The ice is thin

[hypatia_66]

Short challenge (Discover, White)

Some kinds of ice are more dangerous than others


The ice is thin

The commissary was fairly full; at this time of the morning, it provided breakfast for agents arriving early and unfed, or returning from late missions (also unfed). It was a good time, therefore, to introduce a new colleague to the male talent on offer. The older men, their home lives providing not only stability but also a more relaxed and healthy breakfast, were already at work in their offices. The talent on offer, then, was worth seeing – to set the blood racing for the day – being younger, fitter, and often very good looking.

The women sitting round a table with the best vantage point, offered a running commentary on it to the new recruit to their sisterhood. “He’s an arrogant SOB, that one. Thinks he’s God’s gift to what he persists in calling ‘the weaker sex’”. They turned their eyes disdainfully away as this useless specimen of manhood walked past. Not pleased to be ignored, he stalked to a table some distance away.

“Now, he’s OK, but he’s in research so he’s a bit weird. Full of inventions that you would only need, or ever use once and never again. Typical man – no idea of making something easy to hold or work in more than one situation.” They all smiled at him as he came past, and were amused when he sidled away, nervous in the face of so much female knowingness.

“Oh, boy. You are one lucky girl today, Susie. Look who’s come in! Haven’t seen them for ages.” And all ten eyes turned to watch as two young men walked in and moved to the counter together, unspeaking but with common purpose, and totally at ease.

“Now you’re bound to meet the first one there. He’ll see you straightaway, with that figure, honey. We’ve all been out with him …”

“…and some of us have stayed in with him,” put in one of the sisterhood.

“Yeah, well. I wasn’t going to break that to our novice here just yet. Anyway – don’t expect fidelity from any of these guys, just be grateful for anything that comes your way.”

“What about the little elf he’s brought in with him?”

“Elf! Hey that’s a good one. Elf… ha ha. No, he isn’t an elf. He’s made of ice. He won’t even notice you unless he needs something from you.”

“Pity; he’s good looking – bit thin, perhaps, but hmm, nice.”

“Well, don’t get your hopes up.”

The elegantly-suited, well-formed figure of the first agent strolled over with his tray and stopped at their table. “Good morning! What a beautiful sight to greet the day with. And I see a new face – you must introduce me.” He had already spotted her among the little group; could hardly have failed to, given his propensities.

While they were talking, his small, blond, slightly less than elegantly-suited companion walked past with his tray, sat down at a table nearby, and, ignoring them, commenced to eat. His friend gracefully saluted the ladies and joined him, which gave them an opportunity to observe them both. They were more than rewarded when the two men stripped off their jackets in the warmth of the room.

Under their white shirts could be seen a normally-concealed musculature, which, in combination with the dark leather holsters provided the girls with their own beautiful sight to greet the day with.

“Not as thin as he looks, see. Look at those shoulders. He’s amazingly strong. Didn’t he have to carry you once, Betty?”

“He did. I fell down the stairs and broke my ankle. I could have been there for hours, but he nearly always uses the stairs rather than the elevator, so he found me there. Carried me all the way up.”

“Tell her what he said.”

“Oh, my. Well, you know how he never looks at any one – I didn’t think he even knew I existed, let alone had any idea of my name. He sat me down in Medical, and said ‘You’re a bit heavier than you look, Betty.’ Well, I didn’t know what to say, but he just laughed and I nearly swooned away.”

“Yeah, you don’t get a smile out of him much, let alone see him laugh.”

“From this angle,” Susie remarked, closely examining the phenomenon of the subject’s profile, “he looks more like one of those Greek statues of, I don’t know, Apollo or something.”

“Yes, very nice if you like cold marble.”

*****************

“I see you’re going to have a new addition to the little black book, my friend.”

“I didn’t know you cared. Jealous?”

“You haven’t put her in it yet, so no.”

“Do I detect a crack in the ice, partner?”

“The ice is very thin sometimes. It depends on the heat source.”

“Oho. This could be very interesting. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

“You can try.”

***************

The two men rose, resumed their jackets, and left before the women at the next table were done instructing Susie in the arts required in the novitiate. As they walked past, the elf glanced in her direction and she caught a flash of blue, and… was that a smile?

“Susie, my girl, we’re going to have to watch you.”

She blushed and disclaimed. “He’s just teasing – He’s a spy, isn’t he? I expect he heard you talking about him.”

She had to endure continued teasing when the others heard about this really very insignificant incident – didn’t these women have better things to obsess about?

*******************

It was several days before she began to get the layout of the building straight in her mind, and, beginning to feel confident, she was prepared when someone said, “Susie, dear, would you take this file up to Section 2 for me?”

“Sure. Where is it from here?”

The grey corridors were uniformly anonymous, the doors mostly unmarked. She was definitely lost and there wasn’t a soul about. Passing a door too closely, the signal from her badge opened it and she peeped in to see a familiar blond head bent over a file.

She cleared her throat and he looked up, frowning, through heavy-framed glasses. Seeing her, he removed them and said, “Come in. Are you lost, Susie, or looking for me?”

Only half surprised at his use of her name, she said, “I’m certainly lost…”

“But I hope not sorry to have found me.”

“No indeed, sir.” She looked down at the file, and added quickly, “but I’m really looking for this office,” and showed him the cover.

“Ah, so you were looking for me. Thank you.” He took it from her and smiled at her questioning look. “I know, the offices aren’t marked on this corridor. It’s deliberate. You have to count from the elevator.”

Carefully counting the office doors to the elevator, she returned somewhat floatingly to her shared office where, with dignity, she also ignored the smirks of her colleagues.

She discovered quite soon after joining the organisation that seeing any particular agent was a rare phenomenon; they were usually out on operational duties, and the two agents she now knew to be top agents were out more than most. It was some time before she saw them again.

*******************

One morning, she fell in with an agent from another section, and chatting idly as they turned the corner near Del Floria’s they found a scene of confusion. The parked car was damaged, there was glass and blood everywhere. Inside the shop it was worse; blood has a distinctive coppery smell, the air was full of it and one of the Del Florias was wringing his hands at the stains on his floor.

“What’s going on?”

“Tutto sangue! I signori, ricoperti di sangue… All blood! They’re covered in blood…”

Inside the organisation’s reception, it was just as bad.

“What’s happened?” they asked a distracted woman on the desk.

“Our two favourites... We’re waiting for the medics now.”

There was no need to ask who she meant. “Where are they?”

“They’re in there, bleeding over everything.”

Susie looked round the door of the stationery closet and recoiled in horror. The scene resembled a butchers’ shambles. The two men sat wilting in chairs, supported by fellow agents applying pressure to wounds in their arms and torsos. The dark agent, his formerly-elegant suit badly stained as he bled from a shoulder wound, sat calmly enough, talking quietly to another agent; but the elfin Apollo was all but unconscious under the attentions of another colleague. There was blood everywhere. This wasn’t the time to discover a wish to have taken up millinery.

She and her companion began to employ the organisation’s intensive first-aid training to help those trying to deal with several wounds at the same time. Apollo’s blond head fell forward to rest against her as she started to press the bleeding wound in his neck, and she felt his arms come round her to hold himself steady. It was too serious to succumb to any temptation to stroke his hair, and it was a relief when the medical team arrived to take over and remove the two agents to surgery.

“What happened?” she asked one of the others, when they had gone and the cleaners had started on the floor.

“Ambushed on their way in. You only have to drop your guard – and even the best of us have done it. You’d think we’d learn,” he added, “but it’s a fact – sometimes, when you think you’re safe, you’re not. The ice is thin between danger and safety.”

****************

It was a matter of taking her turn to visit them in the infirmary, but Susie persisted and finally managed it, taking some flowers with her when she entered the room the two men occupied. They both smiled a welcome, and, encouraged, she sat in the space between the beds.

“How are you? Everyone’s been so worried.”

“Bloodied but unbowed. I think we’ll live to fight another day, eh, partner?”

“Fortunately, yes.” The pale but far-from-marble face was very much alive, and he said, “I must thank you – it was you, wasn’t it, keeping me from bleeding to death?”

“One of them. I tried to help. How is your neck?”

“Stiff and a bit sore, but it’s better than being just another stiff. And, because I’m not, I’m going to take you out to dinner when I get out of here.”

“Hey! I was going to say that.”

“Too late, my friend. How about it, Susie?”

“I’d love to.”

****************