"I'm blue da da de da, da da da de da da dee dum ba da de de la la," Connor sang as he licked his sucker. He was tagging along with Mark and James today. The three of them were going to the hospital to check on Montel and talk to him about the shooting that had happened at the club last night. "I don't know the words to this song but I sing anyway because it annoys Daddy!"

James rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Connor please stop singing. Daddy does not feel well and doesn't want to hear it."

"Here in my car, I'm with Daddy and Marky and they're going to make sure to get me some ice cream," Connor sang, completely ignoring James. "In this car. Ooooh yeah in this car."

Mark chuckled. "You're pretty funny Connor."

"And you're pretty old Marky," Connor said wisely.

James roared with laughter when he saw the look on Mark's face. "That's what you get for encouraging him to torment me," he said smugly.

Connor giggled and bounced around in his seat. He wished that he could have brought Snoopy and Thor with him. They would have liked to come on this field trip. But apparently the hospital didn't allow dogs in it. Because of that, his poor doggies had been forced to stay home without him. "Daddy, we has to get Snoopoy and Thor doggy treats on the way home," he said. "I don't wants them to feel bad that they had to stay home."

James nodded. "Okay Connor, we'll make sure to do that."

"Like hell we will!" Mark grunted. He looked very disgruntled at the moment. "I got called old! I'm not stopping to get this kid or his dogs anything!"

Connor pouted. This was not good. He needed to make this up to Mark and he needed to do it fast. "Aw Marky, I sorry," he said. He unbuckled his seat belt and got up towards the front so he could start kissing Mark all over his face.

"Damn it Connor!" Mark said, trying to move his head out of the line of kisses. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"I sorry," Connor said, continuing with his kissing attack. He made sure to wrap his arms around Mark so the older man could squirm away. "Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry...."

"Okay okay!" Mark yelled. "I forgive you! Now get off of me!"

Connor stopped with the kissing, but he didn't get off of Mark completely. "We stop and get doggy treats on the way home?"

"Yes," Mark said unhappily. "If you leave me alone we will."

"Yay!" Connor let go of Mark and sat back down in his seat. The rest of the drive was surprisingly peaceful. Connor didn't feel the need to cause any kind of disturbance. But as they were heading into the hospital, he jumped on James's back and held on tightly. "Piggy back ride Daddy!" he yelled. "

James grunted and struggled not to stumble and fall. "Damn it Connor," he muttered. "A little fucking warning would have been nice."

Connor just rested his head on James's shoulder. He didn't like hospitals. They were bad. His mom had died in one a long time ago. It had made him, James and Cooper very sad. Sometimes it still made them sad. But they didn't talk about that. He didn't really understand why they didn't talk about it. He just didn't do it because Cooper and James got all snappy when he did.

Montel was in a room on the second floor of the hospital. When they got up there, they found the Bella twins up there, "nursing" him back to health. Connor scowled at them but didn't dare let go of James. He didn't like twins. They reminded him of the two little girls from The Shining. That movie had taught him that twins were evil and should be destryoed if possible.

"Yo," Montel said, nodding at them when they came in. "It's nice to see that you guys weren't hurt." He pointed to his side, which was where he had gotten hit. "Damn doctors don't want to let me out yet. They said they have to watch me in case there's any complications from the surgery."

"That sucks," Mark commented. He gave Brie and Nikki an even glare. It appeared that he was about to ask them to leave when James decided to take a less diplomatic approach to the whole thing.

"Out bitches!" James barked, pointing back at the door.

"Excuse me?" Brie and Nikki both said at the same time, glaring at James and creeping Connor the fuck out.

James raised his eyebrows. The twins bothered him for some reason and he wasn't afraid to let it show. "Did I stutter?" he asked.

Montel raised his hands up and waved them around. "No no no, I don't want that kind of shit in here." He looked at Brie and Nikki. "Girls, give us guys some alone time. We have some things to discuss."

The twins exchanged looks before saying "Fine" at the same time. They eached kissed Montel on the cheek and walked out of the room arm in arm. Connor waited until they were out the door before getting off of James and locking those bitches out. He also barricaded the door just in case they tried to break back in.

"You didn't have to be so rude you know," Montel informed James.

James rolled his eyes. "Come on Montel. Even you can do better than them. They're walking STD's! They hang off so many dicks they have to be incubating a whole mess of shit!"

Montel chose to ignore James's comment, which was really the only thing he could do. Very few people could argue with James and he was not one of those people. "Nikki told me the cops were taking Ron in to talk about McIntyre."

Mark nodded. "Cooper's going down near that area to make sure Ron gets out of there okay. Ron's a good guy; he won't fuck us over." He folded his arms over his chest. "So far the cops have arrested two dudes named Curt Hawkins and Bob Holly for the shooting at the club. And they're looking for this other guy named Mike Knox."

Montel sighed. "Shit. I was hoping that weasel wouldn't send his flunkies to stir this shit up."

"Who's the weasel?" Connor asked. "I like weasels. They go pop!"

"Abraham Washington," Montel said with a disgusted look on his face. "He and I got beef going way back to the day."

"Wait a second," James said with a frown. "I think I've heard of him. Didn't he have a talk show that got canceled after one episode because it sucked so badly?"

Montel nodded. "Yup, that's him. Anyway, I don't actually know what he could want, but I know the three dudes you mentioned have worked for him before and the guy that shot me was an ugly mother fucker named Snitsky, and he's worked for him too. So I say start with him, because he's the only guy that has a problem with me that's too much of a pussy to try to take me on himself.

James smirked. "You know, if this guy even got his stupid talk show on the air, that means I--"

"No," Mark said immediately. "You are not doing a talk show."

James glared at him. "And you get to decide that because?"

"Because I'm me," Mark replied. "And if you've got a problem with that, you can go to hell."

"How about you go to hell instead?" James replied. "How does that sound?"

"Don't get like that James. It makes you sound like a baby."

"It does not!" James said defesively. He was glaring daggers at Mark at this point. "And if I want to have my own talk show, then I'm going to fucking get one!"

Connor sighed and began to look for something to play with. This arguement was going to take awhile.

......

Cooper leaned back against the side of the coffee shop. He was across the street from the police station and he was waiting for Ron to get out. He wasn't sure how much longer that this was going to take, but he did hope that it wouldn't take long. Not only did it make him think that the cops were going to arrest Ron for what Mark and Matt had done (which was not something that he wanted), but he needed to go home and try to get some sleep. The coke he had snorted during the party was finally wearing off and he needed to either snort some more or crash. No, don't start thinking like that, he scolded himself. I'm going to control my habit this time. It's not going to control me.

For some reason, he didn't even believe what he had just told himself. Feeling anxious, he dug around in his pocket for his lighter and his cigarettes. He managed to find his lighter but not the cigarettes. "Mother fucker," he muttered as he remembered that he was actually out of cigarettes. "Fuck fuck fuck!"

"What's the matter Cooper? Did you lose something?"

Cooper spun around and found Randy Orton standing behind him. "When the hell did you get back in town Orton?" he asked.

"Recently," Randy replied. He kept his answer cryptic on purpose.

"Where are Ted and Cody?"

"Around."

"Are you going to give me anything but one word answers?"

"Maybe."

Cooper rolled his eyes. Randy was starting to piss him off, but that really wasn't anything new. Once upon a time, when the MCS had just started, Randy's father Bob Orton had been one of the three people in charge of the country's largest prostitution rings (the other two being Dusty Rhodes and Ted DiBiasie Sr.). The girls that had worked for them were doing so against their will, so the MCS had stepped in to break up the whole thing. By the time everything was said and done, the three bastards were dead and the girls were returned to their homes.

Now Randy didn't actually know that Cooper was part of the MCS. The two of them had met at a club a couple months after the whole thing had went down and for awhile, Cooper partied with him, Ted and Cody. Ted and Cody had been (and probably still were) completely absorbed in the soap opera that was their relationship, so he hadn't gotten close to them. He and Randy had once had a little thing going, but it hadn't worked out in the end. The sex was great, but Cooper had gotten fed up with Randy's hot and cold attitude. It had been absolutely infuriating back then and he had a feeling not much had changed since then.

Instead of going away, Randy walked closer and offered Cooper a cigarette. "I know you want it," Orton said with a shrug. "Don't deny it."

Cooper took it and stuck it in his mouth. He then took out his lighter and lit the damn thing. "Thanks," he grunted as he inhaled the smoke.

"You grew your hair out," Randy commented, keeping his voice at a completely neutral tone.

"I did."

"Looks good."

"Thanks." Cooper looked over at Randy. "I'd say something about your hair but you don't have it anymore."

Randy ran his hand over his shaved head. "Where's Connor?"

"With Dad. The two of them went somewhere with Mark."

"Do you two still not get along?"

"Is the sky still blue?" Cooper took another drag of the cigarette. "So seriously, what are you doing here? The last time I saw you, you gave me the impression that you were never coming back."

Randy just shrugged. If someone didn't know better, they would have thought that his face was completely emotionless. But since Cooper did know better, he was able to catch a gleam of something in Randy's eyes. Something was bothering his ex, but he didn't want to admit what it was. Fuck, I'm not playing these guessing games with him.

Lucky for him, he didn't have to. At that moment, Ron walked out of the jail and had spotted him. "I gotta go," he told Randy. "See ya around." He took off before Randy could even say a word.

"Man, I do not want to ever go back in there," Ron said with a shake of his head. "I thought that shit was never going to end."

"They didn't hassle you too much did they?" Cooper asked.

Ron nodded. "Yeah, but they're cops. What do you expect? It's what they do." He wrapped his arm around Cooper. "Now I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Let's go grab some lunch."

Cooper wasn't really hungry but he nodded along anyway. "Sounds good to me." As they started walking towards the nearest fast food place, Cooper looked at where he had left Randy from the corner of his eye. Randy was watching him and Ron, and he could tell that dear old Randy was not happy at the moment.

Fortunately for him though, he didn't give a rat's ass, so it was all good.

.....

"Evan? Can you go in the back and grab the new comics that came in earlier?"

Evan (who had been watching Shane play the Twilight Zone pinball machine they had gotten awhile back) nodded. "Sure." He patted Shane's shoulder. "Sorry Hurricane. You'll have to tap into your Hurri--Powers and be a cheerleader for yourself."

Shane shook his head. "Don't do it Evan! Don't let that vile Rey Mysterio pull you over to the dark side!"

Oscar rolled his eyes. "I'm not pulling him over to the dark side. I'm just having him do something that's going to take a few minutes."

"Yeah, and what if I lose my game by then? Do you want that on your conscience?"

Evan shook his head and walked to the back room. He could hear Oscar say something in Spanish, and while he didn't speak much Spanish at all, he had the feeling that Shane had just been called a name. And judging from the argument that was now breaking out, Shane seemed to feel the same way.

The back room of the store was more than a little chilly. Evan turned on the lights and shivered as he looked around for the new thing of comics that had just come in. Damn, I almost need my jacket just to stand be around here....or maybe I should have someone with me to warm me up. As soon as he thought that, his mind turned to Matt and that made his whole body flush. He had never felt this attracted to anyone before. Sure there had been guys at school he had thought were cute, but Matt put all of them to shame. He wasn't just cute; he was fucking sexy. It was just that simple.

The boxes holding the new comics were in a pile up against the wall not far from the door. Evan grabbed a cart that was in the room and put the boxes in there so he could take them all out at once. Some of the boxes felt like they weighed almost as much as he did, and when he started pushing the cart out of the room, it acted like it didn't want to go in the direction he was steering it. "Come on you fucking thing," he muttered. "Go where I tell you to damn it!"

Eventually he got it to go where he wanted it too (although he just about pulled a shit load of muscles in his back in the process). As he started taking last week's comics down from the display near the front of the store and started putting the new ones up, he saw something going on outside. That something was Zack Ryder (a kid to school with him) talking to a strange man while two other strange men stood there and acted ready to pounce on Ryder if he said the wrong thing. "Who are those guys?" Evan asked Oscar and Shane.

Oscar shook his head. "I have no idea." He was siting up straighter and watching the scene right outside the glass door carefully. There was a chance that he was trying to decide whether he needed to grab the gun he kept underneath the counter or not.

Shane stopped playing with the pinball machine and walked over towards Oscar so he could see what was going on. "What in the hell is Ryder wearing?" he asked. "That looks absolutely ridiculous."

Evan nodded in agreement. Zack was wearing a purple tank top, a purple head band and purple pants that had one of the legs cut off, exposing his spray on tanned leg and some sort of girly black jacket over all of it. The stupid and obnoxious outfit actually suited his loud and obnoxious nature, but it didn't stop him from looking like the complete and total tool he was. "I hope he doesn't come in here," he said. He couldn't stand Zack. Ryder had taken it upon himself to try to bully him every chance he got since had moved to Detroit from Long Island three years ago. He usually tried to ignore the jackass, but a couple of fights had broken out between them when Ryder refused to shut the hell up and go the fuck away.

After a couple of minutes, whatever conversation was going on outside ended. Ryder walked away from the store looking freaked and the three men he had talked to came in. "Can I help you?" Oscar asked.

"Yes you can actually," the smallest man out of the trio said. He was British and he seemed to be the leader of the group. "I'm looking for Evan Bourne and I was told that he works here. Is he in today?"

"And why exactly do you need to talk to him?"

"My cousins have gone missing and I've been led to believe that he was the last person to see them alive," the man replied. "Please, I just want a quick word with him."

Oscar and Shane exchanged looks. They seemed reluctant to give away the fact that Evan was standing right there. But Evan kind of felt bad for the guy and decided to speak up. "I'm Evan," he said, ignoring the looks that were sent his way by his bosses.

The British man looked at him. "Would you mind stepping outside with me so we can talk privately?"

"Um....okay."

"Excellent." The British man looked at his two friends. "Ezekial, Vladimir, please keep these fine gentlemen here company."

Ezekial and Vladimir both nodded, staring at Shane and Oscar like they were pieces of meat or something. Evan followed the one man outside, questioning how smart of a move this was on his part. "So um...who are your cousins?" he asked when they got outside and took a few steps away from the store.

"Paul and Katie Lea Burchill," the man replied. Anything that was remotely pleasant about him disappeared in about three seconds.

Evan stared at him. He's that cop's cousin? Fuck, this might not be good. "Um...I don't know if you've seen the news--"

"I know they're dead," the man replied curtly. "They were murdered, and apparently, you had a little run in with my dear cousins before they were killed. Now normally I'm not one to go on rumors, but judging from the look on your face, I think that little run in did happen."

Evan blinked. He didn't know what to say, so he decided to try to down play the situation. "It wasn't a--"

"Lad, I'm not interested in the details. What I'm interested in is the fact that people I've talked to have said that during the course of your conversation with my cousins, another man stuck his nose into the whole thing. The only problem is, nobody has been able to tell me who that man was. I was hoping you could tell me who he was."

Where in the hell did he get this shit? Evan thought to himself. The people around here didn't talk to outsiders like this. Outsiders were like cops. They were avoided and ignored until it was detrmined whether they could be trusted or not. Unless...he does have those big guys with them. They could have "persuaded" people into talking. That has to be it. There's no other way to explain it. "It was just some guy," Evan said with a shrug. "I don't even know who he was." That was only kind of a lie. He did know who James was; he had met Lawson awhile back and James was not the kind of dude you forgot about any time soon. But it wasn't like he knew the guy all that well. James talked to him sometimes if they saw each other somewhere, but it never got too personal.

"Are you sure?" the man asked. "I wouldn't want you to forget anything." The way he said that last part actually sounded like a threat.

"I'm sure," Evan said quickly.

The man looked like he didn't believe them. But before he could say anything else, a car pulled up and Detectives Styles and Kim stuck their heads out of the window. "Is there a problem here Regal?" Styles asked.

Regal glared at them before shaking his head. "No. There's no problem here."

At that moment, Ezekial and Vladimir stepped out of the store. They started to go for the dectives' car but Regal motioned for them to follow him instead. Evan quickly went back inside the store and found Oscar and Shane waiting for him. "You guys okay?" he asked.

Oscar nodded. "We're fine. What about you?"

"I'm fine," Evan said. He looked back towards the window. "Those guys were kind of weird."

"Tell me about it," Shane muttered. He pulled out his cell phone. "How about we close this place up and go get some lunch? I'm starving."

Oscar looked at his watch. "Dave's supposed to pick me up here soon..."

"I didn't say we should go together," Shane replied with a grin. "You can go with Dave and I'll go with someone else while dear Evy here goes with Matt..."

"What?" Evan squeaked as his eyes widened. He couldn't believe what he had just heard.

Shane just laughed. "Just leave everything to me Evy. You'll have a hot lunch date as long as you trust me."

Evan turned a deep shade of red. Oh God...this should be interesting...