action;

[othersdie]

[Justin doesn't bother making a post. Neil has already articulated his thoughts on the door, and anyone who wants to find him will know that he's either at the Police Station or in Xanadu. (He would spend more time in the apartment, but the thought that Neil and Todd might end up separated if the door works is more distressing when he's around them.)

He has a bouquet of pink orchids with him. Homegrown, of course, and intended for one very specific visitor, if she comes. She has to come. If the door works, this might be his last chance to see her.

It might be his last chance to see anyone. Justin is, as usual, not optimistic about the outcome of the experiment with the door. At best, everyone with somewhere to be will leave. At worst--well, he's torn between worst-cast scenarios. Either the City could be destroyed and take everyone with it or the Anonymous Movement could force everyone out. (Okay, the first is worst, but the outcomes are equally distasteful. He would lose the only people he cares about either way.) Such lines of thought make Justin even broodier than usual, which is a significant achievement.

Maybe, for once, the worst won't happen.]


[ooc: Anything goes! No, really. Go ahead and assume that he's been available since the fourteenth.]

Comments

[deadly_legacy]

[The last time she'd visited the city, Justin had been gone, but maybe on a day like today... Maybe she could find him again?

She goes to Xanadu to look. She's hopeful, but also nervous.]

[othersdie]

[That had been another temporary exit. Justin can't seem to escape the City for long.]

Euphie? [He's pretty sure it's her, but not willing to get his hopes up.]

[deadly_legacy]

Justin? [She spins toward the voice, face lighting up.] You're here! [Hurrying toward him.]

[othersdie]

So are you. [His genius does not extend to situations where he's compelled to actually smile. He opens his arms for a hug, not the least bit concerned about possible orchid-bruising.]

[deadly_legacy]

[And they are quickly tangled into a mass of hugging limbs. The best kind of tangle. It requires no genius just eagerness and fulfilled longing.] You were gone last time!

[othersdie]

[Eagerness and fulfilled longing are things he has in spades! The orchids get tossed aside because those are suddenly the least important things ever.] I was. I always come back.

[deadly_legacy]

[Poor orchids! They are very sweet or they will be when she manages to notice something that isn't him.] How long? [She was so sad to miss him before. She hoped he was well somehow.]

[othersdie]

Almost a month. I'm sorry I missed you.

[He'll make up for it by not letting go. Possibly ever.]

[deadly_legacy]

It's not your fault. You're here now. We both are! [After all, it's usually her failing to be in the city as much as she'd like to change that.] Tell me everything.

[commoneresque]

[ Haruhi takes in her surroundings with a predictable calm, but the calm itself is disturbed by the unease permeating the City. It's different than she remembers and while she has never been one for superstition or near relatives of that concept, she factors in the observation. Alone, she wonders how long she might be here, and alone she wanders from the heart of the City out towards Xanadu. Everything in the City she recalls with a vague certainty: certain that it happened, if fuzzy on the details. If she tries to remember names, they scatter out ahead: stones skipping and sinking before she gets to them.

Only upon seeing a face that goes with a name does she manage to trap one down and even that takes a moment of staring.

Ah yes.

Justin.

Memory remains nebulous: conversations, a sense of logic and candor. These seem true.

How long has it been though? Is this the same Justin? All reasonable questions where the City is concerned. Well. Only one way to find out.

She steps closer, prefacing her intrusion otherwise with a slight 'ahm' utterance, ]

Justin?

[ Her head tilts a little, watching him. ]

[othersdie]

[The City has been in a near-constant state of unease since the overthrow of the Deities in August, but the door has added an element of uncertainty. Almost everyone, even those with homes to go to, is ambivalent about the situation; they've carved out places for themselves in the City. They have friends here.

The dead can only hope that they won't be evicted.

Justin turns to face Haruhi, searching his mind for a name. His own memories of the City remain hazy; in five and half years, he has come and gone more times than he would care to count. Details get lost in the transition. And he's still the same Justin, even if he feels a complete disconnect between the lost and logic-driven teenager he used to be and whoever he is now. He hasn't aged much--there have been brief periods where he was alive, but they always ended too soon--but he has matured. There's an air of quiet defeat about him--a calm, if melancholy, acceptance of everything that has happened.

But he remembers her. She was one of the first people he had spoken to after dying and coming to the City, and he'd been so amazed that she was willing to talk to him, fresh from prison and execution as he had been.]

Haruhi. Is that right?