Comparing Notes. Literal Notes, Even. [CLOSED]

[professorwolf]

Who: Randolph/Randall Lyall and Fenn Forester/Fai D Flourite
Where: A local mall
When: Just after sunset

As being out in the sun is uncomfortable, after a few rounds of text messages with Fenn Forester, as the young man introduced himself, a time for just after sunset is set for their little get-together to compare notes, and a comfortably public place of the nearest mall to the school. Lyall spends the interim poking at a few other network posts, half-heartedly grading some papers and pointedly not writing that damn number down again, and pacing around his darkened home, where all the windows are shut and blinds drawn.

He's a little early for the meeting, more out of a kind of frustrated anxiety, but he has a hat on and long sleeves despite the generally comfortable temperature out. His hands in his pockets and his laptop slung in its case over his shoulder, spectacles on and the hat shading his eyes, he does indeed look very much a high school teacher. One with a halfway decent fashion sense, but still. A high school teacher.

The hat and the laptop are what he's told Fenn to look for. That, and standing under the tree just outside the mall, anyway.

Comments

[comparative_insanity]

Fay follows Lyall's gaze, and manages to catch a glimpse of the thing before it dives for the plant. And inexplicably bounces to his feet and over to the plant - some kind of ratty evergreen that doubles as the lost graveyard for cigarette butts. He follows the rustling with his eye and then plunges his hand in after it. He might not have heightened reflexes just yet, but never underestimate the speed and grace of a man who knows at least ten ways of hanging upside down from a pole.

His hand closes around something soft, and very carefully he extracts it once more, rearranging his fingers so that he's holding on to a large tuft of that hair. He turns and is about to return to Lyall when it happens again. A momentary feeling of being so very empty, and the world reverberating with a thudding heartbeat, and he... remembers. Strange things, confusing things. He looks a bit pale as he returns with the little fuzzball and holds it out to Lyall for inspection. "Here."

[professorwolf]

Lyall still has his hand over his nose, eyes looking just a little wild and confused. While nothing strange showed up in his head, suddenly it's like his nose decided to wake up from a very long sleep. It feels like he somehow never had a sense of smell before, and suddenly now he does. He hasn't the faintest idea how to cope.

Having only one free hand, and assuming that not enough to hold onto the little thing, he merely leans in and looks while the tiny creature struggles. "What is it? I've never smelled-- I mean-- seen-- anything like it."

[comparative_insanity]

He gives Lyall a perplexed look, leaning a bit closer too, but he can't think of any reason why the other man is acting so strange. "They... really don't smell like anything to me." He tries to gently get a grasp of its proportions through all the hair. "It... doesn't seem to be an insect. I can feel limbs, but they're not at all... I've got no idea what it is." But he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. His mind is insisting that while he doesn't know what exactly it is, he knows what kind of a thing he's encountered.

"I- You remember how I said I learned to make fondants without actually learning? I've suddenly got all of these memories of- of creatures from other worlds, and creatures that can travel between worlds." He gives Lyall a helpless look. "I know it sounds crazy, but it all turned up when I touched it."

[professorwolf]

"No crazier than my nose suddenly deciding everything smells," Lyall wheezes back, still trying to sort out everything he's being bombared with. He only halfway registers what Fay says, in part probably because it makes so little sense. Nothing is making sense, anymore, it seems like. "Or crazier than little tiny balls of black fluff that smell like-- like-- acidic cleaner!"

Also, it might be a bad idea to feel at the little thing, as it winds up fastening teeth on the end of a finger, hard.

[comparative_insanity]

Fay yelped in horror and pulls back his hand hurriedly, at least having the presence of mind not to immediately stick his finger in his mouth straight after. Thankfully he still had a grip on the thing's fur and not on its body, or it would have met a very squished fate. As it was, he gave Lyall a worried look, afraid he was going to be sick. Then he slowly and carefully tried to push back the hair on the little thing instead, adding more and more to his pinched fingers until some kind of silhouette and a pair of big white eyes can be seen.

"It... ohmygod, it looks almost like a little doll, you know? Like- like a lego figure or- or like a fairy?" His mind is showing him a reel of different strange creatures, but none seem to match. "I remember all kinds of strange things now, you have no idea, but nothing like this. Except-" Except a vague memory of something he'd heard from... from someone about miniature people living at the bottom of a lake, but honestly that sounds so crazy that he doesn't really want to mention it. "-no, nothing."

[professorwolf]

"Are you all right?" Lyall is less concerned with what name to call the thing-- it's obviously no family he's remotely aware of, which means it must be something new and potentially problematic-- than he is with whether the thing might be poisonous. "We should get a jar or a can to put it in before it does that again...."

It's still struggling and spinning around from its fur, and really almost too small to hold onto the was Fay is. If they don't get a jar shortly its likely to pull free.

[comparative_insanity]

"Yeah, I think so. Stung like a bitch there for a while, but it don't feel very poisonous to me. Ain't nothing like that rattler bite I got when I was ten, at least." He shrugged, trying to get a better grip at the wriggling little thing. He had pretty thin and agile fingers, but holding the thing without killing it is tricky. "Yeah, that's probably smart. Got any idea? 'Cause otherwise I'm just gonna stick it in my bag and pull the zipper until we can come up with something."

[professorwolf]

"My laptop bag I suppose might do, but it's so small, a jar would really be safer...." He looks about, but none of the shops just inside the mall doors here are the kind that might have airtight jars, or even canned food they could empty out. The overwhelming nose issue isn't offering much in the way of helpful leads, either.

"We maybe to make do with what we have, then. Give me a moment." He fishes into his laptop bag, emerging with a ziplock plastic bag containing a few vitamins and some tylenol. "Maybe this will hold it."


((should we pretty much assume the thing either winds up accidentally squished or escaping before they can really look at it? >.> safer might be escaping, cuz otherwise they'll probably have done the microscope thing by now... XD ))

[comparative_insanity]

"Oh, yes, that looks like a good idea!" Somehow, he manages to manhandle the little thing into the bag, squeezing it shut before the little thing can escape. "And now... how are you feeling? Maybe we should be getting you to a hospital or something?"

((Well, since the thing will turn into steam the moment it's killed, and since it's so small and frail, it's probably safe to say that it gets killed and disappears before it can be examined. Might even choke to death in the bag for all we know.))

[professorwolf]

((oh right o.o sometimes my memory is not the best ^^' squashed is for the best then!))


"And tell them my sense of smell expanded to the Nth degree?" Lyall asks dryly, eying the little bag and its malevolent contents with misgivings. "I imagine they would send me to psychiatry, not take me seriously. Are you going to go tell someone about your sudden memory of magical creatures?"

He rather doubts it.

"No," he sighs. "Whatever is happening, I do not believe a doctor will have much to say or do for us."

[comparative_insanity]

"We~ell, I didn't say magical-" And then he cuts himself short and groans. "Oh my god, I just remembered riding a dragon and fighting monsters and-" And being swallowed by a creature smaller than a rabbit. Noooo, not saying that either. "I think I'm the one who needs psychiatry." He shakes his head, watching the small thing climbing the insides of the bag. "Our best bet is probably just to share what we know with everyone else and try to make sense of this together."

[professorwolf]

"Ah, you are more trusting than I am, I think," Lyall answers with a little smile. "I'm not sure how much I trust that network. It just seems so-- so-- convenient. We know nothing of where it comes from or why exists, why we of all people were connected to it, or who or what might be watching it." He doesn't mention not necessarily trusting the other people pulled into this, half thinking it self-evident and half not wanting to offend the odd young man in front of him. While he thinks Fay seems well-meaning enough, he simply doesn't know many of the others, and some of those he does know he has no interest in seeing involved in anything dangerous, anyway.

"I do think we need more information," he adds hasily. "I'm just not sure whether that network is necessarily the place to find it...."

[comparative_insanity]

"Well, look, it's more like this..." He sighs, spreading his hands, because truth to be told he really isn't the most trusting nature. He's suspicious of just about everything they have encountered, but... "We've got something that can plant that number in our heads, that can connect our doodles or class notes or whatever to some kind of network, that's probably messing with your sense of smell and putting memories in my head..."

He makes a small, helpless noise as he shrugs. "With or without the network, seems to me like whoever's behind it are gonna be able to watch us just fine. I mean, how do we know we're not right now? That sounds paranoid as shit, but think about it. The network's just about the only useful we've got out of this so far. We might as well use it."

The silly thing about Fay is that he genuinely believes he's dumb as dirt, but he's kind of wrong about that.

[professorwolf]

The look Lyall gives him is both sour and amused at the same time. "All right, all right, you have a point," he admits. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it, and if it's all the same to you, I would prefer to contact you using an old-fashioned telephone in the future? I won't actively avoid sharing over the network, but call me an old man if you want to, I am not very fond of change."

He's not that old. Mid-thirties, and all. But than, Fay looks like he's practically underage, and Lyall is used to teenagers who do think he's old. Mostly, though, he's just poking fun at himself.

[comparative_insanity]

He laughs and shakes his head, giving Lyall's shoulder a light bump with his hand. "I ain't saying there's nothing wrong with keeping it old-school when we can, if that feels better to you. Just making sure we ain't up and looking a gift horse in the mouth, you know?" He shrugs easily with a small, teasing grin. "And I know there ain't nobody older than your teacher when you're still going to school, but that was kind of a while ago for me, so don't sweat it."

[professorwolf]

"It doesn't look like it was that long ago," Lyall said with a little shake of his head and a smile. "But I'll take your word for it. I guess we've done some of testing, and-- and I really think I might go crazy if I don't find somewhere with fewer smells...."

Preferably somewhere not outside. Or like his house, with all the windows firmly shut. God, this was going to take forever to get used to. Maybe he should just go to bed and hope it was gone in the morning. "We'll keep in touch, though?"

[comparative_insanity]

"Oh, excuse you. I'm twenty-three, so that would make it seven years since I dropped out." He grins, though, and doesn't seem very upset. Apparently some people at the club still give his boss grief because they think he's got an under-age dancer, so what the heck, he can deal.

"And yes, I think that would be a good idea. You should go and rest that nose." Preferably close to someone whose coat doesn't smell rather a lot like weed. "And I'll contact you if something else comes up, okay?"

[professorwolf]

Probably a good idea. Though at the moment he's too overwhelmed to recognize the scent in question, but too much longer and he might. "I'll do the same."

Lyall smiles a bit and offers a hand to Fay. "At least this has been educational." And he's gotten out of his usual social circle for a little. That's beneficial, too.