[debut]

[floozyfacade]

I know it sounds cliché and all, and I swear I don't mean it in some weird Sapphic way - I mean, I love Rhi even now and we've been close, but not, you know, that close - but I'm pretty sure that, when I look up and see her staring back at me, my heart stops. Like, actually stops, and the blood in my veins just goes cold. Not literally, I mean,

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[floozyfacade]

It's only natural if I hesitate. I mean, some strange guy just invited me home with him. Except it's, it's nothing like that. I don't think it's like that. And I mean, I really don't want to be just standing around in the jungle with bugs swarming around me. I don't want to go home with someone I don't know, but the idea of just sitting in the sand right now is just so incredibly pathetic, I can't actually bring myself to say it. Right now, I'm pretty much at Eduardo's mercy and I hate thinking of it like that. I'm just lucky he seems to have plenty of both that and patience.

Olive takes a breath and his hand at the same time, stepping back toward him until she feels his hand graze her shoulder and she stops, still jumpier than she'd like. She's not always like this, she wants to say. She's funny and smart, not some sad little girl who shies away from a helping hand or a damsel in distress in need of someone to lean on, and she wants that to be clear, that she isn't this person, except that, right now, she is and she can't help it. All she can do is look up and make up her mind again to trust him. "How far is nearby?"

[pointzerothree]

Nothing has really changed between this moment and the one preceding it, but Eduardo can't help feeling relieved anyway. At least it's a step in the right direction, and they won't have to keep standing around on the beach. Nodding once, he manages, for her sake, a slight smile, keeping his hand curled around hers as much to keep her steady on her feet as for the reassurance he hopes it provides, to let her know that she isn't on her own. It isn't like this is something he wishes he had when he showed up, or anything like that - he'd been too tense, too wound up, coming out of a shitty day of his own but in an entirely different way - but that he thinks it might help. If nothing else, it can't hurt.

"It's just a minute or two," he says, gesturing with a tilt of his head in its direction, as he drops his other hand quickly back to his side, "right off the beach." He's grateful for the convenient location now for an entirely new reason, still worried about the state of her ankle. "It's not much, but it'll probably beat just sitting here."

[floozyfacade]

Olive nods. "Yeah, I think that'd be preferable," she says. It takes her thinking how much she'd rather not blubber like a baby in public to make her realize she hadn't seen any signs of other people. God, she hopes they aren't stuck here alone. As far as people to get stuck with go, he's probably okay - she doesn't have all that much to go on - but it's not exactly on her to-do list for the week. "I guess just, uh... lead the way."

She still feels a little strange about following some guy home, about holding onto his hand like a lifeline, but there doesn't seem to be much other choice here and she can't do this alone.

[pointzerothree]

It's more than a little weird, a fact of which Eduardo is distinctly aware. The offer feels natural enough, of course, the sort of thing which hardly requires any thought, as does holding onto her hand as he starts slowly in the direction of his hut, but he isn't in the habit of this, and has no misconceptions about the fact that it isn't a typical thing to suggest. He quite literally knows nothing about her, save for her name; that alone would make it odd enough. The way he sees it, though, there just aren't any better options, making him strangely glad that she agreed.

"How's your ankle doing?" he asks, after several moments of silence, not quite sure what he's supposed to say at a time like this. Any information about the island, based on how she reacted before, should wait until they've gone inside, but small talk strikes him as something that would be utterly out of place for any number of reasons.

[floozyfacade]

This is completely unfair. Don't get me wrong, I'm... incredibly grateful Eduardo's helping me out. You know, under the, uh, the worry and the panic and the absurd awareness of the possibility this is all some bizarre trap I can't yet comprehend, there is... there's gratitude. But it's still unfair. Tonight was... well, I won't say it was the night, I don't even know what that would mean, but it was... supposed to be special. A real date with a decent guy, a break from the yelling and the signs and the people who think I have some kind of venereal disease. And Eduardo is... far and away more attractive than Anson, which I probably shouldn't even be noticing in the state I'm in, but he's really close and I, I have twisted ankle, I'm not blind, and so yeah, I'm getting a walk on a gorgeous moonlit night with a hot guy holding my hand, only it's... it's because I need help walking and I'm in a pocket universe, far, far away from my home and my family. And I don't care which one, there aren't any in which that's fair.

Olive bites her lip, hearing the question through her thoughts, and glances down at her leg before she looks up again. "Uh, well," she says, "it's, it hasn't stopped working yet, so I'd say that's a pretty good sign. I'm sure it's fine. I just need to walk it off or something. I wasn't exactly expecting the parking lot to suddenly be sand."

[pointzerothree]

"Yeah, it's... not really the sort of thing you get to see coming," Eduardo agrees thoughtfully, the corners of his mouth lowering somewhat. He's beginning to think it's a running theme in his life, given that he showed up here so soon after having been blindsided in a completely different way, though the situations aren't really comparable except in their timing. (As far as he knows, at least, there was nothing malicious about his being brought here, no elaborate plan that took advantage of his trust. It's got to be pretty fucking pathetic that an improbable magic island is kinder to him than his own best friend.) Either way, it's hard not to think about that now, his own arrival more vivid while he's dealing with someone else's, someone for whom the timing was also terrible. He takes a breath, an attempt to clear his head, then nods, the gesture just slightly more sudden than intended. "That's good, though, that it's not too serious."

[floozyfacade]

"Yeah." Olive nods absently, glancing around them now that they're on the move. This isn't California, not by a long shot, not unless they're in some eccentric millionaire's backyard (not actually impossible, but it's a little bit too the most dangerous game for comfort if that's the case). She can't handle thinking about it and she can't actually stop herself thinking about it. This isn't home at all and she can't begin to imagine a way out of it, though that's in part because she can't figure out where they are, and this seems like the kind of thing she needs to sit down for, not least because of that ankle. "So this happens a lot here."

[pointzerothree]

"I don't know about a lot," Eduardo says, head tilting to the side. "I, I haven't been here all that long, either, but there are... two or three hundred others, something like that? So it's not like it doesn't happen a lot, either." He doesn't know how else to explain it, really, still absolutely certain that he's among the people least qualified for this job. There's the fact that people apparently disappear, too, and others are here for quite literally years, but both subjects right now seem like the kinds of things that would likely be panic-inducing, so he decides to hold off. It's not like there's a time limit on any of this.

[floozyfacade]

"Jesus," breathes Olive, "and that's not a lot?" Maybe it's just having grown up in a small town, but it sounds overwhelming to her. People should be all over this. Police and SWAT teams and the FBI or some crap like that, someone should be investigating if that many people are just disappearing; it should be on the news at least. Alright, so in the grand scheme of billions of people worldwide a couple hundred isn't a big deal, but it still sounds like one. She bites her lip when her heel catches on a crack in the boardwalk, but it's brief and she keeps walking, too stubborn to stop. "Sounds like plenty to me."

[pointzerothree]

"It's a reasonable number of people," Eduardo allows, because it does sound like a lot, if only in the context of an island that's a pocket universe, "but the appearances themselves, I don't know how frequent those are." There's probably information about it somewhere, he realizes; he just hasn't cared to go looking for it, in part because that would probably make this seem a whole lot more permanent. Most of what he's done has just been going through the motions, and he knows it, too hung up on the past to dedicate any real attention to making a future. The options he'd had before, both before and after Facebook and his involvement with it, don't exist here. Starting from square one like that, it's actually kind of daunting. "Just a little bit further."

[floozyfacade]

Olive just wishes he were someone else. As nice as Eduardo is, she has the urge to go running to someone who cares about her, her father or - well, that's a long shot, but Todd would be nice to see right about now - and just rest her head on someone's shoulder and let herself be comforted, and that isn't possible now. All she has is a stranger and the lingering sense of Anson's hands on her. It makes her tighten her grip on Eduardo's hand before she remembers herself. He probably has better things to do tonight than tend to her; she can't help feeling guilty for that. "Interesting location," she says, making an effort at wryness. "A little Tarzan for my tastes."

[pointzerothree]

"Not a lot of variety around here," Eduardo points out with an almost apologetic laugh, gesturing off the path with a tilt of his head and then leading her towards the hut itself. It's still weird to him, living in an honest to God hut, but he decides against saying so; there's no way it could be anything but a whole lot weirder to her. "But I liked being close to the beach. Careful, it's a little more uneven here." He doesn't think much about returning the way her hand tightens around his, figuring it's just in search of reassurance, or something of the sort. Maybe he can't make this better, but he can at least be there.

[floozyfacade]

If she's entirely honest with herself - and Olive often is, to a fault - holding his hand doesn't do much of anything for her ankle at all. There's no logical reason to keep holding on, except to have some kind of tether to someone showing her a bit of kindness. She's needed it more than she realized. Adjusting her hold on her shoulder strap, she watches the ground, picking her way off the path and toward his house (not quite the right word, but it'll do). Something in her stomach twists as they get closer. She trusts him, she does, maybe more than she should, and she's not precisely uncomfortable with this, but she's not entirely sure about it either. The slight pressure of his hold helps some with that.

God, this is not how she expected her night to end.

"I didn't know pocket universes have housing developments, that's... that's very considerate of them."

[pointzerothree]

"There's a whole team of people who build them," Eduardo explains, a hint of something like skepticism in his voice that he can't help. Of all the things about this place, that has to be, to him, the strangest, not to mention the most unappealing, the fact that everyone just volunteers to do things for free. Not only does the lack of economy mean he's pretty much fucked, having spent the last three and a half years working towards a career in something related to that, but it just doesn't make sense, either, seems utterly counterintuitive. He tries not to dwell on it, though, turning his attention more fully to Olive again as they near the door. "So, yeah, it is considerate of them."

[floozyfacade]

Olive shakes her head, not sure how that fits together with the rest of it. She doesn't have the whole picture yet, but she can't begin to make sense of the pieces she does have. As they approach the door, she bites her lip, glancing sideways at him, letting him lead the way here. (She really shouldn't let Anson get to her, let any of them, but she can only imagine the things people would say if they could see her right now. They've never been much for the whole picture, finding out all the facts before they judge.) "We're not anywhere near California," she says, "are we?" It doesn't make any sense at all, but she can't pretend it isn't true either.

[pointzerothree]

Just outside the door, Eduardo pauses, exhaling heavily as he turns to look at her straight on. The question should be a simple one, should have a simple answer, but despite the fact that all it really takes is one word, that word has a hell of a lot more gravity than is fair. With as strange as all of this is, it isn't the sort of thing he thinks would be hard to guess; even so, having to confirm it makes him feel inexplicably guilty, like he should be able to do something more about it. (There's a part of him, too, that's grateful for the fact that she's from somewhere he knows, not some entirely different world or whatever, but that gets buried under everything else.) "No," he answers after a moment's pause, as gently as he can, not yet letting go of her hand. "No, Olive, we're not."