[He... looks like shit. His hair is plastered to his forehead and neck, his skin is pale and drawn. He's lost a good ten pounds over the last week just from puking, not eating, and sweating up a storm. He's still shaking, despite this being his last day in Zero, still looks like death but honestly?
He looks ten times better than he did just a few days ago. And he'll be even better once he can get up and walk around, once his freedom is returned to him again. When he can tinker and get coffee into his system. When he can bicker and have a place that's his and not a cell. When he can get some control back.
Still, he's not facing her, not really paying attention to his surroundings right now. He's fiddling with the communicator, flipping through the other replies, playing voice messages back, reading over text, trying to see who's told Pepper what, and who else she might be talking to.]
Damnit. [It's a quiet hiss as he scrubs a hand roughly through sweat drenched hair, his voice rough, like he's been gargling rusty nails and washing them down with a swig of acid. Charles. He knows his warden would have jumped on Pepper by now, and the fact that he couldn't see it...
Finally, he raises his eyes from the screen in front of him, head tilting back to thunk lightly against the wall before he lets it loll to the side, eyes still bloodshot but clearer than they have been in days, expression tight with something almost akin to guilt as he takes in the woman in front of him. Tight lines, curves, skin and freckles and strawberry blonde hair. That neck, those collarbones, quick and nimble fingers and a firmly set jaw. Pepper Potts.
His Pepper.
And here he is looking like a homeless man crawling his way out of a puddle of puke from his latest binge.
It's pathetic.
And still, all he wants to do is crawl right back inside of a bottle.]
You know, I was thinking. [He says around the guilt clogging his throat, passing it off as being too thirsty, swallowing and clearing it, licking chapped lips, all too aware of the fact that he hadn't shaved in over a week, now. There just hadn't been a point while trapped down here.] This place sucks, it's- there's not even anything to do. We should invest, get something down here. Aquarium or something. Video games. Yeah, I know. Punishment, whatever. Make it pong. A week of playing pong and reading Cosmo.
[He chuckles, pushing his hair back in a futile attempt to fix something about himself.]
Not sure what I'd want more, at the end. Another round of a two-bit video game or white walls and silence.
spam;
He looks ten times better than he did just a few days ago. And he'll be even better once he can get up and walk around, once his freedom is returned to him again. When he can tinker and get coffee into his system. When he can bicker and have a place that's his and not a cell. When he can get some control back.
Still, he's not facing her, not really paying attention to his surroundings right now. He's fiddling with the communicator, flipping through the other replies, playing voice messages back, reading over text, trying to see who's told Pepper what, and who else she might be talking to.]
Damnit. [It's a quiet hiss as he scrubs a hand roughly through sweat drenched hair, his voice rough, like he's been gargling rusty nails and washing them down with a swig of acid. Charles. He knows his warden would have jumped on Pepper by now, and the fact that he couldn't see it...
Finally, he raises his eyes from the screen in front of him, head tilting back to thunk lightly against the wall before he lets it loll to the side, eyes still bloodshot but clearer than they have been in days, expression tight with something almost akin to guilt as he takes in the woman in front of him. Tight lines, curves, skin and freckles and strawberry blonde hair. That neck, those collarbones, quick and nimble fingers and a firmly set jaw. Pepper Potts.
His Pepper.
And here he is looking like a homeless man crawling his way out of a puddle of puke from his latest binge.
It's pathetic.
And still, all he wants to do is crawl right back inside of a bottle.]
You know, I was thinking. [He says around the guilt clogging his throat, passing it off as being too thirsty, swallowing and clearing it, licking chapped lips, all too aware of the fact that he hadn't shaved in over a week, now. There just hadn't been a point while trapped down here.] This place sucks, it's- there's not even anything to do. We should invest, get something down here. Aquarium or something. Video games. Yeah, I know. Punishment, whatever. Make it pong. A week of playing pong and reading Cosmo.
[He chuckles, pushing his hair back in a futile attempt to fix something about himself.]
Not sure what I'd want more, at the end. Another round of a two-bit video game or white walls and silence.