[EP] A Bored Smartass - OTA

[st_x5_494]

Alec was bored and so he decided to test the waters with the various creepy Inn workers. He started by walking up to the man at the desk. He plopped the towels down on the counter. Some were ripped, others had blood on them. "This is really unacceptable. How's a guy supposed to enjoy his time here at the Madonna Inn when these towels are dirty and destroyed? I thought this was a fine establishment, but I guess I was mistaken." The man behind the counter apologized, though there didn't seem to be any actual regret in his voice.

"Take this down. I want blue towels. They should smell like Lavender. And folded like various animals on my bed." There was a nod from the man, but how much would actually be followed through it would be hard to tell. Alec ended their interaction by tossing one of the towel's on the man's head.


His next destination was the kitchen. The chef was there preparing something chicken, as always. Alec stood next to the oven, watching. When the chef turned to get an ingredient, Alec flung a few shrimp into the dish. He watched with vague amusement as the chef came back, discovered the shrimp, and threw out the contents of the dish before starting over again. Alec repeated this a few times, the last two times being blatant about it and not getting much of a response from the chef at all.


Hours later Alec ran into the housekeeper. He spent a good hour walking behind her littering with small pieces of paper. Each time she'd stop and pick up or vacuum the mess. At one point he walked up looking earnest. "Oh here, let me help you." He grabbed the vacuum cleaner and 'accidentally' emptied its contents on the ground. The woman didn't even blink, but started to sweep the mess up.


After a while, Alec got bored of even this and ended up flopping down onto one of the couches in the lounge and exhaled.

(ooc: Feel free to find him at any point in his journey)

Comments

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie had watched the nonsense with the housekeeper and the vacuum cleaner, and about the time Alec was walking away from her, she came stalking up behind him.

It was true that normally she didn't hit and she didn't think she could actually hurt him since as far as attack dogs went she was a terrier, but she was furious and her palm connected with the back of his head. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

[st_x5_494]

He had been aware of her approach. She hadn't really been stealthy about it and since she was hot it was hard for Alec not to notice her anywhere she went. The slap had caught him a little off guard cause he hadn't seen her as a threat.

He ducked his head after the hit, his hand reaching up to rub it. "Ow! Hey. What did I do?"

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie planted her fists on her hips and glared up at him. "I was just watching you, what the fuck do you mean what did you do?"

[st_x5_494]

He glanced back at the housekeeper, then to a really pissed off Corbie. "What? You mean that?" Alec gestured behind him. "I was just seeing how they'd react. I mean, they work for this place so either they're in on it or they're robots or something."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"You don't fucking know that," Corbie snapped. "You don't know who or what those people are, and you decide the right way to figure it out is to be a dick?"

[st_x5_494]

"Being a dick is a great way to learn about somebody." He had the wherewithal not to mention his other option was to stab one of them to see if they were capable of dying - it was on his list to try if things got really desperate. "If she had even like, reacted a tiny bit I'd have helped her." Okay, probably not. It was her job to clean up, after all. "But they're like, zombies."

[st_ackeddeck]

Usually Emma ignored the hotel's chef when she was in the kitchen. He did whatever chicken thing and left her alone to cook whatever she felt like. Later today, that would be gumbo, but that started with a brick-brown Cajun roux, and she'd used up the last she'd had pre-made.

When the guy who looked like Sam's brother, but wasn't, came in, the roux was just going blond, and as he didn't seem to want anything from her – and why would he? – she assumed he was fending for himself in the kitchen, and continued stirring. She was going to be at it for awhile. But she was aware he was there, catching glimpses in her peripheral vision. The first time the chicken chef threw out some food, she was surprised and curious, but didn't think too much about it. Maybe the guy had complained without her noticing. After the second time... No, she wasn't going to say anything.

By the third, she was thinking Dani would probably punch the guy along with telling him off. Or possibly she'd sleep with him, after he learned not to waste good food. Emma wasn't going to punch him or sleep with him. And she wasn't sure she'd tell him off, at least not as forcefully as Dani would have, but could she not say something? The roux was to a shade she really couldn't afford to stop stirring, or take her eyes off it for a second. Still.

"Is there a reason you're wasting food like that?" she asked, without turning away from the cast iron pot she was stirring.

[st_x5_494]

He glanced over at the cute girl and smiled to her even if she wasn't really looking at him and focused on whatever she was stirring. "I'm not entirely convinced I am wasting anything. I mean, have you seen a garbage dump around here? It's not like there's a truck that's picking everything up so where does it go?" Alec lifted a hand and waved it, palm open, in front of the chef a few times without a reaction. "But if you have to know, I'm testing out some theories."

[st_ackeddeck]

If he didn't think he was wasting food – regardless of what happened to everything that got thrown out, magic or whatever, the food wasn't able to be eaten – Emma didn't even know how to finish the thought. Probably he'd never worried about where food was coming from.

Maybe a different perspective. "You do know somebody is waiting to eat whatever it is he's trying to cook, right? Are you going to explain to them why your theories are more important than their hunger? He's just trying to do his job." Focusing on her roux made it easier not to be self-conscious about calling the guy out on being rude, but it was getting to the delicate point now, and she couldn't really afford to get distracted right now, but she'd started this, she wasn't quite ready to give it up.

[st_x5_494]

That actually made Alec paused. His eyes glanced at the door, then to the chef, then back to Emma. "I thought he just sort of... made food all the time for whoever might need it." It came out sounding super lame which was usually a good indicator he was telling the truth.

[st_ackeddeck]

She turned, boggling at the man and his assumption, still stirring, but not as carefully. Did he really...? Although it wasn't a completely ridiculous assumption, and the staff were strange enough. "Sometimes we make things that can be heated up as needed. I do that a lot, actually. But usually, if he's cooking, it's because someone ordered food."

It was then the nutty aromas coming from the roux she'd been stirring developed an acrid, and obviously burnt note. Emma sighed. "Wonderful. That's an hour wasted. And more food." Just flour and clarified butter, as far as ingredients went, but it added to the pattern, didn't it? She grabbed a towel to use as a pot holder while she scraped out the blackened mess.

[st_oriedqueen]

From the back office, Regina heard the strident tones of an annoyed resident. The Innkeeper apologized at a low, dull murmur. Daryl apologizing wasn't out of the ordinary. He apologized every time he couldn't answer a question. But the pitch of the voice at the desk carried and Regina set down the papers she'd been reviewing, took off her glasses, and stepped out to see what was going on--

In time to catch a towel out of the air with a flicker of magic. Her hands went to her hips and she stared him down with a glare that would have sent her sons and her subjects scurrying to their rooms. "If you want blue towels, grow logwood and dye them yourself. You obviously have plenty of time on your hands."

[st_x5_494]

Nothing was scarier than Max pissed off, but the woman had a good glare, he'd give her that. He did note, however, that she had magic and that put him on high alert. "I don't actually want blue towels. Besides, I think grey's more my colour. Brings out my cheek bones."

[st_oriedqueen]

"No doubt, you believe you're charming. You've been allowed your way because you smile and idiots swoon." She advanced on him a single step, but the flicker of actual flame in her gaze and at her fingertips made it seem like more. "That stops now. You will not vent your spleen on the staff again."

[st_x5_494]

Though his stance and demeanor stayed the same, Alec's reflexes were ready to move at an instant. "No offense, ma'am." Definitely a poke at her age. "Maybe the reason no one's able to find a way out is everyone keeps treating the workers of this place like people when they aren't."

[st_oriedqueen]

The ma'am he undoubtedly meant as an insult, she took in a Queen's stride. Her lips curved in a regal, sharp-edged smile. "It's cute you think you're the first to take this seriously, when you are nothing but a cruel child, tearing the wings off dragonflies to watch them die."

[st_ealthless]

From the bakery kitchen, Pike only had a partial view of what Alec was doing. But she didn’t need much to know that he was making trouble. After dusting off her hands off on her apron, she leaned her elbows on the metal countertop and hollered, “Hey hot stuff, come make yourself useful and give a gnome a hand with this dough.”

[st_x5_494]

Alec was in the process of talking to the chef through a shrimp in his hand in a French accent, waving it around as he spoke about butter and flavouring and delicious. When he heard Pike's voice, he turned and sent a smile her way. He could come back to this at some point.

He abandoned the shrimp on the chef's shoulder, to which the chef did nothing about, and made his way over to where the Gnome was standing. "It'd be too much to hope that by dough you mean money, right?"

[st_ealthless]

“What good is money here? Fresh baked bread is very more valuable.” She thumped the half kneaded lump of dough in front of her. “Interested in lending me those talented fingers for awhile instead of taunting the staff?”

[st_x5_494]

"Hey, a guy's going to have to back to his world sometime." And money was king there and not a lot of people had it. Though her compliment took hold of him and he grinned, closing the gap. "I do have talented fingers." More than Pike actually knew, but he was okay with that.

He looked at the dough. "So... what do I do?"

[st_ealthless]

"You get one compliment for free, the rest you have to earn," She smiled up at him. Despite how close he was, the action didn't take as much work as it normally would thanks to the step stools Percy had made her.

"First things first," She trailed a finger down his arm until she could take his hand in hers, "Go wash your hands. I don't even want to know where these have been today."

[st_illavirgin]

Carlos had wandered into the kitchen, watching Alec's interactions with the chef. He had stood in one corner, deliberately trying to keep quiet while he watched Alec add shrimp to the dish, more than once.

After a while he couldn't help but say something. "Doesn't matter what you do, all he does is chicken. Trust me, we've tried." God, had he tried. "At least there are others around for variety. I think I'd kill someone if all I had to eat was chicken." He loved chicken, but seriously, there came a point of no more chicken.

[st_x5_494]

He looked up with a smile that was to silently say 'hey' and also express his amusement. "He doesn't even flinch. He just starts over. If I was him, I'd punch me in the face for ruining his dish every time. Either he's got more patience than another ever put together or he's not human."

[st_illavirgin]

"Hey, that's a question I'm not even sure I want the answer to," Carlos pointed out with a grin. "Though it does get boring trying to trip him up all the time, trust me."

[st_x5_494]

"Tried it out for yourself, huh?" Honestly Alec was surprised more people hadn't. It was the first obvious thing to look at for a way home.