(Untitled)

[oldserpent]

The sleep thing kept catching me off guard, the first few times. Not the dreams, mind you, but the whizbang firecracker process itself - losing hours of New Time in the blink of an eye. And let me tell you, it staggers when you’re not quite expecting it, the waking up part. Which is why, before I opened my eyes, I didn’t notice much was off the

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[misscroft]

Lara had never seen James Bond in such a state before, which was probably why she didn't approach him straight away - merely stood around the corner of the duty free shop and watched as he...

What the hell was he doing? Smashing his face on the floor, groping himself, shouting at the sky...why, if the Lady Croft didn't know better, she'd think the gentleman spy had finally flipped his lid and gone completely bonkers.

But there had to be a more rational explanation than that. Bond was made of harder stuff - she knew that firsthand - than to behave in such a manner. In public, anyway. So it was with amusement and a slight feeling of trepidation that Lara stepped out from around the corner and approached the smoking man.

"Smoking is bad for your health, you know."

[oldserpent]

'So is breathing,' I replied cryptically, without so much as a glance toward the voice. At first.

I'd become rather intrigued by the pattern in which the blood from my nose dribbled down my chin and splattered on the tile at my feet. (I don't think there's anything quite like the colour of blood. Whether it was his intention or not - but of course it was - the Old Man had sculpted violence into a thing of beauty.)

I suppose it was inevitable that the flow began to ebb and my entertainment dissolved. At this point, I looked up, a tad lightheaded as I pulled a lungful of tobacco smoke into my lungs.

Well I'll be, it's Angie Jolie.

I plucked the Silk Cut from between my lips, looking the woman over.

'Little by little, oxygen breaks down your body. Ages it, y'know.' Exhale. 'I'm just taking a bit of a shortcut.'

[misscroft]

Lara quirked an eyebrow.

He wasn't Bond. She knew it even before he spoke. Besides the smoking, she was fairly sure Bond wouldn't let half his body fluids drip out of his nose, however messy he was.

He wasn't Alex West, either. Lara wasn't sure whether she was disappointed by that or not.

How many faces did this actor wear, she wondered?

"I suppose it's a pity one can't actually get 'high on life'," she murmured drolly, and reached into her pocket, delicately withdrawing a lace handkerchief. "I'm Lara," she said as she extended it towards him.

[oldserpent]

It was then that I noted with some perturbation that I couldn't touch her mind. The eyebrow-quirk was what had done it - the wheels were turning, and I was deaf to the grind.

Oh dear. Fucking Gabriel was going to get an earful.

But I held my composure well (for a celestial being made solid, standing with an unhealthy portion of his life's blood stuck to his face in odd places) and focused instead on the absurdity of her introduction.

See, I know Angelina Jolie. I like her. And I've placed my fair share of whispers in the girl's ear. She may have had her quirks, but loony she was not.

'I beg to differ. Have you ever sniffed the pad of a dog's foot? Been to a garden?' I gave up a blissful smile before I felt a sneeze coming on and quickly reached out for the proffered hanky.

[mitcandis]

"Your fly is open," Victor said in helpful, if accented English, peeping in after the man. He wondered if the man didn't know, or didn't care. He had a rather confident aura that suggested the second one, and Victor thought that was rather cool.

Victor, a phenominally bad judge of character, had the feeling that he was going to like the new arrival.

[oldserpent]

In ransacking the shop, I knew it'd only be a matter of time before I had company. You lot have a thing about thieves, see, even those who are only plundering in pursuit of certain necessities.

Glancing up, I ran the tip of my tongue over my upper lip and offered a (presumably bloody) flash o' the old incisors. 'Thanks, mate. I'll be sure to get on that.' I supposed it would be in everyone's best interest if I zipped up for the time being, though I made no move to do so once I got a good eyeful of my guest.

The bloke looked terribly, horribly, awfully, grotesquely like Till Lindemann, so much so that I spent the next minute or two sucking at the cigarette filter and musing over the coincidence in silence.

[mitcandis]

Victor grinned cheekily. He might be a soldier, but he could appreciate a bit of a punk streak when he saw one.

"What are you looking for?"

[oldserpent]

He had the voice, too. But with that clairvoyant knack of mine returning only a bloody heap of static from the man's skull, I had no way of knowing. It's disconcerting, that - ignorance really is the absence of bliss when the only thing you do know is that you're ignorant. Ya feel me?

There was something about this place that was already making my metaphorical tail curl.

'Not looking for,' I said eventually, flicking the cigarette out of my mouth and giving my face a good scrub with the back of my hand before holding up the lighter. 'Found.'

[callmewednesday]

Ahhh. This new arrival was Mr. Wednesday's kind of guy, so to speak.

"Speak of the devil," he said, a jovial lift to his voice as he approached. "Not my favorite father of lies, but a sight for sore eyes nonetheless."

Who was his favorite, then? His old partner in crime, of course. Loki'd been called the Father of Lies. People made the mistake of forgetting one name could apply to more than one god. But Wednesday's gift, one of this gifts, was to know all the names of all the gods.

This one he knew on sight. And a damned hilarious sight it was, to Wednesday's mind, seeing Old Scratch in the flesh like this, nosebleed and all.

[oldserpent]

With a greeting like that, I fully expected to see another one of the First Born sporting a flesh suit of his own - not a week yet in the skin, and half'a Paradise was already taking fashion tips from yours truly.

But to be absolutely honest...I hadn't the foggiest idea who I was looking at, and usually these things aren't awfully hard to intuit.

Well, shucks.

'Mm. I don't s'pose you have a hanky to spare?' I asked, sniffing a bit.

[callmewednesday]

Wednesday did happen to enjoy his own flesh suit. Being discorporate closed off certain avenues of experience. Trends, though, he did not follow, and certainly none set by the likes of Old Nick. Call it convergent evolution, if you like

[oldserpent]

I took the thing without complaint, of course - beggars can't be choosers and all that. Not that the torrent of blood pouring out between my nostrils was doing me any immediate harm staying just as it was.

But one has to occasionally preserve a sense of dignity in the face of one's peers.

'Thank you kindly,' I said, a bit nasally once the cloth had been applied to the affected area.