The Second Coming || Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, David Bowie

The Second Coming: One

I frowned slightly at the meal before me: green salad, topped with cucumbers, thinly sliced carrot, and artichoke hearts. I must've done something to please Cap earlier that day, because I had been rewarded with sliced grapes as a side dish.

Cap eyeballed me over his steaming plate of roast chicken as the housekeeper poured us both glasses of the rich red wine.

"What, is something the matter with your dinner, darling?"

"No," I mumbled, and automatically I wanted to kick myself.

"What was that?" Cap asserted.

I gasped just slightly, clearing my throat. He never failed to intimidate me, and that only provided another reason for me to be down on myself.

"Nothing is wrong with my dinner."

Cap said nothing. I did my best to ignore the tantalizing scent of his dinner, especially once he began to eat it with gusto.

I picked up my fork and began to pick at my salad. Axl would've called it rabbit food, and then he would've taken me out for a club sandwich.

The thought of smoky bacon, cool green avacado and grilled chicken made me want to drool, so I shoved the idea out of my mind and focused on the benign and watery taste of spinach leaves.

It was so deadly quiet, I could almost hear my own unhapiness. I'd learned to live with it, but most times I couldn't help but think about what it was like to have a meal with my old friends. The laughing, the drinking, the story telling. No one could have a boring time with Steven at the table, and no one could leave without a sore face from smiling.

Maybe Axl could, be he didn't like to smile most times, unless we were alone.

"How was your day?" Cap said, throwing me out of my reverie.

"Oh, it was nothing special." I said vaguely while impaling a grape with my fork. The corners of his mouth turned up just slightly, because that was exactly what he wanted to hear.

Cap had approached the task of sucking all the flavor out of my life with an eerie ferventness. I was allowed a few hours of television a day, so long as the programs had nothing to do with music. I'd officially lost my desk job at CIA HQ. I could read, but I couldn't draw: that was far too creative and stimulating.

I could nap, but not for more than an hour at a time. Laziness is an unfavorable trait in women, Cap says. And for this very reason, once a week I was allowed outside the apartment. As long as I could be shrouded by the cover of night, as long as I stayed away from any concerts or bars, and as long as I was with my next door neighbor and her friends.

With that being said, I did not tell Cap that I had perfected yet another song on the guitar, I didn't tell him about how badly my fingers ached, how badly my back was cramping from sitting for so long.

Instead, I told him that it was nothing special. Nothing special at all, and that's what Cap liked to hear.

"Cap?" I said his name gently as I finished the last of my salad. I definitely would've still been hungry after such a meager offering, if it hadn't been for the anxiousness growing in my chest.

He set his wine glass down and swallowed.

"What is it, Callie?"

I stole my courage, and met his eyes again. "Would it be alright with you if I went out with Nina tonight? It's just a small get together across town, a few friends."

His eyes narrowed as both of his elbows came down against the table top. If I were to do that while I ate, I would be severely reprimanded.

He seemed to consider my words for the longest time, stopping only once for another bite of chicken and sip of wine. He sighed, wiping his mouth on his cloth napkin.