fandomtownies | The Causeway, Monday Evening

Entry tags:

The Causeway, Monday Evening

So being stuck in Portalocity waiting rooms during a potential emergency kind of sucked. It'd given Atton some time to catch up on the radio broadcasts for the past couple of days, but that was about the only upside he could think of. Especially since said broadcasts had made it really clear something was up with Sparkle, and oh, Atton wasn't the only one noticing the deeply creepy.

Well, at least he hadn't packed up his armor and put on the Nagai electromesh for nothing, he reflected, as he set foot on the causeway. It was quiet - still nothing rampaging through the streets - but that deeply Malachor-esque wrong he'd felt last week had only gotten worse. A lot worse.

He tamped down on his instincts. His gut was yelling at him to run again, and he really couldn't blame it. But there would be no running this time. If he wasn't the only one picking up on any of this? It was Fandom. Heads were going to be put together sooner or later to figure out what was going on. The least he could do was be ready.

... and put in a phone call. Atton called up the phone directory as soon as he stepped onto the island proper, found a number, and made a call.

[[ expecting one, but open for your atton or late-ish evening causeway needs. ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It took a few rings to get to her phone mostly because she had to peel Velcro off of her long enough to make a grab for it--it wasn't her fault, really, that her phone had fallen off her bed because she'd been playing with the cat, it really wasn't, shut up.

"Hi?"

Velcro promptly afixed himself to her again. Karina sighed.

"Am I talking to Karina Lyle?" Atton asked. He was pretty sure, going by the voice, but he was a little frazzled right now. Blame the weird pseudo-wound-in-the-Force thing the island was doing right now, blame worry, whatever. "This is Atton Rand."

He almost added 'you know, the professor', but he managed to catch himself just in time.

Because Karina was the kind of girl who didn't go around doing shit she wasn't supposed to do, her first reaction wasn't 'I didn't do it' or anything when one of her previosu teachers called her out of the blue.

Rather, it made her frown, because if she didn't do anything--and she hadn't--then that meant something was up.

"Yeah, speaking," she said, sitting up a little straighter. "What's up?"

Atton took a deep breath and started walking.

"Sorry about calling you out of the blue, but you have a friend who's a friend of mine," he said. "Time weirdness, blah blah, I used to be a student, anyway, I'm calling to ask if you've noticed anything off about Sparkle lately?"

"Oh my god," Karina said immediately. "Please come and put him out of his misery before I kill him."

That was totally reassuring right? Right?

No. Not reassuring at all, as it turned out.

"That bad, huh?"

"I kidnapped his cat because it was starving and had no water," she said grumpily, which Karina thought summed up the situation perfectly.

Sparkle adored Velcro. No way would he treat Velcro that way in his right mind.

"I, uh, don't think he's noticed that Velcro's gone missing."

Edited 2015-03-23 12:54 (UTC)

Atton hated that cat. He hated that cat a lot. He hated that cat every bit as much as Sparkle loved it, in fact. So that was bad sign number two.

"Wait, seriously?" he said. "The cat? What'd you find when you went in there?"

"He looked like shit," Karina said, taking a moment to try and interest Velcro in a fuzzy ball on a string on a stick to play with. (It was a no go. Damn. She didn't have much experience with cats but weren't they supposed to love these things? Rather than sticking to her like glue?) "He hadn't slept in days, he hadn't eaten in days, he hadn't showered and wasn't wearing any make up and when I checked his phone, since his excuse for all of the above was he'd been making a phone call, it was deader than a doorknob. So he was talking to thin air. But it was, like, totally important and I wouldn't understand."

A beat.

"I made him shower and eat," she added, both of which had been an exercise in proving just how terrible a caregiver Karina really was. "But I couldn't force him to sleep."

Atton could. Perks of being a Jedi. But even if he was the kind of guy who'd show up to your doorstep and feed you chicken soup, which he wasn't, he didn't like screwing around with people's heads without their permission. Or at all, if he could help it.

"Ah, e chu ta," he snapped. Mostly at himself, not that Karina would be able to tell. "I knew something was wrong. This entire karking island is getting all wrung-out from the inside somehow, and of course he'd walk right into whatever stupid thing is going down this time. As per usual."

... Sorry, Karina.

"Why do I even try, I don't know."

... He'd get back around to something practical in a second.

Yeah, no, it sounded like he was snapping at her and teacher or not, Karina wasn't good at taking that without a fuss. Especially since a) she was worried about Sparkle too and b) at least she'd tried to help.

"Don't take it out on me!" she snapped back. "It's not my fault he's a moron!"

"No, I know!" Atton yelled. "He's just a moron!"

Yelling was cathartic. Somehow.

Well, at least they could agree on that.

"He is the worst!" Karina wasn't yelling back, only because she didn't want to scare Velcro. "But our knowing that isn't helping him!"

"I know!"

Atton had to take a moment and hold that phone away from him. Because right now he was walking around town bellowing into a phone, which, okay, even he could admit was maybe a little crazy.

He brought the phone back a moment later. "Look, I'm going to see what I can do about looking into this," he said, sounding a lot calmer. "Can you keep making sure he eats?"

"He's going to stop answering his door," she predicted darkly. "But, yeah, I'll do my best."

If she had to, she could always break the door down.

"...What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure yet," Atton admitted. "A lot of this weird crap started in the preserve. I'm going to see if that gives us some idea of what we're dealing with. Maybe figure out how to keep those deer from wandering too far, since they seem to be going barvy. I can't pinpoint the exact source of this thing, so far."

He was almost at the apartment building now.

"If you need me to pitch in some money or something, let me know."

"I'm fine for money, but thanks. The water's going black," Karina said helpfully. "It hasn't hit freshwater yet, as far as I can tell, but oh god, gross."

Seriously, seriously gross.

"Karla's got a sort of magic-mojo," she added, a bit reluctantly. "It let's her heal the land or something but she couldn't do anything. Thought you... might like to know."

"I know," Atton said. "I mean, I don't know she knows and it's apparently on the magic mojo level, but I've been picking it up for weeks. I just didn't realize how bad it was until last week."

He rubbed at the back of his head. "I've sensed something similar before," he said. "This isn't quite as bad, which is good, at least?"

Karina's long silence at that quite possibly indicated that she didn't think that was good at all.

"Are you going to need any help?" she checked. "I mean, like, I don't know. I could help?" Maybe? Possibly?

To be fair, Atton's 'something similar' had involved giant death-singularities created by bombed planets and a guy with no physical form who could eat an entire planet's people's life force all at once.

"You're welcome to tag along, if you want, or go to the library or something," he said. "Just keep an eye on Sparks while you can, okay?"

"I can tag along while checking in on Sparkle," she said, after a moment. Doing the whole book thing wasn't really appealing.

Even if Karina really preferred to not deal with people trying to kill her, she was an action hero at heart. Doing shit was way better than reading stuff, even if both turned out to be equally useless.

Yeah, Atton knew how she felt. Even if his own style was probably slightly heavier on the trickery and sneaking around than hers, he tended to leave the books to Mical and Brianna.

"Meet me outside MCA in... half an hour? An hour? Whatever amount of hour you need to kick his ass for the day."

He wasn't going to tell her to stay home and stay safe; on this island, he figured if she was offering, she could probably take care of herself.

"I'll be there in an hour," she said firmly. "It'd be quicker, but I'll have to stand over him to get him to do anything, which will eat up time."

Yeah, Karina could take care of herself. She didn't really want anyone to know that but, like, when shit was hitting the fan, she'd deal with that if it came up.

Besides, it wasn't like she had to use her powers to just look around the island anyway.

Atton winced a little. Yeah, no, that wasn't good.

"Tell him the food's got broccoli in it," he snarked weakly, "That should get him moving."

He was at MCA now, and heading on in. Time to dump his armor and spare weaponry at his place, in case he needed it.

"Ha," Karina said, prying Velcro off her. (Gently!) She stood up before Velcro could try and cling again. "Yeah, don't think that'd work. I'll see you."

Then she hung up, since she had to go and make sure Sparkle ate something now.

Atton let out a sigh as he eyed his phone, then slid it back into his pocket. He jogged up the stairs and tried not to think about the whole thing too much.

They'd figure this out, they'd set it right, Sparkle would be fine. Around here, everything usually was. He just wished it didn't feel so damn much like Malachor this time, was all.

Death, dying, hungry, e chu ta.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Causeway, Monday Evening

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject