Chapter 3-

A Whole New World

Summery:

Jake and Ezekiel make it to the other universe and the convention beginning their investigation…

Meanwhile, Simon is still ecstatic

Notes:

Okay, so the first scene happens the day before our cast goes to the convention, so the librarians gets there the same day as our team…

Kay? Okay

Moving on…

Also, I'm just gonna throw random references to my fave scifi/fantasy shows because, well, why not?

And I have more Fantasy than actual Scifi, but it still works…

_Other-Other-Other-Other-Other_

Ugh… No wonder more people didn't use the Janis compass…

The trip had been absolutely nauseating, as well as exhausting; Jake felt worse than he had after the fight a few weeks ago with the Manticore, and in that he'd gotten stung by the damn thing then thrown into a wall (well, kind of trough the wall…it wasn't very sturdy)

He groaned as he collapsed, face first, onto the too hard motel bed…

Ezekiel was in showering, he seemed to have handled the travel a bit better than Jake

When they'd left Cassie had been trying to work her Mathmagics in order to find a way to communicate with them across the universes; he really hoped she could.

It seemed pretty surreal; they were actually in a totally new universe;

He shook his head slightly

Ezekiel Joneswas the only person he knew in the world…

It was literally just him and Ezekiel together against an entire universe;

He scoffed slightly,

That sounded like a line from a cheesy romance novel

Where the hell did THAT come from?

He must be exhausted…

Maybe traveling through worlds or universes, or dimensions, whatever you want to call it, scrambles your mind or something…

That really was the only explanation…

Cause he wasn't interested in Ezekiel Jones

Yeah, he was kind of attractive…okay, so, more like ridiculously attractive,

Also very clever…

And he did have a pretty good sense of humor, well, when it wasn't aimed at Jake

Kind of stupidly brave, too

And sure, he was also kinda sweet; though he hid that behind an overly self assured veneer

He'd get SO flustered if someone pointed out something nice he'd done, grumbling out some excuse

Also, while he technically had the least amount of formal education of the group, he definitely more than held his own intelligence wise with the rest of the team…

He unquestionably had an invaluable set of skills, and most of it, Jake knew, was pretty much self taught

The guy never seemed to miss an angle, a way to get something to work…

He never seemed to miss a step

Really, he was brilliant…

He was also nearly a decade younger than Jake

Not to mention the guy was boastful, brazen, somewhat conniving, and an absolute trouble magnet;

If there's a way someone could get in trouble,

Ezekiel would find it,

And yeah, okay, he could usually find a way out of it too,

But that's beside the point…

His pointwas that he was absolutely not interested In Ezekiel...

Not at all…

"Well, it's all yours" Ezekiel says,

Sounding relaxed and happy, coming back in the room and flopping down bonelessly on the other bed

He's wearing a pair of forest green track type pants and a grey tank top type shirt with a faded band emblem on it

He's hair is kinda mussed and haphazard and his cheeks are kind of flushed from the shower

Nope…No interest whatsoever…

He closed his eyes, regulating his breathing, trying to make himself fall asleep

And purposely trying NOT to think of the fact that he'd be sharing a room with Ezekiel for however long it took them to track down a magical artifact in a totally new universe,

He was almost asleep when a slight sound caught his ears

He opened his eyes, glancing over

"What are you laughing about?" Jake grumbled, raising his eyebrow, which was about the closest thing to movement he could really manage at the moment,

Ezekiel chuckled, rolling over onto his side so he was facing Jake, grinning, propping his head up on his hand

Seriously?

Jake could barely raise his eyebrow

Either he was getting too damn old or there was some kind of energy transfer involved in hopping dimensions

He's going with the latter…

"I was just thinking about tomorrow" he explained somewhat excitedly, with a bit of a laugh to his voice

"And that's funny because…?"

Ezekiel snickered again, sitting up more, grinning

Yeah, definitely an energy transfer

"Oh, come on! You have to see it! We just traveled to an alternate universe to attend a Scifi convention in an effort to track down magical objects.

How surreal is that? I mean…"

Jake chuckled somewhat… closing his eyes, vaguely listening to his chattering, smiling slightly

Only Ezekiel…

Like he said, he never missed a step

Or a laugh…

He really was something else

Yeah…this was gonna be a looonnng week…

_Simon-Simon-Simon-Simon-Simon_

"Oh! Look at THIS!" Simon said excitedly, dragging Raphael over to a stand for some show with a black impala and a really tall guy, a slightly less tall guy and a dude in a trench coat…

Raphael sighs

He truly adores Simon, but this is a lot to take in

Still, it's for Simon,

And there really wasn't anything he wouldn't do for the man…

He glances over

Simon looks absolutely ecstatic, like a kid on Christmas morning, his is practically glowing

Yeah, okay, Raphael may hate this convention, with a passion, and he may be maintaining his sanity by plotting ways to get back at Magnus

But it's more than worth it to see that smile

He is chattering, as he's been doing since they had arrived, even more than usual, telling Raphael every last detail of each show

Some of them he'd watched a bit with Simon, some he'd never heard of…

Some made him wonder exactly what the writers were on when they came up with them…

He did like the Doctor Who booth;

They even had a few printed comics with Madam Vastra and Jenny, which was pretty interesting

He may have bought one or two, for Simon, of course…

Okay, a little for him too.

Also, they had a photo booth that looked like the Tardis. Simon had eagerly dragged him inside

They'd taken nearly twenty pictures

More than half of them Simon was happily kissing Raphael

Maybe they could loop back around that way…

He glances around, just taking in the randomness surrounding them

At this point it seemed to all blend

Some show with werewolves and lots of brooding, shirtless guys…

Random Vampire show…

People chasing dinosaurs around modern day London,

Something set In Texas with a psychic, a witch, a cat, and an angel…he doesn't know if he wants to know why there's a tiger with them…

Star Trek kinda thing

Vampire and the Private investigator

Oh, Agents of Shield, he actually liked that one, even knew the name of it

Some detective/cop type thing based on Fairytales?...Okay, whatever

Oh look, more vampires…

Something with ray guns and crazy bad fashion…

The characters seem all glaringly brightly colored and are dressed in silver…

One guy with garish green and orange hair and neon lipstick is chatting with a blue girl; he seems cocky and arrogant, which is truly a feat in that get-up

He couldn't imagine going out like that, much less trying to pick someone up…

That level of self assurance seems bordering on delusional…

Wait…

Wait…

Th-That wasn't?

No way, it couldn't be…

Oh my god…

"Simon, look!" Raphael stopped him, cutting him off mid sentence, pointing over to the booth

He glanced over looking at where he was pointing

"Hmm? Cosmos? I've seen that show, it's okay. Kinda cheesy, but fun…

Do you watch it?" he asked curiously

Raphael gave a laugh

"I'm going to now! Look, the guy with the green hair and lipstick!"

"Yeah?"

"Simon; it's Jace!"

Simon froze, eyes wide

"Oh, my god, it IS!" Simon said eagerly, practically bouncing

He tightened his hold on Raphael's hand

"Come on we have to go over there!" he enthused, tugging Raphael along

He follows with a smirk

Okay, rest of it aside, he's kinda glad he didn't miss this…

_End Of Chapter/Notes_

Okay, I know I probably should have had Simon and Raphael teasing Jace, but if I get into that this chapter is gonna get really long really fast,

I want to keep this, as well as the next two chapters fairly short because after that it's gonna ramp up kinda fast and I know I'm gonna get lost in some stuff…

We'll see how it goes.

My goal is to keep this one under 40k words…

That being said, I'm not going to shorten a story just for the sake of keeping it under a certain word count, I just don't want to get bogged down too early…

Last thing, I kinda closed the age gap with Ezekiel and Jake a bit

The actors are nearly 20 years apart, (25 and 43), and that's a bit much for me…

I figure in this, Ezekiel is about 27, Jake 36, this way they're kinda the same age group as my established cast…

Anyways, what do you guys think so far?