Birds of a Fur-ther
@foxscars is caught being nosy!
It had taken Cáel four days to finally go to his address. His Triplicata had taken him to the steps of a high rise building, as nondescript as any other bourgeois apartment complex. Grey walls, grey windows, even the plants on the window sill had a rather grey pallor to them. Cáel stood there, his hand hovering over the handle of the door, his palms sweating underneath his leather gloves. What was stopping him? What, was he afraid of opening doors, now? Was that what he had been reduced to? Too afraid to live He pulled the door open. To his surprise, there was no reception desk, only a set of stairs... Though, he supposed, in a city where everyone was assigned a room, perhaps that was no surprise at all. His address said it was the seventh floor, wasn’t it? His lucky number. How funny. Ugh.
He made his way up the first flight, grumbling to himself how there could be enough people in this city to justify a seven-story building, when he heard footsteps behind him. Cáel froze. The footsteps stopped. His heart rattled in its cage. Run, it howled, you idiot, why don’t you run?
...It’s a seven-story building, He thought to himself, putting a hand to his chest, forcing it down. Afraid of neighbors now, are you?
The next six flights felt like a century to climb. Every step, he could’ve sworn he heard the soft pitter-patter of feet behind him. By the time he had reached his door, ragged, heaving-- damn stairs-- he was ready to throw the door open and fling himself inside.
Did he trust it? No, feck no, he didn’t trust it. If it wasn’t trapped, it was probably bugged, and if it wasn’t either, it was probably still too good to be true. He considered ‘living rough’. He could do it, he didn’t mind; he had for years, sleeping on benches, shivering underneath the rain, living off of the scraps others left behind. ...But Cáel was playing a rigged game, and homelessness was no way for him to stack the deck in his favor. He’d check the place for bugs, of course, and he wouldn’t let himself stay in any death trap, but if this was a game he wanted to win, he needed a base of operations -- and there were no vacancies anywhere else.
Feet shuffled behind him. Cáel spun around, only to see the door behind him slam shut. Neighbors, was it? He stared at the door, hands dripping with sweat, chest aching to burst. He should go. He should go right now. He should...
“...Hey, no reason to be shy, yeah?” He crooned, his voice as carefully constructed as the Sistine Chapel -- not a ripple in sight, not a single sign that he was ready to bolt at any time. Keep it casual. Keep it charming. “After all, we’re neighbors, aren’t we?”
