The sleep was long and quiet; despite his body being covered in dried Essencima gunk and all his limbs aching, Janus was still able to fall asleep and stay dreaming for hours on end. Throughout the short amount of time remaining in the night, all through the morning and most of the afternoon, Janus was soundly unconscious. No snoring. No moving. Nothing but pure, undisturbed peace and quiet.

A cold whiff of air made him stir. He squinted his eyes and turned his head from side to side but still didn't wake. "Close... the window..." he muttered, still in a deep sleep. Gurk looked behind him, only to realize that the apartment didn't have a window. The crocodile leaned in closer to Janus once more, this time wrapping his cold palm around Janus' pale and skinny arm. A chill shot up his arm, shaking his entire body from the shock. His upper body shot upwards and his head darted from left to right.

"Wha...?" he said loudly. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Gurk said quietly. He was fully dressed; Mask. Coat. Torn shorts. He picked up Janus' glasses off the adjacent table and handed them to him. With some hesitation, Janus accepted his glasses and put them on his face. After letting the frost dissipate, he looked at Gurk with clear vision.

"What time is it?" Janus asked, placing a hand on top of his unruly hair. He brought up his Implant. The time was located at the top left corner, shown off in big and blocky white letters. "Fifteen Hundred? If this is like time back in Oregon, that means it’s the middle of the afternoon," he said.

"Yeah," the crocodile nodded.

Janus blinked his eyes twice, stretched an arm high above his head and let out a long yawn. "I've never slept in this late before. If we didn't just finish rescuing all those Exterminators, I would have said that I wasted half the day!" He then rubbed out the little bit of sleep that he still had in eyes before turning his entire body forward on the couch and planting his feet on the ground. "Is there something you needed to tell me, Gurk?" Janus asked.

"Hungry." Gurk placed one hand over his stomach. Janus could hear it grumble.

"Oh. Is it safe to assume that there's nothing in the fridge?" Janus turned his head to look towards the kitchen.

The crocodile nodded.

"Sure. I could go for something to eat too. You going to get Itzel up so she can tag along?"

Gurk shook his head. "Nah."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Is she the type to get cranky if you interrupt her sleep?"

Gurk nodded again. "Yeah."

"Fine. We can go get something to eat without her. But we should at least bring something back for her and Galo. Don't want her feeling left out. Or jealous." He stood up to his feet, chuckling while doing so. "I know how she is about you. Don't want her thinking I'm trying to be your one and only best friend." The crocodile snickered at the thought. "I'm going to take a shower before we go," Janus said as he looked at his stand hands and arms. "Is there a place where I can wash my clothes too?"

"Downstairs."

"Oh, a community washer. Think you could take my clothes for me for a quick rinse?"

"Sure." Gurk took Janus' jacket and placed it under his arm. He then extended one hand, implying that he was ready to take the rest of Janus' clothes.

"Think you could wait until I'm in the bathroom?" Janus said with a hint of embarrassment in his voice. "I'll just toss them out the door once I'm inside."

"Alright."

"Don't worry, I'll be quick." Janus dashed over towards the bathroom door and shut himself inside. After a few moments he opened the door a crack; just enough so that he could toss his clothes outside. He then closed the door behind him again. "Alright Gurk, I'll try not to be too long!" he shouted from the bathroom. He could hear Gurk make his way to the front of the bathroom door and lift the clothes off the ground. "Oh, and it won't take too long to get those clothes ready, will it?"

"Nah," Gurk replied loud enough to be heard through the door between them.

----------------------------------------

There was a knock on the bathroom door. Janus opened it up a crack, poking his head through the gap. Through the sliver he could see Gurk holding onto his clothes draped over his arm. A cloud of steam left the bathroom and into the main section of the apartment as Janus reached forward and grabbed his clothing. "Thanks Gurk," he said before shutting the door behind him. It didn't take long for Janus to exit the confines of the bathroom, fully dressed but with a head of soaked hair. He shook his head, flinging off as much of the excess water as he could before applying a bright blue towel with small robot characters printed across it. He folded it up and showed it to Gurk.

"Mine," the crocodile said, pointing at it.

"My bad, Gurk. I just grabbed the closest towel that I could find."

"Fine."

"Just wondering, when was the last time you washed this thing?" Janus said as he held it up. He noticed a peculiar smell coming from it that he didn't before when he was drying himself.

"Wash?" Gurk replied, raising one eye.

His face scrunched up. "Never mind." Janus put the towel back in the bathroom and then closed the door behind him, wiping off his hands on the freshly washed jacket. "Itzel still sleeping?"

"Yeah."

"What did you have in mind then, Gurk? Where are we eating today?"

"Grub On."

"That works. As much as I liked Top Tiers, I don't think I should be spending all that money on food when I still owe Labrisson a whole lot of Tokens."

"Yeah." Gurk held the door open with one hand and invited Janus to walk through.

Janus activated his Implant and looked at his banking information. "Looks like Labrisson was nice enough to let me hold onto a bit of the money I earned from that Ogre I took out, so I won't need you to spot me this meal." As Janus stepped out of the room, Gurk's icy hand gave him a pat on the back while his other showed him a big thumbs up.

"Nice," Gurk said as he slammed the door behind them.