Music: Bad Moon Rising

Voices In Your Head featuring Avi Kaplan:

StV: Florida Man, part fourteen

"Where is she? Where is that little bitch. I'm going to fucking kill her! When I get out of here..."

Cloudburst came around the corner approached the cell where Florida Man was being held. His face was flushed red, and he was pulling at the bars hard enough to make them creak. He was also covered with the thick, leathery skin of an alligator. "That's still a pretty cool power," she told him. 

"You! You brought me in after I told you I wasn't going back to jail? Get over here so I can strangle you."

Cloudburst forced herself to keep her pace steady. She wasn't used to being yelled at, and she didn't like it. "Here," she said, when she got close enough to be just out of reach. "About half the deputies don't want anything to do with you, and the other half want to kill you for shooting those cops. So, the Sheriff said I could be the one to bring you Advil and Gatorade. I figured you'd be pretty hungover."

He scowled at her. "Don't want 'em."

 She raised her eyebrows. "You sure? That was a lot of beer and a lot of sun. Even with your gifts, you've got to be feeling pretty rough."

"Fuck you." 

She waited, and after a moment he lowered his head. "All right. Hand 'em over."

She tilted her head. 

"Please, you goddamned bitch. Please hand them over."

"All right." She held out the pill bottle, then yanked it back when he lunged forward and tried to grab her hand. "You keep this up, and I will walk away and leave you with your headache."

He took a deep breath, then went back to looking fully human. "Fine. You win."

She held the pills out again, and this time he took them. Then the same with the Gatorade bottle.

"That's a big bottle," he said, as he unscrewed the lid. 

"Yeah, well, you're a big asshole."

He glared at her, then chuckled. "All right, kid. I get it, you're trying." He popped a handful of painkillers, then poured maybe a fourth of the bottle down after them. "And you're right about the hangover, too. I'm just not used to having anybody try to take care of me."

He took another long drink, and she asked, "You don't have any friends?"

"I do, but they're all assholes too. I don't always like them, but we get each other. Except Araktul. Ancient alligator-god is the most stand-up guy I know."

Cloudburst shook her head. "Look, I'm not your mom, but you could be doing so much better than this. Do me a favor?"

"After you threw me in jail?"

She nodded. "Stay here. Do the time. Stay out of trouble. I can't promise anything, but I do have some connections... and I think a lot of people would be interested in hiring you once your time's up. You could be earning real money for doing some really interesting stuff."

"I don't... Whoever you think I am, I am not that person."

She shrugged. "Maybe not. But you could be. If you put in the work."

He shook his head. "Kid..."

"Just think about it," she said. She turned away and started walking up the corridor, feeling his eyes on her the whole way. 

StV: Florida Man, part thirteen

"You brought cards?" Florida Man's eyes lit up. He eyed Cloudburst closely, studying her face. "Don't suppose there's any chance of strip poker with your friends down there, though."

Cloudburst shook her head. "No."

"Too bad. Any reason everybody else is staying down there?" 

Cloudburst shrugged. "Giant alligator? Nobody wanted to make you nervous. And you strike me as the kind of person who doesn't like having a lot of people crowding around, jostling him."

"Well, sometimes..." He shrugged back at her. "But all right, that's fair. You do know how to play poker, though, right?"

Maria nodded. "My dad taught me. Used to play for toothpicks."

"Huh. My dad skipped out on my mom when I was six months old. Well, I've got a good supply of bottle caps, and there's gonna be more. You want to cut the cards, or what?"

"All right, let's see how we do."

* * *

In all, it took  four more hours and the sky was fully dark before Florida Man leaned back and said, "All right, kid. That was fun, but I think I'm..." He was snoring before he finished the sentence. 

Cloudburst reached down and patted the alligator's back. "All right, Big Guy," she said. "We're going to take him back and put him to bed. You just stay here and let us go, all right?"

"You ready?" asked Nightfall, gathering her darkness around her. She'd been learning to do new things -- apparently Harbinger had been working with her, which triggered a momentary flash of jealousy. We're not dating, though, Cloudburst reminded herself, and Nightfall was just training with him. 

The alligator shifted suddenly, almost tipping Florida Man off its back and tilting the cooler dangerously. It settled again almost immediately, having turned its head far enough to regard Nightfall with a gleaming black eye that was nearly as large as she was. She dropped darkness immediately, then gathered it again, slowly. 

Araktul didn't move any further, so she extended a strand of darkness carefully, reaching out to pluck Florida Man from the reptile-god's back. Cloudburst stepped off behind him, riding a column of water back down to the flooded grasslands. Araktul blinked, and they backed away carefully with their prisoner, making their way by starlight. 

"Here, we've got some blankets on the bottom of the boat. Lay him down there, and let's see if we can get out of here without getting eaten." Rachel was still spreading them out when Nightfall lowered Florida Man into place. 

Rachel headed back to the pilot's seat as they climbed back onto the boat. "All right," she said, and fired up the engine while everyone else watch Araktul nervously. "Let's get the hell out of here." 

Music: People Are Still Having Sex

LaTour: 

StV: Florida Man, part twelve

Florida Man stared at her for a long moment, until Cloudburst gave a little shrug. 

"Y'know what, kid? You are stupidly convincing. Honest to God, you just made that sound like a good idea. Thing is, though, I'm not going to jail. I don't have the patience for it." 

Cloudburst sat back with a small nodding motion. "Understandable. You got a plan? Beyond just 'hang out here 'til you run out of beer'? Hoping they won't be looking as hard when you come back out?"

He glared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "No, that was about it. And now you're really harshing my buzz."

"Sorry, sorry," she said, spreading her hands. "Let's talk about something else. Araktul, here... is he some sort of god? Or ancient nature spirit?"

Florida Man nodded. "Something like that. We don't talk talk, but I know he remembers when Florida was completely wild, before all the buildings and roads and whatnot."

"That's... old." She turned that over in her head. She did not want to end up fighting a god, or even a centuries-old nature spirit. It had never even occurred to her that that was a thing that could happen. Especially here, where she didn't think they could call in backup. "All right. You've been pretty straight with me, I think. If you don't want to call me 'kid' then you can call me Cloudburst."

He studied her. "What if I do want to call you 'kid', kid?"

She shrugged. "Go ahead, then. It's not like either of us is using legal names anyway."

"Good point. You're a sharp kid, Cloudburst. You sure you don't want a beer?"

"You know what? If you don't mind, I'll take one. You'll have to open it, though."

Florida Man pulled a bottle out of his cooler, popped the top off with the opener he wore on a leather thong around his neck, and handed it to her. 

"Cool. Be right back." 

"Whatcha doin'?" he asked. 

Cloudburst stood up, stepped to the side of the alligator's back, and called up a column of water to ride back down. "I think we owe Araktul an offering. For letting us be here, y'know?"

"Oh. Good idea." 

She slogged around to the front of the giant alligator, stopped in front of its mouth. "Hey there, Big Guy. I come bearing an offering. Open up? In a not-eating-me kind of way?"

Araktul stirred, and its mouth cracked open. She reached in, wondering if she was about to lose an arm, and poured out the beer. "Thanks for letting us be here."

Then she pulled her arm back out, and slogged back over to the airboat. Steve was staring at her. "Any luck?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. I tried selling him on turning himself in, but he says he doesn't have the patience to go to jail. So now we're on Plan B, where I let him drink until he passes out." She looked at Rachel. "You said you packed some supplies. Did they happen to include a deck of cards?"

Rachel grinned. "As a matter of fact, yes." 

A Theoretical Murder

Okay, storytime: 

So we're on a cruise a few years back. It's over Christmas, so the ship is absolutely jam-packed with people -- apparently this is the favorite/worst time to take a cruise. But my in-laws are paying, so we go anyway. Towards the end of the trip, we manage to get tickets to the onboard magic show. 

Now, the magician and his assistant are really good, and I remain jealous of his leather trenchcoat to this day. We're all sitting in a row, but owing to the way we came in it's kind of haphazard... with the result that I'm kind of seated at one end of our group, with my niece on one side of me and Firstborn sitting next to her. 

Anyway, the magician does one of the classic tricks: puts his assistant in a wooden box, sticks a few swords through it, and then saws it in half and swings the two halves apart. At which point my niece, who's about ten years old at this point, leans over to me and stage-whispers: "He killed her!"

And by the dark and forgotten gods, the only way I could think to reassure her was to whisper back, "No he didn't. Not enough blood." 

StV: Florida Man, part eleven

"You old enough to drink?" asked Florida Man, eyeing Cloudburst speculatively. 

"Not really, no," she told him. "Thanks, though."

He shrugged. "More for me. So how'd you get here?"

Cloudburst smiled and motioned for him to sit; they both sat down. The alligator's armor-thick skin was warm with the touch of the sun, but not uncomfortable. "My friend is good at finding things. How'd you get here?"

"Grace of Araktul, I guess." He shrugged. "There was this party, but the cops showed up and I went into the swamp to avoid em. Wandered around a bit, and wound up here. Saw this enormous alligator and did what anybody would'a."

"...Which was what, exactly?"

"Well, I still had a bottle of Jack in my hand, so I poured some in his mouth. Guess he liked it, 'cause we've been friends ever since. Lets me come and go, and even made me... well, so I can be like him sometimes."

Couldburst frowned as she considered that. "You can turn into a giant alligator?"

"Now that would be cool," he admitted. He wasn't bad-looking, just grimy and run-down and worn in a way that made Cloudburst think he'd been living a lot harder than was really good for him. "But naw. It's more... like him, y'know? I can hold my breath for a really long time, or I can make my skin really tough. I can bite right through a beer can, too." He paused. "I'd show you, but, well..." He gestured meaningfully with his beer bottle. 

"Huh," she said. "Okay, that's still pretty cool."

"So what are you and your friends doing out here? No offense, but you seem like a nice kid. Too nice to be hanging around with somebody like me. And you brought the heat with you." He gestured vaguely towards the airboat, and Cloudburst realized he was talking about Steve, the sheriff's deputy. "It's kind of harshing my buzz, to be honest."

"Okay, hear me out," Cloudburst said. "You know you committed a bunch of very public crimes, right?"

He nodded. "I remember parts of that. I was pretty drunk."

"Right, well, in the middle of that people noticed that you had some powers."

"Huh. Okay."

"Well, as someone with powers myself, I'd rather not have the national news associating people with powers with, well, crime sprees."

He considered that, then tossed his bottle away and pulled another one out of the cooler. "Makes sense."

"So what I'd like is for you to come with us, turn yourself in, and then look at maybe getting on some ADHD meds and joining Alcoholics Anonymous."

"No AA," he said immediately, straightening. "That stuff's bullshit. And Araktul here is my Higher Power anyway."

"All right," Cloudburst agreed. "I mean, it's not a demand. But I still think you might have some issues that medication would help."

"Kid... Are you trying to give me advice? I'm twice your age."

She nodded. "And currently wanted by every law enforcement agency in the State of Florida. Seems to me you could use some advice, because I know you could do better. Especially with what you are now."