A Hangover Sent Direct From Mother Nature

His head pounded like a drum and his stomach churned like it was at the centre of a hurricane, and despite the rumours, the eye wasn't still; it was just as much of a fucking maelstrom as ever. A descriptive groan slipped through his lips, and he moaned in Creig, his puffy eyes still closed. "Ugh..." Another sigh. Alastair fumbled for something; anything, just to get a grip, and, in his shuffling, a wave of nausea struck him. A wave of nausea courtesy of scotch; he could tell, already, from the bitter aftertaste in his mouth and throat, and the distinctly woody feeling of the inside of his neck, feeling as if someone had poured bleach down it.

Eyes fluttered open revealing deep blue pools contained beneath. The apartment was bathed in pale white light from the frayed rope on the blinds, apparently singed with some form of fire, causing them to fall slack the moment they had opened. Wayward eyes fell upon the alarm clock on the pedestal nearby. 6:42. If his head didn't feel like someone had split it open with a nutcracker, he would have fallen back asleep. Noting that he was lying upon his wet and stained couch, he swept his legs around, sat up, and rubbed his eyes, groaning once more. "Ugh..."

The apartment was in a sorry state. It was fairly upmarket; in a nice block, an expansive bachelor pad, with a closed-off bedroom with an en-suite, and a bathroom. But, today, it didn't quite look so upmarket. A series of stains from dubious liquids and pink splatters had dried upon the floorboards. Countless empty and half-full bottles of beer and various spirits lay on the floor, making a painfully loud symphony with their sequential 'dripping'. Again, had Alastair not felt as if someone had made him swallow a megaton of trinitrotoluene, he would have swept up the bottles, and, consequentially begun drinking.

He wasn't sure if this was his worst hangover yet - hell, he couldn't remember most of them, cause he tended to keep drinking - but it sure as fuck qualified. Lethargic, bags swooping underneath his deep blue eyes, he sat, mouth half-open, laconically sweeping along the place with a glare of disbelief, before finally mouthing the infamous line: "What the fuck did I do last night?"

His pistols sat on the counter-top of the attached kitchen, directly in a beam of jagged sunlight, with a peeling coat of pink primer paint slapped haphazardly upon them. Had he been a Hello Kitty enthusiast, they would have been near-perfect, if a bit sloppy, but that wasn't really appealing to Alastair at the moment. He began to grumble angrily, but then another wave of sickness hit him, and he retched. Nothing came of it. His stomach grumbled. He had a strange craving for bacon.

Somehow managing to stagger to his feet, he stumbled over towards the counter, rubbing his eyes, wearing a grimy-looking, pink-splashed tank top, and a pair of black fatigues, and boots. His underwear was thankfully not soiled, and intact, though his stubble was getting the best of him. Looking to his bare, thankfully fleshy-looking hands, Alastair realised that either they'd been washed, or, somehow, whilst painting the pistols, he hadn't managed to get ANY on his hands. Strange.

However, peering over the countertop, something else did catch his eye. Namely, a large orange-and-white traffic cone protruding from the gap in his oven, as if it had been jammed in there and wouldn't shut. The door was open at an angle. Thankfully, it appeared he hadn't tried to switch it on for an impromptu meal. The plastic was not melted. His oven appeared still-functional.

Mouth now fully agape in disbelief, another lancing of pain hit him through his ears as a rather loud, echoing squawk came from what appeared to be his... fireplace. Yes, a squawk. "WHATTHEFUCK-" Alastair spun around in shock, howling and clutching his ears, and stubbing his toe, somehow, on a fallen stool by the counter. This morning, thus far, stubbed toe, living fireplace, wrecked apartment, failed meal made of a traffic cone. Great.

However, he had frozen mid-speech for a reason, his eyes, bloodshot, weary, and dilated, stared now upon something hung in suspension above his 'desk'. Well, really, it was just a (mainly-empty) drinks cabinet, but, it doubled as a desk for those pesky reports, thus the chair next to it- wait a second!? Why were there two chairs?! It didn't matter; his eyes were still firmly affixed to the structure swaying gently, creaking as it went, moving from side to side stiffly. Alastair's face ached from sleeping on his couch. "Holy... shit.."

He'd heard of people bringing their work home with them, but this was maybe a touch extreme. Swaying, tied to the blinds with a makeshift noose, was a corpse. Except, really, it wasn't. It was a white, bleached skeleton; in impeccable shape, save for a few bones that appeared to be a little strained, and a rope tied around the thin vertebrae. Alastair guessed... well, actually, he had no fucking idea. He still didn't know if this was a real body or not. But maybe it had been a joke he'd pulled on himself, and it was a sample skeleton, or something, and the idea was that it had decayed overnight. Hungover Alastair tutted. Very funny, drunk Alastair. Very funny.

With a sigh, the man realised that before he did anything about the hanging body, he needed a cold shower, a cup of coffee, a shot of whiskey, and some bacon. Man did he want some fucking bacon. Rubbing his temples, which were pulsing like the strobe lights in an Ibiza nightclub, he gingerly brushed over the top of his head, which was raised, and apparently bruised. He growled subsonically. "WHY THE FUCK HAVE I GOT A BUMP ON MY HEAD!?"

Pushing open the door into the attached bathroom, Alastair groaned, opened a window, and pulled off his tank top, taking a sip of mouthwash, swilling it around, and spitting the accumulated contents into the basin, before slapping some clean water on his face, as much as it stung, and looking at his hungover self in the mirror. Fuck, he looked worse than usual. "You look like shit," He muttered conveniently. At least it was a... wait, what day was it?

Reaching for his Blackberry, thankfully in his pockets, Alastair checked the calendar first; Sunday. God of all hangover days. The time was just about accurate, too. It was getting on to be around 6:50. However, he did have a few new texts, from a number registered as 'Spadey Spaaade'. Who in the fuck was Spadey Spaaade? They appeared to be pocket texts sent at random intervals in the night.

Topless, Alastair went over to the shower, to start it running. Water pressure was a little shitty for the first few moments; he'd get changed after he set it on. He pulled open the door, and that was when two things happened. One, something stirred in his bathtub, adjacent to the shower, making a quiet, muffled mumbling noise. Two... he noticed something at the shower's basin. A pineapple. Why the fuck was there...

The mumbling got stronger. Alastair spun around, and bit his lip apprehensively, before pulling the curtains open with a swing, and immediately falling back onto his ass. There was someone in his bathtub. Long hair. Shades. Some form of uniform. He looked in a worse fucking state than he did. And, he'd taken a blanket or two from the couch to accommodate himself. Immediately, Alastair fell back onto his ass, shouting instinctively. "GAH! WHO THE FUCK... WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?" Wait, dammit, Creig. "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" He paused, holding up a trembling, accusing finger. "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN MY BATHTUB?!" An uneasy, echoing silence. Alastair felt sick, again. "WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A PINEAPPLE IN MY SHOWER!?"

Was it--was it raining? The first occurring thought. I hate rain. A muffled murmur from his own lips. There was no one around--what did it matter? But the water sounded as if it were hitting some kind of plastic, too loud to be outside. Was it--was it raining inside? No, it couldn't be; rain only fell outdoors. Outdoors? Could he be...outside? A strangled moan escaped parted, chapped lips as he realized he was still attached to his body--that his existence was not just in thoughts, but in a physical form as well. There was an immediate hot sensation in his throat as if he had-- fuck. Did he do the breathing fire trick again? Goddammit. Probably burned the blinds again doing it out the window. Sometimes he wondered if he was finally losing his-- His head was the next mode of agonizing pain, as if to remind him yeah, you were drinking last night. No shit Sherlock. He went to roll over, but hit something hard that went donnngggg, reverberating in his head like a fucking annoying clapping monkey. That was his best simile yet. "Ugh..." He shifted his knee up and squeezed his eyes closed tighter, trying to will away wakefulness. Little circular nibs were jabbing all along his spine, all down his back, into his feet, and his shoulders. What. He lowered a hand off his chest, ignoring how sticky it felt as he ran it along the surface of whatever the hell he was laying on. It was hard, not a bed, and he felt like he was playing the blindfold guessing game on Halloween. No spaghetti is not worms. Fucking amateurs. Migraine medicine for Dummies number one: don't open your eyes to the light or it will make it worse. Okay so, it felt like some sort of plastic. Almost like...the bottom of a tub. But the odd thing about all this was...Spade didn't own a tub.

"What the fuck did I do last night?" The question. The dreadful question was asked, but not answered. His hand ventured further, his body moving to allow more feeling space until his shoulder stabbed into something metal. Oww. Well, that was unnecessarily painful coming from a faucet. He opened his eyes then, a lucid green forest of confusion, bright as his pupils shrank to near nothing. Sunlight leaked through the skylights above, signaling to the man in the tub that yes, he was in fact inside, and in a bathroom no less. But why a bathroom? He stared blankly at his shoulder which smarted like an unusual bee sting. ...the fuck? It was almost like the day after he had gotten his tattoo. Yeah, that same kinda pain. Wait. Wait a fucking minute. No. No, he didn't. "Ugh..." Spade tore off the bandage covering his forearm and shoulder with his teeth, eyes fervently searching for differences in the faded tattoo, but no! There was nothing--no difference...at...all...what. He squinted, tilting his arm at an awkward angle in order to see what read below 'sin will you ever learn'. It was a dice on the number seven that said: 'Kyahr'. "Shu?" He said aloud, learning his words nicely despite being so hung over he couldn't see straight. Hah seven lives, seven on the dice. Funny, drunk Spade, Funny. You conniving bastard. Oh. He adjusted his sunglasses on his nose with a hack that made his throat yearn for water. There, now he could kinda see better.

"GAH!" Spade nearly dropped his sunglasses, swallowing his heart that had leaped into his throat. Woah, okay, that was not fucking cool. Whoever was in his...his...where the fuck was he? A bathroom. No, it wasn't a suitable explanation. He could tell from the tooth brush that someone lived here and it wasn't a hotel room or his own apartment, and well, now there was a half naked Creig man shouting at him in a foreign language. "JFKH KEHK EGHAGS... JFKH KEHK EGHAGS EKQ JADFH!?" Please tell me I didn't sleep with him. If there was a god up there... "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" Oh good.

"I'm Sp--"

"WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN MY BATHTUB?!" Well, that answered that question. So he was in this guy's bathroom...whoever the hell this guy was. He appeared to be a well-paid officer of some kind--a chief maybe. Couldn't really tell since the guy was practically naked and showering his fruit, but he seem--

"WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A PINEAPPLE IN MY SHOWER!?"

"YOU TELL ME," Spade barked back, beyond irritated that the dipshit wouldn't give him fives seconds to coherently form a fucking answer. "But apparently it's name is Wilfred."

...

Wilfred. He paused for a second, staring beyond the shower curtain at the pineapple with its name scrawled over it in black sharpie, barely legible. Wasn't his handwriting, but he had a feeling he was the one who named it that. God. That was when he realized his hands were pink. "THE FUCK ARE MY HANDS PINK FOR AND WHY ARE WE SPEAKING CRETAN!?" Spade had it up to HERE with this fiasco. He stood up, blankets falling from over him to reveal the fact that he was wearing his Amestrian Militant uniform fit with all of his fancy metals and all that jazz. But standing up felt windy. His thigh. Around his thigh the navy blue pants were completely ripped to all hell. Around the edges was a brown tinge. He made a timeout with his hands and tore the hole larger to see a thin line of dried blood that went all the way down his leg and into his socks. That was why his one foot felt sticky. It was made by a knife. Spade limped a couple steps back to sit on the edge of the tub so he could remove the--the Hello Kitty bandaids from over his stab wound. As he did so, a bloodied switchblade fell from his person and clattered to the tile. Spade stared at it for a long second. Wasn't his. He looked up for a reaction from the random half-naked man standing near him with the water still running over the pineapple Wilfred. Did I stab myself in the thigh? The hell would he do that for!? No. No. Did this guy stab him and slip the knife in his jacket? Spade scanned him analytically for clues, but really only found lint between the guy's toes. Didn't seem like the case. Waitasecond. Spade dabbed a finger at the dried blood and raised it to his tongue. Sweet. Fake blood. A fake stab wound. The blood on the switchblade was real, however so... Just what the fuck was going on!?

"I'm Sp--" Bbaagooock!! "...was that a...chicken? buckbuckbuckbuck. It so fucking was. What next, he'd find out he wasn't in Central anymore? "Spade Aeries and I'm hungover as shit. Sorry man, I can't remember anythi--what day is it?" He whipped out his phone and tried to turn it on but the screen was cracked to hell. It flickered and then finally a picture came up. It was a shot of him and... Spade looked a bit perturbed. That guy looking way too happy. They were covered in bruises, and in the background was the name of a bar in Creig that he couldn't interpret due to the language barrier. Creig? Huh, funny. He squinted at the date and a relieved sigh passed through his parched mouth. Sunday: the savior of all drunkards. Next, he went paging through his texts. Good, he didn't send Shu anything this time accept that picture. Everything else was old save for texts to and from someone listed as 'Attapair':
Sunday July 10, 2012 1:24 AM
Me- hye, wehrue?
Attapair- dunon
Me- cuz freeboozes
Sunday July 10, 2012 3:12 AM
Attapair- coem 2bck
Me- omw
Attapair-which dumpsrtar am i ptuing hum in?
Me- holdon
Sunday July 10, 2012 4:47 AM
Me- sopt hidign weve gota run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Attapair- grsb the knide
Me- otuside met west 943 KM

Whatever that fucking meant. "Are you 'Attapair'?" Spade massaged his temples, closing his eyes for a second, and dragging his sunglasses on top of his head to hold his hair out of his greasy face. All he wanted right now was a shower, but fucking Wilfred... UGH. He massaged harder, trying to think--to remember anything at all. Pockets. "FUCK Where the FUCK-- I fucking lost my wallet." And his ribs felt kind of bruised or was that from his job...? He couldn't even remember the last time he went to work. "The hell did they put in those drinks..." He reached into his other pocket and pulled out... STACKS of money. How so many bills even fit in his pockets was beyond him. "...why is there 50,000 dollars in my pocket...?"

"YOU TELL ME! But apparently it's name is Wilfred." Alastair jerked his neck around, and stared back over his shoulder. Wilfred... so that was its name. Alastair now saw the black, scrawled Sharpie marks... drunken handwriting, check. It hadn't moved, and the shower was still raining down all manner of hot water upon it from those pressure jets he so tentatively sought. Until he showered, everything was going to piss him off. Suddenly, his impromptu house guest believed it a good time to freak the fuck out. "THE FUCK ARE MY HANDS PINK FOR AND WHY ARE WE SPEAKING CRETAN!?"

A look of horror in revelation hit Alastair's face with a pang of slow dread as he lowered an accusing finger to the man's face. "YOU... PAINTED MY GUNS!" A slow pause as more realisation flushed into the blonde's mind. "YOU... YOU BASTARD!" Alastair put on the best John Cleese voice he could, before addressing the other issue. "AND I DON'T SPEAK AMESTRIAN!" With that, a steady gesture to the man's uniform, and Alastair snarled.

The man made a time-out with his fingers, and Alastair was ready to explode into a flurry of rage, raising trembling, balled-up fists, when the guy began poking around in the ripped thigh-segment of his bottoms. Curiosity overrode the hungover anger, and the police chief veered his head around, attempting to get a better look. Then, of course, he removed a Hello Kitty bandage - everyone in Carraig preferred them to normal bandages - from... what appeared to be a stab wound. A clattering noise signified a bloodied switchblade falling to the ground. The blonde stared at it with wide blue eyes, pupils no more than dots, frozen for a moment, before, finally, he brought his hands up to rub them and shook his head, slumping down and taking a seat on the tiles. "We have got to figure out what happened last night," Alastair groaned conclusively.

Then, of course, the guy started dabbing his stab wound with a finger, and licking the blood intuitively. Either he'd gotten into a drinking game with a vampire or a serial killer. Quickly, Alastair's hands flocked to his bare neck, brushing over and looking for two bite marks. Perhaps this was why the sunlight was hurting him so much- "I'm Sp--" Baagawwwwk! Oh, yeah, the chicken. Alastair instinctively grasped his ears, cursing out Bernard Matthews. "...was that a...chicken?"

Alastair nodded glumly. Bawk! Bawk! Bawk! "I-" BAWWWWWWWK! With that, the commotion stopped, Alastair wincing slightly. "I... think it's in the fireplace," The blonde spoke uneasily, scratching the back of his head. And, just for kicks, that hurt, too. But, for now, he'd let Sp-- get on with things.

"Spade Aeries and I'm hungover as shit. Sorry man, I can't remember anythi--what day is it?" Alastair shrugged, before something clicked; not the question... the name. Wait. WAIT! Spadey Spaaade! Was that- Alastair didn't waste any time, immediately fumbling for his Blackberry - it appeared Spade was doing the same.

"I dunno," Alastair mumbled. "I can hardly keep track of the month, let alone the days of the week, that's some difficult shit," The Creig accent was only making things more comical. Rifling through the phone as best he could looking for any clues as to what yesterday night had entailed, fighting through the alcohol-induced headache miserably, he finally came upon texts. The same string that Spade found at, conveniently enough, the exact same time. Both of them looked up, and in that same moment, locked eyes, and two sentences came out together in garbled speech.

"Are you 'Attapair'?"

"Are you Spadey Spaaade?"

A pause. Everything took a little more time to register. Of course the guy was Spadey Spaaade! Well, it was getting a little irritating dragging out all the a-sounds, even in his mind, so for now, he'd just be Spade. Rubbing dirt from his eyes and running a hand through grimy hair, Alastair picked himself back up with a sigh. "I'd prefer Alastair," He said with that cynic's grin for a moment, before his face cracked and everything fell back to pieces. "So... false stab wound, chicken, pineapple, dead body, bathtub..." He took a long, surveying scan of Spade. "...and hungover Amestrian General. Well, this doesn't quite qualify for the strangest hungover morning ever..." A glance towards Wilfred once more. "But... it's certainly close."

"FUCK, wo zum TEUFEL-- I fucking lost my wallet." The Amestrian was absolutely impeccable, but in the Cretan, an accent shined through. Xingese, perhaps? Eh, Alastair was no expert. The guy was a fucking foreigner. That was far enough for him, really. "The hell did they put in those drinks..."

A broad grin. That must've been Murphy, the bartender with a penchant towards ensuring Alastair's hangover was always as fine and heavy as it was. "Creig whiskey, m'friend," Speaking of which... Alastair scrabbled to the sink and reached for his medicine cabinet, pulling the door open with a sigh of relief. The first shelf was half-filled with boxes of paracetamol and otherwise old, unused medicine - and the other two and a half shelves, stacked up with bottles of cheap whiskey and vodka. There was some wood alcohol at the bottom, too, though he'd been advised not to drink that, especially with his liver already wishing to seek revenge on his brain as it did. "Strongest and purest shit this side of the Cales," That was the only reason he'd been to Creta, ever. And even then, their stuff tasted just as burn-tastic as Carraig's.

"...why is there 50,000 dollars in my pocket...?" And, with that, he brandished wad upon wad of Cretan dollars. Alastair stood, mouth agape and eyes wide, deep blue pools trying to take in images of all the damn green. Man, there was SO much of it. Alastair scratched the back of his head, considering the texts... and the skeleton...

"Spade, we really need to figure out what happened last night."

Oh god. Not that look. Oh shit. It was the you-fucking-did-something-stupid-while-drunk-again-Aeries look. He was about to get mauled verbally. He waited, bracing himself for the inevitable, trying his best not to look anywhere near his neon pink hands in any way. "YOU... PAINTED MY GUNS!" His...what--guns? Spade stared at him awkwardly, shaking his head and holding out his fucking painted hands in defeat. "YOU... YOU BASTARD!" Damn, you'd think he had drowned his grandmother. Take a chill pill man. Spade was kind of ready to run, but without his wallet he was more than a little screwed. Plus, having 50,000 dollars of cash alluded only slightly to the idea that maybe, just maybe they had robbed a bank. They were in this together, but the damn blond's anger was only succeeding in irking the Lieutenant General's usually dense frustration. If he would just CALM the fuck down, then they could collaborate and get somewhere. It was clear neither of them knew a DAMN thing, and if they just sat there and raised their voices in bewilderment at each other, they would end up pulling the fucking triggers of those pink painted guns at one another.

Shu would kill him first.

The knife was still on the floor, glaring the fluorescent lights at them in all its secrecy, the dried blood cracking off the sharp silver. Still wasn't his fucking knife. Ah, if only inanimate objects could talk. Wait, hell no. Then he'd have to talk to his tooth brush. 'Ack, got another cavity back here, Spadey boy, should go to the dentist to check that out' NO SHUT UP IT'S A LIE. That would be a nightmare. Though, he would enjoy talking to his Seven, but the bitch would be griping about how he never filled her tank up completely at the gas station. Well, that's because gas is so goddamn expensive. I'd have to empty my entire savings to keep your tank full! Woman...were so demanding. But objects couldn't talk, so thank god for that. Now they had to actually figure it out them-- "We have got to figure out what happened last night."

"Damn straight." Okay, now they were getting somewhere. Spade let a crooked smirk lather onto his dehydrated lips. Alright, they had a pineapple named Wilfred, pink guns > pink hands, a knife with real blood on it, a fake knife wound, $50,000 dollars, a missing wallet, a chicken, and a blonde-haired blue-eyed C-- "Wait, how can you not speak Amestrian and be in Amestris?" There was a problem here. Spade's eyes narrowed. Tick tick tick tick tick ti--GOD THAT WAS ANNOYING. He turned furry-ridden emerald eyes onto his watch and blinked in mild amazement. There's no way. There was just no way that it was that la-- The time on his watch didn't match the time on his phone. Time difference. Man who didn't speak Amestrian. Chicken. Okay, no wait, that didn't add in. But time difference. Fuck. "Fuck. I'm not in Amestris anymore, am I." Don't answer that. He face-palmed into...a pink hand and shut his eyes. Iwanttowakeupnow Iwanttowakeupnow Iwanttowakeupnow. Nope. It was worth a try.

"I-" BAWWWWWWWK! Fried chicken. "I... think it's in the fireplace."

"Perfect."

Cracked iPhone out and ready to be analyzed, the discovery was immediate. The two of them had in fact known each other at one time, but the memory loss of liquor was a cruel and vile beast, much less so than the sick feeling growing in his stomach though. Or was that just hunger? ...He kind of wanted bacon. It wasn't really...a good meal to have on an empty stomach with traces of booze still floating around, but...mmm bacon. FOCUS AERIES FOCUS. A jumble of words left both their mouths, matching the recipients of their text message conversations.

"Are you Spadey Spaaade?" ...Wut. 'Spadey Spade'? Really? At least his was fucking creative. Come on, it sounded like a three-year-old came up with it by way of taking crayons to the wallpaper. Sometimes there was no hope left for the world... The pause grew, but still 'Spadey Spade' was not growing on him enough to say yes and admit to the fact that it probably was him. The creation of the name itself would more than likely harm the blond's manly pride and send him into a spiral of hangover self-loathing, but then again, Spade didn't know this guy; he could just as easily crouch down and stab him with the bloody knife on the floor. "I'd prefer Alastair," the guy finally said.

"Yeah, call me Spade, Alastair," he answered in tune, looking way too serious considering he was sitting on a bathtub with pink hands and fake blood all down his thigh.

"So... false stab wound, chicken, pineapple, dead body, bathtub...and hungover Amestrian General. Well, this doesn't quite qualify for the strangest hungover morning ever... But... it's certainly close." Spade nodded enthusiastically, taking the man's deductions alongside his own for measure. It was at first clear that he had discovered that Spade was an Amestrian general (if that was not obvious by the metals and uniform), but then something else clicked--something dire and conflicting with his observations.

"Woah. Rewind. Dead body?"

But upon inquiring about the dead weight of a hangover he was currently experiencing, he received a response: "Creig whiskey, m'friend." That explained a lot of things. So they were in Carraig? The fuck would he be doing in Carraig of all places?! Well, at least he wasn't in Drachma...he kind of recalled that it was dangerous there, but his brain cells were objecting to the idea of thinking too hard. Carraig, seriously? No wonder the guy's thick accent was Creig. It was kind of like Spade knew it all along, but didn't, you know? It was hard to explain the feeling, but... yeah. Whatever.

"I have a picture of us in front of the bar. Look, why don't you shower with Wilfred and I'll try and figure out something. I'm stranded in Carraig without my wallet so it's not like I can go anywhere, but maybe the chicken can tell us something. I don't fucking know. When you're done, hopefully you won't mind if I take one myself." Spade stood up, reaching for the blankets and eyeing the knife again. Not touching it. He folded the blankets over his arm and went for the door, turning around. "I'm sorry I painted your guns pink, man."

"Wait, how can you not speak Amestrian and be in Amestris?" Alastair spun around and stared at the man with wide, gaping blue eyes. Hopefully that would be message enough for Spade: it was Alastair's apartment. They weren't in Amestris... not any more, at least. Realisation struck the Amestrian with a painfully familiar expression on Spade's face, one the police chief knew all too well. "Ficken. I'm not in Amestris anymore, am I?"

"Nope," Alastair murmured, with all the optimism he could muster. Which is, to say, none. "And you aren't in Kansas, either, Dorothy, but click your heels, and see what it does for you," A pang hit him, his stomach lurching. The kitchen was beckoning, along with the promised land, his salvation; fried food. He needed something, otherwise all he'd be able to taste soon would be the stale aftertaste of beer and the lining of his own cheeks.

"Perfect." Nothing more, nothing less. Seemed Spade wasn't without his own pessimistic sense of humour. Alastair's face cracked into a smile; a smile that said 'we may be in the shit, but you seem like the right person to be in the shit with, and not a drag queen'. Well, hopefully, not a drag queen, though Alastair had woken up with- ...that was another story, for another time. The General got out his phone; the blonde tucked his away, and brushed idly at the scruffy makings of a dark-haired beard. "Yeah, call me Spade, Alastair," A brief inclination of the head. Well, that was one thing cleared up. Now he knew who the guy was, more or less. The next issue... a toss-up between breakfast and the chicken in the fireplace. Possibly both! "Woah. Rewind. Dead body?"

Oh... yeaaaaah. The images of the hanging skeleton came thudding back all-too-quickly as Alastair lead Spade back into the living room slowly, and gestured towards the gently-swaying bleached skeleton moving in a pendulum-like arc... suspended from his wall. "I'm hoping that it's just one of those medical display ones," Alastair said grudgingly. "Otherwise we're in a lot deeper shit than I imagined," 'Police chief found with dead body in home'. The irony wasn't quite all that funny to Alastair at the moment, despite his usual affinity for it. The newspapers would lap it up, however. Goddamn Creig Times.

"I have a picture of us in front of the bar. Look, why don't you shower with Wilfred and I'll try and figure out something. I'm stranded in Carraig without my wallet so it's not like I can go anywhere, but maybe the chicken can tell us something. I don't fucking know. When you're done, hopefully you won't mind if I take one myself." 'Maybe the chicken can tell us something'? Provided the fucking thing wasn't already dead, and that was just the echoes of its residual soul sticking around for kicks - Alastair wouldn't be surprised, given the events of the morning thus far - then how in the hell was a traumatised piece of poultry going to help them? Why not just fucking ask Wilfred, that'd be just as productive!

"Without your wallet, yet you still have fifty-thousand dollars," Alastair murmured, shaking his head and opting back for the bathroom. "Such a tragedy." That cynic's smile again, and the blonde shrugged, grasping his neck. "You're welcome to have a shower once I'm done, have a look around. Don't steal anything," Normally, he wouldn't have trusted Spade - or, anyone, for that matter - alone in his apartment, but this wasn't a normal time, and his head was pounding like all manner of hell had broken loose from within, like a watermelon so big that the gritty pink innards were beginning to spurt out as the damn thing expanded and began to burst at the seams. Alastair slammed the bathroom door shut behind him, and finished stripping off, the shower running hot, Wilfred sitting with an impending look upon his... scaly exterior at the foot of the shower.

Alastair could have sworn he'd moved, rubbing his eyes and regarding the thing with a slightly curious stare. This whole scene had a very ominous feeling to it... though that was probably just the alcohol. Spade's voice came calling from the living room as he stepped into the shower. "I'm sorry I painted your guns pink, man." A low growl as Alastair stepped in over Wilfred, still not exactly feeling right. He had an urge to kick the pineapple out of the shower, but didn't dare thanks to the fear that it might transform into some form of Lovecraftian horror and violate him mentally, physically, and sexually before leaving him broken, battered, and lifeless on the floor of his own shitty apartment bathroom.

The blonde's stare fixated on the pineapple the moment he crossed the threshold, Alastair shut the glass door and shouted back in almost harrowed tones. "Don't be sorry, just try and clean them whilst I'm in here!" Ahh... that was better.

"Nope." It was a murmur, but it was still a murmur. He saaaiiiddd don't answer that. Spade glowered. "And you aren't in Kansas, either, Dorothy, but click your heels, and see what it does for you." The fuck did he just call him? Spade gave the guy a wild jade-eyed glance, raising an eyebrow as if the blond was a fucking nutcase. That was...just--just no. He shuddered, running his hands up and down his forearms as if the bathroom suddenly decreased thirty degrees. First of fucking all, he was not in any way, shape, or form a female named Dorothy. He thought they got their names straightened out. Now, The Wizard of Oz was a very popular movie, but in his opinion, it was a terrible excuse for entertainment. Hanging munchkins. Clicking her heels. HEELS. What was so magical about a person's heels?! Okay, so maybe the irony of it lacking sense was entirely the point, but it was moot at best. That led him to his second point. Kansas. Who the hell would want to go to Kansas. The bitch should be reveling in joy not following the yellow brick road. God, everyone who's ever watched that movie knows the producers were all on drugs anyway. It wasn't like any of it had any real value except the damn dog. And flying monkeys? Flying monkeys. Spade slammed a palm into his forehead and shook his head.

"Call me that again and I'm gutting Wilfred."

The conversation (thankfully) transgressed away from the terrible forties movie and moved on to other, more important things. ...like the dead body. Alastair moved towards the door, allowing Spade's slow-processing mind to realize that they were going to walk to its location now. Alright, he really didn't want to see it...he really didn't want to, but he was going to anyway. There wasn't much of a choice. They made it to the living room despite Spade nearly colliding with the doorway en route, annnddd... he looked around, seeing. Before Al could speak further on the matter of the dead body, the detective's keen eyes caught sight of not just the painted pink guns that matched his hands on the kitchen counter, but "is that a traffic cone...in the oven?" Spade sucked in a deep breath, nodding to himself and turning towards where his host was facing. "I mean, that's fine at least it's better than--"

"I'm hoping that it's just one of those medical display ones, otherwise we're in a lot deeper shit than I imagined." Aghast. That was the perfect word to describe Spade's expression as he stared at the suspended...object hovering over a relatively empty alcohol cabinet. Two chairs. Two chairs. He swallowed, lowering his eyes quickly from the glance he took at the shadowy silhouette of a skeleton. Under their feet was a scattered deck of cards presumably from a casino, considering they had holes in the top right corners. Right now, he was staring at the King of Spades. And right now, he kind of wanted to change his name again and flee the country.

"So what I'm gathering...is we sat in these chairs, playing a few hundred rounds of cards under a suspended skeleton we killed with that knife." Spade pointed back in the direction of the bathroom, his eyes clouded over with horrified calculation. Them with the knife in the bathroom. He felt like he was playing clue...and failing. "But then how did he lose his shit so fast?" the Xingese inched closer to it, venturing to stand on a chair and stoop over the pendulum of bones. "It is indeed real, but I'm almost certain he came from some sort of display. Funny, how would you like to die and be used as a manikin. We didn't kill him; he suffered from pelvic cancer. Look at the shape of his abdominal cavity. That shit ain't normal." Spade hopped down, his head throbbing angrily in defiance.

"Without your wallet, yet you still have fifty-thousand dollars, such a tragedy."

"I have important shit in my wallet." Like Shu's engagement ring. FUCK. He hissed an intake of breath and let it all out. He'd find it. He'd fucking find it or die trying. "There's a bunch of shit you can't buy with money." Like Shu's engagement ring that just so happened to be the one his mother gave him. DAMMIT. He followed Al back into the bathroom, hoping the guy didn't care that he called him Al because hell if he was going to not be lazy. Fuck that shit, man. He stopped at the doorway, meeting his eyes for a sec.

"You're welcome to have a shower once I'm done, have a look around. Don't steal anything."

"Cool," Spade retorted, turning on his heel to perusal around the wreck of an abode. The faint sound of water sprinkled in the background, making the brunette yearn for his own bask in scalding water. He looked ominously at his hands. If that didn't come off...someone would die. He glanced the skeleton again. "Not you," he said aloud. Cleaning the guns...was a bitch. Though the paint was coming off...and ruining the sponge he was using...and emptying the soap dispenser. Whoops. Spade whistled a tune and laid the guns out on a towel. "Now, the hell are you doing in the oven." Singed plastic wasn't a commodity by any means. He flung the oven open and stared at it. They must have stolen it off a street corner...was there construction zones anywhere around here? What was he even doing in Carraig!? Of all places, why? No use, he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember shit. Spade rubbed his cheeks and shut the oven, staring at the microwave as if it were god. He opened it and the smell of bacon wafted out, assailing his senses completely. Stomach growled. Common fact: all microwaves smelled like bacon.

Like a ravenous beast, Spade flung his body around in the direction of a scratching noise. One chicken in a fire place and a partridge in a pear tree. Hey, it worked. When you were hungover. He crawled towards it, eyeing the feathered creature up and down.

Spoiler:

"It's a chicken...with a fro."

"Now, the hell are you doing in the oven." The words came faded and fragmented as Alastair twisted the knob on the shower and switched off the angry, hot jets of water. Cradling Wilfred, he pushed the glass door open and exited, coiling a towel around the lower, exposed half of his body and running a hand through wet, blonde hair.

Alastair opened a few windows with briefly-rejuvenated yet lethargic limbs, letting the steam seep out and cold air seep in. That was one of the major design flaws of his bathroom: the fan was... broken. Scratching the back of his head and setting Wilfred down, the police chief formed a complex and intricate locking system for his makeshift toga, which was in-fact just him attempting to tie it together, before pushing open the door and stepping out into the apartment once more. "Shower's free, Spade," Alastair murmured, rubbing the grit from his eyes, before actually catching on to where Spade was poised. Sorry, crouched, even.

With his head up Alastair's fireplace, scrabbling desperately at the sooty inside, creating an absolutely perfect image within the otherwise ransacked apartment, Spade blurted out some medley of garbled speech from within, which the blonde could only translate from distant, ghost-like echoes. "It's a chicken...with a fro." A literal face-palm was long overdue, Alastair heartily slapping his head into his hands, dripping all over the floorboards, still very much wet.

"That's lovely, Spade," Alastair growled. The fro-chicken was the least of their problems right now. "Work on giving it a name. I'm going to get dressed and maybe attempt, I dunno, something productive?" Alastair glanced at his pistols sitting in a bundle of cloth, as clean as they'd been prior to the giant black part of last night's timeline. That was... progress, at least. Casually, the policeman strode towards the doorway to the apartment's single bedroom - his own - and pushed the door open, walking in, swivelling straight past the unconscious woman, and turning to clutch a pair of jeans, a white button-up shirt, a pair of Calvin Klein boxers, and two odd socks, before exiting aga-

Alastair froze in his step, then backed up over his train of thought. Clothes, drawers... unconscious woman. With his eyes wide open, still clutching the towel for fear of putting his junk on display to an Amestrian Lieutenant General, the Creig man stood, wide-eyed, regarding a blonde murmuring in her sleep rather loudly, her face down in a pillow, with Alastair's best blankets wreathed around her. A few more bottles of whiskey, presumably empty, as per Murphy's law, sat on the man's nightstand.

So that was why he'd chosen the couch.

Clicking the door back shut with a gentle push, Alastair tiptoed over to Spade as delicately as he could, before hissing at the man's hindquarters, pointed proudly into the air as he still scrabbled within the fireplace, apparently trying to investigate further the chicken's nature. "There's a fucking woman in there!" Pausing, Alastair ran the facts through his head, applying a mite of analysis. This probably meant something. Something big.

"Did I fuck her?!" He asked, his mind still very much drawing blanks from last night. Hopefully, if he had indulged in intercourse with this woman, his penis didn't do what his head was doing now. Turning the finger pointed at his head around to Spade as the man hopefully un-jammed himself from the fireplace, Alastair considered a new possibility. "Did you fuck her?!"

Then, the finger pointed from Spade, rapidly to Alastair, then back to Spade, and Alastair... and then, rinse and repeat for a few more vigorous waggles of the Creig's calloused, damp digit. "Did we both fuck her!?" He really hoped not. Having held his suspicions about Spade from the first minute he'd saw the man, Alastair was hoping that he hadn't indulged in any funny-business, otherwise his denying all of his comrades' shallow gay jokes was going to get a little bit shaky at best. Justin Timberlake was so very wrong. For Alastair, who considered himself the epitome and perfect image of masculinity, it definitely wasn't okay, even if it was in a three-way.

Doubling back, Alastair darted to the door, and inched it back open. The woman stirred, still sleeping, but was now on her back. However, her hair was a mess, and she padded desperately at it, muttering something about a giant duck and Excalibur. Great, so, not only was there a sleeping woman in his bed, it was a talking sleeping woman in his bed, and a weird one at that. The blankets were still unfortunately coiled around her like a protective snake, and Alastair pouted at his luck. Murphy's law indeed that they didn't fall down just a few inches lower... the policeman was certain that seeing her breasts would evoke an answer and solution to every one of these situations, no matter how dire, immediately.

"She's pretty hot, I might go in there-" Alastair cut himself off. "Yeah, no, that's probably a bad idea. With my luck, she'll probably wake up and spray me with Mace or something," The blonde murmured, shutting the door once more. "Get your ass out of the fireplace and go shower. I'll get changed and think about what we do next,"

Just...a bit further. Come on, come to-- For god's sake come the fuck on. This was so--he was so fucking done. Stupid bird-brained peanut-headed mother clucker. It had a fucking fro, did that mean it was male--a rooster? But there was no cock-a-doodle-doo happening (thank fucking christ). It was just bobbing it's head like it was trying to impersonate Elvis Presley or some shit, and it was REALLY ANNOYING. Stop it. STOP. IT. Spade Aeries, Head of Central HQ (mind you), top of his class in Cretan college, was in Carraig, in some blonde's random apartment, in a fireplace chimney, trying to catch a chicken. OF ALL THINGS. His hand clasped a long, bent leg that jutted out from the assortment of wannabe rock feathers, following but sporadic, uncalculated, mindless pecking. Weird guttural sounds extorted from the angry bird's-- That was a helluva good game. Speaking of that, Spade just about had the entire system beat. You see, the way it worked was measured around the velocity at which someone used their own fingers combined with the screen's touch-reading capabilities. If it lagged just slightly, the entire game would be thrown off, and you would inevitably lose and have to start over. It was hell, but there was always a way to deal with the devil. By moving slowly, you ensured that the system read your movements and your bird flew just as you anticipated. No, this isn't off topic. The same applied for situations like these. By moving just barely, Spade was able to capture the chicken, and proceed to drag it out of the--

"Work on giving it a name. I'm going to get dressed and maybe attempt, I dunno, something productive?"

"Hold on it's--" Spade called out into the netherworld, trying to keep a hold on the flailing chicken and still maintain his wobbly balance. Alastair's footsteps faded off somewhere, Spade prioritizing the shower over the fact that he may have discovered another clue as to just what they had been doing last night. In all honestly, Spade didn't even recall how he got to this country in the first place...he didn't even speak Crieg!! The thought of calling Shu and asking if she knew anything did occur to him...if it weren't for the long-distance charge. Carraig was a roaming zone for his plan...because he never came here. So yeah, without his wallet he wasn't really keen on the idea of spending millions on a call that may screw him more than save him. 'Hey Shu I lost your engagement ring whoops!' God, he was so fucked.

By now, the chicken was fairly content with human contact, staring absently into space and panting like it was about to give birth. Spade was uncomfortable. The aggression was just...gone. Unconditional surrender? THAT'S RIGHT. He could handle this. What was the difference between KFC and and dragging a feathery friend out of a fireplace!? EXACTLY. Well, save for the few secret additives (like cancer-causing PhIPm). Spade grinned to himself, hoping soot didn't resonate on his sunglasses or someone would probably die. He went to pull himself out, chicken and all, but something caught. His tinted green eyes widened in horror. He couldn't be stuck in a fireplace for the rest of his life?! His unruly migraine was already reaching sleep-inducing levels, but now he was inhaling gaseous fumes caused by wood and an uncanny amount of spiders. Today was not the day to become another Peter Parker TYVM. And yet considering that the fro-chicken was in fact from a butchery via the tag on its foot, Spade was a little more than convinced that they had rescued it from slaughter--like a regular superhero. Please.

"There's a fucking woman in there!" Spade yanked his head out from the abyss in a hot second, coughing and blinking in disbelief.

"What." As much as he was impressed that the word 'fucking' and 'woman' was able to unstuck him from the fireplace, wielding the chicken, Spade was mildly uncomfortable when it didn't involve Shula Brighton.

"Did I fuck her?!" Spade shrugged, dissembling a cobweb from his hair. What did he care who this guy fucked (as long as it wasn't him). ...The finger was moving from Al's head and coming straight at him. No don't. Don't even--

"Did you fuck her?!"

Spade dropped the chicken. "No." He was a rabid dog ready to take that finger out. BUT WAIT. It was moving back towards the blonde, igniting a sigh of relief from Spade who had the audacity to make sure the chicken didn't break its headbanging neck. In that time his eyes were removed from the scene, that same finger moved back to accuse him once more. "No," Spade barked.

"Did we both fuck her!?"

"NO." Was he in denial? But it was already too late; the mental image was there. "Is she at least hot?" NOSPADESTOP. You're engaged! He massaged his temples and looked in the direction of the bathroom, turning back to Al with a weighty stare. He couldn't do this--he couldn't play this game. No more one night stands--no more getting drunk and fucking any random chick. And you know what, he wouldn't miss it. That was why Spade knew the answer.

"She's pretty hot, I might go in there--"

"Bad i--"

"Yeah, no, that's probably a bad idea. With my luck, she'll probably wake up and spray me with Mace or something."

"Or worse."

"Get your ass out of the fireplace and go shower. I'll get changed and think about what we do next."

"I am out of the fireplace dammit," he stammered with a growl. The headache was starting to become irritating. Spade peeked his head into the room presumed to be Al's bedroom, ignoring the sheet twisted around the shape of a female's body, long blonde hair piling out from the pillow. Feminine mutterings escaped through wisps of sexy lipstick-tainted breath, eyelashes lax in peeling mascara. Definitely a male. No sarcasm. The form stirred further to the drawing of light through the crack in which Spade peeked. Something pulled--something metallic clicked. Spade yanked his head out and an angry moan came from the one in the bed. The door was shut, Spade's back against it and his eyes wide. "We arrested someone last night--a man...are those your handcuffs?" The prospect of a shower was growing naught dimmer. In fact, Spade turn-tailed straight for the bathroom. "Hope you have clothes for me to borrow." Click Shhhhhhh. Hot water: the savior of the screwed.

Sooner or later, Spade pulled himself from the fireplace clutching the chicken as Alastair ran towards him with news of the "woman". "What." Came the typical reactions. Huh, he didn't know about Spade. Was he single? Married? Or maybe just gay from his reaction. That would make things... complicated. He dropped the chicken which landed with a loud squawk and a cacophony of scrabbling sounds. Seems chickens and cats didn't share much in common with landing on their feet. Fro-like plumage bucked up and down helplessly.

"No." Came the response. Huh. "No," Whoa! A bit forceful. So he was the dom, then, and his boyfriend the sub? "NO." Alastair threw his hands up nonchalantly and his voice went almost prepubescent-tier high for a moment as he squealed innocence.

"Jesus Christ, man, calm down, I'm not that bothered about your orientation, just go and ask her-" Spade cut him off too quickly.

"Is she at least hot?" ...okay, well that was a little odd. Oh. Right, he was bi, then. That was what all the teenagers were doing. Damn, the amount of times he'd turned up at house parties with a view to quenching them and finding teen girls sucking face... he didn't mind, more what he minded was that he found it sexy. Considering they were usually sixteen.

"Or worse." Alastair couldn't think of anything worse than Mace. Except a knife... or a well-concealed gun. His mind began to trail off into the train of places that a conspicuous and possibly dangerous woman could conceal a gun. Orifices included. Maybe he'd patted her down when she came into the apartment... he chuckled perversely to himself. "I am out of the fireplace dammit," ...maybe she had... ANOTHER PINAPPLE!?

"Alright, ALRIGHT!" He threw his hands up once more. "Keep your hair on, Dorot-" An awkward pause as he recalled the deathglare he'd gotten when making the Wizard of Oz reference again. "I mean, uh, Spade. It.. uh, looks really good! Too good to be real. I thought it was a wig. Which is why I told you to keep your hair on, of course,"

"We arrested someone last night--a man...are those your handcuffs?" Alastair's eyes widened too fast to measure an accurate speed, but it was definitely Mach something. Wait, wait, wait. Backpedal. FUCKING BACKPEDAL. A man!? "Hope you have clothes for me to borrow." With that, he vanished back into the shower. Once more, Alastair would have probably slapped him for being so snarky, but instead he just sat down and blurted at the first thing that came to mind.

"THEY'RE IN THERE!" He shouted incredulously. There was... a... who he had possibly... in his bed... WHERE HE SLEPT!? First things came first. Alastair pulled out a bucket, sponge, and industrial-strength detergent from the cupboard underneath the sink. The bucket was marked in scrawled permanent marker - drunken handiwork - "TRANSEXUAL CONTINGENCY BUCKET". With that, smirking to himself momentarily in a lapse from reality, the blonde rose the bottle of soap and poured the entire thing in, before filling it up with hot water from the tap. He then took a sponge to it, and for five minutes solid, vigorously rubbed his mouth, teeth, lips, tongue, genitalia, groin, temples, and buttocks with the green and scratchy side until everything was red raw and smelling of soap.

With that, he hoped to god he hadn't done something he'd regret, and walked back to the door. Spade was still in the shower. He exhaled, and opened it once more; this time, the would-be 'woman' wasn't angry per se... instead she he was sitting with his head balanced on one hand, elbow pointing into the bed, tufts of chest hair poking out from under the covers, with another free hand going between supporting the dangerously artificial-looking wig and playing with what appeared to be a nipple ring. "Uh... hi," Another metallic click as she he strained against the handcuffs once more. The glint of sunlight piercing the blinds refracted upon indents reading CARRAIG POLICE DEPARTMENT. Yeah, they were his. One of a few pairs. He thought he'd let the woman keep them, not wanting to know where they'd been.

He got a husky and dangerously not-feminine voice in reply. Cretan with Creig accenting, for tourists. "Hi, big boy~!" Alastair winced. "Wanna come lie down with me?" Once more, a strong wince. "Kitty needs to be fed..." He pouted as best he could, the makings of a pencil-thin moustache prominent enugh upon her his face. With that, he heard Spade wrench the shower off and shut the door as hard as he ever had in his life. From behind the frame came metallic jangles and deep-voiced shouts. "COME LIE DOWN WITH IRMA, BIG BOY!"

With that, Alastair sprinted straight back towards the couch and sat down upon it, planting his face in his hands and howling at the bathroom door. "SPADE. GET OUT HERE NOW." Well at least they knew one thing about last night...

She he was definitely pre-op.

"THEY'RE IN THERE!" FML. The door shut, the water was running, he was stark naked and already soaking wet. Well...that was comforting to know he had to prance in a room with a man handcuffed to a bed in order to get dressed. It sounded like the perfect day along with losing his wallet and finding $50,000 in his pocket. More like a horror film dedicated to his worst nightmares. Very similar to Wizard of Oz actually. But how was he going to do it? He'd have to cover himself in towels. There was no other way. Him against the world. "Fuck." There was no winning today, he'd just have to figure out things as he went. Without his passport, personal identification, and Shula's ring, he'd just have to make do and hunt it down based on the most random of clues.

What had Al meant by orientation? Spade couldn't help but wonder as the searing hot water eased away the grease, sweat, headache, and whatever else from the night before. He stared blankly at the waterproof wall of the shower, lost deeply in thought. Usually orientation in that sense referred to where his sexual interests laid. Spade looked downward with the rushing water and made a struggled expression. The hell was he trying to say? Al wasn't bothered about his orientation. Okay, that was grand and all, but the guy didn't even know what his orientation was, did he? Judging from the fact that neither of them remembered meeting each other, usually that inferred that they also knew nothing about each other including one another's names. So yeah, that meant the guy was assuming something about him by analyzing his reactions to what he said previously. In this case, it was Spade's complete and utter rejection of having slept with that presumed female in Al's bedroom. That would make him think that he was gay. WAIT. Spade shot his head up, scattering soap suds all over Wilfred. He was gay? HIM?! SPADE AERIES GAY?1?!# The shampoo bottle squelched with horror in his hands, his hair in wryly curls stuck to his face. THERE WAS NO WAY IN HELL. He scrubbed his scalp viciously and rinsed with a glare. He discreetly called him gay. Al totally just discreetly called a man the opposite of homosexual gay. Spade shivered and turned the hot water higher, conditioning his hair with his unkempt nails. The fuck. Wasn't that a breach in the bro code or some shit? It had to be. No one ever... This was just... He took the bar of soap, wielding it like a weapon to be rid of grime, scrubbing at his skin, the water a smokey gray running off. God, what had he done, rolled in dirt?!

Hey, at least Al had the decency to not call him Dorothy again. Although he almost had. Spade probably would have reacted badly. Hell, he was reacting badly now. His scalp kind burned. Dude, but like calling him a girl and gay in the same day while hungover? Seriously, that was just...beyond uncool, man. This guy, whoever he was, really didn't know Spade. And plus, if he had finished that sentence, Spade really would have had to gut Wilfred. He looked back at the forlorn pineapple, frowning. His name had long washed off from both their showers, leaving the rough, tropical outside of the fruit looking horrifically clean. Spade looked away back at the wall, washing away the rest of the suds from his body. "I really want bacon," he muttered. And no he wasn't wearing a wig, but he was sometimes told he had good hair. Spade inspected it, staring at the dark brown strands soaked with water. They were incredulously shiny... What shampoo did he have? Hm L'Oreal...maybe he'd buy that, but Shu would probably give him weird looks. And what was with all shampoo being Rouenian? It was fucking weird. Vive Pro, it said not to mention it was horrifically pink. Wait, was this even Al's shampoo? It seriously didn't look like something he would buy. Was he gay or something? OR WAIT.......... Spade wanted to cry. The guy...in the bedroom. Nothing more needed to be said, but Spade already felt like maybe he was about to get crabs in his hair.

He slammed the shower off, flung himself out of it, disregarding Wilfred as he fumbled for a towel. A voice he didn't recognize was muffled outside the door, Spade reaching for a towel that suddenly wasn't there. What. Towel? No towel!? WHERE WERE THE TOWELS? Oh god. Oh godohgodohgod... Calm down. Just calm down. Freaking out wasn't going to solve the problem. BUT THERE WERE NO TOWELS. Spade massaged his temples, a irritated look simmering on the edges of his Xingese eyes. The fuck was there no towels. He checked the cabinets, the underneath of the everything, finding absolutely nothing. WAR, HUH, What is it good for absolutely nothinggg. Fuck, me, where are the towelsss absolutely nowhere. That was when a miracle happened. The blankets he had picked up to take out of the bathroom had again fallen from his grasp and lay sprawled near the bloodied knife now clung to by condensation. Spade in one fell swoop, lifted a blanket and wrapped it around his waist. Still very much wet, he flung open the bathroom door and--

"COME LIE DOWN WITH IRMA, BIG BOY!" --wanted very much to wake up now.

"SPADE. GET OUT HERE NOW." Spade stood there, observing Alastair face down in the couch like a child who had witnessed something he should have never seen. The General's ears were bleeding, he couldn't even imagine what the poor guy had experienced.

"J-just ask he--him to leave?" The brunette, holding up his blanket, strut out further into the apartment, casually peering inside the bedroom. AHHHHHHHH. He'd never be able to forget. He'd never...never. "More of that whiskey. We have to drink it NOW." Spade's legs were shaking as he entered the room, squinting through the spilled sunlight and the man--the man laying upon the bed, propped by an unmuscular arm, dainty and--and so not masculine. He shuddered and couldn't stop looking, his scrutinizing eyes what they were: curious. Blindly, he fumbled through drawers, grabbing a pair of black jeans, a white dress shirt, socks, underwear, and throwing them over his shoulder with a look back--back at that--that thing. "H-hi," He mouthed with an unceremonious wave. Slam. The door was sealed. He had survived!!! Silently, Spade slipped back into the bathroom and at the speed of light got dressed. He left his dog tags around his neck, but removed his medals from his discarded uniform and shoved them in the pocket of Al's jeans that oddly fit without a belt. Into the trashcan the uniform went without an ounce of remorse. Something like that...was beyond repair. He inspected the knife again without touching it, noticing something...

Spade exited and went back to the couch, sitting down next to Al with a huff. "You know, that knife says Irma on the handle."

And so came Spade, wreathed in a towel... or, wait, was that a towel? It looked like a blanket, drenched and dripping with soapy water.. For a moment, Alastair arched an eyebrow, then realised, present situation at hand, he didn't really give a shit. Blankets were cheap. Scratching his head, Spade offered a badly thought-out "solution". "J-just ask he--him to leave?"

"GEE, I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT." The Creig blonde howled sarcastically, before gesturing back to the door, Irma's shuffling within aside. "SH- HE IS HANDCUFFED TO THE BED." Sitting back down and pressing his face firmly into his wrists, he heard Spade shout once more. Chickens, they could handle. Painted guns, fake stab wounds... even pineapples. But transexuals in his bed?

"More of that whiskey. We have to drink it NOW." Looking from the bottle - which was probably empty anyway - to Spade, then back again, then back and forth a few times, he gave the man a deadpan expression before getting to his feet, running a hand through his hair, and nearly shrieking at the General in response.

"It was the fucking whiskey that got us into this in the first place!" Incredulously, he spoke, with accompanying hand movements to increase the drama tenfold, at least. Despite being showered, Creig accent and all, he still looked dishevelled and unshaven, and was perfectly content with that. But the pounding inside his skull wasn't good. "No. I'm not usually one to turn down a drink, but not this early. And not after a night like last night." They should at least be sober to uncover the remainder of the consequences they'd left themselves.

Alastair began eyeing his gun. If the aforementioned consequences did get any worse than having a drag queen in his bed, he would begin considering the amount of pain relief that putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger would give him. Exasperated, as Spade ventured into the bedroom, covered with the sopping blanket, he winced as the Amestrian addressed Irma. "H-hi," A few drawers rifled through later, and the door went slam, hopefully for a longer interval of time. Irma moaned in a distinctly masculine manner from behind it, the sound of the handcuffs' chain straining and loosening in quick succession filling the room for a good few minutes afterwards.

Spade disappeared into the bathroom for a few moments; Al checked both of his guns' clips as quickly as he could before ensuring the safety stayed on. Well, at least he hadn't fired any shots. Before long, the long-haired man reappeared and slumped himself back on the couch, stating something with a slight tone of reservation in his voice. "You know, that knife says Irma on the handle."

Alastair cringed. "Another item to add to the seemingly endless list of hungover morning shit that really can't be good," Running a hand through his dirty-blonde hair, the police chief sighed and got to his feet, pacing for a moment and considering a solution. He covered his hands with his face, and for a split-second, just bathed himself in the relative silence of the room - handcuffs' clinking aside - and took a deep breath, before finally exhaling. "Right."

Gesturing first to the oven, traffic cone still well and truly jammed into it, Alastair spun around and began railing off "solutions". "Traffic cone we can just fling somewhere outside. I've picked up far worse from the roadside late at night when I've been drunk," He wasn't just talking about road signs. The spinning finger of selection next fell upon the swaying skeleton, still hanging from the blinds. "I'll get one of my off-duty Sergeants to have a quick ring-around and see if any local hospital wards or schools are missing demonstration skeletons," Digging into his pocket for his phone and raising the screen up for Spade to see, he continued. "I'll try and retrace our steps and see about the..." The dead body situation. "...yeah." That would... suffice. Having killed a person would probably be a touch detrimental toward his standing as police chief.

Fro-chicken was still clucking around and scrabbling on his varnished floorboards. "I used to have a parrot. I've still got a pretty big cage. We'll keep him in there for the time being, and then consider frying him for lunch when we get back," The chicken looked up towards Alastair, cocking its head and maintaining an eerily piercing and agitated stare for a good few seconds until the police chief stomped his feet. In response, fro-chicken ruffled its feathers and hopped backwards, making yet another loud bwark. Then, the finger finally fell on Alastair's bedroom door, and for a moment, he left an ominous silence. "We'll take Irma down to the station, and question her- I mean, him, to see what we can find out. We'll let him keep the handcuffs." Finally, the finger fell towards Spade.

"Leave most of the money here, it'll be safe. Keep some of it on you, though." Plane tickets, train tickets, food, whatever... maybe even paying off some less-than-scrupulous underworld figures, or pissed-off bartenders. "I'll check in the lost and found when we go down to the station, see if we can find your wallet. If not, we'll try and retrace our steps. It's out there somewhere," As much of a dick as the police chief was, this guy was stranded in a foreign country without speaking the language, with no ID and a bad fucking hangover. Even the eternal cynic, Alastair, had at least some sympathy for him.

"But, first, that can totally wait. I bought a double-pack of like twenty rashers of bacon the other day, and I'm really fucking hungry. Up for getting the frying pan out, Spade?"

"I AM!"

"Shut up, Irma!"

"SH- HE IS HANDCUFFED TO THE BED."

"They're yer fuckin' handcuffs; UNLOCK THEM." Okay, maybe that was a bad idea. Who knew what the fuck sh--he IT would do upon being freed. Stalk them, jump them, or even worse--Spade shuddered--strip. No, yeah just leave it at that. "I think when this is all over you should just burn your bed. It's unsalvageable at this point." But how were they going to get out of this? How were they going to get rid of this--this thing behind the closed door?! "Just a bit of...friendly advice." Advice. Spade squeezed the rim of his nose, peering at Al from around his hand with a coy look. They were just screwed. This entire situation was a mystical maze of confusion set up by drunk Spade to fuck sober Spade over. Hell, it was so haywire he wouldn't be surprised if they had done all this on purpose knowing they wouldn't remember it in the morning. THEY WERE SET UP BY THEMSELVES. It was as if--it was as if their past selves were entirely different people. CRIMINALS. Spade's eyes went wide, his vision focused solely on the empty bottle of whiskey. THAT. THAT drove people CRAZY. Never again. (He knew he'd do it again).

"It was the fucking whiskey that got us into this in the first place!"

"You're right...you're so right..." Spade said in a trance, eyes wide with a sheen indicating that he was long gone inside the confines of his complicated mind. "I'm a detective so why can't I just figure this out?" He muttered to himself, getting up and pacing around the room. So much. There was so much that didn't make sense. Why a skeleton? Why a pineapple named Wilfred? Why a traffic cone in the oven? Cards. Fake knife wound. A knife with real blood on it and a tranny's name on it. Most of all why Irma?! It was like a name that someone coming from Ellis Island in Creta would fucking call themselves. Wait. Okay, Amestrian, female, derived from irmin or world. I R M A...Intergovernmental Risk Management Agency. $50,000. Spade faceplanted his head into the wall and shut his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. Maybe he was going too far.

"Traffic cone we can just fling somewhere outside. I've picked up far worse from the roadside late at night when I've been drunk." The General's eyes opened and he winged around a pointer finger at him as if a light bulb had sprung off above his head.

"That's it!" He exclaimed like the popular novel character Holmes. "The cone. Is there construction anywhere around here? Using the title of the bar in the photo on my phone, we can retrace our steps and figure out what the hell is going on." He paused staring at his hands for a moment before looking back up at Al. "Do we even want to find out what happened..." He trailed off luckily, hearing that Al actually wanted to figure out a solution as much as he did.

"I'll get one of my off-duty Sergeants to have a quick ring-around and see if any local hospital wards or schools are missing demonstration skeletons."

"It would probably come from an intern ward in a hospital I'd presume." He tapped his unshaven chin, staring now at the ceiling.

"I'll try and retrace our steps and see about the..."

"...yeah. ...yeah."

"I used to have a parrot. I've still got a pretty big cage. We'll keep him in there for the time being, and then consider frying him for lunch when we get back." It looked at Alastair with that two-eyed fro look. Its eyes were piercing like festering coals of ebony. Spade stared at the second-long exchange.

"It KNOWS" Spade murmured, witnessing Al scare it into a feather ruffle. Not like they could eat it anyway. Fro chickens were probably poisonous or something. And he didn't know about Al, but he sure as hell didn't know how to pluck a chicken's feathers. Plus, he doubted if he could kill the thing anyway. Forget it. They could donate it to a zoo. They probably didn't have fro chickens.

"I'll check in the lost and found when we go down to the station, see if we can find your wallet. If not, we'll try and retrace our steps. It's out there somewhere."

"Thanks man. Appreciate it." A pause. "...This is an emergency, but please don't turn the siren on or you'll kill both of us." Clearly, Alastair was police in some shape or form and most likely possessed a police vehicle. He seemed higher up or something, whatever. What mattered was that he was currently saving his ass. "The fuck did I get to Carraig to begin with!?"

"But, first, that can totally wait. I bought a double-pack of like twenty rashers of bacon the other day, and I'm really fucking hungry. Up for getting the frying pan out, Spade?"

"I AM!" ...

"Shut up, Irma!"

"Way to steal my fucking limelight." Freakshow. Spade strode immediately to the kitchen, lead astray from the fiasco to the promise of BACON. It was like his prayers were answered by some Grease God roasting in the fiery pits of hell on a holy frying pan. YES. Emerald eyes alight with a strange glow, he made a random guess for the cabinet in which the pan was, finding it on the first try, and slapping it onto the stove. He rubbed his hands together manically. "All for us."


[Permission to bunny Spade.]

Three panfuls and twenty rashers of bacon later, the pair finally exited the apartment, disgruntled as ever and shielding their eyes from the horrid and painful light, presumably the spawn of some devilish and demonic entity in spite of what space chemistry and shit proved. Slowly, the two performed the classic Creig hungover Walk of Shame down the stairs of Alastair's apartment block, groaning as they went. Instead, this time, the police chief held Irma in front, hands cuffed, the transvestite making rather off-hand and radically inappropriate grunting noises. For good measure, the blonde made sure he held Saraqael - which he'd picked up before leaving, thankfully not pink - at close proximity to the small of Irma's back.

He had nothing against transvestites personally, but this man woman had made some rather jarring death threats, thrashing, kicking, and screaming for his knife back and other such things as the pair uncuffed him, both horrified and debilitated, given the current state of noise sensitivity in their less-than-adequate states. Thus, the man held the cattle prod firmly close to the cuffed prisoner, bystanders watching in horror at the dishevelled trio from afar. The shredded pink dress Irma was wearing didn't make it any better.

The various purring noises solicited in response did naught but scare the police chief.

The trio swiftly sidled into Alastair's car, each grunting or groaning in turn at the harsh intensity of the sunlight. Even Irma could sympathise there, just as hungover, stuffed behind the grate, as Spade quickly seated himself in the passenger sides. "Ooh, you've got Ricky Martin!" The transvestite in the back pointed, apparently getting rather flustered, his voice gravelly and deep. "Throw us on a tune, Al!"

Alastair snarled in an unintelligible and distinctively hungover manner in response, and exited the car, a few minutes later reappearing with everything in tow. Slowly, he stuffed it into the boot of the car, behind Irma, even swabs of the blood and the switchblade in small, plastic evidence bags that he kept at home, just in case. Usually, just in case someone pissed him off enough that he stole a personal effect to scan their DNA from a wayward hair strand so he could clone them or make scientific voodoo dolls once technology got that far. Because it would.

Occasionally, though, he did have to rely on other resources for such menial things in forensic investigations. Somewhat unfettered by all the blood, Alastair shovelled everything he could find into the trunk of the car, including the medical display skeleton, which looked... rather awkward as the pair shadily tucked it in, noticing a thin surface scrawling of "Hubert" on the wrist. Leaving only the evil fro-chicken to scuttle around in the parrot cage, swearing he could still hear the fading echoes of a loud bwark in the background, the pair departed in Ramiel, the policeman's Range Rover, for horizons yet unknown. But, first, the police station.

However, on the way there, Alastair called in a favour, throwing his phone onto loudspeaker and grumbling into it as the dial tone connected. "Si, I need a personal favour." A grunt of approval came from the other end. "Cross-check any medical schools, hospitals, or other advanced learning institutes for disturbances from five last night until five this morning. Got it?" Irma's rattling became increasingly irritating, and the blonde smacked the back of his hand against the metal grate, the transvestite settling down with a sharp whimper.

"Prep 01A and sign in a new arrival for 01B. If he resists, we'll hold him for every fucking second of the twenty-four hours we can get from the state." The pink-dressed man woman in the background didn't seem to realise just that Alastair was talking about him until his moniker hit the conversational bed. "Name of Irma Doe, gender, male." A sound of confusion came from the other end, but the police chief repeated it as Irma's howls turned to that of a banshee behind.

"Al-"

"No questions." The man spoke sharply. This couldn't turn into a scandal. He already had a bad enough reputation inside Fiachra's little unit. "Prep a response team and tell Nigel to get ready for a cavity search. We're not sure how armed this fucker is. Drop him off in ten." Rapid tapping at a keyboard on the other end, before finally came an answer to the chief's first question.

"Chief, got one hit on your little search. Parkways Medical School, up in the north half, reported a break-in at around four this morning." Alastair blinked. Parkways, Parkways, Parkways... "It's round the corner from Yates' bar, sir. And the construction site on the other side." Ding ding ding. Alastair's eyes lit straight up. Hopefully they'd struck gold.

"Cheers, Si. Like I said, down in ten."


Dropping Irma off, despite the transvestite's insistent and apparently gibberish screams in some foreign language of a sort, was relatively inconsequential and finally gave the pair a touch of peace and quiet. The Range Rover's ambience was only exhausted grunts and agonised sighs as the early-morning rush hit, and they became naught more than a tiny silver block in a long string of vehicles. The pair turned a few more corners, wasted a little time, and eventually, the clock ticked over to nine sharp.

Three minutes past, they drew up into Parkways. Parkways was in the western district of Dublin, and was a smaller, residential community, the very definition of suburbia. This early in the morning, school-children had all just about sidled off to their appropriate institutes, and the streets were more or less quaint, with the sound of silence and a slow, cold breeze upon the air.

The swift, well-timed simultaneous click of twin car doors shutting as the pair exited, Alastair donning sunglasses to match Spade's. Rather a good idea, really. Helped blot out the light. Excellent tool for a hangover. Still, he squinted through the lenses, more or less wanting to crawl up in a dark room and die. "Parkways." Alastair grinned.

The medical school was the focal point, with an attached construction site for a second building and operating theatre on the end, also functioning as a free, limited-use clinic in the daytime for qualified students. Dotted around were a few small convenience stores, with Yates', a small bar a few roads down from where Alastair had parked, being the only place of any significance to the man. He'd heard talk of a zoo on the very fringes, too, but that was more crossing into other territory.

The trunk hissed open, and Alastair tossed Spade the traffic cone haphazardly. "Catch," He muttered, wresting the engraved display skeleton free with a disgruntled snarl. "So here's the plan. You take the construction site, ask the foreman, see what you can find out. Chances are we rose a little hell there, too. If you get into any fights, try not to die, it'd be a shame. Though dibs on the fifty back at home." He gestured over to the rather expansive mess of sand and various small construction vehicles, forklifts and the like. The site was populated by a set of around two dozen exhausted-looking and concrete-stained builders clutching cups of tea and nodding as middle-aged mothers walked past, occasionally shouting something inappropriate, along the lines of "Cor, look at the tits on her!" or "She's got a right donkey's arse, she has!"

Alastair's job was one that posed far more grim connotations, but he could at least pass it off as a residential visit. Probably not, considering the staff could potentially recognise him and he had a radiant aura of alcohol as opposed to a simple stench, but it was worth a shot. "I'll play delivery man for the school and see if we can get Hubert here back home. Give me a ring and meet me back at the car when you've got a little bit of info to share."

And, with that, the pair swiftly embarked on their respective journeys. Still hungover.

"Why...why?" Spade exclaimed upon entering the bright world. Here, sunglasses weren't enough. Here, he was fucking melting like the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz. Please no. It was all he could take to survive existing in sunlight right now, but to make similes related to horrible films was bridging on insanity. Sunglasses weren't enough. Double sunglasses wouldn't be enough. It was blaring, searing, festering light that punctured skin and all possible cover. Through the thin fabric of Al's clothes the sun breached, gnawing heartlessly at all beneath. Spade was on his knees despite still blindly trudging down the apartment stairs like a zombie already missing most of it's limbs by way of angry survivor with a magnum shotgun. He practically fell a couple times, because seriously were those palm trees in the distance? The blurring haze of hot waved at him, taking colors and mashing them together to the point of no return. Clinging to the railing, they made it to the bottom. Only then did the sweating younger man realize that there was a gun pointed to the Tranny's back. He had mixed feelings about that. However, if he didn't look like a gorgeous woman, there was no mixed about it. HE WAS MALE. Pull the goddamned trigger. End his misery.

His ears were still ringing with the masculine shrieks yearning for the knife he was currently cradling in a plastic Ziploc bag. NO, they weren't going to fucking give it back. What, so you can stab us with it? Did she he think they were stupid?! He really needed to figure out what the hell was going on here before his frazzled mind really sent him off the deep end. Shu would be texting him soon to find out where he was and what he was doing because, honestly, he didn't even remember if he had plans with her today or not. What was he even supposed to be doing!? Slamming his head against a light pole was a grand idea, but he was sure that one knock would send him to the grave. As much as he wanted to, he'd wake up with less answers. Forgetting his own name wasn't on the to do list today. However, taking Irma to the police station was, and they'd accomplish just that even if it killed them, and it was killing them.

Walking on water to the car, he was getting seasick in the spill of onlookers lurking in their way. Yeah a gun was pointed at some man in a fucking pink dress big deal. In Amestris they wouldn't bat an eye. Did Carraig not get enough action? =( Poor souls. It wasn't like gunshots were fired or Irma was still flapping his uncharacteristically painted lips. No, they were just walking. Just walking. God forbid anything really happened. There'd be panic. Chaos. What else? "Ooh, you've got Ricky Martin!" ...that. They were in the car now, thankful not for the 115 degree sauna now happening, but for the cover from the sunlight gouging their pupils out. In response, Spade spun around with not only a horrified look on his face, but a deadpan death glare that was enough to make anyone recoil in horror. Spade wasn't much for getting angry, glaring, or wanting to strangle the living shit out of someone, but he was gripping the last of his straws and there was no fucking frappe left in his empty glass. Al made something that sounded like 'erhrghgheghhhh', but the Amestrian General's words were slightly more intelligible.

"You're a damned murderer; know your place." Accompanied with a classic growl and a feral head turn back facing front while Al loaded the accumulated shit into the back. At that point, Spade was just thankful that bars were separating him from the cross-dresser's thin throat. BUT WAIT. WHAT WAS THIS REVELATION? Spade had called him a murderer. Was that simply an unconscious deduction of his own device or a subconscious memory resurfacing? Certainly the knife with his name on it was covered in blood, leading to the rather elementary idea that he had shed blood with it. Yet shedding blood with a weapon did not necessarily mean that death or the loss of life was involved. Usually that would make one initially think that someone had been injured possibly fatally, so what was this? Hungover Spade jumping to conclusions? No, he hardly believed that. The way the words fell right out of his mouth was something else entirely. That was it. Irma had killed someone. But who? No, not even who. That sorry sucker had it coming crossing paths with a wigged man. How was the real question, and in what way were they involved?

Spade mulled over this thoughts as the car scoured the distance, air blasting onto their faces in tune with the loud speaker of Al's cellphone. Spade's was practically dead, occasionally making the depressing sputter of beep that said I'm-going-to-die-charge-me-you-asshole-of-an-owner!!!! To no avail, his charger was definitely not on his person. HE WAS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Screwed. He was so epically, royally, outrageously screwed. But it was so damn fun. (Save for losing his wallet). Al continued droning into the phone technical police shit still in Cretan to his surprise (for he could understand it). Until his eardrums were burst by the banshee wailing of a certain Tranny in the back. Spade spun around pragmatically on fire with rage. A sleepy span of energy coiled around his body, rearing saliva-coated fangs and boisterous claws. The source glowed through jade eyes narrowed into pits of shut-the-fuck-up. Irma quieted immediately, Spade heaving a sigh of relief as the pounding in his head lessened to a rumble of snare.


He she it was gone! The brunette relished, massaging his temples with a grandiose exhale...until traffic hit. He was on edge. He was so on edge that the traffic was like staring into a mirror inside a mirror inside a mirror. Hold two mirrors up to each other and you gaze upon eternity. Traffic like this, this early in the morning never happened in Central. It was beyond him. 'Organize your damn freeways better you bastards,' he wanted to yell at the windshield, but refrained thankfully. He needed coffee. Better yet, he needed to sleep in a nice, cool, dark cave for about forty more hours. Yes. "Parkways." Seemed to be the deciding destination they had currently reached. Spade was slumped alongside Al, holding his sunglasses to his face like they would slip up and allow a sliver of light to crawl past the 100% UV protection of his prized aviators. He was surprised to notice Al possessed similar ones, but that only added to the list of reasons why he would befriend such a man at a random bar in a random country he didn't remember going to. "Catch." Ohfuck! Spade raised his attention just in time to avoid being taken out by a traffic cone. Holding it tenderly in his arms like a past lover reacquainted, he fastened his eyes to Al just in case he was going to throw another fast one at him. "So here's the plan. You take the construction site, ask the foreman, see what you can find out. Chances are we rose a little hell there, too. If you get into any fights, try not to die, it'd be a shame. Though dibs on the fifty back at home."

"You'd have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers," Spade muttered, adding, "Who said I left it at your place?" He patted his pocket with a sly look, taking off in the direction of what looked like the construction site in which was gestured to. "My phone's nearly dead so I'll meetcha back 'ere. He was getting lazy, so lazy he was squinting instead of shielding his eyes. Sweat gathered on his brow, sweat he was sure would make a young child drunk just for looking at it. He wiped it away to spare them, aiming his path straight at the foreman. "Yo foreman!" The dude stared at him funny. Oh right, he was speaking Cretan and this guy was Creig and Spade didn't know Creig. Uhhh problem? Not for the incredible Spade Aeries! "Choose your poison," Spade began way too enthusiastically, "Amestrian, Xingese, Ishvallan, Esparian." Spade presented the cone with a crooked grin. Like a token of gratitude the man took it and simply walked away. Ignored, Spade milled towards a congregation of other human beings speaking in Esparian. Imports. Cheap labor. It was all over their missing teeth and tanned skin.

"Cor, look at the tits on her!"

"Hot damn she's not even wearing a bra!"

"She's got a right donkey's arse, she has!"

"Without the tail and a few years your prime."

"Look at them short shorts riding up them thighs!"

"Pale like moonlight on a winter's day." This eventually got their attention. Unfamiliar voice in the mix. An unmarked vehicle parked on the wrong stretch of beam. Spade's butt was surely parked, his leg stretched comfortable over his other as his eyes scrutinized middle-aged women like the rest of them. Thoughts voiced aloud, mission forgotten in the web of a hungover stupor.

"My phone's nearly dead so I'll meetcha back 'ere." Alastair nodded. Seemed a plan. Before long, hissing like witches dunked into a vat of good old H2O, the twin drunkards sprinted off in different directions, zig-zagging their way across the streets from one patch of shade to another, sunlight their mortal enemy, shrieking like banshees as they went, dragging each their respective cargo.

It wasn't long before Alastair finally found himself in the patch of shade beneath the overhang reading "Parkways Medical Institute", panting like an obese dog and clutching a false skeleton as he stared blankly through the transparent double-doors into the foyer, with a reception counter manned by a rather loud-looking young woman. Knowing the police chief's luck, she'd have a voice like nails on a damn chalkboard either way. The Creig propped the skeleton against a nearby wall before sighing and making his way in.

Slowly he entered, and, much to his chagrin, her voice was just as shrieky as imagined. "OHMAGODOHMAGODOHMAGOOOOD!" She howled as the police chief screamed and threw himself downwards, crouching as she tottered out from behind the counter. "IT'S TOM HARDAAAAAAAAAAY!" Alastair couldn't take much more of this, a vein in his forehead bulging as he threw clammy palms over his ears, screaming unintelligibly.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Glorious silence save for the echoing of his own booming tones. That was good. Slowly, Alastair recovered with a sigh, shaking his head and brushing down his simplistic attire. "I'm not Tom fucking Hardy." The police chief retrieved his wallet, badge attached, and let it fall down as if he was some slick-ass FBI member. "But I do have this, and I swear to god I will put you into prison for obstruction of justice if you scream one more goddamn time."

She remained quiet, with a face, some would say, not too different to a smacked arse. Alastair grinned, tucking away his badge. "Reports of a break-in coming over the comms. My brother used to go to Parkways, so, I figured I'd come check it out personally. Where exactly was the intrusion?" She gestured from the door and slowly swept around an outstretched finger to a pair of ominously-ajar doors, a broken padlock swaying from the door. The policeman let out a short groan. This couldn't be good.

"Stay out here, Miss. I'll handle this." It wasn't long before he snapped a hand out of the door, as if he'd sizzle if he left even a limb in full view of the sunlight, before grasping the skeleton almost comically and dragging it back in. "Donation." Alastair explained inconspicuously, making his way through into the store-room... and simply following the trails of scabby, flaking, dried pink paint.

"Oh... dear God..." His heart fell and stomach churned as it lead him to a sight that made him drop the skeleton with a loud clatter and let it fall away. Row upon row of display skeletons propped up next to each other... and on the stand where Hubert should have been was suspended in place a mannequin, wearing a fancy hat, and a rather inventive number of leather boas. In pink paint, graffiti-style eyeglasses, sideburns, and other instances of facial hair had been scrawled, as well as false nipples in spatters of rose. Down at the side of the fashion model was a tin of pink paint, half-empty, the lid a few metres off. The thing had been defiled, and he was willing to bet that drunken handiwork had come from them.

For a few minutes, he considered staying under the pretense of making notes, but simply propped the skeleton back up and bolted straight for the door. He felt the receptionist's eyes bore back into his skull as he chattered his way past her to save himself from the banshee's interrogation. "ALLINORDER, REGULARMISTAKE, NOTHINGTOBEWORRIEDABOUT, WILLBEINTOUCH, GOODBYE." Slam, and then he was back beneath the shade of the perch, staring over towards the car with a groan, before judging his zig-zag pathway and bolting straight for it, howling like a wounded dog, sidling back into the driver's seat, and sighing. That was one more loose end tied up. Now he simply had to wait for Spade.

It was becoming a sort of...competition of some kind. The Esparians, huddled together like a flock of chattering geese, all turned to look at him with wide YOUDONOTBELONG eyes that nearly made the General sweat. They were thankfully in the shade, beams being raised via crane above them, all kinds of danger happening while beady brown eyes goggled and green trespassed. Saying nothing of the rejection beaming through their exchanged looks, they continued unabated, coming up with more and more creative innuendos to describe the middle-aged female body. In a sense, it sickened Spade, but this was his element. Out of his mouth came Shakespearean nonsense, describing curves he'd never normally study with Shu's ring in his wallet. Now misplaced, it was as if the tether had been thrown to the wind, releasing even the most dastardly dialogue bequeathed from his lips. He hated himself, but since when was that new? In an after alcohol state, Spade was like a lost child sitting among Esparians, hooting and hollering as if his life depended on ousting the lot. He'd wave his hands enthusiastically as if a conductor with a baton instead of a fallen branch from the nearby sycamore. He was so close to winning he could taste it in his bacon breath, eyes alight on the next unfortunate middle aged woman to make an object of herself near the fence. But alas, the Esparian's lunch break concluded just as she came within sight, automatically giving Spade the gold. Looks of awe were spattered around their expressions, some even shaking hands with the number one womanizer. Skills acknowledged finally, Spade stretched to his feet, arms skyward in victory and a great manly yawn.

But wait? Why had he been here in the first place? Recollection spilled into his conscious thoughts, pillaging the previous victory like an obvious commuter over a slew of ants. Crushed, he stared blankly into the overcast sky, wondering why it was so effortlessly bright. "Hey guys," he finally said to the retreating backs of the greasy Esparian trio. They turned in sync with asking eyes. "Know anything about a cone being taken late last night?" One looked at the other, another shaking his head. One opened his mouth and the other shrugged. "Can you not speak unless it's ridiculing married women?" The one that had opened his tanned lips laughed heartily.

"It's just we heard about it, but it was just a cone, you know?"

"No big deal," the other added with a Creig slur. It seemed their mother language was already being lost, absorbed into the accent of Carraig. Spade shook his head in complete understanding, for he too had lost his first language to time spent abroad. Hell, he hadn't returned to Xing once since he left... He wasn't even sure if he could even get by there with how fringed his vocabulary had become. It was sad. So sad that he was completely off topic again, lost in the fray of his own depressed thoughts. If Ace hadn't killed their parents, would they have been glad to see him one last time? They wouldn't even recognize him. He never even sent them cards or pictures. Just the money. That's all it ever was: money. To Spade, family was something foreign, and forgetting Xingese was sad, but it was also something he felt serendipitous about. He was fortunate not to miss it. Even if he did, it wasn't like he could have gone back. They didn't want him there; they'd cast him out. His sole purpose as Sakuya Aeries had been to get through college to go on and produce income for his ailing royal family. What he had done had to be illegal to a certain degree, but he never once questioned it, filial piety being what fed him at night. That, and Markus' generosity. He'd gotten through it, taking a detective job in Amestris as willingly as a starving bum on the subway. He'd already knew he would never win this game. As lucky as he was, the man that had become Spade Aeries knew that he would never see his family again.

With people like Al, Spade had always known he was good at making buddies, but he was terribly bad at letting them go. Slipped through his fingers, Markus was someone he had also lost. Unlike his parents he wasn't especially close to, Markus was a friend he had been convinced he'd never live without. Still breathing today, Spade looked back through nightmarish slow-mo and relived each second with regret. It was because of him. Because of him. And the booze happened all over again. He'd forget, be happy, slur his words, and wake up remembering nothing but the buzz of having still enjoyed himself despite all the suffering happening inside. That Creig whiskey had to have been strong to extort these thoughts from him now of all times. He'd keep reminding himself that Shu was in the picture now, but despite that, he was also in the picture alongside her. He couldn't lose himself, lose those thoughts, that hatred for his father, contempt for his mother, and that strange mixture of regret towards his brother, the hatred for killing Markus...falling, falling, gone. He'd never win, no. A crooked smile fluttered onto his lips, watching the Esparians go back to the mundane everflow of work. Winning was losing; standing solitary above the lot of normalcy, he'd drink himself silly before he ever knew where he truly belonged.

Skipping from shade to shade like hopscotch, Spade made it back to the car in relatively one piece. He yanked open the passenger door and slid in, staring at the windshield as if there were bug guys splattered across it. "Dude," he said tiredly, pushing up his sunglasses, "I seriously need to find my wallet." A pause. "But yeah, I found out nothing, man. The foreperson doesn't speak Cretan. Tried Esparian, and they said it was no biggie that we stole a cone. I say we should have kept it. Be a cool garden display... feng shui and all."

"I seriously need to find my wallet." Click. Spade returned to the car. Al groaned at the noise, hissing at his would-be comrade as he sidled back inside. The man shrugged, before rifling through the glove-compartment and small docks in the doors checking for any sort of food, having just decided he need something, anything, MORTAL SUSTENANCE, just to keep him going.

"Probably in that bar." Alastair commented casually, before digging what appeared to be a Kitkat out of apparently, absolutely nowhere. It was ancient, melted, misshapen, and slightly deformed, but the blonde tore open the twin layers of wrapping ravenously and snapped up the whole thing in a moment, grinning innocently in Spade's direction. "GLORIOUS." He bellowed, before releasing a burp and grinning like a ten-year-old. Exhaustion made young Alastair come out to play.

"But yeah, I found out nothing, man. The foreperson doesn't speak Cretan. Tried Esparian, and they said it was no biggie that we stole a cone. I say we should have kept it. Be a cool garden display... feng shui and all." Alastair shrugged. He wasn't too bothered about a traffic cone. Being the police chief, he had masses of them at his disposal. A sea of giant, flashy orange pointy spikes. AN ARMY OF DAYGLOW-SHADED OBSTRUCTIONS. AN ARMY WITH WHICH HE WOULD INVADE THE-

Okay... this was getting ridiculous. His eyelids were slowly descending of their own accord. The pair of them needed to either tie this up and Spade be on his way out of here soon so Alastair could sleep the weekend away blissfully, or find some wayward needle filled with liquid caffeine to at least keep them running through the next ten fucking minutes without collapsing. "Yeah. Plus, it would look cool as a hat."

Alastair slouched back. For a moment, it seemed like there were no more leads. Then, in the corner of his eye, something glinted. Salvation in the form of a minuscule sparkle, yet something his eyes were naturally drawn to, like in those shitty point-and-click adventure games everyone in his office became periodically addicted to. Turning towards it, slowly, the facts slid into place like bricks into mortar and a foundation took form. The phone. The glimmering was sunlight, pale and harsh in all its intensity, refracting off of Spade's phone screen.

With no warning, the police chief darted for it and wrenched the Blackberry from Spade's pocket, snarling in his direction for no reason other than "he was really hangover" and "he had a gut feeling". Immediately he went straight back to the photos, and flicked through. There were a few of the inside of Spade's pocket and a number of action shots of his bathtub, filled with blood, and of several over instances in the night, but none were conclusive. And, then, finally, scrolling through like a madman, he found it. The picture of the pair of them at no later than 11PM the night before standing in front of a bar. The bottom half of the name "Yates" scrawled beneath; alone, it was illegible, but Alastair rose it gently up to the windscreen and placed the phone so it overlapped at exactly the right angle onto the overhead of the bar, where the sign was, in posh-looking calligraphic writing.

Yates.

This was the bar where it had all gone down. "Holy... fuck..." Alastair felt like Sherlock Holmes on crack. A pang of joy coupled with a loss of dignity pre-emptively from things he could guess he'd find inside shot through him. They were one hurdle closer to unravelling this drunken, blurry, hilarious mystery. And just to clarify: "IT'S THE FUCKING BAR!" The police chief roared, with no concern for the General's over-sensitive hungover ears, and even stinging his own. "...sorry."

With that, he grinned to Spade and inclined his head, tossing the Blackberry back into his lap. Before long, considering this reward and justice enough in tandem to brave the horrors of the sunlight, Alastair threw himself out of the car and boldly gazed up into the sky, shrugging off the intense, pale Creig rays. "Not... actually that bad." Somehow, the end being in sight had made it all better. Or maybe they were just being dumb before.

An accusing finger slowly rose through the air and a low growl formed in the policeman's throat. "There."

((Take us away, Aki. Into the bar. If you'd like. Up to you.))