The Third Room
Quatre adjusted the small cap that threatened to fall off his head,
thinking there was no way he was going to pull on that elastic chin
strap thing. It was bad enough having to work as a bellhop, he didn't
want to look like a total dork while doing it. He had been called up to
two rooms already over the course of the day, and hell knew he had had
enough. Witches' covens and and kidnapping scenarios were not his cup
of tea... and God, could he use some of that right now. Tea, that is.
Goddamn Chang, taking off on the full moon, everyone knew that's when
the freaks came out.
Just then, a couple came in, followed by two children.
"Heero Yuy." One of the men stated, coming up to the desk. He glared at
Quatre, who resisted the urge to eep. Quatre fished through the keys
behind the counter, looking for Mr.Yuy's keys, all the while ogling the
eye candy attached to Yuy's arm. Sleepy, violet eyes gazed back at him,
eyelashes dropped demurely, and he realized he was being all too
blatant about staring when Yuy grabbed his collar and lifted him two
feet off the ground.
"My keys."
"Yes, sir," Quatre managed to spit out, dropping the keys with a small
'clang' into Yuy's open palm. Yuy let go of Quatre's collar, sending
him sprawling on the ground, as he took a hold of his husband's waist
and led his family to the elevator.
"Make sure our luggage is in our room within fifteen minutes," he
commanded as he walked away. Quatre looked over to the massive amount
of bags the valet had just bought in, sighing to himself. It wouldn't
do Chang harm to hire some more help. He picked up the phone, calling
his manager's house.
"Hellooo?" drawled out a slow, low voice. Mellow, yeah, mellow like the
drugs that were probably going around there. Quatre could practically
smell the pot through the telephone wires.
"Is Wufei Chang there?" he ground out through clenched teeth.
"Who?"
"Wufei Chang."
"Che, sorry, man, I don't know any Wufei..."
Quatre's right eyebrow was twitching. "You're in his goddamn house
right now!"
Just then the phone must have been wrenched from the stoner's hands,
and Chang came on the line.
"Chang here."
"Mr. Chang, this is Quatre. I'm just telling you that as soon as I take
the luggage up to room 412, I'm leaving for the day."
"Quatre, no! I need you there, what if one of the guests need
something?"
"Fuck them! The guests here need more help than I'm certified to give!"
"Wait, room 412, the Yuy-Maxwells? You have to stay, Quatre, they're
one of our richest clients."
"Let me tell you about my day so far. First, I was seduced and jerked
off by a witch-"
"Was she ugly?"
"No, actually, she was quite attractive, but-"
"I fail to see what the problem is, then."
"Okay, so that had been one of the more pleasant moments of the day.
But then I'm called up to this room, and I don't know what was going
on, some couple was acting out a little role playing scene, bondage-"
"Did you join in?"
"Stop interrupting me! And no, I most certainly not joined it. The
point is, when I left that room, through the window I might add, I had
been shot at several times, and now I am just half a disaster away from
going ZERO SYSTEM!!!"
"Okay, Quatre, calm down..."
Just then the beeping of the motel switchboard went off.
"Quatre, is that room 412? Pick it up."
Quatre reached over and picked up the switchboard phone, hearing a curt
'five minutes' before the line went dead.
"Fuck, I've got to get Yuy's shit up to him. He'll probably kill me if
I don't."
"Probably, the guy's in the mafia."
"What?!"
Quatre grabbed his chest, trying not to hyperventilate. "Okay,
Mr.Chang, I've got to go."
He hung up the phone and ran over to the luggage, wheeling it to the
elevator and up to the fourth floor. He knocked at the door, freezing
when it flung open and to reveal an irate Heero Yuy, pointed a .45 at
him.
"Oh, it's just you."
Quatre gulped nervously as Heero gestured, with his gun, to come
inside. Quatre wheeled the luggage to a stop alongside the wall,
looking in through the open bathroom door to where Mr. Maxwell was
pulling panty hose onto long, toned legs, up underneath the tightest
black tube dress he had ever seen. Suddenly, he was slammed against the
wall, Heero Yuy holding his arm in a vise-like grip.
"We're going out. You will stay here, and look after our children."
"Excuse me?"
Heero only glared at him and tightened his grip on his arm.
"Of course, Mr.Yuy."
Heero nodded, satisfied, as Quatre looked at the children. They were
sitting on the bed, and had obviously been watching TV before, but were
now staring at him with blank expressions on their faces. The girl had
long dark brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail, and violet eyes,
while the boy had short chestnut hair and dark blue eyes. They both had
fair skin, and looked like little dolls you might find in the porcelain
section of the toy store, except they looked...somewhat evil. For lack
of a better word.
"Oh, they look like angels," he lied to Yuy, hoping to put him in a
better mood, therefore lessening the chances of an early death and
increasing the chances of a bigger tip.
Heero snorted. "They're hell scum."
There was a noise in the bathroom, and Heero called out. "Are you
ready?"
"Yeah, baby, just a second."
Then Maxwell sashayed out of the bathroom, taking position at Heero's
side. Heero led him to the door, where he turned his head to address
his children one last time. "You brats play nice, understand?"
"Listen to your daddy, Nia, Solo," Maxwell called over his shoulder.
"We love you."
And then the door slammed shut, and Quatre found himself staring down
two little children.
"Look," he said, "why don't you two stay here and watch TV? I'm going
back to the front desk."
Nia and Solo nodded mutely, turning their heads back to face the
television screen. Quatre left the room, returning back to his post.
That wasn't so bad. He had just gotten situated when the switchboard
lit up, room 412.
"Damn brats," he mumbled, as he lifted the phone. "What is it?"
"We want to play," said a commanding female voice.
Quatre wondered how they knew to call the front desk. "Watch TV."
"There's nothing good on."
"Well, that's not my problem, is it?"
"If you don't play with us, we'll tell Daddy."
Quatre gulped. "Fine."
He made his way back to the room, where the children were in the exact
same positions he had seen them in last, except Solo was holding a
bottle of liquor.
"Where did you get that?" Quatre exclaimed, gesturing to the vodka.
Solo pointed to the liquor cabinet, freshly picked open, looking at
Quatre with a genuinely innocent look on his face. Quatre walked over
to the bed, where he snatched the bottle out of Solo's little hands. He
put in on the dresser. "Now, let's find something good on TV."
Quatre picked up the remote from the nightstand, flipping through the
channels.
"Something smells in here," said Solo.
"It's your socks," Nia calmly answered, as Solo wriggled his toes
around in the yellowish cotton. "Take them off."
Solo did as his older sister said, padding to the bathroom to deposit
his socks on the floor there. He grabbed the bottle of vodka on his way
back, taking a gulp and sniffing the air as he sat down. Quatre dropped
the remote on the floor and grabbed the bottle away from Solo, walking
over to put in on a shelf that was out of the boy's reach.
"It still smells," Solo stated.
Quatre sighed. "It's just your imagination."
"No," said Nia, "I smell it too."
She sniffed around for a while, lowering herself off of the bed to the
floor. "It's coming from the bed."
She was about to look under the bed when Quatre walked closer to her,
stepping on the remote. The TV screen fuzzed a little, before an image
came out of the snow. It was a boy, with short hair that fell in a bang
across one eye, undulating and writing in an erotic dance.
"Wow," said Nia, pausing in her actions, "let's watch this."
"Children your age shouldn't be watching porn," said Quatre, eyes
riveted to the screen. He'd have to find out the name of this
production sometime. He pressed the buttons on the remote, and some on
the TV, but he couldn't get the television to change the channel, so he
settled for just turning the thing off.
"I found something!" Solo shouted. By this time he had joined his
sister in searching under the bed. He pulled out a dirty plastic bag,
which Quatre promptly took from him. Quatre opened the bag and shook
the contents out onto the floor, cringing at the periphenilia that came
tumbling out. A used syringe, a lighter, a spoon...the only thing
missing was the drug itself.
"Don't touch that!" he said, slapping Nia's hand away from the syringe.
He heard a crash, and looked around him. Solo had pulled a chair up to
the shelf, obtaining the vodka bottle while spilling half of its
contents all over the curtains and rug.
"Shit," he said, grabbing the bottle and putting it back on the
dresser. Solo leapt to the floor, picking up the lighter that was lying
there.
"Pretty," he said, flicking the flame on and off. Quatre was about to
do something when he smelled it, a reeking stench coming from the bed.
He slowly stepped closer to the bed, sniffing the air, then proceeded
to throw back the mattress. His eyes widened, as he took in the sight
of black stilettos, purple fishnet stockings, and gaudy,
blood-encrusted undergarments. His eyes watered at the stench that was
now overwhelming, and he took a step away from the corpse.
"We should get her help," suggested Nia, obviously not realizing the
girl was already dead.
Quatre stumbled to the phone, calling 911. Solo, in the meanwhile, had
gone to reclaim his vodka bottle, still holding onto the lighter. After
he got his liquor he turned on the television, watching in interest as
the scantily clad dancer wriggled about. Nia kept tugging on Quatre's
shirt, trying to get his attention.
"...no, I will not hold....Quatre Winner, I work at Regal Hotels,
I...No, I told you, I will not hold! THERE IS A DEAD HOOKER IN ONE OF
MY HOTEL ROOMS!"
Quatre looked at the phone. They had hung up, and he was getting a
headache...what the hell was he going to do with a dead hooker? Yuy was
going to have him killed. He leaned down, grabbed one of the girl's
legs, and pulled, hard, determined to get the whore out of the
mattress, out of the room, and into an alley where she belonged.
"What are you doing?" questioned Nia, watching Quatre try to pull out
the lady's leg. "You're hurting her! Stop it!"
Nia looked around and saw the syringe. She grabbed it, and drove it
deep into Quatre's arm, shouting. "LET GO OF HER!!"
Quatre screamed, stumbling back a few steps to tumble over Solo,
knocking the lighter out of the little boy's hand, right into the
alcohol soaked curtains...
* * *
Heero stepped through the revolving doors of the hotel, his husband
slumped against his side. Duo always did have a tendency to get dead
drunk at these kinds of functions, and tonight was no exception. Heero,
tired of dragging Duo's body across the floor, picked him up and flung
the boy over his shoulder. Duo moaned, and Heero realized he would have
a hell of a hangover tomorrow. He stopped outside the door to their
room, glad he could finally get some rest.
Heero opened the door...and promptly dropped Duo onto the floor with a
loud thud. The scene was frozen in front of him, three pairs of wide
eyes turned towards him in surprise and fear. The bellhop was holding
on to the leg of a dead prostitute, a syringe sticking out of his arm,
while his daughter was screaming at the man to let go. There was porno
on the television. His son was drinking vodka. And all the while,
raging flames roared in the background, burning the curtains and wall.
Quatre stared at Yuy like a deer caught in the headlights. This could
not look good.
~owari~