Re: [Wayne Tower: Alexanders]
[In contrast to the outrageous opulence all around them, Shane looked scruffy as ever. Time behind a door without adequate shelter, food, clothing, water, and on and on meant he was rougher than he had been prior to the door's gobbling him and the others up. Thinner, with more muscle, but sharper bones, with hair cut hackneyed by dull scissors during an argument, he'd looked better. His skin still bore the signs of qualitative torture, bruises and the pearlescent coolness of new scars closing up freshly cleaned wounds.
His black eye had gone purple, but it wasn't swollen and it could open, and that was something. The months of dirt, grit, and gore were washed off under one of the diamond-spigotted showerheads and in some of Iris' fuckboy's disgustingly expensive clothing—even the fucking trackpants in coal gray and the lycra shirt that fit too loosely on his now-famished frame, he looked better now than he had when he first dragged his ass to the tower, eyed by everyone from sentry-types to the... waitstaff, or whatever the fuck. Shane didn't have the vocab for this shit. Sure, his fucking tooth was still the jagged fragmentation of tombstone in the bed of its socket, and he looked like hell, but it was better than the fucking hell he'd looked like before.
With everyone else finally fucking asleep, he wound his way toward the kitchen—after several detours because he had no fucking idea where he was going. With a cigarette between his lips, he nodded at Louis and Sam. (He hadn't smoked in six fucking months, No one was going to tell him to knock that shit out. Or, no one was going to tell him and not get their own fucking teeth knocked out.)
He still felt feral, wary around people, and not used to any of this bullshit, from the shining surfaces everywhere, to the happy faces of people he cared for—but he was pushing on through. He could smell the heaviness of moisture. His throat was sore, purpling from the grip of men from days before, and his voice was croakier than ever.] Hey, assholes. [He smiled crookedly, exhaling around the cigarette.] The fuck are you two up to?