Welcome to Gaia! ::

The air was getting colder as it drifted in through his open door. The sun had long since started it's descent from the afternoon, and was swiftly dipping down behind the jungle. Liamh turned his head over from where he'd been lying, his neck bent at a funny angle off the foot of his bed, and gave a sharp inhale as he woke himself up.

There was the momentary disorientation as he rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eyes and neck and wondering what the monkey he was doing in Buenos Aires and where his kidney was.

"Oh, right," he muttered. "The resort."

He got up and shut the door, glancing around. Unpacking could wait a while, right? It wasn't like he was going anywhere immediately. He still wanted a chance to look around this place, even if he *had* slept half the day away. He gave a shiver, chilled from resting. First? Pants.

A few minutes later he thumped his way down the stairs, stretching and yawning in the evening air. Good thing he'd been innoculated, since the mosquitos were likely to be coming out. Maybe he'd explore... INdoors.

He headed across the main area towards the buildings in the center of their wheel of civilization. He thought he saw a few people moving around, but none close enough to warrant greeting. Moving to the building, he pushed his way through the doors and glanced around. Nice clean corridors, the occasional potted plant, nothing much. He wandered down farther, poking his head into a more open room, one that looked a bit like a lounge.

A lounge with a LARGE flatscreen TV.
It sat there on it's entertainment pedestal like some dark rectangular god, demanding all approach and pay homage.
And that was an offer Liamh couldn't refuse.

Locating the shelving unit(s) lined with DVDs, videos, and Xbox games, he crouched down and began rifling through it. Now THIS was civilization, he thought with a grin.

Ever since his conversation with Nita earlier, Gaius's thoughts had been naggling on Marshall. He wanted to know how his friend was doing! So, as evening came on, Gaius had gone to Marshall's duplex and knocked on the door.

No luck.

Cafeteria? The same. He'd even stopped by the arcade. The only other place Marshall could possibly be in the village was...

"Of course!" Gaius snapped his fingers. "The movie room!"

He hurried on over, taking deep breaths of the cooling air. The building was just up the way a little, he could even see the door open, a figure sillouetted against the light. He could just make out the brown hair and light build of his little friend, though from his view the nose was still hidden.

"HEY! Marshall!" he called as he approached.

Marshall dropped the DVDs, hearing that familiar, freindly voice. Marshall closed his eyes, feeling his teeth clench, as if he was biting down on a bullet. Marshall slowly turned around, eyes closed and head pointed down at the ground.

"Eh...Hey Gaius." Marshall said, to embarassed to look his freind in the face. Marshall seemed to have forgotten that Gaius had changed before Marshall did, and quite more drastically still. Despite that knowledge, it didn't really help Marshall's embarassment.

...And who the hell IS this guy any way?

Liamh glanced over his shoulder again, noticing that there were two now. He flicked his glance away for a moment, but did a doubletake. Was he seeing things? One of the guys seemed to have long pointy ears. He squinted and pushed his glasses back up. Eh. Must be some kind of costume thing. Fantasy convention? Cosplay? Sweet.

They seemed to be having some kind of important discussion so he glanced away for another moment, but he figured it would be impolite to eavesdrop.. Maybe he should say something.

He glanced over his shoulder again and raised one hand. "Hey... there..." He smiled winningly. Maybe they wouldn't be too annoyed if they hadn't seen him.

Gaius blinked. The... nose... No, it didn't fit. Marshall wasn't supposed to have a deformed, blackening growth in the middle of his face. He was supposed to be the smiling, overly-energetic guy who would tell him everything was okay. Gaius felt suddenly sad, reflected in the sag of his face and in his eyes. He placed a hand on top of Marshall's head. "Hey, remember what you told me? You're still you, even if you look different... I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." He offered an apologetic smile. "I'll do better next time. I promise."

His ear twitched at another voice, one he wasn't familiar with, spoke up from behind the couch. Gaius looked up, blinking at the guy waving, and raised his own hand hesitantly in a small wave. "Um, hey!" It never occured to him that Liamh might be the newest Moreau Island virgin.

Marshall had one character trait that could easily be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing: His mood could go from 0 to happy in .25th of a second. "Heh, thats nothing!" Marshall said, jumping over the couch. "They even got box-sets for pretty much every thing! And they even have really crappy movies, like "Japanese Kotatsu Attacks Bombay", a modern classic if I do say so myself." Marshall said, smiling again.

His heart sank, as he realised what he did. He had not only prooved what a complete and udder dork he was, he just unintentionally blew off Gaius AND revealed his nose (and feet from the jumping over the couch bit) to a perfect stranger.

...Hole. Rock. Need. Now.

"Kotatsu Attacks Bombay? Sweet! Uh, wait, is that the one with the alien girls who try to saw open people's heads? No, no, that's something else..." Liamh eyed Marshall's nose sidelong as the guy vaulted the couch, but his demeanor didn't change. "Wait, why's a heated table.... nevermind." He tipped his head back a bit and laughed. "But yeah, man! Lookit this stuff. I bet some of this you can't even GET anymore..." He held up a box with giant fanged rabbits mauling a truck driver on the front cover, in gruesome black and white.

Liamh tipped his head up, looking upside down at the other guy who'd walked over to the couch. "Ah, i got in a little while ago, you?" He grinned upward.

Yeah, so what if they're walking around with prosthetics? That's kinda cool. I mean, whatever floats your boat, right? Maybe there was some kinda party... or they came in from a movie set? This place would be great to film on....