So writing this has become a bit of an addiction in the last couple days. Also, I would really appreciate some feedback on the story. Is it repetitive, entertaining, lame? I'll take any sort of comments.
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Moving Clocks Run Slow
The bell tinkled as Duo pushed his way into the shop, followed closely by Trowa. He had resigned himself to the stoic boy's presence and had made pains to ignore his black hole of an aura, a place where all sound and fun disappeared. Seriously, the kid needed to lighten up.
His complaints about Trowa, however, had to be shoved to the back of his mind for the moment, for as he walked in his ears were assaulted with a barrage of noise uncharacteristic of the shop. This noise wasn't the sound of metal hitting metal nor was it the sound of blow torches or gears grating against each other. This sound was the banging of drawers and angry cries of frustration that were of the distinctly feminine variety.
Not one to miss out on any sort of action, Duo rushed forward, batting the tacky bead curtain out of his way. Before he knew what was happening, something had rammed into him, hard, and he was shoved roughly to the wall with a cry of "Move!"
He watched dazed, rubbing his aching shoulder as Alice stomped away and threw open the bathroom door with enough force to make him wince at the noise it made as it hit the wall.
That certainly was going to leave a mark.
The action was followed by more sounds of objects being thrown around and harsh curses. He moved warily down the hallway and craned his neck to peer in the open door.
The bathroom looked as if a hurricane had hit it. Drawers had been pulled from their places and lay crooked and beaten, spilling their contents on the floor, like fallen soldiers left bleeding on the battlefield.
And there in the center of the action was the storm itself, continuing its vengeful destruction: Hurricane Alice. Duo winced as more items sent flying to the floor.
Knowing he was more than likely going to regret it, he opened his mouth. "Uh, Alice?"
Like a snake coiled to strike, she whipped around, hair flying. "What!" she snapped, breath labored and face flushed. Its red color blended in with her hair, making her look very much like angry tomato. Duo didn't think she would particularly care for that comparison though and wisely kept himself from pointing it out.
"What exactly are you doing?" he decided to go with instead.
"What does it look like?" she growled. "I'm looking for bloody bobby pins, that's what!" Duo shrank back, throwing his hands in front of himself in attempt to ward off her anger. He would have liked to point out that what she was doing looked nothing like searching for whatever-the-hell-it-was and more like becoming the bathroom's personal Godzilla.
Even though everything in his male body told him to damn his curiosity and get as far as way from the angry female as possible, Duo couldn't help himself.
"Why?" he asked, voice oozing innocence. He even made his eyes a little bigger to further the effect. Sadly, it failed.
"Are you blind?" she snapped, making a jerky gesture down at herself. "Ugh, men!" she cried, throwing her hands into the air and spinning around to continue her acts of terrorism on the bathroom.
Duo finally noticed her appearance and was surprised he hadn't before. Alice was dressed in a pencil gray skirt and a white, ruffled tank top made of some sort of shiny material. She was barefoot and her hair was flying everywhere, but she had never looked so much like a woman-not a girl-not a teenager-an actual woman. And not just any type of woman, a business woman. The realization was oddly disturbing to him.
This feeling wasn't helped by the fact that the short sleeves revealed the entire length of her metal arm and the ugly red scars at its junction with her shoulder. Before he could filter himself he blurted out, "You're not wearing that out, are you?"
So caught up in his staring, he hadn't even noticed that she had seemed to find what she was looking for and was skillfully wrapping her hair up into a bun, pins poking out from her mouth. She paused and raised an eyebrow at his reflection in the mirror until she followed his gaze. Her expression grew dark.
"I have a matching jacket," she snarled.
She then proceeded to stab the last of the bobby pins in her hair and before shoving angrily past Duo. He couldn't help but feel that she purposely let her metal arm slam into him, which hurt—a lot, he'd like to add. That was going to bruise.
He watched her storm past Trowa with only a barked, "hey." He didn't blame Trowa for the puzzled look he sent his way, but Duo didn't have any answers.
"Don't look at me. I have no idea what crawled up her ass and died."
Trowa raised an eyebrow at his choice of words, but Duo ignored him, choosing instead to roll his shoulder in efforts to make the pain fade.
Suddenly, Locke entered the scene, appearing in the doorway leading to the garage. He sent the two boys a scowl, clearly not thrilled to see them, and walked past them both without giving another thought to their frozen positions in the hallway. However, then he stalked past the bathroom. He froze mid stride.
Abruptly, Locke back tracked and stared into the trashed room and its mess with an ever deepening scowl. Suddenly he whipped around and barked, "What day is today?"
Duo blinked in confusion, but answered him nonetheless. "Uh, the twenty-first, I think. Why?"
Locke's expression only darkened. "That explains it," he growled, irritation evident.
"Explains what, Gramps?"
Locke sent him a hard stare. "I'd stay clear of her today," he said simply.
"Huh? What?" Duo asked, baffled. "And that didn't answer my question!"
The old man just turned and headed back the way he came. "I'm leaving. Take care of the shop." And just like that the conversation was over.
To say Duo was dumfounded was the understatement of the year. "I'm not the only one who's lost, right?"
When he didn't get a response he turned to look at Trowa who simply stared back blankly. "You're no help," he said bitterly.
She was late.
And not just late, as in late to coffee, or late to a movie, or even late for that doctor's appointment.
No, she was a much worse sort of late.
She was late to Luke's meeting with the man who wanted to rebuild Sector Six. She was late to the meeting with the man who she and Luke had to convince not to evict the hundreds of orphans and lost souls who called the ruins their home.
She was that sort of late—as in Luke-may-never-forgive-her-kind. And for that matter, the kind of late that if all of it ended badly, she might never forgive herself either.
Her hand pressed harder on the accelerator of the bike. It wasn't the classiest nor was it the easiest thing to drive while wearing a skirt, but it was the only thing she was comfortable driving in the garage. Also, it was small enough not to draw too much attention when Locke returned home. Her hopes were that she could sneak it back in before he got the chance to notice and consequently punish her with thirty-six hour shifts again. She shivered at the thought.
Suddenly, she spotted the building up ahead and dodged dangerously through traffic to reach it, coming to a loud, sputtering stop at its glass doors and scaring the doorman half to death. She kicked the stand down and threw the keys at the doorman, not even bothering to check if he caught them or not. Her feet slapped loudly on the marble floor of the lobby, high heels clutched tightly in her hands.
She rushed the front desk, huffing. The polished woman sitting behind it gave her a look of utter shock and revulsion.
"Meeting," she gasped out between labored breaths. She really did need to get back into shape. "Sector Six—what—floor?"
The lady was too appalled to form words.
Alice was reaching her breaking point. "Before I die of old age," she snapped, glancing at her nametag, "Chelsea."
An excruciatingly long thirty seconds of paper shuffling, keyboard clicking, and admonishing stares later, the woman finally gave her an answer. "Ninth floor."
"Finally!" she cried. "Now, which way are the stairs?"
Chelsea was so surprised that her judging countenance faded. "Stairs? The elevators are there to the right," she explained as though speaking to a child.
Alice rolled her eyes. "I don't give a damn where the elevators are. Where are the stairs?" she gritted out through clenched teeth.
"But it's nine floors up—"
She slammed her high heels on the counter. "The stairs, woman!"
Borderline fearful, Chelsea motioned mutely to the left. Alice took off at a sprint without sparing her another look.
Perhaps that had been a little…rude of her, but whatever got the job done, she supposed. Her main focus was Sector Six, not some pretty, sophisticated secretary named Chelsea.
Minutes later, she burst onto the ninth floor, wheezing. The woman sitting behind the desk gave her a horrified look.
"Sector Six meeting," she panted, "now."
The woman pointed wordlessly at the far door.
Alice rushed over, but was stopped by a cry from the woman. She turned ready to verbally tear the woman to shreds, but the words died in her throat at the woman's look of honest concern.
"You're shoes," she whispered, motioning frantically with her hands.
Alice looked down at her bare toes and nearly died of embarrassment. Not only would she have stormed in late, but barefoot as well. She may as well have dug her own grave and saved Luke the trouble.
"Thank you," she mouthed back, hopping gracelessly into her high heels. With a sinking feeling in her gut, she knocked and pushed into the room.
Alice was sure she was going to hurl. Never had she felt so out of place as she did in that room, standing in front of its long table and between its polished wood walls. Ten sets of eyes were glued on her, making her feel very much like a piece of art on display.
Oh god, screw vomiting, she was going to pass out.
Standing under the scrutinizing gaze of these professional, refined men and women made her conscious of all of her faults and how much it showed she didn't belong there. She felt like a piece of modern art at an impressionist art show, awkward, obtuse, and misunderstood.
She became painfully aware of how she couldn't seem to walk, or even stand, in high heels without wobbling, of how hard she was breathing and how flushed her face must be, and of how all that damn time she spent looking for the bobby pins was a waste because she was pretty confident that half of them fell out somewhere between the motorcycle and the sprint up the stairs.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—
"Ms. Alice?"
"Huh?" she blurted out. Her face turned an even darker red. "Um—I mean, yes?"
The man who had spoken to her was intimidatingly tall with dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes—dark everything. He stood protectively behind the seat at the head of the table. Alice had trouble taking her eyes off of him.
"Please, take a seat next to Mr. Luke," he said in a heavy accent, motioning to an open seat near the end of the table. Alice had to keep herself from sprinting over to the chair, desperate to get all of these eyes off of her.
However, one look at Luke's face and she promptly wished she could remain standing for as long as possible. His stare spelled death. She swallowed her fears and walked slowly towards him, attempting not to fall flat on her face. One more straw and she was sure she would be the first person to literally die from embarrassment.
Luke turned in his seat to give her the full force of his glare. Alice responded by attempting to literally disappear into her seat when abruptly his brows knitted together in confusion. She momentarily panicked that something was wrong with her face when she noticed he wasn't starting at her, but over her.
She turned to follow his gaze and caught sight of the most painfully earnest eyes she had even seen, which just so happened to be staring right back. His gaze was intense and probing, and she fidgeted wondering how a pair of eyes could express so much, be so open—
A clearing of a throat broke her train of thought.
"Alice, this is Mr. Winner, the man who is intending to rebuild Sector Six."