(Untitled)

[asadmagnifique]

Who: Don Draper and Joan Harris and You
What: Arrival
When: Day 39
Where: Town Square

Comments

[couldbebatman]

"Why would someone shoot a commercial here?" was what Don wanted to know. He looked around, eyes narrowed, as he took a long drag on his own cigarette. It was too like too many towns he knew, dusty and empty and everything he'd left behind him. That Joan was here was inexplicable, but he could think of a lot of people he'd rather be stranded with less. Most of them, in fact.

He thought about the tape, tucked in his inner jacket pocket. It was a little like those hypothetical thought experiments Kinsey was always trying to get people interested in. What if you trapped Don Draper in a B-grade replica of his old life and threw Joan Harris in for good measure? The only obvious answer was the sort of thing that happened in those cinemas near Times Square that Don didn't need to go to. Joan didn't belong in a place like this--she looked out of place. Don didn't want to belong in a place like this.

"No birds," he said suddenly, just noticing.

[asadmagnifique]

"I don't know, Don, but it's... got an aura of not quite being real." Her voice was carefully neutral, but her eyes were calculating. Joan had pushed any and all thoughts of places like this from her mind a long time ago, as soon as she could have she headed off to the big city and forgot about home and the doctor and everything else that had stayed outside of her cheap suitcase. This was something that was more than a little like Joan's own personal version of hell, especially with the concept that she might be fictional

[couldbebatman]

Don felt irritation rising within him, along with the need for a drink. No, he wanted a drink, that was all. Who wouldn't? He didn't like this at all, and part of him didn't want to understand it. Was it Sunday? Or was this place abandoned?

"I don't know anyone who would go through this much trouble to play a prank," he said, flicking his cigarette away. "So I'm willing to be a figment of your imagination if it means you're just dreaming all of this."

It would beat being fictional, though he was fairly certain no one would make him up, and no one could invent Joan.

[asadmagnifique]

Joan met Don's eyes with a rather amused and feline smirk when he mentioned that he was willing to be a figment of her imagination and dreaming all of this.

"I don't think my imagination is quite that good, Don, but thank you." There was a bit of a knowing look, because well.. Don's imagination tended to be rather legendary. "It's far more likely that you've dreamed me up." Because well... why wouldn't he dream her up?

That said, Joan dropped her cigarette onto the ground and paused to look in the window of the clothing shop. There was rather an abysmal look on her face when she saw the selection. "Oh you have got to be kidding me..." But then there was a large shape and movement within the store, and Joan gasped in shock.