(no subject)

[trulyoracular]

Where the universe is concerned, Olaf doesn't generally question its choices. Bad things happen. Good things happen. Strange things happen, but usually it all fits together in the larger pieces of the puzzle. It's why he doesn't really do so much more than shrug when instead of walking into Mike's bar, he walks into a party in full swing where he doesn't recognize a single guest.

It's not like this is the first time it's happened to Olaf. Generally, him recognizing someone in a crowd full of people is usually a start. Still, he has learned to go with the stranger events in the universe and no one's died as a result of this little left turn, so he grabs the joint he'd tucked away behind his ear and drifts into the throng of people, observing the summer-like nature of the party from the vibrant drinks to the decorations to the clothes everyone's wearing. Really, this could very well still be Auckland for all he knows and whatever he took earlier had been laced stronger than usual, but Olaf's sort of getting the feeling there's more to it than that.

With no shoes and a Hawaiian shirt fit for a king, Olaf feels like he fits right into the breezy, summer theme of the party around him. He might not know how he got here, but Olaf's never turned down a good party. This one holds a great deal of promise.

Comments

[trulyoracular]

If it's the weed that's managed to make him jump across this sort of spatial being, then Olaf has got to commend the dealer in Bali he'd managed to get this crop from. True, there's probably a more god-related reason for all of this, but there isn't any large rush to get back home, what with there only being a giant on the loose and Thor in town and possibly-Frigg -- not that he's going to do anything for it, he's the old folk and the men have gone off to battle.

Olaf is more than happy to stand here and accept drinks where he can. This is the sort of battleground he's accustomed to -- heady, clouded, beyond reproach thinking and a pleasing warmth delivered by whatever's on tap. It's being part of the universe and you've gotta love the universe.

[kuno_ichi]

Was it creepy to talk to a guy because his bald head was comforting? Of course, this guy also happened to be extremely tall by April's standards and what seemed like really pink, so that almost negated the bald thing. (He wasn't really that pink, was he? God, she'd been in the sewer too long.)

"Um, hey," she began with an awkward little wave of her free hand. "So this place. Pretty weird, right?"

[trulyoracular]

Olaf grins buoyantly when he's waved to. He's always appreciated people who observe the decency of a good welcome. "That depends on your definition of weird," he says. "For me, weird is relative. Once, I was so high that I walked out of my mate's house and I woke up in Sydney," he confesses, which hadn't been a bad trip, exactly, but it had been tricky to explain to immigration when they wanted to know how long he'd been away. "Drinks help. Do you need a drink?"

[kuno_ichi]

"I'm sixteen, so probably not," April replied, smiling despite herself. Replace 'drinks' with 'pizza' and he could have been an older, human Mikey.

"I know a guy who lives in a giant glass canister because he was turned into a pile of translucent goo?" she offered, since they were apparently sharing weird stories. That was really just the tip of the crazy mutagen iceberg, but it seemed like an auspicious place to start.

"Where was your mate's house? There's a big difference in that story if you started out in, like, Canada than if you started in Australia."

[kuno_ichi]

April could say that this was the strangest day she'd ever had, and probably nobody here would doubt her. For most people, it would be a completely accurate statement—It wasn't like most people opened the bathroom door and found themselves in surreal luxury hotels surrounded by strangers from other dimensions. So yeah, April could say it was her strangest day, but in truth, if you set the whole dimension-hopping part aside, this was the most normal day she'd had in weeks.

She was at a garden party. With people in sandals and lemonade. Nobody was trying to kill her and there wasn't even any pizza.

…Okay, so maybe it actually was kind of weird, now that she thought about it.

The door that had brought her to this place had promptly disappeared, and the smiling people at the front desk had told her to be patient, so here she was, in jeans shorts and yellow t-shirt, clutching a glass of lemonade as condensation dripped over her fingers. She was trying, to mixed results, to remember how to interact with people who were, well, people, and not green or covered in fur or carrying deadly weapons.

[freezedout]

Time's been fragmented. It could be hours, it could've been minutes, but Isaac's not entirely sure how he got from there to here except that he'd come to Scott's house with bag in hand because he had nowhere else to go and he had no one else. Erica's gone, Derek doesn't want him, and his father is gone. He has no one and the moment Isaac stops to think about it, all he hears is the cacophony of glass shattering next to his head.

His shirt is starting to get itchy and he picks the wet fabric from off his chest, grabbing hold of the nearest person he sees -- at first, he sees red hair and thinks Lydia, but a deep inhalation of the air around her proves it isn't. "Who are you?" he demands, other hand gripping his duffel bag with all his worldly belongings in it.

[kuno_ichi]

Despite being only sixteen, April O'Neil typically thought of herself as being pretty darned mature. She'd had to take care of her dad after they lost Mom, and that really changed a person. Yeah, her PJs had flowers on them, but her walls weren't plastered with pictures of boys like most of the girls she knew, and she spent more time training to be a ninja than on Facebook.

Mature, and disciplined. That was her.

She was not, however, often (or ever) faced with a real human boy who looked like he'd gotten lost on his way from a supermodel photoshoot. Her instinct had been to wench free of the hand on her arm, but as she turned, she faltered. Holy cow, that guy was pretty.

In her head, Master Splinter reminded her of being taken off guard by the enemy. Well, if that included gorgeous guys in wet t-shirts, she guessed she was doomed to fail that lesson.

"Who are you?" she countered, finally wrenching her arm free. "And why are you sniffing me?"

[freezedout]

"You're not Lydia," is what he has to say about the sniffing. He lets go of her about a second too late -- when she's already pulled away from him and now he feels bad; on the heels of what happened with Allison in the janitor's closet, Isaac's running somewhat touchy when it comes to hurting people. "I'm Isaac," he says, running his hand down his wet shirt to try and make it into a smooth movement, like he didn't just have that hand gripping her wrist.

Shit, did he hurt her? He tries to get a better look at her wrist to see whether he grabbed too hard without realizing and he hopes, hopes so hard, that she's okay. "I'm uh, I'm lost."

[legendthatwas]

By this point in her life, despite there being only twenty-four years of it, Martha Jones was somewhat used to what could only be described (in an impolite and occasionally impolitic manner, but so be it) as weird shit.

That said, she had turned the corner out of the third floor locker rooms at UCH after the end of a shift, and ended up in the middle of somewhere a lot nicer and warmer, wearing the 'I have a twelve-hour rotation don't care how I look' street clothes she'd worn to work, and carrying her grubby scrubs because the bin was full.

Martha stared for a moment at the crowd, murmuring faint apologies as someone jostled her a little accidentally trying to get past. Part of it was shock, part of it was trying to work out what could have gotten her here (Angels seemed a good bet), and a very tiny part was wondering what was in the drinks with the little umbrellas on.

Actually, that part was growing by the minute.

[kuno_ichi]

"I know that look," April said as she ducked around a couple of people and stopped in front of the pretty stranger, half-empty drink in hand. Somehow, it was easier approaching someone when they looked as lost as she presently felt.

"I had that look like two hours ago. Did you try to get back yet? The people at the desk told me it works for some people."

Not her, though, of course. Stuck in a sewer for weeks, and now stuck someplace else.

[legendthatwas]

Martha managed to shake herself out of reverie in time to only be slightly startled by the girl speaking to her, though not apparently in enough time for the first thing she noticed to be her drink has one of those umbrellas. It was a rather Doctor-y thing to be doing, actually.

If this was due to Weeping Angels, at least this was less dire than 1968, she decided, at least from the clothes people like this girl were wearing, and the music, and the drinks. (Maybe someone had fun living in 1968; Martha Jones had not.)

"Um, look?" she said, and gathered herself. "Oh. I'm sorry, did you say 'try to get back'?" At the desk? Maybe not the damn angels, then, unless they'd suddenly shifted in dropping people to spin out their lives in cocktail parties instead of the out-of-own-time daily grind.

[trulyoracular]

"This," says Olaf as he extends out a fruity drink that tastes of apples so strongly that Olaf wonders if this is Idunn's domain or her club or whatever early commode she's been in, lately, "is a very fruity drink," he informs the beautiful woman he's found. "And I'm very sorry to say that I need someone to taste it and make sure I'm not mistaken about the level of fruit content," he says knowingly.

[legendthatwas]

It was probably testament to Martha's generally confused state of mind and exhaustion that she didn't immediately tell the guy to bugger off. Instead, she stared at him for a moment or two more, then looked at the drink, which was very, very green in colour, and did sort of smell very brightly (if a drink could smell brightly) of apple.

"All right. Do you have an allergy?" she asked, deciding when in Rome--she'd used to be good at this playing it by ear and living on the wild side thing, hadn't she--and took the drink from him. The sip she took was very tiny (she knew that roofies couldn't really impact her at that small an amount, and maybe she was already hallucinating this?) and startlingly appley.

Martha cleared her throat and handed the drink back, still half-tasting the swallow. "I would say yes, that is quite fruity. If you do have an allergy, I'd say you should probably get something different," she felt compelled to add. Duty of care.

[vikingvamp]

Of all the places that he had lived over the past several centuries, Louisiana seemed to be the convergence of all things unusual and, to use the local vernacular, completely fucked up. While most of that seemed centered upon Bon Temps in particular, it seemed that Baton Rouge, too, had its share of weirdness that had suddenly been thrust upon Eric.

Normally, a vampire such as he that was capable of flight used this power only as an escape mechanism and not to find himself stuck in the middle of a party full of damned humans. Humans, everywhere, and the crowd pressed thick against him and made him thirstier than he'd been in a long time; Eric prided himself on control and that was not something he thought he could hold onto for very long in a group of this many. It was unlike being in Fangtasia, where he could feed as he pleased. This was an unknown venue and considering the current political climate, even consensual feeding might be frowned upon.

Eric skirted to the edge of the crowd, trying to maintain some distance until he could deal with the myriad concerns that cropped up when dealing with humans. Even a vampire such as he, long-lived and powerful, could have a breaking point.

[trulyoracular]

Giants smell of pie and dwarves smell of game, but this man doesn't smell like anything Olaf's ever smelled and he's been around for ninety-three years. It's enough to make him somewhat suspicious and he wanders over to his side, lifting a beer in toast to him. "Skal," he greets, trying to get close enough to understand what he's looking at.

[vikingvamp]

It had been a long time since Eric had been greeted with that exactly and it (almost) startled him. He turned to face the other man and realized quickly that this wasn't exactly a man; most supernatural creatures had a distinctive smell and this was neither human, shifter or wolf.

"Skal," he offered in kind. "What brings you to this...delightful establishment?"

Eric still wasn't entirely aware of where he was and any information gleaned without revealing his own hand would be beneficial.

[middleofsomecalibrations]

There was an alarming crash as a previously charming table covered in saucers, cups, tumblers and two pitchers full of ice cubes and sweet tea, delicate containers of differing shades of granulated sugar each with its own tiny long stemmed spoon, and a carefully arranged floral centerpiece was tipped over and abruptly ceased being covered in any of those things.

Garrus Vakarian had been in the spotlight enough times, for reasons both awkward and dangerous, that there was a sort of reverse-thrill to it; a swift and overwhelming sensation of sinking downward as your spine tried to exit out of your back, that he never got used to or enjoyed.

The fact that he was in heavy grade blue and black armor probably didn't help matters. He'd felt conspicuous enough sneaking around the periphery, trying to figure out what kind of VR nightmare he was clearly trapped in, and how to snap out of it and get back to saving the day with Shepard. The Normandy had a lot of surprising spaces. He knew all of them by heart. An Earth hotel simulation room was not one of them. No simulation this advanced was.

"Sorry," he said, deep, rich but strangely unlayered voice raised along with two strange, short hands with five digits apiece. He'd fallen into a hedge and down a short flight of stairs so far, and he couldn't pick up a damn thing. His body was all wrong, all horribly wrong.

"Sorry. Sorry about that. Okay, Garrus," he continued more quietly to himself, pressing the broad, flat palms of his human hands against the sides of his angular but weirdly squishy human face, "you can wake up any time now."

[kuno_ichi]

"Yeah, that is totally not going to work," April spoke up from where she'd been standing inconspicuously off to the side. In one hand was a sweaty glass of half-drunk lemonade, in the other was a sugar bowl, saved from disaster at the last moment.

"Go ahead, pinch yourself. Get a slap in. No dice, and I should know. I've tried it all and I've only been here like three hours."

[middleofsomecalibrations]

Human female, youngish looking, he thought. Younger than Chawkwas by a lot, younger than Shepard by... an indeterminate amount. It occurred to Garrus that humans aged weirdly, when so much of their life experience was written in their demeanor and eyes more than anything else.

"Is 'pinching' supposed to work?" he asked doubtfully. Fleshy pink-tipped fingers with no talons didn't seem like they were going to accomplish much. Then again, when curled into a single fist, he'd seen human fingers do some impressive damage.

"I think barreling over a table would do the job, if physical stimulus was required. Do you know what this place is?"

[legendthatwas]

By the time the guy with the tattoos crashed into the tea tray table, Martha had managed to ditch the scrubs and even wash her hands thanks to the lovely if very pleasantly vague people at the front desk. She was therefore feeling slightly more herself, in the sense of being less uptight and more willing to adapt (outwith the disconcerting feelings of being here in the first place).

Apparently some people didn't adapt quite as well.

She had just finished a drink, and she was nearby, so she headed over to try to help the bloke up onto his feet. He sure as hell didn't smell drunk, for starters. "Are you all right?" she asked, surveying him for lacerations. "The glass didn't cut you or anything?"

[middleofsomecalibrations]

"No," Garrus said, shaking his head a little and feeling unnerved at how unsupported his neck seemed, "and also, no, but thank you for the concern."

He managed to right himself, although he didn't shake off the assistance as it was offered. He needed it. His legs were all weird.

"You wouldn't happen to know if this is some sort of virtual reality prison, would you?"

[backinaction]

It's not every day that my apartment turns into some kinda party, but if there's one thing life's taught me up to this point, it's to roll with the punches. Only, uh, usually the punches I'm dealing with are actual fists, not fruity drinks in expensive looking bowls.

My first thought is that my ol' pal Mysterio somehow figured out where I lived and decided to throw me a surprise bash, but I haven't gotten so much as a tingle from my spider-sense since I showed up. If there's foul-play involved, I'm deep in the dark. And judging by the variety of baffled looks among some of the party-goers, I'm maybe not alone with my confusion. 'Cause all I know so far is that the door that brought me here? Doesn't want to bring me back.

I'm not dressed for a party. I've got a smelly Spidey suit under a wrinkled shirt and blazer and a pair of ratty jeans, my knapsack full of books slung over my shoulder. It doesn't take me long to decide the frazzled grad student look's less conspicuous than the colorful pajamas, but neither option is really ideal.

After a few minutes of milling around, increasingly tempted by all the food hanging around -- boy, when's the last time I ate? -- I abandon the idea of blending in entirely, and announce to person closest to me, "So... open any strange doors lately?"

[trulyoracular]

Olaf's been sneaking into dark corners to partake in some of the product he'd had on him when he arrived, but when he needs a new drink, he ends up fielding a very obvious, yet amusing question. "Well, there was this one purple door that led to an incredibly frightening ladies' room, but I doubt it's the one you meant," Olaf says, sniffing as he fumbles through his pockets to slide his lighter away. "Which one did you come from?" he asks, of the multiple doors around them.

[backinaction]

The guy reeks, but I hold my tongue on the Say No to Drugs lecture, because that's not going to get me anywhere.

Well, at least for the moment.

"...which one did you come from?" I ask in lieu of giving my own answer.

[borntodo]

It's pretty fancy for a Nazi stronghold, is Bucky's thinking. Pretty English, too. He keeps his ears perked for any tell-tale accents, any slips of the tongue, but so far he's come up with zip, nada, zilch. His pet theory for the moment is that he got knocked out when he slipped inside the base, and all of this -- the food, the luxury, the dames -- are all delicious figments of his starved imagination.

And heck, if he's dreaming, he might as well enjoy himself. Reality'll come crashing in sooner or later, and while he's on guard for trouble, he can't think of a reason not to try the hors d'oeuvres while he still has a chance.