"Connor, Cooper, get your asses down here right this fucking minute!" James yelled.

"Uh, oh. Imma tell Dad it was all your fault!"

"The hell you are!" Cooper chased his little brother down the stairs.

"Daddy, it wasn't my fault! Cooper..." Connor skidded to a halt, Cooper banging into his back.

"Fuck me you little... what the hell happened?" Cooper blinked his eyes, as if trying to make sure the scene in front of him was what really happened.

"Nothing happened," James answered "You've been my son for twenty-seven years. I should think that two dead bodies in the living room would not be out of the ordinary by now."

"I mean... shit balls Dad, what the hell did they say to you?" Cooper demanded.

"Yeah. Last time you got this angry, you slit Tom's throat on national television," Connor pointed out.

James sniggered. Not one of his proudest moments, but anything to get the message across. "Funny you should mention that..."

Snoopy trotted downstairs, having been awakened by all the yelling. He looked at the two dead cops on the floor, then at Connor, whining softly.

"See what Grandpa did?" Connor bent down and petted his puppy.

"You better tell that damn dog that Grandpa did it to protect his daddy. Cops said they were gonna start digging into your pasts if I didn't start talking," James replied

Snoopy barked, then ran over to the bodies. He sniffed Armstrong, then lifted his leg and peed on him.

James laughed, while Connor ran over to scold Snoopy. "Bad doggie. No tinkling on Grandpa's carpet. Bad!"

Snoopy whined, then sulked away.

"Who was that on the phone?" James quickly changed the subject before another laughing fit took him.

"Marky." Connor answered "He used bad words though."

"Oh... did he say anything important? Like when his sorry ass was coming home?"

"Cooper took the phone away from me," Connor moped.

"Well boy?" James asked his eldest son.

"Not really," Cooper answered.

"What do you mean 'not really'?" James asked.

"Well, I kinda hung up on the motherfucker," Cooper replied.

"You what? "James had the 'deer in the headlights' look he used for those rare occasions when somebody else did something really stupid.

"Dad, I'm..." Cooper's explanation, or apology, or whatever the hell he was going to say was interrupted when Mark made a surprise entrance, damn near kicking the door off its hinges with his one good leg.

"What the fuck is wrong with you boy?" Mark made a beeline for Cooper. "Don't you ever fuckin' hang up on me like that again or you'll be sorry!"

"Fuck, Mark, one minute you wanna be my dad and the next you wanna kill me. You really should get some help," Cooper said, mentally preparing himself to duck in case Mark swung his crutch at him.

"Help, boy? By the time I'm finished with you, it ain't gonna be me that... what the hell is that?" Mark had seen the mess on the floor.

"You of all people should be able to recognize dead cops when you see them," James stated.

"Stupid question. I mean what are they doing there... on the living room floor?"

"Decomposing, I think. C'mon Mark, it's not the first time it's happened." James tried to pacify Mark's increasing anger.

"I go away for an hour to pick up my pain meds and I come back to this. Fuck, what were you thinking?" Mark looked ready to tear his own hair out. "It's bad enough that we had two cops breathing down our necks in the first place, but now this!"

"Maybe no one will notice?" James shrugged.

"And maybe Tom will magically appear on our doorstep," Mark answered. "If you had a clue you'd be dangerous."

"I am dangerous," James pointed out.

Mark stopped. Sometimes it just wasn't worth it. For all his abilities, sometimes James had a mind of a ten year old. A very fucked-up ten year old, but a ten year old nonetheless.

"You know what this means, right?" Mark stared at the three Lawsons.

"We're gonna need new carpet?" Connor asked innocently.

"If we're lucky, that's the only thing we're gonna need," Mark replied.

"Do you want some good news, Marky?" Cooper asked.

"There is some?"

"Yeah. I still hate your guts," Cooper replied.

"You really should thank Patrick for your continuing health," Mark grimaced. "'Coz if he hadn't shot me, you'd be in the hospital right now."

"Try it, Deadman," Cooper taunted Mark.

"There will be plenty of time for you to kick each other's asses later," James said, trying to play peacemaker before someone else got killed. "Right now, we have to clean up this mess. Any ideas?"

Nobody said anything. Cooper and Mark were still glaring at each other and Connor was humming and rocking back and forth.

James groaned. "Oh great. This is going to be so much fucking fun."

...

"Damn it, don't those fucking Lawsons ever asnwer their phones?" Matt asked impatiently.

Jeff looked up at his older brother. He, Bunny and Lizard were playing Sims on Matt's computer. "Which one are you trying to call?"

"I've called all of them!" Matt told him. "Multiple times! And I've done it on three different phones. They aren't picking up."

Jeff bit his lip. He knew he probably shouldn't say what he was thinking, but he did anyway. "They could be getting rid of the bodies."

Matt just stared at him. "Bodies?"

"Of the cops," Jeff clarified. "If the cops asked the wrong thing and wouldn't leave..." He didn't even have to finish that sentence. They both knew what the Lawsons would do.

Matt shook his head. "This is insane. We're protecting psychotic murderers. We should be HANDING the whole lot of them over to the cops on a silver platter."

"But--" Jeff started to object.

"But what?" Matt interrupted.

"But they're our friends," Jeff said in a tiny voice.

Matt stared at him incredulously. "Are you on crack?" he asked after a long moment of silence. "James HATES us. He might have liked you at one point, but when Tom fucked Mark, that turned him against all of us."

"Cooper and Connor like us."

"I honestly doubt that."

"Well Mark's our friend, and if we expose the Lawsons, we expose him too!" Jeff saved his game and then shut it off so he could get on the internet. "We can't do that to him. That's not nice."

Matt sighed in frustration. "Damn it, this is just too fucked up. How do we even know that James hasn't done something to Tom? He tried to murder Tom in front of thousands of people before. It wouldn't shock me if he was--"

"Matty stop!" Jeff pleaded. "James hasn't done anything to Tom."

"You don't know that."

"I just feel it, okay? Besides, if it was James, do you really think Tom wouldn't have put that in his tweets?"

"But if James is wearing a mask...oh wait, his temper and shit would give him away." Matt shook his head. "Okay, you're probably right. It's probably not James and his crew. But who the fuck could it be then?"

"I don't know," Jeff replied as he logged on to Twitter. "You're the brains here Matty. Imma just the sexy one."

Matt's lips twitched. "I'm just as sexy as you are."

"Are not."

"Are too."

"Nuh uh. Everyone knows that Imma the...." Jeff just happened to look at the computer screen and his jaw dropped. There was a new tweet from Tom and it went exactly like this: ...tell Jeffers I miss him and Bunny and Lizard and I'm sorry! Oh fuck, not again!!! Bye!!!

"What is it?" Matt asked. He walked over and looked at the computer from over Jeff's shoulder. "Oh man," he muttered. "Oh man oh man oh man."

"Watch them," Jeff ordered as he handed Bunny and Lizard to Matt. He was on his feet and running out of the room and then out of the house before Matt could stop him. He almost went to get into Tom's Viper when he realized that the keys to it were on the microwave in the kitchen. Instead of going back in and more than likely getting slowed down by Matt, he just took off running again. There really wasn't a lot of rational thinking going on in his brain at the moment. All he could think about was Tom. Tom was in trouble. Tom needed help and he needed it now.

Jeff wasn't sure if Matt was chasing after him or not. He didn't take the time to look back and check. He just kept sprinting towards the club because that was the last place he knew Tom had been. Even if whoever had his husband didn't have Tom anywhere near that area, it was still the only place that he had to look.

When he got to the place, he slipped into the alley and stopped so he could catch his breath. His lungs felt like they had been set on fire. He leaned up against the building next to the club and sank down on to the dirty ground. His legs didn't feel like they could support him anymore. I should go in the club, he decided. Maybe someone left a clue about where Tom got taken that everyone else has missed.

His phone rang suddenly, scaring the shit out of him. Feeling weak and shaky, he struggled to get it out of his pocket so he could answer it. "Hello?"

"Uh....you called?" It was Cooper.

"That was Matty," Jeff said, trying to hold back tears.

"Oh. What did he want?"

"To come up with a plan to save Tom. And I do too. Tommy's in trouble."

"Well yeah I--"

"Cooper...we've seen messages from him." Jeff quickly told Cooper the tweets he had seen from his missing husband.

"Oh boy," Cooper said. "Fucking shit balls....where are you at now?"

"In the alley by the club," Jeff told him. "Imma go in and--"

"You're not going in by yourself," Cooper said immediately. "Hide out and don't come out until I get there. You understand me?"

"But--"

"Jeff! This is not a fucking discussion! You're going to do what I say and you're going to do it now. Do you understand me?"

"Okay," Jeff said reluctantly. "I understand."

"Good. I'll see you soon."

Jeff sighed as Cooper hung up on him. His thoughts were going back to Tom's tweet. Tom was thinking about him. He had a bad feeling that Tom was in a situation where he should only be thinking about survival, but still, his thoughts were on him. Any anger Jeff felt about Tom fucking Cooper disappeared completely and he got out his cell phone so he could send a tweet of his own to Tom. He felt like he needed to send it in case Tom got a chance to see it.

Hang on baby...we're gonna get you back. I promise.

.....

"I gotta go," Cooper announced.

James looked at him in shock. "What? Why?"

"Tom's alive. We don't know where he is, but he's alive. Jeff and Matt got a message from him. He needs help."

"Ugh." That was James's respond to that.

Cooper rolled his eyes. "Stop being difficult Dad. I'm going to help Jeff. You can get rid of these bodies on your own."

"But--"

"Just let him go Lawson," Mark interrupted. "It's what he wants."

Cooper just stared at Mark. Now he was more confused than ever. If he doesn't decide whether he wants to try to be my dad now or if he still wants to kill me, I may slap him.

"Cooper?" Connor said, waving his hand in front of Cooper's face. "Aren't ya gonna go?"

"Yeah. I'll see you guys later." With that, Cooper took off as fast as he could. He had some Hardys to hunt down.

...........

"Ugh," James repeated.

"I hope that's in reference to the mess in front of us." Mark couldn't take his eyes from the two bodies.

"Yeah," James answered, "I'm gonna need to replace the whole fuckin' carpet, aren't I?"

Mark looked at James, shaking his head in amazement. "You just killed two cops and you're more concerned about the carpet. Shouldn't you be trying figure out what the hell we're going to do with the bodies?"

"I thought I'd leave that up to you," James shrugged.

"As usual... sometimes that's all I think I'm good for," Mark sighed. "Cleaning up your messes."

"But you do such a good job," James said trying to make Mark feel a little better.

"Right now, that's about the only thing I do a good job at."

"Look, right now Cooper knows you're trying to be a Dad to him and he's rebelling. He knows what buttons to push to get a reaction out of you and that's what he's doing. Don't let him get to you. He's a stubborn son of a bitch, that's for sure, but deep-down I think he's glad to know that you truly do love him."

"You do?"

"Yeah... I just wish you would've done this before he went through puberty. I swear explaining sex to that boy aged me ten years," James replied.

"I still love you Marky," Connor interrupted, hating to be left out of anything. He even went so far as to forcibly hug the Deadman. "Even when you do use naughty words."

"Gee, thanks." The sarcasm wasn't lost on one person.

"Mark, the kid's tryin'." James pointed out.

"An' Snoopy loves you too." Connor added. Upon hearing his name, Snoopy returned to the scene of his crime and lay down at Mark's feet, tail wagging, and yipping softly. "See?"

"Yeah, great. That doesn't solve our other problem." Mark turned back to the mess on the floor, perhaps hoping that it had cleaned itself up in the meantime. No such luck.

"But you'll take care of it?" James asked hopefully.

"Don't I always?" Mark replied.

"Fuckin' A!" James exclaimed. "I'll be back later."

"Just where the hell are you going?" Mark demanded.

"To make sure YOUR son doesn't do what I think he wants to do." James answered. If he fucks Jeff, then hell help us all...