fandomhigh | Creative Inspirations

Hannibal smiled at the students as they arrived. "Welcome to our last trip this term. I hope you've all enjoyed our little jaunts and found them inspiring. For this week, I hope you aren't all entirely soured on spaceships. We've booked a portal to a space station some time in the future. We'll be observing Earth from space, at a time when the sun is expanding enough to make it uninhabitable. It's a sight I'm told is beautiful and awe-inspiring, and yet also impresses upon you the impermanence of all things."

//In case you're worried,// Jono added, //the sun isn't scheduled to pull this particular stunt for another five billion years, so it isn't exactly something any of you are likely to experience in your lifetimes, outside of this. Earth is quite safe from an expanding sun cooking us all away.// Another beat. //Though we might want to do something about climate change. That one is right on our doorstep.//

Couldn't win 'em all.

Hannibal looked around to see if there were any last-minute questions, then headed for the - running Portalocity employee?

"So sorry." The girl was out of breath and looked nervous, but had a smile plastered on. "We've lost that portal - unavoidable circumstances, we're terribly sorry! But we've got something along the exact same lines, top-notch entertainment, usually a huge upgrade charge, but we've waived it. Please, right this way?" She passed him a ticket with a blurb on it.

Hannibal read the ticket and eyed her with a slight frown, but followed and waved the students along. It did sound very similar. Just so long as his luck and not Jono's followed them there.

If they were to step through the portal and find themselves up to their knees in jellyfish or something, Jonothon would have wor-

//Oh, hey?// So, a ridiculously fancy-looking restaurant was probably an upgrade from a space station with a view, right? Jono didn't look terribly certain. //Is this the stopover, or...?//

"It would seem to be the destination," Hannibal said. He handed Jono the ticket the girl had given him: If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Max Quordlepleen is your host for an evening of fine food, fine wine, and a floorshow featuring the universe as we know it boiling away into the cosmic void.

//...So it would seem,// Jono agreed, after taking a moment to read the ticket. //Well... then I suppose we should find our way to our table, make ourselves comfortable, and... watch the end of the universe?//

Hopefully the end of the universe didn't actually include the restaurant.

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"Seems sensible enough to me," Edward said, grinning brightly.

Oh, honey. No.

"What sort of permanent damage?" Hannibal asked.

The waitress rolled her eyes. "You ask me, the whole 'brain smashed out by a lemon slice wrapped around a large gold brick' thing is pure marketing. Small gold brick, maybe. Just be sure he doesn't try jumping out of the restaurant, he'll be fine. Well, while he's here, anyway. After that, it's his own lookout - that's in the disclaimer, too."

Hannibal weighed the responsibility he had as teacher against his curiosity about this drink, looked at Edward, and nodded. "We'll keep an eye on him."

Hannibal.

"There's always some drink they claim's the big one," Edward said sagely. To be fair, he didn't have the motivation to try this sort of thing here as he did at home, but on the other hand, this drink was sounding more intriguing by the moment.

He looked up at Hannibal with that grin. "Might be inspirational to give it a shot, no, Mi-- Doctor Lecter?"

Edward, no. This was the kind of thing that led to your crew mutinying on you twice.

He had no crew now, though! It was totally the right time to try it, wasn't it?

Hannibal chuckled. "I should hate to stand between you and a new experience. Only one, though."

What harm could one drink do, right?

"I suppose one must be responsible, and all that," Edward sighed, with the tone of a boy who was generally anything but.

He reached out and put his thumb on the digi... shiny... screen... the device. "There we go."

"Lovely." The waitress smiled and whisked the thing back, glancing over it. "I'll be right back with that. Anything else?"

"I'll probably have wine," Hannibal answered, "but I'll have to see what goes best with the meal. Do you have a sommelier?"

"We do," she answered, "but if you're having the dish of the day, just ask him; he's been very well trained in his various cuts and accompaniments." She smiled at him, smiled a bit wider at Edward, and hurried off.

She came back a bit later with a...swirly, greenish, orangish drink (garnished with an olive) that seemed almost to glow.

Edited 2015-08-10 16:31 (UTC)

"Oooh," Edward said, appreciatively.

Then he grabbed the olive because that felt like the sophisticated thing to do, because even the drink itself looked like something you'd want to drink while wearing something fancy.

Which he didn't have, considering he'd only recently managed to buy himself a shirt that hadn't been grown on a tree.

Fortunately, Milliway's had no dress code. For the drinks or anything else. (As a five-star restaurant, they probably should have had, but since there was no telling how some of their guests would choose to arrive, they'd shrugged and given up. What did one wear to the apocalypse, anyway?)

After looking around for a second, Edward shrugged, then ate the olive.

Then he picked up the drink and sipped it.

He wasn't sure if it felt like a gold brick, exactly, but that was only because he'd never been near any gold and from what he'd heard, gold was supposed to be soft. Ish. For a metal.

Well, that was certainly an interesting expression.

"Edward?" Hannibal asked.

Edward thunked his forehead on the table. (He didn't quite have the tolerance he'd have in a few years.)

"G'mme a minute."

Was the world on fire? It felt like the world was on fire.

Not yet; that was during dessert.

"Take all the time you need," Hannibal answered, amused. He picked up the drink and carefully sniffed it, then raised an eyebrow and set it slightly out of Edward's reach. If he were actually able to coordinate enough to reach for it, he could have more.

Hannibal would have to keep these ingredients in mind, if he could get them later.

Hey, now. Edward's parents hadn't raised a quitter! ... An overly-ambitious, selfish ass with malleable notions about the sanctity of human life and only limited interest in the consequences of his actions, yes. A quitter, no.

He let out a garbled sound, then forcibly sat himself up by the shoulders and reached for the glass again.

He took a sip.

It still felt like someone was forcibly beating his skull in with a hammer.

One day, stuck on an island with nothing but a stark-raving Charles Vane for company, he would think wistfully of this moment. Right now, he winced, managed to stay upright, and muttered, "My, that's gotta put the hair on your... dog... hair."

"Only if you have it to start, I imagine," Hannibal answered equably. "How does it taste?"

He nodded at the drink, lest Edward should think he still meant dog hair. He wasn't taking the boy's mental faculties for granted at the moment.

"Like I've been punched in the face," Edward said. He looked thoughtful and in pain and inebriated at the same time as he struggled to find more words. "...Underwater."

"Salty, then?" Blood and sea water had that in common; it seemed a safe bet. Or Edward hadn't answered the question at all, which was also entirely possible.

"Smell it," Edward mumbled, squinting at the glass. "Tastes like that. But with more bricks."

It was possible he wasn't entirely making sense any longer. He still wanted another sip.

"I did," Hannibal answered. "It left me with no desire to taste it." Or at least, with less desire to taste it and more preservation instinct. "So, not hyperbole, then?"

Creative Inspirations | Monday, period one

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