[Nash] In just about every sector of the American workforce, Fridays are less busy than the rest of the week.
And then one steps into any area that somehow falls onto the spectrum of services that are funded by the government, and whatever has managed to pile up between Monday and Thursday and something somewhere along the chain of command will come to a grinding halt if it is not in someone's hands by 1700 hours, and one realizes that the service industry doesn't follow the rules.
It's packed in the Cook County Clerks Office approaching noon on Friday, which is when most normal people in other industries are beginning to think about taking their hour lunch or ordering a martini to go along with their salads. There is a line at the metal detector, which a tall, long-haired blond man manages to sail through because he isn't wearing jewelry or even a belt; he drops a wallet and a pair of car keys into the tray to be passed through the X-ray machine and waltzes through the scanner and thanks the bored-looking security agent kindly and continues on his merry goddamn way.
By the time it gets to be afternoon, nothing has thinned out. No one has moved. Everyone is exhausted. The weather isn't helping, the rash of fires and shootings and the Brian Hossa debacle is exacerbating things, and this guy moves amongst it all like a ghost. He speaks succinctly, states what he wants, and gets the fuck out of the way.
Military. Ex, more like it, is what most people think when they encounter him, and then he's out of their thoughts.
He ends up taking the stairs when he can, but at some point he ends up in the basement. It requires waiting for an elevator. He holds a loaded manila folder in his arm like a child, and watches the floor indicator with green eyes lifted, a patient expression on his face.
These things take forever.
[Slaughter] She has been here for hours. It was not due to any fault of anyone, except for the system. Frequently when Dr. Slaughter wants documents, she goes through the proper channels, she talks to the right people, signs the forms correctly and then moves on out. Rarely, she picks up a phone and calls someone who mistakenly considers themselves to be her friend or at least a fond acquaintance. This time, it is one of the latter scenarios. However, the process was garbled.
They did not have the files she needed - some where in archives. There was a traffic jam in the Loop, which slowed down the runner sent to get them. Gathering data from both archives and the clerk's office required double the amount of forms - 'and a pound of flesh, please', joked the clerk who had been assisting her all day, and though the good doctor had smiled, thinly, he could not help but feel that his little humour had fallen flat.
She has spent much of her day seated in an uncomfortable chair, drinking bad coffee. Now she has her box of documents in hand, her life signed away on the appropriate forms, every level of her identification marked down for historical purposes.
To the elevator floor, her heeled shoes clicking softly on the tiled floor. To the other, she is merely an attractive woman with brilliant hair and pale skin, dressed in a business suit. It will be a passing brush of their lives, in the elevator, then out, and likely neither will think much more of the other. She spares him only a brief glance before turning her gaze up, like him to the floor indicator, turning her head slightly to push a strand of hair from her eyes.
[Nash] They have no reason to speak to each other. Following that reasoning, the majority of human beings will go through their daily public lives without ever striking up a conversation with the person they end up sharing space with on the bus or an airplane, with whom they have to waste minutes of their life staring vacantly off into the atmosphere while they wait for the elderly or the child-inundated to arduously unload their week's worth of groceries onto a conveyor belt and get the fuck out of the way.
Both of them are, according to those attracted to the gender of their coded orientation, attractive. Perhaps not virile, or likely to leave heirs in their wake, but in the eyes of the Nation they both tirelessly and thanklessly serve they have a health and vigor about them that Garou their age would not possess.
Neither of them can tell that the other belongs to the Nation. They are both dressed smartly, yet while the red-haired woman wears a business suit, the man is simply wearing dress shoes and light-colored slacks and a button-up shirt underneath a black leather jacket. His spine is ramrod straight and his shoulders are back, but the rest of his posture is somewhat relaxed. Once, while they wait, he glances over at her, but he doesn't initiate conversation or slide his eyes over her form like a cashier scanning a price tag.
He has a piece of gum in his mouth, but he isn't gnawing at it with a cow's dedication to its cud; twice, while waiting for the elevator, he chews it to coax nicotine out of the rubber and into the lining of his cheek.
It's an old building, and the elevator looks as though it has traveled forward through time from 1972. The man steps forward first, holding his free arm over the door's sensor to allow Imogen in first, then steps in after her, taking up his customary place as far away from her as he can get.
[Slaughter] f
[Slaughter] So, they do not speak. Nash looks at her once, and she is not looking at him, at the time. Should she have paid him the same small sliver of attention, he does not see it.
She could belong, easily in a mega-corporation, rather than in the basement of the Cook County Clerk's office. Her shoes are blue heeled pumps, bright against her black, tailored slacks, her black suit jacket, which ties at the left side rather than buttons. A camisole beneath suggests blue as well - much as her eyes do, though the colour is so dark they are impossible to guess in some lights.
The box in her arms, leaving a thin smear of dust on her blazer, betrays that impression. She may not quite appear to belong here with a county salary, but here she was, nonetheless.
The doors to the elevator open, and when he holds it open for her, he glances at him. The gaze is direct, without a hint of blush or simper. "Ta," she says, offering truncated, Briton thanks, as she steps in, elongating her gait to avoid the small gap between the elevator and the basement floor.
She moves to the far side, pressing the button for the main level, casting him a brief glance to confirm he has the same destination. Then, she steps back to the corner from the doors, shifting her grip on her box, her gaze fixing on the floor indicators again.
The elevator begins to ascend slowly, rumbling audibly. By some quirk of architecture, the basement they were in is actually two floors from main-floor. There is a half basement between, a step up from the bowels of the county clerk's building from which they are finally beginning to rise. They pass it without incident.
[Nash] It seems as though they are going to pass the second subbasement without incident, as well, yet if the state of the world is any indication, there is very little in this life that is at all interested in carrying on according to plan and precedent. Every other time either of them have ridden an elevator in the last five years, ten, however long it has been, the elevator has slowly yet surely risen from the depths or descended from the heights of its previous location and crawled to the floor indicated by the person pressing the button.
That brief glance is met with his gaze moseying in her general direction, his eyes lighting on the panel as if confirmation is necessary. When he speaks, he, too, has an accent; there are some Yankees who would argue that anyone hailing from south of the Mason-Dixon line comes from a different country.
She may not be able to pinpoint which state, exactly, he hails from, but he doesn't have that twangy rockabilly cadence to his speech that someone from closer to the north would have. His is a drawl, slow and unhurried, as though he's got all damned day to say whatever it is he needs to say.
"Yeah," he says, somehow managing to pronounce every single letter in the word, "that'll do it."
Moments later, the elevator decides that yeah, no, that will not do it. They rise with supreme effort past the sensor indicating they've passed into the first level, and less than a third of the way up, it shudders to a halt. Lights flicker, briefly, and then the motor whirs; progress stops; they're left standing in an elevator with no discernible means of escape.
The man doesn't even blink. His eyes move about the inside of the tomb-like enclosure, taking stock of their surroundings.
[Slaughter] The elevator shudders when it stops, as if giving its final death rattle, and Imogen's attention lifts briefly toward the now dim floor indicators, then further up, as if seeking help from a higher power or simply trying to work out a way to will herself a little higher.
After a beat of silence, she adjusts her hold on the box, shifting it so it balances on the railing that borders the lift, her hand holding it steady as she presses the alarm button. The depression illicits only silence, not the ringing of bells.
Her movements are slow, even, deliberate. There is no panic in her attitude as she flicks open the emergency panel which, supposedly, will offer them a telephone or other means of communication. "Brilliant."
The sarcastic word breaks the silence as Imogen steps back, letting the panel door swing open, revealing its empty interior.
[Nash] The man isn't in any hurry to investigate the source of the sudden stop, nor does he seem to be inclined to attempt to figure out how it is they're going to call for help, either. His eyes graze the top of the elevator cabin, and finds that the grate leading to the roof of the enclosure has been painted over so many times that there is a thick, callous skin grown over the joints.
Wonderful.
Returning his attention to the interior of the elevator, the woman is methodically going through the paces necessary to ascertain just, precisely, how fucked they are. Though his expression remains neutral--not blank; he's simply watching to ensure that no further giving of a damn is necessary--that does not mean he is not panicking.
No, what means he is not panicking is the fact that he laughs, quiet yet sharp, when the panel reveals itself to house nothing of any use.
"Well, I'll be damned," he says, sounding awed by the situation in which they currently find themselves. "Thought this sorta thing only happened in the movies."
[Slaughter] Imogen casts him a brief look, somewhat wry as she adjusts her grip on the box again, lowering it to set it on the ground. "If there is no mobile service," she says, a thread of amusement cutting through her voice, "We'll know we've left Cook County fer Hollywood."
One hand absently brushes the dust from her blazer as she lets her purse slide from arm, undoing the clasp. She retrieves the smartphone from within its depths, and presses a button to light up the screen.
The edges of her mouth turn down.
"Hollywood."
[Nash] The prospects of their predicament proving itself to have purely mundane origins has him perking up. Prior to their halted ascent he had been standing with his feet apart, hand not responsible for the manila folder held behind his back as if tethered there; with the slumping of the woman's purse down her arm, he assumes what could be termed a modified 'at ease' position: his feet are wider apart, his arm rests at his side, and he tips his head to attempt to view the number of bars lit up on her display from across the elevator.
He sees the downward cast of her buccinators before he sees that there isn't a signal to be had in the basement of the building.
That actually forces him to suppress a grin, lest she see his amusement in her reaction.
"Well, hell," he says, and starts to flip through the pages within the folder cradled in the crook of his arm. "I don't think I got my script on me..."
[Slaughter] "Don't worry," she replies, the quip coming to mind half absently as she puts her phone away. "They're invariably boring, anyway." She draws the strap of her hand-bag up again over her shoulder, pressing it in place between arm and body. "So we're not missing out."
Her voice is low, the kind of automatic edge to it that makes one think that all her humour must cut. Pleasant on the ear, a truth augmented by the lull of her accent.
One hand absently brushes the dust from her sleeve, before she glances briefly toward the ceiling again, as if evaluating potential means of escape. Like him, she sees it is painted over, and merely looks down again.
[Nash] "Oh, well, then," he says, idly, and flips the folder closed with a look of sudden and incongruous boredom upon his face.
Now that Imogen is, presumably, more aware of his presence by virtue of the fact that he's actually opening his mouth and engaging her in conversation, she might find it easier to note physical characteristics about him that a cursory glance outside and further apart would not yield. He doesn't wear cologne, and his deodorant is the unscented variety; his clothing is hardly new or designer, but he takes care of it; his hands are a worker's hands, not at all artistic or delicate.
He gives his gum another prodding chew and scratches at his jawline.
"Well, look on the bright side."
Oh, great, he's one of those guys.
"Lights are still on, and there's only two elevators in the whole joint. Eventually someone's gonna start hollerin' about this one being out, you know how these city folk are."
[Slaughter] Imogen leans back against the elevator wall, her hands coming to rest on the railing, her gaze moving briefly ceilingward where their presumed saviours would come.
"It depends on whether or not they notice tha' only one elevator ever moves. And if they think t'actually call it up, and not merely complain under their breath. And if they think there is anyone in it, gi'en the alarm's not gone off," a brief, sharp look toward the offending button panel.
Her mouth twists slightly and she turns her attention back down to him. "We're in a county building. It may be a while."
[Nash] It would seem as though their options are well and truly limited: there is no way to pry open the doors, no way to pry open the escape hatch, no way to get in touch with security, no way to sound an alarm.
There could be despair, or anger, or frustration. Any number of emotions could flare up in a moment like this, yet the two of them just stand there and accept that right now, in this moment, they are trapped in an elevator and the chances of either escape or rescue are terribly slim.
Yet neither of them makes themselves comfortable. The man remains at ease, without fidgeting or toying with anything on his person. That carpet, it's worth mentioning, looks as though it's about one sneeze away from being qualified as a biohazard.
"You ain't diabetic or nothin', are ya?" he asks, so offhand it's almost absurd.
[Slaughter] Imogen casts him a glance, her eyes narrowing slightly, "No," she says, her tone registering a sort of wry amusement, "Are you?"
Later, likely, not today, he will marvel how a single piece of information will shift the way she acts toward him.
[Nash] "Nah."
This, said with a hint of a musculature crinkling, as though he's actually thinking about it before speaking, or else profoundly invested in brushing it off the table.
"Just makin' sure you ain't gonna drop on me, all I got on me for first aid's nicotine gum."
[Slaughter] "Ah," it is a slightly stilted conversation, truthfully. The flow is imperfect. This can only be expected of two people who have no connection at all, and have not even bothered to ask the other for their name.
"Do my best to limit my medical emergencies to a need fer a nicotine fix, then, shall I?" Her eyebrow arches as she studies him.
[Nash] The flow of the conversation certainly isn't aided by the fact that their accents have to sound like entirely different languages to the other. Hers is vaguely British, but he will be fucked if he could tell the difference between English and Cornish and Welsh. To look at him and hear him speak, he isn't too bright, but it doesn't seem to have hindered his ability to carry on idle conversation while trapped in an elevator with a complete stranger.
Though they're looking at each other, there is no lechery or opportunism in the way he, in turn, studies her. Without a video camera present, with the general consensus being that no one is going to respond even if they pound on the doors and scream, this is the ideal scenario to experiment with human nature, impulse control, in the absence of discernible consequence.
He stays on his side of the elevator. At the arched brow, he cracks a grin, sizing her up as if to form a hypothesis before gathering evidence for himself.
"Smoker, huh?" He shifts the folder into his right arm so he can reach into his jacket pocket with his left hand. A tray of foiled-sheathed gum is hauled out and examined; two of the blisters have been popped already. It's rattled, as if that is going to allow him to count more accurately, ensure that they're all there. "Gonna have to ration."
[Slaughter] Imogen's mouth twists slightly. "I daresay I'll be able to handle a few hours without a cigarette." Her gaze flicks briefly toward the 'No Smoking' sign on the wall. "Pity there's no smoke detector," she observes. "It might shorten our wait time."
[Nash] She'll be able to handle a few hours without a cigarette.
"You're a helluva woman," he says, the awe in his voice so genuine it can't be anything other than a caricature, and returns the tray of gum to his pocket.
That sign is the newest thing about the elevator, its warning emblazoned in red, white and black for anyone who would think about lighting up once trapped in this place, and when the woman looks to it, his eyes follow. At mention of there being no smoke detector, he makes a dental clicking sound of agreement and contemplates the door again.
"If I could get that door open we could send up smoke signals. You don't see a crowbar lyin' around anywhere, do you?"
[Slaughter] Imogen casts him a somewhat disparaging glance, "I will assume that question is rhetorical," she notes, given that there would be no possibility of a crow-bar.
Her gaze flicks up again toward the well-sealed opening.
"Pity they ha' the metal detectors at the door," she says. "There's no chance yeh ha' a swiss army knife or anything of the sort." Her gaze flicks toward the doors again.
More undignified people would pound at them and yell. This thought appears to have crossed neither of their minds, or if it has, has been dismissed so quickly it is not even a suggestion. One hand pushes hair back from her eyes as she undoes her blazer absently. It is warm in the elevator, though not so much she removes it.
[Nash] "Well, you know what happens when you assume."
Luckily he doesn't see it necessary to continue the cliched expression.
That door isn't going anywhere without some sort of leverage, and nothing at their immediate disposal is going to do the job. Given his wiry build and status as a normal human being, his bare hands fall squarely into the Nothing distinction.
"Nah, left it in the truck. Figured security would take it."
His eyes lift to the grate over their heads again. Neither of them can reach it on their own; when he looks back at her, she's undoing her blazer, but he has the manners necessary not to look at her chest as she does so.
"How much paint you think they slathered on that thing? Ten, fifteen coats?"
[Slaughter] He figures security would have taken his knife, and the woman nods absently. "They would ha'," she agrees. For the moment, she is unarmed, and the empty spot at her back weighs heavily against her skin.
Once again, she looks up toward the grate. "At least."
A beat. "How desperate are yeh to leave under yer own power, rather than wait to be rescued?"
[Nash] The man plays at giving this due consideration, as though they have all the time in the world for him to sort out rather he'd prefer to be the captain of his own destiny or stand around in a metal box with a stranger waiting for some dipshit county employee to figure out that one of the elevators stopped functioning before he and said stranger turned into skeletons.
"Unless I'm bein' rescued by a buxom brunette with loose morals," he says, "I'd say I'm pretty desperate."
Yet he says this calmly, without the dilated pupils and cold sweat that indicates a loss of control.
[Slaughter] He quips, but she does not respond. The number of times one can be dry and witty to another person's dry and witty quips grows small when there is little else to do. She looks around the elevator, as if somehow expecting the landscape to change, her eyes skirting the railing, judging its distance between it and the grate.
There is no way either of them could stand and easily reach the grate, let alone have enough traction to attempt to pull it free.
Which left -
"I suppose," she says, slowly, "if yeh gi' me a lift, I could see if I could loosen the grate."
One doubts she offers this merely to ease his desperation.
[Nash] "Better'n sittin' here till Judgment Day, huh?"
That said, he drops into a half-crouch to drop the folder onto the floor rather than letting it careen from six feet in the air, then rises the same way. He uses his legs instead of bending his back.
Not that Imogen weighs nearly enough that a man Nash's height and constitution could possibly hurt himself lifting her even were she deadweight, but it certainly helps that he knows how to avoid injuring himself.
When he drops into a full crouch, his knees pop. He makes a shelf out of his hands, right atop the left. There isn't much for Imogen to grab onto for balance besides one of his shoulders.
"Alright, ma'am, count of three?"
[Slaughter] She does not have much choice by way of balance - his shoulder or the air. Frankly, there is not much she likes about this scenario. Being hoisted up by someone unknown, depending on him for leverage, to not drop her, for balance.
It does not show overtly, but it flickers in her pause as he crouches down to create a shelf. Still, committed, she steps forward, placing a heeled shoe (the heel off his palm and dangling floorward) into his shelved hands. She places a hand on his shoulder, but not much of her weight rests there, instead her strength and weight supported through her core muscles, the muscles of her back, of her legs.
She nods, once.
One. Two. Three!
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: BOOST.]
[Slaughter] [dex+athletics: STAY UPRIGHT]
[Nash] The man with whom she finds herself trapped in this elevator is not Nice. He's polite, and he has enough sense to not drop every vulgarity and disgusting thought that comes into his mind, but he receives no reward for behaving in a manner that would be construed as chivalrous. While he isn't leering or hitting on her, neither does he appear too concerned that this tiny woman might not, though she made the suggestion herself, be in too rapid a hurry to put herself in a position where her safety quite literally rests in the hands of a man she has never met before.
They don't even have each others' names, but given that their goal right now is to get the hell out of here and go on about their days, it's highly unlikely they'll get to that point even if they make it out.
She plants herself in his palm, resting a hand on a shoulder that is hard but not bulky beneath the leather of his jacket, and on his count she's up in the air. It's not a smooth ascent; he doesn't come close to dropping her, but it's more of an effort to rise from a crouch than he was expecting. He makes no noise, at least, though there's a hint of strain in his voice when he speaks.
"Y'alright up there?"
[Slaughter] She stays steady as he leverages her up, her weight barely shifting against his shoulder, and even as it does, she rights herself. Her hand is there partly for the appearance of balance; that and that it would be far more ignoble to fall than it would be to need to rest her weight on his shoulder.
Her one hand comes up to touch the grate, her fingers slipping barely between the rungs - so close that she scrapes her knuckle. From there, she straightens from his shoulder, lifting her other hand.
"So far," she answers him as she fits her opposite hand between the rungs. "Here goes."
(strength)
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength!]
[Nash] [SHOULD HAVE BEEN DIFF 6 YO TWO SUCCESSES]
[Slaughter]
[Nash] [My god, man.]
[Slaughter] AGAIN.
[Slaughter] BOOYEAH
[Nash] The fact that she gets it open at all means that someone up there likes them.
Or someone up there likes herself and wants to get out of here as quickly as possible. It's all semantics, really.
He manages to get her into the air and keep her there; at first it's a struggle as muscles not used to impulsive exertion tremble, but he adjusts his stance and separates his hands so the woman has a foot in each hand and they both stop wobbling. Paint chips fall around them and the grate squawks and complains, but eventually it's cracked free from its skin.
"Woo," he breathes, as though he'd been holding it this whole time. He doesn't immediately drop her to the ground, nor does he just thrust her up into the darkness. "You comin' back down?"
[Slaughter] It takes a bit, the open edges of her blazer fluttering loosely about her torso as she jerks the grating, small specks and chips of paint falling on them both like multicoloured rain. She breathes with every wiggle of the grating, the cuffs of her blazer slipping down over her forearms to reveal the fine play of muscle beneath the skin with each effort. When it finally comes free, she exhales the remainder of her breath, arching up to push the grating further into the elevator.
Nash breathes a sharp exhale, and asks if she is going up or down, and she pauses. "Ah," it is a place holder as she turns her head slightly, her weight shifting in his hands. "Just a tic."
There are a few paint chips caught in her hair, on the shoulders of her blazer. The latter are shaken free as she strips herself efficiently of her jacket, letting it drop to the floor behind her. There is little reason for commentary on disrobing. A woman's suit jacket is never designed to be loose, nor is it particularly designed for unrestrained movement. The shoulders are binding her, the fluttering of the tail, of the fabric are getting in her way.
Her arms are bare now, unrestricted, a stainless steel watch her only adornment. Only, that is not strictly true - a tattoo on her arm, a curving and heavy black line, each end cupping a crescent moon. He may or may not know the tribe marked there. He may or may not even be able to recognize it as a glyph.
Imogen, unaware of this potential revelation, reaches up again, grabbing ahold of the lip of the opening. "Up," she says.
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: HOIST]
[Slaughter] (recover from whatever atrocity Nash inflicts on her)
[Nash] The mechanics of one human being lifting a solid object, let alone another human being, are complicated. There are so many components that to listen them all would take up the better part of an hour; a good deal of muscles between the shoulders and the knees are involved in the process, and once he is standing fully upright with his cargo, Nash can no longer rely on his legs and back to assist with the process.
The doctor isn't heavy in even the most stringent sense of the word, but when it comes time to push her into the dark, Nash is relying on his arms to do the majority of the work. Perhaps he should have bent his knees to get more of a boost, but he doesn't.
Either he loses his balance preparing for propulsion, or he is startled by the tattoo when it reveals itself on her arm, or she throws him when she reaches up to grab for the opening of the hatch. There are all sorts of reasons why and how they botch end up crashing to the floor of the elevator, but one moment they're both upright and the next they aren't.
It isn't exactly dignified, he ending up on his back with she on top of him, but he isn't complaining, either.
"Shit," he says, winded from the impact, "I thought you said 'Down.' Sorry, darlin'." His brow furrows, and he points to the tattoo with his ringless left hand. "What's that, 'Fianna'?"
[Slaughter] It is a sudden and abrupt shift of conditions. One minute, she is steady, and he appears steady, then the next second, he is not, and she tries, for a brief moment to grab at the lip of the hatch as she falls with him, but all she feels is metal passing through her fingers.
Then the hard crash of the floor, on her knees and hands, the softer impact of the rest of her body against his.
"That," she observes dryly, "was the opposite of up." I thought you said down, sorry darlin'. She does not merely sit up, but instead rolls off him, half way there as he speaks again. The reaction is electric - the jerk of her head toward him, dark blue eyes stark and sharp half hidden by fallen strands of brilliant hair. Then she regains of from herself.
Her leg is still over his hips, bent, the heel of her shoe touching his thigh. She lifts it and draws it back to herself as she shifts back on the rather old carpet, one hand absently brushes the curve of her knee, brushing it free of dust, real or imaginary.
"I presume you mean my tattoo."
[Nash] Though he didn't yell or curse when he landed, the possibility that this occurred because he managed to injure himself doesn't immediately present itself. He's cracking jokes, and no one would fault a hot-blooded heterosexual male for lying on the ground without disturbing his cargo when an attractive woman such as Imogen was on top of him like this.
He's lucky he doesn't get slapped.
When she stops halfway through dismount, he lifts his eyebrows in harmless repetition of the question, idly shifting his shoulders as if to work kinks out of his frame. Discomfort is written into the muscles around his eyes and mouth, but he's ignoring it long enough to await an answer to his question.
It comes back in the form of clarification. He shifts again when the doctor retrieves her leg from his hips, then crosses his left arm over his chest to slide his hand under his jacket and massage his shoulder blade.
"That I do," he says, voice tight. "I ain't gonna show you mine, I'd have to unbutton my shirt."
[Slaughter] She regards him for several moments, silent, a tendon moving in her jaw. Her features are finely wrought, delicate, high cheekbones, a defined cheek. A clear brow framing dark eyes. There are a few minor scrapes on her knuckles, a raw welt on her left palm where she'd caught the lip of the hatch and then lost it.
She turns that hand over, pressing the rawness of her skin against the fine fabric of her slacks, the coolness pleasant against the heat of minor injury.
A few more seconds of silence, The air of the elevator has abruptly changed.
"Come on," she says, reaching down to remove her shoes, the stiff way she extends her left hand to reach the blue pump suggests a strain of sorts, the full extension of the muscle hesitant and viscerally aware. "Let's get out o' here." A critical glance at him, stiff on the ground.
"Can yeh stand?"
[Nash] Oh, she didn't like that.
If she were Garou--which, he'll learn eventually, from someone, that she might as well be--he wouldn't be so dumb as to think returning that look would be a good idea. She's not, though; it is just the two of them in this elevator, not He and She and Her Rage, so he doesn't think twice about it. Where the woman's features are soft and pleasant, her eyes contrasting her hair, the man is all sharp angles and long lines. He looks untamed but not feral, does not call to some deeper primal part of their cousins simply by existing.
His breathing is pronounced but not labored. Pain is becoming a constant rather than a whip crack; it dulls to an ache as a chill settles over the interior. By virtue of acknowledging that tattoo, something has shifted. Whether they like it or not they're going to end up dealing with each other once they walk of this elevator this afternoon.
They're better off than they would be staying in here any longer than is absolutely necessary, though. She isn't moving any faster than he is, but at least she's able to get up without too much effort. He, on the other hand, is hesitant to pick himself up because it's going to wrench his shoulder.
"Can I stand," he repeats, as though that's the most ridiculous thing he's heard all day. "Yeah I can stand."
[Slaughter] Yeah, I can stand, he says as if it were a ridiculous notion that he can't. Much like him, she's wrenched her shoulder, but not in the same way, and not as badly. Unlike him, she is already seated. It does not take her much to get to her feet, now even slighter in appearance than she had been without the addition of heels.
She reaches down with an absent hand, adjusting the hem of her camisole and resisting the urge to retrieve her blazer.
Instead she arches an eyebrow in his direction. Well?
[Nash] "Oh are you gonna watch me get up?"
Shit, his tone says but his words do not. Despite his discomfort, he's amused. There is very little about this situation that he has not somehow found amusing, as though this is all a big joke and he's going to survive it by not lamenting his poor fortune.
Lamenting never got anyone anywhere, anyway.
There is no grace or art in how he get himself to his feet. Luckily he's thin and still has some degree of flexibility in him; he manages to roll onto his injured side and use his dominant, uninjured arm to propel himself to his knees. Instead of grabbing for support from the handrails, he gets one foot flat on the floor, then hoists himself up, muffling a grunt of exertion before rolling his shoulders again.
He winces, rolls his head from one side to the other, then sniffs and shrugs out of his jacket. He's starting to sweat.
"Alright, walk it off, Tiger. You goin' up again?"
[Slaughter] She bites back the immediate response that comes to mind, and keeps silent, as he gets to his feet. Her gaze is direct, even, and it moves to his shoulder, even as he rolls it. She flicks her gaze over him the way he stands, holds his body. If he stands crookedly, as if protecting an injured side.
"Just yer shoulder is it?" she asks, rather than answering his question. The question seems clinical in its phrasing - her concern professional rather than personal. Her gaze moves briefly toward his collarbone, half hidden beneath the collar of his button down, then up again.
"Any numbness or tingling?"
[Nash] By this time tomorrow he will be about sick of old age and heart attack jokes, but today, Imogen is safe from that particular brand of comeback quips; he doesn't automatically assume she's trying to make a joke at his expense. What he does notice is the perfunctory way with which she tries to determine the extent to which he's injured himself. It makes him laugh, though it's dampened somewhat by the fact that he's somehow in more pain standing up than he had been flat on his back.
He hasn't gone pale, at least. Granted, he hasn't tried to move it, either.
"Nah," he says, "nothin' like that. I'm alright." A beat. "C'mon, you ain't gettin' up there by yourself."
[Slaughter] She pauses a moment, considering. She has options: she can ask him to move it, she can ask him to let her see it. His shoulder, after all, is instrumental in getting her up there.
"Alright," she says, instead, with a brief shrug, briefly tilting her head from side to side in a restrained stretch of abused, but not quite damaged muscles.
She steps forward presumably as he sinks to a crouch again, and puts a foot back into the shelf of his hands. She places a hand on his shoulder, but it is notably not the injured one.
"On three."
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: BOOST.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Slaughter] [dex+athletics: STAY UPRIGHT]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Nash] The man with whom she finds herself trapped in this elevator is not Nice. He's polite, and he has enough sense to not drop every vulgarity and disgusting thought that comes into his mind, but he receives no reward for behaving in a manner that would be construed as chivalrous. While he isn't leering or hitting on her, neither does he appear too concerned that this tiny woman might not, though she made the suggestion herself, be in too rapid a hurry to put herself in a position where her safety quite literally rests in the hands of a man she has never met before.
They don't even have each others' names, but given that their goal right now is to get the hell out of here and go on about their days, it's highly unlikely they'll get to that point even if they make it out.
She plants herself in his palm, resting a hand on a shoulder that is hard but not bulky beneath the leather of his jacket, and on his count she's up in the air. It's not a smooth ascent; he doesn't come close to dropping her, but it's more of an effort to rise from a crouch than he was expecting. He makes no noise, at least, though there's a hint of strain in his voice when he speaks.
"Y'alright up there?"
[Slaughter] She stays steady as he leverages her up, her weight barely shifting against his shoulder, and even as it does, she rights herself. Her hand is there partly for the appearance of balance; that and that it would be far more ignoble to fall than it would be to need to rest her weight on his shoulder.
Her one hand comes up to touch the grate, her fingers slipping barely between the rungs - so close that she scrapes her knuckle. From there, she straightens from his shoulder, lifting her other hand.
"So far," she answers him as she fits her opposite hand between the rungs. "Here goes."
(strength)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Nash] [SHOULD HAVE BEEN DIFF 6 YO TWO SUCCESSES]
[Slaughter]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)
[Nash] [My god, man.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Slaughter] AGAIN.
Dice Rolled:[ 2AGAIN d10 ] 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Slaughter] BOOYEAH
Dice Rolled:[ 2 These are secret messages from God d10 ] 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Nash] The fact that she gets it open at all means that someone up there likes them.
Or someone up there likes herself and wants to get out of here as quickly as possible. It's all semantics, really.
He manages to get her into the air and keep her there; at first it's a struggle as muscles not used to impulsive exertion tremble, but he adjusts his stance and separates his hands so the woman has a foot in each hand and they both stop wobbling. Paint chips fall around them and the grate squawks and complains, but eventually it's cracked free from its skin.
"Woo," he breathes, as though he'd been holding it this whole time. He doesn't immediately drop her to the ground, nor does he just thrust her up into the darkness. "You comin' back down?"
[Slaughter] It takes a bit, the open edges of her blazer fluttering loosely about her torso as she jerks the grating, small specks and chips of paint falling on them both like multicoloured rain. She breathes with every wiggle of the grating, the cuffs of her blazer slipping down over her forearms to reveal the fine play of muscle beneath the skin with each effort. When it finally comes free, she exhales the remainder of her breath, arching up to push the grating further into the elevator.
Nash breathes a sharp exhale, and asks if she is going up or down, and she pauses. "Ah," it is a place holder as she turns her head slightly, her weight shifting in his hands. "Just a tic."
There are a few paint chips caught in her hair, on the shoulders of her blazer. The latter are shaken free as she strips herself efficiently of her jacket, letting it drop to the floor behind her. There is little reason for commentary on disrobing. A woman's suit jacket is never designed to be loose, nor is it particularly designed for unrestrained movement. The shoulders are binding her, the fluttering of the tail, of the fabric are getting in her way.
Her arms are bare now, unrestricted, a stainless steel watch her only adornment. Only, that is not strictly true - a tattoo on her arm, a curving and heavy black line, each end cupping a crescent moon. He may or may not know the tribe marked there. He may or may not even be able to recognize it as a glyph.
Imogen, unaware of this potential revelation, reaches up again, grabbing ahold of the lip of the opening. "Up," she says.
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: HOIST]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 2 at target 7)
[Slaughter] (recover from whatever atrocity Nash inflicts on her)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Nash] The mechanics of one human being lifting a solid object, let alone another human being, are complicated. There are so many components that to listen them all would take up the better part of an hour; a good deal of muscles between the shoulders and the knees are involved in the process, and once he is standing fully upright with his cargo, Nash can no longer rely on his legs and back to assist with the process.
The doctor isn't heavy in even the most stringent sense of the word, but when it comes time to push her into the dark, Nash is relying on his arms to do the majority of the work. Perhaps he should have bent his knees to get more of a boost, but he doesn't.
Either he loses his balance preparing for propulsion, or he is startled by the tattoo when it reveals itself on her arm, or she throws him when she reaches up to grab for the opening of the hatch. There are all sorts of reasons why and how they botch end up crashing to the floor of the elevator, but one moment they're both upright and the next they aren't.
It isn't exactly dignified, he ending up on his back with she on top of him, but he isn't complaining, either.
"Shit," he says, winded from the impact, "I thought you said 'Down.' Sorry, darlin'." His brow furrows, and he points to the tattoo with his ringless left hand. "What's that, 'Fianna'?"
[Slaughter] It is a sudden and abrupt shift of conditions. One minute, she is steady, and he appears steady, then the next second, he is not, and she tries, for a brief moment to grab at the lip of the hatch as she falls with him, but all she feels is metal passing through her fingers.
Then the hard crash of the floor, on her knees and hands, the softer impact of the rest of her body against his.
"That," she observes dryly, "was the opposite of up." I thought you said down, sorry darlin'. She does not merely sit up, but instead rolls off him, half way there as he speaks again. The reaction is electric - the jerk of her head toward him, dark blue eyes stark and sharp half hidden by fallen strands of brilliant hair. Then she regains of from herself.
Her leg is still over his hips, bent, the heel of her shoe touching his thigh. She lifts it and draws it back to herself as she shifts back on the rather old carpet, one hand absently brushes the curve of her knee, brushing it free of dust, real or imaginary.
"I presume you mean my tattoo."
[Nash] Though he didn't yell or curse when he landed, the possibility that this occurred because he managed to injure himself doesn't immediately present itself. He's cracking jokes, and no one would fault a hot-blooded heterosexual male for lying on the ground without disturbing his cargo when an attractive woman such as Imogen was on top of him like this.
He's lucky he doesn't get slapped.
When she stops halfway through dismount, he lifts his eyebrows in harmless repetition of the question, idly shifting his shoulders as if to work kinks out of his frame. Discomfort is written into the muscles around his eyes and mouth, but he's ignoring it long enough to await an answer to his question.
It comes back in the form of clarification. He shifts again when the doctor retrieves her leg from his hips, then crosses his left arm over his chest to slide his hand under his jacket and massage his shoulder blade.
"That I do," he says, voice tight. "I ain't gonna show you mine, I'd have to unbutton my shirt."
[Slaughter] She regards him for several moments, silent, a tendon moving in her jaw. Her features are finely wrought, delicate, high cheekbones, a defined cheek. A clear brow framing dark eyes. There are a few minor scrapes on her knuckles, a raw welt on her left palm where she'd caught the lip of the hatch and then lost it.
She turns that hand over, pressing the rawness of her skin against the fine fabric of her slacks, the coolness pleasant against the heat of minor injury.
A few more seconds of silence, The air of the elevator has abruptly changed.
"Come on," she says, reaching down to remove her shoes, the stiff way she extends her left hand to reach the blue pump suggests a strain of sorts, the full extension of the muscle hesitant and viscerally aware. "Let's get out o' here." A critical glance at him, stiff on the ground.
"Can yeh stand?"
[Nash] Oh, she didn't like that.
If she were Garou--which, he'll learn eventually, from someone, that she might as well be--he wouldn't be so dumb as to think returning that look would be a good idea. She's not, though; it is just the two of them in this elevator, not He and She and Her Rage, so he doesn't think twice about it. Where the woman's features are soft and pleasant, her eyes contrasting her hair, the man is all sharp angles and long lines. He looks untamed but not feral, does not call to some deeper primal part of their cousins simply by existing.
His breathing is pronounced but not labored. Pain is becoming a constant rather than a whip crack; it dulls to an ache as a chill settles over the interior. By virtue of acknowledging that tattoo, something has shifted. Whether they like it or not they're going to end up dealing with each other once they walk of this elevator this afternoon.
They're better off than they would be staying in here any longer than is absolutely necessary, though. She isn't moving any faster than he is, but at least she's able to get up without too much effort. He, on the other hand, is hesitant to pick himself up because it's going to wrench his shoulder.
"Can I stand," he repeats, as though that's the most ridiculous thing he's heard all day. "Yeah I can stand."
[Slaughter] Yeah, I can stand, he says as if it were a ridiculous notion that he can't. Much like him, she's wrenched her shoulder, but not in the same way, and not as badly. Unlike him, she is already seated. It does not take her much to get to her feet, now even slighter in appearance than she had been without the addition of heels.
She reaches down with an absent hand, adjusting the hem of her camisole and resisting the urge to retrieve her blazer.
Instead she arches an eyebrow in his direction. Well?
[Nash] "Oh are you gonna watch me get up?"
Shit, his tone says but his words do not. Despite his discomfort, he's amused. There is very little about this situation that he has not somehow found amusing, as though this is all a big joke and he's going to survive it by not lamenting his poor fortune.
Lamenting never got anyone anywhere, anyway.
There is no grace or art in how he get himself to his feet. Luckily he's thin and still has some degree of flexibility in him; he manages to roll onto his injured side and use his dominant, uninjured arm to propel himself to his knees. Instead of grabbing for support from the handrails, he gets one foot flat on the floor, then hoists himself up, muffling a grunt of exertion before rolling his shoulders again.
He winces, rolls his head from one side to the other, then sniffs and shrugs out of his jacket. He's starting to sweat.
"Alright, walk it off, Tiger. You goin' up again?"
[Slaughter] She bites back the immediate response that comes to mind, and keeps silent, as he gets to his feet. Her gaze is direct, even, and it moves to his shoulder, even as he rolls it. She flicks her gaze over him the way he stands, holds his body. If he stands crookedly, as if protecting an injured side.
"Just yer shoulder is it?" she asks, rather than answering his question. The question seems clinical in its phrasing - her concern professional rather than personal. Her gaze moves briefly toward his collarbone, half hidden beneath the collar of his button down, then up again.
"Any numbness or tingling?"
[Nash] By this time tomorrow he will be about sick of old age and heart attack jokes, but today, Imogen is safe from that particular brand of comeback quips; he doesn't automatically assume she's trying to make a joke at his expense. What he does notice is the perfunctory way with which she tries to determine the extent to which he's injured himself. It makes him laugh, though it's dampened somewhat by the fact that he's somehow in more pain standing up than he had been flat on his back.
He hasn't gone pale, at least. Granted, he hasn't tried to move it, either.
"Nah," he says, "nothin' like that. I'm alright." A beat. "C'mon, you ain't gettin' up there by yourself."
[Slaughter] She pauses a moment, considering. She has options: she can ask him to move it, she can ask him to let her see it. His shoulder, after all, is instrumental in getting her up there.
"Alright," she says, instead, with a brief shrug, briefly tilting her head from side to side in a restrained stretch of abused, but not quite damaged muscles.
She steps forward presumably as he sinks to a crouch again, and puts a foot back into the shelf of his hands. She places a hand on his shoulder, but it is notably not the injured one.
"On three."
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: HUP! -1 pool (hurt).]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Slaughter] (dex+athletics - staying upright!)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Nash] [Athletics+Strength: GET UP THERE! -1.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 9 (Failure at target 7)
[Nash] [No, seriously.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Slaughter] (Dear god, I don't want this guy to drop me again. GETTING UP THERE)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Slaughter] (diff 7, so 3 successes!)
[Nash] For a moment, it looks as though his shoulder is going to give out again.
He gets her off the ground with no more trouble than before, if one is willing to overlook the fact that he's hoisting her off the ground with an injured shoulder rather than doing what one is hypothetically supposed to do with an injured shoulder. Should she rest her hand on him for balance this time, the flesh is hot beneath the cotton of his shirt.
"You got it?" he asks, once they've stabilized.
He's not sharp enough for there to be any deeper meaning to his asking that question versus repeating his earlier inquiry into whether she's alright. Perhaps he just can't hear her monkeying with the grate and so has to come up with a new and exciting way to ask if the Fiann is ready to go through the grate.
"Shoooootamonkey," is what he comes up with for an alternative to yelling obscenities when he wrenches his shoulder pushing her up high enough that she can get herself up over the ledge unassisted. He ducks out of the way, steps far enough back that she can't see him without effort, the only sign he's still there his heavy breathing.
[Slaughter] She drags herself up into the dark, oily smelling elevator shaft, Nash's support beneath her aiding her ascension. Her arm muscles complain as she levers herself up, turning her body to sit on the edge, before drawing her feet up on top of the lit.
She sits on the edge closest to the wall, the one farthest from the the cables, still reassuringly attached to their elevator. When she glances down, the supposed kinfolk is out of sight, but she can hear him breathing.
She does not lean down to check on him, instead raising her voice slightly to speak through the hatch, "I do hope you would inform me if yeh're arm has fallen off," she says. "Or at least make an effort t'bleed where I can see it, so I know things are dire."
Her voice had been described earlier as sounding like it only had humour which cut. So far, she is proving that correct.
[Slaughter] (If yehr arm has fallen off.)
[Nash] "My arm appreciates the concern."
His voice is raised, as well, though it lacks that edge that would suggest the decibel level has been lifted out of anger or pain. He recovers fairly quickly, or at least pulls himself together enough that he can return to the space beneath the grate in order to supervise, from a distance, the proceedings. If they had pulled this off without his injuring himself before, he would have devised some sort of method to get his happy ass up into the elevator shaft with the woman.
The thought doesn't even cross his mind now.
"You got enough light?" he asks, the reasoning obvious enough. What isn't so obvious is why he follows that up with: "What's your name?"
[Slaughter] Have you got enough light? he asks, and Imogen answers a little dryly, "I think regardless o' how much light I ha', I am goin' to have to deal with it."
He asks her name, and there is a pause. In that pause, Imogen gets to her feet, the shadow of her body dimly visible as she begins to carefully pick her way around the hatch. Finally, the answer comes, "Imogen. And you?"
[Nash] "I was gonna offer to wing you up a phone, Princess," he says, his own tone too amused to be as dry as he'd like, "but not with that attitude."
And then onto names. Hers is as exotic as her accent; his doesn't deviate too far from his home, either.
"Nash." He gives up trying to massage the pain out of his shoulder and lets his arm hang at his side. "Alright, if it's the motor at the top of the pulley, we're shit outta luck. Look toward the back of the shaft on the wall. Some of these older sumbitches have reset buttons instead'a control panels, you see one?"
[Slaughter] Imogen sinks to a crouch to lean down, looking at him, her hand touching the edge of the hatch. Some of her hair has come loose and it falls from her temple, curling and waving at the edge of her face - a mere suggestion of the chaos she's restrained with a braid and a twist at the nape of her neck.
"Imogen," she says. "Not princess or darlin'. Imogen." Her gaze is fixed on him, steady and even.
"Alright, if I see these reset buttons, I just press it, do I?" she arches an eyebrow as she looks down at him. "Will I be dodgin' an elevator or will I ha' enough time to get back inside?"
[Nash] Imogen must not have received the memo that guys like Nash follow two constants when it comes to the opposite sex: they aren't used to women having the self-respect necessary to tell him to quit doing whatever it is he's doing, and being put in his place is a gargantuan turn-on. He doesn't look chagrinned or ashamed when she fixes him with her impenetrable gaze and gives him no room for argument or defense. It's a poker face he wears, neutral above all else, yet it's earned her some respect.
As if her being willing to climb into a dark elevator shaft and root around for some mythical solution to their problem wasn't enough.
"Alright," he says, amiable instead of resentful. He doesn't apologize, but it would just be throwaway if he did, anyway. "Imogen."
Moving on, she asks about what it is she's doing with this button.
"If you end up dodgin' an..."
A thought occurs to him.
"Look up. Can you see the other one?"
It doesn't change his response; he just wants to know because he can't damn well see himself.
"Alright. I was a Master at Arms, not an electrician, but I'm pretty sure you got enough time to slap it and hop back in."
[Slaughter] He can see her turn her head abruptly looking above them. "No," she says turning back, a hand lifting to push back hair that has gotten too far into her eyes.
He tells her he is 'pretty sure', and she studies him a moment. It is not the first time she has done this - a deliberation in which he appears to be a factoid. The moment passes, and she nods and straightens again. She disappears from the small window of the hatch, her feet silent on the elevator's top as she crosses to the shaft's rear wall.
Silence. Nash is left waiting.
Suddenly, a whirr of machinery, the elevator lurching. A second or two later, Imogen's stockinged feet appear through the hatch, followed by her legs as she begins to lower herself down and back into the safety of the lift.
[Nash] The now-confessed former sailor's nonchalance instills in her no confidence or ease. Anyone who would be put at ease standing on top of an elevator car with no more reassurance that no ill would befall her than that the top floor is several meters over her head and the other car is below them would probably require a mental health screening after getting out of here. Still, Nash stands there, his left hand returned to the shelf of his shoulder as if the pressure against the muscle is palliative, head kinked back to meet her gaze.
There's no sense that he's lying to her. Hell, the way he'd worded it--he's pretty sure--leaves wiggle room in case it turns out that she doesn't. He's covering his own ass.
She moves out of his line of sight, and he waits, ears straining to pick up sound. He plants his feet shoulder-width apart when they start moving, and when he sees her, he seems to relax. It's entirely possible he was holding his breath. The petite kinswoman starts to lower herself in preparation to jump, and he makes an aversive noise in his throat, releasing his grip on his shoulder.
"You're gonna hurt yourself if you just jump down," he says. "I'll catch you."
[Slaughter] She only glances at him. There isn't precisely the best case scenario for an argument or for pedantry. That he has misunderstood is both understandable and not something she wants to spell out.
She speaks, instead in body language. Her legs out of the hatch by now, she turns her body partway, placing both hands on the lip of the hatch. It is clear by now that she intends less of a jump and more of a controlled dangle and less dangerous drop to the floor.
She lowers herself with the weight of her body on her upper arms as far as she can, the muscles of her arms standing out; she is lean but clearly a benefactor of a gym membership. Nash catches her about the waist and there is a sudden stiffening, a stillness despite the unpleasantness of her position.
The truth is, his help is likely worth it. A woman's upper body strength is no where equal to that of a man's; a quirk of evolution. And for all that she might do to control her descent, the extension will aggravate an aching shoulder.
A moment later, she is on the ground, feet flat, and she steps away, turning briefly to look at the kinsman. "Thank-you," is what she says, before bending down to reach for her shoes.
[Nash] If he takes the opportunity to run his eyes over her body, she has her back turned to him; she cannot feel the ravenous weight of a lecherous man on her, though, so Imogen at least has that assurance. His hands go to her waist not to haul her down from there and return her to the ground, but to slow her drop so that she does not hurt herself.
They don't argue about it, and she doesn't chastise him like she did when he came up with nickname after nickname for her. Nash helps her, Imogen thanks him, and he bobs his head in a nod.
"You're welcome," he says, before ducking to pluck up his jacket.
Now that she's on the same plane as he is, the doctor can see he's wearing an empty shoulder holster, that he apparently thought it better to stash the weapon that belongs inside in his car with the Swiss Army knife instead of wrestling the entire thing off his body in broad daylight.
Men.
[Slaughter] Her gaze shifts briefly to the empty holster, noting her awareness of it, but little expression betrays her. No fear, no curiosity. She turns away to pluck up her blazer, pulling it on, her offending tattoo disappearing from sight before the doors can open. As they do, she is picking up her box of documents.
There is the awkward moment when the people waiting outside come in without waiting for either of them to exit. Imogen must navigate through them to exit, catching a particularly slow mover in the shoulder with the box as she steps to the door.
The elevator might well fail again. Imogen makes no effort to save the three or four humans from their fate, exiting without a word beyond a brief 'pardon me' during that one collision.
[Nash] There is not much time between Imogen's return to the floor and the elevator's completion of its rickety ascent from the subbasement to the ground floor. They climb back into their jackets, have to pick up their belongings before the next stream of riders introduces themselves to the interior of the elevator. Nash is moving slower than Imogen, and Christ knows what they look like as they exist the elevator: both of them are somewhat disheveled, their clothing rumpled and their hair mussed despite their best efforts to return themselves to rights.
Neither of them wear discernible expressions as they disembark. He skirts the edge of the elevator, its floor now covered in paint chips, an oily tint to the air that was not there before, and emerges back into the main foyer of the clerks office relatively unscathed.
His shoulder will bother him for the rest of the damn week, but that's easily lived with. At least it's not a claw or a bullet.
Imogen gets ahead of him, and neither of them warn the others about the fact that the elevator is acting up. If Nash cared, he might go out of his way to try and find someone who would do something about it; he just keeps walking, eventually gaining on Imogen by virtue of the fact that his legs are longer.
[Slaughter] He catches up with her, just as she is adjusting the hem of her camisole smoothing it against her stomach. He walks a little more stiffly perhaps than she does, or it is just the way he favours the shoulder, the stiffness in the joint clear in the steady motion of his walk.
"Arm still attached, is it?" she asks almost absently - it clearly is.
[Nash] He still carries himself like a military man, meaning that whatever difficulty he is having with his upper body seems to have been built into the way he walks, yet whenever he has to actually interact with the environment, if he has to adjust the fall of his jacket or open a door, it reveals itself. The manila folder which had been the instrument of this entire endeavor is held on the hand on his injured side.
They're both on their way out of the building, heading toward the security checkpoint at the mouth of the foyer. There is more activity here than in the basement, people flowing up and down staircases, moving along at a rapid clip while talking and moving their hands. The Southerner comes up alongside the petite kinswoman and slows his pace when she addresses him.
Is his arm still attached.
A lopsided smirk cuts through the stubble on his face and he thinks about it. His face is drawn, sweat drying on his skin, but he'll live.
"Yes, ma'am," he says. "Works out well for me, I get to embarrass myself asking you out for a drink instead of embarrassin' myself askin' you to drive me to the ER."
[Slaughter] The bustle of the staircase and the walkway slows their descent toward the checkpoint, her box adding an extra obstacle. They keep to the right side of the stairs as they descend, much as the ascending people keep to their right, but still, the variety of paces do not make it easy.
For a slight woman, she moves at a fair clip - he does not need to slow his pace much. Imogen moves with purpose, and somehow has found beauty in that economy of motion. The simplicity of it. She might be considered graceful, but it is grace stripped of all nuances and flesh. Only the bones remain.
She glances at him when he speaks, her expression briefly and perfectly controlled. She descends several more steps in silence, starting toward the inevitable line up at the checkpoint.
"You should save yer breath," she advises him, slinging her purse from her arm to retrieve her identification, the paperwork which goes with her retrieved documentation.
[Nash] [Empathy+Perception: ARE YOU PLAYING HARD TO GET YOU ARE AREN'T YOU. -1 pool (ow).]
[Nash] Now, he's gathered from speaking with her that she's some sort of medical professional. From what he's told her, he has a background in law enforcement. There's no saying that Imogen isn't just dressing the part, that she hasn't watched her share of medical dramas, and there's nothing saying Nash isn't just making up everything he says, that he isn't some sort of confidence artist.
He isn't self-absorbed or blind enough to think that spending fifteen minutes in an elevator together and discovering that they're both Kinfolk means anything beyond her wanting to get as far away from him as is humanly possible. They owe each other nothing, and her speaking to him once they get out of there is little more than a common courtesy.
People ought to be easier for him to read, and if he weren't focusing on what she's saying, how she says it, instead of looking at her face, maybe he would get more than what he comes up with. He couldn't be further from reality.
"That medical advice," he asks, unloading his keys and phone in preparation to walk through the metal detector; he's taken the station across the way from hers and isn't looking at her, "or personal?"
[Slaughter] "Practical," the doctor answers as she puts her purse into the scanner tray, reaching in to remove her smart phone and keys. Her belt is undone at her waist, slide free of its loops and coiled by her purse. She sets the box on the conveyor belt that will send it through the xray machine. There is a assembly line feel to this. She does not fumble, she is not unsure. She has done this a hundred times before.
She is not looking at him either as she passes her identification, her medical examiner's shield and the paperwork that accompanies her box to the security guard before stepping through the metal detector with reassuring silence.
At the other side, she retrieves her items, sliding her belt on first before replacing her purse contents, sliding it up her arm. She has no jacket, apparently. Certainly, he never saw her in one other than the blazer.
[Nash] The poor bastards stuck watching the X-ray machine and making sure no one is trying to sneak anything deadly into or out of the building don't seem to be paying any attention to the exchange the two are having. They aren't concerned about people trying to leave; it's the people wandering in from off the street carrying pocket knives and concealed pistols and lifelong grudges against city officials that have them slightly worried.
Some out-of-state hick PI here digging up birth certificates and one of the city's MEs come to collect a box full of files are hardly worth looking at. Neither of them are a threat.
He makes it through faster, only has to retrieve the two items he'd dropped to avoid the shrieking beep of the metal detector, which has him walking backwards to address her as he continues on towards the exit.
"I'll tell you what practical gets you," he says, but never ends up finishing his thought. He turns around and keeps on walking, letting the assurance of not being watched or followed afford him the opportunity to reach up and massage his shoulder underneath his jacket again.
Christ Almighty he needs to start going to the gym again.
[Slaughter] He never hears her answer, because she does not give one. Never sees if she is amused or irritated or simply mild-mannered, because he has already walked away.
The doctor does not hurry to follow or catch up. She lets him go, gathering her things, before she steps through the revolving door to the parking lot - from there she heads to car, and that is that.
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