Not Until We Are Lost

Things had gone sideways quickly when the alien showed, and it didn't matter that sideways had yet to involve violence. Violence with this lot seemed always like an inevitable. There were some talkers, some thinkers, but violence was there. Max knew it to be true even of himself. So, when he came to in what felt like one his own dreams, he had to sit and breathe for a moment.

"So this is how it goes? Aliens show up, and I faint?" That was how he started dreaming surely. He looked around, noticing the faces. "And, everyone came along for the ride, good to know." He knew he was talking to himself, but in a dream, such things didn't matter. At least he was dressed this time; he glanced down to check, letting out a soft whistle. What he wore was nice, and he smiled that he had at least dreamt of himself in his good trench. He glanced to the side, and there was the fedora. His hand slipped into the coat, and his smile grew grim - he even wore the holster with the gun. His fingers brushed over a suit that was so familiar; he nearly wept at having missed its comfort.

"Could be worse. No bats or bunnies. No talking frogs or dancing llamas." He didn't seem to mind the black and white, or more the shades of grey. It wasn't new to him; he did like color, but there was something freeing in the lack of color. He could fill in the spots if he wanted to with whatever combination, and no one could say he was fashionably challenged - even if he knew what some of the colors were.

"Now all I need is a damsel in distress, a case, and a sidekick." He didn't think he'd have that long of a dream, and he did notice that Eleni was around. "Or a Gal Friday would be better?" He saw a few other women. "Femme fatales galore."

Eventually, Piotr decided that enough socializing had gone on. People knew that their friends and loved ones were here with them, and that was a good thing. They could catch up further later, however. If he didn't interrupt, the meeting would go on far longer than anybody wanted it to. He'd provided some snacks, but no actual food. There would be a need for actual food at some point.

He cleared his throat to get the attention of everybody present.

"We are all here right now for the same purpose." Piotr's voice wasn't loud, but it was demanding. His accent cut through everything else easily. The edges of it were sharp, the middles heavy. He wouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "All of us were brought to this place, world or dimension, and we have all been seeking answers since we woke up. It is time to share what we have found."

He smiled a little at Mary, at Cas, then at Rob, still not giving up his position.

"I will do this in the most orderly manner that I can, so we can get the information and compare notes as needed."

Piotr turned to Castiel, who had spoken up first.

Piotr was anxious to get everything rolling. While putting the meeting off had given extra time to round up others who might need to be in on it, it meant a delay of information that he wasn't truly comfortable with. He'd managed to play it off with everybody that he'd encountered, making as if this wasn't as big a deal as it really was to him. Inside, Piotr had been twitchy. Anything could happen at any time. They were all dealing with the unknown. There were too many variables, the risk was far too high. Lingering only swayed things away from their favor.

It was very domestic, the way he readied for the guests. He didn't let Max lift a finger. It was the only way he could keep himself from stewing, really. To move, work. Put plates together. Ready beverages. Create a spread that Martha Stewart would have been proud of.

He even dressed up.

Black suit, crisp white shirt, black tie, shiny black shoes, hair combed impeccably, guns tucked away in their holsters under his arms and hidden carefully by the jacket of his expensive outfit. Not a lick of metal showing anywhere to give him away, and that was more a throwback to the long nights of watching a mark than anything else. Piotr didn't have any good reason for it now, but it felt right.

When there was nothing left to do, he leaned against the arm of the couch and worried his lip between his teeth. There wasn't a watch to check on his wrist, so he glanced every few minutes at the clock on the wall, ticking away in its hideous orange and purple motif, strange detached bunny ears the hands, a mangled face grinning behind them. It was disturbing at best, though Piotr didn't really see the image, just the minutes.

The doorbell rang and he opened it, taking up the entire doorway. He smiled at the first guests and stood aside to allow them in. He made motions toward the table of snacks and directed them toward the kitchen for drinks. Every single newcomer got the same treatment. Max still not allowed to do anything that might have taken even an iota of the control out of the Russian's hands. They weren't military people, those who were showing up, they weren't highly trained like he was, but he would be damned if he wasn't in command of everything.

There were so many faces that he didn't recognize, and still no sign of the one that he was still seeking. Rayne was not with any of the others that showed up. Piotr couldn't help the worry he felt for his charge. The strange woman who he'd met in Malden, what felt like a hundred years ago now. He didn't ask after her, knowing that if any of these people knew her, she would have been here. He'd been careful to set the time of the meeting right after sunset to accommodate her and any others that might be like her. If she was here, by some strange chance, and had not been informed of the meeting, and hadn't come looking for him, if she had, in fact, decided to keep herself secret, then she had a reason for it, and it wasn't Piotr's place to draw attention to her. The hope of that was beyond slim, however, and he knew it. She wasn't here, he just had to admit it.

He let everybody mingle for almost an hour, to make sure that all the people that had been told had a change to show up. That and it was obvious that some of them had been looking for each other for a while, and they were just now discovering one another. He couldn't bring himself to break that up. He knew how he would have felt if he'd found his friend. He wouldn't have been able to focus on anything else but making sure that she was alright.

Finally, he stood in the center of the living room, his eyes skating over the seating, knowing that there wasn't enough for everybody and regretting it, and cleared his throat to get the attention of the assembled.

"We are all here right now for the same purpose." Piotr's voice wasn't loud, but it was demanding. His accent cut through everything else easily. The edges of it were sharp, the middles heavy. He wouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "All of us were brought to this place, world or dimension, and we have all been seeking answers since we woke up. It is time to share what we have found."

He smiled a little at Mary, at Cas, then at Rob, still not giving up his position.

Max had stayed the night, and he had settled in to watch some strange movie that was a mix of Freddie, Jason, and Easter Bunny Charlie Brown. He wasn't sure if it worked, but it had managed to knock Eleni out. Rather than move her too much, he'd pulled the trench coat, that he'd taken off earlier, and covered her with it. He'd even wrapped an arm around her and snuggled in to the couch himself.

The p.i. didn't go to sleep immediately, his ears ever listening for the imminent vampduck attack. Mallard with fangs? Count Duckula? He smirked to himself as he came up with weird names and phrases. The zombunnies hadn't shown up, but he wasn't doubting the Stark kid that she had seen those. Ducks with fangs would take care of that bit of disbelief.

He was also further along in believing her about her parentage. The weapon she'd just thrown together in her basement or wherever she'd done it was a good sign. She was wicked smart as some might say, and he didn't think a Stark would be known for idiocy. Not a normal one anyway.

So, there Max dozed, wondering if he'd ever get to sleep comfortable in a bed again. He would have continued to do so if something, movement near by perhaps, hadn't woken him. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but something or someone was in the house. It was too dark to see, but that didn't give him any hint to the time. Nothing close by was helpful, not without him signalling that he was awake. He just hoped that the vampducks didn't know a few undead monkeys who could open doors.

Eleni drifted off to sleep a few times during the first night in the house. She didn’t relax even after morning came and the first strains of sunlight chased the zombie rabbits away. It was only after that that she and Kai explored the house. It was a little unnerving to find clothing that belonged to her in one of the bedrooms. Though Eleni would have to say that the pastel colored pumpkin wallpaper, the black and orange bunny paper, and some of the bizarre clothing that was mixed in with her own, was even stranger.

After taking a short nap, Eleni wandered into the basement of the home that seemed to be meant for the two of them. She wasn’t sure what she would find, but tools and materials that would be more at home in her dad’s lab was probably last on the list. all the same, since she had it available, she took advantage.

It took a few hours to build a crude repulsor, but she felt safer leaving the house with that in hand. Just in case any other creatures showed up.

Once outside the house, things just got stranger. There were lawns with wooden faux graveyard displays, peppered with brightly colored easter eggs. The air had a cool bite to it and the scent of apple cider wafted down the street, but there were brightly colored flowers in full bloom dotting the yards.

She had to find Isaac. He had to be here too somewhere... didn’t he? With her brother in mind, Eleni set down the street, keeping her eyes out for any sign of either her brother or something dangerous.

( Quack, quack! )

Max didn't remember going to bed with a warm body; in fact, he didn't remember curling up in bed at all. He distinctly remembered going to sleep on the couch, which was the spot he'd grown rather accustomed to passing out at. But, when he started to wake up, he felt a body beside him and could hear the breathing.

Not sure if he was dreaming or if he had somehow managed to get into a multicab situation with a new friend, he went with it. He ignored his instinct for the moment, the one that highly suggested opening his eyes and looking; no, instead, he rolled over and wrapped his arm about the body, sliding a leg over as well.

He would have snuggled in a little more, but the scent coming off the body wasn't what it should have been. It wasn't death, something odd that Max worried would happen - waking up with a dead body - but male. There had been a time or two in college he'd woken up next to a fellow male collegiate, but he hadn't done something like that in a long time.

"Evan, if you're in my bed, get out." was mumbled. "If I'm in yours, suck it." came mumbled after.

Eleni had long since walked off her anger. She still hadn't found a place to make a call and her phone still wasn't working. She'd tinkered around with the settings and something about the frequency in this city was just off enough that her phone couldn't connect with a tower. She didn't get what was going on and it was starting to piss her off. Worse than that, the whole town seemed to be stuck in fashion from around just after the turn of the century. What was that about?

It was starting to get dark and she still hadn't found anything useful at all. She'd even stopped in at a hotel to check in for the night. Hey, at least they would have a phone she could use, right? For some reason, her credit card was declined. And cut up. Worse than that, they laughed when they looked at the expiration date.

So now she had no money, no phone, and she was stuck in a strange city. She almost-almost-regretted the fact that she hadn't taken that PI up on his offer of help. At the very least, she could have borrowed a phone from him.

It would seem that the night was only going to get worse when she took a wrong turn down a side street and heard two sets of footsteps behind herself. She whirled around as she heard a low chuckle and found herself facing down the barrel of a gun.

"Hand over the purse," one of the thugs growled at her.

Max knew something was different, and he knew how. He just didn’t know why. These people were not the ones he knew; they looked, talked, and walked like them, but there was something very different. The eyes. It was always in the eyes, and in this case, it was the extra pupil that did. He had considered making a few calls, but he soon realized that this wasn’t something he could just call his friend at the morgue, or the other one in the local ER. Not even that cute little biologist at the university.

He couldn’t make the call because he didn’t know who was on the other end. The real thing or the look-a-likes. He’d watched a few people he’d known, and discovered that they were not at all who they silently claimed to be. The only person in Electric City so far that seemed at all on the level was the guy with more than a little bit dislike for one particular artifact hunter. Evan would be his fall back, for now, he’d look into a few things on his own.

His first stop? More his second or third, the first two were a bar he frequented and a pub that was the main hangout for the local boys in blue. He got better reception at the bar, but no one gave him too much guff at the pub. He was about open up with some questions when he noticed that some of his favorite pigs were sporting the additional pupil, so that left his third stop.

The bus station. People came in and out of Electric City everyday. He’d heard there was a slight population increase in the strange department, so why not the bus station?

( ---- )

Max looked at himself in the mirror and considered the five o'clock that shadowed his jaw. He rubbed it, considering the face looking back at him. It didn't feel like the same face; getting a few drinks into his gullet could be a possible fix for the problem. He just didn't feel like himself.

He fixed his tie, or more put it on. He rarely stepped out of his office without the usual uniform of a private eye. A gumshoe, a flatfoot, a dick. He always smirked at that last one; he had been called that before when on cases, and yet it didn't stop him from doing what he had to to make the rent. He was always on the verge of getting tossed out on his ass for being late, which was saying something, seeing as he was usually pretty damn good at keeping his bills paid.

The p.i. pulled on the trench and the fedora before leaving his home away from home; he slept more nights in that office than anywhere else lately. He'd taken to sleeping in it more because something about the city lately had felt different. He didn't know what it was, and he wondered if it didn't have to do with meeting that damn man.

Bar was the only choice to drown that uneasy feeling.

He sat at the bar and ordered his regular. All he had to do was get buzzed.