A boy named Sous

The good thing about Trucker was, when Priestly decided at closing time that he didn't really want to go home to his place knowing that Jen and the girls were off meeting Fuzzy and he would just be sitting on his ass, he didn't even have to ask. Trucker hitched a ride in Priestly's crappy jeep and invited him in for a beer.

"You're old enough to drink, right?" Trucker asked.

"Legally?"

Trucker snorted, then gave Priestly the beer bottle, then flopped down into the other beanbag chair. ( And then it was time to share their feelings )

"When did we get so emotionally mature?" Priestly wondered. "We're dudes, aren't we supposed to, like, bottle our shit up and grunt a lot?"

"Please, that's just what the Man wants you to think."

Priestly nodded again. "Right on, man, right on."

[ooc: missing scene, if you will, of canon. What Trucker and Priestly get up to while Jen has her big speech in Moral Bay. Open for phone calls, so long as you're down with the SP shuffle.]

"Everybody relax!" Priestly burst into the Beach City Grill with his usual fanfare, which involved a lot of shouting and five seconds of random dancing. "I'm here!"

Tish smirked at him. "And you are . . . ?"

"Tish, you wound me. Right here." Priestly pressed his hand to his chest. ( It was his first time back in the grill since he'd left for points abroad that summer. )

[ooc: and canon is kicked off! Mostly establishy, but as always open to phone calls or emails or texts and things.]

So Priestly hadn't quite made it home, yet. In his defense, he'd become determined to do it with his own funds, and as such had had to spend some time actually working under the table in Hong Kong to do it.

Also, he wanted to spend some time in Mongolia. Just because he'd been talking about doing it for months before everything got swallowed up by the Nothing.

So here he was, in Mongolia's capital city, home to 45% of the country's total population, which he'd be calling home for the next six hours before his flight to Moscow, to connect to New York, and then Santa Cruz. He looked around for some sort of native guide, and ended up in a little coffee kiosk.

"Question: do you guys have barbecue?"

"Of course!" said the man at the counter. "We're famous for it world wide! Haven't you ever seen a Mongolian barbecue restaurant?"

"Ha!" Priestly crowed. "In your face, Momoko!"

"Did she think it was invented in Taiwan?" the man at the counter asked. "That's a common misconception."

Behold, the power of memory.

[nfb of course. Open for phone calls if folks are down with some SP.]

Tish, it seemed, had gone the way of Trucker and Priestly's parents and Japan. Priestly tried not to think about it.

All travel between countries appeared to have ceased. He wasn't sure if boats and planes and things actually didn't exist any more, or if maybe the people running them had noticed they were having issues the same way Portalocity had, and honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

It was all just too creepy. He couldn't handle it.

"I know you think I'm losing my mind," he told Jen in his now daily phone call. "I wonder that, too, sometimes. But come on. Why would you work in a sandwich shop with no other employees and no customers? Jen, you're a computer geek!" Jen didn't respond. Priestly sighed. "Look. I just. You know I love you, Jen. I just wish you could see what's happening all around you."

Jen still didn't say a word.

"Jen?"

Silence.

"Dammit, this isn't funny."

That was when Priestly noticed that the quiet wasn't just from the phone. The whole bar he'd been sitting in had gone silent. Priestly looked up, spotting the last of his fellow patrons going out the door. He frowned.

"I'll call you back," he told Jen, hoping against hope that she was still somewhere on the other end of the line. He hung up the phone and went over to the door. He clenched the phone in his fist, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

The street was full of people, all eerily silent. They all stared east, towards the coast. Priestly walked between them, out into the middle of the street, afraid to look. Afraid of what he'd see. Finally, he couldn't take it any more. He turned.

The Pacific Ocean was gone. The parks that lined the eastern Hong Kong coast were gone. The end of the street was gone.

In their place was simply . . . Nothing.

Priestly swallowed, then raised his phone. He took a picture and set it up to send, then called the only number he had left that he was sure would have someone on the other end.

"I sent you a picture," he said. He closed his eyes. "I know you'll find someone who can help." A breath. "I love you."

And then there were none.

Priestly arrived back on the street where he'd spent the last few weeks earning cash dishing out glass noodles to discover that Grody and his noodle cart had relocated.

As, in fact, had every other noodle cart in the area. Which unfortunately meant Priestly was broke, and without a clear means of making any extra cash. He wandered around the city for a bit, his worldly belongings all stuffed into his pack (the hostel wanted more money to put him up for the night, what was up with that?) before concluding that he really was going to have to call home and ask his mom to wire him some more money.

"We're sorry," said the mechanical woman's voice on the other end of the line. "The number you've reached is not in service."

Priestly checked his phone. It was the right number. He hadn't gone over his minutes, and he had service here in Manila. He'd even gotten the country codes right. He tried another number.

( 'Beach City Grill, subs by the inch.' )

[ooc: establishing, phase two in Ten Inch Hero land is a go. And I'm evil.]

"Okay, and you got the couch vacuumed?" Priestly had his phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear as he worked the grill. Jen, at home on her day off, sighed heavily.

"Yes, Priestly. What's the big deal here? Dinah comes over all the time."

Priestly couldn't exactly tell her that he was freaking out a bit about Dinah coming because last time he'd seen here they'd figured out that they slept together 20 years in the future.

"Spring cleaning," he said instead. Tish, working the register, snorted.

"Right. Why don't you just admit that she's your girlfriend and be done with it?"

"Not my girlfriend!" Priestly called back.

"We'll see," Tish said with a grin. "She's coming here, right? I want to meet this proverbial not-girlfriend."

"Tish," Trucker admonished. "Be nice."

"I'm always nice," Tish insisted. Everyone laughed.

[ooc: expecting one, but open for phone calls if someone has pressing need to contact Priestly.]

It was a typical day at the Beach City Grill. Trucker made moon eyes at Zo from afar and talked about surfing, Jen split her time between doing actual work and talking to her online BFF, Tish convinced all the attractive young male customers that she was innocent and in search of a sexual awakening, and Priestly made moon eyes at her from afar -- when he wasn't rolling them at her antics.

Then his phone beeped, and he pulled it out, and broke the casual cheerful quiet with a very loud ( holy crap, Dinah's hot! )

[ooc: open for phone calls and the like.]

So. Spending Sunday as a girl had been pretty easy -- Jen was scheduled at the grill, but Priestly wasn't. He'd managed to slip out without Jen noticing his temporary new bits and had a grand old time playing tourist in his own hometown. But then he was still a girl when Monday came. And that was . . . a little bit more difficult.

For one, he had to call out from his pastry class. And attempt to do a growly boy-voice on the phone with his professor. He was pretty sure he hadn't fooled anyone and would get harassed for being hung over and making his roommate call him out or something, but it was deal-able. And then he was scheduled for the evening shift at the Grill. It wasn't like he could fake a growly boy-voice at Trucker.

Thank god the man had shown up for graduation.

( Okay, so this got a little long )

[ooc: Oh, come on, this was totally the perfect time to play canon catch-up. Open for phone calls and such.]

Priestly had been in a mood all day. Zo hadn't had any ideas, so he was stuck sitting on the couch, staring at his phone, willing someone from Fandom to call and tell him everything was okay.

Jen had tried doing some searches online, but hadn't turned up anything. After awhile, she just gave him a sad smile and headed off to her room to give him some space.

[ooc: for one in particular, but open to any in Fandom who might want to call.]

"Okay. This is the last place on the list." Priestly stepped out of the Cosmobile, which Trucker had cheerfully loaned them for their day of apartment hunting, and leaned against the door. "Which means if we don't like this place, we're starting from scratch and I have to move back in with Mom and Dad until we find something good."

"And we can't have that." Jen stepped up next to him and looked down at her notebook. "Two bedrooms, internet ready, pets negotiable, so Ramone'll probably be welcome."

"And if not I'll sneak him in."

"Hey, I did not sign up for smuggling." She shook her head. "One bathroom, so I'd have to put up with your make-up cluttering everything up."

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm very orderly about my make up."

"Uh huh. We can even afford this place, assuming you actually start, you know, working for Trucker." Priestly mimed being shot through the heart and Jen smiled. "It's cute. What do you think, Dinah?"

[ooc: for the BFF, with great slow play!]