Toasted

-2-

“Why me?” he groaned under his breath as Cal continued to relay her life story to him. She'd been going on for what seemed like hours. Apparently, a drunk Cal was a talkative Cal. Danger hated talkative people.

“...and then he dropped me off into the middle of no where! Can you believe that?” Cal looked over to Danger's face that was smashed into the bar table face-down; one of his arms holding the Bubble Blaster mug beside his head. “I didn't think so! So then, this other Morphio comes along and gives me a ride to Uryuu and he thinks that just because I was one of his species that I was gonna sleep with him! Isn't that twisted? I thought so. So I kicked him where the sun don't shine and stole his ship. Of course, then I got caught by the UP,” the universal police, “and let me tell you, it was not a pretty picture. I got away though. Just stole one of their ships and flew away...”

Danger tuned out again. She just wouldn't shut up. Even if she asked him a question now and then, and he ignored her, she'd go on yapping like it was her purpose in life.

He closed his eyes and pressed one of his cold hands to them. They'd been chilled from him holding his mug on the bar.

That was another thing. She had no limits. She just kept wolfing down drinks like she hadn't drunk in years and she still hadn't passed out yet.

Danger hadn't even finished one. He didn't want to stay at the hub all night. They'd need a designated flier at the very least.

He sighed and tilted his head to the side to see if Cal was showing any signs of slowing down. To his surprise, she had stopped talking altogether. She was staring across the room with a blank expression at a commotion Danger forced himself to notice.

A boy no older than seven was being dragged behind a giant impassive man in black. He was squirming and pulling and digging his heels into the hardwood floors with all his might, put his captor was stronger.

Finally, Danger watched as the boy stopped struggling and kicked the man right in the balls. Danger flinched at the action, having been in the very unhappy and painful place the man was in at the moment.

He keeled over in agony as the boy tried to run away, but the man caught the boy by his pant leg and he fell over. The boy started to kick and fortunately his foot made contact with the man's face. The man clutched his face as he yelled out and the bartender finally looked up to witness what was going on in his hub.

“HEY! No minors allowed!”

Danger looked over to Cal and saw her grinning with amusement. Evidently, she'd been rooting for the kid.

As the boy ran for all he was worth, his oversized, orange, torn shirt and dark cargo pants flapping behind him, the man somehow managed to get up and chase after him through the hub.

They weaved in and out of tables, upsetting the customers already there and earned shouts of anger and whoops of encouragement from varied people. The boy began to leap across unstable tables, and in his hurry he knocked over almost the entire bar's drinks.

“YOU! GET YOURSELF OUTTA HERE!” the bartender shouted, throwing a rag at the boy. He missed and it smacked the man behind the boy directly in his red flushed face.

As the boy leaped onto the bar, he smashed Cal and Danger's drinks and exited out of the swinging door.

Cal looked up from her smashed drink in horror, and before the liquid could dribble onto her tight leather pants, she glared at the swinging door the boy had escaped from with an expression of outrage. Danger was beginning to see this as one of her more regular expressions.

“HEY! Get your scrawny ass back here! I'm gonna beat you 'till the world stops making sense!” Cal shouted lividly, shaking her fist at where the boy had exited. She skyrocketed off of her stool and chased passionately after him.

Danger sat nonplussed in his seat, watching as the bartender grabbed the man who brought the boy into the hub and demanded him to pay for the damages and everyone's drinks. Danger grinned and set down his money for his drinks before striding out after Cal.

He saw her leaning vehemently against Luna; her arms crossed, ears pulled back, tail twitching furiously.

“Got away?” Danger asked with a mocking grin as he climbed up the stairs into the ship ahead of her.

“He ruined my night,” she growled.

Danger held back his laughter and pushed the close button on Luna's entrance as Cal made in after him. He went straight towards the captain's pit and slung himself in his chair.

“You're drunk, Danger,” Cal notified him.

“Nope. You are. I'm flying. You're sleeping.”

“No I ain't. I'm sittin' up here with you all,” she informed him. Then she plugged herself in the seat beside him and glared fervently out into the empty space.

“Plural?” Danger asked at her use of 'you'.

“Well, I'm not so sure that there's just one Danger. I think my mind is playing a dirty trick on me.”

Danger chuckled as he started up and shot off into the night sky. He never knew if it was night or day. Never knew what day it was. He lost track of such trivial information a year ago when he had been booted off his planet. It had never seemed important compared to anything else like the question of life itself. He found his mindless wanderings had turned into a slow venture for something more. Having such amusing company was probably a good way for him to fight off the boredom while he searched for the answer.

“Cal, you're drunk.”

She stayed silent.

During her brief quiet, Danger heard a rumbling in the storage closet down at the end of the ship.

“Danger, I am not-”

Danger stuck out his hand to shut her up and she blinked at the hand that covered her mouth in shock for a moment. Her brain was Bubble Blaster lagging and she couldn't process what was happening fast enough. She saw a flash of black and pink as Danger got up and stealthily stalked to the back of the room; donning his fire arm in front of him as a precaution. She saw him pull the storage door open so quick, she hardly realized it was suddenly open and then he jumped back; aiming his gun at the door. A blob of orange plummeted out of the closet and onto the floor with a loud thump.

“Monsieur! Il n'est pas de mal!”

Danger never let his aim falter as the small boy from the hub scrambled up to his feet in a daze. How a computer could tell if the boy was no harm, Danger didn't understand. In his experience, annoying little boys were the most harm of all.

“What are you doing here?”

The boy finally realized he was staring down the barrel of a gun and took a surprised step back.

“YOU!” Cal shouted as she began to comprehend the situation.

The boy glanced towards Cal and he shrunk back further. He was regretting ever getting onto the ship.

“Shut up, Cal!” Danger shouted behind him and Cal stayed put; fuming as she crossed her arms.

“Monsieur Danger,” the HAP stressed. “Il est n'est pal de mal.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Danger said irritably.

Taking in the boys startled and slightly fearful appearance, he lowered his gun and shoved it back into place.

Without the weapon shoved into his face, the boy gained a sudden unforeseen confidence. He puffed out his chest a little and looked Danger straight in the eye.

“The name's Jeremy Mall. I'm running away,” he bragged.

Danger narrowed his pink eyes at the boy's blue ones. The boy instinctively hunched his shoulders and avoided his gaze.

Danger sighed and pressed the foot of his palm against his forehead. Then he looked down at the brown haired boy again and decided that there was no point in keeping the boy locked in the closet. He didn't look so bad. In fact, he looked malnourished in his baggy clothing and disheveled mop of brown hair. His blue eyes looked too big for his slim face and two pointy ears protruded from the parts on the side of his head. So he was a Maltese. They always had an opinion about anything and everything, but this one was so young, Danger hardly thought that the boy could have picked up on the annoying habit yet.

“What're you running away from?” Danger asked as he made his way back to his designated seat.

Jeremy hesitated before following Danger up to the front of the ship. When he got there, the HAP lowered a small kitchen area with two small booths encasing a small table for him to sit in. He gratefully slid into the area and watched Cal glare at him and Danger avoid him.

“The war,” Jeremy answered Danger's question. “My daddy says it's the stupidest thing since sliced space bread and he shipped me off with my step-mother. Then that old mean hag sold me for some rum to that fierce geezer from the hub that was trying to sell me to another man. I sure showed him!”

Danger couldn't help but smile at the boy's infectious enthusiasm. At least now he knew that the boy had been brought up against the war instead of for it. That would have risen unwelcome complications.

“Yeah. And you managed to ruin my night in the process,” Cal growled at Jeremy.

Danger glanced menacingly at her and she quickly shut up. But that didn't stop her from glowering at the boy.

“You're a PIE, right?” Jeremy asked innocently.

“How did you know?” Danger said sarcastically.

Apparently the sarcasm went right over his head as he answered quickly and excitedly. Like it was an honor to know how to identify a PIE.

“You're pink hair, of course!”

Danger rolled his eyes.

“Why do you have those goggles though?”

Danger automatically rose a hand to touch the black pilot goggles on top of his short spiky hair. They had been given to him as a gift from his best friend when he turned eighteen. A graduating from the air school present. That was right before his friend was sent out as a relief force for the Draconian war. Danger had never heard of him since. Everyone assumed that the team they dispatched died and it became part of the past. It was the reason Danger had blown up the toilet that got him where he was today. His planet was so controlled and regulated. He wanted to mess up the order and show PIE's that everything wasn't always hunky-dory and they shouldn't go around believing it was. That there wasn't a simple solution to everything. His plan had kind of backfired. There's a war? Send out a team and forget about them. Someone blows up a toilet, and in turn, an entire ship? Exile him.

“Nostalgia,” Danger summarized.

Jeremy gave him a confused look and opened his mouth to say something else, but Cal had caught on faster—even in her drunk state—and silenced the boy with a deadly glare.

“What's your names?” he asked, trying to redirect the conversation to something safer.

“Danger.”

“Cal.”

“My daddy says that Morphios are no good cowards.”

At Cal's scowl, Jeremy realized his comment had made the conversation just as uncomfortable as the last.

“Yeah? Well, your daddy is a brown nosing, steaming piece of-”

“Cal!”

She glared over at Danger's interruption but managed to keep her mouth shut for the sake of Jeremy's virginal ears. Although, at his scruffy appearance, Cal thought he'd heard more than his fair share of profanities.

“What?” she shrugged innocently.

Danger shook his head and averted his attention back to his flying.