Categories > Original > Romance > Gratuitous Sax and Senselss Violins
Somewhere, far from the fancy arts district where large and grandiose was the main scheme, where buildings were bright and well-lit and clean and new, where glass outlined in thin aluminum strips curving in script-like patterns made up most of the walls, where people would pay other people to drive their cars and hold their coats and doors, where everybody dressed nice and talked nicer, there was a comfortable little cafe known as the Panicking Zebbra. It wasn't that it was dirty or ugly or anything, really. In fact, loyal regulars of the Zebbra will solemnly swear that it is the indisputable best place to be in town. While small and out of the way, it more than made up for lack of show by possessing much charm and character. It was cozy and usually packed in the late evenings, but there was always ample elbow room, and even the obligatory shady corner for some brooding angstball to occupy while nursing a few stiff drinks in an attempt to make the pains of the world fade away.
The usual crowd wasn't a bad cross-section of society; businessmen occasionally stopped by to get a bite to eat or a quick drink on their way home, and they might rub elbows with the local starving novelist trying to crank out another fifty thousand words before the rapidly approaching deadline at the end of the month. Quite often sections of tables could be dominated by groups of students from the university, as the Zebra was parked just a few blocks off campus. Then there would always be the inevitable loafers who just liked to sit around at the bar, drinking and smoking away their meager earnings while swapping sex stories with each other just because they have absolutely nothing better to do with their time.
Most nights, there would be some musical group scheduled to provide entertainment for the customers from what was less a stage and more a platform raised one step up from the ground level, shoved off into the corner and surrounded by a small army of floodlights to point out the performers to anyone who cared to look. The night's act had to bring their own audio setup, as the Zebbra provided nothing else besides several power outlets.
The musicians booked to play were likely never to make it really big, nor did they have much a tendency to be amazingly good, but usually just the standard local band or performer looking for somewhere to make some quick money to pay for their next few meals. But they were passionate about their performance and fairly proficient at whatever music they played, and in the event that a given group really did sound terrible, those sitting in the audience were more likely to drink until the music sounded better rather than boo the poor musicians off the stage.
This particular evening, the entertainment for the night was provided by a lone saxophone player. He had no accompaniment or support musicians with him, and seemed just content to perch on a high stool and let his smooth melodies drift over people's conversations without the aid of a microphone. For those sitting all the way across the room, they could hardly even make out his playing, the only indication that he was there being the glare of overdone lighting reflecting off the shiny metal keys as he manipulated them, swaying gently to his own music.
Few people actually paid much attention to him.
At one point, the door slammed open with a violent TING-A-LING as the little set of bells dangling from the handle loudly protested at the overeager jostling. Mercutio followed the door in a similar hurried manner, his hair dripping from a recent shower, the shoulders of his jacket damp from the runoff. A black clothed violin case bounced from his hip as he took a few steps back and forth, scanning the room, searching.
"Mercutio, over here!"
If that loud, obnoxiously brash voice didn't yank his attention over like a dog on a short chain, then the most brightly clothed arm in the room waving emphatically from the far end of the bar probably would have. In the unlikely even that he had somehow missed both, eventually he would have spotted that painfully bright orange crop of hair waving from a red headband that, instead of taming it down, somehow made all that hair ever so much wilder.
This flamboyantly colorful individual was Nicolas Larke, one of the three violinists in the trio act Mercutio performed with. In fact, he had been expecting to play at the Zebbra tonight, where the group, which called themselves Senseless Violins, found themselves playing on a fairly regular basis.
"We're...not playing tonight?" Mercutio seemed rather puzzled as he joined Nicolas at the bar, pushing his violin case under the stools for safekeeping.
"Yeah, Lou bumped us out for that sax player, just for tonight. He said they go way back or something," explained Nicolas, nodding across the room where the mentioned sax player was very thoroughly enjoying his solo act, so engrossed in his own playing that he probably could honestly care less if anyone was listening to him at all. Granted, he was a very good player from what they could make out all the way across the room, but he was also costing the Violins a night's pay. And this wasn't exactly the first time that Lou, who owned and managed the Zebbra, made a last-minute change in the performance schedule and decided to leave them in the dark about it until the very last minute.
"Well, what can you do? Forget about it, we're playing tomorrow night, anyway." This soft reassurance came from Stefan, the third member of Senseless Violins. He sat on the other side of Nicolas, unnoticed by Mercutio until now, when he just spoke up, seeming to have read Mercutio's feelings. Which actually wasn't all that hard, considering the fact that his annoyance was plastered all over his face as if he had just been smacked with a wet, rotting trout.
It wasn't uncommon for Stefan to go unnoticed until doing something to otherwise cause someone to acknowledge his presence. His dress was always rather plain, dull browns and greys which people instinctively don't focus on, especially when placed next to such an ostentations display of color as Nicolas liked to flaunt. Even his speech was quiet and unobtrusive, forcing everyone around him to be silent and listen closely if they hoped to hear what he had to say. He sat hunched over the bar, no food or drink in front of him; occasionally he looked up at whoever he was addressing, or to watch someone passing by with dark green eyes, peering from beneath a curtain of long nearly-black hair, constantly holding an expression comparable to that of a dog left out in the rain.
The notion of opposites attracting was proved true here, as Nicolas had been the one to bring Stefan in out of the rain, and two have shared an inexplicable bond ever since. As Stefan drew back into himself and quietly contemplated the dark wood grain of the surface of the bar, his speaking quota for the night fulfilled, Nicolas gently rubbed the palm of his hand in circles along his lover's back, vain attempt to cheer him up, though he knew Stefan was basically lodged in the same mood forever. Then again, all three of them were fairly disappointed in losing a night's worth of playing, and it probably wouldn't do them any good to sit around at a bar, moping around about not getting to perform while listening to the guy who stole their slot. Maybe a change of subject would be appropriate.
"So, Romeo, who'd you meet up with that's got you so late tonight, anyway?" One of the ways Nicolas spent to amuse himself was to apply stupid nicknames to everyone in sight. Mercutio especially made an ideal target for this game, not only because he had a name so easy to make fun of, but because he was also easily annoyed by it.
"What do you mean by who?" Mercutio shot back, choosing to ignore the double pun on his name.
"Well, you run in here panting, wet, and glowing like a prom queen; if you didn't just get laid, then you can fuck me silly with a fish."
"You'll have to find me a fish, then. I didn't exactly get laid."
"Oh, so then you did meet someone? Who's the unlucky victim who gets to put up with you now? Is it anyone I know?" Chances are that if it was someone Nicolas knew, it was probably because he's bedded them at least once. And the chances of meeting someone he knew were fairly high.
"Absolutely nobody."
"Embarrassed? Must be a real freak you've found, Merkie-baby! Now, don't be like that...here, have a drink. Enjoy this wonderful jazz. And have faith that I'll soon figure this all out anyway. I know you like none other, remember that."
"That's quite alright. I think I'm going home now." By the time the offered drink was slid down the counter to him, Mercutio was already under the bar, freeing his violin case from where the strap had somehow tangled around one of the barstools.
"Let me know if I can help you kill some kittens, then! I'll be more than glad to rid the world of a few more felines; you know how I'm allergic."
Mercutio responded to Nicolas's blatant proposition with what would have been a thumbs up, except the finger he chose to use was most definitely not a thumb. He threw a handful of change into the saxophone player's overflowing case, thinking about how that could have been in his pockets instead, and left the Zebbra with the same TING-A-LING which had welcomed him in earlier.
The rather cool mid-October city weather greeted him on the street like a sudden chill hitting him first in the face before thoroughly permeating through the rest of his body. His hair was still rather wet, and after being used to sitting in a warm, cozy cafe, autumn temperatures aren't very kind to damp heads. Shivering as this cold, wet mop of hair clung to his face and neck, Mercutio hurried down the dark streets to his apartment building, just off the university campus and less than a few blocks from the Zebbra itself.
His apartment was a welcoming little ball of warmth that jumped all over him and licked his face like a hyperly spasmodic insanely twitchy yappy little puppy dog. Only it didn't shed, never needed to be walked, didn't wake up the neighbors with loud requests for food at midnight, and didn't cost a fortune for a visit to the veterinarian. It was, after all, only a modest little three-room apartment which didn't do much more besides sit on the second floor of the building and provide Mercutio with a place to eat and sleep.
While this housing wasn't provided by the university, most of the upperclassmen found it convenient to make it their place of dwelling, as it was so close to campus that it was a shorter walk to some classes than it would have been from the on-campus housing. It was also fairly well-priced, so that in Mercutio's case, where family members didn't keep good track of exactly what he was doing as far as school was concerned and just sent him checks to pay for tuition and such, he could live decently off that money plus the cash he made playing gigs at nightclubs.
Come to think of it, it's not like he really knew what he was doing in school anyway. The only reason he ever went to class and turned in assignments now and then was to keep the scholarship money flowing so he could freely use the surplus money which came in from relatives. Who didn't know about how little he actually needed to pay for school. Which was fine with him, because if they wanted to send him free money, that was their right and his gain.
Mercutio dumped his violin off at the foot of the couch and promptly sunk down onto the brown corduroy cushions, pressing himself in face-first. It then occurred to him that his clothes were still rather damp from having a pile of wet hair dripping all over them. He peeled off his jacket without moving from his very comfortable position of being stretched out on his stomach on the couch and blindly flung it across the dark room. It landed with a muffled thump, probably on top of a stack of textbooks about discreet algebra or astronomy or something. It's not like they were ever used for anything else; they would serve the purpose of a coat rack just fine for right now.
His sweater (the same one from earlier in the evening when he took that excursion to the concert and made an interesting acquaintance - he was rather fond of that sweater) was fairly wet around the neck, but the apartment wasn't so warm that he was willing to part with it. Better wet and a little cold than drier but freezing, right?
Speaking of that interesting acquaintance, maybe tomorrow would be a great day to skip his afternoon economics class and do a little bit of stalking over at Angus Prep.
Mercutio rolled over on the couch, coming face-to-face with a miniature pumpkin. At some point in the previous week the spirit of October had caught up with him and convinced him to buy a pumpkin and display it prominently within his apartment. But by the time he got home with it, he really didn't feel like carving it up and dealing with the mess it made and eventually having a rotten pile of pumpkin pulp stinking up his living room because chances were good that he would never get around to throwing it out. Its current position was that of an over sized paperweight sitting on a pile of old sheet music stacked on a wobbly coffee table.
A pack of markers beckoned to him from underneath the table where he had shoved them after scribbling out a half-assed poster for a presentation he had to give in class several days ago. Conceding to the urgings of those magic markers, he switched on the floor lamp which hovered just above the table and retrieved them from beneath the table, pulling out a black marker. They were really cheap markers, and most of them were almost dry straight out of the box. By now the tip of the black marker was hard and crunchy and emitted that cheap, dried-out marker smell. He rubbed it over the smooth surface of the pumpkin, but despite all the squeaky noises it made, it left no mark. Counting on the fact that children's markers are almost always nontoxic, he popped the tip of the marker into his mouth and gave it a good once-over with his tongue, thoroughly wetting it.
Getting a dish of water would probably be safer. And not leave a nasty aftertaste.
Several more rounds of licking and scribbling later, the semblance of a face was more or less doodled on the pumpkin. Scratched would probably be a more accurate description; the tip of the black marker was rather sharp and tough, being so dry, and the outer skin of the pumpkin was easily cut into.
The black marker was completely spent. Mercutio chucked it over his shoulder, and had the marker a mouth, vocal cords, and lungs, not to mention a brain with which to comprehend its imminent doom, it surely would have screamed for its pitiful little life as it pitched end over end like a circus acrobat and bounced off the wall. It landed behind the couch, rolling through cobwebs to stop underneath the couch amidst a pile of dust bunnies.
With that taken care of, Mercutio fished around in the box, uncapping every marker, looking for one that wasn't so dry that he'd have to risk ink poisoning again just to convince it to work. Each one flew over his shoulder, following the same trajectory set by the black marker, and forming an ever-growing pile of dead markers behind the couch. From the purple marker, he managed to squeeze out enough ink to color in the eyes. Then he convinced the red marker to bleed the remnants of its life across the pumpkin's face to somewhat resemble a blush.
Mercutio sat the Hammie-pumpkin back on the table, admiring his work. Actually, it wasn't much more than a glorified, blushing smiley face with purple pupils. Well, he was a musician, not an artist, so as long as he knew what it represented, that was all that really mattered in the end. Aesthetic value was overrated, anyway.
Taking the pumpkin into the bedroom, he set it down on his shiny black dresser where it kept a close eye on him as he changed into a set of striped red silk pajamas and crawled onto his double bed. He laid on his back for several minutes, just staring across the room, staring at the pumpkin head and pondering. The bed was rather large and empty tonight.
He jumped out of bed and grabbed Hammie-pumpkin off the dresser, tucking it in, nestled comfortably into the pillow, navy blue sheets pulled around what would have been shoulders if it were any more than just a pumpkin head. He climbed in only after making sure Hammie-pumpkin was all nice and cozy, pulling the covers up to his own neck.
"Goodnight, Alexander Hamilton. Don't hog the blanket."
The usual crowd wasn't a bad cross-section of society; businessmen occasionally stopped by to get a bite to eat or a quick drink on their way home, and they might rub elbows with the local starving novelist trying to crank out another fifty thousand words before the rapidly approaching deadline at the end of the month. Quite often sections of tables could be dominated by groups of students from the university, as the Zebra was parked just a few blocks off campus. Then there would always be the inevitable loafers who just liked to sit around at the bar, drinking and smoking away their meager earnings while swapping sex stories with each other just because they have absolutely nothing better to do with their time.
Most nights, there would be some musical group scheduled to provide entertainment for the customers from what was less a stage and more a platform raised one step up from the ground level, shoved off into the corner and surrounded by a small army of floodlights to point out the performers to anyone who cared to look. The night's act had to bring their own audio setup, as the Zebbra provided nothing else besides several power outlets.
The musicians booked to play were likely never to make it really big, nor did they have much a tendency to be amazingly good, but usually just the standard local band or performer looking for somewhere to make some quick money to pay for their next few meals. But they were passionate about their performance and fairly proficient at whatever music they played, and in the event that a given group really did sound terrible, those sitting in the audience were more likely to drink until the music sounded better rather than boo the poor musicians off the stage.
This particular evening, the entertainment for the night was provided by a lone saxophone player. He had no accompaniment or support musicians with him, and seemed just content to perch on a high stool and let his smooth melodies drift over people's conversations without the aid of a microphone. For those sitting all the way across the room, they could hardly even make out his playing, the only indication that he was there being the glare of overdone lighting reflecting off the shiny metal keys as he manipulated them, swaying gently to his own music.
Few people actually paid much attention to him.
At one point, the door slammed open with a violent TING-A-LING as the little set of bells dangling from the handle loudly protested at the overeager jostling. Mercutio followed the door in a similar hurried manner, his hair dripping from a recent shower, the shoulders of his jacket damp from the runoff. A black clothed violin case bounced from his hip as he took a few steps back and forth, scanning the room, searching.
"Mercutio, over here!"
If that loud, obnoxiously brash voice didn't yank his attention over like a dog on a short chain, then the most brightly clothed arm in the room waving emphatically from the far end of the bar probably would have. In the unlikely even that he had somehow missed both, eventually he would have spotted that painfully bright orange crop of hair waving from a red headband that, instead of taming it down, somehow made all that hair ever so much wilder.
This flamboyantly colorful individual was Nicolas Larke, one of the three violinists in the trio act Mercutio performed with. In fact, he had been expecting to play at the Zebbra tonight, where the group, which called themselves Senseless Violins, found themselves playing on a fairly regular basis.
"We're...not playing tonight?" Mercutio seemed rather puzzled as he joined Nicolas at the bar, pushing his violin case under the stools for safekeeping.
"Yeah, Lou bumped us out for that sax player, just for tonight. He said they go way back or something," explained Nicolas, nodding across the room where the mentioned sax player was very thoroughly enjoying his solo act, so engrossed in his own playing that he probably could honestly care less if anyone was listening to him at all. Granted, he was a very good player from what they could make out all the way across the room, but he was also costing the Violins a night's pay. And this wasn't exactly the first time that Lou, who owned and managed the Zebbra, made a last-minute change in the performance schedule and decided to leave them in the dark about it until the very last minute.
"Well, what can you do? Forget about it, we're playing tomorrow night, anyway." This soft reassurance came from Stefan, the third member of Senseless Violins. He sat on the other side of Nicolas, unnoticed by Mercutio until now, when he just spoke up, seeming to have read Mercutio's feelings. Which actually wasn't all that hard, considering the fact that his annoyance was plastered all over his face as if he had just been smacked with a wet, rotting trout.
It wasn't uncommon for Stefan to go unnoticed until doing something to otherwise cause someone to acknowledge his presence. His dress was always rather plain, dull browns and greys which people instinctively don't focus on, especially when placed next to such an ostentations display of color as Nicolas liked to flaunt. Even his speech was quiet and unobtrusive, forcing everyone around him to be silent and listen closely if they hoped to hear what he had to say. He sat hunched over the bar, no food or drink in front of him; occasionally he looked up at whoever he was addressing, or to watch someone passing by with dark green eyes, peering from beneath a curtain of long nearly-black hair, constantly holding an expression comparable to that of a dog left out in the rain.
The notion of opposites attracting was proved true here, as Nicolas had been the one to bring Stefan in out of the rain, and two have shared an inexplicable bond ever since. As Stefan drew back into himself and quietly contemplated the dark wood grain of the surface of the bar, his speaking quota for the night fulfilled, Nicolas gently rubbed the palm of his hand in circles along his lover's back, vain attempt to cheer him up, though he knew Stefan was basically lodged in the same mood forever. Then again, all three of them were fairly disappointed in losing a night's worth of playing, and it probably wouldn't do them any good to sit around at a bar, moping around about not getting to perform while listening to the guy who stole their slot. Maybe a change of subject would be appropriate.
"So, Romeo, who'd you meet up with that's got you so late tonight, anyway?" One of the ways Nicolas spent to amuse himself was to apply stupid nicknames to everyone in sight. Mercutio especially made an ideal target for this game, not only because he had a name so easy to make fun of, but because he was also easily annoyed by it.
"What do you mean by who?" Mercutio shot back, choosing to ignore the double pun on his name.
"Well, you run in here panting, wet, and glowing like a prom queen; if you didn't just get laid, then you can fuck me silly with a fish."
"You'll have to find me a fish, then. I didn't exactly get laid."
"Oh, so then you did meet someone? Who's the unlucky victim who gets to put up with you now? Is it anyone I know?" Chances are that if it was someone Nicolas knew, it was probably because he's bedded them at least once. And the chances of meeting someone he knew were fairly high.
"Absolutely nobody."
"Embarrassed? Must be a real freak you've found, Merkie-baby! Now, don't be like that...here, have a drink. Enjoy this wonderful jazz. And have faith that I'll soon figure this all out anyway. I know you like none other, remember that."
"That's quite alright. I think I'm going home now." By the time the offered drink was slid down the counter to him, Mercutio was already under the bar, freeing his violin case from where the strap had somehow tangled around one of the barstools.
"Let me know if I can help you kill some kittens, then! I'll be more than glad to rid the world of a few more felines; you know how I'm allergic."
Mercutio responded to Nicolas's blatant proposition with what would have been a thumbs up, except the finger he chose to use was most definitely not a thumb. He threw a handful of change into the saxophone player's overflowing case, thinking about how that could have been in his pockets instead, and left the Zebbra with the same TING-A-LING which had welcomed him in earlier.
The rather cool mid-October city weather greeted him on the street like a sudden chill hitting him first in the face before thoroughly permeating through the rest of his body. His hair was still rather wet, and after being used to sitting in a warm, cozy cafe, autumn temperatures aren't very kind to damp heads. Shivering as this cold, wet mop of hair clung to his face and neck, Mercutio hurried down the dark streets to his apartment building, just off the university campus and less than a few blocks from the Zebbra itself.
His apartment was a welcoming little ball of warmth that jumped all over him and licked his face like a hyperly spasmodic insanely twitchy yappy little puppy dog. Only it didn't shed, never needed to be walked, didn't wake up the neighbors with loud requests for food at midnight, and didn't cost a fortune for a visit to the veterinarian. It was, after all, only a modest little three-room apartment which didn't do much more besides sit on the second floor of the building and provide Mercutio with a place to eat and sleep.
While this housing wasn't provided by the university, most of the upperclassmen found it convenient to make it their place of dwelling, as it was so close to campus that it was a shorter walk to some classes than it would have been from the on-campus housing. It was also fairly well-priced, so that in Mercutio's case, where family members didn't keep good track of exactly what he was doing as far as school was concerned and just sent him checks to pay for tuition and such, he could live decently off that money plus the cash he made playing gigs at nightclubs.
Come to think of it, it's not like he really knew what he was doing in school anyway. The only reason he ever went to class and turned in assignments now and then was to keep the scholarship money flowing so he could freely use the surplus money which came in from relatives. Who didn't know about how little he actually needed to pay for school. Which was fine with him, because if they wanted to send him free money, that was their right and his gain.
Mercutio dumped his violin off at the foot of the couch and promptly sunk down onto the brown corduroy cushions, pressing himself in face-first. It then occurred to him that his clothes were still rather damp from having a pile of wet hair dripping all over them. He peeled off his jacket without moving from his very comfortable position of being stretched out on his stomach on the couch and blindly flung it across the dark room. It landed with a muffled thump, probably on top of a stack of textbooks about discreet algebra or astronomy or something. It's not like they were ever used for anything else; they would serve the purpose of a coat rack just fine for right now.
His sweater (the same one from earlier in the evening when he took that excursion to the concert and made an interesting acquaintance - he was rather fond of that sweater) was fairly wet around the neck, but the apartment wasn't so warm that he was willing to part with it. Better wet and a little cold than drier but freezing, right?
Speaking of that interesting acquaintance, maybe tomorrow would be a great day to skip his afternoon economics class and do a little bit of stalking over at Angus Prep.
Mercutio rolled over on the couch, coming face-to-face with a miniature pumpkin. At some point in the previous week the spirit of October had caught up with him and convinced him to buy a pumpkin and display it prominently within his apartment. But by the time he got home with it, he really didn't feel like carving it up and dealing with the mess it made and eventually having a rotten pile of pumpkin pulp stinking up his living room because chances were good that he would never get around to throwing it out. Its current position was that of an over sized paperweight sitting on a pile of old sheet music stacked on a wobbly coffee table.
A pack of markers beckoned to him from underneath the table where he had shoved them after scribbling out a half-assed poster for a presentation he had to give in class several days ago. Conceding to the urgings of those magic markers, he switched on the floor lamp which hovered just above the table and retrieved them from beneath the table, pulling out a black marker. They were really cheap markers, and most of them were almost dry straight out of the box. By now the tip of the black marker was hard and crunchy and emitted that cheap, dried-out marker smell. He rubbed it over the smooth surface of the pumpkin, but despite all the squeaky noises it made, it left no mark. Counting on the fact that children's markers are almost always nontoxic, he popped the tip of the marker into his mouth and gave it a good once-over with his tongue, thoroughly wetting it.
Getting a dish of water would probably be safer. And not leave a nasty aftertaste.
Several more rounds of licking and scribbling later, the semblance of a face was more or less doodled on the pumpkin. Scratched would probably be a more accurate description; the tip of the black marker was rather sharp and tough, being so dry, and the outer skin of the pumpkin was easily cut into.
The black marker was completely spent. Mercutio chucked it over his shoulder, and had the marker a mouth, vocal cords, and lungs, not to mention a brain with which to comprehend its imminent doom, it surely would have screamed for its pitiful little life as it pitched end over end like a circus acrobat and bounced off the wall. It landed behind the couch, rolling through cobwebs to stop underneath the couch amidst a pile of dust bunnies.
With that taken care of, Mercutio fished around in the box, uncapping every marker, looking for one that wasn't so dry that he'd have to risk ink poisoning again just to convince it to work. Each one flew over his shoulder, following the same trajectory set by the black marker, and forming an ever-growing pile of dead markers behind the couch. From the purple marker, he managed to squeeze out enough ink to color in the eyes. Then he convinced the red marker to bleed the remnants of its life across the pumpkin's face to somewhat resemble a blush.
Mercutio sat the Hammie-pumpkin back on the table, admiring his work. Actually, it wasn't much more than a glorified, blushing smiley face with purple pupils. Well, he was a musician, not an artist, so as long as he knew what it represented, that was all that really mattered in the end. Aesthetic value was overrated, anyway.
Taking the pumpkin into the bedroom, he set it down on his shiny black dresser where it kept a close eye on him as he changed into a set of striped red silk pajamas and crawled onto his double bed. He laid on his back for several minutes, just staring across the room, staring at the pumpkin head and pondering. The bed was rather large and empty tonight.
He jumped out of bed and grabbed Hammie-pumpkin off the dresser, tucking it in, nestled comfortably into the pillow, navy blue sheets pulled around what would have been shoulders if it were any more than just a pumpkin head. He climbed in only after making sure Hammie-pumpkin was all nice and cozy, pulling the covers up to his own neck.
"Goodnight, Alexander Hamilton. Don't hog the blanket."
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