[Week 2 Afterparty] If only you'd have known me before the accident

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

That. All sure fucking happened. Didn't it?

Almost on autopilot, Leon starts pulling people aside who look like they might have it even slightly together right now and recruiting them to the task of making sure the rest don't just go straight to bed and pass out without eating all day. Anyone who doesn't seem to have it together but wants to lend a hand to stave off the grief and existential dread can help too. He's not picky at this point.

Without Yuri's tea or Otto's cooking things don't exactly turn out the same, but it's. It's something. Between all of them they get a meal together, something that can be easily picked up and squirreled away to the rooms if anyone really doesn't want to be around any of the rest of them right now, but Leon will insist that they have to come get it themselves as he goes around knocking on doors and shepherding people to the dining room. This is a check-in as much as it is dinner.

Comments

[doctopoda]

[At some point in the evening, there's a sudden, extremely loud clattering and thumping echoing from the area of the entrance hall. Otto storms out of the hallway - the door hallway, the one that he knows perfectly well should have opened up onto this room roughly twenty hours ago - on all four actuators. He's disheveled, visibly exhausted and pissed.]

- god-damned HOUSE!

[A tentacle lashes out into the nearest wall. He's been trying very hard to restrain his temper thus far, but - look. Look. It's been a really long night and day.

(Not to mention, he knows it was Friday - )

Later on, he doesn't manage to cook - it feels far too late now, he is far too late - but he does end up in the sitting room, awkwardly wedged into one of the armchairs. It wouldn't be a good place for him to have slept even before the actuators; he's too tall and too old. But...he doesn't want to go back to his room. He doesn't want to be there alone.]

Sitting room

[eldritchwaifu]

... Dr. Otto?

[ Zoe wandered in with her sketchbook after adding to the Memorial... Again... May as well sit down on the ottoman next to him. ]

What happened? You were gone for, like, a whole day at least.

[doctopoda]

Got stuck in the hallway. It just kept looping. Like a nightmare, where you run, but you don't go anywhere?

[The furious energy from earlier has well and truly drained out of him. Now he just seems tired.]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

[ Leon's passing through the entrance hall, because apparently the house has decided it goes between the kitchen and the dining room for right now, when Otto comes clattering out of one of the doors. ]

Holy shit. Otto? [ It's only because of years of practice with getting jumpscared that Leon does not drop the plates he's carrying. ] Were you in the hallways this whole fucking time?

[doctopoda]

It just kept going like a conveyor belt and none of the damned doors worked!

[he is still feeling pretty unhinged about his Negative House Experience! he has not slept!]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Jesus. We thought you might've died too. Welcome back. [ He does sound genuinely relieved, if more than a little freaked out by the potential of the house to just fucking swallow someone entirely for the whole duration of a ritual. ] You need something to eat? This is for someone else, but we just made dinner for everybody. If you wanna go sit down I can bring you something.

[doctopoda]

I - well, yes, I am hungry.

[He seems a little caught off-guard by the offer, but it's enough to get him to settle back down onto his proper feet again. The lower two claws remain planted against the ground, though, as if helping to support him.]

Leon, what...that was Thursday night, when that happened.

[The past two Fridays, somebody died. Not quite enough to form a solid pattern, but enough that he's been worried.]

[plangona]

[octavia was just heading back towards her room so when she passes through the entrance hall, she is caught by surprise when otto suddenly appears ] Were you stuck here this entire time?

[doctopoda]

Yes!

[He is! Mad about this! But not so angry that he's forgotten the likelihood of more deaths happening while he was gone - that is, in fact, part of why he was so frantic to get out.]

How - what's been happening?

[plangona]

It's good to see you made it out alive.

We just finished up with the trial. It was Ranma and Yuri this time.

[doctopoda]

Ranma and...how?

Sitting room

[windmilled]

[Luis has picked up the cooking slack, even if there's only a few things he knows how to cook well. He gives Otto space to find out about the case from someone else - but when he's finished up his second pan of patatas bravas he prepares a decent amount for his fellow scientist.]

...I'm glad the house spit you back out in one piece, amigo.

[Bury your feelings in some fried potatoes.]

[doctopoda]

[Otto is briefly torn between his hunger and his grief, but ultimately, he hasn't eaten since he got stuck in the hallway either. He takes the potatoes, managing a smile.]

You're a lifesaver. I didn't think to carry rations on my library trip.

[Given that it was supposed to be like, maybe a five minute walk at most depending on the house's layout.]

[windmilled]

[Luis chuckles at that and sits down in one of the other chairs.]

Maybe we should all start keeping granola bars in our pockets, eh? Just in case.

[It's easier to talk about this, than to talk about the gruesome murder that was found in this room just yesterday.]

[doctopoda]

Maybe so.

[He'll lay into the potatoes, with what seems even to him like inappropriate enthusiasm. He's gone longer without food before - but that was while he was under the influence of the actuators, and he hardly felt it then.

After a minute though, he stops.]

...I do have to wonder...if I hadn't been in there, I would have kept a closer eye on Ranma.

[Did the house do it on purpose? Just to set up that scenario? But why?]

[bouchere]

Huh. The house didn't literally eat you. Cool.

[ Sorry, Otto. That's all she can muster up. It's not you; it's her. ]

[doctopoda]

I would've minded that less!

[He's speaking in anger, but also - he'd been afraid, for a while now, that he would be trapped for a long time.]

[bouchere]

I'm just glad the house wasn't trying to snack on room six in particular. I would've felt kind of guilty for not being there to punch it or whatever.

[doctopoda]

Is...

[He's already looking rough, to be honest, but he seems to pale a little further behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Of course he knew what day it was. He'd suspected something may have happened. But there's no law that murders must happen only on Fridays, every Friday, and so he'd still hoped...]

Is Ranma...

[lockedmods]

[The wall growls creakily and inhumanly, like wood and stone grating terribly against each other somehow given living voice, and opens a splintery maw to snap at Otto's tentacle.

It's less like trying to eat him, though, and more like a sleepy, sated warning to buzz off.]

[doctopoda]

[The claw snaps back.]

Oh, fuck off.

[But he'll turn his attention to the others.]

Sitting Room

[mind_chess]

[ Look, we're all very surprised. ]

Doctor, you're alive!

[doctopoda]

Sorry to disappoint.

[he is JOKING mostly]

[mind_chess]

We were all certain the house had eaten you. I'm glad to see it found you unpalatable.

[doctopoda]

I guess the arms would be hard to get out of your teeth.