[Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

[kings_fool]

[Maybe 20 minutes after Johannes eventually leaves the arrival room]


Another new arrival, as shown by the holographic image being broadcast to the tablets of everyone in Taxon, as usual. However, this man is lying on the floor of the arrival room, tangled up in a blanket, curled half-around a body pillow. He is snoring. And maybe drooling a little.

After twenty seconds or so, the chill of the hard metal floor starts to penetrate the sleeping man's consciousness. He grimaces, shifts around as if trying to get comfortable, and then slowly cracks an eye open.

"Whussat?"

Eyes squeezed shut, unshaven face squinching into a grimace. Man, what the hell... 's cold, and hard, and this is not his bed, he's pretty sure he went to bed in his bed last night, and yeah, he was doing shots pretty heavily, but he's pretty sure he did not drink to the point of passing out on a sidewalk, or... He risks opening his eyes again.

Definitely not the Strip. Not anywhere he knows. Fuzzily, Jeremy Fischer sits up, blanket falling down around his waist, showing that he's not wearing a shirt. He is still clutching the body pillow to him like a protective talisman. The holo shows a man in his probable late thirties, extremely scruffy, with an enormous amount of untamed curly brown hair and a stocky body.

"Uh...." He looks around him at the steel walls, the weird thing overheard, the utter alienness of his current surroundings. He runs a hand over his face, through his shaggy curly hair, and scratches at his head.

"The fuck...?"

Then he starts laughing. "Okay. Nice. Good one, Charlie! Not sure how the hell you got me here without waking me up, but seriously, nice one. Lunch is on me. It might be our last, right?"

There's a few beats of silence. He shivers a little in the coldness of the room and pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, grin slowly fading.

"Charlie?"

***

Sometime later, Jeremy is outside. This is a problem, since he's wearing his underwear, socks, and a blanket wrapped around himself, and it's freaking cold.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Jeremy hollers at anyone who might listen, trying to avoid the patches of snow on the sidewalk as he looks around the Bazaar for clothes.

Or shoes. Shoes at least would be a great fuckin' start.


eta to add in alternate run-in location of Jeremy at the Bazaar

Comments

[hasaheart]

Wyatt hums in something like a tone of amusement, and gives Fischer's hand a firm, friendly shake before letting go to push upright again. Everything seems to be in order, all items accounted for that he can tell.

"Word of caution, Mr Fischer: you'd best be careful who you call a figment of your imagination. Not everyone's as forgiving as me."

But hey, he figures, there's no apparent malice here. No need to get uppity about the coping mechanisms of a new arrival.

"Mind if I ask what a ninja is? Or, more importantly, what it's got to do with weed."

[kings_fool]

"Okay," Jeremy says agreeably to the advice the figment of his imagination is saying.

He gives Mr. Clean-Cut, Western, and Law-Enforcey (and that's the most important part, most Vegas cops really don't give a shit about weed but, you never know, sometimes you run into a dick who wants to make a quota) a smile-grimace of are you shitting me?, not exactly sure whether his leg is being pulled or not.

"Entrapment much, brother?" he asks at last, the expression giving way to full smile again. "Ninja. NINJA FU. Bruce-to-the-Lee, hi-ya, wax-on-wax-off?"

When this probably nets him absolutely no look of comprehension on Wyatt's face, Jeremy takes a few steps back and adopts the famous martial arts crane pose from a certain movie, one knee raised, balancing with his hands doing 'karate chops' in the air.

"Yeah?"

[hasaheart]

Slowly, bit by bit, Wyatt grows more confident in his tentative memory-jostling: weed is a colloquialism, sure, and a stupid one, but more importantly it's a colloquialism Paul once got so high off of he didn't mind getting a piggyback ride home.

But that still doesn't make any sense in a ninjafu, bruise something, waxy nonsense. No, he doesn't comprehend, does not compute, and when Fischer strikes a pose that very nearly reminds him of something Glitch once did when up against three or five Longcoats, he doesn't know whether to laugh out loud or politely excuse himself away from the mental person.

In the spirit of making somewhat good first impressions, he stays put. Skeptical cowboy is skeptical. "Uh. Nope. Sorry. You're not talking about the samurai, are you?"

For the love of peaches, Paul, it's about time his big gaping holes of Otherside pop culture trivia got dealt with.

[kings_fool]

Jeremy's face falls a little at spinning the conversational handle and coming up cherry-cherry-bar, so to speak, but he rebounds quickly enough. He resumes a normal standing posture and hooks his thumbs into his pockets with a shrug.

"No. Noooo. Samurai is direct opposite of ninja. You're samurai," he says, with a little finger-gun shooty gesture at Wyatt with both hands. "--I am not ninja, because I would trip and land in the cake or the ornamental carp pond or something."

Seeing he is still probably not making much sense to the long-suffering man standing in front of him, Jeremy offers a grin and explains it like so:

"Ninja: a trained assassin with a reputation for stealth. Ninja as adjective: sneaky. Ninja weed: some grass that'll sneak the hell up on you and give you way more than you bargained for. --and if you are an officer of the law, Mister Cain, I was totally joking about being under the influence."

[hasaheart]

"I'm samurai."

Wyatt looks on, somewhat bemused and a lot confuzzled, trying to reconcile what he's seen of classic Japanese cinema with shootouts; but okay, fine, it probably makes perfect sense. He'll roll with it and see where he ends up.

Jeremy's grin is returned, and the explanation's more than welcome. Wyatt likes straightforwardness, but right this moment he thinks he likes the willingness to explain concepts as if they truly are foreign (so, so very foreign) even more. Brownie points left and right, Mister Jeremy Fischer, and lots of them.

"Alright," he says in response, and tags along for the proverbial ride of the last bit. Unusual guy, this one. It's refreshing.

"I used to be. Once a cop, always a cop, but uh, let's just say I'm well outside of my jurisdiction. There's no laws against weed here that I know of, more importantly."

[kings_fool]

"That's cool, brother, I have no problems with the po-po, you guys do a valuable work, law and order, aye aye," Jeremy says, mouth running on automatic and then

his

eyes

widening.


"Oh my god," he says, "I've died and gone to heaven except nobody ever said heaven was Amsterdam. Fuck yes!"

He does a quick turn in place, looking around him. "--I kind of expected more windmills. Or hookers."

[hasaheart]

Wyatt makes a note to look up what sounds like 'hamster dam' but probably isn't. But, you know, that's not too far off, actually. Ahem.

"Right. You will get in trouble for theft, property damage, arson and so on, but drugs? Not so much. You can live where you want, love whoever you want, and if you want to spend the rest of your stay here on vapors, go ahead."

Maybe it would make the malfunctions easier to deal with, come to think of it. Easier to cope with the aftermath of them. He gives a minute shake of the head. It's not for him.

"There's pickpockets around the bazaar, Mister Fischer. Keep track of your credit balance or it'll get cleaned out before you know it. If you need a hand, just look me up on the tablet."

[kings_fool]

"Where would I get it?" Jeremy breathes in tones of delight, but then vaguely tunes back into the conversation and the warnings. Pickpockets, okay, but if all the money's on the thingjig-- well, whatever, he's warned, he'll keep an eye out.

"Yeah, sure, man," he says with an easy nod. His eyes are scanning the Bazaar again, no he's not looking JUST for pot, okay, but maybe it's a factor.

"Thanks for the tips. I'm sure I'll see you around--"

He breaks off as there's a glow of light over the row of stalls to the north of them, a glow that Jeremy finds familiar at least, and a swell of music (the song is 'Fly Me to the Moon')-- and then the first jets of water start shooting up into the sky, above the booths and stalls and craft-stands.

"Aww, no way," Jeremy says, still delighted, because he knows what that is-- sees it every day almost-- and immediately he leaves Wyatt behind as he walks towards the fountain that is just blocked from sight from their current location.

[hasaheart]

Wyatt nods, perfectly prepared to go about the rest of his business, but then the guy runs off and there's lights and music and...cascades of water, and this he just got to see with his own eyes.

He approaches with caution suspicion, weaving through the Extras with soft 'pardon's and 'excuse me's until he comes to a slow stop. Wide eyed and a touch slack jawed, and it's been a while since he's felt much of anything other than silent resignation towards the city itself. Last time was seeing the lighthouse, and now this.

"...it's beautiful."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy stands in front of the spectacle, the synchronized lights and water, the jets shooting up hundreds of feet into the air, with a big grin on his face. In five years in Vegas he has not yet gotten tired of the Bellagio fountain, and right now? Seeing it here, a bit of home in this ... whatever it is, trip or hallucination or dream... oh yeah, that makes him smile.

"I try to get spots in front of it," he confides blithely to Wyatt Cain, "but man, talk about your primo real estate. Some guys camp out the night before to get a spot before the Fountains."

He cranes his head back, looking for the facsimile Eiffel Tower on the other side of the Strip, but of course it's not here. The Sanctuary is close, though.

He taps at Wyatt's arm, jerks his chin up towards the top of the white building where he arrived. "You really want the show sometime? Go watch it from up there."

[hasaheart]

When the first thing to pop into his head is Wonder if Paul knows/would like this/that's a great idea for a late night picnic, make up for the camping trip, he allows himself a wry smile. He's so screwed. So very, very screwed. Maybe he should get some hobbies aside from wild monkey sex - and oh, that's right. He already has two or three, one of which has become his job. So, so screwed. Potentially obsessed, too.

"I just might," he tells Fischer. "So, this is home to you?"

[kings_fool]

"Kinda, sorta. Last five years anyway," Jeremy says with a shrug. The music builds and some of the super-jets go off, blasting water up two-hundred-and-fifty feet. He tips his head back to watch it, childlike smile splitting his scruffy face.

"Viva Las Vegas, baby."

[hasaheart]

And Wyatt startles, not badly, and bounces back with a glimmer of wonder in his eyes. He thinks he remembers something similar, from Central City, something from his actual childhood, when everything seemed gigantic and awe-inspiring. This gives him a similar kick, and maybe that's all that matters.

"Hear hear," he says, not catching the reference (or even the language) but getting the gist of it. "This'll go off every night, will it?"

[kings_fool]

That gets Jeremy to look over, grinning, eyes dancing, taking his eyes off the spectacle. "Every night?

"Every half-hour, bro. And after 8, every fifteen minutes."

The smile fades a little. "At least, that's how it works back in the real world. Not sure how my subconscious's sense of time is, though..."

[hasaheart]

That earns the guy a double-take, all right. All day, every day, all the damn time?

...okay, it could be a lot worse. Already he can see the fountain bathing in the different lights of the seasons. The bright, cool light of late winter, like now, the warmer, still bright (near blinding) dazzle of summertime and the mellowed shades of autum, the dark of winter.

"Not to burst your bubble," he says, looking between the massive, eye-bogglingly large fountain and the apple-cheeked, scruffy guy next to him. "But if you keep thinking this is all in your head, you're gonna think you're crazy, and fast. Did you have a look at the newcomer's guide yet? Did someone tell you how things work around here?"

[kings_fool]

Jeremy's eyes track back to the water, watching the jets sway back and forth in their swiveling patterns as he listens to the Chairman himself belt it out.

(fly me to the moon, let me swing among the stars)

"Yeah, I read the little helpfile thing," he says after ten or so seconds, the smile gone. "Brother, I'm gonna go crazy if I do believe it and I'm gonna go crazy if I don't. I figure my best bet's to get myself stoned enough I stop worrying whether I'm crazy."

(let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars)

[hasaheart]

Truer words, Wyatt suspects, have seldom been spoken in this here gilded cage. He has a bit of personal experience with the former, and a while there he gazed down the pitch black darkness of the latter and backed away slowly.

Maybe he was a bit crazy to start with. Maybe that's part of why he didn't snap, crack and disintegrate back in the early days.

Quiet and somber, he reaches into his bags from the bazaar, picking out the carefully wrapped bottle of spiced sweet wine and holds it out. "Get something to eat too, while you're at it. And-- If you ever need to bitch about this entire setup... Well. I've been there. Venting helps more than you'd think."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy glances back over at the proffered bottle, and his smile returns in force, even if it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Naw, man," he says, but he takes the bottle despite his words. "And Metody made sure I ate. That is one nice chick. Weird but nice."

Jeremy tucks the bottle under his arm and flips Wyatt a jaunty salute with the other hand. "Thanks for the offer, though. I'll keep it in mind."

Jeremy looks back to the water, to the sight so many newcomers see the first time they arrive. There's some of the off people watching too, but overall it's a lot less crowded than it usually is in Vegas, a lot closer to the railing than you can usually get without a hassle.

He sits down crosslegged on the sidewalk. After a few seconds' thought, he starts opening the bottle.

[hasaheart]

What else is there to possibly say? That this could possibly a second chance in the making, no, already ruled that out. What else is there, but to nod in quiet empathy, and return the salute with a touch more weight.

Wyatt tips his hat, and goes on his way.