[Yes! I know how to menace Joe now! Not that it's in here, but that's fine. Dashing for the home stretch now, I think. Three or four big scenes and we're done. Woohoo!]
"They gave me the key because the apartment was vacant, and has been since February."
Joe was paying almost no attention.
It wasn't just that the apartment was empty. It was that it was huge. He was looking into a good-sized living room, at least the size of his own. There was a large kitchen off it, and there had to
[Y'know, I think I like this cliffhanger thing...]
"I'm surprised you came here willingly," Steve said as he slid into the booth across from Joe.
"Yeah, well," Joe said, "it seemed like the best place. I ordered already."
"Not a salad, I hope," Steve said.
"Learned my lesson," Joe said as the waitress came over.
"Hey, hon," she said. She put a pitcher of Coke and a pair of water-spotted glasses on the table. "Pizzas are up in a minute."
"Thanks," Joe said. He gave her a b
[Right, you'll notice that chapter 45 is missing. I'm working on that, and it's turning out to be more involved than I thought. I'll post it when it's done, but in the mean time... 46!]
Monday morning Joe was a wreck. His conversation with Alex had not gone anywhere near where he thought it was going to, and now he was questioning his whole relationship. He thought things had been going fine. Sure, Alex was a little flighty, but he hadn't expected him to just
[The first of a few short ones. Probably ought to be collapsed together into a single chapter when they're done. There's also going to be an out-of-order thing going in, since I realized this evening that I need something before this, but I don't have it written. Ah, well, discontinuity works]
Joe had begged off coming over to Steve's that weekend. More than anything else he wasn't ready to face Chris again. When he was alone he could keep things under control
[Note I'm using the 2005 moon tables, but the dates are needing fixing. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html. More notes at the end]
Steve sat watching Chris as he ate his lunch at his desk. He hadn't said anything when Joe had dropped Toby off, he hadn't said anything when Chris asked him for a lift to the gay bar he'd seem Joe and Alex at, and he hadn't said anything the whole morning as they both dug through a mountain of paperwork and research. He was finding it hard to keep
[i didn't know Joe was a mime, I swear!]
Chris woke up, feeling more rested than he had in months. For once his sleep had been undisturbed by the raw dreams that always heralded Alex's appearance, or the erotic dreams of his own that had been as bad in their own way. There wasn't any trace of the fatigue that Alex brought either.
His first alarm went off then. He hadn't been up before his alarm in a very long time. It was nice. He gave the pillow he'd grabbed one last hug, then rolled o
[Aren't mornings after great?]
Joe woke up to the sound of twittering birds and the morning sun shining on his face. There was something not quite right about that, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was early, well before coffee, and he wasn't thinking too clearly.
Alex had slept in, something that was unusual for him. Unless Joe was staying over his apartment, which he'd only done a few times, Alex was usually up first and off to work, doing whatever it was. Joe gave a sleepy smi
[in which we find out exactly why Chris' day was such a crap one. And the fact that Joe uses the same nickname for Toby as Chris does is entirely coincidental. Really]
The drive back to his house was long enough that the good feelings Chris gotten from the club had time to fade away. He was back to brooding again, and staring out the window without actually looking at anything.
Joe could tell he'd faded. Something was seriously bothering Chris, and it worried him. He'd hoped that time in
[Chris definitely needs to loosen up some. But, then, he's had a really bad day...]
Chris hadn't been paying much attention while Joe drove. He was too caught up in his own thoughts. It had been an exceptionally bad day, one he was trying to forget, though he couldn't. He'd thought maybe some target practice would have helped, but it hadn't, no matter how many times he imagined the target at the end was someone real. He'd actually been relieved when Joe had decided to drag him along somewher
[And it's the end of a very bad Tuesday, and the start of three parts of it getting better. I really need to go see what the gun laws in Connecticut are -- I'm not even sure if some of this is possible here.]
Thursday evening Joe was in the parking lot of the firing range when his cell phone rang. The call came through with no phone number attached. Joe smiled
[Apparently the B story will not be denied...]
Tuesday evening Joe tried to knock off work early. He was supposed to meet Steve at the firing range. It was his third time there and Steve was right
[since you can post comments to draft entries, I think I'm gonna leave my notes until the end for this one. I posted 35 and 36 together, since I've a backlog, and a bit faster than normal. If you missed it, here's 34, and here's 35]
The last place Joe thought he'd ever go back to was the Peddler's Pony. It was a dive, a run down neighborhood bar whose sole claim to fame was it was established before indoor plumbing was common. A hundred years later they still hadn't gotten around to putting
[isn't family swell?]
Joe had been staring at his phone for the better part of an hour. The Chinese food he'd ordered for lunch had gotten cold and congealed while he stared at it. He didn't care. He didn't have much of an appetite.
He shook his head. Putting it off wouldn't help any. It would make things worse, really. The later it got the more likely someone would be drunk. He didn't need to deal with that.
Sighing, Joe picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He h
[The first of three parts for this particular monday in the story. I'm tempted to group them all together and title it 'Dodging the Bullet']
"So, had a fun weekend?" Steve was munching on the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin as he watched the steam rise off his coffee. At least he presumed it was steam. There was always the possibility that it was smoke from the Styrofoam being eaten away by the coffee.
"Don't even start," Chris growled. He still felt like hell. Toby hadn't made it a
[Joe almost used the word 'execrable'. Correctly, too. But oh, boy, that man's got a temper. Things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get, so since this isn't a tragedy that must mean it's all up-hill from here!]
Chris woke up with a headache so bad he wondered if he might be dead. Probably not, he decided after a few agonizing minutes. If he were dead it wouldn't hurt so bad.
He felt like crap. Besides the pain in his head, he was pretty sure something had crawled into his
[in which we find that the author can't quite manage to work in the phrase "something under the bed is drooling". Dammit.]
Chris' couch was damned uncomfortable. Joe had spent the better part of two hours trying to get to sleep on it, but he just couldn't. It was so old the lumps had lumps, and the ones that didn't had springs sticking through them. He had no idea how Chris had managed to lay on the thing, drunk or not.
Joe's anger had died down as the evening passed. He was still annoye
[A bit longer, this one. Only two more to go and we're done with this bit. Woo!]
Joe came downstairs, bare chested and shirt in hand, to see Steve guiding a barely conscious Chris out of the living room.
"C'mon, Chris," Steve was saying. "One foot in front of the other. You can do it."
Chris looked up and saw Joe. His face broke into a huge grin. "'M dreeeeming," he said. He turned to Steve. "y'din' tell me I was dreeeming." There was drunken accusation in his voice.
"Yeah, it's
[There's a reason Joe left home at 18, changed his name, and never looked back. A reason he doesn't drink, too, they're just different reasons. This one's the reason he's so mad at Chris...]
Joe was fuming as he carried Toby upstairs. He'd actually worried about Chris earlier. He snorted. Sick. He knew exactly what sort of sick Chris was.
Toby moved in his sleep and held on a little tighter to Joe. Joe's fury vanished for a moment as he gave Toby a little squeeze and a kiss on the top of
[it's weird, stopping at what's really just a scene breakpoint, but only occasionally. Still, it keeps me moving, which is good]
Joe was snoring softly when Steve nudged him awake. At some point, after a half dozen games of Candyland, he and Toby had managed to fall asleep. Joe was still sitting on the floor. Toby was curled up in his lap with Joe's arms wrapped around him.
"Hey, wake up," Steve said softy. "It's time to go to bed."
Joe looked up, entirely confused.
"Uh
[Apparently Toby really likes Joe. Didn't expect this particular twist. Gotta love characters that surprise. Poor Alex though, he's getting the short end of things with Joe]
Joe and Toby kicked the soccer ball around for an hour before they were interrupted by a clap of thunder from off in the distance. The promised storms were coming, and they were bringing lightning in their wake.
"Guess it's time to head inside, Toby," Joe said.
"'Kay, Uncle Joe."
Joe was glad for the excuse.
[i'm not sure if this bit's too revealing. I'm tempted to cut it, actually]
Saturday morning Chris woke up to the sounds of his third alarm. He'd had to dig his spare alarm clock out of the closet the past week. Chris had been having a hell of a time waking up ever since the divorce was final. Two or three days a week for the past month, he'd wake up feeling like he hadn't slept.
When his dreams had just been dreams it was bad enough, but now they were full-blown hallucinations. Or fanta
[i hadn't planned on writing this chapter either. And now I realize I need some chapters in the B storyline in the past. Argh!]
Joe always had the hardest time finding a parking spot at Alex's apartment complex. He didn't go there all that often
[i hadn't planned on writing this chapter. I was going to just skip to the next one. Well, okay, the one after that, since there's [i]another[/i] little chapter coming I can't skip. Best laid plans
