A/N: Good lord, I can not believe I just wrote this. Blame my love of black & white detective movies and Crispin Glover for this one.

Curse You, WS Van Dyke

Dylan Sanders only ever organized her DVDs when she was drunk. One particular instance of sorting brought on by intoxication was unique from its predecessors in that rather than tumbling into her apartment after a night out and tottering across the living room in pursuit of the DVD rack, this time Dylan had spent a rather quiet evening at home with her good friend Jack Daniels. Also, it was only this one time that she had started on the DVDs before she had started drinking. Feeling bored and rather melancholy for reasons beyond her enthusiasm to contemplate, she had plopped gracelessly down on the floor in front of the TV and frowned at the DVD rack in search of a movie to distract her. When her favorite flask was introduced into the scenario, things went generally downhill from there.

If sober, Dylan would have wondered what would possess a person to organize movies by title subject, but in her current state she thought it delightfully clever to shelf Edward Scissorhands beside Running with Scissors and Kamikaze Girls with Girl, Interrupted and Tank Girl. As she tried unsuccessfully to maneuver Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan onto the shelf beside A Star is Born, hindered by her significantly depleted motor functions, it suddenly occurred to her why she had been feeling sad in the first place. She was lonely.

Dylan gave up on shelfing the DVD and looked up at the ceiling, her eyes rolling up in a caricature of pondering. She sucked at relationships, and always had. It was a problem, the amateur psychologist in the back of her mind had often assured her, of taking things seriously. Even when she was on a dangerous job with Nat and Alex, it was like she was watching everything from inside herself, like inside her skull was a tiny little version of herself watching at all unfold across her retinas like a projection on a movie screen. Considering half the crap she’d been through, she figured she could get away with a teensy bit of disassociation if it helped her sleep at night. Of course, the side-effect was that she was unable to emotionally connect herself to anything good, either. All of her past conquests had just been about having fun, and when the guy started getting shmoopy and clingy was when she took her cue to casually sidle out stage left and find herself another pretty toy to keep her warm at night.

Clearly this wasn’t working out so great for her, Dylan noted, if she was now sitting on her living room floor surrounded by DVD cases and drunk off her nut, all alone.

It was all depressingly repetitive. Every time she’d start to get a teeny weeny bit serious about some man, he’d turn out to be a psychopath and the attempted murder would start. And between psychos she had herself a charming little harem of weirdos who were always up for a one night stand. She did love her weirdos, of course, but if she ever made the mistake of calling up one of her party boys and going off about her personal problems, they’d get uncomfortable and start rambling about government mind control or deep-sea parasites or lord knew what else.

Dylan let her head loll back downward so she was staring at her crossed legs. “I like my weirdos,” she hiccupped forcefully to somebody who wasn’t there.

Suddenly, she raised her head and forced a silly, utterly witless smile and went back to her DVDs. So what if she was a hollow shell of a human being incapable of connecting to anyone else on any kind of meaningful level? Screw it.

Just as she had managed to convince herself that she felt better, Dylan picked up a boxed set that she hadn’t even looked at in months and screwed up her bleary eyes to read the title.

William Powell and Myrna Loy in:

The Complete Thin Man Mysteries

Dylan scowled, blinking in perplexity. She turned the box to the side and peered at the list of titles.

The Thin Man

After The Thin Man

Another Thin Man

Shadow of the Thin Man

The Thin Man Goes Home

Song of the Thin Man

Dylan felt her plump lower lip start to quiver, which was nothing short of mortifying. She closed her tight, moistening eyes and sniffled loudly. When a smoker kisses another smoker, there is usually an intriguing mixing of flavors. When Dylan pressed the flat of her tongue against the roof of her mouth and thought hard, it was almost as if she was once again tasting the sharp clove smoke.

Dylan opened her eyes and stared down at the collection of well-loved and often-enjoyed detective movies in her hand. She no longer felt like crying, but she was by no means cheered up. She heaved a large sigh, and then let forth a single, dejected whimper.

“Damn it.”