Author's Note: Seriously, this collection of stories is composed completely of crack. I don't even remember how I got started on this idea, but I know it was evil, and my friend Lyssoh had a good deal to do with it. If you like your characters in normal situations, acting in character, I really suggest you don't read these. CRACK ABOUNDS.
Warning(s): Ha ha ha. Implications of guys doin' the nasty, drinking, hangovers, underpants.
Feedback: Oh, yes please. Let me have it.
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |
Vin woke up all at once, which a body starts to do when there's a bounty on your head and you sleep in the wild, or a covered wagon in the middle of the street. Little things could disturb his sleep these days, from leaves rustling to a raccoon gnawing on the spokes of the wagon wheels. This morning, it was the unsettling feeling that he was being watched. He sat upright and reflexively reached for his gun, but was surprised by several things.One, his gun wasn't where it usually was: strapped to his leg, over his pants, because he didn't have any pants on.
Two, the world lurched in an abnormal way and collided with his brain so hard he almost threw up. Hangover? What the hell?
Three, he was being watched. A thin man was sitting mere feet from him, legs crossed, hands folded across his stomach, small glasses perched intimidatingly on his nose, in the way school teachers were intimidating (not that Vin was familiar with the prowess of school teachers, as he had sadly missed out on a formal education). He was dressed only in his long underwear, Vin noted with growing alarm, and was studying Vin with a close scrutiny that made him want to find his gun and certainly his pants. Just as he was about to demand to know just what this guy thought he was doing in Vin's wagon at this time in the morning while Vin wasn't clothed and the other man wasn't decent either, his visitor, apparently pleased at seeing Vin awake and so out of sorts, smiled. It was sort of a smile, anyway, one of the corners of his mouth turned up. He then began to hum under his breath, a jaunty little tune that struck a familiar chord in Vin so suddenly he had to squeeze his eyes shut a! gainst a rush of embarrassing memories.
Oh, dear God. The Powder Man. Vin groaned and pressed his palms to his forehead, pushing against the pressure developing there. He had gotten drunk last night because of the Charlotte fiasco, deciding that whiskey would be a great way to drown out all notions, past, present and future, of running away with strange married women with a lot of emotional baggage. He had gotten thoroughly soused -- in the first saloon he visited. Buck escorted the staggering, whooping Vin to his wagon and threw him inside, where Vin had hidden and snickered until he was sure Buck had returned to the attentions of Margaret Pansy Louise Whatever Her Name Was, snuck out of the wagon, and stumbled over to the saloon across the street, where his well-intentioned friends would surely never find him.
Well, they hadn't found him, but The Powder Man had. Unfortunately, this had been after so many drinks that Vin stared in awed wonder at The Powder Man's jigging and singing abilities, and had even tried to sing and clap along. They had supported each other out of the saloon when the proprietor finally kicked them out and wandered about a mile out of town, where The Powder Man further impressed Vin with his skills at blowing up small animals from a distance sometimes as great as ten feet. Vin had slurred some complimentary things about The Powder Man's skills with dynamite compared with Ezra's, and they had both jigged back to Vin's wagon and had... and had... Vin let out a strangled moan and shoved his thumbs into his eyes. The headache he had rivaled the one he got when Mary tried to make him read Edmund Spencer, and he felt about as confused and nauseated.
The Powder Man (what was his name? hadn't Vin even gotten his name?) was now bouncing a little in time with his singing, and Vin felt an echo of last night's appreciation for the man's ability to carry a hell of a perky tune. Vin groaned again in resignation. How was he going to sneak The Powder Man out of his wagon and the town at a time late enough in the morning that people would definitely be around? How was he going to explain the late-night carousing to the many people who had seen and heard them? Where were his pants?
He looked around and finally spotted them draped over a lump of clothing. He snorted and snatched them up, determined to clothe himself as quickly as possible, when the lump of clothes moved and let out a pained moan of its own. Vin almost fell backwards. Who the hell? He hadn't even thought there was that much room in this wagon, and he really didn't remember picking up a third party...
Oh. Hell. Vin refrained from bashing his head into the wall only because it hurt too much already. He and Powder Man had run into him on the way back to his wagon.... The lump rolled over, revealing a head of thick, dark mussed hair and the face attached to it. It cracked an eye and peered balefully at Vin for a moment, then swiveled over to The Powder Man, now swaying enough to be rocking the wagon a little. The lump with hair and an angry eye huffed and stretched and sprawled out even more than it already had. It then propped its head up on a casual arm and grinned.
"Well," Buck said, with a horrifying wink that Vin would pay him back for later, "anyone up for a little round of morning doo-dah?"
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |
Feedback - Finnigan Geist, May 2006