(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

There's music pouring from well-concealed speakers in the Firehouse as Tyler arrives, and we do mean well-concealed. When a building's decorator corps includes a twenty-three-foot-tall transforming robot and a five-armed, five-eyed, five-brained alien from an arboreal species, the decorations get everywhere. The outside of the Firehouse is practically wrapped in strings of lights, and the inside- well. Someone introduced Jhalak to the concept of pine garland this year and she kind of went berserk with it. The tree in one corner is as sparkly as a north Jersey homeowner's attempt to get on the local news. Even the dinosaur skull hanging from the ceiling of the ground floor is decorated. Ecto's probably to blame for the dinosaur-sized Santa hat, though.

Which isn't to say that's the only holiday being marked here. Miss Eartha the golem has very firmly staked out part of the Firehouse's ground floor for Hanukkah, on the grounds that it was a Jewish ritual that got her into the golem body she now occupies and she feels a certain measure of gratitude for that. Janine's been helping her with that, and somewhat reluctantly Egon's been doing so as well. No sign of Kwanzaa on the premises, probably because Winston is as big of a Christmas man as you'll ever find, but someone tacked up several solar symbols and "Joyous Solstice!" messages. As a matter of fact, about the only sign that anyone here isn't celebrating something is the periodic snark of "Bah humbug!" from the fish tank on Janine's desk.

"Here we are, Tyler. How's that look to you?"

Comments

[gone_byebye]

Miss Eartha sighs and roots around in her purse. Eventually she comes up with one of those humongous 80s-vintage mobile phones. It's the only kind her fingers can actually work.

Well, at least it keeps the boss busy when the State Department stuff is going slow.

[basic_powers]

Tyler just stays silent by her side for a while, rubbing at his face a bit. Everything's been great and wonderful to look at but now it's kind of...overload.

He's going to find a nice place to sit and look at the windows of various shops giving them a kind of unfocused stare, just letting things drift. There's a place selling custom family ornaments, and doing little family christmas card portraits and making those rear window decals. It's a shame cause those are kind of nice, except they don't...

............Huh.

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"... yeah, okay," says Miss Eartha, and hangs up the phone. She glances over her shoulder. "What's got your eye, kiddo?"

[basic_powers]

"...is there a way we could get one of those 'our family' bumperstickers really customized? Like...For Ecto?"

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"Betcha we probably could," says Miss Eartha. "It'd be a big one, but I don't think anybody'd mind that. Let's see what these folks'll do for us."

It's kind of amazing how responsive store owners can be when eight feet of golem starts cheerfully asking them about options on their wares.

[basic_powers]

This is probably one customer they're going to be telling stories about for years to come.

"I'm not even sure what to put down for Slimer's stick figure.." Tyler mutters. "Think a green potato shape with arms would work?"

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"Don't really see the alternative," muses Miss Eartha. "The question is, do we want them to use Ecto's robot mode or car mode?"

[basic_powers]

"Robot mode, otherwise we could do the Autobot's sigil in green for her."

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"We mostly just do stick figures," says the woman behind the counter.

"Robot mode it is, then," says Miss Eartha. "That should be pretty simple. We're gonna need a dog for Francis, too."

[basic_powers]

"Four guys, Ray, Peter, Winston, Egon....what about Jhalak? Just a hand for her?" Five-armed, five-eyed aliens... the alien head thing is just a NO for her.

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"Probably best," agrees Miss Eartha. "And you just go ahead and put me and Janine down as two women."

[basic_powers]

"You want to get included too, kiddo?"

"Oh..uhm.."

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"Go ahead and put him on," says Miss Eartha. "Ray's got him around often enough."

[basic_powers]

Tyler's just going to go a little pink at the tips of his ears now and very quiet. It does kinda fit but..

Well...

...you know what, he's just going to smile and nod and not think too heavily on this.

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It's amazing how careful a golem hand can be when it has to pat a kid on the head.

"About how long do you think this is gonna take to finish?"

[basic_powers]

"We should have it done by tomorrow or the next day, tops." The nice male clerk answers Eartha. "I think the art guy is going to have a ball with this."

Translation: If he complains about this job being a waste of his art degree, there will be heckling for months.

"We could have someone deliver it to your home tomorrow or would you prefer to swing by and pick it up?"

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"We can come get it," Miss Eartha says. "Thanks, hon."

Once that's settled, and paid for, they head out. The place is crowded, after all, and New York is always full of people who have to be gotten through.

[basic_powers]

Yeah, and there's so many of them that Tyler is thinking of carrying triple the battery packs for the tazer gauntlet next time he goes out shopping.

At least for the holidays.

And now there's only Ray, Egon and Jhalak to shop for...

And honestly he IS getting a little tired.

"American Science and Surplus, and I'll see about getting Jhalak either a nice big dang strange fruit basket or something when we pick up the sticker."

[gone_byebye]

"She likes kiwifruits," says Miss Eartha. "But she'll go for just about anything fruity, really. C'mon, let's hit the-"

She stops; there's a sound of sirens in the distance. Well. More sirens than usual. This is New York.

[basic_powers]

"I remember she likes frui-." He's looking up as well, and then looking at Eartha.

"...is it just me, or does one of those sirens sound like Ecto?"

[gone_byebye]

"Not just you, kiddo," says Miss Eartha. "How's about you get up on my shoulders so we can start moving quickly? You want to see what's going on or just get the heck out of here?"

[basic_powers]

"Just a sec." He's gonna stuff the bags with Winston and Peter's gifts into the Godiva bag first. No sense in letting the guys peek.

After that he's climbing up onto miss Eartha's shoulders.

"Want me to start yelling?"

[gone_byebye]

"I don't know that you're going to have to," murmurs the golem.

Mostly because there's an awful lot of screaming coming from the direction of the sirens. And something far too large to be natural, with curving horns and what might be an overly long tongue if they're lucky just leapt out into the street where people could see.

[basic_powers]

...Eartha probably can't feel the kid just clamping onto her head and shoulders for dear life just now.

Okay, so maybe this is what Ellen means by those tongue monsteiiieegyffg.

[gone_byebye]

"Good Lord," mutters Miss Eartha as the thing- it's goat-legged and covered in white fur, and has burning red eyes- darts forward with unnerving speed. "If I have to punch that thing..."

She might not. There's a very familiar siren coming from the direction of Times Square.