With your face all full of stars, and your heart held out like a tin cup to catch the rain...

[andwhosearmy]

Just outside of the police station, Casey Wyatt is standing with her back to the wall, looking more than a little lost. She spent the night at the station, and theoretically could go home any time now, but she's just going to... stand here a little while longer. There should be a limit to how many times in a month her life can throw her for a loop

Comments

[anjelsword]

Hi there, Michaelcat. Aniki swings up cheerfully, trying not to grin at the sight of him.

Michael's alive. Arlin is alive. The city's gone to hell, but that she can deal with as long as she's not alone. She swoops in and scoops Michael up, twirling a little and rubbing his ears with a finger. "You're cuter this way, laddiebuck."

[ducttapewarrior]

"Rrow!" is his dignified response. ...he was startled.

After that initial surprise, he just sits there, staring up at her with his ears just slightly set back. You can put me down now. Because he really thinks Aniki is going to do that. Yeah.

[anjelsword]

Oh yes. She will... so not. There is a Michael who is a kitty. She kisses the top of his head and gives him a scritch under the chin.

"Oh, now. Don't be that way. It's a fine day, we're alive, and you get to be nestled against the less-than-ample chest of a pretty woman."

[ducttapewarrior]

Michael snorts a little, twitches his whiskers forward, and beats his tail against her arm. He does not struggle. He has too much dignity to struggle.

While I won't say I don't appreciate that, I'd still like you to put me down. You're enjoying this a little too much. It's like the universe decided he needed someone else to do this to him, without Fiona around. At least there's no fire, with Aniki.

[takethechase]

When Portia says hello to Casey, she doesn't so much say it as hold out her flask, almost expressionless. She's in her comfort clothes--a big baggy sweatshirt and jeans. No makeup, no rigid bun.

"You can't fuckin' tell me you don't want a drink this time, Wyatt." She pinches the bridge of her nose, like she's trying to stay awake or stem off a headache. Maybe both. She's still offering the flask.

[andwhosearmy]

Casey stares at her for a moment. And then at the flask. She considers for a moment, thinks over what kind of day it's been, and accepts the flask with a little sigh. "Just this once," she mutters, takes a drink, and hands it back.

She pauses a moment, eyeing Portia, taking in the clothes and the hair and all, and then asks slowly, "Are you alright? Setting aside the obvious..."

[takethechase]

"Yeah," she shrugs, trying not to replay Edward's death in her head for the thousandth time.

Stupid paranoid motherfucker.

She's okay. She'll make herself okay. It's the mold she's pressed herself into hard enough to break all the edges that don't fit. "No point in getting nice clothes covered in shit."

Portia takes a swig of her own.

[andwhosearmy]

"Yeah." Casey... gets the feeling that's a lie, but doesn't question it. It's none of her business, and it's not like she doesn't have... other things to deal with. "Nice to see you survived, though. I did worry."

[changingtheodds]

Ruvin is scavenging. If she can't go back to the Conrad to get the money she's saved there, she might at least find something useful in the wreckage of the city. She's losing track of the day and her location--everything's different, the landscape, the smells. She can only find her way back toward Rachel and Adrian's apartment by following her own scent back through the wreckage.

And then there's the Coffee Shop. And the Doctor.

She freezes, her heartbeat quickening and his glare and his words in that other place, that nightmare place, driving through her now like needles, a glove of needles closing around her heart.

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor barely notices her at first - it's when she stops moving that he registers something at the edge of his vision, and glances over toward her. His expression softens almost immediately when he sees her and really, what other fluffy mastiff might be wandering around Chicago on her own?

"So you did survive," he calls, with a bit of a smile. "Didn't I tell you?" Not that... he didn't doubt that they'd come back, that last day. She doesn't need to know that.

[changingtheodds]

The sound of his voice almost breaks her. Ruvin almost shifts, then and there, into a naked teenage girl on the sidewalk, begging for forgiveness. She does lay her head down on the concrete in submission, whining long and low.

It's not him. Not the same him. Stop it. Get away. Get away.

That's right.

She backs off, slowly, caution making her hackles rise. Her ability, so raw and new and unpracticed, writhes just under her control.

[thatsortofaman]

That... was not the response he'd expected. He sighs a little and crouches down to her level, holding out a hand. It's always something with Ruvin. He has kind of resigned himself to this.

"Oh, what did I do now? Honestly, whatever it is, I'm sorry, I just... Honestly, I'm just glad you weren't killed in a rain of fire or something like that. Could you stop looking at me like I'm going to kick you, now?"

[logiciserratic]

The narration is sad that the Doctor never got a concussed fruit bat during the plagues.

So he gets one now.

Said concussed fruit bat is dangling off a bit of the coffee shop that is still standing, eating a plum that is as big as his head, seemingly ignorant to the destruction, and broadcasting radio chatter, flipping through channels so quickly that you barely get to hear what's happening on one before he moves to the next one, the antenna sparking every couple of seconds.

[thatsortofaman]

There's caution tape around the wreckage, but since when did a little something like that ever stop the Doctor? Noticing the bat, he frowns a little and ducks under the tape, moving slowly closer in an attempt to avoid frightening the thing off.

It's not so much the bat itself that interests him as the fact that it's emitting intermittent radio noise, and even with Chicago being what it is, that's... unusual.

[logiciserratic]

With a violent twitch that causes him to drop the plum (and how he was holding it in the first place is not something you want to think about too much), the radio broadcasting stops. Clearly not caring that there's someone watching him, BECAUSE PLUM, Batty swoops down and promptly resumes the nomming on the ground.

It takes him a few seconds to realize there's a personshaped thing standing over him. Given that no human thus far has really done much to bother him, he takes this one in stride.

"Humans. You leave town for a couple of weeks and they bring the place down around their ears." It's not clear if he's talking to the Doctor or at the Doctor, but whatever. He has a plum. He is going to go back to eating it.

[thatsortofaman]

The Doctor smiles faintly and shrugs a little. It's funny how after Cy, you just take all talking animals in stride. "Yes, well. They do that. I've found it's best if you choose to find it a bit endearing. Although... this time, I really don't think it can be blamed on them..."

Randall Flagg, he's fairly certain, was not human. And the Rift... is neither alive nor conscious, but it can still be blamed.

[leosarecynical]

A picnic basket appears at Casey's feet from out of nowhere. The basket contains under the standard checkered blanket- one (1) bottle of cheap wine, a bunch of sandwiches of varying deli meatosity, all of which promise to be delicious, some bags of potato chips, and a bag of individually packaged condiments that may have been stolen from a restaurant. There is also a bag of quarters in case the wine tastes like ass and a soda machine has to be raided.

Gray is, at this moment, leaning on a lightpost with his hands in his pockets, whistling innocently like he didn't just banish that picnic basket over there.

"So when was the last time you ate?"

[andwhosearmy]

Casey rolls her eyes a little, calmly scoops up the picnic basket like these things suddenly appear around her every day, and walks toward Gray with a faint smirk. She's known Gray long enough that she knows you don't question these things, just accept them and carry on.

"Probably... well... yesterday. Afternoon. Luckily, I found this awesome picnic basket, so..."

[leosarecynical]

Gray backs off the lamppost and studies the picnic basket like he's never seen such a thing in his life. For dramatic effect, he even walks around her to study it from all angles. Oh, what a marvelous invention are picnic baskets that he had nothing to do with.

"Lucky you. Bet that doesn't happen often- picnic baskets just materializing out of thin air. Hope your Fairy Godmother brought enough for you to share with the class."

[andwhosearmy]

She looks down at it, and then grins at him. "You know, as luck would have it, I believe she did. Or he, as the case may be." She pauses a moment, and then asks with a tiny smirk, "So, did you actually go out of your way to get a picnic basket and checkered tablecloth, or did you just happen to have that lying around? Because either way, it's kind of..."