Forefathers Part 3
Part of the http://zannes.livejournal.com/5304.html John/Illyria 'verse
Rating: PG Overall (language and nudity)
Genre: Gen - Supernatural/Angel crossover, Humor
Characters: John and Illyria...cameos by Sam and Dean
Summary: John and Illyria meet up in Hell, Lucifer wants Illyria gone because she's annoying him so he hooks her up with John and sends them back to the mortal plane. Hilarity ensues. It's like a buddy cop movie gone bad.
Author's Notes: I owe my soul to my betas lyonie17 and hakirby. They made this readable. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns Illyria. Even though there's no sex in this story, feel free to imagine it (I did). John and Illyria have become my secret OTP. They just fit each other. This story is complete, but will be posted in several parts so you don't petrify in front of the computer trying to read it in one sitting. It's the longest thing I've written! The lovely icon belongs to phantomas.
Part 3...
The snow-dusted field, dotted with dark lumps that in the daylight would be sheep, glistened eerily in the glow of the quarter moon, creating a mismatched quilt of gray, blue, and purple shadows across the landscape. A ring of evergreens curved darkly around the edges of the skyline, offering John and Illyria protection from the gusts of wind blowing persistently over the open expanse before them.
“This is not what I expected,” Illyria declared loudly into the still night air from her position a few feet away. John shushed her with a wave of his hand, but she ignored him, continuing, “We just sit, waiting for it to come to us.” She turned her blue eyes, glowing dimly in the moonlight, towards John in the shadows of the brush. “This is cowardice. A true warrior would go in fighting, shedding his blood along with that of his enemy until he stood hip-deep in the ashes of victory.”
“No,” John replied absently, keeping his eyes trained on the darkened sky as clouds slid over the moon. “This is hunting.” He gave her a half-grin, flitting his gaze over to hers for a moment. “We mortals like to keep our blood on the inside.”
An unquantifiable expression slid over her features and she opened her mouth, poised to speak, when a rumbling cry shook the air. Waiting the span of one heartbeat, John stood and took aim, blasting a hole in one of the thunderbird’s wings, sending it spiraling down like a maple leaf. It gave a surprised squawk, sheep bleating in terror as they awakened, scrambling clumsily over the snow.
“Slice and dice, Illyria - head and heart. Then it burns.” Raising the rifle once more, he took aim at the floundering creature, blowing open its skull in a spray of gray matter.
Illyria pounced, carving open its leathery skin and yanking out its heart with a sickening squelch. She tilted her head towards him, blue eyes burning through the fine mist of red droplets coating her white skin. “Disappointingly easy, Hunter.”
As they stood together a few moments later, watching the fire turn the creature into ash, John frowned thoughtfully, nervously stroking the barrel of his weapon before fumbling for some shells to reload. Clicking them into place, he admitted warily, “You’re right, Illyria. That one seemed rather small to be causing so much trouble. Keep your eyes….” Four talons erupted through his chest, his body jerking spastically as his muscle coordination momentarily shut down.
The mother thunderbird reared up behind him, spreading her wings wide enough to block out the moon as she screamed in raucous anger. Dropping John’s body to the floor, she bobbed forward, hissing at Illyria in warning as she approached the ashes of her young. Illyria’s cold eyes flashed as she swung the blade wildly at the monster before her, stripes of blood dribbling down its cobblestone skin.
The sharp sound of a rifle cocking behind them made the thunderbird pause in its attack, before its body rocked with the force of both barrels emptying into its back. With another ear-splitting screech, it turned, swiping its talons though the meat of John’s belly, blood and viscera spilling out and steaming in the chilly winter night.
With bitter fury, Illyria swung with all her strength, the knife catching on the thing’s spine as the blade tore through its throat, its head rolling to a stop near John’s twitching body.
Dropping the shining red blade to the ground, Illyria fell to her knees by her Guide, a look of rebuke warring with one that might have been consternation. “Hunter,” Illyria chastised stolidly, pulling his head onto her lap, “you are supposed to keep your blood on the inside.”
John coughed weakly, his breath a bubbling rasp in his throat as blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. “Guess I’m outta practice,” he joked tiredly, struggling for breath with every word. “Take a few months vacation and look what happens.”
“We will practice tomorrow,” Illyria stated. “I cannot have my Guide leaving his bodily fluids on the field of battle.”
“Yeah…tomorrow,” John answered, feebly patting her hand in reassurance upon noting the almost imperceptible tightening of her features. As another wave of pain wracked his body, he tried to focus on those bright blue eyes, the only color left in his darkening world. “I’m…,” he coughed up another gout of blood, his skin growing colder by the second, “…sorry” - for failing went unspoken. He shuddered, opening his eyes once more. “I don’t want t’go back there,” he admitted softly, fear deepening his words as he tried to clutch her arm with nerveless fingers.
“Ssshhh,” Illyria whispered somewhat soothingly, brushing his hair off his face. “You worry too much, Hunter.”
John smiled through the pain, slurring something so low she had to lean forward to hear him, her blue-brown hair curtaining them both in a soft shield of silence. “Call me…John.” With that, his breathing stilled and his frozen, unblinking gaze stayed trained on the stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John didn’t remember drinking the night before, but his entire body hurt and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a shower drain. “Aspirin,” he groaned under his breath. “I would kill for some aspirin.”
“We have no medical supplies,” a familiar voice stated distinctly, making his head pound even more. “But I have sustenance. You will eat.” At that directive, John squinted up at the pale sunrise, trying to make out the shadowy figure backlit by the morning light.
“Illyria?” he grunted in confusion, pushing himself up and moaning as his stomach cramped uncomfortably. He glanced down, tugging up his shirt to study the new pale-pink flesh stretched tightly over his belly. He rubbed a hand over his skin, hissing painfully between his teeth at the rough feel of his fingers. “Wha-…?”
“You were disemboweled,” Illyria explained with her usual directness, shoving some cooked meat on a stick into his hand. “You are better now.”
“I was…dead,” John said, blinking in surprise. “I know dead, and I was it.”
Illyria cocked her head to the side, poised on the balls of her feet as she squatted beside him. “We are bound until the Time after Time,” Illyria stated in reminder. Understanding flickered in his eyes and she eased him towards the truth by adding, “You can be hurt, but you will heal.” She leaned forward, tightening his grip on his breakfast.
John looked confounded, absently tearing off a chunk of the meat she had provided, grateful for the warmth of the crackling fire located so closely beside him. She waited until he had eaten most of what she had given him before saying, “I would prefer you not to die again, even for such a short time. It left an ache in my shell.” She bared her teeth at the fire. “I did not like it.”
John chuckled grimly. “I didn’t like it much myself. New rule - no dying.” He took another bite, his chewing slowing as a thoughtful look edged across his face. “Um…what am I eating?”
“It cannot kill you, so you should not ask,” Illyria replied, her lips quirking slightly.
John groaned, setting aside the rest of his meal before he lost what he’d already eaten.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They were on the road within the next few hours, with a generous “donation” from Zeke of a First Aid kit, a new winter jacket plus mittens, a pile of ammunition for both the revolver and rifle, a machete, and some foodstuffs. They also had a new destination - Zeke mentioned a poltergeist bothering a nest of Verksan demons he knew in Mankato.
John tensed, gripping the handle of the passenger side door as Fred swerved around a slow-moving horse trailer. “I thought you said you knew how to drive,” he admonished, easing his hand off his still aching stomach.
“I do!” Fred chirped cheerily. “My daddy taught me on the tractor when I was fourteen and I’ve been doin’ it ever since.”
John eyed her warily, clarifying, “You mean Fred learned…but has Illyria ever been behind the wheel of a car?”
A flicker of stillness moved over Fred’s bright countenance, her brown eyes taking on a blue tinge. “No, but it is the same. What the shell knows, I know.” With a snap, her smile burst forth and Fred scolded, “So quit ‘yer bellyachin’, John. I’ll get us there in one piece!”
“God, I hope so,” he grimaced at the irony, wincing as she missed a Honda’s fender by an inch. John reached to adjust the heater, making sure it was still on high. He relaxed back against the seat, the dull throbbing in his belly fading in intensity with every passing hour. “You know, I never thought I’d turn out to be some kind of demonic messenger boy. Who knew lesser demons needed Hunters?”
“Lesser demons are just like people,” Fred acknowledged. “Just scalier or with more teeth. They can’t just magic away the supernatural whenever they want.”
John looked doubtful. “We’ll need to make some pit-stops to stock up on cash…and check out the papers on-line for some tips. We can’t depend on being pointed from job to job. Oh, and remind me to fill out some credit card applications. We need some - the sooner the better.”
“Yeah,” Fred agreed. “We still gotta find those boys of yours!”
John bit his lip, gnawing on it as he stared at the scenery flashing by out the window. “I’m not so sure,” he finally admitted, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Fred flashed him a glance and he breathed a quick warning, making her lock her eyes on the road ahead. “I’m dead, Fred…at least to them I am. I’ve been in the ground about eight months - if I know Dean, I’m not even a collection of ashes anymore. Salted, burned, and scattered - nothing left of John Winchester but his two boys and a truck sold for scrap.”
He held his breath, regaining control over his emotions, before continuing, “It’s not right to open those wounds again. Besides, how would I explain this to them? Explain you? We’d just be something else to hunt. They’d shoot us with rock salt faster than you could blink your pretty blue eyes at them.” He snickered, leaning his head back against the seat.
“I’ve been thinking…this gives me the opportunity to take out the Demon that destroyed my family without worrying about my boys getting in the way. I can protect them the only way I have left, by killing that thing.” He puffed out a breath, mittened hands clenching futilely in his lap.
Fred shifted uncomfortably, eyes flicking from the road back to him. John may have understood Illyria’s stillness far better than Fred’s constant motion, but he could still tell when a woman had something to say. “Spill it, Fred.”
A torrent of words overran over each other, taking him a minute to decipher before he got what she was saying. “If you’re talking about the Pyrothia demon, he’s serving as Satan’s shower curtain for a while. Lucifer didn’t take his objection to your release at all well, so he’s being punished.”
John blinked slowly. “What’s a while?”
“You can never be sure, but most likely the next couple of centuries or so. He won’t be seen on the mortal plane within your sons’ lifetimes, most likely.” Fred leaned over, whispering conspiratorially, “Lucifer can hold a grudge for a long time.”
John continued to blink in nearly perfectly measured increments, holding his breath for almost a minute before erupting into loud peals of laughter, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he rolled on the seat, grunting every so often as his stomach cramped in complaint at the taxing of his healing muscles.
“I’ve spent the last twenty-three years of my life hunting that son-of-a-bitch down, and Satan is using him as a shower curtain?” John swallowed a laugh, drunkenly rolling his head back and forth on the seat. His face sagged once the panicked amusement ended, and his head fell forward until his chin rested on his chest. “Is it wrong to say I feel cheated?” he admitted softly, studying his mittened hands lying open in his lap, now useless after all those apparently wasted years. “I want to kill him...no, I need to kill him. Now there is nothing.”
“Your boys aren’t nothin’,” Fred pointed out. “With the Pyrothia elsewhere, they’re finally safe.” She nodded her head happily, giving him a cheerful wink. “‘Sides, John, we’re immortal. We’ll just kill ‘im the next time he rolls through town.”
John laughed softly, tilting his head to glance over at her once more. “You’re right, Fred. Gotta look on the bright side of…life.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“That’s weird,” Sam announced, the cellphone cupped to his ear as he slammed the car door shut, ignoring his brother’s usual background protests about treating her more gently. Sam cradled the small phone in his hand, scanning the number listed on the screen before clicking out of voicemail. “You remember Gilbert?”
Dean glanced at him quizzically, dragging the weapons duffel out of the trunk. “Dad’s friend? Haven’t heard from him in a while. What’s he want?”
Sam frowned at the phone, his brow furrowed in confusion. “He left a message for Dad. Said he saw him leaving Ashby and he wanted to catch up.”
Dean’s hand stilled on the doorknob leading to their room. His tone leaving no room for argument, Dean stated firmly, “Dad’s dead, Sam.”
“I know that,” Sam huffed impatiently. He glanced back down at the phone dwarfed in his large hand. “Still….,”
“Still nothin’,” Dean cut him off abruptly. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John and Fred exited the bar laughing, pockets flush with cash from their recent bout at the pool table. “Fred,” John murmured conspiratorially as he threw his arm over her shoulders, oddly relaxed after several beers, “you’re welcome on my team any time.” He chuckled, playfully pushing her away as he headed towards the Jeep, saying off-handedly over his shoulder, “You help us win just by batting your pretty brown eyes at them and asking questions about velocity and trajectory ratios.”
Fred giggled, stopping to work a rock out of her shoe when she was thrown face first into the gravel. “Outta the way, little lady. We want to speak to your mister first,” the large man from the bar growled, followed by his three friends.
John spun around when he heard Fred hit the gravel, hands up defensively as the four men from the bar surrounded him in a rough semi-circle, cutting him off from Fred. He cast an eye in her direction to see if she were all right, shaking his head slightly as her eyes tinged blue. Fred frowned, petulant at his refusal to let her change, but remained as she was, a helpless human female.
The large man smashed his fist into his palm with a loud thwack, his friends holding back as he approached. “We don’t like getting hustled,” he explained. “It ain’t mannerly to come into our town and to take our money like that so I think I’m gonna have to ask for it back.” His friends hooted drunkenly in agreement, urging him on as he took a wild swing at John’s head.
John ducked, giving him an elbow to the ribs as he tried to stay out of the reach of the surrounding men. One kicked out, catching John in the knee as he dodged another swing by the large man before him, making John fall to one knee in the gravel.
With an animalistic growl, Fred pounced, landing on the back of one of John’s attackers, raking her nails over his eyes rather than snapping his neck as she grumbled, “Your rules, John, are too limiting.” The man shrieked, reaching behind him to grab her by the hair, pulling her over his shoulder with a lucky dip of his body, and she landed flat on her back on the ground. He kicked out blindly, blood leaking into his eyes, hitting her in the ribs with a muffled grunt.
John snapped, lunging at Fred’s attacker while throwing his shoulders and fists at whoever got in his way, trying to get to Fred. John screamed in rage as another kick was aimed at Fred before his one arm was pinned by a lucky grab, leaving him flailing uselessly. “Time for a little payback,” the large man threatened, rearing his fist back in readiness.
The door to the bar opened, spilling light, music and a crowd of people out into the parking lot. With a frightened look, the four men bolted, dropping John where he stood. With a snarl, John glanced at Fred to make sure she was mobile before running after their attackers. Flat out sprinting in anger, John suddenly bounced like a ping-pong ball off the invisible barrier, falling back on his ass in the dirt as the men turned the corner. He lay sprawled out on his back, catching his breath, before rolling to his knees and yelling across the now deserted parking lot, “Fred…when I’m running after the bad guys, I expect you to run with me so this doesn’t happen!”
Fred lurched to her feet, frowning at him in the dim light of the street lamp. “I am in no mood for running.” She wandered closer, scratches lining her cheek from the gravel as she held one hand against her ribs.
John blinked in astonishment. “Fred,” he whispered in shock, “you’re bleeding.”
Fred stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, tasting a drop of blood that had gathered there. “Yes,” she agreed, “I am.”
“I’ve never even seen you hurt,” he admitted, tentatively reaching up to touch her grazed cheek. “I didn’t think you could be.”
“The shell can be damaged in this form, but I will heal,” Fred explained shortly. “It is not as indestructible as my original.” Fred tightened her grip around her ribcage. “It is…uncomfortable.”
John took her by the elbow and led her towards the Jeep, boosting her into the backseat to get her out of sight and somewhere safe. Glancing up at her for permission, he carefully lifted up her shirt to study the blooming bruise on her ribs. “Let’s get back to the room. I’ll patch you up,” John insisted, concern etched deeply in the lines around his eyes.
“Unnecessary,” Fred declared, shifting form in the blink of an eye. Illyria’s nearly flawless blue-white skin shone in the darkness of the Jeep, marred only by faint gray lines where her wounds had been moments before.
The tenseness in John’s shoulders eased as he saw the change, a hesitant smile slipping over his features. Illyria touched the faint gray marks on her cheek, commenting, “They will be gone by morning.”
John hefted himself into the driver’s seat, starting the grumbling engine before chiding softly, “Next time, don’t make fun of the size of their pool cues, OK?”
Illyria looked at him blankly, sitting stiffly in the back seat. “I was merely stating a fact. He chose the short one.”
John grinned, backing up to head towards the motel. “Well, thanks for the assertion that my cue was the biggest. I think it made ‘em jealous.”
Illyria stuck her head over the back of his seat, replying firmly, “It was a full three inches longer. There is no denying fact.” She fell back in her seat with a slight frown as he started chuckling breathlessly. “Why do they not have a standard size?”
John coughed, hiding something that had almost sounded like a manly giggle, and tried to regain his dignity. “Illyria, I think we need to sit down and have a lesson in euphemisms sometime real soon. Deal?”
Illyria snorted in disgust, leaning back against her seat. “This is about the penis again, is it not? Mortals!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John awoke with a full-body shudder, his heart pounding painfully in his chest as he struggled for breath, clawing at the tangle of blankets restraining him. “Stop!” he begged, close to tears. “Please.” Remembered pain tore though his muscles, making them scream in protest as he cried out raggedly, desperate sounds of pure animal terror.
Illyria sat calmly beside him, stroking his hair in her uniquely brusque manner. “Peace, John. Be still. They harm you no longer.”
He rolled onto his side, curling himself against the length of her hip as tremors shook his body, still blind to anything but the memories of where he’d spent so much of the last year. When his breathing started to slow, she moved to stand and he whimpered low in his throat - a broken sound from a man who prized courage above everything. Illyria stilled, sliding once more into her seat on the mattress with her back braced by the headboard. John, needing her strength to keep from falling face first into absolute panic, wrapped his arms around her thigh and clutched it helplessly, burying his nose against her armor and breathing in the scent of the only thing he knew would be there every morning when he woke up - unable to burn, unable to die, unable to rot in the ground like everyone else he had known.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The woman came in shades of blue and white like some sort of over-exposed negative. She flickered back and forth - a badly cut film turning a deep yellow/brown as if sepia tones had stained the reel - almost the same picture, but just a little different. His father looked as he did on that final day, a subtle contrast of green, grey, and black - the color of a healing bruise. The only common thread that tied them together was the blood-dark red that seeped through the image, like the ink spilling over the open pages of Dad’s journal when he was six, the dry paper drinking it in until it dissolved into clumps from the weight of the liquid it had absorbed. He remembered the flash of anger across his father’s face, a tangible thunderclap in his dreamscape - “This is my life, Sam!” - before that expression softened and the sobbing little boy was scooped up in a bear hug and that same voice murmured softly against his cheek. “So sorry, Sammy. Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry….” - a broken record of regret.
The dream cut again to the ruined journal, now dripping that dark blood ink, and his father - “Daddy!” the little boy screamed in glee. “You’re home!” - pressing his hand flat on the ruined pages as they tore them out together, spreading blood across the formica table top as if the journal itself were bleeding out - “Dad’s dead, Sam,” his brother told him, his eyes leaking ink-tinged tears. “He’s gone.” - both father and son piling the bloody refuse on the floor. “It’s fine, Sammy. Everything’s fine. It can be fixed…see? All better!”
The dream returned to the bruise/black image of his father melding with the white/blue, flickering yellow/brown image of the woman as the little boy stood crying out for his father across the flames of his funeral pyre, the journal pages clutched in his hands as white as untouched snow. The warm smell of his father engulfed him, and once again he heard his father murmuring, “Sammy, so sorry, Sammy sorrysorrysorrysorry Sammy sorrrySammy so sorrysorrysorry SammySammy sorrysorry Sammy, sosorrysorrysorrysorry….”
The ringing of the cellphone awakened Sam, the dream fading like smoke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“This job went much more smoothly,” John summarized with a relieved sigh as he took a long drink of his beer. Leaning back against the curve of the bar, he kept his gaze surreptitiously trained on the pool tables, watching the talent to see where he could charm his way into a money-making game.
Fred nodded agreeably, sipping at her cola. John had forbidden her any cocktails, not up to testing the alcohol tolerance of the former God-King of the Universe in a backwater bar in Minnesota. That was an undertaking best left for…never. “At least ya didn’t lose any blood this time,” Fred giggled, the bubbles tickling her nose.
John flashed his dimples at her, his hazel eyes warm as he chuckled in agreement. He gallantly raised his bottle and clicked it against the rim of the glass in her hand. “Here’s to keepin’ it on the inside.”
Fred took another small swallow, looking content and unlikely to rip the bar patrons into mewling heaps of innards as she had threatened to do at the last place they’d stopped for drinks when they told him they didn’t carry his preferred brand of beer. John relaxed just a fraction, feeling that things were finally going right for the first time in months. He still didn’t truly understand the Fred/Illyria dichotomy - he occasionally saw Illyria in Fred, but never saw Fred in Illyria. She had assured him that was due to his being unfortunate enough to have met her when she no longer ruled the Universe and that the taint of her shell had rendered her nearly useless in the wheel of Demon machinations that could lead her back to the control of the planets and dimensions that made up this coil of the mortal world. Then she had patted his hand and, with her sweet Fred smile, added that it also meant that she wouldn’t use his bones to pick her teeth when she slew the mortal hordes that would inevitably have arisen to spill oceans of blood at her feet.
John just thought it was because he understood Illyria - knew her, but Fred was more like a photograph from the past without any kind of connection for him in the physical world. Illyria was a warrior, and that he could get behind, but Fred was someone who might have been friends with his Mary and babysat his children when they were young. He wasn’t that person anymore and it made Fred feel like a freakishly mismatched piece in the puzzle that had become his life. Fred bubbled with emotion, when usually John didn’t even want to bother to feel anything at all.
He took another long drink, casting his eyes over to the pool tables again when a spray of cola from Fred’s nose dampened him from forehead to chest. “Hey, little lady,” the burly drunk that had slunk up behind her muttered, squeezing her ass in his massive grip. “Wanna dance?”
Fred coughed roughly, her eyes watering from the struggle for a clear breath. John elbowed his way past her, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt and shaking him like a rag doll. “How dare you touch the lady without her permission?!” he rumbled deep in his chest, his cheeks flushing with anger. He shook the man harder, propelling him back towards the door with pure brute force.
“Ease up there, Hercules,” a familiar looking older man called out from nearby. “Jake! It’s time to take Chuck home. He’s reached his limit.” John reluctantly let the man go, still fuming, his breath coming in quick pants.
“Chuck,” the old man nudged. “Tell the young lady and her gentleman yer sorry. You don’t go hitting on a man’s wife and not expect t’be pummeled.”
The other man slurred something that sounded like sorry before passing out in Jake’s arms. The old man that John now recognized as the motel manager patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, commenting, “He’s not a bad boy. Thank’ye for not poundin’ on ‘im.”
John nodded curtly, spinning around to grab Fred by the wrist and dragging her back to the bathrooms. She obediently followed, squeaking something about propriety when he shoved her through the men’s room door, sliding the deadbolt into place and locking it solidly behind him.
“Hunter, you grow too brash,” Illyria stated with a hint of annoyance, her blue eyes flashing. “Dragging me behind you like a dog. I am not a mortal woman to be treated as such.” She looked almost insulted, adding, “I could have crushed his spine to powder, if you would have allowed it. Your ‘rules’ are too restrictive.”
“I shoulda known this would happen,” John grumbled under his breath, falling to his knees on the dingy bathroom floor and reaching clumsily under the sink. “We don’t need trouble and a pretty, single woman in a bar is just asking for it.” With a grunt he tore at the intricate tangle of pipes, ducking his head under the bowl of the sink and yanking something off the pipe sticking from the wall. “Even Dean would be humping your leg by now. Not your fault, mind you - it’s the kind of bars we have to frequent to make any money.”
Bracing himself on one foot and spinning on his knee to face her, he slid the small, brass ring onto Illyria’s finger. She gazed at him blankly, staring down at the grease-smudged metal circle now gracing her hand. “What is this?”
“Your wedding band, Mrs. Winchester,” John grumbled, turning to fit the pipes back together as best he could before rising gracefully to his feet. “I guess I should’ve washed it first.”
“I am merely glad it did not come from the human waste receptacle,” Illyria replied, glancing at the toilet with something close to amusement coloring her tone.
John laughed in surprise, patting Illyria on the shoulder as he slid the deadbolt open. “Suit up - we’ve got some pool to play.”
TO BE CONTINUED...