Who: Marco and Rhett. Where: Billiards room. When: A little bit after 2.
Rhett slept like shit.
It was a mix between the incessant buzzing, everything that happened the day before, and the census post on the network.
He didn’t belong here. These were good people. People with friends or families waiting for them--fuck, some of them were even parents. If there’s one thing he knew for a fact it’s that not having loving parents in your life really fucked you up. And even if they didn’t have loved ones, was anyone else here an ex-con and a current thief?
There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that They would eventually start turning all of them against each other, but the question was, would Rhett be willing to do that to these people? Playing friend and keeping up his guard was different around like-minded individuals; people like him deserved it. They needed to expect it. But these were just normal people in a terrible situation, and he was the outlier. He didn’t want to get too close to the others, but they were all stuffed in a fucking house right now. How could he keep his distance while faking it?
Rhett thought himself in circles until he finally gave into his restlessness and walked around the mansion, first hitting up the gym to work off his excess energy on a treadmill. He spent the entire morning since 4 AM busying himself with tasks, and while he might’ve dozed off for half an hour here and there, his anxiety jolted him awake each time.
He paced around his room, his guilty thoughts wringing his insides as he tried to define where his boundaries were. How much help was too much help? How close was too close? Did the others trust him? Would they eventually find out who he was?
Fuck it.
Rhett walked over to Marco’s room and knocked on the door lightly. “Hey man, you doing alright in there?”
Marco was having a much better day than Rhett. There was no denying that it had started off strange. After he’d agreed to the mysterious but exciting message, he’d sat on the network, half-reading the census being taken, but more wondering what it was that he’d just agreed to. What if he couldn’t do what they were asking? What if the task they gave him was impossible?
But no more than twenty minutes passed before a new message flashed on his screen, and he wasn’t thinking of consequences anymore. "First floor. Bathroom. Large vase."
Marco passed the people who were already wandering and complaining about noise and rushed downstairs to the first floor, to the public bathroom that he was unfortunately too acquainted to, to the large vase near the bath. Reached in and pulled out a plastic bag. In it was what was easily a week’s worth of heroin, along with a collection of clean syringes and all the supplies that he needed. A wave of excitement rushed over him at just the sight of the damn thing that he’d been craving for days, and without hesitation, he tucked the bag into his jacket and ran back up to his room.
He only prepared a little. Just a small amount, to see how pure the dope was. The thought crossed through his mind that maybe he was being set up, and maybe they’d given him something laced with… what, Arsenic? But why would they? They’d bought themselves an insider, so why give that up? And even if they had, it wasn’t like Marco wasn’t willing to risk poisoning to get his fix. That was a gamble every time.
He took a deep breath to steady shaking hands. Found a vein that he could hit between his toes, and injected.
Marco used enough that generally the drug only evened him out and made him feel normal, but today, he could swear that his mind thanked him.
The euphoria was short, what with a small dose and all. The sedation lasted longer, but Marco even enjoyed that part. He’d missed the numbness, and in this place, he’d fucking needed it. He got comfortable in his bed and just laid there for over an hour, staring up at the ceiling and listening to that weird humming noise.
Too small a dose, though. A few hours later, he was already setting up another one one when someone knocked. Wait, was someone there? No. Yes. Yes, knocking, and a voice. Marco put his supplies in the bathroom and slowly approached the door, only opening it a crack in case he’d hallucinated the knocking.
“Oh. Rhett.” Nope, hadn’t hallucinated. Marco slowly looked the other man over. He hoped it only looked like he was tired. Rhett looked tired, so it was reasonable to believe that everyone was. And he had been sick, so… “Uh, hey. Yeah. Sorry. I was sleeping. What, uh… What’s going on?”
Rhett was too absorbed in his own thoughts right then to notice any small details in Marco’s behavior, at least so soon anyway.
“Oh, shit--sorry for waking you up then.” He roughly rubbed at his face and eye, hoping maybe he could massage the lightly burning tiredness out of his shitty eyeballs. “You still wanna shoot some pool and grab a drink? Or, you know. Whatever works,” he smiled tiredly. “We can talk if you want, or if you just want to go back to sleep, we can do it some other time.” He was hoping that Marco wouldn’t turn him down, which was… frustrating. Maybe he was the one who needed someone to talk to--but what the fuck would he talk about? How he made a living fucking everyone over? How he was anxiously awaiting the moment They would turn them against each other, and how he wouldn’t have any qualms about playing Their game? How in the end, even if he felt guilty, Rhett would still let anyone else die before he did, whether it was the old guy with family who actually loved him, or the nurse who was trying to help everyone, or--wasn’t there even a bride?
Yeah, he was definitely not comfortable with telling that to anyone.
Marco hesitated only long enough to process Rhett’s request. Shoot pool. Right. They had talked about that on a journal network thing, hadn’t they? Pool and drinking. Marco chuckled to himself. He didn’t need the liquor as much anymore, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn it down. “You know you’re going to win if I’m drunk, right?” he said, smirking. “Yeah, give me a minute. Let me put on, uh, shoes.”
He disappeared into his room, shutting the door behind him. He slipped into his sneakers, but made a detour over to the bathroom again, tucking his paraphernalia into the medicine cabinet, next to his actual dose of daily meds. He doubted anyone was coming in to steal it, but still.
He was back outside a moment later, yawning and digging a finger into his ear as the speakers temporarily changed the pitch of their constant vibrations. “Interesting morning, right?” he muttered, his speech still slow and heavy. “Gotta admit, I like this shit a whole lot more than yesterday’s thing. But that’s me.”
“I thought we were playing house rules. Marco wins?” Rhett chuckled lowly. When he came back out, he started to walk towards the pool room.
“How are you feeling since yesterday? This noise probably isn’t helping much, but it’s better than trying to jump a ledge.” When he was going through withdrawal in prison, any kind of movement or stimulus was too much… to be honest getting locked up in solitary confinement was actually the better alternative, weirdly enough.
“I’m not really sure how I feel about this. It’d be annoying if we had to live like this for the rest of our stay. Couldn’t they play some… I dunno, Ariana Grande?”
"Who the hell is Ariana Grande?" Marco wondered, raising an eyebrow at Rhett. Though, really, he didn't care either way. The humming was a little obnoxious, but it was easier to ignore things without words, he'd learned. Ariana Grande sounded like the name of some kind of hipster mariachi fusion band, or something. Now mariachi music all day would be annoying.
"Today is better. Um. I actually slept today. Through the drone. This shit's like a lullaby," he laughed. "But not for you, looks like. You look like shit, man.”
“Yeah, I’ve always been a lighter sleeper, but whatever shit they’ve been tranqing us with these past few days have done the trick… Not so much with the white noise though,” Rhett smiled wryly. He was glad at least someone was getting some sleep around here… Marco seemed to really need it, considering he did look a lot better compared to yesterday.
“Bro, do you not listen to the radio? You know…” He waved vaguely for a moment, his brain struggling to pull out words that aptly described her music. So of course, the most obvious thing to do next was to start singing. "And if in the moment I bite my lip, baby in that moment you'll know this is something bigger than us and beyond bliss; give me a reason to believe it. 'Cause if you want to keep me, you gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta got to love me harder... No? Yes? Maybe?" Rhett wasn't exactly cut out for American Idol, but he wasn't terrible either. He was a single guy, living in an apartment by himself, and he liked gross pop music and singing along to it. Was that a crime?
Rhett’s serenading was so surprising that Marco stopped walking, instead just staring with progressively widening eyes. He for sure hadn’t been expecting that when he’d asked about the mystery musician. He waited for Rhett to finish, then stayed silent for a beat before laughing. He attempted to give Rhett a pat on the shoulder as he walked past, but mostly missed, only brushing his fingers on his arm as he continued to laugh. “So that just happened,” he joked. “Promise me that we’re going to play pool and not karaoke.”
“Man, whatever,” Rhett laughed, lightly shoving Marco as he continued to walk beside him. “Maybe that’s a team building exercise we could all do… Meet up in one the rooms and have a karaoke night. But I can’t believe you don’t know who Ariana Grande is… What do you listen to, then?”
“Not that,” Marco chuckled. It felt good to really be laughing again without every vibration causing him pain. He still felt a little tense, though, and already he was thinking about when he’d be able to get back up to his room and shoot up again. He’d gotten so caught up in that train of thought that he almost forgot that Rhett had asked a question.
“Uh, mostly classic rock, I guess? The Who, ELO, shit like that,” he explained. “I’ve got old tastes. Keeping up with everything… It’s kind of hard.” He shrugged. He gestured for Rhett to lead the way as they made it down to the first floor. “I don’t know, I’m lame. What do you listen to other than whatever you call that thing you just did?”
Rhett casually started walking backwards as he led them through the kitchen towards the pool room. It crossed his mind that maybe he should try to eat something since he'd been up for almost ten hours, and all he'd had was a bowl of cereal around seven o' clock, but his appetite was shot in his exhaustion. He gestured towards the cupboards and cabinets, silently asking Marco if he wanted anything while they made their way through.
"Fuck you," he laughed, joking good naturedly. "I dunno, mostly mainstream pop stuff. Whatever's on the radio, usually... Man, you don't know any pop? Lady Gaga? Adele? You know who Beyonce is at least, right?"
“I know all three of those people. I don’t know how the fuck that happened. I even know what a Kardashian is, before you ask. Not that I can tell you what any of them look like…” He only rolled his eyes and shook his head as he passed through the kitchen and pushed open the door to the billiard room. Once through, he stopped, staring up at the liquor selection. “Holy fuck,” he muttered, the words lost under the humming speaker. “Now that is a bar. Holy shit, I wish I knew about this sooner. This would have made the last few days a lot fucking better.” He marveled as he walked closer to the bar. “You’re really not going to drink?”
"Nah man, I don't drink. I also skip on caffeine and shit... You know, coffee, energy drinks... that kind of stuff. I know it's weird, but," Rhett shrugged with an easy smile as he made his way over to the pool table. How much did he want to say here? The thing about lying was you couldn't fuck up your story. It would be more believable if there was some truth to it, so it'd be easier to keep it straight with everyone else... And maybe if he was genuine enough, they would trust him more.
"I fucked up pretty hard as a kid, so I'd rather play safe than sorry, you know?” He grabbed a triangle and started to set the game. “I’m not gonna stop you, but you sure drinking will help you with the nausea? Or are you just going to throw up more?”
As Rhett explained, Marco rounded the bar and scanned the various selections of tequila. He settled on one that he’d never heard of, figuring that it had to be expensive. He should have thought to grab a glass, but his head was still foggy, and was not being helped by a voice: He is taking the bottle. Drugs did always mess with his other medications, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He twisted the cap off the bottle and sipped at it carefully, as not to spill.
“Man, nausea is not going to stop me from drinking,” he said, then took another sip. It burnt going down, but he’d never minded the burn. The point wasn’t the taste. Not for him, anyway. “If I throw up, I’ll run for the kitchen sink. Don’t… whatever. I’m fine. How do you not even drink caffeine? What’s you fuck up so bad that you can’t even drink a Coke?”
Rhett smiled at the question. He didn’t say anything immediately as he put the last ball in the rack, which… Was he even doing it right? Fuck man, when was the last time he even played?
He hopped up and sat on the edge of the table. When he started to speak softly, his eyes were directed towards the floor. “I was a pretty dumb kid, you know? Got myself into the wrong crowd, started stealing and doing drugs and shit. Tried all kinds of stuff, but my go to was oxycontin, sometimes with some meth, and I’d wash it down with a bottle of Jack,” he smiled wryly.
He looked up towards Marco, though his gaze was unfocused. “I got a big head… Was working a job one night with my crew, but I was pretty fucked up, which… was kind of the standard,” he laughed. “Totally flopped it. I couldn’t even get past the window before a patrol car saw us. We hightailed it out of there, but one guy got caught and turned us all in.” Rhett leaned back and propped his hands on the table. He turned his attention towards the ceiling and closed his tired eyes briefly.
“I was 17, the oldest one out of the group and I had a lot of marks on my rap sheet, so they charged me as an adult and I got prison time. I’m sure you can understand how much fun the detox was in there,” he grinned, looking back towards Marco. “I don’t want anything to fuck with my head anymore, even if it’s just a can of Coke, you know?”
Marco was silent for what felt like too long. He wanted to say that he couldn’t imagine what detox was like in jail, but this wasn’t too different. He got a great bed here, but he imagined that Rhett hadn’t been jumping hurdles in prison. Not that he wanted to compare. Detox wasn’t pleasant in rehab, either. It was just never present. Rhett was smart for not going back to the drugs. Marco had already proven that day that he wasn’t strong enough to make that decision.
He wondered if he would have ended up in the same place as Rhett if he hadn’t grown up in and out of psych wards.
He took another drink.
“Shit, man,” he said finally, “I had no idea. Wouldn’t have taken you for a con. Ex-con. Whatever.” He put the bottle down and fetched two pool cues, and passed one over. “They tried you as an adult at seventeen? Jesus. How long were you there? You weren’t grabbed from there, were you?”
Taking the cue, Rhett stepped back off the table. “Nah man, I got out when I turned 20. They were a little easier on me since I was under 18, and I got out earlier for good behavior.” Though it took a few months before he’d settled down from his withdrawal, and his claustrophobia, the latter of which always lingered in the back of his mind during his stay.
Pulling the rack off, he motioned over for Marco to take the first shot. “I work as a locksmith now. Might as well put my talents to good use,” he smiled, not even hesitating as he spoke the words.
“Dude, really?” He arched an eyebrow and smirked. He didn’t realize that they gave jobs like that to former thieves. Then again, he could have just been making that up, the same way hearing voices made Marco a psychic medium.
He lifted his cue and attempted to steady his hands as he lined it up to the cue ball. “Alright. I’m solids, you’re stripes?” It wasn’t really a question. It took a moment to steady himself long enough to break the formation, and the eight ball automatically rolled dangerously close to one of the pockets. Marco frowned, then picked up the bottle of tequila again. “Or… wait, is it still my turn? I don’t know how this works,” he said.
“I don’t think I could handle prison,” he thought out loud. Unspoken was the fact that he wasn’t sure they’d actually put him into a prison and not an institution, with his own record. “You have any prison tattoos?”
Well, no not really, but Rhett couldn’t say he was still a thief. The only thing more sketch than an ex-con was a current con. “Well, who else would know their locks better than someone who used to pick ‘em?” He grinned.
“I think it’s my turn. Don’t you only go again if you score?” He eyed the table and moved over slightly, where he could get a better shot. “...Or maybe you do go again,” he wondered aloud before he made his shot. “Wonder if we could find a rule book about it for us,” he grinned.
“I didn’t think I could either. I was kind of going nuts for the first few months,” Rhett leaned against the table. “I was so out of it the first week… One day I was in the cafeteria and bumped into this guy who was like… three times my fucking size. Dude was huge. He told me to watch where I was going and I was so irritated from the withdrawal my first reaction was to punch him in the face,” he laughed.
“He beat the shit out of me and we ended up getting a stint in solitary.” His eyes grew distant for a moment, before he rubbed his face sleepily again.
“Nah man. I stayed away from everyone else. Minded my own business. Read books and shit. Gang politics is convoluted bullshit,” he smirked bitterly.
"Do you only get prison tattoos for being in a gang? I have no idea how that works. I guess you're better off, then," Marco said with a shrug. He brought his cue back up the the cue ball and tapped it again, this time not bothering to steady his hands. Several balls were rearranged, but the only one to end up in a pocket was a stripe. He was pretty sure that ended his turn.
"How big was the guy you punched?" he wondered. "I tried that in a, um, study hall once. When I was fourteen." Actually, it had been a common area, he'd been hallucinating, and the other kid had been a seventeen year old narcissist. It hadn't gone well. Marco bared his teeth and pointed to the front six or so. “Dude knocked these right out of my face. Now they’re enamel or porcelain or whatever shit they fix teeth with. I don’t recommend it,” he laughed. “But TV makes it look like all there is to do in prison is fight, so…”
“Mostly, I think. Besides, I don’t want to use their nasty ass needles, shit’s probably a gross disease cocktail.” When Marco ended his turn, Rhett leaned forward slightly, trying to figure out the angle he wanted to aim for. Before he made his shot, he looked up and grinned, laughing lightly at the other’s story. He lined up his shot and swiftly hit the cue ball which bounced around the table, tapping several different balls and knocking them in all different directions… but failed to sink any of them.
“I dunno, a lot of the guys in there were like… huge muscle heads.” He answered and straightened up, resting on his stick. “I mean, I got into a couple fights during my time, all of ‘em in the first few months.” His eyes lit up when he remembered another detail. “I never got my teeth knocked out, mostly black eyes and bruises… The first guy who walloped on me, he wouldn’t stop punching me in the stomach and I fuckin’ threw up on him,” he laughed. “I’m sure you can imagine how happy he was about that.”
“I imagine he punched you harder,” Marco said, cringing. He lined up a shot and tried again, but like Rhett, didn’t sink any, just got them closer to pockets. When he was done, he drank again. It wasn’t what he wanted right then, but it wasn’t bad.
He waited for Rhett to line up another shot before he asked his next question. They were supposed to distract each other, right? That was the stupid, entertaining way to play, right? “So how do you feel about the buzzing shit going on today?”
Rhett shrugged. "It's shitty and annoying, but it's not the worst thing I've been through." If he had to choose between this and being beaten and starved, he wouldn't even have to think about it. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? Doesn't matter if someone's in a place with complete silence or constant noise, they'll just go crazy either way. Personally, I prefer the noise."
He struck the cueball which ricocheted off the sides and sunk one of the stripes in a hole. "What about you?" Pausing, he scrunched his face up at the pool table. "...Do I go again?"
“Yeah, you go again,” Marco said, then fell silent to take another drink while he contemplated how to answer that question. It should have been easy, but the suggestion that everyone would go crazy over sound had caught him off guard. Rhett of course (or, probably?) hadn’t meant actual crazy, but for half a second, Marco thought that he had. It shouldn’t have made him uncomfortable, but there he was, feeling uncomfortable anyway.
“Noise doesn’t bother me. Well, not this noise,” he said between sips. “It’s gonna get old, but it’s just white noise. There’s machines made just to make this noise to help people sleep. This is just making me more tired. And I was already fucking tired.” He smiled softly. “Actually, if anything, it makes me worried about what tomorrow’s test will be, if this one’s so easy.”
In Rhett's experience, he had gone a little crazy because of silence. His mind was filled with years worth of these unpleasant memories--memories that made his insides twist painfully at the thought of being trapped somewhere where the silence was a reminder of how totally alone and helpless you were.
It's a good thing he's gotten so good at repressing his neurosis.
He nodded, acknowledging Marco's comments as he made another shot, this one ending with not as much success as the previous. He chuckled lightly. "This is making you sleepy? I'd rather listen to like... the ocean. Or birds and shit. Or... I dunno. Lana Del Rey."
Leaning his cue on the table, he stretched and yawned. "Yeah, I dunno man. When do you think they're going to put us in a forest and make us go all Battle Royale on each other?"
“That’s what I said!” Marco cried, maybe a bit too excited that someone had agreed with him. “I mean, I don’t want it to turn into that, because you’ve seen these fucking guys here. I’m dead, you know? I think I might stand a chance against the old guy, but that’s it. What’s his name? Something really British. I’m going with Wadsworth.”
He paused to take his shot, and considered it miraculous when not one, but two solid balls went into pockets. His second shot wasn’t as lucky, and he leaned a hip against the table to wait. “I mean, this makes me sleepy, but everything makes me sleepy, so it’s tough to measure. Not birds, though. That’s a weird suggestion. Do birds make people sleepy?”
“I dunno,” Rhett laughed. “Some people fall asleep to weird stuff. Birds are relaxing, right?” He took a shot and ended up sinking one; on his second one he sunk one more, but messed up on his third.
“Wadsworth sounds like the name of a really fuckin’ adorable cartoon pig,” he thought aloud. “I dunno… on the one hand us going Hunger Games on each other seems the most likely option, but at the same time it’s like… why? Why spend all this money to make a bunch of random people kill each other? It wouldn’t even be fun to watch, there’s like. 3 people here who could put up a good fight.” He shook his head.
“But if we are here for their entertainment, then… they’re gonna put us through more fucked up shit,” Rhett stated somberly. “Maybe it would be better for us if they want us to kill each other instead.””
Marco’s eyebrow arched high as he watched Rhett. “Pop music. Cartoon pigs. Seriously, you survived in prison?” He joked. He hit the cueball, which bounced off a few of the walls and hit nothing. He is playing pool. Marco shook his head.
“But you’re right, it doesn’t make sense for them to grab a bunch of people and put them in this swanky place, just to kill them off. That doesn’t mean they won’t, but… I don’t know. It all freaks me out.” He vaguely remembered the message he’d received earlier that day saying “program.” Direct from Them. Marco picked up the bottle and swished it around, then took another sip. “Maybe it’s just a study. Maybe they’ve done this before… Maybe they’ll actually let us go. Give us a big fucking check to keep us quiet.”
"Hey man, that's why I kept to myself. You think throwing up on people and listening to Gaga made me any friends?" Rhett grinned widely.
He stepped to the other corner of the table and struck the cueball, landing one more of his own in a hole. Instead of taking his next turn right away, he paused momentarily and smiled to himself. His next strike bounced the ball ineffectually around the table.
"Yeah, you think so?" It was a genuine question, even if he didn't necessarily agree. "That'd be nice, huh? It's not like I know any better than you, so I'm not gonna be a downer about it."
Marco shrugged, and momentarily forgot the game, he gripped the cue still, leaning on it. His fingers wrung around it uncomfortably. The uncertainties were almost as stressful as any of the challenges. He wished they’d just tell them what their goal was with all this. “I mean, hopefully,” he said, frowning. “Maybe this isn’t their first time. It’s going well for them, so, maybe they’ve done this before. I don’t know. I just think there should be more mistakes.”
Then he shrugged again. “I mean, unless the crackling speaker is a mistake. In which case… I don’t know. Am I rambling?”
"Nah, you're good dude. I mean... there just isn't really any way to know, which is the shitty thing, I guess. But even if we did know, what could we really do about it?" Rhett gave a small smile. "Either way we're stuck here, so we might as well make the best of it. I dunno if that makes you feel better or not... and that's probably easier for a guy like me to say. I don't really have anyone waiting for me, you know?" He laughed quietly.
Marco took his cue and started the game up again, instantly sinking one of the striped balls. He muttered a curse and stepped back again. “I don’t either,” he admitted. “Though that doesn’t make me feel any better. Too many options. And eyes. It’s just kind of fucked up, you know? I don’t like that they’re always watching.”
Rhett nodded. Even though he didn't feel as disturbed as... really, anyone else in the house, he could understand why it was unsettling. Honestly, all of this was making him realize how fucked up in the head he was. Why wasn't his immediate response wanting to go back home? Why was he more afraid of the other captives than the ones in charge?
He could think himself in circles all day long, but his hyper-awareness in regards to other people also unfortunately applied to himself.
Rhett could try as hard as he wanted to try to hide who he really was from the others, but how long would it even last? 23 other people lived in this house. He was going to be surrounded by most of them every hour for the next however many days they were stuck here.
They were going to figure him out eventually. And then what?
He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. What was he supposed to say? "Maybe that's why they gave us so much booze?" He muttered while his eyes scanned the table pointlessly. The twisting nausea in his stomach was too distracting for him to actually focus on the game, but... Finally, he smirked to himself and struck the cue ball with purpose, watching coolly as it bounced around the table and slowly tapped the 8-ball into a hole.
"Well, shit," Rhett shrugged with a grin. "I fucked up. Guess you win, huh?"
Marco stared for a moment. He was still slightly sedated, but he’d seen it. The slight change in demeanor, the hesitation… And then, even though he’d played it as an accident, he was sure that Rhett had thrown the game.
It should have occurred to Marco that maybe Rhett was in his own head, reacting his own way. Except, Marco was prone to paranoia. His own thoughts jumped into overdrive. Had his paranoia gotten to intense? Had he said something wrong, and missed it? Was he being crazy? He bit his lip, and let out a low, awkward laugh. “Yeah, guess so.” He forced a smile.
Fuck, he’d messed something up. He hates you, a voice told him. He is nervous.
“You know, I think I’ve been on my feet too long,” Marco made up. “Or maybe it’s the buzzing. I don’t know. You mind if I skip out, get back to bed?”
That was the wrong move.
There was a drastic shift in the atmosphere, and Rhett couldn't quite place what it was--had he said something wrong? Was it all the talk about not knowing what They were going to do? He thought he'd hid his dark thoughts pretty well, but had it come out in the way he was talking...?
"Uh... yeah, no problem. I'm sure you still feel sick; I shouldn't keep you up too long," he rationalized with a forced smile.
Marco forced a smile right back. “Yeah, man. But this was fun! We should do this again some time. I mean, since we’re stuck here and everything. I just… You know how the insomnia gets. If I can sleep, I guess I should.” He placed his cue across the pool table, and picked up the tequila once more. He tucked it under his arm to take with him, then headed for the door. Whether or not he actually drank it, he had plans to not be sober as soon as he got back upstairs.