Saoirse's Adventures Pt 11
Arthur entered the office to find Saoirse kneeling next to the desk, prying at something on the floor with her hunting knife. Arthur's shoulder-length dark hair was damp from showering, though his black-feathered wings were dry, and he was naked except for a pair of Saoirse's shorts, loaned to him while his wet clothes dried. The shorts were tight in awkward places, and it gave him an odd half-waddling gait. Arthur was also shivering a little: it was still raining outside, and it seemed colder in the lower hallways than usual.
"What are you looking for?" asked Arthur, respectfully covering his crotch while pulling at the fabric of the shorts to keep it from giving him a wedgie.
Saoirse sat back, red-faced from her efforts. Her fluffy knee-length tail twitched in frustration. The pale yellow of the fur on her tail matched her long hair and catlike ears, but otherwise, she looked human. She was half human, but also half Renoige, and her senses of smell and night vision were unusually keen.
"That chemical smell is coming from under the floor," puffed Saoirse, setting the knife on the desk.
Arthur bent down and peered at what Saoirse was so focused on. A square of floor slanted downward, revealing a sliver of darkness beneath.
"What did you find?" asked Arthur.
"I think it's a trap door. It's stuck though." Saoirse twisted to squint into the space beneath the floor, sniffed in frustration, and stood up. "I'm gonna need a broom or something to lever it up."
"I could help you find one," said Arthur. "But um...do you have any other bottoms I can borrow?" Arthur's own clothes were drying in a nearby bathroom, and he hadn't brought the backpack containing his spare bottoms with him into the building.
Saoirse stretched her arms up over her head and said, "All I've got is a skirt. I could use a break though." She went over to the couch bed they'd slept on and unzipped her backpack.
They ate instant noodles for breakfast, using some of the nonperishables Milly had brought them and Saoirse's dried hiking rations. Arthur wore his spare hoodie, a purple school shirt with a logo on the left breast, and one of Saoirse's skirts. Saoirse's backpack had contained not one, but two clean skirts, and Arthur had even gotten to pick. He chose a knee-length dark blue skirt patterned with oranges.
"I'm not sure why I brought it, to be honest," said Saoirse while they drank their instant coffee. Arthur thought it might be open in the back for the tail, but it had an overlapping closure that didn't leave anything exposed. It fit him nicely, and he'd enjoyed swishing around in it on the way to the alcove containing the microwave, rickety table, and office chairs. "It's not exactly a skirt I'd wear out in the wilderness."
"It really is nice," said Arthur, leaning over his instant coffee and trying to let the heat warm his face. It wasn't much because he didn't know how microwaveable the cups were, so he chugged his coffee. The warmth was underwhelming but it was there. Arthur got up to make himself another cup.
"You look good in it," said Saoirse. "I'm glad you picked it too, because I think my other skirt is open-tailed." Her own tail curled around her side. "Aren't you going to eat your noodles?"
"Yeah," Arthur said. He set his cup on the glass plate and set the microwave for 30 seconds. The ache in his bad wing was almost fully gone, and he shuffled his wings while he watched the timer. "I'm just giving it some extra cooling time so I don't burn my mouth."
"Really?" said Saoirse. Arthur couldn't see his face and looked over his shoulder.
"The other instructors in my department think it's weird too, but I don't burn my mouth, and that's the important thing."
Saoirse snorted, "Oh no, I meant that I do it too. My dad used to do it."
"Is it like a human thing?" asked Arthur. The microwave stopped, he opened it to stir his water and then added another thirty seconds. It occurred to him that he might slow down on the coffee, and he decided not to: they'd found a new area of the office building, and he wanted to save up and pee there.
"Maybe. I don't know any humans enough to ask."
Arthur took two packets of powdered creamer from the shopping bag next to the microwave. "What about your dad?"
Saoirse was silent for a long moment, and Arthur's stomach dropped. "I'll ask him if I see him."
"Oh yeah, he was uh..." Arthur gulped, turning around. Saoirse didn't look angry, but she had a sad smile. That was worse. "Sorry. I forgot."
"It's okay. I think it was just a him thing, though." Saoirse pulled her noodles toward her and started prodding at them. Arthur felt himself relax a little, and suddenly he needed to pee. He forced it to the back of his mind and busily mixed his instant coffee.
The urge to pee was still there when they searched for something to use as a suitable crowbar for the trap door.
"We could break the leg off a folding table?" suggested Saoirse, going through a cupboard on one of the upper floors. Arthur had just checked the bathrooms next to it and found nothing. Seeing the toilets made his bladder throb, and he hurried out.
"What about the courtyard? We could probably break off a branch or something," said Arthur.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and Saoirse went pale.
"I'll try that as a last resort then," said Arthur.
Arthur decided to take a look at the hatch in the floor himself on the way back down; his flip phone had a flashlight feature. Kneeling on the floor helped him hold his bladder, but the coffee from earlier was rapidly overfilling it. He'd need to be quick.
