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Warren Godby does not like being touched. It's not like he really gets a say in the matter, though. From his first breath to his most recent there have been hands on his skin. Hands of all kinds, all ages, all colors, all walks of life. He cannot get away from them. They stick to his skin and they burn . Red hot marks that cover every inch of him, marks that only he can see. The hands cannot see the prints they leave. The hands do not care about the prints they leave. So Warren bites his tongue and doesn't fight when they pat his back or pinch his cheek. He cannot get away from them.
His mothers hands are cold. They pass over his skin and every burn disappears like it was never there to begin with. Her touch is light and comforting, a barrier between him and the rest of the world. She runs her fingers through his hair, disappearing into the bright ginger curls that just barely stay out of his eyes.
“Look at you,” she says. Her voice bursts with pride. “Such a handsome man you're becoming!” She holds his face between her palms. Warren smiles a toothy ten-year-old smile, and the burns on his face fade to nothing. Right here, with his mothers hands on his cheeks and a rare grin on his face, it doesn't matter that he's too old to be held by his mum. It doesn't matter that his next big smile won't be anytime soon. Right here, he is safe. He does not burn.
There are less hands on him now. He's a grown up. His mother isn't there to hold his hand and soothe his burns. His sleeves get longer, his collars get higher, his belt gets tighter. The fabric that wraps his body is thick. Hands cannot burn through it. They still try. They sting and they smolder, but they do not leave scars. They leave red patches that fade the farther he gets away from them. He has had enough of hands.
His skin itches with touches from hands that won’t stop burning, no matter how long they've been away. Deep under the surface, burned into his flesh and muscle and bone. He knows that if he starts to scratch he will not stop. He will not stop when there is blood under his nails and chunks of himself missing. He will not stop when there is no flesh and no muscle and no bone. The burn is deeper than that. Or maybe it's everywhere. Every part of his being, charred with a touch from one hand that spread through his body and mind like a cancer. He will scratch and scratch and tear and pull but it will not go away.
His bones remember. His muscles remember. His flesh remembers.
He remembers.
There is blood on his hands. It boils and leaves the same marks that hands used to leave so often. The blood that used to be a man sears into his skin. He cannot tell where his blood ends and the man’s blood begins. He fears that wiping this blood away will take some of his own with it. So he waits. And the blood that used to be a man eats away at him until there is nothing left but a scared, shaking man who has realized what he has done. The blood has gone cold. It brings no relief.
More hands are on him now. An amount of hands that he hasn't felt since he was a little boy. They are rougher than the ones he remembers. Their grasp is firm and they do not care about the skin they are touching. They wash the blood from his hands. It does not wash away the char. He does not remember their questions, or his answers, or his consequences. All he remembers is the blood, and he will not forget it any time soon.
Warren is alone. He is sealed in a box behind layers and layers of iron and concrete. He prefers it this way. Alone means no hands, means no burns. Concrete means nothing gets out, means nothing gets in. The seal means his life is out of his hands. He is not presented with a choice. Only a direction.
His free time, though he'd hardly call it free, is spent thinking. Remembering. Reflecting. He wishes they took that away too. When he isn't thinking, he's sleeping. And when he isn't sleeping, he’s trying his damn best not to think. All that comes to mind is the blood, and the hands, and the bloody hands, and the hands of the man that no longer pumps blood. On a very, very good day, he can think of his mother, and her hands that once held him together. If he gets too greedy, though, thinks about her too long, he thinks about how much he's failed her. How he's become something she wouldn't want to hold together. It's better if he doesn't think at all.
There is a woman here to see him. She does not look at him with disgust, but rather intrigue. She refuses a handshake. He is thankful. She asks her questions. He offers his answers. She leaves to the big wide world. He returns to the big wide prison cell. He gets ready to forget all about it.
There are more people here to see him. This time, he's told to take everything he has with him. There is nothing to take. In the group before him, there is a man who speaks and a woman who stares. Warren shakes the man’s hand. The woman does not touch him, but her eyes give almost the same effect. They're icy blue and they burn his skin the same as the man's hand burns his palm. Even as the man - Clive, apparently - drags him to the back of a helicopter, she does not stop staring. He’s thankful to be sitting behind her, out of her line of sight.
Warren is not alone anymore. Now, there are scientists constantly poking and prodding him, burning every inch of his skin and then some. He is hooked up to machines that beep and medications that do god knows what to his body. He feels weak. There are others like him, poked and prodded in the same way he is. They are picked off, one by one. He doesn't know what happens to them. He doesn't want to know. Soon he is alone again. Alone with the scientists that see him as a lab rat, nothing more. It's finally his turn to disappear. Finally, he sleeps, with no thoughts and no tests and no hands . For the first time in a very long time, he is nothing.
Warren Godby is trying very hard to be a good husband. His wife is a saint for putting up with him, every part that doesn’t work. She holds his hand and rubs his back as he cries. Her hands are freezing. They’re like ice, slender and cold to the touch, but they are nothing like his mother’s. If his mother’s hands soothed his burns, Karen’s hands gave him frostbite. A different kind of mark, but a mark all the same. It’s a familiar feeling, though he can’t quite tell why. She holds his hands and he wants to get away, but there’s already so much of him that she can’t touch. So he holds her hands and he freezes. He reminds himself how he’s lucky to have someone who wants to hold his hands in the first place. He loves her, and a bit of frostbite isn’t going to change that.
He does not like handshakes. His boss grips too tight, he fears his bones might crack. The firmness makes him panic. He’s not quite sure why. He doesn’t have to be around people much to do his job. Mostly just phone calls. The most he sees people is during lunch, and he tries to limit that time as much as he can. That is, until this particularly frustrating goose chase he’s been sent on. It lands him in the archives, speaking to possibly the strangest person he’s met in this building. The darkness in this section of the building must be driving him mad. Warren asks his questions. The man who introduces himself as Gordon doesn’t really give good answers. He’s cryptic and frustrating and Warren’s just about ready to leave when he’s grabbed and pulled behind a desk. There is a hand on his leg and he waits to feel it burn though the fabric of his pants, but the sting does not come. Where he expected a searing pain, there’s just a slightly uncomfortable warmth. It shakes him. That can't be right. When he’s finally freed from the conversation about conspiracies and tortoises and whatnot, he feels compelled to check the spot on his leg for a mark. He’s not sure what he expected, but the fluorescent bathroom lights reveal nothing but pale, freckle-covered skin.
When there’s a touch that does not burn, freeze, or soothe, he’s not sure what to make of it. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t heal. It did nothing. He isn’t used to that. He’s used to extremes, the strongest opposing feelings with no middle ground. A burn that goes deeper than bone or a remedy that takes every last bit of pain away. Down or up. Low or high. Nothing in between. It’s a new feeling, one he can’t say he’s a fan of, but not necessarily a bad one. Another middle ground. But it’s not his biggest issue right now, so he doesn’t let himself think about it. Instead he thinks of things like his family; the hands that raised him and the hands that ruined him. He thinks of the voices on the tapes, and why they sound so familiar. He thinks of the mess he’s got himself into, the car he’s sharing with a man who’s introduced far too many thoughts and events to his life, the steps that led him where he is now. And no matter how hard he tries not to, he thinks of the touch that did not burn and did not heal. It’s not fair. He can’t hold his wife’s hands but this man can grab his shoulder or pat his leg or brush hands against his and he feels nothing. He turns the music up louder to avoid thinking at all.
Warren Godby has had enough life changing discoveries. He doesn’t have the energy to fight anymore. Everyone around him just wants to run tests. Diagnose him, pick him apart. He does not care for it. Well, not everyone , he supposes. Gordon seems to care. He sits at Warren's bedside and talks about anything and everything, and he either didn’t notice or didn’t mind when Warren found himself holding his hand. Still no burn, no chill. Just hands against hands, skin against skin.
Gordon Porlock is, by far, the strangest person Warren has ever met. No matter how many times Warren goes under, disappears from the waking world for months at a time, Gordon is always there when he comes back. He shouldn’t be so surprised, he asks the question every time. Gordon always says yes. He’s always there. With a new ancient movie or video game or bizarre story that Warren’s pretty sure he completely made up. Warren finds himself reaching for someone for the first time since he was very small. He reaches for hands, for shoulders, for a torso and for a face. He feels weightless without them, at risk of drifting away and never finding his way back. So there is always a hand in his. There is always a shoulder when his head feels too heavy to hold on his own. There is always a body that holds him and does not burn and does not freeze. There is a mouth that spins stories for Warren to listen. And maybe he thinks about this more than he should, but that’s nobody’s business but his.
There are more people who want to see him. They never let him forget he’s nothing but a lab rat to study. He’s tired of being an experiment. There’s a bit of fight left in him that leaves the moment he tries to use it. He remembers there is blood on his hands. It has long since dried, but he still feels it under his nails, beneath his skin, a fire that lies dormant until fuel is poured over the sparks. It burns through him, filling the last empty space of the nightmarish puzzle that is Warren Godby. There is no hand to ground him now. Only hands that scald and freeze.
When he comes back to himself, he’s answering questions he barely paid attention to. He’s asking to go back, to sleep forever and forget himself. He’s taken to the closest approximation of a home he has, to the closest approximation of a friend he has.
For the second time in his life, there is blood on his hands. Blood that he did not spill but flows all the same. It covers his hands up to his wrists and seeps into his skin, bright and terrifying against his pale arms. Words are being spoken to him but he cannot hear. He cannot see or think or breathe or feel anything but the blood that used to be a man he loved dripping onto cold tile. For the first time, Gordon’s touch burns. He is losing warmth and blood faster by the second, but his hand grasps Warren’s and it burns. It burns hotter than any touch he’s felt but he can’t let go, not now. It hurts, and he cries and he shouts but he does not let go. Aubrey practically has to wrestle him away.
There is blood on his hands that used to be a man he loves. It eats away at him until there is nothing left but a scared, shaking man who has lost half of his heart. The blood goes cold.
It brings no relief.