(throws a Slinger meal at Slinger)
"Aw hell yeah! Slinger Meal!" The ocelot promptly tore the container open and swallowed its contents in a single go. It made a horrible crunchy-crinkly sound like a wild animal mauling a plastic bag. To his credit, he did manage to get them down quite easily.
"I... What, precisely, is a 'Slinger Meal?" Claire watched incredulously.
"You don't remember the short-lived, highly popular Slinger Meal? Three chicken nuggets, a fillet-o-fish, and half a dozen ketchup packets?" He waved a hand dismissively. "I'm a little offended? Or I would be, but you're always kinda like... Ten years behind the times, Priestess."
"First of all, go to hell." The howler monkey leaned in close enough to make him flinch and remember who he was talking to. She only moved in a little closer to stay ominously near him. "Second of all, you just ate six ketchup packets? THIRD of all, you're an international criminal. Before that, you were a little known mercenary in a little-known resistance outfit. How did you get a..." Her mouth curved around the words as though they were rock-solid in their absurdity. "...Themed meal?!"
"C...C-C'mon, Priestess. There's a lot you don't know about me!" He continued to lean back, almost hard enough that his chair was about to slip out from beneath him. "That was around the time of my Star Post shoot, actually."
Silence. One heartbeat, another-
"The magazine with the centerfolds of-"
"I mostly just read it for the articles," the ocelot said innocently. Claire just shook her head and sighed. As weird as things had gotten for the Consortium as of late, she occasionally had to remind herself how weird they had started.













