Louis Donovan (strikethose) wrote in repose, @ 2017-05-11 17:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, burden bell, damian wainright, louis donovan |
log: antique store - louis, misha, and damian
Who: Damian, Misha, and Louis
What: Training montage!
Where: Apartment above the antique store.
The day after Bruce left the apartment, Louis woke in the morning feeling cold and sluggish. His long limbs were tangled in the bedsheets and a heavy comforter to guard against the spring chill. There was a thin rime of frost on the windowsill.
Anyone who had failed to cover their plants last night would find a garden full of wilted buds this morning, struck down by cold at the very beginning of the season. Louis did not garden. He could recognize, however, that he was colder this morning than he had been on previous mornings, cold and slow. It was as if he hadn’t already been healing for weeks, as if the wounds were still fresh. He dragged himself from bed. Perhaps a warm shower would make the difference.
As he pulled back the shower curtain, he glanced at the small mirror over the small sink. He tried not to look at his naked reflection, generally. There was no getting around the ugliness of the healing slashes, their length, their still-raw edges. The stitches were out, so at least there was that - no more black threads, just the rough, raw pink of just-healing tissue. He could take a proper shower with the stitches out, but the wounds still pulled when he stretched too far, or lifted something too heavy, dragging on the skin of his chest.
He didn't look in the mirror again when he stepped out, cleaner and a little less cold. He dressed, made tea, and was sitting down to the kitchen table before his sluggish memory caught up to his body - Misha and Damian were coming to the apartment today.
How could he have forgotten? He’d been up half the night worrying, until his general exhaustion took him down. What was this creeping malaise, then? Was it fear, or something else entirely? It had been worsening since the day before. They must come, however, especially after his talk with Sam. He'd been told a secret, and now he had a responsibility.
The door to the antique store was open downstairs, and the apartment was slowly warming with the arrival of the sun over the horizon. Louis felt a little colder than the air, a little drained. Bruce had been quiet company, but he'd been good company nonetheless, his muted desires playing out in the next room, just beyond the wall.
Louis tried not to think too much about what the future held, these days, or the likelihood that he would ever be completely safe around people he cared about. He lacked enough optimism to hope, anymore, for normality, or a comfortable life. He did meditate after talking to Bruce about it, though, since it gave him something he could do, and he tried to find a kind of center. Bruce was likely right. If he knew himself better - if he had more confidence, perhaps he could find himself, were he lost again.
He ate breakfast, tidied up, and put the kettle on. He might not be able to master his bizarre curse in a single sitting, but he could do some good for the boys by keeping an eye on Damian's condition and making sure they had a bit of food and a decent cup of tea. Company. It was strange to admit how much he'd missed it, regardless of the purpose for the visit.
The burden lessened, a little, the more he thought about his visitors. Any minute now.