"Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" Séance muttered to himself as he opened the back door to Spooky's.

His hands were trembling again and he'd broken out into a cold sweat. On his way back the street had started to spin like it was in the middle of a hurricane. Séance even suspected that he'd had a few hallucinations. How else would you explain the cheetah? Stumbling into the back-lounge area he collapsed onto one of the sofas.

Quitting cold turkey wasn't as easy as he'd thought it would be. It wasn't really the mental capacity of being a junkie that he was mainly worried about. In other words the almost constant need, feeling of deprivation, and habit to do really freaky and spontaneous things weren't really on his mind. (He was actually worried about all that too though. Last night he had started singing Barney songs for fuck sake.) It was the physical aspects of quitting that were hitting him hardest at the moment.

Being told to stop being such a fairy had hurt. It had hurt bad. He figured that went hand in hand with the drugs though, so quitting had been the obvious decision. It wasn't like they had anything he liked in 1960 anyway. It was actually the logical decision as well as the obvious to make, which wasn't usual for him.

There weren't even any pharmaceutical drugs that would help him. Nicotine patches hadn't even been invented yet! Then again, did cigarettes count? Probably not. It wasn't as though they were illegal or anything. Tobacco wasn't really a drug if you thought about it. Did it give you hallucinations or make you feel really really good? No! So therefore it couldn't be a drug.

Now all he needed was to get some cigarettes. That'd be good. Yeah. Then again, if you went by that standard, how were drugs defined? Did they have to be liquids, powders, or chewables? Perhaps if he just did drugs that were powders he'd be fine. Those couldn't count either. It just didn't make sense for them too. Yeah…that was it….

Suddenly Séance banged his head against the wall behind the sofa.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" he repeated, only this time he punctuated each word with slamming his head against the wall.

Excellent. Now he had a headache to go with the constant need to find a fuckload of drugs and take them all in one go.

"Still having a hard time dealing with withdrawal?" Pogo asked as he walked into the room with a cup of coffee, "You do know that if you'd never started then you'd never have had to quit."

Séance glared at the chimp. He was starting to regret inviting him over. If he hadn't needed him to help build the televator then he'd have probably done something rather drastic. He knew that that would be so damaging to the time-stream but it would feel so damn good.

He probably wouldn't be feeling this way if it was the Pogo he remembered. This wasn't though. It wasn't the silent, stoic Pogo who had at least fifty years on him. It was the sarcastic and know-it-all twenty-some-odd Pogo. (This version irritated the hell out of him.) Back then his advice had been more biting then useful. The absolute last thing he needed when he was trying to quit was a smart-ass.

"Couple 'o years too late space-monkey," he snapped.

"I have no idea why you insist on calling me that," Pogo said as he put down a cup of coffee, "And I forbid you to tell me."

"You sure?" he grinned evilly, "You sure you don't wanna know what's going to happen? Huh, huh?"

"No I don't," Pogo said coolly.

"You really sure?" he asked, leering unpleasantly, "'Cause I can tell you what's going on back at the Academy."

"If you tell me," stated Pogo levelly, "Then I will pack up and go back to the Academy this instant. Have fun trying to put the televator together by yourself."

Séance pouted, sticking his lower lip out. (Why did he always have to play that card?) Almost immediately he had to suppress the urge to put a hand to his forehead. His headache was getting a lot worse. Complaining about it wouldn't elicit any sympathy though. Kraken or Space probably would've made better candidates for helpers then Pogo made. If only he could find one of them…

"Coincidentally," Pogo said, "Did you get the metal we need? We can't go ahead without it and I was under the impression that you wanted this done some time this decade."

He thought about the girl he'd run into earlier. It was quite lucky that he'd done so. For the sake of everything evil and demented he had gotten tired of keeping a low profile. However, how to break the news to Pogo? In addition to being a smart-ass he was also a tight-ass. (Séance wondered how his poor ass could take it.)

"Hmmmmmmmmm," Séance said, trying to figure out how to say it, "Yes and no."

"Yes and no?"

"Yes and no," he said, getting up.

Having a nap would be really good now, and it was far too bright in the lounge area for that to work. Pogo wasn't having any of that though.

"Do you mind explaining?" He asked, narrowing his eyes.

Here came the hurricane. Séance winced. (Why couldn't people just let him be as irresponsible as he wanted? Really.)

"I bought it but it hasn't been delivered yet so to speak," said Séance tiredly.

"Thank goodness," sighed Pogo, "I thought you- wait, so to speak?"

Hands on hips Pogo glared at him. Rubbing his temples in an attempt to get through the throbbing headache he said;

"I don't think-"

"Did you do something illegal?" Pogo snapped, raising his voice.

"Chill!" Séance said, wincing, "I have the badass grandma of all headaches right now so if you could be just a teensy bit quieter-"

"Didn't you get raised to know better then that!?" Pogo said, his voice not lowering in the slightest.

Purple and black spots were starting to swim in front of his eyes. This wasn't an ordinary headache. If he'd known withdrawal from cocaine would've done this then he'd just have taken more. All he wanted to do was curl up somewhere. Nonetheless, Séance wasn't going to let that last one go.

"No," he said, "I wasn't."

He remained conscious for just enough time to see Pogo's shocked and slightly terrified face. Priceless.