A stupid chapter third: Rich people have a room for shittin in

The door opened uppy again and the woman detective enters with this begrudgy mask on her pretty face. She has clothes folded under her arms and she stands at the doorway looking at me with a scowl.

"Well, come on," she says dully, waving an open hand through the door like I was a pet dog being let outta the house. "It's my job to have you looking a bit more professional if you're going to be working alongside us."

It was the Grand Mage's bath room I found me following Valkyrie into, all done up shinier than a polished penny. I walked around the massive room in amazement.

"Ain't seen so much white, in, ever."

"Really," Valkyries says in surprise. "Bathrooms are usually white in some respect."

"Not the ones I seen," I touched the tiles. They felt cold. "Rooms for washing and crappin in are what 'em rich people gots in Londers. I saw it in a book, ye." I fiddled with a silver knob that protruded from the wall; it had a red ring around the middle of it. I looked at it closely. "Izis hot water?"

Valkyrie placed some clothes down on the toilet lid and nods at me. "Of course."

"Coolio," I murmurs, turning the knob all the way it can go. "Never had a shower with boiling water before." The water shoots out of this flat nozzle above me and pummels me wet. It gets real hot real quick and I jump out from under it. "Is it gotta be that hot?"

Valkyrie walked over fast and turned the knob back the other way, then turned on another one beside it. She sighed. "You have to use both hot and cold water, Phoenix."

"Oh yer," I jumped back under the nice water, I peel up my shirt.

"Did you want me to step out-?"

I'd already taken my shirt of and stood facing her with my arms opened, she looked away quickly as I laughed. It took her a moment to look back at me.

"How did you get that?" she asked sadly, looking at my impressive chest filled with deep warrior-like scars.

"Car blew up when I was a kiddie. My dad's bones shredded me to bits. It ain't bad," I shrug, "could've had all my shit exploding out of me too. It's just scars now."

"Still, it's a bit sad," she saids with a frown, "and you look like a man."

I grinned and flexed my abs. "Yeah? Pretty slick, huh? I dressed as a soldier and got meself plenty a pretty filly once."

Valkyrie's eyebrows shot to her hairline.

I laugh and took off my sopping jeans. "I got 'em drunk enough to take me home then I flog their crap. Never see it coming, and it works too often not to take advantage of. All chick down here though," I bang the front of my boxers. "Nothin, there."

The dark woman sighs. "Charming, you are."

"I know," I grin big and step out from under the water, grabbin this soft white towel hanging beside me. I rub my face in it. The towel gets dirty.

"No, no," Valkyrie sighs, motioning for me to go back into the rain fall, she grabs a sponge and the scented rock and begins to scrub my back fiercely. "Lean your head forward."

I obeys, looking at the dark water swirl around my feet and disappear. When she does my back, she does my hair and more brown water runs from it. She turns me around and puts the sponge and rock on my scarry chest.

"You can do the rest," she says sternly. "And be thorough about it. I don't want you smelling like you do when you're finished."

"Yea, ay. All right." I snap, scrubbing my shoulders real good.

I pretty much had to be given the once over before I could put these 'special clothes' on cuz Valkyrie wouldn't have them soiled by my tarry skin. She sent me back to the showers twice and finally, on the third time, I got to get dressed.

I pulled on this awesome black jacket that straddled my broad shoulders like a bull rider. "Aw, this fits swell."

"Complements of Elder Ghastly."

"I'll be sure to complement hisself then." I pulled on these bad assery looking boots and saw that Valkyrie was studying me for a moment too long. "Fancy me, do ya?" I asks, doin up the shoe laces. I sit up and dry the short spikes of my hair with a hand.

"No. You're just different."

"Coolio." I walked to her and took the slight of her hands in my rough ones and touched it to my lips with a grin. "It's just you wouldn't be the first lil lady I charms."

She frowned and flicked her hand out from mine. "Really?" She said incredulously. "Phoenix, I'm sixty-eight for Christ's sake, get your gear on and stop mucking about. There's serious work to do."

I jump back in shock. "Sixty-eight, miss, for reals?"

"Yes," she frowns hard at me. "Now make me look good and behave."

"Ay ay," I grumble, following her sexy old guts out the room.

:D