Not bad.

"Is it gone?" Ross asked through the locked bedroom door.

Andrew grimaced. "Not yet, buddy, but we need your help. Can I come in?"

After a long pause, the door opened and Andrew let himself in, closing it gently behind him.

Ross was on the bed with his head in his hands. Andrew sat next to him and patted his back.

"Hey, man. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine-"

"I'm such a fucking cretin!" Ross interrupted, kicking the side of his desk. "I actually loved that pile of dog shit!"

Andrew sat silently, letting Ross vent his anger. Ross balled his fists and pounded his temple.

"Why? Why? Why, you fucking loser? Why would you fall for that? What the fuck is wrong with me? Am I stupid or just broken? I stuck my dick in a lump of clay and thought it was my girlfriend! God, I'm fucking pathetic!"

Andrew tentatively rubbed his back. This sort of conversation was very uncomfortable. He had the ironic thought that Erica would be much better at this.

"She- it! Fucking it! It acted all sexy and sweet and funny and- oh, Jesus, I'm mourning a girl that was never real! I can't even blame it! It's like blaming a clothes iron for burning me! Fuck! How could I be so stupid?"

"She has everybody fooled," Andrew ventured hesitantly. "She's indistinguishable from a real girl."

Ross made a strangled, **** sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I fucking knew, Andrew! It fucking told me! It turned herself into a movie character, for God's sake! How could I be so stupid? Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

He started punching his legs and Andrew grabbed his arms to stop him.

"Ross," he said firmly. "You need to snap out of it and think for a second. You're not stupid, but you're being stupid right now."

Ross stopped and stared at him, shocked by the sudden commanding tone. "What?"

"Dude, you think you're the only person who ever fell for a golem? I- fuck. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think I'm really starting to like Erica. Like, a lot."

"What?" Ross hissed, his face a rictus of shock and fury. "After that? After Madison fucking sold me out? Andrew, she said she'd kill me for him! The only thing keeping Erica from strangling you in your sleep is a scrap of paper!"

*I know!" Andrew was close to tears himself now. "I know that! But she saved us, dude! She didn't have to do that. That wasn't in her script. She did it for us!"

"Bullshit," Ross muttered. He suddenly felt exhausted and he slumped back against the wall. "If it wasn't in its script it wouldn't do it."

Andrew thought for a moment. "You said Madison became a movie character, right? Which one?"

"Does it matter?" Ross muttered. "Shove the right paper down her throat and she'll turn into Daffy Duck."

"No, wait, stay with me here. She made a script just for you, right? One to turn into a movie character? Was that in her script?"

"Quit calling it her," Ross said. "It's no different than the shit you scrape off your shoe."

"What exactly did we put in the new script?" Andrew asked. "Did we put anything about having sex with you?"

"We made it my girlfriend," Ross said. "We could have made it Queen Elizabeth. It doesn't matter."

"Think about Caley," Andrew said.

"What about her?" Ross asked. He was surprised in spite of himself to hear Andrew bring up his high school girlfriend.

"She was a bitch, right?" Andrew said desperately. "She was mean as hell. She knew she was out of your league and used you till she was sick of you then crumpled you up and threw you away."

"This is supposed to make me feel better?"

"The point is, she was your girlfriend. She never let you get past first base, but she was your girlfriend. Why wasn't Madison like that?"

Ross shrugged. "Who knows? Something in her fucking script."

"I don't think so. I was thinking about it. What if we had made her my girlfriend instead of yours?"

"We didn't bother because you weren't stupid enough to-"

"Listen," Andrew interrupted. "You think she would have turned herself into a Riverdale character for me? No, because she doesn't like me that way. She'd be my girlfriend, but who knows if she'd even put out for me? Maybe she'd be bitchy enough to make me change her script, or maybe she'd just suffer through it. She was your friend before all of this, and she told us the only reason she turned you down was because her script wouldn't let her date you."

"Is all of this supposed to somehow make me forget that she's a nonsentient blob of mud?" Andrew asked bitterly.

"Of course not," Andrew said. He was encouraged to see Ross's cocoon of self-loathing acrimony slowly eroding. "Just think about it. Mud or not, there's a girl in there that's weeping because of what she had to do to you. Yeah, it's all an act, she's not real, but if you don't talk to her I guarantee you she'll be up all night crying. All alone, Ross, sobbing into her pillow. Nobody watching. No one to keep up the act for. She loves you. She loves you. Maybe not in a way we can define or understand, but she does."

"I... I can't look at her right now," Ross said. He raised his head and was surprised to see tears on Andrew's cheeks. Andrew embraced him, patting him hard on the back.

"You don't have to," Andrew said. "She'll wait for you."

He broke the embrace. Ross sniffled and looked away.

"You'll be ok, dude," Andrew told him reassuringly. "We just need a couple of scripts and we'll deal with the situation out there. You should get some sleep."

Ross nodded and retrieved a handful of scripts from his desk drawer. "Here, there's a couple of defaults and, uh, a Liz Hurley one..."

"From Austin Powers?" Andrew said, clearly impressed. "You're a lucky dude. Now get some sleep."

He turned to leave. As he opened the door, he chuckled to himself and glanced back at the prone form of Ross, already half-asleep in his clothes.

"Goddamn, I'm a great friend."