2019-09-28 - Motel California (Fever Dream)

Roxy was sewing rhinestones onto a costume for the upcoming Sinners and Saints event at the Platinum Cabaret. She was diligently at work, in her pjs, a vintage pale pink babydoll nightie, panties, and short white satin robe. Now she's wearing her night things out at the pool in public and she doesn't remember how she got here. Her toes curl, disturbed that she has no shoes on outside. Or pants.

"Hello?" she calls out, in her Finnish accent. "Is anyone here?" Bright blue eyes sweep the area, as she tries with all her might to recall how she got out here.

The motel's resident grumpy ass cop has been holed up in his room for the past few days, watching bad reruns of early aughts sitcoms and doing an awful lot of sleeping. And reading. And trying to catch up on paperwork with a laptop that's been on the fritz ever since his girlfriend helpfully tossed him on top of it. He's been plugging away for the past few hours, trying to get a report finished up, and doesn't remember dozing off. And couldn't say with any certainty that he hadn't actually been sitting by the hotel's shitty little outdoor pool, smoking instead of working.

But he is. This fact is irrefutable. He's attired in a ratty black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark, faded jeans and combat boots. Cigarette between two fingers, bulky shape of something concealed at his hip that's not too difficult to guess at, and half an eye on the current occupants of the pool. Roxy's query draws his gaze her way, where it loiters a few moments in silence. They can't be seated too far from one another, so he addresses her conversationally, "Good evening."

A shadow, lit by those old fashioned torches that are out, grows along the side of the hotel until from around a corner appears Haven. The pixie-haired blonde is dressed in a bright pink tank with Cheer Bear on it, a pair of rainbow colored short-shorts cover her bum. On her feet are plain flip-flops and all of her nails are painted a ridiculous shade of bright yellow.

She's also wearing a vaguely confused look on her face.

After a moment of hesitation, she continues into the rear courtyard towards the pool, Roxy and Ruiz. She stops just short of the other two, eyes going from Roxy to Ruiz and holding there. "I'm pretty sure I was at home in bed. If a dragon shows up, I advise running, sir."

'Lounge chairs' 'unseasonably warm' and 'unstaffed outdoor bar' are all the descriptors needed for Mark to be loitering in a heavyset woolen coat. Let's go all out and say 'Thunderstorm flickering and flashing out over the water' are all the reason needed for him to be drinking from an open-capped glass bottle of vodka the size of his forearm. Considering he stands at a touch over 6'0 and has the build to match his coat, it's not a small bottle.

His slightly thinning, touch overgrown hair sprouts away from his head, accentuating his widow's peak and not really doing much to dissuade from the first impression his general appearance and lack of shaving for about a week would give most people. It's a soft belch he gives after a long, loud swig, eyes lazily rolling over to the sound of voices that stirred up and caused him to peek around from behind the bar. He wasn't trying to pry it open. What?

"Fuck me. An' I thought I was the one hittin' it a little hard tonight."

Roxy damn near jumps out of her skin at the sound of Ruiz's voice. She and the man have had tense interactions at best. Even when the man is kind, he's scary as hell. She clutches the neck of her robe closed as if half the town hasn't seen her naked at her job. "Javier!" she blurts out. "You scared me. I do not remember coming outside. This is strange." She rubs at a temple as her eyes move to Haven, also equally underdressed for the outdoors. "Am I dreaming?" she asks.

She moves to one of the torches and mumbles, "These weren't here earlier today. I would remember. They have that sign about no flame." And then her eyes light on the pitcher of water, and how parched her throat feels. She moves towards the bar.

Ruiz's expression turns briefly speculative when the stripper he'd addressed looks like she's about to suffer a heart attack. His eyes skim lower for a moment, and he might be about to comment on her lack of clothing. But bites his tongue, barely. "Lo siento," he murmurs instead, tracking her with his eyes as she pushes to her feet and moves off for the bar. "Dragon?" The pixie-haired rookie is fixed with a look, after a long while of studying Roxy. "Where did you.. never mind. Don't answer that." His cigarette is ashed, and pulled from again, and yes, he's keeping tabs on the homeless looking guy in a woolen coat with the economy-sized bottle of vodka.

For the record, Haven hasn't seen Roxy naked for her job, but she doesn't give the woman more than a single head-to-toe glance before her eyes move to the bar and those keycards resting there. "I crashed a unicorn into it and made my escape. St George, I am not."

She starts over towards the bar, giving Mark an appraising look. The keycards and the pad are glanced over. A second is spent thinking it over before she picks up the one marked with a leaf. Trees are, after all, her family business.

"The pines were roaring on the height, the winds were moaning in the night..." About as she starts to mumble these words, a breeze kicks up through the trees, hot and belabored rather than cool and soothing.

Aaaaaaand Mark's gone back to ignoring people. One's giving him eyes, one's showing him thighs, and one's talking about unicorns. ...You try making that rhyme on short notice.

Screwing the cap back on his bottle with a hefty bout of lip-smacking to make sure none of that last swig was wasted, his eyes drop down to the top of the bar, gaze slowly drifting across the items as he runs a hand through the wild scraggle of hair atop his head. "Oh, man. They started using picture cards? She only gave me a room numbe-"

That's as far as he gets, Haven, for all the guy's awareness, seemingly appearing out of nowhere to snag a card away from the bar. "You know the system? S'at one mean fourteen?" Wait. No. He looks confused for a moment. Was it fourteen? He was half into the bottle before this when he got told the number, so that information has gone the way of his social security, his bank account number, how many parking tickets he got last year, and the date of a very important court appearance in Seattle he's supposed to be at. That is to say, 'Gone, and will probably bite him in the ass later.'

Shrugging, he scoops up the cudgel card, deciding to examine it with an overly long sniff. "Fuckit. Get the right one eventually."

Choose Wisely. The words seem to dance in front of Roxy as she looks over the key cards. The images are so different. "Are these for us?" she asks, looking back over her shoulder at the others. The cudgel and the leaf have been taken. Her fingertips brush from the cloud to the star. She was almost a star and it all burned to the ground at the hands of her own parents. She plucks up the card bearing the cloud instead.

Ruiz watches in silence as the others that have been dragged into this strange little sequence of events file up to the bar, and start plucking.. cards off the counter? What the fuck? That prickly sense of things not being anywhere near right, only intensifies. He doesn't move from his seat in one of the deck chairs; his cigarette is dragged off of, and smoke sifts from his nose and lips as he watches things unfold.

The leaf card is held lightly in her hand for only a moment before Haven shakes her head. Her blue eyes seek out Roxy and light upon the cloud in her hands. Something in her gut churns. It could be the tacos from earlier or maybe there's something else to it. "I think this card might be for you, ma'am."

The leaf card is held out to Roxy laid out on her left palm.

There are four glasses. There's a pitcher of water.

Mark's a puzzle solver, even though there's no puzzle here. It's just the Suites trying a new card system and dealing with dehydration in the warm weather. But hey, when in Rome, bring your own Vodka and fill the glasses up with it. There's even four of them here. That works out perfectly. Once he's done just that, he screws the top on his bottle yet again, tucking the bottle into the wide pocket of his coat, tucking the card into the back pocket of a pair of loose and comfortable sweatpants with the belt-cord hanging loose, and then picking up three of the glasses, two in one hand, one in the other. They're shot-taken in order. There's one left over for whoever reaches it first, because he's generous.

The last glass touching back down to the bar coinciding with the flash of lightning overhead is nothing to worry about.

Roxy's bright blue eyes move to the sky as the lightning cracks overhead, shivering slightly at the sound. At Haven's words she blinks at the woman, and hands the cloud card towards her. "Is this one for you then?" she asks, swapping out for the one with the leaf on it. She peers down at it curiously. "But what are they for? They don't look like the ones for here," she murmurs softly. She watched Mark hog all the glasses with a little pout.

Ruiz finally eases out of the deck chair he'd been lounging in, notably not working on his report like he should be doing, and touches his cigarette to his lips as he makes his way toward the bar. Vodka, thankfully, is not his poison of choice; he hunts briefly for someone resembling a 'tender, then finding no-one, opts instead to go pour himself some tequila. A crumpled bill from his pocket ought to pay for it. Hopefully. His gaze roves toward the back of the hotel that's visible from where they're standing, and he frowns slightly. He does not reach for the last remaining card, with the star on it.

"I have no idea. I can't even tell you how I knew that the leaf card wasn't the right one. We are, all of us, dreaming. I am sure of it. And the usual rules never apply in dreams." Once she has the cloud card in hand, Haven turns it over and over before nodding. "Something about this card feels right."

She smiles faintly at Roxy and shrugs. "We should probably get indoors before the storm. It looks like it's going to be a bad one. And it's generally a bad idea to ignore your gut feelings in a dream."

With that, she wanders off with that cloud card in hand and for the first time notices a change in the courtyard all around them. Spinning in a quick circle, she frowns. "That is no good. At all." She looks for a door to the now completely enclosed courtyard and only sees two so she marches towards the closest one, firing off a long and lingering look at sky above. "Feels like hot breath."

"New system, obviously." Mark sniffs, looking at Roxy with not a whit of apology at the sight of her pout. "Probably some kinda fucked up new marketin' system. Nobody'll pay a premium for 'Room 11', but when you get the key to the 'Forest Suite', you feel all special. Like a rich person." His logic is interrupted by one more burp, holding up a finger mid-sentence and patting out his chest with the side of a fist to make sure it's well and truly cleared.

And then Haven's getting a look. Not a look-over. Not a look at. Just a look that immediately suggests he's certain she's cracked in the head. He turns on his feet to look around the courtyard, eyebrow raising as he checks out the new decor they've added since with a mix of apathy and more apathy. "A dream? They added fuckin' torches, Lady." Yes, he's moving to follow towards that door, but not before also scooping up the left over card, throwing Ruiz a casual shrug. More cards, more chance of one of them opening the room he's been called to. "Oh! I get it. You're one-a the marketing people."

Roxy looks down at her white satin robe and her white cotton nightie. They are not really meant to be rained on, and it sure looks like the rain is going to come down. She turns to go back to her room and confusion makes her brow furrow. Why are there only two doors now? And...where are the other ways out? When did this place become enclosed? Where is the boardwalk? "Missä minä olen?" she queries. Where am I? She begins moving on bare feet towards the two doors, looking for a way back to her room. The chill wind makes her shudder, and then the stench makes her move more quickly, to try the card in the door on the right.

Ruiz isn't so sure about the storm rolling in, or that faint scent of rotting.. something that's being blown in with it. But he's equally uncertain about these weird ass keys, and the hotel that suddenly isn't the one he was staying at.. when? How long have they been here? He's suddenly uncertain. His dream-tequila's finished off, and he continues to drag off his smoke as he watches the others converse, and start filtering toward doors. Paranoid cop is paranoid, and waits to see what'll happen before moving his ass.

"I do not work in the private sector," Haven says and looks back towards the hobo-esque Mark with a smile. "I am merely a humble public servant recommending that you get indoors as soon as possible because monsters."

Before attempting the lock on the left side door, she reaches to the small of her back and comes back with a small pistol. She racks the slide of the weapon, a little black Sig Sauer, before sticking her cloud keycard in the scanner of the left-hand door and tries the handle. The pistol is held in her off-hand, canted slightly down towards the ground for the moment. Naturally, she doesn't stand /directly/ in front of the door either, but just slightly off to the side. Her movements, despite her Carebear attire, smack of cop.

Does Mark notice the cop-ness? Yes. Mark cops the cop-ness.

He also cops the weird words coming out of her mouth. The blink he does? It's slow and disjointed enough that he's effectively winking with one eye and then the other, with a slow overlap inbetween. "First dreams, then monsters. You been breakin' into the evidence store for a little nose-dusting in your downtime? 'Cause I think you've been gettin' mostly benzocaine lately." Which is probably a sign you should arrest better dealers.

Roxy's speaking nonsense words too. That'd be why he follows his little mental path with a roll of the eyes and a groan. "Oh great. There's two of 'em."

Roxy looks over at Haven, the outfit and gun so incongruous she finds it funny. "Monsters? That is silly. There is no such thing as monsters." Oh dear sweet summer child. She looks back at Ruiz, brow arching that he doesn't seem to be coming in from the impending rain. That seems odd. It will water down his tequila, won't it? Then her door opens.

"Oh, it is so beautiful," the former ballerina says softly. She steps towards the threshold, wanting to be in that beautiful place and not this fetid smelling, rain-threatening one.

It's less the sense of vague forboding that he's starting to get, from that rotting smell carried in from the water, and more the fact that his only known companions in this place are intent upon investigating these.. portals to other places. There's no other way to describe what Ruiz is seeing, and it visibly unsettles him. His smoke is put out, dropped in his empty tequila glass, and he pushes off the bar finally. A rustle of clothing as he goes for his own gun; also a sig sauer. P220 legion, glossy grey beast. Might be coincidental that he shares a fondness for the brand with Haven. Or not. They're both LEOs who know what they like.

"I wouldn't. If I were you." He's talking to Roxy, referring to the door that leads to that idyllic scene in the woods. He paces closer, movement slow, a dull click as he drops a round into the chamber of his weapon. "I don't trust it."

"I do not have time for naïveté. It will get all of us killed," the pajama clad cop states flatly, flicking a glance between Roxy and Mark. "What part of any of this makes any sense? What part of any of this makes you think this is the real world?" Her tone is biting and completely unforgiving.

Reaching to the small of her back again, she comes back up with a small flashlight. It's turned on and she holds it in support of her pistol-wielding left hand, sweeping the corridor beyond her door. On slow, sure feet she steps inside cautiously, the cool air inside prickling her skin.

"Quarter bottle of Vodka, gut feelin', and a rash I got on my inner thigh that's a real incentive to move so I can get something slathered all over it." Mark tosses aside to Haven in reply, still giving her The Look that suggests she's insane. This comes even after he's looked in to the room that now contains a goddamned vista of greenery and delight.

His hand points to it, and he flashes the young cop a grin. "See? Fuckin' Forest Suite."

And Roxy is either getting shoved in or shoved past as he moves forward to enter the door. Eitherway, that's a solid whiff of vodka, cordite and cooking oil she'd be getting off of him.

What is not to trust with an impossible idyllic forest scene, complete with beautiful cottage, on the other side of an equally impossible door in a place that has changed seventeen times in the last five minutes? Roxy hesitates, looking back at Ruiz and his gun. She's seen that before, when he scared off the drunk frat boys who were harassing her. He protected her then. Is he protecting her now? "I don't understand. If I'm dreaming, what can it hurt?" She has so much to learn about Gray Harbor. And then Mark is jostling past her and she staggers against the door frame boggling at the rudeness. "If this is My dream, why is there a rude homeless man accosting me?"

What's not to trust? What can it hurt? "Everything," is Javier's reply, his nose wrinkling and his dark eyes squinting up slightly at the acrid scent that rolls in. As Haven goes left, and Mark goes right, and Roxy's sort of pushed along with him, he starts to look increasingly agitated. Sure, he could start barking orders, but the homeless guy looks like he might not take too kindly to that. And then he might find himself having to shoot him. And then he'd have a body on his hands. "Jodidamente ridículo," he grumbles. "We should stay together." Even if he thinks the Forest Suite is the wrong way. "Haven. Haven!"

"Then they should come this way because I am not setting foot in that forest," Haven calls back firmly over her shoulder without quite taking her eyes off the corridor in front of her. She adjusts her grip on her Sig, then continues on down the corridor in front of her. "I hope they do not die, but I do not like their odds."

This doesn't need detail. There's the smell of roasted meats.

Mark doesn't even pause to think about it.

>Forward, with additional saunter.

"At least the homeless guy's wearing PANTS."

Roxy hangs onto the door frame and waits for Ruiz at his plea to stick together. She calls back to Mark. "Sir! Sir you should wait for the rest!" At Mark's words she blushes and looks down at her state of undress. "J-Javier? I'm confused. Where do I go?" she asks the only person she knows.

Ruiz seems disinclined to put much effort into convincing Mark to join them. He doesn't even know the guy's goddamned name; what's he going to call him, homeless guy with the vodka bottle? An agitated breath's blown out his nose, and in the face of Roxy's indecision, opts for bossiness: "This way. Come. Stay behind me." One last look over his shoulder, toward the water, and then he follows Haven in after checking to see whether Roxy's following him.

Roxy rushes back out the door, barely making it before it slams shut on Mark and his roasted meat fantasy. She then follows Ruiz, sticking close behind him, her eyes wide as saucers beneath her bangs. "You are sure this is the way?" she whispers to him. This place looks like it requires being quiet.