Jason Haddaway, teen heartthrob, is getting really tired of this.

For the last few days, he's been thrown from dimension to dimension, some gross, some surprisingly cute, but mostly terrifying.

But when he's thrown into a simple, pink, bedroom, he gets surprised.

A brunette woman is clawing at the grilled windows. Her hair is in a flawless bun and she wears a perfectly ironed mini-dress, making Jason uncomfortable in his tee and jeans.

She notices his presence and turns towards him.

“Jason Haddaway from React Squad, isn't it?” The woman has a slight Texas accent in contrast to his New York one.

“Yeah. Guess I am.” At least it's in a slightly sane world—YouTube is still a thing, and no one seems to be pressuring him into sex.

The woman quirks an eyebrow, amused. “You're not abducting me or tying me down? Surprising. I've had celebrities throwing themselves at me for a week.”

“You've been trapped in the dimension hopping machine too?” Jason asks. He needs some sort of hope, damnit.

The woman laughs. “Yeah. Name's Brooke. Nice to meet someone sane. Hey, can you break locks?”

“They'll hop us if we try anything weird, but okay.” Jason fiddles with a paperclip and jams it into the window grill lock. To his surprise the lock opens on his first try.

He leans out over the grass. “We're in a bungalow,” Jason reports. “Fenced, though.”

Brooke shoves him aside and clambers out the window, and Jason does too. They sprint past the massive porch and toward the gate, feet hurting from running barefoot.

They screech to a halt at the fence, looking up at the looming gate, casting sunset shadows over the cookie-cutter suburban home.

“It's a number lock,” Jason observes with disdain. “We can't get out.”

“Vault over,” Brooke suggests.

Jason nearly laughs. “Are you serious? That gate might be seven feet high.”

In response, Brooke starts climbing up the gate, using the wrought iron bars as handhold.

After Jason wipes the astonishment off his face, he starts climbing the fence like he would a ladder.

Brooke has just reached the top when the world is swept away.

They're in a field, this time. The evening stars illuminate a field of lavender. Brooke is sprawled, sleeping, on a plastic picnic mat.

Jason makes his way through the flowers and shakes her awake.

Brooke mumbles and scans her surroundings. “Awfully romantic,” she mutters.

“Romantic's not what we need right now,” Jason replies. “Besides, I'm taken.” He feels kinda guilty that he's been too caught up in surviving to think of Heather Lynn.

“Do I look like I care?” Brooke retorts. “I care if we can get out of this deserted place.”

Jason nods, and looks around. “There's no one in sight, though this field looks like there's someone tending to it. There must be someone around.”

Brooke squints at the sky. “There's the pole star. We're probably in the north hemisphere. If we—”

And then they are taken away again.

They're in a high school locker room, this time, inexplicably looking like themselves but seventeen. This time, Jason is dressed in a leather jacket and skinny jeans.

“Jesus,” says Brooke, rolling her eyes. She surveys her too-tight cheerleader outfit. “Juat how many scenarios can they come up with?”

“Believe me,” Jason tells her, “I've been in this locker room a thousand times. Whoever's doing this isn't exactly original. If I'm right, the door's locked, and we're expected to make out under a steamy shower.”

Woosh—away again.

A cold, cold, concrete room now.

A glass divide, separating them.

“Hey.” Brooke is wearing a shapeless jumpsuit, like Jason is.

“Guess they're angry at us, yeah?” Jason says.

“They don't like that we're not attracted. That we're sentient humans with history, and we're not just bone machines.” She smiles, and he does too.

“Hey,” he says. “Tell me about yourself.”

She thinks, for a while. “My name is Brooke Woodstone. I'm eighteen. I'm currently applying to Rice University and I'm interested in physics. I live with my mum and my sister Merri. I flip when people disregard my feelings, but honestly, I probably get angry too easily.” She shrugs and smiles. “Tell me something I don't know about you.”

Jason thinks. He's bared most of his life to the public eye, but there's a Jason behind the loud and extroverted YouTube star who screams at video games and terrible singing.

“I'm asexual,” he finally says. “Asexual heteromantic. I'm not out because really sure how my subscribers would react.” He thinks of the countless fanfic he's read, of the worlds where he was pressed against a wall. “But Heather's okay with it, so that's good.”

The world trembles, but just for a bit.

“Cool.” Beat. “Who's Heather?”

A girl, he thinks, with eyes as wide as the harvest moon, body lithe and light, but small and frail. Always sickly, always a shadow, but sweet and temperamental and—

“My girlfriend,” he says.

“Oh, okay. I've a girlfriend too. Her name's Ali. I think you would like her.”

The world goes berserk, shaking and flashing and sweeping away in a crescendo—

They're in a high school, but the walls are melting and shaking.

They're in a hotel room with petals all around, but the walls are closing in on them.

Bathtubs boil, cars fill with monoxide, a tent fills with bugs, kitchen tables burst into flames...

The world seems to say: This is a love story. Why won't you fall in love? Why won't you have sex?

“Because sometimes, it isn't a romance,” Brooke says, in a stormy forest.

The world pauses. Even the lighting stops.

“And sometimes,” Brooke continues, “Sometimes things don't go as you plan. Sometimes love can't be manufactured. Sometimes, you aren't God.”

“And I think,” Jason adds, “you don't know what love is.”

The world unpauses, and the lighting crackles.

A dark shape comes charging out of the darkness.

*I'm going to die,* Jason thinks.

He thinks of all the things he's going to miss: Heather YouTube mum dad React Squad (he doesn't feel like the teen heartthrob anymore)

“I'll miss you,” Brooke says out loud.

“Me too.”

Their fingers overlap and knot together like a finger trap.

This is not a love story.