milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's not that Desire hasn't been visiting Milliways: Desire has.
As the Endless is so fond of reminding old friends, this is a bar: Desire never really leaves.
But maybe, just maybe, it's the first time in a long while that the Endless has been spotted moving through the crowd, reclaiming the usual booth.
Desire smirks, sets the cigarette in hand into the blue ashtray on the table and proceeds to get comfortable, shoes propped up on the bench across the way.

So.
How long has it been since you've seen Desire?

[ OOC: Pretty please! I'm attempting to get back in the swing. Ping me at milliwaysdesire before pouncing me, so I know what to expect? Thanks! - Bansh ]

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"So is my world, apparently," he says, leaning forward and pushing his hand through his hair.

Desire tilts her head, looking at him. "Tell me about it?"

A wry grin.

"I've recently discovered that dinosaurs, giant bugs and huge gorillas exist in my world."

Her eyebrows raise.
Sounds a bit like the younger sister's doing, not that she's going to tell that to Jack.

"Before you think I'm crazy, let me explain: I have a friend named Carl Denham. He's a filmmaker. You might have seen his name attached to a musical rehersal taking place here." A grimace. "He found a map to an uncharted island named Skull Island and got it into his head that he'd shoot a picture there. He hired me to write the script, though he never paid me upfront. When he tried pitching the idea to the producers they weren't pleased. In fact, they scrapped the picture, stopped financing it. Carl managed to get away before they could catch him: with a boat he had rented with their money, a crew he had hired, an actress he had picked off the streets, and me."

Desire listens to Jack start his story.
She's not nodding -- after all, that could look like she was humoring him, which she isn't.

She doesn't think he's crazy.
Of course, she's not going to interrupt him to tell him that.

And thus, the tl;dr continues:

"The island was dangerous, to say the least of it. Immediately before reaching the island we came upon fog, which concealed a maze of large, closely spaced rocks, on one of which the boat became trapped. The ship crew spent most of the following day in an attempt to free the boat from the rock. Carl, however, had his own plans: to film on the island.

"What we found there was curious: the ruins of an ancient city, on first sight, though first impressions," he says with a mirthless grin, "are often wrong. And ours were. There were natives living on that island, all hiding except for one little girl we encountered. Carl tried to give her chocolate. She refused. Violently. It was not long afterward that we learned there were other natives on the island. Natives who had surrounded us, and who we didn't initially see."

He sighed. "They didn't take to our trespassing kindly. I was rendered unconscious during the conflict so I don't know what happened beyond what Carl told me, but two men were killed--one of the ship crew members, and Carl's sound technician. We were rescued by the ship's captain and the rest of his crew.

"Later that night, they managed to free the ship from the rock, but..." He shook his head. "While on deck, I found something. A...chain of shrunken skeleton heads I had seen on one of the natives. The actress, A-Ann Darrow--I was looking for her. I didn't see her on the deck, and when I found the chain my first thought was to go looking for her in her bunker. But she wasn't there. The natives had kidnapped her."

The story sounds crazy, doesn't it? Sounds like something out of a pulp novel. And the earlier talk of giant bugs -- An ordinary person might accuse Jack of taking up science fiction.

But she's still there, listening.
And something in her face says she knows he isn't crazy.

It's only the stuff of fantasy epics.

"So we went back to get her. And found the natives sacrificing her to some...god, we thought, until Carl saw...Carl saw something, once we arrived at the 'city' again. He saw something behind the wall that separated the coast from the jungle. It was a giant ape, a giant ape that had taken Ann.

"We spent the next day trying to rescue her. That's where the dinosaurs and the bugs come in. I'd rather not...discuss them at the moment." He grimaces. "But eventually, I found Ann. She'd formed some kind of friendship with the ape. I don't understand how that was possible, but...he didn't kill her. And we managed to escape, though the ape was on our trail." He paused, and a cold grin overcame his face. "But we made it out with more than just our lives in tact. At least, Carl did. Fourteen men died on our mission, and what we got in return for all that hard work, besides Ann, was the ape himself."

He sighs. "Now that the ape is in New York, Carl intends to put him on Broadway for show."

Desire seems to consider this a moment.

"... Does the ape know about the plan?"

...

"Ask Carl."

Nod.
Shrug.

"And how did you find Milliways? Since you know how I ended up here and all..."

"At random. I was just trying to get into my favorite bar."

Deisre gives Jack a sympathetic look. "Sneaks up on you, huh."

She idly fidgets with her purse again, and then sighs. "Look, Mister Driscoll. It can't be forever, right? Doesn't seem to be the way it works around here."

He shakes his head. "No. It can't be."

He likes it here, truly, but he's starting to feel the slightest bit homesick. And he misses Else.

"Well, chin up, Jack." Desire offers him a remarkably cheery grin, sliding out of the chair and back to standing up.

"Call me an optimist, but I'm sure things'll sort themselves out soon enough -- and don't worry about your lady friend back home. It'll turn out all right."

Look at the ellipses on the wind! See how they soar! And my, how rapidly can Jack blink!

"Ih--sh--um--"

Isn't it remarkable how easily a man well versed in English can suddenly forget how to speak it?

And while poor Jack is processing, Desire tips him a wink and a wave, and disappears into the crowd.

Wow.
Talk about an exit line.

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