Oh, yeah. Sorry for the burn. Whoops. I'm seventeen. Young and free. Dancing queen. But, uh, not for long, actually? I don't want to celebrate it, or anything, but I'll be eighteen in about a week, if we're sticking to conventional times and dates for our birthdays. Ugh, that's. Really bad news, actually. Ugh. Ughrghjrhgh.
Anyway. Wow. Prescribed, you wildcat. Though I do appreciate the implication that I don't act like I have ADHD.
[ stiles may not want to celebrate his birthday, but billy is still making a mental note of when it is. about when it is, anyway, since stiles doesn't want to be specific. ]
come on, it's not that bad. i mean having a "milestone" birthday away from home in some creepy haunted town probably isn't ideal, but. actually i don't have a followup for that 'but'. 18's not really any different from 17, but now you can buy tickets for r-rated movies instead of sneaking into them like everyone under 18 does (don't tell your dad).
i hadn't really noticed, honestly. you said it's been a while, though. have you not been taking it?
I think it would warm my dad's heart to know that I'm spending time with someone whose idea of breaking the law is sneaking into an R-rated movie. He's probably somewhere out there hoping you're gonna be a good influence on me.
Nah, I haven't.
[ which has been... its own can of worms, but with the exhaustion, the probable dementia and the endless-day-cultist-sacrifices-underwater-city-ghost-maine-deer-ghost-deer-maine shit he's been dealing with, going without adderall has been kind of at the bottom of his list. ]
There's a pharmacy here, but. I don't know. You can't see the attendants who serve you. They're behind this foggy glass and they move all janky. The whole thing feels - weird. And, like, the pharmacy's on raccoon street, or something. It's really hard to feel safe taking pills from fucking Umbrella Corp.
all i'm saying is that once you're 18 it's not against the law. i don't know what else changes when you turn 18. you can buy cigarettes?
[ you can watch... porn. god. okay. moving on. ]
oh. okay, yeah. that's kind of unsettling, i don't think i'd trust that either if i needed a prescription. i'm not sure that's even legal, i feel like you should be able to see who's handling/distributing medicine, but i have no idea. i should ask my dad eventually.
anyway - raccoon street? are you serious? that's... kind of shady. i mean maybe it's just coincidence, but still.
so are you okay without it? the adderall. in general, i mean. you seem like you're doing alright, but i don't know your brain or what it's like.
You're kinda taking the fun out of this legally-an-adult thing, buddy. You're basically at my bachelorette party telling me how ugly my fiancé is.
[ but maybe billy's just trying to help, what with stiles' whole "aughh this sucks auhhh i'm nearly eighteen aughhghghgh" moment, but that was just because he doesn't want to be a fucking adult virgin, so. whatever. moving on. ]
I mean, I kind of need it? But - okay, I'm telling you a little too much about myself today, so this is gonna be the last little slice of Stilinfo you get for a while - But adderall stopped working for me back home, so the risks of trying it here kind of outweigh the benefits. I'm not exactly in a rush to swallow shady meds from a shady building in a shady town into my only-sometimes-shady face if they're not even gonna work. Seems largely impractical. Also! Who's your dad? Is your dad here? Like, in town?
that's a good point. i mean it kind of sucks that it doesn't work anymore but it's probably better not to take chances here until you've got a better idea of who exactly is doing what around here.
oh, no, sorry. he's not here i just meant like whenever we all get out of this place, i'll ask when i get back home just... to know. not like i'd be able to tell you. anyway. he's a cardiologist? so if anyone would know anything about like medical practices and requirements, it'd probably be him.
Yeah, that's kind of my position? Like, if I had a guarantee it would work and not full 28 Days Later me, I'd chug these pills down like yesterday's Halloween haul, but. Blrrbjhgrbgh.
[ everything sucks, basically. news at eleven. ]
Man, you've gotta be something else to go into medical science. A cardiologist, at that? Your dad must be pretty sharp.
[ congrats on being raised by a verifiable genius and managing to avoid getting crippling self-esteem issues, he almost writes, but, well. there's no guarantee that's not something billy has to deal with in much the same way stiles does. a self-deprecating joke at another person's expense doesn't exactly feel like a fun way to keep this conversation flowing, so... heeee backspaces that thought before he sends it. ]
So, uh, not to be gauche, but - what kind of school did you go to back home? Doctor money might mean, like. Private school. Right?
[ billy laughs a little to himself under his breath. his dad is smart - stiles is right about that - but he can also be very, very oblivious, too. even after billy's face had been plastered all over the news as part of the young avengers, it still took billy telling him in the middle of a fight with the super-skrull for him to actually figure it out. ]
yeah, he's alright. my mom's a psychologist so when i'm not being accosted by dad jokes, i'm being psychoanalyzed and told how me eating breakfast while i'm getting ready for school instead of sitting down to eat with my family means i run the risk of developing anti-social behaviors, scoring low on tests, and failing to get into college. it's great.
[ he loves his parents. honestly. ]
i go to public school. new york is kind of expensive in general and i've got two younger brothers, too. if they sent me to private school, they'd have to send all of us, and that's like roughly $100k a year. even if they did have that kind of money, that's a lot to spend on something you can get for free.
Sounds like you've got a really sweet setup back home. I mean, super frustrating, don't get me wrong. My dad could put most fortunetellers out of a job with how often he predicts my future, so trust me, I get it. Nostradamus wishes he could doomsay like Sheriff Stilinski. They sound like nice people, though. Especially if they still love you despite what an anti-social, low-test-scoring wreck you are.
Two younger brothers! Man. I'm an only child. Probably why I never learned how to share. What're their names?
i imagine being able to read a person and predict their next move(s) is all part of the job. it's gotta be ten times easier when it's his own son.
[ he thumbs out, we'll see if they still love me after they learn that the reason i've been away for the last six months is because i pulled a parasitic alien with a murder-agenda from another dimension and brought her to new york where she took over the minds of any adult in proximity and resurrected dead parents and has been trying to kill me and my friends ha ha, but... that's a lot, and complicated, and kind of a downer even if it's a legitimate concern of his. he deletes it. ]
their names are andrew (andy) and david and trust me, i love them to death, but they're so obnoxious my days as an only child definitely weren't long enough.
[ there are all those times he's trusted scott over him - and little things, too, little comments that have gotten under his skin because his dad said them like they were right, even when they weren't. stiles wets his lips and considers keeping his mouth shut on a couple of things, too, but - well, venting about his dad who he loves very much is a little different to venting about a parasitic murder alien, so stiles pushes past the flutter of embarrassment and just makes himself open up a little bit. ]
I love him. I do. He's an amazing dad. But. He thinks he's right when he's not. I've gotta convince him to listen to me, sometimes. He thinks he knows me more than I know myself? Not on little things, either, like - assuming things about me based on my clothes, or thinking I've screwed something up because I just so happen to have a very long and very intensive history of screwing certain things up - I'm talking big things. He'll listen to my friends over me, or... assume I'm lying when I'm not. And, like, I get it? I'm kind of a handful, I know that. But it took a while for us to connect after my mom died. Mom was kind of the glue holding the three of us together, I think. Dad worked and mom looked after me, so with her gone the house got pretty empty. And. Yeah. Wow. Downer.
[ it's not until stiles has sent this shit that he feels sort of stupid and small for doing it, but it's out there and he feels awkward about the prospect of just seamlessly talking about billy's brothers again like he didn't dump weird personal shit about him and his dad on this guy for no reason. no reason other than the fact that this kind of thing has been on his mind, ever since the dementia hit, and he hasn't really had anyone to talk to about it. he feels like he's overshared, though, so his skin's crawling a bit. ugh. ]
[ well, this... answers the question he wouldn't let himself ask about stiles' mom, back when they were hanging out at stiles' place, sharing a pizza and watching a movie. billy can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for stiles to lose his mother, what it would be like if he lost his. it'd been painful enough to stand in front of her and look her in he eyes while she was under the control of mother, knowing that it wasn't his mother looking back at him - but at least she'd still been alive. he's lost friend before, but that's... not the same.
so. stiles is an only child, with a deceased mother, and a father who presumably wasn't around enough for a while after his wife passed, and who doesn't listen to or trust his own son the way that he should. it sounds... like a pretty lonely home life, to billy. ]
hey, there's no reason to be sorry. that really, really sucks. i'm sorry that he's like that. not to play devil's advocate here because i definitely don't know the guy, but maybe the reason he's so sure he knows you better than you know yourself is because the idea of not knowing his own son is kinda terrifying? maybe he's in denial or something. i can't speak for the rest (i can't even really speak for that either i guess), but idk, that's gotta be hard. you said it took a while to connect. are things better though now than they were before? after your mom passed away.
[ it's strange - billy isn't saying anything stiles hasn't already thought about before, but having an outside voice validate that his dad might be as scared about not knowing him as stiles is about losing him makes him feel a little better about a lot of things. stiles tries to think of an appropriate way to respond to that but it's hard to know where to start. he's grateful for the out billy gives him with that question at the end. ]
Oh, totally. Like I said, he's an amazing dad. I don't wanna give off the impression that I'm this sad, neglected kid, or anything. Things are really good between us. He's a gruff old bastard, but he's got my back and he loves me. He's there for me when he understands how to be. That's more than a lot of people can say. And, like, I haven't exactly been the best son in the world. The man's got the patience of a saint. I don't know how he could sit through all those parent/teacher interviews and not come home three sheets to the wind, but. Credit where credit's due.
[ actually, no, drinking is a bit of a bad habit of the sheriff's, but jeez, he's aired enough dirty laundry for one day. ]
Things are good. I just gotta double down on that. He's good. We're good. Everything's good. Except for the whole being separated by an interdimensional dreamscape thing.
oh, good. that's good, i'm glad. i'm surprised he hasn't arrested you though. for pizza soup and whatever other food monstrosities you've come up with.
[ listen. he knows the boiled pizza picture was just something stiles had saved on his computer or whatever, but for the sake of making a joke he's pretending he doesn't. ]
or maybe he has and you've served your time. i wouldn't blame him for tossing you into the slammer for a night over something like that.
Oh, he wouldn't dare arrest me. I'd Macguyver my way out of my cell. Pop out a loose brick, flirt with a couple of guards. He wouldn't wanna test me like that. I'd ruin the entire concept of incarceration. Prisons would shut down nation wide. The judiciary system would collapse on itself. He'd be out of a job within days. Also, if we keep talking about pizza soup, I am gonna make it for real. I'll literally pay you to drink some with me. We could share. One glass, a couple of straws. Like two teens from the 50s on a milkshake date.
so what you're saying is wherever your dad works has really, really bad security protocols, and also that you'd be willing to ruin your dad's reputation as sheriff over pizza water.
I'm not willing to dignify that with an answer, but if I were, I'd say you're completely missing the point. I am a world-class escape artist. No prison can hold me. I'm also not willing to continue this conversation until you promise to gargle this sweet and salty grease broth with me. You're in a whole new world. You've got endless opportunities to reinvent yourself as someone braver, bolder, better. I am offering to guide you down that path.
[ actually, shit, trying to convince billy that he does that is gonna be a tough sell after they've literally eaten pizza together multiple times. womp womp. moving on. ]
Okay, wait, this is stupid. I feel like we were really getting to know each other before you started accurately unmasking me as a cult leader. You're eighteen! You have two brothers! You go to school! Your parents are smart! What else? Tell me something new.
[ it... is kind of a sore spot, actually. not dead-parent-or-sibling sore (he refuses to let himself believe his brother might be dead), but billy's not gonna say as much. ]
tommy, my age, and he's definitely not cool. but i'm the only person that's allowed to say that.
[ actually, tommy's pretty cool. he also annoying in the way that most siblings are annoying, and he's impatient and blunt and obnoxious, too - but he's also smart, and confident, laid-back and carefree. billy used to be on the fence about him in the beginning, kind of actively didn't like him, but now he'd give almost anything to see him again and know he's okay. ]
he's the guy i was looking for before i ended up here.
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you're like five inches taller than me.
is that like... a casual thing
or a prescribed thing
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Sorry for the burn. Whoops. I'm seventeen. Young and free. Dancing queen.
But, uh, not for long, actually?
I don't want to celebrate it, or anything, but I'll be eighteen in about a week, if we're sticking to conventional times and dates for our birthdays.
Ugh, that's.
Really bad news, actually. Ugh.
Ughrghjrhgh.
Anyway. Wow. Prescribed, you wildcat.
Though I do appreciate the implication that I don't act like I have ADHD.
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come on, it's not that bad.
i mean having a "milestone" birthday away from home in some creepy haunted town probably isn't ideal, but.
actually i don't have a followup for that 'but'.
18's not really any different from 17, but now you can buy tickets for r-rated movies instead of sneaking into them like everyone under 18 does (don't tell your dad).
i hadn't really noticed, honestly.
you said it's been a while, though.
have you not been taking it?
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He's probably somewhere out there hoping you're gonna be a good influence on me.
Nah, I haven't.
[ which has been... its own can of worms, but with the exhaustion, the probable dementia and the endless-day-cultist-sacrifices-underwater-city-ghost-maine-deer-ghost-deer-maine shit he's been dealing with, going without adderall has been kind of at the bottom of his list. ]
There's a pharmacy here, but. I don't know.
You can't see the attendants who serve you. They're behind this foggy glass and they move all janky. The whole thing feels - weird.
And, like, the pharmacy's on raccoon street, or something. It's really hard to feel safe taking pills from fucking Umbrella Corp.
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i don't know what else changes when you turn 18.
you can buy cigarettes?
[ you can watch... porn. god. okay. moving on. ]
oh.
okay, yeah. that's kind of unsettling, i don't think i'd trust that either if i needed a prescription.
i'm not sure that's even legal, i feel like you should be able to see who's handling/distributing medicine, but i have no idea.
i should ask my dad
eventually.
anyway - raccoon street?
are you serious?
that's... kind of shady.
i mean maybe it's just coincidence, but still.
so are you okay without it?
the adderall. in general, i mean.
you seem like you're doing alright, but i don't know your brain or what it's like.
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You're basically at my bachelorette party telling me how ugly my fiancé is.
[ but maybe billy's just trying to help, what with stiles' whole "aughh this sucks auhhh i'm nearly eighteen aughhghghgh" moment, but that was just because he doesn't want to be a fucking adult virgin, so. whatever. moving on. ]
I mean, I kind of need it? But - okay, I'm telling you a little too much about myself today, so this is gonna be the last little slice of Stilinfo you get for a while -
But adderall stopped working for me back home, so the risks of trying it here kind of outweigh the benefits.
I'm not exactly in a rush to swallow shady meds from a shady building in a shady town into my only-sometimes-shady face if they're not even gonna work. Seems largely impractical.
Also!
Who's your dad?
Is your dad here? Like, in town?
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sorry.
that's a good point.
i mean it kind of sucks that it doesn't work anymore but it's probably better not to take chances here until you've got a better idea of who exactly is doing what around here.
oh, no, sorry.
he's not here
i just meant like whenever we all get out of this place, i'll ask when i get back home
just... to know.
not like i'd be able to tell you.
anyway. he's a cardiologist?
so if anyone would know anything about like medical practices and requirements, it'd probably be him.
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Like, if I had a guarantee it would work and not full 28 Days Later me, I'd chug these pills down like yesterday's Halloween haul, but.
Blrrbjhgrbgh.
[ everything sucks, basically. news at eleven. ]
Man, you've gotta be something else to go into medical science. A cardiologist, at that? Your dad must be pretty sharp.
[ congrats on being raised by a verifiable genius and managing to avoid getting crippling self-esteem issues, he almost writes, but, well. there's no guarantee that's not something billy has to deal with in much the same way stiles does. a self-deprecating joke at another person's expense doesn't exactly feel like a fun way to keep this conversation flowing, so... heeee backspaces that thought before he sends it. ]
So, uh, not to be gauche, but - what kind of school did you go to back home?
Doctor money might mean, like. Private school. Right?
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yeah, he's alright.
my mom's a psychologist
so when i'm not being accosted by dad jokes, i'm being psychoanalyzed and told how me eating breakfast while i'm getting ready for school instead of sitting down to eat with my family means i run the risk of developing anti-social behaviors, scoring low on tests, and failing to get into college.
it's great.
[ he loves his parents. honestly. ]
i go to public school.
new york is kind of expensive in general and i've got two younger brothers, too.
if they sent me to private school, they'd have to send all of us, and that's like roughly $100k a year.
even if they did have that kind of money, that's a lot to spend on something you can get for free.
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I mean, super frustrating, don't get me wrong. My dad could put most fortunetellers out of a job with how often he predicts my future, so trust me, I get it. Nostradamus wishes he could doomsay like Sheriff Stilinski.
They sound like nice people, though. Especially if they still love you despite what an anti-social, low-test-scoring wreck you are.
Two younger brothers! Man. I'm an only child. Probably why I never learned how to share.
What're their names?
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it's gotta be ten times easier when it's his own son.
[ he thumbs out, we'll see if they still love me after they learn that the reason i've been away for the last six months is because i pulled a parasitic alien with a murder-agenda from another dimension and brought her to new york where she took over the minds of any adult in proximity and resurrected dead parents and has been trying to kill me and my friends ha ha, but... that's a lot, and complicated, and kind of a downer even if it's a legitimate concern of his. he deletes it. ]
their names are andrew (andy) and david
and trust me, i love them to death, but they're so obnoxious
my days as an only child definitely weren't long enough.
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[ there are all those times he's trusted scott over him - and little things, too, little comments that have gotten under his skin because his dad said them like they were right, even when they weren't. stiles wets his lips and considers keeping his mouth shut on a couple of things, too, but - well, venting about his dad who he loves very much is a little different to venting about a parasitic murder alien, so stiles pushes past the flutter of embarrassment and just makes himself open up a little bit. ]
I love him. I do. He's an amazing dad. But.
He thinks he's right when he's not. I've gotta convince him to listen to me, sometimes.
He thinks he knows me more than I know myself? Not on little things, either, like - assuming things about me based on my clothes, or thinking I've screwed something up because I just so happen to have a very long and very intensive history of screwing certain things up -
I'm talking big things. He'll listen to my friends over me, or... assume I'm lying when I'm not.
And, like, I get it? I'm kind of a handful, I know that.
But it took a while for us to connect after my mom died. Mom was kind of the glue holding the three of us together, I think. Dad worked and mom looked after me, so with her gone the house got pretty empty.
And. Yeah.
Wow. Downer.
[ it's not until stiles has sent this shit that he feels sort of stupid and small for doing it, but it's out there and he feels awkward about the prospect of just seamlessly talking about billy's brothers again like he didn't dump weird personal shit about him and his dad on this guy for no reason. no reason other than the fact that this kind of thing has been on his mind, ever since the dementia hit, and he hasn't really had anyone to talk to about it. he feels like he's overshared, though, so his skin's crawling a bit. ugh. ]
Eesh. Sorry.
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so. stiles is an only child, with a deceased mother, and a father who presumably wasn't around enough for a while after his wife passed, and who doesn't listen to or trust his own son the way that he should. it sounds... like a pretty lonely home life, to billy. ]
hey, there's no reason to be sorry.
that really, really sucks. i'm sorry that he's like that.
not to play devil's advocate here because i definitely don't know the guy, but maybe the reason he's so sure he knows you better than you know yourself is because the idea of not knowing his own son is kinda terrifying?
maybe he's in denial or something.
i can't speak for the rest (i can't even really speak for that either i guess), but
idk, that's gotta be hard.
you said it took a while to connect.
are things better though now than they were before?
after your mom passed away.
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Oh, totally. Like I said, he's an amazing dad. I don't wanna give off the impression that I'm this sad, neglected kid, or anything. Things are really good between us.
He's a gruff old bastard, but he's got my back and he loves me. He's there for me when he understands how to be. That's more than a lot of people can say.
And, like, I haven't exactly been the best son in the world. The man's got the patience of a saint.
I don't know how he could sit through all those parent/teacher interviews and not come home three sheets to the wind, but. Credit where credit's due.
[ actually, no, drinking is a bit of a bad habit of the sheriff's, but jeez, he's aired enough dirty laundry for one day. ]
Things are good. I just gotta double down on that.
He's good. We're good.
Everything's good.
Except for the whole being separated by an interdimensional dreamscape thing.
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that's good, i'm glad.
i'm surprised he hasn't arrested you though.
for pizza soup and whatever other food monstrosities you've come up with.
[ listen. he knows the boiled pizza picture was just something stiles had saved on his computer or whatever, but for the sake of making a joke he's pretending he doesn't. ]
or maybe he has and you've served your time.
i wouldn't blame him for tossing you into the slammer for a night over something like that.
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I'd Macguyver my way out of my cell. Pop out a loose brick, flirt with a couple of guards.
He wouldn't wanna test me like that. I'd ruin the entire concept of incarceration. Prisons would shut down nation wide. The judiciary system would collapse on itself.
He'd be out of a job within days.
Also, if we keep talking about pizza soup, I am gonna make it for real.
I'll literally pay you to drink some with me.
We could share. One glass, a couple of straws. Like two teens from the 50s on a milkshake date.
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which you could not pay me enough to drink, btw.
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I'm also not willing to continue this conversation until you promise to gargle this sweet and salty grease broth with me.
You're in a whole new world. You've got endless opportunities to reinvent yourself as someone braver, bolder, better.
I am offering to guide you down that path.
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you know, i thought you were my friend but it turns out you're just a part of this nightmare, aren't you
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[ actually, shit, trying to convince billy that he does that is gonna be a tough sell after they've literally eaten pizza together multiple times. womp womp. moving on. ]
Okay, wait, this is stupid. I feel like we were really getting to know each other before you started accurately unmasking me as a cult leader.
You're eighteen! You have two brothers! You go to school! Your parents are smart!
What else? Tell me something new.
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uhhh.
well actually i have three brothers. technically.
he doesn't live with us anymore though.
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[ you vicious little twink, billy. ]
Big family.
Uh, can I ask about him? Or is he kind of a sore spot?
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no, it's fine.
you can ask whatever you want.
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Name, age, GCP.
(General Coolness Potential.)
(I'm asking if he's cool.)
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but i'm the only person that's allowed to say that.
[ actually, tommy's pretty cool. he also annoying in the way that most siblings are annoying, and he's impatient and blunt and obnoxious, too - but he's also smart, and confident, laid-back and carefree. billy used to be on the fence about him in the beginning, kind of actively didn't like him, but now he'd give almost anything to see him again and know he's okay. ]
he's the guy i was looking for before i ended up here.
[ in case stiles didn't make that connection. ]
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