__________
"Wake up, Skip." __________
"Sleep is for secondary characters. Protagonists espresso themselves to the brink of death until the girl and day are saved." __________
"Skip? Wake up." __________
"Whu-- wha-- what is it, Mr. Flick?" __________
"You were writing in your sleep." __________
"Yes. And I was thinking up a killer tagline that I'd probably remember if you hadn't felt the need to intrude. Something about about heroic protagonists, I think, who-- oh, no, Miss, I couldn't possibly. But come back around in a minute when I have the energy to reach up to the tray." __________
Mr. Flick frowned at that something about the scene didn't make much sense to him. He took one of the free coffee samples a friendly Starbooks employee was handing out and pushed the issue out of mind forever -- for about a sip or two -- at which point he was suddenly struggling to repress a beam of self-pride at something obviously massively self- impressive to him. __________
"Skip?" __________
"..." __________
"Skip??" __________
"Uh-whuh?" Skip (sans espresso) had begun to daze off again. This already tainted Mr. Flick's next line with a few specs of idiocy, foreshadowing a possible foiling of his plan, but hopefully it would be worth the risk." __________
"You look tired! Maybe you should get some rest." __________
"Good idea, Flick!" And Skip dosed off quite more quickly that he'd been before. __________
"Skip!" __________
"Whu-whuwh..." __________
"I said, why don't you get some rest!" __________
"Not verbatim, but yes, I heard you. That's why I took your advice. Perhaps you should get some sleep yourself, Mr. Flick." Mr. Flick didn't loose a beat. __________
"Ah, yes, but sleep is for supporting characters! Great protagonists push themselves to the brink of energy depletion until the girl is safe and the day is over!... Was that right? See what I did, Skip? See, initially your creation of the line was saturated with verbal irony, because you were sleeping and it was obviously supposed to be a line for how I just used-- wait was that verbal irony, or situational? Perhaps occupational, if you consider we're both professionals at this sort of thing.. Verbupational? Occutarbal? Skip, which one--" __________
Mr. Flick -- along with the returning free sample woman -- frowned in defeat seeing Skip was already fast asleep again. __________
"Heroic protagonist my ass." __________
The sample girl seconded as she walked away. "Touche."