![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Normally when Wilford came home from the gym, he’d shower and change for the studio. But it was Thursday. They didn’t film anything on Thursdays, which meant it was pointless to get dressed as if he were going to be filmed. He spent enough time in front of the mirror to curl his moustache and to see that his hair was not even trying to sit right, and headed down to the garage. The dog followed him, which was becoming a rarity with the kid living downstairs, but Wilford still opened the car door for him to hop in and spend a day begging snacks off of everyone in the building.
Buster liked car rides. He stayed in the back seat where he belonged, quietly wuffing at every motorcycle they encountered on the drive into downtown Vinewood. Traffic was… traffic. It was never not traffic. It was always going to be traffic. Wilford simply connected his phone to his car’s stereo and drowned everything out with Parov Stelar. It didn’t make the drive go any faster, but it almost made it more bearable.
At the studio, he parked in his spot, making sure to slam his door into the car next to him that had parked over the line, and then slammed the back door into it as well when he let the dog out. Buster knew the way from there, and was off like a shot in the direction of the studio. Wilford didn’t know who kept letting him in, but he was always gone by the time Wilford made it to reception.
Instead of heading straight to his dressing room, he had a more pressing matter to deal with. He walked up to the desk and leaned over it, putting on his best menacingly impassive face. He stayed like this until Penny finally looked up to see him looming over her.
“You stood me up,” he said plainly.
Penny shook her head, confused. “No I didn’t,” she said.
“You stood me up,” Wilford repeated with a little more force.
“No, we were…” She stopped short as a wave of realisation washed over her face. She looked up at Wilford with wide, shocked eyes and almost choked. “I didn’t come in on Monday. I’ve been a day off all week,” she said.
“And you stood me up,” Wilford repeated for emphasis.
Penny was laughing now, while the new woman next to her shot them both a scandalised look. The look Wilford shot her in return told her in no unclear terms to mind her own business.
“We can go tonight if you’re not busy,” Penny offered, still laughing.
Wilford grumbled and leaned further over her desk. He tore the top page of her daily calendar off, balled it up, and threw it at Penny before heading off to his dressing room. He could hear the women whispering harshly at one another, or perhaps more accurately, the new women whispering harshly at Penny as he headed down the hall and away from both of them. The dog was already long gone, no doubt pestering someone and puking under their desk, leaving Wilford with no qualms about shutting him out.
Thursdays were easy days. Last minute ADR, a conference with some higher ups that eventually got told to go fuck themselves, a surprise meeting with one of the week’s guests. She was someone for Kevin’s segment, which meant she was nobody Wilford cared about, so he got her out of his dressing room as quickly as possible. Thursdays were long days, but easy. Last-minute prep for the live recording the day after. It was nearly 6pm by the time Wilford finally got out of there. When he opened his door, it was in time to see the dog trotting up the hall with a shotgun microphone in his mouth.
“Where the hell have you been all day?” Wilford asked him.
Buster was so pleased with his new toy he didn’t even acknowledge Wilford, and kept trotting straight on to the front door.
“Oh, yes. By all means, your highness,” Wilford said, following after him. Penny had already gone, along with the other woman who probably wouldn’t last another week the way she didn’t seem to approve of anything. In their place was the security guard who ran the place at night. Instead of watching the place, he was watching cat videos on his phone.
“Night, sir!” he called out as Wilford and Buster left the building, the door automatically locking heavily behind them. Buster was quiet the entire way home, too busy trying to figure out what his new toy was to be on the lookout for those pesky motorcycles.
Wilford was surprised to pull into his driveway to find a little red two-seater parked outside. He had half a mind to just go inside and let her idle in the driveway all night, but he sighed instead and pulled into the garage. He took just enough time to let the dog out of the car and into the house before stepping back out into the setting evening sun to see what Penny had in mind.
“You think it’s this easy to make it up to me?” he asked, leaning through the open passenger window.
“You’ve made your point. Get in,” Penny said.
“Have I?” Wilford didn’t think he had, but she was right about one thing: he had absolutely nothing planned for the night, so with a great show of rolling his eyes and looking deeply inconvenienced, Wilford pulled open the door and fell into the low seat. He hated Penny’s car. It sat so low to the ground, it broke your spine at every speed bump and pothole.
“Just because I got in doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you yet,” Wilford said, popping open the glovebox to see what she had.
“Yes it does,” Penny argued as she backed out of his driveway, careful to avoid hitting the gate that hadn’t bothered to be installed yet.
Wilford couldn’t find anything worth opening up in her glove box, so he slapped it shut and connected his phone to her stereo instead, overriding the talk radio she liked to listen to with some actual music. He didn’t miss the sour look on her face, nor did he care.
“Too bad Bigby’s sentencing is tomorrow. It’ll probably be too late to cover it on the show,” Penny said, winding through the same streets that had just brought Wilford home.
“He’s old news anyway,” Wilford said.
He’d avoided getting bitten this time. The sound guy still got walked out the door, because Wilford couldn’t remember there was someone he shouldn’t have hired until he was running for his life on Mt Chiliad.
“I guess,” Penny agreed. “Have you ever followed up on a story?”
“Slenderman,” Wilford said as he lit a cigarette. “I milked that story for every second it was worth.” It got his name out there. That was the important part.
Penny seemed surprised for some reason. “That was you?”
“That was me.” He wasn’t surprised to see where Penny was taking him. They’d fallen into a routine that involved about three different places, and she was obviously trying to make it up to him for forgetting the previous night. The woman did know what he liked, though. That was why they did this. It was going to suck having to find her replacement in a few months.
She pulled into the parking lot and checked her phone for a few seconds before getting out of the car.
“You ready to get your ass handed to you?” she asked, flashing Wilford a sly smile.
“In your dreams.” Wilford got out and followed her through the gate and over to the card machine. Wilford pulled out the membership card for the park and fed it to the machine to see how many points he had. There was still a decent amount left on his card, but he decided to add another $20 to it just in case. Penny did the same, and they headed further through the maze of gates and fences to the row of batting cages. They both fed their cards to the machines inside the cages, ignored the offered helmets, and took a bat from the pathetic selection available. He never brought his own when they came here. Mostly because Buster ate it, and he kept forgetting to replace it.
The bats kind of sucked, but the machines were decent. It took a few swings for Wilford to find a setting he liked, but soon he was knocking the balls right back at the machine as fast as it could spit them out at him.
“What happened to that ass kicking you promised?” Wilford called over to Penny as she struggled with the settings on her own machine.
“I’m just warming up, old man,” Penny taunted back.
Before too long, they were calling out numbers in whatever random increment they settled on, in between taunting one another into missing. Penny knew what she was doing. She didn’t miss very often, and when she hit the ball, it went where it was supposed to go.
Wilford was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t notice what Penny was up to until she was right next to him in his cage.
“What?” he demanded, turning just in time to see her dial his machine up to top speed.
She ducked out and back into her cage just in time for Wilford to get assaulted by ball after ball as the machine spat them out faster than any human could hope to cope with them.
“You bitch!” he shouted, trying to keep his glasses in one piece while he scrambled for the dial. He got his machine turned off, shaking his head as the horrible woman cackled at him. Not even hesitating, he grabbed up as many of the baseballs as he could and took them next door, throwing each of them right at Penny and putting her in the same awkward position she’d put him in.
Suddenly, a loud buzzer echoed over the area and all the machines stopped at once. Penny and Wilford looked up to see an angry security guard stomping toward them.
“Shit, it’s the cops,” Wilford said, rushing to grab his card out of the machine before they ran for it. Instead of running for the car, they chose to go over the fence, knowing an underpaid security guard would be less likely to follow them if it meant tearing his trousers. What they weren’t counting on was him being armed and taking shots at them. Assuming the bastard wasn’t insane enough to be using live rounds, Wilford ignored the punch in the back as he hauled himself over the fence. Or rather, he tried to ignore it, but rubber bullets always hurt worse than he expected them to. Running was difficult without being able to catch his breath, but they got away from the park as quickly as possible, finally stopping a few blocks away to rest on the sidewalk.
“That fucker got me,” Penny said, panting as she looked at the new hole in her arm. “What kind of asshole uses live rounds at a park?”
Wilford realised he wasn’t catching his breath. He looked down at the bright shirt he was wearing, and got definitive proof.
“Fuck,” he said at the growing pool of blood on his chest.
“Oh my god,” Penny said, seeing it too.
Wilford pressed his hand against his chest to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. The orange light from the streetlight above them wasn’t the best to see by, but it was enough to know that it was indeed blood on his shirt, and there was probably more on his back.
Penny grabbed him by the elbow to indicate that she wanted him back on his feet. Wilford resisted for a few moments, but decided that maybe bleeding to death on the sidewalk was a stupid idea.
“I’ve got a first aid kit in my car.” Penny was already starting to head down the road to get back to the park.
“Might need more than one,” Wilford said, not really sure what to do with himself. He hated getting shot. It was his least favourite thing in the entire universe.
He focused on just staying conscious on the walk back to the park. By the time they made it back to her car, security had already forgotten about them, and was busy watching for the next group of people to cause trouble. As soon as the door was unlocked, Wilford dropped back into the passenger seat and just focused on breathing. A few seconds later, Penny returned with a big, white box from her trunk, and crouched down next to Wilford.
“Take off your shirt,” she said, tugging on the yellow fabric.
“Fuck you. No.”
“Bleed to death, or take off your shirt.”
Wilford grumbled, but reached up to work the buttons. He didn’t take off his shirt, but he did open it before taking the kit from Penny’s hands.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, doing what he could to patch up the hole in his chest. It didn’t help.
“You gonna get your own back?” Penny asked. “Or are you going to keep bleeding all over my seat?”
“I’m thinking real hard about it,” Wilford said.
He finally took off his shirt and sat forward so Penny could get his back. While she less-than-gently dressed the wound, Wilford became acutely aware of much more this could have sucked. At least this time the bullet didn’t take the scenic route on its way through him. If he could stay out of the hospital this time, that would be a plus.
When Penny was done, she patched up her arm as well as she could, and tossed the remains of the first aid kit back into the trunk on her way to the driver’s seat. They both sat there in silence for a long moment, Wilford too tired to even bother putting his shirt back on. It was ruined anyway. Why did all of his favourite clothes get ruined? It wasn’t fair.
“That’s a big scar,” Penny said suddenly.
Wilford looked over at her, already knowing exactly where she was looking. The scars didn’t bother him. Being looked at did, so he put the ruined shirt back on and buttoned it up.
“They had to gut me like a fish one time. It wasn’t any fun. I don’t recommend it.”
Penny nodded and started the car. “Then we should find some dinner.”
Wilford was not going to argue there. He didn’t even care where Penny took them, as long as it was away from hot-headed security guards who thought they were big, damn war heroes. Wilford realised he’d dozed off at one point when he woke up to a cup of coffee being shoved under his nose.
“They had those doughnut things you like,” Penny said, also offering him some hotteok.
“It’s not a doughnut,” Wilford said. He bit into it, realising it also wasn’t hotteok. It was some sort of tiny, round apple pie thing that Wilford was too tired to identify.
It also wasn’t dinner, but he didn’t feel like arguing that fact on top of everything else. They were back on the road again before he even took the first drink of his coffee. If staying awake wasn’t such a chore, he might have noticed that Penny was taking him home. It was a fact he didn’t notice until they were back in his driveway. Instead of going in through the garage and trying to navigate the spiral staircase, Penny walked with him up to the front door, taking her life into her own hands if he missed a step and fell. But he didn’t miss a step, and he didn’t fall, and they both arrived up on the balcony safely. The dog barked and jumped up and down as Wilford unlocked the door and kicked his shoes off, not even bothering to make sure Penny did the same.
“Nice place,” she said as she stepped inside, crouching down to greet Buster. While she cooed and made kissy noises at him, Wilford headed over to his chair to collapse. He was aware that he should have changed his shirt first, but he was already sat back down, and couldn’t be bothered to get back up.
After a few moments, Penny sat down on the sofa and picked up the remote for the TV. It was still on the animal channel Wilford liked to leave on for the dog, but he didn’t pay much attention to what Penny changed it over to. He just tried to finish is coffee so he didn’t spill it on himself.
Wilford couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night without taking a lot of something first. He slowly sat up, his back protesting every second of it. His shirt was stuck to his skin, as well as to the chair, but at least the chair was leather, so it wouldn’t leave a tremendously noticeable stain.
He got about three steps toward his bedroom before noticing that Penny had fallen asleep on the sofa. With her shoes on. Because of course she had. Sighing, and deciding to deal with that later, Wilford went to go shower and change into something that wasn’t disgusting. By the time he came back out, Penny was up and fiddling with the coffee machine.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Wilford said, reaching for the biggest mug he had.
“I figured you were going to say that,” Penny said.
“Make it as uncomfortable as you want. I’m going to ignore the fuck out of your existence.”
She opened the fridge and frowned. “Where’s your milk?”
“I can’t drink that shit. If the kid downstairs wants it, he’s in charge of it.”
He didn’t wait for the coffee machine to finish brewing, and filled up his cup with what it had already managed to get through. He poured about three cups of sugar into his mug before taking it over to his chair to inspect the damage. Yep. It was pretty bad. He went back to the bathroom to grab a towel to drape over the mess until he could get around to cleaning it up.
For a moment, he considered kicking Penny out, but she did get him home last night. Usually he got left behind when shit got real. So that counted for something.
“I’m going to the studio. Lock the door on your way out.” He slid into his shoes, hoping wardrobe had something he could wear for filming. Filming was the last thing he wanted to do, but short of flinging himself off a bridge or bothering to open up his save log for ten whole seconds, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Buster liked car rides. He stayed in the back seat where he belonged, quietly wuffing at every motorcycle they encountered on the drive into downtown Vinewood. Traffic was… traffic. It was never not traffic. It was always going to be traffic. Wilford simply connected his phone to his car’s stereo and drowned everything out with Parov Stelar. It didn’t make the drive go any faster, but it almost made it more bearable.
At the studio, he parked in his spot, making sure to slam his door into the car next to him that had parked over the line, and then slammed the back door into it as well when he let the dog out. Buster knew the way from there, and was off like a shot in the direction of the studio. Wilford didn’t know who kept letting him in, but he was always gone by the time Wilford made it to reception.
Instead of heading straight to his dressing room, he had a more pressing matter to deal with. He walked up to the desk and leaned over it, putting on his best menacingly impassive face. He stayed like this until Penny finally looked up to see him looming over her.
“You stood me up,” he said plainly.
Penny shook her head, confused. “No I didn’t,” she said.
“You stood me up,” Wilford repeated with a little more force.
“No, we were…” She stopped short as a wave of realisation washed over her face. She looked up at Wilford with wide, shocked eyes and almost choked. “I didn’t come in on Monday. I’ve been a day off all week,” she said.
“And you stood me up,” Wilford repeated for emphasis.
Penny was laughing now, while the new woman next to her shot them both a scandalised look. The look Wilford shot her in return told her in no unclear terms to mind her own business.
“We can go tonight if you’re not busy,” Penny offered, still laughing.
Wilford grumbled and leaned further over her desk. He tore the top page of her daily calendar off, balled it up, and threw it at Penny before heading off to his dressing room. He could hear the women whispering harshly at one another, or perhaps more accurately, the new women whispering harshly at Penny as he headed down the hall and away from both of them. The dog was already long gone, no doubt pestering someone and puking under their desk, leaving Wilford with no qualms about shutting him out.
Thursdays were easy days. Last minute ADR, a conference with some higher ups that eventually got told to go fuck themselves, a surprise meeting with one of the week’s guests. She was someone for Kevin’s segment, which meant she was nobody Wilford cared about, so he got her out of his dressing room as quickly as possible. Thursdays were long days, but easy. Last-minute prep for the live recording the day after. It was nearly 6pm by the time Wilford finally got out of there. When he opened his door, it was in time to see the dog trotting up the hall with a shotgun microphone in his mouth.
“Where the hell have you been all day?” Wilford asked him.
Buster was so pleased with his new toy he didn’t even acknowledge Wilford, and kept trotting straight on to the front door.
“Oh, yes. By all means, your highness,” Wilford said, following after him. Penny had already gone, along with the other woman who probably wouldn’t last another week the way she didn’t seem to approve of anything. In their place was the security guard who ran the place at night. Instead of watching the place, he was watching cat videos on his phone.
“Night, sir!” he called out as Wilford and Buster left the building, the door automatically locking heavily behind them. Buster was quiet the entire way home, too busy trying to figure out what his new toy was to be on the lookout for those pesky motorcycles.
Wilford was surprised to pull into his driveway to find a little red two-seater parked outside. He had half a mind to just go inside and let her idle in the driveway all night, but he sighed instead and pulled into the garage. He took just enough time to let the dog out of the car and into the house before stepping back out into the setting evening sun to see what Penny had in mind.
“You think it’s this easy to make it up to me?” he asked, leaning through the open passenger window.
“You’ve made your point. Get in,” Penny said.
“Have I?” Wilford didn’t think he had, but she was right about one thing: he had absolutely nothing planned for the night, so with a great show of rolling his eyes and looking deeply inconvenienced, Wilford pulled open the door and fell into the low seat. He hated Penny’s car. It sat so low to the ground, it broke your spine at every speed bump and pothole.
“Just because I got in doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you yet,” Wilford said, popping open the glovebox to see what she had.
“Yes it does,” Penny argued as she backed out of his driveway, careful to avoid hitting the gate that hadn’t bothered to be installed yet.
Wilford couldn’t find anything worth opening up in her glove box, so he slapped it shut and connected his phone to her stereo instead, overriding the talk radio she liked to listen to with some actual music. He didn’t miss the sour look on her face, nor did he care.
“Too bad Bigby’s sentencing is tomorrow. It’ll probably be too late to cover it on the show,” Penny said, winding through the same streets that had just brought Wilford home.
“He’s old news anyway,” Wilford said.
He’d avoided getting bitten this time. The sound guy still got walked out the door, because Wilford couldn’t remember there was someone he shouldn’t have hired until he was running for his life on Mt Chiliad.
“I guess,” Penny agreed. “Have you ever followed up on a story?”
“Slenderman,” Wilford said as he lit a cigarette. “I milked that story for every second it was worth.” It got his name out there. That was the important part.
Penny seemed surprised for some reason. “That was you?”
“That was me.” He wasn’t surprised to see where Penny was taking him. They’d fallen into a routine that involved about three different places, and she was obviously trying to make it up to him for forgetting the previous night. The woman did know what he liked, though. That was why they did this. It was going to suck having to find her replacement in a few months.
She pulled into the parking lot and checked her phone for a few seconds before getting out of the car.
“You ready to get your ass handed to you?” she asked, flashing Wilford a sly smile.
“In your dreams.” Wilford got out and followed her through the gate and over to the card machine. Wilford pulled out the membership card for the park and fed it to the machine to see how many points he had. There was still a decent amount left on his card, but he decided to add another $20 to it just in case. Penny did the same, and they headed further through the maze of gates and fences to the row of batting cages. They both fed their cards to the machines inside the cages, ignored the offered helmets, and took a bat from the pathetic selection available. He never brought his own when they came here. Mostly because Buster ate it, and he kept forgetting to replace it.
The bats kind of sucked, but the machines were decent. It took a few swings for Wilford to find a setting he liked, but soon he was knocking the balls right back at the machine as fast as it could spit them out at him.
“What happened to that ass kicking you promised?” Wilford called over to Penny as she struggled with the settings on her own machine.
“I’m just warming up, old man,” Penny taunted back.
Before too long, they were calling out numbers in whatever random increment they settled on, in between taunting one another into missing. Penny knew what she was doing. She didn’t miss very often, and when she hit the ball, it went where it was supposed to go.
Wilford was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t notice what Penny was up to until she was right next to him in his cage.
“What?” he demanded, turning just in time to see her dial his machine up to top speed.
She ducked out and back into her cage just in time for Wilford to get assaulted by ball after ball as the machine spat them out faster than any human could hope to cope with them.
“You bitch!” he shouted, trying to keep his glasses in one piece while he scrambled for the dial. He got his machine turned off, shaking his head as the horrible woman cackled at him. Not even hesitating, he grabbed up as many of the baseballs as he could and took them next door, throwing each of them right at Penny and putting her in the same awkward position she’d put him in.
Suddenly, a loud buzzer echoed over the area and all the machines stopped at once. Penny and Wilford looked up to see an angry security guard stomping toward them.
“Shit, it’s the cops,” Wilford said, rushing to grab his card out of the machine before they ran for it. Instead of running for the car, they chose to go over the fence, knowing an underpaid security guard would be less likely to follow them if it meant tearing his trousers. What they weren’t counting on was him being armed and taking shots at them. Assuming the bastard wasn’t insane enough to be using live rounds, Wilford ignored the punch in the back as he hauled himself over the fence. Or rather, he tried to ignore it, but rubber bullets always hurt worse than he expected them to. Running was difficult without being able to catch his breath, but they got away from the park as quickly as possible, finally stopping a few blocks away to rest on the sidewalk.
“That fucker got me,” Penny said, panting as she looked at the new hole in her arm. “What kind of asshole uses live rounds at a park?”
Wilford realised he wasn’t catching his breath. He looked down at the bright shirt he was wearing, and got definitive proof.
“Fuck,” he said at the growing pool of blood on his chest.
“Oh my god,” Penny said, seeing it too.
Wilford pressed his hand against his chest to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. The orange light from the streetlight above them wasn’t the best to see by, but it was enough to know that it was indeed blood on his shirt, and there was probably more on his back.
Penny grabbed him by the elbow to indicate that she wanted him back on his feet. Wilford resisted for a few moments, but decided that maybe bleeding to death on the sidewalk was a stupid idea.
“I’ve got a first aid kit in my car.” Penny was already starting to head down the road to get back to the park.
“Might need more than one,” Wilford said, not really sure what to do with himself. He hated getting shot. It was his least favourite thing in the entire universe.
He focused on just staying conscious on the walk back to the park. By the time they made it back to her car, security had already forgotten about them, and was busy watching for the next group of people to cause trouble. As soon as the door was unlocked, Wilford dropped back into the passenger seat and just focused on breathing. A few seconds later, Penny returned with a big, white box from her trunk, and crouched down next to Wilford.
“Take off your shirt,” she said, tugging on the yellow fabric.
“Fuck you. No.”
“Bleed to death, or take off your shirt.”
Wilford grumbled, but reached up to work the buttons. He didn’t take off his shirt, but he did open it before taking the kit from Penny’s hands.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, doing what he could to patch up the hole in his chest. It didn’t help.
“You gonna get your own back?” Penny asked. “Or are you going to keep bleeding all over my seat?”
“I’m thinking real hard about it,” Wilford said.
He finally took off his shirt and sat forward so Penny could get his back. While she less-than-gently dressed the wound, Wilford became acutely aware of much more this could have sucked. At least this time the bullet didn’t take the scenic route on its way through him. If he could stay out of the hospital this time, that would be a plus.
When Penny was done, she patched up her arm as well as she could, and tossed the remains of the first aid kit back into the trunk on her way to the driver’s seat. They both sat there in silence for a long moment, Wilford too tired to even bother putting his shirt back on. It was ruined anyway. Why did all of his favourite clothes get ruined? It wasn’t fair.
“That’s a big scar,” Penny said suddenly.
Wilford looked over at her, already knowing exactly where she was looking. The scars didn’t bother him. Being looked at did, so he put the ruined shirt back on and buttoned it up.
“They had to gut me like a fish one time. It wasn’t any fun. I don’t recommend it.”
Penny nodded and started the car. “Then we should find some dinner.”
Wilford was not going to argue there. He didn’t even care where Penny took them, as long as it was away from hot-headed security guards who thought they were big, damn war heroes. Wilford realised he’d dozed off at one point when he woke up to a cup of coffee being shoved under his nose.
“They had those doughnut things you like,” Penny said, also offering him some hotteok.
“It’s not a doughnut,” Wilford said. He bit into it, realising it also wasn’t hotteok. It was some sort of tiny, round apple pie thing that Wilford was too tired to identify.
It also wasn’t dinner, but he didn’t feel like arguing that fact on top of everything else. They were back on the road again before he even took the first drink of his coffee. If staying awake wasn’t such a chore, he might have noticed that Penny was taking him home. It was a fact he didn’t notice until they were back in his driveway. Instead of going in through the garage and trying to navigate the spiral staircase, Penny walked with him up to the front door, taking her life into her own hands if he missed a step and fell. But he didn’t miss a step, and he didn’t fall, and they both arrived up on the balcony safely. The dog barked and jumped up and down as Wilford unlocked the door and kicked his shoes off, not even bothering to make sure Penny did the same.
“Nice place,” she said as she stepped inside, crouching down to greet Buster. While she cooed and made kissy noises at him, Wilford headed over to his chair to collapse. He was aware that he should have changed his shirt first, but he was already sat back down, and couldn’t be bothered to get back up.
After a few moments, Penny sat down on the sofa and picked up the remote for the TV. It was still on the animal channel Wilford liked to leave on for the dog, but he didn’t pay much attention to what Penny changed it over to. He just tried to finish is coffee so he didn’t spill it on himself.
Wilford couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night without taking a lot of something first. He slowly sat up, his back protesting every second of it. His shirt was stuck to his skin, as well as to the chair, but at least the chair was leather, so it wouldn’t leave a tremendously noticeable stain.
He got about three steps toward his bedroom before noticing that Penny had fallen asleep on the sofa. With her shoes on. Because of course she had. Sighing, and deciding to deal with that later, Wilford went to go shower and change into something that wasn’t disgusting. By the time he came back out, Penny was up and fiddling with the coffee machine.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Wilford said, reaching for the biggest mug he had.
“I figured you were going to say that,” Penny said.
“Make it as uncomfortable as you want. I’m going to ignore the fuck out of your existence.”
She opened the fridge and frowned. “Where’s your milk?”
“I can’t drink that shit. If the kid downstairs wants it, he’s in charge of it.”
He didn’t wait for the coffee machine to finish brewing, and filled up his cup with what it had already managed to get through. He poured about three cups of sugar into his mug before taking it over to his chair to inspect the damage. Yep. It was pretty bad. He went back to the bathroom to grab a towel to drape over the mess until he could get around to cleaning it up.
For a moment, he considered kicking Penny out, but she did get him home last night. Usually he got left behind when shit got real. So that counted for something.
“I’m going to the studio. Lock the door on your way out.” He slid into his shoes, hoping wardrobe had something he could wear for filming. Filming was the last thing he wanted to do, but short of flinging himself off a bridge or bothering to open up his save log for ten whole seconds, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
