MURDER ON THE HIGHWAY

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

"Henderson, it's like, 7 miles southeast from here." Woah. Taxi stopped for a second, had he just said that? That sounded almost smart. AND he had remembered where he was staying! This was an all time amazing feat for Taxi so he congratulated himself while pulling the coat on. The real challenege was going to be recalling the exact building and room he had holed himself up in. That was like finding a needle in the haystack of his wierd little head.

"It's not so bad. Thanks." Careful examination of the coat led him to believe that his first opinion had been correct. A bit hippy-ish. Gabri could use some updating with the times or some fashion magazines. Atleast he got the hat right, those were so in right now. It covered the wound in his stomach well enough from prying eyes.

[Rip]

"I think it would be best if I took you back there." Gabri said, brushing off his pants and looking off to make sure no police were going to come running. "I didn't give your name when I got the room, but they might reconize you." It was a very sutal way of saying 'I don't want you to get shot again', and the boy frowned while running his fingers under his hat and through his black hair. He began to walk through the alley, hoping he could remember how to navigate to the parking lot.

"I'm sorry I ruined your Vegas trip. And your shirt." Said the Pole off handedly but sincerely. "But I can at least get you where you need to go before the sun comes up."

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

"Wouldn't matter if you did, i've never legally existed." Atleast not under this name. The german could sense the concern in Gabri's voice and appreciated it, warm fuzzies building up inside of his chest. And the constant apologizing and caring, Taxi made zero effort to stop it.

"You gotta lay low for a while, ja? You're staying with me till the heat dies down." This was a matter of fact statement. He thought the place he was in was paid off of a while, as far as he could remember it was. The blonde had either moved his crap in either killing its resident and the landlord hadn't cared as it was paid for, or he had gotten enough wallets he could pay for his own. Didn't matter. Gabrjel was staying.

[Rip]

"That is too much trouble." Gabri, unlike Taxi, was prone to arguing acts like that and it showed. "I'll be fine. I don't want to be a danger to you." He was certain the vampire wouldn't be killed on his account, bit he couldn't ignore how guilty he was about the gunshot. That had been his fault, and it was also his fault that he was now in trouble. He dug his own hole when he smashed that girl in- a real pity for that, too, as it wasn't her time.

The car was where he left it.

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

Taxi lept into the car when Gabri unlocked the car and got himself nice and comfy in it. No seatbelt as always, leaning against the window so he could watch the driver instead of the road or outside. What lay outside the metal exterior seemed dull to watching humans.

Words were chosen carefully, he was begining to get a feel for Gabri and just how to work him. "It would hurt my feelings if you didn't stay with me."

Hrmm. He'd have to clean it though. The blonde was a bit of a slob, it came from never having to tidy up after his own messes, someone was always there to do it for him. Now they weren't so things sort of fell apart.

[Rip]

Gabri brushed the seat off before sitting down- he had gotten some dirt on it from his shoes when lunging over the seat to try and strangle Taxi for stealing his axe. Speaking of said hatchet, the boy shot forwards no sooner then his rear hit the cushion, as the blade had dug very uncomfortably into his back. Grumbling, he pulled it out and hid it in it's normal spot under the seat. He started the car up just as his good buddy played an unexpected card, and Gabri bit his bottom lip, both hands on the wheel but not going anywhere, thinking but not looking over at Taxi.

Well... he didn't want to hurt feelings.

"Ok, ok. But not for very long." He was also subconsciously hoping Taxi's lover wasn't a big, angry person. Or worse, a big, angry person prone to jealousy. That would be awful.

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

It wouldn't have been entirely inappropriate for Taxi to burst out into maniacal laughter, but SOMEHOW managed to repress the instinct. Finally they made it to the scuzzy looking apartment complex in the heart of the slummy part of the crap little city. Hands fisted in excitement as he climbed the stairs laboriously, containing himself. There were new fresh fancy fashionable clothes in there! Gingerly the blonde put the key which he had remarkably not lost in its little slot, turning it and then cranking the doorknob and kicking the door open to reveal what lay behind the gates of hell.

Far down that passage of nightmares would could make out the shapes or what was probably hopefully maybe furniture. Lurking in the darkness were clothes on hangers (lest they wrinkle) hung on nails jammed into walls, a pull out couch with a blanket and pillows thrown over it and wood thrown up over windows. When the switch was flipped it would reveal just what chaos actually existed in his vampires nest. The floor was coated in whatever junk remained from its previous inhabitant, cigarette buts, beer cans, trash. Ontop of it was a brand new layer of Taxi-flavoured junk, magazines, socks, dead flowers. And then there was the disturbing fragrance of dead flesh, somewhere in the horrors of the un-used kitchen there was a corpse the vampire had been too lazy to dispose of.

It was a neat-freaks hell on earth.

[Rip]

The ride to Taxi's place had been quiet but nice, as Gabri was tired and didn't have enough energy to try and humor his companion in long stretches. His head hurt on occasion, and in his mind he imaged a hematoma. The blood flowing against his brain, filling up until he'd be unable to think right, or until someone drilled a hole in his head. Of course the theory was crazy, as he most certainly wasn't hit hard enough for such a thing, but the idea made him feel oddly warm and surreal. He mused over the thought as he drove.

The city wasn't one he'd expect the vampire to stay in. Especially not this naughborhood. Regaurdless, he wasn't going to judge personal taste as it wasn't in his nature to do so, so he followed his eger friend up the steps without a word about it. Once the door was opened and the light switch flicked on though, oh that was a much different story.

Unfortinately for the reaper, he happened to be a neat freak. At home he even folded his socks and had his bookcase in alphabetical order going by the author's last name. If there was one peice of paper on the floor, he couldn't sleep until it was picked up. If there were wrinkles in his bedsheets, he felt cheap.

Walking into that room almost killed him. And it showed. Hopefully Taxi wouldn't look around and see the look of complete horror on the boy's long face. He didn't have to try and stop his voice, it died before he even thought about it. He couldn't say a word if he wanted to.

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

"Sorry for the mess," The vampire offhandedly stated while he moved through the set of rooms till new clothes were within his grasp. Too distracted by his lust for fresh garments to cast a glance backwards and see the mortified reaper. "I've never been that good at cleaning, and this is only temporary, so I wasn't gonna bother."

His current vestments were discarded, kicking himself out of pants and carelessly letting the borrowed coat drop onto the hazardous floor. Writhed out of his shirt till he was bare save for his underwear with no concern for his guest, as if it was a perfectly normal occurance. Which it was for him. He was just changing into his favourite black and yellow striped shirt, black dress pants and an unnecessary silk tie of italian craft. Nothing worth special attention.

"I don't have anything to eat. And there's only one bed. And a body in the kitchen."

[Rip]

Gabri looked away when Taxi started changing- same gender or not it was only polite, and continued to slide his eyes over the horror of the apartment. His brain only added a few lily bads and giant bugs, plus two large shark fins- the rest were real. This was a death trap. Oh god oh god oh god he was going to explode this was so bad. His hands were twitching, so he shoved them into the pockets of his pants. With difficultly concealed disgust, he moved some debree with his foot and recoiled it back, as if it burned.

God.

GOD.

This was going to take forever and and and...

'There's a body in here'

OH IS THERE WAS IT BECAUSE HE DIED ON ACCOUNT OF THE MESS CHOKED ON A COCKROACH OR EARWIG OR OR OR OR OR OR OR DID RATS HAVE BABIES IN HIS MOUTH OR-

He was cut off only by his very small annoyance of seeing his coat hit the floor. He picked it up quietly and folded it over his arm. Using it to cover bloody wounds and as a blanket to sit on the oily alley was one thing. This was another. Oh baby Jesus he needed to clean this or he'd never sleep again, even if he was 10,000 miles away this was going to haunt him and and and... GOD IT WASN'T LIKE THERE WAS A HURRICANE OR ANYTHIN-

"That's ok." He said to himself, thinking that he was doing a good job keeping his voice normal despite his awful stress. "I picked up some m-money in Vegas, I can get dinner.. later. If you want to get somethin before the sun comes up I'll take a nap or s-something"

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

Oblivious to Gabri's extreme discomfort Taxi busied himself hunting around in his crap-fest. Wherre was his wallet? It was here somewhere, he was sure of it, in this pile of junk. Wait, no, maybe it was under that pile of clothes. Nono, right, he had put it next to that dildo- AHAH!

"Our faces will be all over the news, you can't leave here during the day." A frown as he rammed the wallet into his pants pocket, placing his hands on his back to crack it idly. "I'll go now and grab some.."

ADHD once again kicked in wonderfully, "Oh! You'll need stuff, like, food, and, I don't know if the plumbing works, it probably does, I hope, maybe." Lips pursed as he looked upwards in thought, spotting some gum and swatted bugs on the cieling. "You should try to sleep during the day a bit. I'll get some cleaning stuff too."

And before Gabrjel could insist otherwise, Taxi abandoned the Pole in the hell of his building to go and gather supplies. Alone. With all the filth.

[Rip]

Soon as Taxi left Gabri sprung into the bathroom, searching through the cabinates (what he could see in them, anyway, he was kinda afraid of the one as it was making perculiar noises). He was hoping he could find a damn gas mask or at least gloves or something, but alas. No luck. He decided to make due with what he had. He took off his shirt and looked around for a place to put it. He came up empty handed so with a grunt, Gabri pushed some stuff off the livingroom table and folded it there for now and took survalence around the war zone. Where the hell should he even start?

The Pole discovered about 30 seconds later, after slipping on something (he didn't know what and he probably didn't want to know) and colliding with the wall, that the floor was a hazard. Ok, floor first. Got it. He dug through the rubbage and got the clothes first. That was easy enough. He threw them on the couch. Next was... everything else.

Having no idea what was of 'sentimental value' to Taxi amongst all this crap, Gabri didn't know what was alright to throw out. He decided on just organizing it and throwing away the actual trash and letting the German deal with the rest himself. Or at least tell him what to do with it. Bending down to pick up a magazine, he was momentarily distracted by something big and fuzzy scampering over a beer can and accidentally picked up one of Taxi's little toys. The boy looked down quite casually, wondering wtf he just touched, until he saw the damn thing and almost back flipped away from it, darting to the bathroom and washing his hands so many times and so agressivly that he rubbed them raw and was biting his tongue in frustration. ARHAUHEKRJEWHRJHWEH

He discovered some oven mits in the kitchen, after loosing his lunch over the most rank dead person he ever laid eyes on, and refused to take them off as he worked on the rest of the floor.

Hours later, he actually had almost the entire apartment done. The floor was clean (even vaccumed, he found one of those old ones that hardly worked but it was bette then nothing), all the closets were sorted, all the clothes were put in said sorted closets. The only thing left was the kitchen cabinates and the dead guy and making the bed. Taxi could deal with the dead guy, apparently that was his forte. As for the bed, well he was so damn tired, he just fell on it, aching all over and smelling quite strongly of disinfectant.

The toys flashed in his head and rolled off the bed so fast that he banged against the floor and just stayed down there for a second. Argh. Floor was comfortable enough. It smelled funny but at least there weren't... things living on it anymore.

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

Nobody recognized Taxi. Nobody EVER recognized Taxi. Even if they saw his face on the news, and they did, they had very clear pictures from hotel surveillance, not a soul would think that bubbly happy blonde could have been the horrible menace they heard about over the six oclock broadcast.

So he carried on in his cheerful little manner, skipping through the slums before he found himself in a department store. Okay mental checklist. Go to work. Let's get food first. Fooood. Fooooood. Okay that was too hard. Let's do something easier. Toothpaste, toilet paper (Which was a very foreign substancce to the vampire, he had checked it for instructions and was disturbed to find there were none) and a toothbrush. Soap. Towels. Mouthwash. Mm, smelled minty. Oh, laundry soap? Sure. Dishwasher soap. Yes!

Little handbasket was thrown aside for a full out cart. The blonde was getting into this, this was far easier than he thought it would be. His personal necessities consisted of... prettymuch nothing. So this was all new terrain for him, and proving to be fun. Fun untill he rolled his little buggy into the food aisles. Oooh boy. Face screwed up, nose scrunching. There was a smart way to do this. Just look in other peoples carts, what did they have? A woman with a baby pushed past, grabbing some mushed up food. Oh, okay, that seemed good. Taxi followed and took the same thing. She seemed a bit fat (It didn't occur to him it was because she had just given birth) and so she must be really good at this eating thing. She moved too fast and Taxi lost her but soon found another. An older man and his teenage daughter bopping along. Okay, new target. What did they have? Cookies. Get some of those. pop. Sweet, take some, oh no wait he was putting those back. Okay, put yours back too. Apparently that is insufficent.

When he finally went through the check out his ecletic collection of items raised some eyebrows. Salt, cookies, baby food, frozen juice, popcorn, hamburger, and all sorts of things which were not appropriate for a nineteen year old looking male to have in his shopping buggy. Wallet was empty by the time he was done, amazingly enough being able to carry the multitude of bags himself.

They were simply dropped when he reentered his little nest. Except it was no longer a nest. It was CLEAN. Green eyes went wide, slowly closing the door behind himself and moving through the apartment. Floor was baren. It smelled fresh. Lemony fresh. Except for one thing, and this place was too nice for him to let it ruin it. So he grabbed the rotting corpse and lifted it so it wouldn't get it's nasty decomposing self all over the carpet and threw it out the front door. It was kicked down the steps and shooed off into one of the alleyways, not even getting a second glance from any passer bys.

Finally his work was finished. Heat was rising up on his skin. The sun was rising, he could feel it, no, his body could feel it. The vampires core was heating, telling him to find a safe place. So he did, Taxi kicked off his shoes hurriedly and crawled overtop of the unmade sheets and just sprawled over the bed. No time to get under the covers, not even enough to take off his socks.

[Rip]

The black haired boy woke late afternoon, his body feeling heavy and sore. What in the world had he been doing? He pondered over this while laying on the floor, eyes still closed, nose puffing the carpet. Smelled like mouse and lemons. Cleaner? Was he cleaning? OH THE APARTMENT OF THE DEVIL- that's right. Did he finish it? No, there's some things left to do. That didn't motivate him to get up. The pains in his stomach, however, were more then enough to roll him onto his back then get him to stand up. His back cracked when he stretched, and Gabri briefly wondered why the place was dark as a cave. That was answered when he looked over at the bed. Taxi + sun = poof. Right. Lord he was so hungry.

Having slept too long, Gabri felt tired and continuously rubbed his eyes as he staggered towards the kitchen. The nasty smell remained, but it's source was gone. The body was moved, thank goodness. It also looked like someone did shopping. Did he go shopping? Wait, no. Vampire-with-hygiene-problems did. Ok. He's 600 years old, so Gabri had confidence in his food gathering abilities.

He began going through the bags, little by little waking up as he kept pulling out the weirdest selection he ever saw. Smashed peas? Did Taxi think he was mentally challenged...? Ouch. After a long expedition he did find edible things, though the colder things had already melted. At least the meat had defrosted?

It was the thought that counted, he supposed as he went to using a clean pan to cook himself some burgers. It wasn't so bad, though in his might-as-well-be-starving state he put very odd things on top the patty. It tasted good at the time, but he regretted it a few hours later when he was curled up on a chair, reading the paper in between waves of nausea. Alright, so maybe the baby food condiments hadn't been a good idea.

[KOCHI-KOCHI]

Slowly he woke up, body becoming increasingly aware of itself. First he felt his toes and realized he was still wearing socks. And then he could feel his legs and arms, damnit, he had slept in his clothes. Ontop of that crappy pull out couch bed piece of shit, so that he bar was just under his chest in the most uncomfortable way imaginable.

Taxi rose with a groan, hearing his back crack gruesomly. "Owwwww~" Head rolled back, spinning on the bone so that he could snap those as well. Knuckles followed suited, the pop heard throughout the set of rooms as he hobbled through the find the Pole.

The wooden paint chipped doorframe was ample support for his body as he slung himself against the entry to the living room. One eye was closed, wincing in pain as fingertips searched underneath his shirt to find the healing wound. It had closed up for the most part but it was still angry and red, pulsing constant pain. Very easy to ignore when you hadn't rested all day awkwardly on it.

"You found the food?" Voice was practically a groan, walking towards Gabri till he stumbled to his knees and didn't bother standing back up, simply laying on his stomach ontop of the nice clean floor. "I didn't know what to get. Ffffiiiicckkkkk, my back hurrtttsssss. Rub it?"