2020-01-06 - Commies Don't Care For Summer Evenings

It is a cold winter's night. Dark, snowy, and wet. The sort of night where one remains in-doors curled up with a warm cup of cocoa and a book or while having a marathon session of Netflix. So, it will come as a surprise to our intrepid heroes when they turn a corner in their house or open their eyes from a nap and find themselves seated at the counter of a busy 50s style diner.

Everyone is a teenager except for the soda jerk and waitresses. The girls all wear cardigans draped over their shoulders, poodle skirts, saddle shoes with socks, and have high ponytails with blunt cut bangs. The young men are all greasers with wranglers, motorcycle boots, and racing club jackets over white t-shirts. Their pompadours are to die for. They randomly take combs out of their back pockets to maintain their voluminous coiffures.

And then they all burst out into song. It sounds like 'Summer Nights' if someone was trying to make a bootleg version that just skirted around copyright laws. "Summer Affections! Oh ho but those Summer Evenings!"

For Lalo, it's taking a step outside his house on what looks like the way to work, considering he's wearing scrubs. They are decidedly not 50's-themed -- instead, the shirt has a T-rex wearing sunglasses and playing a guitar, with the words 'T-rox' underneath in a very rock-esque font. You know the one.

So, finding himself suddenly in a diner is a surprise, to say the least. However, it's not the worst place to find oneself, and he lets out a sudden incredulous laugh -- a little dry, sure, but definitely amused. "What the fuck," he says as he looks around with a widening smile.

August blinks, looks down at himself. This is a guy he hasn't seen in over two and a half decades, tall and lanky and on the verge of shipping out.

...and he definitely didn't dress like this in the 90s, either. "Goddamnit," he mutters, turning on his barstool to look around. "This is what I get for healing people. A fucking sockhop at the soda fountain." He scans the diner, looking for anyone he might recognize. He spies Lalo, whom he doesn't know, but those scrubs are a big red flag. He looks right at him. "This weird to you?" he asks.

Maggi swivels around on a stool, sipping a milkshake. She looks to be almost a shrunken version of herself, though still very much in a usual leather jacket, though the jeans may be less fitted than her usual and the tee is white. Her hair is in a high pony with no shaved portion. The singing seems to have only annoyed her.

Leon was... Well, smaller... Sure, he had all the height as a teenager, but none of the bulk he had put on in the military. He was jarred, sure, and the way his eyes start to dart around, it was going to be a bit of a time holding it together. He was clearly one of the badder boys, leather jacket instead of letterman, hair... Well, definitely more of it than he had usually kept it trimmed to... pulled back greaser style. He is quick to spot Maggi, half-relieved, then quickly half horrified. Then he spots Lalo, frowning, then a look of recognition on his face. He'd take a step toward him, and reach for something mentally as he mutters under his breath. "Don't stand out... dude... daddio? Fuck." He begins to... do something, reaching out and bringing shadows in around the man, taking cues from the surroundings and 'pinning' an illusion to the man, another greaser, a bit younger... He was guessing...

The lead girl steps into the diner. You can tell she is the lead girl because her outfit is just a little flashier than the other girls: instead of a poodle skirt she is wearing a 50s style pink dress with a full crinolined skirt and sweetheart neckline. Her shoulder length golden blonde hair is contained by a white headband instead of up in a ponytail. She is clearly the prettiest girl at the sock hop.

The singing continues. "...Summer affections lost in the wind but oh those summer evenings!" Lead girl, let's call her Sunny, approaches Maggi. "Oh Manny I can't believe you're here! After all those summer evenings we spent on the boardwalk I never thought I'd see you again!"

One of the greasers is staring at Lalo with a perplexed expression on his face. When his features suddenly change he shrugs and goes back to singing along.

August probably wouldn't have stood out to Lalo initially, since the other man is fitting in a lot better than he is at the moment -- but the words alert him, of course. He grins, replying, "Weird as hell, man." Though apparently not the kind of weirdness that's going to make him annoyed, for the moment. "Gonna be late for work, but hey. Think I could get someone to believe I was suddenly an extra in Lard, brought to you by Bobo's House of Moviez?"

But then, suddenly, he has hair! Among other things. He looks down at himself as his appearance warps into something much more acceptable for the time, and another laugh escapes him. "Hey," he says, a la the Fonz, shooting finger guns at Leon. He then goes back to watching the show, lifting a hand to do a little finger wave at the confused greaser.

Maggi frowns at smoll Leon disapprovingly, trying not to be taken with how adorable he looks. "You know you're not supposed to do that." She states before taking a large slurp of her milkshake, and her own self too seriously. Looking to the transformed Lalo, she waves, having seen him in his scrub clad form. "Did we fall asleep watching Grease or Riverdale?" Maggi poses to Leon in confusion, her voice higher than usual.

Having been approached, she squints in confusion momentarily before simply deciding to play along, surely the lead gal was not immune to logical human thought processes, and she did know some slang. "Golly gee, you look swell!" Maggi gives pinky a wink as suave as an awkward teen bisexual in a 1950's musical can.

August sees another teenaged guy comb his hair, just barely resists the urge to do the same, grimacing the whole time. He watches as Leon slaps an illusion on Lalo, blinks in surprise. It's a 'genius idea' look, not a 'wtf just happened' look. "Okay, not bad." The greaser who'd been looking at Lalo loses interest, and August allows himself to relax for the moment. He looks from Leon to Lalo, then to Maggi as she seems familiar to them. "Yeah. We seem to be 50s teens." He eyes their singing peers, particularly the one sidling up to Maggi. "...in a musical."

Leon's eyes crinkle slightly, squinting at Lalo's casual acceptance of what was going on. Was he just that good at playing along? He sighs in a decidely teenage way and slumps back against a booth side, crossing his arms and lowering his chin, staring up from under an intense brow line. Dammit, now was he trying to fit in too? This was horrible. He eyes August, but is clearly not recognizing the man, though simply accepts from his words he was also not part of this... whatever it was. "If I have to sing and dance, you're probably gonna have to just let me die in this thing..." he asserts, maybe a bit of a nihilistic joke.

Sunny smiles brightly at Maggi when she tells her she looks swell. "Oh Manny I thought you wouldn't notice me with all of the beautiful girls going to the local high school. Go wildcats go!" The other teens also chant 'Go wildcats go!'.

Just then the door to the diner opens and in strolls the lead boy. You can tell because his jeans are tighter and his t-shirt is black instead of white. Also? His pompadour is absolutely glorious. Like the crest of an alpha rooster. "Sunny!" He cries out before pointing to Maggi. "What are you doing with my best girl, pal?!"

One of the poodle-skirted girls cries out, "How come they aren't singing?!" A chorus of 'Yeah!' and 'That's right!' follow her exclamation.

Perhaps Lalo is just a chill dude. That's probably a good attitude for a sudden transplant into a 50's musical to have, honestly. It takes him a second to recognize Maggi, but once he does, the wave is returned. "Hey," he says. "Small world, huh?" He looks from August to Leon then, before he turns back to the former, because he just has to say, "Man, your hair is fuckin' great."

It's then that it's mentioned the four of them aren't singing, and he turns back to the original cast members, his eyes widening a little bit. Okay, maybe some of that chill might be lost soon. "Uh..."

Maggi wonders if she could kill the boy and snag his obviously better shirt. Probably better not to test it, but the temptation was there. She holds up her hands dramatically in a nonverbal gesture of non-aggression. "Whoa there Daddy-O! I was just slurping this here shake before it melts. Try'in to be addressing the lady with respect. Ain't no one gonna ignore a lady, no need to get frosted!" An enjoyment of foreign films was certainly coming in somewhat handy here, many having picked up American slang during that time. Here's hoping there was more milkshake. She looks at Leon and Lalo from the corner of her eye, never having been formally introduced to August, it would be difficult for her to place him in his current form.

August reaches up to check his hair. "Thanks, man. Right back atcha." He makes a face, annoyed for saying that. "No one's dying in here," he says to Leon, tone brooking no argument.

He doesn't get to ruminate on it, though, because now they're being accused of the high crime of Not Singing. Maggi seems to be trying to diffuse her situation, so he attempts a similar deflection. He clears his throat noisily. "Got a sore throat from all that yellin' at the tailgate party for the game," he snaps at the girl, giving her his best 'I'm one of the bad boys' glare. Which, coming from him, is probably a top notch 'bad boy glare', overall: black hair, sideburns, strong jaw, sprawled between his stool and the bar like he has no trouble making himself comfortable even at such a ludicrous angle. (He'd forgotten how good it was, to be this flexible.) He sniffs, looks away. Oh how easy it was to be This Guy again. "Anyways, I'm not in glee club, you know that."

"Nah, we ain't singing, 'cause it's uh... Slam poetry... It's just like singing, just... you kinda tawlk like normal. But with more meaning." Leon at least tries to spin a good line of bullshit with his version of an accent, half-hearted attempt or not. Over his shoulder, face turning slightly, it's almost a theatrical stage whisper, "Slam Poetry was... 80's? It was an 80's thing, wasn't it..." His eyes dart from Lalo to August and back again, looking for confirmation as another idea forms, "But if we start throwing punches, they usually just start playing a cover track, and we don't have to sing, right?" He takes a step at least nearer the bar, and strikes a hard lean on the counter-top, trying to look as dangerous as August. Not doing too well, since he usually depended on being a tower of muscle for that, and he was... not.

The lead boy glares daggers at Maggi. "Daddy-O? You sound like a damned beatnik! Probably some damned communist, too!"

One of the letterman jacket wearing boys shouts out, "Communists hate singing! They must all be communists!"

A few of the girls shriek and jump into the arms of the tougher looking boys. Sunny cries out, "Oh Manny please tell me you aren't a beatnik communist!"

And then Leon makes the mistake of bringing up poetry. The Letterman wearing boy approaches Leon and cries out, "This is for America you beatnik communist scum!" And throws a uppercut at his jaw.

Lalo defers to the rest of them on the singing, letting each person respond before he says anything regarding it. And then he doesn't have to, because that guy is throwing a punch at Leon. "Whoa whoa whoa!" he says, looking quickly from August to Maggi before he starts forward, possibly to break it up or maybe join the fray! But more likely break it up, let's be honest. "You don't need to do that, man, he's cool!"

Damn, that was the problem with watching foreign films, it automatically made you a communist. On any usual basis, Maggi would claim the mantle happily, but this dream felt mighty real. Shortly following these thoughts, Maggi see's the thrown punch and narrow miss. Icy eyes narrow at this and a game of hard ball has been decided on. "Nah Sunny, just a phrase my Pops hates, use it to make him mad." Her head tilts in challenge and then fake enlightenment. "Just as mad as I am sure your pops would be seeing you walk abouts with a boy who can only damage a local business, instead of another man. You're better than that Sunny!" Taking another long pull from her milkshake she gives a withering glare to the person who had thrown the punch. "Why don't you get outta here before you embarrass yourself?" As an afterthought "GO WILDCATS!" Ya that's it, hype the crowd.

August can't help himself. "Why are you so worried about beatniks, Kerouac couldn't write his way out of a paper bag." Okay, he'd only gotten half way through On the Road before he'd tossed it, just like his Aunt had said he would when he'd picked it up at a library sale, but as far as he was concerned the man had been all show and no go. And Ginsberg, well, he's not talking to anyone here about Ginsberg.

Sadly for him, his bad boy image really is just an image, because although he might physically not be full of titanium for the moment, he's still himself. Which means, "Look unless I've retroactively remembered how to fight and don't have my usual problems I can't--" Too late. A punch is thrown at Leon. He reaches out, trying to pull Leon clear of any followups.

Seeing the attack coming, Leon has enough time to slouch backward, giving himself just enough space so the uppercut goes sailing up harmlessly past his face. "Don't catch you slippin' now..." he comments under his breath as he moves his body, one leg curling backward at the knee, then swinging out to try to catch Letterman in the side of the shin, hopefully catching him off-balance. But, yaknow, it's kind of hard to do when one guy is trying to break up the fight and one's grabbing you by the collar. The entire move goes down like some kind of flailing carp as he stumbles backward from the guy, and tries to grab the edge of the counter to steady himself again. So much for looking cool.

"Shut up, communist!" One of the ponytailed girls shouts at Lalo. She picks up a chair and throws it at him! Alas for her she is just a puny little sockhopper, and the chair lands at his feet. Her eyes widen, and then she turns to run away from him.

Another girl screams out at August, "KEROUAC SOUNDS RUSSIAN!" She picks up her milkshake glass and hurls it at him. Unluckily for August a milkshake is lighter than a chair, and he gets doused in strawberry shake and smacked with a glass.

"Sunny is mine!" The lead boy roars at Maggi as he lunges forward to try and grab Maggi's shirt. Sunny tries to get in-between her two loves, but she just gets crushed under them as they all fall into a pile on the floor.

Letterman Jacket misses, and then Leon misses. Their fists go whizzing past each other's faces. "I'm gonna get you if it's the last thing I do, you dirty beatnik!" Letterman leans down to throw a right jab at Leon's side. It connects soundly.

Lalo blinks when the chair just sort of falls near-ish his feet -- he doesn't even have to move at all. He looks up as the girl starts to run away, calling after her, "Viva la revolucion!" He doesn't waste too much more time yelling communist-type things in a language it's unlikely any of the cast members will understand, though, and instead moves to try and help Leon, just in time to see the other man get punched in the side. "What the fuck, man?" he exclaims as he tries to grab Letterman Jacket and pull him away. Not that he's very successful, or even successful at all.

Having about the poorest handle on her abilities of anyone in Gray Harbor, and only knowing other people had them for about two weeks, Maggi attempts to cause some damage and does nothing. Instead she continues to be on the floor with two people on top of her. Something told her she would not feel especially well rested in the morning.

"It's French!" August shouts back, and he's so busy correcting her that he doesn't give himself enough time to dodge that shake. The jacket isn't really his, or he might be more put out, but some of it gets in his hair. He just barely holds in an exclamation to this effect. He's not crying out, 'MY HAIR', not even in a damned Dream.

And there's also that nice, think, 50s glass nailing him in the chest. He grunts, almost falls off his stool. Then Leon takes a hit, and he sucks in a breath. "Alright. I'm officially sick and fucking tired of this." He slowly closes the fingers of one hand into a fist, and Leon feels power seep into him. "Make that count," August says, and moves to haul one of those people off Maggi.

Leon sees two things about this melee. First, as that fist lands and he grunts, he realizes that starting a fist fight in this diner may have not been the best plan. These guys didn't seem all that tough and he was actually the first one getting decked. Second, and more importantly, he sees Maggi go down in a pile, some guy trying to attack her. Now it was on. His face contorted in a wide-eyed glare at his attackers, at all their attackers, it almost seems like the light drains out of the area around him as he reaches for his Glimmer, slamming bone-numbing terror like looking down the muzzle of a loaded gun, into the psyche of their assailants.

No one knows what Viva la revolucion means. There are no cool guys wearing Che shirts yet in this timeline! Letterman jacket easily shrugs Lalo off, but the attempt to get him off makes him so angry that he turns around to punch him instead of Leon. "Stupid-" He doesn't finish his words. Leon's mental assault causes the color to drain from his cheeks. He stares at Lalo like he's just grown fangs or transformed into a werewolf. And then he screams and runs for the door.

Maggi's attempt to slice and dice Lead Boy does little, but that's okay because Leon gets him, too. He lets out a yell of fright, and pushes Maggi away. Then he promptly pisses his pants and runs towards the door after letterman.

August doesn't need to worry about the milkshake throwers. They are so frightened that they both freeze in fear. One falls down and curls up into a fetal position to rock herself. The other just begins sobbing hysterically.

The others sort of just stare at Leon in fear and awe. Many of them begin backing towards the exit of the diner. The soda jerk hides behind the counter. The waitresses vanish into the kitchen.

When Lalo gets thrown off so easily by Letterman Jacket, there's a muttered curse -- he is not enjoying this anywhere near the amount that he was when he'd first arrived. He comes up swinging again, but then suddenly the guy is no longer fighting, and is in fact just running away. That was easy! Though he doesn't seem to assume it was anything he did. Rather, he looks among the others, eyebrows raising as though they could give some insight into what just happened. "I feel like we should, like...get the fuck out of here." He then starts looking around, as though to find a way to do just that.

Maggi rises to her feet, no longer being dogpiled, though slightly confused. She clamors uneasily back to her stool and thrusts her fist up into the air, blowing stray hairs away from her face with a puff of air out of the side of her lips. "GO WILDCATS!" She yells belatedly, given the room has been primarily cleared out. The other hand moves to her mostly melted milkshake so she can take a sip of what was left. Maggi had actually never had a dream that felt this solid. It was both intriguing and concerning. She looks confused at Lalo. "Don't you just have to like, wait till you wake up?" She turns to August. "Also who are you? I thought dreams were supposed to draw from primarily familiar things. The subconscious."

August watches the various bopping teens panic and flee to varying degrees. "Damn, I figured you were just gonna hit him," he murmurs, honestly surprised. He leans over to help Maggi up, careful not to get milkshake on her, gives Leon a sidelong glance. "Well that'll teach me not to check how strong you are first." He looks over Lalo and Maggi as well, checking for injuries in addition to what all they can do. He blinks, focuses on Lalo.

"Yeah--let's see if we can find a way out of here." He stops, tilts his head at Maggi. "Yes and no. It just depends on what They're on about. And honestly, I'm not even sure it's always Them." He eyes the front door, heads to it. "Sometimes you just wake up," he says, careful not to slip on spilled milkshake. "Sometimes you look for a way out."

Leon stares after the fleeing teenagers with an almost unholy intensity for a moment, maybe a bit longer than was necessary. It wasn't until August's second comment that he seems to snap out of it, blinking, hand going to the counter in a steadying grasp. He'd be paying for that later, he was afraid. He opens his eyes again, surveying those still shivering and crying in fear, then each of the other Harborites. His eyes fall, seeming a little ashamed. Regardless, he would move to check on Maggi as well, offering a hand if she wanted to take it. He looks toward the windows squinting into whatever weird scape they might be going, wondering what they'd have to do to crawl back toward the waking. "Yeah, sorry. Um... Defense mechanism." he offers sideways in excuse toward August. He cocks his head toward Lalo, "I'm with this guy. Let's go the fuck home."

"Yeah, it depends," Lalo says with a nod after what August says. He looks like he's fine -- nothing wounded except his pride, perhaps, since he didn't make a great showing, but he doesn't actually seem to kind that. "Sometimes you don't get out for a while."

With that cheery sentiment delivered in a totally factual and not-at-all dire tone, he takes a chance, and starts toward one of the doors, reaching for the handle. "A ver," he murmurs, before he pulls it open to step through experimentally...and then disappears from sight, even though the door is still standing open.

Maggi gives a wave to 'Lalo' in disguise as he exits, taking Leon's hand and giving a reassuring squeeze. He may be a bit shaky, but overall he was better off than she would have thought. "I'm pretty sure the other dreams you have might suck less to be honest." She offers to him, though he would probably disagree with that too. She appreciates Augusts help, but waits for some less timey-wimey information from the man. Instead choosing to wait a bit to try to learn more. This was arguably as weird as the Jell-O night. "Thanks." She says to August with a nod.

August pauses, hand out to push the swinging entrance door open. He shakes his head at Leon. "It's okay. Happens to a lot of us, the overreaching. If I'd known you were already that strong I'd have given it to her instead." His mouth twitches in an almost smile. "Roen. August Roen." Then he steps through and disappears, just like Lalo did.

...and finds himself back in Eleanor's kitchen, right where he was, in his OSU sweats, now with a milkshake running down his sweatshirt and a whistling tea kettle. He sighs. "Right," he mutters, pulling the kettle off the burner. Well, at least all he has is a small bruise and a sweatshirt to throw in the laundry this time.

"I guess that depends," Leon ventures in response to Maggi, testing a slightly fear-thick voice. Channeling that much emotion took reliving a thing, to an extent. "Grease was definitely not what I wanted to watch." he jokes, but he returns the squeeze, however, "Company's not bad, though." He is able to nod in August's direction before the man passes through the door, "Thanks, again." Then he was gone. Well, crap, now he'd have to track August down for an introduction later. Hopefully he looked similar so it wouldn't be too confusing. He tugs on Maggi's hand gently, his other hand rubbing the sore knot on his ribs, "C'mon, Magpie. I think I hear Evan Williams calling my name." If she didn't protest, he'd lead them through the door and back into their home.