just need seven minutes to pull myself together Who: Reggie Where: His apartment When: Late morning
When Reggie had woken up covered in sweat from dreams about an experience that was not his he had been ready to go flying out the door and just beat on every single one in all of Scarlet Oak until he found the redheaded fire elemental who got orphaned in her teens. And the whole while he did that he would just be praying that she had not dreamed anything else about him. Because she was real, she had to be, and Reggie did not want anyone in the world to know just how much it had gotten to him when Morgan had packed up and left him with the girls without so much as a good-bye. But he had decided he was going to find her and he would have stepped right outside and done it. If he had not felt a distinct tremor underneath his foot when he did step out onto the sidewalk. A tremor that was getting worse. A tremor that seemed to be going right out from him only he was not causing it and oh god that was Earth's work and she had to be damn pissed. Reggie had bolted back upstairs and locked the door like it would do any good at all. He could not just storm out there, not when Earth might very well want his head and on top of that, he still had to make sure that the girls were getting themselves off to school.
And when they had left he had found a list pinned right on the fridge. And he just had to wonder how the hell Sarah had managed to get it up there when he was not looking. Then he needed to ask himself just where the hell she had managed to find this long a list of strip clubs. He was going to suspect the hand of his sister at work here and he reminded himself to have a good, long talk with her when he was able to focus on other things. Things that were not redheaded and fire-elemental shaped. Reggie was not even just being selfish about his desire to get his element back - though that was a huge chunk of it - he was doing it for whoever that girl was and for the other elementals. That voice had sounded like it meat business and the last thing he wanted was for anyone else that he knew to experience this mess. What if it happened to his mom or Crystal or any of his other friends? And dear god, what's going on with Marisa? Reggie would have texted, but he was too busy picking up the phone and dialing the first number.
NiteFlirt; oh goody it sounded like a real winner already.
An hour later and Reggie had his head down on the counter, with a bottle that had been three-quarters full when he picked it up. Now the amber liquid was closer to the halfway line and he was feeling more equipped to deal with all the sorts of people that he had been talking to. Rude managers who told him that they would not describe the girls and why the hell did it matter if they were fire elementals? and then hung up because they picked up on the vibe that he was not coming around. Ones who thought he was some sort of creep and hung up in the first three minutes. He was unable to decide if it was worse when he had called "A Sensational Obsession" and been offered what he was pretty sure was a prostitute who 'was not a fire elemental, but could sure make him feel like he was on fire' - or when he had gotten through the list of strip clubs in the Ann Arbor area. But she had to be in the area. Why? Because Marisa had dreamed about and switched with Lotti, that was why. The world would be even more unfair than it was currently demonstrating if he had been switched with someone from goddamn Nebraska.
'There's more numbers,' Tiger pointed out. Where exactly Tiger was, Reggie had no clue. His familiar had gone into hiding - a real feat for a monster his size - when Reggie had started flaming all over the kitchen. And he was in the kitchen because, despite the stove, it was overall the least flammable room in the apartment. It would have been better for everyone if he just went outside and sat on an island in the middle of a lake, but that would mean going outside. And Reggie was quite firmly against going outside right now. 'Not strip clubs. Sarah said they were entertainment places. A few actually in the Scarlet Oak area.'
"And where's that paper?"
'...on the fridge.'
Reggie was about to say that no, there was not a thing on the fridge, when he looked and realized that there was indeed a smaller slip of paper also full of Sarah's writing. There were fewer places listed here, but Reggie had called the strip clubs - oh god he had called all the strip clubs - and was running out of options. He absolutely needed, and it was a huge need, to find this girl. He had gone over the dream time and time again in his head, hoping that it would give him some clue he had missed, but there was nothing he had missed. Which was why he was going to call every place on this list and just hope that she was there. "A name would've helped, you know," Reggie declared to the apartment.
'Who are you-'
"Whoever did this," Reggie muttered, picking the phone back up and dialing in the number to the South Hamilton Street Performance House. Please god let this be a legit place and not secretly a strip club. Reggie was going to think what no man probably ever did when he admitted that he had had his fill of strip clubs now, without even having been in one today. Had he been able to leave the house without thinking that the earth would just swallow him then he would have probably gone and lit a fire at the one that had offered him a prostitute. That was illegal! Right? Please let it be illegal.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end lacked a certain something that had been in the ones who had answered the phone at the other places and Reggie felt a little knot inside untie.
"Yeah, hi, I was wondering if you could help me out. I'm looking for-" The voice rattled off the location and show-times. "No, that's not it. Do you have someone who, uhhhh, plays with fire?" That had been in one of the dreams, or something close to it. She performed. "Redhead. Very fiery. Like extremely. Like she's a fire elemental. With red hair. Oh and she's pretty pale and has... blue eyes. No parents." Reggie was getting all the details out in hope that something would help him here and he did not care if he sounded like a stalker. Well, he sort of did, but not enough to stop.
"Uhhhh..."
"Listen, okay, do you have someone like that?"
"Why?"
Reggie had a good hold on his temper normally, but the past few days? The past few days had destroyed it. He had killed every plant in his apartment that had not gotten locked up far away from him, Earth had tried to send an earthquake at him when he had put one foot out the door, and he was setting things on fire. His self-restraint was gone like it had been that time he had slammed his baseball bat into Lance's face because his brother would not stop teasing him for liking flowers. And this guy on the other end of the phone was the one who was about to witness it, only without the bat.
"Because I have been trying to find her for the past few days since she's in my fucking dreams. I am an earth elemental but there's fire shooting out of my hands. Wait, no, not just my hands, fucking everywhere! You know what an earth elemental is?"
"Yeah man, and-"
"No. No I'm not done. I grow things and I heal them and Earth is who I am. Take that away and everything is just fucked." Reggie was not a big curser, he could usually a few days without it since he did his best to keep his language clean around the girls, but today was a very special exception. "I killed my plants because I burned them to a crisp when I tried to make them healthy, I turned into a PILLAR of FLAME when I tried to be a tree and worst of all? Because it gets worse; I CAN'T GO OUTSIDE BECAUSE EARTH IS TRYING TO KILL ME." Reggie was actually shouting and Tiger had snuck out of hiding to watch, his tail fluffed up to twice its original size. "I SPENT ALL MORNING CALLING EVERY STRIP CLUB IN ANN ARBOR TO FIND HER. NOW TELL ME IF YOU HAVE A REDHEAD, BLUE-EYED FIRE ELEMENTAL WHOSE FUCKED UP TOO."
The guy on the other end was laughing and that did nothing at all to help Reggie's temper. "What's so goddamn funny?" He snapped, shoving himself away from the counter and standing so fast that his stool went clattering to the floor. "You think it's funny? IT'S-"
"Breathe, man, we've got one of those. Her name's BJ."
Reggie's temper did not vanish, it just went under the covers, and he stopped. "Really?"
"Yeah man."
"Is she there?"
"Nope, she hasn't been in."
"I need her number. Not her address, just her number."
And, to Reggie's eternal surprise and gratitude, he got it. He promised himself that if this all ended today then he would go donate money to that place or something for giving him the number after he shouted at them. maybe he would have thought a bit more, debated on what he was going to say, but instead he just dialed the number of this BJ girl the second that he hung up the phone. He wanted all of this to be over, or at least on the way to it, and finding her had to help, right?