Chapter Text
“I think it’s cliche to say it; but I’m not in Vinyl City anymore.” Zuke woke to the sounds of the surf and a dampness that clung to him. The sky above him was an overcast grey with no breaks in sight. Everything ached, his arms and legs felt like he’d got them second hand and his lungs burned. Dog tired, West would say.
He coughed, his chest aching. He hadn’t ever been the kind to indulge in the party rocking lifestyle so he could at least discount that being the reason he was in such a state. Another cold cloying invasion, ice water raced up to his waistband and he hissed sitting up.
He almost wished he hadn’t. “Nope...nope….no….nope.” He said looking over the horizon, slowly sweeping one way and then the other. A vast endless ocean stretched out ahead of him. Jutting out of the ocean were arms, long, stone arms. Open palmed, clenched fist, index finger extended, middle fingers unto the sky itself wrought miles high and more. Hundreds of them, thousands of arrangements of hands and arms that drifted in the sea like icebergs.
The water though that was the warning sign. It was a bright pink tone, once more it splashed up to his waist and he shuddered. Too weak to move but not wanting to stay here. As the water receded the foam seemed to extend, grow into hands and limply try and drag him back into the water.
He blinked a few times, that wasn’t real. That was for sure not a real thing that happened. He looked up in time to see the wave crash over him. The water was cold, too cold. Once the wave retreated, leaving him laying once more on his back. He spat some of the pink water and stared up at the sky above.
“Yeah...we gotta move.” He told himself rolling over and dragging his wet sopping self up the pale sandy beach. White sand, pink water...he wasn’t exactly surprised to see someone standing ahead to meet him.
“Hello, Zuke.” Prim and exact, her hands behind her back and looking exactly as she had back in college there was Eve...or Nadia. This was before Eve wasn’t it? “I’d offer you a towel but I’m afraid I’ve not got one.”
“I’m sure we can find one.” Zuke said with a grin, as strange as this was a familiar face helped. She seemed to notice the smile and gave her own soft smile in return. “How are you, Eve?”
“Better now. It’s nice to have a familiar face.”
“I was just thinking the same thing because, Eve….” He looked past her at the city ahead. “I have no idea where we are.” It looked like a postcard he saw once before, somewhere tropical West had been maybe on one of his wanderings. All the buildings seemed like vast white cubes of chalk, stacked on top of each other along a spiral walkway. There was nobody he could see but him and Eve, just the bone white city and the pink ocean.
“You don’t recall?” Eve asked him leaning to one side. “Perhaps this was not the best idea. You arriving by the ocean was certainly not planned.”
“Why is it,” he gestured with a wave toward the water, “like that.”
“The sea always fascinated me.” Eve said warmly. “It was so many things all at once and seemingly without effort. It was an obstacle for certain, a thing that was so vast and unreal that the idea of crossing it must have seemed like madness for centuries. Yet it is a provider, with a little time and effort it will provide bounties of food and wealth for those who seek it. Then at the same time it is a mystery, we may never reach the bottom of the ocean and find all the wonders it has to display unto us. The sea is so many things and this sea too is all of those things.”
Zuke nodded slowly. “The ocean is a haunting but beautiful aspect of life, influencing every creative facet at least a little.” Zuke agreed. “I meant...more...why is it the colour of pepto?”
Eve gagged at that comment and turned around, marching toward the city. “We should hurry along, Zuke! You said you had somewhere else to be!” She snapped back before he stumbled after her.
“I di-” Zuke paused. “I did!”
--- Then
Mayday held up one of Ellie’s little gator paws and one of her own hands. “See Zuke, you are outvoted by the council of good decisions and ideas!” Mayday pointed Ellie at Zuke’s phone which sat on the table with a single message on it. “Both Mayday and Ellie agree this is shady.”
Ellie made a noise.
“Shady AF even.” Mayday held her hand over the phone. “I can delete this message if you want, we can pretend you never got it.”
“Not necessary.” Zuke said from the couch. “It’s just a text from, Eve. She wants to talk to me about something.” Mayday placed Ellie on the floor and the little gator scampered off.
“Is that what it says?” Mayday held up the phone. “Are you sure it doesn’t say ‘Zuke please come run to my crazy mansion and miss BBJ’s first concert of the season.”
Zuke took the phone. “No it says; Dearest Zuke, I write to you with utmost urgency. It is rare that I would ask a favour such as this of anyone but I feel it is only you whom I can ask. Please, at your greatest haste, come to see me. I am in need of help with a current project and know not how long I can last.”
“...She writes like an old lady from those telenovellas.” Mayday said and Zuke puffed out his cheeks nodding a little at that. “It’s real...verbose. She could just say ‘yo come to the hizzie my guy.”
“I don’t think she could physically say hizzie or yo.” Zuke rubbed at his chin, no it couldn’t be done. He couldn’t imagine Eve say any of that.
“Fo rizzie?” Mayday said and Zuke looked at her. “I’ll stop.” She said smile splitting her face. “It’s just...so weirdly timed.”
“It might hurt to hear, May. But I guarantee you she has no idea we’re doing a show.” Zuke told her and Mayday clutched her heart, falling back on the couch with a strangled sound. “Unless she’s got a personal invite or it’s in her planner Eve doesn’t know we have a gig.”
“You didn’t invite her!?” Mayday sat aghast. “Invite everyone! I invited everybody I know to this thing! I even invited Neon J!”
“...Did he say yes?” Zuke asked and Mayday nodded, head almost spinglike. “Wow...this social media thing remains a big hurdle.” Zuke moved to collect his sticks from the wall. “I still gotta do this, you know?”
Mayday wanted to say something, anything about how he doesn’t and shouldn’t and no. But all that died on the way out, she could still recall the utterly unreal circumstances when they fought Eve. All of space turned against her, vast impossible locations unfurling from nowhere and being attacked by the very walls themselves. After all that, struggling through madness Zuke and Eve spoke about their lives from college.
Some incidents she had no way of learning more about and prying wouldn’t have felt right. They had something once, clearly he was integral to her and Zuke would often admit his brother and Eve both helped him find his feet creatively.
“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Mayday groaned and pointed to the ladder out of their sewer hideout. “Fine! You go help her...I dunno learn to text or whatever issue she has. But if you’re not back for three I am gonna come over there!” Mayday wielded her presence like a club.
“Of course you have my full permission to come grab me if I’m not back for three.” Zuke began to scale the ladder. “Thanks, May.”
“Blah.” Mayday waved at him to get going.
---Now
“What time is,” Zuke slapped at his pockets for his phone but couldn’t find it, he turned to look back at the ocean in the distance. “Oooh no.” He muttered an Eve turned to look at him.
“Zuke?”
“I think I lost my phone in the ocean.” Zuke turned to look at Eve. “Do you...have a cell phone, you must right?”
“Not on me.” Eve said, shrugging her shoulders. She wore a simple pair of blue jeans and a simple tan shirt. “I’m afraid I left it behind.”
“Ugh,” Zuke shuddered against the chill he felt settling in his bones, “great. Cold and no way to tell the time.” He groaned. “Can I also...ask why you...look like...you did?”
Even paused, they’d been walking past rows and rows of empty houses for a while now. Save for Zuke’s teeth and their feet on the cobbles they’d been quiet. “I suppose it feels right, for how I’m feeling. There’s a juvenile sort of essence to all of this. This problem and this solution, seems this is a reflection of that.”
“I’ve never...seen this part of your gallery before.” Zuke said as he watched the hands sway slowly in the distant sea. “An interactive exhibit like this is sure to turn heads, how did you...set it up?” He asked and Eve looked at him as if baffled. “Eve?”
“Zuke...you may have experienced some shock.” Eve said moving to his side and resting a hand on his shoulders. She could feel him shivering and held him closer, it wasn’t much but it was more warmth. He felt himself lean into it some as Eve guided him to a low wall where they sat.
“I...think I must.” He shuddered. “The cold an-” there was a loud shattering sound and Zuke sat up. Eve had kicked in the door of one of the white houses and entered casually.Zuke looked up and down the street slowly as if expecting someone to show up.
“It’s...not quite a towel.” Eve shouted from within before returning with a blanket. “But I think it should suffice!” She quickly bundled Zuke up, throwing the blanket around his shoulders and squeezing him tight.Then tighter as more arms blossomed from her back. “I’m sorry, Zuke.” She told him as she held him.
“I..umm...nothing to be sorry about.” Zuke said but Eve groaned, he felt her rest her chin on the top of his head through the blanket.
“But you’re only here because of my selfish desires.” She let out a low breath and watched the sea. Hands moving, she nudged Zuke to look. Out there in the endless pink there was what looked like some sort of vessel.
“What is that?” Zuke asked looking at it, unsure it could be real. He stood up to get closer and have a better chance at picking out the details. A vessel with sails made of stretched taut canvas, a striking figure emblazoned across the surface. Surrounded by many staring eyes, which as the sail rippled and moved would blink and the figure on the canvas would dance.
As the ship drew closer and closer the hands move, from the tips of fingers and balled up fists came fire. Great horrifying gouts of it that erased the ship. There was too many attacks to avoid, just a massacre. There wasn’t even driftwood.
“Neon J once said something about combat.” Eve told Zuke tugging on the blanket and moving him back to the wall to sit down against it. She would move the blanket as she spoke, trying to dry him absently. “He said something like; no plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
“That...sounds like Neon J.” Zuke said frankly. “A lot of people talk to Neon J…”
“See I don’t understand too much about combat but...creation is something I understand. I think it’s the same thing.” Eve’s arms seemed to bustle the blanket around Zuke and dry him with absent aggression as she spoke. “An idea can become anything, it can be a simple notion or it can become a dangerous weapon. Everything before it was, was simply an idea.”
“No idea survives first contact with the artist.” Eve went on and Zuke listened to her, the surety in her voice. “Be it because the artist lacks skill, confidence or the tools. An idea is shaped by the artist it appears in. They have to break it down, communicate it to their audience. To have their idea or their vision seen and understood is the hope of an artist.”
Eve takes a slow breath and Zuke’s head is tilted to look up at her. Was she...always taller than him? Probably right? “I understand.” Zuke said slowly. “Ideas are to the creator inherently perfect but translating them to our chosen medium at times can seem...scary.” He feels it’s not drastic enough a word but Eve nods. “What are we...am I looking at Eve? Ideas mauled beyond recognition by clumsy hands?”
“No.” Eve tells him. “A fair and correct interpretation but...what if it was...the other way.” Eve pulls the blanket from Zuke and tosses the sodden rag behind her. He’s not all the way dry but his teeth aren’t doing maracas impressions.
Eve swallowed before speaking further. “Every artist has their doubts, their worries and their fears when it comes to their ideas. Writers who’ve never written a single page lament their inability to make it perfect and so never create. Musicians who cannot catch the tune that haunts their nights and so fear playing. Painters daunted by the works that already exist and so why bother?” She shakes her head. “What if your ideas start to feel...so big that you can’t get them out? That they threaten you?”
“Eve,” Zuke’s voice was soft, “of every artist in every medium I have ever known. The idea of something being too big for you is impossible. Your shows are beyond electric, the things you do and the sounds you make,” he lets out a little breath, “blow my mind. Have always blown my mind.”
“Even still, Zuke thank you.” She said. “There’s a worry...in me recently it’s what I called you over to help me with.” She watched Zuke’s face go pale. “Zuke?”
“Oh…” He looked at Eve and swallowed. “I...Eve….can I...ask you a question?” He looked nervous now, gazing up at her soft green eyes and felt something rather unreal in the back of his mind.
--- Then
In the middle of the room was a blank canvas, a single dot in the center. Eve stood at his back as he looked at it. “Is it...a new minimalism phase?” Zuke leaned in toward the dot. “Maybe you’re trying some of that ultra-dense art, where it’s layers of micro drawings to create a singular image.”
“No.” Eve shot that down. “It’s a dot. It’s a single dot and that’s all it is Zuke.” She scowled at it. “One dot, one tiny dot...and it’s taken a lot out of me to get even that.”
“So….art block?” Zuke said with a nod. “It happens, Eve. Sucks but sometimes there’s a block or a brick or whatever that stops the pipe.”
“I am not a woman of pipes and stoppages, Zuke! I am a boundless creative dynamo! I am an unending explosion of ideas and wonders! I attack empty pages and devour blank canvases.” She raised her hands over her head and stormed across the room to a lever. Once pulled the painting that sat in the middle of the room was lifted out of view on a long chain.
“Huh.” Zuke watched it go. “That’s neat, a little punishment room for bad paintings.” He muttered with a laugh. He watched Eve as she threw herself into a big chair, shaped like an open palm. Resting her head against a pillowed index finger and bringing her legs up beside her. “Wow that bad?”
“Nothing new in weeks. No music, no art, no sculptures it’s all….locked behind a door.” Eve rubbed at her temple.” It’s why I wanted your opinion on this Zuke. You have struggled with creativity and drive countless times.”
She said this very matter of factly and he couldn’t help but nod his head to one side. “This is one of those rude to say things, Eve.”
“I’m sorry! I’m frazzled.” She threw up her hands, all of them, even the length of the wall, dozens of ornamental arms raised skyway for a moment. “I have not had...one of these moments. Creating is simply what I am here to do and the notion it can stop is an ugly one to me. How have you alleviated this?”
Zuke stuffed his hands in his pockets and considered. “Umm going for walks, listening to some music that inspires me and sometimes I just make some food and veg out.” He said leaning over the thumb of the hand to look at Eve.
“...I have done some of that. Does it have to be your food to cure this issue? I’ve not had anything you’ve made since college.” She asked earnestly and Zuke laughed at that. Eve sat up and her eyes narrowed. “What is funny, Zuke?”
“No. No, any food. I think if I had the only snacks to cure artist block I’d be like….forty to fifty times bigger than NSR ever was.” Zuke couldn’t help entertain the notion of selling cookies to the many starving artists to give them the clear head for their next big break. It wasn't a bad idea.
“I was hoping it had to be yours.” Eve folded her arms and flopping back.”I’ve done those things and nothing has changed.” Eve pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’ve a notion of a way to fix this but it’s...well your friend would like it. It’s rather brute force.” Eve said.
“Sometimes forcing yourself to work does it,” Zuke agreed, “what were you thinking?”
Eve took in a slow breath and sat back up meeting Zuke’s gaze. “The lack of physicality to this issue is normally a thing that cannot be dealt with.” She let out a slow breath. “I believe that I can deal with it thanks to my powers.”
“Wh..what like make an ACTUAL artists block?” Zuke knew Eve’s powers were...well he hadn’t ever thought of something she couldn’t do. She could change space around her, transform herself at will and...probably a lot more that he couldn’t really understand. Knowing her was like knowing a genuine super-hero or something like that.
“I believe it could be done but... “She reached out a hand to Zuke. “It would...maybe make the issue worse. This is an idea right now but to make it reality would mean literally cutting off my ability to create.”
“Eve that’s really bad.” Zuke told her flatly and she looked away. “As bad as this feels it’s not gonna last forever. Just feel like it is.” Zuke picked his words. “You’re strong Eve, I told you that but this is a very...big risk.”
“That’s why I needed help.” She grabbed hold of his hand. “Zuke you and I, we can work as a team, I know it was a long time ago and we can’t...have that exact thing back.” She spoke and Zuke had to admit it probably hurt to say that. “But I trust you more than I can most other people.” Her grip on his hands grew tighter. “I do not know for certain if I can do it alone but I think...with help it could be done.”
“Eve it’s….I don’t want to be responsible for you losing the ability to create.” He said frankly. “It’s not something I’d want for anybody let alone…” He nodded at her and the world around her, filled with her flourishes and creations.
“It hurts Zuke, if I could make it go away faster I’d take the risk...but not alone.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “Not alone again.”
Zuke saw she was still clinging to his hand, knuckles tight. He let out a slow breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. “It’s...I don’t think it’s a good idea, Nadia.” He used her real name. “But it hurts you doesn’t it? It’s just something I won’t understand but I can’t exactly leave you hurting.”
Her features seemed softer as she sat up and looked at him.
“So umm...how do we do this?” He asked as she reached out to him. Several arms slid down his cheek or...just one, there was just one there. It felt like fire against his skin, heat rose quickly. It was dating in college all over again, where did you put your hands? What did you say to girls? Don’t listen to a WORD West says!. The room seemed to fall away as she leaned toward him filling his vision. The grip on his hands grew tighter, too tight almost.
“We’re already moving.” She told him. “Now...open your mind, sink into me and- dive.” She spoke and the world slowly seemed to vanish. It was just Eve towering over him, her hands easily growing to smother his entire arms up to the elbow. Her eyes were the entire world as far as he was concerned, vast cuts of jade that closed slowly. Then she fell upon him.
Her body wilted then it seemed as if to slide apart before a great weight of water smothered him, knocking him from his feet. He was scrambling, hands desperate to grab hold of anything else. But no it was just more water, waves growing and crashing forcing him down. Pushing to the surface was impossible, anytime he managed he was forced back down into the waves. Dragged deeper and deeper.
Caught in a twisting spiral be felt himself pulled down into the depths, the light above a distant impossible memory. Within the room itself the waves evaporated, slowly, sinking, sloshing from side to side until with a sound like a gasp there was no water. Just Eve, sat in the middle of the room furniture scattered around her.
A deep thud in her chest.
---Now
“Yes Zuke?” Eve asked as he stared up at her and then stood up. Pink water, white buildings, white sand, pink blanket and...he braced himself against a wall and then turned around to look at Eve.
Slowly sliding down it. “Eve….” He clasped his hands and licked his lips, suddenly they felt very dry. “I’m….gonna ask a question I never ever in my entire life thought I’d have to ask another person.”
“Okay.” Eve nodded slowly.
“Eve….did you eat me?” Zuke looked up at Eve who, upsettingly, did not say no right away. She pursed her lips and let out a quiet sound. “Eve!?”
“I’m thinking.” Eve said and Zuke fell flat on his side.
“I know I said a bite to eat helps with art block and stuff but-” Zuke rambled to himself as Eve coughed to get his attention.
“No. I did not eat you, Zuke.” Eve went on and Zuke wasn’t as comforted by that as he thought he would be. “I have merely subsumed you.”
“....That sounds a lot like consume...which I’m pretty sure means eat.” Zuke said rolling onto his back. Was this, did he do something to deserve this? Do other people have ex’s like this? West had never had this happen, sure one tried to cut off his hand and sell it on online but he was sure...that of the two brothers he now had THE WILDER girlfriend story.
“I did not eat you, Zuke!” Eve snapped back. “You are...yourself but you are..simply yourself within me.” She said. “Were you...eaten you’d not be you, you would be part of me. There is a demonstrable difference.”
“I mean….Yeah, I guess when you put it that way.” Zuke tried to sit up, now wary of every surface and everything around him. “I...oh this is a lot to take in.”
“Take your time, Zuke.” Eve sat beside him and he bristled looking at her, as if for the first time.
“How are...you...here?” He asked, looking around.
“I am here.” She told him and he accepted that would have to be an answer. “It’s rather hard to find a place I am not here…” She let out a groan. “I am sorry, Zuke I should have been more...clear with you.”
“Clarity would have been great.” Zuke agreed. “But...I mean...I’m here...now.” He said again, trying to keep saying that. “Some...where...inside you.” He looked at Eve. “I’m really not sure all this fits.”
“Zuke the idea my insides have ever been euclidian in nature is a stunted view.” Eve took a slow deep breath, arms growing from her back and arranged about her. “I’ve always considered that everyone has within them an infinite potential...a Withinfinite if you like.”
“Awesome album name.” Zuke said and she giggled at that, nudging him.
“It is where we store our daydreams, our ideas and even our nightmares. We all have this vast repository of wonders and treasure within us all. Where we fish up our ideas and hopes from. It is where the story of our lives is writ in bold and everything that makes me myself and you yourself comes from.” She leaned back and looked to the cloudy skies. “I felt close to mine all my life.”
Zuke swallowed slowly. “Wow that’s….some interesting ideas. I guess I should feel pretty lucky to see it, even this part.” He wasn’t sure how to respond really. It felt like an Eve-idea. Something big and heady that she’d turned into a precious stone in her own eye but he couldn’t grab it fully. The idea of a world within a person that’s all of their accumulated...them built up in it. That’s a thing.
“You’ve been a part of mine for a long time, Zuke.” She told him. “Our experiences, our time together, you are an indelible part of me.” She leaned against him. “I suppose it’s what made the idea of...opening the doors for you so easy.”
“Yeah…Ditto. If I had one of those….Withinfinite things” Zuke said.
“You do.” Eve said that in much the same way you’d confirm gravity. Zuke nodded and looked at himself, not sure how to process that but deal with it later.
“I umm...sorry for accusing you of eating me.” Zuke laughed a little at that though more for himself.
“I mean…” Eve sunk down into herself some. “I can...kinda see the point.” She said through clenched teeth. “I always liked your cooking in college.” She said. “If you tasted half as good as your cooking it might have happened sooner.”
“Yeah…..” Zuke shook his head and stood up, slapping at his pants. “Just don’t tell me I taste like chicken.” He held out a hand and pulled her up.
“Oh not even a little.” Eve said. “Much tastier.” She made a little sound like a burp and walked past him.
“DON’T JOKE ABOUT IT!” Zuke said. “I’m accepting the situation but it ain’t funny!” He saw her smile back at him and he broke. He laughed, she laughed and it was the only thing he could do not to go mad at how absurd it is.
“Wait….you….can get me...out right?” Zuke said looking at her. “Like not in a gross way!”
“Zuke!” She snapped at him, going slightly red in the face. “Don’t be vile! I’m sure I can...once...we...solve the issue.”
“Eve.” Zuke moved to her side. “The artist block thing...you made it real right?” He asked and she nodded. “...Do...do you have no idea how to get me out?” He asked and she smiled at him, nervously, rubbing at her arm.
“Ha ha...well…”
“Oh my god Mayday is gonna kill me.” He looked at Eve. “Oh she’s gonna kill you. Oh you’re so boned.” Zuke looked horrified. “Eve you have to find out what time it is cause Mayday told me at 3 she was gonna come get me.” He waved a hand. “Can you do things...here...and there?”
“Not very well at the same time.” Eve replied. “You should continue, I have a feeling what we’re looking for is...up ahead.” She gazed up the spiralling streets of samey buildings. “I shall investigate the without.”
“...That one is not as cool. Don’t call it that.” Zuke said and Eve stood still, stock still, total stillness. Zuke waved a hand in front of her face and found that she was now a mannequin statuette. “Oh...so I...guess I gotta…” he gingerly slid his arms around the waist of the mannequin and picked it up. “Oh today is such a pain”
He started walking up the street, it seemed never to end just to twist eternally upward. A steady but constant incline. “You couldn’t put the no art box at the bottom could ya? Noooo...probably not thematically appropriate to the context of the incident.”
---
Eve opened her eyes and stood up, legs feeling heavy. Sitting down cross legged was a bad idea, it was an inelegant gait that carried her out into the hallway. Where she moved to find a clock. She’d attempted to do away with clocks during her recent artistic drought. Gazing at it and feeling years pass as she kept returning to the empty canvas only to find it had been ten minutes.
A horrible feeling she would be better off without. As she moved she stopped in front of a mirror and looked at herself. Tilted this way and that, leaning to one side and back. She still looked like Eve ought to look, as far as she was concerned. Zuke’s...bad observation had her worried their situation might have changed her. But no, no alterations and no change.
Silly thoughts, very silly. Nothing to worry about, just the sort of thing only Zuke would ever think of or consider. The only clock she could find was in the main foyer of the building. It was a grand old contraption and the ticking sounds could drive you to madness.
3:15
“Hmm.” Eve said to herself. “That might be an issue.” Eve wanted to do something when the door cracked open.
“ZUKE!” Mayday stood in the doorway.
“Mayday.” Eve said. “You owe me a new door!” She pointed to the splintered remains that now littered the floor. Mayday for her part slid over to them awkwardly and lifted the busted up door. Pushing it gingerly back into place.
“It’s fine.” Mayday said quietly. “Where is Zuke!? We have a concert in an hour and a half and we have to get there, now.” She looked around. “Zuuuuuuuuuuke!”
“Zuke is...in the middle of something.” She disliked it the minute she said it. “Can...Mayday can you sit down for a moment?” Eve gestured to a pair of hand seats. “I...have something to explain.”
“I dunno, I’ve not really got-”
“You will have to hear me out. I will be as quick and simple as I can.” Eve said and Mayday’s eyes narrowed.
“Simple, huh?” Mayday rattled off but sat herself down arms folded over her chest, sliding awkwardly on the seat. Eve sat down in the other seat and started to explain. Mayday to her immense credit sat there and listened. Nodded along. Waited for Eve to explain everything, down to the last detail and then once it was done she stood up.
Mayday clasped her hands, with her middle and index fingers pressed together. She tapped them against her lips a couple of times. Then turned to face Eve and pointed at her.
“So….you ate Zuke.”
Eve put her face in her hands. “Oh my god.”
“Nuh uh!” Mayday grabbed Eve by the shoulders and shook her. “Nuh uh! You don’t oh my god me!” She snarled. “You ate my buddy, my drummer and might have capsized our concert! You better upchuck my guy.”
“That’s vile.” Eve said aghast. “I can’t do that and wouldn’t do that.” She shuddered. “It doesn’t work that way.” Eve was grabbed, Mayday’s fingers digging into her jaw as she pulled down on Eve’s mouth.
“Zuke! BUDDY can you hear me!?” She asked and waited for a reply.
“Thishishscoopid.” Eve said shoving Mayday back. “He isn’t, that doesn’t….” She took a slow breath. “He can’t hear you!” She seethed.
“Okay….I’m gonna find a big saw-”
“THAT will also not work!” Eve cried out. “I will also CALL THE POLICE.” She snapped.
“I’ll tell them you ate my badmate!” Mayday cried back. “We can both go to jail forever!”
“They will not believe you and Mayday it's been barely six months since you and Zuke almost destroyed the city.” Eve said, causing Mayday to blow a raspberry.
“Like anyone remembers that.” Mayday laughed “Jerk move, that would fail.” She said and groaned. “Ughhh I can’t believe this is happening.”
“He wasn’t much happier…” Eve confessed. “We’re working on fixing it...right now.” She pointed to herself. “I can help you...or I can help him is the thing. Can’t do both.”
“Is it like chewing gum and walking or something?” Mayday groaned. “Well Bunk Bed Junction has never missed a single concert and we can’t start now. So….Zuke is helping you with your thing. You caused this.”
“I..did yes.” Eve bowed her head. “I am very sorry for the current situation, it was careless of me and -”
“Hey whatever.” Mayday said quickly. “Zuke agreed and he’s a hard guy to dissuade. I swear he’d help everybody in the world if he could.” She shook her head. “What a pain, a drummer who isn’t an animal and helps old ladies cross the street.”
“He’s certainly not what you’d expect on drums.” Eve agreed. “If there’s anyway I can help I-”
“Yup!” Mayday tossed something to Eve who quickly caught hold of it. “First you can help me set up the instruments and stuff at the gig, cause it’s gonna be tight. Ellie doesn’t have her lighting certification so she can’t help yet.”
“....The alligator?”
“Second if by some horrible chance Zuke is not here...well…” Mayday grinned and held up the sticks in Eve’s hands. “You are what you eat.” Drum sticks.
“...Oh dear.” Eve said flatly horrified at the implements in her hands. That whole upchuck thing suddenly sounded like a much better idea.