(Might be Dentis 1)
Umberto’s House, The Stacks
If his employer happened to be awake then the passive intended to maintain a low profile so that Umberto didn’t discover him and that meant keeping the sound down as he picked his way across the lower floor and began the endeavour of climbing the stairs. They turned out to be a new, formidable obstacle to his mission. There were different places that wouldn’t creak if you stood on them and distributed your weight just so but damn if he could remember all of them in the dark while trying to keep his balance.
The youth had been drinking but it hadn’t been that much. The teenager wasn’t drunk but he could admit to a little tipsiness and that wasn’t enough to make everything tilt as if viewed from a boat on choppy seas. No, if he wobbled and saw his dimly lit surroundings fly up and down in his vision then it was simply an effect of standing on one foot while the other hung in the air before him attempting to find the best spot to land, hardly made easy by the pull of gravity that threatened to send him tumbling backwards.
A step groaned as he put weight on it, the servant pausing to glare down at it. He shushed it audibly, remaining still as if waiting for the step to understand before he put the rest of his weight on it.
The groaning continued, the wood settling under his mass.
“What did I just say?” he whispered irritably, painfully unaware that his whisper was far from quiet, more akin to what might pass for soft on the stage; he needn’t have tried to be stealthy because he was failing miserably.
One hand gripped the handrail while the other trailed along the wall on the other side, the youth’s forehead crumpling in intense concentration. The staircase seemed to be in a constant state of sway, almost as if it was trying to rock him gently to sleep before he reached his bed. It was all too easy to allow his eyes to droop, Fionn smiling contentedly to himself.
His foot rose to mount the next stair and came down on the edge, not providing the solid purchase that he’d anticipated. It slipped, his eyes opening wide as panic surged through him, the sense that he was going to go tumbling down seizing him. He tried to correct himself, lurching forward and slamming his knee into a higher step, a muffled curse escaping him as pain spread out from his kneecap. He ended up kneeling awkwardly, fingers clinging to the balusters instead of the rail this time from his new lower position.
“Fucking- Fuck!”
The teenager turned himself as carefully as he could, seating himself on the step and rubbing sullenly at his knee, his good humour soured. While a few moments prior, he’d been concerned with being furtive but Umberto had largely been forgotten as he muttered to himself.
“How can you trip up stairs? Who clocking does that, Fionn?”
Okay, maybe he was a bit drunk. He wasn’t used to this alcohol business and he hadn’t gone out with the intention of drinking, never mind ending up this wobbly but one thing had led to another. Wasn’t the point of a day off to enjoy himself? That was what he’d determined from observing others making the most of their leave from their employers. They were happy to let loose but then they didn’t have to stay quite so close to their employers, especially ones that kept odd habits.
The blond got to his feet once more, grasping the balusters tightly for support. He considered the rest of his route. He’d ascended most of the way and that meant that he had further to fall if he had another slip up. Continuing to tiptoe probably wouldn’t do him any favours, not given the racket he’d probably just made.
“Sod it!”
Gripping the rail, he peered at the steps as he mounted them normally, gritting his teeth at the noise he was making. His tread was probably only a bit heavier than normal but it seemed obscenely loud, even though he’d abandoned his attempts at covertness. It was a good thing that he’d packed it in though because the landing creaked so ferociously beneath him that he wouldn’t have had a hope of sneaking. What was more, Fionn was convinced that the landing had never been this creaky before; it really felt like spite.
He paused, listening and looking towards Umberto’s workroom. The door was ajar and there was light but that didn’t mean anything. The galdor was scatterbrained and had been known to wander out and leave the light in but more often than not, he dozed off in there. The passive had lost count of the number of times he’d thrown a blanket over the man or tried to ease something comfortable under his head when he fell asleep in odd positions and he’d only worked for him for a few weeks! The man might be asleep or he might simply be quietly contemplating something. The fact that he hadn’t immediately emerged didn’t mean anything either, not when one considered how self-absorbed he was.
Fionn shifted his weight uneasily, unsure if he should check on him for fear that he was awake. The boy didn’t know what time it was and if it was after midnight, he wouldn’t put it past the academic to put him to work on account of his day off having officially ended. The blond wasn’t sure that he could deal with his idea of work right now, especially when he was sleepy and his brain was a bit muggy. At the very least, he should get some sleep.
That being said, the man might be ill-pleased if he had drifted off and Fionn had failed to tend to him. Cautiously, he crept to the door with the intention of peeping his head around it. If Umberto was awake then perhaps he could retreat again before the man took notice.