AN: Sorry this took so long. And I feel like a failure; this isn't funny at all compared to the other two. Anyway, to the important stuff: I now have an account on and even though none of you really like original stuff, probably, I would appreciate it if you read my story about Gwen. But that's asking a bit too much from a failed author. I would also like opinions on a Mediator fanfic: I'm writing one, and it's very pro-Paul, b/c I'm ignoring Twilight and etc. Paul is in rehab at a small school, and its about this girl who's his mentor and bla bla. Yes, it'll probably be a romance, eventually, if I ever start. So, good typical plot? Eh? Now please read… la dee dah… there's another note at the end.

Will and Alex were sitting calmly at the local Subway. It was a nice Subway, the blue-and-green-and-yellow painted sign on the front depicting "Ye Olde Subwaye." Alex had originally recommended it, and everyone there seemed to know him.

Will didn't want to know why. He wasn't going to speak. This was creepy.

"Uh… dudes, we'll need, like, crumpets, some lemonade, rum… oh, and some tea." He whispered loudly to the waiter. "And make the tea alcoholic." He nodded at Will. "He needs it."

This was going too far. In fact, forget that – all of this was going too far. "I do not want alcoholic tea."

"Sir, this is a bar. Your tea has to be alcoholic, or we'll have to throw you out."

"This is a Subway. And what about his lemonade?"

"Alcoholic."

"You're kidding."

"Would you like a margarita, sir?"

"Goodbye." Will made a move to leave, but Alex held him to the seat. The hired help to the restaurant gathered round, milling, as if waiting for Alex's word. Dismissing them, he leaned in to Will.

"Trust me. Trust everyone who works here. Swear to me. Now." Will, needless to say, was confused. Alex's odd drawl, his mannerisms, all of it had fallen away to reveal a serious side of him… but why the masquerade in the first place?

Will concluded that he didn't have the whole story.

In fact, he concluded, he knew very little. Very very little. He squinted his eyes at Alex, and thought hard. Finally, he came to a conclusion, as most are wont to do when they are concluding.

"You don't sell chicken, do you?"

"No, I don't," Alex honestly replied. "Instead, I - "

"It doesn't matter what you do instead, so long as you don't work for Verizon. I hate Verizon. But what would you have done if I had accepted that job offer? You don't know I didn't want it, and was just scared to take it from a raving lunatic who made weird alien signs at me that supposedly mean peace."

"It's not an alien sign, and you didn't, so what does it matter?"

"What would you have done if I'd taken the job?"

"You weren't going to."

"How do you know?"

"Alright, alright…I would have…danced nude around a purple fire?" Alex sat there as Will grumbled.

"Shut up," Will muttered. "Seriously, though?"

"Well, I - "

"Alex, I want that job. I want to sell chicken at the market place. Now. So, where's your stall?"

"God, isn't he an idiot?" Alex glanced at one of the men milling around him despairingly. The nodded the affirmative. "He wants to sell chicken." The small congregation laughed appreciatively, but not genuinely. "Well, men, shall we humor him? Did he not ask for chicken?"

There was a short scramble to obey Alex, and soon they were all gone. Will moaned into his hands. "Why me? What have I ever done?"

Alex's reply was simple and to the point: "It's your own fault you asked for chicken. I wasn't going to give it to you, but you asked." Alex brought a bottle of Deer Park water out of his pocket and chugged half the bottle. Will watched in horrified fascination.

Will would have stared longer, to get his point across, but an appalling screeching sound filled the shop. Apparently, this was normal; no one else even looked up from his or her newspapers. Glancing around to determine the cause of the noise, Will noticed that the "Ye Olde Subwaye" sign was hanging in the window, where it had previously been on the roof. The yellow and green fluorescent letters began to dim and flutter, all of this merely adding to the trauma of Will.

"It fell," he said.

"Fine… Hey, Norma, would you mind fixing the sign? Fido here is OCD, and it's causing him undue trauma, eh Fido?" Alex yawned unceremoniously.

"I never told anyone to fix it." Will sat, staring into space. You could only tell that he'd said anything by the vibrations from the words that lay ringing in the air.

"Then what were you suggesting?" Alex asked, watching Norma's progress up the glass wall of the restaurant. Taking a wad of incandescent pink chewing gum from her mouth, she jammed it onto the roof, pulling the sign up into the gum, imprinting the fork in the Y on the pink gob. Then, she began to blow on it, as if that would help it to dry any faster.

"I was suggesting nothing. I was just stating a fact."

Alex sighed and rubbed his temples. It was at that moment that a waitress (Norma, looking rather windblown) came by with their food.

"Your lemonade sir. Out here on business, I suppose?" Without waiting for a reply, she plowed on, "that last job – we'd've preferred you do it somewhere else, but we are your secret service guards and all, so even if none of us could get out any of those bloody red stains for weeks, we know you mean for the best." Will stood in shock; his jaw dropped. All Norma had to say about it was, "what's his problem?" then carefully placed the rest of their order on the table and continued on her merry way.

Will would have continued staring (despite how rude it was) – Alex on business? Bloody red stains? Worst of all – your lemonade? It could have been too much.

It was too much.

But the order caught his attention instead. Which was not necessarily a good thing.

At first glance, the table seemed almost normal – three drinks sitting on an old-fashioned floral patterned tablecloth – lemonade, tea, and rum. They looked almost quaint, but Will knew that behind their innocent facades lurked the beast that was alcoholism. Will shuddered. Alcoholism… the evils… There, however, sitting silently, almost a beacon through the grimy pane of alcoholism, was the chicken Will had inadvertently ordered.

It looked delicious, tasteful… the only thing in that category from Subway so far. Its skin glistened with grease, littered with sprigs of herbs such as rosemary and crushed basil.

Across from the chicken was Alex's order. Needless to say, Will found it repulsive. The platter, admittedly, was very nice – it depicted a leafy border around a picture of "The Thinker." What it held was another matter.

A raw un-skinned flounder rested upon the plate, its tail lifted in what Will saw as a last form of defense before it was brutally killed by who knows what, its eyes looking into those of Alex, cold and black, covered in their layer of clearish slime.

"Norma, tell Johannes this is his best yet," Alex stated.

"Do you have a raw fish fetish, or something?"

"No, I just love them. Johannes makes the only good fish, though. Everyone else overcooks them. C'est parfait… C'est beau…" Alex began to swoon before his platter, his voice getting higher and higher.

"You need help."

"You need a life, dude. Stop being so… political? If you like flounder, eat flounder. If you like marshmallows, eat them. If you like silkworms, eat them. You're the one who needs help."

"I need to learn Latin." Will stared into space, preferring the Great Beyond to Alex's mass consumption of the raw fish, forkful by forkful. A yellowish translucent ooze came from the fish, Will could tell, even if he was avoiding looking into its lifeless eyes, or those of Alex.

To avoid having to look further upon Alex's palate, Will dug a fork and a knife into the chicken, its beautiful brown skin crinkling under even the slightest of touches from the metal. He cut several misshapen asymmetrical chunks, then set one in his mouth, anticipating the rich taste and spices.

He spat it back out immediately.

Instead of the rich tastes and spices, aromas of pepper and rosemary, a nasty alcoholic flavor filled his mouth. Will spluttered and took a deep gulp of air.

Alex sat stolidly, yet smugly.

"Told you everything is alcoholic."

See what I mean? Horrid. Nothing like the first two chapters. However gets salesperson attitude you might like my story "Files of a Slytherin Reject" if you like this. I apologize for the long delay, too. You'd think I'd have something to show for it.