By that knock, call it a flip and a flop with a side of the Viennese Waltz thrown in for good measure. Ba-dump whump kssshh!
Okay. He squares his shoulders, smooths any and all wrinkles out of his suit, real and imaginary, and... No, he can't rush to the door as if he was just waiting for it. There's a too fine line between excitement and desperation, and he isn't sure he wants to give off too much of either right now. He takes a deep breath, and throws one last look around his 'quarters' to make sure they're at least as tidy as they normally are, and opens the door for his friend. Date. Fellow flamboyant Franklin fan. Friend.
And then he actually stops worrying about terms and looks at his friend. Wearing that suit, Jack could call himself anythig at all. Be still, Lorne's heart.
The resulting smile on his lips is both relieved and absolutely thrilled, but all he can think of to say is "Hi."
...right. That kind of tie with those kind of eyes should be deemed illegal. Right this instant. "I mean, wow." D'oh! "I mean--!" he grins, a tad sheepishly.
"Like you need me to tell ya you're a looker. Hi, Jack."
"Hi, Lorne," Jack greeted. -- Wow? He glanced down for a coy moment, almost threatening a blush, before flashing his charming green friend a broad grin. "Flattery will get you everywhere, you know." It was quite possible that Jack's voice existed in a perpetual state of innuendo undertone, that he didn't possess the ability not to flirt horribly at every possible opportunity.
"Thank you," he asserted once he'd finished being flirtatious (not possible). "You're looking quite dashing yourself. Love the suit. Brings out the color of your eyes." Well, it did. Not only that, but Jack was generally impressed with Lorne's ability to color coordinate with green skin. (Of course, he thought logically, Lorne might have been equally impressed with his own ability to color coordinate with not-green skin.)
Lorne would certainly hope that it's not so much a perpetual state, as it's already enough to do funny little things to his insides. He leans against the doorjamb, not really knowing where to look, only barely taming the widening, shit-eating grin. It's his turn to flush with warmth, one hand going up to furtively, yes, most sneakily cover his cheek to hide the blush.
'Great going there, Mister ninja demon. Just shove it into your pocket instead.'
"I don't know about you," he murmurs, stepping to the side to close his door. "But I prefer good, old-fashioned compliments to flattery any day. They feel so much nicer in the general tummy area, don't they, not to mention my heart's doin' the cha cha, you charmer!"
He gives his friend - yes, let's settle for friend - a pointed look and a distinctly impish smile. Is that his elbow he's offering?
Aw, was that a blush? Perhaps contrary to his original intention, Lorne's sneaky ninja demon moves had only brought that much more attention to the response.
Jack, for the record, looked inordinately pleased at being called a charmer and hardly attempted to restrain his grin. He stepped back into the hall to give Lorne space to close up shop, hands finding the bottom of his pockets as if they might be prone to mischief if otherwise unoccupied. "Well, I do try," was his roguish answer to the charming accusation. "But you set a pretty good pace, you know." They were quite well-matched as far as flirtatious habits went, it seemed.
Oho, if Lorne wanted a Captain on his arm, he certainly got one! Jack had absolutely no qualms with that sort of thing and, in fact, swayed a little closer to his green companion upon taking up the offer. "Yes, let's."
Which, hmm, probably meant they were headed for the designated pinpoint site on the school grounds.
That thing they say about hindsight. So true. Too true, in fact. How many times has he blushed like a little boy since he got to the Institute, now? Twice, both thanks to the Captain on his arm.
He smiles, setting a languid, strolling pace for the two of them. Saturday nights, hardly anyone is ever around wandering the halls, but given the amount of people living there, chances are someone might see them. But from where Lorne's standing, they might as well. It's not like it's a crime, walking down the hall with someone's hand on your arm - though the sudden thought strikes that there might be regulations about, what's the term, 'extracurricular activities' among the staff. Ahem.
"You'll have to forgive me if I seem eager, dimples," he comments, glancing at Jack as they approach the main entrance.
"Like I'm sure you've surmised, I've never really been part of the dating scene, technically speaking." Smirk. "You think humans circa the 20th century are complicated? Try the demonic population of LA. My idea of a fun night does not involve human sacrifices, or summoning demonic overlords from a different dimension, thank you very much."
He smiles, averting his eyes. "This is all very new to me."
There could have been regulations concerning the sort of thing, but Jack was nothing if not a smooth talker. Why, how in the world could having a casual stroll with his good friend Lorne be misconstrued into the wicked innuendo of a category called 'extracurricular activities'? They were certainly doing nothing out of the realm of normal, amicable social behavior as far as his own culture was concerned, so the most serious offense committed if charged with breaking regulation would be, hmm, failure to observe proper social norms for the current century of operation. (Of course, there was very little that wasn't considered acceptable displays of amicable social behavior by the fifty-first century, so it was a neat little loop hole for all manner of...everything.)
Dimples. Jack gave Lorne's arm an encouraging little squeeze, finding himself perhaps too stomach-flippingly amused by the casual way a pet name slipped into play. It was just a nice rarity. To be honest, a lot of people took the rank preceeding his name as a sign of authority -- all right, it was -- and drank that in entirely. It was nice in its own way, of course, but he also enjoyed the flipside of things that didn't involve someone being too struck by a title to be, well, playful.
"Amazingly enough, my list of interests is also surprisingly lax in the areas of human sacrifice and demonic overlord summoning." His tone was a reassuring one, the joke meant to dull what must have been a nervous edge, and he smiled softly. "There's nothing to forgive, Lorne. I understand completely."
If nothing else, the paintings will keep the rumor mill going for days to come, or so Lorne figures. He smiles at a few of them, even lifts his hand in a casual wave to a few he finds particularly delightful. Mostly, they're quiet, like the little girl skipping from painting to painting watching the pair stealthily from behind shrubs and furniture and trees.
The Institute is a place of wonder, in more ways than one. Reassured by Jack's kind words, Lorne covers Jack's hand with his own, looking him in the eyes. "See, this is why you're such a smash hit with the boys and the girls and the in-betweens."
Strolling through the main entrance would be so much nicer if he didn't have to remove his hand to actually, you know, open it, but that's life when you don't have handy Open Sesame spells up your sleeve. Pushing it open, he tilts his head closer to Jack's.
"You have that way of making people feel at ease around you. It's quite a trait. Or maybe even a skill. And it's working."
Jack had a soft spot for the paintings at the Institute, mostly because he couldn't get over the fact that, hee, they were more animate than one came to expect from oil and canvas. He had an Alice in Wonderland series in his classroom and somehow never grew tired of the non-sense talking White Knight or grinning Cheshire cat.
Boys and girls and in-betweens? He couldn't stifle a laugh at that assessment, not so much because it was particularly keen on the truthiness (hey, he'd admit he was popular with all sorts), but more due to the fact that he'd never quite heard life forms not conforming to binary sex/gender designations described in such a delightfully cultural way. "Nah, it's nothing special. Just comes from being the laid back sort," he demured. Laid back might have even been an understatement, there wasn't much that Jack didn't find acceptable or lacked the capacity to empathize with.
Once outside, he allowed Lorne to set their pace towards the designated pinpoint location for the school. "Hopefully I can keep it up, at any rate," Jack confided with a grin. "I'd hate for culture shock to be the most memorable part of our evening." Because, well, the fifty-first century did that to people. Mostly it was the unanticipated mix of aliens and humans the future had to offer, but for Lorne Jack suspected it would be the complete, no-questions-asked acceptance.
Sentient paintings...what a concept. It'd liven up any old joint, but somehow, the very idea of having them in such a place makes Lorne feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. That certain kind of anticipation, the kind you can almost taste in the air, just enough to make you dizzy. He can't help but wonder, making his way to their first destination - not too fast, not too slow - that maybe it's not the paintings that make him feel such exhilaration.
"You shouldn't have to keep up being laid back, not on my account." Lorne chuckles in response, Jack's laughter striking a chord of a sort within him. "I'll have a wonderful time," he says with silent confidence.
"You just be yourself. I'm not high maintenance, all evidence to the contrary."
"Oh, trust me, it's not that difficult to keep the laid back status quo," he joked. High maintenance? Jack grinned, giving Lorne a little nudge as if to playfully say oh hush.
Once they arrived at the area designated for proper pinpoint use, Jack leaned a little closer to reach the gadgetry on his wristband, apparently preferring getting up close and personal in pursuit of his integrated pinpoint device rather to the release of Lorne's arm. What? It was comfortable. "So...New Paris? You'll have to forgive my century, we're terribly partial to those new names. We've even got a New New York. Well, technically it's the second one, which makes it New New New York, but who's counting?" Obviously someone was!
At the affirmative from Lorne concerning departure, the Captain would activate the pinpoint and its preprogrammed coordinates, transporting them both in that oh so specially scientific way he could've explained but didn't really want to get a migraine over so he tried not to think about. In any event, they arrived rather inconspicuously in what was labeled (in French, English, and about a dozen alien languages) as a Louvre Arrival Station, amidst illuminated teleportation platforms the use of which conveniently masked their arrival by ulterior means, and the whole place was a bustle of evening tourist activity. Even from the inside it was obvious the museum was quite different from its twenty-first century predecessor, constructed of glass and chrome in an almost alarmingly futuristic way and toured by all manner of life the universe had to boast. While the pair of them might have been extraordinarily out of place anywhere during an earlier time period in the same geographic location on Earth, they were remarkably generic several thousand years in the future of Jack's universe.
"And here we are. What do you think?" He was paying particularly close attention to Lorne's reaction to their sudden change in surrounding. Though he'd never actually gotten an opportunity to visit the reconstructed Louvre before, he could imagine quite easily how it was without so much as a cursory glance around. (In fact, he'd bet good money there was a tentacled non-human life form milling around somewhere.)
When treated to such a natural display of intimacy, Lorne couldn't possibly respond with rejection. And if he tilts his head just a little closer, breathes in just a little bit deeper, no one could possibly hold it against him. Who in the world could resist, with such a beau on his arm. Noveau Paris... Such a nice ring to it.
Inter-dimensional travel is one thing. It takes you by your proverbial cojones and just hurls you through space like you're the key ingredient in a martini, shaken and stirred. Inter-dimensional travel doesn't make sense. Maybe it's perfectly logical for a simile used in an attempt to describe it not to make sense either. Whatsoever.
For Lorne, vertigo always strikes, and no amount of technobabble would take that away, and even if it could, he isn't sure he'd want it to. It takes his breath away and makes him want to hold onto something because he'll swear he's going to pieces every single time-- And then it's gone.
His eyes blink as he looks about himself in momentary alarm. There's so many people. Someone will bump into him and scream bloody murder, any second now, he's absolutely certain of it. Only...no one does. No one so much as stares at him. The air rushes from his lungs in a series of almost-grins and almost-chuckles and slowly, the apprehension eases into the delight of a kid in a candy store.
"Why LA?" He asks, softly, silently so as not to draw attention to himself. Delight has never made him feel so alone. "Why LA and 1996?"
Teleportion, whether interdimensionally or not, was a staple of future life that had ceased to phase Jack years ago, rendering him a more than adequately solid something to hold onto in cases of post-travel vertigo. It was a service he provided relatively free of charge, with a concerned knit of his brow and bated breath.
The Captain watched the disorienting effects of interdimensional travel fade, to be replaced by mild panic, then give way to apprehension and delight in a specific order. Lorne was certainly one of the most emotive people he'd had the good fortune to befriend. By the time he seemed fully recovered from the 'tiny' trip and new location, Jack was smiling warmly. "Like the Bard said, though it be madness there's a method to it. Even twentieth century LA." It was a softly spoken jest; really, he meant no offense to the great, smoggy city of Los Angeles or Lorne's attachment to it, just that there was a reason for everything a person chose to do.
Jack slid his hand down Lorne's arm, seeking out the green guy's hand to grasp. "C'mon," he urged with a tilt of his head. "Let's go have a look at the enigmatic Mona."
(Though he'd have to pick up the fifty-first century equivalent to a map at the directory in the middle of the arrival station, 'cause...damned if Jack knew where anything in the Louvre was.)
"Madness?" The look he gives Jack is incredulous at best, his tone of voice just a little bit tense. But then he nods, staring at their hands. He can feel his heart speeding up, and his fingers curl around his friend's. His arm burns where Jack touched him through the sleeve. "I guess you could call it that," he murmurs. Tonight is not for discussing dull and dreary subjects.
They're holding hands...as if it's the most natural thing in the whole wide world, and he just did not see it coming. On a good day, he quite enjoys surprises, and today, Lorne decides, is one of the very best of days.
He gladly follows Jack wherever he leads, unable to take his eyes off the myriad of different species wandering about in similar fashion. All the smiles, all the love...the Noveau Louvre is practically pulsating with good spirits. To someone like Lorne, that kind of thing is infectious. It doesn't take him long to start grinning, and he has a feeling he won't stop for hours, maybe even days. It's exhilarating.
"I gotta tell you, though, I feel like Dorothy skipping right over that rainbow into the wonderful Land of Oz. This is amazing. It's...I don't even know how to describe it, and coming from me that's sayin' something all right. I'd ask you to pinch me if I didn't think you'd make something of it."
"Sure. Cute green guy like yourself in LA during the twentieth century? Kind of like me in twenty-first century Cardiff. I don't think our chosen times or places were built to cope we the likes of us. And if that's not crazy, I don't know what is. You'd think they'd know better." The reply was built for truth as much as it was built to smooth over the tension in Lorne's voice and the entire dreary subject altogether.
Where Jack led was, after some liberal and exaggerated inspection of the map (a holographic projection in three dimensions from a piece of plastic 'paper' containing an array of micro-circuitry), the wing of the museum indicated as containing Masterpieces of the Second Millennium, CE and from there, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and other Renaissance artists. Though it was several thousand years since the masters had painted, their works weren't quite so worse for wear as one might have thought. Humanity really had dedicated a lot of time and care to the preservation of their greatest artwork.
At the reference to The Wizard of Oz, Jack might have hummed a few bars of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but how could he help himself? Talk about one of the best movies of the twentieth century (not to mention probably one of the few he'd actually bothered to see, in a historical context or otherwise). Jack grinned, a reaction thoroughly mismatched with his disbelieving tone. "Who, me? Make something of a pinch? ...I see you've got my number already, Lorne."
"You mean you got to choose?" Lorne grins, shaking his head wryly. "Some people get all the luck." His tone of voice might suggest sarcasm, but his eyes remain warm and friendly, maybe even mischievous.
Of course, that all changes when his focus shifts to the elaborate holographic map. It even warrants a low whistle before they're on their way.
Now all they need to figure out is, if Lorne's Dorothy, then where does that leave Jack?
He grins, taking everything in like a starving man at a banquet, and though the paintings give him all sorts of positive vibes and jolts, what gets to him the most is walking down the expansive halls, holding hands. And Jack thinks he's cute.
"Thank you, dimples. I mean it." He smiles, virtually brimming with gratitude. "From the bottom of my ass."
"Well...after a fashion," Jack explained, the seriousness of the actual topic not shaking the grin curving his lips. "It came down to staying put and being miserable or doing a horribly drastic thing to maybe fix something that'd been broken. And, hell, I'm just not one to sit around." So, he'd gone and done one of those impulsive sort of things that'd landed him in the early twentieth century. How he had managed to live through the better half of a century with only seeing The Wizard of Oz and a few other films was very questionable.
Well, Jack had no qualms with being a cute little lap dog...
From the bottom of his...? Jack stared hard at the display containing some of Da Vinci's drawings, noting that the Vitruvian Man had pretty sexy hip divots, while trying to sort that all out in his head. After a moment, he glanced sideways at Lorne and arched a questioning eyebrow. "I don't know much about the bottom of your ass, cutie, but I'm all ears."
Okay. He squares his shoulders, smooths any and all wrinkles out of his suit, real and imaginary, and... No, he can't rush to the door as if he was just waiting for it. There's a too fine line between excitement and desperation, and he isn't sure he wants to give off too much of either right now. He takes a deep breath, and throws one last look around his 'quarters' to make sure they're at least as tidy as they normally are, and opens the door for his friend. Date. Fellow flamboyant Franklin fan. Friend.
And then he actually stops worrying about terms and looks at his friend. Wearing that suit, Jack could call himself anythig at all. Be still, Lorne's heart.
The resulting smile on his lips is both relieved and absolutely thrilled, but all he can think of to say is "Hi."
...right. That kind of tie with those kind of eyes should be deemed illegal. Right this instant. "I mean, wow." D'oh! "I mean--!" he grins, a tad sheepishly.
"Like you need me to tell ya you're a looker. Hi, Jack."
Reply
"Thank you," he asserted once he'd finished being flirtatious (not possible). "You're looking quite dashing yourself. Love the suit. Brings out the color of your eyes." Well, it did. Not only that, but Jack was generally impressed with Lorne's ability to color coordinate with green skin. (Of course, he thought logically, Lorne might have been equally impressed with his own ability to color coordinate with not-green skin.)
Reply
'Great going there, Mister ninja demon. Just shove it into your pocket instead.'
"I don't know about you," he murmurs, stepping to the side to close his door. "But I prefer good, old-fashioned compliments to flattery any day. They feel so much nicer in the general tummy area, don't they, not to mention my heart's doin' the cha cha, you charmer!"
He gives his friend - yes, let's settle for friend - a pointed look and a distinctly impish smile. Is that his elbow he's offering?
Yes, yes it is. "Shall we?"
Reply
Jack, for the record, looked inordinately pleased at being called a charmer and hardly attempted to restrain his grin. He stepped back into the hall to give Lorne space to close up shop, hands finding the bottom of his pockets as if they might be prone to mischief if otherwise unoccupied. "Well, I do try," was his roguish answer to the charming accusation. "But you set a pretty good pace, you know." They were quite well-matched as far as flirtatious habits went, it seemed.
Oho, if Lorne wanted a Captain on his arm, he certainly got one! Jack had absolutely no qualms with that sort of thing and, in fact, swayed a little closer to his green companion upon taking up the offer. "Yes, let's."
Which, hmm, probably meant they were headed for the designated pinpoint site on the school grounds.
Reply
He smiles, setting a languid, strolling pace for the two of them. Saturday nights, hardly anyone is ever around wandering the halls, but given the amount of people living there, chances are someone might see them. But from where Lorne's standing, they might as well. It's not like it's a crime, walking down the hall with someone's hand on your arm - though the sudden thought strikes that there might be regulations about, what's the term, 'extracurricular activities' among the staff. Ahem.
"You'll have to forgive me if I seem eager, dimples," he comments, glancing at Jack as they approach the main entrance.
"Like I'm sure you've surmised, I've never really been part of the dating scene, technically speaking." Smirk. "You think humans circa the 20th century are complicated? Try the demonic population of LA. My idea of a fun night does not involve human sacrifices, or summoning demonic overlords from a different dimension, thank you very much."
He smiles, averting his eyes. "This is all very new to me."
Reply
Dimples. Jack gave Lorne's arm an encouraging little squeeze, finding himself perhaps too stomach-flippingly amused by the casual way a pet name slipped into play. It was just a nice rarity. To be honest, a lot of people took the rank preceeding his name as a sign of authority -- all right, it was -- and drank that in entirely. It was nice in its own way, of course, but he also enjoyed the flipside of things that didn't involve someone being too struck by a title to be, well, playful.
"Amazingly enough, my list of interests is also surprisingly lax in the areas of human sacrifice and demonic overlord summoning." His tone was a reassuring one, the joke meant to dull what must have been a nervous edge, and he smiled softly. "There's nothing to forgive, Lorne. I understand completely."
Reply
The Institute is a place of wonder, in more ways than one. Reassured by Jack's kind words, Lorne covers Jack's hand with his own, looking him in the eyes. "See, this is why you're such a smash hit with the boys and the girls and the in-betweens."
Strolling through the main entrance would be so much nicer if he didn't have to remove his hand to actually, you know, open it, but that's life when you don't have handy Open Sesame spells up your sleeve. Pushing it open, he tilts his head closer to Jack's.
"You have that way of making people feel at ease around you. It's quite a trait. Or maybe even a skill. And it's working."
Reply
Boys and girls and in-betweens? He couldn't stifle a laugh at that assessment, not so much because it was particularly keen on the truthiness (hey, he'd admit he was popular with all sorts), but more due to the fact that he'd never quite heard life forms not conforming to binary sex/gender designations described in such a delightfully cultural way. "Nah, it's nothing special. Just comes from being the laid back sort," he demured. Laid back might have even been an understatement, there wasn't much that Jack didn't find acceptable or lacked the capacity to empathize with.
Once outside, he allowed Lorne to set their pace towards the designated pinpoint location for the school. "Hopefully I can keep it up, at any rate," Jack confided with a grin. "I'd hate for culture shock to be the most memorable part of our evening." Because, well, the fifty-first century did that to people. Mostly it was the unanticipated mix of aliens and humans the future had to offer, but for Lorne Jack suspected it would be the complete, no-questions-asked acceptance.
Reply
"You shouldn't have to keep up being laid back, not on my account." Lorne chuckles in response, Jack's laughter striking a chord of a sort within him. "I'll have a wonderful time," he says with silent confidence.
"You just be yourself. I'm not high maintenance, all evidence to the contrary."
Reply
Once they arrived at the area designated for proper pinpoint use, Jack leaned a little closer to reach the gadgetry on his wristband, apparently preferring getting up close and personal in pursuit of his integrated pinpoint device rather to the release of Lorne's arm. What? It was comfortable. "So...New Paris? You'll have to forgive my century, we're terribly partial to those new names. We've even got a New New York. Well, technically it's the second one, which makes it New New New York, but who's counting?" Obviously someone was!
At the affirmative from Lorne concerning departure, the Captain would activate the pinpoint and its preprogrammed coordinates, transporting them both in that oh so specially scientific way he could've explained but didn't really want to get a migraine over so he tried not to think about. In any event, they arrived rather inconspicuously in what was labeled (in French, English, and about a dozen alien languages) as a Louvre Arrival Station, amidst illuminated teleportation platforms the use of which conveniently masked their arrival by ulterior means, and the whole place was a bustle of evening tourist activity. Even from the inside it was obvious the museum was quite different from its twenty-first century predecessor, constructed of glass and chrome in an almost alarmingly futuristic way and toured by all manner of life the universe had to boast. While the pair of them might have been extraordinarily out of place anywhere during an earlier time period in the same geographic location on Earth, they were remarkably generic several thousand years in the future of Jack's universe.
"And here we are. What do you think?" He was paying particularly close attention to Lorne's reaction to their sudden change in surrounding. Though he'd never actually gotten an opportunity to visit the reconstructed Louvre before, he could imagine quite easily how it was without so much as a cursory glance around. (In fact, he'd bet good money there was a tentacled non-human life form milling around somewhere.)
Reply
Inter-dimensional travel is one thing. It takes you by your proverbial cojones and just hurls you through space like you're the key ingredient in a martini, shaken and stirred. Inter-dimensional travel doesn't make sense. Maybe it's perfectly logical for a simile used in an attempt to describe it not to make sense either. Whatsoever.
For Lorne, vertigo always strikes, and no amount of technobabble would take that away, and even if it could, he isn't sure he'd want it to. It takes his breath away and makes him want to hold onto something because he'll swear he's going to pieces every single time-- And then it's gone.
His eyes blink as he looks about himself in momentary alarm. There's so many people. Someone will bump into him and scream bloody murder, any second now, he's absolutely certain of it. Only...no one does. No one so much as stares at him. The air rushes from his lungs in a series of almost-grins and almost-chuckles and slowly, the apprehension eases into the delight of a kid in a candy store.
"Why LA?" He asks, softly, silently so as not to draw attention to himself. Delight has never made him feel so alone. "Why LA and 1996?"
Reply
The Captain watched the disorienting effects of interdimensional travel fade, to be replaced by mild panic, then give way to apprehension and delight in a specific order. Lorne was certainly one of the most emotive people he'd had the good fortune to befriend. By the time he seemed fully recovered from the 'tiny' trip and new location, Jack was smiling warmly. "Like the Bard said, though it be madness there's a method to it. Even twentieth century LA." It was a softly spoken jest; really, he meant no offense to the great, smoggy city of Los Angeles or Lorne's attachment to it, just that there was a reason for everything a person chose to do.
Jack slid his hand down Lorne's arm, seeking out the green guy's hand to grasp. "C'mon," he urged with a tilt of his head. "Let's go have a look at the enigmatic Mona."
(Though he'd have to pick up the fifty-first century equivalent to a map at the directory in the middle of the arrival station, 'cause...damned if Jack knew where anything in the Louvre was.)
Reply
They're holding hands...as if it's the most natural thing in the whole wide world, and he just did not see it coming. On a good day, he quite enjoys surprises, and today, Lorne decides, is one of the very best of days.
He gladly follows Jack wherever he leads, unable to take his eyes off the myriad of different species wandering about in similar fashion. All the smiles, all the love...the Noveau Louvre is practically pulsating with good spirits. To someone like Lorne, that kind of thing is infectious. It doesn't take him long to start grinning, and he has a feeling he won't stop for hours, maybe even days. It's exhilarating.
"I gotta tell you, though, I feel like Dorothy skipping right over that rainbow into the wonderful Land of Oz. This is amazing. It's...I don't even know how to describe it, and coming from me that's sayin' something all right. I'd ask you to pinch me if I didn't think you'd make something of it."
Reply
Where Jack led was, after some liberal and exaggerated inspection of the map (a holographic projection in three dimensions from a piece of plastic 'paper' containing an array of micro-circuitry), the wing of the museum indicated as containing Masterpieces of the Second Millennium, CE and from there, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and other Renaissance artists. Though it was several thousand years since the masters had painted, their works weren't quite so worse for wear as one might have thought. Humanity really had dedicated a lot of time and care to the preservation of their greatest artwork.
At the reference to The Wizard of Oz, Jack might have hummed a few bars of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but how could he help himself? Talk about one of the best movies of the twentieth century (not to mention probably one of the few he'd actually bothered to see, in a historical context or otherwise). Jack grinned, a reaction thoroughly mismatched with his disbelieving tone. "Who, me? Make something of a pinch? ...I see you've got my number already, Lorne."
Reply
Of course, that all changes when his focus shifts to the elaborate holographic map. It even warrants a low whistle before they're on their way.
Now all they need to figure out is, if Lorne's Dorothy, then where does that leave Jack?
He grins, taking everything in like a starving man at a banquet, and though the paintings give him all sorts of positive vibes and jolts, what gets to him the most is walking down the expansive halls, holding hands. And Jack thinks he's cute.
"Thank you, dimples. I mean it." He smiles, virtually brimming with gratitude. "From the bottom of my ass."
Reply
Well, Jack had no qualms with being a cute little lap dog...
From the bottom of his...? Jack stared hard at the display containing some of Da Vinci's drawings, noting that the Vitruvian Man had pretty sexy hip divots, while trying to sort that all out in his head. After a moment, he glanced sideways at Lorne and arched a questioning eyebrow. "I don't know much about the bottom of your ass, cutie, but I'm all ears."
Reply
Leave a comment