[OPEN] ish?

[uncurse]

WHO: EMMA SWAN, and OPEN!
WHERE: De Chima #002
WHEN: September 5th
WHAT: Emma arrives and scopes out her new digs.
WARNINGS: Updated as needed.

As days go, this one has proven itself a special brand of confusing.

When she’d first come toppling through into this world, she had to guess that Zelena’s time portal had worked. Granted, she’d really expected it to take her to the Enchanted Forest’s past—not the World Without Magic’s. The more she saw of this world, and the more the government explained, the more she realized that something had gone wrong. Really wrong.

This wasn’t the past of any world she was familiar with. Armed with a cell phone, a file detailing her magical abilities, and not much else, she made her way to her assigned housing, tense and suspicious. The best thing she could do was to follow the rabbit hole down at this point (a notion she had become entirely too familiar with in the past year), and yet …

Looking up at the building, she sighed.

She hated public housing. Almost ten years since she’d had to live in it, and now she was right back. Her eyes drop down to her phone to confirm she’s in the right place. For a moment, she lingers outside, scanning the network they’d briefed her on, but …

The last thing she needs is some kind of digital footprint in a world that she doesn’t even understand. Swapping her phone for her keys, she lets herself into the house and begins to explore, skimming the fridge, and checking bedroom doors until she finds the empty one.

Comments

[unhand]

Hook doesn't come home often. Like so many places on land, it doesn't feel like home. Nothing's felt like home since he lost his ship. No place anyway.

He lets the door close and heads over to the kitchen, but someone's beaten him there.

A very familiar someone, with her head in the fridge.

He doesn't know his roommates well. They share a living space, nothing more, but he's still sure he'd have noticed if one of them had that particular head of hair. He's sure he'd have noticed if the woman he loves was living here.

Yet here she is, against all his expectations, after a month of missing her. A month might be nothing next to the year that marked their last separation, but it was still longer than he wanted to go without seeing her face.

He swallows, his mouth suddenly, dry, and speaks up, his voice quiet and hopeful. "Swan?"

[uncurse]

The name causes Emma’s eyes to stop dead on the half-empty ketchup bottle in the fridge. For a moment, she just stays frozen there, processing, and then she straightens, leaving the door hanging open as she turns to gaze behind her. Before she even sees him, she knows exactly who to expect. Knows that voice, and even the tone in it.

And still, when she sees him, her chest tightens.

“Hook?” She doesn’t miss another beat, letting her reply break the spell of tension between them. Her hand shoves the fridge door shut in one fluid movement while she turns towards him and paces to the edge of the kitchen, close enough for a reasonable talking distance. “What the hell are you doing here?” The portal. He hadn’t followed her through, had he? The edge of panic in the way her eyes search his face makes it clear she has her suspicions about just that.

[unhand]

He steps in a little closer, looking her over now that he's confirmed it's her. Emma's here. And she's okay. Well, as okay as can be expected considering she's been whisked away to another world.

He blinks, looking back up at her face.

"I... I've been here. What are you doing here? When you didn't appear, I thought... I hoped it meant you'd gone home. That the portal had worked properly for once."

[uncurse]

“Home? Hook, that thing was sucking us out of Storybrooke. You didn’t seriously go through with me.”

Her disbelief borders on the accusatory, causing her voice to steadily increase in volume as her questioning goes on. His claims about being here don’t even fully process right off the bat, overshadowed by the fact that they’re even here at all. And … apparently, housed together.

[unhand]

"Of course I did. But that was... Emma, you managed to reverse it. We were going back to the future."

Hook looks puzzled, tilting his head a little to look at her. It's not the sort of thing she could just... get wrong which makes this infinitely more confusing. More time travel? Is it possible? Not, he supposes, that it would be the weirdest thing to have happened to him this month.

[uncurse]

“Wait.”

Shaking her head, Emma raises a hand between them, grimacing to try and get a hold on this. None of it is adding up for her, primarily because Hook is operating under the assumption that she has context to something that she doesn’t ever remember happening.

“Back to the future? That would mean we—“ At least she can do that simple math. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember going to the past, let alone booting up a DeLorean to get out of it. What the hell are you talking about?”

[unhand]

Delor-what? Hook looks confused, but he pushes past it. Not important. "That's what the Zelena's portal did." And something's clearly gone wrong if she doesn't remember leaving it. "It took us to the past. Then you got us back."

Not simply or easily, of course. But she managed it.

[lurings]

Emma is not who Abigail expects to see.

Actually, she's not sure who she expected to see since she doesn't know who Will lives with. She'd stopped by to leave him a thank you card for the scarf he gave her -- the same dark blue one she has looped around her neck at the moment -- and she specifically chose a time she knew he would be at the bait shop so she could just leave it for him without having to watch him open it or not open it.

Instead, with the card clutched between her fingers, she finds a pretty blonde woman. Not Will Graham at all. Nope. Not a bit.

(It's nice though, to be able to see a woman and not immediately think: Dad would like her. Blondes are great like that.)

With an air of apprehension, Abigail moves forward, reaching up to reflexively tuck her hair behind her good ear before her fingers twist back together, edges of the card being forced inward. It'll resemble an accordion soon.

"Excuse me. Do you live here?"

[uncurse]

Dropping her hand away from the handle of the front door, Emma turns back towards the approaching girl and looks her over. Nervous, almost scrambling. Maybe not as new as Emma, but still new. Probably doesn’t live here if she has to ask, which means … Glancing up at the building, Emma does some quick math: the girl’s here for one of her roommates-to-be.

“Newly,” she qualifies it, offering Abigail a smile. Nudging the door open, she holds it for the younger girl. “You visiting?” The ‘come on in’ gesture is impossible to mistake, as Emma uses her body to hold open the door and clear the doorway all at once.

[lurings]

"Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to drop something off for Will." A beat before she adds, "He lives here." like the woman couldn't figure that out fine on her own. But she does slide through the door swiftly, since the door is being held for her and it's be rude and probably creepy to just loiter on the doorstep when she's been invited in.

She also elaborates on why she's dropping something off for Will and hadn't just called him to let her in. "He's at work right now. I think." Maybe it's his day off, she doesn't know actually.

[uncurse]

“Not a whole lot to interrupt. I just got here.” Shrugging, Emma lets the door close behind them, stepping into the living room and taking a cursory look around before letting her eyes fall back on Abigail. She doesn’t bother disguising the newness of it all: she takes everything in piece by piece. More interesting, though, is the visitor. “I was gonna pick a room … any chance you know which one’s your friend’s?”

Her eyes flicker up toward the ceiling to indicate the second floor, where the bedrooms line a narrow hallway. Invading her roommates’ privacy seems like a bad foot to start on, so the fewer doors she has to open in the hunt for her bed space, the better.

[lurings]

Her head shakes briefly as she glances toward the stairs. "No, but I can take a good guess. He has a dog, so it'll have Gunther's bed in it."

Fishing out her phone, she flicks across the screen a couple times until she finds a decent picture of Gunther, which is actually a selfie of Abigail, Will and Gunther. Like a scruffy family portrait; two of the members unshaven (the dog and man), two in plaid (man and girl), the only delicate thing in the entire picture is the way Abigail's head tips against Will's shoulder.

She holds it out for Emma to see the epic mustached doggie. "He's big, but really friendly and he's very well behaved. Will keeps him in the shop while he is there, so he's used to people."

The picture will probably serve as reason for why Abigail doesn't know where Will's room is -- the age disparity makes it 100% inappropriate.

[uncurse]

Surprise colors Emma's face at the picture, lips parting briefly, but she reins it in readily enough. Somehow, Abigail's visit hadn't painted the picture of a thirty-something in her mind. Older brother, probably. Emma looks the picture over, reading into it some, and then straightens, shifting her attention to Abigail and smiling to indicate she's done viewing.

"Cute," she affirms, glancing up towards the stairs. She's never had a dog. A roommate keeping one hardly changes that, but still. She exhales, then starts towards the stairs. "Well, let's have a look." Time to start nosing in bedrooms.

[proteus]

Bader had no choice but to stay in-doors turning the daylight hours; an unfortunate but unavoidable caveat of vampirism. For however animalistic and entrenched in the wilderness her bloodline was. Evening rolled around and she roused, blinking through a death trance with an exhaustion that ran deep in the bone as she stretched up on four legs instead of two. She felt more at ease in this form for a variety of reasons, and she had planned on spending her waking hours out in the neighboring woods anyway.

Padding across her room to nose the door handle open she still when the sound of the front door turning in its lock is heard. Unfamiliar footsteps follow, coming down the hall as Bader tensed in the middle of her room. New housemate, it was the first thought that came to mind but like most things private and cagey she detested the idea of something unfamiliar coming into a space she cordoned off as a safe haven.

When her bedroom door is opened she stands there in room still as a statue, facing down a strange woman with curling blond hair and bright eyes. She smelled alive and above all else different. The only sound Bader initial makes is a confused, ululating whine and then-

"Um," Talking wolves was something you had to acclimatize others to quickly, "...occupied."

[uncurse]

Opening the door to a fucking wolf is the last thing Emma expected walking upstairs.

She lingers in the doorway, slack-jawed, trying to work through the numbness so she can slam the door and call animal control when—It talks? Emma’s fingertips release the doorknob and she’s left staring dumbly, searching for the appropriate reaction (is there an appropriate reaction?) to a talking wolf in her house.

This must be what going insane feels like, she realizes.

Strangely, she feels at least somewhat equipped. Between Ruby talking to Pongo and her mother’s thing with the birds, she at least finds it in herself to scramble to communicate.

“You live here?” As in—not in the woods?

[proteus]

Bader rocks uneasily on her too-big paws that the newly renovated wood floors groan and buckle under her impressive weight. Being the center of attention even against an audience of one was never something she enjoyed. Even if their disquiet was understandable- because who opened a bedroom door expecting the big bad wolf?

"Jesus," Her breath hitched irritably, "Yes."

And then, because now she was aware that even changing back to a human might put this woman at ease she had went down that morning hardly wearing anything. Tail flicked as she eyed her seldom used dresser.

"Can I change?" She asked with more than one meaning behind it, "You'll get a crick in your neck talking to me looking down like that anyway."

[uncurse]

“Change into — ?” What? The words come out while she’s still processing, but she follows Bader’s gaze up to the dresser and blinks, stepping back. “Oh. Oh, you can—“ She holds up her hands. “Sorry. Yeah.”

Shaking her head like she’s trying to shake herself out of the Twilight Zone where this is actually her life, she turns around and makes her way out of the room. Turning before shutting the door, she gives the wolf one last perplexed look, searching, and then pulls it shut behind her.

Well that’s … something.

[proteus]

Bader waits to hear the lock click into place before she gets back up on two feet to rummage through her dresser and find something decent to wear. Apparently, they were having company. Lucky her to have showered last night after coming backing from the woods dragging all sorts of smells with her.

"Hey," A hushed and slightly awkward greeting came out from the door as Bader- a human woman dressed in an olive drab jacket and secondhand jeans, slipped into the hallway, "Sorry for that."

[uncurse]

“You’re … a girl.”

The words spill out of Emma’s lips very suddenly as she turns to spot the woman exiting the bedroom she’d just found a wolf inside. She blinks hard, trying to scramble and cover her bewilderment in vain. The observation seems obvious now, and yet she can’t quite wrap her head around it, despite knowing Ruby can do precisely the same thing.

[lackey]

Mike Parker returns home to De Chima Residence #2 mumbling both complaints about dogs and song lyrics completely unrelated to dogs under his breath. He peels off his ANIMAL CONTROL OFFICER jacket, drops it on the floor near the coat rack, and keeps on walking.

Right up until he notices the blonde lady. The blonde lady who had not been present when he'd headed off to work that morning.

He stops and stares for a second (maybe Will brought a lady to the house? nope, too pretty for Will) before ducking away and hurrying to his room. He returns a few moments later... with a gun.

Slowly, Mike steps out to confront the intruder, his back to the wall behind him. He makes no effort to conceal the pistol in his hand.

"New roomie, somebody's friend, or should I shoot you for trespassin'?" He poses the question with enough of a joking tone, but he's really not joking. At all.

[uncurse]

“Funny,” Emma remarks. Her eyebrows arch high enough on her head as she glances back at him for creases to line her forehead, and she doesn’t make any particular effort at disguising the way her gaze drops to focus on the pistol.

Not so funny, perhaps.

She doesn’t seem to back down or lose any comfort at the sight, though she’s unfortunately unarmed for the time being herself. She didn’t exactly go charging around a farmhouse ready for a shoot-out, and no one had armed her since she got here. Maybe they should have.

“I’m Emma.” She figures that answers his question in its own right: home invaders don’t make a habit of introducing themselves, but she hopes it’ll put him at some ease for her to do exactly that.

[lackey]

"Oh," that probably should suffice for an answer, but Mike looks more confused than placated. Why's she giving him her name? Is her name supposed to mean something? Did one of his roommates mention an Emma at some point and he already forgot?

"Mike," he gestures toward himself with the gun before dropping his hand to his side, pistol pointed at the floor, "So, uh... Somebody's friend, then? Girlfriend? Sister?"

[uncurse]

“They didn’t warn you?”

Her eyebrows raise up higher on her forehead and she sighs, exhaling and letting her expression grow slack, unimpressed and deflated. Shaking her head, she opts to fill in the blanks, “New roommate, actually.”

Somehow, she had the notion that the left hand might talk to the right hand around here. Then again, that would require the government actually telling its people about anything. She rubs the back of her head.

[lackey]

Mike shrugs in response. Nope, no one warned him of anything. Even a quick 'heads-up new roommate' message is apparently too much work for the government. What a bunch of slackers.

(Pot calling kettle black.)

"Oh." Oh. His favorite word.

A new roommate after all. Mike glances down at his gun and slips it under his belt. Won't be needing that today.

"Welcome to the house?" He ducks around her, goes for the fridge and a beer, "I'm Mike." Wait. "Already told you that. Guess you drew the short straw with room pickin' since there's only one left? Think they're all pretty much the same, anyway. Bathrooms for everybody! Government usin' their heads for once. Be a real mess if we had to share. Especially with talkin' wolf lady around. Hey, you want a drink or anything?"

[uncurse]

"I just came through a teleporter machine into a world full of superheroes. 'Want' feels like an understatement." Her eyes follow him around the room, and she sidles up towards the breakfast bar, nodding towards the fridge to silently take him up on that offer of the drink. Yes, please. "Wolf-lady's the least weird part of my day."