The Perk, Friday afternoon

[vdistinctive]

So Eliot hadn't gotten a whole lot of sleep last night. Or rather . . . any sleep last night. He hadn't found more than a couple big slugs in his patrolling yesterday, but seeing as they were distinctly not holiday-themed, that hadn't helped him relax his guard much. He'd spent his time instead cleaning and checking his weapons, and making sure the safe room in the basement was well-stocked.

Listening to radio had only confirmed his fears that the island was up to its semi-regular tricks again, and he had to remain vigilant. Which meant caffeine, and lots of it.

So here he was, at the Perk, wiping slug-goo off his sword with a handful of napkins and drinking the largest, most caffeinated beverage they could legally sell him.

[open!]

Comments

[godilovedthis]

Go to the radio station. Go to the radio station. We need to do...something...and so I've got to go to the radio station.

She had her orders and they were important. So important that she had written RADIO STATION in all capital letters on her palm for her to check every time she hesitated, as well as repeating them to herself with every step.

It would help if she could remember where the radio station was or what needed to be done when she got there, but those were bridges she'd cross when she got to them. Wait, bridges? Did she need to go to the Causeway?

No. The radio station. She needed to go to the radio station. She needed--THERE WAS A PUPPY INSIDE THAT BUILDING!

Kathy hadn't seen pets in a very, very long time. At least, she was pretty sure that was true. She certainly didn't remember seeing any. And so the radio station was forgotten as she beelined for the building, pressing her hands and face against the glass in evident delight over the puppy.

[vdistinctive]

As anxious as Eliot might be getting (not that he'd ever use that term himself), he couldn't help but smile at that look on Kathy's face.

She must have had a rough night too, if she was that excited just seeing Val.

Val was just as excited to see Kathy back, wagging her tail and dancing around in a circle in anticipation for all the pets! Eliot rubbed between her ears to remind her not to get too rambunctious in the cafe and raised an eyebrow at Kathy.

"You comin' in, darlin', or you planning to just stand out there and stare?"

[godilovedthis]

The man on the other side of the glass seemed nice enough and Kathy practically skipped inside to kneel down next to the dog, excitedly holding out her hand for the puppy to sniff.

Eliot's first clue that something was weird was probably getting a good look at Kathy's clothing; a haphazard collection of dirty clothes, worn thin and frayed, layered over each other for wamrth. Her sleeves were all pushed up to her elbow, revealing his second clue--skin covered in Sharpie with words, names, and messages all jumbled about. Most were written in English, some in Hangul. A few started in one language then drifted to another and back without any rhyme or reason. The hand she lifted towards Val was red and chapped from the cold, nails short and dirty, and the words RADIO STATION written across the palm.

But the most obvious clue, the worst of them all, was the gaze she lifted towards him, empty of any recognition. "Is this your dog, mister?" she asked, guileless as a child. "He sure is friendly! Good puppy!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot hurt, taking in all those details, sharp and deep. He swallowed against it and leaned forward. "She sure is," he said, voice much softer than he'd intended. Val twisted to lick every part of this new Kathy as she could get. "Looks like she likes you."

[godilovedthis]

"I like her too!" Kathy declared happily. "What's her name? Mine's--" there was the briefest flicker of hesitation "--Kathy. And you're..."

She paused, looking at him full in the face. Something about him was familiar. She was sure of it. She glanced quickly down at her arms to see if one of the names there jumped out at her.

"I know you, don't I?"

[vdistinctive]

If Eliot had thought it hurt before, that was nothing compared to what his heart tried to do when she said that.

"Yeah, darlin'." He held out his hand, real slow, like he was talking to a skittish animal. "What happened to you?"

[godilovedthis]

Kathy shrugged. "Same thing that happens to everyone in the end. Our memories are gone. Eaten. Soon I'll be hollow and then I don't know what will happen. Someone will probably put me down. Dante, maybe. He doesn't forget."

Ring a few bells for you there, Eliot?

"It would hurt more, but I forget why it should."

[vdistinctive]

The handle on Eliot's coffee mug snapped off in his hand.

Yes. That did, in fact, ring quite a few bells.

"Oh darlin'." He couldn't help but put his hand -- the one that hadn't just broken a mug -- against the side of her face. "Oh baby, I'm so sorry."

[godilovedthis]

Kathy closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. This felt familiar. This wasn't Dante or Anders, though they often touched her like this, too, but not like this. His hand on her skin was different, was not-like theirs, was a word that hovered just out of reach.

(paternal... a voice in her mind whispered, but the pathway to bring it up to her consciousness was broken and the word was lost, erased by gray ash and dust.)

"...Eliot?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot did not, as a general rule, cry in public. But Kathy had him damn close. "That's right, darlin'. We saw each other last year, remember?"

Every single instinct in his body was screaming at her to scoop her up, gather his whole family together, and lock them all in the basement panic room until this was all over. Last year was bad. In a way few things had been bad in Eliot's life since got his first look at real war.

But he didn't want to scare her.

[godilovedthis]

"We did?" Kathy asked, pushing past the clouds of nothing to find those few, precious memories that were left. "We...We did." She nodded firmly. "I was different then."

Her legs had been worse, her memory better.

"You came to help us." Why was that relevant? This was Eliot. Eliot would always come to help her. Oh right! "And now we're here to help you!"

Weren't you proud of her, Eliot? She was a hero!

[vdistinctive]

It didn't work. Everything they'd done last year, everything they'd gone through, and it didn't even work.

Eliot felt sick. Actually, literally sick. He could taste adrenaline in the back of his mouth, and his fingernails were pressing into the palm of the hand not holding Kathy's face hard enough to break the skin.

"Help us with what?"

[godilovedthis]

Not true. Everything they'd done last year had kept their own world from being consumed. And they'd reconnected Fandom to the outside world again. They'd made things better, just not fixed.

"With what what?" Kathy asked. She'd gone back to petting the puppy again.

Sorry, Eliot. She was like this a lot.

[agentprinciple]

Smith had a mission of his own, but he was going to take his damn sweet time to enjoy every second he had in this world.

A giant cup of coffee and an apple fritter was his vice today, and he sat down with them not far from Eliot.

"Have you ever appreciated the greatest things that humanity has ever created?" he mused, seemingly in general but also pointedly at Eliot.

[vdistinctive]

[ooc: I may have made a squeaking noise when I saw Smith was here]

"I've had beer, sex, and coffee," Eliot said, giving this new guy some serious side-eye. He hadn't seen anyone give off such serious The Man vibes in a really long time. "So, yeah, I'd say I have."

[agentprinciple]

Smith's eyebrows jumped just slightly over the top of his sunglasses at that response. "A drink formed in no small part by the reproduction of of thousands of tiny organisms, reproduction itself, and another drink created by straining hot wather through crushed, roasted seeds. While I myself do enjoy the feedback of a good cup of coffee, no, it is not among the true great achievements of your wild and messy race."

He held up his apple fritter in a hand. It had a comically large bite taken out of it.

"The breakfast pastry. A product of the perfection of chemical reactions and agriculture and self deception. The idea that somehow, if you put something that was once a fruit into what is, by all accounts, a dessert devoid of any nutritional value, you somehow transform it into a meal that is acceptable to eat when you are most starved for vitamins and minerals. It is a crowning achievement in the absolute stupidity of you all."

He took a bite, and said his next sentence mid-chew. "But it is tasty."

[vdistinctive]

Ooookay then.

"Yeah, pastries are good, too." Eliot's own eyebrow went way up in return. "Guessin' bureaucracy don't give you a whole lot of time to exercise your inner poet, huh."

[agentprinciple]

"I assure you, my bureaucracy is entirely based around the survival of you all," Smith said, before taking a long sip of his coffee. "The very fact that the slugs have already arrived is very unfortunate." He nodded towards Eliot's gooey napkins. "But at least you're not letting them eat you."

[vdistinctive]

"We're real good at not letting things eat us, 'round here," Eliot assured him. "So you're from the same place these suckers are, are ya?"

[agentprinciple]

"An unliving hellscape of chaos and destruction, yes," Smith said, pulling his sunglasses off his face for the moment. "And it is encroaching upon your doors like the rising tide of a flood and you are all out of sandbags."

"I am here to help you build the dam."

[vdistinctive]

"Gosh," Eliot said. "Thanks."

He really hoped this guy was armed with more than heavy metaphors.

[agentprinciple]

Smith also had a Desert Eagle, but he mainly had heavy metaphors.

"You're very welcome," he said, dryly. "We'll keep this planet swimming in filthy human life for many more days to come. So you can enjoy your beer and your coffee and your... all of that."

He put his sunglasses back on. "As we speak, there are agents of chaos out to destroy the very fabric of reality here. I'd recommend you start hunting."

[vdistinctive]

"Uh huh," Eliot said. ". . . Which bureaucracy did you work for?"

He felt like he could almost narrow it down, but Agent Smith was distinctly . . . odd.

[agentprinciple]

"I was principal of the local school, once. I also ran security for a prison that held the entirety of mankind. Now, I just try to make sure that civilization runs at all," Smith said. "I'd hate for there to be no more breakfast pastries."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot flinched faintly at the word "prison", then scowled at the description of it.

That had better be another metaphor.

"Well. Glad to know you've got a stake in it all."