The Universe's Mixer

Xanadu fell asleep on Ted's bed and lay there for nearly a day. It felt safe and warm and she was loathe to leave it. She'd tried to feel her way toward a washroom but exhausted, tired and still hurt the blind seer refrained. The wounded slyph chose her steps carefully out of the bedroom and using the bannister as a guide, slowly took the steps down into the main entry way.

"Hello, Ted?"

Not unlike a hangover, Xanadu's head pounded from dehydration. She felt ill wanted to attempt drinking and perhaps eating something. The seer did not feel hungry, but she had stopped feeling the desire for food a week into her torture. She must have looked like a wreck. Her hair was matted in some places and she was still covered in green and purple bruises, slow to heal, dried blood and other cuts and marks decorating her body like a voodoo doll.

She couldn't wait to step into a shower, wear fresh clothes and feel normal again. The fate of the shop was far from the soothsayer's mind. For now she was safe. The doppelganger would be dealt with later and by someone else.

Charlie wasn't exactly angry, but he wasn't happy either. There had been a woman with a large gun who had jumped off a building with said gun. He should have shot her; he should have taken her down before she could have gotten away, but he didn't want to hurt anyone. He only wanted to hurt certain someones, and now that crazy woman was on his hurt list. He supposed she might have had a good reason for carrying such a weapon around with her; he didn't think so.

As he walked into the office he shared with Jennifer Government, he stopped and stared. The fish. The fish was not his fish; not the fish he remembered, but he supposed it was his fish as it was on his desk. What had happened to his fish that was no longer his fish, or was it still his fish even if it wasn't in the bowl on his desk? Then again, could this really be his fish just because it was on his desk? Maybe it was Jennifer's fish, and his fish was no longer around, but still his fish. Could his fish be gone and still be the fish on his desk? The questions went on and on as he stood in the door way. Finally he just shrugged and got an apple and a bottle of water from the fridge.

He settled with the books that were beside the fish. They were all written by the same person, and once he peeked inside, he realized they were all about the same person. They were the books that Jennifer had promised to get him. Hannibal Lecter was probably an interesting read, or would have been had he not been a cop who'd spent a "few" years in prison.

The detective's mind shifted from the fish and books and cannibal to the woman he'd kissed. His brows furrowed as he thought of her. She had tasted like pomegranate. He didn't know why, but she had. He bit into the apple and smiled. Well, that certainly tasted like an apple, a very good apple. Apples were good. Now who had that woman been? Why had she been so close to the crime scene? And why had he kissed her like that? It had almost felt as if he were kissing his wife; not that he thought she was his wife, but it was that strange rush of love. He'd kissed other women since he'd gotten out of prison, but there was nothing like kissing his wife. Okay, his ex-wife, but she'd always in some way be his wife.

Taking another bite of apple, Charlie shifted in his seat; it was a nice seat, cushy, better than what he'd had before in the precinct. Yet, it was missing something. Reese. It was missing Reese. Ted was here, but Tidwell and Reese were not. He chewed thoughtfully on the apple bite, yet Government could be Reese. No, Government couldn't be Reese, only Reese could be Reese, unless she wasn't Reese.

He sat up and looked at the folded piece of paper that was on the stack of mail. He didn't remember getting mail at work before. With a shrug, he pulled out a pen and nudged the paper open. Charlie lifted the apple to his lips for another bite, but stopped. Anthrax and diphtheria - probably a hoax, look at the letters, but... Where was Government? They had more than one job to do. Thinking back on the woman with the gun, he was going to need a bigger gun.

"Happy Thoughts!" Betty had said, taking a picture with her new Polaroid before brushing her hand along the back of the man whose picture she's taken and watched him walk off to his doom. It never made her sad, never really concerned her much, the deaths of those whose souls she'd taken. It was meant to be horrific, so so she figured given that the man was haphazardly walking through traffic when she met him. Something painful that his carelessness would have gotten him into.

In fact, Betty had thought he was going to be hit by a car. Except as she watched him further, he moved into an alley and his soul appeared beside her. She never saw what happened and frankly, didn't care to. She just knew that she had done her deed and now she was going to have to wait until the man got his closure before she escorted him away.

But the bugger kept asking her questions. Such as did she hear what was going on in that alley and why shouldn't they try to call the cops to stop whatever it was? Then, when Betty stopped at a street vendor for a hot dog, the man tried to place an order and all she was left saying was, "they can't see you, Sweetie. You're dead." It was spoken very matter-of-factly, with little room for argument.

"But.. how?"

"In that alley, I'd assume. Probably not pretty."

Harley had, since beginning her new life after meeting the Joker, lived by the motto of “drive it like you stole it.” Which was not hard to accomplish since, most often, the vehicle she was in actually was stolen. However the blonde sidekick had expanded the scope of that motto and pretty much applied it to anything with wheels. Including the bright red Radio Flyer wagon with the odd baby buggy hood she’d attached (causing it to look a bit like a Conestoga crossing the prairie) that she was currently pulling down the street at breakneck speeds.

( Not so coincidentally, it too was stolen. )

The den under the bridge in the park had been temporarily abandoned. It wasn't that Firekeeper couldn't stand cold weather--she was quite used to it, in fact, and had survived much more frigid winters than this one--but she was near somewhere that was warm with plentiful food and she decided to take the opportunity to be comfortable.

Was trying to take it, in any case. There weren't many places that allowed wolves as big as small ponies.

She gathered up her injured dignity after the third deli owner saw the pair out (both for Blind Seer's presence and for Firekeeper's shoeless state) and stopped looking in the brightly lit restaurants. Blind Seer advised her against threatening the people who told her in no uncertain terms that they didn't allow vagrants with dogs inside their stores, and she had to reluctantly agree. There was no Derian here to translate the bigger picture for her, no Elise to diplomatically smooth raised hackles.

Food was less of a problem than shelter, though at first both she and Blind Seer were reluctant to scavenge like vultures. Eventually Blind Seer's stomach got the best of him and with a silent shrug and a wolf proverb about not overlooking what was right in front of them he made himself a meal of still-warm hamburgers from behind a fast-food place. "Not entirely meat," he told her, sniffing delicately at it, "but enough for a full belly tonight." Firekeeper had held out for only a little longer before joining suit. That was the first night that somebody had handed Firekeeper a dollar on the street. She started to ask why, but whoever handed her the scrap of greenish, smelly paper didn't seem too inclined to interact with her and hurried on their way. So she shrugged and pocketed it and accepted it as just another new, strange custom that these new, strange two-legs kept.

So today, a week later, she sat on the stoop of an apartment building just down the street from a cafe, enjoying the sounds of somebody's guitar as Blind Seer slept, her feet tucked under his belly fur to keep warm. It wasn't a castle, but neither was it starving in the middle of a mountain forest. Life was good.

He had a job.

He was going to help a girl with her money. Something that he could do very easily. Something that didn't really take much effort for him to do. Something that he actually enjoyed doing, and gave him a sense of stability, even in this very very strange place.

There was still no place to live, though, and no real answers about anything that was going on. All he knew for sure was that it was all really odd and things moved. Ted didn't really understand that part, the whys of it, or the hows. It didn't really fit into anything logical, or any sort of physics that he was aware of. Really, it was just a completely absurd notion altogether.

But he'd been wandering around for hours, and sure enough, it happened. He really couldn't deny it happening, either. He saw it with his own eyes. He'd traipsed down a single street several times and it had changed. The stores on it had changed, it had curved, it had even completely changed directions at one point, which had really confused the hell out of him.

Ted wished that he'd not left the hotel. He would never find it again. He was glad that he'd taken his meager bag with his meager belongings. He needed something that was strictly his to make him feel better. So while the orange jumpsuit was technically the property of Los Angeles, it was something that he knew was real.

He stopped to have a sip of the small coffee in his hand. Stopping, of course, because he didn't want to ruin the only set of clothing that he had in this place. Out of habit, he looked around. Then stopped. Across the road from him was

"That's my house." He felt his vision tunnel a little bit from the confusion. He felt like clarifying to the world. "Well, not my house. Charlie owns it. That's Charlie's house. That's..."

The smoothie had been just what the doctor ordered. A good cup of coffee would have done wonders too, but the banana-berry mix was good. So, the detective and the agent trudged through the snow to the Hospital.

Crews didn't seem to notice that the streets might be changing as they walked, probably because this was one of his first trips through the City. He didn't ask if they'd be there anytime soon; he just let his partner guide him along. They'd get there when they got there, and when they got there would be the right time for their arrival.

What Crew did notice were the festive decorations. Christmas had already come and gone for him, and he wasn't sure how he'd gotten back to Christmas, unless this really wasn't Christmas but instead some other winter holiday. It certainly looked a little Christmasy. His brows furrowed a little; his lips turned to a slight frown as he tried to remember what exactly he'd gotten Ted for the holidays. What had he gotten Reese? He hoped whatever he'd gotten they'd liked it.

"So, Dr. Lecter and Dr. Tam. Lecter sounds familiar. Are we playing good cop, bad cop? Crazy cop, good cop. Bad cop, bad cop?" There were a few more variations, but it was always good to have a decided style. Maybe. "This would have been easier if I could find my car. You think my car's here somewhere?"

The actual meaning of life is in one of 10,000 books you're locked in a room with. You have time enough to check every single one, but you can't. You can only open 10 books total.

Note: All the books have normal titles. None gives a clue as to if it holds the secret

Crews stared at the empty space of his desk. It looked like the one he'd had before, but he hadn't been in an office. In fact, he didn't like being in an office. He liked how open the other space had been, but now he was locked away with only a window to look through. The detective swiveled back and forth in his chair as he stared at the blankness. The blankness of the desk was nice, very nice. This could be a nice distraction.

Someone was working on the door, adding his name to it. He didnt' know he had a partner here, but he supposed this one would be okay. Her name seemed appropriate for the job - Jennifer Government. He wondered if she knew she was getting a partner; maybe, she didn't. That would be an interesting surprise: Welcome back from the undead - here's your crazy partner. Crews smiled at that thought.

He pulled a drawer open and set out a few fruits: a mango, a pomegranate, and a kiwi. Only one seemed appropriate for the snow that was falling, but he supposed somewhere the other two would fit. Now what he needed was a knife, and a bowl. A knife and a bowl seemed just right. Of course, someone to share the fruit with was always welcome.

Didi sat across from The City, her knees propped up against a table edge. Her toes tapped unnoticed inside her boots. Her head started rocking just lightly side to side. It wasn't actually quiet. Death could hear the hum of a fan, the tick of a clock and the static of white noise from a hidden camera lens. She looked back at The City and sighed, her smile sympathetic.

"You're mourning and that's okay. But they're not coming back. Keeping me here isn't going to change that."

Death slid back in her chair and stood up suddenly. If she was concerned about retaliation, she didn't appear to show it. Her boots clicked against the floor and she walked around the table until she stood behind The City. Her hand brushed through its hair and she slowly leaned forward and kissed the top of its head. The City disappeared from the police interrogation room. Death was left locked in. She glanced up at the two way mirror and waved.

"Do I get a phone call? Or is that only if I'm in jail?"

( Read more... )

Crews stood for a moment outside the station, his brow furrowing as he looked around. The street didn't look the same; perhaps he had missed something, but he didn't think so. He turned to look at the building, and it had changed. The world changed, and he would change with it. He would flow. He was a part of it all, and that thought alone brought a small smile to his lips. With a shrug, he pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed Reese, only to get a message stating that the number was not in service.

"Hmm."

The detective put the phone away and started walking; there wasn't much else to do at the moment. Plus, there was a fruit vendor on the corner. While apples weren't anything new, he found it a reliable choice. Of course, there was the star fruit beside it, but an apple was easier to handle. So, with the purchase of three apples - two in pockets and one in hand - he started off, letting himself be taken along with the crowd. He even gave one passing woman, heavy with child as they say, a smile and a genial nod.

"Ma'am."

Eventually Crews came to a stop; he looked up, to one side then the other, then down. Thinking, yes, he was thinking. Finally the sign caught his eye, or more he gave into the curiosity and read the sign.

"Hmm. To know the future. Is it fair to know the future? Wouldn't that take the surprise out of living? What if you saw the future and you didn't like it? Could you change it before it happens, or is it one of those things that no matter what you do, the future happens?" He glanced at the homeless man beside him. The homeless man stared back. Crews needed Reese; at least, she would react in some way. With a shrug, he pulled one the apples out of his pocket and handed it over to the homeless man.

"I'm going in." ( And he did. )