The Belmont Hotel
Entering the Belmont Hotel is much like stepping into another era. While the beauty of the late '40's and early '50's architecture is still apparent, it has faded over time. The lobby is very angular and polychromatic - a symptom of the Art Deco trends at the time it was built. Despite the state of semi-disrepair, the hotel lobby is absolutely immaculate, and a smile can generally be found upon the faces of all who work here.
The trail of Kate's scent is a bit difficult to follow. Muddied with drugs, the sick, the desperate and all the other things that come with the refugee shelters that have been teeming since Katrina occured. But then there is a line from that, a line back home towards where she's sleeping. The Belmont 'Hotel' hardly lives up to its name, definitely one of the skeesiest motels in town, but it will do. There's a dozen cars in the lot, so who knows if one is her's, but a cracked open window (the airconditioning doesn't work in most of the rooms) yeilds her scent faintly on the wind from one of the back rooms.
No one ever questions a stray dog wandering around a place like the Belmont. In fact, to the people who pass him as he skulks along the streets, Murphy is practically invisible - part of the scenery. He's been trailing Kate with a bit of difficult but, clearly, he's ultimately made a success out of the little adventure. He eventually comes across the open window and the telltale scent he's looking for, and in short order the shifter has his nose stuck under the window and he's pushing it right up, opening it enough for him to squeeze into. Which, of course, he immediately does. It's probably a solid bet to assume he's done the whole breaking-and-entering thing as a dog before, and unlike Kate he doesn't burden himself with carrying around clothes. It'd just look silly! A dog does not walk around with trousers, okay.
The interior of the room is almost a -sweet- scene, two paramedics passed out dead asleep in their respective double sized beds. Kate's closest to the window, wearing just a tank top and boy shorts, as scantily clad as she can get sharing a room with five other people. The sheets are all thrown off, the room entirely to hot for sleeping with covers. The next bed over contains a man who looks to be pushing forty with ginger red hair and a carefully timmed beard. He's snoring very faintly, only wearing his boxers and sprawled spread eagle. The rooms a half mess, clothing for six people stashed all about, several different medical kits, a half box of donuts, stale coffee and empty styrofoam cups…
It's a squeeze, but Murphy makes it through. He huffs a bit and drops down into the room with a light thud. The shifter stares at the slumbering woman for a few seconds, his face saying it all: You will regret your recent activities. Then he starts trotting around the room, sniffing at things wherever he goes in an attempt to locate Kate's clothing. Her precious, precious clothing that she's so damn protective of. Hit them where it hurts, his momma used to say, and it's something Murphy fully intends to take under advisement.
It's probably a blessing that Murphy decides to leave the duffel bag alone - at least for now. Instead he just dips his head down and closes his teeth over the sandals, hooking them into his muzzle before backing out of the closet. Then? Then he lies down on the floor just outside the closet with them and starts to chew. In fact, he decides to give a new meaning to the phrase OM NOM NOM. It'll be scarcely more than a matter of minutes until the sandals are just so much broken tangled messes of straps.
A few moments pass, enough that he's actually getting well into tasting cork, foam and leather straps coated with foot sweat (yum! Not.), before Kate's instincts just begin to flicker past the need for sleep. Something isn't right. A bit too much wind, the sound of something scraping in the corner. She never sleeps well, paranoia too deeply engrained in her this time, and so her eyes flicker open, peering in drowsy confusion at the clock beside the bed. She hasn't quite yet caught onto their little visitor and her mangled shoes.
Foot sweat might not taste fantastic, but revenge is sweet. Murphy jerks his head up a little to truly shred the straps he's working on at the moment and then lets the chewed-up leather drop out of his mouth. A quick survey of his work leaves him feeling a swell of pride: the shoes are officially unwearable, and quite beyond anything resembling salvation. He pushes up to all fours and then sticks his head back into the closet, tail wagging happily while he investigates the rest of Kate's precious personals. What to chew next?
It's at that moment that Kate catches a shaggy buttocks hanging out of her shared closet. Her eyes go a bit wide, sleep now very quickly shaken off. She doesn't dare make a loud noise, not wanting to spook him away or wake her partner who is deep into much needed sleep. Instead, she very, very quietly slips out of the opposite side of the bed, the one closest to the window, and tip toes the few feet to that open glass. The first real sound that Glen Murphy might notice is the sliding of wood and the shink of a metal lock being slid into place. He's officially trapped in the room now, unless he changes back to human hands and fights his way past a Pissed Off Paramedic.
Inside the closet, the mutt's floppy ears perk up. The window shutting doesn't really register, but the sound of metal is another matter. He stands in place, even his tail frozen mid-wave, and after a couple of seconds seems to decide that it was nothing. Nothing at all. Besides, those sneakers look so tempting! He noses at one of them and then closes his mouth around it, starting to back out of the closet again. These are too big to carry two at a time, and he might as well enjoy himself.
Locked in, the door always locked and the window now sealed, Kate tip toes back over towards the closet, nearly tripping over one of her demolished sandals. If her eyes could get any wider, they do! She swallows back a growl, really not wanting to wake Rodney, and does two things at the same moment. Her left hand swoops down to pick up one of those sandals and her strong right hand is suddenly full-palm grabbing his scruff, trying to initiate that instinctual paralyzed pup reaction as she drags him towards the bathroom. "If you growl or bark I'm going to whoop your ass so hard you won't be able to sit for a week!" Kate hisses out in a whisper.
Murphy goes somewhat bug-eyed when he's grabbed, the whites of his eyes showing as he rolls them up towards Kate. He doesn't make a sound and he does freeze up, but that makes him rather difficult to move. He's a big heavy dog, and he's not trying to make it easier for Kate to haul him around. It doesn't look like he's letting go of that sneaker either, keeping it stubbornly lodged in his mouth as his paws skid towards the bathroom. The bathroom of evil hate, judging by Kate's mood.
Yes, yes, the bathroom of evil hate and doom, the same way your room was when you were a kid and you had just gotten five smacks across the buttocks and grounded without dessert. Kate's stronger than she seems, used to carrying back boards and gurneys down horrid stair cases on a good day, dragging a big old mutt across some carpet into a tile floor isn't too hard. She doesn't speak again, into the bathroom they go, shutting the door with her foot and turning on the fan to mute any of what might be happening in there. "Glen Murphy, I oughta muzzle you, tranq you, and take you in to be neutered!" Kate hisses, "Drop that shoe now!" She's still got a FIRM grasp on his scruff.
What a terrifying threat that is. It does its job, too: Murphy horks a little and then lets the shoe fall from his mouth and down to the floor, where he stares at it a bit longingly. It's been so long since he got to chew up a sneaker. The last time he splurged on shoe-chewing was when a girlfriend who was really into jogging dumped his ass. The mutt twists his head around to look up at Kate, mouth open and tongue hanging out in a doggy smile. See! See! He dropped it. Reward time now.
The real terror is from the fact she's a paramedic. Probably she doesn't keep those kind of drugs, but hell, she has access to them! She could actually do it! As he drops her precious sneaker, she kicks it away far under the bathroom counter where he can't, hopefully, reclaim it. That doggie smile doesn't earn him much as she does actually carry out her previous threat and swats him thrice across the buttocks with the flat of her ruined sandal. "And this!" Swat! "Is for" Swat! "My SANDALS!" SWAT! Once that's done, she actually does let him go, revenge exacted even if her pulse is racing and her eyes narrowed. She's really quite pissed.
The dog yelps and tucks his hindquarters forward when the woman starts getting personal with that sandal, but all things considered it's pain that he'll forget about promptly. Fur grants padding! When he's released Murphy prances a few steps away and then sits down again, peering at the aggravated woman. The sneaker. Woman. Sneaker. Womansneakerwoman. His head tilts and he yawns once, looking thoroughly unaffected by the rebuke he's received. Shoe-chewing enjoyed; would chew again.
Kate stares down at him, somehow getting the feeling that he really hasn't learned his lesson despite hopefully suffering pride. Her expression glares so much her eyes are ready to pop out of her head. "Fuck… I swear. This is over." She growls out to him and then steps forward, moving to open the bathroom door. Apparently, she's going to permit him to make his escape. Hopefully he'll actually play nice and just do so.
Murphy is on his paw again immediately, prancing around the bathroom and around Kate like a puppy, his mouth sneaking in here and there to lick at the woman's hands. Door. Door! His tail curls proudly up once more, wagging all the while, and the shifter ends up leaning heavily against one of the woman's legs. His interpretation of 'this is over' is that things are square between them. One home invasion for another.
Kate groans quietly. Why the hell is he so damn cute? Kate gives his ears just a BIT of a scritch, not totally able to resist that lolling tongue, as she steps out of the bathroom with him. She waits for him to go first, not daring to give him a chance to go back for her sneaker, before she heads for the front door of the hotel room. "You're incorrigable. You owe me a pair of sandals." She grumbles quietly, maybe it's not as over as she first said. With that, she moves to unlocking the front door.
What a shame - Murphy would surely have tried to dive for that sneaker before exiting the place given half a chance, but Kate's being too attentive about it. He doesn't fuss over it though, and just trots triumphantly for the door. When it isn't instantaneously opened he lifts a paw to scratch at its corners impatiently, staring at it without tearing his eyes away for a moment.
Kate flickers a single look across her shoulder towards the still filled bed. Somehow, her partner slept through all of it. She exhales in brief relief and pulls the door open, doing her every best to give Glen Murphy's furred form not a single bit of mind otherwise. See? She can be the better woman here. Until just how pissed off she is about her sandals sinks in. She got those in New York! It'll be ages before she'll be able to get another pair.
Never the type to be subtle, the shifter bolts right out of the hotel room at what looks like a canter, Murphy's pace picking up even more as he zooms down the walkway and towards the slightly better areas of the city, slowing down only once he gets to an intersection a good bit up the street. Bad dogs do as bad dogs do! It'll only be a matter of time before that stray makes his way back.
