Disclaimer: I don't own any of the products referred to in here. I make no money off of this, and I have no money for you to sue me for. If you think I stole any names or concepts, you're probably right, but read the prior disclaimers before you get your panties in a bunch. Any resemblance to persons living or dead (haha… get it? Dead… no? Well, whatever. The living have no appreciation for good humor) is merely paranoia on your part.

A/N: while reading back through the chpt. to write this one, I edited stuff: word choice, syntax, order of a sentence or two, cut out some words. I added some description to chpt. 4 mainly cause it was too angsty for my tastes. Also, last chpt. Sky was a little too apologetic at the end… so I made him slightly more of a douche. & rum in chpt. 6 changed to vodka cause I forgot trent's drink of choice is Smirnoff (not that that is at all important).

Nothing major, I don't think, but if you've forgotten the plot or want to have a better memory about everything you can read over the past couple o' chapters… but it's totally not necessary.

The author note at the end will have a spoiler for the 2nd Sherlock movie (not a very big one, it might've even been in the trailers- New A/N: & seeing how long it's been since the release, probably isn't much of a spoiler anymore). See, I hate when people warn for a spoiler and proceed to have said spoiler right w/ the warning and your eyes take it in all at once before you can stop it…. So spoiler at end.

…

Shot to Hell

Chapter 08

Trent had been sitting on an uncomfortable wooden bench outside the closest Amtrak station for a little over an hour before Skylar strolled around the street corner and into view, wearing a Bob Marley wig (Rasta hat included) and fake mustache. He was swimming in Trent's- the gorilla's zip-up hoodie. The sleeves completely covered his hands so only the fingers poked out. Trent wouldn't have recognized Sky at such a distance if not for the childish, self-assured skip in his step.

It wasn't until the man drew closer that Trent realized his pockets were stuffed full of cash, so much so that the bills kept falling out and flittering to the ground behind him (Trent immediately decided that he'd rather not know how Sky acquired such a huge sum of money). The blonde was wearing Norma's plaid pajama pants, her holey, threadbare shirt, and her slippers.

"Are you wearing Norma's underwear, too?" Trent quipped as he stood up, shaking his limbs around to get the blood flowing.

"No, I know you like mine better, Trev," Sky teased, lazily trailing his fingers along his boxer's waistband showing above Norma's cotton pajama pants. His thumb dipped under the elastic. Trent stared, unconsciously running his tongue over his lip as if mimicking the movement of Skylar's hand. "You thirsty?" the blonde murmured.

Trent swallowed his spit, unsettled. He could only watch, frozen in horror, as those same fingers reached out to wrap around his wrist. His skin prickled… that hand had just- it had been so close to… just a few inches lower was- fuck, those fingers were scorching his wrist- it was incredibly disturbing.

The tug on his arm jerked Trent out of the stupor he'd unwittingly entered.

"You can grab a soda inside while I buy our tickets," Sky told him cheerfully, pulling Trent along with a sudden burst of energy, "Oh, and no more talking until we're on the train, comprende?"

"F-fine?" Trent let himself be dragged away, too busy wondering about what the hell was wrong with his brain to question the unexplained implementation of silence.

He refused to acknowledge on any level whatsoever that a dead man wearing fake dreads and facial hair had him dazed.

Maybe the guy had some sort of hypnotic powers? He'd had been able to teleport and had superhuman strength…although Sky said he couldn't really teleport on earth. And now that Trent thought about it, the strength of the fingers encircling his wrist (which seemed to be developing a rash, he was sure of it) was incredibly weak compared to when they were at Acheron Industries. But maybe the dichotomy was attributable to Trent's body being just that wimpy and the gorilla's body being just that beefy.

Sky did have excellent skills in the art of distraction, maybe this was just another manifestation of it- making Trent's mind go blank. But Trent knew he would never find out, because he would never, ever ask.

They bought tickets for the next train heading southeast. Skylar did not speak to Trent as they waited for the train to arrive, not that Trent was complaining. He was more than happy with the arrangement. Unfortunately, the peaceful silence came to an end the moment Skylar had shown their tickets to the stewardess, slid the compartment door shut, and turned around.

"Call me Alfon-" was all Skylar managed to say before Trent had sucker punched him in the gut and then delivered a quick one-two to the face. The door rattled as Sky fell against it from the force of the gorilla's fist. Skylar groaned, sinking to the floor.

"Shiiitake mushrooms, you really knocked the wind out of me man," Skylar wheezed, gingerly placing a hand to his ribcage.

"Not like that really matters. You don't actually need to breathe."

"You're an idiot," Sky grunted, crawling and stumbling into the chair across from Trent.

Spitting a bit a blood out onto the carpet, he glared up at Trent. "What the helllll-o was that for anyways?"

"What the fuc-

"Fudge!" Skylar interjected like a bad case of Tourette's. Trent decided that it was best to pretend nothing happened.

"- do you think?"

"I thought you'd forgotten about that whole beating me to a pulp thing."

This was true, but Trent would never admit that he really had temporarily forgotten about his promise to beat Sky senseless due to the fairy's sagging waistline- a waistline so annoying he couldn't think of anything else. He wanted to tie a belt or rope or anything around Sky's waist- it seemed as if his pants could slip off his hips way too easily and worrying about it was maddening. Or maybe Trent's fixation was due to Norma's shirt being just a bit too small on the other man, exposing his midriff whenever he moved around. In some inconceivable way, that thin strip of skin was more distressing than the man strutting around topless. Trent wasn't sure why that was and he wasn't at all comfortable with contemplating the reasons.

"I was waiting for some privacy. With my luck, I'd be arrest-"

"Restroom!"

"-d for assault-

"A salt bath!"

"If I'd pun-"

"Punctual!"

-ched you outside." Trent closed his eyes and breathed deeply, hoping it would calm him.

It didn't. "Are you freaking insane? Really. I'm dead serious. Are. You. Mentally. Stable. Because I'm really starting to wonder about it, Sk-"

"Skates! I am perfectly sane. I don't know what gave you the impression otherwise."

Trent gaped at Sky, hoping to convey his disbelief via his particularly skillful impression of a goldfish, because he was too flabbergasted to say 'Are you fucking shitting me? Have you not noticed your sudden case of Tourette's or your choice in wardrobe?'

Sky responded by sticking out his tongue. Trent wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry or practice his left-hook on the fairy's face.

"How old are you?" he chastised, "You act really immature sometimes."

"You'd be surprised at how young you can act when you're not worried about the slow, unavoidable deterioration of your body," Skylar retorted, nodding intently.

"Whatever," Trent muttered grudgingly, unable to think of solid argument against Sky's excuse.

"Well," Sky haughtily huffed, "getting back on topic after you rudely and cowardly interrupted-" Trent didn't even try to protest the insult this time, aware of the futility in his attempts (but he could still only handle so much of Sky's shit before he flipped. He needed, like, a shit-o-meter to measure the amount of crap he could tolerate before retaliating)- "I would like you to call me Alfonso until I say otherwise."

Trent paused for a moment to digest the request.

"Did you say… Alfonso?" hesitantly, he queried, tilting his head.

"Yes," Sky affirmed confidently.

"Oh…" Trent squinted, unable to comprehend, "Are you sure?"

Skylar frowned at him, "What's wrong with Alfonso? I think it's a wonderful name."

"Can I opt for using Al instead?"

Skylar paused, considering, before conceding with, "I'll settle for Alfie."

"Alfie…" Trent repeated, bemused, "right."

Skylar nodded, his smile encouraging, but so forced it looked demented more than anything else. It was really hard to take him seriously when he wanted his new name to be Alfonso… But then again, it's hard to take anyone seriously when they have imitation dreads and facial hair that looks like it used to occupy the back of a rat.

"Any particular reason why?" Trent inquired, "And while we're on the subject of you being psychotic and deranged, why the fuck are you wearing-"

"Fudge! I was late, shi- shitake."

-that stuff? Would you stop doing that! For Christ's sake."

"Doing what?" Sky asked, feigning ignorance.

"Interrupting me."

"I'm making sure you don't say certain words."

"Why?"

"It's to throw them off."

"Who?"

"The people watching us."

"Oh yeah, them, of course," Trent responded sarcastically, "then shouldn't we be wearing our tinfoil hats?"

There were a few unnecessary seconds in which Sky legitimately mulled over the question and Trent gawked at him.

"If you would like…" Sky answered cautiously, "but I don't think it would help… I don't even own one, anyways. "

"Are you fuck-"

"Fudge"

"-ing with me again? Cause I swear to god, Sk-"

"Skaters! No, I'm serious. You know who I mean, the people from the afterlife who're watching you."

"You're being vague just to piss me off, aren't you?"

"No. I'm avoiding key words and phrases that their computer program could detect."

"Why didn't you do this from the very beginning?"

"Because I didn't know that woman had said something."

"Liz-"

"Lizards, yes! Those scalely bitches."

"That's kinda mean, she was a very nice lady…"

Skylar stared at him, conveying silently, 'What kind of bullshit is this that you are spewing?'

"Well, all things considered! Lizz-

"Lizards!"

"Yes, lizard was a hel-

"Hello!"

"-l of a lot kinder than you."

Sky airily waved away the response, "I didn't know that lizard bitch-"

"Why is bitch okay to say?"

"It's a female dog."

"You're logic has many holes to it, you know."

"Trevor, you're just too much of a simpleton to understand. Anywaaays, I didn't know the lizard had ratted me out, which means your… stream was put on higher… secularity. It's not like they have enough staff to have a person watching another person's videos all day long, especially with the millions of new people-"

"Billions."

"Huh?"

"It's billions of people."

"Really, already?"

"Are you daft? It's been in the billions since like, the 1800s."

"Right. I knew that, just got my millions and billions mixed up," Skylar rubbed his nose.

"And I'm the simpleton," Trent muttered.

Sky shot him an annoyed look before continuing, "Right, whatever, the point is too many videos and not enough staff. Plus, watching videos all day- incredibly boring. People don't notice all the sin-cerety, they feel sympathetic and don't write a transgress- transgender down, they miss a murd-oc while in the restroom, they sneeze and don't hear someone envying their neighbor's donkey. So the computer program is designed to look for these… things."

"Do you have something in your eye?"

"I'm winking!"

"Well it looks like you've got a twitch. That's a sign of potassium deficiency."

"No it's not, idiot. You just want to watch me eat bananas like the perverted monkey you are."

"I'm not a monkey. I'm a gorilla!"

Skylar's mouth twitched. "I'm sure gorilla's get turned on by bananas, too."

"I don't want to see you bj a flipping banana! You're the pervert who even thought of that."

"Woah, woah, woah. I never said anything about a blow job. I only mentioned eating a banana. So who's the pervert now?"

"Y-y-you! You. You are not good for my blood pressure!"

"You just need to chill out, dude. You are way too high-strung… So anyways, the program is designed to do the watching instead of a person, and while in some ways it's more effective, in others the program can be tricked. Got it?"

"Just because you keep twitching-"

"Winking conspiratorially."

"-Yeah, that- doesn't mean I'll understand what the hel-"

"Hello!"

"I don't understand what the hell-o you mean."

Sky sneered at him as if it Trent was a total imbecile. But Sky was, Trent had concluded ever since the name 'Alfonso' had first been mentioned, fucking insane, so his evaluation of Trent's mental capabilities didn't matter all that much.

"Whatever…" Skylar's dismissive wave™, "This is kinda, slightly, just a little bit my fault-" What the fuck? Did Skylar Lan admit to making a mistake? To doing something wrong? Is hell freezing over? "-I had planned to take care of things before I met you… but their securit- secular political pigs interfered. And so my plan had been thrown off and, as a consequen-tial, I made some tactical errors. Now Hannibal's given me the slip and Lee's being an uncooperative, whiny bitch. I wasn't planning on getting near you again till things, your stream, was ready to be, uh, turned off…

However, I had to grab you sooner, since I now need you with me for Lee to do his shenanigans and remove the stream because he's being a prick-le. I'm trying to make it so the program doesn't pick things up. If I had known Lizzi-Lizard had reported to those pigs, I would never have come to get you. The program monitoring you had been set to a higher secur-secular setting because of her. Thus, they would have noticed that you were on earth without authorization, but knew you didn't accomplish it alone. They were waiting until the person who took you away, i.e. me, to appear before they sent out the pigs to arrest-room us both.

Fortunately, they think that… ah, our dinner guest from earlier is still doing his job… so that should hold us for a few days. I know a loophole I can use so the program shouldn't be set off due to his, ah, disappearance into the flask… I'm hoping we can get your little problem removed before they noticed that our dinner guest has taken too long to return.

If they notice that chap is missing, they will start to manually review old material from your stream...

I had thought that when he went missing you would only be placed on higher securit-secularity levels.

However, when I, uh… interviewed-" Skylar said the word in such a way Trent was positive he meant tortured for information. How Sky managed to torture a man who can feel no pain, Trent had no earthly idea… "-the dinner guest, I found out that lizard bitch made a report… and you've been on high secular for about the whole time. But now that I know this new tidbit of information, I just want to lie as low as possible until we get your monito- the bugs removed. Capiche? I'm in disgust because the secular for your stream will be programmed to catch my appearance or name... The less noise we make the better."

"Well…" Trent furrowed his brows, "I think I only understood less than a third of that… but I do have, um, a couple questions."

Sky indicated to continue.

"How do you know which words the progr-"

"Progress!" Sky cried.

"-No. You just used the word program-

"Progress!"

"You used that word a bunch of times."

"No I didn't."

"Alright…" Trent breathed deeply, trying to reign in his frustration, "how do you know which words the progress- I don't know why you suddenly don't want me to say the real word when you already used it a bunch of times before, which makes me wonder even more: how do you know which words the progress picks up, which words to censor?"

Skylar lips curled up snidely, "I just do."

Trent had a feeling he didn't.

"Alright… They monit-

"Monogram your personal belongings?"

"Uh, I was going to say thoughts, but sure. So they monogram thoughts. So even if I don't say the words, I still think them. And I also can't really stop myself from thinking about y-you, can I?" Trent felt his cheeks flush from how that sentence could be interpreted. Not that he meant it that way. At all. "I mean, and every time I do, I definitely don't refer to you as Alfonso, so won't that cause an al-"

"Alert, yes!" Skylar collapsed in his seat, sounding genuinely frustrated. "Fuck! I forgot you actually think!"

Trent growled a bit at the backhanded insult.

The lean man tugged on his fake dreads, pulling the hat further down on his head, groaning, "I'm trying my best here. This really isn't my fucking forte, alright."

A life of crime isn't your forte? Or do you mean you're more of a come-in-guns-blazing-as-you-rob-a-bank kind of criminal?

"S-sorry…" Trent stuttered quietly, unsettled by the other man's emotions.

"For what?"

"Well, you know…" Trent meant it as a sympathetic sorry rather than an apology, but he didn't want to actually have to say it aloud. Sky probably didn't understand the concept of sympathy anyways. And this… wasn't this a bit too much like sympathy for the devil? He shouldn't feel sympathy for the man who kidnapped him.

"…for… for hitting you?" Trent lied.

"Should be, you sneaky prick," the blonde scolded and then stretched out his legs across the compartment, lifting his feet and setting his heels on top of Trent's knees.

"W-what are you d-doing?" Trent squeaked.

"You beat me up, you should at least let me be comfortable," Sky explained, as if the logic behind his actions was that blatant.

"You hit me first. In the head. With a bat!" he retorted.

Looking very pleased at the fact, Sky smirked at him from under his moustache. "I can't believe you're still bitter about that. I apologized, didn't I?"

"Like hell you did," Trent snapped.

"Well I haven't done it again, have I," Sky reasoned with mirthful eyes, "which I think shows quite a lot of remorse on my part."

Trent rolled his eyes, giving up.

Yawning, Skylar wiggled his toes. His right foot was bare, the sole calloused and dirty, while the left was encased in a tube sock, the bottom of which was black with filth.

And he couldn't steal a clean pair of socks while creating his new wardrobe?

Trent's lip curled in disgust. He could handle the bare foot- it at least looked like it had been washed in the past month… but that sock… he was surprised it didn't smell more. The thing was probably carrying more diseases than the CDC. It had irked him from the moment he met Sky that the man only wore one sock- and with no shoes unless absolutely necessary- and now the damn disparity was right in front of him, taunting him, teasing him. The toes wriggled…

"And what are you doing?" Sky drawled peering at him through lidded eyes.

Trent stilled, surprised- and incredibly appalled- to discover that his right hand (holding onto Sky's calf-fuck knows how that happened) had lifted the man's leg, while his left hand was pinching the toe of Sky's sock between thumb and forefinger (to avoid touching it as much as possible) and had already pulled a few inches of the clothing off of the foot it was encasing.

Flustered, Trent was about to snatch his hands back from the other man's leg as if burned. He was going to…

But he didn't… He had a feeling Sky would taunt him endlessly if he did. So Trent kept his hands where they were despite the unbearably odd situation and his complete discomfiture with his- apparently subconscious- actions.

"If- if- you're going to put your feet on me," he stammered while staring down at the aforementioned appendages so he wouldn't have to deal with one of Sky's arrogant and degrading smirks, "then you aren't going to do it while wearing biohazardous materials."

Slipping the rest of the sock off Sky's foot, he let go of the man's leg and tossed the material into the corner, hoping Sky would forget it was there.

The newly exposed foot wasn't much cleaner than the other. On the other hand, the bottom wasn't nearly as calloused.

"I feel naked," Skylar mused innocuously while rubbing at his nose, the words setting Trent on edge.

Trent wanted to tell the perverted faggot that he was always practically naked, but then Sky flexed his foot a few times, spreading his toes before tightly curling them together and then all Trent wanted was to run his hand up the arch of Sky's sole. Something was definitely wrong with him. He was fascinated by the arch of someone's foot... a dirty foot… a man's foot.

No.

No fucking way.

It was simply aesthetics. He was artistic- he appreciated beautiful forms and figures, the captivating curvature of a-

Fucking hell.

He turned to look out the window in a vain attempt to distract himself, but it was dark outside. He'd forgotten it was so late. Yawning reflexively, he relaxed into the seat more and tried to ignore-

But those toes. Sky kept wiggling them and flexing them and the man had no clue how extremely agitating it was.

Trent assured himself that he was incredibly invested in watching total blackness pass by the window… but those god forsaken toes. They were vexing and they were still moving and maybe if they were on the floor it'd be one thing, but they were on him, touching him and that made it an entirely different matter. Trent turned his glare onto the other man, hoping he'd get the message, but Sky had his eyes closed, head tilted back against the chair, which made the small bulge of the Adam's apple on his throat more pronounced, his neck framed in stark contrast to the imitation dreads.

And no one with an Adam's apple and Bob Marley wig should be able to look like that. But Sky did. Sky really, really did.

And his toes were still moving and Trent couldn't stand it anymore, so he shoved his fingers between Sky's fucking bothersome toes and squeezed and he wasn't sure why he couldn't have just shoved Sky's feet off of him or just folded his hands over top of them, but it didn't really matter now because the gorilla's fingers were already between Sky's toes- some of them brushing that soft bit of skin that always reminded Trent of the webbed frog-feet and some of them not because there wasn't enough room and they were already in the tight, vice-like grip of Sky's toes, toes that managed to still feel small and delicate enough to snap- and Sky was staring at him as if he'd gone insane but for once the fuck-face looked startled by something Trent had done and Trent didn't know if that made the situation infinitely worse or infinitely better or maybe both.

And Trent wanted to plead momentary insanity because he had no fucking clue what to do now. With Sky's toes and his fingers between them and Sky's widened eyes and his pulse-

"Uh, Trev?" Skylar asked, frowning.

"Your toes kept moving," Trent blurted, as if that could explain everything, but then decided that he should probably expand on his previous statement, "I was trying to stop them."

"Right… understood," Sky gazed at Trent with anything but understanding, "That's not so much the issue as is your thumbs, which are- ah!" Skylar's breath hitched and his leg spasmed.

Fuck. Fuck. Oh, fuck.

Trent's thumbs were- he swore they were involuntarily- tracing the inside arches of the Sky's feet, just as he'd been trying not to want them to. And he had no fucking clue how he'd be able to explain this one- to Sky or to himself.

Sky was looking a little breathless and Trent knew he needed to stop, because he was aware, deep down, what this flustered feeling meant and that wasn't fucking good at all. And he wanted to forget that this had happened because it was definitely queer and bordering on all kinds of wrong. And once Sky was done with him, he wanted to forget that Sky had ever happened because the man was also queer and definitely all kinds of wrong.

"Fucking cut it out Trent!" Skylar suddenly cursed, tugging his feet and looking irritated as hell. "You don't need to keep tickling me. If you wanted me to move my feet, you could've just said something, you wimp."

The harshness in Sky's voice was grating enough to bring Trent back to his senses. He would have thanked the man for snapping him out of it, if only A) Sky wasn't the cause of Trent's descent into madness and B) Trent wasn't completely humiliated and growing angry with shame.

His face flushed red while alternating between expressions of panic as he thought of what he had just done and pissed off as he thought of the fact that Sky was the source of all his problems.

Sky and his fucking homohypnosis- Trent couldn't believe he kept letting himself get caught up in it.

Sky, being the opportunistic and hypocritical bastard that he was, knew when the tables were turning in his favor and how to exploit the shit out of it. He grinned widely, causing the cut on his lip to reopen. Fresh blood welled up and trickled down, following the same crusted path on his chin.

"Or maybe you really wanted something else?" He wagged his eyebrows sadistically.

"What the hell are you implying?" Trent's eyes narrowed.

"Are you upset that my wriggling toes weren't on you, touching you."

Trent growled. "Shut up."

"Did it turn you on? Did you want my feet to rub you off?"

Trent quickly pulled his fingers loose from between Sky's toes, only to wrap them around the man's thin ankles before Sky had a chance to move away. Sky was forced to slump further down in his seat as his legs were dragged closer to Trent. Clenching his fists and digging his fingers into Sky's skin, Trent seethed, "Shut the fuck up!"

"Did you want them to make you writhe in pleasure, even though you think they're dirty?" Sky continued to tease mercilessly.

Trent tugged on Skylar's ankles in a desperate rage. Sky was now uncomfortably low in his seat- neck bent against the back of the chair at an odd angle, ass off the cushion, hands grasping the arm rests to keep himself from falling on the floor- laughing uncontrollably in choked giggles.

"You better shut the fuck up. I could spread your legs so wide-"

Louder, more hysterical laughter cut Trent off.

"-You're such a fucking disgusting pervert! I was talking about breaking you-"

Another round of irritating giggles.

"-in half like a fucking wishbone," Trent growled, leaning between Sky's legs to hiss, "You are the most infuriating and confusing mother fucker."

"Or maybe that's why you want me-my feet," Sky continued, voice still laced with his irritating chuckles, "Cause it feels dirty and sinful."

"That's exactly why I don't want you," Trent bent forward even further to snarl in Sky's face before shoving the prick's legs to the floor.

"That's great then," Skylar responded, instant and mulish, "because I would never want a pathetic, little boy like you."

A/N: Spoiler Reminder. 6th paragraph down. Review responses are after that (If u can't tell, I fucking hate spoilers.)

Does Sky really have homohypnosis powers? Are his feet Cryptonite to trent? Tune in next week- I like picturing the old-time family sitting round the radio in the evening, waiting to hear the latest installment of their favorite adventure… and then this story comes on.

I apologize to all the alfonsos in the world.

Gah this chapter was so fackin long, I decided to split it up… a lot. And now my a/n is probably longer than the chapter, but I'll probably cut out most of this shit when I go on another editing rampage.

Stick your fingers between your toes. Just do it, I know I already have… for the sake of research… It's more difficult than it seems, but maybe the spaces between my toes are really small? I had a problem telling if it was my fingers or my toes that hurt, and since I didn't feel like getting someone else involved (that'd be one awkward conversation) I decided it was a bit of both.

If a guy I had the hots for did that, I think it'd be awkward and slightly painful more than anything else. but then again, almost everything the guy I have the hots for does is sexy as hell, so maybe I wouldn't mind getting my toes crushed by him… But Trent and Sky are just really kinky fucks who get turned on by the strangest things… or rather, Sky's kinky and Trent gets turned on by the strangest things- perfect couple.

Spoils:

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You know what sucks, is when you have a whole cross-dressing train scene plotted out way back in like Sept, but you hadn't really written or posted it yet and then you go see the new Sherlock holmes movie in Dec. and there is a cross-dressing train scene (but much, much funnier & epic & sexual tension than mine was. Seriously- I was waiting for the sex to start and wondering if guy Richie accidently released his own doujinshi-movie version) and I can no longer put sky in full-out drag at this juncture because then it just looks copied… so I just made him look ridiculous instead. And I swear I hadn't seen a trailer or anything that might've influenced my first idea.

May I add, that I fucking love holmes/Watson and this movie delivered. I had read the books as a kid, but then I went back to read them again to see if there was any "homoerotic undertones". And there were… but that's probably because I could slash just about anything.

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Review Responses: I've fallen a bit ill and when I'm sick, I'm a grumpy bitch… so I'm answering reviews instead of writing more of this chpt… and I apologize if I sound… apathetic.

Zoo-bie: haha, I only make sporadic trips to my real life and then the rest I spend in books, manga, or reading/writing slash. Life is too exhausting to live it all the time. (which is now not really all that true RL will get you when you get older whether you want it to or not)

Gerwish: i'm glad you love it. Denial is one of the most amusing and infuriating things ever.

Jennifer Berry: thank you! I'm glad you like my messed up little 'after-life' world. And I'm happy to hear it is well-written, cause I had too keep editing and re-editing and rewriting and… yep.

S.H. Marr: the plot is starting to emerge a tad bit, yes. And I'm trying very hard to make things a bit unclear at first (yep, I am intentionally making it seem kinda confusing, it isn't due to shitty writing- I hope… we'll see in the end) & slowly reveal more... so yeah, it's got a few twists.

Writing has never been my forte. It was one of my worst subjects when I was in school… so this has been challenging, but fun.

Cheeze: I dunno how I come up with it… my brain is a very chaotic and weird place that I wouldn't want even my worst enemy to have. Yeah, Sky … I'd say he's more crazy/odd than cute… and incredibly sadistic and arrogant (and not in a good way)… he's fake & manipulative… he's also very, very lame… he's too smart for his own good (you know, those smart people who can be amazingly dense sometimes)…

So basically… he's freaky, pig-headed, mean, and odd, which is somehow dangerously sexy.

And poor trent, overshadowed by sky. I feel sorry, so I'll talk about him too. He's basically really, really stupid/oblivious (and he usually has no clue that he is), cowardly, a bit of a 'whiny bitch' as sky would say, pessimistic, he goes from emotionally-unstable/on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown to totally apathetic way too quickly to be normal/healthy, he has no perseverance/determination... but he can a pretty sweet guy when he wants to be- no, really, it's true.

So that's what i thought my characters should be like in the beginning, dunno if it all got conveyed, but whatever.

FantasticPhantomWriter: wow. That is high praise indeed… no, seriously, I was very giddy when I read that… then I was like, no way someone thought that, and read it again. But yay for free stuff! And no worries about the creepiness, cause it wasn't actually creepy. Now if you said 'I'll be watching you as you type up the next chapter'…

No-one's-puppet: " …Sky's evenmore of a lying, sneaky, manipulative bastard…" yes. Yes he is. Mwuahaha… I dunno, evil laughter just seemed appropriate there. And yes, off on adventures they go. I hope it will be hilarious… and the rope. Well, Sky's brought it along, so we shall see.

NEW A/N Note: I haven't responded to any reviews since I started writing this in like jan, feb. so forgive me if I didn't respond to you. And FINALLY posted new chapter. I've ingested quite a bit of alcohol so forgive me if my editing skills are subpar.

Don't worry if all that 'cryptic' speech confused you. The conversation will become clearer in a future chapter.