fandomtownies | Parking Lot at the End of the Causeway; Tuesday Afternoon [01/30].

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Parking Lot at the End of the Causeway; Tuesday Afternoon [01/30].

The situation might have been lame as hell, but the ride down here had been freaking great. A few hours on the road, just her and her bike, had actually put Rosa in a halfway decent mood when she finally hit the island and rocketed somewhat recklessly down the causeway, thoughts racing through her mind. If she could handle a short time in prison, she could handle a short time on some random island.

She slowed when she reached the end of the causeway, taking note of the parking there before glancing over the cobblestones of the streets ahead of her and the town spreading out in front of her. Yeah, she'd take it on foot from here, give the bike a rest, taking a second to pull her phone from her pocket to remind herself of where her the new apartment she'd arranged was located.

She changed apartments a lot. She'd gotten pretty good at it. And she only had to take a few steps and a glance to her left to already find the building she was looking for. She snorted slightly; that was easy. And then she glanced to her right to see what she was dealing with across the street and noticed what looked like it was probably a bar.

Bike. Apartment. Bar. Bike. Apartment. Bar. A perfect trifecta of everything she'd need just a shuriken's throw away from her escape route.

Maybe it might not be so bad here after all.

[[ i spent way too long just pouring over the map last night like a nerd. But it's open, come say hi! ]]

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Eliot slowed his afternoon jog when he heard the bike pull into the parking lot and stop. He gave Val a quick ear rub and let her sniff around a little while he went to go see who it was. He watched the woman size up the island and then raised a hand in greeting.

"Nice ride."

Rosa lifted her chin marginally in greeting back.

"Thanks," she said. "Nice....dog."

Oh, man, the high from her ride must be making her feel sociable.

It was terrible when that happened.

Val wagged her tail excitedly, glancing from Rosa to Eliot to see if she was allowed to go over to say "hi".

"Thanks," Eliot said. "Mind if she comes over for at least a sniff? She'll pout at me all day if I tell her no."

Rosa may have narrowed her eyes at the dog as an attempt to maybe get the dog to just change her mind about wanting that sniff, but she wouldn't straight up disallow it.

"She's not gonna pee on my leg or anything, right?" she asked, with a sneer. "Or hump it?"

So what if her only experiences with dogs involved her own (who was a saint), Holt's who was too cute to really exist for real, and Boyle's dead one who...was...not...

Edited 2018-01-30 17:28 (UTC)

Val's tail-wagging slowed at that eye-narrowing. Right, this was not a person to greet excitedly. Noted. She sniffed the air and then went to go investigate a lamp post instead.

Eliot, meanwhile, looked faintly offended. "If she were that badly trained, she'd still be on a damn leash." Or, more likely, not allowed out in public at all.

"You sightseein', or planning to stick around?" Fandom didn't get many -- or any -- tourists, but Rosa didn't exactly have any luggage, so. . . . "Or did you end up here by mistake? The island does that, sometimes."

Edited 2018-01-30 18:06 (UTC)

At least now Rosa knew the dog was smart. She had to admire that a little.

People, however, didn't win her over as quickly. "A little of the last one," she allowed. "I'm here for a job."

It wasn't like I'm a cop in your tiny ass town was something she was going to be able to keep secret, so she didn't feel....too bad about extrapolating on it.

Rosa was going to be seriously disappointed by how hard it could be to keep a secret in this town. Either that, or she'd get really good at bribing squirrels.

Eliot nodded. "Wrong time of year for you to be a new teacher," he observed, giving her a quick once over. "Doctor or cop?"

He was leaning towards the second one, but she wouldn't be the first badass New Yorker he'd seen move down to Fandom to work at the clinic.

"You guys get a run on those occupations often?" Rosa countered, squaring her shoulders a little and folding her arms as she returned the once-over. "Which one are you?"

"Cop, it is," Eliot decided. He folded his arms over his chest rather than offer her a handshake. She didn't seem the type who'd welcome casual touching. "Eliot Spencer. I run the diner. Help out up at the school sometimes."

So he was showing to be as smart as the dog. They were making progress.

"What can you tell me about the town, Eliot?" Rosa ventured, arms still crossed. It was actually default comfortable conversation position for her, really. "There's not a bakery attached to the police station, is there?"

It was a surprisingly important question.

"Nah, but my diner's across the street from it," Eliot said, pointing with his thumb in the appropriate direction. "So's the music store and Chinese place. Bakery's a couple blocks away, across the park, but the coffee shop does some muffins and stuff, that's down the street from the music store. Place is pretty quiet most times, you might get some folks joyridin' in the rickshaws or, I dunno, people get a little too into sword-practice in the park." He smirked faintly -- not only was that kind of throwing one of his employees under the bus with the sword thing, it was a nice little gentle nudge in the direction of oh and by the way, the island gets invaded by evil on the regular which is why, yes, we get occasional runs on doctors and cops.

He'd get to explaining that part in a bit.

There was a slight nod of her head in something that might have been sympathy to the sword practice in the park thing, and her head bobbed a little more, too. "Yeah, there were some...interesting reports included in my transfer file..."

She considered bringing up the whole gremlin bite epidemic that seemed to plague the place, but she wasn't even close to on the clock yet, and she wasn't about to start digging in until she got a better lay of the land first.

"Oh yeah?" Eliot asked. "Huh. Nice to know our reputation precedes us. Was it about the squirrels or the gremlins? Or maybe sharks?"

Look at all the things you got to assume were street names for drugs, Rosa!

So many assumed street drugs! But, hey, when one of her biggest cases involved something called giggle pig, could you really blame her?

"Yes, yes, and yes."

Rosa wondered if Eliot realize that the preceding reputation was all y'all are crazy.

"You write us all off as crazy yet?" So that'd be a yes, then.

A very resounding yes at that. Which meant Rosa was just going to answer with a quirk of her eyebrow that provided her own very resounding duh.

Edited 2018-01-30 20:21 (UTC)

Eliot smacked his lips. "Yeah, that's about what I thought when I first got here, too." He shook his head. "When you find out what's actually goin' on around here, come find me. I'll buy you a beer."

"That's a pretty cryptic thing to say to a cop," Rosa pointed out, because now, you know, she had to be all suspicious of this guy and everything, and she hadn't even started yet.

Hopefully, she wouldn't even be around long enough to find out what he meant, but she was getting that sinking feeling in her stomach...

"Well, I figure if I'm cryptic you'll think I'm a criminal." Which, well, he was. "And if I'm clear about it, you'll think I'm crazy." Which . . . was arguable at times, but mostly not true. "I promise I'll buy the beer legally, either way."

What about the option where she was starting to think he was both crazy and a criminal?

If this turned out to be just a glorified babysitting weird bad guys to make sure they didn't do weird bad guy things gig, Rosa was going to be pissed.

More pissed.

"Right," she said. "I'll hold you to that."

She'd never forget an alcohol debt. Unless it was from Peralta. She'd honestly lost track of how many beers he owed her, and at this point, she kind of stop caring anyway.

That was a sign of true friendship, right there.

"I'll look forward to it, then. Officer . . . ?"

"Sweet ride!" Well, it looked like she was just going to get variations on that sentiment here. But this time there wasn't a dog.

Because he'd be going back to the moon at some point and no dogs were allowed on the moon. Poor little guys.

"Thanks," said Rosa. "You touch it, you die."

It seemed like it might be a good thing to mention it to this one.

"Ooookay," Magnus said with a little headtilt of consideration. "If you're here for pink slips, boy do I ever have bad news for you."

"I have a feeling this whole place is going to be bad news for me," Rosa muttered. At least she was being honest?

"It's not that bad," Magnus said loyally. "I mean, people are pretty nice. Also, Starbucks is awesome."

He would show up five minutes late yo initiative order with Starbucks if he could. But instead he was a good, good D&D boy.

"Pretty nice people and Starbucks," Rosa repeated dryly. "Better contact the tourism bureau with that one, that's pretty good."

"Right?" he agreed brightly. "Just as long as it's not run by Tom Bodett. He might still have a grudge."

"Against you?" Rosa's chin lifted slightly again. "What? You didn't leave the light on for him?"

He held up a high five for that one. "No, but we did sort of take his snacktime melba toasts after charming him with magic?"

Also the attempted murder. But that one was on Merle!

Rosa was planning on leaving him hanging even before all the stuff about melba toast and magic. Now she was definitely leaving him hanging.

How nice to get to meet some of the insane residents of this fair island right off the bat. But she felt a part of her soften. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that coming out of Peralta's mouth.

"Oooh," she said, shaking her head. "That's a stone you can't unturn right there."

He just frowned and gave himself that high five. He was friends with Cara, you couldn't break him of this.

"Right?" he said sadly. "I mean. I guess one day. In time..."

Damn you, beloved spokesman, Tom Bodett.

"I'm Magnus, by the way. Magnus Burnsides."

"And what's it you do around here, Magnus?"

Besides getting blacklisted by beloved spokesmen.

His was a dark past.

"I am a teacher," he replied, totally bringing into question the standards of the school. "And sometimes I help Taako at the Fantasy Costco."

Well, she was starting to assume it was partly a school and mostly an institution.

"What do you teach?"

The Fantasy Costco she'd check out later herself. And she'd be extremely disappointed that it wasn't what she thought it was.

A place where all your dreams come true? Because that's what it was.

Wait. Did she think it was a sex thing?

"Teamwork and adventuring. Which ends up being pretty useful around here."

She totally thought it was a sex thing.

"Uh-huh," Rosa said. "I'll bet. It'll come in real handy when you're stealing soda crackers from the Sham-wow guy."

Rosa! That was a different store. And please don't give Taako ideas.

"...oh god, I hope he's the secret final boss," Magnus said, looking super excited to kill that guy.

Peter wandered by, saw the new face, and held up a hand. "Hi."

Peter didn't care much about rides.

"Man, you people are friendly around here."

A whole three people had said greetings in passing. Where was she, freakin' Pleasantville USA?

Peter laughed. "We try to be. Not used to it, I guess?" He stuck out his hand. "Peter Octavian."

The slight flinch, the clear indication of an internal conflict about actually putting her hand out to meet the offered one could be a pretty good indication that, no, she wasn't used to it. She really forgot what it was like to start at square one and have to work her way up to everyone being scared of her.

But she took it. She didn't look too happy about it, but she took it. She hoped these people weren't wearing her down already. "Rosa Diaz," she offered. "What do you do around here, Peter?"

"I run the flower shop." Peter shrugged. "You looking for anyone specific? I can probably point you in the right direction."

Rosa shook her head. "Already found what I needed," she said, nodding not to the apartment but to the bar. "I think anything else after that I can handle."

Peter wasn't going to judge about the bar, but the zombies might not be the best introduction to the island.

"How much do you know about this place?"

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Parking Lot at the End of the Causeway; Tuesday Afternoon [01/30].

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