courtesy, consideration, care ( oliver )

[Joy, Zacharias]

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background-color:#282828][STYLE=background-color:#282828; width:112px; padding:18px;][STYLE=opacity:.8; background-color:#333333; padding:6px; width:100px][/style] [STYLE=background-color:#333333; padding:6px; opacity:.8; color:#777777; font-size:11px; font-family:georgia italic; text-align:center; width:100px]822 words[/style] [STYLE=padding:0px; opacity:.8; color:#777777; font-size:8px; font-family:verdana; text-align:justify; margin-top:8px; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:1px; width:112px]With eyes unimpressed You're sealing the conversations. And are you wondering how things could be? Just staring at the surface, When all the walls have tendencies. But it's not your fault when no one taught you how.[/style][/style]

[atrb=style, width:250px;][atrb=valign, top][STYLE=text-align:right; font-family:georgia italic; font-size:17px; background-color:#282828; line-height:16px; color:#777777; margin-left:-4px; padding:10px; padding-right:10px; margin-top:-1px;]how quick to forget, we are[/style][STYLE=font-family:arial; font-size:10px; letter-spacing:1px; text-align:justify; line-height:9px; padding:4px; background-color:#eeeeee; padding-bottom:5px; color:#777777]Stars. Stars and the glow from the flickering lights of the city, that was all Zacharias’s mind really registered as he pulled into the driveway, the familiar heaviness that came with work weighing him down. It took him a moment to compose some sense of alertness, a testament to another night among so many spent exhausting himself with Shifter cases. It was nothing short of a miracle how he managed to navigate the roads without falling asleep at the wheel by now. Although had this had been a typical day at the center he wouldn’t have even bothered with it at all. At two in the morning there really wouldn’t have been any incentive to going to his empty house to crawl into his empty bed and sleep for four hours, just to return to work. He’d have stayed at the center if only for the fact that it didn’t add to the mileage on his car. But today wasn’t typical and his house wasn’t empty. That alone was reason enough not to get too consumed by his work – albeit his perception of time had gotten a little messed up somewhere and next thing he knew it was half past one. At his earliest opportunity he had closed up and chancing the drive home, possibly going a little faster than was permitted by the speed limit. But now that he had arrived he honestly wasn’t sure he wanted to enter the home at all. Why was he so anxious? It was a familiar place, with a sort of familiar person waiting for him, so why were his insides twisting themselves into knots? ‘Maybe because you tortured him?’ the thought surfaced treacherously and the lump in his chest hardened. That certainly was the root of his dilemma but only the tip of the iceberg for what he and his new house guest had been through together. The doctor sat in his car with the engine off, key in hand, for almost five minutes before realizing that he'd spaced out. He really needed to get to bed. He slid out of the car and gingerly the door shut behind him, house keys jingling on their lanyard as he spun it around his index finger. Maybe he just needed to calm down? Maybe the man had forgotten all about him? Maybe there was a chance for – hm, for what? Forgiveness, as doubtful as that was? All sorts of speculations danced through his head while his hands busied themselves with opening the door and entered the foyer as quietly as he could manage. There were lights on, this was to be expected seeing as how he had purposely left them that way but it still struck him as wrong since he never did before. He always left the house dark when he left. Even knowing that he was the culprit for the change didn’t quell the anxious tension that made him stumble past the welcome matt, depositing his shoes neatly on the rack beside the door, and proceed to inspect his home – now plus one. The kitchen was still as he had left it meaning a certain somebody hadn’t gotten up yet, or at all, during his absence. The same was deduced for the living room, sitting room and hall closet. Not that he honestly believed his guest would wedge himself into the closet but still, it was clear, order had not been disrupted. Somehow, that worried him more than it pleased him. As much as he despised seeing things out of place, altered or otherwise adjusted, he almost wished that something had been moved. Slightly disappointed, Zacharias moved back into the kitchen to go about his post-work-pre-bed rituals. It consisted of setting his glasses on the kitchen table in front of the chair he would sit in the next morning, rinsed his hands, put a pot of water on to boil and pour a few cupfuls of instant oatmeal in when the proper temperature had been reached. Clockwork, simple, everything had a place in the frame he was intent on keeping even with the adjustments he’d been forced to make in light of an extra person. Speaking of whom, it would be best to check on said individual and assure himself that his patient was, still in fact, here. He made the walk down the hall, quietly cursing the squeak of the floorboards beneath his socked feet for giving him away. By the time he reached his destination he was almost positive the occupant had woken up with how loudly he’d been moving. If he was here at all that is. For all Zacharias knew his newest addition had escaped through the window and was now running through the streets dodging capture. ‘Again.’ A somber thought and one he’d rather not be reminded of but couldn’t quite escape seeing as the one it applied to was the blonde young man prone in the guest bedroom. [/style]

[STYLE=font-size:9px; letter-spacing:1px]© OXYMORON OF BTN[/style]

[Rivers, Oliver]

[atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][STYLE=background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/QoLEb.png); height: 100px; width: 100px; border-radius: 40px 0px 0px 40px; border: 3px solid #B40404;] [/style] [STYLE=padding-top: -20px; padding-right: 10px; font-family: courier new; font-size: 10px; text-align: justify;]NOTES: n/a WORDS: 709 TAG: zach CREDIT: sky of btn![/style]

[STYLE=width: 300px; border-left: 6px solid #B40404; background-color: transparent; margin-left: -5px;][STYLE=padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; font-family: arial; font-size: 9px; text-align: justify;]Much of the afternoon was marbled; spotted with bouts of heady reminiscence as the blond crawled along the margins of his coming consciousness. Through the thick of his fever, the shifter came to realize the sense of foreboding that came with the reintroduction of familiarity even if clear, constructable thought was currently beyond his capability. Oliver couldn't place a paw on it to say, or a finger pad either; however, the discomfort the feeling inspired was almost natural and that knowledge in itself sickened him. The unfocused walls in the room he occupied went unrecognized as did the time frame in which these settings had materialized. But obliviously, he hadn't the intellect to note the difference between the something and the someone for which the building unease applied. It was rather the circumstance that had beaded all these unknowns together; and for the life of him, the haze barricading his recollection refused to cooperate forcing him to slump back exasperatedly in the quiet. He was of the mind where premature suppositions were merely shots in the dark and that given the window of time he'd been awake things would only continue to clear instead of stagnate and alert him to his circumstance. Speaking of which, from what the bed-ridden beast could garner his situation was most unusual and dare he think it, free. The absence of restraint was both a blessing and a curse; just as swiftly as liberation had swelled in him dread took its place. There was that confusion threading through his bones again to disorient and disconcert; a sickening familiarity was burgeoning. Far worse was the uselessness that upended him and the Pokemon could do nothing to dampen the sensation seeping into every crack in his custody. A tangle took to his brow and the unnerving rustle of sheets that weren't his further complicated things. Surely, this enclosure had its bars, had a vacant cargo kennel tucked in a corner he'd overlooked? The existence of such a thing shouldn't have brought reassurance like the thought did. Oliver frowned in distaste at his own admittance and instead mentally dragged the idea aside persuading his fingers to twitch and eventually the rest of him to stir. An over-enunciated grunt answered his efforts as his body clothed in a wealth of bandages convulsed under a week's worth of inactivity. Pain became an understatement. It was now that the first form of real sentience shocked him where he expressed some manner of weak gratitude towards the cocktail of drugs tapped into his system most of which felt like morphine. Semi-cognizant thought became possible shading in the vague etchings from the morning and in nothing flat skepticism set up its defense. Oliver could summarize the last twelve hours as a slow acquaintanceship with general aliveness. Only in the space of the next three, maybe four hours did the clock hasten. The shifter hadn't been lost to fitful sleep though perplexed he hadn't roused from a start or other old nightmare. Indiscriminately, he trained his gaze on the ceiling until of its own accord located the window just ahead of the bed. And, spying the time, Oliver negotiated [ 2 : 3 4 a m ] from the red-numbered face before affirming now was as good a time as any to orchestrate his exit. If the telling rustle of keys wrestling the entry lock was of any consolation, the slap of socked feet belonging to legs hampered by the length of the day had punctuated another presence. The chaffing noise from within the guest room was a product of ignition as Oliver had stamped his way towards the point of escape by way of the rolling IV drip at his bedside. A cringe exhausted the determined leer in his eyes and bolded the hurt radiating from his middle as he hoisted himself up, stomach down onto the sill. Easing himself forward, the slave had curved around to moderate suitable footing from the seat of the chair below him. He did a double-take. Immediately, impossibly scared eyes met the source of familiarity he’d been unable to get a handle on, on the very someone responsible for his…for everything and never had such a feeling of fear wish to hurl him out a window. [/style][/style]