8. Bonded Vibrating Particles

Foxx smiled as he slid into his side of the curved booth. The End Zone was pretty busy at the moment. And luckily, they'd been placed in a new section today, one he'd hadn't gotten to see before. It could be described with two words—spaceship. It literally looked like they were sitting in some futuristic spaceship. The walls and floors in the area were all chrome, and there were panels, wires, and just… It was pretty cool.

He snorted when Harlow's eyes started to narrow as a now very familiar face began to walk in their direction.

When he'd been up for it this past month, they'd come here to eat. And…each and every time they'd come, they always had the same waiter, who they found out on their second visit was named Walter.

Walter not only continued his odd performance each and every time…but any sort of defiance seemed to increase the human's efforts. So, of course, Harlow did all he could to purposely freak the other man out, on top of refusing to use anything except normal words and food names.

Foxx had to admit, he was slightly entertained by this weird fight of wills.

"Ah, space travelers, I'm so glad you have returned to our station once again." Walter beamed while placing the glowing menu tablets on the table.

The man had placed such particular emphasis on the word ‘glad', it was hard to miss.

Foxx murmured, "Hello," while Harlow remained silent, just staring.

The waiter's smile widened. "What bonded vibrating particles of matter can I get for you today?"

Bonded vibrating particles of matter… Well, that definitely was a new one for sure. Foxx was going to assume…it was his insane way of asking them what they wanted to drink.

"What DRINKS can you get for us today, you ask?" his partner sneered. "Did you hear that, Foxx? He asked what DRINKS we want today."

Foxx didn't say anything, because he likely would have laughed at that moment if he'd tried to speak.

Harlow smirked, keeping his eyes on him. "What's that? Not sure what DRINK you want yet, Foxx? Well, I know what DRINK I want." His gaze flicking back to the waiter, Harlow said with a fake smile, "Water. Three of them. Think you can handle that?"

Walter's smile was stiff as hell now, but it hadn't dropped—good for him…the weirdo. "Three inorganic H2O compounds, understood. And for you?" The waiter turned to Foxx.

"Water is fine, for now," Foxx replied, his voice off pitch as he held back his laughter.

Walter nodded and walked off.

Foxx's giggle slipped free upon hearing Harlow grumble. "Dumb fucker."

He would have felt bad for Walter… Okay, he felt bad enough to always tip well, but he didn't feel bad enough to stop coming here. The food was too delicious to stay away!

It's not like they asked for him to wait on them every time they were here. Because they didn't. Half the time he was pretty sure they weren't even in the man's section. Walter just sought them out.

Foxx snickered. "I can't wait to see what he comes up with next time."

"Probably something equally as nonsensical," the human grunted.

"No doubt… So…do you think we'll be called back into work soon? I mean, I'm healed and I've been cleared, and now I have a badge again."

And he was healed. He was now perfectly able to…hide his nightmares from Harlow and pretend everything was okay. Honestly, Foxx was mostly okay. It wasn't like the dreams happened as often as they had a month ago. He felt less odd now. The absence of the cross burns helped.

Yet…just maybe, there was a minuscule chance that a small, teeny tiny part of him wasn't okay, but like, how long could it really take for ‘that' to fix itself?

Harlow hummed. "Likely…we will be placed on a case as soon as they can find one to throw at us. Charity will want to start us back on something easy no doubt. To be honest, we may be stuck tracking down dumb wannabe hunters for a while." The man frowned and added, "And this time, they will just be dumb wannabe hunters."

"How can we be sure? Have they figured out how we ended up being selected for that case?"

"I mean, I told you about the witch involved."

"Yes, but they couldn't have acted alone."

Someone had to be inside the Guild to be able to make sure the case was assigned to who it needed to be. Otherwise, there would be too many chances for it to be given to someone else, even if magic was involved.

"Tony likely knows who screwed us over on the inside. My best guess, it was someone who helps divvy up the cases between the handlers. Truthfully, I don't know much about the division of cases. But I do know that we have other people working in the Guild besides the hunters, handlers, and witches. But I'll ask him to make sure."

"It took them months to figure out who blew up your house. My faith in them finding the person fast is low. Now that I mentioned it, is anything being done about that?"

Harlow snorted. "Unlike those involved with blowing up my house, the people working with the priests weren't that good at hiding their tracks. At most, they did the bare minimum. As for Maverick, they are still trying to track him and his group of dumbasses down."

The bare minimum, yet…they'd been left to murder innocent people for years, all because no one cared enough to look deeper at the shady shit they were doing. Though, the priests definitely benefited heavily from the hospitals' government-given right to discriminate. At least, that would maybe be fixed soon.

"The bare minimum was enough for a long ass time."

"Some…have all the luck, until they don't." Harlow tilted his head. "There…may be one thing that slows us down when it comes to getting back to work."

Foxx brow lifted. "What?"

"You haven't seen that fucker, Johansson, yet. You won't be able to get out of doing it, you know. You were already supposed to go because of that first injury, and now, after the last case…there's no way Tony will let you get back to work without seeing him. He probably only let it go for this long because you were healing."

He grimaced. "Right…"

"Don't worry, like I told you before, you don't have to tell him shit. Just go in, lie a bit, and then leave. Tony only cares that you actually go."

Foxx sighed. How annoying… Another person that was just going repeatedly ask if he was okay. Why couldn't people just leave him alone?!

"It's a pain, I know." The man suddenly smiled and suggested, "Why don't you go in and fuck with his head? From personal experience, that at least makes the sessions semi entertaining…eh." The smile dropped just as suddenly as it came. "Then again…not much can make Johansson fun to be around. The man is a boring fucker who thinks too highly of himself. His head is shoved way too far up his own ass."

Foxx chuckled. "Wouldn't fucking with him just make it last longer?"

"Possibly, but it definitely is more satisfying than…not fucking with him."

He sighed again, and couldn't keep the grimace off his face at the thought of having to talk to someone, even if he intended to lie. It felt like too much effort when he still wasn"t feeling completely himself.

"How about…" Harlow trailed off.

Foxx met his gaze, brow raising as a truly twisted smirk slid onto the human's face.

"What?"

Harlow leaned forward, the man's eyes warming as he drew closer to him. "How about, after we are done here, we go home and watch every bloody hour of me torturing those bastard priests?"

Body beginning to heat, Foxx's cock twitched. "Every hour? How many?" he asked breathlessly.

"Enough for me to fuck you all day."

Foxx swallowed hard. "Big words, old man."

"Not just words."

Licking his lips, he demanded, "Prove it."

Harlow let out a dark chuckle. "Gladly, brat."