*glares harder at Muse*
...Did I say three months? Apparently Muse has been vacationing on some planet with a much different rotational arrangement... Anyhoo, several deadlines-out-of-the-way later, The Next Bit. Computer willing -- which, um, yeah; George is five now, and starting to make the occasional arthritic noises in his dvd drive when he starts up, which I don't even know how panicked to be about major-organ-wise -- I'm hoping to get back to this in a more timely fashion. Assuming the fashion for blogging and literature and indeed civilisation hasn't ended altogether whilst I was attending to other matters...
***
For our supper Jason manages to pull his usual miracle out of an unfamiliar fridge and the remains of our cooler. You laughed when I packed the stick-blender. After a few false starts Mick works out which of the settees turns into a bed and retires himself upstairs with the dog. I gather we've run through his capacity for making sense to strangers for the evening. "Interesting chap," I say once the sound of footfalls above has settled.
"Yeah, if I lived this far from anybody I'd be self-medicating pretty heavily too." The bed protests when Jason sits on it, rasp of a thousand mechanical mice being closed in a door. I join him gingerly, half-afraid the contraption will buck me off. Sharing an unfamiliar bed with a familiar bloke stirs up sense-memories of doubling-up with my cousin Aled when my side had first come to stay after Mam died. "Just don't do the rolling up like a burrito thing," Jason says as we settle in. Beat. "Man, I could go for some burritos."
"You just ate supper."
"Like you don't have the munchies. I saw the way you were looking at the dog's neck."
"Piss off."
"I mean it, man, if you're gonna nom me in your sleep because you're still high maybe you should just bite me now and get it over with."
When I roll over to look at Jason he's blinking, maybe afraid he's pushed something past a line we've kept drawn. "Sorry?"
"Well, you're gonna be hell in the car if you don't feed sometime soon, you're all bruised around your eyes like you get. I figured, um." Wan grin. "I showed you mine."
He has a point. And his blood is as red as anyone else's. I look again at the offered wrist and take it with an inward shrug. Morning will come regardless.
It's been some while, but not so long I can't recognise that edge where I could easily drink my fill without caring what became of him and break away, with a last wistful lap at the welling tracks to tidy my traces. Jason's closed eyes slide open, dilated pupils adrift in a shallow sea. "You pay them?" he says, as if I've got this rather the wrong way round.
"Piss off." I must admit I do feel restored, even just these few precious drops.
Jason snorts at this, and then, without warning, folds me into a bear-hug like a doll. And says, already sleep-slurred, "You're warmer. I mean, you're never warm, but... you're warmer."
When Mick's creeping downstairs to start a pot of coffee wakes me the dog has crammed himself between us, blissfully breathing stink in Jason's oblivious face. Our host spares a grin for the scene as he sees I'm stirring: "That was some good shit, man. Laddie's still flyin'."
"I don't imagine that can be terribly good for him," I say, wondering what one should think about the moral hazards of contributing to the delinquency of a pit-bull.
Mick laughs. "Aw, he's old enough to make up his own mind about it, aren't you, Laddie." The dog makes a phlegmy noise of possible agreement.
Even Jason can't pretend to be asleep through this much conversation over his head. He squints at me, eyes struggling to focus, and at last says, head still tilted, "Does Neil Gaiman know you took his hair?"
"Piss off."
But there's a subtle reassurance to the casual jibes, the unspoken affirmation as Jason glances at the plaster on his wrist:
It's cool. We're cool.
***
For our supper Jason manages to pull his usual miracle out of an unfamiliar fridge and the remains of our cooler. You laughed when I packed the stick-blender. After a few false starts Mick works out which of the settees turns into a bed and retires himself upstairs with the dog. I gather we've run through his capacity for making sense to strangers for the evening. "Interesting chap," I say once the sound of footfalls above has settled.
"Yeah, if I lived this far from anybody I'd be self-medicating pretty heavily too." The bed protests when Jason sits on it, rasp of a thousand mechanical mice being closed in a door. I join him gingerly, half-afraid the contraption will buck me off. Sharing an unfamiliar bed with a familiar bloke stirs up sense-memories of doubling-up with my cousin Aled when my side had first come to stay after Mam died. "Just don't do the rolling up like a burrito thing," Jason says as we settle in. Beat. "Man, I could go for some burritos."
"You just ate supper."
"Like you don't have the munchies. I saw the way you were looking at the dog's neck."
"Piss off."
"I mean it, man, if you're gonna nom me in your sleep because you're still high maybe you should just bite me now and get it over with."
When I roll over to look at Jason he's blinking, maybe afraid he's pushed something past a line we've kept drawn. "Sorry?"
"Well, you're gonna be hell in the car if you don't feed sometime soon, you're all bruised around your eyes like you get. I figured, um." Wan grin. "I showed you mine."
He has a point. And his blood is as red as anyone else's. I look again at the offered wrist and take it with an inward shrug. Morning will come regardless.
It's been some while, but not so long I can't recognise that edge where I could easily drink my fill without caring what became of him and break away, with a last wistful lap at the welling tracks to tidy my traces. Jason's closed eyes slide open, dilated pupils adrift in a shallow sea. "You pay them?" he says, as if I've got this rather the wrong way round.
"Piss off." I must admit I do feel restored, even just these few precious drops.
Jason snorts at this, and then, without warning, folds me into a bear-hug like a doll. And says, already sleep-slurred, "You're warmer. I mean, you're never warm, but... you're warmer."
When Mick's creeping downstairs to start a pot of coffee wakes me the dog has crammed himself between us, blissfully breathing stink in Jason's oblivious face. Our host spares a grin for the scene as he sees I'm stirring: "That was some good shit, man. Laddie's still flyin'."
"I don't imagine that can be terribly good for him," I say, wondering what one should think about the moral hazards of contributing to the delinquency of a pit-bull.
Mick laughs. "Aw, he's old enough to make up his own mind about it, aren't you, Laddie." The dog makes a phlegmy noise of possible agreement.
Even Jason can't pretend to be asleep through this much conversation over his head. He squints at me, eyes struggling to focus, and at last says, head still tilted, "Does Neil Gaiman know you took his hair?"
"Piss off."
But there's a subtle reassurance to the casual jibes, the unspoken affirmation as Jason glances at the plaster on his wrist:
It's cool. We're cool.