The Fool 5

If it hadn't been so grueling, it would have been funny. The first night was terrible. Deshawn was argumentative, mildly hostile even. Fortunately, Al had picked up enough of White's know-how that he could pull off the lavender sleep ritual. It didn't work nearly as well as the memories suggested it should but it would get the struggling black man, who was stronger than him even in a weakened state, out for an hour or so at a time.

During the beginning stage with the cleansing draught, Deshawn had accused him of attempted murder, cried for help and actually cried while accusing Al of slipping him tranquilizers and having his way with the man while he was out. To some small degree, Al could understand why Deshawn would think that. There was so much toxic buildup in the man, Al almost thought he'd have to call for an ambulance when it all started coming out.

Under such a situation, waking up weak and sore all over while being showered off in a bathtub would give anyone the wrong impression. To keep from being assaulted when Deshawn was feeling better, he saved the man's clothes, in the state of a nasty that twisted Al's stomach just looking at them, much less the smell coming off them. He added some 'progress pictures' while he was at it.

The next day, it took all of that and a thorough self investigation before Deshawn stopped looking at him with fear and murderous rage. That look was replaced with an entirely different one when the man noticed that some of his scars and 'tell marks' were faded as if he'd been living clean and sober for years. After another set of arguments and battle of wills, Al got the most important nutrient replacement and a touch of stamina replenishment in the man before knocking him out again.

A trip to work and nervously back home for lunch, it was an additional but, thankfully, lighter fight to rinse and repeat. By the time Al had returned home at the end of the day, Deshawn was raiding his fridge and pantry like he'd been saved from starvation. Seeing what the man had grabbed to the side, Al got in the fridge himself and dumped all the leftover bottles of beer and other remaining sloshes of this and that he had left, out into the sink.

Seeing the hateful face pointed at him, Al said, "I'm trying to put desperately needed building blocks for a healthy body in you and you're going to drink something that strips them and makes you p*ss them out!?"

Swallowing back a nasty comment, Deshawn lamely said, "There's spinach on the sandwich..."

Borrowing a little courage from the touch of fear that still lingered in the edges of Deshawn's eyes, Al said wryly, "On the first day we met, your brother told me that you were into basketball and football in school and are a hobby lifter to this day. Don't tell me you don't know what I'm getting at. Pour the bottle down the sink and at least wait til you've recovered from this ordeal before putting even more strain on your liver and kidneys."

For a moment, Al thought the man was going to wing the bottle at his head before Deshawn slightly sneered at him and dumped the beer down the drain. A few broke from the force of it joining the rest in the trash. Al sighed and just let it go.

He thought, "This is crazy. The man in my house could turn on me at any moment. I'm one wrong word away from being hospitalized and you're still pushing me to 'heal' him. Are you also the part of Orison that's a masochist, White? What kind of 'bite the pillow and teary hugs afterward' weirdo were you?... No, no. For the love of all that's holy, don't 'show' me!"

Fundamentally, Al knew he was only 'conversing' with himself. It helped him cope with the mental barrage of things that White had brought along for the ride to think of it as completely separate from himself. With all the useful magic and medical know-how Al was still struggling to process, there were other things that he was struggling with understanding that weren't so useful but much harder to accept.

While he had been lost in his own world, Deshawn had been lining up all the herbal and health store goods Al had in the house, trying to figure out exactly what the 'crazy white f***' had did to him. Up to the level of what was safe for his secrets and a little mysticism tied in to muddy the waters a little, Al gave the man the breakdown. His guest ended up being a lot more knowledgeable than he had originally thought, making the skirt around the more magical parts not completely possible.

"Alright, look. You can tell that there's more than meets the eye. If you're not okay with that, there's the door. If you can tolerate a little unknowing and mystery, I'll finish what I started and having you out the door in another day or two multiple times better off than you came. It's up to you. Everyone has their secrets and I'm not giving them up to you just because I decided to do your little brother a favor," Al said, aggravated at Deshawn's inability to not keep picking once he found sore spots.

The man suddenly threw the sandwich to the floor and stared at it in horror while muttering about bugs being everywhere and tiny worms under his skin. Al gave him the choice between two more glasses of nasty and a rest or letting him hog the bathroom with a pair of tweezers and a roll of toilet paper that it looked like the man planned on doing. It was a fierce internal struggle but Deshawn opted for the drinks and a nap.

On the last day of work for the week, Al came home to his house guest working out like a madman. At first, he thought that Deshawn had found a way to 'abuse' the stamina restoration mix in the fridge but the proper amount was left. The man was punishing himself fully of his own volition. After a brief discussion with him, Al found out that all the lavender naps had made the man feel restless.

During a rest between reps, the man said, "No more 'close your eyes' nap times, alright? It scares the sh*t out of me every time I wake up with an hour or two gone when it feels like I only blinked."

Al nodded. "As long as there isn't anymore food thrown around in the kitchen or tendon ripping cramps, you got a deal."

"You SWEAR you didn't do anything to me while I was out?" Deshawn said, practically to the point where he'd rather be lied to if something DID happen.

Dully, Al said, "How many times do we have to rehash the gory details of day one? The only other time I so much as touched you while you were unconscious was the time that cramps made you fall off the couch. I fought to get your leg straight and held it til you stopped spasming then dumped you a** back on it."

After a little back and forth, Deshawn went back to his work out. A little later that evening, Al had a blank moment where he was seeing Devon being knocked unconscious and thrown into a car trunk. Following it through the connection with the key, he eventually saw two men unload Devon at a warehouse.

Shaking himself out of the connection, Al said, "Do you know where a red brick warehouse in bad repair is and who might be using it?"

After Deshawn got a few more details from him, the man did and he even knew the man who did his dark deeds there. It was a few miles away but they could be there relatively quickly. Al's first instinct was to call the police but he was afraid that it would call attention on them and it looked like Devon was being held for a little long term work over.

"You just took your evening doses right? You feeling up to a fight if you need to?" Al said.

Deshawn said, "I'm on parole. Call the police or something. That's what punk a** white b*tches do when they gotta fight anyway."

Al said, "Alright. I didn't feel like getting myself wrapped up in whatever your little brother's dealing with right now anyway. Al reached for his cell phone about the same time that Deshawn snatched it off the counter."

Dread realization hit the man, piecing together what Al asked. "Give me the keys to your car."

Al replied, "If you don't lose your cool and keep a level head, I'll lend you my derringer. I'm also coming with. I have a bad feeling about this and that means it's about my safety too."

Al handed Deshawn a tin lock box and headed out the door. It took a little time but on their way to the warehouse, Deshawn suddenly realized that Al seemed to have no reason to believe his brother was in trouble. There wasn't a call, text, there wasn't anything.

The man said, "I swear to God. If you got me worked up over nothing, I'm going to kick your a**."

A bit ominously, Al replied, "One more threat and I officially don't give a f***. How about waiting to see if you can catch me in a lie I haven't told you yet, first. You moody, ungrateful a**hole!"

Almost hoping the man would say one more offensive or nasty remark, the man surprised Al by laughing.

"If that's how you want to play it..." Underneath, Deshawn's voice hid a dark threat of its own.

Halfway there, Al suddenly said, "Wait! Take us to that man's lab. He's cooking up a batch right now. If we blow it, there won't be so many men in the warehouse."

Deshawn, short tolerance stretched to the limit, said, "Why the f*** should I take you there? And how would you know? None of this makes any goddamn sense."

Al ignored him as he was tuned in to what he was seeing and hearing from the key. "I don't know if he has more than one house he works out of but it's the one on Chicory?"

Deshawn blanked for a moment and said, "That's old Mad Dog's kitchen. Why would Jaffin be cookin in his house?"

"Doesn't matter. There's over ten men at the warehouse and I don't even think the police would go there if we called. We need something to draw some of them out and away... Does this Jaffin guy have a rival?" Al said.

Looking like he was buying Al's story less and less, Deshawn tried calling his brother and the house. After not getting an answer from the first and a worried response from their mom, he suddenly seemed a great deal more interested in what Al was saying. Answering Al questions, they pulled into Chicory St.

While Deshawn tried to figure out what Al's plan was, the 'crazy white dude' got out of the car and went behind a condemned house. When Deshawn was about to get out and see what Al was doing, 'crazy white dude' was coming back to the car while wiping vellum ashes off his hands. Getting back in, he slapped the dash.

"We don't want to be remembered. Lets get out of here," Al said.

Deshawn drove the car off but as soon as he was about to play forty questions with the mysterious acting man, there was a low sounding boom in the distance behind them.

"What the hell was that!?" Deshawn said.

Al muttered, "If we had been closer we would have heard screams first."

Their was a trace of hysteria at the corner of Deshawn's eyes as he occasionally glanced at Al.

Noticing how spooked his driver was, Al said, "That would have been the people ran out of the house by a 'ghost dog' before it went. I'm sure it'll be on the news tomorrow... Okay Mr. Fat Braids just split up his people... Damn. One of the cooks was caught in the house. Other than that, there were only minor injuries. I guess that's going to have to do."

Deshawn, unable to take the one man running commentary anymore, said, "Have you lost your mind? What the hell are you going on about!?"

Al smiled and said, "They only left two tweaker looking skinny guys and a somewhat chubby looking guy in corn rows."

The unnerved black man stopped the car. "Start talking to me! What did you do and what's going on!?"

Al said, "We only have a few minutes and Devon's face is messed up with a big knot on his head that looks a little dangerous. You want to get your brother as soon as possible."

Cussing up a storm, Deshawn got moving but he was going too fast. At one red light, they were almost creamed by a car making a turn. Under normal circumstances, Al would have definitely said something but he had been completely unaware, tuned in to what the key was showing him. Finally at the warehouse with two near misses under their belts, Al broke connection.

After sharing some instructions and almost getting another threat Deshawn barely choked down in time to keep from saying, they were positioned by a window. Al gave the man a minute to get to the opposite window. His job was to take out cornrows if it looked necessary.

Projecting for all he was worth, Al made a dim greenish light appear in the shadowy corner nearest himself and then made a distant and weak sounding angry dog bark come from it. Cornrows immediately looked over and so did the two skinny men. After hearing what they had heard over the phone their boss had on speaker before he left, the two jittery guys took off running. Unfortunately, Cornrows didn't have enough threat behind his words to keep them there.

Left alone, the man's nerves were significantly frayed. He didn't bother investigating. He just let off two shots towards the green glow. While the man was shouting words to psych himself up and dialing his phone, Al made the light and barking sound flair out in a burst. Dim green turned into a brilliant emerald while the faint sound grew into a roar.

The man opened fire towards the corner, unloading everything he had until there were clicks coming from his gun. While cornrows was busy losing his mind and making all kinds of racket, Deshawn had broken out more of his window on the opposite side and slid down into the warehouse. As soon as he heard the clicks of Cornrow's gun, he ran up and gave one of the most terrifying haymakers Al had ever seen. Cornrow's head bounced off the concrete, leaving a bloody smear behind and Al wondered if the guy was even still alive.

Hurrying as fast as he could, Al entered the warehouse as well, showing him where Devon was. The young man came out of the supply closet swinging, having used the key to get himself out of the chain padlocked around his neck and another around a loop in the wall. While the brothers were having having a moment as Deshawn lead his little brother out to the car, Al placed a scary call to Jaffin, where all the man could hear was growling dog sounds as the man screamed and threatened everything under the sky and even some things that weren't.

On his way back to the car, Al removed and broke the sim card before throwing the nice cell phone into his ring. The last thing he did before leaving was dousing the most flammable looking section of the warehouse in some combustible car maintenance stuff and setting it on fire. He was fairly sure it wouldn't do much but it was more about the message anyway.

A little magically drained and not willing to reveal anymore potentially worrisome things, Al dropped the brothers off at the hospital. Deshawn was both spooked and thankful enough not to ask questions Al didn't want to answer for a change. It was a peaceful night for the most part, aside from the images and accompanying sounds of a man's head bouncing violently off of concrete that occasionally echoed in Al's mind.

He wondered what had gotten into him but received an answer when he fell asleep. Red had almost died. After narrowly avoiding some eldritch horror or another while doing a job for Wendy's boss to keep the chasing bad guys from doubling, Red had a squirming... thing pop out of his abdomen. Zeke froze time and Pelentis healed him while Wendy pulled the larva-like creature into some kind of jar roiling with curse magic and otherworldly strangeness.

For a brief moment in time during the night, Al had halfway hosted a part of Red's contribution to the whole. It wasn't much and it hadn't stayed behind but the sudden hitch of brave daring do was definitely Red's fault. Or, at least, that's what Al told himself. He wanted to blame his ridiculous actions on something other than himself.

In so many small ways, he'd exposed his magical secrets with little but Deshawn's rational mind from questioning it too hard. He was a rational mind that had saw bugs everywhere and worms under his skin just a couple of days prior. Still, Al was already prepared with some hocus pocus misdirection to lead the man down different paths of answers if necessary.

Devon ruined any chance of that working when he came through Al's door the next morning with the first words out of his mouth being, "I'm glad you decided to trust him after spending a couple of days with him. Now he can help me and I don't have to feel like I'm keeping things from my fam."

Behind him, Deshawn gave Al a wary glance but was sporting a smirk just the same.