Luke King (notanecromancer) wrote in evaluation, @ 2020-02-17 20:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !the compound: 1: day 3, marvel: cinematic: ned leeds, original characters: lucas king |
Who: Ned Leeds & Lucas King (and Brigid)
What: Making new friends
When: Compound Day 3, backdated
Where: The Firepit
Rating: Low
Status: Complete
Brigid was being really good. Luke was sitting with her near the firepit and she was having a great time just blowing little fireballs into the already lit pit, tail wagging happily as she bounced around with the sparks and smoke, staying relatively close to Luke’s feet most of the time. He was mindlessly scrolling through the network after having pinged a message to Ned to let him know where he was, legs stretched out in front of him so Brigid could run around under and jump over them, keeping herself entertained one way or another.
He had snacks and a large bottle of soda and two solo cups to share it out when Ned did join him. After all, they needed to discuss their battle plan for making sure all the pets at the store got their daily scritches. It was very important. Plus, Luke needed to make some more friends; he’d failed miserably so far and he was hoping to change that.
Implants fully charged, Luke had them turned down so he wasn’t too distracted by the crackling of the fire but could still hear Brigid play growling at the fire and someone approaching. He turned his head and saw Ned, lifting a hand to wave, he greeted Ned with a smile and a ‘hey’ before indicating there were more than enough places to sit.
“I brought soda and snacks.”
Brigid stopped bouncing and coughed a puff of smoke, letting out a happy yip.
As a newcomer, Ned was doing pretty okay about the whole being kidnapped/held hostage/whisked away to a pocket dimension or whatever this was. Things in his own world had gotten incrementally weirder as he was growing up, resulting in a teenager who could essentially roll with the punches. Of course, that didn’t stop his inquisitive mind from working overdrive about everything. But he was fairly confident that nothing was trying to kill them. At least right now. Besides, there were superheroes and demigods and Star Wars characters up in this place. His odds of survival seemed good.
Always happy to make a new friend, Ned gladly accepted Luke’s invitation to hang out and meet his Pokemon. Straw fedora on his head, he approached the fire pit area with a spring in his step. Upon seeing Luke, he gave a smile and a nod, and moved to claim the chair beside him, but not before pointing to the pillow on the seat and then his own floral shirt. “It’s like it’s destiny.”
Then he noticed Brigid. “Look at you!” Ned sat down in the chair and leaned over to pet the Growlithe. He looked up at Luke. “I know you said something about snacks, but there’s a real-life Pokemon right here. This is awesome.”
“Destiny,” Luke agreed with a grin, watching Ned get settled before he nodded, opening his mouth to say something else when Brigid wandered over to get the attention and fusses she rightly deserved.
She let out a happy growl and puffed smoke before flopping onto her back and wriggling closer so she could get belly rubs from the New Person.
“Right? Shit, I can’t believe this place has Pokémon. It’s unreal.” He looked down at Brigid who was kicking her back legs in a bid for more attention. “Considering the closest I’ve ever been is playing Go on my phone until the batteries died…”
Ned was more than happy to oblige with the belly rubs. “Who’s a good Growlith. You are,” he cooed at the orange fuzzball. Finally, he leaned back in the chair and left Brigid to her own devices, though probably not for very long.
“You and me both,” Ned nodded. “I still can’t decide which one to get. Maybe I’ll get a Ditto, and then I won’t have to.” It seemed like a good enough work around for his inability to choose. But those beady eyes… Maybe not. He shrugged. “There’s no rush, I guess. Especially if you and me become Pet Shop regulars.”
Brigid whined as Ned stopped fussing her but she awkwardly rolled back and stood up, going back to the firepit, chasing the sparks as they were caught on the wind from the fire that crackled in front of them.
“There’s definitely no rush, and I’m not usually this impulsive. But I’m really glad I chose her ‘cause she’s cuddly.” And Luke was needy as all hell. “How’re you finding it here?” he asked, “It’s kind of wild, right?”
Brigid’s whining earned her a big smile from Ned, but he resisted the urge to keep showering her with attention. “Of course you want cuddly. Who doesn’t want cuddly? Ok, I’m sure there are valid reasons some people might not want cuddly. But that’s a must for me.” The only pets Ned had ever had had been rats, and even they loved to cuddle against his shoulder or in his hoodie.
“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy,” Ned nodded. “My best friend is here, so that’s lucky. And some other people from my world.” He didn’t mention his excitement over the Star Wars heroes and villains that were also there. So far, he had done a good job of playing it cool around them. “Sounds like I picked a good time to drop in. How long have you been here?”
Luke smiled, because cuddly was a very important factor in pets. Water wisps weren’t cuddly at all, and they were the closest thing he’d ever had to a pet by-proxy because his sort of boyfriend had a bunch. “We’ll find you an extra cuddly one,” he promised.
“Your best friend? Oh man, that is lucky,” Luke said with a nod, he’d have loved to have his best friend here but having Roman more than made up for it. “I’ve got my da- uh, the guy that helped raise me in here, so I’ve not done too badly, even though there’s no one else from my world and only, like, two people that speak ASL.”
At the question of how long he’d been here, Luke paused, tipping his head in thought. “Uh- I was here for the haunted house place, and then I got to go home for a while, and then I came back two places ago, so this is my third in a row. So like, a month? I have no idea how much time’s actually passing, I’m so confused.”
“Yeah. Peter Parker? Maybe you’ve seen him around? He said he kept getting sent to prison when you were all in that Russian place.” Ned wasn’t sure how many places there had been, but that was the one he had heard the most about. “ASL?” He repeated, then noticed Luke’s implants for the first time. “Oh, cool!” And then he proceeded to sign Hello. My name is Ned. “That’s really all I remember from middle school. And the alphabet. But everyone knows that.”
Ned nodded in understanding. “I’ve only been here for a few days, and I’ve already lost count. I should make a note on my phone with a tally for each day. It’s not like a calendar would do me any good. Time can get screwy, you know? Like one minute it was 2018, and then it was 2023, but it was like no time had gone by for me. Maybe I was in a place like this and just don’t remember.” He shrugged.
Luke’s entire face lit up when Ned signed, even the little bit and he chuckled a little. “You’d be surprised at how many people don’t know even the tiniest bit of ASL. A.so, yeah, I know who you’re talking about, I haven’t spoken to him much though.” But then, Luke hadn’t spoken to many people.
Brigid huffed because she was getting ignored, yipping as she bounced between Luke and Ned, eyeing them both to see which one of them was going to fuss her first and flopping between Ned’s feet, mouth open and tongue hanging out as she waited for attention again.
“2023?” Luke asked, rolling his eyes at his growlithe, calling her a traitor under his breath. She reacted by lifting her head and blowing a fireball at the pit they were sat near and then huffing smoke in his direction. “You just lost five years? That’s- wow, that’s pretty intense. But time is definitely screwy. Especially somewhere like this where everything’s just… warped.”
“Well now I wish I knew more!” Ned replied, almost like an apology, before Brigid successfully won his attention. He leaned down again to administer the appropriate combinations of pets and scritches. He couldn’t help himself—it brought an enormous smile to his face.
“It’s a long story. Well, I assume it is. I don’t know most of it. What I do know involves some weird cosmic energy that has the ability to wipe out life on a universal scale. Some crazy alien guy thought that by wiping out half of all life in the universe, he would be solving problems like war and hunger and poverty. I don’t know if he was right or not because I was one of the ones who was wiped out. It got fixed though. And that’s how I’m here.” Ned looked up from the Pokemon to glance at Luke. “I guess after that, nothing seems too crazy anymore. Makes this place easier to handle than it would have a couple years ago.”
Luke’s don’t worry about it was likely lost under the happy rumblings of his attention-seeking growlithe but really he couldn’t feel too bad: she was pretty cute and socialising her was important. He hopes that if he ever got to leave she could come back home with him. Mickey would literally die with excitement and then give him shit for her element being fire, not water.
That all sounded very dramatic. Luke listened with a shake of his head and it cemented to him that Ned, like Peter and Steve Rogers, really were the people from the movies. Just like there were people from Star Wars here. It was a lot. Like, a lot. Luke was constantly trying not to explode.
“I can imagine. That sounds intense. Damn those crazy alien guys. I’m not sure if aliens are real where I come from but we have cults trying to raise Cthulhu so enslave the world so I’m not always the best judge as to what is and isn’t normal.”
“Whoa!” Ned’s head whipped up to look at Luke. “Who cares about aliens. Tell me about Cthulhu! Has anyone raised it? Have you fought it?!” His voice raised in pitch and speed as he spoke. “Are there other monsters were you come from? Where do you come from?” Luke had unleashed the question kraken.
Luke blinked a little, feeling like an anime character that was suddenly wildly overwhelmed with questions. He took a breath and ran through the ones he’d just been asked so he could answer them. “Well, I care about aliens, I’m not sure the- wait, said that already. No, no one’s managed to raise Cthulhu, but a few years ago the cult-” killed his brother “- managed to raise a couple of Xothians, who are like… Cthulhu-lite? The diet soda of Eldritch gods?” He waved a hand, “Turned out that Lovcraft had actually been seeing telepathic visions of the old Gods as the stars were right for Ry’lah to be accessed when he wrote his story.”
He shuddered. “Cults are not worth getting excited about.” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his head, trying not to think about how his family, because of this cult, had become smaller and smaller. “They’re after my bloodline, ‘cause of our powers, since our blood or whatever is supposed to open the book that lets them summon him, so I’ve spent, like, ninety percent of my life living on an enchanted island.” He wet his lower lip, “And yeah, I guess there are monsters where I come from, and since Cthulhu is a real threat the other elder gods probably are hanging around out there too, but then there are also things that people might think of as monsters that aren’t? Dragons, werewolves, vampires… y’know, that sort of thing. Unicorns and mermaids too. And possibly a kraken, I’m not sure if that’s real or if Sione was pulling my leg…”
Wow, that all came out in a rush. Luke reached down and grabbed the bag which had the drinks and snacks in it, pouring himself and Ned a cup of soda and passing it over to him. Brigid, who was tired now after having had many belly rubs, wandered over to flop between Luke’s feet, head almost tucked up against the firepit.
Ned’s mouth fell open gradually as Luke continued to explain the craziness that was his world. When he’d finished, Ned accepted the cup of soda gratefully. “Whoa…” he said again, but with much greater weight than his earlier excitable utterance. He took a big swig of the drink. “There’s a lot to unpack in all that. Let me just start with, I’m glad you’re alive and well and keeping the cults at bay.” And Ned thought his world was weird. “Dragons and unicorns, huh? Are they as cool in real life as they are in my head? Or is there some dark twist to them too?”
Luke chuckled and nodded his agreement that he, too, was okay and there were no cult members here looking to make the most of him being (mostly) unguarded. He thought about Roman, and Clara, and the people back home. He felt wildly homesick again for a moment before he nodded, enthusiasm for those he cared about rearing its head.
“Oh, man, they’re awesome. So, both can take a human form and shift between the two with ease. Dragon breath - like their attack weapon - depends on their colour so some are ice or fire or lightning… Unicorns are, like, chill? So being around one makes you feel better in every respect and they’re like human weed or… something. That came out wrong. Just being around them helps chill you out. But there’s not many left ‘cause humans hunted them. And dragons are cool and all as long as you don’t go near their hoard. I guess some of them are jerks but that’s just like normal people too, right?”
“So unicorns are weapons against anxiety,” Ned nodded, pursing out his lips in an impressed smirk. “Somehow that makes total sense. Man, of the two, I don’t know which one I would rather be, which is hard for me to say, because, hello. Dragon. But being able to make people feel good all the time would be nice.” Ned thought about Peter and all that he had been through lately. He always wished there was more he could do for his friend.
“I don’t think you need to be a unicorn to make people feel good all the time,” Luke said after a moment, watching Ned carefully. “Being a good friend can go a long way, and like, listening and stuff. I mean, having a supernatural ability to combat anxiety is great,” because God, Luke needed something like that to help him stay off the ceiling a lot of time time even here. Especially here. As if by magic, Brigid lifted her head and looked at him with one ear flopped over, puffing smoke at him before snuggling down again to go back to sleep. “But being a good friend helps too. Listening and doing stuff with them you know they like.”
He downed the rest of his drink and lifted the bottle to pour himself another cup, asking Ned without words if he wanted a refill too.
“Anyway, as I said, there’s also mermaids, vampires, werewolves and witches where I come from. So your options aren’t just limited to those two.”
Ned nodded. That had pretty much been his M.O. ever since the Blip. He wasn’t sure how well it was working. And they had both skirted around talking about what had happened with the whole being outed after Europe thing. Maybe that was for the best. Peter didn’t have to think about all that here.
Ned raised his glass for Luke to top it off. “Huh. Well, I’ve got to say, your world might be weirder than mine. And that’s saying something.” But he was smiling. “Tell me more about it.”
“Only if you tell me about yours in return,” Luke replied, bottle replaced on the ground once they were both filled. “But since you asked so nicely, here goes...”