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Library [1.26]

Anemone was actually sulking that all her little green friends seemed to have gone away. She'd been having fun!

She got the coffee going, like a good library minion, before tying her hair up and getting out the cleaning supplies. After over two years of cleaning up after invasions, Anemone was very good at getting the most stubborn scuff-marks and bloodstains out of the floor.

The Fandom High Library is open, and the library aide is off somewhere cleaning up gremlin-residue. You may need to ring the bell for service.

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Assuming he's in!

Henry spent his time in the library today trying to get together a list of books lost in the gremlin attack.

It would be easier if the shelves stayed in order, or if he'd had time to get to know the library like a piece of himself. As it was, he was mostly sour and frustrated about the exercise.

Maybe Aneomone would do better.

Cindy had listened to the radio last night and heard that Henry was back. Which was good, because she hadn't been all that interested in another day of fruitless stalking around his apartment, searching for some signs of life.

"Henry..." she drawled, doing a credible Ricky Ricardo accent, "you has some 'splainin' to do." She held up the paper bag with his clothing in it.

Fleeting panic crossed Henry's face before it relaxed into composure -- though he had to admit, the accent was a nice touch. But she wasn't coming after him with pitchforks or anything, so...

"Thanks," he said, reaching for the bag. "You're giving me a gift before the inquisition?"

Edited 2010-01-26 19:05 (UTC)

"Just returning some items," Cindy said with a wry grin. "Usually when there are a pair of men's underwear in my house, the circumstances preceding it are a lot more fun and a lot less confusing. For me anyway."

She handed over the bag, where he'd find all of his clothing, neatly folded and free of gremlin gunk. "Don't get used to me doing your laundry, either," she quipped.

And then just raised an eyebrow. Her question didn't really need elucidating after all.

"I won't, but I appreciate that you did it this time," he said, and raised an eyebrow right back at her.

"Did you have a question, Cindy?"

He'd probably tell her -- in this place, it might even be believed the first time through -- but he'd make her at least ask in words.

Edited 2010-01-26 19:36 (UTC)

That earned him another grin. She liked guys with sass. "Fair enough," she said, coming into his office and closing the door. She plunked herself down in a chair and asked, "What the hell happened? One second, you were there and then poof, you were gone, leaving behind a pile of clothes and a very surprised gremlin. Were you raised as a magician's assistant?"

"Musicians' child, actually, but that's an answer I might borrow next time someone asks," Henry said appreciatively. "Give me a sec, will you?"

He took a few quick steps to close the door and sat back down before: "You got to witness the medical condition I was telling you about."

There went that eyebrow again. "What kind of condition lets you vanish into thin air? You inherit a gene for spontaneous teleportation?" she hazarded. "Invisibility wouldn't have left your clothes in a pile--I can't believe I'm offering these up as suggestions."

Except he really had vanished. Fortunately, Henry hadn't seen the amount of time she spent looking for a small frog trying to hop away from the carnage.

Hey, it's what happened to Flycatcher.

"... actually, you got really close the first time," Henry said, surprised she'd gone there unprompted. "It's uncontrollable time travel. Apparently the universe believed I was more needed in South Carolina in 1972."

His tone was light, the tone of someone who was telling the truth and didn't care if he was believed or not.

"I wouldn't have left you in the lurch if I had a choice."

Cindy just gave him a look. "Ha ha."

Then paused as she took in his tone and body language. "Wait--seriously? I had been joking."

You know, there was a time when Cindy thought Mundies were mundane.

[Self: there is a reason for the update button!]

"Seriously," Henry said, watching her reaction and almost enjoying it. "Usually this is about when people decide I'm just going to keep lying and go find something else to do, by the way. It's like a variant on epilepsy. A unique variant on epilepsy. Stress makes it worse."

"Seriously seriously?" Cindy asked again before slumping back in her chair. "Why do I even let anything on this island surprise me any more?" she asked the room at large.

"So, what you're saying is that when you're under stress or there are lots of flashing lights, you hop to some random time and place?" she demanded. "I'm never letting you drive me to a concert without first taking your keys."

"That would be why I don't get to drive very often," Henry said, dipping to a more serious tone -- he loved driving and it could never really be in his life -- before regaining his lightness. "Nah, it's a little more unpredictable than that, but you have the idea. TV can set me off too, if I really stare at the screen. But sometimes one second I'm putting on my socks and the next I'm in 1998. Mostly I stay in my lifetime and in areas I know, but there's some range to it."

He spun idly in his chair. This was more than he usually explained, but it was easier to get it all out at once than to wait for the questions. "The strangest thing about the island is that I'm not all that strange for it, considering."

"Yeah, you're still not beating out the talking frog or any of the kids from other worlds," Cindy said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Purely second-string strange for this place."

She idly wondered where being a Fable fit in to the mix, but quickly shoved that thought aside.

"Do you really think that doctor can help with this?" she asked. "Do you even know how or why it works this way? Is it really genetic?"

Edited 2010-01-27 17:19 (UTC)

"Somehow, I think I can manage not being as strange as a talking frog," Henry said dryly. "I might even be grateful to play second string. Anyhow, there's a geneticist back in Chicago I've been working with for a couple years. He managed to isolate the gene, tortured a couple dozen mice in the name of science ... no cure yet, but the guy at Hopkins is supposed to be working on it."

Not that Henry was excruciatingly hopeful on that point. But he'd been to a lot of doctors.

"Technically, it's a mutation, not inherited. Though my mom died a long time ago, so we can't be entirely certain. But you would think my father would have known."

"So you don't really have any control over it?" Cindy asked. "That's got to be a bitch to deal with. Puts a lot of extra strain on things, I'm sure."

She tried to sound casual, though her eyes were sympathetic. But Henry was a man with pride and she didn't think he'd want a lot of hand-wringing and 'oh noes' over this. "So this guy at Hopkins...? Some kind of suppressive gene therapy maybe? Now that it's been isolated?"

Henry shook his head. "I don't have any conscious control, but I think there has to be something subconscious? Otherwise, sheer luck would have put me in the middle of Lake Michigan by now. But yeah, gene therapy is the hope. Until that works, I'll have my vanishing act."

He smiled. "You're taking this pretty well, by the way."

"I could faint and demand a mint julep, but I've never been the fainting type," Cindy said with a grin. "Though you should have seen me after my first class. All the drinking and protestations of sanity you could have asked for. Like I said--still less weird than the talking frog. Made of felt."

She shrugged and gave him a bit of a wan smile. "I try to roll with things, you know? I mean, I watched you vanish. That adds a lot of credibility to your story."

Edited 2010-01-27 19:36 (UTC)

"We teach living puppets," Henry said, and had to boggle a bit. "Right. Moving on. And you'd be surprised -- some people are very good at denying what's right in front of them if it doesn't make sense. I appreciate an open mind."

Idly, and to take the focus off him for a moment, he asked, "What was the worst of it in your class?"

"Let's see, in addition to the frog who calls himself a muppet, I have Prince Arthur Pendragon, his sister Morgana, and Merlin all in my class," Cindy said, giving Henry a wry look. "And yes, they claim to be exactly who you think they are. There's Liir, who says he's from Oz, and my TA, Blysse, who can't really read or write, but her giant wolf friend will read things off the board for her."

Seriously, Henry. Second-string strange.

"The worst I have in the library is the girl from ancient Greece who hangs out with Homer when she's at home," Henry offered. "And Jono. His 'medical condition' means he talks right into your head."

He rubbed his chin. "We seem to have stumbled into the strangest place on the planet, or else I've gone irrevocably insane."

"Oh, Gabrielle? She's in my class, too. I don't have this Jono, however. Maybe next semester." She sighed and shook her head. "I haven't entirely given up on irrevocably insane, you know."

That Fandom was even odder than Fabletown or the Farm was something that Cindy was having trouble accepting, honestly.

"It probably helps that I know I'm not crazy about the time travel," Henry said. "If I accept that much is sane, it tells me that Gabrielle and Merlin and company and the frog probably aren't lying either. Though there is the theory this is all a very long hallucination."

"Or some kind of drug-trip flashback," Cindy said cheerfully. "I don't think I did any growing up, but I also think I'm teaching at a school that just got invaded by gremlins. I could, conceivably, be sitting in a corner, looking at my hands and whispering 'The colors!'"

"Oh, god, if this is the revenge of some bad acid somebody slipped me in 1985, I'll cheerfully kill my dealer next time I go back there."

He couldn't (and wouldn't), but this was just a way of talking anyhow.

"Uh-oh, DeTamble," Cindy chided with a grin. "Were you all young and rebellious before you took up the librarian mantle and life of books and ease?"

"I liked to enjoy myself," Henry admitted. "Not all of us got married right out of high school."

Also, he had an incurable and unbelievable medical condition, a drunk dad, and a dead mom. Something would have been wrong with him if he hadn't indulged himself in some way.

"I got through it on one piece."

Edited 2010-01-28 18:41 (UTC)

Or, you know, technically in high school, had such a concept existed in her Homeworld. But details.

"I am hardly going to take someone up for having fun," Cindy said with a laugh. "There's too little of it going around. And what's the point of being young if you can't have a little stupid fun while you can still get away with it?"

"That's true," Henry agreed. "I'm planning on moving into my second childhood so I have an excuse to start doing it again any day now."

"Oh, that sounds like fun," Cindy said, clapping her hands. "Let me know when you do. I'm looking forward to pushing people into mud puddles and cutting in line for the swingsets."

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Library [1.26]

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