It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

chapter three- loyalties among thieves

As I changed into normal clothes, I just couldn't seem to keep my mind off of the dark-haired interloper currently in the house, probably watching General Hospital with Bad Twin in the living room. But the thing is, everything reminded me of Pancho and I couldn't shake it. He wasn't even fucking fake-dead anymore, so I didn't really have a reason for him to be constantly on my mind. The lamp reminded me of when he kissed me last night, and I cringed. Why the hell did he do that? It was so out of the blue. And it was completely ridiculous that I wasn't able to stop thinking about it when all I wanted to do was forget. Then, this morning, he just seemed so targeted on me, and it was just the weirdest thing. He really did need new clothes though; Pancho wearing mine like it was completely normal and not even bothering to roll up the sleeves so his hands were always half-hidden brought a confusing and unsolicited flush to my cheeks. I put on a pair of jeans and a button-up, tugging on my loafers with a tired sigh. The sleep I had gotten hadn't been very good and I was left just feeling kind of detatched from everything, which I hated.

When I went back into the living room, Pancho and Bad Twin were, of course, glued to the TV. I couldn't tell what was happening on the screen, but somebody was crying really loudly. Bad Twin wiped at his eyes under his sunglasses and Pancho was just enamored with whatever was going on. I cleared my throat to get his attention, and it took a couple seconds, but he finally pulled his gaze away from the TV and settled on me.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked, making sure I had my wallet with me.

Pancho nodded, climbing to his feet and stretching. He was wearing his snow boots agin, so he must have put them on while I was changing. I gave up on getting Bad Twin's attention and instead lead Pancho out towards the front door, snagging the car keys from the pool table on the way out.

***

The mall hadn't really changed much since the last time I'd been, which I couldn't even really remember. I did most of my shopping online so that I could avoid it, actually. But Pancho needed new clothes, and soon, so there wasn't really any way for me to get out of this. "So, uh, where do you wanna go? Like, Macy's or something?" I asked. I liked to think of myself as a fairly well-dressed guy, but I had no idea where to go in here.

"Uhh..." Pancho trailed off absentmindedly, and I wondered if he was actually thinking about where he wanted to go shopping or just spacing out. Snapping back to attention, he said, "Yeah, sure, Macy's."

We made our way into the store. Pancho wanted to smell the perfume that they were spraying on people, but I crinkled my nose and insisted we keep moving. The menswear department was mostly empty except for us; a sea of muted blues, grays, blacks, and plaid. Pancho looked through one of the racks as I just kind of stood there awkwardly. "Maybe we should make some kind of a list of things we need for now, so that we're not here for hours?" I suggested. I wanted to get out as soon as possible, and at the rate he was going at, that would be at least two hours later.

"Okay," he agreed, sniffing a little, "yeah, sure. Well, first of all, I need some new plaid shorts."

"Really? The cargo ones?"

"Yeah, man, those were my favorite fucking shorts. I don't have 'em now, and I need a new pair." He looked a little down about the fact that he'd lost them, which was concerning because they were quite possibly the ugliest shorts I'd ever seen.

"Look, I agreed to take you shopping, and that's all, but I can't let you wear those in my house. They're awful. Let's get you some fucking jeans, or at least just regular cargo shorts."

Pancho argued with me about it a little longer, then reluctantly agreed that, at least for now, he wouldn't be getting any new plaid shorts.

When he had picked out some things, I sat down on the couch outside of the dressing rooms while he went to try stuff on. After a couple of minutes, he came out of the dressing rooms wearing black skinny jeans and attempting to do some kind of fashion model walk.