i don't know what i need.

“You think ghosts carry money? I haven’t heard that one before.” He was trying to joke, but his expression remained neutral. He had been a little vacant since they had arrived and now was no exception. “I really wanted a drink,” he sighed, leaning back a little in his chair. “At least it’s nice to be outside. The company is nice too.” The words were genuine and accompanied by a short lived smile. “Fuck it, I’ll buy us both a drink. Money is made to be spent right?” 

“New discovery, actually. Ghosts have pockets now so you gotta watch out for your spare change.” Dot shakes her head before looking over to Miles, deciding to not point out his seemingly absent mood. She knew that she was always at least a little bit tired when on location. “Hotel bars are a scam, especially the haunted ones. Who’s going to pay fourteen dollars for a beer? —Oh, shut up.” She nudges him lightly at the compliment. “You know I’m not one to indulge but if you’re really offering I’ll cover the next overpriced bar.”

“is this gonna mess up my pay cheque if i don’t help you out?” he raised a brow, looking at her inquisitively for a moment as he assessed how serious it actually was. “what does it look like?”

“Probably not but if I said yes does that mean you’d actually help?” Dot lets out a short breath, knowing she was in position to be rude. “It’s just a regular Mac Book.” Something she’d spent ages saving for. “It should be in its’ case but I feel like I’m losing everything here, including my mind.”

-

“I wouldn’t waste your time like that.” Avery assures her and, in fact, had been geared up to help look when she found the notes. It is true that their study sessions usually leaves his brain flatlining– the information there but unarticulated– but he needs it and if not for Dot, he is certain he’d fail his class. He glances around at the hotel room, slipping his backpack off his shoulder. “Maybe we should record this incident as a paranormal interaction…”

Dot’s shoulders droop down, suddenly feeling bad for acting so accusatory. Avery so far was nothing but nice to her. “Oh. Good. I appreciate that.” She liked their tutoring sessions more than she thought. It was good warm up for when she’d eventually pursue her own degree and admittedly the material wasn’t anything too challenging, yet. “Really?” Sometimes she forgot the type of people she interacted with. “I’m sure Destiny just moved it out of the way or something. Or I put it there and forgot.” The second scenario felt less likely, but to Dot nothing was impossible except for one thing. 

-

Sabiha rolls her eyes but she’s grinning at the comparison to a knight. They hadn’t been too far out from camp and while the terrain is difficult, the cameraperson (at the very least) benefits from the proper footwear she’d known to pack. “People don’t normally biff it around me…” She comments, amusement clear as day in her tone and face after she’s done laughing about Miles. “I guess you are special, considering anytime someone does get hurt it’s on camera and I can’t exactly interfere.” In that regard, she suspects she is the person most viewers probably hate; the kind that watches the gazelle get taken down by a gator in a nature documentary, more a witness than participant. “’sides, I don’t think I could viably carry Aldan like this,” she lifts Dot up a tick for reference, then huffs another laugh, “he’d have to be over my shoulder. He’s too long.”  Picturing all 6′4″ of Miles thrown over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes is almost enough to make her fall to her knees with laughter but she holds back. “Luckily you’re like, what? Five feet?”

“Biff it is a pretty strong term to use.” Dot replies defensively, still sure that her fall wasn’t anything to worry about. She laughs a little herself as she gazes up at the cameraperson. The two didn’t talk that much but she found that she was rather enjoying herself when she could be so easily irritated. “Please, I’m sure the fans would love if it you came to someone’s rescue on screen. I think it would really add to the dramatics of, well, everything else. They would eat it up.” She could imagine it easily with all the theories and analyses that their viewers came up with. “It helps that you’re maybe, kind of, a little bit charming too.” She nods in agreement. “That man is a giant. Did you know when we were little he was a pipsqueak? I was taller than him at some point.” She can’t help but roll her eyes at the jab at her height, far too used to it by now and from experience the more worked up she got about it the more people thought it was funny. “Alright, I take my compliment back. Also, 5′3 is like the average height.” 

Destiny had woken up a little prior which was rare, she loved to sleep in. But deciding being up this early she might as well take advantage of the breakfast buffet. She was in the middle of changing when she heard the her roommate wake up. “Someone came in and decided to steal all our pillowcases and take off the blankets while we were asleep,” she says sarcastically, pulling a shirt over her head. “No I have no idea, I was out all night. I could sleep through a hurricane if I wanted so you’re fine.”

“Okay, well don’t try to be funny about it.” Dot replies, rolling her eyes back like clockwork. She gets up, still not sure how her blanket was taken clean off in the middle of the night if nobody else was there besides the two of them. “You know what’s weird? I’m the opposite. I’m surprised this didn’t wake me up, maybe I was more tired than I thought.” Swinging her legs over to get up, she grabs clothes from her suitcase to appear presentable at breakfast. “And I figure you don’t go around snatching sheets.”

“you don’t have my job because you aren’t cool like me, and that’s okay.” she shrugged, grinning a little. “do you have a degree already? because i should probably get me one of those.”

“I’m cool. I can be cool.” She scoffs but the statement sounded like the lie it was. Dot knew she was very much the opposite of cool and she accepted that a long time ago. “No because I don’t have a hundred thousand dollars lying around. One day, though.” She looks at Winnie curiously. “What would you want to go for?”

“Do you think one of the ghosts could pay for my drink? These prices are insane.” Dot says to Miles, shaking her head at the menu. There were a few other crew members that were at the rooftop bar but she preferred to stay close to people she was already close with. Blame it on her own introverted nature. 

"Have you seen my laptop? Anywhere?” Dot does her best to keep her voice leveled as she often hated acting paranoid but she wasn’t the type to lose stuff. She never lost stuff.. “I had it on the table in my room this morning. Not like if I lose it we’ll lose all our data or anything and it’d be my fault, ahaha. Oh god.” So much for not acting like she was panicking. 

Dot opens her eyes, proceeding to squint as sunlight crept through the room. It doesn’t take long for her to notice her blanket pulled clean off of her bed as somebody had removed it. She sits up, quirking a brow and looking over to Destiny. “Hey—.” She stops herself. Dot wasn’t particularly good at confrontation so she elects to take the conversation another route. “I know I move a lot in my sleep. Did I thrash around or something? Sleep wrestle the bed? Or did someone come in?”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the previous night or maybe it was how Dot could feel her disposition become more tense, she found herself more irritated than usual. She was looking through her files to continue some work when noises from the room next door would not stop. Were some of the crewmates getting together? Not that she minded, she hated parties, even if an invite would’ve been nice. She gets out of her bed and marches over, banging on the door to make sure they could hear. “Hey! Do you guys mind?”

"I could’ve sworn I had it right here like five minutes ago.” Dot groans in frustration, digging through her suitcase for notes from their last study session. It could be difficult to keep track of things when travelling but it wasn’t like her to just lose something. She’s never been the forgetful type. Her eyes scan the room, but she had no luck. It isn’t until Dot makes her way to the bathroom to find it sitting on top of the sink. “You have got to be kidding me.” Exasperated, she walks back into the room. “Did you move this? If you wanted to cancel you could've just said so.”

“Indulge me.” Dot says as her eyes ice skate around the theater, eyeing the years of decay and debris that were more likely from a lack of upkeep than spirits. “The light thing is stupid, right? It’s not just me? They probably just need to call an electrician if they want to fix them that badly. People can’t be that out of touch with reality that light bulbs just go out sometimes.”

“Yeah, that would be a nightmare. If that actually happens. I’ve heard about it in some of the alien stories and it seems like it’s best to avoid that.” He thought about it for a moment  before shaking his head, “no, it wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of good times too, like us hanging out.” He chuckled at the roasted peanuts comment. “Would that leave me to do the math? Because you would be horrified to learn how fast I would sink this whole company.” It was a joke, but he was genuinely bad at math and with money as a whole. He spread his arms in a sort of ‘look at where we are’ motion. “That’s kinda what we’re doing here, except usually opposite. Instead of using ‘based on a true story’ to overdramatize it for a block buster we usually prove that nothing happens and if ghosts exist then they’re pretty boring. And these are some of the nicest paychecks I’ve ever gotten. For doing nothing except talking about how ghosts aren’t real.” He gave a satisfied sigh, “sometimes I remember that I really do love this job.” 

“You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, I’m sure the government has better things to do than knock on the doors of people wearing tinfoil hats.” She pauses. “Actually, who knows anymore.” Dot’s expression softens at his reply. She was glad the both of them managed to find small bits of joy in their otherwise less than ideal childhoods. Miles appeared to be a happier person too since she reconnected with him at Arcane. It looked good on him. “It’s not nearly as hard as it looks. All you need is to know how to work a calculator and a spreadsheet and have a life time of budgeting.” She knew math wasn’t for everyone but for Dot it was just about the only thing that made sense. “If ghosts exist? Don’t tell me someone got to you and you’re a believer now.” It’s a half joke. “You’re right, it’s hard to complain sometimes even if it’s all pretty unconventional.” She looks at Miles and gives him a small smile. “We get to see the world and explore abandoned buildings, what’s there to complain about?”

“i think everyone with a degree just shrivelled up a little inside, dottie.” she scoffed, crossing her arms. “an advantage of being closer to hell when we’re investigating scary shit? you’re right, i’m insanely jealous of you.”

"Okay maybe not anything but a five minute search does keep people with and without degrees from asking stupid questions.” Dot scrunched up at her face at being referred to as Dottie, a nickname she hasn’t heard since she was little with the exception of her mom. “The national average height is 5′4. If being closer to Hell is the case then wouldn’t I have your job?”

sohee smiles and gives dot a nod. “so you have been paying some attention to all these things,” she gently teases, always happy whenever she can get someone to share their knowledge on her passion even when they don’t believe. “there’s not really a lot of cryptids here in texas, but there are some. not well known at all, though, besides like the goatman,” she says, and taps on her tablet through her notes. “i just thought it’d be fun to throw a cryptid in just for giggles. aliens are the most logical of all of this though. i don’t think a ghost could do the things that these lights can do.” she furrows her eyebrows together, trying to recall any paranormal beings being able to do what the marfa lights do. she then shakes her head and grins at dot.  “i’m going to make you believe that aliens are the ones behind the lights by the end of this,” sohee tells her, eyes twinkling. 

"It’s hard to ignore and I learned it all against my will.” Dot admitted. It was typically background noise that she preferred to drown out, but after only a year at Arcane she picked up on more lore than she even knew existed. “The one that haunts the bridge or whatever? I never understood why he didn’t do other things.” There were bigger holes she could poke through, especially with Cryptids, but she wasn’t in the mood to start an entire debate. People could believe whatever they wanted, it wasn’t her place to fight them because she felt differently. Besides they all spent more than enough time together she wanted to avoid any and all conflict. “So you’d make one up? Or say Mothman paid us a visit?” She quirks a brow. “I’m sure if you said ghosts there would be at least one person to believe it.” Dot didn’t doubt that, but she knew they couldn’t mess with their audience too much. “Uh huh. I mean if you find actual concrete proof I will be genuinely impressed.”