1. [Holo] Arrival

[greenballadeer]

The Sea Breeze cocktail is cool in Lorne's hand. Oh, sweet mama, he needs this. Needs the taste of cranberry, grapefruit, and vodka doing a tango on his tongue. He lifts the glass to his lips and -

It's gone?! Oh, somebody is going to pay for this, big time -

Wait a second. He's not in that crappy karaoke bar off Route 66 anymore. "What is

Comments

[Visual]

[iam_thebadwolf]

"Oi nothing so dramatic as that. 'Least not that I can tell," Rose says over the device. "You're in Taxon. Bit stuck here for the moment. I'm Rose Tyler."

And no the green doesn't bother her at all. She's seen much odder.

[holo]

[greenballadeer]

"Nothing dramatic? I'm on the Most Wanted list of a bunch of evil whatsits from a higher dimension, then I get kidnapped, and that's not dramatic?"

Who is he even talking to, anyway?

Lorne approaches the source of the voice, a slick little gadget on top of a pedestal that's nicer than any phone he ever had at Wolfram & Hart, and that's saying something. The instant he sees Rose's face, his insides go gooey. She's so young. Younger than Cordy was when she...

"Nice to meet you, Rose," he says, the note of hysteria gone from his voice. "You can call me Lorne, though I'll also respond to 'hey, green guy.'" He picks up the tablet and holds it at eye level. "You sure it's safe here, cream puff? No, uh, nasty demon in your basement ripping out your heart every morning? No one calling you a 'cow' and trying to enslave you or anything, right?"

Re: [holo]

[iam_thebadwolf]

"Nice to meet you too, Lorne," Rose beams at him. She hesitates because safe is semi relative but at his further description she nods. "None of that."

Then she takes a breath and...yes some singing!

♪Bring your heart to believing
Sing a song, it'll make your day
Life ain't about no retrieving
Sing a song, it'll make a way
Give yourself what you need
Sing a song, it'll make your day
Smile, smile smile and believe
Sing a song, it'll make a way♪

She stops, pauses and shrugs. "Also there's that. New development. We're all bursting into song."

[ooc: Feel free to get Rose's future out of that. She'll choose the Doctor's clone to stay with instead of him and leave him. Also if you'd like to pick up 'Bad Wolf' that would be fantastic and help with a future glitch. Check out her wiki and you can get anything at all that you want out of Rose's singing.]

Re: [holo]

[greenballadeer]

Lorne still isn't ready to rule out a Senior Partners holding dimension - not until Rose launches into song. That's when he knows that Taxon is nothing, nothing, compared to her life outside it. The rush of images and impressions is so strange and overwhelming that for a moment all he can do is stare at the tablet and open and close his mouth like a fish.

A magical blue box, time and space, and aliens - actual aliens! - and the magical man who showed her the stars, who encompassed worlds and was born anew in a blaze of fire. A song reverberating through the universe from the jaws of a golden, snarling wolf. A cold, wet beach in Norway where the wolf stood alone and cried. The same beach in a different time, where the wolf is no longer alone -

Wow. Looks like Lorne isn't the only one who's better off here than in his own life. For quite a while, he doesn't know what to say. Then, "Don't mean to frighten you, honeybunch, but uh, have you ever heard the words 'Bad Wolf'? 'Cause if you haven't, you might want to remember them."

[visual]

[mancalledspade]

"If they tell you, do the rest of us a favor and let us know, would you?" It's been a long week for Spade, and he could use a clue of any kind.

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

"Whoever 'they' are - and I have a hunch or three about that - if they're not telling any of you, there's no chance they're telling me. I don't have much going for me in the persuasion department. Unless I can get somehow get 'them' to sing."

Uneasiness creeps through his gut. This looks like a tough, competent guy on the other end, the type of guy who usually rescues people like Lorne. "How long have you been stuck here, handsome?"

[visual]

[mancalledspade]

Spade raises his eyebrows, but frankly, once you've accepted aliens, vampires, and people spontaneously bursting into song, it seems a bit johnny-come-lately to protest at a green man flirting with you.

So he just says, "About six weeks, give or take. People have only been bursting into song for the last few days, though."

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

"Huh. Bursting into song. I'd say sounds like a party, but it could get a bit overwhelming after a while." Lorne likes a little warning before he gets blasted with people's destinies. "Is it like a Julie Taymor production, or more of a - sorry, crumb cake, I'm being rude. If we're going to be stuck in a city together for who knows how long, we're going to have to be introduced, aren't we?" He manages a small smile. "Name's Lorne. I was in LA before I got, uh, whisked away." He gives the room another furtive sweep. Still no clues, except for that beam-me-up-Scotty type deal in the ceiling.

[visual]

[meanwhileback]

On the tablet nearby pops up the image of a young woman with a massive red-orange striped cat stretched across her lap, apparently napping. Despite the somewhat awkward position it puts her in to access her tablet, which seems to be on a table to her right somewhere, she doesn't seem very put out by her cat-motivated immobility. In fact, petting the cat is the reason it takes her a second after she starts to respond to actually look at her tablet screen.

"Popular opinion says it's aliens, actualWHOA you're green."

That's very smooth. Very smooth. To her credit, she makes an appraising face pretty much right away that appears to indicate she has accepted this as 'weird, yet okay'.

"Well, okay, green is good. I mean, at least you're not the chompy undead." A beat. "...Are you?"

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

Lorne ignores the "whoa green" part of that; he's heard it so many times it floats right through his head like so much air. "Aliens? You sure about that, cupcake? 'Cause trust me, I've met quite a few little green men in my time, and none of them have been aliens. And no, I'm not gonna go all Night of the Living Dead on you. I'm a demon, and not the chompy kind. I'm on a strict no-human diet."

He peers at her dubiously-comfortable position with the cat. "This place doesn't look half-bad. Usually in hell dimensions they don't let you keep a big fuzzy cat."

[visual]

[meanwhileback]

"Pretty sure, I mean... like, when we saw them they were giant hamsters, but. Yeah. Aliens. It's fucked up."

And green dudes with horns aren't? Whatever. He says he doesn't eat people, so he's automatically on the 'At Least He's Not Dead' list, which truthfully has already put him ahead of a large portion of Taxon's population.

"It's not a hell dimension, it's like a people zoo. They suck us up out of our worlds and stick us down here to study. Basically it could be a lot worse." She scoops up the front half of her cat and holds him up more towards the tablet so he can be seen. The cat blinks blearily, having been woken from his nap, and appears entirely disinterested. Because that's what cats do.

"His name's Angus. Say hi, Angus." Angus, appropriately, says nothing. Because he's a cat.

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

"Giant hamsters?" Just when Lorne thinks he's heard it all. It's almost reassuring to know that the world's still got its surprises. "Right now, sugarplum, just about any place that isn't a hell dimension is better than L.A. I think I can live with giant hamsters. I'll just close my eyes and pretend I'm at that Lion King musical with all the snazzy costumes."

[ visual ]

[glowingseer]

For several moments, Cordelia can only gape at the tablet. No, it can't be... can it? But, that's--

"Lorne! Oh my god, Lorne!"

Re: [ visual ]

[greenballadeer]

It's not as if Lorne hasn't seen Cordelia miraculously revived from what seemed like certain death. But that had only lasted a day, and a lifetime would be too short a time to spend with such a remarkable woman.

"Cordy! Oh, Cordy, I take back everything I said about this being a Senior Partners hell dimension, anyplace where you're alive is just - just - are you sure there aren't little cherubs with harps or something?" He's grinning from ear to ear.

[ visual ]

[glowingseer]

Alive? Well, that can only mean one thing - this Lorne is from a time when she's already dead and everything.

But, so not the time to dwell on that sour note. "Yes - I'm alive, kicking, and gorgeous as usual." She grins right back at him. "And, no! No cherubs with harps - only invisible aliens who make a habit of screwing with us every once in a while. But enough about them. I'm so glad to see you!"

Re: [ visual ]

[greenballadeer]

"It's definitely gonna take me some time to get used to this whole aliens thing, but if Queen C says it, it must be so. Too bad about the cherubs, though I'd probably get sick of the harps after a while. You can't exactly sing Sinatra with a harp."

She really does look gorgeous, just as confident and fresh-faced as she was before Jasmine crawled into her brain - but Lorne's just as willing as she is to lay that subject aside for now. "Glad to see you too, sweetie. If you've really been stuck here, then I've got months of fashion trends to get you caught up on. You won't believe what Alexander McQueen did for his fall collection. Do you have a place in this town? The aliens or whatever, they let you have a house, right?"

[visual]

[supercompacted]

By the time she turns on her tablet to record, she's outright grinning. "Lorne, hi! No Senior Partners here. Or Wolfram and Hart. And definitely no working for them, either." And I'm alive she almost says, but that's sort of obvious.

"If you pick up that device thing I'm talking to you on, it'll let you out the door," she says, and it becomes clear that she's outside now, moving to the tram. "I'm coming to see you and I don't care if other people are coming already. This place is pretty weird, but it's got a few things better than where you came from, at least. I'm really, really glad to see you."

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

Lorne sees Fred's face on the tablet, and time stops. He's just seen Cordy alive and well, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

Usually Lorne seems larger than life, but now, his voice comes out very small, like a child's. "...Freddikins?" The words she's said have registered somewhere in his brain, but right now all he can think is she's alive, she's alive!

[visual]

[supercompacted]

Oh, yeah, she was about expecting that reaction. She knows most everyone is from past her.

She gets on the tram, sits, then gives him a wide smile with bright, shiny eyes. "Yep, it's me, Lorne. I'm from earlier than you, sounds like. I've been here a few months- I really missed you." And she has. Their group felt downright empty without Wesley, but it wouldn't ever feel right without Lorne, either.

Re: [visual]

[greenballadeer]

Earlier than him? So there's time travel involved too? Lorne decides not to bring it up. It'll only give him a headache, and he doesn't want to ruin the moment. He looks up from the tablet in his hand and sees the door. He heads towards the door, holding the tablet up around eye level. "Oh, Freddles, I've missed you too. Life without you is like...Rodgers without Hammerstein. Gilbert without Sullivan."

As he reaches for the door, he suddenly notices the bracelet underneath his jacket sleeve. He shakes his arm a little, but it doesn't come loose. "Are you sure this isn't the Senior Partners, peach pie? Because only a bunch of evil lawyers could come up with a bracelet this unflattering." He holds up his bracelet within view of the screen. "Any clue what's behind the plot to kill fashion?"