**

Byers found himself with some very concrete goals Tuesday. Specifically, he wanted to get some decent driving in, and he wanted to be the hell off the road before dark. The Blue Thing had been odd, but last night…

He wasn't quite ready to ask Langly for tips on effective panicking, but he hadn't actually slept much, either, when they'd found a hotel. It had taken close to an hour for Langly to calm him down, although Byers' own version of "unsettled" was never going to win any awards for amateur dramatics.

He'd spent the better part of the hours until dawn sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to see out the curtains Langly had pulled tightly closed, and rebuffing his lover's offers to "relax you a little, baby". Langly fortunately didn't take it too personally, and had in fact at some point fallen asleep with his face buried in Byers' lap.

Byers' addled brain chose to interpret this as "comforting" rather than "arousing", which was possibly the weirdest development yet.

Eventually, Byers fell asleep too, despite the fact that Langly was drooling into his boxers. He woke around ten to the surprisingly appealing smell of fast food.

"Hey, Johnny." Langly lobbed something at him.

Too tired to catch it, he settled for ducking.

Langly laughed and threw himself down next to Byers. "We brought you breakfast, okay? We got two hours to checkout."

Byers mumbled his thanks as he accepted coffee and dug through the bag for a sausage biscuit. Langly leaned against him.

"What, no complaints about the junk food?" he teased.

"Too hungry to care."

Langly laughed.

A biscuit and two hash browns later, Byers was watching him speculatively as he finished his coffee.

"What?"

Byers smiled enigmatically. "I was just… wondering…"

Langly waited.

"Oh, never mind," Byers said.

Langly sighed. "What, John?"

Byers blushed a little. "No, it's okay. It doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

"Well, I was going to ask… But never mind."

"Johnny, spit it out, okay?"

Byers spent close to a minute looking him over carefully, not saying a word. He looked up and met Langly's eyes finally, and Langly found himself adjusting the ragged jeans, feeling very warm indeed.

"No, it's okay," Byers said. "We should get going."

Langly tried not to whimper. He grabbed Byers' wrist and applied firm pressure. "John… what is it?"

Byers looked away and ran his tongue along his lips. "I was hoping you'd… do… something. For me, I mean."

"Jesus. Anything, Johnny. Anything. I can't believe you even have to ask."

"In that case…" Byers leaned in to whisper harshly in his ear. "I would… love… some more coffee."

Langly deflated. In at least a couple of ways. "I can't believe I let you do this to me."

Byers laughed. "Neither can I, actually."

Langly stood up with a martyred sigh. "They've probably got coffee in the lobby. If they don't, you're out of luck. I'm not goin' back to the McDonald's for you, after what you just pulled."

"You're nuts about me, admit it."

Langly just sighed again before closing the door behind him.

Byers glanced at the clock and decided he'd better take a shower before it got too much later. Never mind that what he really wanted to do was to try to get some more sleep. But he could do that on the road, and, his treacherous mind suggested, if anything weird happened, at least he wouldn't have to know about it.

**

It wasn't to be, though. It seemed like he'd barely gotten his eyes closed when the van shuddered off onto a graveled shoulder and came to an abrupt halt. He heard Langly say—something, but decided to ignore it. That wasn't to be, either. The front doors opened and closed, and then the side door opened, and light streamed onto his face.

Langly shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Wake up, John. Something's going on."

Byers surrendered and opened his eyes. "What."

Jimmy leaned in. "It's like a big tailgate out here."

Byers sighed and unbuckled the seat belt as Langly dug for the camera again. He stepped out of the van, expecting—Elvis, maybe—, and what he saw wasn't, initially, too bad. But it didn't bode well. He was staring at a van with the words "Anomalous Underwater Cryptid Watch Association" emblazoned across the side. He could live with that. But if AUCWA was here, things were bound to get worse.

He stepped around it, and he found himself gazing, mouth wide open, a collection of some of the weirdest looking people he'd ever seen. Despite the fact that he'd seen many of them before. They all had cameras of one sort or another, and they were all looking at… a lake.

Byers sighed. "Somebody spotted a lake monster."

Langly shrugged. "It's Minnesota."

"Good point. I guess we might as well go see what's up."

They trailed through a variety of vehicles, some with their organizations displayed but most not, and eventually ran into someone they knew. Darcy Patterson grinned at them. "Well, hello, boys!" The curvy redhead handed her camera to her assistant before flinging her arms around Byers and smooching him on the cheek.

Langly did his best not to giggle, but Jimmy suffered no such inhibitions.

They heard a whoop, and that was all the warning they got before Bets Patterson came tearing across and threw herself at Jimmy and Langly, knocking them into each other and onto the ground in a tangle of long arms and legs.

She finally pulled herself off them, laughing, and got to her feet, offering a hand to Langly. "Haven't seen you boys since Atlanta!"

Jimmy grinned. "This is so cool. We saw Drose and Marvel yesterday, and now you guys!"

Darcy sniffed. "Who're you callin' a guy?"

Byers detached himself from her with as much dignity as he could muster, conscious of the dozens of cameras in the vicinity. "Good to see you again, Darcy, Bets. You're looking well. Lake monster?" he asked.

Bets laughed. "Of course. All over this damned state. Nearly fifty sightings at last count, in about half that many lakes, all in the past week."

Darcy smiled and accepted the notebook from the assistant. "We've been to nearly a third of the lakes in three days. Some decent interviews, a couple of interesting theories, and a grand total of no verifiable pictures."

Langly laughed. "You've been at this too long. Since when does Fort care about verifiable?"

Bets stuck her tongue out at him. "Since the O'Shea expedition found those larval architeuthis. Lake crypts are getting their asses kicked by the giant squid. You know those bastards are even organizing letter campaigns to get us to take the damned thing out of the crypt listings? 'As it is demonstrably real, it hardly can be featured as a cryptozoological entity alongside such obvious pseudoscientific legends as Bigfoot…'"

Byers smiled. "Bigfoot is a hoax. You know that."

"Prove it," Bets said belligerently.

Byers chuckled. "Prove a negative? Sure. After that I'll count to infinity. Anything out here?" He looked around. "Where is here, anyway?"

"You're so funny, John." Bets sighed and collapsed onto the hood of a rental car. "Here is Mud Lake," she said. "Our third Mud Lake in as many days. Wanna guess what the most popular lake name in Minnesota is?"

Langly laughed. "So is there anything here?"

Bets shrugged. "Some suspicious logs, a couple of turtles, a swan, and a bunch of guys with John Deere caps and rubber worms standing around saying 'hey, yer scarin' the lunkers'." She looked around. "Where's Mel?"

"Back home."

She winked at Jimmy. "So this is a vacation? Are you chaperon or pinch-hitter?"

Langly snorted. "Neither."

"Are you guys in a hurry?" Darcy asked. "We were about to go find lunch. Lens Cap U just showed up, so we might as well drag our asses out of here. No one's going to see anything now, even if there was anything to see."

Langly snickered. "Somebody oughtta sabotage their truck."

Bets grinned wickedly. "You think we haven't? C'mon, let's grab some beers and catch up. Follow us, okay? There's a place a couple-three miles down the road."

Byers glanced at his watch and shrugged. "Why not. I need a lot more coffee before too much longer."

**

"What's Lens Cap U?" Jimmy asked as they pulled back onto the road.

Byers smiled. "Crypto-Aquatic Research Project. They've been doing this for four decades and still haven't gotten a single decent image of a creature. The lens cap was still on, or the film got exposed, or the batteries were dead, or someone put a thumb over the lens… They keep trying."

Langly snickered. "And every fucking lake monster in the world rolls over and tries to look like a sunken log when they show up."

Jimmy blinked. "You don't believe in lake monsters, do you, Langly?"

"Hell no. But don't tell the chicks that. Bets has had her heart set on finding a, what is it, John?"

"Cymbospondylus."

"Right, a cymbospondylus, for as long as we've known her."

"It's a Triassic marine reptile whose fossils have been found in Nevada. A thirty-foot prehistoric lizard with a tail as long as its body."

"A dinosaur?"

"No. A marine reptile. A fish lizard. They weren't fish, either, but they weren't dinosaurs. They were aquatic reptiles that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs."

"Right. I've heard of those. But in Nevada?"

"Nevada used to be part of a massive inland sea. Bets has a theory the cymbospondylus adapted to fresh or brackish water, and got quite a lot smaller." Byers shrugged. "I think it's nonsense, but she's spent years chasing the things. And stranger things have happened."

"Like last night," Langly snickered. "And yesterday morning. And the day before."

"Please," Byers said. "I'd rather not think about it."

"Hey, Jimmy," Langly said. "Don't tell the chicks about Washington either, okay? I know you don't get it, but we're reporters, right? And so are they. We don't need 'em scooping us."

Byers half-smiled. "I imagine they're heading that way, too. We'll probably end up with an alternative press convention out there."

Langly grumbled. "So what the fuck are we going out for?"

"We've got Rickson and Payter."

Langly sighed, but shut up.

**

They settled in behind sandwiches and drinks at a local tavern. The guys had coffee, the gals went for scotch.

Bets couldn't resist the urge to tease. "Come on, boys. Put some hair on your chests."

Langly snickered.

"It's a little early," Jimmy said, dubiously.

Bets snorted indelicately. "It's Minnesota, and we've spent three fuckin' days taking pictures of turtles. If that's not a good enough reason to drink, I'll never know what is."

Byers smiled. "We're driving. Who's your new assistant?"

Darcy poured the kid another cup of coffee. "Richie Von Sant. Richie, these are the Lone Gunmen. Three out of four, anyway. Why'd you leave your better half at home, boys? If this isn't a vacation."

Langly snickered some more. "He was busy."

Bets let out a peal of laughter that earned her glances from half the guys at the bar. Her blonde ponytail earned her a few second glances. Darcy smiled and put a proprietary arm around her.

"Mulder lose the handcuff keys again?" Bets asked, leering.

Byers managed not to blush too much. "Not that I'm aware of. How long have you been with these two, Richie?"

Darcy grinned. "Three months. We're awful proud of him."

Bets laughed again. "Yeah, he's got the record. By, let's see, two months and three weeks."

Darcy grinned wider. "He even passed the test. Tell them what he said when you hit on him, Bets."

"He said, 'Well, you're the bosses'."

"Yeah, she wasn't serious, though," Von Sant observed in disappointment. "I figured I'd have a hell of a harassment case."

Langly laughed himself into tears. Bets pounded him on the back. "We're keepin' this one," she informed them mischievously. "Sometimes you just need a Dick around."

Von Sant smiled. "Delighted to be of service, ladies."

Byers did blush, and excused himself politely. "I'll be right back. I need to make a call."

Bets watched him go, smirking. "I'll bet. What's the matter, Langly, you haven't convinced him yet?"

Langly managed to stop laughing. "Oh, sure, he's convinced. He's just a little more restrained than you chicks."

"Just don't lose the handcuff key," Darcy advised solemnly. "Locksmiths can be so damned patronizing."

Langly grinned back at them. "Yeah, but at least we don't have to cut sleeves out of a shirt before we call him."

Bets giggled. "Strapless."

The laughter was interrupted by Byers, returning with another round of drinks. "Mel says hi," he told the gals.

Darcy sulked. "And you didn't let us talk to him?"

Langly grinned. "Hey, you have his number, you can pay for your own obscene calls."

Bets laughed. "Last time, I called collect. He accepted."

Byers made a face. "He would."

Bets slapped him on the back. "Don't be jealous, John. I'll call for you next time, okay?"

Langly laughed. "You'd have better luck with Jimmy."

Bets leered. "Now that sounds like a good time."

Langly snickered into his coffee. "Yesterday he had Drose after him. Today, it's you two." He looked Jimmy over. "I just don't see the appeal."

Darcy nudged Langly. "You like 'em smart. We like 'em tall."

Langly grinned at Byers. "He's tall."

Bets winked. "True."

Darcy laughed. "And so here we are, in the middle of Minnesota, having lunch with four gorgeous dolls. You never did say what you were doing out here."

"Passing through," Byers offered.

"Story," Langly said shortly.

Bets pouted. "C'mon, boys, you can do better than that. Give us something, so we can expense this."

Byers smiled and handed over a CD-ROM. "Here. See what you can make of this."

Darcy stared at the neat writing on it. "Seriously?" she asked.

Bets leaned over to have a look. "Fuck me!" she exclaimed. "Photos?"

"They're not that good," Byers apologized. "But I typed up an account and put it on there too."

"Richie, go get the laptop," Bets ordered. "I wanna see this."

Richie sighed, but headed out for the rental.

"The Blue Thing," Darcy said. "That's pretty far out."

Langly snickered. "Who says 'far out' anymore?"

"I can say a lot of other things, too," she informed him loftily. "Want to hear some of them?"

Langly grinned. "No, that's okay. You start in with that, and Byers'll have to go call somebody again, and he'll never finish his lunch."

Byers stood up. "You go ahead. I'm going to get some more coffee. Can I bring anyone else anything?"

Darcy regarded him carefully. "You do look tired, John. Langly keep you awake all night?"

Langly snorted. "I wish."

Bets snickered. "Jimmy keep you awake all night?"

Byers sighed as they all broke into laughter. "I'll be right back."

**

There was only so much coffee could do, though, and Byers was in need of a miracle, or another five hours of sleep. At some point in the afternoon, he found himself gazing blankly out the window as pastures, woods, and lakes slid by.

"Jimmy?"

Jimmy stopped arguing with Langly about the radio station long enough to answer. "Yeah?"

"I guess you'd better pull over." Even to himself his voice sounded leaden.

Langly turned to look at him. "You okay? You're not gonna throw up or anything? It's this music, isn't it. 'True Colors', for Chrissakes. Sucks."

He shook his head and pointed as Jimmy pulled off the road. Langly looked over, and then stared, jaw dropping.

Byers sighed. "I guess it's not a log."

Langly shook his head. "Uh, no." He reached for the camera.

"Make sure you take the lens cap off," Byers said dully.

Ten minutes later, with the surface of Bass Lake broken only by a muddy ripple, Langly inspected the display.

"Okay," Byers said, "tell me the bad news."

Langly shrugged. "You remember those pictures of Champy the librarian took?"

Jimmy was still staring out at the lake. "That was way cool."

Langly glanced at Byers. "You wanna wait and see if it comes up again, closer to shore?"

Byers rubbed his hand across his face. "I want a drink."

"Me too."

**

When they spotted another curious lump at Leech Lake, they didn't even bother to wake Byers up. They just kept driving.

"It's a rock," Langly told Jimmy.

"Rocks don't have heads."

"I didn't see a head."

"You had your eyes closed."

"I didn't see a head."

"Maybe it was a giant leech."

Langly shuddered. "Gross."

**

They didn't have much choice at Rice Lake though. The road was strewn with pickups, SUVs, and news vans, and they literally weren't able to get past. Langly sighed and pulled over. He and Jimmy glared at each other for a few moments, but when Byers started to stir, Langly surrendered with bad grace.

"Gimme the fuckin' camera."

Byers pulled out his earplugs. "What's up?" he asked groggily.

Langly silently recited five of the seven dirty words and then pasted a Zirconite-quality smile across his face. "Just going to see if I can't take a couple shots of my thumb," he said brightly.

Byers sighed and followed them.

A cluster of people stood around a man wearing a hat with the legend "Show Us Your Bobbers", who was being photographed with an extremely large, extremely ugly fish.

"What's going on?" Jimmy asked the nearest man.

"Hawg," the man offered. "Twenty-one two."

Jimmy blinked. "Huh?"

The man frowned. "Bass, son. Big ol' bass."

"Oh." Jimmy nodded, not much enlightened.

The man turned on him with the zeal of an evangelist. "Biggest largemouth ever was George Perry's twenty-two four. Perry used a Chubb Wiggle Fish. Pat Ray here's using Yozuri Lures. Tandem squid rig. He's out here every damned day, never caught anything bigger than twelve pounds. Before today."

Jimmy nodded out of general amiability. "So this one is how big again?"

"Twenty-one two. It's a good catch, for here anyway. Fidel Castro's got bass in Cuba that'd make Perry's look like a minnow. We ought to just bomb that Commie bastard. But this guy," he jerked a finger at the happy fisherman, "he's set for life. Not like that clown in California. Catch and release my ass."

Langly sighed. "So it's just a fish?"

The man stopped viewing Jimmy as a potential member of the Pro-Bass fraternity and glared. "You ought to keep your girlfriend the hell away from bass lakes till she learns some manners."

Byers grabbed Langly and put a hand over his mouth. "We'll just be going now. Come on, Jimmy."

As they made their way back to the bus, phrases leapt out from the excited crowd. "Jig-hopping", "stroking", "double-spoons".

"Now this is an alien species," Byers commented dryly. "I'm just glad I don't know what they're talking about."

**

"Good timing. We're headed to the airport in less than half an hour. Anything new happening?"

Byers sighed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Elvis?"

"No. Much worse."

"Bigfoot?"

"I wish people would stop saying that. Bigfoot is a hoax. Everybody knows that."

"Are you gettin' enough sleep, Byers? You seem pretty grumpy."

"No, I'm not. And I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine. It's just weird, and I don't want to talk about it."

"You're acting squirrelly again. Did the kid decide he wanted a sex change?"

"Not funny, Mel."

"Sorry. Look, you've got me worried, Byers."

"Lake monsters," Byers spit out abruptly.

"Lake what? What kind of lake monsters?"

"The kind that have actual heads and aren't sturgeons or turtles."

Frohike pondered it. "Mulder said there was a Colossal Claude sighting in Puget Sound…"

"We saw the damned thing, Fro."

"Colossal Claude?"

"No. Some damned lake monster in the middle of Minnesota. Bass Lake."

"You're sure it wasn't a bass?"

Byers nearly growled. "Yes, very. We got mired in a bass contest a couple of hours later. I know what a fish looks like, okay? They don't have long necks."

"Gar do…"

"We have pictures. They're fuzzy and distant, but it's not a fish. There have been monster sightings all over this state this week, according to the Pattersons. I gave them the Blue Thing pictures," he added irritably

"Jesus, Byers. Maybe you should dip into the Valium. You've never come unglued over a lake monster before. You're acting like it ate your dog."

"Also not funny," Byers snapped.

"Look, buddy, why don't you check into a nice motel and get yourself laid, okay?"

"Fuck you too." Byers disconnected, leaving Frohike staring at the receiver, and wondering what the fuck had gotten into the boy.

**

Dinner was pizza, ham and pineapple. Not Byers' favorite, but Langly wanted no part of hamburgers or fish, and seemed ready to freak out over the pepperoni. Nobody was in the best of moods by the time they found a hotel, which they did while the sun was still up. Byers wasn't taking any more chances. At this rate, Elvis was just around the corner, but at least he wasn't manning the desk at the Motel Six in Fargo. Not the Tuesday evening shift, at any rate.

Frankly, as long as he wasn't working the Wednesday morning shift, either, Byers couldn't have cared less.

Jimmy had volunteered to find a laundromat, and Langly was raiding a nearby convenience store for Hostess and Sweetarts, so Byers decided to see if a bath would help alleviate his admittedly foul mood. He climbed into the hot water and sighed.

Frohike was right, of course. It was hardly his first lake monster, and they'd never really bothered him much before. He was still musing on it when he heard the door open and close, heralding the triumphant return of Langly with Snickers and Ding Dongs.

Langly wandered into the bathroom and gave John a lecherous once-over before launching into his complaints against the state of North Dakota. "The guy at the store had never even heard of Jolt, John. Why the fuck do I keep letting you drag me out of civilization on these fucking stories?"

"Fargo is hardly the untamed jungle, Ringo," he replied mildly.

Langly glared. "Prove it."

"They did offer to put cashews on the pizza."

"That just means they're crazy yokels."

"That's one of the things I love about you. Your unconditional acceptance of all people."

Langly snorted. "Yeah, well, they just better get Comedy Central," he said, stalking back to the bedroom.

Byers sank deeper into the hot water. Eventually, the water started to cool, and he reached for one of the tiny towels, feeling quite a bit better.

Langly, watching The Daily Show from the night before, leered at him as he tried to keep the towel somewhere in the vicinity of his waist.

"Took you long enough. I thought you'd been eaten by a lake monster."

"In the bathtub?"

"It is a Motel Six."

"It's clean. That's all that matters." Byers sighed, abandoned the towel, and his modesty, and flopped onto the bed beside his terminally aggravating lover. "You could've joined me."

Langly rolled over and grinned at him. "Wanna see my lake monster, do ya?"

Byers covered his face with his hands. "God, that's sad."

Langly laughed and leaned in to nuzzle at John's damp hair. "I call him 'Super'. Wanna know why?"

"I hope it has to do with the Great Lakes."

"I guess that works too."

"I think it's a chemical imbalance."

Langly snickered. "Hormonal."

"No…" John shook his head. "I mean me. I'm lying here naked on a hotel bedspread I know can't have been washed anytime recently, listening to you make terrible puns about lake monsters, after an extremely frustrating day, headed for a story that could break open everything I want to know, and all I really want at this second is to fuck you senseless, lake monster jokes or not. You can't tell me that's normal."

Langly chortled in his ear. "Fuck normal. Normal is boring. If I wanted normal I'd be sleeping with—" Langly paused to consider it. "Actually, do we even know anybody normal?"

Byers thought about it, as much as he could, anyway. It was difficult to concentrate with Langly playing with the hair at his nape and breathing into his ear. "Does Scully count?"

Langly snorted. "Not anymore, and it's just as well. She'd kick my ass."

Byers chuckled. "I don't know, Cutie. You might have a shot."

"Johnny!"

Byers laughed at his outraged yelp. "Look at it this way. Mel'd kill for her to call him that."

Langly continued to sulk. "I'm not Mel."

John slid his t-shirt up and ran his fingertips along the younger man's spine. "I know." He watched him shiver and moved back to follow fingers up with tongue. "I know exactly who you are," he mumbled as Langly moaned softly. "You're my annoying… insane…" he emphasized each word with a tiny nip, "…impulsive… immature… arrogant…" Langly gave some thought to protesting, but then one of John's hands slipped under his stomach and into his jeans, and he decided to worry about it later, "…brilliant… hormonal… totally hedonistic…" John's mouth had reached the back of his neck and he arched into it, "…melodramatic… co-worker," John finished.

"What?" Langly tried to roll over to face him, blinking. "What?"

John laughed, the low chuckle that sent ripples through Langly's body even when he was across the room from him. "Just seeing if you were paying attention."

Langly sighed. "I was, but not really to what you were saying." He thought about it for a moment. "Immature? Really?"

Byers kept at it. "You spent twenty minutes today arguing with Jimmy about what kind of crust you wanted on the pizza."

"He started it."

"Totally immature."

"I like to think of it as youthful energy."

Byers wasn't just nuzzling his shoulder, he was undoing his fly, one button at a time. "I can go along with that. You have any plans for that youthful energy of yours?"

Langly squirmed against the clever hand. "Anything goes in a Motel Six."

"True. Roll over."

Langly was slow to comply, and Byers grabbed his hardening cock and gave a squeeze. Langly yelped, and did his best. Byers let go and pushed the front of his t-shirt up to his neck, too, trailing feather light kisses along his sternum.

Langly closed his eyes and twisted his hands into John's thick hair, concentrating on the hot breaths against him. "Oh, God," he mumbled. "Oh…"

But that other hand was still at his fly, working his jeans down, taking every opportunity of skin against skin. Langly stretched his head back, hips lifting off the bed, trying to get closer. When the hand left his neck, he nearly whimpered, only to find it again, sliding his jeans down his ass. He raised his hips higher, all the help he could give with that mouth sucking gently at his jaw.

"Please…"

John muttered—something—into the sensitive spot just under his jawbone. Langly was having a hard time paying attention to anything but the feel of John's beard against him. All too soon it disappeared, John's lips sliding down his chest and down, down, following the dusting of fine hairs that led to his navel.

"Johnny—" was as far as he got before Byers took him in his mouth. "Oh, God—"

Langly groaned softly as Byers slid a hand over his hip and traced the jut of his pelvis. Byers laughed a little, and the tremors spread through Langly's body. John stroked his balls with light touches, and swallowed him to the root. Langly froze, mumbling frantically, and came, thrusting against John for all he was worth.

John pulled away and rested his head in Langly's lap, watching the younger man gasp for breath. Langly panted, running his hands restlessly through John's hair.

"Oh, God. You—Oh. Oh, God," Langly managed.

Byers laughed, and Langly grabbed his head in both hands and pulled him up for a desperate kiss. He threw himself limply back against the pillows, pulling Byers with him. John shifted to lay his head on Langly's heaving chest, chuckling softly.

Langly stroked his beard with compulsive gestures, his breath slowing to a sigh. "Jesus, you're good, Johnny."

Byers smiled wickedly. "You don't know the half of it, Ri."

Langly laughed raggedly. "There's more?"

"You better believe it. After all…"

"Anything goes in a Motel Six."

**

*Next up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes VII: Do Abductees Dream of Alien Sheep? In which Langly has an unpleasant encounter with the forces of global evil, and Frohike and J. Wayne check out the menu at the Interstellar House of Pancakes, all while the author adjusts her medications.*