Paradigm Shift | By : AlexPhoenix Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 4077 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. The only thing I own is Alex, Ronan, and their actions/thoughts. This is all for fun; not monetary values. |
Chapter 7: Evil Light of Day
I woke up the next morning to tomato red filling my vision. I cracked open an eyelid, only to be greeted by a blinding ray of sunshine. Groaning like a zombie in a 1960's horror flick, I shoved my face into my pillow and cursed the architect that had thought it was a good idea to put a bedroom on the east side of a house. I did not want to be awake yet. I wanted to be in the world of make-believe, where life was all rainbow-farting unicorns and butterflies made of glitter. Being awake meant I had to deal with the reality of asinine humans and appalling memories. It also meant that I had to deal with Loki.
I really, really wished he hadn't heard my conversation with my mother. It was bad enough that my old life had followed me to my new home, but it was so much worse to have a stranger know about my deplorable childhood. Ronan didn't even know, and he was my best human friend. Hell, I didn't even want to know about it! It's why I left in the first place; so I could push my shitty past life to the back of my head and never have to think about it again. And now, Loki knew.
I wondered if a lobotomy would make him forget that he'd heard anything. I quickly came to the conclusion that it wouldn't do anything but make him even crazier than he already was. Besides, lobotomies just made people not feel as in touch with their emotions, right? Come to think of it, I might actually need a lobotomy. Not feeling anything sounded way better than feeling like I wanted to stab someone in the neck with a titanium spork. Or crying. I loathed the act of crying.
My mind skewed off into twenty different directions at once, taking every possibly avenue for overthinking that it could. Thoughts about my family, about Ronan, about Loki, about Phoenix, and about my current and past lives all mixed themselves together until it was like I was looking at a tornado of memories. My brain was so active that I could actually see said tornado when I blinked. That meant that I was either already awake enough to not need coffee, or that I was so tired that I'd lost all control over my thought processes. Either way, I needed java. In one instance, it would calm me down to where my mind wasn’t a 1996 blockbuster, and in the other it would wake me up.
If I could only will my body to move from the comfort of my blankets, I would go make caffeinated goodness. I lay there, my face in shoved into my pillow, contemplating if I should try getting up and making coffee, or if I should just give up and go back to sleep. The mental twister behind my eyelids and the evil ball of fire in the sky were going to make it damn near impossible for me to slip into the dreamscape again. I wished I could will myself to move. Then, like the strangest genie in human history, my bladder granted my wish. I could almost hear the bundle of muscle saying "You want to move? I'll make you move!"
I was both grateful and annoyed at the ball located behind my pubic bone. It gave me the incentive to move my lazy ass out of bed. But, it also made me move my lazy ass out of bed. I still wanted to collapse back into a mini-coma, but necessary bodily functions kept me from being able to do so. The phrase "be careful what you wish for" sprung to the forefront of my mind. Stupid wish granting bladder genies just had to make that phrase relevant in my life.
With one more tired groan, I fell out of my bed. Literally. I rolled to the side and the floor rushed up to greet me in an overenthusiastic hug. I turned my face just in time to not break my nose as I connected with barely cushioned concrete. Any hope of it being a good morning promptly shriveled up and died on my steel gray carpet. I lay there, trying to figure out why my feet hadn't kept me from faceplanting. I dragged my face across the rough fibers of the rug so I could chastise my legs for not doing their job, and found them tangled in royal blue sheets.
Oh, I thought to myself, that's why my legs didn't save the morning. They were too wrapped up in something else.
I almost smacked myself for my own crappy pun. Instead, I decided to just go pee. I could smack myself later. Placing my hands on either side of my chest, I shoved myself up in a pushup that would make any drill sergeant proud, and violently kicked off the sheets. I got my feet under my body and let them carry me to the end of my bed. I scooped up a gray pair of sweatpants that I'd flung at the foot of the bed the night before, slipping the soft cotton fabric over my ghostly legs before I made my way to the bedroom door.
Usually, I slept in a tank top and underwear, and would walk around my house in just that in the mornings. But, I currently had a male guest, who I really didn't think would want to see Casper legs first thing after he woke up. I mean, a woman in nothing but black panties and a red tank top would be attractive to any heterosexual male, but it probably took away some of the sex appeal if she was almost translucent in her paleness. If I stood in the sun, I could blind people with my whiteness. It was a problem. A bigger problem was that I literally could not tan. I was stuck being Frosty for the rest of my life.
I quietly opened my bedroom door, looking around to make sure Loki wasn't in the hallway or the living room beyond. He wasn't. His door wasn't even open. So, unless he was in the kitchen being as quiet as empty air, then I highly doubted he was awake. I let out a relieved sigh as I stepped into the hallway. I padded my way down to the open bathroom door, trying my damndest to not sway on my feet as I walked. The longer I was awake, the more I knew that coffee consumption was required.
By the time I closed the door to the bathroom behind me, I had to pee like a Puerto Rican race horse. I had no idea what made Puerto Rican race horses have to piss more than any other race horse, but that was the analogy my tired mind was going with. I did my business and washed my hands, glancing at myself in the mirror as I let water rinse away soap residue.
My midback-length hair was a tangled ball of fuzz, as it usually was in the morning. My icy blue eyes were bright underneath the smudges of dark brown hair that swept across my delicate brow bone. My lashes were lowered over my eyes, making me look like an exhausted seductress. My cheeks were back to their normal color: milky white with a gentle touch of pink. My lips were pursed thin from the concentration I used to wash my hands. Ronan said that I always had an air of determination in everything I did. I never realized how right he was until just then. Who in the world concentrates so hard on the simple task of sanitizing themselves? Apparently, I did.
I turned away from the mirror, finding that my hands were clean and sans soap. I quickly dried them off on a towel. My thoughts turned toward the kitchen and the most wonderful machine ever invented. Well, it wasn't better than Phoenix, but it was a close second. I wondered why I'd never named my second favorite device in existence. Probably because I only named cars. Yeah, that was more than likely the reason why I'd never before thought to name my second saving grace.
I opened the bathroom door and staggered my way into the kitchen. The second greatest machine ever invented sat on the counter, awaiting coffee grounds and water. I happily obliged its unspoken request, popping in a coffee filter and some grounds. Taking the pot out of its resting spot, I filled it with enough water for four cups of coffee, and poured the liquid into the machine. I set the glass pot in its original place and pressed the brew button. In a few long minutes, I would have liquid energy.
I opened the cabinet above the red machine of deliciousness and pulled out two mugs. My mug was white, with a hilarious black font printed across it: "What do we want? COFFEE! When do we want it? I will fucking cut you!" It perfectly expressed how I generally felt every single morning of my adult life. It was one of my favorites.
The other mug I pulled out was another one of my favorites. It had a panel from Gary Larson's The Far Side comic. The strip was of a woman reprimanding her cat for clawing the furniture, and the cat not hearing a word that the woman had said. It had belonged to my grandfather. He'd adored Gary Larson. We would often flip through the books and just laugh at the strips together. He usually had to explain the strips because I was only six or so, but it was a wonderful bonding experience.
I stared at the mug for a few heartbeats. It didn't take me long to decide that I really didn't want someone I'd just met drinking out of something so special to me. If Loki could morph into my Grandfather, or perhaps bring him back shiny and new, then Loki could maybe drink from the Larson mug. But, since he'd never be able to do that, he'd never have the privilege. Putting the mug back in the cabinet, I pulled out a much less meaningful drinking device.
It was yet another awesome mug. It was white, with "brass" knuckles for a handle and with painted blood splattered across the ceramic. It went hand in hand with my homicidal mug. Hell, both mugs went with my kitchen's theme. After all, there's nothing like assault and threats of murder to make a morning cup of joe amazing. I was beginning to think that I needed professional help. What kind of person has a murder kitchen?
I pushed away the thoughts of therapy, and set the mugs on the counter so they could silently await scalding brown liquid while I made breakfast. As quietly as I possibly could, I pulled a pan out of one of the floor level cabinets. Unfortunately, I'm not Dr. Suave, so the pan clanged around way more than I intended for it to. I scrunched my face up in a cringe, hoping that the loud metal-on-metal contact wouldn't wake up Loki. I stood motionless for a few seconds, waiting to hear the bedroom door creak open, or at least an angry bellow demanding silence. The house stayed silent. I let out a sigh of relief and put the pan on the stove.
The last thing on my to-do list was to wake up my eavesdropping guest. Actually, the last thing on my to-do list was to talk about last night, or anything personal, for that matter, with my eavesdropping guest. Granted, I can be very loud when I'm angry, so he might've not been eavesdropping at all. I might've just served up my past to him on a shiny silver platter and told him to not open his mouth about what he'd heard. That sounded like something I'd hate myself for doing.
I tapped the cabinet closed with foot as I walked past it to the refrigerator. I opened the door to the magnet-studded icebox and glanced around at the shelves inside. I found a few things that I could use to make a delicious breakfast; bacon, eggs, premixed pancake batter, and a few cups of yogurt. I'd bought the pancake batter the day before in the hopes that I would gather enough incentive to actually make them. And while blueberry yogurt was delicious, I highly doubted that Loki would find it sufficient enough to meet his food needs. It didn't even meet my food needs most days. Well, pleasing my first ever house guest seemed to be enough of an incentive for me to make pancakes.
I grabbed the bottle of mix, the package of bacon, and the carton of eggs. Closing the door with my foot like I'd done with the cabinet, I carefully placed all of the items on the counter so I could break out another pan. I cracked open the cabinet door again, only to stop and think about what would happen if I tried to wiggle out another pan.
There was a good chance that there would a lot more clanging than I wanted, and that said clanging might wake up Loki. I did not want to wake him up. I did, however, want to make him pancakes. Why I wanted to make him pancakes, I had no idea. I didn't want to talk to him about my past, but by golly, I was gonna make the man some flapjacks and make him happy while doing it! If it had just been me that morning, I more than likely would've shoveled yogurt into my mouth before draining three cups of coffee. Yet, for some reason I was being Holly Homemaker and really wanted to make some pancakes.
If Ronan were there, he'd ask me if I'd finally become a woman. I'd promptly tell him that if cooking made a person a woman, then he had a vagina fifty times over. That man might as well be a chef, for how well he cooked. I was honestly surprised that he wasn't a blob of fat and grease. I had a theory that he never ate his own cooking. He probably munched on tasteless rice cakes while others praised his culinary abilities.
I shook my head of all thoughts. My mind was a runaway train this morning, and I was pretty damn sure the sleeping man in my spare room was the conductor. He wasn't the engineer, but he was on the damn crazy train, and that was enough. I glared at the open cupboard, shook my head again, and decided to screw it. He was going to have to wake up at some point. It might as well be now.
I stooped down and grabbed another pan, carefully shimmying it out of a pile of pots. They, of course, clanked together like someone was banging a steel bar against organ pipes, but I was beyond caring. I didn't hear any aggravated shouting or the slamming of a door handle against drywall, so I figured that was a good sign that Thunder-man hadn't been roused from his beauty slumber. I clicked on two of the metal spirals on the stove and placed a pan over each burner. I picked up the bottle of pancake mix and shook it vigorously. I felt like I was the world's worst maraca player, but it got the job of mixing the mix done rather quickly.
I squirted three circles into the pan on the right side of the stove. Setting the bottle down on the counter, I opened the carton of eggs. I picked up two of the white ovals and cracked them against the counter. As I let the yolks slip out of the shells, I couldn't help but think about a line from a movie that stated that eggs were a byproduct of a hen's menstrual cycle. Bacon and hen period lumps just didn't sound nearly as tasty as bacon and eggs. Thank you Ten Inch Hero, for ruining my egg eating experience.
With my appetite nearly ruined by a movie line, I grabbed a metal spatula and started flipping. The eggs were done in less than a minute, giving me plenty of time to grab several plates from the cupboard. I shoved the spatula under the white fluffs and slipped them onto a dark red plate. I repeated the process with two more eggs before flipping the pancakes and starting on the bacon.
Keeping my eyes on the empty pan on the stove, I reached for the package of meat strips. Only, my hand didn't touch plastic shrink wrap. It touched something that felt suspiciously furry and arachnid in nature. I let out a loud, incredibly girly squeal as I grabbed the empty pan off of the stove and thwacked the large spider on the counter. I stared for a second at the black granite, my chest heaving in an attempt to draw in enough air to calm my heart rate down. My brain whirred like a computer fan, trying to make some kind of sense out of what it saw. Or, what it didn't see. There was no squished tarantula on my counter; there was only a flattened package of bacon.
I blinked a few times, trying to make sense of my two conflicting senses. I knew that I'd touched something that had eight legs and fine hairs, but my eyes were telling me that my sense of touch was as retarded as Snooki. I squinted, almost trying to will the bacon to become spider guts just so I wouldn't feel like I was going totally bonkers. An indistinct noise sounded behind me. I, in my already panicked state, let out a small squeak as I whirled around to bash whatever was behind me in the face with a frying pan.
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