Corner of Godiva and Serendipity, Wednesday morning

[vdistinctive]

The air was gently sweet, like a subtle perfume. The sky was blue, folks on the street were cheerful and smiling at one another, and there was a giant freaking tower at the end of Eliot's street that hadn't been there the day before.

Eliot stood across from it with his arms crossed over his chest, Val sitting at his feet. It was definitely alien, whether from space or another dimension, he wasn't sure. It didn't look like they'd been invaded by anything other than the towers -- why would they be so obvious with those if they weren't going to come tromping out with ray-guns or whatever. Were they microscopic, maybe? That might be what the perfume was.

"What do you think?" he asked Val. She looked up at him and panted blandly. He frowned. "You feelin' okay?" She cocked her head to one side.

A passing rickshaw driver rang his bell to get Eliot's attention and waved cheerfully at him. "Fine morning, isn't it?"

Val yipped happily and wagged her tail at the driver. The passengers in the rickshaw looked over and smiled blandly.

"Yeah," Eliot said, looking between the rickshaw and his oddly behaving puppy and the tower. "Because none of this is suspicious at all."

[ooc: open to any fellow abductees!]

Comments

[myownface]

"I can't leave," Sparkle muttered, wrinkling his nose. "I was supposed to be going back to fucking Toronto this morning so that Lewis didn't shit himself over my vanishing and now I'm stuck. Of course I'm stuck. It's just like this place to make sure I'm good at stuck with the worst possible timing ever."

A beat.

"And you're like the first person I've seen today who hasn't been acting like he came out of, like, a space-pod or something. So, hey, a spot of sunshine in an otherwise fucked-up day. Thanks for not being creepy."

[vdistinctive]

"I try," Eliot said dryly. It was the truth. He frequently had to put effort into not being overly creepy. "What do you mean you can't leave? Portalocity givin' you shit or. . . ."

The idea that there was a potential alien invasion and they couldn't even retreat if they had to was playing hell on his protective instincts.

[myownface]

"Portalocity lost my reservation and told me they were booked solid for the foreseeable future," Sparkle muttered. "And then I made my way into Baltimore, to see if I could at least book, like, a bus, and settle for being gone for three fucking days, but I ran facefirst into thin fricking air, so that was fun."

Spoiler: Walking into an invisible wall had not actually been fun.

[vdistinctive]

"Wait, back up." Eliot rubbed a hand over his face. "What do you mean you 'ran into thin air'?"

He had an idea, but he was really hoping it was wrong because freaking force-fields? Really?!

[myownface]

"I mean I started walking, and then I kept walking, and then I couldn't keep walking because I was nursing a surprise fucking nosebleed."

So, really, it had been great.

"See, I knew Fandom follows people off the island, but I didn't think it was going to be such a shit about it."

[vdistinctive]

"A goddamn force field?!" Eliot yelled at the tower, sounding personally offended by this. "Freakin' aliens." He turned back towards Sparkle. "Sorry, kid. It seems like someone decided we're all stuck here for whatever these things have in mind for us."

He was so beating up the next person who gave him even the slightest excuse. Probably a rickshaw driver who grinned creepily at him.

[myownface]

"... These things?" Sparkle looked up at the tower again, wrinkled his nose, and then reached up to pinch the bridge of it. "Oh, yay. Come to Fandom, get abducted, or possessed, or killed, or turned into somebody else. Why do I even keep coming here?"

Because it never lasted. Because as much as it sucked in the short-term, all of the worst of it always eventually went away.

Right. Good. Okay.

[vdistinctive]

"I'm guessin' that was rhetorical," Eliot said. "Can't beat your timing on it. I shoulda known it'd been quiet around here for too long."

Why couldn't they have just turned into women again or something? Sure, that had still stressed Eliot the fuck out, but it had eventually been pretty fun. . . .

[myownface]

And Sparkle could so handle being a woman again for a few days. Especially a few days here, instead of back in Toronto, where people would wonder what the hell was going on.

"So... What do you suppose are the odds of somebody, like, trying to eat us or use us in a game of intergalactic rugby or harvest us for parts or whatever? Because I'm so not in the mood."

[vdistinctive]

"Of it bein' one of those?" Eliot sighed. "High. Aliens don't typically show up just to be tourists. And even if they are. . . ." He looked up at the tower. "That is an ugly-ass winnebago."

[myownface]

"... Hey, there are plenty of alien tourists," Sparkle offered, if only because he'd been to Coruscant enough to bump into more than a few just hanging around ogling the Jedi temple. "But, I mean... not around here, so much."

He wrinkled his nose up at the tower.

"The one time I leave my blaster in Toronto, too."

Because of course he had.

[vdistinctive]

"That a ray gun or something?" Eliot asked. "Because guns tend to be unreliable, anyway."

Anytime was a good time for a gun lecture, right?

"Anyway, I'm not sure what you'd shoot at, yet. I'm guessing the giant tower of doom probably isn't too vulnerable to lasers."

[myownface]

"It's essentially a ray gun," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "I try not to use it, like, ever, but it comes in handy when I'm visiting Atton and somebody starts shooting at us first."

Which... was surprisingly often.

"And even if it's not, like, I bet lasers would do more than chucking rocks at it."

Which was also a tempting option, okay?

[vdistinctive]

"Probably be less theraputic, though."

Eliot kind of wanted to punch it. But that'd be exceptionally stupid, so.

[myownface]

"... True. Maybe I'll see what happens if I put a few windows out or something at one of the businesses where there are pod-people working. They have to respond to something, right?"

And Sparkle really liked breaking windows. It worked out!

[vdistinctive]

Eliot huffed a laugh. "You just like petty vandalism, don't you."

There was very little judgement in his tone.

[myownface]

"There's also that," Sparkle agreed. "But, you know. Pod people. They're kind of asking for it."

For being all creepy and pleasant and... ugh.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. "By all means, then." He looked around at the various people that tended to be out and about on the street in Fandom, the ones who never really did much more than work in the restaurants or wave hello. The ones he recognized, but didn't know the names of. The background people.

There were kind of a lot of them, weren't there.

"Bring back up with you."

[myownface]

More than Sparkle was used to on the island. Less than he would have expected in, like, Toronto. So he hadn't really been able to put a finger on what was off until Eliot took that moment to look around.

... Huh.

"Yeah," he agreed, pursing his lips. "Good idea. I'll... I'll maybe see if any of the usual suspects are up for a little bit of raising hell before I do anything too stupid."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll keep an ear out on the radio for how you make out."

[myownface]

"Cool," Sparkle replied, grinning briefly, but a bit sharply. "I'll let you know what happens if I run into you again before whatever the hell this is all blows up in our faces."

Because, really, it was only a matter of time before it all blew up in their faces.

[vdistinctive]

It really, really was.

Eliot offered Sparkle a small salute. "Go forth and wreak havok, kid."

And maybe he'd wreak a little of his own, too.

[myownface]

"Will do," Sparkle replied, smirking and shooting Eliot a salute right back. "Might as well have fun if I'm stuck here, after all."

And then he was cackling and heading off to find, like, a rock or something to put through a window somewhere. Because that was a healthy way of coping with Fandom's bullshit, right there.