let it go, let it go Who: BB & Daniel. What: BB updates Daniel on what happened at CASKET. Where: Daniel's apartment. When: Mid-afternoon.
BB sat on Daniel's couch, his broken leg across her lap as she doodled the peanut-butter jelly time banana onto his shin. A full pack of permanent markers were spread out around their case on the coffee table, along with stickers and a gel pen of glitter. It was a few weeks following the event that gave him the cast; weeks following her and Rafe and Alice's failed attempt to get answers from the man at CASKET. BB was still mulling over the few paltry details Julian had imparted; Karen's appearance at the party, how it was believed she'd just gotten drunk and decided to go for a swim.
Needing to clear her head, she'd gotten what few crafts items she had together and wandered over to Daniel's without an invitation, letting herself inside once she was certain he had pants on. And now, here they were. She'd swept into the room like she'd owned the place, plopping down on the couch and taking over her cast like she owned it.
"So did'ya at least parlay this into some head yet from your boyfriend?" She didn't even glance at Daniel as she made the seemingly offhand comment, sticking her tongue out as she reached forward for the yellow marker to start coloring the banana in.
"Y'know, I need you to not be a dick about this," Daniel said. "I was supposed to be keepin' it quiet and you took advantage of me. What kinda friend…" He leaned up, studying her drawing. It was a fair likeness, given the original had itself been no stunning work of art. "If I let you put glitter on that, too, will you please keep this boyfriend mess to yourself?"
"Hmmmmmm," she replied, the sound a sing-song note in her throat as the yellow filled the pointedly round shape. "Who said anything about let?" BB capped the marker with an audible click, glancing at Daniel in the same moment. His thin-lipped frown was petulant and intense. "Also, you need to chill. You might give yourself heart palpitations with all of everything else going on here. Clearly you should not be let out of your apartment. I mean, flip flops, Daniel? Tsk."
He folded his arms tight across his chest, and made a small, grumpy sound in response. She tossed the marker gently to fall amid its brethren, instead grabbing up a set of anthropomorphic t-rex stickers. "Also, I'm aghast at your lack of trust in me, I really am. Cut me to the quick." She peeled off a t-rex throwing a baseball and put it to the left of the banana.
"Oh I'm sure," Daniel said. "What possible reason could I have not to trust you? Until now everything you've ever done or said has been entirely pure and utterly without selfish motivation, right?" He rolled his eyes, but the cant of his mouth belied his irritation. "So anyway, did that flyer end up giving you any leads? I'd hate to know I got all busted up for nothin'."
"Oh did we," BB started out as dramatically as she could, sticking her tongue out as she placed the sticker just so. "No, actually, we didn't learn squat. Well, except maybe if you count the fact that Karen Shepherd -- that's the murdered chick who used to live here before -- was at the Halloween party listed on the flyer the night she died. I guess she left that place and went straight to the beach, where she conveniently drowned herself, except she washed up on the island looking cut up to hell like she was fed face-first into a wood chipper."
She peeled off a second sticker, her tongue touching the edge of her mouth as she worked. She put a disco dancing dinosaur on the other side of the banana, then glanced up to look at Daniel. "I swear, that dude who owns the club is totally hiding more information. You know what he said to us before we left?" She carefully edged around the fact that they'd nearly been kicked out. "That we needed to get out of this place."
Daniel scoffed. "Okay," he said, "let him front the money to break the lease and find another place for this price. With all these amenities. Has this dude not seen rental prices lately?" He waved a hand, as dismissive as the look on his face. "If he couldn't give you anything more than 'girl dies after party,' I don't see why he expects us to jump at that suggestion."
He tipped his chin to his friend. Genuine curiosity shone in his eyes. "What do you think happened to her, then?"
"I think," BB started, putting the stickers down and picking up the long-awaited glitter, "he's lying to cover up whatever really happened, because there's no statute of limitations on murder in California and he doesn't want his successful business dragged into something that either he or his club was a part of. And, obviously, I think he knows more than he's saying regarding this place, because he wasn't exactly surprised to hear about hallucinations and fucking shapeshifting so I think," she continued, putting a layer of glitter carefully over the dancing banana man, "that we need to go back. And not just to the future," she added, with a sly glance at him, brows raised in curiosity to see what he might suggest.
He answered with a roll of his eyes, though he could not entirely keep the smile from his face. "If you mean that closet," he said, "I've had all the fun I'm gonna have in there." He nodded toward the ludicrously adorned cast covering most of his left leg. "If you mean the club... well, I don't mind hobblin' in there and tryin' to throw a guilt trip on him. Not that I think it'll work, obviously, but he owes me some answers. Somebody does, at least."
Daniel worried at his lip a moment, wondering just how deep a hole they were really digging for themselves. "D'you think this club owner killed her? Really?"
"One, I mean the club, and two, no, that's too obvious. But he knows something, and I'm gonna find out, even if it kills me," she replied, capping the glitter pen. "Speaking metaphorically, of course. I was thinking... I'm gonna ask that douche Brandt who lives in the ivory tower if he'll look up floor plans for this place. See if there's anything else strange going in here, aside from that weirdass closet in the lobby; maybe see how the floor changes were done? You know? You think there's anyone else we should talk to?"
He hummed as he thought, considering each of the handful of tenants he knew. Few among them had any resources or skills he thought might be useful here. Chris had connections, perhaps, though they were unlikely to be entirely aboveboard, and Chris's distaste for discussing the building and its oddities had not escaped Daniel's notice. Daniel frowned as he realized just how few options they had.
"I don't really know anybody who'd be helpful," he said. "I wish we had a cop here to ask after that badge, so if you know anybody in that line of work, go for it. At this point I'm probably just gonna take the advice I've been given and just drop the fuckin' thing off at the station. As for people here though… if you think this Brandt is helpful, I say let's do it. I'm tapped out otherwise."
BB made a grunt in her throat, masking her disappointment that their mock investigation seemed to be withering on the vine. Perhaps something else would present itself in the near future; until then, she intended on entertaining herself as much as possible to keep her mind off of what appeared to be going on around them.
"Welp," she replied, re-situating his broken leg to the coffee table, pushing pens off the far side. "I am gonna run back to my apartment and grab a movie and then see how poorly I can draw Timon and Pumbaa on your leg, because clearly you're in no shape to disagree or even fight me on it. You want Monsters Inc. or Frozen?" She bounced off of the couch once unencumbered, turning as she took a step away from the furniture and the man all but shackled to it.
"Monsters Inc., obviously," Daniel said. He shot her a look as she rose, but she absolutely had the right of it; he was at her mercy, unless he managed to hobble to his door and lock it in the time it took her to fetch the movie. He chuckled and decided to make the most of it. "Grab me a beer or two on your way back in, would'ya? I feel like we're both gonna need it."
BB made a finger-gun in Daniel's direction, winking while making a clicking sound with her lips. "Sure thing, pardner." With that, she abandoned him to her mess of coloring tools and stickers and glitter, grabbing not only the requested beer and movies from her apartment with some snacks, adding Frozen to the list regardless, intending to see how far she could push her wounded friend in his current state. To that she also added a few rolled blunts, because they would likely ease the transition. Humming happily to herself, she headed back over to Daniel's apartment, nudging his ajar door open with her shoulder to proudly present all she'd brought.