High! Got the red in my eyes, watched the world go by, now I'm writing again. Hope you like it s much as the last chapter (you _did_ read it, right?).

T_h__e___o____r___i__e_s

Part II. The morning after

She arrived back from dreamland on the 8:30 flight with a brief layover in New York the next morning with Ami still out cold beside her. In her sleep Makoto seemed to mold her body to Ami's shape, bringing her as close as she could. Makoto tried to remember how she got in this position, but gave up. The evening was a bit of a blur...she remembered smoking a bowl, and sharing it with Ami...a bunch of random thoughts, completely detached from each other...and then here. How did she--

Ami shifted in her sleep, and Makoto realized they were both nude. That was it. Makoto wondered idly if Ami would be ok with or even remember what had transpired between the two. A sudden rumbling sound shook Makoto out of her train of thought. "Better go make breakfast." She mumbled as she got up, trying not to disturb Ami as she did.

She yawned as she got out of bed, stretching her arms. She went to her dresser and pulled out a random pair of panties and put them on, and then put on a light green nightshirt as she walked to her kitchen.

She put a frying pan on the stove and turned it on as she walked past it to the fridge, where she got out the eggs and bacon. She broke the eggs and put them into the frying pan, where they started sizzling immediately, and then put the bacon in before getting out four slices of bread and putting them in her toaster. She adjusted the dial on the side of the toaster, and then went and made the coffee. After that she went and checked on the eggs, and then felt a pair of hands slide around her waist. "Good morning, sleepyhead." Makoto said, flipping one egg over. "Over easy or sunny-side up?"

"Sunny-side up, please." Ami said. "Have a good night's sleep?"

"Are you joking? I haven't been more rested in years."

"I thought so." Ami said. A short pause followed and she breathed in deeply. "Ah, I see you put on some coffee. 'The best part of waking up...'" She sung.

"Is _not_ Folger's." Makoto said, making a face. "Bleuch, I swear that stuff tasted like dish soap."

"Oh, that's a fine taste to wake up to." Ami said sarcastically, mimicing Makoto's expression. "So what brand _is_ in there?"

"A blend from a Canadian chain of coffee shops called Tim Horton's. Those crazy Canucks sure know their coffee."

"Hey, if it's got the Makoto Kino lightning stamp of approval it's good in my book."

"Thanks." Makoto said, moving to get the toast that had popped up. "So...did you lighten up enough, last evening?"

"You could say that..." Ami said, blushing slightly at the memory of the previous night. "You were amazing, I don't think a climax has ever been powerful enough to make me black out before..."

"Oh? This wasn't your first?" Makoto said slyly.

"Hey, I resent that stereotype." Ami replied jokingly and without meaning it at all. "I've experimented a bit with my own body, like pretty much everyone else."

"True, true..." Makoto said, seemingly lost in thought. "So what's the verdict? You going to keep being a smoking nazi?"

"I don't know." Ami said thoughtfully. "I guess it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to be, though, wouldn't it?"

"Yep."

"I guess then I have no choice."

"And...?"

"And what?"

"Do you think you'll ever want to smoke again?"

"Oh, I don't know...maybe if I get a chance to pay you back for last night..." Ami said.

Makoto turned around. "I have to hand it to you, girl, you are amazing."

"Well, what doesn't kill me can only make me stronger, right?"

"That's the spirit indeed. Excuse me," Makoto said, getting out of Ami's grip and grabbing two plates from the cupboard. She put the eggs and bacon on the plates and put them down before getting another side plate and putting the toast on it. Ami sat down and Makoto set the toast down in the middle of the small table, then turning the stove off and getting the condiments and butter from the counter. "You know, of the four of you I thought you'd be the hardest to corrupt." Makoto said as she sat down.

"'Of the'...how many of the others have you introduced to marijuana?" Ami asked.

"Just you and Minako, so far." Makoto replied as she picked up a piece of bacon with her fork. "Although I think I'll leave Usagi alone. I just couldn't corrupt that magnitude of purity with a clean conscience."

"Oh, and corrupting the rest of us is any different." Ami said around a mouthful of egg, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I admit it's a little different with Usagi since she's still a little naive about the world but I think she'd enjoy it as much as anyone else would."

"Really? Maybe we'll all get together and corrupt her all at once. Just get Rei onto the bandwagon, and then completely meteor her."

"'Meteor'? One higher than 'anvil'?" Ami guessed.

"Two. There's 'baked black' in between them." Makoto corrected.

"Ah. How much do you think it'll take to meteor her?"

"If it's all of us smoking, and we're indoors...maybe 7 or 8 bowls. That's about four grams, which is a lot. Weed weighs about nothing."

"Really? I thought it'd be pretty heavy."

"Nah, plants are heavy because they're still with all their water in them. Weed has to dry before you can smoke it, so it lightens up a lot. But the more moist it is while still considered smokably dry, the softer the feeling of a fire in your mouth."

"Really? Didn't know that. That stuff you had yesterday evening must have been...what'd be the word for that, hot?"

"Harsh. Yeah, that was a recent quarter I bought. About 7 grams." Makoto explained. "Normally I only smoke once every two days, and I only use a half a gram at a time. So that lasts me a while."

"I see." Ami said, looking down at her plate. "Thanks for breakfast."

"You're welcome. Good to know there's still the old polite Ami in there with the imperfect corruptible human we all know you are at heart."

"I beg to differ with that. I am completely perfect. And it was a concious choice I made after weighing the positive and negative effects, not 'being corrupted', as you say." Ami's voice had absolutely no conviction, and a lot of humour, behind it.

"Uh huh. And I suppose you just _chose_ to get a case of the giggles every thirty seconds, too, right?"

"No, that was some chemical reaction. Or the moons of Saturn were in alignment or something."

"I'd bet on the former statement. Some people physically can't stop laughing when they're high."

"Really? You learn something new every day."

"I have a feeling this isn't the only thing you're going to be learning today. You're always experimenting and formulating. Any progress on that cure for Cancer?"

"No, it's still DNA-specific and takes a month to make. I'm trying to refine it." Ami said in a tone that made Makoto unsure if she was joking or not.

"Please tell me that was a joke."

"Ok. That was a joke."

"Good. You can never really tell with you."

"Yeah, you gotta watch out for me, I'm always trying to catch you off-guard."

"You do, mostly." Makoto said, picking up her and Ami's empty plates and putting them in the sink. "I can't believe we only smoked about half that bowl last night. Man, that was some good stuff."

"I figured. I mean, if you considered me--'anviled'?--anviled it had to be. I mean, I'm not _that_ much of a lightweight."

Makoto looked over a pair of imaginary eyeglasses at Ami. "Am I?" Ami finished weakly.

Makoto nodded slowly. "Although I was about anviled myself, I could still tell you were a lightweight. And you got high your first time."

"I guess you make a good case. And let's not even go into alcohol."

"Aw, that was going to be the fun part."

"If I was masochistic, I'd agree with you...you said there was only half of that bowl smoked?"

"Yep. I can hear that thought from here, Ami, and I'm all for it. I'll go pour us some coffee, if you want you can start without me."

"Alright. Just light and inhale, right? No tricks with my lips or anything?"

"I think that can wait until after we meteor ourselves again, Ami." Makoto said with a huge cheshire cat grin on her face. "No, there's no trick this time."

"Ok." Ami said, going into the living room.

While Makoto poured the coffee, Ami looked at the pipe more closely. It was made from a forest green stone, and had the symbol of Jupiter carved into one side, allong with the letter J. "That wasn't a bad carving, if I do say so myself, even though I was meteored when I did that." Makoto said, walking into the living room with two mugs in her hand. "Double-cream, no sugar, right?"

"Right." Ami replied, taking the cup in Makoto's left hand when she held it out to her. "Yeah, I like that carving. The J's for Jupiter, right?"

Makoto shook her head slowly in mid-sip. "Jenni."

"I see." Ami said softly.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I may seem detached from emotion at times, but it's not because of her. If anything, I feel better when I think of her."

"Oh. So you're still not ove--"

"Please." Makoto said in a low voice, holding up a hand to stop Ami. "I'm in far too good a mood to destroy another brain cell thinking of _him_."

"Good as dropped." Ami said, her attention returning to the pipe and lighter she held in her hands.

She held up the lighter, as if to signal a toast, then brought it to her mouth and lit the marijuana still in the bowl. The charcoal feeling returned, but she knew it was coming this time and was more prepared to deal with it. She stopped inhaling and passed the lighter to Makoto, who hit it also. They both inhaled again, and spent five or six seconds just standing there, holding their breaths. Ami exhaled, and coughed once as Makoto shot an impressive tower of smoke to the ceiling. Ami was looking at the smoke dissapating over her head when the wave of the same strange feeling hit her and she fell back onto the couch with a bass-filled thud. "That looks like fun, Ami. I think I'll join you." Makoto said as she walked around her coffee table and flopped down beside Ami. "I don't think this is totally out, and I got a hit and a half last time. Here." she said, holding out the pipe.

Ami took it and hit it one last time, before wincing slightly. After exhaling ten seconds later, she said "That one felt different than the one before that."

"That just means there's only ash left." Makoto explained.

"Ah..." Ami said. "So, you want to go play something?"

"Isn't that what we said the last time?"

"Yeah, but look what happened instead. We're behind on our playing."

"Oh no! Quick, before the Video Game Police show up! 'Honest, officer, I was just playin' FFX for ten hours straight!" Makoto said over Ami's laughs at the dialogue. "'Oh yeah? Where were ya?' 'Uh...I was just defeating Sin! I swear! Just beat the game! Wanna go see the ending video?'"

As soon as they walked into the bedroom Ami collapsed with laughter and was rolling on the floor. Makoto just stood there, chuckling at her friend's anviledness, for a while before it started to subside. "Hmm hmm hmm...hm...what was I laughing at?" Ami said.

"Something funny, I suppose." Makoto said.

"I should hope so. So what do we got here?"

"Let's see...Klonoa, FFX, XG3, Splinter Cell..."

"XG3, that's a racing game, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Let's play that."

"Done and done." Makoto said, padding over to the GCN and putting in the disc. "Excellent. Fresh meat."

"Your orcish accent is terrible." Ami commented.

Makoto stuck out her tongue in reply. "Here." She said, handing a Wavebird to Ami. "Just flick the switch on the front."

Ami did so and an orange light appeared. "Uh, Makoto? I think your battery's dying."

"Hm? No, it's always orange like that." Makoto replied, setting up the options. "How many G's do we want?"

"What are the options?"

"250, 500, 750, and 1000. Higher the number, higher the speed."

"Uh...just surprise me."

"'K." She said, pressing a few buttons. "I'm gonna bring us out onto the easy track first."

"That sounds like a plan. Uh, how do I work this beast?" Ami said, examining all the buttons on the controller.

"A--that green one--is go, the red one's boost, the grey one above the A button is fire, the other grey one switches the camera behind you, the L and R buttons up top use the air brakes in either direction and Z switches the weapon."

"'Z'? Where's that?"

"In front of R." Makoto pointed out the purple button.

"Oh. Why didn't they make a W button for the left side, then? Not too...what's that word...symmetrical, that's it. Not too symmetrical." Ami said, a big grin on her face as if she just did something great. "Hey, my brain's not totally fried yet!"

"It will be." Makoto said. "I'll give you a nice railgun haircut."

"Bring it on, Gas Giant Girl."

_-__-___-__-_

Half an hour later, Ami had partially mastered the art of apex steering and was faring pretty well, considering her lack of playing experience. "Ooh, that had to hurt." Makoto commented as the racer in front of her was obliterated by a stray rocket. "I thought that was a lost rocket. Bonus."

"Yeah. I still think that one shot was amazing, in Megalopis 7. That S-curve one?"

"Yeah. Shot it, went straight through the S-curve and killed you. Sorry about that one, I just had to retake my throne."

"Don't be sorry. I seem to remember a similar incident occuring on Atradaitoshi."

"Ah, well, that was beginner's luck."

"I see. So the fact that I hit you with a fully-charged Railgun shot while driving so close to your bike I could count the stitches on your suit...not that it wasn't unexploded for long..."

"Yeah, well..." Makoto waved off the line of conversation with a wave of her hand.

"Speaking of beginners...I was kinda wondering how you got Minako corrupted?"

"Oh, that's a good story. I love to tell this one."

"Really? How many people have you told?"

"None."

A short pause followed, and then both girls exploded with laughter that forced one of them to pause while it cleared their system. "Hee hee hmm hmm...hmm...funny." Makoto said. "What were we laughing at again?"

"I don't know." Ami said. "Minako. You were gonna tell me about the time you corrupted her."

"Oh yeah!" Makoto said. And she began her story.

_-__-___-__-_

Chapter 3 should be up soon. Until then, may the white clouds of happiness forever encircle your head at 4:20. Just don't expect any Minako/Makoto Lemon scenes.

RynØr