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ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: You should have stayed down, Harry-baby.
YOU: Say nothing. Just try to sleep.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: We were trying to help, you know. We were only ever trying to protect you from her - from this.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: You were shot - twice. Wouldn't be disappointing anyone by stayin' that way, either. Plenty of them would even be relieved...
... but no. You had to hold on. Had to look up into his face, eyes behind the lenses brighter than a brand-new pair of lungs...
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Same carousel...
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Different horse, hm? What will his leaving smell like, I wonder. Certainly not apricot. Motor fuel?
... oh, I know. Cigarettes. Astras. Exhaust, and he will be exhausted, Harry, just like we are. Just like YOU are.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: And we know you are, Harry. We know you. We are you. There's nothing you can offer him to make him stay.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: No part of yourself you can carve off to make you palatable. There's mold all the way down, baby.
YOU: Fuck off and let me sleep. Things are getting better...
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Is this your idea of better? You can't even appreciate things for what they are, you're too scared to fuck it up again. When things go wrong -
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: and they will go wrong, Harry-boy, oh, so wrong -
LIMBIC SYSTEM: - you'll already be missing something you never even had. Because you wasted it.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: You're an alarm clock, Harry. And nobody can remember just when you’ll start a-ringin.
YOU: You open your eyes with a gasp. The room is dark, but you can make out the ugly popcorn ceiling staring back at you. You turn your head towards the clock on the bedside table, with its faintly-glowing red numbers. 7:30, it reads.
ESPRIT DE CORPS (Medium: Success): Old habits die hard. You must be used to hearing the alarm sound at this time in the morning. But there isn’t an alarm, so…
LOGIC (Medium: Success): It’s the weekend. Sunday. You had the day off. You *both* did.
YOU: You turn your head to the left. By now, it’s almost a familiar sight - but it brings an ache in your heart that feels new, every time. He’s lying on his back, chin tucked up against his right shoulder. The both of you, in your tank tops and boxers, in the Lieutenant's bed that’s just barely large enough for two.
CONCEPTUALIZATION (Legendary: Failure): It’s like… you can’t really talk about it, what it’s like. Even inside your own head.
INLAND EMPIRE (Challenging: Success): What you heard in your dream was true. The man beside you in bed fills you with a heavy, heavy feeling. It weighs on a red string attached to the place behind your heart, like Klaasje’s trajectory. You care about him, and the depth of that care makes you terrified. For you and him both.
PERCEPTION (Trivial: Success): Thunder rolls. Jamrock is humid, this time of year, and prone to quick and heavy storms.
YOU: You remember when it started getting warmer. Kim’s apartment is on an upper floor. “This is why I’m over here,” he’d said to you one late night, smiling, in this bed. “You are like a furnace.”
YOU: His short hair is sticking up on one side of his head. You want to touch it - to smooth it down or muss it up some more, for symmetry - but Kim is a light sleeper, and rarely gets more than 6 hours a night.
VOLITION (Easy: Success): He wants to be in control of this, too. Permits himself so few indulgences.
YOU: You’re wondering, not for the first time, why he permits himself… you.
EMPATHY (Godly: Failure): Even now you cannot determine why Kim Kitsuragi has allowed you to stay. To get closer. To share his lunch-times, his evenings, his bed.
There is a certain kind of self-loathing that follows a certain lack of self-control. Kim is your antithesis - he is control. He is one cigarette a day, and you are literally all indulgence.
LOGIC (Heroic: Failure): But you trust Kim implicitly. With your life, with your career. If he told you he was venturing out into the pale, in Lilienne’s stitched-together skiff, you’d be there. Holding your massive boombox on your shoulder. A figurehead.
Why, then, do you not trust him when he tells you to stay? That he enjoys your company, enjoys being around you?
YOU: I don’t know.
PERCEPTION: Outside, the heavy rain still beats down on the window of the apartment building. Sunshine is peaking in through the curtains anyways - the storm must be on its way out. You can feel wetness on your cheeks, like you were out there in the rain.
KIM KITSURAGI: You hear the thin sheets rustle as he turns more fully onto his side, posture open towards you. He blinks, slowly - looking at you, but unable to see without the thick lenses you’re accustomed to.
“I can hear you thinking,” he says.
YOU: “Can’t get anything past you, Lieutenant,” you reply, slowly. Both of your voices are rough with sleep. You like the way his sounds.
KIM KITSURAGI: He stretches, languidly, leaving you to admire the long line of his neck.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY (Easy: Success): There are marks there - love-bites. It’s electrifyingly easy to sink into the memory of giving them. Kissing the spot lightly, first, and then feeling his hand grip your hair, moving you farther down, to where they’d be covered by the high collar of his jacket…
KIM KITSURAGI: His hand settles on your forearm, lingers there for a moment, then continues upward…
PERCEPTION (Formidable: Success): You are almost sure you felt him squeeze your bicep. But not sure enough to tease him about it.
KIM KITSURAGI: His long fingers card through your hair, dusting over the muted curves of your face. He must notice the tears, but all he asks is, “Bad dream?”
YOU: Nod. Just once.
KIM KITSURAGI: He feels you nodding more than sees it - he’s truly blind without those glasses. For a moment, he is still.
EMPATHY: You know that Kim knows about your dreams, because you’ve told him. Told him about the apricot-scented Innocence whose feet don’t even ripple the water she walks on. But you haven’t told him about… himself. In the dreams.
You want to, but it hurts so goddamn much, to talk about this part of you. To explain to the person you love that there’s a part of you that doesn’t trust him. That no matter what he does, he’s helpless. He won’t convince you. Sometimes it feels as useless as the apologies that spill out of you like that thick red motor fuel. Some part of that hurts him, you can tell, when you can’t believe how much he cares. The dull ache of your own self-loathing - it’s nothing compared to seeing him in pain, even when he’s in pain for you.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Still going in circles, Harry-boy.
YOU: You’re going to cry again, you can tell. The rattling fan pushes warm air against your prickling eyelids. You shut them tight.
KIM KITSURAGI: He shuffles towards you, curling up against your hairy chest, forcing his arms to wrap tight around you. Maneuvers your hands until they’re wrapped tight around him, too. Nestled against your pulse, he says, so softly - “it’s alright, Harry,” and you choke back a sob. “Let go.”
YOU: You hug him tighter and cry muted, gasping sobs, that shudder through your chest. You hold on, and you feel his thumb rubbing slow circles into the back of your neck.
You don’t know how long you stay there, holding on to each other in the mid-morning light. Eventually, you try and match your breathing to his. It reminds you of a whistled melody - a requiem to a sinking motor-carriage.
YOU: Once you are finally still, you open your mouth to apologize, and are met with Kim’s hand over your face.
AUTHORITY: His eyebrow says, if you apologize right now, I will tell Lieutenant Vicquemare, and you will fall further into debt to the Sorry Jar.
YOU: You smile, a little bit, and pull him closer still. “Thank you,” you murmur.
KIM KITSURAGI: He nods, and leans up to kiss you, close-mouthed. Settles back down onto your chest. A kind moment passes, and then he says -
“I’m proud of you, Harry.”
CONCEPTUALIZATION (Legendary: Success): Kim says your name like it’s his one-a-day. Like he looks forward to it, craves it, makes a ritual of it.
YOU: It makes you want to stick around. For every day he says it.