Eliot itched with inactivity, his nerves acting as live wires beneath his skin, lying unattended far too close to the errant puddle that his brain often became at times of great boredom.
Every day off was like this.
He had always been somewhat of a shark; his existence thrived solely on his ability to keep moving forward, even if he led himself straight into the abyss. He was kinetic, never potential; he acted on impulse and rarely dealt with the impulse’s ramifications, only ever satisfied to have done something. Anything. Scoring, drinking, crashing, waking again. It was cyclical and awfully cliche, granted, but it was still action. Inaction, as if were, was not Eliot Reid’s strong suit.
Turning over to face the window, he gazed at the muted morning light, dampered significantly by the shades his apartment had come equipped with–remote controlled, because human necessity, after all–admiring the suns brilliant effort to still force its way through. He blinked. He stretched to reach for his phone.
Deeming, with his rightful adulthood ability, that any sort of breakfast-related nonsense was officially a wash, he heaved an over-dramatic sigh as he tossed his phone at his thigh and sat up, abruptly, his mind on the French press. Then, perhaps, a shower. The weekly phone call of verification that he was still alive to be delivered to his mother. He ran he hands over his face, exhausted by the mere thought of it.
Perhaps it was this apprehension–panic, more like–that caused him to startle when he heard the sound of the doorbell. He wondered idly if he’d allowed Calista the luxury of her own check in, as, traditionally, he’d need to buzz anyone else up. This thought, incidentally, made him consider falling back over–were it not for Calista’s upper hand advantage: her key.
Pulling the nearest pair of jeans he’d let slump to the floor the night before on, Eliot rubbed the last remnants of his slumber/exhaustion/boredom from his eyes, blinking hard a few times to let his vision resettle itself. When the bell rang through the large space again, he groaned.
“Aye!” He croaked, his throat thick. Quieter, then, he added for no one in particular to hear, “’M on my way, for fuck’s sake.”
Thumping rather inelegantly–and slightly annoyed–through the apartment, Eliot undid each of the locks his mother had demanded he install (likely for theft purposes and not actual safety concerns) gracelessly, his fingers not yet finding their coordination, and heaved the door open with flourish, almost certain he was going to deliver some sort of diatribe about being disturbed, be it personal mentor or solicitor at the door.
To say that he was rather taken aback when he found neither awaiting him would be…well, a fallacy.
He rubbed the inner corner of his eye, scrubbing the last bits of sleep away and letting the blur fade before he observed his visitor again with keen interest. It was, probably, a bit longer than was socially acceptable; he realized this only a moment or so too late, when he abruptly blurted with a tentative, forced blink, "Can I help you?”
