Ch 22. Daily Routine II
John awoke to the usual steady drops of water falling onto his head. He covered his head with a blanket to try and avoid the wetness but eventually it soaked through that as well and he gave up and started to haul himself out of bed. He let out a kind of groan-yell, and forced himself to his feet. He hadn’t slept particularly well the previous night: his dreams had been filled with dancing red figures and tantalizingly twitching tails that ended in spear-like tips. He didn’t remember them being bad exactly, but he wasn’t feeling terribly well-rested either. He tried to reach for exactly what they’d been about, but they’d faded from his thoughts before he could grasp even the edges of them.
He went to the bathroom and rinsed his face, before cleaning his teeth with his potion, and combing the knots from his hair. He looked himself in the mirror and made himself smile, finding the effort to be a bit harder than usual. Still, he practiced his expressions to make sure he had them mastered for his clients.
He showered, finding himself frustrated as his mind seemed to walk itself down dark paths whenever he found himself daydreaming. Reminding himself that his cat was probably dead by now back on Earth, the clients he wasn’t able to help improve, Katrina. He turned off the heating rune and the spray of cold water briefly knocked all the thought from him. He quickly cleaned and turned off the shower so he could dry.
He looked into his wardrobe and saw the rows of near identical green suits. None of them were appealing to him today. He eyed the blue one he’d been given by Katrina. It looked good, it would be a welcome change, but the thoughts of her it came with would not be welcome. She was probably somewhere on an infinite beach, experiencing new things every day. He shook his head. He’d been rather clear of these negative thoughts, but it seemed his mind was deciding he needed to be in a bad mood today.
He gave up on clothes for the moment and laid down on his couch. He had time before his first client, so he didn’t need to rush out the door. His clients were doing new things every day. They were pushing themselves, and taking risks, and becoming better people for it. He was tremendously proud of Gnost’s progress overcoming his agoraphobia, and Rene getting into the dating pool, Sarah trying new material for a change. If he’d gone with Katrina he could’ve changed in a new and exciting way too. Was he in a rut, as she’d told him? He was afraid he knew the answer.
Still, he went back to his wardrobe and grabbed one of his suits. He had problems to work on, but so did his clients and they needed his help. He felt a bit better once he was dressed and walked down the apartment’s steps, dodging a couple small branches that needed to be trimmed back on the stairwell, and started his morning walk to Hilda’s.
The streets were relatively clear because the main road was being blocked by a giant snail whose back contained a series of apartment buildings for brownies, which meant a lot of people were enjoying the increased walking room.
A number of enterprising kobolds had started to set up small market stalls less than a mile ahead of the slowly encroaching snail. They were joined by gnomes, fey, and a few halflings that had made things closer to a farmers market on their end than a bazaar. John found himself surprisingly tempted by a few trinkets he saw in a particular kobold’s booth and haggled over some small pieces of jewelry he intended to gift which included a dragonscale pendant for Rene, a bat-skull necklace for Mia, and a surprisingly nice ruby red pen of dubious origin for Andressa.
He made it the rest of the way to Hilda’s and waited patiently for Mia to finish up with a gnoll that seemed to be purchasing a literal wheelbarrow of some kind of meat-filled pastries. The gnoll let out a high-pitched laugh at something Mia said that he couldn’t quite hear before he started wheeling his way out. John took a moment to run back and hold the door open for him before making his way to the counter. Mia’s hair seemed to have grown back, at least on half of her head; the other half was shaved. She was wearing a shirt that had been cut apart and put together with elegant knots, black of course, and a long skirt that wouldn't have been out of place at the bottom of a prom dress.
“Good morning Mia, glad to see you’re back.”
“Good to be back,” she responded. “I’ve already got your usual ready as well as the special for the day. It’s cinnamon rolls today.”
John frowned. His usual. He’d had the same bagel and cream cheese every day for years now. The biggest change he’d had recently was…
“Could I actually get some of that honey cream cheese with it?” he asked.
Mia shrugged. “Sure, just a sec.” She grabbed a small container from the side counter and scooped some into an even smaller container that she put in his bag.
While she did that he fished out her new necklace. “Oh, and I got this at a kobold stall on the way. It reminded me of you.” He held out the bat-skull necklace.
Mia smiled. “Oh, that’s so cute!” she took it. “Did you check for curses?”
“I did a quick check with a scroll I had on hand. The bigger problem was the little pits of fur still on the forehead.”
She shrugged, as she started to put it on. “They add character.” She tied it behind her neck dexterously. “How’s it look?”
“It goes perfectly with the outfit.”
“Skulls always go with everything. An orc friend of mine taught me that.”
John laughed and said his goodbyes as he grabbed his bag of baked goods and made his way across the street to his office, noticing that the market was starting to move his way as the snail was finally starting to pick up nearly a tenth of a mile per hour of speed.
He pushed open the door and saw Andressa writing something down.
“Good morning,” said John as he walked toward her wondering what barb or jab she had prepared for him that day, though he supposed she was just as likely to improvise one.
“Good morning,” she said, with her usual vaguely mischievous smile. “If you’re going to wear your shirt like that I think we may need to start charging our clients double.”
He frowned and looked down to see his shirt had four buttons undone rather than the usual two. He placed the bag of baked goods in front of her to button his shirt and frowned as she became a more brilliant crimson.
“I’m already regretting it, but I got you a little something,” he reached into a jacket to pull out the ruby red pen and hand it to her. “There’s a kind of kobold bazaar in the street and this made me think of you,” he held it out.
She took it and twirled it with surprising dexterity, clicking the top a few times.
“Do you buy all of your gifts for people based on their skin color? Or just people that work for you?”
John sighed. “Just people who work for me.”
Andressa chuckled a bit. “It’s nice that you thought of me. And I like the color, for the record.”
“Me too,” he said, not realizing how that could be interpreted until after he said it.
She brightened until she was nearly the color of the pen itself, and smiled at him.
“So,” he said, pushing past the moment quickly. “Who will we be seeing today?”
“You’ve got Rene and Ben coming in today; aside from that it’s mostly your usuals. Troy O, Linmeli, and Stevie B.”
“Okay, perfect. You want some coffee?”
“Please,” she said, holding out a mint green coffee cup that had been sitting on her desk from the previous day.
He nodded, and walked back into his office. While he’d been struggling a bit when he first got in he was feeling a lot better. Somewhere in the midst of his banter with Andressa it seemed to have faded into the back of his mind. Maybe he’d just needed to build some momentum for the day. He started the coffee and organized the scattered papers on his desks into proper piles. When the coffee was done he poured Andressa’s mug first and took it to her, seeing her already using her new pen to add a few things to his schedule.
Once he placed that down for her he went back to his office and took his bagels out of his bag, spreading a bit of the new cream cheese on them. He took a big bite, and smiled. He might not have decided to go on a universe-spanning journey across all of those lands that bordered Avalon, but at least there were a few new things in his life.