The Bar at the End of the Universe

The front door opens and a tall and broad figure steps in. Heavy boots fall on the wooden floorboards and in his wake is a trail best described as 'yuck'.

In fact Red is coated in the mess, slimy glop that drips down his shoulders and back in pale green, boogery strands. Each foot fall is marked with a squelching sound and a sticky boot-print and when he stops at the counter a huge blob of the junk slops off the ends of his trench coat and hits the floor with a wet 'SPLAT'.

"Gimme a beer and a Baby Ruth," Hellboy requests and Bar provides, along with a stack of super-sized bath towels.

Red takes a seat, ignoring the towels for now in favor of tearing open the wrapper on the candy bar and taking a big bite which gets washed down with beer.

It's been a day.

'WATCH FOR PUMPKINS'

That's what the sign staked out just past the back door reads, and in the grass just beyond there are pumpkin carcasses littering the ground here and there. To judge by the way they're split open, guts spilled at the bottom of cratered depressions it would appear as if they fell out of the sky.

Which, naturally, is exactly where they came from.

Following their trail and trajectory backwards a person will find Hellboy and a very large slingshot apparatus. It's a fairly simple setup, two large posts hammered into the ground with heavy-duty elastic stretched between them, and a large man drawing back on a pumpkin, aiming for the lake.

Fall, it seems, has arrived.

Red hasn't been around much, but, y'know, that's Milliways.

He saunters in, easy as you please, and heads for the counter to put in an order. Before he can speak a large cake appears with a big '20th' candle burning on top.

Hellboy quirks an eyebrow and a comic appears, only this one has a giant '20th Anniversary Edition' printed across it.

Barking a laugh, he shakes his head and has a seat.

"Alright, but they still never get the eyes right."



[ooc: So it was really on Saturday and I missed it. Consider this post open until it scrolls, with slows happening as work does.]

Red walks in, in a hurry, lugging a stack of papers and a notepad. He rips the first page off of the notepad and slaps it onto Bar's counter top.

"Okay, so I'm putting together a shindig and I need this stuff from you for Friday."

The sheet disappears a moment, then reappears with several items crossed off. Red picks the page back up and scowls.

"What? Oh come on, how the heck are people supposed to bungee jump if you don't give me the hot air balloon?"

A napkin appears and Red reads it.

"You're killing a great party, I hope you know that."

With a sigh he starts scanning through the rest of the list.

"I didn't mean artillery shells as in ammo, I meant the fireworks."

The napkin conversation continues.

"Yeah, okay, I meant ammo, but why the heck not? I'm not going to... "

...

"Fine. Can I at least get the fireworks?"

...

"One last question, do you got any idea where a guy could rent an elephant in Jersey?"

...

"Ohhh, right. I guess they don't make Dumbo size Pampers, do they? Hmmm... all right."

Red crosses that item off his list himself, then gives back the paper.

"Okay, so there's that. And then... this."

He sets a hefty stack of paper onto the bartop. Each sheet is a photocopy of a handwritten invite on ( BPRD Letterhead and reads: )

"Give one of these to everybody for me, would ya?" Why stop the guest list with friends and family when you can invite the whole multi-universe?

"And, if anyone asks, yes gifts are mandatory."

That done he tacks one of the sheets on the bulletin board then heads back out again. He has things to finish putting together and needs to figure out a good substitute for an elephant that doesn't involve giant piles of crap.


[ooc: No tags to Red, but feel free to react. More info in the Back Room]

When Hellboy walks through the front door his focus is on his hands, not on his surroundings. He's tinkering with something, and when he looks up and notices his surroundings he hesitates.

Standing in the threshold, he casts a glance over the room, and decides to go ahead and stay.

As the door closes behind him he takes up a seat at a table. Ordering a "large" RC Cola from a rat, he goes back to fiddling with the small contraption resting in his stone palm.

The set of his shoulders is a little tense, and he keeps his head down. A big, red man trying to blend in with the bar crowd.




[ooc: tags might be a bit slow, but this is open until it scrolls. If you need to contact the mun PMs are your best bet.]

Red has not been back to the bureau yet. Why? Why should he?

He'd much rather hang out here in Milliways. And besides, something creepy is going down, and isn't that his area of expertise?

So he's here.

He couldn't sleep (bad dreams, Rasputin, Chaos Gods, fire, father), so he's outside getting some air and looking around.

Something is definitely not quite right out here, and Hellboy doesn't like the look of that fog, or the strange symbol he's found carved into the trunk of a tree on the edge of the woods.

Lighting a cigar, his cough on the first exhale has him eying the stogie in annoyance.

"Cheap ass, Manning."

Another puff turns into a coughing fit, and he extinguishes the cigar in disgust, and heads inside for a beer instead.



[ooc: slow and steady is I, but I'll try and keep up. Catch him inside or outside.]