Who: Daniel and OPEN to other tenants. What: Mirror thread! Where: The master bedroom bathroom, R1 When: The morning after this. Warnings: TBA, depending on comments. Introductory narrative safe. :)
The kitten refused to allow him out of her sight. She was permitted to wander off to pursue invisible prey all the time, but if he wasn't precisely where she had left him, a mad dash through the entire apartment was necessary to locate him, every occurrence of which ended with a ruthless pounce on one of his feet and a thorough feline scolding in her high pitched voice. (Daniel didn't know whether to be amused or irritated at being scolded by a wad of fur the size of his hand.) She complained outside doors if she was shut out, grew bored when she was shut in. She considered R1 and everything in it (including him) to be her official property, despite being a resident for less than three days. She slept in the bed or cried all night, clawed the drapes, dropped kitten kibble in unlikely places, and dug industriously in the new litter box.
Finally, intent on having a shower come the hounds of Hades or whines of cats, Daniel let the rambunctious animal into the spacious bathroom and dropped the entire New York Times sports section on the floor for her to shred. She was covered in strips of print by the time he stepped out of the shower, and while she watched his feet with predatory interest, she ultimately decided to steer clear of the amount of water pouring off the rest of him. Kat decidedly did not like water. She went back to swatting editorials as he dried off and sat down to catch his breath.
The doctors had made some remarks about his stitches when they had been treated, probably with some thought to how five relatively minor scratches and four deep lacerations managed to cut into his chest with such haphazard direction. He had been unresponsive, as he had been to anything those people had said. He could not now even call their faces up in his memory for viewing, and gave up the inclination the first time he'd felt it. He'd have to return there soon, so they could pull the thread back out of his skin. He didn't not look forward to it.
Daniel touched the tips of his fingers to his chest and watched in the mirror as they ran over the railroad divisions in his skin. The first set of scratches were now healing red lines, pricking close and wide to his left collarbone, and beginning again with slim earnestness down toward his heart. The real wounds, hard deep tears beginning just to the left of his throat, barely missed anything vital in that organ and sank closest to his left pectoral, seeking his heart. These made it painful to lift his arm, turn his head, sit up, or even breathe heavily. The painful tension materially lessened over the last few weeks, despite his own irritation and occasional physical aggravation.
He surveyed himself with clinical, detached interest. He had never been a big man; he was one of those who had no height to dominate and his personality was such that he had little need to do so. He was broad of shoulder, something of his father in a thicker, almost triangular torso, and of his mother in longer legs than was necessary for his height. In other circumstances, he might have been alarmed at how quickly he had lost so much weight, some thirty or forty pounds at least gone, and his frame now so much thin skin and sharp bone. Were it not for the fatigued lines about his eyes and mouth, the thick mass of dark curls would have made him look younger; women loved them and Daniel hated them, and in his independent years he had found some happy medium that suited his desires to theirs -- a phenomenon that now thoroughly amused him. On the whole, he was a ruin of human flesh, and it did not surprise him.
Measurement complete, he looked down at the kitten, who was now attacking the dangling hem of the towel at his knees. "Lush," he told her, softly, in case there was someone alert enough to hear in the living room. He bent, with some difficulty, and scooped her up with one hand, dropping her gently on the counter where she landed with splayed legs. In thirty seconds she found the small box with Claire's concoctions, and fished out several bits of the paper padding to play with in the deep gold fixtured basin. Without thinking, Daniel reached out and picked up the round, silver tin she had knocked aside. Pain has an element of blank, the inscription began. Emily Dickinson. Jane had given him her volume of the poet the last time he had seen her.
Blank.
Daniel twisted off the top and sniffed. The ointment smelled sharp, somewhere between mint and eucalyptus, but also sweet. He looked at the ingredients, turning the tin over in his palm. He had no idea what "Golden Seal Root Powder" was. He dipped two fingers into the tin experimentally. It tingled on his skin, but not much. "Couldn't hurt," he commented to the kitten. She chewed on a bit of paper and blinked. He carefully ran his fingers over the stitches, and his eyes widened as it immediately felt better--no miracle, but some improvement. "Placebo effect," he said to Kat.
"Mow," she agreed.
Daniel stretched where he could, then wiped off his hand. "You want to see what everyone else is up to, petite chat?" he asked the kitten.
"Now," the kitten responded. Smiling slightly, Daniel reached out and pressed his fingers to the mirror. Gray mist overtook his reflection, and then resolved into something else entirely...