[he hasn't had any epiphanies, no, he's just shaken off the last of that damn animal flu. different means living, as far as medical status is concerned]
[it's out of 3-2's bed he rolls, today, and he makes a repulsed face at the realisation of the time -- he had meant to go back to the shack for dinner last night, he must'a slept clear through]
[his stomach is more than repulsed with the situation, protesting loudly]
[he follows its mumbles and grumbles to the kitchen, and spends the next five minutes opening cabinets before realising (unless he wants to drink vodka for breakfast) that any and all food he's recently purchased has made it's way to the shack]
[damnit, the coffee isn't even here]
[likewise, when he pads back to his room for a (relatively) fresh change of clothes, he realises his laundry is also sitting in a few scattered piles throughout the shack]
[Badou casts a sleepy, taxed look around the barren-wasteland of his assigned room, wondering if there's anything relatively useful to him as he lights what seems to be his second to last cigarette]
[Badou's room is a paranoid's dream come true. there are newspapers circled and crossed with red marker (like x's and o's, Badou Nails and the grisly rumour mill, together4ever), and crime scene smears of ash on everything. the bed is missing it's frame and also it's linens, the furniture doesn't exist, and the closet is empty]
[empty, but for a safe, the only piece of tech between these four walls more complex than a lighter]
[it's as heavy as Badou remembers it being the first time he bore it's weight under a sharp-boned shoulder, despite it's lightweight contents (a birthday card, clips of ammo, a string of rosary, various ripped-edge notes and secrets)]
[by the time he arrives at the shack, his shoulder is aching with every step, and a large, uneven bruise is blooming visibly along the too-wide collar of that jersey (it was supposed to be a loaner, but he'd ended up having to hit-and-run, as it were)]
[the safe is set down with a heavy thunk in the corner of the bedroom. the redhead eyes the rumpled sheets of the bed idly, as he gives his shoulder a distracted rub]
[he's stubbed out his cigarette before he's even realised he intends to keep to his recently slothful schedule]
[Badou falls asleep with his boots on, drooling into pillows and sheets that are much more familiar (much more safe) than any paranoid's dream come true]
[dinners in the Aesopp's Fable household are probably the only things that have a fair amount of regularity -- after the monk's daily activities (work-out, shopping, meditating, "praying"...) and before his nightly duties (the illegal ones!), he always raids the fridge for the least fresh smelling meat and whatever seems like it would make a fair companion, guessing at spices and their doses, slamming together what passes for both Nutritious and Delicious]
[before he'd even realized it, he'd made enough for the both of them without noticing the fox wasn't even in his den]
[it had been a Different kind of dinner that night, also devoid of epiphanies strangely enough, but... lonelier. he doesn't expect Badou home everyday this time, but he comes to recognize simply he assumes he will be]
[the spicy barbeque porksteaks from the night before are still on the table in tin foil the next morning when he comes back from a jog, leaving a touch of emptiness that's not quite low enough to be in his stomach]
[he makes for the bedroom to get out of stale-sweat smelling clothes, throwing off a sleeveless shirt gracelessly and untying the drawstring of pants before he sees that the shirt has landed on some foreign object]
[he plucks it off and -- recognizes the safe slowly, and even moreso the memory of... falling asleep wound up inside a trunk (not the kind you hide bodies in, though Genkaku had found that same sort of... respite)]
[despite himself, he smiles at the memory, and casts a look at the sleeping body in the bed that had gone unfilled the night before]
[it's automatic that he pulls boots off of feet with two heavy thunks on to the floor, tucks legs in a little better into the sheets, manipulates a mannequin-like body to pull that dumb jersey off, tossing it the same way he had his (it, too, lands on the safe, which is practically forgotten already, as if it had belonged well before its arrival)]
[his warm eyes and warm, rough hands linger on the fresh bruise as he lowers the man back down on pillows properly -- and, surprisingly, he steps away without much else]
[the space for Them he's chewed and bitten and slithered out and left the fox to fill with his own dirt has not been an easy crawl, but he does suppose he's been able to shed old skin and grow something fresher in its place -- a changing of the seasons as easy as the shower he feels calling him]
[he hasn't had any epiphanies, no, he's just shaken off the last of that damn animal flu. different means living, as far as medical status is concerned]
[it's out of 3-2's bed he rolls, today, and he makes a repulsed face at the realisation of the time -- he had meant to go back to the shack for dinner last night, he must'a slept clear through]
[his stomach is more than repulsed with the situation, protesting loudly]
Reply
[damnit, the coffee isn't even here]
[likewise, when he pads back to his room for a (relatively) fresh change of clothes, he realises his laundry is also sitting in a few scattered piles throughout the shack]
[Badou casts a sleepy, taxed look around the barren-wasteland of his assigned room, wondering if there's anything relatively useful to him as he lights what seems to be his second to last cigarette]
Reply
[the Undergrounder exhales a cloud of pollution, and makes a decision he thinks he might have already made]
Reply
[empty, but for a safe, the only piece of tech between these four walls more complex than a lighter]
[it's as heavy as Badou remembers it being the first time he bore it's weight under a sharp-boned shoulder, despite it's lightweight contents (a birthday card, clips of ammo, a string of rosary, various ripped-edge notes and secrets)]
Reply
[the safe is set down with a heavy thunk in the corner of the bedroom. the redhead eyes the rumpled sheets of the bed idly, as he gives his shoulder a distracted rub]
[he's stubbed out his cigarette before he's even realised he intends to keep to his recently slothful schedule]
[Badou falls asleep with his boots on, drooling into pillows and sheets that are much more familiar (much more safe) than any paranoid's dream come true]
Reply
[before he'd even realized it, he'd made enough for the both of them without noticing the fox wasn't even in his den]
[it had been a Different kind of dinner that night, also devoid of epiphanies strangely enough, but... lonelier. he doesn't expect Badou home everyday this time, but he comes to recognize simply he assumes he will be]
[the spicy barbeque porksteaks from the night before are still on the table in tin foil the next morning when he comes back from a jog, leaving a touch of emptiness that's not quite low enough to be in his stomach]
Reply
[he plucks it off and -- recognizes the safe slowly, and even moreso the memory of... falling asleep wound up inside a trunk (not the kind you hide bodies in, though Genkaku had found that same sort of... respite)]
[despite himself, he smiles at the memory, and casts a look at the sleeping body in the bed that had gone unfilled the night before]
Reply
[his warm eyes and warm, rough hands linger on the fresh bruise as he lowers the man back down on pillows properly -- and, surprisingly, he steps away without much else]
[the space for Them he's chewed and bitten and slithered out and left the fox to fill with his own dirt has not been an easy crawl, but he does suppose he's been able to shed old skin and grow something fresher in its place -- a changing of the seasons as easy as the shower he feels calling him]
[in like a lion, out like a lamb.]
Reply
Leave a comment