all_inclusive | when it rains, it pours

Thea Queen hasn't had the best time of it in, well, years. First her brother and father were missing and presumed dead and then Ollie pulled a Lazarus and showed back up with a bunch of scars and a badass attitude and Thea hardly knew who he was anymore. A vigilante has been saving/terrorizing the city for the better part of a year and the father of the guy she's crushed on forever tried to bury half the city under rubble.

Oh, and, she's actually the daughter of that maniac and not her actual dad and she only found this out after her mom barely escaped prison time. It's been a hell of a ride. She's been kidnapped, cheated on and just about everything in between and while she's a rich girl, she's by no means sheltered. Any and everything that could happen to a person before the age of twenty has happened to her and Thea isn't sure if she wants to deal with it anymore. That's why she decides to go with Malcolm Merlyn. She's not doing that great in Starling so she might as well take a chance on something different, right? Thea Queen isn't working out for her so well so maybe being someone new is the right way to go. Maybe disappearing and turning into someone else is the best thing for her right now.

As she pulls open the car door, a strange thing happens. Instead of crawling into the backseat of a car to sleep while she escapes to God knows where, she tumbles into a closet and hits her head on a doorknob. That's...weird. What else is weird is that when she tugs open the closet, she's inside what looks like a hotel lobby instead of anywhere she recognizes.

"What the hell is going on?" Thea is aware this is rhetorical and, frankly, not even a really good rhetorical question. She basically lost her skills to make witty quips along with shooting her biological father and discovering that everyone important to her in her life has lied to her so she isn't really running on all cylinders. She's running on...less than half. It's not ideal.

"Anyone?" While part of her hopes she's in Starling so she has a chance to orient herself another part of her hopes that she's not in Starling and, instead, she's somewhere that she can get a blank slate. Thea wants to be anyone but Thea Queen right now and she thinks if she's outside of her old stomping grounds, she might just have a chance to start over new again.

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He's seventeen, so a little bit younger, but not by much. He tries to keep his body language as non-threatening as possible, the skateboard hanging by his side, his other hand in the pocket of his hoody, relaxed and open.

"Nexus Hotel. I'm not entirely sure where, but I'm banking on another dimension." He takes his hand out of his pocket slowly, holding it out. "I'm Peter Parker."

Thea shakes his hand but the look on her face is incredulous. "Another dimension? That's a little too sci-fi for me. We can't actually be in another dimension."

There's been a lot of weird in her life over the past year or so but Thea draws the line at other dimensions. That's bordering into insanity territory.

Yeah, he gets that. Of course, he'd been more excited than incredulous. "It's a lot sci-fi," he admits, uncertain as to how to prove this to her. After a moment, he holds up a hand and beckons her. "Come with me. I'll show the garden outside. I think you'll be swayed."

Since, from the garden, it's obvious that the hotel is an island floating in the middle of space.

Thea has been in a lot of gardens in her day and she's not really sure how this particular one is going to sway her opinion that this is some wacky hotel in another dimension versus some place she ended up after a bender.

"All right, I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a minute or two. Lead the way, Sci-Fi Boy."

"Sci-Fi Boy?" He grins at the nickname. "All right. I guess I can deal with that one. Right this way," he says as he leads her toward the nearest door outside. "Peter Parker, by the way, in case Sci-Fi Boy isn't quite enough for you."

"Thea Queen," she exchanges in kind. "I don't know, Sci-Fi Boy has a ring to it. Still, Peter Parker it is. Where are you from?"

It's like some weird version of a blind date or a frosh mixer and Thea decides she will just go with it. When she steps outside the doors, her jaw drops. What the hell? "Are we in...space?"

"New York City," Peter answers as they walk down the hallways.

That's one way to look at it. Honestly, whatever helps keep her sane. Peter watches her, his hands tucked in his pockets, weight shifted back slightly on his heels. "Yeah, something like that. I'm not exactly sure how it works. Like I said, another dimension."

"Yeah, no kidding. I'm never going to doubt you again," she says, taking in the sheer weirdness of the sight before her. Thea's world is a little strange, yes, but she's never experienced anything that seems to bend the laws of logic into a tiny little pretzel.

"So, how long have you...how did you get here? A door?"

He steps back, arms crossing over his chest as he watches her, nodding a little at her question. It's a lot to deal with. He'd had some problems coping at first as well. He'd been lucky because most of the time he can find his door home, visit his aunt and come back to visit the hotel.

"About, six months I guess. I've been going back and forth between here and home though," he confesses. "I found a door back home. Not everyone does though. Sometimes, when you do, time passes differently there than here. It's like, you can be home for a few weeks and no time has passed here. Sometimes, you can't always find the door back either."

"So you're telling me that this place can be my own private mental vacation? Because I am so here for that."

Thea is no stranger to recreational drugs and while she's tried to put that behind her since she's a responsible business owner now, thanks to Isabel Rochev she doesn't even have that. She has nothing except herself since apparently she's the daughter of two mass murderers and everything she's been told is a lie.

The idea of a place where she can escape, even if it's only for a little while, is something so appealing that she's afraid it will be yanked away if she tries to reach for it. "Is that how it works for you? No time passes at home?"

Peter hesitates, thinking about that for a moment. "Yeah. I guess it can."

Honestly, Peter had thought of it in those terms, but never with those words. He'd thought of this place as an escape, an adventure.

The second question though, he can answer that easily enough. "Yeah. No one ever realizes I've even been gone. I don't think they do here either."

But then he'd never asked that for sure.

"It would be nice to have a place where nobody notices me and isn't in my face," Thea says.

It's been entirely too long since she's had anything approaching a normal life and if she can sneak around and have it here, she's going to. She's going to have as normal a life as possible and spread her visits back home few and far between.

That makes Peter look over at her, watching her for a moment. "I guess that's common for you at home."

She wouldn't mention it otherwise, but it's more of a prod for her to tell him more if she's so inclined.

Peter goes back and forth in his mindset about whether going home is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, he needs to check on his aunt. On the other, it just hurts to see Gwen every day and know that he shouldn't have a relationship with her. Of course, Gwen is here as well, but it's easier to avoid her here.

"Understatement," Thea says, equal parts relieved and uncomfortable that he guessed.

"It's...complicated. I've had a lot go on in a really short amount of time and not a lot of time to really get to process anything. I just need a breather, you know?"

Peter nods because he does understand what she's talking about even if he hasn't quite experienced the same sort of pressure. His had come in a different way.

"I understand that. You should be able to get some rest here. Just be careful which doors you step through."

when it rains, it pours

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