Erik didn't know why, but he was sure something horrible was on the verge of happening. Nothing awful had happened all day, after all. Ray had been seen, briefly, exiting the bathroom and disappearing out the apartment door at a run. Something, probably a lie, about needing to meet a new international student and show her around campus. Work had been painless. No yelling customers. Kevin was coherent aside from a brief tangent on the subject of the nature of reality and its alterability if people under the influence of drugs could see it to be altered and did that six foot tall bat at the table near the door bother anyone else? Nothing had spilled or broken. No stains on his clothing. No burns, scrapes, or inexplicable gouges delivered by the espresso machine. There had even been an actual tip that hadn't turned out to be a collection of train flattened metal slugs.

It could all add up to only one thing: a plane was going to crash through the roof, on fire, within the next few minutes, piloted by a bipolar schizophrenic with an eating disorder who's wife was leaving him, and Erik would be the only casualty. Dustin would be left, perplexed over the lack of a ride waiting to take him home and, his bags, including his wallet, being confiscated for security purposes, would be unable to hire a cab to drive him instead of the mysteriously floor smeared Erik. Scientific progress would be set back fifty years and a plague of foot and mouth disease would wipe out Australia, because Dustin would have invented the perfect preventative, if only he'd gotten home from the airport in time.

A pained physical whine from the vicinity of his lower back jolted Erik out of his jumbled, paranoid thoughts. He sighed and, twisting his head back as far as it could go, looked to see if the flight from Toronto that Dustin was supposed to be on was still coming. There was no sign of anything that might suggest Dustin's flight had been hijacked, or that the place had exploded in midair. Not that the absence of information proved a thing; the terminals probably weren't programmed to communicate that kind of information.

Erik sighed, untwisted his neck, and lowered his gaze to contemplate the sole surviving drops of coffee clinging to the rim of his cup. He pushed at the edges compulsively and shut his eyes, trying to block out the chatter of two women sitting in the chairs behind him. Apparently, Freddy was bringing the baby, which was a terrifying prospect if the father really was Freddy's husband, a man so ugly he could kill ground squirrels just by looking at a field.

What, Erik refused to let himself wonder, did that make Freddy?

A finger tapped rhythmically on the top of Erik's head, in a spot apparently calculated to make it feel like the sound was reverberating inside of his skull. He groaned. "I don't care what they told you," he mumbled into his chest, "the car is legally parked and it is not, in fact, stolen."

The tapping shifted to the side of Erik's head, just above his ear, and he jerked upright with guilt, colour flooding his face. Half-closed brown eyes, shadowed by thick black lashes, met his, blandly, before Dustin straightened, his bag bumping against his leg.

"When did you get here?" asked Erik, in a gasp. He turned his head with painful speed to look over his shoulder, but the two women who had been waiting for Freddy were gone. He looked back at Dustin, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing.

Dustin's eyelids drooped further.

"Guess I must have," Erik was forced to admit, looking down at his watch. "Fucked if I know how, though. These chairs hurt like a bitch and there were these loud women, really nasal voices –"

A brown paper bag was lifted from Dustin's side and thrust pointedly in Erik's face.

"Oh," said Erik, opening the bag and peering at the contents. A sleekly packaged copy of Kick the Lim Lim's new CD winked back at him, bumping against a bottle of wine. The label had a flying squirrel on it, which distracted Erik for a minute as he lost himself in thoughts of Why? before he remembered himself and looked up, embarrassed. "Thanks, man. You shouldn't –"

Dustin's eyes widened.

"Er, right. Sorry," Erik said, suitably chastised. "Let's just get going, eh? I'm sick of this place."

Hefting his bag up over one shoulder, Dustin nodded and the two friends made their way out of the airport, where they stood for a good fifteen minutes as Erik tried to remember where he had parked Dustin's car. Once the car was found and Dustin's bag made comfortable in the trunk, Erik turned the keys and listened to the car start, letting out a relieved sigh with it. "I don't suppose," he began, his words punctuated with pauses as he chewed on his lower lip while concentrating on getting out of the parking lot, "that sometime before the next time you have to go anywhere, you could take a day or two to turn your genius brain to some method of travel that wouldn't involve me sitting in the airport for hours waiting for you? Your own private spaceship? A supersonic jet that can shrink down to fit in your pocket, complete with genius robot pilot? Some kind of instantaneous transportation doohickie?"

The shrug Dustin gave was noncommital and he turned to look out the window, watching the less than fascinating scenery go by.

Erik rolled his eyes. "It was just a suggestion."

Eventually, Dustin seemed to grow tired of watching the sights of Saskatoon go by and his head lowered, his eyes shutting, and his chin resting on his chest. He didn't move until the car was crossing University Bridge, but as they did, his head lifted slowly and he stared in dreamy contemplation of the river before turning to Erik. He lifted a hand, one finger raised.

"What?" asked Erik, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Why? Do you need to pick something up that badly?"

There was a slow shake of Dustin's head and a twitch of one eyebrow.

"What?" Erik repeated, no longer confused, but desperately trying to keep an initial surge of irrational anger down.

The eyebrow twitched again.

"Yeah, I got that, thank you. When were you going to tell me about this?"

Dustin's eyebrows drew together in uncharacteristic puzzlement.

"Fuck you, smartass," said Erik through grit teeth as he turned onto Broadway. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

Dustin shrugged and looked out the window again.

"If you were planning on doing this," Erik said, enunciating words with exaggerated care as he tried to check his anger, "you could have mentioned. Then I wouldn't be stuck with that asshole Ray."

The shoulder Dustin shrugged at Erik was radiating as much irritation as a body part could.

Erik scowled. "I could have gotten out of it, somehow," he muttered as he made a left turn.

Dustin inclined his head in apparent concession, but there was a definite sarcastic edge to the gesture. Then, he straightened and pointed to a house on his side of the road. With a sigh, Erik parked in front of the building and turned off the car, drawing the keys from the ignition. Dustin turned his head as he moved to open the door and their eyes met.

Erik sighed again. "I know man, I know."

After Dustin got his bag out of the trunk, Erik locked the car, and Dustin halted his approach toward the house. He arched a quizzical eyebrow at Erik, looking at the house out of the corner of his eye, but Erik shook his head.

"Not right now, man, not really in the mood. Tomorrow, maybe, after I get off work," Erik said, the excuse flimsy in his mouth. He pressed the car key into Dustin's free hand to cover his discomfort.

Puzzled, Dustin looked from the key to Erik.

Erik kept himself preoccupied by trying to find a secure way to hold the bag with Dustin's gifts. The last thing he needed was to drop a bottle of good wine on his foot and the sidewalk. He didn't meet Dustin's eyes. "No, I'll just walk home. It isn't that far, really, and I don't think a walk is any more dangerous than a car ride."

Dustin frowned, looking at the keys again.

"Not necessary. Didn't I tell you? We – me and Ray – bought a car," Erik said with forced casualness and walked off.

Erik was uncomfortably slumped across the couch, one leg dangling over the arm with its corner digging into the back of his knee, when Ray came in, whistling something jaunty and unrecognizable. His gaze flicked absently over to Erik. "What are you playing, Thor?" he asked with punch-inducing joviality.

"Raiders of the Space Armadillo."

"I found that entry in the series particularly horrible, you know," Ray commented as he untied his shoelaces.

"I don't care what you think of it, Ray," Erik said, his voice bristling. "All the Space Armadillo games are horrible, anyway. That's the point."

Ray's mood was impervious to Erik's irritation, as though he was surrounded by a force field that guaranteed to keep him safe and happy as long as it made others miserable. "That time of the month, Thor?"

"Fuck you," Erik snapped. As always, Ray ignored him and went to poke around the table instead.

It didn't take Ray long to find something more interesting to him than Erik and a bad video game combined. "Wine!" he exclaimed with a crinkling of brown paper bag.

"It's mine," Erik interjected. Although he was struggling to keep his voice low and flat, there was a definite note of desperation to it.

"Don't be silly, Thor. You're underage," said Ray, lifting the bottle from the table and contemplating it with a solemn expression. "Is it made from flying squirrels? You Canadians do have the oddest tastes, at times –"

"The fucker got a house!" Erik burst out, dropping his controller.

"Squirrels can own property now?" said Ray. He sounded genuinely surprised.

"No! Dustin!"

"He's back from Toronto, is he?"

Erik's jaw clenched and unclenched in reflexive rage. "I told you yesterday –"

"And owning property. My word!" said Ray, setting the bottle back down and rubbing his thumb along the seal. He was wearing that unsettling look on his face that meant he was thinking about something and the best you were likely to say about the result of Ray thinking was that no one had actually died from it yet.

"I don't know if he owns it, Ray. I can't imagine –"

"I wouldn't put it past him. He built that robot, didn't he?"

"It was a very small robot –"

"It could make cocktails. I'd patent something like that myself. I'm sure lots of people would be delighted by a robot that could mix them drinks, particularly when they're too drunk to so themselves."

Erik pressed a hand to the side of his head. It felt like his brain wanted to escape and he was tempted to let it. "I think we're getting off topic, Ray," he managed, his voice strained with the desire to do nothing but curse Ray until he was blue in the face. Of course, he couldn't do that. If he did, he would probably pass out from lack of oxygen and, unconscious, there was no guarantee that Ray wouldn't steal his wallet for some nefarious purpose. And the pants said wallet was in.

"I agree!" Ray said and Erik nearly died from shock. "We have far more important matters to attend to than robots and alcohol, for once."

"We ... do?"

"Certainly! Our man Dust has escaped the confining environment of on-campus housing. He has a property of sufficient size to encompass his superlative endeavours –"

"You haven't even seen the house," Erik put in wearily.

"– and a distinct absence of snooping guardians whose soul purpose in life is to deprive others from expressing appropriate joy –"

"There was still these things called neighbours, who probably aren't keen on your idea of ideal expression, Ray."

"A ninja has his ways of halting the complaints of inconsequential home owners, Thor! Now, off that couch. We don't have a lot of time!"

"Time for what?" Erik asked. He remained on the couch, firm and unmoving.

"Time to organize a party to break in Dust's new house, of course. A single bottle of wine is scarcely adequate and everyone hasn't gotten back for the beginning of classes yet, so it could be a bit of a challenge to get an appropriate number of people –"

"A party for Dustin?!"

"I must admit, Thor, I thought you'd be more enthusiastic about this. Your less than positive response is a bit disappointing, to say the least," Ray said, aiming a slight frown in Erik's direction.

Erik's groan was quickly muffled as he covered his face with his hands.
,p> "Do you have a problem with this development, dear Thor?" Ray asked. He sounded genuinely puzzled, if Ray was actually a person capable of feeling any genuine emotions.

"Yes!"

"Well, I suppose you don't have to come to the party," said Ray, his words making it clear that he disapproved of this course of action – as if Ray's opinion mattered to anyone – and was disappointed in Erik as well, much as he would be in a child throwing an inappropriately timed temper tantrum. "It will seem strange, though. You not showing up at a party for your best friend."

"He got a house!"

"All the more reason to celebrate."

"If he has a house, then there's probably room for me to live there instead of here!"

Ray laughed and picked his way carefully across the floor until he was standing by Erik's head. Patronizingly, he patted it. "Oh, Thor," he chuckled, "as though you could bear to part yourself from my invigorating company."

"Sometimes I wonder what the fuck goes on in your version of the world, Ray," said Erik, punctuating his sentence with a resigned sigh. He had the energy to push his roommate's offensive hand off his head, though.

"Parties," Ray said. Erik doubted his non-question was actually being answered. It was far more likely that Ray was just talking to himself. This idea was confirmed, as far as Erik was concerned, when Ray, oblivious to the fact that Erik had just shoved him, wandered to the phone and picked it up. He paused in the middle of pressing a button to look directly at Erik and point a commanding finger. "You stay right there, Thor. I've got to make some phone calls, see who's about, but after that, we're buying alcohol. I'll need you to carry things." Each word was delivered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Then, without a please or a pause to gauge Erik's reaction, Ray finished dialling and turned his back on Erik. "Hell, Morgan? It's Ray Fujimoto, I'm sure you remember me –"

Erik muttered an unnoticed "Right" and calmly buried his face in his knees.

It was like being transported to hell in an ugly car with mismatched doors, and Satan had somehow convinced Erik to drive himself there and pay for gas. How, he wondered, clinging to the steering wheel, did he let himself be talked into these things? By Ray, of all people! The bastard practically had 'I'm a psychotic asshole and I'll happily screw you over if you give me five seconds' tattooed on his forehead!

Erik gloomily reflected that it had probably been for the best that no one in Doherty and certainly not in Crow Lake had possessed the time to waste trying to sell pot, crystal meth, or even cigarettes to the underage at exorbitant prices, when Ray banged on the car window. He was mouthing something impatient, his eyes averted from Erik to focus on something else.

With a sigh, Erik opened the door and climbed out of the car.

Ray's eyes snapped back and up to Erik. "There's the crate of beer in the trunk. You'll carry that."

Erik paused in the act of locking the car. "While you'll be doing what exhausting duty, exactly?"

A bottle of vodka appeared in Erik's line of vision, too close-up, obscuring his view of the car. "Very important," Ray said, smugly.

"I'll bet," Erik muttered. He scanned the label. "It isn't Russian," he said.

The bottle shook slightly. "No. The thing about Russian vodka is that they never let the really good stuff cross their borders. Doesn't matter how tough times are, you try to sell that stuff to anyone who isn't a Russian citizen in Russian, you'll quickly find yourself locked in a dank cell older than time, where you will, ironically, peel the nuclear potatoes that make proper Russian vodka. Damn fine rocket fuel, too."

Erik realized he was needlessly extending a conversation with Ray, normally something which ranked quite high on his list of things that were painful despite the fact that they could not immediately hospitalize him. Yet it still seemed preferable to walking up to the house and facing the only guy Erik was pretty sure he could consider a friend. He wasn't just a coward; he was an idiot. He was also a wuss, that was important, too. "It's Norwegian," he said, before pushing the bottle down and turning away from the car.

"I thought you might find it comforting," said Ray innocently. "That, or the power of vodka made in your snowy Viking homeland might have the power to make you relax enough to enjoy yourself like an actual human being. One of the two."

Erik snorted. "Not fucking likely."

"Well, if that's the attitude you're going to take, you'd best grab that beer from the trunk, Thor my boy," Ray said, clapping Erik cheerily on the shoulder and heading for the house.

Resigned to his fate, Erik got the beer from the trunk.

Ray reached the door first, thanks to the head start given him by the time Erik lost wrestling with the trunk, but for once Erik's feet did not conspire to trip him. He was at the door just as Ray was leaning purposefully on the bell, using the majority of his weight.

After a minute, the door was opened, and Erik had to crane his head down to see soft hair, one exposed shoulder, and bare collar bones before Ash O'Hara tilted his head back to give Erik a scowl of disgust that had been chosen for him in particular.

Automatically, Erik took two long steps back. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here, you idiot, although I'm rapidly beginning to regret that decision. I assume this is your fault, Fujimoto."

"I missed you, too, Ash! And might I add, you're looking particularly –"

Ash's fist shot out and connected with Ray's stomach. He was already heading back inside when Ray was crumpling down to his knees. Miraculously, the bottle of vodka was still clutched in his hand and apparently unharmed, unlike Ray himself.

"Did you think he had a magical summer of transformation and profound realization, or are you really so incapable of learning?" Erik asked, but, whether he had thought of it as a rhetorical question or not, he didn't wait for Ray to regain his breath and answer.

Besides, Ash had left the door open. It was almost an invitation.

Carefully, Erik stepped over Ray and into the house, still clutching the box of beer. There were people in the house, all of whom Ash seemed to be fiercely ignoring, except for when one was in his way. Then, one hand came out and the person in question was forcibly shoved into the wall, the nearest piece of furniture, or another person. Ash continued untroubled, no one connecting the incidents of casual assault with his unimpressive figure, even as his actions lead, domino-like, to trails of irritation, argumentativeness, and further shoves.

Erik got through Ash's mini-gauntlet of disgruntled and alcohol soaked students, finally catching up to him. "Uh, where do you want this?" he asked, hitching the beer up slightly.

Ash flashed a glare over his shoulder, briefly, and made a disgusted face. "Just what we need. Drop it."

Erik obeyed, more or less, setting the box on the floor and negotiating his way around it. Ash looked disappointed. Erik supposed he had wanted the box to be dropped from Erik-height to insure the shattering of the bottles within, but, as much as the idea of so pissing off Ray appealed to him, the thought of trying to get through the night without a bottle or five in him made Erik sick to the stomach.

"This is your fault."

"What? No!" Erik yelped. His body tensed and cringed in an attempt to prepare himself for a blow that didn't come, for once. "It was Ray! You saw him!"

Ash snorted. "Fujimoto. Guilt by association."

"If you're really living here, I don't' see why you had to let anyone in," Erik muttered. His brief display of backbone was marred by the self-preservation instincts that made him put his words at near-whisper level.

Ash heard him anyway, but the blow still didn't come. "I didn't. That idiot genius McCloud did. I was picking up my girlfriend."

"In what? You don't have a – wait. Your girlfriend?" Erik leaned against the wall. He was definitely very confused, particularly for a conversation Ray wasn't involved in.

"I borrowed McCloud's car," Ash said. His eyes were fixed on Erik now, watching for the slightest twitching response that would provide an excuse for a beating. "And yes, girlfriend. Does this in some way shock you, Thor?"

Numbly, Erik shook his head.

"Sarah Montgomery. Computer science major. Not really in your league, Thor," said Ash smugly.

Erik felt suddenly, acutely, and painfully embarrassed. He shifted his position, but stayed pressed against the wall. "Yeah. I kind of know who you're talking about," he said. The power of Ash's glare intensified. "She, uh, was in one of Ray's classes last year. And, uh, she lives in King Place. Or, uh, she used to. Um. Last year."

Ash's eyes could have killed. "Not anymore," he said flatly.

"Um."

"That fucker Fujimoto never –"

"No. No! Not with Sarah! She never – no, no! Fuck, no," said Erik, the words coming in a panicked rush that had little to do with Ray in its urgency and everything to do with keeping Ash from getting angry enough to remove the nearest person's stomach.

For some reason, Erik's frantic denials did not seem to have reassured Ash's sudden suspicion. He still looked like he wanted to kill Erik, along with anyone else he happened to walk past, but, if Erik were being honest with himself, he'd have to admit that Ash always looked like that. Erik barely allowed himself to breathe until Ash turned away and began walking again. Pausing only to open the beer box and grab first one bottle, then another, Erik followed.

"Why'd you let us in? All those people combined can't be worse than Ray."

"I really don't want to find out what Fujimoto would do if he thought he was being locked out of a party. Do you?"

Erik felt nauseous at the very thought.

"McCloud's upstairs," said Ash, jerking his perfectly pointed chin in some unspecific direction that wasn't immediately obvious. He himself stood at the top of a darkened staircase descending into obscurity.

Erik hesitated. "What if I don't want to see Dustin?" he asked at last.

The look Ash flattened Erik with was one of simple disgust. He said nothing, but merely let out a contemptuous snort and headed downstairs.

Suicidal, Erik followed. The stairs were steep and Ash showed no interest in turning on a light if one existed. Erik shifted one beer bottle to the other hand so he could rest his right on the wall as he walked, but it never encountered a light switch; just cracks in the plaster and prominent bumps of dried paint. At some point, the figure of Ash that was only dimly lit by the upstairs light disappeared around a corner, the bottom of the stairs presumably reached.

Erik swore softly, although he knew, rationally, that Ash could not have gone far. He was no more ahead of Erik than he had been when they were both on the stairs, but Ash's vanishing act was like having a torch abruptly go out in one of Molemazement's subterranean tunnels. Then, Erik tried to put his foot on a step that didn't exist, and he fell to the bottom of the stairs in a tangled heap. He dropped both bottles of beer and while there was no sound of smashing glass, both bottles rolled off, in separate directions, and Erik knew he'd never be able to find them without a flashlight.

"God, Thor, I know the lighting on the stairs is bad, but even Mackenzie's whores in training can get from point A to B without spraining their fragile ankles," came Ash's voice, letting Erik know he wasn't, probably, dead. If hell turned out to exist, Erik wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find creatures like Ash there.

"I tripped," Erik muttered into the floor, which tasted strongly, unpleasantly, and unsurprisingly of floor. "The stairs ended before I thought they did."

"Hopeless," said Ash. He made no move to help Erik up, but when Erik had rolled onto his side he could see Ash standing above him, looking excruciatingly smug. He could see Ash though. There was light coming from the room behind him that was quite strong. The twists of the hallway, the slant of the ceiling, the angle the doorway was at, some combination of those things must have caused the light to be obscured, trapped, unable to reach the staircase. Erik didn't know if this idea made the atmosphere of the basement more or less creepy.

Ash prodded Erik in the stomach with his toe. Nervous, Erik rolled away from the foot and got up, hurting in at least three places. He rubbed his elbow, the most easy to access of the hurts, and frowned. "Did you say something about Mackenzie a minute ago?"

"Yeah," said Ash, tersely.

"As in, Invisible Bob the guy who might very well not exist?"

"If we're going to indulge your little flights of being batshit insane, then yeah, that Mackenzie."

"Invisible Bob. Invisible fucking Bob lives here," said Erik in disgust.

"In the basement," said Ash, as though correcting a grave mistake. "Freak pays his rent, he's quiet, and all his whores come in the back door, so as long as you aren't in the basement, you don't have to see them."

Erik looked around with exaggerated slowness, then back down at Ash.

Ash snorted. "Better a parade of whores than a crush of drunk idiots," he said and turned swiftly into the nearby room.

Under the circumstances, Erik found it hard to disagree, especially when considering who one of those drunken idiots was likely to soon be. Cautiously, he followed Ash into a room that was brightly lit and revealed little to actually see. Ash's unsettling form, a stack of boxes in various states of unpacking, a low resting couch that had probably been left there by the previous owners, it looked so merged with the unremarkable grey carpet, and Sarah Montgomery on top of it, her legs bare except for a pair of denim shorts and a collection of mosquito bites, skin attractively darkened by healthy exposure to the sun, but not burnt –

Erik swallowed. "H-hey, Sarah."

"Thor!" Sarah said, with a beam that triggered the opposite reaction in Ash, whose eyes darkened ominously at this display of familiarity.

Quickly, Erik sat down. On the floor. With about five feet, at least, between Sarah and himself. That seemed to relax Ash as much as Erik had ever seen him: he barely looked like he wanted to kill anyone at all. Erik licked his lips as he thought. "The floor's cold," he volunteered, while making no move to change where he was sitting. That seemed to please Ash even more; if Erik squinted, he could almost see the corners of Ash's tiny mouth jerk upwards. Asshole.

"Did Ray come too?"

So much for Ash looking non-homicidal.

"Uh, yeah, we came together, I mean, you know how Ray is about, uh, celebrating, but, uh, he's upstairs. Mingling. Brought, uh, a house-warming gift –"

Ash snorted.

Sarah nudged Ash with her foot, but gave Erik a grin. "Drinks?"

Erik shrugged. "Yeah, well, you know Ray and all ..." he trailed off, staring at the carpet. Anything further he may have said was drowned out by a deafening crash from above. Automatically, Erik cringed.

"If it's that fucker Fujimoto, someone's dying," Ash snarled. He pushed himself up and away from the couch and stalked from the room with murderous intent.

"He does that," Sarah said, after enough time had passed for Ash to be making his way up the stairs.

"Yeah," Erik said, fingers prodding the carpet distractedly. "I, uh, I've been exposed to his tendencies before."

"Do you think Ray'll be okay?" asked Sarah.

Erik allowed himself to look in her direction and tried to conceal and instinctual grimace. First Ash and now concern for Ray fucking Fujimoto. The shambling ghost that was Erik's ego was scarcely equipped to withstand many blows like this. "You're not worried about him, are you?" he said and could see Sarah shaking his head before he had finished the sentence. "Ray can take care of himself." His eyes turned back to their intense scrutiny of the carpet and he said, quietly, more to it than Sarah, "Bastard deserves what he gets, anyway. Never fucking learns."

"That may be true," said Sarah. Erik pretended she was talking about the latter comment, rather than the former. It made him feel marginally less awful about everything. "But I'd really like the new school year to start with something that isn't an arrest."

Damn. She didn't even have any illusions about the innate and painful Ashness of Ash. So much for trying to put their entire apparent relationship in the context of temporary madness. Erik scowled at the carpet. "Neither of them have ever been arrested before," he settled for muttering downward. At least, not as far as he knew. Good old ignorance, his constant and distressingly faithful companion.

"I have profound faith that there's a first time for everything," Sarah said with ease.

Erik lifted his head and tilted it just enough to see Sarah's face. She was smiling. It was a maddeningly wonderful smile. One that was directed at nothing more particular than the universe itself. Certainly not at, never at, Erik. He looked at the carpet again. "So, um, you and, uh, Ash are, er, you're dating?"

"Sort of. We've been e-mailing back and forth, all summer. He's very –" Sarah paused to think.

"– Ash," Erik supplied for her helplessly.

Sarah laughed. "That's certainly not an inaccurate statement. He's nice, in his way. Fun. Can't read binary, though. And would you believe it, but he's never even played Quickstrike! Or Chain Zombie or any games at all. I'm working on that, though."

"Mm. He is weird," Erik said, hoping the noncommital comment would pass unobserved and potentially disguised as agreement. So, Ash wasn't some perfect, ideal boyfriend. That could be almost reassuring, if it weren't for the fact that he know, instinctively, that he fell even further below the bar.

"But, you know, it's not a serious, exclusive relationship yet or anything. Need to see how things pan out beyond e-mail, right? And even the e-mail, well, it's not like I was spending the summer pining or feeling the distance between Regina and Rage Cove, Newfoundland, or wherever he lives. Kept busy, decent job which was, admittedly, in front of a computer most of the time, but it had remote access, which should really be made illegal. It's not like you can do much that's fun on one of those. Plus, I'm sure it violates ten kinds of privacy laws."

"Uh, yeah," said Erik, like he had any idea what Sarah was talking about.

"What about you, Thor? The summer been good for you?"

Erik shrugged. "It was, uh, you know, a summer, eh? I spent half the time sunburnt and the other half of the time hiding from the sun to avoid getting sunburnt again, but, uh, that's the sort of thing you inevitably forget, and then the cycle starts up again, because you can't afford decent fucking sun screen since the job market sucks and you'd probably end up going through a bottle a day and jackasses keep leaving you pennies and once a damn button because you're not a hot barista chick with perky breasts."

"You do know how to put a positive spin on things, don't you," said Sarah, the sympathy in her voice showing an unfortunate tendency to mingle with laughter.

All Erik could do was shrug again. It was reflexive, as well as being thankfully neutral and unlikely to result in his person being damaged in any way. "So, uh, you're not living in King anymore."

"No, no. God. Definitely not. Not after Susan. I mean, I could have asked to be assigned to a different apartment. Different roommate. She was quiet and that was good, but so intolerant and convinced of her superiority. A bad experience like that, well, it can really put you off something. Now that Saskatoon's less of an unknown quotient, it felt like it was time for a change. So, I'm sharing an apartment with a couple other girls on the other side of the river, up past that art gallery. It's okay. They're okay. Better than Susan, at least."

"Great. That's, uh, great," Erik said. He was glad that, at the very least, Ray wasn't present to point out that he was as unskilled at lying as he was everything else in life. "King's, uh, kind of a dump and all. Our water was out for a week in July, eh. For, uh, pipe upgrades or, um, something like that. Had to go use showers on campus, crap like that, the entire time. Pain in the ass. Good that you won't have to deal with that sort of shit anymore." Only then did Erik manage to clamp his jaw shut, halting the apparently endless tide of inane babble.

"Oh God. That sucks, Thor," Sarah said. She was laughing a little, too, but Erik tried to pretend it was the sort of laughter people were inflicted with when things were too absurdly awful for any other kind of reaction. That it could be laughter at his misfortune was too depressing to contemplate, although it would be par for the course. There was the addition of Ash into the equation as well. He could easily be a corrupting influence, although the thought of Ash doing anything as cheery as laughing, even at someone else's pain, was too much for Erik to wrap his mind around.

"Still, I suppose awful things like that are part of the whole university, living without the parental cushion experience. The sort of things that prepare us –"

"– for the perpetual, embarrassing, awkward inconveniences that make up life?" Erik couldn't stop himself from finishing the sentence for Sarah. He glanced up. From the odd look on her face, he could only assume there had been some other conclusion in her mind. He might as well saw off his own foot and ram it into his mouth. The impression he made on people – girls – people could only improve from that point.

"Oh, Thor," said Sarah, sounding a bit helpless herself.

Erik's brilliant attempt at conversation seemed to be the death blow for their already, as far as Erik was concerned, awkward exchange. Uncomfortable silence descended on them both, with Sarah apparently unaware of how to proceed in the force of Erik's misery-induced pessimism, while Erik didn't trust himself to say anything that could possibly redeem him around the foot in his mouth, his tongue made more clumsy than usual by confusion, desire, and the sensation that something was punching his stomach with brass knuckles.

The brass knuckles had been dipped in some corrosive material.

A lot would be explained if his internal assailant with the extremely deadly brass knuckles was a ninja.

"Dustin's, uh, upstairs, somewhere, eh?" Erik croaked abruptly, breaking the silence, scrambling for a reason to extricate himself from the room. Any reason.

"I think so," said Sarah, her fingers pulling at a loose thread in the arm of the couch. "Ash's bedroom is on the top floor. Dustin's too. And Ash said Dustin was upstairs when he was showing me in. The only other thing up there is a bathroom. So he's probably in his room, I guess."

"Right. Uh. Thanks," said Erik as he scrambled to his feet with the help of his hands and knees.

"It was good seeing you again, Thor," Sarah said to his back.

"Uh," said Erik, and made a retreat to the stairs that would have been swift if it weren't for the darkness and the fact that at one point he hit a wall that he was sure hadn't been there before. Eventually, he found the stairs, fell up them, and realized on reaching the top that he had no idea how to find his way to the second floor.

Something which may have been logic suggested he could always ask one of the partygoers where the bathroom was. Most of them looked like people who knew or would shortly need to know quite badly where a toilet was. But each and every one of the partyers was somehow part of Ray's wide-reaching social network. While it might be paranoid of him to intentionally avoid contact with people Ray might randomly, on some whim, ask about his whereabouts, paranoia seemed like the best policy if he wanted to avoid his roommate. The fact that Ray, Ash, nor a team of paramedics were not immediately visible meant nothing. Ash could be pummelling Ray in the backyard and it was always possible that Ash would grow bored with this, leaving a bloodied Ray to collect himself and make his annoying way back onside. Possibly, Ray would do all this with the soul purpose of tracking down Erik to annoy.

At times, Erik found it unsettling that his fits of paranoia never seemed unrealistic until the meteors came in.

With a twitch and a shudder, Erik pulled himself away from the comparatively protective wall and set about uncovering the staircase while maintaining as low a profile as possible. It was only as he found the staircase, located annoyingly near and just off the front door, that Erik realized slinking through a student owned house that was just off Broadway in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan as though it were a dangerous battlefield was stupid. Ray-like. Stupidly Ray-like. He felt a bit as though he were going to throw up, which was probably all the more reason to climb the stairs. They would at least bring him closer to the bathroom, although the girl who suddenly rushed past him suggested it wouldn't be much of a sanctuary.

Erik climbed the stairs slowly, clinging to the banister with both hands and pressing himself against it as much as he could to avoid any other girls – or anything else – desperately intent on the bathroom.

The top. Erik continued to cling to the banister. There was the bathroom, presumably, at the end of the hallway. Door shut, two girls and a guy sitting outside it. The guy was moaning. Erik quickly turned his head to avoid eye contact. There was another door, also shut. Reluctantly, he released his hold on the bannister and went to try the doorknob.

Locked.

The doorknob didn't electrocute him, but Erik thought it was still probably Ash's room. He turned. That left one door, open a crack. Resigned to his fate, he walked to it and pushed the door open with his foot. Inside was wall to wall to wall to – Erik reluctantly stepped inside – yes, to wall, books. No bed, of course, but a couch with blankets heaped on one end. A desk, computer, chair. No Dustin, but there was another door. Another chance to turn tail and flee, back downstairs, back to the car, back home. It would be taking the coward's way out, the path of the spineless wuss, none of which were of great concern to Erik. It would also be ditching Ray, a prospect that was as delightful in the present as it would no doubt prove to be painful in the future. With a sigh, he pulled the door open and crept onto a small balcony overlooking the front yard and the unremarkable street beyond it.

"Hey," said Erik. He felt like he was sure a dog felt in the instant before the newspaper connected with its nose.

Dustin lifted a half-empty beer bottle in greeting and retracted his legs. He inclined his head towards the empty space at his side.

Obedient, Erik sat. "Look, about before –"

Dustin's eyebrow rose, swift and impossible to disagree with, nearly touching his hairline.

"I know! Fuck, don't interrupt me, man. I just wanted to say –"

The eyebrow seemed to quiver.

"Shut up. Fuck. I'm just trying to say I'm sorry, okay? But you should be a bit sorry, too. You could have told me. Shit, you could have asked me. I mean, Ash? Ash?! And Invisible Bob –?"

The eyebrow returned to a neutral level.

"I know he's not, but you still could have –"

Dustin's eyebrows drew down and together, nearly connecting.

"Oh," said Erik, rather lamely. "I guess that's a couple good reasons not to."

There was a curt nod before Dustin took a pull of his beer.

Erik ran his fingers along one of the bars enclosing the balcony. "Sarah's in the basement, eh. She and Ash are, um, you know, I guess," he said at last.

Dustin shrugged.

It was hard for Erik not to smile slightly at that. "For you, maybe. But me –"

Dustin shook his head.

"You only feel that way 'cause you don't want it," Erik said, smiling at his shoes. "You have a point, though. Fucker knows I don't want to get in a fight with Ash 'Guys who bite the heads off live chickens would be scared to pissing of me' O'Hara."

There was a slight gleam in Dustin's eye that was almost missed as he lowered his head for another drink.

"Well, I don't have a gift for spur of the moment creative shit like you, man. The point stands, though," Erik said as his fingers twisted into a compulsive, nervous knot around one bar. "I mean, I want to keep my balls for the day a woman finally lowers her standards enough to let me sleep with her, eh?"

There was uncharacteristic silence from Dustin on this point, leaving Erik unsure of what to say next.

"So, uh, your summer. How was it, eh?"

Dustin looked up and set down his beer. He stretched one foot out to kick a blanket off a hidden cooler at the other end of the little balcony. Leaning over, he pulled out a bottle of beer. Good stuff. Really good. With one hand, he offered it to Erik, smiling. The other hand was up, fondly pushing Erik's hair out of his eyes.

Erik took the beer from Dustin, who quickly filled the empty hand with a bottle opener that he applied to Erik's beer with a raised eyebrow.

First, Erik contemplated the beer, then the darkened street through the balcony bars. He smiled softly. "Yeah. Maybe," he agreed, and drank the beer.