are we there yet

Entry tags:

alley,
lotor

are we there yet

"Noooope."

That was Alleyana, of course, having just stepped into an elevator with Lotor. She'd been mentally braced for a floating box with solid walls, but this place had stepped the bullshit up a whole other level that she hadn't known was an option.

The doors slid shut behind her as Alley just stared in horror at the amount of glass this particular box was made of. When the transparent floor lurched as the elevator began to move upward, she did a heel-turn and leaned her forehead against the closed doors; the only opaque part of the box. Gauntlets raised to either side of her face against the doors, trying to block herself in against something 'solid'.

"Nope nope nope. This is bullshit--! Masal din'an! How high up does this go?!"

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He'd not even thought much about it, really. Only to be expected from him of course, elevators were frankly nothing compared to steering a battle cruiser. He'd nearly forgotten Alley might have had any issue with it until she began to voice her... discontent with the situation.

Lotor was fairly quick to look away from his communicator, focusing on Alley as she pressed her forehead against the elevator doors. Oh... yes. That's right.

"We're heading to the tenth floor." So uh.... probably.... best she keep her head towards the doors, honestly.

"I can stop the elevator at the next floor and we can take the stairs, should you prefer it."

"Yes, please."

What a good idea! "I thought I could handle it, but all the glass..."

Just voicing it aloud made it worse, clawed gauntlets screeching slightly against the metal doors as her tension ramped up anew.

"At least the lift down into the Deep Roads was dark!"

"Very well, we should be coming up on the second floor-" CHUNK.

The elevator, with a small lurch, came to a sudden stop, the lights flickering for a moment, before steadying once more.

The elevator, however, wasn't moving anymore, nor did the doors open. ".... Oh, good." Well, that figures.

Oh. Oh good.

"...I knew it!" Alley punctuated the sentiment by banging the bottom of one armored fist against the door. "I knew these things were traps! Fenhedis lasa!"

"There seems to have been a power surge in one of the local transformers." Yes he is back to looking at his communicator again, calmly scrolling through various posts.

"An influx of prismatic jellyfish, apparently. They need to clear them off the equipment before they can reestablish power." Not a trap! Just bad luck, he promises.

"It's going to be fine, I can't imagine it will take too long." He's calm, and for multiple reasons.

Firstly, well... he's pretty sure the elevator won't break, and the elevator itself isn't likely to run out of oxygen. And second, two people being anxious and worked up never led to anything great. He is rather hoping that maintaining a cool attitude will help relax Alley somewhat, yes.

Look, it doesn't have to be a trap trap to be a trap. "At least we're not very high up."

See, that's progress! Alley even turns away from the doors, although she immediately starts pacing around. "If this glass floor broke right now, we'd be fine."

"I promise, the floor won't break. The weight capacity far exceeds both of us. I could jump right now, and the elevator wouldn't move." And he's a heavy boy, what with being over seven feet tall.

He watched her pace, keeping his tone calm and even.

"Sitting might help you feel better." If anything, just the feeling of being closer to the ground might make her feel just a little better.

"Glass where I'm from is pretty hard to come by, and super brittle."

That was definitely part of her problem, here; being suspended in the air by something she thought she could just... accidentally step too hard and break. Even now, Alley's pacing was decidedly near to the door.

"Why would they even make one of these terrible machines out of such a material? This is ridiculous. I can't be the only person to--"

Be scared of this.

But she couldn't say that out loud, instead snapping her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth.

"For aesthetic purposes, really. People enjoy the view, and a glass elevator looks more pleasing than a metal one." He knew what the rest of her sentence was going to be, it was pretty easy to complete.

"There are plenty of people who are wary of elevators, glass, metal, wood or otherwise. It's perfectly understandable."

He goes to tap the heel of his boot firmly against the bottom of the elevator.

"But allow me to assure you that these were made specifically to carry a great deal of weight, you can hear how thick the glass is, if you strike it hard enough."

You know who doesn't look convinced? This gal, right here.

"Is it understandable? To someone who grew up on a space ship?"

"I might not have experienced the feeling personally myself, but I understand why someone might be concerned about being inside an elevator." Normally just because of enclosed spaces, though fear of heights definitely factored in.

Heights didn't particularly bother the Inquisitor... when she wasn't being held up by what she was certain was a very flimsy box. But especially one made of glass.

Fucking glass.

"I'm never getting on one of these again."

"As soon as this starts moving again, we'll take the stairs." There was a pause, and then-

"Will you be alright, Alley?" Please don't work yourself up over there.

Too late, buddy.

"Sure, it's just hard to distract myself from being held in the air by glass."

That didn't sound alright.

"Perhaps you should sit down." They were going to be up here for a while after all, at this rate she might really wear herself into a state.

"Why."

Already working on getting into 'a state', thanks.

"If it breaks and I'm sitting I'll just hit the ground ass-first. I've done that before, it wasn't fun."

There's a soft sigh, and he just... goes to sit down, calm and cool as you please.

And then... he reaches over and goes to snag her stone hand, giving it a good tug.

"If it breaks, you'll land on me first, please come here."

"Careful--" It's the same warning Alley has always given anyone who touched the armor on her hands; those plates were sharp. The warning was pure reflex, and then she let Lotor tug her down.

That was... new.

"Well, that's, um."

He knows what to look out for, and he knows what he's doing.

That's right, can't be anxious when the situation is too awkward to think about anything else! Coolly, he just adjusted himself a bit, before just as naturally and easily as you please, resting his arms upon his knees at either side of her.

You know, like this was something he did all the time. Totally normal!

"There, now I'm sure you have a great deal of other things on your mind."

Oh, definitely. It wasn't like Lotor got any less pretty this close and personal. Far from it. Were the tips of her ears going red?

What came out of Alley's mouth, however, "--Mostly how I'm going to have to kick your ass the next time we throw down."

Violence. Violence is always the right answer.

"I will have to warn you, Alley. Threatening to fight me is roughly equivalent to flirting, for Galrans."

Yes good, focus on him and kicking his ass, perfect. It's certainly better than potentially entering into a panic attack due to being stuck in an elevator.

Aaaaand Alley buried her face in both of her hands. "Maker's breath."

"Now look at how much this situation has improved. You hardly look anxious anymore. You were starting to go pale, I'm happy to see you're regaining color."

"I hate you." Muffled into the leather palms of her gauntlets, of course. And naturally, the red starting at the ears just got worse.

Edited 2019-10-13 05:06 (UTC)

"I'm sure you do." Hey, he looked like he was having a good time. Frankly, it looked like settling into the role of 'troll' was a fairly easy thing for him to do.

"I wouldn't want you going easy on me during our next match after all."

So wait, if talking about fighting someone was flirting--

Lotor what are you doing.

Alley finally dropped her hands from her face, giving him an odd look.

He knows what he's doing.

She says nothing, so he says nothing back, looking directly at her with a distinct air of calm challenge.

Have something you want to say?

Alleyana... still wasn't entirely sure what they were, or where the lines were in their particular dynamic. That calm challenge on his face was met with quiet contemplation, and then Alley was the first to look away.

Ears still burning, but.

"Right."

"Right." He wouldn't push, this was fine, honestly. From what he'd learned of her, he didn't expect anything else from her in response to this, really.

And all according to plan, she was very distracted.

"Your friend, Iron Bull," because yes he'll now use her being off kilter to easily change the subject to something even further removed from the situation and thus, further away from the elevator, "seems to be a highly perceptive sort, doesn't he?"

Oh good yes she will take that topic change. It sure beats getting sad, or veering back into anxiety.

"Of course. He was Ben-Hassrath. He was sent by his people to spy on me for them, a fact that he was quite open about from the get-go."

Edited 2019-10-13 05:38 (UTC)

"I take it then he wasn't terribly interested in actually spying on you?" Or maybe he was just that confident in being a spy, who knew?

"Oh, he did. He just thought it would be pretty dumb to try to hide that from an organization called the Inquisition. And I had bigger concerns than the Qunari people knowing what I was doing."

"And you welcomed him into your ranks... regardless?" Look, he's not going to argue that Bull doesn't seem like a nice guy-

"He's a very charismatic person, be it far from me to call him unlikable, but..."

But spy. Yes, she might have had bigger things to worry about but.

Spy.

"Yep. He was willing to put his network of fellow spies to work for us, and he came with a decent band of mercenaries to help in the fight." Plus, Bull himself. "But there's not much point in trying to hide shit from him, it just makes him more curious. And he's not even my spymaster."

Keeping secrets in her crew was hard. Unless you were Solas, apparently.

That dick.

The steady stream of chroma from their continued contact had finally built up enough to be noticeable past her worries about the elevator. Alleyana couldn't really help but to relax somewhat, physically, her near shoulder leaning gradually into Lotor's armor.

Maybe it was just enough to make inhibitions a little questionable, because the Inquisitor didn't pause to consider what she was doing before she reached up with an armored finger and snagged a lock of white hair from over Lotor's shoulder.

"How do you keep this out of your way all the time?"

Edited 2019-10-21 05:15 (UTC)

"As I've started to notice." The man had picked up on.... something. Exactly what it was was beyond Lotor, but still. Bull was no Cole, mind. But it was unsettlingly close enough.

He wasn't lying though when he said the man was charismatic, however.

He glanced over however as she toyed with a lock of hair, his expression becoming mildly thoughtful. "If I'm to be honest, I've never put much thought into it before." Maybe he just learned how to ignore it whipping around, because it's pretty obvious he doesn't use anything, a tie, gel, hairspray, to keep it in place.

It still took Alley a ridiculously long moment to realize what she was doing.

She tried to snatch her hand back, instinctively, which of course resulted in several strands being caught in pinchy plate armor and likely being ripped out.

"--Shit, sorry!"

He'd settled into this nicely enough. Hey, mission accomplished, right? She was calm, things were going pretty well, really. He'd not even batted an eye at it.

Though there was a flinch and a faint, surprised hiss as she yanked out a few strands. Aw goddamnit-

"Alley, I can assure you, it's fine. I hardly mind." They'd been sharing a bed for ages now after all, this seemed hardly any more intimate than that.

Yes, but. Touch. Alley didn't... her hands weren't--

"My hands are only good for hurting people."

It had to be the chroma, that made that slip out. The Inquisitor usually had a much tighter grip on her own insecurities.

Yes, that was going further, emotionally, than she'd really ever allowed herself to before. He'd been privvy to angry outbursts, but this wasn't that, now was it?

He moved to take her hand, ever careful of the sharp metal of it, and if he could manage to do so, it'd be pulled up to the side of his face and pressed against his cheek, golden eyes locking on her.

"This has never hurt me before."

It was allowed, of course, Alley watching him do it with a slightly pained expression on her damaged face.

"Not yet," the elf countered, because of course it would happen eventually. The palm and most of the underside of her fingers were covered in leather rather than sharp metal plates, for grip. But one wrong twitch and the edge of a plate would still make contact.

That was why she usually only touched Lotor's face when things were serious.

"And even if it does, it won't change anything." He's not going to sit here and be a whimsical idealist here, he's too old for that.

But he can still be reassuringly rational. It wouldn't change anything.

"Won't change what they're good for, either."

What Alley personally was good for.

"No, it won't." Pointedly emphasized with a softening of his tone, his fingers gently, slightly curling against hers.

They were good at this, specifically.

"I agree."

Alley's expression remained stricken; no worse but no better, either.

Her attention was fixated on his hand over hers, hoping his gloves were good enough to ward off the sharp dragonbone plate edges.

"I was a sculptor, once," her rough voice was bitter. "Now, I can't grip anything finer than the hilt of a weapon. They're useless."

Edited 2019-10-21 17:38 (UTC)

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