2013.10.19 - Fridge Magnets, A Spice Rack, Devil Vermin

It's always a dark and stormy night somewhere. Tonight, it happens to be dark and stormy in Manhattan, and also night, which is probably why it's dark. Stephen Strange's mansion is a formidable place: it's like knowing you're wandering around in Warehouse 13 with no purple goo.

Any potential witness to any hypothetical trees growing out of nowhere and falling in the windy silence within the house, well, they'd think they were the only ones awake! Because it's like four in the morning. And yet-- and yet--

A floorboard creaks; an otherwise stealthy individual freezes; there is a tiny high-pitched squeak designed to be heard from fifty meters; there is suddenly a lot of SHUSHing going on.

There are some people who are stealthy by design, by training, or by both; and then, there are people like Booster Gold who are either unable to grasp the idea of stealth, or simply cannot be bothered to understand how to make it work. The concept of 'not glowing' makes sense, and so does 'trying to walk quietly' although Booster is not very good at this latter thing. Floating along is better, so he is trying that out. At the squeak, he whispers, "What was that? Did you step on a vermin?" Pause. "I can't imagine Doctor Strange's house having regular vermin." Another pause, and then the whisper this time is more urgent. "-What if it was devil vermin.-"

"Booster," Pete whispers in strained exasperation, still frozen in place, "it's my dinosaur, it's not devil vermin, for /godsake/. Why do you think we're doing this? There's probably a box in there. Dinosaur snacks. I don't know." The bony rumpled Englishman starts creeping along the corridor again, trying very hard not to brush up against anything that glows, hisses, eyes him, hums, or looks like a mint copy of Sandinista! Because /it won't be/. "D'you reckon we can leave the lights off? No, shhh shhhhhhh shh--!"

More squeaking, yes. Like a tiny fire alarm. And more frantic shushing, and a little bit of frantic hand-flapping. "Shh I can't sneak if you're going to go off like a carjacking, shut it!" he hisses into his jacket.

"Well, I can see in the dark," Booster explains, because even when he is not in costume, he is still kind of in costume. Then, there is a much quieter mumble which could be along the lines of 'dinosaurs could be devil vermin'. In a conversational whisper, he says, "What are you hoping to find? A millet spray? I mean, dinosaurs and birds are essentially the same thing, aren't they?" After some thought, Booster admits, "I don't really know how current-era kitchens function. I've pushed buttons in them, mostly you get beeping. Once, there was fire."

"Generally speaking," whispers Wisdom, coming up on the door to the kitchen and slowly opening it a crack, then peering through to scan the place, "fire is a plus. Controlled fire. On the stovetop, like. Or in the part of the oven where there's meant to be fire." Either the whispering's making him sound less like he's talking to a four-year-old, or he's coming to terms with the fact that time travel is legit.

He pushes open the door, and in the dark, the place is cavernous. But Booster, who can actually /see/ in the dark more or less properly, will see that this is all lies, and there's fridge magnets and a spice rack and chintz on the chairs, and whatever. And then for some reason, Pete starts humming something very quietly. Something which, if Booster has Retinal Future Google in his HUD, can be identified by the lyrics he ends up sort of unconsciously muttering as they actually get /to/ the kitchen. 'Just try to make it work, to feel the fear o/~ before you're here'. Because goddammit Booster, basically.

"Yeah, see, those are real specialist words. I had a really small apartment when I first got here... there's no one in there, by the way," Booster adds, because he is looking ahead over the top of Pete's head. "There was an 'oven' and buttons with numbers and words, but if you pressed them it would turn on and make sounds but it wouldn't produce food. I complained to the landlord but he said it was working properly. Which it clearly was not." After a quite moment, he says in a more chipper tone, "If there -is- any devil vermin, your dinosaur could catch it. That'd solve two problems at once."

'Specialist words', Pete mouths to himself; this is visible in profile in the squintingly bright light of the refrigerator, which he's opening as he thinks over Booster's words.

There is another deafening squeak from the tiny dinosaur in Pete's jacket, and he scowls down at it. He closes the fridge again, without even properly looking in it yet, because there is something that must be done before any proceeding can occur. With extreme care, he reaches into his inside jacket pocket, and then is holding an absurdly young pteranodon. "Here, hold this," he tells Booster, holding both hands out. "Name's Myfanwy. I think I saw a blackberry carton of scarab beetles in there."

When Pete closes the fridge, it does not get totally dark again. A pale, blue light flickers and bobs from somewhere, shining in front one of the open entryways to the kitchen. It was too dim to discern from the fridge light earlier.

It is getting brighter now, coming closer. It should not be surprising that this place is freaking haunted.

"Does it fly?" Booster looks wary, but he takes the little animal. "Does it poop or breathe fire?" At the thought of either of these things, Booster's forcefield activates, although inobtrusively. It does nothing to jostle or harm the pteranodon, which he cups in his hands. "Uhh... why are there -scarab beetles- in the cold box? I mean, does Doctor Strange eat them?" Current-era food is still mysterious to Booster, but so far he has not seen anyone eating beetles. The pale light catches his eye, and he tells Pete, "Devil vermin."

"She doesn't fly yet. Look, she still has feathers," Pete reassures Booster, "and she doesn't breathe fire." Then he crouches slightly and chucks the tiny prehistoric reptile under the enormous beak. "But you'll protect me from the bastard that does, won't you, dove? Yes you will."

That really just happened.

Then Pete's straightening up again, and he starts to turn back to the fridge. "I don't think he eats them, no. Don't-- don't take anything for granted as being edible, in there, it--"

Starts. Because then he's looking at the blue light, too. And then Wisdom grimaces at Booster. "It's not devil vermin. Christ. It's probably just a ghost, or-- or a will-o'-the-wisp." He opens the fridge door for real this time, crouching to examine the contents fully. He's thinking of it as a Warehouse 13 refrigerator, in point of fact, because it's the only way to be sure. "Do you think there's real General Tso in that chicken?"

The overhead lights go on. This may be the Sanctum Sanctorum, but it's also Greenwich Village. It's tasteful recessed lighting, very warm. Really makes all the wood in the room feel alive.

Amy Winston stands in the doorway, rubbing her left eye. She is wearing a long shirt with some leering demon stenciled on the front. Or maybe it's a morbid angel, because that's written right above its skeletal wings.

A lantern hovers over her shoulder. A fanged, fiery face floats inside, hissing soundlessly.

"Did you guys move in while I wasn't looking? It's like four AM."

"How would I know, the food of your era is -all- mysterious," Booster tells Pete. "Anyway, I think chickens are birds, and you can't feed birds to this," he briefly lifts the little pteranodon, "Because that would be like people eating other, earlier people." When the haunting turns out to be Amy, Booster then lifts the baby pteranodon a bit so she can see it, as if this might explain everything. "Pete needed to feed his creature."

"She's a pteranodon," Pete says sternly, glaring over his shoulder at Booster. "And you have to put food /in/ the oven to get food /out/ of the oven." Another glance-- this one at Amy-- and the Briton looks possibly a little sheepish. Maybe. "The Doctor said I could keep her in the prehistoric wing. She's too little to fly, yet. And she needs fed. Didn't want to wake you, sorry."

He holds up a black chinese takeaway carton, looking enquiring. "Do you think this is safe to op-- ow, fuck." And now his hand is bleeding. He gets up in a hurry and puts the carton on the counter like it's made of acid, then casts about the kitchen with a singular intensity. "Quick, where're the saucepans? And a lid--"

Amy makes a valiant attempt to open her eyes when Booster presents the creature. She looks from it to Booster, then to Pete, trying to find something other than a ball of fuzz and snappy beak to respond to.

Then Pete cuts his hand thank god. Amy hurries over, lantern wobbling behind her. The blue fire face gnashes its teeth at the pteranodon, clearly feeling challenged. "Dude, stop moving and let me heal you! I thought playing with sharp things was your mutant power."

"A pteranodon, right," Booster corrects himself, without much enthusiasm. "Look, where I'm from you don't put food into something just to take it right back out again. You..." When Pete hurts himself, Booster wonders, "Did you get a papercut?" This is not said in a teasing manner, he simply seems interested. He also lets Amy deal with it, since he has to hold the pteranodon. "Um... Amy, what... your light seems angry, I think?"

"No no no it /bit/ me, it got my /blood/, I have to shut it /in/ something--" Distracted and not actually stopping moving, Pete's got his bleeding hand in his pocket so it doesn't drip on the floor; he's opening all the cupboards and shutting them again, desperately seeking container. Finally? The Eldritch Tupperware of the Sorcerer Supreme. He scrambles across the kitchen to the other counter, trying to work it open one-handed. "Sharp things what? Booster this isn't where you're from, we haven't got replicators or whatever-the-fuck Amy can you get this open please--"

"It got your blood so you have to put it in tupperware? What kind of crazy occult dinosaur thing are you involved with?" Amy snaps her fingers. The top pops off and neatly backflips onto the nearby counter. She stops a fair distance from Pete, just in case he bursts into flames if he doesn't get his leftovers stored properly.

The lantern whirls around and comes to a stop. "What?" Amy glances up to the jerkolantern. "Oh, um, yeah. It's like that a lot. Don't worry, I made sure it's locked in. No burning me to death in my sleep tonight, huh?"

The lantern chomps the air in Amy's direction.

Booster's brows pinch together for a moment, then he shakes his head and moves on rather than trying to understand Amy and the relationship she has with her lantern. Instead, he says to Pete, "Okay, you don't get to make fun of food prep in -my- era, when current-era food just -bit you-." Lifting his hands so that the little pteranodon is held higher, he quietly tells it in a friendly tone, "Your daddy is a chronal ethnocentricist, yes he is..."

The bizarrely black takeaway carton Pete left on the counter? Is a foot to the right of where it was, and there's a trail of what's presumably Pete's blood behind it. With a crow of dark triumph, the secret agent claps the plastic container upside-down over it, keeps his elbow on it, and drags the toaster over to put on top of it. Weigh it down, et cetera. Then he breathes a sigh of relief and takes his bloody hand out of his pocket. It's swollen up a little, and he looks both incredulous and indignant. "Venom? I don't even--"

Now he definitely glares at Booster. "This is not normal. I can't believe you're helping me raid the refrigerator of a man called Strange, and you think anything is going to be normal." Glares while he's holding his hand out to Amy, finally. But when he's done glaring he looks at her, and suddenly loses all steam. "Sorry. This isn't what you need at four in the morning." Incidentally, the baby pteranodon starts screaming for food again.

By the time Pete goes to glare at Amy, she's standing with her arms crossed and hips cocked and is the very opposite of impressed.

She plays the awkward silence after he apologizes like there's talent scouts in the audience and she has a bad coke habit to support. Finally: "...yeah." The princess curls her fingers, makes an arcing gesture, and leaves Pete's hand miraculously unbitten.

Amy turns around and saunters back out the door. The back of her shirt says YOUR GOD IS DEAD. The lantern bobs along, the fiery face wordlessly saying very mean things about Booster's academic career.

"Don't stay around too late, guys, there's some serious devil vermin around here. Wong's waiting for the traps to get in from Tibet."

Booster lightly jiggles the baby pteranodon in his hands, although since this is an action rather than food, it does little to quiet the hungry creature. "Night, Amy," he calls after the young lady as she goes, and then he looks over to Pete, arching a brow at him when Amy brings up the devil vermin. That is an expression of pure vindication.