Thank you for all of the reviews! I really appreciate them, knowing that people are reading my work. It's like a dream come true, seeing all of the story alerts and people all over the place reading what I have to say. It's one of the biggest honors for me, to know that people are listening to my words. So, thank you. I'm truly grateful.

Now, enough of all that mushy stuff. One more thank you goes out to Califaction!

Disclaimer: I've said it before.

Ben yawned. Sunlight streamed through his window, indicating a nice day ahead. He smiled to himself, stretching.

Then he remembered AugNo, and his smile fell.

Now weary all over again, he stepped out of bed and trudged downstairs to the kitchen to get some breakfast before beginning his day of writing again. It generally took him a good three hours to get ready these August months; procrastinating was a long and tedious activity every morning.

He hadn't seen Riley in a few days, which was odd. Usually the techie was there in the living room the crack of dawn, sipping coffee and typing away on his laptop. His word count had surpassed Ben's long ago, even though Ben had been working methodically and diligently at his growing novel. The once blank word document was filling up faster than he would have expected it to, and it was always a gratifying feeling when he saw the pages and the words adding up.

However, five days was a bit long to be without the techie's constant presence. His mouth still wide open in a yawn, Ben picked up the phone and dialed Riley's number.

"'lo?" Came the bleary voice from the other end.

"Riley?" Ben said. The kid sounded tired, there was no doubt about that.

"Yeah," came the short reply.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"Tired?"

"Mmm."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"You do that."

Ben frowned. "Are you sure you're alright?" There was silence at the other end. "Riley?"

"Hm?"

"I'm coming over."

Ben heard Riley's protests coming from the phone as he took it from his ear to hang up. Jogging upstairs again, he got dressed and found his keys. He was on the road towards Riley's apartment in ten minutes.

As he approached Riley's apartment door, he rummaged in his pocket for the key. He always kept one in case of emergencies like this one. Riley was notorious for getting himself in trouble.

He let himself in, glancing around the dark room, looking for any telltale signs of the techie's presence. Riley wasn't on the couch, one of his favorite places to be, so Ben moved to the door that led to Riley's bedroom. He knocked lightly and, hearing no answer, cautiously opened the door. The cramped room was dark as well, the only light coming from the glowing laptop screen on the bed. Riley was sitting on the bed in front of it, his eyes wide and glued to the screen. His fingers weren't moving, but they were resting on top of the keyboard, poised as if they wereabout to start typing again.

Ben frowned when he saw his friend frozen on the bed, but he soon saw the cause of it all: empty coffee cups were strewn all throughout the room. Apparently coffee came from all places for Riley: it looked as if he'd used up all of his mugs, and had since taken to raiding the nearby Starbucks. A cup of it was sitting on the bed next to his laptop now, just beside his waiting fingers.

"Riley?" Ben said hesitantly. Riley looked up for the first time, his eyes glazed and bloodshot.

"Ben?" he said. "What're you doin' here?" His words were slurred. Probably not a good sign.

"How long have you gone without sleep, Riley?" Ben said, feeling the lines of concern growing on his forehead.

"Dunno," Riley replied. "Few days. Caffeine helps."

And he fell face-first onto his laptop keyboard.

Ben lurched forward and helped Riley sit straight again. Riley was laughing to himself, pointing at the screen.

"Words!" he was saying. "I made words!"

Ben took a sidelong glance at the screen. Riley had fallen on the keyboard, creating a rather magnificent end to the sentence:

When we finally made it back to sdkljfi aackgjea gdkagj.

"Three words," Ben said, adopting the mocking, 'I'm-talking-to-a-complete-idiot' voice he sometimes used around Riley. "That's real great, Ri."

"I made…I made…" Riley said, but he was interrupted by a huge yawn. Instinctively he reached for the coffee cup that had miraculously remained standing. Ben stopped his hand midway.

"No more coffee for you," he scolded. "You need to go to sleep. Even during August you need your rest."

"Coffee solves…all problems…" Riley said, groping for the coffee cup again.

"You've been having way too much coffee. You need to go into coffee rehab."

Ben closed the laptop, despite Riley's muted protests, and helped the techie lay down. The computer geek began muttering something about caffeine poisoning and how it was all a myth, but his words were so muddled by thenthat Ben could only catch bits and pieces of what he was saying. Ben turned his back to pick up a stray coffee cupthat he had stepped on, and by the time he had turned around again, Riley was snoring from the bed.

With a self-satisfied grin, Ben took the half-empty cup of coffee from the bed to the kitchen sink and dumped it down the drain. He scoured the kitchen for any signs of coffee that Riley might be able to steal, but he found none. Now, to keep Riley from going to Starbucks…that would be more of a problem, but it was manageable. Ben snagged the Ferrari keys from the coffee table on his way to the door, the smug grin still on his face. He was just leaving when he remembered one more thing.

It wasn't really necessary, but he figured that it would be best for Riley to have a little break. Ben was only there to look out for the techie, after all.

Ben grabbed the laptop from Riley's bedside table, and, with a smirk, departed from the scene of the crime.

My favorite chapter yet. The ending just worked out too perfectly. Heh. It was really fun to write, and I'm really happy with it. So…the next chapter will kind of be the aftermath of all of this. Until then, I love all of your feedback. It really gets me in the mood to write. And if I could just figure out how to respond to reviews…grr. I'll find out how to do it if it's the last thing to do. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, in the meantime!

-Penn