[Plot] IHOP, Therefore I Am

[Toshiro Narumi]

"What sort of things do they say?" he asked, a little concerned.

[Will Stanton]

"It ees like...we are being pulled in every direction at once. Zhey want to go to ze bar and get smashed. Zhey want to clean up this mess you have made here. Zhey want to return to ze farm that Miriam pulled us from. Zhey want to work on the Qunnjet. Zhey want to be ripped apart by ravenous wolves. Zhey want to fix ze paperwork disaster in Ashlie's office. Zhey want to ravage you here on this table. Zhey want to hang out in the field, scaring away zhe crows. Zhey want to get a tuneup in the autoshop.

Zhey want so many different things, it is tiring us out," she said yawning as this Will, too, began losing physical fixation.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Doesn't everyone, in a way, have a thousand little voices whispering desires to... wait, did you say... ravage me?" he asked, blushing a little at the end.

[Will Stanton]

"There are many things to do and experiences to have, and I am quite the greedy one, yes," Will nodded, trying to catch herself on the table and mostly failing.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Maybe you could take a page from the Amish and get all your suppressed desires out at once before putting them back in the box. Of course, not as totally as they do," he suggested as he turned his attention back to the puzzle.

[Will Stanton]

Will paused for a moment, thinking.

"Perhaps you're right," she decided, after a moment.


And that's when she jumped on Tosh, sending both of them crashing to the ground, puzzle pieces flying everywhere.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Not that desire!" Tosh protested, pushing Will away. "I have a girlfriend!"

[Will Stanton]

Will proved to be a little harder to dissuade than that, wrapping herself around Tosh's torso.

"I don't see her around right now, do you?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"No, Will. Unlike you, I have no desire to be ripped apart by a wolf."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, don't you worry about that. I can be much more gentle."

Will apparently had missed Tosh's implication there -- she seemed almost...unnaturally driven forwards at this point in time.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I don't think of you that way, Will. Now please get off of me," he said more firmly.

[Will Stanton]

After a bit of cajoling, Will did in fact slither off Tosh and rise to her feet, pouting, straightening out her dress.

"Well, aren't we the big tease."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh got to his feet, looking rather unamused by the sheer awkwardness of the situation.

"Look. I'm flattered and all, but I'd rather just be friends... without benefits."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, wizout benefits. It ees always wizout benefits with you, is it not, Tosh? Zee benefits of beeing your friend can be counted on zéro mains!" Will complained, as she collapsed and quivered down into a lump of clay on the floor.




"Sorry about that, duderino; dealing with all this headcheese is a gnarly mindbender, bro."

The Will who had popped up just behind Tosh and continued their conversation, wearing an open button Hawaiian shirt, tacky green sunglasses and board shorts, tried to apologize for what had just occurred.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh turned and laughed, "Dude. Your idea of a surfbro is somehow even cheesier than mine."

Hey! That's... totally fair, Bro.

[Will Stanton]

"Dude, like, no need to be so aggro, right? That's totally not the Tosh way," Will laughed.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Well, unless I'm the beetle golem. I was pretty ragey as Kabuto."

"Bruce is probably the most chill... when not punching bad guys."

[Will Stanton]

"See? You know what we have it like. You might just get us," Will nodded, walking over and slapping Tosh on the shoulder.

"We'd say the chillest one of our pack right now is, like, the table. Dude's just like brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr blank, you know?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Yeah. And I assume the puzzle is feeling a bit scatterbrained right now," he smirked.

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, dude, no way. Like, uh...

You ever catch, like, a huge wave? Right? Like, we're talking a mammoth crease? And then gotten worked and tossed in the washing machine? Like, it's like in that moment, under the sea. Yeah, yer all head over heels and disoriented, but, like, it's a peaceful disorient, right? You're, like, one with the wave. And you pop back up and get your bearings and yer just stoked to get back out there?

Dude, it's like that."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Yeah... I totally don't have any idea what either of those things is like. I'm so bad at surfing I never graduated from the kiddie waves."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, dude! We've gotta go! Bruce, tell 'im!"

[Toshiro Narumi]

Duuude... I bet you can totally do it now!

"Well... I am in far better shape than the last time I really tried. And can turn into something that can breathe underwater if things go south..." he considered aloud.

[Will Stanton]

"Dude, it's not like we'd be going deep sea surfing somewhere. Some chill beach breaks and you could walk out of there with your dignity mostly intact," Will joked.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"So yeah, let's do it. The Danger Room would be the perfect place for it, now that we're allowed to use it for less practical things again."

[Will Stanton]

"Err, yeah, man, about that...

We kinda gotta stay in here until we're less crazy, y'know? We mean, you just saw what happens if we're not careful, right?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Well, yeah, of course. Whenever you're up for it, I mean. Except for the couple of weeks that I won't be here."

[Will Stanton]

"You going somewhere?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Just home to SF for some family time. No grand European adventure or anything."

[Will Stanton]

"Enjoy! We hope you don't have too much trouble getting there."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"It was fine over the holidays, but thanks."

"I should probably get back to solving Jigsaw Will, yeah?"

[Will Stanton]

"Best of luck with that, dude. We don't play fair," Will smirked, trying to stifle a yawn.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"A puzzle that cheats, huh? Sounds fun," he chuckled as he re-gathered the scattered pieces.

[Will Stanton]

"If that's you're thing, dude," Will said, yawning, and catching himself on the table. "We're just gonna...gonna...peace out here..."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh worked from the edges in, mindful of the shifting shapes Will might throw at him. He wondered, though, what he would do if there really was a missing piece.

[Narrator]

The Will he had been talking to collapsed and melted away on the edge of the table, and this time, no Will came out to continue the conversation, leaving Tosh alone. Well, "alone"; seeing as how the room was empty pre-Will and now there was a bunch of stuff in there, was he truly alone? Probably not.


The pieces of the puzzle were easy enough to start snapping together, at least around the edges. The problem was, the picture kept changing -- slowly at first, and then faster, flashing through different images of Will, different landscapes, abstract patterns -- it was difficult, at first, to figure out just what the heck was going on.

[Toshiro Narumi]

And so, Tosh did his best to ignore the images and focus on the shapes. All while wishing he had telekinesis or something useful for this activity.

[Narrator]

As Tosh continued to work, the rapidly-changing pictures started slowing down -- now mostly down to pictures of Will in various outfits with various people, some of whom were familiar to Tosh, others of whom were not. As each piece was fit into place, the rate of change of pictures continued to slow.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh studied the images with interest as the transition slowed down enough to get a good look at them. He recognized some people from campus, or perhaps their multiverse duplicates. Others like the billionaire lizard and the weird goofy blonde guy he had encountered during the dimensional merge. The locations were mostly familiar, aside from some having differences ranging from a picture in a different spot to entirely different furnishings and unrecognizable tech.

He continued to work, beginning to suspect Will's missing piece was a lost memory.

[Will Stanton]

It was a fair guess, at least -- Will often worked in metaphors and symbols, and a missing piece might well mean a missing memory.

However, as he continued to puzzle, he would notice a fairly big problem with that theory. There were actually too many pieces available. Will wasn't missing something -- there were just extras lying around. The pile of pieces to be placed was still decently large, even as he approached an end to the puzzle proper.