Moving In!

[pwn]

"Oh. My God."

Preston had a silk handkerchief over his nose. His eyes were already watering. This building was horrible.

"Travis! Did you not even look at this place before you bought it? I know it was a last-minute decision but honestly, there was a place just down the street that I saw was for sale and it was no where near as run-down as this! Look! There are cracks in the walls, and the water line has obviously burst! See the stains in the floor? Oh my giddy aunt the walls are discoloured too! Yes, I picked up that phrase in England, and it's really growing on me, but oh Travis this is hideous!"

Preston daintily stepped over a fallen piece of ceiling, clutching the handkerchief tighter to his face. His mind was racing faster than his tongue and he already had his cell phone out.

"I am calling Jacqueline. She'll have this place fixed up in 48 hours for just 48 hundred dollars. I'm willing to donate my lighting fixtures to glam this pitiful excuse for a future PI firm up! Hello, Jackie?" He wasn't even talking to Travis any more, he was on the phone. "Hey doll, it's Preston Naysmith. Yeah, that gorgeous fashion student who dated Edward Manet in first year! How've you been? Uh-huh. Yeah. Listen! I have an interior design nightmare and I need you in downtown in St. Louis stat. Please please please say you'll do this favour for an old friend? Oh yipee! Thankyousomuchyou'rethebeeest!"

Preston turned to Travis.

"All set! I can see the front desk right here, and a coffee machine over in the corner there. Can you see it? We're going to write your name in gigantic letters on the front window in tall Harrington font, with E.S.T. 1921. That's when you were born, right? We could get away with saying you were a PI from birth. Ooh now I'm excited! We'll paint the walls taupe, because it's so soothing. No no, that's too bland. How about light blue? Or a dusty rose? Something pastel would just look F-A-B ulous!"

The flamboyant young man pranced over to a door that hid a rather dusty room, and the handkerchief returned to his nose.

"Oh that is sad. Your office," Preston promised, moving onto the next door. It was considerably cleaner, though still shockingly shabby, "and this one is mine. You promised me my own office, remember? Dibs dibs dibs!" he leapt into the room with a graceful ballerina jump. Then he proceeded to dance like a triumphant gay man, making his own music-video sound effects.

"If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it! Oh-oh-oh!"

[Ϛ Travis Sivart]

"Here we go again..."

Who Travis was speaking to was not clear, but his face was largely covered by his palm, so the words weren't going much of anywhere.

He had suggested, on the way to the building, that Preston wear a blindfold. The boy had thought Travis had been attempting to make it some sort of surprise, but in reality, he was just trying to avoid the inevitable headache that would result from the easily excitable man seeing the dump of a building. Travis didn't really mind the shape it was in; he had purchased it for next-to-nothing and it showed a little, so what?

For the most part, he tuned out what Preston was saying. He was sure that if the young man wasn't already used to it, he would soon be. And, since Preston seemed to think Travis was much more old and decrepit than he actually was the majority of the time, he could always blame it on hearing loss if Preston deigned to question him about it.

However, he did manage to pick up a few things; where his assigned office was, something about a Jacqueline and redecoration, and most importantly, forty-eight hundred dollars.

"Preston, where are you going to get $4,800?" Travis asked grimly. Whether he was trying to make a point or simply did not know Preston assumed he would pay for it wasn't clear by his (relatively) blank expression.

He walked leisurely over to his new office, unrestrained by the normal pressure to be dignified that he felt in front of the masses, or indeed his own family. Preston was, in a way, the one person he could really be himself around, because the man's lips were sealed; a confidentiality clause had been included in the contract.

He glanced around the abandoned room, and another thought occurred to him.

"And what the hell is taupe?"

[pwn]

Travis's question troubled Preston greatly.

"From all the distraught people in desperate need of a private investigator of course!" The young assistant piped up in response. It was a simple solution. Maybe they'd have to overcharge a bit, but Travis had never given off the impression of being poor. Preston actually thought he was quite wealthy. He had enough money to fly over to America at the drop of a hat, and it was unfortunate that they'd purchased the tickets at elevated prices because of the Thanksgiving rush, but Travis hadn't flinched at all when he pulled out his credit card.

Maybe he was a money-conscious man, but when it came to his daughter anything was possible. Of course Travis had tried to convince Preston (and probably himself) that it wasn't because of Abigail or Angel or whatever the heck her name was.

But then Preston was distracted by Travis's outrageous question.

" 'What the hell is taupe?' " Preston imitated, aghast, "It's a soothing, calming colour. Off-white, a dark beige, though rather bland. I think we need something exciting and enthralling. What do you think of lilac?"

Like a little (feminine) boy, he mapped out his new office as though it were some kind of castle. A bookcase filled with Vogue and Entertainment magazines would go against this wall, and an authentic Italian cappuccino machine could go in that corner right there... A modern curvy white desk could reside just next to the window that... oh, that wasn't a nice sight at all.

"Travis, my window is looking out at a brick wall!" Preston complained, whining and bouncing up and down on the balls of his shiny black dress shoes. He opened the window to the dirty side alley and whimpered audibly. "Eww..ww..w..www!!"

[Ϛ Travis Sivart]

Travis was wealthy; he had held some pretty high-ranking positions for a great deal of time and made a good deal of money doing so. However, he was also incredibly cheap (which was probably one of the main reasons he still was wealthy). The only thing he ever really splurged on was, as Preston had properly assumed, his only daughter, Angela. So while he hadn't hesitated to pull up anchor and move to the US to be closer to his daughter, spending a few thousand on renovations didn't quite appeal to him.

Especially when he planned on fixing the place up himself.

"Of course," Travis responded tiredly when Preston told him exactly where the money would be coming from. "How stupid of me to not realize..."

Taking a better look around his office, he was somewhat surprised the building wasn't condemned. The walls and ceiling were all cracked, it was harder to find a spot on the floor that didn't creak, and the room had probably already forgotten the meaning of a fresh paint job. It would take a lot of work to pull things together, but work was Travis' lifeblood; without he, he'd pretty much go insane trying to make himself useful. The way he saw it, as soon as he ceased being of use, he was better off dead.

He heard Preston define 'taupe' through the walls, probably due to them being about as thin as high-quality cardboard. He still had no idea what the hell the kid was going on about, but he did know lilac. At least, if the colour looked anything like the flower. Flowers he knew well; something he picked up from a courtship, a handful of funerals, and way too many apologies, among other things. And there was no way he was putting up with lilac walls in his office. Aside from the fact that it would give him a headache 24/7 looking at it, he didn't particularly want to be associated with flowers or girlishness, especially in this line of business.

"Knock yourself out," he offhandedly replied, mentally adding that literally wouldn't be so bad. "Do whatever you want with your office, but I'm paining mine white."

He was studying a mirror on the wall that was, curiously, quite intact. In fact, though its frame looked to be antique, it was quite possibly in the best shape of anything else in the building. However, when he cautiously tapped on the glass, the entire thing fell from its perch. He managed to grab it before it hit the ground, though, and he held it up in front of him as he stared at the wall, trying to figure out why it had fallen. It didn't prove too hard to figure out; there was a hole in the wall that the mirror had evidently meant to cover up, but the hole had grown to the point where the nail holding the mirror up was just a hair above it, and knocking on it had caused it to fall right through.

Walking out of his office with the mirror still in his hands, he listened to Preston complain. Well, he hadn't bought the place for the view. He entered Preston's office and looked out the window at the brick wall opposite. Shrugging, he pulled the window closed with his free hand, hung the mirror on a loose nail sticking out from the window, and swung it partly open again. looking out the window, into the mirror, you could now see the street at the end of the alley.

"Better?"

Anything to make the young man stop acting like a schoolgirl with a spider.

[pwn]

"But white is so bland," Preston retorted not .2 seconds after Travis finished speaking about the colour his office would be, "You don't want your clients to walk into your office and think you're a boring old man! Boring old men won't solve their cases! They die in an uncomfortable bed at night dreaming about incontinence knickers!"

He was babbling the entire time Travis set up the mirror, and when he was finished, Preston blinked, momentarily silenced. But then the words started up again, at an even more break-neck pace than before.

"That's actually sort of brilliant. Omigosh but this frame has got to go. It isn't even vintage, it's just ancient. I'll see if I can sell it to an antique collector; some of the people living in this area look like they'd eat this up if I told them it was made during the post-World War I era for a famous war general. I'll tell them he was assassinated in his office before embarking on a perilous mission and this was the very mirror he wrote his killer's name upon in his own blood before he passed on to the next life. Oooh I just gave myself the shivers. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful plot for a ghost story Travis? Maybe I'll write a screenplay and forward it onto Hollywood. 'The General's Mirror' written by Preston Walker Naysmith. Directed by Tim Burton. Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? And of course Tim would direct it, his cinematic style is absolutely orgasmic. He'd add just the right touch of darkness to it, and I can see Johnny Depp being the most magnificent General Sivart's ghost!"

He was no longer a schoolgirl with a spider, but a schoolgirl with a maleficent plot.

[Ϛ Travis Sivart]

"White is clean, strong, and all-business," Travis retorted, though he really didn't know why he was bothering to argue; Preston would just keep babbling all day if given the chance, and Travis' patience was nowhere near a match for that. He also didn't want to encourage the young man to speak about 'incontinence knickers' more often.

Travis gave a queer little Travis smile/grimace when Preston affirmed that he was brilliant, though he doubted his assistant would be so keen on the idea when the chill breeze started to come in the window. However, the rest of Preston's blathering didn't interest him nearly as much, and so he stalked out of the room again and into his own. He could still hear the boy rambling on through the paperthin walls, but at least it was muted somewhat.

He answered each of Preston's question with an ambiguous "Sure," and then, as something occurred to him, waited impatiently for the rant to finally end so he could give Preston a job to do.

"Naysmith, I need you to get a hold of my daughter and get her boyfriend's phone number. I'm going to ask Dell to help me fix this place up; it should be an interesting test of character."

He lightly kicked the leg of the chair behind the decrepit desk, and it fell apart as if it had been held together with nothing but a leprechaun's share of luck. Renovating would be a good test of patience and endurance, too, it would seem.

[pwn]

"Call your little angel and find the hunk's digits, gotcha!" Preston summarized, snapping out of his Hollywood speech. He flipped through his contacts list in his phone faster than what should be humanly possible, and found 'Sivart's kid'. In the personal notes section was 'Angela', because he had a tendency to forget her name.

"Hello Angela it's Preston Naysmith, your father's assistant. He needs your boyfriend's number; he has a job for him to do. Yeah... thankyousomuchyou'rethebeeest!"

Preston navigated his way to Travis's new office and recited the number.

"Would you like me to call him, or do you want to speak to him yourself?" The look on Preston's face was far from innocent, and if Travis was going to allow Preston to make the call, this 'Dell' boy was going to experience the most boisterous display of flirtation in the history of telephone calls. The young man was already humming 'Single Ladies' to himself as he awaited Travis's decision.

[Ϛ Travis Sivart]

Travis weighed his options; he could either talk to the boy himself, which he really just didn't feel like doing, or he could let his assistant field the call, which he knew wouldn't end well. Preston had a way of turning a short talk with a handsome young man into an affair that could last all day if Travis didn't stop it. Neither option particularly appealed to the man.

So he made a third one.

Unlike a lot of old men, Travis wasn't completely clueless when it came to technology. He refused to have that disadvantage. He still didn't like it, but he could use a computer or cell phone or iPod like a true teenager if the need should ever arise. So he pulled out a cell phone, dialed his voicemail, and recorded a brief, terse message.

"Hello. This is Angela's father. I'd like you to do me a favour, if you can find the time. Come to the building at the corner of Washington Boulevard and North Jefferson Avenue, and don't wear anything you care about. Any time this week will do. Thank you. Good bye."

He finished recording the message, and when his phone asked him where he wanted to send it, he waved his hand at Preston impatiently, beckoning the young man to come over and give him the number. One of the many upsides of having Preston around was that he seemed to easily pick up on Travis' body language and always knew what he meant or wanted.

[pwn]

Preston made a noise somewhere along the lines of 'hmph' when Travis decided not to let him make the call; the old guy never let him have any fun! Since when did a little innocent flirting do anyone any harm?

He interpreted Travis' signal well enough, and held his phone up for his boss to see; he had already programmed it into his phone as 'Hottie (4)' (the other three 'Hotties' already being occupied) with a little personal note that said 'taken ):'. As Travis finished up with his own phone, Preston was uncharacteristically silent as he thought about this meeting.

I feel bad for the poor man; I would never want to date Travis' daughter, even if she was a he! Travis is grumpy enough without someone trying to take his silly little daughter from him.

Hmmm... Maybe it will go badly enough that this Dell will get scared off! Then I could have the hottie to myself, like things should be. Oh Preston, you're bad!

Needless to say, Angela's boyfriend's visit would be interesting.