Title: Readme.txt

Part: 6/?

Author: Naisumi

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Lance/Scott, Scott/Lance; Weasel/Forge, Forge/Weasel

Disclaimer: Still not mine, still not rich, still not famous. Damn.

Spoilers: Nada.

Warnings: Slash (m/m relationship), AU (which means Alternate Universe, for those who don't know.)



Notes: I have returned from Chicago with loads of notes! Well, not really. But some of Scott's experiences in the lovely Windy City are autobiographical. And...my sofabed tried to eat me. It was saggier than Agatha's boobies. Very frightening, yo.

I was going to have them go to a Chinese restaurant but then I forgot the name of the place we ate at. It had something to do with the number three and the word 'happiness,' and no, it was not 'Happin3ss.' (;



Additional Notes: A grateful thank you to all my lovely reviewers and supporters: Morwen O'Conner, N, Olhado, S, Lyo, sugar.coated, BatE, ShadowCreature, Pyromaniac, BackstageMark, Katherine, Laureate, Absolute Alcohol, Ouvalyrin, MiracleChick, Suzaka, Edainme, Doomkitty1, Ishida Kat, Imhotep Ardeth Bey, and last but definitely not least, Mercuria. *sob* I love you all.



Additional-er Notes: How's about that power outage, huh? Suck ass. But you know what doesn't suck ass? Besides cotton candy and Livewire? The Blind Fish Archive! You can find the link at www.geeky-pirate.net.

Please check us out and submit your fics! We're nice--honest!


Enjoy and Review!!!...please?





--

"Mr. Summers."

"M--Mr. Maximoff. How are you?"

"Oh, fine, fine. You?"

"Well, I'm--"

"Yes, wonderful--fantastic. I'm calling about the article, Scottyboy."

A cough. "Oh, it's going fine."

"Great, great. So, are you getting all the little details and such?"

"Yes. I've come up with an angle I think you'll be pleased with, too--see, the rock 'n' roll scene is very--"

"Hate it."

"--Ex-excuse me?"

"Why don't you focus a little more on the band, Mr. Summers? Really get in touch with the lead and all."

Another cough. "Oh, don't worry. I--"

"I mean--Scott, are you really honing in on Mr. Alvers? Getting underneath it all and figuring out what makes him tick?"

A muffled sound. "Ye-yes, I really am, Mr. Maximoff."

"Are you really?"

"I'm really really."

A dubious pause. "Well, fine. I'd like to remind you that this is a feature article, though."

"Yes, of course."

"Make sure to keep a close eye on our little lead singer, Mr. Summers."

"Not so little--Mr.--Mr. Maximoff."

"...What?"

"...I've discovered that he has grand device--grand devices, you see. He's really gunning for the home run."

"Well...alright. Are you feeling well, Scotty?"

"Um, fine...fine, sir. Why?"

"Just making sure you weren't coming down with something. There's been a mono epidemic around here lately..."

A fit of coughing. "Well--I'm just...histamines."

"Right. Well, I'll keep in touch, Mr. Summers."

"You can--can count on--me, Mr. Maximoff."

Click.

...

...

...

...

"Run...epidemic..."





"You are horrible," I said, clutching my sides.

Lance quirked an eyebrow at me. "Me? What the fuck did I do?"

"You've polluted my stream of consciousness," I said. Jesus, if I laughed any harder, I was going to collapse my stomach.

He smirked at me. "It's not my fault that my tremendous sex appeal makes people think about...fucking."

"Creative," I rasped. I needed a drink of water.

"I'm havin' an off day," he said airily. He heaved himself onto the bed with some effort and flipped onto his back.

"Is the door locked?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. I fidgeted.

We were on the tour bus, heading toward Chicago, the Windy City--a short drive from Jean's alma mater. She loved Chicago and had gone to college a short distance away in Evanston, Illinois at Northwestern University. Fantastic school, really. Jean became addicted to strapless shoes because of it, though, so I tended to think about it as a dealer. Whenever she talks about it, her eyes glaze over and she forgets about anything academic.

Tell me that that doesn't smack of a druggie recounting the happy days of tripping.

Chicago was pretty magnificent--a lot cleaner than New York City, though a lot smaller as well. The streets had extremely inventive names--Ohio Street, Illinois...Chicago, Delaware, and so on. I was very impressed, as you can imagine. Only not.

There was also a twelve-story mall that made Jubilee squeal in my ear as loudly as a small piglet might at the slaughterhouse. I still haven't completely recovered all of my hearing yet, but I can make out extremely loud noises. Like the sound of Lance singing very badly and off key into my ear whenever I'm asleep. I think he was trying to imitate a drunken sailor or something, because he was singing in the most awful accent ever. About drunken sailors, at any rate.

On our way into downtown Chicago, we passed another location that Jubilee would no doubt visit later--a café done up to look like a rainforest. There were several large, brightly colored mushrooms surrounding the outside. And while I was wondering whether or not the mushrooms were a euphemism, I thought about Jean again.

Circular train of thought, you see.

The hotel we were staying at was called the Doubletree. For something that the Hilton advocated, it really wasn't all that posh; I got a lousy room with a small bathroom with no fan, what appeared to be a water-stained bed, and abstract paintings. Oh, and no microwave either.

But I did have a sofabed. Which was a safer bet than the bed, really; ever since I saw a documentary on PBS about stains and other strange things that are in hotel beds, I've been rather adverse to beds that weren't mine.

Insert obligatory joke about beds that aren't mine and sleeping in them.

Lance's room was directly down the hall from mine, which meant that whenever he was bored, he was going to inevitably come over to bother me. I wouldn't mind nearly as much except for the fact that I actually had an article to write--something that he completely forgot from time to time. Another thing that was slightly inconvenient was that we were going to be staying in Chicago for three days.

Venues abound, I guess.

Around ten in the evening on the day we arrived in Chicago, Lance decided that he was already bored. How did I know?

"Tell me what you're wearin'," Lance's voice said from outside my hotel room door, "and don't leave any details out. Fuckin' wool socks?"

"How romantic," I said, opening the door.

I could tell that Lance was a candle-lit dinner kind of guy. Of course, currently, he was leaning against the doorjamb with a box of Budlights.

"Wanna get wasted?" he asked listlessly.

"Not particularly," I said. I still had vivid memories of what happened the last time I drank with him.

"Sightseeing?" he asked with a sneer, looking slightly mortified.

"Sure," I said.

"God," he said, "don't choose door number two, Wilma. The sucky prizes are always behind door number two."

"Don't you want to see what Chicago's like at night?" I asked.

"No," Lance said.

"Too bad," I said, grabbing my coat and heading out.

"Fuck you," he grumbled. He followed me nonetheless.

That made the score two for me, and...who knows how many for Lance.

Jesus, was he sure he lied about being from a wealthy family? Because he sure acted like a spoiled, upper-class brat at times.

We exited the hotel and turned left. The streetlamps were so bright that, for a minute, I thought we were in a disturbingly large indoor mall or something.

"Their electricity bill must be obscene," I said.

"The fuckin' 'Magnificent Mile,'" Lance said, unimpressed. He looked around.

"I don't see what's so fuckin' magnificent," he said.

"That's very nice of you," I said mildly.

"There are a million better things I could be doin'," he said.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like you," he said, grinning.

"Sorry if I don't think being a 'thing' constitutes of solely sex," I said.

"Do me a favor, Summers," he said, leaning back a little to eyeball a girl who was leaning out of her apartment window and yelling something at a Latino guy handcuffed to a lamppost. "Don't fuckin' use any words that have more than two syllables after seven."

"Seven at night?" I asked, smiling a little.

"In the morning, jackass," he said.

"That's intelligent," I said.

"Bite me," he grinned. "Anyways, what's this thing you're talkin' about? Not havin' sex?"

"Not only having sex," I corrected.

"What the hell else do you wanna do?" Lance seemed slightly disgruntled. "Wanna talk about your feel-ings?"

Well, Mr. Alvers. You're certainly acting like a normal heterosexual male tonight. Are you sure you want to have sex with me?

"It's not like I want us to get all after-school special-y," I said.

"You're makin' up words again," he observed with a smirk.

"It must be you," I said.

"Fuck you," he laughed.

"I already said no," I reminded him.

He snorted and punched the crosswalk button a few times. A short, elderly lady eyed him with trepidation. I felt like apologizing. And shortening Lance's leash.

Kinky?

"Did you know," he said while we were waiting, "that if you walk outside the line thingies that you can't fuckin' sue if you get hit?"

"Legal complications?" I asked.

"It's the law's way of sayin', 'Screw you! We told you to stay in the box and you didn't,'" he said.

"You're not going to talk about fighting 'The Man' now, are you?" I asked, slightly amused.

"Hell, I'm fightin' The Man every time I sing a song," he snickered.

"How politically correct of you," I said.

"Or somethin'," he said.

"So where do you want to go?" I asked.

"Are there any one-hour motels around here?" Lance suggested. I punched him in the shoulder.

"Why don't we go to the, uh, Hancock observatory?" I suggested.

"The joke there with the name is so fuckin' obvious I'm not gonna even make it, Summers."

What a one-track mind.

"Well, fine. How about, uh...that is..."

"Great, Summers. Fuckin' great."

"Well, this is better than staying in, isn't it?"

"Is not."

It was like arguing about apple juice with a three-year-old.

"...I'm not getting into this argument with you."

"Chicken-shit."

I made a face at him. "You're not being very creative, you know."

"Whipplefuck?"

"That's a little better."

"Oh, so you're makin' me work for it, hey?" He leered at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Why is it that you make everything sound dirty?"

"What can I say? It's a gift." He pointed at a café simply labeled 'The Artist Café.' "Wanna go fuck up some kids down there?"

"What?" I asked.

"Y'know--artist kids with berets and shit?"

"I think you're thinking of mimes," I said.

He snorted. "If Jubes was here, she'd go for it."

"Isn't art one of Ms. Lee's hobbies?" I asked.

"Into art--yes," he said. "Into snobby artists--no."

"Oh, so there's a difference?" I grinned.

"Yeah," Lance said. "Like this one," he hopped up to walk on the little brick partition between the café and the sidewalk, "I think journalism's shit, right? But there's this reporter guy I'm into."

Journalist.

He grinned at me.

"You're trying to be romantic," I said, unimpressed.

"Do you need roses?" he asked with a sneer.

"Yes," I said. "And I need you to stop calling me a reporter."

"What?" Lance looked confused. "What the fuck do you mean?"

"I'm not a reporter," I explained. "It's journalist."

He stared at me.

"I think your head's in the Bizarro world or somethin'," he said.

I blinked at him. "Why?"

"What's the fuckin' difference?" he asked.

"There's a huge difference," I said, affronted.

"So, when people talk, do you see bright, blinky colors, too?" he asked, grinning.

I glowered at him. "I'm not joking."

"Did I fuckin' say that you were joking?" he jumped back down onto the sidewalk.

No, but you're acting like I just told you that I believe in the Loch Ness monster. Whose existence, by the way, could be proven or disproven if someone were willing to go in and do some proper journalism.

"You implied it," I said, sulking slightly.

"Hey, is your neighbor Superman's fucked-up, evil twin?" he asked, chuckling.

"Fuck you," I said.

"Ooh, starting to get pissy?" He was smirking, the bastard.

"You know, you could try not to be an asshole every once in a while," I groused.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" he grinned.

"Jesus," I muttered.

He laughed at me and spontaneously linked arms with me.

"You know what I've discovered, Summers?" he asked cheerfully. "You know what my fuckin' philosophy of life is?"

"What?" I asked, quirking an eyebrow. What was this, the Wizard of Oz?

"You can't always ask yourself, 'What can I do for the world?', you see," he said very brightly. "The world sucks."

"So what's the alternative?" I asked, grinning a little.

"Well, you ask yourself, 'What the fuck do I want?' and then you do it," he said.

"Just like that?" I couldn't help smiling.

Well, that explains a lot of your personality quirks, Mr. Id.

"Just like that," he said, snapping his fingers. He unlinked his arm from mine and haphazardly threw said arm around my shoulders.

"It's the only way this fuckin' world makes sense," he explained. "Say I want some frozen yogurt. The only question I ask myself is, 'Banana or strawberry?'"

I laughed a little and teased, "Are those euphemisms, Lance?"

He paused, then grinned, "Hey, I guess they are."

I groaned. "You're completely corrupting me, you know."

"Bitchin'," Lance grinned.

"Is that the only thing you say?" I asked jokingly.

He made a face of mock-concentration and tried: "Killer?"

"Jesus," I sighed.

"Man," he said, "this city isn't killer."

I rolled my eyes. "You have the strangest terminology."

"I didn't hear you complain about that last night," he said, grinning.

I arched an eyebrow. "We didn't do anything last night."

"That's what you think," he said, still grinning.

I stared at him with horror and began beating him with my notebook.

"I'm going to break your jaw," I threatened.

"And who would that benefit?" Lance asked, cackling. "Oh, right--no one!"

"I can live without sex, you know," I growled.

"Oh, baby," he moaned, then yelled, "fucking!"

A few people looked at us in bewilderment. I punched him in the arm.

"Idiot," I grumbled.

He was still laughing. "Fuck-ing..."

"What is something you will not be getting tonight," I suggested. Jesus, you've got to love Jeopardy.

He got quiet very quickly. Then, with a liberal amount of wheedling: "Scot-t..."

"I can see that in this relationship," I said mildly, "you will only be using my first name when you want something."

"Or in bed," he said, leering.

"Which is something you want," I said.

"It's not the only fuckin' thing I want," he said, looking offended.

"Oh, really?" I grinned. "And what else do you want?"

"A pony," he deadpanned.

"Shut up," I laughed.

"Of course," Lance said thoughtfully, a considering expression on his face, "I don't want to be in bed with the pony..."

"I think that you scare small children," I said.

"I don't want to be in bed with small children, either," he said.

"Of course not," I said. "That would be illegal."

He paused, cringed, then started slowly, "But we do want to fight The Man..."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," I groaned. "That's terrible."

"It's your fault," he said, smirking.

"You're a bad, bad man," I said.

"And you love me," he said, snickering.

I glared at him. "Do not."

"Do, too," he crowed.

"Jesus, what are you on?" I asked.

"What am I on or what am I not on--" he said with a melodramatic flair, "that is the goddamned question."

"The only thing you're not on is the same plane of rationality as the rest of the world," I said.

"Ouch," he grinned. "That really fuckin' wounded me."

"And," I said, smiling, "I don't think Shakespeare wrote 'goddamned question.'"

"Hey," he protested, "I don't have to take this fuckin' abuse, y'know!"

"And yet you are," I grinned.

Lance snorted. "Never pegged you for a sadist, Summers. Is this the part where I fuckin' beg for you to whip me more?"

I choked.

"I--" I began, then started hyperventilating.

Shit, I was practically talking dirty with Lance! I guess I was really working to earn the title of 'Wallstreet slut,' wasn't I?

Jesus.

Lance eyed me, then remarked unhelpfully, "I was wondering how far we'd get before you became reprig-ified."

"Reprig-ified," I repeated, momentarily forgetting my panic. "That's not really a word, is it?"

"Thing--" Lance began very loudly, and I rolled my eyes and shushed him.

"Don't start," I warned.

"Or what?" he asked in a sugary sweet voice. "You'll don your dominatrix boots and fuckin' whale on me? 'cause, y'know, I wouldn't really mind all that fuckin' much..."

"Shut up," I mumbled. I must've been three different shades of red. In the face, that is. Not where Lance was thinking...--Jesus!

Oh, Christ, this was going to be haunting me for a while.

"Don't do the whole S&M thing, yeah?" he asked casually.

"No, I really don't," I said stiffly.

"That's okay," he said, snickering. "We got chemistry."

"That doesn't even make sense," I said, quirking an eyebrow.

Which it didn't. But thank God he wasn't talking about boots and whips and...Jesus, was this why he got along with Rogue so well?

After a moment of silence where Lance whistled something very badly and I shuffled my feet a little and tried not to think about Lance in black leather, I asked awkwardly,

"So, are--are you into the whole...you know?"

"The whole shebang with the maiming?" he asked cheerfully.

"Shebang with a capital 'S' and maiming with a capital 'M,' that is," he added, pointing at my notepad and motioning for me to write it down. I scowled at him and tucked the notepad into my jacket pocket.

"Eh," he glanced around, winked at a random girl who was dressed all in electric blue and was walking her poodle, and shrugged. "Y'know, when I'm in the mood."

"And how often are you in these moods?" I asked, unintentionally sounding like Dr. Phil. Oops.

"I dunno, doc," he said with a smirk. "I get these urges..."

"To go out and buy several Subway sandwiches at once then refrigerate them?" came a chipper voice from ahead of us.

I looked up and saw Jubilee wading through the nighttime throng, shiploads of shopping bags in tow.

Wow, she got busy really quickly, didn't she?

She grinned at us as she fell in step; "Man, have you gone shopping, guys? Crazy-wild, I'm tellin' you--eighty fucking bucks for this pair of jeans."

Lance quirked an eyebrow at her. "Not used to the wealth yet, Jubes?"

"I'll never," Jubilee said, sniffing. "They're way snazzy, though, yes?"

She beamed and half-pulled a pair of showy jeans out of one bag.

"Snazzy-spiffy," Lance agreed easily.

I remembered reading about the nearest mall--Water Tower Place--in a tourist brochure I had requested. --And yes, I requested some brochures. It's best to be informed, you know, about the cities you visit.

"Don't they close at nine?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," Jubilee said brightly. "Got lost in a horse carriage for thirty-five bucks, baby."

I remembered reading about that, too. "It's only half an hour for thirty-five."

Lance snorted from beside me and muttered into my ear, "Ain't you a wealth of knowledge tonight, Summers?"

"I know," Jubilee answered with a sly grin. "Then I got lost in the coach driver's pants."

Hel-lo, back up; I didn't need to know that.

"You definitely didn't," Lance said almost defiantly.

"Bluff!" Jubilee agreed with delight, then awkwardly rummaged in her coat, her shopping bags hanging from both elbows by the handles.

"I drew some wicked pictures of Buckingham whatsits. Lemme find them..." she explained.

"It's like a story problem," Lance said to me; "Mary Poppins is to her carpetbag as Jubes is to her raincoat."

It was Tuesday of the second week and I'd heard more about Mary Poppins than in my entire childhood.

"She keeps a sketchbook in there?" I asked.

"Yep!" Jubilee said.

"Yep," Lance stage-whispered.

"And charcoal," she added with delight.

"And charcoal," Lance repeated, whispering loudly in my ear.

Jubilee snorted and smacked him on the head, saying airily, "Cork it, wiseass."

Lance snickered and subsided obediently into silence, though he still shot her sideways looks of amusement every so often. As Jubilee was flipping through her sketchbook to find the picture she wanted to show us, she asked flippantly,

"So, have you two slept together yet?"

"Yep," Lance said at the same time I exclaimed, "No!"

Bastard.

She found the picture she'd been looking for and handed her sketchbook to Lance.

"Now you see why we usually don't let reporters interview him," she said to me with a smile. I eyed her orange lipstick and asked with some puzzlement,

"O-h?"

"I think we need to get him neutered," she laughed.

Wait--what?

"Wait, so--?"

"What?" Jubilee blinked, then hastened to reassure me, "Oh, no. I mean, it hasn't happened before, but I figured it'd happen eventually. If only to fuck with their heads, y'know."

But, he wouldn't--...oh, yes he would. But we had a thing, right? So it was different.

Wasn't it?

"Anyways," Jubilee continued, oblivious to my inner turmoil. Which was all her fault. All of it. "I gotta jet. I bought, like, five pairs of shoes, so..."

"Builds up the muscles," Lance quipped. "You got, what, ten shoes floatin' 'round in there?" here, he handed back her sketchbook, commenting, "Way better than the Madison Square one. I like it."

"That's what I thought," Jubilee agreed. "Less sloppy, I think. Check you boys later, 'kay?"

"'later," Lance replied easily.

"Uh--good night," I said, almost missing her departure.

Lance stretched a little--conveniently sliding his arm around my waist and attempting to sneak a hand up my shirt--and glanced at his watch when I batted his hand away.

"Fuck, I'm hungry," he said.

I remembered that he had skipped dinner in favor of learning how to play the harmonica. He could now play the Kraft macaroni and cheese commercial with ease. An understandably remarkable achievement, I'm sure.

"It's nearly eleven," I reminded him.

Lance quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sayin' that you don't think anyplace is open at eleven in Chicago?"

"No place good, maybe," I said.

"Hey, let's find some real fuckin' Chicago-style pizza," he said. He didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I thought that maybe it was...Hell, I don't know what it was because. Because the planets weren't aligned correctly, perhaps?

"Uh, okay," I said.

I was still bothered by what Jubilee had said, but was too woozy from the busride over and the disturbingly bright streelights to bring it up. I was beginning to think that the back of the bus was where all the fumes went. Maybe the bus' exhaust system needed to be checked out? Because I don't know about Lance, but after three hours in there, I was ready to call any speckled, fuchsia, fungal thing by the name of my Aunt Marge.

"Hey, look at this," Lance said then.

I glanced up and looked at the small, dark doorway he was gesturing at. A placard above it read 'Pizano's Pizza & Pasta.'

"Looks okay," I said. I felt a little queasy about possible sanitation issues, though, and resolved to start carrying around a bottle of Purell with me wherever I went.

Just in case, of course.

We went in, sat down and ordered a pizza and some garlic bread. Not too bad a value--twenty bucks, and that's with the obscenely inflated sales tax. While we were waiting, Lance ordered a Molson and flipped through the jukebox.

I sat and watched him and wondered how many beers it took to get him drunk. Then I wondered if he was a happy drunk or a grumpy drunk. Of course, my conclusion was that Lance was perpetually drunk, so it wouldn't make much of a difference whether he drank fifty beers or not. Except, maybe, his coordination got worse.

Which didn't sound all too bad. If you're into drunken, misaimed groping, that is.

"Huh," he said, catching my attention. "They got the Backstreet Boys in here."

I made a face. "No kidding."

"Why the fuck is there the Backstreet Boys in a fuckin' jukebox?" he pondered aloud.

"To cater to everyone's tastes, I guess," I suggested.

He arched an eyebrow and replied in a mild voice that made me eye him with suspicion, "I bet everyone in here hates the fuckin' Backstreet Boys."

"Prob-ably," I said.

He promptly fished a wad of bills out of his back pocket, extracted one, and fed it into the jukebox. The gentle, soothing tones of oil-slicked teenager with fake tattoos and cheating girlfriends filled the bar-slash-restaurant. All chatter stopped.

Jesus, I was too tired to think about the implications of that.

Lance strolled back to our table, sat down, and kicked his feet up.

"How soon do you think," he said nonchalantly, "until someone--?"

"Hey," a guy with a braided beard and ripped t-shirt loomed over our table and blocked my hazy view of the saltshaker. I'd been busy counting the grains of salt in it, too.

"What the fuck do you think you're doin'?"

"Starring in a fucked-up Western, I guess," Lance replied. He didn't seem too worried. I wish I could say the same for me.

I snuck a look at the intruder who was casting the scary shadow on the table. He looked like a Norseman who'd sailed his ship into the wrong port, wandered haphazardly into a KISS concert (according to his t-shirt), stole some guileless biker's hog, and rode off with a mountaineer's pair of shades.

Jesus, what an image.

Was KISS even together anymore? I think I remember hearing Ray lament about them splitting up or something.

"If you're gonna play somethin' on the jukebox, don't play some pussy-assed shit like this," the guy continued.

"Wow," I couldn't help but say. "Pussy and ass?"

I tried to ignore that I'd just said 'pussy,' and tried even harder to ignore that I'd just tried to make a quip to a KISS-loving Norseman.

"I think so," Lance said to me, smirking, then addressed the Norseman: "Bad night?"

"Fuck off," the Norseman rumbled.

"Then this song fits perfectly," Lance said graciously, gesturing toward the jukebox with his Molson. His Molson that the Norseman promptly knocked away, that is.

"Ouch," Lance said. "That was a buck fifty."

"Every bad movie that involves a barfight starts like this," I babbled nervously. "Why don't we all be friends and, uh, read the--the sports articles on the walls?"

There were several framed newspaper articles. They seemed to all be very boring. At least, to me. Then again, I've been told that no one is actually interested in the things I'm interested in.

"Fuck off," the Norseman repeated and seemed to kind of glow with some sort of funky anger-vibe. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had fallen asleep at some point without my knowing.

"Why don'tcha feed the nice jukebox some money and play some other songs if you don't like--this shit?" Lance suggested.

I grinned. He'd probably been trying to mentally name the song that'd been playing, but gave up because it wasn't worth it. And probably because he hated it, too. Which begs the question: How far was Lance willing to go just to piss some people off?

"I think you need to get the fuck outta here before I start cracking things," the Norseman may or may not have said.

I was beginning to lose my hearing. Jesus--all I could hear was the despicable whine coming from the jukebox.

I apologize, Antisthenes. I think that your music is actually music compared to this.

"Cracking," Lance repeated. "Like jokes?"

"Oh, Jesus," I muttered. That so did not make things any better.

And, to prove my point, the nice Norseman broke our table, banged my forehead against said table in the process, and started breaking things. As some sort of sick consolation, I think I saw Lance on the Norseman's back, trying to chokehold him. However, the consolation wasn't much, because I then promptly passed out.

To the sweet sound of the Backstreet Boys serenading me, at that.

Jesus, I hate the world.





I awoke face-to-face with a small Buddha. And no, that's not a euphemism.

"Hello," the little porcelain Buddha said to me, smiling in a creepy fashion. I was reminded of Xavier.

"Nngh?" I said coherently.

The Buddha had a shirt painted on that read "Eat at Jo (Ling)'s." I stared at it.

"Jo's?" I mumbled, confused. Vaguely, I wondered if the Buddha had gotten slaphappy and knocked me around a bit or something. My head was killing me.

"Jubes got at a novelty shop," Lance's disembodied voice told me as the tiny Buddha started doing the Snoopy dance across my chest. I watched it blearily.

"Oh." Don't care.

"It wuvs you," Lance cackled. The Buddha promptly mooned me.

"Babytalk doesn't suit you," I slurred. I tried to sit up, but winced and lay back down, moaning.

"Advil?" The Buddha offered me a small paper cup with two pills inside.

"Supposed to take only one," I recalled as I downed them both and swallowed them dry with a grimace.

"Fuckin' prude," Lance said almost fondly. "I bet you read every nutrition facts label on every fuckin' box, yeah?"

"Just about," I sighed and reached up to rub at my temples.

Lance's head hovered over me, and I quirked an eyebrow with effort. He had a small cut on his forehead and was grinning with some difficulty.

"Bruises?" I asked.

"Eh, flesh wounds," he said.

"I'm surprised you're not bleeding more," I said.

"This cut was bleeding lots," he said, gesturing toward his forehead.

"No stitches, though," I observed.

"I used some of that fuckin' liquid shit," he said.

"You're talking about the bandage liquid shit, right?" I asked, joking weakly.

"I'd better be," he said, smirking.

I groaned and closed my eyes. "Jesus. I'm never going anywhere with you ever again."

"I'm a fuckin' menace to society," he said cheerfully.

"At least you're not in denial over it," I said.

"Denial nothin'," he said.

I batted at the Buddha, who was grinding against my chest now, and he snickered.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Seven or so," he said.

"In the morning," I said, just to be sure.

"In the morning," he confirmed, "on the thirtieth of June in the year twenty-one twenty-one."

"Shut up," I said.

"I can't believe you fuckin' passed out, Summers," he said, sitting down on the edge of my bed. Rather enthusiastically sitting down--which meant that there was a lot of seasickness-inducing motions. I furrowed my brow and concentrated on not breathing.

"What happened, anyways?" I asked once I was sure that I wasn't going to vomit up an important part of my digestive tract.

"You passed out like a girlscout," he informed me very helpfully, "and then we had a massive orgy behind the bar with your unconscious body."

"Ha-ha," I said, not amused.

Lance leaned against the headboard of the bed, now sitting next to me, and made the Buddha do a jig on my forehead. "We scuffed around a bit and the fuckin' bartender threw us out."

"How big was the bartender?" I asked groggily. I had a mental image of an even larger Norseman and snorted. What was this, flight of the Vikings?--...wait. That didn't sound right.

Jesus, I just don't work well under stress and pain.

"I don't know," Lance said wonderingly. "He wasn't fuckin' huge or anything, but I think he was popping steroids or some shit."

"Wonderful," I mumbled, a little resentful for feeling like crap. "I can just see that our society has degenerated to the point where the macho jerk-offs beat up on other macho jerk-offs so that the larger, capitalist, macho jerk-offs have to come in and promptly fence off territory using liberal doses of unnecessarily libertine force."

Lance stared at me.

"Fuck," he said. "Did you practice that?"

"You know," I grinned, "my friend Jean said the same thing."

"Huh," he said. "So did you?"

"Yes," I said.

He laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," I said. "I really am."

"You're really somethin', Summers," he said, shaking his head.

"All the world's a stage," I quoted.

"You're not allowed to medicate yourself anymore," he said, grinning at me.

I scowled. "It's not the medication, asshole."

"And now you're becoming surly," Lance said.

"Am not," I said.

"Are, too," he said.

I tried to kick him, but I missed. The Buddha cackled at me and pretended to do a cheer. I glowered at it.

"I'm confiscating that from you," I said.

"No," Lance said, sounding a lot more horrified than he reasonably should. "Jubes gave him to me."

"Have you slept yet?" I asked curiously.

"No," he said, looking slightly dumbfounded. "I watched TV, though."

I sat up just enough to see the TV screen at the foot of the bed. It was a rerun of Letterman, thank God, and not porn.

"Your room?" I guessed. I lay back down.

"Hmm," he said, and I took it to be an affirmative.

He had his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the knees, and the Buddha was now perched rather benignly on them. I stared at it and willed it to fall. It didn't.

However, it did seem to be praying or something, so I figured I'd leave it alone. As long as Lance didn't make it do strange sexual-harassment-type things to my chest anymore.

"That thing is spooky," I said.

"Hmm-mm-mm," Lance said. I glanced up at him. He looked rather sleepy.

It was kind of cute.

I wondered if Lance liked to hold hands or if he scoffed at things like that and went to ride his motorcycle and eat beef jerky instead. I'd seen a documentary about how they made beef jerky, and so drowsily resolved to never kiss Lance ever again if he ate beef jerky. Just to make sure, I asked him,

"Do you eat beef jerky?"

"Hmm?" he said.

"Beef jerky. Do you eat it?" I insisted.

"Uh," he said in a rather spacey voice. "You're not a fuckin'...what's it...vegetarian, are you?"

He looked like he was about to fall asleep.

"No," I said. "I was just wondering."

There was a brief pause where I wondered whether or not he had indeed passed out on me, then he answered sleepily,

"Nah, I don't eat that shit."

Reassured that I could kiss him and not immediately feel the need to brush my teeth afterwards, I snuggled down into the pillow and attempted to ignore my headache.

"Jesus," I mumbled. I was disturbingly awake even with the uncomfortable throbbing in the back of my head. "I think I'm concussed."

"Don't fall asleep," Lance warned slowly, even as he was obviously doing so. "Or...y'know--do it if you wanna."

I stared at the ceiling and tried not to say something along the lines of, 'Well, that's good advice.' After I felt myself beginning to doze off a little, I said comfortably,

"Hey, Lance."

A pause. I heard applause from the television and a quieter murmur as the interview began.

"What?" Lance mumbled.

"Don't you have an autographing session at nine?"

I felt him slump a little so that his head was resting on my shoulder.

"Sure," he slurred, his voice in my ear.

"Huh," I said.

He didn't reply, and I closed my eyes. Letterman said something clever and the studio audience giggled. What they were talking about, who knows.

I fell asleep wondering if Tabitha knew who they were interviewing and dreamt that she came to bang on the door.

"Hi, Ms. Smith," I said in my dream.

"Summers, stop fucking Lance and tell him to get down here," she yelled through the door.

She seemed awfully pissed for a figment of my imagination.

"Hmm," I said, amusing myself as I noticed that I was mimicking Lance. "That's quite alright.

Jesus--I really am funny when I'm half-asleep.

Or something.








~tbc~