Jace groaned as the bright rays of the high noon sun blared mercilessly into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. It had just peaked over the top of the building he was sleeping behind and now there was no possible way he would get back to sleep in the direct sunlight, sweltering in the intense heat. His head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton with a headache pounding into his skull and his throat felt as if it'd been replaced with sandpaper. He hadn't felt this bad since...well, since he'd almost died of radiation poisoning just last week. 
	
	He was disoriented at first and didn't even know where he was, but as his vision returned he noticed he was tucked away in some alleyway behind a rusted dumpster. Out of instinct he looked around for Basil and nearly had a heart attack when he realized that he wasn't with him. It didn't don on him at first the events that occurred the previous day for the haze of his drunken stupor still lingered in his hangover, but once the fog receded he remembered things more vividly than he would have liked.

	A surge of anger resurfaced as he thought back to Basil and found himself reaching for the half-empty bottle of wine beside him before taking a drink. It wasn't really enough to get him drunk again, but at least it would be enough to fight off the effects of the killer hangover he felt. After all, the best cure to a hangover was more alcohol...at least his useless, deadbeat father taught him one thing in his life.

	He didn't know how much time had passed as he sat there, clutching the now-empty bottle in his hand. The sun had already sat over the other side of the adjacent building, he was surprised to realize; it honestly hadn't felt that long as he sat there. His hangover was beginning to recede and his thoughts became a little more clearer, but even as he realized that he was feeling better in even the slightest bit, his headache returned tenfold as his anger spiked from the sight before him. Basil was standing at the mouth of the alleyway, staring directly at him.

	"Dammit...can't you just leave me the hell alone?" he snapped as he managed to stand up. He staggered a little bit just because it was the first time he'd been up since the previous night, so his legs and back were in all kinds of knots and kinks. "You are dead in my eyes, so just stay dead...please." He hadn't meant for the quiet plea in the end and cursed himself for the slip-up. "I don't need you to pretend, anymore. I get it now."