The Bear and Barnacle

Brought to you, under duress, a fine selection of Ed's smoothest verbage with the ladies (mostly):

( Oh, dear God, please shut up...PLEASE... )

Missed it around here! Please excuse my absence. Crazy work + multiple extended illnesses = 1 very useless lady.

The below is an IM continuation (of sorts) from Ed's arrival post, wherein Ed is kindly offered a place to sleep by Jack and (in a slightly less enthusiastic manner) Zelgadis. Players involved in the IM convo will, in all hopes, be able to continue the thread this way without so much reliance on coordinated schedules. :D Even so, others can feel free to comment and/or threadcrash about Ed's living situation, or whatever strikes their fancy!


Jack: *pushes open the Pub door and pulls his jacket around him* It's not a long walk ( -- just a few blocks. )

The first thing he feels - ( ouch )

“Of course it would be you,” Val says crabbily to the transparent figure. Crabbily because he's painfully aware of his smallness, of his still-faltering speech; also because on Val's personal list of favorite fellow-servants, Rigo is exactly two spaces from the bottom. “Couldn't be anyone else.”

Rigo stands with his arms folded and says nothing. He's a tall, dark man, lean and well-built with eyes that burn an uncanny deep red around diamond pupils. This is if one is lucky enough to see his eyes; he rarely makes eye contact, preferring usually a point in the vicinity of the left ear or shoulder of whoever he's speaking to.

Val crosses his chubby arms right back at him and at last Rigo sighs and speaks. “What happened to you, Val-san?”

“Got shrunk,” is the succinct answer. “So what? You're dead.”

Rigo nods, once, measuredly. And does not speak.

“This is gonna be a long month,” Val mourns softly, and hops off his bed to go tell Jack and Zel (and Amy, and Amelia) that they have yet more company.

"Hello, Jack."

Jack turns at the familiar-but-couldn't-be voice down the alley and sees it speaker matches it. "Oh, not again."

Leaning against the brick wall in same cream-colored trenchcoat she died again in, Suzie watches him, smirking. She even has the bullet holes and blood riddling her coat, appearing black thanks to the night leeching away the reds. "You aren't happy to see me."

"Why would I be? What'd you do this time? There aren't any gloves left."

"I didn't do this, Jack."

"Like hell." He turns to walk down the sidewalk more for effect than any real intention to leave her there. If it's really her, really there, then he can't risk letting her run loose on Margate. She may not have any motivation to murder again, but then she hasn't shown she wouldn't.

Just as he thought, Suzie comes walking out of the alley to fall into step with him. It's irritating. She should be dead and in cryo, or if she did get pulled her, a corpse lying around. She shouldn't be walking and talking again. And they hadn't left her corpse dressed in that, anyway. Where was the bodybag?

"You know, I never did believe in ghosts," Suzie says. "In spite of everything we saw, I didn't believe in that. The existence of ghosts would imply some sort of life beyond this life, and we both know it's just darkness."

"What's your point?"

"Can you smell me, Jack? Can you smell the blood, the death on me?"

He looks sidelong at her and frowns. "No."

"Surely you'd smell it if I was here in any corporeal sense. I guess we were both wrong that there's only the physical life. Something's brought me back without my body."

"So you got dragged back out of the dark, whatever of you was in there. And you came after me? Go haunt someone else, if that's what this is. How about a relative you didn't get around to murdering?"

She says without malice, just matter-of-fact, "You killed me. You shot me, and told Toshiko and Ianto about destroying the gauntlet, and killed me, just like that. Like it didn't matter. I never did matter enough to you, did I? Never mattered enough to ask—"

"Spare me the pity party. In fact, why don't you spare me listening to you at all? You brought it all on yourself. You can try to blame me again for it, but it's not my fault. You could've talked to me if you wanted to."

"Could I? Nobody could talk to you then and have you care." She laughs mirthlessly.

It snaps something and Jack turns towards her, hand going out to— something, pin her against a wall and stare her down, maybe— but it just goes on through and he nearly stumbles into the wall himself. She looks almost as surprised as he feels to see that.

"That's inconvenient," she says. "I wondered if I could only physically interact with you. I guess not. Face it, Captain Jack. You can't make me leave, and I'm not going to choose to. You're stuck with me unless something else changes it."

Jack groans.

They haven't left the house since the morning they woke up years younger -- Jack about twelve, Zelgadis about five. And apart from everything else -- the interruption to work, to their schedules, to, well, their sex life -- Jack doesn't think this whole hiding-from-the-world thing is healthy.

He's sure Zel will stop panicking at the notion eventually ...

But the days pass, and even the threat of running out of coffee doesn't seem sufficient to lure him out of the shelter of home, so at last Jack resorts to desperate measures.

He goes into the lounge, where Zel is playing his guitar by laying it flat on the ground so he can reach the frets with one hand and pluck the strings with the other. Funny how they seem to have kept the age difference between them even though the ages themselves have changed. "Come on," Jack says.

Zel gives him that narrow-eyed, infinitely suspicious look of his -- the one that makes his ears flatten almost indetectably. "Where?"

At this point Jack picks him up bodily (by some weird magic Jack has little hope of understanding, Zel's stone body only seems heavy when it's forcibly placed somewhere he doesn't want to be -- which is fortunate for the furniture. Jack's arms don't seem to qualify as not-wanting-to-be). Zel flails a little and squeaks but he doesn't struggle particularly hard.

"The Pub," Jack tells him, checks that he has his wallet and keys and goes out the front door.

Val vaguely remembers crawling last night into Jack and Zel's bed, wanting the body heat (or so he would insist). He was expecting to be unceremoniously put out when his guardians decided they wanted their privacy back. This, though ... it's definitely unceremonious to suddenly have a tiny body struggling under his, but not at all expected.

( A YM thread. In which Zel is very small, Jack is very embarrassed, and Val is very wicked. )

Once he's fed his pet rat, Val dresses in Zelgadis's clothes (the jeans are too tight, but they're wearable, and the zippered sweatshirt fits) and walks down to the pub. He imagines Dora will have grown up just as he has. And everyone else ... well, this he ought to see.

Zel's been arranging the day of Jack's birthday for over a month now, ever since Jack determined that they should celebrate Zelgadis' birthday on 01 Jan. Zel's kept track of his birthdays by the seasons for as long as he could remember. He knows that most people know their actual day of birth, but it was yet one more thing that Rezo kept from him when the bastard killed his parents and took him for his own use when he was only five. So much for trying to hide in the North and live a quiet life.

But, today is Jack's birthday- His 32nd- and Zel had not trouble thinking of what to do for him- the trouble was making it happen. But enough discussion, convincing, and money seems to make anything possible around here. Except for his and Val's leaving. They tested that on Saturday, with Professor McGonagall's help. But no matter, Jack can do this on his own.

So he wakes Jack early in the morning with a hot cup of coffee and a languid blowjob followed by another cup of coffee. He tells Jack he's called him a car to take him somewhere and to dress warm. He expected the resistance to going alone, but the promise of dinner together with Val and use of the coffee syrup Jack made, and Jack blushingly agrees to get into the taxi without him.

He hands the driver the address and more than enough money to get him there and he watches as the car pulls away, a rueful smile barely touching his lips at missing this.

( The car makes its way along the roads, steadily North along the coastline, then finally comes to a stop in front of this... )

Victoire has come to a Decision. This is not unusual as Victoire is a decisive sort, but this one she has made will be for the Good of Margate. (She, like her father and most of the decent Slytherins, had a tendency to think in capitals.) She, like so many, was trapped here in this town- facing a sea so unlike the one she grew up with. No cliffs, no distant view of Wales on clear days. And nothing to keep her entertained and occupied as Teddy was too easily distracted by the mystery surrounding the town to permit endless days of shagging. She could only pout so long before she needed something else to do.

And Margate was sorely lacking in a store of an adult nature from which she could purchase items to distract Teddy from his Ravenclaw nature.

The Decision was only natural and logical, and of course, Right. She would open a store for the lovers in the town- she had seen enough of those: the men who ran the pub, the American and that blue man, and she was beginning to wonder about the two Victorians. Suffice it to say, this town needed a reputable source for articles of romance and hedonism. And Victoire needed an occupation.

Now she only needs a shop with an attached flat... and a good amount of start up capital. And an investor who could see the benefit (socially and financially) for such venture. Victoire had just the person in mind.

( But first she had to tell Teddy )

FWUMP

ought to be the approximate sound made by a small body (say, four-or-five-years-sized) falling from a fair height and faceplanting semiconsciously into the soil.

In this case, it's more like

CRASH
*squeal*
crackle
snap!
thud

because there is a large rose trellis in the way.

He's still for a moment after he hits the ground, shocked -- not so much by the impact as by the presence of any ground to hit -- then he begins thrashing wildly. The winged boy claws his way half-upright. Golden eyes glimmer out at the world from behind a veil of dark feathers, a tangle of briars.

Not quite aware of what has happened, only knowing that what was supposed to be destroyed is still there, still obstinately existent, the last Ancient Dragon has arrived in Margate.

He stays tremblingly quiet for a few long seconds, staring through the ruined shrubbery at the grey and drizzling sky, then continues to fight the thorns caught in his black-feathered wings.

Coffee. Definitely coffee. Which requires going to the kitchen- He still hasn't quite given in to the urge to have a coffee pot in the bedroom.

Zelgadis rolls over in bed, carefully extracting himself from the sleeping form previously half on top of him. He sits up and looks around for the soft ivory trousers he wears and, finding them folded on the dresser, pulls them carefully on over the irregular grey pebbles marring his blue stone skin. Then he pulls on a grey shirt laying next to it. He's long since lost the habit of running a hand over his hair after dressing- nothing's going to move the wires.

( Morning brew-ha-ha. )

Pardon our dust, gentle sirs and good ladies, new friends and old, but we assure you that the sounds of your voices are more welcome than your boot-prints.

To begin with, let each of you order up his drink and meal! Tonight, the chef takes requests, and your fancy is limited only by what we find in our pantry. However, all who have recipes must bring them to him, and so we shall set our menu when the time comes.

Come, then, have a seat! Here by the bar I shall keep you amused with talk and good drink, and there by the fire the room is warm, and at every table you shall find good company, and should you choose a place by the half-height walls of the kitchen you may speak with Xellos as he cooks. Come, your order?

For this very simple first topic, everyone can comment to this post with their food and drink choice. Thread-crashing is highly encouraged as otherwise there's not much in the way of interesting conversation to be had. Although Iago can and has discoursed at extreme length on polenta, but whether or not that qualifies for interesting depends on the listener's profession.

Welcome to the Bear and Barnacle!

Oh, and he means it about the recipes.