UPDATE: I edited a few parts to make them flow better, and added a few missing page breaks.

(Did you read PART 1?)

Party At Adrian's PART 2

"Christ it's hot up in this place! And what insane person decided it was a good idea to arm Roosevelt Hathaway? That woman's a maniac!"

Rose was in full grindhouse vixen mode, with a paint marker in one hand and a pellet pistol in the other. She was convinced that her dress and beret accessorized with a pair of guns made her look positively dyno-o-mite. She wasn't wrong, but she probably would have looked even cooler if she'd managed to hit anything with either of the guns aside from an actual brick wall. Even hitting the wall hadn't always been a foregone conclusion, as a few of her yellow paint splatters could be seen on the kitchen appliances and on the wooden beams of the ceiling owing to her loose trigger finger.

She really was a loose cannon, and her accuracy score for the night was a big fat goose egg.

Shoddy marksmanship wasn't enough to bring a woman down, though. She was in the middle of celebratorily blowing imaginary smoke from her paint barrel when she heard Eddie's voice booming from the hallway entrance. Her kneejerk reaction was to swing around and greet her friend with a sexually explicit sarcastic remark, and she did this while still holding a gun in each hand.

Everyone in her path, with the exception of Hans, ducked or jumped out of her sightline. Hans was sober as a judge, and knew she was out of ammo. Still, Rose was currently made of champagne and cocaine and she couldn't shoot for shit, so he didn't fault the civilians for their instincts of self preservation. Those pellets could take an eye out, and an eyepatch was a hard look to pull off.

"Rose! Careful with the peashooter, man!"

She wasn't sure who said it, so her next comment was addressed to everyone, possibly barring Dimitri.

"Simmer down, fellas. I'm not gonna shoot anybody! I have a strict policy of not shooting people!" Now she was waving them about like a drunken posse member at the O.K. Corral. "Well…I might take a shot at Mickey… or Christian… or Adrian if he made me angry enough… On second thought, Hans, maybe you should take these away from me. I think I'm secretly up to no good."

Hans didn't move from his new post, or at all. He in no way acknowledged that his name had just been spoken. He just kept on crocheting.

In the end, Rose handed her weapons over to Dimitri before she had the opportunity to maim or paint anyone. She thrust the guns unceremoniously into his hands, slapped his butt, and said, "Don't spend 'em all in one place, Hot Buns." Then she skipped off to go play with her friend.

"Eddie! What are you doing up here, you big beautiful muffin?" They met halfway, which just so happened to be near the kitchen island. "Shouldn't you still be Singapore-ing some Slings or Collins-ing some Toms for all the bowling alley riff raff? Maybe convincing another rich widow to leave you all her worldly possessions in exchange for a little pickle tickle?"

"How many sheets to the wind are you right now, Hathaway? I can't tell if you're trying to be funny or not."

"I'm succeeding at being funny, Eduardo. You are failing at laughter."

That got him laughing.

"I suppose either way I've got some catching up to do." They scootched up to the designated booze and drugs spot. "Shane came back from his break so stoned that he passed out standing up behind the bar. Stan brought me onto the main floor to cover for him, but I barely made another drink before I was summoned up here by the powers that be. I took a second or two to check on Jill, but here I am - meat in the room. Still not entirely sure why, though."

"Because it's not a party without the sultry moves and boyish good looks of Eddie Castile. Remind me to have a chat with our fearless leader on your behalf. If you're up here to schmooze and party, then he needs to make it worth your while financially. You'd be raking it in downstairs right now, and rent ain't cheap."

"You my pimp now, Rose?"

"Don't be crass. I run a successful cock loan brokerage, and you should count yourself fortunate that I think you have the potential to be a real asset to the company. I need team players with top notch ding-a-lings. Nathan Ivashkov's need not apply. Speaking of which, check the number we just did on that painting!"

Eddie checked the wall he typically avoided looking at whenever visiting his boss's apartment. That tiny penis somehow had a ubiquitous gaze even though it lacked eyes, and he always felt as though it was staring at him through its urethra, tracking his movements as the evening progressed.

But now the penis was gone, and in its place were splatters of yellow, blue, and green.

"Truly the work of a master entering a new period in her artistic career, a triumph." He gave her a round of fancy applause. "As for the job offer, have your people call my people. We'll do lunch. But you should know, Edison 'Eduardo' Castile doesn't get out of bed, or into one, for less than $500."

"Base rate's $1000. In the meantime… you maybe wanna do some more drugs on the company dime?" She gestured to the cocaine horn of plenty already so near their faces. "Adrian's company, not mine. Rose inc. isn't solvent yet, and he is no doubt business expensing all of this."

"Capital idea!" Eddie ashed an invisible cigar.

"Yes, ever so." She threw her pinky up in the air before using it to scoop up some more white powder. "We are so fucking classy, Castile."

No one knew quite how it happened. One minute everything was fine. It was better than fine. They were shooting guns all over Adrian's apartment, drinking expensive wine straight from the bottle or out of Adrian's unapologetically biblical chalice, and passing around gilded edge mirrors covered in drugs.

Then suddenly everything wasn't fine.

"You people are all living with your heads buried in the sand! You gotta open your eyes, and really see what's going on in the world around you. Pull back the curtain, man!"

Someone must have said something to set him off. He couldn't have worked himself up into such a lather all on his own.

Or could he?

"The government packages up a glossy message for you, and you take it at face value because you don't know there are other ways to take it! Questions must be asked! Important, PAR-A-MOUNT questions."

Mickey's money was on Rose. She must have said something. All those damn Prime Directive jokes she was tossing around earlier. Star Trek took place in space. She probably flicked over the first domino, and now they were all in a world of fucking hurt.

"I'm not crazy. I'm not! Listen, okay. Just-just-just listen, okay?"

Rose blamed Mickey. He never did know when to shut up, and he was always cramming his big old foot into his even bigger mouth. He was patient zero for hoof-and-mouth disease.

Typhoid Mickey. This is all his fault.

"There are no stars visible in any of the footage or photographs of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Not ONE!"

Christian Ozera had one of Adrian's short easels set up on the coffee table with a large drawing pad. Brandishing a thick permanent marker, he leveraged his position of power as the resident supplier of drugs to get everyone's butts onto the fancy couch and plastic chairs in front of him, and for the last quarter of an hour they'd been his captive audience - captive in the sense that he was holding them captive, as nothing he was saying was a point of interest for any of the people in the room besides him.

Ozera was convinced the moon landing was a hoax, and it seemed to be his mission in life to disabuse everyone he encountered of their "naive Buck Rogers fantasies". He was simultaneously boring the shit out of them and creeping them out, but no one felt like they could get up or even look away.

He was also unbelievably high on his own supply.

Eddie was hungry. He was so damn hungry. He'd barely eaten all day, and if he was going to keep drinking and snorting things he needed to eat now. Soon he'd be post-food, a true creature of celebration.

There were still McDonald's burgers in the kitchen. Burgers he could eat. Burgers with cheese on them. He could see them from his spot on the couch, and with every passing minute they grew less delicious. He wanted to eat those room temperature burgers so fucking badly before they turned into ice cold burgers, rock hard meat pucks of regret.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Christian had already covered the health threat posed by the levels of radiation in cosmic rays. He made sure to touch on the dangers of solar flares and unpredictable nature of solar winds, although they would, "probably have to circle back to those later on." He also gave an agonizingly detailed definition of coronal mass ejections - which were large expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun's corona, and it took about two hundred more words for him to finish saying that.

Adrian interrupted to make a joke about plasma explosions.

"A galaxy full of stars, and not a single one of them visible while old Neil and Buzz were up there bouncing around and planting flags." He wiped some white powder off his nose with the back of his wrist, and snorted down some chemical drip before steamrolling on ahead into the next neighborhood of Crazytown.

"And while we're on the subject of flags, there's NO WIND on the Moon! NONE! That American flag the astronauts stuck on the Moon's surface was fluttering all over the fucking place. Question: How is that possible with no wind? Answer: IT'S NOT!"

Dimitri was actually a little intrigued. Not by the hogwash coming out of the drug dealing dentist's really intense cottonmouth, but by his frantic scribbling on the large notepad. He'd never seen so many arrows, exclamation points, or hairy black moles - which were supposed to be stars - on a single sheet of paper before. He scrawled "Chuck Yeager" across an entire page, and then drew a circle around it and a line across it. As if the man himself was also somehow a hoax - Chuck Yeager the man, not his record-breaking of the sound barrier. Maybe he was a big fan of the sound barrier? Christian also didn't really seem to know what an American flag looked like in terms of how many stars vs. how many stripes, but he could spell Sputnik and Laika without stopping to sound them out first.

Probably not the best topic of conversation for a party? A dog launched into orbit by the Soviet Space Program with one bowl of food and only enough oxygen to last a week.

"There were footprints in the Moondust in nearly every photograph of the astronauts walking out there, and they are almost perfectly preserved. How is that possible with no moisture in the atmosphere? Huh? How? Answer: IT'S NOT!"

Filip Magnusson was having a particularly difficult time with being wedged between his two brothers on the couch for so long. On top of countless lines of cocaine, he'd eaten six buttons of dried peyote in Adrian's guest bathroom earlier that night when he got up from their business meeting to take a piss. Right now he was only a few minutes away from the puking his guts up phase of his own intergalactic journey. He was sweating profusely and trembling. Cocaine, red wine, McDonald's, and peyote were all conspiring together within his gut to make him die.

Christian was pacing and near-shouting. He kept tapping at the drawing pad harder and harder for effect, and the back leg of the easel was close to falling off the table. "Footprints, flags, invisible stars, all of this shit - it honestly doesn't even really fucking matter. We don't need to analyze these details and nitpick all the details, because those men would have fucking melted from radiation before they even set foot on the Moon. It. Was. A. Scam." Each word got its own tap until he finally did it a little too hard and the pen dislodged from his hand and went flying. It clacked to the ground, and rolled away.

The room was silent except for the music blaring from Adrian's speakers. By some strange accident, Spaceman by Harry Nilsson was playing - a cosmic joke.

Rose, Eddie, Dimitri, Adrian, Mickey, and the three Magnusson twins were all wearing matching expressions of fatigue sprinkled over shell shocked disbelief, with their eyes wide and and their chins down.

Christian opened his mouth to speak again. "It's -"

Adrian cut him off.

"By a show of hands, who thinks Christian should stop talking?"

He was all for talking about the occult or aliens, but this was not his preferred brand of crazy. It was too negative and boring. And he didn't want Eddie to start gnawing on his new sofa.

Nine hands thrust high in the air for a unanimous decision. Even Hans, who was standing guard over by the freight elevator hallway entrance, had his raised. He suffered fools eight days a week for a living, but the good doctor's pontificating caused him to drop two stitches on the sweater he was crocheting for his landlady's newborn granddaughter.

And badmouthing Chuck Yeager? Hans didn't play that.

Christian was indignant. He hadn't even gotten to all his new material about MK-Ultra, yet. The moon landing hoax was old hat next to the likes of Project ARTICHOKE.

"Oh. I see. I'm at a party full of sheeple. No inquisitive minds in here, huh? Just a bunch of robots programmed to worship their patriotic, bible-touting, capitalist overlords. And I bet all of you really believe it was Lee Harvey Oswald up in the book depository who blew out Kennedy's brains all on his own, too. Huh? Huh!?"

Again, it was Adrian who acted as mouthpiece for the group. This was his party, after all. It was his punchbowl, and it was his responsibility to fish out the turd that was currently floating around in it.

Right now, Christian Ozera was that turd.

"Actually, Christian, I happen to know for a fact that Oswald didn't assassinate JFK." He lit a cigarette and re-crossed his legs in a more conversational manner. He wanted to go full Dick Cavett for this one. "You see, it was my own dear mother, Daniella Ivashkov, who was out on that grassy knoll in Dallas back in 1963. The unmistakable telltale shadow of the dirty blonde bouffant she used to wear is visible in so many of the photographs released to the public. It's a lot more visible in the pictures that remain under lock and key. But they got the story all wrong, you see, she wasn't aiming for Jack at all. Daniella had beef with Jacqueline Bouvier ever since their days together at Vasser, and that job was meant to be her final revenge. She was there to take out the woman who stole her man! It was the one and only time she ever missed, and she accidentally killed the only man she ever loved." He stroked the wonderfully breathable fabric of his party pants absentmindedly for a second or two before continuing. "She never usually misses. She never usually makes mistakes. But she always covers her tracks. I have no doubt in my mind that she also shot Oswald, and then turned around and caused the pulmonary embolism that took out Jack Ruby. In Havana she's known only as La Fantasma de Las Perlas - The Ghost in Pearls."

For the first time in a long time Christian Ozera was speechless.

He knew Adrian was joking, of course, but… maybe he wasn't? Even if he could have come up with something good to say, a couple things would have prevented him from saying it. Eddie springing to his feet and shouting, "I just can't take it anymore," before running in the direction of the kitchen was one of those things. Filip Magnusson suddenly doubling over and barfing all over the floor at their feet was the other.

"Show of hands, who thinks Christian should be the one to clean that up?"

"Wow. They are strangely very good at that, aren't they?"

"Rose and Eddie? Yeah. They can both really cut a rug. Especially Eddie."

A punk rock song with a strong 50's swing to it came blasting out of the speakers, and Eddie immediately dragged Rose to her feet, demanding she partner him through some downright acrobatic sock hop steps. At the moment, they were all laughter and teenage exuberance as he attempted to teach her how to Latin Hustle to a German funk song with hilarious results. Despite being a novice in this scenario, Rose moved with satin smooth confidence, and she clearly had a good natural sense of rhythm. She was a terrible shot but she was a great dancer.

Eddie was Bob Fosse, Chuck Berry, and Baryshnikov all rolled into one - with a tighter tush.

They looked strong and foxy together.

"Oh yeah, they're great. But I was talking about those two over there."

Mickey directed Dimitri's attention over to where Nils and Gustav Magnusson were doing a really good Hully Gully. It might have been a triplet thing, or a twin thing, but they moved in perfect unison. They were so high, but so precise. It was mesmerizing. Not often did one see a pair of 6'9" blonde identical dancin' fools.

Filip was slumped against the kitchen island, poking invisible dots in the air and connecting them with a trace of his index finger.

He was a fool, too, just not a dancing one.

Tatiana Ivashkov was restless.

Her room was getting too humid. It was muggy in there.

The remnants of her supper was now indelibly withered on a platter by her radio. She'd been saving it for later. Now she didn't want it.

He had company tonight. Again. They were loud. They were all very loud tonight.

Tonight.

The shades were drawn on her windows, but she could feel it was still nighttime outside.

She wasn't a bit tired.

She was craving something sweet. Her mouth tingled for it.

She wanted to find herself a man.

The dark haired female left the door cracked when she barged in earlier.

She could smell men through the tiny opening in the door.

She could hear men through the walls.

It was summertime, and she'd been a good girl all winter.

Tatiana made up her mind to go out on the prowl.

Mickey needed a break from listening to Rose and Christian argue on the couch about absolutely nothing. They seemed to just be arguing because they were good at it.

He took the opportunity for a brief stock take in the large mirror hanging on the wall behind Adrian's bed. As he smoothed his hair and adjusted his collar he tried really hard not to analyze the size, height, and placement of the reflective glass. It was just as much a feature of the bed as the heavy brass frame, and the amount of fluids that had likely been squeegeed from it in its brief existence was… it was a unit of measurement he didn't want to contemplate.

There was a spot on his shirt. At first he thought it was just a bit of fluff, but it wasn't brushing off no matter how hard he tried.

What is that? It looks like blood.

Great! Just great.

Now he was going to have to do some more cocaine. It was the only thing that would fix a spot on his shirt. More booze and more drugs. He was beginning to believe that there wasn't a single problem in the world that couldn't be fixed by cocaine. Someone could probably cocaine their way out of a crippling cocaine addiction. Just pour a little cocaine on it, and watch it all disappear.

That's called an overdose, Mickey. You are a piece of work.

He'd really done a lot of drugs tonight. His pupils were blown and his blood thrummed fast just below the sweaty surface of his skin. His muscles were spasming a bit, too. Just small buzzing and crackles here and there, nothing major. Right now his left calf was really -

"HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS THAT!?"

Starring back up at him from down around the level of his right knee was a tan colored, leathery, beaked monster.

His brain wasn't helping him! He had no idea in hell what he was looking at, and all he could muster was the notion to escape and to shout the house down while he did it.

He half circled Adrian's massive bed, jumped up on it, and then latched onto one of the posts for balance. He used his free arm to point. Pointing felt really necessary all of the sudden!

No wonder Rose points so much. It feels so fucking proactive! POINT! POINT!

Coincidentally, Rose was the first person to arrive on the scene.

"MICKEY, WHAT THE HELL is…wrong…with - OHHHHHHHhhhhh…okay. I get it now. I see what happened here."

She'd been holding off on introducing Mickey to Tatiana until later as a sort of practical joke in the making. She made sure to only discuss Tatiana with Mickey in vague terms, and kept her verbiage purposefully ambiguous until the right moment. Tatiana appeared to have other ideas, though, and honestly this was better! She had never heard the guy actually squeal before.

Mickey watched as Rose went from high alert with her hackles up to being totally relaxed so fast it nearly whiplashed him off the bed.

Didn't she see the prehistoric beast on the floor?

Clearly she fucking well HADN'T!

Or…maybe she had, because she promptly bent over to address the hulking creature directly. "Tatiana, you naughty old girl. Did you get out of your room again? You gave Mickey quite the fright, you know."

"Tatiana?!"

Adrian and Dimitri must have been hot Rose's heels, because only a few seconds lapsed between her appearance and theirs'. They both skidded to a cartoonish halt upon reaching the small patch of floorspace reflected in Adrian's fuck-mirror.

There was a shared moment of silent confusion where only Rose's uncharacteristically maternal, or perhaps daughterly, fawning over Tatiana could be heard. Then Dimitri and Adrian collapsed into one another laughing uncontrollably.

Clearly they'd also forgotten to make one rather key introduction during the designated introduction portion of the evening. Theirs was not a purposeful omission, however - pranks were Rose's department.

Everyone but Mickey found this bit of farce to be the height of hilarity, and he knew no amount of telling them to shut up was going to stop their fit from running its course. It reached a crescendo with a bit of foot stomping and Russian swears from both Adrian and Dimitri. It landed after a decrescendo with Adrian flopping to the ground on his knees next to Tatiana and Dimitri's usual maneuver of stifling his laughter into Rose's hair - she finally managed to stand back up after relapsing into a second uncontrollable fit of giggles.

Mickey waited an extra few seconds to make sure they were done.

"Will someone, anyone, please tell me what that thing is?!"

Adrian took a break from privately joking with Tatiana just long enough to answer the wrong question. "This is Tatiana. I like to think of her as my Auntie. Careful, she bites." He stroked Tatiana's bald dome with one hand, and ran the fingers of his other hand through his hair at the same time. They were both calmed by cranial stimulation.

"I already know her name. What is she?"

"She's a horned Sulcata Tortoise from Africa." Adrian spoke so matter of factly, as if having a giant tortoise in one's home was simply THE thing amongst high society.

"Why?"

"Why is she a tortoise? That's a deep question."

"Why do you have the biggest tortoise in the world living in your city apartment!?"

"Galápagos Tortoises are larger than Sulcata Tortoises, so she's not the biggest in the world." Adrian leaned forward and placed his hands over the skin flap covered area where Tatiana's ears were hidden. "She's quite a large gal, though. The vet said she's a little over 127 lbs. She's sensitive about it, so use your manners, please. Honestly, and you raised in a house of women."

Eddie popped up out of nowhere, all smiles and "big man on campus" charm. It was hard to tell if he'd somehow missed the hullabaloo, or if he was actively choosing to ignore it in an effort to maintain the party vibrations.

"Hiya, Tati! Lookin' good tonight girl." He crossed his arms over his chest, and placed an elbow weightlessly on Rose's free shoulder. It might have been Mickey's imagination, but Tatiana appeared to smile at Eddie's comment.

And suddenly Christian was there too.

"She looks a lot better than she did the last time I saw her. It's like night and day! Did you take her to see Dr. Rasmussen like I suggested?"

"Yeah. He made a house call, actually. Thanks for the referral. Apparently Tati has a fungal infection, and it spread pretty far before we got the diagnosis. That's why the heat is cranked up so high in the place. She's pushing sixty years old now, which is getting up there for her species. James said small issues like that are going to start flaring up more often as she ages. The dehumidifier Mickey's mother got for her really seems to be helping, and I specially ordered her a new UV light for her dirt pile. Plus there's a cream I have to rub her neck with every night. It smells like an old man's ball sack… which is a little ironic considering her neck looks like an old man's ball sack."

"I'm sorry, what did you -"

"Rasmussen's the best in the biz." Christian cut off Mickey's question mid ask. His medical profession networking funny bone had been tickled. "He specializes in race horses, but he could honestly bring roadkill back to life if he'd a mind to. He went to the top veterinary school in the country. Great guy, too. He has a really dry sense of humor."

"He was funny!" Adrian gushed. "He made a joke about his thermometer being too cold for Tati's cold blood, and I was laughing about it for days."

"That's all great, but how is my Ma a -"

"Just between us, his wife buys more coke from me than you do."

Physically, Mickey was still towering over them on Adrian's bed, but socially, this group was leaving him completely in the dust. His mother purchased a dehumidifier for Tatiana? When had that happened, and where was he when it was happening? He needed to get to the bottom of this...thing now.

Lousy Adrian and his three twins, and his gloopy mirrors, and his turtle aunts.

"Okay, I still don't know -" Mickey couldn't finish a sentence to save his life!

"Herregud. det är ett monster. Knulla. NEJ, NEJ, NEJ. Spring för livet…"

Unbeknownst to them, Filip Magnussen had wandered over to the bedroom region of the apartment, and was now trembling two feet behind them, trapped in a psychotropic hell of his own making. Monster seemed to be a word that was pretty similar when translated from Swedish to English, but that was all they could suss out from his trance-like muttering.

He just kept shaking his head and waving his arms in front of him.

Adrian looked around for Gustav and Nils, but they were nowhere in sight. The one time those guys could have proved useful in a way that didn't include their father's money, and they were MIA.

Filip began frantically searching the faces of the people in the room for reassurance - or maybe that's what he was doing? They were all still very unclear on what a person could comprehend while on peyote.

Eddie was standing the closest to the terrified Swede. He put both of his hands up flat in front of him and attempted his best bartender, "Heeey, how ya doin' buddy? Do you need a soda pop, maybe?"

It didn't work.

Filip started clawing at the buttons of his shirt and then he tore off in the direction of the freight elevator, his screams reverberating in his wake.

Dimitri, Eddie, and Rose all appeared ready to give chase, but Adrian stopped them.

"Let him go." His words came out heavy, dripping with profundity. "He knows what to do."

"He doesn't know what planet he's on, Adrian!"

"And neither do we, Rose, but he has to make this journey alone."

Deflated, Mickey finally stepped down from Adrian's bed. Seeing Filip flip out like that sobered him up some and made him realize the folly of his own actions. Tatiana clearly wasn't a monster. She was actually kinda cute in a hideous sort of way. It did sort of seem like she was trying to mount his leg a minute ago - that part of the whole situation he would never jive with.

"Adrian won her in a high stakes poker game in Atlantic City," Christian clarified. "Not the same game where he met me, but the same crowd. Actually, he might have lost and then was forced to take her off someone's hands? I'm not clear on all the details."

"I won her." Adrian sounded somewhat perturbed by the implication that Tatiana could ever be considered a punishment. "It was either Tatiana or the guy's piece of shit car."

"Hrmmm," Mickey nodded, "and when she was climbing on my leg, and nudging my hand with her head?"

"She was asking if you were single. She's not unlike a very keen older woman at a key party in that regard - a little forward and grabsy."

The affection in Adrian's tone was clear. Part of the motivation behind his move to Florida was that sun and sand would be better for Tatiana's overall health. She had another twenty years left in her, and he wanted to make sure her retirement was a good time for both of them.

"Well, at least I'm not extra interesting to her for some unknown reason. She was just making the rounds. Hey, Dimitri?"

"Yes, Mickey?"

"You wanna go shotgun some beers in the kitchen? I saw an untouched case of Rolling Rock in the refrigerator."

"Sure, man." It was the least he could do after his best friend was humped by a reptile.

Mickey opened up the question to the rest of the room. "Guys?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Sounds good to me."

His dropped his gaze momentarily to the matron on the floor. "Hey, Tatiana. Do you party?"

Did she ever.

"Rose-Rose-Rose-Rose-Rose-Rose!"

"Rose, you're not shotgunning a beer. Why are you cheering for yourself?"

"I already shotguned two beers and won my rounds with no one cheering, so don't act like it's entirely stolen valor, Eddie. I just can't hold any more liquid volume in my body."

She leaned in for the second part of her explanation. She was never say die with embarrassing moments. Whispering was key.

"I still can't tell those guys apart. I don't know which one is drinking right now, so I can't exactly cheer his name if there's a 50/50 chance I'll get it wrong. And I refuse to cheer for Christian based on principle."

"What principle?"

"He's the worst boy in the world, and it's against my principles."

"You could just say 'Drink-Drink-Drink-Drink!'"

"Who made you the mayor of partying?"

"I was elected fair and square."

"Well don't backseat tell me how to have fun, Mr. Mayor. "

One of The Twins finished his beer, crushed the empty can in his hand, and dropped it on the kitchen floor before throwing up his arms in victory. Earlier he'd announced that this was his first time taking part in this particular trashy American pastime, but whoever he was, he was a natural.

"Hey, guys! Rose DEMANDS we do shots next!"

So spake the Mayor of Party.

"Oh, man. This feels so luxurious."

"Yeah. I think this might become a regular thing for me."

"I've never done anything like this before."

"Then you just haven't lived, my friend "

"What did you say they call this?"

"I don't even care what it is. This… feels… too… good."

"It's preserved silica mud from Icelandic geothermal pools." Eddie, Christian, and Adrian were each sitting in a lawn chair with their heads back, eyes closed, and whitish-gray mud smeared in a thick layer on their necks and faces. "Gustav brought it as a hostess gift for Tatiana. He didn't know about her skin condition. Or that she's a tortoise."

Two male voices grunted in understanding.

"My face feels so expensive right now." Eddie refused to open his eyes ever again. He'd made his decision.

"Your face is so expensive now." Adrian confirmed. "It's full of hundreds of dollars of cocaine, and slathered in the world's rarest mud."

"I never get to just pamper myself." Christian thought it possible he was levitating, he was so relaxed.

"Oh, you gotta make time for you, man. It's the only way to maintain any sort of balance in your life."

"Are you sure about this? I could just take your word for it, Eddie."

"That's boring."

"As long as you're sure…"

"I'm sure. Take your best shot, Roosevelt."

"Well, here's mud in yer eye, kid. HWUH!"

Rose hauled off and slapped her friend pretty dang hard on the right pectoral. A perfect little red handprint instantly appeared on his pale skin, but he didn't so much as flinch.

"Fuck! That didn't hurt?"

"Couldn't feel anything." Eddie replied smugly. He even threw in a tiny fake yawn.

"Well it hurt me." She shook her hand out a few times, and flexed her fingers.

"I toldja so. Try again if you think you're man enough."

Challenge extended.

"I'm so much man it's stupid, Castile."

Challenge accepted.

She circled around to his back, picked her spot, and slapped him as hard as she possibly could. Another handprint formed, but still no reaction. Her palm was smarting badly, but that didn't stop her from picking another spot on his side and slapping him again.

Eddie examined the cuticles.

She slapped him again, this time with her other hand.

"HWUH!"

He shook his head slowly, and smiled.

"HWUH!"

She slapped him two more times.

"HWUH! HWUH!"

Rose was taking a break between slaps to nurse her hands when Dimitri strolled by them on his way to the kitchen.

"Okay, Castile, drop trou. Once I can feel my hand again it's ball slapping time. The final test."

Dimitri stopped mid stride at her words, raised an eyebrow, and backed up a few paces. He paused, and then turned around slowly to assess the situation.

Rose was sweaty and panting, and had just been staring at another man's naked torso with an expression of wonder on her face. He also noted that the torso in question was covered in angry red handprints, and Rose's palms looked like they were about to disintegrate.

He was beyond confused.

"This… isn't sexual, right?"

Eddie and Rose hadn't noticed Dimitri standing there, and it took a second for his question to land. When it did, their faces both crumpled in disgust. They looked at each other, and then back to him.

A few minutes prior, Eddie had mentioned that he was completely impervious to pain when he was drunk, and Rose immediately accused him of being a liar liar pants on fire. He said that he could prove it, and she suggested they do another line first.

This was purely a scientific experiment.

"No."

"No!"

Another pause.

"...Just thought I'd ask."

"Hans, this is really great, man. I don't think I've ever seen such neat work before. Dimitri's babushka is a fantastic knitter, but you're in a class all your own with this piece right here. Look how tiny it is! The popcorn stitching across the shoulders is really classy, and that color is just beautiful. This could work for a boy or a girl, honestly."

Hans' stern face remained expressionless, but he radiated with silent pride as Mickey admired the flawless mint green infant cardigan he'd just put the finishing touches on. It took him a few weeks of work, but he'd never before been more pleased with the outcome of one of his crocheting efforts.

If Mickey had been looking at the artist and not his masterpiece at that precise moment, he might have caught a glimpse of the man wiping a bit of mist away from his one good eye.

Dimitri had his fight face locked and loaded before the countdown to the final battle commenced. As a seasoned competitor in the world of hand to hand combat, it was instinctual for him to batten down the hatches, and seek refuge in that sweet spot within himself where victory over an opponent became the only immediate aim for his mind, his body, and his soul. Absolute focus was required for total annihilation. A blank expression and an unreadable gaze were always steps one and two.

Steps three, four, and five were all the same: win.

His elbow dug uncomfortably into the granite surface of the kitchen island, pinioned under the considerable weight of his upper body and the incalculable heaviness of his determination. He gritted his teeth against the sensation of extreme discomfort bordering on pain, and opted to use the ill feeling to suit his purpose rather than block it out. He visualized yoking the ache to his resolve like a beast of burden.

The solid stone countertop would give way before he did. He was unbreakable.

He could see Nils Magnussen was floundering - or possibly Gustav. The signs were unmistakable if a person knew where to look. A sweaty face and labored breathing were to be expected from someone who lacked proper conditioning, they didn't necessarily signify impending doom. The other tells, though? They were a big red flag in a pissed off bull's pen for a competitive bastard like Dimitri Belikov.

The Swede's hairline was quivering. The detectable movement wasn't caused by a shifting brow, either, the actual follicles of his high and tight blonde locks spasmed on their own. No less important to note was the strained erratic throbbing of his external jugular vein. The man's body was rebelling at a cellular level.

The rest was swirling around in his drying aquamarine eyes. Nils was tired, and he was losing faith in himself. The only way to survive a fight to the death was to leave nothing on the table. Nils, possibly Gustav, was already preparing to leave a tiny bit of his pride there.

One of the cheering spectators gathered around the makeshift kitchen arena - two barstools placed on either side of the kitchen island - made the egregious mistake of sneezing loudly, and the sudden noise knocked Nils further off his game for a fraction of a second. That was all the time Dimitri needed to strike. He climbed his hand into the all important toproll position, increased his torque with all the force he could tap, and slowly but surely rotated Nils' forearm on its axis until his knuckles kissed the countertop.

He'd won.

Goddamned of course he goddamn won.

Elated by the clean sweep, Dimitri launched himself away from the counter, and threw his arms in the air triumphantly while Eddie howled over the din, "Ladies and gentlemen, now presenting to you the arm wrestling champion of the galaxy - nay, the UNIVERSE - The Russian Renegade, MR. DIMITRI BELIKOV!"

Adrian's kitchen was filled with cigarette smoke and liquor-soaked cheers. The sounds of lines being snorted popped up in between the syllables of "DI-MI-TREE, DI-MI-TREE, DI-MI-TREE…"

The man himself was celebrating like Rocky Balboa at the top of the steps outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art when it suddenly struck him that there were a lot more people in Adrian's apartment than there had been when the first round of the impromptu tournament began. He hadn't a clue who the dozen or so punk rocker/beatnik-looking types were even though they were singing his praises like it was going out of style. It didn't matter. The afterglow of vanquishing a foe was not to be bogged down with silly things like questions.

In a single maneuver unaided by three-point contact, Dimitri jumped from the kitchen floor to the countertop. It was an impressive show of agility for a crowd of drunken revelers, a man leaping into the air like a monstrous amphibian, and they went crazy for it.

They went crazier for his Russian battle cry.

"Kto teper' vyshe, khm?! Kto teper' vyshe, khm?! Ya, vot kto! YA samyy vysokiy chelovek v grebanom mire!"

It was visceral yet dignified, sure and true.

Rose was absolutely astounded by this iteration of Party Dimitri. She'd watched the whole shootout unfold, from inauspicious beginning to bizarrely glorious end.

It all started with Eddie goading Dimitri into a friendly arm wrestling match with the stereotypical "bock-bock-bock-bock" approach, and things snowballed from there. Eddie demanded a rematch following his pitiful first showing - which he also lost. Dimitri then went on to dispatch Christian, Gustav (possibly Nils), Hans, and finally Nils (possibly Gustav) with relative ease.

At some point along the way, Hans ushered in more party guests from the elevator hallway entrance. They were the usual variety of slightly younger strays Adrian was always surrounding himself with - disciples to his mythos of mystical party Lord.

Rose only recognized one of the new warm bodies, a guy who had introduced himself to her as Ritchie Crimes at a previous soiree. As he explained, people called him that because he'd "committed a lot of crimes." She didn't think the pubescent-looking dipshit was referring to his egg white spiked hair when he made mention of his past transgressions, but she sure as heck regarded his coiffure as a crime against proper hygiene. The kid stunk worse than Shane Rayes.

The rest of the bunch looked just about as cool and stupid as he did, and they all smelled pretty ripe. She decided to hail the conquering hero from over by the open windows.

It didn't take long for Dimitri to come find her there - probably just the amount of time required for him to snatch Nils or Gustav Magnusson's Stetson off one of the barstools, plonk in down atop his head, bid a temporary adieu to the crowd, and strut across the room feeling like ten million bucks.

"Is this a spoil of war?" Rose asked, flicking the brim of his borrowed hat before planting a fat juicy one right on his kisser.

"What can I say? It looks better on me."

"No argument here." She was about to take another sip from her freshened up drink but hesitated, the glass just a few inches shy of her lips. "Say, what exactly did you just shout in all of our faces in Russian a minute ago? It was too fast for me to pick out any of the words I know."

"I was thanking him for being a worthy opponent."

"That's rather magnanimous of you." Her prim smile told him she knew better.

"It's sort of an old adage to do with battle. The translation to English isn't precise, so it would take too long to explain right now."

"Oh. Pity."

"You don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you, baby. You'd never lie to me." She finally took that sip. "But… if I did want to find out exactly what it was you said, I could always just ask Adrian to translate for me. He was in tears laughing just a few feet away from me. He's nearly fluent in Russian, remember?"

"...Blyad."

(TRANSLATION: "Who's taller now, huh?! Who's taller now, huh!? I am, that's who! I'm the tallest man in the fucking world!")

"You're so full of shit your eyes are brown, Ozera! No way in hell is that a real word."

"Take a look at these baby blues, Hathaway. You're the only one with crap eyes around here." Christian retorted.

"Care to put your money where your foolish mouth is?"

"Fine. I bet you one hundred dollars it's a real word!"

"Oh, you're on! And you're going down, Conspiracy Boy! You're going all the way down to motherfuckin' Chinatown! Tonight, I will bathe in your tears AND your money!" Rose cackled.

They shook hands on their gentleman's wager, and then they each did a line. Their childish bickering was finally coming to a head after ebbing and flowing for some time now.

Rose wiped her nose.

"ADRIAN!?"

"Rose, have I ever told you how mellifluous your voice sounds when you screech my name at the top of your lungs, paying no mind to the fact that I'm standing three feet away from you?"

"You're not standing, Adrian, you're laying facedown on the floor."

A brief pause.

"And so I am. In that case, I'm changing my official response to, WHAT!?"

His shouting was even louder than Rose's.

"Do you have a reasonably current dictionary?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

"It's in the kitchen."

"Where in the kitchen?"

"The oven, I think."

"Why the hell do you keep your dictionary in the oven?"

"Rose, is there an answer I can give you that won't lead to any more follow up questions?"

"...No."

Silence.

Rose peeled herself off the couch, and disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes. When she returned to the sofa, her nostrils were flared, and her mouth was all scrunched up.

She was wrong.

Even worse, Christian was right.

"So, Rose, what did the oven teach you?" Christian inquired.

"Shut up!"

"You finally learned to shut up?!"

"Ha-ha. Okay. You win this round, Ozera. Spaghettification is actually a word."

"A little louder for the folks in the cheap seats, Hathaway?"

"CHRISTIAN OZERA IS A BIG DUMB VIRGIN! BUT HE WAS RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG. SPAGHETTIFICATION IS A REAL WORD!"

She settled back into her seat. "Satisfaction?"

"Much. Now pay up, buttercup! One hundred smackers." Christian slapped out a flat palm.

"Hahahahahaha, you really think I have a hundred dollars? And I don't mean on me, I mean in general! In that case, I've got a bridge to sell yah, Dr. Ozera."

"Oh, so in addition to being wrong, you're also a no good welcher! Very unbecoming behavior for a lady, Hathaway."

Silence.

"Fine!" Rose seethed. "If you're gonna be a stickler about it…" Being broke all the time really sucked ass.

There was only one way for her to play this out.

"ADRIAN!?"

"WHAT!?"

"Can I have a hundred dollars to make Christian be quiet forever? And I said 'have' not 'borrow'."

"Check the oven!"

"Adrian…?"

"Yes, Mickey?"

"What in the name of all that is holy is this?"

"Oh that? It's just something I've been playing around with."

Christian and Dimitri were flipping through Adrian's various stacks of canvases looking for any targets they might have missed. Shooting the walls was fun, but the targets added a bit of competition to the wanton destruction. Since he didn't appear to have much of a system for organizing his art supplies and works in progress, it wasn't entirely wishful thinking that a hand-drawn bullseye or two had gone rogue somewhere amongst all the chaos. They were just about to throw in the towel when Dimitri unearthed a painting that made him drop his full beer on the ground.

Dimitri wasted no time calling Mickey over to show him the painting they'd discovered, and soon there was a small crowd of crusty punks checking out the obvious happenings.

Mickey sought out answers almost immediately.

"Okay, yeah. But what the fuck is it!?"

"It's a copy of Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère that I've been doing mostly from memory. There's a tiny picture of the original taped in the bottom corner there just for me to reference if needed. See?" He pointed to the small rectangle adhered to the right corner of the canvas. "I wanted to try my hand at Realism again, and I haven't put oil to canvas in a while."

It was a very beautiful and very skillful copy of the famous work by Manet, but Mickey couldn't help noticing that it wasn't entirely faithful to the original - Adrian made a few key changes to the barmaid in the painting's foreground. The frilly white high collar blouse of her uniform had been removed, and the neckline of her dress was lowered considerably. Her bustle, that was supposed to be visible in the bar mirrors' reflection, was also absent. These wardrobe adjustments were clearly made to accommodate some key enhancements Adrian made to the woman's global endowments. Her bosom was larger, her waist was smaller, and her ass was now so bountiful that it looked like she was wearing a bustle.

She was also Loretta Tanner.

His Ma!

The woman in the painting had her bone structure, the same hair color, and the same mismatched eye color - one blue the other brown. Adrian turned a famous painting by a celebrated French master into an almost pornographic painting of Mickey's mother.

"Okay, yeah. But why is the woman in your version of the painting my Ma!? And why did you make her tits so huge!?"

Adrian appeared to be really thrown for a loop by Mickey's outburst. He cocked his head to the side, and stared intently at the painting in question. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, brow furrowed.

"Hrrrrrm… this painting was also sort of a tribute for my new level of appreciation for David Bowie. See the different colored eyes and the…"

Unsatisfied, he stood up and crossed over to where Mickey stood so he could lean in for a really, really good look. His nose was about an inch from the canvas, and he stayed that way for a while before he spoke again.

"Well I'll be damned!" He snapped his fingers, stood up, and stepped back a couple feet so he could address Mickey without being uncomfortably close to him. "That's not a female David Bowie at all. That's a sexy painting of your mom, Mickey!"

"I know that already! Why!? Why is this a sexy painting of Ma?"

"Well… I'm not entirely sure… but, if I had to guess, I think it's entirely possible that I'm in love with your mom. Holy shit!" Adrian dragged one palm down his face and one back through his hair in a single maneuver. His eyes could not possibly get any wider. He couldn't catch his breath. "What a breakthrough! I need to sit down. I wasn't aware of any of this until just now! It makes perfect sense, though. I'm in love with your mom, Mickey!"

"WHAT!?"

"Oi! This bloke wantsta fuck your mum?!" Exclaimed some anonymous person in too much ripped up black denim.

"Tony, everybody knows you're not from England. Have some self respect, man." Replied another miscellaneous person in an outfit that was mostly safety pins.

Adrian ignored the unsolicited commentary, and reversed slowly until the back of his knees magically hit the frame of one of his innumerable lawn chairs. He flopped down on it, shaking his head.

"...Hey…Mickey?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she'll like the painting?"

"Drink-Drink-Drink-Drink-Drink-Drink!"

Adrian never did understand drinking games. Drinking was a leisurely activity, and the only goal in drinking should be the achievement of being drunk. Competition cheapened the experience. Racing to drink faster than someone else was unpleasant. Punishing someone for failing at non-drinking with drinking was counterintuitive to the nature of drinking.

He wasn't typically a fan.

But if people were going to cheer him on like a hometown hero for casually downing more tequila shots than a bunch of anonymous youths, Rose Hathaway, and Dimitri Belikov, then far be it from him to complain. Rose tapped out after four, and two of the already hammered barely legal miscreants quit after five shots. Belikov stood up clenching his lower stomach, and mumbled something about needing to use the restroom after six.

Seven was a piece of piss for Adrian. He sipped it easy like Sunday morning, and then poured one for the Mayor who'd just finished cheering him on.

"Wooooooooooo!" A final bellow escaped Eddie's lips before he sent his shot down the hatch.

Castile was a fine Mayor. Damn fine.

"So, I'm beginning to think the real reason I haven't been able to ask Rose to move in with me is because I actually want to ask her to marry me. I've been subconsciously blending the construct of marriage with the prospect of cohabitation, and now I'm psyching myself out of taking action of any kind because my ultimate goal has been too diffused."

Dimitri stared at the wall straight ahead of him, and tried to cobble together a quality fantasy of his Roza saying "YES" to a ring far larger than one he could ever actually afford. He was too drunk to do it right. In the past he'd been able to pretend so hard that he could feel the uneven texture of the ground beneath the knee he usually favored and would therefore bend upon in front of her.

But not right now.

Right now all he saw was the quote Adrian had painted on the wall in immaculate neon purple script.

"When shit becomes valuable, the poor will be born without assholes." - Henry Miller

The irony of this message being scrawled on a very rich man's bathroom wall was not lost on him, even as he tried with all his might to imagine his fairytale ending with Rose.

He needed an outsider's perspective.

"Hypothetically speaking, if I were to ask Rose to marry me - and I do mean IF - do you think she would have me?"

Dimitri shifted his gaze to where Tatiana was parked on the floor of Adrian's bathroom, munching on a head of Romaine lettuce.

He was sitting on the toilet.

"And before you ask me, no, I don't have a ring yet. I think she'd prefer something antique, something with a history to it, but she's difficult to shop for."

Dimitri was having stomach issues when Tatiana nudged the door open with her left foot and her snout. Adrian's personal bathroom didn't have a lock on the door.

His immediate reaction was to shout, "IT'S OCCUPIED!" at the mystery intruder, and to cover himself with his leather jacket.

Tatiana paid his objections no heed, and just trudged on in.

Initially, he tried to shoo her back out, once he realized who it was he was dealing with. He inched toward her - pants around his ankles, jacket covering his crotch - and waved with his one free arm. She just stared at him like he was part of the furniture.

He waved harder, and actually said the word, "Shoo!"

She ignored him, slowly lowered her body to the ground, and began to eat.

After some deliberation, Dimitri decided to let her stay. He'd been warned several times in the past that she was a biter, so attempting to pick her up was a no go. Also, there was something about the way she so casually, yet so persistently, insinuated herself into the room with no regard for decorum or spatial awareness, and with a snack in tow, that compelled him to let her stay. She seemed to really enjoy the feeling of the cool bathroom tile under her shell. It was probably a nice change of pace from her hot dirt pile. Who was he to begrudge her such a simple pleasure?

He sat back down on the toilet.

"Tatiana, you smell like beer. Have you been drinking?"

It didn't take Dimitri long to realize the pain in his stomach wasn't a true bathroom emergency. The rumblings he'd experienced were just the unwelcome side effects of drugs, anxiety, and an irresponsible lack of water. After passing an enormous amount of gas he could have gotten up to leave whenever he wanted to, but Tatiana was a really good listener. Her slow movements and aloof digesting somehow created a psychiatrist couch feeling around Adrian's toilet.

And there was a bidet.

A powerful bidet.

By the time they were done bonding in the bathroom, Dimitri's hopes for the near future were as bright and shiny as his squeaky-clean butt.

He was going to ask Rose to marry him.

Step one: pants.

"Ros! May I ask you something?"

"Sure. What can I do yah for… bu-ddy?" She crossed her arms and tried to act naturally.

It didn't work.

The twinkly-eyed blonde young man seemed to identify the reason for her awkwardness without much trouble. He was rather amused by it.

"I'm Gustav."

"Uhhh, I know who you are. What kind of person would I be if - aw phooey." Her face reddened. She knew when the jig was up, and it was up. "I'm sorry about that. I'd blame it on being drunk, but I was fairly sober when we were introduced earlier. I'm just a bad kind of person, I guess."

"Not at all. It's perfectly alright. We stopped correcting people many years ago when they got our names wrong. At social gatherings, that is - business is still business."

She grunted a pseudo reply, something about "not sweating the small stuff." It was a dim thing to say, but she was too busy grappling with an urge she'd felt all night.

It kept growing.

She just…needed to know why…?!

"May I ask you a personal question, Gustav?"

"Are you going to ask why Adrian keeps addressing us as The Twins when there are three of us?"

"Nooooo…." Her eyes narrowed as drew out the single syllable word. "I was going to ask why everyone seems to address you as The Twins when there are three of you. I'm used to Adrian making colorful choices, it's part of his mystique."

Gustav remained still. It wasn't for effect, he was merely assessing the situation and considering his options.

"Would you mind if I answer your question over there by that large pile of cocaine, rather than here in the area full of shattered clay targets and the carrying scent of my brother's vomit?"

The man was correct. The kitchen would be a far pleasanter location. Filip's puking really made the rounds and the smell was appalling.

"Oh, I insist you do."

They reconvened in the kitchen area, forcing their way through the tiny crowd. Gustav played nightclub Sir Galahad, and cut up a couple lines for Rose to cram up her dainty snoot. She still felt bad for not knowing his name, but the pick-me-up worked.

"So, Goose. How come there's three of you's to look at when there's only two of you's described in any one conversation about all of you's?"

"I have no idea how to answer that question. I believe it was English, yes?"

"Why are the three of you called The Twins?"

"Ah, yes. Well. It's a very simple answer I have for that question, but first, Ros, may I ask - have you ever heard the legal term non-disclosure agreement?"

"No."

"Have you heard the term gag order?"

"How dare you, sir!? I am a lady."

"You misunderstand me, it isn't a sexual propo- "

His defense was cut short by Rose's laughter. She got him.

"Kidding! Those I've heard of."

He smirked. "Quite amusing. A non-disclosure agreement is very much like a gag order from a judge, but it's one you impose upon yourself by signing a legally binding contract. They're not terribly common outside of the business world - at least for now. They are becoming quite the rage in New York society, or so I've been told. To keep the explanation brief, I have signed a legal document promising that, in perpetuity-"

"Perpe-whatity?"

"Forever, and ever…"

"Check."

That check came with a finger cannon and a nod of thanks. It occurred to Rose that she had already known the meaning of the word, but her brain was just one big swirl at the moment. There was an ever-flushing toilet bowl in her skull, it just kept going 'round and around.

Christ, she was high.

"I have signed an agreement which prevents me from answering that question."

"An agreement with who… whom?"

"Nils and Filip."

"Just you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Did they sign NDA's…do they call them that? NDA's? Or are they allowed to gossip around town like two old biddies? Maybe you were the loudmouth that got himself into trouble, and they had to kill you or shut you up permanently?"

"We've all signed agreements."

She mulled over what he'd just told her, and distilled it to something she could recognize.

"So you made me come all the way over here just to tell me, 'shhh, it's a secret'?"

"And to do some more cocaine."

"Fair enough, Goose." She did another line. "Do your parents call you guys The Twins?"

Gustav didn't respond.

She repeated the question on the off chance that he hadn't heard her.

He took a sip of whatever it was he was drinking that smelled so awful, and answered her in a crisp vanilla tone. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my parents. Nor am I at liberty to confirm that I, in fact, currently have or have ever had living parents at any time in my life."

Rose had so many thoughts, but none of the complete ones were within her reach. The first one she caught hold of was the first one she tossed at him.

"What would happen if you told me right now that you totally had a mom? At one point, you had yourself a mom. You were heaved out of a pussy at the start of your life."

"I'd lose all my money."

"Bullshit!"

"No, just the regular human kind. I'd be bankrupted by my brothers if they found out. And if the roles were reversed, I'd do the same to them. A contract is a contract."

"Stone. Cold." She wasn't sure how to be around this information. "Ahhh, then I truly hope for your sake that your hypothetical mother is, or was, a bitch. My mother is a bitch and a half with mean Jesus on top, but I'm not sure I could legalese her out of existence."

They each did another line.

"You wanted to ask me something earlier, Goose? Over by the gun hole?"

"Yes! Thank you. Nils purchased several enormous joints from a man in front of the bowling alley a short while ago, and we were interested in - how do they say it - sparking them up on the roof. Adrian mentioned a lovely view of the Manhattan skyline on a clear night."

It annoyed Rose a little that Nils and Gustav weren't around to help their brother when he was going nuts because they were both out buying pot. That was a one man job, and hogtying Filip until he calmed down had required a four person crew. It didn't surprise her, though. Drunk people did inconsiderate shit like that all the time.

"The roof is a little tricky, honestly." She thought about showing him how to get up there herself, even if only to escape the crotchy and armpitty aroma of coked-up fake anarchists, but then she remembered how fun it was to climb a ladder in heels. "Go ask Hans to show you the way up. He'll be glad of a few minutes outside. Tatiana is in…well I don't know if they call it 'heat' for tortoises, but she's in it and she's rather taken with him this evening. Her advances make him uncomfortable."

"Is that why she was bumping me with her neck? She also nipped a hole in my pants."

"Uh-oh, Hans has some competition."

"I'm flattered. Thank you for the chat, Ros."

Gustav headed toward Hans' post without taking a formal leave of their conversation. It was no skin off her nose, his spot at the island was vacant for less than thirty seconds before Dimitri took it over.

Rose felt his eyes on her from across the room while she and Gustav were talking. She doubted his attention was motivated by jealousy, he was most likely enjoying the bevy of facial expressions she'd been completely incapable of reigning in.

In perpetuity.

"Good talk?"

"Educational."

"Do you still think they're weird, or are they growing on you?"

She giggled, and shook her head slowly. "I'm just… sitting here hoping I didn't somehow go Through the Glass Darkly."

"What?"

"Oh. Nothing I -" Rose looked up at Dimitri and shrugged before debriefing him on her chat with "Goose" and explaining her previous comment.

"I dated a guy in highschool for a while who was in the Drama Club - Warren. He was a big film buff, and in the few months we were together, he dragged me to a lot of art cinema and foreign films that, well, a lot of those movies weren't really my cuppa tea. Just now, talking to Gustav about his family, I felt like I was suddenly in a Bergman film. Only in this case I'd have to sign a binding contract with Death promising I would never, ever tell anyone about our chess game - ever - no matter who won. He would win, by the way, because I don't play chess. And then all the plague stuff would still happen."

A lightbulb went off for her.

"Hey! Maybe that's what's wrong with Tatiana? It's not a fungus at all, it's Tortoise Plague and these are the end of days."

Christ, she was high.

Adrian and Rose were lying in his empty clawfoot bathtub together. He was sprawled out in the classic soak position and she was wedged between his legs with her back to his belly. Aside from being shoeless, they were both fully clothed.

They'd put one another through the wringer earlier in the evening. The tensile strength of their bond held strong, but they still needed this quality time to be friends again.

Rose really did love Adrian, and he loved her right back. Theirs's wasn't a romantic love, nor could it be described in simple terms like platonic or fraternal. It was undefinable. Complicated. Their relationship was certainly one of codependency - they were both needy in different ways, but it was more than that.

The residual feelings of chronic loneliness Adrian lugged around with him everywhere, the lingering scars of an unhappy childhood, paralleled the ones she carried. They were two affection-starved kids all grown up who at long last found a non-imaginary pal to keep them company and drive them up the wall.

But Adrian would be leaving soon.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the prospect of Adrian moving to Florida in the immediate future had a pretty big something to do with their bonfire argument. The separation was going to motherfuck them both, the anticipation of it was already messing with their heads. He was readying to push her away, she was preparing to resent him for it. None of their usual coping methods were healthy.

Tatiana was still on the floor by the door where she'd been since Dimitri was in there working out his own problems, but she was now in the possession of a small pile of crinkle cut carrots. Adrian wasn't sure where she kept getting all the crudites. He'd never bought a pre-cut carrot in his life.

Is there a crinkle knife?

Rose was first to break the music-filled silence by sharply poking Adrian's thigh and demanding he fork over the bottle of wine they brought into the bathroom to share. So far he'd been hogging it shamelessly. He did as he was told, it was either that or she would pull out one of his arm hairs. She'd done it before.

She took a swig of the good stuff, and then took another. She silently evoked the name of David Bowie - everyone's possible new lord and savior - and then dived head first into a very hard place.

"Adrian…you know I can't take that job in Miami, right?" A dribble of wine nearly fell from her chin to her dress. She stopped it just in time, and handed him back the bottle. "It really means a lot to me that you asked, that you want me there with you." As it was, she was already holding back tears just getting those words out. If she'd been facing him, there'd be no hope of holding them back. Her speech was sincere, if a little slurred.

Adrian didn't answer right away. All of his instincts were off lately, and he didn't want to do the wrong thing now - not when Rose was trusting him with her vulnerability. He wasn't too drunk to appreciate that she didn't do that often. He knew she wasn't coming with him to Florida. Of course he knew. But there was still a tiny part of him that hoped. It was just another form of magical thinking, prettier words for denial.

But now the unspoken had been spoken, and the disappointment he felt was almost entirely of his own making. She would blame herself for it. Rose would secretly blame herself for all the problems in the world if Adrian let her. Or if he needed her to.

So he wouldn't let her.

He'd play the clown once more, and graciously settle for the bittersweet milksop of regular phone calls and semi-regular visits from his tempestuous Girl Friday.

"I might be purposely obtuse at times to get a rise out of you, Hathaway, but I'm actually a rather perceptive person. I sorta figured the only reason you didn't immediately turn down the offer was your overarching need to spare my feelings whenever possible."

"Am I really that predictable?"

"Death, taxes, and the bleeding tender heart of Nurse Hathaway." He sighed, and willed himself not to be sad anymore, at least not right now. He could be sad tomorrow. "You can't live without Dimitri, and he can't live in a tropical climate. He'd melt."

"Like a handsome soulful ice cream cone." Rose agreed. "I'll visit though. A lot. You'll be sick of me cramping your style, I'll be down there so often."

"My new place will have three guest rooms. You can count on it."

"Three?"

"One for Tatiana, one for my clothes, and one for you."

"You could just call it a closet."

"I prefer my own nomenclature."

She laughed, and it made him feel like a decent person for a change.

"Well make sure one of those guest rooms has an extra big bed because Dimitri will probably want to visit you, too. I can't wait to see him in huarache sandals with a little of that white zinc stuff daubed on the tip of nose.

Teasing Dimitri was neutral territory for both of them, and it was a good way to transition from the tough stuff back to the fun stuff. Adrian always said that it wasn't really a coke party until somebody cried, but she refused to be that someone tonight.

"He'll probably get really into sport fishing or something rugged and outdoorsy like that. What do they call those boats with the huge fans on the back of them?"

"I haven't a clue. I'm a yacht man, not a bayou boy. I will say, the beach sunrises and sunsets in Miami are absolutely gorgeous, and you know how much that cousin of mine likes to silently stare off into the middle distance and feel. He'll be able to stoically mask his disquietude all over the place. Not to mention all of the gators he can wrestle for you."

More laughter bubbled out of Rose before she even knew what hit her and this time it just kept on coming. There was a bit of gagging on her own saliva and coughing mixed in with the mirth, it sounded like it hurt.

"Hathaway, are you dying? If you die it will really harsh my mellow."

"No…I'm…I'm okay."

His gator comment hit a little too close to home. A few months back she had a dream about Dimitri fighting a bear in order to win her favors as a courtesan in Russia in a time that was non-specifically olden days looking.

She'd stayed over at the Belikov's home the night before a medium-big test, and Olena gave her an herbal tincture to help her sleep. It worked, but it made her dreams incredibly vivid. For some reason, that particularly absurd show of masculinity got her so hot in her state of unconsciousness that she woke up and immediately climbed on top of the real Dimitri. He was pretty agreeable about being quietly ravished in the same bed he slept in as a teenager.

She got a B+ on her test.

Rose thumped her chest with her fist and hacked up another hairball. Adrian passed her the wine.

"My throat hurts now." Rose whined, her mouth full of wine.

"A small price to pay for catharsis. I'll go easy on the schtick for a minute or two. At least until you get your strength back."

"Gee, thanks. While you're at it, can you light another fire for David Bowie, and ask him to heal me? A tiny one? I'll take all the help I can get tonight."

He slapped his forehead. "That's what I wanted to tell you! I knew I was forgetting something important!" Adrian's body kicked into a sudden state of readiness. Rose's butt muscles could even detect the change. "So, are you sitting down?"

"Was that a real question?" She turned to look at him. She was still sit-laying over most of his torso.

"Unfortunately it was. This tub turned into an emotional rollercoaster so fast that I think I'm beginning to disassociate. Am I still handsome?"

"You're glorious. Do you need more wine?" She croaked.

"I always need more wine. Here's the rub, kid. I would summon David Bowie for you in a heartbeat if I believed he could heal you, but he might sense fissures in my devotion and refuse to appear. I'm beginning to rethink my status as a card carrying Bowieist."

"What!? Why? How? When?"

"Who, actually. It has recently - very recently - come to my attention that I might be in love with Loretta Tanner." He took another drink. "I believe it's entirely possible that somehow my wires got crossed, and I was projecting my feelings for Ma Tanner onto David Bowie. It's all rather new."

"Well it sure would have to be. When did you discover all this?!"

"Twenty-seven minutes ago."

"Wow. A minute for every year of the age difference." There wasn't much else for her to say.

"Indeed. Also, hush now. That's my future woman you're maligning."

"And here I thought I had mommy issues to work through."

"I'm the Sultan of mommy issues."

"Hey, Adrian, do you know where Nils and Gustav are?" Eddie looked a bit frazzled.

"They went up to the roof to smoke a joint."

"Why couldn't they do it here?"

They were completely surrounded by people at the moment, so Adrian couldn't answer with the truth - that he was preparing to have Hans eighty-six the extra attendees soon, and he'd given The Twins a heads up that the process was usually pretty tiresome.

He went with the half truth.

"It's perfect out tonight. You've seen the view from up there." He popped a cigarette in his lips. "I was about to go up and join them for a bit before I have to make my appearance downstairs. What's the matter?"

"Their brother looks, well, he's -"

Eddie couldn't really explain it, so he just waved at Adrian a few times and gestured with his neck to indicate Adrian should follow him right now. They approached his workspace slowly, and kept their voices down. Sudden moves and non-atmospheric noises felt like big no-no's given the circumstances. Somewhere between the lawn chairs and the Southeast corner of the apartment, Rose and Dimitri joined them.

"Whaaaaat is the matter with that guy now?"

Filip Magnesson was shirtless, pants less, kneeling on all fours on the ground, and he was smelling the paint splatters on the floor and wall. He looked like a bloodhound on a foxhunt, but one whose mind was completely blown by its ability to scent something. He just kept sniffing and staring in awe.

"Synesthesia."

The word felt claggy in Adrian's mouth, as if he was tempting fate by mere mention.

"I thought his name was Filip?"

He shook his head slowly. Actually saying, "Goddamnit, Rose," aloud wouldn't help anyone right now. He settled for thinking it and rolling his eyes so forcefully it hurt. This wasn't easy to explain in the best of situations.

"Synesthesia is a perception phenomenon that is sometimes brought on by tripping. A person can experience stimulation of one of their senses involuntarily through another one of their sensory pathways."

Dimitri, Rose, and Eddie looked from Adrian, to Filip, and then back to Adrian again with matching confused expressions. The guy on the floor looked really, really messed up, and Adrian's words hadn't registered for any of them. They just slid right off and dropped away like rendered fat.

"If I had to guess, he is smelling what he's seeing. All of those colors on the floor are registering in his brain as different smells, or maybe as one huge entirely new smell. He's not in the here and now, that's for sure."

Adrian's explanation fitted pretty perfectly with what they were all currently spectating, not that it made the situation any less disturbing.

"I can honestly say I do not see the appeal of whatever the hell that business right there is." Rose gestured her flattened palm in the air, offering up Filip Magnusson as Exhibit A. "I enjoy doing drugs, but that is not my bag in any way, shape, or form. How long will he be a floor sniffer for? Or is this just the new him?"

"Depends on how many buttons he choked down, and if he's done it before. He took it without bragging to everyone about it first, and the rest of The Twins don't seem too worried. They shared a womb and, oddly enough, bunk beds for a lot of years… my guess is this ain't his first rodeo. As for the rainbow smelling - every bridge has its toll, Rose. Sometimes they have a toll and a troll."

She really wanted to rattle off a list of all the bridges she'd crossed in her life free of charge and free of trolls, but she also wanted to stop being near the giant Swedish man on a vision quest. His trip was kinda freaking her out, and laughing at him felt mean.

Dimitri tightened his grip around Rose's shoulders. The grown man on the floor was really going through something, and watching him was beginning to feel voyeuristic in a way that made him uncomfortable. Backing away slowly was looking like a pretty good course of action right now.

"Should we get him something? Orange slices?" Eddie wasn't prone to feeling sorry for the insanely wealthy, but Filip looked really sad down there on the ground. The hems of his boxer shorts were a little pukey.

"I think that's just for LSD." Rose offered.

"Old wives' tale, that. Oranges just taste amazing on acid, they don't actually help. I've never tried mescaline, but judging by what this guy did to my guest bathroom earlier, he's going to have trouble just keeping down water." Adrian shuddered.

"You're a little like a drugs Columbo, Adrian. Too bad most drug clues are yucky."

"Thanks, Rose. If the nightclub scene doesn't work out, I can always get my PI license and spend the rest of my life looking through piles of loose or rock hard excrement and vomit."

"Don't forget semen!"

"Semen too - hopefully not in piles."

"It might be a good idea to hide that cup of X-Acto knives you have sitting out over there." Dimitri pointed to one of the wheeled carts full of art supplies. Now that there was a man crawling around smelling colors, the visual of a cup full of sharp precision knives sounded a lot like Chekhov's gun.

"Yeah. I don't think he needs those knives."

"No wonder you got so worked up over those invisible stars, Conspiracy Boy."

Rose handed Christian one of the three blazing joints they were all passing around under the night sky. She was sitting on the ground on top of Dimitri's jacket, so she had to lean forward on one hand and extend her other arm as far as she could to get it to him. He was apparently already feeling too lazy to meet her halfway.

"They are really something else. Out of this world, even." She was only partially joking there. The stars overhead were nothing short of wondrous.

Everyone save Filip, Hans, and the smelly bohemians were up on the roof smokin' doobies, and horsing around like children. The New York City skyline was visible from almost every vantage point up there, and they were all doing a fair amount of staring and smiling at it.

The lights were more than beautiful. The manmade illumination twinkling brightly beneath the moon and all those stars reminded a person of how good things could be on top of how fucking hard and dumb they often were.

And pot made them even better.

Or maybe it was just the pot, and the lights were only lights. It didn't matter. At that moment, the rooftop of The Aura Club felt magical, and if that magic was purely chemical then so be it.

The climb up there wasn't exactly safe. It consisted of a rickety wood ladder that was secured to a rusty drainpipe by a few feet of desiccating rope and led to a small landing with a second ladder, rusty pipe, and frayed rope setup. There was safer - and more official - roof access from the building's loading dock, but that was about a couple football fields away journey-wise. This deathtrap route was a major time saver.

And besides, danger was exciting.

Mickey leaned down to Rose and whispered through his teeth. "I knew it was you who got him started earlier!"

"It was most certainly not me who begat that horror show. You inflicted the wound. I'm just picking at the scab now because it's what I do when I'm fucked up. I get ornery!"

"I did not!

"You did too!"

"I don't know why you two are using those pretend whisper voices. Everyone on this roof can hear you." Dimitri didn't want to get involved, but he was also genuinely concerned that Christian might start a new lecture on whatever the hell Project ARTICHOKE was. Best case scenario, it was something to do with steaming artichokes…?

"Dimitri, tell Mickey it's not my fault that Christian is super weird and boring!"

"Hey! I'm not boring."

"So you admit you're super weird, then!" Rose hooted.

"Don't make me spaghettify you, Hathaway."

"Dimitri, Dr. Ozera just threatened to thin and elongate me. Are you going to allow this to stand?"

A deep voice with a Swedish accent hollered from across half the width of the building. "Hey! Do you guys think I can piss into that convertible down there!? Gustav believes the sidewalk is too wide for me to reach it, but I think I can do it. Seriously, come and look."

"Just let it flow, Daddy-o! If you make it, you win. If you don't, then the only thing that happens is you piss on the sidewalk!" Eddie was wise beyond his years, he also knew that anyone driving a convertible in this neighborhood was an asshole who probably deserved to have their car pissed on at least once.

"Nils, have you been drinking water tonight, buddy? Lemonade flies a lot farther than honey!"

"Mickey, you are disgusting, but that is accurate based on my nurse's training experience!" Rose verified.

"Hello, how are you?"

Everyone turned to where Adrian was leaning on a metal heating and cooling duct. He seemed unable to take his eyes away from Manhattan.

"You okay, Ivashkov?"

His melancholic tendencies never failed to worry Rose.

"Have you been alright"

"Through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights?"

She needn't have worried. He was just singing. There was a howling at the moon quality to his voice.

That's what I'd say, I'd tell you everything…

"You're a little flat there, boss." Eddie was just trying to help, again.

If you'd pick up that telephone

Adrian tried to correct his pitch. It was better, but still a tad flat.

Hey, how're you feelin'?

To rooftop's surprise, Christian joined in for the next verse.

Are you still the same?

Don't you realize the things we did, we did, were all for real?

Eddie was the next to fall, and his voice was as smooth as his dance movies.

Not a dream

I just can't believe they've all faded out of view

And then came Nils' from over at his pee ledge, dick still probably in hand, with the most astounding falsetto. He must have been classically trained.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Ooh-ooh-ooh

Doo-wop, do-be-do-do-wop

Doo-wa-doo-day

Blue days, black nights

Doo-wa-doo-day

I look into the sky

Rose, Dimitri, and Mickey took over the responses as a loud trio.

The love you need ain't gonna see you through

And I wonder why

The little things you planned ain't coming true

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight

They all let Adrian take the lead for the next verse. Afterall, it was his roof.

Dimitri pulled Rose off of her butt, and into his arms. They started a lazy but lovely slow dance. This was their second impromptu musical number of the night, and it was undoubtedly more romantic than the theme from M*A*S*H.

Okay, so no one's answering

Well, can't you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer

Oh, I'll just sit tight

In shadows of the night

Let it ring forevermore, oh-woh

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Eddie got a little grapevine going with Gustav as Nils brought them all back home with a truly powerhouse voice. They were trashed, but the moves held strong enough.

Doo-wop, do-be-do-do-wop

Doo-wa-doo-day

Blue days, black nights

Doo-wa-doo-day

I look into the sky

The love you need ain't gonna see you through

And I wonder why

The little things you planned ain't coming true

Christian was on the verge of a rooftop boot and rally, but he kept on singing.

They all did.

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight…

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight…

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight…

Oh, oh, telephone line, give me some time

I'm living in twilight…

Adrian Ivashkov's singing voice may have left a lot to be desired, but he sure could pick a song.

Perfection.

Somewhere down on the street, a loud New Jersey accented voice belonging to a man still stuck in the enormous line of people waiting to get into the club shouted, "HEY, DIANA ROSS AND THE SUPREMES, DON'T QUIT YOUR FUCKIN' DAY JOB!"

Notes

David Bowie famously went crazy from cocaine use in the mid 1970's, and didn't remember any of the process of recording Station to Station. He also became temporarily obsessed with the occult and lived off nothing but milk, vodka, hot peppers, and more cocaine for nearly two years. I decided to use this period of Bowie as my inspiration for Adrian.

Sorry if the Swedish, Russian, and Spanish translations are terrible.

Next chapter is Mickey in the club. Disco + A Beautiful Redhead

About 7 chapters left, and three of those will be pure madness.

After that, I think I might just throw in the towel. I had another story planned out, but I'm not getting much feedback on this story. My "favorites" and "follows" numbers are pretty pathetic. I think it might be time to face that I kinda suck at writing fan fiction. Oh well.

Soundtrack

Spaceman - Harry Nilsson (Christian's Lecture Falls Apart)

Great Big Kiss - Johnny Thunders (Eddie and Rose Dance) off his album So Alone - multiple versions exist, and are not as good.

Vitamin C - CAN (Eddie and Rose Dance)

Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own - Taj Mahal - (Party Tunes)

Get Off Your Ass and Jam - Funkadelic (D-Train's Arm Wrestling)

Queen Bee - Taj Mahal (Tub Time with Rose & Adrian) off his album Evolution (The Most Recent) - this version sounds more 1970's than the newer versions.

Telephone Line - Electric Light Orchestra (On the Roof)

Me and the Wine and the City Lights - Lee Hazelwood (Roll Credits On Party Scene)