"Okay, Adem-ant..." Ozzy's off-hoarse voice cracked. "...you're up."
The two men stood in front of the main entrance to the complex. Adem's immense frame did little to hide his expression of guilt.
"It is over." the alien said in a neutral tone.
Ozzy frowned.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "What's over?"
"This exercise into pleasing." he replied, just as neutrally. "Jym has informed me that there is no reason to continue this avenue of expression."
Ozzy stared at him.
"I...I don't understand...." he said, still frowning. "I thought you wanted to understand how to open--"
"I understand."
"Oh. Well, good." Ozzy smiled.
"I have always understood."
Ozzy paused.
"You...have?" he asked very slowly, trying to make sure he was deciphering the man's intent correctly.
"Of course." Adem shook his head 'No', getting the expressive action backwards. "It is a door. A moveable barrier designed to seperate one compartmental dwelling from another."
"But...you said that, where you're from, all doors open by themselves...." Ozzy said, the tone in his voice falling a bit.
"They do." he explained. "However, they have not always done so. The evolution of compartmental travel is one of the most common understandings. Millions of years ago, we too had doors such as these."
Ozzy's face began to degrade into a stone-cold stare.
"You....then...why...why did you let me believe...?"
Adem shrugged. Although, he kicked his head backwards with the movement, defeating the intended casual expression that he was attempting to emulate.
"I have learned from this Holiday Festival Christmas Time, that it is important to share happiness with another." he explained. "Since you found great pleasure in instructing me on this manuever, I assumed that I was providing you with happiness."
Ozzy stared at him without a word.
Adem stared back, wondering if his eyes were performing some unusual trick that was causing Baxter's silence.
"Did I not provide you with happiness?"
Ozzy stared at him a bit longer.
"Fuck you." he finally said, immediately striding away.
Adem watched him leave, dispassionate as usual.
"Jym...why does Oswald Baxter desire to mate with me?" he asked his palm.
****************
As the parade marched slowly through the outer city district of Puerta Muebela, the entire populace lined the streets with a roar of festivity, and cheer. Children laughed and jumped with glee trying to catch the showers of candy that the floats poured into the streets.
For many present, this wasn't just a Christmas celebration. Many citizens of La Perdita had answered Vanguard's call of help. Many had fought valiantly to protect their planet, and, in extention, their homes here on this tropical isle. A few had perished. And, their deaths would always be mourned, as well as honored.
But, for now, this was a celebration of life. The life that those metahumans had given. The life of those that had survived.
And, as the floats of metahumans passed, the cheers of fun and excitement were dwarfed by the cacaphony of celebratory praise, as the citizens honored their fellow neighbors.
Their heroes.
One such hero...not that he would call himself that...pushed his way through the mass of humanity, walking directly into Jake's Bar.
"Fire extinguisher?" Doctor Huerta asked, the doors's closure muffling the noise.
Jake chuckled a bit, walking out from behind the bar. His broad jubliance echoing in the near-deserted establishement.
"Bates, again?" he asked, swinging the storage closet open.
Huerta just rolled his eyes, nodding in agreement.
"Here, I'll fix 'em..." Jake replied, extinguisher in hand. "...watch the bar for a moment, eh?"
Before Huerta could reply, Jake was already out the door.
"Oh...uhhh...okay..." the good doctor replied, slowly stepping back behind the long, mahogany bar.
Almost immediately, the doors swung open again, Ozzy striding directly up to a stool.
"Jeezus Kriste' give me a beer!" he sighed with an serious air of anger.
Huerta half-smiled, staring at the man.
"Ah...Mr. Baxter..." he said pleasantly. "...we meet again."
It took Ozzy a brief second before he recognized the bartender.
"Oh...hey...Hammond, right?"
"Huerta, actually..." he smiled. "...and, what is your desired preference of poison this fine evening?"
"Got Guiness on tap?"
Huerta glanced behind him.
"I believe we do..." he replied, fetching a mug.
"So...this your side-job?" Baxter asked, watching the man pour the most exquisite beer he had ever laid eyes on.
"Believe it or not, I have a Ph.D." Huerta replied, setting the pint down in front of him.
Baxter just grunted, tossing the entire pint back with one immense gulp.
"...another..." he said between belching.
Huerta's eyes narrowed with interest at the display, pouring another pint.
"So...you're what? A surgeon? A shrink?" Ozzy asked, grasping the new pint.
"Psychologist. Psychiatrist. Babysitter. Depends on who you ask...." Huerta said with a sly smile.
Ozzy slammed the empty glass down.
"Another?" Huerta asked.
"Please..." Ozzy nodded.
He looked around the near empty bar, admiring the 'homey' feel of the place.
"Nice bar..."
"Well, it doesn't travel through time and space, if that's what you mean...." Huerta shrugged, handing him his third.
"What?" Ozzy frowned.
"Nothing." the doctor replied. "Old joke."
Baxter grunted, staring at his beer.
"Fuck old jokes." he said with a low tone. "And fuck new ones, as well."
He downed his beer again. Huerta poured him another.
"Far be it from me to pry, Mr. Baxter..." Huerta began. "...but I can't help but feel a certain lack of Christmas cheer from you..."
"Oh!" Ozzy held his beginning-to-feel-the-alcohol-finger up. "And fuck Christmas!"
"Come on, Scrooge..." Huerta smiled, handing him the new beer. "Can't be that bad, can it?"
Baxter threw the drink down his throat, coming back eye-level with the doctor.
"Where tha' hell do I start?" he began.
"At the beginning, as all good stories do."
Ozzy stared at the man.
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Do you think I'm making fun of you?" Huerta replied.
Ozzy stared at him a bit longer, the alcoholic glaze beginning to creep into his threshold.
"...shrink..." he replied.
"Excuse me?"
"Shrink....if someone asked me, I'd tell 'em you're a shrink..."
Huerta chuckled, beginning to clean an errant mug with a washcloth, for no apparent reason.
"And what should I tell this increasingly hypothetical 'them' about you?"
Baxter stared at his beer.
"I...don't know."
"You don't know?"
"That's what I fucking said!" he repeated a bit louder. "I don't know!"
Huerta stared at him with that friendly ease that was so common to his expression.
Ozzy stared back for another moment, or so.
"...sorry, Doc..." he began, his voice falling into a world of defeat. "...didn't mean to get all 'angry-drunk' on you..."
Huerta just smiled, patient and understanding as always.
"You've obviously never been around Mr. Montag during soccer season."
Ozzy said nothing staring into his beer with a look of depression.
"You know, it is a well-known fact that suicide rates climb in proportion to the vicinity of the holiday season..."
"Heh...if it were only that easy..." Baxter began.
"If only, huh?" Huerta agreed, peering down at the man.
Ozzy looked up at him.
"I...I don't want to be here, Doc..." he said, his voice hinting at desperation.
"Where do you want to be?" Huerta asked with as much casual flare as he could muster, finding himself more and more interested in this man before him.
"...I don't know..." Ozzy shook his head. He flipped the mug up, downing the beer.
"No, I'm sorry..." Huerta shook his head. "...you've already used that answer. Care to try for another?"
Ozzy sighed, belching in unison.
"Thirteen years ago." he finally said.
"Thirteen years ago?"
"Yeah...that's where I want to be....thirteen years ago..."
"Mr. Baxter, that's a 'when'...not a 'where'..."
"Sez' you..." Ozzy replied, his voice beginning to slur a bit, even as Huerta continued pouring more. "...thirteen years ago is a place....it's where it feels good...to be alive....where I was happy..."
Huerta said nothing, allowing the man to talk freely.
"...before...before I was stupid....oh god...so...SO...fucking stupid..." he continued, lost in this fragment of depression.
He looked up at Huerta.
"I cheated...ya' see..." he said. "...I...I gambled it all away....my scholarship....my life....my family...friends..."
Huerta just nodded, still cleaning the glass.
"...I was a boxer..." Ozzy said. And, at those words, his voice rose a bit. The depression seemed to fade, just briefly, with the fire that crept into his faintly bloodshot eyes. "...I was the best in the college circuit....the fucking best..."
Ozzy seemd to pause on this memory, trying to hold on to that fragment of fleeting hope.
He quickly slammed his flat hands down onto the hard wood.
"...an' LOOK at me now!" he exclaimed. "Now...I'm a prisoner...juss' another bitch in thess' freakshow..."
He grabbed the fresh pint, throwing it back.
"...even alien-boy...Adem Different..." he said, contorting his voice into a bizarre, mocking approximation of Adem's unique tone. "...even he's just dicking me about..."
Ozzy stared up at Huerta, his demeanor quite intoxicated now.
"...ah thought I wuz' helpin' 'em..." he almost pleaded with Huerta. "...yeah...shoore'...it was pretty fuckin' funny at first...thought it wuz' kinda'...nice....that someone wuz' that in'cent....you know? But...he knows what a door is..."
"Adem knows what a door is?" Huerta asked, intrigued.
"OH!" Ozzy held his finger up, his eyes wide with warning. "He does! He knows what it is! That fukin' lying bazterd'..."
Ozzy just slumped to the bar, forehead down against the cool wood.
"...I...juz'...wanted to...fit in..." he said, his voice muffled by the wood. "...I juz'...wanted to...be useful..."
Huerta watched him for a moment, as Ozzy rolled his forehead back and forth on the bar.
"...I juz'...wanted....to make a friend..." he explained. "...someone who's...trapped...like me..."
"Another beer?" Huerta asked.
Ozzy slowly lifted his head up, staring foggily at the man.
"...I...dun...know..."
"Ah, ah, ah!" Huerta cocked his finger up. "Already used that one, remember?"
"...do...do ya' think I shoold...?"
"Oh, by all means..." Huerta replied, setting another beer down in front of him. "...of all the people I know, you have such a horrid life, I don't blame you a bit for wanting to drink yourself unconscious..."
Ozzy stared at him, gradually reaching for the mug.
"...ah...come on...." he said. "...yu' must know...other people wif' livze worse than mine..."
Huerta pretended to think on this a minute.
"...I don't know..." he said. "...I mean, you ARE forced to live on a tropical isle, with free food and lodging..."
Huerta smiled.
"Sounds pretty rough to me." he said.
"...ahh...okay..." Baxter's slurr sounded, even as he still tried to hold the glass. "...point....but...yu' don' understand...my life..."
"Is shit, yes I know." Huerta nodded. "Again, I don't blame you for giving up..."
Ozzy lurched out of his barstool, falling over backwards.
"Fuck you!!" Ozzy slurred, trying to understand why he was flatback against the floor. "I don't give up! Goddamnit I never give up!"
Huerta walked calmly from around the bar, helping the man to his feet.
"I wuz' the gobdamned CHAMPION!" Ozzy raised his fists into the air, causing Huerta to have to brace against his swaying form that much more.
"Were you?" he asked. "From where I'm standing, all I see is a man that has been beaten down by an unfortunate set of circumstances...."
Huerta locked eyes with the ex-boxer.
"...beaten in the first round..."
Ozzy stared at him, a multitude of emotions washing over his face.
"...no one...no...one...beatz me..." he said in an even tone.
"Oh? And why is that, Ozzy?" Huerta asked.
Baxter leaned in, the alcohol from his breath overpowering his rancid cologne.
"...cause...I'm a fighter..." he said, his voice low and even.
Huerta stared back with an equal expression, leaning in close to his left ear.
"...then..." he wispered. "...start fighting..."
Baxter swayed a bit, staring at the man's even expression. Thoughts swam like molassas through his hazy mind, as he rested a reassuring hand on the doctor's shoulder.
"Ya' know...." Baxter began. "...you're a good guy, Doc..."
Huerta smiled fully.
"...depends on who you ask..."
A low chuckle began to build in Ozzy, a smile finally crossing his face, even as the door to the bar swung open again.
"I swear, Doctor Huerta..." Jake sighed, toting an empty extinguisher. "...I've never seen a more accident prone mess of a man in my life..."
Huerta laughed, helping Ozzy onto the bar stool.
"...iz' he talkin' about me..." Ozzy slurred.
Huerta just shook his head, laughing a bit.
"So, any customers while I was away?" Jake asked, taking his spot behind the bar again.
"Just one..." Huerta replied, nodding towards Ozzy.
"Need another?" the bartender asked Ozzy.
Ozzy just nodded his head, holding his palm out towards the man.
"...hell...no..." Baxter belched, still swaying a bit.
Jake nodded, checking the tally Huerta had scored.
"Let's see....fourteen pints of tap...." Jake mumbled. "...that'll be one-hundred-and-forty-dollars, my good man..."
Ozzy's eyes widened.
"A HUNDRED AND FUCKIN' FORTY?!" Ozzy exclaimed, Huerta calmning him.
"Sorry, mate." Jake shrugged. "Do you know how expensive it is to get Guiness imported? I have to go through a black market dealer just to get it onto the island."
Ozzy patted his pockets, looking up at the bartender.
"Juz...juz' put it on the company tab..." he said. "...Vanguard..."
"No problem...I just need to see your account card..." Jake offered politely.
"Card?" Ozzy asked.
"Well, yes....your expense account?" Jake explained. "I set this system up with Piper over a year ago."
"Uhh, Ozzy's new..." Huerta explained with a calm smile. "...he doesn't have a card yet..."
"Well, I'm sorry, but--" Jake began.
"I'll cover Mr. Baxter's tab, Jake..." Huerta reassured the man, handing him his own expense card.
Ozzy peered over at the doctor, even as Jake ran his card.
"...great....now I owe you, too...." he said.
"You can work the beer off by regularly attending sessions with me." he explained. "I need the practice...and you need someone to talk to....it works out great for both of us."
Ozzy just smiled.
"...I wasn't talkin' about the beer..."
