Not Until We Are Lost

Lucifer felt the cool sheets and the warm sun. Turning over, she realized that she was indeed a she today. The long, lean body stretched and loosened muscles, happy. Content. The ride with the aliens had been more than interesting. Better than television, better than trying to manipulate humans into giving up their souls. Better than anything that had ever existed, really. And it just kept elevating in amusement.

The note was on the nightstand, and she picked it up to look it over. An resort vacation was a perfect place to thaw out, she thought. Stasis. Lucifer wondered if the aliens would have been able to use that if she hadn't been complying with everything else already, or if their technology was so advanced that they could retain even the devil against her will.

When she stood up, she found she was in a little white bikini already. Digging through the drawers revealed a matching white wrap that went elegantly around her hips. She decided to forgo the sandals, as she expected that sooner or later she'd find herself on a beach and unwilling to keep track of those things. Not that she particularly cared about them, but they were awful cute to lose on the first day.

So people were gone, were they? Lucifer cast out with her power and discovered that the pesky angels were missing. Good. Two less faces to worry about. Nobody else knew the truth. The game could go on for longer, now.

Lucifer grabbed a pair of fashionable sunglasses with white rims and plopped them on her head as she left the room, intent on exploration.

Johnny woke with a start, sheets coated with sweat, filled with the feeling of emptiness that came with being unconscious for a long while. He thrashed at the bed, throwing the covers onto the floor in a pile, wanting them away from him. His eyes scanned the room. The empty room. He couldn't place where he was. His bike wasn't there, the walls weren't the strange metal, so they weren't on the ship anymore. How long had it been since they had been?

Instinct drove him up and around the room, yanking open drawers and ripping through the closet to find anything that was his, finding nothing. Only clothes that should be worn at a resort. No weapons, no hat. Johnny hated being without his things. Especially with these bastards in control. They liked to throw everybody into dangerous situations. They needed to be prepared. He tossed a handful of clothes onto the top of the dresser, irritated. The only things he could find that were acceptable replacements for the swim trunks that he'd woken up in was a pair of red linen pants and a breezy white shirt. No boots, no actual shoes. Just absurd boaters. Not even a pair of socks to be found.

As he pulled the shirt on, buttoning it, Johnny saw the note. He figured at first that it would be a typical resort welcoming letter. Telling him of the afternoon luau or something. What he read instead upped his irritation to outright anger. Stasis? Some people were missing?

Only one important name came to mind.

Johnny crumpled the letter and threw it across the room, and then exited quickly. His door slammed open and he was out in the hallway of a rather nice place. His eyes didn't see it, though. Saw nothing, really. Determination and fear drove him.

"Mary?" He shouted. Johnny jogged down the hall. Each successive call of her name got louder, filled with more worry. He didn't stop moving, though. Every door he passed, Johnny yelled for her, needing her to come out. Needing to see her face. "Mary!"

Like the well trained soldier that he was, as soon as Piotr woke up in the strange room, he swept it for any signs of his weapons. When he found only the letter, Piotr left the room in search of others. The ones that mattered.

He found none of them.

His Yana. He'd been so happy to have her. Even if she was not his sister, not truly, she was still his sister, and he would have died for her. Given his life for her. Was she back where she should be now? Was that better than here? It didn't seem like it to him. She'd been kept, like he had, turned into something no child should be. Like he had. Castiel was also absent. His friend, the only man that Piotr had called friend in a very long time. They had fought together, they had bonded. He had felt that Castiel had known him in a way that no others could. They were both social idiots, learning to get along in the real world. When he also couldn't find Rayne, the woman he had pledged to keep safe, Piotr gave up.

The brood that overcame him was one he hadn't really sunk into since he'd been at Malden. Since losing JP. He didn't want to look for anybody else, because he was afraid of who else he might have lost. There were other names he had floating through his mind, the names of people he cared about, but he couldn't take it.

What clothing he found didn't make anything better. Piotr had woken up in a bright Hawaiian print shirt with clashing Hawaiian print shorts, and had only been able to find a pair of flipflops to wear out of the room. It made him feel stupid. Abandoning the room in the outfit, despite his reservations of doing so, Piotr sought out the resort bar. He sat on a stool close to a wall, but gave up trying to face the entrance as there was one that went into the hotel part itself, and then the whole goddamned back was open to the beach. All he could do was angle himself so that the wall was at his back.

The mutant ordered vodka and got a foofy drink with an umbrella in it, instead. He didn't have it in him to fight with the bartender. He'd drink the colorful drink and be a lot more specific next time.

Mikey woke up curled on a pillow, nobody else in the room. Nothing smelled like the birds, nothing smelled like the dog, either of them, and nothing smelled like Niks. It all smelled like, well, honestly nothing. Maybe that should have disturbed him, but he really didn't care. His stomach was telling him that he needed something to eat, and that was the most important thing.

Jumping off the bed, he discovered that the doorknob was round, and he had no desire at the moment to shift forms to be a boy and take care of it, despite how monumentally easy it was for him to go back and forth. Instead, Mikey opted to jump out the open window. He landed on soft grass, and took a moment to eat a bit of it. He'd throw up later, but that was okay. That's what grass was for.

The sleek black cat trotted around the building to where the smells of food were coming from. He had no idea where he was, though he was aware that it was another beach. Not the same beach, though. He remembered what he'd done wrong the last time, and opted to stay in the shade of the building. He could run out and play in the sand later, once he was full and well watered.

Before he got to the source of the food smells, Mikey came upon a pair of legs. They were irresistible, and he immediately rubbed himself against them, meowing softly in joy.

At least she'd gotten used to the bouncing around from planet to planet enough to not freak out and elephant all over the place now. So when Betsy woke up to a new environment, she was able to keep calm and assess the situation. She still found herself wishing for Brian. Her twin was the world to her, and she'd not seen him in a very long time now.

The room was nice, and she found clothing in the closet and drawers that was acceptable. The note was not really important to her one way or the other. Betsy hoped that Jo was here, Jo was about the only friend she had. She knew it was partly her own fault, she hadn't exactly opened up to a great many people.

Looking out the window, Betsy thought that she might like it here. The note said all the trouble was on the other side of a wall. So all she had to do was stay on the right side of it, and nothing bad would happen. Which meant that hopefully she could swim without fucking fish eating her.

Betsy checked her hair in the mirror and dabbed on some tinted lipgloss before she left the room. The air was nice and warm, and the staff she passed were friendly enough - though she didn't pay much attention to them, really, they were staff, after all. Admittedly, she was a little afraid of looking for Jo, because she might not be there. Betsy had no idea how she would handle things if it turned out she was all alone again.

As much as she liked to be independent, Betsy hated being alone.

While she walked she munched on some grapes that she'd found in the dining room, popping them into her mouth thoughtfully. She'd spied people here and there, and had ducked away before she could be seen in return. Betsy wanted to get a better idea of the facilities before really settling in. She wondered if they had a spa. A massage would be awfully nice.