11967/Electronic Bay

Electronic Bay
Date of Scene:	10 July 2022
Location:	Fred's Diner
Synopsis:	Gabby shows Hellboy eBay. Hellboy accidentaly breaks her laptop. Oops. It's okay, there's pancakes.
Cast of Characters:	Gabby Kinney, Hellboy

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Gabby Kinney has posed:
After a little back and forth texting regarding the whole 'bought a haunted doll off of EBay' situation, Gabby had offered to show Hellboy exactly what she was talking about. A booth was already claimed toward the back and she had given the staff a heads up that her company would be arriving, and not to stare, it's rude. At least in Mutant Town they were a bit more accustomed to appearances that deviated from the norm quite a bit.

There's a cup of coffee already half drunk set to the side as she has situated herself with her back to the wall so she could look over the rest of the diner. A laptop is in front of her that she occasionally uses a wireless mouse to move around setting up the wifi to pull off of the nearby Embassy--Because it was available, and free, and why pass up a good thing when you're getting a signal?

While waiting for him to arrive she absently reaches out letting her fingers brush over the handle to the coffee mug until she snags it, and draws it up for a sip.

Hellboy has posed:
    Despite the scars, Gabby can fit in, at least for the most part. Hellboy, meanwhile, stands out like the big, red demon that he is. When he steps into the diner, people turn to look his way. Conversations stop. One person, however, does not look in awe or confusion or fear. They look excited.
    "It's Hellboy!" the androgynous young adult with inhuman features and bulbous antennae says. They jump up and rush to him. "Mister Hellboy! Mister Hellboy!"
    Hellboy doesn't shy away from the mutant. He offers a thin-lipped smile. "Hey, Kid."
    "Can I have your autograph?"
    Hellboy hesitates, but shrugs. "Yeah, alright."
    The eager mutant hands Hellboy a sharpie, then pulls open their hoodie, though the actual anatomy is hidden from the rest of the diner. Hellboy blinks a couple times. "My shirt," the mutant says.
    Hellboy shrugs. He signs the spot hidden behind open hoodie, then hands back the sharpie. "Stay in school; don't do drugs. You know the speal," he says.
    "Thank you!" the mutant says, going back to their table with the others they were there with to have a hushed conversation about meeting the ACTUAL, REAL Hellboy!
    That done, Hellboy walks over to Gabby and slumps down into the booth. "Hey, kid," he repeats at her, though his smile seems a bit more genuine.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney pauses with the coffee mug just brought up to her lips when Hellboy enters much to the surprised glee of the inhuman mutant. The corners of her lips twitch in mild amusement as apparently he has a reputation *somewhere* to have a fan base. Maybe she should Google him to find out. Her eyes drop back down to her laptop as the thought crosses her mind. The sip of coffee is quickly gulped down, the mug replaced by her side on the tabletop, and she quickly pulls up a browser.

"Hey, Red," she greets when he finally gets over to join her at the booth. "Didn't realize I was in the presence of a celebrity! How're you doing? If you want any grub, I snagged a menu," she offers gesturing to the pair of menus she'd tucked against the wall to leave space free for the laptop. It's nudged to the side for now to be polite about it, and she reaches for her coffee again only to find it empty. It's stared at with a little sigh. A quick swipe of her hand over her eyes is given before she smiles again blinking them wide to seem far more peppy than she was feeling.

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy grabs up a menu. "Thanks," he says. He opens it and scans down quickly before setting it in front of him. He knows what he wants, it looks like. That was fast. He looks into Gabby's too-wide gaze and narrows his own. "You feeling okay?" he asks. "You're not possessed or something, are you? Blink twice if you need an exorcist."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
That causes her to break into a laugh at least if only because it was so unexpected. Shaking her head she reaches up to run her fingers over the temple of her forehead a time or two. "No, Im' fine. Just a bit tired and caffiene doesn't work on me." A tap of her finger is given to the empty mug indicating it. "It's more like a placebo for me than anything effective. Kind of sucks."

Glancing over to the counter she tries to catch the attention of a waitress and a tap to the menu. She'd already had time to look it over herself. "I haven't had much time to sleep lately. There's a lot of things that have been going on I've been trying to keep up with. So you wanted to see Ebay and where I got Hanako from?" She swivels the laptop around to display the complete chaos of the sight that is Ebay.

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy looks across the table at the laptop, then puts his hands on either side of his hips. He scoots a little bit around the booth, then a little more. If this were a movie, the camera would focus on Gabby patiently waiting for him as he slowly scooted all the way around over a full minute. Soon, he's sitting next to her, his left arm against her arm. He takes off his long coat and crumples it up next to himself, revealing the holster on his right hip designed for his left hand. He gingerly, carefully scoots the laptop around, afraid to touch it, lest he break it. However, soon, it's facing both of them.
    "Okay," he finally says. "Explain this to me."
    "Do you guys know what you want?" the waitress asks. She walked over as Hellboy was scooting around the booth, just standing there, watching him and waiting.
    "Pancakes," Hellboy says. "Tall glass of milk."
    The woman rolls her eyes. "Do you want one, two, or three?" she asks in her smoker's rasp.
    "Twelve," Hellboy says. He's danced this dance before at other diners.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney doesn't say anything about the scooting over. If anything she's rather patient about it having had friends before of the rather large variety. When the waitress comes over during the process she does offer a little glance her way with a small shrug. They'd wait.

"Nice choice," she remarks in regard to the order of pancakes, giving a small nod of approval. "And I'd like the chicken and waffles, and a strawerry milkshake."

With the order given, and hopefully the waitress not balking too much at the large order, her attention turns back to the laptop.

"It's pretty easy honestly. People have things they don't want, and want to make money of off, so they sign up on this site. It's like an online auction house. They take pictures, make a listing, and sit back and wait for people to bid or outright buy the stuff. Here, let me show you."

The laptop was right between them both so she has to lean over just a bith to put both hands on the keypad which means stretching over his arm in the process to type quickly. The screen then shifts to listings of 'haunted items' which show an array of various things. Dolls, jewelry, etc. "And sometimes people post things they're afraid of and just want to get rid of, though there's some in here that are fakes most likely. Meant for curious people to waste money on."

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy watches the magician's hands fly over that typewriter and make the razor-thin TV change. He looks over things, reading the absurd titles filled with buzz words that have little to do with the listings. "That's not a genuine world war two era field phone!" he protests. However, as he does so, he points it out with his right hand. His stony finger touches the screen, and a spiderweb of lines flows immediately outward from where he touched as the screen cracks through. Hellboy pulls back his finger. "Aw, crap," he says, more quietly. He slowly retracts his hand to his side and looks sheepishly at Gabby. "Sorry," he grumbles, quietly.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney reaches over to pat the arm next to hers lightly in a reassuring manner when that innocent enough tap takes out the screen. Thankfully it's still showing the EBay website even if the cracks are there. Modern technology at least allowed for that, even if it was still going to need repair.

"It's okay, I've got a friend who knows how to fix things like this. It's a good way for him to de-stress to begin with. Something easy, you know? Still works for now. Just got to squint a little."

With that done she does turn her attention back to the screen to regard the thing that had gotten such a response from him. "You know what one of those looks like?" She glances askance at him only to give a small nod. "You must be about as old as my oldest sister, then. She was in her twenties back then, I think." At least according to the timeline she had been told. The topic is easily brushed off for the moment in favor of explaining, "I did say there's often fake stuff on here, or at least incorrect stuff. Since the seller can make their own listing they don't really have any fact checking going on with the items. I could cut off a finger and sell it claiming it was Cleopatra's mummified finger or something."

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy looks at Gabby's hand patting his bare arm. It was almost comically small against his oversized muscles. "I was born back then," Hellboy says, trying not to let her distract him. "My father kept his field phone. I kept getting in trouble when I'd play with it." He looks back at the eBay. "He got me a broken one to play army with," he continues. He furrows his brow a bit. "I think I still have it, somewhere," he says, thoughtfully.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
An attentive gaze is fixed on Hellboy when he recounts the tale of his childhood. The expression Gabby wears is perhaps difficult to entirely decipher. A bit wistful, perhaps. Sweeping her eyes away back to the laptop she remarks, "That sounds nice of him. Getting you a toy to play with."

"Yeah my sister was born a bit after the war, but then there was some time travel involved so she went back to before she was born. Something like that. It was a bit messy from what I'm told." A finger taps to the tabletop. "Is there something specific you want to try looking up while we've got the laptop here? I don't know that we'll luck out finding more legitimately haunted objects." Even as she asks she glances over to see the requested stack of pancakes start to be added to from the grill side of the diner.

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy steals a glance at Gabby as she's turned away from him. He acts like a teenager a lot of the time, and he has already told her he thinks she's lovely, so it isn't a surprise he takes a moment to appreciate the back of her head. It's like the back of the Mona Lisa, really...except that's just canvas. He turns his eyes back to the screen just before she turns back toward him. "There's a lot there," he says as an excuse. "Why don't you find something. I'll just watch."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"All right. Looks like they're almost done with your pancakes, too." Gabby grins a bit at the poor overwhelmed staff whispering about such a large order. While she could put away quite a bit of food herself there was no need for her to do so now.

Again she reaches over to tap away on the keyboard lightly to bring up her own purchase history. "Here's the listing where I got Hanako from, for instance. This had some actual information which is what I thought made it a bit more legitmate even if it might just have been an oddity. She's an old Japanese doll made with real human hair and had been in the owner's family for years but kept in storage. They found her when cleaning out the house after their grandmother passed away." Grinning a little she glances back toward HB. "Apparently there's a Japanese belief that objects which end up being a hundred years old can gain their own soul so throwing things out is dangerous, but at the same time, they didn't want to keep her around."

The small explanation is given while she remains otherwise completely oblivious to his glances at her. That or she was just ignoring them as best she could given her run with guys was poor judgement on her part. Another few keys are typed in.

"I don't know what else to look up. Let's try... Cursed mirrors." There's a little twitch to her jaw at this as a recent warning springs to mind about reflective surfaces.

"Hey, Red? I know you've already got your thing, but if you'd be interested in joining the Justice League Dark, I think I could get you in. We can always use new members."

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy furrows his brow as Gabby abruptly changes the subject. He was already on board to search for haunted whatever, but as she brings up the Justice League, he's confused when she adds Dark to it. "What's that?" he asks. Okay, so he's not the best spy, but to be fair, he's technically still a BPRD agent.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney grins a little bit at the question. "We do the spooks and magic side of things. Similar to what you do already from the sound of it, though we're a bit less structured I guess. No pay of course," she adds with a sigh. "But good people who help each other out. Got some sorcerers, an angel, a few Ghost Riders which are like spirits of vengeance. A vampire, a police officer. I mean, not everyone HAS to have some direct connection to the occult or supernatural," she hastens to add even if it was clear HB did. "I've had some experience with it but not as much as others. It's more those who are willing to help with such things."

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy considers for a minute. "I think I know how the Gotham PD feels about Batman, right now," he grumbles, his voice like gravel even when he's cheerful and upbeat, not that he ever is that. He takes in a slow, deep breath, then lets it out. He does as quick a subject change as she did. "Are you seeing anybody?" he asks.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"We're not really based in Gotham. Or the physical world," Gabby remarks simply while she looks back to the laptop. There were a few listings for cursed mirrors, a lot of which had awful photos of people taking photos of mirrors. There's really no easy way to photograph a mirror.

The question catches her off-guard causing her to blink toward him in surprise. "Huh? No, I have awful luck with stuff like that. Last guy I liked ended up with my older sister that I've mentioned. It happens." Any further explanation that might come is forgotten as the waitress comes over with the rather large tray of pancakes for Hellboy.

Hellboy has posed:
    "Thank you," Hellboy says. He takes the pancakes, everything else forgotten, and begins just snarfing them down. He pauses to take a dainty sip of milk before plowing back into the grittle-cooked batter.