Logs:No Passport Required

No Passport Required
Dramatis Personae Gaétan, Harm, Sriyani
In Absentia	2023-08-22 "I don't know what your budget looks like but if we play it right --"
Location
(Sriyani --> Gaétan): I got your message are you seriously taking everyone on vacation? That's WILD (Sriyani --> Gaétan): I mean I know your school's all bougie but you guys must be RICH rich (Gaétan --> Sriyani): I don't know, my brother worked at a club for people who are RICH rich and I think we're just regular rich. (Gaétan --> Sriyani): I don't think that's like a school-wide trait though. A lot of the other kids are not, our headmaster is definitely like, stupid rich though. He's doing some trickle down education. (Sriyani --> Gaétan): I'm going to need some hard numbers on "regular rich" "RICH rich" and "stupid rich" how are you measuring (Gaétan --> Sriyani): My brother owns a swank hotel, so he's rich. The people who pay thousands a night for the luxe suites are RICH rich. The dude who wrote him a check to build the place is stupid rich. (Sriyani --> Gaétan): Ooooo your brother owns a swank hotel? Is that where we're vacationing? (Gaétan --> Sriyani): What? No, it's in Queens that's not a vacation. (Gaétan --> Sriyani): I don't know where we're going somewhere at the intersection of "where do people want to go" and "where can I actually book rooms for a week" (Gaétan --> Sriyani): Somewhere in the country I guess. I wanted to do Finland but I don't know if everyone has passports (Sriyani --> Gaétan): It's a vacation for some of us! (Sriyani --> Gaétan): I'd want to stay in a super cool treehouse. Somewhere with neat animals. (Sriyani --> Gaétan): Anyway who cares about passport I don't have a passport 🙃 (Gaétan --> Sriyani): OK so outback treehouse for you, at least. No answer comes to this for a while, and when it does it isn't in the buzzing of Gaétan's phone. His closet door opens, just a little. From behind comes Sriyani's voice: "I hope you're decent!" Is he, they're not waiting for answer before poking their head through. They're still holding their phone -- open to Gaétan's own instagram, his closet door visible behind him in photograph. "Anyway you're totally missing the bigger picture, which is outback treehouse for everyone." Gaétan is decent, currently in jeans and a grey checked button-down open over a white undershirt, slouched on his sofa with his phone beside him "— no you gotta put the nail in its arm —" Onscreen, his small blue-haired yarn doll is wildly dodging nails being shot out by a giant toolbox. He startles up at the sudden voice where he did not expect one, dropping his Playstation controller and whirling towards the closet before — "Ohjesuschrist." This sounds relieved, his eyes still wide but his posture — kiiind of — relaxing. His poor avatar is, meanwhile, getting knocked off the platform she's been on by a further barrage of nails. "You can't just —" he starts, but then stops with a small widening of his eyes. "Wait, how far can do — do —" He gestures towards the closet door. "That." "I'm trying!" Harm protests, their avatar also frantically dodging nails but notably not shooting any of his own. They're also decent, probably, dressed in a lavender t-shirt with a somewhat spherical cartoon owl on it and brown linen wrap pants. "It's the shoulder buttons right? I'm pushing them but nothing -- eee!" The high "eee" is presumably in response to the sudden opening of the closet door, and though they manage to hold onto their controller it does not much help their character on the screen, who has just run right off the edge of the platform. "Oh, hi!" Their look of blank surprise changes quickly into a smile when they recognize Sriyani. "It kind of seems like that should be less surprising than when Spence does it, all no-transition..." They are taking the opportunity to turn their controller this way and that, as that might explain what they were doing wrong. "I mean I just did so I think I kiiinda can," Sriyani says with a small wrinkle of their nose. "Butokay next time maybe I'll remember to text first I mean I was kinda already texting you but — um —" They shake their head and slip properly into the room — they're in pajamas, middle-of-the-afternoon be damned, fuzzy-soft and covered with little cartoon bats, and a loose orange crop top over a blank tank binder. "And, um, pretty much anywhere! I mean, pretty much anywhere we'd want to vacation? Where do people want to vacation I'll show you." Gaétan is staring at Sriyani's fuzzy pajama bottoms, fixed there a long moment before he slumps back down onto the couch. He picks his controller back up, but grimaces as his person perishes from several too many nails. "Uh — I don't know, your animal treehouse? Nanami wants to go to Denali. I should make a list so I can figure out what makes sense." Harm sets their controller down. "I've been reading so much about Iceland -- the weather's actually nice there this time of year -- they have waterfalls and hotsprings and glacier lagoons!" They cross their legs and rock back a little on the couch. "I don't know if that's everyone's idea of a great vacation, though. Where's your...animal treehouse?" Then they sit up straighter and look over at Gae. "Where do you want to go?" "Make a list!" Sriyani encourages brightly. "I don't know what your budget looks like but if we play it right --" They're scrolling through a number of AirBnB listings. Swiping through the pictures with a contemplative frown. "Okay umm --" They're scurrying over to Gaétan's bedroom door, staring hard at their phone and then scrunching up their face. Their tongue pokes out the side of their mouth as they reach for the handle, pull the door just a crack open. From behind it there's the sound of several voices, laughter, music; they shut the door again quickly. Tap at their phone again, look at the new pictures, and try again. They're listening a short while, then pulling the door open further once there is only silence on the other side -- it's not the Tessiers' second floor hallway outside anymore but an airy and cheerful wood-floored living room, huge windows letting in dusky evening light from the wooded lakeside surroundings outside. "Here, c'mon! I don't know if this is the right part of Iceland I have no idea how to tell if a lake is, uh, glacial." "I don't know, whatever I can put on Luci's AmEx before his you-were-in-torture-jail sympathy is eclipsed by his heart attack?" Gaétan doesn't seem overly fussed by the concept of Budget (that he isn't personally responsible for.) "But getting everyone --" He stops short as Sriyani opens the door the second time, his continuation, "... plane tickets," kind of trailing off into nothing. "Holy shit." He sets his controller back aside, following Sriyani to the door and then through it, turning in a slow circle that stops facing one of the big windows and the lake view beyond. "... okay but wouldn't it just be exhausting for you to... how often can you... you can't just keep..." His questions don't quite resolve out of his current sense of wonder. Harm follows Gaétan through a bit more hesitantly, but their hesitation doesn't last long in light of the view. They go straight to the window, then turns to look back through the door into the bedroom they just came from. "This is so cool," they tell Sriyani earnestly. "I mean I already knew it was cool but it's different when it's..." When it's what? Maybe Gaétan's trailing off is contagious, or maybe they're just really distracted by the Icelandic sunset. "Wait...what happens if you just leave that door open? Can you leave it open?" They frown. "What would happen if someone opened the door from the other side. I mean the hallway. In his house." Sriyani's expression falls just for a moment when Harm trails off, but they're back to bright smile in short order as they bounce towards the windows — towards the couch — back to Gaétan and Harm. "It's super cool, isn't it? OK so just picture if like —" They scrunch up their face and turn in a circle, examining the cabin. "That door," they're pointing towards a slender coat closet door, "went to Denali and that door," off towards a bathroom, "went to super awesome treehouse and — wait, no, I think we'd want the bathrooms but like you get the point right. If everyone makes a list we can totally chain them together." They're bouncing slightly on their toes, scurrying back to the window to peek outside at the wide wooden patio with its currently-covered hot tub. "If I leave it open it… stays open?" they offer a little uncertainly. "That's usually what doors do until you close them, right? Anyway they can't open the door from the hallway in his house, it's already open." "Wait but then what if someone closes the door? Like — in my room?" Gaétan has turned away from the windows and back to the door, looking through the doorway. "Do you mean this portal will just — stay here?" He's crossing back into his room, but only briefly before heading back into the cabin. "Chain — like everybody's — This is wild." Harm blinks at Sriyani and scurries back to the door, leaning just past the threshold back into New York. Still standing in the door frame, they turn around to look at Sriyani, wide-eyed, adding onto Gaétan's question, "Or what if they walked through it?" Would they materialize in front of me right now?" They're suddenly squinting at Gae's empty bedroom as if daring someone to materialize. "If someone closes the door, then it's closed. It's still --" Sriyani scrunches up their face again in a frown and continues less certainly, "-- kind of the same door? But the portal will stay open until someone closes the door so -- " They are peeking towards the doorway now, too. "Ummm -- does your family just barge into your room a lot without asking?" they're asking Gaé with some concern. "I guess if they did that they'd be like... stuck in your room until we close the door again. Unless they want to come to Iceland so not like stuck stuck but it'd probably be weird? I don't know you could ask your family if they want to hop over to Iceland real quick! But!" Their eyes have lit, phone clutched close to their chest as they turn back to the others. "I think we should get back anyway and start planning vacation." "No my family's pretty respectful of..." Gaétan looks down at his phone, frowns, steps through the doorway back into his own room kind of curiously before his frown resolves and he sends a quick text. "-- I think my brothers can make this much easier." For once the smile that lights his face comes quickly, easily. "-- This is going to be great."