strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check in Day

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[GP/EP] Check in Day - Feb 1

Caroline waved to Kitty as she dropped into her table in the cafe. It was a banner day. A full month of living in a hotel without her mom or her friends, hungry literally all the time.

But at least there was coffee.

Caroline went through her notes - many people had already started to take on roles in the hotel. Snow and Lindsey ran the stables. Kitty ran the bar. The brothers tackled the ghosts that popped up now and then - Caroline held her tongue on how wrong it was to discriminate against the undead. The list went on.

Caroline knew very well - having a job kept the despair of being trapped away.

She hadn't expected today to be different than any other day, but then, she should learn to stop expecting things. Apparently, it was check-in day again.

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He shouldn't have been walking the Ways on his own, not with the injuries he was recovering from. But it was a short trip to head over to Texas to visit Bill Meyers to check on his fellow Warden, and he'd travelled it enough to feel confident enough that he'd almost switched off as he exited the Waypoint.

But it was wrong as soon as he saw it. This wasn't even close to Dallas. What the fuck had happened? He turned, intending to head back through, try and figure out where he went wrong, but as he tried to open the Way, it just wasn't there.

He could stand there and swear at it, and keep trying, but being out in the open in who knows where wasn't a wise move - frankly, he needed to sit down. Leaning heavily on his staff, he followed the path he found himself on, seeing a light in the distance. As he got closer... was that a cafe? Really? What the hell had he walked into?

As soon as Caroline sat down, Kitty came over to bring her coffee. "Chicken cacciatore today," she said as she dropped into the seat opposite her. Not enough customers to keep her from sitting and talked to guests. Not today, not ever. "I would literally kill for wonton soup and a couple of egg rolls."

It wasn't hello, but they saw each other often enough that hello seemed superfluous. Why bother with hello when there was no such thing as goodbye. "I'm exactly sixteen hours closer to knowing I don't know anything about what's keeping us here than I did the last time you saw me." Which was in the neighborhood of twenty-four hours. "How go the plans for world domination?"

Molly hadn't yet figured out the 'pattern' to new arrivals but she knew there had to be one. She was on her way to the cafe when she caught sight of a familiar figure. "Son of a bitch." She muttered and quickly veiled, the last thing that she needed was a Warden catching sight of her. Though she had to admit that Carlos wasn't as big of a dick as the others.

She watched him for a good half hour before making up her mind that he was just as lost and confused as everyone else that arrives in the hotel. Molly left the cafe, not wanting to be seen unveiling, and stepped into a shadowed alcove. One minute you could see the walls and the next a blonde was standing there.

It was tempting to leave, before Carlos knew that she was there, but Molly knew that it would only be a matter of time and frankly she'd rather the first meeting be public. So she re-entered the cafe and made her way over to where he was.

"Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"

Most people came in the front door. The man who appeared from nowhere in particular was a little surprising.

Caroline stood up when she noticed him, half-curious, half-defensive. What was he? A ghost like some of the rooms had? Or another hapless human ensnared by the hotel?

Caroline picked up a mug and filled it with coffee, then carried it over to him. The best way to find out was to ask. "Hi there."

Caroline smiled and sighed. "About the same as your search for knowledge. Trying to figure out what we're supposed to be doing here is just as bad as how we got here in the first place. I don't understand why people are resistant to the idea that we're all in this together, so we may as well make it livable."

"Because they feel pretty safe. There's plenty of food, alcohol, nice beds. It doesn't feel like an 'in this' yet." Smart, if they had an actual captor. But Kitty was starting to think it was more random, less intentional. No real reason. Her brain just couldn't make sense of it. "When it sinks in that they can't have everything they're used to having ever again, it'll get more real."

Kitty knew, because she'd been in situations like this before, but that begged the question. "It's actually weirder that so many people are already chipping in. Why are you?"

"Because I'm a control freak." Caroline smiled wryly. "Establishing a norm makes things easier. Plus...then you notice faster when things go weird. If everything weird...nothing is."

"Hello, Kitty," Phryne offered cheerfully as she sailed into the cafe on the heels of a chance meeting with Jack.

"The usual, Miss Fisher?" Kitty held up a bottle of chilled gin.

"Champagne today, I think, Kitty. I'm celebrating." Phryne flashed her most charming smile.

"Are you? What?"

"Life. Isn't it glorious?" Phryne twirled around, grinning.

Kitty laughed and gestured to Caroline. "Maybe you ought to talk to her about that."

Phryne inclined her head in the direction of the blonde and gestured for Kitty to bring her champagne to the table. "Join me, Caroline?"

Caroline looked at her notebook, thought about the work she was going to do...and laughed. "Sure, why not?" She flipped the notebook closed and shifted over to sit with Phryne. "What's glorious today?"

"Makes sense." Kitty knew plenty of people like Caroline. Scott and Warren both sprang to mind. "I try to understand the chaos, you try to control it." It always helped to have some of each on a team. "I'm hitting a wall my way. So, anything I can do to help?"

Hey, he was used to arriving from unusual directions, he still managed to shock people who should be more used to it.

Oh hello there, pretty woman. He couldn't help but notice her, even before she came over to talk to him. He leaned on his staff, trying for a casual look, though his leaning was possibly heavier than it should have been. His back was killing him, and he needed to sit down at some point, but he was not going to show any weakness if he could help it. "Hello? Can I just ask - where is this place?"

Molly was good - so good that Carlos couldn't feel her veil at all, so he was not expecting her to appear from the shadows. He did a reasonable job of not jumping, he thought.

He raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. "Molly Carpenter. What the... what are you doing here?" Was this place gathering up wizards, because that would just be too weird, and would put him on edge even more than he was.

"Well that is a different response than I thought I'd get from a Warden." Which actually calmed Molly's nerves. It meant that this place wasn't connected to the Wizard's Council, not that she'd given that much thought. But Carlos showing up had made her wonder if they'd sent someone after her but his genuine surprise and rattled nerves helped to take care of that concern.

"Welcome to the Hotel of the Weird. I'd say Hotel Hell but except for the cook's extreme fondness for all things chicken it's not really hell. And how I got here, I'd say the same as you. Well maybe not the same, I was in Chicago, doing dark magic and making baby sacrifices. You know, normal shit for a Warlock."

"This is the Madonna Inn. It's...probably in California and..." Caroline offered him the mug of coffee and gestured to one of the booths. "You're probably going to want to sit down for this. There's not a lot of good news heading your way in the next five minutes. But the coffee's fresh."

"Well..." Caroline flipped the notebook around. In her neat, looping handwriting, the names of all the current hotel guests were listed in a seemingly random order. Next to them, there were various notes about their skills. "Here's what I have so far after talking to people. We have a lot of overlap of skills, weirdly. I haven't seen so many cops since the last policeman's ball."

Edited 2017-02-05 00:07 (UTC)

"What, did you think I was going to take you in on the spot to... where? As far as I can tell we're stuck here. It's a bit difficult to take anyone anywhere." But he relented a little.

"Last I heard you were kicking Fomor butt in Chicago," he pointed out, narrowly avoiding rolling his eyes. "Which frankly is good enough for me. I like to think I'm one of the good guys. You know, that rare but extremely good looking breed?" But he had done his bit to help her, by nixing several investigations into her, making sure Warden attention was elsewhere. Harry trusted her. That truly was enough for him.

He pulled a face. "Chicken? Really? Tedious. How does it work if you're vegetarian?" Which he wasn't, but hey, it was a valid question.

He frowned as he looked around. "I was in California," he said, trying to figure out just where in California it was, if indeed he was.

He took in a deep breath, then puffed it out. "That sounds like I'm really not going to like it. As long as there is plenty of coffee, lead on.2

Molly arched an eyebrow at that. She hadn't known anyone knew what she'd been doing with the Fomor, outside of the people she trusted in Chicago. Her wall of bitch crumbled a bit.

"Yeah, he has a real fondness for it and because of that, I've stayed away as much as I could from the chicken." She didn't think anything was drugged, but that didn't mean there wasn't something else in it. It might be just that that is all he knew how to make. Molly totally got that since she couldn't cook worth shit. She was just suspicious by nature, especially lately.

"And I've no clue how that works for a vegetarian. I guess they're shit out of luck or maybe there's enough for them. I've noticed that when I want a greasy hamburger and fries, someone is nice enough to make it for me." She made a face, "or at least I'm assuming it's hamburger, maybe I don't want to know."

Kitty scanned the names and notes, quickly absorbing new information and correcting her own misapprehensions. She spent an extra minute to look it over for any obvious patterns, but nothing jumped out besides the preponderance of law enforcement.

"The sample size is too small for that to be evidence of a pattern. Same with the number of people who knew each other before they got here. And--"

She cut herself off with a roll of her eyes. "And we're plotting world domination, not making sense of the chaos. So... maybe sort the protect and serve types into groups according to specialties. We could use people to 'patrol' the hotel and grounds, and a ranger force in case people get hurt three hours out from the hotel, too."

"Life. It's rather an adventure, isn't it?" She swept both girls up in a conspiratorial smile even as she dropped herself into the seat she'd chosen.

As she beamed, Phryne glanced surreptitiously at herself in a gleaming copper pot hanging on a decorative post. Unsmeared and unmussed. Perfect.

"And handsome men, of course," she added and noted, after the fact, that she'd left out the customary 'young'. Jack wasn't, and she'd found she quite enjoyed that.

Caroline patiently held out the mug of coffee to him, waiting until he took it before guiding him to a booth. She sat down, crossed her legs and leaned forward, her expression serious. "So, this is a hotel. But none of us intended to end up here. Hell, a month ago, I was celebrating Christmas with my mom. In Virginia.

"The only thing we do know is that the staff here were apparently expecting us and none of us can leave. If you go over to the front desk, the guy there will give you a key for your room."

It was hard to miss that Fomor were dying in the east, and it really didn't take much to put it all together - at least for him. Thankfully the rest of the Wardens had been far too busy to worry about it, so he had 'persuaded' them that there were issues elsewhere that took their attention away from Chicago. Just a little thing he could be doing to help.

But he agreed with her. Anyone who supplies that much chicken is suspect. Or they had something in the region of a ton delivered. Either of which was terrifying and something to bear in mind. "So what else is there here other than dodgy food?" Thing he needed to know.

Carlos was grateful to be able to sit down, and could barely disguise the small noise of relief he made as he took the weight off his legs. He really needed to work on his fitness, but he knew that he couldn't push it too far too fast. "Yeah, I was travelling elsewhere, and shouldn't have ended up here." And it was worrying when you ended up somewhere you didn't intend, as it made you wonder what the supernatural had in mind for you. He hated being on the backfoot without a lot of firepower under his belt. He suddenly missed having his gun by his side.

"That's all you know? No idea who brought us here and for what purpose?" Urgh. Just urgh.

Molly could feel his confusion but also his pain and from someone that was still having issues with her leg, she got it. A small part of her would have liked to ignore it. The dark and bitchy part of her soul but Molly actually liked Carlos if he hadn't been a Warden ...

"Come on, let's have a seat over there and I'll let you in on what I've found out so far. Not that there's a lot." Of course it was only what she was willing to share. "I thought at first this was connected with the Sidhe but there's iron here so that got ruled out quick."

Hey, it wasn't his first choice to be a Warden. He got into it because of his amazing skills as a fighter in a time of war. The rest... well, he could see the problems within the White Council as well as anyone. And he liked Molly. She was cute - and more, these days. Old dinosaurs like Harry wouldn't understand.

He nodded, and walked over to where she indicated. He knew that Molly had no reason to trust him, but if they were stuck here, they'd have to find some way to work together. "I was walking through the Ways and got turned around," he said as he sat down heavier than he would have normally. The relief was great. "But it doesn't feel like the Sidhe playing games."

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[GP/EP] Check in Day - Feb 1

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