The Doll House

AN: I'm off work at the moment with an injured ankle. So managing to write quite a bit. I was going to update about once a week, but obviously doing it more often while I'm off work. Thanks for Sabaku_lotus, Sarkukka and Kurai. You're awesome for reviewing. And thank you to everyone who read this. Oh and this is unbetaed so please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes that might be there.

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As it turned out, Elliot’s foot had taken no permanent damage, just needing some ice and some cream against any upcoming pain. Ollie had picked him up and taken him to a quite spacious room with two wardrobes, two beds and a nice little old looking table. Elliot listened to the rhythmic breathing that signaled that Ollie was fast asleep. He swung his legs out of bed and quietly opened his cupboard door, pulling out the sheets which he had tied together while he was “resting” in bed. He opened the window, hoping the breeze wouldn’t wake his roommate. He dropped the sheets out of the window, tying one end to the headrest of his bed.

Climbing out of the window backwards, Elliot had to grin at his own ingenuity. Growing up with parents who thought that cooking classes were something only women did and having to climb out of windows regularly to get to them, most definitely had its advantages. He tugged on the sheets to test the strength and then started his descent. He had to smother a self-satisfied cackle at the look on everyone’s faces when they found him gone in the morning. A tearing sound tore him out of his pre-victory celebration and made him glance up. It seemed in his hurry to tie enough sheets together, to escape out of the third floor, he had missed a weak spot.
Panic started to rise in Elliot. He wouldn’t survive the fall and he was already too far down to climb back up. Another tearing sound and he was jerked downwards. Elliot prayed that his death would be quick…because he really didn’t like the thought of being attached to all sorts of machines before he died. A last ripping sound, send him plummeting downwards, a shout of horror tearing from his throat.
Instead of hitting the hard ground with a splat however, his arm was jerked upwards, pain lacing through his shoulder. He looked up, his hand had been grabbed by a boy with brown hair and kind hazel eyes were gazing down at him.

“Are you alright?”

“I am now.” The boy held out his other hand and Elliot let himself be pulled into the still lit room.

“I heard a noise and looked out of the window to check; lucky I caught you when I did. What were you doing out there?” Elliot blushed, staring at his hands.

“He was probably trying to make a run for it.” Elliot’s head snapped up in the direction of the new voice. The blue haired boy from the break room was sitting on his bed, a pair of glasses pushed on top of his head. The book discarded on his pillow. “He’s new Hayden, the guy I was telling you about that came with Gregori.”

“Oh...right. Hey you’re not crying are you?” The brunette squatted down in front of the dark haired boy. Elliot shook his head vigorously and wiped at his eyes. “Why do you hate it so much?” Elliot chewed on his lip, debating whether to tell them or not. “It’s really not so bad here.”

“I just...he...he tricked me!”

“Who did?”

“Gregori. I borrowed money of him, because I needed to finance my studies. My parents threw me out after they realised that I wouldn’t be joining the family business. I couldn’t get a loan anywhere and one of my “friends” recommended him.” Hayden sat him down between Seth and himself.

“That’s not the whole story. Just tell us, it’ll make you feel better.” Elliot looked into the kind faces of the other two and started to talk.

“I’ve always wanted to be a cook, as long as I can remember I never wanted to be anything else. I snuck out of the house to take cooking classes, because my parents didn’t approve. They always said only girls did cooking. That’s how I learned how to climb down a sheet out of windows.” The other two nodded, Hayden patting his shoulder encouragingly in between. “Anyway, when I told my father that I wanted to go to culinary school instead he said that I had the choice of being disowned or getting rid of the rubbish that was clogging up my brain and carrying on the family business like I was supposed to. So left, I rented a small apartment and took a job waiting tables but my savings account run out after my first year of schooling, I think my father must have removed the money.

I got desperate, none of the banks would give me a loan, and I even moved it with one of my friends from cooking school. At first he let me stay but then he wanted money as well and he said if I couldn’t get any I could pay him in another way.” Elliot visibly shuddered. “I told him I wouldn’t do that and he said if I was going to be so uptight, he knew someone who’d give me a loan no matter what. That’s how I met Gregori Vaslov.” He had been pretty stupid, Elliot thought now that he was speaking about it. Naive and stupid believing that there wasn’t a hook to the loan he had got off the Russian. However there had been no way in hell that he would have serviced his roommate so that he could continue staying there.

“I tried to pay off part of the loan with my waiter job but it wasn’t enough. And suddenly there were these huge gorilla guys in front of my door at the end up a year saying I had to pay up the rest now or face dire consequences. I couldn’t pay of course and they took me to Vaslov. He said he knew of the perfect way for me to pay off my debt. That’s how I ended up here.” Elliot sighed, resting his chin in his hands. “I’ll never be able to make my dream reality here. I’ll probably have to slave away till the end of my days until I’ve paid off that debt.” He slumped forward. A soothing hand rubbed circles over his back.

“That sucks, but you know look at this way. If you carry on hating this it’ll just make your time here worse. I like you, we could be friends and then maybe you’ll find this is fun after all. Nathaniel’s a great boss, even if he is a little weird but when we leave here, we’re sorted for life.” Elliot looked up into Hayden’s kind hazel eyes. “So you wanted to be a chef?”

“Yes and I wanted to open a restaurant. A nice chique little place, with good food and a relaxing atmosphere. I had it all planned in my mind, but it’s never going to happen now. What exactly do I have to do here?” Hayden chuckled, pulling Elliot’s smaller form closer to his.

“Waiter, cook, clean, entertain. We have to do pretty much everything, we’re always on rotation. However don’t worry there is an absolute no touching rule here. We’re just for the eye not for the hands. So if any customer asks you to do anything untoward you can politely tell him no, if he does not back away, then you just call Nathaniel or security.”

“We have security?!” Elliot’s eyes were round and big.

“Of course. Now, how about you go back to bed and we won’t tell that you tried to escape. It’ll be our secret. Ok?” A first real smile touched Elliot’s face.

“Yes, alright. Thank you.” Both Hayden and Seth patted his back, telling him not to worry about it. Slowly he made his way back to his room. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here, not if the others were as nice as Seth and Hayden. His feet silently padded across the carpeted floor.

Elliot quietly pulled open the door to his room; thankfully Ollie was still sleeping soundly. He pulled the window to and snuggled under his bedcovers. Elliot yawned, the bed really was very comfortable and the bedcovers soft, much nicer than where he’d been sleeping the last year and a half. His eyes dropped shut and soon he was sleeping soundly just like the other occupant of the room.

The next morning saw sunlight streaming through the window of Ollie’s and Elliot’s room. The auburn haired boy stirred first, stretching and then glancing over at Elliot’s bed. He had to admit to himself, that he was surprised to find it occupied. He’d expected the other boy to have made a run for it but apparently he hadn’t. Running a brush through his shoulder length hair, Ollie contemplated whether to let Elliot sleep a bit longer or whether to wake him now and give him more time to get ready. Just when he was about to shake the black haired boy awake, a soft knock took him to the door instead. He pulled it open, looking into his older brother’s smiling face.

“Morning Hayden. What are you doing here?” His brothers hazel eyes twinkled as he stepped inside. Ruffling his neatly done hair which caused him to scowl good naturedly at Hayden. “Well? You didn’t just come here to terrorise me.”

“No, I came to check on your roommate. How is he this morning?” Ollie gave his brother a curious look but then shrugged, moving over to the cupboard and pulling out a green and white stripped dress.

“Still here and still awake, surprisingly. Why?” He pulled on his dress, slipping on a fitting white cardigan over the top and knee high socks. “Where are my shoes?!” Ollie started crawling under his bed.

“In your cupboard where they belong. And he got lost looking for the bathroom last night. Perhaps we should have one on each floor. I helped him find his way back. Here let me do your hair Ollie.” He sat his brother down on a chair and with deft fingers braided two French plats into his hair. A stirring from the other bed made him look up from the two green ribbons that he was threading through the braids. Elliot was sitting up in bed, his black hair a mess and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Good morning Elliot. I heard you got lost last night. You know if you didn’t know where the bathroom was, you could have woken me.” A light blush graced Elliot’s cheeks.

“Um...yes. Thank you but Hayden helped me.” He got out of bed, scratching his head. Ollie gave Hayden a look which said that something needed to be done about Elliot’s bed head appearance before he could go anywhere.

“Do you need help getting ready?” Hayden had finished off his threading and now moved over to Elliot.

“Um...yes probably. Do I really have to wear that dress?”

“Yes you do.” Elliot groaned, dropping back down onto the bed and burying himself under the covers. “Come on get up. Before Damien gets here and drags you out of bed. Do you want a shower or a bath first?”

“In the pervy bathroom?!” The brunette chuckled. He straightened the red hair band that held his straight hair away from his face.

“The pervy bathroom?” Hayden really couldn’t help laughing, nobody had ever described their bathroom as pervy. “We have normal showers at the side, if you’re feeling uncomfortable with our nice big tub.”

“I’d like a shower.”

“Alright.” Hayden opened Elliot’s cupboard and pulled out two towels. Then he threw him a nice cuddly looking dressing gown. “Put this on and then I’ll take you to the showers.” Elliot pulled the dressing gown on over his pyjama. “Elliot, take your pj’s off first.”

“What?! Why?!”

“Because, you’ll be getting dressed in your work clothes afterwards and we can go straight to work, because you’re on breakfast duty today with me so we won’t have time to return your pj to your room.”

“Oh ok.” He pulled off his pyjamas and folded them neatly on his bed. The dressing gown reached to just above his knees making Elliot feel slightly self conscious, however he didn’t have much time to brood over this as Hayden was now gently pushing him towards the door.
He was glad to see the shower stalls when they reached the big bathing room. He took a quick shower, enjoying the spray of warm water on his body. Thankfully his shoulder hadn’t bruised from the battering it had taken last night. Something niggled constantly at the back of his mind that, maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. So he had to wear a dress as a uniform, which was humiliating but it wasn’t like anyone he knew was going to see him and if they did, they wouldn’t know it was him. He did unfortunately look like a girl while in that stupid costume. Plus all the boys he’d met so far had been nice to him, nicer than any of his friends at culinary school. Except perhaps Matthew who had got a little violent, but even Damien had, had his own kindness.

“Are you nearly done Elliot? We need to get you changed into uniform; breakfast is starting in an hour.”

“I’m ready.” Quickly towelling himself off, Elliot tied the towel around his head and slipped back into the dressing gown. “What exactly am I doing today?”

“We’re waiting tables, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. When we’re not needed in the restaurant, we’ll help out in the kitchen doing some washing up and things.”

“You’re letting me wait tables after me spilling hot soup all over Nathaniel yesterday?” Hayden smiled kindly at him, opening the door to the dressing room. He pulled two purple velveteen dresses off the clothing wrack labelled “Waitress”, two pairs of purple ballerinas, white stockings and two white caps out of a cupboard with the same label.

“Yes, it was an accident. You tripped. There’re no carpets to trip over in the restaurant though. This is your waitress uniform. They’re either purple or green, Damien’s for example is green, purple would clash with his hair.” Elliot nodded. Hayden quickly undressed out of the outfit he had been wearing before and in the new outfit, pulling his hair into two pigtails and tying them off with two purple ribbons, then he helped Elliot dress, quickly blow drying his hair and pulling it into pigtails as well. “Right lets go. The hotel is full at the moment, we have high season.”
Elliot soon found himself a nice airy room, one side of which was covered in windows with gauzy curtains, letting in the soft sunlight. The white tables where already mostly filled with guests some in suits and others dressed casually. Most of them were men, unsurprisingly to Elliot. Most of the guest were polite, asking his name and if he was going to be there next time they came.
One man in a suit tried to tug him onto his lap but the glare that Elliot directed his way, had him backing off quickly. Breakfast consisted of fresh croissants, orange juice, coffee or tea, eggs, jam, marmalade and whatever else the customer’s heart desired. At around 11 Elliot and Hayden were clearing up the restaurant and setting the tables for lunch, when Elliot’s stomach made itself loudly known.

“You’re hungry, goodness I forgot to give you breakfast. I’m sorry Elliot. Just go into the kitchen and make yourself something alright? I’ll finish off here and then come and get you. We’ll take our break after we’ve served lunch.”

“Are you sure?” Hayden nodded, shooing Elliot out of the dining room and towards the kitchen. “Thank you.”

“Hey Elliot!” Izzy was bouncing through the kitchen, his pink curls bobbing up and down in rhythm. Elliot wondered whether it was safe to let him near anything hot and/or sharp. “I was meant to tell you that master Nathaniel wants to see you. Was that your stomach? I’ll just make you a sandwich and then you can go up. Didn’t you eat any breakfast? You know you should otherwise you won’t have any energy and if you don’t have any energy you won’t be able to work properly and if you can’t work properly you’ll end up collapsing because of malnourished and then master Nathaniel will be worried and when he worries he goes all maternal gorilla on us and you really don’t want that. Oh and you’ll have to go see the nurse again and she’ll poke you with a syringe, I really hate needles don’t you? They’re horrible, that’s why I don’t have vaccinations...” A hand clamped over Izzy’s mouth and Seth smiled good-naturedly over his shoulder.

“I made you a sandwich while the Duracell bunny couldn’t stop talking. And don’t worry I’m sure it’s nothing bad.” He held out the sandwich. “Come on Izzy, we have work to do, you’d better get with washing up those plates. And don’t even start me on wanting to cook; I’m not letting you near anything hot or sharp.” Elliot smiled to himself and then took the lift up to Nathaniel’s private quarters.
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Nathaniel was sitting behind his desk, working through some of the hotel’s paperwork. Everything was going well. There was a knock on his door, but Nathaniel continued to read the reports choosing to ignore whoever wanted something just now. He was just getting annoyed over a renovation bill which had turned out larger then what he had agreed on with the man he had employed when the knocking became more insistent.

“This had better be important.” He muttered, standing up and pulling open the door a little more firmly then necessary. A pair of wide, violet eyes looked at him but narrowed quickly.

“Well I’m sorry that I came as soon as you called me. I’ll remember not to do it next time you call...sir.” The cute dark haired male turned on his heel and was about to walk away but Nathaniel was faster, grasping his arm. “Oh you’re not too busy then?”

“I wanted to know how you’ve settled in.”

“Fine. Can I go now?” Nathaniel smiled so the little creature had claws after all.

“No. Tomorrow I want you and Hayden to go out into nearby town to advertise our Hotel. I have just acquired the perfect outfits, you’ll look just adorable. Didn’t Hayden come with you?”

“No, Izzy said you only wanted to see me.” Nathaniel frowned, but tugged Elliot into his study anyway.

“Sit down. I’ll tell you about what you have to do and then about your outfit.” Nathaniel looked like a child who had just got a new toy, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “You and Hayden will be going into the next town to advertise our hotel for day guest. Even though everything is going well, I think we could make some profit with day guests who come here for tea or dinner or perhaps brunch, as a quiet get away. You’ll be handing out these flyers.” Nathaniel held out a flyer with a picture of the hotel and some of the staff on it, surrounded by roses and with the large blue letters saying ‘The Doll House – Enjoy your little escape from the world’. They were kind of clever, Elliot had to admit.

“And you and Hayden will be looking completely adorable after all who can resist two adorable little bunnies?” Elliot’s eyes narrowed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh your costumes, I just got them today. You’ll look so adorable. I got you these lovely white knee length dresses with tons of petticoats underneath and a little cute rabbits tail on the back. And you’ll wear these knee high white socks with white shoes. And white matching gloves to go with it. Oh and of course you’ll do your hair in little cork screw curls and to finish it of you get a pair of rabbit ears to wear on top of your head. I can just see you looking completely adorable.”
Elliot’s jaw dropped, he was stunned, and he felt a twitch developing above his left eye. Nathaniel could not be serious. How much more humiliating could this get.

“YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?!” Elliot was this close to murdering Nathaniel, the last thing that went through his head was, if Gregori would still want his money if Elliot was serving life in prison for murder.

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Sabaku_lotus: Huggins for being my first reviewer. Here is more.

Sarkukka: Thanks, this is my first shot at something that isn't phantasy, so I'm glad you like the concept. And there will be more, tis a promise.

Kurai: Yes I am still working on this fic (tis the only one I'm working on) Plus I have all the chapters planned out, so there shouldn't be a problem with writing this. And I will try to be good *angel eyes* and update regularly. Huggins for the cute review.