It's Brittany, Bitch | Ερις (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} eristic) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} paxletalelogs,@ 2017-10-09 17:16:00 |
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Who: Jocelyn & BB.
What: Lottery post.
Where: Pax Letale.
When: A lazy day, sometime in September
BB had not done much with herself following the fight with Alice, and her subsequent whining to Daniel. Even Gus seemed to be avoiding her, which was a new and strange thing in itself (not that her brothers had ever been the ones pestering her for attention, but they'd never necessarily done this; then again, she certainly wasn't used to them sleeping with the girl she had a crush on) though she knew full well that had he texted or called, she would have certainly laid into him.
She pushed her writing assignments as far off as she could, wanting to do nothing but lounge about in her apartment in pajamas, eating ice cream for breakfast. She was a grown adult, after all, and adults made choices. Hers happened to be rocky road. Cartoons blared endlessly and unheard from her TV as empty cartons were starting to collect around her couch. BB had to admit, she was starting to get very, very bored with this arrangement, as fun as it had been. It was probably time to get back to work, a prospect that made her groan both internally and aloud.
A thump sounded from the wall that she shared with Daniel's apartment; it sounded suspiciously like a bed frame knocking against a wall, and for one excited moment she thought that maybe he and his mystery boyfriend were up to their old 'piss off your neighbors' antics, to which she had many a ready reply. With some effort, she peeled herself off the couch and padded as quietly as she was able (read: not very) to her own front door. Her half-formed plan was immediately forgotten as she opened the entryway, only to find that it no longer lead to the hallway of the second floor, but another apartment, one which she was wholly unfamiliar.
Well, perhaps not wholly unfamiliar. A second look around would see that the layout, at least, of the apartment was similar enough to the one she had left - even if all of the furnishings were different.
Inside her bedroom, Jo was attempting to retrieve clothes from her closet, with ‘attempting’ being the operative word. She had shut and opened the damned door at least a half a dozen times, each time the contents of the closets were distinctly not her own, and usually not even a closet. While this most recent ‘quirk’ of her apartment was definitely an improvement over the missing and befouled food incidents of July, it was still damned inconvenient. Especially since she had things to do this morning that required her to be wearing more than just a dressing gown.
Grumpily, she yanked the closet door open, and caught a brief glimpse of the contents of her closet, before she placed the thunk and pain of her elbow hitting her bedroom door...which was now swinging shut.
“Oh no. No, no, nonononono…” she muttered as she scrabbled to grab the door before it could click shut and sentence her to be stuck trying to find her living room again. She pulled the door open, kicking a boot in front of it in order to prevent it from closing again, and peered out into the living room suspiciously, wondering if anything else had changed.
Intrigued by the prospect of something, anything sent to distract her from her self-imposed misery, BB took a tentative step forward into the apartment, her eyes roving around possessions and furnishings that were not her own.
"Uh, hello?" Leaving the door open behind her (the thought that her way back might disappear not at all present in her mind), BB tried to find the tenant that belonged to the apartment around her. Hopefully there was someone at home, because otherwise it was going to get very awkward explaining how she'd ended up inside their unit, should they suddenly stumble upon her. If the door even still worked that way? BB swirled around, her hair flying out behind her as she looked back at the door she'd come through. The thought of closing it just to see what would happen enticed her, and she took a step toward the entryway.
Jo had just about convinced herself that the rest of her apartment was normal (though where exactly was the sound of cartoons coming from?) and was preparing to make a break for the open bathroom door when she heard a voice out near her door. Drawing her robe tight around herself, she slipped out into the living room just in time to see the intruder move the close the door.
“Wait! Don’t-” she started to cry out, moving towards the intruder, only to stop in her tracks as she glimpsed another apartment through her door. “What the hell is wrong with this place?” she asked, her exasperation evident.
"Oh shit," BB said a little softly, her head snapping in the woman's direction. Her voice gained volume as she addressed the apartment's tenant. "I wasn't sure if anyone was home. Also, did you know my apartment freaking connects to yours?" She dropped the arm that was outstretched and about to close the door. "This is wild, almost on the same level as... Were you around in April?" BB crossed her arms over her chest, though one lingered outward to pass an open hand in front of her as she narrowed her gaze in the unfamiliar stranger's direction.
"Swear to god, seems like this place has a turnstile of people that goes faster than LAX!" BB was already off on another tangent, without having waited for the woman to introduce herself. Dropping her hands to her sides, she looked back at the front door with a scattering of glances in Jocelyn's direction. "So, what, you think it changes when you close it? Have you seen this before?!"
Jocelyn blinked, momentarily disconcerted by the intruder’s rapid-fire change of topics. “No, I haven’t. But seeing as it just took me ten minutes to find my closet behind my closet door - and my front door didn’t lead to yours last time I checked! - I figure it’ll do for a working theory.”
BB's eyes roved over Jocelyn's face, noticeably noticing the patchwork of scars and white blotches that covered the woman's skin. But then it seemed to not matter as she fixated back on the present topic.
"Wait, your closet was changing? Shit. Nothing in my apartment was flipping out, at least, like, not that I noticed." She'd been lying in a heap of self-imposed misery, which didn't make for the most observant person. BB pursed her lips, considering the door again before impulsively stepping forward and closing it.
Jocelyn sighed as the intruder closed the door, and leaned against the wall to wait and see what would appear next. She looked down, and remembered that she wasn’t…exactly dressed for company. “Hang on,” she interrupted, holding up one hand. “Lemme at least go put some pants on before god-only-knows shows up.” She disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the boot to keep the door from closing entirely.
BB nodded, for once heeding another's wishes by pulling her hand back from the door. At first she took a few steps in the woman's direction, as though she were going to follow out of sheer curiosity, but then she pulled back around to walk in a loose circle. With her arms crossed over her chest, she beat an impatient but soft tattoo on the floor, unable to keep her gaze from straying back to the door.
Not knowing how long she could rely on the intruder’s patience, Jocelyn hurriedly dressed in the clothes that were closest to hand: her yoga pants and an oversized cream T-shirt bearing the image of a cat sleeping belly up on a beach towel, a bottle of “tabby tan” sunscreen close to hand. She pulled her hair up into a loose knot at the base of her neck, grabbed her cell phone off her desk, and slipped back out into the living room.
She nodded at the other woman. “Okay, I’m ready.”
BB's patience was frayed enough, and she all but launched herself at the door; opening it proved to be less spectacular than waiting made it seem. Still, when she opened the door, they quickly found themselves somewhere other than the second floor—specifically, the deluxe floor, which was immediately notable due to the fact that doors were a slick, black matte with numbers cleanly and prominently displayed on all doors. Doors that were much fewer in number than on the floors BB had previously seen.
"Dang, that's way faster than the elevator," she muttered. She paused by the door, though it was clear she was more than ready to attempt stepping through into the hall; still, she glanced back at the woman she'd so unceremoniously barged in on. "This like your closet? Not gonna lie, but that sounds like an awesome way to get to peek into what others have got; maybe even add a few cool things to your own wardrobe." She grinned, the movement lopsided.
Jocelyn wrinkled her nose. “You’d think that, but have you noticed how many guys live here? Some of those closets were really scary…” She leaned past the other woman to peer into the hallway, and let out a low whistle. “Damn,” she murmured, almost awe-struck, “I’ve never been this far up in the building. This is seriously B-list.”
"I gotta say, this is nothing like what it looked like back in April," BB returned, following the other woman out into the hallway. "Also, like, I should have asked, or I guess said, but I'm BB. We're neighbors, obviously, and I'm usu better at this kind of thing but..." She shrugged, her hands spread wide. She made sure the door was slightly ajar behind them as they stepped out into the hall so they weren't left behind by another shift in the entryway changes; at least, for the moment, she was thoroughly distracted from her thoughts about Alice and their fight, or her brother ignoring her, in favor of inspecting this new strange apartment anomaly. "I'm guessing this is the first time you've had something weird happen in Pax? It's gonna get old, fast, lemme tell you."
Jocelyn smiled in response to BB’s introduction. “I’m Jo - apartment 201.” She stepped away from the door - the stairwell door, as it turned out - giving her neighbor room to move out into the hallway. “Well, July was pretty rough, but it was nothing like this...”
She spun around slowly, taking in the upscale finishings and decor around her. “What did this place look like in April?” she wondered, aloud.
"Oh my god," BB started, rolling her eyes upward as she rounded back on Jo. "Well, for starters, this whole floor?" She spread her arms wide. "It was a goddamn beach. OK? Just picture that for a second. A beach. Not outside, but inside. With an alligator, because clearly moving a shitton of sand and palm trees inside wasn't enough." BB shook her head, judgement clear across her face.
"But, like, it wasn't even that," she amended, losing a little of the vigor that injected itself every time she had an opportunity to be dramatic. "It felt like... like it was somewhere else. Not just like someone carted a million tons of sand and trees and shit up 11 flights of stairs. It was like...." BB waved her hands, eventually scrunching them into fists. "I'm not explaining this as well as I thought," she muttered to herself.
“Absolutely bizarre,” Jo muttered. “So that was April...in July it seemed like everytime I tried to fill my fridge, something broke into my place and stole every scrap of food...now this?” She looked up and met BB’s eyes. “Did management know?”
"No, like, you don't even understand," BB started up again, moving down the hall before pacing back toward Jo. "Every floor was different and we were locked inside the building for a fucking week." She stopped flat in front of Jo, her arms pushed down at her sides with her hands curled into fists. She teetered forward, as though she might fall; but she didn't, and was just as soon off again, pacing a new circle around Jo as she talked, as though mere speech was not enough to deplete her of her energy.
"And when fucking management found out?? You know what they did??" She whirled on her heel, ready to dispense the coup de grâce. "They gave us a fucking spa day."
Jocelyn looked at BB, one eyebrow quirked in surprise. “Is that where Nishka got the spa day from? She invited me along, but that’s really not my thing these days...”
BB's eyes raked over Jo's appearance again, but she was too enamored of her current chosen topic to take the off-ramp the other woman had provided. She nodded, vigorously.
"I know, right? It's fucking weird. Actually..." She turned back around, turning them both back toward Jocelyn's apartment. "You said your closet kept doing it, right? Let's see if it happens again."
Jocelyn was about to protest, until she realized that the other woman’s…’energy’ seemed to be infectious. She found that she wanted to try to get to the bottom of this latest round of weirdness. She shrugged, then grinned at BB. “Sure. Why the hell not?”
BB mirrored Jocelyn's grin, and once the two of them were both inside the woman's apartment, she wasted little time in closing the door once again.
"Yah know, this is so kinda like Bill and Ted's adventures, except it's an apartment and not a phone booth," she quipped, the thought of visiting some far off land through time and space drifting through her mind. Sadly, the result was not as exciting as her mind's meanderings—upon opening the door once again, they found themselves on the fourth floor.
BB was already out into the hallway before realizing where they were (made more than evident by the brassy number fours on all of the doors) and made a hasty backtrack into Jocelyn's apartment.
"Eh, let's try it again, I mean, this isn't nearly as interesting as, like...I dunno, finding out Pax has a secret basement..."
Jo had only barely glimpsed the hallway before BB retreated back into her apartment. “Or maybe...it’ll open up into one of those fancy penthouses that no one seems to live in…” she mused, pulling the door firmly shut. When she reopened the door, the space on the other side was dim and noisy, its air heavy with humidity and the scent of chemicals. She seemed confused for a moment, then understanding dawned. She looked at BB. “Or...the pool house?” she offered.
BB took a few steps out, confirming Jo's theory. A pump sat unused in a corner, cleaning wands with blue nets stretched over one end in another. A shelf with a number of labeled and unlabeled bottles filled up the wall across from what BB surmised was the pool house door, now turned entryway into Jo's apartment. She frowned, a hand rising to scratch her head.
"I didn't even know that we, like, had one of these. I can't see Stephan fishing leaves out of the pool," she laughed, shaking her head before turning back into Jo's apartment.
"You know, can I ask you a question?" She started, without waiting for a real reply. "Do you ever feel, kinda, like, someone... Not like, watching you, but... Yeah, like someone's watching you?"
BB shrugged, moving far enough into Jo's apartment that she had more free space to wander in circles once more. "But not, like, Rockwell level, but like..." She fidgeted, unsure how to specifically phrase the question without looking like a loon.
Jo stepped back into her apartment, pulling her door quietly but firmly shut behind her. She looked at BB thoughtfully, momentarily unsure whether she could trust her neighbor. “You mean, like the creepy message I got on my system a few weeks ago?”
The surprise on BB's face made it plain that she had no idea what Jo was talking about. "Message? What message?"
“It popped up in my messages a few weeks back...hold on, I think I have it written down somewhere…” Jocelyn ducked into her living room and rummaged briefly through the drawers in the coffee table that served as her desk, most evenings. A moment later, she reappeared, holding a small wirebound notepad, and flipping through the pages.
“Ah...here it is. August 21th.” She held out the notepad so BB could see her notes, written in teal ink in her precise hand.
8/22 - p.m.
strange message in electronic mailbox?
eyrum hlýðir
en augum skoðar
svá nýsisk fróðra hverr fyrir.
Google translate = Icelandic??
ears listen
but eyes are watching
so a newcomer knows what to do
BB reached out, taking the notebook. Her eyes made a few passes over the notes, as though there was something to be gleaned from between the lines. Then she glanced back up at Jo, one brow raised. "So you just... got this? You don't know from, like, who?"
Jo shook her head. “No, I don’t. It came in on the Pax system, but it didn’t have the normal sender information, and it wouldn’t allow a response.” She frowned, thoughtfully. “I guess I really hadn’t thought much about it since right after I got it.”
The other woman did her best to bite back a laugh. "Yeah, cause I totally forget creepy ass messages I get..." BB shook her head. "I mean, like, there's definitely plenty of other crap going on here to keep us all distracted." She went back to the message scrawled on the paper. "Shit. This was the day after that big eclipse...thingie, wasn't it?"
Jo glanced down at the date on the pad. “I think...yeah. You’re right.” She met the other woman’s eyes. “You think it’s related?”
BB shrugged, the movement overdone and as dramatic as almost anything else she did. "Hell if I know, honestly," she said, chewing on her bottom lip as her mind worried at this new piece of information. "Can I, like, take this, or do you have a copy? Nobody else said they got weird messages, so, like, maybe you just have an admirer or something. An admirer who knows fucking Icelandic."
“I can make a copy for you, if you want,” Jo said, reaching out to retrieve her notepad from BB. She quickly copied over the information to a blank sheet of paper, and tore the original out of the notebook and handed it to the other woman. “And to be fair, it might not be Icelandic...that’s just what the computer guessed, and there were a lot of words it wasn’t quite happy with.”
Shrugging again, looking nonplussed to be corrected, BB shook her head. "I mean, with everything else going on around here, I seriously would not be surprised if someone dug up some dead language to leave people love notes." She took the paper, reading over Jo's transcript once more before folding it up a few times and shoving it under her bra strap. She glanced over at the door, which had previously led to so many places other than where it should have.
"One more for the road, I guess?" She glanced sardonically at Jo, and turned toward the knob. Perhaps the most surprising of all, the doorway finally opened not into her own apartment or another hallway, but the familiar sight of the second floor. BB paused, holding the door open for a moment. "You know, just, like, if anything else weird happens... You can tell me. And we should definitely get a drink, because... There's a lot to talk about."