Now cogent enough to put tracks down for his train of thought, he probably should have been wondering more about this knight situation. Instead, Brendan went to do something far more important: fix up his dear Indian Red motorcycle.

He had guessed that she had seen better days before he even laid eyes on her. Two years with no caretaker would leave even the best of machines a little dusty at the very least. But the issue was worse than he expected: someone had taken his ride.

It did not matter that he had been in an almost vegetative state for two years, someone had taken his ******** ride without permission.

She wasn't banged up per se, but she had definitely been used. Hellfire had rained down on his family as he made calls, physical visits, and capslocked intense texts demanding they give her back. They tried to fight back with logical arguments: that he shouldn't be riding again after his accident, not so soon. And on that matter, why hadn't he been wearing a helmet? Was he stupid?

Brendan told them, politely, to ******** off and give him his bike back. He was not going to be having that argument again, life-threatening injuries or no.

Eventually he wrested the Indian Red back from one of his cousins, and one fifteen minute Spanish squabble later, he was back at his apartment, toolbox open, and playlist blaring on his laptop. It felt good to get down and dirty with his girl again, like lovers reunited. She was ready for him too, ready to let him put his hands everywhere and anywhere, ready to shine bright and purr at his touch...

Snorting laughter ensued as the innuendos mounted. It didn't last.

Minute actions were still hard for him, and harder still to come to terms with when he was working. Brendan scowled at himself whenever his hands felt suddenly weak or trembled, or when his mind slipped away from what he had been intending. He was bigger than this, damn it.

"Why weren't you wearing a ******** off," he said in an undertone as he reached for the replacement break pads.

Brendan had tried to explain his thrill-seeking impulse before, on multiple occasions; he might as well have been trying to ask his family to vote Republican. None of them would ever understand that life on the whole was boring to him. That he didn't shift and tap his foot and did other little myriad things to annoy them, but because he felt compelled to break the monotony of just existing in a space like everything else. What was life if you weren't actually living it?

Hell, what made you different from your pet just sitting there on the couch? You could do s**t. You could feel s**t. You could learn where to find more. You could test yourself against it and come out alive, stronger for it maybe. It was such an integral part of him that Brendan didn't know how else to explain it, and the more he thought about this imaginary five-thousandth conversation about it, the more agitated he felt. Did he have to explain breathing to them too?

No. These ******** took his bike without his say, and they deserved no explanation for his decisions.

(It didn't occur to him that this was irrational possession. That he considered the Indian Red an extension of his independence, and that, like many things while he had been in a coma, it had been threatened to be taken away.)