entrancelogs | [ open ] the spirits are ruthless with the paths they choose

"Security clearance? This is my bedroom!"

She tries to scramble away from him on the bed. He's clearly a raving lunatic, maybe tweaked out on something hardcore. Julia imagines you could get all kinds of drugs from the closets, but surely she wasn't a sound enough sleeper that she wouldn't have heard someone break into her room and crawl into bed with her overnight?

Clearly so, and Julia can't get away fast enough. She keeps the sheets clutched in one hand and pulls her arm back, launching her fist forward directly at his face.

Blinking, remembering Wonderland. Remembering coming to this place and leaving the Army behind. He remembers a lot but in that moment he was back in the desert. The place where he should be. Nothing here is for him, and until he finds a way back, he won't stop trying.

Of course, he might try and pay attention. The punch catches him off guard, catching her by the hand and using it to show her back.

"What the hell..." He pauses though, looking around. There's something familiar about her. Something he can't place and then...

"What the fuck. How did I end up here?" He holds up his hands, placating, ignoring he's naked. "Look. Somehow I ended up in the wrong room. I think... Mine is across the hallway. I'm pretty sure I've seen you around."

"You just wandered into the wrong room? What were you, drunk?"

Julia wrestles her hand from his grasp, moving away from him and trying to find anything to cover herself. Her clothes are strewn all over the floor, and she takes in with a glance that they are mixed up with his for some God-awful reason. Her robe is crumpled on the carpet under the bed and she scoops it up, sticking her arms into it and wrapping it around herself as she tries to get out of bed without flashing him.

Once she's standing she finally takes a good look at him, sizing him up. Julia is confident she could take him down if she needed to, but hopefully, it won't come to that. She also realizes she has seen him before, if somewhat peripherally. She hasn't really cared about making friends in Wonderland as much as she is trying to find a way out.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that wandering into a random woman's room while she sleeping will get you punched in the face?"

"Do you just assume a man screwed over by this place is a drunk?"

Rolling his eyes as he finds his jeans on the floor, moving to jerk them on, hopping into them as he looks around for his shirt. Buttoning them closed, glaring at her as he looks up.

"Didn't anyone tell you that this place is fucking madness and maybe I'm just coping with whatever happened?"

He remembers coming to Wonderland from Afghanistan. He remembers getting those awards, of knowing the truth. He remembered this place and yet... Nothing else, and he can't figure out why not. Just things like this room, which looked like the barracks.

"I would at least give you the benefit of the doubt if things were reversed," he points out, rolling his eyes as he grabs his tee shirt.

"You came into my room. I can assume anything I want!"

She ties the waist on her robe a little too tight and a little too many times, and she'll pay by spending ages untangling it later. She lets him get dressed, though, and doesn't move from her side of the bed, completely disinterested in getting anywhere near him.

"If I woke up in your room, I'd assume I was drunk, too. Or that..." She pauses, then, before she lets out an ever-suffering sigh. "You think this might be an event. So, what, is Wonderland trying to play matchmaker? Because I'm married. Happily."

"No, I found myself in your room. Not the same thing."

Because dammit, he's not that kind of a man, and he wouldn't do that to her. To any woman. He's a monster in some ways, but this is not even close to that way.

"Yeah, I definitely think it is, because honestly? I fight to stop women from living in worlds where this happens to them, so I'm not one to add to it." Still angry, and kind of hurting because he wouldn't. He has done wrong, but not this.

"And yeah, well, since when does Wonderland care what we want?" He gives her a look, more about Wonderland than her. Though he pauses, expression softening. "Never seen a guy over this way, so I'm sorry he's not here with you. That's another thing wrong with this place."

Julia is ready to bite back but Barbie's soft expression leaves her feeling deflated. She grabs the lapels of her robe and pulls it tighter across her chest.

"It's fine. Peter would hate this place, and I'm just happy to go home as soon as I can."

She pulls her gaze away from him. Whatever happened here is a perfect example of why she hates Wonderland. It's as if Peter has been erased from her life completely. She glances down at her left hand, suddenly feeling like she's missing something.

And she is.

"Oh my God," she says, dropping her hands. She moves back towards the bed, flipping up the sheets roughly. "My wedding ring. I never take it off." It's the only thing she has of home, of Peter, and the idea of losing it makes her stomach roll. She glances up at Barbie and points to the bed sheets. "If you're going to stay in here, help me look for it."

"I thought you wanted me to leave," he snaps, but even as he does, he moves to get onto his hands and knees so he can look under the bed, under the nightstand, picking up and moving things to try and find the ring.

"Possible you lost it here because of an event?" Which is nicer than asking if maybe she took it off if she's been here for a while. Much nicer than asking that.

She's about to tell him to either leave or help her look, but he's already crouching under the bed so she lets it be. At this point, she's leaning towards accepting that Wonderland did set this up, but that doesn't make her any less wary of him.

"No. I had it last night."

At least, she thinks she does. She finds herself fiddling with it a lot lately, a nervous tic she developed since her arrival. She certainly had it since the last event.

Julia scans her bedside and the floor under it, kicking aside her discarded pants with her toe. She opens the nightstand drawer, thinking maybe she slipped it off and stuck it in there for safe-keeping. Instead of her ring, she finds dog tags. Julia picks them up, bringing him to her face to read the name, her thumb gently brushing over the dent in one of them. The name is different, but it's not hard to put together.

"Barbie? Dale Barbara?" She holds them out towards him, her previously pink-with-anger face now ashen. "I think these are yours."

He can't remember if she had it, not sure if she was one to even read one. Not that it wasn't bitchy, but it's running in his mind, making him think about it all as he scrambles around on the floor to try and find her ring for her.

Pausing though when he heard his name, jerking his head up and hitting it against the nightstand.

"Fuck," he mutters, rubbing the back of his head. "What? Uhmmmm... Yeah, yeah, those are mine," he says, pushing to his feet and reaching for them. "Must have taken them off in my sleep. Sometimes they twist," he says, not that he's sure that's ever happened. "I can't find the ring though. Maybe it fell down a vent?" Not that he sees any.

She grimaces when his head meets the nightstand but he seems to recover okay, so instead she reaches out even further to hand them to him.

"I don't think you put them in there," she says. It's too convenient, too personal. She's starting to think Wonderland is behind this after all. "Are you sure we don't know each other?"

Julia knows she would never cheat on Peter, at least not knowingly. What if Wonderland made her doing something that she's now forgotten?

His fingers close over the dog tags, brushing her fingers. He may be stuck here, without his unit, but he can't imagine he'd risk dying here without them on. Just in case he did end up back where he belongs, dead, and without them.

"I don't know. You spend a lot of time in the Middle East? The Sudan? Mostly where I was before this place."

And he just doesn't see her there, but given the attitude, maybe she was.

"Probably this place was fucking with us and we ended up here," he says, taking it backwards. He snorts, shaking his head. "It's an event ending, that's all."

He glances at her bed and then back to her. "Since you're looking for a ring, I'll apologize," he says, kind of feeling bad for that then. "I am sorry for anything I did during the event." Not that he'd regret it. She's beautiful and all, but it's one thing by choice, another by event.

"No, no. I'm a reporter but I don't do overseas correspondence."

If they know each other, it isn't from back home. She knows that much.

"You don't need to apologize. If anything did happen, it's on Wonderland, not you." She certainly can't blame him, especially if this is the end of an event they don't remember. "We aren't even sure anything did happen. Don't worry about the ring, I think it's best if you go back to your room and we just forget about all of this."

Easier said than done.

He nods, though he's not at all reassured. He's a soldier, and he has done horrific things, but never anything like this seems to imply and it really bothers him.

So instead he backs for the door, nodding. "Sure things. And again, I know you don't think I need to but... I am sorry for whatever's happened," he says, backing out the door with a quickening step and closing the door behind him.

[ open ] the spirits are ruthless with the paths they choose

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