Stretching and yawning, Slim slid out of his nice, warm bed. After the night he'd had, he was just glad to wake up alive and in one piece. He still wasn't quite sure what had happened; one second he was waiting for his nightly lunch snack and the next he was fighting for his life. Well, not fighting exactly, more like whimpering and begging for his life, but he didn't have to let the other guys know that. What he did know for sure was that his life had been saved, and he had a blue-eyed, longhaired man to thank for it. He'd have to be much more careful now. Try and stay out of the tall, terrifying man in black's sight. Maybe he'd find a new home, one that didn't have someone so 'scary' that lived there, but he liked this home. He liked it a lot. 'No,' he decided, 'I'll stay here and be more careful. Much more careful.'
Stepping out onto his web, he took a quick look down to see if his roommate was in attendance.
He was.
'Dang.' How was he going to catch something for lunch (to him, every meal was lunch) if he had to try and hide his every move? Shaking his little head, he jumped back into his crack when he heard the loud sound. The door opened below him and he heard someone walk in.
"Mr. Larabee? Mr. Tanner informed me that you requested my presence this morning?" A smooth as honey voice flitted up to Slim.
"Morning?" the scary man replied. "It's Ten o'clock, Ezra. The morning's over."
"Yes, well, none the less, I am here now."
Slim could almost hear the tall scary man rolling his eyes. Wanting to see what was going on, he moved farther out onto his web, hoping beyond hope that the terrifying one didn't see him.
Shaking his head, the scary one answered the newcomer. "I have a job for you to do," the man in black looked up at the man in front of him and Slim was reminded of that cat that he'd heard stories about. Being relatively young, Slim had not actually ever seen a cat, and wasn't quite sure what one looked like. With his mind wandering, Slim wasn't paying real close attention to what was going on below him and somehow missed what was said next by the man in black. But, he couldn't miss the smooth talking man's reply.
"You want me to do WHAT?"
"I just told you, Ezra. Do I need to repeat it?" the scary one answered.
"Yeeesss!" Slim yelled out. "Repeat it!" Obviously, neither man heard him because the order wasn't repeated.
"I assure you, Sir, I heard you. My mind is just having a hard time comprehending the words that were said." Slim watched as the smooth talking man started to pace in front to the scary one's desk, his hands in the air, his voice high-pitched. "This is... this is the most outrageous... the most heinous... the most asinine... the most ludicrous... the mos-"
"Ezra?" Scary interrupted. "Are you finished yet?"
"Finished?" Smooth-talking's face was red as he placed his hands on the desk, palms down. "Finished? Mr. Larabee, I haven't even started yet. There is no way, and I mean that implicitly, NO WAY that I'm going to do this job. No, wait, let me rephrase that." He turned, starting to pace again. "I'll do it. When my cold, dead body is buried six feet under the ground, I'll do it." His lips curled back to show his teeth, in what Slim assumed was a smile.
The scary one leaned back in his chair, placing his feet up on his desk. Pulling his suit coat back, he patted his firearm. Smiling big, he replied, "That can be arranged."
Smooth talking walked back over to the desk, leaning down once again with his palms on the wooden top. His voice was low, throaty, and Slim had a hard time hearing him. "Mr. Larabee, let me make myself perfectly clear as to my feelings about your 'job.' I would rather be gut shot and left to die a slow, painful death in the hot, sweltering desert. I would rather wear a purple dress and go undercover in a transvestite gun-running organization. I would rather have sexual relations with Barney, that talking dinosaur, in full view of every single person in this entire building. I would rath-"
"Mr. Standish," the scary one interrupted as he dropped his feet off the desk and leaned forward, hand still on his gun. "Let me make myself perfectly clear. If you don't do this job you'll-
'Damn!' Slim missed the next part of the sentence. A big, juicy fly picked that second to make itself his lunch. Slim had to rush out and wrap him up quickly. Before he knew it, the smooth talking man was leaving the office, door slamming behind him. With a satisfied look on his face, the scary one smiled, wide and toothy.
'Damn. Damn. Damn. What just happened? Now, he'd never know. Oh, well,' he thought, 'at least I have lunch.'
The End
