Chapter Text
Perception: Your eyes watch the slow, dawdling spin of a miniature airplane dangling by a silken thread of fishing wire. It catches the morning light in a way so delicate that it feels as if it couldn't be real. That the plane at any other given level of illumination must be able to fly all on its own.
Logic: Of course it couldn't, as it is made simply of cheaply painted plywood.
Perception: Bright orange
Conceptualization: The color of sunrise. Of long gloved fingers tracing cold steel.
Empathy: Of tenderness and safety
Authority: Of Control
Pain Threshold: Of the Sting and the Thump
Electrochemistry: Of Ecstasy
Halflight: The hurt will come long after the bruises and bites fade. You’ll never be safe, and it will never be tender.
Drama: Tis’ but a wisp, sire a fleeting insecurity.
Perception: There's coffee and something savory.
Reaction: Kim is home and making breakfast.
Esprit de Corps: If he's in the kitchen making food, it likely means he doesn't have work today.
You- yay!
Electrochemistry: yay indeed
Physical Instrument : ehck
Conceptualization: You exhale a long, contented breath. The deep, creaking satisfaction pumps oxygen into the fuel tank, likely located in the back of your cranium.
Perception: A deep guttural growl emanates from within you. A creature digs its claws in your sides and refuses to let you go until you satiate its appetite, uncaring for the pain and suffering it causes.
Inland Empire: It is your kin. A cavernous thing begging to be filled.
Gastro Intestinal Complex: e̴̳͉̖͑g̴̠̝̱̉͝G̴͕͓̭͐́̃s̵̬̞̥̊̑̎ͅ
Perception: It twists and shifts under the layer of flesh located just beneath your sternum. Its demand floods your mouth with stale-tasting saliva, and a thick, glossy layer of bacterial slime clings to your tongue, acrid.
Pain Threshold: It does not care about the foul taste of your own body; you are far too familiar with its abuse.
Gastro Intestinal Complex B̸̨̭̮̑a̸͕̐̄̚͝aC̷͓̹͒̕o̷̩̟͙̍͂͋N̴̠͍̍̅̒͝
Endurance: and bread to provide carbohydrates.
Electrochemistry: and Sugar! Lots of sweet, sugary sweetness with that liquid fat melting. Fuck yes.
Logic: strawberry preserves and butter
Electrochemistry: Enough to make a grown man cum
Encyclopedia: I believe it's supposed to be cry?
Electrochemistry: We've done enough crying for a lifetime and not nearly enough cumming.
Suggestion: Perhaps after breakfast?
Volition: In the shower?
Logic: On the bed?
Electrochemistry: In the kitchen, on the table
Pain Threshold: And underneath it.
Interfacing: At his boots
Authority: Where you belong.
Logic: If he's home for the day, it's unlikely he's wearing them.
Empathy: He'd put them on for you. He'd enjoy doing it.
Esprit de Corps: He'd die for you.
Rhetoric: Putting on shoes is very reasonable in comparison.
Savoir Faire: You roll your lumbering form from its station; the soft sheets glide like seafoam and cool water over your heated flesh, the shock prickling your skin like a plucked bird.
Encyclopedia: Goosebumps, also known as goose flesh, refers to the temporary raised bumps on the skin that typically appear in response to cold temperatures, strong emotions, or certain stimuli. This physiological phenomenon is characterized by the contraction of tiny muscles attached to hair follicles, causing the hairs on the skin to stand erect. The name "goosebumps" derives from the similarity of the raised bumps to the skin of a plucked goose. Goosebumps serve as a vestigial response, reminiscent of our evolutionary ancestors' ability to raise their fur or feathers to conserve heat or display aggression.
Interfacing: Bleary and wavering from a stagnant state into one of motion, you fumble your gangly forearms across the way, your feet coming to feel the cold, grained texture of worn carpet threads.
Perception: Your eyes are caked with a crinkling of particulates, ranging from ambient dust and flaked skin to microorganisms, invisible insects, and the waxy liquids that your eyes produce in rem.
Conceptualization: A protective film of filth that shutters your overly feminine lashes together. It says "Closed for Business."
You: My lashes aren't feminine.
Drama: They're that of a virgin doe, movie starlet length; you can bat them wide-eyed and innocent, like a darling, to get even the most sturdy of individuals to lower and succumb to their charm.
Suggestion : They're called your "puppy dogs" , those beautiful blues.
Thought Cabinet: Contributions to the K9 Collective:
[Dogs evolved to coexist with men, an evolution that was as much affected by humans as it was by wolves. Dogs built themselves sweet and loyal, and humans befell them by being giving and tender. A creature built to have a master, a master built to care [Are you as much a dog to the world as you are to the RCM?]
Hand/Eye Coordination: You manage to paw your way over to the satin leopard-spotted robe that dangles from one of the end bed posts.
Perception: It's a lush, sensual thing, significantly more culturally appropriate, and far more disco. A throwback from the ‘Rabbit Days’ of sexual exploits.
Electrochemistry: Humphrey Hoover puffing cigars lit by women in form-fitting lattices all to sell the dream of dressing like him, having what he had, being him
Conceptualization: And maybe the deeper, more forbidden thought of being the rabbit too.
Suggestion: Call it Hare-y Du Bois.
You: You rub your eyes and shake the thought free.
Interfacing: You scratch the fur of your chest that peeks out from the triangular section, free of that leopard-print jungle.
Electrochemistry: It hugs low on your waist and brushes against you midway up your thighs.
"Gmornin," you murmur, reflexively opening the fridge with no intention other than, possibly, the joy of feeling a waft of cooling air wrap around you.
"I made porridge; there are eggs and bacon in the oven; help yourself," Kimsniffs, his eyes gazing calmly over the contents of his notebook.
Interfacing: You grab a bowl from the cabinet and ladle a good cupful of the sticky white slop.
Conceptualization: It's serviceable nutritionally, fit more for the tastes of an invalid, but Kim clearly isn't one for the flavor affairs of your truly avant-garde culinary expertise.
Physical Instrument: Your alcohol-riddled blood and drug-addled body have likely altered every organ in you to irreparable degrees. Your ability to taste anything that isn't seasoned enough to kill said invalid would taste just about as good as the blandest of plastic decorative fruits.
Perception: The kind that, for some inexplicable reason, Kim keeps a bowl of on the coffee table.
Drama: Kim is usually so practical that the impracticality of the fruit implies some sort of sentimental story he refuses to divulge to you.
Suggestion: Perhaps it came into being in his home in the way that the eggs, bacon, jams, and butter, along with all the other specialities, have made their way into his pantry, just for you.
Conceptualization: Porridge makes an excellent canvas as you dash excessive amounts of salt, pepper, and hot sauce into the mushy mixture.
Electrochemistry: sugar? Fat?
Volition: coffee with extra cream and sugar.
Electrochemistry: fine, but the sex better be off the fucking charts, or I'm taking this entire operation down with me.
Suggestion: You don't even bother toddling about flapping your gums worthlessly to try and communicate an invitation to Kim.
Physical Instrument: You instead make yourself entirely clear by forgoing the seat across from him and instead lowering yourself to have your meal by the feet of his chair.
You: Criss-cross applesauce!
Hand/Eye Coordination: Yes, you cross your legs as you hold the bowl on your lap, fork coming to somewhat sloppily shovel food into your mouth.
Gastrointestinal Complex-s̸̢̮̹͑ü̶̮͔͇̃s̸͍̱̽̏ͅt̶̫̦̂ȩ̸̻̑n̶͙͕͎͋̑̀a̸͇̦͐́̐ǹ̸̹͇̍͐c̴̡̔͌e̷͇̔̈́̿
It grumbles, and you can feel it fade deep into the dark black recesses of your subconscious.
Endurance: It is satiated for now.
"You know there's a perfectly good chair right there." Kim gives an amused little shake of his head, taking his coffee cup to his lips.
Perception: The steam blinds him briefly as it condenses on his glasses.
"Oh?" you cock your head up and to the side in a play at obliviousness. "But it's so far from you." You point your spoon over towards the chair, which sits stationary and lonely a mere foot or so from where you are currently.
"Oh yes, of course, how silly of me!" he says, giving a mirthful little smile that crinkles along the sides of his eyes and makes him glow.
Perception: The morning light halos behind him.
Inland Empire: You wish you could be happy without it hurting like it does.
So deep inside you.
Past your bones, past the marrow, somewhere in the dark of you where you end and the swallow begins.
Perception: He runs a naked hand through your tousled hair and gives it a light tug.
"Hey, don’t leave me so soon; I took today and tomorrow off just for you." He bites his lower lip and tightens his grin into something more predatory.
"Wow, that's going to look real suspicious, Kim." You lean your head into the pull of Kim's hand, rubbing the back of your head up against his calf, long and lean.
"You think Pryce is onto us?" Kim's voice lowers an octave, a small rumble behind his words.
"I hope it's the bruises you’re going to give me in a bit that give it away and not vacation requests." You huff a soft laugh, relishing in the sensory experience of the side of your muttonchop gliding and shifting against Kim's leg.
"I have very little interest in letting any of this out to anyone, especially not Pryce." Kim chuckles, endeared to the banter and completely unaware of the pang that nestles in your chest.
"Ah, you and your dirty little secrets?" You nod and give a crooked grin over to the notebook laid bare on the center of the table.
Empathy: You note the reddening tips of his ears as he shuts the book closed.
You imagine there are a few pages dedicated entirely to this "thing" you and the Lieutenant have. This thing being relatively new, a few months or so after Martinase, the two of you found yourselves drawn to each other's company.
Probably you, more so than him, but it didn't take much opening to deduce how much Kim cared.
He'd been there religiously by your side as you ran yourself ragged through withdrawals and the few times you fell back off the wagon.
Volition: He was there to drag you back into yourself, this new you, no longer Tequila Sunset, now Harry Du Bois.
Inland Empire: Whoever that is
Volition: It's whoever you want it to be.
Inland Empire: You're not always sure you know who or what it is you want or want to be.
Empathy: Sometimes, a lot of the time, you don't want to be at all.
Electrochemistry : Like today, right now even, a bit after breakfast.
Inland Empire: Something inside of you will always long for the abyss; it is a part of you.
Volition: Let Kim unmake you. Remake you. Be whatever it is he wants; he always wants us to be something good.
Empathy: You know and have known that he trusts you.
And you him.
Rhetoric : You know it's the world you can’t trust; people are often kind, but they are also often scared or unaware, uneducated, and very often cruel as well.
Empathy: You’ve seen how people treat Kim and know how they would and occasionally do treat you. Even when they don't see you as ‘other’.
Inland Empire : other than odd, that is.
Volition : Which you most definitely are, but your relationship with Kim shouldn’t be the thing that makes people treat you differently.
Half Light : Forces you to hide
Empathy: Or perhaps, as you look at the tender way Kim lets his eyes gaze over you, it's about this being special.
Inland Empire: Like the Col de Mamadaqua, if you speak it into existence, it may just disappear.
You hum in response, leaning your head against his knee.
Perception: There's a pause of comfortable silence as you bring another bite of breakfast to your mouth.
"By the way, I saw a new bird around the laundry area," Kim announces casually, using the tip of his pen to flip back open his notebook.
Electrochemistry: Did Kim just say a "new" bird?
You whip your head to meet Kim's barely contained, bemused expression.
Empathy: He's trying not to seem as invested as he is in your boundless bird-addled enthusiasm.
"Oh, ehm, go on." You also feign playing it cool, betrayed only by the small vibration that runs up your arm as you take another slower, more deliberate bite of your food.
"Well, at least it's new to me." Kim gives a shrug and a creeping smirk as he takes a sip of his coffee.
Electrochemistry: God damn it, get, more, info, now!
Encyclopedia: I have to agree that we really are jonesing for some new bird facts.
Composure: But, uh, play it cool.
"Why don't you describe it to me? I might be able to, uh, figure it out."
"Hmm, well." Kim puts a finger to his chin, tilting up in an exaggerated portrayal of thinking.
Drama: He's fucking with us, sire!
Logic: there *is* no bird.
Empathy: No, he wouldn't play us like that; there is a bird, and it's beautiful.
Conceptualization: the most beautiful bird in the world
"It had black feathers. And a beak like this," he says, doing a little beak mimicry with his forefinger and thumb.
Drama: Even if there is a bird, he is most definitely fucking with us, sire.
Composure: You can't help it; you're pouting.
Rhetoric: You grumble a litany of nothingness as you shove a larger biteful of food into your mouth, just to be rude.
Authority: unabashedly like a petulant child.
Perception: Kim gives you the widest, most tender smile you think you've ever seen.
A glint of teeth. It's a grin; he's grinning at you.
Pain Threshold: ow.
Conceptualization: Perhaps it's growing pains. Another head at each junction of the spine.
Volition: Another opportunity.
Halflight : no , not again .
Composure: You push the feeling down.
"I haven't even told you the best part, Harry," he chides, crossing his legs and looking down at you playfully coy.
You can't help but perk up.
"It's making a nest."
Electrochemistry: OH! MY ! GOD! Yes, yes, yes! Go now. We must. I'm freaking out here, you're freaking out here.
Composure: Damn, calm down. It's just a nest, not like Kim said it laid any eggs or anything.
Volition: Oh no
Electrochemistry: eggs? EGGS?! BABY BIRDS? MYSTERY BIRD BABIES? ARE WE SERIOUSLY NOT GETTING UP RIGHT NOW? WHAT ARE WE DOING?
Physical Instrumental: Glad you asked, we're currently choking on your food, by the way.
Half Light: great job, dipshit. Now we're dying.
Endurance: No, we're fine. This is just
Physical Instrument: Kim is laughing too hard to help you, and it's lodged in their pretty good coach.
Halflight: I can't believe you.
Inland Empire: At least you'll die hearing the most beautiful song in the world.
Empathy: Kim is incapable of breathing correctly, wheezing as you hack up your lungs.
Electrochemistry: God, he's snorting; it's undignified and so God damn wonderful.
Conceptualization: You're coughing so hard your eyes are going to pop from your skull.
Inland Empire: We're ready; nothing could be better than this.
Drama: Tis' true, sire, tis' now time for us to expire from this world.
Volition: No, it's not.
Hand/eye coordination: You give a single firm punch to your diaphragm, the force of which dislodges the food from its position.
Endurance: However, instead of spitting it out, you instead force it down violently.
Perception: It runs far too large and thick down your trachea and falls like a stone into the pit of your stomach.
Gastrointestinal Complex: W̴̨̢͉̫̜̝̠̘̃̕͜͝h̸͍̤͎͋͛̂͑̕y̷͔̝͉̳̖͒͆̑́̊?
Composure: The two of you gasp and heave into the shared breath of the room, snickering and gaffing every time your eyes catch one another.
"After breakfast, can you show me the nest?" You lean back, stretching your legs out across the linoleum and bumping your head against the door of the fridge.
"Hmm, no." He adjusts his glasses. "I was thinking, you take your shower. I get my things ready, and after we're done with that, we can go down and wash the sheets. then I can show you the nest."
Perception: He moves to stand up, stepping one leg over you to tower and glare down at you, hands clasped behind his back.
Authority: He's striking quite an imposing figure.
Savoir Faire: You gulp and give an enthusiastic nod before scrambling up to your feet and dashing into the bathroom.
Interfacing: You don’t even bother to pretend as if you’re going to take much time at all washing yourself as much as you dedicate yourself to making quick work of cleaning and precursory prepping; if you want to clean the rest of yourself, you can most definitely do it after.
Physical Instrument: You do, however, take an extra moment to stretch out your limbs and back; cramps are the real killer.
Electrochemistry: Bad times in Bonersville
Conceptualization: Beautifully put.
Interfacing: You let the steam fill your lungs as the remaining water drips off your body, and you tousle your hair in the dry warmth of a heated towel.
Encyclopedia: Towels are always warm in Kim's home because he has a fancy little towel warmer that is very old and very obviously a fire hazard, certainly an illegal object that was recalled nearly a decade ago for said fire risk but has lasted so long purely on the fact it was manufactured then and not now.
Empathy: You’re certain from the way Kim looks at it every time he grabs a towel after a shower or bath that he loves the little thing as much as he loves the Kineema.
Inland Empire: Loved.
Esprit de Corps: Right... Kim had unfortunately needed to give up the keys to the 57th; no amount of bellyaching and moaning to Pryce or anyone else could fix it.
Volition: Maybe if you didn’t sink the 40, you could have traded it.
Electrochemistry: Luckily, Kim was allotted a fat check for the costs he sunk into its upkeep and many modifications.
Empathy: You know it's not the same; even when he says it's fine and that he doesn’t mind driving around the other 40, you know that it hurts because he still keeps the rims for the Kineema underneath his bed.
Pain Threshold: You feel as if you’re flagging lightly, revved up with an underlying strain of guilt and anxiety.
You pad your damp feet across the wood and over to the plush rug Kim keeps at the end of his bed.
Composure: You kneel there at the end, meditative in your breathing as you try to reign your thoughts in.
Perception: Kim smiles at you, seemingly unaware or unperturbed by your slightly dour mood.
Authority: Perhaps it's because, despite yourself, you're gnawing at your bottom lip and shifting back and forth like a bashful schoolgirl.
Perception: He gives you a wink as he takes his now gloved hands and begins to work the rope around your upper body.
You try to find a point of focus, something other than the regrets gnawing at your insides.
Interfacing: As you take your time to stare at the dexterity and deftness with which Kim operates his hands, a memory surfaces—something about an article about mice in lingerie.
Encyclopedia: It was a study in which virgin male rats were paired and had sex with female rats that had been put into little white vests. When given the opportunity to have sex again, the male rats would gravitate towards the vested rats vs. their nonvested compatriots and ejaculate quicker. The study posits that the rats correlated the vests with sex and were thus inclined to prefer vests to no vests. This behavior even showed a higher degree of activity in sections of the brain associated with reproduction when the rats' brains were dissected and looked at later.
Conceptualization: You wonder what your brain would look like when dissected and how much of it would be dedicated to finding Kim's hands unbelievably sexy.
Logic: The gloves are hot because they make you wonder what's beneath them.
Electrochemistry: That and the
There's no telegraphing of the assault; the smack lands perfectly across your cheek, the sting rings through your skull like a shot of white hot.
Pain Threshold: Ow.
Authority: As he pulls back from the slap, he grins wolfishly, tugging at the edges of his gloves. Tightening them against the gaps between his long, spindly fingers.
Esprit de Corps: He wasn’t particularly surprised when you asked him to inflict pain. You had been horribly nervous about the entire debacle, but the conversations regarding the commonality of your sexual interest not just amongst the underground but amongst many of those within the RCM and similar professions were, to your surprise, far more common than you had originally accounted for.
Empathy: With so much pain and suffering in the world, it can be empowering to inflict it and, more so, feel it in places of safety and pleasure.
Endurance: The residual sting of the slap snaps and crackles against your synapses.
Electrochemistry: Oh, the sweet grip of leather
Perception: the smell of it, the sound of it. Kim gives a long, appreciative hum.
Authority: He loves how easily you mark, how ruddy red you get struggling, whining, panting, and pathetic, something so big and strong yet so weak and small under the ministrations of his cool, uncaring demeanor.
You beg because, of course, you do, and his boot knocks you off balance, forcing you to kneel with your head painfully between your knees.
Drool slobbers down the tip of your nose, your eyes pulse at the strain around your chest.
Physical Instrument: The ropes do an excellent job of tightening across your lungs.
Inland Empire: Where the love lies
Authority: He wants you to choke on it.
Inland Empire: You want to do nothing else but choke on it.
Empathy: You want to die in Kim's capable, loving arms. It's a dark, terrible thought you covet deep inside your heart. your cock swells at the depravity of it. The hazy memory of his panic, his hands pressing to keep your life inside of you, the hitch of his pained voice. That He wants you to live and that he loves you so much he can’t stand to see you die. You want to bleed all over him and stain his skin red. Your own personal revolution
Volition: It's a bad thought; you should stop thinking about this.
Electrochemistry: Focus on his hands; they're touching you now.
Perception: Your peripheral catches the fall of a single glove, his other still clad in the cool hide, as it glides its way down your scalp and presses against each ridge and bump of your spine, playing with the detailed knot work.
Interfacing: The bumps of his digits as they breach you make you his.
He spreads the thick, viscous lube, cold and methodically, giving a single punishing flick across your prostate.
Empathy: Just to hear the whimper
You realize that he has no intention of touching your dick today.
Endurance: He’s going to milk you, edge you, spit on you, and use you, then pack you up and put you away until next time, a sweet little machine.
Logic: Kim loves a good tool.
Authority: You're such a good little thing for him.
Electrochemistry: The thought sets off that hazy fuzzing around your mind.
Perception: He tips your head up with the end of a long, thick riding crop, the flat of it catching the wet spittle that drips from your face.
He looks down at you with a wince of disgust. "Crying? Already, really?"
Volition: You had no idea you were doing that; there might be something wrong.
Electrochemistry: No, it just feels so good. You really needed this.
Empathy: It's been especially hard lately—the cases, the bodies, regaining your memories, facing yourself, facing what you've been. facing what you could become.
Suggestion: You try to stutter out an apology, but all that happens is that saliva rushes out of your mouth, leaving your tongue unable to form anything other than a twisted slur of stuttering syllables.
"Mgfh s-s s"
Perception: You hear the smack and your own yelp long before the pain registers across your body in long, shuddering waves.
Electrochemistry: But you don’t need to worry because it's here for you. You can’t fail. The sting. The Thump: Bless it, bless the pain. absolving you of the blame.
Inland Empire: It hurts like forgiveness.
Physical Instrument: You moan as your member twitches heady between your legs, a small dribble makes its way down the shaft.
"K-Ki" you
Reaction Speed: You’re not even able to finish gurgling out his name before you hear the sharp inhale of his breath.
Empathy: You are too beautiful at this moment for him to look at you. He hates how much it makes him swell up inside; it’s too much, and he needs it to stop.
Pain Threshold: The edge of his boot comes into contact with the soft, pillowy flesh between your ribs and hip.
Savoir Faire: The Kick Exercises Perfect control between the dull bruising and the line at which bones break and damage is done.
You fall to your side, your legs thrashing out from under you.
Half Light: Fight or flight rings you back from the haze like ice-cold water.
"Correct yourself immediately." His voice is seething with the silver authority, sharp and honed, like a knife glinting in the light.
Authority: You still have to make an effort here; have to prove yourself worthy.
"Si-Sir, yes sir, sorry sir," you worm yourself to reposition yourself; you need to kneel, to prostrate yourself. The need to be forgiven is oozing from your bones.
Pain Threshold: Denial, The rubber of the sole makes contact with your cheek with slow, gradual pressure as he digs your head into the carpet.
Esprit de Corps: Crush it deep down, deprive it of oxygen, and hurt it the way it wants to be hurt. This isn't the place to be kind; this isn’t the place to feel. Regain control; recenter yourself. You are in control. How dare he make you forget that, even if for a moment?
Endurance: It's decades before he eases up, yanking you back onto your knees and pulling out your hips from underneath you.
Savoir Faire: Your spine arches
Physical Instrument: The stretch pricks and strums a line of pain from your hip all the way to the back of your skull. It's not unpleasant; it's a deep erotic ache.
Perception: He runs the cool leather of his crop from the underside of your cock, tip to tip, in slow, languid strides.
Conceptualization: You envision cumming from that alone, the tantalizing softness of it, slow and sensual, making love to the object. Object against object
You huff a soft chuckle to yourself at the thought.
Perception: Another crack in the air, another snap against the skin.
Physical Instrument: The soft, meaty flesh at the junction between the ass and thigh.
Perception: You think you squeal, but honestly, you wouldn't be able to hear it over the echoes of pain that radiate from the point of contact and through your veins like a live wire.
"Ah, did that get your attention? Was something funny?" Kim had explained it as one of the most dangerous places to strike.
Empathy: He feels frustrated and elated in his willingness to inflict the punishment with such precision.
Composure: You can’t inhale properly enough, gasping through the sharp pins that sparkle across your nerves.
Pain threshold: It really fucking hurts.
"You’ll count it," he says, pausing to wait for your affirmation.
"Y-yes, oh god yes sir," the eagerness in your voice betrays the terror that lights up inside you; its elation; its unfathomable anticipation for the worst, like teetering at a tall ledge knowing you’re going to leap off any second.
Physical Instrument: Your muscles are already primed for the impact.
Conceptualization: The height and fall
Splat.
Perception: The whistle of cracking air and the snap
Pain Threshold: It makes it hurt so much more and makes the pain so much worse.
Composure: You startle, you buckle, and you kick, thrashing like a wild animal.
"W-w-one nnn," you hiss, forcing your muscles to move back into position.
Physical Instrument: No stop; don’t move us back.
Half-light: Run, escape, you fucking idiot.
Perception: Another whish through the air
Pain Threshold: This one bursts at the back of your skull, lights popping like a photograph behind your retina, and the pain isn’t even registering at the location of impact.
"T-two, oh hhn hoo," you shudder, your muscles unlatching, becoming placid in defeat.
Physical: Fine.
Halflight: Die then. Enjoy.
Electrochemistry: There it is, that rush—giving in, giving up.
Inland Empire: the love in your body is only the beginning of it.
Pain Threshold: It's not pain anymore; it's pure heat. It fills you out and overflows like magma in your blood, moving sluggishly through you, thick and viscous thoughts dripping out of your skull.
"Three," you hum out, and you can feel your muscles twitch and shudder.
Pain Threshold: You're no longer here, but you could say that the pain is like light refracting around you. Outside of yourself, you are a sun now shining across a sea; the breeze runs its hands across your body; you are crossing the street; it's summer; there is only the scent of warmth here, the touch of something secret. It is YOU who is leaving.
"Four." It's a prayer now, a sacrament. Barely a whisper.
Perception: You wait for five, but it doesn't come. Instead, cool leather brushes up against your flank and reaches to spread you open.
"Ahhn," you let out a grunt or gurgling moan as he slips himself into you, filling you, careful not to bottom out against the tender warmth of your welts.
Inland Empire: So hot to the touch. So bright.
Kim moans somewhere far away.
"So good, fff, so tight, nn wet n warm, you did such a good job, you’re so, how are you so?" Kim is babbling hot breath against the space between your shoulders, his body bowed upwards, short, languid little thrusts that grind and bump too much, far too well, against your prostate.
Endurance: You can't even breathe with how the pleasure bursts through you.
"Mmm Harry, so perfect for... ahh ahhnn." You feel his forehead prop up against your shoulders; his hips stutter; and he slides in further than he had allowed himself to before.
He tries to shift away but you move back forcing him to instead jerk forward in and bottom out, one long slick slide. The smack of his pelvis against your welts runs straight through you. The sudden inhalation of breath you take keys you up immediately, and you are cumming and falling over the edge, body shuddering and clasping around Kim.
Inland Empire: The gleam of light at the sun cresting off the horizon
Floating, floating far, far away.
Ancient Reptilian Brain: Welcome Harry back to the empty, the black peach fuzz.
You: Where am I?
Ancient Reptilian Brain: The sub zone, baby, is so out of your goddamn mind.
Limbic System: Ahnn~
Ancient Reptilian Brain: And you’re enjoying it like nothing else in the whole wide nothingness. It's supremely disco.
Electrochemistry: Incredibly fucking disco
Is this a dream?
Logic: you’re not actually unconscious, so no.
Conceptualization: purgatory is a space between
Limbic System: the uggnn~ holy space that-
Physical Instrument: We’re having some technical difficulties over here, coach, and you’re not exactly corporating.
Encyclopedia: Orgasms are often referred to as the little death.
Half-Light: You're dying, Harry
Electrochemistry: And it feels so good
Volition: We’re not dying; no one died from -
Encyclopedia: actually-
Ancient Reptilian Brain: Husshhh, this is not a place for thoughts, reasons, or flights of fancy; this isn’t the REAL world. It's not a world at all.
Limbic System: All it is, all it ever needs to be, is sweet, delicate thrumming ahhh ahhh fff the aftershocks.
The shift, the creak, the warmth near you, you feel your body ebb and flow, a delicate wave of sensation rocking you.
He's cresting over the edge too, panting wet words of admiration and tenderness into the crook of your spine.
Spinal Cord: You are also so good; we love you so much.
Limbic System: So far, far away, long, long ago in a place with light and touch, sweet, sweet touch.
Ancient Reptilian Brain: You're not there; you're here safe and warm, in a womb, the womb of the afterlife of a time before time.
There is the infinite stretch of the non-world, of the embryonic existence, the soft sounds of breathing in and out, the lifeline of the universe leaving you and returning like the waves on the shore. You are the ebb and flow of the ocean.
Perception: There's also the ringing. It's dull and distant, but its melodic trill is still there off in the someplace else.
It sings its tune again.
And again
Trill,
Trill,
Trill
It leaves like birdsong before returning louder and clearer than before.
Ring
Ring
Ring
A grunt, Click-
"Hello,"
It's a voice that's strained and a bit disheveled.
"Ah, yes, hello."
Ancient Reptilian Brain: It's the sound of the universe breathing and dying, consuming all there ever was and birthing it back into something shiny and new.
The arbiter of all things delightful and terrifying
Limbic System: The sound, it's mmmm, where you need; it's where you belong in that voice forever.
"Actually, he’s fine; he's with me; we were just going over...
Inland Empire: So soothing, so wonderful—you feel the ocean waves ebbing and cradling your body.
Limbic System: You’re slipping; the voice is fading.
Electrochemistry: please not so soon
Endurance: Just a little further, just a little longer.
"Oh? Uhmm, no, he can’t at the moment." He's ruminating on the turn of phrase he should use.
"He’s a bit tied up at the moment." There's a smirk there somewhere.
Empathy: He pauses; you can't see it, but you know he’s looking at your form; those eyes that tender gaze are looking at everything—your blood, your heart, your skin, the sun inside of you that glows just for it to be seen by those eyes—for those eyes to witness you.
You are a body lolling by his side, eyes glazed over with a contented nothingness, chest heaving with the effort to breathe its heart back to a normal tempo, little soft pants barely audible with tender wimpers, constricted artfully in a network of ropes and cords, holding, cradling, and coddling limb musculature that trembles in small jolts of post-coital electricity.
Empathy: He finds it beautiful. Worthy.
Perception: A cool hand runs over your chest. You feel your body flinch. The ropes caress you as you tense and release.
Ancient Reptilian Brain: It happens years from now and has already happened years ago.
If it even happened at all.
Perception: The voice on the other line raises just above the sound of the thrumming and the crashing of waves.
The sound is the blood in your body rushing to your brain.
Logic: The little death is very much akin to actual death when pushed so far towards the edge.
Inland Empire: You were dying.
Drama: Not entirely a lie, sire.
Ancient Reptilian Brain: The chemicals that ignite the lights in your brain are very similar.
"I can come to the station; I don't want to leave him without support." Kim's knee bounces with a clear sense of agitation.
There's a jolt as a sense of alertness returns to you.
Physical Instrument: Systems are back to acceptable levels.
Electrochemistry: Lame
Limbic System: Please come back again...
Ancient Reptilian Brain: You belong here, Harry; you are no stranger to the void. To the absence of self and all things.
Interfacing: you’re back, and things have touched again.
Esprit de Corps: It's the station; it's Jean; something is happening.
Perception: The light siphons painfully into your eyes. Kim is facing away from you and murmuring into the receiver.
"Consider it back up then." He grits his teeth, his hand tightening its grip on the receiver, his other still running a placating pattern against your chest, a comforting meandering motion.
Inland Empire: Like seagulls gliding on the sea breeze
Logic: But is it for you or for him?
"Goodbye Officer."
Empathy: It's for the both of you.
Hand/eye Coordination: He puts the phone back down on the receiver slowly, far too gently.
Conceptualization: The way you’d place a baby bird back into its nest, hoping your scent wouldn't cause it to be thrown from its home.
Encyclopedia: Birds don't actually smell their young. This is a common misconception. Birds generally possess relatively small and uncomplicated olfactory nerves, which place limitations on their sense of smell. Only a few bird species exhibit exceptional olfaction, and these instances are considered specialized adaptations. For instance, turkey vultures are drawn to methyl mercaptan, a gas emitted by decomposing organic material, while starlings can detect insecticidal compounds present in plants, which they employ to maintain insect-free nests. Nevertheless, no bird relies on its sense of smell to detect human scents.
Reaction Speed: You wouldn't even be able to go through all of the possible doom scenarios in the time it would take for Kim to turn to you with that worrying, pitying expression on his face.
Halflight: Run; he's going to hurt you.
Logic: He wouldn't.
Empathy: But there is something wrong.
You’re left only with a drop in your gut as your life potentially bottoms out from underneath you.
Electrochemistry: Bring us back to Subspace, please. We liked it there; let's go back. This is harshing the high so badly.
" Uhmm," Kim hesitated, a pained expression flitting across his face, a snarled canine glinting from behind upturned grimacing lips.
You blink up at him with a salient need, a clarity of mind, and a purpose. "Tell me," you command, shifting slightly to right yourself.
He braces himself, avoiding your eyes. "Dora, Ingerlund... She is at the station, and she has been looking for you."
Oh wow
Volition: Kill yourself, do it, it's the best option at this point.
Reaction Speed: As fast as you can
Visual Calculus: Your eyes dart around the room to search for something imminent that could kill you fast enough.
Physical Instrument: You're still literally hogtied, coach.
Encyclopedia: The tie you are actually currently in is called a boxtie. In a traditional hog tie, the person's wrists are typically secured together with either rope or restraints, such as handcuffs or leather cuffs. Their ankles are then bound together, either with rope or using specialized cuffs or straps. Once the wrists and ankles are secured, the individual's legs are often bent and pulled toward the wrists, creating a curved or folded position. Limiting the person's range of movement entirely. Currently, you still have use of the lower half of your body.
Physical Instrument: Too bad your legs aren't listening.
Suggestion: Perhaps you can will yourself into another heart attack.
Pain Threshold: It does hurt in your chest, like the feeling of stitches popping free.
Conceptualization: Ping, ping, ping. Like buttons popping off a shirt.
Rhetoric : Like the rapid spray of bullets to the back of men's heads, dying for a noble cause Pop, pop, pop.
"Apparently something has happened and she is in some kind of distress."
Inland Empire : You feel the ache, the memory of your knees at her alter, the whipping cold of ice and spring sleet sliding across your face.
"I'm going to the station to pick her up; I was thinking of bringing her here."
Electrochemistry : The feeling of Kim's finger drawing an X across your back
"You should get presentable, unless you don't." He wants to protect you.
Volition: I may have gone off the path there for a moment.
Empathy: You can't let him be burdened.
Authority: You must project strength.
Volition: Show him you're capable.
Esprit de Corps: The notion brings you as upright as you can manage. There is a duty you must uphold. Even if it hurts to hold it.
Conceptualization: like holding rays of light. Like sunsets.
Inland Empire : It hurts like summer.
You shake your head. "No, if she needs it, it might be bad. it wouldn't."
Empathy: It wouldn't be right. She wouldn't come to you if it wasn't bad.
"Right, of course." He'd normally chuckle at how silly your determination is in the state of you being so fucked and disheveled.
Empathy: But right now He needs to get away from you and collect himself. This is hard on him too.
Perception: His eyes are pleading with you to be okay, to hold yourself together long enough for him to get his footing. To square away whatever emotions are gnawing at his composure.
Interfacing: He unties you with a certain kind of reverent efficiency, lingering only after you’ve been freed to look at you, vulnerable and open. Bumps bloom from his touch, showing him all that you are free of all insecurity and shame.
Composure: A breath that had stationed itself within his lungs unbeknownst to him releases itself.
Perception: He moves methodically, in clear, concise motions, to dress himself, running a hand to smooth back his hair in the mirror before grabbing the keys from the armoire.
He feels their weight and turns to you one last time.
You shake your head.
Inland Empire: There wouldn't be anything he could say or do right now anyway.
Perception: He leaves, glances back only once to look up at the window where you stare down at him; it's unlikely he can see you, but you give him a little wave anyway.
Endurance:You shower, struggling to keep the temperature tepid enough not to agitate your inflamed skin. The welts and bruises keep you grounded, their pain forcing you to stay within your body and your surroundings in a way that forces you to be hyper-aware of your tactile nature. It's so tactile that your sense of self feels entirely secondary to your body. All you are is your body.
Inland Empire: Another state of limbo between here and not here
Physical Instrument: It's soothing.
Interfacing: You open the bottom drawer of the dresser.
Electrochemistry: It's on the bottom because he likes to watch you lean over.
Logic: It's on the bottom because the other drawers were already taken.
Rhetoric: It can be both.
Perception: You run your fingers over the soft plush of a white turtleneck sweater, the kind seafarers wear. It makes you look old, but it also makes you feel soft and secure, like something worth loving.
It was a gift from Kim. It is imbued with his care.
The jeans flare at the cuffs outward from the knee, a classic disco pair.
Electrochemistry: They hug your thighs and ass just right.
Volition: It's also the only clean pair.
Perception: You look in the long mirror that lines the side wall leading into the bathroom, basking in your own vanity. You pick apart and reassemble the sections of your body.
Visual Calculus: Your receding hairline gives more attention than you'd probably care to the creases of stress in your forehead, but you mind less with the strength and length of your hair as it currently tickles at the tops of your shoulders, and even less so with the similarities of male pattern baldness that Kim also seems to have.
Physical Instrument: Solidarity between two masculine, virile, aging men .
Perception: Your temples have grayed, likely due to mounting stress and the growing pains of sobriety. The ravages of alcohol will never truly heal, but your face has been freed of the pickling effects of it, and your skin is slightly more form-fitting and snug against your musculature.
Physical Instrument: Your fat has filled out more, and you've gained weight.
Empathy : You had originally been secretly very conscious of an insecurity that apparently had always ebbed at you.
an insidious thing that nearly brought you back to speed when you'd find yourself loathing the idea of eating but needed the energy it provided to your brain.
Volition: Then Kim and you learned about how it was that Kim had found himself particularly interested in the Franconigerian knights as a kid and how there's a very avid fan group for "bear wrestling" in the underground.
Physical Instrument: That you were, apparently, extremely sexy in your own disco daddy kind of way.
Perception: And in the way your red nose and cheeks are now an exceedingly permanent, however fairly jolly fixture,
Conceptualization: You look like Kraz Mazov fucked Father Winter while doing lines at the local discotech.
Electrochemistry: And, oh, baby, they were playing your song that night! You look fucking hot.
Suggestion: At the very least, you look sickeningly domestic.
Electrochemistry: It'll be sure to drive her girly gabas fucking wild and get them nice and revved up for some sweet, sweet revival.
You: Revival?
Electrochemistry: Yeah, baby, you and she are getting those church shenanigans up and running again. No more sad shit. It's time to bop it back—a wedding bell classic rewind.
Volition: No, that's not what you want anymore; you want
Electrochemistry: You want Kim? Of course you do, but it's always possible to want two things at once.
She probably wanted two things at once; heck, she probably did all the time.
Half light: Behind your back.
Drama: No, she didn’t; she wouldn't.
Electrochemistry: Of course she would. You probably did it too, I mean, Why not?
Pain Threshold: Your stomach flips. Curling in on itself, fetal and fragile.
Volition: You can't remember; you don't want to have done so, but you're too used to finding out things you didn't want to have done all the time.
Inland Empire: Phantom regrets ghost sins, pale actions, another you, another world.
Volition: You're not going to return to it.
It doesn't matter if you haven't said it. If the words haven't left either of your lips, you belong to each other.
Right?
Conceptualization: Is it possible to belong to two people?
Drama: You can't lie to yourself, to your body, or to the haunting scent of apricots.
Inland Empire: Decades more of your life have been spent being hers than not.
Logic: Kim may be coveted and a rarity, but it's only been a microcosmically small period of time in which you've known him.
Half-light: As if you even know him.
Volition: As if you even remember her..
Pain Threshold: Of course you remember her; you couldn't forget no matter how hard you tried.
Inland Empire: It doesn't matter if Kim is in your dreams too; it doesn't.
Perception: The sound of a loud rurring rouses you from your spiraling as you peek out the window to see the flash of blue rolling into the parking area.
You hear the doors slam and the shuffling of feet and the murmur of voices, as the two move out of sight and toward the courtyard.
Savoir Faire: You shuffle and scramble yourself over to the living room, passing the unclean plates from breakfast on the table, and towards the front door. Pacing nervously from side to side, your heart rate rises as the steps reach the hallway, moving ever closer.
Composure: You hold your breath and freeze as the gentle tap of a delicate knuckle makes contact with the wood.
Reaction Speed: Your hand is already on the knob before the sound registers in your ears, and the door opens before the knock begins.
Inland Empire: And there she is, in all her majesty, Dolores Dora Ingurland Dei.
Composure: You're sweating and afraid to look down, but you force yourself; you have to look; you have to see.
You take a deep breath and exhale as you drag your eyes downward.
Perception: The first thing you notice about her is that her hair is dark brown, flaccid, and frizzed from a lack of washing. It reaches a length just above her shoulders. A cut that would normally be a little shorter but has grown out, ends frayed, and more importantly, distinctly not blonde.
Visual Calculus: This is her natural hair color.
Authority: She used to dye it for you because you liked it that way.
Inland Empire: You had said you liked it that way, but you would have liked it no matter the color.
Drama: She wanted to seem young and fun forever.
Composure: She looks old and tired, not at all like Dolores Dei.
Pain Threshold : She's too human to look at.
Visual Calculus: That's not true; her hands are so slender and graceful that if she held them up just... so...
"Hey Harry"
Conceptualization: like bird songs, sweet and delicate, beautiful.
Inland Empire: She has the voice of Dolores Dei.
Empathy: There are tears behind her eyes and in the trembling of her smile.
Drama: It wants you to think it's casual and familiar, but it is awkward and painful.
Halflight: You still love her.
Volition: But you don't know her; this woman is a stranger to you. The memories just aren’t here anymore.
Inland Empire: And she doesn't even smell like apricots.
Perception: She smells like mothballs and attic spaces, of corners filled with dust and forgotten, unwashed things from a land far, far away. from a distant past—a childhood that likely never even happened.
Conceptualization: Forever changed
Pain Threshold: Forever Broken
Esprit de Corps: Like the glass of the church shattered by violence, Your kind of violence
Pain Threshold: This is your fault; you're the one who broke her the same way she broke you. An endless spiral of shattering and falling apart.
Rhetoric: She's not broken; you're projecting.
Volition: You've been mending.
Empathy: But she has been breaking. Her lungs aren't glowing. She needs comfort and familiarity; life is uncertain for her, and you have always been the same. Even if that sameness is why she ran, she is sad now and needs someone to be sad with her.
Volition: But you're not sad.
Rhetoric: of course You are, and you feel hers in yourself the way you feel it in every person your life touches—the sadness of a thousand bleeding hearts, the sadness of an entire tribe, an entire nation. Their anger too. You feel and bleed for your fellow man; that's what it means to be a communist. To suffer with them, because of them, and for them.
Empathy: She's not angry.
Rhetoric: She should be
"Harry?"
Suggestion: You haven't done or said anything yet.
"S-"
Inland Empire: Don't say you're sorry; she hates that.
Reaction Speed: "Sup"
Suggestion: That was somehow even worse; you look like an asshole now.
Savoir Faire: Or a try-hard
Rhetoric: We should tell her about "the communism’ now.
Volition: No, that's highly inappropriate. Invite her to sit. Get her tea and offer to have a smoke with her.
Suggestion: But Kim hasn't smoked yet. If you smoke now, you won't be able to smoke with him later.
Electrochemistry: You could just have two cigarettes; he'd understand.
Logic: This is an extraneous circumstance.
Suggestion: Maybe the two of you can share the same cigarette, so technically you only had one and you're just borrowing his.
Electrochemistry: You could have him breathe it into your mouth; you love it when he does that.
Inland Empire: Do you think she ever did that with you?
"Here, uh, come in, take a seat." You move your lumbering presence to the side, letting the threshold be free of your mass.
Perception: She walks up to the small strip of hardwood that separates the outside world and the carpet and moves to welcome the tips of her shoes with the inside.
Reaction Speed: You have to stop her. Quick.
"Uhh, shoes off!"
Perception: She gives you an odd look, her foot hovering over the entryway.
"Uhh, the rules are not mine; ah, this isn't mine,""
Savoir Faire: You gesture around the room as if to ordain the sanctimonious nature of Kim's abode with your own two hands.
Conceptualization: This is a place of worship where shoes do not belong.
Authority: Except for the boots, those are the exceptions.
Suggestion: Don't mention that to her.
Conceptualization: She wouldn't understand.
"Ehkm, apologies for the confusion; this apartment is actually mine; Harry is simply staying over while we go over case notes. But please do enter and take a seat; no shoes are appreciated." Kim seemingly materializes behind her; you had been completely blind to his existence.
Pain Threshold: You forgot him entirely.
Electrochemistry: That's not true; I didn’t.
Kim gives you a curt smile. There's a strain to it.
His eyes dart to the glass window that is still propped open from last night's cigarette.
Empathy: He’s definitely thinking about jumping out that window.
To be fair, so are you.
Suggestion: This is painfully awkward.
Kim gestures for the two of you to take a seat on the couch as he moves to enter the kitchen.
"I'll make something, tea or coffee?"
Empathy: She likes rosehip and chamomile, soft, flowery things that smell like spring and life.
"A coffee would be great," she says with a polite nod of her head and a relieved huff as she attempts to sit gracefully on the couch, her body betraying her with the painful creaking of the cartilage in her joints rubbing together.
Physical Instrument: A sound brought on by early-onset arthritis and a stagnant, stationary lifestyle.
"Not tea?" You look at her with open confusion, which she returns with an equal level of concerned indignation.
"Harry, tea is your thing."
Logic: Oh, we must have confused it.
Inland Empire: She wouldn't say it, but she always thought it was strange the way you'd go about the neighborhood near the lake to pluck chamomile heads and dandelions to dry on the windowsill.
Tinctures and brews, the scents of poverty, the hot water steaming, the vapors, the memories of a childhood filled with very few comforts other than the taste of weeds that cracked free from the pavement
Interfacing: You'd always offer to braid the flowers into her hair; she'd laugh and tell you there was no way you knew how to braid hair.
Conceptualization: It was true, but you wanted to learn. You wanted to marry her, have a wedding where the two of you stood together, adorned in gold and white, with flowers in your hair.
Empathy: You wanted to be wealthy and beautiful, but you were poor and ugly.
Rhetoric: But beauty and wealth are vapid material things devoid of the reality of dirt beneath your fingernails and the pang of hunger unsatisfied by flower petals.
Kim sets himself to making the tea and coffee methodically and eerily still.
"Ah, are you and Jean no longer partners, by the way?"
Empathy: She fills the air with an uneasy uncertainty.
Logic: Afraid to make assumptions
Empathy: afraid of changes or disruption in your status quo.
"Ah, no, we're still partners; Kim and I just work well together, so sometimes..." You trail off, already boring her and yourself with the looming presence of bureaucratic monotony.
Drama: Besides, it's mostly lies and half-truths anyway.
Rhetoric: Isn't that how bureaucracy functions? Isn't it all an illusion of a system meant to distract the masses from the actual crimes of oppression and wage theft that befall them?
Rhetoric: You should totally bring up "the communism" now. It's the only thing that would break this awkward tension.
Volition: A terrible idea
"I'm a communist now," you say as casually as one would bring up the weather. As if your very polarizing political identity was as mundane and normal as the petty small talk used to fill the air around the water cooler at the precinct.
Esprit de Corps: Torson talking about his mother accidentally burning the roast they had planned for dinner, so he had to bring home takeout, or Judit saying how sick of meatloaf she was. Or how Jean prefers the plain donut to the ones with sugar.
Electrochemistry: The Freak
Endurance: I think we're hungry. All of that was just about food.
"Uhh, that's... nice?" You completely threw her for a loop, her brow creasing further and further into that of worry.
Perception: Kim comes to your peripheral with another barely contained smile of affection, and a mirth plays at his lips as he places two cups in front of you, one a simple plain ceramic with the RCM logo tastefully engraved into the side, and the other a novelty mug, it depicting a fat and friendly looking dragon flying happily through the air It's tail the of which morphed into the handle of the mug itself.
"Ah thanks." you grab the mug and slip your fingers through the dragon's tail.
Empathy : this is your favorite mug because Kim bought it and said it reminded him of you.
Delightfully Silly Dragon Mug: Mm mm
Inland Empire: the mug speaks to you with a deep and cartoonish accent.
Delightfully Silly Dragon Mug: Hooray! It's Tea time and that means everything is going to be A-OKay! , look! Kim even added extra cream and sugar. Just for you! YU-MmY!
Electrochemistry: Cream and sugar are another vice of yours, one that Kim is far more willing to indulge in.
Empathy: Especially in moments like these
Perception: You take a sip it's just the right temperature and the Herby notes are accented by the subtle addition of cinnamon sprinkled into the chamomile.
Delightfully Silly Dragon Mug: Tasty, tasty, tasty, OOO Boy!
Volition: ehm, well uh, yes thank you but perhaps we should try and not get too distracted by the talking dragon mug…?
Perception: Kim takes his leave gracefully, moving to obscure himself just out of the line of sight and into the kitchen, leaving only the sound of washing dishes.
You ignore the dragon mug and instead listen to Dora.
"I went to your apartment; you weren't there. I called too."
"Yeah, I was here; there's actually a pretty bad infestation that I'm going to need to get cleared out."
Inland Empire: The nightmares, the memories of her
Pain Threshold: They come up blank when you look at her, but you can feel the pain of them simmering under your skin—the shame, the urge to apologize over and over for sins you can't recall. It has to be the right thing to do.
"Oh, uh, I was actually hoping if I could stay-"
Empathy: With you.
"There."
"Oh,what about your parents?"
Perception: Her mouth gapes a bit like a dying fish before her brows knit into furrowed concentration, concern condensed deeply into the wrinkles of her forehead and crow's feet. It's a look that ages her even further.
Empathy: It's an expression she must have worn far too often throughout the years.
Suggestion: It's all your fault.
"Harry..." she says with trepidation. Her hand slides to hover above the side of your forearm but doesn't make contact.
Logic: You're certain that if she touched you, you'd burst into flames.
Conceptualization: You'd close in on yourself so fast and so entirely that you'd implode into a million billion stars, a new universe born from that touch, the beginning of an infinite loop of eternal suffering.
Logic: Worst of all, Kim would most definitely be killed in the aftermath.
Savoir Faire: You scoot a bit to the side, hopefully with enough grace that she won't notice.
"My parents died two years before I left."
Composure: There's another pause as the surprise of the statement clearly betrays your ability to keep your eyebrows from shooting up into your forehead.
"Did Jean, uh, not tell you?"
"Tell me what, Harry?" She rolls her eyes and leans further back into her chair, taking a long, exasperated sip of her coffee.
"I lost my memory, full retrograde amnesia, back in Martinase. I've been piecing a lot of it back together, but there's..."
"Oh my god, Harry, have you stopped taking your meds again?"
"Meds?"
Volition: Meds?
Electrochemistry : drugs?
"You’re supposed to be on meds?" Kim comes back from his cubby hole with a small plate of cookies in hand.
Empathy: Cookies he keeps from you but only has in the house because of you
Electrochemistry: A treat for when you've been a good boy
Perception: She gives a deep, ancient sigh that sits overly familiar in your chest, causing your skin to tighten around your ribs and your pulse to begin doubling over.
"God Harry… and Jean said you were doing "better," whatever that means for you, but amnesia? Really?"
"It's true, actually... I was there the day after he lost it. I thought it was some kind of elaborate prank, but no, he genuinely didn't know his own name." Kim muses.
Perception: Kim avoids both of your gazes as he, in immaculate and excellent host form, places the plate onto the coffee table in perfect symmetry between the two of you.
Logic: Maybe Kim was a waiter at some point. You'll have to can open him about it later.
Drama: You look up, and her face is incredulous. She still doesn't believe it.
Empathy: She can’t begin to understand the implications of that.
"Right, I mean, I did see the article in the paper... About you finding that big bug,"
"Insulindian Phasmid"
"Right," she pauses, her eyes shifting as they glide their way towards Kim's direction.
"It didn't mention much else. I remembered you calling me... I'm sorry I hung up like that. I mean, you were drunk again and"
"Harry was actually entirely sober after I arrived in Martinase." Kim interjects,
Conceptualization: the cavalryman comes a riding in.
"Cold turkey! But I think the adrenaline and the residual excess in my body kept me going, but then I got shot, so technically I was on some painkillers, which are drugs, so I guess not entirely sober."
Composure: You turn your head down sheepishly, embarrassed for some reason.
Electrochemistry: God, you wish you could have some of the sweet, sweet morphine now, inject it straight into your eyeballs, and ride that white, sultry bliss.
Perception: not the eyes
Volition: Kim wouldn't be happy if you did that. You wouldn't be happy if he was unhappy.
"Right…sorry. I didn't mean to." She curls in on herself ever so slightly, her expression turning mournful.
Empathy: Look what you've done; you've gone and made her sad.
Pain Threshold: You hurt her.
Inland Empire: It's all you can ever do to her—hurt her over and over till the end of time.
Composure: You swallow thickly, words stammering silently from your yammering maw.
Empathy: You scoot a little closer, your body aching with the need to console, to make it better.
"Uhmm, you, I-are-Is everything okay?" It falls limply and uselessly from your mouth, a torture and disappointment to your vocabulary.
Perception: She gives a polite curt nod before hesitating, eyes dipping down as her hair falls to shield her face.
Empathy: It swishes back and forth as a no.
Perception: You can feel Kim's presence like a-
Conceptualization: like a metaphor, intangible and looming somewhere in the periphery.
Logic: Did you just make a simile about metaphor?
Volition: Shush. Whatever is wrong is too personal a wound for it to be inspected by a stranger.
Suggestion: Especially for one as odd and often unsettling as Kim,
Empathy: Kim, despite all his wonders, is extremely bad at consoling or providing emotional consolation to the public.
Volition: His ability to soothe and abate your tumultuous emotional and mental state is a wonder, even to himself.
Esprit de Corps: It is because deep down your wounds are the same.
Your blood is the same, and your pain is the same.
Wounded animals fighting for the streets that have only ever shown them cruelty.
Empathy: —not just cruelty—for the beauty that lies beneath the bloodshed, beneath the grime, the rubble, and the thick dust layer left by war
Rhetoric: The promise of a better tomorrow
Inland Empire: Sunrise.
Halflight : ετοιμαστείτε για πόλεμο
"There might be some bugs in my apartment, but you can stay there." You look to Kim for assurance.
Empathy: He's stock still, entirely unreadable. I'm sorry.
Perception: You look back over to Dora, who takes a single regulated breath.
Composure: a practiced mechanical effort in, out.
Physical Instrument: You give yourself the same command.
Volition: It helps, if only a little.
"Yeah, that'd be great." She takes a second before standing. "Thank you very much, lieutenant, for the coffee and biscuits."
Reaction Speed: Wait a minute...
Encyclopedia: These aren't biscuits; these are cookies. What the fuck is she talking about?
Visual Calculus: You take a look down at the plate of half-finished sweets: shortbreads, shortbread with jelly dots, checkered, petticoat tails, ginger snaps—
Empathy: those are Kim's favorites.
Logic: But those are all cookies, aren't they? Are we wrong about what biscuits are?
Encyclopedia: Biscuits, a type of baked bread product, are characterized by their flaky and tender texture, achieved through the use of ingredients such as flour, leavening agents, fat, and liquid (typically milk or buttermilk). The dough is mixed and shaped into small rounds before undergoing baking, resulting in a golden exterior and a light, airy interior. Biscuits are commonly utilized as a versatile component in meals, serving as accompaniments to savory dishes or as bases for sandwiches. Their neutral flavor profile enables them to be paired with both sweet spreads and jams. They are extremely popular among the people of Revachol, especially those in Jamrock.
Reaction Speed: Before you're able to correct Dora, Kim interrupts.
"You're very welcome," obviously too polite to correct her on the proper use of the word 'biscuit' "I'd be more than willing to drive you over to lieutenant Yfrietors abode as well if you are in need," it's almost a bit too formal.
Authority : You are supposed to be his superior officer.
Electrochemistry: Right.
Empathy: He's being overly polite because he's uncomfortable. It is a shield.
Logic : A skill picked up from being a waiter, perhaps?
Esprit de Corps : Or maybe it has something to do with him being stuck in juvie duty until he was 40.
Logic : That does make sense.
Empathy: Poor Kim.
Pain Threshold: Poor, poor Dora. Look at her.
Inland Empire: She does not wear a gown that flutters in the summer breeze. There is no crown of silver laurel adorning her head. She holds no claim to immortality. She will die.
Half Light: She is dying.
Empathy: Deep lines etch her face, evidence of the burdens and sacrifices she's made for humanity and for you.
Perception: You finally touch; you barely notice as you help her by hand up the small gap into the back of the Coupris 40.
Inland Empire: Her hands are cold but smooth and silky to the touch; she barely weighs a thing.
Conceptualization: A being made purely of light and air
Electrochemistry: Holy body, soft pale thighs for you to worship her between.
Perception: She crosses them and uncrosses them as you make your way back to your apartment.
No one speaks a word on the way there.
Inland Empire: Perhaps the silence emanates from the little holes in each of the hearts within this car.
Growing larger and larger. Until the pain consumes it all,
Perception: You touch her hand a second time as you help her back out of the car.
Drama: Kim makes an excuse to leave the two of you to yourselves.
Pain Threshold: Your aching is torn between the two of them.
Inland Empire: Lungs severed in half.
Pain Threshold: A longing drawn and quartered
Perception: You hear as the engine grows distant.
The two of you go up the steps one by one until you reach the top.
You stand in front of the door, tall and yellow.
Inland Empire: You will unlock it and gesture for her to enter.