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Curiosities, Oddities and Antiques -- Formerly Things Reborn -- Tuesday

Okay, so Sheila had spent the better part of a week settling in -- if that was what you called getting cast in a musical and having drunken threesomes, which she did. Time to actually fulfill some of her responsibilities around here, such as opening the store.

The door was still painted

CURIOSITIES, ODDITIES AND ANTIQUES
Specializing in Hard-to-Find Items
We Buy Your Rarities - Inquire Within

and the NOW HIRING sign was prominently displayed beneath. Now, to unpack a few more crates. Hopefully full of kitschy weirdness and not embalmed pig fetuses.

Honestly, had she known what 'oddities' were, she probably would have lobbied harder to change the name.

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Especially if you'd like a job. Or if you have contraband to sell or purchase.

After his class, Hannibal wandered the island a bit on his way back to his car; the weather was pleasant enough, and he liked to know what was going on in the places he spent time.

Noticing the new sign on the shop, he stopped in, wondering what sort of rare or hard-to-find things they might have.

"Welcome to Curiosities, Oddities and Antiques," Dr. Girlfriend rumbled, her voice probably an octave or two lower than the one Hannibal might have expected. (Ah, the perils of smoking.)

"What can I help you find today?"

See? That sounded suitably retail-ish.

Hannibal raised an eyebrow; he could smell the smoke, but still that was a rather extreme case of vocal fold thickening.

Still, when you've spoken with aliens and people from other times, this was hardly the weirdest thing you encountered.

"Good afternoon." He nodded to her. "Nothing in particular at the moment; I thought I might see what sort of things you had on offer."

~~Canon~~ Science had yet to explain Sheila's vocal cords. The smoking had worsened it, certainly, but her voice had always been unnaturally deep. She got the rudest comments about it.

"A little of this, a little of that," Dr. Girlfriend replied. "Weird kitschy things, some pretty antiques, and -- did you know 'oddities' meant creepy things floating in mason jars?"

Because she hadn't. At all.

Hannibal detested rudeness; he would never make such comments.

"I did not." He was definitely interested now, though. "What sorts of creepy things? And antiques, you said?"

"Some girl bought rattlesnake earrings," Dr. Girlfriend explained. "As in, the actual rattles from a rattlesnake. Weird animal bones and, and, taxidermied bits and I swear there were jars of pig fetuses just marinating in something."

In what? Liquid pig fetus? Cooking oil? Who knew? She certainly wasn't going to open those jars.

"I had no idea 'oddities' meant the macabre," she explained. "The antiques are much nicer. Like, lamps your grandma might have owned."

Edited 2013-10-09 03:04 (UTC)

"That would definitely count as odd, I think," Hannibal agreed. Multiple fetal pigs? He thought about it for a moment. "If you're looking to get rid of them, I have colleagues at a number of universities; perhaps they could use them for classes.

Oh, Hannibal. Dr. Girlfriend was now eyeing you like you were some kind of savior.

"I would pay you to get them out of here," she said. "Do you think they'd take them if they're not, I dunno, properly preserved? There's a big crate in the corner over there just full of them. You can go see what you think."

"It would be better if they are." Hannibal headed over to check them out. He found the crate and carefully lifted one of the jars, eyeing it clinically from each side, then opening it to sniff. "They're not the freshest I've seen, but they are properly preserved. I'll make some calls."

He smiled at her. "Free of charge, though if I find an antique I like, I wouldn't say no to a bit of favor in the haggling."

"You," Sheila declared, "are a wonderful man, and you can consider me fully in your debt. Be it haggling, or store credit, or ... whatever."

Yes, Sheila. Flirt with the serial killer, because he helped you give away preserved fetal pigs. These are good life choices.

Many people made wonderful life choices around Hannibal. He often helped them along.

He smiled at her. "Well, I suppose I'll have to keep looking around, then. See what you've got."

[OOC: Bed time for me, I'm afraid. SP?]

"Let me know if you see anything you like," Sheila purred. Subtlety was not her forte. Neither was hanging around sane, reliable men. Just ask all the supervillains she dated.

This would obviously end well.

(NP! Gnight! SP is always yay. :) )

Edited 2013-10-09 05:11 (UTC)

Hannibal was a big fan of subtlety, cannibal jokes to the FBI aside, but he could appreciate forthrightness, too.

And it occurred to him that a curiosity shop that could send things to entirely different dimensions might be very useful for disposing of things he found ~~on bodies he didn't want immediately discovered~~ lying around.

So he held out his hand. "I will definitely do that. Doctor Hannibal Lecter."

Cecil hadn't really noticed the hiring sign last time, but he did now! And oh, this was the lovely place with the shrunken heads!

He peeked in, looking around for the woman who'd helped him last time.

Oh, it was that weird kid! The one who probably made voodoo dolls of his neighbors and cut the eyes out of pictures in magazines. The kind of kid where you just know he's going to end up on the news sooner or later and all the neighbors are saying "he seemed like such a nice boy."

"Welcome back," Dr. Girlfriend said, trying not to be creeped out. A customer was a customer, right? Even if he did want to buy shrunken doll heads for orphans.

Those poor orphans.

"Do I want to know what you're looking for this time?"

Cecil cocked his head at her. "Probably. Otherwise, how can you help me find it?" he asked politely. "I saw that you were hiring?"

So the sarcasm flew right over his head. Probably best just to let that go.

"I could always point you to an aisle and invite you to browse," she suggested. She brightened at his other question. "And yes, I'm hiring. It's just me right now and it's quite the store to manage solo."

On the one hand, yes, the kid was a little creepy. On the other? Working retail on a day-to-day basis was getting old, fast.

Cecil was good at sarcasm! He just sometimes missed that there was a reason for it.

"True," he allowed, then grinned. "But since I'm looking for a job, just browsing wouldn't help much."

He shrugged. "I sort of feel at loose ends on the weekends, not having much to do. I'm used to having an every day job. I was hoping you might have a shift or two available, maybe Saturdays?"

"You're hired," Sheila said. What? She was desperate.

Wait. There were thousands of dollars of Guild merchandise passing through these doors. She ought to at least do some due diligence here.

"What kind of ... job did you have before?" she asked. "Can you work a cash register? And you're not going to touch anything that you're not authorized to go poking around in, right?"

The last thing she needed was for Guild contraband to get swiped by some petty thief. Then the Guild would send some kind of a strike team and ugh, civilian deaths resulted in so much paperwork.

"I was a radio host," Cecil answered, rather proudly. "Community news, secret governmental messages, that sort of thing. I've never worked a cash register, but I can count and use a computer, so I'm sure I could pick it up."

He nodded decisively. "And I'm very good at not touching unauthorized things. You never know what might kill you, if you don't pay attention!"

"A very good philosophy," Dr. Girlfriend nodded. She'd need an actual cover story, but that was easy enough. "I have some high-ticket items just for special clientele, but they have to be handled delicately. And they're not the sort of people you'd want to cross, that's all."

The nice thing about that cover story was that it was entirely true.

"Come over here, let me show you the register," she added. "The drawer sticks sometimes unless you smack it, but it's really straightforward otherwise."

That radio host thing seemed too intriguing to pass by. "... So were you working for the government, passing messages, or against them?"

Cecil followed her to the register. "Oh, just standard community radio things." He shrugged. "PTA meetings, local sports games, which roads are blocked off for secret experiments, that sort of thing. I worked for Station Management." He shuddered and blanched just a bit; they were also the sort of ~~people~~ eldritch beings you didn't want to cross.

"But sometimes you get those 'read these exactly verbatim' notices, you know? Things from the Sheriff's secret police, or a vague-yet-menacing government agency, or the public transport system. The sorts of things you have to just read and immediately forget."

"Was that around here?" Sheila asked. Because if there were secret experiments going on, she might have to actually listen to that radio broadcast they did. At least to figure out if she was going to get dragged into one. "I don't know about you, but I like the government best when it leaves me alone."

The OSI were such buzzkills when it came to the Guild.

"Oh, no! That was back home in Night Vale." Cecil shrugged. "The government's mostly okay, as long as you vote for the right people. Sometimes they do go a bit too far, though. I mean, last year the school district put up metal detectors and tried to stop kids from carrying munitions!"

Okay, apparently he liked having weapons on his person. Well, she couldn't say much. So did she.

"Probably worried about someone snapping and shooting up the place," she shrugged. "I've never heard of Night Vale, but I've been on the West Coast most of the past decade."

In a flying Cocoon. Over the Grand Canyon. The things that happened when you dated supervillains.

"That's what they said." Cecil rolled his eyes. "'Students who carry weapons to class are more likely to use them than students who don't.' But honestly, confiscating everybody's just because one person might be a bit unstable?" He sighed. "Well, I won't get on a soapbox."

He smiled. "Anyway, we're out west, too. Not on the coast, though. More sort of in the middle of the desert."

She ought to try Radon Canyon. The colors were wonderful.

Avoid the gravelly-voiced doctor in favor of browsing for antiques.

As always, SP warning for work time, but I'm here for now!

What are you looking for in a hire-ee? I think Cecil would be fun at this, but I'm trying not to overcommit myself.

Hi! Basically, all Cecil would need to do would be to open the store once a week -- you pick a day that works best for you/him. If he doesn't want to get involved with the smuggling ring, she can keep it discreet enough that he never even knows about it. Dr G might pop in to chatter at him because why not, and he'd have to deal with people coming in the store, but it'd be just like any other shop position, so it wouldn't be much of a time commitment that way.

Or do you mean, like, who am I hiring? ANYBODY. WELCOME! JOIN THE FUN! Cecil can unpack some of the disturbing things like the embalmed fetuses in mason jars. EMBALMED FETUSES, CECIL. FEEEEEEETUSES.

... did I answer your question? PRESS 1 FOR YES AND 2 FOR NO.

1! :D Thank you. (I've never had a shop position before; newbie here. :) ) How about Saturday or Sunday?

Oh! No worries, then! All you need to do is post it to Townies and toss in some OCD, that's honestly all there is to it. Hell, you can even skip the OCD if you're bored. :D

Feel free to mod that there are weird shipments coming in, some of which are marked for Dr. Girlfriend only. (those would be the smuggling ones obvs)

Either day works perfectly for me! Let me know which one you want! HOORAY, I HAVE AN EMPLOYEE!!!! ♥

Yay! Okay, let's say Saturday?

*gives up on switching accounts for the sake of consistency*

I EMBRACE PINGING FROM THE WRONG ACCOUNT. I switched to a previous character just to join you in pinging-from-the-wrong-account solidarity.

... I need better hobbies.

SATURDAY IT IS.

LOL! Yay!

Eh, at least when I stay logged in as Hannibal and manually switch to Cecil I don't do things like forget who I'm logged in as and ping squeeing cheerleadery things to people as Hannibal!

Are you on Chrome or Firefox? There are browser plugins that let you juggle LJ accounts. TOTAL RP MUST-HAVE.

... It's usually icons that keep me remembering who is who. "Wait, these keywords are ... SHIT. WRONG PERSON."

Yes! I've got the juggler plug-in. LIFESAVER. The problem is that with Cecil, I rarely change from his default icon, so I don't notice the keywords. I just about always change Hannibal's, so I rarely post as Cecil when I think I'm Hannibal.

This reminds me: do you need more icons of Joseph Gordon-Levitt? I am a mad fiend at hunting down icons from the wilds of InsaneJournal and so forth, but I have no idea if you even want more icons -- some people like just having the one default and rocking it, which is totally a valid choice.

(I am myself completely addicted to accumulating more and more and MOAR SHINIES but we've already established I'm a crazy person, right?)

Hee! Oh, I've collected Mads like a fiend for Hannibal. I'm always amenable to more JGL, but the challenge is that I'm a) trying to keep it to teenage icons, and b) trying to show as little face as possible, since we don't actually know what Cecil looks like. But if you've got anything, please share! :)

Ooooh. I don't have anything offhand like that, no -- JGL as a teenager wouldn't be hard to find, considering, but not showing the face is a hard request to search by. That's a cool reason, though, I hadn't thought of that!

And if you're ever desperately seeking more, or decide to go full-face, hit me up and I'll see what mojo I can work.

Sure! :) Thank you for offering!

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Curiosities, Oddities and Antiques -- Formerly Things Reborn -- Tuesday

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