[log] double meetup bonanza [closed]

[mrcreamsicles]

Characters: Davesprite, Karkat, and the Cat, plus Steph and then Ecks and Castiel
Location: Building 263, then building 254.
Date: Day 246, midday then evening.
Summary: A bird, a crab, and a cat play courier to a super hero and a quilt person. Also, an angel is there.
Warnings: Discussion of/allusion to anomaly murders.

263: A small office building. It's the sort that looks like it should attach to some larger facility, but whatever it might have connected to is long gone. It's two stories: the first contains a small lobby area, a waiting room, and an area for secretaries. Going upstairs reveals a small honeycomb of eerily empty cubicles. There are desks and chairs in each one, but nothing on any desk or placed on any of the cubicle walls. There's one small one-person office in the back that's similarly empty, and two public bathrooms that work, though the water runs cold. On the wall by the desk in the one-person office, a drawing that says "I love you, Daddy!" has been adhered with cat stickers. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO. IF YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL @LELRIC." has been written on a wall.

254: This skyscraper is half-ruined: the top of it has clearly collapsed. Still, it's large enough to work as a landmark, what's left seems stable enough, and the doors still work. Going inside reveals a fairly standard-looking lobby. The marble floors were probably pretty once, but are now dusty and cracked. Any signage indicating what this building was for is long-gone, and instead graffiti speaking of the prophet and eye symbols dot the walls.

The elevator shaft and the door to the stairs both open, but there's no elevator car, so it's best to take the stairs. Most of the doors here are ruined, crushed by rubble and debris and impassable, though there wouldn't be anything of use in crushed floors anyway. The top floor, however, is intact, and stepping in reveals what was probably once a floor for offices, though now everything is empty. There is a symbol of the prophet drawn in red paint on the floor by the door, and then a line that can be followed in one of three directions. Each one leads to one of the three skybridges in this building.

Comments

[spoileralert]

Maybe they realized we were actually reading the stuff and wanted to entertain us?

[mrcreamsicles]

If you want to call it that.

[The sea monster lawyer one does sound hilariously terrible.]

One of them is basically the story of my life, gay porn edition, though, so Karkat's going to help me burn it later.

[spoileralert]

Yeah, that's a pretty common theme of that place. I mean, it's a common theme of everything around here for whatever reason, but porn house in particular.

[ See: Clown and doctor porn. ]

[mrcreamsicles]

There's the other one I found the first time I went there with a bird person in it. Got it slated for the same fate. But if you want to know the weirdest one, it's definitely the fake Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic I found down at the library.

[spoileralert]

The what with the who now?

[mrcreamsicles]

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. It was my webcomic.

[He opens up his backpack again, and after a moment drags out a comic book, which he holds out for her to peruse if she likes. It's titled differently, but about the adventures of a young man named Jeff and his sweet brother. It's terribly drawn, horribly written, and printed incompetently. Panels are stretched from bad resolutions or into wrong aspect ratios to fit the pages. Errors have effected the colors. One page is in black and white, marked over with glaring SAMPLE watermarks. There are typos, and other pages are out of order, missing, or transposed to the wrong part of the book.]

They copied the techniques but missed the spirit behind them. This thing is soulless, Steph. Nothing but weak ass plagiarism, and Eve didn't have the guts to tell me what's up with it when I asked her.

[spoileralert]

Huh.

[ This is kind of an assault on her eyes, Davesprite. ]

You know, Eve probably doesn't know about it. She's pretty clueless about the finer details of this place.

[mrcreamsicles]

Yeah, see, she could have said so? But I got nothing. I got answers about another thing I asked, but not that.

[He huffs.]

[spoileralert]

Yeah... she does that a lot. At least when I asked about metals she told me she didn't know.

[ Anyway... ]

If you want we can burn those books right now, though. I've got matches.

[mrcreamsicles]

Metals?

[He glances over. But for now, he'll take his comic back, return it to the backpack, and swap out the one novel he's been hauling around since quite early in his stay. It's an erotic romance novel about a bird person and a cat person.]

Let's do it. Karkat's got the other one but it can wait. He's got his own thing for starting fires.

[Matches? A lighter? He forgets which, but it doesn't matter.]

[spoileralert]

[ Lucky for him, she keeps the most important tools in her utility belt. She doesn't have to dig around in her backpack, just pull the matchbox from its pocket at her hip.

She strikes the match before taking the book and sitting crosslegged on the floor. She holds the book by the spine and puts the pages over the flame, lighting as much of them as she can before the match burns down to her fingers. Then she drops the match on the floor, and sets the book upright on top of it. That way the inner pages have more air to burn, and they have a little porn pyre. ]

Are there like, magic words for this kind of thing? "Amen" seems wrong.

[mrcreamsicles]

[As Steph settles down, Davesprite follows, slipping off the desk to sit a space away from her and the fire-to-be. He'd rather not get his feathers singed. He can't resist holding his hands up closer once the fire gets going more properly, though. It's fucking cold in this town.]

[He considers a moment, then intones:]

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we burn this book to prevent jizz crust.

[spoileralert]

[ If it didn't physically hurt she'd have kept holding the match. It's nice to be warm-ish for a change.

She chokes laughing. ]

Oh my god, that's perfect. So perfect.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Davesprite flashes a grin.]

I aim to please.

[He holds up a closed fist. Give him a bump, Steph.]

[spoileralert]

[ She grins back and gives him a fistbump of solidarity. ]

Sooooo, in other news, how's things? [ Come on now Steph shift the subject real smooth like... ]

How're you and Karkat doing?

[mrcreamsicles]

[Hell yes, fistbump. He looks pleased. His hands return to hovering over the fire thereafter.]

[They also give a telling flinch at the question, if she's looking. He sniffs, casually, and keeps his tone even.]

We're cool. He's good for arguing about dumb stuff and having someone to chatter at.

[Not that it stops him from mumbling to himself. He likes the sound of his own voice, okay.]

[spoileralert]

[ Steph's eyebrows go up. ]

You don't sound very cool.

[mrcreamsicles]

What, is his dork quotient just that high that it cancels out my claim?

[He knows that's not what she means, but dodging is the point.]

[spoileralert]

[ She snorts. ]

Nah, but yours is.

[mrcreamsicles]

[He puts on a mock-pouting look for her.]

Harsh. Totally uncalled for. You know how hard it is for anybody to look cool in snowbo chic?

[The the tiara-sunhat combo on his head is ironic as it can be, but he still looks like he ran through a thrift store and wore whatever got caught on him.]

[spoileralert]

[ Dude it's not ironic, it's just sad. ]

It's even harder for someone to look cool when they're avoiding a subject like the plague.

[mrcreamsicles]

[Don't hate.]

I've got no idea what you're talking about.

[spoileralert]

Really, now you're gonna lie to me?

[mrcreamsicles]

[He had been looking down at what's left at the book. Now he lifts his gaze back to her.]

You want to spit out what you're getting at? Because the way I figure, it's personal.

[spoileralert]

It's obvious something is going on with you and Karkat. And I happen to like both of you jerks, so I'm sticking my nose in. It's what I do.