I'd make it out just to fall on my head

[kuno_ichi]

Twenty-six hours. April had been stuck in this place for twenty-six hours, and enough was enough.

Shockingly, the situation had turned out to be completely un-sinister. She was seldom as wary as Master Splinter or the guys thought she ought to be, but she'd known enough to not take Hotel Nexus or whatever it was called at face value. Since her arrival yesterday afternoon, she'd been conducting an investigation, and had spied on both guests and staff of the hotel. This had required listening through closed doors and skulking in shadowy alcoves in what she felt was a very ninja-like fashion. She'd even sneaked up to the attic to check for secret Kraang machinery, and at one point had pinched a housekeeper to determine if he was a robot. Her efforts had turned up nothing but old Christmas decorations and some tiny bottles of shampoo hurled angrily at her head.

So maybe the place really was what it claimed to be: An innocuous luxury hotel in its own tiny universe. It was strange, but she'd encountered way stranger. The employees of the hotel were predictably polite, but not in a Stepford or pod people kind of way, and most of the guests seemed pretty okay with being there. It would have been cool if she hadn't been completely unable to get back home again.

A lot could happen in twenty-six hours, and she could picture perfectly how things were going back home with her missing. Leo, putting on the good leader face but secretly worried to death; Raph having to be held back from launching an attack against the Kraang or the Foot or both; Mikey stress eating everything in sight. And Donnie, well. Donnie was probably on the cusp of having a full-on meltdown.

She really needed to get back, if only to avoid the clean up.

The door she'd arrived through had shown back up in the lobby about twenty minutes ago, but of course it wouldn't open. There was a key hole, but attempting to peer through it revealed only darkness beyond. She'd done everything she could think of: Jiggle the handle, use a credit card, sweet-talk the lock. Her patience was wearing perilously thin.

"Come on," she sighed, and gave the knob another futile turn. "Come on, come on, COME ON!"

All at once, she braced one foot against the door and began violently shaking the knob, her entire body shaking with it.

"LET. ME. AHHHhhhh!"

Hands slipping, April went tumbling backward, landing on the floor with a hard thump. Sprawled on her butt, she puffed the hair from her eyes and glared.

Comments

[vikingvamp]

"That is not the method I would have employed." Eric had watched the woman attempt to get through the door for a little while and while amusing, it only served to highlight the fact that he couldn't get out either - and his strength was considerably more.

"Not that I have been successful or otherwise I wouldn't still be here. I believe it's going to require something other than brute force."

[kuno_ichi]

Even for someone who had seen and done as much as April had, this guy was imposing. For one, he was tall in a way made him seem to loom even when he was just sitting there, with ridiculously long legs and the sort of casual demeanor that made it clear he was used to getting his way. For another, he was crazy pale, and crazy attractive, and probably never would have spoken to someone as lowly as April were they anywhere else.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that," April agreed, reaching back to tighten her ponytail. She sat there on the floor a moment, considering the door, and then swung an intensely curious glance the stranger's way, eyes narrowed like she was attempting to solve a puzzle. Which she was.

"I'm not alone in thinking it's super weird how the people who work here act like this is normal, right? I'm not talking about the alternate dimension thing, I mean like, that we're stuck here for a day or year or whatever."

[vikingvamp]

"I view it as a temporary, if necessary, inconvenience." As much as Eric disliked inconvenience, he didn't seem to be in active peril and there was no sense in worrying until there was something to worry about. Upon return to Bon Temps, Sookie would still be in a perpetual state of peril and vampires would still be deadlocked in a war with humans. His momentary absence would not be detrimental to the current state of affairs.

"It is outside the realm of normal but I suppose it depends upon your definition of normal." In the grand scheme, Eric didn't find it all that stranger than most things he'd seen.

[kuno_ichi]

There were a lot of ways April could describe being stuck at this place, and necessary was definitely not one of them. As she pushed herself lightly to her feet, she wondered what sort of home world a person had to come from to be so apathetic about whether or not they got back to it.

"Do you often find yourself randomly stuck places and unable to leave?" she asked.

[vikingvamp]

"You have no fucking idea," Eric said, lips gently curving into a smile. He still was hesitant about revealing exactly what he was and fangs were likely not the best thing to start off with. Instead, he would rather earn the trust of the humans here and feel out relationships to see which he could play to his advantage and which he could afford to lose.

"Not all of us come from mundane places."

[kuno_ichi]

"Yeah, no kidding," April replied with a quiet, faintly insulted scoff. "Don't assume I'm mundane just because I think it's weird to be stuck in some random hotel by a magical space door. You have no idea the crazy things I've seen, okay."

[vikingvamp]

She smelled human. While some ancient vampires could have deceptively young bodies, like Godric, this girl was not one of them. Eric had long lost the ability to tell the age of humans other than young versus elderly but this one seemed very, very young.

"I'm sure your short life is full of examples of the fantastic and extraordinary. As to the hotel, this is a new mechanism of entrapment but I am no stranger to the general concept of being stuck somewhere I don't want to be."

[kuno_ichi]

"Well…okay…neither am I, actually," April haltingly admitted. Being kidnapped by aliens from another dimension definitely qualified. Unfortunately, having to live in a sewer for weeks for her own safety did, too.

"I'm just saying, the method is weird," she added with a motion to the door. "And it's also weird that it doesn't seem bother anyone how completely illogical it is."

[vikingvamp]

"I prefer not to waste my energy on such things when the hotel, itself, seems to be safe enough, which leads me to believe there's time to work on this particular puzzle. Then again, necessity is the mother of invention. Set something with teeth and claws after your precious human hides and you can come up with creative solutions."

Eric, himself, preferred to watch and wait unless in active peril and the hotel did not qualify as such at the moment. His loyalties were mostly to himself, Pam and Nora, the latter of which could take care of themselves.

[kuno_ichi]

So he wasn't human. That explained a lot, April guessed. If she took Splinter and the guys out of the equation, most of the non-humans she'd met didn't have much respect for humanity as a rule.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're seriously creepy?" she asked with a frown. "Is that something you work on? Because you seem pretty proud of it."

[vikingvamp]

"I believe it actually plays to my advantage, yes. Are you unsettled?" Eric enjoyed going back and forth with humans, whether it was merely with words like this girl or with the intention to eat or fuck them. Sometimes both, though he liked to fuck before eating. It was the only polite thing to do.

"Because if you are, you probably have a good reason to be."

[kuno_ichi]

"Not…really…" April slowly answered, pulling a face. "But as we've established, I'm not exactly average. And it's more of an overall creepy, not a personally-directed creepy. If it makes you feel any better, I'm sure most teenage girls would be seriously freaked out right now."

Or wanting to jump him. Or maybe both at once. Girls were weird, and April should know.

[vikingvamp]

"I think I like you. You don't scare so easily." Eric could respect those who didn't back down from their principles, especially if those principles didn't cross his own agenda.

"What is it that you've seen in your own world that makes you so brave?"

[kuno_ichi]

"Oh, just killer alien robots and vengeful mutants," April replied with a nonchalant flip of one hand. In truth, it wasn't anything so casual as that, it was genuinely scary stuff. But she wasn't going to let this guy know that.

"So what's your deal? Why are you so into freaking people out?"

[vikingvamp]

"Intimidation shifts power dynamics. I've been around humans long enough to know fear and desire are both powerful motivators," Eric said, smiling just enough to show his fangs.

"You're too young for desire but fear works well enough. You seem to have passed the test."

[kuno_ichi]

As cool and collected as April was trying to be, she couldn't help but startle at that little flash of fang. Her heart leapt instinctively into her throat, probably some primal fight or flight thing, and then settled again when she realized this wasn't actually unexpected. She hadn't come to the vampire conclusion on her own, but it seemed a natural fit for this guy and his particular brand of creepiness.

"You were so waiting for the opportune moment to do that," she accused.

[vikingvamp]

Eric laughed because it was absolutely true. "You're more clever than you look, little human. Yes, I was. I was waiting for the opportune moment to reveal what I truly am and to see what you would do with that knowledge."

He paused for a moment, then continued, leaning in closer. "So, are you frightened?"

[kuno_ichi]

"A little," April admitted, thinking it would be stupid to not be frightened or stupid to try and lie about it. "You're my first vampire."

Her gut was telling her, though, that this guy wasn't going to harm her, and it almost never steered her wrong. For the moment, she'd ignore that he'd just implied she looked like an idiot.

"Do I have a reason to be frightened, or does it just make you feel cool to know you have that effect on people? And do you always wrap insults like compliments?"

[vikingvamp]

"There is no need for a compliment without some sort of barb unless you truly care about a person. As I have only just met you, I cannot form an opinion yet and I don't have actual feelings for you. Humans are too reliant on emotion and confuse hormones with genuine affection all the time."

Vampires could too, of course, but a vampire as old as Eric had little difficulty sorting those things out.

[trulyoracular]

At some point, Olaf may need to find shoes. It's not that walking barefoot has ever been a problem for him, seeing as he practically navigates Auckland without any footwear, but people have begun to stare at him and someone had given him a dollar in the lobby. He's okay with the money, but not entirely as okay as he'd suspect with being mistaken for someone who's homeless. He's not Kvasir or anything.

It's in pursuit of shoes that he comes across young April in quite the frustrated position. "You know," he says. "Some people knock."

[kuno_ichi]

That was a thing with drunks, wasn't it? Being able to state the obvious solution that everyone else missed? April had a very limited amount of experience with drunks, but could swear she'd seen that in at least one movie.

"I didn't even think of that," she admitted, and jumped easily to her feet. It seemed counter-intuitive to have to knock on the door to her home, but it wasn't as if this place ran on logic, and it was a door. Knocking on them was sort of what you did.

Swallowing down a renewed spark of hope, she stepped toward the door. Definitely her door, she was certain of it. She sucked in a deep breath, rapped three times on the wood, and then tried the knob…

…which turned.

April let out a loud and completely unflattering screech of joy. She was so relieved that she completely forgot to worry about leaving the door open and instead flung a hug around Olaf's neck.

[trulyoracular]

He's rather pleased by both being right about something and the hug. The hug is definitely good and Olaf occasionally thinks he'd do anything so long as he wound up with a good, warm, strong hug at the end of the day. Secondly, he's pleased because he knows shit again. It's like it's slowly fading back in, as if it took a little while to catch up and now that he's figuring it out, he finds himself in the curious quandary of not knowing whether he wants to leave just yet. "Sometimes," he opines, "being polite is the best solution."

He doesn't ask where that door leads because questions are usually directed at him and it's sort of the pattern he's fallen into, now.

[kuno_ichi]

"God, sometimes you sound so much like this one friend of mine it's seriously eerie," April replied with a laugh as she drew away. The more time she spent talking to Olaf, the more she was convinced he and Mikey would be two cheerful, oblique peas in a pod.

Pausing, she glanced back over her shoulder to the lair behind her, impossibly neat and homey but still very much obviously in the sewer. Pulling a face, she turned back to Olaf.

"I hope you forgive me for not inviting you back with me," she said. "It's seriously nothing personal."

[trulyoracular]

Olaf pulls a face and presses his hand to his heart as though he has been mortally wounded by words alone. "I give you the secret to unlocking a door and I don't even get a peek?" Olaf says, as if scoffing at the incredulity of it all (though there's that glint of teasing in his eye). "I find that a very harsh punishment."

[kuno_ichi]

"I know, I know, it sucks," April conceded with a little laugh. "Trust me, if I had a choice you would so be coming through with me if only to meet my friend Mikey. You two are soul mates."

She bit against her bottom lip and wrinkled her nose. "I might be right back, but if I'm not, thank you for being so nice. I'm really glad we met, even if it was under weird circumstances."

[trulyoracular]

Olaf isn't sure who Mikey is, but it's enough to make him faintly confused given the presence of a Mikkel in his own life. He raises a brow as he watches her say her goodbyes, something hitting him that he doesn't understand, but he rolls with it because, honestly, it's the easiest thing to do when the universe is whispering confusing shit in your ear and you're sober. "Me, too," he agrees. "Enjoy the pizza."

[kuno_ichi]

"Oh, there is no doubt about that," April replied with a low laugh, despite that Olaf wouldn't get the joke. She really had no choice when it came to pizza, not with her current living situation.

With a brief wave and a smile, she stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her… and then immediately opened it back up again. Her clothes were different, and she had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

Drawing up short, she blinked at Olaf.

"You haven't been waiting here the whole time, have you?"

[trulyoracular]

There's times when Olaf closes his eyes, lets the miasma and atmosphere (so, the marijuana) take him away, and lets time become a construct that non-gods have to obey by. This isn't actually one of those times. "I've only been standing here for a few minutes," he replies, cocking his head to the side as he realizes what's going on. "It must be a portal to a whole other world," he says. "Time must not be steady."