The Universe's Mixer

The easiest thing in the world for Alex Price to do was to settle into a research environment. Preferably one where he had steady access to weird animals, with reptiles and cryptid reptiles a plus.

Being appointed the keeper of the City Zoo's brand new dinosaur exhibit was therefore right up his alley, and he ignored that it was mostly done since he was really the only one with the relevant experience. Not the most experience with the dinosaurs of the people who had come over from the weird island filled with dinosaurs, but the most in terms of sitting around with a notebook observing their habits and dissecting the carcasses instead of eating them. And he was fine with that. In the end, it still meant that he got to continue his research and tweak their habitats to make sure that they were healthy and mentally active and give the occasional necessary lecture to visitors about the representatives of the various species that now lived here among them.

He was glad that he rarely had to give the lectures. Public speaking wasn't his thing and he'd been told that he lost crowds very easily, what with slipping into academic speech instead of people-speech.

There wasn't much in the way of a crowd today, which Alex was also very thankful for. He was blessedly alone in the Nemicolopterus enclosure. Sort of. You couldn't consider yourself that alone with that much harsh tiny squawking as the little brightly colored pterosaurs did little brightly colored pterosaur things. He watched them the way that some people watched tropical fish, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

Harley stood in the hallway.

She was spent. Used up. Done.

In one hand she clasped a briefcase which was stuffed full of a variety of things. The other was lifted, fingers curled against her palm. She was knocking without realizing it. Number fourteen. Steve's apartment.

Scare beast had done a number on her psyche but she had a promise...one last promise she had to get out of her ledger before she could give herself entirely to the beast. And it had to be now. It couldn't wait anymore. Harleen had managed to change her skirt which had been rendered to tatters. Her button up shirt was halfway untucked from the waist band, and her hair was askew from the ponytail she had pulled it back into. Her blue eyes were hazed, but she made herself focus. Half of the collar of her shirt was pulled up, the other half was down as normal. Bruises and red marks riddled the flesh of her neck. She avoided them.

Again she knocked. Steve could tell her where the girl was, and they could be done with the assessment. She had to be done with it. It was that or she knew the beast would take her life. He had made her choose, and she had chosen him over the heroic life. Over protection. She was trying to save her friends. Steve needed to be alive, he needed to help people like Ariel. Bucky. Harley was past help. She had done this to herself.

"C'mon ya idiot, open tha door," she breathed, though she didn't mean it in a malicious way. She needed to get back. The timeline was growing thinner with each second.

Harley didn't realize how her makeup looked, it ran down her face. Maybe she had cried on the way over. Maybe it had been really hot in her car and she had sweated. She would never tell. But this had to be done. If she was even allowed to do the tests. It all would depend on Steve's friend. She needed the permission. She wasn't going to get squashed by someone just because she was fulfilling a promise.

So, Harley lowered her hand from the door and waited.

Charlie stared at the empty spot on the bed beside him. Jennifer had gone into work; he'd stayed home. He wasn't needed; he wouldn't be needed for a while.

He managed to get out of bed, make his way downstairs, fix a little breakfast for him and the horse, and find a spot on the couch. There was an empty spot on it that could have been Ted shaped. Horse didn't fit in it at all, even if he did look as if he wanted to try. Eventually Horse gave up and went to find the cats.

The detective--strike that--the ex-detective still wasn't sure where he had messed up. It wasn't as if he'd killed someone, or set someone on fire. He was pretty certain that the only things that died had been his wallet and the balloons he kept blowing up by shooting water into open clown mouths. He'd finally won Jennifer the damned octopus/shark hybrid, a octoshark. The pair had had a very lengthy discussion on what it was actually followed by what to name it. No consensus had been reached.

Charlie did wonder if not enjoying the festival had been the order he'd broken that lost him his job. He was suspended until the inquiry had been completed, and when he returned, he would be demoted. He'd be back on the beat; oddly that part didn't bother him. What bothered him was that he'd lost his partner. Jennifer wouldn't walk the beat with him; she wasn't even a cop, so they couldn't do that to her. In fact, if they asked, if the powers that be asked, he'd have claimed he'd somehow seduced her and it was all his fault. He'd never let her take the fall and lose her position. She was a damn good special agent after all.

"Maybe we shouldn't have kicked those kids out of the tunnel of love car to ride it again. But, I did get a little under the shirt over the bra action." He said to the goldfish swimming round in the little bowl on the table. Jennifer had won it for him rather easily, and they'd decided to call it Tedly.

"Then I got some no clothes action when we got home, but you saw that. Did you see that? I hope we didn't offend; you'll probably see more of that." Charlie hoped Tedly would; for a brief moment, he wondered if Jennifer would lose interest in him now that he wasn't her partner and a detective.

"This is going to be very interesting."