Not Like That

Untitled Part 4

The first thing that occured to him through the morning amnesia was that the poster-plastered ceiling he staring up at was his. His bedroom. He couldn't remember sleeping in there in years, and as memories drifted back he struggled to recall why.

Then he sat up, and the pile of smuppets he'd collapsed into squeaked loudly like a chorus of the most filthy angels. Right, it was his store room now. That would be it.

Bro groaned and rubbed at his face, partially to dislodge the brilliantly coloured felt fibres he could just feel clinging to his stubble and partly to try to speed the transition from practically drunk on drowsiness to just awake enough to actually get up. Oh god, had he taken his shirt off? There were smuppet imprints all over him, like some botched tattoo gone horribly, horribly wrong. While he was fond of his creations in many intimate ways, that fell short of wanting his body adorned with them. Shit, had some of the orange dye come off or was he imagining that? He could swear there was a slight orange tinge and that stuff wouldn't wash out, so fuck if he was taking his shirt off again for a while, and what if Dave saw it and was an ass about it, or worse what if someone at a club saw it and-

Oh shit. The club. He'd had work last night.

"Fuck!" He muttered, searching for his phone amongst the plush rumps and felt proboscises, considering it a minor triumph when he managed to locate his rainbow-felt covered shirt. As he pulled it on he recalled hiding his phone and not collecting it again, and then recalled his argument with Dave that basically amounted to them both being prone to escalating everything quickly, and then groaned as he once again remembered sleeping instead of just going to fucking work.

He dressed as best he could, ending up looking like some toddler had attacked him with pretty colours, but at least the smuppet-hickeys were covered. Smuppet-hickeys. That was their name now, that was a thing.

Now the mission became collect his phone from on top of the fridge, and avoid Dave, little stroppy shit that he probably was right now. Luckily both of those things had an easy answer, so with a slight roll of his shoulders to crack them, he reached up and hooked the cord of the crawlspace, opening the hatch and jumping up so his fingers caught, pulling himself up to crouch on the edge and loom over the hole like the goddam Batman. He closed the hatch back up and paused for a moment to listen for signs of where Dave was, and of course he was in the kitchen. Of course he was.

He crept silently over the floor, stepping over the beams he knew would creak with careful grace, avoiding putting weight on the other trapdoors Dave wasn't actually aware of. He manouevered around the vent of the faulty air conditioning unit he would sometimes climb to get to the roof when he really wanted to be alone, and then stopped on the edge of the trapdoor above the kitchenette, drawing in a long, deep breath and then holding it as he delicately hitched it off the small catch that usually prevented it opening upwards, flipping it open and cautiously examining the layout of the room below as he laid it to rest on the messy, dusty floor.

Dave was staring at the microwave, leaning his head on his arms, disinterestedly swilling apple juice around a small bottle as he prodded the pile of fireworks he'd had to remove prior to cooking. He could see his phone in the gap between the fridge and ceiling, and crouched low to the ground opposite, trying to calculate how best to grab the thing. Nothing a little effort and a lot of flexibility couldn't solve.

With a soft exhale and then another deep breath in, Bro lay back on the trapdoor above the fridge, arms gripping the edges of the hole as he eased himself further back. As soon as he was far enough, he cocked an ear, hearing Dave rambling to himself, still in the same place. He was pretty sure the kid didn't realise those little dialogues were out loud. Good thing, too - they were like a beacon, and the way Bro always knew exactly where Dave was. It was that or when he had music playing loud enough in his earphones to hear a room away.