Netflix and NO CHILL

“Well shit,” Vincent mused looking around. Somehow, while on a fake mission with Ray, the two had managed to stumble into a surge of energy that had warped them back to his original home on earth. “This wasn’t in any of the literature I read about the place, I’m going to have to give the management a piece of my mind.” He crosses his arms over his bare chest as he taps his foot. Rayleigh Aston was struggling to her feet sluggishly, teleportation was never one of her favorite ways to travel, let alone surprise teleportation.

“This is Earth?” She asked looking around slowly.

“Yup. Dallas, Texas to be specific. Well, my apartment is technically right on the border of Dallas and Richardson, but nobody gives a fuck about Richardson.” Ray simply shoots him a confused sideways glance, but otherwise she continues to take in all of the sights. Something about all of the objects in the room seemed so foreign to her. The lightbulbs mounted overhead seemed to bring daylight to the room with such ease, much brighter than the orbs the Tarot used to illuminate their underground base.

“Uh…” Vincent looks around for a moment. “Here…” he pulls up a bar seat from the counter between his kitchen and the rest of the living room. “Pop a squat and let this all settle in…” He looks around at the mountains of soda cans and piles of garbage. “I need to…clean up.” He quickly dashes about the room at comically fast speeds scooping all of the trash into a can fetched from the kitchen. “I wasn’t expecting to be hosting guests…ever again really.”

Ray simply watches Vincent clean for a few minutes, the task hastened by his superhuman powers, all the while composing a list of questions to be answered. After a few minutes, it dawns on her that both of them are still in swimming apparel.

“Vince, what are we going to do about our clothes?”

The scholar pops out of another, seemingly smaller room tucked to the side. “Hrrrm…” He runs a hand through his hair. “Let me check…” He enters his bedroom and kicks around a few of the miscellaneous piles of clothes, giving a few shirts and pants the occasional sniff before grimacing and setting them aside. “It looks like none of my old clothes will want to fit buuuuuuuuuut…” he trials off.

“I may have something from a friend of mine left behind? She stayed with me when she was fighting with her boyfriend, and she left a bag of clothes…so maybe something will fit?” He exits the room and tosses an OBNOXIOUSLY pink bag filled to the brim with various garments. “Try some of it on in the bathroom? Let me know if anything fits. I’m gonna check some of my old clothes and see if something fits…” he gestures to his arms and abs “My form has filled out a bit since I was last here…”

Rayleigh's mind swirled with unasked questions, her emerald eyes wide with the immense weight of them. There was... so... much... It was practically impossible for her to know where to look. A pleasant electric whirring came from a massive wardrobe-like appliance to her left, and when the ice machine crunched, she gave a small squeak of surprise. While Vincent raced to straighten up his apartment, Ray was content to merely drink it all in. Perched atop the bar seat, her elbows propped on the counter, she let her gaze wander. Though the unmistakable stench of messy bachelor hung as heavy as the Texas heat, she hardly noticed it. Even the small mountains of garbage, and precarious pyramids of pop cans, went entirely unnoticed. No, Rayleigh was far too busy studying her reflection in the slightly-grimy toaster, one hand fiddling enthusiastically with the electric cord.

It was only as realization dawned on her that Ray turned back to Vincent. In her awe, she had nearly forgotten that she was practically naked. His answer, however, brought her to full attention. He had another woman's clothes in his apartment? Of course, such thoughts were entirely irrational, as he had not even known Rayleigh at the time. Besides, it was not as if they were exclusive, so to speak. Still, her freckled cheeks grew warm as she slipped from the stool, stomped over, and tugged at the bag with more force than was necessary. After rummaging through it a big, a full-fledged scowl darkened her expression. "What sort of friend was this?" she growled, letting a lacy bra in startling neon pink drop to the dirty carpet. Without waiting for an answer, she stalked toward the bathroom. The door slammed behind her, but it took a long while for light to filter out beneath it. When it did, signaling she had finally found the switch, the light clicked on and off a few times. Even in a fit of female jealousy, Rayleigh still managed to be fascinated by Earth's technology.

She emerged five minutes later, a pink blouse and stretchy black pants pulled on over her bathing suit. The top might have been tight-fitting on a woman with larger (or any) breasts, but on Ray, it hung as limply as if it were wet. Still, as she walked back toward Vincent, she held her arms out for his inspection. "Not my color," she observed, "but at least it covers all the important bits."

Vincent froze in horror as Ray simply whipped out a bright neon pink bra. A million thoughts scrambled through his brain at that particular moment, but one seemed to be blasting through the loudest and on repeat.

Aww, fuck.

Just like that, in one swift mistake, he’d managed to undo all of the work he’d done in the past several days. All of the hand-holding, flirting over dinner, secret grotto adventures came tumbling down to the ground with that bra. She stormed off in typical Ray fashion, slamming his door and eliciting a cringe from him.

That would be a noise complaint for sure.

Yet he found himself rather lacking in time to even bother with that, he was too busy working every other train of thought going through his head. How had they gone from arguably one of the most magical places on Althanas to...his apartment? How would they possibly get back? How the actual hell was he going to explain that one of his best friends from school needed to crash at his place because she caught her boyfriend cheating? It’s not like he hadn’t maybe possibly tried to make a move on her, but that was before he’d even met Ray, totally didn’t count.

Probably by explaining the situation, the rational side of his brain concluded. Ah yes, because that will totally fix everything the other half of his brain countered. He shook his head and sighed, perhaps he would think more clearly once a little more time has passed. He turned and dipped into his room, squinting in the darkness as he struggled to remember where he’d kept things, after all it had been several years since he’d unwittingly set off on his adventure, he’d all but forgotten where he’d keep anything.

Fortunately for him, the Vince of the past hated putting up laundry after he had cleaned it, leaving several laundry baskets full of…”clean” clothes lying about. He took one look down at his form and frowned a bit. He used to be scrawny, almost skeletal in nature, with hardly any body fat or even muscle to fill his form out. Now? He was incredibly toned, his entire body covered in lean muscle. Before he could have been confused for a skeleton, now he could be confused for a greek god. This led to several issues, as he could have guessed. He could hardly fit halfway into any of his jeans, getting them about halfway up his legs before the cloth stopped cooperating.

As far as he could tell, it looked like one or two old pairs of cargo shorts would fit, possibly. They used to be so big on him he needed to cinch a belt super tight just to get them to fit, but now they seemed to fit slightly tighter than he would care to deal with. Instead he found solace in his sweatpants, good ole elastic to saving the day once again. As for a shirt? Most of the stuff he used to wear was incredibly baggy to begin with, so most of his shirts were a little tight around the sleeve, but that was about it. In the end he stepped out in a pair of black sweats and a nondescript red T-shit that clung just a little too tight for his liking, but it would be the best he could do.

Apparently he had found his clothes faster than her, and when she stepped out she made this grand show of holding her arms out for inspection, so he replied with a grander show of looking her over.

“All you need is a pumpkin spice latte and uggs and you’ll fit in perfectly.” He quipped nodding appreciatively. Sure, maybe Ray lacked in the curve department, but that didn’t stop him from appreciating her beauty none-the-less. "So..." his eyes quickly shot away to loot at the pizzabox. "I should probably tidy up a little more" he stepped past her and bent over to pick up the box. He made two realizations at once. For starters, the pizza box was still warm, and he could see the grease still fresh on the pizza. Secondly, Ray had overlooked one critical detail over her attire. Right on the ass, in bold white text with a pink outline, was the word JUICY.

He scooped the pizza box up quickly, grabbing a slice and biting into it, confused by how warm and delicious it still was. His mind pondered this for all of ten seconds before offering her a slice. "It's surprisingly fresh" He had to make a decision, to warn her of the JUICY on her ass, and admit that he'd been looking at it, or feign ignorance and let her walk around like that. Frankly, he couldn't decide, and thanked the fact that he was chewing for being able to cover his own tracks.

Uggs? What in the world were Uggs? Was that not a sound that a person made when they were disgusted? So why would she want this thing?

Her train of thought was derailed as Vincent took a bite out of the pizza. Pizza, on the other hand, was something that Rayleigh was incredibly familiar with. Vince had cooked it for her, and the entire Tarot Hierarchy, on various occasions. He had assured them that it was a delicacy on Earth, and she was eager to try the real deal. Her excitement only mounted as he offered her the box, and the scent of grease and heaven wafted upward. She eased out a piece for herself, but faltered; there was something unsettling about the fact that this pizza was still warm.

“Wait,” Ray began, frowning up at her friend as he chowed down. “How long has it been since you left Earth?”

“Long time,” he answered between bites.

The brunette eyed her slice warily. The cheese that slowly oozed over her fingers was piping hot, and incredibly appetizing. And that was what concerned her. “Pizza that’s been sitting around here for a long time shouldn’t be hot,” she stated, matter-of-factly. Yet the piece before her was evidence to the contrary. “Unless your Earth pizza is special, something is wrong here.”

Grudgingly, Rayleigh let the pizza drop to the counter, watching the strings of cheese wobble like grimey spider silk. As if in protest, her stomach gave a low rumble - how long had it been since they had last eaten?

“Is there a chance someone else has been in here?” she asked suddenly, glancing up from the pile o’pizza still steaming where she had left it. “And someone had just bought the pizza, and left it here, when we showed up?” As soon as the words left her lips, they drew into a thin, white line. Rayleigh recognized it was a silly suggestion, but she could think of no other explanation in the moment. As such, she feebly added, “Or something.”

As he absentmindedly nibbled on his still rather warm slice of pizza, Vince couldn’t help but notice a soft buzzing. He frowned for a moment, trying to recall what he was hearing. It had been so long since he’d last set foot on Earth, all of noises felt almost...foreign to him. The soft whirr of his AC cranking on full blast as it struggled against the oppressive Texas heat. The soft whirr of electrical lights, illuminating his dirty apartment.

BZZZZT. BZZZT.

His eyes shot down to the table, and suddenly everything became clear. No further than a hands reach away was a cellphone of all things, an in bright white letters the message, “Incoming call: MOM” was displayed. Frowning, he snatched the object up and quickly slid the green circle to the right, answering the call.

“Hello?” The word left him uncomfortable, as if this act were as alien to him as magic when he’d first set eyes of magic in Althanas.

“Happy birthday Vinny!” A voice half yelled half screeched over the phone. The scholar winced, pulling the phone away from his ear.

“Oh, uh...thanks mom.” He simply nodded along, almost instinctively tucking the phone between he ear and his shoulder to free one of his hands as he plopped down on the couch and reached instinctively for the remote, always resting on top of the couch. With a couple button presses he’d not only whirred the flatscreen to life, bathing the room with a bright blue light, but to the untrained eye he had summoned forth illusory moving pictures accompanied with sounds.

“I’m sorry about the fight we had earlier, I hate to ruin your special day…” The woman sounded apologetic, but Vince hardly had time as he flipped through channels, looking for the news. “It’s not every day your young man turns 20!” Vince had to stop himself from chuckling at that, he’d had many a birthday come and go since this moment in time.

“It’s fine ma, hey listen I hate to cut you off but I have a guest over and I don’t wanna be rude.” He could hear the woman over the line gasp. She would have replied with some sort of comment about her son being social and how that was a rarity, but he’d already clicked off the line.

“It appears we have come back to the very moment I left for Althanas…” He stated rather frankly as he flipped through several idle screens on his phone. It was amazing, how years away from these sorts of things rob one of their most basic skills. It was even more amazing to feel how quickly the muscle memory came back to him. “How the hell we managed to do that, I have no fucking clue, but pop a squat and get comfy because I’m going to have to google how the fuck magic works in this world.”

As Vincent spoke into the small communicator, Rayleigh drifted about his apartment. It seemed very plush, when compared to his digs back in Althanas. The lights shone almost too brightly, giving the room an oddly industrial feel. Bathed in the smothering glare was an overstuffed couch and arm chair, both well used, and covered in various pillows and haphazardly tossed clothing. The coffee table was cluttered with books, magazines, empty containers, and cups half-full with liquid. Shelves nearly burst with more books, small plastic slips, and figurines. Beneath her feet, the lush carped whispered as she crossed it.

Only when Vincent fell silent again did she speak. "You've got a lot of stuff," she observed, motioning with one hand to their surroundings. Even among his many toys, something had always seemed spacious about the House of Cards. Not spartan, necessarily, but certainly more organized. This looked a bit like a storage room that someone happened to be living in.

Letting the comment linger, Ray paused to scoop both hands through her mane of brown hair. Though she was certainly delighted to see Earth up close, doubt continued to fester. And while she would never admit as much, there was fear, too. "You know," she said absently, "you're taking this whole transported to a different universe things really well. Maybe because it's your second time?"

Vincent paused, letting the true squalor of his apartment truly settle in. He quietly thanked his past self for having enough will power and foresight to resist the urge to buy those smutty anime figurines. His sapphire eyes scanned over old memories, and several gross mistakes. Oh how long ago all of this felt, although perhaps it was just a matter of three or so years, it felt like a lifetime ago. Perhaps he had been too caught up living the dream, a young hero sent to a mysterious world to gallivant about and save it from monsters.

You know, like an Iseakai anime.

The idea of being an anime protagonist caused Vince to snort a bit, and soon a chuckle erupted from his throat. He rose to his feet and shuffled about, quickly beginning to straighten things up a bit. "You know, honestly with the shit we do on the regular, this is just another Thursday for us." He picked up and a figurine and motioned with his hand to move it over to a shelf across the room, instinctively using telekinesis. The figure immediately fell to the floor. He blinked, stunned for all of three seconds, and then sighed shaking his head. "I'm not sure what I expected."

Bending over, he scooped it up and set it back onto a shelf. He moved quickly, with all the grace and professionalism he had come to be known for over the past few years. Within a matter of minutes, all of the cups and garbage were properly tucked away in a massive trash bin, cans relegated to a OSHA compliant pyramid of sorts in his recycling bin. Every now and again he would stop, reading over various books or something on his phone. "Anyways, I'm glad my second world traveling trip was with you. The first time is always awkward, second time is usually when you enjoy it."