Not Until We Are Lost

Just when he'd almost worked out how to brew something that would knock his socks off, Isaac woke up in a new place. Not that this was upsetting, after all, as he sat up he found... well, everything.

He quickly went through his equipment lockers, the gear on his table, and found to his delight that his pot plants and alcohol cabinet, disguised to look the same as any other locker in his lab, were all there. Everything. His hand crafted tools, even some of the projects he'd been working on before he was here.

He immediately sent a text to his twin, but he had to utilize the time given to him. The technology in his chest was acting up too much for this whole trip, and maybe that was why the aliens finally gave him everything he needed to fix it.

Using his own, slightly more focused version of Jarvis as a lab assistant, he scanned himself and pinpoint a few problems that had developed in the period of time that he'd gone without maintenance and working on it. The project had still been in progress when he'd been kidnapped, after all, he hadn't been in a place to go weeks on end without more work.

Self surgery was something nobody really got used to. Of course he'd developed a device that prevented most of the pain from registering, confusing the nerves into making everything just feel fuzzy. The tech allowed him to open up his chest and acces the implants he'd left over and through his rib cage.

The process took a good chunk of the day, and by the time he stitched himself up and turned off the pain nullifier, he was exhausted. He barely managed to bandage himself before passing out on the bed.

The next day he woke up, as usual a much deeper hangover slowing his movements. The readouts were positive, though, and he got up and dressed, smoking a joint to help his recovery and packing a belt with a few of his best and most multi-functioning tools. The dark button up shirt wasn't his usual fashion, but it hid the bandages around his torso well enough, and pocketing a small screen device that relayed the information from the chip in his head he moved to the door and let himself out of the room.

The rolled joint was hanging off his lip as he exited, a small metallic container of them on his person, a large bottle of his favorite whiskey in one hand. He didn't trust these aliens not to whisk him off in the next second, and although they generally liked to redress them anyway, he wasn't about to not make an effort to bring what supplies he could while adventuring.

He noted that his chip stopped broadcasting as soon as he left his room, but he ignored that in favor of exploring, finally making his way to the common area. That was when his post-surgery haze caught up with him and he took a seat, leaning back with his feet up on a table, unscrewing the lid of his bottle and taking a sip.

His eyes didn't leave the aliens around him, but he didn't move to approach them or to speak to them. They weren't the only ones good at silently studying, after all.

Isaac didn't like this place much, but he had to admit he was relieved that there was color here. The clothing could have been better, too, but his technology wasn't acting up and his heart rate was mostly regular, so he was productive.

Eleni wasn't around either, the group seemed to be halved, even though it was always growing. He could see the other island, though, and though he hadn't heard of anybody making it there he did plan on setting up some smoke signals to see if there was life there. If his sister was alright and saw the signals she'd be able to send some up as well, and they could work from there.

He set up the signal near the beach facing the other island, stacking wood and leaves and building a sizeable pile. In his work he removed all of his clothing except for his pants, putting it off to the side. Taking some sticks he set about making fire. He'd avoided the other people on the island so far, none of them seemed to have anything more than he had, so there was no benefit to playing nice. He would make the fire, and if there was another on the other island he could work out a net of leaves to block the fire's light at will. Morris code was something both Stark children knew, and would facilitate an update on how Eleni was doing. And then... well, he supposed they would wait to be sent somewhere new, or for something to happen.

It took some time for him to get the wood to create flame, and he took breaks to find water and gather a few of the wild carrots, but eventually he got a good fire going, creating a satisfactory bonfire that he loaded with leaves to make as smokey as possible. The column of smoke heading up was thick and very visible, and work done the inventor retreated to the shade.

He watched the other island for some time, still chewing on carrots, until his usual lack of boredom tolerance set in. He figured it would be a while till somebody made a bonfire over there anyway, it had taken him the better part of the morning.

He turned and walked into the woods, looking around, picking a few of the fruits and examining the plants. It was hard to tell what could be poisoness here, but he didn't think the aliens would poison them all immediately. There had to be more informative ways of killing them all for their experiment.

All in all this place seemed to be a paradise. Similar to several of Isaac's favorite holiday vacation spots.

"Only one thing missing, really," the kid said, squinting at a fruit he didn't recognize, picking it and taking a bite. He made a face and spat it out, tossing the rejected fruit over his shoulder. "C'mon. Something here has to be boozeable."

He still had priorities, after all.

There was a thing that he really wanted to do. The need was not there. There was no need for it to happen. Not for the rest of the world. For him, yes. And it was selfish. He knew that. And he knew that there was a possibility that she would hate him for it in the end. But that wasn’t going to stop him.

Timing had to be right, however. As much as he wanted the thing done, he couldn’t just do it right now. Not right now. Soon.

Until then, he was going to sit and brood. Study the world around him, observe the people in it. Watch. Wait. Try to enjoy himself just a little bit.

The bar was not the usual place that the fairy would find himself. He didn’t frequent the spots that didn’t blast music. He didn’t like the places where there was no dancing. Simon liked show. He liked to be entertained. Usually. Tonight, however, he was going to just be. Perhaps one of the others, one of the ones who the aliens had brought along for the ride, would also show up. If one didn’t, he wasn’t going to be upset about it. Being alone would be just as acceptable. For once.

He did, however, keep to his usual tastes when it came to drink. The concoction wasn’t fancy, but it was fruity. The grenadin would have tinted the liquid red, if there had been color in this world. He’d instructed the bartender to keep pouring it in until it could almost be smelled above the liquor. Simon sipped at it slowly, his eyes calmly casting about his surroundings as he faced the wrong way on the bar stool.

Eventually, Piotr decided that enough socializing had gone on. People knew that their friends and loved ones were here with them, and that was a good thing. They could catch up further later, however. If he didn't interrupt, the meeting would go on far longer than anybody wanted it to. He'd provided some snacks, but no actual food. There would be a need for actual food at some point.

He cleared his throat to get the attention of everybody present.

"We are all here right now for the same purpose." Piotr's voice wasn't loud, but it was demanding. His accent cut through everything else easily. The edges of it were sharp, the middles heavy. He wouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "All of us were brought to this place, world or dimension, and we have all been seeking answers since we woke up. It is time to share what we have found."

He smiled a little at Mary, at Cas, then at Rob, still not giving up his position.

"I will do this in the most orderly manner that I can, so we can get the information and compare notes as needed."

Piotr turned to Castiel, who had spoken up first.

Isaac was currently lying low at the house he'd woken up in. Eleni had practically moved in there and had spent most of her days making sure that her brother was recovering and helping out aroudn the house.

She was also sticking close to her twin because there was a fear that she'd wake up somewhere else and he would be gone. Or vice versa. She didn't like the uncertainty of the situation they were currently in and she missed her parents like crazy, but at least she had her twin. And if she had her way, that wouldn't change.

Today, she knocked on the door, arms full of grocery bags. She wanted to make sure that he was eating well. Plus, she needed to eat too.

It was still broad daylight because she'd learned her lesson about going out at night. She didn't do that if she could help it.

Eleni had long since walked off her anger. She still hadn't found a place to make a call and her phone still wasn't working. She'd tinkered around with the settings and something about the frequency in this city was just off enough that her phone couldn't connect with a tower. She didn't get what was going on and it was starting to piss her off. Worse than that, the whole town seemed to be stuck in fashion from around just after the turn of the century. What was that about?

It was starting to get dark and she still hadn't found anything useful at all. She'd even stopped in at a hotel to check in for the night. Hey, at least they would have a phone she could use, right? For some reason, her credit card was declined. And cut up. Worse than that, they laughed when they looked at the expiration date.

So now she had no money, no phone, and she was stuck in a strange city. She almost-almost-regretted the fact that she hadn't taken that PI up on his offer of help. At the very least, she could have borrowed a phone from him.

It would seem that the night was only going to get worse when she took a wrong turn down a side street and heard two sets of footsteps behind herself. She whirled around as she heard a low chuckle and found herself facing down the barrel of a gun.

"Hand over the purse," one of the thugs growled at her.

Isaac walked down the street of an unknown city, frowning deeply. No phone siganl, nothing for his built-in tech to pick up on. Even his bluetooth was having trouble finding any signal, which was weird. Usually there was no end of keyboards, phones, and laptops for it to pick up on. But everything here was set on a slightly different frequency, just enough so that all he picked up on was a confusing and incoherant chatter.

Frankly, it was driving him a bit crazy. He needed to find something to hotwire into a software programmer quickly, so he could at least control the chatter being pumped into his head through the bluetooth. Why did he never install a damn off switch for the whole piece of tech, instead of just to specific signals he picked up? He was having to deactivate everything as it came within range, giving him a period where he was listening to tech babble while he overrode it. Usually he used the time to figure out what he was listening to, or enjoying himself snooping. That didn't work so well when it was just static.

Isaac had woken on a park bench, feeling very well hung over from a night of booze and pot. In his cross faded state he could have wound up anywhere, but instead he found himself in some strange land, pick pocketed (or maybe he'd forgotten his wallet in a club?) and alone.

Eleni wasn't around, and unreachable, so the young Stark set about find out exactly where he was, roaming the streets of an old-fashioned looking district in his night club clothes, with a faulty phone and no exact idea of what had happened the night before.

Today sucked. And he didn't even have any pot on him to ease the experience or hangover.