strangetrip | [EP/GP] Today is Check-In Day

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[EP/GP] Today is Check-In Day

When the fifteenth of the month came and went without any new arrivals, most people logically supposed that there would be no new arrivals that week, or that the pattern they believed they'd found was false after all.

Kitty Pryde, Caroline Forbes, and Phryne Fisher were decidedly not most people.

Between them, they agreed it would be best to keep a watch for a few days following the fifteenth, on the grounds that, often enough, holidays interrupted regular schedules, which would reassert themselves again at the next instance. If "keeping a watch" had required them to do anything out of the ordinary, they might have been somewhat less sanguine about it. Might have, as they were not, after all, most people. Yet since their routines, almost invariably, had them in public places, working and people-watching, it required no special effort on their part to be alert for new arrivals.

So it was that Phryne had taken up a table in the lobby cafe to read and hold court, while Kitty took an extra shift tending bar, and Caroline tidied up and labeled the boxes of decorations from Valentine's day "for next year's residents" on the morning of the sixteenth and again on the seventeenth--and not one of them were surprised when, in early afternoon, newcomers began to arrive.

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"Vax'ildan! Are you alive? Or are we dead?" Percy half stood as Vax's voice came over the earring. The table rattled and wine sloshed over the edge of the glasses.

He looked down at MacCready, almost frantic. "Where is he?" Then over the earring, "where are you? This place is hideous."

MacCready moved within seconds of Percy doing so, half out of alarm and concern and half to make sure he didn't end up with wine on his clothes, 'cause really that was just excessive.

"This place is huge, how the hell am I supposed to know where he is at any given moment? It's not like I have elf-sense. Tell him you're in the café. If he can't come down here, I can take you to where he is." He shifted warily on his feet, ready to catch Percy if he had to. The guy'd been unsteady before. Last thing he needed was his body realizing how much it still hurt and to take a header into the table or the carpet. Vax was really not gonna forgive him if that happened.

"He's a half-elf," Percy corrected as he let MacCready guide him back down into his seat. The last two feet, his legs gave way and he thumped onto the bench.

He pressed the earring again, this time with his head leaned against the back of the booth and his eyes closed. "We are in the cafe. There's wine."

"You're drunk as a skunk," Vax'ildan realized, halfway between amused and dumbstruck. And he was here. Vax had almost thought they'd just managed a way to make the earrings work at a greater distance - but Percy was actually here. "Don't you dare move, yeah? You just sit your highborn ass down right there and I'll come to you."

He was already up, throwing his room door closed behind him as he raced down the hall.

We are in the cafe. Did that mean...?

Percy dropped his hand from his ear and reached for his wine. "He's going to be a mother hen about this," he predicted to MacCready, largely because in addition to being a stealthy asshole who reminded Percy entirely too much of himself at times, Vax was also a kind hearted fussbudget.

"How long did you say you've been here?"

"Bout six weeks," MacCready said, grabbing a napkin to clean up the spilled wine while they waited for Vax. This was going to be...interesting.

The few smaller black feathers that got away from Vax's cloak in his hurry - dead run on the straightaways, dropping right down over the railing in the stairwell to tumble back onto his feet - probably made the hen remark seem especially fit.

By the time he burst through the front of the cafe, he needed to catch his breath, a few strands of dark hair come loose about his face. His eyes found Percy - well bloodied, obviously wobbly, powder smudges and dirt in the usual places to suggest he'd been in battle before all this - but he had enough color in him (and a bit of wine flush at his face) to suggest he'd got healing somewhere. Vax took a moment to just stand there and give him an emotional smile that spoke of gratitude and relief.

He couldn't help but continue to look around the place as he approached their table - there was MacCready, whom he obviously owed something... But where were the others?

"Vax!" Percy wrestled himself to his feet, stiffness somewhat alleviated by the alcohol, and lurched forward to grab his friend's shoulders. He leaned in, peering closely at Vax, trying to see the last six weeks in Vax's face. But all too quickly, his attention was drawn downward to the deep purple bruise on Vax's neck. He brightened, blue eyes going bright with hope. "Keyleth is here, too?"

Based on what he'd gathered about Keyleth through Percy's story, MacCready was pretty sure he would've noticed if someone like that was there. He had no idea what brought the guy to that conclusion, but whatever. Alcohol. He pivoted in his chair to watch the reunion, or really more to make sure that Percy didn't topple over. Not that he doubted Vax's reflexes. Once the touching moment, he'd probably bail. He didn't need to bear witness to whatever they were gonna unload on each other and fuck he needed a cigarette.

The lack of attention to personal space from someone usually so stuffy didn't surprise Vax anywhere near as much as the question about Keyleth. He'd already reached to (em)brace his drunken friend, and was too close to try and deny Percy's observation.

He did stiffen, though, dark eyes shifting as if to get another look at Percy in his disheveled state rather than through those glasses and into Percy's own critical gaze. "No," Vax said plainly after an uncomfortable beat. "Keyleth isn't here. Not as far as I know. I was hoping... When you said you were with someone else down here-"

Vax glanced to where MacCready had first class viewing of their messy reunion. He'd thought he'd worked it out now. "Did any of the others come with you?"

Percy's eyes narrowed, an intimidating look made much less intimidating by the fact he was kept from swaying only by his grip on Vax. He released one hand and poked Vax in the bruise. "Don't change the subject. Where'd that come from? Where's Keyleth?"

There was obviously no one with him. Anyone could see that the only person with him was MacCready who had given him a rifle.

Now that Percy seemed to be well in hand, MacCready got up and slung his rifle back over his shoulder again, adjusting it comfortably. "There was a compulsion going around. Dicks and tits everywhere," he said dryly, trying to give Vax an out if he didn't want to discuss things.

He clasped a hand on Vax's shoulder as he passed, leaning in to say, "He hasn't checked in yet. I'm in 137 if you need anything." With that, he squeezed the half-elf's shoulder and went to go hang out in front of his door and smoke. The rain would be good enough to cover whatever emotion he was absolutely not feeling.

"Thank you, truly," Vax'ildan managed to ignore Percy for a few moments to say to MacCready directly. Though he really didn't need Percy left alone with the idea that 'dicks and tits' had been involved in getting his marks.

"Again, Keyleth isn't here. I got this from a very enthusiastic young lady who was compelled to gift me with it." It was technically true, and Vax's low tone would let Percy's over-indulgence in drink help him sell it. "Now we should get you a room before you fall over. Agreed?"

Percy wasn't sure what was going on, but both MacCready and Vax'ildan seemed quite certain that their explanations were sufficient. His head was pounding, either from the wine or the semi-recent unconsciousness (and perhaps death?)

"A room seems, yes. I think that's a good idea." Percy released Vax, swaying alarmingly as he turned and picked up his pack and new gun.

"Sure it is," Vax agreed. He moved to take Percy's pack and sling it over his own far shoulder (not daring nor wanting to reach for the bizarre gun). He was in no way mother-henning, as he pushed his bare shoulder and arm under Percy's to brace at the stumbling gunslinger. He'd just rather not have to carry his friend the whole of the way upstairs.

"This way to check-in," he steered carefully. "You look rough around the edges, if through the haze of wine. Did you just come away from the Thordak fight?"

Percy shook his head. "That was yesterday. We were fighting Raishan."

She'd been looking fairly rough, when he'd last seen her. But rough still was deadly enough to leave him bleeding on the floor.

Percy accepted Vax's shoulder - as much because of his wounds as the drink if he were forced to be honest, which he was not. They made their way slowly out of the cafe.

If that was yesterday, in Percy's time, and weeks of his own... Vax was trying to figure out how the timing worked between the two realms, but the one of them who had the best chance at getting them to the right conclusion was currently beaten and pickled.

"Did you notice I'd gone missing?" Percy hadn't mentioned that Vax had disappeared, but that could be for a few different reasons. "When's the last time you saw me?"

"I don't even, things get chaotic in battle." Percy tried to picture the cavern, where Vax had been while they attacked Raishan. "You... leapt backward. Got away from her. It was...ten or fifteen seconds, I think?"

Time moved strangely in a fight. Percy couldn't have been more specific if he'd tried. But he did know one thing, "You were never missing."

"Isn't that bizarre, though? That I could be gone for months now by my reckoning, when you're saying I was still with you? Maybe Percy and Vax'ildan are still there, somehow, even while we're here." He didn't really expect the most articulate answer, given Percy's condition. But it was bizarre.

"What'd she get you with?" The ruin of Percy's clothing said that she'd gotten him somehow, for sure.

Percy stumbled at the challenge of the questions combined with the complicated task of putting on foot in front of another. "Her claw." She'd knocked him off the wall. Judging by the ruin of his clothes, she hadn't stopped there. "She couldn't cast spells. Keyleth stole her mind."

"She stole Raishan's mind?" Vax couldn't help but smile in wonder as they approached the registration desk. Gods, she was incredible. "Here we go. Give Darryl there your name, he gives you your room."

Percy limped forward and leaned on the wooden podium where the innkeep was. "Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. I was told I have a room."

The innkeeper nodded - Percy was having trouble focusing on his face. "Lord Percival, indeed. You'll be in room 192, the Old World Suite. Please let us know if you'll be needing anything. Our boutique has a fine selection of garments."

Percy frowned, looked down at his ruined clothes and decided that it was a fair comment. He took the little paper sleeve with the strangely stiff card inside, puzzled. He looked over his shoulder at Vax, hoping for enlightenment.

"Just hang onto it for now," Vax told Percy's puzzlement. His own look said something of I know, right? "I'll show you once we get up there."

"And don't get your hopes up for the new clothes," he warned. "No tailors around here, so the pickings are slim."

"Duly noted." Percy slipped the paper sleeve into a pouch. "Which way is the room? And potentially, a bathhouse, if this place has such a thing."

Vax got a bit of a gleeful glint in his eye as he began to show Percy the way, satisfied that his nibs seemed to have his land legs coming back in under him. "What if I told you that they were one in the same?"

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