strangetrip | [EP] A Bored Smartass

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[EP] A Bored Smartass - OTA

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)

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

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."

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.

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."

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."

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.

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."

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."

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?"

"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.

Corbie had known and known her share of soldier boys, and she couldn't help but think that any commander worth his salt would have kicked his ass for that display of manners. Kay would have, she was sure. "Yeah. I'm used to cities, myself. Ain't that kind of discipline, but there's not much in the way of dull moments."

He would have definitely had his ass kicked, but they would have probably been more upset he hadn't captured one of them and tortured them for information yet.

"Yeah. I prefer cities too." No rules, or at least less of them. "Yours look anything like this place?"

Corbie shrugged "Best I can figure, the place I came from was like what most people here'd call the nineteenth century."

"No shit. Really?" Alec suddenly wished Logan was here to explain more stuff about history than he knew. He knew important dates, but what Manticore thought was important were more like great moments in tactical maneuvers and military victories.

"Talk about a time change."

Corbie shook her head. "More'n that. It's like the nineteenth century, but it ain't. I haven't met anybody here who's heard of the country I come from."

"So you're not from Earth, then, huh?" Alec was more interested than negative about the subject. "I've met a few like that now. Hard to wrap my head around." Which was ironic since he was a transgenic and friends with a dog man.

"I dunno," Corbie shrugged. "I'm human, if that's what you mean."

"Me too." He gave her a smile. Okay, so he was mostly human. Semantics. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm from a place not like anyone else's either. I mean, they might recognize the name of my city but that's about it."

Corbie's brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of that. "... How does that work?"

He shrugged. "I'm from Seattle. Everyone from Earth seems to know Seattle. But they don't remember the country being a shit hole third-world country. I mean, yeah, some of them are from the passed, but some of them aren't so not everyone here is from the same Earth as me." A concept that took a while to get his head around, but he had.

Seattle was important enough that it was one of the few American cities she knew by name, though that explanation still didn't mean much of anything to her. She didn't know what the world most people here were from was like. "Oh. Shit."

"What?" He paused. Was it something he said?

After a second he gave another slight shrug. "It's no big deal for me. Life was crap back home and here I have free drinks and running water so I'm golden." Or at least he liked to project that he was.

Corbie deliberately paused just a beat too long and just looked at him, letting the beat call bullshit for her. She smiled. "Obviously."

He gave a nod with an expression a little more dorky than his normal facade. He blinked then cleared his throat. "So, anyways. I should probably go.. apologize to the chef." Not that he would, but he felt like he had overshared something, somehow, and he wasn't sure what to do with that at that moment.

Corbie stared at him for a moment, this time not trying to make a point, but trying to assess what she was going to do with that information.

Then finally she said, "Yes."

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st_x5_494 - 2018-02-07 04:53 (UTC) - Expand

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