[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_rikingblueeyes]

It was a philosophy that Felix agreed with, even if he wouldn't have phrased it that way. Possibly wouldn't even have admitted it in plain language. She wouldn't have hit him, but she'd fought with him over less.

Her voice went low and shaky, angry and disappointed and confused and she didn't know what else was coiling up in there. "Don't mean they ain't people. Magic can do that, if you're fucked up enough to do it to a person."

[st_x5_494]

Alec had little knowledge about magic except for the fact that he had been turned into a cat on his first day at the inn and he didn't like it. Still, he tried to piece together what Corbie was saying. His brow furrowed a bit and it took him a second to connect the dots. It was particularly confusing because she was obviously upset with him and more so than he understood why. It wasn't like he went up and knocked the woman on her ass or anything.

"You mean... magic could have made them all," He made a vague gesture towards where the woman was. "zombie-like?"

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"It could," Corbie said. She shrugged in a way that was almost like an angry cat trying to shed water. "I'll admit I dunno either. Anything 'bout her or where she came from or what happened to her. Still don't mean she's a toy."

[st_x5_494]

He was getting flashbacks at Max scolding him for whatever stupid thing he had done, especially when he was newly out of Manticore. Alec looked at her in silence for a moment, taking in her body language, her expression, her tone of voice. Something in his expression changed, or rather softened a bit. Something to were he looked a lot more sincere than usual which was a side he didn't show very often. "Alright. Alright. I'm sorry. You're right."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie crossed her arms. "You apologize to her if you mean it." Yes, it might feel ridiculous, since it wasn't like the housekeeper would respond either way. But Corbie wasn't the one he needed to apologize to.

[st_x5_494]

Alec really didn't want to do that. He didn't like apologizing to begin with, but to apologize to someone he wasn't even sure was real meant he really didn't want to do it. He looked at her, then the housekeeper, then back to her, then the house keeper again and then back to Corbie with a somewhat pleading look like a kid who was just asked to give their great great aunt a kiss. "Really?"

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"You still want to consider fucking me ever, yeah." Though there wasn't anything humorous or flirtatious in her tone.

[st_x5_494]

He looked at her for a long moment without anything changing in his body or expression, then moved toward the woman. He bent down and fixed the vacuum - I guess vacuum 101 was not in the housekeeper's tool belt - and used it to clean up the mess he made which was a little awkward because the Housekeeper seemed to still want to sweep while he was doing it and for a moment it was almost like they were having a hockey face off with cleaning tools. Still, he manage to do it, then handed her back her vacuum with a 'Sorry for the mess' and headed back over looking sheepish like he told the principal he was the one who wrote the graffiti on the bathroom stalls.

If he did it for anything more than her ultimatum, he'd never admit to it. When he finally reached Corbie again, he sent her his usual smile. "See? All better."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie hadn't thought he'd actually do that.

But she stayed, and she watched, and as she watched the tension left her so that she wasn't wound up like a top anymore when he came back. Even though she kind of wanted to smack him again for the smile. "Better," she said, and she sounded like she meant it. He'd made good, she'd let it go.

[st_x5_494]

He looked just a little surprised. He had been ready for another lecture and some sort of 'now you need to make it up' task for a week or something. His shoulders seemed to relax a little. "Didn't mean to piss you off like that."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie nodded. Really, she wasn't one for holding grudges. Getting through life was hard enough, there wasn't much point in making it harder than it needed to be, whether that was through being mad or being a dick. "Didn't think you did."

[st_x5_494]

There was obviously something more going on with Corbie than just seeing him being a dick because she had gotten really mad. He could tell that, but he didn't ask about it - it wasn't his place to be nosey and if she wanted to tell him than she'd share. Otherwise, he understood the desire to keep things hidden away.

"So... uh. You got a pretty mean back of the head slap." His smile turned a little playful.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Now Corbie ducked her head a little. She didn't think she owed him an explanation exactly, but... "Life's hard enough without anybody deliberately making it hard. If you can't be kind, won't kill you to leave a person be."

[st_x5_494]

Alec actually got that and gave a mix of a shrug and head nod at the same time. "That's fair." Life was pretty hard back home and would be easier if humans just left the transgenics alone.

"I'm not used to being stuck in a place without being told what to do so I guess I'm going a little crazy."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

That was something Corbie supposed she understood. Everybody here was going a little stir crazy. Jackson she knew tended to try to solve that problem by drinking, and she honestly wondered how long he could keep that up. "Yeah."

Then she ran that last part through her mind again. "Without being told what to do?"

[st_x5_494]

"I used to work for the military." Which was true on a very basic level, but still true. When Manticore was shut down he had been on his own, but then things were never stationary. At least when he was confined inside the barracks he always had things to do and orders to carry out.

"You get used to being in the same space, but people tell you what to do so you aren't just -" he finished his sentence with a vague hand gesture.

[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_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]

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."