strangetrip | GP/EP: Check-In Day: Turning Tricks into Treats

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GP/EP: Check-In Day: Turning Tricks into Treats

Instead of the remains of a raucous night of dedicated drinking, the chairs were up on the tables, the counter was cleaned, the floor had been vacuumed and mopped as appropriate. Kitty had had plenty of time to straighten up at close yesterday, since almost everyone seemed more interested in drinking in Bonesville. For her part, she'd had enough after her and Wyatt's little adventure in Funland. At least, she'd had enough for the few days it would take her to heal.

On the upside, that made opening up this morning easy and fast. On the downside, it meant she had an entire day with not much to distract her from wondering when Barrel of Fun would lock down access to the outside and why it couldn't open onto a world with higher tech. She had managed to scavenge some computer circuitry and cell phones, but she hadn't worked out how they'd solve her current tech problem yet.

If Dot were still here, she'd be baking for Halloween. Even if they'd had to explain Halloween to her, she'd be making cookies and candy and cakes, and probably sewing costumes, too. Those thoughts summoned a wistful sigh from Kitty while she took down the chairs. She was still sighing when she finished refreshing her stock of cut up fruit.

By mid-afternoon, she'd put away a pot and a half of coffee, she was practically vibrating, and a buzz-by from Caroline prompted an amazing idea. Why not spend the afternoon testing Halloween and Thanksgiving cocktails, to help turn the arrival trick of Check-In Day on the 1st into, well, a little bit of a treat? So it was that the new arrivals, two days earlier than expected, found the bar counter covered with spooky and kooky and dry-ice steamy drinks and Kitty literally spinning between her coffee cup and the next bright green, weirdly black, or pumpkin orange drink.

[ooc: find Kitty making any of these or drinking yet another cup of coffee, she's OTA]

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"Yes and no." Kitty didn't slip through the bar, not with a newcomer looking at everything and everyone, but she moved quickly around her side of the counter.

"I tend bar here, but I ended up here the same way you did. One minute I'm in Chicago, and the next thing I know, I'm walking down a dust road to big gaudy Inn with way too much pink.

"What can I get you?"

"There is a lot of pink." Bo had noticed it, but she had seen a lot of crappy motels when she had been on the run.

"How about a shot of tequila and then a beer?" Bo decided not to sound like a raging alcoholic right off the bat, but she really, really needed a drink.

"Okay so you came here... but why haven't you left? I mean... unless this hotel is your thing?"

"Coming right up."

Kitty spun -- no pirouetting this time -- and grabbed down her top shelf tequila. Another quick move and she had two shot glasses on the bar. Since Bo hadn't specified what kind of beer, she grabbed a bottle of a local microbrew for her, twisted off the cap and handed it over.

While she poured the tequila, one for herself and one for the newcomer, she said, "You don't strike me as the type to use training wheels, but let me know if I'm wrong about that. You're gonna want a couple of these before I give you the answer to that question."

Her fingers wrapped around the shooter. "If you mean that I'm used to weird shit happening to me then, yeah, been there, done that." Over and over and over again.

Bo lifted up the shot glass in a 'cheers' and then downed it without any salt or lime. She placed the shot glass down and sighed. "My day can't really be any worse that it already is." Killing your ex-girlfriend's girlfriend will do that to you.

"Nah, I meant you probably didn't want the salt and lime. Training wheels in bartender speak." Kitty downed her own tequila and then poured another for Bo. "But now that you mention it, you do seem to be taking this pretty well."

When she set the shot glass down for her, Kitty caught her gaze and said, "The good news is, you have a reservation, a room, and everything's on the house. The bad news is, we're stuck here. So, when you ask why I haven't left, that's easy. I can't."

"Ah... You'd think me pretending to be a bartender for a while would have had me pick up on the lingo." She smiled wryly. "Then again, most of the people I served tended to just hit on me and get drunk." Conversation had never been her thing. At the time attachment hadn't been on her priority list.

When it came to Kitty's explanation of the place, she paused and took it in. Can't leave. Bo didn't like the way that sounded though, of course, she wasn't entirely convinced there wasn't some way. She'd have to look for herself when she got the chance. Bo was not one to like being caged.

"I guess if you're going to imprison people, making everything free is one way to make things up to them?" She sighed and took a long draw of her beer. She was definitely going to need some more alcohol. "Okay. So then I guess I should ask how long you've been here, huh?"

Deciding it was probably necessary, Kitty put the bottle of tequila on the counter between them. "Help yourself, and feel free to drink any of these cocktails I've been testing," she said as she gestured down the bar.

"I've been here since January 1st. At least, it was January 1 here. Which makes it ten months, almost to the day. People show up usually on the 1st and 15th of the month, and most of us spend the first six weeks trying to find a way out. I'm still building surveillance drones to try to figure out where our food comes from."

She glanced to the concoctions down the counter and thought about it as she took another swig of the beer and processed what the woman had to say. "10 months..."

Bo didn't want to say she was going to do the exact same thing, but... she was. She was certain some sort of Fae was responsible for this. "So we're, what? Just supposed to forget about our life at home?"

"If we're supposed to, I'm doing a shit job of it." Although, thinking about Wyatt, that wasn't strictly true.

On instinct, Kitty cleared the shot glasses from in front of the two of them, traded them for old-fashioned glasses and filled them both almost to the rim with tequila, while she added, "After awhile, you realize you've got to keep living. Like...when someone close to you dies. You find things to do that are worth doing, whether it's trying to make things a little easier on someone new, or teaching someone to dance or fight or whatever you do. You find friends and people to care about. You never stop trying to get back or worrying about how the people are you left behind. If you get lucky and they get unlucky, some of them might show up here."

Kitty wasn't sure whether Yana was better off here or at home. Petey definitely was better off here.

When she glanced up at Bo again, all traces of the cute ballerina had fled in favor of the seasoned warrior who'd watched millions of her people die. "It's Purgatory." More or less.

The change in the woman's demeanor was noted and it suddenly became obvious to Bo that this woman might be more like her than she originally thought.

"Purgatory. Always thought I'd end up there sooner of later." She extended her hand. "I'm Bo, by the way."

She wasn't sure how she felt about the whole 'find things worth doing' unless it was getting the hell out of here, but for now she'd just take in any 'tips' the woman had and try to suss things out.

Kitty offered hers as well. "Kitty, if I didn't say."

Now that they'd gotten past the hard stuff, Kitty's expression warmed into something more personal. Most of the time, she kept her check-in day demeanor to 'friendly, useful bartender'. Every once in awhile, she made an exception. When she did, it always ended up being important.

Wyatt. Lara.

"So if we were home, where would that be and what would we be drinking to?"

Bo paused, then let out a small sigh. "That's kind of a complicated question. Home is Toronto, but the drinking..." There was another pause. She could still hear Lauren's heartbreak. She could still feel it.

"Let's just say I'm going to have one less friend when I get home..." Her lips betrayed her for a moment, frowning, before they busied themselves by picking up the glass filled with tequila and taking a drink from it.

The words weren't out of Bo's mouth before Kitty regretted asking. She reached across the counter to put her hand on top of Bo's. "I'm sorry. What happened to them?"

She might not have made that assumption, except that Bo's expression had been so carefully schooled until that moment. Kitty knew what that was like, when grief betrayed you.

Bo tensed a bit and then recovered. The alcohol was making it a little easier to disengage with what had just happened less than an hour ago.

"Nothing to them. Well, not unless you count watching the love of their life get stabbed to death by their ex girlfriend." Somehow she managed to say it all nonchalantly with just a touch of cynicism despite the gut wrenching feeling she had about the whole thing.

Kitty frowned but didn't withdraw the hand. "Are you saying you did the stabbing?" Because Bo did have a dangerous look about her, but Kitty usually had a decent sense about people and she wasn't reading Bo for the jealous-stabby type.

"It's not like I had a choice." It came out a lot more defensive and angry than she had intended. Bo paused, pulling away in her seat and bringing her hands in her lap. Her voice lowered. "...Sorry."

"Hey," Kitty replied quietly, gaze steady on Bo. "I know about not having choices when it comes to hurting people. I'm not judging you. I just didn't want to make any assumptions about what happened."

"It's not like it makes what I did less terrible." She gave a small shrug. "But I'm getting used to hard decisions."

A wave of sympathy passed over Kitty and she made the rare decision to leave her side of the bar. "Why don't we go sit where there's a little more privacy? You can tell me about it if you want, or I can just keep you company for awhile."

"Maybe you can show me around a bit? If I'm really stuck here I should probably figure out what there is to do here and where to go." She wasn't sure she could handle a chat about Nadia right now. Or Lauren.

"Sure. Have you gotten your room yet? If not, we should start there." She glanced around for someone else who could keep an eye on the bar and then shrugged. Regina was here, Caroline would be around somewhere. If no one stepped up when it was needed, one of them would voluntell someone to do it.

"Until you mentioned it, I didn't even think I needed a room." She stood up to follow Kitty's lead. "Are they at least nice hotels here or are they like one star flea-ridden motel rooms?"

Kitty led her toward the front desk. "I know it's hard to believe from the decor, but it was apparently a tourist destination before it ended up here. Some of the rooms are eye-bleedingly ugly, but everything's clean, high quality, and pretty comfortable."

Bo made a face. "Which means, with my luck, I'm going to get the ugliest one here." It's how the world sometimes felt to Bo, at any rate.

"Any chance I can redecorate?" Bo was probably going to miss her swing, not that that was on her mind at that exact moment.

Bo found a key with her name on it and picked it up. Her expression became one of unimpressed and she rolled her eyes at the key itself. "Oh good." She turned and held out the key to show Kitty. "Love Birds." Her life was pretty much anything but that at the moment.

"Daryl" emerged from the back room just as Bo was picking up her key. Kitty whispered to her, "Don't say yes if he asks if you want towels. I'll explain in a minute."

For his own part, the Innkeeper, the one they called "Daryl" either hadn't heard or didn't care. Or both. He simply smiled his unmemorable smile in his unmemorable face and said, in his unmemorable voice, "Ah, Miss Dennis. I see you've arrived and found your key. Love Birds. That's room 148. Building 3, second floor."

He acknowledged Kitty's presence then and said, "Miss Pryde can show you to your room, I'm certain. It's down the hall for Mr. Logan, Miss Pryde."

Kitty rolled her eyes slightly, and maybe blushed a little.

"Do you require fresh towels, Miss Dennis?"

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