Good evening!

It was dark by the time Wilford finally got out of the station. He actually had to give an interview at some point. At the main desk. How humiliating was that. But he liked his job and wanted to keep it, so he put on a good face and answered the asinine questions, and got on with his day.

His day was extremely light on the schedule, but he wanted to get caught up everything he’d missed while he was out. He hadn’t watched any news segments during his time away, because by the time anything makes it to air, it’s been so cut down and butchered so all the actual relevant information has been left on the floor somewhere. So he caught up on everything that had been covered, and everything Nichola had been up to on her own. Jess was still hanging around Billy like a tiny shadow with her arm in a sling, and how was it that a man roughly half the size of a redwood was the only person of their group that didn’t get hit during that clusterfuck?

Wilford walked out with Billy and Nichola, since they both seemed annoyingly reluctant to leave him alone. It was like they were afraid he was going to pass out and stop breathing if they took their eyes off him for too long. While Billy was giving Nichola a hard time about her new boyfriend, Wilford zoned them out and focused on just getting home and trying to take a nap. He still had a good handful of pills left over, and even if they made his head funny, it was already shaping up to be the sort of day that make it worth taking one.

Suddenly, Billy’s laughter stopped, and it took Wilford a few seconds to realise why.

“What’s with this guy?” he asked.

Wilford looked around, finally spotting Walter skulking around at the edge of the garage. Security in this place really sucked.

“Leave it alone,” Wilford said, but Billy was already on his way across the parking lot.

“What, you think this is funny?” Billy asked, stomping toward Walter. “You could have showed up at any time, but you choose now?”

“Billy,” Wilford said, trying to move quickly to chase after him. “Leave it.”

“I had no reason to before now,” Walter said evenly.

“You had every reason.”

“Bill, knock it off,” Wilford said.

Billy was close enough to Walter now that their height difference was becoming clear. Walter looked calmly up at him, like he was waiting for Billy to make the first move. He used to look at Wilford like that, right up until he chose the path of avoidance.

“When I asked him if we should call anyone, he said no. So you probably shouldn’t be here anyway,” Billy said, stopping right in front of Walter so he towered over him.

“Dennis!” Wilford snapped. As funny as it was watching Billy go to bat for him, this was neither the time nor the place for it. “Back the fuck off, man. I’ve got this.”

Billy finally turned around.

“Which is it? Billy or Dennis?” Walter asked.

Billy sneered, but stepped away as Wilford finally got close to them.

“Just. Leave it. It doesn’t matter.” Wilford walked past both of them and their posturing, and made tracks straight for his car at the end of the row. “Just go home. I’m sure I can survive the night.”

He didn’t have to look back to know he was getting a pair of concerned looks during the few seconds of silence before Billy and Nichola started walking back toward their own cars. But that still left Walter, and after a few seconds, Wilford did stop and look back.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I told you,” Walter said, still trying his false bravado on instead of the cowardly lion approach he’d taken that morning.

Wilford wanted to argue, but he was too tired to bother. “Whatever.”

He started back toward his car again, almost surprised when he heard Walter following him. He led Walter straight to his little piece of junk car, and without a word, opened the back door so he could twist over the seat so he could open the front door.

“This is what you drive?” Walter asked. “Wasn’t this falling apart when you were in high school?”

He stepped up to the passenger side to look at the car, suddenly yelping in pain a few moments later.

“Watch out for the bees,” Wilford said, watching Walter slap at the air.

“Your car has bees?” Walter demanded. “Why?”

Wilford shrugged. “Cheapest security system on the market.”

Walter shot an accusatory glare toward the front of the car, while still slapping at the air around him.

“Are you getting in, or what? Passenger doors don’t open,” Wilford said, still holding the back door in case Walter decided to make up his mind about what he was doing there.

“Your car is terrible.” He stepped away from the car, still swatting at everything around him. Once it seemed like he was out of the bees’ territory, he stopped to look cautiously at Wilford. “Where are we going?”

“It depends on if you’re getting in or not,” Wilford said, losing his patience again.

“With you,” Walter said.

“No, with Santa Claus. For fuck’s sake, get in the goddamn car, or go away.” He wanted to get some dinner, and then go home and pass out. Not deal with this garbage again.

Walter slowly approached the car, hesitating at the bumper. Wilford’s impatience must have been showing on his face, because something sparked Walter into suddenly moving forward and climbing into the car, having to awkwardly get over the centre console into the passenger seat. Wilford shut the door behind him and got into the driver’s seat, taking a good few seconds to just sit and breathe.

“Are you trying to pretend that you’re sick?” Walter asked, watching him. “That’s a new one.”

“For fuck’s sake, Walter. I got shot. Shut the hell up.” Wilford was trying not to let his anger get the better of him, because he wasn’t going to let Walter be right, but he wasn’t making it easy. If anything, he knew how to press all the right buttons to piss him off.

He could see Walter reaching for a door that wouldn’t open, and the slow, dawning realisation that there was no quick or easy way out of the car now that he was inside it.

“Who shot you?” Walter asked finally. “And why?”

If Wilford hadn’t already suspected as much, that was as good as proof that he didn’t live in the area anymore. Wilford sighed and started the car, enjoying the little startled look from his brother when he didn’t have to coax the engine into working. Though to be fair, he was a bit startled himself.

“About ten angry rednecks, because they didn’t like me exposing their murder-devil-worship cult on TV,” he said. He pulled out of the space, looking to see if Billy and Nichola were still watching to see what was going on. Their cars were both still in their spots, so there were definitely hiding somewhere.

“Did you know about that, by the way?” he asked. “What happened because you wouldn’t let me crash on your couch for three goddamn weeks.”

Walter shot Wilford another nervous look and reached for his seatbelt. “What?”

“Man, fuck you.” He didn’t know why, after so long of not even thinking about what happened, it still hurt. “I should have let Bill grind you into a paste. I’ve never seen him that angry before.”

“And he’s friends with you?” Walter asked.

Wilford breathed deeply. He wanted to shoot Walter right in the face, as they drove down the road. It would feel so good. But then the stupid prick probably wouldn’t reset, and Wilford had fallen out of the habit of recording saves lately, and it just wasn’t worth the risk. He focused on the road, and getting onto the freeway to head back into Virginia.

“Why are you here?” he asked again.

“I told you. Your—”

“Yes, I know. Some dipshit rolled up and threatened to break your legs. I don’t know him, so you got your ass punked.”

“What?” Walter repeated.

“Walter, I just got shot!” Wilford shouted. “A lot of times. I almost fucking died. I don’t know what they taught you at farmer school, but an intelligent person would be able to connect the dots. You’re being scammed and I don’t want any part of it.”

“You almost died?” Walter asked.

Wilford barely managed to pull onto the shoulder before he slammed on the brakes. He couldn’t do this. Walter was raising his blood pressure and he wouldn’t survive another minute breathing the same air as him.

“Get the fuck out of my car,” Wilford demanded.

Walter looked around at the traffic zooming past them on the freeway. “Here?” he asked.

“Get out!”

Walter suddenly started scrambling to find a way out. He tried pulling on the handle too many times before he remembered that the door didn’t work and he was forced to climb into the back seat.

“Don’t ever talk to me again,” Wilford said. “You’re dead. You never fucking existed. Get out of my life forever.”

Walter fell out of the back seat and onto the pavement, staring at Wilford like he’d just seen the devil himself. Without another word, Wilford leaned into the back seat to slam the door shut before speeding back off into traffic. In the rear view mirror, he could see Walter getting up and looking at all the traffic that sped past him. Watching him nearly get creamed by a truck felt a lot better than Wilford knew it should.

When he got to his apartment, he wasn’t even a little surprised to see Billy already there, waiting for him in the parking lot. Hoping to get this over with, Wilford got out of the car and started heading for the stairs. Climbing them wasn’t an easy task, but he needed to get used to doing it again sooner rather than later.

“Where’d he go?” Billy said, looking back at the car as he caught up with Wilford.

“Dead,” Wilford said.

Billy stopped on the stairs behind him. “What? Seriously?”

Wilford shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I kicked him out of the car on sixty-six.”

“Yeah, he might be dead,” Billy agreed.

Wilford let them into his apartment and went straight to the sofa to collapse, while Billy wandered into the kitchen. He could hear the fridge open, and then close seconds later. “Where’s that shoebox?” Billy asked.

Wilford thought for a moment. “Check the bedroom,” he said. At least with Billy following him home, it meant he didn’t have to cook. That was a plus.

Being stuck at Milliways had its downsides beyond just being stuck. Jim had said something — he’d said a lot of things, actually — that got under Wilford’s skin and stuck there. Wilford had to find out what else Jim knew, since he was apparently in his world, ready to cause all sorts of problems.

Walter was easy to find, and indeed had some big watermelon farm out on the west coast. Wilford had always assumed Walter had gone back to Korea with their parents, but now he wasn’t even sure about the initial assumption that their parents had even gone back to Korea. He tried a few searches, but only himself and Walter turned up. And it took him entirely too long to figure out why. Obviously if they had disappeared into the unknown, they would have done so in a way that they wouldn’t stand out so much. They had ready-made aliases before they even made the decision to leave. The problem is Wilford either didn’t remember, or was never told what they had changed their names from. He barely remembered what the name on his own birth certificate had originally been. Though, that wasn’t exactly a problem. It would have been a matter of public record. He fished around online for a little bit, eventually getting bored because when it came down to it, he just didn’t care enough to put any real amount of effort into it. Ultimately, it was that Jim had got one over on him that pissed him off so much. But now he at least knew where Walter was, and therefore which areas of San Andreas to avoid like the goddamn plague in the future.

Wilford pushed away from his desk and leaned against the window to watch the growing scene on the street down below. It was going to come to a riot sooner or later if nobody did anything. Wilford wished his phone had a decent camera so he could film it when it happened. Damn clamshell phones and their pre-megapixel cameras. The future could not come soon enough.

Nichola walked up, running her hand over his shoulders to get his attention. When he looked up, he was presented with a fresh cup of coffee. Wilford took it and went back to watching the show outside.

“What’s going on now?” Nichola asked as she sat down at her desk. She looked at everything piled up on it and sighed.

“Street preacher,” Wilford said, wishing the windows in the building opened so he could hear what was going on better.

“Anything worth listening to?” Nichola asked.

“Oh, you know. God hates fags; we need to protect our white women from all the brown-skinned terrorists. Nothing new.” Nothing new didn’t mean boring though, as the preacher below had amassed quite the crowd already.

“I want to see,” Nichola declared, moving her chair over next to Wilford so she could look down with him. The street preacher was shouting over the jeering crowd that surrounded him, ignoring their shouts and thrown stones in his direction. Finally, one of the stones hit him in the face, sending him reeling to the ground.

“Ow, that had to hurt,” Nichola said.

“He’ll get up again,” Wilford said, craning to try to see him now that he was hidden behind dozens of angry people still shouting at him.

“Who was that cute little thing I saw you with outside earlier?” Nichola asked, sipping on her coffee as if she wasn’t watching the beginnings of an angry mob forming.

Wilford shook his head dismissively. “Nobody. Just some girl I used to mess around with in college.”

“I didn’t think you went for that,” Nichola said.

“What, college?” Wilford asked.

“Girls.”

Wilford snorted. “Not this one anymore. She dropped by to tell me she’s pregnant.” And damn her for it.

Nichola forgot all about the street preacher and turned her full attention to Wilford. “Oh. I thought you said you were dating in college?”

Wilford wanted to bang his head into the window. Was Nichola so starved for scandalous gossip that she wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. “It’s not mine. She’s closing her restaurant. Apparently she wants to have a life that doesn’t revolve around resisting the urge to spit in peoples’ food.”

Utterly selfish. Where else is he going to eat when he can’t get the door to Milliways to open?

“Oh,” Nichola repeated.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Wilford said.

There was an uproar of shouting down below, and Wilford noticed that the preacher had got back up again, and was back to shouting his sermon at anyone nearby. He had blood running from the bridge of his nose, but didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping.

“What are your plans tonight?” Wilford asked.

“No,” Nichola said before he could get any farther with that train of thought.

“Free booze,” he tried anyway.

“Nice try. Still no. I am so not going to anything where my job does not depend on my showing up and looking complacent.”

She smiled at him over her coffee and leaned back in her chair, still watching the scene down below. At once, the crowd parted in every direction as a large jeep bounced over the curb and into the square below, mowing down a few of the screaming protesters as well as the street preacher. For a moment, everything down in the square was silent, with nobody moving as the crowd tried to figure out what was going on. Then, like a switch had been flipped, everyone realised at once that nobody would be resetting, or likely even respawning, and the crowd scattered in all directions as the driver of the jeep stumbled out to survey the damage.

“Ooh, that’s going to be on the six o’clock tonight,” Nichola said, cringing down at the scene below. Already, a team from inside the building was rushing out to cover the scene, getting in the way of police and paramedics. Wilford didn’t envy them. The ambulance chaser beat was one step above the kitten circus, and just as likely to grind your career to a halt.

“So, tonight?” Wilford asked.

“No.”

Wilford rolled his eyes and got up, taking his coffee with him. He wasn’t sure why he expected to be able to talk Nichola into going to the stupid award thing he’d been avoiding all month, since she never went even when she was up for one herself. Somewhere, he’d forgotten that there had been a time when blowing these things off wasn’t an option for him.

Maybe if he was lucky, he could catch Jim on the wrong side of the door, and get rocketed ahead three years without having to do anything about it. He’d like that.

He found Jess hiding in a hallway, avoiding doing any work, and decided to try his luck there. He couldn’t remember what he did the first time around, aside from likely wandering around doing exactly what he was doing right now. Maybe this was what he did, for all he knew.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked her.

She looked up at him and shrugged. “I have a date with my couch and a frozen pizza,” she said.

“Cool. I’ll pick you up at six. Wear something nice.” He started to walk away before she could protest, but he wasn’t fast enough.

“Oh, no. I’m not going to that thing,” Jess argued.

Damnit. “All the free booze you can drink,” Wilford said.

“I really had my hopes set on that pizza,” Jess said.

Wilford sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll pick you up at six.” This time, he walked away faster before she could protest.

-

He was surprised she was actually ready at six, and didn’t low-key try to bail on him by still being in her underwear when he knocked on her door. In fact, Jess had actually put more effort into her appearance than Wilford had, although he did make a last-minute decision to swap the candystripe jacket for a black leather one. The audible ‘oh thank god’ from Jess seemed to suggest this had probably been the right choice, though he didn’t feel the need to investigate that any further.

The event was every bit as dull and pointlessly stupid as Wilford remembered these things being. He and Jess spent their entire time there casually sharing insults about everyone they crossed paths with and decimating the bar before it became busy enough that they could sneak out unnoticed. Wilford had shown up, made his presence known, and got the hell out before anyone had a chance to shove a microphone in his face for a quote. He almost thought he’d be able to get away with skipping the pizza, but at the last minute, he changed his mind. If he wanted someone to go to these things with him again in the future, he’d have to play nice and uphold his end of the deal. So she got her pizza, and Wilford got garlic bread and a glass of beer. By the time he dropped Jess back off at her place, he was starving, and just drunk enough to be not even close to drunk enough.