Chapter Text

Pete stumbled out of the Dickey house and into the cool night air, the basement’s stale smell still clinging to his flannel. Christ, what a night. The corn whiskey sat heavy in his stomach, and he could still taste the cheap shit on his tongue. It sucked. He checked his watch — 1:17 AM. Fuck. The last bus was at 1:30, and the stop was at least a ten-minute walk from here.

He should’ve left with Josh. Hell, he should’ve left hours ago when Bill started getting them to comment on their movie sessions or something. It would’ve been better if Bill had stopped replaying the same three or four movies, of course. But no, he’d stuck around like an idiot, hoping things would get better. They never did.

Oh well.

With his hands shoved in his pockets, he continued walking, his sneakers squelching slightly on the damp pavement. It had rained earlier, leaving puddles that reflected the sparse streetlights. It would probably rain again soon, and he wouldn’t want to be caught outside without an umbrella. (He didn’t even know the last time he had one!) The neighborhood was dead quiet except for the occasional dog barking in the distance.

He’d made it about two blocks when he spotted a familiar figure standing under a streetlight, staring intently at… well, nothing. Josh was just standing there in a comically oversized light purple hoodie, with one hand raised like he was trying to hail something.

“The fuck are you doing?” Pete called out.

Josh, who probably noticed him coming up, didn’t even turn. “Calling a cab, obviously.”

Pete snorted. “A cab? Here? At this hour?” He gestured at the empty suburban street. “You’d have better luck finding a unicorn, dipshit.”

“It’s happening,” Josh insisted, still staring down the empty road. He wriggled one foot like he was screwing himself into the ground. “I’m making it happen. Uh. Telepathically.”

“You’re high.”

“I’m focused. There’s a difference. You know I’m for real real.”

Pete walked up beside him, following his gaze down the deserted street. A few houses had porch lights on, but otherwise, it was just shadows and silence. There was, quite literally, no one there to get them a ride.

“Dude, just take the bus with me. It’s like five minutes away.”

“Buses are for peasants,” Josh said, which was rich coming from a guy whose mom still cut the crusts off his sandwiches. “Besides, look—” He pointed at the horizon where two headlights had appeared. “See? I told you telepathy works.”

“That’s just a car, you moron.”

“It’s a taxi, bro. Watch.”

Josh stepped into the street, waving his arms like he was directing air traffic. “Taxi! TAXI!”

It was ridiculous seeing him flap his arms like that. Who did he think he was, Daffy Duck? (Probably.) Still, the car approached, its headlights growing brighter. Pete squinted— wait, hold on. Huh. Holy shit, it actually did look like it might be a cab! The yellow paint job was visible even in the dark. No way.

“See?” Josh said smugly. “I told you… now help me out here.”

They both started waving frantically, and Josh practically jumping up and down. How despicable… but hey, this made sense, come to think of it. The taxi seemed to slow down for a moment, and Pete felt a surge of relief. Whew! No bus for him tonight.

Maybe Joshzilla was right. If he was their Daffy Duck, hell, Pete could be Bugs Bunny. The good news is that this almost always put him in a winning position, as shown in The Looney Tunes Hall of Fame (1991), which he had not watched.

Then the cab accelerated, veering slightly toward the curb where a massive puddle had collected. Pete saw it coming a split second before impact.

“Oh, fuck—”

A wave of filthy water hit them like a tidal wave, drenching them from head to toe. Pete sputtered, wiping mud from his eyes as the taxi’s taillights disappeared around the corner.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Josh screamed after it. “I HOPE YOU GET DICK CANCER!”

Pete shook himself like a wet dog, his flannel now plastered to his skin. “You could be more creative with your insults, you know?”

“T-that wasn’t a real taxi,” Josh said, wringing out his hoodie. “Real taxis stop. That was like… a fake taxi. Uh, heh. A faux-xi.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Is it, though?”

They stood there dripping for a moment, both too tired and wet to keep arguing. Pete’s jeans felt like they weighed fifty pounds, which was probably not too far from the truth.

“Wait,” Josh said suddenly, his face lighting up. He snapped his fingers, sending water droplets in a perfect arc onto Pete’s face. Ouch. “Wait wait wait. Holy shit.”

“What now?”

“I have a car!”

Pete stared at him. “What?”

“I have a car! How did I forget I have a car?” he patted his pockets frantically.

“You don’t have a car.”

“I do! It’s—” Josh spun around, looking confused. “Wait, where the fuck did I park?”

“Josh, you literally do not own a car. Your mom drives you to the comic shop.”

“No, no, it’s my cousin’s car. Mary Jane, you know, from Mexico. She let me borrow it.” Josh was already walking backward down the street, still scanning, and promptly backed into a stop sign with a metallic BONG. That hurt a bit. “Ugh— we go way back. Waaaay back.”

“Your cousin ‘Mary Jane’?” Pete followed, skeptical. “Wasn’t that the one who supposedly dated that guy from Soundgarden?”

“Y-yeah!” he chuckled. “That’s the one! And she did date him. For like a week.”

“Bullshit.”

“There!” Josh pointed at a beat-up 1991 Toyota Tercel parked halfway on someone’s lawn. “See? Car.”

Pete examined the vehicle. Indeed, it was a car, but it looked like it had seen much better days. The bumper was held on with what appeared to be an entire roll of duct tape, the antenna was a coat hanger, and the passenger door had a dent shaped suspiciously like a human body. “This is her car?”

“Well, technically it’s her ex-boyfriend’s brother’s car, but she has the keys, so…” Josh produced a set of keys from his pocket like a magician. “Ownership is relative!”

“We’re gonna die.”

“Of fun!” Josh unlocked the door, though after missing the keyhole three times. “Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.”

“It’s 1:30 in the morning. What the hell are we gonna do?”

“Then we’re going home. Whatever. Just get in before—”

While attempting to open the driver’s door, Josh yanked it with such force that it swung back and hit him in the face. He staggered, grabbed the door for support, and accidentally pulled it shut on his own fingers.

“FUCK!”

Pete walked around to the passenger side, and tried the handle; well, it was locked. He looked through the window at Josh, who was now somehow trapped with his jacket caught in the closed driver’s door, keys still in his pocket on the outside. He tried his best not to laugh, especially because it was this guy driving him home.

After a full minute of Josh attempting to contort himself free while Pete stood watching with dead eyes, he finally escaped by simply taking the jacket off. Huh, that was easy. He unlocked Pete’s door from the inside, then climbed over the center console to get back out and retrieve his jacket and keys.

“Well, enough goofing around,” Josh grinned. “Let’s get this baby running.”

When they were finally both seated, soaking wet in a car that smelled like it had died and come back wrong, Josh turned the key.

Nothing.

He tried again, to no avail. The engine made such a horrible sound it felt like someone was being strangled.

Finally, on the third try, the car roared to life, with its radio immediately blasting static at maximum volume. They both scrambled for the volume knob, causing Josh to accidentally hit the windshield wipers (which were broken; they just scraped dryly across the glass) and Pete to somehow turn on the hazard lights.

“Heh… uh… see?” Josh said, once they’d subdued the radio. “It works! Ha… well… Houston, we have ignition!”

“If we die, I’m haunting your ass.”

“Fair.” Josh reached for the CD player, his wet fingers fumbling with the buttons. “Oh man, you’re gonna love this. Prepare your ears for the future of music.”

A beat started pumping through the speakers, followed by a voice that made Pete’s eye twitch.

“Is this fucking R. Kelly?”

“The one and only!” Josh cranked the volume. “This man is a genius. It’s not really my type of music, you know, but— he makes Cobain look like a choir boy.”

“Turn it off.”

“What? This is art!”

“This is shit, and you’re gonna crash if you keep car-dancing like that.” Pete reached for the glove compartment, which fell open to reveal a collection of CDs in various states of decay. “Let’s see what Mary Jane’s got…”

He flipped through the selection. Tthere were a couple of unlabeled CDs, which unfortunately didn’t help his case. The others had names that weren’t too familiar to him. “Cause & Effect… Figures on a Beach? Cetu Javu… uh… oh, here we go— C.C.C.P…”

“Communist music? In this economy?” Josh chuckled.

“Better than R. Kelly.” Pete kept digging. “Wait, here’s something decent. ‘His ‘N’ Hers’ by Pulp. I think this just came out.”

“Only pulp I know is from orange juice.”

“Just drive, asshole.”

Pete swapped the CDs, and let Jarvis Cocker’s voice fill the car. Well, much better. Meanwhile, Josh continued with his half-competent driving skills, pulling onto the main road, and swerving slightly to avoid a pothole. “You know what we need?”

“Seatbelts that work?” Pete’s seatbelt was actually just decorative, attached to nothing. How this car still standing was beyond him. He was starting to think that maybe Josh had stolen this car from someone else.

“Food. Real food, actually. I’m starving, and I wasn’t gonna eat anything made from Bill.”

Pete’s stomach growled in agreement. Bill was a terrible cook; for Jerry’s birthday last year, he had the great idea of cooking vongole rosso, the classic Italian dish, but with the addition of shrimps, resulting in shrimp pasta — and all by himself. It would’ve worked excellently had he not almost burnt down his kitchen in the process.

“Same. But uh, nothing’s open this late except—”

“McDonald’s.”

“McDonald’s closes at eleven.”

“Not the one near Route 9. Oh, that bad boy’s twenty-four hours.” Josh took a hard left that made Pete grab the door handle. “Trust me, I know these things.”

“Since when?”

“Since Mary Jane used to take me there after her shifts at the strip club.”

“Your cousin worked at a STRIP CLUB?” Pete was actually genuinely surprised. How could he not have heard of such useful information before?

“Assistant manager, actually. Very respectable.”

Pete decided not to pursue that line of questioning. The Pulp CD was good, at least, and his clothes were starting to dry into a crusty mess. “Fine. But we’re going through the drive-thru. I’m not going inside looking like I just crawled out of a sewer.”

“Deal.”

They drove in relative peace for a few minutes. While Josh drummed on the steering wheel. Pete let himself relax slightly. He wasn’t even paying attention to the music anymore, but he was so confused at the events going on that he opted to just not think about it.

Eventually, a question popped into Josh’s head.

“So,” he said suddenly, “what do you think’s going on with Bill?”

Pete groaned. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

“I mean, he was extra dickish tonight. Even for him.”

“He’s always extra dickish.”

“Yeah, but like…” Josh sighed. “I don’t know. I thought it was weird.”

“Nothing unusual to me. Plus his mom’s out of town anyway so he’s like… uh… what was the word again?”

Josh rolled his eyes. “You mean ‘lonely.’”

“So maybe he’s just… I don’t know. Lonely or whatever.”

Unable to take that conversation seriously, Josh snorted. “But really? Bill? Lonely?”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s what happens after you stole his limited-edition Spawn figure.”

“I didn’t steal it! I borrowed it.”

“You planned to sell it!”

“I was gonna buy him a new one!” Josh protested. “Eventually. When I had money, that is. Which would have been never, but still.”

And so they continued.

---

It wasn’t hard to spot the golden arches in the distance. If there was ever a symbol of capitalism, well, it would be in the top ten for sure. Pete’s stomach growled again. Even McDonald’s sounded good after a night of Bill’s hospitality, which sucked. At that point he had resigned himself to his fate. He just wanted something to eat and to go to bed.

“You think Jerry’s okay?” Pete asked as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Eh. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I mean, he stayed behind with Bill.”

Josh shrugged, pulling up to the drive-thru. “He’s not ten anymore! Jerry can handle himself. Besides, he’s the only one Bill actually listens to sometimes.”

“Sometimes is not always.”

“But it’s better than never!”

Josh rolled down the window, and static immediately assaulted their ears.

“Welcome to McDonald’s, can I take your order?”

That voice was… not very familiar. It was nasally and irritated, like whoever was working had been there way too long. Given that it was over one in the morning, who wouldn’t be annoyed? There were no other customers there besides them anyway.

“Yeah, uh…” Josh leaned half out the window. “I’ll take three triple cheeseburgers, hold the cheese—”

“So… that’s three hamburgers?”

“No, three triple cheeseburgers without cheese. There’s a difference.”

Pete could practically hear the employee’s eye roll through the speaker. Both had no idea what the hell was going on.

“Fine. Three triple burgers, no cheese. What else?”

“Two Happy Meals with extra-large fries—”

“Happy Meals don’t come with extra-large fries.”

As funny as it sounded, Josh was actually a big fan of Happy Meals, and had been ever since they’d known each other. On the other hand, he’d never actually seen him buying one, and he wasn’t sure if any of his friends had either. (Especially Bill, who’d have already destroyed his life in that case.)

“Then make them,” Josh insisted. “And I want a sweet McLobster. With cheese. And a large Sprite.”

There was a long pause. Pete covered his face with his hands.

“Sir, we don’t have McLobster.”

“What do you mean you don’t have McLobster? It’s on the secret menu!”

“…there is no secret menu.”

“That’s exactly what someone hiding a secret menu would say!”

Pete grabbed Josh’s shoulder. “Dude, just order normal food before they call the cops.”

“Fine!” Josh huffed. “Give me the McLobster equivalent in nuggets.”

“How many nuggets is that?”

“I don’t know, you’re the expert!”

“Twenty piece?”

“Sure, whatever. And don’t forget my large Sprite.”

“Anything else?”

Pete leaned over. “Yeah, just get me a McChicken and a small fry.”

“One McChicken, one small fry. Your total is $20.10. Pull forward.”

Josh started to pull forward, then stopped. “Wait. Twenty bucks? We’re splitting this, right?”

An annoyed Pete stared at him. “Oh come on. You ordered three burgers, two Happy Meals, twenty nuggets, and a large drink, and you want me to pay half?”

“Friendship means sharing!”

“Friendship does not mean ‘ordering half the menu’ when I’m getting one sandwich!”

“Come on, man. I drove you here.”

“In a stolen car!”

“What?! It was borrowed! Mary Jane said—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Mary Jane said!” Pete dug into his wallet. “Look, I’ve got eight bucks. Take it or leave it.”

Josh grumbled but pulled forward to the window. When it slid open, they both froze for a moment.

The employee looked exactly like Bill. Not similar, no — it was exactly like him! My God. The same shitty haircut, even the same fucking mole on his cheek. His nametag read ‘Aaron,’ but Pete wasn’t convinced.

“Bill?” Josh asked.

Not-Bill rolled his eyes. “The total is $20.10. Cash or card?”

“Holy shit,” Pete whispered. “It’s like Bill’s evil twin.”

“I thought Bill was the evil twin,” Josh whispered back. “He even has the… uh… supermarket eyes?”

Not-Bill’s scowl deepened. “The what? Are you paying or not? I don’t have all night.”

Josh pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his pocket and combined it with Pete’s eight bucks. He smoothed the bills out and handed them over. Not-Bill counted it slowly; it was hard to see if he was personally offended by the existence of money, or by the fact that he had to be awake at this hour, dealing with terrible customers like them.

“You’re short.”

“By what, like, two bucks?” Josh wheedled. “Come on, man. Can’t you hook us up?”

Not-Bill stared at them with dead eyes. “No.”

“We’re soaking wet!”

“Not my problem.”

“Come on, dude. Just think of us… erm… poor people. You know.”

“Still not my problem.”

Pete sighed and dug out his emergency five from his shoe. He kept one there for special occasions, although he rarely had to use it. It was damp and smelled like foot, but money was money. “Here. Now can we have our food?”

Not-Bill took the bill between two fingers like it was radioactive, then disappeared. A few minutes later, he returned with two bags and a drink.

“Here. Have a great night.” He said it like a threat, though it was much more aimed at Josh than Pete.

Josh grabbed the bags. “Uh, hey, is this Sprite?”

“It’s Fanta.”

“I specifically said Sprite!”

“We’re out of Sprite.”

“Then why didn’t you say that?”

Aaron shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

The window slammed shut before Josh could respond. That guy lost his patience with them way before that happened.

“Unbelievable,” Josh muttered, shifting the car into drive with more force than necessary. “That was definitely Bill, right? Like, Bill got a job and didn’t tell us?”

“Hm, that wasn’t Bill,” Pete said, opening his bag. His McChicken looked like someone had stepped on it, but it would suffice. “Bill would never get a job. At least not before any of us, heh… he thinks employment is beneath him or whatever.”

“True.” Josh grabbed a handful of nuggets while driving, which Pete tried not to think about. “Man, these taste weird.”

“That’s because you’re eating them while driving seventy in a— Jesus, fuck, look at the stop sign!”

“I-I saw it! I’m multitasking!” Josh swerved around what was definitely someone’s mailbox, close enough that Pete could see the house numbers: 4421. Someone’s packages were going to be scattered across their lawn tomorrow. Oops. “So anyway, speaking of movies—”

“We weren’t speaking of movies.”

“We are now! I saw this thing recently, actually. Totally underrated piece of cinema… Blank Check.”

“The one with the kid?” Pete grabbed the oh-shit handle as Josh took a turn way too wide. He started to think Josh’s driving skills weren’t that great after all.

“There are many movies with kids, Pete. You should know that. Like, statistically… it’s part of your job too.”

“Actually I— well— okay, you’re right.”

Damn.

“Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So there’s this kid, right? I don’t know, Plutonium or whatever his name was. And he gets this blank check from this criminal who’s trying to— wait, no, first the kid’s bike gets run over—”

“To be fair, I’ve seen it.” Pete had not, actually.

He was a good liar, though.

“Have you?” Josh’s eyes lit up, and he turned to look at Pete for way too long considering he was driving. “Well, but have you really thought about it? Like, really analyzed the themes? The subtext? All that jazz?”

Pete took a bite of his sad McChicken. A piece of wilted lettuce immediately fell onto his lap. “I don’t know… it’s like… uh… a kids’ movie about uh, wish fulfillment or something. Kid gets money, buys stuff, learns that… money can’t buy happiness?”

He, of course, had absolutely no idea what this movie was about. To be fair, it definitely existed — he’d seen the VHS box at a friend’s —, and it probably had a kid involved, as Josh said, but beyond that he was shooting completely blind. Still, if he could at least guess the movie’s themes by trial and error, it meant his rusty guessing skills were not that outdated after all.

“No, no, no. You’re missing the whole point!” Josh gestured wildly with a half-eaten nugget, sending little breading flakes across the dashboard. “It’s a scathing critique of capitalism! See, the kid gets all this money, right? A million dollars! But then—” Josh’s forehead wrinkled. “Wait, how does it end again? Does he keep the money?”

“You don’t remember how it ends?”

“I was pretty high when I watched it.”

“Shocking.”

“But the middle part!” Josh continued, now using both hands to gesture, which Pete really wished he wouldn’t do while driving. They were going to die here, right? “There’s this whole thing with a water slide in his house, I think? Or… wait, no, hold on. That’s not right. Was there a water slide? Shit. Uh… was that Richie Rich?”

Pete noticed Josh’s eyes starting to droop, just as the car started to drift gently toward the shoulder. “Dude, just watch the road.”

“I’m watching! I’m just… thinking about water slides… they’re so… uh… slidey…”

The rumble strips on the shoulder started their angry buzzing. Pete lunged for the wheel. “Josh! JOSH!”

“What? WHAT?” Josh jerked awake so violently he yanked the wheel back, overcorrecting into the opposite lane. Pete’s McChicken went flying, hitting the passenger window with a wet splat before falling somewhere near his feet. “Oh shit, sorry. I’m good. I’m awake. Totally awake. See? Eyes wide open.”

“Pull over, man.”

“No way, I’m fine!”

“You almost drove us into a ditch!”

“That was intentional! I was… testing your reflexes! Making sure you’re alert!” he shook his head like a wet dog, slapping his own cheeks a few times. Pathetic. “Told you. Anyway, about Blank Check—”

“I swear to God, if you don’t shut up about that—”

“You know what? You’re just like Bill.” Josh pointed a nugget at him accusingly. “Everyone just starts shooting first, and ask questions second. You two have no appreciation for cinema.”

“Blank Check is not cinema!”

“Everything is cinema if you’re not a coward!”

Perhaps he was right, but he could never admit it. At least not in front of Josh.

They argued about movies for the rest of the drive, Josh’s driving somehow improving when he was distracted by defending what he called “the unfairly maligned children’s films of the Clinton administration.” He couldn’t actually name more than three, and Pete was pretty sure one of them was from the ‘80s, but the passionate gesticulating seemed to keep Josh awake and mostly in his lane. At least it was something…

Pete had also given up on recovering his McChicken; after fishing it out from under his seat and seeing the state it was in, he ate about half before admitting defeat. The floor mat seasoning wasn’t doing it any favors, unfortunately. He moved on to Josh’s abandoned fries, which had gone cold and soggy but were at least floor-free.

Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably twenty minutes, they pulled up outside Pete’s house. It was a modest two-story with aluminum siding that had seen better decades, with its paint peeling off in strips like dead skin. All the lights were off except for the telltale flicker of TV from his older brother’s room. Hard to figure out if he was awake or if he just left it on, though.

“Home sweet hellhole,” Pete muttered.

Josh put the car in park but left the engine running. By that point, the radio had switched to some late-night call-in show where someone was ranting about chemtrails. “You gonna be alright?”

Pete looked at him, surprised. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know, just…” Josh shrugged. “Tonight was weird, man. Even for us.”

“Every night with us is weird.”

“Fair, but uh, whatever, I mean,” Josh picked at the steering wheel. “I’m just saying, maybe we need to figure out our shit.”

Pete stared at him. “Pfft. Who are you and what did you do with Josh?”

“Fuck off, I can be deep!”

“Since when?”

“Since now!” Josh turned to face him. “Look, I’m picking you up after work tomorrow.”

Huh.

Pete blinked. “What?”

“Not a question. I’m picking you up. What time do you get off?”

“Like… six, but—”

“Cool. Six it is.” Josh nodded decisively. “We can hang out. Just us. I mean, Jerry’s probably busy and Bill is Bill, so yeah, just two bros, doing bro things.”

Pete felt his face heat up, grateful for the darkness. “That’s… kinda gay, dude.”

“Everything’s gay if you think about it hard enough.” Josh grinned. “It’s what that guy told me. Very smart guy, I think his name was Richard Nixon. But besides, you’re cool. Cooler than you think, that is. Bill’s just too far up his own ass to notice.”

“I…” Pete didn’t know what to say. Josh wasn’t usually this sincere. It was kinda funny, but also quite unsettling. Perhaps he was just sleep-deprived. “Yeah, okay. Six works.”

“Sweet.” Josh held out his fist. “Pound it.”

Pete bumped his fist, feeling ridiculous but also weirdly touched. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Thanks for the five bucks that smelled like foot.”

“It was an emergency five!”

“All fives smell like foot if you keep them in your shoe, bro. That’s what my friend used to tell me, I think. Uh… I don’t know anymore.”

Pete climbed out of the car, his still-damp clothes making squelching sounds. “See you tomorrow.”

“Later!” Josh called out, then peeled away with a screech of tires that definitely woke up half the neighborhood. It didn’t take long for someone’s dog to start barking, and a porch light flicked on two houses down.

God, he’s such a terrible driver, Pete thought, watching the car fishtail slightly as Josh overcorrected around the corner. How is this shitass not dead yet?

Pete watched the taillights disappear, then turned toward his house. He needed to get inside without waking anyone; his brothers would never let him hear the end of it if they saw him like this. Maybe he could just ninja this shit.

He carefully opened the front door, wincing at every creak. The house was dark except for the TV upstairs, so nothing exactly unusual here. He slipped off his soggy sneakers and started tiptoeing toward his room.

“The fuck happened to you?”

Pete froze. His oldest brother Mike was standing in the kitchen doorway, a beer in hand, looking amused.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to ninja this shit.

“Nothing. Got caught in the rain.”

“The rain stopped hours ago.”

“Uh… different rain.”

Mike snorted. “You smell like fish.”

“Pfft. That’s my natural musk.”

“Nasty.” Mike took a swig of beer. “You just getting in?”

“Maybe.”

“From Bill’s?”

“Yeah.”

“That kid’s a fucking psycho.”

Pete didn’t argue; it was true. Mike had met Bill exactly once, a few months back, when he’d come to pick up Pete and Bill had spent twenty minutes trashing Mike’s favorite band and essentially calling him smooth-brained in the process. It hadn’t gone well, but to be fair… he didn’t really know anyone else in America who liked Take That.

“Well, I’m going to bed,” Pete said.

“Shower first. Jesus, you really do smell like fish.”

“Wow. You’re telling me that for the first time,” he shrugged. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime, little brother.”

Pete trudged upstairs, peeling off his crusty clothes as he went. His room was a disaster; there were comics everywhere, dirty laundry in the corner, and a Fangoria poster that was definitely giving him nightmares but that he was too stubborn to take down. Plus it looked kind of cool.

He grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom, trying his best to not let his thoughts drift back into the night’s events; he was partially successful at this. It was all too much for his tired brain to process what he was saying, though. Thankfully, the shower was heaven. Hot water helped wash away the street grime, McDonald’s grease, and whatever else had accumulated on him throughout the night. He stood under the spray longer than necessary, letting his mind go blank.

When he finally got out, it was past 2:30. Ugh. He had to be up for work in four hours! The movie theater job wasn’t much, to be fair — it was just a minimum wage job where he dealt with annoying customers and cleaned up other people’s messes —, but it was his. Plus, free movies when the manager wasn’t looking. This included popcorn, although the quality was not the finest.

Eventually, Pete collapsed into his bed, not bothering with pajamas. His pillow smelled like home — which made sense, because it was his pillow. In his home. That was a bad analogy, actually. He really need to think of better analogies to use. Was that even one?

As he drifted off, he thought about Josh picking him up tomorrow. It was kind of unbelievable. Just the two of them hanging out, hmm, might it actually be… fun?

The last thing Pete thought before sleep took him was that he definitely smelled like fish. Mike was right about that. Not so much now, but there had definitely been that smell. That fishy smell. Uhh… how would one describe a fish smell with a word that isn’t “fishy”?

Oh well. Tomorrow’s problem.

He just hoped his alarm would wake him up.