Post by mickey on Jan 21, 2007 16:42:15 GMT -5
He still shocked himself in the mirror every time he woke up in his minimalist prison of an apartment. Right after the Cure, Mickey had kind of had a thing for mirrors. He'd liked looking over and seeing himself in full color. That and it had helped him feel less alone, rattling around several hundred square feet by himself. It had been one of the design concepts he'd given his interior decorator to build with. Mirrors, light and white - all color stood out starkly against the blank canvas. He'd loved it then.
Now it was just weird. He blended into everything; some of the furnishings, including the enormous squishy couch upon which he spent a vast deal of time playing Halo II, was a soft heather gray. So was he. He caught sight of nothing in the mirrors unnless he looked harder; he disappeared, almost. Like a vampire.
He'd thought he was a vampire when he first started showing his mutation. Sapping color like he was sapping energy. He'd been in that sort of a frame of mind. It had been stupid, but it made sense at the time.
Now he was just trying to fill up the apartment, to make himself stand out again. He bought fresh fruit, Tang, cranberry juice and endless Indian takeout, colorful things to make his kitchen look fuller. He bought sari fabric from the Indian markets at night, tacking it to the walls and draping it over furniture. One day he bought red paint and coated his bedroom in it, splashing it all over the carpet since he'd neglected to put newspaper under the kick moulding or tape over the crown. It all looked awful. The place had been designed around one theme; you couldn't just tape another on top. But it made him feel better. It made him stick out a little.
It was strange to think of himself as a mutant again. The only thing that wasn't strange, really, was to wake up in his own bed. He'd spent so little time at Rogue's Place that the bed there had never grown familiar. He swam luxuriously in the king-size four-poster and its new blue silk sheets and down comforter, sleeping for hours into the morning and eventually ceasing to see daylight at all. The white daylight was not so warm as the gold of his halogen bulbs, and the careful lighting system hilighted main accents more discriminately and tastefully than the sun ever could.
In the back of his mind, he knew this wasn't healthy. But at the fore of his mind, there was nothing but a desperate need for color and a cigarette.
Now it was just weird. He blended into everything; some of the furnishings, including the enormous squishy couch upon which he spent a vast deal of time playing Halo II, was a soft heather gray. So was he. He caught sight of nothing in the mirrors unnless he looked harder; he disappeared, almost. Like a vampire.
He'd thought he was a vampire when he first started showing his mutation. Sapping color like he was sapping energy. He'd been in that sort of a frame of mind. It had been stupid, but it made sense at the time.
Now he was just trying to fill up the apartment, to make himself stand out again. He bought fresh fruit, Tang, cranberry juice and endless Indian takeout, colorful things to make his kitchen look fuller. He bought sari fabric from the Indian markets at night, tacking it to the walls and draping it over furniture. One day he bought red paint and coated his bedroom in it, splashing it all over the carpet since he'd neglected to put newspaper under the kick moulding or tape over the crown. It all looked awful. The place had been designed around one theme; you couldn't just tape another on top. But it made him feel better. It made him stick out a little.
It was strange to think of himself as a mutant again. The only thing that wasn't strange, really, was to wake up in his own bed. He'd spent so little time at Rogue's Place that the bed there had never grown familiar. He swam luxuriously in the king-size four-poster and its new blue silk sheets and down comforter, sleeping for hours into the morning and eventually ceasing to see daylight at all. The white daylight was not so warm as the gold of his halogen bulbs, and the careful lighting system hilighted main accents more discriminately and tastefully than the sun ever could.
In the back of his mind, he knew this wasn't healthy. But at the fore of his mind, there was nothing but a desperate need for color and a cigarette.