saveourearth | Til the end of the line, Fur better or Fur worse.

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Til the end of the line, Fur better or Fur worse.

When: In the midst of the confusion after the petting zoo animals have been release
What: Don't look, he's totally not walking off with a Rabbit.
Who: Jim and the 'Goddamit, Jim' Squad

He doesn't remember making this decision.

He only knows that He picked up this rabbit to take him back to the cages, and the big fluffy floppy bastard started to nibble on his earlobe and boom. Smitten. Bones is his now. He had the full intention of going to the owners to ask if he could buy the hopper, but instead, his feet took him in the direction with the least people and animals as fast as possible.

"I'm going to get you the best run, Bones. Get you all that rabbit food that rabbits like and all that Jazz. I have a garden, too. Do you know how rare gardens are in Mossgate? You probably don't. They're expensive. And rare." Bones simply bops him in the face and snuggles in. Jim takes this as agreement.

He's still walking. It doesn't seem to have really realised that he's actually in the midst of stealing a Rabbit.

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Since their earlier conversation, Sadie had decided to keep a closer eye on Jim. He had seemed rather taken with the rabbit earlier and the niggling feeling in her head that was eerily similar to the way she felt when her twin was about to do something monumentally stupid.

Because of this, she noticed pretty quickly when Jim started moving away from the group and it was plenty clear to her that he still had ahold of the rabbit. Sadie starts weaving her way through the crowd, apologising left and right.

"Oops! Sorry. Excuse me, thank you. Sorry. Ah, sorry Walter!"

Eventually, she makes it through the main throng of people and starts in a light jog after Jim, a determined frown on her face.

In retrospect, Walter should have seen this coming too.

"Sadie? What is- ... Oh."

He spared no more than a moment to just stare at Jim.

"Maybe he'll listen to us if we try to dissuade him together."

He set out behind Sadie, not wanting to outpace her, while also not letting Jim and his new lupine friend out of his sight.

Jim doesn't really realize that he's being followed, not entirely sure of why he's walking away nor why but he also doesn't question it.

He's almost to the car park, cooing to the rabbit the whole way.

Sadie scowls in Jim's direction as she responds to Walter. "I hope so, I told him not to do something stupid. He doesn't have the proper equipment to care for a rabbit!"

Noticing that Jim is nearing the carpark she turns to Walter, "You might want to go on ahead before he gets any further."

Before shouting, "OI JIM!" at the top of her voice.

"Right, got it."

Since Sadie's taking the task of ~~taking Jim to task~~ getting Jim's attention, Walter's going to run on ahead and block Jim's path.

And stay out of Sadie's way, for that matter.

Edited 2018-08-06 22:17 (UTC)

Jim hears the yelling easily, and he turns on his heel to face it while still walking backwards in an easy lope.

It's Sadie from that one night that everything went weird.

"Hi Sadie!" He waves jauntily, cradling Bones in with his left arm, then quickly putting it back, "Bye, Sadie!"

He's done the pleasantries, and now he's going to leave.

Sadie scowls at Jim as she stomps over to him. "Don't 'Hi Sadie. Bye Sadie.' me! You put that poor rabbit back!"

Seeing Jim continue on she continues to call after him. "I didn't think you were someone who would be deliberately cruel to animals!"

"You might want to listen to her, Jim," Walter says... from behind Jim.

Turning around and walking backwards was probably not the best move, here. Walter moves backward juuust enough so that Jim won't trip over him and outright drop the poor bunny.

"Even if that rabbit would be happier with you, I'm pretty sure the staff here should have had a say in the first place."

The next couple of seconds pass in a blur for Jim.

"Do you enjoy being the highest testing petty criminal in the States?" He'd been asked by the Captain in the uniform, blood dripping from his nose and a sense of grim satisfaction. He sits in the bar while the staff clear up the broken glass,the spit and the split beers and he says "Maybe I do." Like a liar.

He's had to scrape by wherever he can. His mom sent back her pay from the Fleet, but it only ever went on booze and girls that his uncle decided were the flavor of the week, because he was still a minor and couldn't get any of it. She had hated looking at his face, too much like his father's, but she still loved the stars. He wouldn't dare take that away from her, so he kept quiet.

He sets his jaw, stubbornly crossing his arms as the offer to join the fleet stands, a slew of memories cropping up as to exactly why he shouldn't be allowed in. Maybe, though, a criminal way of thinking was exactly what they did need.

As soon as Walter pipes up from behind Jim, something clicks into place into his subconscious. If Sadie's looking, she'll see his usually mellow, dark brown eyes flash vibrantly blue for a sustained second before he moves.

The enemy is directly behind him, and he's got the package right there in his arms, and he can't let them have it, under any circumstances he can't because a weapon like this can't sit with a civilization that would use it like that and -

He ducks and spins, using his momentum to roll out from underneath Walter's form, (Use your body weight against them and don't get hit, if a cop comes for you your aim is to disappear, not get into a fight), curling himself over the rabbit as he does so as not to crush it. It takes little effort for him to spring up and launch his way to the fence that surrounds the fields towards the carpark.

He's would've made it, too, if Bones hadn't had enough of this shit and thumped him in the chest to struggle away when he open his arms to launch over the fence.

The thump actually manages to trip him up, and he slips on a piece of mud, falling down backwards, about to smack his head right into the ground when - Never allow a head injury, Jim, you don't have that many brain cells to lose in the first place) - He twists onto his side just in time to prevent anything serious, but still slams down onto the ground hard.

Jim stares up at the sky, with a rabbit cleaning it's paws beside him wondering what the fuck just happened.

Sadie can't do anything from her position except watch, stunned as a switch seems to almost flip in Jim. The flash of his eyes changing from kind brown to intense blue is an obvious sign to Sadie that Jim is undergoing an Echo.

As it is, she remains back as Jim starts pulling off some minor acrobatics, impressive considering his grip on the rabbit, trusting that Walter's speed will let him deal with it. It isn't until Jim slams into the ground that she makes her way over, cautiously skirting around the older man to check on the rabbit.

"Well, that looked like a Number-related moment to me."

"I'll bet."

Either that, or Jim had been planning this, which either made it more unlikely or more illegal on the man's part - and he'd really better hope it was the former, because Moss Manor was unlikely to let him off easy for this if he keeps protesting.

Walter lets Sadie check on the rabbit, choosing the kneel over by Jim's head instead and give him a solid Look.

"Unless you've been hiding away some serious training from the rest of Mossgate, that seemed rather... sudden. And a lot of effort for just one rabbit."

There's a lot of mental frazzling happening in Jim's brain right now, as knowledge of the back-ways through cities that don't exist yet, system spikes for computer systems he knows are far off in the future and various self-defense and immobilization moves settle into his 'memory'.

He comes back to reality with no memory of what happened from just after the rabbits escaped, looking up with Walter looming above him.

His head hurts.

His arse hurts.

"Walter?" Did Walter just flip him?

"Did you just flip me?"

Happy that the rabbit has come out of this incident unharmed, Sadie gently picks the bunny up, cradling it gently before also leaning over Jim to get a good look at the man.

"Definitely a Number thing. I wanted to double-check but your eyes changed colour just before you tried to go all Jackie Chan and steal the rabbit. How's your head feel, did you get the empty feeling?"

Walter just shakes his head at Jim, concern increasingly clear on his face.

"Er, no. That was all you. And the rabbit," he adds helpfully.

So, definitely a Number thing, unless the bunny has its own story to tell.

"My eyes did what now?" He asks as he begins to prop himself up on his elbows, still thoroughly confused.

"My head feels... Well, I know about things I definitely shouldn't know about? I've got Schematics for a Ford car in my head, which is normal, sure, but this one is from... 2236?" More specifically, he knows how to hotwire one, and how to fudge the identification sequence for it to believe that it's the owner.

He rubs the back of his head where he hit it on the ground and fucking hell, his ribcage hurts.

"I'm so confused." He feels the need to say it out loud. "I knew about the numbers, but what else has been happening?" He's been mostly locked up in his labs, occasionally seeing the exchanged between other Numbereds.

"They changed colour," She reiterates, "They became bright blue for a moment. Don't worry, they're back to a normal brown now." She reassures him somewhat half-heartedly. It was alright for some, having their eyes go back to normal.

Sadie does shoot him a somewhat disbelieving look. "A...2236 Ford? Really?!" She glances at Walter before looking back to Jim. "Sometimes, when that hollow feeling happens, it changes people or gives them something. Like when you saw my eyes change at the Aurora, and just now, you know something you never did before right?"

Since Sadie actually saw 'the eye thing', Walter just lets her cover that part.

His eyes first go wide as Jim explains - a glance exchanged with Sadie - and then narrow sharply.

"Definitely an alternate universe; I don't know how Ford would be able to last that long...

"As for other news, well, you heard over the Network when Stone and I were checking out what sort of Boundary we have around Mossgate, right?"

Bright blue... the same colour as the reflection he saw in the Radiation chamber panel in the vision he had in the aurora. The one of his death.

His eyes?

And he's certainly never been this reckless before. Even in the RAF he was a relatively reserved recruit. He'd just thought that this new part of his personality was because he'd finally settled in one place for the long-haul for once.

Evidently not. Who was this... Him he kept seeing?

He nods at Sadie, understanding dawning in his eyes.

"I see, so we're... all getting these things? I didn't really feel hollow this time, but I definitely felt like I was viewing it in third person. This is so weird," He turns to Walter now to shake his head.

"I was on a conference call at the time I think. I'd signed myself off the Network so I wouldn't start replying to people that weren't there."

Sadie nods, "It seems like it. If you were viewing things in first person did you see yourself or someone different?" When she had had her experience earlier today it had all been first person, why the difference between the two?

She looks at Walter, interested in hearing what he had to say about his experiment.

"Like watching a film?" Story, he wants to say, but film comes out instead. Watching, not reading.

Walter chuffs.

"Sam wouldn't have complained if you'd chimed in, anyway."

Now with Sadie's attention as well, he straightens out a little.

"We found out that there's a spherical Boundary around Mossgate. Not certain how deep it goes below ground, but we weren't able to reach the highest point."

And it had definitely been more than a circle.

"If you go outside of it, you forget everything related to your Number. The people you've met, what you've remembered - or witnessed, I suppose - in these flashbacks, and any physical traits that you've gained."

"That's-" Impossible? Was he really about to say that, with a girl with piercing yellow cat eyes and a bum back from his trying to escape with a rabbit? Was he really going to say 'Impossible' with his own two heathen lips?

"Crazy." He's not wrong, but it still doesn't come out as confident as it could be. Instead, the cogs are turning in that hyper-fixating brain of his.

"Did you guys... Do you know where the centre of this circle is at all? I don't... I... Aaarrrgghhh," Brain overload.

"Okay. How about, we go put Bones back where he belongs, I go get yelled at, and then we go back to mine or Costa or somewhere just to talk this shit over?"

Sadie gives him a sympathetic smile as she adjusts her grip on the wriggling rabbit in her arms, "Crazy's a pretty good way to describe all of this."

"I won't be able to stay for long, Mum wants me home soon but I can definitely stay long enough for you to get shouted at."

"I can only wish it was the craziest thing I've ever heard, not that it doesn't come close," Walter deadpans.

Unfortunately, he's serious there.

"And the sphere centers over the mouth of Moss River. I wouldn't rule out the water itself playing a role, either."

Which incites a grimace that emphasizes how much he detests that part of all this, too; stories of 'something in the water' conspiracies are everywhere.

Walter nods at Sadie.

"I can serve as escort the rest of the way out - I doubt they're going to let you loiter, Jim. And it'll mean they won't send someone with you themselves," he adds.

He sighs, tipping his head back to stare at the sky above. There's a niggling voice in his brain telling him he could still run, no one but these two have to know.

He pushes it down.

"Yeah. Alright. Lets get going."

Jim will be sentenced to a hundred hours of community service, to be served at the very location where he tried to commit his theft. The judge hopes that it will help him to appreciate just how demanding the upkeep of a rabbit is (after all, he says, they are like little horses if you keep them right, and there is a lot of annoyance in his words) and to appreciate the work that the zoo is doing. Should he try to steal from the zoo again, though...

The threat hangs in the air. It's quite clear that there is at least a fine attached to it.

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Til the end of the line, Fur better or Fur worse.

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Echo incoming >:3c

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and then he gets comminity service, the end.

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