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We arrived at the gloomy town in no time.
It gave me an odd feeling. It is not like Cordona, which in my mind, is always sunny and bright. This place was festering darkness. Cordona had its own darkness, but it was not as clear to the naked eye, not as noticeable as this place. Perhaps it is more like London that way. London has always been dark and sluggish.
This town reminds me of somewhere I’ve been to before, but I know I have never been to such a place. It is so familiar, yet foreign, and it all fills me with uneasiness. It is dark, and as aforementioned, gloomy. There are a great number of shanty towns present, but very few people ever littered the streets. Those that were out and about did not seem to be truly living… their eyes were always downcast and they went about their business in a sluggish fashion. The air smelled stale and rotten, and as my companion and I walked we could clearly hear the murky slush mould into the shape of our shoes. I concluded that it rains often and the mass amount of puddles present would be a constant in this murky town.
He had managed to find us a place to stay in the meantime. It was… quaint. Not what I was used to. But, as he has ever so fervently reminded me, all places I travel to will not welcome me like London and Cordona has. I think what he means by this is that I will not always get my way -- which is fine. A true detective must learn to adapt.
There was a fireplace in the sitting area, which could hardly be described as such; it felt more like a lost wildfire blazing in the centre of our living room. Nearby was a low sofa with multiple rugs littered on the ground around it, serving the purpose of absorbing the wetness that was bound to be on my companion and I’s shoes due to the perpetual swamp outside. I’m afraid I have already filled our abode with papers -- I’ve strewn them everywhere. But it is how I think. At first, he found it incorrigible. But, I’ve found him chuckling to himself as he swats them out of his face as he goes to get his tea. I think that means he finds it charming.
He helped me set up a chemical analysis station. The apartment already had furniture such as bookshelves and other convenient storage cupboards, which assisted with my -- our -- endeavours greatly.
The flat had two beds. It was a normal sight, as there were two of us. But it felt wrong to see him lying there at night when I settled in to sleep, and not someone else. Him .
I have not opened up to him yet. He seems fine with that. He has a gentleness that I have never expected to receive from another. Of course, except from… him . But he is not “another.”
He is me.
My new companion, like the old, shows excessive care for my health, however. It has been just as annoying as it has always been. Though, it induces a different feeling within myself. I do not care for being pitied -- in fact, I detest it -- but there is something about the care of another, of him, that makes me want it more . This is a want, a desire, that I do not want to grow. I must not rely on another, not again.
I accept that I need a companion. It is required for a great detective to have one who is there to help document, to help the brain’s inner workings flow properly. I need that second opinion, that other perspective. Why must they be so similar, though? Must I be doomed to being led about by the same type of man, for the rest of my life?
I have no doubt that my current companion will leave me in some time, nevertheless. I have been acting especially… manic. I do not know how to control these urges within me. I must throw myself upon each case I come across, each little suspicion that is brought to my attention. He is worried about me. He knows something has happened to me, and as a man of the medical field, he has a natural inclination to offer support. I do not need his pity nor his sympathy. But, as always, I have that creeping feeling within myself. It crawls from the back of my neck, the pit of my stomach, my face -- a deep desire for it to continue. I do not know why I feel this way. Sometimes I feel like it is a remnant of him , and that he is telling me to accept it. To embrace the idea that another could come to care for me. But I do not need that. He , of all people, taught me that.
We had embarked on a case which caused a rift to form between the two of us. The nature of the incident was quite… interesting. He would understand how such a spectacle would cause my behaviours to increase, to “worsen.” But my new companion has not yet fully understood my mannerisms. He does not yet know that my sometimes excitable nature is not something to worry about. But, alas, he still commits to the role of the physician, and pulls me back every time I get so close to clarity. I have lashed out at him many times before for doing so, but he gives me this look, an unavoidable look, and I storm off instead.
However, that look of his was not enough this time around. I refused to look at him and was properly cross. This combination was not good for either of us. It was not good for him, as he immediately became the victim of my verbal barragement. It was not good for me, as I was left alone to brew in the aftermath, the rain soaking my clothes and making me want to tear them off in rage. I was feeling too much at once, and I realised then that perhaps that look of his was what could quell the feelings. But he was gone. I had caused him to be gone.
Cause and effect. You are the victim of your actions, as well as the perpetrator. Words were always a comfort to me, but no words could comfort me now.
-
It was not long before we would need to inevitably meet again. I could not take one more moment in the rain. It reminded me of too much. Not only was the slickness of my clothes -- the coldness, yet hot stickiness -- completely unbearable, but the utter wetness of it, too, reminded me of mother. I do not need to be reminded of her.
I tried to be quiet upon my return. I realised it would not have mattered either way, as he was waiting for me on the low sofa straight ahead, behind the fireplace.
It is not my place to assume that he was waiting for me . I am a presumptuous man, as many people have made sure to tell me.
I could only spot his legs from where I was standing, and I decided to not reveal any more of his body. I was afraid of what I would find. So, I skulked over to my analysis table, the table he helped me establish, to become absorbed in a form of work that I knew he would not find so alarming .
I thought he would leave me alone. I sat there, at my desk, melting in my clothes as a form of punishment. I was shivering, but not only because of the cold the rain left behind. My lingering anger, the pain of the material, and the storm that's raging in my mind were all causing my body to move in a way I could not control.
I tried to calm it by focusing on my experiments. I did not care if the chemicals spilled on my hands, or otherwise got into places they should not be. I didn’t notice it anyhow. A chemical, which should have surely burned me, left no effect when it dripped onto my fingers. There was not even a tingle there, for my body was far too concerned with all of the other receptors going off.
It is fascinating how the human body works, isn’t it? That it can get so preoccupied with one event, that it neglects other functions?
I suppose he found it quite interesting as well, since I felt his hand rest on my shoulder very gently. It mimicked the gentleness of his voice as he spoke to me, though I did not hear the exact words that left his mouth. It felt like I was hearing nothing, but then there was this creeping, invasive feeling of some sort of creature, some bug, stuck in my ear -- a faint buzzing -- and my mind was forced to echo these disordered thoughts throughout my skull. It was all too quiet and all too loud.
Eventually, his hand moved from my shoulder to my forearm, and by doing so he removed my hand from the microscope that I was impatiently changing the magnification of. I did not fight against this, as my body was slowly shutting down. I was starting to feel less and more at the same time. I became more tired, as if upon closing my eyes I would not open them again for a long time. I started to feel this tingling feeling in my other hand, and upon glancing at it, I noticed it was the hand I had spilled something on. It was a dark blue and I began debating what it could be.
He also noticed it when I had. I know this because he immediately left my side, letting go of my arm in the process, to retrieve a rag and push it against my hand. The tingling feeling was gradually becoming more powerful. He continued his efforts, taking various vials from my table in an attempt to create a concoction that would heal my wound. I almost felt like laughing at his ferocity. He turned to glance at me, perhaps to see the state of my hand, and caught my light expression. I could not laugh, for I was too tired, but I was lazily smiling. He looked from his creation to me and back, eventually smiling as well, in a defeated way. I do not know what could cause him to make such an expression at me, but I suppose I will not be able to deduce it as all I could see was complete darkness immediately after.
-
I was not asleep for long, it seems, as he was still tending to my hand and I was still in my desk chair when I woke up. That is good, then. I must have been unconscious for a few minutes at most. My attentiveness seemed to be a great relief to my companion, as his eyes lit up upon me blinking away my drowsiness. He attempted to speak to me again, but I was too unfocused. And the feeling of my clothes was so overwhelming, far more than it was before my short lapse of awareness.
I tried to stand, but he put both of his hands on my shoulders to keep me down. Some twisted noise left my mouth as I pushed off of him. It was a sound no human should be able to make, a groan worthy of a horrific creature, and it caused him to oblige by request. I do not know how he looked at me as I slugged away, tearing off my various articles of clothing in an attempt to free my body from the horrible, disgusting rags it was wrapped up in.
I sat in a corner and was surrounded by darkness. I was picking at my bandage for a long while before I was able to hear him approach. I thought that was a good sign. I was able to hear him quite well, now, I believe. Perhaps it was those wretched clothes that were causing me my perceptual issues.
This has happened before many times, but he made it better. He would make it okay. I do not know how I will get along without him.
I could feel my face become wet, but because of the darkness, he could not see. I sat there silently, eventually realising that he left me some tea and a new change of clothes. I looked past him and observed he had cleaned up the messy trail of clothing that I had left behind. I looked to him through the darkness and tilted my head.
How long will it take him to utterly and completely give up on me?
-
After finishing his offering of tea and changing into my new set of clothes, I reentered the main room. I assumed he had resumed his position on the sofa, so I did the same by sitting at my chemical station. My theory of regaining my sense of hearing was correct, as I heard him utter a scoff when I did so. I wanted to turn to him, to observe his expression and what exactly had caused him to scoff, but I decided against it. I assumed he would tell me despite what my reaction was.
He did. He spoke to me about how I had “quite the episode there.” I did not entertain this line of conversation. There was a moment of silence before he quickly apologised. He told me that he did not mean to seem malicious and instead thought it would be what I had wanted to hear.
Personally, I do not know why he thought that. I am snarky and approving of his pawky humour, but I am not a deprecating man. At least, not verbally.
I remained quiet. I could hear him rustle the page of the book he was reading as he accepted this.
-
I had reached a point of revelation. I stood up in my hysteria, prancing around the room with a vial in my hand. As I was making my rounds, I could see that he had stood up in reaction to my sudden movements. He moved around the large fireplace to get a better view of what was going on. I eventually ceased my cycle of walking about and returned to the table, mumbling to myself rapidly and with little breaths in between.
He took me by my face and looked at me in the eyes. My previously light expression stood still then, as I stared at him for the first time since he left me outside. Though, then, I was only left to watch his back as it became smaller and smaller.
He loosened his grip upon my chin when he saw my expression and then let go all together, straightening his tie as if it would resolve the situation. I continued my work gingerly as he stood beside me. He then spoke to me, but I did not care to hear his words.
It began something like, “I am worried for you.”
“You will end up hurting yourself beyond repair--”
“It’s upsetting, really--”
“You are a marvellous, brilliant man, but this--”
“Don’t you see how much I care?”
His last string of words prompted me to pause. He paused, too. It caused him to no longer spill words from his tongue with the quickness of a feral animal. He was silent now, and I knew that he had gulped afterwards, as he is inclined to do. I glanced around my table, as if the solution to this situation was housed there.
He then went to take me by my face, again, but in a different way. This time, it was by the cheek, not the chin. I looked off, beside his eyes, near his ear. I could see his soft expression in my peripheral. It was tempting for my eyes to meet his, to bask in that look of his. I did not give in to the temptation.
I did not refuse his pull, however. He began to pull me closer to himself, with his one hand, soon joined by the other, on the opposite side of my face. He looked down into my eyes, into my very soul, it felt, and I felt obligated to look back. His eyes were piercing, disarming. I felt myself -- my hand -- go to join his against my face, and he folded his over mine, grasping it.
I did not know what he was doing. I did not know why it had such an effect on me. A gesture such as this, one’s face being held, should not carry such a weight. At least, I had always believed so. When I had received such a gesture from loved ones, it would only disturb me. I could accept it from my brother, or mother, or father, but even then my tolerance of it was a declining one.
So, why would it be, then, that when he did it to me, it made me feel so alive ?
He ducked in to get closer to my face, to have our noses meet. I do not think that logic was guiding either of our actions, as it once did. Well, I suppose he was never guided by the same force as I. But he tried. He was always more prone to resort to more human factors, however, such as lust .
Is that what this was? A part of me wanted it to be.
I was a fool for this, of course. How could one such as I desire a feeling such as lust ?
I pretended that I knew many things, when in reality I knew little. As my new companion likes to remind me, I am a human man with a machine heart. I am not capable of such a thing as love and lust .
He would leave me to believe otherwise, however, since the way he brought our faces together, our lips just barely touching, made me second guess every notion made about me before this moment. All of the claims that spoke of me as an emotionless being, executing commands for my own self-fulfilment.
Perhaps I wanted to be fulfilled. Is that such a selfish want? Is it selfish to want this moment to never stop, to never run out of his patience, his kindness? Is this feeling indeed that of love and lust ?
I must… deduce this, in order to uncover the truth. Yes. I can use what I have seen from my previous cases, and my own personal studies of the phenomenon, as a basis of what love and lust is.
I know that such feelings of love and lust inspire others to do things they would not usually do. Things that seem idiotic or reckless in hindsight.
It seems that me and him were victims of this very side effect. He always seemed more prone to physical touch and intimate exchanges, but not as direct as this. The connection of lips has never been considered a typical show of camaraderie, no? I was never one to be interested in such an interaction, but I had suddenly found it to be something I so very vehemently wanted to experience.
This was something idiotic and reckless, yes, as we could very well suffer for our current exchange. I could not understand as to why, however. How could this be so condemned? This feeling of… want . Was it lust ? Love ? Was I capable of such a thing, then?
Was he feeling this very same way? Was his entire body overcome by this overwhelming heat, so comfortable and yet suffocating? Was this a foreign feeling to him, as it was to me? Or was it a friend to him, something he had experienced with many past lovers ?
Am I now one of them?
-
I am beginning to learn that excessive physical touch was also a display of love and lust . He took the liberty to explain this to me, as he continued to remove one of his hands from my face and instead use it to direct me to the wall beside my chemical table. I was leaning against it now, with his removed hand now positioned on my waist.
I stood there motionless, his body now pushed up against me, but still gentle. My eyes were closed, but I could still see.
I imagined a landscape all around me -- a beautiful sea. It was Cordona. I was at the observatory point in Old City. This place reminded me of adventure, but also of quietness. I was always afraid of water, but he would assure me that climbing the rocks off near the wall would be OK, because we would be able to watch the sun rise.
The lighthouse would be right ahead of us. It would be a vibrant shade of blue everywhere, as the dark sky would reflect upon the water and fill the area with that colour. But, gradually, the sky would become purple, then red, then orange and yellow. The clouds would glow with the bright light of the sun. I would almost sink into the sand below me, which was just hard yet soft enough to serve as a comfortable seat. He would sit there beside me, throwing rocks into the water ahead of us, yelling in glee whenever he got a skipping streak of more than six. I wouldn’t bear him much mind, though, as the sunrise captivated me more than his high-scores.
I wanted to be there with him. We would be sitting on that sandy mound that was just hard yet soft enough to serve as a comfortable seat. He would be sitting on my right in order for the lighting to hit him in the way I wanted it to. He would be glowing. It would be warm, because of the sun’s arrival, but still cool because of how close we were to the sea. It would be perfect.
As I was imagining the perfect spot to lay with him, he had managed to remove many articles of clothing from either one of us. We were now laying together on the sofa, him holding my waist with both of his hands. My own hands had somehow drifted to where his neck and shoulders met while my mind had drifted.
I think I can deduce that I may be feeling some form of love when I am with him. Perhaps that is why his soft looks had such an effect on me. It could be the same reason why I wanted him to care for me in a way that nobody else did, in a way that I hated. Sometimes, he may tell a joke, or make an observation that is so simple in nature, and it makes me feel a certain way -- a beautiful way. It feels similar to the warmth I feel now, as he touches my lower stomach and beyond, but not as intense as now.
I want to go to a special place with him -- that sandy mound in Old City -- a place I love. That would suggest that I love him as well, no? I had only ever gone there with him before and I know that I loved him. I still love him.
He pulled away. I opened my eyes, feeling rather disoriented from the sudden distance between us. The mental image of the shore was leaving me, and I was losing track of my string of deductions.
He looked into my eyes. He looked worried. I blinked slowly at him, feeling perfectly neutral and content. What was he worried about?
I do not typically feel things other than anxiety. This anxiety is not always draining -- at least, I do not think so. I feel a negative anxiety when I do not know where a case is leading, which happens rarely.
The typical anxiety I feel is when a case gets interesting. I am always driven by that subtle feeling of uneasiness. It fuels me and my mind. It keeps me on edge. I am always thinking, speaking, and deducing.
But, now, I feel truly calm. There is no such thing that my mind is overrun with -- it only contains thoughts of sharing a beautiful place with him.
My normal feelings of anxiety were beginning to return, however, when I observed him getting up and gathering his scattered clothes. I sat up hurriedly, looking after him, confused.
I said something like, “Had I done something?”
He ceased the search for his clothes and turned to look at me. He still looked worried as he sat back down beside me, taking my hand in his while stroking it with the other. He looked away from me.
His response gave the feeling of, “It… felt as if you were not… enjoying it.”
I did not like this explanation. It was not true. I leaned into him, as this was the most effective way of righting his wrong, in my opinion. He took me in his in return and we continued what he began.
I wanted him to teach me lust. What it felt like when you could not live without another, could not breathe without another.
I wanted him to teach me love. What it felt like when you were so utterly enchanted by another person that you would do anything for them.
I wanted to ask him his opinion on this case. But he seemed quite occupied, so I thought it best not to disturb him.