trans_9 | Avenues That Reek of Time to Kill [Closed]

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Avenues That Reek of Time to Kill [Closed]

Howard made sure they arrive to Med Bay early, not just because he doesn't want to be late but because if he impresses on Orc to hurry up, Orc might not have time to get completely smashed before they do this thing. Howard would rather not deal with blackout-drunk Orc, but at the same time he doesn't want Orc sober enough to be obstinate or miserable, so they did a stop at the beer tree before coming here.

He invited Barbara and Ian because they were very game for the food excursion, despite is propensity for total revulsion. He invited Anwei because he wants to be close with her again, at least, as close as he gets to people who aren't Orc. And because she brings a new perspective to Stacy, one that's been proven to be more viable than he presumed.

He wanders through the hospital beds and sets up the coffee pot. No reason not to go into a brand spanking new adventure caffeinated. The Medical Bay is large enough that meeting here doesn't even register on the people working actual shifts.

"You want coffee?" He fills up a mug for himself and glances over at Orc. He hopes they aren't waiting long enough for Orc to get impatient or lose interest.

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"Stacy wouldn't just put random lightbulbs somewhere if they weren't supposed to be used, right? I wonder what this paper material is." Howard gets down on his elbows and squirms after Barbara, giggling a bit and glad that they're comfortable enough to tease each other. It's how he relates to other people best, through teasing. It's an easier way to frame the relationship than thinking of how Barbara's taking over the surrogate mother position.

"Don't fart!" Sometimes Howard seems to exist outside of the fact where he's only fifteen and hasn't had adult guidance since he was two years younger than that, but he's still at the age where bodily functions are entertaining. He follows Barbara through this tunnel, which seems much much longer than the first one. As they go the sound of droning and humming seems to fill the air, which is getting increasingly sweet-smelling. "You hear that?"

Though Howard couldn't see it, Barbara rolled her eyes at the mention of passing wind. She was a lot of things but rude wasn't one of them.

What gave her pause, however was the hum she heard once Howard pointed it out. She stopped to listen.

"...what is that?" she asked with a frown.

"I don't know." He presses his ear to the papery wall to try and hear it more clearly, but he can't really tell what's going on. "Do you see anything up ahead?"

In a few more yards Barbara should, actually, see a large cavern opening up, this one more well-lit than the last and seeming to be designed rather than grown, although the walls are still that thin papier mache substance.

It looks almost like a small cathedral stuck inside Stacy, some temple of plants. The ceiling is arched, and ivy tumbles and pools down the sides. Many-colored flowers large enough to be used as cribs bloom in towers and around pillars to the ceiling. The ground is covered with a lush moss nearly two feet deep. The humming, from this close, almost sounds like music sung slightly off-key, a little too flat to be melodious. Streams of water drip from the walls and down into the floor, although it's soon lost to the moss. The whole room gives off a warm, tranquil feel, like an oasis in the desert.

In the center of the room, at the locus of the humming, is a box, six feet tall. At first glance it looks brown, but upon closer inspection it's actually translucent and just filled with golden insects.

Edited 2012-04-18 07:28 (UTC)

"I believe so." Barbara wriggled the final few feet, crawled a little then stood and looked around with her mouth gaping slightly.

She hadn't seen anything like this on Stacey. She had seen plenty in the small amount of time she'd been on board but this...! Well. It was amazing, really. The walls were slightly springy when she pushed her hand against a spot. "It's like moss," she commented quietly to herself.

There wasn't a bone in Barbara's body which could be called 'musical', so the sound just sounded like a sound. But the box! It was fascinating and grotesque at the same time. "What do you think this is?" asked Barbara to Howard.

Howard sinks about a foot into the moss with a little squeak of delight and surprise. "Holy shit..." Then he claps a hand over his mouth for swearing in front of Barbara, where a few weeks ago he wouldn't have cared.

Who'd have thought Stacy had such beauty amongst all her normal fleshy, slimy nonsense? Howard pokes at the center of a flower the size of his head, then turns to the box. "Is that...bees?"

Unlike Barbara, Howard does have a musical bent, though he rarely displays it. As such he hums a bit too, matching the bees' tone and then 'correcting' it into the melody he thinks he can hear.

Barbara smiled at the humming. "Yes, I believe they're bees but why would Stacey have bees on board? And why all the way back here? It doesn't make a lot of sense."

She turned from the box, though kept an eye on it, as though it might start doing something else if she didn't pay attention, and looked at the flowers which grew along a vine on one wall. They were certainly pretty. Maybe she should pick one to be looked at later...and because that seemed like such a great idea, she did just that, wrapped it up in a clean hanky, and put it safely in her pocket

"We're inside a giant flying wart with tentacles and bees is what doesn't make sense to you?" Howard gets closer to the bee box, head tilting right and left as he tries to see if it's just bees or also honeycomb. A little sticker on the side of the box reads 'Magic Bee Box, Ouroborus Toy Company, Made in Thailand'.

He turns and watches as Barbara plucks a flower. "I wonder if those flowers are edible?" As he asks that, the bees in the box rearrange their flight patterns and spell out the words 'POSSIBLY MAYBE'. Howard jumps back with a startled glance.

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't really try and make sense of anything anymore, I suppose." What with killer mutants inside tin cans, being shrunk and poisoned, transcendental spaces, time travel, aliens, mind reading and a whole host of things she'd experienced before Stacey, Barbara really shouldn't suppose or assume.

But then the bees moved to spell out words. Words. Bees shouldn't be able to spell.

And there was Barbara assuming again.

She withdrew the flower from her pocket and gave it to Howard. You're welcome to try and eat it if you want to. What's the worse that could happen?"

'THE FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN', spelt out the bees.

Howard takes the flower and examines it. "I don't know, could be poisonous." He pulls a petal off and nibbles just a bit. "But it's not bitter, so it's probably edible."

Then again, they are in space where the rules don't count. He gives a glance up to the bees, trying to just roll with the idea that they're actually responding to things they're saying.

"Are you bees actually answering our questions or just responding like a buzzing magic 8-ball?"

The bees spell out 'THE ANSWER REVEALS ITSELF IN TIME', thereby answering nothing. Howard pulls a stick from one of the dried ivies and pokes at the box, because this is clearly a brilliant idea.

"I might be wrong," Barbara began, watching Howard, "but I'm not certain that poking bees is a good idea."

"They're in a box!" The logical part of Howard's mind realizes that Barbara's completely right, and that he should have thought of that. In a better state of mind, he would have. As such he just feels a little indignant that she's calling his shoddy judgment into question.

He leans in again. "There's paper in the box. I can barely see it, but..." He tries to make out the words written on the paper and make a frustrated little noise that he can't.

Barbara peered closer to try and see what Howard was getting at. There did indeed look like words on paper.

"I say," Barbara said to the bees, "could you please move out of the way?"

The bees answered,'MOST LIKELY', moving them out of the way of the sign almost entirely. 'Magic Bee B-' the rest was covered with bees.

Good idea, Barbara. Howard shoots her an enthusiastic grin, as if they're partners in crime here.

"I bet that says 'Box'. And there's something else in there..." Howard presses his lips together as he thinks. "I'm not allergic to bees anything. What about you?"

Yes, he is suggesting opening the box.

"...I'm not..." Barbara hesitated. She didn't like the idea of opening the box but that writing could very well be important. Who knew why or how but it could be.

"We should at least try and cover up as much of ourselves as possible." But it wasn't as if bee-keeper outfits were simply lying around for them to use. "I could hold my cardigan over my head. What about you?"

"Maybe if they look like they're getting too feisty, you can ask them questions." Howard zips his jacket up and pulls the hood over his head. He pulls his sleeves down and hides his hands, then takes a deep breath.

"Okay."

He hesitates again.

"I'mma do it."

Another pause.

"I'm honestly kinda scared."

Saying that out loud seems to free him up a little bit, so he takes one more deep breath and opens the top of the box. The bees instantly swarm out of the box and all over every available surface, including him, including Barbara, but they don't sting. He closes his eyes, whimpers, and grabs the paper out of the box.

"Try calling them off!" His voice is just a notch below panic, but he's actually proud of himself that he hasn't freaked out yet. That he did this to start.

Barbara was glued to the spot. She couldn't move and she felt like breathing would draw the bees into her mouth. But Howard was calling for her help and she couldn't ignore that.

Slowly, so, so slowly, she drew in a breath and, as gently as she could, Barbara said: "can bees fly?"

The bees seemed to swarm around them for a moment, looking for a surface or a new home or something but eventually landed in an empty spot on the floor, spelling out 'THE FUTURE IS CERTAIN'.

In no way was Barbara a shrinking violet, but she had limits. The bees were close to her limit, as they crawled all over her skin. Barbara shivered and went over to Howard, watching the cluster like they might suddenly jump up and attack them again. She went to put an arm around him, but stopped short and simply stood next to him instead.

"Alright, what does the paper say?" she asked, still watching the bees.

Howard's breathing quickly and trembling slightly, and is rattled enough that rather than avoiding Barbara's arm and reclaiming his personal bubble, he moves in to the halted embrace and clings to her side. But he's not panicking, and that's worth something. He holds the paper at an angle so she can read it too.

The papers are separated into two clumps of paper, separated by staples. One's formatted in a regular courier font, the other having been written up on a typewriter. Closer examination reveals that it's documents on both of them, transcripts from school. Grades and behavioral assessments.

Howard's is full of notes on bad behavior, a permanent record of every theft, of every time he pushed another kid around, on every time he called a teacher a 'bitch' or got caught skipping school or flunked a class or extorted money out of another kid. And prior to that, going back to first grade, footnotes on being sent to counseling over and over for getting into altercations with the other kids, with a few mentions of having broken his nose or lost a tooth. The picture the record paints of him isn't a flattering one.

And then there's Barbara's. Howard looks at hers, but he's reasonably certain he won't find anything near so damning in her history. He casts a worried glance up at her, not sure of her reaction.

But more worryingly, that shouldn't even be possible. The box was closed when they arrived. Stacy couldn't have known that they were coming, could she?

How could Stacy have known? The papers in their hands are theirs and only theirs. It's more than generating something that corresponds exactly to them - Stacy must have seen the future.

The cling was a surprise, and Barbara was content enough to cling back, being close to panic herself. But what made her the most concerned, was the paper work. It wasn't surprising to see that Howard had not been the most angelic at school, not from what he'd told her, anyway. Barbara's own records were equally unsurprising. Barely any sick days, decent marks, homework in on time and pretty good. There was that one time she missed a class and forgot to hand in the slip which said she was ill, but as it only happened the one time, she wasn't terribly fussed.

However there also seemed to be a record of the one entirely rebellious thing she did during a school dance, and quickly took hold of the paper before Howard could see. Although there was a chance he'd already read about her sharing an entire bottle of scotch with one of the boys in her year behind the dance hall.

Still, she'd rather there was little or no evidence of it.

"Why would Stacey want these?" she asked Howard, changing the focus a little, "and why would she keep them in a box of bees?"

'UNCERTAIN', spelled out the bees.

"Wait, you...?" Howard tries to read the report on Barbara's drinking, because his spirit's have sunk a bit seeing that not only is a teacher he likes getting to see his less-than-stellar permanent record, but also seeing it in contrast to her own quite acceptable transcript. She moves it away too fast for him to read it all, so he's left uncertain if she drank the scotch or if she just gave it to the boy.

Either way, he's in pretty much no position to throw stones. So he drops the subject.

"Do you think she has them on all of us?" He's asking Barbara, but the bees on the ground spell out 'PERHAPS PERHAPS NOT'. "How did she know we were coming?"

Glancing back at the bees, he tries the tack of asking, "can you guys go back in the box? Please?"

And to his surprise, they actually do.

While she folded the paper and shoved it deep into her pocket, there was a twinge of regret. If anyone should read her record, it should probably be Howard, seeming as she read his.

Another mess she'd caused. Wonderful.

"I don't know why she'd only have yours and my records," Barbara said, still watching the bees. "But I can't see any others, can you?"

"No, I don't see any. And I'm not reaching back into that box." Even if the bees are obedient. He steps back from Barbara; now that the threat's gone he...probably shouldn't be clinging.

"We could probably use these bees to make honey, though. Think Stacy'll kick our asses if we take them out of here?" They come with a convenient box and everything! How can he resist?

Barbara's mouth immediately starts watering at the thought of eating actual honey from real bees and not food blocks or processed muck.

"Can we please at least try?" she asked Howard, a hint of desperation in her voice. "We could keep them in the hydroponics, which might help things grow a little better, too!"

Howard actually laughs a bit. He thought he was the only one desperate for food around here. "Like I'd walk out of here without trying. I can tie the lid with my belt and some carabiners and we can shove it ahead of us on the way back out."

He goes to do just that, hoping the bees don't see being tied up as an attack. "You know, I have homemade strawberry jam. I don't really give it out much, but..."

But he'd give some to Barbara, he's saying.

Once Barbara had realised just what she was doing, her cheeks colour a little but she smiled all the same. "It does look like it might roll or slide well enough, doesn't it?"

"All the TARDIS has had was food blocks," she told him, "and all Stacey has is slop. I've not had real food in such a long time."

"Probably better to slide it or roll it. Even if they're all locked up, I don't want those bees angry at me." Letting them out once was enough, thank you! He finishes clipping the belt and climbing rings in. It's not as tight as he'd like, but it'll keep the top on at least.

"I mostly eat the slop. All the other food is there just in case, you know. In case I get FAYZed again." He bites his lip. "You won't tell anyone I have jam if I give you some, right? I don't want everyone taking it."

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