The Universe's Mixer

Sir Guy of Gisborne had gone out for a walk when the snow started. He wasn’t bothered by the cold weather; England often had cold, snowy days in the winter. He had wanted to get some fresh air while he tried to make sense of what had happened to him. This strange City was full of more things that were strange than things he knew. He was getting use to the strange way people dressed here, but the rest left him feeling … lost.

He had been so lost in thought; he didn’t notice how heavy the snowfall was getting. When he started having trouble walking, he decided he should look for shelter. Quickly. Guy had never seen snow fall this heavily before. He was starting to think he was going to be caught without shelter. Not something he wanted to happen.

But God was on Sir Guy’s side this day. He could see something through the snow. It looked like a building. As he slowly moved closer, he could see that it was indeed a small building. Possibly someone’s home. He went up to the cabin and knocked once before he pushed the door open.

“I am in need of shelter from the storm. Is anyone here?” He gripped the hilt of his sword, just in case anyone had some objection to offering him comfort. He glanced around quickly while he waited for a response. This had the look of the hunting lodge of a lesser nobleman. He pulled the door shut behind him and was ready to make himself at home.

(For Dexter, Ace, Dean, Claire, Venkman, Firekeeper, Logan E.)

It'd been fun for a little while. Traipsing through the snow. It became a little more difficult as the snow kept coming; it simply wasn't physically possible for this much snow to drop like that. And, when she noticed the dog fighting to get free of what had to have been a little old lady now turned lump of ice and snow, Fred decided it was time to get inside. Well, only after trying to free the little dog from its frozen mistress, which didn't work out so well, seeing as the damn dog tried to bite her rather than let her help.

Fred didn't want to leave the little yapper out in the snow, now falling in clumps, but she couldn't stay out in it either. No, she started looking for some place that was still open and could take her. Unfortunately, the only place she found that still had its doors open, figuratively speaking, was an old movie house. Actually, Fred didn't mind it; she remembered her mom and dad talking about places like this, and she supposed it could have been a lot worse. She even giggled at the posters hanging up; yeah, it could have been a lot worse.

She didn't seem anyone around quite yet, and supposing that concessions weren't open, she settled down on one of the velvet like couches in the theatre's lobby - sure, it'd seen much better days, dust rising as she sat, but there was something reassuring about a place this old still standing. Plus, the place was a lot warmer than it was outside. She just hoped she wasn't about to be all alone, or maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing. She'd done alone in bad times before...

Anita shook the snow off her hair and coat as she walked in the front door of the City Police Department. She flashed a warm smile at the guard who sat bored at the front desk, untwisting paper clips. Stomping snow off her boots, she meandered her way past the maze of desks to her office.

She didn't notice the sign on the door had changed from "X-Files Department: Federal Marshall Anita Blake" to "Preturnatural Crimes: Federal Marshall Anita Blake and Detective Deborah Morgan". Oops.

What couldn't escape her notice, though, was  the note left on top of her penguin coffee cup. Someone knew how much she needed her morning cup (or three) of black coffee. She read it and looked around, noticing that the desk that had been there when she arrived for Fox had been replaced in the corner of the room. There was a coat rack now too. She hung her dripping black parka over it, ignoring the puddle of melting snow that formed on the floor. Her scarf and hat quickly followed.

"New partner? Well, hopefully she's not as prejudiced as Dolph was, there are a hell of a lot of monsters here that are on the side of right and quite a number of humans who are really monsters. At least I don't have to worry about some macho asshole trying to help the little lady. I'll help him right to being a soprano, dammit."

Anita hit the button on the coffee machine and waiting for the smell of hot caffeine to fill the office, She wrapped her hands around her mug after filling it and stood at the window, watching the snow fall. And fall. And keep falling until the cars on the street all skidded to the sides and stopped.

"Shit."

The snow was really quite lovely, it was also nearly the only thing that reminded her of home. Everything here was so strange, carriages that ran themselves without benefit of horses, people who dressed in so little as to be parading around in their underclothes and yet it was not remarked on. Women of grown age with hair as short as a man's.
It was simply not at all what she was used to but this, the falling white, it was like home. At least at first it had been. It just kept falling. Marian had taken to the street when she had trouble opening her door, she walked down the road, soon having to trudge through banks of snow up to her shin. Everywhere looked as blanketed in white as everywhere else and soon enough she could not tell from which direction she had come.
All these buildings looked so similar, with the temperature dropping and no end to the snowfall she had no choice but to seek refuge somewhere. By the time she fought her way up the steps to the nearest door the snow had piled knee deep. She had to shovel it away with her hands just to get to the door properly, leaving quite the trail behind her in the mounds of white.
Marian swung the door open calling out to the interior. "Hello? Please forgive the intrusion, but ...I simply must come in from the cold. I will not misuse your hospitality for long." Marian stamped the snow off her shoes and shook it from her heavy woolen cloak. She stepped deeper into the home and was delighted to find a blanket draped over a chair. Used to harsh winters Marian wrapped herself up and curled up in the chair, eyes peering out the window, yet more of that expensive clear glass that seemed everywhere. Beyond the pane the snow continued to fall.

For late afternoon, the City was remarkably bright.

Must have to do with the snow. The goddamn snow made Lestat think of France. And wolves. And things he did not want to be thinking about. It made his mood more volatile than normal. And instead of walking around happily in the fading daylight, this made the vampire cling more to the shadows, like characters in the penny dreadful horror novels he'd come to despise so much.

Behind purple glasses, violet eyes narrowed. The zombie fiasco had been fun to watch, but really, the City was wearing on Lestat. He wasn't sure he didn't like his sojourn in Hell better. He'd lost an eye, sure, but he'd come out swinging. And hadn't losing the eye meant all sorts of visits and attention from his kind? The ones he really cared about, at least.

Sigh.

Strings of thoughts filtered in and out of the vampire's mind as he walked down the street and into a music shop. It was darker in there; he could stop this hiding nonsense.

When thoughts of mountain lion's blood wafted toward him from the classical music section, Lestat smiled slowly, a large smile. A predatory smile.

The owner of those thoughts had bronze colored hair and seemed very intent on the music he was searching through. Lestat found him, arched a brow, and tilted his head, looking at the CDs in front of him with his hands behind his back.

"Do you play?" he asked, nodding with his chin toward the disc the lion-eater's hand rested on.

Piano music.

(For Laura)



Snow sucked.

Well, not all the time. Sometimes, it could make the roads a lot of fun, slick enough to whip donuts in parking lots. And occasionally in the middle of intersections. That was always exciting. Harley was a good driver, even in snow. It wasn’t like Gotham didn’t get some snow now and then. Freezing rain too, which was both more irritating and more challenging. But snow? Snow was easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Except when it kept falling and falling and falling until there was no way that Harley could manage to keep the stolen Caddy going through the drifts. Even with the weight of the car and the fantastic, powerful eight cylinder engine, it just wasn’t quite enough to plow through. The rear-wheel drive didn’t help once she’d gotten stuck either. Great for playing, not so great for getting out of the snow bank.

Harley had spent a bit of time venting her frustration on the dash of the car which now sported a few fist-shaped indentations. Then she’d given in to the inevitable fact that she was going to have walk. But it had only taken five minutes of wading through the snow to come to the conclusion that she’d made a mistake. The car was stuck, but it was warm, and wherever the hell she was, there was nothing here. Nothing. She turned around to go back to the stuck Cadilac, but somehow got turned around or something, because after ten minutes, she was still trudging through the ever-falling snow.

( Which was when she decided that snow sucked. )

After making sure Ianto was safely set in front of one of several heaters Gwen decided to go to work on a huge pot of coffee and something warm to eat, so soup sounded perfect (and goof proof). She mused to herself while chopping carrots,"The weather is just like Wales, only with more snow" having picked up a ton of supplies in case things did get worse weather wise (from coffee and supplies for soup to takeaway menus and supplies for some typical hub meals). As she worked she watched the space that leads to Jack's living space, part of her wanting to see the reaction to Ianto being with them once more. But part of her was reeling, right about then she would have heard Owen smarting off for some random reason and Tosh's keyboard clicking away a mile a minute. So as she shoved back her tears she went back to soup making. "Now all we need is that bag of noodles, chicken noodle soup and this weather just work together" she mused to herself.

She set her phone close by in case her note at the station brought in possible sources.

(For Bella, Veronica, Dick, Bruce B, Lee, Edward and Simon)


Making the snowman had been extremely fun, and Jeannie was very pleased to have met a new friend. She genuinely liked people, and the truth was, she was more than a little lonely. While she enjoyed meeting all the people that she had since coming to this place, not one of them had really stayed. There was no one that she saw regularly. While she liked her new master, it was not at all the same as having a human master who was always there. To talk to. To serve. To love.

But when the snow became too bad, it was no longer quite as fun. It became too difficult to hold a conversation. So reluctantly, Jeannie made her good-byes and watched as Liz disappeared into the growing storm.

For a bit, Jeannie wandered through the chilled and changed landscape. Here and there, she ran into people that needed a bit of help dealing with the ever-deepening snow. All of them received aid in some fashion or other. ( Except for the last man. )

(for 21, 24, Elizabeth, Connor and Deb)


Shepherd Book was coming to deeply regret his decision to leave the church. It had seemed, at the time, to be the best course of action. Only course of action really, since there wasn’t much to be done inside the building to give him any clue as to his whereabouts. Nothing to be learned by staying in one place in any case.

When he’d set out on this exploratory walk, it hadn’t been what a body would call a pleasant day, weather-wise, but it had been passable. How quickly that had changed. The snow came quick and heavy, and Book decided to head back to the church. ( Answers could wait for another day. )

Zoe was ready to shoot someone; anyone would have done, but a certain doctor type would have been pleasant. The Amazon wasn't always of a violent mindset, yet the City was testing her limits. How could it keep her away from those she loved? How could she question how she felt? And how could it snow so gorram much? Sure, they'd seen some crazy weather when the terraforming didn't work properly, but this was ridiculous.

She knew she couldn't fight through the snow for long, especially when she lost track of where she was going and ran into a postal box three times. She was rather certain it was the same one because on the second run in, she'd scored the side with her knife. So what if it was illegal, she needed some sort of marker; it was the only distinction she could see among the blobs of white crystals. On the third time, she stamped her way to the nearest door, or what looked like a door. It was angled oddly, but she supposed if it was to an underground area, it was better than nothing. Maybe there'd be supplies.

She shook off the snow as she walked down the steps and had to shiver at the bleak concrete. There were a few supplies, but none of them filled her with shiny happy thoughts. No, they made her think of some poor store room forgotten by a family, who was busy running from the bombardment. It made her think of the war. The cold didn't help, but she'd survive. Climbing back up the steps, she reached for the door to close out the snow and maybe some of the chill. She didn't want to close anyone out, but she couldn't leave the door open forever.

Ted was not happy about this at all. Not happy one bit. He was in a morgue. The door to the morgue was locked. All the rest of the power in the place had gone off, the morgue staying connected only because it was on it's own power grid. Probably because of the bodies, Ted thought. You had to make sure those bodies stayed cold, or things could go wrong. Evidence lost. Not to mention the smell.

He'd come in here to try to find a working phone. The door had closed and locked itself behind him. He assumed it was some kind of safety measure. Ted didn't know enough about morgues to say for sure, though.

He looked around the room and sighed.

This was probably better than being outside. Charlie would be trying to find a good thing about this, so Ted was going to try too. He'd try really hard. He didn't think that it was really going to work. But he was going to try.

"So." He said, leaning against one of the cold counters.

Aeon Flux sat slumped--and dead-- in a bench at the bus station.

During the zombie siege, the bus station had been fairly safe. No buses were running, no one was there... it was a good place for a last stand. And the last stand after that... and the one after that...

Aeon had died at the hands of the horde more than six times.

When she woke up, she was going to be pissed.

Now, though, the morning commuters were filtering past, and Aeon came back to herself, sitting ramrod straight on the bench, eyes widening.

She rolled her eyes.

"...yay," she said.