Disclaimer: The intellectual property of Lackadaisy, and all the awesomeness there residing, belongs to Tracy. I own none of it.
A/N: This started with me just scrawling some interactions between Lackadaisy's characters and then a plot started developing.
Hair of the Dog
The cavern's cool air felt good as it brushed by Zib's skin, his cigarette smoke shifting in the light of the adjacent tunnel. He laid his head back on the rock wall as he listened to the burble of the nearby underground stream. The caves beneath Lackadaisy were not all fully developed; coming off of the main tunnel they used for transporting and storing liquor were unexplored tunnels. The tunnel he was in now was one of those that Zib had discovered years back. It was one of his favorite places to relax after a long night of playing to an empty crowd- the only crowd his band played to anymore. Tonight the audience was the normal- a smattering of the few loyal patrons Lackadaisy had left, most of them content to lay strewn across their tables ossified. They probably didn't even hear the music.
Zib took another drag from his cigarette and closed his eyes. The night wasn't over and he soon would have to head back up and make his living, but until then, he was content to sit here and enjoy his solitude.
"Are you sure these shoes don't go with this dress? They seemed the perfect match in the store."
Zib's eyes sprang open. The voice had echoed from further down the tunnel.
"Are you still thinking about that? Plainly put, they are a horrible color match. Thank goodness its dark, that shade of cream alongside the dark blue was becoming a pain to the eyes."
He stared into the recesses of the tunnel. The light from the main cavern's lamp just barely reached his sitting spot, leaving his eyes to meet a wall of pitch black.
"Are you razzing me? That cream was meant for this shade of blue. You must not pay any attention to the latest fashions."
The cigarette he was smoking was a normal one as far as Zib knew. He pulled out the pack and looked it over. Unfortunately it was a regular brand, making the explanation for the voices harder to rationalize.
"Ulch, no I have not and I never intend to. One does not need to keep up with societal trends to realize what is presentable or not."
There was nothing for it but to investigate. If he was hearing voices discuss fashion he wanted to be sure they were outside his head, hallucinogens aside. The jazz player stood up, steeled himself, and began cautiously edging into the darkness.
"What are you talking about? Of course it's necessary! Do you want to look like a rube?"
As Zib got closer to the voices they started sounding familiar, familiar in a way that didn't help his confidence in his sanity. He sighed. As much as he wished to, there was no turning back now.
"I'll have you know that my suits have never looked out of place. I take good care of my appearance… Why am I discussing this?"
Zib quickly ran out of light and had to strike a match to see. As the darkness peeled away around him he saw that a scant few feet before him was a sheer drop off.
"Hey, hey, over here!"
He approached it slowly and peered over it. The match had just enough light to make a faint outline of the bottom of the pit. There was a burbling stream forming a small pool that filled about half of the pit's space. The other half contained a line of stalagmites and a small, clear section of stone. On that stone were two figures staring up at him.
"Miss Pepper? Mr. Heller?" Zib's cigarette hung loosely in his mouth as he gaped at them.
Ivy cocked her head to the side. "Zib? What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
"It's a loooong story," Ivy sighed. "Could you find us a way out of here?"
It took a few seconds for Zib's brain to get its gears greased. "Yeah, yeah, I got it, I'll be right back." He quickly headed to the main tunnel. He was tempted to just go straight back to the speakeasy and forget this encounter had ever happened but he couldn't just leave Atlas's goddaughter in the bottom of a pit. He ran through the corridors to the storage room. Inside it wasn't hard to find a lamp and a coil of rope. He grabbed them and headed back to the tunnel.
"This has definitely been one of my less dignified moments."
"Oh forget your dignity! Do you know what my dress has been through? I just got it yesterday!"
"In case you haven't noticed its pitch black so no, I don't. Not that I'd c-"
"Ok, I've got rope!" Zib yelled down to them. He uncoiled it and threw it down the cliff. He heard an exasperated sigh.
"You will have to show me where the rope is… Unhand me! I just need simple direction, I'm not a child."
The rope went taut and Zib braced himself against the nearby rocks as the two climbed up. Soon the full figures of Mordecai and Ivy stood before him, both of them seeming less for wear. Mordecai lacked his glasses and bore an uncharacteristically disheveled suit. Ivy's clothes were in a similar condition, flecks of mud covering her down to her shoes. She also had something slung across her shoulder…
"Is that a gun?" Zib raised an eyebrow at Ivy.
"Yep, it is." Ivy un-slung it and inspected it. "I hope it still works. It's been through a lot."
Zib sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Do I even want to know?"
"Probably n-" Mordecai was abruptly cut off as a machine gun blast boomed through the corridor. From the light of the main tunnel a body fell to the ground, a pistol clattering to the floor beside it.
"Good shot, neg!"
Stepping slowly over the body was a figure in a trench coat with a chopper in its hands, smoke whisking from the barrel. A tall, black haired woman dressed in a suit walked up beside him, her large hoop earrings and BAR glinting in the light.
"Serafine!" Ivy cursed.
"Oh, if it isn't Pischouette." The woman strode up to the group casually, looking Ivy over. "You look predy bad. Did you have to get your hands dirty for once?" Serafine grinned widely.
The figure in the trench coat, which Zib quickly recognized as Freckle, followed close behind the dark-haired woman, his eyes blank. He barely glanced at the people around him, instead collapsing on the floor, his back against the wall.
"Calvin, are you ok?" Ivy gave him a worried look. Freckle nodded, letting his Thompson fall to the ground. Ivy looked back at the dark lady. "What did you do to him?"
"Notink. He looked lak he had a gran' time takin' out some hoods. I helped." Serafine lifted her gun and stared down the sights. "Right Boudreaux?"
"Is she talking to her gun?" Zib whispered to no-one in particular.
"She does that occasionally," Mordecai muttered. "It's rather ridiculous."
"You stay away from Calvin!" Ivy glowered at Serafine, readying her rifle in a way that made Zib uneasy.
"Oh, gettin' feisty, eh? You goin' to stop me?" The Cajun leveled her gun at Ivy.
Zib was contemplating either slipping away quietly or hurling himself into the pit beside him when his thoughts were interrupted.
"Which of course is why the police never found me," a voice echoed down the main tunnel, prompting Zib to roll his eyes. He figured the man behind that voice would be involved in this mess.
A deep laugh followed the statement. "Nice one. I lak de way you tink."
"Is that one of them?" a female voice asked. Zib groaned; that was a voice that shouldn't be involved.
Appearing in the entrance of the small tunnel was Rocky, a stupid grin plastered across his face and alongside him a large, well-built man with dark, sandy hair. Bringing up the rear was, much to Zib's distress, Mitzi.
"Nico! How did it go?" Serafine turned to face them.
"Mais, it went well, dey got us in a rough spot but we got out." Nico winked at her.
"Zib!" Rocky exclaimed gleefully, waltzing up to the now thoroughly confused jazz player. "You have no idea what you've missed!"
Zib stared long and hard at the violinist. "… Apparently," he mumbled, slumping against the wall. Mitzi walked slowly up to the two, exchanging a tired glance with Zib before she joined him on the floor. Zib turned to her expecting some sort of explanation but instead getting a faraway look. Suddenly she sat up and looked over the group.
"Where's Wick?" she asked urgently.
"I dink he ended up wit' dat grand beede', de one wit' de odd name, uh what was it…" Nico gestured.
"Viktor!" yelled Rocky, his head facing the entrance of the now much too crowded tunnel. There stood the aforementioned Slovak, a chopper swung over his shoulder and a long streak of blood across his shirt. Behind him was a shuffling, tattered Wick, his eyes bearing a crazy glaze.
"Wick, what happened?" Mitzi immediately rose to meet the money man.
"I was… it was… we were…" Wick trailed off.
"Wonderful. It's good to see we all survived the encounter," Mordecai said acidly.
"I wished some hadn't." Ivy stared daggers at Serafine.
"Don't get me started again Pischouette. I won't lose de next fight." The Cajun's eyes narrowed menacingly.
"If that lunatic had not shot up whole gang, ve wouldn't have problem." Viktor pointed at Freckle.
"Freckle was trying to protect me," Ivy defended. "Besides, things would have been jake if Rocky hadn't dragged in all that trouble." Ivy pointed at the corpse at the entrance of the tunnel.
Rocky smiled innocently. "Well it was with good intentions, I mean, I didn't know that they would…" Rocky shrugged his shoulders.
"Didn't know? You didn't know? For Pete's sake, man, you brought them all down on our heads!" Wick yelled at Rocky.
The underground halls soon erupted into a cacophony of echoing arguments, voices overlapping, and the only words clearly understood by Zib being the loudly hurled insults. Somehow, Zib's curiosity won over his urge to flee the chaos.
"SHUT IT!" There was silence. All eyes turned to the jazz player. He pulled out another cigarette and lit it, his last one being long lost due to his copious gaping. He took a long drag, exhaling sharply. "I think I'm going to regret asking this, but what in the hell is going on?"
The group looked around at each other, everyone's eyes looking for a culprit, but it was Freckle, still lying against the wall unnoticed, who spoke first. "I think it started with me," he began quietly.