Elevator Love part 10
By Tralla

The blonde’s consort had given him short notice of her intent to visit. With only a handful of house staff, due to his self-seclusion, there are numerous tasks without the numerous people to do them. As a result, the blonde has called on the reserves.

And the braid is mouthing off a storm.

“Do I look like a maid??? Do I???” shouts the braid.

We’re on the ground floor, in a dining area, one of the larger ones and his rants are echoing across the expanse, buffeting us.

I ignore the braid, but spidey’s looking at him as though he’s waiting for one more complaint to cut in.

But the braid stops his yammering and starts arranging the table paraphernalia that had recently arrived.

The blonde had made some last minute calls to guarantee that his domain would be more hospitable for his consort, and they were calls for things no men want to be associated with. He has us moving around vases of flowers, polishing silverware, putting up garden tables, positioning sculptures.

I was bribed. I don’t know about the others, but I’m getting double my salary this week.

I look around. I’m holding a vase. Mr. Forehead’s missing, as is the blonde.

Spidey has been placing candles all over. It didn’t occur to me before but he resembles a candle: tall and with this thing shooting off from his head. I watch him take out a candle lighter and begin lighting what he’d placed.

I look at the clutch of vases, the flowers that are in bundles on the table, and then to the vase of water in my hand. Great. The blonde’s rich. He can buy ready-made arrangements. I’m still trying to figure out how I got saddled with this particular task. I look at the braid. He’s muttering to himself as he’s cleaning. I keep watching. It’s better than---

The braid suddenly jerks upright. “Trowa!”

I turn around and follow his gaze. There’s a small fire and it’s on spidey’s leg. He must have dropped the mini torch he was using to light the candles or one of the lit candles because…he’s aflame, at least his pant leg is. And I remember something. He and the braid had come in smelling like gasoline. They had been called from the garage back to the mansion to do the blonde’s bidding.

The braid’s yelling. “For the love of God, Trowa! Don’t just stand there!! Put the fire out!”

Spidey just stares down at his leg as he says, “I’m curious to see how quickly it burns.”

The braid’s running from his side of the room.

Somehow, I get there before him and chuck the water in the vase at spidey’s leg. He looks up at me as the flames die down. “You just saved Quatre a million dollars, Heero. I suppose that makes you more conscientious.”

By this time the braid intervenes, “Trowa, damn you, don’t pull that moody crap here! Go see Sally!”

I’m still staring at spidey. The braid is flapping around him like a crazed mother hen.

I drop my gaze. It’s on his pant leg, but before I can get a good look at the burned region, he turns around and, under the braid’s urging, they leave.

I’m still holding the vase. I put it down and follow.

They took the elevator. I headed for the stairs. I walk up slowly, still thinking about what I’d witnessed. When I get to the health ward, I find the braid pacing. He’s agitated. He looks up at me and then walks off. I keep walking and enter the health ward. I see a person in a white coat. It’s the doctor. She’s in front of a bed and spidey is on it. The doctor turns slightly and looks at me from over her shoulder. Instead of that maternal expression she’d given me the last time I was in here, she looks surprised and uneasy. It doesn’t appear to be spidey’s situation but my presence that’s responsible. She doesn’t say anything as I walk around her. I’m looking at spidey. My eyes move to the doctor’s hands. She has a pair of scissors in one hand and part of spidey’s burned, but now sodden pant leg, in the other. She’s snipping away at the fabric, methodically. Too methodically for an emergency.

My gaze is back on spidey’s leg.

“It’s not real,” he says. “The leg. It’s not real,” he repeats when I show no reaction.

I’m still staring at it.

“I walk as though I have both legs, don’t I?”

I nod. There’s nothing else to do or say.

He was on fire and now’s he’s talkative. “It’s ironic,” he continues. “My natural leg can’t keep up with the new one.”

“Trowa, that’s not true,” interjects the doctor. She sounds anxious and eager to placate. “I’ve seen you practice. The progress you’ve made in the last 6 months alone is outstanding.”

“Was it progress or advertising? What is he doing with the footage?”

It takes me a second to realize he’s talking about the blonde.

The doctor looks at me and then back at spidey. She says nothing and goes back to snipping the rest of the pant leg away.

And that’s when I see it. There’s skin.

There’s skin and it’s charred. I can smell it. It’s overdone flesh and there’s no barbecue in sight.

Spidey must be scrutinizing my expression because he says, “It’s living tissue, but I have no sensation. I’m a marionette wrapped in meat.”

The doctor places a hand on spidey’s shoulder before saying, “Trowa, please. That isn’t necessary.” She glances my way. “Heero, it would better if you leave.” When I don’t move, she says, “Now, please.”

I leave. I exit the ward and I hear footsteps. Someone’s pacing. It must be the braid. It sounds like he’s down a corridor not too far from where I am. I look at my surroundings. On my left, I see that same corridor that led me on the path to the gymnasium a month ago. I step into it and push the door that separates this corridor from the one I’d just left until it’s just cracked open enough for me to hear without being seen. I can glance around the corner if I need to.

I hear dialing.

There’s a voice and it belongs to the braid. He’s having a conversation. He’s on a phone.

“We’ve got problems. He’s seen it… No…” The braid sighs. “I don’t know who you can get this late, but we’re busy. Find someone else to prepare for Dottie…Yeah fine. Everything on my end will be taken care of before she arrives.” The braid closes the phone walks past my hiding spot and heads back into the health ward.

I stay where I am. I don’t like this, and my apprehension is keeping me concealed. I don’t have cameras or mics here so now it’s a personal venture.

It’s been a half an hour. I don’t have a watch on. I can feel that that amount of time has passed, but that is the only thing that has passed. Waiting here, cornered in a corner, my mind has been running haphazardly. I’d gotten comfortable here and now I see that they’d never given me a reason to.

I hear footsteps and talking. It’s the braid and spidey. Both sets of footsteps sound natural. Spidey doesn’t appear to be hampered by the recent trauma to his leg. I take a look. He’s redressed in those green clothes hospitable workers wear. I retreat.

The braid sounds agitated. Nothing unusual except for what he’s saying.

“Geez, Trowa. Take the fucking medicine. This is verging on self-mutilation.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Well, you better be. I worked hard on that leg. I didn’t leave Caltech just to play around with cars. This is important to me.”

Spidey says nothing.

The braid sighs. “Just come on. I’ll fix something up for you. I can’t deal with you when you’re this morose.”

He’s hustling spidey down the hall. Maybe they’re heading for the lackey lounge.

I hear music. It’s electronic and muffled. I look around the corner.

The braid stops in his tracks. The music is still going. He’s swearing to himself as he pats his pockets. He pulls out his cell phone. “Hello? Howard? I don’t have time to talk….huh…you’ve got to be kidding me… What kind of crap--- Where is it? What do you mean it’s heading to Switzerland!! That’s bullsh—Damn, fine.” The braid closes the phone. He looks pissed as he turns to spidey. “Rain check. They’re shipping my stuff to the wrong place. Half-wits. Now, I have to go to the warehouse to stop them. Goddamn morons…” He still mouthing off as he’s walking away.

I watch him go. He’s road rage waiting to happen.

I’d been watching the braid retreat and momentarily forgotten about spidey. I see him and he’s closer. He’s looking at the door. He’d doubled back and found me. I don’t know how but he was aware of my presence.

Distraction tactic #1. I step out and away from behind the door and move as though I’m about to brush past him. “You’re in my way,” I say.

“Am I?” he asks.

We’re outside, on one of those unnecessarily large terraces the blonde has.

“You’re speaking more,” says spidey.

He’s right and I continue to do so. “Everyone is stranger than usual.”

“Not stranger. You’re just noticing more.” He looks at me. “I wonder why that is.”

Distraction tactic #2. “Your leg. Why isn’t it--”

“Real?” After a bit he responds, “I lost it.”

He’d said it as though he misplaced a set of keys.

It takes him a few minutes to start talking again.

“I used to be a gymnast. I suppose I still am.” He’s watching the trees. “I could have been in the Olympics. At least, that was what I was told. But then I was in an accident. There was a mechanical failure. My plane went down. This leg,” he taps it, “was trapped under the debris for the four days they took to find me. There was tissue death. It could not be salvaged.” He looks my way and after taking in my expression he says, “Grim, isn’t it?”

“You still have the other one.”

“I noticed,” he comments.

Looks like he’s feeling better because he’s sarcastic.

The braid’s back. I know this because I can hear him from where I am: two flights up. I start walking down. It’s been an hour and a half since he left, and strangely everything seems back to the status quo: eccentric behavior with no apparent greater significance. Everything is as though there was no fire; everything is as though I never found out that spidey is harboring a false limb.

I continue to descend the stairs. I can hear the blonde. He’s also down there. There’s a snort. It sounds like Mr. Forehead.

The braid’s being grandiose. It’s in his voice.

“Guess who’s on the way!” he announces. “I sideswiped her car coming here.” He snickers. “Made her driver steer the car into a ditch. Looks like I gained us a half an hour.”

“Duo…” It’s the blonde. He sounds like he’s vacillating between reprimanding the braid and giving him a high five.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He settled for something in between. Neutrality.

I’m on the ground floor. The only one missing is spidey. He probably got tired of looking like an orderly and went to change out of his scrubs.

The blonde looks disheveled, as though he, himself, has been doing hard labor. Mr. Forehead is at his side, with his sleeves rolled up. He’s sweaty-browed. It looks like they were the reinforcements the braid suggested. The blonde glances in my direction and then turns back to Mr. Forehead. They begin leaving, walking past me. But Mr. Forehead stops and the blonde keeps going on his way.

We’re facing opposite directions but he’s at my side as he says, “You might want to be inconspicuous later, keep the glares at a minimum, and adopt a servile manner.”

I look at him.

“Of the three, the first dictates the other two.”

He walks off. I face forward. The braid’s looking my way. He’s gnawing on his bottom lip. When I meet his gaze, he shrugs as though he’s given up or lost interest and walks away.

I hear chimes and walk out of the dining area and watch the braid open the front doors. He’s in quasi butler mode. He steps back, retreating into the foyer. He’s making way. I see a blonde woman enter.

She’s smiling at the braid in a very feline way, and he’s staring at her like he’s a mouse looking back at her from between her paws. And it’s just the effect of her stare that’s making him appear edgy.

The braid was wrong about the half an hour. It took the blonde’s consort 20 minutes; she’d opted to walk rather than wait for the car. And she did part of it barefoot. She’s holding her heels in her right hand and a bag in the other.

“I see that someone tried to stall me.” She still has her attention fixed on the braid. “Next time, put more effort into it.”

The braid must have recovered because he scoffs, “What are you trying to say?”

“You’re getting soft. You didn’t rear-end me. Believe me, I would have enjoyed it.”

I look back at them. The braid’s silent. Apparently, he’s not used to being challenged, with double entendres.

I inspect her. I wonder if this is how the blonde’s tastes run.

She’s got the kind of bosom that could smother a man.

There are things on her forehead that pass as eyebrows. They’re forked like a snake’s tongue but they look airworthy. As in, if she flaps them, she’ll take flight.

She’s like an owl with implant size breasts.

Hootie looks amused as she returns the braid’s gaze. She’s waiting for a retort.

They’re in a standoff until the braid breaks the silence.

“Your feet are muddy,” he says crossly.

“What a keen sense of observation.” She smiles. “I believe your concern means you’ll escort me to my quarters and help me to a bath.”

She just said ‘quarters’. Is she moving in? Or, had she already and is returning?

She suddenly looks my way. There’s a smirk. Her mass of hair goes flying as she turns around to resume striding beside the braid; I smell almonds. And it’s not the only thing I smell. She’s trouble and I’m a person of interest.

Part 11