Chapter 69: Flightful Haul
Basil had been waiting for them near the stairwell entrance with a battery lantern in one hand and a small crowd of empty bottles gathered at his feet.
Most of them were the five litre kind, the sort that people bought for camping trips and long drives, and lying on its side beside them were three of the great twenty-five litre bottles that belonged upended on top of a water cooler.
"So she managed to convince you." Basil’s mouth pulled into a small smile as they came over. "Good. The taps up here have been giving us nothing but noise since the afternoon, and I’d like everything to come up from nine tonight before everyone gets up."
"So I was told." Dion’s eyes ran over the gathering of plastic. "Is it only the three of us for all of this?"
"Everyone else who could carry is either asleep or out with Anton." Basil crouched and began threading his fingers through the handles. "It’s not as bad as it looks."
’Really...?’ Dion silently wondered to himself, because the way that it was looking for a normal person this was multiple trips up and down.
Madeline here would definitely help ease that a lot, but with how it didn’t seem that he either hadn’t asked any of the guys that were awake to help, or any of them having volunteered if they did see, then perhaps it was just about as bad as it looked, no?
’Maybe I’m just being a little crude though.’
They loaded themselves with the empties and went down through the stairwell together, the lantern swinging their shadows back and forth along the walls. Madeline walked between them with her arms full and her eyes down, and her footsteps were quicker than either of theirs.
The ninth floor’s kitchenette still had its pressure. The tap coughed once when Basil opened it, and then the water came through in a steady rope, and for a long while there they only went on with the sound of the drumming of water filling plastic, one bottle at a time.
Dion stood holding the twenty-five litre bottles steady under the flow, watching the level climb.
’I wonder how long well have working water systems... and electricity.’
He almost began thinking of all the impending problems surrounding these things when he faintly shook his head.
Dion had stopped himself in realising that he shouldn’t overload himself with too much to think about all that right now. Water and electricity were both well beyond what he needed to and was able to deal with right now.
Madeline worked the caps on as each bottle came off, twisting every one of them twice past tight, and setting them in a line along the counter.
The climb back up was... rather easy, at least for Dion.
Basil took six of the five litre bottles and made it one flight before his breathing began growing much heavier.
Dion had set the twenty-five litre bottles under his armpits, seven of the smaller, five litre ones hanging from his other hand, with nine bottles in the other, and he climbed as though he were carrying a coat.
He only hadn’t taken more because there was literally no other way for him to carry more.
Meanwhile, Madeline was carrying four with two on each side.
"You’re not even pretending to struggle," Basil huffed between floors.
"Would it help if I pretended?"
"...A little, yeah."
Madeline’s laugh escaped her in a short breath before she could catch it, and she kept her eyes forward as though it hadn’t.
At the eleventh floor they set the water down within a different room entirely separated from where all the people had been sleeping.
It looked to be like a storage room, because there was even food here, although, it was largely like snacks and other packaged foods.
"Over here," Basil mentioned.
Dion turned over to see that the man was already heading over to a table over which there were dozens of empty hand-held bottles lined up already.
"Lets fill these up, and they’re what we’ll be taking out."
Dion only nodded, and they got to work.
By the time that they were finished, Dion was standing outside as Basil closed the door behind them with a few crates on the ground beside the door; the crates were filled with a few dozen bottles of water.
Madeline was standing beside him with her hands together, playing with her fingers.
"Thank you," she said suddenly. "For what you said up there."
And then she scurried away from him, her steps quick enough across the floor that they were nearly a run, disappearing before Dion had properly turned to look back at her.
Basil turned as he locked the door, only having seen the flutter of her clothing as she turned the corner, and then looked at Dion, his brows raised a little in intrigue.
"What did you say to her?"
Dion smiled a little to himself here; it seemed that what he had said had effected her more than he had thought it would.
That was good at least.
’People like her... all they need is a little nudge.’ At the very least, he hoped that it would help her as he was thinking that it could.
"...Something kind, apparently."
Basil looked a little surprised at that, smiling faintly.
"She doesn’t get a lot of that." He nudged one of the crates with his foot. "Help me with these."
Dion bent to gather up a few of his share, and it abruptly, like the snap of a rope bearing a mountainous weight, in that small stillness, where his blood control briefly slipped, and a flood of sensation blitzed through him.
He shut his eyes hard and held his breath.
’Don’t look...’ In that brief moment, he had been forced to immediately become aware of exactly where to look to find the source of the blood.
But he refused to let himself do so, gradually opening his eyes that flickered between being round and their sharpness.
His eyes stayed exactly where they had been, on the water in his hands.
Then, he only released a slower breath through his nose, straightened, and turned himself to follow Basil.