Leo Spinnet (imsmarter) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2018-09-29 08:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *amber, *diana, *hannah, elle spinnet, leo spinnet, mia |
backdated
September 14
time. Morning | location. Hiking Trail
rating. PG | status. Complete
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The sun was beaming down on the treetops that particular Friday morning. Don Givens was making his way along his usual morning hike complete with his goodwill fanny pack stashed with various goodies. For Don, this lifestyle was simple, easy, and well…. boring. But boring in a good way, if that made any sense. He enjoyed the simple life, the incognito life, the … do whatever the fuck he wanted life. Sure it might have been considered unclassy walking around in the woods after lighting a joint from a bright pink and green tie dye fanny pack… but it was his joint… his fanny pack… oh… and his woods. Or at least his access point to the state reserve. Don Givens had come home about three years ago after a good ten years in Silicon Valley. And by a good 10 years, I mean, the lazy, pot smoking, Green Dragon clerk made a good eight figures out there. Having developed and sold a popular realestate app, he was living his dream life. His retired early dream life. Or at least, what he thought would be his dream life. So much money he didn’t know what to do with. So much free time he also… did not know what to do with. Sure, he’d made the lifestyle of fulltime slacker look easy, but there were moments, when he was alone, that he felt as though he were … missing something. There was a distinct emptiness in his soul and he couldn’t quite explain what that meant. He was dating a beautiful lady named Dia Sampson. He had instant legal access to marijuana. He was learning all he possibly could about horticulture. And … on top of that… this was the first time in his life that he had no where he needed to be. No one of authority he needed to impress. And no societal need to strive for any one thing in particular. It was what everyone wanted, right? Maybe? Did he make a horrible decision coming back home? It didn’t really feel like home, did it? As he rounded the bend of the trail a flash caught the corner of his eye. At first he thought it might be another hiker. While it wasn’t common to run into anyone out here at 7am - it wasn’t unusual. It had happened before. Course… when he looked it wasn’t a person so much as a tree… with a spot of shine to it. A shine that certainly didn’t seem natural. So naturally, he approached it. As Don approached he couldn’t quite make out what the shine was, but as he approached he noticed there were images flashing on the truck of the tree. A flash that released a high pitched squeal and a light that filled his vision. “So… what you’re telling me is… you’re a robot? Leo Spinnet asked wide eyed, and mouth slightly agape as he stared at Mia. “But… you look…” he let out a disbelieving chuckle, “You… look so real! Definitely not...mechanical.” For being in a world where her state of being was a given, at least physically, Mia was mildly disconcerted with this man’s reaction to her. She nodded quietly, a slight smile that she wore to preempt any conflict. She tapped her right hip, and though once she would have dropped her trousers slightly to show him the charging port hidden there, Mia knew better now. She pointed to her eyes instead. “My eyes aren’t anything that occurs in nature,” she explained, voice soft and informative. “I am designed to appear and even feel human as much as possible, within certain parameters. But I assure you, nothing is organic within me.” “In your world…. Is it…. Normal? To have people like you walkin’ about?” Leo asked as he slowly walked around Mia as if looking for her seams or plugs. “Or are you the only one?” “Not like me, not entirely. We weren’t designed to be sentient, to feel or act as… people.That is quite a long story, but we were designed to be servants. I wasn’t. I was designed exactly as I am now.” She blinked, uncomfortable, and decided to turn as he did. It was only mildly challenging in nature, and Mia tried to make it amusing. “I have a charging port on my right hip, hidden under a skin flap. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not have to show you.” Leo’s eyes lit up at the idea, but sensed the obvious uncomfortable vibes coming from the woman. “No, of course not…. That’d probably be like a sexual harassment charge or something, right?” He looked around in the lab cautious of any weird Atlantian HR department. A sharp pain bolted down behind Don’s eyes and he blinked hard as his brain remembered something… not in Breckentale. A memory he couldn’t quite place, but it felt familiar. He looked around at his surroundings quickly to see if anyone was messing with him, or at the very least witnessed his strange encounter with the tree. When he looked cautiously back at the tree a ray from the sun hit whatever shine was causing the mind numbing brain twists and it whacked him once more with a bright light and more imagery. “Whoa,” Leo’s eyes were wide and he stared at Elle Spinnet as if she hadn’t died 9 years ago. “You’re…. supposed to be dead. Like, really, really, in the ground… super dead. ” Elle sighed and just stared at her brother. Her younger brother who wasn’t so young anymore. Atlantis was weird. “And your voice isn’t supposed to have dropped yet, but here we are,” she exaggerated. She’d already had this conversation multiple times with multiple siblings, and it became less and less fun. Leo clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “I was 24 when you died. But thanks for maintaining that age old Elle Spinnet Bitchery - brings back memories.” “It must run in the family,” Elle said with a roll of her eyes. The truth was, she never really had anything against Leo growing up. They were never particularly close nor did they try to be. It was Rocco and Alicia she primarily butted heads with over the years. Now that he was here and older and reunited with the other Spinnet siblings. “So, was that all? You just wanted to point out how dead I’m supposed to be?” “You walked in,” Leo shrugged, “Not like I planned this situation, let alone practice a monologue for you.” He pointed at the hall, “But if you...want a do over. We could try again.” His Spinnet sarcasm dripping with a challenge. Elle narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Try again? Like she believed he really wanted that to happen. “Why?” She asked him. “”You really want a do over?” She was trying to figure out this older version of her little brother. Leo shrugged and flicked his wand absently to open the door again. His free hand motioned for her to enter again. No words, but an expression of expected sarcastic obedience. This older version of her brother was a lot different than what she was used to with most of her siblings here in Atlantis. Emilia had always been the one to keep reaching out. Elle mostly avoided Rocco at all costs, and Alicia she tried to avoid only to sometimes be thrown together unexpectedly. This challenge of examining her and Leo's relationship, though, it intrigued her. She still eyed him with suspicion, but without a word, walked back through the opened door. Leo was impressed that that had actually worked, and quickly masked his bemused grin and got into character, “Alright, whenever you’re ready!” he called to the hall. Having no clue what was going on, Elle reluctantly stepped inside to see what in the world he’d cooked up. Leo dramatically stood from his chair at the kitchen table and screamed, “INFERI!!!!! HELP! HELP! PLEASE! The succubus from hell returns to devour my soul!” A dramatic sort of choking was then faked as his hands dramatically came to his throat and he flung himself back into his chair. Over dramatic hacking and even a few back of the head eye rolls followed before Leo collapsed his head onto the table - tongue out. He laid still for a few moments in hopes that Elle would respond. The sudden outburst surprised her. No, she really hadn’t been expecting that. Elle crossed her arms and just stared at dead Leo half-laying across the table. She let out a short laugh as she stepped over and stared down at him. “I hope you’re not expecting me to play along,” she said after a moment with a tone and expression that was mostly bemused more than anything. Don felt as though he’d been smacked in the back of the head when his vision came too. A hand came to grasp at the bridge of his nose and he hissed at the odd memories drilling themselves into his consciousness. A particular dizziness and an unpleasant weight set in the pit of his stomach as he stepped away from the tree that now looked… completely normal. He glanced at the joint in his hand and then back at the tree. Someone must of laced the latest shipment of Harlequin with something more than all natural marijuana. He frowned in disgust at the experience he’d just had and immediately pinched out the flame of his leisurely vice. He needed to get home…. He didn’t feel all too right. Plus! What the hell was that accent in those memories? He had an accent that could rival that of Finn’s coma induced accent... Finn’s..... Accent. It was in that moment that Don felt a very serious need to pull out his phone and text.
Elle... I need to talk to you about Finn. Now. Are you awake?
Yeah. What about him?
The moment Elle texted back Don hit the call button and the moment his sister answered he continued their conversation with an immediate, “Has he told you anything about the reason for his post-coma accent?” Elle had stared at the screen of her phone when it lit up. Did she want to take this phone call? Not really, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She sighed and made a mental note to keep her own accent at bay. It had already slipped out a couple times here and there ever since Eleanor told her the truth about Breck versus Atlantis. “What are you talking about? What post-coma accent?” She didn’t know what Leo knew yet, but she did know that Rocco knew the truth. “Seriously?” Don asked as he began walking the way he’d come - as far from the tree as possible, “He's convinced he's Harry Potter or something. And ..this… something happened just now that I… are you you?” Thankfully, Leo couldn't see Elle's expression on the other end of the phone with the comparison of Rocco to Harry Potter. She paused for a couple seconds and hesitated before answering. Lying to one of her siblings to cover up what was really happening should have been easy, but all of these ridiculous happy memories from this life were clouding her normal indifference. "What do you mean, am I me?" She asked. "What happened?" “I --,” Don suddenly felt a very strong annoyance with Elle’s response. He couldn’t quite place where the anger had come from, but the memory now replaying in his head was so real. Once he realized he’d clenched his jaw and fists in frustration for no apparent reason he took a deep breathe and circled back to why he’d called his sister. The sister he adored, and loved, and sought out whenever he needed a sound mind to bounce things off of…. “Do you remember things that aren’t your memories?” he asked instead of answering. “I remember you being dead and coming back to life after nine years and I was pretty angry about it… Why would I be angry about something like that?” They hadn’t gone over this part in the class of ‘Don’t Tell Anyone Else about Atlantis Yet” chat she’d had with the others shortly after Eleanor told her the truth. The plan was to work on figuring out a way to get back; only now, her one of her sisters suspected something wasn’t right, and her brother was flat out asking her about memories from another life. “Maybe a little. I’ve had some kind of strange dreams lately….” Elle trailed off as she thought about how to handle this. Several others had mentioned having strange dreams, so it might be better to play along for now. “But I don’t know. Were you angry that I was dead or that I had come back to life after nine years?” She asked him, actually curious as to how he really felt. “Both...maybe?” He answered and he paused for a beat trying to deconstruct the memory flash. Despite feeling what he felt in the moment Leo and Elle interacted for the first time on Atlantis Don couldn’t remember the precursory details to the event. “What was your weird dream about?” The man changed the subject eager to compare tales. “I think it was something about taking magical classes.” she said, keeping things a little vague for now. “Weird, right? Has Ali-” Elle hesitated at her near mistake.” Have Charlie or Riley been acting strange too?” Don shrugged and shook his head as he made his way from from the hiking trail to the parking lot, “I don’t know…. Wait… do you think it could spread? Whatever this is….?” “Maybe?” She said, actually hoping that it did and she wouldn't have to pretend they were all a big, happy family when her head was full of muddled questions and confusion. “Strange things have been happening for a couple of weeks now. This could be a part of that. It could mean something more and we aren't aware of it yet.” “Hmm,” Don paused at the willingness to believe in the Atlantis delusion that came from Elle's response. It scared and annoyed him at the same time. Why annoyed he didn't know - maybe it was the lingering effect of his feelings towards Elle in that false memory. “I have to go - What are you doing later? This conversation is to be continued… .” He said as he unlocked his 12 year old range rover and climbed in. “Uhh..” What was she doing later? Elle looked around herself that was full of nothing but notes she’d written down from the meeting the “awake” group had last had not long ago. She was trying to see if there was something she could figure out even if she didn’t have her wand with her - or any of her magic at all for that matter. The pause and hesitation lasted too long, so she said the first thing that came to mind, “Cleaning my apartment,” she winced and let her head fall into the palm of her hand at the words. “Great, I’ll bring lunch,” Don informed as he started up his car. “Love you, bye.” He waited for her to respond - as one would a relative you did in fact love. His emotions with Elle were so conflicting in that moment, but in more ways than he knew better - he did love Elle. Truly. At least that made sense, right? “Yeah, you too,” Elle said half automatically. “Bye.” She hung up the phone and frowned. After actively avoiding her siblings and a lot of her friends other than work over the last week or so, she was going to be having lunch with Leo. People were starting to figure things out, right? That’s what they all wanted so that they could get back to normal and back to Atlantis. Elle just wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved that the rest of the Givens-Spinnets would remember they weren’t one big, happy family, nor was she sure how she felt about knowing the truth. |