fandomtownies | The Boards, Wednesday

Drac was not at the theater early this Wednesday. He was, in fact, still at the theater. He'd spent Monday tidying his own place and arranging for the removal of the amusement park from the warehouse. Tuesday evening, he'd arrived at his usual time at the Boards and found the door hanging wide open. Immediately upon looking inside, it was obvious that it had not been spared the island's invasion of little children, and after a moment or sixty of ~~grumbling~~ wishing he could send for his staff from the hotel, he set about straightening up.

He'd taken a brief nap in his spare coffin in the room he'd been allowed upstairs, and was now attempting to sort out a pile of props and costumes that needed repair. There were a few brooms wandering about, still magicked into sweeping. Just ignore them.

It was about ten minutes before the rehearsal started when Jono finally managed to get back to the Boards, his portal from Kaeleer a little delayed. And then detoured. Through a reality that had replaced his clothing with Scottish garb from the late seventeenth century the minute he'd stepped through his first portal. Because apparently the multiverse was keen on seeing him in a kilt, for reasons he couldn't quite figure out.

The stopover meant that Jonothon somewhat resembled a giant, disgruntled Nac Mac Feegle, when he walked into the Boards and nearly tripped over a magical sweeping broom.

"What the bloody hell happened to-- Dracula!"

Oh, because that was definitely the way you summoned Count Dracula, Jono. Especially when he was low on sleep and cranky from having been cleaning. On his own. Stupid lack of ~~NPCs~~ staff.

Drac heard the call and flicked a wrist. The broom stopped sweeping and floated mid-air to point in Drac's direction.

From whence he wasn't budging, but was instead examining an Elizabethan maid costume and trying to determine if the golden glittery... stuff it was covered in was intentional or was put there through childish interference.

Perhaps it was a sign they needed more gremlin traps in the costume room?

Jono was pinching the bridge of his nose as he made his way into the costume storage area. Ignore the kilt. Please. Ignore it a lot.

"Dare I ask?"

Because from where he was standing, he probably didn't want to know.

Drac waved another costume into the 'find a seamstress' pile. "The children were apparently not satisfied by my Funhouse Transylvania." That hurt to admit.

Rehearsals today would be interesting.

--
[Boards is (finally) Open, no OCD today. Unless you counted the piles Drac was making. Nice and neat piles. Cowritten with

apocalipped]

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Jono was torn between running upstairs to change into some proper trousers and a t-shirt, or just raiding the costume racks to see if there was anything suitable down here that would fit. If people were potentially showing up for a rehearsal tonight...

Oh, whatever. It wasn't as though he didn't have experience running around in a kilt. He'd just stay down here, helping people with their lines, if they wanted. It wasn't like it was any more ridiculous than some of the things he'd done for the sake of entertaining children this weekend, either.

"I wonder if th'Perk does delivery."

They might or might not, but Hannibal did, and he was dead set on being very nice to Jono for a while.

"Coffee?" He held up a thermos with a smile. "And I've brought a snack as well." Because of course he had.

"Coffee and bacon. Lord, Hannibal, you're a godsend."

It was like Hannibal knew what kind of food made everything better! Funny, that!

"I see you made it back to the island unscathed." Jono glanced down at the kilt he was wearing, gave his head a shake, and turned a smile back toward Hannibal. "Serves me right for spending a little extra time in Glacia, I suppose."

Of course he knew - people! People made everything better.

But pork wasn't bad, either.

"I seem to have had very good luck so far," Hannibal agreed. "Has the palace fully recovered from the children yet?"

Jonothon's answering smirk probably said volumes about that.

"Morton's stopped washing down his breakfast coffee with whiskey, if that's any indication. But I think the staff are paranoid, now. After all, it's difficult enough wrapping one's head around spontaneous de-aging for a few days. Worse when it's your Queen, I can imagine."

"I can definitely see some disadvantages, yes." Hannibal chuckled. "It's to their credit they made it as long as they did with young Karla. For the second time, some of them."

"I'm not entirely certain how I managed to make it through the weekend myself," Jono replied with a chuckle of his own. "She's a spitfire even now... I probably shouldn't have have been too surprised by the hell she was raising over those four days."

At all. Really.

"It's a strange place to be in, enjoying the company of small children while at the same time having my mind made up to not have any of my own. I'm quite alright with being the big brother for the rest of my days, I think."

"May I ask why you choose not to have your own?" Hannibal plied him with very good coffee. "You certainly do well with children, and I say that as one of those children," he added with a smile.

Oh, coffee. Jono was going to miss you very much, someday.

"Honestly, Hannibal, I'm too much of a mess. Pick a way. Mentally, emotionally, genetically..."

Especially genetically.

"I do well enough for a few days, knowing that it won't last forever, knowing that if I mess something up there'll be no harm done when everything returns to normal. No lasting emotional scarring, no surprise trauma. Nothing terrible that I've passed down that I have to worry about seeing rear its head in disastrous ways in a decade or two."

Hannibal cocked his head. "The expected response to that would be to say that you're young, you may yet change your mind." He waved a hand dismissively. "Which is as true for this as anything, but rather more condescending than helpful, so I shall refrain."

He smiled. "Instead, I shall simply note that should you become interested in addressing the first two of those issues, I happen to know a very good psychiatrist."

Edited 2013-11-23 05:06 (UTC)

"I'm fairly certain he'd have his hands full with this mess," Jono replied, smiling almost apologetically over the top of his coffee. "And I've never had much luck with psychiatrists in the past, I'm afraid. I might talk to a friend sometime, one-on-one, though. Leaves me less twitchy."

For about a million reasons including but not limited to 'that time my psychiatrist kidnapped me and turned me into an unwilling Apocalypse clone.'

Edited 2013-11-23 05:16 (UTC)

Hannibal nodded and toasted him with the thermos. "I happen to know one of those, too, luckily."

Seriously, there were depths even Hannibal wouldn't sink to. Probably.

Jono didn't imagine Hannibal was looking to pump him full of the blood of his most genocidal ancestor, but a man could never be too careful. Especially if it had already happened once.

Learning from history. Oh yes.

"Pretty sure I've met him," Jono noted as he toasted Hannibal right back. "Pleasant bloke. Excellent cook, too."

Karina had... shown up for rehearsal. At least, that had been the plan?

But now she was kinda giving Jono, and his kilt, the side-eye (and if the brooms had still been going, she'd have been giving them far more than just the side-eye) and was unsure if there was even going to be a rehearsal today or not.

Hey, whatever though, she was here. Gold star, Karina.

Drac smiled when he caught sight of her. "Ah, Miss Lyle! Here for rehearsals? Wonderful! How are your lines coming?"

"Hi! I've got them memorized," she said, smiling back. "I mostly need the practice to figure out exactly how I want to say them."

The Boards, Wednesday

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