ᴛʜᴀᴅᴅᴇᴜs ʀᴇʏɴᴀʀᴅ . (bloodsheds) wrote in exsanguious, @ 2015-10-29 19:39:00 |
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Sharing a bed with such a light sleeper made any kind of departure from the room a difficult -- sometimes downright impossible -- task more often than not but tonight Thaddeus had managed to not only leave the mattress but also step through the door without rousing Ana. It helped that the door was always ajar, that he still could not bear to sleep in any room that was completely closed off that way, the need to have a clear and visible escape route something that would likely never leave him. It had been too long, he had gone too far without healing that particular wound and now there was a scar there amidst so many others in his mind and on his body. Scars were not so frightening to him now as they had once been. Many things had lost that kind of power.
With only a lamp borrowed from the open plan lounge flicked on so that he could see what he was doing Thaddeus calmly and methodically disassembled the first of his twin handguns, laying out the parts in a precise order that was so swiftly and cleanly achieved that it betrayed the regularity of the motions. Practise made perfect and Thaddeus had ensured he could do this as swiftly as efficiently as possible, going over it again and again and again not only in the beginning but as time went on, over the years he had kept it up so that he could do it not only without watching but without thinking about what his hands were doing. Something about the action was calming, there was a control and a power in it that made him feel steady and at ease, reassured by the smoothness of his own motions and the ease with which he performed the task.
When one of the handguns was successfully broken down into pieces, thoroughly cleaned, and precisely reassembled, fully loaded and ready to use at the drop of a hat, Thaddeus lifted his brown eyes from the counter upon which he had set out the cloth and other materials to gaze down the hall leading to the bedroom. Quiet, still, shrouded in shadow. Ana was still asleep.
Good. Maybe he would rejoin her soon. After the second gun had been cleaned, though, Thaddeus couldn’t leave the job half-finished, once he had started he had to finish, it had been that way for years now and just like that open door it was something that he could no longer imagine being any other way.