Reacquainted

Back in the box, famished, Julian sat down picked at the scraps of food still in the small ceramic dish, almost devouring it with bothering to chew.

“Where’s Josh?” Carver inquired.

Julian stabbed a thumb in an upward direction.

Henry walked over, hands on his hips. “So in the end, what did your little jaunt get you? What did you accomplish? You endangered all of us. I told you shouldn’t have gone. Ham is dead because of you and Josh,” he accused, tone acerbic and biting.

Rising to his feet, the taller man swiped the back of his right forearm across his mouth, “You’re an idiot. Ham is dead because Faith ate him. If we had stayed in the old box, it would have been business as usual, one by one she would have pulled us out of here and stuffed us down her gullet. Right now, because of what Josh and I did, and to a lesser degree bacon grease over there, we just might have a fighting chance so shut your trap and think about what you’re going to say before sound dribbles out of your wizened old suck hole,” Julian retorted, favoring the older man with a snide grin.

“Hey, we can’t go back and undo what’s already happened,” Carver interjected, trying to defuse some of the rancor in the air. “What do you mean about a fighting chance?” he asked.

Julian turned his head and fixed the heavier set man with a glower. “Have you actually been getting fatter in captivity?” he cracked.

Carver chuckled, “That’s good, pretty quick too,” he conceded. “Come on, how do we now have a fighting chance?”

“What was in the bottle cap?” he asked looking passed Carver and over at the empty plastic screw top.

“Ice cream,” Henry replied sanctimoniously, “for not being foolish enough to run away.”

“Julian, stop being an asshole. What did you guys do after I got captured that gave us a chance?” he repeated, annoyance seeping into his tone and wondering whether or not Julian was just fucking around.

Rolling his eyes, “We made a deal with Faith, me and Josh. I didn’t give a shit about either of you morons but Josh included you. So, because of our proposition, me and Josh are going to go into Julie’s room, that’s Faith’s sister, anyway, we’re going to go into her room and just basically fuck with her shit on account of the fact that she is a giant cunt,” he said, shoveling a small piece of bread into his mouth.

“You have a foul mouth,” Henry groused.

“Fuck, balls, cunt, fuck,” Julian said through the food he was still chewing.

“Okay, so we,” Carver started.

Julian shook his head, “Not we pig roast, me and Josh,” he interrupted.

Carver shook his head, “Okay so you and Josh sneak into this girl’s room and do some damage, then what? How do we benefit from that?” he asked.

“Better digs for one,” Julian replied.

“What?”

“We asked for a room upgrade and she agreed,” he shared.

“Out of the box?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know, that will be up to her. I have no idea what she might do. But there’s something else. She said if we amuse her, she might restore us,” he explained, nodding slowly and raising his brows.

“Dude, please tell me you’re on the level. Did she really say that?” Carver asked, eyes widening.

Putting his right hand over the left side of his chest, “God’s honest truth,” he swore.

Carver chuckled, “We might get to go home,” he whispered softly, as if speaking too loud would make it vanish.

“But,” Julian said, holding up his hand, “Josh also asked for none of us to get eaten and she said no, so I don’t really know for sure,” he added with a shrug. “I mean you’re probably okay Carver because if she tried to swallow you, it would probably be like trying to swallow a marshmallow for her, but Henry, I don’t know, right down the hatch.”

“Or you Julian, if she swallowed Ham easy enough, a scrawny chicken bone like you would be no problem,” Henry countered with a bit of a snort

“At least it’s something,” Carver replied, nodding.

Julian looked over to Henry and chuckled, nodding his head, “Chicken bone? Yeah. Speaking of chicken, while we were out there trying to do something, you were in here like an egg in a carton waiting for a frying pan. We got hope. We got a chance. That’s what came out of our little escapade,” he declared. “What have you done?”

Henry turned away.

“You’re right, it is something,” Carver acknowledged, “more than we had this morning.”

Julian inclined his head and nodded slightly, “You’re welcome,” he said modestly.

“So if you and Josh are going out there, how can we help?” asked the portly man, motioning his hand back and forth between Henry and himself.

Julian shrugged, “Ideas I guess, I mean Josh is pretty clever by himself, but if we can come up with a few different ideas of how to fuck Julie around, it wouldn’t hamper our cause,” he stated.

The ground under them lurched, knocking all three men off the feet.

The lid opened and Faith smiled down on the trio, focusing on Julian, “Did you explain the situation to them?” she inquired, lowering a clean looking Josh into the box.

Julian nodded.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” grumbled Henry.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Faith asked, shifting her eyes to the older man.

“I said I don’t think it’s fair. I stayed in the box and these others all ran away, but they’re not getting reprimanded,” he protested.

Cadence’s face appeared over the box, her long dark hair hanging loose and framing her face.

Faith frowned, reaching down and picking up the empty bottle lid, examining it and setting it back down.

“Carver got some of that,” Henry informed, pointing at the cap and flicking a glance toward the other man