2019-09-27 - Suffering Souls

It's late. Maybe a hair of a smidge past midnight on a Friday night. Some people are dead asleep in their beds. Some people are still out partying it up and haven't made it home yet.

And then there's Penelope Haven. This week has been a rough one. First there's being detailed to assist on a homicide and having her well-oiled third shift schedule upended by having to be awake while the Day Star is in the sky. Then there's the small matter of the plague that she was given by the Not-Much-Of-A-Dragon-Slayer guy she met in a Dream.

She shuffles up to the door of the Seaview Suites, specifically to room 14 and leans against it hard, wavering on her feet. A pale person under normal circumstances, she's even paler now with puffiness around her dark-ringed blue eyes and pink rawness to her nose. A black backpack is slung over her shoulder and she's dressed in her pajamas: a pair of fluffy pants with Pikachus all over them and a bright green t-shirt featuring the Great Ham-bino.

She knocks. Twice.

The door to room 14 opens shortly after some rustling from within. Sutton, squinting at the parking lot light that so rudely glares into the room when she opens the door, sips from a still-warm tea mug. Smells like bourbon, black tea, and ginger-lemon. "Yeah?" Her voice is a little rough, owing to all the coughing she was doing yesterday. "Unicorno, is that you? You look like shit." So does Sutton.

It takes a couple seconds for her to notice Haven's wearing pokemon jammies. "What the fuck is on your butt?" She squints at the pants. "Is that an angry yellow badger?"

Behind her, a sizable lump on the bed is passed out under covers.

As soon as the door opens, the rookie starts moving in, pushing past Sutton and lurching towards the nearest horizontal surface. Preferably with cushions. The backpack is dropped to the floor with a thump.

"Pikachu. " She settles onto one corner of the bed and looks back the way she came, staring at Sutton. "You're sick as well... That's not encouraging."

"I was at home trying to rest when my bed turned into a large frog." A beat. "It's not ordinarily a large frog. Just a fairly standard four-post bed. Used to be a canopy til I painted the stars on my ceiling. But now they're too bright. Too bright to sleep by. And I fear the frog so I left and came here because you killed the crab that shanked me and I never properly said thank you so thank you." All of this comes out in one long stream.

"I haven't slept in two days. Do you have any donuts?"

Sutton stands there watching Haven tromp past her without being invited in. She turns, hand still on the door, watching the other blonde take up a post on the tiny couch across from the bed. She glances to the bed, still with the sleeping form of a dark-haired man, his back to Haven. She reaches up to scratch her nose. "Everybody's sick." Her voice drops.

The room's a bit perfume-y in that side, like the carpet was recently deep spot cleaned. Yeah, one spot definitely looks cleaner, but it's hard to tell with the room darkened like that. Only the bathroom light is on, door halfway closed. There's some kind of wrapper on the floor. "Your bed turned into a large frog. Are you hallucinating?" A beat. "Would you like some tea, love?" She moves over to the coffee maker, setting it to spit some hot water into a mug. "I have tea."

"Tea is satisfactory."

Without looking around, Haven also notes, "You have a man in your bed." She does not make any sort of move to leave, however, instead sprawling out on the couch like it's her very own. "My bed hasn't ever been a frog before, so I can only assume that my senses are deceiving me."

"Or my Uncle Mortimer accidentally dosed me with some of his homemade LSD. He takes it for the phantom limb pain. " Blue eyes opening once again, she turns her head to look at the bed. Or rather, more specifically, under it. "Have you had any previous infestations of goblins?" Another beat. "No reason."

"You have an uncle named Mortimer?" That's what Sutton takes first from all that talking. She snorts, dropping a pair of tea bags into the mug while hot water percolates in. "Yeah, I was accidentally dosed with LSD once too." She opens a jar pulled from a tiny fridge, splashing in some homemade lemon & ginger infused honey. Lumps of honeyed lemon plop into the cup too. "Bourbon or no bourbon, love?"

"No, just that one goblin infestation, by my fake Russian husband says his bar was hit too, and they took the maintenance man, Lou. Lou was a nice man." She says was like it's over and done. Sorry Lou. RIP Lou.

"I do have a man in my bed. He's feeling poorly and needs a lot of rest." Did she dose him? Maybe she did. "You know how some people flatly refuse to slow down until they collapse from being an utter idiot? Case in point. Stubborn."

"Tell me, my unicorn loving friend, what brings you to my door at this hour?" She moves over with her tea, Haven's tea, and the bottle of bourbon in case she'd like a splash.

"I am American." Haven's response to the question of bourbon. "Thank you." As the tea moves her direction, she sits up and she reaches out for it. And the bourbon. A liberal splash is added. She sips, swirls it in her mouth and then swallows, a smile sliding into place on her lips.

"I am reasonably certain you do not have any goblins currently, but I cannot be completely certain without some sort of empirical testing. Best monitor the underside of your bed to be on the safe side." Gaze wobbling over the rest of the room, she eyes the dissembled weapons.

"I haven't slept for two days and my bed is a frog," Haven repeats, by way of answering Ms. Sutton's last question. "Are you expecting violence?" Her eyes are still on the guns, but she removes one hand from her tea to mimic a crab claw, "Not the," she lowers her voice and puts on a French accent, "Revolution?"

"I'm pretty sure we're goblin free at the moment. It's why I moved out of Bayside and in with this grumpy ass —" she stops, remembering exactly where she is and whom she's talking to. Perhaps she aught to choose a different turn of phrase.

"If you'd like to check under the bed, you're welcome, but if I bend over just now, I may vomit." She brings her tea to her lips, sips primly, and then rests it against her thigh. "No, the violence already happened, I'm fairly sure. This is just how we keep the arsenal." Sure it is. Disassembled on the table all in a jumbled mess, with springs missing.

"No, no revolutions here, just a mild case of rage curse. If you run into anyone raging out unnecessarily, just taze the shit out of them up front, okay." Speaking of. "You wouldn't happen to have any extra tazer cartridges, would you?" No reason.

There's a percentage of a chance. A large percentage of a chance, even, that Haven is so sick that she's not picking up on any sort of subtle cues in Sutton's speech. Especially with regards to the lump in the bed.

Still.

"Moving in with someone suddenly because of goblins is not a good life choice." Though her words are admonishing, her tone is not. It seems, at the very least, she noticed the solitary bed in the room and the number of people staying in the suite. "Staying where there are goblins is also not a good life choice."

The mention of rage curses get her thinking, as most things do, and she asks, "Witch?" She follows it up with, "Nothing department issued. Those are all serialized and documented." The tea is set down on the nearest flat surface and she reaches for her bag. It's unzipped. Loudly. And from out of one of its pouches is produced a bright yellow object that is then set on the same flat surface as the tea. The logo on the side says TASER PULSE+ and it looks somewhat well-used, though new. It may also have a sticker on the backstrap of a certain pokemon that Sutton should recognize, what with it being all over Haven's butt. "You may borrow the Pika. It is temperamental, but has protected me loyally."

Her long fingers seek out the teacup again and clutch it close. The substance within is given a measured sip. Her big blue eyes seek out Sutton's hazel, even through the fog of misery she's in. "I'm trying to continue to work. It has been difficult. But I do not want to disappoint the Captain."

Sutton sits on the arm of the couch, her mug in hand. She looks at Haven for a while. "You're right. It's only partly about the goblins. A lot of women in this town have been dying." She raises her mug. "One in Bayside 502." She takes a sip. "One in Bayside 504." She lowers the mug to her palm, resting against her thigh. "I live in 503."

"No, it's not a witch. It's..." She goes quiet. She looks over, her hazel gaze rising, eyes dark in the low light. "If you'll believe it, and I really wouldn't if I hadn't seen some of this with my own eyes, it's the ghost of a serial killer. They said they trapped it, but something leaked or... I don't know." Her gaze turns to the yellow Tazer. She smiles a wan little smile. "Thank you."

When Haven mentions the Captain, Sutton's gaze flicks briefly to the sleeping form on the bed, then back to the blonde in the jammies. "You should take a couple of days and recover. Believe me when I say de la Vega won't begrudge you that." She struggles not to look at the bed again. The man's back is to them. He doesn't move. He's probably asleep, but she just can't tell. "Your worth isn't measured by your productivity. You need to rest and heal, love."

"Where are you living?"

"Home," is Haven's answer and the tone in her voice leaves no wiggle room for interpretation. Clearly it's the only home she's ever had. Her family's home. The large cabin off in the woods away from everybody else. "I may need to take a nap before I try to head back and follow your advice. It took an annoyingly significant amount of will to trodge all the way here."

"It isn't about worth, trust me. I know exactly who I am and what I want. And I want to do more than work a beat my entire career. Gray Harbor is a mystery. I want to Fox Mulder my way into the unsolved cases of this town. Find answers. Or at least find the right questions to ask."

Sutton laughs softly, coughing into a tissue. She blows her nose then sips her tea. You know, flu stuff.

"There are a lot of mysteries in this town, and I'm pretty sure half the force and at least half the town are after the same, but half the force has to fake it. Hard to do the paperwork when goblins and electro-zombies are the cause of a disturbance."The older blonde thinks on that for a couple of beats. "... I'm really glad I'm not an insurance adjuster in this town." Can you imagine a more distressing occupation?

"Make yourself at home." She finishes up her tea. "Alexander Clayton might be able to help you start, if you run across him in the wild."

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," because apparently Haven quotes Shakespeare when she's not feeling well. "I've seen Mr. Clayton around. He is a very strange person." Pot, kettle, black. When told to make herself at home, she leans back in her seat and sips deeply from the cup in her hands. "You are a good person. I hope the goblins do not get you."

"He seems to be. He's also very smart, detail oriented, and hates being touched." Sutton's heard a little about him, and met him the once. "I hear he's good at finding things." He's certainly good at finding cops and asking them a lot of questions. There have beensome murmurs around the department that are grouse-y enough flit across to Fire. Or, you know, she overheard in the break room while stealing donuts.

"Thanks, love. I'm glad the crab didn't wound you more seriously." French general crustaceans are tough little bastards.

"Ghosts are real. There are other things. The person I know who seems to know the most about them is a friend of mine. I would send you to him for a chat, but he's not a big fan of badges."

The nigh empty cup is set down on the nearest horizontal surface. "I have yet to meet a crustacean who's shell you could not crack," Haven quips and lays her head back on the couch. Moments later, she begins to snore. Loudly. With her mouth open, even.

Sutton sits there for a while as Haven snores and then the lump on the bed rustles the blankets and rolls over. And the lump on the bed begins to snore. It's a concert of snoring. "For fucks sake."

The blonde stands, moves to the dresser, digs all the small bills out of Ruiz's wallet laid atop it with his badge and sidearm, and heads out with a room key to buy every single Snickers bar in the vending machine down the way. Haven and Javier will be fine, right?