DT Serum, Primary Testing In Progress

(*Sing song tone* She still didn't ask!  By now, it's not so much I want her to as it's funny.)

Lex stood staring after her quizzically. "A sem- What??"  Shaking his head, he turned and headed home.  He found a seat on his roof and sat calmly smoking.

Tramp stood at the doorway of Echo's place, the one she'd shown him, gasping like he'd run the whole way and twitching as he tried to watch all directions at once.  Bobo coward at his feet and whimpered.

Echo found Tramp and jogged over to her friend, sensing something was wrong. "Tramp!" She said as she came closer. "Tramp, are you all right?"

Tramp stared at Echo with wild eyes, pupils huge.  He seized her forearms, holding her tighter than he normally would.  "They're here!  They're here and they're coming to get us!  Ex, they're going to kill us all!  We have to hide, Ex, we have to hide or they'll eat our entrails!"

Echo guessed that this might be another drug hallucination, but she nodded none the less. "Let's go inside then, and lock the doors. I'll make sure my gun is loaded, just in case."

"NO!!" Tramp squealed as he jumped away from her.  "NO!!  The gun is alive!  Don't you understand?  They make things alive and the alive things turn on us!  If you load the gun, it will shoot us both!"

Echo nodded. "Okay then, I will leave the gun alone. But we should still get inside, all right? We don't want things out here turning on us."

Tramp wrung his hands but nodded jerkily.  He could trust Echo.  Echo wouldn't turn on him.  She couldn't profit from it, and she never took advantage.  She gave him nice presents.  He nodded again then scooped up the muddy and fearful Bobo.  The puppy looked scared.  What was wrong with his new master?

Echo guided Tramp inside and made sure her friend felt safe and secure, and urged him to try and sleep. She stayed calm on the outside, but on the inside, she was mad. Whatever Tramp was on now was not good, and she didn't want whoever gave it to him to give him more. That drug was not healthy for him, and more unhealthy than most things he did.

Tramp made certain all the windows were covered then paced the room, chewing on his fingertips.  The actual tips themselves as the nails were long gone.  His usually carefully groomed appearance was rumpled, his clothes still mostly clean, but now wrinkled and askew, his white hair hanging limply about his face.  "Not good.  Not good at all.  Why would they come back?  They can't come back!  It's not Fair!  Cruel stupid little basterds won't leave.  Sucking the life out of people and eating their souls.  EVIL!"

Bobo crept over to Echo and sat on her feet, watching Tramp pace.  It said something about the dog that Tramp even remember to take him in his current state.

Echo gently brushed and tried to clean Bobo up some. "They really are evil, huh?" She said to Tramp. She needed to keep his trust if she was to keep him safe right now. Echo didn't want him to accidentally get hurt while he was like this.

Bobo relaxed into Echo's touch and leaned into her, inadvertently making it harder for her to brush him.
Tramp looked at Echo and nodded wildly.  "YES!  You understand!  Yes, they are evil.  It's all a big nasty nest of nasty evil stuff.  You know??"

Echo didn't mind, and just did the best she could for the big floofy puppy. Echo nodded at Tramp. "Yes, I have heard that. I haven't heard exactly what the plot is, just that they're evil."

"The world!" Tramp whispered.  "One piece at a time!  None of this dramatic reveal Crap, they are going to tiptoe in on our nightmares through the shadows and our own techy stuffies!"

Echo nodded. "Makes sense." She said. She figured it would be best to agree with Tramp and let him rant until he either wore himself out, or the drugs wore off.

And Tramp did rant.  And rant.  And rant.  Until he finally ended up sitting in an exhausted puddle by the wall and mumbling incomprehensibly to himself as he scratched his arm until it started to bleed.  Once he was certain Tramp wasn't going to move, Bobo went over to him and crawled into his lap, licking his arm comfortingly.

The scratching made Echo worry a lot. Once he calmed down a bit more, she gently asked if he would let her put some bandages on it.

Tramp shook his head, hugging Bobo silently.  His eyelids drooped, but he still twitched, clearly on edge.  One wrong move - or more likely touch - could send him off again.

Echo sighed quietly to herself and remained still, letting Tramp drift off. She would have to try and deal with his arm when he woke again.

Tramp slept fitfully, clearly haunted by drug-induced dreams, but he stayed put, hugging Bobo tightly.

Echo stayed right where she was, no matter how long it took, until the drugs wore off. She would never forgive herself if she left Tramp the way he was, and he got seriously hurt or worse due to her negligence.

Tramp finally stirred some hours later, moaning softly.  He sat up and looked around.  He looked like he had the world's worst hang over.  He looked at Echo grumpily.  "What the hell are you doing here?  And why the hell am I here?"

Echo let out a breath in relief. "I was walking buy, and you were jacked up on something bad, ranting and raving like a madman. I couldn't let myself leave you like that, so I convinced you to come here and sleep it off." She checked her watch. It was close to three am. "Will you let me clean and bind your arm please? You scratched it until it bled..."

"Oh, back off you mothering little..."  Tramp continued muttering harsh abuses as he stood, scooping Bobo up as he did so.  Even at his worst he was never this mean.  He could be at times, especially under the influence, but he never struck Echo or cursed her out like he was doing now.  He limped out, his parting words, "I'm going to get a drink.  Bugger off me back," before slamming the door behind him.

Echo stared after Tramp, dumbfounded at what just happened. She... she just wanted to help her only friend, and what he said hurt more than she thought. She was already crying before she realized she was. Echo buried her face into her knees and tried to sob as quietly as she could. What was the point anymore? When she was just trying to help Tramp, he swore her out, or stormed off. It hurt a lot. After her tears finally dried, she got a small idea of what she could do, if her hunch was right about her newest contact. Wiping her face and trying to clean up enough to not look like she spent the last half hour crying, Echo grabbed a blanket and moved to the roofs. She placed three white stones where Lex told her to and huddled down in the shadow of the roof access, under her blanket. She still felt desperate, and on edge, but was somehow exhausted enough to pass out not long after.

Lex was fighting a nagging headache, but when he spotted the stones at about 6 the next morning, he grudgingly made his way over to the rooftop.  This had better be good.  When he got there, he looked around, confused.  So... where was she?  He spotted a glimpse of blanket showing where it had escaped while Echo slept and went over.  Kneeling next to the girl, he let out a soft whistle to wake her.  He didn't know if she was like him upon waking and didn't feel like getting punched.