The Day Before Tomorrow

The Day Before Tomorrow - Part 5 12:00 - 1:00am


The following takes place outside The Ruby in downtown Los Angeles, between midnight and 1 am, on the night before Tony Almeida's wedding.

12:01 am

"...Chloe? What the hell are you doing here?" The tech's blonde hair had been streaked with what he hoped was temporary bright blue dye, and she was wearing a black hoodie covered in safety pins over a leopard print tank top and artfully torn jeans.

She gave him a funny look. "Um. Michelle's hen night? We're doing a goth theme. What are you doing here?"

He thumbed over his shoulder toward the knot of men near the end of the line. "Chase decided we needed to meet more bar whores and less strippers."

"Oh, GOD." She flicked away the butt of her cigarette and started toward the end of the line, Jack tailing. The others were still fairly close to the back of the line, and Jack could see Milo encouraging some curvy girl in a corset with multiple facial piercings and red streaked curls to kiss Tony on the cheek for the sake of the stag.

Chloe picked up the pace as soon as she spotted them. "Chase!"

The younger man's head jerked up, and he gave a grin as he turned. "Chloe! Great! Here, sign Barb!" He thrust the doll at her with the pen as she approached, and she gave him a deadpan look, folding her arms across her chest.

"Chase, I'm not signing the sex doll."

"It's not a sex doll!"

"Well, the - the midget beer holder. Whatever the hell it is I'm not signing it. Chase, what the hell are you doing here?"

He shrugged, holding the doll by the hole in the top of it's head. "We needed a nightclub? What's wrong with this one?"

"Hello? I told you five times we were going to be here. Tony can't see Michelle tonight! You said you guys were going to be at the peelers all night!"

Gael shrugged. "We needed girls that weren't strippers to dance with Tony.

"Great. So go find them somewhere else. Now you guys really have to leave. Jack, make them leave."

Jack sighed, folding his arms. "Milo. Where else around here can we go?"

He thought hard for a moment. "There's a Tiki lounge about a block away?"

"Good enough. Lets move out."

Chase shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere until Chloe signs the midget."

Chloe took the doll with an aggravated sigh, writing on the back of a leg. "Dear Tony, I love you even if Chase is a gigantic douche. Love, Chloe.' There." She handed it back to Chase with a pointed look.

"Awesome. Oh, and you have to kiss him too." He grinned.

"What?"

"Just on the cheek or something. See, it's on the back of his shirt."

Tony gave a little helpless smile and a shrug as he was spun around, flinching as Chase poked the checklist item. "Hey!"

"I guess it does." Chloe shrugged, then leaned up to press her lips to the back of his neck, leaving an impressive black kiss mark. "Wait 'till you see the corset we got Michelle, Tony. Her boobs look so great. Not that I'm into boobs, of course."

He chuckled. "I'm sure she looks amazing, Chloe. Thanks for doing this for her."

She tilted her head slightly to one side as she stepped back, reading the rest of the list. "Did you really get spanked by a man, Tony?"

Milo sniggered. "Did he ever. Right over Jack's knee."

"You're shitting me. You got pictures, right?"

Milo scratched his head. "... damn, I should have, shouldn't I?"

"No kidding. What the hell good are you? Hottest blackmail material in the history of CTU and you didn't even get pictures." She frowned, hands on her hips. "Jack, do it again."

Jack rolled his eyes, steering Tony toward their destination. "See you, Chloe. Give our regards to the bride."


12:30am


It was a bit like herding cats, Jack reflected, to get ten men and one inflatable beer holder down two city blocks and around a corner to finally find the Tiki lounge Milo had been talking about. It didn't help that Milo pointed them in the wrong direction - twice - until Chase finally had to call CTU for the address - something that the tech on duty found horrendously amusing. And THEN Randy realized he was out of cigarettes, which required a half a block detour to a gas station, though argumentatively he was running low himself.

Finally they found themselves sitting clustered around two bar tables with salt and pepper shakers shaped like Tiki gods. On the wall behind them was a black velvet painting of Elvis, though to be truthful, Jack had no idea what Elvis had to do with a Tiki bar. At least Elvis wasn't quite as questionable as the brightly coloured lamps that hung over top of the bar, made out of long dead puffer fish with fake glass eyeballs.

"Remind me whose idea this was?" Tony asked, eyeing the fish lanterns.

Jack patted his shoulder. "You seemed to think it would be safer than staying at the peelers."

"Right." Sipping the whiskey and coke that had appeared in front of him, Tony gave a sudden yelp at the feeling of something slithering behind him, only to find Milo trying to read his shirt. "Fuck, can't I just sit and have a drink?"

"There'll be plenty of time for that once you're married," Milo returned. "Your shirt says you have to busk outside a busy pub."

"I what?"

"Busk," Baker supplied. "You know, like street musicians? Throw down a hat and people throw in money for new songs?"

"Or to make you shut up," Randy noted with a snigger.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Forget it guys, I couldn't sing to save my life, all right?."

"I took some guitar in high school?" Jack supplied, which made the groom laugh.

"Thanks, Jack. But I don't think we have a guitar here."

"There has to be something you can do," Milo said with a frown, perching back in his seat and looking around the bar as if for inspiration. "Maybe blowfish make good trumpets?"

"I don't think so, Milo."

"You could do Elvis impersonations?"

That made Tony snort. "Hell no."

"Juggle Tiki gods?"

"Not drunk."

"Hula dance?"

"Fuck you, Milo."

Jack swirled the ice around in his drink, a jack and coke which secretly had no jack at all. "We could do Krav Maga demonstrations?"

Tony smiled despite himself, having very fond memories of teaching Jack Krav Maga... among other things. "I think that might be a bad idea for me right now, unless Krav Maga has incorporated projectile vomiting the last time I checked." He smirked to show he was joking, but Jack made a note to try and syphon off some of the alcohol that kept appearing in front of him.

"I guess we can forget the busking," Milo grumbled, disappearing into his drink for a moment before jerking up. "Oh! I know - he can strip!"

"Oh, and spend his wedding in jail for indecent exposure?" Jack grabbed the pen from Milo and drew a thick red line through the busking item. "Nothing illegal. No busking." He swapped his drink with Tony's casually, and drained the glass. "Where the hell did Chase go?"

"Chase is trying to find a pair of unattached girls to dance with Tony," came the reply from the person in question, who'd just come up behind him. From the little disgruntled frown on his face and the tone of his voice, he didn't seem to be having much luck. "I mean, I suppose we could count Barb as one girl, but then we'd have to get someone to dance with Tony and a blow up doll.

Jack couldn't resist the urge to grin, standing and patting Chase on the shoulder. "You have much to learn, my young padawan. Come on Tony."

"Hmm?" Tony looked up, a little disoriented, but much less green than he had earlier in the evening. "Come on?"

"Yeah, we're going dancing."

"Jack, I didn't know you cared."

He snorted, hauling Tony to his feet. "Very funny, smartass. Come on, Milo can keep your girlfriend company." With that, he towed Tony away toward the moderately crowded dance floor.

Holding the inflatable doll, Milo stared after them. "... did I seriously just hear Jack Bauer quote Star Wars?"

12:59 am