Twoonies - Canadian two dollar coins, so called because people are stupid. They have a picture of a polar bear.

“Four,” Ray said, clearly and far too loudly, his voice breaking the silence of the darkened bedroom and disrupting Erik’s state of near-sleep.

“Whurt?” Erik asked, peering blearily out from beneath his blanket. Part of his face and most of his mouth were shoved comfortably into the pillow and were showing a distinct disinclination to part from it.

“That’s the fourth police siren today,” Ray said simply, lying on his side so he was looking out the open window.

Erik blinked and pushed himself up on one elbow. There was an inviting, face-shaped dent left on his pillow. “Why,” he asked, enunciating as clearly as he could at 1.00 a.m., “are you counting?”

“It doesn’t strike you as suspicious, Thor?”

“It’s annoying, that’s all. But lots of things are annoying.” Erik glared pointedly at Ray, to no effect. His roommate was showing no signs of moving from his position and making eye contact with someone sane.

“It just seems like a lot, is all,” Ray said. He sounded overly thoughtful.

“You don’t even know they’re police sirens. Maybe it’s ambulances.”

“That’s suspicious too.”

“No it’s not. It’s spring. It’s icy and wet and slippery all at once. There’s probably lots of accidents.”

Ray made a cynical noise. A tongue click, followed by something in Italian.

“Plus, the window’s open. So you’re probably just hearing more than you would in the winter. When the window is closed. If you’d close the window – ”

“I like the window open.”

“Whatever.” Erik slumped back down on his bed, trying to find the comfortable dent his face had made in the pillow, but it was already gone. He scowled and fidgeted under the covers, trying to find a new comfortable position, but it was hard. Ray was obviously still wide-awake and even though he wasn’t talking, it was still distracting. Ray could make complete and utter silence seem like the most annoying thing in the world. “Get a drink or something. That usually knocks you out.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I don’t mind how loudly you snore when you go to sleep drunk, man.”

Ray rolled over. “I don’t snore.”

Erik couldn’t help grinning. “You do after you’ve been drinking.”

“You lie.”

“Maybe.” Erik yawned. “Or maybe I’ll get Dustin to bug this place and the next time you get pissed, I’ll play the recording back for you in the morning when you’re hungover.”

“Evil Thor comes out after midnight, doesn’t he?”

“Only when Stupid Ray wakes him up just as he’s falling asleep.”

“Well, if you were just falling asleep, then I didn’t actually wake you up, did I?”

“Semantics,” Erik said flatly, and pulled the covers over his head. “Go to sleep, Ray.”

There was silence for Erik-didn’t-know how long. Five minutes? Ten? Maybe more than twenty. He just knew that he couldn’t get to sleep, Ray was still breathing his shallow awake-breathing, and then the sound of a siren could be heard from the street.

“Five,” Ray announced.

Erik pulled down the covers, violently, so that he could glare at Ray. His roommate was facing away from the window, his head propped on his arms. His pillow had been jammed into a tight little ball and forgotten. “Buy earplugs if it bugs you!”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why – ”

“Do you think there’s some kind of organized crime spree going on?”

“In Saskatoon?”

“Crime capital of Canada, isn’t it?”

“That’s like bragging about being the best mathematician in the English department, man.”

Ray thought about this for a minute. “So . . . no organized crime spree?”

“Did you take some kind of wacky paranoia drugs before bed? Fuck, yes, it’s an evil organized crime spree. The Tomatogunner’s out taking lives, and you, Ray? You’re next on his list. He knows about the whole ninja thing, and he sees you as competition.”

“You think so?” Ray asked curiously, staring at Erik with bright, earnest eyes.

“No! I think you’re being stupid and should shut up and go to sleep! Maybe it’s just some drunk students who think classes are already over.”

“That’s stupid. We’ve got two weeks left.”

“And imaginary crime sprees aren’t stupid? Go. To. Sleep.” Erik turned away from Ray and pulled the covers back over his head.

“Only,” Ray said after a thoughtful pause, “I was thinking that what with the whole rewiring I did of the machines in the Cove . . .”

Slowly, Erik pulled the covers down and rolled over to look at Ray. “What?”

“Well, it was really boring in sociology, so I kind of wandered off on Monday, and, well, Dust and Ash were in the lab, and Sarah was recovering from an all-nighter or something, and you were . . . Where are you Monday mornings usually?”

“Philosophy class. Over in Education,” Erik said automatically.

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of out of the way, and you never tell anyone where that class is anyway, and all the paintings in Education are ugly, so there wasn’t much to do until my next class, and I went to the Cove. They’d gotten in another of those DDR-type machines, only it wasn’t DDR it was something even more obnoxious. Bongo or Limbo Revolution, or something like that.” Ray ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs out of his eyes, and stared at Erik intently. “It was pure evil, Thor. Pure evil.” He looked painfully earnest saying it.

“Ray . . .”

“It’s important for a ninja to combat evil.”

“Ray.”

“I have a duty, Thor.”

“Ray!”

“I may have done a little bit of rewiring to increase the odds of electrocution and fire. Just a little bit, just kind of cautionary . . .” Erik was gaping, so Ray made hasty, soothing gestures with his hands. “Hardly anything at all, really. Little, little things, not like the other time with the first DDR machine or anything like that.”

Erik tried to think of how to respond to this. Ray did stupid things with alarming frequency and it wasn’t like Ray had never done things that were quite definitely illegal before, but there was a difference between Ray’s random acts of vandalism, theft, and fraud, and doing something that might possibly cause part of the University to blow up. It was hard to ignore something like that. He was unfortunately awake now, too. It was hard to sleep with paranoid notions of the police forcing their way into the apartment to arrest Ray for sabotage or manslaughter or something, even if everything Ray was saying had been made up. He did seem completely earnest, but Ray looked completely earnest when talking about how evil pirates were.

But there had been the incident with the DDR machine . . .

There was only one possible course of action. With a sigh, Erik sat up and began peering around in the darkness for his pants. Ray mirrored his actions, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. He reached over and turned on the tiny lamp between the two beds, illuminating just enough of the bedroom for Erik to be able to spy the end of a pair of jeans under the bed. Grabbing one leg he pulled them out, shook them in case colonies of dust bunnies had begun, and pulled them on. Tired fingers fumbling with the button, he looked up to find Ray sitting on the edge of the bed and still watching him with a perplexed expression on his face. Slowly, as though he were actually thinking about his words for once, his lips began to move, preparing to shape a question that Erik didn’t want to hear.

“We’re going out. For a drink. Just a little once. Just enough to get you to stop talking long enough for me to sleep, understand? This isn’t partying or wacky fun. This is going out, having a beer, and then coming home as soon as you stop talking about the cops. Got it?”

Ray simply sat on his bed for a minute, blinking slowly. Then his face nearly split with the power of a huge grin and he began a hunt for discarded socks. “Got it, Viking Captain Thor.”

St. James’ Pub was almost deserted, as it usually was, which Erik appreciated. With one hand gripping Ray by the hood of his bunny hug, he headed to a table in a corner that was so deserted it made the rest of the bar look crowded to the point of overflowing. He released Ray and sank down into a chair that wasn’t exactly comfortable, but was big enough and solid enough that he didn’t feel like he was going to break it or throw off its balance and end up on the floor if he got tipsy. After a minute, Ray followed his example, looking around the bar with bright-eyed suspicion.

One of the advantages to being in a nearly-empted bar was that service was prompt; before Ray had a chance to start feeling restless and poking at things best left unpoked, a waitress smiling with forced cheer appeared. She looked at Ray, whose fingers were getting dangerously close to a photograph on the wall which displayed a field of cheerful cows doing absolutely nothing, and her smile transformed into a faint frown. Then, she looked at Erik, and brightened back up.

“Erik? Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out?”

Surprised, Erik’s body jerked to something closer to an upright position in his chair, and he looked at the waitress. Ray’s hand dropped and he tilted his head to watch the exchange. After a minute, Erik smiled awkwardly. “Oh, um, hey Darcy. Yeah, uh, just one of those nights, eh?”

“No Dustin?” she asked, looking at Ray. She pushed her glasses up her nose, and a pair of dark blue eyes moved from his uncombed hair to his sloppily tied shoelaces. Ray’s eyebrows rose in response.

Erik coughed. “Uh, no. Not tonight.”

Darcy turned her attention back to Erik. Whatever she had been sizing Ray up for, he was clearly a disappointment. “Ah, well. What can I get for you?”

Before Ray could say anything, Erik held up a hand. “I’ll cover it, for once. Just a couple beers, Darcy.” He eyed his roommate across the table. Ray’s eyes were still far too bright. Paranoia apparently made Ray quite alert. “Better make that four. And, uh, a sandwich, please.”

“No problem,” she said, making a quick note on her pad before tucking her pencil back behind her ear. “Shouldn’t take long. I’m not exactly being run off my feet tonight.” She smiled brightly.

Uncertainly, Erik smiled back. “Yeah, I sort of got that impression. What can you do, eh?”

“Exactly.” Darcy shrugged, smiled, and headed to the bar with the order.

When Darcy was out of earshot, Ray asked, “What was that?”

“A waitress?”

“Seriously, Thor. You know that waitress?” Ray was frowning with his chin propped on one hand.

“Well, yeah. She works with me. Got a second job here to make some extra money. That’s how I found out about it. Only just opened back in November, or something.” Erik returned Ray’s frown, although his was less Ray’s combination of thoughtfulness and irritation, and more total perplexity. He pushed his hair out of his eyes with his fingers, the better to glare at Ray. “Why?”

“She’s pretty. Single?”

“How would I know?”

“I never asked.”

“You got her number?” Ray asked, still frowning.

“She’s, like, twenty-eight or something. I thought you didn’t date older women.”

“I don’t. Just curious,” Ray said, straightening as Darcy returned with their beers and Erik’s sandwich and falling so silent that Erik couldn’t help but be suspicious. When they went out drinking with Ray, he never shut up, unless they brought Ash to double as designated driver and Ray suppressant.

“Thanks, Darcy.” Erik pulled the sandwich closer to him, out of Ray’s reach. His sandwich secure, he got out his wallet and, after a bit of scrounging and the discovery of various bits of paper with messages for Ray scrawled on them, found a lonely, crumpled twenty, a five, and a heavy handful of change, including a couple loonies and twoonies. “This cover it? All I have on me . . .”

“That’s fine.” Darcy took the money with a smile while Ray opened a beer and began to drink with the intensity of one who had no intention of stopping to breathe. “What’s your schedule like in the next little bit?”

“Uh, don’t work until Wednesday afternoon, I think. You?”

“Wednesday morning. Maybe I’ll catch you before you start?”

“Maybe,” Erik mumbled, grasping his sandwich. “Hope things pick up a bit tonight, eh?”

“Eh,” Darcy responded, smiling slightly. “Have a good night, Erik.”

“You too.” Erik nodded, then bit down hungrily on the sandwich.

After Darcy was gone, Ray lowered his nearly-empty bottle of beer, one eyebrow cocked at an odd angle.

Erik swallowed the bite of his sandwich. “What?”

“Nothing, Thor. Absolutely nothing.” Dark fingers drummed absently on the table for a minute. “So you have a secret bar to hang out in. Secret friends – ”

“She’s a co-worker. You’ve probably just never been in when she’s in, idiot.” Scowling, Erik took another bite of his sandwich..

“But you don’t deny the secret bar part. Interesting, very interesting. I wonder what other torrid elements of your life you keep hidden. You accidentally get married one drunken night and now can’t afford to get a divorce? I’d ask if you had a little illegitimate baby Thor out there, but that’s just silly . . .”

“Secret burial ground in the playground for all the people I know who keep asking stupid questions?” Erik asked dryly. “Look, Darcy just mentioned this place one day at work, I decided to check it out. You were out with some girl from pharmacology, so I just went with Dustin. It’s nice. Quiet. Didn’t seem like your kind of place. Dustin likes it, though. No one bothers him here.”

Ray, caught in the act of starting on his second bottle, froze. He lowered the bottle enough to say: “I was seeing a girl in pharmacology?”

“For a week. Heather or Hazel or something with an H.”

“Huh. Weird,” Ray said, then went back to his beer.

By the time Ray was nearly done his second beer, Erik was just opening his. Erik was only half-way through his beer, and still picking at the remaining crumbs of his sandwich, when Ray had emptied his third bottle. His eyelids were drooping and his face was flushed.

Possibly, with the speed Ray could drink at, on an empty stomach, two beers would have been enough.

“She likes you,” Ray said, slouching down contentedly to rest his face on the table. He was pronouncing his words with the careful preciseness of someone who didn’t want to sound drunk, but his accent was distinctly heavier, and no longer its usual murky, imprecise meshing of multiple accents, but clearly Italian.

“Eh?”

“The waitress. She likes you.”

“Well, sure. She’s a nice person. She likes people. That’s why she’s a good waitress.”

“She likes you particularly. She wishes you were working the same shift on Wednesday.”

Erik shrugged. “Sure, to avoid having to work with Constance or Michel or Kim. If you’d ever worked a day in your life, you’d know the people you work with are what can really make a job suck. Or not suck, depending on the person.”

“No, I mean . . .” Ray shook his head. “Christ. Never mind, Thor.”

“Uh, alright . . .” Puzzled Erik went back to his beer.

“Stupid is not cute,” Ray said sleepily into the table.

“Whatever you say, Ray.” Erik drained the last drop of beer from his bottle and got up. He glanced at his watch. “C’mon, man, it’s almost 2.30. Time to head back, eh?” Ray mumbled something into the table which Erik took for an affirmative and grasped his roommate by one arm, pulling him up. Ray yawned hugely, stumbled a bit, and lay his head on Erik’s side. He waved to Darcy as he manoeuvred Ray out the door, but she was dealing with one of the small number of other bar patrons. With a shrug, he dragged Ray out into the sharp March air, and tried to aim Ray in the direction they had parked.

“The sirens still going to keep you awake?” Erik asked as he walked uncomfortably with a lot of Ray’s weight resting on him.

Ray shook his head slowly. “Should be good.”

“In the morning you should go to the Cove and fix whatever you did.”

“Probably.” Ray yawned.

With a sigh, Erik steered Ray to the passenger side of the clunker, searching for his keys with his free hand.

“Thor?”

“Mm?” Erik asked, digging deep in his pockets and frowning. Keys, keys, keys . . .

“You’re a good friend.”

“Mm. Thanks.” Erik exhaled in relief as his fingers finally contact the cold metal of his keys. They’d been masked by bits of paper. He pulled them out of his pocket with a grin and bent to unlock Ray’s door, when he felt the damp pressure of Ray’s lips on his cheek. “Uh, Ray . . .”

“Good Sigurd,” Ray murmured sleepily, his lips still near Erik’s cheek.

Erik felt his face go red. Carefully, he opened the door and nudged Ray inside.

“Thor?”

“What?” Erik asked, leaning on the top of the clunker, waiting for the old air to reduce the heat on his face.

“I’ll try not to snore too loud tonight.”

Erik’s lips quirked helplessly. “Thanks, man. I appreciate that.”