^alex^
I like Izzy. Izzy knows I like Izzy. Rick knows I like Izzy. The whole bloody world knows I like Izzy. However, when he gets into one of his moods, I high tail out of there faster than you can say 'Hannibal the cannibal' and go find Rick.
So when Izzy started bouncing off the walls (not entirely literally speaking) and logging on and off the computers and muttering about going to the gym, I called Rick.
"What the fuck?" said Rick.
"Hey there," I said, cheerily, since Izzy was starting to get on my nerves. He was too damn... bouncy.
"Alex? ...The fuck? You know what time it is? It's 3 am. You know what that means? It means that I'm asleep. 'Cause I have to be at work at 8 o'clock. Good bye, Alex."
"It's Izzy," I said quickly.
"...Go on."
Yes! Score! ...Kind of. "He's in one of his moods again."
Warily. "What kind of mood?"
"Bouncing off the walls kind of mood."
Silence. Then, slowly, "Are you telling me you fucking woke me up at 3 am because Izzy the boy wonder is hyper?" His voice rose at the end. "Because if you are, then I swear to god, Alex, I am going to... I'm not entirely sure what yet, but once I'm awake, it will come to me, and it won't be pleasant."
"But, but, you're the only one who can deal with him..." I pleaded.
"Whack him over the head with a Guinness bottle," Rick suggested. "That'll work."
I gasped. "Sacriledge!"
"Use one of his Greek books then, I don't care."
"Rick..." I sighed, glancing over at Izzy who was standing on top of the counter, surveying his kingdom. Kallie stood in the stairway, rubbing her eyes and telling him to go to sleep for christsake. She has the appartment above the Corner. She must be insane.
Rick sighed right back at me. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming over. Try to keep him from rewireing the entire Corner before I get there. You remember what Kallie said the last time..."
I winced. "I remember." And I did. In full technicolor splendor and everything.
Kallie had yelled, Izzy had snapped back, Kallie had narrowed her eyes and growled and Rick had hastily pulled Izzy out of her way, saying; "Do not say stuff like that near the girl with the really cool office pencil sharpener, okay? Some things, *nobody* wants going up his ass."
What disturbed me the most about the whole thing was the way Kallie was eyeing said pencil sharpener...
"I'll be there in thirty, okay?" Rick said, and then hung up while cursing fluently in some obscure language.
I turned Catholic for a second and did the cross thing while thanking whatever deity was watching over poor green-skinned mutie freaks with moody friends.
"Oi!" Izzy said and jumped off the counter. "I want some coke."
I blanched. Just what he needed, yes. Caffeine. Not like he was hyper enough all ready, nooo...
I grabbed his arm. "Wanna have sex?"
He tilted his head and considered it, before cheerfully shaking his head. "Nope!"
My jaw hit the floor. "What?"
Izzy laughed. "Oh you should see your face!" He stalked off in direction of the kitchen, chuckling merrily to himself as he went.
* * * *
^rick^
It took me a damned long while to get it into my system that, on days just before a Big Job Thing, we do not sleep less than five hours. In fact, we do not sleep less than nine if we can manage it. Lack of sleep is the surest way to make me go bonkers.
This weekend, I have gotten something like ten hours of sleep in four days. I went to bed at six pm after spending the night before trying to put my living room in some kind of order, chatting, trying to write and bouncing around in sleep-lacking, idiotic lunacy. I was counting on waking up twelve, even thirteen hours later and feeling pretty much refreshed. I was *dreading* waking up by myself at some point on the way and not managing to fall back asleep. I was *not* expecting to be woken up at three am, by phone, and being told that even if I was perfectly able to go back to sleep, I couldn't. Because Izzy has gotten into his High And Rabid Kitten mode again, and in his case, there's no solution as simple as just getting him to fucking *sleep*.
I pondered falling asleep again. I remembered I was a grown, reliable man, that my friend needed me and, most of all, that if Iz did something irrepairable to the computers Kallie was likely to blame *me*. I shuddered. I sat up and wondered if I could get away with wandering the building at the middle of the night with nothing but boxers and one of my beloved, half-torn, burning-candidate-of-ten-years t-shirts.
As Mrs. Rodruigez lived just down the hall, and I could just believe she would stay awake all night just to catch me doing something *unthinkable*, probably not.
Martha didn't apprecite being woken up, either. New York nights are far too cold for shit like that. I ended up kicking the door from the inside and then grumbling apologies for ten minutes before she'd start.
From there, it was pretty smooth sailing. Or, well. At least until I got to the actual Iz part.
* * * *
^alex^
Sometimes I think I might prefer his suicidal moods instead. He just broods a lot and goes "What's the point of it all? Why are we here? Gimme back my Allen Ginsbery biography!" then. Much easier to handle. Get him drunk enough that he'll pass out, shove him in the shower and give him paracets in the morning. I could do that without Rick's help.
But then again, the suicidal-ness is far to depressing for me, really.
Izzy just being Izzy was far to be prefered.
Kallie trotted down the stairs and over to me. She looked up at me under heavy eyelids. "You. Make. Him. Sleep. Now."
"I'm trying, I call--"
She gave me the Evil Look of Well-Sharpened Pencils in Places You Really Don't Want Them and said; "If he wakes me up one more time, I'm withdrawing your passwords. For two weeks. Maybe more."
I paled. "Yes, ma'am."
"Fix him."
"Yes, ma'am."
She mildened her glare. "Did you call Rick?"
"Yes, ma'am." It was an automatic response by now. Do not argue with recently awoken Kallie. Never, ever.
"Good." She turned around, pulled at her baby-blue pjs and trotted back upstairs.
I went to try and stop Izzy from drinking too much coke, hoping Ron hadn't left any chocolate in there. ...Nah. Cassie had been here earlier. She would never have let there be any left.
Izzy appeared to be trying to finish a 1,5 liter bottle of coke in one swallow. He waved at me when he saw me enter and continued gulping down coke.
I shuddered. "Izzy. Please. Stop. You're making me naseaus (?)"
Izzy put the coke bottle down and threw me a dazzling smile. "Alex, sweets, want to come running through Central Park with me?"
"Running through Central Park at 3 am... Brilliant idea, that. Iz, have you lost your mind?"
He beamed at me. "No. Why do you ask?"
I just shook my head. There was no reasoning with him when he was in this mood.
"Anyway," he continued. "I'm in the mood for a rave."
"You're in the mood for a rave," I repeated stupidly. Then I narrowed my eyes at him. "Fuck, Iz, you're high!"
Izzy laughed, then his face got an oddly tender expression and he slid a finger down my chin. "You're so naive..."
I jerked away from him. His hand hung in the air for a moment, then it dropped down by his side. He sighed, looking weary suddenly, and shook his head. "No. Don't worry, Alexander. I'm not on anything."
"Don't lie to me."
He met my eyes and held them. "I'm not."
"I called Rick," I said, changing the topic in hope of getting rid of the suddenly tense mood. "He'll be here in ten or thereabouts."
Izzy's eyes lit up. "Yeah? Cool." He started bouncing on his feet. "Maybe he knows of a rave."
I thought of the bands he produced and nodded. "If there's one going on, he probably does. But, uh, he was a bit... cranky."
He blinked and tilted his head. "Why?"
I rubbed my neck. "Um. Apparently he's trying to... eh. Sleep."
"You woke him up?" Izzy's eyebrows made contacts with his hairline. "Ooh this should get interesting..."
"...Yeah." A little too interesting maybe...
Izzy sat down on the table and started swinging his legs. "While I was walking to St. Yves, I met a man with seven wives, each wife had seven sacks and in each sack was seven kittens, how many were going to St. Yves?"
"One. I taught you that one," I commented. "Hey, you know, I read that Ginsberg thingy you recommended here the other day."
Izzy winced out of reflex, then, looking puzzled; "You used the right name."
"Eh."
"You never use the right name. You say Ginsbery or Ginny-B or Ginsburg, you never say Ginsberg."
"Eh."
"I knew you were doing it just to annoy me!"
"Eh..."
Damn. Caught. Distraction time. "Want some crème brulée?"
"I thought you said you were out when Moric asked..."
"Well, I lied then, didn't I?"
"Naughty, naughty," Izzy said and jumped off the table and started doing an aggitated sort of pacing around the kitchen, pausing from time to time to look in to the freezer and random cupboards.
I sat down on the nearest chair and prayed Rick would get that piece of scrap metal he calls Martha to work.
"Oi!"
Sure, my speech pattern-thingies rub off on him, but the calm, quiet, peaceful attitude... Nooo.
"What?" I lifted my head to look over at him.
Izzy looked thriumphant and held something in the air. "Look what I found!"
"What?" I repeated.
"Banana lube!" He beamed.
I eyed him warily. "I thought you said you didn't want to have sex."
"I did. That's not the point. The point is that this isn't mine. Pretty sure it's not yours 'cause you hate bananas, so. Who's is it?"
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Aww, try, for me?" He fluttered his eyelashes. "Surely someone you've touched today had a secret banana lube stash as a part of their secrets."
"If they did, it was so traumatic, I've repressed it," I replied drily.
Izzy snickered and ducked back into the cupboard. Presumably to hunt for more banana lube or something equally disgusting.
I sat on my chair and just watched while he tossed things out behind him and gave a running commentary of whatever it was. Rick came in through the door in the middle of that. "...look, petrified chocolate kisses, Cassie will love them, hey, gloves, kinky, eggbeater, hey, Alex..."
"The fuck...?" Rick said.
* * * *
^rick^
Eggbeater.
I tried to remember whether Izzy has ever read X Files fanfic. All I could come up with was hours of nagging him to read the classics. Probably just an inspired moment, then.
Ohhh, were we in trouble.
Alex turned to look at me, much in the way of someone who can finally look away from a road accident because the paramedics have arrived and finds out he doesn't really want to. Iz commands the weirdest kind of admiration.
"What the fuck," He said, "Is a damned good question, actually."
Izzy turned around, saw me, and did this very odd squealing thing. "Rick! My boy! We have banana lube."
My boy. Uh huh.
"Izzy," I said, and leaned on the wall. It was a nice wall. Comfy wall. So comfy, in fact, I could just about close my eyes and...
"Rick!" Someone poked me. My eyes snapped open with the really weird feeling you get when someone startles you badly enough. Alex was glaring at me.
Izzy, on the other hand, was beaming, and holding a chocolate bar. Uh *oh*.
I lunged forward, reaching out to pry the sugar-and-caffeine bomb from his fingers. Distract him, distract him... "Hey, Iz. You know what I realized today? Stuart and Keller would be absolutely great together."
In the orner of my eye, I could see Alex making a mild 'huh?' expression, but he was too smart to say anything. That's my boy.
Izzy scowled.
"Because," I went on, waving my hands around in a way that would make anyone but Iz on a cheer attack think I was apolectic, "They'd get each other, you know, and they can pick people up and then switch, and, um," hand allllllmost on Sneakers bar, "They wouldn't be afraid of each other. Or, at least, if they will be, they'll have good reason to."
Success.
"You and your weird couples," Iz said, looking only a little weirded out to discover I was suddenly munching on a chocolate bar.
"You know me, just your average closet romantic," I said. Yum. Sneakers. Even after brushing my teeth, I had the most horrible middle-of-the-night taste in my mouth.
Success makes you loosen your guard. Never do that around Izzy. I should remember it by now.
It was kinda a hint when he suddenly *crowed* something intelligeble, smacked a kiss to my forehead, bounced off the counter and jogged out of the kitchen, smooching a startled Alex on the way. By the time I blinked, the front door was banging off the frame, and Kallie was shouting death threats from upstairs in a way that's only Kallie-like on very extreme cases.
Some of them were quite imaginative.
I still remembered who the primary candidates for blame would if any more ruckus was made, not to mention that, in his current condition, Iwouldn't be surprised to find Iz standing in the middle of the road and admiring car headlights until someone drove him over. I grabbed Alex's arm and followed.
I still remembered who the primary candidates for blame would if any more ruckus was made, not to mention that, in his current condition, I wouldn't be surprised to find Iz standing in the middle of the road and admiring car headlights until someone drove him over. I grabbed Alex's arm and followed.
* * * *
^alex^
After that, things happened quickly. Izzy found chocolate, Rick managed to lure said chocolate away from him, then, as Rick was munching on the snickers bar, Izzy crowed something that included the word 'high class sex-club' and 'my man Terry' before charging out the door.
I stood there staring after him, wincing at the death threats Kallie was shouting down at us.
Rick grabbed my arm, "The fuck are you waiting for?" (when he's tired, 'fuck' becomes a part of pretty much every sentence he says) and pulled me after him out the door.
Izzy was skipping down the street.
Rick sighed, then shouted. "Hey! Iz! Wait up!"
Izzy turned and started walking... or skipping... backwards, beaming at us. "You coming with? Didn't think it was your scene."
"What isn't our scene?" I wanted to know, hoping he wasn't headed for another one of those chains&leather parties. Each to his own and all that, but that was definitely not my scene.
"Sex clubs!" Izzy said, blinking innocently.
"...He's worse than that fucking kid, Timberlake," Rick muttered under his breath. Louder he said; "What sex club?"
"Platypus heaven! The one Terry works for!"
I stared at him. "Platy-what?"
"Platypus heaven," Izzy repeated cheerfully and stopped so we could catch up with him. "Terry's been asking me to stop by for weeks and now I am. Going to. You coming?" He snickered at his own clever pun.
This was getting painful. Maybe I should've just whacked him over the head with a Greek book after all.
"Sure you wouldn't rather just go to sleep?" Rick said, sounding a bit desperate.
Izzy laughed and started skipping again. "Nope!"
"...And we're off to see the wizard..." I glanced over at Rick who seemed to be having a serious discussion with a near-by street light.
"I have _got_ to get some new friends," Rick said. "Yeah, yeah, we're coming with you."
And, so. We went. To Platypus heaven. To see Terry. The short, skinny guy with the red mop of curls on his head.
First, we had to get past the bouncers. They were about as wide as they were tall and were all muscle. Utterly terrifying. "Membership?" The one with the scar growled out with some strain. He mustn't be used to talking, I thought.
"No," Izzy said. Cheerfully. If I hadn't been terrified, I would've been tempted to hit him.
The bouncers glared and waved their hands dismissingly.
"I'm here to see a friend," Izzy went on blithely.
The bouncers started to frown.
"Terry Valentine. Maybe you know him?"
I could see them thinking about it. Then one of them nodded. "Okay. You can go inside."
Izzy beamed and ducked into the club. Personally I thought any club that was still open at this time of night was very suspect, but it didn't seem to bother Izzy. Rick and I started to follow. The bouncers placed themselves in front of the door and glared.
"Meep," I said and grabbed Rick's sleve.
"Listen, you over-sized baboon," Rick started.
"Meeeep!" I said, wide-eyed.
Iz stuck his head out of the door. "Hey, you guys coming or what?"
I ducked under the bouncers' arms and pulled Rick after me. Rick continued calling the bouncers names until we were well inside the club. I was starting to remember why I high tailed out of there when Iz got in one of his moods and Rick had to be called to appear wherever Iz was at the time.
Izzy was waiting for us at the bar, chatting amicably with the bartender. "What took you so long?"
"What is this place?" I said, looking around.
"A sex club. Told you, didn't I? Want a blowjob? Go upstairs." He grinned.
"From a stranger? Are you nuts?"
"Prude," Izzy snorted.
"Secret-seer," I retorted, gritting my teeth. I will not hit Izzy, I will not hit Izzy, I will not hit Izzy, because Izzy will definitely hit back and he doesn't pull his punches, I repeated as a mantra.
* * * *
^rick^
Alex was turning dark green. Since there were no *actual* blowjobs going on in eyesight, and Alex isn't generally one to blush at the mere concept, I could only assume it had something to do with being seriously pissed off.
Shit. There is nothing worse than being made to get out of bed at 3 am besides being made, consequently, to play the role of a sane and calm person, because your friends *who had been awake* and *who fucking well made sure you would be too* are either tired and irratable, or Izzy and insane.
Well. I wasn't going to.
"Right," I told the bouncing lunatic I on some days consider a friend. "So, what are we here for, exactly? Saying hi to Terry? Getting a blowjob? A mixed deal?"
Alex goggled at me. Izzy snickered. "Well, I don't know about you. It *is* a gay sex club."
"Yeah," I said. "Because otherwise I'd be going up there like a shot. Sure."
The green color on Alex's face was getting a distinct sickly tinge as Izzy smirked and moved away to stare at something behind the bar. "You're supposed to calm him down, not to encourage him!"
"Maybe next time he won't get one of his self-highs at three in the morning."
"Or maybe he'll get *all* of them at three in the morning from now on, because he bloody enjoys you being like that. Don't *play* with him, Rick."
Yeah, well. He had a point. Iz is one of the only people being a complete and total asshole at can be considered 'playing'.
On some points, anyway. And at some modes of assholism.
"Alex," I said, rather pleasantly, I think. "It's three thirthy in the morning. In a little over four hours, I need to meet five kids with far too much success for their own good, make them actually listen to me, hopefully make them do as I say, and even more hopefully intimidate at least two of them and tease another into doing something amusing. All without going too far out of my sane person disguise, and without taking anyone's head off with my bare teeth. Surprisingly, and rather at opposite ends to the success of this, I'm now at a sex club, trying to keep Izzy from making anyone kill him, although I'm not really sure right now why I bother. I'm not really up to being reasonable on top of all of this."
Alex just threw up his hands and turned to look at the dance floor.
I'd probably need to apologize later. Hell, wait enough hours for me to forget about my lost sleeping hours and I'd most likely want to apologize. Sometimes I really wish I could keep up proper pissiness, reasonable or not.
Fuck.
I turned to look at Izzy, and maybe give him a big enough piece of my mind to make him at least reconsider the next time he felt like being hyperactive out of office hours. Naturally, he wasn't there already.
I felt like throwing up my hands, which I couldn't because Alex already did that and I'd just feel ridculous instead of disgusted and despaired, or falling to my knees and bitching at the skies in a very religious way, which could come off as an invitation to all kind of things in this kind of club and was probably best avoided.
Instead, I turned to Alex, who was being incoherent at a big grinning guy with, strangely, both a robe and some whips. It was a very interesting robe. I didn'tfeel like blushing *or* staring, but it was a very interesting robe.
Izzy's gone," I told him. "Let's go."
Alex stared at me with relief. "Wha? Where'd he go?" The big guy raised an eyebrow and moved away, still looking amused. The robe did all kinda odd things when he walked. Sometimes Izy's tastes in hangouts *really* weird me out.
"Well, he's not on the dance floor." I turned to look around the room. It wasn't very big, but there were all kinda shadowed corners. "I think our best bets are that he's either with Terry or upstairs. Which one would you rather check first?"
He blinked. "Well. Would finding Terry require talking to the natives?" "I guess." And I couldn't even assure his that they wouldn't bite. "Right. Upstairs it is. I just wanna warn you that if anyone lays their mouth on any part of me without my signed permission, I have a few of Kallie's pencils and I'm not afraid to use them."
When we started climbing the stairs, he said, "You know, next time, instead of waking you up, I'm just throwing him into your bed and going home."
I made a mental note to change the locks.
* * * *
^alex^
Soon after, not hitting him didn't become much of a problem, because he disappeared. Before that, there was a moment where Rick lost his mind completely and encuraged Iz' mad ways. You should never do that. Distract him, get him drunk, whack him over the head if you must, but for god's sake, don't encurage him! For a moment, I very much wanted a more active mutant power. The mutant power to create earthquakes perhaps. It sounded about suitable for my mood.
Then there was that interlude with a man called Alan which is never to be spoken about again and no, I'm not going to say much more. Except, he wondered what I would look like after being whipped with a cat-o-nine-tails. He thought I'd look nice. Nice!
Rick saved me from Alan by pointing out that Izzy was missing. Off we were on a search mission. Inside a sex club. How do I end up in these things, that's what I want to know.
"Here, Izzy, Izzy, Izzy," Rick called as we walked down the upstairs corridor.
I blinked at him. "He's not a dog, you know."
He looked at me. "Nah. Too easy."
"What?"
"Never mind. Hey, look in there. Maybe he's in there." Rick pointed towards a random door.
"Do I have to?"
"Yes."
I started to object (I'm not a prude, but there are some things I'd rather not see, thank you very much), glanced over at Rick, realised he'd was this close to turning into Johnny the homicidal maniac and meekly turned and opened the door.
I swallowed and closed the door.
"Not him, I gather?"
"...Definitely not."
Rick sighed deeply. He leaned against the wall and thought deeply, nearly falling asleep again. Since I didn't think he'd really appreciate waking up here tomorrow -- er, later today -- I poked him. He jumped. "...If I see you within fifteen feet of a hairdye ever again... Alex?"
"Yeah." I looked down the corridor. "Uh. You take that side, I take this one?"
"Right."
I closed my eyes, steeled myself and opened the next door. And closed it again rapidly. Woah.
This experience was definitely going to be repressed.
I moved on. Opening and closing doors as fast as I could, just glancing in to note that Izzy wasn't there. Rick seemed to have gone for pretty much the same approach, except he stopped up at one point going, "Well, fuck me!" in an amazed sort of voice before he slammed the door shut.
I opened door #7 or 8 and glanced inside. I raised my eyebrows. "Oi, Rick! Come see this!"
"...Do I have to?"
"Hell, yeah."
He wandered over to look over my shoulder, then. "THE FUCK?! BASS!"
I quickly moved away from the door. Poor kid. I'm sure he would be missed.
I could hear Rick shouting as I continued down the corridor, hoping Izzy would magically appear somewhere. 'Resposibility', 'spoiled brat', 'fuck', 'I swear to god I'm gonna' and 'I don't want to hear it' figured often in the triade. When Rick gets going, he... gets going.
And, apparently, when Iz disappears, he disappears. I closed the last door on my end, sighed deeply and started on the other one.
Rick continued shouting.
* * * *
^rick^
" --And if I see *one more* mark at the meeting tommorow, Bass, you'll think of the time I made Timberlake cry with envy." Slam. Never mind that I didn't make him exactly cry, and that he was half-faking to get off easy, and that we both knew it.
Is it four o'clock in the morning? Why, yes. Do you have a full day of rehearsals tommorow? Well, yeah! I must be a mind reader! Do you have a fucking *live show* in two days, to which your coach is complaining you still don't know all the steps? Yuppi-do. Are you in bed getting rested like any half-witted person would? Oh, kinda. You're in a bed tied up and getting things I'm not going to linger on done to you, by the wide array of marks.
The guy was, what, twenty, twenty one. Pretty fucking *smart* kid. Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick.
At least none of those marks seemed to be anything involving actual pain. Still. It was far, far, far too fucking early.
The wall was looking oh, oh so inviting.
"He's not here, Rick," Said a green guy I vaguely recognized as Alex. I briefly considered throwing my arms around him and going to sleep.
Must maintain facade of knowing what the hell is going on. Although I couldn't quite remember why. "Mhmmm, yeah. Let's go find whatshisname."
"Izzy."
I blinked. Couldn't be that foggy. Tried to concentrate. The shouting must have taken more out of me than I thought. Focused on the green guy again. "Noooo, no, the other one. You know."
Alex surveyed me with pity. I appreciate it. Pity meant I may begiven a bed some time soon. "You, my friend, need to wake up."
I nodded.
Wall. White wall. Commmmmfy wall.
Someone snapped their fingers in front of me. I blinked and recoiled.
Alex sighed. "I don't like the amounts you consume of this shit, and by the hours you were sleeping the last few days I don't even want to think how much you drank... but c'mon. I'm getting you a diet coke."
I beamed.
Down by the bar again, I looked at the glass and felt more awake already. Psychology is a wonderous, beautiful, highly fucked up thing.
Or maybe that's just me.
I looked at Alex. "You know, when we find him, I'm gonna lock him in the Corner, barricade all the doors, set fire to the window ledges, and then go find Gally and tell her who made her favorite knife all bendy, and exactly how."
Alex looked a little pitying, although not too much, but Alex is too soft.
That was the moment when Izzy bounded up to the bar ad grabbed my Diet Coke. He looked me over carefully while both those facts registered. In the end he finished the entire glass in one gulp, and said, sounding hideously cheerful, "You need to get laid."
I stared at him. No use to try killing him myself; Gally would do it much better, hurt him much longer, and know where to dump the body. "Where the hell have YOU been?" [03:47] <_river> He rolled his eyes. "If you can't guess, then you don't need to know."
It was horribly tempting, though. Horribly, horribly tempting. Maybe I could leave him here and make it look like a case of auto-asphyxiation gone wrong.
Or, well, gone very very right, but I was willing to accept that my standarts at the moment weren't exactly the kind most of the world would agree with.
Alex said, sounding almost, just almost as tired as I was feeling, "Iz, if you've gotten whatever sordid thing we came here for over with, can we *please* go home now?"
Izzy shrugged. "No. Ricky, Did you know one of your singers is tied up on the second floor?"
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience, sleep or an M16, whatever came first.
* * * *
^alex^
After opening door the last door and slamming it shut again, I turned and saw Rick falling asleep while leaning against the wall, a blissful expression on his face. I walked over to him and had a half-wit sort of conversation with him before he started to fade out.
I sighed and snapped my fingers in front of his face. He recoiled. Poor guy. I didn't like this, but... "I don't like the amounts you consume of this shit, and by the hours you were sleeping the last few days I don't even want to think how much you drank... but c'mon. I'm getting you a diet coke."
Rick looked at me as though I was the messaiah.
Down at the bar, I ordered him a huge glass of diet coke. He sat there staring at it for five minutes with this happy grin on his face, then he turned to me and made one of the cruelest threats I've ever heard. It involved telling Gally who made her favorite knife all bendy.
As I was about to tell him that was going a bit too far, Izzy bounded up to the bar, grabbed Rick's glass, downed it and said, looking very self-satisfied, "You need to get laid."
"Where the hell have you been?" Rick said. The bar creaked omniously where he was holding on to it.
Izzy smirked. "If you can't guess, you don't need to know."
Wonderful, great. More than I actually needed to know. "Can we go home now?"