xp_logs | The Slobdays

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Kane is visited by North and explores his secondary mutation of rancid cheese powder.

"I hurt myself today..." Kane sang along to Johnny Cash playing on the stereo. He had his guitar slung around his neck, picking out the chords with the song. "To see if I still feel..."

The Hour of Country Music Pain was operating like clockwork in the small rec room, causing everyone under the age of thirty to flee to more hip and interesting rec rooms. The video game consoles plinked with the cooling of many abnormal days of being unplayed.

The unimpressed expression on North's face lingered for a long moment before it smoothed out into vague disinterest. Did not change the fact that he had two chilled beers in his hands, though, one of which he deposited on a coaster in front of the unkempt man before settling onto another couch with the TV remote in hand.

"You are starting to scare the children."

"Fear keeps the local systems in line, North." He continued to pick.

With a one-armed shrug, the other man switched on the television and began channel surfing until he hit CNN. It was true that wary children were not in his purview. "Might be the smell more than anything else."

"I think the cheese powder goes rank after a few days." He stopped playing long enough to take a deep drink of the beer. "Shouldn't you be running around some third-world hellhole right now?"

"I leave tomorrow," North said. Because it was true. But also funny. The spy drank his beer. "Perhaps when I return the cheese powder would have colonialised you."

"I, for one, look forward to my exo-skeleton of rancid fake cheese. I'll be like that Iron Man guy. Only, you know... oranger."

"I am sure the orange would suit, and your enemies will flee in the face of such odour. As will anyone without a gas mask."

"Now it sounds like you're making fun of my upcoming secondary mutation, North. Do you really want to mess with Cheese Poof Man? You wouldn't like me when I'm orange-y"

North arched a solitary brow at him and smirked. "Sure I would. One should not choose companions based on looks alone. Or smell, as the case may be."

"I've been telling women that for years and they never agree. Maybe because it only works to my advantage." He took another long swallow from the beer and stashed his guitar beside the couch.

"Some things are better heard from people not trying to bed you." With the instrument shelved for the moment, North unmuted the television but thoughtfully kept the volume down to a low murmur. "Any particular reason why you seem to have developed an aversion for showers?"

"Well, there's this whole thing where I'm waiting to find out if I'm officially unemployed by the Bureau and packing my bags to return to Canada. So I went out and bought this bathrobe and the second I put it on, lying on the couch for hours on end not really watching the television became highly attractive to me.

"I see," North said, perfectly solemn. "Cursed bathrobes. I should have brought the whole case of beer in."

"Agreed. Still, I've never really just... hung out for days on end. It's got a weird kind of pull after the first couple of days. Your thinking goes from 'I should get up and do something' to 'I will but I need five more minutes lying here.'. It's very odd."

The older man shook his head and polished off half of his beer, one palm coming up to cradle his cheek as he idly surveyed Kane's set up. "It is very symptomatic of someone who needs a swift kick to the rear."

"A kick you could only land if I choose to remain enmeshed in the couch. It's kind of like a koan or something, eh?"

"I am not familiar with that word. Does it mean 'a challenge'?"

"Nah, it's one of those thought puzzles, like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound. Or something."

The corner of North's lips ticked up into the opening of his beer bottle. Just a fraction. "You complicate a simple thing. Or I am a simple man. If I try to kick you, either I land the kick or I miss. If I do not try to kick you, either someone else will or I can come back and dig your smelly corpse from the couch when I am back from my third world hellhole."

"But in both cases, I will be protected by my rancid shell of hardened cheese powder. So I'm afraid we have come to an impasse, my friend." Kane said with a quick grin.

Personally, North thought a bucket of cold water would go some way in changing things (though for better or for worse, he could not say). The spy shrugged agreeably, palm dropping away as he kicked his feet onto the coffee table and leaned back into the couch. "Far be it for me to interrupt your languishing."

"Indeed. I PVRed the Habs game if you want to watch."

The remote was tossed at Kane's head as North dug a tablet out of a coat pocket and stood. "More beer?"

"That is the best advice of the day."