.:The Illumination of Sorrow:.

MUSEUM OF UNNATURAL HISTORY

Reluctant to overstay their welcome Bean and Olive left The Sweet Spot four days after they arrived.

Their last night there a bullet whizzed by Bean's cheek and shattered a four hundred dollar bottle of absinthe, the alcohol inside erupting like Mt. Vesuvius, flames spraying the patrons and singeing eyebrows.

After the screaming settled and Mitra calmed the guests with promises of complimentary tequila and lap dances, Bean and Olive were sure of one thing: the hitman missed Bean because he wasn't ready for him to die yet. He wanted to chase, and he wanted them to run.

Mitra swore they weren't an inconvenience, but they knew she worried about her club's safety just as much as theirs. "You can stay longer if you want."

Bean hands back the clothes she gave them, neatly folded. "It's alright Mrs. Mitra. We don't want to cause any more trouble for you."

"Are you sure you have to leave?"

"The first gallon I make is yours." Olive promises. As soon as we get our lives back in order.

"I'll miss you two." Her face scrunches. "And so will the girls."

"I'll miss them too." Bean winks at the dancers, sending them squealing and fluttering. Olive rolls her eyes but doesn't comment. Bean's heart only belongs to Flossy, no matter how much he denies it.

"Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to help?" The Dutch Indian's nose ring reminds Olive of a fish hook, tugging Mitra's face to the surface of the imaginary fish tank surrounding them.

"Yeah just tell us when we'll get our wedding invitations- Ow!" Bean winces when his sister elbows him in the ribs.

"Very funny." Mirta kisses their cheeks and pulls them into a tighter embrace. "My two favorite assholes."

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If Bean had to put a solid definition to the word Love, it would have to be what he had with Flossy Jones.

Olive always teased him for being butt buddies with someone 'so damned quirky,' but he knew she approved of Flossy's place in his life.

They spent their Wednesday afternoons at the Art and Natural History Museum when it was free for public school students, debating the benefits of asexual reproduction and Western Imperialism.

Bean was elated to have finally found his mental match in Flossy. Olive was ideal for teaching and explaining abstract concepts, but he had the feeling sometimes she didn't fully understand his tangents. Or she was so tired she nodded just to get him off her case.

Though Olive was just as intelligent, if not more so, on worldly issues, his sister was all about muscle and action. What Bean lacked in physicality he more than made up for in mental strength.

Olive and Bean's codependence is comparable to if Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stephen Hawking decided to team up and wreak havoc as they pleased.

While Flossy's matted dreadlocks and heavy use of plum lipstick bothered Bean when they first met, he grew to take her oddities in stride. Most of the boys in their grade were drawn to Flossy for the sake of her sheer exoticism, but Bean was sexually attracted to her largest organ: her brain.

Bean's sapiosexuality was piqued when Flossy corrected one of his math problems in front of the entire class with no small amount of pleasure. Then she went on to cite the cause of the global syncope of the previous decade as the result of a religious revolution staged in the afterlife, sending Bean's logic into a wild tailspin.