Hayley Radcliffe is strictly hands-off (glovedup) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-14 21:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, rogue, werewolf of london |
Who: Will and Hayley, with a guest appearance by Orin
What: Hayley finds out firsthand what Will's ability is and Orin gets to witness a walk of shame
Where: Monarch Industries
When: Monday (3/14) night to Tuesday (3/15) morning
Warnings: Glossed-over mentions of nudity, swearing, mild violence, some very pissed off wolfies, and enough mocking to set things on fire.
It was official: working late was unnatural, inexcusable, and all-around terrible. With the shipment of trees coming in, Monday had been a muddled mess of confusion and last-minute transportation. And then there were still invitations to organize, and public announcements to create. Once again, Hayley found herself at Monarch Industries after hours, feeling very much like a trained monkey working for an elusive banana that she would never obtain. The similarities between them were quite disturbing the more she thought of it. After all, monkeys had to avoid getting eaten by snakes and eagles, and Hayley was now aware of just how many predators were lurking on the streets of Seattle.
Her previous night’s encounter with two muggers and a vigilante had sworn her off walking home after dark. She had looked up all the major bus schedules in the area, able to find a route that would take her from the Monarch Industries building to the Aubade, give or take a block. It was cheaper than a cab, and almost as convenient. So with her eye on the clock, she collected her things and prepared to finally leave for the night.
As she stepped out into the lobby, her gaze lingered in the direction of the doorway to the basement. Will usually worked late, and though Hayley was beginning to understand why that was necessary, she was still mildly concerned for him. After all, he had always been good to her, in his nerdy and absentminded way. And it was clear that taking care of himself wasn’t his number one priority. After a few seconds of debate, she concluded that she definitely had time to kill – she wasn’t about to go stand in the dark and wait for the bus, anyway. So she abandoned the lobby and walked down to the basement, heading for Will’s lab.
After hours, the lights weren’t all off, but they were infrequent and dim enough to make the basement lab look like something out of a cheap horror movie. Holding her tote bag close – she had yet to go shopping for a replacement for the purse the muggers had ruined – she slipped past the desk she had started at, sliding into the lab itself. There were a few things still on the benches, clues that someone had been here recently. But how recently was up for debate. There were no sounds anywhere on the basement floor, and it was truly as if she had entered a ghost town.
But Hayley had known Will for a few weeks now. She wasn’t about to presume that she knew everything about the man, but she knew enough. And what she knew told her that it was very unlikely that he wasn’t somewhere in this lab. He didn’t seem to ever leave, and it was more than mildly concerning. After all, she never saw him with food in his hands – how did he not just waste away? She had to at least make sure that he was okay before she went home for the night.
Every room she passed through was empty, leaving her with the same “heebie jeebies” feeling of entering a ghost town. It was as if he really had gone home, but she knew better. Finally, she came to the last room in the lab, the room at the very back. Though all the doors she had passed so far were closed, this one differed in that it had a note taped to it. Raising a brow, she approached it, though she didn’t have to get too close to read the large scrawl:
WORKING. DO NOT DISTURB. THIS MEANS YOU, ORIN. –W.
Wrinkling her nose, Hayley laid her hand on the doorknob. Working or not, Will was practically a prisoner of his own will. Someone had to see him alive and okay, if only to make her feel better about the fact that her coworker seemed intent on committing suicide with effort. So she knocked on the door with her left fist, leaning her ear close to try and hear a response. Nothing. She knocked again, leaning even closer. Still nothing. “Will?” she called out, waiting for a response. When the lab around her was silent, she knocked louder, leaning against the door. “Will, it’s Hayley. Can I come in?”
Now she was concerned. Frowning, she turned the doorknob, gasping when it was locked. This wasn’t good. There was no need for him to lock himself in his lab, especially if he had a sign up that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Not once did Hayley consider the fact that he might be trying to keep out nosy nellies like her. Instead, she was convinced that she had to get in there, just to make sure he hadn’t slipped and fallen or passed out due to extreme hunger.
One of the perks of her promotion was that she had been given a few master keys that could unlock most non-secret doors in the Monarch Industries building. It was a safety precaution, and possibly one taken because of habits like Will’s. Really, they were turning regular employees into unpaid fire marshalls, but Hayley didn’t complain. At times like this, her arbitrary perks really came in handy.
She fished the ring of keys out of her tote bag, trying one after the other until one of them slid neatly into the log. Jiggling the key just slightly, she twisted the handle until she felt the lock slide out of place. She stuffed the keys back into her bag, pushing the door open with a shoulder as she slipped inside the back room. Truthfully, she had expected to see Will standing at a bench, giving her a cranky face for daring to interrupt him and unlock his door when he was really just working late. She expected to get a lecture on privacy and boundaries, possibly while being shoved out the door.
She didn’t expect the wasteland that she walked in on.
Eyes wide, she closed the door behind her, looking around the room with a mixture of shock and horror. It looked as if a bomb had gone off, taking with it most of the objects in the room and even some of the fixtures. There were papers and broken glass all over the floor, claw marks in the floor and on the walls, and broken splinters mingling with the shards of glass. Holding her tote bag close, Hayley gulped, looking around for any signs of life. “Will?” she asked, worried, and her voice began to crack as she stepped around a pile of broken glass. “Will, are you here?”
After stepping around a lab bench that took up the center of the room like an island, Hayley’s gaze fell on who she was looking for. Will was sprawled on his back, clearly asleep or unconscious, amidst a pile of broken glass, ripped-up papers, and shredded scraps of cloth. He was bare naked, something that disturbed her on multiple levels. She put her tote bag on one of the benches, stepping around to his front and delicately looking down at him. “Will?” she asked, hoping that he would just wake up on his own. “Will…can you hear me?” She was hesitant to draw any closer for fear of touching him and disrespecting his boundaries. After all, he was naked.
She supposed she should pick him up and move him, but he was naked. Would that be considered sexual harassment? After a few seconds of hemming and hawing, she decided to find middle ground. Instead of picking him up while he was naked, she would just use her jacket to cover him where it mattered most, and then it would be okay.
Shrugging out of her jacket while keeping her scarf and gloves on, she laid the garment over his hips, delicately wrapping the sleeves around his waist until the jacket was secure. She was still wearing long sleeves, so she was able to lean forward, slinging one arm around his chest to pull him close, as if they were preparing to dance. With her other arm supporting his lower back, she very slowly began to pull him to his feet, taking care to keep him away from her exposed face.