Wolf (wolf_atthedoor) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-09-27 08:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | wolf |
Who: Wolf
What: After the fact.
Where: Hamartia #204
When: July 24.
Warnings: Nada.
He sleeps through most of the day after. What few windows exist in #204 were boarded up; no light streams in to disturb him from his post-lunar coma. Eventually Wolf wakes -- it's something he tells himself he'll get used to, soldier on from -- this time in his new home's bathtub. Every muscle in his body aches, thrums with unspent energy. The clothes he's wearing brush over his skin; it borders on over-stimulation even as the cuts and scrapes on his hands sting sweetly. For awhile, he lies in the tub spattered with his own blood, a two-tone Jackson Pollock, porcelain cool on his cheek. It's comforting, the lack of movement. With just the sound of his own breathing as accompaniment (and the flicker-hum of florescent lightbulbs, traffic outside, the neighbor next door and the neighbors upstairs handling silverware, shifting furniture, watching television, tapping away at keyboards, living, living loud-so-loud), he almost feels soothed.
An hour of nothing in particular goes by before Wolf manages the herculean task of sitting up. There's no turning on the light, certainly no checking his reflection. He lurches to his feet and, mostly dressed, turns on the shower. Another hour gone, this time in a blind and cotton-mouthed fugue even after it's icy water streaming over his bowed head, his weary shoulders. When hot blood goes cool and he starts shivering, Wolf climbs out to change. It's a bit of an awkward process because in addition to no furniture, he owns no towels, few clothes.
Real relief only arrives after he scrounges up a meal and settles in with a library book. Its spine creaks, Wolf smiles; Joss recommended this one. They hardly know one another, but she speaks the language of his dreams, a revelation which at once thrills and unsettles the not-quite-man. These days the reading is very nearly secondary -- Wolf runs his hands over the object of his literary affection, fingertips skimming first spine (Dor, Dor's back, the angle of her shoulders and the line of her neck.), then across pages which rustle whisper-quiet. Focusing on that sound means a dimming of all others; the cool breeze of flipping pages is almost worth this anathema. With knees drawn to his chest and his back against the wall -- he's ever so careful to slick back damp hair, concerned about droplets raining across already stained pages -- Wolf raises the book, ducks his head, closes his eyes in hedonistic pleasure as he sucks in the scent of stories. (She doesn't wear perfume the way most women do, but even from a distance he knows Dor's shampoo, the distinctly her scent which permeates her clothes and apartment.)
Today he's man enough to resist rubbing his cheek across the cover, though it's a few seconds' worth of fight to not cave (And her fine wrist held between his fingers, skin soft and thin, worth marveling over in lieu of kissing the back of her hand the way Wolf so wanted to.) -- everything is worth touching since crossing over. Sometimes it frightens him, the way he barely even thinks to resist before following his urges. Other times, like today, he's just grateful to wrap every sense up in something so simple-not as a book. "Escape" is an operative word, Wolf's keystone when he feels his threads begin unraveling.
He devours every word. It's eaten up in one sitting, hours spent unmoving on the floor, and he's unaware of how he hums and murmurs and thankfully does not howl, of how his expression flickers like a gas lamp, as changeable as a child's. The story snatches Wolf up like riptide, carries him away out of his own muzzy head. At the end, he sighs. Closes the book, smooths a hand over its cover and sets it down gently before stretching hard so every joint appears to crack as one. He's not right -- nothing is yet right, but Wolf can feel things start heading in that direction.
Dor's out there, his lady-love. She can run but can't etcetera, and Wolf wonders if she remembers how much he likes the chase. His smile is noontime sunshine; he'll remind her, obviously. But first -- first thing's first! -- would be a thank you to Joss for her book recommendation. And a secret. Oh ho, secrets owed were secrets spent.