He was awake long before the others. Before daylight, quite, though somehow he knew it was snowing.
Renfield wanted very much to go. To move, to step out into the snow and walk forever, lost to the quiet and muffled peace of it. Except he promised Scotty he would stay.
In the scant light, he looked at the man beside him, petting his hair gently so as not to wake him. It was a unique position for Renfield to find himself in. Sharing a bed with two recently inebriated men, wanting like Hell to bolt, missing his Ray, feeling hideously out of place among all of them and fighting to get The Safety Dance out of his head.
With private affection he silently cursed Harold Lee.
We can go when we want to, the night is young and so am I.
It was hardly the gravitas Renfield's mood called for. Which may have been a gift, but it was frustrating all the same. Even so, he was considering taking the advice of men without hats.
It wasn't that he wanted to leave anyone. It wasn't even that their company wasn't deeply warm and desperately wanted, nor was it the fault of any of these men. It was that he felt like a very small boy thrust into the adult table, and his time believing the stack of phone books he had been sitting on could make up for the immaturity was quite abruptly at an end.
The belief had been fragile. Better that it had gone.
He wanted to go. Stay with me, Scotty had said. For the number of times he'd made that plea inside his own mind, looking at an empty spot on the bed and wondering what it was so deficient in him that he couldn't keep another man there, Renfield couldn't run out on it.
A swirl of early morning thought, and it accomplished precisely nothing.
Perhaps...
She was young. She appeared so very fragile. Sometimes, I believe I can see her shaking, but then I wonder if... if it was not me shaking instead. Perhaps neither of us were. Perhaps the tremble is now.
The memory bent around it, fuzzy and fading to nothing, censored with a sick, panicked twist of his gut. Blanked like a little boy's body spilled out and dashed to oblivion on asphalt.
Shivering, Renfield pulled the cover higher up around himself and pressed in against Scotty. On the other side, Harold shifted, and Renfield held his breath; suddenly terrified, though he didn't know why, that the man would wake.
Measured breaths. Silent.
This was stupid, what he was doing to himself. Jumping at shadows. His own private hurricane, worming terror and doubt and the terrible urge to flee into his head.
Renfield shut his eyes tightly and waited for dawn.
Renfield wanted very much to go. To move, to step out into the snow and walk forever, lost to the quiet and muffled peace of it. Except he promised Scotty he would stay.
In the scant light, he looked at the man beside him, petting his hair gently so as not to wake him. It was a unique position for Renfield to find himself in. Sharing a bed with two recently inebriated men, wanting like Hell to bolt, missing his Ray, feeling hideously out of place among all of them and fighting to get The Safety Dance out of his head.
With private affection he silently cursed Harold Lee.
We can go when we want to, the night is young and so am I.
It was hardly the gravitas Renfield's mood called for. Which may have been a gift, but it was frustrating all the same. Even so, he was considering taking the advice of men without hats.
It wasn't that he wanted to leave anyone. It wasn't even that their company wasn't deeply warm and desperately wanted, nor was it the fault of any of these men. It was that he felt like a very small boy thrust into the adult table, and his time believing the stack of phone books he had been sitting on could make up for the immaturity was quite abruptly at an end.
The belief had been fragile. Better that it had gone.
He wanted to go. Stay with me, Scotty had said. For the number of times he'd made that plea inside his own mind, looking at an empty spot on the bed and wondering what it was so deficient in him that he couldn't keep another man there, Renfield couldn't run out on it.
A swirl of early morning thought, and it accomplished precisely nothing.
Perhaps...
She was young. She appeared so very fragile. Sometimes, I believe I can see her shaking, but then I wonder if... if it was not me shaking instead. Perhaps neither of us were. Perhaps the tremble is now.
The memory bent around it, fuzzy and fading to nothing, censored with a sick, panicked twist of his gut. Blanked like a little boy's body spilled out and dashed to oblivion on asphalt.
Shivering, Renfield pulled the cover higher up around himself and pressed in against Scotty. On the other side, Harold shifted, and Renfield held his breath; suddenly terrified, though he didn't know why, that the man would wake.
Measured breaths. Silent.
This was stupid, what he was doing to himself. Jumping at shadows. His own private hurricane, worming terror and doubt and the terrible urge to flee into his head.
Renfield shut his eyes tightly and waited for dawn.