Brigs Mercer ; Mercutio (mercurialman) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-10-13 02:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | mercutio |
Who: Brigs and a strange man.
What: Sleeping In (a narrative)
Where: Bathos #403
When: Monday afternoon.
Warnings: Some suggestion of adult behavior, but nothing explicit. Also, Brigs is really strange.
It was the sound of a great clattering coming from the bathroom in Brigham’s apartment that finally woke him – finally because the clock on his nightstand said 4:51 PM, and Brigham because the man who woke up certainly did not feel like Brigs Mercer. He didn’t feel charismatic or fascinating or enchanting or even very pleasant at all. Instead he felt lifeless, and lackluster, and more than a little nauseous. His head weighed a thousand pounds and had it been an alarm clock or a phone call that woke him, he would have been inclined to destroy the device and go back to sleep. He wasn’t entirely sure what day it was, and his memories of the night previous were coming in gauzy soft-filtered trickles of memory interwoven with dream elements that lingered hot and fresh on his synapses. He was at home, but how had he gotten there? And where had he come from? His last definite memory was of being at the office on… Sunday afternoon? So it was probably Monday. Yes, that sounded right. As he squinted his eyes against the late afternoon sun that streamed so generously through his windows, he heard the noise again. Still coming from the bathroom, but instead of another clatter this time he heard a heavy footfall and a few muffled curses. Someone else was in the apartment. He sat up in bed and wondered with a flicker of panic if the reading lamp was a feasible bludgeoning weapon, but Brigham had always been kind of scrawny for his height and he doubted his ability to do harm to an intruder. Just as he was contemplating his foolish lack of a defensive strategy against home invasion, Brigham’s gaze fell to the lurid pattern of his bedspread – or rather, the dark navy suit jacket that lay rumpled there. He snatched it up and felt the smooth unfamiliarity of the material between his fingers, checked the tag, and finally he held it up against his shoulders. It was too big, by several sizes at least. He only vaguely recognized the label and the look and feel of the jacket was expensive. It was the sort of jacket that the old Brigham had been made to wear throughout most of his young life, regardless of his own will or inclinations to wear jeans and a flannel shirt every day. It was the sort of jacket that Brigs would now wear to important parties, after appealing to an innocent shopgirl and walking out of the store with the item on loan for a weekend. Most importantly, it was the sort of jacket that Brigs couldn’t actually afford to own. All of this meant, of course, that he was in luck. There was no burglar in his apartment – just a well-dressed man who couldn’t figure out how to start the water for the shower. A man who smelled like driftwood and lemon and left traces lingering above rumpled bedsheets. Allowing his mind to drift in the direction of the bathroom, he could sense the man’s mind right there, projecting images of Brigs even as he fumbled with the tub faucets. He held in his focus such a clear likeness - untamed blond hair a mess on the pillow as Brigham’s chest rose and fell with even breaths – that, as he sensed this, it was like looking into a tilted mirror that scattered light in every direction. It was disorienting light, unbalanced and lacking stability. It was also intoxicating. It was so vivid that he hadn’t even needed to exert any influence on the other mind, and that somehow made it feel cleaner. Pure like spring water. He fed hungrily on the attentions of this man whose name he didn’t even know and he felt his own pulse quicken in his throat, a sped-up step and rev into high gear and, oh – there it was. Warm, golden light and life that filled his head and flushed his cheeks a pale pink and soothed the ache behind his eyes, that spilled over and seeped through his pores into the cotton bindings that held him to his bed and to his world. His toes curled and his back arched in an expression of exquisite bliss, of all being right in the here, in the now. It was a soft wave of energy, clean and uninhibited, and he rode it for an endless few minutes before his head suddenly cleared and he found himself on his bed once again. He felt the same, and he felt different. Better. He felt like Brigs again – like the old Brigham had retreated to a safe distance, taking the ache and the bitterness with him. He felt… new. It was glorious. He practically bounced out of bed, grabbing a discarded pair of jeans from his laundry hamper and wriggling into them so that he could pretend to possess some semblance of modesty as he padded down the hallway. He paused outside the bathroom door and heard the sound of running water, so he could only assume that the mystery man had figured out the shower mechanism on the tub. He continued on to the kitchen and stretched his arms over his head, yawning contentedly in the afternoon sunlight. Of course, the kitchen wasn’t entirely as he remembered leaving it. This was usually the case on mornings after he crashed; he was accustomed to finding various rooms in his apartment in different rates of disarray, with random articles missing or moved to odd locations. However, this morning was markedly different because it was the first time something completely new had just appeared in his apartment: sitting right there on the island in the kitchen was a large cardboard box, about the same size as the one his microwave had arrived in. The box was unremarkable, but inside was something altogether unfamiliar. It looked like a few misshapen tennis balls clumped together in the corner of the box, but then one of them moved and he recognized them for what they were. There were five kittens; they huddled around the hot water bottles that Brigs had apparently piled in the corner of the box last night, along with clean blankets and towels. They were making plaintive, pathetic mewling sounds and they were likely the most adorable creatures he’d ever seen. They were small enough to fit easily into one hand, but he knew next to nothing about cats and couldn’t have guessed their age if his life depended on it. They were probably too small to be separated from their mother, which meant that he’d found them as strays sometime last night and brought them home (-oh please God tell me I didn’t steal some pour soul’s kittens in the middle of the night, please don’t let me be an actual cat burgl-). This was… weird, but not that weird. Not for Brigs, and certainly not for a night that he couldn’t even remember. Yes, this was very much on the tame end of the spectrum of things that he'd decided to bring home while less than coherent. Just then, he heard the water shut off in the bathroom. With any luck, the mystery man would still have his memory and could fill him in on the whole story. They could eat breakfast (towers of waffles and rivers of real maple syrup) and have coffee and Brigs could learn the man’s name, and they could part ways. He would take the kittens into the same veterinary clinic where he took his dog Jersey, and learn how to take care of them until he could see about finding them homes. He’d have to phone the clinic and ask about their walk-in policy. The sound of the bathroom door opening pulled Brigs out of his thoughts. Of course, it would be a waste if he couldn’t get just one more taste of the man’s mind. What would it be like when he actually made an effort to enchant him? Brigs headed back down the hallway toward his bedroom in no particular hurry, a professionally demure smile already curling into place on his lips. He suspected it would be glorious. |