Not Until We Are Lost

It was not an easy thing to keep from touching the man she'd wanted to touch the moment she met him, even if that very thought would have made her scream at how ridiculously cliche it was. Evan Vang had irritated her when she first met him, and Niklas Wright had want so very much to hit him square in the jaw. She'd also wanted to kiss him because he was very attractive in an annoying way. There was something animal about him, which was not a slight on his lack of formal education. In fact, she found his education rather well rounded for someone who'd done it all on his own.

Yet, Niks wanted to touch him in less violent ways as they headed back to her house. Or the house she had woken up in. She wanted to hold his hand, even if that seemed a little too clingy. Plus, she knew how dangerous that could be for him, which admittedly made her want to touch him even more. The librarian was almost disgusted with herself, meaning she didn't say much as they made their way back to her place.

She let him in, staying well out of his way to make sure she didn't accidentally touch him. She even moved directly to the kitchen to start a pot of water for tea. Her brow furrowed as she thought about whether or not they had tea; she knew they didn't have anything to go in it.

"I don't think she's here." Niks spoke as she filled the kettle with water. "We should probably go look for her." She didn't want to. She wanted to get to know Evan a little better, but Sabev could be in trouble in a world that was all too new to her. There had to be a better way to handle all of this, surely.

The phoenix was a little overwhelmed by everything that Niks had taught her, and that was putting it lightly. There was so much. So many things that were different. But Sabev was a good student, and tucked all of it away neatly. She wouldn't forget. She might get intimidated, or even a little frightened, but she wouldn't forget.

Pleasing to her ears was the fact that apparently water mages didn't exist in this place. Well, maybe not so much this place, but Niks had not really heard of such a thing. They could be here, since here was not a place either of the women knew. Sabev was going to hold onto the notion that they weren't, though. It made her feel a bit better about all of the other things she had to get used to.

Feeling daring, Sabev decided to venture out of the house on her own. To see what this little town held. To meet more people. To do anything, really, other than sit indoors and wait for Niks to come back. She was a phoenix. She was an impressive being of considerable skill and power. There was no reason for her to sit timidly and passively. She was also an adventurer. Had she not left her safe city to see what the world outside of the walls had held? Had she not been through much and come out whole on the other side of it?

Sabev took the little gold key - unlike any key she had ever seen before - and placed it in the little pocket of her strange knee-length pants after checking to make sure she'd worked the lock correctly and the house was secure. It was hard to believe such a small key could turn the tumbler in a lock big enough to restrict access, and yet when she tried the handle, nothing budged.

Niks had warned her of the thing called technology and all the strangeness it would bring. From the carriages - which were cars, to the mirrors that showed human activity - television sets, all of it was of human invention. All of it made to make life easier or more entertaining. Sabev had, once she discovered the house had one, spent a few hours in front of their television, asking Niks to explain just why one thing was entertaining when it didn't seem to be, or where the strange tinny laughter came from when they were the only ones in the room. (Canned tracks were something she still didn't understand)

The day was bright and sunny, but Sabev wore a sweater, knowing that the breeze would have a bite to it. The cold and she did not sit well together. And she knew better than to ramp up her own body temperature. It would draw attention and possibly harm a human.

Her self appointed task was to go to the market and bring back some food for dinner. Surprise Niks. Niks had told her about the grocery store, but it took seeing it for Sabev to really understand what the description had meant. It was like the market, all in one building. Fresh foods, storeable items. Bottles of things. Cans of things. Jars of things. Everywhere. Spread out in front of her in what seemed like absolute endlessness. This much food could feed an army twice over for a week. Or a month!

Sabev's eyes were wide as she looked around. Oh, where would she ever start?

Bo didn’t know where to go, but she didn’t think staying at the house was the smartest idea. At least not yet. The dead guy had said that there might be some who wouldn’t care for her kind, and she supposed that was true even back home. She supposed it could be worse, much worse.

Rather than focus on just how screwed her life had become, she decided to focus on getting to know where she was. This place felt different than the last. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew that something was different. It wasn’t just the way everything looked, but there was a definite feel to it. This was not wherever she’d been.

So, it was with a sigh, she sat down at a cafe to eat something normal people ate. Well, normal people with money. She might have gotten someone else to pay for the muffin and coffee. She needed to find an ally, a real ally. At least Johnny wasn’t an enemy, but that wasn’t exactly the same as someone who may possibly on the off chance care that she existed and remained living.

( ---- )

Johnny didn't have to be fully awake for him to know that there was something really wrong happening. Every sense he had was on full alert before he ever got to clear the fog of sleep from his head completely. He didn't move, though, just in case there was anything immediately life threatening in the room with him and it wasn't yet aware that he was conscious.

He listened carefully and heard nothing. The sounds of a busy city were not happening outside the window. The bed was much more comfortable than the one he'd gone to sleep in, and he got the general feeling of a lot more space around him, as well. Daylight streamed through the window, he could feel it warming the room. The scent of old socks, half-assed cleaning, and mold was missing.

Sitting up carefully, Johnny glanced around. He was in a room. A bedroom. An actual bedroom. Not a motel room. It was very clean, very nice. There was a hand stitched quilt over him and the sheets on the bed were white with little yellow duckies. There was a photograph of a flowery field on the wall above the bed, but on the other end the wall was covered in jack-o-lantern cutouts.

Shaking his head, he rubbed at his face. He knew this couldn't have anything to do with alcohol. The amount it would have taken for him to black out would have been unaffordable for any of the people that he knew. Even if they combined all their money. So how had he gotten here? Where was here?

He was wearing his normal shirt, pants, and nothing else. His boots were by the bed, he saw after a brief check. Johnny paused to listen. He felt like maybe he wasn't alone, even though there was nobody immediately here in his view. Had he heard something to cause that feeling? Smelled something?

He was getting tired of this.

The last time he'd ended up standing in front of a library in a lovely town called Metropolis. This time he woke up in a bed that wasn't the one he went to sleep in and he was in some place that was different again.

Now the waking up in a strange bed had happened before in his life but usually it was a little different than this. Methos was fairly sure he hadn't even died this time. In fact the last thing he remembered from the night before was having a bottle of wine with Amanda and MacLeod. Not even enough to be drunk but he honestly didn't remember going to bed either.

"Electric City. Lovely." Walking around the grid of streets Methos was getting a sense that he definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore. The buildings were all lower than the ones in Metropolis and rather more full of character. It was the cafe that finally brought a small smile to his face when he saw it. The lights were low and the music sounded like it could come directly from Joe Dawson and his guitar.

"Finally, my kind of place." If nothing else it would be a good place to stop and try to figure things out while he had a drink or two. Everything went down better with a drink.

Sometimes Simon enjoyed the nightlife of humans. Other times, it annoyed the crap out of him. Tonight, however, he was fond of the idea of watching them scramble to find bed mates and make drunken fools of themselves. He, of course, still chose one of Electric City's more high-end establishments, refusing to debase himself by sharing air with the rabble that occupied other clubs.

There weren't really any, anywhere, that he would have considered worth talking to. Watching, yes. Laughing at, most certainly. But a curt response and a raised eyebrow was more than enough to send the little fleshbags scampering away to find other quarry. He wasn't here to find a temporary soulmate.

He was, however, currently enjoying one of the fruity so-called girly drinks that came in large glasses with tiny umbrellas and absurdly narrow straws. Instead of being overwhelming, the alcohol in it was gently smothered by the mixture of flavors that accompanied it. He could hardly taste it at all, which was good.

Simon sat in the corner, at a table, where he could watch the whole club move and pulse as if it were one beast breathing. The lights played over the surfaces and the flesh of sweaty, writhing bodies. He wondered if Niks ever partook of these kinds of things. He tried to imagine her on the dance floor, enveloped in the air of condensed breath. It rather excited him.

The fairy's eyes scanned all, took in everything, missed nothing.

The night had been rough. The dreams were horrible. Someone or something had come for her, taken her from her bed, and held her. They'd fed her, but the energy didn't feel right. Then they deposited her a new place that was not at all her home.

As Bo stretched awake, she realized that the dreams were true. Or partially. She sat up and looked around at the normal everyday hotel room. It wasn't her place with Kenzi, and it wasn't any other bedroom she'd been in recently. It didn't feel like any place she'd been before, which meant she had the urge to stab. Or cut, definitely beat.

She slipped from the bed, wondering why someone took the time to tuck her in but not to dress her. Not one to be bothered by her body and lack of clothing, she moved through out the room, relaxing only a fraction when she found the usual black of her daywear, including the boots with heels that made her definitely taller. She didn't worry about the height, so much as she did like the way the heels made her legs look.

She worked quickly to get dressed, not caring that these may not be her clothes. She doubted they were as they felt much too new. She also didn't care that the small cache of knives looked nothing like her own. She was taking them.

Bo the Succubus who chose the humans and recently killed the Norn headed out of a hotel bedroom she knew wasn't her own. Or that was what she thought before she found a couple dead looking damn close the throes of passion; they were tangled up with each other on the couch. She couldn't remember feeding off them, and when she leaned over to hopefully save them, nothing happened. They had been dead too long, or she didn't kill them. She didn't know, but she wasn't staying any longer than she had to, which meant leaving what turned out to be a freaking suite.

"Why can't I end up in places like this on a good day?" She mumbled. She'd have to find a phone can call Kenzi. She couldn't bring herself to call Dyson; what if what she'd done had been for nothing? Though, she was tempted to hook up with Ryan - she felt a little shaky, and a quick fix from a fellow Fae might be what she needed.

She got a block away and came to a stop in front of a rather normal looking building. Something here called to her, whispered to the hunger she was worried would be too big after what she'd done. But, she couldn't for the life of her and her bloodline figure out what it was. So, she ended up standing in front of a window, staring at her reflection, wondering what the hell, what the very depths of Hell was she doing.