I wasn’t the only one botherin’ ‘im…”
“Oh YES, he told me the same! Said that Farmville was just a ‘waste of fucking time’ and everyone played it--that it was ‘too goddamned boring and lame’!” Frodo said in an angry, hurt voice.
“Well, erm, mayhaps… mayhaps he jes’ don’t want lots o’ neighbors! His farm IS real small-like, look…” Sam logged Frodo out and logged himself in yet again; his fingers trembled slightly in clicking the Farmville bookmark. His eyes darted from the screen to Frodo then back, nervously. When the screen loaded back up, he went to click on his neighbor listing. “Oh. He must’ve leveled, um…” Sam said. Instead of Zeke’s name being listed in the low levels, Sam needed to click two times to get to the middle of his vast listing of names. “Level twenty-three. Huh. E’s been playin’ more, ‘suppose…”
To say that Frodo was fuming was silly. He was downright ready to explode. Pushing Sam’s hand aside, he clicked on Zeke’s dark-haired dancing avatar and watched his farm load up.
“Oh. Playin’ LOTS more, um…”
“That dratted fiend!” Frodo spat. He looked upon the large, vast field of planted watermelons, almost ripe for picking. He gawked at the sheer number of animals, most of them only acquired through adoptions, like turtles and kittens. But in looking at the top part of the screen, Frodo nearly choked on his own spit. “So disinterested he is that he has not one but TWO chicken coops! Doesn’t that require a special CHEAT code?”
“No, not a code, Mr. Frodo. It was in one of the fan-grouping thingee cheat thingees, you have to move the coop you already have to the top corner, then take a--”
“Ah, WORK is involved then! Why, that miserable, lying, selfish…”
~*~
“THERE you are!”
Zeke looked over his shoulder then down to Frodo, who was standing with his hands on his hips and looking petulant--something he’d grown used to seeing when the hobbit was at his most perturbed. Great. What now? Hoping to keep an argument at bay, he looked back to his messy, opened locker then back at Frodo. “Homeroom’s in five minutes. Where else would I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know… perhaps staying at home to have fun online??”
“Uh… I don’t ditch class anymore. You know that.”
“Mmhmm. But sometimes, things happen. You know? You might miss an e-mail.”
“Whiiiich I can pick up the second I get home…?”
Frodo’s smile went very, very sinister. “Perhaps; but what about crops?”
Oh. Shit. Acting stupid never worked, but it was always Zeke’s first attempt, anyway. “Um, what’re you… talkin’ about?” he asked. Frodo made a loud scoff.
“Let us not play dumb, Ezekiel! I went on facebook last night with my Sam--you know, the one you NEIGHBORED!?” he yelled.
“Oh, Farmville?” Zeke said, making his voice as unbothered as he possibly could. “Dude, I barely touch that shit. I was just getting bugged by too many people to play, and--”
“I was ONE of those people; does your memory fail you? Who was it that begged and pleaded for another neighbor? Who was it that was in dire need of at least a red ribbon in the neighbor-award category??”
“Yea, which you GOT, like, minutes after asking me! You have HOW many people friended in there, a couple thou?” Zeke said. “So what does it matter??”
“It matters a great deal! You… you’re supposed to be my love partner!” Frodo wailed. Zeke looked from side-to-side at passing students, all of them wearing confused and amused expressions. They all knew what went down, but things like this were always interesting, of course. Before he could retort, Frodo went on. “The last I knew, when someone loves someone else, they give all they can to them! And something as simple as becoming a Farmville neighbor? This is absurd!”
“Yea, damned right it is. We’re standing here, needing to get to fuckin’ homeroom, but you’ve decided to go ape-shit on me about fuckin’ Farmville first damned thing in the morning,” Zeke said. Frodo’s patented ‘what did you just say to me??’ look didn’t work, not this time. “See, THIS is why I didn’t wanna get involved in that stupid crap.”
“Excuse me??”
“Yea. Hell knows I’m constantly bombarded by your ‘I Sent You A Heart!’, ‘Water Fight!’, ‘Pillow Fight!’, ‘Join Me In My Fairy Garden!’ invites and fuckin’ spam all the fuckin’ time,” Zeke said. “And you KNOW I hate that junk!”
“How can you hate hearts?! Hearts sent to you by someone you’re supposed to LOVE??” Frodo damn-near shrieked.
“Look, the only goddamned reason I joined facebook was so that I could shut my mom up. ‘Oh, I hate e-mail, FB is so much better to keep in touch with!’ were her words, every other stinkin’ day, so I said ‘fine!’ and signed up. Now I have to put up with her Europe-y themed pic-spams every damned time I turn the thing on. I didn’t join to plow pixels!” Zeke retorted. “But yea, I eventually caved--now I wish I hadn’t!”
Frodo looked ready to blow up, but before he could say anything a shout came from across the hall. “YO, Zeke!”
Zeke looked up, found Gabe passing by and sighed. “Yea. What.”
“Dude, thanks for the hundred fish-fries you sent me last night! Anything your restaurant needs?”
“Um…” Now, didn’t THIS just make everything worse? Judging by the gawking face Frodo was making, Zeke wasn’t going to live past first period. Zeke shook his head and ignored him a moment to reply, “No, I’m good. I uh, barely play anyway…”
“Hah, yea right! You’re the ‘Café World King’, man! See you in bio!” Gabe yelled before disappearing around the corner.
“You… you play Café World.”
“Um… yea, Frodo. I do. But barely, like I--”
“Café World. After I specifically expressed how much better Restaurant City is,” Frodo said, his voice empty and sad. “After I asked you to sign up… how much I needed ingredients for that floating fruit salad…”
“Listen, Fro, I’m not exactly obsessing over these things like you are--”
“Those ingredients are FREE! Free!!” Frodo wailed, yet again. “I don’t need to spend acres of my Paypal account to get those mangoes and coconuts! If you have FRIENDS that PLAY, they can send them to you!! But NO, noooo! Let’s play that ridiculous farce called Café World instead! What a joke that game is--a blatant, and… how does one say it in Herrington? Ah yes, ‘piss-poor’ copycat of the REAL THING!”
“Shut up! Oh my fucking GOD, shut! UP!” Zeke screamed, unable to keep his anger at bay anymore. “Do you fucking realize what you’re doing right now? DO you? You’re standing in the school hall, in front of everyone, bitching and hollering at me over something as fuckin’ asinine as Facebook! A website! Something so goddamned trivial--Jesus!”
Frodo narrowed his eyes and scowled. “Always calling upon this ‘Jesus’ character to save you from your folly. How typical. Why don’t you take responsibility for your deeds?”
“My… oh, okay. Yea.” Zeke slammed his locker shut, just as the warning bell rang. “Y’know what, Fro? Why don’t you just head home, fuck school for today? I’ll stay, because I wanna make up for lost time… not sit around at home like a desperate idiot, sending hearts and other annoying, bandwidth-whoring applications that nobody cares about--”
“Hey Zeke, you fuckin’ prick!”
Now Casey? Zeke looked up from the smoking-mad hobbit to the smoking-mad human being now walking over, nostrils flaring. “What NOW?”
“Yea, like you don’t know. Me and Samwise had a fuckin’ DEAL, man, and you knew it!” Casey said. “But no, no, you just snatch up yet another fucking stallion and--”
“Oh, all right, FUCK y’all! Fuck school! I’m the fuckin’ fuck OUTTA here!” Zeke bellowed. Instead of heading to homeroom, he reopened his locker, threw his things inside and flipped a cigarette in his mouth. He felt mad, lighting the thing before he could escape through the front door, but that’s what he was… mad. Had it. Anything else that made him want to firebomb Facebook’s headquarters every day, until the end of time.
~*~
“Erm… Mr. Frodo?”
Frodo stopped folding laundry with busy, shaking hands to look to Sam with a brilliant smile. “Yes, dear Sam?”
The young hobbit bit his lip and nodded to the computer screen. “I, erm… just logged into Facebook. You--made a group,” he said.
“Ah, yes. That I did.”
“Aye. I’ve seen lotsa groups like it, but… it usually involves big folk, like that Paris Hilton character. Or that um, music group… ‘Nick and Knack’?”
Chuckling, Frodo sat down on the mattress. “You mean ‘Nickelback’? Oh good lord yes, they deserved to be jeered at the way they had. To think, a pickle could gain more fans than a popular group of so-called ‘muscians’! Hah!”
“Thas’ all good an’ fine, Mr. Frodo, but… well…” Sam pointed at the screen again. “I don’t rightly know how your group is gonna get fans like that. After all, Mr. Tyler isn’t as well-known as the other celebrity-like… people.”
“Oh! Yes, THAT new group,” Frodo dramatically replied. Smiling devilishly, Frodo tapped his chin to mock deep-thought. “Ah, what did I name it again…?”
“Um… ‘I Am Willing To Wager A Great Amount Of Mithril That Ezekiel David Tyler Of 20 Bell Avenue, Herrington, Ohio, Telephone Number 555-5644 Can Gain The Well-Deserved Scorn And Hatred Of 100 Good, Honest People That Frequent The Website Facebook Within The Time Span Of One Week’,” Sam read.
“Yes, of course!”
Looking uncomfortable, Sam blinked furiously at Frodo. “Thas’ a bit… scornful isself, ain’t it?”
“Oh? Are you saying that I’ve gone a skosh overboard, sweet Sam?” Frodo asked. When Sam shrugged, Frodo smiled warmly, stood and walked over to him in slow steps. “It’s simply a joke. A prank, much like Merry would pull. Remember the time he wrote, ‘Frodo Baggins likes to eat caterpillars!’ on the ‘Dragon’s privy walls? Like that.”
“Well, uh--pardon my sayin’ so, but… you do. Or… did, t’any rate.”
“When I was twelve; and it’d been on a silly dare,” Frodo replied. “Was it my fault they had a sweet, earthy flavor?”
“This is a mite-bit different, though. Maybe a baker’s dozen saw Merry’s scrawl, but this… t’has Mr. Ezekiel’s telephonic number and address on it. An’ last I’d knew, there were a few hundred more folk that have their fun on Facebook.”
“All the funnier! And honestly, it won’t be taken too seriously. I’m simply paying him back for his inconsideration. It’s well-deserved, don’t you think?”
Sam shrugged, turned to the screen and went to say something, but he stopped dead and frowned. “Mr. Frodo? I, um, think your wager’s near won,” he said.
“Oh?” Frodo moved to the stool and leaned in to look at the screen. “Oh my, twenty people already? I just posted it! Hah! Wait until he sees this… or gets a prank call! Ooh, let me see if Merry is on chat, make sure he’s joined…”
“He has. Look,” Sam said. Sure enough, Merry’s profile picture was in the ‘fan’ list.
“What about Pip?”
“Um… I’ll refresh the page,” Sam said.
With bated breath and an excited grin, Frodo clasped his hands while the page reloaded. Oh, for fun! That insolent bairn would be begging for Frodo’s forgiveness tomorrow, pleading for him to end the humiliation! Frodo was just about to find Bilbo to ask him for his Blackberry (something the old codger swore he wasn’t addicted to, yet always carried in his pocket to hold and stroke and sigh over) to call Freddy and inform him of the frivolity, when he went stiff and cold at the page before him.
“Oh. Dearie me,” Sam murmured in shock. “Two and ten and… what’s that number, Mr. Frodo? M’afraid I can’t count that high…”
~*~
The phone jack was ripped from the wall in Zeke’s angry, hasty action, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t as if he’d used the damned thing much, anyway, besides calling Casey… or making those fucking expensive-as-hell long distance calls to the goddamned Shire all the time. As long as he didn’t hear it ringing anymore, he just. Didn’t. Care.
That was when he heard the OTHER one ringing upstairs. Shaking from head-to-toe, Zeke decided to answer this one; it’d be the very last phone call he’d take, ever, so he’d make it memorable. He climbed the stairs in record-time, ran into his room and picked it up. “Yes, Tyler-goddamned-fucking-residence, can I fucking help you?”
“Ezekiel?? Hello, is this thing on…?”
The muffled tap-tap Zeke had grown used to hearing every time Frodo decided to bother him made his fists clench; the one holding the phone making the thin, cheap plastic creak. “Oh. It’s you. Hello there, you little motherfucking-midget.”
“Ezekiel! It’s me, Frodo Baggins of the Shire!”
Dear god in heaven. “Oh yea, I know. I know.”
“Listen to me carefully! Do NOT pick up your telephone when it rings after we hang up! There’s been… a problem,” Frodo said; Zeke was glad to hear the panic in his voice, at least.
“Oh yea? Why’s that?” he ‘asked’.
“Because! Because… I heard… some dastardly ruffians, they were at the ‘Dragon this afternoon! They’d somehow gotten your telephone number, and… they plan to call your residence and say nasty things, call you terrible… names!”
The little fuck couldn’t even lie properly. Deciding to play along, Zeke made a gasp. “Oh, crikey! Not ruffians, say it ain’t so!”
“Yes! Ruffians! I think they were from Bree!” Frodo cried.
“Well then, I’d best be on my guard, then.”
“Oh please, yes! Do!”
“Should I move, too?”
The question caused a pause on Frodo’s end. “Um… move? As in switch residences? OH!” Frodo said. “Yes! Move! They were also talking about where you lived, and--”
“Hot damn, I’d better get my ass in gear, then, huh? Shit! Next thing you know, those ‘ruffians’ will be posting all of my PERSONAL FUCKING INFORMATION ON FACEBOOK,” he yelled. Through clenched teeth, he said in an ominous voice, “And we wouldn’t want that, now would we? No, no, definitely not. I just hope that those bastards haven’t gotten hold of my social security number. At least they might forget that they have my credit card number, too, in case I ever bought them Farmville cash with it.”
“No, I never used it, that was Sa… Sam… who you’d… oh dear.”
He had him… not that Frodo’s absolute lack of covert-operation skills weren’t that hard to bust through, but it was still satisfying to catch him off guard. “Uh huh. Logged onto Facebook an hour ago to close my account, and there it was, sitting right there…”
“Umm…” Frodo went quiet again, until Zeke heard what sounded like static. “Oh, kssshhh I’m breakkssrhhsh phone is crrrshhehhk--”
“BULL-shit! Stop hissing into the damned thing, maybe you’ll be able to hear me tell you to FUCK THE FUCK OFF!” With that, Zeke slammed the phone down, made an even bigger hole in the wall in ripping it out and proceeded to head downstairs, destroyed device in hand. But in getting halfway down, he heard a sound much more foreboding than a ringing phone--a knock on his door made him freeze in his spot. ‘My gun… where did I put my gun…’
“Zeke? The fuck, open the door, it’s me!”
Never before had Casey’s voice sounded so lovely. Zeke thawed himself and rushed down the stairs to get to the door; he opened it in a flourish, still panicky and paranoid. He did a quick look-around over the short boy’s head, then grabbed his arm. “Get in, get in…”
Casey gasped and allowed himself to be dragged through the door, which Zeke shut the moment they were both safely inside. Every one of the ten locks were latched; Casey groaned. “So you saw it, huh?”
“Y’mean Facebook’s newest, most popular ‘hang-out’? Fuck, yes,” Zeke said.
“’K, stop freaking out; I called Bags myself, told him to take it the fuck down. He didn’t realize what the fuck he’d done,” Casey said. “It’s history, man.”
“History? It was up long enough. Wanna hear the five tapes worth of answering-machine-fun?”
Casey furrowed his brow. “Oh, shiiit…”
“Yup.” Zeke pried himself away from looking through the door’s window and shuffled to the kitchen. “He got two-hundred thousand and thirty-three fans in the span of an hour. What. The fuck.”
“C’mon, Zeke… that’s normal for shit like this. As if anyone that joined really KNOWS you. I mean, yea, I saw a few of your exes in there, but…”
“Yea? Did YOU join?”
“No!” Casey said. “I was tempted… for like, ten seconds. More out of ‘haha, this is funny’ and the fact that good fuck, I needed that stallion--”
“Yea, Farmville! What started this whole fucking mess to begin with!” Zeke said. “I KNEW what was gonna happen, signing up for that crap. I KNEW.”
Sniffing, Casey cocked an eyebrow. “You knew that Frodo was going to start a multi-national hate group in your name?”
“Fuck’s sake, why the hell not? He seems to have serious talent in the ‘oh shit, you fucked up big fucking time!’ department, doesn’t he?”
“Well… okay, you win.”
“Yea.” Zeke flicked the kitchen light on and headed to the fridge; beer. He needed beer. Now. After grabbing a six pack, he went to offer one to Casey, who shook his head in refusal. “Pfft, fine. More for me.”
“Okay, look--it’s gone now. You didn’t get an eighth of people that joined that whole ‘Nickelback versus Pickle’ thing, and THAT’S died down. They had their fifteen minutes, this didn’t even get into the double-digits seconds-wise,” Casey said. “I say just chill out, think it over and… change your number. Y’know, in case a few people copy-pasted it and… stuff.”
Zeke groaned. “Yea, and what about where I live? I can’t get a U-Haul and get the fuck outta Dodge by tomorrow morning. I’ve got a Lit-quiz, first fuckin’ thing.”
“Well…” Casey shifted feet and crossed his arms. “You, uh, missed a great bio-class. Furlong tripped over a chair and killed that over-projector we’ve been wanting to send to hell for YEARS now.”
Oh… Zeke felt tears in his eyes. The sight of that machine, its glass shattered and parts splintered off… “God DAMN it,” he muttered.
“Yea. Sorry. I posted about it on… well, I guess you deleted your account before getting to my wall,” Casey said.
“Didn’t delete. Was gonna, but… God…” Zeke dragged his fingers through his hair, clenching the tips against his scalp. “Social networking. Social. Fucking. Networking. I should have known better…”
“Yea, y’know--after being so anti-social for as long as you were, for you to sign up on ANY website is--”
“Not me, Frodo. A hobbit in-goddamned-general,” Zeke interrupted to say. “When he saw me go to check my e-mail that day… crap. I shoulda known, but I figured, ‘why not? He’d probably like it.’ Yea, right. Then I was forced to friend everyone HE’S friended and related to. I can’t even remember my mom’s middle name, while Frodo obsesses over whether his twice-removed third cousin Mindy Chubb still likes pecans in her oatmeal, because she’s coming over next… good Christ. And that’s all she talks about, too.”
“That’s all what who talks about?” Casey asked.
“Mindy. Oatmeal. She won’t shut up about oatmeal.”
“How would you know?”
Zeke groaned and pulled at his hair, now. “I just SAID, Frodo made me friend everyone he knows!”
“God, okay! Okay, chill,” Casey said.
“I’m getting hobbit-spammed, all the time. Even if I HAD logged on with none of this crap happening, I would’ve missed the Furlong post you made. Why? Because it’d be BURIED in truncated-but-mile-long recipe posts and ‘If this group gets five-hundred fans, my third cousin Frayla will name her bairn ‘Berrycake’’ posts,” Zeke said. He finally cracked open his beer and took a long, hard swig. He sat in a kitchen chair and slumped over, feeling depressed. “Casey… what’m I gonna do?”
With a soft, sympathetic expression, Casey stepped over and placed his hand on Zeke’s back. “We’ll figure something out. I promise,” he said.
~*~
“Sam. Sam, please.”
A suspicious, worried stare was given to Frodo; Sam bit his lip. “But why, Mr. Frodo?”
“Because. I have to make this up to Ezekiel--it’s my only chance,” Frodo said. “Please, give it to me.”
“But Mr. Ezekiel, he told me s’pifick’ly, ‘don’t give out my credit card number, to anyone’. Anyone’s you, m’dear. I can’t!”
Sam… simple-minded, sweet Sam. How could Frodo make him understand? Desperate, Frodo sat down next to him at the computer, took his hand away from the mouse and clasped it in his tight. “What I’m going to tell you is top-secret. I was told not to tell anyone, but if I can make you see the light… you have to promise me that it doesn’t leave this wall,” Frodo said, motioning his eyes around the round room.
“Ah… all… right, Mr. Frodo,” Sam said.
The room fell silent, assuring Frodo that yes, they were alone. With a deep breath, he squeezed Sam’s hand even harder. “I received a letter--rather, an e-mail. From a prince.”
Sam frowned. “A prince, Sir?”
“Yes. Like I said, this is a very secret business matter that I’m choosing to get involved in. I’ve talked with him a few days now, trying to figure out what to do. As it is, I… you understand, not a soul can know what--”
“Aye, Frodo, go on!” Sam said, obviously intrigued.
“I… as it turns out, I’m… I’m related to him.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Related? He’s a hobbit prince?”
“No. He’s from a Big-Folk land… Nigeria,” Frodo explained. “No, I don’t know how I could be related to a human, but it would explain some things. Anyway, this is very, very serious. Not only are we related, but--I’ve a huge inheritance because of this new branch of my family tree.”
“In… y’mean, gold? How much?” Sam said in an awed voice.
“Not gold, but dollars. Herrington dollars. One-hundred million, to be exact.”
“Oi! That’s wonderful!”
“I know, I know. The only thing is, they can’t get me my currency unless I pay a fee to deliver it. They were eager when I’d said that I could send gold, but when I said that I didn’t have means of transportation to get to a currency exchange place, nor a… I believe they called it a ‘Union of the West’, they asked if I had a credit card. I don’t…. but you do. Or rather, Zeke does. If I can just pay the small five-thousand dollar fee without him knowing, but then have the one-hundred MILLION deposited back, he’d be forever grateful… he may even forgive me.”
“But… that don’t make no sense, Mr. Frodo,” Sam replied. “’Don’t mean to rise above me station and question ye, mind, but… if they have all of these monies, why can’t they jes’ give it to you, like? I’m sure Barty the post-hobbit would be willing to go to Nigarian and pick it up for you…? He goes to ‘Errington at least three er four times a day to bring your mails to Mr. Ezekiel as it is, and this land can’t be too far from that. Our post system is top-notch, and would take a small tip for the troubles, rather than five-thousand monies. It’d save ye and this prince a good hassle.”
Sweet, dear Sam. Frodo couldn’t help it, being more knowledgeable and shrewd when it came to money and business transactions. “These things exist, Samwise. Please. I promise, if anything goes wrong--which I assure you, it won’t--I’ll take full responsibility.”
Though he looked unsure, Sam swallowed and looked to his lap. “Oh, I… all right, Mr. Frodo. I trust you, I spos’,” he said.
“Oh, thank you, sweet Sam,” Frodo said, watching Sam dig his small change purse from his breeches pocket.
“’Think I wrote it down on my hot-cocoa coupon club card…” Sam searched through a stack of small cards. “Hmm…”
“Hurry, Sam--”
Both of them jumped at the sudden sound--music?--from the corner of the room. Looking up in a jolt, Frodo found that they hadn’t been alone after all--but how? He’d checked and rechecked--Bilbo had been gone, not standing a mere five feet away! “Bilbo! What’re you--”
“Oh, DRAT it all,” Bilbo said; he drug out his Blackberry, which was sounding off his ringtone of ‘Namárië’. “This thing… another text from Bombur. I can never make out what he’s trying to type, those stumps they call fingers with this tiny keyboard…”
“What’re you--how--?”
Bilbo flicked his eyes up from the LCD screen of his phone; his other hand squirmed a bit in his other pocket, then it emerged, empty. Whatever he kept in there, it wasn’t the phone… “Samwise, I need to talk to my nephew. In private. Please, go enjoy some scones; they’re fresh-baked.”
“How--but--” Frodo said. He could do nothing but watch Sam stand up quickly and shuffle off as if afraid for his life. Now alone with Bilbo, Frodo stood straight, wearing a look of defiance. “So! Sneaking around, again? I don’t know how you do it, Uncle, but it’s getting quite tir--”
“You’re going to sit down, dear Frodo. And you’re going to listen--listen well,” Bilbo said. “If you don’t, your internet days are through.”
~*~
Title: Social Networking (1/2)
Pairing(s): F/S, F/Z, C/Z
Rating: PG-13 to light R for swearing and some smexualness
Genre: Extreme AU, der hey, crossover (Freke!, basically)
Author's Note: I hope you get this, even if you don't use facebook and/or play Farmville/Resturant City/etc....
Author's Note the Second: A HUGE thanks to panmodal, for the extreme amount of awesome ideas. Omg, the ideas...
Disclaimer: Don't own ANYTHING!
Synopsis: Hobbits + The Internet = WTF
WATER FIGHT!
Tom Cotton has hit you BACK using a Super-Soaker 3000! Get him back within six hours and see if you win!
Frodo chuckled and pressed the ‘FIGHT BACK!’ button, ready to continue this silly online water-war. He, Tom, and many others had used this Facebook application for over a week now… or rather, over-used it, really. It couldn’t be helped, as it was all too fun. Perhaps a real water-fight would’ve been better, but…
The idea that all of Hobbiton had been wary, even critical of this ‘brand new world’ at first made Frodo grin like a hungry orc. It’d barely been a month since the Comcast vans had driven out to Bag End to install a wireless tower, cable lines and Frodo’s own personal computer, when all of a sudden everyone in town wanted in on the deal. Even Lobelia, who’d come by every day while construction was going on to shake her umbrella at the big folk installing the things, cursing and yelling, “This will bring no good to our poor little village!” was now addicted to myspace. Frodo would visit her profile from time-to-time, all to have a giggle over her lack of photoshop skills. Her crooked, ugly nose looked MUCH better than the off-colored blob of ‘paint’ she’d tried applying to it. If Otho knew how many hobbit lads (and, surprisingly, big folk) she had in her friend’s listing, he’d axe every wireless tower in town… of which there were many, all to meet the demands of the people who were too intrigued and fascinated by Herrington, Ohio’s ways of living.
And it’d been Frodo--’that Mad Baggins’--who’d shown them the way. It was odd how he’d gained more friends in sitting in the study at his computer, rather than going to the pub or milling about town. And the family! People he’d missed over the years, unable to visit because of great distances--all of them there for him to see at any time, with just the click of a button! It was as if Eru himself had climbed down from the heavens to create Facebook… there had to be at least a few hundred people in the world that enjoyed it daily. To bring that many people together in one, small space was amazing.
“’Scuse me, Mr. Frodo?”
Once sure that he’d bombarded Tom and forty-three other competitors with a firehose, Frodo clicked the application window from the screen and turned to Sam with a smile. “Yes, sweet Sam?”
“I jes’ finished up the gardens. They’re lookin’ right fine.” Sam wore a sheepish smile as he nodded to the computer. “Would ye mind if I… I mean, if ye ain’t busy…”
“No, go on ahead! I’ve been on for a few hours, anyway.”
Sam beamed and walked over to the now-empty desk chair, signed Frodo out of his account then logged into his own. Frodo pulled the other small stool over to perch upon and watch Sam go about his online-business. “Merry posted on my wall today. Did you see?” Frodo asked. He then laughed and shook his head. “Apparently, he’s gotten hold of a digital camera. He made his armpit look like a… well, you know.”
“Knowin’ that scamp, I’d’ve expected him to go on an’ do the deed outright,” Sam said. “But I spos’ after the warnin’ he got from the site after the LAST time…”
Frodo continued giggling like a schoolgirl and leaned on Sam’s strong shoulder. As usual, Sam’s first e-task had to do with Farmville. Frodo’s eyes widened when he looked at the top of the screen. “Level forty-three? Weren’t you all the way down at ten yesterday?”
“Aye.”
“How did you DO that?”
Sam shrugged, obviously fighting to keep his smile from going smug as he clicked on his many chickens to harvest their eggs. “Jes’ good at farmin’, what can I say?” he said. “Plus, that Zeke o’ yers. He was kind ‘nuff to get me some Farmin’ville cash.”
“Oh?”
“Mmm, aye. Me Da’s still waitin’ on that credit-card to come in the mail, but I asked if he’d trade a transaction for some of my…” Sam paused to bite his lip and look at Frodo. “…Ye’d find me silly, knowin’ that I’m spendin’ some of my hard work on this folly, wouldn’t ye?”
“Oh, Sam,” Frodo said, sighing as he looped his arms around the young hobbit’s waist. “Don’t be silly. After all, in getting to use Bilbo's credit card, I spent how much to get my account in Restaurant City going?”
Sam chuckled. “Now YOU levelin’ that fast in that game… that, was amazin’.”
“You’re good at farming, I’m good at cooking.”
“Oi! I found a stallion!” Sam exclaimed, straightening as he clicked to post the ‘adoption’ notice on his Facebook’s wall. “Master Casey’s been lamentin’ over not gettin’ a one since they came out with ‘em!”
“Ooh! Sam, I want it! I haven’t gotten one, either!” Frodo pouted.
“But… I’d told him that I’d mail him to let him know that…” Sam said. “…And there’s only one, and…”
Using every seduction technique Frodo had ever learned, he slipped his hand to Sam’s round tummy and stroked it gently, all while nuzzling his nose against his ear. “I think it’s wonderful, how close you’ve gotten with my Herrington friends. How well you share me with Ezekiel. But… I’d think that I was ‘top priority’, my dear Sam.”
Sam swallowed and fluttered his lashes, something he always did when Frodo dipped his fingers past the waist of his breeches to the start of his backside. “Ah… a’right, Mr. Frodo. Ye win… jes’ don’t you say none to poor Master Casey about this,” he said. It took all Frodo had to not coo and clap as Sam clicked ‘home’, then logged out. As the two of them shared their passwords (for this very specific purpose), Sam logged back in under Frodo’s account, clicked to move down and… “Oh, drat,” he said.
“What?” Frodo asked. He peered at the screen. “Someone’s already claimed it?”
“Aye. I’ve many friends on here, me stuff goes fast.”
Sighing sadly, Frodo was about to look away when he caught sight of who exactly had taken HIS stallion. “Wait…Ezekiel?”
“Aye, s’him, a’right. Always hoggin’ Farmin’ville special stuffs--”
“But he doesn’t PLAY Farmville. He told me so,” Frodo said. He gave a hard look to Sam, who went stiff and blank-faced. “Sam?”
“’E… ‘e didn’t tell ye?” Sam asked. When it was clear that no, Ezekiel had NOT told Frodo a dang-blasted thing, Sam cleared his throat and shrugged. “Well, ‘e jes’ started, methinks. I asked ‘im if he played, cos’ I needed more neighbors fer the neighbor blue ribbon--an’--well, he said that he wasn’t ‘tendin’ on gettin’ a farm, cos’ he didn’t LIKE it, but I wasn’t the only one botherin’ ‘im…”
“Oh YES, he told me the same! Said that Farmville was just a ‘waste of fucking time’ and everyone played it--that it was ‘too goddamned boring and lame’!” Frodo said in an angry, hurt voice.
“Well, erm, mayhaps… mayhaps he jes’ don’t want lots o’ neighbors! His farm IS real small-like, look…” Sam logged Frodo out and logged himself in yet again; his fingers trembled slightly in clicking the Farmville bookmark. His eyes darted from the screen to Frodo then back, nervously. When the screen loaded back up, he went to click on his neighbor listing. “Oh. He must’ve leveled, um…” Sam said. Instead of Zeke’s name being listed in the low levels, Sam needed to click two times to get to the middle of his vast listing of names. “Level twenty-three. Huh. E’s been playin’ more, ‘suppose…”
To say that Frodo was fuming was silly. He was downright ready to explode. Pushing Sam’s hand aside, he clicked on Zeke’s dark-haired dancing avatar and watched his farm load up.
“Oh. Playin’ LOTS more, um…”
“That dratted fiend!” Frodo spat. He looked upon the large, vast field of planted watermelons, almost ripe for picking. He gawked at the sheer number of animals, most of them only acquired through adoptions, like turtles and kittens. But in looking at the top part of the screen, Frodo nearly choked on his own spit. “So disinterested he is that he has not one but TWO chicken coops! Doesn’t that require a special CHEAT code?”
“No, not a code, Mr. Frodo. It was in one of the fan-grouping thingee cheat thingees, you have to move the coop you already have to the top corner, then take a--”
“Ah, WORK is involved then! Why, that miserable, lying, selfish…”
~*~
“THERE you are!”
Zeke looked over his shoulder then down to Frodo, who was standing with his hands on his hips and looking petulant--something he’d grown used to seeing when the hobbit was at his most perturbed. Great. What now? Hoping to keep an argument at bay, he looked back to his messy, opened locker then back at Frodo. “Homeroom’s in five minutes. Where else would I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know… perhaps staying at home to have fun online??”
“Uh… I don’t ditch class anymore. You know that.”
“Mmhmm. But sometimes, things happen. You know? You might miss an e-mail.”
“Whiiiich I can pick up the second I get home…?”
Frodo’s smile went very, very sinister. “Perhaps; but what about crops?”
Oh. Shit. Acting stupid never worked, but it was always Zeke’s first attempt, anyway. “Um, what’re you… talkin’ about?” he asked. Frodo made a loud scoff.
“Let us not play dumb, Ezekiel! I went on facebook last night with my Sam--you know, the one you NEIGHBORED!?” he yelled.
“Oh, Farmville?” Zeke said, making his voice as unbothered as he possibly could. “Dude, I barely touch that shit. I was just getting bugged by too many people to play, and--”
“I was ONE of those people; does your memory fail you? Who was it that begged and pleaded for another neighbor? Who was it that was in dire need of at least a red ribbon in the neighbor-award category??”
“Yea, which you GOT, like, minutes after asking me! You have HOW many people friended in there, a couple thou?” Zeke said. “So what does it matter??”
“It matters a great deal! You… you’re supposed to be my love partner!” Frodo wailed. Zeke looked from side-to-side at passing students, all of them wearing confused and amused expressions. They all knew what went down, but things like this were always interesting, of course. Before he could retort, Frodo went on. “The last I knew, when someone loves someone else, they give all they can to them! And something as simple as becoming a Farmville neighbor? This is absurd!”
“Yea, damned right it is. We’re standing here, needing to get to fuckin’ homeroom, but you’ve decided to go ape-shit on me about fuckin’ Farmville first damned thing in the morning,” Zeke said. Frodo’s patented ‘what did you just say to me??’ look didn’t work, not this time. “See, THIS is why I didn’t wanna get involved in that stupid crap.”
“Excuse me??”
“Yea. Hell knows I’m constantly bombarded by your ‘I Sent You A Heart!’, ‘Water Fight!’, ‘Pillow Fight!’, ‘Join Me In My Fairy Garden!’ invites and fuckin’ spam all the fuckin’ time,” Zeke said. “And you KNOW I hate that junk!”
“How can you hate hearts?! Hearts sent to you by someone you’re supposed to LOVE??” Frodo damn-near shrieked.
“Look, the only goddamned reason I joined facebook was so that I could shut my mom up. ‘Oh, I hate e-mail, FB is so much better to keep in touch with!’ were her words, every other stinkin’ day, so I said ‘fine!’ and signed up. Now I have to put up with her Europe-y themed pic-spams every damned time I turn the thing on. I didn’t join to plow pixels!” Zeke retorted. “But yea, I eventually caved--now I wish I hadn’t!”
Frodo looked ready to blow up, but before he could say anything a shout came from across the hall. “YO, Zeke!”
Zeke looked up, found Gabe passing by and sighed. “Yea. What.”
“Dude, thanks for the hundred fish-fries you sent me last night! Anything your restaurant needs?”
“Um…” Now, didn’t THIS just make everything worse? Judging by the gawking face Frodo was making, Zeke wasn’t going to live past first period. Zeke shook his head and ignored him a moment to reply, “No, I’m good. I uh, barely play anyway…”
“Hah, yea right! You’re the ‘Café World King’, man! See you in bio!” Gabe yelled before disappearing around the corner.
“You… you play Café World.”
“Um… yea, Frodo. I do. But barely, like I--”
“Café World. After I specifically expressed how much better Restaurant City is,” Frodo said, his voice empty and sad. “After I asked you to sign up… how much I needed ingredients for that floating fruit salad…”
“Listen, Fro, I’m not exactly obsessing over these things like you are--”
“Those ingredients are FREE! Free!!” Frodo wailed, yet again. “I don’t need to spend acres of my Paypal account to get those mangoes and coconuts! If you have FRIENDS that PLAY, they can send them to you!! But NO, noooo! Let’s play that ridiculous farce called Café World instead! What a joke that game is--a blatant, and… how does one say it in Herrington? Ah yes, ‘piss-poor’ copycat of the REAL THING!”
“Shut up! Oh my fucking GOD, shut! UP!” Zeke screamed, unable to keep his anger at bay anymore. “Do you fucking realize what you’re doing right now? DO you? You’re standing in the school hall, in front of everyone, bitching and hollering at me over something as fuckin’ asinine as Facebook! A website! Something so goddamned trivial--Jesus!”
Frodo narrowed his eyes and scowled. “Always calling upon this ‘Jesus’ character to save you from your folly. How typical. Why don’t you take responsibility for your deeds?”
“My… oh, okay. Yea.” Zeke slammed his locker shut, just as the warning bell rang. “Y’know what, Fro? Why don’t you just head home, fuck school for today? I’ll stay, because I wanna make up for lost time… not sit around at home like a desperate idiot, sending hearts and other annoying, bandwidth-whoring applications that nobody cares about--”
“Hey Zeke, you fuckin’ prick!”
Now Casey? Zeke looked up from the smoking-mad hobbit to the smoking-mad human being now walking over, nostrils flaring. “What NOW?”
“Yea, like you don’t know. Me and Samwise had a fuckin’ DEAL, man, and you knew it!” Casey said. “But no, no, you just snatch up yet another fucking stallion and--”
“Oh, all right, FUCK y’all! Fuck school! I’m the fuckin’ fuck OUTTA here!” Zeke bellowed. Instead of heading to homeroom, he reopened his locker, threw his things inside and flipped a cigarette in his mouth. He felt mad, lighting the thing before he could escape through the front door, but that’s what he was… mad. Had it. Anything else that made him want to firebomb Facebook’s headquarters every day, until the end of time.
~*~
“Erm… Mr. Frodo?”
Frodo stopped folding laundry with busy, shaking hands to look to Sam with a brilliant smile. “Yes, dear Sam?”
The young hobbit bit his lip and nodded to the computer screen. “I, erm… just logged into Facebook. You--made a group,” he said.
“Ah, yes. That I did.”
“Aye. I’ve seen lotsa groups like it, but… it usually involves big folk, like that Paris Hilton character. Or that um, music group… ‘Nick and Knack’?”
Chuckling, Frodo sat down on the mattress. “You mean ‘Nickelback’? Oh good lord yes, they deserved to be jeered at the way they had. To think, a pickle could gain more fans than a popular group of so-called ‘muscians’! Hah!”
“Thas’ all good an’ fine, Mr. Frodo, but… well…” Sam pointed at the screen again. “I don’t rightly know how your group is gonna get fans like that. After all, Mr. Tyler isn’t as well-known as the other celebrity-like… people.”
“Oh! Yes, THAT new group,” Frodo dramatically replied. Smiling devilishly, Frodo tapped his chin to mock deep-thought. “Ah, what did I name it again…?”
“Um… ‘I Am Willing To Wager A Great Amount Of Mithril That Ezekiel David Tyler Of 20 Bell Avenue, Herrington, Ohio, Telephone Number 555-5644 Can Gain The Well-Deserved Scorn And Hatred Of 100 Good, Honest People That Frequent The Website Facebook Within The Time Span Of One Week’,” Sam read.
“Yes, of course!”
Looking uncomfortable, Sam blinked furiously at Frodo. “Thas’ a bit… scornful isself, ain’t it?”
“Oh? Are you saying that I’ve gone a skosh overboard, sweet Sam?” Frodo asked. When Sam shrugged, Frodo smiled warmly, stood and walked over to him in slow steps. “It’s simply a joke. A prank, much like Merry would pull. Remember the time he wrote, ‘Frodo Baggins likes to eat caterpillars!’ on the ‘Dragon’s privy walls? Like that.”
“Well, uh--pardon my sayin’ so, but… you do. Or… did, t’any rate.”
“When I was twelve; and it’d been on a silly dare,” Frodo replied. “Was it my fault they had a sweet, earthy flavor?”
“This is a mite-bit different, though. Maybe a baker’s dozen saw Merry’s scrawl, but this… t’has Mr. Ezekiel’s telephonic number and address on it. An’ last I’d knew, there were a few hundred more folk that have their fun on Facebook.”
“All the funnier! And honestly, it won’t be taken too seriously. I’m simply paying him back for his inconsideration. It’s well-deserved, don’t you think?”
Sam shrugged, turned to the screen and went to say something, but he stopped dead and frowned. “Mr. Frodo? I, um, think your wager’s near won,” he said.
“Oh?” Frodo moved to the stool and leaned in to look at the screen. “Oh my, twenty people already? I just posted it! Hah! Wait until he sees this… or gets a prank call! Ooh, let me see if Merry is on chat, make sure he’s joined…”
“He has. Look,” Sam said. Sure enough, Merry’s profile picture was in the ‘fan’ list.
“What about Pip?”
“Um… I’ll refresh the page,” Sam said.
With bated breath and an excited grin, Frodo clasped his hands while the page reloaded. Oh, for fun! That insolent bairn would be begging for Frodo’s forgiveness tomorrow, pleading for him to end the humiliation! Frodo was just about to find Bilbo to ask him for his Blackberry (something the old codger swore he wasn’t addicted to, yet always carried in his pocket to hold and stroke and sigh over) to call Freddy and inform him of the frivolity, when he went stiff and cold at the page before him.
“Oh. Dearie me,” Sam murmured in shock. “Two and ten and… what’s that number, Mr. Frodo? M’afraid I can’t count that high…”
~*~
The phone jack was ripped from the wall in Zeke’s angry, hasty action, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t as if he’d used the damned thing much, anyway, besides calling Casey… or making those fucking expensive-as-hell long distance calls to the goddamned Shire all the time. As long as he didn’t hear it ringing anymore, he just. Didn’t. Care.
That was when he heard the OTHER one ringing upstairs. Shaking from head-to-toe, Zeke decided to answer this one; it’d be the very last phone call he’d take, ever, so he’d make it memorable. He climbed the stairs in record-time, ran into his room and picked it up. “Yes, Tyler-goddamned-fucking-residence, can I fucking help you?”
“Ezekiel?? Hello, is this thing on…?”
The muffled tap-tap Zeke had grown used to hearing every time Frodo decided to bother him made his fists clench; the one holding the phone making the thin, cheap plastic creak. “Oh. It’s you. Hello there, you little motherfucking-midget.”
“Ezekiel! It’s me, Frodo Baggins of the Shire!”
Dear god in heaven. “Oh yea, I know. I know.”
“Listen to me carefully! Do NOT pick up your telephone when it rings after we hang up! There’s been… a problem,” Frodo said; Zeke was glad to hear the panic in his voice, at least.
“Oh yea? Why’s that?” he ‘asked’.
“Because! Because… I heard… some dastardly ruffians, they were at the ‘Dragon this afternoon! They’d somehow gotten your telephone number, and… they plan to call your residence and say nasty things, call you terrible… names!”
The little fuck couldn’t even lie properly. Deciding to play along, Zeke made a gasp. “Oh, crikey! Not ruffians, say it ain’t so!”
“Yes! Ruffians! I think they were from Bree!” Frodo cried.
“Well then, I’d best be on my guard, then.”
“Oh please, yes! Do!”
“Should I move, too?”
The question caused a pause on Frodo’s end. “Um… move? As in switch residences? OH!” Frodo said. “Yes! Move! They were also talking about where you lived, and--”
“Hot damn, I’d better get my ass in gear, then, huh? Shit! Next thing you know, those ‘ruffians’ will be posting all of my PERSONAL FUCKING INFORMATION ON FACEBOOK,” he yelled. Through clenched teeth, he said in an ominous voice, “And we wouldn’t want that, now would we? No, no, definitely not. I just hope that those bastards haven’t gotten hold of my social security number. At least they might forget that they have my credit card number, too, in case I ever bought them Farmville cash with it.”
“No, I never used it, that was Sa… Sam… who you’d… oh dear.”
He had him… not that Frodo’s absolute lack of covert-operation skills weren’t that hard to bust through, but it was still satisfying to catch him off guard. “Uh huh. Logged onto Facebook an hour ago to close my account, and there it was, sitting right there…”
“Umm…” Frodo went quiet again, until Zeke heard what sounded like static. “Oh, kssshhh I’m breakkssrhhsh phone is crrrshhehhk--”
“BULL-shit! Stop hissing into the damned thing, maybe you’ll be able to hear me tell you to FUCK THE FUCK OFF!” With that, Zeke slammed the phone down, made an even bigger hole in the wall in ripping it out and proceeded to head downstairs, destroyed device in hand. But in getting halfway down, he heard a sound much more foreboding than a ringing phone--a knock on his door made him freeze in his spot. ‘My gun… where did I put my gun…’
“Zeke? The fuck, open the door, it’s me!”
Never before had Casey’s voice sounded so lovely. Zeke thawed himself and rushed down the stairs to get to the door; he opened it in a flourish, still panicky and paranoid. He did a quick look-around over the short boy’s head, then grabbed his arm. “Get in, get in…”
Casey gasped and allowed himself to be dragged through the door, which Zeke shut the moment they were both safely inside. Every one of the ten locks were latched; Casey groaned. “So you saw it, huh?”
“Y’mean Facebook’s newest, most popular ‘hang-out’? Fuck, yes,” Zeke said.
“’K, stop freaking out; I called Bags myself, told him to take it the fuck down. He didn’t realize what the fuck he’d done,” Casey said. “It’s history, man.”
“History? It was up long enough. Wanna hear the five tapes worth of answering-machine-fun?”
Casey furrowed his brow. “Oh, shiiit…”
“Yup.” Zeke pried himself away from looking through the door’s window and shuffled to the kitchen. “He got two-hundred thousand and thirty-three fans in the span of an hour. What. The fuck.”
“C’mon, Zeke… that’s normal for shit like this. As if anyone that joined really KNOWS you. I mean, yea, I saw a few of your exes in there, but…”
“Yea? Did YOU join?”
“No!” Casey said. “I was tempted… for like, ten seconds. More out of ‘haha, this is funny’ and the fact that good fuck, I needed that stallion--”
“Yea, Farmville! What started this whole fucking mess to begin with!” Zeke said. “I KNEW what was gonna happen, signing up for that crap. I KNEW.”
Sniffing, Casey cocked an eyebrow. “You knew that Frodo was going to start a multi-national hate group in your name?”
“Fuck’s sake, why the hell not? He seems to have serious talent in the ‘oh shit, you fucked up big fucking time!’ department, doesn’t he?”
“Well… okay, you win.”
“Yea.” Zeke flicked the kitchen light on and headed to the fridge; beer. He needed beer. Now. After grabbing a six pack, he went to offer one to Casey, who shook his head in refusal. “Pfft, fine. More for me.”
“Okay, look--it’s gone now. You didn’t get an eighth of people that joined that whole ‘Nickelback versus Pickle’ thing, and THAT’S died down. They had their fifteen minutes, this didn’t even get into the double-digits seconds-wise,” Casey said. “I say just chill out, think it over and… change your number. Y’know, in case a few people copy-pasted it and… stuff.”
Zeke groaned. “Yea, and what about where I live? I can’t get a U-Haul and get the fuck outta Dodge by tomorrow morning. I’ve got a Lit-quiz, first fuckin’ thing.”
“Well…” Casey shifted feet and crossed his arms. “You, uh, missed a great bio-class. Furlong tripped over a chair and killed that over-projector we’ve been wanting to send to hell for YEARS now.”
Oh… Zeke felt tears in his eyes. The sight of that machine, its glass shattered and parts splintered off… “God DAMN it,” he muttered.
“Yea. Sorry. I posted about it on… well, I guess you deleted your account before getting to my wall,” Casey said.
“Didn’t delete. Was gonna, but… God…” Zeke dragged his fingers through his hair, clenching the tips against his scalp. “Social networking. Social. Fucking. Networking. I should have known better…”
“Yea, y’know--after being so anti-social for as long as you were, for you to sign up on ANY website is--”
“Not me, Frodo. A hobbit in-goddamned-general,” Zeke interrupted to say. “When he saw me go to check my e-mail that day… crap. I shoulda known, but I figured, ‘why not? He’d probably like it.’ Yea, right. Then I was forced to friend everyone HE’S friended and related to. I can’t even remember my mom’s middle name, while Frodo obsesses over whether his twice-removed third cousin Mindy Chubb still likes pecans in her oatmeal, because she’s coming over next… good Christ. And that’s all she talks about, too.”
“That’s all what who talks about?” Casey asked.
“Mindy. Oatmeal. She won’t shut up about oatmeal.”
“How would you know?”
Zeke groaned and pulled at his hair, now. “I just SAID, Frodo made me friend everyone he knows!”
“God, okay! Okay, chill,” Casey said.
“I’m getting hobbit-spammed, all the time. Even if I HAD logged on with none of this crap happening, I would’ve missed the Furlong post you made. Why? Because it’d be BURIED in truncated-but-mile-long recipe posts and ‘If this group gets five-hundred fans, my third cousin Frayla will name her bairn ‘Berrycake’’ posts,” Zeke said. He finally cracked open his beer and took a long, hard swig. He sat in a kitchen chair and slumped over, feeling depressed. “Casey… what’m I gonna do?”
With a soft, sympathetic expression, Casey stepped over and placed his hand on Zeke’s back. “We’ll figure something out. I promise,” he said.
~*~
“Sam. Sam, please.”
A suspicious, worried stare was given to Frodo; Sam bit his lip. “But why, Mr. Frodo?”
“Because. I have to make this up to Ezekiel--it’s my only chance,” Frodo said. “Please, give it to me.”
“But Mr. Ezekiel, he told me s’pifick’ly, ‘don’t give out my credit card number, to anyone’. Anyone’s you, m’dear. I can’t!”
Sam… simple-minded, sweet Sam. How could Frodo make him understand? Desperate, Frodo sat down next to him at the computer, took his hand away from the mouse and clasped it in his tight. “What I’m going to tell you is top-secret. I was told not to tell anyone, but if I can make you see the light… you have to promise me that it doesn’t leave this wall,” Frodo said, motioning his eyes around the round room.
“Ah… all… right, Mr. Frodo,” Sam said.
The room fell silent, assuring Frodo that yes, they were alone. With a deep breath, he squeezed Sam’s hand even harder. “I received a letter--rather, an e-mail. From a prince.”
Sam frowned. “A prince, Sir?”
“Yes. Like I said, this is a very secret business matter that I’m choosing to get involved in. I’ve talked with him a few days now, trying to figure out what to do. As it is, I… you understand, not a soul can know what--”
“Aye, Frodo, go on!” Sam said, obviously intrigued.
“I… as it turns out, I’m… I’m related to him.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Related? He’s a hobbit prince?”
“No. He’s from a Big-Folk land… Nigeria,” Frodo explained. “No, I don’t know how I could be related to a human, but it would explain some things. Anyway, this is very, very serious. Not only are we related, but--I’ve a huge inheritance because of this new branch of my family tree.”
“In… y’mean, gold? How much?” Sam said in an awed voice.
“Not gold, but dollars. Herrington dollars. One-hundred million, to be exact.”
“Oi! That’s wonderful!”
“I know, I know. The only thing is, they can’t get me my currency unless I pay a fee to deliver it. They were eager when I’d said that I could send gold, but when I said that I didn’t have means of transportation to get to a currency exchange place, nor a… I believe they called it a ‘Union of the West’, they asked if I had a credit card. I don’t…. but you do. Or rather, Zeke does. If I can just pay the small five-thousand dollar fee without him knowing, but then have the one-hundred MILLION deposited back, he’d be forever grateful… he may even forgive me.”
“But… that don’t make no sense, Mr. Frodo,” Sam replied. “’Don’t mean to rise above me station and question ye, mind, but… if they have all of these monies, why can’t they jes’ give it to you, like? I’m sure Barty the post-hobbit would be willing to go to Nigarian and pick it up for you…? He goes to ‘Errington at least three er four times a day to bring your mails to Mr. Ezekiel as it is, and this land can’t be too far from that. Our post system is top-notch, and would take a small tip for the troubles, rather than five-thousand monies. It’d save ye and this prince a good hassle.”
Sweet, dear Sam. Frodo couldn’t help it, being more knowledgeable and shrewd when it came to money and business transactions. “These things exist, Samwise. Please. I promise, if anything goes wrong--which I assure you, it won’t--I’ll take full responsibility.”
Though he looked unsure, Sam swallowed and looked to his lap. “Oh, I… all right, Mr. Frodo. I trust you, I spos’,” he said.
“Oh, thank you, sweet Sam,” Frodo said, watching Sam dig his small change purse from his breeches pocket.
“’Think I wrote it down on my hot-cocoa coupon club card…” Sam searched through a stack of small cards. “Hmm…”
“Hurry, Sam--”
Both of them jumped at the sudden sound--music?--from the corner of the room. Looking up in a jolt, Frodo found that they hadn’t been alone after all--but how? He’d checked and rechecked--Bilbo had been gone, not standing a mere five feet away! “Bilbo! What’re you--”
“Oh, DRAT it all,” Bilbo said; he drug out his Blackberry, which was sounding off his ringtone of ‘Namárië’. “This thing… another text from Bombur. I can never make out what he’s trying to type, those stumps they call fingers with this tiny keyboard…”
“What’re you--how--?”
Bilbo flicked his eyes up from the LCD screen of his phone; his other hand squirmed a bit in his other pocket, then it emerged, empty. Whatever he kept in there, it wasn’t the phone… “Samwise, I need to talk to my nephew. In private. Please, go enjoy some scones; they’re fresh-baked.”
“How--but--” Frodo said. He could do nothing but watch Sam stand up quickly and shuffle off as if afraid for his life. Now alone with Bilbo, Frodo stood straight, wearing a look of defiance. “So! Sneaking around, again? I don’t know how you do it, Uncle, but it’s getting quite tir--”
“You’re going to sit down, dear Frodo. And you’re going to listen--listen well,” Bilbo said. “If you don’t, your internet days are through.”
~*~