"I didn't open it," was the second thing Ray said.

Erik had slipped on a persistent icy patch on his way into Place Riel and fallen into a puddle of slush, mud, and leaves. His notebook was soaked, his notes for the past month of classes potentially destroyed, and he needed to change his pants. He was in no mood to deal with Ray at the moment. Yanking at his shoelaces until the knots came undone, he kicked off his shoes and left them before the door, the muddy slush free to melt into the carpet of ugliness.

After a moment's thought, Erik pulled off his socks as well. They were mismatched except for twin blots of grey-brown muddiness that had soaked through holes in his shoes. He dropped them uncaringly on the floor and skulked past Ray to the bedroom.

Ray was facing away from the door, his nose actually touching the pages of a textbook on quantum theory. Knowing Ray, it was an exaggerated parody of study to distract from the most recent idiotic and illegal thing he had done.

Erik didn't care.

"You also have a parcel," said Ray, his voice carrying into the bedroom as Erik struggled out of wet and muddy jeans.

"Did you open that," Erik asked, wiping his legs dry with the less-soaked part of his jeans.

"And offend your charmingly decrepit monarch? I would never do such a thing."

Erik snorted at the pretence of innocence and found a dry pair of jeans with tattered cuffs and a hole in the knee under the bed. He left the bedroom, zipping them up. "What kind of package?"

"Since I didn't open it, I wouldn't know, would I?"

"You signed for it, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, the poor old fellow carried it up three flights of stairs in an elevator. I couldn't make him carry it back down. That would be cruel."

"And you're never cruel." Erik leaned over Ray and yanked the textbook out of his hands, throwing it over his shoulder to hang out on the floor with the shoes and socks.

"I was reading that," said Ray, tilting his head back to look at Erik and up Erik's nostrils.

"No, you weren't."

"I was studying. My academic performance is very valuable to me and I would hate to see myself fail a class because you succumbed to the urge to throw a temper tantrum."

"The package, Ray."

Ray shrugged. "It said 'gift' and came this way from Ontario. Beyond that, I profess to be at a loss. It could be a scarf, a bottle of Viking mead, a poorly-packaged and now useless human brain -- I have more important and more interesting things to do than inspect your mail, Thor."

"News to me. Where'd you stash it?"

"Broom closet."

"We have a broom?"

"Next to the coat closet, my ignorant friend."

"And the letter you didn't open?" asked Erik, the insulting rolling away. If he let Ray insults get to him, he had realized one day, he'd be more miserable than he already was, with no chance of respite.

"My ninja senses told me the two were connected, so I put it on the parcel."

"Or they had the same return address." Erik pushed away from the couch and went to investigate the closet.

"No. Ninja senses. You really must stop being so suspicious and paranoid, Thor. It is not an attractive quality for a non-ninja to possess."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Erik. He found the package; it was largish and soft, wrapped in brown paper that crinkled loudly when he grabbed it. The letter fell on the floor as he did so. He swore under his breath, tucked the package under his arm, and grabbed the letter. Ray hadn't been lying, for once. The package had come from Ontario, while the letter had the familiar return address of his parents' postal box in Doherty. Erik's heart sank, but he pushed sudden terror and nausea aside as best he could. He returned to the couch and sat down heavily, tearing the paper off the mysterious package first.

Under the brown paper was a layer of white tissue paper that tore at the touch of Erik's hands, which were still slightly damp. Beneath the tissue paper was plastic and grey.

Grey?

After spending a puzzle minute staring at the bundle in his lap, Erik turned it over. Then, the greyness took form, although it increased his confusion instead of decreasing it. He looked up to find Ray watching him in some bemusement, one eyebrow arched, but, disconcertingly, silent.

It wasn't possible, but --

Erik tore open the envelope. There was his mother's precise handwriting. His eyes skimmed a few vague pleasantries, updates on this and that and Collin -- in a burst of maturity, he stuck his tongue out at the letter --, the usual parental reminders to study hard, and a brief scolding -- there was no other word for it -- on the subject of teenage boys who rarely returned or answered phone calls, leaving the parents of said teenage boys to wonder if their teenage boys were getting any of the more vital messages at all.

Hence the letter-writing.

At the end of the letter, almost as an afterthought, there was a paragraph that inspired such fear that Erik read it with great care.

Three times.

Your grandparents have agreed to come to Saskatchewan for a short visit in March. I've convinced them to come see your little brother before all his time is taken up by preparing for exams and his training for next year's assault on Turin. It only seems right, when they're being so good in helping finance him again. They'll be arriving in Saskatchewan on the morning of the 20th. Naturally, your father and I will be coming to pick them up. Before we leave the city, they want to meet with you. There are some things that need to be discussed. We'll meet you at the Sutton for brunch. Your grandmother mentioned sending you something to wear as a late Christmas present, so don't forget it, and remember to say thank you.

I'll call before we set out on the Friday so you don't forget.

Erik's eyes went to the calendar on the side of the fridge, then to the beginning of the letter, where his mother had carefully written the date: March 4th, 2005. Two weeks ago. He stared at the letter and wondered if he hated his family or Canada Post more. "Fuck."

Ray yawned and rolled off the couch. "Oh, I forgot to mention: your mother called while you were at class."

"Well, I can't see your wrists. Or your ankles. That must be some sort of miracle. I wonder if it's you or your grandmother who'll be canonized. Maybe the tailors."

"Thank you, Ray, for your unasked for opinion," said Erik. He made a face at himself in the bathroom mirror, ran a finger under the collar of the shirt -- pale, pale blue -- and wondered if it was too late to get hit by a car.

"You need a tie," Ray declared after spending a moment critically contemplating Erik.

"I was not sent a tie. I do not own a tie. I have no desire to wear a tie." Erik focussed on his reflection, combing damp hair with his fingers.

"And yet, the fact remains: you need to wear a tie with that suit. Surely you want to make a good impression, and you must concede that you need all the help you can get in such an endeavour. You can borrow one of mine. I have plenty, you know."

"I know," said Erik, his voice flat.

Ray pushed himself away from the bathroom doorframe and vanished into the bedroom. Erik wondered if he had time to escape to the car before Ray re-emerged. Probably not, he decided. Ray knew where the car was parked, and he could probably beat Erik to it by climbing out the bedroom window.

Again.

Erik was still standing in the bathroom when Ray's head appeared from around the corner. One gloved hand thrust forward, a dark blue tie with a thin blue stripe dangling from it. "Here you are! It might be a little short on you, but I'm sure no one who's actually met you expects anything else."

"I'm flattered," said Erik. He made a grab for the tie. Ray jerked his arm back, somehow managing to hold the tie just out of Erik's reach. It was possible that, in the name of annoyance, he had dislocated his shoulder. Erik sighed and pulled his hand back. "Ray ..."

"Bend down, Thor my boy. I don't trust you not to accidentally garrotte yourself."

"I don't think that word means what you're pretending it means."

Ray exhaled loudly, fixing Erik with an impatient look. His bushy black eyebrows were drawn down into a threatening frown. "As soon as your barbaric tongue coins a word that means 'idiotically and accidentally strangling oneself with an article of clothing in the process of trying to put it on', I will modify my vocabulary accordingly. Head. Down."

Erik bent his neck in compliance, certain that if he didn't, Ray would never let him leave, and might kill him with the tie himself. Ray looped the tie around his neck and deftly knotting it, tightened it just a bit too tightly so Erik's Adam's apple felt compressed, and straightened it. Erik stood up and loosened the tie's death grip on his neck with one finger.

Ray looked up at him, eyes round and wide with expectation.

Erik sighed. "Thank you, Ray," he managed to say without choking on the words.

"I'm also happy to offer my non-tie related support in your upcoming trial."

For a minute, there was a picture perfect image in Erik's mind of what would happen if Ray met his grandfather. He shivered. "That ... won't be necessary. Really." He edged past Ray and made the way to the door and his shoes. The battered old sneakers probably didn't 'go' with the dark grey suit, but Erik couldn't find it in him to give a fuck.

Ray followed him. "I would feel remiss as a friend if I didn't off you my support in this, your hour of need."

"You've offered. I've declined. It's cool." Erik grabbed his scarf and mittens. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Just try not to burn the place down while I'm out."

The Sutton was the sort of restaurant Erik would never go to with Ray: they served recognizable food that hadn't been sculpted out of grease and MSG. His grandparents didn't set foot in Saskatchewan often enough to have a favoured base of operations for undermining his self-esteem, but if they did, it would be the Sutton. Located in not-quite downtown, it occupied some historically significant building. From certain tables you could see the river. It was the sort of place everyone liked except for Collin -- who, as far as Erik could tell, liked nothing -- and called the place pretentious. Erik would have liked it himself, if he didn't associate it with painful, family-induced trauma.

It was just possible that he should stop sitting in the parking lot, hunched miserably over the steering wheel. If he was notably late, it would be another black mark against him in the upcoming discussion. Erik didn't know what the discussion was going to be about, but he knew if his presence was required, it couldn't be good, and his grandparents would have arrived with several negative points already in mind.

Erik was fairly certain the Sutton wouldn't serve him beer, either.

Dragging himself through the parking lot to the front doors was exhausting. Opening the doors was worse. Erik might have felt encouraged by the appearance of a waitress -- tall, dark-haired, and dressed in a classy but form-fitting black sweater and skirt -- if he hadn't simultaneously felt like vomiting at her feet from nervousness. Plus, Erik considered himself an expert in deciphering looks that said 'If it weren't my job, I wouldn’t give you the time of day'. Erik lowered his eyes to the floor and mumbled a description of the group that was waiting for him. They had certainly arrived before he did, probably by a good fifteen minutes.

The waitress took him to a table for four with an extra chair pulled up to the end, facing the window, refilled the coffee cups on the table -- maybe they'd been waiting a minimum of twenty minutes -- and Erik was left to face his family alone in a quiet restaurant.

At least the chair gave him something like an easy escape route.

Erik didn't sit down and his grandfather stood up, half a head shorter than Erik. Both his Glendower grandparents' hair had turned pure white at some point in Erik's adolescence, although he wasn't sure when. His grandfather remained straight-backed, wiry-slim like Collin, and dauntingly hale.

"Sigurd."

"Good morning, Grandfather," said Erik, pronouncing his words with caution and keeping them stiffly polite.

His grandfather extended a hand, which Erik shook obediently, trying to hold his hand in a way that kept it from appearing to dwarf his grandfathers' sun-browned, callused one. After a few seconds of this discomfort, Erik was released and his grandfather sat back down. His grandmother remained seated, but Erik bent down, kissing her cheek. He could never tell if the act was something his grandmother liked or merely something she expected of him as her eldest grandson, whether either of them enjoyed it or not.

"Grandmother," he murmured as he straightened and finally sat down. "Thank you for the gift."

"You're welcome, Sigurd," she responded, her voice pronouncing the name in a swift, clipped fashion, getting it out of the way as quickly as possible. His Glendower grandparents disliked the name, possibly more than he did, but somehow it had never become a bonding point for them.

"Dad. Mom. Good to see the drive down didn't give you any trouble." Erik wondered why the waitress hadn't given him any coffee. Wasn't being forced to have a Talk, whatever it was about, sober bad enough?

"Hey, kid." His dad sounded just a bit relieved. Erik couldn't blame him. In Erik's absence, his Glendower grandparents would have focussed their coolly polite disapproval, contempt, and irritation on his dad. Now that Erik had arrived, everyone could put their differences aside long enough to be disappointed in him, as the universe intended.

"You look very ... neat, Sigurd." Trust his mom to find a way around such outright lies as describing him as 'well', or 'healthy'. Or 'handsome'. He may have been none of those things, but fuck, he was able to shower!

There was an uncomfortable silence as Erik was allowed to peruse a menu. He considered lingering in indecision to further delay the Talk, but he could hear his stomach growl disapproval of that idea. He was famished. The curse of a hopefully no longer growing teenage boy.

The waitress returned and allowed him coffee, at last. Without asking if he were ready -- so much for Plan Delay, even if he hadn't been starving -- everyone else ordered, his dad with the pleasure of a man who rarely got to eat a meal he hadn't made himself. When the waitress came to him, her gaze sharpened, clearly expecting him to dither in indecision and keep her rooted to the floor by their table even longer.

He mumbled his order without looking at her.

Once the waitress was gone, there was no one and nothing to protect him from the Talk. The section of the restaurant they were in was deserted. Erik wondered if his grandfather had bribed people to sit elsewhere. Publicly browbeating one's grandson was probably not a done thing. Someone might overhear and become aware of the shame and disgrace that was blighting your family.

Hopefully food would come quickly.

"How is school going, Sigurd?" asked his grandfather.

Erik focussed on his coffee. He added one, two, three packets of sugar, one at a time, then a fourth packet, this one brown sugar. A few granules stuck to his thumb. He licked them off and tried to look like he was thinking. "Okay," he said at last.

"You're in your second year now, yes?"

As if his grandfather could somehow not know. "Yeah," Erik said, seeking safety in monosyllables. He added an excess of cream to his coffee in an attempt to lower its temperature to the point where it would be safe to drink.

"And what are your plans?" his grandmother asked, silently casting a disapproving eye on his coffee cup.

"Dunno." Erik brought the cup to his lips and drank slowly to give himself an excuse not to elaborate. The coffee was lukewarm, sweet, and barely recognizable as coffee.

"You see, Sigurd, we're just a bit concerned."

Somehow, Erik thought, his mom has chosen her words without consulting his grandparents, who didn't look so much concerned as irritated.

"Some of your marks have been, well, worryingly low."

Erik sunk lower in his chair. He wrapped his hands around the coffee cup, his fingers overlapping each other. "Passed everything."

His mom looked pained. "You barely passed calculus last year."

"Still passed it," said Erik, hoping the conversation would steer back in a direction where one-word answers were appropriate.

"Regardless, your transcripts are far from impressive," his grandfather said. No beating around the bush for him.

"I haven't printed or ordered any transcripts," said Erik, just managing to bite off a sullen 'so how would you know?'

His dad cleared his throat. "The password for your university account isn't that hard to figure out --"

"And we do think it's inappropriate how uninformed you keep us about your education and academic performance," said his grandmother, fixing a disapproving look -- did she have any other kind? -- on him, over the rims of her glasses. "If it were not for our generosity, I don't know how your parents could have afforded to send you to university, after Caridwen."

"Even though the burden of her tuition was certainly eased by all those scholarships," his grandfather added.

Erik wondered if familial invasion of privacy was a crime. Fuck, what e-mails had been in the inbox of his university account? It wasn't like he was having a torrid affair, real or virtual, unfortunately, but there'd been an e-mail discussion with Dustin after Christmas about things he didn't want to think about. He'd sooner die than let his parents -- or his grandparents, fuck -- know about that. Inhaling a mouthful of coffee, Erik tried to tell himself that if they'd read those e-mails, this Talk would not have begun with badgering him about schoolwork and marks, with plenty of time for a brief segue about how much better Rowen was than him.

At least it was a change from the usual tune of unflattering comparisons between himself and Collin.

Would it be possible to make turning someone's self-esteem to mud a crime? Sometime, when he was drunk, Erik would have to ask Ray.

Not when he was too drunk, mind.

"Sorry."

"There's also the matter of the classes you've been taking." His grandfather, and everyone else at the table, lapsed into silence as the waitress appeared to top up coffee cups. Erik wished his was larger. Everyone was very interested in their coffee until the waitress was out of hearing distance, hopefully, and then the Talk resumed as though it had never been interrupted. "Your course selection seems highly eclectic and distressingly unfocussed."

Erik shrugged his already-hunched shoulders. "Can't always get into a class, or there's scheduling conflicts ..."

The look Erik got in response to this explanation suggested that he was somehow responsible for the failings of the university's course selection process.

"At the moment, you are apparently enrolled in a philosophy of sexuality class." His grandmother took a long sip of coffee, presumably to burn the taste of the words out of her mouth.

Oh fuck. "Was enrolled in a different class. It sucked. Needed something to replace it. Not a lot of options. That one seemed easiest." There. Not exactly a lie. His mom could smell an outright lie.

"Is it?" Even his dad seemed a bit puzzled by this point.

"It's okay. It's school." In fact, when Erik could make himself go to the class at all, he sat in the back corner and hid behind his textbook to avoid making eye contact with anyone. When he actually read the textbook, he always kept a beer or three on hand, and sometimes abandoned the apartment (and Ray) entirely and slunk off to privacy and alcohol at St. James'.

"It's not important, anyway." When his grandfather waved a dismissive hand, it was less a wave and more like impatient chopping of the air. "What is important is --"

"Food!" Erik couldn't keep the sound of relief out of his voice. His grandfather wouldn't try and explain what was so fucking important while the waitress was present and his dad wouldn't allow a serious and un-fun conversation to interfere with something as important as a meal. Erik would eat his meal with particular care and slowness, no matter what his stomach's opinion was.

Erik's stomach tried to convince him that there was enough food -- four slices of toast, two scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon, four gleaming fat sausages, a bowl of fruit salad, a second bowl of cottage cheese, two thick pancakes, a towering glass of orange juice -- that even if eating speedily, it would take an eternity to clean the plate, but Erik remained in full control and lingered over each bite, washing his food down regularly with coffee.

After twenty-five minutes, his plate was clean, but his grandmother was still picking at her toast, which gave him another six minutes.

"What are your plans for the future? Once you're no longer attending university, that is." His grandfather carefully avoided such presumptive words as 'completed'. Wonderful.

"Dunno. Work."

"What a detailed plan." It should be made illegal for grandmothers to indulge in sarcasm.

"I think" said his mom, playing the voice of reason, "that everyone would feel you were in a better position if you had a major. Being undeclared when you're almost done your second year, well, it could cause some concerns that it might take you longer than four years to complete a degree."

"A major."

"In a subject you already have a significant number of credits in. Anything else would be foolish," his grandfather said, emptying his coffee cup.

"Uh, yeah. Guess that makes sense."

"English or history," said his grandmother. "Those are the only subjects you've come close to taking a significant number of classes in."

"Oh. Uh. History, I guess."

And that was it.

His grandfather collected the bill that had been slipped unobtrusively on the table by the waitress the last time she had walked past to provide more coffee. "Of course, we expect you to consult with an advisor on campus about how to best proceed, and to keep your parents better informed of developments from this point forth."

"Yeah," said Erik, staring wistfully at the ring of sugar saturated coffee that remained at the bottom of his cup, but another drink was out of the question; everyone else was standing up. Lemming-like, Erik followed their example, although he slunk several Erik-length steps behind them as his grandfather, the soul of generosity, went to pay for the meal.

He kept dragging his feet as they left the Sutton and entered the parking lot, although there was little point to it after his parents and grandparents stopped by his parents' van and turned, waiting, to look at him.

He hoped he wasn't going to be scolded for dawdling.

He wasn't. Everyone seemed to be as eager for the Talk to be over as he was. His parents hugged him and he wished them a safe drive back home. His grandfather nodded his head in Erik's direction, while his grandmother seemed to think that doing anything more strenuous than looking at him would exhaust her.

And then it was over.

Erik stood in the parking lot, watching the old van drive off and waiting for it to disappear before he went to the car. As the van turned out of sight, he realized he wasn't alone.

"I think you need something to buck you up after that ordeal, Thor my boy."

"Didn't I tell you your presence was not required, Ray? Did I not, in fact, imply that you were to confine yourself to the apartment and stay out of my business in no uncertain terms? Did you hide in the trunk or what?"

"Or what. It is nothing but passing chance that has caused our paths to cross at this juncture, but what a happy chance it is."

"Ecstatic," said Erik. He rubbed his face with his hands; he was tired and he wasn't sure he had the energy to withstand being in the same city as Ray.

"I developed a hunger of a very specific sort and it needed to be satiated as quickly as possible, despite your ever-polite request to the contrary. Alas, my hunger was not compatible with anything within walking distance --"

"That's a first."

"-- and you had selfishly made off with my half of the car. Some careless individual had left their vehicle unlocked a few spaces from where our car usually resides, and I thought to borrow it, to teach the owner an important lesson --"

Erik choked.

"However, it was unapologetically ugly, and not in an amusing way. So I sought aid from another source, which did involve a bit more exertion than I would have liked, but for a ninja, all things are possible."

"Traitor," said Erik, at last acknowledging Dustin's presence. "Why'd you need to drag Dustin into this, you bastard?"

Ray tilted his head to the side and looked Concerned. "They really did a number on you, didn't they?"

Dustin lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh. Right." Erik felt somewhat embarrassed by his inability to see the obvious, although much of that was clouded by irritation at Ray's continued look of Concern. He shook his head. "But I'm not about to believe that you ended up here by accident."

"Thor, you didn't tell me where you were going," said Ray patiently.

"Like that would stop you. Besides, Dustin could have told you what restaurant my family likes to go to."

"Ye-es, he certainly could have," said Ray. He patted Erik's shoulder and gently steered him in the direction of the car. Erik decided not to say anything about the fact that he could see Ray making the international sign for crazy around his temple out of the corner of one eye. "But let us not dwell excessively on such tedious things, friend Thor. Instead, let us focus on curing your present melancholy the way the Lord God always intended us to."

"Ray, not only is this a Saturday, but I'm really not in the mood for you getting all religious and crap again. When you talk religious, things bode." An understatement, Erik thought, but honesty would just get him accused of hyperbole.

"We're not going to church, Thor. No, the cure for your woes is something far more ancient than that."

"I don't want a prostitute, Ray."

Ray sighed hugely. "We're buying sushi and getting drunk."

"Oh fuck."

"Why," asked Erik blearily, "am I under a pool table? Where the fuck am I?"

"To answer your second question first: you are in Dust and Ash and Invisible Bob's basement." Erik couldn't tell where Ray's voice was coming from, but it was definitely not from under the pool table. Good. "As for your first question, we rolled you under there when you passed out so you wouldn't be in the way."

Erik blinked painfully and rolled onto his side. He could see Ray's socks. "Since when is there a pool table here?" he asked at last. That seemed like a safe question.

"Because, when I found it in the alley you were frightfully unresponsive to the idea of replacing your bed with it. Thankfully, there's a plenitude of available space in our friends' charming domicile, which is, as a bonus, remarkably easy to get into without keys. You couldn't expect me to allow a gem such as this to languish in an alley, Thor, to be collected and disposed of by an uncaring trash man. It would be wasteful. More than that, it would be criminal."

Erik groaned and rolled onto his other side so he wouldn't have to look at Ray's socks. The opposite end of the pool table contained no feet at all. "Less stupid talk, please."

"You asked, Thor."

"And I regretted it." Erik moved his wrist up to eye level and squinted at his watch. It was only 7:45. "What the fuck happened?"

"I suspect you were unprepared to lose your sake virginity."

Erik cringed at Ray's tastelessly cruel turn of phrase. "Sake?"

"Well, yes. I suppose I could have bought beer as well, but why buy dried pasta when you have fresh?"

"There was pasta?" asked Erik. His head throbbed.

"No, Thor," said Ray with patience. "There was no pasta. There was sushi. Sushi requires sake. They go together like Canadians and hockey. Like the Welsh and sheep. Like --"

"Sushi?"

Ray sighed. "Yes, Thor, sushi. I know there was a bit of a wait as they put the order together, but you hadn't started drinking at the time."

"I ate sushi?"

"After a time, yes. It did take some coaxing and the majority of a bottle of sake, but you certainly consumed your usual Viking-portions of the stuff."

Erik was horrified. "I don't like sushi."

"I admit, I do recall you mumbling something along those lines in your usual fashion when I instructed you to park outside Fuzion, but I attributed it to your usual spiritlessness when confronted with the unknown."

"I've had sushi before, dumbass. You got some from that place on 8th in first year. I threw up."

"A fluke," Ray declared grandly. "Probably the result of insufficient sake consumption."

"I hate sushi. It hates me. We'd agreed to leave each other alone after that fateful night."

There was the sound of footsteps as Ray moved around the pool table. Then, Ray abruptly bent down so his face was level with Erik's. Erik recoiled from Ray's face, which was flushed, but wearing a stern expression. "That sounds like a suspicious and unlikely cover story, Thor."

"Cover story for what?"

"Your greed, Thor. For your greed. I am a man who accepts many things, and many slights, and my generous nature is renowned, but even I have my limits."

"Greed?"

"I have reason to believe, my dear Thor, that you have consumed more than your fair share of inari. Which is absolutely not allowed. The Japanese culinary skill set may be riddled with flaws, but I would be hard-pressed to say an ill word against inari."

"Ray, not only do I not like sushi, but I haven't a fucking clue what inari is."

"Please, Thor, you're in no state to be constructing these flimsy protests. You'll do nothing but embarrass us both. But never fear; this altercation shall not see the destruction of our friendship."

"Oh. Good," said Erik dully as he tried to find a less painful position for his aching head.

"I have set the good Dust to work on a device that will measure the amount of tofu a person has consumed." Ray beamed.

"Tofu?" Erik frowned, shook his head, and instantly regretted it. "Wait -- Dustin is here?"

"Well, he does live here, Thor. And I believe he'll start working on the tofu-Ray-meter any moment now, although it is difficult to determine when he's acquiesced to something."

"The tofu--"

"--Ray-meter, yes. Obviously named after its most brilliant inventor -- me." Ray's smile gleamed and his accent was a heavy Italian one. He was at least as drunk as Erik must have been before he passed out.

"That's stupid." Erik's head hurt too much to humour a drunken -- or a sober -- Ray.

"It's distilled genius."

"You aren't even doing the work!" Erik immediately realized the mistake of raising his voice and lowered it once more to the more tolerable harsh whisper he'd been using since he awoke. "You said you were making Dustin do it. Or trying to, at least."

"He's doing the construction, the manual labour, the crude physical end of the project. The ideas are the genius part and those are all mine."

"I can tell."

"I fully intend to split the profits. Say, 80-20."

"Soul of generosity, eh?"

"Very!"

Erik sighed. "Can I go back to sleep? I think I had a long day."

"You don't remember?" Ray thrust his head further under the pool table, to get a closer look at Erik, presumably. He was doing the concerned voice again.

"Fuzzy," Erik muttered, sliding further away from ray.

"Then my plan was a success!" Erik groaned and put an arm over his head. "You can thank me for this temporary relief of ignorance when all the horribleness returns to the forefront of your mind." Ray's head retreated and he stood up. Erik could hear him walking away from the pool table, but it wasn't long before the too-loud footfalls grew close again.

Erik rubbed his eyes. "What horribleness?"

"You'll remember all too soon and regret it, I'm sure." A pillow appeared under the pool table, held in one of Ray's hands. It was pushed meaningfully in Erik's direction.

Reluctantly, Erik took the pillow. It was one of the tattered ones from the couch that lurked in Dustin's basement. It didn't smell too awful. He put it under his head. Surprisingly, it did seem to help the pain somewhat. "But --"

"We're not going to speak of it, Thor. It would undo all the hard work of myself and sake if I did." Ray began moving away from the pool table again. Erik could hear him yawning. "Go to sleep, Thor."

As much as Erik hated to agree with anything Ray might suggest, it was hard to argue against anything that might temporarily take the hurting away. He shut his eyes and tried not to wonder why he was wearing a tie.