f (foundling) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-02-03 11:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *log, cristián martin-argüelles, sam alexander |
Log, Marvel: Sam A & Cris M
Who: Sam Alexander & Cris Martin-Argüelles
What: seeing each other
Where: Marvel, Cris' apartment
When: an hour after this
Warnings/Rating: Sam's language, likely topics of violence, assault, suicide, etc. The usual.
Snow was tracked inside the door, packed down and gray from the rubber bottoms of boots bought too-big (for practical reasons) and kept on with three pairs of socks and a lot of arguing back and forth about if there should be a fourth pair. The snow puddled carbon pollution on hardwood, in small steps that wound out the front door and back inside, before tracking back out, down the shoveled and salted walk, and disappearing into the feet-thick snow to the right, a path trampled through by a stampede of small bodies in puffy coats and mittens and the corpse-drag of their caravan of sleds. Cris was on his knees, ratty rag in hand, cleaning up the story told by the kicked-loose snow of how his daughter had said goodbye, got about two thirds of the way down the sidewalk, before rushing back in for a hug, some fear lingering in her that her daddy might not be there when she came back.—Of course he told her, he would be. He wasn't going anywhere. He'd have cocoa ready, a bath, and then they could stack plastic cups and he could bowl her into them across the shined wood floor of the upstairs hallway—one of her favorite games. He promised her that as he tagged her mittens to her sleeves, some wetness already in his eyes, and kissed her mejillas sonrosadas, water pooling from her boots and soaking into the knees of his sweats. He was a mess. Black shadow along his jaw, hair a thicket that curled when it wasn't brushed out, wifebeater and wet-kneed sweatpants. The lack of sleep was clear under dark eyes, but he wasn't soft or loose because of it. If anything, Cris seemed sharper, more tense, muscles twitching beneath brown skin as he worked at the melted snow inside the door, cold air breathing through the crack beneath jamb and kickplate and raising goosebumps along his arms. His preocupación had grown unruly, wanton and gorged on seawater, bloated with salt. It devoured Teresita whole, bunny boots and all, Sam too. But her he couldn't calm with peanut butter sandwiches and cocoa, and that lined coal black beneath his eyes, a realization made out of desperation. His phone was useless on the coffee table, deeper inside the apartment, by the TV that continued its midday children's shows in cruel pitched voices that waited for callbacks with blank eyes animated by a computer. His laptop was open there too, his tablet. Everything pulled around, six or seven empty energy drink cans standing sentinel amid the mess of crayons and technology, wax and glass and aluminum reduction. But at least, estaba agradable y cálido dentro de la casa, the unholy blizzard outside having quieted to a day with blue skies and a cold that bore down like glass.—Cris had been awake for hours, veins rough with acid-blood, and all he wanted was to see Sam. Now that he had Teresa, now that he was home, his attention shifted to the girl taken from his apartment, and it stayed there with all the stubbornness and tenacity of the obsessed. He was relieved she'd agreed to come, but none of that showed through. It was all stiff-muscled swipes at the floor and a heel of resentment against the roof of his mouth when he thought about Neil denying him Sam's location, when he thought about the girl herself refusing him, and he wasn't used to not being told things. It made him feel small, useless again, like the kid huddled against the wall as his parents fought, one with words, another with fists that sounded like butcher's knives on flesh, and it boiled along with that desperation into something like gunpowder, live and dangerous. |