revivalproject

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Xtro

WHO: Stu Macher, Billy Loomis and open!
WHERE: Temba, by the fountain and the hospital
WHAT: A new arrival! He looks bad!
WHEN: Early June
WARNINGS: Stu's coming in already stabbed, so there's blood right from the start.

a. the fountain
Movie blood felt more real than the genuine article. It was always brighter red, lurid and fast flowing, not like the dark and dingy trickle that rolled sluggishly along the dirty clefts in the cobblestone. The real blood picked up dust and grime as it went, and rapidly dried, getting darker and slower and duller, Stu realized, quickly abandoning the reflection of the strange light. He couldn't see where it was coming from at first, only aware of the way it bounced where the blood was still sticky, fixated on its unfamiliar ambience from where he lay on the hard ground. It was like the diffused lighting from a softbox, glowy and indirect. He had to touch it.

By the time he could make his eyes focus again, he could feel the hard stone pressing into his back. He must have propped himself up, his legs still twisted awkwardly where he had collapsed onto his face. He could hear the constant trickle of running water, too, that was weird, that kind of made him have to pee, and was suddenly too aware of just how much beer he had been drinking and regretted not hitting the bathroom before the bloodbath or the alien abduction. You should always go before you take a big trip like that, even if you don't think you have to. He started to laugh, loud and unself-conscious, until the blood bubbling in his throat made it stick and splatter down his front instead of echoing around this empty square. He sobbed then, raising his shaking hands to that glowing light of the alien-ball like he needed any more confirmation that it was still him that was bleeding, then pressed them back around his middle to try to stem the flow. Being abducted should have been so much cooler than this. There should have been a spaceship, and a metal table, and a chip they were putting in his neck. Instead, Stu was sitting on a dirty, empty street, holding his guts in, not sure if he was in complete pain or entirely numb. If he died before the probing, he'd never forgive himself.

"Billy?" he suddenly realized, soft and plaintive. He had tripped and fallen onto his face on the way out of the kitchen, after he heard Billy's cry, after he had been attacked. Someone had to help him. "I'm comin', buddy..." Stu strained, pitching forward to try to climb up onto his feet. He had a long way to go.

b. the hospital
The sweater that Stu had been wearing was ruined. Even if he knew how to get the crusted blood out of it, there were huge holes where the knife had sliced through, enough that it was practically falling apart. He should have been falling apart. Instead, he was lingering in the hall of the weirdly dark hospital, wearing a new sweater with too many sleeves. The extra pair of them were sitting on his shoulders, all of the extra fabric gathered around his neck like a cowl, and when he wiggled they flapped in a way that made him snicker and feel like some kind of alien royalty himself. Maybe he was less likely to come back from this experience screaming and eating snake eggs than dazzling the aliens with his strange, human powers, like a normal amount of arms, and resilience to stabbing.

He had too much energy to stay put an heal like he was supposed to, he didn't know anyone that could just lay around in a bed for hours and not want to blow their own brains out. He had left the ruined sweater in his place, and dutifully kept his arms stiff by his sides to limit just how much he was moving as he went prancing in the echoing corridor, swinging his shoulders from side to side to make his empty sleeves flap while he bounced. Already, he knew not to expect to encounter just about anyone around here, but when he did he also wasn't terribly surprised and gladly pivoted to welcome them into this game. "Do you like alien movies?" he immediately greeted, his very posture impish, all stretched out six feet four inches of him drawn up straight with his shoulders back and arms still tight to his sides, and chin tucked down to make his wide grin look like a wicked challenge.

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Maybe Stu would do a double-take once he got an eyeful of just whom he was facing. The green-skinned teenager was practically a full foot shorter than the one who was looking giddily at him, a brow on that purple mask of his arching quizzically before flattening in mild judgment.

"Well, that depends- do you mean movies with aliens, AKA Sci-fi, or movies made by actual aliens, in which case I would not know because I have not yet had the opportunity to watch any." A beat. "Unless of course you meant instead to ask someone if they would watch alien movies with you."

This little nerd might have looked all freaky, but Stu recognized that expression of serious pedantry ready to be teased into outrage. In a few years, he'd be working at a video store to tell people how poor their taste was. Stu started to chuckle, and then was immediately sidelined by the revelation that aliens could have been making the movies, and enthused, "Dude!" It still took him a beat to struggle over the script, hands raised and frozen until he found the line to continue, "Of course some of the greats have been aliens this whole time, it makes total sense. John Waters, that guy's an alien for sure, he's not even hiding it. Okay, sci-fi movies made by actual aliens, go." He pointed with both hands expectantly for freaky kid to start the scene.

A video store! What a novelty that would be! DVD kiosks were already considered archaic so far as Donnie was concerned.

The kid stared openly at him, expectant after that emphatic 'dude', brow once again quirking when he got over whatever sort of mental buffering had taken place. "Well, I guess I can't argue the possibility that aliens have been in our midst this entire time, I mean, there are yōkai in New York so why not?"

And then he was frowning again, eyes flicking towards the fingers directed at him before looking back up at the meat head in confusion.

"Uh. Did you miss the part about me not having watched any? And if this is based off of assumption then how would one even go about classifying potential aliens of directors because honestly, anyone in the entertainment industry can be considered 'out of this world' in multiple senses."

Stu could only guess at how weird New York really was, it did always seem like a crazy place in movies with plenty of alleys for murders and high octane escapes, so he was happy to gush, "Yeah, man, yo, there's some guys that must have been there the whole time, little green men." Look, there was one right there that Stu was pointing at, they were firmly beyond 'possibility'. It was just a matter of who among them had been hiding in plain sight.

One of them was a bit of a meat head, maybe the one that needed Stu to impatiently explain, "That's what I'm saying, dingus. As far as I'm concerned, they're all fair game. Do we think Ridley Scott is an alien? He does try really hard to prove he likes human stuff, too. Alien, put it on the list."

Donnie looked rather affronted at being called a 'dingus' and not by one of his brothers. He scowled, folding his arms. "What list? Why are we even doing this."

He frowned, recalling a very important point.

"Why are you here anyway, asking people about alien movies? Did you need a doctor? Maybe a psychiatrist? Pretty sure we don't have one of those around unfortunately, I think they'd have their work cut out for them though."

"I got a doctor, man," Stu grumbled, drawing his illustrative arms back in close and still like they were supposed to be, so he wasn't doing too much moving around. Surely somebody else would have thought that game was wicked, and Stu tried not to look too disappointed that the freaky nerd thought he was uncool. "You kind of sound like my math teacher. He's also 45 and bald," he said.

The gesture didn't go unnoticed. Ah, a patient who was likely avoiding his prescribed treatment for whatever he was recovering from.

Donnie looked quite the opposite of insulted then. Compared to a math teacher? Exactly his language! He was already naturally bald so that part didn't really bother him. "Ah, a man of intelligence," the turtle replied smugly. "Although if you were equating things in mathematical terms then that was as basic as arithmetic. Are you supposed to be in bed or something? If you were looking to escape then you've clearly got to work on your timing."

Stu had no idea what mathematics he was doing, and had to let out a wheezy kind of laugh at what he hoped was a joke. They were joking together, this was great! Up until the point that Stu had to ask, "What, am I trapped here? Is this where they turn you green?" He did look concerned then, because he hadn't exactly been planning for an escape, he really did think he could just walk out of here any time. Billy did, and he wasn't even green yet.

"Well no, not really. Given what few doctors there do happen to be, there's really no one to stop you. I mean, I could if I were so inclined, but I am not the hospital police."

Was he joking? Donnie didn't look like he was joking. His tone just naturally had that sarcastic tinge to it so that probably didn't help either way.

The intention hadn't been to go very far when Stu got up, just to stretch his legs a little, check things out, see what the aliens got up to in alien healthcare, the usual. Maybe there was a vending machine. He had not accounted for Hospital Police, which did sound like a very serious job, and he glanced around like he might see them despite the assurance that this guy was not currently on the payroll. Now he felt like he had to get out of here, before the green kid locked him down. "Okay, well, let me know if you see them, huh, buddy?" he said, inching around to get to the other side of the guy, assuming he had come from some kind of exit.

"...."

Donnie eyed him for a moment, trying to see if he could figure out why the guy was even here for. He hadn't particularly denied that he was supposed to be here. Hm.

"Oh, I don't have to. They have cameras everywhere to keep tabs on people who leave before they're supposed to," he said with a casual shrug even as he managed to smother a grin. "Some of the doctors are pretty firm about their patient's recovery."

Stu hadn't seen any cameras, and they must have been really well hidden because even as he was scanning for them then, knowing what he was looking for, he still couldn't confidently say any of the slightly weird objects were recording them. Maybe alien cameras looked like cobwebs, and just in case, he waved at one dangling limply from the ceiling, just a splay of his fingers still down tight near his side. He leaned in closer to the green guy to whisper out of the side of his mouth, "Everywhere?," looking very concerned about what they might have seen.

Uh, personal space, pal? Donnie leaned back out of reflex, holding a completely serious expression. For all of two seconds before he let out a laugh.

"Oh your face just then," he snickered. "Relax, I'm pretty sure the doctors aren't voyeuristic, that's just the aliens." After all, it wasn't entirely a lie, and really he wasn't sure just how limited the alien network was when it came to capturing its specimens on camera.

It took Stu a second to understand that laugh, and then he was also giggling, his manic grin returning to jab a finger at the little guy, then give his head a rough rub as Stu enthused, "You got me good, man! The doctor's kind of a freakshow, I was all in, I was already thinking he's one of the aliens."

"-ow," Donnie complained, and again at the head rub although at that point it was more out of reflex. Thankfully he was used to that much rough treatment given the people he lived with. It was why he could still smirk as Stu admitted Donnie had him going for a bit there.

"Let me guess, tall guy, wears sunglasses at night- theoretically, I mean he wears them everywhere else."

"Yeah!" Stu replied, jumping into a stance like he was ready to catch this volley, hands out at his sides. "I thought he maybe had glaucoma, like my aunt, she wears this huge glasses even at the movies, but then I thought, like, that would be terrible for a doctor, this guy's got to give me stitches, there's no way he's blind under there." He wasn't ruling any of this out, though. Maybe the doctor really was some kind of blind alien camera perv. The universe was a rich tapestry. This little guy was green.

Should he moving this much? Maybe he was okay, or at least Donnie hadn't seen any obvious reasons for the guy to be sticking around the hospital.

"Eyew, stitches?" Donnie shuddered. "Wait, what happened to you? Should you be up?" He frowned, casting a glance back down the hall as though speaking of Wesker would summon him.

"That doctor is...intimidating. Very straight to the point, doesn't like to waste time and very difficult to impress." But he'd praised Donnie's work, so the man at least appreciated skill, probably so long as it was presented in a satisfactory or useful manner. There were grounds that the man could be worked with.

"Check it out!" Stu was more than ready to offer, not put off at all by the obvious discomfort and clearly thinking this should have been impressive enough even for the intimidating doctor. He was gathering up his sweater to show off the gnarliest of the wounds, covered in a bandage but angrily purpling even around the edges of it before Stu was peeling it away. There had been a deep, open tear through his side from a rough jab with a knife that left his skin stretched and red to close again from the dark stitches, and it definitely looked swollen and disgusting and like it would leave an awful scar. Stu poked it and flinched, then giggled.

"Wha- OH COME ON!" Donnie flailed a bit once he realized what Stu was intending. He slapped a hand over his eyes before peeking between his limited fingers out of morbid curiosity.

There...wasn't too much to see, thankfully, but it was still pretty terrible to look at. The turtle made a clear face of disgust. "Gross. -don't touch that, you're just going to irritate it more," he sighed, reaching out to lightly smack Stu's hand away.

None of this deterred Stu at all, instead making him laugh and loll out his tongue with a teasing noise in his throat as he wiggled closer in an enticing dance to make the green guy look at his nasty stab. "I've got more, want to see?" he asked with the slightest flinch away from that slap, as though the answer wasn't obvious enough already.

"Ugh, uh no? Put that thing away," Donnie grumbled, stepping back. "What even happened? You get mauled by the wildlife first thing when you got here or is this another case of excellent kidnap-timing?"

Finally, Stu did stop taunting the guy with it, trying to stick the bandage back into place as he sucked on his lip and considered how Billy would tell this story. He was definitely better at it, and had not prepped Stu for the 'another' situation. "Huh--someone else was attacked?" he had to ask. Billy didn't mention that he had been working so fast. No wonder he was so quick with the cover up.

Donnie arched a brow at him. "Not...that I have heard. Not recently anyway." He looked away with a frown, squashing down the memory of unruly hair and sharp teeth.

"I meant more like... if something happened to you just before you got dropped in. That's always a possibility given who knows where anyone comes from." He shrugged, glancing back at Stu with a bit of concern once he got his emotions wrestled back into a box.

"-what do you mean someone else was attacked? Is there some nutjob running around here? Not that we don't have at least a few of some sort or another but it'd be nice to be informed of any potential threats we should be worrying about."

That discomfort was as plain to Stu as the reaction to his stitches, though much harder to understand, and only made that shrugging explanation seem suspicious. He knew now that he wasn't so good at picking up on lies; even Billy had lied to him. That had to be a bad one. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"You tell me, dude. I just got here. I showed up, there's aliens, this is a different planet, someone stabs me, and now I'm talking to a little green guy. A serial killer doesn't sound that crazy," he encouraged.

Donnie wasn't that great of a liar to begin with, but in this such case he was more unsettled. Just what they all need, another psychopath in their midst.

"I'm not saying it's crazy. It is unfortunately not new to have hidden threats, wolves in sheep's clothing, if you will. At this point I'm not sure what sort of algorithms the Agrii systems are running that pick and choose who gets brought over but I'm fairly certain that they've strayed well beyond what one would otherwise expect of 'heroes'."

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