12/26

[creepyoldguy]

 [It's the day after Christmas.  And there's a new face on camera, beaming at everyone from their mirrors.   A teenage girl!

...of sorts.  She's not winning any beauty pageants, that's a given.  She looks "off", for lack of a better term, but, for what she lacks in normalcy she makes up for in enthusiasm.]

HI GUYS!

[A cheerful "princess" wave.]

I am sooooooo happy to meet all of you!  I'm Betty!   I can't wait to be your new friend, TEE-HEE.

Tell me all the things!  Y'know gossip and shit....stuff. I mean.

[She tilted her head and let a messy ponytail flop to the side with the gesture, still smiling much, much, too broadly.]  

Comments

[creepyoldguy]

The incredibly attractive and brilliant demon?

[Bats her eyes.]

We might be related.

[dr_riley]

[His eyes flit briefly to the headband.]

Mm-hmmm.


What is it you're up to...Betty, was it?

[He's fairly sure about 'Betty's' identity, but he doesn't like it one bit, this whole not-being-able-to-trust-your-eyes thing. Not that it was an astoundingly good disguise, but it wouldn't take much to make it convincing.]

[creepyoldguy]

Me?

I’m just trying to make new friends, and catch up with my old pals, and maybe get a makeover later!

[She gave him her biggest smile (which was a bit jarring to witness) and a wink. At this rate he was going he would have to apologize a lot.]

[dr_riley]

[Got you.]

Oh? Sounds fun. What old pals?

[To his credit, he doesn't so much recoil as make a small facial twitch at the unsettling grin]

[creepyoldguy]

Lydia Deetz. I’ve been writing a letter to some friends back home, too.

Why?

[dr_riley]

Only you said you were new, didn't you?

Wait, back home? [That's got his attention, and it hardly matters who he's talking to anymore] And how do you intend to post it?

[creepyoldguy]

Can’t a girl know someone from back home who happens to be here as well?

[He couldn't resist.]

And black magic. Probably will have to do some unspeakable things.

[dr_riley]

[Drake closes his eyes for a moment in disappointed annoyance and a visible effort to resist the tremendous urge to say, 'you're an unspeakable thing.' He could feel the judgmental eye rolling of his late wife just thinking it.]

Generally speaking, infinite multiverse theory makes it so unlikely it may as well be impossible. [Generally speaking. There did seem to be something strangely deliberate about how people were chosen.]

Well best of luck with all your girly, gossipy, makeupy things. Just a note: work on the voice.

[creepyoldguy]

[Drake, Beetlejuice would have loved being called an unspeakable thing. It would have made his year.

But, since he was pretty much already found out, and the disguise was taking far too much effort to maintain, he snapped his fingers and let the illusion fade.]

Actually, I do have a Lydia here from home. And one from another universe. HOW LUCKY IS THAT?

As for the voice, I'm working on it. It's a lot more difficult here than it is back home.

[dr_riley]

[Unsurprisingly, he looks unsurprised.]

Very improbably lucky. One of the things I'd like to find out more about. Library's been useless in the quantum selection rules department.

Hm. Well. No surprise there, the rules here are...something. I can't do magic at all back home, so I have a physical advantage here, and it sounds like you have a physical disadvantage. Like the world-mechanics here are trying to...I don't know, level the playing field as far as physical ability goes.

This bloody place, eh?

[creepyoldguy]

Exactly! I could do a lot more if they hadn’t taken all my powers away. What a shitty way to get help!

It’s like calling 9-1-1 for a house fire, but then, mugging the firefighters enroute, and stealing their truck, hoses, and equipment, and then giving them leaky buckets and directions to a pond.

Not helpful.

[He sighed.]

BUT, it also lets my pals do cool shit. So, that’s alright, I guess.

[dr_riley]

No offense, but judging from...[cough]past experience, I'm not exactly gutted about your being dialed back.

[creepyoldguy]

[He leaned a little too close to the camera and gave his widest most fang-filled smile.]

Whyever would you say that?

[dr_riley]

[And even though it's just a little screen, Drake leans back a little with a grimace]

You take smiling daggers at someone too literally, for one.

[creepyoldguy]

[Lydia would probably be by with the squirt gun again.]

I’m just being friendly.

[dr_riley]

Oh, is that what the kids are calling terrorism these days? I always get so confused.

[creepyoldguy]

You're kind of adorable, in a grumpy old man sort of way.

[dr_riley]

[INDIGNANT, HIGH PITCHED SPUTTER]

I'm thirty three! And the youngest chief scientist that's ever been on the UKGC's payroll! Pff. What're you, a six hundred years old moldering mummy? Grumpy old man. Tch!

[creepyoldguy]

Me? I’m a few millennia.

You are rocking a grandpa vibe at a very early age, congrats!