The hospital room was just like every other hospital room that Lavi had ever been in - antiseptic and falsely cheery. Kanda was asleep in a chair while Allen explored the confines of the bathroom from his perch near the toilet. Dimensional travel obviously didn't sit well with the young Exorcist. Bookman was filling out paperwork as well as he could down the hallway at the nurse's station, though even from his spot in bed Lavi could see that the old man was struggling with it. Largely becoming bored, Lavi looked around his hospital room, hoping to find something of interest. He sighed to himself, leaning into the fake, papery pillow at his back. He decided that the best thing he could do right now was to count the number of holes in the strange, white tiles that made up the ceiling. It'd be a while before he'd be able to move anywhere, especially with his drugged state.
The hospital orderlies had numbed his side with a local anesthetic that he didn't recognize before working on the bullet wound. Interestingly enough, rather than dig the bullet back out the green-uniformed staff just left it in and started giving him blood and some sort of clear liquid through a tube in his arm. And then they'd stitched him up around the bullet and slapped a strange sort of thick bandage with sticky adhesive around the edges to his side. He'd asked for an explanation, and the answer was pretty straightforward.
"It didn't hit anything vital, so you might as well leave it as it is. It won't interfere with anything. You'll just grow right back around it, and it'd do more damage digging around for it." Medicine could be mighty strange. Now, he was just sitting in bed, waiting. He didn't hurt at all, mainly because he was on enough pain meds to numb a horse, and he was awfully bored. Counting holes wasn't working very well to entertain him. He'd already been doing that for the past thirty minutes, and he hadn't gotten very far. He had already pestered the orderlies about what all the machines were, too, and he'd even pushed the call button to ask a couple more questions, which very obviously annoyed the nurse who'd come down to check on him. That left him one option: waiting.
Lavi looked around for something to do, and finally he found it. The nurse had left a pen on the little stand next to his bed. At least, he thought it was a pen. It looked like one. He picked it up, clicking it experimentally and finding that it had a retractable nib. He started to scribble on the stand, and black ink with a strange texture drawled out on the fake wood. He smiled, a mischievous glint in his eye. He looked left, then right, making sure the coast was clear, before he crawled out of the bed and dragged his IV stand with him. He made sure to keep it from squeaking, and he headed towards the sleeping swordsman across the room.
After several minutes of gleefully drawing on Kanda's face, Lavi heard clomping footsteps down the hall. He raised his head like a startled deer, and he scurried back to the bed. Crap! What if it was one of those doctors? They'd probably tell him to go to sleep or something. If they were anything like Matron...
He shuddered at the memory of the Infirmary's Head Matron just as someone opened the door to his room. Lavi looked up, and his good eye just about popped out of his head.
The (very female) intruder was dressed in serious attire that looked akin to a man's pantsuit with smooth slacks and a jacket along with a white shirt, but it was stylized to show off the feminine figure of the wearer. It was open at the neck, revealing a modest chain, and his eye finally traveled to her face. She was tall, nearly Lavi's height and most definitely taller than Allen. She was flat-chested with long, long legs, and lanky arms ending in spindly, graceful hands and fingers. She looked awkward, though, like she wasn't used to her height, and it took a moment for Lavi to realize that she was staring at him.
"My face is up here, hon," she said, and he practically had to will himself not to drool. She walked over, a clipboard in her arms, and as she got closer, Lavi studied her face. Her visage was long and oval with a slight curl to the lip. Her small nose turned upwards almost to the point of looking like a pig snout, and Lavi had to say that was kind of disappointing. The bridge of it had been broken at some point, too, so it was crooked. Her eyes were a pensive sort of hazel color, and her hair was wavy dishwater blond pulled back into a bun. She looked tired and rumpled, almost restless.
"My name is Officer-In-Training Gale Miles, and I'll be filling out your incident report with you. Usually the force don't take the incident report - the hospital does - but we do routine checks like this just in case. Name?" she asked, and Lavi's brain fought to catch up. Blood loss and distraction were pulling his mind in thirty different directions like dogs on separate leashes. He blinked as he mentally kicked himself into action.
"Lavi. Uh, do you need a surname?" he asked, used to these sorts of proceedings. She looked up with a raised eyebrows at the name, and he guessed that Lavi was not exactly a common name. He should've picked a different one... She shook her head as if to say 'alright, your shtick, not mine', and she sighed as she scrawled it down.
"Last name would be good, yeah. Just for purposes of documentation," she stated with a little, weary smile that was most usually found on the faces of overworked waitresses, managers, and assistants who were pulling too many hours with too little thanks. He could relate, especially considering his job got basically no thanks, and he gave a smile in return.
"Johnson. My family's kind of uninteresting. My grandpa's back there filling out paperwork," Lavi said, using a common tactic that entailed Bookman and himself taking on the family name which could easily lead to dead ends. She glanced back, and as she did she caught a look at Kanda's newly decorated face.
She pointed at him with her pencil, and she asked, "You do that yourself?" A little bit of familiar sardonic humor crept into her voice, and Lavi felt like he was making progress. After all, the first step to getting the girl was making her comfortable, right? He joked with himself about it internally as he smiled triumphantly.
"The best is yet to come. I'm waiting for him to wake up," he whispered conspiratorially, and she nodded. She wrote down his name and 'surname' before going through the usual questions. Was he married? She hadn't expected him to be. Where did he live? Ah, a nomad. Those were scarcer than hen's teeth. What was his profession? He was a student - no surprise there. When was he born? Where was he born? He gave another two false answers. In reality, Lavi hardly remembered when and where, and he didn't care to remember either. Though he noticed a strange look on the woman's face, she scribbled both of the last answers down. She asked for a phone number, address of residence, and contact information, and Lavi gave her puzzled looks when it came to giving email. She skipped that part.
She began to ask questions relating to the incident, and Lavi internally panicked. Normally, a swordsman fighting off a gunman would be considered cool, or at the least normal, where Lavi happened to live. Here, it seemed that a swordsman fighting off a gunman would get both partiesarrested faster than ink could dry.
Lavi gave a slightly doctored tale of events, picking out just enough of it to make it believable but not enough that it gave the actual story away. It was Lavi's expertise, after all, to know what a doctored report looked like - he could just as easily come up with one as well. After she was done writing everything down, Kanda stirred at the sound of a cart bumping into a wall outside. He rubbed his face blearily before groaning, "Where am I? And who are you?" Miles raised her eyebrows and said, "Obviously not a morning person. Or a 'waking' person, either." Kanda glared.
"This is Missus Gale Miles. She's helping us fill out the incident report," Lavi told him, hoping to defuse the situation. He could taste the antagonism in the room. Being a cop-in-training, Lavi could tell that Miles had already pegged Kanda as the dangerous, belligerent type, and Kanda, used to dealing with authority, had tagged her as the type he should disobey at all turns. There just needed to be a spark, and the room would turn into a magazine on fire. Kanda, however, seemed to be more worried about other matters as he patted himself down and realized he was no longer in possession of his sword.
"Where's my sword?" Kanda muttered, looking behind him. Lavi winced. That could be... disastrous to explain, but it would only make matters worse to leave him in the dark to rampage.
"They don't allow weapons in hospitals here, Kanda. It's standard procedure, apparently," Lavi said, and he caught Gale's confused look. Kanda scoffed, and he headed out the door.
"I'll go and tell them were they can stick their 'procedure'..." he growled under his breath, and when he'd finally gone, Lavi let out a loud guffaw. His laughter was infectious, and Miles found herself tittering as well.
"I'm sorry. I-I-I couldn't could it in..." Lavi snickered. He fanned himself to try and calm down.
"I can't take him seriously with...pfff... with that mustache and ... hehehe, the monocle," Miles snorted, putting a hand over her mouth to try and stem the flow of mirth. She snorted raucously, and both seemed to stop laughing in surprise before laughing even louder than before. Lavi wiped a tear from his eye, and he asked, "Is that all you needed?" Miles nodded enthusiastically as she looked down at the list of information she had in her lap. She sighed.
"Yeah, that's all of it -" Suddenly, the door was thrown open, and Miles stood up instinctively, one hand already on a can of something at her waist. Lavi stared at the can in curiosity before turning to the person who'd so rudely entered.
"For the love of Pete, you know I had to spend money on a bus fare to get here? Sheesh. You said you'd be home by seven! This homework's not gonna write the answers by itself!" Lavi stared in surprise.
A girl of probably fourteen or fifteen stood in the doorway, and she was probably the strangest young person Lavi had ever seen in his life, and he'd seen some pretty weird people. Obviously, teenagers changed significantly from one dimension to the next, because Lavi was pretty sure the ones on their side of the world coin didn't wear their hair in bright colors, wear tight pants, or dress in dark, somber hues with whimsical, bright patterns on them. She looked like something out of a novel.
Her hair was technicolor with strands of blue and green across a field of brown. It framed a heart shaped face sporting a small nose, brown eyes, and a thin, almost crooked mouth turned down in an annoyed frown. Her clothes consisted of jeans so tight around her legs that he could actually see the shape of them, a t-shirt with a horrified orange staring at a glass of OJ screaming "MOTHER!" and a black jacket cover in neon stripes around the arms. Her shoes were the same, strange rubber stuff with insets of canvas, from the look of it, that tied with laces. It took him a while before he noticed that, again, he was staring. Much like her predecessor, she made a comment.
"What, you never seen a girl before? Sheesh, weirdo," she muttered. Lavi could see the resemblance between Miles and the girl who'd just walked in, and he assumed they must be sisters. He was, of course, correct. As Miles led the girl out of the room, they bickered in low voices.
"It's not even seven yet."
"It's seven thirty! You're so late. You're always late."
"I am not always late -"
"You were late for my recital."
"...That was one time."
"Both recitals."
"Okay, two times."
Lavi shook his head as the conversation headed out the door. He leaned back on his pillows and decided that was enough excitement for one day. He finally got his wish. He wasn't bored anymore.
"Look, just stay here a minute, and I'll help you later," Miles said, sitting her sister down in a chair next to the hospital room of the victim. As her younger sister sulked, he looked back nervously at the redhead in the hospital bed. He looked awfully pale, but that could just be the blood loss. Her friend Cris had said that he'd taken a gunshot wound to the side.
"He got lucky. It passed by all his major organs, and it got lodged right next to his stomach in the normal pad of fat around organs. His buddy with the white hair looks like he just has a bad case of motion sickness, though it's the weirdest case of motion sickness we've ever seen. The other two are fine, but we had to confiscate the sword on the long-haired guy. Sheesh, I've seen odd people come into the ER, but this takes the cake," Cris had noted when Miles had asked about the patients, and the woman mulled it over now as she walked back to her friend.
Cris was a woman of short stature with streaks of gray through her brown hair despite her young age. She leaned against the nurse's station, keeping a cheery, crooked smile on her face as she chatted with one of the nurses. Upon catching the eye of the officer-in-training, Cris stood up straight and halted her conversation. The nurse in question went back to her work, knowing that it was best to leave police-work alone and not get involved. Cris walked over to Miles, and she said, "Hey, bud, what's up?" She had a throaty, scratchy quality to her voice that gave it a purring quality, a trait that helped calm patients and therefore usually put her in the children's ward more often than not.
"Nothing much. Has the older guy filled out all the paperwork?" Miles asked, cutting to the quick. Cris asked the nurse something, and the nurse readily handed over a packet of information. Cris flipped through it, pursing her lips as she went through photos of the wound, information on the patient, and finally reaching the contact and personal info at the back.
"Walk with me," Miles said, and Cris nodded. A doctor almost walked up to Cris to reprimand her for talking with friends during work hours, but at the sight of the police intern, he immediately redirected his course, and Cris smiled with a crooked twist to her mouth. The scar that went through her top lip stretched her smile in odd directions.
"It's good to be friends with you. Even Carson can't touch me," she quipped, and Miles rolled her eyes.
"Focus. What's the info on them? Do they have places to stay, anything like that?" Miles asked. Cris narrowed her eyes.
"Says that they're wanderers. Just came into the US, don't have anywhere to stay. Lost their passports and paperwork, and now they're stranded. The guy in the bed is named Lavi, and the old man calls himself Terry. Family name is Johnson. Didn't even put down a date of birth or location of origin for the grandson. Don't have email, no phone, no addresses... These guys practically don't exist. They're mightily screwed," Cris muttered, whistling low at the lack of info given. Miles thought about it for a while, trying to make sense of it.
Four guys with no home, no papers, and hardly any idea about modern things like email, Mace, and blood type just show up out of nowhere. She had a sense that Lavi had been lying to her, and the old man's lack of info on where Lavi was born and his birthdate just compounded that, though the old man could just have forgotten from sheer age. He definitely looked old enough. Of course, when Miles had passed by the old man's eyes glinted with a scary sort of intelligence, and she'd quickened her pace as she'd walked towards Lavi's room...
"Why ya wanna know anyways? Oh, wait, it has to do with... ah, Gale, you're not seriously going to get mixed up in that stuff again, are you...?" Cris asked, a concerned tightness contracting around her eyes. Miles sighed. Cris knew about her connections with the gangs in the inner city. Miles' past wasn't exactly a secret to most, nor was it spotless, and a lot of people chose to deny her sudden change from sinner to saint. Cris, however, knew Miles' vendetta against most of the gangs, though the hospital intern had the hunch that she didn't have the whole story yet. There were lots of holes, and Cris'd rather keep it that way.
"Yeah, but it's not what you think. These guys aren't part of a gang, even if the long-haired guy had a weapon. This is something completely different," Miles said nonchalantly, pulling back a strand of hair. "Besides, I think they're completely harmless -"
Miles opened the door to the patient's hospital room to find the victim being choked by the long-haired fellow with the art canvas for a face. Her eyes widened while Cris muttered, "Harmless. Yeah."
"K-k-kanda, gentle, gentle-!"
"I'm going to make you wish you were never born -!"
Miles sighed. She almost always seemed to jinx herself. She cracked her knuckles, pulled out a can of Mace, shook it, and -
Suddenly, the long haired man was jerked off of the redhead by an invisible hand, and Miles' eyes widened as she smelled cordite, ozone, and juniper in the air, a residue of the magic that suffused the room. She turned around to glare at her sister, who was nonchalantly leaning against the doorjamb with one hand raised in a strange gesture. The long-haired man coughed from his landing on the floor, and he scrambled to stand up.
"What the -!" The redhead's one eye was wide as he whistled. Cris blinked several times, mouth open slightly. She snapped her mouth shut, and she clapped her hands, rubbing them together.
"Oookay, who wants hot chocolate? I could do with some right now. Hang on just a minute and I'll just get that..." With that, Cris bailed, and Miles was left with just her sister and the two shocked men. Miles worked her jaw irately, and she closed the door behind her sister. As she did, she muttered, "What did I say about -"
" 'No magic', I know," Cam said in a mocking voice, rolling her overly-made-up eyes in an exaggerated fashion. Suddenly, Cam's eyes flashed, catching a good view of the two men recovering from their sudden introduction to magic, and the younger girl stated, "They're not from here." Miles scoffed.
"Thanks, Sherlock, for the -"
"No, I'm serious. They're not from here. Like... not here here. I read a manga a while ago, and these guys look awfully similar. I don't think there's a convention in town, and if there was, I could pick these guys out in a heartbeat anyways. Their cosplay's too good, and they smell like... y'know, residual magic stuff, whatever you call it," Cam said, mumbling half her words with a sullen tone. Miles stared incomprehensibly, having to catch up with the fan-jargon. Suddenly, it hit Miles like a ton of bricks. The lack of personal information, their awe at normal, modern devices, the nagging feeling they were connected to those people...
Suddenly, as promised, Cris walked back in with hot chocolate, leaving them on a tray rather awkwardly as she finger waved with her crooked, scarred smile, and left the room. It fell quiet.
"Anyone wanna explain what just happened?" Lavi asked, attempting to get out of bed. Blood rushed to his head, and he fell to his knees. Despite having choked him nearly two minutes earlier, the long-haired fellow roughly hefted his redhead companion to his feet, allowing the one-eyed fellow to lean on his shoulder.
"For once I agree with the idiot," Kanda said, rubbing his face. It was raw from scrubbing off ink, and there were still vestiges of Lavi's 'art project' scrawled across his face. Cameron sat down with a huff in her seat.
"I'm too tired to explain. You do it," she complained, slumping. Under most circumstances, Miles would've made her sister give the two a rundown on their... predicament, but considering her sister had used enough magic to lift a one-hundred and fifty plus pound man off of a bed, she was willing to believe that Cameron was tired. Luckily, Cam was one of the strongest witches in a one hundred mile radius - most witches, especially those her age, would be on the floor gasping. Miles shuffled her feet as the two waited.
"Well-"
The door opened quietly with a click, and a white haired, sick-looking individual walked in. He looked awfully tired, and his gray eyes widened as he realized he'd interrupted something. The older man was right behind, his tall, question-mark ponytail the only thing visible behind the white-haired teenager. Cam's eyebrows rose with interest as recognition flashed behind bright eyes, and Miles' doubt disappeared. If her sister recognized them and they smelled like residuum, there was definitely something going on relating to... putting it simply, magical interference.
"I'm sorry. Do you need me to step out?" the white-haired kid said, and Miles shook her head, putting herself automatically at parade rest.
"No. Go ahead, come in. I'm just here to... explain some things to you," she said. The white-haired kid stood next to the long-haired man who was holding up Lavi, and he rose one, pale eyebrow at the strange sight of the bitter Asian man helping his cheerier counterpart. Lavi straightened self-consciously, and the old man placed himself at the door. Miles sighed through her nose, trying to figure out how to explain all this. Most of it was conjecture - she was flying by the seat of her pants. Miles wasn't quite sure of all the details, but at the least she could give them a brief overview. All four looked tired and in need of some well-deserved rest. At the worst, these four would think that she was crazy, but Miles trusted her sister's judgement. Cameron watched with intense fascination, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Um, all of you are now in the twenty-first century. The year is 2012, and the president is Barrack Obama, though I'm not sure how this is relevant to you. What was the year where you four came from?" she asked. The four looked at each other in thought, and the old man stated, "1865. America had just entered the Civil War under President Lincoln. We come from an alternate history of your world, I believe. When did it start here?" Miles racked her brains. She'd never stepped foot in a high school - all of her schooling had to be done at a GED course, and there'd been a ton to catch up on. Cam, however, was much more familiar with history.
"Ours started in 1861, not 1865," the young girl answered, and the old man nodded.
"How did we get here?" the white haired individual asked, and Miles winced.
"Well... we're not entirely sure. We know for certain that you come from a fictional series - I believe my sister knows it. Most people don't realize it, but some authors actually... see other dimensions, even if they don't mean to. It's difficult to discern which authors are making up a story and the authors who actually perceive a dimension subconsciously. Your dimension must've been a real one that was converted into a fictional series here. You were summoned, but for what purpose I'm not sure. We're still trying to figure that out. We're witches - or, rather, my sister is a witch. I'm an ex-poteracruxus - a power broker. I have... hunches of who might have summoned you, however, and therefore I'm sure we can find a way to send you back," Miles stated matter-of-factly. So far, they seemed to be taking all of this in stride. It didn't appear to faze them to hear about magic or witches or dimensional travel.
"Is the person who could have summoned us dangerous to us or could mean harm in any way? Or would they leave us be?" the old man asked. Miles mouth tightened as her stance stiffened. She looked down at the ground, memories cascading. She finally said, "Yes, I believe so. The basis of magic is energy and the ability to change things. Animals are used in lots of magic rites as a source of energy, usually tied a life process of some sort. Human beings are even more potent, though we're not sure why. She'll want you back in order to conserve energy, and if she's made a contract with some sort of circle, that means she has to find you and send you off before using a different circle, otherwise she voids her contract and dies. Summonings are tricky business."
"She?" the long-haired man asked.
"Yes. She," Miles said with a cockeyed smile. "Most magic users, poteracruxii and energonitristos and all others besides, are women. We're a little more... sensitive, I guess, to magic than men, though there are male magi out there. Still, no matter who's after you, we'll need to keep you somewhere safe. I'd rather not let you four fall into trouble again. Seeing as you've got nowhere to stay, I guess you can sleep at my place until a more suitable accommodation can be found." Cam's eyes widened with surprise and rage.
"What? Gale!" Cam whined, but Miles glared at Cam with such intensity, even the young witch couldn't argue further. She looked hard and impenetrable at that moment, something Cam rarely saw in her anxious, though ever-ready, sister. The room fell silent with a still, pregnant pause.
"I'll check you out when you're ready to leave, and we'll head to my place. It's small, and we're going to have to get cozy -"
"I wouldn't mind that," Lavi muttered, and Kanda stepped on his foot, causing the redhead to stifle a yelp.
"-and suck it up until I can find someone else who's willing to put up a bed for you guys. I've already got a friend in mind who can also help with the science end of your... dimension problem," Miles finished, giving a pointed look at the mischievous redhead. Nevertheless, she gave a small smile.
"I apologize for the inconvenience." The understatement of the year. She pulled something out of her pocket and fidgeted with it before looking up.
"I'll ask the doctors when you guys will be ready to leave." With that, Miles left, and Cam, not one to be idle, waited for her sister to close the door before pulling a deck of cards out of her pocket and offering, "Who wants to play poker?"
Allen hid a smirk as he laid down yet another hand.
"Royal flush."
A collective uproar filled the room, and Allen broadly held out his hands for the winnings. Cam turned over a shoe, Lavi gave up his shirt, and Kanda grudgingly handed Allen one of his hair ties. So far, Allen had collected several socks, an earring, a strange, blocky device that had the name NOKIA imprinted across the face and the back, two or three of Kanda's prized hair ties, two shoes, a shirt, and one of Lavi's fountain pens. A black aura seemed to cloud the cheery-faced Exorcist, and he was feeling much better now that he had a chance to stomp the three.
The door opened behind them, and Allen almost laughed at the wide-eyed look on Officer Miles' face. Cam waved insolently at her sister as the woman rolled her eyes.
"Put your clothes on. We're going home," Miles ordered. Bookman entered behind her, holding a sheaf of papers in a folder. He gave a pointed look at Lavi and his topless attire, the bandage around his waist a promising pink color, rather than dark red. The hyperactive redhead was already collecting his things back from Allen as the younger boy gave back his hard-won items to his victims. They prepared for their departure, and Allen mulled over the events of the day in his head as they walked through the white, extremely modern halls of the hospital.
This place, despite being fantastical and surreal, worried Allen. The things he'd seen on the box on the wall (Cam had said it was a 'television' when he'd asked) had been... lewd in some parts, humorous in a wrong sort of way, and laughably ridiculous and over the top. Entertainment had changed quite a bit. Everything had changed, for that matter, and Allen wondered what he was going to encounter as he stepped out into dusky twilight. The asphalt under his feet was strangely smooth, and he realized it was a much more refined sort of concrete. The cars were also very, very different - he'd realized that the things he'd seen in the street where Lavi had been shot were actually automobiles, much like the early tin lizzies he'd seen in America. These were sleeker, however, and much more streamlined with full protection around the cab, smoothly curved glass for a windshield and windows, and thick tires made of some sort of tough rubber.
At first perplexed about how to get inside, Allen watched as Cam pulled a handle on what he thought must be a door and climbed in. Deciding it was best to follow her example, Allen did the same just as Kanda, Lavi, and Bookman circled the car to get in on the other side. It was a little bit cramped - there was only so much room in the backseat. In fact, Lavi playfully sat in Kanda's lap, justifying it by saying there wasn't enough room for Bookman and his large back end, before he was hit by both parties and shoved into his seat with Bookman seated firmly on top of him.
"Hey! I'm an invalid! Shouldn't I be treated with a bit of tenderness?" Lavi protested, and Allen laughed.
"Maybe if you were just as gentle with the other two, they'd be a bit kinder towards you, Lavi," Allen mentioned, and Lavi pouted.
"Allen! You're supposed to be on my side!"
"Calm down, or I'm turning this car around and dropping you off at the hospital," Miles drawled hollowly. Nevertheless, the two quieted down, and Allen's thoughts took a turn inwards.
He glanced between Miles and Cam, the former keeping her eyes on the road while whipping out a device that Allen guessed acted like an immobile golem as she dialed something on the face while the latter pulled out a rectangular invention that had a two screens with characters flying across it. Allen leaned forward slightly in the small town car, trying to get a better look, but suddenly they stopped, and Allen was thrown backwards into his seat.
"For the love of - WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING, you little hormone-addled, half-dead idiot..." Miles muttered as a car cut in front of them from a side street. Despite the constant stop and start of traffic, Allen got a glimpse of the world outside the window, and his eyes widened with awe. The buildings were so tall... It looked like they could touch the clouds above them in just a moment, and they were built with these magnificently bright panes of glass. Some of the buildings were nearly ten stories high, and others were made of brick and stone with old, weatherworn masonry over the entrances stating the year they were built. Lavi and Kanda were likewise entranced, though Lavi was much more vocal about his amazement than Kanda, to no one's surprise.
"Holy crap! These things are massive!"
"Idiot, get out of my lap!"
"Come on, I need a better view - OW! Easy, you elbowed my side!"
"Maybe if you didn't practically lay down on my legs, I wouldn't have to elbow you."
"Aw, come on, you know you like it.~"
Bookman suddenly leaned back on top of Lavi, and the redhead protested loudly. Allen watched in embarrassment as Cam slunk lower and lower into her seat. Suddenly, Allen noticed something rather odd. Despite going through a heavily populated street... his eye hadn't activated once. Most places this thick with people set it off at least once. Akuma were a lot more common than most realized, so this was awfully abnormal.
"Bookman, do you think that Akuma -" Allen started, and Bookman frowned as Allen trailed off. To Allen's amazement, Cam answered, "Nope. We have all types of creepers, but Akuma ain't one of 'em. Geez, the problems we'd have if we had Akuma. Miles would be busier with them than police work, though of course she's given up -"
"We're almost home," Miles cut in suddenly, slicing Cam's sentence off at the end as well as the blade sitting in her trunk. Allen turned back to his window, staring at the buildings as they passed by. Slowly, the buildings became shorter and shorter as they left the inner city. They went up on a massive ramp of road, flying above the main streets, and even Kanda stared, awestruck. It was fully dark now with looming clouds, and the city was lit like a massive gallery of lights, rising over the earth and throwing its luminescence to the clouds. Above, the downy clouds glowed orange and white from the lights, and the cityscape glinted off the windows as Miles drove down to the earthbound streets once more.
Finally, they stopped at a large building that Allen recognized as an apartment. Those, at least, didn't change. The car eased to a stop in the parking lot, and they all piled out. Lavi, over dramatic as always, fell to the ground and started to hug the asphalt.
"LAND!" he shouted gleefully, and everyone rolled their eyes almost simultaneously. Ignoring the prostrate redhead they walked towards the doors and entered. They came into a small lobby area with a small desk, and Miles walked up to it. Allen glanced behind him as Lavi finally caught up, still spry despite his wound. The indomitably cheerful man practically stood on top of Allen in his excitement to see what was behind the desk, and Allen had to politely tell Lavi to back up.
"Come on, Allen, you're no fun," Lavi muttered, but he obliged before being distracted by some other new gadget.
Meanwhile, Miles talked with a lady behind the desk, whom Allen presumed must be the landlady. She had a strange, thin screen on a stand at her desk with what looked like a very, very small version of a typewriter directly underneath and in front. The lady herself looked like old laundry that had been left out to dry for too long in a basket - dry, stiff, and wrinkled. She adjusted her half-moon glasses, her puckered lips moving rather irritably, and she drawled out in a smoker's scratch, "Yeeees, Missus Miles? Your rent is late... again." Miles didn't pay any attention to the sour tone of the landlady's statement.
"Hello, Gertrude, nice to see you too. I have a couple of new guys living with me. That won't affect my rent rate, will it?" Miles asked. She didn't even bother to ask if it was okay for the four men to stay with her. Allen was slightly amazed with just how forthcoming the officer-in-training was. Landladies were probably calmer now than they had been back in the 1800s... because Allen remembered all too well having to wash dishes, run errands, and do all sorts of tasks for landladies he'd made angry (or rather, his master had made angry).
"Hmmmm, nnoooo, it won't. Buuuut... your utilities will still be going up from regular use. Be sure these boys behave," Gertrude said, staring at the four with a look that could spoil milk, rot eggs, and mold bread. Allen practically wilted under her stare, Lavi swallowed, and Kanda's only reaction was to give a 'hmph' and look away. Bookman assured, "We will be on our best behavior. Am I right, boys?" The three mumbled their agreement.
Gertrude seemed appeased by this, and for the first time took a look at Bookman. Her penciled eyebrows flew up towards her hair line, and she leaned forwards with a small smile on her face that pulled back to reveal long, gray teeth.
"I didn't think you picked up older men, Mmmmiiiiles," the lady drawled, and Bookman's face colored. Allen almost laughed. It was the most ruffled he'd ever seen the man get, and the old man self-consciously shifted as he was looked from head to toe rather... hungrily. Cam gagged audibly, and she began to drag her sister towards the stairs, all four visitors following rather hastily as the woman at the desk tapped something out on her miniature type-writer-that-wasn't-a-type-writer.
A/N: I am very happy to see that this little fic now has it's own following of sorts! I hadn't expected such a quick response, in all honesty. I'm glad to see it.
Thanks for the reviews, guys. I'm glad to know that it's not too AU or crossoverish, and I believe I caused a bit of confusion. The world this story is set in is not a known fictional world - I kinda just pulled it out of a hat all on my own. Anyhow, big thanks to UsuixMisakiLover, PrevalentMasters (Good to see you again!), Uniasus, and IncredibleIdiosyncrasies. I'll take the advice on the mains, seeing as I'm not sure if I could juggle more than the four I have now. Perhaps later I'll start to add in more.
I was surprised to find that this actually got quite a few subscribers as well, though I wasn't surprised to find that some of my reviewers also ended up subscribers. I'm glad you like this story so much to add it to an alert list. So far I have six: UsuixMisakiLover, karina001 (why, hello again! You like this one too?), IncredibleIdiosyncrasies, Uniasus, Suki Miko, and toadstoolteaparty. My, what interesting readers I have...
Last, but not least, I have my favoriteers. I love my favoriteers, don't I? So far I have three, but three is always a good number. Welcome to the party, UsuixMisakiLover, allenfan, and Suki Miko, and hopefully all of you enjoy yourselves.
As always, I have discussion questions just to get you guys started if you want to review. Keep in mind that you don't have to use a discussion question to start off a review - it's just food for thought. However, if you want to answer all questions that's more than welcome as well. Are the characters fairly in character given the circumstances? Is the story too lighthearted for its material and subject? Is the prose easy to understand? Are there any plotholes that you can think of? Have I left any loose ends? Do you think that the humor is original or funny? Do you like the characters, original and otherwise? Would you like a 'Fourth Wall Mail Slot' to submit questions to ask the characters at the end of each chapter? Do you want to ask me questions about anything? Do you think that this story should include a romance, more action, more mystery, etc.? Do you enjoy the 'atmosphere' of the story? Is the chapter too long?
That's it for now. I have another chapter, coming right up hot and ready, and more shenanigans on their way.
God bless, and happy reading!
