nexus_crossings | +1 fibish

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Honestly, he arrived as if he'd been here before. Indeed, if one wasn't already familiar with the faces in Nexus, the 'young man's' casual demeanor as he just strolled through an open door into the plaza would make it seem as if he'd spent every damn day in here. The attitude of a local or at the very least a frequent visitor, calm and mildly curious as he inspected a vending machine, milled about a screen near the plaza, lightly kicked a few benches, before eventually just draping himself all over one like a gangly teenaged octopus. A soggy bookbag, once slung over his arm, hit the pavement with a wet SPLAP as he seated himself, seaweed wound around the straps and zippers slapping the ground along with it.

The scent of the sea absolutely clung to him, the youth's overall appearance edging somewhere near 'damp'. As if he'd just crawled out of some lagoon, hair a bit too black, skin a bit too smooth. Those eyes just a little too dark. The teeth a touch too sharp. And for a while, he said nothing, apparently content to just take up the entire bench and people watch. A few minutes passed, before finally, at last, the man would speak up, his voice oddly, vaguely melodic and low.

"What's the weirdest thing you ever saw?"

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Well now, ain't this a whole bucket of weird even by his standards, and even by here's standards. His eyebrows are nearly reaching his hairline by the time he shakes it off and answers "I'm gonna guess that 'you' isn't the answer you're looking for?"

But he takes far too long to search for an answer, really racking his brains right now. There has been a lot of weird. A few thinking sounds later and he answers "Either the TV dimension or naked faries. 2011 was a weird, weird year."

The first response is a chuckle. A low, amused little giggle that fairly sounds as if it wouldn't be out of place coming from a stoned teen. It picks up to a louder, openly musical laugh as the mention of 'naked fairies' is floated. Immature, perhaps, but-

"Man, most fairies are naked. Clothes are uncomfortable, s'kinda weirder how humans keep 'em on all the time." He does not elaborate further, instead skipping right along past that comment as if it were never said at all: "Dude, tell me about the TV dimension, that sounds wild."

He finds himself laughing along with that laugh. "Man, don't I know that now. Most of the time you see them in pictures, unless you are in the more fantasy porn sections, you see 'em clothed."

No, no, please elaborate. "I mean, you clearly aren't human, but having trouble figuring out what the hell you are. Nexus is a weird place, gotta be sure of things before I go telling too much." Most of his experiences had been good here, but the initial encounter with Lucifer and the Damndog in a suit had back-footed him a little bit.

"Well yeah, dude, because humans like clothes. Like, you get in trouble and shit if you sell pictures of boobs in public. Fairies don't care about that."

"How weird?" Maybe he was intentionally avoiding the question, it was honestly rather hard to say. The soggy youth was rather fixated on discerning what the definition of 'weird' was here, that much was clear. "What's up here, man? What's going on? C'mon you can tell me, not asking for anything that important, right?"

"Like, you could run into an alternate version of yourself weird." He gives a shrug, and a slightly sheepish grin. And you are not the only one who is skilled in dancing around the issue with talking about themselves when they don't really fancy it. "Nobody seems a hundred percent on what's actually going on here, it seems to just show up, but once you are in you can come and go, and possibly even brin people along for the ride if it takes your fancy. You figure out the PINpoint things yet?"

"... Could I?" That sounded very interesting, actually, the Siren's gaze wandering off of Dean for a moment as he mulled over what that might be like. "... Dude I'd have like, so many questions. Shit, I hope that happens, man."

"Uuuhh..." PINpoi-Oh. He gestured at the screen. "Yeah man, yeah. The whole intro thing, yeah I heard about it. Like... shit are they water proof? S'kinda nice here, y'know? Probably won't stop by a whole bunch but..." Someone seemed to be taking the idea of just 'coming and going' from an alternate universe pretty well.

"Kinda like just back and forth from Faerie, huh? Hey, does time here work the same?"

"Probably? We got two angels here and that there's definitely only one of back on his home world. And he's not the only one whose mentioned it, so maybe the same. So... like I say, probably?"

He shrugs. "Haven't taken mine in the bath, I have no idea. I would assume they're built to last whatever they're thrown at. Although, they are cheap and easy to grab, so it'd be easy to replace if it doesn't survive a swim."

He's noticed that you are pretty cagey on answering questions about yourself, but with the fact you arrived wet, in tandem with this question, he's assuming that this might be some kind of 'Splash' situation. Mer-man? Maybe? He does, however, have Isamu to thank for the answer to this question. "Some places yes, some places no."

"... Do they get along?" Yes that was what he was the most concerned about here, his expression one of puzzlement and interest. "You'd think they'd be too alike to be friends, angels can kinda be like... kinda shitty sometimes dude. Like not demon shitty, angel shitty. You get me right? Angel shitty?"

He'd glance in the direction of the vending machines. "I mean like, wouldn't hurt to charm 'em a bit before I go home. Kinda nice in here, y'know? Quiet and shit, good for like, a nap." But his mind was wandering, and it was with open and noticeable effort that he tried to pull it back into place, those dark eyes darting around for a moment as if actually, visually searching for the thread of conversation that he'd wanted to continue.

"I guess it doesn't make too much of a difference. Time's time and shit, what's a few hours or days or whatever? I'm not gonna miss too much if I'm out for like, a few years. I think. Hey, where're you from, man?"

That? That has him laughing because oh, boy, understatement. He knows exactly what you're on about, even if he knows the circumstances won't be the same. However: "the thought of them in the same place at the same time is terrifying. But, pretty sure he loves himself enough that he'd manage to get along with himself."

He just waits out the guy searching around with his eyes, fidgeting a little in his impatience and near constant restlessness, but he also knows it can be a lot. "Earth. Or, by what I hear, one version of it. There's a few different people who come from the same place if you ask them the name, That will have had entirely different experiences, towns and places. Not heard of..." He pauses for a sec as he pulls up the name from not all that long ago in the conversation. "Faerie? Was it? Is that where you come from?"

Well, this creature---person's?--appearance caused the bassist to go wide-eyed a little as he was sat close by on another bench with his bass guitar strapped across his chest. He had been practicing since it was a nice day ready for the next tour date Ziggy and the Spiders had with the other bands. The smell of the sea invaded Weird's nostrils as he wondered if this creature was some sort of sea monster. A mer-man? No, more akin to a fish of some sort.

"I was going to say you but that would be rude. My name is Weird so I can't really say anything."

Ironic but totally true.

"Nah." Dismissive, lazy, but plenty good natured. The pale young man on the bench flashes a grin. "S'not that rude, I mean it's true, right? Am I the weirdest thing you ever saw?" There was a hint of a challenge in that, an excited, eager little dare. Go on, tell him he was the weirdest thing, if anything he looked almost flattered to think it.

"Your name? Like your name name? Or is it like, a nickname? What's your name name?"

"Weird is my name. I don't have any other name give to me."

It was his stage name but he never admitted his real name to anyone and had no reason to. He liked the name Weird and it kept everyone guessing as to what his actual birth name could be. More fun that way. As for the fish looking guy? Well, he really was a different kettle of fish. Bad pun intended.

"Do you have a name? As for you being the weirdest thing I ever saw? Perhaps. Not that I haven't seen stranger things."

Weird just offered the fish man a stare but did not smile. The bassist was often surly to most unless he knew them well. It was just his way.

In direct contrast, the Siren couldn't have looked more tickled, the surly look he got only appearing to further entertain him. Even the answer he got didn't seem to dampen the faerie's mood, in fact earning an outright giggle from him.

"That's fair man, that's fair. Y'don't gotta tell me, I wouldn't if I were you either." And yet in spite of that, at the question of his own name, the Siren beamed, flashing a head full of teeth far too sharp for a human mouth.

"Yeah sure man, it's-" What came next was most certainly not what would pass for a 'name', at least as far as human ears went. It was certainly a sound, that was for sure, but an intelligible name with syllables and letters? No, it started with what sounded like the rolling, distant call of some impossibly massive creature, keening, mournful and echoing. Rattling quickly after it in rapid succession was a series of sharp pings, akin to the noise of a glacier melting in fathomlessly deep salt water.

He looked happy with himself as he finished 'saying' his name, pausing for a second before continuing: "But the last guy called me Eddy."

"I am telling you, that's the point. Weird is my real name. I don't have any other name that people call me."

Was the bassist being mysterious? Perhaps. But he was also being very truthful because stage names were real names too. Ziggy had always called Weird, well---Weird, so it fitted? As for this guy? He was odd but not unpleasant.

"Eddy? Well, nice to meet you. I'm bassist for the Spiders of Mars, Ziggy's band. I'm not sure if you've heard of us here or not. We're pretty famous back home on our Earth."

It still felt odd saying Earth as if this was totally normal. Was Eddy an alien? He could be.

The gulper eel is drawn by the familiar smell of the sea, gaping mouth open wide. He doesn't recognize this person, but he knows water-folk when he meets them. After all, he's one of them himself. He finds his way in the world through scent, not his small, nearly useless eyes.

"Strangest thing? I...I don't know." He puffs his head up a little, startled, an instinctive reaction to things bigger than he is. "What kind of person are you? You smell like water."

Edited 2021-06-11 02:54 (UTC)

Well what kind of deep sea beastie would he be if he didn't know a gulper eel when he saw one? Of course, gulper eels weren't typically chatty, not that he was used to. He actually wouldn't know, he'd never thought very hard about having a conversation with breakfast before. Probably explained the brief look of curiosity, confusion and vague hunger that crossed his face, the siren dipping his head down a bit to try and meet the eel eye to eye a bit better.

Yes, it made his sitting position on the bench more awkward but eh.

"Haven't you see weird shit before, man? Everyone's seen weird shit." What kind of person was he? "I'm like... a person person. What kind of person are you?"

The eel slowly deflates, relieved that he isn't going to be attacked for the time being. His species is a little bit paranoid, given where they live and that they're not at the top of the food chain. The brief look of hunger wasn't entirely lost on him. But the Nexus should prevent him from being preyed on here? His eyes are wide, startled.

The eel gets himself comfortable on the bench, too, light on his tail glowing dimly as he talks and betraying his anxiety.

"I'm a gulper eel," he answers, a little nervously.

"Well yeah, man." That came with a low chuckle. "Like, yeah, I know that part. You a magic eel though? I didn't know eels could talk." At this point, he'd gone from being hunched over on the bench to slowly but surely rolled over. One long, fluid motion that took him from a sitting position to a laying one, long hair everywhere, taking up that whole damn bench, dark eyes having not moved once from the eel.

"Are you a pooka?"

Phenex is a normal resident, coming and going often in the Nexus, however, they are just as uncanny as the damp youth. They are tall, white hair, white eyes and skin pale as alabaster, curled horns gleam pearly white on their head. The clothing lose and not distinctly a dress or a robe but stands out stark against the angel's white skin in a deep sapphire, nearly sheer silk. The wings though, that spread out behind, are an ever shifting landscape of color; blending and rushing against each other like paint stirred in water though the color never muddies. For those who know the angel, the wings are like a mood ring, shifting with the tones of their mood. Currently, the feathers twist in flowing tones of yellows, pale blues and white... curiosity, calm and peacefulness.

"Everything. The unusual and distinction that makes for weirdness is also the source of beauty." The voice that comes with the words is neither masculine nor feminine, airy but not meek. It carries weight and age but also calm. "Nothing is created without beauty."

Edited 2021-06-11 04:44 (UTC)

"I dunno, kelp's pretty boring and normal." But maybe that was because he'd seen an awful lot of kelp in his lifetime. He'd probably be just as blasé about whale skeletons and sunken ships, but it hadn't occurred to him just how much of a subjective thing 'weird' could really be. As it was, with the pale, ethereal being before him, he'd not continue on for a moment, not until he discerned something first.

It was only a momentary shift, blatant enough for one watching. The whites of the young man's eyes would, with a single blink, seem to fall away, the iris devoured instantly by an ever growing pupil until nothing but pitch black remained. Within the void, for that single moment, a thousand blue white lights like a sea of stars gleamed and shimmered, the expanse of space in an eye socket.

Gone again with the next blink, his head tilting this way and that. Well... Not precisely what he was used to. Not necessarily related...

Not totally alien, not the same, but still not one of them. It didn't diminish interest, but it did do well to keep it casual.

"But like, everything's a real big answer. Kinda like a not-answer, you got an answer answer?"

"Television programs for Midgardian children," Loki answers after a moment's thought. "How are teletubbies not meant as dystopian horror?? And don't get me started on Caillou."

He's not overly interested in getting seawater on him, so he'll keep a reasonable distance, leaning his back against a nearby wall and crossing his arms casually. He has a good guess what sort of being he's looking at, and he's not particularly intimidated, but he's rather intrigued.

"I've been through the Void of space, died more than once, and faced down a number of gods and monsters, but by far the most bizarre creations are the ones that spring from mortal imagination."

"What like the Boobahs? I guess that's pretty weird..." Lightly ruined only by knowing they weren't real, but he was perfectly capable of suspending his disbelief for a while. "You ever see the Boobahs?" Because if he thought the Telitubbies were weird...

Of course, The Siren didn't at all miss how far away Loki had chosen to stand, and he flashed the man a wide, vaguely sharp toothed smile. Couldn't precisely hazard a guess as to why, but it didn't mean he still didn't find it kind of funny.

"So how'd you come back?" He'll focus on that one. Death, after all, tended not to let go of what she took, that he knew for sure. "That sounds pretty weird to me. ... What'd you see out in space? Run into anyone?"

"Boobahs...?" It takes him a moment to place this one, but he's seen them, too, much to his dismay. "Oh, those! Eurgh, I liked those even less; they looked like little parasitic eggs with faces."

"Fortunately, my lot prefer puppets and animation to people in full-body suits." He's had to ban Caillou, though.

For whatever reason, Loki takes that toothy smile as some sort of challenge, and opts to play with it in return, lowering his eyelashes in an almost-demure glance and smiling back, close-lipped but sly. Aaaaand now he's flirting.

"Hard to say, the first time," he says. "I might not have been completely dead. The second time I landed here because the person crushing my windpipe had a magical artifact in his hand. The last time, I came back through the ocean on a ship made in Hel." And he would much rather talk about all of that than Space, which says something.

"I thought they looked like big rainbow ballsacks." There are two kinds of people. "But a buddy of mine said they looked like muppet boobs." Never mind, three kinds of people. The Siren seemed amused enough by it all of course. He doesn't get up off the bench when Loki returns the smile with a more flirtatious version of it, though judging by the shift in position and the obvious, energetic little wiggle, he thought about it.

It's not laziness that kept him put. That looked like a challenge to him too. Who would move first? Lets find out!

"So you can just keep coming back because you wanna? Like, that doesn't bother Azrael? ... You got Azrael there?" It didn't sound like it, the melancholy seraph was a stickler for rules and didn't like to make exceptions. "You didn't see anything in space?"

Loki's lips twitch at 'rainbow ballsacks' but he laughs out loud at 'muppet boobs'. "All valid opinions, I'm sure."

A game of chicken built on facial expressions and body language? Sign Loki up! He lifts his chin, tilting his head and rolling his shoulders lazily as if he's warming up for something. For what, remains to be seen, but there's a knowing look when his eyes resettle on the Siren again.

"As far as I'm aware, we don't have Azrael in my world. My half-sister claimed to be the goddess of Death, but she wasn't very good at managing all the aspects. For one thing, she forgot the dead have a will of their own."

"I'm not sure it's quite as simple as I come back when I want to, but I see no reason to think I won't continue to bounce back as needed."

His expression turns a little grimmer at the question. "I saw a great deal of Nothing in Space, and Nothing is very unsettling. I didn't enjoy the trip."

"Aw, yeah that'd explain it. Azrael's really uh... like not that lax and shit about crossing over. Like once you're over, you're over, you get it? Makes sense you wouldn't have her there." He didn't bat an eye about the comment in regards to Loki's half-sister, but there was of course a reason to that: "Man like every other day it feels like there's someone all 'hey man I'm the god of death dude.' 'Snot that great, looks really depressing, don't know why anyone wants to be a death god."

The Siren hadn't looked away, not once, since the start of the conversation, and the other man's body language hadn't been missed. The laugh he gave was low, still oddly melodic, the hint of some sort of magic lingering at the very edges of the noise. "Where're you from anyway?"

Ah, Loki looked grim, but the Siren just looked... vaguely disappointed. "Aw... I guess that makes sense, yeah. They're too far off to just kinda run into by accident anyway, at least the ones that're like.... here and shit." 'They?' They who? He didn't elaborate.

Before spending time in the Nexus, Isamu could easily have answered ‘you’ to that question with sincere honesty. But having lived, worked and studied here now for the better part of a year, the aquatic humanoid’s appearance wasn’t all that weird. Though, it did make Isamu think twice about enjoying his sushi bento in the plaza today. Lunch could wait a little while longer.

“Part of me would assert that the weirdest thing I ever saw was my brother actually take a romantic interest in someone. But that would be solely in jest.”

All humor aside, he was simultaneously thinking seriously about the question.

“No, no... In truth, I do believe the weirdest thing I have witnessed was an empathic Anthean-Human hybrid infant falling asleep in my arms because my mind was inexplicably quiet enough to do so. It holds that honor, and remains weird, because I have yet to fully understand the phenomenon, even as I measure the effects of their species’ empathy on the human brain using scanners capable of simultaneous dynamic PET/MRI acquisitions.”

Most of that... flew over The Siren's head. Hey, the most complicated smart guy thing he'd ever personally dealt with had to be phones, everything said after the joke about Isamu's brother pingponged off the faerie's brain like a pinball machine.

"Uhhh...." Yeah that wasn't the smartest sound ever made. "Why'd you spell pet?" What's an acronym? Look, he taught himself how to write and that's an unholy mess of pidgin English, he's doing his best here.

"Something about an amphibian?" Anth-what on the aquiwho?

“Positron emission tomography, alongside magnetic resonance imaging. And no, not amphibian, the alien species is not capable of breathing water as far as I have been able to observe...” Isamu answered before it dawned on him that even with the translations of the Nexus, the being sitting before him had no idea what he was talking about.

He paused for a moment.

“Umm...” he sounded just as eloquent as the confused siren for a moment.

“My brain does not process psychic connections well. Emapthic abilities, telepathic communication, the like. And vice versa, it seems.” He tried again. “It is weird because I had been operating under the assumption that this is normal. But the reverse is true. I am the anomaly. I am as quiet to their kind - and other species with similar powers, as I have discovered somewhat recently - as they are to me.”

"Uh... It's okay I'm not a psychic either." That's what that meant right? He is doing his best, he really is. "Like, that's pretty chill, if you're worried about being the weird guy because you can't hear like, thoughts and shit. That's not super weird. ... I mean unless like you're supposed to and stuff but kinda seems like it'd be a lot of trouble."

Look at that, he's even trying to be reassuring, that's a new one for him. This is how a conversation works, he's conversing.

"What's an Anthanmbian?" It's a bit of effort, to claw that word back up from his hazy, fragmented memory, buried as quickly as it was under all the other information that came with it. "... Shit how do you pronounce it?"

Conversing with Isamu was not always an easy task - just ask his twin brother Minoru sometime - so the siren was actually doing a very good job!

“Anthean.” He clarified. “A family unit of this near-extinct species from another planet has settled here in the Nexus. They are very bright individuals, possessing incredible mental powers like empathy and telepathy to name merely a few. Whether you, yourself are psychic does not matter in this particular instance, actually. Their powers are enough to make that connection happen all on its own.”

That certainly complicated things.

“I suppose this all arose because my brother initially found himself overwhelmed by those powers. He was pursuing a romantic relationship with a human/Anthean hybrid, which is a much longer story in and of itself really, but the important factor here was that I was attempting to study the issue scientifically in order to assist him. However, I soon discovered that I was not the control group, but rather, the experiment. As a human, their abilities should affect me, but they do not. Quite the opposite. And having encountered other telepaths, of other species, since then, I find that I have difficulty hearing their projections as well. It is quite the conundrum.”

"So like.... they make you psychic? Or uh is it like uh... Shit, y'know, like a telephone? You can't call them but they can call you, but it's like.... brain calling and shit, right?" It made sense to him. If there was one piece of technology the siren had loyally and diligently kept up with, it was phones. The fact that they came with a camera was the main reason, but hey, may as well learn everything about it if he was going to own it.

"Kay so your phone is busted, that's not that bad. Like, there's other ways of talking to them, right? You can just talk with real words instead of uh.... brain words."

Isamu pondered his conundrum in light of the siren’s metaphor. “To use those terms, you are essentially correct. I am not able to make calls. When they call, I do not hear it ring, and they are greeted with something more akin to white noise or monotonously relaxing hold music.”

That kind of worked, actually. Common ground!

“And it is not as though I cannot communicate in other ways. Verbal communication can and does happen. For those that are not half-human, empathy makes up for a lack of facial expressions, but not being able to pick up on that has not hindered communication.”

He shook his head, returning to the metaphor again. “My phone is busted. But now pretend that I am also tech support.”

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