The freeway, Ahmad hoped, would be smooth sailing compared to the drive through the city. Naturally, this proved not to be the case. The storm was resurging, and it grew worse with every mile they drove, forcing him to drive a hell of a lot slower than he wanted. His personal record, as he remembered, was twenty minutes to get from Pier 39 to the city limits near Candlestick Park - its former site, anyway, because it was only in Hell where that ancient stadium still stood. Today's trip from the hotel, a little south of Pier 39, to the borderline with Palmer City took closer to thirty-five. And that was with a whole ton of weaving between cars moving so slowly they might as well have been stalled.

California drivers. They freaked out at the tiniest sprinkle of rain. Even Ahmad, who had lived in California all his life - on Earth, but still - didn't think he would ever get used to it. Especially in recent years as rain had become so rare that even a half-inch of rain falling on San Francisco felt like a gift from Allah. If, that is, Allah were Immortan Joe raining a deluge of Aqua Cola for all of twenty seconds and commanding his unwashed masses to not become addicted to water.

No, California rain wasn't Allah's gift. Maybe Neptune's. Not Poseidon, though. Poseidon was a hell of a lot more wrathful, responsible for the sort of tempestuous nastiness Ahmad's extended family in Pakistan often spoke of during monsoon season. If there was one thing he'd learned from reading Rick Riordan as a kid, it was that a lot of Roman gods were actually less important than their Greek counterparts. Something to do with the Romans being more warlike, if anything. Hard to incorporate wisdom or weather into your military tactics, unless you were a super-genius, in which case you were probably a demigod yourself.

Thinking of other gods, especially from other traditions, always helped keep Ahmad distracted. Not in a bad way, of course. In a way that allowed his brain to not spiral from Elliot Bloody Graziadei's presence constantly challenging his faith.

He remembered the first few times that Josh had come into his tattoo parlor back home. His first thought was that the guy was actually pretty handsome, and that if he were a little more into guys, he'd be happy to ask him out. There certainly was a bit of intimacy involved with them. Huh, "a bit." Try "a lot." Came with the territory when Josh wanted to ink up his chest a few times. Even for his upper arms, he would strip down to this really tight tank top that showed off a beautifully sculpted upper body even better than if it were totally bare.

The first time Josh had admitted his true identity, the news sort of drifted in one of Ahmad's ears and out the other.

The second time, it stuck, but he rather believed him more than he thought he should have in hindsight. Maybe it was those muscles. Certain Christian churches, after all, liked to show a strangely shredded Jesus on the cross. As Josh had quipped, "It's like they want people to masturbate to me." He then shuddered, almost making the needle slip and cut his arm. "Give me spiritual love any day of the week and twice on Sunday."

"I hear you, man." Though Ahmad didn't share Josh's asexuality, he had an idea where he was coming from with this. Aesthetic his attraction to the man certainly was, but there was something else beneath all that. Ahmad long suspected that Josh was just like that, his soul pulling on those around him.

"And yet," Josh once said when Ahmad had proposed this theory to him, "it doesn't stop me feeling depressed and lonely all the time. Whatever form it takes, love is a hell of a drug."

The drive down 101 continued, and the storm actually started to die down. The clouds parted, allowing the party in the SUV some glimpses of blue sky. Dark blue because the sun was setting by now, but it was better than nothing. Outside the city, traffic was far lighter for a while. But then, about midway down the Peninsula, it started getting super-heavy again. While Ahmad was able to navigate a few tight gaps, these quickly became few and far between.

In the backseat, Alex consulted his phone and said, "Shit. They're closing the road at 237. No wonder we're all stuck."

Ahmad looked over to Josh, then took hold of the rearview mirror between them and angled it so he could gaze from AK to Firdaus to Alex. Everyone, especially those in the backseat, looked fairly antsy. Like they'd had too much coffee - or perhaps, in Firdaus' case especially, were jonesing for another fix.

"Don't look at me for inspiration," he said when Alex caught his eye and then looked away. He did that a lot, Alex did. Something to do with him being autistic, Ahmad thought. "I'm just the driver, dude. You tell me where to go."

Alex looked out the window for a moment. Then, talking to the glass, he said, "Next exit. We're gonna go through Spellman."

"I don't think we'll be able to get into San Jose that way either," AK pointed out.

"We're not," Alex said. "We're stopping at my place."

"What, just to regroup?" Josh asked.

"Better to stop there," Alex said. "Closer to my friends."

Ahmad looked ahead. The next exit, the one Alex wanted him to take, was a half-mile away, and another thing about California drivers was that in heavy traffic, they were terrible at pausing to let others switch lanes.

"Josh," he said, gripping the steering wheel tightly with one hand and activating the turn indicator with the other, "if you can send your love vibes through metal and plastic and glass and rain, now's the time."