Iceburg, Paulie had long ago decided, knew everything.

At least, he knew everything important. And everything Paulie knew that was important, he'd learned from Iceburg. This wasn't to say that Paulie didn't have skills of his own. He could…

Well, being deeply in debt probably didn't count as a skill.

But he knew things! It was just that Iceburg knew more things. Paulie was okay with that, as long as he got to be Iceburg's right-hand man, the one Iceburg trusted and could talk to about anything. After all, Paulie didn't put much stock in being wise if all a guy was going to do was build ships and break jaws and waste paychecks on booze and gambling.

Of course, Iceburg was trying to teach him that wasn't all he was good for. That was good, too; these days, Paulie needed reminding. And he was always up for learning new things.

Iceburg was the only one Paulie trusted to teach him new things, though. Which was…slightly problematic. Because there were some things Paulie thought he'd like to learn about that he wasn't sure Iceburg would be willing to teach him…

Until the night Paulie got himself appropriately drunk and just asked, which he probably should have done in the first place because everyone knew that nobody could be held accountable for their words if they couldn't stand up straight.

But Iceburg said no, precisely because he couldn't stand up straight, which Paulie hadn't considered.

He did, however, let Paulie sleep on his couch. And he said that typically, the proper first step to take in these matters was to ask one out for dinner, and that they could do that when Paulie was sober and had recovered from the mortification. And then he found Paulie some aspirin.

Iceburg knew everything.