all_inclusive | You got a new horizon, it's ephemeral style.

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You got a new horizon, it's ephemeral style.

The sharp edge of shock and white static thrum of continuous fear upon arriving at the Nexus hotel had begun to fade, mostly because Darcy was five shots of Patrón into her demise and moving fast. It had been a conscious choice when she realized that she was a long, long way from home with no way back to just get so drunk she didn't give a shit, and it was an official success. Darcy had long moved past complacency and, thanks to the Patrón, was now inching towards the level of boisterous that would have her table dancing, if she thought this place was of the sort of calibre that could handle a bitchin', interpretive rendition of "Disco Stick." Since it probably wasn't that sort of place and Darcy didn't care to be escorted out of the hotel and onto some planet she had no working concept of, she was keeping her ass still and settling for occasionally humming.

She'd tried a door for the first time ever that day in search retail therapy and had actually found some boots to pair with her jeans that looked like they could fend off an alien invasion or whatever the fuck had been the catalyst behind landing her in the Nexus, though she assumed, as always, it was on either Jane or her boyfriend. Since she'd mustered the nerve to go shopping mostly because it was too ~~abysmally~~ pleasantly warm on the Nexus grounds for the clothes she'd been wearing in Norway, she'd felt she'd done enough for her day and could reward herself by basting in checked worry and booze. The hotel had given her a phone that worked as long as she wasn't trying to call anyone she needed to call, and the sheer level of frustration involved in being defeated by technology had been enough motivation to skip dinner and head straight for the drinking. She felt a little light-headed, but the blissful fog of approaching ignorance was definitely worth it.

She waved one of the waitresses over to order a sixth shot, and upon recognizing she had yet to truly speak to anyone she hadn't stopped to ask for help, Darcy turned sideways in her chair, fluffed her hair, and gave the room in general a slow look. She thought about smiling to make herself look welcoming, but since she'd be smiling at no one in particular and was no doubt drunk enough that all the muscles in her face wouldn't cooperate at the same time, she held off.

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"Clothes," Alex relays excitedly. "It's called Xela and it does all these really nice high fashion clothes." And maybe only occasionally does she sell child-made bracelets or baby tops that get adopted to be for teens instead. "I mean, sure, it's kind of quiet sometimes and I have to find alternate sources of income like working in this place, but it's still better than working for anyone else. The boss is super awesome at my place," she boasts happily.

"Xela," Darcy repeated, then slow dawning pushed its way through the tequila in her brain and she smiled wider. "Oh, I get it! That's cute, and a clothing store has to be fun, I would think. Where is it located? I don't think I've ever heard of a store called Xela, but since the boss is so bitchin' I'll have to go check it out."

"It's downtown Chicago," she says. "I mean, not downtown. You go downtown, then you take a left. Then a left. Then a few miles, then a lot of miles, then one more left. And then you can't park between twelve and two," she explains, "and then you'll find me, right across from the Chinese restaurant," she says excitedly. "You should totally come by! I mean, I need money to live and eat." Eating is way more important. "But maybe I can hook you up with a bracelet or something!"

Darcy looked at Alex as she rambled off the directions, her brow furrowed a second too long after Alex had stopped talking as she attempted to assemble those directions in a way that made sense, then realized she'd never even been to Chicago. "You'll have to write those directions down!" Darcy said. "I've never been to Chicago, but when I go someday I want to look you up. And have Chinese at that restaurant, if it's any good."

"I love Chinese food," Alex says, with the kind of seriousness that's due to exist when discussing something so important. "Other kinds, too. I mean, pretty much you can name a food and I promise you that I'm half in love with it. Except pancakes. I'm only like, a quarter into them," is her thoughtful reply, already scribbling down the address with a little map made up of stick figures and figures that generally maybe resemble male genitalia, because she can't not.

"What do you do?" she asks.

"Oh my God, Chinese food is amazing," Darcy said with the sort of deep passion one usually reserved for religious conviction. "I could eat Chinese food every day, three times a day. Food in general, man. Big thumbs up from me." Darcy gave a thumbs up in example. "Except for... Well, no. There's no food I'm not a fan of."

"I'm in college," Darcy said with distracted interest as she watched Alex scribble. "Political Science major."

"That's awesome," Alex raves, already feeling kind of excited about Darcy. She's pretty sure that she's one of Alex's new favorite people. "Seriously, I always wish I was smart enough to understand politics. Or science," she adds. "I mean, there's definitely a reason I own a store and not a thought factory," she jokes with a guffaw. "And it's because yeah, I'm dumb," she continues with a shrug of her shoulders. "Can't undo what's done. Lincoln said that, I think."

Darcy blinked at Alex for a few seconds before laughing in outright delight and leaning over to fling her arms around the other woman in a hug. "Alex, you're amazing," she said as she leaned back to resume her former position in her own seat. "I am definitely going to Chicago to find your store. Is it before the giant slew of dicks, or after?" Darcy asks, pointing to the drawings Alex had made on her 'directions' paper. This was really a far better time than Darcy had ever imagined for herself when she decided to go out.

Alex grins and cranes her head to the side, pointing at a little square in the middle of some of the dicks -- she really kind of wishes she still believed they were just really awesome lollipops. "Right here, beside the puppy-looking bushes," she says. "You're kind of awesome, too," Alex says. "And don't get me wrong, because I like some excitement and danger as much as the next girl, but you're kind of more normal than most of the people I run into."

"Yeah?" Darcy said as she took the pen Alex had left near the paper to begin drawing pubic hair around the base of the penises. "Well, thank you. I try to be pretty decent, but the people around here do look interesting. Have you met many of them?"

"I work at the shop," Alex says. "So I've got a lot of experience meeting people. I mean, some of them even like buying stuff, but mostly there's a lot of people watching. You wouldn't believe the kind of crazy things I've seen. Weird, weird stuff. It makes me think I'm not weird enough."

"Oh damn," Darcy said, laying down the pen to lean one elbow on the counter and rest her chin in her hand, attentive. "Like what? Don't hold out on me now!" Darcy wasn't usually one that paid much attention to gossip, but this wasn't really gossip, was it? More a sharing of facts, she had to think, which made all of it totally okay . Darcy had to know what she was up against, after all.

"Okay, so, apart from all the hot guys? There's these weird dudes in capes and this one guy? I think he was like, half-animal," Alex insists, or maybe she'd just been half asleep and thinking about puppies again, but she's pretty sure that's not the case. "I mean, also, the unfairly hot people ratio is super off here. Normally I wouldn't complain, but with this many gorgeous people around, there should be way more modelling competitions, are you digging what I'm laying?"

"I noticed that!" Darcy exclaimed and slapped her hand down near her glass as though she needed to hit something in confirmation. "Well, not the capes, really, or the half-animal guys, but the hotness dude." Darcy flung her hands in the air. "Off the charts. Not that I'm opposed to being in a place that's skewed toward pretty. Pretty is so hard to find sometimes, you know? I don't think I've met a single person yet who's ugly in this place. It's awesome."

"I kind of find it extra sad, though, that this place is full of hot guys and I'm still single," Alex bemoans, her lips arranged in a frown. "Seriously, it's like, come on, do I need a tail or something? I'm dying here, without any action!"

"Aw, no way," Darcy said, a little wrinkle of concern appearing between her brow. Alex was very gorgeous, and fun and sweet. If she wasn't getting laid that probably meant the dudes around the Nexus were generally all dumb or blind or taken, which was a depressing thought. "You're a babe. I mean, seriously so pretty.If you aren't getting plowed like a Boston parking lot, I sure as shit don't stand a chance."

"Well, I mean, maybe my standards have kind of gone up," Alex confesses, because hey, maybe she's tired of guys turning their underpants around the other way and thinking it's good as new. Does that make her picky? Okay, so, it's kind of depressing if it does, but here she is. "Still, I'm holding out hope," she says. "And you buy strangers drinks for nothing. I'm pretty sure you're going to be mega-popular."

"Not a thing in the world wrong with high standards," Darcy said with a little salute. "I have them myself. Ridiculously high. Usually. Until I don't." Darcy's 'type' usually rounded off to a person being attractive in one or more ways, and any unattractive traits were either dealt with or ignored until the desired effect had been reached. "I'm in a good mood," Darcy said with a shrug and a smile. "And you're cute and seem fun. Drink up!"

"I am pint size cute, which is like an extra kind of cute," Alex agrees, thinking about this practically as she salutes Darcy with her shot and drinks it. "I think we should have more of these," she says, eyes bright and brilliant. "And we can look for hot dudes, without weird things. Unless you're in the mood for that today?"

"You are!" Darcy said brightly. Darcy was long used to tiny, adorable girls with hanging out with Jane all the time, so of course Alex was held in high esteem by default. "And you're right." She held up her hand to signal for more drinks, then winked at Alex. "Well, I wouldn't say 'no' to a certain flavor of weird," Darcy allowed. "I mean, some weird sorta works out for the best in the sack, right?"

"I could deal with normal sack stuff," Alex says, with the face of a woman who has seen way too much weirdness. And okay, so maybe she has her own share of weirdness to add to it, but it's not like she does her impressions or her tricks all the time. She's not that weird. "What about you? Any luck with the guys here?"

"Yeah?" Darcy said, grinning. "Fair enough. Though I'm reaching that lovely, non-discriminating phase where I'm not particularly concerned about little things, like if he think's he's Abraham Lincoln or likes to wear clown make up as long as he pays for dinner and likes to go downtown, you know what I mean?"

At Alex's question, Darcy sighed. "No, none yet. I guess I haven't been here all that long, but you know. There wasn't a welcoming committee of naked dudes at my door when I passed through, much to my dismay." That might've proven to be quite weird, but then, was anything weirder than how and why she'd ended up in the Nexus anyway?

"I think there should definitely be a suggestion box," Alex says, with all the seriousness that something like that involves, "and we should definitely put naked greeting party of dudes on that list. I think our weird door tourism would go way up if they knew it existed," she says knowingly. "Oh, right, the things, the doors. Do you know about those yet?"

"Right?" Darcy said, seeing the immediate brilliance of this idea. "I mean, is there someone we can talk to about that? A king of the castle or wizard behind the curtain sort of person?" Darcy hadn't exactly been around long enough to figure out if there was actually someone overseeing the nexus, or if it was like some possessed entity like the hotel in The Shining. At Alex's question about the doors, Darcy's brows wrinkled a bit. "Uhm, I'm not sure. I came through one to get here. And I got some cute clothes through a door that some stranger pointed me through, but I'm not sure how the whole system works."

"I think there's a hotel desk," Alex says, which is as far as her investigations have gotten, which is actually kind of sad considering she used to think of herself as a super awesome detective when it comes to those things. "Maybe we can fold up a letter or something?"

"Ooh, I want cute clothes," she says, train of thought derailed. "Can we get some more of those, you think?"

You got a new horizon, it's ephemeral style.

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