after the event

[hoponpop]

[ Hopper looks kind of desperate when he appears on the network mirrors. ]

Someone tell me someone has some cigarettes. I need one. Or a dozen.

Comments

[hoponpop]

Tell me about it.

[ He also lights up, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out after a long pause. ]

All I could think while we were making our way to the camp was how bad I wanted one.

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday stretches out, finally starting to relax.]

I dunno where exactly that goes in the rankings yet but it is definitely in my person top ten hairiest situations where I got out alive.

[hoponpop]

Top ten?

[ He considers it, puffing indulgently on the cigarette. ]

Yeah, I think that makes that ranking for me.

[wheyoftheadept]

Maybe top five, I dunno... bet you half a dollar we're gonna see those fuckers again, though.

[She looks him over]

Hey, I saw you before, right? At the archery butts.

[hoponpop]

That's right. You're a good teacher.

Would have been good if I'd held on to that bow, seems like.

[wheyoftheadept]

Not really. Normal weapons don't seem t' do much. My blade, here - [she pats her metal right arm, where Elder Brother sleeps] - 's magic, so it could make a dent, but it might as well have been potmetal for all the good it did. Those bastards are tough.

[hoponpop]

Ah.

[ Hopper's been puffing away at this cigarette and it's swiftly burning down to the filter. He looks at his other four with longing. ]

Bad time and place to have been a chain smoker before.

[wheyoftheadept]

At least there's decent odds of finding someplace that sells tobacco an' a pipe around here. Last place I was stuck in was basically a prison.

[hoponpop]

Guess I'll become a pipe smoker, then.

How'd you end up in a place like that?

[wheyoftheadept]

Same way I ended up here. Was minding my own business, there was a lightshow, then I was somewhere else.

[hoponpop]

That's how I ended up here, too. I thought it was because El was shutting the gate between worlds at the time, though.

[wheyoftheadept]

Could be. The first time I got yeeted through dimensions, it was cause of a real big magical explosion. Your thing sounds kinda like that?

[hoponpop]

Yup. Except, it would have been more like an implosion than an explosion.

[wheyoftheadept]

So long as it was generating enough magical force to pierce the barrier between worlds, it coulda served as transport. I am completely bullshitting right now, 'cause I ain't even a mage, just best friends with one, but maybe you got caught in the shockwave? Thrown back, only through realities instead regular space.

[hoponpop]

Yeah. Makes sense to me.

I hope El got out of there okay. Since I wasn't there when she finished it.

[wheyoftheadept]

I don't know if my people back home are okay, either. It's hard. Not knowing.

[hoponpop]

You're right, it is.

[ He frowns to himself, and with the prospect of a future pipe in mind, decides to grab up another cigarette. ]

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday smokes with him in peace for a while, savoring her cigarette. then she asks what may be an awkward question, in an apologetic tone.]

So who's El? If you wanna talk about it.

[hoponpop]

[ He pauses, then sighs. ]

It's fine. She was a girl, that had been kept at the lab in town. Illegally. They kept her as a test subject; that's all she'd ever known. El is short for Eleven, you see. That's all she was to them.

And then she escaped. She helped the town with the monster that came in from another dimension. The lab had developed powers in her, you see. She could seal and unseal the hole between dimensions. Eventually I ended up taking her in.

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday nods, as if hearing a completely normal story. apparently the thought of government labs and superpowers and dimensional rifts doesn't phase her]

Good on you. Poor kid. The lab get moved or did you manage to shut it down?

[hoponpop]

Everyone inside died when the monsters attacked.

[wheyoftheadept]

Well, play stupid games... [she doesn't seem to find the outcome shocking, or even that distressing] Hopefully you at least got some hush money for your trouble?

[hoponpop]

Enough to raise her as my daughter. Though, honestly, as long as she were safe I wouldn't care that much about the money.

[wheyoftheadept]

Well, yeah, but money sure damn helps with the safety thing. I bet El was SINless, too, or - uh, whatever you got over where you're from that makes people like, legally a person who exists?