Coming from over a year in a world where sleep is sort of recreational to the world I know where circadian kicks in makes it a bit rough to shift sleep schedule on the fly. It took a while to get to sleep in the afternoon. Never been the sheep-counting type. I tried cataloguing things in my head...pets, mounts, NPCs...finally dropped off in the midst of my Triple Triad cards.

Tsu'na worked the register that night, sans hat and coat. People looked at her, sure, but not wolf-pack staring like the other time. Maybe it was the Hartmans, maybe Sam, maybe me...or maybe she's just that personable. She never needed to smile fulltime like she was that night, and she was doing it well. My magnificent miqo'te was magnificent.

I hated to abandon her to the wolves, but she seemed to be doing okay, so around 11:00 I headed out to see Sam. Even if he didn't see me.

He had the back door of the Pit open when I got there, which made it easier to get in. Ninja Stealth gets a little iffy when it comes to doors, and we haven't had enough occasion to practice here to see if it works like Douglas Adams' SEP field. Gatherer Sneak seems to, but we don't usually have doors in the woods.

His truck was parked near the door. It seemed he was restocking. I got a glimpse of an invoice on the bar detailing purchases for one S. Daniels, The Pit (so not just a nickname), Wyatt OK. My first intel gathered. I was so proud.

I watched him move kegs from his pickup into his back room, watched him make a last circuit of the bar before killing the lights, and finally watched from the back of the truck as he locked up the bar, got in the front of the truck and drove us off.

Sam Daniels does not appear to have a brother named Jack, or a son named Jack, or a dog named Jack. I don't know if that was a missed opportunity or responsible parenting. He does have a wife, or at least a cohabiting female, who was asleep in the bed when we arrived. He also has a goldfish (who may or may not be named Jack), which was convenient for me, because after he went to bed I could read by the aquarium light.

He didn't go to bed right away. He got himself some water from a filter pitcher (interesting choice for a bartender) and settled down on the couch to watch CNN (interesting choice for small town USA). He may not be a scholar, but he's not an idiot.

The old, yellowed PC in the spare bedroom looked like something bought because Everybody Has One rather than something used for fun. The parts of the room that weren't the desk and chair were heaps of boxes and piles of stuff. I didn't have a lot of light to see by, but it looked less like hoarder chaos and more like abandoned projects...folded fabric, folio books and the like. As if this was the room where dreams went to die.

Sam finished his water and his news intake and went to bed, leaving the fish and me to socialize. I waited for a while until his breathing was audible and rhythmic before moving things to the fish tank to read.

Not that there was much to read. No convenient stack of mail by the door. An electric bill on one end of the kitchen counter, addressed to Samuel Daniels. No junk mail I could find sent to Resident or Occupant, though there was a flyer from Community Baptist Church for "Our Neighbors".

No bank statement. No purse. Nothing lying around that would tell me the name of the woman. Maybe in the bedroom, but I admit to a squeam about going in there with them, especially if the light was poor. Which was annoying, because I felt an itch to know coming on. I made a mental note to add night-vision goggles to my wishlist.

There was a small stack of magazines on the floor at one end of the couch...People, Cosmo, Vanity Fair. None of them had mailing labels (stupid itch), which meant they were bought from somewhere. I didn't remember seeing magazines at May's, but I hadn't been looking.

No books. The Hartmans didn't have many, and the library was small, but I wasn't used to not seeing any. Maybe again in the bedroom.

I looked around as much as the aquarium permitted. It wasn't sparse, or spartan, or utilitarian; it was just really...tidy. The furniture was old and the place felt lived-in, but there wasn't a lot of life filling the space. Which just made me itch more about the wife...sure, maybe all of Sam's life was at the bar, but what about hers?

Spying and burglary weren't really a thing in FF14, so I didn't have a lockpicking skill. Elder Scrolls Online had a lot of it...I was breaking into places all the time in that game. Might be nice if I could drop into an ESO world for training. In the meantime, if I left I couldn't get back in until someone opened a door, which might be at least six hours later.

But there was absolutely nothing to do until someone got up. I couldn't sleep there...I might get tripped over. Or heard...Tsu'na's never said I snore; Sam should probably not be the person to tell me.

So I slipped out, leaving the door locked behind me. Sam's porch light was on, showing me a mostly empty yard, but there were some trees at the edge of the light range. I went out to the trees, then went out further until I couldn't see the porch light any more, then just a bit further. I got out the camping kit, set up the tent, and crawled in.

The sleep I got earlier helped, but the unexpected exercise degraded me. The snooping plus the camp setup, plus waiting for Sam to turn in, had eaten a couple hours. I didn't know how long Sam would sleep, but I needed to be up before him, so I linkpearled Tsu'na about the new schedule, set an alarm for five hours and conked out.

And woke, not to the alarm, but to metal banging. "Hey! You in the tent! Get out here!"

I unzipped the tent and peered out. There was Sam, a shotgun in his right hand and a tire iron in his left. He blinked and stared at me. "Steve?"

I blinked and stared back at him. "Sam?"

"The fuck're you doin' here?"

"...Trying to sleep?"

"Next to my house!?"

I looked blearily around. Yes, I could in fact just barely see his wood-paneled house out there beyond the trees. Which meant he could see my orange nylon tent from his front porch.

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is known to be so stupid that it thinks that, if you can't see it, it can't see you.

"That's your house? I didn't know."

"Then what are you doing here?"

A random neuron fired. "Looking for sumac."

"...Sumac."

"Yeah, it's a bush, grows around six feet..."

"I know what sumac is!"

"Okay, well, Tsu'na said she wanted some for an herbal thing, and the forest service maps said it grew around here."

"And you went looking for it, what, at night?"

"It...got me away from her. She was being kinda bitchy. I think it might be her time of the month."

(I couldn't tell if she was amused when I told her about this. "I was a prop?" "No, my love, I was making excuses. You were an alibi.")

Sam sighed, and let his gaze wander around the trees. 'You wanted to hang out, whyn'cha just come to the bar?"

"I didn't know this was your place! I saw the porch light, thought it'd be a good reference point in the morning."

"This is weird. You know that, right?"

"Kinda weird, yeah."

He looked at me. I looked at him.

I gestured to the gun. "Shotgun?"

"Problems with squatters."

"Gotcha. Look, lemme pack up the tent and I'll be on my way..."

"You want breakfast?"

"Oh, I couldn't impose..."

"Pack up the damn tent and come to the house."

"Yes, sir."

The tent came with a shoulder tote, which I stuffed it into, because of course I didn't have an extradimensional pocket for it or anything. I lugged it up to the house, knocked on the door and was greeted once again by Sam. I stepped inside to find the woman awake, sitting on the couch, and absorbed in the TV.

"This is my wife, Dolores. Dee, this is Steve from the bar. He's who was in the tent."

Dolores blinked and looked up at me. "Why's he camping next to us?"

"He was out at night, got lost and parked at the first house he saw."

She kept staring at me. I was reminded of Snuggles and Cat TV. "You could get yerself shot doing that."

"Thanks...I'll keep that in mind."

She studied me a moment longer, looked at Sam, and turned back to the TV. I was clearly Sam's to deal with. And my novelty just didn't compete with Oprah.

I followed Sam to the kitchen. "Seriously, you don't have to..."

"Dee woke me, I woke you. We're both up, so we might as well both eat. How do you want your eggs?"

"However you make 'em is fine."

He gave me a pointed look.

"...Over-medium?"

"Hm. So however I make 'em?"

"Is fine."

Scrambled was fine, especially with toast. He set the plates down and sat across from me. "Find any sumac, then?"

"Honestly, I wasn't trying that hard."

"She like this often?"

"Depends on the circumstance."

"An' the time o' the month?"

"Well, yeah. But I think she's been a bit edgy sometimes here. New place, new people, new ear and tail issues..."

Sam nodded. "Spoke with some o' the regulars 'bout that. They kinda like her, ya know...cute lil' thing like her that can throw 'em around. The ears an' tail just give her...whatcha call..."

"Mystique?"

"Was gonna say character, but sure. They think of her as part o' the bar, part o' them...and they can get kinda territorial. Sure, they fight sometimes, but no one comes in an' makes a mess o' their bar, ya know?"

I smiled. "So she's got herself a home."

"Oh, hell yeah. Ain't it like that at the diner? Joel said he an' Hazel been talkin' to people."

"Kind of a different crowd. We mostly get teenagers in the evening. But yeah, it's gotten better. I think. The pretzels and pies sell."

"So don't worry 'bout it too much. You be nice to them, they'll be nice to you. Just keep the weird down."

Talk drifted to the shed, and some things about running the bar. Through it all, Dolores (itch scratched) kept her eyes on the TV. I guess that's where her life is now. Though I do wonder about the piles of stuff in the other room.

Sam offered to drive me back to town, as long as I didn't mind a stop at the Safeway out the highway. I found dried sumac there, for appearances. Sam recommended I add a bag of chocolates ("Trust me on this."). We loaded his stuff into the truck and drove toward the diner.

I told Tsu'na the story of my adventure. I think she was trying not to laugh at me. "What is sumac?"

"This stuff."

"And what will we do with it?"

"Put it on pizza, maybe?"

"And the chocolate?"

"Sam said women like chocolate during their period."

"I must thank Sam for teaching my husband about women."

"You've never had a period."

"No, but I like chocolate. If Sam has taught you to bring me chocolate, I must thank him."

So, an all-around educational night. We were both a bit short on sleep, so we went to bed for a couple hours.

As we cuddled under the blanked, she nuzzled close and whispered "sumac" in my ear with a giggle.

I'll probably be hearing about that for a while.