(The idea behind this was imagining what it would be like if BH had a "bottle episode" - one designed to take up as little money as possible, using the minimum amount of characters and locations. Here's hoping I can pull it off.)
Alex felt like silence had fallen as she flipped over the decision in her head. Surely she couldn't back down now, not when she was so close. She had already lost once before, and now it was her time for redemption. There was only one thing left to do.
Risk it all.
She took a breath and then revealed her hand.
And promptly lost.
"Christ, this is just loony" she said, letting her cards fall on the table. "How's it possible for someone to be this good at poker when their hands are literally tied up?"
"I guess Hal's just luckier than you" Tom said from next to Hal's chair, where he had taken up the role of handling the cards.
"Well I certainly don't feel so lucky right at this particular moment" Hal chimed in. He was doing his best to keep his fingers from fidgeting too much on the armrest.
"It still wouldn't kill ya to cheer up a little" Alex said. "I mean you've won twice already. And you've made it well past your second week of detoxing with only a few incidents of raging, shouting and crying."
Tom looked sheepish. "Sorry about the tears."
"It's alright" Alex said, waving it off. "Besides, none of this will matter anymore in a couple of days, I'll bet. We're past the worst. Over the hurdle. It's all smooth sailing from here, right?"
Hal quickly shifted his gaze and suddenly looked oddly fixated on the wall behind her.
"This is as worse as it's gonna get, right Hal?"
He just kept his eyes on anything but them.
"Christ, don't tell me you're going to shift into some second form and threaten to devour the house."
"I think we'll need a stronger chair for that..." Tom said, wary.
Hal frowned. "No, nothing of that sort. But my outbursts will become more sudden and unexpected. The creature inside me will give everything it has for its last attempt to take over, so my language may become more... expressive."
"More expressive?"
"You'd be surprised" Hal said.
"But you won't be transformin' into anythin' more crackers?" Tom asked.
Hal just shook his head.
"Then relax already" Alex said, suddenly feeling better, "nothing'll happen, so there's no problem."
"We have a problem" Tony said.
Tom had been so busy tidying up the café by himself that he almost failed to hear his boss coming in. Trying to fill in for Hal was starting to become exhausting.
"What's going on?" Tom asked.
"You know I appreciate all the hard work you do for us, Tom, but your mate Hal might get us into heaps of trouble. He's been missing his shifts for weeks now."
"He's just been sick for a while, is all."
"Well, sick of not, I just thought I should warn you."
Tom frowned. "About what?"
"Well I'm sure you heard about all those teenagers that started going missing some time ago from the school near here, yeah? Well the police found out that most of them used to come over here on their breaks." Tony sighed, his mouth now a tight line. "It's only a matter of time before the media'll go barking mad and start pointing the finger at us."
Tom looked at his boss curious, but didn't say anything. Tony sighed again and leaned in, lowering his voice.
"Listen, you're a nice chap, Tom. But if your mate has any kind of troubles at home that might spill onto us, you better let me know. We run a good establishment here and I want to keep it that way."
"What kind of troubles you mean?"
"You don't have to cover for him, Tom. I've seen him staying at work late just to stack toothpicks, or dust the ceiling. He's crackers, that Hal. Something's not right with him."
"He's a little odd, sir, that's all."
Tony narrowed his eyes, as if finding it hard to believe. "So he's not... on anything?"
Tom furrowed his brows, trying to understand what he meant.
"You know" the man said, and then lowered his voice. "... drugs."
Tom found the very idea silly. "Oh, no, Hal would never. He doesn't even eat the pizza we have on Fridays because he says it's not proper food."
"So that's it, then. You sure? No drugs, no drinking or anything that could cause us any trouble?"
"No, sir."
The boss nodded, relieved. "Glad to hear it. Because the police are sending someone over to your house to have a little bit of a chat with you both."
"Un-fucking-believable..." Alex said under her breath, as she reached for the dice.
Hal angled his head to get a better look at the game board in front of them, causing his restraints to squeak. "This is impressive. You really do have rubbish luck."
"Oh stuff it, I've only lost three-"
"Five."
"-five times." She stopped in her tracks and shook her head. "Christ. A thousand year old dead man has more luck than me."
"Five-hundred isn't that old."
"Hal, you're called an Old One. Old is literally in your title" Alex said, a smile appearing on her lips.
"That's not the point" he said, frowning "You make me sound positively ancient."
"You're right, it's not fair to call you old, especially since you've never played Monopoly until today."
"That's because board games weren't exactly at the top of my priority list back in the days of war."
"Well it's alright" she said, her smile still present "I never did expect you to be one for fun anyway."
Hal looked away, annoyed. "I'll have you know we organized plenty of activities to divert ourselves back then."
"Such as?"
"Hanging people from the rafters, for one."
Alex had to fall silent, attempting to figure out if he was joking or not. Which was impossible to tell. Hal's face remained oddly inexpressive.
A sudden ringing tore the two out of their carefree state. Alex found herself freeze on the spot, unsure exactly why she was getting such an ominous feeling creeping up on her. She glanced back at Hal, wanting for his reaction to see if he had felt it too.
But Hal just made a face. "Yes, in other circumstances, I'd do the gentlemanly thing and answer it myself, but since I can't at the moment, could you-?"
"Right" she said, snapping out of it. She went over to the bar and picked up the receiver.
"Alex, it's me" Tom said. "I think we're in a bit of a bind. Tony said the police're sending someone over to the house to talk to Hal an' me about that case that's all over the news. It's supposed to be all routine, but I hear the lady who's coming over is a sharp one."
"Wait, she's coming over today?"
"Just after my shift, so I'll need you to tidy up and make everything look normal."
She almost let out a laugh at that. Normal. Fat chance of that happening, especially with the Rain Man sitting a few feet from her, tied up to the furnishing.
"Um, wait a second" she said, lowering her voice. "What about Hal?"
Tom paused. "I think we'll have to release 'im."
Alex wondered if she'd heard wrong. "Are you telling me to let him go? Just like that?"
Despite Alex's hushed talking, Hal had no problem catching what they were saying. His face let out an involuntary twitch at the mention of his release.
"We have to" Tom went on "Lady can't just walk in there and see 'im strapped to a chair, she'll think he's bonkers."
"Well you're bonkers if you think I'm just letting him out" she whispered "you've seen how he is, he can still turn mental."
"But you said it yourself" Tom went on "he's over the hurdle, two weeks in. He'll be fine. Besides, even if he ever tried anything, he won't be able to. He's tired and weak, and Annie taught you all those ghosting tricks. You can keep him in line."
Alex mulled it over in her head for a moment or two. Releasing a volatile creature such as Hal sounded fundamentally stupid, but it wasn't like they had any other choice. "Fine. I just hope you're right about all this."
"I'm sure you'll do alright. And I'll be there as soon as I can."
Alex took a deep breath as soon as she hung up. She was going to be fine. She was already dead after all. But then again pain and suffering could easily transcend the physical form.
Alex carefully strode over to Hal, glancing at him. He had a different look about him now, as if he had heard something, or at least guessed what she had talked about on the phone.
"So, that was Tom..." she said, trying to look carefree. "Says there's gonna be this bird coming over in a couple of hours, something about that case with the missing kids or something." Alex cleared her throat. "So we'll kind of have to let you out."
"I... don't think that's a good idea" Hal said. "Not yet."
Alex narrowed her eyes at that. Desperate and dangerous Hal would have eagerly jumped at the very thought of his release. But he was reluctant. Was that supposed to be a trick of some kind? She tried dispelling the thought by shaking her head.
"Look, Tom says we need to clean this place up" she said, moving over to unfasten the restraints "And I'll be dead if I'm the only one to do it." She paused. "Well, dead-er. Besides, we can't let anyone find you strapped to a chair anyways. They'll assume we've all gone mad."
Hal realized his hands were getting even more fidgety than before. "Alex, I'm really not feeling comfortable doing this. Maybe we should-"
"Oh c'mon, it'll be fine. Cleaning up this place will calm you right down, I'm sure of it. Just wait till you see what Tom left in the kitchen sink, you'll have a bloody hard time trying to clean that-" She had to stop unfastening the straps when she reached his left arm. The bindings seemed to have light indentations on them. "Hal, did you try to... chew through these?"
He shot her a dirty look.
"Right. Stupid question..."
After untying him, she helped Hal off the chair. He slowly stretched his back and limbs, trying to readjust to proper movement again.
"So where do we start?" Alex asked, "I figure you have some method you follow for any kind of cleaning situation. Like one where we're trying to look like we normal for the police."
"We should take care of the bar first" Hal said, unable to focus properly, "just give me a minute."
Alex nodded, and then crossed over to the bar, ready to put away the bottles and papers that tended to pile up around. Alex felt a smile creep up on her. It seemed like no matter who it was – whether her brothers or Tom - she always had to clean up after someone. Of course her brothers had a much better CD collection than the one that had been left behind at Honolulu Heights. Alex expected to find the cases thrown about the bar where she had left them the previous night. She usually browsed through them mindlessly on particularly boring nights. But they weren't there anymore.
She turned round and noticed that all the cases were placed back on the shelf behind the bar. All lined up neatly. For a moment she thought Tom had done it, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Tom never even made his bed. Alex was ready to chalk it up to her own bad memory when she spotted several magazines carefully staked on top of each other in a corner. Magazines that had been just thrown about the day before. The more she looked, the more she started noticing other things properly organized that neither her nor Tom would have touched. The labels from the bottles on the top shelf were all facing the same way and all the knick knacks scattered about the bar were aligned.
Something suddenly clicked in Alex's head. The marks on Hal's bindings she had seen earlier. They weren't there because Hal had once been desperate enough to try and chew through.
They had never been able to hold him in the first place. All this time he had been sneaking out. And in order to restrain himself back and look just as they had left him, he needed to use his teeth to fasten the last belt.
All this time he hadn't been detoxing. He'd been pretending. Whenever they were around, he would put on a show, and then just slip out unnoticed the moment their back was turned.
Alex slowly moved towards Hal with even paces. He was still stretching his back and rubbing his head, but stopped when he spotted her.
"Alex, what's wrong?"
She eyed him. "You fucking tosser."
"What did I-?"
"You've been able to get out of your restraints all this time, haven't you?"
Caught by surprise, Hal's mask instantly crumbled. A clear spark of guilt was in his eyes. "Alex, please, I-"
But she couldn't stand to listen to one word. Alex felt all the rage that had been building up, concentrating into her ghostly power, and she let it loose. Hal flew across the room as if struck by a freight train, and his vision grew dim as soon as his back hit the wall.
He awoke with a dull pain in what felt like most of his muscles. When his vision lost its haze, he realized he on the floor of the bathroom. His instincts immediately ordered him to move, to get out and strike back. But something was holding him in place.
Someone had tied his arms behind him to the radiator. The rope pulled so hard at his skin that his hands were almost numb. Of course. Alex. She wasn't in the bathroom, but Hal felt a presence nearby, just a few feet away. He wanted to shout out that they needed to talk, that whatever she was thinking wasn't true. But there was no point.
She had made her mind up. There was no way she would ever risk trusting him again.
On the other side of the door, Alex was resting her back to the wall and staring in front of her. She shook her head slowly. "I can't believe we've been so fucking stupid..."
