'Tis confusion!

Soaking Sal

Out of nowhere, the power went out. Q and I jumped at the sudden blackness, then once again when we heard a loud crash.

"Son of a bitch!... Quinn, you got any paper towels?"

"What happened, Sal?" Q called back.

"I...I mean, James got startled by the blackout, and knocked my drink all over my feet," Sal's voice replied. I could tell Q was grinning in the darkness. His arm knocked into mine. "There you are. Would you slide open that drawer behind you? I should have a flashlight or two in there." I groped around in the darkness behind me. My hand settled on the drawer handle, and I yanked it open, reached inside, and grabbed the flashlight, which was mercifully at the front of the drawer. I slid my thumb along the side and flipped the button. A bright beam shot from it.

"Excellent." Q took it from me, then shined it around the kitchen until he located the earrant roll of paper towels on the kitchen table. He tossed the roll to me, narrowly avoiding hitting me in the face.

"Fuck. Sorry."

I laughed. "It's ok. They're paper towels, not a grenade." I held the roll to my chest and fished my cell phone out of my pocket. "Do any of you have the flashlight app on your phone? " I turned it on and held the phone up, showing off a glow that rivaled Q's flashlight.

"You're a freaking genius, you know that? I'd never have considered that." He fumbled with his phone momentarily, then held it up, glowing brightly. "Sweet."

"Not to rush you, but my shoes aren't getting any more dry," Sal called from the living room.

Q sighed. "Guess I should go give His Royal Whiner the paper towels, huh?" I smirked. "Be nice."

"Why?"

I thought momentarily. "....Because it's not Murr?" Q grinned. "Fair enough. All right."

We went to the living room, which was pitch black, barring the pinpricks of light emanating from everyones' phone screens. Q waved the paper towels in the darkness. "Salvatore. Here." I heard Sal reply from over by the couch. "Over here. Thanks buddy." Q tossed the paper towels. I heard Sal fumble them. "Damn. Stupid towels." I snickered.

"Is everyone still in here?"  I asked.  I did a quick count of cell phone lights. "I only see five lights." 

I heard Emily giggle from the couch. "We're all here. Some of us are just more...indisposed than others." I was about to ask what that meant, when I heard another laugh. This one seemed to come from near Emily, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Sal's voice called to me. "James is behind the couch."

"Doing what?"

"Hiding from Sal," Joe's voiced offered. "He drenched Sal's shoes, remember?" 

"Wait, that was really him?" Q asked. "It sounded like Sal had spilled it, then used Murr as his usual scapegoat."

"Well, while you two were feeling each other up in the kitchen, James started his tequila dance, and knocked my entire glass over." Sal informed us.

"You really aren't one to talk about 'feeling each other up', " Q shot back. "I thought the rest of us were gonna have to clear out to give you and Barbara some personal space...wait, I missed Murray's tequila dance? Dammit. When the lights come back on, you're gonna have to give a repeat performance."

I turned towards Q's voice. "Wait a sec. So the thing you said earlier about Murr dancing pantsless after tequila..that's a real thing?"

"As real as Sal's hatred for germs," Q responded. I smiled. "Yeah, you're definitely gonna have to do an encore."

"Why is everyone suddenly so interested in seeing James pantsless?" Joe asked.

"Yeah!" Murr's voiced called out from behind the couch.

"Ah, shut up and have another shot," Sal said.

"The bottle..the bottle's almost empty..." Murr was indeed slurring his speech a little.

I could tell from the tone in Sal's voice (and the subtle glow from his cell) that he was rolling his eyes at Murr. "You dolt. If it's almost empty, there's still some in it. Man up and drink."

"I don't wanna...I don't like ta-keeeela right now," Murr said.

"James, I'm gonna 'te-kill-ya' if you throw up on my carpet," Q said. "Consider this fair warning."

Just then, the lights flickered, then flashed back on. There was an audible sigh from everyone in the room. Murr pulled himself to his feet. "Allright, let's parrrttty."

Q sighed. " The addition of bright light makes you feel better when drinking? You do realize, that's ass-backwards from...almost everyone else in existance, correct?" Murr shrugged and stepped out from behind the couch. It was then I noticed that he was no longer wearing his pants. He was standing there, clad in only his boxer shorts from the waist down. Q looked at him critically.

"Are those... are you wearing Lucky Charms boxers? They look like little marshmallows on your underwear."

Murr blushed. "Why do you care?"

"I don't care, I'm just nosy." I suppressed a smile. Q looked at the bottle in Murr's hand. " you realize there's nearly half a bottle of tequila left, correct?" Murr followed Q's gaze to the bottle in his hand. He blushed. "OOps. In the dark it felt more empty."

Sal and Q exchanged glances, then shook their heads. "I'm not gonna say a word. I'm just going to let you reconsider what you just said... while you're drinking that next shot."

Murr nodded, then tipped the bottle to his lips and drained it. I stared, mouth agape. "Wow. You must have no taste buds. I don't know how else you'd even be able to do that." Q snickered.

"Murr's a special one, all right."

"Special as in, 'stop eating the paste' special," Sal clarified. I burst out laughing. 

"You're mean," Murr told Sal. He held the empty bottle up and pretended to swing it at Sal. Sal snickered. "And you're a loon. Q, get that bottle away from James before he hurts himself. Or more importantly, one of us." Q stepped forward and gently grabbed the bottle from Murr's clutches.

"I'll take that, thank you." He took Murr by the shoulder and steered him down the hall. "Why don't you go in the guest room and relax for a bit?" Murr nodded and started several unshaky steps towards the room. 

"And please don't throw up on anything in there," Q called after him. "The bathroom is literally five steps past the guest room." He turned to me and rolled his eyes.

"Is Murr prone to that?" I asked.

Sal jumped in. "Well, when you consider that in the last year, I've seen James drink tequila...five times, and he's been violently ill....four times, then I'd say yeah, he's pretty susceptible to  not handling his liquor well." Q nodded. "Yeah, he's awful. However, you really haven't seen anything til you've seen Joey drunk off rose wine."

"It's pronounced 'rohw- zay,' Joe corrected Q. I laughed. "It's true though. I get a little strange when I've had wine. Sangria, too. Although I've never taken off my pants..."

"That he remembers," I caught Sal whisper to Q.

"Well, power's back on, what say we all watch another movie?" Q asked. We all nodded in agreement. Well, almost all of us. Emily had disappeared off the couch, most likely to join Murr. Q put Mallrats into his player, and we all settled around the television to wait out the storm.