Starring:
Summary: After being afflicted with an Australian accent courtesy of Natalie, Daphne goes to freak out to her BFF.
Date It Happened: 19 May 2007
Ice Cream and Dogs and Sandler
Laurel's Apartment
What the hell. What the /hell./
She's gone from work early— Too early for the zoo to already be closed. She had to fake sick to get out of it, but thankfully she's fairly good at stuff like that. Didn't have to say much, either, which is all for the best, all things considered. She practically runs into the Village apartments as soon as she parks, pausing in front of the door to figure out how she's going to do this without Laurel—
Sigh.
Daphne takes a deep breath, puts her hands on her knees a moment, trying to collect her thoughts enough so that she can at least think of a way to not come off sounding absurd. She's try to emulate an American accent, but /can't do it,/ which is truly disturbing. It only sounds fake, like she's an Australian trying to make fun of a New Yorker. And she /cannot/ go on like this.
And she can't just go home and sleep it off, either. She's fairly freaked out here! Thus, she pounds on Laurel's door, probably harder than she needs to. "C'mon, Laur, be 'ere," she mutters. And if her friend /isn't/ here, Daphne will just /WAIT./
—-
That's scary! At the pounding on the door, Laurel might well be jumping out of her seat and scrambling for a hidey hole… well, she's not. But Lucky is. A scramble of frightened feet against fabric laid out for her little bunny feet and then a thud as she launches herself into a box that hits the wall. Bunnies fighten easily. And so do Laurels, actually. After the initial wild thumping on the door, she cautiously gets out of her seat on the couch and walks over to the door, peeking through the spy hole.
The thing is— she wouldn't have even recognized her best friend's voice if she called out. Which would have been really weird. "Daphne?" she says when she sees the woman's face, which is a much easier identifier than a voice anyway. There's something distressed about her appearance, though, making her wonder what's wrong exactly.
Since this is her best friend, unlocks rather quickly once she's verified who it is— unlocking the top deadbolt (self installed) and then the one the apartment came with, and then the doorknob— and finally she takes off the security chain and opens the door.
"What's going on? You don't have to bang that loudly."
—-
"C'mon, C'mon," she states, weirding herself out all over again just by speaking that single word. It's so natural, like she's been doing it her whole life. Sure, she's often imitated Australian accents before, but she's never actually /had/ to speak it! It's disconcerting, disturbing—
Laurel!
When the other girl opens the door, Daphne… Says nothing. She's kind of afraid to, because she has no idea how Laurel's going to react. Instead, Daphne brushes past her friend and into the apartment, hands going to clutch at long hair which is fairly messy by now. Turning, she opens her mouth to speak, and just can't make herself do it.
She looks… Annoyed, afraid. Something in between - a mix of the two. Her eyes are wide, but her eyebrows are drawn down over them. She could write! But that's not really going to address the problem, which seems to be entirely verbal. At least she's not writing with an accent, too. That would just be weird. Closing her eyes, allowing her arms to return to her side, she says the very safest thing she can think of at the moment. "Hi." And even that… doesn't sound right.
—-
"What? Huh?" Laurel calls out, really surprised when her friend just brushes past her and walks right into her apartment. Not that she wouldn't have invited her in, but it's /weird/. "Come on in?" she says after a moment, before closing the door and getting about relocking it. The frustrated look really confuses her, because she doesn't know the source of it. Why is her friend annoyed? Why does she look freaked out?
The gate leading to the bunny room is locked into place, and the rabbit definitely is not exploring to see who is there. She's still cowering in the dark box. Dark is safe. No one can see her if she stays still enough. Even inside the box, though, her ears are perked up, listening.
Hi?
"…Hi?" she repeats, definitely in a more middle class Manhattan style accent. With added confusion. "Are you okay?" Is she— oh no is she sick!? There's a moment when she actually thinks about ducking into her bathroom and grabbing a face mask from under the sink. She definitely does NOT want to get sick.
—-
No, not sick. Oh, /hell,/ she might as well just get it out. Sitting around - or standing, as the case is - isn't going to help. "'Ad a run-in with someone at th' zoo," she says, with an obviously thick accent. She was /trying/ not to, but she can't seem to make her voice cooperate. It's like she's never known how to speak with her proper voice /ever,/ since this sounds so natural. Or it would, if she were from Australia. If she were, say, Steve Irwin's long-lost cousin.
"I— One er the pups, y'know the ones, aye? The Afr'can wild dogs. She doi'd." Daphne pauses, looks away, takes another breath. "Kinna got into it with some nerd gel, glasses n' all. She changed my voice, Laur. I can'— Can' make it go 'ow it's s'posed to."
And there it is. Except she's a little hard to understand at the moment, because she's speaking so quickly, and it sounds like she's right out of the heart of, say, Melbourne, rather than a Montreal native. She could have done a lot more to keep that girl around, at least so she could find out a name - anything - so she could get herself put back to normal. It must be because she teased Megan about a 'Scottish language' the night before. This is… Karma or something, Daphne doesn't know. "'N I can' go back t'work. They'll think I'm insane."
—-
Um, okay, yeah, this is weird.
Laurel's a photographer, so she has to deal with people speaking in all kinds of accents, but this— it takes a few moments and it's very clear she's leaning toward, peering, possibly even /straining/ to understand her. "You— what? She changed your voice?" What kind of— how can people just walk around changing people's voices? That's… like… a lifetime of language comprehension altered in a few moments! It shouldn't be possible, right? Then again— talking to animals isn't supposed to be possible either. And her friend is having a crisis— ack, what to do…
There's really not much she can think to do. "Maybe— maybe you could pretend to be sick? Like— wear a mask or something that'll muffle your voice for a while? Drink something that makes you sound weird?" It's not much, but… She's really not sure how to deal with this. It's not her area! That's what she'd do if it happened to her, though.
"Do you— even think in a different voice? Cause that's really weird."
—-
Oh, thank god Laurel's not laughing at her. That would just be the icing on the cake of an absolutely terrible afternoon. "d'yah hear me? Is not jes' me hearin' this?" Daphne asks in a somewhat more understandable voice - slower, at least. The fact that Laurel's taking her seriously helps a lot. "She— She bloody called me 'Animal Planet' 'for she did it. Didn' feel a thing, jes' started talkin' like I was straight outta Austral'ya."
These are all things Daphne's thought of before, but she can't just call out sick from work for a week, and she's not going to wear a surgical mask around the zoo. Worse, she can't just /not talk/ because she does the bird shows every day. She mutters something that might sound like 'Crikey' under her breath; Despite the fact that it sounds like an authentic accent, it seems like it's been slanted a little toward the typical Steve Irwin stereotype.
Lucky Daphne.
Briefly uncomfortable when Laurel says it's weird, she frowns, shrugs. "Yeh. I do. It's weird, like I've been talkin' like this m'whole loife. I can't— I've nev'r 'ad to fake me own accent before. I can' do it. But I know it's wrong. /Hell./"
—-
"I don't know!" Laurel exclaims, not sure at all what the hell she's supposed to do in this situation. It's not like she can just tell her friend what to do, because that was her only idea. And now she feels pretty helpless. But no, it's no laughing matter. Why would she laugh at her friend over something like this?
"Maybe you should just practice trying to talk— like you used to. You still remember how you sounded, right? How you used to talk? You memorize all those talks about your birds and stuff, why can't you just… practice pretending to speak normal?" She's not sure she's making any sense anymore, but she's really got no idea what to do in this situation. Moving over to the bunny-gate, she looks in to check out Lucky, seeing her finally starting to peek her head out of the box with a limited amount of hops. She's the cutest thing on the planet sometimes, but right now she just looks timid.
Giving her a look, she reaches and removes the gate and closes the door. Maybe that'll muffle some of the sounds, keep her from getting too afraid.
—-
"M' no' askin' you t'do anything, Laur," Daphne says, sensing that her friend is just about at wit's end here. How many times does someone you know come barging into your apartment speaking with a different accent? Daphne's willing to bet 'not often.' "Wish I could jes' say 'April fools' 'n be done with it, but…" She can't. It's stuck.
Now, she slumps down into the nearest chair, watching as Laurel closes the door into Lucky's room. <S'ok, Lucky,> she sends, realising she's been hearing the poor rabbit's terrified thoughts for the past few minutes. She's getting better at shutting them out, even if they're never silent.
"I r'member," she says. "I r'member, but loik I sed, I've never 'ad to fake me own voice. B'sides." She thinks for a moment, and when she next speaks, it sounds like… A fake American accent. "Do you hear this? It's like I've never even /been/ t'New York." With little hints of obvious Australian thrown into each and every vowel, she really doesn't sound anything like she used to. Daphne sighs, though, closing her eyes. "S'wha I'm gonna 'ave to do. Either tha' or figure out th' name o' the gel who did this t'me. Blonde 'air. Glasses. S'all I c'n really say."
Tugging at her hair, she looks over at her friend, manages a weak smile. "Was kinna a bully in 'igh school. Kinna carries over when I'm mad, I guess. Now ya know, aye?" Oh, she hasn't forgotten what Natalie did, and despite the fact that she's a little too drained to go on ranting and raving at the moment, Daphne is going to /throttle that girl./
—-
"Listen, it— it'll get— maybe it'll go away?" Laurel says, before she moves into the kitchen area and fetches something to drink from the fridge. It's just a bottled water (which is actually filtered and self bottled water cause bottled water is way too expensive), but she brings it over and hands it to Daphne, putting her hand on the shoulder onc eshe's sure the other woman has it.
At the 'find her name' and a brief description, she ponders quietly the chances of finding one woman with blonde hair and glasses in the whole of New York. There's not much chance of that, is there? Not really, no. "Okay— so you were being mean because you were upset about the puppy dying… It's okay, but it doesn't mean— maybe if it doesn't go away and if you can't live with it— you could find her and ask her to change it back?"
Ask her NICELY. Cause she's a nice girl. How did they ever end up being best friends? Well, because she'd never picked on her, of course. Not that badly at least. "I just hope she knew what she was doing and it's not like my ability where it just happened sometimes."
—-
Daphne shakes her head. It's weird, but it's a feeling she has - it's not just going to /go away./ If feels right to her, even if she knows it's wrong. Still, it's a nice thought, and she can /hope./ "I 'unno, maybe it will," She looks pretty miserable when she accepts the bottle, though she still manages to at least look a little grateful as she tips her head back and takes a long drink.
"I'm sure I c'n figure out 'ow t'fake it well enough eventually," Daphne says. "Ah'mean, earlier, I couldn' even /start/ t'do it. Kinna started to play with m'voice a li'l, jes' lis'nen to the radio in the car."
Still sounds /wrong./
"Any'ow, I 'eard 'er die. The pup, I mean. 'er voice… Jes' tore me the 'ell apart. 'Ad to take it out on somethin', never thought I'd see this gel again. I didn' 'it 'er or anythin'."
Pausing, she realises she can barely understand herself. It takes some effort, but she's able to pull a little of the extreme out of the newly-aquired accent. It's still there, but much less Irwinesque, one could say. "She knew what she was doin'. Tol' me that I was lucky, an' I got this feelin' she coulda done worse. I mean, I kinna feel badly n' all, but…"
Daphne gets back to her feet. "No name, nothin' to go on, 'cept I know what she looks like. Sorry, Laur, I can leave if y'need me to. I jes' couldn't call my parents over this."
—-
"God, Daphne…" Laurel exclaims, before she puts a hand on her friend's back and starts to lead her towards the couch and attempt to get her to sit down. "This is something really bad, and of course you don't have to leave. Sit down, it'll be okay— this is just another weird thing and it isn't so bad. Maybe you can convince your bosses that it's an act, or if all else fails… you can try to get a job at another Zoo, the one in Central Park maybe, where they won't necessarily all know you. But I doubt they'll fire you over an accent, even if it did come out of nowhere."
Once she's seated, the other girl heads back to the kitchen and returns with a bucket of ice cream and two spoons. Mint chocolate chip ice cream to be exact, which she settles down in front of her and hands her a spoon. "Come on. Let's watch some movies so you can get used to hearing American again, and maybe it'll lessen as things start to clear up, okay?"
She glances towards her DVD rack, trying to think of what a good one would be. Nothing with super natural stuff right now. Something funny and… "How about Fifty First Dates? I always liked that one. It's my favorite Adam Sandler of all."
—-
"Is jes' an animal, Laur," she says quietly, but that's not really how she feels. They talk to her; sure, she's always believed animals have souls, she's always believed they should be treated with respect… But for this little creature to die at such a young age without having any idea what was happening to her…
Daphne just wants to cry, but she doesn't. She's not much of a crier.
"I lie' where I am," she states, thinks, then repeats, "I /like/ where I am. But tha's not a bad idea, tellin' 'em it's part o' the act, I guess. I jes' don' want 'em to think I'm… Weird."
Settling back down on the couch, Daphne closes her eyes, running her fingers through her hair again. Nervous habit - and boy, is she ever nervous. Somehow, she's gonna have to convince everyone she works with that tomorrow is 'talk like an Aussie' day so she can get away with it without weird looks. When Laurel brings the ice cream, she earns a real smile. "Tha's more like it," she mutters, then, "You're a good frien', Laur'l. Yeh, that's…" She looks at the TV. A couple movies, some time with a friend… That can only help, and she doesn't want to go home right now. If she's alone, she's more likely to Think Too Much about this and worry herself.
"Tha' the one with that gel with brain damage?" She laughs. "You tryin' to be funny? I swear I didn't hit me head." Wait. "'Least, Ah think I didn't." Hm.
—-
There's a frown from Laurel as her best friend tries to brush them off as 'just animals' when she knows that's not true. Not when her friend quit eating meat because of how she started to feel about animals, and not when all the things she knows goes on in her head. The photographer may not be willing to stop eating meat all together just because of her friend, but you can bet she'll never eat rabbit ever. Not that she really did anyway, but now she'll be extra shin-kicking mad if someone calls a live rabbit 'mmm, dinner.'
Anyway, with the ice cream sat out for both of them, she stands up and walks to the DVD rack and glances over it. Okay, so 50 First Dates might be out. "I wasn't saying you did. I just think it's funny. If you like I have Happy Gilmore too. That's my second favorite one of his." There's just funny parts in both of them, though admitedly she's rather fond of his newest one too. Click was very humorous. But has more of a— supernatural bit to it. Especially when he uses the remote to mute people, and she's pretty sure he switches someone to Spanish at one point… which might be taken wrong.
"But he does work at a zoo in 50 First Dates. With the penguins and the walrus and stuff." So it has a correlation there too! He loves his animals, she loves her animals. And they're all funny. "How about we watch both. Mini-Sandler marathon."
—-
Yeah, Laurel's a good friend. Somehow, she's single-handedly managed to keep Daphne from outright falling apart with her sincerity, which is just /awesome./ Even though the loss of the puppy is going to bother her for days, at least she'll feel better about going to work tomorrow. Sure, people are going to look at her weird, but - real-sounding Australian accent is much better than pathetic-sounding New York accent. She'll stick with the former, 'til she can handle the latter again.
It's probably good to not watch 'Click.' Daphne can get pretty easily offended, especially when she's in a mood like this. Fifty First Dates is a pretty safe bet, and so is Happy Gilmore. "All righ'. We'll order pizza after th' first one. I'll ev'n call, see if I've improv'd any." Because surely she'll be able to pick up American within the span of /two hours!/ Right? Right.
God, this is going to be a pain.