“Wake up sleepy head,” a gravelly voice crisped into the cool morning air. “Wake up sleepy head.” It came again but this time with more guttural urgency. “Wake up sleepy head!” This time it was punctuated with an exclamation of slight panic.
Inevitably it was enough for Atlas to pull himself from his pillow and glance at his noisy bed companion. “I’m hungry you lazy bloke.”
“I should have never of taught you to say that.” Atlas grumbled as he peeled his one silver eye to look over the form that currently inhabited the pillows on the far side of his king sized bed. It wasn’t a gorgeous woman or even an ugly one for that matter- honestly it wasn’t even human. That nagging presence was Merlin- Atlas’s African Grey. He had apparently flown in when he had noticed a lack of his owner’s presence in the kitchen- or at least that was the said owner’s perception of the current interruption. Merlin just stared at him with glassy black eyes and reiterated: “I’m hungry you lazy bloke.”
“Yes yes- stop being a cad.” With that he rolled over to glance at the clock with a high sense of trepidation. He rarely ever overslept being the well-oiled machine he was, but there could always be a fluke in his system.
05:26
Atlas was apparent in no danger of losing his punctuality, but he was finding a hard time explaining Merlin’s urgency. They had been on the same schedule for years now, and yet the bird seemed to be a bit tweaked by something. “Come on- lets’ get you something to bloody eat.”
Just garbed in his underwear he made his way to the kitchen to find the reason for Merlin’s disturbance: her name was Giselle, and she was currently lounging over the counter in one of his best dress shirts and sipping on some coffee.
“I’m going to need that shirt back.” Atlas remarked as Merlin flew past him and landed quite squarely on one of the many perches situated about the condo.
“Well you are going to have to take it off of me,” she purred softly.
“I really don’t have the time.” Atlas lamented.
It was then that the blonde approached him, and looped her fingers around the buttons- popping them off one by one. Each patch of succulent flesh made it harder and harder for him to stand his ground on the matter. “Really?”
He knew he was going to regret this. “I can spare a bit.” He leaned in and brought his hands to her waist, and pulled her in quite tightly to his own form. “That is my favorite shirt.”
→ → →
As they say: time flies when you are having fun. Atlas found himself a bit less than punctual as he rode the elevator up to the Field Office that morning. He was dressed perfectly as usual: gray suit and waistcoat, darker gray button up (that still smelled sweetly of Giselle), his pearl white tie, and that black eye patch covering his right orb. Atlas had pulled his hair back and only a few ebony plaits hung around his well shaven face. While he may not have been deemed the most attractive of the Signet males- he did have quite a bit of charm to make up for it.
“Good morning you lot,” Atlas stated with a grin. “Apologies for my tardiness- I had a bit of a hard time getting my clothes wrestled together this morning.”
It was then his eye fell on Gale and his smarmy grin softened a bit. “Agent Cross- I see you are as gorgeous as ever.” It was the usual sort of compliment he gave to the female species, and yet it meant something entirely different when speaking to her. Atlas hadn’t quite figured out the nuances of his feelings yet, but he had to say they were far more complicated than some one-night stand and polite bedside manner afterwards.
He didn’t let his gaze linger, but instead gave a placid sweep to the other two before settling on the horizon. It wasn’t as if he blatantly ignored the other two, but they weren’t of the female spectrum- and even though both of them had handfuls of crisp golden hair he highly doubted they played for the other team.
“So I know I wasn’t invited in here to brighten up this drab scenery with my dashing looks. What is our mission this time?”