Laurie and Kyle and the Helevator.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Laurie and Kyle get stuck in one of the linear induction elevators when it goes haywire, and the only way out is up.



"You know what I dig? Once I set the temperature on the shower in the room and then used that thing with my room key, dude, the shower in the gym totally knew it. I could dig hard on this robot hotel thing. I wonder if we could talk Forge into doing that for the showers in the mansion." Kyle was leaning up against the wall of the elevator, hair still damp from his post-workout shower. "Not sure about the crazy computerized weight machines though." A weight bench talking to him was just weird. "Way too Star Trek-y."

"I like the fact that you can program room service with your dietary needs and then it gives you a whole ocean worth of food choices to choose from," Laurie noted, towel slung around her neck, and a backpack with her workout clothes contained therein. "Although I love that the pool keeps up with your workout as well. So much easier then having to count laps and different types of strokes."

She had settled in well after the initial confusion as to whether she should even be there. They'd managed to grab an extra bed and have it placed in the suite that Doug and Kyle were sharing. She found it surprisingly comfortable, even given that it wasn't a standard hotel bed.

"Dude, that's what I did first thing." And the room had given him a neatly printed-out list of restaurants, listed by average price, of all the places that had options he thought he could eat. "I'm gonna get me some hummus, and some pitas and some lambs kabobs, and I'm gonna eat them so goddamn hard." The post-workout snack, or in this case, brunch, was an important part of Kyle's 6-meals-a-day mealplan.

"Ooh, that sounds good actually. I noticed they had a 'dips and bread' option for an entree as well that I really want to try," Laurie noted, looking in irritation at the elevator they were in. "Also, I swear I wish elevator designers knew how to play music that wasn't 'The best of 80's one hit wonders' I can't believe how shockingly bad this music is."

"Yeah, it's like, no matter where in the world I --" Kyle was cut off by a shockingly loud alarm sounding in the elevator, as the lights cut out and were replaced by the amber emergency lighting.

"Dude, quick, wish for like, a trillion dollars!" He shouted over the alarm. "Or like, naked chicks. Or okay, naked chicks for me and naked guys for you! Or a quieter alarm!" his hands were clapped over his ears, and were failing to cut the painful din of the shrieking alarm.

Laurie screamed as her stomach dropped, just like the elevator. She grabbed for the nearest solid thing she could, which happened to be Kyle. "What the hell is going on?" she shouted over the alarm.

"Like I KNOW!?!?" Before Kyle got the words entirely out, the elevator slammed to a halt, leaving him on all fours, with Laurie clutching at his waist and draped almost on top of him. "Okay, okay, okay. I don't smell gas. I don't smell anything except elevator and you. That's good, means nobody's gonna drag us to crazy circus traps again." He hoped. "Emergency phone. Elevator's gotta have one..." The chatter was both to help keep himself occupied, and to keep Laurie informed. Kyle did not want another Crazy Lizard Guy Incident.

"Right. Emergency phone. Um, where?" Laurie said, looking around and trying to stand up on slightly shaky legs. "Stupid question, it'll be electronic, wouldn't it? Do you think it's just voice activated or would they have gone low-tech?"

"Uh." Kyle didn't know. On TV, and in most of the elevators he'd ever seen, they were always behind doors and under the buttons, but he didn't see any such doors. Maybe they were invisible hidden doors, he thought, and kicked at the elevator panel. Which seemed to enrage the elevator, and send it shooting upward, dropping both Laurie and Kyle to the ground before suddenly halting again.

Kyle didn't dare move for several seconds, and when he did, the first thing he did after getting to his feet was to pull Laurie to hers, and then hoist her up onto his shoulders, ignoring her squawk of confusion until she was settled. "Can't get to the ceiling myself. Find the hatch. This is a crazy possessed elevator. Dude, look at the floor thing. It's fucking laughing at us."

Laurie stared at the slowly scrolling set of 'LOL' words on the floor number panel and then shook herself from her stupor. She had a job to do, they needed to get out of this elevator.

"Right...um, let me try." she muttered, reaching up to try and push the hatch upward.

Not everything in the hotel could possibly electronic, right? They'd need to have some analogue things just for safety sake. Having a hatch that only worked via hydraulics would be insane.

It took her a few seconds, and her heart beating firmly in her ears with each one that passed, for her to push the emergency hatch of the elevator up and slither herself through after a push from Kyle. She leaned over the exit hatch and held out her hand to Kyle.

"Fancy a lift?" she asked, trying for humor in what felt like a situation that could go pear shaped at any stage.

He didn't need the arm to get high enough to go through the hatch. He did need it in that brief second where his feet were off the ground, but he didn't have a good handhold on anything at all. Kyle didn't have time to pull his claws in, and the tight grip around Laurie's forearm left short scratches where his claws had dug into her skin. "Shit. Sorry." he muttered, almost absently, looking around the elevator shaft. "No cables. What the ass?"

From below them, the tinny sound of laughter could be heard and then the 'voice' of the elevator announcing "This elevator is no longer in service." Kyle continued to look around the shaft, trying to find any way they could get out. A crazy elevator shaft was only slightly better than being inside the crazy elevator. At least they had room to get out of the way here. From where he was standing, he could see two of the other four cars, stopped between floors well above them, and the fourth across from them, only a few feet down.

"Shit. We're gonna have to go up. No way around it." Kyle said. And there was no fucking way that Laurie was going to be able to climb it. He was going to have to carry her up until they could get up to pair of doors he could see open, far above them, the cars above them, and the few emergency lights in the elevator shaft.

"How?" Laurie asked, looking around much as Kyle was. She couldn't see any easy handholds, or ladders or anything. How the hell did they do shaft maintenance with no way for workers to move amongst the elevators? "I don't...why do you have that look in your eye?"

"We're goin' up the hard way. I'm climbing, you're riding, get on." Kyle pointed to the walls. "I can get us up, between the doors and the safety brakes and the floors and those beam things, there's enough handholds for me." What he wasn't sure about was if he could drag himself and Laurie up what looked like half the building. And what they'd do if the elevator started moving again. "Fucking crazy robot elevator..."

Laurie eyed him skeptically for a moment or two, biting her lip. She wasn't someone who had a problem with heights, but maybe they should wait where they were for help, rather then gallivanting off and getting themselves hurt.

"You're sure?" she asked after a second, looking up and then back at Kyle.

Kyle didn't answer. He had his head cocked slightly to the side, as an expression of alarm crossed his face. There was no time to wait for Laurie to be able to react to what he was hearing. He tackled her around the middle, carrying her along with him in a jump across to the other elevator car, as the one they were standing on dropped out from under his feet.

Laurie had instinctively wrapped her arms around Kyle's shoulders when he tackled her, and she had to have a firm talk with herself to let go now that they appeared to be back on firm ground.

"Right then, did you want me on your back, or should I just stay hanging around your front like a rather overgrown lemur?" Laurie asked, stepping back slightly, and trying to appear as if that hadn't just frightened the life out of her.

"Back." Kyle answered. He shucked his t-shirt off, and used his claws to tear the bottom hem into strips, and wrapped them around his hands. "And you're gonna have to hold on like whoa because I am not gonna be able to catch you if you fall." As it was, free-climbing up the elevator shaft like this was crazy, and there's no way he would've done it if the elevators weren't going insane.

Laurie merely wrapped her arms over his shoulders, trying not to choke him, she'd wrap her legs around his waist once they got off the ground but for the moment that would be way too awkward while standing.

"I'll hold on, don't worry about that. Just climb before this elevator decides its' crazy as well."

"Yeah, I don't wanna die. Kyle agreed. As it was, he was kicking himself for leaving the bags, and their phones and all their stuff. But once they were out of Nightmare Crazy Elevator Land, he could just get them from whoever was going to fix the Crazy Elevators. "Here we go..."

It wasn't an easy climb. With trees, and some climbing walls, Kyle could dig his claws into the wood and use that to keep himself steady. This was metal and concrete and more metal, and there was nothing he could dig into. And with Laurie on his back, Kyle couldn't jump to get to handholds. But he couldn't leave her, and there was no way she would be able to climb this like he could.

So it was foot after foot of finding a ledge or the elevator brake or the lip of the next floor up or whatever metal and ceramic thing that ran down the middle of the wall was, and pulling himself and Laurie up it steadily.

Laurie gripped the sides of his waist with her knees, not wanting to impede his progress by wrapping them around. It was an awkward position to hold, and the one time she'd looked down she'd felt ill, and so hadn't looked again. She didn't usually have a problem with heights, but the thought of all that space below them and them without any sort of safety line made her want to hide.

She buried the fear, holding on tighter with her arms as Kyle pulled them steadily upwards.

"Can I help at all?" she asked, knowing he'd understand what she meant without her having to spell it out.

"FUCK YES." They were maybe five stories up, and Kyle's arms were shaking. Not so much with effort, but with the constant unending strain of having to hold on. "Whatever you can do, just do it and don't tell me what it is you're doing." He pulled them up another few feet, grunting as he grabbed another makeshift handhold. Whatever the ceramic-and-metal thing was, and he was pretty sure it was what made the elevator run - the other one had been the source of the humming noise he'd heard right before the elevator car fell - it had sharp edges, and had cut up his hands, despite the padding from his torn shirt.

"Right," Laurie said, and pressed her face against the back of his shoulder, trying to get as much skin to skin contact as she could. It was the work of moments to bring to mind a particularly difficult cross country run she'd done back at her old school. It had felt like she was going to die those last few metres, and then adrenalin had kicked in and she'd felt like she was flying.

It only took a second for her skin to start excreting the violet coloured pheramones that were the source of her mutant power. It darkened as she continued to push with her mind, turning from violet to a deeper purple. After a moment, confident that she could keep the adrenlin going without as much mental effort, she opened her eyes.

There was an elevator headed directly for them from beneath.

"Kyle?" she squeaked in sudden fright.

"I hear it" Kyle grunted out. This was going to suck so goddamn hard. "I'm gonna get us to the other side, jump when I say go." He was already going hand-over-hand along the lip of a closed set of doors, and had badly broken two claws in his haste to get his fingers in and out of the gap between door and floor quickly. The blood from the cuts wasn't helping his grip any either.

One of the immobile elevators, that hadn't moved at all since they'd climbed out of theirs was only a few feet away. Moving fast was not easy with however many pounds of Laurie Collins clinging to him like a limpet. But it was that or get a fast-moving elevator car slamming into them from underneath, and Kyle didn't much want to die today.

"GO."

He grabbed the edge of one of the ceramic-and-metal stacked plates, and kicked away from the wall, and felt Laurie's weight leave him as he did. He didn't let go himself until he heard the thump from her landing on top of the other elevator. His own thump was harder and less controlled, propelled by the moving elevator car clipping his shoulder and sending him tumbling down harder than he'd planned for.

Laurie had landed okay, but she'd have bruises in the morning, she could tell. She allowed herself a second or two to get her bearings and then crawled over to where Kyle was. "Kyle, you're bleeding. Do you need me to help, or will it stop on it's own?" she asked, noting his hands and shoulder as she looked him over. She was retreating into professionalism, she knew but the current situation was just so crazy that it seemed better this then freaking out entirely.

"Ow." Kyle didn't even move for a few moments, one arm curled around the bruised and bleeding shoulder. "Hate elevators. Taking the stairs forever from now on." It took him longer than he wanted to get up, even once he decided to. "Pretty sure it's not gonna stop. Doesn't work that fast." Not unless he was dying, and he wasn't dying. Just in a world of pain. "Elevator's not safe, we're gonna have to keep going. Stupid robot hotel."

"Hate robot hotels. Staying in a tent from now on?" Laurie joked, pulling herself to where Kyle was. She was worried that this elevator they were on was going to drop at any minute. "I can take care of the bleeding, but we need to move now."

She lay her hands on the wounds she could see, pushing mentally to get the blood to clot, which it did after a few seconds. It wouldn't hold entirely, not with all the activity they were going to have to do to get out of the elevator shaft, but she hoped it would mean he wouldn't bleed more then could be dealt with.

"That is NOT comfy." Kyle had started to stand up even as Laurie was trying to clot up the wounds on his hands. "No tents. I want a regular normal hotel next time. No more robot hotels. Normal. Sane. Hotels." He winced as Laurie got back on his back, and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Definitely need you to keep me going. Ow. So much fucking ow." He steeled himself for a moment and then once again grasped the strange-to-him rails and started climbing.

"Adrenalin rush, coming up," Laurie replied, trying to keep her tone light and bouncy. It had taken them some time to get to where they were now, and with the jumping around and constant powers use she was starting to feel exhausted. She could already see that her skin was taking on the deep violet colour that meant she would pay a price later.

She lay one side of her face against Kyle's neck and stared at the sides of the elevator shaft, concentrating once again on running, and the things she remembered feeling from running. He was going as fast as he could, it wouldn't help him for her to complain about how long it was taking.

There was no chatter from Kyle. Just the repeated huffs and grunts as he pulled them up, and the occasional hiss of pain as he broke open a cut or a muscle cramped. Alone, he could've climbed fifteen stories straight up. But the addition of Laurie's weight, and the excessively fast pace meant that he was pushing himself hard, and running on little but adrenaline - both his own, and the artificial high from Laurie's power.

To his enhanced sense of smell, they both stank of blood - all his, and sweat, and Laurie had the sharp, pungent smell that marked her as using her power to it's fullest extent. Twice Kyle went still as he heard the hum that meant one of the elevator cars was moving, and only started climbing again when he was sure it was not either of the cars now a few floors below them.

Laurie didn't dare give Kyle anything for the pain, too much chance it would knock him out or make him so numb that he'd be unable to continue. "Just a little bit more to go," she promised him, gaze now fixed on the top floor, and the open lift doors that would lead a hallway and to the penthouse suite from there. She pushed again, pouring as much adrenalin as she dared into him, more then she would have dared to give someone without a healing factor.

Kyle's arms were shaking violently before they reached the last floor, and he nearly lost his grip twice. The first time, he swore and shut his eyes against the flood of panic, but recovered and kept going. The second time, there was no swearing, just a low steady growl, and then Kyle's pace increased as the volume of the growls escaping him increased.

He didn't respond to Laurie's questions at all as he pulled them up the last ten feet, even as her tone grew more concerned, and he seemed to ignore the fact that in his haste, two more claws were torn off by the sharp edges of the lip of the floor. It wasn't until he had both arms gripping the edge of the open door that he spoke at all, only to utter a "Climb over me." that brooked no arguement.

Laurie didn't question him, or look down, she knew that way lay freezing up and not being able to do anything at all. She tightened her arms around his neck, hoping she wasn't choking him...much, and then uncurled her legs from around his waist. She needed to get herself up over his back, and then just pull herself over onto the carpet beyond the elevator doors.

Taking a deep breath, she levered herself upward, bringing her knees up to Kyle's shoulders and then quickly grabbed the lip of the floor. She rested that way for a second, but no more then that, before she heaved herself up, bringing her feet up and pushing off Kyle's shoulders to get her the last little bit over.

She turned, not bothering to stand up, and reached down for Kyle's hands. She was probably going to have to grab him by the wrists to get him up, the blood made his hands way too slippery to be safe. "Take hold of me," she said.

It hurt when he grabbed her lower arms, the fingers he hadn't lost claws on digging into her arm, just above the wrist. She bit her lip and clamped her hands around his forearms in turn, shuffling herself backwards until she was on her knees. "Don't let go," she grunted through her attempts to lift him up. He was heavy, and she was no weight lifter but it wasn't a dead weight. All she had to do was keep hold of him, and make sure she didn't go over the side as he climbed up.

"Gnh." The noise Kyle made was more than a grunt, and it definitely wasn't a word, even if the meaning was abundantly clear. His feet scrabbled against the wall of the elevator shaft for a second, and then he managed to get one knee up and onto the floor and then he was in the hallway, nearly knocking Laurie down in his haste to get out of the elevator shaft. He crashed blindly into a wall, and slid to his knees, letting out a groan of pain and exhaustion. "'kay, we're safe. Gonna die now."

"Not yet," Laurie muttered, crawling on her hands and knees over to where he'd slid down the wall. "We need to find the others, and that means you and I both have to get up now."

She grabbed his hand and tucked herself under his arm before using the wall to lever them both upwards onto their feet. She didn't really give Kyle time to argue before she moved them off down the hall.

"I'm bleeding on you..." Kyle muttered as he was pushed upright. "Bleeding on just about everything..." He dimly recognized the symptoms of exhaustion and mild blood loss, and couldn't for the life of him remember what the hell he was supposed to do about it. "Probably should fix that."

"Finding the others first, getting you to stop bleeding on me second," Laurie muttered, turning them as they reached the end of the hallway and moving off again in a semi-straight line. Kyle was heavy, especially when he was exhausted, injured and a bit punch drunk from loss of blood. She knocked loudly on the suite room door, and then all but tumbled into the room as it opened.