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While Singed and Silco insisted it was multiple personalities, you preferred another view. You’d been visiting Babette’s, talking with her and her workers. Babette was very understanding, happy to run errands and leave you and some of her workers alone to discuss the working of your minds.
It was this weekend that you’d spoken to someone new. She was older than most, loud, took up space. But when she sat in front of you she seemed to drift off. She sat in her chair and her edges blended with the curtains behind her. Her eyes were dark, and only that. She would only scan the room when you didn’t look at her, her only movements minute and almost invisible unless you looked for them.
“What we have,” she said in an even tone, never looking at your face, “is not multiple personalities.” You’d asked what she’d meant. She got up to grab a shot of something from the cart behind Babette’s desk. They were so plain, you noticed, her movements. Silco swayed and wrapped his fingers around his glasses oddly. Grabbed the decanter with one hand from the very bottom as he guided with his other hand on the neck.
She just grabbed a shot.
When she sat, she didn’t take a sip, just stared off again. “In order to have a personality, you need to have a consistent consciousness, a past, an awareness of yourself. We have none of that. We aren’t real, not like other people are.”
She’d left not long thereafter. And it stuck with you.
You watched each of your own movements. Saw how unsettling it was as you blended in with whatever curtains were behind you.
You watched Jinx. How her body flowed around her surroundings like a child’s train running around a Piltover beach. The way she held objects and moved them with a slight bounce. You knew she could feel herself dying, you could feel the ropes in your chest, too. But she knew how to live. How to be real. It was second nature to her, and you had no idea where to start.
When your sentences finished, you became the background of a room. You died, lost whatever tied you to reality for other people, until they looked at you again.
Silco was too real. He was real in sharp edges and tensed shoulders. In barks and demands. It set you on edge.
You realized as you sat in his office again, why it was so easy for him to let you use this room as a safe haven, even as he conducted meetings. It’s all you could focus on, how you would just blend into the background.
You wondered if you were allowed to scream. What would happen if you did. And then you pictured the woman from the brothel again, the way she was real until she sat and breathed. And then she didn’t exist fully anymore.
Silco was more affectionate the more you avoided him.
He became less real the more time you spent apart from him, he drank more. It became easier to bear the weight of his existence when you only talked across from him, staring at his large-backed chair, three shots in.
He asked again and again what was wrong, if he could fix it. But it was only as he sipped his bourbon. He left you to rot when he sobered up.
Sevika looked at you with pity when she woke you up each morning. You’d been late for a few days, unable to raise yourself from bed, so she’d taken on the responsibility. She didn’t speak to you much anymore, but the look of pity was enough. You’d feared that look, because you knew the day you got it, it meant you’d lost her. She was too real for you to get to her now. Or you were floating too far away for her to reach you.
Jinx didn’t visit. You were sure she was busy, or something.
One day she did visit, and quickly caught on. She punched your shoulder lightly. “What’s got your titties in a twist, toots?” She’d asked. You don’t remember what you’d said, or if you responded at all. But she left, still playful even as her footsteps softened. Floating somewhere else.
Thieram didn’t speak to you until it’d been weeks without you going on a job. You hadn’t even realized how long it’d been. Even as you thought back, it didn’t make sense.
Thieram was easier to talk to. He was real, but not too real.
He set something in front of you, and you sipped it without question. It was thick, chocolatey. “Did… uh, did you know that chocolate gives you dopamine?” And you felt yourself laugh. It was too breathy. You wish you could laugh harder, feel it burn your neck and chest.
“Drugging me into happiness, Thieram?”
He gave a nervous laugh and shrugged. You picked up your glass so he could wipe the counter under it.
“When did you last eat?” He asks, grabbing a packet of crackers from under the counter. They were always given to patrons that got just a little too drunk. You’d once seen Sevika shove the crackers one-by-one into the mouth of a slim girl that had a panic attack after being thrown around too much in the crowd.
It had worked. Or maybe the girl was too busy drooling over Sevika. You couldn’t blame her.
You placed the crackers into your mouth slowly. You couldn’t feel the crackers in your mouth, or the pressure as you chewed, but you could feel them clog up your throat. You drank and drank to get the feeling out, but it held steady, making you heavy and foggy again.
“What’s been up with you, anyway?” He asks. He’s just leaning on the counter, now. Cleaning and counting done.
You shrug. “I don’t feel real. Do I… exist?”
Thieram shrugs. “As much as you ever have.”
You look at the counter. “I think that’s the problem. I don’t think I’ve ever existed.”
He sighs deeply. “Do you have a reason to live? Like, family or something?”
You shake your head, and he gives you the same look Sevika does. You realize it’s not pity. You feel a little more real. “I think my reason for living has been being alive.”
He rubs his hands down the front of his shirt. “Well, there’s your problem. That’s surviving. And, in my opinion? Barely that. Do you have any reason to live?”
You pause. “It should be Silco. And Jinx.”
“It’s not?”
You shake your head again, take a sip of your drink. “I don’t think I even know what a reason to live is supposed to look like. Or be.”
He hums. “I mean, most people say family, or revenge, or making up for mistakes.”
You run a hand down your face. “But it has to be more than that. None of that applies to me. All of that is shallow, and stupid, and doesn’t make sense.”
Thieram nods. “I mean, yeah. I’m sure there’s more to it, people just don’t really have the words to put to it.”
“Who will? Have the words, I mean?”
Thieram’s eyes drift up the stairs, and you shake your head.
“I’m not talking to Silco.”
“Can I say something kinda shitty?”
“Go for it.”
He lets out a big sigh. “I think you owe it to him, to be honest.”
You nod. “I do. I just… my words won’t be enough. And instead of getting more words the longer I wait, I lose them. And now I’ve waited too long. I’ve lost them all.”
He takes your drink and rinses it out, scrubbing it dry with a towel. You can see he’s thinking, the stillness in his shoulders comforting. “I think you not having words is part of the problem. And he’ll see that. He’s smart.”
“He’s too real.” You blurt. “He’s so real it hurts. And you’d think it’s jealousy, but I’m jealous of Jinx. She’s… so real. And I want her kind of real. I don’t want Silco’s kind of real. He’s sharp, and rude, and so, so intense.”
Thieram is always so still when he thinks, and always leans his head towards the floor. You can see him doing it now. The way he thinks is so visual you can feel it in your chest, and you can’t help but sit in silence. Hold quiet respect for his soft voice. The almost motherly whisper that leaves him when he speaks in private. “I don’t have an answer for that.” He says finally, his shoulders dropping and his movement continuing.
You nod, solemn, and push yourself off your barstool. You can feel the weight of your feet on the ground. You’re realer. “I’ll just rip the bandaid off, then.”
Thieram jokingly salutes you, his uncomfortable smile so forced it's goofy and shows too much of his gums. You huff.
Silco’s office is colder than it usually is, and it allows the fog to come a little bit closer. Not just the cold, but the energy of the room. Silco seems so faded. You want to hold him until he’s so real you need to throw up. You want to fix it, but there’s not enough of you to do that.
He gestures to the chair at the opposite end of his desk, he seems limp. You head for the cart on the other side of his room. Pour two shots. Four fingers each. Then you sit.
“I still have work to do.” He says.
“I need to talk to you.” You reply.
“Why is alcohol needed?” He asks.
“You’re nicer when you drink.” You answer.