A sound behind Blake startled him, until he turned and saw it was a lightsaber.
Some anime characters he couldn’t identify seemed to cut in line.
Blake laughed at himself.
Guess I’d have to know who they were cosplaying to report them to security.
Matthew insisted Blake accompany Jonathan to the convention.
It was a bit of a sacrifice on Matthew’s part because the pop culture world was his thing, but Matthew wanted Blake to learn the shows and characters Jonathan loved.
“You won’t be able to retain most of it,” Matthew warned. “The worlds are deep and varied, just try to pick up on some of it so you can be a little conversant with our son, okay?”
When they got to the door of the convention center, Blake reached for Jonathan’s hand and Jonathan jumped back like one of the Fog Ninjas was attacking him. Jonathan’s face scrunched and contorted and screamed a wordless “Are you completely and irredeemably out of your mind?”
Blake was hurt for about two seconds until he heard Matthew’s voice in his head say He’s twelve going on eighteen Bee-Sting, don’t baby him, let him grow.
The first and most important order of business was getting in line to get Colin Skanforth’s autograph.
Blake thought the autograph, at $200 bucks, with zero photo op, was insanely overpriced. Then, standing there in the neon chaos, he rethought it.
You didn’t miss half your kid’s childhood trying to get senior dev veep at MacGregor and Walsh to skimp on his favorite actor’s autograph. You should tip the guy for making your son smile and believe in heroes.
The line snaked back and forth for what seemed to be a quarter-mile.
As it inched forward, Jonathan said “I’m nervous.”
“Nervous you’re gonna have to pee before we get up there?”
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