Cupid and The Fairies in the Pipes of Tres Equis

by Atomdancerrr

Cupid gets himself in very hot water when he dismantles and damages the plumbing pipes of Tres Equis looking for a fatal problem that isn't really there. Or isn't it!

Cupid and The Fairies in the Pipes of Tres Equis

by

Elizabeth Hensley 8-)

Dedicated to Theicemenace. I promise I will read all the rest of the wonderfully written and really fun stories she's written that I promised I will read. I really will! When you've read some of mine and want a change of pace, for more great fun, read hers!

Cupid sat in Dr. Greeley's office across the desk from Claire's uptight Boss, grinning. It was one of his quarterly competency examinations. He had to take one every four months to guarantee his continued freedom. He had been through so many of these with Dr. Greeley and occasionally other Shrinks he no longer feared them. He looked forward to them actually. He really was going to enjoy this one!

He said smugly, "You always were asking me a certain question when I was locked up in this little hospitality house and still keep doing it periodically at these quarterly examinations. So ask it now! Ask me who I am!"

Dr. Charles Greeley stared hopefully at Trevor. Had there been a breakthrough? Claire hadn't said anything. "Alright. Who are you?"

Trevor's chest puffed out with pride, "I'm the new unofficial manager of Tres Equis!"

Dr. Greeley stared not quite sure how to take that. "Ah! Want to explain?'

This very delusional but unquestionably very competent patient grinned at him."Well Felix is getting too sick to do the actual work involved but he doesn't want to relinquish the position. So I'm doing more and more of the actual work. Yesterday he and Lita both admitted I was the unofficial Manager! Lita usually will hardly even speak to me but she got playful and took a paper towel roll and whacked me over the head with it and dubbed me with that title!"

Dr. Greeley chuckled. "I can tell you are proud of it!"

Trevor grinned and nodded. "Oh yes! I am prouder of this than being Cupid. I will always be Cupid, sir, but I was born a god and I can't help being a god. Your Mortals just decreed there be a Cupid and due to luck I just happen to be him. But I earned being unofficial manager of Tres Equis with hard work, chutzpa and persistence!"

Dr. Greeley nodded approvingly, "Very good! OK. You are definitely competent to live free for four more months. In fact I would say you've made some real progress!"

Trevor grinned, "Don't get too many of your hopes up! I will always be Cupid!"

Dr. Greeley shrugged, "I am beginning to realize Tres Equs might not have stayed in business if you didn't think so. I've watched your You tube videos. You are bringing in a lot of business as their advertising icon. The fact you actually believe it can't possibly hurt."

Trevor nodded, "It doesn't. It comes across as the best of several different kinds of advertising all at once, the Dave Thomas sincerity kind plus the 'we're so crazy you ought to shop here' kind plus a little romantic fantasy (or so our Customers think it's fantasy) thrown into the mix. I am telling the truth and my sincerity shines through the fantasticness of what I am saying so that fascinates them. Or if they don't believe me, my nuttiness amuses them. Though sometimes even if they do believe me, my nuttiness amuses them. I can't lose!" Trevor grinned mischievously.

Dr. Greeley frowned. "And yet my professional side is not happy with this at all because somewhere inside of you the real you is still lost and probably hurting!"

Trevor frowned, "Poppycock! Well, you just declared me competent to live free for four more months. I have a bar to run and a few more couples to match. Can I please just go?"

As if on cue his cell phone rang.

It was Lita. "Trevor there's a problem!

Trevor looked at Dr. Greeley hopefully.

Dr. Greeley sighed and pointed at the door.

Trevor held his cell phone up like a sword, silently mouthed the word "charge!" and rushed out.

Leaving the amazed Shrink to ponder that a man every bit as delusional as the day he tricked his way out of their mental hospital almost eight years earlier was now successfully managing a bar! He would have liked to have equated this patient's success to good mental health care but he knew better. Trevor was just darn clever and adaptive on his own and always had been: Probably never had needed to be locked up. Darn it! Hyper-competency was often one of the symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder but most DIDs didn't pick out Fantasy Beings to be their Alternate Personalities, then stay in that Alternate with absolutely no sign whatsoever of the Original Personality surfacing for almost eight years. This had to be a record!

Meanwhile Cupid hurried across the street still listening on his cell phone.

*It's Jerry.* Lita told "Trevor." *He's scared! Says he will only talk to you!*

"Me?" Trevor said humbly. "I wonder why only me?"

Lita said, *I don't know. Maybe because you are both friggin nuts!*

Cupid sighed. He didn't bother to dispute it. There could be a kernel of truth to it. "We have the shared experience of both having been forced to undergo involuntary psychiatric care. It takes going through that to understand that. That is true."

Lita shrugged. *Well there you go! Your reason!*

Trevor ran in the door of the bar then so he was suddenly making eye contact with the one he was on the phone with. He nodded, flipped his phone shut, pocketed it and continued the conversation in person. "Where is he?"

Lita frowned and pointed back over her shoulder with her thumb. "Back with his beloved pipes of course!"

Trevor rushed into the kitchen.

Their Schizophrenic Dishwasher, Jerry Peterson whose Best Friends were the plumbing pipes of Tres Equis was in the kitchen as usual, but not his usual cheerful self. He looked scared alright! "Trevor the pipes told me we are in danger!"

Trevor frowned. "They did! Can they tell me why?"

Jerry frowned back, "No! They can't tell me why, just that we are!"

Trevor asked, "How bad?"

Jerry asked. "What do you mean 'how bad?'

Trevor explained his question. "Nuke the Planet bad? We lose New York bad or we lose Tres Equis bad?

"We lose Tres Equis bad."

Trevor exclaimed. "Well that's bad enough!"

Jerry's eyes were wide. "I know!"

Trevor asked concerned. "What happens?"

Jerry frowned. "The pipes can't tell me!"

Trevor was amazed at that. "But they do know something bad happens and they warned you?"

Jerry nodded and frowned. "They know what happens. They can't tell me! They don't know how!"

Trevor sighed. "I will try to get help! He went upstairs to his room to his lap top and started googling.

Jerry came up the stairs after him frowning. Some great, old anxiety was building up in him. Suddenly he stood at the door of Trevor's room and shouted, "I DON'T NEED ANOTHER PSCHIATRIST!"

Trevor nodded, "Look, Jerry!" He swung his lap top around so Jerry could see what he had his computer open to.

Jerry came into Trevor's room and looked.

Trevor had the web open to "Plumbers, Queens area."

Jerry nodded, reassured.

Trevor continued, "But I may end up needing a Psychiatrist anyway for you such as Claire to vouch for you, if I could find one that would!"

Jerry shrugged helplessly. "No one would! I don't have anyone like you have Claire! For years I have taken my meds and said as little as possible when Shrinks talk to me so they hardly know me! I don't want to have to be locked up again across the street!"

Trevor stared at his Jerry in horrified sympathy and continued to search the Plumbing listings. He finally chose one, pulled his cell phone out of pocket and started to dial. He stopped, "Darn it, Jerry! What do I say? I believe you! But what do I tell THEM? 'My Schizophrenic Dishwasher says the pipes themselves told them they have some kind of problem and need checking?' And when they find out I'm that guy in the You tube videos who admits to thinking he's Cupid, oh Zeus! Jerry we have a problem here interfacing with the so called Normals. I believe you. But what are we going to do!" Trevor frowned and sat on the floor and put his hand on his chin and sat there. The much shorter Jerry joined him. They looked like twin Thinker statues except they were clothed!

That was where Felix found them both when he came puffing up the stairs, home from an appointment with his Cardiologist.

"What's up?" he asked. It was not like Trevor to look so glum and puzzled. His stray 'god' barkeep usually had a glib answer for every contingency!

Trevor looked up at his Boss, almost crying. "Jerry says the pipes told him we are in danger and I don't know what to do with the information!"

Felix stared at his "colorful not crazy" barkeep/unofficial manager. "Ah, 'the pipes told Jerry we were in danger?' He looked directly at Jerry. They did? What kind of danger?"

"I don't know/He doesn't know." Jerry and Trevor said together.

Felix said, "Ah, Trevor, may I have a word with you?" He motioned for his employee to follow him.

Trevor nodded and followed his Boss as he walked slowly into their observation office.

In their observation office Felix sat down, caught his breath, and then said, "Trevor, I know you take your own mental state seriously. But you take Jerry's too?"

Trevor nodded. "I sort of do, Boss. I saw the Schizophrenics at Sach's-Gordon. Jerry doesn't act like them. He acts more sort of like a mild Autistic with some psychic ability. There may be something or someone living in our pipes. Who knows? I can't tell any more. The psychic veil, slash mental force field was slapped over my mind when I was thrown down to this realm but strangely enough it isn't so thick over some of you Mortals yourselves."

Felix sighed. "I wouldn't be encouraging him. He's been stable for years and now this happens! He's been doing fine, takes his meds, hasn't needed hospitalization. Don't screw that up!"

Trevor frowned. "He takes his meds either because they are calming to him or to keep Folks off his back! Or he faithfully flushes them down to the Gators when no one is looking! I saw how meds help Folks sometimes at least! I definitely would not encourage him not to take them! But something, not me has convinced him that something is wrong with our plumbing system and as our unofficial manager I'd better heed his warning! Our Dishwasher spends more time with our pipes than anyone else. If a problem's developing he would have a better chance of noticing than you or I would!"

Felix sighed and nodded. "OK. Good points. Keep an eye on it. But how do you plan to call a Plumber and tell them, "Our Schizophrenic Dishwasher says the pipes told him there is a problem and oh by the way I'm Cupid."

Trevor winced. "I think I will wait for my Uncle Mercury to call me and ask him what to do!" He went charging out of the room ready to take on both realms!

Felix rolled his eyes at Heaven hoping SOMEONE had been watching their little exchange!

Many Beings were but since it was a local matter the very High Up let tiny little Olympus handle this one!

It wasn't long until Aunt Medusa sold something on eBay again and Uncle Mercury had money for cell phone time. So Trevor's cell phone rang.

So soon the unofficial Manager of Tres Equis was sitting across from Jerry in their little table in the kitchen. "Jerry, I had my Uncle Vulcan scan the Tres Equis plumbing system."

Jerry gave "Trevor" a skeptical look.

"Trevor" frowned. "Now don't you be doing that to me! I believe YOU! My family has found out, by the way why your pipes talk to you and you aren't Schizophrenic. Just as I suspected you have some psychic ability and such lousy social skills you are content with no more Friends than just what lives in our pipes which are a small nest of Gritches. Gritches are sort of the progenitors of Fairies, as Homo Erectus are to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, the Ancestors of modern Humans (both us gods and Mortal Humans). They can communicate, sort of, but they aren't scintillating conversationalists. I am not surprised they can't explain what is wrong in the pipes, and the big problem is my Uncle Vulcan couldn't find anything wrong!

Jerry frowned again.

"Oh Jerry the even bigger, more terrifying problem is that doesn't mean nothing is wrong! Just because my family of gods can't find it doesn't rule out a problem! The Gritches most likely are right! It's as the difference between a Dog's nose and ears and a Human's. A Dog starts growling and barking into the night because he or she senses danger and a Human insists nothing is there, believe the Dog! But also like a Dog the Gritches lack the capacity to put what they are sensing into plain English. They are communicating with you on too basic a level. When you say 'the pipes talk to you' it isn't quite English is it? You've been anthropomorphizing what you have been experiencing?"

Jerry frowned and nodded.

"Trevor" sighed and pounded on the table. "So still I have nothing to pick up a phone and call a Plumber to tell them! We just know something big and bad is going to happen! We know it! But we don't know what and we can't prove a thing! I've never been so frustrated in my life and I'm thousands of years old!"

Jerry's eyes grew wide. "Trevor! Suddenly I believe you!"

Cupid stared at Jerry. "Jerry if we both get killed by whatever this is I'll have to go back down again and start all over getting a hundred couples united, But I'll put in a request. If you want and I can manage it with my family and they probably will let me because my status is improving, you can have duel Citizenship like Claire is going to have. She is sort of like Winston Churchill who was both a United States Citizen and a Citizen of England. When she dies she can enter New Jerusalem because she prayed To Whom it Might Concern to save her soul from Hell and indwell her and clean her up from sin the way an antivirus program does, and 'To Whom it Might Concern' heard her honest prayer. He is The Big G God of Love. He doesn't care this very skeptical Lady isn't quite sure merely of His Name! She is as full of doubt as they come but had the sense not to ignore at least the possibility of an Afterlife and a Big G God, because taking the leap of faith to become a true Atheist is more than common sense allows! And you have to really hate the idea of God to be an Atheist and Claire is too mentally healthy to hate! And I have permission to make her a goddess so my Psyche-iatrist will be allowed to enter Olympus also. You can have the same if you want. (At least I will do my best to take care of the Olympus side of the arrangements!)

Jerry smiled. "OK!" I asked Jesus into my heart when I was seven in Bible school So I am going to be a god too?"

Cupid smiled and nodded.

Jerry grinned. So if we die we will still have a lot of fun!"

Cupid frowned. "You will. Many Mortals do. The Big Guy is not so poor He has to recycle souls as aluminum cans. He doesn't reuse operating systems any more than Bill Gates does most of the time. No, only I will have to go back down! Darn it Jerry! I'm up to 96 couples now! I am so close!

Jerry said, "Let's find out what is wrong!"

Cupid looked at his Friend, "When my family couldn't!"

Jerry's chest puffed out, "We Mortals are powerful! Didn't you say we Mortals made you gods?"

"Yes, but that is thousands of years in the Future!

"But they made these pipes now!"

Cupid stared at Jerry, amazed at his insight. "So you are saying my family may be too advanced in their thinking away from the problem? Even Vulcan?"

Jerry smiled. "Yes!"

Trevor nodded. "Good point! Faith and Begorrah, Jerry! I will take these pipes apart myself, one junction at a time! We will find the problem!"

Jerry laughed, "'Faith and Begorrah?'"

Trevor grinned. "I worked at an Irish bar a few years back. I'll tell you about it sometime. Now, find me a pipe wench and help me google info on plumbing do it yourself. And help me pacify Felix!"

Felix came down from their apartment next morning right before opening and found the place in no state to open! Because"Trevor" found much to his despair that there was at least one thing he was not ever going to be good at and that alas, was plumbing! He had thought it would be so simple to stay up after his janitorial duties were over for the night and with Jerry's patient help, take all the pipes apart and simply put them together again before the bar opened in the morning in the hopes of isolating the problem whatever it was.

But some of the pipes had rusted together. Once separated they did not want to reseal together. Thus when he turned the water back on leaks had thus occurred that were not stopping. The floor of the kitchen was soaked. So was the Customer area. Some of it was not going to ever be the same and tile would have to be replaced. There might lead to a mold problem developing...

Felix had never been really angry with Trevor before. There was a first time for everything!

The twinge in his heart told him he had better NOT give in fully to how he wanted to feel though!

He took his 'silly, stupid crazy, barkeep' up to the observation office and without yelling because he did not DARE! (That would have literally have killed him) gave him a dressing down that reminded Cupid oh too much of the ones his Father the god of war had given him! And being send down stairs again to mop up the mess was just as bad as being cast down off the mountain from Olympus! Not the work, the shame!

There is nothing a god hates worse than displeasing a Mortal! We hardwired that in to them the way the laws of robotics are hard wired into robots. Unlike a robot they can kill us. We made them to be able to awe us. We want to be frightened of them! But to simply displease us...to disappoint us! That is different!

Cupid's face was red with shame as he hung a "closed for remodeling sign" on the door and started to mop up the mess he had made.

It was Jerry who called Claire to come comfort him.

He was too busy mopping to really be counseled properly. He snarled. "For all I know, Claire, I caused the problem the Gritches were warning us about! Who knows that they don't have what my Aunt Cassandra was cursed with, the ability to know the Future? We gods don't understand them fully anymore than Mortal Humans understand what Dogs can do!"

Dr. Claire McCrae tried to reason with her very disturbed patient. "Oh come on, Trevor! I won't even bother to argue the delusional side of what you just said. I know I cannot win there! I will just do a little cognitive therapy with the over-blowing of the disaster side. So the bar has to be closed for a day or two for renovations! It's not that bad! Lots of restaurants get renovated and have to be closed a day or two."

Trevor frowned and shook his head. "Not at this time of year and we weren't budgeted for it, Claire! This is costing us thousands! And once People get out of the habit of going to a particular restaurant they don't re-habituate easily! The irritation alone of them having planned to come here and finding it closed will cost us Customers. I really goofed here! And that is reality!"

Claire sighed. She knew he was right! "Alright. Felix will forgive you. Tre Equis will still survive and after all the only reason the place is still in business is because of you. You know that and he knows that."

Trevor said, "He may forgive me. I will eventually forgive myself. After all I am immortal. But no! I don't know that Tres Equis will survive. The economy hasn't picked up that much. There is another Mexican restaurant just up the street! Oh Claire this IS bad! But you really want to help me?"

"Yes I do! You know that!"

"Grab that other mop right there and get busy!"

She sighed. But she did so. After all if a god can mop a Shrink can mop!

From on high eyes watched. In this case it was Lita and Felix. For once it was Lita who was smiling. You have a god and a Psychiatrist mopping your Customer area, brother!

"I have a muy loco Mental Patient and his muy buena Shrink mopping my Customer area!"

Lita giggled. "Roll reversal. Usually I'm the anxious, disproving one. But Trevor was really trying to find out what was wrong with our pipes."

Felix growled. "Nothing was wrong with our pipes! Now we have a real problem with them! And our kitchen tiles and our pretty Customer area tiles and..."

"He's been a very faithful employer for almost eight years!"

"He thinks he's a god!"

"We are all little bits of God!"

"Of Hey Zeus, Lita, not of Zeus. He's loco! I should never even have trusted you around him!"

Lita smiled gently, (surprised at herself she was defending him)."He saved my life that day from that drug addict! Remember that!"

"Ack!" Felix nodded. "I am just tired! It is so very hard to sleep! I have such trouble breathing! My chest is forever hurting! I hope 'Cupid' is right and this is just a design flaw that the Big God is working on and He will get it right in a few more revolutions of Time! And that this life is just the beta test!"

Lita nodded. "I am going to go help him mop!"

Meanwhile tall, red haired Uncle Mercury with his staff and humped over Uncle Vulcan in his floating wheel chair and powerful Mars the god of war with hair as white as snow and piercing eyes hovered over the little disaster, watching. Mars said, "We are missing something!

Vulcan snarled, "I did not! I scanned every square millimeter of those pipes. There is nothing wrong with the plumbing pipes of Tres Equis!" But then as he stared at the mess below them a kind of half grin, half wince appeared on his craggy face! "Well, at least there wasn't until stupid Cupid there decided he could play Mortal!"

Mars laughed, then said with incredible gentleness for the god of war. "And yet the Gritches say there is!"

Vulcan went, "Ha! They are Gritches! What do they know!"

Uncle Mercury said quietly, "Enough to know their home better than we do. Not enough to lie."

Uncle Mercury continued firmly, "So, we missed something!"

Uncle Vulcan snarled, "I say again I did NOT!"

Mars said, "I am the god of war and yet I know the secrets to making peace. I have to, for to make Mortals make war I have to know how to defeat their ever continuing attempts to make peace, many quite clever! I say you are both right. You, Brother Vulcan missed nothing in the plumbing pipes. And yet the Gritches told crazy-wise Jerry that 'there is a problem in the pipes of Tripple X.' We know he is not Schizophrenic and really heard them say that. The first thing we did was have Uncle Mercury rule out Schizophrenia. No Toxoplasmosis Parasites aboard his hard drive. He did not hallucinate. Jerry just can sense beings in our realm. And Gritches are not demons. They did not lie and have not been torturing Jerry all these years which is a kind of false Schizophrenia. They just want the problem known by Humans of some kind that can do something about it so their happy home is not destroyed. So we know there IS a problem in the pipes but.." Mars held up a finger to stop Vulcan from protesting again, "Vulcan is not wrong either. So it is not in the plumbing pipes!"

His brothers stared at him open mouthed.

Mars smiled. "Tres Equis has other pipes! No one has thought of that!"

"So, he continued, "which pipes?"

Vulcan started scanning with his omnipresence, "I'm on it!

And then a few seconds later, "Papa Zeus!" Then he gave a long, low whistle!"

A few seconds later the mighty gods of Olympus stood at the mouth of Medusa's cave, they themselves praying to anyone they could think of, to us Mortals, to Cupid's next door neighbors the Fates, to Jehovah, to Claire's favorite "To Whom it Might Concern" to the Internet itself even, that one of us would quickly buy something on eBay!

They were a tad perturbed with Mercury! Mars growled, "Did you have to use up all your minutes on trivial things!"

Mercury insisted. "Spending quality time with Eros is never trivial. He misses us so much. It is a mental health issue!"

"It is a mental health issue for YOU, you mean." Brother Vulcan laughed. But he understood. Autistic or not, he understood. "Hey I miss him too! He was a pest! Stole my wheel chair as a five hundred year old to go play Captain Kirk! Remember that? Called me limpy! But oh how I miss the kid!" Then the very ugly god frowned which made him seem even uglier in a cute sort of way. "If we don't solve this he could end up getting tossed back down again before he gets to one hundred and he was so close!"

Mars nodded glumly. "He may not have come out of my rod but he has grown on my heart. Come on Brother let's save your little squirt. How do we entice Mortals to buy trinkets?"

Medusa called out from within her cave (because even her family could not look at her without turning to stone) "There is actually a war game called 'god of war,' brother. I have one for sale today! Why don't you go find some Geek Mortal and do what you do to entice Mortals to start a war, except do that to make them buy this junk?"

Mars nodded embarrassed. "Sometimes the answer to prayer is ourselves!"

Uncle Mercury nodded, "And that is true even when one is not a god! Come on! We have some backs of necks to stare at!"

Harold Humbee of Largo Florida, married three weeks and trying to learn to be a responsible Husband instead of a Science Fiction Collection Hoarder wanted to buy a good, used lawnmower on eBay. They desperately needed it as their Grass was four inches tall now and the Neighbors were complaining. (That or a very hungry Goat and wiser zoning laws). His new Wife was not pleased when he instead ended up adding to his already way too big collection of war games. She would never know he kept about a block area of Queens, New York from having a disaster by that purchase!

Or that because some Folks wouldn't die a cure for Asthma would be found by a young Child who was but an Egg inside one of the Visitors to that bar that day!

But Medusa finally had a purchase. Soon as Medusa had money on her bank card she tossed it out to her brother Mercury the Postman and he took both the carefully wrapped war game to the Karditsa, Greece Post Office and the card to a convenience store to buy more cell phone minutes.

And so Ero's cell phone rang again!

Trevor exclaimed, "The heater in the basement is about to blow! Uncle Mercury I am in the doghouse. No, not literally. That is an American expression. No, never mind. When did I ever need permission? I won't even need forgiveness this time! But is this a problem that can be SEEN by a Mortal ?"

*Take it apart and go check it yourself but hurry!*

Trevor did his best to sneak out of his room past Felix and Lita. He did not succeed.

Felix asked, "Ah Trevor, where are you going?"

Trevor said quickly, "Ah...Out."

Felix said, "And doing what?"

Trevor said quickly, "I know this young Lady who wants to meet this Man who would be perfect for her."

Felix said relieved. "Oh, OK"

Trevor hurried down the stairs amazed and a bit amused. There was a time when I would have had to lie about that. Now thinking I am going "Cupiding" relieves his anxiety!

In the basement storage area Cupid rummaged and thought. It is a wonder Felix hadn't locked their tools away from him! But he had expected "Trevor" to have more sense than to break his promise not to fool with technology he didn't understand. But fortunately he didn't! He grinned.He was still "hallucinating!"

But it was a worried grin.

He found tools and wrenches suitable for getting the thing apart and did so.

And gave a long, low whistle that was the musical, mirror image of his Uncle Vulcan's!

And whipped out his cell phone and dialed 911 and thought to himself for a fleeting second, "If I am hallucinating this here goes my job and I take up residence across the street again!

But he was not.

The Police yellow-taped off Tres Equis and everything for several blocks around and everyone was forced to evacuate.

It was a bitterly cold day too and the wind was blowing fiercely like sharp, blue breath from a furious Ice Dragon. Lita and Felix didn't even have time to get warmly dressed before being ordered firmly out immediately by Cops who were not kidding! Neither did most of the People on the block! And again they were losing precious business. But this time no one was mad at him. Just the opposite in fact.

Because everyone was still alive!

Emergency Workers soon were busy as Human Bees running around in yellow outfits testing every heater on the block for more leaks and isolating the extent of the gas. Felix was assured that Trevor had done absolutely the right thing. "He has indeed saved lives sir! The problem is every bit as bad as he had stated to 911, worse in fact! Gas had been building up for days in your basement! It has no odor without a telltale safety-smell chemical added and they forgot to add that chemical. One little spark...! I don't know what kept things from blowing sky high this long! And I don't know how your employer found that leak with it being hidden by the heater itself!"

Trevor indignantly asked the Cop, "How did they forget to add that telltale safety-smell to our gas!"

The Cop shrugged, lowered his eyes in shame as if it were his own personal fault and shook his head. "I don't know, sir. But they sure did! So if you hadn't physically eyeballed that huge hole in the gas pipe..! And how did you ever do so what with it being hidden inside the heater itself!"

Trevor smiled and eyed his Boss who stared at his mysterious barkeep a bit spooked, which wasn't even an unusual thing.

Quietly Felix said, "I don't know HOW he keeps doing things like this!"

Trevor smiled, "This time I can't even take the credit! Wasn't the gods who told me. It was Proto-Fairies who told my Friend, Jerry!"

The bemused Cop stared, "Huh?"

Felix said, "Do yourself a favor! Save your sanity and your nice, normal concept of reality! Stop right there! Don't ask!"

Meanwhile Uncle Mercury, Uncle Vulcan, Mars and Venus hovered over what would have been the disaster area.

Mars smiled, "I wonder what did keep that spark from happening?

Uncle Mercury smiled and puffed out his chest with pride. "We are not the Highest and we all know it. Cupid is well loved over there on that other mountain!" Uncle Mercury pointed towards Israel. "Christ calls him His Little Mirror."

Mars nodded, "That little bastard of yours has sure gone far!"

Uncle Mercury nodded. "Yup. And I don't think I've ever been prouder of him than this moment! His tendency to defy Authority has finally paid off, and the thing is he did it defying someone he really respects a whole lot more than he does you, sir! He really respects Felix!"

Mars frowned, "Why does this mere Mortal get more respect than me, a god! And I raised him too!"

Venus said quietly, "Because, dear husband, Felix never caused trillions of Beings to kill themselves all down through the ages."

Mars frowned, "I started out an agriculture god! You know that! The Mortals themselves changed me into a god of war because they needed me to be so! Culling the Herd is so very needed! We'd be up to Saturn and back with Mortal Humans if they didn't kill each other off and as King Solomon put it, 'as iron sharpens iron, Man sharpens Man.' War drives Human evolution and progress along. So I do my duty with dignity! But I do so wish I could just go back to raising food to feed hungry Beings! I really do!"

Brother Vulcan said hopefully, "Yes brother, and someday, who knows? They may change you back again! They can have peace when they wish it enough and find ways to guarantee every Child conceived is wanted and fed well and raised with Wisdom and Love! The fate of the Universe is in their hands and we gods can only watch Mortals in awe! Let's go see what Sister Hestia has a cooking! This little incident has caused me to build up quite an appetite! And let's go join Brother Helios and the rest of the sun gods in their beloved game of monopoly for a change!" He raised his head and grinned which very suddenly changed his craggy face from plain-ugly to beautiful-ugly. "Dibs on being the Scotty Dog!"