Handle With Care
Steamcraft
Hanna is Not a Boy's Name
Er, someone on the Hanna forums wanted to see some crack pairing, a Lamont/Ples, and I went for it. Out of the blue.
Lamont walked in to the lit house and then stood at the entrance in surprise. This was the first time he's ever been to the Brit's house, but it wasn't at all how Toni and Hanna explained it would be. Maybe Toni's version was closer; there were definitely clocks on every square inch of the walls, but not on the ceiling or doors, and even furniture as Hanna exaggerated. Nervous of his surroundings, he shuffled he box he carried in his arms and chuckled nervously.
"Heh, heh. Mr. Tibenoch, are - ha - you here?"
"One usually knocks before entering, wouldn't you say, Mr. Toucey?" comes a voice from his left. It startled Lamont bad enough that the box even jumped, gears and pistons clanking together on the inside. Ples stood in a doorway to what seemed to lead to an office. The look on his face was that of very mild irritation. "You have as much tact as Hanna does. By all means, please come in, but close the door, if you would. The night is cold this evening." With that he turned and went back into the office.
The delivery man stared where Ples had stood for a moment longer before carefully closing the door with his foot. Lamont followed where Ples had disappeared into. "Heh, sorry about that." Ples sat at a desk, hovering over paperwork and an old fashioned type-writer-like calculator beside him.
"It's quite alright this time, Mr. Toucey," Ples said without looking up, "but if it were to happen again, I'll have to have less tact myself."
"Haha, what?" He set the order on the floor, next to a table as the table did not look so stable as an antique.
"Meaning I'll take compensation for the next time you wander freely into my home."
Lamont heard stories what Ples had done when Hanna and a few others went snooping, and he swallowed slightly and made to exit backwards. Wasn't there something Lamont was forgetting when Hanna was warning him about Ples? Wasn't there something Hanna said that was related to time? He laughed from nerves again. "Haha, well, I promise it won't, heh-heh, happen again."
This time - and oh god, Lamont suddenly remembered what it was he had been warned about - Ples looked up from his work and at him, smiling possibly a bit deviously. "I was more hoping you would, actually." Sweating beneath his collar, Lamont looked around the walls, seeing the time. Twelve-twelve, and Hanna warned him that the closer time was to 12:21 the more dangerous Ples became before his other half took over for the night.
Lamont smiled too wide and laughed too much. "W-well, haha, I think, hahaha, I should be going now, hehehe..."
Ples only watched him with an amused smile. "Alright then, have a good evening, Lamont Toucey. I'll call upon your services when I will, ah, need you." And then broke out into mad laughter while the better part of him chastised about scaring the poor delivery man.