Apartment Above Fina, Wednesday

[mistressofblack]

There was a little bit of tidying-up to do after Lulu's visitor the night before what is still being played out, but it has a most satisfactory ending, so she was spending her afternoon bustling around, taking care of the little things

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[puppy_fair]

Zack had... kinda missed his shift on Monday. Which was sort of a conscious decision yes, and so he really had to own up to it.

The dishes had directed him upstairs, to Lulu's apartment. Zack kinda spent a few moments fidgeting at the door before actually getting around to knocking. Fessing up to missing a shift was tricky enough. Doing so on your employer's front step was a different matter entirely.

[mistressofblack]

"Zack!" Lulu said, smiling broadly, when she opened the door. "Come in, come in-- Can I get you something? Something to drink, perhaps?

She knew perfectly well he'd missed his shift, but really, after that weekend, she could only assume he had good reason. ... She'd let him get to that himself, though.

[puppy_fair]

"I... Um." Wow, Lulu was tough to come to with one's tail between one's knees, when she gave such a warm reception at the door. No wonder the dishes seemed to like her so much. "I'm okay, I think. I just wanted to apologize. I mean, for not coming in on Monday."

The fidgeting continued. The looking down at the toes of his boots was possibly new.

[mistressofblack]

Lulu stepped back a little, trying to project, y'know, a 'pfft, whatever' kind of attitude while giving him more room to come in. "It's all right -- I'm sure after this past weekend, we all needed a little time to recover. If only from the sheer brain-breaking we received."

[puppy_fair]

Zack really couldn't argue with that at all, no.

"The island has done some... pretty weird stuff before," he shared, hesitating for a minute before nodding and kind of edging his way inside. "But I'm okay with stuff like gremlins and angry veggies and things like that. They're not all that different from the monsters back home."

[mistressofblack]

"And it's easier when you can fight it," Lulu pointed out, as well. "When it's something outside you, and you're still you. The weekends like this, where you're someone else... I had rather an easier time of it this time than last, really. At least I was still human, and still a girl."

She led Zack into the kitchen, where she poured them each a mug of the cocoa, offering one of them to him wordlessly.

[puppy_fair]

Zack wasn't going to turn down a mug of cocoa that had been poured for him. He nodded his thanks and he made a reach for it, content to just kind of... stand there holding it, for a moment.

"I... Was me. Kinda. Another me, from somewhere else."

[mistressofblack]

Aaaaand that was worrying. This didn't sound like the typical, embarrassing Fandom craziness.

"Oh?" Lulu asked. "That must have been... interesting?"

She led the way out into the living room, where she settled down onto the couch, letting Zack choose for himself which of the ridiculously comfy chairs he wanted to sit in.

[puppy_fair]

Zack was going to stand, thanks.

... For about ten seconds, before deciding that those chairs did look really comfy, after all, and taking that one over there, that was closest to the corner.

"It... Kinda was, I guess." He inhaled. He held it for a moment. And then he finally sampled the hot chocolate.

It was nice.

"I don't think you were around, back when a bunch of the people on the island started just... falling asleep, out of nowhere. Not, like, Sleep, though. You couldn't wake somebody else up if you tried."

[mistressofblack]

Lulu nodded slowly. "I... believe I heard about that," she said. "But not much in the way of details."

[puppy_fair]

"It was..." He shrugged. "It wasn't anybody's idea of fun. There's more than one Fandom out there, I guess. Which kinda makes sense. If there can be people from different versions of the same Earth, why not two Fandoms, right?"

Zack was totally skirting around the whole issue, here. Give him time. He'd get to it.

This cocoa was awesome.

[mistressofblack]

The cocoa was totally awesome! Lulu agreed, in fact, taking another sip.

"Right," Lulu said, nodding slowly. "And this one was... worse off than ours, yes?"

[puppy_fair]

Small nod. Small, fast, almost desperate little nod.

"It wasn't safe. I mean... at all. People couldn't go out at night. There were..." Deep breath. Right. Okay. "Vampires."

Which, in retrospect, didn't sound like that big a deal to anyone who fought monsters on a regular basis, but really, you had to be there.

[mistressofblack]

Well. There were monsters, and then there were monsters.

"And this other you, that you became... he was from this other Fandom?"

Click.

"A vampire."

Oh, Zack.

[puppy_fair]

This next nod? It wasn't fast or desperate. It was just small and tired, and maybe a little sad, and his gaze was quite firmly affixed to his cocoa, now.

"I was that, once before. Over there. First in dreams, and then when I was stuck in his body. But... we killed them. All of them, and I came back here." Dying had hurt in a way that he couldn't ever hope to describe. "I didn't think I'd ever have to... I mean..."

Not again.

[mistressofblack]

"Can you tell me what they're like?" Lulu asked.

Not you, not him, them. Over there. Those other things.