The next day, it was back to a regular routine for Rocky and Freckle. The damaged, bloody clothes had been dropped off to Aunt Nina, with an excuse about falling into the corner of a table, and the two were off towards the Little Daisy. They were tired, having not gotten enough sleep. But the two would be needed. Freckle was to assist in the disposal of those bodies from last night. And Rocky, well, he was to deliver fresh clothes to Mordecai. In fact, it was the same tweed suit from that first night Rocky had brought clothes; something that he regularly did now. And Rocky was also going to try and convince Mitzi to let Mordecai have a shower— he'd been stewing in other people's blood all night, after all. Regardless, they had things to do during the day, and they certainly had things to do that night.

The car pulled in front of the Little Daisy, and Rocky stepped out of the driver's seat and, with Freckle, the two began to enter Mitzi's tenement. Rocky led the charge, of course. And the two arrived to see the office's doors open, with Mitzi inside counting cash. That was a blunt statement on the past week if there had ever been one. Mitzi looked up as Rocky approached. "Yes?" Then she saw Freckle. She sat down the money she'd been flipping through and stood up, walking over. She was starting back downstairs, with Rocky and, more importantly, Freckle, following; it was time to deal with the bodies.

"Oh, uh, well it's about Mordecai," Rocky began.

Mitzi raised an eyebrow as Rocky began to follow the other two. "Go ahead."

Then, the three entered the garage through the alley. Mitzi clicked her tongue. "Sure, go ahead." Mitzi acquiesced as she began to pull open the hatch, "Just lock the front door behind you and make sure to stay nearby. I don't want him to do anything other than take a shower. And hold on to that gun you used last night— it's sittin' on the desk upstairs." All of them were in the tunnels, and the hatch closed behind them.

"He won't try anything," Rocky stated.

"You don't know that, Rocky."

"He's n—"

"I already said he could take a shower in my bathroom. You can argue on behalf of Mordecai later, just hang on to the gun in case he does try something, okay, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Good," Mitzi smiled. "Go ahead and get him, then."

Rocky nodded and walked a bit through the tunnels to the storeroom. Rocky knocked on the door and waited for a moment. He adjusted the folded pile of clothes he had draped on his forearm as he stood there. Then, after a moment, from inside, Mordecai, nearly mumbling, yet raising his voice, asked, "Yes?"

"It's Rocky! Can I open the door?"

A quiet groan and the sound of shuffling. "Go ahead."

So, Rocky took the key and unlocked the door and opened it. Inside, Mordecai was still in the suit from last night, his eyes adjusting to the light; inside the storeroom was pitch black. "Morning," Rocky smiled.

"Hello." Mordecai yawned. "What's that you've got?" He pointed to the clothes Rocky was holding.

"Oh, well, I negotiated with Mitzi, and she'll let you take a shower upstairs. I don't have to sneak you in this time."

Mordecai exhaled, "Good. Because this is horrible." He gestured to his current clothes. He stepped out of the room and the two started walking back towards the garage.

As Mordecai and Rocky approached Mitzi, she spoke up, "Mordecai, before you take a shower, help out with these bodies here." Mitzi was trying to help Freckle get a body over his shoulders.

"Really?" Mordecai sighed.

"I'm the one with the bathroom. Help get these bodies into the garage," Mitzi stated, not necessarily with contempt, but certainly with authority.

Rocky awkwardly stood to the side as Mordecai reached down and grabbed one of the bodies and pulled the body, with a groan, over his shoulder and slowly began to walk towards the garage. Rocky suddenly ran up to Mordecai's side and followed. "Do you need me to help you?"

"No. It's fine. I'm taking a shower anyway. Don't dirty up a second suit."

"Oh, alright." Rocky walked alongside for a moment, then, as they approached the steps, he ran up ahead and opened the hatch for him. "This must sound weird, but, you're good at carrying a body." Rocky was a bit surprised, given how Mordecai looked, how well he was managing with practically twice the weight.

"Well, I suppose that just comes with the line of work." Mordecai dropped the body onto the floor in the garage and let out a breath. "All I need to do is not collapse under the weight and I'll manage."

"Uh, I guess," Rocky muttered as they began back down the stairs, Freckle and Mitzi carrying a body between them passing them as they did. Well, was that all that was really to it? Mordecai was obviously more of a beanpole type, but was he actually stronger than he let on? He had struggled with those crates the other day though, so… Rocky didn't know. Hell, maybe he'd been doing push-ups in his spare time in the storeroom. Or maybe it was that easy to carry a body over your shoulder.

It didn't take long for the bodies to be moved into the garage, next to a truck. There was trash to be taken to a dump ready to be loaded into the truck. And behind that garbage, the bodies were to be loaded, hiding them as they drove to wherever Mitzi and Freckle were going to dispose of them. Rocky and Freckle didn't stick around to learn where that might be; Freckle claimed he could deal with the bodies from there, and Mordecai desperately wanted to get out of the bloody, sweaty suit he was wearing and change into something cleaner.

They walked out into the alley, with Rocky behind, and they walked around the café and into Mitzi's tenement. Rocky locked the door as Mordecai climbed the stairs, before following him up.

Mordecai waited at the top of steps, loosening his tie slightly, which had already been soiled and hardly needed to even be there. Rocky walked ahead and Mordecai came along. He set the clothes he'd been carrying on the couch and kept going towards the office, to retrieve Mordecai's gun for himself, as he'd been directed.

Mordecai knew where the bathroom was, and haphazardly grabbed the stack and nearly messed up the folding. Without looking, he stashed it under his arm and continued on into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He set the clothes on the counter and began undressing, sloughing off the cherry red suit and tossing it into a small pile by the door. It wasn't his problem right now.

Silently, he set his glasses on the counter, atop the freshly cleaned clothes. And stepping into the basin, he drew the curtains and turned on the water. It didn't take long to warm up. Even though it had warmed up considerably since Mordecai had first been made hostage— it was officially summer, as of a few days ago, in fact, as Rocky had let him know— he hardly got to feel the warmth. He was never the biggest fan of heat, but down in the ground, among the limestone, it was never quite warm. So, feeling the steamy, soporific stream of water against his matted, maroon fur was rather appreciated.

He methodically scrubbed against the aforementioned matted fur with soap, slowly covering every square inch of his body, with most of it being bloody, somehow. Mordecai hadn't even been the one injured, and yet it soaked through his clothes, all over. But at least he could finally clean it off.

Mordecai washed off the soap on his calf, pink water disappearing down the drain. With a sigh, he stood up straight and leaned into the stream of water, the liquid striking his face dead-on. It loudly dripped down onto the ground from his chin, and flowed in ever-changing streams down his neck, past his abdomen, and along his legs towards the drain. Mordecai pulled his face back from the stream and took a slow, deep breath, using his hand to sweep back the wet hair from his face back.

There were a lot of things going through Mordecai's head. Work was one— one that was quickly becoming an overwhelming conundrum that threatened to destroy his own internal logic. And while, on its own, it was one thing, it was intensely intertwined with the other big thing on his mind: Rocky. Rocky. Mordecai, at least part of him, couldn't help but wish that he hadn't gotten into Mordecai's head the way he had. The cold, distant poise Mordecai had sculpted to try and avoid being broken was just weakened by Rocky. His smile, contagious and radiant, was enough to infiltrate his defenses, and strike between his ribs, into his yet still beating heart. Mordecai shook his head into cognizance. No, he wasn't trying to be poetic, but it seemed that even that was being influenced by Rocky.

How could Rocky even get in Mordecai's head so well? The two were utter opposites in many scenarios. He was energetic, loud, and unpredictable. Not to mention messy. But Mordecai was cold, composed, retracted, and calculated. How could Mordecai even stand Rocky? And yet, here he was obsessing over him. It was an anomaly— an unlikely malfunction in Mordecai's own mind. But no matter how hard he screamed at himself, trying to put his brain back in check, he still found himself having feelings for Rocky. Wanting more of Rocky's smile. Yearning for him to keep talking. Practically lusting after him. Especially here, with the warm water streaming over every part of his body. Mordecai thought he had destroyed such feelings. Or, at least, that they had been destroyed— shot in the left once, then the right.

But there was nothing he could do. Such feelings were only growing with each passing day. Rocky's injury last night alone had nearly brought Mordecai to confronting his feelings. Seeing Rocky in action, taking a couple of shots in the midst. Rocky, injured, bleeding, even as Mordecai stood untouched. And the fact that he flirted with Mordecai, striping behind that car. And yet, as one part of Mordecai viciously tried to discredit, ignore, and beat down such feelings, the other simply wished he had looked around the car.

There was a sudden knock at the bathroom door, making Mordecai flinch. From behind it, Rocky shouted, "It's almost been forty minutes. Are you okay in there, Mordecai?"

"Oh, yes, sorry. Just a minute," Mordecai responded, mildly embarrassed. He began to quickly finish cleaning himself up.

He shut off the water the instant he finished. Mordecai reached for a towel and began drying himself off, burying his face into it and ruffling his hair with it, then drying his arms, his chest, et cetera. And after a minute, he donned his glasses, knowing full well that they would be fogged up by steam, but needing them to see what he was doing beyond vague guesses.

Rifling through the stack of clean clothes on the counter, he quickly realized there weren't any pants there. He looked a second time, then relented and wrapped the towel around him, covering everything from his hips to his knees, and walked towards the door, keeping his right hand on the towel, keeping it in place. He moved the pile of bloody clothes out for the way and opened the bathroom door, releasing a lot of steam. He stepped out and looked to the side, seeing Rocky sitting on the couch, looking out a window. Rocky turned and saw Mordecai wearing just a towel.

"Uh, what do you need?" Rocky stumbled through his words.

"Pants," Mordecai declared.

"Um, yeah, I can see that." Mordecai caught Rocky looking down at the towel.

"No, I didn't have any in the bathroom."

"Oh, uh, I swore I grabbed some." Rocky looked around suddenly spotting them on the floor. "There they are, Mordecai."

Mordecai turned and saw them. Then, turning back, "Thank you." He leaned over and picked them up with his free hand. Rocky, with Mordecai bending over away from him, turned and blushed. Standing straight, Mordecai turned back to see Rocky turning red. "What?"

"Nothing, sorry, sorry." Mordecai tried to tighten the towel around his waist; it had loosened upon bending over. Rocky stared directly at the towel, blatantly looking at his crotch through the fabric, even though he tried to look like he wasn't. "Go get dressed," he stammered out.

Mordecai knew what was happening. It was fun, nice, even, in some regards, but he did need to get dressed, so stopping himself from further embarrassing Rocky, he went back into the bathroom and shut the door. And, after wiping the steam off of his glasses with the towel, began to get changed.

Mordecai hadn't settled on a solution to the conundrum he was facing, which he desperately wanted to do. Regardless of which way the cards fell, he just wanted to come up with some sort of solution, to put his mind to rest. So, as he buttoned his shirt, he decided that at some point in the near future, though at no specific, definite time, he would have a strictly work-based discussion with Rocky. It wasn't a solution, even that; it wasn't a decision between the two options, but it would let him perhaps do just that. With some advice from Rocky, maybe he could decide between aligning himself back with the Marigolds, or getting back with the Lackadaisy, if that was even truly possible. Mordecai would decide soon.

When Mordecai came out, Rocky had wiped all embarrassment from his face, as if nothing had ever happened. And after a quick detour to put Mordecai's gun back on Mitzi's desk, the two began to descend back down, out of the apartment, with Mordecai holding the balled up, bloody clothes.

Ivy was managing the café, as was rather typical. And Freckle and Mitzi had returned. Indeed, both the garbage and the bodies had been disposed of. And Freckle didn't seem especially bothered by it all. He seemed alright with what had happened. That was good news, right? And in the garage, the truck was being cleaned, and the bullet holes in the room were being sealed and covered. Rocky and Mordecai passed back through the tunnels into the speakeasy, where the bloody clothes were thrown aside, and the two could talk, with Freckle joining in for a while after a bit in the garage.

It had taken less than twenty-four hours, and yet the whole speakeasy was back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. Mordecai had made Rocky replace his bandages, and he was healing well. The garage was clean and back in shape. Mordecai was no longer bloody and dirty, and everything was prepped for the establishment to open up again that night.

This whole 'war' business with Asa was easy enough, it seemed.