The Universe's Mixer

(Note: Adult Content Warning)

Effie hummed as she moved through the woods, absently collecting flowes for the tower. Yes, she could have simply gone to Di's shop, but she wanted something more...wild. She blushed as she thought the word, toying with the ends of her hair. It had been a few days since she had seen Logan, but she couldn't stop thinking about the man...and not only because he seemed to have a hate on for her husband.

She tried to banish the thought of him again, kneeling to pluck another flower, not realizing she was in fact coming closer and closer to Logan's cabin, hissing as she cut herself on a thorny bush. "Owe..." she whispered.

Backdated to December 25 at 5:30 pm

They'd spent all day preparing for Christmas dinner. The cottage itself was decorated inside and out. A fire crackled and roared merrily in the hearth. A lovely silver and blue tree quietly twinkled in the corner closest to the door. A larger-than-usual table took up most of the great room, and it was set to perfection with bright and creamy china, sparkling goblets, silverware that gleamed, poinsettias and pinecones and ham and mashed potatoes, tarts of every kind, salad, green bean casserole -- and oh, every holiday food imaginable! The wine selection was top-notch (after all, Beauty was French!), and the hostesses themselves were grinning ear to ear with excitement.


Under the tree, tiny presents waited - hostess gifts designed to surprise and delight!

At 5:30, Beauty went to the door and stood, bouncing on her toes, and waiting for the very first knock.

Logan about jumped in surprise when he felt it. The burn of the pocket of his pants.

Quickly the Wolverine dug for what had taken him by surprise, and found in his pocket a key. But not just any key. It was a key the alpha mutant knew very well and it seemed that there was a small red ribbon attached.

His cabin? He had wished for this. Had it come true? Wasn't possible. But of course Logan had seen stranger occurrences and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or however that expression went.

He sniffed the air and turned around, following the scent of the place where he had dwelled for a very long time in seclusion. Through the city Logan travelled on foot, never tiring. His endurance allowed him to make the trip through the metropolis breathlessly. Through the commons he went, curiously following an all too familiar scent in the air.

He found woods, and instantly his heart raced. It was almost quicker than it had been ever in his life that he could remember.

He pushed through the foliage and the dense cover of the trees. The smell became stronger with each step and Logan continued to brave through it because his heart yearned for it.

For it. His cabin. The one solid thing in his life that he knew he could count on. It was dependable, solitary and all his own.

Then it was there and he stopped to behold it. Almost as if he was seeing it for the first time.

He lifted the key and stepped up to the door, finding that the door unlocked as if it had been doing that same thing since the dawn of time. He pushed the door open and walked in slowly, surveying what was past the threshold.

He was finally home.

By now, The City had watched many of its denizens celebrate this thing called 'Christmas' and it was beginning to understand it better. It was a time for fir decoration. A time for singing songs. A time for creamy or apple flavored beverages. There were also presents.

The presents were the most interesting things to The City. It understood that the presents were designed to be special. To be meaningful. To express care. And The City did care about its people. Very much.

This year, it decided that it would participate in this 'Christmas.' And it wanted to participate in a big way.

A Douglas Fir sprung up overnight, positioned in the heart of The City. It was huge, dwarfing most multi-level buildings, bedecked in oversized copies of the decorations that previous and current citizens had used on their own trees. The Christmas star dwarfed the moon in its brightness.

But what to do for presents? The City had seen that presents were supposed to be personal. They were supposed to be something that made sense for one to give to the other. But The City did not know how to give presents in this way. It tried to calculate what would be right for every citizen - and failed. At last, it decided that it would grant one wish to each citizen. Just one. And it would do its best to fulfill it in a personal way.

Logan locked up the front door to Fixit'.

It had been a long day, a day that had been both frustrating and yet somehow productive. Frustrating because the piles of things needing repairing seemed endless due to the fact that Megan couldn't so repairs (not that Logan held that against her) and productive because he had been able to make a dent in the things that needed his help.

He was efficient enough, as well, to make some of the things he was fixing work better than they had before they had come in. Motors could be re-wired, changed and altered, and made to work and run better. Logan didn't mind the extra upgrades because that meant less work for him. Honestly he was probably going to put all of them out of a job if he wasn't careful, but that would take a while even at his pace.

But it was closing time and Logan was glad for it.

He pulled down the gate, made sure it was secure and then took a moment to gather himself.

A sniff of the street told him nothing out of the ordinary was going on, and with that the mutant turned and slid his keys into his pockets, walking away from the shop. His boots clicked against the pavement and a swirl of leaves danced around him as he moved back in the direction of the motel he was staying at.

His eyes caught some of the festive decorations in the store windows that lined the streets and though Logan wasn't feeling particularly festive he still enjoyed that others were.

A car honked from somewhere down the street but Logan paid it no mind. Those were typical city sounds. Nothing major and no reason to give it any thought. With a grunt Logan crossed the street in the middle, walking against the traffic, to the other side.

For all it was worth Logan had settled into the City as best as he could. He'd managed to get tucked away in a motel not far from the main thoroughfare and despite having his bike the walk to where his temporary employment was did him good.

The brisk air held all the reminders of the approaching holiday season, but Logan had never really been the celebrating type. It wasn't from lack of trying, he simply just wasn't usually in the mood to be festive. That, and it was hard to spend a family holiday alone. But he endured, year after year. And he did so for everyone else around him.

Logan could remember the festivities at places like the School, Xavier had really outdone himself one year and had the whole place decked out to properly ring in the holiday season. Course that was never Logan's style, he didn't do flashy, but it worked and the kids had loved it. That was the whole point behind the extravagant decor, the lights and music, and all of those presents beneath a too-large, ornate tree. The tree had been real, of course, and they had been cleaning up the pine needles well into February.

He couldn't help but smile a touch as he approached the Fixit' front door. Megan had so kindly given the Wolverine a key and any additional things he might need in efforts to get in to the place. He could've done it undetected anyway but this wasn't his place, and he wanted to respect it. The front gate went up, then the door was open and the alarm disarmed.

From there it was still. The machines might have minds and thoughts of their own but they weren't sharing with him, and that was alright. He had things to do other than listen to machines chatter away about what might be on their minds.

A list of things needing repair lay out on the counter for him. He may as well do something while he was on the clock, considering at that point he was the only one that actually could fix what was broken.

After one last moment, a mere span of time to catch his breath, the mutant settled firmly into the day and didn't stop unless needed. There was far too much to be done to get too distracted, and he wasn't one to deter from a goal.

There was no music playing inside Fixit. Megan was officially sad.

The shop hadn't disappeared when Annie had, which Megan chose to take as a sign that maybe her friend and boss would be coming back at some point. But for now, Annie's disappearance was just another in an ever-increasing list of people she was resigned to never getting to say goodbye to.

Eric Northman had been one of those the news had reported missing, though, so that wasn't so bad.

But for the moment, the mood in Fixit was one of dispirited mourning. Megan imagined that the various electric thingies in the shop missed Annie. She knew that if there was only one person capable of talking with her and understanding her, of seeing her as a person and not a thing, then she'd miss them, too.

So maybe the jump from having that thought to flying around talking to the various electrical thingies like they were pets or plants or very quiet people was a bit of a leap. But it made Megan feel a little better.

Restlessness had ridden her for most of the night. It was a strange feeling, especially since she'd been curled in the place where she was most content - the privacy and glory of her own tower library at the back of her cottage. But it didn't seem to matter what book she tried to settle into, and tea only made that restlessness worse.

Finally, Beauty gave up the library for the night and headed to her bedroom. There was an outfit waiting at the foot of her bed, and the cottage whispers urged her gently into the task of changing. The clothing and the jewelry veritably flew onto her, with hardly any effort on her part. It was often that unseen helpers dressed her in her cottage, as if the cottage itself remembered the young lady from Paris with her attendants.

The shoes weren't to her liking, but they still settled on her feet. She'd learned long ago that fighting only resulted in delaying the inevitable. Once she was dressed, the next step seemed to be leaving -- but she had no idea where she was to go. It was late, far later than she usually would venture out, but there she was, walking carefully down the path leading from her cottage in the park to the City streets themselves.

A winding walk didn't ease the restlessness -- nothing seemed to. She was frustrated and baffled and ready to walk back home again, when the light of a corner tavern caught her eye. It drew her close, and before she knew it, her hand was on the door. She never frequented places such as this, but yet she found herself pressing into the dim light of the establishment.

The hum of the tavern quieted when she walked in, and she felt the heaviness of eyes on her. With a lift of her chin, she tried very hard to look unfazed, then found a seat as quickly as she could. No place seemed open, except for a stool at the far end of the bar. She took it, then, and smiled at the man who came up to ask her what she wanted.

She really didn't know.

Sam wasn't as close to some of the people mentioned in the KWIT City news announcement as some, but that didn't make him any less angry about it. Freaking Jesse... if this place could even take someone with his powers, then it was more powerful than Sam had given it credit for. He was angry at failing to save people yet again.

He also really needed to see his brother. Dean hadn't been among the listed missing, but that didn't stop Sam from needing to reassure himself that his older brother was alive and well. Sam knew that he was dependent to an extent that some might see as unhealthy, but Dean was the only person that he'd had at his side throughout this entire life and even through things that would chase away just about any other person on the face of the earth.

After the announcement, Sam sent Dean a text with the request to meet him. He even chose a bar. Drinking was a thing that should happen anyway and he might as well choose somewhere that had burgers and good beer on tap. Being in a public place might have been a plus at the moment too. If they were completely isolated, it might be easier to fly off the handle about the people that had been lost. Sam knew that at least Jen, Jesse, and Annie were important to Dean in some way or another.

He knew that he was perhaps being selfish in taking Dean away from his girlfriend who probably also was dealing with those losses, but he didn't much care just now. He wouldn't insist that he stayed out all night. Just a couple of beers.

Sam made it to the bar first and slid into the stool and ordered a drink. He didn't bother to wait for Dean. He just wanted to not be entirely sober. And while this wasn't normal for the younger Winchester, it wasn't unheard of. Particularly when faced with yet another failure. Even if it was outside of his power, that didn't matter. Failure to save people was failure to save people.

"Place smells funny..." Logan breathed to himself as he took another smell of the air. It smelled like any other city he had been to, yet there was something underneath that the Wolverine had picked up on. He didn't know quite what it could be, as he had never smelled anything like it before, but he wasn't sure if he liked it.

The motorcycle he was currently perched upon was idling in park, the kickstand pressed firmly against the concrete as the short mutant's blue eyes swept the busy, bustling metropolis.

"Sure ain't Canada either," Logan said to himself with dismay. How he had gotten off of the path he wasn't entirely sure. He knew those snow covered woodland paths like the back of his hand, he had travelled to his cabin many times before. Probably even more times than years he'd been alive, and that was a good amount of time.

Still, he came to the conclusion that he must've blacked out while riding. But this city made no sense and perhaps that was what was throwing the feral mutant.

He wondered where he had ended up. Most cities had some kind of town loyalty, a name that was plastered all over to notify someone of their specific amount of pride. He saw none of that here, that or he was missing it completely. His eyes were sharper than most, though, so missing something that vital was almost a slap in the face to his skills.

Nonetheless it seemed to be evading him, which he wasn't too fond of.

The people seemed normal enough and nobody seemed to be paying him any attention, which was alright with Logan. He made sure to keep a straight face, to act like he belonged here and not that he had randomly appeared. Vulnerability wasn't a trait the Wolverine liked to let on that he felt. He was better than that.

Pulling the kickstand up, Logan pushed the bike's gear into drive and he coasted down the streets and ended up near what seemed to be a vast park in the center of town. It was there the Wolverine pulled the bike into an empty slot for parking, killed the engine and threw the kickstand down once again with a boot.

Jeannie paused on the street, holding the door open for a darling elderly couple that was leaving the diner. They were holding hands, smiling at each other, and the djinn did not wish for them to stop doing so just for something as silly as opening a door. She was, in fact, in a very light frame of mind due to the holiday.

More than one person that day had made the assumption that because she favored pink and red in her wardrobe, that she was enthusiastic about Valentine’s Day. That was not why she wore the colors, but she did very much like to see people being kind and helpful to one another. It was a little bittersweet, as Christmas was. Why could mortals not do that all the time, rather than just once in a while? She understood why they could not continually give extravagant gifts, but the little considerations could and should happen all the time.

( She was also very in favor of being given chocolate on a regular basis. )

The dead girl was in the alley, behind a corner store that sold dry goods. The cold and the melted slush on the pavement made her smell like refrigerated flesh dipped in imitation jasmine, a bizarre meat-chemical smell. The corduroy of her jacket was musty and sour, the fabric was worn at the elbows and loose on the collar. Runaway. Probably not more than eighteen, if that. Little thin, but healthy. Logan rolled her over and her head lolled on her shoulders. Rigor hadn't set in yet. The marks on her neck were black with old blood. Her eyes were blue, dimmed, empty blue. She looked afraid. Poor thing.

Logan sniffed, then sniffed again. What the hell was that? Smelled like... smelled like dust. No. Like flesh so old it was dust. What the hell smelled like old flesh gone to dust?

Leaving the girl (he had nowhere to take her, and there was nothing that could hurt her now), Logan hunched down in his jacket and followed the scent. The cold made the metal on his bones ache, but in the kind of way that reminded him it was there, reminded him how many times it had kept him alive. The bar, in contrast with the windswept street, was filled with strong earthen smells warmed by sour body heat and fermented hops. That old dust smell snaked through the spilled beer, wood polish and body odor. Logan huffed the scents out of his nose and shoved through the crowd, looking for a killer.

Two minutes later, the first man crashed through the window, and the roar of the brawl was interrupted by the tinkling bursts of shattering glass as he hit the ground and rolled into the street.

Ted was not happy about this at all. Not happy one bit. He was in a morgue. The door to the morgue was locked. All the rest of the power in the place had gone off, the morgue staying connected only because it was on it's own power grid. Probably because of the bodies, Ted thought. You had to make sure those bodies stayed cold, or things could go wrong. Evidence lost. Not to mention the smell.

He'd come in here to try to find a working phone. The door had closed and locked itself behind him. He assumed it was some kind of safety measure. Ted didn't know enough about morgues to say for sure, though.

He looked around the room and sighed.

This was probably better than being outside. Charlie would be trying to find a good thing about this, so Ted was going to try too. He'd try really hard. He didn't think that it was really going to work. But he was going to try.

"So." He said, leaning against one of the cold counters.

Logan wasn't the type of guy that needed fancy digs. A lot of the time he didn't need a roof at all, but this City was pouring snow like it was going out of style, so he buttoned up his jacket and went looking for a place that would give him the least amount of trouble. Sometimes he was lucky and found a bar, but this time not so much. The homeless shelter housed all sorts, and the varied scents that hit him along with the heat of the shelter took a bit of adjusting.

Eventually he picked out the scent of a thin soup (beef stock, carrots, barley) but looking around at the crowd, he figured the rest of 'em needed it more than him. He chose a bench in a corner and settled back with his thick hairy arms heavy over his chest. Just have to wait out the night here, then head out again.

Xanadu had come to the shop early only to discover at some point in time, the door had been busted open. A quick check of the inventory and nothing appeared to be missing, though quite a bit of it had been moved around. Cleaning up the inside of the shop had been easy enough. The door, however? She had difficulty determining the full extend of the damage and how badly the paint had chipped on the molding. One call to a lock smith later and Xanadu decided to keep the door propped open until it could be repaired. She debated on calling The City PD to file a report. While seeing a certain detective again would have been nice, the seer decided to look into the matter in her own way.

Until then? Xanadu sat behind the register and worked on crafting a set of ruins. She took special care in carving each piece evenly, but occasionally pricked her fingers with the blade in her hands. On purpose or accident, she didn't appear bothered by it and continued working regardless.

In the aftermath of the Undead Plague, Xanadu no longer wore the extravagant silks or intricate hair ornaments in theme with the rest of the shop. She wore plain sunglasses to cover her eyes, stuck to jeans, an oversized sweatshirt with the neck cut out so her shoulder peeked from the opening and a pair of smart looking athletic shoes so she would be ready to run in case of the next disaster. Coupled with her apparent youth Xanadu hardly resembled the store's image or the name on her own business card.

Scavenger Hunt. Pair off. Each pair has to find:
- The tooth of a four fingered homeless man
- A unicorn's eyelash
- Blowfish venom
- A pocket watch
- Mittens