Title: Morning in Drinkytown

Summary: "Don't drink the water if it smells funny!" Useful advice. If only Garet had listened…

Warnings: Total crack. Also, some implied as-yet-unnamed slashy shipping, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you...

"Sooo thirsty," Garet panted as he and Isaac trudged back toward town. Maybe going to train on the hottest day of the summer hadn't been such a good idea. Garet's hand went to the canteen at his belt, shook it hopefully, but no - he'd drunk all his water already. He turned to Isaac. "You have any water left?"

Isaac shook his head. "Nope."

Garet would have replied to that, but unsticking his tongue yet again from the rest of his parched mouth in order to force some words out of his equally parched throat wasn't worth the effort. He settled for a sort of noncommittal grunt. He was good at those.

They trudged on for several more minutes in silence until Garet caught sight of something off the edge of the path. There, under the shade of a couple trees in the blisteringly hot sunlight, was a pool of -

"Water!" he exclaimed hoarsely. Unsticking his tongue was worth it, for that, and so was temporarily ignoring the heat and his tiredness to jog over to it. Isaac followed, somewhat less enthusiastically, coming to a halt by the pool just as Garet uncapped his canteen. "Mmm, water. Delicious, delicious water."

"I don't know about this, Garet."

Garet turned to look at him, canteen still outstretched toward the pool. "What?"

Isaac sniffed. "It smells kinda funny. I don't think we should drink it."

"Psh, it's perfectly fine. See? There's those mushrooms growing at the edge of it, and they're doing okay."

"They're glowing!"

"That just means they're healthy." With that settled, Garet strode forward, knelt by the pool, and took a drink. Tasted a little musty, but eh, at this point, all that mattered was that it was wet and he wasn't picky. He filled the canteen up, took another drink, refilled it, and held it out to Isaac. "Want some? Really, it's fine."

"Garet, I really don't think-" Isaac began, but at the wide grin on Garet's face he sighed in defeat. "Let's get going. We're gonna be late to Mia's."

It was Mia's birthday, and everyone in town had turned up to celebrate. After all the destruction of the previous year, it felt good to get together for something happy, to let one's hair down and cut loose.

Garet was certainly loose, all right.

Within ten minutes of arriving, he'd kissed Dora, made some unseemly comments to the herb vendor, fondled an innocent barrel, and now he was dancing on the table, despite the fact that there was no music to be heard anywhere in the vicinity. Most of the assembled guests were staring at him in horror. No one should be able to gyrate quite like that, no one. And those poor Djinn...and the cactus...

Isaac turned to Mia. "Isn't there anything you can do? Y'know, Ply him or something?" He'd already tried Cure, himself, and it had only given Garet more energy for dancing.

She shook her head. "After seeing what Cure did, I don't think we ought to risk it." Mia shuddered as Garet ripped off his shirt and flung it into the audience, where it caught Ivan in the face. He dropped like a stone. "It might make him worse."

In fact, Isaac decided, Garet was already getting worse. His hands were inching towards his belt buckle.

A grizzled cheer went up from somewhere in the crowd, and Mia blanched. "All right, everyone!" she called out loudly, to detract attention from the soon-to-be-naked spectacle on the table. "It's time for birthday cake! Why don't we just go into the other room, here, and turn our backs towards that way…"

When Garet awoke, the first thing he was aware of was the pounding in his head. And the itch on his back. Really, the itch was worse than the pounding. What gave?

Well, the blankets were kind of scratchy. That would do it. Add to that the fact that he was noticing the scratchiness a lot more than he normally would have, and...

...all right, so he was naked. That was probably important. He didn't remember getting naked. In fact, he didn't remember much of anything about what happened after he'd arrived at Mia's party, except for a lot of shouting, and possibly something about pants. He wasn't even entirely sure where he was right now, except that it wasn't his own bed. His sheets were comfortable for sleeping naked on, thank you very much.

Maybe a look around would help him get his bearings. He eased his eyes open, just a tiny bit, and the sun promptly stabbed burning rays of light into his pupils.

"Ugh, my head," he groaned. He rolled over to get away from the evil sunlight, and came face-to-face with...oh no.

Oh, sweet merciful Charon, no.

"Good morning, beautiful," said Kraden, who was equally n….oh, Iris, no. "Next time, try not to hog all the blankets, would you? These old bones are more delicate than they look."

Garet screamed.