rainbowlounge | The Villa Is Open

Zephyr had a plan. "We are gonna make you the best electric milkshake that ever was!"

"Or will be!" Pip joined in, clapping her hands over her head as she danced along before him and Roa and generally got in the way of where they were trying to walk.

This gave Zephyr plenty of excuse to pause at the end of the hall and make himself a sweeping gesture. "In the historya... ah..." one that should have ended with him banging his hand on the wall.

Except for the part where the applicable wall had disappeared and not in the usual behold the busted drywall kind of way. It was just gone. Likewise, the hallway and the entirety of Sky Plaza.

Zephyr stood on some low, sweeping stone steps. That happened to be outside, while just a moment before been /inside/ and headed to the kitchen. "OK, what the hell?"

Roa took in the sudden sky all golden up the flanks of the villa before them and held her finger to her lips in curiosity. "I don't know, actually." Then, she attempted to walk down the way they had come. This got her over the steps and almost to the spray from the fountain in the drive before it became quite apparent merely turning around wasn't going to accomplish much besides dampening her shoes. Back up she went. "This *looks* like where they held the last Court of the Manor."

"You dunno?" his next sound was an odd one, not a moan and not a laugh, and awfully feline besides. "Yeah, that's not freakin me out or nothin. Dun you know everythin?"

"Zephyyyr. Same to you."

"You guys," interjected Pip, her bare toes rapping on the stone. "Think this's kinda the same thing happened to Seb."

"Hm?" Zephyr craned himself her way, and their hands tangled together, wires all a-flash.

"Mm!"

"Mnhn."

"Nnn~."

"Well, I like your theory so far," Roa nodded. Mostly, she wasn't being silly right back at their latest ridiculous display. Mostly. "Happened to Siebenkas...?"

"Yeah, he had this dream," the elder of the two evokers almost began to explain, digits working.

Whatever he meant to coax out of the recollections between them, Pip took over, swaying as she did. "He thinks was a dream, but is totally notta dream. I know. I touched him thinkin about it an it was all wrong fora dream. Still didn't make any sense, but not the same kinda way dreams do."

"Also, Seb never dreams he's nekkid. Fun fact."

("So useful, too," Roa remarked, quite to herself.)

"But, he walked outta his bathroom an alla a sudden, he was in this bar in Old New York an there were all these other people an he was almost kinda sorta mebbe flirtin with this mob boss lady over gin an tonic and then there was this real cute muddy guy. Seb didn't think he was so cute, but I did. He got way more distracted by the other lady evoked with her eyes and the booze was good an there were pretty blond polyamourous peeps bonkin in the restroom an... an... an..."

Her not so little description might have gone on another few hours, except that Zephyr reached around with his unoccupied hand and tickled her. The way they'd tangled up together, she must have known it was coming.

Which left Roa to conclude Pip wanted tickled more than she wanted to discuss any washroom adventures. "On one hand, that sounds very much like a dream to me. On the other, if there's some sort of precedent for people in our manor suddenly disobeying all known laws of physics. And you're not playing some sort of elaborate prank."

"Hey! I had my heart set on givin you your first electric milkshake an that's not somethin I'd go back on for any money." Next thing she did know with any certainty, Zephyr had play staggered over, clutching at his shirt, "'m so disappointed it /huuurts/."

"Well, you can make it up to me when the universe goes back to normal."

Grin for the time being, too.

"It is going to go back to normal?"

"Did last time. 's why we still gotta Seb an notta portal to someplace called Dan's," said Pip.

"Alright, so why don't we...?"

"Make the besta it?"

"Yes!" Roa swung from Zephyr's grasp. He only then reached for her, trying to find that place in her moments where the best meant [concrete] he could play after and with her. As it was, he missed her as she skipped the villa steps instead, swirling her skirt in her hands and calling back after: "We're going to get company, right?"

"Woul, that'd be nice, but if not," he shrugged. "We get blitzed an watch the stars come out." A quick little sigh and a pop of his shoulder after, he followed.

Pip watched the space in the sky where the clouds should have been. The end of her nose twitched. "We're so gettin company. Can smell it, almost. Somethin's zactly not right out there." Laughing then, she blew past them both and straight through the doors.

Stuff you actually need to know available in this direction:
http://rainbowlounge.dreamwidth.org/18653.html

Have fun!

ETA: This post has not been up thirty-six hours and we officially have more than 500 comments. SO I SUPPOSE THIS ISN'T FUN AT ALL AMMIRITE? XD

ETA II: I am really, really touched that everyone wants to take care of the deceased fellow in the pool. I'm sure he appreciates it (he didn't even have a name in the story where he first appeared ;_;). But, alas, there was only one of him and he's currently being handled. He may be installed in a bedroom shortly, and should that happen, I will give him his own thread for poking purposes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm glad Andy is, too," Zach said. "All of them deserve it, more than a lot of people understand."

"You will get no argument from me," Gina replied. "At all."

Zach smiled at her. "That leaves only Brenda and Julia. Brenda's named after my mom, Julia's named after Adamo's. Brenda's four now, and Julia's three. They're a year and a half apart. Great girls. Julia can incredibly stubborn, which I think she gets from Adamo. And Brenda's a little lost in the clouds. Both those things could be their ages, of course. They're so smart and so sweet, and it's amazing to see them grow from newborns to preschoolers."

"Three-year-olds do tend to be dreadful at times," Gina said, dryly. "They sound like sweet kids, though. I'm really looking forward to watching this one grow." She smiled, rather wryly. "Not so much to the giving birth part, but it's sort of inevitable."

Zach grinned at her. "I didn't envy our surrogate that at all, and she had an epidural. I don't imagine she would have agreed to be our surrogate for Julia if she hadn't."

"I have heard from a reliable source that epidurals are the only way to go," Gina said-- Clara, who, since she'd had twins, would know. "And not a c-section unless you can't help it. Takes longer to bounce back from one of those than from a regular vaginal birth."

She hesitated, wondering if she dared ask, then said, slowly, "If you don't mind my asking, any particular reason you decided to go with a surrogate?"

Zach waved that away. "It's fine. I'm genderqueer, male-assigned, so I wasn't an option." That bit was rather dry. "My sister, Karen, isn't exactly suited to pregnancy, and my stepsister lived in Germany when we were talking about having Brenda, and Adamo's sister had a total hysterectomy the year before. So surrogate it was."

"Oh, I see, that makes sense." Gina nodded. "Sorry, I didn't catch on to the genderqueer bit. Surrogate makes perfect sense in that case." She grinned. "Since you can't sucker a female relative into doing it."

"Completely okay," Zach assured her. "Most people don't." He grinned back. "If we could have gotten one of them to do it, we would have. And spoiled the life out of them during the pregnancy, of course."

"Well, naturally," Gina said. "Let me tell you, I am so grateful for my best friend, my son and my brother- and sister-in-law. Ivy, my wife, she's amazing, but she doesn't always remember that you're supposed to pamper the hell out of the mother-to-be." She shook her head. "Tsk."

Zach shook her head in mock disappointment. "I wonder how she'd feel if she was pregnant and not being spoiled by you. Not that I think you'd forget."

"Of course I wouldn't! Caring person like me." She grinned. "I'll try telling Ivy that. See if I can get her to give me a footrub and an orgasm when I get home."

Oops. Gina blushed. That might've been a little too TMI there, but it had just slipped out.

Zach laughed. "Oh, your face. You got passed through a wormhole or something into a muggy ballroom, while you're pregnant. I think you deserve an orgasm or two."

Gina blushed harder, and fanned her cheeks. "Sorry, I just... I think I'm a little too Catholic to talk about orgasms in public." She laughed, and added, "You're very comfortable to talk to, though. It slipped out."

"Why thank you," Zach said, with as much of a bow as he could manage while sitting. "My mom's Catholic. We were raised Catholic, with a lot of contention over my little brother because my dad is very much not. We still go to the important Masses with her. And she and my dad have a supremely active sex life that they're, sadly, not shy about."

"Heh, yeah, I can see that being uncomfortable." Gina shook her head-- she'd dodged that bullet with her very private parents. "Ivy and I have an agreement. I don't hide my religion and the children can decide for themselves. So far Andy doesn't seem too interested, but he does know the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary by heart." She shifted on her chair. "It makes me... a little uncomfortable, but I've come to be uncomfortable with Catholic dogma, too, and I would never want my children to go through what I did, when I was a teenager, so. I'll go with what makes them happy."

"Mom's bi," Zach said after a moment. "So's Dad, actually. But Mom talked to us, openly, about the problems with Catholicism and the things she doesn't buy into about the dogma. She believes in it overall, she just doesn't think any man is infallible. That helped a lot with me. My parents were always accepting, about everything to do with us. I think--I think that made all the difference. She's religious, but we're more important, and for her, the most important part of the dogma is that God is loving."

"The Pope certainly isn't," Gina muttered, but she nodded. "Yes. That's a help, and it's definitely what I believe. God made us all, God loves us all, just as we are. That's what I'll tell my children, if they ask, and anyone saying anything else can go fuck themselves."

"That's about the extent of my belief," Zach agreed, and Gabriel had confirmed that--assuming he was genuine, anyway. "And it's what I tell my kids when they ask."

"God is love," she said. "Yes. What other explanation could there be, in all honesty? All of this beauty..." She paused, for a moment. "It seems like everything bad I've seen is the work of men, with the possible exception of natural disasters."

"Agreed," Zach said firmly. "And even natural disasters can be man's fault, if it's weather-based."

"I can't speak for that," Gina said, rather ruefully. "No one I know knows anything about weather, except really basic stuff like tornados are bad."

The Villa Is Open

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