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Lukes, Thursday

So that was the weirdest radio report Eliot had heard yet. Which around here, was saying something.

Still, it was clear that there was something going on on the island -- yet again -- so for once Eliot wasn't lording over the kitchen and the menu. Instead he was at the lunch counter, notes spread out in front of him, phone in his hand as he consulted with the only guy he knew who might have an idea what this all added up to.

"Time travel," Hardison said. "Strangers on the island. People showing up and then disappearing. The eerie feelings. Someone's messing with the timelines, man. You need us to come get you?"

"No," Eliot barked. "Absolutely not." The last thing he needed was Hardison and Parker disappearing into some kind of paradox. "You sure it's time travel, man? Something's not adding up."

"What else would it be? It's not like you guys are suddenly infested with ghosts or something."

"Right." Eliot sighed, looking down at his notes again. "Time travel."

Today's specials
Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich
Pan fried mashed potatoes
Pie

Luke's was open.

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BYOGhost

He will be getting possessed in this post. Please specify if you want him before or after that happens.

Celia...had no idea what to make of the radio, but she knew something was wrong on the island. She didn't quite know what it was, exactly, but the air and energy had been off for a few days, now.

Of course, she'd just figured it was her own paranoia, or that they'd have a rain of jellyfish soon, or something...until the radio report. And while the idea of running out to find Sparkle as soon as she could was tempting, she instead decided to go for a walk to clear her head and see if she could figure out what was making her so uneasy. He was probably fine and just being all...Sparkle-y, anyway.

Being out in the cold and periodically reaching out with her magic was a touch draining, though, so her walk was slightly cut short by the prospect of replenishing her fuel, so to speak. Could anyone blame her? Celia certainly felt as though pie was a deserved reward -- not to mention comforting, in light of the fact that her school-assigned big sibling had apparently come under some sort of...well, possession was a silly idea, so she wasn't going to even entertain it. But something was wrong with him, anyway.

"What sort of pie?" she asked Eliot in greeting, daintily taking off her gloves as she wandered up to the counter. "I'm not picky, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into." She eyed the phone, fairly sure he was engaged in a conversation with someone on the other end, but she was unfamiliar still enough with cell phones that she felt comfortable possibly committing a faux pas and interrupting.

Edited 2014-12-04 18:01 (UTC)

"What?" Sorry, Celia. Eliot was a touch distracted. "Oh, uh." He peered back towards the kitchen. "Apple, pecan, or pumpkin. They're doing a seasonal thing."

Celia thought about it for a moment. "May I have a slice of pecan, then?" she asked. "When you've a moment."

She didn't mind waiting. It was a welcome respite from stretching her brain, as it was.

Eliot nodded. "Sure thing."

He had absolutely no idea that as he moved to get the plate, he revealed a growing, spectral bulge in the wall, the shape of a human face.

Honestly, he wouldn't have been able to see it if he was facing it, anyway.

Man, that bulging wall trick never got old.

Johnny had actually followed Celia in from outside, trailing behind her over the roofs of town.

She was pretty. She was young. But he'd learned from yesterday.

Girls were way easier to woo when they were dead.

Celia thought her eyes were playing tricks on her at first, the way the wall bulged out like that. "Did you -- " she ventured, her voice skating a little higher than she'd like.

But that was stupid. Of course there wasn't really anything there. Her mind was looking for things to make her afraid, and Celia knew better than that. "Did you see that?" she asked, unsure if she'd really seen a face in the wall, for a moment. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation for it.

Eliot frowned, looking back at her. "See what?"

She could see him? Oh, that just made it even better.

A firey looking number 41 took shape on Celia's forehead as Johnny crept over the counter to where Celia was waiting.

"This is gonna be good," he hissed.

Seeing things that may or may not have been there was one thing, but hearing things was an entirely different thing. "I thought -- I thought I saw something," Celia said softly.

But that was stupid, wasn't it? There was nothing to see. She was being silly.

...unless she wasn't. There was something wrong in the air and the energy of the island, and she'd been out looking for its source. And something was wrong here, and to think that anything had changed because she'd gone inside was absurd.

To assure herself, mostly, that she was being silly, Celia closed her eyes to really perceive the world around her, reaching out with her magic to wrap her senses around everything taking up any space in the room.

Her shriek when she finally saw what was there, as something other than a passing moment of magical sensitivity, was probably not the most proactive action she could have taken. But she hadn't expected to actually find something there.

Aw yeah. Johnny liked it when they screamed.

He laughed as he reached one clawed hand for Celia's chest. It was all so nice and simple, just reach in, grab the heart, and squeeze.

She hadn't expected that; how could she? Up until seconds prior, Celia hadn't even believed in ghosts, and she wasn't exactly used to anyone trying to reach into her chest, either.

Funny, that.

So it wasn't until she felt the cold, overwhelming, restrictive pain that she reacted, and it was pure instinct. Celia's body and magic worked in tandem, and one knew well how to support the other. A protective shield of magic wrapped around her heart, pushing away the foreign hand in a desperate act of preservation. Celia's only conscious thought was to get the thing away from her, away away away, and she flailed a hand out desperately as she gasped in blinding, unprecedented pain.

Eliot couldn't see or sense anything particularly weird or evil going on, but he did hear that shriek Celia had let out, and he knew pain when he saw it. He vaulted over the lunch counter, sick with horror that a teenage girl was apparently having a heart attack in the diner.

Johnny was too startled to resist the push, even if he could have. The living, in his experience, couldn't push around the dead. It only worked the other way around, dammit!

Those semantics weren't helping him crush this girl's heart, though. He went staggering back -- straight into the guy rushing in to help out.

Eliot froze in his tracks and swayed once, as his consciousness was immediately swamped by the sorts of vicious, bloodthirsty thoughts he'd spent the last several years resisting in his own mind.

Johnny, on the other hand, was reveling in the sudden return to corporeality. He stretched out one hand, studying Eliot's fingers, then closed it into a fist and grinned.

"Well now. This changes some things."

Celia could breathe again, in great, heaving gasps. The stiff coldness in her chest didn't seem like it would be going anywhere any time soon -- as though she'd swallowed ice and it had settled in her ribs.

She looked around wildly, unsure where the -- where that thing had gone, until that nice, pie-granting man smiled at her.

One didn't need to be magical to tell the difference between a nice smile and one like that.

"Don't come closer," she said, her voice faint in spite of herself as she held out a slightly-trembling hand. "You'll regret it." She pushed herself to her feet, backing slowly towards the door.

Johnny walked his fingers along the counter, looking for and discarding various weapon-like options. What, they didn't keep any cooking knives in the dining room? "Yeah, I don't think I will."

He finally settled on a nice, pointy pie server. It'd take some force, but this body seemed nice and muscly.

"I usually rather have a shotgun for this sort of thing, but I'm willing to be creative."

Celia grit her teeth together, eyes darting to the pie server and back to his face. "I don't want to have to hurt you," she said hoarsely, still backing slowly towards the door. Her mind was jumping with fear, her hands shaking with the effort of restraint.

She really did want to avoid harming him. It wasn't that poor man's fault that something evil had taken up residence inside him. But she was already taking stock of tables and chairs, building awareness that she should have created when she'd come in. Stupid, stupid her.

Yeah, that grin just managed to go even creepier. Johnny was now all out stalking towards Celia.

"Aw, come on," he said. "A little pain can be fun."

And then he lunged, pie server raised for a strike.

Celia whipped her arm out, sending a strong burst of magic out towards him, amplified by her terror. And because she was so afraid, she wasn't exactly concentrating on her control. Plates and glasses shattered as Celia did her best to fling the man across the room -- her goal was to get him away, and she didn't have many other concerns beyond that one.

Oddly enough, Johnny was still completely unprepared for her to do that. It wasn't even just a "thinking she could only affect spirits" thing. He just really wasn't that good at planning.

He was really used to the element of surprise, okay? That and paralyzing horror. He really liked paralyzing horror.

The burst flung picked him right up and flung him right across the dining room. He smacked into the far wall, leaving a sizable dent -- Eliot really was very muscly -- before landing on and toppling the table beneath him.

Edited 2014-12-05 02:14 (UTC)

Celia watched him carefully, breathing hard, still. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled another table over with a sloppy tug of magic, and pushed it in front of him as a barricade. Her hands were shaking -- she was shaking -- and over the ringing in her ears, Celia heard the glass in the pastry case shatter.

She'd fix it another day. For now, she was going to close the space between her and the door, and get back to the dorms as quickly as possible.

And then...possibly hide under her bed. Or in her closet. Something.

Even someone like Eliot didn't shake off being thrown across the room that quickly. It did through Johnny for a loop, however, and while he was more than willing to try and go after Celia all over again, aching and dizzy or not, Eliot managed to get just enough control back to yank him back down before he could try.

"Bitch," Johnny muttered with Eliot's mouth, refusing to believe he'd just lost anything. "I didn't really wanna kill her, anyway."

Here's hoping the UK doesn't try to drown me in Finance Bill 2015 today.

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Lukes, Thursday

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