Customer Service by realitycek

Customer Service

by realitycek

Author's Notes: It was 4am. That's my only excuse and I'm playing it for all it's worth...

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Long, frustrating hours of attempting to rebuild her hard drive had finally taken their toll on Dr Ruthless. Even the satisfaction of being able to create brilliant fic in the midst of this hardship was not enough to revive her any longer, and somewhere just after one she shut the recalcitrant machine down. Vowing to take only a short nap and then return to work, she tossed the gleaming waves of her hair, stretched her lush curves out on the chesterfield and was soon deeply asleep, visions of T-1 connections and apple martinis dancing in her head...

Abruptly, Ruthless started awake. Disoriented, unsure of how much time had passed, she was aware only of a strange, pleasurable lassitude throughout her body. Unable to move, she watched as softly glowing mist drifted and coiled through every corner of the office. Could've sworn the windows were closed, she thought. Yet, far from carrying the damp chill of a Vancouver winter, the billows of white seemed to caress her with warmth and the spicy-sweet scent of exotic blossoms.

A pang of uneasiness swept over her as the mist began to coalesce, gradually taking on the form of an immense snake. It loomed and swayed above where she lay, tongue flicking from its fanged mouth, its eyes like sparks in the fog. Taking a moment to curse the drains just in case, and add a blunt word or two for the way her week seemed to be going, Ruthless squeezed her eyes shut and counted to three in hopes of banishing the unnerving apparition.

When she opened them again, the spectral serpent had dissipated, but a dark-haired man was seated beside her, studying her with a steady, almost mesmerising gaze. Vagrant moonlight glinted from the wide silver cuff on his wrist as he ran one elegant hand lightly down her leg. "Hello."

She blinked. "Philip...? Philip Padget?"

He smiled and shifted slightly, adjusting the folds of his bronze silk robe. "It ain't the Tooth Fairy," he murmured seductively.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on my patient."

Finding herself able to move once again, Ruthless untangled herself from the afghan and sat up. "Patient? I wasn't that tired. Of course, if you insist -- "

As she lunged forward, Philip was already striding gracefully to her desk in a swirl of heavy silk and expensive cologne. "Not you," he admitted with becoming regret. "Your computer."

"My...you can do that?" Her eyes narrowed skeptically.

"The god is compassionate. Besides, Shadowfox insisted. How she got my cell number..." He shook his head, shrugged.

A sudden thought brought a less-than-benevolent smile to her face. "So, in order to do this, you'll need...energy..."

Philip nodded, grinning. "Pretty much. But don't worry about it. You're covered."

"Wha...?"

"Your friends were very adamant," he continued, bending picturesquely to begin disconnecting cables from the tower. "They said you'd been through a lot lately, and couldn't be disturbed, so they're all chipping in. You have very generous friends."

"All...?" she repeated, voice cracking.

"Mm-hm. Shadowfox, Jennie, Ursula, Emily, Dossier... We're all heading over to Cory's. So, um..." He looked pointedly at his watch.

"But...but...I'm the concerned party, here! Surely the god demands a price?!"

Philip looked thoughtful. "Well, you wanna throw in a 2-4 of Blue, that would be good."

Muttering something that sounded vaguely like " -- puts the 'duh' back in 'Canada'," Ruthless jerked a curt thumb back in the direction of the service porch. Rewarded with a dazzling smile, she vowed to thank each and every one of her friends personally. When they least expected it.

Returning to where she sat, he crouched beside her, taking her hand in his and brushing languid circles across it with his thumb. Deep green eyes meeting hers in that same compelling gaze, he asked somberly, "Do you wish for your computer to be healed, Doctor?"

"Uhh...huh? Oh -- yes. Yes I do."

"Great." He held up his other hand, her shoes dangling from his fingertips. "Grab your coat and give me a hand with this stuff."

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Struggling down the icy drive, Ruthless stopped dead in her tracks and gaped, almost losing control of the desk chair in which sat her monitor. Parked at the curb in front of the house were a semicircle of Greek ruins on a flatbed trailer. An altar stood at their centre, before an imposing statue of a writhing serpent. Coming up beside her, Philip balanced the tower against his hip and brandished a set of keys. As he pressed a button on the key fob, three torches blazed up with a loud beep.

"Like it?" he asked, seeing the gobsmacked expression on Ruthless' lovely face. "Got it from the same guy who did the tribal council set for 'Survivor'." For a long moment he regarded it with reverent awe, while she tried to think if it fell under the zoning restrictions for holiday decorations.

"It's beautiful, but I don't know if -- "

"The god got me a parade permit. Pic's covering that..."

Pulling herself together, Ruthless followed him to the truck and carefully handed up the monitor. Having already placed the other components on the altar, Philip quickly finished setting up and plugged it into an outlet cleverly concealed in the base of a column. Booting up, he placed a hand atop the monitor and raised the other to the sky. Philip threw his head back, eyes closed in religious ecstasy, and as the opening chimes of Windows sounded, he moaned, "Yesss!"

"So now what?" Ruthless called up to him.

Hopping lightly back to the sidewalk, he shrugged. "Now we wait. If your computer is truly blessed, it ought to start coming together any time now..."

Silently, expectantly, they watched for a sign. Finally, the huge, ghostly snake materialised from the base of the statue and glided slowly to the altar, undeterred by the copy of The Province that a passing paperboy bounced neatly off its head. Philip and Ruthless stood closer together, their cloudy breaths mingling in the icy pre-dawn. Deep in meditation, chanting "F1, F1, F1, evoe!!", he hardly jumped at the hand on his ass. Ruthless sighed.

With eerie grace, the huge serpent reared back and struck at the monitor screen, which burst to busy life with the image of a large bald man in an orange jumpsuit. His blustering face was reddening as his body was squeezed within the coils of a glittering anaconda. Funny, she thought. I don't remember having a screensaver like that...

The ranting victim suddenly vanished with a fat burst of static. Swearing she could smell ozone, Ruthless turned quizzically to Philip, who pulled her into a joyous embrace. "You've been blessed!"

When their kiss ended, she nodded, dazed. "I'll say."

"Yes. Everything will begin falling back into line, now." As if just realising what he was doing, Philip stepped back. "So, you know, I have to start replenishing all that energy..." he murmured reluctantly, extinguishing the torches.

"Right. Sure. Um...thanks."

He glanced up at the computer, then back at the stalwart Dr Ruthless, gorgeous even in a puffy anorak. "Look, you don't need to get back to all that right now, do you...?"

Grinning, Ruthless swung easily up into the passenger seat of the truck's cab. "Don't forget the beer, baby," she purred.

Finis

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★