Fantasy So Night Follows Day by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Contessa Helena de San Finzione slipped into the Equals house's sliding glass door from the back patio to the kitchen. She walked over to the alarm panel and started entering a code. The code came back incorrect.

"Hey, Girl. It's Julie's parents' code." Troy Equals said from the top of the landing to his and Julie's home offices. "Not Propappou's. Meant to tell you."

"Hey, Boy. I wasn't sure if anyone was still up." She told him, punching in the right alarm code. "Mander passed out when we got back, and I think I left my... excuse to come over... somewhere around here."

"Your key's in the same phony rock outside, too." Troy said, coming down the stairs. "Well, Denise uses it mostly, these days. But, ya know, it's still yours."

"Saw it." She replied with a smile. "Figured nobody'd remembered to lock the patio door. Where are the others?"

"Susan went to bed right after you left. Julie's finally getting some work done on the painting she's been trying to start all day. We got worried that you were walking into an ambush."

"Oh, I was. But I considered the possibility; so, my counter-ambush followed me and was in place by the time Whyte's ambush got there. We had some hassles at first, but Mander helped me out; then we found a little place that does great Uongoian after midnight in North Seattle, if you guys want to try it this week." She looked down at the ripped-up dress she was wearing. "There's gonna be a couple wacky pictures of me with the owners on the wall."

"We know. We followed along with Ortega at the command center they've set up in the garage across the street." He approached Helen and walked her over to the couch. "Julie couldn't sleep, and we're staying in tomorrow, so I gave her a little boost, like Susan did with Mander. I think not getting any work done today was a big part of her frustration. I was thinking of heading to bed. It's almost noon in San Finzione, so the hackers are between shifts; Carlito suggested I get some sleep too."

"I fuck your lives up in SO many ways." Helen said, taking out a cigarette and sitting down.

"Your world is a lot more complicated than ours, Helen." Troy responded, lighting it for her. "But we'll take it if it means we get you in the process."

Helen took a drag, put the cigarette into the ashtray, and leaned into Troy's shoulder.

"When you woke up yesterday morning, Troilus." She said with a sigh as he put his arm around her. "Triads were bad guys in movies and video games. Today, I've got to tell you to start looking into their stuff for Whyte's dirty shit, rather than away from them, because I thought he'd steer clear of them, but he's deeper in bed than I guessed. He says we'll 'pick things up' about ten-ish. I think he means that one. At his age, even coke can't keep him going all the time; and meth would probably make his shriveled old heart explode." Helen chuckled. "Worst of all, if I didn't know what a piece of shit Leonard was, he'd sorta be my type."

Troy patted her head with his other hand.

"I always knew my hair was never white enough for you." He smiled.

"Swarthy makes up for a lot." Helen said back in Greek, cupping his cheek. "I can just give you time to get gray to be perfect."

"It's never surprised me that you ended up ruling a country, Helen." Troy kissed her on the forehead, responding in the same language. "Only that it didn't turn out to be Greece."

"I figured you'd take Greece, Julie would take America, and we'd just play Risk from there. Not, like, real war with people's lives or anything, though. In this fantasy, we get giant playing pieces made and placed in the countries where we expand. You get to create a whole economy around it! It's not until we get to a legal Risk move that we actually start rolling for them."

"Will we roll regular dice, or drop giant d6es from helicopters? Also, WHERE would we roll the dice?"

"The giant ones." Helen responded, snuggling in closer. "And we roll them by strapping them to rockets and firing them at that big yellow thing that's usually in the sky this time of night, except for in Seattle."

"Yeah," Troy said. "We're going to pay for today's weather tomorrow. That's why I suggested Ortega and everyone put up canopies over the tents of the Ultimados who're camping on the lawn. Something that boggles me as an Alaskan in Seattle is how they always seem surprised that it's going to rain again tomorrow. And the one snowfall a year that we get... that an Alaskan would reasonably CALL a snowfall, always catches them by surprise and shuts everything down. Like, we could have been up past our knees, and they wouldn't close colleges in Anchorage. They get an inch here, and the whole city closes."

Helen sighed, remembering snow with the fondness of one who no longer lives with it five months out of the year.

"San Finzione doesn't even get the one reasonable snowfall. Just the odd light dusting that looks good on Christmas Cards. The lakes never ice over, our ice rinks are all indoor."

"The rain may never fall till after sundown..." Troy began singing before Helen punched his shoulder that she wasn't snuggled up to.