Snowpocalypse 2019 hits Chemical Eden

[Millicent Grim]

Snowpocalypse 2019: Winter is Coming.
Event: viewtopic.php?f=122&t=31729



[Written with Veil's Player]

Millicent sat on the couch in the high vaulted main room of her once-Cathedral-now-home. It was early evening and the night sky glittered with crisp, cold star-gems through the quarter-glass roof of the once-crumbling structure. The TV was casting cat and mouse shadows in the possibly spooky interior, and she and Veil were deep in the best part of the plot twist of an HBO series she had watched maybe 15 times already. He probably wasn't watching much, all things considering.

Millicent was tired and overly comfortable. What that means is that the couch, itself, was a lush fabric with extra cushions and a deep seat that could support her, and most other humans, curled up or supine with ease. There were blankets and pillows aplenty, and her attire was that of simple luxury. This was primarily made up of a long, Scottish cashmere based night shirt that almost covered her knees. It was, of course, white, and somehow assymetrical at the collar and the hem.

At present, she was popping too many truffle salt popcorn kernels in her mouth at one time, and attempting the intricate one handed knuckle dance that was necessary to get everything safely in her face.

Just as she succeeded, the screen went blank. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP This is a test…..

Millicent narrowed her eyes at the screen. Premium channels didn’t have commercials *or* tests. What was up with this?

“Sorry,” she apologized unnecessarily to her company.

Veil turned a wide, startled gaze towards her- comedically slow with pupils the size of saucers by the time they reached Milli’s skeptical face. He was, momentarily, the image of both someone being caught red-handed without an excuse at the ready and the other a child horribly confused about how a sound like *that* could be emitted by another *being*. At least.. That’s what he *thought* she was apologizing for. Mouth still hanging open in incredulity, he used this to his advantage.. Because he couldn’t help how delicious it was.. And mechanically placed a single piece of popcorn he’d retrieved from the bowl between lips with the same lack of speed in which he’d regarded her. *Crunch*.. *crunchcrunchcrunch*.


As the test ended, the actual not-a-test information came through. Snowpocalypse.

“Snowpocalypse?!” she yelped as she sat up straight and looked at Veil.

“Pock-lips?” he echoed, rolling the term around on his tongue between the *crunchitycrunch* of further pilfered popcorn. “Snowpock-lips.” He said firmly with a satisfied nod.

“We haven’t had snow here yet! We will get snowed in for Days! I wonder when Nate is getting home. Oh my gosh, we could lose him in all that…..white!”

Veil’s face was a picture book of altering expressions- ones learned in no small part by the characteristics of the faces he’d so far encountered. At the mention of Nate’s name, his brightly beaming features went all lax and deadpan with a certain annoyance burning behind a half-lidded stare. “Nate.” He explained with a small, nearly adoring smile, in case she didn’t get his ridiculous impression. “He’ll be cold! Frozen Nate of the Pock-lips.”

First, Millicent burst into a mad cackle of laughter. Yes. Yes, that was her brother all right. And yes, Veil had excellently strung together multiple terms and phrases that he had learned in the past week and Frankenstein-strung together. She hastily dug around the couch for her black cell phone. “We need to order food, and alcohol and….what kind of—oh, nevermind. Rum! You drink Rum for this. We can bake cookies and we can… “ her tirade came to a screeching halt. “What *do* you want to do? Or maybe… Hmm,” she looked at the Innocent rather dumbfoundedly.

He* looked back eagerly.. Like this was the best game yet. … She hadn’t considered – well if we were starting from scratch than maybe -- Oh, this is going to take some more thought.

Laurie.

Laurie would know.

She dialed his number.

“You dastardly fiend.”

“Mmmm…. Say it again.”

“Fiend!”

“Oh my dear, you do know how to take a boy back to his …well….younger years. What can I do you for?”

“Did you hear about the snow?”

“Mmhmm. Hear about it? Child, we asked for it.”

A moment of silence.

“Annnndddd?” the perverted silver fox of a man purred.

“Well… What should we *do*?”

“*Do*? Why Millicent…do *everything*. Why are we choosing?”

“….that’s a lot of …there’s a lot of everything.”

“Well it looks like you’ll at least have a week. Do you need a care package, dear?”

“Not like the one you sent Nate!”

The vampire laughed. It was a genuine, half-mad, crazy wolf of a laugh. He sounded unhinged. She should be flattered. He was being so… genuine.

“Fine. Not like the one I sent Nate. But you know… The little—What was it you decided to call him? Veil?” the sound he made at that was somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and the slick *shink* of a sharp blade being slammed to the hilt into the cartilage between the sternum and a rib bone. “You should all just… You know…celebrate life together. A roaring fire. Some champagne. A little MDMA… let it all hang out.”

“Laurent…”

“Give me…2 hours. I’ll be your Snowmaggeddon sugar fox. Bear? Baby? *Daddy*. *Merde.*”

>Click<

Millicent eyed Veil dubiously. But her heart just melted and flopped around in her chest when he smiled.

[Nathaniel Grim]

Someone had made this happen. Nathan wasn't sure who... but he was sure that it was not just coincidence, or that a haphazard tromp through the cold and wild open spaces around the Cathedral could lead anyone into its driveway. And in a sheet at that.

Nathan shoved the shopping cart around a tall rack of shelving and then into a sprawl of clothing displays. He was not going to donate or share all of his own clothes to their unexpected guest. Millicent had whined some wordless refusal to join him on the expedition into the crisp pre-storm chill and a giant Has-It-All-Mart. Their guest had parroted the noise, and if he'd had the muscles for it, Nathan would have laid his ears back even farther against his head and left them both in front of the television without explaining that he wasn't set out for groceries or cleaning supplies. He didn't expect her to be baited even by the true objective of the errand, because the clothes were boring. He'd already had the circular conversation with her in his head and didn't need to rehash it out loud.

Socks. Everybody needed socks. Two packs he threw into the cart, one crew and one ankle height, both bog standard white.

Staring at the display of underwear gave him a moment's pause. This was a very personally-preferential item on the list of staples, and Nathan almost reached for his mobile phone before he anticipated how tragically ineffective a phone call about that subject would be... And worse. He squinted up at the high ceiling of the store, all bright and blindingly corrugated white. When he had re-tethered his patience to his presence, he went down the side of the aisle pulling a variety of styles and colors; at the end-cap, he grabbed a discounted bonus pack of plain white tees.

It was in his nature to perceive that by providing these basics, he was laying the groundwork for some other trek to much more fashionable clothiers where Millicent would stare and consider and fawn and splurge... Nathan tried to keep the diluted sneer from his face and to look only as annoyed as anyone else who was shopping in this warehouse of a retailer today. No one was paying him any attention, anyway.

A couple pairs of jeans, a couple pairs of joggers, a striped sweater here, a plaid flannel shirt there, athletic shorts, Tacosaurus pajama bottoms.... He made a second sweep for a few more shirts with long sleeves, the cart half heaped with a small wardrobe. Shoes. A toboggan hat with tassels hanging from the ear-flaps and some gloves all from a bin on the wide lane between one department and another. Nathan was an impulse-shopping dream and if he began to actually enjoy collecting all these articles, he would never tell anyone. Not. A. Soul. Possibly Laurent, but he was also on Nathan's latest list of suspects, so probably not for a long time even for him.

Veil was only a smidgen shorter, and Nathan found himself staring at his own booted feet, wondering if they were an average size. He liked the idea of sharing his shoes and boots almost as little as he liked the idea of sharing the rest of his clothes. Millicent only got to wear them because they lived together and none of his favorite shirts or shorts could go missing except to an incorrect dresser drawer or closet. So for now, Veil was going to wear the size twelve shoes and one set of utility boots that Nathan thought was worth the cost of destroying through more practical daily use than fashion forwardness. Some times it was more important to have and keep toes than to mince about how stylishly it was done.

Mobile phones that barely should have had service all began to blare a rarely-heard emergency tone at varying distances across the store in some unholy cacophony that pulled Nathan's eyes up from examining the stitching around the sole of the boot... His own mobile phone joined in on the audible chaos, and he thought to himself: this is it. It's finally happening, and I'm going to die in an All-Mart. His heart did something like a faceplant onto the floor of his chest, and then he pulled his phone out and discovered that it was just an absurd snow storm closing in and possibly closing down the city and surrounding areas...

He threw the boots into the cart and holstered his phone back into his pocket as the ripple of Warning Service ringtones died away, and like almost every other shopper in the place, he was heading for the checkout lanes. Ooh...but there were cheap plastic sleds in the middle of another broad aisle... and marshmallows and marshmallow fluff and graham crackers and cheap packets -- no, whole canisters of cheap powdered hot cocoa mix...


Forty-five minutes later, Nathan was driving, painfully slow on account of the thick, dense flurries of snow drifting down from a steely grey sky, back toward their home. "Call Milli."

Do you want to... "Yes. Hello? Put shoes on him. I have eighty-three bags to bring inside and almost none of it is for me." The marshmallow fluff was for him, though. He might be persuaded to share it.

[Writing the Bullet]

[collaborated on with Liv's player]

The blue, flickering cast of a presently ignored flat screen lit up a brown-ticked blanket-mountain in the middle of a large rumpled bed... Pillows and random bits of clothing were haphazardly strewn across the floor.. a shirt still dangled from a carelessly knocked over bedside lamp.. pocket change littered the ground like fallen stars.

The wolf fur coverlet... was seemingly squirming and giggling.

AAAAAARRRRAAAARRRBOOOOOOOOOP shouted the flat screen, while the two cell phones, canoodling on the nightstand, vibrated together with a >clack< and emitted equally annoying alarm sounds.

Two figures scrambled, one from on top of the other, and sat bolt upright. Pale blonde and deep brown crowned heads emerged-- mussed from their wrestling. The male clutched the fur blanket to his chest as it began to slip away, while the female let it fall, unabashed.

They listened quietly to the entire emergency response warning, unmoving until their television flickered back to its regularly scheduled programming.

Writ and Liv slowly turned their faces to each other, held a blank stare for two seconds exactly, then formed a pair of equitably lazy mischievous grins, shrugged in sync, and tossed the blanket back over their heads.

The wolf fur coverlet... returned to its natural state: squirms and giggles.