The Universe's Mixer

Enigma stepped into Caritas, memories suddenly hitting her of being here with Christian, a small, sad smile on her lips as she ran her fingers over a table, wishing she could go into the kitchen and further drown in the memories of the sweet, tender man who took her places she hadn't been in a long time, before shaking her head, trying to banish the thoughts of her could have friend, taking a seat and ordering a gin and tonic, listening to some of the patrons sing.

She sipped from her glass slowly, savoring the taste, the numbing effects of the alcohol. So much had been going on lately that she needed the break, the escape...and it was either this or get end up sitting on a stool next to her father...and worrying over him, rather then forgetting her own problems.

She had no idea what she was doing anymore...all of her plans, her plots and her games upset and now she had to pick up the pieces, and figure out the path she was going to take.

Good or Evil, Bruce of her father...salvation or damnation...

So many branching paths, so many roads to get tripped up on.

She moved over to the machine that provided songs, draining her glass as she flipped through the choices before selecting one. She hadn't sang since her last meeting with Erik, all the joy sucked out of the act, memories clouding around her brain any time she opened her mouth, her voice freezing.

I wish that this night would never be over
There’s plenty of time to sleep when we die
So let’s just stay awake until we grow older
If I had my way we’d never close our eyes, our eyes, never!

She closed her eyes as she started to sing, her voice cracking for a moment, emotion and neglect coating it, before it strengthened, returning to what it had been when she stood on the Opera House stage as Carmen, filling the room clearly.

It's so hard to think this could fade away
But what goes up must come down
Why can't we just live life with no consequence
And always live in the now

She clenched her fists, tears flowing down her cheeks, and she was rather glad that no one cared what happened in the life of an operatic diva or CEO of a major corporation, as she was sure the pictures of her running mascara would not look pretty anywhere. She drew a shaky hand across her cheeks as she sung, pouring herself into the song, wiping the smear of black on her skirt, trying to get it off her hand.

If I had my way we’d never close our eyes, our eyes, never!

She finished, and eagerly fled the stage, returning to her table and getting two shots of whiskey delivered, downing them one after the other, eager to escape herself.

Lorne didn't know Fred the way he knew she knew him.

He'd come from a time where they'd just met. Where the visit Angel made to Pylea was only the very recent past.

He'd seen the news. And though he'd seen it sitting in Caritas, with a Sea Breeze in his hand, he couldn't help it.

Lorne clicked off the t.v. behind the bar and went to the stage with a heavy heart. He knew that there was already a tear in his eye, but that didn't really matter right now.

He remembered the raid on Caritas in L.A., that it'd been Fred's first outing after Pylea, and how it'd all fallen to pieces. Gunn's old friends. But more than that, he remembered that Fred sang, and that Cordy had let her pick her own song.

Lorne sighed, and began to play, and sing.

"Crazy... I'm crazy for feeling so lonely
I'm crazy.... Crazy for feeling so blue
I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted
And then some day
You'd leave me for somebody new

Worry... Why do I let myself worry?
Wondering....What in the world did I do?

Oh, crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying,
And crazy for crying,
And I'm crazy for loving you.

Crazy.... for thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying,
And crazy for crying,
And I'm crazy for loving
You."

His eyes were very wet, now. And he remembered that that night, Fred never got to finish her song.

"... so I did it for you," he said, sadly, getting up from the piano and wiping his eyes. "Oh, Fred, I'm so sorry."

After talking to Tony about everything that she'd seen, Annie decided that she was going to visit one of those places. Not the zoo, since she was still determined to get both Megan and Rufio in on that one. But the Botanical Garden seemed to be calling her name. Her world didn't have things like botanical gardens. Really, not many people had gardens, period. But one that the city kept and sustained? It was unheard of. There were more important things to take care of, such as destroyed buildings that threatened to fall and whole wastelands that they needed to try to clean up.

Her walk over gave her plenty of time to relive the night she'd spent glamored up and on the arm of Tony Stark. It was safe to say that her crush was growing. If he had been the Tony from the other world, she wouldn't have worried so much about telling him. That Tony had given her clear signals. This Tony seemed caught up in Pepper. Annie didn't want to tangle herself in that. At this point, she thought that if Pepper showed, he wouldn't hesitate to run to her. That would be uncomfortable to say the least.

But that didn't mean she couldn't live in her mind about it.

They had walked all over the place. Just talking and admiring the sights and the relative quietness of the city around them. There had been much laughter. Maybe a little flirting on Annie's part, but she felt that it must have gone unnoticed. When they'd gotten back to the car, her feet had been filthy. Tony had washed them so she could put her fancy shoes back on without worrying about ruining them. It had been a sweet gesture, an unexpected one. And he'd found out that her feet were really ticklish right by the toes. There had been a little more alcohol on their way back to the tower, but then they had parted ways.

All in all, the night had been wonderful. Annie hadn't wanted it to end.

She was smiling as she approached the entry window for the garden. There was a very small line. Annie felt that if she had a botanical garden in her world, she would have been there all the time, so the small number of people going into this one was a little saddening to her. It might have also intrigued her because even from the outside she'd seen plants that were unidentifiable, and there were whole sections that couldn't be seen from the fence. And an inside area that boasted who knew what.

He gasped as the spike sent an instant pain through the nerves in his chest, around his heart, and his nervous system shuttered to a halt until there was a second of absolute nothing. People underestimate the time involved in a full second of experience. One thousand one can take up so much thought, so many inspirations, so many epiphanies. But all Wash could think of was, "Zoe, I love you."

So when his next breath came it was surprising. And when another came after that, it was astounding. Even more surprising and astounding was his sudden realization that he was on a bench in front of a road with a rip in the front of his shirt and cars zipping by in front of a background made up of sky scrapers and street lamps.

His hands shuttered as he slammed them into his unmarred chest. He panted, then, a giddiness washing over him, laughing then as he shouted, "I'm alive!"

A passerby gave him a glare and his face became sheepish.

"Which is completely normal. And not at all insane. To be, ahem," he mumbled and the person shook their head and kept walking.

Wash's eyes blinked up to the sky and he blew out of his mouth in relief.

"Okay," he said with finality, finding his center. "Now where the hell am I?"

Lorne did not spend all of his time in Caritas. Most of it, yes. But not well and truly ALL.

Today, before the club opened, he had errands to run. There was laundry detergent that needed getting, and new light bulbs, and a fresh set of towels to replace the ones that a belligerant client had destroyed after barging into Lorne's room.

He decided on a store with a big target on the side. It was like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or something. Lorne didn't spend a lot of time in places like this, but the City put it close by, so off he went.

It was very bright inside, and there were no windows. And a lot of people stared at Lorne.

"Greeeat," he muttered, smiling at each staring person in turn.

He'd just get in, get out, and get back to the club.
With the weirdos.
The weirdos who liked him and didn't stare at him.

The device that Veronica called a phone started buzzing again, and again Christian looked down and found the same map, the same red blinking dot, and the same desire to go through the streets to find that dot.

Minutes later, he found himself in front of Angel Investigations, a company that apparently helped the helpless. There was a dentist's office beside it. Christian rubbed the back of his neck, then headed across the street. He didn't know what he would find behind the door, but he did know one thing: that phone wasn't going to stop buzzing and calling him out until he went.

Pausing at the door, he wondered if he should knock or simply walk in. He opted with the walking-in.

Being long lived doesn't mean you've seen and done it all. It just makes it more likely that you have come close. At least have seen more than most beings. The universe doesn't like to show all of its cards, especially the ones up its sleeves. Alternate realities, tributaries from the time stream and the like. It might be physically impossible for any one life form to have literally seen and done everything there is to do in the vast plane of existence. Captain Jack Harkness was no exception regardless of what his bravado might suggest, and he was getting mighty tired of the universe driving that point home.

One minute he was strolling down the broken down streets of die Festung on his way to a favorite pub, the next his world turned inside out, shunted sideways then spat him out of the tumble setting. How he hadn't come to consciousness on his ass wasn't something he was particularly concerned about. What was was where the hell was he now?

Looking around himself with a perplexed frown on his face he immediately assessed his surroundings. The buildings, cars, technology in the hands of people walking past him on the sidewalk all seemed to indicate Earth standard, late twentieth century, maybe early twenty first. From a time traveler's standpoint who didn't have a functioning vortex watch it was difficult to tell for certain. At least he assumed his watch still wasn't working. Jack flipped open the cover guard to check only to find that instead of the solid red light that indicated a full charge but a technical malfunction the read out was going haywire. Dates, times and charts were cycling randomly with no rhyme or reason. Great. It was more of a tease than before.

Jack closed the watch then let his arm fall as he looked around again. Everything looked Earth like, but he didn't recognize the city, and he knew he'd been to every city on the planet that could match this size. Which meant this could possibly be an alternate reality. One of those tributaries. If that were the case, then all he'd have to do is hang out, wait for the parking brake of the TARDIS to wheeze and whine its arrival then he could hitch a ride with the Doctor. The Time Lord didn't like tributaries in time. They tended to muck things up too much in the time vortex to the point of possibly blending with other tributaries. If that happened too often it got really messy. Meanwhile, he figure he could always wander and try to figure out where he was.

"Hopefully this isn't a probability that didn't believe in bars."

(Takes place right after this thread)

Lois let Lindsey lead her into Caritas, not quite sure what to expect. Whatever she might have been expecting, the array of colorful, horned demons was not it. She instinctively moved a little bit closer to Lindsey.

"You sure this is the right place?" she said in a low voice.

She was open minded enough that if he said that these people weren't going to eat them for dinner, then she'd trust that for now.

She was also still curious to hear the answer to her question about the owner of this place. She'd heard rumors that people could go in and sing and have their fortunes read, or something along those lines. Of course, the last fortune teller she'd gone to had told her that she was destined to end up with a guy who wore tights and liked to fly. She might have previously joked about waiting for her crossdressing pilot, but after seeing those comics, she had a feeling that that fortune teller hadn't simply been some hack making up a laughable story. Maybe.

There were times when Brennan missed home. She liked going to the Royal Diner and for drinks at the Founding Fathers. She knew there were bars and restaurants she could go to here, but she hadn't really done a lot of exploring since she'd been back and she knew that none of the people she knew would be there anyway. She was feeling nostalgic, though, so she donned her trench coat and hit the sidewalks looking for a diner.

Her boots made small thudding noises on the concrete as she wandered along. Finally, she spied a building that looked promising. She pulled the door open and stepped inside and sidled up to the bar. She didn't want to take up a whole table or booth for herself. That was just silly.

She picked up a menu when it was placed in front of her and immediately ordered a chocolate shake. She was perusing the dinner options when she saw a shadow fall over the bar and then a body settle into the bar stool beside her. It was all in her peripheral, so she didn't get a good look, and since she was not all that great with social interactions, she didn't look up and try to make conversation, either.

She just kept studying that menu for something that sounded good.

After leaving Jack's office Zatanna was really not in the mood to go home. What she was really in the mood for was to pick a fight and beat the snot out of something, but her good sense told her that she should settle for a strong drink. So instead of having the taxi drive her home to Shadowcrest or the Clocktower she directed him to take her to Caritas.

She reminded herself to tip the cab driver well regardless of her temper so that she'd stay on the punctual side of the City's transportation then huffed her way into Lorne's bar. It was a tad early in the day to be drinking, early afternoon to be precise, but there she was grabbing a shadowed corner at the bar for her very own and ordering a shot of vodka with a Long Island Ice Tea chaser.

One giant ape settled in the zoo. The fact that there were facilities to handle Kong kind of made even Zatanna go “buh?”. Whatever. At least it was contained with minimal damage to anything or anyone. The new JLC seemed to be pulling together, personality conflicts not withstanding. They might just need to let Dinah take a free shot at their new comm guy though just to get it out of their system.

Zee had her own things going on outside of the League. She was trying to stay busy, get into the swing of things in the City since it looked like she was going to be here a while. She had her own research into what magical properties were present along with what she said she’d do for Lindsey. All of it was slow going since a lot of the things she was researching was temperamental at best. Shadowcrest would help or not as the house felt was necessary, and recently one thing kept coming up over and over in her research on the City: some sort of bar by the name Caritas. Apparently it was being suggested that she check it out. All righty, then. It wasn’t as if Zee’s social life was burning up her calendar so she took the subtle hint and went to look into this bar.

It was easy enough to find. Then again all she needed to do was call a City cab and she was taken right there. Yet one more piece of evidence that the taxi drivers were in league with some nefarious deal that they could navigate the changing streets with ease! Zee paid the driver with a respectable tip then headed into the bar.
( Read more... )

Fred hadn't exactly been ignoring her pager during the storm, or during her time in the Library. She had felt the thing go off and checked the numbers, and she was very happy that people cared enough just to call a device that wouldn't do much other than let her know they called. It was kind of sweet. Eventually she left the Library and the hard working woman she'd met there. Fred would definitely have to talk to her again.

Borrowing a phone in the Library, she'd called Jack and explained why she hadn't called before. While it didn't take long to make a phone call, sometimes it took a little while to get to one. She'd also explained her living situation, something she was probably going to have to repeat a few times for a little while. After hanging up, Fred headed over. Jack was kind enough to let her clean up at his place; he even offered her a place to stay that wasn't a wading pool. She accepted. She probably could have stayed a few other places, but Jack's seemed the best choice.

Jack was sweet, and he offered her all sorts of things to comfort her. She was more than a little impressed with his own apartment and very glad that he'd never commented on her own, which didn't seem any less nice but certainly not the same sort of nice as his. It wasn't until she was freshly washed and dried in clothes that were cleaner and drier than what she'd been in that it hit her. She'd been so very selfish.

"Lorne! Jack, I've been a terrible friend. Dean, Sam, you, Dinah, everyone I know can take care of themselves. Lorne can, too; he's done it before, but it'll just kill him if Caritas is ruined again. Oh, I've got to go find him." She was already yanking on her shoes. "He could be hurt. What if he lost his head! Sure, he's not gonna die right away, but it's not good!"

Fred stopped at the door and looked back at the King of Wonderland. "You can come along if you'd like." The way she said it could have been read as "I'd really like you to come, but I'd understand if you didn't want to."

Rufio was out, floating around the City after dark. He'd always enjoyed the night, the younger Lost Boys all went to bed when dark fell completely but he and a few of the older boys stayed up, enjoying the time to themselves to do things that some of the others were just too small to do.

Smallness had its uses, but baiting alligators and hunting with the Indians was something for longer legs.

Here in the City, on his own, he found there was more to do at night. More mystery, and the people were more interesting. There were fewer suits and a lot more people who looked closer to the types Rufio was familiar with around.

( Hopskipping from rooftop to rooftop the young Pan flew through the area )

There is an invitation. The envelope it's in is made of a very thick, almost cardboard. Decorated with a design that looks like a mixture of feathers and flames. There is a seal on it, deep red wax, in the center, just a swirl. The paper is thinner, but no less well made. It's almost like touching cloth. The words upon it are done in a very beautiful script:

You are hereby invited to take part in a meeting in which you should discover very great things about what is around you.

Even if you choose to not accept this invitation, your daily movement around the City brings you to a building. There is only one door. The door is a very heavy, dark wood. It looks as if it might take a giant to open it, but it pulls free easily for you. When it shuts, it sounds almost as if a latch has clicked into place.

The room you are standing in is an odd shape. Triangular. The widest part is where the door is set in, and the other two walls meet opposite it to make the point. There is nothing in this room. No chairs, no table. No mirrors. No sign that anybody else will be able to get in here with you at all.

You will wait a while. When the last participant shows up, the walls in the center of the room will raise into the ceiling. From the floor will come a great table, laden with food and drink. Chairs will scoot out from where they were tucked away under it.

There are other people in this room with you.

( Read more... )

The field sprite most commonly known as Toot-Toot flitted through the City mostly unseen, in spite of his growing...talent. It had been six months--had it been six months? or had it been longer?--since the last time he had heard that familiar tugging at his magical senses that was Harry's summons. Six months of silence, while he fought to keep Chicago safe for his younger, smaller, weaker companions and followers. Three whole seasons of forging new alliances in order to feed his rapidly growing 'family.'

It wasn't just vanilla mortals, or small time magic-users that were disappearing. It was the lesser fae as well; being captured and forced into servitude as they once had, before the great 'Za Lord had deigned to care for them. Oh, the crazy wizard's friends did what they could, but they had their hands full looking after their fellow humans, and it just wasn't the same.

And then it happened. A whisper, a brushing at the back of his mind. A tingle between his shoulder blades. A wish. He had to follow. He'd slipped through the veil into the never-never in a twinkling, and somehow emerged in this place between what, when, where, and who. And why? Because Harry needed him. Harry wanted him.

But now that he was here, the wishing had stopped. Was he too late? No, no, no. This was the right place. Never mind that it changed, seemingly with the lightest of light breezes, such as the one that his dragonfly wings made as he beat his way above--and sometimes below--the streets. He just needed to learn its Ways.

He would gather information at a pub--that's what he would do! Mortals liked to congregate and gossip at the pubs. And they had pizza...

Yet another night at Caritas was winding down. Logan still hadn't quite gotten used to the elaborate make-up and prosthetics worn by about half the clientele, and by his boss. He really wasn't sure what to make of the posted rules referring to vampires with souls and trans-dimensional ejection for not tipping, except to conclude that Lorne had a strange sense of humor.

For that matter, Lorne himself was a little strange. Nice and a lot of fun to work with, but not exactly like anyone Logan had ever met.

He absentmindedly wiped down the counter with a bar rag as he waited for the last of the patrons to finish their songs and drinks and shuffle out. He did his best not to wince at the particularly bad rendition of 'I Will Survive' currently being... well, performed was too kind a word for what it was really.

Lorne felt pretty good.

He was glad he'd hired Logan Echolls. The kid could use the help, and from what Lorne had seen when Logan sang, it was all going to work out well for him and for Caritas. Having more time free to entertain, to sing, and to put people right on their paths... that was going to make him a much happier demon. It wasn't all altruistic, though; he intended to use some of his free time to try and get out of here, or to find more people like Angel and Fred.

He missed some of that. Not the part with his head getting cut off in his home dimension, but still. He wanted that family aspect back.

Still, though, the demon whistled his way down the street, shades on, hat on, flashy suit on, wing tip shoes on, the tune this time 'Almost Like Being in Love.'

He stopped to grab a newspaper, and thought he'd catch a bus downtown and grab a good lunch, too. The bus was going to be late, it looked like, or his watch was slow. That was fine. Lorne didn't stop humming.

Lorne settled nicely back into life in the City, once it stopped making him behave like a human child. The masquerade, the hat, snappy as it'd been... he'd had to do a lot of explaining to Fred, and a few other people, that mid-twenties for him was a lot like the terrible twos for humans.

His Sea Breeze intake was increasing.

While grateful for the City's gift of Caritas, Lorne didn't care for the up-in-the-air way in which it functioned. LA was good, it was predictable, mostly. Bad things happened to good people, sure... but it was unlikely you were going to be institutionalized, turn into a child and receive myriad messages about a personal ad you didn't place.

The outside observer would not know anything at all was getting to Lorne. Business as usual was exactly that--business as usual. The music played, the booze flowed, the wings were served hot.

On this particular night, after offering a comic book character he didn't recognize a little advice on how to cope with his loss of nemesis, Lorne sat on the edge of the club's stage with a mic in his hand and a huge smile on his face. He handed the mic off to the next willing singer, who chose to belt out a version of a Pink song that actually half made him wince.

He smiled at patrons as he walked past, and offered to refresh their drinks. When he got to the bar, he held his own glass out, with wide eyes, and nodded heartily. He hardly noticed the person on the stool to his right.

Please continue your ball threads here

With everything in full swing, the waiters and waitresses were moving about people like ants. Able to sneak between groupings without bothering anybody, constantly in motion, trays balanced perfectly on one hand. As if they were in a choreographed number.

The sounds of chatter could be heard in the room, above the clinking of crystal glasses and silverware, adding a strangely calming ambiance to the whole scene. The music played on, as if the band would never tire.

Here and there, party favors were being activated, used, sometimes confusing their recipients, other times bringing great joy.

There had been a lot to think about post-asylum. Not the least of which being the angel he'd released from the porno and set loose upon the City. He'd not heard of any terrible acts since that moment, but he still wondered. The angel had seemed to think that Jesse should be using his powers to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. Jesse did not share that sentiment. He really felt that responsibility was the right way to go with it.

Plus the whole idea of being the one who people came to with their problems, being the one they blamed for the situation they were in, just didn't fit into the things he was really gunning for.

He'd come to the park with an idea for peace. But the new gadget he'd been issued kept making noises at him. At first he'd tried to turn it off completely, when that didn't work, he tried to quiet it. Now he was just listening to the messages and grinning at himself.

Sounded like personal ad responses to him. Though he'd not put one in himself. Never quite saw the need to. Jesse could get himself laid pretty much any time he wanted to. But this? This was pretty funny. He had a feeling that the City itself was to blame for this. And that didn't surprise him one bit. The place seemed to try to be 'helpful' once in a while, stirring up massive trouble in the wake of the attempt. Sometimes, just sometimes, it could be downright hilarious. Which was what he thought of the current situation.