Titanic: Zarry Stylik

12- to hell with you

Song: you jump, I jump
Harry runs up as the last Elevator Operator is closing up his lift to leave.

"Sorry, lad, lifts are closed-" Without thinking Harry grabs him and shoves him back into the lift.

"I'm through with being polite, goddamnit!! I may never be polite the rest of my life! Now take me down!!"

The operator fumbles to close the gate and start the lift.
-
-
Molly and the two seamen are rowing, and they've made it 100 feet or so. Enough to see that the ship is angled
down into the water, with the bow rail less than ten feet above the surface.

"Come on girls, join in, it'll keep ya warm. Let's go Anne. Grab an oar!" Molly encourages.
Anne just stares at the spectacle of the great liner, its rows of lights blazing, slanting down into the black mirror of the Atlanic, thinking about Harry.

Through the iron door of the elevator car, Harry can see the decks going past. The lift slows. Suddenly ice water is swirling around his legs. He screams in surprise. So does the operator.

The car lands in a foot of freezing water, shocking the hell out of Harry. He claws the door open and splashes out, hiking up his floor-length skirt so he can move.
"I'm going back up! I'm going back up!" The operator shrieks as water pours in. The lift goes back up, behind Harry, as he looks around.

"Left, crew passage." He spots it and slogs down the flooded corridor. The place is understandably deserted. He is on his own.

"Right, right... right." He turns into a cross-corridor, splashing down the hall, a row of doors on each side.

"Zayn? Zaaayynn??" He shouts, hoping for an answer.

Zayn is hopelessly pulling on the pipe again, straining until he turns red. He collapses back on the bench, realizing he's screwed. Then he hears Harry through the door.

"HARRY!! In here!"

In the hall, Harry hears his voice behind him. He spins and runs back, locating the right door, then pushes it open, creating a small wave. He splashes over to Zayn and puts his arms around him.

"Zayn, Zayn, Zayn... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
They are so happy to see each other it's embarrassing.

"That guy Lovejoy put it in my pocket."

"I know, I know." Harry cries.

"See if you can find a key for these. Try those drawers. It's a little brass one."

Harry kisses his face and hugs him again, then starts to go through the desk.

"So... how did you find out I didn't do it?"

"I didn't." He looks at him. "I just realized I already knew."
They share a look, then Harry goes back to messing up the room, searching drawers and cupboards. Zayn sees movement out the porthole and looks out. A life boat hits the surface of the water above him.
-
-
While the seamen detach the falls, Boat One rocks next to the hull. Lucile and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon sit with ten others in a boat made for four times that many.

"I despise small boats. I just know I'm going to be seasick. I always get seasick in small boats. Good Heavens, there's a man down there." Lucile says. In a lit porthole beneath the surface she sees Zayn looking up at her... a face in a bubble of light under the water.
-
Harry stops trashing the room, and stands there, breathing hard. "There's no key in here."
They look around at the water, now almost two feet deep. Zayn has pulled his feet up onto the bench. "You have to go for help."

Harry nods. "I'll be right back."

"I'll wait here."
Harry runs out, looking back at Zayn once from the doorway, then splashes away. Zayn looks down at the swirling water.

Harry splashes down the hall to a stairwell going up to the next deck. He climbs the stairs, his long skirt leaving a
trail like a giant snail. The weight of it is really slowing him down. He rips at the buttons and shimmies quickly out of the thing. He bounds up the stairs in his
stockings and knee-length slip, to find himself in a long corridor, part of the labyrinth of steerage hallways forward. He is alone here. A long groan of stressing metal echoes along the hall as the ship continues to settle. He runs down the hall, unimpeded now.

"Hello? Somebody?!" He turns a corner and runs along another corridor in a daze. The hall slopes down into water which, shimmers, reflecting the light. The margin of the water creeps toward
him. A young man appears, running through the water, sending up geysers of spray. He pelts past Harry without slowing, his eyes crazed...

"Help me! We need help!" Harry shouts.
The man doesn't look back. It is like a bad dream. The hull gongs with terrifying sounds. The lights flicker and go out, leaving utter darkness. A beat. Then they come back on.

Harry starts hyperventilating. That one moment of blackness was the most terrifying of his life.

A steward runs around the nearest corner, his arms full of lifebelts. He is upset to see someone still in his section. He grabs Harry forcefully by the arm, pulling him with him like a child.

"Come on, then, let's get you topside, lad, that's right."

"Wait. Wait! I need your help! There's-"

"No need for panic, lad. Come along!"

"No, let me go! You're going the wrong way!"
He's not listening. And he won't let Harry go.
"Listen!" Harry shouts in his ear, and when he turns, Harry punches him squarely in the nose. Shocked, he lets Harry go and staggers back.

"To Hell with you!"

"See you there, buster!" Harry shouts.
The steward runs off, holding his bloody nose. Harry spits after him. Just the way Zayn taught him.
Harry turns around, spotting a glass case with a fire-axe in it. He breaks the glass with a suitcase which is lying nearby, and grabs the axe, running back the way he came.
At the stairwell he looks down and gasps. The water has flooded the bottom five steps. He goes down and has to crouch to look along the corridor to the room where Zayn is trapped.

Harry plunges into the water, which is up to hus waist... and movee forward, holding the axe above his head in two hands. He winces at the pain from the literally freezing water.

Zayn has climbed up on the bench, and is hugging the waterpipe. Harry swims in, holding the axe above his head.

"Will this work?" He asks.

"We'll find out." They are both terrified, but trying to keep panic away.
Zayb positions the chain connecting the two cuffs, stretching it across the steel pipe. The chain is of course very short, and his wrists are on each side of it.

"Try a couple practice swings."
Harry lifts the axe and thunks it into a wooden cabinet.

"Now try to hit the same mark again."
He swings hard and the blade thunks in four inches from the mark.

"Okay, that's enough practice." He winces, bracing himself as Harry raises the axe. He has to hit a target about an inch wide with all the force he can use, with Zayn's hands on either side.

"You can do it, Harry. Hit it as hard as
you can, I trust you." Zayn says calmly
Zayn closes his eyes. So does Harry.
The axe comes down. Harry opens his eyes and looks... Zayn is grinning with two separate cuffs. Harry drops the axe, all the strength going out of him.

"Nice work, there, Paul Bunyan." He climbs down into the water next to him. He can't breathe for a second.

"Shit! Excuse my French. Ow ow ow, that is cold! Come on, let's go." Zayn shrieks.

They wade out into the hall. Harry goes toward the stairs going up, but Zayn stops him. There is only about a foot of the stairwell visible.

"Too deep. We gotta find another way
out." Zayn tells him.

Alot of updating happening today haha.