2020-02-17 - No Place Like Gnome

Look! Enzo is back in the hospital again. At least this time he's not beaten to a bloody pulp, he's just heavily bandage around the shoulder with band aids on his FACE. Also his leg is swaddled in more bandages and like a gallon antibiotic cream. This is definitely how medicine works, okay? He's seated at the window STARING out.

Alexander and Enzo can be band-aid buddies! He's got an R2D2 bandaid on a gash over one eye, and radiating bruises out from that. More bruises on the back of his neck and shoulders, and there's probably stitches somewhere up under his disheveled hair. He looks kinda terrible and underslept, but a gnome didn't pee on him, which means Enzo DEFINITELY has it worse right now. He also has a plastic bag under one arm that is carrying a neatly folded set of Addington High School sweats in adult sizes. They will actually probably fit Enzo and his tall self, while they usually billow around Alexander. The investigator appears in the doorway, knocking once before pushing the door open and staring at Enzo. "May I come in?"

Anne comes almost at the same time as Alexander, which means she's right behind him and standing on her tip-toes to peer over his shoulder. At least she doesn't push him into the room. "You both look great," she says sarcastically, inching around Alexander. She doesn't ask to come in, she knows she can! There's a bouquet of cheerfully bright flowers that she has with her, flowers that are rather promptly dropped off on the nearest flat surface when she comes into the room. "The flowers are from Patrick. I'm pretty sure he single handedly keeps the downtown florist in business." Her now freed hands go to her hips as she looks from Enzo, to Alexander, and back to Enzo again. "So. Gnomes, huh?"

And just like that, there are people! Enzo turns from the window and waves Alexander in immediately, using his left hand instead of the right. "Anne, oh, thanks." He looks down at Patrick's flowes and then the garbage can, like he's deliberating something and then just waves the left again. "Whatever," he mutters as he accepts the clothes gratefully from the other man and then pulls rooms current around him so he can get changed.

While he's in there, "I'm definitely going back there to kick their asses." Yes, still angry.

Alexander skitters nervously into the room when he feels that presence behind him, whirling to put his back to a wall, wild-eyed for a moment before he recognizes Anne. He eyes her. "Thank you. Are you okay?" This to Anne, since he can see perfectly well how Enzo is. There's no hesitation in handing the clothes off to Enzo, before he goes to find a place to hold up a wall with a slouch - somewhere he can keep an eye on Anne, the curtain, and the door to the room. "Do you think it'd end up any differently than last time?" he asks Enzo, with what sounds like genuine interest.

The question lobbed her way pulls a thin frown to Anne's lips. She flicks a glance back to Alexander, folds her arms over her chest, and lifts a slim shoulder into a quick shrug. Is she okay? It's doubtful. But this isn't the time for her personal problems. "Did you have any trouble opening the door?" she tacks onto Alexander's question with a lift of her brow. "Did it feel.. impossibly difficult? Like you were trying to break down a giant wall?"

"This time I know they piss acid on you," Enzo replies from behind the current. "I'm going to bring a cannon." He doesn't have access to a cannon and he probably couldn't bring it with him and cart it around. When he's done getting dressed, he pulls the curtain back and fixes a loom on him. Then he points, "What the fuck happened to you?"

Then he looks over to Anne and he stops his scowling and bad attitude briefly, just enough to think intelligently. "A wall? No, it was fine. Better than fine, probably one of the easiest crossings in awhile." Also, "I should have left them there." But he didn't. Belatedly, he squints at Anne, "Why? Is it hard for you?"

"Do you know how to load or fire a cannon?" Alexander asks, in a maddeningly practical tone. "Maybe go for some gasoline and a match, instead. Didn't you say they lived in a forest." When Enzo emerges and points dramatically at him, he just sighs and shakes his head. "Too long to get into right now. And what should you have left there?" He glances over to Anne at her question, frowning. "I think we got rerouted. Maybe deliberately. That's why it was so hard. Crossing 'space' as well as dimension, so to speak."

"Where are you even going to get a cannon? It's not like there's a cannon store downtown," Anne informs Enzo. Way to be a sourpus, Anne. But she goes to make herself comfortable on the edge of Enzo's hospital bed while he changes, her brows wrinkling when he explains how easy it was for him. Must be nice. "Yes, it was hard for me," she says sullenly, then shakes her head to Alexander. "I don't think we were diverted. I think I opened a door into a Dream. And I knew it felt wrong, and I should have told us to stop, but I didn't." And thus the miserable look on her face. "It doesn't matter. Enzo didn't end up in a Dream, did you?" she hitches a brow at Enzo. "Which means there's boundary lines. We just need to know where they fall."

"No," Enzo says a little defensively of his wildly stupid idea. "But I'm sure there's a wiki how to article. I know how to google." He gets sits on the edge of the bed and frowns. "Um. The internet, obviously." Keep up, Anne!

There's a frown for Alexander's reluctance, but he doesn't press. Instead, "Yeah, a stupidly flammable forest. Full of blood trees. August and Niall. Do I look healthy? August cares more about the gnomes well being than me bleeding to death." To be fair, Enzo is probably an unreliable narrator.

He makes a face, "I was definitely not in a dream.'

"Pretty sure they sell them on the internet, if you have enough money," Alexander points out to Anne. "And look, like Enzo says. There's WikiHows." He's helping. He's a helper, damnit.

But his expression turns from amused to angry in the blink of an eye as Anne takes responsibility. "It wasn't your fault. It's Over There. There's nothing but terrible things over there and we should find a way to kill them all." Then he stops, sighs, and rubs at his face. "Sorry. I shouldn't say that. And August doesn't care more about the gnomes than you. But he's outdoorsy. And they're probably an endangered fucking species or something." A frown. "Who's Niall?"

"I don't think Amazon sells cannons," Anne says to Enzo, but actually she's not so sure. Amazon sells everything. Somebody should check that out. But it doesn't matter, she's focused on how she wound up in a Dream while Enzo wound up in the Veil, and Alexander's going crazy so she peers at him. "I don't --" she doesn't finish on account of all the grumbling and shouting, bolting out of the bed. "What the heck?" Don't mind Anne, she's just gonna be a lookey-loo, leaning out the door to see if she can tell what's happening."

Enzo would justify the cannons until he's blue in the face. But then there's a commotion and someone screaming about an elf and a bite being taken out of them. It results in him painfully lurching to his feet, grabbing a plastic hospital chair and announcing, "They're here! Get away from the door!" he brandishes the chair.

"E-Bay does, though," Alexander tells Anne, solemnly. And then there's that crash and alarm, and Alexander lets out a high pitched and wavering scream, scrambling for a weapon of his own. He comes up with an empty water pitcher, and brandishes it at the door. "Anne, stay back." Totally ready to take on the killer elf hordes.

Anne backs up from the door when somebody shouts about rats. "Okay, I think maybe we should try to -" she blinks at Alexander and his empty pitcher, Enzo and his plastic chair, and doubles back to brandish her own weapon - the only thing that's left, Patrick's bouquet of sunshiney flowers. At least she kicks the door shut as she goes. "This is great. This is fantastic. Please for the love of GOD, somebody tell Patrick I didn't have anything to do with this this time."

"IT'S THE GNOMES!" Enzo insists as the hospital turns into chaos. Unfortunately, he doesn't really know if it's gnomes or rats and he can't go charging down the hallway with his leg full of pustules. And he spends so much time stupidly swinging around the plastic chair that he utterly misses the attack when it comes.

It's pee, more pee.

AGAIN.

"ARGGGGHHH!"

He drops the plastic chair and starts trying to get at the ninja gnome. He'll step on you too, you little SOB.

"Something's getting in," Alexander shouts - but too late, because the gnome is already inside and really pissed off. While Enzo is soon pissed on. Alexander rips the top off of the water pitcher, and lunges for under the bed, trying to scoop up and trap the gnome HE saw, while poor Enzo gets watered from above. "WHY DID YOU BRING THEM WITH YOU?"

"Oh HELL no!" Anne immediately tries to leap up onto the bed when the gnome sails out from the goddamn ether to piss all over Enzo. It stinks, like rotting wood and burning skin, because that's what's happening to Enzo's arm right now. It's burning. But at least it's not on fire or anything. But Anne's not a very athletic person - she jumps, slams her knee onto the bed, and keels over onto the floor. "Fuck. OH MY GOD THERE'S ONE UNDER THE BED!" she tries to scramble away.

"BRING THEM WITH ME??" Enzo snarls as he lands a glancing kick onto his assailant. "DO WE LOOK LIKE FRIENDS??? THEY'RE STALKING ME." And so continues more kicks, flailing and him making a more deliberate wave of his arm at the miserable creatures.

Enzo stops trying to kick the gnome in his hands. "STOP PEEING ON ME."

"I've got it! I've got it!" Alexander shouts, in a mixture of triumph (yay! I got it!) and horror (fuck! what do I do with it?) in his voice. He scoots backwards, keeping the gnome contained the best he can, wrapping his arms around the pitcher and holding it down. A part of him wants to just press his hands to the sides of the container and frying it until it pops, but an equally strong part of him wants to try to just calm the mad things the fuck down. He's frozen between the two possibilities, staring at the ugly thing. "...now what?"

Alexander is CONCUSSED, okay.

Anne, from the floor, watches in horror as the gnome is bludgeoned by the wall from Enzo's kick. "Oh my god," she pales, sitting up and staring at Enzo, then down to the gnome trapped in the pitcher.

That was more dramatic than Enzo intended. Why are they so fragile?? He growls in exasperation and pulls the now piss covered shirt off. "I hope you're sending assassins after August too! For killing the baby gnome and probably poisoning your forest or something." Or something, the bozo is not a scientist. He probably shouldn't wish assassins on people. "Do I need to kick you too??" he asks the angry zombie gnome. The answer is probably yes. 🙁

Alexander looks up and over as the gnome goes sailing through the air, and then goes splat against the wall. He blinks a couple of times, then leeeeeans around the bed to stare at Enzo. "Christ," he remarks, mildly, to the man. "Don't wish gnome assassins on August. Wait. You guys killed a BABY?" When the pitcher!gnome starts screaming at him, he looks back at her(?) "Sorry about the baby," Alexander tells the gnome, solemnly. "And your friend. But you got a choice to make: are you going to end up splatted, or are you going to calm down and talk about what can be done to make this more...rightish?" He seems okay with either outcome, really.

"I did NOT kill a gnome baby," Enzo interjects, for the record.

"Oh my god we need some rules or something about going into the Veil and KILLING BABIES," Anne scrubs her face with her hands as she shakes her head. She's not mad, Enzo, just VERY DISAPPOINTED. "What can we do to make this right? What is your name?" she asks the pitcher gnome. "Please. We're not baby killers. And that was very clearly self defense," she means the gnome that went splat on the wall.

"Uh," Bozo starts and scratches his head. "Let me get this straight. You'll stop trying to kill me, if I kill your leader so you can move and find a better home?"

"His name is Vincenzo," Alexander corrects the gnome, quietly. Other than that, he watches all three of them in turn, and maintains the death grip on the pitcher. "Can we fix the trees, or whatever the fuck is going on? I'm not sure these guys should be inflicted on any other sapient creatures."

"What is even going on?" asks Anne to the two of them, then looks back down to the gnome with a frown. "I don't think killing your leader is going to solve the problem with your trees... Can't we just call a truce? Can we ban Enzo from the forest?" She's trying to be helpful.

"I'm not screwing any gnomish women, I have standards. OR gnomish orgies or whatever freaky stuff you're into. Figure out your own repopulation. Keep it humble, Enzo. He frowns and finally shakes his head, "Ugh, fine. I'll help your damn riot. But if we find a way to fix the trees first can we do that INSTEAD of more murder?"

"Why are you asking me? I just showed up with some clothes!" Alexander glances at the discarded shirt. "Which are now covered in acidic gnome pee. Why the fuck do these things happen to me? AND THERE'S NOTHING CRAZY ABOUT MY EYES YOU UROLAGNIAC LITTLE HORROR!"

Spoiler: There is definitely something crazy about Alexander's eyes. He glares at the gnome.

"I am not ugly!" Anne snaps at the gnome, then bursts into laughter when the gnome suggests Enzo help repopulate the community. She's going to be useless for awhile, 'cuz the thought is hilllarrriouuuss.

For the record, Enzo looks smug that everyone else is now annoyed by the gnome. SEE. There's a glare for Anne. "Oh. For fucks sake, FINE. I'll do the murder and help with the other stuff! Just stop trying to kill me or piss on me."

"Don't," Alexander tells the gnome when the pitcher cracks. "I have had a VERY BAD week, and I will fry you like a chicken nugget if you do not slow your fucking roll, pipsqueak." He glares at the crack and tries to will it away as Enzo - poor Enzo - agrees to become the gnomic revolutionary cannon.

"For the record, I'm pretty sure Enzo will kill you if he tries to repopulate with you," Anne is still giggling.

"I can be very gentle!" Bozo tells Anne with the same kind of defensiveness he had about the cannons. "Okay, I'll take you back. But you have to FIX my arm that your friend pissed all over." Yes, it's time for the healing gnome spit. "And I'll bring an army." He tries not to make army sound dubious.

"There are ways," Alexander points out to Anne. "A really small baster, probably." He's SO HELPFUL. Then he can't help but let out a harsh little snicker. "You realize you're talking yourself into mating with gnomes, right?" He slowly sits back, both hands still on the pitcher, keeping it down. "So...whatever your name is? If I let you out of this thing, are you gonna start some shit?"

"I don't want to know," Anne flutters lashes at Bozo, snorts back some more laughter, and then scoots the hell away when Alexander suggests letting the gnome outta there. She doesn't want to get peed on. "We're going to have to talk about the potential complications of breeding Bozo-Gnome halfbreeds, but now's probably not the time or the place..."

Enzo looks pretty nauseous at the idea of being the father of a bunch of half-breeds. Also at the gnome spitting on him, "Okay. Okay. Let Salli out." GRIMACE. And there's a weighted glance to Alexander and Anne, yes, they will talk this GRAND PLAN over later.

"Saldri Bilxif Calyur. It's an acceptable number of names." And Alexander tries hard to get the pronounciation right, repeating it to himself silently a couple of times to lock it in. He slowly removes the pitcher and scooches back on his butt away from the gnome. "Be free, small angry creature."