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Early. It was jackin early, and Roch was already sick of this reaper town. How the hell did Mot grow up in this place? It was so boring--so uniform. It was something like the dorm, now that he thought about it.

"When IS this concert, anyway?" he asked the two men behind him. They both were lounging on a street corner bench, smoking something. His dad had the usual cig, but Vegas had this freakin' HUGE cigar that made him look like a pimp. Roch had pointed it out earlier, so the old geezer seemed to be REALLY enjoying it now.

"When are concerts usually at? We're stuck here for the rest of the day. So now's the time to bring out ghoulfriend number four--"

"Five--no, six, I think," Vegas drawled.

"Six? Seriously?" Austin asked. "JackDAMN boil, no moss grows on you!"

"But mold might," Vegas chimed in, blowing a perfect circle of smoke.

"I don't have ANY ghoulfriends," Roch growled. "Besides, this is Mot's town, not a ghoul's. And he should be home right now..." He tugged out his phone and sent a quick text.

"So... this Mot," Austin said, taking a drag off of his smoke. "He got anything to do with that little pink haired ghoul from yesterday?"

"Not NOW, old man," Roch said.

"Then is he cute?" Vegas asked. Roch looked at him blankly for a long moment. Then it clicked.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," he muttered, looking for a trash can. That had been THE most disturbing question he'd ever heard. Well, okay, maybe not THE, but close--

"You realize, you didn't tell him BOTH parts of the talk," Austin chimed in. "You stuck with ghouls--"

"You're right, but the kid's got so many of them hangin' around--"

"SHUDDUP!!" Roch bellowed. "Perverted old bastards! I am ONE HUNDRED PERCENT straight!" Except his man crush on Invi. Which was purely admiration and not attraction whatsoever. He was positive on this.

"They kidnapped me," Roch said, pointing at them. "And we're here for a concert, but until then I'm stuck here with nothin' to do except watch them smoke and talk about sex."

"We were about to tell him about boil on boil love," Vegas said, blowing another smoke ring. "You want to hear, too, kid?"

"NEITHER of us want to hear it, old man," Roch said irritably.

"Jimi," Austin said, draping his arms over the back of the bench. "You're welcome to come if you can keep this whiner busy until it starts."

Roch just gave them both a dark look, not about to go into the conversation of whining and head pettings. This week had been a lot of things, a hell of a lot of fun (he'd only admit that silently) but also a hell of a lot of irritating and disturbing, too. The talk? It had sunk into his brain and lodged there like an evil pandora's box, just waiting to be opened and evaluated more closely.

"We're goin', old geezers, we'll be back around--"

"Five," Vegas said. "This will make as good a meeting spot as any. I'm gonna go make a few calls to my old... friends."

"Same," Austin said, standing. He dug out the bag he'd given Lizzy earlier, tossing it to Roch this time. "Not too much food," he warned before disappearing. Vegas must have, as well, because the old man was gone before they even noticed.

Roch looked at him, a strange expression on his face. It looked confused, but amused, and a hint of irritated. "Well..." he said finally. "See, I was gonna steal the fish back from Granddad," he started out. "He bought my jackin' punkeesh! That was my fish! And the dirty jacktard bought it while I was on the field trip, so--"

He shrugged. Knowing Roch it was somewhat easier to understand where this story was going. "They knocked me out--Dad played that jackin' sax of his--and next thing I knew I was in the middle of a desert with no CLUE how I'd gotten there."

"Mm," he said. That was ALL Roch said. It was probably the least Roch would EVER say on the matter. "I went to this place, though!" he said, cheering up and dragging his bag off his back. There was a large black sombrero hanging off of it, which he untied and handed over. "I bought you a hat," he said, grinning. "Muertes, man, you have GOT to go with me sometime, it was awesome!"

"Awesome, man, just AWESOME," Roch said, pulling out his phone. It seemed strange to see a picture other than Xiu's as he logged in, but he ignored it, flipping through his pictures to show Mot the one he'd taken of Carmelita.

"This little ghoul dragged me all over the place," he said with a grin. "She even taught me to dance. And dude, they had this pinata thing hanging from a tree! You blindfolded yourself and whacked it with a stick, and all this candy came pouring out! We gotta have one when we do our party!!"

Then he reached into his bag, digging around more. "And I got these," he added, pulling out a clear plastic box with an awesomely detailed chocolate skull inside. It was wearing a sombrero. "This one's yours, man," he added, handing it over.

"I figured I'd keep mine," Roch admitted. "But yeah, you can eat it. They had sugar ones, too," he went on, grinning. "The catrinas, that's what Carmelita is--they're gorgeous, man. And the music! It's like... addictive!"

He slung the bag back over his shoulders, looking around. "You got anything to DO around here? Maybe a park or something? I got somethin else you might want to try! Me and Charlie learned it!"