ara watches as he fiddles with the buttons of the lift, wondering why this had to happen to her, and today of all days. finally, florian seems to find a panel to flip open and presses the emergency button. there was usually a half an hour break between the night guard and the day guard, before the museum opened. she glances at the time on her phone and it was right in the middle of that period. ara sucked in a breath of air, hoping there was a guard there early for their shift. it only takes a moment before the comm statics to life and a voice comes through, “Γεια σας?”. ara recognizes the voice and her heart leaps a little, silently thanking the heavens for someone answering, as she moves towards the speaker, “Καλημέρα, Damion, it’s ara, um- we seem to be having a bit of trouble with the lift in the east hall. uh- it stopped moving.” “oh, miss ara!”
for several minutes ara tries her best to explain their situation and damion speaks on the phone with the fire department, trying his best to sort of the situation. ara’s heart sinks when she hears him sigh. “i’m sorry miss ara, there’s not much we can do but wait. the storm last night knocked out the power for this side of the island. they said it may take up to an hour for them to arrive, since it is not technically an emergency and both you and mr. agreste are not in any danger.” ara takes a deep breath at the news, why is she not surprised. she already was late and missed breakfast, so what’s another power outage tragedy to add on to the morning. she knows it’s a little dramatic but she can’t help it, especially when she’s is trapped with someone who either stared at her with daggers in his eyes or fled to be the farthest away from her, and she was also hungry. “i’ll inform the director of your predicament. try not to worry so much- you too mr. agreste. you’ll be out soon enough. we’ll try to conserve the backup power, so we’ll have to stop using the comm for now. i shall update you when i can.” “yes- of course. thank you, damion.”
her back presses against the wall of the elevator and she sinks down, her skirt pooling around her like a dark lagoon that could perhaps just swallow her up. but it doesn’t so she just rests her head against the wall, closing her eyes, trying to ignore the thumping of her heart because she could feel his eyes on her.
florian clicks some red button and suddenly, there’s a voice speaking greek from the other side. he takes a step back, leaning against the elevator wall as he lets ara take over. a sigh of relief leaves his lips, someone will come to help then and before they know it, he’ll be out of there. that’s how things are done when these things happens in the kering headquarters or his yves saint laurent office. but florian is not in paris in a private, million dollar building. the message coming out from the other side reminds him as much. and so florian slides down the wall, sitting down on the floor with an annoyed groan.
“thank you,” he mutters, but the words are not genuine, instead, they are laced with bitterness. florian was sometimes a horrible boss, and if this was happening back at his job... well, let’s just say heads would roll. but there’s not much he can do right now but sigh dramatically, pulling out a small black vape pen from his jean pocket.
his eyes finally fall on ara, and he observes her closely. it’s the first time since he saw her again in kaos that he actually takes the time to look at her and pay attention. all those other times he was just too busy looking for a quick way out. she looks exactly as he had remembered. and she is very damn beautiful, flo has to give her that.
florian raises his shin, bringing the vape pen to his lips and breathing deeply. he’s not in the mood to be hostile. he doesn’t have the energy. truth be told, he doesn’t really care as much anymore. as he lets out the smoke, he finally speaks to her:
“not exactly how you imagined to spend your morning, right?”
