fandomtownies | Chilly Boulder Ice Creamery; Thursday Evening [Arrival]

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Chilly Boulder Ice Creamery; Thursday Evening [Arrival]

He needed to get back to the apartment. Elphaba had expressly told him not to follow her (and for good reason, he now knew) and she would be furious (well, more furious than usual) if she found out that he had.

...when he turned the knob of the door and stepped through the frame, he was greeted by cheery blond woman wielding an ice cream scoop.

There were so many things wrong with this scenario that Fiyero was very certain that he must have been hallucinating it.

Cue one very tattooed man re-opening and backing out of the door while still facing the counter and employee.

A moment later, the door was pushed open again and Fiyero walked in to find the same woman. She was now trying to narrowly restrain her giggles, however. Fiyero frowned, moving to the counter to peer over the edge. Perhaps this was some very elaborate and over-orchestrated prank to teach him a lesson for disobeying Elphaba's orders -- she'd replaced her flat with a treats parlour.

...right, that seemed very likely.

"Uh," he managed with all the eloquence of a Prince taken completely off-guard, "you aren't secretly green, are you?"

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"She's never been green for me," and if anyone was more surprised at Geoffrey being there, it was Geoffrey. Unlike the other week, where he'd found himself in random places for no reason at all, tonight he was in a random place for a perfectly good reason.

A strange compulsion for something very much like Jerry's Jubilee.

He was prodding his spoon around in the container thoughtfully as he spoke.

"But I'm not exactly the most reliable witness."

He looked enough like someone from Oz's business class to keep from setting off alarm bells in his mind.

Still ...

"I'm a bit ... confused." Which wasn't a completely unfamiliar state for him to be in, honestly, but that wasn't something that you shared with people on a regular basis.

"Who are you?" He sorely hoped the answer didn't have 'Gale Forcer' at the end of it. Or at the beginning.

Anywhere in this man's name would be awful, come to think of it.

"That... is a question I've been asking myself for quite a few years. Sit down?"

He patted the seat next to him.

"What's got you so confused?"

"I was rather expecting this place to be an apartment," he said very slowly, hesitating before he took a seat next to Geoffrey.

"I'm sure you can see where that would make this confusing."

"I was sort of thinking I was in New York before I got here," he said cheerfully. "And then I found out I was off a few states. And then a few countries. I'm assuming you're new here. It's weird."

Beat.

"Ice cream?"

Geoffrey had managed to not really answer anything about where he was.

In fact, he was all the more confused. Still, since he'd asked...

"Erm, perhaps later." No need to be rude.

"Okay."

Geoffrey: not so good with answers. Generally, he does the asking of the right questions.

"I'm Geoffrey, by the way. Geoffrey Tennant. I run the theatre around here, the Boards. We're starting a production of Much Ado about Nothing that's casting at the moment."

"Much Ado About---?" Fiyero looked relatively confused, but dismissed it through the sheer fact that he hadn't always paid close attention in language classes.

He offered the man a slight tilt of his head. "Fiyero." Beat. "Erm. Prince of the Arjiki, if we must be quite formal."

"I wasn't, but that's interesting," he admitted.

"Where is that, exactly? Or are you from some other place than here? Earth, I mean. What with the--"

And there was a sort of vague handwavey movement at his own face.

He blinked. Earth? Where in Ozma's name was Earth?

"...well, it's a county of Oz. I'm not sure whether that's here or not." Probably more with the 'not'.

Fiyero was ignoring the motioning to the tattoos for now.

"Oz?"

He quirked his lips.

"Not Australia Oz? Something else?"

"I've no idea what everyone calls it," he managed, "But the capital is the Emerald City."

Yes, that Oz.

He just quirked his head at Fiyero.

"Never heard of it," he admitted. "But I don't deal with too many people. Just the actors and such. And, obviously, you now."

"Obviously."

Fiyero rubbed a hand through his hair and frowned. "Since the woman at the counter is obviously not -- have you seen anyone green?"

"Green?"

He thought about that for a minute.

"Not green, no. Gladys is sort of grey, being a golem and all, but not green. No green people to my knowledge, no."

"Oh."

And he looked visibly disappointed. Way to shoot him down, Geoffrey.

"All right. Does this place ... have a name?"

"Mostly, everyone just calls it the island," he admitted. "At least, to me. I've heard a few people mention the name Fandom, but that's about it. I know we're somewhere near Maryland, if that helps anything."

"It doesn't."

Nothing about that had helped any, but he file it away in the back of his mind anyway.

"...I don't suppose there's some place to stay." Preferably cheaply.

"Uh, I know there's a hotel, not that I ever went there," he said as he finished up the ends of his ice cream, "but I've got a whole theatre and some extra costume pieces that could probably make something soft enough to sleep on. I mean, there's always the chairs but speaking from experience? You're better on the floor."

So the options were a hotel, or ... a theatre.

The theatre, his mind argued, was probably bigger and less noisy. He pursed his lips a moment and then nodded.

"I ... would be grateful for the theatre, if you're offering." And he wasn't just horribly misconstruing Geoffrey's words to hear what he wanted to.

"I am. I sleep there myself in what used to be a closet," he told him with a brief, somewhat unhinged sort of smile.

"...Used to be."

Which was better than 'still is', he supposed.

"The place used to be some kind of pub or bar or something," which seems like the perfect place for a theatre in ways that he wouldn't want to explain "but I've fixed it up some.

"But like I said, plenty of room and I'm not going to ask you for money. I was pretty much finding places to sleep for my first few days here since I was broke."

And he's done worse, really.

Fiyero nodded quickly. "Of course, of course. I wasn't questioning the caliber of your lodgings, certainly not."

Because he really didn't want to even think about sleeping on the streets of a strange town.

"But if there is something I might help with ... Well. Consider this an offer."

"I'm trying to put together a bookshelf at the moment," he said as he tossed the cup into the garbage, "so if you hold a piece of wood while I bang on it sometime tomorrow, consider your rent paid."

Yes, he doesn't know this man from Adam, but he doesn't really care. He doesn't have anything to steal.

Lucky for Geoffrey, Fiyero was relatively trustworthy provided he wasn't manipulated into doing the wrong thing by people more cunning than him.

"That I can do." Or at least he was relatively certain he could do that. It couldn't be more complicated than hunting small game, right? Right.

He nodded.

"Do you need anything before we head back?" he asked as he stood up, smiling to the girl behind the counter. She kind of raised an eyebrow back but he mostly ignored that.

"There's at least one store still open for small things."

"I'd rather just ... rest, if it's all the same to you."

He gave the girl a smile himself and got a look that was probably more worried than anything. Ah well.

"That is, if you don't have anything you need to pick up."

"I'm low maintenance," he replied before heading for the door.

"It's not too far. Don't worry."

"I'm sure I'll make it."

He fell into step just behind Geoffrey.

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Chilly Boulder Ice Creamery; Thursday Evening [Arrival]

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