He was slumped along the leather sofa in the office, one arm extended over the end and his head dropped down on that. Oh, it was so nice to have another pot smoker in the house again. It was entertaining to watch the guy try and find new places to hide it, getting frantic at wondering how someone kept finding it and taking it. Stupid. Didn't he know some…things were watching that he couldn't see? You ought to be careful, though. Idiots like the twins took it all, not just a bud or two. Guy might start thinking that he was developing some paranoia reaction to weed and quit smoking it. Then he'd have to kill those little assholes for a couple weeks.

You had to move fast with things like pot and pills and booze in this house. Always someone lurking, trying to pilfer it. He was pretty crafty, having spent a lot of time thinking about this non-corporeal existence and what it meant for him. Experimented. Even got down the sidewalk a ways once before the place sucked him back up like tornado.

Everybody stole the good stuff. Damn it.

It was so boring without the intoxicants, DVD's, computers. So. Fucking. Boring.

The door to the office banged open and Chad stumbled in, a wine bottle in one hand and a DVD case in the other.

"Don't come in here and harsh my buzz," he said, not caring if he'd just leave him alone. He was too high to give a real shit about it anyway.

"Fuck you," Chad replied, struggling to get drunken fingers to open the clamshell case. Tate finally sighed.

"Spaz. Give it here." He sat up and stretched his arm out, wiggling long fingers.

"Fuck you," he said again, ignoring the hand.

"Wow, what a repertoire of insults," he replied, leaning back over the sofa arm again. He watched the tussle with the DVD case through his long bangs.

"Know what you remind me of?" he sang to Chad.

"Don't care, asshole," was the retort.

"You remind me of a seagull trying to open an oyster or something. Or like an otter." He blinked slowly, an eternity passing in his head from the THC infection. "Maybe you ought to lie on your back and I'll get you a rock from outside. You can bang it open."

He shot him a dark eyed stare. "Like I'd trust you with lying down or a rock in your hand."

Tate flopped a little, acknowledging. "Good call." The case finally burst open and the DVD flew out. He clapped weakly. "Bravo. What is it?"

Chad didn't respond, just fed the disc into the player and turned on the television. Tate shrugged.

"So what. Anything different is okay." He folded the arm under his head and watched as the screen flickered and the video loaded up. A few credits with dubious production value graphics showed up and then the cheesy music started. It stirred a memory in his mind.

Hey!" he said, sitting up. "Porno!" Chad, doing his best to disregard his murderer, fell onto the sofa with a 'woof'.

Silence for a few moments. Eyes watching the screen.

"Aw, it's straight," lamented Chad, forgetting to be haughty and letting the frustration show through his voice.

"Hell yes!" Tate cheered, folding his legs underneath him. "Where did this come from?"

"I'm not telling you. The guy has a shitload of it. I found it and it's mine." Tate leveled bleary red eyes on his victim.

"If he's straight, then all his porno will be straight, so what do you want it for?"

"It's the principle. I found it. It's mine." He repeated the previous declaration with a satisfied little moo at the end. Tate snorted.

"Whatever, dude." They watched a while and sure enough, it was straight porno. Chad was getting disgusted at his misfortune and took a long pull from the bottle. Some ran down his chin and he cursed.

"Being drunk is sloppy," Tate observed. "Sloppy sloppy sloppy." He liked the way the word sounded and how it felt to say it and it reminded him of others things.

"You're high as hell," Chad said dryly.

"You're drunk as shit. And we're both dead, so, even." He looked back at the screen. "Look at that! Can't you just appreciate the cinematography?" That word was hard to say as stoned as he was, and it came out sounding all hyphenated. "Can't you appreciate the art?"

So, okay. They both laughed then.

She walked in, and Tate's breath stopped.

"What fresh hell is this?" she demanded, and he smiled at her Dorothy Parker reference.

"Mr. Specialness found a porno stash and he's not telling where. He wants it allll to himself." He was daring himself to speak, but being this high kind of interfered with his judgment.

"Huh," she huffed, plopping down between them. "What is it?"

"Oh," Chad said sarcastically, "It's straight up het fucking…in various ways. And orifices."

She snickered and his heart flopped, flopped.

"He knows where some gay porno is," she volunteered. Tate twisted uncomfortably.

Chad sat up, narrowing his eyes at him. "Where?"

A thought crept into his head. "Somewhere…" he replied, mysterious. A hint of a smile on her face that meant more than a thousand smiles from anyone else.

"Don't be a fucking little petulant child," Chad sneered. He sneered back.

"What's the difference? 'It's mine, I found it!"' he mocked.

They glared at each other across her. It was amusing.

"Tell you what," Chad finally broke the standoff. "You bring out one of…yours, and I'll bring out one of mine. One at a time. So they'll last."

He lifted his chin arrogantly. "How can I trust you?"

"You are a smug little bitch."

Tate pretended to be busy brushing lint from his sweater.

"I'll let you kill me if I don't."

"That's not appealing at all. I could do that any day of the week."

Chad jerked, annoyed. Then a slow realization came across his face and he stared intently at Tate, and then cast his eyes at her. She was watching the screen, having forgotten their little impasse.

What? Tate mouthed.

Once again, he turned his eyes to look at Violet, then back at Tate. Oh! His eyebrows went up. He knew they pal-ed around. Talked and drank and laughed. Did he really mean…?

Talk to her? He mouthed back.

Chad nodded vigorously.

"Deal," he replied, reaching across to shake Chad's hand and touching for the first time since he'd killed him.