You crawled through the dusty crawl space under Derek's house, angrily cursing at him to yourself. Your idiot of a boyfriend had been complaining of a bad smell all month, a smell you had never gotten a whiff of. And of course, Derek took it upon himself to track down this scent with his creepily perceptive werewolf nose, and he had decided there had to be something dead under the house. So Derek, like the drama queen he is, made a whole big deal out of going down to find it. Only when he tried to go under, he realized he didn't fit, and he made you go, since he's too stingy to hire anyone.
You groaned as you found a dead end, and pulled the walkie talkie out of the back of your jean pocket.
"Derek, I'm lost," you said.
"What do you see?" His static voice came from the other end.
"Black. Everything is black."
"Okay, just try going right. You can never go wrong with right."
You grunted in response and put the walkie talkie back in your pocket, shuffling backwards and taking a right at the first turn in sight.
You started to sweat through your shirt, coughing through the clouds of dust bunnies.
What if the ceiling caves in?
That was definitely not a good thing to think about under the circumstances.
"Derek," you picked up the walkie talkie. "It's starting to get a little tight down here."
"Have you found the smell yet?"
"No, but... I'm not... I'm not feeling too good," you said.
"Alright, well come on up. Do you remember how to get out?"
"No," you panted. "I don't."
"Okay, stay calm. It's just the opposite of the way you came in. So turn around, and take a left, and find your way out from there. Everything is going to be okay."
You took his instruction and turned back away, finding your way through the dark space. You were relieved to recognize some parts of the hell like area.
You were anxiously overjoyed to see the thin streams of light coming from above, directing you to the door.
"I'm here," you said loudly, and Derek opened the hatch.
You crawled over awkwardly, in a combination of being paralyzed with fear and the excitement of being back. It was like coming back from the best vacation of your life, only it's not a vacation at all and it's a terrible pit of death.
Derek grabbed your hand and helped you out. Finding the light of day, you took off your yellow construction hat and threw it across the room.
"You alright?" Derek asked.
"Fine," you said angrily.
"I'm sorry," he said.
You ignored him. Seated on the floor, you started to brush the dirt off your arms. He got a wet rag and helped you.
"I didn't find the smell," you told him as he wiped the grime off your neck.
"I don't care about that," he said. "As long as you're okay."
"Really?"
"Really."
Derek kissed you, and you laughed.
"Please tell me you're going hire someone," you said.
"If that's what you want, yeah."
