Kerr had recently drawn the profound conclusion that delirium was inhibiting. It had been almost four weeks since he\'d walked out on Ben and although he\'d picked up a quasi-roommate after a week (completely by accident), very little about him had changed. He was still floating along in a heartbroken fugue that was stopping him from moving forward in any sense of the word.
Certainly, Mandy had been quite a pleasant distraction at first, turning up when he least expected it (she must have explained her work schedule to him five times before he realised he was retaining nothing and learned to just do his own thing, whether she showed up or not) and motivating him to do the things with teh house that he\'d told her about. They shopped for replacement wood for cabinets, thousands of dollars\' worth of power tools and generally bought enough supplies that a new builder would be set up in their trade for months. Mandy joked around a lot, keeping things light and friendly between them and he felt relaxed with her, even if he didn\'t smile overly much or encourage the physical contact she initiated naturally.
The positive feelings didn\'t last, though. Mandy wasn\'t always there and when she was, her pet project had become painting scenes on the wall in the dance hall (or dining room or whatever the strange, beautiful space was meant to be). Kerr worked on door frames and cabinets, stonework and pavers. They didn\'t have a lot of interaction - even though she frequently slept the night in the bed beside his coffin and he\'d fed from her three more times - but... he didn\'t really mind.
Thankfully, she\'d not been there when Lazarus had come calling the night before. He could only imagine what the Luminary would have said to finding a woman in his house and him pining like a fool; what he had said had not been pleasant in the slightest as it was. Naturally, they\'d argued. Lazarus had that way about him, though, and had impressed upon Kerr the importance of working to keep his mind occupied at a crucial time such as this. Though he\'d denied it vehemently, he\'d eventually had to acknowledge that there was some merit to the ancient\'s plan (once he was gone and not out loud, of course) of him working again.
Still, he liked being on his own, for it gave him an excuse to be miserable. He would lie upon the couch and allow the loneliness and betrayal to wash over him, crippling him... numbing him. Ben was all he wanted at these times, all he thought about. So bad were his cravings, that he would find himself standing before a mirror, staring at the tattooed names on his naked body and not remembering how long he\'d been there. Or why. So deep was his yearning, that he had, at times, broken from a powerful memory of being with Ben in Europe to find the sun cresting the horizon and him sitting there, exposed to the deadly twilight.
Twice now, he\'d had to run for his coffin, pulling curtains behind him as he went, and diving into the box with little time to spare. Only to wait and stare. Sunlight didn\'t seem to have the same lethargic hold over him it once had - it made him sluggish, certainly, but it didn\'t knock him out. He didn\'t sleep the slumber of the righteous or the recently betrayed, he wasn\'t immersed in feelings of calm that told him he\'d done the right thing, he didn\'t dream his way into resolution and understanding.
He didn\'t sleep.
The best he did was doze - fitfully - and toss and turn within the close confines of his nominated resting place. Consequently, when the time came for him to emerge from his coffin, the haze continued. It was like that line in that movie he\'d seen a few years before - Fight Club - where when he was awake he was still mostly asleep and when he was asleep he was half awake. He was never fully in either state enough to know what he was doing or where he should be... and working with power tools only seemed to add spice to the mix. He was delirious with insomnia.
Always, there was the mirror, though, and him staring at Ben\'s name or stroking his chest, mourning the loss of the only true love he\'d ever felt, often crying and feeling like he was a stone sinking in a murky pool of oil. Slowly he dropped, tainted by the deeds he\'d witnessed, alone and falling by his choosing but never landing anywhere he could put his feet down and begin to centre himself. Nothing was that solid, nothing clear, nothing easy.
One night, he got sick of it and decided to do something about it. He got dressed in a pair of nice black slacks and matching shoes and an ornate white long-sleeved button up shirt with black scribbly writing over parts of it. He\'d showered and pulled his wet hair back into a sleek pony tail, then left the house before Mandy could get there. She had her own key anyway, he didn\'t need to wait for her. Besides, he needed to act while the will of it propelled him forward instead of slowly downward.
He drove to the tattoo parlour he\'d got the names done at, intending it to be the only stop for the evening. It took a while before the huge woman who\'d bound the tattoos to his skin could be found but when she eventually entered the room at his unusual request, he smiled for the first time in weeks. He explained his situation to her, she tried to counsel him out of making hasty decisions in an emotional state and he argued with her until she did as he asked. The promise of a generous amount of money that she could use to help her supernatural charges and the hotel she ran to protect them all helped a great deal.
As he was leaving the parlour (feeling inexplicably lighter and happier knowing that the binding magic was gone and that his vampiric healing abilities would take care of the foreign ink in no time), an advertisement on the wall caught his eye. An advertisement for a superntural doctor\'s surgery, that claimed to be able to cure or hex numerous ailments right out of most supernatural bodies, including sleep disorders. Sleep! A thrill went through him as he took note of the surgery\'s address and headed for his car, a distinct bounce in his step.
It only took him half an hour to drive to the specified location (though he took a few wrong turns and had to consult the G.P.S. machine on his dashboard in the end, when the place didn\'t turn out to be as easy to get to as he\'d thought it would be) but it seemed to take forever. He was genuinely excited. Not only had he taken a positive step towards recovering his heart from Ben\'s hold, but he\'d now found a way to get some clarity back into his life (he hoped). If he could just start sleeping through the day again, he\'d be thinking and acting more clearly in no time and he could move on with his life. It was exactly what he needed!
Kerr parked the car as close to the front of the surgery as he could and got out, clicking the expensive car\'s alarm on. He took a moment to survey the outside of the establishment before he dropped his keys into the back pocket of his slacks with his wallet, and then headed for the door. He had no idea what he\'d find on the inside - with regard to the doctors or the patients - but he expected... weird things, at the very least. Still, his spirit was still quite buoyant as he pushed the door open and walked in.
