[closed]

[stillshrill]

Who: Amell persuaderoll and Anders stillshrill
When: December 24, after those minor echoes ...
Where: Daylen's apartment of mysteriously appearing mage robes
What: Anders still thinks this is all an extremely elaborate prank courtesy of Improv Everywhere. Daylen thinks he's been drugged, possibly by Improv Everywhere. No one should trip alone.
Warnings: Bad language probably, I don't know



Anders arrives toting a brick-red messenger bag that bulges oddly here and there. The first thing he does, upon being admitted to Daylen's House of Chic Minimalist Furnishings and Bourgeois Accessories (subject to renaming should Anders find reason to change his opinion thereof), is to produce a couple of face masks, the sort a person might wear to avoid inhaling sawdust or other unsavory particulates during a fit of DIY home repair.

"If I could jury-rig one to stay on Dark's nose," he says -- apologetically -- "I'd have brought it. Better safe than sorry, don't you think?"

Comments

[persuaderoll]

Dark has seen those fingers moving and is interested. What is the human doing? Why are they not opening the cracker box for him? Is that not what fingers are for?

"I remember you saying it," Daylen repeats a little more slowly. "In your Gilbert and Sullivan pirate outfit. Someone -- a woman, very short, with tattoos on her face -- was asking you to set a bush on fire. You wouldn't, said to her Why don't I just do a little dance? Anders' Spicy Shimmy?"

[stillshrill]

The fingers halt mid-kick and trail to Anders' side, their dance forgotten. "You say that like it's a trademark. It was just a turn of phrase," and Anders didn't even think about saying it, any more than all the other half-assed puns and flights of metaphorical fancy he tosses around to season his speech. He's never been one to think deeply before he speaks. Now he feels oddly as though Daylen is accusing him of something, he can't put his finger on what. Accusing him of snarking at a short tattooed lady, he supposes.

He sits up slowly. Afraid to move too quickly, lest he dizzy himself. Puts a hand to his head. "Tell me," he says, "why this woman with the face tattoos wanted me to set a bush on fire."

[persuaderoll]

"I'm not sure," he says -- because all he remembers is the conversation. An abstract thing on its own. "To see if you could, perhaps, for fun. At least, that is what you seemed to think. That it was just for her own amusement."

Magic isn't for your amusement! Anders says in his head, and he finds himself circling the phrase warily like it might bite. Magic?

He thinks he might need a drink, only that might make it worse if they are drugged. What if this is a sign it's getting worse?

[stillshrill]

"I don't --"

Think that ever happened. Only before he can say it, that horrible feeling creeps over him again, smothers him like a blanket over a bell, and he is a hollow thing shaken by reverberations from an unseen blow.

"Fuck," he mutters, and folds up like a knife, springs to his feet. "We need to get out of here. Open all the windows first. Bring the dog."

[persuaderoll]

Open all the windows? It isn't good to leave your windows open! What if someone breaks in?!

Daylen clambers to his feet slowly, one hand reaching down to loop fingers through Dark's collar.

"You think someone in the apartment is doing this." It's a statement rather than a question, there doesn't seem any other reason for Anders to want to leave so quickly. "Where would we go?"

[stillshrill]

Someone, or something; probably not in the apartment, but perhaps nearby; perhaps with access to the ventilation system. The details are unknowable and therefore do not matter near as much as getting out of here. Anders has already donned his coat and shouldered his messenger bag. "Where? Anywhere public. Just for a couple of hours, until your place airs out. Leave the harness on the dog, we'll say he is a service animal in training so he can come with us. Or, hell, we can just sit in the car. My car or yours? Better be yours, someone's been into mine already, to leave that earring."

[persuaderoll]

Daylen watches the flurry of activity with a slight frown, exchanging an uncertain glance with Dark.

Dark is less uncertain. Andes is putting on his coat! Does that mean they are going out? Dark is excited! They are going out!

Daylen sighs and lets go of Dark, lets him bound circles around Anders for a moment as he grabs his own coat.

"I don't even know where will be open," he protests -- mostly because he can. "It is Christmas Eve, you know."

Christmas Eve which he has spent the first half of worrying he was drugged and now possibly the second half of hiding in his car from people or drugs or both. He picks up Dark's leash and glances back, catches the Labrador to clip it on to the harness. What wonderful holiday memories this will make. He resolves to definitely not tell his mother about this if she rings.

[stillshrill]

Anders thinks a moment. "Denny's. Denny's is always open. And no one could expect either of us there." Daylen because surely he wouldn't touch such low-class cuisine in such a low-class ambiance. Anders because who knows where that food comes from, the place probably serves Smithfield ham from battery farms marred with huge manure lagoons.

[persuaderoll]

To his credit Daylen demonstrates incredible self control in this moment. He barely hesitates in his movements, doesn't let his expression change at all to reflect his internal reaction.

His internal reaction of Denny's? Well as long as I don't have to eat anything...

Dark bounces between them excitedly, because a walk! They're going for a walk! Daylen just looks up and flickers a faint smile. He's going to be spending Christmas Eve in Denny's with Anders of all people. His mother would have fits if she knew.

"Denny's it is, then," he says -- and swipes up his keys and wallet.

[stillshrill]

"Don't get too excited, puppyface," Anders admonishes the gleeful dog. "I'd sooner feed you Purina than the stuff they call food where we're going. Full of toxins, who knows where it's sourced."

But better there than here. Anders has never suffered a bizarre hallucination about tattooed dwarves while in a Denny's, which is more than he can say for Daylen's apartment now.

He insists on opening the windows and turning on all the fans to maximum force before they leave, even the vent hood above the stove. Apparently Daylen's building is too chic for ceiling fans to be a thing. "Unless you don't plan on coming home tonight, you'll really want this whole place to air out, I should think."

[persuaderoll]

Dark doesn't know what Purina or toxins are. Dark, therefore, continues to be excited. Things are happening! They are going out!

Daylen, on the other hand, simply arches an eyebrow as all his windows are opened and fans turned on. He opens the door when Anders is finally done, tilts his head at him cynically.

"Now, now, Anders. First date rules, of course I'm coming back. By midnight, too, or we'll cause a scandal."

[stillshrill]

Anders huffs a silent chuckle-snort of a laugh. "Right, or you'll turn into a pumpkin and your dog will be in rags. Come along then, Cinderella, before we start hallucinating singing mice."

[persuaderoll]

"Cinderella didn't go to Denny's, as far as I know."

He pulls the door behind them with a click, flashes Anders a faint smile before glancing back to turn the bottom lock. Dark dances in place by Daylen's feet and surges away from the door as they make their way down the hall.

[stillshrill]

He's only ridden in Daylen Amell's car once before, and as before, he feels as though he ought to disapprove of it on general principle. Two families of migrant workers could live for a year off the sum that car must've cost. Perhaps Anders' unease will be obvious -- or perhaps it can be chalked up to the discomfort of more crazy Ren Faire memories descending.

"That woman," Anders says, once they're ensconced in the objectionable vehicle, dog and all. "The one with the tattooed face. Do you recall her name?"

Because I do. Now. Though I've never seen her before in my life, surely.

[persuaderoll]

Dark is lounging peaceably on the back seat on a rug, alternating glancing out the passenger window and ahead. Daylen is just glad he's grown past the period where he used to like to pace the back seat -- for one it had made it hard to see out the back window, but on top of that he'd been worried if he had to stop suddenly Dark might be thrown across the car.

Looking away from the rear view mirror (where he'd been watching Dark as they sat at the traffic lights, making sure he wasn't up to something) he glances sideways at Anders and frowns at the question. The tattooed woman (and doesn't that sound mysterious, like a character that should be in some sort of mystery book rather than a peculiar memory) and her conversation were still clear when he pulled them up. Distance from his accommodation hadn't seemed to dim anything yet.

"Yes," he says quietly, fingers shifting on the steering wheel as he waits for the lights to change. "Sigrun."