Felixentric

Scene 16: Your Shower has Hot Water?

The following morning, Quinn was quiet and it appeared he hadn't slept much.

Felix wondered if he'd been thinking about their argument and about the thirteen appendages woman. He wondered if he'd been scarred by the mind control. He wondered if the people he was fighting hurt him badly.

And, more than all else, Felix felt bad for throwing Quinn under the bus.

But instead of saying he was sorry, Felix said "Maybe you should just go back to sleep. You look like toad dung."

"Too much to do," Quinn replied as he hunched over his deskwork and threw a hand through his matted hair. "And you aren't looking too hot either."

It was true Felix hadn't slept perfectly either. Maybe it was the new bed. Maybe it was the recent Fading. Or maybe it was because he'd been so conditioned to waking up to the sound of nature - birds whistling and plants growing. But the city morning sounded like rushing trucks, wind rolling, and harsh whispers.

Too much was changing all at once.

"And I think you have a chronic shiver," Quinn added. "Everytime I look at you, you're shivering. So either you're cold..." He held out a blanket. "Or you're on drugs."

"Excuse me?"

"Superluminal, kalopsia, wastoid, secretly cataplexic and quite honestly, I just feel like you look like a stoner. I'm saying it as I see it."

Felix shook his head. "What's with the big words?"

"I like words. Big ones are the best."

"Well," he thought about getting back at him. He noticed the ratty shorts and knotted hair. "I think you look homeless."

Quinn looked at him funny. "Last time I checked that was you."

Felix's features fell cold. He was in the city. Not in a rocketship floating around in space, not in a tiny blue house, and not anywhere guarded by nature.

He was in a cage.

"Everything alright?" Quinn's jokes had faded.

Felix bit his lip. "Yeah..." he said, but swallowed harshly. Like the lie was really that hard to force down.

Quinn narrowed his eyes. "You really do suck at speaking your mind."

I don't think my mind is something you want in this air. That's called pollution.

But what he really wanted to talk about was Hale. He wanted Quinn or Janette to know how the ghost had been following him in late nights, through forest paths, and slept at the foot of his bed. But Felix had been quiet about this for four years already. He wouldn't know where to start.

"Anything?"

But of course. "No."

Quinn seemed almost disappointed by this. In a moment's time, he'd already shook his head and went back to work. In the hour following, Felix managed to perceive what might have been the most vicious working process he'd ever imagined.

First, Quinn rustled through drawers and tossed books around the room. He looked like a madman, but also a lot like a genius. Like he was some sort of mastermind, with an incredible intelligence lost somewhere behind his less-trusting image. Like the roughhouse figurehead was only a game compared to the long list of vocabulary words rambling through his brain.

After an hour or so, Quinn ripped a pair of shorts off the floor and kicked a bunch of magazines under the bed before scampering into the bathroom. When Felix peered back into the room, all of the things Quinn had thrown were already back in order or hidden somewhere else. It was his illusion of making the place look clean.