Put his shirt in the sink and get rid of the latest coffee stain unless he wanted Kevin to dock his pay for a replacement.

Erik sighed and began pulling the shirt over his head. "Ray, do we have any vinegar?" he called, the question muffled by the fabric.

"In an infinite universe, anything is possible," intoned Ray from somewhere below the couch.

"Very helpful," said Erik. He crumpled his work shirt into a ball and went to explore the kitchen.

"You look exhausted, my dear Thor."

"Yeah, well, work has an alarming tendency to do that to people," Erik said, rolling his eyes. He gave up on his exploration of the fridge.

"You also look like a famine victim, but I suppose they haven't invented a cure for that. Unless that's why you need the vinegar, in which case that is probably the most disgusting and absurd weight gain diet I can imagine, short of one involving pure lard being pumped into your system via a tube."

"Shut up, Ray," said Erik, poking in the cupboards above the sink.

"But you know what there is a cure for?"

"You shutting up?"

"Exhaustion! That we can deal with."

"Yes," said Erik, going down on one knee to check under the sink, "there is. I can't believe you've heard of that miracle remedy they're calling 'sleep', too. Catching up on your infomercials, eh?"

"Sleep is for old people, Thor. It's a last possible resort!"

"Like going to class if you want to pass the final?" In the cupboard under the sink Erik found an unmarked bottle, which he seized and pulled out. Unscrewing the cap, he took a careful sniff and was relieved to find that it wasn't an old bottle of bleach left by previous tenants. He rubbed his nose and carried the vinegar to the bathroom with his shirt, walking past Ray, who had finally sat up. His chin was propped on the edge of the couch arm and he looked after Erik with a woeful expression.

"What you need, Thor, is some quality time spent with the fairer sex. It's for your own good. I know you find women intimidating, with them being so physically imposing and all, but you have to get beyond that. You can't continue harbouring unrequited lust for the lovely Sarah, unless you want Ash to guarantee you won't be harbouring inappropriate thoughts about anyone ever again."

Filling the sink with cold water, Erik groaned. "Shut up, Ray, please. All I want is a beer and some sleep."

"But I could introduce you to some –"

"No thanks," said Erik, pouring vinegar into the sink and stirring it with his shirt.

"We could take out the car and –"

"Dustin's car. And no," Erik said, letting his shirt soak in the sink and leaving the bathroom to hunt for an almost-clean shirt.

There was silence as Erik scrounged through his laundry, sniffing at T-shirts. It was too complete a silence for him to believe that Ray had decided to let the subject drop. He was just thinking, searching for a new plan of attack.

As Erik pulled on a shirt that wasn't entirely repellant and, by the standards of late night lounging around the apartment, was practically pristine, Ray had his revelation.

"I could lend you some money and you could drive to –"

"No!" Erik nearly choked on the word and frantically pulled his shirt down as he bolted out of the bedroom.

"Well, fine," said Ray. He looked annoyed. "I give you some money –"

"No!" yelled Erik before he could control himself. "No," he repeated in a lower tone. "No hookers."

"You try to help a friend out," sighed Ray, turning his attention back to the television and what looked like a new dungeon in Dance of Flames, judging by the way the ceiling was violently attacking Ray's character, "and you get yelled at. I know there aren't many opportunities to cultivate manners in the Canadian wilderness, but really, Thor, you could try saying 'thank you' now and then."

"I'm sorry, I never learnt the etiquette of how to decline an idiot roommate's offer to go cruising for hookers."

"If you won't take my advice or help, why don't you call that girl?"

Erik's shoulders tenses and he went, sensible, on the even-more-defensive. "What girl?"

"That brain-washed Protestant with the horrible taste in friends – and men, if she gave you her real number," said Ray. "How many girls who show a smidgen of interest in you can there be? Surely not enough to get them mixed-up. Even you aren't that dumb."

"Thanks," Erik snarled. His face felt like it was on fire.

"So why don't you –"

"I did," Erik interrupted roughly and refused to elaborate.

Ray tried to get more information from him anyway. "And?" he prompted, coaxed, cajoled, and did everything else in his power to make the single word pull an answer from Erik.

"Piss off," Erik suggested. He was not opening himself up to further mockery by Ray on that front. He had remembered, and phoned, Hailey. A week ago.

It had taken Erik ten minutes of babbling before Hailey had remembered him and once she had, she had not been impressed with Erik's pathetic, poorly worded advances, or the fact that it had taken him over a month to get around to them.

At the moment, Erik could do without hearing how hopeless Ray found him in greater detail. "Shouldn't you be thinking about sleep instead of hookers and my sex life?" asked Erik, going to the fridge for a beer he needed even more than when he had gotten off work.

"Why would you think that? Whores should always take precedence over sleep."

"You wrote that big ass exam is why." Erik held the blessedly cool beer can against his cheek for a moment before opening it. Beer foamed forth violently, running down his hand. He licked his fingers clean as he eyed his roommate. "I thought you'd have passed out already, to be honest."

The shake Ray gave his head was a violent one. "Don't be stupid, Thor. The only way to properly celebrate post-life-affecting-exam relief is through partying! Drinking! Whoring!"

Erik snorted. "So get on with it, then," he said, looking pointedly at the apartment door before falling on the couch, splashing some beer on his jeans.

"I was waiting for you," Ray protested. "You don't do this kind of thing solo."

"Tonight, you do. Call one of the other poor bastards who have the misfortune to be considered your friends."

"But –"

"I," said Erik emphatically, "am not moving from this spot until I finish this beer, and possibly not even then. I think I might just stay here until morning. I'm fucking exhausted, Ray!"

The look Ray shot Erik was distinctly petulant.

"We can go out tomorrow. I work in the morning tomorrow and I have the day after off. We'll party then, or at least go round to a bar, eh?" said Erik, cursing his inability to say no unto infinity.

"Pass me the car keys, then," said Ray casually, the figure on the screen making lazy circles.

Erik nearly choked on his beer. "Shit no!" He coughed for a minute and thumped his chest. "No way," he continued. "That's Dustin's car, man. I wouldn't want you touching it even if I were sitting next to you."

"Dust isn't going to mind, Thor! Even if the impossible should happen and I did get rear ended or something."

"Dustin won't mind, but his parents sure as fuck will. I've pissed them off enough for one lifetime, I don't need to add you destroying their son's car to my horrible reputation in their eyes."

"If you're just going to sit here and atrophy, though –"

"It'll still be my fault," said Erik with a sigh. "Just let it go, man. You have Dance of Flames, Ray. Be happy with that and stop spinning poor stupid Bors around before he pukes."

"If this is what you're like at eighteen, my dear Thor, I shudder to think what you'll be like if you live long enough to retire," said Ray, tempting Erik to kick him in the head, but the character on the screen stopped spinning and proceeded through the dungeon.

Argument won in Erik's favour, for once, he decided kicking Ray's head would be needlessly cruel.

Besides, he knew he'd probably break his foot in the process.

Erik awoke abruptly, one leg cramped, the other dangling over the end of the couch. It was dark and he had been using an empty, crushed beer can as a pillow. A curve of aluminium was digging into his temple. With a groan, he pulled it out and tossed it to the floor as he sat up.

Trying to massage some feeling back into the side of his face and remove the dent the can had left, Erik looked around. Beyond the noise of pipes and the grumbling of the fridge, the apartment was silent.

Ray was gone.

And so, Erik realized, his hand going to the pocket of his jeans, were his keys.

"Well, fuck."

Erik was sitting on the couch, his shoulders hunched and playing Dance of Flames rather badly when Ray came home around 2:00. Glum, frustrated, and panicky all at once, but refusing to let that show, he finished the battle he was in, managing to emerge with only Shani and Ezra dead, Bors at half health, and Basil zombified, before looking up. "What the hell happened?" he asked, his voice jumping at the end.

Ray looked fine, technically. He had returned from his stolen-car joyride unscathed. His hair looked a bit mussy, but it was hard to tell how much of that was the result of Ray's laidback approach to personal grooming. Erik knew he looked worse after walking across a room, anyway. But he wasn't so unobservant that he couldn't see that something was distinctly off about Ray. Even through the baggy T-shirt he could tell that Ray's shoulders were slumped. He was slouching. His hands were behind his back. He radiated more guilt than Erik thought any one person could feel.

He looked guilty, period. If the word was in Ray's vocabulary, Erik didn't think he could define it without spending some quality time with a dictionary beforehand.

"Oh. Hey, Thor. You're awake," said Ray. His voice was strained.

"I woke up an hour ago," Erik said bluntly. "Answer the question, Ray. What happened?"

"That's a very interesting question, Thor. Really. Quite fascinating –"

"Ray!"

It didn't seem possible, but Ray cringed slightly. "Well, Thor, you see – maybe you want another beer for this. It might – you look quite tense. Very tired. All that work, I suppose. A beer would definitely be good for you at this point in time."

Ray was still standing by the door.

"Crap," said Erik. He paused the game and got up to get the suggested beer. Just because it came from Ray didn't make it a bad idea. Immediately. "If you killed a man, I'm not going to help hide you. Also, I'll call the police."

"If I killed someone, do you think I'd be worried?"

"Ye – oh, fuck, you didn't just – I'm ... not thinking about that. Ever. That last thing you said? Permanently erased from my memory." Erik clung to his beer and reluctantly left the safety of the kitchenette and extra beer. "What did you do, if it wasn't that thing we didn't talk about?" he asked with a sigh, opening his beer.

"Well, I was just driving around, having fun, not actually doing anything, and then out of nowhere, well ..." Ray trailed off unhappily and removed his hands from behind his back. He was holding Erik's backpack. It was open.

"What? Why do you –"

The backpack abruptly went "Meeee" in a pathetic note.

"If this is some elaborate joke with a punch line about being abducted by aliens, colour me not amused, eh?" Erik said. Ray looked increasingly miserable. With a sigh, Erik took a pull of beer and peered into his backpack.

Unhappy yellow-green eyes started back at him from a small grey and white face. "Meee!" it went again now that someone was paying attention to it.

"I hit it," said Ray unhappily.

Erik took another pull of beer, lifting his eyes from the backpack to Ray's. "You hit a cat? That's your big horrible news? Dinging a cat?"

"Well, that and a traffic light."

Erik spat out his beer, the can falling from suddenly nerveless hands. He pushed past Ray to the door and ran in a swearing panic to the stairs.

Outside, after two flights of stairs and a stubbed set of toes, Erik made his way to the parking spot for King Place 306. Dustin's car sat there. Mostly. The back half, at least. The front had been smashed into an unrecognizable jumble of metal. The bumper and one headlight were missing and the other headlight was smashed beyond recognition.

"Oh fuck!" Erik wailed. He put his head in his hands and shuddered. "And I was worried you might dent it!"

"It's not a big deal," said Ray from behind him in a quiet voice.

"Not for you! Dustin's parents are going to kill me! Me! Not you! They don't have an irrational grudge against you! They don't even know you!"

"You're exaggerating, Thor. No one who contributed to the production of Dust is capable of lusting for your blood. Or desiring vengeance. Or being not a robot," Ray said, doing his best to be soothing.

"He's adopted, you dumbfuck," moaned Erik into his hands. "They're going to hire someone to kill me, that's what'll happen. They're efficient like that."

"I'm not going to let anyone kill you, Thor."

"They're going to hire someone who'll arrange for me to die in a really embarrassing way! My parents will just sigh and say they never expected anything else from me!"

"You have to admit, it would be realistic."

"You're not funny. My life is hanging by a thread right now and –"

"You're overreacting," Ray interrupted.

"Fuck you, you were upset over a damn cat!"

"You're overreacting," Ray repeated calmly. "Dust won't be back until the end of August. We can get it fixed before then."

"I'm not selling my virginity to pay for car repairs!"

"I didn't suggest –"

"You always suggest it!" Erik exploded. "I don't have the cash to tip a waitress? 'Well, you could always offer to let her take your virginity as payment.' My student loan still isn't coming through? 'You should sell your virginity to cover expenses in case they lost it.' I want a video game that you don't intend to buy? 'Why not sell your virginity to buy it? It's not like you'll be feeling all that clean once you start playing!' You could at least suggest robbing a bank first! Not that we can do that anyway because you trashed our getaway car!"

"I meant that I could get it repaired."

Slowly, Erik lowered his hands and looked over his shoulder at Ray, who was still carrying the backpack full of cat. He stared at his roommate in disbelief.

"Sometimes I think outside the box," Ray said with a nonchalant shrug.

"What, are you an auto-mechanic ninja now, too?"

"No, I'm the ninja with a credit card. Idiot," said Ray, not unkindly.

Erik could feel his face getting hot with embarrassment. He could also feel that his feet weren't appreciating being bare and outside, especially not the one that seemed to have stepped on a piece of glass. "Uh. Thanks."

"I broke it, I'll fix it," said Ray, shrugging. "What did you expect me to do?"

Tactfully, Erik said, "Um."

"You don't actually have to answer that, Thor. Let's just go inside. Nothing more we can do tonight, after all."

"You swear you'll have this looked at? Tomorrow?" Erik asked, turning away from the wreck.

"First thing, Thor. Promise. Did you know you're bleeding?"

"I kinda guessed," said Erik, limping. "What are you gonna do with that cat?" He eyed the backpack. "You can't keep it, you know. The Residence Department doesn't allow pets."

"I know."

"Then?" Erik prompted.

Ray shrugged. "I hadn't really thought that far ahead."

"Find out who it belongs to, dumbass."

"I think it's a stray."

"Then take it to the humane society. Or a vet. You hit it with a fucking car, after all. It's probably hurt." Erik searched in his pockets for the keys to the security doors before remembered what had allowed Ray to get in this mess. "And give me back my damn keys."

Reminded of his guilt, Ray looked shamefaced once more and held out the keys.

They took the elevator up to their floor out of consideration for Erik's injured foot and he bled on the elevator carpet in silence.

Back in the apartment, the only sound as Erik cleaned and bandaged the cut on his foot was the cat going "Mee" after being let out of Erik's backpack. After Erik pulled his forgot work shirt out of the sink, reeking of vinegar, he tossed it over the towel rack and headed for the bedroom. Moving carefully to avoid stepping on the cat, he exhaled in relief when he made it to his bed unscathed and collapsed in an exhausted heap. Lying on his back, he pulled off his jeans and threw them on the floor before rolling over, smashing his face into his pillow. "You will take care of everything tomorrow, right Ray?"

"No worries," answered Ray in an absent voice. He was sitting at the foot of his bed, watching the cat sniff Erik's dirty laundry in the darkness.

"Mmkay," said Erik, shutting his eyes. "G'night, Ray," he mumbled and was asleep before hearing if Ray had anything to say in response.

Erik was woken up by the alarm, which he hit with an impatient hand and a crackling sound.

Crackling?

Erik opened his eyes and found himself squinting at sunlight through a shield of newspaper. With a groan he sat up and grabbed the paper. This had to be the most abstract prank Ray had ever come up with.

There was no sound of Ray. Or the cat. Despite the newspaper, Ray seemed to be making good on his word.

The section of the paper that had been dumped on Erik was the section with all the ads. One had been circled in red marker. Near it, in Ray's neat handwriting was the note "Gone to take care of things".

The circled ad was for a used Honda Civic from "some year in the 80s" being sold for $1,500.00.

Erik blinked, grinned until he was overcome by the urge to yawn, and folded up the paper. Tossing it onto Ray's bed, he went to shower and get ready for work, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that his roommate had been replaced by a pod person.