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Will walks out of the gym laughing, stumbling from Dustin shoving at his shoulder after a stupid joke. He walks backwards, waving as the pairs of his friends break off from their group with hands clasped and Dustin runs out toward Steve's car. He's not surprised to find his mom already in the parking lot; Will still thinks Jonathan working the dance was the only reason she didn't volunteer to chaperone. But he can't find it in him to be embarrassed about it, not when he's riding high off the first normal night he's had in over a year.

He's flushed by the time he's close to her, tie askew and hair messy from his friends' roughhousing. There's a smile on Will's face. He looks just as excited as he did on Halloween morning, loose-limbed and carefree. "Sorry, we got kind of caught up talking. Were you out here a long time? Sorry."

starjet

Jet dislikes a lot of things, if he stops to think about. Which he does, when he's drawn the short stick and has to keep watch in the frigid hours of the night with nothing to do but think. For one, he doesn't like when Hot Chimp spends her hour DJing on late nineties pop. Another, he doesn't like the sad excuse for jerky Chow Mien sells no matter how much Kobra tries to convince him otherwise. He doesn't like how rough Party can be on the car, knowing he's going to be trying to fix it with stolen wires and spit. He dislikes a lot of things, though he's learned there wasn't much use in complaining.

This, though, he hates and it's taking a lot more effort to stay quiet about it.

The bike they'd stolen is laying on it's side, the dents and laser burn almost covering the ugly white of the city's paint-job. It's out of fuel, a leak in the tank that Jet's pretty sure was there before the shootout started. Of course it'd be just their luck that the thing they took in the heat of the moment would be the one thing BLI didn't make perfect. The run was supposed to be a simple one, head to where the junkpunks were setting up for the day and stock up on the shit they needed. Half a day out tops and safe as anything could be in the Zones. safe enough they'd had the kid strapped into the back seat. But halfway through Jet trying to haggle a filtration system out of some stratospheric wavehead, the party was busted up by a swarm of Dracs coming out of nowhere.

There hadn't been time to do much other than weave and dodge through the laser beams, grab the nearest body that looked like one of his and start running. At least he'd caught sight, from across the screaming crowd of junkers, of the brothers bundling the kid into the Trans Am and getting the hell out of dodge. Jet couldn't be upset about it. They had rules for that kind of thing, places to meet when shit died down. Besides, a double check said he did bag Ghoul out of the crowd. With Ghoul it didn't take them long to knock one of those white faces off their bike and burn rubber before the reinforcements were called in, shooting as many Dracs as they could on the way. It should have been an easy getaway; take the long way back to shake off any followers and see everyone tucked in at the diner before the moon rose too high. But the damn thing had to run out of fuel.

Jet stands up from where he'd been standing over the bike, pulling his bandanna up from over his face to smear the grease on his hands. Even if he patches up the tank, they are miles from the nearest station. There isn't time to walk it. The sky's already starting to darken overhead, chill starting to creep down the back of his jacket. "We got a countdown 'till nightfall," he says, turning to Ghoul with a frown pulling heavy on his face. "Suggest we find a hole to bunker down in before it gets too dark to see the roads."

kidjoy

She'd heard about a school once.

It was a thousand lifetimes ago now, back when her world was small and safe. Her boys and their oddities were all she needed to know. Always hiding, always watching their backs. Other people didn't like their kind, they'd said, and she knew it from tense standoffs in small town gas stations and the ugly looks they got the few times Party let them eat in some backwater diner. There was a memorable moment when she'd been getting snacks with Kidd; when she'd grown annoyed with his slow progress, already cranky from so many hours trapped in a car. The Girl had touched the vending machine because she'd forgotten their place and it was so much easier to force the packages out with a power surge than watch someone count coins. People screamed and stared and someone threw a can and-

It was terrible. It was a long day. At the end of it, when she'd been tucked into her ratty sleeping bag and they'd shut her up in the back of the car, the Girl heard them talking. Low voices muffled by night winds and car windows, but she knows she heard them talk about a school. A fleeting worry if she was safe with them, idle thoughts squashed out by the next sunrise.

She'd forgotten about it herself, until days after she watched her small world crash and burn. After crying and screaming and running blindly from the cabin they'd broken into, the Girl remembered the school. If it was good enough to be considered once, it had to be worth checking out. There was little choice in the matter. She could wander until someone caught her, or she could have a goal. So the school it was. Even if all she could remember was north.

She just had to find a way to get there.

The Girl stood in front of a payphone, eyeing the run down bar across the street. Most of the people that stumbled out of it paid her little attention and it was late enough that she figured all of them must be too drunk to remember her anyway. Maybe they'd think the little light show was a product of one too many beers. She held her hand over the side of the money slot, concentrating until she felt a familiar pull in her chest and then the machine sparks. She tasted electricity in the air, like someone running a live wire across her molars, in the moment before coins start spilling out of the return tray.

She laughed, her little oddity a simple delight, and starts scooping the coins into her pockets. It would have been easier to knock over an ATM, get all the cash she needed for a bus ticket in one swoop, but her friends had always been wary of security cameras. She didn't think a place so dodgy would bother. So she moved to the other phone, amused to find two side by side, and started the routine again. A long breath, a frustrating moment of concentration. Caught up in her work, she didn't look to see who was watching and let the power surge grow- sparks large and bright and catching on the trash littered on the ground.

teapotts

He's not entirely sure why anyone would think to bring an Oyster to him and yet here he is, waiting for whatever resistance member has gotten roped into saddling him with a fugitive. He'd already heard through the grapevine how little they'd told their little human acquisition, how much they expect Hatter to do the legwork. Hide her, they said. Get her home, they said. Keep her from the Queen, they said. Any Oyster not held by royalty, not sucked dry of emotions, was one less of Wonderland's own feeding on stolen joys. One saved was one person more with a clear enough head to fight the royals.

Or something like that. Hatter had stopped listening to Dodo's spiel the moment he realized what work he had before him.

He sat on a lone chair in the middle of a crumbling house, abandoned when the family couldn't pay their debts to the tea shop. At the very least he'd managed to talk Dodo out of bringing the human to the shop. Maybe Hatter could get himself out of this mess long enough to live a few days more.

When the door opens- and he recognizes the man walking in enough to stay relaxed- Hatter doesn't jump up. He leans back in his chair, arms crossed and hat carefully knocked askew. He does not look directly to whom the man has brought. He wants to project a sense superiority, boredom. A distance from whatever comes waltzing trough the door.

"Is this it then? Show me the Oyster mark, we'll have to cover that first off. And what exactly have the resistance biddies been telling you?" Little, he'd suppose. Who knows what the human knows about why she was brought here? Would Dodo lower himself to tell an Oyster about the Queen's schemes? The systematic kidnapping of her kind to be used as a cattle? Dodo could barely lower himself to to talk to his own people, so Hatter had his doubts. "In any case, little Oyster-"

He spares her a glance, and then another. Little may be right. Hatter has only the loosest grasp on human ages, but she looks young. For a split second, even is weathered conscience feels pity. And then he's annoyed again. He didn't agree to be a double agent to play a babysitter. Hatter smooths the emotion from his face, easy when all the feeling came pre-package nowadays and he's kept carefully out of his stashes since the orders came down the line.

"Might as well tell me your name," he finishes, eye line at her shoulder. Without pause, he thumbs at the man and waves a hand dismissively. "You can go."

teapotts

⪧ Found a Fallen Oyster;

You've woken in a box, no memory of how you've gotten here and no idea why there's a strange ivy tattoo now on your person. You aren't given much time to consider it either as the floor beneath you gives way and you're sent crashing into an ocean. Perhaps you manage to swim to the docks in the distance, perhaps some kind soul traveling by boat pulls you to safety-either way, you find yourself on the docks on a strange city. The few people lingering the streets run when they notice your tattoo. All except for one man.

Why's Hatter in such a rough part of town? That might have something to do with the contraband tucked in his pockets. When he spots the tattoo, his face lights up and he introduces himself with a flourished bow.

"Well, well. Aren't we looking a lost soul? I get the feeling you could use a bit of a helping hand."

⪧ Instant Gratification At A Price;

You've stumbled into the Tea Shop, a strange market where everyone isn't screaming for stocks but instead trying to price emotions. The shop is chaos. A small man at the front is showing off a small bottle of green liquid, claiming that excitement is down in price for the next five minutes only. A few men are squabbling in the corner over an ounce of joy. A frantic woman is offering a few drops of passion in exchange for a meal. Everyone is shouting, a fight may break out at any minute.

A man appears to your left, a teacup in hand. It smells herbal, but with all the strange liquids passing hands it's hard to tell what he's drinking. He takes a sip, snorts as a punch is thrown. "To think, we haven't even brought out the Satisfaction yet."

He turns, casting a considering look. "You're not not joining the fray. Not interested in the usual wares? Bored with being happy?" He sounds like he's reciting a sales line. "Perhaps you need a taste of something more exotic, hm?"

⪧ Whole New World?;

He's shown up out of nowhere, dusting off his leather jacket and moodily adjusting his hat. You think he may have stepped through the mirror just behind him, though that must be just a trick of the light. No one can just walk through a mirror, can they? Even if he keeps shooting the mirror strange, dirty looks.

When he catches your eye, Hatter puts on a clearly forced smile still eyeing his reflection like he expects his mirror self to come jumping out. "Yes, you there! Hello. Not to bother, but you wouldn't happen to know where we are, now would you?"

⪧ Wildcard;

[Got something in mind? Leave a prompt below and we'll rock it.]

starjet

Jet wiped at his forehead, hugging close to the building as he stopped to tug at his shirt collar. He'd been running hot the past few days and the city had been experiencing a remarkable heat wave. It probably wasn't helping that he'd been wearing a jacket ever since a night of bad decisions saw him waking up alone and with a disturbingly bloody shoulder. The marks, teeth marks because apparently drunk him decided on a biter, had been aching some fierce for the past few days and no matter the amount of ointment he slathered on, it was still angry looking.

Thus the jacket in the high humidity. He didn't want to deal with questions, or listen to his co-workers laugh at him, over the remnants of a night out. He'd rather take the heat stroke.

Jet gave himself another few moments of leaning against the building, watching people file by on the street. Most didn't so much as glance at him, just another uninteresting sight during early morning foot traffic. A few would glance over and he'd stare them down until they passed or got too uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why, no eye contact was practically a rule of city crowds and Jet had never felt the need to break it. Something about the cold, unimpressed looks set him on edge, made him feel more aggressive that the heat should allow.

He surprises himself that he's not just staring, he's outright glaring. He has to loosen his hand from the fist he'd somehow made and with a start, Jet pushes away from the wall to barrel through the crowd. He doesn't know where the sudden spike of anger came from, but it's settled low in his stomach and making the pain from his shoulder all the sharper. He tears his way in the crowd with the barest civility, knocking into elbows with only a quick, guff apology.

A Musebox

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Welcome to Wonderland [Open Post]

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