The burlesque bar was named The Hazardously Radioactive Green Antelope Clique and was constantly pumping the catchiest and flutteriest music possible by way of magickal speakers. It was smokier than the main plaza of the Impractial Agora by many degrees.

In fact it was smokier by so many degrees that somehow it managed to make most of the drag queens, often known for looking quite feminine onstage, look decidedly not like anything at all, for it was almost impossible to see them dancing. Though the choreography looked impressive at the least, even through a smokescreen.

“Well hey there Shitfacey!” giggled somebody that could not be seen at all through the smoke.

“Well hello hello Deepthroatia! How inconsequentially inconsequential that I should bump my ugly into you at this moment!”

“Now Shitfacey you know my name isn’t Deepthroatia.”

“Well Deepthroatia you know my name isn’t Shitfacey!”

Deepthroatia cackled, gave Sir Broderick a hug and further disappeared into the fog.

“Alright, Biscuit Pisser old chup, take my hand.”

“Take your hand? I don’t want anybody to get the wrong idea though.”

“The wrong idea? Are you clucked in the head? Take my cockhamned hand already you clucking imbecile.”

Before Biscuit Pisser could protest further Sir Broderick squeezed his hand like it was a giant plum and yanked him through the serpentine walkways, surrounded by tables of people smoking enormous fantasy hookahs. To the side of the stage they went, where Sir Broderick caught a glimpse of a drag queen fluttering some feathery fans before disappearing into a side door and through that side door a side hallway and a side door from that hallway and diagonally from that hallway to a front door that led to a side door that opened up into a brick wall that, after Sir Broderick gave it a hood tickling in a nondescript location, shook and giggled and slid aside to reveal a huge, luxurious lounge that glowed blue and smelled like strawberries.

Over in the corner emanated a glowing pink light from behind a bookshelf, which Sir Broderick scurried over to. He picked up a thicc book and flipped through about fifty pages of it, closed it, put it back in the shelf and did this with three other books, during which Biscuit Pisser complained.

“Shitface, this is taking forever. Was this place enchanted by a warlock or something?”

“Of course it was! Now stop clucking distracting me!” Sir Broderick opened one book, grimaced and spat into it, called it a dirty vitch, and slid it back into the shelf. On completion of this sequence the bookshelf swung open like a door to reveal a lanky drag queen sitting in a stool in front of a mirror, fixing an enormous ostrich-esque wig atop his head.

“Hello hello hello, Sparkly Drug Muffin!” Sir Broderick tipped his saucepan, almost spilling Trash Heap out of it in the process.

“Don’t you ever knock?”

“Oh come now, we both know that would’ve thrown off the sequence and I’d have to start all over again!”

“But at least then you’d be polite,” sighed Sparkly Drug Muffin as he lit a cigarette and took a swig of a nondescript blue liquor, then turned to Biscuit Pisser and pointed a curling iron at him, “So who’s this knob?”

“I’m—”

“He’s Biscuit Pisser, but don’t call him that or he’ll get testy.”

“Oh. I like testies.”

“That isn’t what I was say—”

“I know. Well, now that we’ve all met, why are you interrupting me? I’ve got a show in twenty minutes and I need to get appropriately turnt,” he smirked and sipped on the glass of blue liquor.

“Say, Sparkly Drug Muffin, what exactly might you be getting ‘turnt’ on? And, ehrm, might an old chup have himself a sip or two?”

“It’s called Glabsinthe, also known as the blue pixie. I’d expect you to know that already seeing as you’ve polished off a flask in the half in the brief few moments we’ve been talking, but I guess not everyone is as cultured as I,” Sparkly Drug Muffin exhaled cigarette smoke in Sir Broderick and Biscuit Pisser’s faces in a cultured fashion.

“Okay, but, ehrm, can I have some though?”

“Shitface stop trying to get alcohol and ask her about the forgery!”

Sparkly Drug Muffin sucked the entire cigarette into his esophagus in shock and snorted tobacco out through his nose, shouting through wheezing hacks, “Close the—ack—close the clucking—aaaack—close the clucking bookshelf you—aaAAaack—cluck—aack—clucking idiots!! Also—ack—it’s he—aaAAaack—not—ack—her, can’t you—aaaAaack—can’t you read?” Sparkly Drug Muffin pointed to a small guilded pin on his white tank top that read ‘he/him/his/dude.’

“Yea come on Biscuit Pisser pay attention.”

“Stop—aaack—being a knob and—aack—clucking close the bookshelf already—aaack—you clucking disgrace.”

Sir Broderick shitfacedly tossed his flask aside, knocking over a mannequin which promptly separated into five difficult pieces across the floor. He then scrambled and slammed the bookshelf shut.

“Nice job—aack—you hamned knob,” this time Sparkly Drug Muffin coughed up the cigarette into a kerchief, dried it off and relit it, “That mannequin is worth more than your life, you know.”

“You upper poors are all the same,” groaned Biscuit Pisser.

“Don’t be a knob, Biscuit Pisser. Don’t you want a sip of the blue peacock?”

“It’s called the blue pixie, dumbass.”

On hearing the word ass, Sir Broderick’s eyelid twitched.

“Did I strike a nerve or something there, chuppy?”

“I just…oh cock I don’t know Sparkly Drug Muffin I just I don’t know if I’m ever going to see my sweet ass again!”

Sparkly Drug Muffin took a glance at Sir Broderick’s posterior and shrugged, “I can still see it. I’m not sure I’d call it sweet if I’m being honest, but—”

“He’s talking about his donkey.”

“Ohhhh,” Sparkly Drug Muffin swished some Glabsinthe around in his mouth, proudly gargling it for a moment before swallowing and continuing his thought, “Why don’t you get a horse or something?”

“You did not just say that to me, Sparkly Drug Muffin.”

“Oh yes I did girl.”

“I’m not a girl.”

“Sorry. Usually I’m just talking to other drag queens back here.”

“Shitface, didn’t you want to ask about the—”

“Don’t you clucking interrupt us!” both of them shouted at Biscuit Pisser vitrolicly.

“I’m sorry about him, really, Sparkly Drug Muffin. He clearly has no idea how to behave in a place like this.”

“Clearly.”

“Why won’t you two stop glaring at me?! I’m just trying to—”

“He’s so clucking whiny, Sir Brod. Why do you keep this guy around?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

“Stop being such an asshole!”

Sir Broderick swung around to face Biscuit Pisser, his face red as a tomato bathed in hot sauce, “Don’t you use the a word with me right now!”

“The a word?”

“ASS! I don’t want anybody saying ASS around me! I demand a moratorium on the word ASS until I get my ASS back cockhamnit!” Sir Broderick’s anger bubbled so brightly that indeed his head appeared to be heating the saucepan atop it as if it were a coil on a stove, so much so that Trash Heap leapt out from it and latched herself to Sparkly Drug Muffin’s gigantic wig.

“Agh! Eeek! What in the cluck just jumped all over my clucking wig?!”

“That’s just Trash Heap don’t worry about her.”

“Well this Trash Heap clucking reeks like a trash heap! Ugh! I want it off me get it the cluck off me!!” Sparkly Drug Muffin grabbed a large feather duster and swatted at his own wig, hitting himself in the face many a time and failing completely to swat away Trash Heap, who flowed like quicksilver from one corner of the wig to the next, tearing its follicles into insane tangles in the process. During this fiasco, Biscuit Pisser and Sir Broderick had a timely debate.

“Shitface you can’t keep people from saying a word just because it makes you upset.”

“I can and I will! The next person who says the word ASS in my presence, why, I’ll clucking beat the shit out of them!”

“What if they don’t know you aren’t okay with it? Most people don’t have a problem with the word ass, Shit—”

“How clucking dare you, you insolent fool!” Sir Broderick pounced on Biscuit Pisser, grabbed an arm from the mannequin and proceeded to smack him across the face with it in a flurrying rage.

CREEE

The bookcase creaked open as a lady in all black emerged with a clipboard, “Sparkly Drug Muffin, you’re onstage in three minutes, please come to the left wing of the stage—oh holy clucking shit what in the cluck is going on in here?”

Everyone froze, even Trash Heap, as the lady stared wide-eyed and gaping-jawed at the chaos before her.

“Um, Sparkly Drug Muffin, are you ready to, um, come onstage like that?”

Sparkly Drug Muffin looked at his wig in the mirror, grimaced, shrugged and whipped out a sparkly dress, sliding it on in a flash. “We’ll call this a distressed look.”

“Twerks for me. I’ll, um, I’ll be sending Noodle Monster in in a second, so, if you two,” she glared at Sir Broderick and Biscuit Pisser with piercing eyes, “If you two could please compose yourselves in the meantime, I’ll do my best to, um, keep from murdering you. Thanks.”

She sped out of the room, followed quickly by Sparkly Drug Muffin. Sir Broderick pulled himself off his companion and took a swig of liquor.

“I really do hate how smooth this shit is.”

“I hate how my face feels right now.”

“Well maybe now you know how that friendly follower of mine felt after they called you Biscuit Pisser and you clobbered him.”

“That’s assuming they felt anything.”

“I’m going to forget I heard that.”

As they settled themselves, both their eyes immediately locked on the open bottle of Glabsinthe.

“You know, Shitface, I think there might be something here that could make both of us feel a little better.”

“You read my mind, Biscuit Pisser. Except I was hoping I’d be able to drink the whole rest of the bottle myself of course, but I guess I can forgive you for wanting a taste.”

They inched over to the bottle like greedy gremlins and admired the alcohol’s hazy, blue glory.

“Look at how fancy the writing is on the label.”

“That’s how you know it’s hood. Dibs on first sip!” Before Biscuit Pisser could argue, Sir Broderick snatched the bottle and glugged it down generously.

“Okay that’s enough, Shitface, I want some.”

Sir Broderick simply held up a finger.

“You’re going to drink the whole hamned thing! Stop it!”

Sir Broderick waggled his finger back and forth. Biscuit Pisser growled and yanked the bottle out of his hands, sending it flying through the air and finally

KKSSHHHKKK

shattering against a wall, the tantalizing blue liquid splattering over the ceiling and floor. In a mad dash, Biscuit Pisser and Sir Broderick rushed over to the spilling and lapped at it like dogs, spitting out shards of glass as they came.

CREEEE

“Whew, that was a wild show. A little smoky for Noodle Monster’s tastes, but wild all the same,” chuckled a short, stocky drag queen that Sir Broderick recognized as Noodle Monster as they walked through the bookcase doorway before immediately freezing at the sight of what appeared to be two liquor-crazed dog people. “What in the cluck are you two doing? Is that you, Sir Broooooooderiiiiiiiiiick?”

Both Sir Broderick and Biscuit Pisser jumped to their stumbling feet and wiped Glabsinthe and glass from their cheeks. It appeared that the whole world was moving, like it were some enormous amoeba, or that possibly an enormous amoeba was climbing over Sir Broderick’s irises.

“Youuuu twooooo don’t looooook soooo goooooood,” Noodle Monster said slowly and deeply. It needs to be said that while the drag queen did already have a deep voice and talk kind of slow, this was greatly exacerbated by the Glabsinthe to a cartoonish point.

“Biiiiscuiiiit Piiiisser, doooo youuuu feeeel as weeeeird as IIII dooo?” Sir Broderick jumped in slow motion as he noticed that anything he said too was slow and much deeper than normal.

“I doooon’t knoooow buuut I doooo feeeel pretty weeeeeird,” Biscuit Pisser agreed. Sir Broderick noted that his face was looking kind of blue.

“Oooooh shiiiiiit,” Noodle Monster looked at the remnants of the Glabsinthe bottle on the floor, “Diiid youuu twooo driink aaaaall thaat Glaaaaaaaabsiiiiinthe?”

Everything was moving, and everything that moved left a glowing traced outline over Sir Broderick’s and apparently Biscuit Pisser’s vision. Before they could say another word, the world twirled into a twisted stick of licorice and a loud

SNAP PPP

exploded in their ears.