conjure_lass | Original Character: Opinions Everyone?

Hey everyone!

Since joining

musemuggers last month, there's been a small birth, so to speak. This character's name is Nate, and though I haven't a clue what he does or what he looks like, he was born and continues to grow.

Let me know what you think of him, eh?

Nate crouches in the half-melted snow at the foot of St. Francis, cigarette held loosely between his forefinger and thumb, stalled halfway to his lips. A damp February breeze has risen up to whip against his face, frigid; he hates Boston winters. If he were any sort of decent man he’d be going back inside to where his mother lay dead in her casket, ready for the maggots, ready to be forgotten. Thank God. That’s where he should be, obviously.

Obviously.

Another breeze catches on the icicles hanging from the eaves, sending them plummeting to the wet gravel below. Loud, like breaking glass, they shatter the relative calm. Nate’s hand begins shaking, from the cold or some barely perceived guilt he can’t be sure, but he tells himself he doesn’t care and draws in more delicious nicotine, sweet cancer stick.

Someone calls his name from the other side of the church.

Nathaniel!

St. Francis’ stony hand makes for perfect leverage to ease himself back to his feet, grunting; the chill makes his knees ache like an old man’s. Flicking the cigarette butt into a nearby snowdrift, he listens to it hiss as the last embers sputter out and die. He’d call it a perfect metaphor, but he’s not that much of a pretentious ass.

A second call cuts the silence, shriller, angrier, this time more than one person. Rolling his eyes, he brushes off the legs of his perfectly pressed Armani trousers and turns back towards civilization, towards family, to all the bullshit he doesn’t give two shits about.

He always did hate that bitch.

And here's the second piece with Nate. Again, opinions are very welcome. :)

It’s midnight and Nate is outside on his rusty fire escape, chain-smoking in the dark while pretending not to hear his neighbors having a particularly loud fuck through the open window below him. Apparently, someone’s been a bad, bad boy and is in need of some serious punishment.

Well…tomorrow would be awkward in the apartment elevator.

Boston isn’t sleeping either, honking horns and blaring sirens can be heard six blocks away, and it seems alive with its bright lights, high and low beams flashing like a strobe in the gloom. The day can have its propriety and pressed Gucci suits, but the night is when the world really comes to life; it throws off all the pretentious bullshit and shows off its razzle-dazzle.

Really, he would have loved to be sleeping, to be curled up in his Egyptian cotton sheets (a dreamless sleep, a pitch black subconscious) but things have been too hectic, too off-kilter, too fucking stupid to allow him even a moment’s rest. Admittedly, he hasn’t really been helping the situation, hasn’t really been any sort of positive influence, but it still feels unfair that he should lose sleep over some sort of emotional triviality.

Speaking of triviality…it wouldn’t be too pathetic to indulge in some right now, would it?

With that thought in mind he pulls out his cell from his back pocket, dialing the number without looking, and holds the phone to his ear with his chin. Breathless seconds go by as Nate listens to the monotonous dial tone, waiting for the inevitable pick up, waiting for the one thing that will ease his mind enough to rock him into a somewhat contented slumber.

Click! A pregnant pause. The soft, discontented noise of a man grunting in the darkness, shifting in the rustling sheets, getting more comfortable. Nate makes himself more comfortable as well, resting his forearms against the railing, watching the ashes from his fifteenth cigarette flutter down to the curbside below.

“~Nate?~” The voice is gruff, smoky, groggy, almost confused. Nate doesn’t know why…it isn’t as though he’s never done this sort of thing before. “~You do realize it’s past midnight?~”

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Ignoring the question, Nate slides down to sit, feels the chill of the metal seep through the fabric of his pajama bottoms, and lets his feet dangle through the balusters of the railing. He presses his cheek against the rusted steel and sighs, feeling ridiculous and wretched and idiotic, but opens his mouth to speak despite all that.

“Tell me about your day, Aiden.”

“~What?~” Confusion again but tinged with amusement, warmth in the cool Boston night, digital affection. “~You…what the fuck…I don’t even…~”

“Your day, tell me about it.”

Aiden sighs, easily defeated, and within moments Nate can hear the faint sound of the other man rising from his bed (clean white sheets, soft linen), hissing at some chronic ache, and stumbling along down the hallway. A muted thud, something has fallen over, and Aiden is cussing under his breath, nearly dropping the phone in the process. Jesus Christ, what a klutz! And it’s in this moment that Nate begins to feel it, the subtle relaxation of his muscles, the evening of his breath, the calming of his frayed nerves. It’s all so silly, so familiar and normal that he even begins chuckling, feeling indescribably comforted by this small thing, this tiny human contact, this long-distance tenderness.

“~Well, I’m glad you think this is funny, asshole. Hold on, lemme get a glass.~”

“Bushmills or Midleton?”

“~Wild Turkey.~”

“You’re a classless bastard, you know that?” Nate lies back against the fire escape, shivering as the cold presses persistently up against his shoulder blades, and stares up at the starless sky. That’s the only thing he misses about home, the endless bowl of the night sky, littered with constellations.

“~Says the dick calling me in the middle of the night.~”

Nate listens closely (presses the phone more firmly against his ear; gets every nuance) to the sound of Aiden breathing and sipping at his bourbon, fighting against the urge to say something humiliating, something that would tip the scales into more soppy territory, his heart pounding in sympathy to his internal plight. Thankfully, he’s spared the mortification by the beginnings of conversation, grateful to whatever deity is listening for the other man’s perfect sense of timing.

“~So, I caught some temp masturbating in the mailroom this afternoon. Did you know that they made vibrators that look like lipstick?~”

I'm thinking that this character is the beginning of something...i'm just not sure what yet. He's so vivid and real when I write him. I'm a little enamored of him, really.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Cherry!