(( Author's note: Foul language ahead.))

She squirmed. Tone-E looked down at her and grimaced, his reprimand quick and sharp. "Goddamnit, Trix, stop fuckin' movin'. Hold the fuck still."

She squinted at him, but she couldn't quite retort. He was holding her lower lip, after all. She wrinkled her nose and began to drum her fingers on one arm of the chair. The beat got more intense and had her torso shaking a little.

"Fuckin' A, Trix! QUIT IT! I'm gonna end up piercing your eye!"

She snorted once and then forced herself to quit moving. The pinch was fast enough, but this one stung more than the others. Then there was a second one, just to the left of the first. Tone-E finally drew back, grumbling something under his breath. She sat up to inspect his work. By now, she'd gotten her septum, one eyebrow, a horizontal in her right ear, a monroe (which is a stud supposed to mimic Marilyn Monroe's mole), and now, finally, a horizontal in her lower lip done. She grunted her approval and then looked over to him.

"'Nother." "Trix...no. We're done. You're fuckin' trashed. I shouldn't even be doing this, you know. Besides, you're running out of places."

He stood there with a frown, his arms (both with full sleeve tattoos) crossed over his chest. He always bent the rules for her, even if he hated doing it.

Trixie had met Tone-E back on Earth, when he was a skinny, acne-plagued sixteen-year-old who was short on friends. Trix had already teamed up with the Scathachians by then, so she was more than ready to adopt a crew. Before her training, she'd shied away from contact with mortals because she hadn't trusted herself. The Scathachians gave her the control she needed to break that reclusive shell.

They were a serious odd couple, but they had a dynamic. They'd check out shows and record stores together, and they each taught the other one how to grow up. Trix had plenty of sisters, but Tone-E was the closest thing she had to a brother. He'd accepted her, despite her "condition" and she'd supported him in all his business ventures.

He was a thirty-one year old tattoo/piercing hotshot, now. He'd even done two of her pieces. He'd also been forced into the spot of the older sibling. Despite her real age, which was a little over a century his senior, Tone-E found himself placed here a lot. It was true that he wouldn't be where he was today without her, but she needed him just as much.

"What's up with you, anyhow?"

"Nothin'. Hey, think I should gauge somethin'?" "Stop dodging the questions, T. What's up with you? You show up fuckin' out of your skull drunk and start asking me to shove metal into your face. You only get pierced when you're pissy. I know you. What's going on?"

"Like I said...nothin'. I juss' felt like...ya know...what about that one?" "Trixie, that's fuckin' silver. You can't wear silver." "Oh yeah......Listen, stop coppin' a fuckin' attitude with me, would ya" I don't need this from you." "You're being a bitch, too. Something's definitely wrong. And, okay, I'm not going to fight with you about this, but...you need to talk this one out. No more work tonight, ok" I have to get back up front, anyhow."

He gave a pat to her shoulder, then left her alone in the inking chair. She looked up at the bright fluorescent lighting and sighed. She did need to talk about this one, but the people she needed to talk to most were the ones she was avoiding at all costs.

She closed her eyes and thought about the events of the day. There was the super huge fight with K.....done-zo. Over. Finished. And her fam' Well, J she was still cool with. But I...she was still angry about it. A good chunk of anger was spared for herself, though. She knew she'd fucked up somewhere on this one, and bad. She couldn't backpedal, though. So where the Hell did she go from here" The mass amounts of alcohol caught up with her and started to make her drift off. So, she was keeping herself in exile from the Sanctuary, and she wasn't welcome at the other place. A tattoo parlour seemed a perfect place to crash.

To herself she spoke, now. "Good fuckin' job, Trixie McAllister. Good fuckin' job..."

Another day to cool off was exactly what Trixie needed.

She'd woken up when Tone-E and Chuck had hauled her out to sleep off her drunkenness in Chuck's soccer mom minivan. The boys always forgot that Trixie's system flushed out drugs and alcohol quicker than a normal human's, meaning that she was already sober when they took her out of the parlor three hours after she'd passed out. She never had to worry about hangovers or drunken comas, but on the downside, unless she had a constant supply of alcohol handy, she couldn't maintain more than a minor buzz at parties. She rested on the well-loved back row of seats, keeping her eyes closed and just...thought. It was a lot easier to realize how out of control everything had become when she wasn't clouding her mind up. She and Keaton had blown up at each other, and she knew why. Because one slip, and she was ready to stop trusting. And because they both shared pride and wicked tempers when they were really riled. After a long while, she sighed. "Hey." "Me an' Keaton. We split." "Yeah, I figured. Want to talk about it?" "Yeah. I do. Can we have a girls' night, though?"

He laughed once. "We can. Let's get you cleaned up, though."

They spent the afternoon together—dissecting, analyzing, and solving. They figured out where her trust issues came from (real brain-buster there. She only used to date skeezy rockers). They bought Ben & Jerry's, he put up with her sobbing through chick flicks, and at the end of it all, they went to a karaoke bar where they sang some awesome 80's hair metal. T-squared was what friendship was about.

The next day, she stood at his front door, harumphing up a little storm. "Ant, I can't do this yet. Ya know I'll juss'..."

"You'll talk it out. I'm your family, but she is, too. Go talk to her. Just get it sorted. Then, you win him back. Stop bein' such a pansy. You're acting like a girl."

He tapped her upper arm with his knuckles, they shared a laugh, and she was off, again. She went to the Inn to make nice...

...Okay, well, at first, there was no real nice involved. She was pissy, so was Izzy, and their attitudes conflicted. Trixie wanted Izzy to admit to something, and Izzy didn't think there was anything to admit to. It could've gotten bad (see, man' That pride, again), but luckily, Jenai came along and broke it up. That chick was so smart sometimes. Totally a female Tone-E. Well, with other major differences, too, but still. The Scathachians were patched back together, Trixie got her head out of her ass (maybe Izzy did, too ;] ), and there was rejoicing all over the land. Now came the final part of the Make-up Mission...

Win Keaton back.