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God, his head was pounding.
The fact that he had to take public transportation to get home was not helping—there weren’t very many people talking, but he’d be damned if the sound wasn't bouncing off the closed doors at any opportunity, like taking a dying goose to a cheese grater in his skull. If only this goddamn subway would fucking arrive at his stop already and he could go home and finally eat something and go to sleep—that was his block that was just called, wasn’t it?
Other passengers began stepping off and flooding in, and Mime Bomb weaved his way through the crowd as fast as he could, getting a few nods and glares (he hadn’t seen her before, was she visiting? a tourist, maybe? would explain why she was staring at him that way) as he tried his best to not bump anyone. He would be slipping money from their wallets, but he knew his migraines made him clumsy and angry, so his mission pay from yesterday would have to suffice. No tips today.
A silent heaving sigh came from Mime Bomb as he walked through the turnstiles and up the steps back to the city filled with lights and sounds and cars and lights. One would expect that arriving at 1am would reduce the amount of traffic, but if you truly thought that while living in New York? You need a reality check. At least their apartment wasn’t far, but damn if he didn’t want to sit down on the bench and pull out a pair of soundproof headphones from god knows where. It was like someone took a jackhammer to his skull, or maybe he just fractured it the last time he was tackled by Carmen Sandiego and it finally decided to act up.
Really, why must he be cursed with this? You’d think he’d plan ahead somehow, take some migraine pills when he felt the pressure building up, but no. Why should he spare himself pain in the future by inconveniencing himself then?
Practically shuffling into the lobby, he gives the attendant a wave and slumps into the elevator, resigned to his fate. Maybe he has an eye mask in the freezer right now? Likely, to be honest, and the idea of sweet relief makes him smile ever so slightly, his eyelids drooping, and he jumps when the elevator dings at his floor. A slow walk down the hallway, digging his keys out of his pocket, a flash of fear for a moment when he can’t find them (they were in his back pocket, not his front), and another sigh preludes his apartment door opening with a creak and a small murmur coming from the entertainment room. Seems someone was watching a movie.
Another someone quietly padded over from the cat tower she had been hiding in and quietly mrrped at him as he toed off his shoes, green eyes attempting to peer out of the darkness. With a huff and a smile, Mime Bomb picked Kurī up and let her crawl onto his shoulders as he began to put his bags down. Usually he would return within the same day of a mission ending, but he had to dodge ACME again—Carmen had called them in after she, surprisingly, failed to foil his plan (instead she managed to nearly concuss him), probably in hopes that they could snag him off the streets. It seems Kurī wasn’t too pleased that he had to spend extra time away, and honestly, he couldn’t agree more.
Squinting into the darkness, he considered flicking the lights on for a fraction of a second before remembering that 1- It was 1am at the time, and 2- the lights were far too bright for him to deal with right now. He’d have to suffer with the darkness of the room, only the very small slits of light coming from the front door and the lounge to guide him. And he was ok with that! He just hoped he wouldn’t fall into something that was recently moved on his trek to the bathroom.
Kurī’s quiet chirps and kneading of his shoulder were keeping him more alert than the practically ambrosia-like idea of washing his face and laying the fuck down in his own bed were, but he would take any reason to not pass out on the floor right now. Missing the open door to the kitchen, he passed right through an empty doorway and almost knocked his face into the door to the bathroom. With a near-yelp, he blinked and repositioned, quietly glad that he didn’t go down for the count in the middle of his own kitchen with his 2-year-old cat on his shoulders. Door to the bathroom now open, Mime Bomb reluctantly turned the lights on and grimaced at the brightness and his painted face in the tiny mirror.
He silently groaned before grabbing his makeup remover and a sponge. Staring himself in the eyes (was it him though? yeah, it was, stupid question), he wiped his face down with the sponge, smearing white makeup over his face, small patches of his ghost-white skin beginning to show. He dreaded taking of his makeup, but it wasn’t healthy to keep it on overnight, and he really would prefer his pillow cover to not be caked with white, red and black face paint.
A few minutes of wiping and he’d gotten most of it off, a washcloth ran over the remaining paint and there he was, freckles and eye bags and all. He grimaced slightly, but this was just what he had to live with. He washed his face with warm water for a moment before wringing the cloth out and putting it back on the towel rack, reaching up with damp ungloved hands to give Kurī a small rub on the forehead. Aodh was glad, at least, that he wasn’t alone to take it all off. Personal as it may be to him, it was better he not be alone.
The throbbing in his head came back worse than ever, however, as he turned the water back off and was left to ringing silence. It was strange to consider that white noise would make his migraine better, but most of him was strange, so it was more or less expected. That and the fact that he had been having chronic migraines since his teens. A muffled score for the credits of a movie began, and he huffed.
Flicking the lights off again—sweet darkness, here he comes—Mime Bomb tried his best to not slip as he stepped through the tiled kitchen towards the lounge. A hesitant reach later, he peeked his head into the room to be greeted by Neal slowly eating popcorn and curled up on the couch, practically swaddled in Aodh’s blanket. He seemed to be slightly out of it as he peeked in, but glancing up, he broke out into a large smile and nearly threw the popcorn to the side.
“Kia Ora, Mimey! You’re finally home! You’ll never guess what I just—“ he cut off at Aodh's grimace, for once noticing that the other was uncomfortable. He quickly paused the movie, returning to the Netflix home screen, and sat up to scoot over. He patted the couch next to him, his eyebrows quirked, and Aodh crept over to him, avoiding both the TV and Neal’s eyes. “Everything alroight, luv?” he asked as the mime-out-of-costume rested against him rather melancholically, Kurī being jostled enough to hop off and curl at the mime’s feet. Mime Bomb quietly groaned back in reply, lightly touching his temple and mouthing “migraine” at him.
Neal grimaced in turn, and whispered back with a small smile, “Well, Oi’ll do my best to keep quiet then, but Oi must say Oi do want to make up for lost time soon, eh?” He kissed the mime on the forehead before asking, “Want me to get you a mask?” Aodh nodded minutely, reaching out for the other end of the blanket with a tired hand.
Neal laughed quietly at him, and he glanced up at the eel with lidded eyes. Sitting up further, Neal stood with the blanket hanging off his shoulders like a cape—and the other man clung like a barnacle. Laughing again, he told him, “Well Oi can’t get your mask if you don’t let me go, mimey. Come on, Oi won’t take more than a minute and Oi’ll turn the TV off when I come back, ‘kay?” Mime Bomb pouted for a moment, but let go of Neal’s hips with a quiet whine as the slimy man stretched. Kurī quietly meowed back, standing up and slipping into the remaining lap to be sat on. The owner of said lap smiled, and reached down to scratch at the little black cat’s ears again, receiving a loud purr.
“Noisy, isn’t she?” Neal called from the kitchen, freezer open, and he hummed back at him. “You always put your eye masks in the back, mimey, why do you do this to me? Oi’m always the one who goes to get ‘em, and you force me to stick my whole arm in the freezer for ‘em! Abuse, Oi say, and Oi won’t stand for it!” He joked, Mime Bomb half listening and half waiting for him to come back to turn off the damn TV—he could do it himself, of course, the remote was right there, but he was so tired. He deserved a rest, and the buzzing of the electricity wasn’t really helping.
His partner and savior slipped back into the room, politely sliding the eye mask onto the mime’s face as he had learned to do. He could see the tension leave his mime’s body, his shoulders relaxing and his jaw slacking. He even managed a quiet “Thank you” through a happy sigh, but Neal quickly shushed him.
“Ah ah ah, no talking. Oi know you don’t like talking when you have a migraine and Oi won’t have you hurting yourself so Oi know you’re thankful. Mainly because Oi can already tell, but also because Oi care about you.” God, he was such a cheese sometimes, Aodh thought tiredly.
Plopping down next to him again and prompting a surprised mrrp! from Kurī, Neal shut the TV off with a sigh, looking down at his mime settling against him. He smiled contently at the tired man, unfortunately unable to see his pretty eyes but still wholly able to cuddle him until he woke up cranky with a sweaty face in the morning. He lightly kissed the other’s head again.
“Love you, mimey. Good noight.”