zydratedenver (zydratedenver) wrote in genetic_opera, @ 2009-04-21 19:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | denver, doll |
Setting: Doll's house
Time: during the day
Characters: Denver and Doll
Summary: Denver smells something really good and brings his dirty self into a very clean house.
Rating: PG-13
Denver was really short on cash again. He missed his last payment as he used the last of his money on electric blue. Now he was resorting to theft for money, nothing compared to his occasional pick pocketing, but he was testing windows and doors as he moved down the streets. He was easily distracted as a great smell drifted his way; he followed it to a nice place. Peering into the windows it seemed empty enough and there were pleasant furnishings so he assumed that there was some wealth. Jimmying open the window he slipped into a very clean home bringing in the street filth that clung to him.
The delicious smell, as it happened, was coming from a tin of freshly baked muffins that sat on the stovetop. Dinner had been made and already put away in the icebox, and the muffins were cooling, steam rising from their tops. They smelled of spices and chocolate, and orange, and pure wonderful-ness. Their baker was upstairs, brushing her hair. Doll brushed her hair quite a bit more than more people ever bothered to; she swore by it. She counted the strokes, her silver hairbrush glimmering in the holo-light filtering in the windows.
Denver closed his eyes breathing in deeply enjoying the smells, actually just the ability to smell anything that wasn’t city. The baked smell awoke a small demon in his stomach as it started to growl loudly and took over his motor skills, lifting his legs in a walking fashion much akin to the shamblings of a zombie. He hadn’t eaten in days, well not counting the mystery lump he found in the gutter outside a restaurant. Not bothering to open his eyes to aid in his travels he walked into a small table on his way to the kitchen, the sound of something falling caused him to open his eyes and look around quickly for a place to hide if necessary. He spun around unaware of the damage he was doing in his flailing, he spotted a nook near the fridge. Attempting to nab a muffin in the process of hiding, he touched the metal baking pan, “YEOW! HOT! Shit.. uhm.” He clasped his burnt hand to his mouth sucking on the wound as he ducked down against the fridge.
Doll was just on her seventieth stroke when she heard a clamouring come from the first story of her home. She started, her hairbrush set slowly down onto her vanity. There was no-one in the house. There couldn't be anyone in the house, because Alex had gone out, and likely wouldn't be home for hours, and anyhow, if Alex had come back for some reason, she would have bellowed out some greeting, as she tended to do. Doll moved out of her door and down her wide stair, heart thumping wildly. Into the kitchen.....her eyes slid to the muffin tray on the stove. It was still there, but.....moved. Just an inch, but enough to make her suck in a breath. "Oh, Lord..." she whispered, terrified. She'd run back upstairs, she thought wildly, she'd run back up the stair and hide....
He held his breath as he heard someone walk down the stairs and into the kitchen. He looked at the muffins longingly, and his stomach grumbled loudly again. Always with the perfect timing, he widened his mismatching eyes hoping that whoever else was there hadn’t heard that. He was in a stranger’s kitchen trying to steal their freshly baked muffins, and he was trapped in a corner with nowhere to go.
There was a sound. Perhaps it was just a breath, or a cough, or...whatever it was, it was enough to shock Doll out of her horrified paralysis and spin her into motion. Her tiny hand went to the sink where the pan she'd cooked dinner with lay. It was cast iron, heavy and black, and she could barely lift it. It pulled her arms down now, but she held it out in front of her with wide eyes, scanning the room. "Who's there!" she demanded, backing slowly toward the door.
He winced at the voice, it sounded like a woman, and he hated having to fight women, they always fought dirty, and besides he was kind of weakened from not eating and being kinda high on something he had smoked earlier. He figured his best way out was to run and hope he made it. He jumped up, banging his arm into the fridge, started to move quickly away from his hiding spot, tripping over his own feet, fell over onto his jacket pinning himself down as he tried to get up and crawled head first into a table.
It all happened so fast, in a cacophony of movement and noise, and Doll didn't really realize that she was screaming loudly and shrilly until her arms swung forward, bringing the heavy pan against the side of the intruder's head. She stumbled back, hardly able to hold the thing, and her mouth clapped shut. She stood there panting, blood pounding in her ears, and there was a strange flip in her stomach that told her she might be about to lose her dinner. "Who are you!" she gasped, realizing that she'd been quite unlike herself for a moment and struggling to regain control. "Why are you in here, you shouldn't be here!"
Denver cried out in pain clutching his head, a small trickle of blood trailing around his dreds and down his cheek. His ears were ringing and he was seeing stars and he was suddenly far too sober for his liking. He rolled over, immediately regretting the movement as he felt his stomach heave and contract in on itself. Looking up through a haze of pain, he moaned. “I…. I’m not exactly… sure myself anymore. Where is here? You don’t look like a repo man, or like a grave robber. Ooooh, my head, what hit me?” he whimpered as he held it in his grungy hands.
Doll stood there for a moment, entirely at a loss. And a moment later, she discovered that she was so shocked at finding herself at a loss that she wasn't exactly sure what to do about it. This wasn't here. She wasn't the type to gape helplessly at some...some intruder, she was savvy, in control, she was....was that blood? Her nose wrinkled delicately, and without thinking Doll went to the sink, wetting a cloth and tossing it to Denver where it landed on his face. "Clean yourself up." she ordered, still keeping a hand on the frying pan, even though her arms were too tired to hoist it any longer. "I hardly think you ought to be asking the questions, here. You're in my house, after all, and I know I didn't invite you." Something struck her. "You're...you're not one of Alex's..." what? Clients? Junkies? Customers? "...friends?"
The cloth slapped onto his skin, being just cool enough to help the pain fade away. Denver dragged the wet cloth across his face leaving plenty of dirt and some blood on it. Sitting up he blinked as it uncovered his oddly colored eyes, the light was still enough to send migraine like pains through his skull. Finishing wiping his face and hands he sheepishly looked down into the now brown cloth, he really was a mess. “I’m sorry, I guess… I haven’t really been thinking lately. Too poor, too sober, you know?” he looked up at the person he had intruded on and immediately knew that no, she didn’t know. Wincing he stood up trying to look as harmless as he could, he did not want to be hit again with that cast iron pan. “I should just leave now… … I’d say I’d help, but it looks like I’d only cause more trouble. Wait, Alex... I recognize that name. I met an Alex out on the streets once, gave me a card, too."
Doll was well acquainted with the little indications of zydrate abuse. Her photography, and the occasional walk-about with Alex had done more than she could ever have asked for to give her a thorough knowledge of how to pick one out of a crowd...and looking at Denver (once she did get a look at him) she knew him as a glow-chaser immediately. Setting down the pan, Doll reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of white gloved which she pulled quickly over her small hands. She didn't like to be seen without them.
"Alex is out." she said, quietly. "I'm sure she'll be happy to sell to you when she returns - or you can try to find in her." Her voice was quiet and low, and she looked at Denver carefully. "I...I would suggest knocking, in the future."
Denver felt like he could breathe easily now that the pan was no longer in the delicate yet deadly hands of the woman. He let out a sigh, as if he had been holding it in, and his whole body relaxed, his shoulders drooping and he stood as if he was lounging. He looked around the house again, this time really taking it in. It was very clean, very neat, very girly and he felt very out of place. He shrunk a little, or at least tried to afraid to make things worse, and a strange thought of the sterility infecting him frightened him just a bit.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about this, not my usual style, but my stomach ruled me for a moment back there, and I don’t have enough money to even get street food. Hey I didn’t even know that suppliers had normal houses, or that there were normal houses… The clean won’t kill me, will it?” He quickly glanced about with mild paranoia. He felt that the house was trying to sterilize him as he stood there, he had built up a nice layer of street that kept the rest of the street off of him.
For a long time, Doll just stared at him. He was mad, utterly mad! This filthy, disgusting, besmirched male standing in her kitchen and babbling about normal houses and looking around as if cleanliness was a virus. It made her stomach turn, but it also made her, terrifyingly, feel the impulse to burst into hysterical laughter. She could feel that impulse getting disconcertingly strong. It wasn't until she heard a high, broken little giggle spill from her lips that Doll moved, turning behind her to grab the high-pressure jet from her sink. In one smooth motion she turned both taps to high, whirled to face Denver, and depressed the switch, aiming directly at him.
“EEEEEP!” He let out a high pitch scream as the water hit him square in the face. Lifting his arms to deflect the powerful jet he managed to get even wetter, his welding goggles were moved over his eyes, however they quickly filled with water through a large crack. His dreads soaked up the water like a sponge and promptly fell droop around his face. He gave up trying to avoid the spray and just took it with the most pitiful stare making him look like a drowned clown. “My stuff… all wet…” he whimpered as his pockets and shoes filled with water.
Doll still wasn't sure what had possessed her to turn the water spray on Denver. Perhaps it was out of anger (she doubted that) or to slow her galloping heart, but more likely it was the thought of the filth of him spreading through her pristine kitchen. She had expected him to flee the water, to vanish out the door and back into the teeming, writhing mass of street filth he'd come from, but...he didn't. He stood there looking at her with forlorn puppy-eyes as if she ought to feel guilty. For a moment she wondered if she should feel a little bad before dismissing the idea as preposterous. Still, her fear evaporated utterly. It didn't take an eye as practiced at nuance as hers to know that he was utterly incapable of being a threat to her or anything but his own interests. She let the spray stop, gesturing with the hose toward the door. "Get out." she said, calmly. "Come back later, when Alex is here."
Denver stood there mud dripping off his coat, puppy stare disappearing slowly as he let his eyes return to the muffins, behind her. He knew he shouldn’t but he had gotten into all this trouble because of them, and he could get into so much more, and he knew that. Doll could have called the cops and he would have been dragged out, his records looked over, and his organs repossessed, but she hadn’t. She was demanding that he leave, very persuasively too, and now he did know where his supplier lived, if he ever got enough money for another hit. His mind was racing in circles with no progressive thought, although some how a conclusion was made, and his body followed suit. Running past her to the muffins he nabbed one out of the pan, just cool enough, and continued right out the door, leaving filthy footprints behind. He ducked around the corner of the building and kneeled against the wall stuffing the most delicious piece of food ever into his mouth. He was soaked, clean, his favorite goggles broken, and his dreds wouldn’t dry for weeks, but was it worth it? The happy muffled mumbling around the stuffed cheeks said it all, so worth it.