fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

The island was still thankfully, blissfully normal, so fingers were crossed that the picnic would go off without a hitch.

The weather was pleasant enough - sunny, but not so hot that people would melt outside - and all the decorations had been safely pulled out of storage. There were tables and chairs set up with blue and yellow balloons, a table for all the information the new students would need, and enough food to probably feed two islands. It was time to welcome some new folks, everyone!

[OCD is up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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"You're welcome," Hannibal said. He poured a cup of coffee and got out a sandwich. "As I said, the island and the school tend to know these things. Cream? Sugar?"

"Black, thanks," Duke said, taking the sandwich by rote, still looking pretty shell-shocked. "Since when do islands know things?" He unwrapped the sandwich and blinked. "Is that fig chutney? Nice."

At least the food made sense.

"It is," Hannibal answered, pleased. "Cooking and food are generally what I teach here. As to how this island knows things...welcome to Fandom. You will find magic here, humans with powers, alien races, and people from the past and the future. And the island itself often seems to have a mind of its own."

Rip that band-aid right off!

Yep, Duke was just going to eat the sandwich and let all that hang there for a moment.

. . . Fuck, that was a good sandwich.

"Right, so. Magic. Aliens. Time travel. And a school recruitment process that not only seems to bypass all the various background checks and educational requirements for its staff, but the actual application process itself. Am I missing anything?"

He was going to be so unhappy when he found out it wasn't 2008.

"Where and when do you come from?" Hannibal asked.

That time was going to be very soon.

Duke sighed and shook his head ruefully. He was pretty sure he was going to regret answering that.

"Alright, I'll bite. I'm from Haven, Maine. And when I checked my calendar this morning, it was August 31, 2008."

"Ah, well." Hannibal took out his phone and woke it up, then turned the lock screen toward Duke so he could see the date on it - August 31, 2019.

". . . Jesus. Why is your phone so big?"

Look, that was an easier question than what the fuck happened to the last eleven years?!

"It's an average-sized phone these days," Hannibal assured him, not going for the obvious size joke. "There are many larger. You may want to get a modern phone for yourself - they're quite a bit faster these days."

He put his phone away. "Many different worlds, and many different versions of Earth, meet at this island. At least you should be familiar with the basics, although you might want to catch up on recent events."

Or not. Look, Hannibal couldn't help the last eleven years.

Dammit, was Duke's stash of burners even going to still work around here?

"Different worlds," Duke said. "Different versions of Earth. You know you sound like you're trying to sell me on a cult or something, right?"

That phone could be anything. You could program a computer to list any date you wanted.

He couldn't explain the damn schedule, though.

"I do." Hannibal shrugged. "You'll either believe me now, or believe me when enough things happen that you can't deny them. I can assure you, we all have better things to do with our lives than put on elaborate costumes, reprogram computers, and create an entire reality here for the benefit of one person."

He smirked. "Well, perhaps I wouldn't put it past one or two of our students, but they are teenagers."

Some things never changed.

"We're at a welcome picnic. You all could be running this con on any number of people here." Duke shook his head and shrugged. "Not really seeing the profit in that, though, so sure. We're in the future. Where phones are, for some reason, much larger than they used to be."

"I believe it has to do with larger screens for pictures and video," Hannibal said. "They do tend toward larger and thinner compared to a few years ago."

He poured himself a cup of coffee and added some sugar. "I have been here long enough to realize that if you don't believe me now, nothing that I say can convince you, so I'll simply give you the information you'll need, and my card, and you can ask questions ask they occur to you."

He took a sip. "There are small creatures, green and bipedal - they're called gremlins. Avoid them; their venom is hallucinogenic. The squirrels," he found one and pointed at it, "report on everything we do. Or rather, they take notes, which are read on-air the next day. If you want privacy from them, they can be bribed with rum.

"You will probably want to purchase some baggy and adjustable clothing, should you wake up a woman or a teenager or a somewhat different size. And keep a good umbrella on hand for unusual rains."

Some part of Duke made sure to take careful note of those warnings and bits of advice, especially with regards to physical transformation (some day, when he was attending his high school reunion as his once-again teenage self, he was going to remember this conversation and want to punch a wall). Even while he raised a disbelieving eyebrow and took a bite of his sandwich.

"You know, they used to try this 'magic weirdness' boogeyman crap on us when I was a kid back home." He smirked faintly. "I'm a little old for the 'Troubles talk' now, though."

Duke had actually believed in the Troubles well past the time when most of his friends had stopped. He'd made a promise to his dad, after all, and then all but immediately had watched the man die. That tended to have an impact on a kid.

"And was it true back home?" Hannibal asked.

"Were the stories that your neighbor or classmate could kill you with their magic powers true," Duke said. Then frowned faintly as he remembered the field trip that had killed 13 of his classmates in third grade.

Except that had been food poisoning, hadn't it?

". . . No," he said finally, a little more like he was convincing himself instead of Hannibal. "No, they were not."

Not after 1983, at least.

Interesting, but Hannibal wouldn't press for now. "Here, they might be. Although I've never known anybody here to go about killing their neighbors." Not for good, anyway. "My husband could, but he refrains. And is living in New York at the moment anyway."

“Husband, huh?” Duke smiled, absent but broad. “Right on. What’s he do up in New York?”

"He teaches, mostly," Hannibal answered. "Students with similar powers and problems. He used to teach here from time to time, but this summer was a bit much."

Duke decided he did not want to know what was wrong with Hannibal’s husband’s summer. “Married teacher team, huh. Must miss him, being that far away.”

"I commute," Hannibal said. "I'll be here for the weekend, then head back. We have houses in both places."

Because Hannibal was rich and Jono was richer.

Duke was not exactly poor these days, but he'd grown up far enough below the poverty line that he couldn't help the derisive snort at that. "Fuck, it must be nice to be rich."

Hannibal had been there, too; it was one reason he enjoyed it now.

"It is," he confirmed. "Anybody that says otherwise is lying and has clearly never been poor."

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Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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