WHO: Rachel and Nicholas, with an appearance by Snape and an off-stage Snow WHAT: Checking out a Door for the first time WHERE: Passages Hotel WHEN: UM. A little before recently. WARNINGS: Nope!
After paying her fare, Rachel watched her taxi until it was a disappearing dot on the horizon, leaving her to wait patiently for this mysterious Nicholas S. Meeting strangers from the internet always screamed bad idea and a talking/writing book probably wasn’t much worse. But he didn’t seem like a creeper. Weird and pretty nervous but not the abduction or axe murdering type. Besides, she already told her roommate she was going out to meet someone and if she didn’t return in a day and a half, well, at least someone knew to call her dad.
The air was hot there in front of Passages and she stood in the doorway of the front door, trying to hide in the shade the hotel would provide her while keeping an eye out for any visitors. It occurred to her that she had no idea what he looked like or what she should be expecting. Even he wouldn’t know it was her. She probably should have told him to look out for a petite brunette, hair pulled up into a messy bun and a black and white sundress. She tapped her sandals on the floor idly before glancing up at an approaching sound.
A yellow taxi cab rolled up slowly to the hotel and Rachel leaned forward and peer behind her big brown sunglasses to see who the newcomer was.
It was yet another taxi to the hotel, but thankfully, a different driver than Nicholas had seen in the past, a fact that he was embarrassingly grateful for. It wasn't that he was overly concerned with what people thought of him, but there were days when the looks he received were simply too much to deal with. People gave him enough looks, from the skeptics to those who knew about the Crawford case and still treated him as though he were something broken. It was tiring on the best of days, infuriating on the worst.
Nicholas let himself out of the taxi after paying the driver, watching as it drove off before he turned towards the hotel that looked different to him than it did the rest of the world who wasn't in on their little secret. It wasn't a secret that he was comfortable with quite yet, but as the days drew on and nothing seemed to explode because of it, it became a little easier to handle. But that didn't make it something he enjoyed, no, and that was precisely why he was meeting this near-stranger from the supernatural-journals they were all writing in.
There was only one person standing near the hotel, and given the way she seemed to focus on the taxi that had dropped him off, she was waiting for someone. Him, presumably. A thought graced him that they should have exchanged some simple way of identifying one another, a basic description of appearance or somesuch, but other than the assumption that Rachel was female, he had little to go on. Nicholas, to his credit, was dressed smartly for the afternoon, in his usual manner. Dark trousers and a long-sleeved button down shirt, he was a picture of a young businessman on his way to somewhere important. A messenger bag, that curious shade of green that was nearly brown, was slung over one shoulder, his hand resting on one of the straps as he approached. "Rachel?" he asked, his voice an easy tenor, soft-spoken and polite in his tone.
The girl in the huge sunglasses smiled, lifting her hand from the doorframe to wave at him. “Nicholas S, right?” She guessed so, unless mindreaders were coming by to the Hotel. With a fictional fairytale princess in her head, she was starting to keep her bar of disbelief pretty low.
He was cute, Nicholas S, from what she could tell. Nicely dressed and looking like he just came from his job. Definitely not looking like a serial killer. Gold stars all around. “Come on in. The water’s fine.” She giggled as she looked behind her the dark halls of the hotel nearly indiscernible from his view out in the Nevada sun and her own sunglasses weren’t helping. She took a step back and slid her shades over her head, letting them rest atop, and turned her grin back to him. “No sharks. I even checked.”
"Got it in one." He gave what passed for a smile to her as she gave him a wave, returning it in kind, stepping forward moments later to close more of the distance between them. "You braved the dark waters to check for sharks. How will I ever thank you?" Nicholas gave her a nod of thanks, looking over her shoulder towards the dark halls of the hotel, blackness the only real result with how bright the Las Vegas afternoon was. Trust was given to her as he stepped in after her, even though he knew that there were no sharks present, unless you counted the imaginary ones that swam in his thoughts.
It took several moments for his vision to adjust, a hand coming up to rub at his eyes as though that would help. With the door closed behind them, the light shut out, it was easier but slow going. "I realised a possible issue with this meeting," Nicholas said after a moment, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers, a casual move that held more significance than most would see. "That unless we share the same door, all you can really do is wave from the hallway, yes?"
“Knighthood,” Rachel chirped with a slight lift of her shoulders before spinning on her heel and walking in beside him, her skirt twirling as she turned. “Or a thank you, I guess, is cool too.”
She stopped in her tracks at his assessment. The idea hadn’t actually occurred to her. Then again, she hadn’t really anticipated going in with him. She figured she’d lead him around the hotel, hold his hand so to speak, and then urge him through the door. Kick him in, if necessary. Well, not really, but it was a funny thought. Actually going in hadn’t ever been part of the plan.
But now that it was, well, she couldn’t really say no. “Yeah, once through the door, it’s not us anymore. I mean, I can ask if she would go to your door too but she’s not very friendly.” Rachel paused in her words, frowning though her gaze grew a little unfocused, and then under her breath she muttered, “Well, you’re not,” she reminded seemingly no one.
Back to Nicholas, she gave a sheepish grin. "I mean she’ll go in if you or your guy needs help. She might not stay very long though. I guess it depends on the door?” He never did specify. “Or you can go through—” She started slightly and then frowned again. “Sorry. Apparently you can’t go through her door. She’s touchy about that.”
"Unfortunately," Nicholas began, keeping pace with her until they stopped in the lobby of the hotel, "I left my sword at home, so we'll have to save knighthood for another time. But thank you. Sincerely, thank you." It was gratitude given without sarcasm, and even though some might have thought it a strange thing to give thanks for, Nicholas was grateful for her help. He hadn't always been like this, and sometimes even he was surprised at the things he found himself able and not able to do.
He watched as she spoke on the hotel, on it not being 'them' once they stepped over the threshold of their particular door, and when she spoke to herself in that quiet, muttered voice, an eyebrow arched in amusement. "She's opinionated, isn't she?" Nicholas commented, meaning nothing by it other than a comment on the situation. "No, I don't believe he'll want company on the other side. I'm simply trying to wrap my head around this, that's all." He mused for a moment later before he turned towards the stairway that led up, gaze sweeping over the building for a long moment. "How do we know which door is ours? Are they labeled? Or is it one of those things that you simply know when you come across it?"
Snow? Opinionated? That was kind of an understatement and Rachel tossed him a wry grin. “Something like that,” she nodded as they walked. His question merely made her shrug. “Not labeled per se. You just kinda know?” She gave a soft huff of a laugh, knowing that he wouldn’t believe her. “And there’s sort of a theme to them, the door and keys.” Leading him up the stairs, she rummaged through her purse before pulling out her key, silver and sharp, the apple at the handle. “This one’s mine,” she said, holding it up to him for his inspection before nodding down the hallway once they reached a landing. They’d go to his door soon enough, wherever it was. But it wouldn’t hurt to show off hers. It wasn’t like he could get in.
A few more steps and they were standing in front of her door, a stone archway with a heavy wooden door closed before them. Vines and leaves and just a bit of moss stretched over the stone and carved figures woodland creatures dotted the curved edges as if they originally rose from the rocks themselves. She brushed her fingers across the iron lock before letting them dance across the wood. Warmth seeped through her palms, or maybe it was just a hint of magic on the other side. She could never really tell. She held up her key for inspection once more, the silver color matching the lock on the door before them, the apple harkening back to the otherworldly and out of place door. “Matched.”
The nuances of this place, subtle and pulsing with something that Nicholas couldn't quite identify, were the sort of things that a person could study for years and still not quite fully understand. "An apple?" he asked, when she held her key up for his inspection, brow furrowing down with curiosity as he followed her down the hallway until she stopped in front of that stone archway. One hand lifted, pressing against the stone arch, long fingers feeling the cold stone beneath his fingers, and here there was a curious lack of that thrumming energy he felt elsewhere. Maybe it was the fact that this wasn't his door, wasn't his place to be, that things reacted differently. "Fairy tales?" he asked as he pulled his hand away, fingers slipping back into the safety of his pockets, tucked away where they wouldn't brush against anything without his permission. There in the depths of his pocket, he curled his fingers around his own key, the dark metal thing that was worn smooth, rounded edges, a comfort in a way he couldn't quite define.
“Ding, ding, ding,” Rachel sang before giving him a sheepish laugh. Inwardly she heard Snow huff that her identity was compromised but her young Las Vegas counterpart didn’t see the harm in it. Sure, anyone could connect the dots between apples and fairytales, but it wasn’t as if Nicholas S could or would try to harm the door. And of course, she was still holding her own key. “So you just sorta… I dunno. You can look around but at each one but I think you can sorta feel which one is yours. Maybe not on this floor. We can go to another. But you should be able to figure out which ones yours and his in the end.”
The directions were suitably vague for the situation they found themselves in, and in another life, he might have laughed it off as some sort of nonsense. But this place had left Nicholas believing in nonsense, so the old key was pulled out of his pocket, heavy with that scrap of green ribbon attached to it, and he wandered down the hallway, pausing here and there, making only the smallest attempt to keep Rachel in his peripheral vision. He was quiet, not entirely prone to smalltalk any longer, and when that hallway had been cleared, he moved up the stairs to the next floor, walking and pausing until he stopped in front of an old oak door. There was nothing outstanding about it, just an old door, the sort you might find in a castle. He pressed his fingers against it, jerking back almost immediately at the response he got. Yes, this was definitely his door. There was nothing that told him that it was, but he knew it in a way that could not be explained.
"I think I found it," Nicholas said quietly, finally turning to look back towards Rachel, key dangling from his fingertips.
Rachel waited patiently for him, for something really, as she stayed put outside of her door. She wouldn’t exactly call door finding a personal experience but Nicholas S didn’t exactly strike her as the soul baring type. He was nervous enough just coming to the hotel so maybe he needed to find his door without her or anyone staring. Instead her mind turned over all she had left to do to prepare going back to school. She’d been deep in her to-do list when she heard his voice.
“Coming,” she called after him and moments later scaled the steps up to the next floor. A bright grin bloomed across her face and she tucked her stray brown hair over her ears as she looked at his door.
“Impressive,” she nodded, brown eyes taking in the site of it with an awed nod. “Ready to go in?” She couldn’t tell just who his was from the door, or the key that Nicholas S held between his fingers, but she was dying to find out the result.
The key in his hand was warm from his skin, thumb running over it in a nervous gesture as he glanced between the door and Rachel, finally settling upon her. He didn't say anything for a while, even as she grinned. "I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be ready, but it's better to simply get it over with, right?" The corner of his mouth turned up in the smallest of smiles as he turned back towards the door and inserted the key. It fit as though they were made for one another, not an ounce of resistance as it turned and the door swung inward. Again with the quiet as his hands fell to his sides, his brow furrowed down slightly as he stared at the nondescript little room that was on the other side of the door. There were little details, a dark cloak on a peg on one wall, a small bed and a bureau of drawers.
There was a part of Nicholas that wanted to ask Rachel to give him a shove, but he wouldn't let it come that far. "I suppose I'll see you later, then," he said, stepping close to the door but not entirely through. "Thank you for accompanying me this far. I really do appreciate it." It had helped alleviate some, if not all, of the nerves that were fluttering around in his stomach, and that was more than he could really ask for. He lifted his hand in what passed for a wave before stepping through the door.
The man who looked back towards Rachel from the other side was a tall thing, stringy black hair and a pallid complexion, dressed in the wizarding robes that were the norm in his world. Severus didn't say anything, instead giving Rachel a long look, a dark brow arched as he folded his arms over his chest.
In all honesty, she had been ready to just shove him in there, one good push and through the door he would go. But he managed on his own and she offered him a quick, “Don’t mention it,” before she held her breath. She moved in closer, wanting to get a good look at who was there on the other side. He had been teasing her with only bits of information for a while now. It was only right she got a good look.
The figure greeting her wasn’t at all what she expected, and not at all what she was used to. She’d grown up on the books and the movies so the mental image was jarring when presented with the “reality” of it. Though she’d made peace with the fact that they all had fictional characters and it was only a matter of time and luck before the rest of the Harry Potter characters showed. But somehow she never expected to see one in person.
“No way,” she breathed in awe. Not her most eloquent but what could she do.
If it was at all possible, that brow arched higher at her breathed out exclamation. "Something the matter, miss?" he asked, making no move towards the door. Severus was not quite the man he would grow into being, but there was no mistaking him for anyone other than who he was. Dark eyes narrowed slightly, pale fingers digging into his arm where they rested. "If you're going to simply gape at me, I'll go ahead and close the door now. I'm not some spectacle for you to stare at." He had had quite enough staring and pointing throughout his life without some muggle gawking at him like he was some exhibit.
He was being snippy with her. Severus Snape was being snippy with her. Once more feeling like she was walking around in some alternate universe, Rachel barely stifled a giggle. Her fingers pressed to her lips, her smile peeked out of the sides. He certainly didn’t sound like Alan Rickman but she was just going to have to live with the fact that her childhood books didn’t match up perfectly with the reality of them. Reality used loosely.
“Sorry, sorry,” she squeaked as she realized she was staring, forcing herself to school her expression into something serious with moderate success. “Soooo… you’re good?” Her hands fell open with her question. Really, there wasn’t much she could do if he wasn’t but it never hurt to ask. “Will you let Nicholas know to drop me a line when you’re done?” He couldn’t stay in there forever, after all.
There was something about that giggle that she let out, the smile that was barely hidden behind her fingertips that drew Severus back to school and all the enjoyment he had experienced there. "I'm quite fine," he said flatly, reaching out to put a hand on the door, ready to slam it in the girl's face before she tacked something further on. That gave him reason to pause, hesitating for only a moment. "I will let him know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm quite done being gawked at." And then the door slammed neatly in her face, separating the two words once more.