Up and Down

[Existentially Odd]

Exhilarated to be caught mid-air, Caleb was more than happy to get himself the rest of the way up through the opening in the lift and then move aside so that the panel could be replaced and no-one could see them sitting atop the metal box.  He\'d thanked his mentor and leader as he emerged, grateful to have been helped when he hadn\'t made it the first time.

He frowned at the noise around him, looking about in an effort to place what was making what cacophany before he spoke.  When he did, it was with a frown, his words aimed at Digital.  He hadn\'t sat, on purpose.  "So... what now?  When it gets to the top we jump so that we feel a split second of anti-gravity?" he queried, jumping lightly on the roof of the lift to demonstrate his point.

[pinkroses]

Adam had barely noticed Digital catching the fledgling and helping him through the gap, but his eyes turned back towards the two vampires as the hatch slammed down and they began talking. He’d just about heard Digital’s reassurance that they wouldn’t be crushed, but as they rose the sounds of the gears seemed to be getting louder. Adam couldn’t even hear Caleb’s question about what they would do as the youngster was facing away from him, but he watched with amusement as it was accompanied by a jump.

Realising quickly he wouldn’t be able to partake in the conversation unless he was much closer, Adam turned his attention elsewhere, watching the walls move smoothly past them, reaching out to tap exciting looking protrusions, tugging various bolts and bits of metal in the time he had with them. The mortal was perfectly happy to let the two vampires chat, knowing they would include him if it was anything really interesting or if they were about to move on.

[Malkavian Riddler]

Digital laughed at Caleb\'s suggestion about anti-gravity and dropped to a squatting position before sitting down on his rump, pulling his legs in to sit cross-legged.  It was a great deal more comfortable than he would\'ve believed, but there was still a square edge of something making its presence felt upon his right thigh.  He\'d thought it roomy in the lift, and it wasn\'t much different up here, but due to its openness (plus the noise) strangely made it feel like their space was smaller and more constricting.

They went up and up and up, then came to a stop well before the roof and whirring machinery that had Adam worried so.  Digital grinned at the pair of them, looking from one to the other to check they were both comfortable with this adrenalin-filled activity.  He heard a faint bonging that was the lift announcing its arrival to the residents of the top floor.  The lift didn\'t even wobble as someone stepped in, and Digital was vaguely disappointed by this.  He wasn\'t disappointed with the way his stomach flopped from the very quick descent towards the lobby, however.  There were three stops it made to pick up other travellers, and Digital heard the bong each time, and there were those other belly-flip-flops from the lift\'s rapid movement down.

Going up and down was quite a lot of fun; going down was the most fun due to the nature of the experience.  Unfortunately they got used to it, and so Digital had to find a new source of amusement.

There were two more trips; one down, one back up, when Digital saw their opportunity to change things up.  The elevator was slowing to a stop when he saw one of the square wall panels covering the ventilation shaft was askew.  Moving quickly past Adam and reaching over to pull the panel off the wall with a screech, he gestured for the other two to follow, knowing Adam\'s ears had been assaulted with a lot of noise.

"You last," he called to Caleb, wanting Adam in the middle just because he and Caleb could protect the mortal better in case something went wrong.

His voices were whispering quietly, so he didn\'t pay them any attention.  Once the panel was off, he was in, crawling commando style because there was no room to do anything different.

[pinkroses]

As they approached the top of the shaft Adam couldn’t help but look up nervously, tense and ready to try to flatten himself against the floor - as if that might help. But their leader was right and the human gave a giddy laugh as they began to plummet again, holding on tightly to the floor as they zoomed down.

His eyes widened slightly as Digital suddenly moved past him to tug open a vent and he hesitated for a moment, checking to see if the fledgling would go first before following close on Digital’s heels before the lift could move again. The roaring sound of machinery was still heavy in his ears as he followed, trying to make sure he would be able to grab the prophet’s ankle if he needed his attention, although no doubt the vampire could still hear properly. The ringing was already beginning to fade for th ehuman as he glanced back over his shoulder, trying to spot his friend behind them. It wa sa tight squeeze though, so there wasn’t really room to look.

His heart was pounding as they crawled, wondering how far they would go, but knowing he would be able to hear an answer properly he didn’t ask. Digital probably didn’t know anyway.

[Existentially Odd]

The lift was preparing to move again by the time Caleb found his way into the shaft, so he hurried, almost smushing his nose into Adam's ass.  For some reason, he found this incredibly funny (probably mostly because he was relieved that he hadn't ended up dangling out a hole in the wall as the elevator dropped away from him) and, as he crawled along on his hands and knees he started giggling madly to himself, the sound echoing off the metallic walls around him convincing him it was even more funny.  He had to concentrate on keeping up.

[Malkavian Riddler]

Digital came to a T-intersection.  Turning right he knew would lead him to information that would help Kerr somehow.  He didn't know what it was he was going to find out, but it would be something Kerr needed to know.  His voices had told him this.  The giggles behind him made his decision for him; Kerr wouldn't be harmed without this information - he knew this too, and Kerr wouldn't be thanking him any time for approaching him for any reason (though the voices were a little hazy about this assumption).  He'd been told to stay away.  If Caleb didn't stop giggling by the time they reached the place they needed to be, he would be putting his followers in danger, and that wouldn't do.

He went left.  The crawlspace was a lot higher here, he could properly get up on his hands and knees instead of merely wriggling through commando style.  His fur coat had been rather restrictive, and it was only now he considered that a white fur coat wasn't the best thing to wear through maintenance air-ducts.

He crawled on, hearing Adam and Caleb behind him.  He could hear creaks and groans as the ducting began to protest the weight of three men.  A cackling of his voices later and he said:

"Nobody minds a good slide."

Hesitating for a moment, Digital then inched forward a little further, and the duct they were all in released from its join a few metres in front of Digital.  It bent forward, creating the slide Digital had prophesised just a moment before, and spilled Digital downwards onto the ceiling of the room beneath them, where he fell through - creating a huge hole for the mortal and vampire behind him to tumble through as well - and crashed into someone's room.

Digital found himself smiling at a very pretty blonde woman before he was covered in people.

[pinkroses]

When the giggling started Adam couldn’t help but be relieved. He’d heard the lift starting to move again and had been worried for a second Caleb wouldn’t make it in, but he was there and by the sounds of it he was fine. He followed close behind their leader, occasionally letting out a quiet giggle himself as he felt the vampire behind him bang into him.

“What?” That was all the reply he was able to get out in response to Digital’s comment before their surroundings began to move.

“Digital?” he said, his voice a few notes more high pitched, before they were tumbling forwards. Adam let out a shout of panic as the three of them slid out of the slippery duct which crashed downwards and he let out a grunt as he landed heavily on top of the prophet.

“Fuck,” he managed to mutter, not seeing the woman before he became a cushion for the next vampire in the line.

[Existentially Odd]

Caleb's giggling returned full force as the view before him suddenly shifted downward and he was still laughing as he did his best to avoid landing on Adam or Digital and managed to hit them both before he executed a half tumble to the side to finish.  Rolling into a sitting up position pretty quickly, he looked around with a broad grin on his youthful face, his brown eyes twinkling with the fun of it all.  He spied the blonde woman in the room and was instantly mollified, looking to Digital for his reaction, intending to take his cue from his leader.

[Harlequin]

Thirty seconds previous, that blonde woman – a rangy, fey-looking (but entirely human) thing in a blue gossamer skirt and a fuzzy white sweater that seemed to swallow her torso – had been reclining on the carpet, humming Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" quietly to herself as she contemplated the ceiling.

And then the ceiling opened and deposited one, two, three unknown persons on the floor in front of her and she was bolt upright, breath caught in her lungs, blue eyes as wide as saucers. After about two stunned seconds, a keening sound began to emanate from her thin chest and she scrabbled backwards until her back hit the sliver of wall between the hotel room's standard-issue television stand and desk.

At about the same time, a barrel-chested black man burst out of the bathroom in a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke that nobody above the age of ten would think came from a normal cigarette. He was dressed only in a pair of loud floral boxer shorts and his fists – easily the size of twin christmas hams – found his hips as he surveyed the scene before him. Slowly, he exhaled another puff of that smoke, coughing slightly at the tail end.

"You're not room service," he observed, after a long pause.

[Malkavian Riddler]

Digital was pleased Adam had a softer landing than the carpet.  Plush as it was, it had been surprisingly hard to land on.  As hard as vampires were, he knew he would be pleasantly softer to land on.  The mortal was a momentary sandwich before Caleb arranged himself neatly beside the tangled pair.  Digital held Adam's upper arms so he was slightly lifted up from him, so that they could both look at the blonde woman who was making a peculiar sound.  The black fellow won their attention next as he burst onto the scene.

"Rock stars!" Digital declared, for he recognised them due to his constantly visiting Risk where they often played, rather than knowing anything from his voices.  "We came for your autographs."

[pinkroses]

“Oh, totally, yeah, this is so exciting,” Adam declared, although he’d barely got a glance at the room’s inhabitants. After Digital had propped him up Adam had glanced between the woman and the man and then rolled off his leader, stumbling slightly before managing to make his feet. He was often wasted or completely distracted when he went to Risk, so he didn’t recognise them, and didn’t know whether or not Digital was just coming up with a terrible excuse.

Scooping up a pen from beside the hotel telephone Adam dropped to his knees in front of the blonde, hoping she would quiet down any second.

“Miss, would you sign my arm? Please?” he asked, holding out the pen in his right hand and stretching out his left hand with the other. There was a carpet burn from the tumble on the back of his arm, but that would fade pretty quickly he was sure. “Or if you have paper that would be swell,” he added with a lopsided grin.

[Existentially Odd]

Caleb was staring at the woman now, his eyes wide as she made that horrble noise.  It was the sound of fear, he recognised that and Adam heading for her only seemed like it would be trouble; the youngest vampire switched to looking at the big dude smoking weed in the bathroom, wondering if he was going to hurt Adam for getting close to his girlfriend.  Caleb was ready to protect his mortal friend if it came to that and he slyly switched onto his knees, so he could get up and run quickly if he had to.

[Harlequin]

Joe may have been blazed out of his mind, but there was no way the fur-coat guy was telling the truth, right? There were way better ways to go about getting their autographs. Maybe they wanted to make an impression. Damn, that was a big hole in the ceiling. How had they even gotten up there? Maybe they were spies.

These were the things Joe pondered as he looked at Digital, a serene expression on his face. "You coulda knocked," he said finally.

But then Adam was advancing on the cornered Vivianne, arms outstretched as she tried to make herself a part of the wall. The keening sound cut out with a strangled "Don't" as she ceased breathing entirely, poised on the brink of panic.

That kid must be as high as Joe was, not recognizing the sheer terror in that sound she'd been making. "Hey, give the lady some air, bear," boomed Joe.

"C'mon over here Vee, these cats ain't tryna hurt us,"  Whoever they were, he was pretty sure they were cool. Everything was pretty cool for Joe, right now.

Vivanne's eyes went from the boy in front of her, to Joe, and back again. She wasn't moving until Adam gave her some space.

[pinkroses]

Adam watched Vivi with confusion for a few seconds, clueless as to why she would still be making that sound. They weren’t that scary, were they? Hell, Adam had seen things a lot worse than this and they weren’t trying to hurt them.

His hands dropped down into his lap as he shuffled backwards, shifting his weight onto his ass instead of his knees so that he moved away from her, although he didn’t think he’d been all that close at all. He didn’t exactly want to get on the bad side of the huge beast of a man stood by the bathroom though and he turned his gaze to him, checking to see if his movement had been sufficient.

[Harlequin]

That beast of a man had his eyes on his companion as she let out the breath she'd been holding, thin chest sagging under her sweater as Adam moved away. She kept her eyes on him as she stood, however, scuttling sideways along the desk and then vaulting across the bed on nimble feet, until her shoulders were tucked under Joe's arm.

Then that beast of a man smiled and the tension in the air evaporated. "So what's goin' on, Juan? You guys want some beers?" he asked, in that smooth, deep voice – now full of warmth and joviality as he looked between the three of them. He spoke as if having three uninvited guests come pouring out of the ceiling in his tenth-floor hotel room was exactly what he'd expected to come out of his day.