Nothing like posting the next chap of my Halloween fic on Thanksgiving Day ...oh well. Happy Turkey Day to all:-)
It seemed strangely out of character to be following Jack's leading this time around, but they didn't have a choice. He hurried them to the basement of all places, to a dark corner where nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"Oh my God, the day has come," Will whispered in sheer horror.
"Congratulations for catching up, Mr. Truman, would you allow me to present you with this all day pass out of oblivion?" Grace responded sardonically.
"Oh my, I could never allow that, Miss Oblivion-Is-My-Middle-Name Adler," Will retorted graciously. "You need all of the out of oblivion passes you can wrap your pretty little fingers around."
"Will, just because I have brought you to a low space with dark corners after you came to the incredibly fallacious conclusion that I was feeling you up in the kitchen last week doesn't mean anything," Jack said vehemently.
"Funny…that's not what you would be saying to tennis coaches and suflaki vendors," Grace mused.
"Well, that's what it felt like," Will grumbled, "and when I tried to make a humorous--"
"Which, by the way, is so not your color," Jack cut in.
"--well chosen comment about it, I got one of those you-know-what-are-you-crazy-I-wouldn't-nail-you-let-alone-feel-you-even-if-it-was-my-last-day-on-earth things, although according to Jack, he might have considered it depending on how hard he was at the time, not necessarily something that needed to leave Jack's thought process and come out of his mouth--"
"So did you bring us here to watch you get one last lay or what?" Grace broke in bluntly.
"No, Grace, I brought you here to get your first," Jack said. "Everything else before this was merely icing before it ever got put on the cake."
"Oh no, he didn't, Will--"
"No need to get all bent out of shape, Medusa," Will said calmly, catching her before she went for Jack, "as it is in a scorpion's nature to sting, it's in Jack's nature to come up with barbs that make you question your existence."
"And here I hold the key to continuing our existence, not that I understand why either of you would want to do so, but the world is a strange place," Jack said smoothly.
"The key to continuing our existence is a wall in Karen Walker's basement?" Will asked, eyebrows arched sardonically.
"Ah, not just a wall, Will, the wall," Jack responded. "Observe." He reached for a flashlight on the concrete ledge and shone it on the section of brick wall he wanted, tapping a random number of times in random spots. Just as Will was about to protest, Jack pressed his full body weight against the section, which promptly separated inward from the rest of the wall.
"What is this?" Grace breathed as she and Will watched in disbelief.
Jack crawled through, gesturing for the others to follow, and in the next moment they found themselves in a life-sized liquor cabinet. Every alcoholic beverage imaginable was lined up from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
"How is it that you know about this place and the rest of us don't?" Will asked with a frown.
"'Cause…I had to do something naughty to get in, and…" Jack giggled. "You didn't."
"But how is this going to help us now?" Grace wanted to know with a frown identical to Will's.
"Easy." Jack shrugged. "We just need to think about this. First, what is the one thing Karen wants most right now?"
"To…use our heads as a totem pole for the front hall?" Grace guessed feebly.
"Oh my God, are you kidding?" Jack gaped at her. "Don't flatter yourself. Anyway. I'm going to pretend that was a real answer, and respond like this--if that's what she wants most now, we need something she wants even more, right?"
"So we need something she wants…moster?" Will said.
"That was so funny that you even made your thighs jiggle, Will! No, wait a minute…they do that on their own. Anyway. Behold." He swept a slow, careful hand around the room.
"We behold," Will said impatiently. "Karen's playroom. Okay."
"Yes, the playroom she keeps countless men on retainer for keeping stocked for her--"
"You keep countless men on retainer too, but that's never going to save our lives," Grace said. "No, wait." She thought for a second. "Yeah, what I just said, but without the retainer part."
"Okay, instead of taking it out on me because your life didn't work out, Grace, like how about just letting me get to my point?" Jack snapped.
"So get to it," Grace snapped back.
"Well, I thought that you might be able to figure it out for yourselves, but because you have bad hair and Will's just plain fat, I guess I was expecting too much. So listen. And look around. Karen wants us dead, and according to Mr. Smooth in the shadows, the only way to get Karen to chill out is to stay out of her way long enough to let the drug wear off, or get extensive amounts of water into her. In order to do either of those things, we have to get her mind off of us. We can kill two birds with one stone here."
"I still don't…" Will began.
"Plus…watch this." Jack found another corner and pulled a few of the bricks out, brandishing what he had found inside.
"More liquor. So what?" Grace said. "That's not exactly a surprise. God forbid she stores up water or energy bars like normal people prepared for emergencies."
"Or wine and chocolate bars, if you're Grace in an emergency," Will remarked, ignoring the dirty look Grace shot him.
"This isn't liquor," Jack pointed out. "It's plain and simple H20, with a distinct flavoring of gin, vodka…you name it, there's a flavoring for it."
"What's the point of that?" Will asked.
"It's not for her. It's for anyone who knows the concept of sharing better than Karen and expects her to do it. Stan, Olivia and Mason, Rosario on a good day…" Jack shrugged.
"How did you know this was here?"
"I'm Jack," Jack said proudly. "Jack knows all."
"Jack sticks his nose, and well, just about every other part of his body, where it doesn't belong."
"That too. So put this--" He held up the bottles of flavor tinted, yet non alcoholic beverages to them. "And the whole distraction method together."
Will and Grace glanced each other. "I--" Will began, then his eyes got wide. "Oh…OH!"