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Soi Brothers â€" Part 1

Written and copyright b. Raistlinhawke, 2009

"Are you sure everything's ok, Alex? You know how we worry about you..."

"Yeah, Auntie, Everything's....everything's fine."

The ice cubes made a soft clink as they hit the parameter of the cola glass.

Alex became aware of them as a soft nudge brought him out of his thoughts. The contact came unintentionally from the weighty hip of an armadillo waitress, who offered a warm, if professional, smile of apology when the wotter looked up to her. As the extra large, double-pepperoni pizza was set on the raised cooling tray, the waitress began passing dinner plates around, maneuvering around the table with no other bumps against those sitting around it, a difficult task considering her plump figure. As she dropped a dinner plate in front of the last occupied seat, Alex's attention was drawn out to the table at large, and the three people that shared the booth space with him.

"First waitress in at least a week," Ax commented as the armadillo returned to the restaurant at large. The mantis tapped his hide, the lengthy back-section and additional legs often providing a problem when the group dined.

"Major props in this case, considering her weight." Drake nodded in agreement, taking an eager bite of the last garlic twist as he reached for a shaker of parmesan cheese. "Mind if coat the pizza?"

"If you don't exceed biohazard standards," Ax responded snidely as he reached around to grab the pizza server. "Why you don't have diabeetus yet is beyond all logic."

Drake scrunched up his mouth in reply, already spraying a liberal amount of the grated material over most of the slices. His other hand was down at his side, rubbing a space on his sandaled foot. Alex became engrossed in the action and continued to stare, until the gecko noticed and gave him a questioning look.

Eager to shift the focus, Alex asked the group, "Anyone seen Lilly around?" When none offered a positive reply, he continued, "I just wondered if I could get in contact with her..."

"You were the only one really close to her," Todd offered from the opposite side of the circular booth, "she kinda ditched high school before any of us got to know her."

Alex nodded. It was a shame, she practically disappeared off the map after her first kid, and her pill stash seemed like the perfect solution to the insomnia that had re-asserted itself on him since leaving Orange County.

"Hoy!" Todd snipped, smacking away Drake's overzealous hand as he reached for the now cheese-buried pie. "Toast first, dumbass!"

The meerkat raised his soda glass as an example, rolling his eyes at both Drake and Ax to do the same. He gestured to Alex with a sharp upward nod, "You too, wotter."

Alex raised an eyebrow at the sudden formality, but lifted his cola nonetheless.

"To our once ego-inflated friend," Todd began, the humor of the speech lifting the sides of his mouth in a smirk, "whose failure to make anything of himself after graduation has brought him back down to earth with the rest of us losers to start over, where he should have done so in the first place."

"With the friends he can't do shit without," Ax added, happy to join in on the ribbing.

Alex grinned despite himself, the bitter kick of reality quickly subsiding against the camaraderie and humor of the toast. Todd, though visibly chuckling at the insult, offered the wotter a sympathetic look. For a brief moment, the weight of his anxieties lifted, and Alex felt relieved to have this line of support. Derogatory, demeaning, and absolutely essential support.

"Fuck all y'all," the wotter grinned.

The four glasses clinked in mid-air, the sun's faint rays giving them a faint shine.

Soi Brothers â€" Part 2

Written and copyright Raistlinhawke, 2009

[Zager and Evans - In the Year 2525: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic]

An hour after the first slice of pizza had broken from the pie; the quartet shuffled into Ax's car and began to settle into their food comas. Pulling out of the restaurant's parking lot, the mantis driver tossed his MP3 player across the front seat to Drake, the gecko automatically starting to flip through its contents for some suitable driving tunes.

Alex stretched out his arm, resting it on the back-most expanse of Ax's hide. Turning to the window, his thoughts began to drift as the scenery lazily rolled by. While seeing familiar landmarks from his high school days was always a treat come his yearly spring break visits, his more permanent move back to the town made them carry a sort of malevolence.

San Ristas was a casual, mellow town, so much so that it garnered a taint of banality outside its borders. It was too easy to become addicted to the smooth flow of Ristas life; move from the high school to the junior college next door, get a decent paying job with a post-graduation B.A, move into a low maintenance apartment, repeat with small incremental promotions; the four years of high school became forty years of family-raising all too quickly for most, something Alex thought he was escaping from when he moved down south. Being back just made him feel li â€"

"So Alex," came Drake's voice from the front seat, snapping the wotter back to reality, "you get anything back from that job contact you emailed?"

The gecko was still intent on menu-scrolling, letting Alex feel comfortable following one of Drake's paws as it drifted down and massaged part of his foot for the second time that afternoon. Before piecing together any thoughts on the action, Alex noticed the break in conversation and quickly burped a response.

"Scam," he replied, "immediately asked me for my social security number and location without a hint of damn contract."

"Damn Nigerians," Todd offered from the seat next to Alex, smiling, "found out we don't trust their lottery thing, and now they've evolved."

"What?" added Ax in mock surprise, gripping the wheel dramatically, "Nigerian email is evolving?!? B button! B button!"

They all chuckled, Drake looking over his shoulder as he continued his line of questioning.

"So," the gecko began, "what are you going to do for money? Are Ax's parents letting you chill for free for a few months to get settled?"

"Hell no!" both wotter and mantis responded immediately, the very thought of Ax's strict folks offering anything of the sort rather ridiculous, even in theory.

"I finally got the deposits back from a couple of places down south," Alex clarified, "and I still DO get paid by the site." He emphasized the reference to the video game site, this not being the first time the gecko had forgotten his line of work. "I'm just looking for a bit of extra cash; I'll be completely strapped if I have just my site check."

The gecko's mouth mimed a "oh right," his head offering a slight nod sideways in recognition of his forgetfulness.

"My parents are still willing to pay for extra help with the construction business," Ax offered, his family's homebrew outfit rather unusual in its successfulness.

Alex snorted at the mention, "U kidding me?" he said, flavoring the response with a bit of a Brooklyn accent, "I ain't the hands-on type, you know dat, Insect."

The mantis scowled in jest at the foolish nickname, Todd picking up the conversation with his own terrible take on a New Yorker, "Hey! It ain't the mantis' fault you can't lift a cinder block."

Alex immediately followed up, "U gonna start this muscle tawk, prairie dawg?" He reached down and flicked the meerkat's noticeable abdominal bulge, "I can hide a six pack in dere, don't be frontin'."

The group guffawed as a melodramatic melody began to play from the car's stereo, Drake triumphantly putting the MP3 player in one of the available cup holders. Alex was the first to recognize the song.

"Zager and Evans?" the wotter asked, eyebrow raised, "you couldn't decide on anything from a band between A-Y?"

"Nothing epic enough," the gecko replied effortlessly, "sing, ya losers."

As the first of the song's many choruses erupted from the speakers, the friend's flung their heads up and bellowed in unison.

"IIIINNNN THE YEEEEEAR 2525!" they sung, playing off each other to reach a decent harmony, "IF MAN IS STILL ALLLLIIVEEEEE!!!!"

As the song dropped into the breadth of its lyrics, Alex quickly forgot about his concern. The group occasionally flung their arms about in punctuation to the song, whose duration kept them singing until the car slowly skidded to a halt in front of Drake's mobile lot.

"Later dudes," the gecko nodded as he quickly grabbed up his jacket. As he opened the side door, he jerked a hand in each group member's direction, "This weekend, Vampire...right?"

The trio agreed, Drake smiling as he shut the door behind him, waving from behind his back as he made the trek to his front door. With the release of the parking break, Ax brought the car back into motion and made a 3-point turn out of the mobile community. Alex turned to his side and looked through the car's back window, noticing the gecko tap his foot in aggravation at the edge of his patio as he opened his front door. Deciding against voicing concern, he instead turned back and readjusted his seat belt, just in time to be meted with Todd's thigh as the meerkat scrambled up to the passenger seat. Grunting, the wotter gave him a push, enough that he managed to flop down beside a disgruntled Ax.

Smiling, decidedly avoiding both of their looks of annoyance, Todd picked up the MP3 player from the cup holder, and began to tap the screen.

"What song next?"