Hullo there! We're back. This year has been nuts and stressful, but we'll be making a comeback to finish our stories. We have a couple of chapters in the works and, of course this new story. Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Niles regretted waking up. More accurately, he regretted waking up alive. Unless he actually wasn't alive and this was just what Hell was like, in which case he wanted a word or two with Satan about stating upfront what going there was supposed to have meant. This, as torturous as it was, felt like false advertising.
It also felt like he'd recently been made to run a continuous marathon through the Sahara without any rest stops. His eyes were nearly glued shut and gritty, his body ached all over, and his head was pounding harder than the percussion section of the New York Philharmonic. His mind (what was left of it) was scraping around for the last time his mouth and throat had been so dry, too, and it was coming up with nothing – he thought he could drink the entire city dry and still not get any relief!
Something stirred in the back of his head, perhaps to rear its own hungover head and bitterly inform him that drinking the city dry was how they'd gotten into this mess in the first place.
Hm. Touché.
There was, hideously, only one thing he could do about it. One thing that might offer a little bit of sweet relief from the several different varieties of crushing agony competing for his time and regret. And that meant getting out of a bed which, to his relief, was his own – he could tell from peering out between the half-slits that currently constituted his vision and the smell of the Eaze-E Clean combination detergent and fabric softener he'd never seen anybody else buy in the supermarket.
Getting up was easier thought than done, though. And with the state of his head even thinking it amounted to some effort.
Heaving himself out from underneath his covers, he forced his feet onto the floor and the rest of himself out of a crouching position as soon as he was what could laughably be called "standing". Then, by feel as well as muscle memory, he shuffled his way around his bed, the rest of his room, and over to the bathroom.
Switching the light on was force of habit. It was also a mistake. The brightness blasted its way through his eyes and out the back of his head, forcing him to clamp his hands over his face with a groan until everything stopped feeling like it was melting. Meanwhile, he resumed a blind feel of the bathroom, steadying himself with juddering breaths, until his palm met a cool, smooth surface that his fingers reflexively grasped.
The sink. Perfect.
He pulled himself over to it, one hand keeping him balanced against all the forces threatening to topple him over and send him crashing to the floor. The other searched around for the cold water tap and the glass that he usually kept somewhere close by.
He filled it up, probably to the brim. He couldn't quite tell and he didn't very much care with the way his head was spinning. Bringing the whole lot up towards his lips only got it as far as his arm could bear to reach though so he ended up bending over to put his face in it. A gulp or two went down his throat before he went back for a refill, and he held the glass haphazardly in one hand as a moment of instinct came over him and his other hand reached behind the mirror to open up the medicine cabinet. He knew he always kept Advil in there, first thing on the right so that it was the first thing he'd grab if he ever needed fast pain relief.
And he needed it so fast right now that he might as well have needed it yesterday.
Taking two and making a shaky mental note to remind himself to pick up all the ones that had gone in the sink when trying to get two out of the packet, he swallowed the rest of the water and replaced the glass on the side. His bed was calling him again. He didn't know what time it was, but with any luck and if the Lord was feeling merciful that day, he thought he might be able to get in at least a little more sleep before he had to be up and fully prepared to make the family breakfast.
The mere image of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and cooked peppers was enough to make him heave. So, shoving it all out of his mind as hard as he was able, he took a few more breaths and headed back in the direction he came.
His eyes had adjusted a little more in the bathroom, as much as they could, and the water had wetted his throat enough that he didn't feel quite so much like shit from the inside-out, but none of that was enough to prepare him for what he saw as he looked back in the direction of the bed that had – only moments ago – seemed like a safe harbour he could recover in against the onslaught of yelling that was no doubt to come from Mr Sheffield.
It didn't look that way now. The light from the bathroom had illuminated it enough for him to see the other side. The side that was usually empty, covers neatly tucked over, pillow fresh and plump and unused.
Today it was being used.
There, out like a light from whatever had happened the night before and spread-eagled across the mattress, with covers torn back to show…show everything…was C.C. Babcock.
Again, the Bible had been wrong. Hell was cold. Niles knew that because he suddenly felt it all over. How the fuck had C.C. Babcock ended up in his bed? And why was she naked as the day the doctor had put her together in his laboratory?!
What had happened last night?! They'd been at the Broadway Guild Awards, yes, they'd had a good time and had come back for a nightcap…or several…and then…and then…
He didn't know what had happened then. But they couldn't have! Could they? He didn't remember much after a few drinks but surely he'd remember if…if they'd…oh, it couldn't have happened! Even when drunk out of his mind he was usually too much of a butler! He'd probably even remembered somehow to put his pyjamas on…
Looking down, expecting to be met by fuzzy blue or maybe off-white cotton, his eyes were instead greeted by his own bare skin. All the way down. Including over his…his most delicate area…where Little Niles was stood to full attention. Looking ready to…oh, fuck!
In an instant, flashes from the previous night emerged in his mind and started coming at him, hard and fast:
Miss Babcock had been grinning all over her face when she'd seen it. She'd…she'd said something about…about how she'd misjudged when she'd called it a "little spatula"…
He'd told her she'd get to feel just how "not little" it was…
She'd said…something he couldn't remember…before she'd knelt down in front of him and took him in her mouth in one—
Gasping in through his teeth painfully, Niles blinked himself out of it. Oh God. Had that really happened? Had he really said all of that and...and done all of that?!
He must have…how could he remember so much if he…they hadn't?! It…had it been good? Something in him was saying that he should've been beaming hard enough for his face to crack in two, but how could he? What on Earth was wrong with him to even think about that in the first place?! He'd probably just slept with Miss Babcock! How the hell could his next thought after realising that have been to try and ask himself 'Hm, was my one-night stand with her any good?'?! Who did that? People who were sick in the head, most likely!
And speaking of sickos and other unsavoury members of society, Niles was soon brought out of his panicked thoughts by the faint rustling of sheets and a low groan bubbling from the depths of Miss Babcock's throat. That last noise didn't really help his situation – if anything, it evoked non-sanctum memories of...her...uh...moving under and (apparently, at some point) on him the previous night.
Christ, he was getting harder. How – and most importantly why – was he getting hard for her?!
Once again, Niles found himself wondering if he hadn't died and gone to hell. There he was, butt-naked and with his little friend standing to attention, all while C.C. bloody Babcock was about to wake up in his bed and see what he knew would be a pathetic sight at best, and trigger for her flying off the handle at worst. Clearly, when faced with a fight-or-flight scenario, his stupid arse had unceremoniously fallen (collapsed, actually) somewhere in the middle and he now found himself rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but quickly reach downwards to try and cover his modesty.
Needless to say, that was the equivalent of trying to block out the midday sun with one's hands.
In what were most likely seconds but felt like a lifetime and a half, the producer stretched in bed, yawned and, with a painful effort familiar to all those who have ever suffered from a killer hangover, sat up in bed. Had his brain not been panicking right then, he would have certainly appreciated her beauty – with her full, naked body and tousled hair that spoke of a night of wild passion, she was a positively erotic sight.
But, alas, he was like a deer in the headlights – he could only watch the impending disaster as it careened towards him.
It finally came as Miss Babcock rubbed and then opened her tired eyes. They immediately found him.
C.C. knew she was awake, but trying to open her eyes just wasn't an option. She could either keep them shut for a little longer, or she could somehow find a way to cut off her entire, pounding, excruciating head and still be alive for work later, but the former was – unfortunately – more realistic.
Fuck, this was painfully familiar. But she never said "never again" anymore because she knew that just wasn't gonna happen. She just had to learn to live with hangovers.
Yawning and stretching was an equally shitty mistake, but she couldn't help it. She needed the release after whatever it was about her stupid hangover, or even the night before in general, that had made her feel like she'd rolled off a cliff and into oncoming traffic. And she was gonna need an Advil and a glass of water any second now anyway before she murdered the next person she saw for the crime of existing.
Sitting up took effort after these things. Sitting up without throwing up even more of one. But, somehow, she managed to raise her body from the dead that had been a blissfully unaware sleep, sit upright, and bring her hand up to wipe slowly at her eyes. They were currently being beaten into second place for the title of "body parts that felt like they had the most sand in them" by her mouth, but the quick-fire cure of painkillers and as much water as she could pour down her throat would take care of that.
She'd probably skip breakfast that morning. Or maybe just substitute it for a larger cup of black coffee than usual…either way, she was going to have to get up and make it happen…
Finally, she willed her eyes to open.
It took a moment for her vision to clear, but the second it did and she saw what was in front of her, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
Right there, in front of her, was Niles – naked as the day the stork had heaved him into the world and covering whatever it was that God had seen fit to grant him!
What the actual fuck…? Niles? Why the hell was he here?! And why in God's name was he naked?! How the fuck had he come back to her apartment with her? What had happened?! Was this some kind of joke? A dream, maybe?! It couldn't have been a dream, could it? She wouldn't have felt so terrible in a dream! And her dreams were never as terrible as the thing that was stood in front of her in his birthday suit, looking like the Creature from the Black-Tie Lagoon!
What the fuck was going on if this wasn't a dream? What had happened? How had it happened? She didn't remember leaving the Sheffield mansion, so how was it that she'd ended up back…back at, uh…
Looking around even for a fraction of a second derailed that wrong train of thought. This wasn't her bed, with its satin sheets, or her walls with their fine art, or her hand-carved oak furniture!
This…this wasn't her home! Fuck, this wasn't her penthouse – this was…this was the Sheffield mansion! Wasn't it? If Niles was there, of all people, it couldn't have been anywhere else! Was this his room?! Had she just spent the night in Niles' room with him there?!
A creeping chill drifted over her, which she tried to warm away with her hands. But they only brushed bare skin when she touched her torso, and her gut tightened and squeezed like her insides were caught in a vice.
One panicked glance down revealed the worst possible sight of her bare white skin. She was just as naked as Scrubbing Bubbles was over there, and she was doing even less to hide that fact than he was!
Oh dear God, no.
Gasping shrilly, she seized the covers and threw them back over herself. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit! Why the fuck was she naked too?! There was only one reason any two people woke up naked next to each other and there was no fucking way on Earth that she would've ever even considered…
But had she considered…? Or had she just…gone ahead and done?
The word "done" sent a wave of revulsion crashing down over her. Oh dear sweet Lord in Heaven, it was too much to think! They couldn't have!
But had they? Had they actually done it? They'd come back after the party, but…what had happened after that? They couldn't have gone all the way, could they?! All of this had to be some sort of stupid mistake; she…she was C.C. Babcock! There was no way on God's Green Earth that she would have slept with Niles!
Would she? Could somebody please tell her that before she went insane?!
"Oh God no," she groaned hoarsely, legs kicking out at the mattress as they scrambled to fold up next to her. "Oh God, please say we didn't! We didn't, did we?!"
Niles blinked back at her, stunned by the utter disgust coming out of her mouth. Who the hell did she think she was, acting like he was absolutely repugnant when only hours ago he just about recalled her putting her hands all over him? Obviously he was upset about the whole thing too, but you didn't see him spouting off oh-so charmingly like she was! Hell, there were people out there who'd fallen into vats of raw sewage and somehow taken it with more grace and less disdain!
Mouth hardening into a line and hangover all but beaten into submission by his own anger, he answered her lovely little question.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Babcock," that was a lie, right now he'd happily tell her all the bad news he could think of. "But I think you'll find that we did."
He watched as the producer's face crumpled and collapsed; no doubt a preview of what was to come in the next ten or fifteen years.
"Oh, fuck!" she shouted, the sound reverberating off the walls. She wiped her face hastily, throwing panicked glances between him, the bed, and the door. "How did…how did this happen?! What did I do? How the hell did I go from going to a party to just going at it with the help?!"
Fire burned in Niles' insides, and it wasn't whatever he'd eaten the night before making a reappearance. He hadn't been "the help" only hours ago, when he'd done her the world's biggest favour by stepping into Chandler's overpriced shoes and going to the awards ceremony with her!
"I've never been of any help to you, remember?" he snapped. "Even if I did do just nicely as your replacement Chandler last night!"
C.C. scowled up at him, "Oh, would you stop?! We've got so many bigger things to worry about than your overly-large and underserved ego! Like how the hell this happened in the first place! What were we thinking? Did we even use protection?!"
Niles' steady gaze slipped away from hers, down to the floor and all around for a few seconds. Then he looked back up with a sneer.
"Judging by the state of my bedroom floor, I'd say we made protection a priority."
C.C.'s stomach took a dive off a cliff as he made a sweeping one-handed gesture in front of her. Dreading what she'd see but knowing it wasn't going to get better if she didn't (and it couldn't possibly get any worse, anyway), she peered cautiously over the side of the bed and down at the floor.
There, reflected in the light pouring through the bathroom door, was a condom. And a wrapper. And another condom and its wrapper. And several more. Across Niles' floor there were eight whole condoms and their wrappers piled up and spread out like latex and foil confetti after the weirdest parade to ever hit the streets of New York!
Oh, Jesus Christ.
"See?" Niles asked, replacing his hand back over his genitals and shrugging lightly. "Safety first, obviously."
C.C. turned to him so fast she might have given herself whiplash. But it was worth it to stick him with the dirtiest look she had.
"Shut it, Niles! This isn't funny, even if you think it is in that sick little head of yours!"
Niles stuck her with his own hard look, "I never said I found any of it funny, Babcock! Getting blackout drunk and getting carried away isn't exactly a day watching the clowns at the circus! But we did it, whether we like it or not, and we ended up here. And I'm sorry if you don't like that, or if you want to know more about what happened, but I don't know what to tell you! I don't remember! And it isn't my fault that you can lead one particular horse to water and just automatically know that she'll drink!"
Letting out a groan of frustration, C.C. let her head drop into her hand. God damn it! He might've been the worst person on Earth right now, but she'd be lying if she knew he didn't have a point! She really had reached an all-new rock bottom if she'd had so much that Niles the Sheffield family butler had suddenly seemed like an attractive prospect!
And…well, if she really thought about it hard, she thought she could remember some of what her drunk ass had been seeing through the thickest beer goggles an alcoholic optometrist could possibly carve out! There had been the party, and the party had been good. Maybe a few dull people she'd wanted to avoid, but what else was ever new? And then…then someone had suggested leaving to go have a nightcap. She didn't remember who, and doubted that she'd have cared because she never said no to a nightcap – especially not when she'd already gotten lightly buzzed at the party and there was always a chance to keep that going…
There had been dancing, and laughter, and all the…hands going places that they shouldn't have been…but that hadn't mattered. Clothes had come off; she'd seen them hitting the mansion's living room floor…
And then a hand had playfully pulled her upstairs. Part of the way. And then she was the one doing the pulling, like…like they'd traded off…
And then she saw him, just as naked as he was now, but much closer. In fact, practically on to—
She shook that thought out of her head immediately. Why the hell did it matter now how any of it had happened? She didn't have to give herself a play-by-play replay of events, it wouldn't do anybody any good!
"I can't believe this," she despaired out loud. "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me – this is a nightmare!"
Niles, only just remembering his still-delicate position in time, had to force himself to ignore all instincts to tightly ball up both his fists. So, it was a "nightmare" to have slept with him, was it? He ignored the hole opening up in his chest. Fantastic! It was great for him to know exactly where they stood!
"Well, it happened, so you might as well start getting used to it!" he snarled. "We both clearly wanted it to happen when it happened! And people are known for making the worst mistakes of their lives when they've had too much to drink! That's clearly what happened here – we both made our worst mistake!"
He paused to look her up and down deliberately.
"I certainly know I did, now that I'm sober," he finished.
C.C.'s head left her hand so she could narrow her eyes at him.
"I thought I told you to shut up?!" she flung back. Then she remembered something else she was irritated about. "And for God's sake, would you put something on?! You're just stood there like you're taking part in some kind of science experiment!"
Niles turned away, perhaps to look for a robe, with a grimace on his face.
"I was, several hours ago!"
Outraged and yelling wordlessly, C.C. let her head fall back into her hands.
"Fuck, I can't believe this!" she moaned loudly into her palm. "It's a disaster of epic proportions! It's the universe conspiring against me in the worst way possible!"
Yeah. The worst way possible being her knowing that, underneath it all, she'd had a damn good night. It'd been a good time – the sex had been…definitely good. More than good, actually – they'd both been into it, she could remember that—
But she didn't want to! That thought could stay firmly back in the tiniest, dustiest, most unused corner of her brain forever, as far as she was concerned! Right along with that time she'd walked in on her mother screwing the pool guy at the age of six and every birthday her father had missed as a child!
She didn't know what she'd been thinking. Or what had happened to make her decide to ignore all common sense. But there was only one thing for it now!
She looked back up at Niles, who – thankfully – had put his boxers back on and had also found a robe to tie around himself.
"Nobody can ever hear about this. Do you understand?" she pointed at him warningly. "No one. Not ever!"
That was more than enough for Niles. First the insults and the snobbish, high and mighty attitude squashed in with that "woe is me" line, and now this? Now she was forbidding him from talking about it as though she had any right whatsoever?! Treating him as though he were some sort of secret shame and yet at the same time as though he were…as though he were nothing to her?
Two could play at that game, Babcock.
"Don't you worry about that – it's not exactly going on my resumé!" he wasn't anywhere near done, though. "Though maybe I will be telling one person – a doctor at the hospital when I go and get some tests done! I have to make sure you haven't passed anything along, after all. And they say if you catch certain things early, they're treatable with antibiotics!"
He watched long enough to see her mouth fall open, then turned sharply on his heel and stormed over to his dresser. There, he made a show of looking around for something.
"I suppose I should give you your pay, before you take it into your own hands and steal it out of my wallet, too!" he looked at her over his shoulder. "How much do you usually charge? I wouldn't want to underpay you for going through such an ordeal! And I wouldn't want your pimp to come looking for the rest and end up breaking my legs, either!"
Stone cold silence met his words. He turned again, facing her fully, and he folded his arms in front of him as she glared back at him with the force of a thousand suns. He didn't care – why should he? She'd been the one to start it all, by treating him like shit she'd stepped in out on the street!
This was just him returning the favour in kind! Like they always did!
The fact that she was still staring at him, not saying a word back…that was strangely new, though. Usually she had something she thought was clever right up her sleeve and she would've normally hurled it back by now. So come on, where was it?
A few more seconds of absolutely nothing passed, and Niles shifted his feet a little. Why was she just looking at him like that?! All glassy-eyed and unblinking. It was like she was either going to start crying or burn the house down!
He'd bet money on the latter, too.
"What?" he shrugged, as if to demonstrate her lack of response. "Nothing to say, at last?"
This wasn't the usual Bitch of Broadway he had to deal with! Had she finally run out of ideas to try and get him back? Not even a cheap shot about his profession, his lack of money or a home, or his age? Not even one about his weight?
Before he could even begin describing how she'd clearly finally gone off her rocker, the silence was broken by the rustling of sheets.
She was getting up.
And she was heading towards him. Slowly. Deliberately. Not at all caring that she was still completely naked and treading all over a bunch of used condoms and their wrappers on her way.
Whatever expression Niles had been wearing, it fell away as she came within two feet of him. And just stood there. His insides felt off. Like prey animals that had just sensed the arrival of a predator.
"What?" he asked again, trying not to sound shaky. "I asked you a quest—"
The rest of the word was slapped, hard – harder than any slap he'd ever had before – out of his mouth.
And suddenly he was careening away from where the palm of C.C. Babcock had slammed into his cheek, air forced out of his lungs, ears ringing like tinnitus, and cheek burning hot with how much it stung. It was like his soul had been smacked straight out of his body, the rest of him cold compared to the fire raging on his face, and he staggered to catch himself as best he could before the floor could do the job for him.
What the…what the actual fuck had just happened?! She'd just hit him! Out of everything that had ever happened to them, out of everything that they'd been through, she'd never once hit him before! Not like that, anyway! There had been near incidents with various objects, a few struggles, of course, but nothing had ever been like this!
Straightening up and trying to catch his breath back, he took a few moments to compose himself. He'd obviously gotten what he'd wanted in trying to make her angry and hurt, but the hitting really had come out of nowhere!
"What was—"
"If you try to say even one more word, I'll slap you so hard you'll think I never did it in the first place!" Miss Babcock snarled, scaring the other words back into his throat. "Shut the fuck up when I tell you to shut the fuck up, and stay shutting the fuck up! Preferably for the rest of your life!"
Muttering something to herself about needing her stuff, she turned away from him and started scanning the floor for whatever clothing she'd still been wearing when they'd left the living room. She was off as soon as she'd spotted the first piece, gathering it up and collecting everything else that she could find.
Niles stared as she started throwing the different bits and pieces on, clearly not caring about how well she was wearing them so long as she was wearing them.
The question he'd had before was creeping back up into his mouth, too, but it wasn't daring to leave. He'd never once seen her like this! He'd seen her angry, annoyed, all sorts of things that he had done and caused and made happen had done all of those things over the years, but not a single thing that had happened had made her do this! She'd never once been…been so upset or enraged that she hadn't had so much as a word to say to him back! That she hadn't wanted to hear him speak, or to even think about arguing like they normally would!
This wasn't normal…
And she didn't care whether it was or not. She'd put on as many of her things as she'd been able to find, and grabbed the purse that he just about remembered her tossing away into a corner the night before, in order to head for the door.
She ripped the thing open so hard he ended up flinching. It was like she wanted to tear the thing off its hinges.
It probably wasn't the only thing she wanted to rip off, either…!
Putting her exit on pause, she took the time to shoot him one last rage-filled look over her shoulder.
"You should feel lucky I deigned to touch any part of you while drunk, because I sure as hell wouldn't have done it while sober! Scumbags like you don't get the time of day from C.C. Babcock!" she shouted. "You won't be so lucky later, though, when you're busy telling Maxwell why I'm taking time off!"
Her exit could've only been angrier or more dramatic if she'd chosen to slam the door behind her. But she didn't. She simply stormed into the hallway, and Niles gaped at where she'd been stood.
Time…time off? She'd just said she was taking time off! But what did she mean, she was taking time off? She never took time off! How long did she mean to be gone? And where was she going?!
He felt his blood run cold. Shit. She'd told him that he was going to be the one to tell Mr Sheffield the answers to all of those!
But…but they were just about to open! They had a new show coming at any moment and she was leaving him in the lurch! The both of them; Mr Sheffield by leaving him high and dry with the mountain of work that was being done, and Niles by making him be the one to pass on the message! How the hell was he going to do that?! How could he possibly explain any of this to their employer?! He didn't know how he'd explain it to himself, let alone to somebody else!
He wasn't going to have an answer. Not a good one, anyway. Anything he could possibly say was going to have to mention…well, all of this! And in lieu of getting his hands on Miss Babcock for going away with no warning or explanation, or any indication of when she might be back, Mr Sheffield was most likely going to kill him for it. He could already see the producer's face, and it didn't exactly come surrounded by sunshine and rainbows!
Fuck. Fuck it, he couldn't let her go and have any of that happen!
Remembering that his feet did in fact still work, he rushed out of the room and after her.
It didn't take much to catch up.
"Babcock, wait!" he cried out, snatching at her wrist to get her to stop. "What do you mean, time o—"
"Time off!" she yelled back at him, wrenching her whole arm so her wrist came away from his grasp. "I know that, being in indentured servitude, it's beyond your understanding to think that people might get time away from work, but we do! It's called "time off"! And I'm taking some from right now! Maybe a month of it, maybe longer – the last thing I want to see for a very long time is that stupid face looking at me!"
"You can't do that!" he cried out, sounding more than a little desperate (and most definitely pathetic, too). "Mr Sheffield won't—"
For the second time that morning, Niles was cut off and rendered useless by Miss Babcock's hand striking him painfully across the face.
"I said shut the fuck up!" she screamed at him. "I don't give a flying fuck about what you want or have to say to me! I'm taking some time off and you and everyone in this house can go fuck themselves if you don't like it. I'm fucking done!"
Without giving Niles time to get a word in, she turned her back against to him and continued to stomp down the hallway and towards the stairway that led to the kitchen, like the word's tiniest bulldozer. She clearly couldn't give a tinker's cuss about keeping it quiet for the sake of the still sleeping Sheffields.
"What in the bloody hell is going on down there?!"
Niles closed his eyes and sucked in a breath through gritted teeth – actually scratch that. She didn't give a shit the no longer sleeping Sheffields.
Fucking fantastic, Mr Sheffield was awake, no doubt thanks to his and Babcock's not-so-quiet verbal go at one another in the middle of the bloody hallway at 7 a.m. in the bloody morning!
His morning clearly kept getting better and better…
Still, Maxwell's clearly annoyed (if still groggy with sleep) holler got Niles out of his state of inaction brought on by Babcock's onslaught and gave him a kick in the metaphorical backside. So, caring very little about his state of undress, Niles dashed towards the stairs.
"Babcock, come back!" he screamed at her as he got to the kitchen and caught a glimpse of her dishevelled golden hair going out through the back door moments before it was slammed shut. "Stop right this instant, woman!"
His words did very little (to not say they didn't do anything at all) to stop the producer's irate flight towards the still quiet New York City streets. Niles could only chase after her, wrenching the door open and rushing outside, no keys (and certainly no plan) at hand.
"Babcock, stop, for Christ's sake!" he tried once again, sprinting the last few feet that separated him from C.C.. "Talk to me goddammit!"
Unexpectedly – in an almost too-good-to-be-true case scenario – the producer actually halted in her tracks and turned towards him. She stopped so abruptly, in fact, that Niles nearly crashed into her. He skidded to a halt within an inch of her body, huffing and puffing as his chest heaved out laboured breaths.
Not that she cared – Niles could easily tell she wasn't going to wait for him to catch his breath.
"I'm done talking," she said quietly, venom dripping from her every word. "Contrary to what you think, I'm not a slut and you most definitely aren't some John I owe my time to."
The heat from her rage radiated off her, to the point where Niles almost took a step back. Almost. He wasn't going to let her intimidate him until he backed off; he wasn't going anywhere until he'd found out what the hell she thought she was playing at with this whole "time off" thing! She had to understand that, didn't she? Even if she was pissed off about the whole…the whole scenario that had just taken place inside!
Granted, it had been one hell of a scenario. And, if he really thought about it, it might have been a bit much of him to go quite that far – but it wasn't as though he hadn't ever sent a zinger or two like those ones in her direction before! And she'd always given as good as she'd gotten straight back! Just think of how many times she'd made fun of him supposedly having no sex life at all! That was just as bad, surely?
They'd never not been on an even playing field before. So that meant they couldn't be on one now, either. It had to mean that. Why would it suddenly change just because he'd said something a little off-colour? They'd gone back to their previously uninterrupted schedule plenty of times after both he and she had said things that were twice as bad as this! So why was she acting like this had somehow been the worst thing that could possibly have happened?
The worst thing was still to come, if she made him go back and explain what she meant by "time off" when she could do it herself!
"But…but why can't you at least—"
A finger was thrust in his face, the manicured nail alone sharp enough to cut him off.
"Don't tell me what to do! I've already told you I'm fucking done here!"
Niles' face fell, "I only want—"
"I don't give a rat's ass what you want!" the producer snarled back. "I'm sick and tired of listening to what you have to say, and I'd bet my penthouse that anything that could possibly come out of that fat mouth of yours right now is only gonna come because it could save your skin!"
Something plummeted deep inside Niles, but Miss Babcock was back on the warpath like a family of four took a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon before he could say a word.
"So I'm getting the fuck out of here, whether or not you're stood there shitting yourself because it'll get you in Maxwell's bad books!" angrily and mockingly, she waved back towards the mansion. "You might as well go tell him, 'cause there ain't no way in hell I'm doing it! So go on! Go back in there and be a good little messenger boy for your master! Do it and tell him why everybody is gonna have to get used to dealing with all the shit that I do every day without me! For however long I decide that they should do it!"
He would have snapped then. He would have taken the words "good little messenger boy" for the zinger that his brain was itching to tell him that it was, and he would have thrown something back. Something twice as clever and twice as devastating, and he would have come out in triumph. But it got stuck in formation in his brain when his ears took in the words "however long".
"Wh…what do you mean, how…" his voice almost couldn't force itself out of his throat. "However long? What does that mean…?!"
Sapphire eyes glinted in the morning sun as they rolled back in Miss Babcock's head.
"It means I don't have to look at your stupid face for as long as I don't want to!" she shouted. "Lucky old me, I have more unused vacation days than you've got coupons for Lemon Pledge stacked by your bed! And I'm gonna use them all if that's what I decide to do!"
She nodded like that was final, before turning away.
"Explain that to Maxwell and enjoy the doghouse. It's not the least you deserve!"
Niles' insides were still plummeting, reaching unfathomable depths.
Shit.
Shit, she was right.
Mr Sheffield would kill him for this! Even without knowing the details, or the reasons why Babcock had just walked out on him like that, he'd kill the butler because the butler was the messenger and everyone knew what always happened to the messenger! And then, once he'd worked out what had actually happened…and the real reasons she'd gone…well…well then, he'd be doubly sure to finish the job, wouldn't he?! Or he'd throw enough money around to have Niles revived, simply so he could have the pleasure of killing him all over again!
The open door of a warm room and guaranteed income rapidly closed shut to make room for the cold, barren wilderness of unemployment, and then even that was snatched away as he realised Miss Babcock had marched off and left him standing there in the alley!
She'd made her way to the sidewalk before he'd even known it, and she was now violently waving an arm off to one side. By some miracle or twist of fate or even just some sick joke the universe had decided to play, a cab materialised out of nowhere and had decided to stop for her. It pulled up, and Babcock stormed down the length of the taxi to open the rear door and get in.
Forgetting about how he'd only been out of breath a moment ago, Niles took off running into the street, robe flapping in the wind.
"Babcock! Babcock, wait!"
If she could hear him – and he really did think she had to have heard him, because the neighbours' dogs had heard him and were starting to bark – then she didn't give any indication. She just slammed the door shut and the cab immediately started to roll away.
Niles sprinted faster, waving a hand towards her and the cab.
"Wait! Please!"
He didn't hear what the taxi driver yelled at him out the window as he and his new passenger drove past. He wasn't quick enough to keep up when the driver had clearly, and probably for obvious reasons, put his foot down to escape the apparently unhinged man wearing nothing but a bathrobe and screaming in the street.
All he knew was back to square one: stood there, panting and catching his breath, while Miss Babcock had left him humiliated.
Humiliated, and with the worst job in the world still to come! How on Earth was he going to explain any of this to Mr Sheffield?! Mr Sheffield, who'd already been in just the peachiest of moods from having been woken up so early, and who was bound to be completely fair and unbiased in his moods and his decision-making when he heard about this! Mr Sheffield, whose track record with his temper was worse than an arsonist who'd been given control of a box of fireworks! Mr Sheffield, who could probably find another butler far more easily than he could replace Miss Babcock and everything that she did for the company…
The last breath that had to be caught back left Niles' body in a deep, body-sinking sigh. The kind of sigh that made you think you were going to end up in a hole in the ground by the time you were done.
Who knew? Perhaps he would be in a hole in the ground by the time they were done. But he didn't have any other choice but to shuffle his way back towards the house, cringing as he narrowly avoided the litter in the street that he'd have otherwise stepped, completely barefoot, into.
He wouldn't have been able to believe he'd forgotten to put slippers on before he'd left, if approaching the kitchen from the alley hadn't immediately let him see that the door had shut behind him when he'd gone out.
And he'd left something else inside, apart from his slippers.
Sen-fucking-sational.
Not only was Mr Sheffield going to kill him for waking him up, and Miss Babcock leaving and potentially never coming back, he was also going to kill him for getting him out of bed again so that he could let his own butler into the house.
Niles had, of course, forgotten his keys.