Chapter Text
KIM KITSURAGI - Before you could do anything other than stumble uncertainly towards him, the lieutenant takes you by the elbow and steers you firmly towards the bed, bottom right corner covered with several overlapping towels to form a protective surface over the mattress.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Formidable: Success] - This is not the first time he has done this.
HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] - It will not be the last.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Here, lie down - you should elevate that leg. It shouldn’t be bleeding through the dressing like this. You must stop aggravating your injuries.”
The lieutenant is using That Voice on you again. With a shift of his shoulders and the tilt of his chin, he is applying his sky-high Authority with frightening precision.
AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - And you are eating it up. This is kind of weird.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh that’s real tingly. Getting warm. Like the beginning of a great party.
COMPOSURE - Harry-boy, get a grip on yourself. Just because you’ve been too sad to jerk off doesn’t mean there isn’t a possibility of popping a chub in front of the lieutenant. And that *would* be the end of you as you know it.
VOLITION - There would be no coming back from that. Don’t think about it. Don’t even *look* at him. Just stare at the ceiling and try to not have thoughts.
YOU - Okay. Got it. Not thinking about it. Not looking.
Without question, you lower yourself onto the bed and meekly stretch your legs out, as directed. The damp patches lingering on your skin feel cold in the open air. In your haste to leave the bathroom, you really didn’t do a good job of drying off.
PERCEPTION [Easy: Success] - The light above you is cut by the slow spinning of a ceiling fan. There are fine hairline cracks on the plaster.
INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - Without warning, a cushion arrives at the side of your foot and a hand finds the dip of your ankle, where the calf meets heel, to tilt up - a suggestion more than a command. The dry warmth of his fingers trips a livewire in your neurotransmitters.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Failure] - Whoa.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Code 31! Code 31! Holy shit, the lieutenant has taken his gloves off. I repeat, this is not a drill.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION [Easy: Success] - You find yourself following obediently, the shock of his bare hands lingering on your skin like afterimages of a bright light, shining in your eyes.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant gives you a small smile, before disappearing out of your line of sight.
VOLITION - You’re thinking about *it*.
YOU - I can’t *not* think about it!
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Yes, yes you can. Are you a blushing maiden from the Perikarnassian isola of last century? Are you about to faint because some guy touched your ankle, homo?
VOLITION - Okay well I wouldn’t go as far as-
KIM KITSURAGI - Out of the corner of your eye, the shape of Kim Kitsuragi is moving in and out of your periphery. The lieutenant approaches, and somewhere to your left there is the sound of a plastic bowl filled with hot water being placed on the scuffed cabinet beside the bed. The water makes a gentle sloshing sound as it finds its equilibrium.
CONCEPTUALISATION [Challenging: Success] - You’re all flat and laid out… ready and waiting, kind of like you’re a motor vehicle, about to get some new, shiny hubcaps installed.
YOU - Yeah, take that, Coupris Kineema. Stick *that* in your exhaust pipes and smoke it.
DRAMA [Easy: Success] - It’s unbecoming to be jealous of an inanimate object, sire. Also, it is not the same at all.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Good, good.” he says, mostly to himself. “Hold still like that for a moment. This won’t take long.”
PERCEPTION [Trivial: Success] - The mattress dips with a creak of springs.
HALF LIGHT [Medium: Failure] - Oh my god. Freeze. Everybody shut up. He’s on the bed with you!
YOU - I really want to look.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Please! Oh please oh please oh please. Just a little peek.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant keeps his line of sight carefully fixed at somewhere above your shin as he hovers over you. He is holding a clean sponge in his hand.
PERCEPTION (Sight) [Medium: Success] - Phew. This gives you free licence to watch *him*, as he shuffles forward on his knees so he is closer to the angle of your leg and peels the bandages back. He has taken his bomber jacket off - the white cotton v-neck he wears tucked into his aerostatic pants. Pale collarbones frame a long, elegant neck and taper at the narrow wings of his shoulders. His arms are lean and wiry.
YOU - There’s a bird in your ribcage, fluttering red and frantic.
ENDURANCE [Easy: Failure] - You wince as the adhesive inevitably also pulls off a clump of your leg hair.
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - You’re a *man*, Harrister. Suck it up. Hairy men are manly men. This body hair makes you *strong* and keeps you warm in the wintertime.
THE BULLET WOUND - Propped up on the firm pillow on Kim’s bed, you can see the line of stitches along the jagged red fissure on your thigh, the abundant hair around the area shining and wet with blood.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant painstakingly dabs at the beads of fresh blood with a wad of cotton before sponging the surrounding area with clean water in careful strokes. Streaks of drying blood are also diligently wiped from your skin.
CONCEPTUALISATION [Easy: Success] - Slowly, like this, even you can be made new, made clean.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - This experience is so far much less painful than your checkup with Gottlieb, who did not give you any opiates on the account of the pre-existing history of drug addiction, which - okay, fair - but also did not make any further allowances in terms of topical anaesthetic. And he was neither gentle *nor* patient with you.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - It was cruel of the doctor to deprive us of that sweet, legally administered lighting. Utterly barbaric.
KIM KITSURAGI - In contrast, the lieutenant’s touch is light and precise. A layer of petroleum jelly is applied over your mottled and bruised flesh, followed by a neatly cut piece of gauze and a fresh bandage. Fingertips smooth over the edges of the adhesive, checking for air bubbles.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Easy: Success] - He’s satisfied with his own handiwork.
CONCEPTUALISATION [Formidable: Success] - On your purpled and patchwork flesh, not just a testament to the violence you have lived through, but a permanent mark of his hand. Of his will for you to live.
KIM KITSURAGI - You study the lieutenant’s profile, the flecks of grey at his temples, the crows feet at the corner of his eyes. The curve of his mouth, slightly pursed in concentration.
INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - If you reached your hand out, you could touch his face.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Formidable: Success] - The lieutenant is aware of this, too. This is the most proximity he has allowed whilst you were both conscious.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Legendary: Success] - The lieutenant had learned to take your pulse with his eyes closed, two fingers on the soft dip of your jaw, curled up on the chair in your room at the Whirling that he had dragged until it was flush with the bed. That was where he had stationed himself the entire night, even though Garte had unlocked the door in the bathroom on the dividing wall.
INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Something between you is shifting, with the slowness of tectonic plates moving beneath the surface of the world.
ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - Who was the last to touch you with such care? *When* did someone last touch you with intention?
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - Tenderness is a foreign body to the animal of your heart.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Holy shit. Hoooooly shitballs. Are you high right now? This feeling, like you’re flying and falling at the same time, the roar of blood rushing in your ears. Your heart is thumping so hard it’s practically throwing itself against your sternum. Did you have some speed whilst unconscious?
ENCYCLOPAEDIA [Formidable: Success] - No, no you didn’t. This is what happens when attention and physical intimacy from an object of romantic attraction stimulates high levels of dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, a similar neurochemical activity in the reward circuitry of the brain as all drugs of known abuse. Euphoria.
VOLITION - Look, I hear you, but I don’t know if I like this path we’re heading down. I’m just saying.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant is moving like he is holding his breath. The rims of his glasses are limned with light of the setting sun, creeping in through the bedroom window.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh, Harry-boy. You are *in it* now. This is the underground you have been looking for. This is it. You have arrived. Buckle up, strap in, and get ready.
YOU - Wait! Get ready for what?
KIM KITSURAGI - “Khm,” the lieutenant places two fingers on the skin just next to the fresh bandage. His voice is hushed, a strange note in his cadence. “Now, officer, if you wouldn’t mind turning around.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - This! Get ready for *this*!!
YOU -
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[PAIN THRESHOLD: Heroic] Just do it, without any commentary or fuss.
-
[ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Legendary] “Oh Kim, you should have said something earlier… I am *all* about supporting the homo-sexual underground.”
-
[COMPOSURE: Godly] “No, *you* turn around.”
-
[REACTION SPEED: Heroic] Wink, then turn around.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] - Your voice catches and dies in your throat.
YOU - “Turn…?”
KIM KITSURAGI - “Yes.”
The lieutenant raises an eyebrow at you. His voice is flat, but there’s a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
KIM KITSURAGI - “You have an exit wound, detective. The bandage on the other side will have to be changed as well.”
EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - Any awkwardness in the lieutenant’s body language appears to have been dissipated by a brand of mild exasperation you have become very familiar with.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA [Medium: Success] - That’s what happens when you get shot. Uncomplicated gunshot to soft tissue only *will* have an entry and exit wound. And you should count yourself lucky there aren’t shards of bone missing, floating around the morass of your body.
YOU - Gingerly turn, twisting your shoulders first and letting the rest follow. Your legs are heavy and aching, like ballast tied to the shipwreck of your body. It is not a graceful manoeuvre. Sink your face back into the warm impression of Kim’s pillow, left by the back of your head. Darkness envelopes you.
PERCEPTION (Smell) [Trivial: Success] - The pillow smells like him. Pine needles, orange blossom detergent, and the lingering smell of sleep and musk. A softer version of the same man, without the dust and grime of Jamrock.
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - I just want to make it known that this is an extremely compromising position. You literally have your face pressed into another man’s pillow, ass in the air and utterly at the lieutenant’s mercy. It’s extremely *unmanly*.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Don’t mind the meathead. I have a really good feeling about this.
KIM KITSURAGI - Unaware of the roiling soup of your thoughts, the lieutenant peels off the bandage on the back of your thigh with an unceremonial tug. This time the pain is expected, and somehow better for it that you couldn’t see it coming.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - To offer up your trust, to give up control like this, it feels exhilarating.
PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Easy: Success] - The rustle of a packet of bandages opening. The snip of gauze being cut. The sound of administering care.
KIM KITSURAGI - Through the darkness, the lieutenant’s steady touch returns, repeating the same process as before. The edge of the damp sponge dutifully follows the lines of your leg.
CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Success] - Without being able to see, the contact is somehow more pronounced - like a trace of bioluminescence, lighting you up from the inside. All your hairs are standing on end.
KIM KITSURAGI - The palm of his hand smooths over the fresh bandage, across the back of your thigh.
HALF LIGHT - If only he would press harder. Pain just a knife’s edge from pleasure.
YOU - Oh… this feels familiar, somehow.
INLAND EMPIRE - Moving lights, shifting shadows. Music vibrating through your lungs. Bodies pressing all around. The squeak and slide of leather. Unseen hands reaching, stroking, grabbing in the dark.
YOU -
-
[VOLITION: Heroic] Abort! Abort! Think of literally anything else.
-
[ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Easy] *Keep* thinking about it.
LIMBIC SYSTEM - Funky baby, you don’t stand a chance against your over-stimulated dopamine receptors.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Imagine it. It’s easy like this, your face in the pillow, your eyes squeezed shut. Imagine a rough hand on the back of your neck, forcing your nose against the mattress. Your mouth half open, face mashed against the mattress, moaning like you can’t help it, so desperate for Kim’s hands on you that you’re going out of your mind. Imagine the purr of his voice when he asks if you can hold on from touching yourself, if you can be good for him.
AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - He would be good at it, too. Eyes dark with promise. The even keel of his voice keeping you anchored, while he has one slim hand on your throat and the other pushing down your belt buckle, palming you through your pants.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh god, yes. Give me more. Give me all of it.
YOU - You can’t help it. A moan escapes, muffled by the pillow that’s now very well acquainted with your face.
PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Easy: Success] - But not enough *not* to be heard.
KIM KITSURAGI - It is obvious as the lieutenant’s hand abruptly stills. And then, complete and utter silence.
ENDURANCE - Dread, cold and heavy, sinks into your stomach.
YOU - Ah, fuck. I wish I were dead. Fuck.
VOLITION [Medium: Failure] - WHAT DID I TELL YOU!
YOU - Fuck. He definitely heard me, didn’t he.
LOGIC [Easy: Success] - Sorry Harry, there’s *no way* you can pass that off as a sound of pain. You didn’t make a single noise when he was treating the entry wound.
YOU - Why the fuck did I do that? What is wrong with me? Who the fuck gets horny whilst having their bullet wound treated?
LOGIC [Medium: Failure] - Might I suggest, this is why you’re fucked in the head. Misdirected electrical signals, caused by irreversible alcohol-related brain damage.
SUGGESTION - You’ve been so miserable and touch-starved that the first kind touch you’ve known has triggered a complete systems failure of your fried neurotransmitters.
HALF LIGHT [Formidable: Failure] - There’s nothing else for it. Close your eyes and pray that death is swift.
KIM KITSURAGI - “…”
“…”
CONCEPTUALISATION - Stars are born, suns die, planets turn, entire civilisations rise and fall, and still the lieutenant remains silent.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Heroic: Failure] - He is, surprisingly, not yet revolted by your existence and has not in fact wordlessly fled the isola.
VOLITION - Okay, Harry. Be realistic. You can’t lie face down on Kim’s mattress hoping for oblivion forever.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Besides, you like looking at his face. Might find something good there.
VOLITION - Why do you even listen to that guy anymore? Come on. Work with me here.
YOU - With the grace of an injured elephant seal, you reluctantly shuffle-turn until you are on your side, facing the lieutenant. It takes some effort, which really doesn’t help with the crushing shame you are feeling.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant is still kneeling in the same spot, socked feet tucked neatly under his legs, hands resting on the tops of his thighs and the orange afternoon light coming behind him, touching the tips of his black hair with gold.
PERCEPTION (Sight) - His ears are tipped with a delicate red flush. His expression is… not shocked, or revolted.
LOGIC [Formidable: Success] - Oh, would you look at that. He is not entirely surprised that it has come to this.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Challenge: Success] - He just isn’t sure if this is a good idea.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Whatever this is, it feels *incredible*. Like falling and flying, at the same time. Please, yes, more, right now.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Legendary: Success] - Here’s the thing. It doesn’t take a Dolorian polymath to figure this one out, either. People don’t usually look at Kim Kitsuragi the way you do. In fact, the lieutenant doesn’t remember the last time anybody *has* looked at him like you do.
YOU - Really?
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Legendary: Success] - Yes, officer. You look at him like he was the very anchor upon which both the moon and stars were hung. He likes that you think he’s clever and capable. He likes that you trust him with your life.
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - He’s drawn to your obvious adoration like the light draws a moth - or maybe more like an ungulate caught by headlights on a highway. Trapped. Unable to look away.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Legendary: Success] - For years, the lieutenant has constructed elaborate rituals around his identity. To mask the crushing loneliness of being on the island of himself, a child of a Revolution that was no kinder to him than the one before. He has been spending decades standing on the outside and only looking in, accepting that this would be enough. It would have to be enough.
EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] - One cigarette a day. An exercise of will is also an exercise in denial. Like hidden glances and barely held back smiles. To never allow himself more - because there was nothing to have.
ENDURANCE - And what would that mean? To *have*?
INLAND EMPIRE - To crave and to have is like a thing and its shadow.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Nevermind what it means, maybe he *likes* that he could make you moan just from fixing your bandages.
INLAND EMPIRE - He’s still here. Still waiting. Still yours, right now.
KIM KITSURAGI - The shifting expressions across the lieutenant’s face seem to have settled into a decision. He clears his throat.
EMPATHY [Legendary: Failure] - If only you had the slightest clue what it was.
ESPRIT DES CORPS - You’ve been *away* for a while there, officer. He’s wondering if something really did break in that brain of yours.
VOLITION - APOLOGISE IMMEDIATELY! What if he leaves?
YOU -
-
“God, sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
-
“I’m sorry, fuck, can we pretend that never happened?”
-
“I’m okay. Please don’t leave, Kim.”
YOU - Your hand finds his thigh, solid and warm. You give the lieutenant’s right knee a feeble pat as your scrambled brain fizzles in vague panic.
YOU - “I’m okay. Please don’t leave, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant gives you a smile with teeth, like you’ve just told a funny joke. “Where would I go, detective? Did you forget that I live here?”
A click and a rustle, and the lieutenant is putting away all the plastic orange *FIRST AID* container. He has not asked you to leave, either.
INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - The air in the apartment is still, like a quiet animal. Waiting.
ESPRIT DES CORPS - If an assault were launched on this building right now - if the windows came crashing down-
LOGIC - Now we’re just going in circles. I think we broke him.
YOU - Wait. This time feels different.
ESPRIT DES CORPS - *If* an assault was launched on this building. But even if it wasn’t this building. Even if the only assault was from your mangled brain shredding itself from the inside out, even if you are bleeding and wretched and disgusting and everything you touch fucking dies - even then. There are precious few things that you know to be true. One is that the lieutenant will always come back for you.
YOU - Who am *I* to him?
LOGIC - His partner. He told you as much himself.
VOLITION - But what does that mean, his *partner*?
HALF LIGHT [Legendary: Success] - What is he afraid of?
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - He is afraid for you. He is afraid that he is too late.
YOU - Too late for what?
PAIN THRESHOLD - Too late to save you from yourself, Harry-boy. Look at you. You’re one overextension away from bleeding out on the lieutenant for the second time.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Formidable: Success] - He is afraid for himself, too. Your intensity, your emotions, your relentless pushing. Your addictive personality. It might be too much.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Formidable: Success] - The Human Can Opener. Those allusions to La Puta Madre… the fear in Ruby’s eyes.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - He’s well aware that the monster isn’t under your bed or in the woods, it is you. The monster has always been you.
VOLITION [Medium: Success] - What he means is, there is a high chance that neither of you will survive this one. It is ill advised at best.
EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - And yet. He has stayed. He is staying.
ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - He’s tougher than he looks. Half a head shorter and not nearly half as wide, the lieutenant had once carried *you* to his motor carriage when you passed out.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant is regarding you with a long look, still patiently waiting for whatever will emerge from the mired, ragged depths of your mind.
PERCEPTION (Sight) [Easy: Success] - His eyes are warm gold in this light; like sunlight on deep water, like solid amber with light shone through. He looks… fond. Your stomach flips. It’s completely devastating.
YOU - “Kim…”
KIM KITSURAGI - “Yes?” His tone is measured. His right hand, the closest to your side, twitches minutely. “Are you sure you are feeling alright?”
Despite everything that is happening, he is always genuinely concerned about you.
YOU -
-
[DRAMA: Challenging] “Everything’s fine, Kim. I just… had a strange, sexy vision.”
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“Sorry I completely lost control of reason and also all my faculties just then. Now, where were we?”
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“I really have no idea why you haven’t ditched me for someone worthwhile, Kim.”
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[Composure: Legendary] Tell him how he looks, framed in golden light.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] - Who do you think you are, Guillaume le Million?
YOU - “It’s unfair how you always look so … cool.” The words sound lame, even to yourself.
KIM KITSURAGI - The corner of his mouth quirks upwards at the non-sequitur. The setting sun deepens the shadows across his face, reflecting off the moons of his glasses. “You do keep saying that, detective.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - He’s still so close. This is still touching distance.
SUGGESTION [Formidable: Success] - The way you make him feel… hammering on the city gates, cracking all the walls he has built up for himself, prying apart all of his elaborate rituals.
PAIN THRESHOLD - Oh please. Don’t flatter yourself.
DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - With respect, sire, you have never been able to make the lieutenant do anything he doesn’t truly *want* to do.
YOU - Okay, fine. And what does he want now?
RHETORIC [Heroic: Success] - A pretext.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - You’re already in his bed! What more do you need?
LOGIC - Well, technically you are *on* his bed. Out of arguably extenuating circumstances involving several near death experiences.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant coughs quietly, like he’s amused. “I fear you may hurt yourself with all this overthinking, detective. I would advise against straining yourself.”
YOU - ???
RHETORIC - This is his idea of a joke.
REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - Pay attention, because he’s only going to do this once.
KIM KITSURAGI - A hand comes up and finds the curve of your jaw, fingers lightly tracing the abundant whiskery hair, following the shape of your cheek to your ear.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Legendary: Success] - He would never admit it, but he’s glad you didn’t shave it off. The lieutenant clearly has a *preference*.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Holy fucking shit.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant’s hand hovers for a moment, and then falters.
REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - No!
YOU -
-
[Grab him by the arm and pull him down towards you.]
YOU - Before he could withdraw and move away, you wrap your entire hand around his bicep and pull.
KIM KITSURAGI - Later, much later, the lieutenant will protest that it was because his weight was already unbalanced as he was half-leaning over you - but he sort of just… falls into you, left hand coming up to catch himself a second too late.
INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - It’s graceless and a little sloppy, but you feel the delicious scrape of his stubble as you finally find an angle to kiss him.
KIM KITSURAGI - The reaction is instantaneous. There are two hands on your face, fingers curling into your hair. The smell of his aftershave and soap.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Fucking fireworks in your brain, baby.
YOU - You run a tentative hand up his back, rucking up his tucked white shirt and finding skin underneath. Kim shivers against you, and any coherent thought processes you had left disintegrate into a pool of heat low in your belly.
EMPATHY - When was the last time somebody had held him like this?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh, *oh*. Forget it, we’re staying here forever.
YOU - You lick into his mouth and Kim actually *groans*, out loud, and it feels like somebody has punched all the air out of your lungs.
INLAND EMPIRE - Home. Make him your home.
YOU - It feels like your nerves are on fire and the marrow in your bones is singing and you want to crawl inside his skin and sew yourself into his clothes.
You are dizzy, lightheaded, completely lost in the feeling – hands sliding across Kim’s shoulder blades, raking down his ribcage. The strong muscles in his back, the shape of his arms.
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Formidable: Success] - God, you look incredible like this, the lieutenant thinks. Slick red mouth, well-kissed and swollen. Eyes glassy and dark. This is bad. Addictive.
YOU - Heart in overdrive and breath shaking out of your useless lungs, you can only hold on as Kim cradles your face with one hand and just kisses you, once, twice, three times.
KIM KITSURAGI - When the lieutenant pulls back and you instinctively follow, rising up on your elbows, a firm hand pushes back against your sternum.
KIM KITSURAGI - “Harry. Harry, we can’t.”
AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - It should be against the law how much Kim saying your name is doing it for you.
YOU - “Why not?” Your voice sounds wrecked and breathless even to your own ears.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant is not unaffected either, breathing hard as he sits back and vaguely attempts to straighten his shirt. He tries to not look at your mouth. He does not succeed on either count.
“Well, for one, I just re-did your dressings, and I don’t want you to tear your stitches again.”
“And besides.” He looks down and away. “What happened in Martinaise was - ”
ESPRIT DES CORPS [Challenging: Success] - A lot of excitement and blunt force trauma can make people feel all kinds of things, the lieutenant thinks. Part of him worries he might be taking advantage of your compromised state, both physically and mentally.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - The lieutenant is not one to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
KIM KITSURAGI - A wry smile. His hands are still lingering at the spread of your chest. You like how they look there. “If you want, *after* your leg has healed. We can talk about it then.”
YOU - You do very much want.
INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] - It’s the truest thing about you.
KIM KITSURAGI - You tell him this in a rush as you tug on his arm like a petulant child, already bereft of contact.
What the lieutenant sees in your eyes might have finally snapped something in him, because it startles him into laughter. The surprised sound huffs out of him like a displacement of air, and he relents at the pleading look on your face, just a little. Just enough to lean in once more.
YOU - You can’t be sure, but it may be the best feeling in the world. You tell him this too, angling to steal another kiss.
When Kim smiles against your mouth like he can’t help himself, you feel like you are drowning in pure light.
THOUGHT COMPLETE: THE *UNDERGROUND* UNDERGROUND
Could this be the place? Through the dark alleyways, out of the shadowy underground and into the sun. The smallest church in the intersection of Jamrock North and the GRIH - in an ordinary shoebox apartment, the light bleeding through like a broken halo, an ephemeral cathedral of glass and shadows. Bathed in the sunlight of a dying world, he too is doomed to fade in time - uncelebrated, unknown by the masses. But maybe that’s alright. This is the smallest church after all, with just a single pew, only room for one acolyte. You’ll get down on your knees. It could be enough.