| Oliver and Hannah |
[15 Dec 2007|06:22pm] |
Four a.m. He knew because the digital clock on the bedside table had red numbers, and every time a minute ticked past, he could see the shape of them change as he lay on top of the covers and failed to fall asleep. He was tired, he supposed, but every time he closed his eyes he just couldn't manage to drop off. Not enough to drink, maybe. Maybe if he lay here for long enough, he'd go to sleep. Either that or it would start to get early and the sun would come up instead.
Oliver sat up and rubbed his face, looking balefully at the clock. Maybe if he unplugged it, that would help. Why did the numbers have to be red, for fuck's sake? Someone should look into inventing a clock with a more soothing color scheme for the digits. That would be a good direction to put some research money in. He should ask his broker in the morning for information about companies checking that out.
The spellcaster flopped back on the bed, then rolled onto his stomach. Sleep was usually not this long in coming. He was stubborn, though. He could wait it out.
Hannah, on the other hand, could not.
Impatience had taken on a whole new meaning with immortality. She heard once that vampires were incredibly patient creatures, because they knew they had all the time in the world. But to Hannah, that impossibly long stretch of eternity made things all the worse. Seconds, minutes, hours, days… none of them meant much.
In her life, Hannah had been a list girl. Armed with spiral notepads and multicolored pens, she had written things down simply for the joy of scratching them off. On Earth, the little squares on her calendars could be slashed through in red ink, and then the pages torn away. Now there were no red letter days, no end point in sight. It was like being a child again… Ants in her pants, and a million days to go until Christmas.
For what was she so impatient?
Another event worth marking the passage of time.
For some reason, knowing about Oliver gave that to her.
The eerie, red glow of his clock lit the room. Hannah sat in an armchair, her knees pressed together and her ankles spread apart. She bit her thumb. You shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t. The tandem voices in her head belonged to ancient beings, awesome in their power, but to Hannah, they sounded more and more like gnats. If only she could swat them away.
Slowly, the body caught up with the spirit, and Hannah’s weight settled onto the chair. The cushion creaked.
Oliver was not, however, asleep. He was merely lying on his stomach with his arm over his eyes as if that was going to help, keeping his face turned stubbornly away from the maddening clock, whose glowing digits actually seemed to hum, they were so bright. Yeah, he was going to unplug it in the morning, because if he didn't it was going to end up smashed to bits in the parking lot after he threw it off of his balcony.
Counting sheep was supposed to work, wasn't it? Not that he'd ever tried. He'd never needed to. Maybe it was leftover jet lag. He'd always hated flying. Dinner had tasted the way it should, which meant nothing had disagreed with his digestion. So why...
The creak came to him through the static of his thoughts, breaking them off cleanly in the middle, and he moved his arm a fraction away from his eyes before opening them a crack. The room was dark, and there was no other noise to follow the creak. Christ, that was all he needed, to start hearing things.
He shifted on the bed, not moving very much, only as if he meant to turn over. He ended up on his opposite side, looking at the clock again, then away from it, towards the wall. Nothing seemed to be moving.
The mage rolled onto his back at last, opening his eyes more fully and peering into the gloom. If he was hearing things, he'd deal with it. At least he knew he wasn't drunk enough to hallucinate. He really hated creaking noises.
“Oliver!”
The whisper was sharp and quick, like an aural slice through the air.
“Are you awake?”
( Did You Follow Me Home, Pixie? )
( Story Time )
( Cause and Effect )
( The Prize (**Adult Content**) )
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