Surprise! Elephant!

[npcz]

{Conrad Hotel Basement party thread!}The headwaitress at the Conrad hotel has seen an awful lot in her time working there. Angels, demons, shapeshifters, elementals who weren't aware they were elementals, and, on one particularly notorious occasion, an elemental who seemed to only be able to work with balsamic vinaigrette

Comments

[clockwork_doc]

Doc was just passing through, intending on maybe finding someone who had something to do with the hotel and tell them about the possibility of problems with the locks. Hey, if it happened to Ricky, it could happen to someone else. He wasn't expecting to find a full buffet in the middle of the lobby. He stops for a moment and stares. Then, slowly, he makes his way over to see what they have. He's been living off sandwiches for the past few days, more or less. Some variety would be nice.

[rickynotmickey]

Ricky isn't about to turn down free food. He'd gotten his shower, which meant he was in a much more chipper mood. Relaxed, one could say. Which was quite a lot, saying what he'd been through lately. Although, really, the chipper tended to be a defense mechanism. Jokes to deflect

[clockwork_doc]

Doc looks over and grins. He wasn't expecting to see Ricky again so soon either, but hey, he's not complaining. "Oh, hi, Ricky. Finally got that shower, hmm?"

He continues looking over what was brought down, before grabbing a plate and some chicken. It smells absolutely delicious. "I know," he agrees, finding some veggies. "Apparently an elephant just appeared upstairs, so we get the food they already prepared." He shrugs, wondering when he got so blase to Chicago's weirdness that an elephant appearing in the hotel doesn't even faze him. "I was looking for someone to warn about the locks myself. You've got me wondering if yours was the only one that was broken." His still works, at least, but he has no real way of testing any of the other rooms.

[rickynotmickey]

"An elephant?" Ricky says, raising his eyebrows. With everything that's gone on, it's not the most unlikely thing he can think of. "Well, at least it didn't appear on top of the food, right?" His manners leave something to be desired as he digs in, but he'd never really been one to consider table manners to be the most important thing in the world. One could say that his manner-manners in general leave something to be desired.

"You'd fink," he mumbles, food still in his mouth. At least he manages to cover his mouth while talking. He swallows, continuing. "That it can't just be one. It just doesn't sense."

[clockwork_doc]

"Yes, an elephant," Doc confirms. "That's what they said, anyway, and I have no reason to disbelieve them." He shakes his head a bit and eats some broccoli. "Once you've been here long enough, random elephants appearing out of nowhere seems almost normal." He chuckles a bit. "Yeah, really. We were fortunate there."

"It doesn't," Doc nods, frowning. "That's why I wanted to warn people." He glances around. "Suppose we could tell the staff that brought this down. They could pass the message on to the hotel's owner." Martha would make sure everything's ship-shape, from what he's heard.

[rickynotmickey]

"I guess it's amazing what you can get used to, huh?" Ricky asks, actually finishing chewing this time before starting to talk. "I guess I don't see it as normal, but it's certainly not something I can't believe. Either way, it's food, right? Can't say no to free food."

He shovels some more food down his throat before going back to the subject of locks. "That makes sense," he says, nodding slowly. Being locked out of a room is not something he hopes that someone else will have to deal with. Of course, he's also not aware that no one else is having this problem. Or at least they won't as long as he stays away from their doors as well.

[clockwork_doc]

"Exactly," Doc says, a little steam venting from his elbows as he grabs a piece of bread. "I've been here nearly a year, and I've seen my share of strange things by now." He grimaces a little at that. Wow, one entire year. It's a bit of a sobering thought. "And I was used to strange before I came here." Given that before he came here he was stuck in Arcadia, land of the faeries. . . . "But yes, free food's always good."

Doc nods back. "We have enough problems around here without having to deal with broken locks as well." He smirks slightly. "I can't go around fixing them all." That would probably be a near-impossible feat, given the fact the hallway's kind of neverending.

[rickynotmickey]

"I think I've had so much strange hitting me over the head lately that I can't even feel it anymore," Ricky says, rolling his eyes. "I don' know. You've got to take the punches as they come, right? No point wincing before they hit you. And then, if you have a chance, knock as many back as you can." He nods, starting back in on his food as he finishes speaking. Talk. Stuff face. Talk. Sometimes there is some overlap, but generally, he manages to swallow before speaking.

He nods at Doc's mention of not being able to fix all of the locks, swallowing hard. "I doubt you've got enough odds and ends to do the thingamajigy" he manages, swirling his finger around at Doc's pocket.

[clockwork_doc]

"I know that feeling," Doc nods. "You're right, there's not much you can do about it. Just have to 'go with the flow,' as they say." What else can you do, really? Doc's been here almost a year, and he doesn't know.

He can't help a snort of laughter at Ricky's description of his abilities. "Probably not," he agrees, still chuckling a little. "Not to mention it doesn't work all the time. I've got to really concentrate on it." He eats a chunk of his bread. "That isn't to say I couldn't take a shot at fixing them the regular way. But that would take God knows how long."

[rickynotmickey]

"Well, I'm glad it worked when it did, 'cause there's no way that door would still be standing if it didn't," Ricky says, grinning. He needed that shower, honest to goodness, not just to get clean, but it was a great destresser. There are a lot of things Ricky wants right now, but at least the shower had been attainable.

"So, you always been nifty with machines?" Ricky asks. "That's a good skill. Definitely comes in handy."

[clockwork_doc]

"Pretty much, yeah," Doc replies, having some more vegetables. "Like I said, I'm an inventor. I read the works of Jules Verne at the age of 11, and that started me down the road to becoming a scientist. I admit, not all of my inventions worked or were particularly practical, but -- when an idea hits me, I tend not to let it go." He grins a little. "My life's dream is to build a time machine someday. I've got the part responsible for the actual traveling built here, but the rest is still on the drawing board." Which is a little frustrating, but Doc can be patient.

[rickynotmickey]

"Well, honestly, as long as they're not hurting anyone, build whatever you bloody please," Ricky says, waving his hand dismissively. God, this chicken is delicious. "But once you cross that line..."

He trails off, shrugging. It's something he'd rather not talk about right now. Something he's glad to have escaped and at the same time, really wishes he could go back to fix.

"And I'd be careful with that time travel stuff. It can get messy."

[clockwork_doc]

Doc gives Ricky a bit of an even look. "Trust me, there's nothing I'd like less than to build something that hurts people." He knows this from personal experience. Doc worked on the Manhattan Project. It left him with a bit of a sour look on nuclear power. Not to mention what happened to him in Arcadia. "I want to make the world better for everyone, not worse."

"Trust me, I've done the research," Doc nods, absently jabbing at his own chicken. "I know how to avoid paradoxes and the like." In a theoretical setting, anyway. "I don't want to accidentally end the universe either."

[rickynotmickey]

"That's where everyone starts," Ricky says, really failing at not sounding cynical. But in his sense of the universe, it's very easy for someone to start off doing the right thing and then just devolve into obsession. "Sorry. Don't mind me," he adds. "Long day."

He waves his hand absentmindedly, forcing a grin back across his face.

"I think if you could get it working, that could be pretty awesome. Just don't trap yourself anywhere, you know?"

[clockwork_doc]

This is a bit of a tender topic for Doc. He shakes his head firmly, steam hissing out his elbows. "I've been through a lot of what happens when someone twists that idea," he says softly. "Trust me -- it's a path I never want to go down." He'd rather someone shoot him then ever let him turn into Andrew.

Doc tries to smile again -- hey, they've got free and excellent food. This is no time to be cranky. "That's what emergency tool kits are for," he says, half-jokingly. Of course, he's seen the movies he's supposed to come from, and he knows how easy it is for something to go wrong. "I'll take all the proper precautions."

[rickynotmickey]

Ricky hasn't seen the movies, actually. He really hadn't watches many films as a kid. He has bigger and better things to worry about. Sometimes, he wonders what it would be like if he'd chosen to go along with the flow. Well, he'd probably be converted, but that's not the point. No real time to think about it now, though. You can't unmake choices. Just have to keep going.

The subject is obviously a hard spot for both of them, so Ricky jumps along with Doc's subject change. "Yeah, but sometimes even those people who are used to it and stuff get stuck places. I guess it's just par for the course, and you hope you can think fast enough on your feet to get through it." He's thinking about that Doctor bloke who had shown up right before he'd shown up here. Everything had been under control until he'd started messing things up. Odd man. Odd man indeed.